***************************************************************** 04/02/02 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 10.83 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POLICY 1 Kharazi to begin visit to Russia Thursday 2 US: Westinghouse Electric Company Submits Application for Design 3 Morocco denies projects to build nuclear plant 4 Russia approves draft nuclear agreement with Vietnam 5 Kazakh nuclear firm set to double funds to protect environment in NUCLEAR REACTORS 6 Chernobyl still priority for Russia, Ukraine and Belarus 7 EUROPE: Lithuania warns on N-plant closure 8 US: How secure are U.S. nuclear power plants? 9 US: Nuclear plant security called 'impressive' 10 US: NRC seeks report on Waterford 3 11 Tohoku Elec Finds Water Leak At 825-MW Reactor 12 Japanese nuclear reactor shut down over pump trouble 13 US: Cooper at next-to-lowest point of emergency preparedness 14 US: NRC to Meet with RG&E to Discuss Ginna Plant Performance 15 US: Ten-mile no-fly zone lifted around area nuclear plants 16 US: Neb. Plant Cited for Safety Concern 17 UN Urges Money for Chernobyl Areas 18 US: CP&L's Brunswick plant completes refueling outage 19 US: Group says Yankee sale should cause power companies to lower rat NUCLEAR SAFETY 20 Exposing the Curie secrets 21 Russia: Five radioactive containers found in Chechen capital 22 US: Utah professor lobbies for funds to continue fallout study 23 Japan to continue receiving Russian trainees to study nuclear 24 US: Professor lobbies for fallout study funds NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 25 Russia to dump radwaste in volcano 26 Tesco refuses to stock anti-Sellafield postcards, but Irish 27 US: NRC Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste to Meet April 16 - 18 in 28 US: Nevada governor says no special session for nuclear dump fight 29 US: Tribe opposes Utah pipeline for uranium tailings slurry 30 US: Yucca foes can't afford ad time on topical 'West Wing' episode 31 US: Guinn won't seek money to fight nuclear dump 32 US: LETTERS: Science demands rejection of Yucca Mountain 33 US: Tribe opposes pipeline: Line would carry uranium tailings 34 US: Yucca campaign money: Now that's a mystery 35 US: Governor will ask committee to provide $3 million for anti-Yucca 36 US: YUCCA MOUNTAIN: Millions spent to push dump 37 US: Lack of money cited in failure to air anti-Yucca ad 38 US: Letter: Ensign, Reid should deliver on Yucca Mountain 39 US: Nuke lobby funds will be hard to match 40 US: Not Under Our Mountain, Nevada Says of Nuclear Dump 41 US: Inspection pinpoints radioactive materials' storage problems NUCLEAR WEAPONS 42 US: The Sunflower No. 59, April 2002 43 Richard Ingrams: Remember Vanunu 44 AU: Nuclear tests in desert: report 45 UK used Woomera for tests until 1978 46 Bombing, Protests on Vieques Resume 47 US: On Nukes, We Need to Talk 48 US: An Assessment of U.S. Policies and Actions Regarding 49 China firmly opposes nuclear proliferation, spokeswoman says 50 N. Korea and the Axis US DEPT. OF ENERGY 51 Lab's tritium leaks no threat, says report 52 Test run is successful for producer of isotopes 53 Paul Parson: Y-12 event had a few funny moments 54 ORIC's author, other ORNL innovators and others also remembered ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 Kharazi to begin visit to Russia Thursday Tuesday, April 02, 2002 - 2002 IranMania.com MOSCOW, April 2 (AFP) - Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi begins a two-day visit to Russia on Thursday, during which he will meet his counterpart Igor Ivanov for talks expected to include the construction of a Russian-built nuclear plant in Iran, the Interfax news agency reported Tuesday. Kharazi, whose visit had originally been slated to start Wednesday, will hold talks with Ivanov on Friday focused on "military technical cooperation and nuclear power," diplomatic sources told Interfax. The two men are likely to discuss speeding up the construction of a Russian-built nuclear plant at Bushehr where delays have accumulated, much to the displeasure of the Iranians. Washington, which has branded Iran as part of an "axis of evil," sees Bushehr as the possible means for Tehran to build nuclear weapons and has accused Moscow of being an "active proliferator." Iran is also interested in purchasing conventional weapons from Russia after Moscow in November 2000 backed out of a secret Russia-US agreement barring arms sales to the Islamic republic. Last October Moscow and Tehran signed a military cooperation agreement opening the way to a resumption of arms sales. The two sides will also discuss the legal status of the Caspian Sea ahead of a regional summit slated for late April in Turkmenistan to try and narrow differences between the five shoreline states over the division of the sea's oil riches. The Kremlin said it had no information on whether the Iranian foreign minister would meet President Vladimir Putin. Kharazi had been due to visit Moscow in February but the visit was put off amid uncertainty over whether he would be allowed to meet Putin in person, and the incident appeared briefly to cloud relations between the two countries. ©1999-2002 IranMania Copyrights . Terms & Conditions . Privacy ***************************************************************** 2 Westinghouse Electric Company Submits Application for Design Certification of its AP1000 Nuclear Reactor NRC: Press Release - 2002 - 38 - U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 20555-001 E-mail: opa@nrc.gov [opa@nrc.gov] www.nrc.gov No. 02-038 April 2, 2002 The Westinghouse Electric Company has submitted an application for design certification of its AP1000 standard plant design. The AP1000 design is for a nuclear power plant capable of producing about 1,100 megawatts of electricity. The plant features enhanced safety systems that rely on gravity and pressure differentials to safely shut down the reactor or mitigate the effects of an accident. It is designed for a 60-year operating life. With the certification, if granted, a utility that wished to build and operate a new nuclear power plant could choose to use the design and reference it in a license application. Safety issues within the scope of the certified design are not subject to litigation with respect to that individual license application, although site-specific environmental impacts associated with building and operating the plant at a particular location could be. NRC has certified three other standard reactor designs. In submitting its application for design certification, Westinghouse referenced the AP600 standard design, which was certified by NRC in 1999. It made changes necessitated by the requirements of the larger size of the AP1000. Additional details will be available in a notice to be published shortly in the Federal Register. NRC staff will perform an acceptance review to determine whether the application contains sufficient information to be processed. If it is found acceptable, NRC will publish a notice in the Federal Register announcing its acceptance and docketing of the application. The staff will review the application, request any additional information necessary, then issue a draft Safety Evaluation Report to address any safety questions. It could then issue a final Safety Evaluation Report if all technical and safety questions have been resolved. This design can then be certified through NRC's rulemaking process, which includes an opportunity for public participation. The certification process is described in Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations, Part 52, Subpart B. ***************************************************************** 3 Morocco denies projects to build nuclear plant Morocco-Algeria, Politics, 3/30/2002 Official spokesman of the royal palace, Hassan Aourid, flatly denied any Moroccan projects to build a nuclear plant and develop an anti-Algerian ballistic force. In a clarification to a story published by Arab magazine "Al Watan Al Arabi" on March 8, the spokesman said Morocco was among the first countries to sign and ratify the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and has even rejected, for ecological considerations, a water-desalination plant using nuclear energy. In his clarification to be published this Saturday by the magazine, the royal palace spokesman insists that Morocco refuses arms race and favors peaceful means to settle conflicts. The kingdom also opposes any escalation that will not serve neither the Maghreb region nor the Arab nation which is going through a difficult period and needs to unite its ranks and bring support to Palestinians who are facing the worst forms of massacre. Aourid, who said he was astonished by the article, says Morocco's real battle, under the leadership of king Mohammed VI, is against poverty, ignorance and all causes of under-development. This is a battle that no one in the region can win alone, he stressed. "The deep ties uniting the Moroccan and Algerian peoples, which have been constantly consolidated throughout history, are undoubtedly an asset that is likely to help the region face up the challenges, provided that good intentions and earnest will exist," he writes insisting "these conditions will be gathered sooner or later because this is part of the logic of history." He further explained that the Sahara partition option, contained in the UN secretary general's latest report, was a proposal put forward by Algeria, as the secretary general's personal envoy, James Baker, himself told the security council. Aourid said all Moroccans are opposing this "humiliating" proposal that authorizes the division of families and is reminiscent of an ugly past when colonial authorities used to partition territories, in total despise of social and historical bonds and disregarding the negative effects on both the states and societies. Copyright © 1995-2001 Arabic News.com, All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 4 Russia approves draft nuclear agreement with Vietnam BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Apr 1, 2002 Text of report in English by Russian news agency Interfax Moscow, 1 April: The Russian government has approved the draft of an intergovernmental agreement with Vietnam on cooperation in the peaceful use of nuclear energy. The government information department reports that the Atomic Energy Ministry was instructed to hold talks with Vietnam and sign the agreement on behalf of the government. In the framework agreement, the sides are expected to cooperate in fundamental and applied nuclear energy research, studies in designing, building and operating nuclear power plants, the safe operation of the research reactor in Dalat, Vietnam, prospecting and development of uranium deposits, handling of radioactive wastes, nuclear safety, and the production and application of radioisotopes. Source: Interfax news agency, Moscow, in English 0826 gmt 1 Apr 02 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. ***************************************************************** 5 Kazakh nuclear firm set to double funds to protect environment in 2002 BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Apr 1, 2002 The national company Kazatomprom (Kazakh nuclear industry) is to double its spending on environmental protection in 2002, the Interfax-Kazakhstan news agency reported on 1 April, quoting the company's press service. "The national company Kazatomprom spent 31.31m tenge [or over 206,000 dollars] on environmental protection measures at its extracting enterprises in 2001," the agency said. "The company is planning to allocate about 64.48m tenge [or over 423,000 dollars] in 2002," the agency said. The current exchange rate is 152.3 tenge to the dollar, the report added. Source: Interfax-Kazakhstan news agency, Almaty, in Russian 0832 gmt 1 Apr 02 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. ***************************************************************** 6 Chernobyl still priority for Russia, Ukraine and Belarus BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Mar 31, 2002 Text of report in English by Russian news agency Interfax Moscow, 31 March: Russian Emergency Situations Minister Sergey Shoygu and UN Under Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Kenzo Oshima are expected to meet on Monday, April 1, to discuss ways of coordinating international efforts to deal with the aftermath of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. The two officials will also discuss a report by a UN mission on the humanitarian aspect of the Chernobyl nuclear accident and on the rehabilitation strategy, based on the conclusions of an international monitoring commission which examined the contaminated territory. This document has been drawn up at the request of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. Russian Deputy Emergency Situations Minister Nadezhda Gerasimova has told Interfax that the nuclear disaster resulted in the contamination of an area of over 207,000 sq m in a total of 17 countries. About 800,000 Russian citizens still live in contaminated territories. "Even though 16 years have passed since then, the effects of the Chernobyl accident are still arousing concern in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, and in the rest of the world," Gerasimova said. According to the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry, an area of more than 6m square kilometres has been examined in Russia since the Chernobyl nuclear accident. The territories affected the worst are Bryansk Region (11,800 sq km), Kaluga Region (4,900 sq km), Tula Region (11,600 sq km) and Orel Region (8,900 sq km). The governments of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine are currently reviewing their policy to deal with the aftermath of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, Gerasimova said. Source: Interfax news agency, Moscow, in English 0637 gmt 31 Mar 02 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. ***************************************************************** 7 EUROPE: Lithuania warns on N-plant closure Financial Times; Apr 2, 2002 By MICHAEL MANN and STEFAN WAGSTYL Valdas Adamkus, the Lithuanian president, has warned EU leaders that the country's accession to the Union could be threatened by financing problems linked with the proposed closure of the country's Soviet-era nuclear plant. Two years ago Lithuania agreed to close one of two reactors at its Ignalina power station by 2005. Now it is under pressure from the EU to commit itself to closing the other, which was built five years later, by 2009. The EU says that without such a pledge, Lithuania cannot close the energy chapter in its accession negotiations. If it fails to end these negotiations by the year-end it risks falling behnd the other nine countries seeking EU membership in 2004. Mr Adamkus said in London that Lithuania was prepared to close Ignalina even though it thought the reactor was perfectly safe after it was upgraded by Swedish experts at great cost. Lithuania was ready to shut the plant in order to join the EU, given the "psychological" concerns of EU members, he said. However, he said Lithuania could not in good faith pledge to shut the plant as it lacked the funds needed to pay for decommissioning, which he estimated at Euros 3bn. "How can the EU trust us if we make such a promise when we know we cannot keep it," he said. Lithuania wants the EU to promise to help finance the work, as it has done with the 2005 closure. However, the EU has so far been unable to discuss the issue in detail because its budget is set only until 2006. A European Commission spokeswoman said: "There is no doubt that this is a reactor which has to be shut down. "We are certainly willing to pay for it at the moment and the Commission has already put forward a budget line for this until 2006. However, we acknowledge that this is a task that will take longer than 2006, so we have to discuss future financing with the member states," she said. Mr Adamkus said he had raised the issue at the recent EU summit in Barcelona, which was attended by leaders of candidate countries. But Lithuania had yet to receive concrete answers. Copyright: The Financial Times Limited 1995-2002 ***************************************************************** 8 How secure are U.S. nuclear power plants? Grist | Main Dish | Safety dance | 26 Mar 2002 by Shelley Smithson 26 Mar 2002 Roughly 40 miles from the rubble of the World Trade Center, U.S. Navy cutters patrol the chilly waters of the Hudson River. Military planes circle overhead. On the ground, members of the National Guard stand ready. The Indian Point nuclear power station, which churns out electricity to nearly 2 million homes around New York City, is defended by land, sea, and air. Yet many people -- and especially people in the small town of Buchanan, N.Y., where the power station is located -- still worry that terrorists could turn Indian Point into a nuclear bomb, with devastating consequences for New York City and surrounding areas. That fear is not unfounded. Since the terrorists attacks of Sept. 11, the U.S. government has given several indications of credible threats to the nation's nuclear power plants. For example, on Jan. 23, U.S. intelligence agencies issued an internal alert about a planned attack on a nuclear power plant by Islamic terrorists; six days later, President Bush revealed in his State of the Union address that diagrams of U.S. nuclear plants were found at terrorist bases in Afghanistan. Feeling insecure? Although fears -- and warnings -- that terrorists might attack nuclear facilities have intensified since Sept. 11, they are hardly new. Critics say the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has done little over the years to enhance security at nuclear plants, many of which are located within 50 miles of metropolitan areas. Instead, in the past few years, the nation's 103 commercial nuclear reactors have been cutting expenses, including security costs, to compete in the new world of electricity deregulation. At the same time, the nuclear industry is enjoying enthusiastic White House support. Nuclear energy currently supplies about 20 percent of the nation's electricity, but the Bush administration would like to see that number increase dramatically. The Department of Energy has proposed streamlining the approval process for new nuclear power plants and Bush's 2003 budget includes funds to match private-sector spending on new plant development. "It is in our nation's national interest that we develop more energy supplies at home," Bush told business leaders in late October. "It is in our national interest that we look at safe nuclear power." Those Other Twin Towers But can nuclear plants be made safe from terrorism? There are no rules requiring atomic plants or waste facilities to be secured against large truck bombs or air attacks -- the M.O.s of the Oklahoma City bombing and the 1993 and 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center. Indian Point's twin reactors. Photo: Entergy Nuclear. "If the American Airlines jet that traveled down the Hudson Valley en route to the Twin Towers had instead banked a left turn into one of Indian Point's twin reactors, the resulting disaster would have been even more horrific than the World Trade Center catastrophe," said Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., lead attorney for Riverkeeper, one of several environmental groups asking the NRC to close Indian Point. Because of the prevailing southerly winds in the Hudson Valley, a meltdown or major radioactive release at Indian Point "could result in death and chronic radiation sickness for thousands, if not tens of thousands, of the region's citizens and render much of the New York metropolitan area permanently uninhabitable," Kennedy said in a press statement. A 1982 study commissioned by the NRC offers some more specific numbers. According to the study, a worst-case-scenario meltdown at Indian Point 3, one of the plants three reactors, would result in up to 50,000 non-cancer radiation deaths, up to 14,000 cancer deaths, and up to 167,000 cases of radiation-related health problems. A 1997 report for the NRC concluded that a severe release from a nuclear waste storage pool could cause as many as 143,000 deaths and $566 billion in damage, in addition to rendering 2,790 square miles of land uninhabitable. The NRC has never studied how much radiation could be released if an airplane-turned-bomb sparked a jet-fuel fire in a reactor core or nuclear waste storage facility. If firefighters were unable to put out the blaze for several days -- as was the case when the graphite core at Chernobyl burned in the Ukraine -- much more radiation could be released. Costs of Cutting Costs The U.S. nuclear industry claims that both the probability of a successful attack and the scope of the resulting devastation are exaggerated by environmentalists who want to hobble the resurgent atomic sector. Nuclear plants are built with layers of backup safety systems, making it difficult to actually break enough equipment to cause a radioactive release. Reactors in the United States are encased in 180-foot-tall concrete vessels with steel-lined walls that are at least three feet thick. "In security parlance, they are hardened targets," said Mitch Singer, a spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, the lobbying arm of the atomic power industry. "They are not going to be the ones terrorists go after because [a successful attack] would be too difficult." But given that the unthinkable has already happened once, calm assurances from nuclear-energy advocates don't set everyone's mind at ease. Critics say nuclear plants cannot compete with low-cost coal and natural gas fuels without cutting costs, including security expenses. And they are skeptical that the NRC will require tougher security unless Congress mandates it. After Sept. 11, the NRC announced a "top-to-bottom review" of its security requirements, but the nuclear industry has been lobbying the agency to move slowly on implementing any new rules. Days after the deadliest terrorist attack ever on U.S. soil, a high-level NRC manager reportedly said nuclear power plants should be allowed to return to normal security levels because of the high cost to utilities. The agency continues to "recommend" that nuclear plants remain on high alert because of FBI concerns about another domestic terrorist attack. But NRC Chair Richard Meserve confirmed in the trade journal Inside NRC that industry lobbyists have made "entreaties" to some NRC staffers to "adjust the security levels downward." (Singer of the Nuclear Energy Institute denied the group has "made any specific requests to lower security.") "The majority of [NRC] managers -- even some of the commission -- think we're overreacting in the security area, even now," said one NRC senior staffer. "The feedback we got from high up in the federal government after Sept. 11 was there are two agencies in the federal government that just don't get it. One was the FAA [Federal Aviation Administration], and the other was the NRC." Guard Doody Given these attitudes, it's not surprising that the nuclear power industry and the NRC are trying to kill legislation that would federalize guards at nuclear power plants and impose strict and expensive security regulations on nuclear utilities. The Nuclear Energy Institute, which has given at least $444,000 to Republicans and $171,000 to Democrats in the last five years, is leading the campaign against bills that would make security guards federal employees. In November, Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.), Harry Reid (D-Nev.), and Sen. Jim Jeffords (I-Vt.) introduced the Nuclear Security Act of 2001. Democratic Reps. Ed Markey (Mass.) and Nita Lowey (N.Y.) proposed similar legislation in the House. Time to get off the fence. In response, Joe Colvin, NEI's president and chief executive officer, called the legislative proposals "a reflexive political response to a problem that does not exist, given the fact that nuclear power plants are private facilities protected by a paramilitary force of highly trained, well-armed dedicated professionals." NRC Chair Meserve said creating a federal guard force would require hiring 7,000 new government employees to "address a nonexistent problem. ... There have been no failures in nuclear plant security of the type that has plagued the commercial airline industry and thus no need for such radical change." It's true that as yet there have been no major failures in nuclear plant security in the U.S., but in security drills conducted by federal regulators, nuclear power plants and airlines have fared equally poorly. Nearly 50 percent of nuclear plants in the country have failed NRC security drills during the past decade -- even when guards had at least six months to prepare and knew the day and time the mock terrorists were attacking. Out of the 57 plants tested in "force-on-force" drills by the NRC between 1991 and 1998, 27 showed "significant" weaknesses, meaning a real attack could have resulted in a partial or complete meltdown of the reactor core. In 14 cases, radiation could have been released into the atmosphere. Advocates of federalizing security forces at nuclear plants say uniform hiring practices would improve safety standards. Currently, these security forces vary from site to site in training, skills, pay, and size. At some plants, guards must run an obstacle course within a time limit with more than 100 pounds on their backs. At other plants, guards simply must be able to climb one flight of stairs -- without a time limit. Could the Sept. 11 terrorists have gotten jobs at U.S. nuclear power plants? "There's big disparities between plants where you have Marine-type training programs and ones where you just have to be alive," said Dave Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer with the Union of Concerned Scientists. "Federalization would at least require some standardization over educational and physical requirements." In addition, Lochbaum said some guards make as little as $9 an hour. "At the money they're paying, the only people they get are people that don't get the jobs as greeters at Wal Mart," he said. Federal rules require that at least 10 guards are on duty at all times at nuclear plants. But the NRC makes exceptions, allowing as few as five guards if plants install barriers, block doors, and take other defensive measures. "If you only have five responders and you're trying to cover four sides of a plant, that's going to be tough," said one NRC senior security staffer. "So numbers do count." One reason for the relaxed staffing standards is that guards are only required to defend against a team of three invaders and one insider in NRC drills. The Nuclear Security Act of 2001 would require guards to repel up to 20 attackers working in multiple teams with the active assistance of several plant employees. Rep. Markey said, "The reality is they could come in large numbers, they could be suicidal, they could have sophisticated technical backgrounds, and they could have much greater insider help than previously anticipated." Shelley Smithson is a freelance writer in Farmington, N.M. Research for this story was conducted with financial support from the Fund for Investigative Journalism. Grist Magazine: Environmental news and humor © 2002, Earth Day Network. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 9 Nuclear plant security called 'impressive' The News-Herald Dino DiSantoApril 02, 2002 Senator George Voinovich discusses security at the Perry Nuclear Plant Monday following his tour of the plant. Senator visits powerplant. Security at the Perry Nuclear Power Plant continues to live up to the scrutiny of federal officials. U.S. Sen. George V. Voinovich was the latest public official to visit the North Perry Village plant and give it high accolades. Ohio's Republican junior senator said security at the plant owned by Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp. makes it one of the most secure nuclear plants in the country. "Very impressive," Voinovich said during a Monday afternoon visit to the Perry plant. Voinovich gave a glowing report on the privately trained security forces and also praised the high tech weaponry on hand and the physical barriers in place to impede anyone's entrance. "It is incredible how difficult it is to get into the plant," the senator said. Voinovich's visit is significant for the nuclear industry for a couple of reasons. The first is the former Ohio governor is the ranking Republican on the subcommittee that oversees the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Second, he is a major proponent of the United States expanding its use of nuclear power in order to shift the country's reliance from coal. This is significant because not long ago, the nuclear industry was enjoying a Cinderella-type story. The industry had a friendly Congress and the backing of Americans for building the first new nuclear power plants in a generation. Voinovich was helping to lead that charge by introducing legislation last year that would encourage development of more nuclear power plants by updating regulations and policies of the NRC. But since Sept. 11, Congress has sounded more like the fairy tale's cruel stepsisters in demanding security makeovers and aggressively questioning nuclear plants' readiness to repel terrorist attacks. "If we have to turn these reactors into impregnable fortresses to withstand kamikaze attacks, it begs the question of whether it's worth it," said Robert Alvarez, a former Energy Department official who is executive director of the New York-based STAR Foundation, which is critical of nuclear power. Congress started getting cranky when the NRC changed its assessment about the threat to nuclear plants from terrorists who turn jetliners into missiles. Just after Sept. 11, the commission said that plants could withstand the impact of commandeered aircraft. Later, the commission said it was possible that such a crash would cause damage "that would result in the release of radiation." Senate Majority Whip Harry Reid, D-Nev., is among sponsors of a wide range of bills that would toughen the security standards for defending against an array of assaults on plants and would make federal employees of the security guards who work there. As it stands, a nuclear plant has to demonstrate a capacity to repel what is known in the industry as a "three and one attack" - three well-trained and heavily armed terrorists with one person inside the plant providing assistance. Reid's bill would require plants to be able to defend against attacks by multiple large teams being assisted by several people inside. Plants also would need to demonstrate the ability to repel attacks from the air and water. The legislation has drawn opposition from the NRC and the nuclear industry. The Nuclear Energy Institute's Marvin Fertel said he doubts whether plants could comply. "If they passed that bill, we would essentially be required to have an army, a navy and an air force that would be able to shoot down planes," Fertel said. David Lochbaum, a nuclear safety engineer with the Union of Concerned Scientists and a supporter of the legislation, argued it would "raise the bar" for safety. Beyond federalizing plant workers, it would require "force-on-force" tests every two years to test plants' capacity to repel terrorists. Those tests have been administered every eight years on average; about half of the plants routinely failed. Perry, though, is one of the few plants that has passed the exercise with flying colors. Voinovich noted NRC Chairman Paul Meserve gave Perry the highest rating possible. "This is one of best trained private forces in the country," Voinovich said. "Federalizing them would not be a wise move." The senator, who helped start the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, was critical of other legislators who were quick to come up with legislation in reaction to the fears of residents without first getting an inside look at the nuclear industry. "I think a lot of people in my business need to get facts before making comments about situations," the senator said. "If you really look at these facilities, they are the most inspected and looked at in the country." ©The News-Herald 2002 ***************************************************************** 10 NRC seeks report on Waterford 3 Back to Index Published on 4/2/02 By SARA BONGIORNI Advocate business writer Federal regulators have ordered operators of 69 nuclear reactors, including Entergy Corp.'s Waterford 3 plant in Taft, to submit information on their facilities after inspectors discovered corrosion has nearly eaten through the steel reactor vessel of an Ohio plant with a similar design. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission order affects only plants such as Taft, which have pressurized water reactors. The order does not apply to plants such as Entergy's River Bend facility in St. Francisville and its Grand Gulf plant in Claiborne County, Miss., which have boiling water reactors. Operators affected by the order must submit by today initial reports to the commission on inspection programs and the structural integrity of their reactors. "We have no reason to believe (this is) a problem for us," said Carl Crawford, a spokesman for Entergy's nuclear operations, which has headquarters in Jackson, Miss. "We feel like we're in pretty good shape and don't think Waterford is (going to be) dramatically affected at this point." The NRC said it did not believe the situation at the Ohio plant posed a danger to the public. It said it requested information from operators to determine whether current inspection and maintenance practices are adequate or need to be augmented. Entergy owns nine nuclear units, five of which have pressurized water reactors. The four other Entergy reactors affected by the order are in New York and Arkansas. The New York reactors are at Entergy's Indian Point plant north of New York City, which activists say is an inviting target to terrorists and should be closed because evacuation plans are insufficient. Entergy has launched an advertising campaign to counter what it said is unfair media coverage of the matter. Federal regulators issued the March 18 bulletin to operators after inspectors discovered a 6-inch-deep cavity in the steel lid of First Energy Corp.'s reactor vessel in Oak Harbor, Ohio. Inspectors last month discovered that corrosion had thinned the steel of the Davis-Besse reactor vessel from more than 6 inches to less than one-quarter-inch, according to the NRC. Although its investigation is continuing, the commission's early assessment indicates that boric acid used in the reactor's cooling water contributed to the problem, the NRC said. Pressurized water reactors use boric acid to fine-tune the level of fission -- and thereby the rate of energy production -- in the reactor, Crawford said. Adding boron to the water slows the fission process, he said. Although the corrosion at the Ohio plant is unusual, boric acid corrosion has been a factor at pressurized water reactors for decades, one that operators routinely catch and repair, Crawford said. "We've all done inspections and caught it when present and taken remedial steps," he said. The reactor in Ohio was designed by the Babcock & Wilcox Co., a major builder of nuclear plants in the 1970s and 1980s that later merged with McDermott Energy Inc. of New Orleans. One of Entergy's reactors, its Arkansas Nuclear unit 1 reactor in Russellville, also was built by Babcock & Wilcox, Crawford said. An inspection of the unit last spring turned up one small crack in the reactors' 69 nozzles, and that crack was quickly repaired, Crawford said. Crawford said Entergy will conduct another inspection this fall when the unit is shut down for refueling and closer inspection is possible. Copyright © 1995-2002, The Advocate, Capital City Press, All ***************************************************************** 11 Tohoku Elec Finds Water Leak At 825-MW Reactor Yahoo! News - Japan Tue Apr 2, 2:03 AM ET TOKYO -(Dow Jones)- Japan 's Tohoku Electric Power Co . (J.THE or 9506) said it found a minor water leak Tuesday morning inside the containment vessel of the No. 2 825-megawatt nuclear reactor in northern Japan . The non-radioactive incident didn't affect the reactor's operation, a company spokesman said. An estimated 100 milliliters of water oozed through a water valve, he said. The company tightened the valve, and the leak was stopped shortly after it was found. Tohoku Electric is conducting test runs at the No. 2 reactor at the Onagawa nuclear power station. The reactor is scheduled to resume commercial power generation in late April, the spokesman said. -By Maki Aoto, Dow Jones Newswires; 813-5255-2929; Maki.Aoto@dowjones.com More from > Business - Dow Jones Business News ***************************************************************** 12 Japanese nuclear reactor shut down over pump trouble BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Apr 2, 2002 Text of report in English by Japanese news agency Kyodo Kanazawa Japan, 2 April: Hokuriku Electric Power Co began to shut down a reactor in Ishikawa Prefecture on Tuesday morning [2 April] after a problem arose in a pump, company officials said. No radiation was leaked as a result of the pump fault, which was discovered at 10.30 a.m. [local time] during regular checks of the 540,000-kilowatt No 1 reactor of the Shika nuclear power plant in the town of Shika on the Sea of Japan coast, they said. Source: Kyodo News Service, Tokyo, in English 0253 gmt 2 Apr 02 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. ***************************************************************** 13 Cooper at next-to-lowest point of emergency preparedness Journalstar.com: Local The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will step up its scrutiny of Cooper Nuclear Station near Brownville in response to what it sees as its declining emergency preparedness. But despite years of difficulties and the plant's drop to the next-to-lowest grade of emergency preparedness, NRC spokesman Breck Henderson said, the agency does not want to overly alarm the public. "(Cooper is) at the column next to the last one -- multiple repetitive degrade cornerstone," Henderson said. "The next one is unacceptable performance. It would take some serious missteps to kick them into the next column." Cooper joins only one other reactor, Indian Point, N.Y., in such a low ranking. Still, Henderson said, Cooper is not in imminent danger of being closed. Nor are there any immediate health risks. The NRC and Nebraska Public Power District will talk about Cooper's emergency preparedness status -- and plans to improve it -- tonight at the Brownville Concert Hall. The 7 p.m. meeting is open to the public. An NRC letter dated March 4 describes findings that led to more scrutiny. The findings were based on assessments during the last three quarters of 2001. The plant operated "in a manner that preserved public health and safety and met all cornerstone objectives with moderate degradation in safety performance," the report said. But the plant was found lacking in emergency preparedness after drills in 2000 and 2001 and after a fire on June 25, 2001. Aside from determining whether Cooper's continued operation "is acceptable," the NRC's inspections will delve into the plant's margin of safety, NPPD's ability to identify and correct problems and insight into the "overall root and contributing causes" of the problems. In the area of problem identification and resolution, the NRC staff identified: "a general lack of understanding and ownership of the programs and procedures for identifying and resolving issues at the Cooper Nuclear Station, and that efforts at correcting these deficiencies over the past year were not effective. "Inspection of this area identified a number of implementation problems, such as issues being improperly characterized and classified; management meetings associated with the corrective action process that were less than fully effective; poor documentation of planned and completed corrective actions; weak engineering justifications for changes to the facility; the development of unrealistic issue resolution dates; ineffective corrective actions associated with conducting operability determinations and evaluations." NPPD spokeswoman Marcia Cady said the plant hasn't been standing still. Cooper's staff of 760 is working together and NPPD has hired specialists to work with the NRC toward solutions, Cady said. "We're doing everything possible to improve our performance down there," Cady said. "We want to reassure the public. The NRC comes in, sits down with you, looks at the plans, watches you, helps you, coaches you to find solutions. I think NRC is in a preventative mode." The NRC's Henderson said the agency would be taking much more drastic measures if Cooper's operation placed the public in immediate danger. Plants must operate at a "very large safety margin" he said, and the NRC steps in whenever those margins start to erode. Reach Larry Peirce at (402) 228-1245 or lpeirce@@journalstar.com. Copyright © 2002, Lincoln Journal Star. All rights reserved. 926 P Street Lincoln NE 68508 402 475-4200 feedback@journalstar.com ***************************************************************** 14 NRC to Meet with RG&E to Discuss Ginna Plant Performance NRC: Press Release Region I - 2002 - 26 - U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, Region I 475 Allendale Road, King of Prussia, Pa. 19406 www.nrc.gov No. I-02-026 April 1, 2002 CONTACT: Diane Screnci (610) 337-5330 Neil A. Sheehan (610) 337-5331 E-mail: opa1@nrc.gov [opa1@nrc.gov] Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will meet with representatives of Rochester Gas & Electric (RG&E) Corporation on Tuesday, April 2, to discuss the results of the agency's annual assessment of safety performance at the R.E. Ginna nuclear power plant. The facility is located in Ontario, N.Y., and operated by RG&E. The meeting, which will be open to the public for observation, is scheduled to begin at 3 p.m. at the Ontario Golf Club, 2101 Country Club Lane, Ontario, N.Y. Before the session is adjourned, NRC staff will be available to answer questions from the public on the safety performance of the Ginna plant, as well as the role of the NRC in ensuring safe plant operation. The performance period to be discussed is April 1, 2001, to December 31, 2001. In addition, NRC staff will provide an overview of the agency's Reactor Oversight Process. A letter sent from the NRC Region I office to RG&E addresses the performance of the plant during the period and will serve as the basis for the meeting discussion. It is available on the NRC web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/LETTERS/ginn_2001q4.pdf Current performance information for the Ginna plant is available on the NRC web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/GINN/ginn_chart.html ***************************************************************** 15 Ten-mile no-fly zone lifted around area nuclear plants by Carol Thompson Valley News editor@valleynewsonline.com by Carol Thompson The ten-mile no-fly zone mandated around Scriba’s three nuclear plants has been lifted, according to Bruce Bisbo, the deputy superintendent of auxiliary services at the Oswego County Airport. Last week, national news reports suggested that the country’s nuclear plants have been left vulnerable to acts of terrorism. Despite the lifting of the no fly zone, Oswego County Sheriff Reuel Todd said the public can be assured the plants are secure. Todd has three men guarding the plant per 8-hour shift. It has placed a heavy burden on his budget. The security comes at a cost of approximately $35,000 per week. The office of state senator Jim Wright recently announced that the county will receive $100,000 in assistance to cover the cost of security for nuclear facilities within the county. That money compensates for less than three weeks of manpower at the plants. Todd appreciates of the funding, but he is still looking for a lot more. "Anybody that will listen, I’ll talk to," Todd said of his quest to ease the financial burden to county taxpayers. He pointed out that the plants supply power to many parts of the state, hence, paying for the security should be more far reaching. "How can they really say ‘it’s your problem’," he said. Todd has spoken to U.S. Rep. John McHugh and he said hopefully some money can be secured through the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Senator Hillary Clinton recently visited the nuclear plants and met with local politicians indicating her support for federal funding. As for security at the Oswego County airport, Bisbo said he will meet next week with state officials to see if any funding is available to assist with the cost of security. "Hopefully there will be something to help us out on general aviation and security at our airport," he said. With the 10-mile no-fly zone lifted, the three-mile no-fly zone is automatically in effect. The three-mile ban has always been in effect, Bisbo said. ***************************************************************** 16 Neb. Plant Cited for Safety Concern Las Vegas SUN April 01, 2002 BROWNVILLE, Neb. (AP) - Federal regulators gave a Nebraska nuclear plant their lowest safety rating Monday and ordered a special inspection because of problems with emergency preparedness. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will conduct an intense review of Cooper Nuclear Station later this month, commission spokesman Breck Henderson said. He said the plant is operating safely. "There are areas of concern there," he said. "We are going to mount a significant inspection process." The plant was shut down in 1994 for about nine months to solve equipment and other problems. Marcia Cady, spokeswoman for the Nebraska Public Power District, said Cooper employees have been working for some time to resolve emergency preparedness issues and that outside experts have been hired. Cooper has received several NRC citations since 2000 for failing to follow emergency procedures fast enough in the event of fire, including notifying state and local authorities and potentially failing in drills to protect the public from radiation exposure. The NRC began supplemental inspections two years ago. The Indian Point nuclear power plant in New York is the only other nuclear facility in the nation to undergo one of the inspections. On the Net: Nebraska Public Power District: http://www.nppd.com [http://www.nppd.com] U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission: http://www.nrc.org [http://www.nrc.org] All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 17 UN Urges Money for Chernobyl Areas Las Vegas SUN April 01, 2002 MOSCOW (AP) - A top U.N. official urged the international community on Monday not to abandon the region affected by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, even though the power plant no longer poses a major radiation threat. Kenzo Oshima, U.N. undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, was in Moscow promoting a U.N. report that calls for a new, 10-year aid program aimed at raising the living standards of an estimated 5.7 million people living in areas of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus that were contaminated after the explosion and fire at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant nearly 16 years ago. Though the plant is closed and the destroyed reactor encased to prevent radiation leakage, the international community cannot now "close the file on the people affected in the region," Kenzo said at a news conference. Moscow was the first stop on his three-country tour to promote the U.N. report. Since the April 26, 1986, disaster, Russia, Ukraine and Belarus have received $750 million in international emergency assistance. The plant, located in Ukraine, was closed in December 2000 after years of foreign pressure and promises of more aid. The U.N. report proposes shifting the focus of Chernobyl assistance from humanitarian and technical measures to sustainable socio-economic development for the region's residents and for more than 200,000 people who took part in cleanup efforts. "The number one priority is the economic rehabilitation of radiation-stricken territories, the creation of jobs, and anti-poverty measures," Russia's Deputy Emergency Situations Minister Nadezhda Gerasimova told the Interfax news agency. U.N. officials stressed that serious new health issues also should not be overlooked. "The most troubling and the most tragic (problem) is the jump in thyroid cancer among children," Oshima said. Already over 2,000 cases of thyroid cancer have been reported, and U.N. experts say it could hit 10,000 in the next two years. The U.N. is calling on donor governments to dedicate $70 million, or 10 percent of the amount already donated to create a concrete sarcophagus over the failed reactor. Later this week, Oshima will visit affected areas in Ukraine and Belarus before presenting the report's recommendations to international donors in Geneva. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 18 CP&L's Brunswick plant completes refueling outage - 2002-04-01 - The Business Journal (Raleigh/Durham) Employees of CP&L's Brunswick Nuclear Plant in Southport completed a scheduled refueling outage March 30 when Unit 1 was returned to service generating electricity for the company's customers. During the Unit 1 shutdown, an outage work force of approximately 2,000 personnel completed over 7,000 planned work activities. Plant employees replaced approximately 45 percent of the unit's fuel and completed many maintenance activities that cannot be performed while the plant is operating. The 29-day refueling outage represents the second shortest refueling outage in Brunswick's 27-year history of commercial operation. The refueling outage was particularly significant for Brunswick since several major pieces of equipment -- the high-pressure turbine, two high-pressure feedwater heaters, both reactor feedwater pump turbines, and power range instrumentation -- were replaced to support the first phase of the plant's extended power uprate project. In addition, the unit's main generator was rewound. Prior to increasing the unit's power output by an initial 35 megawatts, the U.S Nuclear Regulatory Commission must approve two pending license amendments. Plant personnel also will recalibrate instrumentation and complete testing of equipment to ensure all plant systems are ready to increase power generation. The multi-year effort to enhance the efficiency and output of the Brunswick Plant will increase the plant's generation capacity by 15 percent by the summer of 2005. With demand for electricity expected to grow by at least 10 percent over the same time period, the increased output of electricity from the Brunswick Plant will help ensure a reliable supply of energy to the region. Brunswick Plant Unit 2, the facility's other electricity-generating unit, has operated continuously for 370 days since its spring 2001 refueling outage. Plant management has decided to perform a short, mid-cycle maintenance outage in mid-April to best ensure reliable energy production during the summer season when peak demand for electricity is typically the highest. Raleigh-based CP&L, a subsidiary of Progress Energy, serves more than 1.2 million customers in North Carolina and South Carolina. Copyright 2002 American City Business Journals ***************************************************************** 19 Group says Yankee sale should cause power companies to lower rates By Wilson Ring, Associated Press, 4/1/2002 17:03 MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) Vermont's two largest electric utilities should lower their prices between 4 and 5 percent if the sale of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant is approved, a consumer group said Monday. The rate reduction is needed to help reduce the high cost of power paid by Vermont electric consumers, said the Vermont Electricity Consumers Coalition. ''We are urging the Public Service Board to not accept the deal unless there is a rate rollback,'' said David Rousse, the chairman of the coalition and vice president of FiberMark, a specialty paper maker in Brattleboro. ''We need something tangible that at least reflects the lower costs of power coming with the Vermont Yankee sale,'' Rousse said. Rousse was joined by representatives of AARP and the associations that represent grocers and retailers in Vermont. The coalition was formed several years ago by groups that want to keep down the cost of electricity in the state. It favors the sale of Vermont Yankee. Right now Vermonters pay some of the highest power costs in the region and in the nation, they said. Vermont Yankee is owned by a number of electric utilities, including Vermont's two largest, Central Vermont Public Service Corp. and Green Mountain power. The utilities are hoping to sell the Vernon reactor to Entergy Nuclear, of Jackson, Miss., for $180 million. The Public Service Board, which regulates utilities in Vermont, is considering the sale. If approved, the sale would mean that CVPS and GMP would be able to buy power back from Entergy at a savings of about 6 percent of what they now pay. Part of that savings is what should be passed on directly to consumers, said Rousse and the other advocates. ''We believe that this deal represents a real opportunity to address Vermont's high electricity rates in a tangible way,'' Rousse said. But representatives of Vermont's two largest electric utilities said the reductions would be used to guarantee stable electric rates in the future. ''Some of our other costs are going to be going up,'' said GMP spokeswoman Dorothy Schnure. ''By planning for a very stable rate future, we would use lower Vermont Yankee costs to balance the other costs that are going up.'' And CVPS spokesman Steve Costello said everyone wants to see Vermont ratepayers benefit. ''It's really just an issue of timing,'' Costello said. ''Consumers are going to see tens of millions of dollars in benefits from this sale. The benefit is just a matter of when they see this savings.'' Boston Globe Online ***************************************************************** 20 Exposing the Curie secrets NEWS.scotsman.com Tue 2 Apr 2002 Marie Curie's legacy is an engine of scientific research. IT is now 100 years since Marie Curie made her Nobel Prize-winning discovery of radium, and laid the foundations for modern medical techniques we take for granted. Since then, millions of people who have had an X-ray or undergone radiotherapy have had cause to thank the scientist whose studies have changed countless lives. Today the Curie name lives on in scientific institutes dedicated to her memory, and in Marie Curie Cancer Care, the only UK charity embracing care for patients, cancer research and education. Dr Peter O’Hare, the director of the Marie Curie Research Institute in Surrey, says her contribution to science, especially to the treatment of cancer, cannot be underestimated. "There are two ways of judging a discovery - the sheer hard work it took and its long-term impact," he says. "In terms of the sheer physical hard work Marie Curie went through, I am dumbstruck every time I read about the conditions she worked in. I think her discovery of radium was 99 per cent perspiration - and 1 per cent that flash of undoubted brilliance. "We use radioactivity as the basis for radiotherapy, but as a research tool we use radioactivity every day." Dr Colin Golding, who is leading investigations into skin cancer at the institute, adds: "Because the molecules of cells are so small, we cannot see them even with the most powerful microscope. But what we can do is make them radioactive. Although we still can’t see the molecule itself, we can detect the radiation coming from it and this gives us what we call a molecular ‘footprint’. Studying these footprints helps us to understand how molecules in cells interact." Curie, born Marie Skoldowska in Russian-occupied Warsaw in 1867, went to Paris to study maths and physics at the Sorbonne. Women were barred from universities in her homeland. In 1894, aged 27, she met Pierre Curie, a 35-year-old French physicist with the School of Industrial Physics and Chemistry in Paris. They married in July 1885. Following the birth of their first daughter, Irène, in 1897, Curie decided to devote herself to research. For her doctorate, she studied the rays emitted by uranium which French scientist Henri Becquerel discovered in 1896. Becquerel had noticed that lumps of uranium used to weigh down photographic plates had darkened the plates. Curie named this phenomenon "radioactivity" and set about measuring it via an electrometer created by Pierre and his brother, Jacques. She found that uranium ore was almost five times more radioactive than it should have been for the amount of uranium it contained and theorised that it contained an unknown radioactive element in such a small concentration that it was invisible. This she called radium. Marie and Pierre, who had joined her in her work, believed they had found two new elements - polonium, named after Curie’s homeland, and radium. Working in a leaky wooden shed which had been a mortuary, day after day, Curie poured acid over a boiling cauldron of pitchblende - uranium ore - in an attempt to break down the mineral and extract the radium. A hundred years ago last week, four years after she had first detected radium, Curie finally held a tiny quantity of the element her hand. In 1903 Curie became the first woman to win a Nobel prize, when she and Pierre were jointly awarded half the Nobel Prize in Physics. Henri Becquerel was awarded the other half. After Pierre was run over and killed by a horse-drawn wagon, Curie threw herself into her work, becoming the Sorbonne’s first female teacher when she replaced Pierre as head of the physics laboratory. In 1910 she began a passionate affair with Pierre Langevin, a colleague who was five years her junior - and already married. In 1911 Langevin’s wife went to the newspapers with what she claimed were love letters written between the pair and Curie found herself at the centre of a public scandal. The news broke just after the Swedish academy voted to give her a Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery, isolation and study of radium, and for the discovery of polonium. She refused to turn down the award, pointing out that it was in recognition of her contribution to science, and unrelated to her personal life. She later aided the First World War effort by kitting out mobile X-ray units. Marie Curie died on 4 July 1934, aged 67, from leukaemia probably caused by her exposure to radium, but an extraordinary legacy lives on. ©2002 scotsman.com | contact ***************************************************************** 21 Russia: Five radioactive containers found in Chechen capital BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Apr 2, 2002 Text of report by Russian news agency RIA Rostov-na-Donu, 2 March, correspondents Sofya Brykanova and Edgar Saroyan: Five containers with radioactive substance have been found in the Leninskiy district of Groznyy, the press service of the Russian Emergencies Ministry's Southern regional directorate [based in Rostov] said. The containers were found by a reconnaissance group of the Chechen Emergencies Ministry. The radiation level at a distance of one metre from the containers measured 500-600 microroentgen per hour. A potentially contaminated area of about 300 square metres has been fenced off. Experts from the Chechen Emergencies Ministry are preparing to take the containers to a safe place. Source: RIA news agency, Moscow, in Russian 0601 gmt 2 Apr 02 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. ***************************************************************** 22 Utah professor lobbies for funds to continue fallout study Las Vegas SUN April 01, 2002 SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - Dr. Joseph Lyon, whose 1970s research concluded downwind leukemia rates were higher due to atomic tests in Nevada, is lobbying for continued federal funding of a thyroid cancer study. Lyon, a professor of family and preventive medicine at the University of Utah, met with Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, on Friday. Afterward, Matheson said he was concerned that "a substantive, organized effort to get really good information" about Utah thyroid disease might be at risk. If the study is carried out, it could help refine the knowledge base about harm caused by open-air nuclear tests at the Nevada Test Site during the 1950s and early '60s. The Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, was to fund the effort to re-examine people, many now in their 50s, who were first checked in 1965-70. In the original study, the federal government found no ill effects on the children's thyroid glands caused by fallout. Lyon contended that study was flawed by inadequate data about radiation exposure. After Lyon's study concluded leukemia rates among downwinders were higher, the federal government re-examined about half of the estimated 4,800 subjects and found 19 had thyroid tumors, about 3 times the number predicted. In 1997, the National Cancer Institute released a study indicating that radioactive iodine released by fallout hit 40 states. "The contamination of the United States from the Nevada Test Site was much more extensive than originally believed," he said. The exposure undoubtedly put children at risk of thyroid cancer, Lyon said. Lyon would like to take another look at those examined in 1965-70, checking for a connection between thyroid cancer and level of exposure to fallout. "We actually created a mathematical model to estimate how much a dose of radiation they got from the bombs through the food chain," when dairy cattle grazed areas contaminated by fallout. "We started working on this in 1998," he said. Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, helped with funding from the Centers of Disease Control. However, the federal government says it is running out of money, Lyon said. Government officials seem not to want the study to proceed, he said. They are saying that the results are inconclusive. In January they told researchers that if they can't come up with the money locally, the project would end. Lyon has asked Matheson and Bennett to try to make sure the government continues to fund the program. To do the project would cost about $4 million over three years. "I'm concerned the study isn't going to move forward, and I think it should," Matheson said. "I think the people in Utah have the right to know what the impacts were from this open-air testing." Matheson has been a backer of legislation to compensate downwinders in Utah, Arizona and Nevada for illnesses that may have been due to fallout. Matheson's father, the late Gov. Scott Matheson, grew up in southwestern Utah and died of cancer his son was believed due to the fallout. Lyon's original study was a core part of a downwinders' suit that sought compensation. A federal judge in Salt Lake City agreed with their contention that fallout was to blame for many of the illnesses and death, but higher courts overturned his ruling on the ground of governmental immunity. After that Congress passed legislation to compensate the downwinders. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 23 Japan to continue receiving Russian trainees to study nuclear safety BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Apr 2, 2002 Tokyo, 2 April: Japan will annually receive some 50 trainees from Russia, China and other Asian, East and Central European countries under a new programme for cooperation in the sphere of nuclear security. The economics and industry ministry announced that this five-year programme was launched in the 2002 fiscal year which started on 1 April. The Japanese government appropriates 250m yen (nearly 2m US dollars) for this purpose during the first year. The programme envisages that trainees will participate in seminars, visit projects of the Japanese nuclear power industry and will undergo training at special centres... The new plan is a modified version of a similar programme carried out over the past decade and [which] ended in the 2001 fiscal year. A total of 1,042 trainees from Russia, China, as well as eight East European countries and some former Soviet republics visited Japan over the above period. The aim of the programme was to help prevent incidents at projects of the nuclear power industry in those countries, similar to the disaster at the Chernobyl power plant in 1986. Source: ITAR-TASS news agency, Moscow, in English 0802 gmt 2 Apr 02 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. ***************************************************************** 24 Professor lobbies for fallout study funds Tuesday, April 02, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal THE ASSOCIATED PRESS SALT LAKE CITY -- Dr. Joseph Lyon, whose 1970s research concluded that downwind leukemia rates were higher due to atomic tests in Southern Nevada, is lobbying for continued federal funding of a thyroid cancer study. Lyon, a professor of family and preventive medicine at the University of Utah, met with Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, on Friday. Afterward, Matheson said he was concerned that "a substantive, organized effort to get really good information" about Utah thyroid disease might be at risk. If the study is carried out, it could help refine the knowledge base about harm caused by open-air nuclear tests at the Nevada Test Site during the 1950s and early '60s. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta was to fund the effort to re-examine people, many now in their 50s, who were first checked in 1965-70. In the original study, the federal government found no ill effects on the children's thyroid glands caused by fallout. Lyon contended that study was flawed by inadequate data about radiation exposure. After Lyon's study concluded that leukemia rates among downwinders were higher, the federal government re-examined about half of the estimated 4,800 subjects and found 19 had thyroid tumors, about 3 1/2 times the number predicted. In 1997, the National Cancer Institute released a study indicating that radioactive iodine released by fallout hit 40 states. "The contamination of the United States from the Nevada Test Site was much more extensive than originally believed," he said. Lyon would like to take another look at those examined in 1965-70, checking for a connection between thyroid cancer and level of exposure to fallout. However, the federal government says it is running out of money, Lyon said. Government officials seem not to want the study to proceed, he said. They are saying that the results are inconclusive. In January they told researchers that if they can't come up with the money locally, the project would end. Lyon has asked Matheson and Bennett to try to make sure the government continues to fund the program. To do the project would cost about $4 million over three years. "I'm concerned the study isn't going to move forward, and I think it should," Matheson said. "I think the people in Utah have the right to know what the impacts were from this open-air testing." Matheson has backed legislation to compensate downwinders in Utah, Arizona and Nevada for illnesses that may have been due to fallout. Matheson's father, the late Gov. Scott Matheson, grew up in southwestern Utah and died of cancer his son said was believed due to the fallout. Lyon's original study was a core part of a downwinders' lawsuit that sought compensation. A federal judge in Salt Lake City agreed with their contention that fallout was to blame for many of the illnesses and death, but higher courts overturned his ruling on the ground of governmental immunity. After that, Congress passed legislation to compensate the downwinders. Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002 ***************************************************************** 25 Russia to dump radwaste in volcano Spent fuel imports The Russian Ministry of Nuclear Energy (Minatom) is actively promoting plans for large scale imports of spent nuclear fuel to Russia for storage or reprocessing. (Moscow:) Atomic Minister Alexandr Rumyantsev announced that Russia would be willing to except low active radioactive waste for permanent burial on a seismically unstable volcanic island in Russia's far eastern Kuril chain from Taiwan. Simushir island is a part of the central group of the Kuril Archipelago. photo: IKIP Charles Digges, 2002-04-02 00:36 Speaking in Izvestiya Thursday, Rumyantsev casually said that Russia would be willing to work with Japanese engineers to build on Simushir Island — home to the active 1539 meter Milna volcano — a permanent radioactive waste burial facility that would be capable of withstanding the island's shifting and jarring earth. The volcano is one of several such volcanoes on the island chain located off the northern coast of Japan add south of Kamchatka According to confidential Duma documents obtained by Vladimir Slivyak, co-chairman of Moscow's Ecodefense!, the Taiwanese will supposedly be paying the Russian government up to $10bn, including $2.5bn of construction costs, to host its radioactive waste in this seismologically volatile environment on a permanent basis. This contradicts the law signed last year on nuclear imports to Russia that stipulated that only spent nuclear fuel could be imported into the country. Russian Nuclear Atomic Energy Ministry, or Minatom, argued that spent nuclear fuel is a resource, which could be reprocessed and reused. Waste generated during reprocessing could stay in Russia, given there is no possibility to return them back. It appears that Minatom is starting now to advocate for import of not only spent nuclear fuel but also radioactive waste. A more subtle revelation contained in the Rumyantsev interview — which was buried in the Izvestiya interview's last paragraph — as well as the documents obtained by Slivyak is this: Russia will accept radioactive waste. This is wholly inconsistent, say a host of environmentalists, with the conditions surrounding the lifting of spent nuclear fuel import restrictions last year, which stipulated that no radioactive waste, but only spent nuclear fuel is legible for import. "What Rumyantsev is doing here is entirely illegal," said Slivyak in a telephone interview Friday. "Aside from breaching the laws about protecting the environment — which were breached by the lifting of the [nuclear spent fuel import] ban anyway — Minatom is breaching its own self-tailored law allowing it to import plane radioactive waste for permanent burial." The leaked documents that Slivyak's associates showed Bellona Monday, also allegedly reveal that Duma Deputy Sergei Shashurin was the lynch-pin in arranging the nuclear waste deal with the Taiwanese nuclear plant, which he supposedly achieved with the alleged cooperation of the Taiwanese-Japanese company Asia Tat Trading Co Ltd. All were supposedly cooperating with Moscow's Kurchatov Institute Nuclear Research Centre to develop designs for the storage facility for the waste. Despite three days of telephone calls, Shashurin neither returned messages nor was available for comment. The Japanese Embassy, near whose territory the waste will be located, declined comment. Reached in Taipei, an Asia Tat Trading Co. Ltd official piquantly referred all inquiries on the shipment to Minatom. At the Sakhalin Oblast Administration — located eight time zones East of Moscow and under whose jurisdiction Simushir Island falls — authorities were surprised to hear about the project. Simushir is an uninhabited island except for a periodically staffed weather station, but one administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said, "It would have been appropriate of them to inform us — we have heard nothing." Minatom, in its turn, confirmed the deal, but urged the press steer clear of the issue because the public and the media could not possibly understand the implications of a nuclear waste dump on a volcanic, earthquake-prone island in some of he Pacific Ocean's most fertile fishing waters. "Society is far from informed on these matters and so is not prepared to make any judgment on the issue but panicked gossip," said Minatom spokesman Yury Bespalko in a telephone interview Monday. "These are top people — Russian and Japanese teams — working to assure the safety of this endeavour. The Japanese have experience with storing waste under favourable seismological circumstances. But we are building more than a metro tunnel here, so it will be beyond the grasp of most people." When asked whether a contravention of the law on permanent storage of foreign nuclear waste was afoot, he responded: "That is for judiciary bodies to decide." At the Kurchatov Institute, which, according to Slivyak's research, was contracted to help design the storage containers, press officer Andei Gagarinsky at first denied the institute had any hand in the container designs, and called what Rumyantsev said in Izvestiya a "typical journalistic red herring." Later in the interview, Gagarinsky backed off slightly, and admitted that designs for permanent waste storage in the Kuril Island chain had been considered. When asked if those plans are materializing, he said "The Kurchatov Institute supports the notion of a permanent waste storage facility — be it somewhere else in Russia or in the Kuril islands." He refused further comment. Regulator's waning role For all the institutions allegedly privy to this deal, one is conspicuously absent — Gosatomnadzor, or GAN, Russia's nuclear regulatory body, which under the import law is to be informed of shipments. It is GAN's responsibility, much like a customs house, to license these imports. When contacted by telephone on Friday regarding the Taiwanese waste shipment to Simushir, GAN's deputy director, Alexander Dmitriev, was taken entirely off-guard. "Rumyantsev said what?" Dmitriev asked when told of the news. "We know absolutely nothing about this." Obviously taken aback, Dmitriev guided a room full of colleagues to find the copy of the Izvestiya that contained the Rumyantsev's comments. When it was finally located, the line went silent as Dmitriev read the report. "I am the deputy director of Gosatomnadzor and should have known about this," he said, his colleagues chattering nervously in the background. "I don't know what sort of nonsense they are up to [at Minatom], but we will have no further comment on this rubbish until we see official notification," he said. Slivyak, with his cadged Duma documents on the waste transfer, may or may not be official enough for Dmitriev, but the fact that remains is that the input of the deputy director of GAN matters less and less to the consolidated lobby of Minatom. This state agency would make all decisions about nuclear issues in Russia, including those about safety, said Green World's Sergei Kharitonov, a former nuclear power plant worker turned whistle-blower. Laws circumvented On paper, the 2001 law governing the import of spent nuclear fuel from other countries is clear on the point that no radioactive waste will be shipped into the country for permanent storage. But the law has been abused and outright ignored by Minatom a number of times — even before it was signed into force. This slap-dash approach by his ministry was not a point that seemed to concern Rumyantsev in his Izvestiya interview, where he didn't make reference to the import law once — instead taking a snipe at the "greens for pestering [him]" about his decisions. Among other radioactive shipments were the cases of a Bulgarian and a Hungarian load spent nuclear fuel. The Bulgarians shipped spent nuclear fuel into Russia in autumn 2001 after the Russian President signed the importation laws. Neither environmental impact study, stipulated by the spent fuel import law, nor the personal control of President Putin, as it was promised, were in place. In a similar deal, the Hungarian Paks Nuclear Power Plant sent spent nuclear fuel to Russia backed by a governmental decree, issued in 1998, which allowed as an exception storing in Russia spent nuclear fuel (SNF) from the plant. As a result, environmental groups of Chelyabinsk — the southern Urals city where Mayak is located — as well as the environmental group "Greenpeace" filed suit with the Russian Supreme Court on the basis that the legislation at the time the decree was issued prohibited importation of radioactive waste. The current legislation, although allowing import of spent nuclear fuel, declares the "priority [for Russia] of the right to return the radioactive waste, generated after the reprocessing [of SNF] into the country of its origin." The court agreed with the plaintiff, but the Federal Government intervened with an appeal — which according to a spokesman for the Supreme Court, reached by telephone Monday, "could delay the case for months." The spokesman did not know, however, if the Hungarian plant would be able to continue its imports pending a decision on its appeal. Publisher: Bellona Foundation, President: Frederic Hauge Information: info@bellona.no, Technical contact: webmaster@bellona.no Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62 * P.O.Box 2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway ***************************************************************** 26 Tesco refuses to stock anti-Sellafield postcards, but Irish supermarkets oblige Hoover's Online April 1, 2002 8:58am Source: Sunday Business Post, March 31, 2002 Maol Muire Tynan Dublin, Ireland, 31 March, 2002 The British-owned supermarket giant, Tesco Ireland, has refused to stock any of the one million postcards which are aimed at closing the controversial plant at Sellafield in Cumbria. The postcards are addressed to British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the Prince of Wales and British Nuclear Fuels Ltd (BNFL). The high-profile campaign, which is being spearheaded by Bono's wife, Ali Hewson, is understood to be the largest of its kind ever launched in Ireland. Retailers across the Republic, including Dunnes Stores and Superquinn, agreed to sell the postage-paid cards. However, a Tesco spokesman said that although asked to stock the product, the store had declined on the basis that it has "an established policy of not facilitating pressure groups". Tesco has 77 stores in the Republic and an annual turnover of €1.5 billion. The chain has a further 33 stores in the North. A company spokesman told The Sunday Business Post that the decision not to participate in the anti-Sellafield card campaign "has nothing whatsoever to do with the British/Irish connection". "We have supported charities for years but we do not facilitate pressure groups," the spokesman said. Last year, all Tesco stores in the North participated in a campaign run by Reg Empey, the Stormont Minister for the Environment, encouraging people to spend their holidays at home in the aftermath of the foot-and-mouth outbreak. A spokeswoman for Dunnes Stores said the company would stock the cards in its 86 shops around the country. "We feel it is a very important national issue and the right thing to do," the spokeswoman added. Superquinn began selling the cards in its 19 shops last weekend and reported quite a positive response to the initiative. Copyright © 2002 Financial Times Limited, All Rights Reserved Copyright © 2001, Hoover's, Inc. | Job Opportunities | NASDAQ: ***************************************************************** 27 NRC Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste to Meet April 16 - 18 in Rockville, Maryland NRC: Press Release - 2002 - 37 - U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 20555-001 E-mail: opa@nrc.gov [opa@nrc.gov] www.nrc.gov No. 02-037 April 2, 2002 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste (ACNW) has scheduled a meeting in Rockville, Maryland, on April 16 - 18, to discuss, among other issues, a proposed amendment to its regulations in 10 CFR Part 63 to establish the probability of "unlikely events" at the proposed high-level radioactive waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. The meeting, which is open to the public, will be held in Room T-2B3 of the agency's Two White Flint North building at 11545 Rockville Pike, beginning at 12:30 p.m. on the first day, and at 8:30 a.m. on the following two days. The complete agenda is attached. Those who wish to make oral or written statements, or seek additional information on the meeting or changes to the agenda should contact Howard Larson, at 301-415-6805. ACNW AGENDA TUESDAY, APRIL 16 12:30 - 12:40 P.M.: Opening Statement - The Chairman will open the meeting with brief remarks, outline the topics to be discussed, and indicate several items of interest. 12:40 - 3:30 P.M.: High-Level Waste Risk Insights Initiative - The Committee will hear a presentation by the NRC staff on the preliminary results of its risk insights initiative. 3:45 - 4:45 P.M.: Amendment to 10 CFR Part 63 - The NRC staff will provide a briefing on its final rulemaking amendment to Part 63 on the probability for "Unlikely Events" at the proposed Yucca Mountain high-level waste repository site. 4:45 - 6:00 P.M.: Preparation of ACNW Reports - The Committee will discuss proposed reports on the following topics: --High-Level Waste Risk Insights Initiative --Amendment to 10 CFR Part 63 "Unlikely Events" - Final Rule --Update on Igneous Activity including Performance Assessment Analyses --HLW Performance Assessment Sensitivity Studies WEDNESDAY, APRIL 17 8:30 - 8:35 A.M.: Opening Remarks by the ACNW Chairman - The ACNW Chairman will make opening remarks regarding the conduct of the meeting. 8:35 - 10:00 A.M.: Final Radionuclide Transport Research Plan - Representatives from the Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research will brief the Committee on its final research plan on Radionuclide Transport in the Environment. 10:15 - 12:00 Noon: ACNW 2002 Action Plan - The Committee will discuss a draft of its 2002 Action Plan. 1:00 - 2:45 P.M.: Site Recommendation - License Application: Path Forward - The Committee will hear a presentation from the DOE on its proposed plans to move forward from the submission of the Yucca Mountain Site Recommendation. 3:00 - 4:30 P.M.: Yucca Mountain Review Plan, Revision 2 - The Committee will discuss its template to conduct an audit of the Yucca Mountain Review Plan, Revision 2. 4:30 - 6:00 P.M.: Preparation of ACNW Reports - The Committee will discuss proposed reports on the following topics: --High-Level Waste Risk Insights Initiative --Amendment to 10 CFR Part 63 "Unlikely Events" - Final Rule --Update on Igneous Activity including Performance Assessment Analyses --HLW Performance Assessment Sensitivity Studies --Final Research Plan on Radionuclide Transport in the Environment THURSDAY, APRIL 18 8:30 - 8:35 A.M.: Opening Remarks by the ACNW Chairman - The ACNW Chairman will make opening remarks regarding the conduct of the meeting. 8:35 - 11:45 A.M.: Preparation of ACNW Reports - The Committee will continue its discussion of proposed ACNW reports. 11:45 - 12:00 Noon: Miscellaneous - The Committee will discuss matters related to the conduct of Committee activities and matters and specific issues that were not completed during previous meetings, as time and availability of information permit. ***************************************************************** 28 Nevada governor says no special session for nuclear dump fight Las Vegas SUN April 01, 2002 CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) - Facing resistance from lawmakers, Gov. Kenny Guinn won't call a special legislative session to seek $10 million for Nevada's fight against a federal nuclear dump at Yucca Mountain. Instead, Guinn said Monday that he's asking legislators for $3 million in emergency funds that can be allocated without a special session. The governor also announced that he will deliver his anticipated veto next week of President Bush's approval of Yucca Mountain as the nation's high-level nuclear waste repository. "There has never been a more critical time in Nevada's fight against the nuclear dump being located in Nevada," Guinn said. Guinn said he didn't think the cost of calling all 63 state lawmakers into a special session was warranted since some anti-dump funding is available through the legislators' 21-member Interim Finance Committee and because many lawmakers aren't convinced the $10 million would help. Most of the legislators who supported a special session said they needed proof the funds could help defeat Yucca Mountain and that the state has the extra money available. Opponents of the proposed high-level radioactive waste dump, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, want more money for lobbying, legal efforts and television ads that would air in states through which nuclear waste will travel en route to Nevada. Nevada's U.S. senators, Democrat Harry Reid and Republican John Ensign, had asked Guinn for the $10 million. They're struggling to get a majority vote in either the Senate and House that would back up Guinn's veto and cancel Bush's recommendation. But state lawmakers said there were many other pressing needs, including a looming $100 million budget shortage, and educational and health care crises. "While there is no greater priority than our fight against Yucca Mountain, it is imperative that everyone understand that Nevada is facing a sizable budget deficit since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks," Guinn said. Guinn will take his $3 million request to the state Board of Examiners, which he chairs, on Friday. The panel's other members are Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa and Secretary of State Dean Heller. With that board' endorsement, the request would go to the lawmakers' Interim Finance Committee, scheduled to meet April 10. Guinn said he's also seeking more donations from casinos and other businesses and individuals opposed to the dump. "The state will do its part, however I must call upon the private sector to match our efforts," the governor said. The 2001 Legislature appropriated $4 million for the fight. An additional $2 million has come from various local government, business and individual sources. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 29 Tribe opposes Utah pipeline for uranium tailings slurry Las Vegas SUN April 01, 2002 SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - Colorado's Ute Mountain Utes have opposed construction of a slurry pipeline to carry uranium mill tailings from Moab to near White Mesa. Reprocessing the radioactive Atlas Uranium Mill tailings is among options under discussion as a way to dispose of tons of material piled beside the Colorado River. Estimates of the amount of material left by the defunct mill range to 13 million tons. One possibility is to build a pipeline to slurry the tailings from Moab to a uranium mill 85 miles south of Blanding for reprocessing. International Uranium Corp., which owns the White Mesa Mill, has been considering the plan. The Ute Mountain Ute Tribal Council, based in Towaoc, Colo., recently passed a resolution opposing the construction. The 82-mile pipeline, which would employ a 10-inch diameter pipe, would end at a site three miles north of a tribal community at White Mesa, said Tom Rice, director of the Ute Mountain Ute Environmental Department. "If the slurry line were constructed, the IUC mill would receive approximately 13 million tons of mill tailings," Rice said. About 3 million tons could be processed for removal of uranium and the remaining 10 million tons would be stored, he said. Tribal council members are concerned about possible impacts to the health and environment of the White Mesa community. They believe the plan would result in little or no economic return, Rice said. "IUC's proposal stated the removal and transportation of Atlas materials to the (White Mesa) mill would offer many benefits to the community of Moab, Utah," he said. "However, Tribal Council sentiments indicated that what would benefit Moab would be at the expense of the White Mesa community." Another worry was that receiving the tailings for storage could open the door to more radioactive material arriving, turning the area into a storage site rather than a processing facility. "Threats to tribal air and water resources were also of concern to the council," Rice said. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 30 Yucca foes can't afford ad time on topical 'West Wing' episode Las Vegas SUN April 02, 2002 LAS VEGAS (AP) - Opponents of a federal plan to ship the nation's radioactive waste to Nevada say they don't have the time or the cash to advertise on a topical Wednesday episode of a network television show. By contrast, the nuclear power industry spent more than $25 million lobbying Congress in 2000, the last time lawmakers debated nuclear waste burial at Yucca Mountain, according to a new report. Wednesday's "The West Wing" is scheduled to depict the White House dealing with the wreck of a truck carrying uranium fuel rods in a tunnel in Idaho. It won't mention Nevada or the Yucca Mountain project. An aide to U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., who has been trying to gather Senate votes to block the federal project, called the inability to buy ad time on the NBC drama a missed opportunity. This year, Nevada has $6 million set aside for lawyers, advertising and lobbying against Yucca Mountain. Much of that money is already committed to lawyers and lobbyists. Congress is preparing to debate whether to finalize President Bush's decision to locate a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn has promised to veto the site selection next week, sending the matter to Congress where a majority vote of both houses is needed to override. Reid and Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., have been urging Guinn to seek state Legislative approval to add millions more to the state's anti-Yucca fund. The governor said Monday he doesn't have the support needed to convene a special session of the Legislature to ask for more money. State lawmakers are next scheduled to meet in 2003. The governor instead said he'll ask a legislative panel to free $3 million in emergency funds without a special session. Hugh Jackson, a policy analyst who was the lead author of the report of nuclear power lobbying, said he has no doubt that the nuclear power industry will spend more money in 2002, due to the urgency of the Yucca Mountain issue. The Public Citizen Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program review of year 2000 lobbying disclosures found 162 industry-paid officials worked on nuclear waste legislation, Yucca Mountain project spending or nuclear plant shutdown regulations. "The filings leave no doubt that nuclear waste was one of the top reasons the industry was throwing around so much money," the report said. It said nuclear plant operators also spent some lobbying funds on climate change, deregulation and other matters. Steve Kerekes, a Nuclear Energy Institute spokesman, said there's nothing wrong with an industry lobbying for its interests. The Public Citizen report comes on top of a Center for Responsive Politics report that found the nuclear industry contributed $13.8 million during the 2000 election. The group listed lobbyist spending by a dozen nuclear firms and the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's political arm in Washington. Public Citizen is among environmental and government watchdog groups actively campaigning against the proposed nuclear waste repository. Researchers examined disclosure statements that lobbyists are required to file twice a year with the House and Senate. Jackson said 2000 was the most recent year for which complete reports were available. It also was the last time Congress engaged in a nuclear waste debate. The House and Senate passed bills in February and March that year easing the way for interim nuclear waste storage in Nevada while work continued at Yucca Mountain. President Bill Clinton vetoed the measures. A Senate override attempt failed in May. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 31 Guinn won't seek money to fight nuclear dump ASSOCIATED PRESS 4/1/2002 08:18 pm Facing resistance from lawmakers, Gov. Kenny Guinn won’t call a special legislative session to seek $10 million for Nevada’s fight against a federal nuclear dump at Yucca Mountain. Instead, Guinn said Monday he’s asking legislators for $3 million in emergency funds that can be allocated without a special session. The governor also announced that he will deliver his anticipated veto next week of President Bush’s approval of Yucca Mountain as the nation’s high-level nuclear waste repository. “There has never been a more critical time in Nevada’s fight against the nuclear dump being located in Nevada,” Guinn said. Guinn said he didn’t think the cost of calling the 63 state lawmakers into a special session was warranted since some anti-dump funding is available through the legislators’ 21-member Interim Finance Committee and because many lawmakers aren’t convinced the $10 million would help. Most of the legislators who supported a special session said they needed proof the funds could help defeat Yucca Mountain and that the state has the extra money available. Opponents of the proposed high-level radioactive waste dump, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, want more money for lobbying, legal efforts and television ads that would air in states through which nuclear waste will travel en route to Nevada. Nevada’s U.S. senators, Democrat Harry Reid and Republican John Ensign, had asked Guinn for the $10 million. They’re struggling to get a majority vote in either the Senate and House that would back up Guinn’s veto and cancel Bush’s recommendation. But state lawmakers said there were many other pressing needs, including a looming $100 million budget shortage, and educational and health care crises. “While there is no greater priority than our fight against Yucca Mountain, it is imperative that everyone understand that Nevada is facing a sizable budget deficit since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks,” Guinn said. Guinn will take his $3 million request to the state Board of Examiners, which he chairs, on Friday. The panel’s other members are Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa and Secretary of State Dean Heller. With that board’s endorsement, the request would go to the lawmakers’ Interim Finance Committee, scheduled to meet April 10. Guinn said he’s also seeking more donations from casinos and other businesses and individuals opposed to the dump. “The state will do its part; however, I must call upon the private sector to match our efforts,” the governor said. The 2001 Legislature appropriated $4 million for the fight. An additional $2 million has come from various local government, business and individual sources. © Copyright Reno Gazette-Journal, a [http://www.gannett.com] ***************************************************************** 32 LETTERS: Science demands rejection of Yucca Mountain Tuesday, April 02, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal To the editor: It might not be a bad idea to place all our nuclear waste in one site, as Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham suggests in his recent commentary. But let's make sure it's a safe site. Nuclear waste is the most dangerous substance we have created and continue to create regardless of the fact that we do not have a scientifically sound plan to dispose of it. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission recently ordered all 68 pressurized-water reactors to check their lids to see if they are still fit for service, following an incident at a plant in Ohio where acid had eaten a hole almost all the way through the six-inch reactor lid, nearly leading to the release of thousands of gallons of radioactive water into the reactor's containment building. There are many reasons why Congress should reject Yucca Mountain, including threats to drinking water and transportation of the waste. Perhaps the administration is so comfortable with the "science" because it tailored standards to fit the site rather than the other way around. When it was clear that the Environmental Protection Agency's existing drinking water safety standards would disqualify Yucca Mountain, the administration weakened them. The EPA exempted an 11-mile portion of an underground water supply surrounding Yucca Mountain from Safe Drinking Water Act provisions -- placing water quality for Nevadans at risk and setting a dangerous precedent for future federal actions. As this issue moves in the Congress, representatives and senators should look at all of the science and vote to reject this unsound site. CARL POPE SAN FRANCISCO The writer is executive director of the Sierra Club. To the editor: Spencer Abraham is trying to dupe the nation by distorting and ignoring key facts about the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump. Mr. Abraham states that Yucca Mountain meets Environmental Protection Agency standards, even though the site is laced with earthquake fault lines and sits atop a drinking water aquifer. Mr. Abraham also grossly understates the risks of transporting waste to Nevada. He claims that no incidents in nuclear waste transport have occurred in the past 30 years, but in fact, they have. He fails to mention that the 3,000 waste shipments made to date are a fraction of the 50,000-100,000 shipments that the Yucca Mountain Project would require. The government has never fully tested the casks that would transport the waste, and leaks from one accident could contaminate a 42-square-mile area. The odds of a crash involving the deadly waste are high. Throughout, Mr. Abraham selectively uses information, which is as irresponsible as the project itself. Like much of this administration's energy policy, Mr. Abraham's decisions are clouded by industry influence, not based on sound science. JOAN CLAYBROOK WASHINGTON, D.C. The writer is president of Public Citizen. Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002 ***************************************************************** 33 Tribe opposes pipeline: Line would carry uranium tailings Tuesday, April 02, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal THE ASSOCIATED PRESS SALT LAKE CITY -- Colorado's Ute Mountain Utes have opposed construction of a slurry pipeline to carry uranium mill tailings from Moab to near White Mesa. Reprocessing the radioactive Atlas Uranium Mill tailings is among options under discussion as a way to dispose of tons of material piled beside the Colorado River, the southwest United States' primary source for drinking water. One option is the construction of a pipeline to slurry the tailings from Moab to a uranium mill 85 miles south of Blanding for reprocessing. International Uranium Corp., which owns the White Mesa Mill, has been considering the plan. The Ute Mountain Ute Tribal Council, based in Towaoc, Colo., recently passed a resolution opposing the construction. The 82-mile pipeline, which would employ a 10-inch diameter pipe, would end at a site three miles north of a tribal community at White Mesa, said Tom Rice, director of the Ute Mountain Ute Environmental Department. "If the slurry line were constructed, the IUC mill would receive approximately 13 million tons of mill tailings," Rice said. About 3 million tons could be processed for removal of uranium and the remaining 10 million tons would be stored, he said. Tribal council members are concerned about possible effects to the health and environment of the White Mesa community. They believe the plan would result in little or no economic return, Rice said. "IUC's proposal stated the removal and transportation of Atlas materials to the (White Mesa) mill would offer many benefits to the community of Moab, Utah," he said. "However, Tribal Council sentiments indicated that what would benefit Moab would be at the expense of the White Mesa community." Another worry was that receiving the tailings for storage could open the door to more radioactive material arriving, turning the area into a storage site rather than a processing facility. "Threats to tribal air and water resources were also of concern to the council," Rice said. Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002 ***************************************************************** 34 Yucca campaign money: Now that's a mystery Tuesday, April 02, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal COLUMN: Steve Sebelius Gov. Kenny Guinn just can't figure it out. He and U.S. Sens. Harry Reid and John Ensign held a news conference last week, talking about how they need money to pay for ads to convince people to write their congressman and oppose the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump. Reporters came. Notes were scribbled. There were TV cameras. Sound bites were given. Lots of important people stood behind a podium. So where's the money? Guinn, as is his wont, left nothing out as he appealed to the good graces of the private sector to pony up anti-nuclear cash. He, Reid and Ensign were clear: This battle can be won, but we need the money. But the private sector has yet to send in the checks. "We haven't been receiving calls from people, although we were all over the news," Guinn told the Review-Journal's Ed Vogel, in a quote that lets you know he's been waiting by his phone. "Nobody has called saying we will give you a million or $100,000." Don't be so hard on yourself, governor. The gambling industry did donate $250,000, remember? Of course, that was only after Mayor Oscar Goodman said they were greedy noncontributors to Nevada's civic life. Could it be that in the results-oriented world of free enterprise, nobody thinks this is a fight Nevada can win? When you have to take money away from your bottom line rather than spend the largess of taxpayers, your perspective becomes more practical. How much have politicians donated, say, from their personal fortunes or even their campaign accounts? The situation is made all the worse by the fact that key Republicans -- including state Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio -- are saying the state shouldn't even use taxpayer dollars to buy anti-Yucca ads. "If somebody can tell me if spending any amount would stop (Yucca), then I would say OK. But I am not getting that sense," Raggio says. That's because it's unlikely that 51 senators will vote with Nevada, even with a high-profile ad campaign. Raggio's right, and his judgment is ratified by the private sector's reluctance to give money to what's very likely a losing cause. There's a message there, as politicians scramble to spend our money just to make themselves look tough on Yucca. • I still remember the first time I met Las Vegas City Manager Virginia Valentine, who announced on Monday that she will be leaving the city's employ on May 31. I was writing for CityLife, and was attending a news conference at which then-Mayor Jan Jones was introducing the new manager. Mike Zapler, the Review-Journal's City Hall reporter at the time, was, shall we say, youthful in appearance. He pressed Valentine about her age. "How old are you?" he asked. She immediately shot back, "How old are you?" I liked her immediately. Valentine's departure is a major loss for the city. She brought a professionalism and direction to the top job, which with seven elected bosses and their disparate agendas is a tough post to fill even on the best days. But Valentine did it well, even when clashing with popular Mayor Goodman, for example, when she delivered a report last month that cast his favored Internet gambling initiative in a bad light. She'll be missed by all at the city who were smart enough to know how well she kept things running. • When those in the casino industry talk about gambling taxes "killing the goose that laid the golden egg," we now know what they're talking about. The Gaming Wire's intrepid editor, Dave Berns, showed in Saturday's newspaper that scores of MGM Mirage managers received bonuses at year's end, based upon a formula approved by the company's compensation committee back in March 2001. But the fact these bonuses came after the tragedy of Sept. 11 and the massive layoffs that ensued makes them a public-relations nightmare, especially for the top earners, such as Chairman and CEO J. Terrence Lanni (bonus: $1.3 million), Mirage Resorts President and CEO Robert Baldwin (bonus: $1.1 million), President, CEO and Treasurer John Redmond (bonus: $900,000) and President, CFO and Treasurer James Murren (bonus: $1 million). MGM Mirage spokesman Alan Feldman says he's not sure if any of the executives could forgo their bonus, and that in any case, no one has made inquiries about doing so. Then again, he says, even if the money were to be put back in the company's coffers, there's no work for those still unable to find a job. "That's not how business works," Feldman says. "You don't hire people to stand around and do nothing. We're not short-staffed." But won't the bonuses inspire cynicism among the rank-and-file workers? "We want to be certain that we are always offering the best compensation package so we attract the best in the industry," Feldman says. And I think we can all be certain of that. Steve Sebelius is a Review-Journal political columnist. His column runs Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. Reach him at 383-0283 or by e-mail at Steve_Sebelius@lvrj.com. Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002 ***************************************************************** 35 Governor will ask committee to provide $3 million for anti-Yucca campaign "We aren't getting any compensation for this Yucca thing, and now it is costing us." SEN. BILL O'DONNELL, R-LAS VEGAS Tuesday, April 02, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal Guinn decides against seeking special session By ED VOGEL REVIEW-JOURNAL CAPITAL BUREAU CARSON CITY -- Gov. Kenny Guinn said Monday he will not convene a special legislative session, but instead will go to the Legislature's Interim Finance Committee meeting April 10 to seek money for an anti-Yucca Mountain campaign. He will ask legislators at that meeting to use $3 million in contingency funds to pay for a national television advertising and public relations campaign to induce citizens to demand that Congress vote against President Bush's decision to put a nuclear waste repository in Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. "There has never been a more critical time in Nevada's fight against the nuclear dump being located in Nevada, which is why I intend to go before the Nevada Legislature for additional funding," Guinn said in a prepared statement. "The Interim Finance Committee can authorize this expenditure that would make a special session unnecessary -- saving the taxpayers a great expense." The Interim Finance Committee handles financial matters of the Legislature when the entire Legislature is not in session. Its 21 members include the seven members of the Senate Finance Committee and the 14 members of the Assembly Ways and Means Committee. Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins, D-Henderson, proposed last week that Guinn go before the committee for funds for a Yucca Mountain campaign and avoid convening a special session. Perkins suggested Guinn seek all $8.8 million available in the committee's contingency fund. But Perkins said Monday that $3 million is a good start, particularly if Clark County and other local governments also donate money to the fight. U.S. Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and John Ensign, R-Nev., asked Guinn 12 days ago to convene a special legislative session to find $10 million to pay for a campaign to persuade members of Congress to vote against Bush's plan. Guinn was not available late Monday for additional comment, but said Friday there was a lot of legislative opposition to a special session. He also said few individuals and businesses have been willing to donate money for the campaign. Finding enough votes in the Interim Finance Committee even for a $3 million Yucca Mountain appropriation might be difficult. Under legislative rules, no money can be appropriated unless the majority of members of each house back the expenditure. Based on their past statements, five of the seven senators could vote against Guinn. "He can't count on my vote," said Sen. Bill O'Donnell, R-Las Vegas. "I think it is an incredible waste of money. We aren't getting any compensation for this Yucca thing, and now it is costing us." Last week two other members of the committee -- Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, and Sen. Ray Rawson, R-Las Vegas -- said they opposed convening a special session and spending any more money on Yucca Mountain, particularly at a time when the state faces a $100 million budget shortfall. Sens. Lawrence Jacobsen, R-Minden, and Joe Neal, D-North Las Vegas, generally have argued the state should seek compensation for putting the dump in the state rather than continue to fight it. If Nevada becomes too outspoken in its Yucca Mountain opposition, then O'Donnell warned Congress might never give the state compensation for the repository. Nonetheless, he doubts Guinn would put the matter before the Interim Finance Committee without the votes to back him. Guinn will seek money from a fund normally used to pay costs of fighting fires and natural disasters such as floods. The funds are supposed to cover emergencies through June 30, 2003. Legislative Counsel Brenda Erdoes said she researched whether Guinn could use the contingency money on an anti-Yucca campaign and determined he can. In a letter sent to legislators, Guinn said that on Monday he will veto Bush's decision to put the repository in Yucca Mountain. He plans to hold a morning rally at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and then to fly to Washington, D.C., to make his veto. Then Congress will have 90 legislative days to override Guinn's veto. webmaster@lvrj.com Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - ***************************************************************** 36 YUCCA MOUNTAIN: Millions spent to push dump Tuesday, April 02, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal Nuclear industry representative defends right to lobby lawmakers By STEVE TETREAULT STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- The nuclear power industry spent more than $25 million to lobby Congress in 2000, the last time lawmakers debated nuclear waste storage in Nevada, according to a report released Monday. Authors at the Public Citizen Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program said a review of lobby disclosures found 162 industry-paid officials worked that year on nuclear waste legislation, Yucca Mountain project spending or nuclear plant shutdown regulations. While nuclear plant operators spent some of their lobbying funds on climate change, deregulation and other matters, "The filings leave no doubt that nuclear waste was one of the top reasons the industry was throwing around so much money in 2000," the report stated. Public Citizen said the disclosures are more evidence of the nuclear industry's influence on Capitol Hill, on top of campaign contributions that the Center for Responsive Politics said totaled $13.8 million during the 2000 election. The group listed lobby spending by a dozen nuclear firms and the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's political arm in Washington. "I have absolutely no doubt the nuclear power industry is going to spend more money lobbying in 2002 than in 2000, due to the urgency of this (Yucca Mountain) issue and their own pronouncements," said Hugh Jackson, a policy analyst who was the lead author of the report. Congress is preparing to debate whether to finalize President Bush's decision to locate a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Such a resolution would override Gov. Kenny Guinn's anticipated veto of the site selection. Steve Kerekes, a Nuclear Energy Institute spokesman, said there's nothing wrong with an industry lobbying for its interests. "We live in a democracy and our industry has a right to have an input into the process just as everyone else has and just as these people have. They just don't like the outcome," he said, referring to Yucca critics. "I didn't hear these folks whining when Brian Greenspun was overnighting in the Lincoln Bedroom," Kerekes said, referring to the anti-Yucca editor of the Las Vegas Sun who was reported to have been a White House guest as a friend of President Clinton. Clinton vetoed a pro-industry nuclear waste bill in 2000. Kerekes could not say how much money NEI is spending on outside lobbyists this year. An NEI strategist said in February the industry would "do what it takes" to win approval of a waste repository at Yucca Mountain. By the 2000 measure, industry spending on lobbyists contrasts sharply with the $6 million Nevada has set aside for lawyers, advertising and lobbying on Yucca Mountain. It is not known how much environmentalists and other anti-Yucca groups are spending, as well as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other members of a pro-Yucca business coalition. Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and John Ensign, R-Nev., have been urging Gov. Kenny Guinn to seek approval to add millions more to the state's anti-Yucca fund. "That is the whole argument, that these guys in the nuclear industry have a bottomless pit of funds. They've opened their wallets to do whatever it takes to sell this thing," said Nathan Naylor, a Reid spokesman. "You have to be able to respond in kind, maybe not at the same level," Naylor said. "We really do need resources to respond to these guys." Public Citizen is among environmental and government watchdog groups actively campaigning against the proposed nuclear waste repository. Researchers examined disclosure statements lobbyists are required to file twice a year with the House and Senate. Jackson said 2000 was the most recent year for which complete reports were available. It also was the last time Congress engaged in a nuclear waste debate. The House and Senate passed bills in February and March that year easing the way for interim nuclear waste storage in Nevada while work continued at Yucca Mountain. Clinton issued his veto, and the Senate tried but failed in an override attempt in May. webmaster@lvrj.com Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - ***************************************************************** 37 Lack of money cited in failure to air anti-Yucca ad Tuesday, April 02, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal Episode of 'West Wing' seen as opportunity to spread message By SEAN WHALEY REVIEW-JOURNAL CAPITAL BUREAU CARSON CITY -- A spokesman for Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Monday that a lack of money is the driving factor that will keep Nevada from advertising its anti-Yucca Mountain message during a Wednesday episode of the television show "The West Wing." Nathan Naylor said it is the need for funding and not the short turnaround time that will make the airing of the episode a missed opportunity for the state's effort to halt the Yucca Mountain project. "There is no doubt this is a missed opportunity, but there will be others," he said. "Sen. Reid and Sen. (John) Ensign (R-Nev.) have brought together a top-notch team that knows how to turn an ad around rapidly," Naylor said. "What we're limited by is the resources." Bob Loux, executive director of the Agency for Nuclear Projects, said it was the short advance warning that contributed to his agency's decision not to advertise. "It happened so quickly it's hard for government to turn around and do something," he said. The Wednesday episode of the NBC drama will feature President Josiah "Jed" Bartlet and his staff confronting a crisis when they receive a report that a truck carrying uranium fuel rods has crashed in a tunnel in Idaho. Nevada officials fighting efforts by the U.S. Department of Energy to build a waste dump at Yucca Mountain said the episode on the popular television show is a good chance to publicize the dangers of transporting radioactive material, a major point being used by opponents to try to derail the project. About 12.5 million households watch the show. But as the fight against Yucca Mountain hits a critical stage with Gov. Kenny Guinn expected to veto the project in the next two weeks, the lack of money to mount a media campaign to fight the proposal is a significant concern. When Guinn vetoes the project, Congress will have 90 legislative days to override it with a simple majority vote. The 2001 Nevada Legislature appropriated $4 million for a legal and media campaign to fight Yucca Mountain, but Reid and Ensign say an additional $10 million is needed. Naylor said it would cost about $400,000 to air an ad on the show, which would deplete most of the funds that are now available to garner public support against Yucca Mountain. A message could be sent for less by targeting key states instead of the entire country, he said. "But if we spent the little bit we have, then what would we do afterwards," Naylor said. "We have to be mindful of the rest of this fight." About $1.7 million is left from the $4 million legislative appropriation for the Yucca Mountain fight. An additional $2 million in donations, including $1 million from Clark County, have been added to the fund. Guinn wanted to raise $4 million to $6 million more in private donations but so far private contributions have been modest. Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002 ***************************************************************** 38 Letter: Ensign, Reid should deliver on Yucca Mountain Las Vegas SUN April 02, 2002 I know that Sens. John Ensign and Harry Reid are both against the Yucca Mountain Project. I know they are both working against it. But when I read stories in the paper about how Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., and Senate Democrats are to blame for Yucca, I have to object. The numbers are fairly simple. Reid needs to persuade 36 fellow Democrats, which he has done in the past. Ensign needs to sway 15 fellow Republicans. Reid can deliver his share of the vote, and Ensign needs to come through. I feel like some of the stuff I've read in the paper is counterproductive political face-saving. To Ensign and Reid, I say this: All Nevada voters can count. Reid, deliver 36. Ensign, deliver 15. SUSAN CZOPEK Washoe Valley All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 39 Nuke lobby funds will be hard to match Las Vegas SUN April 02, 2002 By Erin Neff Faced with fighting an industry that put $25 million into lobbying efforts the last time Yucca Mountain issues came to Congress, Nevada leaders are finding it difficult to raise the money to stop the proposed nuclear waste dump. State officials are trying to ramp up a $10 million advertising and grass-roots campaign to build opposition to the dump, but so far have been met with little success. State lawmakers haven't rallied to the cause, noting a $100 million budget shortfall, and private donations have been lackluster. Opponents of a high-level nuclear waste dump 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas say that while many Nevadans oppose the dump, they haven't seen an outpouring of support as people wonder if the repository is inevitable. Bob Loux, director of Nevada's Nuclear Projects Office, said raising money for the Yucca fight has proved more difficult than he imagined. The economic downturn, coupled with the donations people made to victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks left fewer disposable dollars, he said. "The expectations for this were probably much greater prior to the events of last fall," Loux said. "And a lot of people are a little caught up with this question of whether it's inevitable." Gov. Kenny Guinn said he will veto the president's decision on Monday in Washington. Congress will then have 90 days to override Guinn's veto. Nevada leaders believe the override will sail through the House and say there's a chance to stop it in the Senate. Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and John Ensign, R-Nev., have asked Guinn to call for a special session of the state Legislature to appropriate $10 million for advertising and grass-roots campaigns to build opposition to the dump, but Guinn, who faced legislative opposition to a special session, has opted to ask the Legislature's Interim Finance Committee for $3 million. Even the $3 million expected to be approved today by the Clark County Commission and the $3 million Guinn is requesting from the legislative committee won't put enough in the Nevada Protection Fund to match the money that nuclear interests spent in Congress in 2000. According to a report released Monday by Public Citizen, a consumer and environmental advocacy group, the nuclear industry spent $25 million on lobbying and donations in 2000. In that year, Congress voted on several issues related to Yucca Mountain, including setting a timeline for the nuclear waste repository. Nevada would have to spend at least $500,000 a week to lobby against Yucca Mountain in Congress to keep pace with what the nuclear industry doled out two years ago. The state fund has roughly $6 million, and much of that money was earmarked for legal challenges to the repository. Reid said there was "no question" that the state is outmatched in its lobbying battle with the nuclear industry. "All we can do is our best," he said. Reid said the state needed a minimum of $6 million more. He said that John Podesta and Ken Duberstein, the state's high-powered lobbyists on the issue, have a proposed budget of how $6 million to $10 million could be spent on media advertising and grass-roots efforts nationwide. A nuclear industry spokesman today made no apologies for its lobbying spending. "We do live in a democracy, and doing so gives us the right to advocate our issues, just as Nevada officials advocate their side," said Mitch Singer, spokesman for the the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's top lobby group. He gave two examples of anti-Yucca groups having opportunities to lobby the previous administration. "It's certainly inconsistent for them to say it's wrong for us to spend money to advocate the Yucca project, but there's nothing wrong with them spending money against it," Singer said. Some state lawmakers are wondering if additional money would be well spent on the fight. Sen. Bill O'Donnell, R-Las Vegas, who sits on the Interim Finance Committee, said he will absolutely oppose the $3 million request because he thinks Yucca Mountain is inevitable. "Not only should we not be spending any money," O'Donnell said, "we should be doing everything possible to get money for it and give that money not to the government, but to the people." Assemblyman Joe Dini, D-Yerington, disagrees to an extent. "We've got to give it our best shot," Dini said. But he is also hearing more of his constituents begin to ask him why elected leaders aren't seeking benefits. "It's more on their minds now than ever," he said. "After the president approved it, a lot of people just think there's no way to stop it." Even without the report, many state lawmakers questioned how Nevada could succeed with any television ad campaign aimed at swaying an estimated 15 to 20 "on the fence" senators into its camp. Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, said Monday that "I would have to be convinced that it's useful" before he would support Guinn's $3 million request from the Finance Committee. Raggio, who chairs the 21-member legislative committee, said the state's budget shortfalls make him more doubtful about whether the state can afford to spend the money. Reid and Ensign requested the additional $10 million to support a nationwide, but targeted, television commercial campaign highlighting the dangers of transporting nuclear waste. Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said she would urge individual members of the finance committee to approve more money. "I wouldn't say the issue boils down solely to one of dollars and cents," Michael O'Donovan, Berkley's spokesman, said. "The state of Nevada has the facts on its side, and it's a question of getting the message out there. Any money the state, county and private groups give helps the delegation get the message out there." Reid said he had spoken only with Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins, D-Henderson, and Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, about the state Legislature approving more money for the Yucca fight, and that he had no intention of lobbying individual members of the Interim Finance Committee. "Everyone knows how I feel," Reid said. "I think the state has a responsibility to step up. I've made that very clear to the speaker and the majority leader." Guinn has said he considers the response from private businesses to be "disappointing." In announcing his intention to ask for $3 million more from the state, the governor again asked businesses to step up. "The state will do it's part. However, I must call upon the private sector to match our efforts," Guinn said Monday. Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., said he is not in favor of spending state money on Yucca Mountain if it's going to siphon money from other priorities such as health care and education, Amy Spanbauer, his spokeswoman, said. She said Gibbons does support spending money on advertising and grass-roots campaigns instead of high-paid consultants and said said he's all in favor of shaking loose extra money if it's there. "There are many competing issues," Spanbauer said. "While Yucca Mountain is a top priority, at this time, whatever money that is allocated has to be done in the most fiscally responsible manner possible." All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 40 Not Under Our Mountain, Nevada Says of Nuclear Dump April 2, 2002 By EVELYN NIEVES AS VEGAS, March 31 - When it comes to the Bush administration's plan to store the nation's deadly radioactive waste under Yucca Mountain, political leaders here in Nevada do not mince words. Oscar Goodman, the Democratic mayor of Las Vegas, which sits 90 miles east of Yucca, has called Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham ``a piece of garbage.'' The Senate Democratic whip, Harry Reid, said the president was ``a liar.'' Republicans, too, are incensed: Gov. Kenny Guinn said the president had ``misled'' Nevada, and Senator John Ensign announced that he was ``profoundly disappointed'' in the president. Noting that the General Accounting Office concluded in December that nearly 300 scientific and engineering questions about the Yucca plan remained unanswered, Nevada's top officials accused the president of kowtowing to the pro-Yucca nuclear energy lobby and reneging on a campaign promise not to approve the plan without ``sound science.'' But the Nevada officials - of every political stripe - are not simply sounding off. Governor Guinn plans to veto the administration's recommendation within the next two weeks, before the 90-day deadline permitted for such a veto. This sets the stage for a vote by Congress by summer. John Gurzinski Senator Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, said that transporting nuclear waste to his state was "accidents waiting to happen." Senators Reid and Ensign have recruited two former White House chiefs of staff, John D. Podesta, who worked in the Clinton administration, and Kenneth M. Duberstein, who worked in the Reagan administration, to lobby senators to sustain a Guinn veto. (The House of Representatives is expected to override the veto.) Now the Nevada campaign is going public. In an effort to counter the nuclear industry's own deep-pocketed Washington lobbyists - John Sununu, chief of staff for the first President Bush, and Geraldine Ferraro, the onetime vice-presidential candidate, have been enlisted in the pro-Yucca fight - Nevada is planning a multimillion-dollar advertising and publicity campaign intended to stoke opposition to the plan beyond Nevada's borders. On March 27, officials announced that they were trying to raise $10 million to pay for national television commercials that would be broadcast in states where nuclear waste would travel before reaching the burial site, presenting the argument that the Yucca plan is dangerous for every city and town, every highway and byway and every truck stop and railroad yard along the way. Officials are hoping to raise the money from local and county governments as well as the casino industry and other private businesses. The state also plans to send trucks with mock nuclear casks into cities around the country, where they will find themselves trapped in traffic jams, demonstrating the potential problems with transporting nuclear material through 43 states. Officials are also hoping for a huge publicity boost this week, when the NBC series ``The West Wing'' features a plot about an accident that occurs while a truck is transporting nuclear waste. ``People - and I mean the politicians - think of this as Nevada's problem,'' Governor Guinn said in comments echoed by his colleagues. ``But it's not just Nevada's problem. It's America's problem. God forbid there should be an accident during transport.'' Mr. Abraham, in a recent opinion article in The Washington Post, said that nuclear waste had been safely transported for 30 years, covering 1.6 million miles without incident, and that the science on Yucca, after 20 years of study, was sound. He accused the Nevadans of using scare tactics to sabotage the plan, adding that that it was obviously safer to store nuclear waste 800 feet beneath a barren desert owned by the government than to keep it scattered in 131 sites in 39 states in temporary, above-ground facilities. But Nevada's leaders say that the Government Accounting Office report makes clear that much needs to be studied before the transporting of nuclear waste can be called safe, especially given the potential for terrorism. They added that it was misleading to say the Yucca plan would mean the end of nuclear waste around the country. Every active nuclear reactor in the country would continue to house highly radioactive waste because spent nuclear fuel rods must be put in on-site cooling pools for at least five years before they can be transported. ``It is so disingenuous of them to say this would mean the end of 131 nuclear waste sites,'' Senator Reid said, adding that the plan would instead create thousands of mobile waste sites, ``accidents waiting to happen,'' as the waste is transported. ``If we can get this message out, we can convince the Senate to vote with us,'' Mr. Reid said. But he conceded it would not be an easy sell. While Nevadans have become well versed on the issue, the rest of the country has paid little attention to the proposals, polls show. While Senators Reid and Ensign are lobbying their colleagues in the Senate for the 51 votes they will need to sustain Mr. Guinn's veto and kill the Yucca project, officials here have also armed themselves with lawsuits to block the project should Congress approve the plan and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission grant it a license. Governor Guinn filed a lawsuit hours after President Bush approved the plan, contending that the Department of Energy did not let the state review the final environmental impact statement before the recommendation. That suit joins two others Nevada filed last year accusing the Energy Department of ignoring its mandate to find a geologically sound burial ground and the Environmental Protection Agency of either violating federal law or manipulating scientific data to reach pro-Yucca conclusions. Mayor Goodman now speaks about Yucca Mountain everywhere he goes, telling Nevadans of a Clark County study released in January that estimated a roadway accident involving nuclear material on its way to Yucca Mountain could eliminate 54,000 jobs in the region, force 90,000 residents to move and cost the local economy $1.4 billion. He said he was itching to take his message national. ``One catastrophic accident, God forbid,'' he said, ``would mean a nuclear holocaust.'' Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company | Privacy ***************************************************************** 41 Inspection pinpoints radioactive materials' storage problems Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 11:04 a.m. on Tuesday, April 2, 2002 by Paul Parson Oak Ridger staff A recently issued inspection report stresses that the Department of Energy needs to assure that sealed radioactive sources are properly controlled, inventoried and leak-tested in accordance with requirements. The sources in question consist of radioactive material either sealed within a capsule, between layers of non-radioactive material, or firmly fixed to a non-radioactive surface. They are used in large numbers at DOE facilities, including those in Oak Ridge, most commonly for the testing and calibration of radiation detection instrumentation. DOE and the National Nuclear Security Administration, which oversees the weapons facilities, are required by regulation to establish and implement strict accountability and control over the sealed radioactive sources at its facilities. DOE's Inspector General's office recently reviewed the adequacy of procedures implemented by DOE and the NNSA as well as their contractors for controlling, safeguarding and disposing of the sources. "We found no evidence that DOE's work with sealed radioactive sources had adversely impacted the safety and health of DOE and contractor employees or the public," a memorandum from Inspector General Gregory H. Friedman stated. However, the Inspector General report did note several problems related to internal controls of the sealed radioactive sources at several of the federal facilities, including those in Oak Ridge. Sealed radioactive sources housed at the Oak Ridge K-25 site, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Y-12 National Security Complex were missing required information from identification labels. The facts that were most frequently absent were the name and/or telephone number of the source's custodian. In addition, the tags for six sources at ORNL contained incorrect but unspecified information, while four sources at K-25 had either not been inventoried or not been leak-tested, as required. Accountable sealed radioactive sources must be inventoried and leak-tested at six-month intervals. A source is accountable if it has a half-life equal to or greater than 30 days. For the most part, managers at the three Oak Ridge facilities have addressed the problems pointed out by the report, officials said. DOE Under Secretary Bob Card also issued a memo indicating that the federal agency would remedy the issues associated with the sealed radioactive sources. Paul Parson can be contacted at (865) 220-5533 or pparson@oakridger.com [pparson@oakridger.com] . All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 42 [sunflower] The Sunflower No. 59, April 2002 Date: Tue, 2 Apr 2002 15:16:32 -0600 (CST) The Sunflower Online monthly newsletter of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation April 2002 (No. 59) The Sunflower is a monthly e-newsletter providing educational information on nuclear weapons abolition and other issues relating to global security. Back issues are available at http://www.wagingpeace.org/sf/backissues.html I N T H I S I S S U E PERSPECTIVE SPOTLIGHT MISSILE DEFENSE NUCLEAR TERRORISM NUCLEAR MATTERS NUCLEAR WASTE NUCLEAR INSANITY ACTION RESOURCES ************ PERSPECTIVE ************ Leaked US Nuclear Posture Review and Responses On 9 March, reports surfaced in major US media that the US Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) released on 9 January contains contingency plans for using nuclear weapons against seven states: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, North Korea, Russia and China. It also reportedly contains plans to develop and deploy new "earth-penetrating" nuclear weapons and to accelerate the time it would take to resume full-scale nuclear testing. Using nuclear weapons against other states or developing new nuclear weapons would directly violate US obligations to pursue the elimination of nuclear weapons under Article VI of the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). At the 2000 NPT Review Conference, the US, along with the other state parties to the treaty, committed themselves to an "unequivocal undertaking" to eliminate nuclear weapons and to a diminishing role for nuclear weapons in security policies. Even if the US does not pursue the plans outlined in the NPR, the provocative rhetoric could unravel the non-proliferation regime. The fact that the US is developing contingency plans to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states will certainly be viewed as a sign of bad faith by most of the world and will do serious damage to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The NPR reaffirms the role of nuclear weapons in US national security policy. In the past, nuclear weapons have been viewed as a deterrent against the use of nuclear weapons. However, the Bush administration has revealed that nuclear weapons will now be integrated into a full spectrum of war-fighting capabilities, including missile defenses. The NPR reveals that nuclear weapons are no longer weapons of last resort, but instruments that could be used in fighting wars. The position of the Bush administration is extremely destabilizing in an increasingly volatile global security environment. Other countries will more likely want to acquire nuclear weapons given that the US could potentially use nuclear weapons on any country in the world. Additionally, the US can not expect countries like Iraq and North Korea to comply with inspections regarding the halting of their nuclear weapons programs while at the same time threatening to use nuclear weapons against those countries. Weapons of mass destruction and missile proliferation do pose a legitimate threat not only to US security, but also to international security. However, unilateral US threats to use nuclear weapons, in conjunction with developing and deploying missile defenses, as a means of countering these threats is likely to provoke rather than prevent proliferation. A much better option would be for the US to take the lead on negotiations for the complete elimination of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery. Responses From Around the World Jayantha Dhanapala, UN Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament: The plan "flies in the face of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty undertakings. Under Article VI, one is expected to reduce nuclear weapons and ultimately eliminate them. So this is to me a very serious contradiction of that and will be a very major stumbling block as we begin the process of preparing for the 2005 NPT Review Conference, which begins in April. [The review could] encourage other countries then to discard the obligations under the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. We are going to get an encouragement to nuclear proliferation, rather than reducing the number of countries that have nuclear weapons." Matt Robson, Minister for Disarmament and Arms Control, New Zealand: "If the recommendations in this leaked report were taken up by the Bush administration, it would throw the disarmament agenda internationally into disarray. Nuclear weapons must be left in the 20th Century We cannot allow them to become the weapon of choice for the 21st Century. For that reason, I urge the government of the United States to reject any pressure to walk away from their commitment to nuclear disarmament." Sun Yuxi, Foreign Ministry Spokesman, China: "Countries with nuclear weapons should undertake unconditionally not to be the first to use them, and not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states or nuclear-weapons-free regions." Abdollah Ramezanzadeh, Government Spokesman, Islamic Republic of Iran: "The Islamic Republic believes that the era of using force to push forward international relations is long past, and those who resort to the logic of force follow exactly the same logic as terrorists, although they are in the position of power." Korean Central News Agency, North Korea's Offical Foreign News Outlet: "If the US intends to mount a nuclear attack on any part of the Democratic People's Republic of (North) Korea, it is grossly mistaken. A nuclear war to be imposed by the US nuclear fanatics upon the DPRK would mean their ruin in nuclear disaster. [The US Plan] indicates that the Bush administration is working in real earnest to prepare a dangerous nuclear war to bring nuclear disaster to our planet and humankind." Representative Dennis Kucinich, Member of US Congress: "Challenge those who believe that war is inevitable. Challenge those who believe in a nuclear right. Challenge those who would build new nuclear weapons. Challenge those who seek nuclear re-armament. Challenge those who seek nuclear escalation. Challenge those who would make of any nation a nuclear target. Challenge those who would threaten to use nuclear weapons against civilian populations. Challenge those who would break nuclear treaties. Challenge those who think and think about nuclear weapons, to think about peace." For more responses to the US NPR, please visit http://www.napf.org/articles/Archives/2001NPR.htm ********** SPOTLIGHT ********** Upcoming NPT Preparatory Committee for the 2005 Review Conference From 8-19 April, the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Preparatory Committee (Prep Com) meeting for the 2005 Review Conference will take place at the United Nations (UN) in New York. The NPT has become the cornerstone of global disarmament efforts, yet its very existence is threatened. The following resources provide information on the history and status of the NPT as well as ideas for action. The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation has prepared a briefing book entitled "The Status of Nuclear Disarmament" that will be delivered to the delegates of the NPT Prep Com. The book highlights significant events since the 2000 NPT Review Conference in relation to the five points of the Foundation's Appeal to End the Nuclear Weapons Threat to Humanity and All Life. The book is available in the Member's Area of the Foundation's website to download in pdf format. https://www.ndic.com/wagingpeace/ma_login.asp Nuclear Files.org offers a detailed look at the NPT and its importance to disarmament efforts. http://www.nuclearfiles.org/prolif/index.html Read the "Background on the Non-Proliferation Treaty" written by David Krieger in March 2002. http://www.napf.org/articles/02.03/0321kriegernptbgrnd.htm Reaching Critical Will.org, a project of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, contains ideas for actions, information on attending the Prep Com, NGO Presentations, NGO Reports and a Calendar of Events. The site will also publish a daily NGO newsletter during the conference. http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/npt/nptindex.html **************** MISSILE DEFENSE **************** $100 Million Missile Defense Test Claimed a Success On 15 March, the US Missile Defense Agency (MDA) announced it completed what it considers a successful test involving a planned intercept of an intercontinental ballistic missile. Of course, the MDA usually does not announce that it rigs its tests by placing electronic beeping devices in the missile to be destroyed. The test took place over the central Pacific Ocean where a modified Minuteman II intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, and a prototype interceptor, launched from the Ronald Reagan Missile Site, Kwajalein Atoll, collided. The intercept took place at an altitude some 140 miles above the earth and during the midcourse phase of the target warhead's flight. The test demonstrated an exo-atmospheric kill vehicle (EKV) and hit-to-kill technology intended to intercept and destroy long-range ballistic missiles carrying weapons of mass destruction. According to the MDA, sensors on the EKV selected the target instead of three balloon decoys, successfully integrating the use of space and ground-based sensors and radars. The Pentagon considers the test the fourth successful intercept out of six tests for the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system, formerly known as National Missile Defense. Over the next several weeks, government and defense industry officials will analyze data received during the test to determine whether anomalies or malfunctions occurred. They will also evaluate system performance and determine whether or not all flight test objectives were met. The GMD system is considered to be in the developmental phase and the MDA stated that performance of individual elements and the overall system integration was as important as the actual intercept. The MDA stated that the next test is scheduled to take place this summer. Each test of the system costs some $100 million. (source: MDA Press Release; 15 March 2002, No. 127-02) PAC-3 Missile Defense Test Declared Successful The US Army conducted the second operational test of PAC-3 missile defense system on 21 March at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. Army officials said the aim of the test was to determine whether the PAC-3 system could pick the right missile to use against the two targets. The Army claimed that the test was a success. The PAC-3 hit-to-kill warhead intercepted and destroyed a target missile. The PAC-3 is an upgraded version of the Patriot missile defense system first used in the 1991 Gulf War. A PAC-2 simultaneously engaged and destroyed a subscale drone target according to Army officials. The PAC-2 has a blast fragmentation warhead that is more effective against aircraft. (source: AFP; 21 March 2002) Ivanov: Russia Plans to Counter US Missile Defense Russian Minister of Defense Sergei Ivanov stated on 27 March that his country is preparing technical and scientific measures to counter the planned US missile defense. Ivanov stated, "I want to underline that the US shield does not yet exist, and so it is difficult to speak of retaliatory measures We [Russia] are going to do everything to counter these threats when they take shape, which is to say not before 2015-2020." According to Ivanov, Russia's strategic forces are the basis for the effectiveness of the country's army. The Russian Army is expected to undergo a thorough modernization over the next 15 years. (source: AFP, 27 March 2002) Alaska Missile Defense Sites Will Get Environmental Impact Reviews The US Department of Defense (DoD) agreed to perform public environmental impact statements for missile defense sites at Kodiak and Ft. Greely, Alaska. In exchange, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Greenpeace, Kodiak Rocket Launch Information Group and No Nukes North said they would drop a law suit filed against the DoD on 28 August 2001. The suit challenged the DoD's failure to perform the required environmental assessments at the aforementioned sites under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Stacy Studebaker of the Kodiak Rocket Launch Information Group stated, "We originally filed this suit because the Department of Defense tried to skirt around the law and move forward with this construction based on an outdated and incomplete environmental analysis. This settlement will force the US to analyze the impacts that this construction may have on Kodiak Island and Ft. Greely, and will allow the public to have an opportunity to review and participate in the analysis. That was not the case before we filed the suit." (source: Environmental News Service, 20 March 2002) Kwajelein Up For Bid Kwajelein Atoll, the primary testing range for both theater and national missile defense systems, is up for bid. The contract to run the Army-operated Atoll expires at the end of this year. Raytheon Systems Engineering, a branch of Raytheon Corporation, is the current contractor, but it is unlikely it will win the rebid. Northrup Gruman, Bechtel and Lockheed Martin Corporation are currently competing for the next contract that could last up to15 years and would begin in 2003. The contract is worth some $200 million annually. Kwajalein Atoll is made up of nearly 100 coral islands surrounding a 2,300-square-kilometer lagoon (the largest lagoon in the world). It has been under US Army control since 1964. Kwajelein is a $4 billion missile testing range that features sophisticated missile tracking equipment, interceptor launch pads and command and control facilities. Some 2,600 Americans and Marshall Islanders work on the Atoll. Russian Man Arrested Carrying Anti-Aircraft Missile Police arrested a 26-year-old man in Saint Petersberg, Russia on 21 March after he was found walking down the street carrying an anti-aircraft missile. According to the police, the man said he found the fully operational Igla missile on a shooting range outside of the northern Russian city and was on his way to show friends. (source: AFP, 21 March 2002) South Korea to Deploy Missiles for Defense During World Cup South Korea announced that it will deploy land-to-air missiles outside of stadiums during the 2002 World Cup games. The portable French-made missiles are meant to prevent possible terrorist attacks during the games being held from 31 May to 30 June. South Korea has also set up an anti-terrorism unit and imposed no-fly zones for non-South Korean air force planes over the World Cup stadiums and nuclear power plants during the tournament. South Korean police force members have also undergone training for hostage rescue operations. (source: AP; 11 March 2002) ******************** NUCLEAR TERRORISM ******************** Dirty Bomb Threat In a hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on 6 March, nuclear experts testified to the threat posed by terrorists obtaining "dirty bombs," and the effects of crude nuclear weapons. Dirty bombs are comprised of radioactive material dispersed by conventional explosives. According to Henry Kelly, president of the Federation of American Scientists, if a small medical gauge of cesium like the one recently found abandoned in North Carolina was exploded in Washington, D.C., residents over a five city-block radius would have a one in 1,000 chance of getting cancer. He also said that if a cobalt bomb was used in New York City, contamination would be far more serious and people living for 40 years within a 300 block radius would have a one-in-ten risk of death from cancer. While the misuse of radioactive materials does pose a threat, the experts said the biggest concern was still posed by terrorists obtaining weapons-grade materials such as uranium and plutonium. The experts stated that safeguarding nuclear materials should be a priority, particularly in Russia where hundreds of tons of weapon-grade material are scattered across the country. Donald Cobb, associate director for threat reduction at Los Alamos National Laboratory stated, "Of course we can't ignore the security of the weapons, but the materials are perhaps the greatest danger." (source: Reuters; 6 March 2002) ******************* NUCLEAR MATTERS ******************* UK Prepared to Use Nuclear Weapons Under Right Circumstances Following the US lead, UK Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon announced on 20 March that the UK is willing to use its nuclear weapons under the right conditions. Mr. Hoon, was briefing Members of Parliament on the threat posed by four countries identified by the UK as "states of concern"-Iraq, Iran, Libya and North Korea. According to Hoon, the "states of concern" might be capable of targeting the UK with a weapon of mass destruction in a few years' time. He also told the Members of Parliament that while there is no evidence that any terrorist group has thus far acquired weapons of mass destruction, it is a possibility. Mr. Hoon stated, "There are clearly some states who would be deterred by the fact that the UK possesses nuclear weapons and has the willingness and ability to use them in appropriate circumstances. States of concern, I would be much less confident about In those kinds of states, the wishes and needs and interests of citizens are clearly much less regarded, and we can not rule out the possibility that such states would be willing to sacrifice their own people to make such a gesture. They can be absolutely confident that in the right conditions we would be willing to use our nuclear weapons." [Note the faulty logic used by Mr. Hoon: In states of concern, the leaders are willing to sacrifice their own citizens. Therefore, these leaders can be "confident" that the UK, like the US, will be willing to attack uninvolved citizens with nuclear weapons. -Editors] Many analysts argue that Mr. Hoon's statements do not reflect a change in UK nuclear policy, but they do agree that the language is much more specific than it has been in the past. The UK last produced a strategic defense review in 1998. In the review, the UK stated that it would not use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states. (sources: BBC News Online, 20 March 2002; AFP, 21 March 2002) US Refuses to Certify North Korea Compliance With Agreed Framework On 20 March, US President George W. Bush accepted a recommendation from Secretary of State Colin Powell to withhold for the first time an annual certification required by Congress to verify that North Korea is abiding by 1994 Agreed Framework. Under the 1994 Agreed Framework, North Korea agreed to freeze its nuclear program and shut down reactors that produced a heavy plutonium byproduct. In exchange, the US agreed to construct 2 lightwater reactors to make up for the loss of power. According to senior US officials, the Bush administration is angry that North Korea is not allowing the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to carry out mandated full inspections of its nuclear facility at Yongyon, a condition of the 1994 agreement. IAEA Spokeswoman Melissa Fleming confirmed that IAEA officials found no change in the status of nuclear material during a visit in January. However, the visit was not considered a full inspection. The country has blockaded inspections to protest that the US has delayed completing the construction of the lightwater reactors from 2003 to 2008. South Korean Unification Minister Jeong Se-Hyun said on 29 March that tension on the Korean peninsula could rise this year over the issue of nuclear inspections in the North. According to Jeong, "There was some talk in the US that the nuclear inspection in North Korea should be carried this August while North Korea's version is that the inspection should take place in 2005. If this issue becomes an international point of contention, a crisis could come in August on the Korean peninsula." The Bush administration claims that North Korea is proliferating missile technology around the globe, including to US enemies. Since Bush became president, US-North Korea relations have greatly deteriorated. President Bush rejected the engagement strategy that was pursued by the Clinton administration and recently labeled North Korea a member of the "axis of evil," along with Iran and Iraq. The US Nuclear Posture Review also named North Korea as one of the countries against which the US was developing contingency plans to use nuclear weapons. (source: AFP; 20 March 2002, 29 March 2002) Judge Ruling On Nanoose Bay Reopens Nuclear Free Debate A federal judge in British Columbia ruled on 6 March that the Canadian government has improperly seized ownership of Nanoose Bay, a site that the US and Canadian Navies use as a torpedo testing range. Canada's federal government expropriated the bay in 1999 because of contention with the nuclear free province of British Columbia over whether nuclear-armed vessels can use it. Because the US will neither confirm nor deny the presence of nuclear warheads on Navy submarines, it makes a pledge of no nuclear weapons in the bay impossible. Nanoose Bay is ideal for testing unarmed weapons systems and acoustic sensors because of its flat, muddy seabed, allowing torpedos to be fired and retrieved. The US and Canada have an agreement that lasts until June 2009 to share the testing range. The initial agreement between the two countries to use the facility was reached in 1965 and has been renewed several times. Before the expropriation in 1999, the federal Canadian government leased Nanoose Bay from British Columbia. The government of British Columbia and many peace and environmental groups protested the expropriation in 1999, citing a motion approved by the provincial legislature in the early 1990s declaring British Columbia a nuclear-free zone. Honorable Justice Campbell ruled that the federal government failed to meet the requirements for expropriation, reopening the debate on whether or not nuclear armed vessels may enter and use the site. (source: AP, Canada; 6 March 2002) Photo Gallery of Israel's Nuclear Weapons Facility Launched on Internet A dramatic series of photographs taken surreptitiously by an Israeli nuclear whistleblower can now be viewed for the first time on the Internet. Fifteen full-color images captured by Dimona technician Mordechai Vanunu in the mid-1980's reveal the machinery of an advanced factory producing nuclear weapons in Israel. The selected photographs show reactor and production control panels; laboratory prototypes of nuclear weapon cores; glove boxes for handling radioactive plutonium and uranium; and machine tools that produce critical nuclear weapons parts. In October, 1986, a London Sunday Times exposi based on Vanunu's testimony published a few of the 60 photos he took in 1985, shortly before leaving employment at Dimona. The photos can be viewed on the website of the U.S. Campaign to Free Mordechai Vanunu at http://www.nonviolence.org/vanunu. For more information, contact the U.S. Campaign to Free Mordechai Vanunu, P.O. Box 43384, Tucson, AZ 85733, 520-323-8697, email - freevanunu@mindspring.com Individuals can write to Mordechai Vanunu at Ashkelon Prison, Ashkelon, Israel. **************** NUCLEAR WASTE **************** Accelerated Cleanup for Hanford Nuclear Site The Bush administration agreed to restore $300 million in the 2003 budget that was cut from a Department of Energy (DoE) program to clean-up waste at the most contaminated nuclear site in the US. Under a new agreement, the Hanford nuclear production site in Washington state will undergo an accelerated cleanup. Hanford is a 560-square-mile site where plutonium was made for more than 40 years for the nation's nuclear arsenal. The new target date for cleanup, originally set for 2070, is now 2025. The administration also agreed to spend an additional $150 million next year, bringing Hanford's total 2003 budget to some $2 billion. The new agreement between the DoE, Washington State and federal regulators calls for speeding up retrieval of more than 53 million gallons of highly radioactive waste stored in 177 underground tanks near the Columbia River. The tanks have leaked more than 1 million gallons into the soil and ground water. The agreement will also accelerate cleanup of basins where lethal, corroding spent nuclear fuel rods are stored and speed up the processing of scrap plutonium. (source: AP Cabinet & State; 7 March 2002) US Wants to Bury Waste on Johnston Island The US Defense Environmental Restoration Program has proposed entombing nearly 60,000 cubic yards of radioactive material on Johnston Island in the Pacific. The federal agency sees entombment as the best of multiple disposal options. Other options include various landfill options, vitrification, encasing it in concrete or shipping the material off the island. Two nuclear test missile launches were aborted in 1962 in the Johnston Atoll, located 700 miles southwest of Honolulu, Hawai'i. The destruction of the missiles left Johnston Island, the island with the largest land mass in the Atoll, contaminated by plutonium oxide and americium. Today, there are 60,000 cubic yards of coral with an average level of radioactivity that must be sealed from exposure to environment under US Environmental Protection Agency regulations. There are an additional 156,000 cubic yards of coral that have an average radioactivity below the level requiring special treatment. The Defense Threat Reduction Agency is proposing to use an existing excavation with the region that was directly contaminated by the missile blasts in 1962 to dump metal, concrete debris and higher-level radioactive coral. It would be topped by a 2-foot layer of coral soil and subject to land-use restrictions and monitoring for up to five years. The Defense Threat Reduction Agency conducted a survey in May 2000 that "verified that plutonium oxide is not soluble in the Johnston Atoll environment and that groundwater has not moved radioactive contamination from the Radiological Control Area to other parts of the island." The Agency says that fish currently in the lagoon "are edible and contain no more radioactivity than fish sold in mainland US markets." That being the case, perhaps they could be flown in for special White House dinners. (source: Honolulu Advertiser; 3 March 2002) Spencer Abraham, Poster Boy for Yucca Mountain By David Krieger In a recent opinion piece in the Washington Post (March 26, 2002), Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham argues for moving radioactive wastes from throughout the country to Yucca Mountain in Nevada, something the people of Nevada are fighting tooth and nail. So confident is the Energy Secretary that he promises: "Someone living 11 miles away from the site 10,000 years from now would be less exposed to radiation than he would be on a normal plane flight from Las Vegas to New York." Of course, neither Secretary Abraham nor any of the other proponents of this storage site will be around 10,000 years from now to see if their prediction is correct. They just ask for our trust on behalf of the next 400 generations of humans on this planet. Secretary Abraham also appeals to our sense of patriotism when he argues that the "project is critical for national security." Why? Because we're going to have to get rid of the spent fuel from nuclear powered aircraft carriers and submarines if we're going to keep using them. And that's not all. Burying the wastes in Nevada is also critical to our "energy security" because nuclear power "emits no airborne pollution or greenhouse gasses and now gives us one of the cheapest forms of power generation we have." First of all, hasn't this administration been telling us that greenhouse gasses are not something to be worried about and we should just forget the Kyoto Accords that the rest of the world supports? Second, this cheap form of power is actually highly subsidized by the taxpayers in the form of the research and development, liability limits set by Congress, and perpetual taxpayer care of the wastes. Mr. Abraham leaves out of his discussion the 50 million Americans who will be subject to the effects of nuclear accidents when these large amounts of nuclear wastes start hitting our highways and railways. One study predicted that property damage alone could be over $9 billion per square mile when radiation is released after a truck or train accident carrying these high-level nuclear wastes. A far better solution to the nuclear waste problem is to convert it into dry cask storage and keep it on site at nuclear power plants until a solution can be found that won't place large numbers of Americans at risk of exposure to high-level nuclear wastes. Mr. Abraham says the science is sound, but this includes reports of seismic activities in the region. There are also more than 250 scientific studies that remain to be completed. The critics of the proposed Yucca Mountain repository do not oppose single site storage as Abraham suggests. Rather, they oppose a premature and irreversible decision that will affect future generations for thousands of years. Secretary Abraham was right about one thing. Nuclear wastes are a problem that won't just go away and "it's our responsibility to solve it." We might have thought more about that responsibility before we began our mad effort to build nuclear bombs and power plants. Now, we had better think about future generations before we follow the advice of Mr. Abraham and commit ourselves to a "solution" that may be not only wrong but irreversible. If nuclear waste storage is as safe as Mr. Abraham believes it is, it is strange that no one, including him, has suggested burying it under the Congress, the White House, or the Energy Department. ******************* NUCLEAR INSANITY ******************* Selected Excerpts from the US Nuclear Posture Review Page 7: "Greater flexibility is needed with respect to nuclear forces and planning than was the case during the Cold War. The assets most valued by the spectrum of potential adversaries in the new security environment may be diverse and, in some cases, U.S. understanding of what an adversary values may evolve. Consequently, although the number of weapons needed to hold those assets at risk has declined. U.S. nuclear forces still require the capability to hold at risk a wide range of target types. This capability is key to the role of nuclear forces in supporting an effective deterrence strategy relative to a broad spectrum of potential opponents under a variety of contingencies. Nuclear attack options that vary in scale, scope, and purpose will complement other military capabilities. The combination can provide the range of options needed to pose a credible deterrent to adversaries whose values and calculations of risk and of gain and loss may be very different from and more difficult to discern than those of past adversaries." [Translation: "We may need less nuclear weapons, but we'll use them to threaten more possible enemies."] Page 10-11: "A modern, responsive nuclear weapons sector of the infrastructure is indispensable, especially as the size of the operationally deployed nuclear arsenal is reduced." [Translation: "Nuclear weapons, how do I love thee, let me count the ways We need new, more precise nuclear weapons as we reduce our older ones that are no longer usable."] Page 12-13: "Composed of both non-nuclear systems and nuclear weapons, the strike element of the New Triad can provide greater flexibility in the design and conduct of military campaigns to defeat opponents decisively. Non-nuclear strike capabilities may be particularly useful to limit collateral damage and conflict escalation. Nuclear weapons could be employed against targets able to withstand non-nuclear attack, (for example, deep underground bunkers or bio-weapon facilities)." [Translation: "When conventional weapons won't work, we can always use our nuclear ones. Don't be surprised when we do use them because we are telling you now that that is the road we are heading down."] As a result of the Nuclear Posture Review, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) will undertake the following: "Advanced Concepts Initiative: There are several nuclear weapon options that might provide important advantages for enhancing the nation's deterrence posture: possible modifications to existing weapons to provide additional yield flexibility in the stockpile; improved earth penetrating weapons (EPWs) to counter the increased use by potential adversaries of hardened and deeply buried facilities; and warheads that reduce collateral damage." (pages 34-35) [Translation: "Let's make nuclear weapons more usable."] "To further assess these and other nuclear weapons options in connection with meeting new or emerging military requirements, the NNSA will reestablish advanced warhead concepts teams at each of the national laboratories and at headquarters in Washington. This will provide unique opportunities to train our next generation of weapon designers and engineers. DoD and NNSA will also jointly review potential programs to provide nuclear capabilities, and identify opportunities for further study, including assessments of whether nuclear testing would be required to field such warheads." (page 35) [Translation: "We need a new generation of Dr. Strangeloves. We might start full-scale nuclear testing again if we are going to make new nuclear weapons."] Frank Gaffney Jr. on the US Nuclear Posture Review Responding to the leaked portions of the US Nuclear Posture Review, Frank Gaffney, Jr., who was responsible for nuclear weapons policy in the Reagan administration, wrote in a USA Today editorial: "The Bush administration's classified Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) marks an important-and laudable-departure from recent policies towards nuclear weapons the Bush NPR strives further to reduce the danger of nuclear conflict by recognizing the important contribution that advanced conventional munitions and missile defenses can make to US security--contributions the Clinton administration largely ignored. This comprehensive approach to restoring and enhancing the US deterrent posture represents a change all right, but a change very much for the better." [Translation: "Everyone should be able to sleep better now that the new Bush policies ensure that the US is not making any further moves towards reducing the role of nuclear weapons in national security policy, and even less so towards fulfilling obligations to eliminate its nuclear arsenal."] ******** ACTION ******** Public Comment on Missile Defense Write a letter to the US Army Space and Missile Defense plan to respond to their call for public comment concerning the environmental safety and occupational health issues related to expanded missile defense testing. Comments must be received by 25 April 2002. Please send your letter to U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command, ATTN: SMDC-EN-V (Mrs. Julia Hudson-Elliott), 106 Wynn Drive, Huntsville, AL 35805, or by email to gmdetreis@smdc.army.mil. Talking Points 1. Missile defense expansion is destabilizing and expensive. It will require cuts to education, health care, social security and other programs. 2. While the stated purpose of missile defense is to defend the US against threats from incoming intercontinental ballistic missiles carrying weapons of mass destruction launched by "states of concern," no real threat has been established. There is a real threat, however, of nuclear terrorism, which would not be delivered by a missile. 3. There is a legitimate concern about the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery. However, the deployment of missile defenses will provoke, rather than prevent proliferation. 4. Deploying missile defenses threatens to move the arms race into outer space. There is an inherent link between the deployment of missile defenses and the weaponization of outer space. Research, testing and development of missile defenses will allow the US to use technological overlaps in the long run to develop and deploy space and spaced-based weapons. 5. Instead of expanding missile defense programs, the US should accept the proposals from Canada, China and Russia to negotiate a Space Weapons Ban. ************ RESOURCES ************ Visit the ever-evolving website of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation at Http://www.wagingpeace.org The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation has prepared a briefing book entitled "The Status of Nuclear Disarmament" that will be delivered to the delegates of the NPT Prep Com. The book highlights significant events since the 2000 NPT Review Conference in relation to the five points of the Foundation's Appeal to End the Nuclear Weapons Threat to Humanity and All Life. The book is available in the Member's Area of the Foundation's website to download in pdf format. https://www.ndic.com/wagingpeace/ma_login.asp The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation's Spring Newsletter "Waging Peace," Volume 12, Number 1, entitled "Shaping the Future" is now available to download in pdf format on the Foundation's website. Login into our Member's Area to download your copy. https://www.ndic.com/wagingpeace/ma_login.asp Moving Beyond Missile Defense is a joint project of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and the International Network of Engineers and Scientists Against Proliferation. The MBMD website contains information on missile defenses and, most recently features information on a Space Weapons Ban. Visit the MBMD website at http://www.mbmd.org. Take a journey through the Nuclear Age. Visit the Nuclear Files at Http://www.nuclearfiles.org "Relearning to Love the Bomb" by Raffi Khatchadourian http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020401&s=khatchadourian Jonathan Schell's "Manhattan," the latest article in his "Letters from Ground Zero" series http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020401&s=schell "DoE's FY 2003 Budget Request for Nuclear Weapons Activities," an analysis by Dr. Robert Civiak, is available at the website of Tri-Valley CAREs at http://www.trivalleycares.org The latest edition of Disarmament Diplomacy (No. 63, March/April 2002) published by the Acronym Institute is now available at http://www.acronym.org.uk/dd/dd63/index.htm The Peacemaker's Journal http://www.peacemakersjournal.org/ Back from the Brink, a campaign to get nuclear weapons off of hair-trigger alert has redesigned its website. Visit http://www.backfromthebrink.org to learn about actions you can take to take nuclear weapons off of hair-trigger alert. ********** EDITORS ********** Carah Ong David Krieger -- Carah Lynn Ong Director of Research and Publications The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation PMB 121, 1187 Coast Village Road, Suite 1 Santa Barbara, California 93108-2794 USA Tel: +1 805-965-3443 Fax: +1 805-568-0466 Cell: +1 805-453-0255 Http://www.wagingpeace.org Http://www.nuclearfiles.org http://www.mbmd.org "He aha te nui mea o te ao? He tangata, he tangata, he tangata." (A Maori Saying) "What is the most important thing in the world? It is the people, the people, the people." To become a free on-line participating member of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, click here: https://www.sbwh.com/wagingpeace/mbrshp.html. ***************************************************************** 43 Richard Ingrams: Remember Vanunu Guardian Unlimited Politics | Red box | The man who exposed Israel's nuclear capability is still in jail. Why? Richard Ingrams Sunday March 31, 2002 The Observer Saddam's so-called 'weapons of mass destruction', which are the reason why Mr Blair and Mr Bush are preparing for war against the Iraqi leader, remain so far somewhat illusory and incapable of proof. No such mystery attaches to Mr Sharon's weapons of mass destruction - several hundred nuclear warheads - though these are not considered by Mr Blair or Mr Bush to constitute any kind of threat to world peace. Accordingly, Israeli politicians no longer try to keep secret the existence of their nuclear arsenal, making it all the more monstrous that Mordechai Vanunu, a former nuclear technician who first told the world of Israel's nuclear capacity, is still in prison 16 years after he was kidnapped by the Israeli authorities (or 'spirited away' as they prefer to say, kidnapping being something that only terrorists go in for). Vanunu, a Christian convert, is still considered to be a threat to the state of Israel and was even returned to solitary confinement for five months last year. In this respect, his treatment is worse than that meted out to Yigal Amir, the assassin of former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who though guilty of a much more serious crime in Jewish law was never subjected to soli tary confinement, whereas Vanunu was only recently released from solitary. He has also been refused parole which in any other case would long ago have been granted. Why, we might ask in the famous words of Pontius Pilate, what evil has he done? Morgan's rum Step by step, a law of privacy is creeping up on us through the courts and, with damages awarded to Naomi Campbell last week, the prospect of yet another restriction on the press (in addition to libel) begins to look like a reality. The reason for the rather muted tone of the protests coming from journalists is that few of us feel like coming to the defence of the Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan, the man found guilty last week of failing to respect Campbell's right to privacy when she attended an Narcotics Anonymous clinic. And the reason for that in turn is that on the face of things there seems little to choose between Campbell and Morgan, both of them wealthy celebrities, both vain, unpredictable, foul-mouthed and irregular in their private lives. If anything, when considering their respective characters, Morgan is the more disreputable of the two. Campbell may be a drug addict but addiction is now recognised as a disease and to her credit she has taken steps to do something about it by enrolling in NA. Morgan, however, stands accused of the most serious charge made against a newspaper editor in recent years - that of making a large sum of money out of the share tips in his own City page. As far as we know this matter is still being investigated by the DTI. As with other public figures involved in scandal, the attitude of his employers seems to be that as he is good at his job, he should be allowed just to go on doing it. The same sort of thinking applies to someone like Michael Barrymore, who ITV was desperate to see back on the screen, forgetting the still mourned body in the swimming pool. In the face of such cynicism, what hope has anyone in getting the public to respond to a campaign for the freedom of the press? Favoured friends The Rev John Platt, chaplain of Pembroke College, Oxford, has resigned since he was exposed in the Sunday Times last weekend for offering a place at the college in exchange for a large donation of £300,000 to college funds. What a contrast in behaviour to his opposite number, the president of Trinity College, Oxford, Mr Michael Beloff QC, who last December refused admission to the son of a wealthy City banker, Mr Philip Keevil, who was offering him a donation of £100,000. When Mr Keevil withdrew his offer in a huff, Mr Beloff, a wealthy lawyer, solemnly declared: 'We play it down the middle. It seems to me imperative that Oxford maintains a level playing field for all applicants.' If only the Rev Platt could have been guided by similarly high moral principles to those of Mr Beloff. No wonder that our highly principled Prime Minister, Mr Blair, when looking for a suitable college for his own son, Euan, chose Trinity, Oxford, as the most appropriate college. As it happens, Mr Beloff is a close friend of the Prime Minister and a former legal colleague of Mrs Cherie Blair. But of course there will be no question of him showing any favouritism when deciding whether to admit their young son. Rev Platt may have been prepared to bend the rules but Mr Beloff, on his level playing field, can be relied upon to keep a straight bat and treat him just the same as any other applicant. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002 ***************************************************************** 44 AU: Nuclear tests in desert: report canberra.yourguide.com.au AAP Britain secretly tested a nuclear weapons delivery system at Woomera in South Australia as recently as 1978, a report said yesterday. The Guardian newspaper in London said research to be presented to a British conference showed the Penetration Aids Carrier system was tested at the Woomera rocket range between 1969 and 1978. Woomera, in the South Australian desert, was used as a rocket-testing facility until it was turned into a detention centre two years ago. Rocket enthusiast John Pitfield said public record office documents showed PAC was used to dispense missiles and manoeuvre a Falstaff rocket, part of Britain's defunct Polaris nuclear missile program. But the paper said no nuclear warheads were launched at Woomera while the system was being tested. British Rocketry Oral History Program conference co-organiser Dave Wright said it was inconceivable that the Australian Government did not know Falstaff was being tested. The Defence Department and Defence Minister Robert Hill were not available for comment. The report comes as veterans involved in Britain's nuclear testing at Maralinga, also in South Australia, during the 1950s, await the results of a Scotland Yard investigation. About 17,000 Australian servicemen and civilians took part in nuclear tests in Australia between 1952 and 1958 at Maralinga and Emu Field in South Australia and the Monte Bello Islands off Western Australia. The last known testing of nuclear weapons on Australian soil was a United States project on Christmas Island in 1962-63. Scotland Yard is investigating claims from widow Shirley Denson that her husband Eric was ordered to fly his plane into a mushroom cloud in 1958 at Christmas Island after scientists detonated a nuclear weapon. He committed suicide in 1976. Mrs Denson claims military leaders exposed him to illegal levels of radiation. If her case gets to court, it could open the way for similar claims from thousands exposed to radiation fallout. ***************************************************************** 45 UK used Woomera for tests until 1978 news.com.au - [02apr02] BRITAIN secretly tested a nuclear weapons delivery system at Woomera in South Australia as recently as 1978, a British newspaper reported yesterday. The Guardian said research to be presented to a British conference today showed the penetration aids carrier system was tested at the Woomera rocket range between 1969 and 1978. Rocket enthusiast John Pitfield said public record office documents showed PAC was used to dispense missiles and manoeuvre a Falstaff rocket, part of Britain's defunct Polaris nuclear missile program. But the paper said no nuclear warheads were launched at Woomera while the system was being tested. British Rocketry Oral History Program conference co-organiser Dave Wright said it was inconceivable that senior figures in the Australian Government did not know Falstaff was being tested. The Defence Department and Defence Minister Robert Hill were not immediately available for comment. © News Limited ***************************************************************** 46 Bombing, Protests on Vieques Resume Las Vegas SUN April 01, 2002 VIEQUES, Puerto Rico- The pro-American demonstrator marched alone, his knees shaking as he waved the Stars and Stripes in front of activists who turned out to oppose a new round of U.S. Navy bombing exercises on this Puerto Rican island. He was beaten up by protesters hours after inert bombs began falling on the island's eastern tip Monday, beginning the latest exercises on a firing range whose use by the Navy has raised anger that exploded after off-target bombs killed a civilian guard in 1999. A protest movement that burgeoned last year has lost support since the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, but small bands of demonstrators protested Monday outside the Navy camp that encompasses the firing range. Navy military police arrested five women from the Puerto Rican Independence Party who entered Navy ground in the pre-dawn darkness, hours before planes began dropping inert bombs in the first exercises since October. As they were taken away, the intruders pumped their handcuffed fists into the air and shouted "Navy get out!" in Spanish. Like some of the nearly 1,000 protesters who have broken into Navy land to thwart the bombing exercises in the past two years, the women will be charged in federal court and serve jail sentences for trespassing, said Jorge Fernandez Porto, the Independence Party's environmental adviser. An anti-Navy vigil Saturday night attracted about 200 people on Vieques, and about 80 people took part in a car cavalcade Sunday. Independence Party members said they were protesting peacefully near the Navy camp on Sunday night when they were attacked with pepper gas and rubber bullets, including one that hit a woman in the buttocks. Navy spokesman Lt. Corey Barker said pepper gas was fired - but not bullets - after demonstrators threw rocks and set spikes in the road. Protesters said pepper gas was fired on protesters again Monday night. On Monday, pro-Navy demonstrator Jose Julio Diaz carried the American flag in front of a group of anti-Navy protesters. A female protest leader punched him in the face and others also beat him before police intervened and took him to a police station for his own protection. Police Col. Cesar Gracia said Diaz was bleeding from a punch to the head. Later, the Rev. Nelson Lopez Aponte, a Roman Catholic priest who opposes the bombing exercises, said Diaz had "committed a grave error by having the gall to come here." Opponents of the exercises say they harm the environment and health of Vieques' 9,100 residents. The Navy, which has used the firing range for decades but stopped using live ammunition after the guard's death, denies that claim. Activists occupied the range for a year after the accident, preventing exercises until they were forcibly removed by U.S. marshals. The campaign surged last year when activists including Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the Rev. Al Sharpton were jailed for entering Navy land, but support has waned since Sept. 11 amid accusations that it is anti-American. Puerto Rico Gov. Sila Calderon, who was elected largely because of a promise to force the Navy to leave immediately, now says she backs a deal, endorsed by President Bush, for the Navy to leave by May 2003. However, a U.S. law passed after Sept. 11 says the Navy can use Vieques until it finds an alternative. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 47 On Nukes, We Need to Talk (washingtonpost.com) By Rose Gottemoeller Tuesday, April 2, 2002; Page A15 Twenty years have passed since we had a good fight over nuclear weapons, so in a way, the furor that has greeted the U.S. Nuclear Posture Review ought to be welcomed. The last time we got into a debate over "usable" nuclear weapons was in the age of the neutron bomb -- the late 1970s and early '80s -- and it was a useful argument to have. Neutron bombs were touted as being especially efficient for the urban battlefields of Europe: They would leave buildings intact but kill the people inside, easing the way for tank movements through the streets -- no rubble to contend with. And their radiation effect was less than a standard nuclear weapon, handy for subsequent military operations, occupation and cleanup. But the notion of a perfect bomb for urban warfare went down badly in the cities of Europe, and neutron weapons were never deployed. The debate they prompted, however, forced Americans and Europeans alike, from politicians to citizens to military men, to confront the realities of nuclear war-fighting. It was an early step along the road to where we are today, when virtually no day-to-day capability for using nuclear weapons on the battlefield exists among the ground, naval and air forces of the NATO alliance. Instead, the United States and its allies have focused on deploying conventional weapons that are more mobile and more accurate -- and on using them to deadly effect. There are good reasons for that, some of which are in the high realm of deterrence policy. We were always concerned, for example, that crossing the nuclear threshold would put us straight onto an escalation ladder that would lead to ever-wider nuclear use. Other reasons emerged, too. The more military men contemplated what would be required to fight in a nuclear environment the less they liked what they saw. Nuclear use would slow operations, not speed them up, and the logistics would be nightmarish. Just having enough field showers to ensure that every NATO soldier could be decontaminated on a timely basis was an enormous task. Once the Soviet threat to Europe began to ease, therefore, so did attention to nuclear war-fighting. It just wasn't practical. Fast-forward to today. Usable nuclear weapons are reemerging -- but not for the urban battlefields of Europe. The new battlefield is the inchoate world of the terrorist. The Bush administration argues that we have to be prepared to go after terrorist weapons of mass destruction wherever they are hidden, destroying them without a shadow of a doubt. In the old language of the Cold War, we need surgical strikes to ensure that such weapons will not escape to be used against us in the future. Enter small, earth-penetrating nuclear weapons, which the Nuclear Posture Review has placed on a fast track for research. These weapons, according to their proponents, can be used to strike biological or chemical weapon production sites -- even those buried deep in caves -- and to incinerate every ounce of harmful agent. They will be low-yield and high-accuracy, the arguments go, so radiation contamination and collateral damage will be kept to a minimum. The question needs to be examined: Should the United States pursue a nuclear bomb as the weapon of choice on the counterterrorism battlefield, or should such a weapon be maintained only as a deterrent and weapon of last resort? The technical arguments should be debated and backed up by scientific analysis. The moral issues also need to be discussed. The neutron bomb idea came up against a vocal and well-focused opposition: the European city dwellers who might be affected. Do those currently pushing nuclear earth penetrators entertain at least the subconscious view that Osama bin Laden and his fellows will not be nearly so articulate and organized? For the moment, let us just consider whether a small, usable nuclear weapon will help or hinder our military operations. If we use a nuclear bomb to destroy a biological weapons facility deep in a cave, will we not want to know whether it has indeed been totally annihilated? Just as we have searched the caves after every battle in Afghanistan, will we not want to send our troops in to search for survivors and mop up? These troops will have to operate in a radioactive environment, and will be highly encumbered by radiation protection gear. So, just as in the European theater, nuclear weapons are likely to slow and complicate our military operations, not make them easier. Certainly it's a worthy goal to seek to eliminate any facilities terrorists might have for making or maintaining weapons of mass destruction. But do we really need nuclear weapons to accomplish that goal? The United States has made enormous strides in the development of highly accurate conventional weapons; we are the envy of the world in that regard. In recent years conventional weapons have become effective enough to go after even hardened ballistic missile silos. Surely they could be used against buried biological or chemical weapons facilities. By contrast, using a nuclear weapon -- even one that was "clean," low-yield and small -- would impose costs on our military operations. Beyond the technical uncertainties and moral questions, the practical problems of nuclear war-fighting have continued unabated. Surely we need not go down that road again. The writer, a senior associate of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, was an assistant secretary of energy in the Clinton administration. © 2002 The Washington Post Company ***************************************************************** 48 An Assessment of U.S. Policies and Actions Regarding Security-Related Treaties IEER: Rule of Power or Rule of Law? For immediate release For further information contact: Arjun Makhijani [ ieer@ieer.org] : (301) 270-5500 Bob Schaeffer: (941) 395-6773 M E D I A A D V I S O R Y Systematic United States Disregard of Treaty Obligations Jeopardizing Nuclear Nonproliferation and Global Security, New Report Concludes Five Countries, Including the United States, Appear to Violate Terms of Test Ban Treaty WHAT: News conference to release Rule of Power or Rule of Law? An Assessment of U.S. Policies and Actions Regarding Security-Related Treaties, a report evaluating U.S. actions and policies resulting in non-compliance with or undermining of more than half a dozen treaties that greatly affect global security. They include the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the Biological Weapons Convention, and the Kyoto Protocol. WHERE: Zenger Room, National Press Club, 13th Floor, 529 14th Street, NW, Washington, DC WHEN: April 4, 2002, at 10 a.m. WHO: Dr. Arjun Makhijani, president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER) and co-author of the study. Nicole Deller, J.D., principal editor and co-author of the study. She is a researcher and consultant for IEER and Lawyers' Committee on Nuclear Policy [http://www.lcnp.org] (LCNP). Dr. John Burroughs, executive director of LCNP, co-author of the study. WHY: U.S. policy is drifting away from regarding treaties as an essential element in global security to a more opportunistic stand of abiding by treaties only when convenient. The report concludes that this shift of U.S. policy toward greater reliance on military force, including nuclear weapons, as the main component for securing the people of the United States from a variety of threats sets a dangerous course. It would decrease security in many areas both for the people of the United States and the rest of the world. These areas include radioactive bombs, global climate change, nuclear weapons and materials smuggling, and biological warfare. The report alleges that the United States, France, Britain, Japan, and Germany appear to be violating the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. The allegation refers to direct or supporting activities relating to two huge laser fusion devices that are being built in the United States and France. Both countries intend to create laboratory thermonuclear explosions in these devices. The report also discusses evidence for confidential negotiations relating to this issue that may be known only to some of the parties to the CTBT. Contact numbers for other authors: John Burroughs and Nicole Deller: 212-818-1861 Advance embargoed copies of the report available upon request. -30- Institute for Energy and Environmental Research Comments to Outreach Coordinator: ieer@ieer.org [ieer@ieer.org] Takoma Park, Maryland, USA Posted April 1, 2002 ***************************************************************** 49 China firmly opposes nuclear proliferation, spokeswoman says BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Apr 2, 2002 Text of report in English by official Chinese news agency Xinhua (New China News Agency) Beijing, 2 April: China takes a firm stand on opposing nuclear proliferation, supporting the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in enhancing the existing safeguards regime and fulfilling its obligation in non-proliferation. Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue made the above statement in Beijing Tuesday [2 April] at a regular press conference. Zhang said China notified the IAEA officially on 28 March that it had completed the legal procedures necessary for the Protocol Additional to the Safeguards Agreements between the People's Republic of China and the IAEA to take effect in China. The protocol is already in effect in China. Zhang pointed out that China is the first among the five nuclear states to complete the necessary legal procedures which fully demonstrates China's firm opposition to nuclear proliferation. China believes that the legal procedures will be conducive to promoting universality and implementation of the protocol, and consolidating and strengthening the current international proliferation prevention regime. Zhang said China hopes that other countries will complete the necessary legal procedure at an early date. Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan wrote to his counterparts in the United States, Russia, Great Britain and France on 28 March about the issues concerned. Source: Xinhua news agency, Beijing, in English 1137 gmt 2 Apr 02 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. ***************************************************************** 50 N. Korea and the Axis Economist.com Boldly going Apr 2nd 2002 North Korea, which has been sulking after being designated part of President George Bush's "axis of evil", seems, tentatively, to be coming out of its shell again. After months of shunning high-level contacts with other countries, it last week received Megawati Sukarnoputri, Indonesia's president, and this week a senior South Korean envoy is due to visit AP His father's son SINCE Kim Jong Il, North Korea's dictator, is a recluse, Megawati Sukarnoputri, Indonesia's president is a taciturn type, and the official communiqués were uniformative, it is hard to know what the two leaders really talked about. They do have something in common. Miss Megawati, who arrived in Pyongyang for a 48-hour visit on March 28th, is the daughter of Indonesia's founding president, Sukarno. Kim Jong Il's dad, Kim Il Sung, founded North Korea and made it the place it is today: a closed-off, hungry prison camp. But it is thought Miss Megawati encouraged Mr Kim to reopen talks with South Korea, after a four-month gap. Her visit was timely. On April 3rd, a South Korean envoy, Lim Dong Won, is also due in Pyongyang. But nothing in dealings with North Korea is ever quite what it seems. A month ago, South Korea's president, Kim Dae Jung, was worrying aloud that tension on the peninsula had reached a "critical" point, just after the visiting American president, George Bush, had called on North Korea bluntly, from South Korean soil, to stop starving its people to feed its army. Now, Mr Lim is travelling as President Kim's special envoy, and one of the architects of his controversial "sunshine policy". The visit may even include a meeting with Kim Jong Il himself. The idea, said a statement from the president's office in Seoul, was to pursue contacts with North Korea "with patience and in a bold manner". America welcomed the news. South Korea President Bush's state-of-the-union address named North Korea as part of an "axis of evil". The South Korean government gave its reaction to the President's remarks and information on inter-Korea relations. America's State Department provides notes on relations with North Korea and South Korea. South Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs gives an overview of relations with America. Hagiographic drivel about Kim Jong Il gushes from North Korea's official news agency, KCNA. Until this announcement, patience had seemed to be wearing thin all round. North Korea had resented the Bush administration's refusal to pick up immediately where the Clinton team had left off early last year, and negotiate a deal to buy off its missile sales. In recent months Mr Bush's officials have offered repeatedly to talk to North Korea anytime, anywhere, but want to put on the agenda not just missile issues (North Korea's self-imposed testing moratorium expires next year), but the North's nuclear activities and its conventional forces too. North Korea has so far turned this down flat, making it hard for South Korea's Mr Kim to press ahead with his agenda of family reunions and economic contacts. Mr Bush even asked China's president, Jiang Zemin, on his swing through Asia last month to pass the message to North Korea that America's offer of talks was a serious one. But North Korea had been further incensed in January when Mr Bush lumped it together with Iran and Iraq in his now infamous "axis of evil". And it was apoplectic earlier this month when America's leaked nuclear-posture review listed it among seven countries (ranging from Russia and China to Syria and Iraq) that posed the sort of threat that meant America would not rule out using its own nuclear weapons one day. Should America's "nuclear fanatics" impose war, North Korea fulminated, it "would mean their ruin in nuclear disaster"—the closest North Korea has come to suggesting in public that, as many suspect, it does have a few nuclear weapons of its own. That was the grim background to the Bush administration's announcement last week that it could no longer "certify" that North Korea was honouring a 1994 agreement, which froze its plutonium production in return for two less proliferation-prone, western-designed nuclear reactors, along with supplies of heavy fuel oil until they are built. That is not quite the same as accusing North Korea of actually breaking the agreement. In any case, waivers are to be issued, allowing oil worth $95m to go to North Korea this year, and America continues to provide food aid. For all that, the underlying message was clear: without timely progress on allowing international inspectors in to establish just how much plutonium North Korea produced in its now mothballed home-built reactors—a process that will take at least three to four years and must be completed before the nuclear components of the new reactors can be delivered—the 1994 agreement will be further delayed and could even unravel. AFP Still not in step So does President Kim's promise of new boldness in his contacts with North Korea mean breaking ranks with America, his closest ally? It is to be hoped not, since if both sides have learned anything in their dealings with North Korea, it is that neither can squeeze better behaviour out of Kim Jong Il without the help of the other. For some time now South Korea and America have been discussing military confidence-building measures that could help reduce tension at the inter-Korean border as a reassuring prelude to a broader security dialogue with the North. Next month America, South Korea and Japan will meet to co-ordinate their policies for the months ahead. An offer of improved diplomatic and economic ties in return for progress in the issues that concern all of them would be a bold stroke. Might Mr Lim be carrying such a proposal? And if so, will North Korea take it up? Copyright © The Economist Newspaper Limited 2002. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 51 Lab's tritium leaks no threat, says report Tri-Valley Herald Tuesday, April 02, 2002 - 3:08:43 AM MST Report pending on largest accidental releases at lab By Glenn Roberts Jr. STAFF WRITER Tuesday, April 02, 2002 - -->LIVERMORE -- Past releases of tritium from Lawrence Livermore Laboratory do not pose a public health threat, a federal report states. A radioactive form of hydrogen, tritium is an essential ingredient in nuclear weapons. The report on "Tritium Releases and Potential Offsite Exposures," produced by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, was released for public review in July 2001 and was finalized in March. Mark Evans, an environmental geologist with the federal toxics agency, said there were no significant changes to the report between the draft and final version. "We really did not get any comments on that document at all," he said. The report also detailed tritium releases from the Savannah River Site, an Energy Department facility in South Carolina. A separate report is pending on the two largest accidental tritium releases from the lab, which occurred in 1965 and 1970 and represent an estimated 80 percent of all tritium releases in the lab's 50-year history. Marylia Kelley, executive director for Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment, a Livermore nuclear-watchdog group, said her group has focused mostly on the pending report on the two major tritium releases. The pending report is intended as a revision of an earlier federal toxics agency assessment of radiation exposure from the most major accidental releases. In that assessment, agency experts concluded that the releases posed "no apparent health hazard." "We received a number of comments on that (assessment) and have completely revised the way we look at those exposures," Evans said. The original report was about 13 pages long, including about seven pages of charts and tables. The revised document is largely complete, Evans added, though the federal toxics agency is awaiting "some verifying information" before it is released for public comment. That process could take "several weeks," he said. Agency officials are planning to subject the revised assessment to an independent peer review by a panel three experts, Evans said, to "provide a technical review of the document." Kelley said that community groups had earlier requested that the agency provide grant money to hire an independent expert to analyze the tritium assessment, but that request was denied. "The whole process of consultation with the site team has fallen apart," she said. "I'm concerned because the community is not being well-served by this process." Kelley had been a member of a federal toxics agency site team that met several times to provide guidance to the agency, and the site team hasn't met since November. ©1999-2001 by MediaNews Group, Inc. and ANG Newspapers ***************************************************************** 52 Test run is successful for producer of isotopes DOE's hand-me-down equipment in use again By Larisa Brass, News-Sentinel business writer April 2, 2002 In spite of delays, the cancer treatment company Theragenics has successfully completed a test at its new Oak Ridge plant, and officials hope to be producing isotopes for commercial use by summer. The Buford, Ga.-based company manufactures a product called TheraSeed for treatment of prostate cancer using a radioactive isotope called Palladium 103. Two years ago Theragenics announced it would build a production plant at the Horizon Center industrial park in Oak Ridge. As part of the Department of Energy's "reindustrialization" effort, Theragenics bought retired equipment from DOE to expand its radioactive isotope production capabilities and forged a partnership with Oak Ridge National Laboratory to carry out part of the isotopes enrichment process at the lab's High Flux Isotope Reactor. Theragenics officials said the $30 million plant would begin production last fall, but reviving the old equipment proved more time consuming than expected, said Frank Tarallo, manager of Theragenics Oak Ridge facility. "While the main components are in very good shape," he said, "we had to replace a lot of cabling and the wiring. It's not always easy to find parts for technology that's that old." But he said tests of the equipment have been successful, and he expects to begin production sometime this summer. This is the first time the equipment has been in operation since 1987. Using what's known as a plasma separation process, the machine once developed materials for Department of Energy nuclear power generation efforts in California and was stored in Oak Ridge after its retirement. It is the only machine of its kind in the world doing commercial work, said Tarallo. The company now uses 14 cyclotrons in its Buford plant to produce the radioactive isotopes it needs to make TheraSeed. The DOE equipment, along with the lab's high flux isotope reactor, will double the company's production of Palladium, Tarallo said. It will also allow Theragenics to enter new areas of medical treatment, such as breast cancer, and sell isotopes for other uses, such as nuclear power production and instrument sterilization, he said. Testing of equipment will continue as the company determines which lines of business to pursue first, he said. Right now Theragenics has less than 10 employees working at the Oak Ridge site with 10 to 20 contract employees from Oak Ridge National Laboratory helping set up the equipment. As the company heads toward production Tarallo said he will hire a few more full-time employees, but most new hires will come as business increases over the next several years. The company has said it will hire 150 employees over the next five years. Theragenics is a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange. The stock closed Monday at $10.46 per share, up 56 cents. Larisa Brass can be reached at 342-6318 or brass@knews.com. Copyright 2002 The Knoxville News-Sentinel Co. ***************************************************************** 53 Paul Parson: Y-12 event had a few funny moments Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 10:51 a.m. on Tuesday, April 2, 2002 Sandwiched in between the "thank you" speeches and the other routine ceremonial activities, there were a few entertaining moments during last week's much-publicized celebration for the modernization of the Y-12 National Security Complex. Before visitors could enter Y-12 last Wednesday for the event, they had to go through a checkpoint. That meant vehicles not driven by plant employees or DOE-related officials had to pull over to the side of the road while a security guard ran a "bomb sniffing" dog around them. Immediately upon jumping into the back of a delivery truck that was in front of me, one of the dogs went sliding around because the bed was too slippery. There's nothing like a canine mishap to lighten up a serious situation. While waiting around in the Y-12 Visitors Center for a press conference to begin, I couldn't help but eavesdrop on a conversation between two of the event's attendees. One of them was trying to figure out if guy in the suit who had just walked by was the person who was "running the show." "Is that Fred?" one of them asked -- referring to Fred Strohl with Oak Ridge National Laboratory's communications office. No, the person they were actually pointing at was Steven Wyatt, director of public affairs for the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge Operations office. (I realize this was probably funny only to me.) Before the key officials began answering questions from the media, they each took a little time for "thank yous" and to boast about the benefits of modernization. Of course, that's the typical script for events like this. Thankfully, John Mitchell, president of BWXT Y-12, lightened up the atmosphere when he got a little tongue-tied while remarking on the future of the weapons plant his company manages: "Y-12 will have a long and constructive history for the future. History. Sorry. Future is the right word. Long and constructive history for the Š That's just twice. Three times I've done that. A long and constructive future." Mitchell's problem was apparently contagious because U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, R-3rd District, fell victim to it about 15 or 20 minutes later while addressing several local officials in another part of the celebration. The congressman had a little trouble spitting out "HEUMF," which is the acrynoym for Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility -- the first of the new buildings to be erected in the modernization effort. "EUM," Wamp says, stuttering briefly on the "M." "EUH (A brief laugh by Wamp.) FMF facility forward." (The crowd laughs.) "Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility forward. Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility." (Wamp gets small round of applause and laughs from the crowd.) Finally we get to the big "non-dramatic" finish to the event in which a crane lifted a shack off a guard tower that stood 30 feet tall. I guess this was supposed to be symbolic because the tower, which was built in 1984, had to be removed from a 500-car parking lot to make way for the uranium storage facility. The humor here lies in the comments some audience members made as the shack was removed. Those included: "I wish they would drop it" and "They should have somebody in there waving to the crowd." Paul Parson is the science and technology reporter for The Oak Ridger. He can be contacted at (865) 220-5533 or pparson@oakridger.com [pparson@oakridger.com] All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 54 ORIC's author, other ORNL innovators and others also remembered opEd 1 Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 10:59 a.m. on Tuesday, April 2, 2002 The March 18 celebration of the 40th anniversary of the operation of the Oak Ridge Isochronous Cyclotron provided a most appropriate occasion to honor the memory of Robert Livingston, ORIC's director for its first 21 years. ORIC was built after a decade of ORNL involvement with cyclotrons primarily because of the innovation and initiation of Livingston. He came to Oak Ridge in 1943 to be one of the principal physicists in the development of the electromagnetic process for separation of uranium at Y-12 -- the process which produced the U-235 that fueled the first atomic bomb. Key to the Y-12 process were devices known as calutrons with their incredibly powerful magnets and named for the University of California at Berkeley where they were conceived by E.O. Lawrence, Livingston's mentor prior to his coming to Oak Ridge. At the end of World War II, using calutrons from the now "antiquated" Y-12 process, Livingston built an accelerator. This led to a succession of increasingly more powerful accelerators culminating in the ORIC and Livingston's becoming known as a world leader in the development of what are known as sector-focus cyclotrons. At the March 18 ceremonies, Alvin M. Weinberg, former ORNL director, recalled a comment by Lawrence. Many scientists achieve a certain acceptable level of knowledge and competence, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist had said, but what sets a few apart and above is simply character. Bob Livingston, widely respected for his science, but also for his concern for the personal well-being of his staff, had character indeed. * Yet another major player in ORNL's reactor development -- virtually every reactor built and operated there -- was Robert E. MacPherson Jr. Also one of the original Oak Ridge scientific staff, he first contributed to uranium separation research and production and then, at the conclusion of World War II, made the transition to the pursuance of nuclear energy for power production. His efforts were primarily for what were, at the time, the more exotic and experimental reactor modes -- molten salt, the SNAP applications for power sources for scores of space missions, high temperature gas-cooled and liquid metal fast breeder reactors. Also, some of the earliest research and experiments with the so-called pebble bed reactor which is now being hailed as the reactor concept of the future, one that may lead to a true renaissance for nuclear power because of its efficiency and safety. Bob and his late wife Claudia were Oak Ridge housing pioneers, early residents of Peach Orchard, one of Oak Ridge's very first subdivisions of privately built homes. A handsome couple, both took pride in Claudia's having been, back in those years when it was all so appropriate, the very first "Miss ORNL." * One of the warmest, most genuinely empathetic Oak Ridgers was Sarah G. DiCarlo. Utterly unassuming, she was helpful to so many. A native East Tennessean -- Cocke County, Cosby and Newport -- she and her husband, Frank, were among the earliest employees of the Manhattan Project here and most faithful and contributing charter parishioners of St. Mary's Catholic Church. The spaghetti which Frank cooked and served at all of the earliest St. Mary's fall festivals was Oak Ridge's best "pre-Big Ed's" Italian food buy. We at The Oak Ridger felt close to her also. She was the mother of the late Fran Dicarlo Shoup, who pioneered the Teen Talk Column in the early years of The Oak Ridger. * My friendship with Jim Redmond predates Oak Ridge. We were both members of the "original" Class of 1944 at Pennsylvania State College -- "original" because our class lost much of its identity as the U.S. entered World War II in the middle of our sophomore year and class members were drafted or speeded up their studies. Jim was an engineering student while I was in the school of liberal arts. In those years, however, and perhaps even now, there were several required courses for all freshmen, one of which was zoology. There were a hundred or more of us in a huge lecture hall and alphabetized seating placed me close to Jim. We would chat before and after (and sometimes during) class, neither of us knowing then that a secret city in Tennessee then not yet born would shape much of our lives. In 1944, the very year we were both originally to graduate (I'd been called to Army duty the year before), Jim was recruited as a development engineer at Y-12. He would then, in 1969, become an Oak Ridge private industry pioneer founding his own instrument manufacturing and sales firm, Redmond Enterprises Inc. Through all of his more than half-century as an Oak Ridger, he contributed generously to the community chiefly through his active roles with the Lions Club and the First United Methodist Church. We would meet occasionally, attend a Penn State (since 1955 a university) alumni function together and remember Zoology 101. * When Kenneth L. Vander Sluis first came to Oak Ridge 50 years ago, lasers were only just beginning to come upon the science and technology scene. Almost immediately, however, lasers became his primary interest and he had much to do with introducing laser technology at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, especially as it was applicable to the ORNL fusion experiments then just beginning but continuing to this day. He was prominent in the community, especially with the Atomic City Aquatic Club, one of Oak Ridge's most enduring youth activities. His ACAC involvement led to his becoming an accredited official for sanctioned swim meets and, deservedly a decade ago, his induction into the Tennessee Swimming Hall of Fame. He served regularly as an official for Oak Ridge High School swim meets, highly respected and highly popular with the young swimmers especially, something, given the tensions of competition, not readily possible for a sports official of any sort. -- RDS Richard D. Smyser is founding editor of The Oak Ridger. He can be reached by e-mail at [rdsandmps@aol.com] . All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: *****************************************************************