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08/27/01 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 9.206
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RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE
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NUCLEAR POWER CONTENTS
1 Jellyfish Knock Out Nuclear Plant Again
2 SA experienced 630 earthquakes in 2000: Nearly 4 000 movements of
3 Letter: Ex-governor insults office, people of Nevada
4 Duke Engineering & Services' Spent Nuclear Fuel Project in
5 Brown backs SRS as nuclear power plant site
6 Daily Events Report
7 IAEA Daily Press Review
8 Nuclear power plans won't affect Rowe
9 Utilities Express Disappointment with Congressman's Request for Study
10 Limited access to Bush for environmentalists / Little opportunity
11 Arizona head of League of Women Voters addresses local group today_
12 Picatinny lab to be used for toxic waste research
13 ADAMS: Items of Interest - Monday, August 27, 2001
14 Update 1-New DOE program promotes new nuclear power plants
15 'Clean' power source should carry a global warning
16 EPD approves plan for toxic waste landfill
17 Questions Abound as Nuclear Regulator's Extortion Trial Opens
18 Texas News: Funding cut reduces monitoring
NUCLEAR WEAPONS CONTENTS
1 A concrete relic of Canada's Cold War past is now officially history.
2 India arrests two men over uranium seizure
3 Questions linger over Fernald
4 Exhuming a toxic tomb: McClellan cleanup prepares for
5 ORNL facilities contract to be announced
6 Controversial cancer study resurfacing locally
7 Davis reflects on OS man's fight to change DOE program
8 The Plutonium Nightmare
9 'Downwinder' lawyer faces censure
10 Particle hunter
11 N.M. Homesteaders: Army Stole Ranches
12 Iraq cancer probe begins
13 Gibbons supports bill to deter leaks of classified information
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NUCLEAR POWER ARTICLES
*****************************************************************
1 Jellyfish Knock Out Nuclear Plant Again
Digital Chosunilbo (English Edition) : Daily News in English
About Korea
08/26(Sun)18: 5
The Ministry of Science and Technology announced Sunday that
nuclear reactor I of Uljin Nuclear Power Plant completely stopped
operations at 9:32am because jellyfish blocked the inflow
seawater to its cooling system. The ministry added that nuclear
reactor II was also affected but is still operating.
Both reactors each produce 950,000 kilowatts of electricity per
hour, and the combined amount is 3.8% of the total national
production (49.6 million kilowatts per hour). Tae Seong-eun,
operation manager of the Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power Co. Ltd.,
said that the plant is scheduled to resume operations around
9:00pm Sunday.
Uljin Nuclear Power Plant suspended operations on May 1 and
August 11 because schools of shrimp and jellyfish blocked the
cooling system.
(Baek Gang-nyeong, young100@chosun.com)
Copyright (c)1995-2001, DIGITAL CHOSUN All rights reserved.
Contact letters@chosun.com for more information.
*****************************************************************
2 SA experienced 630 earthquakes in 2000: Nearly 4 000 movements of
the Earth, scientifically labelled as "seismic events", have
happened in South Africa over the past six years, 630 of them
last year, writes Barry Streek _
Daily Mail&Guardian:
*August 27, 2001*
SA experienced 630 earthquakes in 2000 Nearly 4 000 movements of
the Earth, scientifically labelled as "seismic events", have
happened in South Africa over the past six years, 630 of them
last year
_BARRY STREEK _
However, the majority of them are small and insignificant.
Although one of these events recently caused a house to collapse
in Welkom, in the Free State, when there was movement of 4,5 on
the Richter Scale, some occasionally cause cracks in swimming
pools and houses.
While the Tulbagh earthquake about 30 years ago recorded 6,7 on
the scale, the country has largely been spared serious Earth
movements.
"South Africa is not the place where we can expect devastating
earthquakes," said Dr Nok Frick, chief director of the Council
for Geoscience.
Most seismic events have been recorded at places where mining has
taken place or is still occurring, but others have been recorded
at known geophysical faults.
One of the areas where events have been recorded is in the
vicinity of the radioactive waste site at Vaalputs, about 100km
south-east of Springbok in the Northern Cape, but Frick said none
of these was at the actual site.
--> Seismic events are recorded at the seismological station at
Boshof in the Free State. The station came into operation during
1993, Minister of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology Ben
Ngubane said in reply to a question in Parliament.
He said between 1995 and last year 8 604 seismic events were
recorded at the station and 3 957 of them were located in South
Africa. Last year 1 409 events were analysed at the station.
The station also contributes to data used to locate large global
earthquakes - with more than 900 events between 1995 and 1999.
Between January and March this year a further 358 seismic events
were analysed, of which 74 were in South Africa.
"Seismic" is defined as something relating to earthquakes or
other vibrations of the Earth or its crust.
A further 7 453 seismic occurrences were recorded by South
Africa's Antarctica station, but none of these were located in
South Africa.
Ngubane said the Boshof station had also recorded 14 nuclear
explosions between May 1995 and May 1998 - four by China, six by
France and two each by India and Pakistan.
Frick said because these events had been recorded for only 100
years, it was theoretically possible that a large seismic
movement could occur in South Africa but this was unlikely.
The Council for Geoscience also monitors dams and in South Africa
they are "very stable".
The council researched sites for Eskom when it was investigating
potential nuclear sites because seismic movements were
potentially the biggest risk at nuclear plants.
Frick said South African cities did not have any inherent seismic
risk but research was being done at coastal cities, such as
Durban, because of the potential consequences of a large
earthquake for a city built on sand.
*-- The Mail&Guardian, August 27, 2001.*
Contact the Daily Mail & Guardian Phone number:
27-11-727-7000
*****************************************************************
3 Letter: Ex-governor insults office, people of Nevada
_Las Vegas SUN_
Today: August 27, 2001 at 9:44:48 PDT
The recent action by Robert List is the man's last hurrah. He had
faded from the public view, a frustrated person who couldn't make
it as a governor. To get back into the headlines he has decided
that the Yucca Mountain high-level nuclear waste site is good for
Nevada.
List doesn't care that the elected officials are very concerned
about the project and have been studying the impact on the people
of Nevada for a long time. He believes the lobbyists and
Department of Energy employees, who have an interest that does
not include the health and safety of the people of Nevada.
I have attended and spoke at a significant number of the
hearings on the suitability of the project. I never have seen
List at any of them. I assume it was because he wasn't being
paid. Now, as a member of the oldest profession, he will be paid.
To call List an ex-governor of Nevada is an insult to the
office. I suggest he move out of Las Vegas because his "new"
profession isn't allowed in Las Vegas. I hope the Republicans in
Nevada do not rally to his side, as he is on a sinking ship, and
no one except rats will be on the ship.
Goodbye, List, and good riddance, as you will, from this time
on, never be remembered as an ex-governor but as a member of the
oldest profession. The voters really knew the real List when they
did not return him to office.
LOU deBOTTARI_ Carson City
All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
4 Duke Engineering & Services' Spent Nuclear Fuel Project in
Ukraine Achieves Major Milestone
[PR Newswire]
_Monday August 27, 9:25 am Eastern Time_
*SOURCE: Duke Energy*
CHARLOTTE, N.C., Aug. 27 /PRNewswire/ -- A major milestone in the
safe storage of spent nuclear fuel at Europe's largest nuclear
power facility was achieved on Aug. 24, 2001, when spent fuel was
moved to dry storage at the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant in
southeastern Ukraine. Duke Engineering & Services managed the
storage system's design, construction and licensing.
``This was a first-of-a-kind project, and the technical and
political challenges were enormous,'' said Duke Engineering
President Ron Green. ``One of our goals is to be the industry
leader in the area of spent fuel management. This project's
success, in addition to our domestic commercial and federal
experience, certainly provides the impetus for achieving that
goal.''
The project began in June 1994 at a time when power needs in the
region were critical and spent fuel storage capacity was running
short. Zaporozhye's six reactors are capable of generating a
combined 6,000 megawatts of electricity.
Among the project's many challenges, U.S. engineered systems and
hardware had to be adapted to fit a Soviet designed and
constructed power plant. In addition, the project team had to
contend with language and cultural barriers and a shifting
political landscape.
The design and fabrication of equipment, including the vertical,
concrete storage containers, was based on U.S. standards with
adaptations to satisfy Ukrainian requirements. The delivered
equipment is sufficient to safely store a one-year inventory of
spent nuclear fuel from one of the six reactors for a period of
50 years. The Ukrainian power authority that operates the plant,
Energomatom, will manufacture additional storage containers in
Ukraine through a technology transfer agreement. The system may
also be used at other nuclear power plants in Ukraine.
Duke Engineering specializes in energy and environmental projects
and provides full-scope engineering, technical and professional
services to clients around the world. Duke Engineering's Nuclear
Group provides comprehensive design, engineering, procurement,
construction management, retrofit, plant life extension,
operations support, efficiency management and full life-cycle
maintenance services, including spent fuel storage design and
management. More information about the company is available on
the Internet at: www.dukeengineering.com.
Duke Energy (NYSE: DUK- news), a diversified multinational energy
company, creates value for customers and shareholders through an
integrated network of energy assets and expertise. Duke Energy
manages a dynamic portfolio of natural gas and electric supply,
delivery and trading businesses -- generating revenues of more
than $49 billion in 2000. Duke Energy, headquartered in
Charlotte, N.C., is a Fortune 100 company traded on the New York
Stock Exchange under the symbol DUK. More information about the
company is available on the Internet at: www.duke-energy.com.
Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage
Facility Fact Sheet
ZAPOROZHYE NUCLEAR POWER PLANT (ZNPP) IS THE LARGEST NUCLEAR
POWER PLANT IN EUROPE
* Number of employees: 15,000
* Units: six
* Total megawatts: 6,000 (1,000 per unit)
* Location: Energodar, Ukraine (population: 65,000)
DATES OF INITIAL OPERATION
* Unit 1 -- April 1985
* Unit 2 -- October 1985
* Unit 3 -- January 1987
* Unit 4 -- January 1988
* Unit 5 -- October 1989
* Unit 6 -- October 1995
OPERATING HISTORY
* ZNPP has generated more than 300 billion kilowatt-hours of
electricity, not only for homes, businesses and industry in
Ukraine, but also for sale to other countries.
* ZNPP and other Ukrainian nuclear power plants generate
about 40 percent of the nation's electricity.
TYPE OF STATION
* ZNPP is designed only for the generation of electricity.
All six reactors are Soviet-designed VVER-1000 -- Pressurized
Water Reactors (PWRs).
SPENT NUCLEAR FUEL (SNF) STORAGE FACILITY
PROJECT OBJECTIVES
* Provide safe and environmentally friendly on-site storage
for SNF
* Transfer technology to Ukraine to support SNF storage
efforts in the region
SPENT FUEL DISCHARGE
* 300 spent fuel assemblies are unloaded from the six-reactor
units per year.
COMPONENTS OF THE VENTILATE STORAGE CASK (VSC) SYSTEM
* Multi-assembly Sealed Basket (MSB): Coated carbon steel
containment vessel, with shielding lid, structural lid and
hexagonal steel tubes to receive the spent fuel assemblies.
* VSC: Re-enforced concrete cask with an inner steel liner,
including steel air inlet and outlet penetrations for natural
cooling and ventilation.
CASK TRANSFERRING AND HANDLING SYSTEMS PROVIDED TO ZNPP
INCLUDE:
* Transfer Cask: A steel and lead cylinder with
hydraulically actuated doors at the bottom, a lid-like restraint
ring and a steel lifting yoke.
* Storage Cask Transporter: U-shaped steel frame vehicle and
self- contained hydraulic system for lifting and moving the heavy
concrete cask.
* Vacuum Drying System: Skid mounted pumping station with
water pump, water vapor compatible vacuum pump, helium compatible
vacuum pump and assorted pressure gauges and valves.
* Welding System: Semi-automatic welding rig with power
supply, controller, drive carriage and wire feeder
SNF STORAGE CASK DESIGNER
* British Nuclear Fuel Solutions
SNF STORAGE CAPACITY
* One VSC cask holds 24 fuel assemblies. * On-site facility
is designed to hold 380 casks.
For additional information about Duke Engineering & Services
please visit our Web site at: www.dukeengineering.com.
+ Contact: Tommy Smith + Phone: 704/382-3403 + 24-Hour:
704/382-8333
*SOURCE: Duke Energy*
_More Quotes and News:_ Duke Energy Corp (NYSE:DUK - news)
_Related News Categories:_ oil/energy, utilities
Copyright © 2001 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved. Privacy
*****************************************************************
5 Brown backs SRS as nuclear power plant site
| The Sun News - Myrtle Beach, SC The Associated Press "> The
Associated Press ">
The Associated Press _
COLUMBIA | The Savannah River Site should build a nuclear power
plant to supply areas across the Southeast with electricity, U.S.
Rep. Henry Brown said.
The new reactors could supply power to North and South Carolina,
as well as Georgia and Florida. It could use weapons-grade
plutonium as fuel, which Brown, a Republican who represents Horry
and Georgetown counties in Congress, said would solve the problem
on how to get rid of surpluses of the radioactive metal.
His idea fits within President Bush's national energy policy and
the administration probably would support the proposal, Brown
said Wednesday.
The idea has been discussed with U.S. Department of Energy
officials before but has not been formally considered, spokesman
Joe Davis said.
"It is an interesting and thoughtful proposal that, in general,
certainly seems to help address the energy challenges the country
faces over the next several years," Davis said. "We will be happy
to review Congressman Brown's proposal and meet with his office
to discuss his ideas."
The idea received sharp criticism from S.C. Gov. Jim Hodges, who
thinks the Energy Department already is trying to go back on a
1997 deal to send plutonium to SRS only to be immobilized or
converted into fuel for nuclear reactors.
A member of Hodges' staff headed to Washington on Thursday to
talk with DOE officials about S.C.'s concerns that the plutonium
might be stored at SRS permanently.
The level of rhetoric from the state has increased significantly
in recent weeks as Hodges has threatened to set up roadblocks to
keep the first shipments of nuclear material out of the state.
Hodges wants a binding agreement on when the plutonium must leave
the site. He fears the Bush administration is wavering on a plan
to convert surplus plutonium into mixed-oxide fuel that would be
used to fuel reactors.
That plan, which was made under the Clinton administration, is
under fire because of rising costs and a faltering treaty
arrangement with Russia.
All content © 2001 The Sun News
*****************************************************************
6 Daily Events Report
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Operations Center
Event Reports For
08/24/2001 08/27/2001
** EVENT NUMBERS **
38230 38231 38232 38233 38234
+
|Power Reactor |Event Number: 38230
|
+
| FACILITY: PEACH BOTTOM REGION: 1 |NOTIFICATION DATE:
08/24/2001|
| UNIT: [2] [3] [] STATE: PA |NOTIFICATION TIME:
02:29[EDT]|
| RXTYPE: [2] GE4,[3] GE4 |EVENT DATE:
08/23/2001|
++EVENT TIME:
21:43[EDT]|
| NRC NOTIFIED BY: NILS BAHLIN |LAST UPDATE DATE:
08/24/2001|
HQ OPS OFFICER: FANGIE JONES
+
+PERSON ORGANIZATION
EMERGENCY CLASS: NON EMERGENCY |JAMES NOGGLE R1
10 CFR SECTION: |
ACOM 50.72(b)(3)(xiii) LOSS COMM/ASMT/RESPONSE|
UNIT |SCRAM CODE|RX CRIT|INIT PWR| INIT RX MODE |CURR PWR| CURR RX MODE
2 N Y 100 Power Operation |100 Power Operation
3 N Y 80 Power Operation |80 Power Operation
EVENT TEXT
LOSS OF ELECTRICAL POWER TO THE TECHNICAL SUPPORT CENTER
An unexpected electrical breaker trip has caused a loss of power
to the Technical Support Center (TSC).
On 08/23/01 at 21:43 the main control room was notified that
the TSC, which is located in a building adjacent to the protected
area, was without power. Communications were verified available
from the TSC.
An investigation revealed that an offsite breaker controlled by
the power system director had tripped. Further investigation is
in progress to identify and repair any deficiencies.
The station procedures for contingency actions were put in
place if an event requiring the TSC were to occur during the loss
of power. Power was restored to the TSC at 0130 EDT on 08/24/01
from an alternate offsite source.
The licensee notified the NRC Resident Inspector.
General Information or Other |Event Number: 38231
REP ORG: ROSEMOUNT NUCLEAR INSTRUMENTS INC |NOTIFICATION DATE:
08/24/2001|
|LICENSEE: ROSEMOUNT NUCLEAR INSTRUMENTS INC |NOTIFICATION TIME:
12:46[EDT]|
| CITY: EDEN PRAIRIE REGION: 3 |EVENT DATE:
08/24/2001|
| COUNTY: STATE: MN |EVENT TIME:
[CDT]|
|LICENSE#: AGREEMENT: N |LAST UPDATE DATE:
08/24/2001|
DOCKET:
++
|PERSON ORGANIZATION
|RONALD GARDNER R3
|BILL JONES R4
+VERN HODGE NRR
NRC NOTIFIED BY: CLEVELAND |
HQ OPS OFFICER: CHAUNCEY GOULD |
+
EMERGENCY CLASS: NON EMERGENCY |
10 CFR SECTION: |
CCCC 21.21 UNSPECIFIED PARAGRAPH |
|
EVENT TEXT
PART 21 FOR A POTENTIAL NONCONFORMANCE RELATED TO REMOTE DIAPHRAGM SEALS
Pursuant to 10CFR Part 21 Paragraph 21.21(b), Rosemount Nuclear
Instruments, Inc. (RNII) is writing to inform you of a potential
nonconformance related to two model 1159 remote diaphragm seals.
The two remote diaphragm seals are connected to a single
Rosemount nuclear qualified transmitter with serial number
0521038. The two remote diaphragm seals are used to measure
differential process pressure or liquid level while preventing
the process fluid from contacting the transmitter diaphragm. The
remote seals contain discrepant fill fluid screws. The fill
fluid screws are part of the pressure boundary of the remote seal
system. The nonconformance was due to an oversight during
assembly, which has been corrected.
The material specification for the qualified fill screws is 416
SST. The unqualified fill screws are 416 SST with a ball tip
that is AISA E52100. The ball tip allows multiple insertions.
The qualified screw does not possess the bearing feature.
1.0 Affected customer Grand Gulf
2.0 Identification of items supplied Model 1159 Remote Diaphragm Seals
3.0 Identification of firm supplying the Item Rosemount Nuclear
Instruments, Inc.
4.0 Nature of the failure and potential safety hazard:
This notification relates to two Model 1159 Remote Diaphragm
Seals, which contain discrepant fill fluid seal screws. These
screws are part of the pressure boundary of the remote diaphragm
seal system.
This notification is not applicable to other remote diaphragm seal systems.
RNII has determined that there is no safety impact related to
plant applications. RNII does not feel Licensees with installed
Model 1159 Remote Diaphragm Seals need to address this issue.
5.0 The corrective action which is taken, the name of the individual or
organization responsible for that action and the length of time
taken to complete that action:
RNII immediately contacted the affected customer, and the
nonconforming seals were returned to RNII prior to installation
into the customer's facility. The unit will be reworked to
conform to the qualification requirements.
RNII internal corrective actions:
1. Revised the nonstandard filling procedure for remote seals to
ensure that qualified fill screws are installed during the
filling process.
2. Training of engineering, manufacturing and quality personnel
involved in the preparation, review and approval of nonstandard
procedures and processes to reemphasize the need to specifically
address the material requirements.
6.0 Any advice related to the potential failure of the item:
This notification applies to a single transmitter with two Model
1159C20A Remote Diaphragm Seals. This unit was returned to RNII
prior to installation; therefore, does not pose a potential
failure.
Hospital |Event Number: 38232
| REP ORG: PROVIDENCE HOSPITAL |NOTIFICATION DATE:
08/24/2001|
|LICENSEE: PROVIDENCE HOSPITAL |NOTIFICATION TIME:
15:03[EDT]|
| CITY: WASHINGTON REGION: 1 |EVENT DATE:
08/24/2001|
| COUNTY: STATE: DC |EVENT TIME:
[EDT]|
|LICENSE#: 080172801 AGREEMENT: N |LAST UPDATE DATE:
08/24/2001|
DOCKET:
|PERSON ORGANIZATION
|JAMES NOGGLE R1
|SUSAN FRANT NMSS
NRC NOTIFIED BY: PAUL SMITH |
HQ OPS OFFICER: CHAUNCEY GOULD |
EMERGENCY CLASS: NON EMERGENCY |
10 CFR SECTION: |
LADM 35.33(a) MED MISADMINISTRATION |
EVENT TEXT
PROVIDENCE HOSPITAL REPORTED MEDICAL MISADMINISTRATIONS
OCCURRING BETWEEN 1996 AND 2000
The hospital reported that during the period from 8/7/96 to
10/18/00 fourteen medical misadministrations of strontium90
occurred during clinical procedures using a strontium90 eye
applicator. The same ophthalmologist was the operator of the
applicator during all fourteen incidences. It appears that there
was a misinterpretation of what the affect the shield had on the
radiation reaching the eye. There was a supposition that the use
of the shield reduced the radiation to the eye by a minimum of
50% and up to 80%. Therefore, the amount of administration time
for the procedures was doubled. The amount of radiation given(in
the range of 3,000 rads) was well within the therapeutic range
for the procedure, but it was not what the physician had written.
The amount of rads given was doubled of what was prescribed.
Power Reactor |Event Number: 38233
FACILITY: COLUMBIA GENERATING STATIREGION: 4 |NOTIFICATION DATE:
08/24/2001|
| UNIT: [2] [] [] STATE: WA |NOTIFICATION TIME:
17:05[EDT]|
| RXTYPE: [2] GE5 |EVENT DATE:
08/24/2001|
++EVENT TIME:
13:05[PDT]|
| NRC NOTIFIED BY: FISHER |LAST UPDATE DATE:
08/24/2001|
HQ OPS OFFICER: CHAUNCEY GOULD
+
+PERSON ORGANIZATION
EMERGENCY CLASS: NON EMERGENCY |BILL JONES R4
10 CFR SECTION: |
DDDD 73.71 UNSPECIFIED PARAGRAPH |
UNIT |SCRAM CODE|RX CRIT|INIT PWR| INIT RX MODE |CURR PWR| CURR RX MODE
2 N Y 100 Power Operation |100 Power Operation
EVENT TEXT
SAFEGUARDS SYSTEM DEGRADATION RELATED TO AREA BOUNDARY IMMEDIATE
COMPENSATORY MEASURES TAKEN UPON TO DISCOVERY THE NRC RESIDENT
INSPECTOR WILL BE NOTIFIED CONTACT THE HEADQUARTERS OPERATION
CENTER FOR ADDITIONAL DETAILS.
Power Reactor |Event Number: 38234
FACILITY: VOGTLE REGION: 2 |NOTIFICATION DATE:
08/25/2001|
| UNIT: [1] [] [] STATE: GA |NOTIFICATION TIME:
00:34[EDT]|
| RXTYPE: [1] W4LP,[2] W4LP |EVENT DATE:
08/24/2001|
++EVENT TIME:
23:07[EDT]|
| NRC NOTIFIED BY: ROBERT DORMAN |LAST UPDATE DATE:
08/25/2001|
HQ OPS OFFICER: JOHN MacKINNON
+
+PERSON ORGANIZATION
EMERGENCY CLASS: NON EMERGENCY |EDWARD MCALPINE R2
10 CFR SECTION: |
ARPS 50.72(b)(2)(iv)(B) RPS ACTUATION CRITICA|
AESF 50.72(b)(3)(iv)(A) VALID SPECIF SYS ACTUAT|
UNIT |SCRAM CODE|RX CRIT|INIT PWR| INIT RX MODE |CURR PWR| CURR RX MODE
1 A/R Y 100 Power Operation |0 Hot Standby
EVENT TEXT
LOSS OF EXCITATION TO THE MAIN GENERATOR RESULTS IN A REACTOR TRIP.
Unit 1 was operating at approximately 100% power. While the
main generator rectifier bank # 1 was being placed back in
service after repairs when the main generator had a loss of
excitation to the generator resulting in a generator trip,
turbine trip and reactor trip. All rods fully inserted into the
core. An investigation is in progress to determine when
excitation was lost when attempting to place main generator
rectifier bank # 1 back in service. An Auxiliary Feedwater
Actuation Signal was generated on LoLo Steam Generator Water
Levels and AMSAC. Both Motor Driven Feedwater Pumps and the
Turbine Driven Auxiliary Feedwater Pump started. The plant is
currently stable in mode 3 (Hot Standby). An evaluation is in
progress to determine what work will be done with the unit shut
down and to develop a schedule for returning to power operation.
The NRC Resident Inspector was notified of this event by the licensee.
*****************************************************************
7 IAEA Daily Press Review
_IAEA Daily Press Review_ _Date 2001-08-27 Number 162_
1. _Non-proliferation_ Reactions to President Bush's statement
that US envisages at some point scrapping ABM. DPRK newspaper
critical of US Council on Foreign Relations for saying that North
Korea is in possession of nuclear weapons. India maintains that
it will not sign CTBT in its present form. Article suggests that
US planned MD would not be certain to neutralize even rudimentary
warheads. (FT; NYT; R; WP - 27/8) *ABM; Dem. P.R. of Korea;
India; Russian Federation; United States of America*
2. _Nuclear power_ Several articles on Japanese mini NPP
"Rapid-L". Indonesia inaugurates Institute of Nuclear Technology
and launches two new rice varieties developed by National Nuclear
Energy Institute. (JAK; NS; T - 24, 25/8) *Indonesia; Japan*
3. _Nuclear safety_ Radioactive gas leaks from ROK nuclear fuel
processing plant, but nuclear safety authorities say there were
no injuries and leak was contained. (R - 24/7) *Korea, Republic
of*
4. _Radiation, health_ More on planned WHO studies to
investigate possible DU ammunition links in Iraq. (R - 23/8)
*Iraq; WHO*
5. _R_ IBM scientists build computer circuit out of single
strand of carbon. (NYT - 27/8) *United States of America*
6. _Miscellaneous_ Bad weather stops work to salvage "Kursk".
(CNN - 26/8) *Russian Federation*
*****************************************************************
8 Nuclear power plans won't affect Rowe
Monday, August 27, 2001
By DAVID A. VALLETTE
ROWE
A movement to put new-technology nuclear power plants on the site
of old nuclear power plants will not change the destiny of the
closed Yankee Nuclear Power Station here.
"We have no plans for a nuclear plant at the Rowe site," said
Yankee spokeswoman Kelley C. Smith last week.
Yankee will continue the long process of moving all vestiges of
nuclear power from the property, she said.
Yankee has also ruled out using the site for a natural gas-fueled
power plant. The company determined that installing pipes for the
gas would be too expensive.
Also, because the plant is located on a site low in the Deerfield
River Valley, it would require building an exhaust stack that
would be prohibitively high.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has begun holding meetings to
deal with expected license applications to build new nuclear
plants on the sites of old ones.
New nuclear energy production designs will have to be addressed
with modifications in current regulations, the agency's staff has
concluded. While industry interest has been shown in new plants
at several old sites, none of them so far are in the Northeast,
said Smith.
"No other companies have expressed interest in Rowe," she said.
Instead, she said, Yankee is proceeding according to the goal it
set when decommissioning of the Rowe plant began a decade ago:
The company plans to leave the site a "green field," virtually
devoid of any legacy from the nuclear power production that took
place here for 30 years.
The generators and other contaminated equipment and elements of
the plant have been removed to a South Carolina nuclear waste
dump. The plant site still harbors spent fuel rods, stored in a
pool of water that keeps them cool.
The highly radioactive rods will soon be taken out of the water
and placed into large steel and concrete casks for minimum
50-year storage in Rowe — until the U.S. Department of Energy
comes up with a permanent national storage facility.
The transfer from pool to cask, involving 16 of the 110-ton
casks, is to be completed next year, followed by the
decommissioning of the spent-fuel pool and the demolition of all
buildings. Only the 16 casks, sitting on a concrete pad in a
fenced-in security area, will remain.
© 2001 UNION-NEWS. Used with permission.
*****************************************************************
9 Utilities Express Disappointment with Congressman's Request for Study
_ Dave L’Heureux , The State, Columbia, S.C. _
Knight Ridder/Tribune ( August 27, 2001 )
Aug. 24--South Carolina's three investor-owned utilities are
questioning U.S. Rep. Henry Brown's interest in studying whether
to build nuclear power plants at sites owned by the U.S. Energy
Department.
Such properties include the 200,000-acre Savannah River Site in
parts of Aiken, Allendale and Barnwell counties.
Brown, a freshman Republican representing the Charleston area,
included the call for a study in the federal energy bill that the
House approved in late July.
"My amendment didn't name the Savannah River Site, but I hope the
study will explore the possibility of using it for nuclear power
plants," Brown said Thursday.
Brown hopes to promote nuclear energy as the best means of
meeting the nation's insatiable demand for energy without relying
more heavily on imports. Yet the three utilities -- SCANA Corp.,
Progress Energy and Duke Energy -- believe SRS is hardly an ideal
site for a nuclear power plant.
"The most logical place for a new nuclear plant is next to an
existing nuclear plant," said Becky McSwain, a spokeswoman for
Charlotte-based Duke Energy. McSwain said existing nuclear plants
already have access to trained personnel, storage, roads and
transmission lines.
"The Savannah River Site is a very different animal," she added.
"It has never been used to produce power." The federal government
created SRS in 1950 to produce atomic bombs. Now the U.S.
Department of Energy stores nuclear waste on the 200,000-acre
site.
Most utilities throughout the Southeast, including those in South
Carolina, already produce more energy than they use.
"It's unnecessary for this part of the country," said Robin
Montgomery, spokesman for SCANA Corp., the energy holding company
based in Columbia. "We already have an adequate supply of
energy." But Brown's idea has piqued the interest of the Bush
administration and pro-nuclear groups, which support the
expansion of nuclear power.
"It's an interesting and thoughtful proposal," said Joe Davis,
spokesman for the U.S. Energy Department. "We should discuss it
in the context of a national energy policy." Brown said private
utilities, not the federal government, should operate any future
nuclear plants built on DOE properties, an idea that the Nuclear
Energy Institute approves.
"We're not necessarily for the federal government operating
nuclear power plants," said Steve Kerekes, spokesman for NEI.
"Nuclear power should be competitive in the marketplace." A local
official said the potential construction of nuclear power plants
at Savannah River would bring new jobs and investments.
"I'd love to have a new plant in Barnwell County," said E.
Timothy Moore Jr., chairman of Barnwell County Council. "And I'd
like to have the taxes from it, too." But a spokesman for
Progress Energy, parent company of Raleigh-based Carolina Power
&Light Co., said the government still must resolve the ultimate
disposal of spent nuclear fuels.
"It will be very difficult for anyone to leverage the
construction of more nuclear power plants until we solve the
waste issue," said spokesman Mike Hughes.
He also said he hopes that future nuclear power plants could use
spent plutonium as a fuel source, but opposes any permanent
storage of plutonium at the Savannah River Site.
Gov. Jim Hodges opposes the shipment of more plutonium to the
Savannah River Site.
On Thursday, Hodges' senior adviser for environmental affairs,
Hank Stallworth, discussed the plutonium issue with two key
Energy Department officials in Washington, D.C.
The discussions ended without a resolution, a DOE spokesman said
Thursday afternoon.
http://www.thestate.com
(c) 2001, The State, Columbia, S.C. Distributed by Knight
Ridder/Tribune
*****************************************************************
10 Limited access to Bush for environmentalists / Little opportunity
to lobby administration
Sunday, August 26, 2001
Washington_ -- Environmental leaders say they never got a real
chance to influence the administration's energy policy report in
favor of greater conservation efforts and renewable power.
Just after the election and again in January, when the energy
task force was announced, several groups requested meetings with
President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney or both.
Months passed without a reply.
Dan Becker, legislative director at the Sierra Club, heard
suddenly from an Energy Department staffer in late March: Please
give us your thoughts on the plan. We need them within 24 hours.
Then, he says, the caller mentioned that Energy Secretary Spencer
Abraham was traveling and wouldn't be reading the response.
On April 3, the Energy Department submitted a briefing paper on
nuclear power to the vice president's office, recommending the
United States use more of it. Under "pros," the paper noted that
this policy would be "a bold step" and added that it would
underscore "the responsible approach of the administration toward
carbon emissions" -- the global warming issue.
But under "cons," the paper noted: "Environmental groups will
sharply criticize any proposed expansion" because of waste
disposal issues and the history of accidents at Three Mile Island
and Chernobyl. Environmentalists will "use the proposal to
fund-raise and organize to defeat the administration's policy,
and use the proposal to suggest our national energy policy is out
of the mainstream." Nuclear power would go on to win a place in
the report as "a major component of our national energy policy."
By this time, the task force was well aware that
environmentalists would be unhappy about many aspects of the
report.
The panel had abandoned its original plan for a release date of
April 6. It was too close to Earth Day, a staffer with knowledge
of the discussion said, and it would offer much too tempting a
target.
In this wary atmosphere, Cheney's energy director, Andrew
Lundquist, met with 15 emissaries from environmental groups on
April 4.
The assembled activists barely had time to introduce themselves
in the allotted 50 minutes. "To characterize it as meaningful
consultation is quite a stretch," said Elizabeth Thompson, who
attended for Environmental Defense. Howard "Bud" Ris, who heads
the Union of Concerned Scientists, asked twice to meet directly
with Cheney "to no avail," according to a memo written afterward
by one of the participants.
Environmental leaders finally sat down with Cheney on June 5,
weeks after the report was released.
©2001 San Francisco Chronicle
*****************************************************************
11 Arizona head of League of Women Voters addresses local group today_
Mohave Valley News: News Column
BULLHEAD CITY - The League of Women Voters Arizona president will
speak at a local league meeting today at 5:30 p.m. at the
Bullhead City Library.
"We recently put on a membership drive, sent out quite a bit of
information, and have invited the public to this meeting," said
Alberta Ecklund, the league's Bullhead City member at large unit
chair. "This is to encourage people to get involved with the
government, to help educate the public, and to register voters.
"And we are really proud to have her (Gini McGirr, the league's
Arizona president) here."
There is a "national organization called the League of Women
Voters of the United States and then under that come all the
state leagues and then all the local leagues," McGirr said. "We
have eight local leagues in Arizona. Right now, we are busy going
out and attending all the redistricting meetings.
"The state league members wrote the initiative with Common Cause
called the citizens redistricting initiative. ... Right now, we
have asked the state to change the districts so they will be more
competitive, meaning more of a balance of Democrats and
Republicans. Right now there are so many safe districts where you
know which party is going to be the representative."
Last year, Arizona conducted elections under the clean elections
initiative.
"We did all the forums for all the districts that had people
running under the Clean Elections Act," McGirr said. "We put in a
proposal for our contract with the Clean Elections Commission
that we will be doing the forums next year. So far we have not
heard back from them but there are only three proposals."
The league is conducting national studies on election reform and
trade, she said.
*****************************************************************
12 Picatinny lab to be used for toxic waste research
Daily Record Local News -
By Matt Manochio
Daily Record
ROCKAWAY TWP. — Stevens Institute of Technology scientists are
planning to conduct research at Picatinny Arsenal to find ways of
removing toxic waste from water and soil.
George Korfiatis, professor and head of the center for
environmental engineering at Stevens in Hoboken, said he and
colleagues would use Picatinny’s depleted uranium laboratory to
devise more efficient methods to remove toxic contaminants from
dirt and water.
"That’s the purpose, to come up with technologies to handle
water and soil … for the Department of Defense," Korfiatis said.
Contaminated water and dirt will be brought to the arsenal from
Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, where the Army has a huge
indoor facility called the Superbox, where munitions are test
fired, said Kenneth Willison, a metallurgist at the arsenal.
Depleted uranium is used in metal components of some anti-tank
ammunition. The projectiles travel farther and faster than others
because of the high density, hardness and weight of uranium,
which is alloyed with other metals such as titanium when the
shells are made. Desert Storm troops referred to such
armor-piercing shells as "the silver bullet" because they were so
effective.
At Aberdeen, Abrams tanks blast live 120mm shells at targets to
test for accuracy, Willison said, adding that shells also are
shot into sand in the Superbox. During the cleanup process, the
water used to wash the tested area, as well as the sand, contain
uranium waste.
Normally, the contaminated water and soil would be mixed with
cement, sealed in a drum and taken to a low-level radioactive
waste facility to be buried in Barnwell, S.C., said Dick Moss, a
health physicist at the arsenal.
Korfiatis said Stevens will attempt to create a vessel through
which water can be circulated while a chemical process removes
the radioactive waste. Stevens scientists will do the research
and build the device at Picatinny, and then take it to Aberdeen
for testing, he said.
Stevens also will work on a similar process through which
contaminants can be extracted from soil, he said.
"You do it in a way that it’s safe and sound, and at the same
time (you) recycle the material that you’re working with,"
Korfiatis said.
The Army hopes that Stevens’ research will lead to successful
ways to extract contaminants, so that water and soil can be put
back into the environment, Moss said. The Army will save money on
shipping and disposing of contaminants because the drums will
contain mostly waste products and not great volumes of soil and
water.
Korfiatis said the level of waste in the ground is not a threat
to the environment, and that radioactivity isn’t much of a factor
because the uranium has depleted as the years have gone by.
However, there are metals in the ground that are toxic, and that
is what the Stevens crew will work on removing, he said.
The work is expected to begin in six to eight weeks. The
researchers will be at work two or three days a week over the
next year.
Matt Manochio can be reached at or (973) 428-6630.
_©2000 Gannett Satellite Information Network Inc. _ _The Daily
Record_ 800 Jefferson Road, Parsippany, N.J. 07054 (973)
428-6200
*****************************************************************
13 ADAMS: Items of Interest - Monday, August 27, 2001
State of Nevada
Agency for Nuclear Projects
ADAMS - Items of Interest Recent Released Documents Added -
Monday, August 27, 2001
These documents and others may be retrieved at the NRC PERR web
site
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Item ID: 012360298 Accession Number: ML012350226 Document Date:
6/5/01 Title: 05/29/2001 Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility
Management Meeting Summary. Author Affiliation: NRC/NMSS/FCSS
Document/Report Number:
_________________________________________________________________
Item ID: 012360016 Accession Number: ML012270177 Document Date:
7/24/01 Title: 07/24/2001 - 07/26/2001 Meeting Summary in
reference to Highlights of NRC/DOE Technical Exchange and
Management Meeting on Pre-Closure Safety. Author Affiliation:
NRC/NMSS/DWM, US Dept of Energy Document/Report Number:
_________________________________________________________________
Item ID: 012360015 Accession Number: ML012270153 Document Date:
7/24/01 Title: 07/24/2001 - 07/26/2001 Meeting Summary in
reference to Identification of SCCs Important to Safety NRC Items
6(a) and 6(b).` Author Affiliation: Bechtel SAIC Company, LLC, US
Dept of Energy Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management
Document/Report Number:
_________________________________________________________________
Item ID: 012360017 Accession Number: ML012270185 Document Date:
7/24/01 Title: 07/27/2001 - 07/26/2001 Meeting Summary in
reference to Engineered Barrier System Design and Fabrication NRC
Item 7(e.1), 7(e.2), and 7(e.4). Author Affiliation: Bechtel SAIC
Company, LLC, US Dept of Energy Office of Civilian Radioactive
Waste Management Document/Report Number:
_________________________________________________________________
Item ID: 012360018 Accession Number: ML012270370 Document Date:
8/2/01 Title: 08/02/2001 Meeting Summary with US Department of
Energy in referece to Highlights of NRC/DOE Technical Exchange
and Management Meeting on Range of Operating Temperatures. Author
Affiliation: NRC/NMSS/DWM, US Dept of Energy Document/Report
Number:
_________________________________________________________________
Item ID: 012360177 Accession Number: ML012350178 Document Date:
8/23/01 Title: 08/27/2001 - 10/01/2001 Commission Meetings - FRN.
Author Affiliation: NRC/SECY Document/Report Number:
_________________________________________________________________
Item ID: 012360207 Accession Number: ML012330263 Document Date:
8/21/01 Title: 09/19/2001 - Notice of Public Meeting to Discuss
Environmental Scoping Process for the Surry Power Station, Units
1 and 2, License Renewal Application (TAC NOS. MB1992 and MB1993)
Author Affiliation: NRC/NRR/DRIP/RGEB Document/Report Number:
_________________________________________________________________
Item ID: 012360295 Accession Number: ML012340183 Document Date:
7/23/01 Title: Closed Predisional Enforcement Conference Agenda
Southern Nuclear Operating Company 07/23/01, At 9:00 AM NRC
Region II Office, Atlanta GA. Author Affiliation: NRC/RGN-II
Document/Report Number:
_________________________________________________________________
Item ID: 012360086 Accession Number: ML012290386 Document Date:
7/31/01 Title: Comment (120) submitted by Dale Saltzman opposing
Proposed Rules PR-1, 2, 50, 51, 52, 54, 60, 70, 73, 76 & 110
regarding Changes to Adjudicatory Process. Author Affiliation: -
No Known Affiliation Document/Report Number:
_________________________________________________________________
Item ID: 012360208 Accession Number: ML012350356 Document Date:
5/29/01 Title: List of attendees for 05/29/2001 Mixed Oxide Fuel
Fabrication Facility Management Meeting. Author Affiliation:
NRC/NMSS/FCSS Document/Report Number:
_________________________________________________________________
Item ID: 012360210 Accession Number: ML012350362 Document Date:
5/29/01 Title: NRC presentation slides on approach to licensing
reviews from 05/29/2001 Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility
Management Meeting. Author Affiliation: NRC Document/Report
Number:
_________________________________________________________________
Item ID: 012360160 Accession Number: ML012340306 Document Date:
8/16/01 Title: NRC STAFF'S RESPONSE TO APPLICANT'S MOTION FOR
SUMMARY DISPOSITION OF UTAH CONTENTION W Author Affiliation:
NRC/OGC Document/Report Number:
_________________________________________________________________
Item ID: 012360211 Accession Number: ML012360032 Document Date:
3/31/87 Title: NUREG/BR-0111, "Transporting Spent Fuel Protection
Provided Against Severe Highway & Railroad Accidents." Author
Affiliation: NRC/RES Document/Report Number: NUREG/BR-0111
_________________________________________________________________
Item ID: 012360303 Accession Number: ML012360080 Document Date:
8/17/01 Title: Public comments from Ameren UE on Draft Review &
Preliminary Recommendations for Improving NRC Process for
Handling Discrimination Complaints. Author Affiliation: Ameren UE
Document/Report Number:
_________________________________________________________________
Item ID: 012360309 Accession Number: ML012360055 Document Date:
8/23/01 Title: SECY-01-0159 - "Weekly Information Report - Week
Ending 08/17/2001 Author Affiliation: NRC/EDO/AO Document/Report
Number: SECY-00-0159
*****************************************************************
14 Update 1-New DOE program promotes new nuclear power plants
[Reuters]
Monday August 27, 4:14 PM EDT
(adds comments from Nuclear Energy Institute, paragraph 4)
WASHINGTON, Aug 27 (Reuters) - In a move to encourage new nuclear
power plant construction, the U.S. Department of Energy on Monday
unveiled a pilot project to encourage private companies to
consider new plant sites.
In the Aug. 27 Federal Register, DOE petitioned private companies
to submit early requests to have potential sites licensed with
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and earmarked $700,000 in
federal funds to subsidize site permitting studies.
The plan will help break down "barriers affecting future
near-term deployment of new nuclear power plants," the notice
said.
The new program provides "creative ways to advocate the use of
nuclear energy in our nation's portfolio," said a spokesman for
the Nuclear Energy Institute, or NEI, a lobbying group that
promotes new plant construction.
Energy firms like Entergy Corp. (ETR), Exelon Corp. (EXC) and
Dominion Resources Inc. (D) are potential candidates for the
program.
"Anything the federal government does to encourage new plant
construction in the U.S. we are in favor of," said a spokesman
for Dominion Energy, the generating arm of Dominion Resources.
Dominion is part of an NEI working group to streamline the site
permitting process, and could make a decision late this year to
submit an early site permitting request to the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission for a Virginia site, the spokesman said.
The early permit is enabled by an existing NRC rule that allows
companies to submit an early request to study the feasibility of
prospective sites -- know as site "banking."
NEI expects its members to build eight new plants over a 10-year
period starting "in the 2005 time frame," said Marvin Fertel, the
lobbying group's senior vice president.
The DOE program will look at existing sites, green-field sites
and federal sites. Applications for the program are due by Oct.
15.
©2001 Reuters Limited.
*****************************************************************
15 'Clean' power source should carry a global warning
smh.com.au - Opinion
August 27, 2001
Australia's attitude to uranium exports is unforgivable bearing
in mind the dangers of nuclear energy, writes Helen Caldicott. _
AMONG the many departures from the truth by opponents of the
Kyoto protocol, one of the most invidious is that nuclear power
is "clean" and, therefore, the answer to global warming.
So we found during the last round of talks in Bonn that the
Environment Minister, Senator Hill, bruited about the idea that
developing countries should be encouraged to take the clean
nuclear route to limiting greenhouse gases - thereby becoming
customers for Australian uranium. How convenient.
You can expect to hear more of the same as we move closer to the
next round of Kyoto protocol talks which are coming up in
Marrakesh in October and November.
However, the cleanliness of nuclear power is nonsense. Not only
does it contaminate the planet with long-lived radioactive waste,
it significantly contributes to global warming.
While it is claimed that there is little or no fossil fuel used
in producing nuclear power, the reality is that enormous
quantities of fossil fuel are used to mine, mill and enrich the
uranium needed to fuel a nuclear power plant, as well as to
construct the enormous concrete reactor itself. Indeed, a nuclear
power plant must operate for 18 years before producing one net
calorie of energy. (During the 1970s the US deployed seven huge
1,000-megawatt coal-fired plants to enrich its uranium and it is
still using coal to enrich much of the world's uranium.) ');
So, to recoup the equivalent of the amount of fossil fuel used in
preparation and construction before the first switch is thrown to
initiate nuclear fission, the plant must operate for almost two
decades.
But that is not the end of fossil fuel use because disassembling
nuclear plants at the end of their 30- to 40-year operating life
will require yet more vast quantities of energy. Taking apart,
piece by radioactive piece, a nuclear reactor and its surrounding
infrastructure is a massive operation: imagine, for example, the
amount of petrol, diesel and electricity that would be used if
the Sydney Opera House were to be dismantled. That's the scale
we're talking about.
And that is not the end of fossil use because much will also be
required for the final transport and long-term storage of nuclear
waste generated by every reactor.
From a medical perspective, nuclear waste threatens global
health. The toxicity of many elements in this radioactive mess is
long-lived.
Strontium 90, for example, is tasteless, odourless and invisible
and remains radioactive for 600 years. Concentrating in the food
chain, it emulates the mineral calcium. Contaminated milk enters
the body, where strontium 90 concentrates in bones and lactating
breasts later to cause bone cancer, leukaemia and breast cancer.
Importantly, babies and children are 10 to 20 times more
susceptible to the carcinogenic effects of radiation than adults.
Plutonium, the most significant element in nuclear waste, is so
carcinogenic that hypothetically half a kilo evenly distributed
could cause cancer in everyone on Earth. Lasting for half a
million years, it enters the body through the lung where it is
known to cause cancer. It mimics iron in the body, migrating to
bones where it can induce bone cancer or leukaemia, and to the
liver where it can cause primary liver cancer. It crosses the
placenta into the embryo and, like the drug thalidomide, causes
gross birth deformities.
Finally, plutonium has a predilection for the testicles, where it
induces genetic mutations in the sperm of humans and other
animals that are passed on from generation to generation.
Significantly, five kilos of plutonium is fuel for a nuclear
weapon. Thus far, nuclear power has generated about 1,139 tonnes
of plutonium.
So, nuclear power adds to global warming, increases the burden of
radioactive materials in the ecosphere and threatens to
contribute to nuclear proliferation.
No doubt the Australian Government is keen to assist the uranium
industry, but the immorality of its position is unforgivable.
_Dr Helen Caldicott is the founding president of Physicians for
Social Responsibility._
*****************************************************************
16 EPD approves plan for toxic waste landfill
Online Athens: News:
08/27/01
Sunday, August 26, 2001*
_By Joan Stroer _
jstroer@onlineathens.com
After a decade of discussion and study, the state Environmental
Protection Division has approved a plan to cap and contain a
toxic waste landfill at the University of Georgia, university
officials say.
The environmental agency and the university have been
haggling over how to clean up the 1960s-era landfill next to the
State Botanical Garden of Georgia, an old permitted dumping
ground for the campus' radioactive and chemical waste. The EPD
gave its approval a few days ago to the university's containment
plan for the one-acre dump, and work on the cap should start next
month, said Hank Huckaby, senior vice president for finance and
administration.
EPD officials were not immediately available for comment.
The plan is to contain underground waste at the site with an
impermeable cap, which should halt seepage of rainwater into the
dump and onward into a nearby stream that feeds into the Middle
Oconee River. In recent years, a surface water treatment plant
mandated by the EPD has been pumping and filtering water near the
stream to prevent river contamination.
Until recently, EPD officials had argued that UGA should pay
$20 million to $30 million to excavate the site and haul away the
waste, but the university and its consultants argued that capping
the dump and treating the water there in the coming decades would
be less costly and disruptive. The plan was shopped to Athenians
at a public meeting last December.
''That's been our plan all along -- cap it and contain it,''
UGA spokesman Tom Jackson said. ''They finally approved it.''
At one point, the university's containment plan was expected
to cost between $3 million and $4 million.
The landfill was used by scientists from UGA and other
agencies to bury chemical and radioactive waste in the 1960s and
1970s.
_This article published in the Athens Banner-Herald on
Monday, August 27,
©opyright 2001 Athens Newspapers Inc.
*****************************************************************
17 Questions Abound as Nuclear Regulator's Extortion Trial Opens
The Salt Lake Tribune --
August 27, 2001*
_BY JUDY FAHYS
The federal extortion trial of former state regulator Larry
Anderson opens today, with some of the most puzzling questions in
the long-running case still unanswered.
Why did the former director of the Utah Division of Radiation
Control expose himself to criminal charges by taking money and a
condominium from a businessman he regulated?
Why, after being forced from his $65,000-a-year state job,
did he take the audacious step of suing landfill owner Khosrow
Semnani over a consulting contract no one had seen?
And why did he snub a plea bargain that would have slashed
his possible jail time and penalties?
As Anderson's jury trial opens in U.S. District Court in Salt
Lake City, the case has ramifications well beyond the pride of a
retired bureaucrat.
Semnani hopes for testimony and a verdict that will exonerate
him and his multimillion-dollar company, Envirocare of Utah. And
the public will be looking for assurance that a renegade state
employee, and not the state's entire environmental program,
operated for personal profit rather than the public good.
However, defense attorney Jerry Mooney predicts the two-week
trial will not provide much for people seeking broader meanings.
"They come in expecting some truth-seeking," he said, "but
often it is a disappointment."
The trial will be the first public exploration of these
knotty questions since 1987, when Anderson, as division director,
began working with Semnani on starting and growing a hazardous
waste business. Anderson holds that it was a legitimate business
arrangement that made Semnani enormously wealthy. The businessman
insists he ponied up only to avoid the regulator's wrath.
In any case, both profited handsomely from the relationship.
Two years into the arrangement, Semnani purchased a condo on
the Park Meadows golf course in Park City that he soon deeded to
the regulator. The condo sold for $400,000 a few years later,
shortly before Anderson and his wife, Carolee, settled into a
townhouse overlooking the Oasis Golf Club in Mesquite, Nev.
Money changed hands under the table. Anderson set up a Swiss
bank account. Semnani had money wired into the account from a
Paris bank. And along with the coins and piles of cash he
received from the businessman, Anderson collected consulting fees
through a contractor he had referred to Envirocare.
Semnani's business blossomed apace. Anderson helped him
secure an exception to federal law to operate a radioactive waste
facility on private property -- still the only exception of its
kind in the nation -- and also helped Semnani buy, at a bargain
price, state-owned land essential to any growth at Envirocare's
640-acre Tooele County site. Anderson steered government-surplus
shipping equipment to Semnani -- personally delivering the check
to state surplus officers -- although another company wanted to
bid on it.
Anderson oversaw many changes to Envirocare's operating
permits that added to the list of lucrative services it could
offer. At the same time, he actively fought radioactive waste
proposals advanced by Envirocare's rivals in Utah and elsewhere.
The relationship prompted two investigations. The first,
ordered by then-Department of Environmental Quality Director Ken
Alkema, was deemed "inconclusive" and ordered destroyed.
The second, requested by lawmakers and conducted by the
Legislative Auditor General's Office, noted Anderson's ferocious
support for Envirocare and concluded "that Utah goes too far in
supporting its waste-disposal facilities."
That sentiment lingers today. As Envirocare seeks to update
its permit and expand its business, activist Chip Ward often
raises the Anderson-Semnani scandal.
"People assume their regulators protect them," he said. "
Regulators [in Utah] don't regulate. They mediate."
Brent Bradford, assistant director of the state Department of
Environmental Quality, agrees the impact lingers despite all the
department's added checks and controls.
"There is a question in folks' minds, 'Could it happen
again?' " he said. "We certainly don't want to see this kind of
thing recur."
With Dianne Nielson's appointment as DEQ director in 1993,
Anderson, the first manager asked to go, was allowed to linger at
DEQ long enough to qualify for a pension.
It was almost four years later when the scandal exploded into
public view. Anderson sued Semnani for nonpayment of $5 million;
Semnani countersued alleging extortion and demanding $2.4 million
in damages.
In the ensuing legal firestorm, Anderson and Semnani were
pummeled with lawsuits by Envirocare rivals enraged over being
excluded from radioactive-waste opportunities worth hundreds of
millions of dollars.
The Radiation Division's oversight of Envirocare was
double-checked internally, as well as by the federal
Environmental Protection Agency, the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission and the Energy Department, Envirocare's biggest
customer. The reviews turned up no evidence that the
Anderson-Semnani relationship had compromised public safety or
health, but the suspicion has endured.
In a December 1998 deal with prosecutors, Semnani pleaded
guilty to a misdemeanor tax charge and was ordered to pay
$100,000. He also promised to testify against Anderson. It was
the most lenient sentence allowed under federal guidelines.
In turn, prosecutors charged Anderson with extortion, tax
evasion, tax fraud and mail fraud -- six criminal counts that
carried up to 37 years of jail time and fines of more than $1
million. The former regulator agreed to a plea bargain last
February, but withdrew at his June sentencing hearing.
For Tom Cochran, a nuclear specialist for the environmental
group Natural Resources Defense Council, the outcome of the
scandal is dubious.
Anderson "will take the heat, and Semnani gets off with a
misdemeanor and a $100,000 fine, which he probably makes in a few
minutes," said Cochran, whose group tried unsuccessfully to get
federal officials to revoke Envirocare's license. "I don't
believe for a minute it was extortion."
After suffering two heart attacks and battling prostate
cancer, Anderson pleaded indigence to the court. Mooney, a
court-appointed defender assigned to the case last year, said his
client no longer expects to see the financial rewards of the
radioactive waste business he helped build.
The money is no longer the issue, Mooney said. "He wants the
credit."
fahys@sltrib.com
© Copyright 2001, The Salt Lake Tribune All material found on
*****************************************************************
18 Texas News: Funding cut reduces monitoring
Amarillo Globe-News:
08/27/01
By Deon Daugherty
ddaugherty@hotmail.com
AUSTIN -
A $200,000 department cut to the state's birth defects
monitoring program will stop the surveying of birth defects in
many counties throughout the Panhandle and South Plains.
Two jobs - one in El Paso and one in Midland - that targeted the
northern portion of West Texas won't be filled, said Dr. Mark
Canfield, director of the Texas Department of Health's Texas
Birth Defects Monitoring Division.
Birth defects found in Lubbock and Amarillo will continue to be
monitored. Area children with birth defects are often referred to
Lubbock hospitals, Canfield said.
Officials decided that since Lubbock would be part of the
continued study, Amarillo should, too.
But that's not good enough, say some Panhandle residents.
Pam Allison, executive director of Serious Texans Against Nuclear
Dumping (STAND), a community action group that formed in 1985,
said she hopes the department will reconsider.
"I think they should do the whole state. I think that's
reasonable," she said.
"Texas is one of the wealthier states, and if we can't do such a
small task, then what can we do for our unborn children? We can't
fix the problems that we don't know exist."
A report from the Pantex Plant released in the 1990s suggested
some elevated levels of birth defects in the surrounding
counties. That possibility worries Allison and other STAND
members.
Canfield said he believes the data was based on historical
records and comparisons.
The state's data, recorded in the area from 1998 to 2000, will be
available next year. It will give researchers a better
understanding of the area's needs, he said.
Allison said she doesn't think just a few years' data will be as
strong as consistent study through the entire state.
"I think the communities deserve that (long-term study)," she
said.
To make the decision, the agency took input from regional offices
across the state before electing not to fill the two West Texas
slots, Canfield said.
"Our original intent was to have programs in those areas, and we
were doing the surveys the best we could, but we had to cut
somewhere," he said.
"Either there or some other region ... The option was to cut back
in Dallas or Fort Worth. That would have really compromised" the
data.
The cut was not a legislative one, but a finance management
decision by the department, a spokeswoman said.
Amarillo Globe-News:
*****************************************************************
*****************************************************************
NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARTICLES
*****************************************************************
1 A concrete relic of Canada's Cold War past is now officially history.
Calgary Sun - NEWS
Monday, August 27, 2001
Alberta bunker bites dust
22,000 tonnes of concrete
_By CP_
A mammoth underground atomic bomb shelter in the heart of central
Alberta nicknamed the Diefenbunker has been torn down for the
same reason it was built -- national security.
No longer fearing Communist nuclear attacks, the federal
government got rid of the shelter because more modern security
threats -- a biker gang, a racist group and a car-theft ring --
reportedly expressed interest in the compound.
After several months of demolition, work crews last week finished
spreading black soil over top -- covering an area as large as a
football field and burying 22,000 tonnes of broken-up concrete.
According to the Calgary firm that won the $856,000 demolition
contract, obliterating the bunker without using explosives wasn't
easy.
"It was tedious work," said project manager Jimmy Ganley of K-Lor
Construction Services. "You get sick of breaking concrete floor
24 inches thick, full of rebar."
Conceived while John Diefenbaker was PM, 10 atomic bomb shelters
were built in Canada at the height of the Cold War to house
federal and provincial government leaders in the event of a
nuclear war.
CNEWS Headlines
Copyright © 2001, CANOE Limited
*****************************************************************
2 India arrests two men over uranium seizure
Reuters AlertNet -
27 Aug 2001 09:20
CALCUTTA, India, Aug 27 (Reuters) - Indian authorities have
arrested two men on suspicion of trafficking nuclear material
after seizing 225 grams of uranium from a house in the eastern
state of West Bengal, an official said on Monday.
Police would not comment on whether the material was enriched
uranium, which is used to make nuclear weapons.
"All we know so far is that the uranium was brought in from
(neighbouring) Bangladesh," Anuj Sharma, a senior West Bengal
police official, told Reuters.
He said the uranium was found in a bag during a raid on a house
in Balurghat on Saturday by police and the paramilitary Border
Security Force.
Balurghat is 600 km (375 miles) northeast of the state capital,
Calcutta.
"We're still investigating ... we've not got any leads so far
from the two men arrested on whether any terrorist groups are
involved," Sharma said.
Several cases of nuclear trafficking have been exposed in Europe
since the collapse of the former Soviet Union. In July, French
police arrested three men for suspected involvement in
trafficking enriched weapons-grade uranium.
In January, Greek authorities found hundreds of highly
radioactive metal plates containing plutonium buried in a forest
near the northern port of Thessaloniki.
*****************************************************************
3 Questions linger over Fernald
[enquirer.com]
Sunday, August 26, 2001
_But health committee disbanded_
By _Tim Bonfield_
_The Cincinnati Enquirer_
Edwa Yocum says she still has 472 questions about the
health risks of pollution from the closed Fernald uranium plant,
just 2 miles from her home.
Each of those questions is represented by a pin on a map
she has kept since 1988. Each of those pins represents a person
with a rare or unexplained illness who lives within 5 miles of
the plant.
[[photo]] _Edwa Yocum and her map showing incidences of
illnesses and deaths possibly connected to Fernald._
(Tony Jones photo)
More than 400 pins are people with cancer — red for
people thought to be alive, black for those known to be dead. A
few dozen orange pins denote non-cancer illnesses, such as kidney
disease, birth defects and learning disabilities.
Many — maybe even most — of the illnesses may have
nothing to do with exposure to Fernald, the region's biggest
environmental cleanup project. But Mrs. Yocum doesn't know.
People may never get answers to their questions about
Fernald, said Mrs. Yocum, despite the public pressure that shut
down the plant 12 years ago, despite more than $6 million in
health-related studies, and despite a health advisory committee
formed nearly five years ago.
On Wednesday, the federal Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention disbanded the Fernald Health Effects Subcommittee
after agency officials said their work there is done.
“When you sit here and listen to all these people, you
have to wonder. Why are all these things happening?” said Mrs.
Yocum, who has served on the health committee from the start.
“There has been some basic (research) done, but it hasn't
been thorough enough. The work is not done, in my opinion.”
The committee was formed in 1996, along with three
similar committees at other nuclear weapons sites, to provide
advice about health concerns to the CDC, to a branch agency
called the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry
(ATSDR), and to the National Institute for Occupational Safety
and Health (NIOSH).
_FERNALD STUDIES_
Incomplete or pending studies involving Fernald:
• The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry
(ATSDR) expects to release a final version this year of a draft
public health assessment about the chemical risks of uranium
exposure.
• A UC project with ATSDR to estimate worker exposures to
radon gas is about two years from completion.
• A UC project started in April to look in detail at
lung, breast, prostate and urinary system cancers among people in
the neighbors' medical monitoring program.
• No sponsor has been found to conduct computer analysis
of data from a worker's medical monitoring program.
• A National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
plan to expand a study of worker death rates has been approved
but has not been started.
That committee served as a forum through which the public learned
the results of several health studies involving Fernald. Compared
to the 1980s — when government officials initially refused to
admit that any contamination had escaped the plant site, much
less caused harm — the information that emerged about Fernald in
the late 1990s was groundbreaking.
In several studies, government agencies confirmed that
workers and residents suffered elevated health risks from their
exposure to the facility:
• In 1998, a $6 million dose reconstruction study
advanced methods used nationwide to estimate radiation risks at
America's nuclear weapons production sites. That study surprised
many by concluding that radiation from radon gas emitting from
two waste storage silos was more dangerous than radiation from
hundreds of tons of uranium dust polluting the air, soil and
groundwater around Fernald.
• A year later, the CDC used the dose data to estimate
that the radon gas emissions have caused or will cause about 85
deaths from lung cancer. In a worst-case scenario, the CDC
estimated that Fernald radiation might have caused or may still
cause neighbors to suffer 23 cases of leukemia, four cases of
kidney cancer, three cases of breast cancer, and four cases of
bone cancer.
• A NIOSH study released in 1995 reported an above-normal
death rate from lung cancer among hourly workers and from stomach
cancer among salaried staff.
• As recently as Wednesday, new health data was still
coming out. According to University of Cincinnati researchers,
neighbors who participated in a court-ordered medical monitoring
program are suffering higher-than-average rates of kidney
disease, thyroid disease (including goiter), bladder disease and
liver damage. Some of the rates are two to four times higher than
normal.
However, those findings should be viewed with caution,
said Dr. Susan Pinney, the chief UC researcher on these studies.
“This is all preliminary information. There is no way to
relate these cases to exposures from Fernald,” she said.
_Separating workers, neighbors_
So far, the potential dangers linked to Fernald have appeared
anti-climactic in comparison to the long-voiced fears of
neighbors, unions and environmentalists.
The lack of shocking findings has contributed to low
attendance at public hearings, spotty coverage by local news
media, and lack of interest among health agencies and politicians
to invest in more studies, Mrs. Yocum said.
Yet without the health advisory committee, getting more
information about Fernald will become that much harder.
“Once the CDC leaves, it comes across that everything
must be fine and dandy now. But people don't know the real
story,” Mrs. Yocum said.
The general public, politicians, and even doctors working
in communities near Fernald have no clue how many gaps exist in
the health information that has come out so far, Mrs. Yocum said.
Information so far has been related to exposure to
radioactive materials. And that data focuses primarily on the
risks faced by neighbors, not workers.
For example, the groundbreaking dose reconstruction study
started at Fernald's fence line. Fernald employees, who worked
far closer to the K-65 silos and often with no special
protection, are still waiting for estimates of their radon gas
exposure.
The separate treatment of worker health concerns versus
neighbor concerns has been a problem for years, said Louis Doll,
a union representative for building trades workers at Fernald.
For example, the medical monitoring program for neighbors
has money to pay for computer analysis of data collected from its
8,000-plus participants. But no money has been authorized to
study worker data from a similar, but separate, monitoring
program.
Beyond the radiation-related concerns, people face
potential health risks from the many toxic chemicals used at
Fernald. Far less information about those risks has been made
public, health committee members said.
CDC officials say they understand that people are upset
about dissolving the health committee. But, they say, they have
answered the health questions that can be expected to be
answered.
The body of scientific knowledge about the links between
radiation and certain types of cancer is much stronger than the
understanding of the risks of toxic chemicals, said Dr. James
Smith, chief of CDC's radiation studies branch.
Scientists also do not automatically reject concerns that
Fernald pollution might have triggered birth defects,
miscarriages and genetic damage. Instead, they predict that a
study won't produce a reliable answer.
For many of the unaddressed health questions, there seem
to be so few cases and so little baseline information about what
a “normal” number of cases might be, that a study might not be
able to detect an increased risk even if it was real, Dr. Smith
said.
During all this time, the government has never attempted
to count all the cancer cases and other illnesses that actually
affected people living near Fernald.
It would take an epidemiologic study to make such a
count, match the cases to exposure estimates from the dose
reconstruction data, and then compare it all to average levels of
illness in a normal population.
The CDC rejected pursuing such a study — with agreement
from the health subcommittee — after the CDC estimated it would
cost $10 million and take 10 years to finish.
Several members of the health effects subcommittee say
they hope to find funding to continue their work, even if the
committee has to be restructured.
Yet the health concerns will continue for years to come,
Mrs. Yocum said.
For example, a long-delayed project to clean up the K-65
silo waste — the most dangerous material at Fernald — has yet to
begin.
Copyright1995-2001. The Cincinnati Enquirer, a Gannett Co.
*****************************************************************
4 Exhuming a toxic tomb: McClellan cleanup prepares for
radioactivity
sacbee Local News:
[News photo]
Construction workers assemble the support arches for the massive
polyester tent that will enclose the excavation of a toxic
landfill site on the former McClellan Air Force Base.
_Bee / Chris Crewell_
Exhuming a toxic tomb: McClellan cleanup prepares for
radioactivity _By Chris Bowman_ Bee Staff Writer *(Published Aug.
27, 2001)*
Construction crews at McClellan today plan to hoist the first
section of a mammoth tent that will enclose an extraordinary
excavation site at the former Air Force base.
Five stories high, two football fields long and wider than the
state Capitol, the bright white polyester shell will encompass a
long-abandoned grave of radioactive waste from a still-secret
Cold War mission. The mammoth tent will be a compelling symbol of
how big the business of environmental cleanup in the region has
become.
The big top will be up for as long as it takes moon-suited
workers to unearth, evaluate and ship off an estimated 1,000
corroding steel drums of waste from the 30-foot deep landfill on
the west side of the decommissioned Watt Avenue base.
The job probably will take two years, according URS Corp., a
global engineering company performing the $38 million cleanup for
the McClellan Air Force Base Conversion Agency.
Unlike other toxic burial grounds on the 2,800-acre
installation, this two-acre site is largely a mystery to
environmental investigators. That's because it contains debris
and chemical solutions from a top-secret analytical laboratory
that operated nearly 50 years on the base without disclosing the
full nature of its work or the substances involved.
"If these drums are crushed and opened, we don't know what will
be released," said Ray Lidstrom, URS project manager.
Former lab workers, said Roxanne Yonn, a URS spokeswoman who
interviewed several of the technicians, told cleanup officials
only that they might uncover any amount of radioactive samples,
solutions and tainted lab equipment at various degrees of
potency.
Yonn said cleanup crews aren't taking any chances. "We're
treating the whole site as radioactive," she said.
The dig will be much like an archaeological excavation.
Front-loaders and excavators will gingerly remove dirt in
30-square-foot grids, one foot at a time, to avoid striking and
damaging buried drums. Any barrels spotted will be removed
carefully with hand shovels, and their contents will be analyzed
and inventoried by a laboratory on site.
The $2 million shell of PVC polyester fabric and aluminium
frames, which takes three weeks to erect, is designed to keep out
wind and rain.
Workers will wear full containment suits equipped with oxygen
tanks to avoid potential lethal inhalation of radioactive
elements. Air in and around the shell will be monitored for
contamination.
Nearly three-quarters of the project's $38 million cost goes
toward the transportation and disposal of the waste, officials
said. The unearthed soil and drums will be shipped to landfills
in Andrews, Texas; Clive, Utah; Barnwell, S.C.; and the federal
Department of Energy's Hanford nuclear reservation in Washington
state.
The estimated time and cost of the cleanup mushroomed after URS
crews made an unexpected discovery in an exploratory dig of the
landfill last August.
Workers found a container of glass laboratory bottles labelled
"Pu," for plutonium. Highly poisonous and radioactive, the
metallic element is produced in nuclear reactors and is the
primary fuel in nuclear weapons.
"Everything was placed on hold," Yonn said.
Air Force officials knew from earlier surveillance that the site
contained low-level radioactive waste, presumably from the radium
in paint once used to illuminate cockpit gauges and gun sights.
Plutonium, however, came as a complete surprise, Air Force
spokesman Lt. Robert Firman said after the discovery.
Firman said the base had no records of the element's use at the
military installation, where the chief mission was aircraft
maintenance.
The McClellan Central Laboratory, however, had a different
mission. That operation was staffed with nuclear scientists and
technicians who are still sworn to secrecy about whom they worked
for and their chief duties.
The plutonium find, which was locally televised, prompted some
former lab workers to inform cleanup officials that the
radioactive material probably came from their operation.
"When I first saw that picture (of the bottles), I chuckled,
thinking, 'Gee, I wonder whether my fingerprints are still on
them,' " said Mike Chinnock of Citrus Heights, a nuclear
chemistry technician at the lab from 1966 to 1970.
Chinnock and other lab workers agreed to share certain details
with Air Force officials in charge of the cleanup
after getting clearance from unspecified national defense
authorities.
"Some workers won't talk at all," Yonn said. Those who did talk
divulged enough to convince cleanup officials that the old
landfill could contain material much more radioactive than
previously thought.
"It made everybody pause," she said."
At 57, Chinnock is disabled from surgeries to remove a brain
tumor that he believes was caused by accidental radiation
exposure on the job. The Board of Veterans' Appeals rejected his
claim, however, and he lost on appeal to a federal court. He is
blind in his left eye and deaf in his left ear and potions of the
left side of his body are paralyzed.
Chinnock told The Bee that samples were analyzed from the
fallout of nuclear tests by communist countries to ensure
compliance with international treaties.
The McClellan lab also examined debris from the catastrophic
Chernobyl nuclear plant fire, Air Force officials said. But,
Chinnock said, these were "side jobs" unrelated to the lab's
primary Cold War purpose, which remains under wraps.
Chinnock said he and other technicians regularly used pure
stocks of plutonium and other radioactive elements and they
routinely discarded the stocks when their shelf life had expired.
"They either went down the drain and ended up in Magpie Creek or
ended up in a 55-gallon drum," he said.
He recalls a truck driver who picked up a loaded drum telling
him that they were dumped in a pit now under investigation. The
landfill closed in the mid-1960s.
"They are going to run into bottles of uranium. They are going
to run into bottles of americium, of neptunium, cobalt -- whole
series of radioactive elements and their isotopes," Chinnock
said.
McClellan conversion agency officials say the excavation will
pose no threat to people outside the cleanup site and is well
away from areas planned for industrial tenants.
The Air Force has designated the cleanup a "time critical
removal action" because of the threat of radioactive
contamination to underground drinking water supplies, about 100
feet below the landfill. Many of the 108 drums recovered during
the preliminary investigation last summer were leaking.
Monitoring wells have not indicated any such contamination. But
Craig Marchione, an Air Force radiation safety officer, said, "We
do not know how deep the radiation has traveled."
The landfill is the first of an estimated 50 toxic burial
grounds on base property to be exhumed, Yonn said. Cleanup work
to date has focused on the fuel products and solvents that
already have reached the groundwater, she said.
_The Bee's Chris Bowman can be reached at (916) 321-1069 or . _
_Copyright © The Sacramento Bee_ [*]
*****************************************************************
5 ORNL facilities contract to be announced
Oak Ridger Online -->
Story last updated at 11:21 a.m. on Monday, August 27, 2001
_by Paul Parson _
Oak Ridger staff
Officials are scheduled to announce on Wednesday the contract
winner for part of Oak Ridge National Laboratory's modernization
effort.
Billy Stair, a spokesman for ORNL, said this morning that he
could not identify the winner. But, he did say that the contract,
which is valued around $65 to $70 million, would be for the three
privately funded facilities in the lab's modernization effort.
The new facilities will replace a former parking lot at ORNL.
Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham signed over control of 10 acres
of federal property to UT-Battelle Development Corp. when he
visited in June.
Stair said that work on the facilities should begin in November
and take 18 months to complete. When finished, the private
facilities will house work involving engineering technology and
high-performance computing, among other things.
"The space could be used for a variety of purposes," said Stair,
who added this will be the first time privately funded facilities
have been built at ORNL. "This will be a historic event for the
lab."
In addition to the private funding, backing for the lab's
modernization includes $125 million in federal support and $26
million from the state of Tennessee.
Recently, the Department of Energy issued a finding of "no
significant impact" regarding the modernization of ORNL, which
will take place on "brownfield" sites -- previously contaminated
and/or developed areas.
Most of the current ORNL facilities are aging and need to be
replaced or upgraded in order to support ORNL's long-term
research missions. The declining condition of facilities
increases overhead costs due to additional controls required to
ensure worker safety, high energy consumption, increased
maintenance requirements and research inefficiencies.
All Contents ©Copyright* The Oak Ridger *
*****************************************************************
6 Controversial cancer study resurfacing locally
Oak Ridger Online -->
Story last updated at 11:22 a.m. on Monday, August 27, 2001
_by Paul Parson _
Oak Ridger staff
A controversial cancer mortality study from the mid-90s is
resurfacing in connection with current Oak Ridge health-related
efforts.
Joseph Mangano's 1994 study will be used as a test subject for
members of the Oak Ridge Reservation Health Effects Subcommittee,
who are learning how to evaluate an epidemiologic study.
Mangano's study indicated that the death rate from cancer among
whites in the 94 counties surrounding the Oak Ridge Reservation
rose 34.1 percent between 1950-52 and 1987-89, compared to a
5.1-percent increase for the nation. That would suggest that of
the 175,000 cancer deaths in the region during those four
decades, about 20,000 exceeded statistical expectations.
Mangano was a member of the New York City-based Radiation and
Public Health Project, a not-for-profit group dedicated to
epidemiological research on the effects of low-level radiation on
human beings. His study was published in the International
Journal of Health Services
The area selected for study was the 94 counties that are
completely or mostly situated within 100 miles of Oak Ridge. At
the time, these counties had a population of just over 3 million
and were located in five states: 46 in Tennessee, 19 in Kentucky,
16 in Georgia, 11 in North Carolina and two in Virginia.
In his study, Mangano said, "the limit of 100 miles was chosen
since most of the milk and vegetables (which are the most
important vectors for radioactivity) consumed in this region are
produced therein." Furthermore, each of these counties are at
least 100 miles from the nearest other weapons site, Savannah
River Site in Aiken, S.C.
The study also considers whether wind patterns, rainfall and
proximity to the Oak Ridge Department of Energy facilities were a
factor in the excess mortality rates.
Mangano's study also concluded that local urban areas near Oak
Ridge experienced lower mortality rates; that the change in
mortality rates upward was the greatest in the area closest to
Oak Ridge; that increases in the mortality rates were greater in
the mountainous areas; and that the greatest increases in
mortality rates were downwind from Oak Ridge.
The study met with a lot of criticism by local officials and
community members when it was released. Critics called it
"absolutely false" and said that the "basic math" used to compute
the excess cancer deaths did not add up.
Now, the report is resurfacing as a test subject for the Oak
Ridge Reservation Health Effects Subcommittee's public health
assessment work group, who will meet Tuesday evening for a course
on how to evaluate an epidemiologic study.
Lucy Peipins, an epidemiologist with the Agency for Toxic
Substances and Disease Registry, will conduct the program, which
is open to the public. It begins at 5:30 p.m. in the Garden Plaza
Hotel, 215 S. Illinois Ave.
The Health Effects Subcommittee consists of citizens primarily
from the Oak Ridge area, who are working with community members
and advocacy groups to offer advice and recommendations to
federal agencies regarding health concerns in Oak Ridge.
Subcommittee members are appointed by the Agency for Toxic
Substances and Disease Registry, a federal public health agency
involved in hazardous waste issues.
The public health assessment workgroup is in charge of hammering
out the details of a evaluation that will identify local off-site
populations who were exposed to hazardous substances at levels of
health concern.
All Contents ©Copyright* The Oak Ridger *
*****************************************************************
7 Davis reflects on OS man's fight to change DOE program
Oak Ridger Online -->
Story last updated at 11:52 a.m. on Monday, August 27, 2001
_by Paul Parson _
Oak Ridger staff
*Editor's note: The Oak Ridger first introduced readers to Lester
Raby in June. He is trying to get changes made in the Department
of Energy's Occupational Medicine program. This story is the
continuation of an article that appeared in Friday's edition*.
Through his efforts to get changes made to the Department of
Energy's Occupational Medicine program, Lester Raby has come in
contact with several key DOE figures in addition to numerous
elected representatives.
One of those is state Sen. Lincoln Davis, D-Pall Mall, who
describes Lester Raby as a dedicated man.
"He's really spent a lot of time on this," Davis said. "He's
made this his life's work. I'm encouraged by individuals like
him."
Lester Raby, who lives in Roane County, began trying to make
changes to DOE's Occupational Medicine program shortly after his
wife, Mary Raby, died of cancer in 1994. Prior to her illness,
she had worked as a secretary in the Safeguards and Security
Division at DOE's Oak Ridge Operations office.
Mary Raby's death, according to her husband, may have been
prevented if staff at Oak Ridge National Laboratory's medical
clinic had informed her sooner that she was ill. He said his wife
showed significant decreases in her red blood cell and platelet
counts between 1986 to 1990, but the clinic's staff did not
inform her that something might be wrong until 1991.
Lester Raby began educating himself on his wife's illness from
the moment she was diagnosed with refractory multiple myeloma, a
cancer of the bone marrow, in March 1991. And people are aware of
his efforts to understand his wife's disease.
"He probably has become more informed on this issue than most
medical doctors," said Davis, who said he can relate to Lester
Raby's situation. The state senator said a member of his family
has cancer.
Davis said Lester Raby contacted him a couple of years ago for
help in persuading DOE to alter its medical program. As a result,
Davis and state Rep. Dennis Ferguson, D-Midtown, introduced bills
in the Legislature that would amend a portion of Tennessee Code
Annotated and require DOE to award separate contracts for medical
services.
"It's a pretty detailed bill," said Davis, who added he will try
to get it approved in January.
All Contents ©Copyright* The Oak Ridger *
*****************************************************************
8 The Plutonium Nightmare
AUG 27, 2001
While the Bush administration is worrying about potential missile
threats from North Korea, Iran or Iraq, it must not neglect the
more immediate danger posed by tons of inadequately secured
Russian plutonium. Any country trying to develop nuclear weapons
would love to steal a few pounds of the bomb-making material. Yet
the White House is considering indefinitely delaying a plan
worked out with Moscow last year to begin disposing of the
Russian plutonium.
The agreement provides for each country to gradually eliminate 34
metric tons of plutonium from its own stockpiles, mostly by
burning it in power reactors. Citing rising costs, some
administration officials prefer to wait until a newer, cheaper
disposal technology can be developed. That would be a dangerously
false economy.
Russia is the world's most inviting source of plutonium. It has
more than 160 metric tons in all, roughly half contained in
weapons and the other half stored under less than ideally secure
conditions. The stored portion alone is enough to build about
8,000 nuclear bombs. Getting that plutonium out of the reach of
would-be bomb makers should be one of Washington's top defense
priorities.
The 34 metric tons of Russian plutonium and most of America's
corresponding share — the United States has about 100 metric tons
altogether — were to be mixed with uranium and burned as fuel in
power reactors. The remaining American plutonium was to be mixed
with other materials and turned into logs of radioactive glass
and buried, a cheaper and safer method but one that Russia could
not be persuaded to adopt. Earlier this year the Bush
administration suspended the glass logs approach indefinitely,
arguing that it would be cheaper to use just one disposal method.
Now it may give up on the burning method as well.
Cost estimates for both methods have risen steeply since the plan
was first proposed. Nevertheless, it is still a bargain compared
with the risk of plutonium theft by a foreign government or
terrorist group. Even using the more expensive burning method,
the total cost of disposing of some 80 metric tons of plutonium
would be about $6.6 billion on the American side and somewhat
over $2 billion on the Russian side, spread out over nearly two
decades. Most of the Russian cost would have to be assumed by the
United States, although Europe has also promised to help.
In return, enough plutonium to build thousands of nuclear
warheads would be eliminated. An administration prepared to spend
more than $8 billion in a single year testing an unproven missile
defense system should not object to spending much smaller yearly
amounts to eliminate a tempting source of plutonium. There is no
harm in exploring other potential disposal technologies. But such
experimentation should not delay carrying out the present
agreement with Moscow. If anything, that arrangement, which calls
for each side to dispose of just two metric tons per year, should
be accelerated. Meanwhile, Washington should increase its
investment, currently $140 million a year, in improving security
at Russian plutonium storage facilities.
Missile defense, even if technologically perfected, cannot by
itself provide adequate protection against nuclear dangers.
Ballistic missiles are only one of several ways a potential foe
could subject the United States to nuclear threat or attack. The
faster excess bomb plutonium can be eliminated, the safer
Americans will be.
Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company | Privacy Information
*****************************************************************
9 'Downwinder' lawyer faces censure
This story was published Sat, Aug 25, 2001
_From the Associated Press and the Herald staff_
SPOKANE -- A former Spokane lawyer faces a three-month suspension
of her law license after the Washington State Bar Association
accused her of ethics violations in one of the Hanford
downwinders cases.
The bar's disciplinary board scheduled a Sept. 7 hearing to
consider the appeal of Nancy Malee Oreskovich, spokeswoman Judith
Berrett said.
A hearings officer recommended a three-month suspension. The bar
also is appealing hearing examiner Philip Vanderhoef's ruling,
saying an 18-month suspension is more appropriate.
Oreskovich called the charges against her false, and said she'll
appeal any adverse ruling to the Washington Supreme Court.
"The bar is falsifying this. I've had no grievances against me
from any of my clients," Oreskovich told The Spokesman-Review
newspaper this week.
However, two of her downwinder clients complained to the Tri-City
Herald in 1996 that Oreskovich worked little on their cases, and
became angry with them when they asked for progress reports.
Oreskovich has been living in Beverly Hills, Calif., and hasn't
practiced law since November 1996, when U.S. District Judge Alan
McDonald kicked her off the Hanford case, saying she'd violated
ethics rules for attorneys.
McDonald's action came after the Spokane law firm Feltman,
Gebhardt, Eymann & Jones joined forces with her in the downwinder
litigation in 1995. The arrangement was just for the downwinders'
case.
Several law firms have been representing 4,200 Northwesterners
who allege they suffer health problems stemming from Hanford's
Cold War radioactive releases. McDonald has dismissed the
majority of those plaintiffs, but a fraction of those 4,200 cases
are still active.
The Feltman firm tried to withdraw from the case in early 1996,
alleging misconduct by Oreskovich. An Arizona-based Federal
Magistrate Judge, Nancy Fiora, investigated the Feltman firm's
allegations, and agreed with the majority of them.
In a July 1996 report, Fiora wrote that Oreskovich, wrongfully
charged expenses to her clients and the Feltman firm, improperly
solicited clients, ran a substandard practice, did not comply
with court orders, failed to keep her clients properly informed,
and did little useable work on the case.
Oreskovich was a solo practitioner with no trial experience in
1996. She graduated from Gonzaga University's law school in 1985
who was admitted to the Washington state bar in 1989.
She became involved in the downwinders' litigation in 1991. She
hooked up and then split with two other law firms in this case
before partnering with the Feltman firm in 1995, Fiora's report
said. In 1996, Fiora recommended that Oreskovich be removed from
the case, and that the state bar association investigate her
behavior.
McDonald referred Oreskovich's case to the bar association for an
inquiry into whether she properly represented 1,500 clients in
one of two major radiation damage lawsuits in the early 1990s
against the contractors who ran Hanford during the Cold War. The
bar's attorney discipline board filed a formal complaint against
Oreskovich in September 1999, charging her with misconduct in the
Hanford case.
In April, hearing examiner Vanderhoef ruled Oreskovich violated
attorney conduct rules by signing interrogatory answers never
reviewed and verified by clients, and by billing unrelated
charges to the Hanford case while working at a Spokane law firm.
Oreskovich said she is innocent of any wrongdoing. She accused
the bar of mishandling her case by trying to use McDonald's
report as proven evidence against her and penalizing her without
a hearing.
Last year, Vanderhoef ruled the bar couldn't rely solely on
McDonald's report and would have to conduct its own inquiry.
Joanne Abelson, a bar association attorney, recommended an
18-month suspension for Oreskovich for "dishonesty, deceit and
misrepresentation."
_Copyright 2001 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This
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10 Particle hunter
Lana Schleder gets up with the sun to hunt for radioactive contamination near
the nuclear power plant north of Richland
This story was published Sun, Aug 26, 2001
_By Chris Mulick_ _Herald staff writer_
At sunup, while most of the West rolls in slumberous bliss, Lana
Schleder rolls into north Richland in her creaky company Chevy
Suburban.
At 5:50 a.m., the day feels eerily dusky, but the shadows point
in the wrong direction. In truth, dusk couldn't be farther off.
Over the next four hours, Schleder will go looking for trouble.
Specifically, she's hunting for radionuclides. An environmental
scientist for Energy Northwest, Schleder collects various samples
from areas within a 10-mile radius of the Columbia Generating
Station, the 1,150-megawatt nuclear power plant north of
Richland.
Vegetable, soil, air, water -- you name it, she collects it,
looking for any trace of telltale materials worth reporting to
the state and federal governments that would indicate some form
of release from the plant. Significant discoveries of things such
as iodine 131, cesium 137 or cobalt 60 would qualify.
Her schedule is repetitive with regular trips to dairies, a dozen
air stations and other locales to collect samples. "There's no
such thing as overkill when you're dealing with nuclear power,"
Schleder said.
But it's highly unlikely her scavenger hunt will turn anything
up.
Tiny amounts of contamination from various sources, such as
traces of uranium that may be present on the outside of a fuel
assembly, can escape the plant. But releases are so small you
could stand in front of the giant air vent outside the reactor
all day and never pick up any measurable contamination.
"It's not of real concern," said Larry Morrison, a senior
chemical specialist at the plant.
So, it's not surprising that Schleder has found nothing in the 17
years since the plant started operation, save for a milk sample
contaminated by an isotope given to a cow with a thyroid
condition.
"That was interesting," said John McDonald, who administers the
sample collection program with Schleder.
Though Schleder will tell you she's nothing more than a fancy
courier, her job is of great significance. In effect, she's the
last in a long line of mechanisms designed to ensure the power
plant isn't releasing harmful emissions.
And if there ever were a release, at the plant or at federal
facilities at Hanford, no one knows the area and it's
radiological history better.
After all, Schleder puts 1,800 miles on her rig every month
rambling down anonymous country roads to pick up her samples. And
during this search for contamination she's discovered an
appreciation for the rural landscapes that define her outdoor
cubicle.
Because any emissions would show up in the greatest
concentrations in the milk samples, Energy Northwest's access to
the dairies is critical. It has relied heavily on Schleder's
20-year relationships with area dairymen, who don't much care for
intrusion, to get those samples.
"It's invaluable," McDonald said. "They know her. They trust
her."
Having grown up on a dairy herself, Schleder understands. So when
she visits the dairies, she's in and out in less than five
minutes. Careful to clean up the few drops of milk that spill on
the ground, Schleder leaves a $5 bill as the only evidence of her
visit.
"They don't want to know I'm here," she says. "Whatever it takes.
I need them. They don't need me. What they're doing is providing
a public service."
On this made-for-a-John-Denver-song morning, she's off to the
dairies to collect milk samples, which will reveal whether
there's been any radioactive emissions that have fallen on the
grass cows eat. The milk trucks come around 10 so if she's to get
her samples, she's got to rise with the roosters.
Though a 10-mile radius doesn't seem like too much ground to
cover, there's not a straight shot to anywhere in this invisible
circle. In fact, with less than 100 homes in the entire area,
there's not much of anything.
From her bench seat, Schleder leans forward on a steering wheel,
gazing out past low-flying crop dusters and oceanic fields of
asparagus, alfalfa and potatoes she roams.
"What a view," Schleder marvels. "Every morning."
For Schleder it's all about the journey, not the destination. She
is reminded why as her truck emerges from Franklin County's
agricultural forest to find a portrait of a now percolating
Tri-Cities below.
"How cool is this?" she asks.
Pretty cool.
_n Reporter Chris Mulick can be reached at 360-753-0862 or via
e-mail at cmulick@tri-cityherald.com._ _Copyright 2001 Tri-City
Herald.
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11 N.M. Homesteaders: Army Stole Ranches
Las Vegas SUN_
Today: August 27, 2001 at 3:10:29 PDT
LOS ALAMOS, N.M.- Hispanic homesteaders and their children are
suing the federal government, contending the U.S. Army stole
their ranches more than a half-century ago to make room for the
top secret World War II project that grew into the Los Alamos
National Laboratory.
The lawsuit, the second filed by the group, levies many of the
same allegations made in a class action lawsuit the group filed
in January 2000. The first lawsuit was put on hold pending a
possible congressional solution.
The new lawsuit, filed in federal court May 22, alleges the U.S.
government evicted the Hispanic farmers and ranchers between 1942
and 1943, when the United States needed a secret place to build
the world's first atomic bomb.
While the federal government spent several hundred thousand
dollars buying out the Los Alamos Boys School and a white-owned
ranch on the Pajarito Plateau, Hispanic ranchers in the area
allege they were driven out with no place to live or a way to
support themselves. Hispanic landowners owned about 70 percent of
the plateau where Los Alamos now sits, the lawsuit says.
Joe Gutierrez, head of the group that sued, said he wants the
government to admit it does not have clear title to the land.
Then, he said, he'd be willing to talk about reparations.
The government has denied all the allegations in responses filed
to the lawsuit. A spokesman for the Energy Department, which
oversees Los Alamos lab, had no further comment.
Despite a process put in place in the 1940s to pay Hispanic
landowners for their property - which the lawsuit says the
government valued at $7 to $15 an acre, compared with $225 an
acre for the white-owned ranch - no one has received a penny,
Gutierrez said.
Gutierrez said about 30 families lived on the plateau in the
early 1940s, all farmers and ranchers who acquired the land
through the Homestead Act, an 1862 law that deeded farmers 160
acres of public land if the farmer lived on the land for five
years. By the early 1940s, many of the families had lived on the
land for generations, Gutierrez said.
The lawsuit, filed by the Pajarito Plateau Homesteaders
Association, the homesteaders and their heirs, names the
government, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham and Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as defendants.
All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
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12 Iraq cancer probe begins
BBC News | MIDDLE EAST |
27 August, 2001, 10:54 GMT 11:54 UK
Officials from the World Health Organisation are on their way to Iraq to
prepare for a survey into cancer and birth defects.
Baghdad says cancer rates have soared in areas of the south which, during the
Gulf War in 1991, Britain and the United States attacked with weapons
containing depleted uranium.
The WHO says all possible risk factors need to be examined, including
pollution from destroyed industrial plants and chemical weapons from Iraq's
war with Iran in the 1980s. A spokesman said the first step would be to
determine what increase in cancer there had been.
A BBC Middle East correspondent says this will be a complicated task in a
country where the health system has collapsed, and where the computers that
would normally be used in such a project are banned under the international
embargo.
*From the newsroom of the BBC World Service*
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13 Gibbons supports bill to deter leaks of classified information
Jim Gibbons
The Nevada Republican is backing a bill to keep secrets quiet
Monday, August 27, 2001
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
If proposal passes Congress, it would mean prosecution of federal
workers who make top-secret matters public knowledge
_By STEVE TETREAULT _
DONREY WASHINGTON BUREAU _
__WASHINGTON -- _As a member of the House Intelligence Committee,
Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., is privy to the nation's deepest
secrets. He says what troubles him is to read some of those
secrets in the newspaper or to see them exposed on television.
As a result, Gibbons says he is supporting a new effort in
Congress to prevent disclosure of government secrets by
prosecuting federal workers who leak classified information to
the public.
A proposal by Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., would make it a felony
for active or former government workers to turn over "properly
classified information" if they know its recipient is not
supposed to have it.
The crime could be punished by a $10,000 fine and up to three
years in prison.
It already is illegal for a person to disclose national defense
matters with the knowledge that a leak will harm U.S. security.
The new proposal broadens the crime and makes it easier to obtain
convictions by not requiring prosecutors to prove a leaker
intended harm.
The media industry and government watchdog groups have mounted a
campaign to kill the Shelby plan. They say current laws are
enough to pursue leaks that truly threaten security.
"I have to support it," Gibbons said. "We've had a large number
of disclosures that have put at risk and put in jeopardy a number
of people simply because the information leads to them as a
source, and their lives are at risk when disclosures are made
public."
Gibbons said he could not disclose examples of such leaks. "Many
of them we don't want to talk about because it's classified
information. Simply because it's been in the newspapers does not
desensitize it," he said.
A leak involving terrorist Osama bin Laden is most often cited by
supporters of the Shelby legislation. When the media reported
that U.S. intelligence agents were monitoring bin Laden's
satellite telephone calls, he switched transmissions, cutting off
U.S. ability to track him, they say.
Some details in reports that the Chinese had gained access to
U.S. nuclear secrets also were based on classified leaks, they
say.
Former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno said last year the law
would not lead to a dramatic increase in prosecutions, but could
serve to deter those thinking of leaking classified information.
Shelby, the ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence
Committee and its former chairman, got a similar provision placed
on last year's Intelligence Authorization bill, but President
Clinton vetoed it.
The Bush administration has not taken a position yet. The Senate
committee has scheduled a hearing on the issue for Sept. 5.
Gibbons said the Clinton administration was notorious for leaks.
"Over the last years, I was appalled by the number of times
information would come out of the administration and find its way
into the newspapers," he said. "Even the directors of the CIA,
the FBI, would be stunned that somehow information was released
to the press."
With the Bush administration, "I'm finding a much higher degree
of concern for classified information and the value of keeping
that out of the press until it is needed to be known," Gibbons
said.
While Bush has tightened security, Gibbons said there's still
need for a law.
"I'm not for hiding anything from the public, but there is a time
when a need to know will permit (information) to be exposed," he
said.
But without classified leaks, there would have been no disclosure
of the Pentagon Papers or the My Lai massacre, noted Paul
McMasters of the First Amendment Center. Americans would not have
had information to debate the Iran-Contra affair.
The Shelby proposal is too broad and flawed, said Steven
Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy, a
branch of the Federation of American Scientists.
"This proposal differs from all other laws on the books
concerning protection of information," Aftergood said. "The other
laws all specify what types of information are to be protected --
specific names of intelligence agents, coding systems, nuclear
weapons data. This proposal doesn't specify anything. It says
classified information is to be protected and classified
information is whatever the executive branch says it is on any
given day. It allows them to define the crime."
Aftergood said information is at times classified to hide
government mistakes or avoid embarrassment. "All kinds of
innocuous information is classified to evade scrutiny," he said.
"I think the tools that are available now are the best we can
come up with," Aftergood said. "Those tools are administrative
penalties that stop short of criminal penalties. You can lose
your clearance, you can lose your job, you could be subject to
monetary fines.
"The problem is not lack of penalties, it's the inability to
identify leakers," which the Shelby proposal does not address,
Aftergood said.
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