***************************************************************** 03/04/02 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 10.55 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POLICY 1 Belgian experts see risks without nukes - report 2 Belgian cabinet approves nuclear phase-out bill 3 Russia and Iran fall out over nuclear power station 4 Russian official denies abandoning Iran's nuclear project 5 US: Feds Pursue Radiation Detection 6 US: UPDATE - Bush defends corporate contacts over energy policy NUCLEAR REACTORS 7 Kazakhstan's only atomic power plant still facing bankruptcy 8 German state govt gets tough over Brunsbuettel nuke 9 Reactor at South-Ukrainian nuclear plant halted for scheduled 10 US: When nuclear power came to Buchanan NUCLEAR SAFETY 11 US: Radioactive material found near McClellan treated with caution 12 Depleted Uranium weapons in 2001-2002 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 13 UK: Ministers delay Bill to aid nuclear clean-up 14 Ireland: Fears for safety from radioactive waste at steel plant 15 UK nuclear clean-up to cost 50 bln stg - minister 16 US: Energy Dept. Is Challenged Over Waste Disposal Methods 17 US: Shattuck cleanup behind schedule 18 US: DOE on mission to cut costs, clean up low-level nuclear waste 19 US: Editorial: Foretell the future by learning history 20 US: Yucca fight to target nation's counties 21 US: Getting Waste to Yucca Mountain Will Put Everyone at Risk 22 Feds want to bury Johnston Island's radioactive matter 23 US: Talks continue on fate of dangerous waste 24 US: Webster Groves Residents Protest Nuclear Waste NUCLEAR WEAPONS 25 Decommissioned Subs Pose Risk of an Accident: Report 26 Blair to publish Iraq dossier 27 Hold fire on Iraq 28 Amnesty launches appeal for jailed Russian reporter 29 Blair gives strongest hint yet on taking war to Iraq 30 AU: Greens warn of nuclear terror 31 US: Portable Nuke Was Headed to N.Y.C., Said Informant 32 US: Terrorism worries nuclear plant's neighbors 33 US: Q &A: Ridge answers readers' questions on national security 34 Not-so-subtle reminders of terrorist threats to come 35 US: Nuclear weapon plot deemed not credible 36 Iraq: A Depleted Generation 37 Blair to publish Iraq dossier 38 Tip on Nuclear Attack Risk Was Kept From New Yorkers 39 Marshall Islanders get "token down payment" on nuclear claim 40 Ambassador: Pakistani nuclear secrets are safe US DEPT. OF ENERGY 41 DOE manager shuffle no boon to vit project 42 Sue for Hanford cleanup money 43 SNS tax exemption could face scrutiny in state tax proposal OTHER NUCLEAR 44 Blowing in the Wind ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 Belgian experts see risks without nukes - report BELGIUM: March 4, 2002 BRUSSELS - An expert opinion sought by Belgium's prime minister on a bill to phase out nuclear power foresees greater dependence on natural gas as well as higher energy costs as a consequence, according to a local newspaper. The opinion comes as Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt and his cabinet are to decide later in the day whether to send to parliament a bill that would phase out the country's seven nuclear reactors by 2025. The opinion by a group of experts studying the country's future energy needs foresaw the country relying on natural gas for 85 percent of its electricity needs, La Libre Belgique reported last week. Such a heavy reliance on a single source would make the country vulnerable to fluctuating gas prices as well as the sometimes unstable politics of some producer countries, according to the opinion. The experts also saw renewable energy sources such as biomass and wind mills as a poor alternative to nuclear power because they would only be able to match a maximum of up to 10 percent of the country's actual production capacity by 2020. Whatever the alternative, Belgium would end up paying more for its electricity, according to the opinion. Nuclear power was cheaper than other forms of power generation, including cogeneration or combined heat and power generation, it said. The bill, which has divided cabinet members, would see Belgium follow Germany and Sweden in adopting such a controversial measure. If approved, it would go to parliament for debate before becoming law. The bill is the result of a pledge made by Verhofstadt when he took office three years ago. Belgium gets nearly 60 percent of its power from the reactors. It gets the most of the rest from coal and natural gas. REUTERS NEWS SERVICE ***************************************************************** 2 UPDATE - Belgian cabinet approves nuclear phase-out bill BELGIUM: March 4, 2002 BRUSSELS - Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt said that his cabinet would ask parliament to pass a controversial bill to shut down the nation's nuclear reactors by 2025, emulating similar moves by Sweden and Germany. "We are going to proceed with the closure of nuclear plants between 2015 and 2025," he told a news conference after the weekly cabinet meeting. "It is a balanced and realistic decision." If put into law, the bill would shut down the nation's seven plants and prohibit the construction of new ones. The bill, proposed by Secretary of State for Energy Olivier Deleuze, is the result of a pledge made by Verhofstadt when he took office three years ago. Belgium gets nearly 60 percent of its electricity from nuclear reactors, making it the country most dependent on nuclear power after France. It uses natural gas and coal to meet the rest of its needs. SEARCH FOR ALTERNATIVES Verhofstadt said his government was looking at alternative energy sources to compensate for the expected loss. Energy conservation would also be encouraged, he said. Should the country's energy supply be threatened meantime, the government would still be able to bypass the law, he added. The bill would phase out the reactors after 40 years of use. Belgium's first three reactors went into operation between 1974 and 1975 and the other four a decade later. Divisions within the cabinet, which includes members of the Ecolo and Agalev environmentalist parties, forced it to meet several times earlier in the month to discuss the bill. The bill had raised concerns that energy prices would rise if nuclear power was phased out. The daily La Libre Belgique last week cited an expert opinion sought by Verhofstadt that foresaw the country relying on natural gas for 85 percent of its energy needs. Such a heavy reliance on a single source was seen as making the country vulnerable to fluctuating gas prices. But Verhofstadt said he did not think that the decision would lead to a rise in energy prices. "The only good solution is...to liberalise the sector," he said. Belgium's dilemma is the same as that faced elsewhere in Europe, where nuclear energy meets about a third of its needs. European Energy Commissioner Loyola de Palacio has acknowledged the reluctance among some countries to phase out their reactors before finding a suitable alternative. For example, Sweden has delayed the closure of a reactor because it had not figured out how to make up for the loss in power generation. In 2000, Germany got the industry to agree to gradually phase out the country's 19 operational reactors over the next 25 years. (Additional reporting by Gilles Castonguay). Story by Jennifer Laidlaw REUTERS NEWS SERVICE ***************************************************************** 3 Russia and Iran fall out over nuclear power station BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Mar 4, 2002 Text of report by Russian Ekho Moskvy radio on 3 March Serious differences have arisen between Russia and Iran regarding the financing of the construction of the atomic reactor at Bushehr [Iranian nuclear power station]. The [Russian] Mignews internet agency quotes Russian diplomatic sources as saying that Iran is not meeting it commitments regarding payment for work completed. At the present time, Tehran's debt with regard to this project has already meant that many Russian engineers have left Iranian territory. Source: Ekho Moskvy radio, Moscow, in Russian 0830 gmt 3 Mar 02 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. ***************************************************************** 4 Russian official denies abandoning Iran's nuclear project BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Mar 4, 2002 Text of report in English by Russian news agency Interfax Moscow, 4 March: Russia does not have differences with Iran in financing the construction of a nuclear power plant in Bushehr [NPP], Russian Deputy Minister of Atomic Energy Yevgeniy Reshetnikov has told Interfax. "Russia does not have any problems with the financing of works at the Bushehr NPP. Iran has allocated funds for the construction of the power plant on time," he said referring to press reports that claimed the opposite. The deputy minister denied that Russian engineers were leaving Iran. "There is no such problem," he said. The construction of the Bushehr nuclear power plant is continuing. "The work will be done on time," Reshetnikov said. Russian specialists are planning to launch the first unit of the Bushehr plant by the end of 2003. The specialists are acting under a Russian-Iranian contract on the construction of one unit of the NPP. The contract's cost exceeds 800m dollars. Russia and Iran have agreed that Russia will supply fuel for the Bushehr NPP. The Russian Atomic Energy Ministry will train Iranian atomic energy specialists in Russia. The Atomic Energy Ministry has supplied a feasibility study of a new VVER-1000 unit to Iran. Iran will choose the construction site by itself. Source: Interfax news agency, Moscow, in English 1100 gmt 4 Mar 02 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. ***************************************************************** 5 Feds Pursue Radiation Detection Las Vegas SUN March 03, 2002 WASHINGTON (AP) - The Energy Department is developing a new generation of devices to detect nuclear radiation, a capability that the Bush administration views as vital in the battle against terrorism. Administration officials said Sunday the emphasis on radiation detection has grown in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks and in response to fears that the al-Qaida terrorist network may succeed in its ambition to obtain either a nuclear device or materials to spread radiation in an urban area. Several administration officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said, however, that they knew of no recent indications that al-Qaida had made any new progress toward obtaining such materials. The Washington Post reported in its Sunday editions that the administration is alarmed by growing hints of al-Qaida's progress in this area and that in response the government has deployed hundreds of sophisticated sensors since November to U.S. borders, overseas facilities and sites around Washington. Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, said radiation sensors were used at the Salt Lake Olympic Games and the Super Bowl in New Orleans. "We clearly are in heightened alert, and we should be," Craig said on CNN's "Late Edition." "At the same time, the American people have to get on with their lives. But I want to make sure that they are as safe as we can possibly make them." Research and development of better radiation sensors is being done by the Energy Department's national laboratories, officials said. The Post report said newer devices for detecting radiation are placed around some fixed points in Washington. It said the devices are called gamma ray and neutron flux detectors that until now had been carried only by members of Nuclear Emergency Search Teams, which are on standby at various locations. The Post also reported that Delta Force, the elite military unit with anti-terror responsibilities, has been placed on a new standby alert to seize control of any nuclear materials that are detected by the new sensors. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said Sunday he was unfamiliar with the deployment of newer radiation sensors. He said it is well known that the U.S. government has been concerned for years about nuclear materials falling into the wrong hands - whether it be terrorists or governments hostile to the United States. "I don't know if the administration has new information or not, but it seems perfectly logical that that would be one of the avenues that a dedicated group of terrorists would pursue," McCain said on CBS' "Face the Nation." "But whether they have that capability or not, I just don't know." McCain noted that searches of al-Qaida hideouts in Afghanistan by U.S. forces have turned up plenty of evidence that the terrorist network is interested in obtaining a weapon of mass destruction. "But I'm not sure that it's a reason for panic," he told CNN. "I have seen no hard evidence that any terrorist organization has acquired these weapons, although Saddam Hussein, as we know, has been making significant progress in that direction." All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 6 UPDATE - Bush defends corporate contacts over energy policy USA: March 4, 2002 DES MOINES - Without mentioning Enron Corp., President George W. Bush defended contacts between a White House task force and energy industry executives, saying they were justified in developing the administration's energy policies. And, while he urged the Energy Department to release its documents related to the energy panel's work, Bush said he would stand his ground in an unprecedented court battle to keep internal White House records of those meetings from congressional investigators. The White House has already acknowledged that representatives from Enron, Bush's biggest financial backer in the 2000 campaign, were among the industry experts that the White House energy task force consulted, but has denied that the now-bankrupt energy trader received any special favors. "We listened to energy companies, which seems to make sense," Bush told reporters traveling with him in Iowa. "If you're developing an energy plan, one place to start is to listen to people who know something about the business." Bush said the energy task force, headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, also "listened to environmental groups...concerned about how to create more conservation." Environmentalists say they were largely shut out of the task force's proceedings and, like Congress' General Accounting Office (GAO), have taken the administration to court to obtain the task force's records. Critics say the task force, after months of closed-door deliberations, produced an energy policy tilted heavily in favor of Enron and other companies. The plan calls for more oil and gas drilling as well as a revival of nuclear power. Bush defended his decision to withhold the documents from the GAO, saying that divulging the task force records would harm the executive branch's ability to get candid outside advice. "In order for people to give me sound advice, that information ought not to be public," Bush said. "And therefore, when the GAO overstepped its bounds to try to get advice given to the vice president and me, we resisted." BUSH "NOT CONCERNED" But Bush's efforts to keep the records secret were dealt a setback this week when a judge ordered the administration to release documents from the Department of Energy relating to the energy panel's work. The Department of Energy says it will comply with the order issued Feb. 21 by a U.S. District Court judge. She told the department to release thousands of pages of documents to the Natural Resources Defense Council that had sought them under the Freedom of Information Act. But those documents are likely to constitute only part of the interagency task force documents the GAO and others are seeking. White House officials played down the Natural Resources Defense Council ruling, drawing a distinction between the GAO's case and those based on the Freedom of Information Act. "I'm not concerned," Bush told reporters. "As a matter of fact, I hope the Energy Department gets the documents out there as quickly as they possibly can." During his trip to Iowa, a state that will be crucial to his re-election hopes in 2004, Bush promoted pension protection proposals to combat the fallout from the Enron bankruptcy in which thousands of employees lost their retirement savings, as well as his plan to partially privatize Social Security. Bush reiterated his appeal to Congress to pass a law that would allow workers to sell company stock in their 401(k) accounts and diversify into other investment options after three years; give workers 30 days' notice before any blackout in which they would be unable to change or access their retirement accounts, and bar officers from selling their company stock when workers cannot. "The whole point is this: We ought to do everything we can in Washington to make sure people own a piece of the future," he said. Story by Adam Entous REUTERS NEWS SERVICE ***************************************************************** 7 Kazakhstan's only atomic power plant still facing bankruptcy BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Mar 4, 2002 Text of report by Kazakh Khabar TV on 2 March [Presenter] Our [western Kazakh] Mangistau Region correspondent has reported that the rehabilitation procedures at the Mangyshlak Atomic Power Combine were prolonged by a further six months. The rehabilitation programme was adopted in February 1999. It was expected that the region's only power-supplying enterprises would find a way out of the crisis condition over these two years. However, the combine still has no possibility of paying off its debts and the enterprise is still facing bankruptcy. [Correspondent, over archive video of industrial facilities, workers, a meeting, an interview] The combine's bankruptcy was postponed by a further six months. But, it is most likely that the rehabilitation will be prolonged. The Mangyshlak Atomic Power Combine includes a BN-350 nuclear reactor [on fast neutrons] and although it stopped and its spent fuel was packaged, the reactor is still a radiologically-dangerous facility. [Kolganat Nurzhaubay, public relations aide to the rehabilitation manager of Mangyshlak Atomic Power Combine republican state enterprise, captioned, interviewed in office] There is the president's [Nursultan Nazarbayev] decree which says that an enterprise dealing with processing and storing radioactive substances cannot be privatized. The BN-350 reactor still belongs to the combine, that is why, I think, talks about declaring the combine bankrupt are premature. [Correspondent] The reactor is expected to be put out of operation in full by December 2003 and only then it can be excluded from the combine. If the enterprise does not come out of the crisis by this date, then it will be declared bankrupt and privatized. Although the combine's present management thinks that this is an extreme measure. It has already asked the anti-monopoly committee to raise tariffs to increase the enterprise's profitability. However, power, water and heating tariffs will not be raised for the region's population. [Kolganat Nurzhaubay] The population can be calm because the tariffs were increased only twice for enterprises before. The combine's management thinks that increasing tariffs for the population is inefficient because the population, which is already insolvent, will not be able to pay if we raise the tariffs. [Correspondent] That is why the combine counts on Mangistau Region's reviving industry. Revenues raised from the sales of power to oil and chemical giants will help the enterprise stand on its own feet and bankruptcy will possibly be avoided. Source: Khabar Television, Almaty, in Russian 1500 gmt 2 Mar 02 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. ***************************************************************** 8 German state govt gets tough over Brunsbuettel nuke GERMANY: March 1, 2002 FRANKFURT - A German local government said yesterday it had formally asked operators of the Brunsbuettel nuclear plant in northern Germany to explain a recent fault which turned out to be more serious than initially thought. The plant was switched off on February 18 on the orders of the Schleswig-Holstein state government for the study and repair of tearing to the tube system, where a fault had been discovered on December 14. "On February 22, we sent the operators a six-point catalogue of questions regarding the fault and the intended repair and safety measures," Wilfried Voigt, Schleswig-Holstein state secretary for energy told Reuters, adding that the operating company, Kernkraft Brunsbuettel GmbH, had yet to respond. Kernkraft Brunsbuettel said in a statement late this week said it had fully complied with notification requirements since December 14. When the plant was switched off and more closely inspected from February 18, the extent of the damage had revealed itself greater than initially assumed, it said. "It is self-evident that we learn from this incident and take appropriate measures to avoid such faults in the future," the statement said. But Voigt said the statement had failed to offer adequate reassurance. "It could take weeks or months for the incident to be clarified and for adequate safety measures to be put in place for the future," Voigt said. "The way it has been handled has raised concerns over safety management and state supervision of nuclear plants in general." This week, the Green Party-led federal environment ministry in Berlin said on its website that a study of the fault showed that three metres of tubing had been destroyed within the installations needed to speed the cooling-down time of the reactor. It said there were suspicions that on December 14 there might have been a hydrogen explosion near highly sensitive equipment of the boiling water reactor. "This raises questions about the reliability of the operators, who despite receiving this information, assumed and passed on to the authorities only the most harmless explanations for the incident," the ministry said. Nuclear safety is politically sensitive in Germany, where nuclear energy is set to be phased out over the next two decades but anti-nuclear lobbies aim for an earlier withdrawal. The 806 megawatt (MW) plant, belonging two thirds to utility HEW and one third to E.ON , had been due for a routine maintenance shut-down in May. Power prices in Germany have not been affected by the closure as it comes at a time of few scheduled routine outages due to the winter period. Story by Vera Eckert REUTERS NEWS SERVICE ***************************************************************** 9 Reactor at South-Ukrainian nuclear plant halted for scheduled repairs BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Mar 4, 2002 Text of report by Ukrainian news agency UNIAN Kiev, 4 March: Power-generating set No 1 (VVER-1000) at the South-Ukrainian nuclear power station was disconnected from the power grid at 0058 on 2 March [2258 gmt on 1 March]. A relevant request for routine repairs had been filed earlier, UNIAN learnt at the public relations department of the Enerhoatom state nuclear company. The repairs are scheduled to continue until 15 March this year. Ukrainian nuclear power stations produced 244.91m kWh of electricity over the past 24 hours. Twelve out of 13 power-generating sets are currently in operation at the nuclear power stations. Radiation levels at all the nuclear power stations are normal. Source: UNIAN news agency, Kiev, in Ukrainian 0826 gmt 4 Mar 02 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. ***************************************************************** 10 When nuclear power came to Buchanan By ROGER WITHERSPOON THE JOURNAL NEWS (Original publication: March 03, 2002) When Indian Point 1 split its first uranium atoms in 1962, the nuclear power plant in Buchan-an marked the start of a pioneering national effort to bring the potential benefits of the nuclear age to the country's most populous, energy-needy region. As the first nuclear power plant to be licensed by the federal government, Indian Point 1 was supposed to inaugurate a battery of up to 12 plants operated by Consolidated Edison in Buchanan, Verplanck, Montrose and Davids Island in New Rochelle. They were to bring cheap, environmentally friendly electricity to Westchester County and New York City. At the time, the plants were welcomed by commercial and environmental groups as a source of clean, dependable energy. Four decades later — with the Cold War over, but a new war just begun — Indian Point critics and proponents alike are asking the same question: Why was a potential threat to millions of lives built 24 miles outside New York City, in what has become one of the metropolitan area's most populated suburbs? "At the time Indian Point was built, it had a lot less opposition than it would have in today's environment," Westchester County Executive Andrew Spano said. "It was looked at as a clean energy source, and the area was not as settled. I used to stop on Route 6 to wait for the cows to cross the road. You could build on wetlands then that today you couldn't get near," Spano said. "There was a whole different world then." In the 1950s, fears growing out of the Korean War and the nation's battle against communism led many to believe President Eisenhower's assertion that America would be at a strategic and economic disadvantage if it did not learn to harness the power of the atom both in civilian and military realms. It also was an era of growing confidence in the wonders of science. "World War II was just over, and people were positive, upbeat and believed in technology," said Marilyn Elie of the Citizens Awareness Network, a longtime Indian Point opponent. "I don't think that naivetE exists anymore." Though plant critics have long challenged the safety of Indian Point, the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center has raised a more intense and focused opposition to the two working reactors on the site, Indian Point 2 and 3, which opened in 1974 and 1976. A growing number of residents and elected officials, from town boards to Congress, are calling for Indian Point to close, claiming that it is too dangerous to have it in the midst of more than 20 million people. Defenders of the nuclear operations agree that the plant should not have been built here, but say the emphasis should be on protecting it and operating it safely. Property once a park There was nothing in Indian Point's early history that pointed toward its industrial future. "Before Indian Point became a power plant, it was heaven," said George Begany, a Buchanan native who served as village mayor from 1974-86. "I spent a good deal of my teen-age years at Indian Point." As early as 1863, day cruise lines along the Hudson River started bringing weekend visitors from Manhattan to bucolic sites along the river, including Indian Point. By 1950, the site featured a huge swimming pool, beaches, amusement rides, a dance hall, strolling trails, ball fields and scenic views. Boats carrying up to 6,000 day-trippers stopped at the two piers, and up to 1,000 motorists used its hilltop parking lots, said Buchanan historian Francis Stein. Around the same time, Con Edison needed to grow. Demand for electricity had jumped 350 percent in the 20 years before 1953, and the utility believed that growth rate would continue at least until 1970. What the company did not foresee was the eventual slowing of electricity usage. Peak usage in Westchester and New York City was about 3,100 megawatts in 1950, and it did not reach the 9,900 megawatts projected by Con Edison until 1990, according to the state Public Service Commission. The industry based its forecasts 50 years ago on a study by General Electric and Westinghouse that projected businesses would spend more than $35 billion on new electrical equipment, and that sales of new electrical appliances — particularly color TVs — would jump by 50 percent. More than 1,800 homes in Con Edison's territory were slated to be rewired, part of a national trend toward the electric home. Con Edison also was completing a $530 million expansion of its gas-fired plants in Astoria, Queens, and there was growing concern about air pollution in New York City, making it difficult to build new conventional plants there. In 1952, Con Edison was one of 11 companies brought together by the Atomic Energy Commission to develop commercial nuclear plants. The commission had already developed a prototype, but it was found to be inefficient. By 1954, the company had given up plans to build a coal or gas plant near the 59th Street Bridge in Manhattan, Con Edison spokes-man Joe Petta said. That same year, the utility purchased hundreds of acres at Indian Point and the federal Atomic Energy Act gave permission for the commercial use of nuclear power. "Con Ed bought Indian Point thinking they would put a plant there, without knowing that it would be a nuclear plant," said Sam Walker, historian for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which succeeded the AEC. "The Atomic Energy Act passed in August, and that was the key to the birth of commercial nuclear power." The coming of the reactors at Indian Point also enabled Buchanan, the county's smallest village, with few amenities or services, to install a $4 million sewage system and streetlights, and to hire more police, thanks to financial deals made with Con Edison that the municipality still enjoys with the plant's new owner. Con Edison received Operating Permit No. 1 for a 265-megawatt nuclear power plant, and groundbreaking ceremonies were held Dec. 20, 1956. Indian Point 1 reached full power by Jan. 25, 1963. Two years later, Con Edison engineers were confident enough about nuclear energy to begin construction of Indian Point 2, a 1,000-megawatt power plant. Construction of the same-sized Indian Point 3 began in 1968. Queens considered for plant As Indian Point was preparing to start operating in 1962, Con Edison was considering building a 1,000-megawatt nuclear plant in the Ravenswood section of Queens. That plan was halted by public opposition — sparked by concerns about fallout and the long-term effects of low-level radiation raised by nuclear testing in the United States and Europe — and a decision by the AEC that it would not be safe to have such a large reactor in New York City. Walker said the agency was concerned about weak backup cooling systems for the large reactors considered for Ravenswood and the later plants at Indian Point, which would be four times larger than Indian Point 1. "The AEC said to Con Ed they had real reservations about building in Manhattan, and they came up with a policy on how close to a city you could build nuclear power plants," Walker said. "Basically, you couldn't build closer than Indian Point. "The first plants were all experimental," he said. "They tried to build in large margins of safety, but they did not know what the hazards were. The early plants did not have a lot of safety systems. It's not that they were ignored. They just didn't know enough to make it right." For example, Indian Point 1 lacked an effective means of cooling the reactor fuel in an emergency, and heat and stress continually cracked pipes and critical reactor parts. Con Edison and the rest of the power industry viewed these as engineering challenges rather than safety problems. In addition, the plant used Hudson River water in its cooling cycle and was discharging hot water back into the Hudson, killing hundreds of thousands of fish and igniting protests by anglers and environmental groups. Still, in 1970, Charles Luce, then Con Edison's chairman, announced that the company would build two more nuclear plants in Verplanck. Indian Point later created a holding area that cools the river water before discharging it. "All the utilities had troubled pasts," said Jim Steets, who has worked at Indian Point for a decade and is now a spokesman for Entergy, the plants' current owner. "In the nuclear business, it seemed that there was a tremendous conflict at that time between operating the plant safely and operating it efficiently," Steets said. "It took a long time before we at Indian Point learned that safety and efficiency were compatible — that if you don't have to worry about equipment failing, you can concentrate on running the plant." Indian Point 1 eventually became the focus of increasing federal concern about safety issues. The fission process was more powerful than originally thought. A yearlong study at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory found in 1967 that a meltdown would destroy the nuclear reactor and that the resulting steam explosion could destroy the containment building. The AEC began calling for more and more costly improvements at the pioneer plant, which spent half its lifetime shut for repairs. By 1972, Con Edison paid a $1.6 million state fine for the fish kills and was battling environmentalists and the state over the need to find another way to cool its system. The company dropped its plans to build in Verplanck and, by 1974, closed Indian Point 1. The Arab oil embargo of 1973-74, meanwhile, triggered a national awareness of energy conservation, which cut the region's energy growth nearly in half. By the end of 1974, Con Edison scrapped plans for the rest of its nuclear power plants and, facing a $300 million bill for safety improvements, sold Indian Point 3 to the Power Authority of the State of New York, now called the New York Power Authority. Plant criticism grows For the next five years, Indian Point 2 and 3 functioned sporadically, closing often for equipment failures, a trend that would continue over the decades but drew little attention at first. Attitudes swiftly changed in March 1979, with the near-meltdown at Three Mile Island near Harrisburg, Pa. Prior to that accident, utilities believed major accidents at the plants were impossible, and none had evacuation plans. The Three Mile Island accident heightened the nation's awareness of nuclear power and its dangers, and energized the burgeoning "No Nukes" movement. In August of that year, some 4,000 people gathered — and 214 were arrested — at Indian Point for a rally to demand its closing. At a hearing in White Plains that December, NRC officials said most people living within 10 miles of Indian Point could not escape radiation from a major accident. At the hearing, Robert Ryan, an NRC director, called Indian Point "one of the most inappropriate sites in existence" because of its location. "Whether it should continue to operate is an open question. It may be necessary at some future time to consider closing Indian Point," Ryan said. Luce, the former Con Edison chairman, ended 1979 by telling stockholders gathered at Madison Square Garden that, were the utility to build a nuclear power plant that year, he would not build as close to New York City. With Indian Point now looming in many people's minds as a potential terrorist target, critics are focusing on the plant's ability to withstand an attack by a hijacked jetliner — unthinkable to the public before Sept. 11 — and the efficiency with which evacuation plans would lead residents in Westchester, Putnam and Rockland counties to safety. Though Indian Point 3 experienced its share of difficulties in the 1990s, when it closed for nearly 2 1/2 years, most attention lately has been paid to Indian Point 2, rated by the NRC as the nation's most troubled nuclear power plant. That plant shut down for nearly a year after a Feb. 15, 2000, accident resulted in the leak of nearly 20,000 gallons of radioactive water. The terrorist attacks — and President Bush's later announcement that U.S. nuclear plants were potential targets — have only intensified opponents' demands that Indian Point shut down forever, though others say it is better to concentrate on ensuring that the plant is as safe as possible. "Today, I can't imagine they would think of building ... at Indian Point, and I would prefer it wasn't there," Spano said. "But its presence raises complicated issues. We have a couple of gas lines going through the county, but that doesn't stop me from being against putting a new one in. And at this point, I can't ask them to take the existing gas lines out of the ground, or get rid of Indian Point." Send e-mail to [rwithers@thejournalnews.com] Copyright 2002 The Journal News, [http://www.gannett.com/] . Inc. newspaper serving Westchester, Rockland and Putnam Counties in New York. ***************************************************************** 11 Radioactive material found near McClellan treated with caution Anniston Star CALHOUN COUNTY By Nathan Solheim Star Staff Writer 03-03-2002 The Army discovered two radioactive elements within Anniston's city limits last October after an aerial survey of the former Fort McClellan. Signs of Cesium-137 and Cobalt-60, both of which emit high-energy gamma particles, were detected in a wooded area on city property more than 200 yards away from the Lenlock Community Center. Government officials, however, said there is no immediate health hazard stemming from radioactive elements, and radiation levels were low. "There does not appear to be any immediate threat to public safety," said Tom Decker, a regional chief with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in Atlanta. The Army Corps of Engineers plans to erect a six-foot fence around the area covering 1,000 square feet within six weeks as a precautionary measure while federal and state authorities conduct a study to gauge contamination levels and plan for its removal. While the exact amount of material is not fully known, officials said no one should ingest or come into contact with vegetation or soil from the area. The Alabama Department of Public Health's Radiation Office took two soil samples around the material and found radiation levels higher than normal. "I don't think it warrants any unusual concern," said Kirk Whatley, director of the radiation office. "I think we realize there's a possibility, and that's why we did a survey. Because something was found there does not mean there was a problem that creates a hazard to the public's health and safety." The radiation office is in the early stages of evaluating the site, which was discovered when the Army was surveying McClellan for radioactive material. Janet Shelby, a spokesperson with the Army Corps of Engineers in Mobile, said the survey was a requirement for terminating the Army's radiation license. When the Army operated the Chemical School at Fort McClellan, soldiers were trained in radiological detection of nuclear fall-out and nuclear energy detection. The area where the Army found the radioactive material once was part of Fort McClellan, but was de-commissioned and deeded over to Anniston in 1976, Ms. Shelby said. The materials most likely were placed there in the 1950s. "The Army Chemical School conducted radiation survey training and buried the waste that resulted from the training," Ms. Shelby said. "That was considered standard practice back then. Prior to closure of the school in 1973, they removed the radiation from the post, except for this part, which they missed." Decker said the Army's activity pre-dates any regulation by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the material is very old. Federal funds from the FUDS program, or Formerly Used Defense Sites, will pay for cleaning up the site, but officials couldn't say how long it would take. They cautioned people to stay away from the area while scientists conduct their work. Cesium-137 and Cobalt-60 are manmade radioactive isotopes developed early in the 20th century and have been used commercially for their ability to treat cancer. Blake Ottwell, who teaches chemistry at Jacksonville State University, said the elements are similar in their radioactive properties. They are both high-energy elements that emit gamma particles - or strong energy rays given off by the elements. Ottwell, however, said that Cesium-137 has a half-life, or time it takes the amount of the element to break down by half, that is approximately 30 years, while Cobalt-60's half-life is approximately five years. Ottwell said there is no data that indicates that either element is carcinogenic. However, Cesium-137 and Cobalt-60 have been lethal in Brazil and Thailand respectively. In both cases, people ingested or came into direct contact with the elements. Ottwell said acute exposure to the material detected near the community center would most likely have less radiation than radiation therapy in a hospital. But there are concerns. "It depends on how much is out there," Ottwell said. "If it's on the ground, I would be concerned about it getting into the groundwater, and the other thing is the half-life. I would also be concerned that it's a gamma emitter. I suppose if you could say anything good, it is that it's hopefully not in an area that's used by people." Anniston Parks and Recreation Director Tammy Chapman said the area is away from the community center, and the Army Corps of Engineers said it rests not more than 100 feet outside the Fort McClellan fence. Ms. Chapman said there is a mountain bike path in the area, but the material is not near it. "(Am I) Concerned? Yes," Ms. Chapman said. "(Am I) Alarmed? No. They said someone would have to be leaning up against a tree for an inordinate amount of time for someone to get a dose near what they get at a dentist's office. You'd have to be there 30 hours, and that would be the equivalent of what you'd get at a dentist's office." Anniston Water Works officials said they have not detected any radioactive material in their water source points, which are Coldwater Spring and Hillabee Reservoir. "I'm going to say it would be no factor to our water system," said Rodney Owens, spokesperson for the water works department. "We've never had a detect." A number of other agencies have assisted or will assist in some way in the cleanup, including the Environmental Protection Agency, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Army, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Alabama Department of Public Health. The Anniston City Council approved an easement last week so the Army could conduct further radiological testing in the area. City Manager Rick Whitehead said he doesn't know when the material will be removed. "Obviously," he said, "I'd like to see it cleaned up." nsolheim@annistonstar.com [nsolheim@annistonstar.com] Copyright © 1998-2002 Consolidated Publishing. All rights ***************************************************************** 12 Depleted Uranium weapons in 2001-2002 The Eos life~work resource centre 23 February 2002 Occupational, public and environmental health issues Mystery Metal Nightmare in Afghanistan? Collected studies and public domain sources compiled by Dai Williams, 31 January 2002 Context and issues This research started in January 2001 when first Balkans DU survey included strange anomalies - too little evidence and too much radiation (from dirty DU). These investigations question one of the best kept military secrets of the last decade. The facts about DU weapons are well known to military experts and arms manufacturers in the US, UK and at least 30 other countries. But how much do politicians know about them? What have aid agencies been told? And why have the media stayed silent about new weapons in the Afghan war? The conclusions have immediate implications for the health, safety and welfare of civilians, troops and aid workers in Afghanistan. They question the role of Governments, UN agencies and the validity of official research studies concerning Depleted Uranium (DU) to date. They raise serious questions about the global proliferation of DU in military and civilian applications and its suspected widespread use in Afghanistan. They have fundamental implications for the classification of DU munitions as weapons of indiscriminate effect. First confirmation of DU contamination & missiles "One site registered an increased level of radioactivity but it appeared to be a result of depleted uranium in some warheads and not from any nuclear or radiological weapon of mass descruction," Rumsfeld said. [Reuters 16 January 2002] Recommendations include Urgent identification and verifiable disclosure of the secret "dense metal" used in US and allied guided weapon systems and sub-munitions since 1989. [This is believed to be mainly Depleted Uranium in various alloys with other metals and used in at least three different types of warhead, ammunition or sub-munitions.] Immediate risk assessments of potential DU contamination in Afghanistan plus relevant health and safety precautions for the population and expatriates, including aid workers and the UN peacekeeping force. Urgent and rigorous environmental assessments and health monitoring by UN agencies (UNEP, WHO) and aid organisations in Afghanistan. International vigilance from many countries to ensure that DU risk and casualty assessments are not delayed or compromised by military or political interference as happened after the Balkans War. To download the report The report is available in Adobe Acrobat PDF format. If you do not have Acrobat Reader you can download a free copy from: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep.html The report is available in two PDF versions 1) Complete Report - PDF file size 2,488 kb. (New file added 11 February). This is best if you have fast computer links. or 2) In 7 parts to make smaller PDF files for slower computer links. ***************************************************************** 13 Ministers delay Bill to aid nuclear clean-up Independent News © 2002 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd By Michael Harrison Business Editor 04 March 2002 Plans to overhaul the management of Britain's £60bn in nuclear liabilities are in doubt after ministers decided not to press ahead with the necessary legislation in the next session of Parliament. The move casts a fresh shadow over the future of British Nuclear Fuels, the state-owned reprocessing company which had hoped to be part-privatised once shorn of its Magnox reactors and the Sellafield complex in Cumbria. At a meeting last week of the Government's ministerial legislative committee, it was decided not to press ahead with a bill in the 2002-03 session to set up a new Liabilities Management Agency. This is the organisation which will take charge of the nuclear liabilities built up by both BNFL and the UK Atomic Energy Authority. BNFL's liabilities for closing down old nuclear stations and dealing with radioactive waste now stand at some £35bn and are so large that they outweigh its assets – making the company technically bankrupt. Removing these liabilities would allow BNFL to press ahead with the flotation of its fuel manufacturing and international clean-up and engineering businesses, the key element of which is Westinghouse. According to sources close to BNFL, the decision not to press ahead with the bill was a direct result of conflict between Department of Trade and Industry officials and BNFL's chief executive Norman Askew, who is now referred to in Whitehall as "Stormin Norman". In particular, it was said that the senior DTI official responsible for the part-privatisation of BNFL, John Rhodes, had moved jobs because of repeated clashes with Mr Askew. The DTI denied this saying the two men had forged a "very good working relationship" and that BNFL and the department had worked well together. Mr Rhodes has now become director of skills and innovation in the DTI's Science and Technology Innovation Group, a move described as a promotion. A DTI spokesman also said that the Secretary of State, Patricia Hewitt, planned to press ahead with a White Paper in June setting out how the Liabilities Management Agency would be structured and how it would operated. But the department refused to comment on the status of the bill, other than to say: "There has been no decision yet on the legislative programme for the 2002-03 session." According to some estimates, the delay in pushing legislation through Parliament could delay the timetable by up to two years, meaning that there would be no chance of a PPP for BNFL before the next election. As an interim measure, the DTI is planning to set up a liabilities management unit. It is looking to second a senior industry executive, possibly from Shell or BP, to run the unit. The internal candidate at BNFL is David Bonsor, the board member with responsibility for preparing it for a PPP. He is also chairman of the waste repository company UK Nirex. Among the private sector companies bidding to become prime contractor on Britain's nuclear clean-up programme when the LMA is eventually set up is Bechtel. This is the US construction company which helped build the Channel Tunnel and was recently put in charge of the troubled upgrade of the West Coast Main Line. However, BNFL staff would continue to operate both the Sellafield plant and the seven remaining Magnox stations. ***************************************************************** 14 Fears for safety from radioactive waste at steel plant Irish Newspapers MORE than half a million tonnes of waste, much of it contaminated with radioactive, heavy-metal and petro-chemical residues, is stranded on the site of the decrepit Irish Steel/Irish Ispat plant in Cork Harbour. The clean-up fears over Haulbowline and Rocky Islands in Cork Harbour have escalated to the point where the Irish Ispat liquidator, Ray Jackson of KPMG, is considering subsidising the removal of over 40,000 tonnes of scale - oil-based metal filings piled in a mound near the old steel mill. One former Irish Ispat official pointed out that unless the waste can be disposed of on a commercial-partnership basis, a future developer of Haulbowline and Rocky Islands could face an environmental clean-up bill of up to €10m. The site has more than 500,000 tonnes of waste almost 10pc of which is deemed hazardous. "This is a tragedy for all of Cork Harbour," Cobh UDC chairman Cllr John Mulvihill said. Cllr Mulvihill warned that the sheer scale of the clean-up bill on Haulbowline Island could deter developers for decades and leave Cobh staring out at one of Ireland's greatest industrial eye-sores. Irish Ispat collapsed in June last year with reported debts of over €65m. No cash will be available after the liquidation of the firm for site clean-up or waste disposal measures. Neither Irish Steel nor Irish Ispat ever generated radioactive waste but found residues of such material after quantities of it were detected in scrap received for processing over the years. The largest quantity of waste on the island involves ordinary slag with an estimated 350,000 tonnes stored on Haulbowline. Ralph Riegel © Copyright Unison ***************************************************************** 15 UK nuclear clean-up to cost 50 bln stg - minister UK: March 4, 2002 LONDON - The legacy of nuclear waste from Britain's reactors will cost more than 50 billion pounds ($70.76 billion) to clear up and create half a million tons of radioactive waste, Environment Minister Micheal Meacher told a seminar. "Even if the nuclear industry were to shut down tomorrow, we would still have to deal with all these materials," he said. Addressing a seminar designed to allow the government to discover public and local government opinions on how nuclear waste should be disposed of, Meacher said 10,000 tons were currently stored, with 5,000 being added every year. He said that the 1980s solution of digging an underground chamber to hold nuclear waste was now seen as fallible, and that a new solution was needed. "If we slip up, countless generations will have to pay for our mistakes," he said. Meacher said that just burying the waste irretrievably in the ground was not possible as future generations might wish to use it, and geological shifts might mean the waste would have to be moved. It would have to be safe in the long term. "We are talking about thousands, tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of years," he said. The main alternative disposal option for the waste from Britain's 34 major nuclear sites was to create permanent stores on the surface, Sir John Harman, chairman of the Environment Agency, told the seminar. "Our past history ... teaches us that postponement is the worst solution of all," he said. The public consultation period for the waste disposal issue will end on 12 March. REUTERS NEWS SERVICE ***************************************************************** 16 Energy Dept. Is Challenged Over Waste Disposal Methods March 4, 2002 By MATTHEW L. WALD WASHINGTON, March 3 — As the Energy Department marches ahead with its plan to bury waste from civilian nuclear reactors at Yucca Mountain, it is disposing of waste from its own military reactors in three far shallower sites around the country where it once produced weapons material. But in an odd twist, environmentalists, most of whom oppose the Energy Department's plan for Yucca, are making use of the law that selected that site by suing to prevent the department from disposing of its wastes in any way other than deep burial. The Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group that began fighting the Yucca plan in the 1980's, and the Snake River Alliance, of Idaho, argue that new rules issued by the department violate the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act, the law that requires a "deep geologic repository." The Yakama tribe of Washington State joined in the brief, filed Friday in Federal District Court in Boise. The issue is what to do with about 100 million gallons of highly radioactive wastes stored in about 200 old underground tanks at the Hanford nuclear reservation, in eastern Washington; the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, near Idaho Falls; and the Savannah River Site, near Aiken, S.C. The department plans to solidify the wastes, mixing them into molten glass so they cannot spill. Eventually the glass logs are to be buried beside the civilian wastes at Yucca Mountain, about 90 miles from Las Vegas. But under rules issued by the department in July 1999, a significant amount of waste, the material at the bottom of the tanks that is particularly hard to remove, would be left there and "grouted," or mixed with cement. By law, high-level waste, which is supposed to be buried, is defined as the leftovers of reprocessing — the method by which the Energy Department, and the Atomic Energy Commission before it, produced plutonium for bombs. But the 1999 policy defines the hard-to-get material at the bottom of the tanks as "incidental," a change that means it does not have to be buried deep underground. According to the environmental groups' brief, the Energy Department "intends to leave literally thousands of gallons of the highly radioactive sediments and sludges at the bottom of the underground tanks, cover the waste in place with concrete, and hope for the best." Some of that waste is more radioactive than the wastes that will be pumped out, solidified and buried at Yucca, the groups said. A lawyer at the natural resources council, Geoffrey H. Fettus, said, "They're waving a magic wand to re- classify this waste." The environmentalists contend that the wastes, some of which will be radioactive for tens of thousands of years, will eventually be carried out of the tanks by rainwater or by water that flows through the ground. The tanks in South Carolina are below the water table, meaning that the soil around them is saturated with water. But the importance of the incidental-waste rules pales before the Bush administration's new waste proposal, contained in the 2003 budget plan for the department. That plan, designed to cut costs and speed cleanup, would cut the amount of waste to be put in glass by about three quarters. Jesse Roberson, assistant secretary for environmental management, said when the budget was unveiled on Feb. 4 that "we believe that there are more effective ways to demonstrate results." The environmentalists' suit predates the budget plan, but if the suit is successful, it would appear to doom the new strategy. A spokesman for the department, Joseph H. Davis, said he could not discuss the case in detail because it was before the courts. But, Mr. Davis said, it was "rather odd that they would pursue a lawsuit that would slow down cleanup." The budget proposal, he said, was still only a proposal. Mr. Fettus said if the wastes were not buried, they would create "national sacrifice zones" that require care in perpetuity. In fact, the Energy Department has used a similar argument against critics of Yucca, saying that the only safe way to dispose of radioactive waste permanently is to put it deep underground, as the 1982 law requires. The cost to clean up the nuclear weapons complex has been put at $200 billion or more over several decades, but the technology for some parts of the work has yet to be developed, so the estimates are highly uncertain. Opening Yucca is likewise uncertain, but Mr. Fettus said opposing shallow burial and opposing Yucca were not contradictory. "The Natural Resources Defense Council has never taken the position that a geologic repository is not one of the answers," he said. Besides, he said, wastes encased in glass and awaiting deep burial are in a more stable form than wastes covered with grout. Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company | Privacy Information ***************************************************************** 17 Shattuck cleanup behind schedule Rocky Mountain News: Local EPA having problems because planned tent will be so gargantuan By Berny Morson, News Staff Writer Cleanup of a south Denver site where radioactive soil was buried is months behind schedule, the Environmental Protection Agency says. Throwing a tentlike structure over the entire six-acre site to prevent the escape of radioactive dust is far more difficult than anticipated, said Jim Hanley, the EPA's project manager. "Conceptually it looks easy," Hanley said. "But none of us realized the foundation would have to be such a massive piece of concrete." The structure would have to rise about 85 feet -- eight stories -- to span the site. A structure that size would jeopardize the surrounding community in a windstorm unless it is firmly anchored. Hanley and experts for the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment say the cleanup will take place. But it won't begin in April as previously hoped, and probably not until summer, Hanley said. "We're kind of bogged down a little bit," he said. The radioactive soil was left behind by the defunct Shattuck Chemical Co., which kept toxic materials in Denver's Overland Park neighborhood, near Evans Avenue and Santa Fe Drive. The EPA in 1992 permitted the current owners of the property to mix the waste with concrete and bury it under a clay cap and a mound of rocks. The EPA in 2000 reversed that decision after years of complaints by Overland Park residents. Under the plan announced to the community, the structure was to keep dust from drifting off the site as workers in moon suits break up the concrete and transfer it to rail cars for shipment to a toxic waste dump. News of the delay makes residents "really nervous," said Jack Unruh, a leader of the citizens group that fought for the cleanup. "The emotional investment in the community is enormous, and it has to do with the number of disappointments that have happened in the past, times when we had felt things were on track, and then they went off track," Unruh said. Hanley said the EPA began to realize in November, when an engineering firm began working out the numbers, that a tent will require a massive structure. The EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers -- which conducts engineering studies and oversees construction -- are trying to figure out whether to proceed with the tent, look at other structures or just suppress the dust with water, as has been done at other demolition sites. If water is used, the toxic material would be saturated and loaded onto the rail cars wet, Hanley said. "It's doable. It's just that there may be other ways to do it," Hanley said. Contact Berny Morson at (303) 892-5072 or morsonb@RockyMountainNews.com. March 4, 2002 © The E.W. Scripps Co. ***************************************************************** 18 DOE on mission to cut costs, clean up low-level nuclear waste More than 47,000 cubic yards being stored By Frank Munger, News-Sentinel senior writer OAK RIDGE - Under pressure to cut cleanup costs, the U.S. Department of Energy wants to get rid of waste - literally. Oak Ridge currently stores more low-level nuclear waste than any other DOE site in the nation, and the federal agency spends about $9 million a year to maintain those drums and boxes. "There's a large cost associated with just watching this waste," said Bob Sleeman, who heads DOE's environmental services group in Oak Ridge. "We're trying to bring down those fixed costs - the things you pay year after year." Sleeman said the Oak Ridge facilities have more than 47,000 cubic yards of low-level waste in storage - roughly a third of DOE's total inventory nationwide. Why so much? "Basically because for a long time we didn't have any outlet," Sleeman said. "It's just built up over the last 15 years." Other DOE facilities around the country have on-site landfills or other means of disposal available to them, such as sending waste to the Nevada Test Site, he said. While some low-level waste has been shipped from Oak Ridge to Nevada during the past couple of years, most of the waste generated by nuclear operations since the mid-1980s has gone into storage, Sleeman said. The waste is stored at various locations on the federal reservation: 26,937 cubic yards at East Tennessee Technology Park (formerly known as the K-25 site). 11,435 cubic yards at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. 8,907 cubic yards at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant. It'll take big bucks to dispose of the waste, and Oak Ridge officials hope to tap into a $800 million national fund set up for DOE projects that accelerate cleanup activities, reduce risks and offer long-term cost savings. DOE's Oak Ridge managers are meeting three times a week with representatives from the state of Tennessee and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agen-cy to discuss the low-level waste and other projects that might qualify for funding under the accelerated-cleanup program. Proposals must be submitted to DOE headquarters in Washington by June. Oak Ridge will be competing with other DOE cleanup sites for funding. John Owsley, who heads the state's environmental oversight office in Oak Ridge, said the state is anxious to participate in the accelerated-cleanup program. He also agreed that maintaining nuclear waste in storage is a needless expense. But he noted that the state has pushed and prodded DOE for years to get rid of its nuclear-waste stockpile - with little success. DOE heretofore has refused to spend the money or make waste disposal a priority in Oak Ridge, and the state had no way to enforce the issue because the federal agency regulates itself on nuclear matters, Owsley said. "They consistently under fund those activities," the state official said. "It's a budgetary exercise." The state will consider DOE's proposal to reduce the waste backlog as one of the projects under the accelerated-cleanup program, but there may be more attractive options, Owsley said. Although getting rid of low-level waste would save annual maintenance costs, funding other environmental projects might do more in terms of reducing risks, he said. His biggest concern about the stored waste is that many of the containers are stored outdoors, exposed to the elements. Even if DOE eliminated the waste backlog in Oak Ridge, there's no guarantee that the annual savings of $9 million would come back to Oak Ridge for other cleanup activities, Owsley said. Susan Gawarecki, executive director of the Local Oversight Committee, which represents local governments on environmental matters, said long-term waste storage is a tremendous waste of money. "But when you look at the big picture, it's just one of many things that could be done to save money," Gawarecki said. "It all has to be cleaned up eventually." In order to dispose of the waste, DOE could send it to the Nevada Test Site for burial or to the Envirocare commercial landfill in Utah. Another option would be the new waste-disposal facility scheduled to open May 1 on DOE's Oak Ridge reservation. That landfill, however, is licensed only to receive waste generated during cleanup operations, and the stored low-level waste - associated with research and production activities - does not qualify. It's possible that situation could be altered if an impact study was done under the National Environmental Policy Act and if regulators approved. "I don't think anybody would have any real objections if it met the waste-acceptance criteria," Gawarecki said. Both DOE and state officials acknowledged that using the Oak Ridge landfill is among the issues being discussed. "You'd have to go through some additional justifications, but it's one of the things we're looking at," Sleeman said. The new landfill is expected to have a total capacity of about 2 million cubic yards, so the currently stored waste would only take a fraction of that space, he said. Frank Munger may be reached at 865-482-9213 or twig1@knoxnews.infi.net Copyright 2002 The Knoxville News-Sentinel Co. ***************************************************************** 19 Editorial: Foretell the future by learning history Las Vegas SUN March 04, 2002 There's an old saying that's brought to mind as Nevada stands firm against the federal plan to bury high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain: "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me." The saying is worth remembering every time a new study comes out adding more evidence that fallout from above-ground nuclear explosions at the Nevada Test Site caused cancer deaths throughout the country. Last week the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention expanded upon a study it released five years ago. That study suggested that people from Idaho to New York living under certain wind patterns were more susceptible to thyroid cancer because of fallout from nuclear testing that had taken place from 1951 to 1963. The expanded study suggests that practically everybody in the United States who has lived here since 1951 has absorbed some level of radiatio n from the fallout. The preliminary study even cautiously suggests that 15,000 cancer deaths nationwide can be attributed t! o the fallout. And what was the Atomic Energy Commission saying about fallout in those days? It was saying, "Don't worry about it." That answer is the equivalent of what the Department of Energy is saying today about Yucca Mountain when Nevada raises questions about the health risks associated with burial of nuclear waste and the security risks associated with transportation. Here's another saying worth remembering: "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it." All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 20 Yucca fight to target nation's counties Las Vegas SUN March 04, 2002 Herrera to outline project to educate leaders on hazards of shipping waste WASHINGTON -- Clark County should bombard leaders of other counties nationwide with its anti-Yucca Mountain message, Clark County Commission Chairman Dario Herrera said today. Herrera this week intends to outline a plan to launch an information campaign aimed at other county managers. Herrera specifically wants to target officials in counties along the transportation routes that likely would be used to haul nuclear waste to Nevada if the Yucca plan is approved. Herrera spent several days last week talking to some of the nation's county leaders at a National Association of Counties conference here. He told them the federal plan to bury waste at Yucca Mountain puts their counties at risk because shipping waste poses accident and terrorism risks. At Herrera's urging two of the association's committees adopted a resolution that urged the Energy Department to work more closely with local governments in emergency planning. "The DOE has not even begun to address the terrorism risk," Herrera said. County leaders, like many city and state leaders nationwide, know little about how the Yucca Mountain project could affect their areas, said Bob Andrews, Clark County's director of emergency management, who accompanied Herrera to the nation's capital. "My sense is that a lot of them were hearing about this for the first time and thinking about it for the first time, and were alarmed," Andrews said. "We've got a public education process ahead of us." Herrera is treading in familiar steps. Gov. Kenny Guinn has lobbied fellow governors against Yucca, including at a National Governors Association meeting last week. Mayor Oscar Goodman is also trying to build nationwide support against the waste project by targeting mayors in cities on or near likely waste transportation routes. Now that President Bush has endorsed the Yucca project, Nevada officials hope state and local politicians nationwide will take concerns about waste shipping to their lawmakers in Congress. Congress likely will vote on the project later this year. If lawmakers approve it, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission would take several years to determine if the site is safe to license as a waste dump. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 21 Getting Waste to Yucca Mountain Will Put Everyone at Risk The Salt Lake Tribune -- Monday, March 4, 2002 MOLLY IVINS Creators Syndicate AUSTIN, Texas -- Another bad idea. What are they, cheaper by the dozen? The Bush administration has decided to dump all the high-level nuclear waste in America into some yet-to-be excavated tunnels at Yucca Mountain, Nev. Insomuch as you ever think about nuclear waste (a topic I prefer to avoid on the grounds that it's depressing and scary -- denial seems like a good tactic), you probably thought: "Good, Nevada. They'll like it there, and at least it won't be here." Wrong on both counts. Not only are Nevadans predictably unhappy -- and also seriously irate, because Bush promised during the campaign he would make the decision based on "the best science" -- but this also brings nuclear garbage right to your front door. Or at least to the closest interstate highway. Putting the nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain is Nevada's problem. Getting it there is ours. There are 131 nuclear plants dotted around the nation, not to mention assorted military facilities, where the really, really bad stuff is stored. So we're taking a 131-plus-point problem and making it a several-hundred-thousand-point problem. They're going to put the really, really bad stuff into trucks and railroad cars, and send it all to Yucca -- so if you're anywhere between a nuclear power plant and Nevada, you have a problem. Not only does that insanely escalate the chances for a terrorist attack -- it's a lot easier to knock over a truck than it is to fly into a nuclear power plant -- but it makes a nuclear transportation accident almost inevitable. How many trucks over how many highways over what period of time will produce one horrible truck crash? You can hardly drive from Laredo to Dallas on I-35 without seeing one anymore. This is not one of those deals where any fool can say, "Here's a better idea . . ." No one has ever had a good idea for getting rid of nuclear waste. As far anyone knows, it can't be gotten rid of. That's the problem, as those citizens who are less into denial than the rest of us have been pointing out for some time. So far, there has only been one useful suggestion on nuclear waste -- let's stop creating more of it. Unfortunately, the Bush-Cheney Energy Plan is not acquainted with the First Rule of Holes -- they plan to keep digging. Their idea of a solution is to take an intractable problem and make it into a much bigger intractable problem. Bush's "best science" campaign promise was pathetic, in retrospect. Yucca Mountain is in an earthquake zone and leaks. Among those who question its desirability as a repository site are the General Accounting Office, Bechtel, SAIC, the Department of Energy contractor on the site, the U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board and Radioactive Waste Management Associates. (For details, see the Web site of the Safe Energy Communication Council, at www.safeenergy.org.) Probably flying well under your radar screen was a move by Congress late last year compounding the problem still further. In late November, under a no-debate voice vote, the House of Representatives reauthorized an obscure thing called the Price-Anderson Act. Yes, the matter of campaign contributions did raise its ugly head once more. The law limits the nuclear power industry's liability in the case of an accident. No other industry enjoys this federal protection. Price-Andersen requires that each plant carry only $200 million in insurance, with $9.1 billion for the entire industry. Unfortunately, Sandia National Labs has estimated the cost of one big reactor accident at over $500 billion. Worse, the indirect subsidy created by Price-Andersen used to cover only regulated and public utilities. By contrast, any new nuclear power plants will be built by merchant generators -- like Enron -- competing in the newly deregulated markets. This gives them an added incentive to build cheap. The Senate energy bill does not reauthorize Price-Anderson for commercial reactors. If the bill were to pass as it stands, existing reactors would continue to be covered but new ones would not. The anti-nuclear energy coalition is hoping the Senate version will become law, so that the risk of doing business will actually fall on commercial reactors, instead of taxpayers. But there's no guarantee. © Copyright 2002, The Salt Lake Tribune ***************************************************************** 22 Feds want to bury Johnston Island's radioactive matter By Jan TenBruggencate [jant@honoluluadvertiser.com] Advertiser Science Writer A federal agency hopes to entomb nearly 60,000 cubic yards of radioactive material on Johnston Island. The burial and covering of the contaminated coral and construction debris has been proposed as the best of multiple disposal options by the Defense Environmental Restoration Program. Officials with the program will hold public hearings in Hawai'i this month on its proposals. The hearings will be preceded by a one-hour meeting during which technicians will discuss the plan. Sessions are March 13 at the Lihu'e Public Library on Kaua'i, March 15 at the Kahului Community Center on Maui, and March 18 at the Pu'u'eo Community Center in Hilo on the Big Island. Times for the Neighbor Island events are 5 to 6 p.m. and 6 to 8 p.m. The Honolulu sessions are 5 to 6 p.m. and 7 to 9 p.m. March 20 at Washington Middle School. Johnston Atoll, 700 miles southwest of Honolulu, was the site of two aborted nuclear test missile launches in 1962. The destruction of the missiles left Johnston Island, the largest land mass within the atoll, contaminated by plutonium oxide and americium, a radioactive breakdown product of plutonium. The cleanup of the radioactive contamination has been going on for the past 40 years, resulting in four piles of contaminated material: + Nearly 60,000 cubic yards of coral with an average radiation concentration of 200 picocuries per gram — a level of radioactivity that under Environmental Protection Agency regulations must be sealed from exposure to the environment. + 156,000 cubic yards of coral contaminated at an average of 7.7 picocuries per gram — below the level requiring special treatment. + 240 tons of metal and 260 cubic yards of concrete debris, whose radioactivity is assumed but untested. The Defense Threat Reduction Agency [http://www.dtra.mil] proposes using an existing excavation within the Radiological Control Area, the region directly contaminated by the missile blasts. It would dump in the metal and concrete debris first, followed by the higher-level contaminated coral. It would be capped with a 2-foot layer of coral soil. The area would then be subject to land-use restrictions and regular monitoring for up to five years. "This combined option provides an approach that protects human health and the environment commensurate with the radiological risk, and offers cost-effectiveness and practicality for this remote location," the agency said. Other alternatives include different landfilling options, shipping material off the atoll, encasing it in concrete, and vitrification — essentially, turning it into glass before burying it. The EPA set a radioactivity level of 40 picocuries per gram as an acceptable risk level for the atoll, but the Defense Threat Reduction Agency selected a technique that allowed it to achieve 13.5 picocuries per gram as the standard islandwide. The radiation risk for people on the island for one year at this level, the agency said, is slightly less than the radiation dose an airline passenger receives flying coast to coast. A May 2000 survey "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." Of 113 core samples taken around the island, all but five showed contamination levels lower than 13.5 picocuries per gram, and four of those five were below the surface. The fish in the lagoon are edible and contain no more radioactivity than fish sold in Mainland U.S. markets, the agency said. © COPYRIGHT 2002 The Honolulu Advertiser, a division of Gannett Co [http://www.gannett.com] . Inc. ***************************************************************** 23 Talks continue on fate of dangerous waste Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 1:00 p.m. on Monday, March 4, 2002 by Paul Parson Oak Ridger staff Although talks continue, federal and state officials admit that a compromise has yet to be reached in a situation involving the Department of Energy's declaration that it is no longer bound by requirements or milestones associated with some of the most dangerous wastes in Oak Ridge. Legal parties and officials for the state of Tennessee and DOE are currently discussing the situation, according to John Owsley, director of the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation's DOE Oversight Division, which is based in Oak Ridge. Bob Sleeman, leader of DOE's Oak Ridge environmental services group, concurred. He also pointed out that representatives from DOE headquarters have participated in the talks and their involvement could increase if a compromise isn't reached. At issue is a category of waste known as mixed transuranic waste that includes both radioactive and chemically hazardous components. The waste is stored at a handful of DOE sites, including Oak Ridge National Laboratory. In a letter dated Oct. 31, DOE informed state officials that it was deleting a section of the Site Treatment Plan for Oak Ridge that deals with mixed transuranic wastes. The federal agency is claiming an exemption from the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, which provides for the management of hazardous wastes from the point of origin to the point of final disposal. The Energy Department also maintains the exemption is covered under amendments to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant Land Withdrawal Act, which outlines the amount and types of transuranic wastes that could be disposed of at the facility. DOE planned to dispose of mixed transuranic waste at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M. The state of Tennessee rejected the position being taken by DOE that any mixed transuranic wastes should be deleted from the Site Treatment Plan. Without the section on mixed transuranic wastes, some officials have expressed concern that DOE might want to delay dealing with its work with the material or halt it altogether. "Legally we could," Sleeman said. "I know we won't" Sleeman said DOE is continuing to deal with the waste. Paul Parson can be contacted at (865) 220-5533 or pparson@oakridger.com [pparson@oakridger.com] . All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 24 Webster Groves Residents Protest Nuclear Waste KSDK NewsChannel 5 - News Article 3/3/2002 8:33:26 PM Sunday, residents in Webster Groves braved the cold temperatures to rally for an environmental cause. The Department of Energy wants to ship radioactive nuclear waste through the town via railway. The waste will eventually end up in Yucca Mountain, Nevada. An estimated 77,000 tons of nuclear by-products will come though Webster Groves. U.S. House Representative Richard Gephardt came out for today's rally and protest. He's expressed concerns about shipping the waste to Yucca Mountain through the state's railway system. All Material Property of KSDK-TV ©2002 ***************************************************************** 25 Decommissioned Subs Pose Risk of an Accident: Report Monday, Mar. 4, 2002. Page 6 The Associated Press More than half of the Pacific Fleet's 75 decommissioned nuclear submarines are stranded in harbors waiting for nuclear fuel to be unloaded from their reactors, raising the risk of a nuclear accident, a lawmaker said in an interview published Friday. "The Russian Far East and bordering states are under threat of a nuclear catastrophe every minute," State Duma Deputy Boris Reznik was quoted as saying in a front-page interview in the Izvestia daily. "But the military doesn't let in the inspectors under the guise of military secrecy." According to Reznik, who said he did his own research, the greatest source of danger is from the decommissioned submarine PM-32, which he said was used as a provisional storage facility for spent nuclear fuel from other submarines. "It has 126 defect channels through which radiation is continually leaking into the sea," he was quoted as saying. Officials have repeatedly denied such allegations and contend that the risk of a nuclear accident is extremely slight. "We are doing everything to minimize the possibility of radiation accidents, such as leaks," Viktor Akhunov, a Nuclear Power Ministry official in charge of submarine disposal, was quoted by Izvestia as saying. The Nuclear Power Ministry said in December that the navy had decommissioned a total of 189 nuclear submarines, but 126 were still waiting to be scrapped. Reznik told Izvestia that the Pacific Fleet decommissioned 75 submarines, but 45 subs still had fuel in their reactors. Akhunov acknowledged that if more money was available, the decommissioning work, which is expected to be completed in about six years, could be done sooner. This year, navy experts are expected to unload spent nuclear fuel from 20 nuclear submarines and completely dismantle 17. The Moscow Times ***************************************************************** 26 Blair to publish Iraq dossier by Patrick Hennessy in Coolum, Queensland Tony Blair is preparing to publish a devastating dossier of Saddam Hussein's nuclear capabilities as the West gears up for military action against Iraq. The Prime Minister is determined to provide clear evidence of the enormous threat he and President George Bush believe Saddam's regime represents. It is expected that the dossier, built up by the intelligence services, will be published ahead of Mr Blair's trip to Washington next month to discuss the next phase of the war on terror with Mr Bush. The document is thought to reveal Saddam's attempts to amass a rudimentary nuclear capability, including the power to make "dirty" nuclear bombs - basic devices capable of wreaking havoc. Intelligence sources believe Saddam is also developing biological and chemical weapons capable of killing thousands. Mr Blair warned that the West had to be ready to act against Iraq - and possibly other regimes belonging to what Mr Bush calls an "axis of evil" - before it was "too late". Citing the example of Afghanistan, he said nothing had been done to prevent the rise of the Taliban and al Qaeda for the 10 years prior to last year's 11 September atrocities. It was important not to make the same mistake again, the Prime Minister told Australian television during his trip to the Commonwealth heads of government meeting. His comments represent a deliberate attempt to raise the stakes ahead of his talks with President Bush. The US and Britain aim to use stronger rhetoric to try to force Saddam to let banned United Nations weapons inspectors back into Iraq. However, both Washington and London are clear that they must be ready to back up their words with military force if that proves necessary. Military advisers are understood to have told Mr Blair the best time for a full-scale attack would be the autumn, after the fierce summer heat has abated. Publication of the dossier will represent a major step in the Prime Minister's drive to persuade doubters in his own party that Saddam must be defeated. Many Labour backbenchers, including former defence minister Doug Henderson, are highly sceptical about the need for military action and warn that it could easily go wrong, strengthening Saddam's position. There are also fears that taking on Saddam could mean the end of the international coalition ag ainst ter rorism painstakingly built up after weeks of jet-setting diplomacy by Mr Blair and senior US politicians following the 11 September attacks. Action against Afghanistan was strengthened by support from Islamic nations including Pakistan and Iran - which could fall away rapidly if Iraq comes under direct threat. But Mr Blair told Australian television: "If chemical, biological or nuclear capability falls into the wrong hands, we know what some of these people are capable of. These are not people like us. "They are not people who are democratically elected, they are not people who abide by the normal rules of human behaviour. If these weapons fall into their hands, and we know they have the capability and the intention to use them, then I think we have got to act on it. If we don't act, we will find out too late the potential for destruction." © Associated Newspapers Ltd., 04 March 2002 This Is London ***************************************************************** 27 Hold fire on Iraq Evening Standard editorial comment The Prime Minister has given his strongest indication yet that Britain would support an American military strike against Iraq, which most observers in Washington now regard as a certainty at some point later this year. Mr Blair's comments in Australia last night fell short of giving President Bush a blank cheque in support of America's unfinished business with Saddam Hussein. Yet it would be fraught with danger for Britain to be almost alone in joining the US in a risky undertaking, which is far from justified at this time. While we have always believed that the danger from Iraq's biological, chemical and nuclear weapons is real - as the report Mr Blair has promised to publish soon on Saddam's arsenal of weapons is designed to establish - it is not an imminent strategic threat on a Cold War scale. Evidence for America's previous casus belli, the claim of Iraqi support for al-Qaeda, has failed to materialise. Saddam Hussein is a hideous dictator; but those who, like us, are cautious over military action against him are not appeasers, but realists. As we have always argued, the aims of the so-called war on terrorism must be clear. For centuries theorists have recognised that however legitimate the aims of a war, there must be a good chance of their being realised if military action is to count as just. In Iraq, the aim cannot be simply the removal of Saddam Hussein; it must be the establishment of a stable alternative government. As we are learning in Afghanistan, such nation-building is harder than it looks. Already, British troops may have to remain there if Turkey fails to take over their peacekeeping mission. For Britain simultaneously to play any part in pacifying a defeated Iraq would amount to impossible overstretch. Iraq is yet more likely than Afghanistan to break up into unstable statelets, at a time when the Gulf region is threatened by fundamentalist pressures in Saudi Arabia and extreme tension in Israel and the West Bank. Military action would be doubly unwise now that the United Nations is about to renew pressure on Saddam to allow weapons inspections. Washington's hawks may find this slow process lacks electoral impact, but it has a better chance than air strikes of recreating the international coalition of support which America sought after 11 September. And as in Afghanistan, air raids alone will not be enough; and before long the heat of Iraqi desert summer will rule out the use of special forces for months to come. Mr Blair has proved over the last four months that Britain is America's best ally - but good friends should be able to tell each other when they are in the wrong. The time is not right for a showdown with Iraq. Don't strike Twenty-three years after the Winter of Discontent - a series of public sector strikes that helped to bring down the last Labour Government - we could be heading once again for a time when dustbins remain unemptied, and meals-on-wheels undelivered. Three big public sector unions are to ballot more than a million members on whether to strike against a national pay offer of three per cent. Though much has changed since the late Seventies - for example, proper ballots are now needed before strikes can be called - a trade unionist from the Seventies would feel completely at home in the latest dispute. Now, as then, unions are predominantly a public service phenomenon. Now, as then, unyielding union leaders confront unimaginative local government management. Now, as then, the negotiations are national, not local. However, the age of strikes should have finished some years ago; and in much of Britain's economy, it did. Most modern unions recognise this. They have recently begun to regain lost strength by providing a wider range of more personal financial, legal and training services to their members. Sadly, old attitudes still persist in the public services. In the rest of the economy, above-inflation pay rises must be earned by more efficient working practices. Instead of threatening strikes, today's public sector unions should be exploring how their members can increase efficiency - and, instead of seeking rigid national deals, they should go local: helping each council to organise more flexible, better-run services, and to share the savings it makes with the men and women who work for it. © Associated Newspapers Ltd., 04 March 2002 This Is London ***************************************************************** 28 Amnesty launches appeal for jailed Russian reporter UK: March 4, 2002 LONDON - Human rights group Amnesty International and environmental campaigners Greenpeace launched a joint cyber appeal last week calling for the immediate release of jailed Russian journalist Grigory Pasko. Pasko, a former navy captain, was arrested by counter-intelligence agents in 1997 on his return from Japan, where he had given journalists evidence that the Russian navy had dumped toxic waste in the Sea of Japan. His trial and conviction in December triggered liberals' fears that press freedom was under attack in Russia. "Grigory Pasko was sentenced to four years imprisonment in December 2001, accused of intending to pass on information to a foreign journalist that would 'harm the battle readiness of the Pacific Fleet'," Amnesty said in a statement. "Amnesty International and Greenpeace strongly believe that the conviction of Grigory Pasko was motivated by political reprisal for his exposure...of the practice of dumping nuclear waste by the Russian Navy into the Pacific Ocean." The groups said the appeal would be addressed to Russian President Vladimir Putin and that information about the appeal could be found on their Web sites www.amnesty.org and www.greenpeace.org. Malcolm Hawkes, a researcher on Russia at Amnesty, said that Pasko's case was part of a broader trend to crack down on investigative journalism. "There are very legitimate concerns about the freedom of expression throughout the Russian Federation, with reporters targeted for beatings and in some cases even killings, especially when they undertake investigative work," he said. REUTERS NEWS SERVICE ***************************************************************** 29 Blair gives strongest hint yet on taking war to Iraq Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Ewen MacAskill in Coolum and Nicholas Watt Monday March 4, 2002 The Guardian [http://www.guardian.co.uk] Tony Blair yesterday gave the biggest hint yet that Britain will line up with the US in any military confrontation to depose the Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein. In contrast with other European leaders who have signalled that they will not back a US military strike to depose Saddam, Mr Blair ratcheted up the rhetoric against the Iraqi leader, claiming that he was developing weapons of mass destruction and was capable of using them. "If chemical, biological or nuclear capability fall into the wrong hands, then I think we have got to act on it because, if we don't act, we will find out too late the potential for destruction," Mr Blair said. Interviewed at the Commonwealth conference in Australia, the prime minister made a case for dealing with Iraq as a matter of urgency, citing the regret now felt at the failure to deal with Osama bin Laden years ago. He said Iraq was not a matter for the US alone: "This is not something that just America is talking about. It is something we have to deal with." His remarks were quickly condemned by Labour MPs, who are furious with Mr Blair for failing to stand up to President George Bush after his notorious "axis of evil" speech. Tam Dalyell, the father of the House of Commons, said: "I feel sheer dismay. If there is an attack on Iraq it will blow apart the international coalition [against terrorism]." A final decision on committing forces to overthrow Saddam has still to be made and military action is unlikely in the next few months. Mr Bush and Mr Blair are piling pressure on Saddam to allow United Nations weapons inspectors to return to Iraq to investigate claims that he has developed chemical and biological weapons and is trying to build nuclear ones. Arms inspectors have not been allowed into Iraq since 1998. The UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, is to meet the Iraqi foreign minister, Naji Sabri, at the organisation's headquarters in New York on Thursday to discuss the weapons inspections. Iraq's deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz, warned the US yesterday that any attempt to invade the country would lead to Vietnam-style casualties. "It was not the jungle that allowed the Vietnamese to win but determination. The Iraqis will fight in every street and every house," he said. Mr Blair will travel to Washington next month to discuss options over Iraq with Mr Bush. Asked on Australian television's Channel Nine about whether the issue of weapons of mass destruction meant war was imminent, Mr Blair replied: "Let us wait and see exactly what happens but it's clear we need to deal with this issue." The prime minister indicated that the west was not planning to repeat the mistakes it had made by responding slowly to the threat posed by Bin Laden and his al-Qaida network. "One thing that we learned is that for 10 years Afghanistan was like that but we didn't do anything. There just wasn't the sense of urgency that we had to deal with them." MPs will be given a chance to voice their concern about the threat of military action against Iraq when a special debate is held at Westminster on Wednesday, the day the prime minister returns from the Commonwealth conference. Alice Mahon, the Labour MP for Halifax, who is a long-standing critic of the government's policy on Iraq, said last night: "The prime minister's remarks are no surprise - it seems that our foreign policy is made in Washington." More moderate MPs are also uneasy. Donald Anderson, the Labour chairman of the cross-party foreign affairs select committee, said he supported the prime minister's attempts to step up the pressure on Iraq to comply with UN weapons inspections. But he added: "If we were to move to support US military action that would be a different context with a very uncertain outcome." [UP] Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002 ***************************************************************** 30 AU: Greens warn of nuclear terror news.com.au - [04mar02] ENVIRONMENTAL and peace groups have urged the federal government to stop supporting the US war against terrorism because it might provoke a nuclear attack. The Australian Peace Committee, Australian Anti-Bases Campaign and Friends of the Earth said their stance was based on fears that terrorists could obtain nuclear weapons. "We urge the US itself to reconsider its policy of retaliation, which risks taking the world to the brink," the groups said in a statement. "We urge the Australian government and opposition to reconsider support for these unwise and dangerous policies." They said Prime Minister John Howard "does not commit troops in our name". The groups said Australia's one-time UN ambassador Richard Butler had suggested that terrorists could have access to nuclear arms. "We believe that the real consequences of marching off to war have not been thought through," the groups said. "It is becoming clearer and clearer that a policy based on retaliation is not going to solve the terrorism problem at all, but rather will ensure that the world is an even more dangerous place than ever. "It is quite pointless to shout that we 'must do something', but if the only courses of action under consideration make the problem worse, then even to do nothing would be much wiser." © News Limited ***************************************************************** 31 Portable Nuke Was Headed to N.Y.C., Said Informant [NewsMax.com] Dave Eberhart, Monday, March 4, 2002 According to Time.com, not even former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and senior FBI agents knew that last fall in the wake of the Twin Towers attacks, the White House Counter-terrorism Security Group was scrambling to intercept a reported terror plot to explode a nuclear device in Manhattan. A super-secret intelligence source code named "Dragonfire” had informed U.S. authorities that terrorists had acquired a 10-kiloton nuclear device from a Russian stockpile and planned to smuggle it into the city. Time reported that investigators netted nothing, concluding eventually that the Dragonfire information was faulty. The public was excluded from knowing anything about the perceived crisis in order to avoid panic. However, agencies such as the Energy Department’s top-secret Nuclear Emergency Search Team took the Dragonfire warning seriously because Dragonfire’s information was corroborated by a report from a Russian general who said a 10-kiloton device went missing on his watch. The intelligence’s credibility was also enhanced by reports of portable nuclear devices also missing from the Russian stores. During the quiet crisis experts estimated that if exploded in lower Manhattan, a 10-kiloton bomb would kill some 100,000 civilians and irradiate 700,000 more. Furthermore, according to the Time sources, the blast would flatten all in a half-mile diameter. Brutal "It was brutal,” a U.S. official characterized to Time, as counter-terrorist investigators went on their highest state of alert around the clock. Although the Dragonfire conflagration obviously failed to mature, the administration is apparently still taking the potential of a nuclear attack seriously, assigning 100 civilian government officials to 24-hour rotations in underground bunkers, in a program that has been coined "shadow government.” Although it does not identify the sites, the Washington Post reported last week they make use of geological features to render them highly secure, are well stocked with supplies and capable of generating their own power. The Post also said that only the executive branch is represented in the full-time shadow administration. Congress and the judiciary have separate continuity plans that do not include 24-hour presence in fortified facilities. The secret operation has complemented the absence of Vice President Dick Cheney for much of the last five months. "We take this issue extraordinarily seriously, and are committed to doing as thorough a job as possible to ensure the ongoing operations of the federal government,” said Joseph W Hagin, White House deputy chief of staff. Suitcase Nukes The controversy over the suitcase nukes has festered since 1997 when Russian General Aleksandr Lebed suggested that some former Soviet suitcase-size nuclear weapons may be missing. Lebed told Congress and "60 Minutes" that the Soviet Union created perhaps one hundred atomic demolition munitions (ADMs), or atomic land mines. Such low-yield devices were developed by the former Soviet Union to be used by special forces for wartime sabotage. They were small, portable, and not equipped with standard safety devices to prevent unauthorized detonation. According to Lebed, some of the ADMs were in the former Soviet republics, and may not have been returned to Russia after the Soviet Union's collapse. While Secretary of the Russian Security Council, Lebed started an investigation into the whereabouts of these weapons – an investigation that was interrupted when he was fired by then President Boris Yeltsin. All Rights Reserved © NewsMax.com ***************************************************************** 32 Terrorism worries nuclear plant's neighbors -- The Washington Times March 4, 2002 By Stephen Manning ASSOCIATED PRESS LUSBY, Md. — Peace of mind for Frank Parker comes from the roar of a jet airplane overhead. The military planes circling his home in southern Calvert County also fly over the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant, offering Mr. Parker and his neighbors a sense of added security. Lusby residents always have been aware of potential dangers from the plant — accidents or leaks that could lead to the spread of dangerous radioactivity. But those worries were remote until September 11. After that, the fear of the unthinkable, a terrorist strike on the plant from the ground or from a plane crashing into the facility, became more real. It is why Mr. Parker listens for the jets every day, believing they keep watch for any attacks from the air. "It's a frightening subject to think about. I think everybody has apprehensions about what might happen," he said, standing outside a drugstore in downtown Lusby. Sitting on a bluff overlooking the Chesapeake Bay, Calvert Cliffs was completed in 1974. Its two reactors provide enough energy for half a million homes. It employs 1,200 workers and brings in big tax revenues for the region. "People regard the power plant as a good citizen," said David Rogers, the Calvert County health officer. "It operates in a way that everybody is comfortable with." Just 50 miles from the nation's capital, however, the power plant — combined with reports that terrorists may target power plants — causes some jitters, said Dave Hale, president of the county Board of Commissioners. "You hear things out of Washington that power plants are a top risk, and it makes people think a lot more than they did a year ago," he said. Maryland recently accepted an offer from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for 160,000 doses of potassium iodide. That would be enough for each resident living within 10 miles of Calvert Cliffs in Calvert, St. Mary's and Dorchester counties to receive two pills. It also includes enough doses for people in Cecil and Harford counties who live within 10 miles of the Peach Bottom plant in Pennsylvania. The pills are meant to be a first line defense for people against deadly radiation in the event of a leak. State and local officials have not decided when and how the pills will be distributed. Plans to obtain the pills were discussed well before September 11, said Mike Sharon, chief of the emergency response division of the Maryland Department of the Environment. But public worries after the attacks made the choice to take the pills clearer. "Sure, it factored into our decision," he said. "The public concern helped prompt the decision." Security at Calvert Cliffs also has been tightened since September. The facility remains on its highest alert level and likely will for a while, said plant spokesman Karl Neddenien. He won't say what security measures have been taken or even whether U.S. military jets fly over the site. Nearby Patuxent River Naval Air Station assists with security, he said, but a spokesman for the base said its planes aren't patrolling over the plant. Maps and some plant information have been deleted from the facility's Web site. The visitor center is closed, and public tours of the plant have been scrapped. The Coast Guard and state Department of Natural Resources patrol the water in front of the plant. Federal officials have said there are no specific threats against any of the country's 103 nuclear power reactors. However, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued an alert to plants in January warning that terrorists might be planning an attack using a hijacked commercial airliner. That information was uncorroborated and later deemed not a credible threat. Calvert Cliff's reactors, control room and storage areas for spent fuel are shielded by buildings designed to withstand hurricanes, tornadoes and other natural disasters, Mr. Neddenien said. But there's no conclusive evidence the reactor could withstand a hit from a jet airplane. "We cannot verify we could withstand that kind of impact," he said. That poses a problem for current emergency plans in the event of an accident at the plant. Protocol would be to evacuate nearby residents, Mr. Sharon said, a plan that depends on early warning of a potential radioactive release. With an attack, there may not be enough time. That bothers Mr. Parker. He lives near the bay, where only one road leads to Route 4, the highway that runs the length of the county. "If they have enough damage at the power plant to pass out pills, those of us at the end of the street won't know about it. We'll be gone," he said. The potassium iodide pills provide comfort to some residents, though. The county chapter of the League of Women Voters lobbied for the state to accept the pills. "Why not? It's free," said Barbara Fetterhoff, one of the group's presidents who also lives near the plant. "We who live within 10 miles were very concerned." Whether the pills will provide much protection is also questionable. They protect the thyroid against radioactive iodine, Mr. Sharon said, but not against other dangerous radioactive gases. Mr. Sharon said the pills are safe to take, but some residents wonder about potential side effects. "For me, with all kinds of health problems, I don't know whether it will work for me or against me," said Pat Jarboe, who works at a middle school a few miles from the plant. But for many, all the talk about pills and terrorists does little to shake their confidence in the safety of the plant. That includes Pat Buehler, who runs his family's market in St. Leonard, a small crossroads town just north of Lusby. "I never even think about that power plant," he said, sitting at a table outside the shop. "And I'm only three miles away from it." All site contents copyright © 2002 News World Communications, Inc. ***************************************************************** 33 Q &A: Ridge answers readers' questions on national security Q: Is the United States safer today in any measurable way than before Sept. 11? A: Clearly when you go into airports, when you try to get into public events, there's obviously heightened security. What you don't see is the work in the private sector to make manufacturing facilities, water-supply operations and others more secure. So there are visible signs of enhanced preparation, more safety, and there are a lot of tangible but not so easily recognized changes that have made America safer. Q: With so many agencies responsible for protecting us and the creation of even more agencies since Sept. 11, why do we need you? A: Dozens and dozens of agencies have some responsibility for some portion of homeland security, and it is for that very reason the president has created this office so we could have, initially, better coordination and, longer term, to look at possible reorganization, so there won't be quite as many agencies and there'll be more direct lines of responsibility and accountability. Q: How do you feel about the fear people feel when the government continuously warns about possible threats? A: We have been working for the last couple months to come up with a national alert advisory system so we might be able to put the alert in some context, so that Americans can understand that we do expect a certain level of preparedness depending on the information that we receive. I am very hopeful that we can have that out for public comment within the next two weeks. Q: What are you doing to protect drinking water? A: In general, in a major water supply or reservoir, a terrorist would need truckloads of contaminants in order to have any impact on the quality of the water. Assuming they managed to bring enough toxic chemicals to pollute the water, there are detection and screening devices that are employed at virtually every water operation in the country. I don't believe it's absolutely universal, but every day we're getting closer to making it universal. Q: What about rail safety? A: There are chemicals and other hazardous materials on trains, and we have to be more wary of their disposition and the routes they take. Passengers should know there's a central dispatcher that can effectively stop the train. They should realize an intruder has to get outside to get into the engine, and it's virtually impenetrable. Q: What's being done to secure nuclear facilities? A: They are well-protected, I believe, against truck-bomb explosions or infiltration by a land-based terrorist effort. The concern that seems to be on most people's minds is an aviation terrorist attack. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is doing an analysis of the structure of nuclear plants. I can't give the precise dimensions, but Americans should know that we have some air power available to us. Some of it is ready to respond within minutes, some of it is in the air, so that if a plane violates restrictions, there's a possibility of intervention. Q: Is there any way to be prepared for a biological or nuclear attack? A: We are improving our public health system: creating a national disease-surveillance system, increasing our national pharmaceutical stockpiles, advancing research on infectious disease. With regard to the potential of a radiological or nuclear weapon being deployed, there's detection technology that picks up the radioactive content. Technology can enhance our ability to detect such a weapon, and then we do have the capacity to disarm it. Q: Why is there no consistency in airport security? A: We're in the process of taking over the airports. It will be a couple of months, and there'll still be some erratic application and different standards, but that's primarily the reason behind the president's initiative to federalize standards. The other concern that I have and passengers have is waiting two and three hours, and I think we can do a better job. Q: How can average citizens help prevent terrorism? A: The president has initiated USA Freedom Corps, and within that is Citizens Corps, where moms and dads can help. We're going to increase emergency-response teams, create a volunteer medical corps and train neighborhood watch groups. You can learn more at www.usafreedomcorps.gov. Q: Will we ever get back to normal? A: This country has gotten stronger and safer and better prepared. Every day, I see technology, learn of private-sector initiatives and talk to local officials about their plans to respond to attacks. That reassures me and hopefully reassures America. © Copyright 2002 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc. ***************************************************************** 34 Not-so-subtle reminders of terrorist threats to come On the surface, the war in Afghanistan, and perhaps the war on terrorism generally, seemed to grow increasingly remote from most people's lives in recent weeks. After the Taliban's swift defeat, the difficulty of consolidating victory drew little attention. And while Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaeda leadership escaped, they at least were on the run, with their organization wounded. At home, meanwhile, with the six-month mark since Sept. 11 just a week away, terrorists have yet to strike a second blow. But deeper currents emerging in the past few days expose any newfound sense of security as false. On Saturday, U.S. forces in Afghanistan took on their toughest action to date — a reminder not just that the war isn't over, but also that the endgame is not yet clear. Then on Sunday, The Washington Post reported that the Bush administration has grave concerns about al-Qaeda's access to nuclear or radiological weapons. This follows other sobering news: + The administration has set up a secret, bunkered shadow government to keep the country running in the event of a devastating attack on Washington. + U.S. military advisers will be dispatched to Yemen, site of the 2000 attack on the USS Cole, and to the former Soviet republic of Georgia, which faces a Muslim insurgency. Advisers are already in the Philippines. + Reports continue to suggest that the administration is preparing to attack Iraq. + And the escalating conflict between Israel and the Palestinians continues to undermine U.S. objectives. The most alarming, of course, is the nuclear threat, and it bears directly on what is happening elsewhere. Until al-Qaeda is destroyed — ending its ability to mount a complex operation — defensive measures such as the radiation monitors the administration is deploying will provide little reassurance. Yet, the growing worldwide nature of the war suggests how difficult that task will be. Afghanistan illustrates the complexity of the problem. U.S. troops are more directly involved in combat today than in past operations, presumably because Afghan fighters have allowed Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders to escape previous traps. While there seems to be no other choice, they are fighting in an area that favors guerrillas, the very area where successful opposition to Soviet occupation began. Unless al-Qaeda can be rooted out quickly and Afghans can be trusted to execute the operation, the danger of repeating the Soviet experience becomes vivid. More broadly, the neophyte government of Hamid Karzai is already facing challenges from warlords. Tens of thousands of peacekeepers will be needed to maintain order, with U.S. involvement in some form. Iraq, Yemen, Georgia and the Philippines pose similar problems. Collectively, they risk further inflaming Muslim sentiment against the U.S., which can achieve military victory more easily than it can maintain peace. Sept. 11 forced the administration to respond forcefully, making up policy as it went along. It has managed that task brilliantly. But as more months go by, greater clarity of objective will be needed. When will we have won? For now, the answer still isn't clear. That won't work forever. Copyright 2002 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc. [http://www.gannett.com] ***************************************************************** 35 Nuclear weapon plot deemed not credible CNN.com - - March 5, 2002 From John King CNN Washington Bureau WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Bush administration received information last October outlining a plot to smuggle a stolen Russian nuclear weapon into the United States, most likely New York City, two administration officials said Sunday. The intelligence was viewed as suspect from the outset and later was deemed "not to be credible," as one official said, when a polygraph test determined the informant was "bogus." Nevertheless, it was the source of an alert to government agencies charged with trying to prevent such a scenario, because there are "some things you can't afford to be wrong about," one official said. One official said the warning "was one of many before and since." "We have no choice but to take any such information or allegation seriously," another official said. "In this case it was looked into and deemed not to be credible." The Russian government has said repeatedly in recent years that its nuclear inventory is accounted for. Some former members of the Russian military, however, have suggested security lapses could have occurred. And leading members of Congress with access to intelligence reports have said if nothing else Russian documentation is insufficient to say with certainty that nuclear materials have not been stolen. Word of the October alert was just the latest sign of the concerns U.S. officials have about the possibility al Qaeda or another terrorist network might gain access to a nuclear device -- either a nuclear weapon or a so-called "dirty bomb," one that contains radioactive material spread by detonating a conventional explosive. That perceived threat was one reason President Bush activated a so-called "standby" government of roughly 100 or so senior officials who stay outside of Washington and would keep government running if the capital was paralyzed by terrorist attacks. Officials involved in homeland security issues said the White House would soon announce a new ranking system for alerts to law enforcement agencies and the American people if any information suggests the possibility of new attacks. In the past, the government has been criticized by some local officials and police agencies for warning of potential terrorist threats absent any specific information about the location or type of attack believed possible. Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge is scheduled to announce the new system as early as the end of this week and no later than next week, officials said. The system is modeled after military base security protocols in which a color code signifies the level of precaution and perceived threat, according to two officials involved in developing it. -- CNN Correspondent David Ensor contributed to this report. © 2002 Cable News Network LP, LLLP. ***************************************************************** 36 Iraq: A Depleted Generation foto8 - by J.B.Russell p1/9 Photographs and text by J.B. Russell After several hours of waiting and nearly $100 of obligatory baksheesh at the desolate Iraqi-Jordanian border I climbed back into my GMC Suburban, one of a fleet that regularly ply the desert between Amman and Baghdad, happy to continue on my voyage. I felt content to have managed to avoid the normally mandatory AIDS test at the frontier. It was January 17th, ten years to the day since the beginning of the Gulf War. After more than a decade under an embargo which has caused widespread hardships and shortages in Iraq, I was more than a bit apprehensive at the prospect of having someone stick a needle in me at a remote border post. As my driver began to pull away, the Iraqi border official that had orchestrated the distribution of all my $10 bills, including a large percentage for himself, came running out of the dusty building and stopped our vehicle. What now, I thought? AIDS test after all? More cash? No, he had finished his two week shift of money extraction and with a friendly smile asked for a ride back to Baghdad. © foto8 2001 ***************************************************************** 37 Blair to publish Iraq dossier This is Oxfordshire by Patrick Hennessy in Coolum, Queensland Tony Blair is preparing to publish a devastating dossier of Saddam Hussein's nuclear capabilities as the West gears up for military action against Iraq. The Prime Minister is determined to provide clear evidence of the enormous threat he and President George Bush believe Saddam's regime represents. It is expected that the dossier, built up by the intelligence services, will be published ahead of Mr Blair's trip to Washington next month to discuss the next phase of the war on terror with Mr Bush. The document is thought to reveal Saddam's attempts to amass a rudimentary nuclear capability, including the power to make "dirty" nuclear bombs - basic devices capable of wreaking havoc. Intelligence sources believe Saddam is also developing biological and chemical weapons capable of killing thousands. Mr Blair warned that the West had to be ready to act against Iraq - and possibly other regimes belonging to what Mr Bush calls an "axis of evil" - before it was "too late". Citing the example of Afghanistan, he said nothing had been done to prevent the rise of the Taliban and al Qaeda for the 10 years prior to last year's 11 September atrocities. It was important not to make the same mistake again, the Prime Minister told Australian television during his trip to the Commonwealth heads of government meeting. His comments represent a deliberate attempt to raise the stakes ahead of his talks with President Bush. The US and Britain aim to use stronger rhetoric to try to force Saddam to let banned United Nations weapons inspectors back into Iraq. However, both Washington and London are clear that they must be ready to back up their words with military force if that proves necessary. Military advisers are understood to have told Mr Blair the best time for a full-scale attack would be the autumn, after the fierce summer heat has abated. Publication of the dossier will represent a major step in the Prime Minister's drive to persuade doubters in his own party that Saddam must be defeated. Many Labour backbenchers, including former defence minister Doug Henderson, are highly sceptical about the need for military action and warn that it could easily go wrong, strengthening Saddam's position. There are also fears that taking on Saddam could mean the end of the international coalition ag ainst ter rorism painstakingly built up after weeks of jet-setting diplomacy by Mr Blair and senior US politicians following the 11 September attacks. Action against Afghanistan was strengthened by support from Islamic nations including Pakistan and Iran - which could fall away rapidly if Iraq comes under direct threat. But Mr Blair told Australian television: "If chemical, biological or nuclear capability falls into the wrong hands, we know what some of these people are capable of. These are not people like us. "They are not people who are democratically elected, they are not people who abide by the normal rules of human behaviour. If these weapons fall into their hands, and we know they have the capability and the intention to use them, then I think we have got to act on it. If we don't act, we will find out too late the potential for destruction." © Associated Newspapers Ltd., 04 March 2002 This Is London ***************************************************************** 38 Tip on Nuclear Attack Risk Was Kept From New Yorkers March 4, 2002 THREAT By ROBERT D. McFADDEN Thomas Friedman on Terrorism Read now for just $4.95. A month after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, senior Bush administration officials received an intelligence report that terrorists had obtained a 10-kiloton nuclear weapon from the Russian arsenal and were planning to smuggle it into New York City, a government official said yesterday. Confirming an account in today's issue of Time magazine, the official said the highly classified intelligence report had come from a source of questionable reliability and had circulated among a relatively few top officials who concluded, after weeks of investigation, that it was false. The report was kept a tight secret — former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, the New York Police Department and even senior Federal Bureau of Investigation officials were not told — so as not to panic New Yorkers, Time said. It said a 10- kiloton bomb detonated in Lower Manhattan would kill 100,000 people, sicken 700,000 with radiation and flatten everything within a half-mile. While the October tip was ultimately found to have no basis, Time said, it generated a few harrowing weeks of terrifying uncertainty in the small circle of agencies that knew about it — the White House Counterterrorism Security Group, part of the National Security Council, and the Energy Department's Nuclear Emergency Search Team, a top secret group based in Nevada. The director of central intelligence, George Tenet, was among those briefed on the report in October, according to the official who confirmed the Time report. That official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, noted that top intelligence officials normally field dozens of warnings and threats daily, most of them false. "During the immediate post-9/11 period and continuing on today there are large numbers of reports," the official said. "This was one of them, and it was dealt with appropriately." At least one former New York official, Bernard B. Kerik, who was the police commissioner at the time, questioned the decision to withhold the information from New York officials. "If they had information like that, that's appalling," Mr. Kerik said. "I was never told. I was concerned we weren't being fed all the information." Mr. Giuliani, who was quoted by Time as saying he too was never told, had no comment, his spokeswoman, Sunny Mindel, said last night. Even as the report was being secretly investigated last fall, on Oct. 29 Mr. Giuliani called for new laws that would significantly increase the amount of information shared between federal and local law enforcement agencies. And his concerns were echoed that day by governors and other officials at a Congressional hearing on terrorism. Asked last night about the government's decision not to inform New York officials of the intelligence report, Taylor Gross, a White House spokesman, said: "The president's No. 1 priority is making sure we protect the homeland and prevent any attacks from happening in the first place. If there is a credible and specific threat, we will coordinate closely with state and local officials to meet that objective." The Bush administration has been criticized on several occasions in recent months for warning of potential terrorist attacks without providing specific information about the possible nature or locales of such attacks. Time said the source of the report had been "a mercurial agent code- named dragonfire." While his reliability was questioned immediately, the suggestion that the bomb had come from Russia's arsenal dovetailed with intelligence reports that such weapons may have been stolen from the Russians in the 1990's — specifically a report from a Russian general who said his forces were missing a 10-kiloton device, Time said. Russia has insisted that none of its nuclear weapons is missing. Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company | Privacy Information ***************************************************************** 39 Marshall Islanders get "token down payment" on nuclear claim BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Mar 4, 2002 Text of report by Radio New Zealand International audio web site on 4 March Bikini and Enewetak islanders have received a token down payment on their more than 1bn US dollar compensation claim that has been awarded but not yet paid by the Marshall Islands Nuclear Claims Tribunal. The tribunal gave the go-ahead last year but has repeatedly acknowledged that it does not have the money to meet the damage claim from the US use of the two atolls for nuclear weapons testing between 1946 and 1958. The financial officer from the tribunal has presented a cheque for 1.5 million to a Bikini senator and its mayor. Just over 1m dollars will be handed over to Enewetak this week. The tribunal has already all but exhausted a US-provided fund of 45m dollars in paying personal injury claims to about 1,700 Marshall Islanders who have experienced cancers and other health problems as a result of exposure to nuclear fallout. Source: Radio New Zealand International audio web site, Wellington, in English 0339 gmt 4 Mar 02 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. ***************************************************************** 40 Ambassador: Pakistani nuclear secrets are safe - March 3, 2002 CNN.com - Scientist did not share secrets with al Qaeda, she says Lodhi: Al Qaeda's "desperate search" for nuclear weapons failed. WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A Pakistani nuclear scientist suspected of being linked to Osama bin Laden could not have passed on nuclear secrets to al Qaeda, Pakistan's ambassador to the United States said Sunday. Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi disputed a report in Sunday's Washington Post that identified Bashir uddin Mahmood as a past chairman of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission. Lodhi said Mahmood did not have the knowledge of or access to sensitive nuclear material. "He was a very junior official in our nuclear establishment and therefore would never have the kind of knowledge or capability to frankly share or impart to anybody," Lodhi said on CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer." Pakistan has had no incidents of nuclear theft, leakage of nuclear material or unauthorized access to nuclear research, the ambassador said. Pakistani authorities arrested Mahmood and Abdul Majeed, one of his former colleagues on the commission, on October 23 because of suspected links to al Qaeda and the Taliban. They were released about one month later, only to be placed under house arrest the following week. Neither man has been charged. Both retired from Pakistan's nuclear program in 1999. Lodhi said she did not know whether, as the Post reported, Mahmood failed a half-dozen lie detector tests. Pakistani government officials said the two men met bin Laden twice during trips to Afghanistan on behalf of their charity organization. The group, Ummah Tammer-e Nau, helped farmers and students. Documents found last January at Kabul's Intercontinental Hotel showed plans by the charity to explore the mining of minerals such as uranium, expand an artificial limb factory and set up a bank with Barakat General Trading and Contracting Co., which is on the U.S. list of groups suspected of aiding terrorists. The documents were among a host of materials found by media outlets and U.S. and allied authorities indicating al Qaeda had plans to develop an advanced weapons program that would include a nuclear device. The material indicated plans to build "dirty bombs" -- conventional explosives that disperse radioactive material. But Pakistani and U.S. officials, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, have said that there is no "hard evidence" al Qaeda actually possessed weapons of mass destruction. "The kind of stuff that's been found in Afghanistan leads to the conclusion that the al Qaeda people were in desperate search for nuclear material, as well as for weapons of mass destruction, but actually they failed in that quest," Lodhi said. 2002 Cable News Network LP, LLLP. ***************************************************************** 41 DOE manager shuffle no boon to vit project Published March 3, 2002 The Department of Energy has yet to show how its planned management shuffle would benefit Hanford's vital tank waste cleanup project. Progress on the vitrification plant, which would treat those tank wastes, is caught up in a nationwide exchange of Energy Department cleanup managers. Cleanup czar Jessie Roberson is planning to shift 27 of the cleanup program's top 70 managers to expand their experience. Harry Boston, manager of Hanford's Office of River Protection that oversees the vit plant, is among the targets. That's all well and good for the managers' resumes. And no doubt the Department of Energy stands to benefit from attempts to prevent managers from becoming stuck in a rut. But department officials also must consider whether the moves are in the best interest of continued progress on specific cleanup projects, especially when those officials repeatedly profess a desire for faster progress. What's concerning at Hanford is this is the second time in less than two years that the Office of River Protection chief has been moved out of the job. Here at Hanford, it would be a far stretch to conclude that after 19 months on the job, Boston has outlived his usefulness to the vit plant project, a major undertaking that will glassify some of the nation's most dangerous radioactive wastes. There is a reason why the Energy Department put a large bounty on Ron Naventi, who is leading the vit plant construction for Bechtel National, and a number of other top contractor officials. Naventi must stay on the project for two years, or his company loses $1 million. So the Energy Department recognizes that continuity is key to keeping projects on track. Churn in top management on a project that is just getting on its feet can be disastrous, much more so than in an ongoing job where operations change little over time. The same principle should apply to the Energy Department managers who oversee Naventi and his company's work. To be successful, Hanford managers have to develop a set of complex relationships. Hanford manager Keith Klein and Boston have had to build trust with their regulatory partners in the Tri-Party Agreement that governs Hanford cleanup, relationships that are essential to keep the project from bogging down further in a tug-of-war over any missed deadlines. They also must build relationships with an array of contractors and the community. Boston's intended replacement has gotten off to a rough start. Roy Schepens is the Energy Department's assistant manager for materials and facility stabilization at its Savannah River, S.C., site, where he has been in charge of construction and operation of a waste glassification plant and tank farms. Sounds like great experience to put to use at Hanford. But Schepens does not appear ready for the fish bowl that is Hanford. So far he has avoided the public eye, dodging reporters and slipping into and out of town with little notice. Contrast that to current Hanford managers who understand that a vital part of their job is being available and open to the community and media. It's more than a public relations move; it's an attitude that state regulators, politicians and our community have come to demand of Hanford's managers. Schepens won't be able to duck tough questions in his new job. If he can't handle being front and center, he's not the right man for the job. If the problem is that the Energy Department is muzzling him, the agency is undermining his ability to get off on the right foot. Interestingly enough, Schepens spent 12 years at Savannah River, much of it on the glassification plant. Roberson now praises Schepens' depth and breadth of experience on the project, yet the Energy Department has prevented Office of River Protection managers from developing the same longevity to benefit Hanford's glassification project. The management shuffle suggests the Energy Department is not as serious about progress as it is about showing everyone who's boss. What's your opinon? Copyright 2002 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This ***************************************************************** 42 Sue for Hanford cleanup money The Seattle Times: Editorials &Opinion Monday, March 04, 2002, 12:00 a.m. Pacific GOV. Gary Locke and Attorney General Christine Gregoire are threatening to sue the Department of Energy over huge proposed cuts in the cleanup budget at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. Do it, if that's what it takes. The Bush administration proposes to trim about $300 million in cleanup funds from current levels. Locke told Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham the amount was inadequate, when the two met during the recent National Governor's Association meeting in Washington. Gregoire has made the same point to DOE senior staff as well. Bush's skimpy budget does not live up to longstanding federal promises to clean up Hanford, home to 60 percent of the nation's high-level nuclear waste. Beyond outright cuts, the Bush administration is trying to further reduce the budget by putting money in a competitive pool for cleanup projects. That's just bureaucratic sleight of hand to mask spending less money. Gregoire is determined the state will not be forced into a lottery for cleanup money or pitted against other states for DOE cleanup dollars. Nor does she want financial guarantees with a quid pro quo deal to take more waste. In a way, the Bush administration is carrying on a tradition that goes back for decades, a tradition not effectively challenged until Gregoire, then director of the state Department of Ecology, successfully called a halt with another threatened lawsuit. The 1989 Tri-Party Agreement was a milestone in Hanford cleanup efforts. It took a taste of the legal lash to secure agreement among DOE, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Ecology on cleanup schedules and deadlines. Locke and Gregoire went after the Clinton administration in 1998 over delays that were couched in technical jargon but really a smokescreen for spending less money. Lawsuits — more accurately, the threat of legal action — have been effective. The state has yet to go to trial. DOE would not take a briefcase full of strong arguments into court. The feds are on the hook to deliver. This state provided the remote space needed for dangerous, toxic wartime production. A duty is owed, particularly when the fight is over containing and stabilizing the worst of a lethal mess. DOE has already cherry-picked the easy targets in the past. There is no disputing what is left is difficult and expensive to handle. But some of this muck is headed for the Columbia River, and people who live a long ways away want to pinch pennies. Locke and Gregoire are encouraged to negotiate up a storm with the feds, and then run them right into court, if that's what it takes. Copyright © 2002 The Seattle Times Company ***************************************************************** 43 SNS tax exemption could face scrutiny in state tax proposal Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 12:59 p.m. on Monday, March 4, 2002 by Dale McConnaughay Oak Ridger staff Among the potential victims of a proposal that would widen the reach of the Tennessee sales tax is the Spallation Neutron Source under construction in Tennessee, which in 1999 had gained a sales tax exemption on construction materials and costs. The $1.4 billion SNS currently under construction had gained the legislative exemption, saving an estimated $28 million in costs on the project. Congressional leaders threatened to move the huge scientific project to another state if Tennessee failed to grant the exemption from the state's sales tax. But at a Meet Your Legislators breakfast in Oak Ridge this morning, sponsored by the local League of Women Voters, state Sen. Randy McNally acknowledged that items previously exempted from the sales tax could be subject to the tax under the measure. "I would like to have that exemption continued," McNally noted, stating that it was a factor in the SNS' being located in Tennessee rather than another state. At the same time, he acknowledged that a range of services, including health care, could lose their exemptions under the tax proposal. "A number of things on that list are going to give people trouble," he acknowledged. McNally was joined by state Rep. Dennis Ferguson of Kingston, who said he also supports protecting the sales tax exemption granted to SNS. State Rep. Gene Caldwell of Clinton was in Nashville and unable to attend the breakfast session at the Oak Ridge Chamber of Commerce. "Everybody talks about broadening the tax base," Ferguson said, "until they see the specifics." But McNally and Ferguson are among those who favor some expansion of the sales tax base, while opposing it in other areas. Ferguson said he opposes an income tax but favors and has voted for past sales tax hikes. McNally said he could support a sales tax hike, a hike in "sin taxes" on items like tobacco and alcohol, but opposes an income tax unless the state's Constitution is amended. McNally noted that past state Supreme Courts have ruled a state income tax unconstitutional. Both McNally and Ferguson pledged their opposition to state efforts to end or reduce the $650 million Nashville collects in taxes each year and remits to local governments. Both also said they opposed a bill the would impose a statewide property tax. Dale McConnaughay can be reached at 220-5505 or on the Web at dmcconn@oakridger.com [dmcconn@oakridger.com] . All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 44 Blowing in the Wind F.A.Z. - English Version By Svenja Wilke FRANKFURT. The windy weather experienced across Germany throughout much of February deterred more than a few Sunday strolls and other outdoor activities. Yet wind turbine operators were hardly complaining. "January and February are the best months," says Christian Hinsch of the German Wind Power Association. Even without an unusually windy peak season this year, the entire sector is enjoying an up-current. Germany now has some 11,500 large wind turbines supplying nearly 3.5 percent of total energy needs. The association predicts that output will double by 2010, as the country gradually phases out nuclear energy. Not much happens without private investors, however. Industry expert Stefan Loipinger estimates that half the wind parks -- collections of several or more wind turbines -- built last year were financed through closed investment funds in which the investors essentially become joint operators and are promised a share in the profits. Even small investors can take part. Wind park operators Energiekontor, Plambeck and Umweltkontor have all been listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange's Neuer Markt for approximately two years. Stocks, of course, can be freely traded. "In contrast, money invested in closed funds is tied up for as long as 20 years," says Wilfried Tator, the chief analyst at Fondscope, a financial consulting firm. "No regulated market exists for these." Investors in closed wind power funds accept that disadvantage because they can claim very generous tax losses of 80 percent on average for wind turbines. The tax breaks have made these investments popular, with Fondscope estimating that euro 444 million ($385 million) flowed into wind power funds in Germany last year, up from euro 364 million in 2000. Yet investors still need to be careful to ensure that their investments in wind energy production deliver a return, and not only a tax writeoff. While Germany's law on renewable energy obliges utilities to buy all power generated by wind turbines at 9.1 cents per kilowatt hour, output can vary widely not only with weather conditions but with location. And without wind, no money comes in. On the other hand, excessive wind can cause problems for the giant windmills dotting the German landscape. "The key criterion is an average wind speed of 5.7 to 6 meters per second," explains Peter Ahmels, president of the German Wind Power Association. With good locations inland becoming rarer, and many rural residents objecting to new turbines being built near their homes, operators are increasingly turning to plans for new wind parks in the North Sea and the Baltic. So far, 58 planning applications for offshore wind parks are in the pipeline, and in November the federal government's navigation authority approved the first such German complex, off the North Sea island of Borkum. A particularly attractive location in terms of wind speed, averaging around 9 meters per second, it should generate huge amounts of power. There are, however, risks. "A number of technical problems remain to be solved," says Mr. Tator. The cable connection to the mainland has yet to be sorted out, and tests have to be run to find out how wind rotors react to heavy North Sea storms and salt water. And the prospect of higher income will be offset by higher operating and development costs, Mr. Tator adds, meaning it could be three to four years before the first offshore wind parks are connected to the grid. At present, investors can only put money in the project development fund, which is not a typical wind power fund but a venture capital investment, Mr. Tator says. During the development phase, there will be no guaranteed income from electricity fed into the grid, which has frightened off some investors. Umweltkontor failed last year to attract enough investment with a "blue sea" risk fund that was supposed to be used to develop an offshore wind park. Still, with the industry convinced that the future is with wind power, and that the future of wind power is on the high seas, Unweltkontor says it is planning a second attempt to raise funds.Mar. 3, 2002 © Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 2000 ***************************************************************** 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: *****************************************************************