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                    NUCLEAR POWER CONTENTS
 
 1  Anti-Nuke Protests Wait for Waste
 2  Germans Stage Anti-Nuke Protest
 3  German Anti-Nuclear Activists Occupy Rail Tracks
 4  Waste transport fuels anti-nuclear protest                     
 5  Cabinet approves project to construct radioactive waste-processing
 6  Glitch Found at Russian Reactor
 7  Renewal of German Atomic Waste Shipment Spawns Massive Protests
 8  Should We Be Going Nuclear? / A 'Dinosaur Technology' 
 9  Indigenous groups claim water contamination at Jabiluka
10  Nuclear Waste Heads to Germany
11  Ill Uranium Miners Left Waiting as Payments for Exposure Lapse
12  A Nuclear Power Play 
13  Go nuclear, or back to the '70s
14  Congressmen right about No. 1 study
15  State agency content to let EPA watch water 
16  Vermont Yankee hires JP Morgan to auction nuclear reactor
17  Proponents say time is ripe to consider new nuclear power plants            
18  Protesters determined people power will make a difference - 
19  Japan govt admits dangers of nuclear power
20  Second Shipment of MOX Fuel Arrives in Japan
21  Civilian Application of China's Nuclear Industry (2) China is 
22  Too much commercial patronage can make scientific integrity a 
23  Protesters Try To Obstruct Shipment
24  GREENPEACE OCCUPIES BRIDGE IN PROTEST AT NUCLEAR WASTE SHIPMENT
25  Police break up nuclear protest - 
26  Huge Security Force Accompanies Nuke Train
27  Showdown over nuclear waste
28  Protesters block nuclear 'hot-train'   
29  Nuclear Waste Transport Peaceful So Far
30  Nuclear nightmare for Greens
31  Lithuania could close nuclear plant in 2009
32  UPM backs nuclear plant, defies green activists
33  German Greens leader says support must be won back
34  EU nuclear power production up two pct in 2000 - VDEW
35  The human price of Chernobyl
36  Biased Process Promotes Exposure to Nuclear Waste; Could Lead to 

                    NUCLEAR WEAPONS CONTENTS
 
 1  Lake City's legacy haunts former workers, neighbors
 2  Beryllium testing facility to be part of ORISE modernization 
 3  'Pak. developing n-weapons faster than India' 
 4  US, South Korea, Japan to back nuclear deal with North Korea
 5  Nuclear talks progress 
 6  Budget could limit labs' efforts to safeguard nuclear know-how 
 7  Hoya to resume glass slab shipment to U.S. nuclear facility
 8  Hundreds at INEEL offered early retirement
 9  India not engaged in nuclear race 
10  DOE, Fluor Hanford fined for violations
11  Pollet is man on a mission
12  Secretary of Labor adds hurdle to aid for sick workers 
13  Bush picks GE executive for energy post 
14  Nuclear deterrent can meet any threat, says India
15  Nuclear safety panel urges vigilance 
16  Author of 1994 U.S.-N. Korea nuke accord proposes review
17  KOREAN MINISTRY SENDS NUCLEAR ENERGY INDUSTRY TEAM TO CHINA
18  Downwinder Bill Backed By Matheson

****************************************************************
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                     NUCLEAR POWER ARTICLES
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 1 Anti-Nuke Protests Wait for Waste
 
March 26, 2001 
 
WOERTH, Germany- A train carrying some 60 tons of nuclear waste 
in six sealed containers set out for Germany from France on 
Monday, awaited by angry protesters on both sides of the border. 

Hoping to avert violence, Germany put 15,000 police on alert as 
the train headed slowly toward this western border town. In North 
Germany, sit-down protests began on rail tracks near the 
radioactive waste dump where the shipment is headed. 

No one in the public knows exactly when the transport will reach 
Germany, nor where on the border it will cross, but its impact 
was already felt in Berlin. The Greens party faced cries of 
betrayal from anti-nuclear activists that are among its core 
supporters. 

Rooted in the anti-nuclear movement, the party now is in the 
government that approved the first cross-border waste shipment 
since 1997. The shipment is carrying radioactive waste left over 
after spent nuclear fuel from German power plants was reprocessed 
at a French plant. 

Protesters were camped out Monday at Woerth, where it was thought 
the train would cross into Germany around midnight. Thousands 
more were massed at Gorleben, about 375 miles to the north, where 
the waste dump is located. 

Anti-nuclear activists say authorities have prepared at least 
nine alternate routes for the transport across Germany to be able 
to skirt protests. Police nonetheless braced for a repeat of 
clashes with activists that surrounded the last shipment four 
years ago, promising tough action against any blockades. 

Especially vulnerable was the final 12-mile stretch from a rail 
terminal to the waste dump, where trucks will transport the 
containers - each with about 10 tons of radioactive waste sealed 
in 28 glass casks. 

Police said they peacefully removed some 400 protesters who 
blocked railroad tracks near the dump Monday. At least 35 
protesters who damaged tracks at another location were detained. 

In Valognes, France, a few Greenpeace activists stood watch 
Monday as the transport left, firing flares and waving banners 
against the nearby La Hague reprocessing plant. They were removed 
by police before the train pulled out. 

As the train rolled through eastern France later, a helicopter 
trailed overhead. The train was met with only token protests of 
around 100 people who shouted angry slogans as the train passed 
the eastern towns of Bar-le-Duc and Nancy. 

Anti-nuclear groups say their aim is to drive up the cost of 
waste shipments and persuade utilities that nuclear plants are 
not economical. 

"Every transport from La Hague makes another transport to La 
Hague possible, securing the continued operation of the nuclear 
power plants," said Rasmus Grobe, a spokesman for a protest group 
whose symbol, a large yellow X, has appeared on walls and roads 
across the country. 

Caught between loyalty to the protesters and to Chancellor 
Gerhard Schroeder were the Greens, who grappled Monday with 
massive losses in two state elections the night before that 
raised questions about their future in government after next 
year's national elections. 

At the center of the political storm was Environment Minister 
Juergen Trittin. On one front, he was rebuked by his own party 
Monday for calling a conservative politician a "skinhead" for 
declaring pride in being German. Trittin's remark helped the 
Christian Democrats rally voters. 

On the other front, Trittin and other Green leaders rejected 
bitter charges by the anti-nuclear movement that they sold out to 
utilities operating nuclear power plants. 

Party co-leader Claudia Roth insisted Monday that "anyone who 
wants Germany to get out of nuclear power must vote Green." 

She emphasized that a deal with major utilities last year that 
the Greens tout as one of their biggest achievements in 
government provides for a nuclear phaseout - though over decades, 
not years as hardcore Greens insisted. 

German and French leaders agreed on a resumption of nuclear waste 
traffic last January, with the German government saying it has 
tightened safety rules for the transports since the previous 
administration suspended shipments in 1998 because of radioactive 
leaks on some containers. 

Spent nuclear fuel from German power plants is sent abroad for 
reprocessing, but the contracts oblige Germany to take back the 
resulting waste - a fact noted Monday by Trittin. 

"We've long known the waste would have to be taken back," Trittin 
told ARD television. 

"But it is now happening under acceptable political conditions," 
he said, referring to the June nuclear phaseout accord with power 
companies. 

All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
 2  Germans Stage Anti-Nuke Protest
 
March 26, 2001 

WOERTH, Germany- A train carrying some 60 tons of nuclear waste 
in six sealed containers set out for Germany from France on 
Monday, awaited by angry protesters on both sides of the border. 

Hoping to avert violence, Germany put 15,000 police on alert as 
the train headed slowly toward this western border town. In North 
Germany, sit-down protests began on rail tracks near the 
radioactive waste dump where the shipment is headed. 

No one in the public knows exactly when the transport will reach 
Germany, nor where on the border it will cross, but its impact 
was already felt in Berlin. The Greens party faced cries of 
betrayal from anti-nuclear activists that are among its core 
supporters. 

Rooted in the anti-nuclear movement, the party now is in the 
government that approved the first cross-border waste shipment 
since 1997. The shipment is carrying radioactive waste left over 
after spent nuclear fuel from German power plants was reprocessed 
at a French plant. 

Protesters were camped out Monday at Woerth, where it was thought 
the train would cross into Germany around midnight. Thousands 
more were massed at Gorleben, about 375 miles to the north, where 
the waste dump is located. Anti-nuclear activists say authorities 
have prepared at least nine alternate routes for the transport 
across Germany to be able to skirt protests. 

Police nonetheless braced for a repeat of clashes with activists 
that surrounded the last shipment four years ago, promising tough 
action against any blockades. 

Especially vulnerable was the final 12-mile stretch from a rail 
terminal to the waste dump, where trucks will transport the 
containers - each with about 10 tons of radioactive waste sealed 
in 28 glass casks. 

Police said they peacefully removed some 400 protesters who 
blocked railroad tracks near the dump Monday. At least 35 
protesters who damaged tracks at another location were detained. 

In Valognes, France, a few Greenpeace activists stood watch 
Monday as the transport left, firing flares and waving banners 
against the nearby La Hague reprocessing plant. They were removed 
by police before the train pulled out. 

Anti-nuclear groups say their aim is to drive up the cost of 
waste shipments and persuade utilities that nuclear plants are 
not economical. 

"Every transport from La Hague makes another transport to La 
Hague possible, securing the continued operation of the nuclear 
power plants," said Rasmus Grobe, a spokesman for a protest group 
whose symbol, a large yellow X, has appeared on walls and roads 
across the country. 

Caught between loyalty to the protesters and to Chancellor 
Gerhard Schroeder were the Greens, who grappled Monday with 
massive losses in two state elections the night before that 
raised questions about their future in government after next 
year's national elections. 

At the center of the political storm was Environment Minister 
Juergen Trittin. On one front, he was rebuked by his own party 
Monday for calling a conservative politician a "skinhead" for 
declaring pride in being German.

Trittin's remark helped the Christian Democrats rally voters. On 
the other front, Trittin and other Green leaders rejected bitter 
charges by the anti-nuclear movement that they sold out to 
utilities operating nuclear power plants. 

Party co-leader Claudia Roth insisted Monday that "anyone who 
wants Germany to get out of nuclear power must vote Green." 

She emphasized that a deal with major utilities last year that 
the Greens tout as one of their biggest achievements in 
government provides for a nuclear phaseout - though over decades, 
not years as hardcore Greens insisted. 

German and French leaders agreed on a resumption of nuclear waste 
traffic last January, with the German government saying it has 
tightened safety rules for the transports since the previous 
administration suspended shipments in 1998 because of radioactive 
leaks on some containers. 

Spent nuclear fuel from German power plants is sent abroad for 
reprocessing, but the contracts oblige Germany to take back the 
resulting waste - a fact noted Monday by Trittin. 

"We've long known the waste would have to be taken back," Trittin 
told ARD television. 

"But it is now happening under acceptable political conditions," 
he said, referring to the June nuclear phaseout accord with power 
companies. 
 
All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
 3  German Anti-Nuclear Activists Occupy Rail Tracks
 
March 26, 2001         

[Reuters] 

LUENEBURG, Germany (Reuters) - About a thousand anti-nuclear 
activists occupied a stretch of railway Monday where a shipment 
of nuclear waste traveling back to Germany from France was due to 
pass on its way to a storage site. 

The protesters managed to break through police lines and onto the 
railway tracks near the northern town of Lueneburg, where a 
high-security freight train shipping nuclear waste is due 
Tuesday. Police were trying to move the activists. 

On another stretch of the track near the village of Nahrendorf, 
police clashed with demonstrators, with police reporting that 
some 200 activists had damaged rail tracks. 

A police spokesman said that as officers had tried to intervene, 
the group had fled into nearby trees, throwing flares at police. 

In the nearby village of Dahlenburg, police also detained around 
150 demonstrators whom they said had infringed a ban on 
protesters concealing their faces. 

The train, made up of six flatcars carrying massive Castor 
containers with the nuclear waste and passenger cars fore and aft 
packed with police, left a Normandy train terminal before dawn 
and is due to cross into Germany late Monday evening. 

Continuing through the country, the containers are due to pass 
through Lueneburg and finally the nearby Danneberg rail depot 
late Tuesday. They will then be loaded onto trucks to be driven 
Wednesday to the Gorleben storage facility, 15 miles away. 

The last shipments to Gorleben in 1997 sparked pitched battles 
between police and anti-nuclear militants. Some 15,000 police 
officers have been drafted in to guard this year's transport. 

Fears of radioactive leaks aboard the transport trains prompted 
Germany to halt shipments in 1998. The French reprocessing agency 
Cogema says all the containers now meet international safety 
standards.
 
*Copyright 2001 Reuters News Service. All rights reserved. This 
*****************************************************************
 4  Waste transport fuels anti-nuclear protest                     

'Germany's biggest security operation since the war' is in place 
to protect six shipments of nuclear refuse coming from France, 
says Kate Connolly 

Kate Connolly Guardian Unlimited Monday March 26, 2001

An estimated 15,000 protesters are gathered today in northern 
Germany to block the transport of reprocessed nuclear waste from 
France. 

The train carrying six vast containers of waste left Valognes in 
northern France at dawn today and is expected to arrive at the 
German border between 7pm and 11pm GMT tonight. 

Up to 30,000 police officers from around the country have been 
drafted in to protect the shipments, with water cannons and tear 
gas at the ready, in what has been described as Germany's biggest 
security operation since the war. They are lined up along the 
route of the transport which ends its journey at the salt mines 
of Gorleben in northern Germany, which for years has been 
Germany's nuclear dumping ground. 

Yesterday concrete blocks were thrown across the railway line, 
with protesters staging sit-ins at various points en route. Over 
the past few weeks core members of the protest group have 
attempted to sabotage rails and overhead power cables in an 
attempt to disrupt the transport. Last week the Berlin offices of 
German rail were laid to waste by militant activists with 20 
firebombs. 

But demonstrators have said their biggest protest action will 
take place in the town of Dannenberg, over Tuesday evening and 
Wednesday morning. At Dannenberg the waste is due to be unloaded 
onto flatbed lorries and taken by road to Gorleben. 

Locals from Gorleben make up a significant proportion of the 
anti-nuclear protesters who have come from all over Europe and 
include a strong lobby of local farmers who have said they are 
prepared to use force. Yesterday they staged a tractor convoy, 
which came on the back of a major demonstration which was went 
off peacefully in the town of L�neburg on Saturday. 

Both police and demonstrators are braced for a repeat of clashes 
four years ago when scores of people were injured. Then, 
protesters terrified the police protecting the transport by 
distributing leaflets which linked radiation to impotence. 

This year's anti-nuclear protest, the first to be held under a 
government which includes the Greens, has greatly embarrassed and 
vexed the Green party which has its roots in the anti-nuclear 
movement. Despite ecological issues currently being at the top of 
the agenda in Germany, the Greens fared extremely badly in 
regional elections this weekend. 

The protests are a further headache for the Greens and risks 
splitting the party. Green environment minister J�rgen Trittin 
has permitted the transports and is part of the government that 
will order a break-up of the protest. Protesters have dubbed him 
the "Judas from Berlin". 

A hard-fought deal secured last year between the government and 
the power industry which would phase out all German reactors in 
the next 20 years is dependent on the waste being brought back 
into Germany. 

Energy chiefs have warned that the protest is in danger of 
derailing the deal. The newly-elected joint leader of the Greens, 
Claudia Roth, addressed protesters on Saturday stressing 
Germany's moral duty to accept the waste. 

The waste was generated by Germany's 16 nuclear power plants and 
sent to France for reprocessing. Shipments to Germany were 
suspended three years ago under the government of Helmut Kohl due 
to safety concerns. But after safety rules were tightened, the 
present Socialist Green coalition government agreed to resume 
them. 

Before it crosses the border into Germany tonight, the waste 
transport will be disinfected to prevent it from carrying foot 
and mouth disease into the country. 

  kate.connolly@guardian.co.uk 
  	 	
Guardian Unlimited � Guardian Newspapers Limited 2001 
*****************************************************************
 5  Cabinet approves project to construct radioactive waste-processing
plant at Chernobyl 

Ukrainian News 

KPnews.com -- News about Ukraine
 
26 Mar 2001       

KYIV, Mar. 26 (Ukrainian News) - The Cabinet of Ministers 
announced Monday that it has approved a project to construct a 
plant to process liquid radioactive waste at the Chernobyl 
nuclear power station. 

The project, which could not have been started without the 
Cabinet�s approval, will cost an estimated 17.4 million euros to 
complete, the Cabinet�s press service said.
 
Construction of a plant to process radioactive waste at the 
Chernobyl site is part of the European Union's program for 
closing the Chernobyl power station and raising the level of 
nuclear safety in Ukraine. The project is to be financed with a 
loan from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
 
A consortium comprised of Belgatom (Belgium), SGN (France), and 
ANSALDO (Spain) have drafted the project. 

Belgatom will head the construction of the plant, which will have 
a capacity of processing 25,000 cubic meters of liquid nuclear 
waste per year.
 
The European Union's representative office in Kyiv, Belgatom, and 
Germany's NUKEM Nuclear GmbH earlier signed a EUR 33 million 
contract to construct another factory for solid radioactive waste 
processing at Chernobyl.
 
The main aspects of the EU's program to close Chernobyl are the 
construction of a second concrete shelter over the destroyed 
fourth reactor and providing a loan to complete the construction 
of reactors at the Rivne and Khmelnytsky to compensate for the 
closure of Chernobyl, which was shut down for good last December. 

Chernobyl became the site of the world�s worst nuclear accident 
in 1986 after one of its reactors exploded, sending a radioactive 
cloud over most of Europe.

12:00 � KYIV POST business wrap, March 22-29 Mar 29, 11:00
*****************************************************************
 6  Glitch Found at Russian Reactor
 
Story Filed: Monday, March 26, 2001 12:18 PM EST 

MOSCOW (AP) -- Operators discovered a minor glitch at Russia's 
newest nuclear power plant during start-up tests, Russia's 
state-owned nuclear power company said Monday. 

No radiation leaked during Sunday's tests, which pushed 
non-radioactive steam through the generating turbines at the 
Rostov nuclear power plant near the southern city of Volgodonsk, 
the company, Rosenergoatom, said in a statement. But steam leaked 
from the secondary cooling pipes, the statement said. Engineers 
fixed the problem and continued the test. 

The secondary cooling system carries hot water from the reactor 
core to power generators and is a less critical system than the 
primary cooling pipes that contain radioactive water under 
immense pressure. 

The Rostov plant was the first new nuclear plant launched in the 
former Soviet Union since the Chernobyl explosion in 1986, which 
spewed nuclear waste over large territories of Ukraine, Belarus 
and Russia and other areas of Europe. The Rostov reactor is a 
VVER-1000 design, considered safer than the RBMK model at 
Chernobyl. 


*Copyright � 2001 Associated Press Information Services, all 
rights reserved.*

*****************************************************************
 7  Renewal of German Atomic Waste Shipment Spawns Massive Protests
 
NEWS FROM Public Citizen CMEEP/NIRS

For Immediate Release:
 Contact: Michael Mariotte, NIRS,
 (202) 328-0002
 Lisa Gue, CMEEP
 (202) 454-5130
 
March 27,
 
U.S. Groups Say Similar Protests Could Happen Here
 
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The United States could see protests similar 
to those now occurring in Germany if the federal government 
approves a plan to transport high-level nuclear waste across the 
country to a Nevada storage site, two U.S. public interest groups 
said today.
 
Thousands of protesters are demonstrating throughout Germany as 
the first high-level radioactive waste is transported through 
that country since 1998. Approximately 15,000 people demonstrated 
peacefully in Leuneberg, Germany, on Saturday, while others are 
protesting at the French-German border and all along the 300-mile 
transport route. Tens of thousands of police have been mobilized 
to protect the lethally radioactive shipment.
 
"The protests in Germany are so large and the people so 
determined because they know these transports are not necessary," 
said Michael Mariotte, executive director of the Nuclear 
Information and Resource Service (NIRS) who has been present for 
previous transports in Germany. "They are being done simply for 
the convenience of the nuclear power industry." 

Lisa Gue, policy analyst with Public Citizen's Critical Mass 
Energy and Environment Program, agreed. "The nuclear industry 
should not be permitted to evade liability for its most dangerous 
byproduct," she said. "Around the world, concerned citizens are 
mobilizing to protest this unacceptable trade-off and the serious 
risks that transporting high-level nuclear waste imposes on their 
health and safety. I predict Americans will do the same."
 
Mariotte and Gue drew parallels between the well-organized 
protests in Germany and mounting citizen opposition to proposed 
nuclear transport schemes in the United States. The U.S. 
Department of Energy is preparing to recommend Yucca Mountain, in 
Nevada, as a permanent repository for high-level radioactive 
waste. If this proposal is approved, 77,000 tons of nuclear waste 
from the nation's commercial reactors and weapon's sites would be 
transported through 43 states en route to Nevada starting in 
2010.
 
Another proposal by a consortium of nuclear utilities known as 
Private Fuel Storage would involve transporting 44,000 tons of 
high-level nuclear waste to an interim storage facility on the 
Skull Valley Goshute Reservation in Utah. Under this scheme, 
cross-country shipments could begin as early as 2003.
 
Opponents of the Yucca Mountain repository and Private Fuel 
Storage proposals have concerns about both the suitability of the 
sites and the safety of transporting high-level radioactive 
waste. Containers that would be used to ship the waste have not 
been subjected to full-scale physical testing, and an accident 
involving a release of radiation could have catastrophic 
consequences.
 
"Transporting high-level nuclear waste is inherently dangerous 
because it increases the risk of radioactive release and 
disperses this risk along transportation routes where emergency 
responders may lack the capacity to respond effectively to a 
radiological emergency," Gue said.
 
Even without an accident, high-level nuclear waste shipping 
containers routinely emit low doses of radiation, which could 
elevate the risk of cancer among vulnerable aspects of the 
population. Also, property values would decline along nuclear 
transportation routes.
 
"High-level waste should never be transported to inappropriate 
sites, and neither Yucca Mountain nor Skull Valley are 
scientifically or publicly acceptable," Mariotte said. "We can 
expect similar protests-over much longer transport routes-if 
high-level atomic waste is attempted to be moved to such sites."
 
The German shipment left a reprocessing center in Valognes, 
France early Monday morning. It is expected to arrive at a relay 
center in Dannenburg in northern Germany on Tuesday. There, the 
100-ton waste casks will be transferred from train cars to large 
trucks. On Wednesday, the trucks are to drive the final nine 
miles to an "interim" storage facility at Gorleben. Thousands of 
protestors are expected to block the trucks' departure from 
Dannenburg. 

The protests this year are particularly significant, since the 
ruling Social Democrat/Green Party coalition has endorsed the 
transports as part of an agreement to close the country's nuclear 
power plants within the next 30 years. That endorsement, however, 
does not seem to resonate with the grassroots activists, farmers, 
and people from all walks of life who have consistently opposed 
the transports and radioactive waste storage at Gorleben.
 
Many Germans remain strongly opposed to transporting high-level 
nuclear waste, citing risks to the environment and human health 
and safety. In 1997, similar demonstrations at the same location 
brought out more than 20,000 protestors and more than 30,000 
police. Again in 1998, well-organized demonstrations disrupted a 
nuclear shipment to the Ahaus storage site in northern Germany.
 
###
 
For more information about Public Citizen, Nuclear Information 
and Resource Service, and nuclear waste transportation issues, 
please visit our Web sites at www.citizen.organd 
www.nirs.orgUpdates on the protests at Gorleben can be found at 
http://www.greenpeace.de/castor/and 
http://www.x1000malquer.de(While most of the information will be 
in German, some will be in English.) First person accounts of the 
1997 and 1998 German transports, with photos, can be found in the 
International News section of NIRS' Web site, www.nirs.org.
   


*****************************************************************
 8  Should We Be Going Nuclear? / A 'Dinosaur Technology' 

Peter Asmus          Sunday, March 25, 2001 
  
THE ELECTRICITY supply crunch that has crippled California and much of the
West has provoked talk of restarting Rancho Seco, the only nuclear reactor to
be closed down by a ballot initiative vote. It hapened way back in 1989. 

The desire to restart a nuclear reactor is just a pipe dream since the Rancho
Seco plant near Sacramento is being dismantled. But the call for greater
reliance upon splitting atoms to generate electricity offers clear evidence
that nuclear power advocates are trying a comeback. 

They look at power supply shortages and growing evidence of the negative
effects of global climate change. They see a need to add electricity
generating capacity that does not add to pollution spewing from smokestacks of
the dirtiest power sources: huge coal-fired power plants and small diesel
generators. 

It is true that nuclear energy does not contribute to global climate change. 
And the new Pebble Bed Modular Reactor may well leak less, greatly reduce
catastrophic meltdown risks and use less uranium fuel. But nuclear power is
far from being clean or green. Consider the following: 

-- In nuclear fuel processing, the uranium enrichment process depends on great
amounts of electricity. Most is provided by dirty fossil fuel plants issuing
all the traditional air pollution emissions not released by the nuclear
reactor itself. Two of the nation's most polluting coal plants in Ohio and
Indiana, for example, produce electricity primarily for uranium enrichment. 

-- Nuclear power plants release dangerous emissions in the form of radioactive
gasses, including carbon-14, iodine-131, krypton and xenon. 

-- Uranium mining mimics techniques used for coal and similar issues of toxic
contamination of local land and water resources arise -- as do unique
radioactive contamination hazards to mine workers and nearby populations.

Abandoned mines contaminated with high-level radioactive waste can continue to
pose risks for as long as 250,000 years after closure. 

-- Nearly 90 percent of the U.S. uranium deposits have been found in the Rocky
Mountain States, the vast majority on Native American lands. Do we really need
to find new ways to degrade the lands of our own indigenous peoples? 

-- Concerns about chronic or routine exposure to radiation are augmented by
the supreme risk of catastrophe in the event of power plant accidents. A major
failure in the nuclear power plant's cooling systems, such as the rupture of
the reactor vessel, can create a nuclear "meltdown." Catastrophic accidents
could easily kill 100,000 people or more. 

I first learned about the electricity industry by way of the battle to close
Rancho Seco, which had grabbed national headlines because of a long list of
problems that resulted in local rate increases exceeding 200 percent. 

I was hired by a national energy trade publication to cover the battle. 
There were rumors of drug use, and even sex orgies, under the immense cooling
towers. The picture painted by some insiders was of an operations crew
comprised of a bunch of yahoo cowboys that would fit right into an episode of
"The Simpsons" TV show. 

Over the next 13 years, I learned the ins and outs of the electricity
business, the world's largest -- and most polluting -- industrial enterprise.
The industry is both boring and complex, which historically has led to
ignorance about its activities. Decisions authorizing a spate of nuclear
plants were made, for example, with little scrutiny of their economic or
environmental impacts. 

The consequences of those decisions, and the government subsidies that helped
promote the fiction that they were cost effective, helped set the stage for
today's electricity crisis. 

The United States, with its 103 operating nuclear power plants, is already the
world's top consumer of electricity generated from nuclear fission. Still, we
have yet to build a federal repository for nuclear waste. Given the fact that
reactors currently in operation produce about 2,000 tons of high-level waste
every year, calling for greater reliance on nuclear power is supremely
irresponsible. 

And the fact that Republicans such as state Sen. Tom McClintock, Northridge; 
and Frank Murkowski, Alaska, and Pete Domenici, New Mexico, in the U.S.
Senate, are calling for more nuclear power is truly mind-boggling. Never has
there been a more subsidized, socialized power technology. Virtually all
countries that derive the greatest amount of electricity from nuclear --
France, Lithuania, Ukraine, Sweden -- feature central planning and socialistic
energy policies. 

Free market energy policies suggest smaller, smarter and cleaner power
sources. It was the $5 billion in cost overruns at Pacific Gas &Electric's
Diablo Canyon that helped build momentum for deregulation, for the emergence
of truly clean alternative energy sources. The last thing California, and the
country, should embark upon in these volatile times is the dinosaur technology
that is nuclear power. 

*Peter Asmus is author of "Reaping The Wind" and "Reinventing Electric
Utilities," both published by Island Press.*     

*****************************************************************
 9  Indigenous groups claim water contamination at Jabiluka

 ABC News - 26/03/01 : 

An Aboriginal group representing the traditional owners of the 
Jabiluka and Ranger uranium mine sites claim both mines have 
serious and chronic water contamination problems.
 
Jacqui Katona from the Gundjehmi Aboriginal Corporation says the 
group has been pursuing Energy Resources of Australia, which owns 
the mine leases, about data on water contamination.
 
"There is highly contaminated water which could well be seeping 
into the wetlands as we speak, but we're not able to determine 
either way and our understanding is that tests are not taking 
place to ascertain the level of contamination," she said.
 
However, the Office of the Supervising Scientist, which monitors 
both mine sites, says it is satisfied with the results it is 
getting from testing.
 
Dr Arthur Johnston says the Gundjehmi Aboriginal Corporation is 
welcome to look at any of the monitoring results both on and off 
the sites. 


� 2000 Australian Broadcasting Corporation 
*****************************************************************
 10  Nuclear Waste Heads to Germany
 
March 26, 2001 
 
VALOGNES, France (AP) - A train carrying nuclear waste left 
France early Monday en route for Germany as authorities on both 
sides of the border braced for angry protests by anti-nuclear 
activists. 

Protesters have called for rail blockades to disrupt the 
shipment, the first since 1998. Thousands of police in several 
German states are on alert for a repeat of often violent clashes 
with demonstrators during such transports in the 1990s. 

The shipment of six sealed containers of nuclear waste left 
Valognes, in northern France, heading to a storage site in 
Gorleben, in northern Germany. Police were on guard around the 
French terminal and had taken positions along the train's route. 

The waste comes from French state-owned nuclear group Cogema, 
which operates a reprocessing plant in nearby La Hague. 

A handful of Greenpeace activists stood watch Monday at Valognes, 
firing flares and waving banners which read "La Hague, the 
dustbin is overflowing." They were removed by police before the 
train pulled out. 

Shipments of nuclear waste between France and Germany were 
suspended in 1998 because of safety concerns, but the two 
countries agreed to resume them in January after tightening 
safety rules. 

All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
 11  Ill Uranium Miners Left Waiting as Payments for Exposure Lapse
 
March 27, 2001 

By MICHAEL JANOFSKY 

  Kevin Moloney for The New York Times   

  After working in uranium mines in Colorado, Wayne Hill, top, 
has developed lung cancer, and Bob Key, above, must take oxygen 
through a throat tube.   
          
[G] RAND JUNCTION, Colo., March 20 � For all the reminders of Bob 
Key's cold war effort, mining uranium for American nuclear 
weapons programs, none stands out more than the tank of oxygen 
tethered to his throat. Mr. Key, 61, has pulmonary fibrosis, a 
scarring of the lungs that is often fatal. A recent tracheotomy 
helps air flow to his lungs through a tube connected to the tank.
 
A decade ago, Congress recognized the contributions of Mr. Key 
and other uranium miners and passed the Radiation Exposure and 
Compensation Act of 1990. Signed by President George Bush, the 
law established one-time payments of up to $100,000 to miners or 
their families and to people who lived downwind from the nuclear 
test sites in Nevada. Last year, Congress increased the payout to 
$150,000, added new medical benefits and expanded the number of 
workers eligible.
 
But after years of smooth operations, the program is broke. 
Scrambling last year to pass President Bill Clinton's final 
budget, lawmakers never debated the Justice Department's request 
for additional money to cover the expanded program even as new 
applications were pouring in, and by May, nothing was left. And 
Congress has been reluctant to act until it decides how to 
apportion the federal surplus and how much to cut taxes.
 
As a result, for the first time, claims from hundreds of eligible 
applicants like Mr. Key have been held up, with many of the 
applicants receiving i.o.u. letters from the Justice Department, 
which administers the program, saying their requests will be 
processed only after Congress appropriates more money.
 
And the demand is only increasing. Claims from another 1,600 
applicants under the original law are pending, and the department 
estimates that as many as 1,050 new applicants are expected to 
file for benefits this year, a number that would raise the cost 
of the program to more than $80 million. 

"It's been a bureaucratic travesty," said Representative Scott 
McInnis, a Republican from Grand Junction, a city in western 
Colorado, who introduced legislation this year seeking $84 
million to restore the program. "These people are due their 
compensation. There is nothing to be adjudicated. The money is 
owed. The debt is due."
 
For now, Congress has not decided how or when to continue the 
program. Lawmakers are discussing the possibility of legislation 
as part of the current year's budget to provide money right away.
 
Meanwhile, almost 200 people who have been approved for the money 
are still holding the i.o.u.'s, including relatives of some 
miners who have died of their illnesses while waiting.
 
"Just since January, we've lost five clients, and I'm sure there 
are more we're not aware of," said Keith Killian, a lawyer here 
who represents former uranium miners and their families. Rebecca 
Rockwell, a private investigator in Durango, Colo., said she 
represented the families of at least 10 clients with i.o.u. 
letters who have died.
 
Senator Pete V. Domenici of New Mexico and Senator Orrin G. Hatch 
of Utah, both Republicans, have introduced legislation similar to 
Mr. McInnis's, asking for enough money to pay all claims through 
this year and to make the program a permanent entitlement so 
Congress does not have to authorize spending each year. They have 
urged President Bush to include money for the program in a 
supplemental budget proposal for the current fiscal year.
 
But miners and their families have been told that no new spending 
is likely until Congress resolves its fiscal issues, a process 
that could delay disbursement of the miners' money for months, 
even a year. 


2001 The New York Times
*****************************************************************
 12  A Nuclear Power Play 
			 			 			 			 			 
  Industry lobbyists at its side, Team Bush contemplates 
jump-starting the flagging nuclear-plant business  
     
  By Martha Brant and T. Trent Gegax
NEWSWEEK   	

  April 2 issue � Dick Cheney isn�t the kind of politician you�d 
expect to see on �Hardball,� the loud and rude cable-TV talk 
show. Host Chris Matthews likes to yell at his guests and make 
them squirm. Solemn Cheney doesn�t go in for that sort of thing. 
But when Matthews went on vacation last Wednesday, the vice 
president surprisingly agreed to appear. Filling in was Cheney�s 
longtime buddy Alan Simpson, the former Wyoming senator. �We�re 
really going to call this �Softball,� old pal,� Simpson reassured 
him.       

CHENEY CAME PREPARED for more than just an amiable chat. The 
friendly forum was an ideal place for the vice president to 
launch a political trial balloon on a controversial topic: 
nuclear power. Appointed by the president to find fixes for the 
country�s energy problems, Cheney has echoed Bush�s familiar 
calls for oil and coal exploration and natural-gas pipelines. But 
when Simpson asked him what the White House planned to do about 
rising carbon dioxide levels, Cheney had an unexpected answer 
ready. �If you want to do something about carbon dioxide 
emissions, then you ought to build nuclear power plants, because 
they don�t emit any,� he said. Armed with statistics, the vice 
president made a short, pointed case for nukes, suggesting it was 
time to �go back and let�s take another look.�       

      �Nuclear has to be part of the equation.� 

� A BUSH INSIDER

                Considered politically dead for decades, nuclear 
power is finding new life in George W. Bush�s White House. 
Cheney�s cabinet-level Energy Policy Development Group, which is 
expected to deliver its findings to the president next month, is 
seriously studying how to revive the flagging industry. It�s been 
25 years since the last nuclear power plant was built in the 
United States. Today just 20 percent of the nation�s energy comes 
from nuclear power, and that number will decrease as aging 
facilities are shut down. It could be a tough sell to the public. 
For many Americans, the words nuclear power still evoke ominous, 
decades-old images from �The China Syndrome� and the Three Mile 
Island disaster. But for the White House, faced with rising 
natural-gas prices and environmental concerns over fossil fuels 
like coal and oil, nukes could be tempting solution to a real 
problem. �Nuclear has to be part of the equation,� says one Bush 
insider.       
      
      March 22 �Vice President Dick Cheney speaks with former 
Wyoming senator Alan Simpson Wednesday about U.S. energy policy.  

Until recently nuclear power wasn�t a high priority for Cheney. 
He and Bush barely mentioned it during the campaign, focusing 
instead on drilling for oil. Inside Cheney�s task force, it was 
just one of many ideas floating around, and the vice president 
didn�t think it had much support. But he changed his mind last 
month, when he met privately with about 100 members of Congress. 
One of them asked why the administration wasn�t doing much to 
promote nuclear energy. Cheney threw the question back to the 
group. How many of them thought the country needed more nuclear 
power plants? Three quarters of the hands went up. �He really was 
surprised at the response,� says a task-force member. �He 
realized that nuclear power wouldn�t be viewed as a nutty thing.�      
  
NUCLEAR TIES

        As it turns out, Cheney�s energy task force has built-in 
ties to the nuclear industry. A key member of the task force, 
Energy Department official Joe Kelliher, was a longtime 
nuclear-power lobbyist. Another connection: Roy Coffee, who 
worked as Gov. Bush�s lobbyist in Washington, was recently hired 
by the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry�s lobbying group. 
Nuclear executives have enjoyed extraordinary access to the 
energy task force, meeting repeatedly with top Bush officials, 
including economic adviser Larry Lindsey and Energy Secretary 
Spencer Abraham�who mentioned nukes in a major �energy crisis� 
speech last week. At the meetings, the executives laid out their 
case for a nuclear revival.
         
       Nuclear power is still just one of many ideas bouncing 
around the task force. Officials have also worked closely with 
coal, gas and oil lobbyists, and Cheney is heavily focused on 
easing restrictions on the so-called extraction industries. 
Administration insiders say the vice president will likely push 
to open Alaskan wilderness to oil drilling, find cleaner ways of 
burning coal and speed the construction of oil and natural-gas 
pipelines to keep up with growing demand. 


        Environmental groups, feeling shut out of the task 
force�s deliberations, grumble that Cheney is glossing over 
significant problems�how, for instance, will we dispose of 
radioactive waste from new nuclear power plants? Leaders of the 
Green Group, a coalition of 30 environmental organizations, have 
asked repeatedly for meetings with top officials. The response 
was chilly. �Abraham said he was too busy to meet with us for a 
long time,� says Elizabeth Thompson of Environmental Defense. 
Industry is warming up nicely to the Bush White House. But to the 
enviro movement, it�s looking more like nuclear winter.

*With Rich Thomas and Mark Hosenball*
        
        *� 2001 Newsweek, Inc.*
*****************************************************************
 13        Go nuclear, or back to the '70s

 *March 26, 2001*

 THOSE of us who grew up in the 1970s have an instinctive 
reaction to talk of energy crisis: shuddering fear and revulsion. 

Fear of presidents making earnest speeches while they shiver in a 
thin sweater. Fear of a national campaign to turn thermometers 
down to meat-locker levels. Fear of lines at the gas station to 
fill up a pathetic tinny car that looked like someone had pasted 
wood-grained plastic on a packing crate. Fear of dystopian sci-fi 
movies featuring a bleak, rusty future where people kill for a 
gallon of unleaded, and dirty-faced children scuttle around in 
the wreckage of civilization hooting like apes. 

The narrower our national vistas seemed, the wider our lapels 
became. It was a horrible, horrible time. 

And it's back! Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham says we're in a 
crunch again, and "failure to meet this challenge will threaten 
our nation's economic prosperity, will compromise our national 
security and literally alter the way we live our lives." 

You'll hear the usual suspects clamor for the usual solutions. 
Aside from shutting down the economy and returning to tribal 
agrarian society, they're simple: 

1. Wind power. Yes, it's free. Aside from the cost of erecting 
vast farms of whirling blades and hooking them to the grid, it's 
free. Aside from the cost of buying the entire state of North 
Dakota to build the windmills, it's free. Aside from the cost of 
the lawsuits filed by Friends of the Geese, PETA and the North 
American Man-Duck Love Association, all of whom will be appalled 
when migrating flocks are turned into a shower of finely diced 
flesh by the rotating blades, it's free. 

It's just not enough. And it's not dependable. If it were capable 
of generating enough power to be economically useful, power 
companies would do it. This goes against the old hippie mind-set, 
the belief that power companies are opposed to wind because it's 
free, maaaan. They can't make a profit off the wind, maaaan. But 
they could; they could sell the wind juice at the same price they 
get for coal or gas juice. Socially conscious folk would gladly 
pay a premium for the stuff, once they put the shredded eagles 
out of their mind. 

2. Solar. Poke around the thicket of local building and zoning 
regulations, and you'll be surprised to find that solar energy is 
firmly entrenched in the nation's building codes. Nearly every 
state has laws protecting solar access -- regardless of whether 
anyone's actually using a solar collector. Hawaii forbids you to 
forbid solar energy collectors in a covenant. New Mexico actually 
has a Solar Rights Act, which allows people to create "solar 
easements" to protect their access to the sun. (Number of 
easements granted annually: in a good year, five.) Wyoming's 
Solar Rights Act -- enacted, like New Mexico's, during the clammy 
panic of the Carter years -- declares solar access to be a basic 
property right. 

And this doesn't even begin to touch the tax incentives to 
install solar panels. So the legal infrastructure is in place; 
why aren't we all basking in pure free photons? Because any 
useful array is about the size of a drive-in movie theater, 
that's why. You can cover your roof in solar cells -- and what 
fun you'll have after six inches of snow, eh? 

Everyone who would buy a solar collector the size of a satellite 
TV dish, raise your hands. Right. When it's cheap and small, 
we'll all have it. Not until. 

So what to do? Build more conventional plants as soon as 
possible, so California's economy -- the sixth-largest in the 
world -- has a fighting chance to survive into the middle of the 
century. And let's build nuclear plants. Lots of them. Enough to 
shut down every dirty power plant in the nation. 

It's odd how we're always lectured about the wisdom of Europe -- 
they have socialized medicine, nice subsidized trains and high 
gas taxes. Yet Europhiles never mention two salient 
characteristics of the Old World: They smoke enough cigarettes to 
equal American coal pollution, and France alone has more nuclear 
plants than varieties of cheese.

 IT'S either this or head right back to the Seventies. This week 
it's a million people without power in California; next week it's 
a Foghat reunion tour, and a fashion show in which men wear 
smoked aviator glasses and scarves. You've been warned.
 
*****************************************************************
 14  Congressmen right about No. 1 study
 
Published March 25, 2001
 
It took some feisty leadership by Eastern Washington's 
congressional leadership to initiate study of a possible but 
potentially controversial energy shortage solution that was too 
distasteful or risky for Western Washington leaders to tackle.
 
U.S. Reps. Doc Hastings, R-Pasco, and George Nethercutt, 
R-Spokane, urged Richland-based Energy Northwest to conduct a 
feasibility study of whether the agency's 70-percent complete 
nuclear reactor can be finished to assist with the energy 
shortage plaguing the West.
 
In January, Vic Parrish, Energy Northwest's chief executive 
officer, floated the idea of finishing Plant No. 1. He noted that 
within a few years cannibalization of the plant to boost the 
capacity of its operating sister plant - Columbia Generating 
Station - would foreclose the opportunity.
 
If completed, No. 1 could produce about 1,250 megawatts of power 
- enough to power Seattle.
 
Many Tri-Citians, sophisticated about the benefits of nuclear 
power, were intrigued. But within two weeks, it was clear that 
the idea was a nonstarter with many leaders concerned about 
potential environmental effects and anti-nuclear sentiment among 
constituents. Gov. Gary Locke all but dismissed the proposal, 
saying, "I'm not sure it's economical." Even Energy Northwest 
executives appeared to back off of the idea.
 
So, the initiative fell to Eastern Washington's congressmen to 
push for an answer to the question of Plant No. 1's future.
 
In their letter to Parrish sent Tuesday, Hastings and Nethercutt 
cited the uncertainty of power supplies and the likelihood of 
soaring energy rates, saying Plant No. 1 was worth a thorough and 
shrewd look.
 
"The facility is too large, and its potential for benefit is too 
great, for us to ignore it, or walk away from it without making 
an informed decision," the letter said.
 
Energy Northwest officials said they hoped to have the study done 
within 100 days - to answer questions of cost and environmental 
impact.
 
Hastings and Nethercutt are right. Given the energy supply 
situation, this unfinished nuclear power could well be part of a 
long-term solution. Not to study the possibility would be 
irresponsible. What's your opinon? 

Copyright 2001 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This 
*****************************************************************
 15  State agency content to let EPA watch water 

The Hawk Eye Special: IAAP
 
March 27, 2001
[Unknown dangers at IAAP]   

By Dennis J. Carroll 
The Hawk Eye 

�DNR keeps hands off Army plant area cleanup effort. 

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources, which is responsible 
for the monitoring and cleanup of groundwater contamination in 
the state, has taken little or no action regarding the large 
underground plume of contaminated water that has leached off the 
southeastern boundary of the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant and 
poisoned some drinking wells. 

It also appears Iowa regulators generally are much less involved 
with federally run environmental cleanup projects than their 
counterparts in other states, including Missouri and Nebraska. 

Susan Dixon, chief of the DNR's land-quality bureau, said Monday 
that the DNR is "very concerned," but does not have the funding 
to be responsible for monitoring the plume or be involved in its 
cleanup. 

That has been left to the federal Environmental Protection Agency 
because the IAAP has been designated a Superfund cleanup site, 
Dixon said. 

The EPA is overseeing the $100 million-plus cleanup of the 
Middletown installation. 

Dixon said she feels the cleanup is being adequately taken care 
of by the EPA. "We don't have the regulatory role right now," she 
said. "The EPA has a stronger arm than we do, and they have been 
doing their jobs." 

Over the past few months, the Army Corps of Engineers has been 
attempting to determine the parameters of a pool of groundwater 
tainted by high levels of explosives used in the manufacturing of 
wea- pons on the sprawling Army installation. 

The corps soon will begin drilling more test wells to determine 
the extent of the plume. It is believed to be 3,000 feet wide, 
reaching 20 to 60 feet below the surface. 

Corps cleanup crews do not know how far north or south the plume 
extends, but it generally runs along U.S. 61 north of the Skunk 
River about two miles southeast of the plant boundary. 

Kevin Howe, corps project manager, revealed in September that the 
plume is more extensive and polluted than previously thought and 
is contaminated with up to 150 parts per billion of RDX, a highly 
explosive material. 

At a contamination level of only 2 parts per billion, 
RDX-contaminated water is considered unsafe to drink for long 
periods of time, Howe said. 

Cleanup officials believe the contamination is not recent, but 
flowed down Brush Creek as many as 40 years ago. 

Most households in the area were converted to Rathbun Rural Water 
Association water services at the Army's expensive about eight 
years ago. Rathbun, in turn, buys its water from Burlington. 

Howe has said that the most serious contamination appears to be 
at the deeper levels. 

Years ago, before the cleanup began, Brush Creek often would run 
blood red with explosive contaminants. 

Debbie Kring, the EPA's community manager for Midwest Superfund 
sites in Kansas City, Kan., said Iowa environmental regulators 
have been "very cooperative," but not as involved as regulators 
in other states, such as Missouri and Nebraska. 

In Missouri, Kring said, regulators insist on examining the 
details of any proposed Superfund cleanup operation. Such is not 
the case in Iowa. "I don't know if they are more trusting or 
what," Kring said. 

Other states, Kring said, "are much more involved in the 
decision-making decision." 

She added that Iowa regulators' involvement is at a similar low 
level in the cleanup of John Deere facilities in Dubuque and 
Ottumwa. 

She said she suspects it's because they just don't have the money 
to be more involved. 

"It's too much for them," Kring said, adding that she was not 
meaning to be critical of the DNR. 

An exception to the lack of involvement by Iowa regulators on the 
IAAP cleanup is the Iowa Health Department's bureau of radiology. 

There, officials led by bureau chief Don Flater have assumed a 
leading role in monitoring the cleanup of any contaminated IAAP 
site that may involve radioactive materials. 

Flater is pushing the Army, the EPA and the Department of Energy 
for a low-level flyover of the entire 19,000-acre installation to 
determine whether the Atomic Energy Commission, which built 
nuclear weapons in Middletown for 25 years, left behind any 
radioactive sites that might still need to be cleaned up. 

Cleanup crews recently found chunks of depleted uranium near a 
firing site used by the AEC to test-fire components of nuclear 
weapons. 

The Health Department also has a seat on the plant's Restoration 
Advisory Board, the citizen and regulator panel that monitors and 
advises the Army on cleanup operations. 

The Hawk Eye 800 S. Main St., Burlington Iowa 52601 319-754-8461 
Front Desk ' ' '| ' ' '319-754-6824 FAX ' ' '| ' ' ' 
1-800-397-1708 Outside Burlington [this is a line and that's all 
that it is] �' 2000 The Hawk Eye, all rights reserved. ' ' 
Updated daily ' 'Questions? -
*****************************************************************
 16  Vermont Yankee hires JP Morgan to auction nuclear reactor
                                       
Monday March 26, 12:44 pm Eastern Time
 
NEW YORK, March 26 (Reuters) - The Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power 
Corp. said Monday it retained investment bank J.P. Morgan Chase 
&Co Inc. (NYSE:JPM - news) as financial advisor for the planned 
late spring auction of its nuclear power station, the northeast 
state's largest power generator.

``We have seen significant interest recently from potential 
auction bidders for the plant,'' Vermont Yankee Nuclear President 
and Chief Executive Ross Barkhurst said.

Vermont Yankee is a 540-megawatt (MW) nuclear generating station 
located in Vernon, Vt., which generates nearly 80 percent of the 
state's power and serves the electricity needs of about 500,000 
homes.

The plant also directly connects to a 345-kilovolt transmission 
line providing power transmission throughout New England and 
connection to upstate New York.

The companies that have expressed an interest in buying the 
reactor are AmerGen, a joint venture between Exelon Corp. 
(NYSE:EXC - news) of Chicago and British Energy Plc (*quote from 
Yahoo! UK & Ireland*: BGY.L) of Edinburgh, Scotland, Entergy 
Nuclear, a unit of Entergy Corp. (NYSE:ETR - news) of New 
Orleans, Dominion Energy, a unit of Dominion Resources Inc. 
(NYSE:D - news) of Richmond, Va. and Constellation Nuclear, a 
unit of Constellation Energy Group Inc. (NYSE:CEG - news) of 
Baltimore.

Vermont Yankee Power intends to announce the results of the late 
spring auction before the end of the year.

Last month, the Vermont Public Service Board, thinking they could 
get more money for the reactor, rejected an agreement from 
AmerGen to purchase the reactor for a little more than $50 
million.

The unit was for sale because some of the owners were required to 
divest of their generating assets in New England under 
restructuring agreements with other states, while other owners 
were simply interested in capturing some of the blockbuster 
prices that have been offered for other reactors in the 
Northeast.

Northeast Utilities, for example, was required by Massachusetts 
and Connecticut which have already enacted deregulation laws, to 
sell its generating facilities while Dominion Energy, 
Constellation Nuclear and Entergy Nuclear, have over the past 
year agreed to buy other larger reactors in the Northeast for 
more than $1.0 billion.

Vermont Yankee is fully owned and operated by Vermont Yankee 
Nuclear, whose shares are owned by a consortium of New England 
utilities, municipalities and electric cooperatives.

The owners of Vermont Yankee Power's stock 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). 

  Copyright � 2001 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved. Privacy 
*****************************************************************
 17  Proponents say time is ripe to consider new nuclear power plants            

 Electric Light &Power - electric utility generation, delivery, 
deregulation
 
American Power Conference 2001
By Ann de Rouffignac
                                                                
HOUSTON, Mar. 26, 2001-As electricity prices rise, nuclear power 
is back on the table.                           
 			 		   	 	 	
Now, companies are looking beyond extending the life of existing 
plants through license renewals. For decades out of favor because 
of risk, public opposition, high costs, and waste disposal 
issues, nuclear power is being revived by a what proponents say 
is a new cheaper safer design giving the industry hope for new 
power plant construction.                                 
 			 		   	 	 	
"Prior to this energy crisis we were supposed to be extinct," 
said Thelma Wiggins, spokeswoman for the Nuclear Energy 
Institute. "New polls say people think new nuclear plants should 
be built in this country. We are in a Renaissance period."                            

Nuclear power proponents are looking to so-called "pebble bed" 
reactors as an alternative to existing nuclear plant design. 
Conventional power plants use nuclear fuel rods clad in metal 
cooled by water and took up to a decade to build. Pebble bed 
reactors can be built cheaply in less than 3 years, say 
proponents of the technology. But experts say similar technology 
was tried and discarded in the 1980s. Critics say cheap nuclear 
power is an old promise that has been broken before. And the 
crucial issue of disposing of nuclear waste has yet to be solved.                           
 			 		   	 	 	
Pebble bed development work is under way in South Africa and at 
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Developers say total 
production costs are competitive with natural gas-fired power 
plants. The technology employs nuclear fuel in graphite-coated 
spheres cooled by an inert gas instead of water. Meltdown of the 
core is impossible, developers say.                              
 			 		   	 	 	
Eskom, a South African utility, and Philadelphia-based Exelon 
Corp. are developing a reactor design they say can be 
manufactured in 100 MW modules, tiny by most nuclear plant 
standards. Exelon has invested $7.5 million for a 12.5% equity 
stake in the design development. If feasibility studies pan out, 
the company is ready to boost its investment, sources say.                              
 			 		   	 	 	
South Africa's government still has not given the go-ahead nor 
have feasibility studies been completed, but a decision is 
expected by yearend.                              
 			 		   	 	 	
Exelon Corp. is the main US proponent of new nuclear plants. The 
company operates 17 nuclear reactors and together with British 
Energy Co. PLC operates three others through Amergen Energy Co., 
a US joint venture. Corbin McNeill, Exelon's CEO, met with 
officials of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in 
January about the design certification process for a pebble bed 
reactor.
				
"Exelon came in to say it was interested and wanted to keep the 
commission abreast of developments," said Victor Dricks, 
spokesman for the NRC. "At this point, they asked what might be 
required to process an application."                           
 			 		   	 	 	
New plant possible                              
 			 		   	 	 	
Exelon is ready to build a new nuclear plant if it could be done 
in a flexible, cost effective, and safe manner, says Exelon 
spokesman Bill Jones. "As early as mid-2002 we could ask the NRC 
for an early siting permit," Jones says. "Common sense would tell 
you it would be on an existing site."                            
 			 		   	 	 	
Exelon is not the only energy company to express interest in a 
new generation of nuclear plants. Entergy Corp., Dominion 
Resources Inc., and Southern Co. joined a task force formed by 
the Nuclear Energy Institute late last year to investigate what 
it would take to build a new nuclear plant. But publicly the 
companies are holding their cards close.                           
 			 		   	 	 	
Entergy, the second largest US nuclear operator behind Exelon, is 
interested in the future of pebble bed technology and says it is 
mostly keeping tabs on the technology.                                 
 			 		   	 	 	
"We at Entergy are not talking about a plant now. No action is 
planned at all for at least 5 years and even further out," said 
Carl Crawford, spokesman for Entergy. "We are in the business of 
buying existing plants and there is plenty to do there."                            
 			 		   	 	 	
"It's important to have a place at the table to look at what 
needs to be done," said Rick Zuercher, spokesman for Dominion 
Energy, a unit of Dominion Resources. "Participating in a panel 
doesn't mean we will build a nuclear plant."                                 
 			 		   	 	 	
Southern Co., which operates 6 nuclear units, is just taking a 
look, said spokesman Mike Jones. "Could anyone even do it? Could 
it be done?" said Jones. "We are not further along than that."                           
 			 		   	 	 	
Analysts say such reticence is not surprising given the negative 
view many still hold toward the technology. "I would say a new 
nuclear plant would add a lot of risk to the equation. We would 
have to evaluate such a move very carefully," said Dan Pickering, 
chief analyst with Simmons &Co. International.
				
Exelon and Eskom are pursuing the development of the pebble bed 
reactor or a high temperature helium-cooled reactor with a direct 
cycle gas turbine. The reactor core is cooled by helium which 
transfers the energy to a closed cycle gas turbine and generator.                                
 			 		   	 	 	
Because the reactor is cooled by gas the risk of accidents 
resulting from a cooling fluid loss is reduced. The coolant, 
helium, is inert and can be used at very high temperatures 
without any concerns about corrosion. Leakage to the outside is 
minimized and the helium doesn't become contaminated with 
radioactivity.                          

If the coolant circuit breaks in a conventional water-cooled 
reactor, the reactor is cooled by steam and air. The power plant 
can overheat catastrophically and meltdown is possible. Water is 
also corrosive, leading to expensive maintenance procedures to 
keep the cooling system functioning safely.                                 
 			 		   	 	 	
The pebble bed fuel consists of uranium elements, the so-called 
pebbles, to form spheres about the size of tennis balls. About 
400,000 fuel balls lie within a graphite-lined silo that is 30 ft 
high and 10 ft in diameter.                          
 			 		   	 	 	
Technological issues                            
 			 		   	 	 	
The helium is introduced into the top of the reactor and passes 
around the fuel balls. It leaves the reactor at the bottom at 
about 900:C. This hot helium gas then turns turbines for 
compressors and a generator that produces electricity.                            
 			 		   	 	 	
The gas is reprocessed and reintroduced at the top of the reactor 
to start over again. The design means the reactor can be 
constructed in modules. The fuel can withstand high temperatures 
because the use of graphite is integral to the fuel. This rules 
out meltdown of the core.                              
 			 		   	 	 	
"You can't melt the fuel," said Ronald Ballinger, associate 
professor of nuclear engineering at Massachusetts Institute of 
Technology. "You are safe to pull the switch and walk away from 
it." Ballinger and Professor Andrew Kadak are working on a pebble 
bed reactor design that will be utilized in a research reactor to 
be built in Idaho.                           
 			 		   	 	 	
Conventional reactors have additional safety systems to shut down 
the reactor in the event of an accident and utilize a containment 
system that keeps radioactive materials separated (contained) 
from the atmosphere.                          
 			 		   	 	 	
Unlike the Eskom reactor design, the MIT version of the reactor 
will insert an intermediate heat exchanger to isolate the gas 
circulating in the reactor from the gas circulating in the power 
conversion unit. With funding from the US Department of Energy, 
Ballinger is currently working to answer key questions about the 
reactor, especially issues affecting the gas driven turbines and 
heat exchanger.                            
 			 		   	 	 	
Proponents claim the pebble bed reactor can be built without 
safety backup systems or a containment system reducing costs. The 
NRC's Dricks cautioned the NRC would look very closely at any 
design without containment or safety backup systems.                          
 			 		   	 	 	
The pebble bed reactor can be built for about $1million/MW, says 
Exelon's Jones. If the reactors are assembled from manufactured 
modules without containment or backup safety systems, costs are 
comparable to a new coal-fired power plant and even gas-fired 
generation, says MIT's Ballinger.                                
 			 		   	 	 	
"The South Africans say the total cost of capital and operation 
and maintenance over a 40-year life of the plant will be 1.6 
cents/kw-hr. MIT estimates those same costs at 3.5 cents/kw-hr," 
he says. "Adding a containment system would up the cost another 
penny to 4.5 cents/kw-hr."                             
 			 		   	 	 	
Eskom advertises on its web site the pebble bed reactor will be 
"cheap to build and economical to operate." Critics, however, say 
they have heard such claims before.                          
 			 		   	 	 	
The famous "too cheap to meter" claim of nuclear power proponents 
in the mid-50s has haunted the industry for decades, says Jim 
Riccio, nuclear power expert with Public Citizen in Washington. 
Why would this new technology work out to be cheap when none ever 
has, he asks.                            

Other versions of the high temperature gas-cooled reactor have 
been built in the US and in Germany. These plants were shut down 
because of complications. The US version at Fort St. Vrain in 
Colorado was in service from 1976-1989.                                 
 			 		   	 	 	
It was decommissioned because of high costs and a high outage 
rate. A new version of this reactor received research support 
from the DOE but lost its funding in 1995. Problems with fuel and 
fuel production were cited as the biggest difficulties, according 
to the National Academy of Sciences.                            
 			 		   	 	 	
The German version is closest to the one proposed by Eskom and 
Exelon. In Germany, the THTR-300, a version of the pebble bed 
reactor, was ordered in 1970, according to a 1999 report, by 
Steve Thomas, senior research fellow with the Energy Policy 
Program at the UK's University of Sussex.                             
 			 		   	 	 	
The German pebble bed reactor began generating electricity in 
1983 and was shut down 6 years later. German officials cited 
problems with fuel circulation and damage to the gas ducts, the 
report says. Safety concerns and the unwillingness of plant 
owners, including the government to continue to provide 
subsidies, resulted in the plant being permanently shuttered in 
1990, according to Thomas.                            
 			 		   	 	 	
The NRC says a lot of questions about what happened to the German 
reactor will need to be answered before going forward with the 
pebble bed design. "Until those issues are resolved, nobody is 
going to submit an application," says the NRC's Dricks.                          
 			 		   	 	 	
The manufacture of fuel and the commercial production of the 
turbine units are major stumbling blocks to the reactor, Thomas 
says. There is no commercial gas-driven turbine in production. 
Even if these aspects of the technology can be resolved 
economically, critics point to the most serious inherent problem 
of nuclear power-waste disposal. Nuclear power creates dangerous 
waste that endures for thousands of years. The waste disposal 
problem has not been solved safely or economically, critics say.                                
 			 		   	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 		   	 	 	 		
Copyright � 2001 - PennWell Corporation and PennNET, Inc. All 
*****************************************************************
 18  Protesters determined people power will make a difference - 

smh.com.au - National **

 March 26, 2001     Home > National > Article   

*The new nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights has joined a list of 
projects in NSW which appeared to have been a fait accompli but 
which were ultimately brought undone or heavily amended by 
community action.
 
About 500 people rallied yesterday at Dunningham Park, on the 
Cronulla foreshore, to protest against the reactor, on the 
grounds that it poses a pollution threat, and heard a message 
read from Federal Labor's environment spokesman, Senator Nick 
Bolkus, saying that no nuclear reactor would be built under a 
Labor government.

Community groups throughout Sydney have opposed motorways, the 
demolition of historical buildings, bushland development and 
waste disposal with surprising degrees of success. For example 
One.Tel was forced to withdraw its application to build a 
30-metre communications tower in the grounds of the Brush Farm 
Bowling Club in Eastwood, following campaigns by groups such 
Concerned Citizens Against the Communications Tower (CRACT). A 
member of CRACT, Mr Peter Brown, said the repeated campaigns had 
caused the Roads and Traffic Authority to amend its policies. 
"When our campaign started in 1977, the Roads and Traffic 
Authority were a law unto themselves. They could just walk in and 
steamroll over everything, but that is no longer so."
 
Malcolm Brown
 

*[go to top]     [ WIDTH=1 HEIGHT=1 ]     


  


    In this section
  

 Premier throws light on drug changes Nothing much, but worth 
repeating often Lots of words but few that will comfort the Labor 
doubters left outside the door West gets $323m consolation prize 
Protesters determined people power will make a difference 
Righting four years of neglect Battle for parkland not houses in 
the kangaroos' court Anointed George heading for Canberra 
Vindicated Boswell calls for the turf war to begin Policy review 
as grassroots backlash bites Airport sale on Cabinet agenda On 
the grass in more ways than one as Dylan plays again Young, old 
at play in the fields of the Don Backyard cricket on Don's wicket 
Cheers and streamers as curtain comes down on a brilliant career 
Rose's garage sale leaves bargain hunters fuming Fairfaxes 
gather, minus the young master of parlous games Up to 1,000 
trapped in home insurance wreckage Scientists in leading roles 
get their oscars Time for moving in different direction to rest 
of world Moss admits ICAC knew about morgue allegations Weekend 
property Correction 

*****************************************************************
 19  Japan govt admits dangers of nuclear power
 
  Reuters | BBC News | Sky News | Photos
 
Tuesday March 27, 10:45 AM
       
TOKYO (Reuters) - The Japanese government admitted for the first 
time that there are dangers inherent in the use of nuclear power 
and acknowledged criticisms that industry has been complacent 
about safety.
 
"The use of nuclear power has many benefits...but at the same 
time there are potential dangers implicit in its use that call 
for an unflagging effort to maintain safety," it said in a white 
paper on nuclear safety.
 
Japan has 51 reactors and uses nuclear power to meet one-third of 
its energy needs.
 
The annual report by the government's Nuclear Safety Commission 
cited widespread criticism of the industry after Japan's worst 
nuclear accident at a uranium reprocessing plant in 1999.
 
The accident at a plant in Tokaimura, 140 km (90 miles) northeast 
of Tokyo, and a string of lesser mishaps at other nuclear 
facilities have severely eroded public faith in an industry 
deemed overconfident about the safety of nuclear power, it said.
 
The Tokaimura accident -- the world's second-worst since 
Chernobyl in 1986 -- occurred in September 1999 when three 
workers at a plant privately operated by JCO Co Ltd set off an 
uncontrolled nuclear reaction that took 20 hours to bring under 
control.
 
The poorly trained employees used buckets to pour nearly eight 
times the proper amount of a uranium solution into a tub, causing 
a self-sustaining nuclear reaction to occur. The resulting 
radiation killed two of the workers and forced the evacuation of 
thousands of nearby residents.
 
Public anger mounted as details emerged of slipshod production 
methods used at the facility.
 
Officials initially downplayed the seriousness of the accident, 
further compounding a deep-seated public mistrust in Japan's 
nuclear industry.
 
"The full disclosure of information is a prerequisite to 
regaining public trust," the white paper said.   

Copyright � 2001 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. 
*****************************************************************
 20  Second Shipment of MOX Fuel Arrives in Japan

27 March 2001
Citizens' Nuclear Information Center
 		
On 24 March 2001, 28 MOX fuel assemblies arrived in Niigata 
Prefecture. The fuel was manufactured at a Belgian company 
Belgonucleaire, and was transported by Pacific Nuclear Transport 
Ltd (PNTL)'s armed ships 'Pacific Pintail' and 'Pacific Teal.' 
PNTL is a subsidiary of British Nuclear Fuels plc (BNFL) which 
falsified quality control data  of MOX fuel it manufactured for 
Takahama 3 and 4 in Fukui Prefecture,and ended up raising serious 
concerns over the safety of MOX fuel within Japanese citizens and 
utilities. This scandal which was first revealed in the summer of 
1999 resulted in a postponement of the program to burnMOX fuel in 
Japan.
 		
The fuel for Kashiwazaki-Kariwa 3 in Niigata prefecture arrived 
one day after a controversial court ruling against the use of 
Belgonucleaire's fuel at Fukushima I-3. In this court case, 
plaintiffs asked for a temporary injunction against the use of 
the fuel siting concerns over safety and demanding that all the 
data concerning the manufacturing of the fuel must be released 
before the fuel is loaded.The court did not uphold the 
injunction, but ruled that the data cannotbe classified as 
commercially confidential and that the defendant should prove the 
safety of the fuel after releasing all data concerning its 
manufacturing process.
 		
This second shipment of MOX fuel took place despite the fact that 
the MOX fuel transported in the first shipment for Takahama 4 and 
Fukushima I-3 has not been used yet. Due to BNFL's falsification 
ofquality control data, the fuel transported for Takahama 4 will 
be returned to Britain. The fuel transported for Fukushima I-3 is 
sitting at the plant unused while this February the Fukushima 
Governor calledfor a one year review on plans to use MOX fuel in 
the Prefecture's  nuclear plants. Following this statement, the 
Niigata Governor reiterated his assertion that the Prefecture 
will not be the fist to use  MOX. Niigata was to begin the use of 
MOX following Fukushima which wasto be the first to use the fuel. 
Now that plans to use MOX at Fukushima have become unclear, the 
MOX fuel for Niigata was accepted with highlymixed feelings. 
Unless the Prefecture decides to go ahead and become thefirst one 
to burn MOX, most likely the fuel will sit in Niigata unused for 
more than one year.
 
 3F Kotobuki Bldg., 1-58-15 Higashi-nakano, Nakano-ku, Tokyo 
164-0003 Japan Tel: 81-3-5330-9520; Fax: 81-3-5330-9530 
http://www.cnic.or.jp/<br> cnic-jp@po.iijnet.or.jp (C) Citizens' 
Nuclear Information Center 
*****************************************************************
 21  Civilian Application of China's Nuclear Industry (2) China is 
planning to provide central heating system using
 
[Xinhua News Agency]   
  
Story Filed: Monday, March 26, 2001 8:42 PM EST 

Mar 26, 2001 (Xinhua via COMTEX) -- China is planning to provide 
central heating system using nuclear power in the city of 
Shenyang in northeast China's Liaoning Province as an attempt to 
curb the worsening air pollution. Currently, coal accounts for 75 
percent of China's energy consumption, creating serious 
environmental problems nationwide. 

Also, the country, plagued by the lack of clean and efficient 
energy, decided to spur the development of its own nuclear power 
plants. 

So far, China has its huge projects like the Qinshan Nuclear 
Power Station in Zhejiang Province of East China and the Daya Bay 
Nuclear Power Plant in Guangdong Province of South China, both 
having exemplary safety records. The power plants, with 
technologies imported from foreign countries, including France 
and Russia, have not only alleviated power shortages in east 
China and Guangdong, but have also supplied substantial 
quantities of power to Hong Kong. 

Construction of second and third phase projects at Qinshan, and 
at the Ling'ao and Lianyungang nuclear power stations also is 
progressing smoothly. In spite of that, the government is still 
earnest to develop advanced, safe, and economical nuclear 
reactors with its own intellectual property rights rather than 
merely relying on foreign technologies. 

The country's nuclear power generating capacity is likely to 
reach 20 million kilowatts by the year 2010, with the figure 
expected to rise to 40 million kilowatts accounting for 5 percent 
of the nation's total power output by 2020. 

Copyright 2001 XINHUA NEWS AGENCY 
*****************************************************************
 22  Too much commercial patronage can make scientific integrity a 
thing of the past

Guardian Unlimited | Archive Search
 
Gillian Evans Guardian Tuesday March 27, 2001

How does society know that it can trust the reassuring noises of 
governments when something scientifically scary comes over the 
horizon? The government announces that its position is supported 
by expert scientific opinion. The population is increasingly 
sceptical. A number of episodes - BSE, genetically modified 
foods, nuclear power - have led to widespread questioning of the 
credibility of scientific expertise stored conveniently in 
politicians' pockets like a clean handkerchief for use in 
emergency. 

It is one thing for the sometimes conflicting "honest views" of 
scientists to be played off against one another in what a 
government will naturally claim to be the public interest. It is 
another for the whole system to be shot through with uncertainty 
so that no one can be confident of the truth of anything 
scientists say. 

Let us look at the factors making for uncertainty. A high 
proportion of Britain's academic scientists are on short-term 
contracts. The dual support system which funds the infrastructure 
in universities separately from the project money means that for 
most, the continuance of their research - and their very jobs - 
may depend on getting the next tranche of money. 

At the top of the academic heap are those who can help ensure 
that it is forthcoming. They have permanent positions. They sit 
on the research council committees. They edit the journals. They 
give the references, or choose the referees. They have 
postgraduate studentships in their gift and also postdoctoral 
positions on research teams. 

It would scarcely be possible to design a structure better 
calculated to create a climate in which patronage flourishes and 
the wary junior scientist keeps his head down and does not ask 
awkward questions. Now introduce into this unhealthy environment 
government encouragement to universities to form links with 
commerce and industry, so as to reduce demand on the public 
purse, and government encouragement for universities to be 
entrepreneurial while they are about it, generating 
spin-offcompanies for the commercial exploitation of the findings 
of the research thus funded. 

The heads of departments and projects are keen to have this 
money; money is useful and this money comes without public 
funding's strings. 

But it does not come quite string-free. The days of benefaction 
(literally) for the good of one's soul are some centuries behind 
us. 

Commercial funders arrive with big corporate lawyers and 
contracts of a sophistication which often leave academics so 
dazzled as to be unable to see clearly what they are signing. 
Universities ought to be keeping a sharp eye on sharp practice 
but pressure to keep the coffers full may encourage the odd wink 
and blink. 

So we come to the honest scientist who knows that the results of 
the research are not what the commercial funder wishes. 
Notwithstanding recent legislation intended to protect the 
conscientious whistleblower (though not if he is a PhD student), 
recent cases show that it can lose a scientist not only his job 
of the moment but also any prospect of a future career to defend 
the integrity of his research. Universities, which ought to be 
reliable protectors of their academic scientists, will "let the 
scientist go" rather than stand up to the funder. Some of these 
are to be the subject of a forthcoming conference. 

To undermine trust in the integrity of science all that is needed 
is for there to be reasonable doubt in the public mind. This is 
the moment to call for a "Neill" committee on standards in 
scientific research.

� The Corruption of Scientific Integrity? - The Commercialisation 
of Academic Science, conference at the British Academy, May 2, 
details:

D.E.Packham@bath.ac.uk                  
 		      		      		   
[UP]    	 	 
*****************************************************************
 23   Protesters Try To Obstruct Shipment
 
March 27, 2001 
 
DANNENBERG, Germany (AP) - Protesters trying to obstruct a 
nuclear waste shipment attached themselves to a rail bridge over 
a river Tuesday as the transport rumbled through Germany in the 
first such shipment in four years. Police in rubber boats tried 
to persuade the roughly half-dozen Greenpeace activists who were 
dangling by ropes from the underside of the bridge to come down. 
The bridge is about 15 miles from the Gorleben nuclear waste dump 
in northern Germany where the 60-ton waste shipment was headed. 

About 30 more activists took to the river in boats. Four police 
helicopters hovered overhead. 

"Our aim is clear: We want to obstruct this transport as long as 
possible," Greenpeace spokesman Veit Buerger said. The transport 
was due to arrive late Tuesday at a rail terminal from where 
trucks will bring the six containers - each with about 10 tons of 
radioactive waste sealed in 28 glass casks - to Gorleben. 

The train crossed into southwestern Germany from France late 
Monday, delayed by about an hour by small groups of demonstrators 
who were cleared from the tracks by police. Protesters booed, 
blew whistles and placed candles on the tracks to demonstrate 
their opposition to the transports. 

Police said they detained more than 90 people but that no one was 
injured. After the delay and a change of locomotive on the 
border, the train continued its 375-mile trip northeast to the 
Gorleben dump, the focus of Germany's anti-nuclear movement. 
Police reported no incidents along the route overnight and 
Tuesday morning. 

Police removed hundreds of protesters from rail tracks near 
Gorleben Monday night. Other demonstrators loosened ties along a 
50-yard section of track, leading to at least 35 arrests. 

Up to 20,000 police were out in force bracing for a repeat of 
clashes with militant protesters that surrounded the last 
shipment in 1997. Authorities have promised tough action against 
any blockade. 

"I think it's a good thing but of little use," said Gerhard 
Sandman, a factory worker from the eastern state of Saxony who 
watched the Greenpeace action but did not take part in any 
blockade. 

Anti-nuclear activists say authorities prepared at least nine 
alternative routes for the transport across Germany to skirt 
protests. 

Especially vulnerable is the final 12-mile stretch by truck. 
Germany's supreme court Monday upheld a 50-yard exclusion zone on 
each side. 

The anti-nuclear protesters are hoping their stand will drive up 
the cost of waste shipments and convince utilities that nuclear 
waste transport isn't worth the cost. 

The shipment involves radioactive waste left over after spent 
nuclear fuel from German power plants that was reprocessed at a 
French plant. 

German and French leaders agreed on a resumption of nuclear waste 
traffic last January, with the German government saying it has 
tightened safety rules for the transports since the previous 
administration suspended shipments in 1998 because of radioactive 
leaks on some containers. 

Spent nuclear fuel from German power plants is sent abroad for 
reprocessing, but the contracts oblige Germany to take back the 
resulting waste. 

All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
 24  GREENPEACE OCCUPIES BRIDGE IN PROTEST AT NUCLEAR WASTE SHIPMENT
 
27 March 2001

 Dannenberg/Hitzacker, Germany � Some 45 Greenpeace activists 
from 15 countries were arrested today after occupying a 13 metre 
high bridge over the river Jeetzel near Hitzacker, in front of 
the path of the shipment of nuclear waste travelling from France 
to Gorleben in Germany. 

At 7 am the environmentalists, unnoticed by police, went under 
the bridge in inflatable boats and climbed up to the track using 
special ladders and ropes. A A group of 15 activists fixed chains 
to the rails and secured climbers under the bridge with them 
while the other 30 activists remained below in the boats. Between 
the two piers of the bridge climbers unfurled a 10 metre by 5 
metre triangular banner saying "Stop Castor" � the containers the 
nuclear waste is being transported in. The activists occupied the 
bridge for about six hours before being arrested by police at 
12.45 pm. 

Activists from 15 nations including; Austria, the United States, 
Turkey, Holland, United Kingdom, Australia, Finland, Denmark and 
Sweden, were involved in the action. They were protesting against 
the resumption of nuclear shipments between France and Germany 
following a suspension of the shipments in 1998. 

The Jeetzel bridge is on the rail route between L�neburg and 
Dannenberg, where the Castor containers or flasks will be 
unloaded from the train and put on heavy lorries for transport to 
the interim storage at Gorleben. Two years ago it emerged that 
the bridge, which was 125 years old, was in need of repair. After 
that only passenger trains were allowed to go over it. The old 
bridge was in the end torn down and a new bridge built at a cost 
of approximately seven million German marks. 

"As long as nuclear power plants produce radioactive waste by the 
tonne which is then shunted all over Europe, people will go on 
the streets to demonstrate peacefully against it," said 
Greenpeace's energy expert, Veit B�rger,. The many protests 
accompanying the nuclear shipment are a clear sign that nuclear 
energy is not socially accepted. The consensus on nuclear power 
has not changed this. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:
 
- Veit B�rger, Greepeace nuclear expert +49 (0) 171 8780820 or 
Stefan Schurig, press officer, tel. +49 (0) 171 8780837. 

For the latest photos and film footage contact Greenpeace's press 
office, tel. no. +49 (0)40 30618340. 

www.greenpeace.de/castor(German) 
www.greenpeace.org/~nuclear/transport/mox00(English) 
*****************************************************************
 25  Police break up nuclear protest - 

March 26, 2001
 	 	
  A sit-down protest on tracks where the cargo is expected to pass        
 		 
LUENEBURG, Germany -- Police have removed protesters from a 
railway line where they were demonstrating over a nuclear waste 
shipment. 
		 
The train is carrying the waste to Germany from a reprocessing 
plant in France to a radioactive dump at Gorleben, 40 kms (25 
miles) east of Lueneburg. 
		 
German police said at least 150 demonstrators were arrested and 
detained at Lueneburg before the train, which is due in Gorleben 
on Wednesday morning, arrived in the town. 
		 
Police also clashed with protesters near the village of 
Nahrendorf, with police reporting that around 200 activists had 
damaged rail tracks. 

In a separate incident at Dannenberg, where the nuclear waste 
will be transferred onto trucks for the final stage of its 
journey, police used earthmovers to remove sandbags laid across 
the road. 
		 
The train crossed into Germany on Monday at around 11.30 p.m 
local time (2130 GMT). Demonstrators were also removed from the 
tracks near Woerth, close to the French border. 
		 
Small obstacles, including branches, also had to be moved from 
the track, police said, between the German village of Berg, where 
the train crossed from the French frontier town of Lauterbourg, 
and Woerth, where a German locomotive was waiting. 
		 
In Woerth, southwest of Karlsruhe, German police will replace 
their French counterparts riding security on the train as the 
German locomotive takes the place of the French one. 
		 
The 250 tonne shipment, carried in six sealed containers, left 
the French village of Valognes -- near the La Hague reprocessing 
plant -- just before dawn on Monday. 
		 
It spent the day travelling at slow speed through northern 
France. The journey through France was met with only token 
protests, with a handful of activists from environmental group 
Greenpeace heckling the train as it left Valognes. 
		 
About 100 demonstrators, some clad in white contamination suits, 
shouted slogans as the train passed through the towns of 
Bar-le-Duc and Nancy. 
		 
"We're not here to block the convoy because we think it's normal 
that the waste should go back to where it came from," said 
Greenpeace spokesman Frederic Marillier. 
		 
  [Flag] A Greenpeace demonstrator at Valognes station, in 
Normandy        

 
"But we want to denounce this return because it opens the door to 
trains coming from the other direction." 
		 
Thousands of protesters have massed on the German side of the 
border. 
		 
At least 15,000 police - ten times the number used in France -- 
have been deployed to prevent them blocking the route. Around 
2,000 of the German police were on the border. 
		 
"There are 2,000 police and only 200 of us, so there is no way we 
can stop the train," said Andi Bauer, a protester at the German 
border. 
		 
"We are doing this protest so that people will pay attention to 
the issue." 
		 
The last such transport, in 1997, provoked pitched battles 
between police and anti-nuclear campaigners. 
		 
About 10,000 anti-nuclear activists rallied on Saturday in 
Lueneburg, chanting slogans against Environment Minister Juergen 
Trittin, a Green, who approved the shipment. 
		 
Spent nuclear fuel from German power plants is sent abroad for 
reprocessing, but the contracts oblige Germany to take back 
resulting radioactive waste. 
		 
Transports were suspended by the previous government in 1998 
after radioactive leaks were discovered on some containers. 
		 
It caused a pile-up of spent nuclear fuel at German power plants 
and of waste at the French reprocessing plant in La Hague. 
		 
German and French leaders agreed on a resumption last January, 
with the German government insisting it has tightened safety 
rules for the transports. 
		 
"We've long known the waste would have to be taken back," Trittin 
told ARD Television, "But it is now happening under acceptable 
political conditions." 
		 
The shipment is scheduled to reach Gorleben on Wednesday morning. 

The Associated Press & Reuters contributed to this report.
 					
by CNN Interactive. 

*****************************************************************
 26  Huge Security Force Accompanies Nuke Train
 
                                       
Tuesday March 27, 10:11 AM
       
The biggest security operation since World War Two is under way 
in Germany to stop anti-nuclear protesters disrupting the passage 
of a train carrying radioactive waste from France.

More than 30,000 police and special forces have been positioned 
along the 300 mile (500km) route from the French border to a 
nuclear storage facility at Gorleben south of Hamburg.

Environmentalists have vowed mass demonstrations along the 
train's journey and say that 10,000 of their supporters are ready 
to turn out when the train reaches its final destination.

Cause for concern

The German authorities have good reason to be concerned. When the 
last such train made the journey from France demonstrations 
turned violent with police fighting running battles with 
protesters back in 1997.

A year after that France banned the nuclear trains because of 
fears over the safety of the carriages.

Since the train crossed the border into Germany at the dead of 
night, 15 demonstrators had to be forcibly removed from the 
tracks in front of the slow-moving train. A police helicopter has 
been patrolling the skies above the railway looking for obstacles 
and signs of sabotage possibly placed along the route.

Sealed and delivered

The deadly cargo of reprocessed nuclear fuel is contained in six 
helium-sealed waste caskets. At the front and back of the train 
police are packed into passenger wagons to ward off attempts to 
interfere with the train.

It is due to arrive at Danneburg, near Lueneburg late on Tuesday 
evening from where the containers will be transported by lorry to 
the nuclear storage site. Nuclear energy is an extremely emotive 
issue in Germany where the ruling centre-left coalition includes 
the environmentalist Green Party.

Phasing out

The country intends to phase out nuclear power by 2025, and 
intends to close down its nineteen reactors, switching to other 
sources of electricity before then.

The problem is what to do with waste produced until then. France 
has refused to reprocess any more waste until Germany took more 
back - hence the restarting of the nuclear trains. About two a 
year are now planned for the next few years.Click here for more 
news on sky.com
 
Copyright � 2001 BSkyB. All rights reserved. Republication or 
redissemination Copyright � 2001 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.   
*****************************************************************
 27  Showdown over nuclear waste

Guardian | 
John Hooper in Dannenberg, northern Germany and Jon Henley in Paris
Tuesday March 27, 2001
The Guardian

Police and border guards yesterday moved in to clear several 
hundred protesters from a railway line near the town of L�neburg 
as the biggest civil security operation to be mounted in Germany 
since the second world war swung into action. 

Between 15,000 and 20,000 officers were deployed by the German 
government to quell demonstrations against the resumption of 
nuclear waste shipments from France to Germany after a four-year 
pause. 

The first massive helium sealed containers were due to reach 
German territory late last night before travelling to Dannenberg 
where they were to be unloaded on to lorries. 

The convoy of six containers carrying 60 tons of nuclear waste 
pulled out of Valognes railway terminal, near the reprocessing 
plant at Le Hague, at 6.47am with two contingents of French riot 
police in its front and rear carriages. Another 1,200 police were 
deployed in the Manche region and several thousand more took up 
posts along the train's route through Caen, Amiens, Rheims and 
Nancy before a scheduled border crossing at Lauterbourg near 
Strasbourg before midnight. 

But despite the French authorities' fears, only about 20 
protesters gathered at Valognes to witness the train's departure, 
firing a flare and holding banners reading "La Hague: the dustbin 
is overflowing". 

Anti-nuclear groups say their aim is to drive up the cost of 
waste shipments and persuade utilities that nuclear plants are 
not economical. 

"Every transport from La Hague makes another transport to La 
Hague possible, securing the continued operation of the nuclear 
power plants," said Rasmus Grobe, a spokesman for a protest group 
whose symbol, a large yellow X, has appeared across the country. 

French anti-nuclear campaigners had earlier said they would not 
try to block the shipment. "We think it's only right the waste 
should go back to where it came from," said Frederic Marillier, 
of Greenpeace. "But we want to denounce this return, because it 
opens the door to trains coming from the other direction." 

In Germany, the last shipments four years ago sparked battles 
between police and demonstrators opposed to the storing of waste 
in a disused salt mine at Gorleben, south of Hamburg. Evidence of 
radioactive leaks prompted the German government to halt the 
shipments the following year. 

The resumption has shaken the Green party, the junior partner in 
Gerhard Schr�der's coalition, to its roots. The decision to take 
back the waste was made by the environment minister, Jurgen 
Trittin, a leader of the Greens who once protested against 
nuclear dumping. 

At the railhead in north Germany, the nearest crossing was 
protected by three border guard armoured personnel carriers. A 
further three were positioned 100 yards back up the track, 
equipped with ploughs at the front to sweep obstacles off the 
rails. Police said they had made 80 arrests in a string of 
incidents across the area. Demonstrators yesterday appeared to be 
concentrating on getting stretches of the line blocked in advance 
of the containers' arrival. 

The French reprocessing agency, Cogema, which operates the La 
Hague facility, estimates about 15 more transports will be needed 
- at a rate of about two a year - to ship the backlog of waste 
back to Germany. 

Hear John Hooper reporting on the controversy at Guardian 
Unlimited � Guardian Newspapers Limited 2001 
*****************************************************************
 28    Protesters block nuclear 'hot-train'   

The Times
	                     
  Christian Charisius/Reuters   

  ['Riot police stood by yesterday as about a thousand protesters 
blocked a stretch of line near Dannenburg on the final stage of 
the train&#39;s route'width=350 height=238]   
    
  Riot police stood by yesterday as about a thousand protesters 
blocked a stretch of line near Dannenburg on the final stage of 
the train's route   

  TUESDAY MARCH 27 2001   
    
    
  FROM ROGER BOYES IN BERLIN   
    
  HUNDREDS of anti-nuclear protesters occupied sections of 
railway line, sabotaged the tracks and clashed with German police 
yesterday as a heavily guarded train full of radioactive waste 
travelled from France to northern Germany for burial in a 
saltmine. 

The protesters are furious that the Green Party, junior partner 
in the Government of Gerhard Schr�der, is allowing the nuclear 
transports to continue. 

After the Greens� election losses on Sunday, the friction between 
the party leaders and its supporters is rapidly becoming a 
problem for Herr Schr�der, the Chancellor. 

Although his Social Democrats did well in the elections, 
comfortably retaining power in the Rhineland Palatinate, he needs 
the Greens to function as a reliable coalition partner. Yet the 
Greens only scraped into the Rhinelands parliament and lost more 
than 4 per cent of their support in Baden-W�rttemberg. 

Green Party leaders say that they oppose the violent protests 
this week against what has been called the �hot train� and argue 
that waste transports are essential if the Government is to 
achieve its ambition of closing all nuclear power stations within 
30 years. The anti-nuclear movement feels betrayed by the Greens. 

So far the protesters are using a form of partisan tactics to 
slow the progress of the �hot train�. Police arrested several 
youths wearing balaclavas as they tried to rip up a stretch of 
rail near the Gorleben burial site yesterday. In Dannenberg 
another 150 protesters were encircled by the police. All along 
the route, action is planned, such as the tugging down of 
electric cables and blockades of railway lines and stations. The 
main focus of the protest will be on the final 30-mile stretch of 
line from L�neburg to Dannenberg and along the country roads 
leading from the railway terminus to the village of Gorleben. 

Police have pledged to be tougher than they were four years ago, 
when they used truncheons, teargas and water cannon to repel the 
demonstrators. �We will be more determined than last time and we 
will act rather than react,� Hans Reime, the police commander in 
charge of the operation, said. �Nevertheless, I will try 
everything in my power to prevent injuries.� Greenpeace staged a 
token demonstration as the train rolled out of a station near the 
French recycling centre at La Hague. Five locomotives are 
involved in the transport, two travelling ahead to make sure that 
the line has not been sabotaged. 

The train crossed into Germany at W�rth in the south of the 
country late last night, from where it faced a 375-mile journey 
north to Gorleben. 

At the front and back of the train there are carriages filled 
with riot police, 1,200 in all. The train has to stop for regular 
radioactivity checks � the police then disembark and surround the 
stations while the Geiger counters are put to work. 

Police in the Wendland region around Gorleben were checking all 
cars yesterday and were trying to close camps where protesters 
were pitching their tents. Greenpeace is promising to mount the 
biggest protest in its history and Herr Reime admitted: 
�Greenpeace is giving us a headache.� Several hundred anarchists 
have also arrived from Hamburg and Berlin.
   
  Copyright 2001 Times Newspapers Ltd. This service is provided 
*****************************************************************
 29  Nuclear Waste Transport Peaceful So Far

[Frankfurter Allgemeine] 

F.A.Z. FRANKFURT. For the first time in four years, a Castor 
transport of nuclear waste from the reprocessing plant at La 
Hague in France is on its way to the temporary storage site at 
Gorleben.

Only a few banner-waving nuclear power opponents stood by the 
rails on Monday morning as the train set off near Valognes. At 
noon, the situation in France was calm, with some 1,500 French 
police on duty by the tracks.

But in Germany, as Environment Minister J�rgen Trittin of 
Alliance 90/The Greens, defended the transport, anti-nuclear 
activists intensified their attempts to block or disrupt the 
single-line track between L�neburg and Dannenberg. Around midday, 
roughly 50 demonstrators were occupying the line near G�hrde and 
attempting to sabotage the track.

During the afternoon, about 400 mainly young protesters stormed 
the line near Wendisch-Evern and several hundred police were 
required to clear the tracks. A police spokesperson said that by 
Monday afternoon, about 250 protesters had been taken into 
custody.

Officer Hans Reine, in charge of the operation, appeared calm and 
said he was "fairly relaxed about the situation," adding that 
there were fewer demonstrators than expected. He said there were 
only a few hundred activists at each of the camps, which had 
originally been banned, but were now being tolerated. Mr. Reine 
said crowd control procedures were simplified by the fact that 
the protesters were dispersed in a number of camps. Speaking in 
L�neburg, he said that so far, the police had not had to take any 
"coercive measures," but the "local action" threatened by Castor 
opponents at 22 track-crossings was causing the police commanders 
some concern.

Mr. Reine said he was also aware that some independent groups who 
were prepared to use violence, mainly from Berlin, Hamburg and 
G�ttingen, were getting ready for action.

The train from France was due to arrive after midnight Monday at 
the German border, where it would be rearranged and its progress 
safeguarded by a train escort detachment. A German Border Guards 
senior manager responsible for the transport as far as Dannenberg 
said allowances had been made for delays and alternative routes 
planned.

A total of 10,000 police officers and members of the German 
Border Guards were on duty on Monday in the L�neburg and 
L�chow-Dannenberg region, and 5,000 more were expected to arrive 
on Tuesday and Wednesday. The six Castor consignments are 
scheduled to arrive at the Dannenberg unloading station on 
Tuesday night. The next day they will probably be transported by 
road on low-loaders to the storage depot at Gorleben 20 
kilometers (13 miles) away. Mar. 26, 2001

� Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 2000 All 
*****************************************************************
 30  Nuclear nightmare for Greens

BBC News | EUROPE | 

26 March, 2001, 10:34 GMT 11:34 UK      

Nuclear nightmare for Greens [Juergin Trittin] Power turned sour: 
Juergen Trittin is facing public anger For more than a quarter of 
a century, an anti-nuclear movement virtually unrivalled in 
Western Europe has flourished in Germany. "Atomkraft - Nein 
Danke" stickers plastered the VW Beetles and 2CVs of a generation 
of students; thousands have joined street protests or taken 
direct action. It seemed the movement had reached its moment of 
triumph when the Green Party, its roots firmly in the 
anti-nuclear movement, joined Gerhard Schoeder's Social Democrats 
in government in 1997. But now, with thousands protesting against 
the restarting of nuclear waste shipments, the Greens find 
themselves in the extraordinary position of being on the "wrong 
side" of the argument: their ministers back the policy, and have 
even urged protesters to stay at home. 
	 		 			
[Anti-nuclear protest] 

Protests are continuing despite Green pleas
 		 		 		  
There was little sign of the problems that lay ahead when the 
Greens joined the government. 

They insisted, as a condition of entering the coalition, that 
Germany would have to become free of nuclear power. 

The deal duly followed: German nuclear power bosses became the 
first in any major economic power to accept that their industry 
was dying. 

But under the plan, it will be up to 20 years before the last of 
Germany's 19 nuclear power station finally shuts down. 

We must take our waste back - we cannot say keep it, it is a 
generous present from our Red-Green government to the French 
republic
   	 		
Green Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer                            

And the deal, historic though it was, split the Greens into those 
who saw it as a realistic compromise and those who saw it as a 
sell-out. 

Green Environment Minister Juergen Trittin backed the compromise, 
to the anger of radicals. 

He has also found himself formally backing the resumption of 
nuclear waste transport to Gorleben - despite having himself been 
a former protester there. 

Acceptance 

After a three-year ban over safety fears, Germany agreed in 
January to resume the transport - and senior Greens urged 
grassroots members to accept the inevitable. 

"We must take our waste back," German Foreign Minister and 
leading Green Joschka Fischer has told members. 

"We cannot say keep it, it is a generous present from our 
Red-Green government to the French republic...the French Greens 
would never accept that -- rightly." 
	 		 			
[recycling facility in Valognes, near La Hague] The Greens have 
had to back the resumption of waste shipments
 		 		 		  
But opposition to the transport continues, both inside and 
outside the party. 

German intelligence sources estimate that as many as 1,000 
violent left-wing extremists could be planning action. 

Thousands more peaceful protesters are expected to lend their 
support to the opposition. 

Tens of thousands have already joined street protests - some 
chanting slogans against Mr Trittin for allowing the transport 
and for agreeing to take so long to phase out nuclear power. 

Support slipping 

Green party leaders have tried to salvage the party's credibility 
as an anti-nuclear force. 

"We have to make clear that we are also in favour of a speedy 
withdrawal from nuclear power and that we want a different 
storage site," said Claudia Roth, the party's co-chairwoman. 

But Sunday's elections in two German states saw the party suffer 
a collapse in support. 

A separate row over patriotism is thought to be partly to blame. 

But some correspondents believe the Green Party is in danger of 
sliding into a hole between its old radical support base - for 
whom it has become too compromised - and more mainstream voters 
whose priorities now lie in other issues. 
	         
      Search BBC News Online
*****************************************************************
 31  Lithuania could close nuclear plant in 2009
 					   				 				
LITHUANIA: March 26, 2001
 					   				 				 				
VILNIUS - Lithuania could close its Chernobyl-style Ignalina 
nuclear plant in 2009, as the European Union wants, but would 
prefer to do it later, Economy Minister Eugenijus Gentvilas said 
last week.                                            
 					   				 				 				 				
"We can see the possibility of closing the second block not 
earlier than 2009, but we may be able to negotiate to close it 
later, maybe 2012 or so," Gentvilas told Reuters after a news 
conference. "It is necessary to negotiate with the European 
Commission, because of course we don't have a big interest in 
closing it earlier than the EU wants." 

Last week a representative of the European Commission, the 
executive arm of the EU, said Lithuania must decide the fate of 
Ignalina in 2002 if it wants to keep to its plans for fast-track 
EU entry.

It was also indicated that 2009 was being eyed as the final date 
by which it wanted the Soviet-built facility shut down for good.

Lithuania has said it wants to complete EU negotiations by the 
end of 2002 and enter the wealthy 15-member bloc by 2004.

Under pressure from the EU, Lithuania has already pledged to shut 
the first of Ignalina's two reactors in 2005, and plans to make a 
decision on the second reactor in 2004.

The EU regards Ignalina as unsafe because it was built to the 
same design as Ukraine's disastrous Chernobyl plant, the scene of 
the world's worst civilian nuclear accident in 1986.

Many in former Soviet Lithuania have been reluctant to shut 
Ignalina, which was built in the 1980s on Moscow's orders.

Lithuania is one of the world's most nuclear dependent countries, 
with nuclear technology supplying more than 70 percent of its 
electricity.
 						
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE                                                    
*****************************************************************
 32  UPM backs nuclear plant, defies green activists
 					   				 				
FINLAND: March 26, 2001
 					   				 				 				
HELSINKI - Finnish papermaker UPM-Kymmene has reiterated support 
for a plan by Finnish industry to build a new nuclear power plant 
against the objections of environmental activists.                                          

UPM, the world's fourth biggest paper and board maker, has found 
itself in the middle of a bubbling debate around nuclear power 
after the industry, led by UPM's affiliated power group TVO, 
applied in November for a permit to build a new plant.

Chief Executive Juha Niemela told the company's annual general 
meeting of shareholders that Finland needed nuclear power to 
ensure a steady supply of affordable energy and to meet its 
emissions reduction obligations under the Kyoto accord.

"We clearly support building a nuclear power plant," Niemela told 
the AGM at a downtown Helsinki congress centre outside of which a 
handful of Greenpeace activists handed out fliers condemning the 
company's support for nuclear energy.

Niemela said that Finland's own nuclear industry was low-risk and 
that by European standards Finnish paper was produced with a 
relatively low input of nuclear power.

He added UPM was basically self-sufficient in energy in Finland - 
its own paper mills generate significant power - so the outcome 
of a bid by industry for a permit to build the country's fifth 
nuclear plant was not a big risk to it.

Finnish industry's hopes to boost nuclear power go against the 
tide in a Europe shifting to other forms of energy.

UPM COY ON STAKE IN NEW REACTOR PROJECT

With a stake of over 38 percent, UPM-Kymmene is the biggest 
single owner of power group Pohjolan Voima (PVO), which is the 
second biggest owner of Teollisuuden Voima (TVO), the company 
behind the new power plant plan. That link has led environmental 
groups, above all Greenpeace, to target UPM-Kymmene as the 
biggest private owner of the company spearheading the permit 
application. Only state majority energy firm Fortum is a bigger 
TVO owner.

UPM-Kymmene has borne the brunt of the criticism by environmental 
groups, though rival Finnish-Swedish papermaker Stora Enso is 
PVO's second biggest owner with 16.5 percent.

But Niemela noted that some 60 different interested parties were 
behind the application, and that it was far too early to say what 
UPM-Kymmene's possible participation in a project to build a new 
nuclear power plant could be. Industry insiders said this could 
indicate UPM-Kymmene might choose to own less of the new project 
than its current indirect stake in TVO, especially because of its 
self-sufficiency in power at its Finland-based mills. It is a 
buyer of electricity overseas.

If the plan gets the go-ahead from the government and parliament, 
it would be Finland's fifth nuclear plant. It has four others at 
two installations which satisfy almost 30 percent of the 
country's total electricity needs.

Niemela's remarks to the AGM were in response to a question from 
a shareholder who asked about the potential impact of the nuclear 
plant project on UPM's markets in Europe, where paper-buying 
publishers could be prone to pressure by environmentalists.                                              
 					   				 				 				 				
Story by John Acher                                            
 					   				 				 				
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE                                                    
*****************************************************************
 33  German Greens leader says support must be won back
 					   				 				
GERMANY: March 27, 2001
 					   				 				 				
GORLEBEN - The leader of Germany's environmentalist Greens said 
on Sunday the party had to win back support lost over the 
resumption of nuclear waste shipments from France back to Germany 
next week.                                          
 					   				 				 				 				
Demonstrators have accused the Greens of betraying ecologist 
ideals and say a plan to withdraw from nuclear power by the 
mid-2020s will take too long.

Greens leader Claudia Roth said that the party had to try to win 
the trust of the anti-nuclear activists at Gorleben, the site 
where the nuclear waste will be stored.

"We have to make clear that we are also in favour of a speedy 
withdrawal from nuclear power and that we want a different 
storage site," Roth said as a demonstration around Gorleben got 
under way.

The resumption of waste transports has been a major headache for 
the anti-nuclear Greens party, junior partner in Chancellor 
Gerhard Schroeder's coalition.

The Greens rose to political prominence in the 1970s and 1980s 
through the anti-nuclear movement and their depiction by 
grassroots members as the bad guys in the nuclear transports 
issue is a major source of embarrassment. More than 10,000 
demonstrators gathered in the north German town of Lueneburg on 
Saturday to protest against the transports and they reserved much 
of their ire for the Greens.

The resumed shipments are allowed under the agreement on 
long-term withdrawal from nuclear power negotiated last year by 
Greens Environment Minister Juergen Trittin, and the party has 
urged members to demonstrate peacefully.

Transports were banned in 1998 amid fears about leakage.

Farmers took to the streets with 400 tractors on Sunday to 
protest against the resumption of shipments.

Activists have said they do not think they can stop the 
transports but they were out to make a point and put pressure on 
the Greens from the grassroots. France is due to start sending 
nuclear waste back to Germany yesterday after treatment in its 
reprocessing plant in La Hague. The last shipments was four years 
ago but they were stopped in 1998 amid safety concerns.

Police expect the demonstrators to try to block the transports. 
During the last shipments, activists and police fought running 
battles in the fields at Gorleben.                                               
 					   				 				 				 				
Story by Andreas Moeser                                                
 					   				 				 				
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE                                                    
*****************************************************************
 34  EU nuclear power production up two pct in 2000 - VDEW
 					   				 				
GERMANY: March 27, 2001
 					   				 				 				
FRANKFURT - Electricity suppliers in the European Union increased 
their nuclear power production by two percent last year to around 
828 billion kilowatt hours (kWh), the Association of German 
Electricity Suppliers VDEW said yesterday.                                                 
 					   				 				 				 				
Nuclear power accounts for a third of electricity production in 
the EU, VDEW said in a statement based on information from 
electricity industry association Eurelectric.

At 395 billion kWh, France again produced the most nuclear power, 
which accounts for 79 percent of its total electricity 
production. Belgium, Sweden and Finland followed with 54, 39 and 
31 percent respectively.

Germany was in the middle of the table with 30 percent, while 
Spain, the UK and the Netherlands had 28, 25 and four percent 
shares respectively of electricity production from nuclear 
energy.

Outside the EU, Switzerland produced 25 billion kWh of nuclear 
power, 25 percent of its total electricity mix.

EU accession countries Lithuania, Slovakia, Slovenia, the Czech 
Republic and Hungary generated between a 20-70 percent share.                                                
 					   				 				 				 				
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE                                                    
*****************************************************************
 35  The human price of Chernobyl
 
  Cleanup workers plea for benefits promised by government           [Image:
Photos of Chernobyl victims]   	

  Alexander Kraizman, who helped clean up the 1986 Chernobyl 
nuclear accident, remembers comrades pictured on a memorial wall 
who died after radiation exposure.
        
  By Angela Charlton

ASSOCIATED PRESS  

  SHAKHTY, Russia, March 19 �  It is day 211 for the men camped 
out on a snow-packed square in the southern Russian town of 
Shakhty, the 30th week of their desperate plea for millions of 
rubles owed them for helping clean up history�s worst nuclear 
accident.  

           THE DAY starts with wives and children of these men � 
dubbed �Chernobyltsy� for their work at the Chernobyl nuclear 
plant after the 1986 disaster � arriving with medicine, bottled 
water and a kiss before heading to work or school.

        The men, mostly former coal miners now unable to work 
because of radiation-related ailments, stay behind.

        They talk about politics, or sports. And lately, they 
talk about the nuclear plant that just opened 90 miles to the 
east � Russia�s first new nuclear station since Chernobyl. All 
are opposed.

        �We understand what that means, the risk of invisible 
radiation,� says a protest organizer, Viktor Butsev.
        
 THE SHAKHTY PROTESTERS

        Throughout the day, more Chernobyltsy, friends and 
neighbors appear at the camp with words of support, gathering 
beneath huge caricature portraits of top government officials.       
      
About 90 men have been taking part in the protest since July, 
rotating teams every week, with about a dozen men at a time 
sleeping in rough canvas tents and consuming only water. As day 
211 draws to a close, they play backgammon on rickety cots and 
share stories of their children � one has brought a pink balloon 
to decorate the drab tent.

        As part of the disaster brigades deployed at Chernobyl, 
the men enjoy special legal status in Russia and are supposed to 
earn monthly benefits ranging from 300 to 5,000 rubles, the 
equivalent of about $10 to $180. But chronic government cash 
shortages often hold up payments.

        Butsev says the Shakhty protesters haven�t been paid 
since January 1999, and each is owed from 30,000 to 180,000 
rubles ($1,070-$6,400). Local officials say funds have been 
delayed pending a new law on Chernobyl benefits.
        
 �AFTERTASTE OF METAL�

        In the meantime, many cleanup workers face cancer and 
other ailments they cannot afford to treat.
         
The protesters praise neighboring Ukraine for closing the 
Chernobyl plant in December after years of international 
pressure.

        Sometimes, the men talk about the catastrophe that unites 
them.

        �I still remember that aftertaste of metal, and how it 
was hard to breathe,� says Vladimir Mandrikin, head of the 
Shakhty Chernobyl Union. �We didn�t want to admit how much we 
were weakened.�
        
        *� 2001 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This 
*****************************************************************
 36  Biased Process Promotes Exposure to Nuclear Waste; Could Lead to 
Contamination of Consumer Goods
 
[pclogo_small.gif (4096 bytes)] 

*March 26, 2001* 

Biased Process Promotes Forced Exposure to Nuclear Waste; 
Radioactive Materials Could be Released Into Consumer Goods, 
Building Supplies*
 
119 Groups and Individuals Protest Lopsided Agenda of NAS 
Committee Meeting*
 
WASHINGTON, D.C. � The process used by a National Academy of 
Sciences (NAS) committee to determine how to dispose of 
radioactive waste is skewed toward reaching one recommendation: 
use the waste to make common household goods and building 
materials, according to a &quot;Statement of Concern about 
Balance and Perspective&quot;issued today by 119 public interest 
groups and individuals.
 
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) committee, enlisted by the 
Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to provide recommendations 
for the dispersal of radioactive waste from nuclear power plants, 
is biased and designed to lend legitimacy to releasing the waste 
into regular commerce, the groups said. The NAS committee holds 
its second meeting today through Wednesday in Washington, D.C. 
The groups and individuals include singer Bonnie Raitt, the 
Sierra Club, the Committee for Nuclear Responsibility and the 
United Steelworkers of America.
 
The groups are concerned that radioactively contaminated 
materials could be widely distributed throughout the environment 
and end up in a wide array of consumer goods. Should such 
releases be allowed to continue and increase, the radioactive 
legacy of America�s nuclear power and weapons industry could end 
up in everything from cooking utensils and bicycles to 
homebuilding materials such as concrete, wood, metal and glass, 
the groups say. They are also concerned that radioactive soil 
could be used in landscaping or school playgrounds. In short, our 
overall environment could see a dramatic increase in radioactive 
contamination, according to David Ritter, a policy analyst for 
Public Citizen�s Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program. 

Radioactive materials have been released from Department of 
Energy (DOE) nuclear weapons and commercial sites for some time, 
and they continue to get out. Last year, as a result of pressure 
from citizen groups, unions and the steel industry, then-Energy 
Secretary Bill Richardson placed a moratorium on the release of 
radioactive metals from DOE sites. However, the moratorium didn�t 
apply to commercial sites. Also, contaminated materials that 
aren�t metals still may be released from DOE sites, providing 
that the DOE believes that releases will result in "authorized 
doses" of radiation to the population. The NAS is advising the 
NRC on how to proceed to set a standard for the amount of 
radiation that the public can be exposed to from products 
containing recycled materials from the nuclear fuel chain. 

The NAS committee (called the Committee on Alternatives for 
Controlling the Release of Solid Materials From Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission Licensed Facilities) was formed in 
September and has 18 months to issue recommendations about how 
the NRC should deal with radioactively contaminated waste. The 
committee has invited "stakeholders" to present their views on 
the release, reuse or recycling of the materials from 
NRC-licensed facilities. The statement of concern issued today 
protests the composition of the speakers and the agenda for the 
meeting.
 
The groups� statement reminds the committee that "the public�s 
right to protection from unnecessary radiation exposure should be 
the pre-eminent concern" and that the signatories are 
"disappointed that the stakeholder presentations are so heavily 
skewed towards the nuclear industry." Not a single public 
interest organization will have the chance to address the whole 
committee. 

"This is blatantly unfair and biased," said Diane D�Arrigo, 
project director at Nuclear Information and Resource Service 
(NIRS). "It discredits the supposedly scientific process that 
should be independent of powerful business interests." 

The first day of presentations, which will be made to the full 
committee, has been allotted solely to nuclear industry 
representatives. On the second day, the committee will split into 
two sections and hold simultaneous sessions. Only three of the 25 
scheduled speakers will represent the general public, and just 
one organization � representing a nuclear industry � has been 
given two time slots for presentations. 

The public interest sector wanted better representation at the 
meeting. According to D�Arrigo, "numerous others requested the 
opportunity to present, but were refused, some with unique and 
comprehensive knowledge of the very issues with which this 
committee must contend."
 
The nuclear industry stands to reap great benefits from selling 
radioactive waste to be recycled into consumer goods. Selling, 
dumping or donating radioactive materials under the green-washed 
guise of "recycling" would be much more cost-effective for the 
companies that own and operate nuclear power plants than 
responsibly isolating and maintaining the waste for the many 
years they will be hazardous. 

"What�s good for the bottom line of the nuclear companies is bad 
news for the public," Ritter said. "The entire country could 
become a laboratory where people would be the guinea pigs for an 
experiment to discover the long-term health effects of repeated 
and unavoidable exposures to radiation."
 
The protest letter urges that "this bias be corrected in all 
future sessions and that the expertise of this committee focus 
seriously on practical mechanisms to isolate radioactively 
contaminated materials from the public and the environment."
 
The impact of any decision by the committee, which will influence 
the NRC�s rulemaking process, could set a precedent that would 
affect the release of similarly contaminated materials from 
nuclear weapons and other fuel chain sites within the Departments 
of Defense and Energy.
 
"The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is hoping that the National 
Academy of Sciences will give them much-needed credibility for 
letting nuclear power wastes into our daily lives," D�Arrigo 
said. "We are calling on the NAS Committee to really listen to 
critics and public sentiment and to reject this dangerous plan."
 
Public Citizen 

*****************************************************************
*****************************************************************
                     NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARTICLES
*****************************************************************
 1 Lake City's legacy haunts former workers, neighbors

 *By JOE ROBERTSON - The Kansas City Star*
 Date: 03/25/01 22:15

 It doesn't matter that a network of monitoring wells breathes 
computer readouts every 20 seconds. 

It doesn't matter that regulatory agencies with acronyms like 
EPA, MDNR, NRC, ATSDR and more have examined the hazardous-waste 
cleanup at the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant in eastern Jackson 
County. 

Despite all the assurances that health threats are safely secured 
today, the government's environmental scientists say they can't 
be so reassuring about the past. 

And with no scientific study to measure the long-term health 
effects -- if any

-- Lake City's legacy continues to haunt nearby residents and 
former workers at the plant, which employed more than 10,000 
during peak years. "Think about what was going on," Bob Parkey 
said. He was remembering when he was in the Army, testing weapons 
in Fort Benning, Ga., during the Vietnam War

-- an era when Lake City also built and tested experimental 
ammunition. "It was pandemonium," Parkey said. "We knew we had 
lost our first war. The military had lost prestige and lost 
people. An entire industry and way of life was in disarray. 
Records (to the extent they are gathered today) were not being 
kept." 

Parkey is among several nearby residents who have gone to public 
hearings held by the government at the plant at the intersection 
of Missouri 7 and 78 to discuss cleanup concerns. They will meet 
again Tuesday night. 

The government will try to resolve questions over the use and 
cleanup of depleted uranium at Lake City. 

It's not that Parkey thinks he has anything to fear. He is 
perfectly comfortable, he said, to have moved his family where 
his back yard faces the northern boundary of the 3,955-acre 
facility. He can hear the guns boom and watch the red tracers 
light the sky at night. 

He believes the Environmental Protection Agency's on-site 
manager, Garth Anderson, who said, "We sincerely believe...that 
there is nothing that should generate concern whatsoever." 

But all the air sampling that shows no urgent hazard today can't 
measure what hazards were or were not present when the Army was 
machining and test-firing the radioactive rounds in the 1960s and 
early 1970s. 

"Since air-monitoring data from past operations at (Lake City) 
are not available," reads the current public health assessment by 
the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, "ATSDR 
cannot determine whether exposures to levels of air 
contaminants...occurred in the past." 

The fact that the Army was using the depleted uranium in a 
spotter round that was designed to mark targets for a portable 
nuclear weapon -- neither of which ever made it out of the 
experimental stage -- is telling, Parkey said. 

"We were fighting a war," he said. "The attitude was totally 
different then. You didn't take the same care. The people who 
worked there (at Lake City) at that time, that's who we should be 
worried about." 

Haunting questions 

On a gray day on the plant's perimeter road, Nancy Sue Scott 
points out a car window at homes behind winter-brown trees and 
dry grass. She mentions people she knows, people she knew. Some 
are sick. Some are dead. 

She attends many of the public hearings, although she is resigned 
to the notion that government officials can't tell her any more 
than her doctors. They can't say whether the years she spent 
through the 1960s working at Lake City have anything to do with 
the near-failure of her kidneys or the anemia and aches that 
plague her. 

The same goes for others. People everywhere get sick for any 
number of reasons. She understands that. Some neighbors, even 
some family members, don't believe the plant is to blame, she 
says. 

"But I can't help but wonder." 

The plant, now the sole supplier of small-caliber ammunition to 
the Army, was rushed into operation from the ground up in nine 
months in 1941, records show. The plant still produces some 3 
million rounds a day, mostly bullets for M-16 rifles. That is 
less than half the production during World War II and the Vietnam 
War, officials said. 

The buildings still stand where Scott worked with ammonia on 
machines that made blueprints, she said. She remembers how they 
frequently opened windows and cranked up fans to ventilate the 
room, pulling in air from across the plant. 

"I believe a lot of my problems have been from working out 
there," she says.

"I may be wrong, but I still believe it." 

No cover-up 

The information plant officials gathered to address 
depleted-uranium concerns came from records that have been 
available to the public all along, said Bill Melton, Lake City's 
contract operations officer. 

When engineers 14 years ago began cleaning up two buildings where 
depleted uranium had been used, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission 
monitored their work and issued regular reports, he said. A 
historical summary of depleted-uranium use came from an archive 
search the Army conducted five years ago. 

Melton might not be able to put his hands on enough definitive 
analyses to allay every fear, he said, but he believes many 
indications exist that plant operators were aware of potential 
hazards. 

A 1961 report by what then was called the U.S. Army Environmental 
Hygiene Agency describes radiological screenings of workers, 
measures of radiation levels and favorable critiques of the 
plant's policies and procedures. When the 1970s ushered in the 
EPA and other agencies with new standards, Melton said, the plant 
required little renovation. 

"There was care exercised even 40 years ago," Melton said. 

Lake City's chief engineer, Paul Anthamatten, added, "and they 
did it absent today's standards. They weren't cavemen who built 
this." 

Greg Perry, a nearby resident and member of the plant's 
Restoration Advisory Board, said he recognizes it may be 
difficult to account for actions taken decades ago. 

But the numerous questions scrawled in the margins of his 
bent-eared copy of the ATSDR report leave little doubt that he 
still wants some answers. 

"I know they're working on it," Perry said. "They're trying to 
address my questions." 

Like Parkey and Scott, he's keeping expectations in check. 

"There are too many odd-shaped pieces to this puzzle." 

To reach Joe Robertson, call (816) 234-7806 or send e-mail to 
jrobertson@kcstar.com. 

  All content � 2001 *The Kansas City Star*   
*****************************************************************
 2  Beryllium testing facility to be part of ORISE modernization 

Oak Ridger Online --> 

Story last updated at 12:48 p.m. on Monday, March 26, 2001

by Paul Parson 
Oak Ridger staff 

The construction of a new, $700,000 beryllium testing facility is 
just one part of the planned modernization for the Oak Ridge 
Institute for Science and Education.

 Some initial work on the construction project has already begun, 
according to Ron Townsend, president of Oak Ridge Associated 
Universities -- the institute's manager. The facility, which is 
expected to be finished this year, will be located at the ORISE 
site on Bethel Valley Road.

 The current beryllium testing program at ORISE services annually 
services around 2,600 people from Oak Ridge and out of the state, 
Townsend said.

 Beryllium is a hard, lightweight metal. Workers who may have 
inhaled the dust or fumes created when beryllium is ground, 
heated or sanded may be at risk to become sensitized to the metal 
and subsequently develop chronic beryllium disease.

 Symptoms of the disease range from shortness of breath and 
fatigue to the scarring of lung tissue and straining the right 
side of the heart due to increased pressure in the pulmonary 
artery from lung damage.

 The new beryllium testing facility is just one of the highlights 
Townsend has been sharing with community members and employees of 
ORISE and ORAU during recent presentations.

 Last April, the Department of Energy awarded ORAU a three-year 
contract to continue managing ORISE. The deal is worth around 
$425 million and includes a two-year renewal option.

 In 1946, DOE's predecessor agency, the Atomic Energy Commission, 
established the Oak Ridge Institute of Nuclear Studies, which 
later became ORAU. ORAU later formed ORISE to connect 
universities and colleges to educational programs at all DOE's 
national laboratories.


 "DOE and the community have a real jewel in ORISE," Townsend 
said.

 Officials at ORISE are responsible for conducting research in 
health hazards; training workers and organizations in topics 
related to environment, safety, health, radiation protection and 
hazardous materials handling; and performing environmental 
surveys to verify that decontaminated sites have been cleaned up 
to federal standards.

All Contents �Copyright* The Oak Ridger *
*****************************************************************
 3  'Pak. developing n-weapons faster than India' 

 The Hindu on indiaserver.com : 

 Monday, March 26, 2001
 
By B. Muralidhar Reddy 

ISLAMABAD, MARCH 25. Pakistan has edged past India in the nuclear 
arms race, according to the London-based Jane's Intelligence 
Review. 

A Pakistani English daily, The News, in a special report today 
quoted extensively from the prestigious military journal on the 
relative strengths and weaknesses of the nuclear programme 
embarked upon by both countries since the May 1998 nuclear tests. 

The report quoted the journal as saying that the ``rhetoric'' of 
Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, Scientific Adviser to the Indian Prime 
Minister, after the 1998 Pokhran tests that ``weaponisation is 
now complete'' was not matched by reality. 

``Since that time, however, internal politics, international 
pressures and unique security concerns have caused Delhi and 
Islamabad to undertake very different nuclear postures and 
development plans,'' the journal said.

According to the Jane's Intelligence Review , India moved slowly 
towards developing and implementing a nuclear strategy though it 
had grander aspirations. On the contrary, Pakistan moved more 
quickly to implement effective systems and procedures for its 
``more modest nuclear arsenal''. It said the pace of development 
efforts could be seen in the progress each country had made in 
competing delivery systems that met their requirements.

Procedures, tactics and doctrine for nuclear use, as well as 
systems to ensure effective command and control had been 
influenced by bureaucratic factors and each government's view on 
the role of the nuclear weapons. 

``In all these areas, Delhi has proceeded at a slower pace, 
insisting on creating an original Indian system; Pakistan has 
more fully implemented the lessons that it has learned from the 
already established nuclear powers.'' 

The journal said India was constrained because the development of 
its forces and strategy were controlled by the political 
leadership and scientists from the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) 
and the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). 

``The political leadership in Delhi has not, however, fully 
thought through the specifics of nuclear use or doctrine. It does 
not view nuclear weapons as possessing military utility and 
discounts the likelihood that they would be used on the 
battlefield.'' 

In contrast, Pakistan's nuclear programme was controlled by the 
Army and was fully incorporated into the country's military 
strategy. ``Pakistan's officials believe that Islamabad's nuclear 
capability gives it the option of strongly supporting insurgents 
across the border in Kashmir.'' 

Copyrights � 2001 The Hindu & indiaserver.com, Inc.
*****************************************************************
 4  US, South Korea, Japan to back nuclear deal with North Korea
 
SEOUL, March 26 (AFP) - 

The United States and its key Asian allies South Korea and Japan 
on Monday made a new pledge to back a nuclear deal with North 
Korea at their crucial policy coordination talks here.

The three also decided to jointly deal with concerns over the 
communist North's missiles and other weapons of mass destruction 
(WMD).

The pledges came in a joint statement issued after senior foreign 
policy officials of the three nations met for the first time 
since US President George W. Bush took office in January.

"The delegations reaffirmed their commitment to continue the 1994 
Agreed Framework and called on North Korea to join them in taking 
the needed steps for its successful implementation," the 
statement said.

North Korea suspected the Bush administration might drop the 
nuclear deal, under which Pyongyang agreed to freeze its 
suspected nuclear development plans in return for safer nuclear 
power plants and oil.

"The three delegations expressed the shared hope that North Korea 
would take positive steps to create a favorable environment for 
continued engagement and to address the concerns of the 
international community including the issue of missiles and WMD," 
the statement read.

The meeting was attended by South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister 
Yim Sung-Joon of South Korea, US Acting Assistant Secretary of 
State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Thomas Hubbard, and 
Kunihiko Makida, director general of the Asian Affairs Bureau of 
Japan's foreign ministry.

Bush is reviewing his policy toward North Korea. At a summit this 
month with South Korea's President Kim Dae-Jung, Bush expressed 
scepticism about the North's desire for reconciliation.

Talks with North Korea on its missile program have been 
suspended, reflecting growing diplomatic tension between the 
United States and North Korea.

Hopes of long-term peace on the divided Korean peninsula improved 
after the leaders of the North and South met in Pyongyang in 
June.

But the rapprochement has entered a critical stage since the 
election of the Bush administration.

The impoverished North has threatened to end a moratorium on 
missile test launches and resume its nuclear program, suspected 
of being used for weapons development.

The North's 1998 launch of a long-range rocket over Japanese 
territory into the Pacific caused international panic. Bush has 
partly used the North's missile threat to justify the proposed 
National Missile Defense (NMD) system.

The North withdrew suddenly from ministerial talks with South 
Korea two weeks ago, setting alarm bells ringing in Seoul.

On Monday, the North blasted Washington for justifying its arms 
buildup, claiming the United States wanted a military edge to 
"strike the DPRK (North Korea) by surprise."

"If the US keeps insisting on this new issue in a bid to put 
pressure upon the DPRK and wring concessions from it, it will 
only render the situation more complicated," it said through its 
state newspaper, Rodong Sinmun.
 
Copyright � 2001 AFP. All rights reserved. All information 
*****************************************************************
 5  Nuclear talks progress 

Bucharest Business Week
 
26 March, 2001          
Vol. 5, Nr. 11                          

*by Tim Judy* 

A breakthrough in talks over a sovereign-guaranteed 500 million 
USD loan from the Export Development Corporation of Canada for 
continuing construction on the half finished Unit 2 nuclear 
reactor at Cernavoda is expected in the next couple of weeks, 
according to officials.

 �Talks are continuing and we hope to see a result in the next 
two weeks,� Claude Charland, commercial counselor at the Canadian 
Embassy told BBW. 

Teodor Chirica of Nuclearelectrica also said talks are 
progressing smoothly. �All the local ingredients are there to 
make it happen,� he said. �But the Government�s approval of the 
budget is a key factor. There have been encouraging signs as 
state officials have said they would make the unit�s completion a 
priority.� 

The prime minister has said the Government would give about 37 
million USD for the project.

 Atomic Energy of Canada (AECL) and Ansaldo of Italy would be the 
main contractors and would need to secure financing of about 750 
million USD for the project.

 According to Canadian daily The Ottawa Citizen, AECL is now 
without clients, as mentioned in Bucharest AM, BBW�s overnight 
news service, after it lost a tender to supply two reactors to 
South Korea as well as Turkey�s decision to put off a four 
billion USD contract over the construction of a new reactor.

 Necessary investments could go however beyond the completion of 
the reactor itself, as Nicolae Paunescu, marketing director at 
Hidroelectrica, said if Unit 2 is complete the country would have 
to build another hydro plant to balance the excess of energy in 
low consumption periods. But other experts said this would only 
be necessary if Unit 3 goes on stream, which still is a long way 
off. 

Unit 2 is a 700-megawatt reactor based on Canadian Candu 
technology. Unit 1 went on stream about four years ago and 
supplies about 10 per cent of the country�s energy needs. 

*****************************************************************
 6        Budget could limit labs' efforts to safeguard nuclear know-how 
Livermore integral to programs in Russia

 *March 26, 2001*
 By Glenn Roberts Jr.
STAFF WRITER

 Groups of U.S. nuclear researchers were called to action at the 
close of the Cold War to counter an emerging threat in Russia: 
that nuclear weapons materials and know-how could fall into the 
wrong hands. 

Congress authorized U.S. nuclear weapons workers to partner with 
their Russian counterparts to improve security for nuclear 
weapons and materials. 

Workers at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory and Sandia lab in 
Livermore have been integral to the U.S. effort, developing tools 
and managing projects that are intended to reduce the risk of 
nuclear theft and illegal nuclear exports. 

"We think that it has been a very successful program," said 
William Dunlop, leader of Livermore Lab's Proliferation 
Prevention and Arms Control Program. "We have made great progress 
toward completing this work." 

But the outlook for the program has been clouded by reports this 
month of possible major cutbacks next year. 

Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Alamo, whose district includes the two 
Livermore nuclear weapons labs, expressed worries this month 
about the possibility of extensive cuts in nonproliferation 
programs with Russia in the 2002 budget. Tauscher sent a letter 
on March 15 to Mitchell E. Daniels Jr., director of the Office of 
Management and Budget. "Dramatic cuts to these programs, prior to 
a full program assessment, may cripple our efforts to secure 
nuclear material in Russia," she said. 

Also in her letter, Tauscher said there are reports that the U.S. 
budget for nonproliferation programs with Russia could be reduced 
by more than 10 percent, though a 2002 budget proposal has not 
yet been formally released to the public. 

The Associated Press reported that a budget proposal forming 
under the Bush administration may shrink spending for 
nonproliferation work with Russia from its current level of $872 
million to about $800 million in 2002. 

"This would amount to devastating cuts that would leave many of 
the programs barely intact and certainly unable to accomplish 
their critical national security functions," Tauscher said of the 
possible cuts. 

Dunlop said Livermore's involvement in the Russian 
nonproliferation work encompasses 60 to 70 nuclear facilities, 
and security upgrades already have locked down several sites. 

Tasks include the installment of new fences, alarm systems, 
sensors and other protective measures for nuclear facilities, and 
the creation of jobs for former weapons workers in Russia. 

The equivalent of about 41 full-time Livermore Lab employees work 
in the Russian nonproliferation program, and the equivalent of 
five full-time Livermore Lab employees are in Russia year-round, 
Dunlop said. 

Livermore Lab officials said lab-specific budget numbers were not 
available for Russian nonproliferation programs. 

Sandia lab in Livermore has employed about six to 12 workers over 
the course of the program. Sandia's larger, sister lab in 
Albuquerque, N.M., also participates in the Russian 
nonproliferation program, and the program's work force at both 
Sandia labs has grown from 50 to 100 employees since 1999. 

The program at both labs has grown from a total of about $25 
million a year in 1996 to $100 million in 1999, with Sandia's lab 
in Livermore spending about $2 million to $5 million per year. 

Carolyn Pura, a manager in exploratory systems technologies at 
Sandia lab in Livermore, said workers at her lab have been most 
involved with verifying the storage and handling of nuclear 
materials in Russia. 

Sandia researchers have worked to install motion sensors on 
containers with nuclear material that "can recognize attempts to 
either enter it or move it." Also, Sandia workers have built 
radiation detectors for identifying and monitoring nuclear 
warheads. The sensors verify that each item "is what it's 
supposed to be, where it's supposed to be," she added. 

Such detection devices "come out of technologies that we've used 
on our own stockpile, but they were developed specifically for 
these applications. We've drawn heavily on our knowledge and 
experience in the U.S. weapons program." Pura said that Sandia 
workers have completed security system upgrades at more than 15 
Russian facilities. "On a technical level, the exchange is very 
strong." 

Dunlop, too, said the work in Russia has been productive. "We 
find good cooperation from our Russian colleagues in this 
program," he said. 

"I think people do not realize what effort has to go into making 
these things work," he said. "The time differences, physical 
differences, cultural differences -- nothing is easy in this 
process. We manage to work within the existing bureaucracy to 
make things happen."     
      
*****************************************************************
 7    Hoya to resume glass slab shipment to U.S. nuclear facility

 TOKYO March 27 Kyodo - Japanese glass maker Hoya Corp. said 
Monday it plans to resume suspended shipments of glass slabs to 
the U.S. Energy Department's nuclear weapons research facility, 
believing the product will not lead to new nuclear development. 

''It was confirmed that this glass itself will not lead to new 
nuclear development and the research programs are to contribute 
to the elimination of nuclear weapons,'' the company said in a 
letter to antinuclear groups. 

The company last month temporarily suspended deliveries of the 
slabs by its U.S. subsidiary Hoya Corp. U.S.A. in the wake of 
domestic opposition claiming the deal will help the United States 
keep its nuclear weapons. 

The company sent the letter Monday to the Japan Congress Against 
A- and H-Bombs (Gensuikin) and other antinuclear and peace 
organizations based in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the cities 
atom-bombed toward the end of the World War II. 

Gensuikin blasted Hoya in a statement for failing to serve its 
''social responsibility as a company in a country that suffered 
from atomic bombing,'' and also indicated its intention to stage 
a boycott campaign against Hoya products if it goes ahead with 
the shipments. 

The Hoya subsidiary, based in California, is responsible for 
supplying half the 3,500 glass slabs to be used in the National 
Ignition Facility (NIF), under construction in California. The 
other half is being supplied by Schott Glass Technologies Inc. of 
Pennsylvania. 

The slabs will be used to amplify laser rays in the nuclear 
fusion process at the new facility at the Lawrence Livermore 
National Laboratory, due to start partial operations in 2004 and 
be completed by 2007. 

U.S. antinuclear groups claim the facility will be in breach of 
the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) due to its vital role in 
the development of nuclear weapons. 

The U.S. Energy Department, responsible for the development of 
U.S. nuclear weapons, says the $3.4 billion facility is needed to 
ensure the country's nuclear weapons remain safe and reliable. 
                                       
2001 Kyodo News (c) Established 1945.
*****************************************************************
 8  Hundreds at INEEL offered early retirement

IdahoStatesman.com
 
March 27, 2001   
  
 Measure is part of cost-cutting effort at the laboratory

The Associated Press 

Eastern Idaho's largest employer is asking hundreds of workers to 
take early retirement in an effort to cut costs, the Idaho 
National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory announced 
Monday. 

"Thirteen hundred are eligible for early retirement," said Bernie 
Meyers, the president of Bechtel BWXT Idaho, the contractor that 
runs the site for the government. "I hope nobody will get laid 
off." 

Monday's announcement marks the first step of a plan designed to 
reduce the laboratory's workforce by 1,000 to 1,200 employees by 
the end of 2002, said Nick Nichols, a spokesman for the 
laboratory. 

Nichols said all the employees who will lose their jobs at the 
laboratory are employees of Bechtel BWXT Idaho. 

Of the laboratory's 8,220 employees, 6,242 are employed by the 
contractor. Meyers said he hopes that about 700 workers choose 
the early retirement option. 

In a letter to employees, he wrote that additional "reductions 
will, more than likely, be required beyond an early retirement 
program. These reductions would be done in a phased approach." 

The next stage, to be implemented next year, is a "voluntary 
separation program" available to all employees. 

Laying off workers would be third and final step. Officials said 
labor costs account for 60 percent of its budget, which they call 
"flat" or fixed. 

"In spite of our efforts to control and manage costs, they 
haven't been enough," Meyers wrote. 

Laboratory officials also cited rising inflation and delays in 
the opening of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, New 
Mexico where radioactive material now stored in Idaho will 
eventually be shipped. 

The news comes on the heels of layoffs from across the state. 

Among others, Micron Electronics Inc. laid off 340 employees last 
week at its Nampa manufacturing facility, reporting that it is 
selling off its personal computer manufacturing and computer chip 
refurbishing components and merging with an Atlanta-based Web 
hosting company. 

Days earlier, Astaris -- a phosphate manufacturing plant in 
Pocatello -- laid off eight employees. 

Also this month, Hewlett-Packard Co., announced that 65 employees 
at the company's Boise site lost their jobs as the electronics 
giant works to eliminate 1,700 positions globally. 

Last month, seasonally adjusted unemployment edged upward last 
month as mines and mills shut down. 

The Sunshine Mine in Kellogg closed in February, after years of 
low prices and foreign competition, leaving 130 miners out of 
work. 

The mine's announcement came just days after Boise Cascade Corp. 
announced it was permanently closing its Cascade and Emmett 
mills. About 375 employees lost their jobs. 

"Naturally, I'm very concerned about the impact the plans are 
going to have on my constituents and the communities of eastern 
Idaho," U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson said in a prepared statement. "I'm 
concerned about the impact of the DOE's (Department of Energy's) 
plans for additional actions in the future." INEEL
	 
*****************************************************************
 9  India not engaged in nuclear race 

The Hindu on indiaserver.com : 

March 27, 2001
 
By Our Special Correspondent 

NEW DELHI, MARCH 26. India today reiterated that it was not 
engaged in a nuclear arms race but had the capability to address 
any threat to its national security and territorial integrity. 

Rejecting the assertion by an article in the Jane's Defence 
Weekly that the Pakistan nuclear arsenal was in better 
operational condition, the Foeign Office spokesman said India had 
a minimum credible deterrent. This deterrent was ``based on 
proven indigenous technologies and under civilian command and 
control''. 

The purport of the article to suggest a arms race scenario was 
``completely misplaced'', he observed. Emphasising that the 
Indian deterrent was not Pakistan-centric, the spokesman added 
that ``India's nuclear programme is not country specific and we 
do not subscribe to any proposition of any arms race here''. 

Copyrights � 2001 The Hindu & indiaserver.com, Inc.
*****************************************************************
 10  DOE, Fluor Hanford fined for violations
 
This story was published 3/27/2001
 
By John Stang
 
Herald staff writer
 
The state fined the Department of Energy and Fluor Hanford 
$57,800 Monday for not properly labeling and losing track of 
small amounts of a potentially explosive chemical.
 
The new violations echo the chemical waste storage troubles that 
plagued Hanford with an explosion and huge fines in the late 
1990s. Those problems supposedly were fixed.
 
The repeated troubles are why the Washington Department of 
Ecology levied such a high fine, said Bob Wilson, a state ecology 
department inspector.
 
"We've been here before, and we're disappointed to keep seeing 
the same problems," Wilson said.
 
Mike Schlender, DOE's deputy manager for site transition at 
Hanford, said, "In this case, with these chemicals, we were not 
up to snuff."
 
A Fluor employee spotted a suspicious solution of the chemical 
Collodion and reported it up Hanford's chain-of-command in 
mid-January, Schlender said. Hanford's fire department and the 
Richland police bomb squad then detonated the chemical. 

Since then, DOE and Fluor have been working to find out how some 
potentially explosive Collodion escaped notice for at least a few 
years. Meanwhile, an overhaul of the site's chemical management 
system is to be completed by July 1, Schlender said. 

Fluor referred questions to DOE.
 
Collodion is a liquid, usually 75 percent ether or alcohol, 
commonly used in radiological chemistry. If left alone for a few 
years, parts of the chemical crystallize and can become "shock 
sensitive." That means the chemical can explode with at least the 
intensity of a firecracker -- breaking its glass container and 
shooting shards of glass -- if it is bumped or jostled. If the 
chemical crystallizes in the threads that hold the cap on a vial 
or bottle, unscrewing that cap could trigger an explosion. 

Central Hanford's 222-S laboratory studies numerous types of 
radioactive wastes and routinely uses Collodion. In mid-January, 
a 222-S lab employee handled some Collodion and noticed a strong 
ether smell from it, Wilson said. A strong ether smell indicates 
something might be wrong with the chemical liquid.
 
The state learned of the problem Jan. 18 and inspected the 222-S 
lab. The investigation expanded to two other central Hanford 
laboratories -- a lab at the Plutonium Finishing Plant and the 
Waste Sampling and Characterization Facility, or WSCF.
 
Wilson said the state's investigation found:
 
n More than two quarts of years-old Collodion should have been 
labeled and stored as waste at the 222-S lab and were not. 

n Slightly more than 2 ounces of Collodion were found in a vial 
at the WSCF. No one knew the vial was there, and it had 
apparently been there at least five years.
 
n About 41�2 ounces of Collodion were found improperly stored at 
the PFP. The last time the PFP used Collodion was in the late 
1980s, and this amount was kept as an active chemical for at 
least 10 more years until it was declared a waste in 1998.
 
n The labs could not tell whether ether, alcohol or water had 
been added to the Collodion solutions, which handicaps any 
attempts to tell how volatile those liquids were.
 
Hanford had major problems with inventorying and storing 
chemicals in the late 1990s.
 
A watery mixture of nitric acid and hydroxylamine sat somewhat 
forgotten for years in a PFP tank until enough water evaporated 
to create a volatile 20 gallons of liquid that exploded in 1997 
-- wrecking the tank and its room, punching a hole in the roof 
and exposing 10 workers to chemical fumes. About $200,000 in 
federal and state fines were levied because of the explosion.
 
In 1998, the Environmental Protection Agency conducted a 
site-wide inspection of Hanford's chemical storage activities and 
found numerous violation resulting in a $367,078 fine. And in 
early 1997, the state fined DOE and Fluor $90,000 for safety 
violations pertaining to the storage, labeling and control of 
wastes at the 222-S lab.
 
Schlender said much of Hanford's remedial work after the PFP 
explosion and EPA inspection tackled large storage containers, 
such as tanks, and did not track down all the small vials of 
chemicals in labs. The state, DOE and Fluor now are working 
jointly on inventorying all potentially volatile chemicals at 
Hanford's labs. DOE has 30 days to appeal the fine to the state 
Ecology Department or to the State Pollution Control Hearing 
Board. DOE hasn't decided if it will appeal, Schlender said. 

n Reporter John Stang can be reached at 582-1517 or via e-mail at 
jstang@tri-cityherald.com.
   
 Copyright 2000 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This 
*****************************************************************
 11  Pollet is man on a mission
 
This story was published Sun, Mar 25, 2001
 By John Stang Herald staff writer 
Gerald Pollet is an Atomic Age Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
 
A man of many facets and contradictions. And controversy.
 
For more than a decade, Tri-City political and business leaders 
have often portrayed Pollet, director of Heart of 
America-Northwest, as the bogeyman haunting the Mid-Columbia's 
nuclear dreams.
 
But Seattle-based Heart of America is one of the oldest forces 
pushing for environmental cleanup of Hanford -- tackling the 
issue long before it became fashionable with Tri-Citians.
 
Still, Pollet said, "I don't expect we'll ever get a 'thank you' 
from the Tri-City powers. Instead, we get vilified."
 
Pollet is the group's co-founder, its leader and its many public 
faces.
 
Put him in front of a Seattle crowd during one of Hanford's 
countless public hearings, and he comes off like a televangelist.
 
Fiery. Flamboyant. Feeding off the crowd's energy. Preaching 
against the federal Satan that polluted Eastern Washington with 
radioactivity and now wants to sneak away.
 
Then put Pollet in an obscure meeting on a Hanford budget or 
technical matter, and he's the stereotypical policy wonk.
 
Master of the numbers and details. Knows his history. Often 
ruthless in arguing his case, and often wins. The smartest kid in 
the classroom who doesn't know or doesn't care if he rubs his 
classmates the wrong way.
 
Pollet is respected in Hanford circles but sometimes irritates 
many of those same people.
 
He is often on target with his analyses of Hanford issues. For 
instance, he correctly predicted a "privatized" plan to pay for 
melting radioactive wastes into glass would fail. He's 
politically savvy, and his dedication and hard work bring praise. 
He tackles lots of unglamorous tasks.
 
Bottom line: Pollet is highly influential in molding Hanford's 
cleanup policies, mostly as a member of the Hanford Advisory 
Board, where Tri-City members give him credit for often being 
right.
 
"I agree a lot with Gerry, but I'm not a fan of his style. ... I 
believe Gerry wants to be the contrarian," said Ken Bracken of 
Kennewick, the board's co-vice chairman.
 
Pollet is often confrontational and uncompromising -- even when 
he is in a small minority. He is quick to theatrically accuse 
officials of breaking the law, of lying, of hiding secrets, of 
ignoring the public. He fires accusations like shotgun blasts -- 
some pellets hit the target and some miss. And he can be 
thin-skinned, quick to take offense when criticized.
 
Several Tri-City HAB members contend Pollet is too negative in 
his dealings, and could accomplish more with a less-combative, 
less-melodramatic approach.
 
"He has acted in such a way that people didn't want to listen to 
him. It's hard to want to cooperate with someone who is trying to 
stick you in the eye with a stick," said John Wagoner, a retired 
Department of Energy Hanford manager who dealt with Pollet for 
almost 10 years.
 
Pollet's supporters and critics agree he does his homework. But 
many - usually Tri-Citians and Hanford officials -- often 
criticize how he interprets information and figures.
 
The one area all seem to agree on is that Pollet is sincere in 
wanting to get Hanford's massive radioactive environmental mess 
cleaned up efficiently and effectively.
 
Dan Silver, a former deputy director of Washington's Department 
of Ecology, remembered Pollet influencing him:
 
"He said to me, 'I want to know when I can go hand-in-hand with 
my child and walk safely along the Columbia River (at Hanford).' 
It was a very human description of what we're after (in cleaning 
up Hanford). I've exhorted my colleagues to think about that."
 
***
 
Pollet, 41, is an energetic New York native with prematurely gray 
hair and beard, who visited Seattle when he was 14 and fell in 
love with the city.
 
While he normally wears an attorney's conservative gray or black 
suit and white shirt, he sometimes wears cowboy boots to reflect 
his fascination with Western history. He is devoted to and 
protective of his wife and two kids and parries away any 
questions about them.
 
Since he was a teen, Pollet said, he wanted to be an 
environmental affairs lawyer. It just appealed to him.
 
Then while attending college in Massachusetts in the late 1970s, 
he met Ralph Nader. Nader talked about Hanford -- then cloaked in 
Cold War secrecy -- being immune from public oversight. "It was a 
passing reference. But it hit home when I moved out here," Pollet 
said.
 
In 1980, Pollet moved to Seattle to attend the University of 
Washington's law school, where he joined the Washington Public 
Interest Research Group, part of a nationwide network with ties 
to Nader.
 
In the early 1980s, WASH-PIRG and Pollet opposed the Washington 
Public Power Supply System's troubled-plagued attempt to build 
five nuclear power reactors. They also became curious about 
radioactive wastes lurking at Hanford.
 
WASH-PIRG successfully flexed its political muscle in 1986, 
sponsoring the state's Referendum 40, which called for Washington 
to oppose Hanford becoming the nation's permanent high-level 
nuclear waste storage site. Referendum 40 overwhelmingly passed, 
and the issue helped Democrat Brock Adams unseat Republican U.S. 
Sen. Slade Gorton that year.
 
WASH-PIRG then lost interest in Hanford. But Pollet didn't.
 
In late 1986, he met Mark and Sharon Bloome, an affluent activist 
couple in Seattle. The Bloomes had sponsored an art contest that 
led to an image on Seattle billboards that was reviled in the 
Tri-Cities: A child-like drawing of a dead cow with a radioactive 
sign on its side and accompanied by the inscription: "Hanford -- 
Don't be cowed."
 
Pollet and the Bloomes discussed how to keep Hanford's shadowy 
problems in the public's consciousness. That led to the creation 
of Heart of America-Northwest in 1987 as a nonprofit organization 
to "improve the quality of life" in the Northwest. Pollet became 
executive director. The Bloomes were on the original board and 
have provided financial backing.
 
Heart of America originally had a broad agenda -- utility rates, 
telecommunications, toxic wastes and Hanford. But by the early 
1990s, Hanford's size and complexity narrowed the group's focus 
to nuclear cleanup.
 
Today, Heart of America has roughly 16,000 dues-paying members, 
including about 200 within 50 miles of the Tri-Cities. The 
organization has grown by roughly 1,000 members in the past two 
years, many attracted by Heart of America's opposition to 
reviving Hanford's Fast Flux Test Facility, Pollet said.
 
The organization works out of a second-story suite of cluttered 
rooms in a nine-story downtown Seattle building filled with 
medical offices. Pollet and three other staffers work there along 
with part-timers, volunteers and interns.
 
***
 
Hanford's cleanup officially began in 1989 when DOE, the U.S. 
Environmental Protection Agency and Washington's Department of 
Ecology signed the Tri-Party Agreement -- the highly respected 
legal pact that spells out DOE's environmental cleanup 
obligations.
 
Cleanup's early years were chaotic, bringing an economic boom to 
the Tri-Cities even as watchdog groups became increasingly 
concerned that millions of dollars were being wasted.
 
Watchdog groups and Tri-City interests despised each other -- the 
knee-jerk pro-nuclear company town vs. the knee-jerk, liberal 
chic, anti-nuclear outsiders.
 
Pollet and Heart of America were blunt, undiplomatic and attacked 
almost every high-ranking DOE and state official, plus the 
Tri-Party Agreement itself.
 
In the early 1990s, Pollet ripped Energy Secretaries James 
Watkins and Hazel O'Leary, plus Silver and state Attorney General 
Christine Gregoire -- the state official most often critical of 
DOE.
 
Gregoire, then the state Ecology Department director, was an 
architect of the 1989 Tri-Party Agreement. But Pollet accused 
Gregoire -- who was running for attorney general -- of being more 
interested in the political benefits of reaching an agreement 
with DOE than in enforcing environmental laws.
 
At the same time, Gregoire called Pollet "irresponsible."
 
Pollet accused Silver of fighting public participation at 
Hanford; Silver called Pollet "out of control."
 
***
 
It's difficult to say how influential Heart of America was in its 
early years.
 
Wagoner, the former DOE Hanford manager, said the organization's 
early gadfly tactics had little influence on DOE decisions. He 
said Washington's state government was most effective in 
influencing Washington, D.C., cleanup decisions.
 
However in 1988, Heart of America predicted that Hanford would 
need at least $1 billion annually to clean up Hanford, and wanted 
to create a congressional caucus representing states with DOE 
cleanup projects. In the 1990s, the $1 billion budget prediction 
came true. And U.S. Rep. Doc Hastings created a congressional 
caucus for nuclear cleanup issues.
 
In 1994, the Hanford Advisory Board was created, joining the 
state as the chief influence on Hanford's policies. The board 
consists of 32 widely different Hanford-related constituencies -- 
many initially hostile to each other.
 
But over the years, the board has forced watchdog groups, 
Tri-Citians and others to work together on most Hanford issues.
 
Heart of America has one seat on the board. And Pollet has been 
influential on the board since its beginning.
 
Early on, the board members frequently argued -- with the 
better-prepared Pollet usually winning. It took a couple years 
for the Tri-City board members to pick up the disciplined 
debating tactics and homework habits to match up against Pollet.
 
Pollet became chairman of the board's financial affairs 
committee, which studies Hanford's budgets, overheads and other 
items.
 
This committee reflects the clich�: "Politics makes strange 
bedfellows." Most committee members are Tri-Citians. And they 
became comfortable with the Pollet as their chairman.
 
"He has a feel for the dollars. I think we're fortunate to have 
him," Bracken said.
 
Pollet -- with mixed reviews -- spearheaded the committee's 
successful efforts to get DOE to drastically trim Hanford's 
overhead costs.
 
But the Tri-Citians on the financial affairs committee almost 
mutinied against Pollet in 1999 after he wrote a letter on Heart 
of America letterhead that criticized DOE. In the letter, Pollet 
strongly implied several times that he spoke for the entire 
financial affairs committee, when he was actually presenting only 
a Heart of America position. He sent the letter to congressional 
members, the EPA and the state Ecology Department.
 
Angry Tri-City committee members confronted Pollet about 
stretching the truth on whom he was speaking for. Pollet 
apologized, saying the implication was unintentional but offering 
to resign his chairmanship. The committee members told him to 
stay because they value his expertise and leadership.
 
The incident illustrates a common complaint about Pollet.
 
He sometimes crosses the line -- through exaggeration or 
histrionics -- to alienate people who might otherwise support 
him.
 
For instance, Pollet has occasionally and unsuccessfully demanded 
jail time for DOE officials for missing deadlines. Two years ago, 
he unsuccessfully called for the Washington State Patrol and the 
National Guard to guard the state's borders so other DOE sites 
could not ship radioactive wastes to Hanford. And he often 
threatens to file lawsuits, though he has not followed through on 
those threats for several years.
 
"When he's successful, he then pushes the edge of the envelope 
and then goes further. Then he loses the group," Silver said.
 
Harold Heacock, the Tri-City Industrial Development Council's HAB 
representative, said Pollet took some legitimate questions about 
Hanford's overhead costs and contractors' fees, and pounded at 
them beyond what was needed -- reducing his effectiveness.
 
Bracken said Pollet's "biggest problem is his propensity to say 
he's speaking for (all of) the public (and not just for Heart of 
America)."
 
However, Tom Carpenter, an attorney for the Government 
Accountability Project watchdog organization, said, "I've never 
seen anything where he blew something out of proportion."
 
Pollet said: "I think I'm very careful about sticking with the 
facts."
 
***
 
Today, Pollet and Tri-City interests frequently clash over 
whether Hanford's Fast Flux Test Facility, a dormant research 
reactor, should be shut down. The shutdown side led by Pollet is 
winning.
 
This is where Pollet and Tri-City leaders demonize each other the 
most, with accusations of lying flying back and forth. Pollet 
charges Tri-City leaders see the FFTF as a nuclear moneymaking 
machine. In turn, Tri-Citians claim Pollet is downplaying the 
need for medical isotopes that the FFTF could produce and is 
simply using the reactor as a convenient nuclear villain to rally 
his supporters against.
 
Pollet consistently links the FFTF to almost every stance that 
Heart of America has taken on Hanford cleanup issues -- sometimes 
stretching far to make that connection. He argues reviving the 
FFTF would drain DOE money from Hanford's cleanup efforts.
 
Ironically, since DOE decided to dismantle the reactor, some FFTF 
supporters have adopted Pollet's argument -- saying its shutdown 
that would take money away from cleanup. Both sides share a 
rhetorical flaw: DOE's shutdown or revival money would not come 
from the agency's cleanup funds.
 
Pollet has received a lot of media mileage from the FFTF issue. 
And he is very good at getting media attention in general.
 
Greg DeBruler, representing the Columbia Riverkeeper 
environmental organization, sees this as a plus, as a public 
watchdog group doing what it is supposed to do.
 
"He wants to make sure we don't go back to a closed-door society 
(at Hanford). ... If you think of a secret society, the last 
thing it wants is for information to get out to the public."
 
However, some Tri-Citians see another motive in Pollet's media 
exposure -- saying he seeks it to raise money. Since the 
nonprofit Heart of America operates on a shoestring, Pollet needs 
to constantly sweat fund-raising, they said.
 
"In that position, you've got to generate controversy to generate 
money," Bracken said.
 
DeBruler countered: "Gerry's funding does not rely on how much 
press he gets. Gerry's funding depends on how good of a job he 
does in getting cleanup done."
 
Pollet dismisses the fund-raising accusations, saying he tackles 
many tasks out of the spotlight that don't generate donations. 
Even Pollet's critics praise his long hours and effectiveness on 
an obscure Hanford council that tries to quietly resolve 
whistleblower matters before they erupt into highly public 
lawsuits.
 
Pollet declined to be specific on what Heart of America's annual 
budget is -- saying only it is between $100,000 and $500,000. The 
money comes from dues and grants -- and at least once by 
sponsoring a singles mixer.
 
The philanthropic Bullitt Foundation of Seattle said it donates 
roughly $50,000 a year to Heart of America.
 
Also since 1991, Heart of America has received at least $200,000 
in state Ecology Department public participation grants.
 
In 1997 and 2000, Tri-City state legislators got mad at Heart of 
America publicizing anti-FFTF stances, and charged that the group 
had used the state grants for improper political purposes. Both 
times, the state ruled that Heart of America did everything 
properly regarding that money.
 
***
 
Over the past 15 years, perceptions of Pollet have evolved beyond 
the original black-and-white caricatures -- either as an 
environmentalist hero or opportunistic anti-nuke villain.
 
Many -- but far from all -- of his critics who have dealt closely 
with him now paint him in many shades of gray. They now portray 
Pollet more as an anti-hero -- a flawed person who still does 
much good.
 
"You have to give Gerry his due. Some of his issues are valid and 
DOE responds to them, or tries to," critic Heacock of TRIDEC said 
.
 
Pollet fan DeBruler of Columbia Riverkeeper said: "Gerry is an 
asset to the (Tri-Cities) community, and people haven't woken up 
to it."
 
Since the early 1990s, former state official Silver has mellowed 
in his views toward Pollet.
 
"We always expected him to behave like us. But if he behaved 
liked us, he'd be in the government. It took me some time to 
appreciate his role," Silver said.
 
Pollet said: "Our job is not to make friends, but to protect the 
public's interests, and that requires speaking the truth." 

Copyright 2001 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This 
*****************************************************************
 12  Secretary of Labor adds hurdle to aid for sick workers 

Oak Ridger Online --> 

Story last updated at 12:34 p.m. on Tuesday, March 27, 2001

by Paul Parson 
Oak Ridger staff 

Though many consider it inadequate, several community activists 
believe a piece of legislation dealing with sick-worker 
compensation does not need Labor Secretary Elaine Chao's turning 
her back on it.

 Congress gave the Department of Labor a $60.4 million 
appropriation to set up a compensation program for job-sickened 
nuclear workers because it was viewed as the government's expert 
on occupational illness and compensation programs. However, Chao 
recently announced that she doesn't want the Department of Labor 
to handle the program.

 Instead, Chao suggested that the Department of Justice be put in 
charge of the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation 
Program because it handles a small program giving one-time 
payments to uranium miners, millers and people who lived downwind 
of nuclear test sites.

 "All of [Chao's] arguments don't hold water," said Janet Michel, 
a former Oak Ridge K-25 Site worker who suffers from chronic 
fatigue and other ailments she blames on Oak Ridge exposures. 
"You can find facts that contradict every one of them."

 Michel has traveled to Washington, D.C., several times to push 
for sick-worker legislation.

 "What I'm really afraid of is this little brush fire � is very 
much going to slow down the implementation of this program," 
Michel said. The government is supposed to start taking 
applications for special federal compensation in about four 
months.

 Harry Williams, president of Coalition for a Healthy 
Environment, agrees with Michel.

 "The Department of Labor is the agency that handles these 
programs," Williams said. "This is where it should be."

 The Department of Labor handles worker compensation claims for 
federal employees, overseas employees of U.S. military bases, 
coal miners seeking compensation for black lung disease, harbor 
workers and outer continental shelf workers.

 Williams said Chao's objection to having Labor handle the 
compensation program is just one problem surrounding the piece of 
legislation.

 "This bill is only going to help a few of the sick workers," he 
said. The compensation plan will offer free medical care and 
$150,000 to sick workers who suffer from cancers or lung diseases 
caused by exposure to radiation, silica or beryllium.

 Williams added that Coalition for a Healthy Environment is 
working to expand the coverage of the bill. He said an 
announcement on the group's plans is expected soon.

 Coalition for a Healthy Environment serves as a support and 
research group pertaining to the illnesses of workers at 
Department of Energy facilities and the citizens of Oak Ridge and 
the surrounding areas.

 Meanwhile, U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, R-3rd District, says he'll be 
doing all he can in Washington, D.C., to make sure the 
compensation program is not hurt by Chao's announcement.

 "Time is of the essence," he said in a phone interview Monday 
afternoon. "The workers need the benefits."

 Wamp was one of nine congressmen who recently signed a letter 
urging the Bush administration to keep the compensation program 
in the Department of Labor following Chao's announcement. The 
congressmen said switching the program to the Department of 
Justice would be at odds with the congressional intent of the 
program.
 
All Contents �Copyright* The Oak Ridger *
*****************************************************************
 13    Bush picks GE executive for energy post 

By Associated Press, 3/26/2001 13:20 

WASHINGTON (AP) Francis S. Blake, a Connecticut resident and 
General Electric Co. executive, is President Bush's choice to 
become deputy secretary of energy. 

Bush announced Friday he intends to nominate Blake. The Senate 
must confirm his nomination after it becomes official. 

Blake, 50, has been with General Electric since 1991. He 
currently is senior vice president of corporate business 
development. He is a resident of Fairfield, Conn. 

Blake twice served under President Reagan. He was general counsel 
at the Environmental Protection Agency from 1985 to 1988 and was 
counsel to Vice President Bush in Reagan's first term. 

Before GE, he was a partner with Swindler and Berlin law firm in 
Washington, D.C. 

Blake is a graduate of Harvard University and Columbia University 
Law School. In 1977, he was law clerk to Supreme Court Justice 
John Paul Stevens. 

If confirmed, Blake would report to Energy Secretary Spencer 
Abraham. 

The department's mission is to secure an environmentally and 
economically sustainable energy system, be a steward of the 
nation's nuclear weapons, clean up government facilities, and 
support science and technology. 

[Boston Globe Online: 

*****************************************************************
 14  Nuclear deterrent can meet any threat, says India

Stories; 27 March, 2001
 
NEW DELHI, March 26: India on Monday asserted that its minimum 
nuclear deterrent could effectively address any threat to the 
country's security and territorial integrity. 

"Let it be clearly understood that India's minimum credible 
deterrent, based on proven indigenous technologies and under 
civilian command and control, effectively addresses any threat to 
the country's security and territorial integrity. There need be 
no ambiguity or any doubt in this regard," the external affairs 
ministry said in a statement. 

The ministry was reacting to a report published in a Pakistani 
daily quoting Jane's Intelligence Review on the relative 
strengths of the two countries since they conducted a series of 
nuclear tests in May 1998. The Review said Pakistan had an edge 
over India in the nuclear arms race. 

"The entire purport of the Jane's Weekly article is to suggest an 
arms race kind of scenario in the region. This is completely 
misplaced," the ministry said. 

"Firstly, India's nuclear programme is not country specific and 
secondly, we do not subscribe to any proposition of any arms race 
here. Besides, speculative or hypothetical proposals offer no 
foundation for policy constructs," it added. 

The report said the "rhetoric" of A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, the 
scientific adviser to the Indian prime minister, after the tests 
that "weaponization is now complete" was not matched by reality. 
Kalam was not available for comment. 

According to the paper, India had moved at a slower pace on 
issues like delivery systems, procedures, tactics and doctrine 
for nuclear use. 

"In all these areas, New Delhi proceeded at a slower pace, 
insisting on creating an original Indian system. 

Pakistan has more fully implemented the lessons that it has 
learnt from already established nuclear powers," it added. 

� The DAWN Group of Newspapers, 2001
*****************************************************************
 15  Nuclear safety panel urges vigilance 

  [The Japan Times Online]   
  Wednesday, March 28, 2001   
  	
The government's panel on nuclear safety issued a report Tuesday 
calling for continued efforts to prevent nuclear accidents, 
noting that the vigilance maintained since Japan's worst nuclear 
accident in 1999 has prevented another from occurring.

 The Nuclear Safety Commission said in its 2000 white paper that 
nuclear workers must remain vigilant and strive to maintain 
safety. The document was submitted to a Cabinet meeting Tuesday.

 The September 1999 accident at a uranium processing plant in 
Tokai, Ibaraki Prefecture, resulted in the deaths of two people 
and exposed more than 400 others to higher-than-normal levels of 
radiation.

 The report says the panel's analysis of the cause of the 1979 
Three Mile Island nuclear accident in the United States in its 
first white paper compiled in 1981 applies to the Tokai accident.

 Pointing to the similarities between both accidents, it examines 
reasons why nuclear accidents recur while questioning the 
effectiveness of postaccident discussions and countermeasures.

 As causes of both accidents, the white paper points to 
insufficient understanding of human behavior, organizational acts 
and management methods as well as technical factors not foreseen 
even by the designers of nuclear facilities.

 However, the commission did not identify in its report specific 
measures to prevent future nuclear accidents.

 The document focuses on a theme of "returning to the starting 
point," but includes no policy outline.

 It explains basic principles of atomic power and radiation, 
illustrating the nation's system of maintaining nuclear safety, 
steps taken after the Tokai accident and safety measures taken by 
other countries.
 
The Japan Times: Mar. 28, 2001
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 16    Author of 1994 U.S.-N. Korea nuke accord proposes review

 WASHINGTON March 26 Kyodo - The principal architect of a 
landmark 1994 accord between the United States and North Korea to 
end Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program has proposed reviewing 
the deal, citing technical difficulties involved in building two 
light water reactors, a centerpiece of the agreement. 

Robert Gallucci, the former State Department official in charge 
of negotiating the 1994 deal, made the proposal in a letter 
cosigned by 29 other East Asia experts and sent to President 
George W. Bush last Thursday. The letter was released Monday. 

''The difficult business of dismantling North Korea's nuclear 
program has been deferred and significant technical and legal 
hurdles remain'' before the agreed framework can be completed, 
the letter said. 

Gallucci and the other signers of the letter form an independent 
task force on Korean issues, sponsored by the Council on Foreign 
Relations, an influential foreign policy think tank. The letter 
was released by the organization. 

The so-called agreed framework, struck by former President Bill 
Clinton in October 1994, calls on North Korea to dismantle a 
graphite-moderated nuclear reactor in return for a U.S. 
commitment to build two light-water reactors and the supply of 
fuel oil until one of the reactors begins operation. 

Some Republican lawmakers have urged Bush to modify the 1994 
accord, arguing that North Korea should be given a conventional 
thermal-power plant, and not two light-water nuclear reactors. 

Secretary of State Colin Powell has hinted at the possibility of 
modifying the agreement without elaborating on details. 

In the letter, Gallucci and others said the Bush administration 
should invite all major parties in the U.S.-led consortium to 
build the two light water reactors -- Japan, South Korea and the 
European Union -- to talks to review the agreement. 

''There should be no unilateral changes by any party,'' the 
letter said. 
                                       
                     2001 Kyodo News (c) Established 1945.
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 17  KOREAN MINISTRY SENDS NUCLEAR ENERGY INDUSTRY TEAM TO CHINA
 
Story Filed: Tuesday, March 27, 2001 1:52 AM EST 

SEOUL, Mar 27, 2001 (AsiaPulse via COMTEX) -- A 15-member Korean 
delegation left for Beijing Tuesday to win China's support for 
Korean firms to participate in projects linked to the 
construction of nuclear power plants there, the Ministry of 
Commerce, Industry and Energy said. 

The team is made up of officials from the ministry, the Korea 
Electric Power Corp., the Korea Power Engineer Co. and Hyundai 
Heavy Industries Co. 

During its stay in the Chinese cities of Beijing, Shanghai and 
Qinshan, it plans to hold talks with Chinese counterparts in the 
nuclear sector on ways for Korean companies to take part the 
building of future nuclear power plants. 

"Though the next phase of China's nuclear energy development 
won't be as big as the ongoing projects, we foresee an 
opportunity for greater participation," said a ministry official. 
He added the team will explain that Korea can offer reliable and 
proven reactors at competitive prices. 

The ministry said Korean companies are considering a consortium 
with Westinghouse Electric Co. to enter the Chinese market. 

At present China operates three nuclear power plants and is in 
the process of building eight others. 

(Yonhap) 

*Copyright � 2001, Asia Pulse, all rights reserved.*
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 18  Downwinder Bill Backed By Matheson
 
March 26, 2001*   

BY JUDY FAHYS 

THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE 

    Rep. Jim Matheson is one of three House Democrats behind a 
bill to secure a permanent funding source for downwinders and 
uranium mine workers injured by radiation. 

    He joined New Mexico Rep. Tom Udall and Colorado Rep. Mark 
Udall last week in introducing a bill that would plug a funding 
gap that already has left about 250 beneficiaries of the 
Radiation Exposure and Compensation Trust Fund empty-handed. The 
trio made a similar request in a letter last month to President 
Bush. 

    The measure is intended to make sure those IOUs are paid and 
that none go out in the future. 

    "Many of those affected by radiation fallout from open-air 
nuclear testing and radiation mining are very ill," said the Utah 
lawmaker. "The funding shortfall adds to their suffering, and 
that's not right." 

    Earlier this month, Utah Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch signed 
on to a similar bill in the Senate to require automatic 
appropriations each year, instead of year-by-year spending 
requests. He asked the General Accounting Office, the 
investigative arm of Congress, to find out why the compensation 
fund was emptied. 

    Under the 1990 compensation law, the federal government 
pledged to help uranium workers, ore transporters, nuclear 
testing participants and people exposed to downwind fallout from 
the nation's nuclear testing program from the 1940s through the 
1970s. So far, $266.4 million has been approved to cover 690 
claims. 

    The House compensation-fund bill has been sent to the 
Appropriations Committee. 
    
    
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