***************************************************************** 06/28/01 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 9.161 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER CONTENTS 1 Spent nuclear fuel import bills on Putin's desk 2 Nuclear Energy Remains Full of Risks 3 NRC Seeks Comments on Preliminary Assessment of Nuclear Industry 4 State challenges radiation standards for Yucca Mountain 5 Bush Pledges More Energy Research 6 EPA sued over Yucca standards 7 Berkley seeks release of nuke waste routes 8 State challenges radiation standards for Yucca Mountain brholvs1 9 Bill allows tax deals with nuclear plants 10 Cape Town May Lose R540m Nuclear Plant 11 GREENPEACE URGES PUTIN TO VETO NUCLEAR WASTE IMPORTS 12 Nuclear option back on agenda 13 Watch WIPP Carefully, DOE Urged 14 Letter: Use nuke waste fund properly 15 Residents express fears over nuclear dump issue 16 State sues EPA over radiation rules at Yucca 17 The law about activated nuclear fuel to be submitted to Vladimir 18 Why the Delay Over Nevada Waste Site? 19 French nuclear plant in spotlight after leukaemia study 20 France finalises nuclear industry revamp 21 Letter to the editor: Yucca 22 House panel debates US nuclear plant liability law 23 BNFL Warns Of Energy Crisis 24 BNFL welcome in Washington 25 Joint Press Release EPA Lawsuit 26 Study to probe effects of Maine Yankee radiation 27 Storage facility security probed at Maine Yankee 28 Nuclear Energy Remains Full of Risks 29 Nuclear industry calls for rules change to accommodate new designs 30 NRC Seeks Comments on Preliminary Assessment of Nuclear Industry 31 Plant problems hit BNFL profits NUCLEAR WEAPONS CONTENTS 1 Washington Group Awarded $200 Million Contract Extension 2 A half-century at Hanford 3 Bechtel will consolidate subcontracted Hanford jobs 4 $18.4B Sought in Military Spending 5 Defense Spending Plan Faces Scrutiny 6 PR on DOE's Abraham 7 Nuclear test capabilities examined 8 Perma-Fix Acquires Oak Ridge Radioactive/Hazardous Treatment 9 Nike-Ajax cleanup nearly complete 10 America’s Atomic War Against Its Citizens and Why It’s Not Over Yet 11 Israel Urged to Submit Nuclear Facilities to International 12 Nuclear legacy requires some deep thinking 13 U.S. House to possibly vote on DOE funding bill today 14 Gibson named to federal advisory committee 15 New trial sought in beryllium case 16 Bush weighs nuclear testingBush weighs nuclear testing 17 CPJ'S PETER ARNETT MEETS RUSSIAN AMBASSADOR TO DISCUSS PASKO TRIAL 18 Jury Rules Rocky Flats Beryllium Supplier Not Negligent, Denies **************************************************************** **************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 Spent nuclear fuel import bills on Putin's desk The Russian Ministry of Nuclear Energy (Minatom) is actively promoting plans for large scale imports of spent nuclear fuel to Russia for storage or reprocessing. Jump to section Spent nuclear fuel import bills on Putin's desk The spent nuclear import bills bypass the upper chamber of the Russian parliament, go directly to Putin's desk. The bogus profits may be spent to counter the US National Missile Defence plans. President Putin and Federation Council speaker, Yegor Stroev, found common understanding for the need of spent nuclear fuel import bills. Vesti.Ru Igor Kudrik, 2001-06-27 19:39 The spent nuclear fuel import bills will bypass the Federation Council, the upper chamber of the Russian parliament, and go directly to the desk of President Vladimir Putin. There is little doubt that Putin will decline the bills, keeping in mind his promise to rearm Russian nuclear missiles with multiple reentry vehicles (MRVs), or simply missiles with multiple nuclear warheads. To Putin's administration mind, it would stop the US abandoning the ABM treaty. And such a step would require a lot of cash, which can be earned, as Russian nuclear lobby promises, by importing spent nuclear fuel. The Russian State Duma, the lower chamber of the Russian parliament, endorsed the spent nuclear fuel import bills in third reading on June 6th. The first bill legalises spent nuclear fuel import from other countries by amending art. 50 in the Russia's Environmental Protection Law in favour of spent fuel imports. The second bill sets frames for leasing of Russia's manufactured nuclear fuel abroad. While the third functioned more as an incentive for the Duma members and public in general, stipulating the remediation programs for radioactively contaminated areas. The pro-presidential faction Unity in the State Duma voted almost unanimously in favour of all the bills. This fact gives a clear indication that the bills are supported by the presidential administration. Prompt change of minds The opposition to the importation plans in Russia consisting of environmental movement and Yabloko party, had hopes for the bills to be voted down in the Federation Council. The speaker of the Federation Council and some governors, who are also members of the Council, voiced their concern over the bills after they had been approved by the Duma. But the Federation Council decided for some reason to avoid the responsibility for this matter in a prompt way. In agreement with the Russian Constitution, after the State Duma approves a bill, the Federation Council has the right to put it on its own agenda during the next 14 days. The Council first set the date to evaluate the import bills for July 4th, while the official deadline was June 27th. Then the bills hearing was moved to June 29th, which was close but still beyond the deadline. But today the speaker of the Federation Council stated in an interview with Interfax news service that the bills were taken off the agenda for June 29th due to the fact that the deadline expires today. Thus the bills proceed directly to the desk of the president. It is also remarkable that just a couple of weeks ago, both the speaker of the Council, Yegor Stroev, and a number of Council members had clear intentions to evaluate the bills properly and to send them most probably back to the Duma for reconsideration. This decision coincidently or not came after President Putin had mentioned MRVs having failed to convince his counterpart President Bush to abstain from abandoning the ABM treaty. The use of MRVs is prohibited by the START-II arms reduction treaty, which was ratified by the State Duma in April 2000. But should the USA abandon the AMB treaty the START-II will no longer be binding for Russia. Read more about this issue The Russian Ministry of Nuclear Energy (Minatom) is actively promoting imports of spent nuclear fuel to Russia from foreign countries for storage/reprocessing. In an attempt to make the idea attractive to potential customers, Minatom leans towards returning neither the spent fuel, nor the nuclear waste should the fuel be reprocessed. Read on » But developing and sustaining such weaponry requires funding. Apparently, to the mind of Putin's administration, such funding can be obtained easily by turning Russia into an international nuclear dumpsite. New national vote looming According to various polls conducted in Russia, 70% to 90% of the population are against importation of spent nuclear fuel. Russian environmental groups collected around 2.5 million signatures last year in support for the national vote. In consent with the Russian legislation, two million signatures collected in 60 different regions are enough to initiate a national vote. But the Central Electoral Committee, which was verifying the signatures, said almost 600,000 were not valid and banned the referendum. The liberal opposition in the State Duma, Yabloko party, said after the Duma approved the amendments in third reading that they would initiate another referendum. Kremlin's unofficial web site, Strana.Ru, quoted a source in the administration saying that they took the referendum threats seriously and would rather try to find a compromise with Yabloko, than waiting for the people to cast their vote. The deal, however, have not been worked out yet as it follows from what the source said. To gain the support of the public the state controlled media started to use the presently popular rhetoric that the Western nuclear industry is plotting against Russian Ministry for Nuclear Energy, Minatom, and that Grigory Yavlinsky, leader of Yabloko, is working as a lobbyist for the Western nuclear industry interests. It does not seem to help, however. The majority of the population is still against the importation. Putin' popularity sliding down or importation accepted? But what will happen if Putin gives final endorsement to the bills? Will his popularity decrease or will the public in Russia accept the official version that turning the country into a nuclear dumpsite is for their own good? The latter is more probable. The recent polls show that around 75% trust Putin. And whatever he does the trust is apparently to remain there, although the public opinion does not rule in Russia anyway. The only trouble is that despite administration's truly belief in everything Minatom says, $20 billion in profit from imports is still very unlikely scenario. Minatom's plans have no foundation The bills would allow Minatom, as it promotes it, "to enter the lucrative world market of fuel reprocessing." Minatom plans to import 20,000 tonnes of foreign spent fuel and earn $20 billion. Russia's own stocks of spent nuclear fuel amount to 14,000 tonnes and are managed in unsatisfactory manner. There are only two countries in the world engaged in commercial reprocessing – France and Great Britain. Minatom has a reprocessing facility in Chelyabinsk county called Mayak, or RT-1, but its design capacity is only 400 tonnes per year. During the past years the plant has been operating at less than 25% of the capacity. The plant can reprocess fuel from some first- and second-generation Soviet design reactors, as well as fuel from nuclear submarines and nuclear powered icebreakers. The technology used at the plant is such that reprocessing of each tonne of spent nuclear fuel leads to generation of 2,200 cubic meters of liquid radioactive waste. The most part of the waste is dumped into the nearby lake Karachay. Thus, to start commercial reprocessing Minatom would have to upgrade the Mayak plant, or, most likely, to commission a new one – RT-2 - at Krasnoyarsk county, which has been under construction since 1970s, but was never to be completed. Should Minatom go for it, it would eat up the whole predicted profit of $20 billion. But Minatom says it will not rush with reprocessing. Ministry's officials stated explicitly on several occasions that they would rather store fuel in casks for at least 50 years before launching reprocessing. The casks existing today are designed to store spent fuel for exactly 50 years. After 50 years there will be neither present leaders of Minatom, nor Putin with his MRVs plans. The fuel, however, will still remain as waste in Russia. The other issue is the fact that the USA controls from 70% to 80% of spent nuclear fuel accumulated in the world. And before Minatom can start importing this fuel, certain conditions formulated by the American administration have to be met. The key issue is the US demand to halt the ongoing Russia's involvement into construction of a nuclear power plant in Iran. If Minatom is not successful in negotiating the deal with the USA, the countries where Minatom can take the fuel from are very unlikely to provide the $20 billion projected profit. No MRVs but double so much spent fuel to manage President Putin has a remarkable belief in all Minatom's initiatives. His speech at the UN summit in 2000 devoted to promotion of nuclear reactors developed by Minatom, which exclude the use of weapons grade nuclear materials, left a number of question marks. Even Russian academicians dared to come out and say publicly that such project is impossible to implement. Now Putin seems to have another interests. He desperately needs money to counter the American plans to launch the National Missile Defence. The trouble is that his belief into the money source will leave Russia with double so much nuclear waste and no funds to mange them. Publisher: Bellona Foundation, President: Frederic Hauge Information: info@bellona.no, Technical contact: webmaster@bellona.no Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62 * P.O.Box 2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway Menu system java script courtesy of Peter Belesis at the Dynamic HTML lab. [ (c) BELLONA -- Reuse and reprint recommended provided ***************************************************************** 2 Nuclear Energy Remains Full of Risks Welcome to The PMA OnLine Power Report ( June 27, 2001 ) The Detroit News has been a cheerleader for the nuclear industry for decades. Still, it was difficult to stomach James Higgins' "Fermi shows off nuclear power" (June 6). Higgins indirectly maligned nuclear opponents as ill-informed -- as if we don't understand that what emerges from cooling towers is water vapor, and that radiation levels are usually very low. He also perpetuated the myth (invented by the Nuclear Energy Institute in Washington) that fission power doesn't emit greenhouse gases. Like most nuclear myths, there's a kernel of truth in their multimillion-dollar ad campaigns. It's true that nuclear plants don't have smokestacks contributing to the greenhouse effect. What's conveniently forgotten is that the rest of the fuel cycle (mining, milling, fuel fabrication, enrichment, waste transport) is an enormous consumer of fossil fuels. Let Higgins compare THAT to his scapegoat Greenpeace Zodiac outboard motor. The "amazing safeguards" touted by the columnist should be contrasted with an examination of Fermi's containment structure. The Mark I design has been identified by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission with a 90-percent probability of failure during an overpressurization accident. A jury-rigged venting system was added to release radioactivity to save the containment. In 1979, Three Mile Island took us to the brink of catastrophe. How close? The Kemeny Commission, an NRC-appointed investigation of what happened, concluded the reactor came within a single hour of irreversible meltdown. It still melted partially, and the first 16 hours of radiation monitoring were lost. The NRC told Congress in 1985 that the "crude statistical probability" of another major accident in the United States is 45 percent over 20 years given 100 reactors operating. Twenty-two years after Three Mile Island, we operate 103 reactors. Our time may soon be up. Where to put nuclear waste? Everyone agrees that geological stability is indispensable for any repository. Yet, incredibly, Yucca Mountain, Nev. is in a certifiable, recurring earthquake zone. Flowing water plus seismic activity plus 40,000 metric tons or more of the most radioactive material on the planet could equal big trouble someday. And don't forget the huge question of national transport of these wastes. Even though I, too, once stood inside a Fermi cooling tower and got a tour, I was there with a nuclear physicist opposed to nuclear power. And I don't share Higgins' enthusiasm for a nuclear plant completed 2,000 percent over budget and 20 years late. Keith Gunter Nuclear-Free Great Lakes Campaign Clinton Township www.powermarketers.com ***************************************************************** 3 NRC Seeks Comments on Preliminary Assessment of Nuclear Industry Consolidation on Agency's Regulatory Oversight Press Release 2001 - 075 - U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 20555-001 E-mail: opa@nrc.gov Web Site: http://www.nrc.gov/OPA No. 01-076 June 27, 2001 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is seeking members of the public who use the agency's Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS) to join a user group. It will provide participants with an opportunity to learn more about current and future plans for the system, as well as to discuss related public support programs and functional enhancements for the public access version of ADAMS. The user group will be formed on July 18 at a meeting at NRC headquarters in Rockville, Maryland, from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Although a firm schedule has not been set, the group is expected to meet about four times a year. For those who cannot attend the group's initial meeting, the NRC is making arrangements for those interested to submit questions in advance as well as to obtain information about the proceedings via e-mail. The NRC also will have a toll-free telephone bridge so members of the user group can dial into meetings they cannot attend. The telephone bridge will accommodate 20 to 30 callers on a first-come, first-serve basis. For more information on joining the ADAMS user group, please contact Thomas Smith at 301-415-7204, or toll-free at 1-800-368-5642, e-mail aug@nrc.gov. Further instructions will be sent to those who wish to participate by e-mail or telephone. ***************************************************************** 4 State challenges radiation standards for Yucca Mountain Las Vegas SUN: June 27, 2001 CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) - The state of Nevada filed suit Wednesday in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, challenging recently issued federal radiation standards for a possible high-level radioactive waste dump at Yucca Mountain. Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa said the state agrees with some aspects of the Environmental Protection Agency standards, but objects to a limit of 10,000 years on the standards. Del Papa, joined by Gov. Kenny Guinn, said 10,000 years doesn't cover the time when most radioactive waste put in the dump might leak into the environment. "Any standard is inadequate if it doesn't include the time when the risk to the public is the greatest," Del Papa and Guinn said in a news release on the lawsuit filed in the San Francisco-based federal appeals court. The lawsuit also challenges part of the EPA rule that would let the federal Department of Energy pollute part of the Amargosa aquifer, the large groundwater area beneath the Yucca Mountain site. "To set a standard that allows DOE to use a portion of one of the most important aquifers in Nevada to dilute and disperse radiation from the repository not only violates state law but is simply unacceptable," Del Papa said. The standard "appears to be designed to allow the repository to pass judgment notwithstanding its major scientific flaws," Guinn added. In related developments, preliminary results of state testing suggest the DOE's calculations on direction and speed of ground water at Yucca Mountain could be wrong. That means radiation from 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste that might wind up at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, could escape and expose people sooner than 10,000 years, the life span set for the repository by federal law. Linda Lehman, a state hydrologist who conducted the research, said that could make Yucca Mountain unable to meet the new EPA guidelines for the amount of radiation that can escape through ground water. The DOE, which has spent $7 billion and 20 years studying the dump site, plans to include the state's ground water model in its final calculations as it prepares to recommend whether Yucca Mountain is suitable for a dump. Robert Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects and Lehman's boss, said it's unclear how the state's new conclusions might affect the DOE's recommendations. Yucca Mountain is the only site under study as a U.S. nuclear waste repository. Nevada opposes the repository, estimated to cost $58 billion to complete. It would accept waste in 2010 at the earliest, if the site is found scientifically suitable. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 5 Bush Pledges More Energy Research Today: June 28, 2001 at 11:10:19 PDT WASHINGTON (AP) - Hoping to invigorate his energy proposal, President Bush called for more research into developing energy-efficient products and said Thursday he wants the federal government to do more to conserve power - starting in his own house. Bush took a tour of the Energy Department, and announced $85.7 million in federal grants to encourage academia and the private sector to develop fuel technologies and energy-efficient products. Bush joked to employees whooping and cheering his arrival: "Conserve your energy!" But Bush aimed his remarks more at Congress, which is considering his plan to increase domestic oil, natural gas, coal and electricity generation while boosting conservation and use of solar and wind power. The plan was unveiled May 17 and has languished in the Senate since the GOP lost control. Bush was sending an outline of his plan to lawmakers Thursday. "It is the right step for our federal government to set the example," Bush said. "If we lay out an energy strategy, we must act upon the strategy." The president signaled frustration with the debate on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, where he has proposed drilling for oil. Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., has called that proposal dead. "Ours is the first administration that has laid out a broad strategy, a comprehensive strategy, a strategy that goes beyond the stale debates of whether or not we ought to drill for natural gas in Alaska or not," Bush said. "We're talking way beyond just one single issue that seems to dominate the landscape here in Washington, D.C." Bush said the White House would take a series of steps to encourage its staff to conserve energy, such as installing motion switches for lights, turning off computer monitors at night and shutting down computers completely if they will not be used for three days or longer. New chillers installed atop the Eisenhower Executive Office Building adjacent to the White House have led to a 10 percent to 12 percent savings in energy costs, said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer. And, Bush also has long-term plans to replace 400 window-unit air conditioners in the Eisenhower building, Fleischer said. The White House complex will remove halogen lamps of 100 watts or greater. External lights that shine on the White House "as a national emblem" will not be affected. Nor will external aesthetics, such as Christmas lights, Fleischer said. Thermostats for hot-water heaters will be set at 105 degrees. In the long term, the White House will propose modernizing electrical and mechanical systems so they can get rid of the 400 or so window-unit air conditioners in the Eisenhower building. All White House recommendations, if accepted and funded by Congress, could save as much as 25 to 30 percent of energy at the White House, Fleishcher said. Bush said he will sign an executive order directing federal agencies to buy certain appliances that meet a 1-watt standard of energy consumption, rather than those that use up to 7 watts. Bush is not the first president to try to conserve energy. Jimmy Carter famously wore a sweater during the 1970s energy crisis. Bill Clinton had light bulbs and appliances changed, claiming a savings of $1.4 million in six years, and implemented a "Greening of the White House" program that cut greenhouse gas emissions by 845 tons a year, roughly the same amount as taking 600 cars off the road, according to his Energy Department. Fleischer said the chiller installation was part of conservation measures begun under former Presidents Bush and Clinton. Bush decried what he called energy "vampires," machines that drain energy when not in use, such as televisions, computers and cell phone chargers. He called Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham "the new vampire-slayer" and pledged his administration would take the lead in replacing such products with new, more efficient technologies. Vampire devices account for just 4 percent of an average home's energy consumption, Bush said. But multiplied out across all American homes, vampires eat up 52 billion kilowatt hours of power each year, or the equivalent of 26 average-sized power plants. "Because of our desire for instant convenience, many of the appliances in our homes carry unnecessarily high energy costs," Bush said. "When you multiply the amount of chargers plugged into people's walls all across America, one can begin to realize significant energy savings all across the country." Bush, who had earlier ordered military installations in California to conserve, said the Navy has cut power usage during peak hours in California by 11 percent compared to last year. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 6 EPA sued over Yucca standards [Las Vegas Review-Journal] Thursday, June 28, 2001 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal State agency, environmental groups challenge radiation guidelines By KEITH ROGERS REVIEW-JOURNAL Nevada's Nuclear Projects Agency and a consortium of environmental groups filed separate federal lawsuits against the Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday challenging the adequacy of the EPA's standards for the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. State Nuclear Projects Agency chief Bob Loux said the EPA's radiation standards should be designed to further protect people in the more distant future -- at least hundreds of thousands of years instead of the 10,000-year regulatory period -- and the point where standards take effect should be closer to the mountain than the 11-mile distance under the EPA's rule. "We are challenging the point of compliance and how far into the future the standards apply. It should be at least as long as when peak doses are expected to occur," Loux said. He noted that Energy Department scientists estimate those doses are expected up to 800,000 years after waste is put in the repository, if one is built. Yucca Mountain, a volcanic-rock ridge 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is the only site the Energy Department is studying to entomb the nation's most lethal nuclear waste. Most of the 77,000 tons of radioactive waste is metal-encased spent fuel pellets now stored at reactor sites across the nation. Earlier this month, the EPA put in place an "all pathways" standard of 15 millirems- per-year of allowable radiation exposure, plus a separate 4 millirem-per-year limit for radiation in groundwater. A millirem is one-thousandth of a rem, the measurement of a radiation dose. "We are happy with the 4 millirem standard for groundwater and 15 millirems for all pathways," Loux said. At issue, he said, is where the standards apply and for how long. "All pathways" means exposure through any means, including air, soil, water and the food chain. Loux said the state also is challenging the EPA's stance on what population is appropriate for assessing risk to potential releases of radioactive materials. The state, he said, prefers that the standards be based on a farmer who drinks tainted water and grows all his food from water containing radionuclides that escape the proposed repository. "They assume people will be living exactly where they are now in the future," Loux said, referring to the EPA's risk assumptions. He said the state's lawsuit and one by a number of environmental watchdog groups -- Citizen Alert, a statewide organization, Public Citizen, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force, the Nevada Desert Experience, the Nuclear Information and Resource Service and Citizen Action Coalition of Indiana -- were filed in the 9th U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco. The lawsuits were filed there because that is the proper venue for filing legal actions challenging EPA rules, according to Loux. Citizen Alert released a statement quoting the group's Northern Nevada coordinator, John Hadder, who described the EPA standards as "a regulatory framework for legalized nuclear pollution in Nevada. "This undermines the purpose of radiation protection standards by presuming that a repository at Yucca Mountain will not contain nuclear waste throughout the thousands of years it remains dangerous," Hadder said. The state's lawsuit names EPA Administrator Christie Whitman. It asks the court to declare the EPA actions "inconsistent with applicable law" and directs the EPA "to reissue those parts of the Yucca Mountain rule found to be unlawful." An EPA spokesman in San Francisco offered no comment on the lawsuit Wednesday. In a statement, Nevada Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa said, "Although we generally agree with certain aspects of the EPA's Yucca Mountain rule, other portions of the standard do not adequately protect our citizens and the state's critical groundwater resource." Gov. Kenny Guinn expressed his concerns in a statement, saying, "to establish a standard that allows DOE to use a portion of one of the most important aquifers in Nevada to dilute and disperse radiation ... not only violates state law, but is simply unconscionable and unacceptable." He was referring to the regional aquifer that supplies water to Nye County ranchers. Nevadans at the least should have the same 3-mile protective distance as the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, where transuranic waste is disposed, Guinn said. Similarly, U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said in a statement that "Nevada has an obligation to ensure its residents and resources are fully protected. The state of Nevada is correct to ask the courts to examine the details of the standard and the rulemaking process." Hours after the EPA issued its final standards June 6, a nuclear energy industry trade group -- The Nuclear Energy Institute -- filed lawsuits challenging the radiation standards, claiming the EPA went too far in proposing a radiation standard for groundwater in addition to general limits on radiation exposures from a repository. The EPA's standards are more stringent than a 25 millirem guideline suggested by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. And the point where the standards apply -- 11 miles from Yucca Mountain -- is closer than the 12-mile buffer zone that project scientists were analyzing. At an informational meeting Wednesday afternoon, Clark County Commissioner Myrna Williams said the Energy Department should not saddle Nevada with more radiation than any other state. Speakers, including Henderson City Councilwoman Amanda Cyphers, declared that local governments are united in their opposition to the Yucca Mountain project. This story is located at: http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2001/Jun-28-Thu-2001/news/16423402.html ***************************************************************** 7 Berkley seeks release of nuke waste routes [Las Vegas Review-Journal] Thursday, June 28, 2001 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal Other states' help wanted in fight against repository By STEVE TETREAULT DONREY WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., plans to urge lawmakers today to begin pressuring the Energy Department to disclose what routes nuclear waste would travel from commercial power plants to a proposed repository at Yucca Mountain. Berkley is set to propose a House amendment granting $500,000 to the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board for radioactive waste transportation studies. The Energy Department has not designated routes to Yucca Mountain yet, and the legislation would not force it to do so. Berkley said the amendment could raise public pressure on the department to identify its transportation plans. Berkley will be given at least five minutes on the House floor to press the case that nuclear waste shipments pose potential dangers to states besides Nevada. It is among the arguments the state's elected leaders are using as they try to form coalitions against the proposed repository. "The transportation of nuclear waste remains an area of serious public concern, and members and their constituents have a right to know if they might be at risk," Berkley said in a letter sent Wednesday to other lawmakers. If the amendment comes to a vote, it would be the first test of sentiment in this year's Congress on nuclear waste disposal. The last House vote on the issue was March 22, 2000, when a Yucca Mountain bill passed 253-167. "I'm not sure we're using this as a temperature gauge," Berkley said. But, she added, "I realize I could say all I want that this has nothing to do with whether you agree with Yucca Mountain or not agree with Yucca Mountain, but in the minds of many people of course it does." Berkley will try to place her rider onto an appropriations bill that funds the Energy Department, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and a handful of other agencies at $23.7 billion for fiscal 2002, which starts Oct. 1. House appropriations leaders oppose the amendment as an unneeded change in the bill they wrote, and Berkley conceded it may not pass. The energy and water bill approves spending $443 million to continue site characterization at Yucca Mountain and to allow the Energy Department to begin preparing a license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build a repository at the site. The approved amount is only about $2 million less than the Energy Department requested. The legislation allocates $6 million for adjoining counties to monitor progress at Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The state of Nevada would be granted $2.5 million for nuclear waste oversight. Other Southern Nevada projects funded by the bill include $25 million to continue flood control along the Tropicana and Flamingo washes and $400,000 to continue studying wetlands in the Las Vegas Wash. In a report accompanying the bill, the House Appropriations Committee said it was disappointed with delays at Yucca Mountain that caused the Energy Department to push back its site recommendation to late this year or early next year. It directs the department to "take a more aggressive approach" to develop transportation routes within Nevada to the proposed repository. It also says the department should begin acquiring transportation casks that could be used to remove spent fuel from a half dozen commercial power plants in the process of being decommissioned. This story is located at: http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2001/Jun-28-Thu-2001/news/16423932.html ***************************************************************** 8 State challenges radiation standards for Yucca Mountain brholvs1 [tahoe.com] CARSON Thursday, June 28, 2001 By BRENDAN RILEY CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) - The state of Nevada filed suit Wednesday in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, challenging recently issued federal radiation standards for a possible high-level radioactive waste dump at Yucca Mountain. Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa said the state agrees with some aspects of the Environmental Protection Agency standards, but objects to a limit of 10,000 years on the standards. Del Papa, joined by Gov. Kenny Guinn, said 10,000 years doesn't cover the time when most radioactive waste put in the dump might leak into the environment. ''Any standard is inadequate if it doesn't include the time when the risk to the public is the greatest,'' Del Papa and Guinn said in a news release on the lawsuit filed in the San Francisco-based federal appeals court. The lawsuit also challenges part of the EPA rule that would let the federal Department of Energy pollute part of the Amargosa aquifer, the large groundwater area beneath the Yucca Mountain site. ''To set a standard that allows DOE to use a portion of one of the most important aquifers in Nevada to dilute and disperse radiation from the repository not only violates state law but is simply unacceptable,'' Del Papa said. The standard ''appears to be designed to allow the repository to pass judgment notwithstanding its major scientific flaws,'' Guinn added. In related developments, preliminary results of state testing suggest the DOE's calculations on direction and speed of ground water at Yucca Mountain could be wrong. That means radiation from 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste that might wind up at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, could escape and expose people sooner than 10,000 years, the life span set for the repository by federal law. Linda Lehman, a state hydrologist who conducted the research, said that could make Yucca Mountain unable to meet the new EPA guidelines for the amount of radiation that can escape through ground water. The DOE, which has spent $7 billion and 20 years studying the dump site, plans to include the state's ground water model in its final calculations as it prepares to recommend whether Yucca Mountain is suitable for a dump. Robert Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects and Lehman's boss, said it's unclear how the state's new conclusions might affect the DOE's recommendations. Yucca Mountain is the only site under study as a U.S. nuclear waste repository. Nevada opposes the repository, estimated to cost $58 billion to complete. It would accept waste in 2010 at the earliest, if the site is found scientifically suitable. Copyright tahoe.com. Materials contained within this site may ***************************************************************** 9 Bill allows tax deals with nuclear plants Syracuse.com: News [The Syracuse Newspapers] Proposal legalizing long-term PILOT agreements needs Pataki's approval. Wednesday, June 27, 2001 By Erik Kriss Albany State lawmakers gave final passage Tuesday to a bill legalizing long-term property tax deals between localities and nuclear power plants. Municipalities in Oswego County have negotiated such deals and are hoping the bill to authorize the agreements becomes state law. Nuclear plants are the biggest property taxpayers in small communities such as the Oswego County town of Scriba, home to the Nine Mile Point 1 and 2 plants and the James A. FitzPatrick plant. Plant sales and changes in state equalization rates, which affect property assessments, can result in huge swings in the assessed value of plants - and thus, the property-tax bills of residents and other businesses. Typically, nuclear plants in New York have been sold at prices well below the plants' assessed value. Because the plants account for so much of the property taxes paid to local governments and school districts, a steep drop in their assessments could mean astronomical increases in residents' and other businesses' property tax bills. "The bill is an attempt to stabilize for local governments the revenues," said Assemblywoman Frances Sullivan, R-Fulton, a co-sponsor of the measure. The bill that passed the Assembly Tuesday authorizes localities to enter into payment-in-lieu-of-taxes, or PILOT, agreements with nuclear power plants. The bill earlier passed the state Senate and needs Gov. George Pataki's approval to become law. Sale of the Nine Mile plants cleared a major regulatory hurdle Tuesday when the Nuclear Regulatory Commission agreed to let the deal go through. Constellation Nuclear of Maryland has offered to buy Nine Mile 1 and 82 percent of Nine Mile 2 from Niagara Mohawk Power Corp. for $956 million. The state Public Service Commission still must approve the sale. The Oswego City and Mexico school districts, Oswego County and the town of Scriba have all approved memoranda of understanding with the nuclear plant owners for long-term PILOT agreements, according to Scriba town attorney Norman Seiter Jr. Constellation has indicated it will honor the memoranda once its purchase of the Nine Mile plants is completed, Seiter said. The agreement would reduce the school taxes to the Oswego school district on the Nine Mile Point 1 and 2 nuclear plants over 10 years from $21.1 million in 2001-02 to $9.25 million in 2010-11. © 2001 The Syracuse Newspapers. Used with ***************************************************************** 10 Cape Town May Lose R540m Nuclear Plant allAfrica.com: Cape Argus (Cape Town) June 27, 2001 Posted to the web June 27, 2001 Elliott Sylvester Cape Town The Western Cape stands to miss out on a massive investment boost after plans to build a multi-million rand nuclear plant near Koeberg were put on hold. Plans to build a R540 million pebble-bed nuclear reactor in the Western Cape have been halted while feasibility studies are conducted to see whether the North West Province is better suited for the plant. In April the government gave Eskom the go-ahead to conduct a detailed feasibility study for the pebble-bed modular reactor project. The study found that fuel for the plant would have to be transported by road from Pelindaba in the North West Province. Several safety objections were raised during the public participation process. After reviewing the feasibility study, the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism said Eskom should consider the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation's Pelindaba site. The project, a joint venture between the department and the National Nuclear Regulator, would see Eskom cover about 30% of the investment. The Industrial Development Corporation would fund the rest with foreign investors. China was earmarked as one possible investor, and British Nuclear Fuels will invest R100m in the project. David de Waal of the independent consortium for the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor environmental impact assessment said: "The consideration of Pelindaba as an alternative site for the project will cover the same criteria as that used for the Koeberg site. "This will allow the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism to make an informed decision as to whether the Pelindaba site becomes part of the next phase of the environmental impact assessment or not." The 110 megawatt reactor is a high-temperature, helium-cooled nuclear reactor. The name is derived from the coated uranium elements encased in graphite which are about the size of a golf ball. The reactor is lined with these, which are heated to release energy. Copyright © 2001 Cape Argus. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). ***************************************************************** 11 GREENPEACE URGES PUTIN TO VETO NUCLEAR WASTE IMPORTS 28 June 2001 Moscow - Thirty Greenpeace activists were arrested today after mounting a protest in Russia's Red Square calling on President Putin to overturn parliamentary approval of changes to the countries environmental law which pave the way for vast radioactive waste imports. The activists unfurled banners in front of the Lenin Mausoleum saying "President: Stop the nuclear invasion!". Yesterday, in contravention of the law, the Federation Council Chairman Yegor Stroyev signed the amendments and passed them on for Putin's final approval without debate and agreement from the Council. Law amendments which have relevance for the Customs authorities require formal approval by the Federation Council under the Russian constitution. "It's now Putin's choice to be remembered as the president who opened the Russian gates for deadly waste imports or as a protector of Russia," said Tobias Muenchmeyer of Greenpeace. According to an opinion poll commissioned by Greenpeace and published today, 79.5 percent of the Russian population wants President Putin to block nuclear waste imports. "After the rejection, earlier this year, of one quarter of the 2,5 million signatures calling for a referendum against radioactive waste imports, the bypassing of the plenary of the Federation Council is yet another undemocratic act. There is no public support for the plan which is exclusively in the interest of those corrupt structures, that hope to make money with this dirty business," said Muenchmeyer. The permission for importing radioactive waste, being promoted by the cash-strapped Nuclear Ministry, Minatom, will turn Russia into the world's nuclear waste dump. Minatom wants to bring in up to 20,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel from countries including Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Switzerland, Germany and Spain over the next ten years - in contracts worth up to $21 billion. Tobias Muenchmeyer, Greenpeace's expert on Russian nuclear issues, was declared persona non grata by the Russian Foreign Ministry in December 1999 and has been banned from entering Russia ever since. No reason has been given why Muenchmeyer is not allowed to enter Russia anymore, except that it "is in the interest of state security" to deny him a visa. Greenpeace is campaigning to overturn this undemocratic decision which strikes at the heart of free speech. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT: Tobias Muenchmeyer, Nuclear Campaigner, Greenpeace International in Berlin, Tel: +49 170 86 66 052; Ivan Blokov, Greenpeace Russia, Tel: +7 095 257 41 22 PHOTOS AND VIDEO available of the victims of radioactive pollution from the Mayak nuclear facility from Greenpeace Communications, Lucy Clayton (video) or Daniel Beltra (photo) Tel: +31- 20- 524 9580 ***************************************************************** 12 Nuclear option back on agenda Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | The public dislikes the idea and the economics do not support it - but atomic energy could nevertheless be set to return Special report: Britain's nuclear industry Paul Brown, David Gow and Jane Martinson in New York Thursday June 28, 2001 The Guardian Robin Jeffrey, chairman and acting chief executive of British Energy, talks lipsmackingly of the "nuclear renaissance" - in the US. There the Californian blackouts and President Bush have laid the ground open for the first new nuclear power stations in a generation, perhaps as many as 50 over the next 20 years. Back in Britain the mood has been overwhelmingly hostile to a new lease of life for atomic energy since Sizewell B was opened, at a cost of £2.3bn, six years ago. A combination of cost, including state subsidy, and environmental concerns over the disposal of radioactive waste made the nuclear option unsustainable. Only five weeks ago, presiding over British Energy's lacklustre annual results presentation, Jeffrey, driving force behind BE's expansion into the US and Canada, rebutted talk among analysts of his group's plans for new build at home. The business case, he said, would have to be "robust" and could not yet be made. Until this week, perhaps. On Monday Tony Blair appointed Brian Wilson, the energy minister, to chair a Cabinet Office review of energy needs and policy for the next 50 years to be carried out by Whitehall's performance and innovation unit. Net importer Already, the talk is of Britain's own nuclear power revival. The PIU has, in advance, identified a potential energy gap that could bring Californian-style blackouts. In five years' time the UK will have gone from being an exporter of oil to a net importer, while North Sea gas reserves will be so rapidly depleted that by 2006 we will be importing 15% compared with 2% now. While Norway could help fill the gap, in the longer run we will be dependent on high-risk supplies from unstable countries such as Algeria, Iran and Russia. By 2020, on current policies, and with a 0.5% annual rise in energy consumption, gas will account for half the UK's energy needs (48.9%), oil for 37.5%, newly subsidised coal for just 6.4%, renewables for 4.4% and nuclear for 2.7%. No account seems to have been taken of the potential for energy efficiency. The PIU equation appears to point to a nuclear revival and there is no doubt that energy policy is in a mess, but the nuclear industry seems in no shape to take advantage. On top of BE's poor performance, British Nuclear Fuels, the government-owned half of the industry, is set to report losses of at least £200m today. Hugh Collum, BNFL chairman and protagonist of the nuclear revival, admits the company is in no fit state - after two years of scandals and management upheaval - for privatisation next year as the government intended. He sees 2004 as a more likely date. BNFL's core business of reprocessing spent fuel from its own eight Magnox reactors, BE's older plant and a dozen foreign nuclear companies mostly in Japan and Germany has been in deep trouble. Technical difficulties have caused plants to be shut down for large parts of last year and this. All its production targets have had to be abandoned and it has angered its customers by increasing costs by 10%. To hit new targets it would need to increase radioactive emissions and store more high level nuclear waste, neither of which regulators permit. The environmental rules are a limiting factor but it is cost that is the real problem. From its inception, nuclear power has been the most subsidised and, arguably, pampered industry. From its early promise of electricity "too cheap to meter," it has swallowed billions in public money in research and development and direct subsidy, and still has failed to compete with fossil fuels, or now even with wind power. Hopes are pinned on the argument that nuclear power could save the world from global warming as it does not produce carbon dioxide. That is true but the industry faces other fundamental environmental questions, the most difficult of which is what to do with the waste. There is a very large nuclear lobby in the UK not least including the chairman of the review, Brian Wilson. The biggest nuclear advocates have always been inside the DTI, which swallowed up the old Department of Energy and never lost its pro-nuclear fervour. Not a single planning or licence application has ever been turned down in the industry's history. Many people believe this bias leads the DTI to have an active animosity to renewables, arguably the nuclear industry's greatest potential competitor. Britain, with the greatest potential for renewables of any country in Europe, lags behind everyone else. Wave power scuppered It is true that in the 1980s the DTI scuppered wave power research by overestimating its costs tenfold, despite the enormous long term potential of the technology, which the department itself now estimates could produce 40% of the UK's energy needs. Wind power, which has made great strides all round the world and was pioneered in the UK, has been frustrated at every turn. Wind power could provide 20% of energy needs at less cost than nuclear without a waste problem. The great potential for solar power and the new hydrogen economy has been ignored. Only bio-fuels, gas from landfills, and wood and straw-burning power stations in the countryside have had active DTI support over the past decade. Perhaps the extraordinary admission in the small print of the announcement of the energy review, was that on current policies the UK will only produce 4.5% of its energy from renewables by 2020. That the government target is to reach 10% by 2010, and the EU to reach 20% by the same time, is not mentioned. Denmark expects to reach 40% of its electricity from wind power alone by 2020. So far, the evidence is that there is plenty of potential for renewables to fill all conceivable gaps in in the energy supply and no need for a rush for atomic power in the manner of the dash for gas that made the UK over-dependent on one source. Not that rushing for nuclear is a possibility: a need for planning permission mean years between proposals and laying foundations. But Jeffrey, a canny operator, whose BE is hedging its own bets by investing in coal and wind power, points out that Hunterston, due to close in 2010, could be a site for rebuild: it is connected to the grid, has the right infrastructure and, critically, the support of its local community which supplies its skilled workforce. It also happens to be in Brian Wilson's Cunninghame North constituency. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2001 ***************************************************************** 13 Watch WIPP Carefully, DOE Urged Wednesday, June 27, 2001 Albuquerque Journal--> By Tania Soussan Journal Staff Writer The Department of Energy should do more monitoring to make sure radioactivity does not leak out from its underground nuclear waste dump near Carlsbad, scientists recommend. The National Research Council released a report Tuesday on the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. The 15-member committee of experts that studied WIPP said additional monitoring would increase public confidence that WIPP is safe. The committee said it is confident WIPP can meet its general performance objectives but said "uncertainties" remain about the long-term — 10,000-year — performance of the repository. In the next 35 to 100 years before WIPP is filled and sealed up, DOE should expand its monitoring to keep an eye on brine or moisture getting into the repository and watch the potential for hydrogen and other gases to build up, according to the report. In addition, DOE should re-evaluate the use of magnesium oxide as backfill because of questions about how well it works chemically. The report also recommends more hydrologic and geologic studies along with monitoring of oil and gas drilling in the area. The committee was formed in 1998 at DOE's request. Inés Triay, manager of DOE's Carlsbad field office, said her office is studying the report and evaluating the recommendations. "With plans in place to increase the number of shipments to WIPP," said Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., "this report stands as a validation of WIPP, as well as the handling and storage of waste there. It also points us to areas that can be improved over the life of this facility." Copyright Albuquerque Journal ***************************************************************** 14 Letter: Use nuke waste fund properly Today: June 28, 2001 at 8:37:38 PDT I am commenting on your June 24 editorial regarding possible changes in the way the federal budget would support the geologic repository program: Setting aside the shots you take at the delays in program progress since 1982, some of which were caused by Nevada opposition and more due to Congress cutting the budget each year, there is a budget problem that Congress needs to address if Yucca Mountain is selected for the repository and is licensed for construction and use. What is happening is electricity ratepayers in states where nuclear power is produced are paying (via the nuclear utilities) about $800 million per year to the U.S. Treasury to an account called the Nuclear Waste Fund. Because Congress only appropriates a fraction of that amount each year, there is a growing "balance" which earns interest even more than fees collected last year. It is a bit of a mystery whether that $10 billion balance will be available to support the program or whether the amount appropriated each year will ever equal the amount collected plus the interest if the repository is to be built and spent nuclear fuel shipped to it. What Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham was addressing in the discussion of taking the Nuclear Waste Fund "off-budget" is not to remove the repository program from congressional oversight and public accountability, but to simply allow the fees collected from ratepayers to be used for the purpose the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 intended. There is no shortage of oversight on the radioactive waste management program. That is the way it should be. BRIAN O' CONNELL Editor's note: The writer is director of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners' Nuclear Waste Program Office, which is located in Washington, D.C. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 15 Residents express fears over nuclear dump issue Today: June 28, 2001 at 10:42:09 PDT By Mary Manning <> LAS VEGAS SUN More than 160 people, most of them opposed to a proposed high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, told Clark County officials to fight the federal project, but some supported it and begged officials to negotiate for benefits. Clark County's Nuclear Waste Division hosted a meeting Wednesday to hear citizen concerns. The County Commission has opposed the Department of Energy's Yucca Mountain Project unanimously in three votes since 1987, Commissioner Myrna Williams said. Elected officials from the county, the cities and the state of Nevada have opposed burying 77,000 tons of commercial reactor and defense wastes in Yucca Mountain. Henderson Councilwoman Amanda Cyphers said she was most concerned about a nuclear repository's effect on tourism. "One accident, even a small one, could send the message that gambling in Las Vegas is gambling with your life," she said. One state senator, however, said he believes the nuclear waste will end up in Nevada and the state could receive benefits to help build schools and roads. Sen. Bill O'Donnell, R-Las Vegas, who once worked at the Nevada Test Site where nuclear weapons experiments were conducted from 1951 until 1992, said Nevada's congressional votes don't count and the state cannot win a majority vote to keep nuclear waste out of the state. "One of the things we keep hearing is, 'It's a done deal, it's a done deal,' " said Irene Navis, who becomes county Nuclear Waste Division director on Monday, replacing Dennis Bechtel, who is retiring. "We're here to tell you there are many steps along the way before a single canister of nuclear waste would arrive at Yucca Mountain in 2010, at the earliest," Navis said. After all, Navis said, the DOE expected to open a repository at Yucca Mountain by 1998. The DOE is still studying the mountain. Stephen Cloobeck, a Las Vegas businessman, said major resort owners and the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce have formally opposed the dump and made the fight a top priority. "And we haven't spent any money yet," he said, referring to $4 million committed to a national education campaign to inform people across the country about nuclear waste shipments that could head toward Yucca Mountain. Some came to the meeting to learn more about the 20-year-old federal project. English teacher Alma Rose Mendoza said Nevada is her home and she wants to feel secure, without the threat of nuclear waste. "Unfortunately, the government doesn't seem to share this acute love that I have for my home state," Mendoza said. "Topless bars, greasy buffets, slot machines, brothels, neon lights and barren, dry, useless deserts are what the government thinks of when it hears the word Nevada. Now they want to add 'waste dump' to that horrid list." Valerie Aragon, 23, left her children, 2 and 7, with a babysitter to attend the meeting after she finished her job as an office manager with a communications company. In tears, Aragon said she was frustrated after telling friends about the county's effort, but none was interested in learning more. "I never knew any of this was going on," said the 13-year Las Vegas resident. The county has scheduled another public meeting for Oct. 31. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 16 State sues EPA over radiation rules at Yucca Today: June 28, 2001 at 10:42:09 PDT By Mary Manning LAS VEGAS SUN Nevada filed a lawsuit Wednesday opposing radiation standards set at Yucca Mountain, the first legal salvo in what Gov. Kenny Guinn hinted could become the state's strategy in fighting a proposed high-level nuclear waste repository. The state challenged the Environmental Protection Agency's new rule in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. A coalition of national environmental groups filed a separate action in the same court Wednesday. "This is the first opportunity the state has had in over 15 years to legally challenge EPA's rule-making process for the proposed repository at Yucca Mountain," Guinn said after requesting that Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa file the suit. The Nevada Legislature approved $4 million for legal defense and a national education campaign against the Yucca Mountain project. The state is challenging two details of the EPA rule that sets limits on how much radiation would be acceptable to leak from a repository, if it is built. The lawsuit maintains that the length of time the regulation is in effect -- 10,000 years -- is not long enough, and that the boundary at which radiation would be measured is too close to nearby farms. In order to build a repository, the DOE has to prove that it would be safe within the EPA guidelines. Those guidelines also require the repository to limit radiation leakage to 15 millirems of exposure to residents 12 miles from its center, with a total of 4 millirems of that allowed to come through ground water. If the lawsuits are successful, the Department of Energy would have to delay its fall deadline for recommending whether Yucca Mountain is a safe repository site, said Bob Loux, director of the state's Agency for Nuclear Projects. "Their (DOE's) projection of their schedule at Yucca Mountain does not consider legal actions," Loux said. "If the state is successful in court, there can be no site recommendation and no licensing rules." Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., second most powerful Democrat in the Senate, agreed with the state's action, adding he was pleased with the EPA guideline as far as it goes. "However, the state of Nevada has an obligation to ensure its residents and resources are fully protected," Reid said. The state's suit also maintains that by measuring radiation exposure 12 miles from the repository site, where the farming community of Amargosa Valley lies, the EPA allows the Energy Department to use the aquifer to dilute the exposure. By law the mountain itself and engineered barriers must keep the radiation inside the repository. Amargosa Valley, the closest community to the site, is home to Nevada's largest organic dairy, Ponderosa Farms, which supplies milk to 30 million people in Nevada, California and other Western states. Its aquifer is also a drinking water source. Guinn and Del Papa said that to establish a standard that allows DOE to use a portion of one of the most important aquifers in Nevada to disperse radiation not only violates state law, but is "simply unconscionable and unacceptable." For a similar ground-water standard set for the Waste Isolation Pilot Project, a site in New Mexico accepting defense nuclear wastes laced with plutonium, EPA set a boundary of three miles from the repository, the lawsuit notes. The environmental groups' lawsuit echoes the state's arguments. Citizen Alert, Citizen Action Coalition of Indiana, Natural Resources Defense Council, Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force, Nevada Desert Experience, Nuclear Information and Resource Service and Public Citizen are the groups filing the petition. "We cannot accept a rule that sets artificially weak standards to allow a fundamentally flawed project to move forward," Natural Resources Defense Council senior attorney David Adelman. The Department of Energy had not seen the suits and had no comment, DOE spokesman Joe Davis said. The DOE is planning to move forward with its Yucca Mountain site recommendation and could not speculate on impacts from legal actions, Davis said. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 17 The law about activated nuclear fuel to be submitted to Vladimir Putin. Federation Council distances from unpleasant decision Pravda.RU Jun, 27 2001 Federation Council will consider the law about importation in Russia of activated nuclear fuel, the speaker of Federation Council Yegor Stroev announced today. According to him, already today the law will be submitted to Russian President Vladimir Putin to be signed. Yegor Stroev stressed this law was not included in the agenda of Federation Council sitting on June 29, therefore, under the constitution of Russia, it must be directed to the President in 14 days, after it is passed by the State Duma. According to the official of the personnel of Federation Council member’s over Irkustsk region Valentin Meshevich, Federation Council has two reasons not to consider this law. The first one is time. The State Duma is working now according to so-called “summer schedule” and cannot go in terms, foreseen by law. The second one is that the Upper Chamber seem to distance from this law and to make the State Duma and the Russian President responsible for it. At the same time, senator’s personnel official stressed Valentin Meshevich did not intend to refuse the struggle against activated nuclear fuel importation. In the nearest future he is going to send two letters to the Russian President: appealing the President not to sign this law and – if this law is signed – to protect Irkutsk region against activated nuclear fuel importation. At the moment the law is being considered by Legislative Assembly of Irkutsk region. RIA 'Novosti' Copyright ©1999 by "Pravda.RU". When reproducing our materials ***************************************************************** 18 Why the Delay Over Nevada Waste Site? Omaha.com June 25, 2001 LeRoy C. Wigdahl: BY LeROY C. WIGDAHL The writer, of Blair, Neb., is a trainer at the Omaha Public Power District's Fort Calhoun nuclear plant. The views presented here are his own. It is time - well past time - for the U.S. government to honor its commitment to provide a permanent, deep underground repository for high-level nuclear waste. Fourteen years have passed since Congress designated Yucca Mountain as the candidate site for the repository. The Department of Energy has built five miles of tunnels and spent $7 billion evaluating the site. That includes the site's geology, hydrology and geochemistry in what is probably the most comprehensive and systematic scientific assessment ever conducted of a piece of land anywhere on the planet. The studies have found that the environmental impact on the site would be so small as to have essentially no adverse effect on public health and safety. Yet even as ever-increasing amounts of spent fuel pile up at more than 70 nuclear plant sites around the United States, the DOE still had not decided whether Yucca Mountain is suitable for the waste repository. Electricity consumers have paid more than $15 billion into the nuclear waste fund that Congress established in 1982 expressly to pay for federal management and disposal of used fuel produced in generating power. Part of the problem is that about $10 billion of that money has been used by Congress to help balance the federal budget. Nebraska consumers alone have paid $272 million into the fund since 1983, as well as additional fees for continuing on-site storage of spent fuel at the Cooper and Fort Calhoun nuclear plants. Under current law, the government must have the repository ready to accept spent fuel by 2010, but the DOE has already missed a deadline to take possession of the spent fuel no later than Jan. 1, 1998. Clearly, the timetable is unrealistic because of delays in the waste program. No meaningful progress in resolving the waste problem will be made unless political leaders in Washington come to grips with the issue. What is essential is to recognize that within certain limits, honest and informed people may disagree. Once this is recognized, they can develop a sense of these limits and a general feeling for what is true and what is not. The solution, if there is one, will not come about in a partisan atmosphere. Both the fiat of the Senate majority leader (that the new Democrat-controlled Senate will never approve building a waste repository at Yucca Mountain) and the ranting of Nevada politicians (particularly the No. 2 man in the Senate) trying to alarm people about the dangers of shipping spent fuel need to stop. Over the years, steel canisters holding spent fuel have been shipped routinely around the country by truck and railroad, without accidents that resulted in the release of any radiation. Government policy-makers who want to store the waste at Yucca Mountain should avoid advocating a static "best policy" but instead should think in terms of a continuous policy process in which there are opportunities to periodically reassess responses in light of new findings and information. It has been suggested that a repository be designed to last 1,000 years or less instead of the current requirement of 10,000 years, which is twice recorded civilization. The benefit would provide room for adjustment so that future options are not foreclosed if scientific projections about the site turn out to be incorrect or the government decides to recycle the spent fuel now classified as nuclear waste. The spent fuel contains valuable plutonium and uranium, which can be extracted and then used to produce more electricity, as is now being done in France and Great Britain. The reprocessing of spent fuel would substantially reduce the volume and toxicity of nuclear waste. Those who oppose such reprocessing have sought to link it with the ambition to produce nuclear weapons. But there is no country where fissionable material from nuclear power plants has been used for weapons production. The fact of the matter is, there are many countries with extensive nuclear power installations - Japan and much of Europe - which have no nuclear weapons and no apparent ambitions to produce them. The great advantage of nuclear power is its ability to wrest enormous energy from a small amount of fuel. A conventional, 1,000-megawatt nuclear power plant needs about one ton of fuel a year; a coal-fired power plant needs 50 tons of coal each day. A nuclear plant also produces a relatively small amount of waste in the form of spent fuel - about 20 cubic meters in all each year when compacted (roughly the volume of two automobiles). And more than 80 percent of it is low- and middle-level waste that can be shipped easily to facilities licensed for burial of such waste. Scientists and engineers can argue about the wisdom of placing valuable spent fuel in a waste repository. But there is widespread agreement that spent fuel can be stored safely deep underground. By the end of this year, the DOE needs to make a clear-cut decision about the suitability of Yucca Mountain based on the results of scientific studies at the site. The present unsettled situation simply delays the decision to the point where events will decide things for us. WHAT OTHERS HAVE SAID... This editorial is absolutely on target. We... - Thank you. Actually, the delays over the Yucca site... - Simplistic View from J P Buda ©2001 Omaha World-Herald Company. All rights reserved. Copyright | Terms ***************************************************************** 19 French nuclear plant in spotlight after leukaemia study ABC News - 28/06/01 : A major French nuclear waste reprocessing plant was embroiled in controversy Wednesday after a study said children living nearby may face a higher risk of contracting leukaemia. The research looked at incidence of cancer in the district of Beaumont-Hague on the Normandy coast among a population living within 35 kilometers of the La Hague processing plant. The data applied to people aged under 25 and derived from the period from 1978 to 1998. The total number of cancer cases within the 35-km range was 38, which is comparable to the rest of France, the researchers, led by Alfred Spira of the French medical research institute INSERM, said. But the rate was much higher among people living within 10 km of the plant. There were five cases among the under-25s, compared with a national average of 2.3, while among children aged five to nine there were three cases compared with an average of 0.47. "This study indicates an increasing incidence of leukaemia in the area situated at less than 10 km from the plant," the scientists wrote in the July issue of the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, published by the British Medical Association (BMA). "Monitoring and further investigations should be targeted at acute lymphoblastic leukaemia occurring during the childhood incidence peak (before 10 years) in children living near the La Hague site and maybe other nuclear reprocessing plants." Two other sites, Flamanville nuclear power station and the Cherbourg military arsenal, where submarine-based nuclear weapons are believed to be stored, are located nearby but were not in the district studied. © 2000 Australian Broadcasting Corporation ***************************************************************** 20 France finalises nuclear industry revamp [Reuters] Wednesday June 27, 3:10 pm Eastern Time (UPDATE: Recasts with CEA statement, details and background) PARIS, June 27 (Reuters) - France's nuclear companies on Wednesday finalised a restructuring to simplify the industry structure and group the country's nuclear power and new technology interests in a single holding company. The boards of state atomic energy division CEA-Industrie, nuclear fuels company Cogema and nuclear engineering firm Framatome met on Wednesday and agreed the terms to form the new company, provisionally called Topco, CEA said in a statement. France's nuclear power and technology activities are currently linked together by a web of cross holdings with CEA at the top of the cascade. After the restructuring, unveiled in November last year, Topco will include Cogema, Framatome, France's 11 percent stake in chipmaker STMicroelectronics and Framatome's new technology unit Framatome Connectors International (FCI). The terms agreed on Wednesday will be put to shareholders of the various companies on September 3. As a first step, French energy giant TotalFinaElf will sell five-sixths of a 14.5 percent stake in Cogema to state firm CEA. TotalFinaElf's remaining Cogema shares will represent about one percent of Topco once it is formed. Cogema and Framatome will then bring their assets under Topco's umbrella and the CEA will issue 6,028,391 new shares to their minority shareholders. On completion, CEA will have a 78.96 percent of Topco, the state will hold 5.19 percent, minority Cogema shareholders, such as TotalFinaElf and bank Caisse des Depots et Consignations, will have 5.59 percent and Framatome shareholders, including EDF and Alcatel , will hold 6.23 percent. When France announced the restructuring last year it said it hoped to list Topco on the Paris stock market by the end of 2001. The goal is eventually to have about 30 percent of the company in public hands. Alcatel and EDF are also expected to sell their stakes at some stage. Siemens , which has a 34 percent stake in Framatome after the merger of their nuclear engineering activities, will keep its stake separate from the new holding. France has also said it plans to list at some stage 40 percent of FCI, which specialises in connectors, with the remaining 60 percent to be held by Topco. Copyright © 2001 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved. Privacy ***************************************************************** 21 Letter to the editor: Yucca [tahoe.com] VIEWS Thursday, June 28, 2001 SHIRLEY SWAFFORD, Carson City About four years ago, one of our state senators asked me what I was so afraid of when we were discussing the subject of Yucca Mountain. Should I have mentioned the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board and the uncertainties referred to in many of their presentations to the Department of Energy, beginning with the board's first report dated March 1990? All the lies that began with the Manhattan project, the development of nuclear power and the Atomic Energy Commission's part in all those lies, when we were led to believe there was absolutely no danger to the public from atom bombs, should I have mentioned the serious problems with changing of the guidelines, the radiation exposure, or the transportation and the lack of proper security? The DOE continues to lie to us in their desperation, after spending billions of dollars, to convince Congress and the nation that Yucca Mountain will be a safe place to store the nuclear waste. Have all the uncertainties suddenly disappeared? For example, the question has arisen, are we going to use a "hot design" or a "cold design," depending on the volcanic rock and the system of engineered barriers? It's unfortunate we can't look into the future to determine which design we should have used. From what I understand, during underground testing, nuclear waste accumulated and over a period of time radioactive material will escape into the ground water and into the atmosphere. Think of it, there were 714 underground atomic bomb tests at the Nevada Test Site. Today underground testing continues and I wonder whether there is a scientist or geologist who would truthfully tell us there is no contamination either to the ground water or to the environment at this site. With the possibility of 77,000 tons of nuclear hazardous waste stored in a repository near this contaminated area, that's quite a legacy to leave for the next generation. About tahoe.com ***************************************************************** 22 House panel debates US nuclear plant liability law Wednesday June 27, 5:52 pm Eastern Time (UPDATE: Adds details of hearing, comments from FERC chairman) By Chris Baltimore WASHINGTON, June 27 (Reuters) - U.S. House lawmakers were at odds on Wednesday over the speed of renewing an insurance liability law that the U.S. nuclear power industry says is crucial before any new nuclear power plants can be built. The Bush administration's national energy plan emphasizes nuclear power as a key energy source for the future, which has been criticized by environmental groups and some Democrats. A House of Representatives Energy subcommittee hearing on nuclear power plants and hydroelectric dams was dominated by discussion of the Price-Anderson Act, to expire August 2002. The law obligates the federal government to accept insurance liability to shield U.S. nuclear power plant owners from up to $9.4 billion in liability in the event of an accident. Rep. Joe Barton, the Texas Republican who heads the subcommittee, pledged to reauthorize the law ``well in advance of its expiration.'' That action would be ``one of the most important signals Congress can send to people thinking about increasing nuclear capacity,'' Barton said. The reauthorization is a pressing matter because the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is expected to receive more applications from utilities to renew existing licenses for nuclear plants. A fast-track approach to the law might be needed, Barton said. But Michigan Rep. John Dingell, the ranking Democrat on the full House Energy and Commerce Committee, said lawmakers must take their time and analyze the impact of reauthorizing the Price-Anderson Act. ``To move fast may be to move poorly,'' Dingell said, calling for further study of the issue before the committee signs off on the bill. ``I don't think Congress should act on Price Anderson...without thoughtful consideration,'' he said. REGULATORS BACK PRICE-ANDERSON Key regulatory agencies have already backed a renewal of the insurance liability law. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission ``strongly and unanimously recommends the act's reauthorization,'' Richard Meserve, chairman of the agency, told the panel. William Magwood, director of the Energy Department's office of nuclear energy, said the department supported reauthorizing the act ``without any substantial changes.'' The department also recommended holding liability limits at the present $9.4 billion level, he said. Congress passed the Price-Anderson Act in 1957 as an amendment to the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, which opened the door for U.S. nuclear plant construction. No nuclear plants have been built in the United States since the 1979 accident at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island plant, where the failure of the plant's water cooling system led to the partial melting of a reactor's uranium core. Nuclear power currently produces about 20 percent of all U.S. electricity. The Bush administration has touted nuclear power as a clean form of energy that is not dependent on foreign oil. Environmental groups complain the government has yet to figure out a safe way to store nuclear waste for thousands of years. According to NRC's Meserve, the country has turned a corner in its perception of nuclear energy, which enjoys more public support. ``A lot of people have gotten past some of the issues. I think Wall Street has gotten past those issues,'' he said. Exelon Nuclear's (NYSE:EXC - news) chief operating officer Jack Skolds, whose company operates nuclear power plants, told the panel the current nuclear regulatory environment is ``obsolete.'' He said the Price-Anderson Act should allow smaller, ``merchant-size'' nuclear plants to shoulder less insurance liability than larger plant operators. DEMOCRATS VOICE ENVIRO CONCERNS Separately, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission chairman Curtis Hebert appeared before the subcommittee to discuss ways to streamline the process for relicensing hydroelectric dams. Hebert acknowledged that its process for hydropower licensing is ``often long and too costly,'' and agreed to cooperate with Congress to improve procedures. Democratic lawmakers Dingell and Virginia's Rick Boucher accused FERC of giving short shrift to laws like the Clean Water Act in permitting hydroelectric dams. The nation's rivers are ``the property of all,'' not ``luxury swimclubs to be run by FERC for the benefit of our nation's electric utilities,'' Dingell said. Hydro industry officials were critical of a statute that allows the FERC to give equal consideration to environmental and industry interests in permitting new dams. FERC ``doesn't have to consider if the environmental measures it orders are economical,'' said David Tuft, spokesman for the National Hydropower Association, which represents about two-thirds of U.S. private hydropower operators About 40 percent of the nation's 100,000 megawatts of hydro capacity is licensed, while the rest is federally operated. Half of all privately licensed hydropower capacity will come before FERC for relicensing by 2016. Copyright © 2001 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved. Privacy ***************************************************************** 23 BNFL Warns Of Energy Crisis Headline news from Sky News - Witness the event Britain could suffer an energy crisis similar to the shortage in the US which causes daily blackouts in California, British Nucelar Fuel Ltd told Sky News Online's Tim Webb. Closing down A spokesman for the company said the Government needed to decide how it was going to replace its nuclear plants which are nearing their shelf life. If action is not taken soon, he warned: "Some time in the future, someone will switch on a light and it won't come on." BNFL, which is regulated by the Government, provides a quarter of the country's energy. The company currently runs seven older Magnox power stations which are nearing their 30-50 year shelf life after which it was agreed with the Government they would be shut down. Complacent The last is set to close in 2016. BNFL said they would be able to produce just three per cent of the nation's energy if the Government does not approve its new generation of power stations. Earlier this week the Government ordered a widespread energy review which will be published by the end of the year. The Department of Trade and Industry explained the thinking behind the review: "We have diverse sources of supply..however we must not be complacent. "In future we expect to become increasingly dependent on imports of fuel and particularly gas which could eventually become a dominant source of our supplies." Out of action BNFL was announcing pre-tax losses before exceptional items of £210m for the year. It compares to profits of £74m for the previous year. It blamed the losses on its Wylfa plant, which provides 40 per cent of the group's UK energy output, which was out of action for most of the year. © 2001 BSkyB | Privacy Statement | Terms and Conditions | UK | ***************************************************************** 24 BNFL welcome in Washington Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Jane Martinson in New York Thursday June 28, 2001 The Guardian When the Georgetown area of Washington DC suffered a power cut during particularly hot weather two weeks ago, it made one man very happy. The inability to use air conditioners could not have come at a better time for Hugh Collum, the chairman of British Nuclear Fuels, in town to press the US government to consider BNFL as the answer to its energy needs. In the face of a difficult home market BNFL has great hopes for the US. An energy bill proposed by the US administration and championed by Dick Cheney, the vice-president, could lead to the first nuclear power plants being built in the US for more than 30 years. Even without the go-ahead for new plants, the US nuclear clean-up market alone has been estimated at some $300bn (£217bn) by the Department of Energy. The supply-side cause has been helped by power shortages in California and the rising price of oil. US taxpayers have shown some signs of forgetting the horrors of the 1979 nuclear accident at Three Mile Island and the Chernobyl catastrophe. "The best news for us at BNFL is that the lights went out in California," Mr Collum said. "Once the quality of life gets interrupted, people consider more nuclear." Even better than the power cuts bedevilling US citizens, Mr Collum was summoned to the White House to meet Mr Cheney and Andrew Lundquist, head of the US government's energy taskforce, during his Washington visit. The closed-door meeting marks what BNFL hopes will be a renaissance for the company after a traumatic two years. As a company insider said in Washington: "Two years ago, we couldn't get a meeting in this town. Now Hugh is in seeing the vice-president." Although a coup, the meeting is the first step in what is likely to be a long and arduous process complicated by BNFL's chequered history. Two years ago, just as BNFL was being buffeted by the scandal over data falsification at Sellafield, it had to pull out of a military clean-up operation in the US because of auditing mistakes. The company had just bought Westinghouse Electric, the largest designer of nuclear reactors in the US. BNFL's reputation was damaged among its two main sources of income - the government and utilities. In the past year, BNFL has changed its Westinghouse management in a bid to convince the US Department of Energy (DoE) that it has cleaned up its act. Mr Collum and other senior executives have made several trips to the US to meet with senior officials and politicians. The Cheney meeting, and feedback from DoE officials, has helped convince them that they are on the right track. This is a heady time for the nuclear industry. The proposed energy bill envisages the need for up to 1,900 new power plants over the next 20 years, more than one a week. The Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry group, expects the sector's share of electricity production to rise from 19.8 per cent in 2000 to 23.1 per cent in 2020. Mr Collum is simply pleased that prospects look so good around the world. "The US and Europe are going through the same problems," he says. "The timing is brilliant." Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2001 ***************************************************************** 25 Joint Press Release EPA Lawsuit Citizen Action Coalition of Indiana - Citizen Alert Natural Resources Defense Council - Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force Nuclear Information and Resource Service - Public Citizen June 27, 2001 Citizens’ Groups Challenge EPA Rule for Proposed Yucca Mountain Nuclear Dump New Radiation Protection Standard Threatens Public Health and Safety WASHINGTON, D.C. - - A coalition of national and Nevada-based environmental, consumer advocacy, and public interest groups filed a lawsuit today, challenging the weakest aspects of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) rule that establishes radiation protection standards for the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. "A stringent standard is vital to protect public health and safety in the vicinity of the proposed repository," said Lisa Gue, policy analyst with Public Citizen. "The EPA’s rule affords inadequate protection to the people of Nevada and steers national nuclear waste policy in a dangerous direction." Yucca Mountain is the only site under consideration by the Department of Energy (DOE) as a potential repository for high-level nuclear waste from weapons facilities and commercial nuclear power plants across the country. The EPA’s radiation protection rule, published in the Federal Register on June 13, sets the standards by which the site’s suitability will be determined. "This undermines the purpose of radiation protection standards, by presuming that a repository at Yucca Mountain will not contain nuclear waste throughout the thousands of years it remains dangerous.," said John Hadder, northern Nevada coordinator with Citizen Alert. "Exposure limits are built around expected levels of radioactive contamination leaking from the dump, thus establishing a regulatory framework for legalized nuclear pollution in Nevada." Of particular concern is the 18-km (12-mile) unregulated sacrifice zone around the proposed repository that the EPA rule employs to circumvent legal requirements under the Safe Drinking Water Act. This gerrymandering weakens the effect of the standards by allowing DOE repository designs to rely on dilution and dispersion – rather than containment – of radioactive waste, the groups said. "We have advocated a protective standard at all stages of the process leading up to this rule being finalized. We are now bringing this issue before the courts because our concerns have not been addressed," said David Adelman, senior attorney with Natural Resources Defense Council. "We cannot accept a rule that sets artificially weak standards to allow a fundamentally flawed project to move forward." The petition for review was filed in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, by Citizen Action Coalition of Indiana, Citizen Alert, Natural Resources Defense Council, Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force, Nevada Desert Experience, Nuclear Information and Resource Service, and Public Citizen. Critical Mass Home ***************************************************************** 26 Study to probe effects of Maine Yankee radiation Jun 28, 2001 "Serving Maine and Lincoln County for Over a Century" Vol. 126-No. 26 Greg Foster Friends of the Coast has announced that the organization, which opposes nuclear pollution, is planning to conduct a $50-300,000 comprehensive health study of the population in the area of the Maine Yankee nuclear power plant in Wiscasset. The news came at a Community Advisory Panel meeting June 21, at which Ray Shadis, Friends of the Coast representative on the CAP, told the other members the reason for the study are numerous anecdotal accounts of area residents' illnesses and birth defects they believe are in excess. There are questions on the origin of the illnesses and whether or not they are attributable to emissions from Maine Yankee. The Maine Cancer Registry and other official reports rank Lincoln County above average in the number of certain types of cancer, according to Shadis. "We intend to build on existing data and see what other kinds of statistics are available," he said. He mentioned a study which the Connecticut Academy of Science did in the vicinity of the Haddam, Conn. plant. Although they found no noticeable increases in cancer and concluded studies elsewhere were unnecessary as a result, Shadis argued it depends on a survey of previous studies. "It is not free of vulnerability or criticism." Shadis said that his organization is currently consulting with health study and biological research experts on the best way to proceed. Besides building on exiting data as one option, Friends of the Coast may conduct a direct epidemiological survey, which will involve gathering raw health data from people, health facilities and public records in the Maine Yankee area and comparing it to data gathered similarly in other areas, according to Shadis. The survey will also entail a third approach with a physical assay of people to determine if there is any radiation damage at the individual cell level, Shadis said. Although Shadis said that the group intends to push for Maine Cancer Registry statistics beyond 1974. CAP member Paula Craighead of the state Office of Nuclear Safety said there are statistics available through 1996. Craighead said lack of funding has slowed the process for gathering statistics beyond that time. "There is a process to go about getting the information," she said. "Let's work on that again." Panelist Dan Thompson of Wiscasset said that the research would be of general interest. "I have one word of caution, though. We live in a strange part of the world, since we have radon pouring out of the ground more than any other part of the country," he said. Another panelist, Dr. Paul Crary, M.D. of Boothbay, stated his own feelings about he study. "There are a number of variables that have to be sorted out," he said. "You are going to have to find criteria that is practically fool proof. You may not know for a couple hundred years from now what effect there is on the gene pool." Crary said it will require much energy, time, money and expertise to get the job done. Shadis told the panel that Friends of the Coast has already been working on the survey with the full intention of going ahead with it. He also said, "I'm not a biologist and not even a botanist. I'm concentrating on the fundraising." Lincoln County News Lincoln County News PO Box 36, Damariscotta, ME 04543 Tel: 207.563.3171 http://lcnews.maine.com/2001-06-28/radiation_effects_studied.html ***************************************************************** 27 Storage facility security probed at Maine Yankee Jun 28, 2001 "Serving Maine and Lincoln County for Over a Century" Vol. 126-No. 26 Greg Foster Issues about security plans at the Maine Yankee spent fuel storage facility under construction surfaced last week as Community Advisory Panel members questioned their adequacy and level of public confidence in them. A consensus, including a state nuclear safety office advisor, agreed a major problem is the lack of information and even misinformation, which they fear could affect planned reuse of the Maine Yankee site. "The myth of the four-eyed is very much the perception of people around here," panelist Ralph Keyes, high school science teacher, said after viewing a college student's video depicting a local perspective on the arrival of Maine Yankee to the area 30 years ago. Panel member Ray Shadis of Friends of the Coast brought the film to the CAP meeting as an example of the suspicions people have because of past dealings with Maine Yankee. Panelist Don Hudson of the Chewonki Foundation said his observation of public perception reveals there needs to be a lot more public confidence in reuse of the site for light industry and other potential commercial uses. "Particularly businessmen are very, very wary and very cautious about the assumed liability." Decommissioning executive Mike Meisner told panelists that various law enforcement officials throughout the state visited the site, and examined security plans for their adequacy. However, that was not enough for panelist Paula Craighead, state Office of Nuclear Safety advisor, who questions the presence of the spent fuel site in the first place, nor Friends of the Coast on the panel who challenged the current plans, as well as others who said they want to see a greater public understanding of the situation. "Friends of the Coast welcomes input," Shadis said. Shadis called for armed guards on the same scale of the Maine Yankee plant itself. All such facilities are supposed to have security programs in place, according to Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) rulings. An NRC report on nuclear plant security states: "The NRC reviews this storage to assure the spent fuel is adequately protected and presents no significant hazard to public health and safety." Security measures the NRC outlines included physical requirements,integrated systems approach, detection systems, delaying tactics, assessment systems, communications and response systems, security force training and qualifications, access control, reliability of personnel, periodic testing and contingency planning. Radioactive waste and spent fuel is scheduled for transfer from the spent fuel pool to the Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation once construction is complete in late August, pending an NRC observed dry run earlier the same month. Friends of the Coast had written a letter to the CAP in February stating its objections to the security plan. "This letter is to advise of our members' deep concern over the planned movement of high level nuclear fuel waste to dry cask storage with what we and many in the midcoast area perceive as inadequate Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation security," the letter read. The letter, which CAP members mentioned last week, called for a public forum on the matter. Representing the state's position, Craighead said the current plan fails to address the area of transportation and that the state desires to see the waste moved from Maine. "There are two types of safety modes, physical and psychological and ethical considerations about which we have to communicate responsibly," she said. "There is the absence of the piece as to what happens if it (waste material) moves. The state will continue to have problems with it as long as the movement of material is not included in it." Furthermore, Craighead this week questioned whether someone with a gun is the only answer, questioning whether they would have the necessary expertise. She strongly advocates security personnel who are equipped to handle various scenarios of threats to security. Referring to a March letter five New England governors, excluding Rhode Island, wrote to the U.S. Secretary of Energy demanding prompt action on the issue of disposition, she said the state objects to having the so-called temporary storage facility here in the first place. "The state intends to find out why the federal government feels this is the place to have spent fuel," Craighead said. She mentioned that several sites to which fuel goes that comes from foreign countries which have made an agreement to send their spent fuel to this country in exchange for technology related to nuclear plant operations. "In the short term Maine Yankee is doing the responsible thing," she said. However, she said that the federal government has yet to license the transportable dry storage casks, which Maine Yankee has purchased for the spent fuel and greater than class C level radio-active waste. The transportable kind, in contrast to the permanent type, represents an increased expense and has to meet rigid testing requirements, according to Maine Yankee spokesmen. Craighead also pointed this week to the future possibility of shipping spent fuel to the three companies which are currently experimenting with the use of an accelerator, instead of a generator, to produce electricity. It would change the half-life of the radioactive material to about 300 years instead of thousands, she said. Because of the continued delays putting off the deadline for a proposed federal disposal site at Yucca Mountain, Utah, to 2020 or beyond, the state officials fear that the federal government might just eventually try to leave the storage facilities where they are scattered, throughout the country and in Wiscasset. The governors present three principles they consider key. One of them concerns the security issue specifically. "Spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste should be stored where there is a comprehensive security infrastructure instead of at isolated sites that have no other security requirements. Federally protected sites like those currently used for foreign reactor and military spent fuel should be made available immediately to accept spent nuclear fuel, greater than class C and high-level waster from decommissioning nuclear power plants." Anti-nuclear proliferation activists desire to see such facilities as the Wiscasset one stay so they can point to decommissioned plants with storage facilities like Maine Yankee, according to Craighead. "Then they can say this what happens if you have a nuclear power plant," she said. "That was the strategy 20 years ago but is no longer valid," she said. She explained that most countries now have plenty of means of acquiring the necessary nuclear material. Craighead spoke of her feeling that all elements including the state, activists like Friends of the Coast and other parties need to reach an agreement that is viable concerning security issues surrounding the storage facility. Shadis indicated he would not be satisfied with security arrangements until there are armed guards stationed at the facility to protect it from potential terrorism. He leveled a complaint that the federal government has armed guards at the NRC headquarters in Rockville, Md. to protect the offices there, but it will not have armed guards here in a potentially dangerous situation. "I fault them on an everyday basis," he said. The CAP debated in what type of arena the subject should be addressed in a discussion about a response to the Friends of the Coast's February letter. One of the panelists, Dan Thompson of Wiscasset, voiced his opinion that the CAP itself is a forum. "We have acted as a forum in the past for a number of issues and have addressed this issue on a number of occasions," he said. "The letter raises the issue to the level of serious alarm. I, for one, would like to have it on the agenda as a matter of future action and to review it from time to time. Everyone is concerned about what is safe and what is unsafe." Hudson stated his feeling the letter needs a response from the CAP. "We can at least draft a letter so that we shine as brighter lights," Hudson said. Panelist Steve Jarrett disagreed that the CAP is the place to debate security presently. "I feel it is premature. We are not prepared to debate." He suggested instead the formation of a committee to gather information as a basis for discussion. Editor@LCNews.Maine.Com Lincoln County News PO Box 36, Damariscotta, ME 04543 Tel: 207.563.3171 http://lcnews.maine.com/2001-06-28/storage.html rev 2001-06-28 ***************************************************************** 28 Nuclear Energy Remains Full of Risks PMA OnLine ( June 27, 2001 ) The Detroit News has been a cheerleader for the nuclear industry for decades. Still, it was difficult to stomach James Higgins' "Fermi shows off nuclear power" (June 6). Higgins indirectly maligned nuclear opponents as ill-informed -- as if we don't understand that what emerges from cooling towers is water vapor, and that radiation levels are usually very low. He also perpetuated the myth (invented by the Nuclear Energy Institute in Washington) that fission power doesn't emit greenhouse gases. Like most nuclear myths, there's a kernel of truth in their multimillion-dollar ad campaigns. It's true that nuclear plants don't have smokestacks contributing to the greenhouse effect. What's conveniently forgotten is that the rest of the fuel cycle (mining, milling, fuel fabrication, enrichment, waste transport) is an enormous consumer of fossil fuels. Let Higgins compare THAT to his scapegoat Greenpeace Zodiac outboard motor. The "amazing safeguards" touted by the columnist should be contrasted with an examination of Fermi's containment structure. The Mark I design has been identified by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission with a 90-percent probability of failure during an overpressurization accident. A jury-rigged venting system was added to release radioactivity to save the containment. In 1979, Three Mile Island took us to the brink of catastrophe. How close? The Kemeny Commission, an NRC-appointed investigation of what happened, concluded the reactor came within a single hour of irreversible meltdown. It still melted partially, and the first 16 hours of radiation monitoring were lost. The NRC told Congress in 1985 that the "crude statistical probability" of another major accident in the United States is 45 percent over 20 years given 100 reactors operating. Twenty-two years after Three Mile Island, we operate 103 reactors. Our time may soon be up. Where to put nuclear waste? Everyone agrees that geological stability is indispensable for any repository. Yet, incredibly, Yucca Mountain, Nev. is in a certifiable, recurring earthquake zone. Flowing water plus seismic activity plus 40,000 metric tons or more of the most radioactive material on the planet could equal big trouble someday. And don't forget the huge question of national transport of these wastes. Even though I, too, once stood inside a Fermi cooling tower and got a tour, I was there with a nuclear physicist opposed to nuclear power. And I don't share Higgins' enthusiasm for a nuclear plant completed 2,000 percent over budget and 20 years late. Keith Gunter Nuclear-Free Great Lakes Campaign Clinton Township www.powermarketers.com ***************************************************************** 29 Nuclear industry calls for rules change to accommodate new designs Oil & Gas Journal Online June 25 - July 6 Oil & Gas Journal Exchange is conducting our next Internet First Offering. To access information and data for the lots in this auction, Click Here. By the OGJ Online Staff HOUSTON, June 27  Nuclear industry representatives Wednesday called for new regulations to address licensing of the next generation of nuclear technology and for permanent renewal of a controversial government authorized nuclear insurance program. Witnesses testifying before the Energy and Air Quality Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee also expressed concern more than 50% of the nuclear fuel being used in US nuclear plants is imported, much of it from Russia. They also questioned the Department of Energy's delays in designating a nuclear waste repository. Testifying before the subcommittee, Marvin Fertel, senior vice-president, operations, for the Nuclear Energy Institute, said he expected all operating US nuclear plant will seek renewal of their licenses, noting the plants have added the equivalent of 22,000 Mw through more efficient operation in recent years. And Fertel said he expected the industry will seek to add about 50,000 Mw of new capacity between now and 2020. The NRC has certified three new plant designs and is reviewing more, he said. He called for changes to tax laws to allow quicker depreciation and for reauthorization of the Price-Anderson Act set to expire next year. The law established the system under which nuclear plants are insured. Industry executives said the law was written to cover plants of 1,000 Mw or more and should be amended to cut premiums to reflect the smaller size of new designs. Linked to together in modules of 100 Mw each, operators should not have to pay the $200 million/unit that would be required under current law, they said. The nuclear power industry is expected to be insured per incident to a maximum of $9.43 billion, including maximum available primary insurance coverage of $200 million plus maximum available secondary insurance of $9.23 billion. To account for inflation, representatives of the insurance industry asked the committee to raise the primary premium to $300 million. Jack Skolds, president of Exelon Nuclear, a unit of Exelon Corp., called for changes to decommissioning fund requirements and smaller safety planning zones to reflect the fact new plants will serve the merchant market and the units will be smaller than existing nuclear facilities. Without regulatory changes, including lower applicant review charges, new technology such as pebble bed reactors will be uneconomic, Skold said. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Richard Meserve said the NRC is currently "grappling" with the question of whether new technology requires new rules and, if so, whether the rules will require legislation or can be put in place administratively. In the case of helium-cooled reactors, Meserve said the agency would need "to make changes to the regulatory system that would be the counterpart to light water reactors. We are looking at that now." Noting concerns that 25% of the agency's technical staff is eligible for retirement, Merserve said the NRC is reviewing skills needed to fill the gap as its workload increases. "I think there will be challenges to the NRC, DOE [Department of Energy], and industry," he said. ***************************************************************** 30 NRC Seeks Comments on Preliminary Assessment of Nuclear Industry Consolidation on Agency's Regulatory Oversight Press Release 2001 - 075 - U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public AffairsTelephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 20555-001E-mail: opa@nrc.gov Web Site: http://www.nrc.gov/OPA No. 01-076June 27, 2001 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is seeking members of the public who use the agency's Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS) to join a user group. It will provide participants with an opportunity to learn more about current and future plans for the system, as well as to discuss related public support programs and functional enhancements for the public access version of ADAMS. The user group will be formed on July 18 at a meeting at NRC headquarters in Rockville, Maryland, from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Although a firm schedule has not been set, the group is expected to meet about four times a year. For those who cannot attend the group's initial meeting, the NRC is making arrangements for those interested to submit questions in advance as well as to obtain information about the proceedings via e-mail. The NRC also will have a toll-free telephone bridge so members of the user group can dial into meetings they cannot attend. The telephone bridge will accommodate 20 to 30 callers on a first-come, first-serve basis. For more information on joining the ADAMS user group, please contact Thomas Smith at 301-415-7204, or toll-free at 1-800-368-5642, e-mail aug@nrc.gov . Further instructions will be sent to those who wish to participate by e-mail or telephone. ***************************************************************** 31 Plant problems hit BNFL profits by Robert Lea, Evening Standard Today in Business BRITISH Nuclear Fuels racked up losses of £210m last year after its main generating plant was left redundant and problems at its controversial Thorp and Magnox reprocessing plants halved volumes there. Despite the loss in the year to 31 March, against an underlying profit of £74m the previous time, chairman Hugh Collum said: 'With the longer-term picture for the global nuclear industry brightening, the future of the business is encouraging.' While BNFL says it has no intention, as it currently does in Britain, of owning and operating any plant constructed in the future, he said there would be good opportunities for it to sell its capabilities in design, servicing and ultimately decommissioning of reactors, in fuel manufacture and in dealing with spent fuel. Collum said BNFL last year lost £100m from its Wylfa station in Wales being out of action while technical difficulties at the Thorp and Magnox plants cost £160m. © Associated Newspapers Ltd., 28 June 2001 ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 Washington Group Awarded $200 Million Contract Extension Wednesday June 27, 1:48 pm Eastern Time Press Release BOISE, Idaho--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 27, 2001--Washington Group International, Inc. announced today it received a three-year extension to continue hazardous waste, environmental and remediation services for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Tulsa District under its Total Environmental Restoration Contract (TERC). The contract has $200 million in capacity remaining. ``The extension of this contract validates Washington Group's past successes with the Corps of Engineers, and shows confidence in our abilities to continue to support the Corps,'' said Stephen G. Hanks, President and Chief Executive Officer for Washington Group. ``We look forward to continuing this productive relationship.'' ``The TERC contract, along with several other contracts recently awarded to Washington Group, further underscores our commitment to operational excellence and adds to our momentum in the marketplace,'' Hanks added. Under terms of the contract, Washington Group will continue to perform services for the Corps of Engineers Tulsa District, which administers this Southwest Division Regional contract. Washington Group will provide engineering and construction services for the Little Rock Air Force Base in Little Rock, Ark., the Popile Superfund Site in El Dorado, Ark., the Pine Bluff Arsenal, Pine Bluff, Ark., the Inner Harbor Navigation Canal in New Orleans, La., and the Clinton-Sherman Industrial Airpark in Burns Flat, Okla. Washington Group's remediation services for Tulsa TERC have included site investigations and sample analysis for soil and groundwater contamination, feasibility studies to evaluate remedial alternatives, removal of lead-contaminated soil from residential properties, underground storage tank removal, asbestos removal and building demolition, stabilization of lead-contaminated soil, hazardous waste remediation, as well as management and related construction support activities. The Tulsa TERC is a 10-year turn-key environmental and hazardous waste services contract originally awarded to Washington Group in August 1994. The contract's purpose is to provide hazardous waste and environmental remediation services to the Corps of Engineers and other federal and state agencies within the states of Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, and New Mexico. Washington Group International, Inc. is a leading international engineering and construction firm with more than 35,000 employees at work in 43 states and more than 35 countries. The company offers a full life-cycle of services as a preferred provider of premier science, engineering, construction, program management, and development in 14 major markets. Markets Served Energy, environmental, government, heavy-civil, infrastructure and mining, nuclear-services, operations and maintenance, petroleum and chemicals, industrial process, pulp and paper, telecommunications, transportation, and water-resources. This news release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, which are identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as may, will, could, should, expect, anticipate, intend, plan, estimate, or continue or the negative thereof or other variations thereof. Forward-looking statements are necessarily based on various assumptions and estimates and are inherently subject to various risks and uncertainties, including risks and uncertainties relating to the possible invalidity of the underlying assumptions and estimates, and possible changes or developments in social, economic, business industry, market, legal, and regulatory circumstances and conditions and other actions taken or omitted to be taken by third parties, including the corporation's customers, suppliers, business partners, and competitors and legislative, regulatory, judicial, and other governmental authorities and officials. Contact: Washington Group International, Inc. Katrina Puett, 208/386-5255 Copyright © 2001 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved. Privacy ***************************************************************** 2 A half-century at Hanford Chemical engineer marks 50 years on job This story was published Tue, Jun 26, 2001 By John Stang Herald staff writer Y. Bruce Katayama has put in his time at Hanford and then some. But he's not ready to quit. The 71-year-old chemical engineer celebrated his 50th year at Hanford last week with 125 co-workers in the 300 Area. "Thank you, Bruce, for all you've done for your country," Keith Klein, the Department of Energy's Hanford manager, told him. Katayama's boss, Mal Wright, told the crowd: "Bruce has been working here for 50 years. But we expect him here tomorrow. This is not a retirement party." Katayama agreed. Retirement is years from now, whenever he can no longer move about. "My wife (Catherine) is what keeps me young. I'm 17 years older than she is. She keeps me 17 years younger," said Katayama, who has a few tiny streaks of gray well hidden in his jet black hair. His work still fascinates him, and he voluntarily puts in extra hours to calculate and tinker. Today, Katayama works at Hanford's 324 Building, providing much of the brainwork to clean out the building's labs and hot cells -- huge chambers where radioactive fuel and other materials were handled by remote control -- that he helped design four decades ago. "I feel a little bit of ownership" about Building 324, he said. It's difficult to say if any other person has worked 50 years full time at Hanford. There are unconfirmed memories that one or two technicians might have reached the 50-year mark. Those same stories don't say if those technicians worked full time for that long. Fluor Hanford, Katayama's current employer, confirmed he is the first engineer to work 50 years full time at the site. Yeichi Katayama was born in Seattle, the youngest of a Japanese American couple's two daughters and four sons. His father didn't encourage his sons to go to college, instead believing strongly that each eventually should go into business for himself. When Katayama was 11, his father died, and the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Then the U.S. government shipped everyone of Japanese descent from the West Coast into internment camps. Katayama lived with his family at a camp in Idaho, then moved in with a married sister at another camp in Spokane. Meanwhile, his three older brothers served in the American military during World War II. Young Katayama missed most of the seventh and eighth grades while in the internment camps. He knew the experience was painful to his mother and other adults. But Katayama was too young to feel the same emotional impact. "It was weird more than frustrating," he said. After the war, he went on to high school, earning mediocre grades. He was good at math and chemistry but terrible at physics and English. It wasn't until his senior year in high school that Katayama decided to go to college -- mostly because he couldn't figure out what sort of job he wanted. Although college officials discouraged him because of his low grades, he took the entrance exam for the University of Washington and did well. Paying his own way, he concentrated on his class work his first year and posted grades high enough to make the dean's list. Meanwhile, his interest in chemistry grew. As the date of his graduation arrived in 1951, the United States was deep into the Korean War. Katayama's lab partner and several of his friends were ex-GIs from World War II. They told Katayama he didn't want to be drafted and sent into combat, encouraging him to seek an engineering job at a secret federal government site called Hanford. So Katayama applied for and got a chemical engineering job at Hanford in 1951. At the same time, he legally added Bruce to his name, thinking that would sound more professional. Spending most of his life in green, hilly Seattle did not prepare him for brown shrub-steppe of the Mid-Columbia. "As soon as I came this way and saw the sagebrush, I said, 'Gee, what am I getting myself into?' " Katayama recalled. Katayama expected to move on in a couple of years. "Before I knew it, time had passed. I just got interested in what I was doing," he said. He started at Hanford doing clerical jobs until his security clearance was approved. Then he joined a corrosion engineering group at the 3706 Building, which was a chemistry lab. Over time, he worked in the 300 Area, the B Reactor area, the 200 West Area, the Plutonium Recycle Test Reactor in the 309 Building (which gives the 300 Area its trademark reactor dome), the 324 Building, the 200 West area again and back to the 324 Building. Likewise, his job experiences varied: corrosion engineering, working with nuclear fuel rods, plutonium metallurgy, searching for slight impurities in materials earmarked for nuclear weapons, superconductor research and research on glassifying radioactive wastes. His employers included General Electric, Battelle Northwest, B&W Hanford Co. and Fluor Hanford. Hanford historian Michele Gerber recently interviewed Katayama, asking him how he coped with transfer after transfer and new boss after new boss at Hanford. "His answer was an overall acceptance of change," Gerber said. "He said if you fight it, it's going to come anyway, and it will double your stress." Katayama's sister introduced him to his future wife in Seattle, and they married in 1970. They have one son, Michael. To mark his 50th year at Hanford, his latest employer, Fluor Hanford, presented him with a certificate that will pay for $5,000 worth of travel. And after 50 years, Katayama now has his own personal reserved parking spot in the 300 Area -- complete with a sign with his name on it. Copyright 2001 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This ***************************************************************** 3 Bechtel will consolidate subcontracted Hanford jobs This story was published Wed, Jun 27, 2001 By John Stang Herald staff writer Bechtel National Inc. plans to consolidate much of its subcontracted work at Hanford, which will trim the number of small subcontractors working on the site's radioactive waste glassification project. The idea is to simplify the project's administration, said Denise Busch, Bechtel's glassification project procurement services manager. A team led by Bechtel plus Washington Group International is in charge of designing, building and testing a plant to start converting Hanford's radioactive tank wastes into glass by 2007, and to reach full operations by 2011. The effort currently employs almost 1,100 people. That is expected to reach 1,500 by December and to peak at about 4,300 people in 2004 before the project's employment is to drop. Right now, about 300 of the Bechtel team's employees work for about 60 small subcontractors that do engineering and mechanical work. Those contracts expire Sept. 30, which is the end of the 2001 fiscal year. Bechtel plans to seek proposals later this summer to cover the work in those 60 contracts, hoping to merge the contracts into about 10, Busch said. Also, Bechtel and Washington Group might hire extra people and absorb some of the work within their own companies. Copyright 2001 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This ***************************************************************** 4 $18.4B Sought in Military Spending June 27, 2001 WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration asked Congress for an extra $18.4 billion for military spending on Wednesday, at the same time proposing shrinking the Air Force bomber fleet, retiring all 50 Peacekeeper long-range nuclear missiles and planning for more base closings. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told a Pentagon news conference the $18.4 billion would be the biggest increase for any year since the mid-1980s, although he said it would barely begin to transform the American military to meet the security challenges of the 21st century. The budget as proposed would total $329 billion. That compares to the $310 billion that President Bush proposed in February and $296 billion in the current Defense Department budget. The February proposal was amended to reflect results from a Rumsfeld review of military requirements. Contrary to the expectations of many in the military and in Congress, the administration's 2002 budget devotes relatively little to military modernization beyond what the Clinton administration had planned. Rumsfeld said that was because most of the extra $18.4 billion had to be earmarked for improving the living conditions of U.S. troops, which he said had deteriorated badly. The budget would include $1 billion for pay raises ranging between 5 percent and 10 percent, depending on rank. It also would reduce troops' out-of-pocket housing costs and provide more health benefits. Rumsfeld accused the Clinton administration of having cut military investments too sharply. "They overshot," he said, adding, "The coasting went on too long." Critics say the Bush administration found itself with little room to afford the scale of defense spending increases that Rumsfeld initially sought, once Bush got his top-priority $1.35 trillion tax cut. One of the biggest increases in the budget is for missile defense, at $7 billion, compared with $4.7 billion this year. Rumsfeld was scheduled to defend the 2002 budget before House and Senate appropriations committees on Thursday. Judging from early congressional reaction, it appeared he would face tough questioning. The amended budget request got a rocky reception from at least one key congressional Republican, Rep. Jim Nussle of Iowa, the House Budget Committee chairman. He threatened to block the proposed $18.4 billion increase until the Pentagon explains how it fits into its long-term budget plans. "This is getting very close to an irresponsible way to do it," Nussle said at a committee hearing Wednesday. Rumsfeld's plan to close more military bases also is likely to draw strong congressional reaction. At his news conference, he did not mention the subject, but in a follow-up presentation, the Pentagon's chief financial officer, Dov Zakheim, told reporters Rumsfeld intends to propose base closings in 2003. Zakheim mentioned no specific bases as candidates for closure. He said Rumsfeld aides are in the midst of developing a plan for how to proceed on this politically sensitive subject. "We are all across the map on this," he said, indicating that there was no consensus within the Pentagon on whether there should be a single round of base closings, multiple rounds or other approaches. Zakheim said experts have told the Pentagon that the military has about 25 percent too many bases. The last round of base closures was in 1997 and since then, Congress has refused to consider closures. Zakheim stressed that the plan for mothballing 33 of the Air Force's 93 B-1B long-range bombers and consolidating the remaining fleet at two bases - compared with the current five bases - does not mean the three bases that lose B-1Bs are in danger of closing. He said the Air Force is working on a plan to adjust the missions of those three bases so that the people affected do not lose their jobs. The decision to cut B-1Bs from the bomber force was the biggest surprise in the budget. Critics in Congress quickly accused the administration of playing politics, noting that the only two B-1B bases left would be in Bush's home state of Texas, at Dyess Air Force Base; and at Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota, the home state of Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle. Zakheim said this would save $165 million in 2002, and that the savings would be used by the Air Force to modernize the remaining B-1B bombers, which originally were built in the 1980s to replace the older B-52 bombers for a nuclear attack role. As it turns out, the B-52s are likely to outlive them. Rumsfeld announced other adjustments to the U.S. nuclear force, although he has yet to complete a congressionally required "nuclear posture review" to assess all aspects of nuclear weapons policy. The Pentagon will retire in 2002 all 50 of the Air Force's most modern and most accurate intercontinental-range nuclear missiles, the LGM-118A, more commonly called the Peacekeeper, Zakheim said. Based at F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming, the Peacekeepers were first deployed in 1986. They cost about $70 million apiece and are armed with 10 nuclear warheads each. That will reduce the U.S. arsenal of land-based long-range nuclear missiles to 500 Minuteman IIIs, each of which is armed with three warheads. --- On the Net: Defense Department: http://www.defenselink.mil All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 5 Defense Spending Plan Faces Scrutiny June 27, 2001 WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration's revised blueprint for 2002 defense spending faces a skeptical Congress quick to question some of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's priorities. Rumsfeld was testifying Thursday before the House and Senate armed services committees, which authorize defense spending. A day earlier, he said the administration is asking Congress for an extra $18.4 billion for the 2002 budget year, which begins Oct. 1. As part of that amended budget, Rumsfeld proposed shrinking the Air Force bomber fleet, retiring all 50 Peacekeeper long-range nuclear missiles and closing an unspecified number of bases in 2003. He said the $18.4 billion would be the biggest defense budget increase for any year since the mid-1980s, although he said it would barely begin the military modernization President Bush has promised. The budget as proposed would total $329 billion. That compares to the $310 billion Bush proposed in February and $296 billion in the current Defense Department budget. The February proposal was amended to reflect preliminary results from Rumsfeld's review of military requirements, although most of his conclusions will not be reflected in the budget until 2003. Contrary to the expectations of many in the military and in Congress, the administration's 2002 budget devotes relatively little to military modernization beyond what the Clinton administration had planned. Rumsfeld said that was because most of the extra $18.4 billion had to be earmarked for improving the living conditions of U.S. troops, which he said had deteriorated badly. The plan calls for 5 percent pay raises for all troops, with some getting as much as 10 percent. Rep. Ike Skelton, the senior Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, and other committee members sent a letter to Rumsfeld Wednesday urging a minimum pay raise of 7.3 percent. At a Pentagon news conference, Rumsfeld accused the Clinton administration of having cut military investments too sharply. "They overshot," he said, adding, "The coasting went on too long." Critics say the Bush administration found itself with little room to afford the scale of defense spending increases Rumsfeld initially sought once Bush got his top-priority $1.35 trillion tax cut. At least one key congressional Republican wasn't pleased. Rep. Jim Nussle of Iowa, the House Budget Committee chairman, threatened to block the proposed $18.4 billion increase until the Pentagon explains how it fits into its long-term budget plans. "I'm very troubled by the administration's request for more defense money before it completes the strategic review and develops a long-term spending plan," Nussle said. "Even more troubling is that most of the money is for current operations rather than to implement the findings of the review." Rumsfeld's plan to close more military bases also is likely to draw strong congressional reaction. He did not mention the subject at his news conference, but in a follow-up presentation the Pentagon's chief financial officer, Dov Zakheim, said Rumsfeld intends to propose base closings in 2003. Zakheim said Rumsfeld aides are developing a plan for how to proceed on this politically sensitive subject. "We are all across the map on this," he said, indicating that there was no consensus on whether there should be a single round of base closings, multiple rounds or other approaches. Zakheim said experts have told the Pentagon that the military has about 25 percent too many bases. Zakheim stressed that the plan for mothballing 33 of the Air Force's 93 B-1B long-range bombers and consolidating the remaining fleet at two bases - compared with the current five - does not mean the three bases that lose B-1Bs are in danger of closing. He said the Air Force is working to adjust the missions of the three bases to minimize job losses. The decision to cut B-1Bs from the bomber force was the biggest surprise in the budget. Critics in Congress quickly accused the administration of playing politics, noting that the only two B-1B bases left would be in Bush's home state of Texas, at Dyess Air Force Base; and at Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota, the home state of Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle. Zakheim said $165 million in savings would be used by the Air Force to modernize the remaining B-1B bombers. Next year the Pentagon also will retire all 50 of the Air Force's most modern and most accurate intercontinental-range nuclear missiles, the LGM-118A, more commonly called the Peacekeeper, Zakheim said. Based at F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming, the Peacekeepers were first deployed in 1986. They cost about $70 million apiece and are armed with 10 nuclear warheads each. On the Net: http://www.defenselink.mil All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 6 PR on DOE's Abraham Government Executive Magazine - 6/28/01 Energy June 28, 2001 Energy Department By Shawn Zeller and Margaret Kriz Established: 1977 Address: 1000 Independence Ave. SW, Washington, DC 20585 Phone: 202-586-5000 2001 Budget:: $18.9 billion Employment:: 15,731 Web Site: www.energy.gov Functions: The Energy Department coordinates national activities relating to the production, regulation, marketing, and conservation of energy. It is also responsible for the federal nuclear weapons program and the high-risk research and development of energy technology. The department collects, analyzes, and publishes energy data. Spencer Abraham Secretary 202-586-6210 Abraham, a congenial former Senator who shares the White House's pro-industry, supply-side philosophies, is one of the Bush Administration's most savvy talking heads. Those qualities have been important as the Administration pushes its national energy strategy. Although Vice President Dick Cheney was the brains behind the energy plan, Abraham is carrying it to Capitol Hill and to the public. Abraham, 49, has been a Republican loyalist since he began working on political campaigns during his high school days in East Lansing, Mich. A graduate of Michigan State University with a law degree from Harvard, Abraham chaired the Michigan Republican Party during the 1980s. In the early 1990s, he was deputy chief of staff to then-Vice President Dan Quayle and was co-chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. In 1994, Michigan voters elected him Senator after he campaigned on a conservative, free-trade platform. But in 2000, he narrowly lost his re-election bid to Democrat Debbie Stabenow. Abraham, the son of Lebanese immigrants, championed immigration issues, tax reform, and an anti-abortion agenda while in the Senate. His only brush with energy issues came in 1999, when he introduced legislation to abolish the Energy Department. Now at the reins of that department, Abraham, who is described as a quick study, has been promoting the Administration's proposals to boost domestic supplies of oil, natural gas, coal, and nuclear power. However, the Energy Secretary's control over national energy policy is limited to providing research money to the industries. He also oversees the federal weapons laboratories, and the cleanup of nuclear and toxic waste from there. Francis Blake Deputy Secretary 202-586-5500 To Bush's Democratic and environmental opponents, Blake is yet another former industry official hired to push the White House's pro-industry energy policies. Before taking this post, Blake was a top official with General Electric Co. and served a stint in the company's power-systems division, which makes natural-gas turbines. But Blake's strong political ties to the Republican Party may also have helped him get the job, and he shares Abraham's conservative, anti-government philosophy. In the early 1980s, Blake, 51, served as deputy counsel to then-Vice President George H.W. Bush, and to then-President Reagan's task force on regulatory relief. Later, Reagan named him general counsel to the Environmental Protection Agency. Before joining General Electric, Blake was a partner in the Washington law firm of Swidler, Berlin, Sheriff, Friedman. A native of Boston, Blake received his undergraduate degree from Harvard University and his law degree from Columbia Law School. He served as a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens. Bruce Marshall Carnes Chief Financial Officer 202-586-4171 Carnes, 57, is a former English professor who has now served as a federal employee under five Presidents. He was born in Xenia, Ohio, but as a member of a military family, he never stayed in one place very long. He earned his bachelor's degree at the University of Colorado and his master's and Ph.D. at Indiana University. Before entering the government, Carnes taught at James Madison University. He went on to work for the Carter, Reagan, first Bush, and Clinton Administrations. From 1985-88, Carnes was deputy undersecretary of Education for planning, budget, and evaluation, where he replaced conservative icon Gary Bauer. From 1989-93, he served at the Office of National Drug Control Policy as the director of planning, budget, and administration. Most recently, Carnes worked at the Defense Department as the deputy director of defense financing and accounting services. In his new role at the Energy Department, Carnes is charged with keeping that department's books in order. This article is excerpted from National Journal's special "Decision Makers" issue, profiling key Bush administration leaders in the White House and across federal agencies. Click here or call 1-800-207-8001 to order your print copy of "The Decision Makers." + The Decision Makers: Profiles of Cabinet department leaders (06/28/01) ***************************************************************** 7 Nuclear test capabilities examined [Las Vegas Review-Journal] Thursday, June 28, 2001 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal By JONATHAN S. LANDAY KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration has asked U.S. nuclear weapons scientists to examine ways that nuclear test explosions beneath the Nevada desert could resume more quickly if the government decides to end a nine-year moratorium on nuclear testing. It would take one to three years to prepare a test, and a recent study concluded that such long lead times could allow political opponents to block any resumption of nuclear testing. Nuclear weapons scientists are looking at "what it would take to do various kinds of tests on various time scales," said C. Bruce Tarter, director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. Tarter and others said the administration hasn't decided to resume testing. Nevertheless, the review is likely to add to fears that President Bush might end the nuclear testing moratorium and push for developing new "low yield" nuclear warheads that some weapons scientists and conservative lawmakers advocate. Darwin Morgan, a spokesman for the Nevada Test Site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas, said the thrust of the examination is determining the most valuable test to conduct if the United States decides to resume testing. The last full-scale U.S. nuclear weapons test, Divider, was Sept. 23, 1992. Since then, test site officials have been directed to ensure that they could resume testing within two to three years of getting the go-ahead. Morgan said full-scale tests would need to be resumed if a problem was detected in a weapons system and the national laboratories could not certify that the system was safe and reliable. Another reason, he said, would be if the United States needed to answer a test, say for a new weapons system, conducted by another nation. "It seems prudent to take cost-effective steps to reduce lead times for testing to give future presidents a practical set of options for sustaining confidence in the stockpile," the report said. "The panel believes that the NNSA should investigate a range of options to reduce lead times to, say, three to four months from the president's making a decision to proceed." The test site readiness study comes as the Pentagon is conducting a separate review of U.S. nuclear strategy and forces ordered by Bush. Review-Journal staff writer Keith Rogers contributed to this report. This story is located at: http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2001/Jun-28-Thu-2001/news/16422851.html ***************************************************************** 8 Perma-Fix Acquires Oak Ridge Radioactive/Hazardous Treatment Facility Thursday June 28, 10:05 am Eastern Time OAK RIDGE, Tenn--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 28, 2001--Perma-Fix Environmental Services, Inc. (Nasdaq:PESI - news): -- Perma-Fix Looks Ahead to Treating DOE Legacy Mixed Waste -- Market Opportunity Estimated at Over $7.0 Billion Perma-Fix Environmental Services, Inc. (Nasdaq:PESI - news; Germany:PES.BE) announced today that it completed the acquisition of East Tennessee Materials and Energy Corporation (``M&EC''), a company that has a low-level radioactive and hazardous waste (``mixed waste'') treatment facility located in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. In connection with this acquisition, PESI issued approximately 1.9 million shares of its Common Stock. The acquired company will treat mixed waste under three contracts that were originally issued by the Department of Energy (``DOE'') and other federal agencies. Pursuant to estimated volumes provided by the DOE, the anticipated market value of all mixed waste in the United States that DOE will be required to treat will be approximately $7.0 billion, to be treated over many years to come. The Company stated that the M&EC facility, situated next to one of the nation's largest single stockpiles of legacy nuclear waste, will use Perma-Fix's advanced technology for treating mixed waste without incineration. M&EC is in the process of completing its new facility, with a construction cost to date of approximately $12 million, which will be operational in the third quarter of 2001, and will have the capacity to initially treat up to $35 million in mixed waste annually. Besides servicing DOE contracts, the facility will be able to treat other governmental, institutional and commercially generated mixed waste now held in storage nationwide. M&EC was awarded the three contracts to treat DOE mixed waste in 1998 by Bechtel-Jacobs Company, LLC, DOE's environmental program manager. The contracts cover treatment of millions of cubic feet of legacy, operational and demolition nuclear waste, both solids and liquids, not only at Oak Ridge, but also from more than 40 other DOE facilities. Dr. Louis F. Centofanti, President of Perma-Fix, said: ``The acquisition of M&EC represents a major milestone toward establishing Perma-Fix as one of the leaders in the treatment of mixed waste. The mixed waste market is experiencing exceptional growth. With our proprietary processes, licensed facilities, technical know-how and management expertise, we are uniquely positioned to capitalize on this growth. Although the size of the potential market is difficult to estimate, the DOE and other federal agencies are spending more than $6.0 billion in 2001 on cleanup efforts. ``Our nonthermal nuclear waste treatment technologies address one of the nation's most pressing environmental cleanup problems. The biggest roadblock to the expansion of nuclear power is public concern over the safe disposal of nuclear waste. Our process treats low level radioactive waste, a major part of the problem, in a safe and non-polluting manner. With the Bush administration's endorsement of nuclear power as a key part of national energy policy, we expect strong long-term growth in our utility business. The acquisition of M&EC complements our recent acquisition of Diversified Scientific Services, Inc., as well as the expansion of our mixed waste facility in North Florida.'' Dr. Centofanti further stated: ``Perma-Fix's proprietary processes extract and destroy hazardous chemicals from nuclear waste in an enclosed system which greatly reduces the risk of air pollutants, as compared to thermal incineration or vitrification treatment processes. The radioactive residue can then be disposed of safely in designated landfills without leakage. M&EC is one of only a few facilities nationally that operates under both a hazardous waste permit and a nuclear materials license, enabling it to treat the most difficult waste streams.'' The Oak Ridge site was built in 1943-1946 as part of the secret Manhattan project to develop an atomic bomb. Uranium was enriched at Oak Ridge for use in the first atomic bombs and later for use in nuclear power reactors. As a result, it contains one of the nation's largest single stockpiles of legacy nuclear waste, including large amounts of waste from various technologies used in enriching uranium. Perma-Fix Environmental Services, Inc. is a national environmental services company, providing unique mixed waste and industrial waste management services. The industrial services segment provides hazardous and nonhazardous waste treatment services for a diverse group of customers including Fortune 500 Companies, numerous federal, state and local agencies and thousands of smaller clients. The nuclear services segment provides radioactive and mixed waste treatment services to hospitals, research laboratories and institutions, numerous federal agencies including the Department of Energy and Defense and nuclear utilities. The Company operates ten major waste treatment facilities across the country. This press release contains ``forward-looking statements'' which are based largely on the Company's expectations and are subject to various business risks and uncertainties, certain of which are beyond the Company's control. Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, the information concerning possible or assumed future results of operations of the Company, the initial DOE contracts granted to M&EC being valued at a minimum of $100 million, the anticipated market value for DOE mixed waste of approximately $7.0 billion, Perma-Fix becoming one of the industry's leading providers of treatment services to DOE and other government agencies in the nationwide cleanup of certain types of mixed waste, the acquisition of M&EC representing a major milestone toward establishing Perma-Fix as one of the leaders in the proprietary treatment of mixed waste, servicing agencies of the U.S. Government, strong long-term growth in our utility business resulting from Bush administration initiatives, and the capacity to treat up to $35 million in mixed waste annually at M&EC. These forward-looking statements are intended to qualify for the safe harbors from liability established by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. While the Company believes the expectations reflected in this news release are reasonable, it can give no assurance such expectations will prove to be correct. There are a variety of factors which could cause future outcomes to differ materially from those described in this release, including without limitation, future economic conditions, industry conditions, competitive pressures, ability to obtain and/or retain its permits and licenses necessary to operate and to grow, changes in governmental policy, ability to apply its technologies and to successfully process such mixed waste. The Company makes no commitment to disclose any revisions to forward-looking statements, or any facts, events or circumstances after the date hereof that bear upon forward-looking statements. Please visit us on the World Wide Web at ``http://www.perma-fix.com.'' Contact: Perma-Fix Environmental Services, Inc., Atlanta Dr. Louis F. Centofanti, 404/847-9990 or Strategic Growth International, Inc.- Stan Altschuler, 516/829-7111 sgi@netmonger.net or Stephanie Stern/Stan Froelich-Media Relations 212/888-0044 sstern@sternco.com, sfroelich@sternco.com Copyright © 2001 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved. Privacy ***************************************************************** 9 Nike-Ajax cleanup nearly complete Officials are checking whether underground fuel tanks at the abandoned missile project site contaminated soil and well water in Bristol Township. By HARRY YANOSHAK Courier Times The land behind a Bristol Township shopping center once completed a "ring of steel" that protected the region from Soviet nuclear bombers. The bombs never fell, and the intercontinental ballistic missile rendered the ring obsolete. It has been about 38 years since the federal government shuttered the Nike-Ajax missile project in Bristol Township, and it has taken that long to remove the Cold War relic. Robert Williams, the project coordinator for the Baltimore office of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, said workers about three weeks ago demolished five dilapidated and vandalized buildings that formed the control center of missile battery PH-15, which at one time maintained a 24-hour radar watch over the skies. He said the demolition displaced five homeless people who had been using the buildings, including a former mess hall, guardhouse and barracks. According to documents, two radar towers remain on the site, but the towers aren't eligible for demolition funds under the federal government's Defense Environmental Restoration Program for Formerly Used Defense Sites (DERP-FUDS, in government-speak). They remain intact for now. The 8.8 acres are behind the Bristol Plaza Shopping Center. They're sandwiched - Williams characterized it as "landlocked" - between the Pennsylvania Turnpike and the shopping center. Between late 1954 and late 1963, according to government documents and Courier Times articles, Nike-Ajax missiles were housed on a second chunk of land measuring 15.5 acres. Located on Ford Road on the other side of the turnpike, the "launcher" portion of the missile battery, as it was called, became a U.S. Army Reserve Center in November 1963, according to government documents. At the launcher site, a crew maintained a group of Nike-Ajax missiles, the first operational guided surface-to-air missile, according to the Brookings Institution, a government think tank. Just how many missiles were kept at the battery was a government secret, but Charles Shaw, a Bristol Township resident who commands the Hugh Eastburn III Marine Corps League detachment at the reserve center on Ford Road, said he recalled the battery having three missile magazines. Each magazine was capable of holding more than one missile. Williams said the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1996 hired a contractor to remove four underground fuel storage tanks. Since then, the corps has been checking the soil and ground water for contamination with the state Department of Environmental Protection monitoring the activities. The federal General Services Administration will continue to control the site until the state gives the land a clean bill of health. Williams said the government is close to getting the state DEP's blessing. Once it does, it intends to sell the site. Three of the four pits have been checked for contamination with a fourth in the process of being checked, he said. In December, Williams said the Corps of Engineers would return to the site to check the ground water to fulfill the demands of the state Department of Environmental Protection, which required additional testing. The Bristol Township missile battery was one of three in Bucks County. The others were in Warrington and Northampton. The Northampton base was on 30 acres along Newtown-Richboro Road in Richboro. The building that formerly housed the Northampton library and is now a recreation center was originally part of the base. The U.S. Army built the base in 1954 and vacated it in September 1964. The first Nike missile was put into operation on May 30, 1954, according to the U.S. Army's Web site. The name was changed to Nike-Ajax in November 1956. During the mid-1950s, Nike-Ajax systems were installed around metropolitan areas, including Philadelphia, along the coasts. Other area batteries were built near Norristown and across the Delaware River in New Jersey, near Lumberton, Marlton and Cross Keys. The batteries formed what the government called a "ring of steel" to protect the region from attacks. After about a decade of use, the Nike-Ajax missile was withdrawn from active service. By that time, the government was using the Nike-Hercules missile, a second-generation weapon that had a longer range than the Ajax and was capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. Newspaper articles said Battery B, 2nd Missile Battalion, 166th Artillery Group of the Pennsylvania National Guard operated the battery, which in 1963 employed a staff of 86 enlisted men, four officers and three warrant officers. By 1966, local fire departments were holding mock nuclear disaster drills at the "former" missile site, the Courier Times reported. Thursday, June 28, 2001 ***************************************************************** 10 America’s Atomic War Against Its Citizens and Why It’s Not Over Yet Boise Weekly by David Proctor After 15 years of investigating, I have concluded that the United States government’s atomic weapons industry knowingly and recklessly exposed millions of people to dangerous levels of radiation. “Nothing in our past compared to the official deceit and lying that took place in order to protect the nuclear industry. In the name of national security, politicians and bureaucrats ran roughshod over democracy and morality. Ultimately, the Cold Warriors were willing to sacrifice their own people in their zeal to beat the Russians.” —Former Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall from the foreword to Atomic Harvest: Hanford and the Lethal Toll of America’s Nuclear Arsenal By Michael D’Antonio Since early June, newspapers in Australia and Great Britain have published articles about experiments conducted in the 1950s and 1960s by U.S. scientists on the bodies of deceased and stillborn babies. Documents declassified by the U.S. Department of Energy show that scientists from the U.K. Atomic Energy Authority worked with their American counterparts to take the bodies of 6,000 infants from hospitals in Australia, Great Britain, Canada, Hong Kong, South America and the U.S., then ship them to the United States for the nuclear experiments—without permission from the parents. It was called Project Sunshine. Sunshine began in 1955 at the University of Chicago when Willard Libby, later a Nobel Prize laureate for his research into carbon dating, instructed colleagues to skirt the law in their search for bodies. “Human samples are of prime importance, and if anybody knows how to do a good job of body-snatching, they will really be serving their country,” Libby is quoted as saying. The reasoning: Nuclear tests released great amounts of Strontium 90 into the atmosphere. Libby and others connected with the American defense industry wanted to know how much radiation was entering the food supply. The bodies and body parts were cremated and the ashes tested with a sophisticated Geiger counter. Grotesque as Project Sunshine was, it fits the pattern. Since 1945, high officials of the United States government have maimed and killed hundreds of thousands of their own people, first while they spent $5.5 trillion to test and maintain nuclear weapons, then as they spent billions to support and under-regulate nuclear power plants. To cover their actions, the officials—and those who succeeded them—have for decades lied to the public and perjured themselves in court about the amount of radiation released and its effect on the millions of people exposed to it. Now, that same government wants to transport hundreds of tons of nuclear waste through 43 states, including Idaho, on inadequate rail lines and highways past 138 million people to be stored in containers of unknown longevity for hundreds of thousands of years in geologically unstable formations in New Mexico and Nevada. And once again, officials insist it will all be perfectly safe. The government has known for at least 70 years that nuclear energy—regardless of its form—is deadly to the human body. The first publicized case of radiation injuries in America was the radium-dial painters in the 1920s. These women used radium paint to put the luminous numbers on watch dials. Many wet their brushes with their mouths to make the tiny points needed for such fine work. When they began to die of cancer their successful lawsuit against the watch company in 1928 made the dangers of radiation very public. The government also sponsored radiation experiments on animals in the 1940s, as well as follow-up studies of the Trinity test at Alamogordo, New Mexico, and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, all in 1945. Despite this knowledge, and America’s acceptance of the Nuremberg human rights protocols, the Atomic Energy Commission, a group appointed by the president and obligated by law to protect the public, detonated more than 300 aboveground nuclear weapons at the Nevada Test Site and in the Pacific Ocean. The blasts totaled 138,600 kilotons of explosive power, which Soviet scientist Andrei Sakharov estimated would kill as many as 2.5 million people and American Nobel laureate Linus Pauling calculated would cause 1 million seriously defective children, another 1 million embryonic and neonatal deaths, and create millions of hereditary defects. In 1969, Dr. Ernest Sternglass traced the dramatic increases in infant deaths and childhood leukemia in upstate New York to airborne radiation from the nuclear tests. He estimated 375,000 American babies had been killed by fallout radiation between 1951 and 1966. And that didn’t count the deaths caused by the Soviet Union’s 715 tests. Dr. John Gofman found that even low doses of radiation could cause cancer. In the early 1970s, when Gofman and Dr. Art Tamplin refused to keep their findings secret, they lost their research grants at DOE’s Livermore National Laboratory. The government, of course, did not have this information when it began aboveground testing. It did know, however, that radiation was dangerous and was being blown thousands of miles from the Pacific and Nevada sites. AEC’s response was to lie about fallout readings, falsify some reports and bury others so Americans and Pacific islanders would accept the government’s propaganda mantra that there was no danger. It wasn’t only civilians who were handed this line of falsehoods. The Defense Department marched soldiers within a few hundred yards of ground zero during several atomic tests. When these “atomic veterans” started getting cancer, their claims for benefits were denied. Soldiers who obtained their service records found no mention of their trip to the Nevada Test Site. Only recently has Congress recognized their sacrifice and authorized limited treatment for the dying veterans. Radioactive waste management complex at Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, located 32 miles west of Idaho Falls. In the early 1950s, southern Utah ranchers lost thousands of animals from radiation poisoning following a particularly dirty test shot. They sued the government, but during the discovery phase of the trial AEC officials lied about having reports that documented the radiation the animals received and testified there was no connection between fallout and the deaths. The truth came out at another trial 30 years later. Cancer deaths spiked in southern Utah in the mid-1950s. Diseases that had been nearly nonexistent until then decimated whole families. The overwhelmed undertaker in Cedar City, Utah, needed special training in order to prepare the cancer-devastated bodies. Simultaneously, Nevada Test Site workers began to develop the same types of illnesses and die at an alarming rate. AEC again insisted the workers were safe, that there was no connection between the cancers and the fallout. But there was a connection, and AEC knew it. Government records, finally released after decades of denial and secrecy, show that the entire country was repeatedly dusted by fallout. Radioactive hot spots were found as far away as Albany, New York. Public health statistics showed hundreds of thousands of American babies were killed by fallout between 1951 and 1966. Another study found SAT scores dropped in Utah during the testing. The story of the uranium miners is as tragic as any. During the 1940s and 1950s, thousands of poor, uneducated men, most of whom were American Indians, labored in mines in the Four Corners region to produce uranium needed to manufacture plutonium for bombs and atomic tests. Forced to work without even the most basic ventilation system, the miners breathed uranium-laced air, drank uranium-contaminated water and carried the deadly dust home to their families. Thousands have since died of lung cancer and other radiation-related diseases. Thus far, Congress has approved no compensation for them. The deadly rain of fallout stopped in 1963 but only momentarily. Even after the United States and the Soviet Union’s limited test-ban treaty, many of the next 700 underground tests “vented,” the government’s euphemism for explosions that drifted radiation across the country. In order to conduct those tests and build its nuclear stockpile, the government needed bomb factories—huge installations that manufactured, assembled and tested the deadly nuclear components. These factories were located at Savannah River, South Carolina; Fernald, Ohio; Rocky Flats, Colorado; Pantex, Texas; Idaho National Engineering Laboratory; Oak Ridge, Tennessee and Hanford, Washington. Again, the government played fast and loose with the safety and health of both its employees and the thousands of civilians who lived nearby. At Hanford, the infamous “Green Run” in December 1949, released 20,000 curies (a curie is a measure of radioactivity) of xenon-133 and 7,780 curies of iodine-131. The radioactive plume measured 200 by 40 miles and dropped high concentrations of fallout on the Tri-Cities. There was no public health warning and no follow-up studies on the health of the residents. Over the years, Hanford plastered the Columbia Valley repeatedly. About 1 million curies, the largest accumulation of atomic industrial pollution on record, were dumped in the air, water and ground. Some lambs near Hanford were born without eyes, mouths or legs. Some had two sets of sex organs, others had none. Juanita Andrewjeski had three miscarriages and kept a map of her neighborhood, one of the closest farms to Hanford. On it were 35 crosses for heart attacks and 32 circles for cancer. One girl was born without eyes. Another couple had eight miscarriages and adopted all their children. Two children were born without hipbones. One farm wife killed her baby and herself after her husband died of cancer. In 1974, Dr. Samuel Milham, a Washington State Department of Health epidemiologist, noticed a 25 percent excess of cancers among Hanford nuclear workers when compared with the rates among the state’s non-nuclear workers. As it had done so many times before, AEC buried Milham’s findings. The agency commissioned another study from a company with extensive Hanford contracts. When that study affirmed Milham’s work, it was buried, too. Some 600,000 people worked in the nuclear weapons industry. Only last year did Congress approve lump payments of $150,000 and lifetime care for those approved. The Labor Department estimates 43,000 workers per year, and 28,000 survivors, will apply annually. From 1952 to 1970, INEL (now known as INEEL) workers dumped some 16 billion gallons of liquid radioactive wastes into injection wells that fed directly into the water table below. Radioactive contamination has been found 7.5 miles away, threatening the long-term viability of the huge Snake River Plain Aquifer, the major underground water source for 270,000 people and Idaho’s famous potatoes. There were also intentional iodine-131 releases in 1957 and 1963 that dosed the residents of the farming communities west of INEL. Site officials waited for the wind to blow away from Idaho Falls, where they lived, to make the release. The people downwind were not told of these incidents until years later. The taxpayers’ bill to clean up this ungodly mess has already run into billions of dollars, and the meter is still running. In the 1950s, nuclear energy was billed as the answer to America’s energy questions. Today we know that billions of dollars have been wasted in this attempt to produce electricity “too cheap to meter.” The power plants, according to a study done after Three Mile Island, were under-engineered, poorly built, poorly staffed and badly run. Now, as President Bush lobbies for more nuclear plants, ratepayers and taxpayers are still on the hook for the billions of dollars it will cost to decommission the plants, clean up the sites and safely store the contaminated building and fuel rods for hundreds of thousands of years. Hazardous and radioactive waste previously buried at an INEEL subsurface burial area. Finally, let us not forget the ugly history of medical experiments. Declassified documents show that government and university doctors injected scores of prisoners, mental patients, retarded adults and children and even pregnant mothers with radioactive substances—nearly always without full consent—sometimes just to see what would happen. The Next 500,000 Years Now, with this revolting 50-year record behind it, the government wants us to believe it can safely move military, commercial and foreign waste to gigantic burial grounds near Las Vegas (Yucca Mountain) and Carlsbad, N.M. (Waste Isolation Pilot Project or WIPP). And protect it there for hundreds of thousands of years. Yucca, which is still not built despite 20 years of study and nearly $7 billion invested, is intended to hold high-level nuclear reactor waste. WIPP, which is open, was built to hold transuranic waste—clothing, tools, sludge and dirt contaminated with small amounts of plutonium. The thousands of shipments that will be made to these repositories through 43 states, this “mobile Chernobyl,” are a nightmare of potential accidents, economic catastrophe and terrorism. The radioactive garbage will then be stored in containers that haven’t been adequately tested and placed for longer than the human race has recorded its own history in underground caverns whose long-term stability remains in doubt. As one engineer put it, “How would you like to have to build something that had to be 99.99999 percent perfect—forever?” Perfect. That word doesn’t quite describe either WIPP or Yucca. The WIPP salt caverns near Carlsbad, N.M., are located 2,150 feet below the surface and consist of a 112-acre underground area on which taxpayers have spent $2.1 billion so far. In 30 to 35 years, when the space is filled, the price tag is expected to be $9 billion. It will include an elaborate marker system to warn people not to drill into the salt for the next 500,000 years. But some scientists expect problems long before that. DOE first discovered water seeping into the WIPP excavations in 1983. The leaks finally became public in 1987 when New Mexico scientists concluded the salt formation contains much more water than DOE anticipated. They warned that over time the brine could corrode the waste drums and create a “radioactive waste slurry” that could eventually reach the surface. Inside WIPP, cracks have appeared in the ceilings and floors of several large waste storage rooms, and the ceiling has collapsed in three areas—the result of natural room closure (salt movement) that is two to three times faster than anticipated. In 1983, DOE estimated it would take 25 years for the salt walls to completely close in and lock the waste barrels into solid salt rock. At the rate the rooms are closing, it may take only 13 years. Another hazard is the known reserves of gas and oil. There is even an existing oil and gas lease beneath the WIPP site. Despite the warning signs, these resources could invite intrusion during the long future the repository must stay isolated. WIPP also has capacity problems. The repository is expected to hold about 160,000 cubic meters of transuranic waste. However, there are expected to be 443,000 to 592,000 cubic meters of waste that will need storage—roughly two-and-one-half to three-and-one-half times WIPP’s capacity. Yucca Mountain, located about 80 miles from Las Vegas, the fastest growing city the America, has been studied for 22 years to the tune of nearly $7 billion—paid by electric utility customers. There is still no agreement on whether it is a suitable site or not. The plan is to bury the waste 660 to 1,400 feet below the surface in a 1,400-acre facility served by 100 miles of tunnels. By the time it’s finished, it will cost about $53 billion. Utility ratepayers will fork over $28 billion. The rest of the bill will be handed to taxpayers. One of the most volatile issues is the mountain’s geology. There are 33 known faults near Yucca Mountain. About 600 seismic events have occurred near the site in the last 20 years alone, including a 5.6-magnitude earthquake in 1992. Meanwhile, 70,000 tons of highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel rods are stored at 77 sites around the country. The waste increases by 300 to 600 tons per year, and those facilities are quickly running out of space. If Yucca ever is opened, it will be full in less than 15 years. Twice in the 1960s, INEEL’s Pit 9, a subsurface disposal area, was flooded by snowmelt runoff. First, though, the waste has to get there. The Yucca shipping campaign would be the largest nuclear materials transport in history—some 80,000 shipments over 24 years. Accidents happen. The federal government predicts 70 to 310 nuclear transportation accidents over the next 75 years. From 1964 to 1990, 2,561 spent fuel containers were shipped in the United States. If a repository opens, there will about that many shipments per year. An accident or terrorist act that opened a high-level waste cask would be catastrophic. DOE predicts a severe accident in a rural area would contaminate 42 acres and cost $620 million. In an urban area it would cost $2 billion. Dr. Marvin Resnikoff, the nuclear physicist who was an expert witness in the 1991 Andrus vs. U.S., testified that a similar accident would cost $40 billion. Andrus vs. U.S. was a case filed by Idaho Governor Cecil Andrus. A judge ordered that Andrus not interfere with nuclear waste shipments. The waste will be transported by rail (88 percent) and truck (12 percent). Union Pacific is the largest rail company in America and will handle most of the work. Their track record is not encouraging. Derailments and other problems have become an epidemic. Even former Gov. Phil Batt, who allowed DOE to bring more than 1,000 shipments of waste into Idaho and store it on the promise it would be removed to Yucca and WIPP, declared Union Pacific’s safety record “unacceptable.” Utah-based Huntsman Chemical says problems with Union Pacific have cost more than $8 million in lost business and increased shipping costs since June 1997. The U.S. military stopped using Union Pacific because of delays, and once the railroad left a shipment of M-1 tanks unguarded. The Association of American Railroads has said today’s rail lines—in Idaho and elsewhere—cannot handle the weight of nuclear casks, the casks themselves may not withstand an accident and the railroads cannot afford to carry casks at the slow speed the federal government requires. In the meantime, the existing nuclear plants continue to produce this deadly poison, much of which will last longer than human civilization has existed thus far. The public has been alerted to these dangers, but nuclear energy is a silent killer, and the nuclear industry has run a very effective lobbying campaign. Crucial to this is the fact that cancers take up to 20 years to develop, and in that time people move, officials retire and change jobs, records are lost. It is not a spectacular earthquake or even the AIDS epidemic, which burst suddenly upon the world. Nuclear radiation kills quietly, with diseases that sometimes do occur for other reasons. The tragic truth is it may take a large-scale accident to get through to the daily media and much of the public. Clearly, the history of nuclear energy—not just in the United States but worldwide—demonstrates that the human race has not yet learned how to deal with this incredible power and the waste it produces. We have left death and destruction behind us every step of the way, from the mining of raw uranium, to the manufacture of plutonium, to the assembly of weapons and reactors, to the operation of the reactors, to the disposal of the waste they create. If we humans had to pass a test, had to prove to some rational outside observer that we deserve to be able to continue working with nuclear power, we would fail utterly. The only sensible solution is to stop producing nuclear waste altogether and store existing waste as safely and as close to the point of production as possible. Then, begin a reverse Manhattan Project to find ways to neutralize the deadly mess we have created. David Proctor has written for Boise Weekly, The Salt Lake Tribune, Idaho Mountain Express, The Idaho Statesman, USA Today and Gannett News Service as a reporter and editor. His work has also been published in Rolling Stone, Utah Holiday, New Times, Zoo World, Edging West, InPrint, Focus, Boise and Supermarket News magazines and Reuters news service. ***************************************************************** 11 Israel Urged to Submit Nuclear Facilities to International Inspections Thursday, June 28, 2001, updated at 08:38(GMT+8) A senior Palestinian diplomat called Wednesday on Israel to submit its nuclear facilities to international inspections, Egypt's state-run Middle East News Agency reported. Mohamed Subeih, Palestinian permanent delegate to the Cairo- based Arab League, made the appeal in a speech to a meeting of the league's committee on following up Israeli nuclear activities violating the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). "Israel's nuclear waste is being buried in a small area, posing a serious threat to the safety and security of the region, especially after an Israeli science committee predicted that a powerful earthquake could hit Israel," said Subeih. "We have to imagine the consequences of a long-duration earthquake that may hit the Negev Desert (in Israel), where the reactor stands and the nuclear wastes are buried," Subeih said, adding that the possible quake could cause 50 billion U.S. dollars of losses. "That's why we want to subject the Israeli nuclear facilities to international inspection," namely the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, Subeih said. He also warned of the consequences of Israel's participation in the U.S. missile defense system. "Israel would benefit from the new system, which could cause a serious imbalance in the region. That will be more dangerous," he said. Subeih said that Israel's strategic cooperation with some states, especially that under the U.S.-proposed missile defense shield, could bring about more risks, including a new nuclear arms race. "We want the Mideast region to be free from weapons of mass destruction, especially the nuclear weapons," Subeih added. Israel is believed to have a significant stockpile of nuclear warheads. But the Jewish state neither admits nor denies having nuclear weapons. It also refuses to sign the NPT and rejects international inspections of its nuclear facilities. A senior Palestinian diplomat called Wednesday on Israel to submit its nuclear facilities to international inspections, Egypt's state-run Middle East News Agency reported. Copyright by People's Daily Online, all rights reserved | ***************************************************************** 12 Nuclear legacy requires some deep thinking [KnoxNews.com] June 27, 2001 By Frank Munger News-Sentinel senior writer As recently as the mid-1980s, Oak Ridge National Laboratory disposed of highly radioactive waste by injecting liquid mixtures deep underground. That seems bizarre, almost barbaric, in hindsight -- given today's environmental climate -- but the disposal method known as hydrofracture had its supporters at the time (and probably still does). The Oak Ridge practice was halted in 1984 because of concerns that the waste deposits containing grout weren't solidifying as expected in the rock formation 1,000 feet below the surface. After years of study, the U.S. Department of Energy and its contractors are now moving ahead with a plan to clean up and remove what remains of the old waste-injection facilities. They also will try to reduce the future risks from what took place there years ago -- 1959 to 1984. This won't be cheap. A three-year project to plug the 100 or so wells at the site will cost more than $20 million. "It's a fairly elaborate well decommissioning," said David Adler, DOE's team leader for remedial projects at ORNL. In addition to filling the wells with grout, workers will perforate the well casings to send a layer of sealant into the surrounding bedrock. That technique, according to Adler, should negate the possibility of radioactive materials in the injection zone from migrating upward toward the surface or into areas linked to the groundwater. "We're comfortable that if we close it under this design, we will leave a stable and safe situation," the DOE official said. Even after that work is done, it won't be a walk-away affair. No way. There has been too much radioactive gunk deposited below ground to simply close those wells and forget about it. Some monitoring wells will be maintained in the area to track any movement of the pollutants, and this nuke watch will be needed indefinitely because the radioactive materials -- notably cesium-137 and strontium-90 -- stay hot for a long time. The injections took place at two locations a few miles from the main ORNL campus. One facility, known as Old Hydrofracture, was operated from 1964 to 1980. The other, dubbed (appropriately) New Hydrofracture, was used from 1974 to 1984. A couple of experimental wells were used on a limited basis, 1959-60. All told, about 5 million gallons of grouted waste (containing about 1.4 million curies of radioactivity) were injected into the ground at various depths -- ranging from 700 to 1,000 feet deep. ORNL apparently was the only federal installation to use hydrofracture, which differed from the deep-well injections commonly used in the oil industry for disposal of hazardous wastes. The Oak Ridge technique relied on high-pressure water jets to crack the shale formation underground and create a horizontal pocket. That was followed by an injection of the radioactive materials mixed with cement, which was supposed to spread out like a big, thin pancake. In theory, the mix was supposed to harden into permanent sheets, forever disposing of the nuclear material far away from human exposure and hard to the environment. In reality, the results were less than perfect. Not all of the material hardened, either because of inadequate grouting or because the waste somehow got diluted or rerouted once underground. It's difficult, of course, to analyze anything with certainty hundreds of feet below the surface -- well out of viewing range. A review of documents in the 1980s indicated that some of the waste injections may have been completed with an insufficient amount of cement or perhaps none at all. At the time, there was an urgent effort to get rid of some of the radioactive sludges being stored in World War II-era tanks not far from the laboratory's cafeteria. Adler said the process "worked pretty much as it was supposed to," although he acknowledges that significant levels of radioactivity can be detected in briny water zones. Those zones are well below the area's groundwater table, he said. No matter what was found, the options for dealing with it were few. Retrieving the radioactive liquids from such a depth would be difficult and enormously expensive, and trying to solidify the briny region could be a never-ending adventure. Could an earthquake in the area disrupt the nuclear cemetery and create an avenue to drinking-water supplies? "That's an extremely unlikely development," Adler said. If, at some point in the future, the monitoring wells show a movement of radioactive material toward water resources, officials will evaluate other protective measures, he said. He added: "Hopefully, we'll never face that." Senior Writer Frank Munger covers the Department of Energy for the News-Sentinel. He can be reached at 865-482-9213 or at twig1@knoxnews.infi.net. This column is also available on the Web at www.knoxnews.com/editorsview/munger/ Friday, June 29, 2001 ***************************************************************** 13 U.S. House to possibly vote on DOE funding bill today Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 11:30 a.m. on Thursday, June 28, 2001 by Paul Parson Oak Ridger staff Members of the House were expected to take action today on a bill containing fiscal year 2002 funding for the Department of Energy. Susan Haigler, press secretary for U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, R-3rd District, said this morning that "a good amount of debate" concerning the 2002 energy and water appropriations bill occurred on Wednesday, but members of the House postponed taking action on the funding until today. The appropriations bill contains funding for two major Oak Ridge research facilities: $291 million for the Spallation Neutron Source project and $11.405 million for a new Mouse House. Other highlights of the funding bill include $536 million appropriated for the Y-12 National Security Complex, which will be undergoing a modernization effort, and $1 million slated to go to Oak Ridge for DOE's nanotechnology research initiative, which could be used for a new nanoscience research facility. The appropriations bill recommends $18.7 billion for DOE, which is $640.8 million over President Bush's request and $444.2 million above FY 2001. The bill has already been approved without changes by the House Appropriations Committee and its Energy and Water Subcommittee. All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 14 Gibson named to federal advisory committee Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 11:29 a.m. on Thursday, June 28, 2001 Luther Gibson from staff reports Luther Gibson, chairman of the Oak Ridge Site-Specific Advisory Board, has been named to the Alternative Technologies to Incineration Committee of the Environmental Management Advisory Board, a federal advisory panel that deals with the Department of Energy on issues relating to environmental restoration and waste management. The Alternative Technologies to Incineration Committee will examine emerging technologies identified by DOE for treatment for disposal of mixed transuranic and low-level radioactive wastes previously scheduled for incineration at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory. The group will facilitate public comment and communications on issues related to these emerging technologies. Gibson sees value in participating on the committee because it ties into local concerns, particularly the proposed closure of the Toxic Substances Control Act Incinerator at the Oak Ridge K-25 Site. "Although the charter explicitly refers to wastes at Idaho," Gibson said, "there are broader implications as DOE seeks to build confidence in options for waste that DOE has been incinerating at its sites. These options include alternative technologies and treatment at commercial facilities. "DOE has either suspended or terminated its mixed waste incinerator operations except at Oak Ridge," he added, "and current plans are to close the Oak Ridge TSCA Incinerator in 2003. At their current stage of development, the alternatives in general seem to have many issues that will need to be resolved before any can be selected and implemented." Gibson, a Roane County resident, works in the BWXT Y-12 Analytical Chemistry Organization and holds a master's degree in chemical engineering. He has worked for DOE contractors for 25 years on environmental technologies and associated regulatory issues. He was 1998-99 chairman of the East Tennessee Chapter of the Air and Waste Management Association. The Oak Ridge Site-Specific Advisory Board is a federally appointed citizens panel that provides advice and recommendations to DOE on its Oak Ridge environmental management program. The group was formed in 1995 and chartered under the Federal Advisory Committee Act. All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 15 New trial sought in beryllium case Rocky Mountain News: Local Attorney for Flats workers cites jurors' confusion as reason; motion to come soon By Berny Morson, News Staff Writer GOLDEN -- Lawyers for Rocky Flats workers sickened by beryllium dust will argue jury confusion entitles their clients to a new trial. Steve Jensen, a lawyer for the workers, said Wednesday that some of the jurors didn't understand their verdict meant his clients couldn't collect any money from Brush Wellman, the company that manufactures beryllium. A jury Tuesday ruled against four of the workers and their families. The workers had claimed the Ohio-based company is liable for their terminal lung disease. But following the verdict, one juror said she was under the impression the six-member panel had agreed Brush Wellman was 10 percent responsible for the workers' problem. "There's going to be a dispute about whether the jury's verdict is in conflict with itself," Jensen said. Jensen will ask District Court Judge Frank Plaut to schedule a new trial. Jensen said he will file the motion "in the next couple of weeks, if not sooner." Ronald Roerish of Boulder, one of the workers who sued, said the jurors seemed confused by the case. "I don't blame the jurors -- they didn't understand the legal mumbo jumbo," said Roerish, adding he didn't understand much of it himself. James Tooley of Berthoud, who also developed beryllium disease at Rocky Flats, agreed. "Maybe they didn't understand a lot of it," Tooley said. "I know it was very complicated. . . . Maybe they never worked in a place like that." Jensen said he will decide whether to appeal once Plaut rules on the motion for a new trial. Brush Wellman lawyer Roy Atwood said the company will appeal if the workers appeal. Although Brush Wellman won, the company could still challenge rulings on technical points that might affect other beryllium cases. That's more than a theoretical issue for Brush Wellman since cases involving another 47 people suing the company are pending before Plaut. The additional cases will be heard in three trials beginning in April 2002, Plaut said. Brush Wellman faces another 75 lawsuits involving 200 plaintiffs nationwide. Shortly after the verdict Tuesday, Brush Wellman issued a statement saying, "This verdict, once and for all, exonerates" the company. But Stewart said his next step is to "pick another jury," for the next trial starting Aug. 6 in Knoxville, Tenn., involving workers from the Oak Ridge nuclear-weapons plant. "Our intent is to try them until we win," he said. June 28, 2001 2001 © The E.W. Scripps Co. ***************************************************************** 16 Bush weighs nuclear testingBush weighs nuclear testing By Jonathan S. Landay Knight Ridder June 28th, 2001 In Nevada: President asks scientists for input on resuming weapons tests. WASHINGTON — The Bush administration has asked U.S. nuclear weapons scientists to examine ways that nuclear test explosions beneath the Nevada desert could resume more quickly if the government decides to end a nine-year moratorium on nuclear testing. It would now take one to three years to prepare a test, and a recent study concluded that such long lead times could allow political opponents to block any resumption of nuclear testing. Nuclear weapons scientists are looking at “what it would take to do various kinds of tests on various time scales,” C. Bruce Tarter, the director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, said in an interview with Knight Ridder. Tarter and others said the administration hasn’t decided to resume testing. Nevertheless, the review is likely to add to fears that President Bush might end the nuclear testing moratorium and push for developing new “low yield” nuclear warheads that some weapons scientists and conservative lawmakers advocate. Bush has said he has no plans to end the U.S. moratorium. But Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have argued that the safety and potency of the American arsenal can be assured only by periodically detonating randomly selected warheads underground. “This is all part of a well-coordinated effort inside and outside the government to basically resume production of nuclear weapons,” charged Stephen Schwartz, the publisher of the Chicago-based Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, an arms control journal. “If you are going to do that, you are going to need to test, and this is what this exercise is all about.” Schwartz said the readiness review of the Nevada Test Site could provide “cover to China and Russia, and maybe even India and Pakistan,” to begin preparations to resume their own nuclear tests if the United States abandons its self-imposed moratorium on testing. Tarter dismissed such concerns. “Understanding the state of readiness, I think, is a non-provocative activity,” he said. The test site-readiness study comes as the Pentagon is conducting a separate review of U.S. nuclear strategy and forces ordered by Bush. The issues being examined include radical cuts in America’s nuclear arsenal and the future of the testing moratorium. Bush supported the Senate’s 1999 rejection of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, saying a permanent global ban on nuclear testing would be unverifiable. His refusal to call for a new Senate vote on the treaty provoked a rare diplomatic protest by the European Union. Britain, France and Russia are among 76 nations that have ratified the 1996 treaty. Like the United States, China has signed but not ratified the pact, and is observing a test moratorium. Many experts say returning to underground tests is unnecessary and could undermine the international nuclear arms-control system and provoke a new nuclear arms race. These experts contend that the United States can continue to rely on the so-called Stockpile Stewardship Program to ensure that its estimated 10,500 warheads remain defect-free. The program uses experiments, computer simulations, warhead inspections and tests of non-nuclear components. (EDITORS: STORY CAN END HERE) The Nevada Test Site readiness review was requested by retired Air Force Gen. John Gordon, the head of the National Nuclear Security Administration, the Energy Department agency that manages U.S. nuclear weapons programs. “During this year, we will look hard again at improving test site readiness, and will review whether an appropriate level of resources is being applied to this vital element of Stockpile Stewardship,” Gordon said Wednesday in testimony submitted to a House of Representatives subcommittee. The Nevada Test Site is spread across 1,350 square miles of desert northwest of Las Vegas. The main U.S. nuclear proving ground, it conducted 100 atmospheric and 828 underground tests between 1951 and 1992. It still conducts “subcritical” tests of nuclear components, and must remain prepared to resume full-scale testing if required. (EDITORS: STORY CAN END HERE) Darwin Morgan, a spokesman for the Nevada Test Site, said the thrust of the examination is determining the most valuable test to conduct if the United States decides to resume testing. “The question is . . . what information do you want back from the test?” he said. “If it were to rattle a sword, we could do that fairly quickly. If you need to get good diagnostic information . . . that’s where you get the time.” Tarter said the examination of the site’s readiness to resume full-scale tests involves experts from the site, the Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos national laboratories and a commission Congress appointed in 1999 to examine the nation’s ability to maintain safe and reliable nuclear warheads without test explosions. In a Feb. 1 report, the commission expressed grave concern about insufficient funding, crumbling infrastructure, low morale and other problems at the nuclear laboratories, nuclear weapons-production plants and the Nevada Test Site. The panel, headed by John S. Foster Jr., a former weapons designer, found that it would take the test site 12 to 36 months to prepare a test. “It is the panel’s view that such lead times are unacceptable,” the report said. “It seems prudent to take cost-effective steps to reduce lead times for testing to give future presidents a practical set of options for sustaining confidence in the stockpile. The panel believes that the NNSA should investigate a range of options to reduce lead times to, say, three to four months from the president’s making a decision to proceed.” “It seemed to us that three years kind of tied the president’s hands,” Foster said in an interview. © 2001 Reno Gazette-Journal ***************************************************************** 17 CPJ'S PETER ARNETT MEETS RUSSIAN AMBASSADOR TO DISCUSS PASKO TRIAL CPJ News Alert: Russia 2001 New York, June 27, 2001 --- A CPJ delegation led by board member Peter Arnett met today with Russian ambassador Yuri Ushakov in Washington, DC, to express its deep concern about the forthcoming trial of military journalist Grigory Pasko in Vladivostok. Russian military authorities have been pursuing Pasko for nearly four years on charges of espionage and revealing state secrets. Authorities claim that in 1997, Pasko leaked classified information about the Russian Fleet's dumping of nuclear waste in the Sea of Japan to a Japanese television station. Press freedom test case "Of the many press freedom violations CPJ has documented in Russia, the continued prosecution of Pasko, simply for exposing the illegal dumping of nuclear waste, is a test case of the positive intentions of the Russian government," Arnett told Ambassador Ushakov during the meeting. The Ambassador disagreed with CPJ's assessment of press freedom conditions in Russia, but promised to relay CPJ concerns about specific cases to government authorities in Moscow. Also attending today's meeting at the Russian Embassy were CPJ Europe and Central Asia program coordinator Alex Lupis and Washington representative Frank Smyth. Trial begins July 11 Pasko's second trial is currently set to begin on July 11, after three postponements in recent months. Defense lawyer Anatoly Pyshkin has characterized the delays as an attempt by Pacific Fleet prosecutors "to erode the stamina and resources of Pasko's supporters." A CPJ delegation visited Vladivostok in early June to observe the trial. After the first postponement was announced, CPJ board member Peter Arnett and Europe program consultant Emma Gray held a press conference in Vladivostok to protest the delay and support Pasko. Pasko was an investigative reporter with Boyevaya Vakhta, a newspaper published by the Russian Pacific Fleet. He was arrested on November 20, 1997, and accused of passing classified documents to the Japanese television network NHK. Pasko maintained that he passed no classified material, and that he was prosecuted for working with Japanese news outlets that publicized environmental hazards at the Pacific Fleet's facilities. The journalist spent 20 months in prison awaiting trial. On July 20, 1999, he was acquitted of treason, but found guilty of abusing his authority as an officer. He received a three-year sentence but was released under an amnesty program. His ordeal did not end there, however. On November 21, 2000, the Military Collegium of the Russian Supreme Court cancelled the lower court's verdict and called for new hearings. Pasko faces a sentence of 12 to 20 years in prison if convicted. ***************************************************************** 18 Jury Rules Rocky Flats Beryllium Supplier Not Negligent, Denies Damages to Sick Workers June 27, 2001 JENNIFER HAMILTON, Associated Press Writer David Norgard, who worked at Brush Wellman Corp.'s Elmore, Ohio, plant and is suing the beryllium maker, said "it really did hit hard" to learn the government reimburses the company forlegal fees. GOLDEN, Colo. (AP) _ The company that supplied beryllium to a former nuclear weapons plant was not responsible for the illness of four workers who said they were sickened from exposure to the metal, a jury decided Tuesday. The six-person jury ruled that Cleveland-based Brush Wellman was not negligent, and no damages were awarded to the plaintiffs. Jurors told attorneys they believed the former employees of the now-closed Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant assumed some risk with the job, said Al Stewart, attorney for the plaintiffs. The workers had asserted that Brush Wellman failed to warn them about the metal's effects. The Jefferson County District Court jury found that poor management at Rocky Flats was to blame. The plaintiffs have filed separate claims against the government; Rocky Flats operators; Dow Chemical; and Rockwell International. Brush Wellman attorney Jeffrey Ubersux said the jury's verdict confirms that ``Brush Wellman had provided adequate warnings to the users of its products.'' Beryllium is a hard, gray metal that is extracted from ore, refined into a very fine powder and used in manufacturing nuclear weapons, cars, cell phones and other products. Chronic beryllium disease inflames and scars the lungs, making it difficult to breathe. Of the four workers in court Thursday, two were using oxygen tanks. The plaintiffs had no comment on Tuesday's verdict. Stewart said no decision has been made on whether his clients will appeal. __ On the Net: Brush Wellman: http://www.brushwellman.com Department of Energy: http://www.energy.gov Dow Chemical: http://ww w.dow.com ©Copyright 2000 APB Multimedia Inc. All ***************************************************************** NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. 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