***************************************************************** 02/26/01 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 9.52 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER CONTENTS 1 Accelerators for nuclear waste outlined 2 2nd shutdown sparks concerns 3 Nuclear power surge predicted 4 Subject: Brookhaven Science Associates Price-Anderson Amendments 5 Fukushima governor rejects MOX fuel for nuclear reactor 6 MHI to ship steam generators to Belgian nuclear plant 7 Korea KEPCO to spend 5.7 trln won on power plants 8 Reid seeks additional investigation of DOE 9 Now is not the time to rush into nuclear-fusion unknown 10 Russia to stand by nuclear fuel commitment 11 Radioactive Mud Near Temelin Left After Uranium Mining 12 Anti-nuclear protesters block German rail line 13 Scientists warn of quake risks in Southern Nevada 14 Radioactive container from US detained in Yekaterinburg 15 Democrats oppose GOP plan that would increase nuke power 16 GOP Energy Bill 'Industry Friendly' 17 N-Waste Battle Heats Up NUCLEAR WEAPONS CONTENTS 1 K-25 water quality meeting postponed 2 Your Views: Letters to the Editor 02/26/01 3 UN expert wrote nuclear treaty on Latin America 4 Depleted uranium debate heats up in Europe as some say shelve ammunition 5 More than 42lbs of depleted uranium has been lost in the Solway 6 Guinea pigs' grievance 7 Pressure grows to end DU tests 8 Shell shock 9 Sailor's Letter: Misfire Sunk Kursk 10 Nat'l Guard Teams Found Unprepared 11 CDC terminates Hanford study oversight panel **************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 Accelerators for nuclear waste outlined Today: February 26, 2001 at 11:24:40 PST By Mary Manning LAS VEGAS SUN Scientists at UNLV have come up with an alternative for waste from nuclear power plants that doesn't involve burying it in a proposed repository at Yucca Mountain. A UNLV nuclear-engineering professor and two scientists from the Harry Reid Environmental Research Center outlined Friday, at the first of a series of town-hall meetings, their plan to snuff dangerous uranium and plutonium from nuclear wastes while making radioactive tracers for medicine and producing power. The trouble is that no one -- not the Energy Department, which is studying the repository, nor the nuclear industry -- is paying attention to any alternatives to a repository, they said. Congress in 1987 designated Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, as the only site to be studied to hold 77,000 tons of commercial and defense nuclear waste. UNLV has received $3 million of a $34 million grant from Congress for research into advanced accelerators: powerful machines that could convert the most dangerous radioactive elements into something less harmful, according to Anthony Hechanova, a nuclear engineer. The accelerator would speed up the process of radioactive decay to make the waste materials less dangerous and produce lower-level radioactive materials for medical uses and research, Hechanova said. It differs from transmutation that bombards the highly radioactive materials and changes them to smaller amounts that still require a repository, although a smaller one, he said. Transmutation leave nothing useful behind for medical treatments or laboratory research, he said. A Yucca repository or the accelerator could be ready at the same time, by 2010, scientist Gary Cerefice said. For Yucca to work, more than 1,000 miles of tunnels must be drilled at a cost of $58 billion or higher. "There's no free lunch," Cerefice said about managing nuclear wastes from reactors and defense activities. "It will always cost money to remove it to Yucca Mountain. Leaving it near the reactors also is expensive. The main cost of storing it on site are the guns, the guards and the gates." Politically and economically, a Yucca repository is a huge problem, he said. If a single buried container leaks, the entire repository might have to be emptied to reach the problem. "It would be expensive, and is it worth the risk?" Cerefice said. William Culbreth, an associate professor of mechanical engineering, warned that a remote robotic system proposed by Energy Department to bury and retrieve the wastes has its limits. "I think it is a big problem if there is a leak," Culbreth said. The heat generated by the radiation trapped in rock could halt remote retrieval vehicles and make it impossible for humans to survive the lethal atmosphere 1,000 feet beneath the surface. As California and other Western states, including Nevada, face energy problems, the nuclear industry is trying to revive nuclear power, Cerefice said. That means extending operations of 40-year-old nuclear reactors another 20 years and creating more wastes, he said. The United States is the only country taking the repository approach, Cerefice said. Scientists once schemed to drop it beneath the world's ice sheets or bury it under the ocean or send it into space, he said. The UNLV scientists say eight regional sites would be needed to process the nuclear wastes from U.S. power plants. That would drop transportation costs and shrink amounts of radioactive material. The technology could be ready in 10 years and render the wastes radioactive for 300 years, instead of 300,000 years, Hechanova said. If eight accelerators were built, they could make medicines to treat cancer and pay for themselves by producing power, Hechanova said. Why bury reactor wastes at all? Culbreth said. In a century, people may dig into Yucca Mountain looking for the plutonium and uranium for power generation. But environmentalist groups such as Citizen Alert, a statewide watchdog, object to moving the wastes anywhere. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 2 2nd shutdown sparks concerns The News-Gazette Online: By MIKE MONSON Published Online February 25, 2001 Copyright 2001 The News-Gazette CLINTON – Two automatic reactor shutdowns at the Clinton nuclear power plant have occurred during the past two months. In one instance, several thousand fish in Clinton Lake were killed when unwarmed lake water was put back into the lake, causing thermal shock to the fish. But local news media and emergency officials were not told of the shutdowns. Nor was the DeWitt County Emergency Services and Disaster Agency, according to employee Debbie Shull. Some nuclear industry critics say the two shutdowns, known in the industry as "scrams," ought to grab the attention of area residents. "It's an automatically triggered emergency shutdown of all systems due to some detected problem in the system," said David Kraft, director of the Nuclear Energy Information Service in Evanston, a watchdog organization. "The point is, with a scram, you are stressing an engineered system," he said. "Hopefully, you've built in enough engineering to handle these things. But you start stressing the system." But Exelon Nuclear officials, who operate the plant, say two scrams are not an excessive amount, and no threat to public safety occurred. They note the plant still has the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's highest rating and is coming off a successful 356-day continuous run that ended last May 17. Exelon officials also say they are not required to notify the public when a reactor shutdown occurs unless it represents a threat or potential threat to public safety – neither of which was the case in the Dec. 18 and Feb. 4 scrams. "Our commitment to the safety of the public is paramount," said Exelon Nuclear spokesman David Knox. "If there is anything that was ever a safety concern for the public, we'll tell you what's happening." Knox decribed the two shutdowns, which lasted four and three days, respectively, as mechanical in nature. "No other industries call you up if they take their industries off line," Knox said. "Unless it is a safety issue, we do not see it as something that would prompt us to call out." Knox noted that detailed information about plant shutdowns can be found daily at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission Web site at . While Exelon was not required to notify the public or media of the recent automatic shutdowns, one critic of the nuclear industry said the company should strive to be open. "I think the more open the nuclear industry can be with the press and public, the better off everyone will be," said Jim Riccio, a senior analyst with the Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program, a not-for-profit organization in Washington, D.C., that is part of Ralph Nadar's Public Citizen organization. Riccio said some plants notify the media when an automatic shutdown occurs, while others do not. He said the trend is toward less notification because of the deregulation of the utility industry nationally. There are four emergency classifications for a nuclear power plant where the public is notified. They include, in order of potential danger: notification of an unusual event, an alert, a site area emergency and a general emergency. The two recent scrams fell short of those thresholds, said Knox. In the Dec. 18 incident, which began at 1:29 p.m., steam line valves leading from the reactor to the power-generating turbines closed during the performance of maintenance, due to a faulty circuit card. "When you close the valves, the reactor almost instantly closes down because the normal path of the steam is gone," said Jan Strasma, a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission office in Lisle. The steam was rerouted to a suppression pool in the plant, he said. To shut the reactor down, control rods are inserted into the nuclear core, which stops the nuclear chain reaction that produces heat, Strasma said. Five hours later that day, while the reactor was still shut down but while plant officials were trying to reroute the steam back to its normal path, a delay occurred in reopening the steam valves. When the valves didn't open, steam pressure in the reactor vessel began to build, and the pressure caused less water to be pumped into the reactor vessel. That caused the water level to drop slightly and set off the scram signal, Strasma said. An actual scram or shutdown didn't occur the second time because the reactor was already shut down, though the nuclear core was still producing enough heat to generate steam. "Everything worked the way it was supposed to; it was not an unsafe condition," said Strasma. The Dec. 18 incident led to a fish kill on Clinton Lake, a 5,000-acre reservoir that serves as a cooling lake for the power plant. When the steam was rerouted to the suppression pool, steam that normally would have passed over tubes full of lake water to cause condensation wasn't there, and the water wasn't warmed as it usually is before being discharged into a canal leading to the lake. The sudden drop in temperature, combined with outside temperatures in the single digits, contributed to a sudden drop in lake temperature that killed an estimated 7,000 fish. The second automatic reactor shutdown occurred at 1:18 a.m. Feb. 4 and lasted about three days. It occurred during routine turbine valve testing, when low pressure in a control system that opens and shuts values caused the turbines, and then the reactor, to shut down. "The important thing is that once the pressure was low, the safety systems worked exactly as they were supposed to, shutting down the reactor," said Knox. "The safety of the plant was never impacted." The NRC's Strasma said that even with two reactor shutdowns in two months, the Clinton plant is still considered to be operating safely. He said the commission now uses a color-coded system to rate plant safety, and Clinton has the highest rating. The number of shutdowns is one of 16 performance indicators tracked by the commission, Strasma said. Strasma said the average number of automatic shutdowns among the country's nuclear plants is one per year. "We keep track of scrams because any time the safety systems are required, it's considered a challenge to all of the equipment, and there is an increased chance of there being a failure," he said. Nuclear power critics argue that automatic shutdowns shouldn't be taken lightly. "At the reactor, a scram is not a silent event," said Kraft. "It gets people's attention. People have to ask: Why is this happening so much? It's a question the surrounding communities need to ask and get answers to." Riccio said his experience has been that after a plant experiences a successful long run, such as Clinton did last year, problems often arise. "After long runs, they have long shutdowns," he said. The Clinton plant opened in April 1987. In 1999, the plant's owner, Illinois Power, sold it for $20 million to AmerGen Energy Co., a company formed when PECO Energy Corp. of Philadelphia and British Energy went into a 50-50 alliance to buy nuclear power plants, Knox said. PECO Energy and Unicom, the parent company of Commonwealth Edison, merged in October 2000 and formed a new company called Exelon Corp. A division of Exelon, Exelon Nuclear, now operates Clinton and nine other nuclear plants, including the five former Commonwealth Edison plants in northern Illinois, Knox said. Knox said the knowledge gained from operating 10 plants with 17 nuclear reactors, the largest nuclear fleet in the country, has enabled the company to achieve economies of scale and share experience and knowledge. "We have people and equipment we can send out to any of the sites," he said. "We can bring an incredible amount of expertise. Through our experience, we have skills that are among the best in the industry." The Clinton plant's nearly yearlong continuous run last year represented a significant turnaround. The plant was off line from September 1996 through May 1999. ***************************************************************** 3 Nuclear power surge predicted Topeka Capital-Journal 022601 kansas 4 CJOnline NEW STRAWN -- The top official at the Wolf Creek nuclear power plant predicts more such plants will be constructed soon in the United States to meet the country's growing energy demands. --> Last modified at 11:59 p.m. on Sunday, February 25, 2001 *Wolf Creek official says energy needs will require more plants. * By CHRIS GRENZ *The Capital-Journal * NEW STRAWN -- The top official at the Wolf Creek nuclear power plant predicts more such plants will be constructed soon in the United States to meet the country's growing energy demands. "There is quite a bit of talk now about building new nuclear power plants within three to five years," said Otto Maynard, president and chief executive officer of Wolf Creek Nuclear Operating Corp. "There is a high probability that someone will start building one." Maynard said conventional power plants that rely on coal, oil and natural gas have an important place in the nation's energy production. But, he added, "I've always felt that nuclear power is needed for the energy mix." "I believe that the nation -- especially under the new Bush administration -- will come up with an energy strategy, and I believe it will involve many different kinds of energy," Maynard said during an interview at his Wolf Creek office. "I think it's wrong to be dependent on one type of energy." Maynard's comments came at a time when energy issues are at the top of legislative agendas in many states. In Kansas and many other states that rely on natural gas, soaring prices have intensified scrutiny of government deregulation. Also, consumers have besieged legislators with requests for help in paying their unprecedented utility bills. On the West Coast, energy shortages have renewed a push for construction of new power plants as the existing plants are forced to capacity. As constituents clamor for prompt attention to the crisis, Maynard warned that lawmakers shouldn't make hasty decisions about energy issues. "It's important that we don't let emotions make the decisions," he said. "We've got to take a step back and see what's in our long-term interests. Kansans enjoy electric rates below the national average. We don't want to jeopardize that." Wolf Creek has 800,000 customers and produces more than 1,200 megawatts of energy each hour. One megawatt is enough energy to supply power for 1,000 homes. The plant, among the last of its kind to come online, produces the most power of all nuclear power plants with one reactor. The last nuclear power plant to come online in the United States was Watts Bar, which began producing power in one of its two reactors in February 1996. The second reactor at the Tennessee plant is 90 percent complete but hasn't yet been brought online. Connecticut Yankee was the first plant like Wolf Creek to come online. It did so in December 1967 in Haddam Neck, Conn. However, that plant closed about five years ago after area residents petitioned for it to be shut down. While some plants have been shut down, Calvert Cliffs in Maryland last year became the only nuclear power plant in the country to receive an extension of its operating licenses. Nuclear power plants are licensed for operation for a specific amount of time by the federal government. Other plants are in the process of applying to extend their service. As for the future of Wolf Creek, the plant's operating license will expire in 2025. Maynard expects the plant will get permission to continue operating. "I see no technical reason why Wolf Creek could not apply for a license extension for at least another 20 years" beyond 2025, he said. "We haven't even made it through our first half of our current license, so there's no panic." Chris Grenz can be reached at (785) 295-1190 or cgrenz@cjonline.com. ***************************************************************** 4 Subject: Brookhaven Science Associates Price-Anderson Amendments Act Program Review Program Review Letter - Brookhaven National Lab - 02/21/2001 February 21, 2001 John H. Marburger, Ph.D. Building 460 Brookhaven National Laboratory P.O. Box 5000 Upton, NY 11973-5000 Dear Dr. Marburger: On December 12-13, 2000, the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Price-Anderson Enforcement (OE) conducted a review of Brookhaven Science Associates’ (BSA) Price-Anderson Amendments Act (PAAA) Program. As part of this review, your processes for screening nuclear safety noncompliances for applicability under the PAAA, for reporting to DOE’s Noncompliance Tracking System (NTS), and for internal resolution of nuclear safety noncompliances were evaluated. Review activities included onsite discussion with cognizant personnel and review of applicable documentation prior to and subsequent to the onsite visit. Details of the OE review are enclosed. Our review noted several positive elements of your PAAA program, including the following: + Your PAAA Coordinator was proactive with respect to his responsibilities. + The Coordinator utilized various information sources for screening for possible nuclear safety noncompliances. + Your screening process included reviews of DOE and internal program assessments for possible noncompliances. + Recent BSA NTS reports reflected an increasing proportion of assessment or trending-identified noncompliances when compared to event-related noncompliances. + Appropriate screening decisions were being made regarding noncompliance reportability for recent event or assessment-identified noncompliances. The review also identified the following PAAA program deficiencies: + A significant lack of timeliness in assessing and reporting noncompliances was noted; the reporting process was found to take upwards of a year in several instances. + There was no formal process in place for trending nuclear safety noncompliances by the Coordinator. Furthermore, trending of radiological awareness report issues was not performed by the Radiological Control Division. + Identified weaknesses in Quality Assurance processes for non-reactor and waste management activities were impacting trending of quality problems. + No internal procedures had been established to control the conduct of the 10 CFR 835 required triennial assessments of your Radiological Control Program. Furthermore, BSA radiological control assessments did not adequately assess compliance with 10 CFR 835, instead taking credit for DOE assessments in this area. + Improvement is needed in the timely completion of corrective actions for internally tracked radiological awareness reports and other nuclear safety nonconformance reports. + No established process was in place for the independent validation of completed corrective actions. Our review also evaluated recent assessments (DOE and internal) of the implementation of the BSA Internal Dosimetry Program. Overall improvement in program implementation was noted; however, continuing deficiencies in selected areas indicate previous corrective actions have not been fully effective. zFailure to correct the above noted deficiencies associated with BSA’s PAAA program may result in a reduction or loss of mitigation as described in the DOE Enforcement Policy (10 CFR 820 Appendix A) in any future enforcement action. Furthermore, failure to correct the Bioassay Program deficiencies could result in future enforcement action. No reply to this letter is required. However, DOE will continue to monitor your performance in these areas and will schedule a follow-up review in approximately 6 months to provide confidence in your PAAA program. If you have any questions, please contact Steven Zobel at (301) 903-2615. Sincerely, [Signature] R. Keith Christopher Director Office of Price-Anderson Enforcement Enclosure: PAAA Program Review cc: S. Cary, EH-1 M. Zacchero, EH-1 A. Weadock, OE S. Zobel, OE D. Stadler, EH-2 F. Russo, EH-3 C. Jones, EH-5 J. Decker, SC-1 R. Schwartz, SC-83 J. Drago, DOE-CH PAAA Coordinator P. Jones, DOE-BHG PAAA Coordinator C. Dimino, BSA PAAA Coordinator Docket Clerk, OE Brookhaven National Laboratory Brookhaven Science Associates Price-Anderson Amendments Act Program Review 1. Introduction During December 12-13, 2000, the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Price-Anderson Enforcement (OE) conducted an onsite review of Brookhaven Science Associates’ (BSA) Price-Anderson Amendments Act (PAAA) program for its activities at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL). The review evaluated the program’s functions related to: the identification and screening of nuclear safety noncompliances, the determination of a noncompliance’s reportability to DOE’s Noncompliance Tracking System (NTS), cause determination for noncompliances reported either to the NTS or BSA’s onsite tracking system, and noncompliance corrective action implementation and closure. The review also included BSA’s Internal Dosimetry Program with respect to the corrective actions described in NTS report NTS-CH-BH-BNL-BNL-1999-0003. 2. PAAA Program Implementation BNL procedure ESH 1.1.1, "Price-Anderson Amendments Act Compliance Validation and Noncompliance Reporting Program," Revision 3, dated November 2000, describes the Laboratory’s PAAA Program. The procedure establishes the position of the PAAA Coordinator, and assigns responsibility for overall administration and coordination of the PAAA program to this individual. The procedure also establishes a PAAA Working Group, whose members, appointed by the Laboratory Director, have responsibility to evaluate identified noncompliances to determine NTS reportability. OE’s review of ESH 1.1.1 identified the following areas for improvement: + ESH 1.1.1 Section VI, Documenting and Reporting PAAA Noncompliances, indicates a noncompliance is typically submitted to the NTS within 20 days after determination the noncompliance is reportable. This practice conflicts with OE guidance that recommends noncompliances be reported within 20 days of *identification* of the noncompliance. Deficiencies in BSA’s timeliness in identification and reporting are noted and described in this report’s Section III. + ESH 1.1.1 indicates the BNL PAAA Coordinator will review site-wide issues to identify trends related to programmatic or repetitive noncompliances; however, no detail is provided as to how or with what frequency this review should be performed. Deficiencies in trending are noted and described in this report’s Section III. + ESH 1.1.1 lacks necessary detail related to PAAA training. Section VII states that PAAA training is required for the PAAA Working Group and other "responsible" individuals, yet these individuals are not explicitly identified. Discussions with the PAAA Coordinator indicated Section VII was intended to apply to all personnel listed in the ESH 1.1.1 Responsibilities section although this is not stated in Section VII. Furthermore, Section VII offers no information on the scope of the required PAAA training nor does ESH 1.1.1 provide requirements for periodic retraining or indicate if retraining is necessary. 3. Noncompliance Identification, Screening and Reporting Procedure ESH 1.1.1 requires the PAAA Coordinator to routinely review Laboratory-wide performance information (including Occurrence Reporting and Processing System (ORPS) reports, internal and external assessments, nonconformance reports, employee concerns, Radiological Awareness Reports (RARs), etc.) to identify potential noncompliances with Nuclear Safety Rules. ESH 1.1.1 also requires managers or designees to notify the Coordinator of potential noncompliances "as soon as they become aware of them." Identified noncompliances determined to be non-reportable are tracked on a database maintained by the Coordinator. Noncompliances screened as potentially reportable by a manager or the Coordinator are presented to the PAAA Working Group for evaluation and determination of NTS reportability. OE’s review of the identification, screening and reporting processes identified the following positive elements: + BSA’s PAAA Coordinator has been proactive in identifying potential information sources for screening. + Review of the Coordinator database indicated a variety of information sources are routinely evaluated, including ORPS reports, nonconformance reports, RARs, facility memos, facility monthly reports, internal and external assessments, etc. It is noted, however, that the majority of inputs to the database are event related (ORPS or RAR). + Recent BSA NTS reports reflect an increasing proportion of noncompliances identified through assessments or trend recognition, versus more reactive event-driven reports. + A review of selected recent events and assessment findings were compared to BSA’s completed, or "in-process," noncompliance determinations. This comparison identified that appropriate determinations are being made regarding PAAA applicability and reportability. OE staff did note a significant deficiency associated with the timeliness of noncompliance identification and reporting. Delays were noted in association with the transmittal of information regarding potential noncompliances to the Coordinator, the evaluation of information by the Coordinator, and in the presentation of potentially reportable noncompliances to the Working Group. A review of selected issues decided on by the Working Group found that upwards of a year can pass between the time an event occurs and the Working Group’s final determination. A draft NTS report is then prepared and reviewed by affected upper and middle level managers for concurrence and determination that appropriate corrective actions are described. In any case, all reviewed noncompliances forwarded to the Working Group receive their final determination of reportability well beyond the 20 day guideline for noncompliance reporting described in OE guidance (Operational Procedures, "Identifying, Reporting, and Tracking Nuclear Safety Noncompliances under Price-Anderson Amendments Act of 1988," dated June 1998). Specific deficiencies contributing to these delays include: + BSA procedures containing requirements for document distribution to the PAAA Coordinator (including subject area documents for RARs, ORPS, and Integrated Assessments) do not specify time frames for reporting. Discussion with the PAAA Coordinator identified one instance where RARs were provided to the Coordinator as a group, rather than forwarding each shortly after the event occurred. + The BSA PAAA Coordinator stated his non-PAAA responsibilities accounted for approximately 50 percent of his time during calendar year 2000. + The PAAA Working Group routinely meets on a bimonthly basis; special meetings to review potential issues for reportability are not routinely held. OE staff also identified a deficiency related to the lack of formal trending of noncompliances. Discussion with the PAAA Coordinator indicated trending is being performed on an informal basis, and is limited by the time constraints discussed above. Procedure ESH 1.1.1 requires trending to be performed but provides no detailed guidance related to periodicity or method. Discussion with the BSA Radiological Control Manager also indicated that no formal trending is performed of site RARs, though these reports constitute a major input into the PAAA screening process. The review also found that, since BSA’s start in March 1998 at BNL to mid-December 2000, BSA had not yet fully implemented 10 CFR 830 in non-reactor facilities. Discussions with BSA staff found that quality assurance mechanisms to identify work process anomalies are generally not yet in effect, thus hindering the PAAA Coordinator in the identification and trending of non-event related quality issues. 4. Cause Determination and Corrective Action Verification OE staff reviewed contractor performance in this area by discussion with cognizant personnel, review of applicable procedures, review of tracking status of ORPS and Assessment Tracking System (ATS) actions, and review of NTS corrective action closure documentation. The following deficiencies were identified: + Procedure ESH 1.1.1 provides no requirements related to the performance of formal cause determinations for identified noncompliances (reportable or non-reportable). Discussion with the BSA PAAA Coordinator identified that cause determinations are routinely performed for event-driven noncompliances as part of the ORPS process. The Coordinator did point out, however, that no additional cause determinations are typically performed for instances where roll-up or repetitive noncompliances indicate a programmatic problem. Discussion with the BSA Radiological Control Manager identified that root cause determinations for events described in RARs are infrequently performed. + Procedure ESH 1.1.1 provides no requirements or guidance related to the independent validation of significant corrective action closure. Discussion with the BSA PAAA Coordinator indicated that such validation was typically not performed. The voluntary practice of independently validating the closure of more significant corrective actions has been noted as a positive practice during reviews at other DOE sites. + Additional attention should be directed to the timely closure of corrective actions associated with the ATS and RAR systems. BSA staff indicated approximately 35 percent of ATS open items were overdue for closure. Although specific closure statistics for RAR reports were not provided, discussion with BSA staff and a review of RAR logs indicated that the majority of all RARs issued after May 2000 remained open as of the date of this review. 5. Radiological Assessment Program OE reviewed documentation and selected site radiological assessments performed to meet the requirements of 10 CFR 835.102, i.e., that all functional elements of the radiological protection program be reviewed every three years. BSA’s Radiological Control Division (RCD) developed an assessment schedule that covered relevant functional areas of 10 CFR 835. The following BSA assessments were reviewed: + Internal Dosimetry Program, September 2000 + Radiological Work Controls/Contamination Controls, dated May 15, 2000 OE noted that DOE’s Brookhaven Group (DOE-BHG) conducts an active oversight program in the area of radiological controls. Recent DOE-BHG and BSA assessments of radiological functional areas have been conducted concurrently; discussion with DOE-BHG and contractor personnel indicated this was done to minimize disruption on program implementation and to provide DOE-BHG a basis for evaluation of the contractor’s assessment program. Review of the contractor’s radiological assessment program identified the following deficiencies: + The RCD 10 CFR 835 Radiological Assessment program is not formally described in site assessment or RCD procedures. + General site assessment procedure ESH 1.2.1, "Corrective Action Management and Tracking for Internal and External Assessments," Revision 3, issued June 2000, requires all organizations to track conditions and corrective actions resulting from internal and external assessments. Discussion with RCD management found that formal Corrective Action Plans (CAPs) were not routinely generated for findings identified in the BSA internal radiological assessments. Formal CAPs are developed, however, for the concurrent DOE radiological assessments, and BSA believes these CAPs typically cover the findings in the internal assessments. OE compared findings from the recent DOE-BHG and contractor assessments of Radiological Work and Contamination Control assessments, and noted several findings unique to the contractor assessment that were not formally addressed in the CAP for the DOE-BHG assessment. + Review of the contractor Radiological Work Controls and Contamination Controls assessment identified it to be largely effectiveness-based, with little discussion or assessment of 10 CFR 835 compliance. BSA’s RCD management indicated that they believe the concurrent DOE radiological assessments provide 10 CFR 835 compliance-based auditing, thereby freeing the contractor to perform more subjective assessments. OE noted that the contractor’s reliance on the independent DOE-BHG assessments to provide necessary compliance-based evaluation of 10 CFR 835 implementation appeared inappropriate. 6. Internal Dosimetry Program Implementation In response to the OE moratorium on bioassay noncompliances announced in November 1998, BSA conducted a self-assessment of its Internal Dosimetry Program. Based on the results of that assessment, BSA formally generated, on March 31, 1999, NTS report NTS-CH-BH-BNL-BNL-1999-0003 that identified a programmatic breakdown in the Internal Dosimetry Program. One apparent noncompliance identified during the review--failure to conduct routine whole body counts--was judged to be a repeat of a prior noncompliance. A 1999 DOE-BHG review of BSA’s Internal Dosimetry Program identified significant deficiencies and corroborated the need for broad-scope and programmatic corrective action. BSA reported all corrective actions associated with the NTS report as complete in December 1999. During September 2000, DOE-BHG conducted a follow-up review of BSA’s Internal Dosimetry Program. The results of this assessment were formally transmitted to BSA on November 22, 2000, shortly before OE’s review. During the time frame of the DOE-BHG follow-up review, the contractor also performed an internal assessment of its Internal Dosimetry Program; that internal assessment report was finalized in September 2000. The DOE-BHG assessment noted improvement in all areas of BSA’s Internal Dosimetry Program. The assessment identified, however, several quality assurance deficiencies that represented potential noncompliances with 10 CFR 830. Discussion with contractor PAAA staff indicated an NTS report was being generated to reflect the newer assessment findings. Although continuing deficiencies in the Internal Dosimetry area indicate that corrective actions have not been fully effective, no OE action is planned at this time in light of the overall program improvement achieved over the last year and the continuing assessment emphasis in this area. OE, though, will continue to monitor progress in this area through the NTS reporting and closure process. 7. Conclusion The above summarizes OE's review of BSA’s PAAA Program and the specific weaknesses identified by the OE Review Team during its visit of December 12-13, 2000. The OE review found BSA’s PAAA Program to be generally established, formalized by procedure, and basically in conformance with DOE expectations and guidance. Various improvements would be appropriate, though, based on the deficiencies noted in this report. The DOE Enforcement Policy (10 CFR 820, Appendix A) provides positive incentives for contractors who identify, report, and promptly and comprehensively correct nuclear safety noncompliances. The above noted deficiencies could affect the confidence of DOE in the BSA’s PAAA Program and could impact on the application of enforcement discretion in any future enforcement action. ***************************************************************** 5 Fukushima governor rejects MOX fuel for nuclear reactor FUKUSHIMA, Japan Feb. 26 Kyodo - Fukushima Gov. Eisaku Sato told the prefectural assembly on Monday that the prefecture will not agree to the use of uranium and plutonium mixed oxide fuel (MOX) at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. Sato said, ''It is unlikely MOX fuel will be delivered and used for the time being.'' Commenting on the governor's statement, Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), which operates the power plant, said the company ''will conduct the plan with the understanding of local residents.'' Sato's statement is likely to affect TEPCO's plan to start using MOX fuel in the NO. 3 reactor of the nuclear power plant from April. This will also affect the national policy on the nuclear fuel cycle. Sato has maintained a cautious stance on acceptance of MOX fuel, on the grounds that the people of the prefecture are against it. TEPCO announced earlier this month it had decided to suspend construction of new power plants for three to five years. After TEPCO's announcement, Sato said it is necessary for the government to review its energy policy, including the use of MOX fuel. ''We have to take time for about a year to decide what to do with it,'' he said. MOX, a pelletized mixture of uranium dioxide and plutonium dioxide, is designed to be burned in light-water reactors in a practice known as plutonium thermal use. Plutonium is obtained by reprocessing the spent nuclear fuel from nuclear power plants. Fast-breeder reactors were once expected to carry the main thrust of Japan's nuclear fuel cycle policy. However, after the 1995 fire at the prototype fast-breeder reactor Monju in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture, the government placed the plutonium thermal use at the center of the nuclear fuel cycle policy. TEPCO is also planning to start using MOX fuel at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant in Niigata Prefecture. Kansai Electric Power Co. intends to do the same at its Takahama nuclear plant in Fukui Prefecture. Both plants are on the coast of Sea of Japan. 2000 Kyodo News (c) Established 1945. ***************************************************************** 6 MHI to ship steam generators to Belgian nuclear plant TOKYO Feb. 26 Kyodo - Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. (MHI) said Monday it will ship three replacement steam generators to a nuclear plant in Belgium on Wednesday to increase the plant's power generating capacity. The steam generators, leaving from Kobe, western Japan, are scheduled to arrive at Electrabel Tihange-2 pressurized water reactor plant southeast of Brussels, by the end of April, MHI said. The replacement work will be conducted during the outage period in summer, it said. This is the second MHI export of replacement steam generators, following three units that were shipped to Belgium's Tihange-1 nuclear plant in 1995. With the replacement, the power generating capacity of the plant is expected to increase by about 10%, MHI said. 2000 Kyodo News (c) Established 1945. ***************************************************************** 7 Korea KEPCO to spend 5.7 trln won on power plants SEOUL - Korea Electric Power Corp (KEPCO) said on Saturday it would invest 5.7 trillion won ($4.57 billion) to build nuclear power plants to ensure stable energy supply after 2010. "(We) plan to invest 5.7 trillion won through borrowings and our own capital," the company said in a public notice to Korea Stock Exchange. The state-run utility plans to put the money in building power plants with a capacity of 1.4 million kilowatts between December 2004 and September 2011, it said. KEPCO said its board of directors had decided to split the company into one nuclear and five non-nuclear firms on April 2 to speed privatisation. The spin-off plan is expected to be approved at a general meeting of shareholders set for March 16. Parliament passed legislation last December to restructure KEPCO, despite the union's strong protest against privatisation. KEPCO shares closed up 200 won at 25,000 on Friday. REUTERS NEWS SERVICE ***************************************************************** 8 Reid seeks additional investigation of DOE Today: February 26, 2001 at 11:22:41 PST LAS VEGAS SUN Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., has called for another congressional investigation into a six-page anonymous letter that claimed Department of Energy officials are mismanaging the Yucca Mountain high-level nuclear waste repository project. The senator on Friday requested the General Accounting Office probe issues raised in the letter about qualifications of top government managers of the project, which is studying the mountain 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The author is unknown. Officials who have reviewed the letter had said the information in the letter indicates someone with an insider's knowledge of the DOE. The GAO is the investigative arm of Congress. Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., had asked the GAO on Feb. 12 to expand an investigation into a possible conflict of interest between the DOE and the nuclear industry because a two-page anonymous memo spelled out how to sell a repository at Yucca Mountain. Reid initiated the earlier DOE inspector general's probe of that memo. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 9 Now is not the time to rush into nuclear-fusion unknown asahi.com news *We need to squarely confront the fact that people's doubts concerning atomic energy, which was expected to be the energy source for the next generation, are intensifying.* - February 26, 2001 A question has arisen whether research into nuclear fusion, which has been promoted under the catchphrase ``bringing the sun to the ground,'' should progress further. The Atomic Energy Commission's special committee on the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project, which is endeavoring to move in the direction of having further research conducted, is stalled on the issue. The task for the committee was to decide how Japan should respond to the ITER project, which calls for the construction of an experimental reactor through international cooperation. At the end of last year, Hiroyuki Yoshikawa, chairman of the committee, tried to issue a decision aimed at enticing the project to Japan, but he encountered strong opposition and a decision was delayed. The next meeting of the committee was scheduled for January, but that was postponed and no new date has yet been set. Research into power generation by nuclear fusion began in the 1950s. However, no prospect of actually using the energy has yet emerged. There is therefore clearly a major gap when one compares nuclear fusion energy and atomic power generation, which utilizes energy generated by the splitting of the atom, and for which working reactors were in operation within a short time of fundamental principles being discovered. It is still not known, even after 50 years of research into nuclear-fusion power generation, when this may be turned into actual utilization. One wonders whether there is really value in injecting large amounts of tax money into that type of technology. We believe that, in a situation where there has been no proper response to that sort of simple doubt felt by normal people, an impetuous decision concerning the enticing of the reactor to Japan ought not to be made. The development of energy sources is a major issue for everyone around the world. Looking at such current developments in the spread of natural energy, such as through wind and solar power, and the competition to develop fuel cells using hydrogen as the fuel, it seems likely that power generation will move in the direction of establishing small-scale, environmentally sound generating facilities in locations that are as close as possible to consumption areas. Nuclear-fusion power generation would be large-scale and centralized. While it can be said that a benefit of such generation would be that no criticality accidents would occur and no spent nuclear fuel would result from the process, we have doubts whether large-scale power generation which produces radioactive wastes is suitable for the 21st century and whether people will accept it. We also need to squarely confront the fact that people's doubts concerning atomic energy, which was expected to be the energy source for the next generation, are intensifying. An agreement was reached on an international cooperation project for nuclear fusion at the time of a U.S.-Soviet leaders' meeting in 1985. Japan and some European countries signed on subsequently, and engineering experimentation and designing of a new reactor have progressed. A final report on those activities will be released in the middle of this year. At this point, the question of where to construct the reactor has become a real issue. However, the United States withdrew from this project in 1998. The Science Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, after hearing the views of relevant people, has decided that, rather than building large-scale facilities, fundamental research should be conducted into small-scale ones. Various methods of nuclear fusion exist. The ITER project, which calls for the construction of a large-scale facility, uses one of the ways, namely the Tokamak method. The estimated construction cost of such a facility is 500 billion yen, but the actual cost is likely to be higher. It appears that, if Japan does bring the reactor here, it will need to foot more than half the bill. This cost is for a facility which is still at the experimental stage. It appears that, if actual utilization of the energy were to take place, it would be necessary to construct a further large reactor. Yoshikawa has expressed the view that investment in nuclear fusion should be treated as an insurance premium to ensure the future freedom of mankind. Researchers might feel comforted by the talk of insurance premiums, but surely it is natural for taxpayers to make a decision only after they have received a full explanation of what is involved. If an insurance is of a type which offers no refund payment, it ought properly to have a low premium. (The Asahi Shimbun, Feb. 16) Copyright 2001 Asahi Shimbun. All rights reserved. No reproduction or ***************************************************************** 10 Russia to stand by nuclear fuel commitment 26 February 2001 : The Times of India MOSCOW: Russia has assured India that it will fulfil its commitment to supply nuclear fuel for Tarapur atomic reactors despite the US demand for its cancellation. "Moscow would fulfil its commitments despite US State Department's demand to cancel the deal since it allegedly violated the Kremlin's global non-proliferation commitments," the *Vremya Novostyei* reported quoting official sources. Moscow gave the assurances to New Delhi during last week's Indo-Russian National Security Councils' expert-level dialogue on global security, the daily said. "We did our best to remove the apprehensions of our Indian colleagues by explaining that we don't see any reason for refusing to supply nuclear fuel, since from the point of view of our international obligations, it is an absolutely `clean' contract," chief of the international security department of the Security Council of the Russian Federation (SCRF), Nikolai Uspensky, was quoted as saying. Uspensky and Arvind Gupta from India had co-chaired the sub-group of the National Security Councils on global and regional security and stability, non-proliferation and disarmament. Experts quoted by *Vremya Novostyei* insisted that Tarapur nuclear deal `in no way' violated Russia's international non-proliferation obligations, since the plant was under International Atomic Energy Authority safeguards. Russian experts view the US objections as an attempt to keep Russia out of the international market of high technologies, the daily commented.(PTI) ***************************************************************** 11 Radioactive Mud Near Temelin Left After Uranium Mining Central Europe Online - Tue, Feb 27 MYDLOVARY, South Bohemia, Feb 26, 2001 -- (CTK - Czech News Agency) Even though the controversial Temelin nuclear power station is not working to its full extent yet, local inhabitants have already been facing radioactivity from nearby radioactive mud traps for a long time, the daily Mlada fronta Dnes writes today. Thirty-six million tons of radioactive mud, covering 260 hectares, have been located ten kilometers from Temelin, south Bohemia, for three years. The environmental burden is a relic of the former uranium processor MAPE Mydlovary, the daily writes. The biggest freely accessible mud trap, containing remains of uranium, radium and acid salts, has remained almost unnoticed in the shadow of Temelin, the daily writes. "The mud traps endanger people and biosphere in the surroundings gradually and permanently. This is their biggest danger," Eva Hlasova from the environmentalist movement South Bohemian Mothers tells the daily. Vaclav Plojhar from the Uranium Deposits Administration belonging to the state-owned Diamo company is, however, of the opposite opinion: "The mud traps in Mydlovary, of course, have a negative impact on the environment as every industrial activity has, but they do not exceed the permitted health limits." According to Diamo's Pavel Stary, the main danger of the muds comes from the air - mainly the radon gas, which causes lung cancer, and ionizing radiation, and also a small amount of the gama-radiation and dust containing radium and arsenic. "Even though the ionizing radiation increases radioactivity, it does not directly endanger lives," says Karel Jindrich from the State Authority for Nuclear Safety whose team regularly checks radioactivity in the area. According to Jindrich, there will be no danger even after Temelin is put into full operation. Radiation from the mud traps reaches only one fifth of the permitted limits, and the power station is to radiate one sixth at the most, he says. "So even if you count it together, the radiation will still be under the permitted limit," he adds. Another danger is hidden under the surface - the radioactive mud is accumulated in former lignite mines without any insulation and in some places harmful chemicals penetrate underground water, the daily writes. According to a report by the firm Aquatest, which regularly checks samples of water in the area, the contaminants are also radioactive. Environmentalists fear the water will penetrate local people's wells, the daily writes. According to Diamo's Pavel Urban, the mud is to be recultivated by 2040 at the latest. Environmentalists and local inhabitants, however, complain about the slow speed of the recultivation. Diamo representatives explain that everything depends on the money the state provides them. Usually it is 6-30 million crowns annually. "We are solving the recultivation of areas where uranium was mined and processed at 18 places in the Czech Republic and we have to distribute money from the state budget according to how risky the places are," says Diamo's Kamila Trojackova. *((c) 2001 CTK - Czech News Agency)* ***************************************************************** 12 Anti-nuclear protesters block German rail line February 26, 2001 DAHLENBURG, Germany - Demonstrators protesting against plans to ship nuclear waste to a storage site in north Germany next month briefly blocked a railway line on Saturday, police said. Around 140 anti-nuclear activists occupied the railway track near the north German town of Dahlenburg before being cleared by police. They did not put up any resistance and there were no arrests. Dahlenburg is the route along which transports of radioactive waste will be shipped for the first time in four years from France's La Hague reprocessing plant to the Gorleben permanent storage site. The nuclear transports have pitted the government coalition of Social Democrats and anti-nuclear Greens against grassroots activists angry at an agreement reached last year with the nuclear industry to scrap atomic power by the mid-2020s. Under that deal, transports will continue to and from the La Hague plant on the French coast, which has refused to accept any more nuclear waste until Germany takes back material it has already handled. In a second incident, around 20 protesters briefly blocked rail traffic on at the Kehl border crossing with France. REUTERS NEWS SERVICE ***************************************************************** 13 Scientists warn of quake risks in Southern Nevada Today: February 26, 2001 at 10:54:27 PST By Mary Manning LAS VEGAS SUN More information about earthquakes is available from the seismic laboratory at the University of Nevada, Reno, website (seismo.unr.edu) A major earthquake in the Las Vegas Valley could kill 300 people and cost more than $10 billion to repair the damage, according to preliminary studies of risk. A temblor of magnitude 7 might not seem like much of a concern in Southern Nevada, where historically the biggest shakes have come from nuclear bombs being set off at the Nevada Test Site. But members of the Nevada Earthquake Safety Council, meeting in Las Vegas, were told Friday that the state, the third most seismically active in the nation, had the fifth greatest risk of major damage from earthquake in a recently released study by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The FEMA study, released in September, relied on 1990 Census figures, but the Las Vegas Valley's population has more than doubled since then. Of 40 cities Las Vegas ranked 23rd for anticipated economic losses in the FEMA study and Reno, 28th. Los Angeles was first, with an estimated potential loss of $3 billion. And recent research makes the possibility of a Big One in Nevada less remote. The conventional wisdom among geologists who say that the roughly seven major faults in the Las Vegas Valley last erupted 6 million to 12 million years ago is wrong, said Burt Slemmons, professor emeritus of seismology at University of Nevada, Reno, who lives in Las Vegas. Faults southeast of the valley around Lake Mead and northwest of the valley, in an area called the Las Vegas Shear Zone, are not resting, Slemmons said. "They are active, but at lower rates than in the past," he said. The seven obvious faults may be connected to a much larger system beneath the valley. Although the greatest risk for a quake of 7 magnitude or higher appears in the northwestern section of the state, a temblor of 6.8 is possible in the Las Vegas Valley, Craig dePolo, a research geologist for the Bureau of Mines and Geology, said. The valley got a wakeup call on Feb. 3, the scientists agreed. A quake reaching 3.5 magnitude ruptured a fault about nine miles beneath the western valley's surface, moving a chunk of rock about the size of four football fields roughly 1 1/2 inches. Municipalities in the Las Vegas Valley and Clark County are considering adopting stricter standards for buildings so they hold up better in a quake, Ron Lynn, chairman of the safety council and assistant director of the county's Building Department, said. "There are just too many high rises to allow for lower standards," Lynn said during a break in the seven-hour meeting. "We have to ensure that people survive." The safety council is teaching schoolchildren how to "duck, cover and hold" during an earthquake, as well as endorsing tougher building code standards, Lynn said. Jim Walker of the emergency management division said the council can help set priorities for taking action after a quake. In the past 150 years there have been 40,000 recorded quakes in Nevada, most of them noted since 1980. Unfortunately, few quake monitors have been available in Nevada, especially in the south. "It's going to happen some day," Walker said of a major quake in Nevada. "It's just a matter of when." All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 14 Radioactive container from US detained in Yekaterinburg [ITAR/TASS News Agency] Story Filed: Monday, February 26, 2001 10:24 AM EST MOSCOW, Feb 26, 2001 (Itar-Tass via COMTEX) -- A radioactive cargo was detained in Russia's Yekaterinburg on Sunday. A 145-kilogramme container was stopped by the customs service at the city's Koltsovo airport. It was shipped from San Francisco, US. The Yekaterinburg prosecutor's office is considering a criminal case. Transport prosecutor Valery Zarechnov told Itar-Tass on Monday that "according to preliminary information, the talk is about the return of the container for radioactive materials sent to the US from the local Beloyarsk nuclear power plant under an agreement". "Before forwarding the container the Americans should have carried out its decontamination, but probably forgot to do that. As a result, the container arrived on a plane of Chelyabinsk Airlines through Hannover back in Russia," Zarechnov said. He said a minimum admissible radiation level was 11 microroentgens an hour, while the container emitted 14 microroentgens and its led 107 microroentgens an hour. Zarechnov said there were no harmful consequences, as the container was immediately placed into a special chamber, but prosecutors were considering opening a criminal case on the mishandling of environmentally hazardous substances. "Most likely, the American side is to blame, but all circumstances of the matter will be checked," Zarechnov said. lyu/ By Alexander Shashkov (c) 1996-2001 ITAR-TASS. All rights ***************************************************************** 15 Democrats oppose GOP plan that would increase nuke power Energy package unveiled Today: February 26, 2001 at 11:30:27 PST By Benjamin Grove LAS VEGAS SUN WASHINGTON -- America needs to boost energy production -- including nuclear power -- and launch new conservation initiatives to dig the nation out of an "energy crisis," leading Senate Republicans said today. The nuclear industry could be considering plans for a new nuclear power plant within 18 months, Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., said today at the unveiling of a sweeping bill that outlines a comprehensive energy policy for the nation. Democrats also have drafted an energy bill, which does not rely on nuclear power increases. "The United States cannot sit by and say we don't need this (nuclear)," Domenici said. "We do need this." But Nevada lawmakers are cool to the idea of increasing nuclear power output as long as the Energy Department is marching forward with a plan to bury high-level nuclear waste from the nation's 103 commercial reactors at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he generally dislikes the tenets of the Republican bill that benefit the nuclear power industry. Those sections include new research and development money; industry incentives for increased efficiency; and the establishment of a Spent Nuclear Fuel Research office to oversee research in treatment, recycling, and disposing of nuclear waste. "Unless we can work out something on nuclear waste, I would oppose (nuclear power increases)," Reid said today. Reid also opposes a cornerstone of the energy bill that calls for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlfie Refuge, which many Democrats say is too sensitive environmentally. Reid predicted Congress will not support the Alaskan oil drilling strategy. The bill's author, Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, said the "environmental footprint" that a drilling operation would make in the refuge would be minimal. Murkowski, a longtime supporter of the congressional plan to bury the nation's nuclear waste in Nevada, has been working on the bill for months. He wants to decrease dependence on foreign oil. Only a comprehensive energy policy will support a U.S. economy that is so energy dependent, he said. Among the bills numerous approaches: more effective management of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve; tax incentives for heating oil, natural gas and propane storage; tax credits for alternative-fuel vehicles; tax credits for geothermal and hydropower; and money for research into advanced clean-coal technology. "We think that this is a balanced energy plan," Murkowski said at a packed press conference attended by dozens of reporters. The bill has Republican Senate Leader Trent Lott's blessing. The Mississippi lawmaker said the nation had an energy crisis on its hands that was 20 to 25 years in the making because of lack of planning. He said he hoped the bill would pass as early as this summer. President Bush has not yet weighed in on the plan and may tinker with it, Lott said. So will other lawmakers, Democrats said. "You have to start someplace," Reid said. "This bill is a starting point." The nuclear power industry has much at stake in the new Congress. No new nuclear power plants have been commissioned since the 1970s because of concerns about waste and nuclear disasters. But the energy "crisis" along with political support could change that. Nuclear power leaders say the nation needs more nuclear power plants, which produce "environmentally friendly, low-cost bulk electricity." "This (bill) will help encourage the new nuclear power plant construction that our nation needs," said Joe Colvin, president and chief executive of the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's top lobbyist and trade association. NEI spokesman Steve Kerekes said there is a "new excitement" in the industry in recent months about the future of nuclear power. New plants could be built soon -- likely this decade, Kerekes said recently. "Our expectation was that no matter who was president, nuclear energy has to be part of a diversified energy portfolio in this country," Kerekes said. Many environmentalists, worried about waste transportation and the dangers of storing 77,000 tons of waste at a single site, oppose an increase in nuclear energy. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 16 GOP Energy Bill 'Industry Friendly' Today: February 26, 2001 at 10:54:26 PST ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON (AP) -- Senate Republicans introduced an industry-friendly energy bill Monday, calling the nation's energy problems the greatest threat to economic growth. They promised action by summer. The bill, already sharply criticized by many Democrats, calls for new tax and regulatory incentives for oil and natural gas production, including opening an Arctic wildlife refuge in Alaska to drilling. The legislation also would expand programs to help low-income families cope with energy bills, provide new tax incentives for renewable energy sources such as wind and solar and provide a tax break for buying ultra-efficient cars, homes and appliances. Still, most environmentalists denounced the legislation, and energy-efficiency proponents said it is too heavily focused on production rather than conservation. The Sierra Club called it "a giveaway for fossil fuel producers." While Sen. John Breaux, D-La., joined as a co-sponsor, some Democrats already have promised to filibuster the measure if the provision for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is not removed. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., said he hoped an energy package will be voted on by the full Senate sometime this summer, but that no action would be taken before the White House completes its long-term energy package. Lott, at a news conference unveiling the GOP bill, said "we're heading for trouble" without a broad energy plan that promotes production, adding "it's not enough to encourage conservation." He said the country is facing "an energy crisis" that, if not addressed, will pose "the greatest threat the future economic prosperity in this country." The bill, crafted by Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, would do little to address the most immediate energy concerns -- soaring natural gas prices nationwide and California electricity shortages that threaten to spill over to other western states this summer. Murkowski acknowledged that the measure is designed to address the long-term problem of growing U.S. dependence on foreign oil. The bill seeks to reduce such dependence from 56 percent to 50 percent over the next 10 years. Calling the legislation "balanced" between conservation and production, Murkowski rejected criticism that it would primarily benefit already profitable oil companies. "This isn't a tax bill favoring Big Oil," said Murkowski, a close congressional ally of the oil industry. He said the tax benefits are aimed at small independent producers and development of marginal "stripper" wells. Murkowski said the country needs the estimated 11 billion to 16 billion barrels of oil believed to be beneath the 1.5 million acre coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in northeastern Alaska. And, he insisted, the oil can be developed using current technology without harming the environment. Drilling in the refuge, which is the summer calving grounds for caribou and the season home to other wildlife including millions of migrating birds, has been strongly opposed for years by environmentalists. New oil production is needed to protect national security, Murkowski said. A number of senators, including Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., have said that they will use every parliamentary tool available including a filibuster, to block legislation including a refuge drilling provision. In addition to drilling in the Arctic refuge, the legislation also includes provisions to: -- Provide tax breaks for small oil producers and construction of new refineries. -- Streamline permitting processes for oil and gas pipelines. -- Review the adequacy of electricity generation and power transmission grids. -- Expand research and development of clean coal technology and tax incentives for use of such technology in current coal-burning power plants. -- Promote research into new-generation nuclear power plants and speed up construction of a nuclear waste facility. -- Introduce tax incentives for consumers who purchase automobiles that achieve 50 miles per gallon or more, or purchase ultra-fuel efficient homes and appliances. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 17 N-Waste Battle Heats Up The Salt Lake Tribune -- February 26, 2001* BY JUDY FAHYS The battle over high-level nuclear waste in Utah has been carried on quietly in the Capitol over the past few days, but that's certain to change fast. As the 2001 Legislature hurtles toward its conclusion Wednesday, three anti-nuke bills are expected to be released for final passage by the state House of Representatives. Supporters are confident, and even opponents doubt anything can stop the legislation, a priority for Gov. Mike Leavitt and a broad-based bipartisan opposition coalition. "They will come out; there's no question," said lobbyist David Bird, representing a consortium that wants to store spent nuclear fuel in Utah. The bills specifically target Bird's client, an eight-company consortium of utilities in the East and California that want to store concrete and steel casks of spent nuclear fuel at the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation, about 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. The company, Private Fuel Storage LLC, has mounted a "facts-not-fear" campaign in the Capitol in hopes of convincing lawmakers their $3 billion project is safe and sensible. The anti-nuke trio, all sponsored by Layton GOP Sen. Terry Spencer and passed by the Senate, includes: -- The centerpiece, Senate Bill 81, which would erect legal barriers that include an outright ban on high-level nuclear waste in Utah. And, if the federal government overrides the state, the bill would demand $150 billion in cash upfront from PFS as accident insurance, impose a 75 percent tax on any individual or company providing goods or services to the project and bar Tooele County from providing police, fire or other municipal services to the facility. -- Senate Bill 199 would plow $2 million into economic development for the destitute Goshute tribe. Going into the final week, there was no funding earmarked for this bill. -- Senate Bill 198 would devote $1.6 million to the state's fight against high-level nuclear waste. This project was a few hundred thousand dollars short, based on spending plans circulating in the Capitol late last week. Lobbying has intensified since last Tuesday, when Rep. Eli Anderson, D-Tremonton, buried all three bills in the House Rules Committee, which decides if and when bills get heard. Anderson says the anti-nuke bills are unfair and unnecessary. His district includes the Skull Valley Reservation, a sovereign nation that has contracted with PFS to store the spent nuclear fuel for up to 40 years. He said it's unethical to threaten to cut off basic services to the reservation, as SB 81 would. "I'm not sure we can stop it," said Anderson of the PFS-Goshute plan, which the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is now reviewing. "It [trying to block the storage] is an exercise in futility." Anderson pointed out that the Rules Committee vote to stall the anti-nuke bills was 8-3, and he hinted support may be eroding for blocking the waste storage. A contrary view was expressed by Frank Suitter, a Salt Lake City attorney and former Republican Party chairman who is co-chairman of the opposition coalition. He was in the Capitol last week to urge lawmakers to support the anti-nuke bills and to push budget-makers for full funding. "We are not too late," he said Friday. "It's not here yet, and it won't be too late until it [the spent fuel] is stacked up out there." He is scheduled to make a pitch for support at the House majority caucus today. Rep. Stephen Urquhart, R-St. George, will have the job of ferrying the anti-nuke bills through the House this week, and he dismissed the idea that the Rule Committee could stop the bills. "We're giving people time to digest the content of the bills over the weekend," he said. "I look forward to a good, open debate on this. I hope my opponents will come loaded for bear." ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 K-25 water quality meeting postponed Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 2:12 p.m. on Monday, February 26, 2001 by Paul Parson Oak Ridger staff A meeting scheduled for Tuesday night to discuss the second phase of a water quality investigation at the Oak Ridge K-25 Site has been postponed until April. Known as Phase 2, the investigation is expected to assess the site's drinking water and steam systems and the potential for past exposures due to cross-connections with other utility systems. "The (Phase 2) team did not feel the project plan alone had enough meat in it to justify a public meeting," said Mal Knapp, facilitator for the investigation. He added that in April the team expects to also present some initial observations and assumptions regarding the investigation. Phase 2 is a continuation of tests conducted in August after employees voiced concern about contaminated water at K-25. The initial tests indicated that K-25's drinking water is safe to consume. Findings stated that there were no contaminants in the drinking water at the Oak Ridge K-25 Site whose levels exceeded Environmental Protection Agency and state-regulated standards. The meeting to address Phase 2 is now scheduled for 6 p.m. Monday, April 9, at the Garden Plaza Hotel. Anyone with information about possible water contamination at K-25 is encouraged to call the Phase 2 hot-line at 481-8290 or Richard Byrd at (781) 646-5770. Byrd, a physician specializing in internal, occupational and environmental medicine, was one of the three physicians who conducted a four-year study in the late 1990s on the work-related illnesses of 53 K-25 workers. All Contents ©Copyright* The Oak Ridger * ***************************************************************** 2 Your Views: Letters to the Editor 02/26/01 Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 2:22 p.m. on Monday, February 26, 2001 DOE meeting called a hoax To The Oak Ridger: I feel that the "stakeholders' meeting" recently arranged by DOE turned out to be a hoax, since the form letter mailed out to me and others promised us a voice in the disposal of our DOE land, specifically, the "Oak Ridge Reservation" (ORR). According to The Oak Ridger, nearly 300 people attended the Jan. 30 meeting. Officials from DOE and the city of Oak Ridge spoke first, giving assurances that "We must have this land for development." It soon became apparent that such a decision had already been made! Then individuals were allowed to speak. Most of this group voiced the claim that the ORR has not been properly evaluated, maintaining that this large tract of unfragmented native forest is almost unbelievably high in biodiversity, containing cedar barrens, river bluffs and wetlands of considerable ecological value. It was pointed out that DOE is rushing into a giveaway operation which will undeniably benefit a few individual developers. DOE officials said nothing about preparing an environmental impact statement for the ORR. We learned that a block of 180 acres of wetlands, which was supposed to be turned over to TVA, will be illegally developed for profit without mitigation for the loss of the wetlands. It appears that powerful pro-development forces are pulling strings behind the scenes. Those who are proposing to develop this land for industrial and commercial uses are not considering its full potential for science and technology, for conservation, education, recreation, and cultural/historical significance. I object to the urgency claimed by CROET and other developers who say that we must not delay development of Parcel ED-3 any longer. But we currently have hundreds of industrial sites ready at Parcel ED-1, and only one tenant has located there so far. So where is the urgency? Please -- let us take a hard look at the Oak Ridge Reservation's potential for attracting tourism, for providing beauty and open space for current and future residents, for jobs in scientific research and education, and for recreational use by hunters, hikers, and general enjoyment of the natural diversity or the area. Kenneth S. Warren Oak Ridgee Pension column right on target To The Oak Ridger: Kudos to Susan Arnold Kaplan. Her comments and conclusions on the pension benefits in Oak Ridge are right on target. Having retired from Martin Marietta 12 years ago I can certainly relate to her column in The Oak Ridger on Feb. 12. We who are retired from Union Carbide, Martin Marietta and Lockheed Martin have been fed gobbledegook and spin by the aforementioned contractors that would put the recent presidential campaign to shame. For example, I have been retired for 12 years and not a single increase in benefits even though the cost of living has risen at least 36 percent by any conservative estimate! However, the "committee," which we are told oversees these little details, is apparently not on the same planet as we are. They have continued to peer down the green fairways of indifference as pertains to "our" pension benefits. . . Does anyone remember several years ago when the "contractor" decided to raid "our" pension fund (with the full blessing of DOE) to begin programs at Y-12 that DOE could not get funded through Congress? I do! Neither the "contractor" nor DOE seemed to have any problem getting their paws on "our" money! Only political intervention stopped this outright theft! I do not believe those shenanigans could have taken place under the tenure of Joe LaGrone at DOE. He was a breath of fresh air when it came to government honesty. That we could bring him out of retirement! However, I do give good marks to John Mitchell of BWXT for scheduling the meetings with the retired folks several months ago. At least he gave the first explanation of the pension plan that his predecessors would not. But will anything change when the "committee" meets in the spring? We shall see. I am hopeful, but then I still believe in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. Oh well, poverty is not all that bad once you have become accustomed to it. Peace. Sam Hopwood Oak Ridgee To the person who ruined her tree To The Oak Ridger: This afternoon (Friday, Feb. 16) I walked out to the creek that courses through my front yard to see how high the water was rising. Instead, I saw where someone had come into my yard, gone down the bank and had cleanly cut off one of my trees. Before you say, well, gee lady, let me explain why I am so angry about this! Aside from coming onto private property, unbidden, you took that largest fork of the two branches on this small corkscrew willow tree, leaving me the smaller branch. How considerate of you. With no thought of the criminal trespass, destruction of personal property, I want you to think of THIS: This tree came from the home of my sister's boy who was killed in 1995 on Mount Hood, Ore., in a climbing accident, when he was just 16 years of age. I brought this back to Tennessee in his memory, and although it barely survived where we lived near Norris, once transferred here less than three years ago began to finally flourish. That is, until YOU came along! Where you made the cut, the sap that had now begun to rise, must had smelled sweet to some animal, and the rest of the trunk below and up to the cut has been chewed and stripped clean of its bark. That tree, planted in Ole's memory, has survived numerous floods at the side of this creek, but will probably not survive what YOU have done to it. Oh, I can go buy another corkscrew willow, but it won't be Ole's tree. I hope you enjoy it. Victoria Lenne Oak Ridge All Contents ©Copyright* The Oak Ridger * ***************************************************************** 3 UN expert wrote nuclear treaty on Latin America February 26, 2001 National Post William Epstein was "one of the Canadians who made a difference." William Epstein, who has died at the age of 88, was a world expert on nuclear disarmament. He was one of the few people to have worked for all seven Secretaries-General of the United Nations, as well as act as an advisor to the Canadian government on disarmament. Listed as one of the few "Canadians who made a difference" at the United Nations, Mr. Epstein was responsible for drafting some of the most complex nuclear disarmament papers, in particular the one that made Latin America a region of the world where nuclear weapons are still banned. The Treaty of Tlatelolco was written in 1967 in that suburb of Mexico City. People say one of the reasons it is not so well known as it should be is that almost no one but a Mexican knows how to spell or pronounce Tlatelolco. But the treaty kept nuclear weapons out of Latin America and the Caribbean. Mr. Epstein was sent to Mexico in 1967 to work with Garcia Robles, the Mexican Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs. After much toing and froing, Mr. Robles asked Mr. Epstein and a Mexican lawyer to work out the clauses of the treaty. "They gave us a bottle of Scotch and plates full of lots of sandwiches," Mr Epstein recalled. "By five o'clock in the morning we had the draft." Mr. Robles won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on the Tlatelolco nuclear treaty. Mr. Epstein's work was used as the basis for other nuclear disarmament treaties. Parts of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty were copied word for word from the Tlatelolco document. William Epstein was born in Calgary on July 10, 1912. After high school he went to the University of Alberta, staying on for law school. He graduated in 1935 with the chief justice's gold medal in law. Between stints working as a lawyer, he went to the London School of Economics in 1938. Almost as soon as the war began he enlisted and was sent to officer's school. While waiting in England for the invasion of Europe, he defended some soldiers awaiting court martial who discovered he was a lawyer. One case he took on was that of a young soldier who'd been in a fight. The soldier was acquitted. Afterwards, his superiors complained the man was guilty. "Of course he's guilty," replied Lieutenant Epstein. "But you've got to prove it." Shortly after that he was taken from the artillery and made a military prosecutor. At the end of the war, Captain Epstein was working in London as secretary of the Canadian Claims Commission, adjudicating damage claims against the Canadian military from pub owners who suffered damages in brawls or farmers whose fields were cut up in tank manoeuvres. The Canadian High Commission asked whether he would like to work on the foundation of the United Nations, and he jumped at the chance. One of his first assignments was to work on the talks following the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. By 1950, he was named permanent chief of the Middle East section of the UN, but Arab countries objected and he moved to disarmament. Although the Cold War, with the nuclear arms race and its "missile gap," may be thought a depressing time for global disarmament specialists, Mr. Epstein spoke of the years from 1959 to 1972 as "the golden years of developing détente." As a Canadian, he was more likely to be asked to sit on committees than were Americans. He worked on the Partial Test Ban Treaty in 1963, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1968 and the 1972 SALT treaty, the last nuclear treaty ever ratified, and the Biological Weapons Convention in 1972. In 1970, he organized the Declaration on Peace and Disarmament, which was signed by all living Nobel peace laureates and presented to the UN in 1970, on its 25th anniversary. Mr. Epstein retired from the UN in 1973 but stayed on there in an advisory capacity. For many years after his retirement he kept an office in the UN and worked there well into the 1990s. His last post was as an advisor to Richard Butler, the UN official charged with detecting Iraq's cache of weapons. He lectured at Canadian universities, worked as an advisor to Canadian governments and organized the Canadian Pugwash conferences. Mr. Epstein published more than 300 articles on disarmament and a book called The Last Chance, which is a standard reference work on arms control. At the time of his death he was editor of Nuclear Armaments Commentary. Along with his disarmament work he helped design stamps for the United Nations. He was also a member of the UN wine tasting committee, which chose the wines served at the United Nations. He was still having lively discussions on arms control in his apartment in New York City until two weeks before his death from cancer. William Epstein married Edna Sanger in 1946; they met in London during the war. The couple were separated. They had one child, Mark, who lives in Washington. Corrections National Post Online is a Hollinger / CanWest ***************************************************************** 4 Depleted uranium debate heats up in Europe as some say shelve ammunition World - Ottawa Citizen Online February 27, 2001 *KEVIN WARD ROME (CP) - NATO's unified defence of depleted uranium weapons developed some cracks recently with Italy's push to shelve the ammunition until more tests can prove the shells don't cause cancer. Senior members of the Italian government, under pressure from the Green and Communist parties, have revised their thinking on the safety of depleted uranium and now believe more scientific testing needs to be done before the armour-piercing ammunition is used again. "The issue has taken a serious turn and the alarm caused is more than legitimate," Italian Premier Giuliano Amato recently told the newspaper La Repubblica. Despite assurances from NATO that the weapons don't cause cancer, Amato wasn't convinced. "Now we fear things may not be so simple," he said. Falco Accame, a former member of the Italian parliament, is among those leading the battle in Italy to ban the use of depleted weapons, fearing the toll on civilian populations and soldiers is too great. He wonders why, if the shells are safe, soldiers have now been told to wear gloves and masks in dealing with sites that may be contaminated with depleted uranium. "This is the main contradiction in the governments who say there is no risk," he said in an interview. Accame, once chairman of the Italian parliament's defence committee and a former navy captain, works with soldiers and their families who believe they may have developed cancer because of their contact with depleted uranium. In Italy, at least six soldiers have died of cancer since serving in the Balkans, five of them from leukemia. Thirty others have complained of health problems they believe are linked to their exposure. In France, four soldiers are being treated for leukemia and a group of Belgian soldiers have announced they will sue their government because of health problems allegedly stemming from service in the Balkans. Accame said the Italian government should have followed the U.S. and at least equipped its soldiers with proper masks, clothing and gloves when questions were first raised about the safety of the shells, favoured by military commanders because they can pierce heavy armour. "Italy didn't give any safety precautions to military people," he said. "At least the U.S. (in the Balkans) did something. We didn't do anything for our soldiers." But the only solution, he said, is to ban the use of the ammunition, especially since civilian populations have no way to protect themselves. Attempts by Italy to get a moratorium on the use of the ammunition failed at a meeting of NATO last month. The British army, meanwhile, began using the ammunition again this week at a firing range in Scotland, despite some local opposition. The debate over the ammunition is perplexing, with a body of scientific opinion firmly stating that depleted uranium poses no risk to human health. About 300 tonnes of depleted uranium was fired in the Persian Gulf War. Nine tonnes was used by NATO in Kosovo and three tonnes in Bosnia. Depleted uranium is used in anti-tank munitions because it is heavy and hard, allowing it to punch through armour. No nuclear fission is involved in use of the shells, dubbed the Silver Bullet by the Pentagon in the 1990s. But some fear the impact causes pieces of the metal to be vaporized into dust, which could be dangerous if inhaled or ingested. Scientists are split on this theory. The British government has offered to test soldiers who fear their health has been damaged by exposure to depleted uranium, despite assurances that if the shells are handled properly, they present no danger to soldiers. Canada's Defence Department announced recently that of the thousands of Canadians who served in the Gulf War and in the former Yugoslavia over the last decade, 104 have asked to be tested as a result of the depleted uranium scare. A United Nations study of rounds of depleted uranium fired by NATO warplanes in Kosovo two years ago found that the ammunition contained deadly plutonium but at "very low" levels that pose no health risks. And a King's College study of 4,000 British peacekeepers who served in Bosnia reported no difference in the health problems they experienced compared with troops who were not deployed to the Balkan country or the Gulf. © The Canadian Press, 2001 ***************************************************************** 5 More than 42lbs of depleted uranium has been lost in the Solway Firth from an experiment which was supposed to allay public fears over the substance's effects on the marine environment. A special rig designed to monitor the long-term effects of corrosion on depleted uranium shells fired into the Solway Firth from the army's test range at Dundrennan in Kirkcudbright was apparently destroyed by a combination of bad weather and the movement of its own marker buoy chain. The test rig was installed by the government's Defence Evaluation and Research Agency - with the knowledge of Dumfries and Galloway Council - on the bed of the Solway late last year, suspended inside a steel structure and held in position by four anchors attached to the seabed. It was fitted with a selection of DU discs about an inch long and an inch wide. The plan was that the discs were to be recovered at three monthly intervals and analysed "to determine the interaction of DU with seawater". But when divers were sent down early this year to recover the DU for the first environmental checks, they found the rig had disintegrated. None of the discs, weighing 30lbs in total was recovered. Nor was any of the additional 12lbs of DU buried deliberately in the silt beneath the rig to discover how it was affected by the scouring of sand and grit across its surface in the tidal surges for which the Solway is famous. According to David Grant, the chief environmental health officer for Dumfries and Galloway Council: "A verbal report was received from Dera regarding the underwater test rig. This had been severely damaged by bad weather and none of the DU discs has been recovered. "I understand the rope or chain to the buoy marking the position became intertwined with the rig and caused it to fall apart. Dera are not aware of any other vessel involved in damage to the rig. We have requested written confirmation of the situation." The minutes of the latest council environmental health committee, which met last Tuesday, say that, despite reassurances, "there still remains the issue of public confidence and the concerns of both council officials and officials on the biological and ecological effects on the marine environment of the projectiles corroding in the Solway." A letter has been sent to Dera requesting further information on the location and possible recovery of all of the 6000 DU rounds known to have been fired into the Solway over the past 20 years. The council has meanwhile carried out its own sampling of sediment, limpets and seaweed in the Solway close to the Dundrennan range to determine the level of possible radioactive contamination. Results are expected "in the next few months". The army last week controversially restarted test-firing the DU anti-tank rounds on the range, despite public concern sparked by the claims of Balkans and Gulf War veterans that their health has been affected by exposure to the substance. DU, made from the waste product of the nuclear industry, is the most lethal weapon known against all types of tank armour. It is also 30% less expensive and 20% more effective than the nearest alternative, tungsten. No-one from Dera was last night available for comment. *- Feb 26* ***************************************************************** 6 Guinea pigs' grievance Analysis: The Porton Down laboratory experiments Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Experiments undertaken at the laboratories of Porton Down have left a legacy of doubt. Now ministers must decide if an inquiry is needed Rob Evans Monday February 26, 2001 The Guardian Defence ministers are wondering whether to stir the ashes of British military history to find out if service personnel used as human guinea pigs in chemical warfare experiments are now suffering from disease as a result. More than 20,000 were put through test programmes in the laboratories of Porton Down, Wiltshire between 1916 and the present day. Indeed, the defence establishment conducted the world's longest programme of chemical warfare experiments on humans. Poisons, including nerve gas and mustard gas, chemical weapons and protective drugs were tested on humans in myriad, often horrific, experiments. A full study would have to establish whether each type of chemical caused later ill-health. But Porton's legacy is about more than a scientific inquiry. This issue is also about people's confidence in the ability of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to deal fairly with the medical complaints of contemporary military personnel. The MoD has been criticised by former soldiers, sailors and air crew who believe that their ill-health has been caused during their period of service. They have waged long and often bitter campaigns against officialdom which, many of them feel, has ignored their claim for compensation and apology. In the 1980s, former servicemen claimed that they had developed cancers and other diseases as a result of exposure to radiation from nuclear weapon tests abroad. In the early 90s, veterans of the Gulf war against Iraq began to experience mysterious illnesses. At first, the MoD denied that the war had anything to do with their diseases. This stonewalling bred accusations of cover-up as well as public cynicism. Labour in 1997 seemed to learn the lesson and promised a new beginning on the issue of Gulf war syndrome. Labour ministers pledged to be more open and give medical help quickly to veterans. Recently, pressure has been building on another front. More and more of those tested at Porton have been coming forward to complain. Around 250 joined the Porton Down veterans' support group. Their lawyer is now preparing a case against the MoD. And for the past 18 months, Wiltshire police have been investigating the Porton experiments in a criminal inquiry. They have been looking at allegations that some volunteers were duped into undergoing gas tests by being told they were helping to find a cure for the common cold. The detectives have also been looking at the death of Ronald Maddison, a 20-year-old airman, in a 1953 nerve gas experiment. Following moves by the police, his inquest could soon be re-opened - a remarkable development for a death which occurred nearly 50 years ago. Defence ministers were forced to consider a health study because of this Wiltshire police inquiry. In November, a senior MoD official wrote and asked the Medical Research Council (MRC) for "urgent assistance and advice on establishing the feasibility of an epidemiological study into the health of service volunteers who attended Porton Down for various trials over a great many years. "The background to this suggestion is a continuing inquiry by the Wiltshire police into the way in which some of these trials were conducted." The civil servant noted Wiltshire police had uncovered evidence which they believed showed that Porton volunteers were suffering "unusual ill-health" because of their attendance at Porton Down and participation in the trials programme. The MoD appears to accept the nub of the question: "Whilst we are sceptical about police claims, equally there is insufficient scientific evidence on which they could be either confirmed or refuted. "Our ministers have therefore decided that work should be set in hand to establish whether there is any basis to suggestions that Porton volunteers have encountered premature mortality or unusual ill-health related to their exposures. We believe that a soundly based epidemiological study will be the only way to establish these facts." The official line is that a study of whether Porton volunteers have died prematurely or suffered cancer is feasible but that it would be much more difficult to look generally at Porton volunteers' health. "Experience from our Gulf war veterans epidemiological projects suggests that very high numbers of people serving in the armed forces many decades ago will be lost to follow up. "Questions of ethics, consent on the part of the individual to participate in a study, follow up of NHS records, or the alternative of a questionnaire-based study, with the additional uncertainties of response rate, suggest to us that this may not be a worthwhile exercise." But that is to side-step the issue of whether Porton has caused illness which while not life-threatening may have ruined former volunteers' quality of life. Once they have received the MRC's advice, ministers will decide whether to go ahead with the study. The MoD realises that unless former guinea pigs are seen to be treated in the fairest way possible their sense of grievance may grow. The Porton experiments happened a long time before the Blair government came to power, so it is surely in ministers' own interest to get the credit for acting to clear up an apparent injustice from the past. Gassed - British Chemical Warfare Experiments On Humans At Porton Down, by Rob Evans, will be published in paperback by Stratus in March. comment@guardian.co.uk Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2001 ***************************************************************** 7 Pressure grows to end DU tests The Scotsman Online - Scotland's best selling quality national newspaper Seargeant Major Robert McKellar sizes a Challenger 2 barrel for the first firing of depleted uranium shells from Kirkudbright. Craig Nisbet PRESSURE is growing on the Ministry of Defence to end testing of radioactive depleted uranium shells after claims that land in south-west Scotland has been polluted by stray discharges meant to fall into the Solway Firth. About 25 shells are now known to have hit the ground during testing. Fired at targets on cliffs in the Solway, they were supposed to fall into the water after connecting. But unpublished MoD reports reveal that on at least two dozen occasions they have failed to do so, causing pollution to spread into the Galloway countryside. Dr Lewis Moonie, the under secretary of State at the MoD, has ruled out a ban on the tests, but revealed yesterday he will visit the area to speak to councillors and members of the public in an attempt to reassure them. A spokesman for the MoD insisted there are, as yet, no proven links between the depleted uranium (DU) shells and cancers. And he discounted reports that armed forces minister John Spellar had misled the Commons over the extent to which the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA), had an "overseeing" role in the testing process. "We have to conduct testing on all new batches of ammo as they come out, and that’s what was happening last week," the MoD added. "DU remains the most effective means of defeating modern armour." DU shells have been tested on the shores of the Solway Firth for the past 19 years . In recent weeks there have been widespread calls for an end to the tests, but experts say that even if they were to stop immediately, the entire south-west coast will be paying the price for years to come. Local campaigners say the tidal currents are so strong in the Solway, as demonstrated by the toxic flares row of 1998, that the pollution is being spread to Cumbria, the Firth of Clyde and Northern Ireland. Government advisor John Large has branded the land-shelling as "outrageous and irresponsible", and says that even though almost 30 tonnes of shells have landed in the sea as planned, there is still potential for environmental disaster. Mr Large, an independent nuclear consultant, warned: "Sooner or later it will end up in the food chain." Twelve shells were fired last Tuesday, when testing at Dundrennan recommenced, and another 48 are due to be tested up until October. SEPA say 6,900 DU rounds have been fired at the site over the past 20 years, containing 28 tonnes of DU. Community leader Deirdre Murray, a long-term opponent of the testing, said: "This is exactly what we have been warning about for years, but we were ignored. Now we have been proved right." ***************************************************************** 8 Shell shock The Scotsman Online - Scotland's best selling quality national newspaper THERE is a considerable and understandable furore surrounding the use and testing of depleted uranium shells. They’re radioactive, you see, and when they explode and our lads then pass through the area they’ve exploded in they get sick. Which isn’t right. Obviously, such compassion doesn’t extend to the people our lads are firing the shells at , whose death by explosion, radiation poison or even from trying to run away and tripping and hitting their head on a rock is in every way desirable and fair. And it is. I understand the logic. I’m just saying, that’s all. There was a similar scenario during the Gulf War, when the Allies employed the use of carpet bombing from a great height not only to blow the evil Iraqis up, but to bury alive those not exploded into little bits, under thousands of tonnes of sand thrown up by the bombing. And there was an outcry. Cos this wasn’t fair. Or humane. As if the act of killing them would otherwise have been acceptable - millions of individual pistols-at-dawn duels taking place, or painless and swift poisons being surreptitiously added to countless cups of morning tea. After all, we’re not murderers, just because we kill people. ***************************************************************** 9 Sailor's Letter: Misfire Sunk Kursk Today: February 26, 2001 at 10:54:26 PST ASSOCIATED PRESS MOSCOW (AP) -- A note left by a sailor said the nuclear submarine Kursk was sunk by the explosion of a practice torpedo, a Russian newspaper reported Monday. Navy officials refused to comment on the claim. Russian officials found two notes from different crew members during the operation to retrieve some of the bodies of the Kursk's 118 crewmen last year, but said at the time that neither shed any light on the cause of the disaster. The first note, written by Lt. Dmitry Kolesnikov, told how 23 sailors crowded into the crew's rear compartment and were unable to escape after the Kursk sank in the Barents Sea on Aug. 12. Officials have never identified the author of the second note or spelled out its contents. The respected daily Izvestia on Monday quoted unidentified naval officers as saying the second note was written by Lt. Rashid Aryapov, who said the explosion, which sent the submarine crashing onto the seabed, was caused by the misfiring of a practice torpedo. "That confirms the reason for the disaster that is the most unpleasant for the military leadership," the newspaper said. The government hasn't yet issued a verdict on the cause, saying the disaster could have been touched off by an internal malfunction, a collision with a foreign submarine or a World War II mine. Navy officials have said a collision with a Western submarine was the most likely cause. The unidentified Northern Fleet officers told Izvestia that the letter described how the submarine "somersaulted" in the water after the explosion and that pieces of equipment that the shock wave tore from their stowage places injured crew members. They said the note, written on a book page and wrapped in plastic, was found on one of the bodies. Northern Fleet spokesman Capt. Igor Babenko refused to comment on the report. "The note immediately went to the government commission in charge of investigating the cause of the disaster and we have never seen it," he said by telephone. When the note was found, Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov, who was in charge of the Kursk salvage operation, described the note as saying that the crew was suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning from the fire and the rise in pressure. The note itself was never shown. Igor Spassky, the head of the Rubin design bureau that designed the Kursk, has said that he knew what caused the disaster but refused to name the reason. Izvestia quoted Igor Kurdin, who leads a group of retired submariners, saying that Spassky had told him that the first blast indeed came from a misfiring torpedo. After the Kursk slammed onto the seabed, four combat torpedoes detonated, instantly killing most of the crew, Kurdin quoted Spassky as saying. Most Russian and foreign experts have agreed that a misfiring torpedo was the most likely cause of the disaster. The government plans to raise the submarine to the surface later this year. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 10 Nat'l Guard Teams Found Unprepared February 25, 2001 ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON (AP) -- After three years and $143 million, the Army National Guard has no anti-terrorism teams ready to respond to nuclear, chemical, or biological attacks because of defective safety equipment and poor training, an internal Pentagon review found. The Pentagon inspector general report said preparedness is so bad that Guard members at one point were given mobile labs with air filters installed backward and gas masks with incompatible parts. "The (team) commanders and personnel lack confidence in the unknown, untested and unsubstantiated reliability of the equipment that they were issued," investigators said. Pentagon officials are "moving as fast as we can" to fix the problems, said Charles L. Cragin, who oversees the National Guard. "All I can say is, everyone is working with great perseverance to resolve all the issues that the inspector general has identified," said Cragin, the acting assistant secretary of defense for reserve affairs. Pentagon planners authorized 10 teams in 1998 with a goal that they be ready for duty in 2000. But the National Guard so badly bungled preparations that none met last year's deadline, the report said. An additional 22 teams authorized by Congress in 1999 and 2000 are in various stages of formation. After investigators presented their preliminary findings last fall, the Pentagon transferred management of the teams and launched an official review. Many of the problems arose because officials tried to get the teams ready very quickly, Cragin said. The National Guard units, each with 22 full-time members, are supposed to help local authorities respond to a terrorist attack by identifying what nuclear, chemical or biological agents were used. But Pentagon investigators concluded that defective safety equipment could put team members at risk of succumbing to the very weapons they were meant to identify. Investigators found that air filters had been installed backward in the teams' mobile laboratories and team members were given gas masks with parts that were not designed to work together. One team commander, referring to the gas masks, told investigators, "It probably would work. I'm just not willing to bet my life on it." Cragin said that problem has been fixed. Plans originally called for the teams to be stationed near Air National Guard bases so they could be flown to the site of a terrorist attack. A second draft of those plans, however, called for team members to drive their personal cars to attack scenes, which could be hundreds of miles away. The guidelines have not been completed. Coinciding with the recent release of the Pentagon report, a congressional commission recommended focusing the National Guard on protecting U.S. territory from weapons of mass destruction. President Bush last week said he would like to see the Guard and Reserve "more involved in homeland security." Frank Hoffman, a researcher for the U.S. Commission on National Security, said the problems with the National Guard response teams show the Pentagon is not paying enough attention to terrorist threats. "Everyone knows we're not prepared," said Hoffman, an officer in the Marine Corps reserves. Cragin said all safety problems identified by the inspector general will be fixed before he recommends that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld certify the teams ready for duty. Cragin said he did not know when he that would be. On the Net: Report summary: http://www.dodig.osd.mil/audit/reports/01043sum.htm U.S. Commission on National Security: http://www.nssg.gov/ All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 11 CDC terminates Hanford study oversight panel The Spokesman-Review.com - February 25, 2001 Researchers reviewing effects of Cold War radiation releases Karen Dorn Steele - Staff writer Scientists at Seattle's Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center are reworking their controversial draft study of the health impacts of Hanford's Cold War radiation releases. They hope to have a final report by the end of the year. Meanwhile, the federal agency in charge of the $18 million, 11-year project has stirred up more controversy by disbanding a public advisory committee Congress set up to oversee the work. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta didn't inform the group their services were no longer needed, says a member of the now-defunct Hanford Thyroid Disease Study committee. Dr. Sara Cate, a Yakima family physician, got the news indirectly in August when she happened to bump into her predecessor on the committee on a hike in the North Cascades. Jim Thomas, a researcher for a Seattle law firm handling some of the Hanford downwinders' litigation, told Cate the CDC had axed the committee. Cate was incredulous. The thyroid study's draft report, released in January 1999, had been strongly criticized by the National Academy of Sciences. In December 1999, after a hearing in Spokane, the national academy recommended substantial revisions -- and a clear plan to convey the results to the public. The advisory committee should be reviewing the two additional years of work on the study triggered by the national academy critique, Cate said last week. "CDC disbanded us before their re-analysis was completed. This is a big problem because there's no public review of what they are doing. I don't know what they were thinking," Cate said. Thomas' law firm, Short Cressman &Burgess, has challenged the decision. The CDC can't legally terminate a congressionally mandated advisory committee until a study is finished, attorney Bryan Coluccio said in a Jan. 23 letter to James Smith, head of the CDC's Radiation Studies Branch in Atlanta. The CDC is reviewing the issue, said Mike Donnelly, project director in Atlanta for the Hanford study. He said the decision to terminate the advisory committee was made within the CDC. "We didn't think there was a need to continue it," Donnelly said. "We are looking towards a final report, hopefully by the end of this year. Much of our energy right now is going towards that." Sen. Patty Murray, the Seattle Democrat who helped seek funding for the advisory committee, hadn't heard about the controversy when contacted last week by The Spokesman-Review. "The CDC process called for an oversight committee. If the NAS (National Academy of Sciences) critique isn't being answered adequately, then it may be appropriate to reconvene the committee," she said through a staff member. Public oversight of the Hanford Thyroid Disease Study was mandated by Congress in 1988. In 1992, the U.S. Department of Energy agreed to transfer all its radiation health studies to the CDC to ensure more credibility. Political pressure to transfer the studies came from people living near Hanford and other U.S. weapons sites, who didn't learn until the mid-1980s that they had been bombarded with radiation from plutonium production and other nuclear operations during the Cold War. At Hanford, at least 740,000 curies of radioactive iodine 131 were released from 1944 to 1956 -- increasing the risk of thyroid disease in people living in the path of the radiation clouds. A legacy of distrust about the government's secret releases has lingered. "It was a good thing to remove health research from the weapons agencies," said Bob Alvarez, director of the nuclear policy project at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C. Alvarez was a staff aide to former Sen. John Glenn of Ohio, who helped move the nuclear studies to CDC from DOE. He also worked for two DOE Cabinet secretaries in the Clinton administration. "The CDC is backtracking. They may feel they are suffering from advisory committee fatigue and want to go back to the way things were before," Alvarez said. Scaling back citizen input is part of a broader pattern of government efforts to downplay the effects of bomb test fallout and other radiation releases, said attorney Trisha Pritikin of Berkeley, Calif. "I'm worried about the lack of public oversight," said Pritikin, a Hanford downwinder. Her father, Hanford nuclear engineer Perry Thompson, died of a rare thyroid cancer in 1997. She was born in Richland in 1950 and has thyroid disease. Pritikin sits on the Hanford Health Effects Subcommittee, part of a CDC advisory group overseeing public health work in communities where nuclear weapons were manufactured and tested. The CDC recently hired a contractor to review all of its advisory committees for DOE weapons sites. Some of the CDC staff comments in the January 2001 report were highly critical. "Agency staff, particularly scientists, expressed concern about hostile remarks from subcommittee members during these presentations. Some scientists have left their positions, in part, because of this harassment," the report says. Some committee members think research is credible only when it shows "a positive association between radioactive and chemical releases from the DOE sites and specific health problems," the report says. "What did they expect?" Alvarez asked. "This is a very messy, highly charged issue. By isolating themselves from public dialogue, even if it's difficult and contentious, it ultimately harms the credibility of the agency." The CDC doesn't like committee members to ask tough questions, Pritikin said. "It's deja vu. CDC is repeating the original problems with the Hanford (draft) study. It was embargoed until the end, misconstrued, and sprung on the public," Pritikin said. Donnelly denied the CDC is trying to muscle out the public. "It's not a move to get rid of them. But every advisory committee has a function, and at some point, they should go away because the government doesn't need that advice anymore," he said. The Hanford study came under fire two years ago for the manner in which it was released. At the time, Fred Hutchinson researchers said Hanford downwinders should be "substantially reassured" because scientists had found no connection between Hanford's iodine-131 clouds and thyroid cancer and disease downwind. The draft hadn't been peer-reviewed by other scientists. "This study was powerful," principal investigator Scott Davis said at the January 1999 news conference. "If iodine 131 released from Hanford caused anything, this study would have detected it." The statement triggered deep anger among Hanford downwinders suffering from thyroid disease. It also was an exaggeration, the national academy reviewers said. "We feel this study is not as conclusive as the initial report of it said," New York University professor and academy panel chairman Roy Shore said at a June 1999 hearing in Spokane. While there's probably not a large risk of thyroid cancer or disease from the Hanford emissions, a small risk can't be ruled out, Shore said. The study may have underestimated uncertainties in the Hanford iodine-131 dose estimates derived from another study, the Hanford Environmental Dose Reconstruction Project, the reviewers said. They also told the study team to explore high rates of thyroid disease and a death rate 20 percent above average found in the 3,441 downwinders studied. The question of the study's statistical power -- its ability to detect a result -- is central to its credibility, the reviewers said. "If the study proves to be negative, is that meaningful or is it probably because the statistical power was too low to detect the increase in disease?" Shore asked. The national academy critique has led to substantial additional work on the study, lead investigator Davis said last week. The researchers have changed the computer program used to estimate individual radiation doses. Next, the scientists will calculate a new dose estimate for everyone in the study, repeat the original analyses using the revised dose estimates, and make final changes to the report, Davis said. The public should be given the "shades of gray" as CDC prepares to release the final report, said national academy reviewer Sharon Friedman, a professor of journalism and mass communications at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania and an expert in risk communications. "Hopefully, this will get as much publicity as the draft report," Friedman said. •Karen Dorn Steele can be reached at (509) 459-5462 or by e-mail at karend@spokesman.com. *CDC terminates Hanford study oversight panel* * If you have a comment or reply to this story that you'd like to share, fill in the form and click submit. Note: Replies are limited to 250 words and must be signed with a valid email address. No profanity or libelous statements will be printed. ***************************************************************** 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: *****************************************************************