***************************************************************** 04/26/01 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 9.102 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER CONTENTS 1 Ukraine marks 15th anniversary of Chernobyl 2 Russia to accomodate radioactive waste 3 NEVADA DELEGATION ASKS GAO TO LOOK INTO MISSING E-MAIL FROM YUCCA 4 Bush budget plan to clean up Moab tailings lacks funding 5 TSCA incinerator set for trial burn in May 6 Nuclear Safety Issues Cloud Bush Choice for Energy Undersecretary 7 Federal court throws out lawsuit by nuclear plant against town 8 The bias at Yucca Mountain 9 (Pronuclear)Electron Cafe by John Glenn: The cafe closes 10 USEC earnings fall $14.5 million 11 Editorial: Fear subsiding - Nuclear power gains public support 12 Sides Argue About Yankee Cleanup Plan 13 Nuclear Power Looking Better 14 Facts About Nuclear Power Plants 15 Is nuclear power back? 16 Opinions: JAY AMBROSE: Think nuclear 17 Kerry: Reconsider nuclear power 18 Nuke bias: whatever you want it to be 19 American Ecology Corporation Announces Nuclear Contracts 20 Diablo Canyon nuclear plant offline for refueling 21 Vermont Yankee nuke to shut Fri for 3-4 wk refuel 22 IEER Op-Ed: Scrap plans for fast breeder reactor 23 Nuclear Fuel Waste Legislation Announced 24 UPDATE - Japan village to hold referendum on nuclear fuel 25 Atomic Waste Rolls Into France 26 Sellafield braces for nuclear waste protest 27 Nuclear's comeback 28 Sellafield Campaigners Head Home 29 Chewing Gum Man Wins Back BNFL Job 30 Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster Marked 31 Post-Soviet Leaders Seek Remedies for Chernobyl 32 Chernobyl Radiation Affects 19 Regions Of Russia 33 Review of DOE probe sought 34 UN: Atomic Energy Agency describes disastrous impact, `lessons 35 UN: Secretary-General calls for greater assistance for Chernobyl 36 Chernobyl Aftermath Still Affecting People: IAEA 37 Hot line for Chernobyl liquidators at human rights envoy's 38 On This Day: April 26 1986 39 Chernobyl's deadly legacy -- 15 years on - April 26, 2001 40 Researchers remember Chernobyl 41 Ukraine still on risky nuclear power path 42 Chernobyl survivors to relive nuclear nightmare 43 Nevada seeks second opinion 44 Belarus brought to its knees by 'invisible enemy' 45 UN plea for Chernobyl victims 46 15 years after Chernobyl 47 Chernobyl anniversary haunts Ukraine 48 Read This! Before I Go Up in Smoke 49 Russia's 11 Chernobyl-Style Nuclear Reactors a Threat 50 East: EBRD Promises Aid To Protect Against Radioactive Pollution 51 DOE finds no bias in evaluation of potential nuclear waste site 52 Nuke lab baboons freed 53 Experts downplay results of nuclear power poll NUCLEAR WEAPONS CONTENTS 1 The Truth Comes Out From Under a Rock 2 Abraham Suspends Nuclear Shutdown 3 Union Opposes Hanford Security Change 4 Hanford reactor verdict on hold 5 Energy suspends FFTF shutdown 6 WHO MAKES RECOMMENDATIONS ON DEPLETED URANIUM AND HEALTH IN NEW 7 Judge Considers Vieques Suit 8 Judge Refuses to Halt Navy Bombing 9 U.N. wants anti-nuke teaching materials from Japan: official ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 Ukraine marks 15th anniversary of Chernobyl name="Author" content="Annie Serebriakova, Alexandre Shishilov"> A woman lights a candle to the dead in Slavytuch, near Chernobyl KIEV, Ukraine - Fifteen years after the world's worst nuclear disaster, people across much of the former Soviet Union lit candles and offered prayers Thursday for those killed and sickened by the explosion at Ukraine's Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The April 26, 1986 explosion and fire sent a radioactive cloud over much of Europe and contaminated large areas in then-Soviet Ukraine, Russia and Belarus. The Ukrainian government says more than 4,000 of those who took part i n the hasty and poorly o rganized Soviet cleanup effort have died, and that more than 70,000 Ukrainians were fully disabled by the disaster. In all, 7 million people in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine are estimated to suffer physical or psychological effects of radiation related to the Chernobyl catastrophe. Hundreds of people attended an overnight memorial service at a small Kiev chapel that was built to commemorate the disaster. They held burning candles as priests read out prayers in memory of the dead. A bell rang shortly aft er 1 a.m. (2000 GMT Wednesday), exactly the same time as the reactor exploded. Some in the crowd broke into tears. One woman described how the building in which she worked at Chernobyl grew dark and shook. From a window, she saw "a glow, like haze in the summer" over the reactor. A similar service was held in Slavytuch, a town of Chernobyl workers close to the plant. President Leonid Kuchma was due to visit the town and plant later in the day. In a statement marking the anniversary, Kuchma urged the w orld not to forget Chernobyl and to help Ukraine deal with its consequences. "Chernobyl is a common tragedy, a common pain of our planet, and its echo must not fall silent in our hearts," Kuchma said. At the United Nations, Secretary General Kofi Annan appealed for people to remember the needs of those who are still suffering from the effects of Chernobyl. "Together, we must extend a helping hand to our fellow human beings, and show that we are not in different to their plight," Annan said in a statement released Wednesday. In Moscow, a service for victims of Chernobyl was to take place at the Danilov Monastery, commemorating Ukrainians, Belarusians and Russians affected by the disaster. Similar ceremonies were scheduled in Belarus. Boris Chekalin, the head of the radiation service at Russia's Kursk atomic power plant, took part in the Chernobyl cleanup. He told Russian state television about the first days of the operation. "When I arrived at Chernobyl, I saw a large black fire with clouds , an imp ression that will stay with me my whole life," he said. Chekalin said he never takes off his hat, even on overcast days, because he has to avoid the most minor sun rays to prevent irritating burns on his face and arms - a constant reminder of his radiation exposure during three days at Chernobyl. Following the 1986 explosion, other reactors at the plant continued operating until it was halted for good in December under intense international pressure. At the plant itself , workers remain busy. They moni tor the now-idle reactors and are building a heating plant and facilities for nuclear waste disposal and reprocessing. They are also involved in a dlrs 758 million, internationally funded project to make the leaky concrete and steel sarcophagus over the ruined reactor environmentally safe. href="http://www.russiajournal.com ***************************************************************** 2 Russia to accomodate radioactive waste MOSCOW - Russian authorities made a decision to construct five factories for reprocessing metallic radioactive waste, Alexey Nester, general director of the chemical company Ekomet-C, reported in an interview with RBCnews. He explained that his enterprise will be the main contractor in the implementation of the state program for reprocessing metallic radioactive waste. The first experimental reprocessing factory will be constructed in the Leningrad region, and it will require $12m in investments. The factory will reprocess up to 8,500 tons of waste. Other factories will be constructed in Severodvinsk, Novovoronezh, Chelyabinsk and Komsomolsk-on-Amur. Each of these projects will require up to $50m in investments. The leadership of Ekomet-C has already started negotiations with potential investors, in particular, with Gazprom. ://www.rbcnews.com/" "http://www.russiajournal.com ***************************************************************** 3 NEVADA DELEGATION ASKS GAO TO LOOK INTO MISSING E-MAIL FROM YUCCA MOUNTAIN CONTRACTOR [Sen. Reid Press Release] April 25, 2001 Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senators and and U.S. Representatives and today asked the (GAO) to expand the scope of an ongoing investigation in to include the results of a recently released Inspector General's report and to examine the potential loss of e-mails relating to work on the proposed nuclear waste dump. "While the GAO may be looking into separate allegations regarding mismanagement at Yucca Mountain, it is important they be made aware of the IG's findings and the loss of what could be important e-mail messages. Without this electronic paper trail, we may never be able to determine the real level of bias among (DOE) contractors working on the proposed dump site," said Reid, Nevada's senior U.S. Senator. "I am disappointed with the interpretation of the evidence presented by the Inspector General. While the findings show there were questionable statements in the draft report, the Inspector General ultimately concluded that this did not indicate bias. I respectfully disagree with that conclusion. I am going to ask the General Accounting Office to review the Inspector General's finding as part of its wider investigation into alleged improprieties at Yucca Mountain," Ensign said. He added, "I will also continue to work with the other members of the delegation to address this issue in a bipartisan fashion." "I found the DOE Inspector General's report to be terribly inadequate," stated Congressman Jim Gibbons. "It was based on insufficient data and partial information obtained from those accused of bias in the first place. Even more disturbing, the IG's report stated that certain DOE documents could be viewed as biased in favor of the proposed repository at Yucca Mountain. Consequently, to ensure the and safety of the people of Nevada, it is critically important that a fair and objective investigation of this matter be conducted by the GAO. The feasibility study of Yucca Mountain is far from complete, and its progress should not be compromised by the apparent bias of the DOE." Said Rep. Shelley Berkley, "Inappropriate statements and positions about Yucca Mountain made internally by project officials seem symptomatic of a developing pattern of bias, so it's particularly troubling that public e-mails are missing. Additionally, I hope the GAO will be able to review the IG report and offer a measure of quality assurance. There is, understandably, a lot of concern that a federal agency seems to have been given the primary responsibility for policing itself. The issue of Yucca Mountain, and the possibility of bias in the DOE or its contractors, is simply too important to the people of Nevada to leave any concerns unaddressed." In their letter to GAO Comptroller , members of the delegation wrote, "We are troubled by this incident, because it represents a loss of information that may have provided greater insight into the development of the draft Overview and related memo. To prevent a further erosion of public confidence in the DOE's site characterization work, we request that you expand the scope of the previous investigation to look at the circumstances of this loss of email." The letter asks the GAO to determine what email records were affected by the loss, whether or not they were internal messages or communications between DOE and the subcontractor and how many records were likely lost and over what time period. attached letter April 25, 2001 The Honorable David M. Walker Comptroller General of the United States United States General Accounting Office Washington, D.C. 20548 Dear Mr. Comptroller: We are writing in regard to a current General Accounting Office (GAO) investigation concerning allegations of mismanagement at the Department of Energy's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management. We request that you expand the scope of this study to include the results of an April 23, 2001, DOE Office of Inspector General (IG) report and examine the potential loss of email correspondence with a DOE contractor that may have impeded the IG investigation. As you may know, as part of the investigation, the IG examined the preparation of two documents, the draft Overview to the Site Recommendation Characterization Report and a related memo. We are particularly concerned by the problems the IG had in obtaining email correspondence from the subcontractor, JK Research Associates, who prepared the draft Overview and memo. According to the IG, "[C]omplete electronic mail records were unavailable to the Office of Inspector General due to a computer malfunction. Consequently, because a complete record of interactions between the contractor and the reviewers was not available, the Office of Inspector General was unable to obtain a complete, verifiable history of the development of the draft Overview." We are troubled by this incident, because it represents a loss of information that may have provided greater insight into the development of the draft Overview and related memo. To prevent a further erosion of public confidence in the DOE's site characterization work, we request that you expand the scope of the previous investigation to look at the circumstances of this loss of email. In particular, we request that you determine the answers to the following questions: 1. What was the nature of the computer malfunction? 2. What email records were affected? Were they internal email messages or communications between the DOE and the subcontractor? 3. How many records were likely lost and over what time period? In addition, in light of this important information, we request that you re-examine the findings of the Inspector General. Ensuring that the DOE maintains the highest standards of objectivity and integrity in its investigation of Yucca Mountain's suitability as a repository is crucial to ensuring the health and safety of the residents of Nevada. If you have questions about this request, please contact Dr. Gregory Jaczko (Sen. Reid, 202-224-3783), Pam Thiessen (Sen. Ensign, 202-224-6244), Jack Victory (Rep. Gibbons, 202-225-6155), or Douglas Schneider (Rep. Berkley, 202-225-5965) . We appreciate your consideration of our request and we look forward to hearing from you on this matter. Sincerely, Harry Reid, U.S. Senator John Ensign, U.S. Senator Shelley Berkley, Member of Congress James A. Gibbons, Member of Congress ***************************************************************** 4 Bush budget plan to clean up Moab tailings lacks funding April 26, 2001 By Lee Davidson Deseret News Washington correspondent WASHINGTON — President Bush's new budget says he has a formal goal to remove uranium tailings near Moab that leach radioactive waste into the Colorado River, as Congress ordered last year. But the budget sets aside no specific amounts of money to make that happen any time soon. That displeases Moab residents and many members of Congress, such as Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, who helped push the legislation that ordered the tailings removal. "We understand it was just an oversight by the administration, and that it was not fully aware of what we're trying to do there," said Cannon's legislative director, Chris MacKay. So Cannon and other House members have written members of the House Appropriations Committee seeking to add $10 million into the 2002 budget to begin efforts to remove tailings, which some estimate could eventually cost $300 million. "I think that things are on line to obtain that money," MacKay said. "There is nobody who doesn't believe that we should not take care of this problem as soon as possible." Groundwater leaching through the tailings dumps an estimated 16,000 gallons of water contaminated with radioactive uranium tailings from the old Atlas mill into the Colorado each day. The river provides drinking water to downstream areas in Utah, Nevada and southern California. And residents are fearful that radioactive dust might be blowing into town. PricewaterhouseCoopers, the trustee of bankrupt Atlas Corp. and the party responsible for containing the uranium waste, has informed the Nuclear Regulatory Agency that it has run out of money and is resigning from the job. So Moab residents are pinning their hopes on Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, the only Utah delegation member on an appropriations committee to include money needed to at least finish stabilizing the tailings pile. "His people are saying now they think they have a strategy," said Bill Hedden of the Grand Canyon Trust. Mary Jane Collipriest, press secretary to Bennett, said her office is not concerned about Bush not putting in a specific line item for the tailings removal yet. "Actual movement of the pile is a couple of years out. We have at least a study and a report (on removal options) that has to occur before that. It must be conducted by the National Academy of Science and approved by the Department of Energy," she said. Collipriest said that operations money for the Energy Department's office in Grand Junction, Colo., is expected to cover the beginnings of that study. Also, she said $1.9 million this fiscal year was reprogrammed in January to help those efforts. Collipriest added that the Energy Department, which was ordered to remove the tailings, will not gain title to the uranium pile until Oct. 30 from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, a step needed before removal. "So I think it is a little premature to have expected a line item of money in the budget this year" for removal, she said. The Utah delegation, with assists from downriver lawmakers, last year included in the annual Defense Authorization Bill provisions ordering removal of the tailings. It transfers ownership of the tailings to the Energy Department from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which had planned to keep the tailings in place but cap them with clay and dirt. The Energy Department will move them far from the river. The deal also gave the Ute Tribe title to a Naval Oil Shale Reserve Area, on the condition it would pay a 9 percent royalty on any natural gas it develops there to pay for moving the tailings. Return of the oil shale land to the tribe was also seen as a move to help Utes with economic development. *Contributing: Donna Kemp Spangler E-MAIL: lee@desnews.com* © 2001 Deseret News Publishing Company ***************************************************************** 5 TSCA incinerator set for trial burn in May Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 11:53 a.m. on Thursday, April 26, 2001 The Toxic Substances Control Act incinerator at the K-25 site will undergo a trial burn sometime between May 14 and May 26. ** by Paul Parson Oak Ridger staff A trial burn of the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge toxic waste incinerator is scheduled to occur in May. Mark Musolf, a spokesman for Bechtel Jacobs Co., confirmed the burn will take place between May 14 and May 26 to demonstrate the incinerator's compliance with a series of performance standards, including the Toxic Substances Control Act for which the incinerator is named. The Toxic Substances Control Act incinerator burns low-level radioactive wastes in addition to some wastes containing hazardous chemicals such as polychlorinated biphenyls. IT Corp. operates the incinerator under a subcontract with Bechtel Jacobs, the Department of Energy's environmental manager in Oak Ridge. DOE officials said the trial burn was originally scheduled to take place in April but was postponed because revisions had to be made to the burn plan based on a pre-trial burn that occurred in November. The upcoming burn should determine if the incinerator, which is located at the Oak Ridge K-25 Site, receives new operating permits from environmental regulators. The incinerator is permitted by the state of Tennessee and operates under Environmental Protection Agency approval. According to DOE's most recent fact sheet about the incinerator's operations, dated November 1999, the incinerator treated more than 21 million pounds of waste from 12 DOE facilities in six states between April 1991, when full operations began, and September 1999. Most of the waste treated, however, has been from the Oak Ridge Reservation. All Contents ©Copyright* The Oak Ridger * ***************************************************************** 6 Nuclear Safety Issues Cloud Bush Choice for Energy Undersecretary Environment News Service: By Josey Ballenger WASHINGTON, DC, April 25, 2001 (ENS) - President George W. Bush's choice as undersecretary at the U.S. Department of Energy is Robert Card, who until yesterday was CEO and president of the company overseeing cleanup of the mothballed Rocky Flats nuclear weapons factory near Denver, Colorado. Card, president and CEO for Kaiser-Hill Company since 1996, would be the third ranking official in the department, which oversees the nation's energy programs and nuclear facilities, including Rocky Flats. If confirmed, he would head the energy, science and environment portfolio under Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham. While Card was in charge of Kaiser-Hill, the nuclear cleanup contractor was fined or penalized more than $725,000 for numerous worker safety, procurement and other violations. [residue] Cleanup worker handles wet combustible radioactive plutonium residue at Rocky Flats. (Photo courtesy U.S. Dept of Energy) Card's selection is another troubling sign for many environmentalists, along the lines of recent White House decisions to reverse some Clinton era environmental measures and the abandonment of Bush's campaign pledge to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Bush opponents contend that the new administration is filling its ranks mostly with industry driven people who do not necessarily have the best track records on the environment. While Card headed the Kaiser-Hill, which holds a $4 billion contract to clean up and close Rocky Flats, a manager from the Department of Energy (DOE) reprimanded the company for having poor management and a "serious deficiency" in safety performance. Card himself acknowledged earlier this year to DOE and to the U.S. General Accounting Office that the company had "a particularly disturbing negative trend in safety performance over the last quarter of calendar year 2000." Four different state and federal agencies have criticized, if not fined, Kaiser-Hill for its performance at Rocky Flats over the past five years. But Card supporters, from both major political parties, say that Kaiser-Hill is one of the country's better nuclear contractors, that it is a step up from Rocky Flats' previous operators, and that it has improved its safety record every year, while meeting or beating deadlines. Card's nomination papers have not been sent to the Senate, which means his nomination is not yet formal, and no confirmation hearing has been scheduled. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee staff members said that May is the earliest that Card's hearing could take place. Before Card reached the helm of Kaiser-Hill, he was vice president of business development and planning, and then of environmental affairs, at CH2M Hill Companies. He remains a senior vice president of CH2M Hill, a Denver based engineering, consulting and construction group that was found in the early 1990s to have overbilled the federal government $5 million for inappropriate Superfund expenditures. [Card] Third from left, Robert Card stands with others on the Board of Directors of CH2M Hill (Photo courtesy CH2M Hill) He is also a board member and shareholder of CH2M Hill, which reported $1.7 billion in revenue in 2000 and owns 50 percent of Kaiser-Hill. Bush announced his intention March 7 to nominate Card to be one of two DOE undersecretaries. Card gave up his Kaiser-Hill presidency within days of the announcement, then stepped down as CEO on April 24. He remains a senior vice president of Kaiser-Hill. The work to clean up what is now known as the Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site involves plutonium stabilization and packaging, shipment of waste to disposal sites, the decontamination, and decomissioning of buildings. It means working with dangerous material in dangerous situations. Kaiser-Hill has a history of safety violations at Rocky Flats. In 2000, the DOE field office in Colorado docked Kaiser-Hill a total of $410,000 for three safety violations at the Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site. The former atomic bomb trigger factory factory is riddled with plutonium, uranium and other hazardous materials, which Kaiser-Hill is under contract to clean up. Those penalties, which came out of the company's fees under its contract with DOE, were for inadequate operation of a ventilation system that led to the spread of radioactive contamination, for several waste handling infractions and for insufficient work controls. Kaiser-Hill also attracted public attention in May 2000 when DOE admitted to a House subcommittee that the company had improperly billed the federal government nearly $200,000 to reimburse a subcontractor's legal costs for fighting the case involving a whistleblower. Kaiser-Hill subsequently returned the money. Since 1996, another DOE enforcement office in Washington has levied fines against Kaiser-Hill totaling $316,250 for other problems at Rocky Flats. Those fines - which the company had to pay directly to the U.S. Treasury - were for purchasing 69 defective nuclear waste containers, for not taking adequate corrective actions, for exposing workers to radiation and for work control deficiencies. Two additional enforcement warnings have been issued since August 2000. [demo] Demolition of Rocky Flats Building 779, the first major plutonium building in the U.S. to be demolished. (Photo courtesy U.S. Dept of Energy) The recent escalation in fines, combined with two safety infractions in December, prompted the DOE Rocky Flats manager to write a letter to Card in January, detailing her "serious concerns regarding the safety performance" of the Kaiser-Hill management team. A U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) report to Congress in February said that safety problems were part of "significant and complex challenges [that] must be overcome" in order for DOE and Kaiser-Hill to meet Rocky Flats' 2006 closure deadline. Card acknowledged in a February 13 response to GAO's director of natural resources and environment that, while the company had improved its overall safety performance every year, "there was a particularly disturbing negative trend in safety performance over the last quarter of calendar year 2000." "DOE doesn't fine lightly; they really don't. It takes a lot for them to fine," a senior congressional staff member familiar with DOE contracts said. "They only will issue a fine after they've worked with the contractor for a long time to [try to] fix the problem." Support for Card as undersecretary is mixed. Environmentalists, some Denver area citizens, local authorities and union workers say Kaiser-Hill's track record at Rocky Flats leaves plenty of room for improvement. "Their safety record has improved over the past five years, but it warrants a lot of interest and scrutiny. The uptick we saw in the last few months is something we needed to address," said Steve Gunderson, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment's primary overseer of the Rocky Flats cleanup. "If they seriously hurt or kill someone up there, it'll prevent their ability to get anything done" because of resultant building closures and delays. The state has twice fined DOE, as Rocky Flats' owner and manager, a combined $585,000 for Kaiser-Hill's improper handling of hazardous waste since 1998. Gunderson's department also fined DOE $40,000 in September after the company missed a contractual deadline to have a waste facility ready. Those costs have not been passed on to Kaiser-Hill. [worker] Repackaging radioactive salts at Rocky Flats (Photo courtesy U.S. Dept of Energy) "Kaiser-Hill came into Rocky Flats and didn't have the experience doing what they're doing. It's a steep learning curve, and they have had problems repetitively," said LeRoy Moore, a co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center, a grassroots organization in Boulder that follows Rocky Flats and nuclear issues. Moore accused the company and past DOE field office managers of downplaying Kaiser-Hill's occupational safety violations and "trying to keep us quiet" about issues of concern. Kaiser-Hill spokeswoman Jennifer Thompson said Card would not grant interviews until the confirmation process wis over. Regarding Card's possible compensation, recusals or divestments, she said, "Bob isn't the first from the private sector to serve at a high level (of government); there is a specific protocol to be followed." The White House press office did not return a call seeking comment. Others familiar with Rocky Flats or the nuclear cleanup business in general called Card an acceptable, if not ideal, choice. "You need someone with practical experience on the ground," Senator Wayne Allard, a Colorado Republican, recently told the Energy Communities Alliance, a group of local governments affected by DOE activities. "He has to be one of the foremost experts on cleanup." Keith Christopher, director of the DOE office that regulates nuclear safety, said in an interview, "Yes, I've fined them two or three times, and I'm probably going to again in the next month." Given the complexity of the Rocky Flats job, and compared to other contractors, Christopher said, "I think they've slipped a little bit in the past few months - but overall they're not bad." "Among contractors, Bob is one of the better ones," said a Clinton era DOE official who still works on nuclear issues and wished to remain anonymous. "It was a long road with him. We fought in the beginning, but in the end he was committed to safety and doing it right." Located in Golden, Colorado, Kaiser-Hill acquired the contract to clean up Rocky Flats in 1995. The contract was renewed in 2000 to include accelerated closure of the Superfund site by December 2006. Unused as a production facility since 1989, it is the world's first major nuclear manufacturing site slated for demolition. The Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site is online at: http://www.rfets.gov/ {Josey Ballenger is a reporter with The Public i, an investigative report of the Center for Public Integrity in Washington, DC.} © Environment News Service ***************************************************************** 7 Federal court throws out lawsuit by nuclear plant against town By Associated Press, 4/25/2001 10:46 HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) A federal judge has thrown out a lawsuit by the operators of the Connecticut Yankee nuclear power plant against Haddam's zoning board over the plant's fuel storage plan. U.S. District Judge Alan Nevas ruled Friday there was not sufficient controversy to force a ruling on whether federal law supersedes local zoning authority when it comes to nuclear waste, which is federally regulated. The ruling provided helpful guidance on how to proceed, plant spokeswoman Kelly Smith said. The company next plans to seek a building permit for the fuel storage system. Haddam Selectman Fred Edelstein said he was ''extremely pleased'' with the ruling. ''The town of Haddam is determined to protect its zoning rights,'' Edelstein said. In December, the Haddam Planning and Zoning Commission rejected Connecticut Yankee's proposal request to change the zoning of 15 acres near the plant to allow the storage of spent nuclear fuel. The land is zoned for residential use. Edelstein said he would not object to storing the fuel in an industrial zone closer to the plant. The plant is being decommissioned, and engineers want to move the fuel from a circulating water pool at the plant to 43 concrete casks on the disputed parcel. Commission members said they were concerned that approval would open the door for other states to send their nuclear waste to the site. Connecticut Yankee officials said this would not happen. Boston Globe ***************************************************************** 8 The bias at Yucca Mountain VIEWS Thursday, April 26, 2001 By Nevada Appeal editorial board Among the little surprises in life, the inspector general of the Department of Energy finding "no evidence" of bias on Yucca Mountain isn't one of them. Never mind that little note attached to a draft DOE report six months ago suggesting storage of the nation's nuclear waste at the site outside Las Vegas was a foregone conclusion, and the only questions were how much it would cost and how to get it through Congress. That note, written by DOE subcontractor JK Research Associates, was clearly inappropriate and was removed from the subsequent drafts of the report. By doing that, the DOE concluded, it had taken the proper steps to ensure the integrity of its study of the suitability of Yucca Mountain. From his report, Inspector General Greg Friedman has appeared to do a thorough job - interviewing more than 200 people and reading thousands of pages of documents - to ferret out any prejudice or bias in the DOE's research. He concludes, "We could not substantiate the concern that bias compromised the integrity of the site evaluation process, or that the Department (of Energy) or its contractors considered a formal or informal strategy for supporting the site characterization recommendation in violation of the law." It's true there is no smoking gun. We expect the scientists, researchers and engineers are going about their jobs diligently and honestly. The bias, as we keep pointing out, is in the fact that Yucca Mountain is the only place being studied for nuclear disposal, and the DOE has been instructed to figure out how it will work - not if it will work. Two sidelights of Friedman's report bear out this kind of overarching bias. At one point he notes, "It is fair to observe that, at least in some quarters, public confidence in the department's evaluation of Yucca Mountain has eroded." Yes, that would be Nevada, where it is being shoved down our throats. More interesting, under the heading of "Other Matters," Friedman paraphrases one of the people interviewed as saying the Department of Energy "has not created incentives for people to question computer modeling assumptions or to 'rock the boat.'" He goes on: "The witness stated that while the Department has changed assumptions when given supporting data, two factors must be true before assumptions will be changed: 1) the evidence must be unambiguous, and 2) the resulting change cannot threaten the program." Still, the inspector reports, the witness had no evidence to prove this had actually happened. To us, though, it proves the argument we've been making: The DOE isn't going to find any "show-stoppers" because it isn't looking for them. About tahoe.com ***************************************************************** 9 (Pronuclear)Electron Cafe by John Glenn: The cafe closes Power Online News for power industry professionals ->4/25/2001 * (Editor’s Note: It is with great regret that we run this final Electron Cafe. John Glenn has added an intelligent and fair-minded voice to the Power Online community. I know many others will share this sentiment. Thank you John for all the times you’ve made us think, question and understand. ACM)* I have decided to give up writing for the Electron Cafe. When I wrote the first of 171 articles and columns, I was consulting only and had sufficient time to research current events and come up with what I hoped were new and interesting subjects. Today, I have one full-time position and three part-time commitments. Sadly, I conclude I no longer have the time to research new subjects. Each week it is harder to avoid repeating myself. Not inconsequentially, I will gain some free time. All work and no play makes a dull life. To those of you who have read my columns, I thank you. Hopefully, you found the subjects either interesting or informative. Just a quick reminder of the major themes I expressed in varied ways: + Nuclear power may have some risks, but is quite safe when fairly measured against other power sources. Three Mile Island did not kill or injure anyone and a similar accident has not occurred with light water reactors in the more than 20 years that have passed. + Zero risk is an unachievable goal. Requiring some technologies to achieve one in a million risk levels but not others will cause bad policy. In particular, very restrictive requirements at a very high cost should be questioned when based upon the assumption of a linear-no-threshold effect. + When hazardous materials (such as radioactivity) already exist at high levels in nature, requiring a zero man-made contribution is unjustified. Banning basement and first floor living quarters could reduce radiation exposure in the United States more than shutting down all nuclear power plants. Neither cost is justified by the benefit. + Radioactivity is most hazardous when its original purpose is no longer economically beneficial. (People have died when radioactive medical sources were abandoned in several countries.) A strong regulatory system is required to assure that hazardous materials are safely disposed. The nuclear and radioactive materials industries in the United States must pay in advance for a decommissioning system. Other industries should be held to the same standard. I wish you safe and energy abundant future. Subscribe to our free e-mail newsletter. Click for a free Buyer’s Guide listing. Copyright © 2000-2001, Vert Tech LLC. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 10 USEC earnings fall $14.5 million The Paducah Sun Paducah, Kentucky Thursday, April 26, 2001 USEC earnings fall $14.5 million By Joe Walker jwalker@paducahsun.com--*270.575.8650* USEC Inc., which runs the 1,500-employee Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant, had $14.5 million less in quarterly earnings than during the same period a year ago, but the firm expects to earn at least $5 million more than expected the rest of the year. The company earned $8.1 million, or 10 cents per share, during the quarter ending March 31, compared to $22.6 million, or 25 cents per share, last year. Comparative nine-month earnings showed a significant drop from $71.3 million, or 77 cents per share, to $33.6 million, or 42 cents a share. During the quarter, USEC had a special income tax credit of $37.3 million because of a change in estimating deferred income taxes. The change arose from going from a nontaxable government entity to a publicly held company in 1998. Including the credit, quarterly earnings rose to $45.4 million, or 56 cents a share; nine-month earnings were $70.9 million, or 88 cents per share. William Timbers, USEC president and chief executive officer, said the company is on pace to earn $35 million to $40 million, up from previous estimates of $30 million to $35 million. He credited lower power costs and net interest expense. Timbers said the projections assume that the first year of plant consolidation and six months' benefit of buying Russian uranium at market-based prices will offset a decline in average sale prices for enriched uranium under older contracts. In June, USEC will close its Ohio enrichment plant, leaving Paducah as a stand-alone facility. The company expects to have a cheaper-price agreement with Russia by January. "This quarter we again exceeded our financial expectations, and we are well on track to meet the improved guidance for the year that we are setting today," Timbers said. "We are building a foundation of solid performance that we intend to continue in fiscal 2002." USEC will hold its quarterly-earnings conference call with the financial community at 7:30 a.m. today. The call will be carried live, and a replay about an hour later, on the firm's Web site at www.usec.com. ***************************************************************** 11 Editorial: Fear subsiding - Nuclear power gains public support The Paducah Sun Paducah, Kentucky Thursday, April 26, 2001 A new poll suggests the time may finally be right to let the genie of nuclear power out of the bottle. The Associated Press surveyed more than a thousand Americans to gauge public opinion about the nuclear power industry. Half of those questioned favored using nuclear plants to generate electricity and only 30 percent opposed nuclear power. Two years ago, the AP poll showed 45 percent of Americans favored nuclear power. The increase in public support is relatively small, but it almost certainly reflects growing concern about energy shortages and the impact on the environment of coal-fired electric generating plants. Interestingly, the recent AP poll indicated that Americans are gaining confidence in the safety of nuclear power. Almost two-thirds of the poll respondents said nuclear power plants are safer today than they were 10 years ago. These results should provide encouragement to Vice President Dick Cheney and the other members of a panel President Bush appointed to develop a national energy policy. Last month Cheney made it plain that he believes nuclear power should be included on the list of solutions for the nation's growing energy crisis. "If you're really serious about greenhouse gases, one of the solutions to that problem is to go back and ... take another look at nuclear power, use that to generate electricity without having any adverse consequences," Cheney told MSNBC. Environmentalists object to coal-fired power plants because they emit greenhouse gases that some scientists have linked to global climate changes. Years ago many environmentalists supported nuclear power as an emission-free alternative to coal-fired power plants. But the Hollywood-fueled hysteria that followed the accident at Three Mile Island — the only major accident in the history of the U.S. commercial nuclear power industry — turned fear of nuclear energy into a staple of the environmental movement. Fortunately, it appears that fear has gradually receded. Judging by the AP poll and other surveys, most Americans now see nuclear power simply as another energy source — one that carries some risks but that offers benefits far greater than the risks. This maturing public view of nuclear power should give momentum to the recommendations of Bush's energy panel, which is expected to urge that the nation build more nuclear plants. Highly efficient nuclear plants already supply 20 percent of the nation's power. However, no permits to build nuclear plants have been granted in more than 25 years. During this quarter-century the industry has greatly improved its efficiency and safety. Production costs have declined since 1990, making nuclear an increasingly appealing alternative to high-priced natural gas. Nuclear power plants are now a familiar sight in many areas of the world. In 1997 there were 430 nuclear plants in 31 countries. The French and the Japanese depend on nuclear as their main power source. Reporters for the PBS "Frontline" show found widespread and even enthusiastic support for nuclear power in France. There is no logical reason for the United States to continue burning huge amounts of pollution-emitting coal and costly natural gas when nuclear plants can help meet the rising demand for power without fouling the atmosphere. The biggest obstacle to expanding nuclear power is the problem of how to dispose of high-level nuclear waste. This is indicated in the AP poll by the large percentage of Americans who don't believe nuclear waste can be safely stored. For the most part, however, this is a political problem, not a technical problem. The federal government has chosen a repository for high-level waste in a remote area of Nevada, but public opposition in that state has prevented the site from being used. The French and the Japanese reprocess spent nuclear fuel. A hope is that the Bush administration will explore reprocessing, which was abandoned in the United States as a result of an executive order issued during the Carter administration. Nuclear power may have been the first victim of political correctness in this country. But reality has a way of undermining false ideologies, and the reality of power outages in California and high energy bills across the nation is bringing Americans around to the realization that nuclear energy doesn't have to be destructive. ***************************************************************** 12 Sides Argue About Yankee Cleanup Plan ctnow.com By GARY LIBOW The Hartford Courant April 25, 2001 CROMWELL - The stakes were high Tuesday when the state and anti-nuclear activists argued that Connecticut Yankee Atomic Power Co.'s plan to decommission and clean up its Haddam Neck nuclear power plant is woefully short of specifics needed to ensure public safety. A federal tribunal heard the attorney representing Connecticut Yankee calmly counter that the company has provided all of the information the government requires in a license-termination plan. Three administrative judges from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission are charged during a prehearing process with deciding the scope and validity of contentions leveled by Connecticut Awareness Network and the state Department of Public Utility Control over the proposed plans. CAN representatives, arguing that decades of mishaps contaminated the Connecticut Yankee site, are seeking additional information - including a detailed list of where spills and accidents occurred. DPUC demanded that a historic site assessment be included in the proposed plan. "Contamination was not controlled at this site,'' said DPUC attorney Randall Speck. "...There must be a level of detail in these plans, to allow an evaluation of whether these plans are adequate to protect public health and safety.'' Speck said that underground storm drains at the site had been contaminated, but had not yet been identified in the plan. Connecticut Yankee attorney Robert Gad urged the judges not to waste months by granting a full hearing based on charges that lack merit and are outside the scope of license-termination plan review. Gad argued it's impossible for Connecticut Yankee to currently provide a full site analysis because details of the specific work will be developed over the years it will take to decommission the plant and clean the site. Gad did note that while a historic assessment is not required in the license termination plan, such a study is in progress by Connecticut Yankee in a separate undertaking. NRC staff agreed that the historic site assessment is clearly not mandated in the proposed plan. Judge Ann Young, who administered the hearing, on several occasions voiced an interest in striking a balance. Young appeared to be willing to allow some reasonable information requested by the intervening parties be provided to the public. She said the judges will render a decision in writing at an undetermined date. "We do need a map,'' CAN representative Deb Katz told the judges. She testified she finds it horrifying that Connecticut Yankee wants to store its spent nuclear fuel long-term in dry casks on the site. Decommissioning, cleanup and fuel storage are expected to take seven years and cost $500 million. ©2001 MyWay Corp. ***************************************************************** 13 Nuclear Power Looking Better April 25, 2001 WASHINGTON- Nuclear power is making a comeback two decades after the Three Mile Island reactor accident. Soaring natural gas prices, concerns about climate change and fear that California blackouts will spread have made electricity from the atom more attractive, though critics still worry about safety and what to do with radioactive waste. For the first time in decades, there is serious talk about building a new nuclear power plant in the United States. At least one utility has suggested it may submit a license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission within a few years. This stirring of interest for a new reactor "would have been unthinkable even a year ago," says the commission chairman, Richard Meserve, who has directed a task force to examine how to handle a new license application. Not since 1973 has an American utility sought to license and gone on to open a new nuclear power plant. Only a few years ago, industry analysts predicted scores of electric power reactors would be shuttered under the economic pressures of electricity deregulation. Instead, the country's 103 commercial reactors are churning out power at unprecedented efficiency, safety indictors have improved steadily, reactors put up for sale are attracting eager bidders, and the line of applications for 20-year license renewals is growing. Owners of nearly half of the operating plants already have said they will seek extensions when their permits expire. So far, two extensions have been granted. Nuclear power was stunned almost into submission 22 years ago by the Three Mile Island reactor meltdown near Harrisburg, Pa., and was pummeled further a few years later by the Russian disaster at Chernobyl. Since then, it has struggled to keep itself on life-support while designers worked on what they maintain are safer reactor designs. Now it has caught the attention of the Bush administration as the White House maps out a broad energy blueprint to present to Congress. Vice President Dick Cheney, who heads the president's energy task force, has been touting nuclear power as essential to America's energy needs. At least some of the 65 new power plants that need to be built annually to meet future electricity demand "ought to be nuclear," he told an interviewer recently. "It's the only way to deal with the question of global warming," Cheney argues, a theme pushed by the nuclear industry for several years. Without a serious accident in years, nuclear power also is gaining acceptance at the grass roots. Half the people queried in a new Associated Press poll support using reactors to produce electricity, compared with 45 percent just two years ago. And 56 percent of the supporters say they would not mind a nuclear plant within 10 miles of their home. Three in 10 opposed nuclear power; the remainder said they were unsure. What's behind the turnaround? A combination of factors, energy analysts, regulators and utility executives say, including: -The environment. Growing concerns about climate change and the cost of reducing air pollution from coal-burning power plants have made nuclear more attractive to utilities. Reactors emit neither greenhouse gasses nor smog-causing chemicals. -Economics. Reactors have increased their electricity production by 25 percent over the past decade through improved efficiencies. Operating costs have steadily declined to where nuclear-generated electricity is competitive with power from natural gas-fired plants and is not far behind coal in costs. -Safety. While long-term uncertainties about nuclear waste remain, reactors have been free of major accidents and the number of safety-related power plant disruptions has dropped dramatically. In addition, power woes in the West have highlighted the need for new generating plants, even prompting some in the Northwest and California to take a new look at mothballed and unfinished plants. The owners of the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant have suddenly been besieged by companies wanting to buy their 27-year-old reactor. At least nine reactors have been sold in the past two years, many at prices much higher than earlier fire sales. "We are aggressively competing for additional nuclear units wherever they are for sale," says Randy Hutchinson, senior vice president at Entergy Nuclear Inc., a subsidiary of New Orleans-based Entergy Corp., which has bought three reactors in the Northeast and is closing deals on two more. At the same time the industry is consolidating. The number of companies owning nuclear plants has been reduced by half to about two dozen. Eventually there may be fewer than eight, says Hutchinson. Still, industry critics and even some utility executives remain wary. "Nuclear power poses an unacceptable threat to humans and the environment," says Anna Aurilio of the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. She argues that older reactors are deteriorating and that no clear solution has been found for disposing reactor wastes that remain dangerous to health and the environment for tens of thousands of years. Any long-term revival will depend on resolving lingering uncertainties, says John Holdren, a Harvard professor of environmental science and former chairman of the White House science and technology advisory panel in the Clinton administration. "Basically the issues are cost, safety, radioactive waste and nuclear proliferation," says Holdren. If any one of those factors shifts against the industry, nuclear power may again be doomed, he says. On the Net: Nuclear Regulatory Commission: http://www.nrc.gov Nuclear Energy Institute: http://www.nei.org All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 14 Facts About Nuclear Power Plants April 25, 2001 Facts and figures about nuclear power plants: Number: 103 operating nuclear power reactors at 64 plant sites in 31 states. Annual power production: Nuclear accounts for 19.7 percent of all electricity produced, second to coal at 51 percent; 728 billion kilowatts-hours in 1999, compared with 577 billion kilowatt hours in 1990. Reactor History: -First reactor was at Shippingport, Pa., ordered by Duquesne Light in 1954. Began operating in Dec. 2, 1957. No longer operating. -Oldest operating reactor is Oyster Creek, in New Jersey, which began operation in December 1969. -Last reactor to go into operation was Watts Bar Unit I, owned by Tennessee Valley Authority, ordered in 1970. Began operating in May 1996. -Last reactor ordered and built was Callaway near Fulton, Mo., ordered July 1973, It began operating in December 1984. -Last order of a reactor was placed in 1978, but later was canceled. Reactor License Renewals: -Five reactors at two plants (Calvert Cliffs Units 1 &2 in Maryland; Oconee Units 1, 2, 3 in South Carolina) have received 20-year renewal licenses. Owners of five other reactors have filed for renewal. Owners of 32 reactors are expected to file over next four years. New Technology: -Nuclear Regulatory Commission has certified three new light-water reactor designs submitted by General Electric, Westinghouse and Combustion Engineering. -Some U.S. utilities also are looking at a gas cooled, 125-megawatt "Pebble Bed Modular Reactor" design. Plan is for a demonstration project to be completed in South Africa within a year. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 15 Is nuclear power back? Daily Southtown: Serving Chicago area's Southland Natural gas prices, pollution make atomic energy more attractive April 26, 2001* By H. Josef Hebert* The Associated Press* WASHINGTON — Nuclear power is making a comeback two decades after the Three Mile Island reactor accident. Soaring natural gas prices, concerns about climate change and fear that California blackouts will spread have made electricity from the atom more attractive, though critics still worry about safety and what to do with radioactive waste. For the first time in decades, there is serious talk about building a new nuclear power plant in the United States. At least one utility has suggested it may submit a license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission within a few years. This stirring of interest for a new reactor "would have been unthinkable even a year ago," says the commission chairman, Richard Meserve, who has directed a task force to examine how to handle a new license application. Not since 1973 has an American utility sought to license and gone on to open a new nuclear power plant. Only a few years ago, industry analysts predicted scores of electric power reactors would be shuttered under the economic pressures of electricity deregulation. Instead, the country's 103 commercial reactors are churning out power at unprecedented efficiency, safety indictors have improved steadily, reactors put up for sale are attracting eager bidders, and the line of applications for 20-year license renewals is growing. Owners of nearly half of the operating plants already have said they will seek extensions when their permits expire. So far, two extensions have been granted. Nuclear power was stunned almost into submission 22 years ago by the Three Mile Island reactor accident near Harrisburg, Pa., and was pummeled further a few years later by the Russian disaster at Chernobyl. Since then, it has struggled to keep itself on life-support while designers worked on what they maintain are safer reactor designs. Now it has caught the attention of the Bush administration as the White House maps out a broad energy blueprint to present to Congress. Vice President Dick Cheney, who heads the president's energy task force, has been touting nuclear power as essential to America's energy needs. At least some of the 65 new power plants that need to be built annually to meet future electricity demand "ought to be nuclear," he told an interviewer recently. "It's the only way to deal with the question of global warming," Cheney argues, a theme pushed by the nuclear industry for several years. Without a serious accident in years, nuclear power also is gaining acceptance at the grass roots. Half the people queried in a new Associated Press poll support using reactors to produce electricity, compared with 45 percent just two years ago. And 56 percent of the supporters say they would not mind a nuclear plant within 10 miles of their home. Three in 10 opposed nuclear power; the remainder said they were unsure. What's behind the turnaround? A combination of factors, energy analysts, regulators and utility executives say, including: (The environment. Growing concerns about climate change and the cost of reducing air pollution from coal-burning power plants have made nuclear more attractive to utilities. Reactors emit neither greenhouse gasses nor smog-causing chemicals. (Economics. Reactors have increased their electricity production by 25 percent over the past decade through improved efficiencies. Operating costs have steadily declined to where nuclear-generated electricity is competitive with power from natural gas-fired plants and is not far behind coal in costs. (Safety. While long-term uncertainties about nuclear waste remain, reactors have been free of major accidents and the number of safety-related power plant disruptions has dropped dramatically. In addition, power woes in the West have highlighted the need for new generating plants, even prompting some in the Northwest and California to take a new look at mothballed and unfinished plants. The owners of the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant have suddenly been besieged by companies wanting to buy their 27-year-old reactor. At least nine reactors have been sold in the past two years, many at prices much higher than earlier fire sales. "We are aggressively competing for additional nuclear units wherever they are for sale," says Randy Hutchinson, senior vice president at Entergy Nuclear Inc., a subsidiary of New Orleans-based Entergy Corp., which has bought three reactors in the Northeast and is closing deals on two more. At the same time the industry is consolidating. The number of companies owning nuclear plants has been reduced by half to about two dozen. Eventually there may be fewer than eight, says Hutchinson. Still, industry critics and even some utility executives remain wary. "Nuclear power poses an unacceptable threat to humans and the environment," says Anna Aurilio of the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. She argues that older reactors are deteriorating and that no clear solution has been found for disposing reactor wastes that remain dangerous to health and the environment for tens of thousands of years. Any long-term revival will depend on resolving lingering uncertainties, says John Holdren, a Harvard professor of environmental science and former chairman of the White House science and technology advisory panel in the Clinton administration. "Basically the issues are cost, safety, radioactive waste and nuclear proliferation," says Holdren. If any one of those factors shifts against the industry, nuclear power may again be doomed, he says. *© 2001 Associated Press — All rights reserved. This material may ***************************************************************** 16 Opinions: JAY AMBROSE: Think nuclear Copyright © 2001 Nando Media Scripps Howard News Service (April 25, 2001 4:15 p.m. EDT http://www.nandotimes.com) - If on Earth Day you want to embrace a cause that would really make a positive environmental difference, here is what you ought to do. Think nuclear. Many Americans already are on that mental track, it seems. An Associated Press poll shows that half of those queried support nuclear power and that, of those, 56 percent would not object to living within 10 miles of a nuclear plant. The support rate is an improvement of five percentage points over two years ago, and represents a shift possibly occurring just in time. This country is now looking at the need of building 65 power plants a year to keep up with energy demand, and if you did that without including nuclear power, you would pointlessly be emitting huge amounts of gunk in the air. That is what fossil fuels do when burned, of course; they pollute. It's true, as others point out, that coal is not so dirty as it once was and can be made cleaner still through research on new technologies, and it's true that several key sources of energy are crucial to keep this country in economic trim. But nuclear power is now this land's low-cost energy producer and pollutes nary a whit. The problem, of course, is that there have not been any new nuclear plants ordered since 1980 and that the last one was completed in 1996. The public and governmental concern has been safety, but as spokesmen for the nuclear industry point out, no one has ever been killed by radiation exposure in an American plant. In fact, since Three Mile Island (not so horrific an incident as often portrayed), the industry has gotten ever better at safety, just as it has gotten ever better at efficiency. During the 1990s, as industry spokesmen also point out, the nation's 103 plants improved their performance to an extent equal to the addition of 23 plants in the system, thereby meeting one-third of the growth in energy demand during that period. There is a trade-off with the advantages of nuclear power, and that's the disadvantage of disposing of toxic waste. The issue is more political than substantive, though; there are ways of doing this with risk so minimal as to be almost undetectable. Certainly, considering the trade-offs with other energy sources, waste disposal should not be viewed as a negative so great as to justify the government's continued obstructionism in the development of nuclear plants. Not just for the sake of the economy, but for the sake of the environment, Congress should join with the Bush administration to take the guesswork out of a certification process whose standards have been elusive and pointlessly expensive to meet. The earth deserves as much. ***************************************************************** 17 Kerry: Reconsider nuclear power Worcester Telegram &Gazette Online Thursday, April 26, 2001 By John J. Monahan *Telegram & Gazette Staff* BOSTON-- U.S. Sen. John F. Kerry, considered a leading environmental advocate in the Senate, has joined a growing group of leaders who want to reassess the use of nuclear power to solve the nation's energy problems. The Massachusetts Democrat said in an interview this week that the time has come to consider construction of new nuclear power plants to meet future energy needs. “I think we need to push the curve on the waste issue and also on new designs and redundancy” of safety features for nuclear plants, he said. An analysis should be conducted, he said, to weigh the risks and benefits of nuclear power. “Over 50 percent of the power in New England now is provided by nuclear plants, and it is almost 80 percent in Europe,” the senator said. Mr. Kerry said the fact that there still is no permanent storage site for the tons of nuclear waste from existing plants remains a problem. But even so, he said, the fact that nuclear power can be used safely is evident from the record of the U.S. Navy nuclear fleet. “The Navy has had a program for 50 years with guys working 10 feet from reactors and they haven't had problems,” Mr. Kerry said. He also said the overall safety record of nuclear power plants has “gotten much stronger since Three Mile Island.” Use of a deep storage facility for nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, N.M., remains intensely controversial. Melanie M. White, spokeswoman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, predicted yesterday that the issue will be resolved within the next year. Spent fuel is being stored safely at nuclear plants throughout the country and is ready to be shipped to Yucca Mountain, she said. No new nuclear plants have been licensed in the country since the 1979 accident at the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania raised fears of potentially catastrophic reactor core meltdowns. Those fears were compounded by the 1986 international disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in the former Soviet Union. Ms. White said momentum is building for resumption of new nuclear facilities. “We have gotten a lot of new policy support,” she said. A bill proposed last month by Sen. Pete V. Domenici, R-N.M, calls for denoting nuclear power as an “environmentally preferable” power source, and for federal purchasing programs and other steps that would expand the role of nuclear power in the future. Ms. White said further support for nuclear expansion is in a controversial energy bill submitted by Sen. Frank H. Murkowski, R-Alaska. In addition, Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force is expected to recommend construction of more nuclear plants in a report it is to issue in two weeks. Those efforts parallel proposals from the nuclear industry to build a new generation of power plants based on designs approved by the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission to supplement 103 older plants now in operation. They include the Westinghouse 600-megawatt AP600 reactor approved in 1999, that relies on convection flow and gravity to control emergency cooling water, reducing the reliance on pumps, valves and emergency diesel generators to ensure safety. Two other reactors, a 1,350-megawatt Westinghouse design and a 1,350-megawatt General Electric design, were approved by the NRC in 1997 and meet higher safety goals than earlier plants, according to industry officials. Ms. White said construction of nuclear plants should be faster and draw less controversy over siting than in the past. “Chances are they are going to be built on existing sites,” she said. At locations where nuclear plants already exist, she said, power transmission lines already are in place and there should be less “not in my back yard” opposition. She said industry polls show that public opposition to nuclear power has slipped in the last 18 months. An industry-conducted poll taken in October 1999 found that 42 percent of those surveyed agreed that the United States should “definitely build more nuclear energy plants.” That number rose to 66 percent in a national poll taken last month. Thursday, April 26, 2001 ***************************************************************** 18 Nuke bias: whatever you want it to be LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL: OPINION: COLUMN: Steve Sebelius Thursday, April 26, 2001 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal COLUMN: Steve Sebelius Despite a memo that suggested Congress was looking for a quick and cheap way to get the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump approved, an investigation by the Energy Department's inspector general found the underlying scientific inquiry into the site's suitability is sound. So everything will go back to normal, right? Nevada's congressional delegation will go back to arguing on the merits against the dump. The new Yucca Mountain contractor will be careful what it puts into print. The Las Vegas Sun newspaper will banish hysterical nuke stories from its pages. Not a chance. For the congressional delegation, the memo was another excuse to attack the Yucca Mountain process and delay the program, a strategy that's worked amazingly well since Nevada was unfairly singled out in 1987 to be the nation's nuclear dump site. The memo, written by subcontractor JK Research Associates, said in part, "the technical suitability of the site is less of a concern to Congress than the broader issue of whether the nuclear waste problem can be solved at an affordable price in both financial and political terms." Of course, it's true that Congress wants the Yucca issue to go away, and quick. But once Sen. Harry Reid got a copy of the memo, he and the rest of the Nevada delegation -- U.S. Reps. Shelley Berkley and Jim Gibbons, and former U.S. Sen. Richard Bryan -- demanded an investigation. That investigation called the JK Research Associates memo "inappropriate" and said it made premature conclusions, but found no evidence of bias in the underlying study. Not many people thought the investigation would turn up a widespread conspiracy between the government, the nuclear waste industry and Yucca contractors to move the dump along. But it's not unreasonable to draw the inference: Nuclear plant owners want to get rid of their waste, the Energy Department is tasked with the job, and the contractors were hired to decide whether Yucca is the place. But those suspicions just haven't been justified. (Even a whistleblower who sent an anonymous letter to Reid and Berkley could complain only of huge cost overruns, big travel budgets and incompetent management.) In reality, Nevada's politicians themselves are more than willing to ignore the science in favor of a predetermined outlook on Yucca Mountain. If the science is sound, would they then support the dump? Ask them, and you'll usually get an honest no, which is fair enough, since nobody who lives here wants a nuke dump just up the road. But let's not pretend that we're interested in the integrity of the process, then, and frankly admit that calling for an investigation is just another delaying tactic in a political battle. Speaking of investigations, on Wednesday, Nevada's delegation sent a letter to the General Accounting Office, asking for a review of the DOE's probe, as well as an inquiry into missing e-mails that may have hindered the inspector general's investigators. (The General Accounting Office is already conducting a separate inquiry into mismanagement at Yucca Mountain.) And if that investigation doesn't turn out the way Nevada expects, why not call for another investigation after that? It would be ridiculous to say that there is no bias in the Yucca saga. In fact, bias undergirds the entire process. But it's not the back-room, missing-e-mail, X-Files kind of bias. Back in 1987, in front of the whole world, the Congress named Nevada as the exclusive site for a nuke dump. It was called the "Screw Nevada" bill, and that's about as apt a description as any. But today, as the legitimate debate over the science of nuclear waste disposal continues, there's no official evidence that anyone is playing fast and loose with the facts. And given all the weight lined up on the other side -- President George W. Bush in the White House, thanks in significant part to nuclear industry contributions; an energy crisis that has everyone taking a long second look at nuclear power; and lawmakers from dozens of other states facing down growing piles of waste in their backyards -- it's more than likely that the bias of 1987 will be realized in a operational nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain. Steve Sebelius is a Review-Journal political columnist. His column runs Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. Reach him at 383-0283 or by e-mail at Steve_Sebelius@lvrj.com. ***************************************************************** 19 American Ecology Corporation Announces Nuclear Contracts Thursday April 26, 6:00 am Eastern Time Press Release Tennessee Subsidiary Receives Three Long-term Contracts to Serve 25 Nuclear Power Plants BOISE, Idaho--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 26, 2001--Jack Lemley, Chairman, President, and CEO of Boise, Idaho based American Ecology Corporation (Nasdaq:ECOL - news), today announced the award of three long-term service contracts to its subsidiary in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The contracts establish pricing terms for the transportation, processing and disposal of low-level radioactive waste materials from 25 commercial nuclear power plants. The contracts are expected to produce revenues of at least $6 million over the next three years. ``These contracts demonstrate the confidence placed in our Oak Ridge operation by the electric utility industry,'' Lemley stated, adding ``We are very pleased to win these three contracts, which are an important component of our strategy to achieve long-term profitability at the Oak Ridge facility.'' Exelon Corporation awarded the Oak Ridge facility a three-year comprehensive service contract for all 19 of its operating nuclear power plants in Illinois, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. First Energy Nuclear Operating Company also awarded the Oak Ridge facility a three-year contract for its four nuclear power units in Ohio and western Pennsylvania. Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation awarded the Oak Ridge facility a two-year service contract, with a one-year extension option, to transport, process and dispose of contaminated metals from its two-unit nuclear power station in Oswego, NY. American Ecology Corporation, through its subsidiaries, provides a variety of radioactive, PCB, hazardous and non-hazardous waste services to commercial and government customers throughout the United States, such as nuclear power plants, medical and academic institutions and petro-chemical facilities. Headquartered in Boise, Idaho, the Company is the oldest radioactive and hazardous waste services Company in the United States. This press release contains forward-looking statements that are based on our current expectations, beliefs, and assumptions about the industry and markets in which American Ecology Corporation and its subsidiaries operate. Actual results may differ materially from what is expressed in these forward-looking statements and there can be no assurance that work orders received under the contracts will contribute to earnings for the Company, or that the Company will receive additional work orders. American Ecology has no duty or obligation to update any forward-looking statement made herein. Please refer to American Ecology Corporation's most recent quarterly and annual reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. *Contact:* American Ecology Corporation Stephen Romano, 208/331-8400 info@americanecology.com www.americanecology.com ***************************************************************** 20 Diablo Canyon nuclear plant offline for refueling *Posted at 10:58 a.m. PDT Wednesday, April 25, 2001, in the Contra Costa Newspapers * BAY CITY NEWS SERVICE PG&E says that Unit 2 of Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant will be closed for refueling and maintenance work starting Sunday, taking 1,100 megawatts out of the already stressed electricity grid. But the 35-day task, according to the utility, is unavoidable in order to help ensure that the unit will work through the summer months when electricity demand is high. Refueling and maintenance periods take about a month, but snags can be discovered during inspections that can lengthen the process, according to PG. This outage has been scheduled for more than a year, according to utility officials. Unit 1 of the plant, which also generates 1,100 megawatts, is to function at full capacity while Unit 2 is down, the utility said. "The California Independent System Operator was notified in December of 1999 of this planned refueling outage and is responsible for securing additional generation," PG&E said in a prepared statement. Diablo Canyon is a baseline producer, and generates power continuously -- enough for about 2 million homes when in full operation. Refueling and maintenance outages are scheduled years in advance to match useful life of the radioactive fuel, which decays over time and must be replaced through very detailed methods because spent fuel is still highly radioactive, according to information from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The utility says operators try to schedule refueling outages more conveniently for users, outside of the peak summer electricity demand periods. This maintenance outage was originally scheduled to begin May 6 but was moved to an earlier date in order to return the unit to service prior to the month of June, when warm weather is expected, according to PG&E. Each of Diablo Canyon's units is on an approximate 19 to 21 month refueling cycle schedule. The last refueling outage for Unit 2 was completed on Oct. 29, 1999 and lasted almost 32 days. For Unit 1, the most recent refueling outage was completed in November last year. In addition to refueling the reactor, numerous maintenance activities and testing required by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission are performed, PG said. "These activities typically cannot be done while the unit is operating, but are necessary to help ensure safe and long-term reliable operation of the unit and minimize the possibility of having to shut it down mid-cycle to make repairs," said PG&E. ***************************************************************** 21 Vermont Yankee nuke to shut Fri for 3-4 wk refuel Wednesday April 25, 1:10 pm Eastern Time Vermont Yankee nuke to shut Fri for 3-4 wk refuel NEW YORK, April 25 (Reuters) - Vermont Yankee Nuclear Corp. said Wednesday its 510-megawatt Vermont Yankee nuclear unit will shut early Friday morning for scheduled refueling. ``We're scheduled to start ramping down sometime on Thursday and shut at about 4 a.m. EDT on Friday,'' a spokesman for Vermont Yankee told Reuters. The outage was expected to take about three to four weeks, the spokesman added. The station is located in Vernon, Vt. Vermont Yankee Nuclear operates the plant for a consortium of New England energy companies. The owners are Central Vermont Public Service Corp. (NYSE:CV - news) (30 percent), National Grid Group Plc's (*quote from Yahoo! UK & Ireland*: NGG.L) New England Power (18), Montaup Electric (2) and Newport Electric (1), Green Mountain Power Corp. (NYSE:GMP - news) (17), Northeast Utilities' (NYSE:NU - news) Connecticut Light &Power (8), Public Service of New Hampshire (4) and Western Massachusetts Electric (2), the Vermont Group (7), other municipal and co-ops (5), Energy East Corp.'s (NYSE:EAS - news) Central Maine Power (4) and NSTAR's (NYSE:NST - news) Cambridge Electric Light (2). In March, Vermont Yankee Nuclear hired J.P. Morgan Chase &Co Inc. (NYSE:JPM - news) as a financial advisor for a planned late spring auction of the station. --Scott DiSavino, New York Power Desk, +212-859-1622, fax +212-859-1758, e-mail scott.disavino@reuters.com ***************************************************************** 22 IEER Op-Ed: Scrap plans for fast breeder reactor By Arjun Makhijani* This op-ed appeared in *The Hindu*on 25 April 2001 The Indian nuclear power establishment seems to have a love affair with the uneconomic, polluting, obsolete, dangerous, and costly parts of nuclear technology. First, it was boiling water reactors (BWRs) at Tarapur, which emit far more routine radioactivity than pressurised water reactors (PWRs). India also went in for CANDU reactors, which emit far more radioactive hydrogen (tritium) in the form of water vapour than BWRs or PWRs. The human body cannot distinguish between radioactive and ordinary water. As a result, tritiated water can cross the placenta and affect foetuses. It can also affect sperm. As a result, it can cause miscarriages and birth defects. When India decided to buy PWRs, it settled on the obsolete Russian design, the VVER-1000, which is not up to international safety standards, according to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. This design will no longer be built even in Russia. And now, the worst decision of all, the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) wants to build a large, 500 MW-electrical, sodium-cooled Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor at Kalpakkam. This general design of sodium-cooled fast breeder reactor was at the heart of the propaganda in the West during the 1950s that nuclear power would provide a ``magical energy source'' and end the world's energy troubles. Like so many other nuclear promises, it hasn't quite turned out that way. Let us examine the record. More than $20 billion (all costs in constant 2000 year dollars or rupees) have been spent worldwide on building 11 plants bigger than 100 megawatts-thermal. One of these, the Kalkar reactor in Germany, completed in 1991, was never opened, because of concerns regarding accidental explosions. (Unlike water moderated reactors, sodium-cooled fast breeders can explode due to an accidental nuclear criticality.) Six of the other 10 are shut, including the latest one to come on line, the Japanese Monju reactor. It went critical in 1994. It was shut down in December 1995, when it had a secondary loop sodium fire. It remains shut. Two of the remaining four, Phenix in France, and BN-350 in Kazakhstan are due to be shut in the next few years. Of the other two, the Joyo reactor in Japan is more of a pilot plant, being only about 100 megawatts-thermal. Only Russia has a large breeder reactor that it plans to operate into the next decade. But it uses medium-enriched uranium fuel and has used plutonium fuel only on an experimental basis. Fuelling a fast breeder reactor with plutonium would require routine operation of a reprocessing plant that could handle large amounts of spent fuel with high plutonium concentrations. The operation of reprocessing plants is a costly and dirty business, even when they have less than one per cent plutonium, as is typical of spent fuel from current commercial reactors. The only two large-scale commercial reprocessing plants now routinely operating are in Britain and France. Both are uneconomical. The plants are so polluting that several western European Union countries have called for their closure. Finally, the question of cost of electricity. Overall, the operating record of these reactors is indifferent. A few have operated reliably. Most have operated at medium to low capacity factors. This means that even if the construction cost would be as low as the DAE's estimate of Rs. 3,000 crores, the risk of electricity costs being in the Rs. 5 to 10 per kilowatt hour range is high. This is comparable to what Maharashtra pays Enron from Phase I of that project. The real costs could easily be higher, since the DAE's cost estimate is too low. The cheapest plant that has come on line since 1980 is the Russian BN-600, which is about one-third more costly per megawatt than the DAE's estimate for Kalpakkam. If the latest U.S. reactor, which went on line in 1980, is used as the benchmark, Kalpakkam would cost Rs. 22,000 crores. If the Japanese reactor Monju (1994) is used as the benchmark, the capital cost would shoot up to Rs. 46,000 crores. This enormous variation in capital cost is one sure sign of an immature, and hence an economically very risky technology. At the higher end of these costs, the wholesale electricity price could range from Rs. 9 to over Rs. 50 per unit, depending on whether plant performance was sound or poor. India needs reliable electricity at reasonable cost. India has the technical capability to be at the leading edge of technology, which is in areas like distributed grids (which mix centralised and small scale plants in the same grid) and fuel cells. Even offshore wind power plants are now far cheaper than breeder reactors. When India has decided to innovate boldly, it has succeeded, as in the information technology sector. But in power, it continues to look to obsolete, costly, polluting, and/or dangerous technologies. The proposed Kalpakkam breeder reactor project should be scrapped without further ado. *The writer is president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research in Takoma Park, Maryland, U.S. Institute for Energy and Environmental Research Comments to Outreach Coordinator: ieer@ieer.org Takoma Park, Maryland, USA *Posted April 25, 2001* ***************************************************************** 23 Nuclear Fuel Waste Legislation Announced [Canadian Corporate News] Story Filed: Wednesday, April 25, 2001 4:18 PM EST OTTAWA, ONTARIO, APR 25, 2001 (CCN Newswire via COMTEX) -- The Government of Canada today took a major step forward in dealing with nuclear fuel waste in Canada. In the House of Commons today, Ralph Goodale, Minister of Natural Resources Canada (NRCan), introduced legislation for the long-term management of nuclear fuel waste. "This legislation is the culmination of many years of research, environmental assessments and discussions with stakeholders and the public," said Minister Goodale. "Together with the existing Nuclear Safety and Control Act, the legislation would ensure that the long-term management of nuclear fuel waste would be carried out in the best interests of Canadians in a safe, environmentally sound, comprehensive, cost-effective and integrated manner." The legislation, called An Act Respecting the Long-Term Management of Nuclear Fuel Waste, is a key part of the Government of Canada's strategy on nuclear fuel waste management that was developed following extensive consultations with the public, provincial governments, waste owners and other interested parties. The legislation calls for nuclear utilities to form a waste management organization that would report regularly to the Government of Canada. This organization would provide recommendations to the Government on the long-term management of nuclear fuel waste. The legislation would also require that the utilities establish a trust fund to finance implementation of the approach, which would ensure that Canadian taxpayers are not exposed to this financial liability over the long term. "This will add to Canada's ability to deal responsibly with nuclear waste," said Minister Goodale. "Canadians want a solution to this issue and are looking to the Government to establish a clear, fair and comprehensive strategy to make effective progress. This legislation would do that and set the course for years to come." The announcement builds on the Government's Response to the Nuclear Fuel Waste and Disposal Concept Environmental Assessment Panel. Also known as the Seaborn Panel, it called for, among other things, clear policy direction from the Government. This legislation would clearly demonstrate to the public, the nuclear utilities, and the provinces, that the Government of Canada is committed to overseeing nuclear fuel waste management, including disposal, in the long-term best interests of Canadians. NRCan's news releases and backgrounders are available on the Internet at http://www.nrcan.gc.ca. CONTACT: Natural Resources Canada Pat Breton Press Secretary (613) 996-2007 Internet: http://www.nrcan.gc.ca Copyright (C) 2001, Canadian Corporate News. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 24 UPDATE - Japan village to hold referendum on nuclear fuel JAPAN: April 26, 2001 TOKYO - Amid mounting anti-nuclear feeling in Japan, a northern village will hold a rare referendum next month to decide on the use of recycled nuclear fuel in a local power plant, a local official said yesterday. The vote, which will not be legally binding, will be held on May 27 and will address whether Japan's largest power utility, Tokyo Electric Power Co Inc (TEPCO) , should be allowed to use the fuel at its Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant in Kariwa on the Sea of Japan coast, the official said. Village leader Hiroo Shinada took the decision to hold the referendum for Kariwa's 4,141 eligible voters, the official said. "I believe Mr Shinada made the decision to hold the referendum after giving the matter very serious thought," TEPCO President Nobuya Minami said in a statement. "TEPCO will... put all its efforts into gaining understanding for... the fuel." The use of MOX - a blend of uranium and plutonium recycled from spent nuclear fuel - in conventional reactors is a cornerstone of Japan's energy policy. The resource-poor country depends on nuclear energy for a third of its power needs. Anti-nuclear campaigners say TEPCO would find it difficult to ignore the result of the vote even if it is not binding. "If the majority vote against the use of MOX, the power company can hardly take a step that goes against their wishes," said Baku Nishio of the Citizens Nuclear Information Centre. The referendum itself indicated that there is probably widespread opposition to the use of the nuclear fuel, he said. Rising public pressure has left the industry behind schedule in plans to begin commercial use of MOX, initially set for 1999. Critics charge that Mox fuel is dangerous and does not make economic sense because it is more expensive than conventional nuclear fuel. A string of nuclear accidents in recent years has bolstered their cause and seriously eroded public faith in Japan's nuclear industry. TEPCO had aimed to load the fuel at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant's 1,100 megawatt (MW) No 3 reactor during a maintenance closure between April 17 and July 13. A spokesman said a final decision on whether to load MOX fuel or conventional nuclear fuel would be made by mid-June. Last week, TEPCO said it had decided not to load MOX fuel at its Fukushima No 1 nuclear power plant in northern Japan during a current maintenance closure. In February, the Fukushima governor said he would not allow the use of the fuel, noting deep-seated public opposition. DEEPSEATED PUBLIC DISTRUST Japan's worst nuclear accident occurred on September 1999 at a uranium processing facility run by JCO Co Ltd in Tokaimura, 140 km (90 miles) northeast of Tokyo, exposing plant workers, emergency personnel and hundreds of residents to radiation. Workers at the plant used a bucket to mistakenly load nearly eight times the safe amount of condensed uranium into a mixing tank, triggering a self-sustaining nuclear reaction that took 20 hours to bring under control. Two workers later died. Even before the Tokaimura accident, public distrust in the nuclear industry was rife. Japan held its first-ever referendum, in August 1996, on whether to allow construction of a nuclear power plant in the small coastal farming town of Maki in northern Japan. The town's 23,000 people voted overwhelmingly against Tohoku Electric Power Co Inc's plan to build the 825 MW plant. Tohoku Electric vowed at the time to forge ahead with the plan. But a spokesman for the utility, Japan's fourth-largest, said yesterday it had decided last year to postpone commercial operation of the plant until the business year 2012/13. He cited the company's failure to acquire all the land it needed for the plant as a reason. Tohoku Electric has 96 percent of the required land, no more than it had in 1996, he said. "We also believe we need more time to win the understanding of local people," he added. Since the vote in Maki, more referendums have been held. Last year, residents in Tokushima Prefecture, on western Shikoku island, rejected a dam in the first referendum ever held on a public works project. "The referendum provides a means for local people to express their views, and as such it is important," Ban said. Story by Miho Yoshikawa REUTERS NEWS SERVICE ***************************************************************** 25 Atomic Waste Rolls Into France April 25, 2001 WOERTH, Germany (AP) - Thousands of police prevented demonstrators from blocking a train carrying nuclear waste on Wednesday, escorting the train into France on its way to Britain for reprocessing. The train, carrying five containers of spent fuel rods from two southern German nuclear plants, crossed the border near the German town of Woerth in the early evening. The containers are to be taken to the port of Dunkirk overnight, where French environmentalists said they would continue the demonstrations. In Germany, police deployed at least 4,500 officers to prevent any repeat of the massive protests which last month held up by almost a day a shipment of reprocessed waste returning from France. About 20 people were taken into temporary custody near the border Wednesday, but police said there were no major incidents. The day before, police detained 68 activists after a sit-down protest near the Neckarwestheim power plant where most of the waste originated. They have been released. Germany halted all nuclear shipments in 1998 after it emerged that radioactive emissions from the special containers had been exceeding safety limits. It also suspended dealings with the British plant last year in the wake of a scandal over fake records. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 26 Sellafield braces for nuclear waste protest UPI News Article: Wednesday, 25 April 2001 19:04 (ET) LONDON, April 25 (UPI) -- Britain's controversy-ridden nuclear waste reprocessing plant at Sellafield in northern England prepared Wednesday to receive the first shipment of spent fuel from Germany in three years amid tough security precautions against protesters. Earlier in the day a train carrying five caskets of the radioactive waste left Germany, where its progress was briefly interrupted by anti-nuclear demonstrators, and arrived in France before the cargo was due to be put aboard a customized British vessel, European Shearwater. More than 70 protesters who were detained by German police while trying to stop the shipment were released without charge. Smaller protests took place at the Franco-German border town of Woerth. Suzanne Ochse, a Greenpeace campaigner based in Hamburg, told United Press International the German power generation plants were sending their waste to Sellafield for disposal because they hoped it would be cheaper than other means. "But it would be cheaper not to do it," she said, adding the environmental campaigners hoped to make the whole exercise a lot more expensive. A spokesman for British Nuclear Fuels Limited, the state-controlled operators of the Sellafield plant, denied the facility was unsafe. "Sellafield is highly regulated and in the clear," he told United Press International. The plant went through rigorous independent checks last year after a scandal over lax nuclear safety measures and the discovery of falsified records that led to a purge of its top officers, he said. Campaigners are unconvinced about Sellafield's safety and point out that Ireland and northern European governments that are concerned over nuclear contamination of the Irish Sea continue to press for its closure. The BNFL spokesman said the shipment in transit would be the first of several from Germany, one of the largest customers for the Sellafield plant. Reprocessing of nuclear fuel from power generation plants earns Britain hundreds of millions of dollars a year, and Germany accounts for 10 percent of Sellafield business. The waste transfer was seen by industry experts as a new lease of life for the Sellafield plant, which was prosecuted twice last year for alleged breaches of safety rules. Germany suspended its waste shipments to Sellafield in 1998 after a radioactive safety alert. Both Britain and Germany have made pledges to minimize contamination risks, but neither has responded to calls to do it sooner. Britain wants to end nuclear reprocessing, but no sooner than 2005, and Germany says it wants to shut down its 19 nuclear power reactors within 30 years, not as quickly as environmentalists want. Further controversy centers on differing versions of what is intended. British Nuclear Fuels said the plutonium extracted by reprocessing would be "stored safely and securely at Sellafield for future customer use." But German power plant operators have said they are not sure if they want to take the product back. Greenpeace campaigners say almost 1,000 tons of German nuclear waste -- about 200 flasks -- are due to be delivered to Sellafield over the next four years. "With every gram of nuclear waste that leaves Germany for Sellafield," said Greenpeace nuclear campaigner Pete Roche "the Irish Sea becomes a bit more heavily radioactively contaminated." He said the Sellafield plant was one of the largest sources of radioactive emissions into the environment in the whole of Europe. "The public must feel they've been taken for a ride," he said. "The German government says it is opposed to reprocessing, and wants to see an end to discharges of radioactive waste into the Irish Sea from Sellafield, yet now here they are giving two fingers to the Irish and Scandinavian countries that suffer from the pollution, as well as the British public." The campaigners say Sellafield's nuclear waste pipe discharges daily around 2 million gallons of nuclear waste into the Irish Sea. The BNFL spokesman said there was "no evidence" to support claims the plant was a risk to human health. "Quite a number of studies have concluded that Sellafield workers are healthier than the general population," he said. The Sellafield complex employs about 10,000 people in its various operations. Copyright 2001 by United Press International. ***************************************************************** 27 Nuclear's comeback Economist.com Apr 25th 2001 From The Economist Global Agenda Fifteen years after Chernobyl, rising energy prices, worries about global warming and improved technology are combining to revive interest in the once-vilified nuclear industry APRIL 26th 1986 was the day when nuclear power seemed to die. Once considered the energy of the future, promising virtually unlimited amounts of clean power at low cost, nuclears attraction was seriously tarnished by a well-publicised, though relatively minor, accident at the Three Mile Island plant on Americas east coast in 1979. After that scare, public opposition grew, but it never quite stopped the building of new plants. But then when a reactor at the nuclear power plant at Chernobyl in the southern Ukraine blew up seven years after Three Mile Island, exposing millions of people across Europe to radiation, the nuclear dream seemed well and truly over. Plans for new nuclear reactors were shelved all over the world. Now fifteen years after the Chernobyl disaster, attitudes toward nuclear energy are shifting again. This is happening for a variety of reasons. Prices for natural gas are going up even while demand for energy keeps rising. According to estimates by the United Nations, energy consumption worldwide could double in the next fifty years. Nuclear energy is coming to seem, once again, as relatively cheap, although the initial costs of setting up a nuclear plant are very high and it can take years until a plant is operational. The nuclear industry itselfwhich has continued to operate although new plant construction has virtually stoppedhas improved its case by showing that it can operate more safely and efficiently. And, perhaps most important of all, the growing concern about global warming has made nuclear seem much more attractive. Unlike fossil fuelsoil, gas and coalnuclear energy does not produce any greenhouse-gas emissions. The greatest shift in attitudes towards nuclear may be occurring in the United States. The celebrity-studded anti-nuclear movement is still going strong, but Jane Fonda and her comrades are less combative than their peers in, say, Germany. Only last month Germans staged one of the biggest nuclear protests in years in an attempt to stop a cargo of reprocessed waste going from France to Gorleben, a town in southern Germany. This week German activists tried to stop a lorry carrying nuclear waste from southern Germany to Sellafield in England. Three Mile Island's unloved towers America had been one of the earliest and most enthusiastic supporters of nuclear power, but also one of the first to react to public fears about the safety of nuclear plants. Today home to about a quarter of some 440 nuclear plants worldwide, the US stopped building new nuclear plants altogether after Three Mile Island. Many of its existing plants' 40-year operating licenses are now beginning to expire. Until recently few expected these licenses to be renewed. This now looks much more likely. One big factor behind the change is Californias current energy crisis, which has highlighted Americas ever-increasing demand for electricity. America's consumption of electricity has increased by more than 50% over the past two decades. So far most of the increased demand has been met with natural gas and coal. But California's recent blackouts have persuaded many people that other sorts of energies need to be tapped as well. Partly due to a botched deregulation of the power sector, the state has endured a series of blackouts since last December that have already cost businesses vast sums of money and humiliated a state which sees itself as the high-tech centre of the world. California brought energy policy back into the headlines, but Mr Bushs administration has been busily remaking that policy in any case. Mr Bush controversially abandoned restrictions on carbon-dioxide emissions, which he had pledged to maintain during the presidential campaign, soon after coming into office, and he has turned his back on the Kyoto Protocol, a United Nations treaty that obliges industrialised countries to curb their emissions of greenhouse gases. He has also announced an intensified exploitation in America of oil and natural gas, the principal sources of such emissions, and slashed the budget for research into renewable energy (solar, wind, geothermal and biomass). Finally, he put Dick Cheney, the vice president, in charge of a cabinet-task force to work out a comprehensive energy policy to be presented in May. These moves were perhaps not too surprising coming from an administration led by two former oil-industry executives (Mr Bush and Mr Cheney have both worked for oil companies). And they have just as predictably enraged environmentalists, who may mount a stiff rearguard battle against them. But the one surprising move by the administration, given its oil-industry background, is its newfound interest in nuclear, once seen as the rival to oil and natural gas. With energy shortages looming, such rivalry no longer seems to matter much. Mr Cheney recently came out in favour of building new nuclear reactors, and nuclear energy is likely to play a role in any recommendations his task force makes in May. America is not the only place where interest in nuclear has revived. Like the US, Russia is plagued by energy shortages but when it comes to nuclear it has always suffered from fewer scruples. Now it too wants to expand nuclear energy output dramatically. Bulat Nigmatulin, Russia's deputy minister of atomic energy, recently warned that Russia would face severe energy shortages if it did not complete five nuclear reactors that have been under construction for more than a decade by 2005 and did not build 25 new ones over the next 20 years. Dwindling coal and gas reserves and rising demand for electricity in Russia's western regions gave the government no choice but to increase its reliance on nuclear energy, claimed Mr Nigmutalin. Russia already operates 29 reactors, with nuclear power providing 12% of the country's energy. Is a revival of nuclear energy wise? Catastrophes can be cathartic. After the shock of Chernobyl, international organisations and the nuclear industry bent over backwards to improve safety and efficiency. The World Association of Nuclear Operators, national nuclear regulators and the International Atomic Energy Agency started to co-operate more closely to improve international safety-standards. In particular, American owners of nuclear plants have raised standards. And American nuclear plants have increased their output by a quarter over the past decade by raising their operating efficiency. Almost all nuclear plants that are today operational in 31 countries have similarly improved with the exception of some Chernobyl-type reactors in the former Soviet Union. These remain dangerous, and should be shut down as soon as alternative sources of energy can be supplied, or even before. One big reactor accident could yet wipe out nuclear's new credibility. Most of the public remains wary. Undaunted Taiwan keeps on building And there are still real difficulties. It is still not clear how most nuclear plants will be decommissioned when they can no longer be operated. Parts of them remain radioactive virtually forever. And yet a solution for even this may be within sight. Nuclear wastes can be turned into inert glass and disposed permanently in salt deposits that have been stable for millions of years. Mr Bush is expected to approve later this year, over stiff local opposition, a plan to store radioactive waste in an underground site at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. Yet the nuclear industry's best friend is global warming. Most climate scientists agree now that global warming, principally caused by carbon-dioxide emissions, is real and that global warming could have serious, if not catastrophic, climatic consequences. So far, nuclear power is the only alternative to fossil fuels that could produce enough energy to make a difference in the level of emissions. Ironically, if Mr Bush is to support his vice president in his advocacy of nuclear power, he may end up doing what crusaders for Kyoto wanted him to do, namely to reduce considerably Americas emissions. But dont expect the environmentalists to be pleased. Despite their concern about climate change, they remain among the most fervent opponents of nuclear energy. © Copyright 2001 The Economist Newspaper Limited. All rights ***************************************************************** 28 Sellafield Campaigners Head Home The Whitehaven News Thursday, April 26, 2001 NORWEGIAN anti-nuclear campaigners who anchored near Sellafield last week say they plan to return to the area and continue their campaign. The group, called Neptun, claim Sellafield poses a threat to fish farms in Norway and wants to see the plant closed. Neptun hired a trawler so its divers could try and take samples from Sellafield waste water pipes on the sea bed. The boat, Genius, then sailed into Whitehaven harbour on Friday, before re-turning to Norway. Andreas Dalen, of Neptun, said: "We do not think we can block the pipeline. That needs a bigger ship.'' He said they needed to organise a remote-controlled machine which could get close to the outfall pipe and obtain samples. Mr Dalen explained why people had donated money to Neptun to carry out its work. "What concerns the people in Norway is the potential impact on our fishing and fish farming industry. "Radioactive technetium does not settle in the sediment, it circulates in sea currents and is now reaching Norway. There is no health risk yet, but it is a big worry to our fish farmers and fishing industry. "Thanks to oil revenues people in Norway have good incomes and they are prepared to spend to try and stop Sellafield.'' Sellafield spokesman Nigel Monkton said: "We do discharge technetium periodically from our magnox reprocessing, but there are no adverse health effects from these discharges, which are all licensed.'' ***************************************************************** 29 Chewing Gum Man Wins Back BNFL Job The Whitehaven News Thursday, April 26, 2001 A SELLAFIELD worker sacked by BNFL for chewing gum in one of the site's "active" areas won his job back hours before his wedding. The young process worker from Mirehouse got married last Saturday - 48 hours after hearing that his appeal against dismissal had been upheld. He is on honeymoon this week but before he returns to work next Monday union officials hope to have fixed a meeting with management to try and prevent any repeat of the situation. Shop stewards were so incensed by the severity of the punishment that they were ready to hold an industrial action ballot if the sacking was not lifted. GMB convenor John Kane said there was no longer any question of the ballot taking place. "The disciplinary panel accepted it was not a malicious act or a dismissable offence," he said. "We must have clear and fair treatment for all which was not the case here. "It is right that this man has got his job back but he should not have been sacked in the first place. "We are now going to have a meeting with management to clarify and iron out the issues." Eating and drinking in a Sellafield active area is not allowed and the rule extends to chewing gum. The process worker concerned was found chewing as he entered the fuel-handling plant on reporting for work. He was charged with the offence, despite giving what work colleagues and union officials thought was a fair explanation ***************************************************************** 30 Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster Marked April 26, 2001 KIEV, Ukraine- With prayers and flickering candles, people across the former Soviet Union honored those killed and sickened 15 years ago by the world's worst nuclear disaster at Ukraine's Chernobyl power plant. In Moscow, hundreds of people mourned firefighters who died after the radioactive explosion and were buried in radiation-proof coffins. In Kiev, hundreds more people attended an overnight memorial service at a chapel built to commemorate the disaster. The scene was repeated in the Belarusian capital and in Slavutych, a town of Chernobyl workers close to the plant. In Rome, Pope John Paul II prayed for the victims. The pope is scheduled to visit Ukraine in June. The April 26, 1986, explosion and fire sent a radioactive cloud over much of Europe and contaminated large areas in then-Soviet Ukraine, Russia and Belarus. The Ukrainian government says more than 4,000 people involved in the hasty and poorly organized Soviet cleanup effort have died, and that more than 70,000 Ukrainians were disabled by the disaster. In all, 7 million people in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine are estimated to suffer physical or psychological effects of radiation related to the Chernobyl catastrophe. At the chapel in Kiev, mourners held burning candles as priests prayed for the dead. The chapel bell rang shortly after 1 a.m., the time the reactor exploded. Some in the crowd broke into tears. Early Wednesday, Ukrainian leaders laid wreaths at a monument to firefighters and emergency workers next to the chapel. A similar service was held in Slavutych, where President Leonid Kuchma said the disaster continues to hobble Ukraine's development. "Human calamities and problems born by the disaster remain," Kuchma said. "For 15 years, Ukraine has born the cross of Chernobyl practically alone, we had to do everything on our own in unfavorable economic conditions." In the Vatican, the pope prayed for the Chernobyl victims at a service attended by Ukrainian children. At Moscow's Mitino cemetery, hundreds of relatives and friends paid tribute to dead firefighters. "We have come here for 15 years and I will come with my husband as long as we have our health," said Valentyna Lopatiuk, whose son was a Chernobyl firefighter. In neighboring Belarus, thousands of people turned out for an evening rally in the capital, Minsk, to commemorate the tragedy. Following the explosion, other reactors at Chernobyl continued operating until shutting down in December under intense international pressure. At the plant itself, workers still monitor the now-idle reactors, and they are building a heating plant and facilities for nuclear waste disposal and reprocessing. They are also involved in a $758 million, internationally funded project to repair the leaky concrete and steel sarcophagus over the ruined reactor. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 31 Post-Soviet Leaders Seek Remedies for Chernobyl Story Filed: Thursday, April 26, 2001 2:27 PM EST BABCHIN, Belarus (Reuters) - Leaders of ex-Soviet republics hit by the Chernobyl disaster marked Thursday's 15th anniversary of the world's worst nuclear accident with anger at the West's past failure to help and pleas for investment to build a better future. Ukraine and Belarus both accused the West of failing to provide promised funds to clean up the contamination which devastated large stretches of their countries and pondered new ways of raising funds. It was the first time the anniversary of the blast had been marked since the last working reactor at the station in Ukraine was shut down last December under Western pressure. Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko, donning fatigues to tour the 30-km (18-mile) exclusion zone still ringing the station, held out to foreign investors the lure of big tax breaks if they launched business projects in affected areas. ``Those who invest in these areas will reap huge benefits from us as they do in free economic zones. I believe investors will come,'' Lukashenko told reporters gathered in a field. He accused the West of abandoning Belarus, Ukraine's northern neighbor, to cope on its own with the contamination covering one-fifth of its territory. ``The capitalists and the leadership of those states are fat, wealthy and don't care. They don't give a damn about how the Belarussian people live,'' he said. In Minsk, about 3,000 opposition demonstrators staged their traditional anniversary march -- deliberately combined with denunciations of Lukashenko. Some wore gas masks or white head bands and called for the removal of Lukashenko, accused in the West of limiting human rights. He faces re-election this year. In Ukraine, processions were pre-empted by a 15,000-strong demonstration in support of Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko -- dismissed by a parliamentary vote. Protests in recent months have also called for President Leonid Kuchma's resignation over the unexplained murder of a journalist. PRESIDENT SAYS UKRAINE ON ITS OWN Kuchma told a gathering outside the stricken station, where 9,000 staff still carry out maintenance, that the West had never made good on promises of millions of dollars of aid. ``Ukraine has borne its Chernobyl cross practically on its own for 15 years in the most unfavorable economic conditions,'' he said. ``Only together can we overcome the consequences of the terrible Chernobyl tragedy, help all who suffered and secure the future of new generations.'' The explosion on April 26, 1986 destroyed the station's fourth reactor and spewed radioactivity over most of Europe. The blast produced radiation levels hundreds of times those unleashed by the U.S. atomic bomb at Hiroshima in 1945. About 30 people died in the immediate aftermath of the blast and thousands over the succeeding years, including large numbers of ``liquidators'' drafted in with a minimum of equipment to fight the blaze and erect a concrete ``sarcophagus'' around the reactor. Hundreds of thousands were relocated, sometimes more than once, but vast numbers still live in affected areas. Tens of thousands remain affected by radiation-related diseases, among them post-Chernobyl children. The disaster halted the Soviet Union's plans to expand the nuclear industry and the collapse of the Soviet Union five years later sharply cut aid to affected areas. Russia's first new post-Soviet reactor is to go on stream later this year. Russia, also badly affected by the disaster, marked the day with a ceremony at a cemetery outside Moscow where thousands of Chernobyl victims and ``liquidators'' are buried. The Russian government pledged to introduce new higher security standards at existing nuclear power stations and parliament expressed concern at attempts to cut down on rehabilitation programs. [photo: HC20010426050000025000.jpg] A Ukrainian woman holds a candle in memory of firemen who died fighting the disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, during a service at the memorial in the small town of Slavutich that houses the plant's staff, April 26, 2001. Ukraine marked the fifteenth anniversary of the world's worst civil nuclear catastrophe, when reactor four of the Chernobyl plant exploded, contaminating the adjoining land and spreading radioactive clouds over Europe. (Gleb Garanich/Reuters) *Copyright © 2001 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 32 Chernobyl Radiation Affects 19 Regions Of Russia Story Filed: Thursday, April 26, 2001 5:11 AM EST Moscow, Russia, Apr 26, 2001 (RosBusinessConsulting via COMTEX) -- As a result of the accident at the fourth reactor of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in April 1986, 19 regions of Russia with a population of over 3 million people and 2.9 million hectares of agricultural lands have suffered from radioactive pollution, the Russian Emergencies Ministry reports. The situation with radiation levels has substantially improved in the affected regions in the past 15 years, first of all, due to natural processes, as well as a result of a set of agrotechnical and other rehabilitation measures. About 150,000 residents of the Bryansk and Kaluga Regions are exposed to additional irradiation exceeding 1 millizivert (millizivert is the lowest annual irradiation level requiring measures to protect the population). In a number of areas of these two regions the average levels of additional irradiation exceed 5 milliziverts a year. The highest levels of forest pollution have been reported in the Bryansk, Kaluga, Tula and Orel Regions (economic activity has been completely stopped in 60,000 hectares of forests). Experts believe that the levels of water pollution in rivers and lakes do not pose any threat to water use. Copyright (C) 2001, RosBusinessConsulting. All Rights Reserved ***************************************************************** 33 Review of DOE probe sought April 25, 2001 By Jeff German <> LAS VEGAS SUN Nevada's congressional delegation today asked the General Accounting Office to review an internal Energy Department investigation that failed to document alleged bias in the Yucca Mountain site-selection process. The delegates said they were worried that the disappearance of key e-mail may have impeded the DOE investigation, which was conducted by Inspector General, Gregory Friedman. Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and John Ensign, R-Nev., and Reps. Shelley Berkley,D-Nev., and Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., requested the review in a joint letter to Comptroller General David Walker, who heads the GAO, the investigative arm of Congress. "While the GAO may be looking into separate allegations regarding mismanagement at Yucca Mountain, it is important they be made aware of the IG's findings and the loss of what could be important e-mail messages," Reid said this morning. "Without this electronic paper trail, we may never be able to determine the real level of bias among the DOE contractors working on the proposed dumpsite." Friedman spent four months investigating allegations that the DOE and its contractors were displaying bias toward Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, as the site for the nation's first high-level nuclear waste dump. On Monday Friedman informed Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham that his investigators could not substantiate the bias. But he urged Abraham to publicly renew the DOE's commitment to a fair and objective Yucca Mountain study amid the erosion of public confidence in the agency's nuclear waste dealings. Federal law prohibits the DOE from taking sides in the site-selection process. In his 14-page report, Friedman acknowledged that his office could not obtain all of the information it wanted, because e-mail with a DOE subcontractor at the heart of the probe had been destroyed during a computer malfunction. The subcontractor, Colorado-based JK Research Associates, wrote a 60-page draft overview for the DOE that suggested Yucca Mountain was safe to store radioactive waste even though scientific studies haven't been completed. A two-page JK Research memo attached to an October draft suggested the overview could be used to help the nuclear industry sell Yucca Mountain to Congress. The memo sought comments about the draft from members of the DOE's nuclear waste community. "According to JK Research Associates, complete electronic mail records were unavailable to the Office of Inspector General due to a computer malfunction." Friedman wrote in his report. "Consequently, because a complete record of interactions between the contractor and the reviewers was not available, the Office of Inspector General was unable to obtain a complete, verifiable history of the development of the draft overview." John Kelly, a longtime Yucca Mountain subcontractor who runs JK Research, has declined comment. In their letter to Walker, the Nevada delegates said they were concerned about the inspector general's inability to obtain the e-mails. "We are troubled by this incident, because it represents a loss of information that may have provided greater insight into the development of the draft overview and related memo," the delegation wrote. "To prevent a further erosion of public confidence in the DOE's site characterization work, we request that you expand the scope of the previous investigation to look at the circumstances of this loss of e-mail." The GAO is probing allegations of misconduct at the DOE's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, which is overseeing the Yucca Mountain study. The allegations were revealed earlier this year in an anonymous six-page letter from a DOE insider that was circulated on Capitol Hill. Berkley, meanwhile, sent a separate letter today to Friedman asking him to investigate the circumstances surrounding the missing e-mails, which she maintained likely would have created a "traceable record of bias" toward Yucca Mountain. Berkley also asked Friedman to turn over all of the documents that his office gathered during its four-month probe. Wilma Slaughter, a spokeswoman for the inspector general, defended the investigation this morning. "As stated in our report, our conclusions are based on over 200 interviews of knowledgeable federal and contractor officials, reviews of thousands of pages of relevant documents and our reviews of the activities of the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board," Slaughter said. "Our report on this matter speaks for itself." Slaughter declined comment on whether her office would give Berkley the requested documents. Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, the state's Yucca Mountain watchdog, suggested JK Research might have intentionally destroyed the e-mails. "Somebody may have gone to great lengths to keep investigators from seeing all of this," he said. "It doesn't seem inadvertent to me." Loux said important DOE records have a history of turning up missing during Nevada's longtime battle against Yucca Mountain. In 1986,when the DOE narrowed the number of nuclear waste dumpsites to three, the DOE told Congress that technical records showing how that decision was made were inadvertently destroyed, Loux said. A year later Congress passed the "Screw Nevada" bill singling out Yucca Mountain as the lone site in the nation to study, he said. "If all of the records surrounding the overview and the memo now are gone, then the inspector general really didn't give us an answer to our question," Loux said. "All of this then is nonsense." All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 34 UN: Atomic Energy Agency describes disastrous impact, `lessons learned' fifteen years after Chernobyl accident [M2 Communications Ltd.] Story Filed: Thursday, April 26, 2001 4:37 AM EST VIENNA, Apr 26, 2001 (M2 PRESSWIRE via COMTEX) -- (IAEA) -- When the news of an accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant came out, it shocked the world. The accident was by far the most devastating in the history of nuclear power, and the people of the region continue to live with its consequences. "The accident had a disastrous impact on life, health and the environment in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia and prompted fear and concerns in other nations of the world about the effects of radiation", said International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Mohammed ElBaradei, looking back at 1986. Fifteen years later, exhaustive studies by the IAEA and others provide a solid understanding of the causes and consequences of the accident, which stemmed from design deficiencies in the reactor compounded by a violation of operating procedures. These deficiencies and the lack of an international notification mechanism led to the speedy adoption of Early Notification and Assistance Conventions, as well as the later establishment of the landmark Convention on Nuclear Safety. Lessons learned from the accident were also a significant driving force behind a decade of IAEA assistance to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Much of this work focused on identifying the weaknesses in and improving the design safety of VVER and RBMK reactors. Hundreds of international initiatives are easing the effects on the environment, economy and health in the affected regions. In one example, the Agency is working with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on the "Prussian Blue Project", which reduces caesium contamination in milk and meat. The Agency is also providing assistance in treating thyroid cancer in Ukraine by supplying the radioactive iodine used to treat patients. According to the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR), in its 2000 Report to the United Nations General Assembly, the number of cases among people who were children in 1986 has risen to about 1,800, and further cases can be expected in the future. Significantly, UNSCEAR has, however, found no scientific evidence of increases to date in the incidence of any other health effects that could be related to radiation exposure. Nevertheless, the socio-economic impacts remain serious. Farming communities in Belarus and Ukraine suffered heavily from radioactive contamination as a result of the Chernobyl accident. The IAEA, together with the FAO, is, therefore, helping to restore agricultural land by producing the rapeseed plant on 50,000 hectares of contaminated land in Belarus. The seed takes up and stores radionuclides from the soil in its stalks and seed coat, but not in the seed. This seed can then be used for economically viable products such as biolubricants, cooking oils or high protein cattle feed. Among the most difficult legacies of Chernobyl are the psychological effects in the population related to lack of information immediately after the accident, the stress and trauma of relocation, the breaking of social ties and the fear of radiation, combined with the political changes of recent years. Resulting economic hardship is also a major factor for distress, and the recent closure of the Chernobyl plant which provided many hundreds of jobs is a further strain. International assistance will be needed in these areas for years to come. "Chernobyl was a tragic but important turning point for the IAEA", said Mr. ElBaradei. "It prompted us to focus unprecedented energies and resources to assist the affected people and help ensure that such a serious accident would never happen again." For more on the Chernobyl accident and its aftermath, visit the IAEA Web site: M2 Communications Ltd disclaims all liability for information provided within M2 PressWIRE. Data supplied by named party/parties. Further information on M2 PressWIRE can be obtained at on the world wide web. Inquiries to info@m2.com. ***************************************************************** 35 UN: Secretary-General calls for greater assistance for Chernobyl victims [M2 Communications Ltd.] Story Filed: Thursday, April 26, 2001 4:18 AM EST Apr 26, 2001 (M2 PRESSWIRE via COMTEX) -- Following is the text of a statement made today -- the fifteenth anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident -- by Secretary-General Kofi Annan: After 15 years, the devastating impact of the explosion of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor continues to affect the daily lives of millions of people in Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine. Indeed, the legacy of Chernobyl will be with us, and with our descendants, for generations to come. The three affected States have shouldered the heavy burden of providing assistance to their populations, while, at the same time, going through the pains of transition from communism to a market economy. Belarus, the smallest of the three, is the most severely contaminated. The Russian Federation is also seriously affected in absolute terms, even if the damage is smaller in relation to its vast size and population. And Ukraine, on whose territory the Chernobyl power plant is situated, has had the additional burden of closing down the nuclear power plant, a step for which it has been highly commended by the international community. As we mark this sombre anniversary, the international community must do far more to help those who live with the invisible, yet very real, consequences of the disaster. At least 3 million children require physical treatment, and not until 2016, at the earliest, will we know the full number of those likely to develop serious medical conditions. I appeal to Member States, non-governmental organizations and private individuals to join with me in a pledge never to forget Chernobyl. Together, we must extend a helping hand to our fellow human beings, and show that we are not indifferent to their plight. M2 Communications Ltd disclaims all liability for information provided within M2 PressWIRE. Data supplied by named party/parties. Further information on M2 PressWIRE can be obtained at http://www.presswire.neton the world wide web. Inquiries to info@m2.com. Copyright 1994-2001 M2 COMMUNICATIONS LTD ***************************************************************** 36 Chernobyl Aftermath Still Affecting People: IAEA Source: Xinhua News Agency Story Filed: Thursday, April 26, 2001 4:15 AM EST VIENNA, Apr 25, 2001 (Xinhua via COMTEX) -- Fifteen years after the Chernobyl accident, its consequences are still affecting people in the region, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said on Wednesday. In a press release issued on the occasion of the 15th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear accident, the IAEA said the accident was by far the most devastating in the history of nuclear power. On April 26, 1986, the fourth power unit reactor of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine exploded, causing a cloud of radiation to spread over 12 of Ukraine's 26 states and much of Europe. About 3.2 million Ukrainians, including 1 million children, were affected in the nuclear disaster. Some have died of radiation-related illnesses and many others have become disabled for life. Ukraine shut down the Chernobyl nuclear power plant on December 15, 2000. "The accident had a disastrous impact on life, health and the environment in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia and prompted fear and concerns in other nations of the world about the effects of radiation," IAEA Director General Mohammed El Baradei said in the press release. The socioeconomic impacts remain serious, as farming communities in Belarus and Ukraine suffered heavily from radioactive contamination as a result of the Chernobyl accident, the IAEA said. Among the most difficult legacies of Chernobyl are the psychological effects in the population related to lack of information immediately after the accident, the stress and trauma of relocation, the breaking of social ties and the fear of radiation, combined with the political changes of recent years, it noted. Exhaustive studies by the IAEA and others provide a solid understanding of the causes and consequences of the accident, which stemmed from design deficiencies in the reactor compounded by a violation of operating procedures, the press release said. These deficiencies and the lack of an international notification mechanism led to the speedy adoption of Early Notification and Assistance Convention as well as the later establishment of the landmark Convention on Nuclear Safety, it said. Lessons learned from the accident were also a significant driving force behind a decade of IAEA assistance to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Much of this work focused on identifying the weaknesses in and improving the design safety of reactors. Hundreds of international initiatives are easing the effects on the environment, economy and health in the affected region. "Chernobyl was a tragic but important turning point for the IAEA," said El Baradei. "It prompted us to focus unprecedented energies and resources to assist the affected people and help ensure that such a serious accident would never happen again." The IAEA, together with the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), is helping to restore agricultural land by producing the rapeseed plant, which helps get rid of radionuclides from the soil, on 50,000 hectares of contaminated land in Belarus. The IAEA is also working with the FAO on the "Prussian Blue Project," which reduces cesium contamination in milk and meat, and is providing assistance in treating thyroid cancer in Ukraine by supplying the radioactive iodine used to treat patients, according to the press release. Copyright 2001 XINHUA NEWS AGENCY ***************************************************************** 37 Hot line for Chernobyl liquidators at human rights envoy's [ITAR/TASS News Agency] Story Filed: Thursday, April 26, 2001 2:23 AM EST MOSCOW, Apr 26, 2001 (Itar-Tass via COMTEX) -- The apparatus of Russian Human rights ambassador Oleg Mironov has organized a hot telephone line for liquidators of the aftermath of the Chernobyl nuclear accident. Mironov's press service said that the hot line organized on the occasion of the tragic anniversary will mostly deal with problems related to compensations for harm caused to human health and problems of housing for Chernobyl liquidators. The Russian state medical dosimeter register numbers around 571,000 people exposed to radiation as a result of the Chernobyl accident, including 184,000 Chernobyl liquidators and more than 336,000 people who live in contaminated areas. The number of Chernobyl invalids in Russia is 35,000, according to the register. By Olga Fronina (c) 1996-2001 ITAR-TASS. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 38 On This Day: April 26 1986 The New York Times on April 29, 1986. Soviet Announces Nuclear Accident at Electric Plant Power Reactor Damaged Mishap Acknowledged After Rising Radioactivity Levels Spread to Scandinavia By Serge Schmemann Special to The New York Times Moscow, April 28 -- The Soviet Union announced today that there had been an accident at a nuclear power plant in the Ukraine and that ''aid is being given to those affected.'' The severity of the accident, which spread discernable radioactive material over Scandinavia, was not immediately clear. But the terse statement, distributed by the Tass press agency and read on the evening television news, suggested a major accident. The phrasing also suggested that the problem had not been brought under full control at the nuclear plant, which the Soviet announcement identified as the Chernobyl station. It is situated at the new town of Pripyat, near Chernobyl and 60 miles north of Kiev. Heightened Radioactivity Levels The announcement, the first official disclosure of a nuclear accident ever by the Soviet Union, came hours after Sweden, Finland and Denmark reported abnormally high radioactivity levels in their skies. The readings initially led those countries to think radioactive material had been leaking from one of their own reactors. The Soviet announcement, made on behalf of the Council of Ministers, after Sweden had demanded information, said in its entirety: ''An accident has occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant as one of the reactors was damaged. Measures are being taken to eliminate the consequences of the accident. Aid is being given to those affected. A Government commission has been set up.'' Concern Is Reinforced The mention of a commission of inquiry reinforced indications that the accident was a serious one. [United States experts said the accident probably posed no danger outside the Soviet Union. But in the absence of detailed information, they said it would be difficult to determine the gravity, and they said environmental damage might conceivably be disastrous. Page A10. [The Chernobyl plant, with four 1,000-megawatt reactors in operation, is one of the largest and oldest of the 15 or so Soviet civilian nuclear stations. Nuclear power has been a matter of high priority in the Soviet Union, and capacity has been going into service as fast as reactors can be built. Page A10.] Pripyat, where the Chernobyl plant is situated, is a settlement of 25,000 to 30,000 people that was built in the 1970's along with the station. It is home to construction workers, service personnel and their families. A British reporter returning from Kiev reported seeing no activity in the Ukrainian capital that would suggest any alarm. No other information was immediately available from the area. But reports from across Scandinavia, areas more than 800 miles to the north, spoke of increases in radioactivity over the last 24 hours. Scandinavian authorities said the radioactivity levels did not pose any danger, and it appeared that only tiny amounts of radioactive material had drifted over Scandinavia. All of it was believed to be in the form of two relatively innocuous gases, xenon and krypton. Scandinavian officials said the evidence pointed to an accident in the Ukraine. In Sweden, an official at the Institute for Protection Against Radiation said gamma radiation levels were 30 to 40 percent higher than normal. He said that the levels had been abnormally high for 24 hours and that the release seemed to be continuing. In Finland, officials were reported to have said readings in the central and northern areas showed levels six times higher than normal. The Norwegian radio quoted pollution control officials as having said that radioactivity in the Oslo area was 50 percent higher. Since morning, Swedish officials had focused on the Soviet Union as the probable source of the radioactive material, but Swedish Embassy officials here said the Soviet authorities had denied knowledge of any problem until the Government announcement was read on television at 9 P.M. The first alarm was raised in Sweden when workers arriving at the Forsmark nuclear power station, 60 miles north of Stockholm, set off warnings during a routine radioactivity check. The plant was evacuated, Swedish officials said. When other nuclear power plants reported similar happenings, the authorities turned their attention to the Soviet Union, from which the winds were coming. A Swedish diplomat here said he had telephoned three Soviet Government agencies - the State Committee for Utilization of Atomic Energy, the Ministry of Electric Power and the three-year-old State Committee for Safety in the Atomic Power Industry -asking them to explain the high readings over Scandinavia. All said they had no explanation, the diplomat said. Before the Soviet acknowledgment, the Swedish Minister of Energy, Birgitta Dahl, said that whoever was responsible for the spread of radioactive material was not observing international agreements requiring warnings and exchanges of information about accidents. Tass, the Soviet Government press agency, said the Chernobyl accident was the first ever in a Soviet nuclear power plant. It was the first ever acknowledged by the Russians, but Western experts have reported at least two previous mishaps. In 1957, a nuclear waste dump believed related to weapons production was reported to have resulted in a chemical reaction in the Kasli areas of the Urals, causing damage to the environment and possibly fatalities. In 1974, a steam line exploded in the Shevchenko nuclear breeder plant in Kazakhstan, but no radioactive material is believed to have been released in that accident. Soviet authorities, in giving the development of nuclear electricity generation a high priority, have said that nuclear power is safe. In the absence of citizens' opposition to nuclear power, there has been virtually no questioning of the program. The terse Soviet announcement of the Chernobyl accident was followed by a Tass dispatch noting that there had been many mishaps in the United States, ranging from Three Mile Island outside Harrisburg, Pa., to the Ginna plant near Rochester. Tass said an American antinuclear group registered 2,300 accidents, breakdowns and other faults in 1979. The practice of focusing on disasters elsewhere when one occurs in the Soviet Union is so common that after watching a report on Soviet television about a catastrophe abroad, Russians often call Western friends to find out whether something has happened in the Soviet Union. Construction of the Chernobyl plant began in the early 1970's and the first reactor was commissioned in 1977. Work has been lagging behind plans. In April 1983, the Ukrainian Central Committee chastised the Chernobyl plant, along with the Rovno nuclear power station at Kuznetsovsk, for ''inferior quality of construction and installation work and low operating levels.'' ---- U.S. Offers to Help AGANA, Guam, Tuesday, April 29 -Donald T. Regan, the White House chief of staff, said today that the United States was willing to provide medical and scientific assistance to the Soviet Union in connection with the nuclear accident but so far there had been no such request. Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company ***************************************************************** 39 Chernobyl's deadly legacy -- 15 years on - April 26, 2001 CNN.com - A relative of a worker who died following the 1986 accident wipes away tears at a wreath laying ceremony at the Chernobyl's victim monument in Kiev on Wednesday KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine is marking the 15th anniversary of the world's worst nuclear accident, with the Chernobyl power plant finally lying idle. But the former Eastern Bloc country is still dealing with the deadly legacy of the catastrophic explosion and fire on April 26, 1986, which sent a large radiation cloud over much of Europe and contaminated large areas of then-Soviet Ukraine, Russia and Belarus. With the last operating reactor at Chernobyl shut in December, the government is struggling to provide employment to some 6,000 Chernobyl workers and take care of the workers' town of Slavutych. "The 2001 budget did not provide for the social needs and for works related to the plant's closure," says Chernobyl Director Vitaly Tolstonohov. "We had to do much work in resolving the questions of financing, and have partially solved them." More than 4,000 people who took part in the hasty clean-up have died, according to government estimates, and over 70,000 Ukrainians left fully disabled. Altogether, Ukraine's health ministry estimates that one in 16 of the population of 49 million is suffering from grave health disorders linked to the disaster with 400,000 adults and 1.1. million children entitle to state aid. Thyroid cancers in particular are on the rise -- with neighbouring Belarus having similar problems. Several thousand of those affected gathered in Kiev in the weekend to protests that they were not receiving their state entitlement. "Chernobyl victims are now owned 737 million hryvna ($136 million) and the debt grows by up to 40 million hryvna every month," said Yuriy Andreev, who heads a victims' union. [Gorbachev] Gorbachev waited 18 days before commenting on the Chernobyl nuclear accident The greatest worry remains the visibly rusting concrete and steel sarcophagus over the ruined reactor which a $758 million internationally-funded project now aims to make environmentally safe. And there is growing frustration that other money promised by the international community to compensate for the loss of Chernobyl electricity -- in particular to complete two new reactors -- has not materialised, with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development raising new conditions for loans. "I consider this is as unwillingness to fund construction of the reactors," said President Leonid Kuchma. "Why do we go with our hand outstretched, and they always beat us on our hands by various conditions? Didn't we know that it would be so when we were closing down Chernobyl?" ***************************************************************** 40 Researchers remember Chernobyl HoustonChronicle.com *April 25, 2001, 11:12PM* By CAROL CHRISTIAN Copyright 2001 Houston Chronicle Fifteen years after the Chernobyl nuclear accident in the Ukraine, some of the research on the effects of radiation exposure is being done in Houston. A registry of about 2,000 people exposed in the world's worst nuclear accident and who now live in the United States is maintained at Baylor College of Medicine through the Texas Hadassah Medical Research Foundation. About 500 in the registry live in the Houston area, said Armin D. Weinberg, director of Baylor's Chronic Disease Prevention and Control Research Center and vice chairman of Texas Hadassah. Weinberg moderated a program Wednesday marking the anniversary of the Chernobyl accident, April 26, 1986. Baylor and the Texas Hadassah Foundation sponsored the program. An estimated 4,000 people have emigrated to the Houston area from regions affected by the Chernobyl explosion -- portions of the Ukraine, Belarus and the Bryansk region of Russia, Weinberg said. Much of what is known about exposure to radiation is based on survivors of the atomic bomb explosions in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, at the end of World War II, said William J. Schull, professor emeritus at the School of Public Health at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. One difference between Chernobyl and Nagasaki and Hiroshima is that the atomic bomb explosions were two large doses, whereas Chernobyl was low-level, chronic exposure, said Schull. From studies of the Japanese explosions, it is known that cancers did not begin appearing until 15 years after the exposure, except for leukemia, which appeared about two years after. Another finding of the Japanese studies is that the highest risk of developing cancer was in children 10 and younger, Schull said. Among children exposed while in the womb, the highest risk was severe mental retardation. This risk was confined to those at 16 to 18 weeks of development. About 10 years ago, an international consortium of private agencies, including Hadassah, began studying health effects of radiation exposure at Chernobyl. These studies have involved Baylor. One problem with the Chernobyl studies has been the inability to determine how much radiation people received. ***************************************************************** 41 Ukraine still on risky nuclear power path Thestar.com/ Apr. 26, 2001. 01:30 AM Dangerous plants operating 15 years after Chernobyl disaster URBANSKY Paul Webster MOSCOW - Yuri Urbansky will never forget April 26, 1986. That's the day an explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power station 100 kilometres north of his home in Kiev sent radioactive poison clouds mushrooming into the sky, showering cancer-causing fallout across Eastern Europe. Scores of people were immediately killed. Tens of thousands of others had their lives shortened and sickened by cancer. Urbansky, 13 at the time, says he played a lot of football that week. ``There was an information vacuum,'' he says. ``Our teachers were instructed, I guess, to be silent and the media did not tell anything, except `everything is OK.' We were happy that classes were dismissed 10 days earlier and exams were cancelled.'' It wasn't until a few years later that the day's horrible significance became clear to him. By the time he graduated from university, he'd decided to dedicate his career to fighting to shut down Ukraine's aging fleet of technologically obsolete Soviet reactors. But during the five years he has been the nuclear watchdog for Ukraine's National Ecological Centre, he says, his country's nuclear problems have deepened. As Ukraine marks the 15th anniversary of the world's worst manmade environmental disaster today, Urbansky says his government is relying on foreign aid from countries including Canada to return it to the nuclear path established for it by Soviet rulers in Moscow. Ukrainians who hoped nuclear power would be replaced with more popular alternatives like natural gas are bitterly disappointed, he says. ``After the Chernobyl disaster we were told safety at the remaining reactors would improve while plans were made to close them down,'' he says. ``But only the reactors at the Chernobyl station have closed. Despite worsening safety conditions, 13 other reactors remain open.'' In 1999, the International Atomic Energy Agency warned Ukrainian reactors remain risky, and that the oldest reactors, built with Chernobyl-type technology, should be quickly closed. When Ukrainian regulators warned that not one of the country's reactors fully satisfies their safety regulations, the government responded by putting the regulators more directly under the control of the Ministry of Energy, which operates the nuclear system. The government is committed to keeping Ukraine's oldest, most dangerous reactors running. Then, in a move which astonished many Ukrainians, the government decided to restart construction of two half-built reactors, abandoned by the Soviets after the Chernobyl disaster. To finance this, the Ukrainian government won financial backing last December from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, established in 1991 by 41 nations, including Canada, to speed economic recovery in Ukraine and other former Soviet countries. In a highly controversial vote, members of the bank's board including Canada's representative, Patrice Muller, voted to provide a $330-million loan to finish construction of the Soviet-designed reactors. Despite an Austrian government report condemning their safety, the Ukrainian government rejected calls to re-engineer the plants, stating a safety overhaul was unaffordable. The Ukrainian government also rejected the U.S. Department of Energy's suggestion that roughly half of Ukraine's electricity consumption could be reduced through conservation measures, which critics seized on to suggest the new plants are unnecessary. All of these factors have added to the controversy over the EBRD's decision to finance the plants. ``Public opinion polls totally opposed this decision in favour of gas plants,'' Urbansky says. ``In the Soviet period, nuclear expansion was imposed on us from Moscow. But now our own government is betraying us in this way.'' `The Canadian government should stop using aid to pave the way for the nuclear industry in other countries.' - Irene Kock Sierra Club nuclear analyst ``All across Europe, America and Canada, nuclear stations are closing, and these new Soviet-designed reactors wouldn't meet safety standards in any of those places,'' Urbansky says. ``So we're amazed that European, American, and Canadian aid money is giving us more Soviet reactors. They didn't listen to the voice of the Ukrainian public.'' Sierra Club nuclear analyst Irene Kock says the decision stems from the Canadian government's use of aid money to open new markets for the Canadian nuclear industry. ``If Canada were serious about helping Ukraine develop safe energy, we'd support energy efficiency and new sustainable technology there. The Canadian government should stop using aid to pave the way for the nuclear industry in other countries.'' *Paul Webster is a Toronto freelance journalist based in Moscow ***************************************************************** 42 Chernobyl survivors to relive nuclear nightmare 26 April 2001 : The Times of India KIEV: Many of the Ukrainians who survived the world's worst ever civilian nuclear accident will spend Thursday's anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster reliving a 15-year-old the nightmare. "The walls began to shake and the concrete itself made a kind of creaking noise.That's when I realised something terrible had happened," Boris Stolyarchuk told the media. Stolyarchuk,a former engineer at the Chernobyl plant,is unlikely ever to forget the nightmare he lived through on April 26,1986,when reactor number four exploded,contaminating three quarters of Europe. An estimated 15,000 to 30,000 people have died as a result of the explosion, which spewed radiation into the atmosphere equivalent to 500 times that of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. But for Stolyarchuk the night of the disaster was much like any other until- seemingly without warning at 1:23 am,two blasts ripped through the heart of the doomed reactor. Utter devastation,he says,is the only way to describe the scene in the reactor's control room in the immediate aftermath of the explosions as the plant engineers were blinded by a thick cloud of radioactive dust. "'Quick,cool the system down! Open all the water gates,'yelled the assistant chief engineer,"Stolyarchuk recalls."The control panels were flashing like mad and spinning round and round.But none of the controls responded when we pressed the buttons. "Leaning out of a window,I saw the scale of the damage.The reactor was nothing more than a huge gaping hole."The few radiation monitors available to measure the radiation level were all jammed with the arrow pointing to the maximum and beyond,he adds. However,no order was given immediately to evacuate the 500 people working on the Chernobyl night-shift at the time of the accident.Stolyarchuk and his boss stayed put for almost three hours in the control room "microwaved" by the potentially fatal rays."Technically speaking,there was nothing else to do.Each minute seemed like an eternity," he says.Even so,both men suffered dreadfully in the wake of their ordeal.Vomiting fits became a fact of life as did severe headaches,while their skin turned lobster red. Miraculously,Stolyarchuk survived,but his older colleague was not so fortunate.It was like something out of science fiction, according to witnesses. Nearby the roof of the reactor was ablaze,recalls firefighter Leonid Shavey.He and about 30 others fought an agonising battle with the flames in a bid to stop the fire spreading to the other three reactors that were still intact.Six of the firefighters perished from radiation in the weeks that followed. Chernobyl's number two reactor was shut down in 1991 following another fire. Its number one reactor was taken out of service in 1996.Reactor number three, the last one still in operation at Chernobyl,was shut down for good last December amid much international hoopla and a huge sigh of collective relief from the West,which put up three billion dollars as part of the shutdown deal. But Stolyarchuk continues to mull over his walk-on part in the catastrophe.The day before the disaster,the plant's bosses had decided to carry out a test on reactor number four without the permission of the then Soviet authorities, Chernobyl's former director Viktor Bryukhanov said. Even so,the real cause of the tragedy has never been fully explained and would appear to be a combination of human error and Soviet-era design faults that led to the explosion. Right up to the last moment,the Soviet hierarchy sought to conceal and then to minimise the extent of the Chernobyl disaster,regardless of the consequences to millions of people and in utter contradiction of then president Mikhail Gorbachev's avowed policy of "glasnost," or openness. For example,the village of Chernobyl itself,20 kilometres from the epicentre of the blast,was not evacuated until May 5,1986,10 days after the disaster. Today,thousands of young people in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia suffer from thyroid cancer caused by their unwitting exposure to radioactivity in those first cruel moments after the explosion. At a closed trial held in 1987, Moscow pointed the finger at the Chernobyl plant's bosses,six of whom were sent to prison for up to 10 years. But more than individual responsibility,the 1986 accident pressed home a collective truth that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Three quarters of Europe was polluted in the fallout from Chernobyl and the continent's "openness" to radiation helped to undermine not just Gorbachev's glasnost but the Iron Curtain culture of a closed society. (AFP) ***************************************************************** 43 Nevada seeks second opinion LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL: NEWS: Thursday, April 26, 2001 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal Lawmakers ask GAO to review report on Yucca Mountain Project By STEVE TETREAULT DONREY WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- Nevada lawmakers asked the General Accounting Office on Wednesday for a second opinion after Energy Department investigators said this week they could not substantiate claims of bias within the Yucca Mountain Project. Members of Nevada's four-member delegation said they wanted GAO to focus on whether the probe might have been hindered by the disappearance of e-mails from the computers of a key subcontractor. The GAO already has a study under way of the nuclear waste disposal project. The final paragraph of a 14-page Energy Department inspector general report released Monday said the subcontractor, JK Research Associates, was unable to make available complete e-mail records "due to a computer malfunction." As a result, investigators were unable to obtain a "complete, verifiable history" of how the company produced a key document, the report said. Nevada lawmakers said Wednesday they don't know whether the missing records contained any smoking guns. They would not rule out the possibility of having the GAO examine computer hard drives to track the electronic messages. "I'd love to see a complete, thorough investigation," said Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev. "They should do whatever it takes to get to the truth," said Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev. "I don't expect them to disassemble every computer in the Department of Energy, but when they knew there were e-mails, what further inquiries did they make? Part of my request is to do what is necessary to find them," said Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev. The inspector general report "was based on insufficient data and partial information obtained from those accused of bias in the first place," said Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev. Gregory Friedman, who heads the independent inspector's office in the Energy Department, said in the report that a four-month investigation could not find evidence that site selection for a repository at Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, was compromised or politicized, even though several documents prepared by JK Research Associates contained comments that could leave that impression. The company has not commented. In a separate letter Wednesday, Berkley asked Friedman to turn over all documents gathered during the probe. Friedman stood by the report, spokeswoman Wilma Slaughter said. Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2001 ***************************************************************** 44 Belarus brought to its knees by 'invisible enemy' ireland.com - The Irish Times - OPINION April 26, 2001 Fifteen years after Chernobyl, the world has moved on. But for Belarus the problems are only beginning. Thyroid cancer rates have risen by 2,400 per cent since the explosion, writes Eugene Cahill At 1.23 a.m. on April 26th, 1986, an explosion occurred in the No. 4 reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine. Some 190 tons of highly radioactive uranium and graphite were blasted into the atmosphere. The radioactive cloud released from the burning reactor travelled north into the neighbouring country of Belarus. It then moved east over western Russia and west across Europe. The fallout from the disaster has directly affected over nine million people in Belarus, Ukraine and western Russia. The people of these countries were exposed to radioactivity 90 times greater than that released by the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The UN has declared the disaster the worst environmental catastrophe in history. It is the country of Belarus which has suffered, and continues to suffer, most from the disaster: 70 per cent of the radiation has fallen on its land and people. Mr Vladislav Ostapenko, head of Belarus's Radiation Medicine Institute, told a recent press conference that "science cannot yet completely assess the consequences of the Chernobyl accident, but it is plain that a demographic catastrophe has occurred in our country. "We are now seeing genetic changes, especially among those who were less than six years of age when the accident happened and they were subjected to radiation. These people are now starting families." Medical research has shown that radioactive elements (primarily caesium 137 and iodine 131) cross the placental barrier from mother to foetus, contaminating each new generation. Faced with soaring levels of infertility and genetic changes, the gene pool of the Belarussian people is now under threat. The rates of thyroid cancer have increased by 2,400 per cent in the 15 years since the disaster and this figure is expected to continue to rise. There has been a 1,000 per cent increase in suicides in the contaminated zones and a 250 per cent increase in congenital birth deformities. With 99 per cent of the land of Belarus contaminated to varying degrees, the people of this stricken country are forced to live, eat, drink and breathe radiation. Ms Adi Roche, executive director of the Chernobyl Children's Project, which has initiated 14 aid programmes for the stricken regions, has travelled on many humanitarian aid convoys to Belarus. She has found it to be "a country on its knees, struggling to fight against the invisible enemy of radiation, an enemy that is slowly destroying its people". The Chernobyl disaster has financially crippled Belarus. It has cost the country 25 per cent of its annual national budget and it is estimated that by 2015 the fallout from the accident will have cost Belarus $235 billion. Because there is no international law governing an accident such as that which occurred at Chernobyl, Belarus has received no compensation for the damage to it from either Ukraine or Russia. In a vicious and toxic cycle, the country cannot afford to minimise the effects of the disaster because it is so economically crippled as a direct result of it. Within the world's most radioactive environment, some 2,000 towns and villages lie eerily silent and empty. These towns were evacuated in the weeks and months following the disaster because of the extremely high levels of radioactivity. Yet, in a very worrying development, the Belarussian authorities are attempting to change the existing laws relating to the protection of citizens suffering from the disaster to reduce the financial burden on the state. Prof Nesterenko is a Belarussian scientist who carries out independent research into the effects of the contaminated land. His research is crucial to all aid work relating to the disaster carried out in Belarus. He has warned that the authorities are propagating a return to living in contaminated zones instead of giving objective information to the population about the dangers to health of living in contaminated areas. In spite of such a large-scale tragedy, the issue has been largely forgotten or ignored by the international community and the voices of the victims remain largely unheard. Fifteen years after the disaster - at a time when its full consequences have not yet peaked - there is a growing complacency within the international community about it. There is an urgent and vital need for the Chernobyl issue to be placed back at the top of the international agenda. Most of the aid to the affected regions is collected and distributed by international non-governmental organisations. If the problems are to be correctly tackled, it is imperative that increased financial commitments be given by UN member-states to the relief effort. Every government and every country has a crucial role to play. Although the Chernobyl power plant was finally closed down last December, it is by no means the end of the problem. An omnipresent threat of nuclear apocalypse still hangs over much of Europe. Within the last few weeks, a former director of security services in the Chernobyl region, Mr Valentine Kupny, has warned that radiation is still seeping from the entombed reactor. Speaking in last week's German weekly *Focus*, he alerted people to the fact that the steel casing entombing the nuclear reactor was crumbling and in imminent danger of collapse. When this casing collapses, much of what will happen will depend on the wind. Mr Kupny has said that nobody knows exactly what is happening inside the reactor. "In September 1996 we recorded the last atomic chain reaction but it is very possible that something is happening now. We don't know." Mr Kupny was dismissed from his post shortly after his interview for the article. Many people do not want to hear the truth. Isn't it about time that we did? *Eugene Cahill is press officer of the Chernobyl Children's Project.* ***************************************************************** 45 UN plea for Chernobyl victims BBC News | EUROPE | 26 April, 2001, 07:41 GMT The nuclear plant was finally closed last December By UN correspondent Mike Donkin The United Nations has urged foreign donors to help people in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia still living with the consequences of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. The Chernobyl disaster chapter unfortunately is not completed Ukrainian ambassador for the UN, Valery Kuchinsky Fifteen years after the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded, spewing radioactive fallout across much of Europe, new effects of the explosion are still being keenly felt, the UN has been told during an anniversary gathering. It was only last December that the Ukraine government finally switched off the entire plant at the price of a $2bn Western aid package which will see it entombed in a vast sarcophagus. Human cost But the UN has said nowhere near enough help is likely for the many people who still live daily with the legacy of Chernobyl. A specialist measures contamination around Chernobyl Since reactor four at Chernobyl threw up its mushroom cloud, 30,000 people are thought to have died from the radioactive fall-out. Seven million people were still directly affected by Chernobyl, the UN's humanitarian co-ordinator, Kenzo Oshima said. Cases of thyroid cancer among children were now running at up to 500 times that before the disaster. Foetuses in danger The peak in the number of cases of this and other forms of cancer was not expected for another three decades. In an alarming development Adi Roche of the Chernobyl Children's Project says the effects of the disaster have moved on to the next generation. "By that I mean those who were five and six years old in 1986, who are now the young adults, the young parents of today, who are now having children. "We are now discovering that particularly iodine 131 and caesium 137 actually penetrates the placenta and feeds directly straight from the mother into the foetus," Ms Roche said. Uncertain legacy Mr Oshima appealed to international donors, who had pledged billions to build the new sarcophagus, to think too of the human cost of what he called this most long-term of tragedies. The Ukrainian ambassador for the UN, Valery Kuchinsky, said that despite 15 years of medical and scientific research in his country, the full legacy of Chernobyl remained uncertain. Much more work was needed, he said, to protect the children and grandchildren of those caught up in the nuclear fallout, and to be sure that the world was safe from another nuclear disaster. He said: "The Chernobyl disaster chapter unfortunately is not completed. "Despite the extensive research, scientific and medical knowledge of its consequences, we entered the new millennium with a wide range of new and open questions." ***************************************************************** 46 15 years after Chernobyl BBC News | EUROPE | Thursday, 26 April, 2001, Religious services have been held in Ukraine to commemorate the fifteenth anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster -- the world's worst nuclear accident. Ukraine's president, Leonid Kuchma, led a remembrance ceremony in the country's capital, Kiev, before departing for Chernobyl, where he was due to hold another service attended by survivors. Thousands of people died from radiation following the accident; millions more in the region have suffered health problems. The United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, has called on the international community to do more to help more than seven million people who are still suffering from the effects of radiation, including thyroid cancer. The Chernobyl plant was finally closed last December and it's planned to enclose it in a new reinforced sarcophagus, for which billions of dollars have been pledged. *From the newsroom of the BBC World Service* ***************************************************************** 47 Chernobyl anniversary haunts Ukraine UKRAINE: April 26, 2001 SLAVUTYCH, Ukraine - Dina Shafun, now a student with long blonde hair, was a five-year-old playing in the spring sunshine when it became apparent something had gone badly wrong at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant down the road. On April 26, 15 years ago, nobody in the town of Pripyat, seven km (four miles) north of the station, realised what was happening as Chernobyl's fourth reactor began to spew radiation into the air hundreds of times worse than that unleashed by the Hiroshima bomb in Japan in 1945. Ukraine marks the explosion's anniversary on Thursday, this year for the first time since drawing a line under the accident last December by decommissioning the last functioning reactor at the world's most infamous power station. But for many, including the Shafun family, Chernobyl will not go away. On the day of the accident in 1986, Dina and her family only grasped something was amiss when they returned to their ninth floor flat in Pripyat which afforded a clear view of the four reactor blocks set among lush trees. The impossible had happened. Chernobyl was on fire, smoke pouring from its reactor housing which was rapidly becoming a burnt-out shell. "I only remember crying in complete despair when it seemed everybody was leaving the town, and we were leaving behind our father," Dina told Reuters Television yesterday. About 26,000 people had to be evacuated that night. But Dina's father, Serhiy, who to this day is among 9,000 staff still working at the plant, had to stay behind because he was on shift the next day. That was not unusual in the Soviet Union, which in the coming weeks and months would send hundreds of poorly protected "liquidators" or clean-up workers to the highly radioactive area around Chernobyl. Many have since died. MILLIONS IRRADIATED Officially, 31 firemen died in the blaze at Chernobyl. Millions more people are estimated to have suffered or died from the effects of the radiation doses they received as a cloud of fallout swept across Europe. The Shafun family are lucky. They say they have not suffered health problems and live in what by Ukrainian standards is a comfortable house in Slavutych, a town 50 km (30 miles) west of Chernobyl built for workers at the plant after the accident. But Ukraine's health ministry estimates that one in sixteen people in the country of 49 million is suffering from grave health disorders linked to the disaster. Thyroid cancers, especially among children, have spiked up. Neighbouring Belarus has similar problems. The plant itself is also still beset with problems. Western countries pledged to help fund the closure, but Ukrainian officials complain that little money has yet appeared. A steel-reinforced concrete "sarcophagus" enclosing tonnes of radioactive dust in the burnt-out reactor is visibly rusting, but little progress has been made towards replacing it. And the people of Slavutych, the Shafun family among them, wonder what will become of them as jobs are gradually phased out and working hours reduced in Chernobyl's reactor halls and offices. "We realise a lot of people in the world felt relieved (by the plant's closure)," said Serhiy Pavlovsky, a spokesman for the power station. "But our own feelings are negative here in the Chernobyl nuclear power station. Our prospects are uncertain." Story by Nino Ivanishvili REUTERS NEWS SERVICE ***************************************************************** 48 Read This! Before I Go Up in Smoke SCENE 1. Ukraine. Wasteland around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. A motley crowd of JOURNALISTS surrounds a guide."> SCENE 1. Ukraine. Wasteland around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. A motley crowd of JOURNALISTS surrounds a guide."> By Anna Badkhen *"They say that the Chernobyl accident was the worst technically induced catastrophe in history. That's absolutely wrong! If we were to base our judgment on the number of victims, it was an insignificant technical incident."* — Former Nuclear Power Minister Yevgeny Adamov in an interview to German Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper, April 14. *"Nuclear energy is the cleanest type of energy … that has no health consequences."* — Adamov, same interview. SCENE 1. Ukraine. Wasteland around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. A motley crowd of JOURNALISTS surrounds a guide. The guide is none other than ADAMOV. The JOURNALISTS listen attentively; some scribble in their notebooks; cameras roll. ADAMOV: Please look to your right. See that apple tree? (Everybody nods as ADAMOV picks an apple from the tree and sinks his teeth into it.) Do you think I would be eating apples here if this place were not environmentally safe? JOURNALISTS scribble faster. A skinny young JOURNALIST with pimples on his face raises his hand. JOURNALIST with pimples: But … I've heard that hundreds of thousands of people have died or are dying because of the catastrophe … The JOURNALIST is interrupted by a sudden call on his cellphone. He lifts the phone to his ear; we hear a quiet popping sound as the JOURNALIST goes up in bright-green smoke. SCENE 2. Chelyabinsk region in the Urals. A marijuana field on the shore of Lake Karachai, at the Mayak nuclear reprocessing plant. Same crowd of JOURNALISTS scribbles fiercely as ADAMOV tells them about Mayak's history of nuclear accidents. ADAMOV: Some say Mayak continues to dump its nuclear waste into Lake Karachai. That's a lie. In fact, the water here is absolutely clean. Look! ADAMOV drops on all fours and starts licking water from the lake. Cameras roll. One JOURNALIST spots a strange protruding object on the small of ADAMOV'S back. JOURNALIST: Excuse me, Mr. Adamov, but there's something on your … The JOURNALIST is interrupted because he has to take a phone call. As he raises a cellphone to his ear, we hear a quiet explosion and the JOURNALIST goes up in green smoke. SCENE 3. A press conference at the Nuclear Power Ministry in Moscow. A crowd of JOURNALISTS yawns and fiddles with their notebooks as they wait for ADAMOV to come in. Enters ADAMOV. He has a strange limp. Obviously, he has trouble walking with glossy black shoes on his hooves. A JOURNALIST snickers. JOURNALIST (whispers to a cameraman): Hey, Misha, can you do a close-up on those hoo… Sorry, I have to take this phone call. The JOURNALIST goes up in green smoke. SCENE 4. ADAMOV stands at attention in the office of President Vladimir PUTIN. He is not wearing any shoes and his tail wags nervously. PUTIN smirks nervously. PUTIN: Well, Adamov, I think you blew your cover this time. We will have trouble persuading people that Russia should accept foreign nuclear waste if everyone knows who you are. I believe you should be replaced. Let me introduce your successor, Alexander Rumyantsev. Enters RUMYANTSEV. The hat he's wearing cannot hide the tiny little horns protruding from his head. ADAMOV bows to Rumyantsev, then grabs a telephone receiver on PUTIN'S desk. Half a second later, all that's left of ADAMOV is a small cloud of green smoke. *Anna Badkhen is a reporter for the Boston Globe.* ***************************************************************** 49 Russia's 11 Chernobyl-Style Nuclear Reactors a Threat Russia Today - MOSCOW, Apr 25, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) Russia's 11 nuclear reactors of the type that exploded at Chernobyl 15 years ago do not satisfy security standards, an official of the Green Cross ecology group warned Tuesday. "These reactors cannot meet an acceptable level of security. It is impossible to wrap them in an envelope of security," Vladimir Kuznetsov told a news conference here. Three nuclear plants -- at Smolensk and Kursk, in western Russia, and the northwest Leningrad plant -- are equipped with the RBMK type of reactor that went on line between 1974 to 1989. In addition to the four RBMK reactors in operation at the Kursk plant, a fifth is currently under construction, Kuznetsov said. Reactor number four at Chernobyl exploded on April 26, 1986, spewing a cloud of radioactive matter across much of Europe. Between 15,000 and 30,000 people died as a result of the disaster. The last of the Ukrainian plant's four reactors was shut down for good on December 15, 2000. *((c) 2001 Agence France Presse)* LAS VEGAS SUN Polling experts say Americans are showing lukewarm interest in nuclear power, at best, despite a recent poll that shows support is improving. As national concerns increase over rising fuel costs and possible power shortages, the results of the Associated Press poll indicating Americans had grown slightly more comfortable with nuclear power over the past two years aren't surprising, experts said. "These things fluctuate from time to time," Oregon pollster James Flynn of Decisions Research Inc. said. More than two-thirds of Americans supported nuclear energy in the 1960s, until Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania in 1979 nearly melted down, he said. After that accident and the Chernobyl disaster in the former Soviet Union in April 1986, support for nuclear power plummeted, Flynn said. The AP poll done by ICR of Media, Pa., indicated 50 percent of 1,002 Americans had grown slightly more comfortable with nuclear power over the past two years. "That's a pretty substantial increase in support from the past," Flynn said. But when it came to storing nuclear waste safely, confidence dropped to 38 percent. Dan Soulas of ICR said the question did not distinguish between a permanent nuclear waste repository proposed for Yucca Mountain or temporary storage at the 103 reactor sites across the nation. "I'm from Pennsylvania, and I imagine results in either Pennsylvania or Nevada would be more negative, because people are more aware of a Three Mile Island or a Yucca Mountain," he said. Although the poll did not account for those surveyed state by state, Soulas said roughly 10 Nevada residents were interviewed for the survey. Alaska and Hawaii, states without any nuclear reactor or repository site, were not surveyed. Mary Riddle, UNLV associate professor of economics and assistant director of UNLV's Center for Business and Economic Research, said she is conducting a poll of Nevadans and is finding the respondents are overwhelmingly against shipping high-level nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. They perceive radiation exposures from accidents as a real threat, she said. "Why didn't they come to Nevada and do a poll?" she said. Riddle has been collecting public opinion on the nuclear waste issue in the state since last fall. She has not published her results yet. Flynn said people support a potentially dangerous project such as Yucca Mountain as long as it is far enough away from them. But when a hazardous site becomes a local issue, then opposition rises. How pollsters ask the questions can shift opinion, Democrat Rep. Shelley Berkley's spokesman Michael O'Donovan said. "It doesn't surprise me," he said of the poll results. "If you ask about nuclear waste storage first, you might see that number decline." All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 The Truth Comes Out From Under a Rock The Salt Lake Tribune -- April 26, 2001* BY CURTIS and DIANNE OBERHANSLY Editor's note: This excerpt from the just-published novel Downwinders: An Atomic Tale, is the fifth of five being published this week in The Salt Lake Tribune. The authors are from Salt Lake City. Christine had a favorite cartoon. It was from Gary Larson's The Far Side comic strip and it pictured two adult deer casually standing on hind legs in a forest. One deer has a huge bull's-eye target imprinted on his chest and the other deer, head cocked sympathetically, says to him, "Bummer of a birthmark, Hal." After the events of the morning, Christine felt she could not have been hit more squarely if she'd had a bull's-eye painted on her. Nor did the sight of Dallas's secret stash rock -- as she and the Lawyer Harting rode up to it and got off the horses -- do anything to comfort her. It sadly reminded her of being a girl, of growing up and faithfully storing trinkets and arrowheads within; a happy, confident, smiling girl -- not the woman she was now. So edgy and broken. "Want some help?" Layne asked as she probed at the rock, working her fingers around the edges of the slab that had been shaped in place as a lid. She shook her head quickly in response. "No, I'm fine." They had ridden the three miles out here in virtual silence. At moments, it had felt like a punishment they were meting out to each other; at other points, the sunshine and quiet had seemed like the beginning of a small, welcome truce. Actually, the rock lid was heavier than she remembered. She groaned when she lifted it and the raw sound embarrassed her. Layne stood nearby and let her handle it as she'd requested. She leaned over and peered into the shadowed recess, then put her hand inside, pulled something forward, and finally used both hands to remove it. The package had been wrapped several times in a big sheet of plastic, then secured with the ever-dutiful duct tape that Christine knew to be Dallas's faithful signature. She shook her head, smiled slightly, and hefted the package. "Guess he wanted to weatherproof it." Layne was already reaching into his pocket. "He doesn't do anything half-way." He extracted a small, bone-handled knife. "Here," and he took the package from her and carefully opened the wrapping. She and Layne sat in the thin gray shade of a cedar tree. Rudd's book was not actually a book but more a stack of manuscript pages held within a hardbound folder. Layne opened the binding and briefly examined the first several pages. "Guess we can split this up," he said. "Let's just make a determination about this thing and get it . . . well, first things first. Here." He lifted the top half of the book and gave it to her. At first, Christine rifled rather nervously through her pages. What was she supposed to find and how was she supposed to concentrate? She only had about 20 things gnawing at her, but then, before she was even aware of it, she was being drawn in. She turned back and started at the beginning. It was a foreword by Dr. Franklin Rudd. In the early morning hours of July 16,1945, Trinity, the world's first nuclear bomb, was detonated in Los Alamos, New Mexico, and from that millisecond, this planet was forever changed. As a young man not far out of my doctoral program, I was a part of that first atomic team. In1950, I was selected from a field of highly qualified candidates to oversee the conversion of the old Las Vegas-Tonopah Gunnery Range into the new Nevada Test Site. A couple of years later, I became the first permanent Chief Operations Manager of the Nevada Test Site -- the greatest outdoor laboratory for scientific experimentation ever known to man. During the ten-plus years I served in that position, I supervised the detonation of every atmospheric test at the site. After that, I was kicked upstairs to finished out my career in various positions with the Department of Energy. So, as you can see, my entire working life was devoted to atomic testing and later to nuclear energy. Who's Who in the World lists me as one of the ranking experts in the field of nuclear engineering. Now I am taking this opportunity to clarify history, to lay forth the real story of the testing, what we knew about fallout and when we knew it. Don't get me wrong. I am not an apologist. I would do it all over again. Under the threat of global domination by communist powers, it was absolutely necessary. And we won. Not that there weren't casualties. Unfortunately, there were; in the struggle for freedom, there always are. But that was a long time ago, and it is time for the true facts and my own modest role in the history of this victory to come out. What I will demonstrate in this book, in clear and convincing terms, backed by actual copies of top secret memos and documents, is that we -- all of us connected with the testing -- engaged in a systematic course of conduct that denied the press and the public accurate information regarding radioactive fallout generated off-site by the atomic tests in Nevada. The significance of this cannot be understated. For the first time in the entire history of the United States, a large-scale covert operation was undertaken by our government, the military and segments of the scientific community not only to deny our own people access to critical information, not only fail to warn them, but to actually engage in a public-relations campaign assuring everyone that the tests were safe. This, when in fact, we suspected early on and knew for certain by 1954 that they were not safe. In pursuit of this goal, we had to alter or destroy data and documents that would have contradicted our story. The only remaining copies are part of this book. You ask why? In short, we could not trust the citizenry or our own governmental institutions, were they given the facts, to make the right decisions -- the right sacrifices -- in order to go forward, to maintain the testing. Christine looked up to see Layne intent on a page, shaking his head. "Dallas wasn't exaggerating about this thing." Even as he spoke, he didn't lift his eyes from the page. "Unfortunately." Last night she had imagined that this whole ride out here would be a waste of time, something done just to placate Dallas, but now here was Layne substantiating Dallas's notion, and she herself had to admit that this book, so far, seemed authentic and pretty damn scary. "My lord, do you think this thing is for real?" she asked. "Rudd seemed capable of about anything. And, I mean, people fabricate stories for all sorts of reasons." Layne looked up at her and laughed strangely. "Is it real? I guess you could ask the FBI, because that's sure as hell got to be why they're here. For this little pile of paper. I don't think there's any mystery about that any more." He picked up a page and pointed at the heavy stamp on it: Top Secret -- Classified. "That's not exactly the Good Housekeeping seal," he said. And there were plenty of other pages bearing the same stamp. From the little Christine had read, she was well aware of Rudd's voice in it, of his self-important rhetoric and his twisted quest to be joined with history, but there were also photographs, memos, correspondence, and data that originated from other sources--the military and the government -- and if these documents were valid . . . My God! The allegations were gigantic and surreal. And Layne's comment about the FBI. Would it never end? Christine flipped back and forth through the pages, just as she had with her college texts, trying to get the bigger picture. The parts she read were so goddamn detailed, so nauseatingly real -- photographs of gray atomic mushroom clouds with their stupidly toylike names labeled below: Easy, Sugar, Jangle, Fox. The case could not have been more compelling, showing original fallout logs and doctored versions, side by side, and revealing official correspondence from the top levels of the Atomic Energy Commission in Washington to on-site AEC monitors: "Never again advise the public to take cover indoors after a test shot." We never could have continued if Congress had clearly understood all the ramifications -- for example, that on the morning of April 25, 1953, when the cloud of Shot Simon, a behemoth atomic blast, was released into the atmosphere above Nevada and then traveled for two days, crossing the entire continent at 40,000 feet before encountering a high-altitude storm over Albany, New York. Concentrated radioactive debris, deadly fission by-products that are absorbed and stored in the body, came down in that rain on upper New York State and for a short time left the streets of Troy hotter than many areas of the test site itself. Or that Shot Harry, dubbed Dirty Harry, in that same year covered St. George, Utah, and the surrounding areas with an intense blanket of radioactive material, causing the incidence of childhood leukemia and radiogenic disease in adults to skyrocket so quickly that we knew it was an epidemic. These are just two instances. There are many, many others which I have documented as fully as possible in this book. Some will doubt my assertions, but they won't have to take my word for it. I have incorporated original copies of highly classified documents that I personally sequestered from the test site. These trace the debate even among ourselves at the test site and within the AEC. Handwriting analysis and other specialized corroborative techniques will easily authenticate the attached evidence. The fact is that science often achieves progress only because of sacrifices we make. The scientific knowledge gained through nuclear testing has been invaluable, and maintaining our position and superiority in the cold war arms race was absolutely critical. Therefore, when myself and other leading experts in the field were called upon to testify during those years in courtrooms and related hearings, our public conclusions were always the same: "There is no definitive proof that has ever been established linking cancer and other diseases to our activities at the Nevada Test Site." I always knew that someone armed with all the facts could have challenged our position. But a large part of my job during that period was to make sure that outsiders were never permitted access to those facts. And to make sure that insiders understood in graphic detail the laws they would break and the penalties they would face should they choose to speak. We were always presented with an acute quandary: To admit the truth would have spelled disaster for our program of nuclear testing and, therefore, for this country's national security. Regardless of what others may think, then or now, I served my country well and honorably during the cold war. Simply stated, each of us was a soldier with a different assignment. I, personally, was called upon to keep the test site operational "at all costs" in the words of Atomic Energy Commissioner Lewis Strauss. Finally, Christine couldn't take it anymore. She stood up, dusted off her Levis, and wordlessly walked out toward the ridgeline in the distance, leaving Layne still intent on the book. Usually, in the mere act of walking, of steadily placing one foot in front of the other up a hill or over a distance, Christine could find a kind of quiet relief, but not today. Her body felt slow and heavy while her mind continued to race ahead in fractured segments -- mushroom-shaped clouds, kids with leukemia, Dallas, prison walls, death row . . . -- -- -- -- -- Curtis Oberhansly and Dianne Nelson Oberhansly will read from and sign Downwinders: An Atomic Tale at Sam Weller's Bookstore, 254 S. Main St., Salt Lake City, Friday from 7:30 to 9 p.m. © Copyright 2001, The Salt Lake Tribune All material found on Utah OnLine is ***************************************************************** 2 Abraham Suspends Nuclear Shutdown April 25, 2001 RICHLAND, Wash. (AP) - Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham has postponed for 90 days an end-of-term decision from the Clinton administration to permanently shut down an experimental nuclear reactor. The three months will be used to review potential private sector interest in restarting the Fast Flux Test Facility, U.S. Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., said Tuesday. "It was an outrage that a final decision on FFTF was hastily reached in the last days of the Clinton administration without formally soliciting interest" from third parties, Hastings said. Though more than 20 years old, the FFTF is the Energy Department's newest reactor. It was designed to research advanced forms of nuclear fuel for so-called breeder reactors, which produce as much plutonium as they consume, and sometimes more. The federal government scrapped its breeder reactor program in the 1980s after deciding it had misjudged the nation's electricity needs. The 400-megawatt FFTF was placed on standby in 1992. The nuclear fuel was removed from the core, but the cooling system has been maintained to permit a possible restart. Hastings has been urging Abraham to reconsider the shutdown decision. Earlier this month, the DOE's Nuclear Energy Research Advisory Committee, an independent panel appointed to advise the agency on nuclear issues, called the FFTF an "irreplaceable asset," and noted that the nation was quickly losing its ability to test and develop nuclear science and technology. Some drug companies also have come forward to advance the idea of restarting FFTF, as have medical researchers. But after a decade of debate, studies and public hearings, DOE finally decided late last year to deactivate FFTF. The order was issued in January, during the last week of President Clinton's second term in office. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 3 Union Opposes Hanford Security Change April 26, 2001 YAKIMA, Wash. (AP) - The union representing guards at the Hanford nuclear reservation claims eliminating 24-hour security at two pools holding lethal spent fuel could put the public and environment at risk. The new security plan, which took effect last week, replaces the round-the-clock staffing at the 1.1 million-gallon basins with roving surveillance guards who cover a much larger area. The U.S. Energy Department and Fluor Hanford, the contractor managing the nuclear reservation, called the move a thrifty business decision that will make operations more efficient. The union's contention that the plan poses risks to the public is "flat-out wrong," said Mike Talbot, an Energy Department spokesman. The federal agency has no security scenario that would result in the draining of the two K Basins by terrorists or saboteurs, he said. "All of the scenarios that we've worked up show that we're doing the right thing. We're trying to be efficient with taxpayer dollars," Talbot said. Most of Hanford is closed to the public, with fences and the Columbia River limiting access to the 560-square-mile reservation in south-central Washington, and security barricades are set up at the two roads leading inside. The K Basins contain about one-third of the radiation at Hanford, the most-contaminated nuclear site in the country. If either of the pools were ruptured by a terrorist attack or internal sabotage, it would "make Chernobyl look like a Girl Scout campfire," said Darryl Sybouts, a former business agent for Local 21 of the International Guards Union of America. About 2,100 tons of spent fuel, including 4 tons of plutonium, have been stored underwater in the basins, which were built in the 1950s. Most of the deadly radioactive rods there came from a reactor that was used to make plutonium for nuclear weapons during the Cold War, and were originally intended to be reprocessed. The existing collection represents about 80 percent of the nation's inventory of irradiated fuel left over from that era. The plutonium in the basins is not weapons-grade, one of the reasons constant, on-site security is unnecessary, said Michael Turner, a Fluor Hanford spokesman. Unprotected exposure to the fuel would be deadly, but he said it would take an elaborate plan to safely retrieve the fuel because it is underwater. But Charles Nelson, the local union's current business agent, said the real danger would be someone damaging the basins and allowing the contamination to escape into the environment, including the Columbia River, about 400 yards away. The K Basins and associated facilities are a hub of activity these days, as the DOE and its contractors move the spent nuclear fuel out of the pools for drying, packaging and storage. One of the pools has leaked, and moving the fuel out of the basins is a top priority. Without the 24-hour guard, the extra workers brought on board for the spent nuclear fuel project are no longer checked routinely for prohibited items, such as drugs, firearms and transmitters, Nelson said. Everyone wears a badge, and access is limited based on security standards determined by DOE, Turner said. Although it has been suggested that the union is sounding the alarm because it fears potential job cuts or lost overtime, that is not the case, Nelson said. No jobs have been eliminated, only reassigned, he said. "Our concern is security," he said. --- Hanford: http://www.hanford.gov Union: http://www.amaonline.com/igua All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 4 Hanford reactor verdict on hold The Seattle Times: Local News: By The Associated Press RICHLAND -- The new federal energy secretary has put on hold for 90 days an end-of-term decision from the Clinton administration to permanently shut down an experimental reactor at the Hanford nuclear reservation. The three months will be used to review potential private-sector interest in restarting the Fast Flux Test Facility, U.S. Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Pasco, said Tuesday. "It was an outrage that a final decision on FFTF was hastily reached in the last days of the Clinton administration without formally soliciting interest in utilizing FFTF for production of medical isotopes or other missions," Hastings said. Though more than 20 years old, the FFTF is the Energy Department's newest reactor, large and versatile because it was designed to research advanced forms of nuclear fuel for breeder reactors, which produce as much or more plutonium fuel than they consume. The federal government scrapped its breeder reactor program in the 1980s after deciding it had misjudged the nation's electricity needs. The 400-megawatt FFTF became surplus and, in 1992, was placed on standby. The nuclear fuel was removed from the core, but the sodium-cooling system has been maintained to permit a possible restart. Hastings has been urging the Bush administration's energy secretary, Spencer Abraham, to reconsider the shutdown decision. Some drug companies have come forward to advance the idea of restarting FFTF, as have medical researchers. ***************************************************************** 5 Energy suspends FFTF shutdown This story was published 4/26/2001 By Annette Cary Herald staff writer Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham announced Wednesday that he will give the dormant Fast Flux Test Facility at Hanford a 90-day reprieve. He also said he hopes to visit the mothballed nuclear test reactor in the next three months. The Clinton administration in January ordered FFTF to be permanently shut down. But Abraham said Wednesday that he will suspend the decision while DOE considers partnerships that might cover costs of operating the reactor and analyzes benefits and difficulties in operating the reactor. "The status of the FFTF has been an issue for almost a decade, and the years of debate have produced a wealth of information in support of both reactivation and the deactivation," Abraham wrote in a letter to Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash. "I understand, however, that the perception exists that, to date, the decisions made with respect to the facility have not been open and fully considered public input." Supporters of restarting the reactor to produce various isotopes -- including Hastings -- have questioned how the Clinton administration had concluded there was insufficient support from companies and government agencies to restart the reactor, since it did not request proposals. Earlier this month, Hastings asked Abraham to suspend the decision to allow a review of new information on the reactor's potential uses. Abraham said he was initiating the review of the decision in response to the congressman's request. "The bottom line is we have always said isotopes are commercially viable, but we have not known to what extent," Hastings said. "The only way to measure that is to have an open solicitation process." Citizens for Medical Isotopes and a coalition of government and community agencies led by Benton County also had requested the secretary reconsider the Clinton administration's decision. "As I understand it," Abraham wrote, "a variety of experts believe the FFTF may yet have the ability to play an important role in nuclear energy research and development, the production of medical radioisotopes to treat cancer and other diseases and the production of plutonium 238, an isotope used to provide electrical power for space missions." Hastings called Abraham's action "prudent and responsible." The announcement came a day before DOE's deadline to submit a deactivation schedule required by the Tri-Party Agreement. The agreement is a legal pact among DOE, the Environmental Protection Agency and the state of Washington that governs Hanford's cleanup. FFTF had been removed from a list of cleanup milestones while its future was decided, but DOE is required to submit a new plan on FFTF 90 days after a decision to permanently shut it down. Opponents of restarting the reactor want Hanford to focus exclusively on cleaning up the nuclear site, which was used to produce plutonium for bombs in World War II and the Cold War. Now, DOE is operating no reactors at the site. "If Spencer Abraham attempts to take another 90 days to reopen the FFTF restart issue, he will almost certainly face legal action and immense political outcry over the waste of funds that are supposed to go to cleanup," said Jerry Pollet of Heart of America Northwest, a Hanford cleanup watchdog group. The reactor was built in the 1970s as part of a government breeder-reactor research program, but the program was ended in the 1980s under the Carter administration's nuclear nonproliferation policy. FFTF remains one of DOE's largest and most modern reactors at a time that DOE's Nuclear Energy Research Advisory Committee has said DOE's nuclear capabilities are in "a near free-fall." Once sodium is drained from the reactor's cooling system, it cannot be restarted again. Keeping it in standby condition costs about $40 million a year. Abraham wrote that the decision to suspend shutdown of the reactor will not prejudice DOE's final decision on FFTF's fate, which will be made at the end of the review. Hastings said the 90-day review will allow a decision to be based on "fact and reality, not political motivation." Back to top stories Copyright 2000 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This ***************************************************************** 6 WHO MAKES RECOMMENDATIONS ON DEPLETED URANIUM AND HEALTH IN NEW MONOGRAPH [Press Releases 2000] 26 April 2001 [ The World Health Organization (WHO) today published *Depleted Uranium: Sources, Exposure and Health Effects*, a monograph containing a number of recommendations regarding depleted uranium (DU) and human health. The monograph is the product of a review of the best available scientific literature on uranium and depleted uranium. It provides a framework for identifying the likely consequences of public and occupational exposure to DU. "DU has the potential to have chemical and radiological effects on health, but we found in the review that exposure to DU would have to be significant before any health effects are observed," said Dr Mike Repacholi, Coordinator, Occupational and Environmental Health, WHO. In order to protect against significant exposure, WHO recommends that: + exposure to DU of young children be monitored and preventive measures are taken, as children might be at particular risk of exposure because of the way they play; + heavily affected DU munitions impact zones be cleaned up and treated in the same way as if any other heavy metal waste had contaminated the soil. Such sites should be cordoned off until clean-up takes place. Disposal of DU fragments should come under appropriate national or international recommendations for disposal of radioactive materials; + drinking water and food, if contamination is suspected, be monitored and appropriate action is taken; + individuals who believe they have been exposed to DU and are concerned see their medical practitioner. However, general screening of populations living in areas where DU munitions were used is not called for. Available at http://www.who.int/environmental_information/radiation/depleted_uranium.htm, the monograph contains a comprehensive scientific assessment of the chemical and radiological risks of DU for health. It was undertaken by WHO as part of its ongoing environmental health reviews. Information is given on situations where exposures might arise for workers and the general public, the likely routes and potential health risks of intake of DU with different solubility characteristics. Estimates of levels of exposure that are unlikely to lead to health effects are provided. The greatest potential for DU exposure occurs after conflict when people living or working in affected areas could inhale dusts or consume contaminated food and drinking water. A by-product of the process of uranium enrichment, DU has 60% of the radioactivity of natural uranium and significant chemical toxicity. Measurements of environmental DU at selected sites in Kosovo (Federal Republic of Yugoslavia) by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) indicate localized contamination (within a few tens of meters of impact sites) at the ground surface. This suggests that the likelihood of health consequences to the local population is very low unless people are active at the impact sites or the DU progresses in significant quantities to the food chain or ground water. The monograph indicates that there are still important gaps in knowledge about the effects of DU on the human body and identifies areas for future research. For instance, further studies are needed to clarify the understanding of the extent of kidney damage and its possible reversibility. DU munitions were used in conflicts only relatively recently and the science has not yet thoroughly addressed this exposure situation. For further information, please contact Ms. Melinda Henry, Spokesperson’s Office, WHO, Geneva. Tel.: (+41 22) 791 2535. Fax: (+41 22) 791 4858; E-mail: . All WHO Press Releases, Fact Sheets and Features as well as other information on the subject, can be obtained on Internet on the WHO web site: http://www.who.int ***************************************************************** 7 Judge Considers Vieques Suit April 26, 2001 WASHINGTON (AP) - Naval bombing exercises on the island of Vieques would cause irreparable harm to residents, attorneys for Puerto Rico told a federal district judge Thursday. The commonwealth has sued the Navy, seeking an injunction to halt the bombing runs, which could be resumed as early as Friday. Judge Gladys Kessler promised a ruling later Thursday. Lawyers for Puerto Rico also argued that the bombing exercises would violate a newly enacted anti-noise law. Attorneys for the Justice Department argued the law - which was signed by Puerto Rico's governor earlier this week - was enacted solely to target the military activities. They said the commonwealth law could not be applied to military weapons. However, when the judge asked Justice Department attorney Angeline Purdy: "Do you agree that shelling next weekend would violate the statute?" Purdy replied: "Yes." The Puerto Rican law cites the U.S. Noise Control Act of 1972, which allows states - or, as in Puerto's Rico's case, U.S. territories - to set their own noise control laws. Kessler said the decades-old law was broadly written. "I think it's fair to say the statute is less than crystal clear," she said. Earlier, Kessler denied a Justice Department request to transfer the case to a federal court in Puerto Rico, where several lawsuits against the bombing are pending and judges there have familiarity with the issue. Eugene Gulland, an attorney for the commonwealth, said past naval drills on Vieques created at least 15,000 sonic booms a year. He cited various studies suggesting a link between the noise and cardiovascular problems. Puerto Rico filed its complaint Tuesday after the governor signed the anti-noise law. "The act was designed solely to stop the United States military training at Vieques," said John Cruden, acting assistant attorney general, in a motion filed Wednesday. Attorneys for the federal government accused the Puerto Rican government of waiting until days before the Navy's scheduled drills to enact the legislation. Gulland denied it, saying five days of hearings were required before the law was passed. The suit was filed against the Navy, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, acting Navy Secretary Robert Pirie and Adm. Vern Clark, chief of naval operations. Opposition to the Navy's use of Vieques erupted after a jet dropped two errant bombs in 1999 that killed a civilian Puerto Rican guard. The Navy owns two-thirds of Vieques, and the bombing range covers 900 acres on the island's eastern tip. Bombing has been suspended since March on the eastern part of Vieques. A group of Vieques residents led by the Roman Catholic bishop of Caguas, Ruben Gonzalez Medina, plan to deliver a letter to Pope John Paul II this weekend asking him to appeal to President Bush to end the naval training on Vieques. Celebrities including Marc Anthony, Benicio del Toro, Ricky Martin, Jose Feliciano, Roberto Alomar and Juan Gonzalez asked Bush in full-page ads in Thursday's Washington Post and New York Times to "stop the bombing of Vieques now." On the Net: Statements by ex-President Clinton, secretaries of defense, Navy on suspension agreement: http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/facilities/vieques/ Vieques: http://welcome.topuertorico.org/city/vieques.shtml All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 8 Judge Refuses to Halt Navy Bombing April 26, 2001 WASHINGTON (AP) - A federal judge on Thursday refused to block the resumption of Navy bombing exercises on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques. The exercises are scheduled to resume Friday for four to seven days. "I cannot find that it would cause irreparable harm to the residents of Vieques" during that period, declared U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler. But Kessler stressed that her decision comes at an early stage of a discussion between the military and the Puerto Rican government on future bombing exercises. Anibal Acevedo-Vila, Puerto Rico's nonvoting delegate in the House of Representatives, said he was pleased that Kessler noted "there was at least a political commitment not to resume" the bombing until federal health studies are complete. "I'm confident we will prevail on the merits," he said. Vieques fisherman Carlos Ventura, an activist against the bombing, told radio station NotiUno after the ruling: "We can't get desperate. What we have to do now is go ahead with our strategy and plans that we have set up," referring to civil disobedience including invasion of the bombing range. The judge said she found some disturbing aspects to the case, including "an implied promise" between Puerto Rico's governor and Navy officials that the drills would be postponed until the Department of Health and Human Services completes a review of studies linking the noise to heart problems of island residents. Kessler's ruling came on a suit filed by the Puerto Rican government in an effort to block resumption of the bombing exercises. The suit contended the bombing could harm the health of Vieques residents and runs contrary to a newly enacted Puerto Rican law against noise pollution. Kessler agreed that the noise from this weekend's drills would violate that new law. Attorneys for the Justice Department argued the law - which was signed by Puerto Rico's governor earlier this week - was enacted solely to target the military activities. They said the commonwealth law could not be applied to military weapons. However, when Kessler asked Justice Department attorney Angeline Purdy: "Do you agree that shelling next weekend would violate the statute?" Purdy replied: "Yes." The Puerto Rican law cites the U.S. Noise Control Act of 1972, which allows states - or, as in Puerto's Rico's case, U.S. territories - to set their own noise control laws. Kessler said the decades-old law was broadly written. "I think it's fair to say the statute is less than crystal clear," she said. Earlier, Kessler denied a Justice Department request to transfer the case to a federal court in Puerto Rico, where several lawsuits against the bombing are pending and judges there have familiarity with the issue. Eugene Gulland, an attorney for the commonwealth, said past naval drills on Vieques created at least 15,000 sonic booms a year. He cited various studies suggesting a link between the noise and cardiovascular problems. Puerto Rico filed its complaint Tuesday after the governor signed the anti-noise law. "The act was designed solely to stop the United States military training at Vieques," said John Cruden, acting assistant attorney general, in a motion filed Wednesday. Attorneys for the federal government accused the Puerto Rican government of waiting until days before the Navy's scheduled drills to enact the legislation. Gulland denied it, saying five days of hearings were required before the law was passed. The suit was filed against the Navy, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, acting Navy Secretary Robert Pirie and Adm. Vern Clark, chief of naval operations. Opposition to the Navy's use of Vieques erupted after a jet dropped two errant bombs in 1999 that killed a civilian Puerto Rican guard. The Navy owns two-thirds of Vieques, and the bombing range covers 900 acres on the island's eastern tip. Bombing has been suspended since March on the eastern part of Vieques. A group of Vieques residents led by the Roman Catholic bishop of Caguas, Ruben Gonzalez Medina, plan to deliver a letter to Pope John Paul II this weekend asking him to appeal to President Bush to end the naval training on Vieques. Celebrities including Marc Anthony, Benicio del Toro, Ricky Martin, Jose Feliciano, Roberto Alomar and Juan Gonzalez asked Bush in full-page ads in Thursday's Washington Post and New York Times to "stop the bombing of Vieques now." On the Net: Statements by ex-President Clinton, secretaries of defense, Navy on suspension agreement: http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/facilities/vieques/ Vieques: http://welcome.topuertorico.org/city/vieques.shtml All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 9 U.N. wants anti-nuke teaching materials from Japan: official NEW YORK April 24 Kyodo - Hiroshima Gov. Yuzan Fujita said Tuesday the United Nations has asked Japan, the world's only atomic-bombed nation, to provide teaching materials that would help promote nuclear disarmament efforts. Fujita said Jayantha Dhanapala, the U.N. undersecretary general who heads the Department of Disarmament Affairs, made the request during a meeting at the U.N. headquarters on Tuesday. Fujita also met separately with U.N. Deputy Secretary General Louise Frechette. ''Nuclear weapons have not been used anywhere in the world other than Hiroshima and Nagasaki,'' Fujita told reporters afterward. ''I think we have a lot of persuasive power (to call for nuclear disarmament),'' he said. The Hiroshima governor said he will seek the cooperation of officials in Nagasaki Prefecture in preparing the educational materials. Fujita said he also requested Dhanapara's support for Hiroshima Prefecture's bid to build an Asia-Pacific campus in Hiroshima for the U.N. Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR). Hiroshima, which will he hosting a two-year training program starting this spring for diplomats from developing countries in collaboration with the UNITAR, wants the Asia-Pacific facility built in the city as part of its antinuclear campaign. ''If public officials from developing countries undergo training in Hiroshima and know more about the nuclear threat, it would help toward early ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty,'' Fujita said. 2001 Kyodo News (c) Established 1945. ***************************************************************** 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: *****************************************************************