***************************************************************** 01/29/01 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 9.27 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER CONTENTS 1 Editorial: Look under every rock for truth 2 BUSH PLAN: NUCLEAR, OIL, COAL 3 Include nuclear, coal options in energy policy 4 Jonathan Riskind: Piketon workers on hold again 5 NEBRASKA UTILITIES CONSIDER MERGER 6 TAIWAN TO CONVENE EXTRAORDINARY PARLIAMENTARY SESSION 7 Protester Sets Himself On Fire 8 Chen holds firm on anti-nuclear stance 9 Chen should respect constitution 10 GREENPEACE USES RIOT POLICE VAN IN NUCLEAR PROTEST 11 Blast site habitat study long overdue 12 Slope blasts nuke waste transport NUCLEAR WEAPONS CONTENTS 1 Nuclear submarines can light up state during crisis 2 Lost nuclear bomb off Georgia looks to stay lost Air Force 3 TAKING THE REINS BWXT AND PARTNERS SET TO CONTROL PANTEX'S 4 Link between atomic tests and Fallon leukemia unlikely, officials 5 Risks From Uranium Limited, Experts Say ( 6 Pentagon 'knew Nato shells contained dangerous nuclear waste' 7 Ex-uranium miners, others call on government to pay IOUs 8 Nuclear cemetery plan ignites fight - 9 Whistleblower says DOE missed court deadline 10 DOE layoffs, land use are focus of upcoming meetings ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 Editorial: Look under every rock for truth January 29, 2001 An investigation into allegations that Yucca Mountain Project's main contractor was biased isn't enough for Rep. Shelley Berkley. The Nevada Democrat last week called on the Department of Energy's inspector general to investigate all department contractors performing work on the Yucca Mountain Project. The initial probe began after then- Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson agreed to conduct an investigation at the request of Senate Assistant Minority Leader Harry Reid, D- Nev. It is understandable that Berkley wants more than a probe of TRW Environmental Safety Systems, an investigation that began after the Sun obtained a document suggesting that Yucca Mountain is safe to store high-level nuclear waste--despite the fact that the DOE hasn't finished its inquiry yet. It surely is an understatement to say that there has been bias on the part of the DOE and its contractors, especially since credible information showing how unsafe Yucca Mountain is has been routinely discounted. For that matter, Congress itself has led the way, requiring that only Yucca Mountain be considered as a repository--not exactly a scientific undertaking since true science would look at several sites, at the very least, to see which one is most suitable. If there ever was a time that the federal government wanted to ensure that political hijinks, slipshod science or downright bias shouldn't creep into a decision it would be the designation of a site that is supposed to safely store 77,000 tons of man's deadliest waste for the next 10,000 years. A truly independent, thorough government review of actions taken to date by the Congress, DOE and contractors would acknowledge just what a travesty has occurred so far. ALL CONTENTS COPYRIGHT 2001 LAS VEGAS SUN, INC. ***************************************************************** 2 BUSH PLAN: NUCLEAR, OIL, COAL Copyright c 2001 The Seattle Times Company Nation & World : Monday, January 29, 2001 By Doug Abrahms Gannett News Service WASHINGTON - A draft of President Bush's energy legislation calls for controversial fast-track drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, an ambitious effort to beef up electricity production from nuclear and coal, and more money for energy conservation and renewable resources. The bill's stated purpose is to wean America's dependence on foreign oil, which stands at 55 percent, and create a national energy policy to prevent shortages that have led to the California electricity crisis. But the proposal, unless altered, is certain to prompt hard-fought debate. Besides making it easier for energy companies to build refineries and pipelines or to drill for oil, for example, the draft harbors the assumption that Yucca Mountain in Nevada will be the nation's nuclear-waste disposal site. The draft reflects Bush's campaign promise to address the nation's energy problems and comes at a time when Americans are facing higher gasoline and natural gas prices and electricity shortages in the West, particularly California. The bill is expected to be introduced early next month by Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, who heads the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott said last week that while an energy bill is not on the legislative agenda, it could move fairly quickly because of the "need for a national energy policy." "It reads like it was written by the nuclear power industry or particularly by the oil companies," said Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev. "This is a blueprint for increased reliance on nuclear power." And signaling his opposition to making Yucca Mountain the nuclear waste dump despite the fact that feasibility studies of the Nevada site are not complete, Reid said, "This is the height of all gall." The proposal would: ** Order federal agencies to speed up the approval process for new underground natural-gas pipelines and set up an interagency task force to hasten environmental reviews. That runs counter to efforts by safety advocacy groups to toughen existing pipeline regulations. ** Repeal the 1980 law that bans drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and accepts the environmental impact report of 1987, which would speed up the process. Environmentalists and many Democrats strongly object. ** Offer unspecified incentives to building domestic refineries; streamline approval processes. ** Look at the potential for increasing nuclear power. There are 103 functioning commercial nuclear plants in the United States, but not one new fission facility is under construction. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has not received any applications for new plants since 1978. ** To offset environmental criticisms, the plan also promotes a bit of conservation. Federal agencies would have to increase the fuel efficiencies of their fleets by three miles per gallon by and use alternative fuels for at least half the total volume of fuel used by agencies by 2005. The plan also offers to provide at least $30 million annually in grants for residents using solar, wind or other renewable sources for power. The question is whether conservation measures will be enough to mollify environmentalists, who are certain to oppose Bush's plan. "Nuclear waste is one of the most serious problems we have to deal with in this country," said Ann Mesnikoff of the Sierra Club. "I don't think you'll find an environmental organization that will support new nuclear power. Solar and wind, yes." "They're using the California energy mess - which has nothing to do with a lack of oil - as a pretext for lowering environmental standards and drilling in America's most sensitive treasures," said Dave Alberswerth of The Wilderness Society. Information from Newhouse News Service was used in this report. ***************************************************************** 3 Include nuclear, coal options in energy policy Monday, January 29, 2001 TUNC ALDEMIR Worried about the danger of electricity shortages that could spin out of control, state governments are considering measures to encourage the construction of power plants. Yet, while there is no argument that combustion turbines and combined-cycle plants using natural gas are the easiest to build, policymakers are deluding themselves if they think they can ignore the important roles that coal and nuclear power play in helping to hold down electricity costs. Coal-fired plants and nuclear plants provide virtually all of the electricity in Ohio. Though they were built decades ago, these units serve us well, providing affordable and efficient power that sustains our state's economy. But in recent years, the demand for electricity has outpaced supply, sapping Ohio's power reserves and straining the ability of utilities to meet electricity requirements at times of peak demand. This has forced some factories to shut down temporarily and prompted calls for voluntary cutbacks in electricity use by residential customers. The situation is not as bad as in some other states, where electricity deregulation has not produced the needed power. Consider California. A shortage of generating capacity has caused the price of electricity to skyrocket. Part of the reason is that California utilities must purchase power at market prices from electrical companies, but another factor is the state's growing dependence on power plants that burn natural gas. Talk about a nightmare. The price of natural gas has quadrupled in the past 12 months and is now about $10 per thousand cubic feet, which is equivalent to oil at $58 a barrel, twice the current price. Ohio has 22 proposals for new power plants, including at least seven that state regulators have approved. Unfortunately, almost all of them are combustion turbines that burn natural gas. Why should the public be alarmed by this situation? Because it suggests a much more fragile energy system than anyone suspected, a system strained by stupendous risks in failing to invest in a mix of energy sources. Relying almost exclusively on a single source for additional electricity capacity creates a serious energy vulnerability. Nationally, natural gas is the fuel for 95 percent of new electrical facilities and the energy source of choice for home heating and industrial use. Even the natural-gas industry concedes there is insufficient low-cost gas to meet projected use and that we should expect price increases. To make matters worse, the construction of coal-fired plants has ground to a virtual halt, and there hasn't been an order for a nuclear plant in the United States since 1978. Just about every fuel and technology that can deliver affordable power in the quantities that the digital economy requires has encountered serious opposition, usually from environmental activists. No energy source has escaped their wrath. Wind turbines--among the most renewable energy sources--have come under fire. A proposed wind farm near Los Angeles was thwarted by bird enthusiasts. And plans for another not far from the abandoned Seabrook nuclear plant on Long Island were dropped after protests from a local environmental group. Environmentalists who oppose the system of hydroelectric dams and reservoirs in the Pacific Northwest because they are bent on unleashing wild rivers recently succeeded in forcing dam operators to scale back operations. That has worked to reduce the supply and increase the cost of electricity in a region that is home base to the digital economy. In Chicago, politicians clamped a moratorium on combustion turbines that are designed to switch on during periods of peak demand after protests by homeowners who didn't want the so-called peaker units in their neighborhoods. And in New York, environmental groups have blocked construction of a gas-fired plant along a scenic stretch of the Hudson River, claiming that the plant would mar the view. We can't have it both ways. We must find a balance between producing energy and environmental priorities. Is it really possible we don't have the will to build power plants anymore? That's how things seem when we give in to extreme opponents of power projects. Did our ability to build for the future, and our children's future, finally succumb to NIMBY-ism--not in my back yard? Do activists who are making it nearly impossible to construct power plants have a point of view we should consider? Of course. But officials need to balance those concerns against the needs of the greater public for energy, as well. Remedies are long past due. California Gov. Gray Davis has suggested that local governments be denied certain state tax support if they refuse to allow a power plant to be built in their boundaries. Because no single energy source can meet rising electricity demand, the only answer is diversification. Every effort should be made to keep hydroelectric dams and nuclear plants operating. Those people who still believe that nuclear power is too costly should consider this: For the first time in more than a decade, production costs at U.S. nuclear plants are the lowest of any major reliable electricity source, dropping below coal-fired plants, according to the Utility Data Institute. In 1999, production costs at nuclear plants averaged 1.83 cents per kilowatt-hour, lower than coal at 2.07 cents per kwh, and far lower than oil- fired plants at 3.18 cents per kwh and natural gas plants at 3.52 cents per kwh. While there is no escaping the economic headaches and inconveniences of inadequate power supplies in the short term, we can start making some smart decisions. The U.S. Energy Department estimates that between now and 2020 we will need about 300,000 megawatts of additional power capacity, or the equivalent of 300 large new power plants. It is time for the U.S. Energy Department, state governments and electrical companies to make sure these plants are built. But beyond that, we need a balanced energy policy and a commitment to stay the course and not let changing national priorities divert our attention to the need for a stable and secure electricity supply. TUNC ALDEMIR IS A PROFESSOR OF NUCLEAR ENGINEERING AT OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY. Copyright c 2001, The Columbus Dispatch ***************************************************************** 4 Jonathan Riskind: Piketon workers on hold again Sunday, January 28, 2001 JONATHAN RISKIND Dispatch Washington Bureau Chief Skepticism had accompanied the good news that flew around southern Ohio's uranium-enrichment plant in October, when then-Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson swooped down to deliver a pre-election gift of $630 million and the promise of jobs saved for years to come. So, those same workers probably were the people least surprised by the news last week that a hitch has been thrown in the plan. Too much neglect, too many evasions and some outright lies have plagued the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant over the past decades. And so, despite the cheers, worry was etched on the faces of many workers who heard Richardson's announcement that some 1,200 jobs would be saved by keeping the plant on standby and launching a pilot project utilizing advanced technology after the Piketon plant is shut down in June. That was the first good news in months at a regional economic mainstay, a place where hundreds of jobs already have been lost since the plant was privatized in 1998. The Clinton administration and many members of Congress had ignored warnings about the dangers of placing in private hands the uranium- enrichment industry which supplies fuel to nuclear power plants. Of course, USEC, the federal corporation that lobbied so hard to leave the government, quickly developed the financial problems predicted by experts, forcing it to close Piketon years ahead of a "guaranteed'' stay-open date of 2005 and threatening the company's overall future viability. Keeping the plant on standby was a sensible decision in case USEC's other plant, in Paducah, Ky.--the only other domestic producer of the enriched uranium that fuels nuclear power plants--also closed its doors. Meanwhile, workers exposed to dangerous materials--such as the plutonium secretly laced into uranium during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s--had waited years just for some partial compensation. And forgive workers if they remain skeptical about any payment for past sufferings until the program actually goes into effect later this year. These employees could be forgiven that October day for fearing that promises would not be kept. And now, what are they--many of them Cold War veterans who helped construct the nation's atomic defenses by producing weapons-grade uranium at peril to their own health--to think? Indeed, what is an entire region--economically depressed and oft-ignored by the powers that be in Columbus and Washington--to think? One of the first acts of the Bush administration's Energy Department was to suspend the Piketon standby program and hold up the initial $161 million released for the project on the Clinton administration's last day. That followed an opinion issued by the General Accounting Office, an investigative agency that acts at the behest of Congress, that the initiative was being improperly funded. Richardson proposed using money from a pot of public funds left over from the USEC privatization. But the GAO, whose opinion was requested by a Republican lawmaker suspicious that the Clinton administration was springing an October surprise designed to help Democrat Al Gore's election chances in Ohio, said the money was supposed to be used for expenses related to privatization and asserted the standby initiative didn't qualify. The accounting office opinion doesn't carry the force of law, and Clinton administration legal counsel had insisted the allocation was proper. Of course, waiting to send off the initial payment until the day before Bush took office didn't help matters. A spokesman for the Energy Department, now run by Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham, a former GOP senator from Michigan, said all the right things last week. The Bush administration remains committed to helping Piketon, carrying out the standby initiative and working out any problems with how the initiative is funded, according to spokesman Joe Davis. The money was held up so a new administration and energy secretary could review the situation, he said. Since Bush used the campaign to promise help for Piketon, there's little else his administration can say. Still, I remember what one worker told me in the midst of the celebrating at the Piketon plant after Richardson's announcement, "I'll believe it when I see the money.'' Chances are, the money soon will be on the way. But it's not hard to understand why Piketon workers and other southern Ohioans might have that attitude. Copyright c 2001, The Columbus Dispatch ***************************************************************** 5 NEBRASKA UTILITIES CONSIDER MERGER Journalstar.com: Nebraska The Associated Press OMAHA - The state's largest public power utilities are considering a proposal that could combine the operation of their nuclear power plants. Under the proposal being discussed, Omaha Public Power District and Nebraska Public Power District would still own their nuclear plants, but a jointly funded operating company would run the facilities. "We see a lot of changes and consolidation going on in the industry and want to see if there are economic advantages to working together, " said Gary Gates, OPPD vice president in charge of nuclear operations. NPPD operates Cooper Nuclear Station near Nebraska City, the state's largest power plant. OPPD has operated Fort Calhoun Nuclear Station about 15 miles north of Omaha in Washington County for 26 years. The utilities agreed to study the possibility of a joint operation in December. Talks are being held in Fremont and utility representatives hope to wrap up by April. NPPD serves 1 million wholesale, residential and commercial customers in 91 of the state's 93 counties. OPPD serves a 5,000-square-mile area that includes Omaha, as well as Cass, Otoe, Nemaha, Pawnee and Johnson counties. Copyright c 2001, Lincoln Journal Star. All rights reserved. This ***************************************************************** 6 TAIWAN TO CONVENE EXTRAORDINARY PARLIAMENTARY SESSION TAIPEI JAN. 29 KYODO - Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the opposition parties agreed Monday to convene an extraordinary parliamentary session this week to allow Premier Chang Chun-hsiung to report on his disputed decision to halt construction of the island's fourth nuclear power plant. Parliamentary Speaker Wang Jin-pyng said lawmakers from the various parties decided to have Chang make his report before the legislature Tuesday, opening day of the extraordinary session. It is the first such session since nearly four decades of martial law ended on the island in 1987. Chang's report will be followed by a question and answer session the same day. The legislature will vote on the government's decision Wednesday, Wang said after emerging from negotiations between lawmakers from the DPP, the major opposition Nationalist Party (KMT), the People First Party (PFP) of KMT renegade James Soong and the New Party. Wang stressed that in the ballot legislators will be asked whether they supported or opposed Chang's decision to halt the plant's construction. Earlier this month, Taiwan's constitutional watchdog, the Council of Grand Justices, ruled Chang ignored proper procedure when announcing the scrapping of the plant without first reporting to the legislature. The council asked him to make up for his failure as soon as possible. With parliament in recess and the new session not scheduled to start before Feb. 20, the ruling and opposition parties agreed to convene an extraordinary session to deal with the nuclear power plant issue. The issue has haunted the administration of Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian virtually since its beginnings in May. The scrapping of the plant was one of Chen's election pledges and the DPP has an antinuclear platform. But the legislature remains controlled by pro-nuclear opposition parties. It is seen as certain that the legislature, which approved the project's budget during past KMT governments, will vote in favor of completing the nuclear power plant. This will set the stage for a new showdown between the government and the opposition. The opposition parties claim the government is obliged to respect the outcome of the ballot and resume the plant's construction. But the DPP and government officials argue the government can call supra-party negotiations to resolve the standoff and that there is no need to act immediately on the legislature's vote. Both sides insist their stance is backed by the grand justices' ruling. Earlier in the day, KMT lawmakers threatened they will revive their campaign to recall the president and topple the cabinet with a no- confidence motion if the government refuses to accept the legislature's stance. Since a successful no-confidence motion would allow Chen to dissolve parliament and call a general election, there have been calls for such a move even from within the DPP. General elections that could strip the KMT of its slim parliamentary majority are slated for December. 2000 Kyodo News (c) Established 1945. All Rights Reserved ***************************************************************** 7 Protester Sets Himself On Fire January 28, 2001 ASSOCIATED PRESS TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP)--An anti-nuclear protester set himself on fire outside of Taiwan's legislature on Monday, waving his arms and rolling on the ground before witnesses extinguished the flames with bottled water. Before torching himself, the man--dressed in sneakers, a hooded jacket and black pants--gave an anti-nuclear protest letter to TV crews that were covering a small demonstration outside of the legislature. The man was taken to a hospital and his condition was not immediately known. The man's letter, obtained by ETTV cable news, urged lawmakers not to support the construction of Taiwan's fourth nuclear plant. The letter, written by hand on white paper, said the plant would harm future generations "for a thousand years." The man signed the letter as Huang Ting-fang. One anti-nuclear protest leader, Cheng Chien-liu, said that he did not recognize the man, who he said suddenly came running from one side of the building. "We tried to put him out with mineral water but there were some parts where the water was not enough," Cheng said. The protest came just hours after lawmakers decided to hold a special legislative session to debate the government's decision to scrap the island's fourth nuclear plant. The special session on Tuesday and Wednesday could bring the island closer to settling a bitter feud between the minority government and opposition-controlled legislature. On Tuesday, Premier Chang Chun-hsiung will address the legislature and defend the government's decision last fall to scrap the nuclear plant, one-third complete. On Wednesday, the lawmakers are expected to vote on a resolution about whether construction on the plant should be continued. If the government does not accept the legislature's resolution, the two sides will have to hold negotiations on a compromise. Lawmakers have blocked the premier from entering the legislature since he announced his decision to cancel the plant. There have been rumors lawmakers would refuse to meet Chang on Tuesday. But Wang said the premier would be allowed to report to lawmakers and that the debate could get heated. Earlier this month, the island's highest court, the Council of Grand Justices, ruled that Chang's scrapping of the nuclear plant had "procedural flaws." The court ordered the premier, the No. 3 ranking leader, to discuss the decision with the legislature. Chang's decision sparked a political firestorm in the legislature, which complained the premier should have cleared his decision with lawmakers. The nuclear project was approved several years ago when the Nationalist Party controlled the presidency. Canceling the plant was one of President Chen Shui-bian's campaign promises. Chen's Democratic Progressive Party has long been opposed to nuclear power. On Monday, DPP lawmaker Chien Hsi-chieh said the legislature's resolution would not be binding and the government did not need to respect it. Some have said the government might dissolve the Cabinet as a way of appeasing the opposition, but Chien said that would be too disruptive. He said his party favors resolving the dispute with negotiations. ALL CONTENTS COPYRIGHT 2001 LAS VEGAS SUN, INC. ***************************************************************** 8 Chen holds firm on anti-nuclear stance The Taipei Times Online: 2001-01-29 MONDAY, JANUARY 29TH, 2001 POWER PLANT: The president attended a meeting of legal scholars yesterday, stoking the political fire as the Legislative and Executive Yuans prepare to do battle over the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant BY LIN MEI-CHUN STAFF REPORTER In his clearest signal to the public that he plans to stand behind the government's controversial cancellation of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant, President Chen Shui-bian (³¯¤ô«ó) yesterday attended a forum that supported the legalities of the decision. At the legal forum all of the scholars unanimously said that the decision to scrap the plant was neither illegal nor unconstitutional. "The verdict made by the Council of Grand Justices (¤jªk©x·|ij) did not say the discontinuation of the power plant was unconstitutional, " said Chen Tzu-yang (³¯·O¶§), a law professor at National Taipei University. Chen further pointed out the ruling of the Council of Grand Justice implied that the legislature was only entitled to participate in decision-making processes, but was not empowered to make decisions. The president stayed for the entire 90-minute forum organized by the Taiwan Law Society (¥xÆWªk¾Ç·|), but did not make any comments while he was there. His presence at the meeting alone, however, was enough to add fuel to the flames of contention that has been rising over the issue during the Lunar New Year. Lawmakers are scheduled to hold a provisional session to address the controversial issue tomorrow and Wednesday. Today lawmakers are expected to begin discussing the nuclear power project. While lawmakers gather inside the legislature a group of environmental activists plans to launch a 30-hour sit-in outside parliament offices. The government is placing much emphasis on the opposition lawmakers and their claim to withdraw the Executive Yuan's decision. If the legislature passes a resolution to compel the government to withdraw its decision following Premier Chang Chun-hsiung's (±i«T¶¯) report on the Cabinet's decision to halt the power plant, "it will cause the collapse of any reasonable interaction between the Legislative Yuan and Executive Yuan," said Tsai Tzung-jen (½²©v¬Ã), associate professor of law at Tamkang University. "By challenging against the Constitution [it] will lead to endless political struggle." The political struggle was showing no signs of slowing down yesterday as the opposition continued to attack the DPP, saying it was going against the will of the public. Newly elected secretary-general of the KMT, Cheng Yung-chin (¾G¥Ãª÷) said that after hearing the opinions of other party leaders around the island over the Chinese New Year holidays, the KMT realized that public opinion was on their side. "Even DPP supporters have displayed displeasure toward the recent performance of the government, seeing it as being anti-democratic, " Cheng said. It is widely expected that opposition lawmakers will pass a resolution to continue building the plant. DPP authorities, however, have repeatedly stressed their anti-nuclear stance, saying they would not accept the result of the resolution and insisting that negotiations be conducted between the two sides. If the negotiations fail to reach any consensus, Chen would then step in to act as a mediator. PFP lawmaker Diane Lee (§õ¼y¦w) said that she doubted any result would be yielded through negotiations. "The Executive Yuan has made clear that it would decline to accept the result of the resolution. Under such a hostile atmosphere, what can the negotiation achieve?" After three hours of coordination meetings between DPP lawmakers and members of the Cabinet yesterday evening, the convener of the DPP's legislative caucus Chou Po-lun (©P§B­Û), showed no signs of bowing out at the last minute. In fact the DPP's stance appeared firmer than ever. "There is no such thing as accepting or not accepting the resolution of the Cabinet. According to the Council of Grand Justices' ruling, if the Legislative Yuan still has a difference of opinion with the Executive Yuan, then both sides should enter into negotiations," Chou said at a late night press conference. Secretary-general of the Executive Yuan Chiou I-jen (ªô¸q¤¯) said before the meeting that the Cabinet's stance in support of the premier's decision remained intact, and if anybody were to take responsibility for the contention, "Premier Chang and myself would shoulder all responsibilities." This story has been viewed 751 times. [*][ Copyright c 1999, 2000, 2001 The Taipei Times. All rights ***************************************************************** 9 Chen should respect constitution The Taipei Times Online: 2001-01-29 MONDAY, JANUARY 29TH, 2001 BY HU TSU-CHING ­J¯ª¼Y It is praiseworthy for politicians to stand by their values and convictions. The question is how to put them into practice? Doing things by due process is the essence of constitutionalism. But is ignoring due process and acting recklessly "romanticism?" Quoting opinion polls selectively and even instigating the general public to "die for" a certain cause is "popularism." The Council of Grand Justices' Ruling 520 on the issue of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant provides a clear answer as to which direction Taiwan's democracy should proceed. First, the ruling said that the only way President Chen Shui-bian (³¯¤ô«ó) can keep his anti-nuclear campaign promise is through the consent of the Legislative Yuan. Prior to the ruling, Chen asked himself time and time again what is the point of being president if he could not keep his anti-nuclear stance. Premier Chang Chun- hsiung (±i«T¶¯) echoed Chen and said that it was "very odd" that a party with different ideals cannot change a previous government's policy. While the council has delivered its ruling, the minority government continues to stubbornly standby such logic. From the perspective of constitutionalism, there is nothing odd about the ruling. If one can do whatever he or she wants just because he or she becomes president, then that person is an emperor instead of a president that we elect every four years. Second, what the ruling declares is that under any constitutional system that contains parliamentary characteristics, the parliamentary sovereignty (°ê·|¥DÅv) is the primary principle that regulates the executive-legislative relationship. As John Locke pointed out in Two Treatises of Government, the legislative power is the only source of power. Needless to say, its hierarchy is superior to that of executive and judicial powers. If there is no legislative power to make laws, how can the executive power execute the laws? How can the court perform its function in accordance with criminal codification theory (¸o¦Dªk©w¥D¸q)? In addition to theory, other countries' political operations also confirm the point made above. Taiwan's current semi-presidential system (Âù­ºªø¨î) finds its roots in France. Initiators of the Constitution of the French Fifth Republic promised the constitutional congress that "cohabitation" does not violate the spirit of the parliamentary system. The reason why later there was the notion of a "popularly elected monarch" (¥Á¿ï«Ò¤ý) is mainly because the president is able to command the majority of the parliament. Otherwise the president can only serve as "the opposition party's leader." Looking at Taiwan's political circumstances, "cohabitation" has been a reality despite the lack of its name. Otherwise, why would Chen need to support his fellow party members who are running for legislative election? Furthermore, what Ruling 520 sets out to explain is that the fate of the fourth nuclear power plant is a matter of political decision. Taipei Society (¼áªÀ) and some of its members contend that the ruling demands the Legislative Yuan consult with the Executive Yuan from a professional angle. Taking into account constitutionalism, this contention is "misleading." The council has made it clear that the nuclear plant issue is not about whether it is good or bad, but about whether the Legislative Yuan should be able to decide whether to keep it or not. As Taiwan has no referendum law, the issue of the nuclear plant debate ultimately lies in the majority in the Legislative Yuan. Take France for example. The anti-nuclear Green Party currently participates in the so-called "pluralist leftist" coalition government, but is constrained by its limited seats in the parliament. The minister of the environment, who is also the Green Party's chairperson, can only strictly implement the regulations regarding the disposal of nuclear waste, but cannot change the fact that nuclear energy generates most of the electricity supply in France. Around the time when Ruling 520 was delivered by the council, a number of DPP lawmakers maintained that the nuclear plant issue should be decided by the majority in the Legislative Yuan. If President Chen and Premier Chang act arbitrarily, it would not only do harm to the party in the legislative elections, but the minority government would also be harmed. I hope Chen and Chang will set themselves free from the myth of romanticism and popularism, and return to constitutionalism. This would not only help to defend their political power, but would throw a lifeline to the struggling DPP lawmakers. Hu Tsu-ching is an associate professor of political science at Tunghai University. Translated by Wu Pei-shih. This story has been viewed 337 times. Copyright c 1999, 2000, 2001 The Taipei Times. All rights ***************************************************************** 10 GREENPEACE USES RIOT POLICE VAN IN NUCLEAR PROTEST NETHERLANDS: January 28, 2001 DODEWAARD, NETHERLANDS - GREENPEACE ACTIVISTS DUPED POLICE AT A DUTCH NUCLEAR PLANT ON THURSDAY, DRIVING THROUGH A CORDON IN A SECOND-HAND RIOT POLICE VAN TO TRY TO BLOCK A CONVOY OF NUCLEAR WASTE. The 11 protesters then chained themselves to the van, four of them to its wheels, as well as to a bridge forming the only access point into the Dodewaard nuclear power plant in the eastern Netherlands. "We made it look like a real police bus. We fooled them," Greenpeace spokeswoman Annemiek van der Molen told Reuters from the site. "It was a surprise," a police spokesman conceded. "It looked like a police van so it was let through. Then it became clear it wasn't ours." The spokesman said that they arrested all 11 activists and a photographer and detained a further 10 protesters on the convoy's route. He said that the waste convoy was delayed by the protest, but was approaching the Dutch port of Flushing by early afternoon. The Dodewaard nuclear power plant has been closed, but nuclear waste including spent fuel rods was to be taken to Britain's Sellafield to be reprocessed. Greenpeace said it was protesting against the practice of reprocessing nuclear waste at Sellafield, which it said causes large radioactive emissions into the air and sea. The organisation is also calling on Dutch Environment Minister Jan Pronk to halt the transport of Dutch waste to Britain. REUTERS NEWS SERVICE ***************************************************************** 11 Blast site habitat study long overdue Anchorage Daily News - By Ned Rozell TY: Column (Published January 28, 2001) Seventeen miles long, 3 miles wide and carpeted with green tundra, Amchitka Island does not resemble a place that absorbed a nuclear explosion 385 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Thirty years ago, this uninhabited island in the Aleutians was the site of three underground nuclear blasts. Today researchers are trying to figure how the tests are affecting Alaska. The big daddy came in 1971. Project Cannikin was a 5-megaton explosion that inspired the formation of the group Greenpeace, a group of environmentalists from British Columbia who joined together to oppose the test. But Greenpeace and many others, including Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel and Congressman Nick Begich, could not prevent Cannikin. On Nov. 6, researchers for the Atomic Energy Commission detonated a warhead about one mile beneath Amchitka. In reaction to the blast, the ground surface rose and fell 20 feet. The shock registered 7.0 on the Richter scale, the seismic unit of the time. Within two days after the explosion, a crater more than a mile wide and 40 feet deep formed. Beneath the surface of Amchitka, the blasts created large spherical cavities that later collapsed and filled with rubble. These underground chambers trapped nuclear contaminants, but groundwater percolating through the areas may carry radioactive materials toward the ocean. Their possible leakage into the ocean, groundwater, and air around Amchitka are a subject high on Doug Dasher's list of things to figure out. Dasher studies environmental radiation and contaminants for the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation in Fairbanks. The main thing that concerns him about Amchitka is that in the past 25 years no one has tested the ocean around the island. If leakage occurs, subsistence food animals, such as Stellar sea lions, could accumulate in their bodies cancer-causing radioactive elements, such as cesium-137. Dasher and a few colleagues will travel to Amchitka in June to test blue mussels found at low tide near the blast sites and on other islands. On a mission for Greenpeace in 1997, Anchorage biologist Pam Miller and others found evidence of americium-241 and plutonium in freshwater plant samples at the edge of the Bering Sea. Miller said Greenpeace's findings are "the tip of the iceberg" of contaminants leaking from the blast sites, but representatives for the Department of Energy, the successor to the Atomic Energy Commission, say their own tests prove otherwise. Mike Giblin, manager for the Department of Energy's Aleutian Island Alaska Remediation Project, said samples collected by the Department of Energy showed no leakage of radioactive material from the shock cavities to the surface. He also said the Department of Energy has not tested the ocean surrounding Amchitka. Giblin said 140 people from different government agencies will live at a camp while performing various cleanup projects and sampling tasks on Amchitka. Dasher said an investigation of the ocean environment and subsistence foods around the site of America's largest underground nuclear blast is overdue. Tests this summer will be a start. "We should have taken care of the 'Is your food safe to eat?' question years ago," he said. "Since no one's sampled out there, it's an open question." Ned Rozell is a science writer at the Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska Fairbanks. He can be reached at 1-907-478-7468. His e-mail address is nrozell@gi.alaska.edu Newspapers [I] [*]McClatchy Co ***************************************************************** 12 Slope blasts nuke waste transport January 28, 2001 By CHRIS TALBOTT Staff Writer To George Ahmaogak, the idea of shipping NUCLEAR waste across the top of the globe is ludicrous, yet another example of how the rest of the world takes liberties with the Arctic Ocean. "I think it's a crazy idea," the North Slope Borough mayor said. Russia and Japan are negotiating a deal to team up and deliver recycled NUCLEAR waste from western Europe to Japan via the Northern Sea Route, which mostly skirts Russia, but also passes close to several countries as well as the Alaska coastline. Assurances in news reports from Japan that the radioactive material won't be a threat in the event of an accident don't sway Ahmaogak. He's seen schemes like these before and they always seem to end up affecting the people he represents, he said. "'We've already got a high incidence of cancer that we're trying to isolate right now," he said. "We don't need any more contaminants. "For those people who haven't set foot up here, they don't realize there are a lot of living resources our people depend on." Though news reports about the concept are just making the rounds, those who study the Arctic Ocean have heard about the possibility of such a plan for a couple of years. Lawson Brigham, retired U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker captain, heard of the concept in 1999 while attending the International Northern Sea Route Programme in Oslo, Norway. This route is simply an extension of the former Soviet Union's Arctic transportation system. "They're extremely capable mariners," Brigham said in a phone interview from his California home. "(The Northern route) has been open since '91, so why wouldn't the Russians want this? They get pay for pilots, who are mandatory. They get paid so much per ton. Why wouldn't the Russians want to develop this?" The international environmental group Greenpeace jumped on news of the negotiations and sent releases to members of the Alaska Congressional Delegation and the state's media outlets. The group, a vocal critic of recent oil development in Arctic waters, called the plan "desperate madness." "It is difficult to say who is crazier: those who propose such a scheme or those who would agree to it," Greenpeace International spokesman Tobias Muenchmeyer said in a release. "Both must be mad. The last thing the fragile Arctic needs is more NUCLEAR contamination." The Japanese Kyodo news service reported that the country's NUCLEAR industry began negotiations with the Russian government after opposition against shipping the waste along the major routes in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. The irradiated fuel is reprocessed at plants in France and Britain, then shipped to Japan. The resulting glass-like material is highly radioactive for anyone standing in close proximity, reports said, but when properly shielded, proponents said, it does not offer much harm to the surrounding environment. Kyodo reported that a test shipment will be conducted this year and that the first full NUCLEAR transport is scheduled for 2002. Japan relies almost exclusively on NUCLEAR power. The reprocessed fuel will power as many as 18 Japanese reactors by 2010. The Arctic has been a logical route to the Japanese for more than a decade. In 1987, they wanted to fly NUCLEAR fuel over the pole from Europe, using Alaska as a potential landing zone in case of emergency. Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, fought the concept and got it banned. Murkowski said he wasn't yet concerned about the proposed shipments. "So far we have yet to see any sign of activity moving through that sea route," Murkowski said, referring to NUCLEAR shipments. It would be difficult to stop such shipments even if Alaska or the U.S. did have objections, he said. Beyond three miles, it's open ocean where ships from any country have freedom to sail. Just because they have freedom doesn't mean it will be easy to travel through the Arctic. The Russians will use icebreakers. Brigham is familiar with the Arctic fleet and agreed with news reports that the Russians would likely have to employ some of the world's largest NUCLEAR-powered icebreakers to accomplish the task--the Rossiya, the Sovetskiy Soyuz and the Jamal among others. Icebreakers are not your usual open-ocean vessels. They are able to take on the kind of conditions the Arctic throws at ships. They are both reinforced and equipped with powerful engines, but they don't simply break a trail through the ice pack like a snowplow. "In fact, the ships essentially rise up on the ice vertically, crack the ice and push it out of the way," Brigham said. "There's vibration, noise, power and different forces at work. The physics of it is all a lot of forces." Brigham, who recently received his doctorate in polar transportation studies from Cambridge University's Scott Polar Research Institute, said the Soviets were a highly successful ocean-going country. Since the breakup, that shipping acumen has been split several ways, but he does not question the Russians' icebreaking ability. "I believe (the fuel) can be escorted across the Russian Arctic with capable ships because the Russians have done that before," Brigham said. "Of course, they said that about the Exxon Valdez." Murkowski, who heads the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, isn't concerned about potential disasters in the Arctic. The glassified material is inert and its radiation won't spread if submerged in the ocean, according to information from Murkowski's aides. Also, while the glassified products are highly radioactive, they have a relatively short half-life--just a few decades. Those kinds of reassurances don't do much for people like Ahmaogak. The Arctic Ocean is vital to the Native subsistence lifestyle. In the past half century, he said, North Slope residents have watched their environment change due to global warming. Scientists have begun to confirm what those who have relied on a subsistence lifestyle have known for a while. The sea ice, a launching platform for hunters, is disappearing. Where ice used to spend most of the year near shore, it now rarely visits. And what does come is a rotten excuse for ice compared to the kind of coverage the polar region used to get. "It's changed a lot," Ahmaogak said. "The ocean current has changed. We're seeing species we've never seen before. We're seeing porpoises, Greenland sharks, silver salmon, king salmon. We've never seen these things before." At the same time, traditional species such as the polar bear, whale and seal are becoming harder to find and get to. Ahmaogak worries that the plan to ship NUCLEAR waste is simply the first of many new kinds of activities as the sea ice retreats. He can envision a North Slope coast taken over by ports and activity. Brigham agreed. "The season could be longer (because of global warming), maybe four months, maybe six months," Brigham said. "If that trend of sea ice continues, they'll be moving ships in the part of the world year round." ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 Nuclear submarines can light up state during crisis - 2001-01-29 - San Francisco Business Times GUEST OPINION ANTHONY T. JONES California is experiencing an energy crisis, due in part to the lack of development of additional generating capacity over the past 10 years as the sector undergoes deregulation. Efforts to build additional capacity are under way or will require several years to develop. Between now and 2005, there will be a tremendous need to keep the lights on and the California economy going. There are several U.S. Navy nuclear submarines and nuclear aircraft carriers stationed in California with electrical generating capacity. Some are in mothball storage at Mare Island and Ballast Point, San Diego. These assets could be readily refurbished and deployed to coastal locations or stationed in major ports of California. Subs can be moored in-shore close to major transmission networks. Locating this additional naval capacity near present power plants in the vicinity of San Francisco, Monterey, San Diego, Redondo Beach, San Pedro and Los Angeles, Monterey and San Francisco could cover major sections of the state. With Navy personnel operating the subs and ships, there will be no transition in authority, management, control or training. As the power-generating assets are already paid for by taxpayers, the economics of this scenario are enticing. There are several other advantages to this short-term solution. The assets can be utilized in short-order. This solution does not involve fossil fuels and their inherent emission of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. It is less taxing on the environment than other proposed scenarios. I am also not advocating new nuclear capacity, but rather capacity that already exists and is sitting idle. The political environment is ripe for co-operation on this issue. A rapid resolution to California's power problem is in the best interest of the new Bush administration, the State Democratic leadership and new economy power brokers. If left unresolved, the California energy crisis will become a national nightmare. Copyright 2001 American City Business Journals Inc. ***************************************************************** 2 Lost nuclear bomb off Georgia looks to stay lost Air Force reluctant to hunt for 1985 weapon ASSOCIATED PRESS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED JAN 28 2001 ASSOCIATED PRESS end ART CREDIT --> Calls for search: Derek Duke, a former military pilot, in his home office in Statesboro, Ga., uses charts from the 1950s to estimate the location of the abandoned 4-ton hydrogen bomb. end CUTLINE TEXT --> TYBEE ISLAND, Ga. - Lost beneath the shallow waters and sand off the Georgia coast lies a Cold War relic that has lingered for decades, a 7,600-pound nuclear bomb dumped by a crippled Air Force plane. Nearly 43 years later, questions raised by a former military pilot and a Georgia congressman have caused the government to consider renewing its search for the lost bomb near Tybee Island, 12 miles east of Savannah. The bomb is lost in Wassaw Sound, where the 1996 Olympic sailing competition was held. The Air Force insists the bomb lacks a key plutonium capsule needed to cause a nuclear explosion, though it still contains radioactive uranium and the explosive power of 400 pounds of TNT. "It's a nuclear bomb," insists Derek Duke, a former Air Force pilot who's been researching the case for two years. "It's like if I take the battery out of your car, then I try to convince you it's not a car." Air Force officials aren't so sure. After weighing the potential dangers of leaving the bomb against the cost of finding it, possibly $1 million or more, they plan to decide soon whether a new search is warranted. Duke's search has revived what had become a largely forgotten tale on Tybee Island, a beach community of 4,000 where rustic bungalows sit beside $500,000 homes. In February 1958, a B-47 bomber on a training mission collided with a fighter jet near Savannah and had to drop the bomb to land safely. It was dumped on the south side of Tybee's uninhabited sister island, Little Tybee. The military spent weeks searching for the sunken bomb, then gave up. For residents who remembered, the bomb was ancient history by the time of the Olympics. Others had never heard the story, or discounted it as local myth. "Savannahians have all kinds of tales and legends," said U.S. Rep. Jack Kingston, a Republican who represents coastal Georgia in Congress. "And part of the Savannah lore was there's a bomb off Tybee. And you'd go, 'Is there really?'" Kingston was skeptical until Duke came to him last summer with a proposal to find the lost weapon himself using a team of former military experts with technology capable of scanning the ocean floor. Newspaper clippings from 1958 and government documents indicated the bomb was real. But how dangerous was it? Duke points to an April 1966 letter to the chairman of Congress' Joint Committee on Atomic Energy by W. J. Howard, then assistant to the secretary of defense. Howard listed four nuclear weapons that had been lost and never recovered. Though two were described as "weapons-less capsules," incapable of a nuclear blast, the Tybee Island bomb wasn't one of them. Howard listed it and a device lost in the deep Western Pacific in 1965 as "complete" weapons. At Kingston's urging, the Air Force checked its original records on the bomb and concluded Howard was wrong. "The bomb off the coast of Savannah is not capable of a nuclear explosion, " said Maj. Cheryl Law, an Air Force spokeswoman. As for the uranium still inside the bomb, "to have that hurt you, you would actually have to ingest it." That doesn't mean the bomb is harmless. High explosives in the 12- foot cylinder could cause serious damage if they detonated with a boat directly overhead. There's also the environmental threat of an underwater explosion and radiation leakage killing sea life. But there's no guarantee the bomb could be found. Experts have warned the Air Force that tides and strong weather patterns over the years could have moved the bomb out to sea. Kingston said he's willing to follow the Air Force's lead for now. But he'd like to see some effort, if only a small search covering just a few miles. "Four-hundred pounds of TNT to some folks isn't a big deal," he said. "But if it's your family and your boat that hits it, it is a big deal." But an Air Force expert on nuclear weapons who has studied the Tybee Island bomb said damage from an accidental explosion would be minimal. Officials believe the bomb sank at least five miles off the coast, beneath 20 feet of water and an additional 15 feet of sand and silt, said Maj. Don Robbins, deputy director of the Air Force Nuclear Weapons and Counter Proliferation Agency. If it exploded, the bomb "would create maybe a 10-foot diameter hole and shock waves through the water of approximately 100 yards," Robbins said. "Even boats going over it would not even notice. They might see some bubbles coming out around them." The amount of uranium in the bomb's casing is too low to cause a serious environmental threat, he said. A month after the Tybee Island incident, in March 1958, a second B-47 dropped a similar bomb, without its nuclear payload, in Florence, S.C. The resulting explosion blasted a crater into the ground and injured six people. Tybee Island residents, known to ride out hurricane warnings at the beachside bars, haven't been ruffled by the wayward bomb. "It was all over the newspapers and the radio. But nobody worried about it," said City Councilman Jack Youmans, 75, who was living on the island when the bomb was dropped. "If it's there, then it's there. That's all." Tybee Island Mayor Walter Parker said he hasn't received a single phone call from residents about the bomb. And John Mack Adams, an island retiree who writes about local history, hasn't heard much other than a friend's joke that their property values might plummet. "A lot of the locals have lived here all their lives. They look at it kind of like a crap shoot," he said. ***************************************************************** 3 TAKING THE REINS BWXT AND PARTNERS SET TO CONTROL PANTEX'S OPERATIONS AND MANAGEMENT Amarillo Globe-News: Business: Taking the reins AMARILLO GLOBE E-NEWS... ->Web posted SUNDAY, JANUARY 28, 2001 2:52 a.m. CT BY JIM MCBRIDE Globe-News Courts Writer There's a new kid in town out at the Pantex Plant. New contractor BWXT Pantex will take over the contract at the Energy Department nuclear weapons assembly Thursday, ending Mason & Hanger Corp.'s more than 40-year reign as Pantex's management and operations contractor. Denny Ruddy, BWXT's general manager, said the company now is wrapping up training for a 16-member management team that will oversee Pantex's day-to-day operations. To prepare for the transition, BWXT, the Energy Department and Mason & Hanger embarked on a broad plan overseeing all aspects of the transfer. More than 90 people a week from BWXT and its partners Honeywell and Bechtel have visited Pantex to help in the process, Ruddy said. "There is an overall plan that includes almost 900 activities from every area from engineering, human resources, technology, manufacturing, " Ruddy said. "It covers all aspects of operations." The Pantex Operations Center watches weather trends and other offsite events for potental impact to plant operations. The Plant Shift Superintendent also tracks various plant operational activities and safety monitoring systems. Courtesy Photo Training has been the watchword for many of Pantex's employees since the government finalized BWXT's contract deal in the summer. The new contractor also has had frequent public meetings and briefings with employees to field questions about benefits and other worker issues. "We are also receiving emergency management training because the nature of this plant has a very active and involved emergency response set of procedures so that if anything goes from natural disasters to accidents, automobile accidents in the plant, chemical spills - those kinds of things - we have an emergency response center," he said. "Each one of the people who responds has to be fully trained." Ruddy said he believes the transfer is going smoothly and that Pantex employees have accepted the new contractor's management approach. He said BWXT hasn't seen vast numbers of employees attend the company's public meetings, a situation he sees as positive. The Firing Site houses two indoor high explosives test chambers. Testing these non-nuclear high explosives is a key element in making sure the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile is safe and reliable. These steel chambers allow for safe studies of high-explosive detonations. Courtesy Photo "If they were worried, I would think they would be turning out in droves," he said. "I think pretty much people have had their questions answered." To ease employees' fears about the changes, BWXT also developed a Web site where workers could check to see how their position fit into the organization and who their new boss would be, Ruddy said. Pantex also has begun a new round of hiring to handle a backlog of nuclear weapons work, but employees who have been offered spots first must pass a rigorous security clearance investigation. Shortly after the DOE finalized BWXT's contract bid, Mason & Hanger announced that 200 workers would be hired because the plant received a funding increase. Frank George, president of the Metal Trades Council, a union group that represents more than 1,000 Pantex workers, said the transition has been a successful one, despite the short time frame BWXT has had to begin assuming control of Pantex operations. "Things are going pretty well," he said. "With that time constraint, plus the holidays being built in, they have come in and just done a wonderful job of communicating and meeting the people and getting in and applying themselves to the operation and learning what everything is about out here." George also praised Day & Zimmermann and Mason & Hanger for helping BWXT's plant takeover. "They could have stuck their head in the mud and made it really difficult, but they didn't," he said. "I think we need to salute them as well." Mike Stumbo, a Pantex security officer who is president of International Guards Union Local 38, said he sees the changes at the plant as refreshing. "I think that we've just been in a position out here of not being progressive for too many years, and we've got somebody that's coming in, that's got new ideas, that's going to be progressive, and we're excited about it." BWXT landed its contract after a tough competition with Mason & Hanger and other potential Pantex suitors. The DOE announced in June that it was awarding the contractor to BWXT, but Day & Zimmermann, Mason & Hanger's s parent company, challenged the bid award. The General Accounting Office later upheld the contract award. The company will receive financial incentives to run Pantex, which has an annual budget of about $300 million. The contract is valued at $1.5 billion over a five-year period. The contractor's parent company, Virginia-based BWX Technologies, supplies nuclear fuel and reactor components to the U.S. Navy and collaborated with Honeywell and Bechtel in its Pantex bid. BWX Technologies now supplies reactor components for the DOE's Naval Reactors program and creates reactor fuel elements for several national government labs. One pillar of BWXT's team is Honeywell, a $24 billion company that produces aerospace products and services, heating controls for homes, automotive and a host of other products. Honeywell manages DOE's Kansas City Plant, which makes electronic, mechanical and other components for nuclear weapons systems assembled at Pantex. Another of BWXT's Pantex partners is Bechtel National, which now has operations at more than 12 major DOE facilities and labs in the United States. Bechtel's government contracting arm has more than 13,000 personnel working in 36 states. Bechtel provides engineering, construction, environmental management, technical and other services for the Defense Department and the DOE. ***************************************************************** 4 Link between atomic tests and Fallon leukemia unlikely, officials say Frank X. Mullen Jr. Reno Gazette-Journal January 29th, 2001 Although Fallon is only 28 miles from the site of a 1963 nuclear bomb test, Department of Energy officials said last week the radiation from the test has not migrated from the site to the town. “There’s no evidence that radioactivity has moved off the site,” said Nancy Harkness, energy department spokeswoman in Las Vegas. “We’ve been monitoring with test wells since 1963 and the Environmental Protection Agency checks the wells annually.” She said there’s movement of water deep below the site in the Sand Mountain Range 28 miles southeast of Fallon, but the movement is easterly — away from the town and toward a navy bombing range. The radiation near Fallon has become an issue during the last year as researchers investigate a childhood leukemia cluster in the town of 8,300 people. The confirmed total of childhood leukemia cases linked to the Fallon area in the past few years now stands at 11, according to state health officials. Radiation is a known cause of cancer and is implicated in many cancer and leukemia clusters worldwide, including 16 in Britain. Some Nevada and Utah residents also blame bomb tests at the Nevada Test Site near Las Vegas for cancer clusters downwind of the test area. In 1963, the Shoal Nuclear Test Site near Fallon was ground zero for a 13 kiloton atomic bomb. That device is 3 kilotons weaker than the bomb that leveled the Japanese city of Hiroshima at the end of World War II. The Shoal project was designed to investigate whether an atomic blast could be detected from afar and recognized as a bomb and not earthquake activity. The Cold War test was done underground, where it left a large underground cavity, vaporized rock and disbursed radioactivity below the surface. Scientists know that nuclear blasts also create radioactive atoms, called radioneuclides, that are released into ground water and travel along with it. Scientists from the energy department, EPA and the Desert Research Institute use eight on-site wells and a dozen off-site wells to search for radioneuclides like tritium. Tritium is also seen as a culprit in some of the cancer clusters found near nuclear processing plants in Britain. “The highest reading we ever got was in 1996 at an on-site well very close to ground zero,” Harkness said. “That well showed a reading of 1,000 picocuries of tritium per liter. The standard for tritium in water is 20,000 picocuries per liter." DOE project manager Pete Sanders said any surface contamination is long gone. He said the ground water below the site doesn’t connect with the Basalt Aquifer, the source of Fallon’s drinking water. “The water is pretty much localized,” he said. “So is the radiation. As far as we know, it hasn’t migrated out of that area.” He said he isn’t aware of any unusual earthquake activity in the area or any other way radiation could have moved off site. “The area is pretty stable,” he said. “That’s one of the reasons (the test) was done there.” LEUKEMIA HOTLINE State Health Division officials have set up a Community Hotline, open weekdays between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m., for inquiries about the leukemia cluster in Fallon: 1(888) 608-4623. c 2001 Reno Gazette-Journal ***************************************************************** 5 Risks From Uranium Limited, Experts Say ( washingtonpost.com) Health Issue Is Raised After Cancer Deaths of Italians Who Served in Balkans By David Brown Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, January 28, 2001; Page A20 A furor in Europe over possible health hazards from depleted uranium ammunition that U.S. warplanes fired in the Balkans has no foundation in medical research, according to numerous studies and radiation specialists. Long-term exposure to natural uranium, which is more radioactive than depleted uranium (DU), doesn't increase a person's risk for leukemia, lung cancer or other serious diseases, many studies have concluded. Chronic exposure to uranium can slightly alter kidney function, although not enough to affect health. Depleted uranium has been studied far less than natural uranium, but researchers say nothing suggests it poses health risks. The best evidence is the experience of about 60 people heavily exposed to DU during the Persian Gulf War. Some still harbor DU shell fragments in their bodies, but they've developed no cancers or other serious illnesses. "It is just not reasonable to assume that there is a causal connection between depleted uranium and reports of illness in this Kosovo or Bosnia situation," said John D. Boice Jr., former chief of radiation epidemiology at the National Cancer Institute. This view was echoed by Naomi H. Harley, a researcher at New York University's department of environmental medicine, who helped write a report last year on depleted uranium for Rand Worldwide, a consulting firm. "It's virtually impossible for DU to cause any of the health effects that are perceived. It is impossible for DU to cause leukemia, " she said. Reports that eight Italian peacekeepers who served in Kosovo or Bosnia have died of cancer (reportedly most from leukemia) touched off deep concern among many Europeans. Thousands of rounds of DU munitions were fired in the Balkans, and some officials believe exposure to the remnants may be causing disease. They note that when European troops went into Kosovo in 1999, a NATO directive warned soldiers to be careful around targets hit by DU projectiles. Numerous European political leaders in recent weeks have demanded that NATO remove DU munitions from its arsenals. The leaders aren't claiming they have evidence that DU is hazardous. Instead, they're not convinced by the evidence (most of it generated by U.S. and British researchers) that it's safe. NATO is refusing to abandon the weapons but promises to investigate the reports. The military uses depleted uranium because of its extreme density, about 1.7 times that of lead. It is put in some anti-tank projectiles to increase their striking power, and in tank armor as reinforcement. In civilian life, DU is used in the counterweights of flaps and rudders in airplanes, in boat keels and--despite the current uproar-- as X-ray shielding in some hospitals. Natural uranium is a mixture of three isotopes, or atomic strains, of the element. In depleted uranium, the two more radioactive ones (U-235 and U-234) have been largely removed for use in nuclear weapons or reactor fuel, leaving metal that consists primarily of the least radioactive isotope, U-238. The form of radiation uranium emits is the alpha particle--two protons and two neutrons. As subatomic particles go, alpha particles are extremely bulky and have very little penetrating power. Paper and skin stop them. The three isotopes decay into other radioactive elements over thousands or millions of years, some of which emit the more penetrating beta and gamma forms of radiation. Nevertheless, virtually all the radiation in samples of DU is alpha. Because of that, external exposure to DU poses no hazard, not even to the skin, researchers say. The only possible risk arises when the exposure is internal, which can occur because DU shells can burn or vaporize when striking their targets. Since 1940, research groups have followed the health of people exposed to uranium in the workplace. Nearly a dozen studies of about 78,000 uranium mill and processing-plant workers have found no increase in illness or cancer from exposures far higher than what could occur in the Balkans. Specifically, there's no increase in cancer mortality overall among the uranium workers, nor in mortality from cancers of specific organs, such as lungs, the lymphatic system or bones. Uranium miners did show an increase in lung cancer, but that almost certainly arose from underground exposure to radon gas rather than uranium, researchers concluded. Trace quantities of the element are in food, water and air. Most inhaled uranium is immediately exhaled, with only about 1 percent retained in the lungs. Similarly, ingested uranium is rapidly excreted, with little absorbed into the bloodstream. Nevertheless, studies from Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, England, India, Japan, Nepal, Nigeria, Russia, the United States and Yugoslavia reveal that nearly everyone has minute amounts of uranium in their bones. Leukemia--the disease that reportedly claimed the Italian soldiers -- arises from cells in the bone marrow. People with alpha-emitting isotopes in their bones have no increase in leukemia. The best evidence is the experience of women exposed to the radioactive element radium in the 1920s while putting luminescent paint on watch dials in factories in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. "They ingested enormous amounts of radium, and they developed huge numbers of bone cancers," Boice said. "But they had no excess leukemia. That's because radium is an alpha-particle emitter like uranium, and the alpha particle can't get through the bone into the marrow to cause leukemia." Bone cancer hasn't been linked to uranium, however, because the element emits so few alpha particles and so little is deposited in the bone, even with chronic exposure. Most toxicologists believe uranium's potentially more serious hazard arises from its status as a heavy metal. Some uranium mill workers who ingested large amounts of uranium dust showed temporary abnormalities in kidney function, such as increased excretion of certain kinds of protein. That abnormality didn't cause symptoms, and the workers didn't have higher rates of renal failure or kidney disease. Since 1993, physicians at the Baltimore Veterans Affairs Medical Center have periodically examined about 60 soldiers who were exposed to DU dust in armored vehicles hit by "friendly fire" during the Gulf War. About 15 still have DU fragments in their bodies and elevated amounts of uranium in the urine, but no kidney disease. There have been no cancers in the entire group, said Melissa McDiarmid, the physician who heads the monitoring team. She added that the cohort--all men--has fathered 38 children since the war, with no birth defects. Some Europeans have also expressed alarm that trace amounts of plutonium, a radioactive element produced by nuclear reactors, was detected in Balkan DU samples. This isn't surprising, researchers say, as some recycled reactor fuel is used in the enrichment process that separates the uranium isotopes. In a commentary published yesterday in the medical journal the Lancet, N.D. Priest, a scientist at Middlesex University in Britain, says the contaminants occur in "inconsequential concentrations." That view is shared by NYU's Harley, who said that only "a few" of the thousands of alpha particles emitted per minute by a gram of DU would be from plutonium. "The plutonium issue is really a nonissue," she said. Special correspondent Sarah Delaney in Rome contributed to this report. c 2001 The Washington Post Company ***************************************************************** 6 Pentagon 'knew Nato shells contained dangerous nuclear waste' Independent By John Lichfield in Paris 29 January 2001 Some shells fired in the Gulf and Balkan wars contained a type of recycled nuclear waste that is much more hazardous than depleted uranium, according to a book to be published in France next week. The book, Depleted Uranium: The Invisible War, could change the debate on whether weapons used by the United States and Nato caused widespread sickness among war veterans and civilians. The authors, a Frenchman, a Belgian and an American, produce evidence that the US government knew six years ago that its stocks of "safe" depleted uranium had been contaminated by spent nuclear fuels. Whether this recycled material was mixed up with the "classic" depleted uranium (DU) accidentally or deliberately remains unclear. The book uncovers evidence that the Pentagon knew in 1995 that its armour-piercing shells and bombs contained substances more environmentally menacing than the "natural" depleted uranium that Washington, London and Nato headquarters have repeatedly defended. In other words, the entire DU debate has been based on false premises. The findings of Martin Meissonnier, Frederic Loore and Roger Trilling have been independently confirmed in the past few days by researchers at a Swiss government laboratory, which analysed spent US munitions from Kosovo. The lab found that the shells contained traces of an isotope of uranium - uranium 236 - which occurs only in nuclear waste. The Pentagon spokesman, Kenneth Bacon, admitted last week - in reply to a question from one of the authors of the book - that depleted uranium intended for armour-piercing weapons had been contaminated by small amounts of plutonium at the defence department nuclear plant at Paducah in Kentucky. The vigorous defence of DU weapons by the US and other Nato governments has been based on the argument that DU is a "natural" material of relatively low radioactivity. DU, in its classic form, is the heavy metal left behind - mostly uranium 238 - when the most fissile part of raw uranium, mined from the earth, is removed for use as a nuclear fuel, so classic DU is obtained before the nuclear reaction process. The book produces evidence that at least some of the weapons used in the Gulf and Balkans contained another kind of uranium, obtained by recycling spent nuclear fuels after the reaction process. The danger is that this form of uranium - sometimes called "dirty depleted uranium" - can contain traces of highly radioactive materials, such as plutonium. Mr Trilling said yesterday: "The whole debate should go back to square one. We are not saying that we know for sure that DU caused Gulf syndrome sicknesses, or the similar illnesses reported in the Balkans. Personally, I doubt that depleted uranium weapons are the cause, or sole cause, of the Gulf or Balkan syndromes, whatever these weapons may have actually contained. "What we are saying is that the US government's defence of depleted uranium has been, to be charitable, extremely misleading. The book is a plea for more research - not research on abstract theories about classic depleted uranium, but on the actual contents of US and Nato weapons. Until then, everyone on all sides of the argument is talking in the dark and should shut the hell up." The book is based on two years of interviews and investigations originally done for a French television documentary, which was shown last year. Extra material has been discovered in the past few months. The writers allow both sides of the argument about classic DU to make their cases in great detail. But there are three important new pieces of information: * Independent research by Dr Asaf Durakovic, an American of Croatian origin, has found traces of uranium 236 in the urine or bodies of 42 American Gulf veterans. Uranium 236 is not present in the natural world and should not be present in "clean" depleted uranium. * An official report by the US Army Environmental Policy Institute in 1995 acknowledged the possibility that "depleted uranium used by the Department of Defense contains traces of uranium 236". This implies that some of the DU used in US weapons was created from spent nuclear fuel, not from raw, mined uranium. * The nuclear plant at Paducah in Kentucky was accused of "waste, fraud, abuse and bad management" by the General Accounting Office, the official US government watchdog, in 1992. The accounting office report protested that the plant was recycling uranium from nuclear waste, without proper safeguards, endangering its own workers. Paducah is one of the three sites in America that produce the DU used by US and Nato weapons. It was the site named by the Pentagon spokesman last week as a source of contamination of some DU weapons with plutonium. Mr Trilling said yesterday that the "charitable" interpretation of the evidence was that clean and "dirty" forms of DU had been mixed up at Paducah, or in US Department of Defense stocks, some time in the 1980s. A decision had been taken to use up the stocks in the belief, or hope, that only small quantities of highly radioactive material were involved. "Uranium Appauvri: La Guerre Invisible" by Martin Meissonnier, Federic Loore and Roger Trilling. Robert Laffont; FF139. ***************************************************************** 7 Ex-uranium miners, others call on government to pay IOUs By GARY HARMON SALT LAKE CITY — More than 40 people — Navajos, uranium miners and millers, even a former college administrator ravaged by radiation fallout — Saturday called on the federal government to make good on its promises. Gathered in the rotunda of the Utah state Capitol, participants at the Day of Remembrance said radiation is reducing their numbers by the day and that many have died while seeking compassionate compensation from the federal government. The day was chosen to commemorate the first atomic test 50 years before at the nuclear test site at Nevada, but was over- shadowed by the contemporary difficulties suffered by uranium miners, millers, transporters and "downwinders" — people who breathed air contaminated by nuclear testing in the West. Uranium mining and nuclear testing affected people without regard to skin color or national heritage, said Ben Shelly of the Western States Coalition, which has lobbied for changes to the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act. Uranium industry workers last year won expansion of the act to cover millers and haulers, in addition to miners and downwinders. The act now makes them eligible for up to $150,000 in compassionate payments if they suffer from radiation-related diseases. The fund from which most of the money would come, however, is empty, and federal government officials have yet to establish rules for the newly eligible groups. In addition, plans have yet to be made for how miners who already have received $100,000 payments would get the additional $50,000, as well as promised medical care paid for by the government. "We're trying to piecemeal people," said Shelly, a county commissioner in McKinley County, N.M., who lobbied in Washington for expansion of the 1990 compensation act. Many of the organizers of that effort have died, Shelly said, most recently a Dove Creek woman who was pursuing a case in the name of her father, a uranium miner, who died of lung cancer. Carol Dewey died Thursday. Dewey also had lobbied in Washington for changes to the act and helped organize the Colorado Uranium Workers Council. "Time is of the essence for these people," Shelly said. The U.S. Justice Department administers the compensation program and last May — even before Congress expanded the number of people eligible for payments and then boosted those payments by $50, 000 — began sending out IOUs to qualifying applicants because the trust fund for the payments had run dry. Shelly and others urged Congress to quickly put enough money in the trust fund to take care of the 242 IOUs, as well as new applicants. U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, who sponsored the original compensation act, has said Congress was negligent in failing to provide enough money in the first place and promised action when Congress reconvened. A Salt Lake City man said he had been told his application would be at the top of the stack once money was available. George Burch, who said he traveled the back roads of Utah and Nevada in the 1950s from his home in Cedar City, Utah, said he contracted bladder cancer as a result of being exposed to radiation as a downwinder. Those same back roads happened to go through the very counties in both states where the effects of fallout were heaviest, Burch said. He didn't know the dangers of fallout, but remembers a day in which he was driving into St. George, Utah, and was stopped by officials with a Geiger counter. The counter's beeping sound turned into a squeal when his car was inspected and he was told to wash the car and take a shower when he arrived in St. George, Burch said. Surgeons already have removed his bladder and replaced it with a section of small intestine, but he has yet to receive the $50,000 payment the Justice Department told him he was owed, Burch said. He was told by an official that she had noticed his application and had "placed it at the top of the pile," Burch said. "I want to see if we gather our numbers if we can force somebody in Washington to act on our behalf," he said. Michelle Thomas of St. George, a victim of polymyositis, hobbled through the rotunda on a cane. That disease wasn't compensable, "but my breast cancer was, " she said. "And this would have been," she said, pointing to a scar under her throat, another cancer. Thomas said she had received a $50,000 payment from the government, but she gets only one payment, no matter how many diseases she contracts. Her payment covered only a year's salary as a human resources director at a college, but her afflictions — and her bills — continue, Thomas said. Thomas said the government could do more by picking up medical costs associated with radiation exposure and recognizing that they don't occur in a vacuum. "It all has a cumulative effect," she said. sp;Gary Harmon can be reached via e-mail at gharmon@gjds.com. [*][I] c Copyright 2001 [*]Cox Interactive Media & [*]The Daily ***************************************************************** 8 Nuclear cemetery plan ignites fight - Atlanta Business Chronicle From the January 26, 2001 print edition p; Staff Writer Since Southern Co. opened its first nuclear power plant in 1975, it has made nuclear energy a key part of its strategy--today generating 20 percent of its electricity from nuclear power. But Atlanta-based Southern and other utilities are running out of places to store the highly toxic waste produced by their nuclear plants. There are about 41,000 metric tons of nuclear waste from power plants--or spent nuclear fuel, as it is called--in the United States, and the amount is expected to reach 64,400 metric tons by the end of the decade, according to a study by NAC International Inc. (A metric ton is slightly more than 2,200 pounds.) Some parts of this waste are so hazardous they will have to be stored in isolation for the next 10,000 years. Now a consortium of eight major utility companies--including Southern -- is pushing to build a "high-level" nuclear waste storage facility on an Indian reservation near Salt Lake City. The $3.1 billion project has sparked a fiery controversy in Utah, where the major opposition ranges from groups of Native Americans and environmentalists to Sen. Orrin Hatch and Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt. The state of Utah has filed 35 written arguments against the project with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which will determine whether to issue an operating license to the consortium by next November. "It's a matter of official state policy that we will resist the placement of these spent nuclear fuel rods in our state, and we will use every political and legal means to do so," said Gov. Leavitt in a telephone interview. "We didn't create it and we don't benefit from it and we won't store it for those who do." Widespread problem Southern, parent of Georgia Power Co. and one of the most widely held U.S. public utilities (with about 500,000 shareholders), is not the only utility company facing the challenge of increasing nuclear waste. Nuclear power plants typically store their spent fuel rods in water- cooled pools inside the plant. However, as these pools have filled up, some electric companies have begun using dry storage, which entails placing the rods in large containers (or "casks") made of steel and concrete that sit outside on a concrete pad. The amount of nuclear waste from power plants that was put in dry storage during 1999 represented a 24 percent increase in the total amount of waste that is in dry storage, according to a study by NAC International. The consortium, known as Private Fuel Storage LLC, is proposing that electric utilities ship these nuclear waste storage casks--most likely by train--across the country to the Utah site. The facility would be the largest of its kind and could store as much as 40,000 metric tons of uranium in spent nuclear fuel rods -- about the equivalent of all the commercial spent nuclear fuel rods in the United States, according to the Utah Department of Environmental Quality. The state's opposition group contends that it is unfair to make Utah bear the brunt of the nation's nuclear waste, especially since the state has no nuclear plants. Gov. Leavitt has established a multiagency task force to oppose the project, while the state's Legislature has taken action by reclaiming jurisdiction over the only road that leads to the reservation to prevent the consortium from building a rail connection to the reservation. Utah's Legislature also revoked limited liability for any entity engaged in storing or shipping high-level nuclear waste--making those companies liable to the fullest extent in the event of an accident. However, the consortium questions the legality of the state's maneuvers. "The state, for whatever reason, has decided to expand their opposition beyond the legally established process and look for any political means or anything they can do to try to delay or stop the licensing of this facility," said Private Fuel Storage spokesperson Sue Martin. "The legislature has taken certain actions to attempt to do that, but whether or not those actions prove to be legal remains to be seen." Seeking a solution Rick Kimble, spokesperson for Southern Nuclear Operating Co., said that the nation must solve the issue of where to store spent nuclear fuel. "As far as we're concerned, nuclear energy is here for the long haul as far as meeting the future energy needs of the country," Kimble said. "The country's energy needs have to be met and nuclear energy has to be a part of that mix." And with nuclear energy comes spent nuclear fuel. "Spent fuel is always going to be an issue and it simply needs to be addressed," Kimble said. "The quicker we can get a storage facility for it, the better." Kimble said the nuclear industry believes the best solution is to store the waste in a central repository, such as the Private Fuel Storage site. A central location would provide better security, better monitoring, and could facilitate waste reprocessing someday. Further, Private Fuel Storage believes its project will not only provide a viable option, but also benefit the area economically. "We point to economic impact studies that have been done of plants and storage facilities which show a positive rather than a negative impact," Martin said. "We believe that regardless of perceptions right now, the reality will certainly not be a negative impact and will most likely be a positive one." Utah also is fighting a tough battle since the Skull Valley band of Goshutes' tribal council already signed a lease in 1996 to allow Private Fuel Storage to use 820 acres of their 18,000-acre reservation to build the facility. Private Fuel Storage and the federal government have refused to release the terms of the lease--even to members of the tribe who oppose it--but some people speculate that it is worth billions of dollars. Leon Bear, chairman of Skull Valley band of Goshutes, says the tribe plans to use the lease payments to improve the quality of life on the reservation by investing in public services, such as police and fire protection. The top priority will be to build a health clinic since the nearest tribal health services office is now 250 miles away. Tribal territory A complicating factor in the debate is the location of the reservation, which has been surrounded by hazardous neighbors and military operations for years. The reservation is eight miles northeast of the U.S. Army's Dugway Proving Grounds--which tests and destroys chemical and biological weapons--and just east of a U.S. Air Force base that tests missiles. In 1968, nerve agents escaped Dugway Proving Grounds and killed 6, 000 sheep and other animals that grazed nearby. Even though the sheep were not owned by the tribe, the government buried 1,600 of the contaminated sheep on the reservation. It wasn't until last year that the government acknowledged the dead sheep were contaminating water on the reservation and, as a result, excavated the contaminated remains. Also nearby are two hazardous waste incinerators and a low-level radioactive waste disposal site. The reservation sits north of a coal-fired power plant and south of a company that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has ranked as the nation's largest emitter of toxic chlorine. Ironically, Bear said, the presence of his toxic neighbors actually led him to welcome the storage of nuclear waste on the reservation. "We just don't have a lot of economics since it's a desert area. ... And it's just a hard, hard place to do anything with, especially with all this stuff surrounding us because nobody wants to come out here when they're afraid of being contaminated by nerve gas or radioactive waste." But Gov. Leavitt insists the proposed facility is a public safety issue, especially given its proximity to a handful of military bases. About 4,000 military aircraft fly over the Private Fuel Storage site each year and a nearby range is used for testing missiles. "In the last three years in that area we've had two incidents of cruise missiles gone astray," Leavitt said. "One hit a mobile home and the other had to be shot out of the air by the Air Force." The state also is worried about the transportation of nuclear waste in Utah. It estimates that in the worst case scenario, a transportation accident in Salt Lake City would result in 114 potential cancer fatalities and cost up to $313 billion to clean up. But the state may have little control over whether the Skull Valley band of Goshutes will store the nation's nuclear waste. The Goshutes, like other tribes, are considered a sovereign nation and have a government- to-government relationship with federal authorities. Anational challenge The problem of nuclear waste storage is complicated by the federal government's failed promises to the nuclear utilities. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 established a fee for nuclear utilities (and their customers) of one-tenth of a cent for every kilowatt hour of electricity generated from nuclear energy. The money went to a fund--which is now worth more than $10 billion by some estimates--to be used for creating a permanent facility for the nation's high-level nuclear waste. The Department of Energy promised to have the permanent facility ready by January 1998, but failed to do so because the process of creating the first permanent nuclear waste facility is exhaustive both scientifically and politically. "All the nuclear utilities have been paying into this fund, but the DOE still has not come to the table with a solution," said Southern's Kimble. While the government has not yet solved the problem, it has spent more than a decade and $3.6 billion to evaluate the possibility of building a permanent nuclear waste storage facility in Yucca Mountain, Nev. That project has faced heavy opposition from the state of Nevada, as well as some scientists and environmentalists. Even if the government decides to proceed with the Yucca Mountain project, it likely would be 10 to 20 years before the facility opens. The situation has frustrated some utility companies into taking the government to court. Southern subsidiaries Alabama Power and Georgia Power are pursuing legal action against the government for breach of contract, according to Southern's annual report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The timing of the Yucca Mountain project is critical because the Private Fuel Storage facility would be a temporary storage facility for waste that would eventually be moved to Yucca Mountain. The duration of nuclear waste storage in Utah depends on how long it takes to approve and build Yucca Mountain. Private Fuel Storage has applied for two 20-year operating licenses, so it could remain in Utah as long as 40 years. If there is still no permanent facility after 40 years, Private Fuel Storage has proposed that the waste be shipped back to the nuclear plants, but Utah's Department of Environmental Quality fears that some plants may have been shut down by that time and will be unable to take back their waste. But the state of Utah is running out of time to fight the proposal. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will issue its final environmental impact statement in February, which would be the last regulatory hurdle before the commission makes its final decision in November. If the project is approved this fall, the first-of-its-kind facility would open in late 2003. However, either side could appeal the decision all the way to federal court. Leavitt said the state of Utah will pursue every legal avenue. "They want to put spent nuclear fuel that's lethally hot for 10,000 years in concrete casks in the desert," Leavitt said. "If it's so safe, then why don't they just leave it where it is?" Reach Moriarty at emoriarty@bizjournals.com. Copyright 2001 American City Business Journals Inc. ***************************************************************** 9 Whistleblower says DOE missed court deadline Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 11:59 a.m. on Monday, January 29, 2001 BY PAUL PARSON Oak Ridger staff Joe Carson says the Department of Energy has failed to fully comply with a court order to provide information pertaining to his whistleblower case. Carson said this morning that the federal agency had until Jan. 23 to provide the information, but failed to do so. The requested information includes any documents mentioning Carson since February 1994, including those dealing with the safety violations he reported, his job status and any personnel actions taking against him. Part of the discovery would also involve depositions from several key DOE figures, including Leah Dever, manager of DOE's Oak Ridge Operations office, according to Carson. Carson said that he will probably seek a subpoena to get the information. A conference call is scheduled for Tuesday on the matter. Participating will be legal representatives for Carson and DOE and a judge from U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board in Atlanta, Ga., which protects the rights of federal employees. Carson, a licensed professional engineer, says that while working in a safety oversight role in Oak Ridge for DOE headquarters, his attempts to report safety and security violations at several DOE sites resulted in a lowering of his usual performance rating, his removal from surveillance responsibilities and reassignment to another site. Carson has been involved in several cases with DOE since the early 1990s. He has won seven favorable decisions in court relating to his allegations that DOE refused to listen to his safety concerns and then retaliated against him for his efforts. In October, the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board required DOE to place Carson in a local job equivalent to the one he lost shortly after reporting safety and security violations. Carson says he has been assigned a position overseeing work on the BNFL Inc. clean up project at the Oak Ridge K-25 Site. DOE's Oak Ridges Operations office declined this morning to comment on the Carson case. [*][I] All Contents cCopyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 10 DOE layoffs, land use are focus of upcoming meetings Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 12:03 p.m. on Monday, January 29, 2001 BY PAUL PARSON Oak Ridger staff The layoffs of Oak Ridge Department of Energy contractor employees and potential uses of federal land are the topics of two separate public meetings scheduled for this afternoon and Tuesday. Oak Ridge layoffs will be the focus of the Economic Transition and Work Force Issues Committee meeting scheduled for 4 p.m. today in the Grand Conference Room of the Oak Ridge Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation office, 761 Emory Valley Road. The economic committee is investigating the impact of workforce decisions made by DOE and its contractors on Oak Ridge and the surrounding region. The group is part of the Citizens' Advisory Panel of the Oak Ridge Reservation Local Oversight Committee, which provides advice to local, state and federal officials regarding DOE-related issues. A public meeting addressing land-use planning on the Oak Ridge Reservation is set for 6 p.m. Tuesday in the Cumberland Room at Oak Ridge Mall. During the meeting, stakeholders will have the opportunity to comment on the types of activities they would like to see occur on the 34, 000-acre reservation. One topic expected to be discussed heavily at the meeting is the Boeing property, located across the Clinch River from the Oak Ridge K-25 Site. Regarding the land, the Southern Environmental Law Center recently sent a letter on behalf of Advocates for the Oak Ridge Reservation and the Tennessee Conservation League asking that DOE refrain from making individual land-use decisions without completing a comprehensive environmental impact statement that takes into consideration the impact of those decisions on the reservation as a whole. The law center, headquartered in Charlottesville, Va., is a nonprofit organization that works through legal advocacy to protect natural resources in the Southeast region of the United States. Anticipating opposition from the law center at Tuesday's meeting, the Oak Ridge Chamber of Commerce sent out a mass e-mail seeking support for the development of 1,500 new homes on the 1,200-acre Boeing Site in the West End of Oak Ridge. The e-mail was sent to Oak Ridge city and Anderson County officials, various public relations representatives and numerous business owners. "We think this (development) is important for the economic future of the city," Chamber President Parker Hardy said this morning. "It's a big opportunity." Hardy said it could take DOE a number of years to complete an environmental impact statement on the reservation as a whole and that could significantly affect developments in progress. [*][I] All Contents cCopyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: *****************************************************************