***************************************************************** 03/30/01 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 9.80 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER CONTENTS 1 State official says he doubts NRC efforts to downplay activity 2 West Texans urge vote on disposal site 3 Richardson: Run For Governor Next? 4 Radiation researchers want baby teeth 5 NUCLEAR-CLEANUP COMPANY WASTED $44 MILLION, U.S. SAYS 6 "Give Me Severability or Give Me Death" 7 Nevada leaders focus on train safety report 8 Environmental Health Hazards are Focus of South Carolina Conference 9 Judge Won't Bar Millstone Permit Transfer 10 Electron Cafe by John Glenn: Dare to be great (UGH) 11 Washington Group and Partners in TRU Waste Disposal Effort Reach 12 Global concern voiced as US drops emissions treaty 13 Scientists see greater quake danger: More studies on LV faults 14 TEPCO Abandons Beginning MOX Use in April 15 Report says Japan's hosting of Int'l reactor 'significant' 16 Sellafield fuel will not be used by Japanese 17 Chinese Nuclear Power Industry Offers Big Opportunities 18 Dounreay testing comes under fire 19 Activists fail to block nuclear waste dumping 20 New mass burial site opened 21 Plutonium Waste Presents a Serious Transport and Disposal Problem 22 Energy boost may come from Neta arrangement 23 CHRONOLOGY-History of nuclear power in Germany 24 G2: Harald Günther's week 25 U.S. Watching Change at Russian Nuclear Energy Ministry Closely 26 New atomic minister to focus on nuclear power plants 27 Western Energy Woes Brings Washington State Nuclear Plant Back From Dead 28 When the wind blows 29 Nuclear dump bill drawing criticism NUCLEAR WEAPONS CONTENTS 1 DOE report cites four radiation-risk sites at K-25 2 DOE site's guards delay picket 3 DOE confirms uranium reports - The study says some records are 4 Three SRS employees contaminated 5 Technology:Feds say site tanks pose risk 6 Aid for nuclear workers headed for Justice Department 7 A decade later, mysterious ailments linger 8 US warns Russia on nuclear spread 9 Tauscher tries to counter Bush budget cutting 10 Colonel Anil Athale (retd) on transparency in defence deals 11 The Age: Clouds gather over Korean sunshine 12 Judges rule Trident not illegal 13 Kursk tragedy to remain a mystery 14 Helms pushes U.S. to reverse stand on nuclear test ban 15 USA to continue to help Russia dismantle nuclear weapons 16 Compensate cancer victims 17 DOE workers' comp may leave Labor ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 State official says he doubts NRC efforts to downplay activity March 29, 2001 By Mary Manning LAS VEGAS SUN A Nuclear Regulatory Commission official tried to reassure a state representative Wednesday night that increasing activity by NRC staff does not mean a permit for a high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain is under way. William Reamer, the NRC's nuclear waste branch chief, said during an open house on the Yucca Mountain Project that in order to prepare a $20 million budget for fiscal year 2003, his 30 employees are preparing a site evaluation report on the mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. They also are searching for an appropriate place in Las Vegas to conduct licensing hearings and training inspectors if a repository is ever constructed. Yucca Mountain is the only site being studied for a repository to hold the nation's high-level nuclear waste. Nevada's technical coordinator, Steve Frishman, said he was skeptical that the commission staff was working independent of the Department of Energy, which is charged with studying, designing and eventually building a repository, if it is deemed scientifically safe. The site evaluation report Reamer's staff prepares could become a blueprint of the commission's licensing requirements handed to the DOE, Frishman said. Although the NRC's actions appear to smooth the way for a DOE licensing bid, Reamer said, there is much work to do before the commission itself begins hearings in about three years, if Yucca Mountain is approved by President Bush and Congress. It will take 18 months for the NRC staff to review the DOE's performance of scientific work before a licensing hearing can begin in front of the commission, Reamer said. "And there's a big if, a real big if, in front of the license application itself," Reamer said, referring to all of the political approvals and technical reviews needed on the mountain before the NRC will consider a license application. The DOE had planned to report to Congress at the end of last year on progress at Yucca Mountain, but two investigations over possible conflict of interest between the DOE and the nuclear industry have delayed that report and a subsequent site recommendation to the president and Congress. On Dec. 1 the Sun published excerpts from a two-page anonymous memo offering suggestions on how to sell the Yucca Mountain project to Congress in spite of a $58 billion price tag to build and operate the repository. Previous estimates had priced it at $36 billion. The DOE's inspector general is investigating that memo, and a General Accounting Office review is being prepared into a six-page letter that questions the qualifications of DOE staff working on the project. The GAO is the investigative arm of Congress. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission voted to proceed with a formal licensing process for Yucca, which would take three to four years, even though in February it began considering informal reviews for nuclear power plant licensing. The five commissioners agreed, however, that a hearing for a Yucca Mountain repository should be formal, allowing witnesses to be cross-examined in a courtroom-like setting. "As noted above, I would explicitly include any proceedings relating to the licensing of a proposed repository at Yucca Mountain within the class of proceedings for which formal procedures are necessary," NRC Chairman Richard Meserve said. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 2 West Texans urge vote on disposal site Star-Telegram.Com Updated: Thursday, Mar. 29, 2001 at 23:18 CST By Neil Strassman Star-Telegram Staff Writer AUSTIN -- Hispanic leaders from West Texas told the Senate Natural Resources Committee on Thursday that they don't want low-level radioactive waste buried near their communities. A permanent site for disposing of radioactive waste in Texas should be a regional choice, officials from Ward and Reeves counties told the senators. "We are being targeted because we are Hispanics, and we don't want it in our area," Ward County Commissioner Julian Florez said. Florez and Reeves County Judge Jimmy Galindo testified on a Senate bill to allow a state- licensed private company to store and permanently dispose of radioactive waste in West Texas. "People should have the right to say if they want to live with a radioactive waste dump for the next 500 years, but the voice of people from West Texas isn't heard," Galindo said. The entire region should vote on a disposal site, he said. Supporters of the bill say the state must consolidate the waste at a single site where it can be safely stored. Critics say such a site could contaminate groundwater and warn that Texas could become a dumping ground for radioactive waste. The bill calls for a site capable of isolating waste from the environment for hundreds of years, preserving the opportunity to retrieve and move it and have the potential to become permanent. Texas is a partner in a radioactive waste compact with Vermont and Maine and is the host state for disposal. The waste -- generated by medical, research and industrial activities and nuclear power plants -- can vary tremendously in radioactivity and the hazard it poses. The front-runner for the site is in Andrews County, northwest of Midland, home of Waste Control Specialists, the only Texas company licensed to process and store radioactive waste. "We believe it to be safe. The local people want it," said Eric Peus, Waste Control chief executive officer. "Andrews is predominantly Anglo, but we have very close relations with Hispanics in town." Neil Strassman, (817) 390-7657 Send comments to strass@star-telegram.com ***************************************************************** 3 Richardson: Run For Governor Next? Thursday March 29 08:39 PM EST Bill Richardson said Wednesday that a missing hard drive case at a national laboratory last year ruined his chances to become Al Gore's running mate, but said, "I have not run my last race." Richardson, in an exclusive interview with KOAT Action 7 News, said he was one of five finalists to be the Democratic Party's vice-presidential candidate. The case of the hard drives, which were missing from a secure section of Los Alamos National Laboratory, hurt him politically, Richardson said. "I had been interviewed by (Gore's) search team and I understood I was one of the five," said Richardson, a former energy secretary under Bill Clinton and a former New Mexico congressman. "But when the hard drive issue exploded, especially when those hard drives were not found -- it took a week -- I was blamed. And I have to take full responsibility, because I was the secretary of energy." The hard drives, which contained sensitive information about nuclear weapons, were discovered missing from a secure area at LANL, which is operated by the University of California on behalf of the Department of Energy. Initial speculation was that the hard drives had been misplaced during evacuations in the face of the Cerro Grande forest fire, which destroyed about 300 homes in the city of Los Alamos in May. But searches of the lab by DOE investigators and FBI agents failed to locate them. The drives eventually were found near a copy machine located in an area searched previously by FBI agents. Their whereabouts during the time for which they were unaccounted remain a mystery. "Human error," Richardson said, speculating about what happened to the tapes. "Somebody probably tried to cover up; no spine." The resulting publicity ruined his chance to be a vice-presidential candidate, Richardson said. "No question, that cost me being considered," he said. "… In politics, you always want new challenges. Yeah, it hurt. But I moved on. I'm back. I look forward to a political career not ending." Richardson said another LANL security case, involving fired scientist Wen Ho Lee, isn't complete yet, even though Lee was freed from jail last year as part of a plea deal. Lee pleaded guilty to one count of mishandling national security information, but charges were dropped on 58 other counts. As part of the plea agreement, Lee was required to assist the FBI in its investigation of what happened to data the scientist handled. "There's still an investigation going on," Richardson said. "There's still dialogue going on between him and the Justice Department. We still don't have the answers about what happened to those tapes. There are still a lot of questions." There has been speculation that Richardson will run for governor in 2002 following Republican Gov. Gary Johnson's second and final term. "I'm going to be very coy with you," a smiling Richardson told KOAT's Craig Nigrelli when asked about the governor's post. "… I am considering the governorship, there's no question about it. I'm not ready to make any decisions. "I have not run my last race, and being a governor is attractive because you set the agenda." Richardson represented New Mexico's Third Congressional District, which includes Rio Rancho, Santa Fe, Los Alamos and Farmington, before becoming President Clinton's ambassador to the United Nations. He later became energy secretary. Richardson criticized President Bush's recent speculation that the country is facing an energy crisis, including high gas prices and California's power-supply shortages. "I disagree with the president," he said. "We don't have an energy crisis. We have a series of energy problems we need to address. "His answer to the energy crisis is to drill in some of the most ecologically sensitive areas of Alaska. I disagree." Richardson believes more drilling for gas and oil is needed, but that the nation needs to employ conservation tactics, too. "We do have energy problems," he said. "What do we do? We've got to drill more for oil and gas in our country. There's no question about it. "But we also have to have conservation. You have to deal with becoming more energy efficient. You have to have more fuel-efficient vehicles. You can't just drill everywhere and expect to resolve the energy crisis. It's not a crisis. It's a problem." The National Park Service's delay in releasing a report on the Cerro Grande fire, which started as a planned burn at the Bandelier National Monument, drew criticism from Richardson. The report was scheduled to be released Thursday, but on Wednesday the National Park Service said it would be delayed until a later date. "Come out with what happened," Richardson said. "Take the heat. That was always my philosophy. "… The good thing is that the park service did own up to the problem. Secretary (Bruce) Babbitt (Clinton's interior secretary) did do that. But there's got to be some corrective measures. You've got to make sure that never happens again, especially in an area as vulnerable as Los Alamos." Copyright © 2001 Yahoo! and . ***************************************************************** 4 Radiation researchers want baby teeth Miami Herald: * Published Thursday, March 29, 2001 * BY CHRISTINE MORRIS cmorris@herald.com The ``Tooth Fairy Project'' wants your children's baby teeth. Evidence that cancer rates may be rising because of radioactive emissions from nuclear power plants prompted the Radiation and Public Health Project to send letters this week to 5,000 families in Miami-Dade County and 5,000 on the Treasure Coast asking for donations of baby teeth. The researchers want to find out if levels of strontium-90, a radioactive material released by nuclear reactors, are high enough to be harmful in children who live near the Turkey Point nuclear plant in South Miami-Dade or the St. Lucie plant. Preliminary results from the project's study of strontium-90 in 500 teeth on Long Island, N.Y., suggest a possible correlation with cancer rate increases. The radioactive material, which enters drinking water, milk and food, lodges in bones and teeth. On Long Island, ``when strontium-90 goes up, childhood cancer goes up a few years later,'' said Joseph Mangano, national coordinator of the Radiation and Public Health Project. ``This is knocking on the door of cause-and-effect proof.'' In South Florida, the project has analyzed 86 baby teeth. They show a higher than normal level of strontium-90, according to a report released Wednesday, but researchers want to test 1,000 teeth. Actor Alec Baldwin, whose mother is a breast cancer survivor, has written the letter to 10,000 families asking for baby teeth. Dr. Victor W. Sidel, past president of the American Public Health Association, said after a review of the project's initial findings in 1999: ``Given the biological risk associated with body burdens of even small amounts of long-lived radioactive strontium-90, it would be prudent to regard these findings as suggestive of a potential threat to human health.'' The state tests the soil, water, air, vegetation and fish near reactors. If safe limits of radiation were exceeded, the state would notify Florida Power &Light, operator of the Florida plants, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. But that has never happened, said Harlan Keaton, environmental administrator for the state Bureau of Radiation Control. FPL also insists that the level of strontium-90 in the environment poses no health risk. The Radiation and Public Health Project is funded in South Florida by Miami Lakes-based Applica, which makes small appliances, and the Health Foundation of South Florida. For information, call 1-800-582-3716. ***************************************************************** 5 NUCLEAR-CLEANUP COMPANY WASTED $44 MILLION, U.S. SAYS [The Columbus Dispatch] March 29, 2001 By Nancy Zuckerbrod *Associated Press * WASHINGTON -- The company that manages the cleanup at nuclear facilities in Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee cost taxpayers an extra $44 million because it didn't meet commitments to cut staff by using subcontractors, the Department of Energy inspector general has concluded. The Energy Department awarded a $2.5 billion contract to Bechtel Jacobs in 1997 to manage the cleanup of nuclear facilities in Piketon; Paducah, Ky.; and Oak Ridge, Tenn. Bechtel Jacobs subsequently hired the previous contractor's employees but eventually was supposed to move people to the payroll of subcontractors who were to be awarded bids for fixed-priced contracts. "Bechtel Jacobs did not use competitive, fixed-price subcontracts or reduce staffing to the extent proposed,'' Inspector General Gregory Friedman wrote. A company spokesman said yesterday that the unusual nature and size of the project were factors the report didn't take into account. Bechtel Jacobs won the contract in large part by stating it would cut costs and speed up the cleanup by subcontracting more than 90 percent of the work and reducing staffing by about 80 percent, the inspector general said. But as of September, Bechtel Jacobs subcontracted less than 60 percent of the original work outlined in the project and reduced staff through the transition to subcontractors by 58 percent, the report said. The Energy Department did not incorporate the proposed goals into its contract with Bechtel Jacobs, which limited the agency's ability to hold the company accountable, the report stated. Friedman concluded that the Energy Department could have saved $44.1 million last year had Bechtel Jacobs met the terms of its proposal. Bechtel Jacobs spokesman John Schlatter said the audit should have given the company credit for contracts that were already established by the Energy Department and that Bechtel decided to continue, even though they were generally not competitively awarded on a fixed-price basis. The company thought that continuity was important in some instances, he said. Schlatter also said Bechtel Jacobs did not outsource as much as originally planned because it underestimated how much work it thought it should do itself. "It's not uncommon for things to be somewhat different on the job than what was proposed,'' Schlatter said of the company's inability to reduce staff to the degree that was expected. In its response, the Energy Department said that the report failed to take into account that the Bechtel Jacobs contract was a "first of a kind'' award for the department. The contract had unique provisions on work force transition and subcontracting, the department said. All content herein is © 2001 The Columbus Dispatch and may not ***************************************************************** 6 "Give Me Severability or Give Me Death" Thursday March 29 12:01 PM EST *By Molly Ivins* AUSTIN, Texas -- Oh, great. The most important thing to happen in politics in years and it has a sexy name like "the non-severability clause" of the equally sexy-sounding campaign finance reform bill. Try selling the passionate importance of that one: "Give me severability or give me death!" While the U.S. Senate lurches toward campaign finance reform, with everything riding on this one obscure provision, we've got flaking Democrats (thanks, Sen. Clinton) and cockroaching Republicans (to cockroach -- a Texas political verb stemming from longtime UT coach Darrell Royal's observation that the trouble with cockroaches isn't "what they eat and carry off; it's what they fall into and mess up"). And one glorious demagogue in Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. Meanwhile, the administration's "Back to the Future" approach to everything took fresh wing when Veep Dick Cheney appeared on television to tout a solution to our energy problems: nuclear power! "If you want to do something about carbon dioxide emissions, then you ought to build nuclear power plants, because they don't emit any." How true. They just have this one small downside: They leave highly radioactive waste that has a half-life of tens of thousands of years, and no one has figured out a way to dispose of it safely. Mankind produces other garbage, including toxic garbage, that we don't know how to dispose of or disarm, but nothing that's this dangerous for this long. We have been proceeding on the cheerful Micawberite theory that "something will turn up," but you can't buy insurance on that. To most people, producing increasingly huge piles of radioactive waste -- which have already polluted places like Hanford, Wash.; the Savannah River Site in South Carolina; Oak Ridge, Tenn.; and Paducah, Ky. -- just doesn't seem ... smart. The Bush administration is currently considering a plan to cut $400 million from the clean-up funds for recycled uranium sites for nuclear weapons and power while the costs of clean-up are still escalating. If you think we've got NIMBY (not in my backyard) problems now, try building a new nuke power plant. As our experience in Texas has shown, nukes are not cost-effective; financial disaster is closer to the mark. (I always thought we could solve the NIMBY problem by building power plants, chemical plants and such in the backyards of their CEOs and directors. People who explain to you that life involves risk, and that we should all be prepared to face some risks for the greater good, should be required to name which one of their children they want to see exposed to the risk in question.) This oilman-heavy administration is looking for solutions in oil, gas and coal -- the extractive industries. That there might be a better way to do it does not seem to register on their radar. Just for starters, the current Harper's index of useful numbers in the magazine of that name offers: -- Gallons by which daily U.S. oil consumption would drop if SUVs' average fuel efficiency increased by 3 mpg: 49,000,000. -- Gallons per day that the proposed drilling of Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is projected to yield: 42,000,000. Fuel conservation alone, whether by increasing taxes on gasoline or by moving forward on the long-delayed fuel-efficiency requirements for automobiles, would seem a smarter move than increasing the risk of global warming. In his speech in Detroit on Tuesday, Bush was touting education and said: "Our people must read better. They must calculate faster and more accurately. They must understand science more deeply." Good advice for everyone, including the president. His budget math doesn't add up. He seems to think that the only way to solve energy problems is by degrading the environment, and let's not get started on his reading problem. (I did like his new word, "Hispanically," though -- I feel that's a contribution.) The concept of investing in renewable energy resources -- solar, hydro, steam, wind -- seems not to impinge on our current leadership. Yet it is perfectly feasible and much cheaper than such pets of the extractive industries as mining shale oil. New Zealand, admittedly a land blessed with hydro resources, has invested heavily in renewable energy. It gets 67.9 percent of its total electricity from hydroelectric sources. On another topic entirely, Bill Moyers had a stunning documentary on PBS on Monday night. If you missed it, try to catch the rerun. "Trade Secrets" is based on a mountain of documents from the chemical industry making it appallingly clear that the industry knew the dangers of PCBs, benzene and other highly toxic products years before they told their own workers or the public. Chemical industry reps promptly complained that they had not been included in the documentary. (They were on a post-program panel.) Hell, the entire program is based on their words. What more do they want? Some reviewers reacted with a been-there, done-that ennui -- hey, this is just more corporate evil-doing, just like the tobacco companies, nothing new here. And our friends in the risk-benefit racket are giving us the old "no progress without pain" line. Again, I'd just want them to choose which one of their children they want breathing benzene fumes and standing in PCBs. © 2001 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC. ***************************************************************** 7 Nevada leaders focus on train safety report March 29, 2001 Nuke waste shipments to be targeted By Benjamin Grove LAS VEGAS SUN WASHINGTON -- Nevada leaders are pointing to recently released national statistics that show railroad derailments are on the rise to focus more attention on the dangers of transporting nuclear waste to Nevada. "We don't want to capitalize on what is a tragic situation," said Jack Finn, spokesman for Gov. Kenny Guinn, "but if it will help us get information across that transporting nuclear waste is unsafe, we'll do that." Guinn has asked the Nevada Legislature for $5 million this year to launch an advertising campaign in states that contain future transportation routes for rail and highway shipments of nuclear waste to Nevada. The money also would be used for legal actions to block the shipments. Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., who sits on the House Transportation Committee, hopes the committee uses the statistics to tackle rail safety rules this year. "You cannot expect train after train after train loaded with nuclear waste to go through this country without any concern for the communities that the trains will be passing through," Berkley said today. "The statistics will demonstrate that the more trains you have, the more accidents will occur." Berkley this week created a list of all the House members who represent areas on the waste transportation routes in an effort to pressure them. "When people across the country start to realize how this could have a direct impact on the health and safety of their communities, we might finally be able to build the political will in this country to look for sensible long-term solutions," Berkley said in a statement. Congress in 1987 tapped Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, to be the nation's burial ground for nuclear waste. The waste is now stored at nuclear power plants nationwide. Nevada leaders aim to spark nationwide opposition to the plan by appealing to leaders in transportation route states. "This study shines a spotlight on what Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has been saying all along, that transporting nuclear waste is dangerous business," the senator's spokesman Nathan Naylor said. Train derailments increased 18 percent over the past four years, according to statistics kept by the Federal Railroad Administration and U.S. Department of Transportation. Derailments on track and in railyards increased from 1,741 in 1997 to 2,059 in 2000, the agencies report, partly because the number of train trips has increased. Officials said poorly maintained track and inadequate inspections by railroad companies also may be to blame. Federal and state rail safety officers number just 550 people, and industry inspectors have dwindled. They are responsible for checking 230,000 miles of track, the agencies say. The numbers surfaced on Capitol Hill in connection with a congressional hearing held today on derailments. But Railroad Administration officials stressed that accident rates on tracks that carry passengers and hazardous materials have decreased. Many accidents occur in railyards as operators hitch train cars, officials said. Track failures cause .54 derailments per 1 million miles of train travel, a DOT spokeswoman said today. "Track caused derailments are at a record low for the past two years," the spokeswoman said. Still, the overall derailment increase worries Nevada leaders. "We are concerned about accidents along rail routes that carry passengers -- we should be more concerned about routes that would carry nuclear waste on our railways and highways," said Amy Spanbauer, spokeswoman for Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev. The most recent significant derailment occurred earlier this month when an Amtrak train derailed in Iowa with 257 aboard; one person was killed and 96 people were injured. The incident happened in an area where a rail defect had been recently patched, National Transportation Safety Board investigators said. The Associated Press All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 8 Environmental Health Hazards are Focus of South Carolina Conference Thursday March 29 1:31pm Source: PR Newswire Link Between Nuclear Radiation and Breast Cancer Discussed COLUMBIA, S.C., March 29 /PRNewswire/ -- With chemicals contaminating our ground water, asbestos invading our lungs and lead poisoning children while they play, environmental health hazards have gone from hidden files to widespread public concerns. The links between our health and the environment have become more than a theory. It's an issue that will be discussed by South Carolina health care and environmental professionals at an April 5-6 conference entitled "Dispelling the Fear & Discovering the Truth: Linking the Environment & Health" at the Clarion Town House Hotel and Suites in Columbia, South Carolina. The conference will take place from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on April 5, and from 8:30 a.m. to Noon on April 6. Dr. Janette D. Sherman, author of "Life's Delicate Balance -- Causes and Prevention of Breast Cancer," and a leading expert on toxicology is one of the featured speakers. Dr. Sherman has probed the relationship between nuclear radiation and chemical pollutants as the major cause of the breast cancer epidemic. She will offer her thoughts on potential causes of breast and other cancers of particular relevance to South Carolinians. Other topics and speakers include: Occupational and Environmental Medicine: Taking Clinical Practices into the Community, Howard Frumkin, MD Dr OH, Chair, Department of Environmental & Occupational Health, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University; Environmental Threats to Children's Health, J. Routt Reigart, M.D., Dept. of Pediatrics, MUSC: Children's Health; Respiratory Health and Air Quality, David Peden, M.D., UNC Center for Environmental Medicine and Lung Biology; Environmental Health 101, Douglas E. Bryant, Commissioner, SC DHEC; and Schools, Indoor Air Quality and Community Partnerships, Andy Rowland, III, CET, REPA, director, Program in Environmental Health Sciences, College of Health Professions, MUSC and Carole Ready, vice president for programs, SC Family and Community Leaders, Clemson Extension. The primary sponsor for this event is the Sustainable Universities Initiative (SUI), a joint environmental education effort by Clemson University, the Medical University of South Carolina, and the University of South Carolina. Additional conference sponsors include South Carolina Area Health Education Consortium (AHEC), South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control, South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, South Carolina Medical Association, and the South Carolina Primary Care Association. For more information on the conference or to register, please visit the SUI website at www.sc.edu/sustainableuand click on "Conferences and Workshops." Source: Sustainable Universities Initiative Contact: Trish Jerman of Sustainable Universities Initiative, 803-777-7760, or e-mail, jerman@sc.edu, or Katy Ruth of NS&G, 803-254-8158, or e-mail, kruth@nsandg.com, for Sustainable Universities Initiative Copyright © 2001, Individual.com, Inc.TM No redistribution ***************************************************************** 9 Judge Won't Bar Millstone Permit Transfer By AL LARA The Hartford Courant March 30, 2001 A Hartford Superior Court judge Thursday rejected a request by nuclear activists to block the transfer of a waste discharge permit to the prospective buyers of the Millstone nuclear power station in Waterford. Judge Carl J. Schuman turned down the Connecticut Coalition Against Millstone's request for a temporary injunction to prevent the transfer of the permit, which allows the plant to dump certain chemicals and radioactive waste into Long Island Sound. Scientists testifying on behalf of the coalition said that because of faulty radiation risk models, the discharges could be more dangerous than generally believed. Coalition lawyer Nancy Burton also argued that the permit had expired and was illegally extended by the state Department of Environmental Protection. Schuman said the coalition failed to prove that the transfer itself would cause harm. He also said an injunction would cause irreparable economic harm to the prospective buyer, a subsidiary of Dominion Resources, of Virginia; plant owner Connecticut Light &Power; and ratepayers. In a statement, Burton said the decision allows Dominion "to operate the most dangerous nuclear facility in the state without having to apply for a permit and face public scrutiny." The decision was the coalition's second legal defeat this week. On Monday, New Britain Superior Court Judge Peter Emmett Wiese dismissed a lawsuit seeking to nullify the state Department of Public Utility Control's approval of the plant sale. Weise said residents' and the coalition's assertions of aggrievement over the sale constituted "generalizations, fears and speculation." ***************************************************************** 10 Electron Cafe by John Glenn: Dare to be great (UGH) Power Online News for power industry professionals \ -->3/28/2001 So far, the administration has sent vague messages about energy policy. Certainly the Bush Administration has been quick to poke a stick in the eye of the environmentalists. In short order, Mr. Bush backed off a campaign promise to regulate the emission of carbon dioxide from power plants, withdrew new clean water standards and actively promoted opening part of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for drilling. Perhaps the policy will be a “drill” and “burn” strategy. However, Spencer Abraham promised an innovative and balanced policy: “It will leapfrog the myths that stifle change, rejecting the notion that there is no middle ground between environmental protection regardless of the cost and energy exploration regardless of the impact.” Bush, citing rising oil and gas prices, along with the electricity shortages in California, has said there is an energy crisis in the nation. But he has also stated there are no quick fixes. I propose that there are daring but sellable technologies that could launch the United States into an era of energy self-sufficiency that are both environmentally sound and affordable. I discussed some of the constraints to energy policy in a column titled, “Energy and Power—Back to Basics” several weeks ago. In this column, I want to dare the policymakers to consider some possibilities. + Commit to gradual, continuous improvement of environmental standards. Energy needs and implementation costs must be considered but no long-term solution that fails to improve the quality of life will be acceptable or long lasting. + Resolve the nuclear waste stalemate and actively promote a doubling of nuclear capacity in the next 20 years. New nuclear plant designs are considerably less vulnerable to accidents. Currently operating plants have demonstrated reliability and cost effectiveness. If the nation increases its nuclear capability and improves fossil fuel technology, the greenhouse goals of Kyoto are achievable. + Even better, rethink the reprocessing issue. If we reuse our uranium and plutonium fuel rather than burying it, we solve the disposal issue and make nuclear fission a solution for the foreseeable future. + Subsidize—through tax incentives or grants—the expansion of all kinds of energy supply to assure energy self-sufficiency in a crisis. Think of power production capability as an infrastructure investment similar to our highway system. Some capacity would not be competitive in the market place during normal times. The less cost-effective capacity could be tapped during either economic or security crises. This might sound radical, but we have subsidized energy development in the past with the oil depletion allowance and major hydroelectric projects. + Be truly innovative. Secondary recovery of fossil fuels can be environmentally friendly as well as opening up vast resources of relatively accessible fuel. I am impressed by a project launched by Reliant Energy with local government subsidies in Western Pennsylvania. The technology will use waste coal as the primary fuel source. Piles of waste coal are abundant in the area. This project will actually cleanup waste sites. In the plant’s first 15 years, more than 40 million tons of coal refuse will be removed from waste sites. In all, more than 100 million tons of waste coal could be removed during the life of the project. Removing the waste coal will beautify the landscape and remove a significant source of acid discharge. Even the alkaline ash can be used to chemically neutralize remaining acids at mining sites. The company claims that the technology will improve air quality when compared to the plant it replaces. I hope the administration really follows through with Secretary Abraham’s promise to find the win-win solutions that I believe exist between the environmental and energy exploration extremes. Truly the best is yet to come if we dare to stretch ourselves for it. *(About the author: John Glenn’s Electron Cafe appears weekly on Power Online, www.poweronline.com. To contact Glenn, email johneglenn@hotmail.com.)* Copyright © 2000-2001, Vert Tech LLC. All ***************************************************************** 11 Washington Group and Partners in TRU Waste Disposal Effort Reach Milestone in Cleanup Mission Thursday March 29, 3:22 pm Eastern Time BOISE, Idaho--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 29, 2001--Washington Group International (NYSE:WNG - news) announced today that Westinghouse TRU Solutions LLC, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant and the Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site have reached a significant milestone in the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) radioactive waste disposal mission. Rocky Flats, one of DOE's most critical cleanup sites, sent its 100th shipment of transuranic (TRU) waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), the nation's first and only site approved for permanent disposal of TRU waste. The shipment arrived at WIPP in the early morning hours of March 14. ``We're certainly proud to be a part of this important environmental milestone,'' said Ambrose Schwallie, president and chief executive officer of Washington Group's Government operating unit. Westinghouse TRU Solutions LLC, the management and operating contractor for DOE at WIPP, and Safe Sites of Colorado, a subcontractor at Rocky Flats, are divisions of Washington's Government unit. ``We are working hard to meet similar milestones from the other DOE sites shipping waste to WIPP,'' he added. DOE's Savannah River Site and the Mound Plant in Ohio are the next facilities to begin shipments to WIPP. Barbara Mazurowski, manager of DOE's Rocky Flats Field Office, described the 100th shipment as ``a truly a significant accomplishment in our efforts to remove all transuranic waste from the site and away from the nearly three million people living in the Denver metropolitan area. It demonstrates our ability to ship waste safely and ship routinely.'' Carlsbad Field Office Manager Dr. Ines Triay also noted the significance of Rocky Flats' 100th shipment. ``This milestone is a reminder of DOE's commitment to close Rocky Flats and provide for the safe and permanent disposal of transuranic waste at WIPP,'' she said. In addition to WIPP, the Carlsbad Field Office oversees the all-encompassing National TRU Program. Rocky Flats is scheduled to send some 2,000 shipments of transuranic waste to WIPP by 2006 -- the year Rocky Flats is slated to complete its cleanup mission. Each shipment can hold up to 42 standard 55-gallon drums of transuranic waste. So far, 60 percent of the waste in the WIPP underground is from Rocky Flats. WIPP had received 174 shipments as of mid March 2001. WIPP, a cornerstone of DOE's cleanup effort, is the nation's first repository for the permanent disposal of defense-generated transuranic radioactive waste left from the research and production of nuclear weapons. Located in southeastern New Mexico, 26 miles east of Carlsbad, project facilities include disposal rooms excavated in an ancient stable salt formation almost one-half-mile underground. Rocky Flats is a DOE-owned former nuclear weapons production facility and environmental cleanup site operated by Kaiser-Hill Company under an accelerated closure contract. Washington Group International, Inc., is a leading international engineering and construction firm with approximately $5.0 billion in annual revenues and a backlog of approximately $6.6 billion. With more than 39,000 employees at work in 43 states and more than 35 countries, the company offers a full life-cycle of services as a preferred provider of premier science, engineering, construction, program management, and development in 14 major markets. Markets Served Energy, environmental, government, heavy-civil, industrial, mining, nuclear-services, operations and maintenance, petroleum and chemicals, process, pulp and paper, telecommunications, transportation, and water-resources. This news release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the private securities litigation reform act of 1995, which are identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as may, will, could, should, expect, anticipate, intend, plan, estimate, or continue or the negative thereof or other variations thereof. Such forward-looking statements are necessarily based on various assumptions and estimates and are inherently subject to various risks and uncertainties, including risks and uncertainties relating to the possible invalidity of the underlying assumptions and estimates and possible changes or developments in social, economic, business industry, market, legal, and regulatory circumstances and conditions and actions taken or omitted to be taken by third parties, including the corporation's customers, suppliers, business partners, and competitors and legislative, regulatory, judicial, and other governmental authorities and officials. *Contact:* Washington Group International Brent Brandon, 208/386-5385 www.wgint.com ***************************************************************** 12 Global concern voiced as US drops emissions treaty The Taipei Times Online: 2001-03-30 March 30th, 2001 "It is very worrying if it is true that the US intends to pull out of the protocol." *Margot Wallstrom, EU Environment Commissioner* ENVIRONMENT: News that the world's biggest consumer of resources is pulling out of an agreement to cut emissions was greeted with dismay around the world REUTERS, SYDNEY US President George W. Bush walked into a hail of protest yesterday after ditching the 1997 Kyoto treaty aimed at staving off global warning, with Pacific islands warning rising seas could wipe them off the map. The EU said it was "very worried" by the US decision, Japan urged Washington to reconsider and Australia reminded the world's most voracious resources consumer it had a responsibility to cut the globe's emissions of greenhouse gases. In the Pacific Ocean, island states already suffering devastation because of rising sea levels and severe storms and droughts said their very survival was at stake. Per capita CO2 emissions Rates in metric tonnes * Brazil 1.39 * China 2.27 * Japan 8.79 * Russian Federation 14.11 * Swaziland 0.33 * India 0.88 * Malaysia 3.74 * UK 9.78 * US 19.13 Source: CDIAC, as cited in World Resources 1996-7 "It is very worrying if it is true that the US intends to pull out of the protocol," EU Environment Commissioner Margot Wallstrom said in a statement. "The EU is willing to discuss details and problems -- but not scrap the whole protocol." British Environment Minister Michael Meacher said in a BBC television interview the US decision was extremely serious. "[Global warming] is the most dangerous and fearful challenge to humanity over the next 100 years," Meacher said. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said on Wednesday President George W. Bush had been "unequivocal." "He does not support the Kyoto treaty. It is not in the United States' economic best interest," Fleischer said. The UN pact was signed in the Japanese city of Kyoto by ex-president Bill Clinton and leaders of other industrialized countries, but it has not been ratified by the US Senate. Under the treaty, the major powers agreed to cut greenhouse gas emissions, which result mainly from burning coal and oil, by an average of 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. Scientists believe that greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide, trap heat in the atmosphere and contribute to global warming, which can cause disastrous weather changes. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, bringing together research by around 2,000 scientists, said that this year the consequences could include big floods, long droughts and the extinction of countless species. Fleischer said Bush opposed Kyoto because it does not bind developing nations to curb emissions and he believes the costs outweigh the benefits. Coming on top of a decision by Bush not to ask US power plants to cut emissions of carbon dioxide, Washington's stance on the Kyoto pact was seen by some as its kiss of death. "The Kyoto protocol wouldn't work without the United States," Australian Environment Minister Robert Hill said. The country responsible for 30 percent of global greenhouse gases "cannot easily walk away from that responsibility," he said. Among those most threatened by climate change are atolls in the Pacific. The tiny nation of Kiribati said it was already experiencing coastal erosion, droughts and severe storms as sea levels rose. "It is a terrible economic problem, it is our very survival," said Baranika Etuati, acting director of the Department of Environment and Conservation in Kiribati. Japan, the world's second largest economy, urged Bush to reconsider. New Zealand said it shared the "grave concern and disappointment" of other countries. Environmentalists wept and fumed. "It is a low point in world environment history," said Australian Greens Senator Bob Brown. Greenpeace climate campaigner Angie Heffernan, based in the Fijian capital Suva, said Bush's decision was driven "by oil, coal and gas interests." "Greenpeace is disgusted and appalled at the United States," Heffernan said. This story has been viewed 363 times. Copyright © 1999-2001 The Taipei Times. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 13 Scientists see greater quake danger: More studies on LV faults find new dangers March 30, 2001 By Mary Manning LAS VEGAS SUN New evidence shows the Las Vegas Valley is prone to larger and more frequent earthquakes than previously believed, scientists attending a conference at UNLV were told today. Southern Nevada's faults have not been studied enough, putting Las Vegas residents at a greater risk if they remain unprepared, according to experts presenting new research at the annual Engineering Geology and Geotechnical Engineering Symposium at UNLV. After running a computer model, geology consultants John Perry and Jim O'Donnell, both of Boulder City, concluded that a quake in the Las Vegas Valley larger than 6.0 magnitude could be devastating. "We found that there would be over 10,000 casualties and $11 billion in total economic losses," their study concludes. Up to 386 deaths could occur and more than 3,300 people would be hospitalized if a big one hit Las Vegas. The scientists ran their computation on faults both west and east sides of the valley. That damage assessment is much worse than a study released last year by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. In the September report, FEMA ranked Nevada fifth in the nation for estimated losses from an earthquake and pegged statewide damages at $55 million, $28 million of the total in Las Vegas. Nevada is the third most earthquake prone state in the nation, behind California and Alaska. Although Northern Nevada has a greater quake danger, Perry and O'Donnell concluded, Las Vegas has a much higher damage potential because of the size of its population. Seismologists first paid attention to earth movements in Las Vegas in the 1960s, when nuclear weapons were exploded underground at the Nevada Test Site, said O'Donnell, who tracked ground motion for the government and now consults with UNLV scientists. After the United States stopped underground nuclear weapons tests in 1992, experts such as O'Donnell turned their attention to natural faults in the Las Vegas Valley. "It should aid our local governments and communities in assessing the demands of a major earthquake -- for example, shelter and hospital requirements," they said of their latest estimate. Small earthquakes triggered in the valley during the 1990s may be a wakeup call that Southern Nevada is far more active than experts and planners once thought, said an expert from the University of Nevada, Reno Mackay School of Mines. Earthquake faults that extend north and south along Decatur Boulevard and one that cuts through Sunrise Mountain east of the valley may be part of larger networks with the potential for bigger earthquakes, said Burt Slemmons, emeritus professor at the University of Nevada, Reno. Slemmons lives in Las Vegas and felt firsthand a Feb. 3 quake with a 3.5 magnitude that rocked the valley on a previously unknown zone called the West Charleston fault. Faults that lie deep underneath the valley and are not visible at the surface pose the greatest risk. Bulldozers and buildings have covered much of the Las Vegas Valley's faults, erasing evidence of earlier earthquakes on the valley's surface. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 14 TEPCO Abandons Beginning MOX Use in April cnic.jca.apc.org Citizens' Nuclear Information Center 30 March 2001 Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) sources admitted that the company will not be able to load mixed uranium-plutonium oxide (MOX) fuel during the periodic inspection of Fukushima I-3 beginning in April.The postponement is a result of Fukushima Governor's opposition to the plan. Fukushima Governor had once given the permission to burn MOX. However, scandals relating to MOX fuel, the JCO accident of 1999, andrecent announcement by TEPCO that the company would postpone building additional power plants lead the Governor to announce this February that he would review the use of MOX fuel in his prefecture over a one-year period. In an interview with Asahi newspaper on 28 March, the Governorasserted that he would take at least one year to review the use of MOX at Fukushima I-3. He also stressed that the entire energy policy must be reviewed and even hinted that the Prefecture might look into not participating in the nuclear fuel cycle program. In the interview, the Governor said that most of the Fukushima citizens are against the use of MOX fuel and that he will look into the "once-through" option which does not involve the use ofplutonium in the nuclear fuel and does not require reprocessing. He explained his interest in this option is because "citizens are less wary (of using uranium fuel compared to MOX), and it is cheaper." He mentioned that the cost of constructing the reprocessing plant inAomori has reached 2 trillion yen and that if the Prefecture comes to the conclusion that the "once-through" option is better, the postponement on the use of MOX might be extended for 2 or 3 more years. Fukushima Prefecture would have been the first to use MOX had the plan proceeded. Originally, Fukushima I-3 was scheduled to begin using MOX fuel in 1999. However, due to the quality control data scandal ofthe British Nuclear Fuels plc (BNFL), plans for using MOX fuel were postponed at a number of plants across the country. There are 32 assemblies of MOX fuel sitting in Fukushima Prefecture which arrived inSeptember 1999. Just a few weeks ago, Niigata Prefecture, which is next in line withplans for burning MOX, received 28 assemblies of MOX fuel from Europe.However, the Prefecture has been firm on its stance that it will not become the first one to burn MOX. In addition, residents of Kariwa Village, the Niigata village which hosts the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant, filed on 28 March a petition requesting the Village to hold a plebisciteon the use of MOX fuel at the plant. Unless the Prefecture decides to become the first to burn MOX, it is sure that Japan's MOX program will be postponed at least for another year. 3F Kotobuki Bldg., 1-58-15 Higashi-nakano, Nakano-ku, Tokyo 164-0003 Japan Tel: 81-3-5330-9520; Fax: 81-3-5330-9530 http://www.cnic.or.jp/
cnic-jp@po.iijnet.or.jp (C) Citizens' Nuclear Information Center ***************************************************************** 15 Report says Japan's hosting of Int'l reactor 'significant' TOKYO March 30 Kyodo - An ad hoc panel under Japan's Atomic Energy Commission said Friday the country's possible hosting of an experimental nuclear fusion plant being developed jointly with Europe and Russia carries a ''big significance.'' In a draft report on the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), the panel stressed that Japan has the capacity for research and development of nuclear fusion. The panel, headed by Hiroyuki Yoshikawa, chief of the Science Council of Japan, said that by fulfilling such a major role, Japan will be able to contribute to international society. The report will be finalized in May, after opinions are solicited from the public. The government will then officially decide whether to pursue its bid to host the facility. The ITER is designed to use nuclear fusion to make electricity, in a similar way as the sun creates its energy. 2001 Kyodo News (c) Established 1945. ***************************************************************** 16 Sellafield fuel will not be used by Japanese Independent 04 April 2001 06:47 GMT+1 Independent By Richard Lloyd Parry in Tokyo 30 March 2001 The future of British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) was thrown into further doubt yesterday as a Japanese power company suspended its use of controversial mixed oxide (Mox) fuel. Tokyo Electric Power, one of Japan's biggest utilities, has decided not to use Mox fuel in its reactors for at least one more year, undermining BNFL's hopes of starting operations at a £460m Mox plant in Sellafield. The plant was finished five years ago, but plans to open it were scuppered by a scandal over BNFL workers falsifying safety records, disclosed in The Independent 18 months ago. The firmadmitted faking data on safety checks of Mox fuel that was shipped back to Japan after reprocessing at Sellafield. The revelation outraged many Japanese and ruined BNFL's chances of winning further contracts for Mox reprocessing, without which the Sellafield Mox Plant (SMP) is considered commercially unviable. Until recently, Japan was the only country with plans for large-scale burning of Mox pellets, which are made out of a mixture of reprocessed uranium waste and plutonium. But recent developments suggest that Japanese power companies have become disillusioned with Mox, and are looking for a face-saving way of abandoning the entire programme. The Mox pellets that Tokyo Electric Power refuses to use were reprocessed not by BNFL but by the French company Cogema, whose Mox business has also been thrown into jeopardy by the scandal. Even if Japanese utilities do in future sign new contracts for Mox reprocessing, it is highly unlikely that they would choose the British company, whose reputation in Japan has been gravely damaged by the scandal. Local politicians in Japan, whose approval is essential to Mox operations in their regions, are under increasing pressure from anti-nuclear campaigns. In Niigata prefecture, there is a campaign to hold a referendum and citizens' groups have brought a number of court cases, although none has so far been successful. BNFL's efforts to rehabilitate itself by sacking workers and management and reforming its safety checking procedures do not appear to have convinced Japanese leaders. "Although I had previously given approval for Mox use, the conditions under which I had given them have now been blown to bits," said Eisaku Sato, the governor of Fukushima prefecture, said last week. "The conditions that caused this ... cheating have not been addressed. I intend, therefore, to have us thoroughly take our time and examine the issue." But time is not on BNFL's side. The Sellafield Mox plant should now be in operation, but it has contracts for less than 10 per cent of its capacity and the Government refuses to license it until the Mox plant can demonstrate that it is commercially viable. BNFL claims that it has letters of intent from power companies, but Kansai Electric Power ­ the recipient of the original flawed fuel ­ insists it is not in any talks with the British company about future contracts. ***************************************************************** 17 Chinese Nuclear Power Industry Offers Big Opportunities [Xinhua News Agency] Story Filed: Friday, March 30, 2001 1:11 PM EST SHANGHAI, Mar 30, 2001 (Xinhua via COMTEX) -- China's expanding nuclear power industry is offering big opportunities for nuclear designers, manufactures and services worldwide, according to industrial sources at a nuclear exhibition opened Friday. The Fourth International Exhibition of Nuclear Power Industry has attracted dozens of nuclear businesses worldwide. Westinghouse, which has recently merged its nuclear department with the British nuclear fuel company BNFL and the nuclear power department of ABB, staged a strong presence at the event, together with its partners in Japan, the Republic of Korea and Spain. James W. Veirs, deputy head of Westinghouse's Department of Nuclear System, said his company is keenly watching China's rapidly growing economy and its nuclear power plan, and is trying its best to take part in China's nuclear power projects. Over the past five years, China embarked on the construction of four nuclear power plants in Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Guangdong, with a total installed capacity of 6.6 million kilowatts. The figure is three times over the combined capacity of the first phase of the Qinshan plant in Zhejiang and the Dayawan plant in Guangdong that had already gone into operation. Yet nuclear power currently accounts for only 1 percent of the county's power supply, compared to 21.9 percent for the United States, 33.4 percent for Japan and 77.4 percent for France. China's coastal areas, which witnessed rapid economic growth over the last two decades, are showing great enthusiasm towards nuclear power. Li Guangjun, an official from Taizhou city in Zhejiang, said the city is very likely to embark on a nuclear power plant in the next few years, because it is facing a serious power shortage and has a good site for a nuclear power plant. Authoritative sources said China has basically acquired the technologies of pressurized water reactors and reported rapid progress in raising the local contents of nuclear power equipment. In the future, the sources said, China will raise higher demands on foreign partners in the advancement of technologies and technology transfer. Veirs said the key to getting nuclear power contracts in China is safety, reliability and economical competitiveness. He said Westinghouse is ready to transfer the latest nuclear reactor technologies and operation management method to China, and will form into a closer partnership with Chinese research institutions and manufacturers. Copyright 2001 XINHUA NEWS AGENCY ***************************************************************** 18 Dounreay testing comes under fire BBC News | SCOTLAND | Thursday, 29 March, 2001, 05:21 GMT 06:21 Twelve particles have been found near Dounreay The system used to detect radioactive particles on the seabed near Dounreay is not up to the job, according to a new report. The Dounreay Particles Advisory Group was set up to trace the source of the particles which have been found near the Caithness nuclear plant and estimate the scale of the problem. But the group's first report has revealed that the system being used is incapable of discriminating between naturally occurring radiation and radioactivity from nuclear hotspots. The group has praised the substantial progress being made at the plant. Campaigners have criticised the group But nuclear campaigners said it does not go far enough. The continuing discovery of particles on the site foreshore, a local beach and the seabed has been a thorn in the side of management at Dounreay. The advisory group set up to help trace the source and the scale of the problem has praised efforts made to date. But it said improvements must be made in offshore work. Its report said the equipment surveying the seabed could not discriminate between the natural radiation and radioactivity from hotspots. Clean-up call Dounreay, which is operated by the UK Atomic Energy Authority, said it is already investigating the use of updated techniques. It has agreed to respond positively to the group's recommendations. But Scotland Against Nuclear Dumping has criticised what it sees as the advisory group's failure to put any pressure on the UKAEA to actually start cleaning up the seabed. Twelve particles have been found close to Dounreay since 1983. ***************************************************************** 19 Activists fail to block nuclear waste dumping March 29, 04:59 PM LONDON (Reuters) - Anti-nuclear campaigners failed in a bid to block the discharge of radioactive waste at two British nuclear weapons plants today. The campaigners said the Environment Agency, which is responsible for regulating the disposal of radioactive waste, had failed to investigate the possible health risks before letting the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) plants go on dumping dangerous material. The Nuclear Awareness Group were challenging a ruling of December 1999 which allowed the AWE to discharge limited amounts of radioactive waste into the environment at its Aldermaston and Burghfield sites, west of London. The Environment Agency said the court's decision confirmed that it had acted in the public interest. "The regulatory system ... has offered the public unprecedented levels of access and scrutiny to the process of determining discharge limits at Aldermaston," it said in a statement. For related news, double click on one of the following codes: Copyright © 2001 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 20 New mass burial site opened Trident waste cleared The Scotsman Online - Scotland's best selling quality national newspaper ANTI-NUCLEAR campaigners have failed in their legal aid-funded High Court attempt - which cost £100,000 - to block the Environment Agency’s decision to allow the discharge of radioactive waste at two sites involved in the production of Trident warheads. Mr Justice Turner dismissed legal moves to block permissions, issued by the Environment Agency last April, which allow the continued discharge of radioactive wastes, including plutonium, uranium and tritium, into the air and water. He refused the campaigners leave to appeal and also awarded the legal costs of both the Environment Agency and MoD against them. Refusing permission to appeal, Mr Justice Turner said a factor which "weighs on me" was that "if permission is granted at this stage, inevitably large sums of public money would be further expended". ***************************************************************** 21 Plutonium Waste Presents a Serious Transport and Disposal Problem for Utah The Salt Lake Tribune -- March 30, 2001* BY PAMELA JO BRUBAKER I read The Salt Lake Tribune's lead editorial (Tribune Feb. 28) "Declare War on PFS" with great interest. High-level nuclear waste containing uranium is not the only thing that Utahns need to be concerned of storing in their back yards in 2002. If the Nuclear Regulatory Commission grants Private Fuel Storage, a consortium of eight nuclear plants, permission to keep monitored retrievable storage in Skull Valley, spent fuel rods scheduled for temporary storage will contain about 95 percent uranium, 1 percent plutonium, 3.5 percent fission fragments, and less than 0.1 percent other elements heavier than uranium, a PFS spokesperson said. Uranium, the most concentrated element in spent fuel rods is, according to Max W. Carbon's book Nuclear Power: Villain or Victim, "only a relatively small health hazard and can be buried with little concern." Carbon is an emeritus professor of nuclear engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Plutonium (Pu-239), the most plentiful isotope in spent fuel rods, presents a more serious waste-disposal problem. "Because of plutonium's health effects, high-level nuclear waste containing large amounts of plutonium must be isolated from humans," Carbon says. With a half-life of 24,600 years, Pu-239 presents a health hazard if it enters the body when a person breaths or swallows, or if it penetrates the skin through cuts or wounds. "Plutonium is not a hazard as long as it remains outside the body," Carbon says. "If plutonium gets inside the body, its alpha particles lose all their energy in a very short distance; they can be very damaging to sensitive tissues nearby." Exposure to plutonium could occur from an accidental release during its use, transport or disposal. A toxicological profile from the U.S. Department of Health &Human Services reports, "plutonium released during nuclear weapons testing is the largest source of Pu-239 in the environment." Harmful health effects are not likely to occur from being near plutonium unless it is breathed in or swallowed. Although people cannot tell if they are being exposed to plutonium, if exposed, this deadly toxin may remain in the lungs or move to the bones, liver, or other body organs. Generally, plutonium will stay in the body for decades and continue to expose surrounding tissues to radiation, increasing one's chance of developing cancer. Plutonium has also been shown to cause cancer and other damage in laboratory animals, and might affect one's ability to resist disease. It is generally assumed that any amount of absorbed radiation, no matter how small, may have an effect on an individual's health. Plutonium, an odorless, tasteless, silvery-white radioactive metal, is produced when uranium absorbs an atomic particle. Under normal conditions plutonium exists as a solid. Small amounts of this toxin occur naturally, but industry has produced large amounts through the creation of nuclear reactors. The most common plutonium isotopes are Pu-238 and Pu-239. Because plutonium is a radioactive element, it constantly changes, or decays. During the decaying process, energy is released and a new product is formed. The energy is called radiation. When plutonium decays, it divides into two parts -- a small part called alpha radiation and the remainder, different from original plutonium, called the daughter. The daughter is also radioactive, and it also continues to decay until a non-radioactive daughter is formed. During the decaying process, alpha, beta, and gamma radiation are released. Alpha particles travel short distances, and cannot penetrate through the thickness of your skin. Beta particles travel farther and penetrate a few millimeters into the skin, and gamma radiation travels the farthest and can go all the way through a person's body. A toxicological profile from the U.S. Department of Health &Human Services reports, "It takes about 90 years for one-half of a quantity of Pu-238 to break down to its daughter and about 24,000 years for the same reaction to occur to Pu-239." Despite the deadly nature of both Pu-239 and Pu-238, Utahns can at least rest assured that the casks scheduled for transport west of the Great Salt Lake will not contain Pu-238, which NASA uses in thermoelectric generation systems in spacecraft and on board power for electronic systems in satellites. _________ Pamela Jo Brubaker is a graduate student in mass communications at Brigham Young University. ***************************************************************** 22 Energy boost may come from Neta arrangement The Times FRIDAY MARCH 30 2001 TEMPUS BY ROBERT COLE SHARES in British Energy have doubled since it reached its nadir in May last year. The darkest hour came when BE published a stark warning on profits and cut its dividend in half. BE’s problems back then were threefold. First, the price of electricity was weakening ahead of the introduction of a new sales regime. Secondly, nuclear generation means inflexible output, and that suggested that BE would be doubly disadvantaged by the new sales system. Thirdly, BE had several reactors, including ones at Dungeness, out of action for unscheduled repair work. In short, BE was caught in a pincer, producing less electricity and having to sell it at a reduced price. Nearly a year on, however, the BE picture is a good deal more positive. This week saw the new electricity trading arrangement, called Neta, go live. Its introduction has been relatively smooth and it seems that generators have already endured most of the unpleasantness it could muster. Some suggest that the price of electricity, which has stabilised, may also rise as a consequence of increasing gas prices. After all, many of BE’s rival generators operate gas-fired stations. Moreover, far from feeling the worst of the new regime BE also reckons to have configured itself to cope with Neta as well as any rival. It has great confidence in its internal systems for matching supply and demand. It helps that BE has hired Terry Brookshaw, one of those who designed Neta. BE’s generating capacity is also most of the way back to full strength and its Eggborough coal-fired plant builds in some flexibility of supply. BE’s US and Canadian ventures also offer upside. The shares look fully priced at 228p. The forward p/e is 40 and the yield is 3.5 per cent — modest for a utility. But profits could rebound more quickly than widely expected and drive share price growth from here. Hold. Shire SHARES in Shire Pharmaceuticals have been knocked hither and thither since it proposed a merger with Canada’s BioChem Pharma last December. At first the price fell as concerns circulated about whether the two made a suitable partnership and whether existing Shire shareholders were diluted too far in order to get the deal done. Most of the falls were recovered in January as Rolf Stahel, Shire’s respected chief executive, went on an investor roadshow. He eased fears about whether Shire would be overexposed to research risks. But, as well as early-stage stuff, BioChem has two promising products for Aids and hepatitis, which are already marketed with GlaxoSmithKline assistance. However, the shares came under attack again in February as the short-selling arbitrage community got stuck in. They hoped to make a turn playing the difference between the price of BioChem and Shire shares over the period that the deal was finalised. It also looks suspiciously as if the short-sellers were artificially depressing Shire’s share price in the process. Any delay in completing the merger, however, would hurt the arbs and yesterday’s news that the Canadian authorities had put a spanner in the works confirmed the speculators’ worst fears. In rushing to cover positions, arbs bought Shire, squeezing the price up. It is an episode saying more about the risks of arbitrage and short-selling — a technique often used by hedge funds. The Shire/BioChem deal is still on course and there are plenty of concomitant reasons to hold the FTSE 100 company’s shares. FI Group XANSA, we are told, rhymes with “answer”. It is also similar to *sanksar*, which for readers not fluent in Sanskrit, refers to “culture and values which are internalised from past experience and determine future actions”. Pretentious? FI Group? In choosing this ridiculous name, the company believes the new brand will say something about the IT services, consultancy and “solutions” it offers. Investors will hope, however, that FI does not join Corus (once British Steel), Invensys (the merged BTR and Siebe) and Enodis (formerly Berisford), whose shares have taken a bath following a similar rebranding. A name change is not quite the corporate equivalent of arranging chairs on the deck of the *Titanic*, but investors would be forgiven for wondering whether FI could not find anything better to do with its time and money. But FI has already seen its share-price Waterloo — the stock trades at less than half levels of a year ago — so perhaps it can afford frivolities. FI believes the Xansa name will unify its disparate subsidiaries, built up during two years of dealmaking. Perhaps it will. But investors would surely be happier if the group focused efforts on delivering good trading news of the sort also seen yesterday. FI has a lengthening order book and sees steady profits recovery from Druid, its most recent large acquisition. Shares fetch 30 times next year’s earnings per share. That is not exactly cheap but it does leave room for modest outperformance beside some higher-rated peers. Hold. tempus@thetimes.co.uk Copyright 2001 Times Newspapers Ltd. This service is provided ***************************************************************** 23 CHRONOLOGY-History of nuclear power in Germany 03/28 06:36 BERLIN, March 28 (Reuters) - Energy-poor Germany relies on nuclear power for around a third of its electricity but it also has a long history of protest against nuclear plants. The following are key dates in the history of German nuclear power: 1960 - West Germany's first industrial nuclear power plant opens in Kahl. This plant closes in 1985. 1966 - Rival Communist East Germany begins operation of its first nuclear power plant, a Soviet-designed model. 1975 - Fire at the East German plant of Lubmin on the Baltic Coast almost causes the core to melt down. 1978 - Communist East Germany starts storing nuclear waste at a mine in Morsleben. It is closed in 1998. 1980 - The Greens, who became a nationwide force with their anti-nuclear campaign slogan "Atomkraft? Nein, Danke" (Nuclear Power, No Thanks), form a political party in West Germany. 1984 - West Germany begins first nuclear waste transports to intermediate-term storage in village of Gorleben -- then near the East German border -- amid protests. 1986 - The Soviet Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster heightens German fears over nuclear safety. Surveys show a majority of Germans oppose the use of nuclear power. 1989 - Last of West Germany's 19 nuclear power plants begins operation. Germany decides against building its own nuclear waste reprocessing plant, relying instead on plants in La Hague in France and Britain's Sellafield. 1990 - Unified German government finishes closing down last of eight nuclear power plants in the formerly Communist east. 1995 - First nuclear waste transports to Gorleben in Castor containers (Casks for Storage and Transport of Radioactive Materials) from La Hague. Similar shipments follow in each of the next two years, sparking protests. 1997 - Huge demonstrations meet Castor transports amid biggest-to-date postwar police operation of 30,000 officers. March 1998 - Policeman guarding shipment of nuclear waste hit and killed by a train at a time of large protests. Two months later, the government halts nuclear waste transports because of safety fears over Castor containers. In the autumn, the Greens enter the government coalition for the first time. June 2000 - Coalition government including Greens agree with utilities to phase out nuclear power by the mid-2020s. March 26, 2001 - Castor transport from French reprocessing plant resumes after government says it is safe. Protesters ignore calls by Environment Minister Juergen Trittin, a Green former protester himself, to avoid violent confrontation and try to block rail line despite massive police mobilisation. ((Adam Tanner, Berlin newsroom, +49 30 2888 5223, fax +49 30 2888 5008)) COPYRIGHT © 1999 REUTERS LIMITED. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. ***************************************************************** 24 G2: Harald Günther's week Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Up against the nuclear train My week: Harald Günther John Hooper Friday March 30, 2001 The Guardian Harald Günther, aged 46, is a farmer at Reddebeitz near the nuclear storage site at Gorleben. He was in the midst of the protests this week against the resumption of radioactive waste shipments from France to Germany. On Sunday, we had a big farmers' protest. We got out 490 tractors and traced back the route from Gorleben to the rail depot at Dannenberg. It took us from 10 in the morning till five in the evening. All the way there were police with us, beside us, to make sure there was nothing like what happened four years ago. That was when we blocked the last stage of the waste convoy's journey. The young people dug tunnels under the road so that the police couldn't bring in heavy lifting machinery and take our tractors out of the way. The nuclear train set off from France the next day and I and some other farmers met at a secret location to discuss what more could be done. In the end we decided we couldn't do the sort of things we did in 1997 when the last waste shipment was made. There were so many police - 20,000. Still, on Tuesday I tried to get my tractor to where it could block the exit to the rail terminal. I drove it over a field alongside but the police saw me and gave chase in their cars. They were lucky it was dry. Otherwise, it would have been "Glug. Glug. Glug." They arrested me, charged me and put those damn plastic handcuff things on me. Altogether, about 30 local farmers got arrested during the protests this week. I was taken to a disused army barracks they were using as a jail. There was a judge there who decided whether you should be detained or not. He reckoned that since I had stopped when asked and got off the tractor immediately, I should be freed. Anyway, the police wanted to bring in more people and needed to clean up the cells. They let me go just before midnight. When we woke up the next morning, we found the police had blocked all the exits from the village and were asking to see people's identification. There were about 60 protesters sleeping in the hay at my farm. I think the police were trying to find out who they were and at the same time make me unpopular with the other villagers. But just the opposite happened. Nobody has ever been asked to show their papers in Reddebeitz. It went down really badly. Since then, everyone's been driving around with an anti-nuclear sticker on their car. From the number of police they were bringing into the area on Thursday night, I knew they were going to take the waste down to Gorleben early the next day. I went along to see it arrive. I was right by the entrance when the convoy went in. I knew all along that we wouldn't be able to stop it but - what can I say ? - I still felt a sadness deep inside of me. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited ***************************************************************** 25 U.S. Watching Change at Russian Nuclear Energy Ministry Closely WASHINGTON, Mar 30, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) The United States is closely watching Russian President Vladimir Putin's cabinet changes, but has focused interest on his replacement of controversial nuclear energy minister Yevgeni Adamov, a senior U.S. official said Thursday. "We think that the atomic energy ministry has been tolerating if not supporting the transfer of sensitive technologies to Iran," the official said, speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity. "Whether the change in leadership stops that or not we'll have to see ... it's hard to say, but we'll be obviously watching carefully because we think that ministry has not been acting consistantly with the kind of assurances that we've been getting from Putin," the official said. Despite pledges from Putin and other top Russian officials, including Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and newly named Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, that Moscow intends to abide by its nuclear non-proliferation agreements, Washington and others have accused the ministry of violating those vows. The United States is most concerned about past and possible future transfers to Iran, which it terms a "rogue state," and has threatened to impose sanctions on Moscow should it continue them. "Putin and company assure us that Russia intends to stand by its non-proliferation commitments and yet we see an atomic energy ministry that we think has been tolerating if not supporting transfers of sensitive technology to Iran," the U.S. official said. "We'll see if this leads to greater control," he said, refering to Adamov's replacement, Alexander Rumyantsev, who has been head of the Kurchatov Institute, Russia's main nuclear research establishment, since 1994. In addition to the U.S. concerns about Adamov, the environmental lobby Greenpeace has accused the minister of illegal nuclear deals. Last month the anti-corruption committee of the Russian Duma detailed alleged illegal activities by Adamov, accusing him of having interests in at least 10 commercial enterprises in Russia and abroad. Washington is also watching to see the impact on the Russian military of Putin's replacement of former defense Igor Sergeyev with his close ally, Ivanov, the former national security advisor, the official said. "Sergei Ivanov going to the defense ministry gives Putin more control and a certain level of civilian control over the defense apparatus," he said, declining to comment on what the United States expected from those changes. ((c) 2001 Agence France Presse) ***************************************************************** 26 New atomic minister to focus on nuclear power plants Story Filed: Thursday, March 29, 2001 2:31 PM EST MOSCOW, Mar 29, 2001 (Itar-Tass via COMTEX) -- Russia's new Atomic Energy Minister Alexander Rumyantsev will face two major challenges - to maintain the normal condition of the country's nuclear weapons and to ensure safe operation of nuclear power plants. Academician Nikolai Ponomaryov-Stepnoi, Rumyantsev's colleague and vice-president of a Russian scientific centre "The Kurchatov Institute", said in a live interview with the Ekho Moskvy radio on Thursday that the Atomic Energy Ministry should be headed by a "unique person", especially in view of the fact that this ministry functions as "a state in a state" with its own closed cities, electric power stations, industrial production and scientific centres. Rumyantsev will continue the cause started by his predecessor Yevgeny Adamov and will seek permission to import irradiated nuclear fuel into Russia. This is a valuable and economically effective product, if processed, Academician Ponomaryov-Stepnoi said. By Veronika Voskoboinikova (c) 1996-2001 ITAR-TASS. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 27 Western Energy Woes Brings Washington State Nuclear Plant Back From Dead Thursday, March 29, 2001 By Jonathan Serrie [FOX News] The Western energy crisis may breathe new life into a moth-balled nuclear power plant in Washington State. Until very recently, the plant known as Washington Nuclear Project 1 seemed destined to become another relic at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation near Richland. But with light blinking across California and no hope on the horizon for beleaguered energy consumers, officials with Energy Northwest, a consortium of 13 public utilities that own the plant, have started investigating the cost and feasibility of resuming construction on WNP-1. "We've had a growing economy in the Northwest and throughout the country, but we haven't been building any power plants," said U.S. Rep. Richard "Doc" Hastings, R-Wash. "We ought to have an honest look at the potential of reopening that plant." Construction on WNP-1 began in 1975. At the time, it was one of five nuclear power plants slated for Washington State. But only one of those plants ever went on line -- the Columbia Generating Station, also located at the Hanford site. Overestimations about earlier power demands, unexpected costs and anti-nuclear sentiments prompted public utility officials to put WNP-1 on hold in 1982, when the building was approximately 70 percent complete. If finished, WNP-1 would be capable of producing 1,250 megawatts, more than enough electricity to power a city the size of Seattle. "Having seen what a plant this size is capable of, there's a real potential resource here for the region," said Rod Webring, vice president of operations support for Energy Northwest. The federal government granted the last permit to build a nuclear power plant a quarter of a century ago. However, with America's growing demand for energy and difficulty accessing conventional fuels, nuclear power has re-emerged as a possible solution to a recurring problem. Recently, Vice President Dick Cheney touted nuclear power as a way of reducing greenhouse gases. Nuclear power plants release water vapor into the air as part of their cooling process, but no greenhouse gases and no pollutants. They do produce solid radioactive waste, however, which remains a political powder-keg for the industry. Gerald Pollet, executive director of Heart of America Northwest, a Hanford watchdog group, said residents would better serve themselves by conserving electricity rather than building new power plants. "For several years in this region we said, 'Let's not bother investing in conservation. We have so much power.' Now we've learned that is going to come back and bite us," Pollet said. Pollet said if it comes to building new plants, he would rather see smaller gas-fired or wind-driven generators than nuclear power. But others are skeptical as to whether these alternative energy sources will be enough to satisfy the nation's growing electric appetite. "I'm not opposed to wind. I'm not opposed to natural gas," Rep. Hastings said. "But we've seen, for example, the cost of natural gas spike up very high. [We need] an adequate number of energy-producing plants in this country, and nuclear ought to be a part of it." ***************************************************************** 28 When the wind blows New Scientist March 29, 07:35 PM *By Paul Marks* MIGRATING ducks and stray tumbleweeds have been contaminated with radioactivity after landing fleetingly in ponds of waste water at a nuclear facility in the US. The news raises questions about the practice of leaving such ponds open to the elements. In the mid-1990s, staff at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) realised that tumbleweeds were able to "blow into waste-water ponds, and wash up on shore and blow out again", says Ronald Warren, an independent environmental monitoring expert who is contracted to scrutinise radioactivity at INEEL. "The tumbleweeds blew against the [2-metre high] fence where they built up, forming a ramp other weeds could climb over," he says. In a two-year study, Warren and his colleagues measured how much radiation the tumbleweeds took with them from two waste ponds near a US Navy test reactor. The team found that the tumbleweeds, which were mostly Russian thistle ( Salsola kali ), carried out a total of 66 megabecquerels of radiation and spread it over a 32-hectare area. "The activity from those tumbleweeds made a relatively small, around 15 per cent, increase to the activity due to global fallout in that area," he says. Risk to humans is slight since the nearest house is 42 kilometres away and the tumbleweeds travelled less than a kilometre. Nonetheless, INEEL has taken action. "They've now made the fence higher and they go out and collect tumbleweeds and bury them," Warren says. Growing shrubs near the ponds has also hampered the tumbleweed. But birdlife is not so easily thwarted. In research yet to be published, Warren says he has found 21 species of migratory duck that fly over INEEL--and some take a rest stop in the waste ponds. Warren says the duck's radiation levels wouldn't harm you, even if you ate a whole one. "The maximum radiation dose you'd get would be less than you'd get from a dental X-ray," he says. This does not reassure everyone. "I haven't a clue why they don't cover the ponds with any kind of net," says Margaret Stewart of the Snake River Alliance, an anti-nuclear pressure group based in Idaho. "It seems like a sensible kind of thing to do if you're trying to keep birds out." But an INEEL spokesman maintains that radionuclide concentrations are so low in the ponds that birds would face more risk of death from entanglement in netting. Britain had its own problem with birds in 1999, when researchers found that pigeons visiting contaminated buildings at the Sellafield nuclear complex were concentrating radioactivity in their droppings in the nearby village of Seascale. More at: Journal of Environmental Radioactivity (vol 54, p 361) Copyright © 2001 New Scientist. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 29 Nuclear dump bill drawing criticism The Dallas Morning News: Texas/Southwest 03/30/2001 By George Kuempel / The Dallas Morning News AUSTIN – A bill that would allow for the construction of a low-level nuclear waste dump in West Texas is once again drawing opposition in the Texas Legislature. County officials, private citizens and environmental and public interest groups joined Thursday in raising concerns about a bill by Sen. Robert Duncan, R-Lubbock, that they say would make Texas a dumping ground for the nation's nuclear waste. Testifying before the Senate National Resources Committee, the witnesses cited health, safety and other concerns about the proposal, including a provision that would allow a private company to operate the facility. "This is kind of like giving away the farm and keeping the mortgage," said Tom "Smitty" Smith, executive director of Public Citizen of Texas, who said the state would ultimately be responsible for the waste. "After all the crops have been harvested, we're going to be left with the wasted land," he said. Mr. Duncan said his bill would allow the state to make good on its agreement to dispose of low-level radioactive waste from Maine and Vermont along with that generated in Texas. The state agency originally responsible for licensing the dump settled on a site in Hudspeth County three years ago. But the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission rejected that location, citing a potential threat to the area's groundwater. Mr. Duncan's bill would once again restrict the potential disposal site to West Texas. Critics charged Thursday that the bill contains a "loophole" that they said would allow the facility to take millions of cubic feet of contaminated waste from the Department of Energy's abandoned nuclear weapons sites. They say the biggest beneficiary could be billionaire Dallas businessman Harold Simmons, whose company, Waste Control Specialists, already operates a hazardous waste dump in Andrews County, near the New Mexico border. Mr. Simmons has lobbied for several years to take DOE waste at his site and has pumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into political campaigns, including those of Gov. Rick Perry and other prominent Texas politicians. David Frederick, an Austin lawyer, said his client, the Ward County Irrigation District, also is "really, really worried" about private management of the facility. While he said his client agrees that it's important to find a safe place to dispose of the material, "we also don't want to be out on a limb to suffer the consequences if something goes wrong." Mr. Smith said the bill would allow a private contractor to get rich by taking large amounts of DOE waste at the site and then walking away after 20 years, leaving the state to clean up any mess. Sen. J.E. "Buster" Brown, R-Lake Jackson, a co-sponsor of the bill and chairman of the Natural Resources Committee, said that won't happen because the private operator will be required to post money up front to handle any future problems. But Mr. Smith said that hasn't worked in other states. "Every state that has licensed a private dump has had financial assurance, and every one of those financial assurance packages has been inadequate," he said. Julian Florez, a Ward County Commissioner, said poor and Mexican-American residents who make up a big part of his sparsely populated county are adamantly opposed to the dump. "The people feel that we're being targeted because we have a low population and we are Hispanic," he said. Mr. Duncan and Mr. Brown said the low-level waste now being stored at hundreds of hospital, manufacturing and other facilities across the state now poses an even more serious risk and that the waste can be better managed at a central location. "We have to provide solutions, and that's what this bill does," Mr. Duncan said. He said he is still making changes in the bill and will ask for a committee vote later. ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 DOE report cites four radiation-risk sites at K-25 Further assessment 'may be warranted' March 30, 2001 By Frank Munger, News-Sentinel senior writer Further assessment 'may be warranted' OAK RIDGE -- A U.S. Department of Energy report released Thursday identifies four facilities at the K-25 plant where workers in the 1950s and '60s had a "high" potential for exposures to radioactive materials of concern. The report is the latest in a series to evaluate historic activities at government facilities in Oak Ridge and other nuclear sites where "recycled" uranium was processed decades ago. Before the gaseous diffusion operation was shut down in 1985, the Oak Ridge facilities enriched uranium for use in nuclear weapons and for fuel in nuclear reactors. Recycled uranium involved materials that previously had been used as fuel in nuclear reactors, and tons of the tainted uranium was introduced into the enrichment facilities during the 1950s when there was a perceived shortage of other feed stocks. Even after uranium fuel had been reprocessed, the uranium typically contained small amounts of other radioactive substances -- such as plutonium, neptunium and technetium -- that posed greater hazards than uranium by itself. Many workers at K-25 and other uranium-processing facilities were unaware at the time that they might be exposed to these other radioactive materials, and some have suggested those exposures may be the cause of current-day illnesses among former nuclear workers. Under pressure from various groups, DOE has promised to resurrect what documents are available and try to assess the hazards. According to the new report, the K-25 worker activities of most concern regarding exposures to the recycled radioactive materials would have been: * Unpacking, feeding and sampling of uranium tri-oxide in Building K-1131. * Collecting ash for uranium recovery and cleaning tower filters in Buildings K-1131 and K-1420. * Uranium recovery from ash in K-1231 and K-1410 * Maintenance and repair of fluorination tower and associated equipment in K-1131 and K-1420. "Worker protection measures in place ... likely provided substantial mitigation to the risks introduced by the activities rated as 'high' in occupational exposure potential," the DOE report said. "However, (radiation) dose assessment studies may be warranted as a follow-on activity to provide a more detailed assessment of worker exposure." The new report also contains a section on recycled uranium at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge, where tons of enriched materials were received from other DOE sites in South Carolina and Washington State. According to the report, there were no activities of "high" potential for exposure to the non-uranium radioactive materials of concern, but there were at least three dozen activities at Y-12 where there was a "low" or "medium" potential for exposure. The report said further studies also may be warranted at Y-12 to evaluate radiation doses to workers in the 1950s and '60s and even later. About 13 tons of recycled enriched uranium remain in storage at Y-12, according to the DOE document released Thursday. Frank Munger can be reached at 865-482-9213 or twig1@knoxnews.infi.net. ***************************************************************** 2 DOE site's guards delay picket Bill Bartleman bbartleman@paducahsun.com--*270.575.8650* The Paducah Sun Paducah, Kentucky Friday, March 30, 2001 *The dispute is over who should guard classified material that is part of Bechtel Jacobs' cleanup work.* Plans for an informational picket by guards at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant were canceled Thursday when Bechtel Jacobs Co. officials agreed to meet with the union to discuss a jurisdictional dispute. The dispute is over who should guard classified material that is part of Bechtel Jacobs' cleanup work, said John Driskill, president of the 33-member Security Police and Fire Professionals of America Local 111. Driskill claims members of the union have historically provided the security, even though there is no written contract with Bechtel Jacobs. The union's contract is with USEC Inc., the company that runs the production facilities. He said Bechtel Jacobs recently used employees who are members of the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers union to guard a materials storage area that is being cleaned up. Citing security reasons, he said he could not identify the site, the material or the reason it was being guarded. Bechtel Jacobs spokesman Greg Cook said the work in question is being carried out by employees as part of the routine involved in cleanup, and is not a job for the guards. "Every time we take classified material out of a security container, we have to attend to it (have someone with it at all times)," Cook said. "It is routine, normal work that we do all of the time." He said the Bechtel Jacobs workers met the federal regulations, which are to have the proper security clearance and have a reason to be in the area where the material is located. Cook said the material in question is inside the security fence that is guarded by members of Driskill's union. "They guard the perimeter of the plant, and they control access to the secure areas," Cook said. "Our folks are just attending to the classified material which is part of their normal duty." Informational picket lines had been scheduled to begin at 2 p.m. Thursday at two locations: Hobbs Road and Woodville Road, near one of the plant entrances, and at Bechtel Jacobs headquarters in Kevil. Cook and Driskill said the action was called off after the company agreed to meet next Thursday. "We agreed to talk with the guards' union about other ways we might utilize the guard force," Cook said. ***************************************************************** 3 DOE confirms uranium reports - The study says some records are missing, but reviews movement of recycled uranium to Paducah The Paducah Sun Paducah, Kentucky Friday, March 30, 2001 *The study says some records are missing, but reviews movement of recycled uranium to Paducah.* A new U.S. Department of Energy report confirms previous studies about the movement of recycled uranium to and from the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant. The Historical Study of Recycled Uranium involved a review of records at 12 Department of Energy facilities that handled recycled uranium from the early 1950s through the late 1980s. The main work of the plants was the production of nuclear weapons. The 93-page report on Paducah confirms that some of the recycled material shipped to the plant contained technetium, plutonium and other radioactive materials. It also confirmed that some of those materials contaminated buildings and groundwater around the plant. The study also repeated previous findings that some records regarding the handling of the hazardous materials are missing, that in the 1950s supervisors didn't enforce safety procedures to protect workers from the radioactive dust, and that some hazardous materials were disposed of in landfills designated for nonhazardous waste. The study was the fifth in a series of reports by DOE to review historical operations at nuclear weapons plants and to assess the health risks placed on employees. ***************************************************************** 4 Three SRS employees contaminated *Web posted Friday, March 30, 2001 By Brandon Haddock *Staff Writer* Three Savannah River Site employees were contaminated with radioactive material Thursday in the site's massive F-Canyon' plant. Two workers were found to have low levels of radioactive material on their skin, and one had contaminated clothing, said Judy Spencer, a spokeswoman for Westinghouse Savannah River Co. Westinghouse operates the federal nuclear-weapons site for the U.S. Department of Energy. The material was removed, Ms. Spencer said. The employees and other workers in the area will be monitored to determine whether they received an internal dose of radiation by inhaling or ingesting radioactive material, she said. At this time, the employees are not expected to suffer any ill health effects from the exposure, Ms. Spencer said. Site officials have not determined what the contaminant was, Ms. Spencer said. F-Canyon removes impurities and wastes from plutonium and other radioactive materials. The incident occurred as a team of four workers, assisted by radiation-control inspectors, prepared to calibrate an instrument on the plant's second level, she said. The area was a ``radiological buffer area,'' Ms. Spencer said, meaning that it adjoined a radioactive work area but that no radioactive material should have been present. The work called only for protective gloves, she said. An initial survey revealed no contamination in the area, Ms. Spencer said. But after workers inspected an instrument line by blowing compressed air through it, monitors detected low levels of contamination, she said. The employees immediately left the area, she said. ``All the proper procedures were apparently followed through the preparation for and actual performance of the work,'' Ms. Spencer said. Reach Brandon Haddockat (706) 823-3409. All contents © 1996 - 2001 *The Augusta Chronicle*. All rights ***************************************************************** 5 Technology:Feds say site tanks pose risk *Oversight board sends out letter to Energy Department on lack of storage for waste * *Web posted Friday, March 30, 2001 By Brandon Haddock *Staff Writer* A space crunch in Savannah River Site's tanks of highly radioactive liquid waste is stretching safety limits and could force some site plants to suspend work, according to a federal oversight board. ``The critical shortage of tank space in the high-level waste system threatens to delay stabilization of nuclear materials at SRS,'' wrote John T. Conway, chairman of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, in a March 23 letter to U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham. ``Furthermore, this problem has led to a reduced margin of safety and a short-sighted emphasis on solving immediate problems at the expense of investing in comprehensive efforts to enhance the safety and flexibility of the high-level waste system,'' Mr. Conway wrote. A spokesman for the U.S. Department of Energy said Thursday that the agency would address the board's concerns. ``We would certainly want to look at the letter and the issues they have raised and respond in a timely manner,'' said Joe Davis, a spokesman for Mr. Abraham. Mr. Davis said he was uncertain whether the secretary had received the letter. The federal nuclear-weapons site currently stores about 34 million gallons of radioactive liquid waste in 49 underground waste tanks. Ten tanks have developed leaks over the years. Most recently, Tank 6 was discovered in January to have leaked about 90 gallons of water containing radioactive tritium into a secondary-containment vessel. The site's ultimate goal is to stabilize all of the liquid waste in a solid form. But several high-profile failures have limited abilities to treat the waste effectively. A $489 million plant to remove radioactive cesium from the waste was deemed unusable in 1998 after engineers could not prevent flammable, carcinogenic benzene from building up in its tanks. Technical problems also have curtailed operation of two of the site's three evaporators - used to reduce the volume of waste by evaporating water from it. The Defense Board recommended several measures to solve the space shortage, including: Acceleration of efforts to build a replacement to the failed In-Tank Processing Facility. Site engineers also should reuse the failed plant's tanks to store waste, the board stated. Construction of a new evaporator. Construction of new waste tanks. Slowdown of production at the Defense Waste Processing Facility. The plant, which turns liquid waste into a solid, radioactive glass stored inside stainless-steel canisters, contributes to the space shortage by producing about 1.8 million gallons of waste per year, the board said. The board also recommended that the site be more careful with Tank 6, which has six identified leaks. SRS officials had planned to lower the level of waste in the tank below only the top three cracks, two of which were suspected of causing the January leak. The defense board recommended that the level of waste in Tank 6 be lowered below all six cracks. Reach Brandon Haddockat (706) 823-3409. All contents © 1996 - 2001 *The Augusta Chronicle*. All rights ***************************************************************** 6 Aid for nuclear workers headed for Justice Department By Katherine Rizzo, Associated Press, 3/30/2001 09:30 WASHINGTON (AP) The Bush administration is a step closer to shifting agency control of a new compensation program for sick Cold War-era nuclear weapons plant workers, a move critics say will delay badly needed payments. The Office of Management and Budget has drafted an executive order that would move the program from the Labor Department to the Justice Department. The shift is supported by Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, who says the Justice Department is better suited to oversee the program. Richard Miller, a lobbyist with the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers International Union who helped negotiate the compensation program's provisions, said he feared such a move would make it impossible for dying workers to quickly get the checks and medical benefits they've been promised. ''What they have just done is pour cement boots over this program,'' Miller said Thursday. The proposed order, which must be signed by President Bush to take effect, would amend an order by President Clinton, who put the Labor Department in charge, and defy Congress, which last year appropriated money to the Labor Department. The program calls for payments of $150,000 plus medical care to workers with cancer or incurable lung disease because of their Cold War-era exposure to radiation, beryllium or silica. The lawmakers who designed the program wanted the Labor Department to run it on the theory that experience with black lung and other compensation programs would let it prepare quickly to evaluate medical claims by the nuclear workers. Despite assuring senators in February that the Labor Department was up to the task, Chao said she ''soon found that the department does not have the experience or expertise in radiation cases to adequately serve these workers.'' Chao's position is supported by the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, one of the fathers of a Justice Department-run program that compensates miners who got sick while digging uranium ore. Other lawmakers feel differently. Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, said the new program is expected to generate about 2,500 successful claims a year, versus only about 360 claims in the miners' program. ''Can such a huge increase of work be handled and the injured workers still get their benefits in an efficient manner? Many of these people don't have time to wait. They're sick now and can't wait while the government tweaks its bureaucracy,'' he said. ''The best plan is to send this program through the biggest pipeline, and I think that's Labor.'' On the Net: Report on compensation issues: http://www.eh.doe.gov/benefits ***************************************************************** 7 A decade later, mysterious ailments linger Savannah NOW: Local News - America and her allies, the Gulf War was close to casualty-free. Of the 697,000 American troops in the Gulf theater, fewer than 200 were killed in action.--> Web posted Friday, March 30, 2001 By Mary Landers Savannah Morning News For America and her allies, the Gulf War was close to casualty-free. Of the 697,000 American troops in the Gulf theater, fewer than 200 were killed in action. That was during the war. But after the last SCUD missile was fired, thousands of soldiers started complaining about the effects of their service. They felt sick. Savannahian Chris Ondriezek was one of those vets. Polite and soft-spoken, Ondriezek is proud to have been part of the Army 7th Corps, which helped clear a path for troops coming behind it. Mostly, he spent his four months in the Gulf driving, pulling guard duty and blowing up left-behind Iraqi artillery. He was 27 then and recently divorced. Now he's 37, remarried and back in civilian life in the city where he grew up. The tidy mobile home he shares with his wife and 4-year-old daughter off Quacco Road is crammed with photos of Ondriezek dressed in green camouflage against a sandy background, smiling at the camera. A small American flag that went everywhere he did in Iraq and Saudi hangs framed by the front door. He'd do it over again in a minute, he says, but he's convinced that something over there made him sick. Maybe it was exposure to chemicals when America blew up an Iraqi weapons depot. Maybe vaccines. Ondriezek's back hurts. He gets migraines. He's developed a Jekyll and Hyde personality that got him fired from his last job, his 12th since he left the Army in October 1991. "I don't dream anymore," he said. "I don't know what happened. I don't know what I lost, but I lost something." Sherri Craig's story is a common one, too. The 42-year-old Hinesville special-ed teacher and mother of two spent eight months in the Gulf. As a quartermaster officer, she traveled from the desert to town, buying supplies for the 724th Support Battalion out of Fort Stewart. Even though she felt the ground shake from SCUD missile hits, she never felt in immediate danger. The worst part was spending her first Christmas ever away from her parents. But now she's certain her joint pain, memory problems and a peculiar burning in her stomach are related to something she encountered in the Gulf -- the near-constant smoke from burning oil wells or the anti-chemical warfare pill called pyridostigmine bromide she had to take even though word among the troops was that the drug wasn't FDA approved. In fact, the drug was approved, but for a different use -- the treatment of a neuromuscular disease called myasthenia gravis. Troops were given PB in the hope of moderating the effects of nerve agents. "If you didn't take it, you were in violation of a direct order," she said. Ondriezek and Craig may never know why they feel sick. Ten years after the war, the only consensus about Gulf War syndrome is there's no consensus. The U.S. government has spent $155 million on the question. Scores of researchers have looked at dozens of possible causes. And the research isn't confined to the United States -- British, French, Czech, Saudi, Canadian, Norwegian and Kuwaiti troops are among those that have reported chronic illnesses with symptoms similar to those of American Gulf War veterans. But you won't find "Gulf War Syndrome" as a diagnosis in most medical texts. Distinguished review panels including the National Institutes of Health, the Presidential Advisory Committee and the Special Investigative Unit have concluded the illnesses observed in Gulf War veterans don't constitute a unique disease. An expert committee at the non-governmental Institute of Medicine only put a point under the question mark. The panel culled through 1,000 published studies of occupational, clinical and terrorist exposure to agents considered suspects in Gulf War Syndrome. Its conclusion, announced in September, was a colossal shoulder shrug. "When it comes to the long-term health effects of these substances, the bottom line is that we simply don't know enough to say whether there is a connection between exposure to these agents, or combinations of these agents, and specific health outcomes that remain long after the exposure," the chair of the committee, Dr. Harold C. Sox Jr., said at a news conference in Washington. That conclusion doesn't mean some Gulf War veterans aren't sick. "The data indicates that although there's real illness (among Gulf War vets) there's no unique disease that affects all Gulf War veterans," said Dr. Emily Foster, a staff physician at the Ralph H. Johnson VA Medical Center in Charleston. "Studies suggest there's no single cause or underlying disease." But the common symptoms of what's now called Gulf War Illnesses -- including headaches, fatigue, joint pain, memory lapses -- are more common among Gulf War vets. "There's no question the studies have shown Gulf War veterans suffer symptoms two-three times more frequently than service members not deployed to the Gulf," Foster said. Veterans see their own experience as clear evidence. Ondriezek and Craig both explain their illnesses this way: They weren't sick, they went to the Gulf, they got sick. But where vets see cause and effect, researchers demand more proof. And that's the source of a lot of frustration. Researcher Katie Lucas, who's part of a Johns Hopkins University study of Gulf War Illnesses, recognizes that. "I think a big part of the problem is communication," she said. "No one has told (vets) the process of what scientists have to be shown before they'll believe something." Hurried doctors and VA bureaucracy don't help either. "When you go to the doctor, either private or VA, doctors don't have enough time to sit down and say, 'You're sick but I don't know what you have. It's a puzzle we're trying to figure out.' " Instead, some vets get the same treatment as Ondriezek, who said for some of his complaints he's been tossed a bag of Motrin and told to get on his way. Or Craig. She's had stomach pain for years, but only this week was seen at the VA medical center in Charleston. "If you go to the clinic here (in Savannah) they'll see you, but I don't think they know what to do. I think they're putting a Band-Aid on it." Craig said. Foster said she does treat the symptoms, so Gulf War vets can get relief even if they never know why they feel sick. Veterans' advocates would like to see a lot more of that. The Department of Veterans Affairs keeps a clinical database called the Gulf War registry for vets who believe they have an illness connected to their service. Vets undergo a physical before they're placed on the registry, Foster said. About 550 of those physicals have been done at VA Medical Center in Charleston, the closest VA hospital to Savannah. Nationwide, 81,000 vets are in the registry, but only about 3,000 vets have had claims for undiagnosed illness approved. Ondriezek and Craig are on the registry. But Ondriezek's not really sure what's happening with his disability claim and feels frustrated by the apathy and bureaucracy. Pat Eddington sympathizes. Eddington runs the National Gulf War Resource Center, a suburban Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that educates and lobbies for better healthcare for Gulf War veterans. "The bottom line is that an awful lot of Gulf War veterans are being hosed by the VA when they file Gulf War Illness claims," Eddington said. His organization contends that there are flaws in many of the studies that find no evidence of Gulf War Illnesses, that the Pentagon has hindered researchers by refusing to release information about what substances soldiers were exposed to, and that treatment is too low a research priority. "We're concerned with making sure ill vets are compensated and above that, making sure that people get the right treatments," Eddington said. So Ondriezek and Craig wait. Foster treats what she can. Eddington lobbies. And the research continues. One good thing may have come from the Gulf War experience, according to Lucas. "If there's a lesson that's been learned for the military it's how when they think of their enemies it's not just the Saddam Husseins," she said. "They have to think about the environmental things that can affect the troops." Health reporter Mary Landers can be reached at 652-0337 or landers@savannahnow.com Investigate further The American Legion site offers a comprehensive, easy-to-read question and answer page about Gulf War Illness at www.legion.org/gulftoc.htm The National Gulf War Resource Center, a nonprofit that lobbies for better healthcare for Gulf War veterans, operates a site at www.ngwrc.org The full text of an Institute of Medicine study called "Gulf War and Health: Volume 1. Depleted Uranium, Pyridostigmine Bromide, Sarin, and Vaccines" can be found at http://books.nap.edu/catalog/9953.html Other post-war syndromes The Gulf War isn't the first conflict to spawn suspected illness among soldiers. A 1996 study reported in the well-respected Annals of Internal Medicine took a historical look at post-war syndromes. After the Civil War, soldiers complained of "irritable heart" -- symptoms included shortness of breath, chest pain, fatigue, headache, diarrhea, dizziness and disturbed sleep. In World War I similar symptoms were called "soldier's heart" or "effort syndrome" because symptoms were made worse by exertion. The explanation at the beginning of the war was that soldiers' heavy marching packs compressed their chests. In World War II the effort syndrome was attributed to psychological causes. But its physical manifestations -- fatigue, diarrhea, headache and forgetfulness -- were acknowledged. After Vietnam, veterans were diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder -- again with similar symptoms. That disorder was initially called post-Vietnam syndrome. Exposure to Agent Orange was another concern, one over which scientific controversy continues. Chronic physical symptoms have generally not been linked to the effects of exposure to that herbicide in Vietnam, the researchers wrote. They concluded that although war syndromes have recurred since at least the Civil War, no single underlying cause unrelated to stress links the syndromes. They also noted that research into these syndromes is hampered by poor record-keeping during wartime, media coverage afterward and the need to rely on soldiers' memory of events. Resources for Gulf War vets * Researchers at Johns Hopkins University are looking for study participants who have fatigue and at least two other symptoms that began after their Gulf War service. Service in the Gulf must have been on the ground. Travel expenses will be paid to and from Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. For participants not well enough to travel alone, expenses for a travel companion are also covered. Participants will receive a $100 stipend. Active duty service members participating will receive $50 per blood draw; one draw per participant is anticipated. Interested veterans can call (877) 800-9516 or check the Web site at www.med.jhu.edu/gws for more information. * Veterans who think they have a Gulf War-related illness can get a full physical exam from the Veteran's Administration. Call (843) 577-5011 ext. 7300 for an appointment in Savannah or Charleston. * A Gulf War veterans' information help line is operated by the Department of Veterans Affairs at 800-749-8387. ***************************************************************** 8 US warns Russia on nuclear spread ISSUE 2135 Friday 30 March 2001 By Toby Harnden in Washington RUSSIA was given another warning about its nuclear proliferation activities yesterday when President Bush announced that he was reviewing all its aid programmes to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction. Mr Bush said: "We want to make sure that any money that is being spent is being spent in an effective way. I have the obligation to the taxpayers to make sure that the money . . . is effective. And so we're putting a full review on the programmes." Although the review was presented as being purely a "cost-benefit" analysis, it came after blunt expressions of displeasure about Moscow's sale of weapons technology. Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, said that Russia was an "active proliferator". The review, conducted by the National Security Council, is likely to lead to at least two of the programmes being abandoned. White House officials have criticised the US Energy Department's programme to dispose of 34 tons of plutonium and there is concern among Mr Bush's advisers that the department's Nuclear Cities Initiative, designed to reduce the size of nuclear complexes, is also ineffective. The review, which will be conducted with a broad re-examination of Russia policy at the White House, comes after a sharp increase in tension between Russia and the United States. Mr Bush's advisers have said he intends to pursue a "realistic" and "unsentimental" policy towards Russia. This has been condemned by Moscow as an attempt to revive Cold War antagonisms. ***************************************************************** 9 Tauscher tries to counter Bush budget cutting *March 27, 2001* By Glenn Roberts Jr. STAFF WRITER Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Alamo, on Monday proposed a budget amendment that would increase 2002 spending for nuclear nonproliferation programs in Russia to levels recommended by the Energy Department. April Kaufman, spokeswoman for Tauscher, said Monday that Tauscher's amendment will be considered today by the House Rules Committee. The amendment also seeks to increase spending for nonproliferation programs by $500 million for each of the following nine years, Kaufman said. This proposed amendment follows news reports this month that the Bush administration plans to reduce the budget for nonproliferation programs with Russia from $873 million this year to $800 million in 2002.Budget proposal That budget proposal is 30 percent lower than $1.2 billion budget requested for 2002 by the Clinton administration. Researchers from Lawrence Livermore Laboratory and Sandia lab in Livermore participate in these nonproliferation programs with Russia. The programs are intended to protect nuclear weapons and materials from theft and to keep Russian scientists from selling their nuclear knowledge to other nations.Secret cities On Monday, Tauscher participated in a panel during a Sam Nunn policy forum in Atlanta, Ga., to talk about opportunities for private ventures in the formerly secret cities where Russia conducts its nuclear weapons research. The panel, titled "Nuclear Cities: Problems and Opportunities in Building Commercially Viable Businesses," was moderated by Ronald F. Lehman II, director of the Center for Global Security Research at Livermore Lab. In remarks prepared for the panel, Tauscher noted that 500,000 square feet of weapons production space in Russia has already been converted to commercial use, and over 8,000 Russian scientists have been engaged in non-weapons work through collaborative programs. Tauscher also noted that Russian officials must work to lower the crime rate and corruption level, which can both discourage foreign investment.Coordinate She recommended that the United States hire a "Nuclear Nonproliferation Czar" to coordinate nonproliferation programs for the departments of energy, defense and state. And "private companies can do some things the government cannot," Tauscher said, such as exposing Russians to new economic concepts. ang ***************************************************************** 10 Colonel Anil Athale (retd) on transparency in defence deals rediff.com: Colonel Anil A Athale (retd) Can corruption in defence deals be avoided? Some years ago Indira Gandhi had quipped that 'Corruption is a global phenomenon!' Even earlier, Chanakya in *Arthashastra* had said: "To know if government officials handling the treasury are stealing public money or not is as difficult to detect as whether a fish is drinking water or not?' Corruption in defence: a global phenomenon: Anglophiles in this country, and there are millions of them, will be shocked to know that at a crucial stage during the Second World War in North Africa, the British quartermasters (the department that deals with supplies in the army) are known to have sold desert tents to Rommel! Some years ago, in the US of A, a major scandal broke out when it became known that General Dynamics, the company that made the Trident nuclear submarines, charged 10,000 dollars for a toilet seat! Admiral Rickover, the father of the nuclear submarine programme, was alleged to have received millions of dollars for an ordinary China tea set. The company that made submarines bought it as an 'antique'! There are countless more examples of moneymaking in defence. The Lockheed scandal of the 60s claimed the scalp of the PMs of Japan, Italy and Prince Bernhardt of Netherlands. The defence department is ideal for shady deals. Countries like to keep the acquisitions secret, there are monopolies and public gaze can easily be kept away under the garb of 'national security'. In countries like India, it is even easier as a weak judiciary, a rubber stamp Parliament and an apathetic public make the 'executive' very strong. In our scheme of things where we continue to follow the 1935 British constitution (the Constitution of India of 1950 is a pale copy of the British design), the Parliament is a toothless tiger and a mere debating society, with very little control over the executive (that includes the ministers and bureaucrats). In the Indian armed forces, the military engineering service, the ordnance corps, the supply corps and to an extent the electrical and mechanical engineers (and its equivalents in the navy and the air force), who have to deal with procurements and money, have been known to indulge in malpractices. The only saving grace has been that once caught, unlike in the civil society, the culprits were punished severely. As late as last year, even a three star general was forced to resign on moral grounds. But as one travels to higher and rarefied echelons, accountability is difficult to establish as clever individuals often cloak their personal interests as 'national security.' Limits of transparency and DRDO's failure: Transparency is the latest buzzword in India. But there are obvious limits to it. One cannot, in the name of transparency construct a bathroom with glass walls, can you? Defence needs are many times, like in the recent Kargil clash, so urgent, that neither the price nor the source is of any consequence. The technology embargo on India, in operation since 1974, has made things even more difficult. The colossal failure of DRDO to meet defence requirements has left no choice for us but to go for imports. Except for the missile programme (basically an offshoot of the civilian space programme) and nuclear weapons (under the atomic energy commission), the DRDO has failed to deliver on every front, be it a tank, fighter aircraft or guns. It is a crying shame that the armed forces use vehicles with 1942 technology ( the Shaktiman and Nissan), rifles that are of 1963 vintage (the 7.62 SLR) and tents that go back to the 1857 war of independence! It is indeed a matter of regret that a country that in the 1960s could produce the HF-24 Marut fighter bomber, in 2001 cannot make even a 'Saras' propeller-driven aircraft of world standard! Countries like Brazil, Spain and even Indonesia have stolen a march over us in this field. Immediate repairs: I had been once briefly associated with G R Khairnar, (the Mumbai crusader against corruption) in those heady days of 1993! Even then I had pleaded with him that public agitation was no solution to the problem, what was needed was a systemic reform to 'reduce' corruption! The elimination of corruption is next to impossible as long as greed exists. The second prong of the attack on corruption is 'certain' and heavy punishment. The twin approach can definitely have a better chance of success than the 'Utopian' dream of searching for Raja Harishchandras in 21st century. One way of getting the executive to adhere to norms is by establishing parliamentary control over the procurement. There is no reason why the Indian Parliament should not control decision-making on procurements though a committee of MPs that holds hearings, in camera if necessary, to give approval to deals *before* the tax payers' money is spent. Today the only accountability comes from the CAG report, that comes after the event (many times after years) and no action is taken on it. The Parliament can ask for independent witnesses and even hear the rival views. To cater to emergencies, like Kargil, a provision could be made to give certain powers to the prime minister. But even these decisions should be subjected to ex-facto scrutiny including the justification of the emergency! National security is not a partisan issue. The leader of the Opposition, already enjoying a Cabinet rank, must be made ex-officio member of the national security council. This is the only way to make our political parties act in a mature manner. If this arrangement would have existed during the Kargil clash, much acrimony could have been avoided and many lives of the brave jawans could have been saved. ***************************************************************** 11 The Age: Clouds gather over Korean sunshine By MICHAEL MILLETT SEOUL Saturday 31 March 2001 An unseasonal chill, poetically dubbed by South Koreans as the "flower jealous snap", descended on Seoul this week, lacing the surrounding mountains with snow and subjecting its citizens to biting winds. The depressing weather was an apt fit for the nation's mood. South Korea is facing its most inhospitable climate since the Asian financial crisis pushed it perilously close to bankruptcy in 1997-98. The domestic economy, lauded for its dramatic rebound after the crisis, has begun to falter amid concerns of a global slowdown and under the weight of its own internal problems. This has big implications for Australia. South Korea may be dwarfed by neighboring Japan and China, but its demand for raw materials makes it our third largest export market and fourth largest trading partner. The nation's chronically flawed political system continues to act as a drag on reform. So, too, are the decaying family dynasties that cling to power within the debt-ridden conglomerates, or chaebols that still dominate the corporate sector. And - most worrying for the South Koreans - external threats are starting to re-emerge. The heady days of last year's "twin-Kim" summit, when President Kim Dae-jung locked hands with his northern namesake, the enigmatic chairman of the Democratic Peoples' Republic of North Korea, Kim Jong-il, prompting talk of reconciliation between the two Koreas, seem a distant memory. South Korean policy is now complicated by the emergence of a new Republican administration in Washington intent on playing what it calls "reality" diplomacy. President George W.Bush set the tone during his summit with the visiting Mr Kim Dae-jung earlier this month. Mr Bush expressed scepticism over his predecessor's attempts to negotiate a new deal with Pyongyang on phasing out its missile development program, signalling his intention to review the 1994 Agreed Framework - the deal underpinning the US strategy to deny Kim Jong-il nuclear capabilities. Washington's Korea policy is now officially "under review". It is unclear how far the Bush team will shift. Experts have pointed out that while the Agreed Framework is a Pyongyang-Washington deal, committing the West to supplying the North with heavy oil while work begins on two light-water reactors to replace the nuclear reactors planned by the North, its success depends on tight cooperation with US allies. Still, the US seems unfazed by the torrent of criticism emanating from Pyongyang and by the hackles it is raising there and in nearby China and Russia over its determination to proceed with its controversial anti-missile shield. The commander of the US forces in South Korea, General Thomas Schwartz, told a congressional committee this week that the North was more of a military threat now than a year ago. Its regular army was "bigger, better, closer and deadlier". Mr Bush's less than full endorsement of Kim Dae-jung's beloved "Sunshine Policy" of engagement with North Korea, plus his unease at the now aborted Seoul plan for a new peace treaty with Pyongyang, rocked the South, much more than was apparent at the time. It was quickly followed by another psychological blow. The North abruptly pulled out of joint ministerial talks, apparently to demonstrate its annoyance at Washington. Even pingpong diplomacy is suffering. Mid-week, Pyongyang abandoned plans to field an inter-Korean table tennis team in an international tournament in Japan next month. It would have been the first time in a decade that the two Koreas had combined on a sporting field. Diplomats are now bracing for another round of anti-US sentiment in the South, as locals blame Washington for the deteriorating mood on the peninsula. Kim Dae-jung now faces a seemingly impossible task trying to march lock-step with Washington while persevering with the policy that only a few months ago led to him being officially awarded with the Nobel Peace Prize. The fear among security experts is that "something has to give". "Differences between Seoul and Washington are not new," points out Yonsei University professor Lee Jung Hoon. "But in the past they have been motivated by domestic developments such as human rights abuses... For the first time, the two are not seeing eye to eye on the North for external reasons - changing US policy." Another expert says we could be seeing an end to the Sunshine Policy as it succumbs to the twin pressures of US resistance and a lack of Korean money to fund it. In a twist of roles, Seoul had to go cap in hand to Pyongyang to seek better terms for Hyundai's trail-blazing tourism venture into the North. Crippled with debt, Hyundai could not afford the charges levied by the North. This pessimism helps explain Mr Kim's determination - or desperation as some term it - to ensure that Chairman Kim makes his trip across the DMZ into South Korea within the next few months. Copyright © The Age Company Ltd 2001. Any unauthorised use, ***************************************************************** 12 Judges rule Trident not illegal BBC News | SCOTLAND | Friday, 30 March, 2001, 14:45 GMT 15:45 Some protesters held a vigil outside the court Three Scottish High Court judges have ruled Britain's Trident nuclear weapons are not illegal under international law. The judges were asked to consider a challenge to a sheriff's decision in October 1999 that three women who damaged a Trident nuclear installation were not acting illegally. At the High Court in Edinburgh the ruling of Lords Prosser, Kirkwood and Penrose, was given to a courtroom packed with anti-nuclear protesters, some of whom took part in a vigil outside the court before hearing. Angela Zelter: Expressed disappointment The three women had argued that the International Court of Justice in the Hague had expressed the view that nuclear weapons were illegal. Sheriff Margaret Gimblett acquitted the peace campaigners of charges of maliciously damaging a laboratory at Coulport, part of the submarine complex on the Clyde. The sheriff accepted the women's argument that nuclear weapons were illegal under international law. The protesters have consistently argued that since Trident was incapable of discriminating between civilian and military targets it was unacceptable. Sheriff Gimblett's decision was challenged by Scotland's senior law officer, the Lord Advocate Colin Boyd QC. At a hearing last October, Advocate Depute, Simon Di Rollo, asked for the ruling to be overturned. The Crown took the rare legal step to prevent peace campaigners using the same defence again should any be charged and appear in court. 'Question of competency' At that Reference hearing, Mr Di Rollo said a person or group of people's mistaken belief that they were entitled to cause damage was not a legally viable defence. On Friday, Lord Prosser said: "The Reference contains four questions for the court. The first raises a question of competency in law and we find in the negative. "Each of the other three questions raises an issue of substantive law. The women targeted a Trident installation "All of these issues concern different aspects of possible defences to criminal charges on the basis that the act charged might be justified either as a matter of customary international law or as a matter of Scots law necessity. "We answered each of these three questions in the negative." Angela Zelter, one of the women arrested at Coulport - part of the Faslane Naval Base complex - and later cleared by Sheriff Gimblett, said she was very disappointed. She said: "Lord Prosser didn't look us in the eye. The atmosphere in the court was completely different to the atmosphere throughout the Reference proceedings. "The fact that he answered so briefly without looking at us in the eye at all. "I think as a human being he probably feels that he has failed and the Scottish judiciary has failed." Protesters' defence Ms Zelter said the campaign against nuclear weapons would continue despite the ruling. A Ministry of Defence spokesman said the legality of Trident was never "in the dock". He said: "We've always said that the International Court of Justice ruling in no way deems that nuclear weapons are illegal, so we were surprised when the protesters' defence was upheld by the sheriff. "The legality of Trident was never in the dock, it was more a question of interpretation of law and whether the defence offered up by the protesters was a legitimate one. "The essence of their ruling is that to use the International Court of Justice as a defence is not legitimate." The Scottish Executive's justice department said it could not comment on individual cases. On Thursday, an English High Court judge also ruled against Trident protesters who had alleged the missile system was illegal. ***************************************************************** 13 Kursk tragedy to remain a mystery BBC News | EUROPE | Thursday, 29 March, 2001, 16:44 GMT The Kursk will be raised without torpedo compartment By Russian Affairs Analyst Stephen Dalziel The Russian minister responsible for the commission investigating the sinking of the nuclear submarine, the Kursk, has been giving details of the plan to raise the vessel from the sea bed. The ghost of the Kursk will haunt the Russian president and his government for a long time to come Ilya Klebanov said that it was planned to bring the submarine to the surface in August. But he added that the compartment containing the torpedoes would be severed and left in the sea. He said that raising the torpedo compartment would run the risk of it exploding. The ghost of the Kursk will haunt Russian President Vladimir Putin and his government for a long time to come. If the submarine is raised from the bottom of the Barents Sea according to the timetable outlined by Mr Klebanov, it will have taken at least a year to bring it to the surface from the time that it sunk with all its 118 crew. That will still not be the end of the matter. One of the main reasons why Mr Putin promised the Russian people the vessel would be recovered was so that the bodies of the crew could be buried. Twelve bodies were recovered last autumn, when divers entered the wreck. Safety first The Russian president has said that he wants all the grieving families to be able to bury their dead with dignity. There were no survivors But the announcement that the torpedo compartment will be cut away and left on the sea bed is controversial. It may be sensible from the point of view of safety. But it means it will be very difficult - maybe even impossible - to determine the cause of the accident. The Russian authorities admit that the Kursk may have sunk after an on-board explosion of a torpedo, but do not rule out the possibility that the submarine collided with a foreign vessel. Western experts say the explosion of a torpedo is by far the most likely reason. But if the torpedo compartment is not raised, no-one will be able to prove that - one way or the other. ***************************************************************** 14 Helms pushes U.S. to reverse stand on nuclear test ban [charlotte.com] Published Friday, March 30, 2001 By JONATHAN S. LANDAY *Observer Washington Bureau * WASHINGTON -- Sen. Jesse Helms is calling on the Bush administration to repudiate an international treaty banning nuclear test blasts and to lay out a new policy for testing U.S. nuclear weapons. In a March 12 letter to Secretary of State Colin Powell, Helms did not say whether that new policy should include resuming nuclear tests after a nine-year moratorium. But some arms-control proponents interpreted the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman's words that way. "Jesse Helms seems to be suggesting that the Bush administration move towards a resumption of testing," said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Coalition to Reduce Nuclear Dangers, a Washington arms-control group. "If you connect all the dots together, he certainly is pointing in that direction." The Republican senator from North Carolina made his appeal to Powell in a letter obtained by Knight Ridder, which owns The Observer. The letter also called for opposing a global ban on land mines, a treaty creating an international criminal court and agreements with Russia that conservatives say limit the Pentagon's ability to develop anti-ballistic missile defense systems. Helms' letter comes as the Bush administration pursues an internal review of U.S. nuclear weapons and arms-control policies. With his influence over the Senate's foreign policy agenda, Helms' views could strengthen the hands of opponents of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, such as Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Some congressional conservatives, nuclear weapons scientists and others say the United States should resume nuclear test blasts so it can develop a new generation of warheads with explosive yields small enough they could be used without producing large amounts of radioactive fallout. The GOP-controlled Senate refused to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in October 1999 in a major foreign-policy setback for former President Clinton. Bush has taken an ambiguous position on whether he intends to seek a new vote. He has expressed opposition to the treaty, but declined to take a final stand pending completion of the nuclear review. In the meantime, he said, the United States will abide by a 1992 moratorium on nuclear test explosions. That position was reiterated Thursday by John Bolton, a critic of the test ban treaty and other arms-control accords, during a confirmation hearing before Helms' committee on his nomination to be the State Department's top arms-control policymaker. Quoting from Powell's testimony at his own confirmation hearing in January, Bolton said, "We believe there are still flaws with the treaty," but added that "we do not foresee any need for testing in the foreseeable future." A majority of Democrats support the test ban treaty. Republicans are split. Most oppose it, but some, such as Sens. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and John McCain of Arizona, say they do not want to rule out ratification. The Bush administration's position has dismayed arms-control advocates and European allies. They worry that repudiation of the treaty by the United States, the world's leading nuclear power, could lead other countries to resume testing, undermining the entire international system intended to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. The United States was the driving force behind the treaty during the Clinton administration. So far, the governments of 160 countries have signed the test ban treaty, and the legislatures of 75 of them, including nuclear powers Britain, France and Russia, have then ratified it. The treaty cannot go into effect until it is ratified by all 44 countries with nuclear reactors. In addition to the United States, countries with nuclear reactors that have not ratified the treaty include China, North Korea, Israel, India and Pakistan. In his letter, Helms called on the administration to "withdraw the U.S. signature from the CTBT, and to terminate funding" for an international monitoring center in Vienna, Austria, that polices compliance with the test ban through global networks of seismographs, air samplers and other sensors. Helms also said he believed it was time for the administration "to articulate a new policy on nuclear testing." The senator did not elaborate, and a call to his office was not returned. Bush administration officials declined to comment, except to say the issue was part of the nuclear strategy review. Helms and other opponents of the treaty, including Cheney and Rumsfeld, contend it is impossible to verify and, therefore, cannot prevent countries such as Iraq and Iran from setting off undetectable explosions as part of clandestine nuclear-weapons programs. Helms ***************************************************************** 15 USA to continue to help Russia dismantle nuclear weapons [ITAR/TASS News Agency] Story Filed: Thursday, March 29, 2001 1:25 PM EST WASHINGTON, Mar 29, 2001 (Itar-Tass via COMTEX) -- The United States intends to go on rendering assistance to Russia in dismantling its nuclear weapons, U.S. President George Bush stated at a news conference at the White House on Thursday. The United States intends to continue cooperation with Russia, the president said. Work with Russia in dismantling its nuclear arsenal, he stressed, meets the U.S. national interests. The United States, George Bush noted, has been studying all aid programmes to Russia related to the arms reduction and the non-proliferation of nuclear materials and technologies, as well as the lowering of the level of chemical and bacteriological weapons. Americans want to be sure that the funds allocated by the United States are used effectively, the president stated. By Mikhail Petrov (c) 1996-2001 ITAR-TASS. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 16 Compensate cancer victims Friday, March 30, 2001 Deseret News editorial People who are very ill need more than promises of compensation. They need the money now, while they still are alive. And yet, because of bureaucratic mistakes in the last year of the Clinton administration, many who have been exposed to cancer through the fault of various government programs are being denied money that was promised them. Congress needs to act quickly to replenish funds first allocated under the Radiation Exposure and Compensation Act of 1990. A measure co-sponsored by Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch would do that. Last year Hatch sponsored a bill that added certain types of cancers to the compensation eligibility list and streamlined the qualification process. Now, he and Sen. Pete Domenici, R-New Mexico, have introduced legislation that provides enough money to pay all claims through this year and gives the program permanent entitlement status so that Congress doesn't have to authorize expenditures for it each year. Until last year, the Radiation Exposure and Compensation Act did what it was designed to do — provide compensation to people who developed various forms of cancer who lived downwind from the nuclear test sites in Nevada. Utah had, and still has, a number of residents who qualify as "downwinders." Hatch and others have led the fight to make sure all who were affected by such action are entitled to compensation. That includes uranium miners and millers in 12 states: Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Washington, Wyoming and Utah. From the 1940s through 1971 thousands of former miners extracted uranium from mines throughout the West as part of America's nuclear weapons program. But as the compensation program expanded with the addition of new categories, the funding inexplicably decreased. Congress appropriated only $10.8 million to cover existing claims, an amount that was quickly exhausted. Estimates are it will take $80 million to cover this year's claims. At a time when the country is experiencing record surpluses, there is no excuse for not expediting measures to take care of the funding for this and future years. It hardly qualifies as reckless spending. Many men and women put their lives at risk either working for the government or simply because they were innocent victims of atomic tests. They deserve to be compensated for their suffering. Many cannot be compensated because they have already died. This isn't a local issue. It is a national issue. Congress needs to act quickly to restore that which shouldn't have been taken away — the ability of the Radiation Exposure and Compensation Act to make good on claims. © 2001 Deseret News Publishing Company ***************************************************************** 17 DOE workers' comp may leave Labor This story was published 3/30/2001 By Annette Cary Herald staff writer The Office of Management and Budget began circulating a draft executive order of a plan Thursday that critics believe would slow compensation to former nuclear workers who fell ill from chemical and radiation exposure at Hanford and other Department of Energy sites. "That move puts cement boots on the project and pushes it into deep water," said Richard Miller, a policy analyst for unions representing nuclear workers in the Midwest. "That really is a one-sided declaration of war against the implementation of the program." The Bush administration is proposing the compensation program be moved from the Labor Department to the Justice Department. The Clinton administration had given Labor authority to handle the program because it has a large staff devoted to other workers' compensation claims and seemed well equipped to handle the ongoing medical claims of former nuclear workers. Justice has been administering another comparatively small program to give one-time payments to miners who fell ill after providing the nation's nuclear program with uranium and those harmed by nuclear tests. The Justice program, which has a staff of 14, has handled 3,900 uranium miner claims in 10 years, paying money on 1,705 of them, Miller said. It's also handled claims of some downwinders, such as those who lived downwind of the Nevada nuclear bomb tests, bringing total claims to about 9,000 in a decade. In contrast, the Labor Department runs a worker compensation program that handles 242,000 claims a year under the Longshore and Harbor Workers Act, the Federal Employees Compensation Act and a third Black Lung beneficiary program, according to the AFL-CIO. It's uncertain how many sick nuclear workers or their survivors might qualify for the new program among the 600,000 who have performed nuclear work for DOE. However, the AFL-CIO estimates 25,000 claims could be paid over 10 years. The Congressional Budget Office estimated the program would cost $1.6 billion over 10 years. It would cover medical expenses and allow workers to claim compensation for lost wages or $150,000, whichever is more. "There is only one government agency that has the capacity and expertise to deal with a program of this magnitude, and that is the Department of Labor," wrote AFL-CIO President Edward Sullivan in a letter to Labor Secretary Elaine Chao. Chao favors turning over the program to the Justice Department. Whichever agency runs the program has just two months until it must announce draft regulations for the program. In two more months, it would need to be accepting claims from former nuclear workers. The proposed change in agencies worries U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and U.S. Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash. "The Department of Labor is the only agency with the experience and infrastructure necessary to administer this program," Murray wrote in a letter to the Labor secretary Thursday. "The Department of Justice has already conceded it is ill positioned to properly administer the program." In hearings in September, Justice Department officials told a congressional subcommittee the department had neither the staff nor the procedures in place to handle claims programs that determine eligibility for medical cost reimbursements. As a result, when medical benefits were extended to uranium miners, responsibility for handling the claims was turned over to the Labor Department. Hastings is concerned that moving the nuclear worker compensation program from Labor to the Justice Department would cause a delay, said spokesman Todd Young. "He believes it's best to get this up and running as soon as possible," Young said. U.S. Sen. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., pointed out that the Labor Department not only has experience in helping injured workers, but also has a network of regional offices across the country where workplace claims are handled. "The Department of Justice, by contrast, possesses none of this infrastructure or expertise," he wrote in a letter to the Labor secretary. The nuclear workers compensation program was modeled after the Federal Employees Compensation Act, which the Labor Department administers. "The program is not intended as an apology payment like the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (for uranium miners), which the Department of Justice manages," Murray wrote in her letter to Chao. Among those who support moving the nuclear worker compensation program to the Justice Department is U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Back to top stories Copyright 2000 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This ***************************************************************** 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: *****************************************************************