***************************************************************** 04/04/02 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 10.85 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POLICY 1 US: FERC mulls plan in case of attack on US pipelines 2 US: Environmental groups pressure Lugar, Bayh 3 Vietnam studies feasibility of nuclear power plant 4 Bulgarian government creates nuclear regulatory agency 5 Iranian foreign minister discusses Russian-built nuclear power plant 6 Russia, Iran discuss building second power unit at Bushehr 7 US: Money did not grease nuclear energy planning 8 AU: Nuclear reactor go-ahead 'will trigger mass protests' 9 North Korea to Restart Talks with KEDO 10 US: Bush Administration Seeks to Oust Climate Expert 11 Lim asks North to renew talks with U.S., Japan 12 North Korea to Resume Nuclear Talks 13 Iranian foreign minister discusses Russian-built nuclear power NUCLEAR REACTORS 14 US: Progress Unit Found Nuclear Plant Leak, But No Corrosion 15 U.N. humanitarian chief discusses Chernobyl in Belarus 16 Ukrainian nuclear reactor shut down for overhaul 17 US: NRC TO MEET WITH CCNPP TO DISCUSS CALVERT CLIFFS PLANT 18 US: NRC to Meet with Amergen to Discuss Oyster Creek Plant 19 US: NRC to Meet with First Energy to Discuss Beaver Valley Plant 20 US: NRC Approves Power Uprate for Clinton Nuclear Power Plant 21 US: NRC Approves Power Uprate for Waterford Electric Station, Unit 3 22 US: NRC to Meet with FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company April 10 23 Yucca and Chernobyl 24 Japanese nuclear plant shutdown after workers detect cooling water p 25 U.N. humanitarian chief discusses Chernobyl in Belarus 26 US: Officials stick by nuclear claims 27 US: Progress Unit Found Nuclear Plant Leak, But No Corrosion 28 AU: Council warns of community backlash over nuclear facility NUCLEAR SAFETY 29 US: Suit Claims Radioactive Leak 30 Hiroshima porcelain (Major find on radiation impacts) 31 US: St. Mary's Distributes Radiation Pill Supply 32 US: State says iodide pills overrated 33 US: Neighbors of Old Nuclear Fuel Plant Sue Over Sicknesses NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 34 US: Yucca Mountain Transport Danger Dramatized on West Wing 35 Canada's independent on-line source of news you can use 36 US: Shine light on waste plans 37 US: Nevadans say show helps Yucca fight 38 US: Radioactive waste bill would seek public's input 39 US: Contamination complicated by area geology 40 US: Plutonium, other contaminants found offsite near NFS 41 US: N-Waste Tax Hike Is Sought 42 US: US nuclear panel to hear Utah waste dump challenge 43 US: Remember, 'West Wing' is fictional 44 US: U.S. nuclear panel to hear Utah waste dump challenge 45 US: Use N-waste over and over NUCLEAR WEAPONS 46 Vieques Action Alert as Navy bombs 47 Editorial: Nuclear-free, but not unilaterally 48 Editorial: Nuclear-free, but not unilaterally 49 Egypt calls for complete scrapping of nuclear weapons 50 Defector reveals extent of Iraqi weapons programme 51 US: U.S. questions full compliance by Russia to arms treaties 52 Rule of Power or Rule of Law? An Assessment of U.S. Policies and 53 US: Lecture to address nuclear weapons, terrorism US DEPT. OF ENERGY 54 Incinerator to resume operations by summer 55 Blaine Construction, SNS contractor, recognized for workplace safety 56 TDEC: DOE activities pose no health threat 57 Opinion - Unauthorized paint job, unspent funds and still more 58 Former Ames Lab employees test positive for toxins ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 FERC mulls plan in case of attack on US pipelines USA: April 4, 2002 WASHINGTON - The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said this week it was seeking ways to help U.S. industry quickly rebuild interstate oil and natural gas pipelines if any were damaged by terrorist attacks. Since the deadly Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, some U.S. lawmakers have urged additional steps to protect key U.S. pipelines, oil refineries and nuclear power plants. The risk to pipelines became clear on Oct. 4 when the huge Trans-Alaska pipeline was closed for three days after being pierced by a bullet, in what was described as an act of drunken mischief. The 800-mile pipeline carries 1 million barrels of oil each day. FERC, which regulates interstate pipelines, said it would hold an April 22 public meeting with the Transportation Department to discuss how the federal government could help a damaged pipeline return to service as quickly as possible. Typically, construction of a new pipeline requires years to obtain federal and local approvals for such things as environmental impact and design safety. The purpose of the meeting will be "to begin discussions with interested parties on whether and how to clarify, expedite and streamline permitting and approvals for interstate pipeline reconstruction in the event of disaster, whether natural or otherwise," the agency said. On the following day, FERC will hold a similar public meeting to analyze how natural gas supplies could be quickly reallocated among shippers, pipelines and local distribution companies in the event of an emergency. FERC asked the oil and gas industry to present information at the meetings about the following issues: * What industry practices exist to respond to incidents of intentional or accidental pipeline damage, and for emergency reallocations of natural gas? * What are the antitrust implications of pipeline companies, or natural gas companies, coordinating construction or operations to restore service? * In an emergency, are waivers of regulatory requirements needed? * How can compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act be met and expedited with pipeline reconstruction? * Can a generic national security finding be made that avoids case-specific environmental assessment in order to permit a pipeline company to begin immediate construction? * What are the roles of other agencies, state governments, and regulatory authorities in Canada and Mexico? * Should FERC have the authority to compel construction in certain emergency circumstances? * Should pipelines be compelled to construct redundant facilities for certain high-risk or high-profile targets? * How could natural gas requirements be prioritized during an emergency? * How should compensation for emergency supplies of natural gas be addressed? REUTERS NEWS SERVICE ***************************************************************** 2 Environmental groups pressure Lugar, Bayh HoosierTimes: April 3, 2002 By Steve Hinnefeld, Herald-Times Staff Writer Indiana environmental groups are seeking to put pressure on the state's two U.S. senators as the Senate gets ready to take action on a wide-ranging federal energy bill. The Sierra Club is running ads this week that call on Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., to support efforts to strengthen the legislation. At the same time, the Sierra Club's Hoosier chapter and the Indiana Public Interest Research Group issued a report that gave Bayh and Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., low grades for their clean-energy efforts. Representatives of both senators defended their records, saying they support balanced efforts to protect the environment while promoting the nation's energy security. Bayh will vote against any amendment that seeks to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling, a key environmental issue in the energy bill, said spokesman Mark Kornblau. Lugar still hasn't decided how he will vote on Arctic Refuge drilling if the issue comes up, said spokesman Andy Fisher. The Republican-controlled House passed a version of the energy bill last year that would open the refuge to drilling. The Democratic-controlled Senate worked on the bill last month and will take it up again Monday at the end of a two-week recess. Environmental groups faulted both Indiana senators for supporting amendments that, the groups claimed, weakened the bill. The Sierra Club-InPIRG report gave Lugar an F for voting against the groups' positions on five key amendments. It gave Bayh a D-minus — he got credit for voting against an attempt to weaken renewable-energy standards. The other amendments dealt with radioactive waste liability, automotive miles-per-gallon standards and clean-water regulation of oil and gas exploration techniques. "We want the senators to know that we notice when they vote against the environment and the public interest, and we are going to hold them accountable," said InPIRG representative Amanda Roll-Pickering of Bloomington. Jolinda Buchanan, conservation organizer with the Hoosier Sierra Club, called the energy bill "unacceptable in its current form." But Fisher said the amendments that Lugar is being criticized for supporting were "bipartisan attempts to develop a realistic environmental and energy policy for the country." "The students in InPIRG and the leaders of the Sierra Club are not serving the public interest in opposing an environmentally responsible national energy plan," he said. Kornblau said Bayh, as a member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, has worked to craft a bill that promotes renewable energy and reduces U.S. dependence on foreign oil. He said Bayh supports increased fuel-efficiency standards for motor vehicles, but at a level "that doesn't threaten thousands of Hoosier jobs that are dependent on the automobile industry." Reporter Steve Hinnefeld can be reached at 331-4374 or by e-mail at hinnefeld@heraldt.com. Herald-Times, Times-Mail, and Reporter-Times. ***************************************************************** 3 Vietnam studies feasibility of nuclear power plant VIETNAM: April 4, 2002 HANOI - Vietnam energy authorities plan to complete by late next year a pre-feasibility study for the country's first atomic power plant, estimated to cost $4 billion, official media said yesterday. The Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper quoted Nguyen Manh Hien, head of the Energy Institute under state utility Electricity of Vietnam (EVN), as saying it submit to the government by late 2003 the study for the construction of the 2,000 MegaWatt plant. Hien said Vietnam would need eight years to build the plant, besides the time required to train people, establish a legal framework and build public awareness of the safety of nuclear power. The paper said four sites in southern Vietnam had been tentatively identified for the plant - two in the province of Ninh Thuan, one in Binh Thuan and another in Phu Yen. The completed plant would have capacity exceeding Vietnam's biggest power facility, the Hoa Binh hydro power plant. Industry sources have said Vietnamese energy officials have been studying the possibility of nuclear power, assisted by Japanese experts. But they question why Vietnam, one of the world's poorest countries, needs to consider nuclear energy when it has plenty of natural gas and coal, and suitable conditions for hydropower. Official media have said Vietnam plans to operate its first atomic power plant by 2017 or 2019, to meet rising power demand. Vietnam and Russia signed a pact on using nuclear power for peaceful purposes during a visit to Hanoi lat month by Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov. Details of the agreement have not made public but industry experts say Russia was expected to help Vietnam in the production of nuclear power and safe operation of the research reactor in the central highland city of Dalat, among other things. REUTERS NEWS SERVICE ***************************************************************** 4 Bulgarian government creates nuclear regulatory agency BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Apr 4, 2002 Text of report by Bulgarian radio on 4 April The Council of Ministers decided to transform the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy into an Agency for Nuclear Regulation. The organizations which monitor the safe use of nuclear energy are to be separated from those which have an interest in its use. Source: Bulgarian Radio, Sofia, in Bulgarian 1200 gmt 4 Apr 02 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. ***************************************************************** 5 Iranian foreign minister discusses Russian-built nuclear power plant, Caspian Sea resources Yahoo! News - Thu Apr 4,10:38 AM ET By TIM VICKERY, Associated Press Writer MOSCOW - Visiting Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi and Russian officials on Thursday discussed the final phase of construction of a Russian-built nuclear reactor in Iran — a project that has caused alarm in the United States and cast a continual shadow over U.S.-Russian relations. Russian officials have dismissed U.S. warnings that the dlrs 800 million light-water reactor in Bushehr could help Iran develop nuclear weapons, and insisted the plant would remain under international control. The Bushehr reactor is set to be built by December 2003 and start up by 2005. Officials from the two countries have discussed plans for building a second reactor at the same plant. "Guided by the results of work on the first power unit, the sides are now discussing the possibility of completing construction of the second unit," said Viktor Kozlov, the head of Atomstroiexport company, which is building the Bushehr plant. Kozlov said that a total of 5,000 metric tons (5,500 tons) of equipment, including the reactor's body, had already been shipped to Iran. About 3,900 Russian and Iranian workers are building the reactor, Kozlov said, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency. Alongside concern about the Bushehr plant, U.S. officials have alleged that some Russian companies were leaking missile technology to Iran. Speaking to reporters in Athens, Greece, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov reiterated Moscow's strong denial that Russia had assisted Iran's missile or nuclear weapons program. "Russia's alleged supply of nuclear or missile technologies to Iran has been discussed for a long time, but it is nothing but a myth," Ivanov said. At the same time, he said, Russia would continue selling conventional weapons to Tehran. Russia's ties with Iran are a major irritant in U.S.-Russian relations, which have otherwise improved thanks to Russian President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites)'s support for the U.S. war in Afghanistan (news - web sites). In a university speech Thursday, Kharrazi voiced concern about the U.S. military presence in former Soviet republics in Central Asia, which Putin has accepted calmly. "It's we, the countries of the region, who must take care of security in Central Asia," he said, according to ITAR-Tass. In his talks with Russian officials, Kharrazi also discussed the status of the oil-rich Caspian Sea, which was ruled by an agreement between Iran and the Soviet Union, but has become a bone of contention after the 1991 Soviet collapse. Kharrazi predicted that Iraq's recent proposal to suspend oil exports to the United States as a lever to affect the Middle East conflict would work only if all oil-producing Islamic countries "make a unanimous decision," the Interfax news agency reported. (tv/vi/ji) Copyright © 2002 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 6 Russia, Iran discuss building second power unit at Bushehr BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Apr 4, 2002 Text of report in English by Russian news agency ITAR-TASS Moscow, 4 April: Russia is holding talks with Iran on construction of the second unit at the Bushehr nuclear power plant, ITAR-TASS learnt on Thursday [4 April] at the Atomstroyeksport company's public relations centre. According to the appraisal of Atomstroyeksport managing director Viktor Kozlov, "talks are proceeding successfully". "Guided by the results of work on the first power unit," Kozlov noted, "the sides are now discussing a possibility of completing construction of the second unit. It is possible to sign a contract for another two years." "Around 3,900 Russian and Iranian specialists now work at the construction site of the first unit of the Bushehr nuclear power plant," Atomstroyeksport experts noted. "Last year, Russia partially shipped the main equipment, including the reactor. All in all, 5,000 tonnes of equipment were shipped. "It is also planned to make some major deliveries this year. The reactor of the first power unit is planned to be put into operation in December 2003." Atomstroyeksport specialists noted that the Iranian side requested the Russian Atomic Energy Ministry in 1994 to complete construction of the first unit of the Bushehr station that had been under construction earlier by the German Siemens company. Iranians asked to complete construction, using to the utmost building constructions and equipment brought from Germany, as well as Iranian equipment whose quantity ran into about 80,000 pieces. This was a very difficult scientific and technical task. As a result of studies of the state of the project by Russian firms, they confirmed the possibility of completing construction of the German unit with application of equipment and technology of the Russian power unit VVER-1000. In August 1998, the sides signed an addendum to the contract on handing over construction of the station on a turnkey basis to the Atomstroyeksport company. Source: ITAR-TASS news agency, Moscow, in English 1229 gmt 4 Apr 02 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. ***************************************************************** 7 Money did not grease nuclear energy planning Chicago Tribune | VOICE OF THE PEOPLE (LETTER) Spencer Abraham, Secretary of Energy Published April 4, 2002 Washington -- Sometimes reporters search so hard for a story that isn't there that they miss the obvious. That's the only conclusion one can draw from the article by the New York Times' Don Van Natta ("Energy executives had sway on policy, Cheney report held benefit for Exelon," News, March 24), trying to link contributions from the nuclear industry to a mention of the next generation pebble bed reactor in the president's energy plan. First, to anyone even slightly versed in discussions of future nuclear reactor technology, the omission of at least a brief discussion of pebble bed technology would seem odd indeed. This technology is one of a handful of future technologies that are frequently discussed by nuclear experts such as those on the independent Nuclear Energy Research Advisory Committee. It didn't require a phone call, or a meeting, for our experts on nuclear reactors to know that. Second, instead of trying to link unconnected events in a vain attempt to insinuate unseemly conduct, Van Natta had only to read press releases from the last few months in which we make very clear our policies with regard to the future of nuclear reactor technology. The Energy Department, for example, has announced work on, and funding for, gas turbine modular helium reactor technology, passively safe advanced light water reactor technology, and several other next-generation research and development initiatives. At some point, it may be appropriate to include a targeted investment in pebble bed reactor technology in our work, but we haven't actually done so yet. It is ironic, to say the least, that of all the future reactor technologies we are funding, the one Van Natta singles out is actually not the principal focus of our current efforts. Van Natta states that one could only figure out why certain energy policies were included in the president's National Energy Plan by knowing which industry leaders met with the Energy Task Force. This is silly. The Energy Department, and the national laboratories that are part of it, have some of the finest minds on the planet, particularly when it comes to nuclear reactor technologies. It is more often the case that industry comes to us for help in thinking through future technologies than the reverse. Copyright © 2002, Chicago Tribune ***************************************************************** 8 Nuclear reactor go-ahead 'will trigger mass protests' smh.com.au - By Richard Macey There would be a mass demonstrations if a plan for a nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights is approved, environmentalists warned yesterday. The decision to licence the construction of the $320 million reactor, to be built by the financially troubled Argentine company INVAP, is expected today from the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency. Greenpeace activist Stephen Campbell said: "If the decision is to go ahead with the reactor, we are appalled. "There are far too many things left unsolved, including the need for a reactor, the financial position of INVAP and a nuclear waste management strategy. "There will be outrage ... the community will be up in arms." He added that Lucas Heights was "fast becoming one of the significant environmental campaigns". Mr Campbell said approval for the reactor would trigger a "community vigil". Jim Johnston, a founding member of Sydney People Against the New Reactor, also predicted demonstrations. "[A new reactor] will be a huge mistake," he said. A spokesman for the Nuclear Safety Agency said a planned media conference to announce its decision would probably be abandoned. "We may simply make it by way of a media release." Copyright © 2002. The Sydney Morning Herald. ***************************************************************** 9 North Korea to Restart Talks with KEDO Digital Chosunilbo (English Edition) : Daily News in English About Korea 04/04(Thu) 15:19 Responding to recent reports out of North Korea's official news agency saying Pyongyang is planning to restart talks with the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said Thursday, the US would always welcome dialogue with the North, anytime, anywhere and this will remain so in the future. Fleischer continued that Washington was looking forward to hearing an answer from Pyongyang to proposals made long ago that it is willing to meet with North Korean officials to discuss a wide range of issues. A diplomatic source in Washington said the US thinks Pyongyang will soon make an official approach to it on the matter of detailed methods for dialogue. Joint Chief of Staffs Gen. Gen. Richard Myers said in a briefing that there was no evidence in any form that the state of tension on the peninsula has risen, noting that it remained unchanged from the level it has fundamentally maintained so far. Quoting a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman, KEDO announced the Stalinist state's envoy to the United Nations, Park Kil Yon met with US Korean Peninsula Ambassador Jack Prichard in New York twice last month, amid North Korean threats to do away with the 1994 Agreed Framework under which Pyongyang vowed to freeze a suspected nuclear weapons program in exchange for two safer light-water reactors built by the West. The threats were prompted by the complaints by the United States that the North Korea was dragging its feet on allowing a UN nuclear inspectors visit to verify it has no stockpiles of weapons-grade plutonium. Under the 1994 pact, the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization, the New York-based multinational consortium set up to build the reactors cannot deliver critical nuclear equipment until the inspections take place (From Washington, Ju Yong-jung, midway@chosun.com) Copyright (c)1995-2001, DIGITAL CHOSUN All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 10 Bush Administration Seeks to Oust Climate Expert Environment News Service: By Cat Lazaroff WASHINGTON, DC, April 3, 2002 (ENS) - With the State Department's announcement Tuesday that the U.S. government will sponsor an Indian scientist as the new chair of an international climate change group, the Bush administration took another swipe at efforts to understand and combat global warming. Dr. Rajendra Pachauri would replace Dr. Robert Watson, a widely respected American scientist who has warned of the human causes of climate change for almost six years. [Watson] Dr. Robert Watson may lose his seat at the head of the IPCC later this month. (All photos courtesy Earth Negotiations Bulletin [http://iisd.ca/linkages] ) Since 1996, Dr. Watson has chaired the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a joint project of the United Nations and the World Meteorological Organization. The 2,500 researchers and other experts who are part of the IPCC have led international efforts to assess the science behind human and natural causes of climate change since it was formed in 1988. Watson, an atmospheric researcher and the chief scientist at the World Bank, is considered one of the world's leading experts on climate change. He is also a strong proponent of the idea that human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels are the primary forces behind the warming climate, and that efforts to combat global warming must focus on reducing human emissions of greenhouse gases. Under Watson's tenure, the IPCC last year produced its third comprehensive assessment of the state of climate science, concluding that, "there is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities." The panel also predicted that average global temperatures will rise between three and 10 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century. These conclusions were reaffirmed last spring by the National Academy of Sciences, which reviewed the IPCC's report at the request of the White House. The removal of U.S. support for Watson's leadership makes it likely that he will not be reelected when the IPCC meets in Geneva from April 17-20 to elect a new 30 person bureau. On Tuesday, the State Department announced it will support Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, the candidate proposed by the government of India, as the new chair of the IPCC. Pachauri, the director-general of the Tata Energy Research Institute in New Dehli, India, is now one of five vice chairs at the IPCC. If elected chair, Pachauri would be the first IPCC chair from a developing country. [Pachauri] Dr. Rajendra Pachauri has been backed by India and the U.S. to chair the IPCC Critics of Pachauri's candidacy note that his two PhDs are in economics and industrial engineering, and argue that a scientist with a stronger background in atmospheric science would be a better choice. Today, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a private conservation group, released papers showing that the energy industry has been quietly pressing for the removal of Watson from the helm of the IPCC since the Bush administration took office in January 2001. Oil giant ExxonMobil sent a confidential memo to the White House urging the Bush administration to replace Watson, who "was hand picked by [former Vice President] Al Gore," along with other Clinton era appointees, with a "team that can better represent the Bush Administration interests." The memo recommends that President George W. Bush "restructure the U.S. attendance at upcoming IPCC meetings to assure none of the Clinton/Gore proponents are involved in any decisional activities." The memorandum was obtained by the NRDC from the White House Council on Environmental Quality under the Freedom of Information Act. [Watson] Watson at the 6th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Bonn, Germany, July 17, 2001 The energy industry has stepped up its lobbying efforts in Washington since Bush, a former oil industry executive, was elected. Dozens of industry officials met last year with the vice president's energy task force to help shape the administration's national energy policy, which would offer millions of dollars in new tax breaks and subsidies for the industry. In meetings this week with State Department officials, lobbyists for the coal industry, electric utilities, and automakers joined ExxonMobil's call to replace Watson. "It's bad enough that ExxonMobil controls White House energy and climate policies," said Daniel Lashof, science director of the NRDC climate center. "Now they want to control the science too." In a letter yesterday to Undersecretary of State Paula Dobriansky, NRDC's Lashof wrote. "The industry effort to block the reappointment of Dr. Watson is a thinly veiled attempt to undermine the effectiveness of the IPCC as a body that produces high quality, objective scientific assessments. I urge you to reject this campaign and to give Dr. Watson the United States' strongest possible support." Email the Environment Editor [news@ens-news.com] ***************************************************************** 11 Lim asks North to renew talks with U.S., Japan IHT: Lee Young-jong JoongAng Ilbo April 04, 2002 A special presidential envoy from South Korea arrived in Pyeongyang Wednesday in an endeavor to better inter-Korean relations and to disentangle the knot of renewed concerns over the North's continuous nuclear and missile development. Lim Dong-won, special Blue House adviser on diplomacy, national security and unification, departed the Seoul Airport in Seongnam, Gyeonggi province, at 10 a.m. and arrived at Pyeong-yang's Sunan Airport at 11:45 a.m. Kim Wan-su, vice chairman of North Korea's Asia-Pacific Peace Committee, and Choe Song-ik, director of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland, met him at the airport. In the afternoon, Mr. Lim had the first of several rounds of talks with Kim Yong-sun, North Korea's Workers' Party secretary, at the Baekhwawon state guesthouse. In the meetings, Mr. Lim reportedly delivered the concerns of international society, Washington in particular, about North Korea's development of weapons of mass destruction. According to Rhee Bong-jo, the Unification Ministry's director of unification policy, Mr. Lim urged the North to resume talks with Washington and Japan as soon as possible in order to ease visibly mounting tensions on the Korean Peninsula. Kim Hong-jae, the Unification Ministry's spokesman, said Mr. Lim especially said that North Korea's missile and nuclear programs should be resolved through peaceful talks. The South Korean delegation called Seoul immediately after the first meeting, reporting that the talks were difficult because Pyeongyang brought forward concerns over the Bush administration's hard-line stance. The first session was more of a reconnaissance task, the South Korean delegation said. Mr. Lim and Mr. Kim discussed the post-Sept. 11 environment in international society and on the divided peninsula. Mr. Lim met with reporters in Seoul Wednesday morning before his departure. "I will discuss comprehensive issues to prevent creation of tension on the Korean Peninsula and to implement inter-Korean agreements," he said. "I am also delivering messages from Washington and Tokyo to the North." Mr. Lim said he may visit the United States after his mission. The highlight of Mr. Lim's visit will come Thursday, when he is expected to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-il to deliver President Kim Dae-jung's personal letter and to hold intense talks about the betterment of inter-Korean relations. Copyright © 2002 the International Herald Tribune All Rights Reserved ***************************************************************** 12 North Korea to Resume Nuclear Talks (washingtonpost.com) Decision Suggests Pyongyang Won't Break Ties to U.S., Allies By Peter Slevin Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, April 4, 2002; Page A10 North Korea announced yesterday that it will resume discussions on two nuclear reactors being built there by an international consortium supported by the United States. A U.S. desire for broader negotiations remains unrequited. North Korea's willingness to continue practical discussions about the reactors follows a pair of meetings in New York with American diplomats, U.S. officials said. The decision seems to indicate that Koreans do not intend to break ties with the United States or its allies, despite several months of strong rhetorical exchanges. The announcement came as a South Korean special envoy began a three-day visit to North Korea in hopes of reviving official dialogue on the divided peninsula. The arrival of Lim Dong-won in Pyongyang marked the first public contact between the two Koreas since November. Relations between the United States and North Korea have been unusually tense since January, when President Bush declared North Korea to be part of an "axis of evil," along with Iran and Iraq. Meetings on the twin reactors took place in February, but the North Koreans declined to participate last month. "These are just mundane, practical issues that are related to construction of these plants," said Brian Kremer, spokesman for the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization, the international consortium that includes the United States, Japan and South Korea. The sessions are scheduled about once a month. Despite the brief interruption of formal meetings, contacts continued at the power plant work sites and the diplomatic friction had no effect on the project, Kremer said. Twice in March, State Department envoy Jack Pritchard met with North Korean representatives in New York, urging more ambitious discussions. "We continue to await a response on our long-standing proposal to meet with them on broader areas of concern," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said yesterday. Two weeks ago, the Bush administration asserted that North Korea was falling short of its obligations under the 1994 agreement that promised two light water reactors in return for a freeze in Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program. Despite the finding, the administration authorized delivery of $95 million in fuel oil as promised by the agreement. © 2002 The Washington Post Company ***************************************************************** 13 Iranian foreign minister discusses Russian-built nuclear power plant, Caspian Sea resources Yahoo! News - Thu Apr 4,10:38 AM ET By TIM VICKERY, Associated Press Writer MOSCOW - Visiting Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi and Russian officials on Thursday discussed the final phase of construction of a Russian-built nuclear reactor in Iran — a project that has caused alarm in the United States and cast a continual shadow over U.S.-Russian relations. Russian officials have dismissed U.S. warnings that the dlrs 800 million light-water reactor in Bushehr could help Iran develop nuclear weapons, and insisted the plant would remain under international control. The Bushehr reactor is set to be built by December 2003 and start up by 2005. Officials from the two countries have discussed plans for building a second reactor at the same plant. "Guided by the results of work on the first power unit, the sides are now discussing the possibility of completing construction of the second unit," said Viktor Kozlov, the head of Atomstroiexport company, which is building the Bushehr plant. Kozlov said that a total of 5,000 metric tons (5,500 tons) of equipment, including the reactor's body, had already been shipped to Iran. About 3,900 Russian and Iranian workers are building the reactor, Kozlov said, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency. Alongside concern about the Bushehr plant, U.S. officials have alleged that some Russian companies were leaking missile technology to Iran. Speaking to reporters in Athens, Greece, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov reiterated Moscow's strong denial that Russia had assisted Iran's missile or nuclear weapons program. "Russia's alleged supply of nuclear or missile technologies to Iran has been discussed for a long time, but it is nothing but a myth," Ivanov said. At the same time, he said, Russia would continue selling conventional weapons to Tehran. Russia's ties with Iran are a major irritant in U.S.-Russian relations, which have otherwise improved thanks to Russian President Vladimir Putin 's support for the U.S. war in Afghanistan. In a university speech Thursday, Kharrazi voiced concern about the U.S. military presence in former Soviet republics in Central Asia, which Putin has accepted calmly. "It's we, the countries of the region, who must take care of security in Central Asia," he said, according to ITAR-Tass. In his talks with Russian officials, Kharrazi also discussed the status of the oil-rich Caspian Sea, which was ruled by an agreement between Iran and the Soviet Union, but has become a bone of contention after the 1991 Soviet collapse. Kharrazi predicted that Iraq's recent proposal to suspend oil exports to the United States as a lever to affect the Middle East conflict would work only if all oil-producing Islamic countries "make a unanimous decision," the Interfax news agency reported. (tv/vi/ji) Copyright © 2002 The Associated Press. ***************************************************************** 14 Progress Unit Found Nuclear Plant Leak, But No Corrosion Yahoo! News - Wed Apr 3, 6:59 PM ET By: Jon Kamp, Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES CHICAGO -(Dow Jones)- Progress Energy Inc.'s (PGN) Florida Power Corp. unit found a crack and a boric acid leak at its Crystal Rivers nuclear plant in Florida during a refueling outage last fall, according to a document made public by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Wednesday. The crack was in a control rod drive mechanism tube, and acid was found on the metal surface of the reactor vessel head around the cracked tube. After cleaning the acid, the company did a 100% inspection of the vessel head and found no evidence of corrosion, spokesman Keith Poston said. "We're pretty confident at this point," he said. A boric acid leak from a cracked tube at FirstEnergy Corp. (NYSE: FE - news) 's (FE) Davis Besse nuclear plant in Ohio has been associated with a significant area of corrosion found last month in the reactor vessel head, or lid that covers the reactor core. Because that kind of damage has never been seen before in the industry, and because 68 other plants in the U.S. use similar technology as Davis Besse, the NRC wanted to know whether corrosion could be occurring elsewhere. The agency sent out a letter two weeks ago to the 68 plants, including Crystal Rivers, asking whether they had done complete corrosion checks. Responses, which must be postmarked by Wednesday, are starting to be posted by the NRC. According to Florida Power, it performed a complete inspection of its vessel head last fall because of an earlier NRC memo, sent last August, that asked plant owners to specifically look for a tube cracking problem. That memo was sent after cracks were found at Duke Energy's (DUK) Oconee plant in South Carolina. As at Oconee and Davis Besse, Crystal River's vessel head was originally manufactured by Babcock & Wilcox Co ., now a unit of McDermott International Inc. (MDR). Poston said Florida Power also decided to do a 100% visual inspection of Crystal River's vessel head because it recognized that there could be some susceptibility for cracking at B&W plants. The company is also planning to completely replace the vessel head during an outage in late 2003, because the cost of a new head will be less than continued intense inspections, Poston said. "Frankly, it was so expensive for us to do inspections and repairs one time, it's better for us to replace the head," he said. During a conference call last week, Progress Energy said a new vessel head would be less likely to have these problems. The company also said that its Robinson 2 unit in South Carolina hasn't had any cracking or corrosion. Florida Power's fall inspection first turned up visual evidence of boric acid on the reactor vessel head. Much of it was caked up around one of the control rod drive mechanism tubes, which was later found to be cracked following ultrasonic testing, Poston said. The plant's other 68 tubes were not cracked. The boric acid was then cleaned, and a following 100% inspection showed there was no corrosion on the vessel head. At Davis Besse, corrosion ate a 6.5-inch cavity into the head that displaced 40 pounds of carbon steel. The NRC hasn't called the Davis Besse cavity a safety concern, but it has launched a wide investigation to determine whether the problem is an anomaly or more common. It will use the letters sent to other utilities to determine whether inspection outages are needed at other plants to search for corrosion. NRC spokesman Victor Dricks said Wednesday that the agency won't offer early analysis of the information from utilities. -By Jon Kamp, Dow Jones Newswires; 312-750-4129; jon.kamp@dowjones.com Copyright © 2002 Dow Jones. All rights reserved. Copyright © 2002 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 15 U.N. humanitarian chief discusses Chernobyl in Belarus Yahoo! News - Thu Apr 4, 2:51 AM ET GOMEL, Belarus - The United Nations (news - web sites)' top humanitarian official on Thursday visited two villages in Belarus that were affected by the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster. The 1986 explosion and fire at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in nearby northern Ukraine was the world's worst nuclear disaster. The accident spewed radiation over parts of Ukraine, Belarus and western Russia. Kenzo Oshima, U.N. undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, earlier this week visited Russia and Ukraine to promote a new tack to aiding Chernobyl victims that focuses on economic development, rather than emergency aid. Oshima visited one village in Belarus that has been completely depopulated as a result of the disaster and one where residents are trying to make a living, primarily through agriculture. (sg/dgs) Copyright © 2002 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 16 Ukrainian nuclear reactor shut down for overhaul BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Apr 4, 2002 Text of report by Ukrainian news agency UNIAN Kiev, 4 April: The No 1 generating set at the Rivne nuclear power plant was disconnected from the energy grid for a major scheduled overhaul at 1502 [1202 gmt] on 3 April. The repairs will last until 7 June 2002, UNIAN learnt at the public relations department of the Enerhoatom state company. Eleven generating sets are operating at nuclear power plants now. Repairs are under way at the No 6 generating set of the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant and the No 1 reactor of the Rivne nuclear power plant. Radiation levels at all nuclear power plants are within the norm. [The Rivne reactor was stopped yesterday due to a malfunction in the safety shutdown system, UNIAN reported at 1425 gmt on 3 April.] Source: UNIAN news agency, Kiev, in Ukrainian 0728 gmt 4 Apr 02 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. ***************************************************************** 17 NRC TO MEET WITH CCNPP TO DISCUSS CALVERT CLIFFS PLANT PERFORMANCE NRC: Press Release Region I - 2002 - 28 - U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, Region I 475 Allendale Road, King of Prussia, Pa. 19406 www.nrc.gov No. I-02-028 April 3, 2002 CONTACT: Diane Screnci (610) 337-5330 Neil A. Sheehan (610) 337-5331 E-mail: opa1@nrc.gov [opa1@nrc.gov] Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will meet with representatives of Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant (CCNPP), Inc., on Friday, April 5, to discuss the results of the agency's annual assessment of safety performance at the Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant. The twin-reactor facility is located in Lusby, Md. The meeting, which will be open to the public for observation, is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. at the Calvert Cliffs Visitor and Education Center, 1650 Calvert Cliffs Parkway in Lusby. Before the session is adjourned, NRC staff will be available to answer questions from the public on the safety performance of the Calvert Cliffs plant, as well as the role of the NRC in ensuring safe plant operation. The performance period to be discussed is April 1, 2001, to December 31, 2001. In addition, NRC staff will provide an overview of the agency's Reactor Oversight Process. A letter sent from the NRC Region I office to the company addresses the performance of the plant during the period and will serve as the basis for the meeting discussion. It is available on the NRC web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/LETTERS/calv_2001q4.pdf [http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/LETTERS/calv_2001q4.pdf] Current performance information for Calvert Cliffs Unit 1 is available on the NRC web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/CALV1/calv1_chart.html [http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/CALV1/calv1_chart.html] Current performance information for Calvert Cliffs Unit 2 is available on the NRC web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/CALV2/calv2_chart.html [http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/CALV2/calv2_chart.html] ***************************************************************** 18 NRC to Meet with Amergen to Discuss Oyster Creek Plant Performance NRC: Press Release Region I - 2002 - 29 - U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, Region I 475 Allendale Road, King of Prussia, Pa. 19406 www.nrc.gov No. I-02-029 April 3, 2002 CONTACT: Diane Screnci (610) 337-5330 Neil A. Sheehan (610) 337-5331 E-mail: [opa1@nrc.gov] Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will meet with representatives of AmerGen Energy Company, LLC, on Thursday, April 11, to discuss the results of the agency's annual assessment of safety performance at the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant. The facility is located in Lacey Township, N.J., and operated by AmerGen. The meeting, which will be open to the public for observation, is scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. at the Lacey Township Municipal Building, 818 W. Lacey Road in the township's Forked River section. Before the session is adjourned, NRC staff will be available to answer questions from the public on the safety performance of the Oyster Creek plant, as well as the role of the NRC in ensuring safe plant operation. The performance period to be discussed is April 1, 2001, to December 31, 2001. In addition, NRC staff will provide an overview of the agency's Reactor Oversight Process. A letter sent from the NRC Region I office to AmerGen discusses the performance of the plant during the period and will serve as the basis for the meeting discussion. It is available on the NRC web site at: [http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/LETTERS/oc_2001q4.pdf] Current performance information for the Oyster Creek plant is available on the NRC web site at: [http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/OC/oc_chart.html] ***************************************************************** 19 NRC to Meet with First Energy to Discuss Beaver Valley Plant Performance NRC: Press Release Region I - 2002 - 30 - U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, Region I 475 Allendale Road, King of Prussia, Pa. 19406 www.nrc.gov No. I-02-030 April 3, 2002 CONTACT: Diane Screnci (610) 337-5330 Neil A. Sheehan (610) 337-5331 E-mail: opa1@nrc.gov [opa1@nrc.gov] Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will meet with representatives of First Energy Nuclear Operating Company on Tuesday, April 9, to discuss the results of the agency's annual assessment of safety performance at the Beaver Valley nuclear power plant. The two-unit facility is located in Shippingport, Pa., and operated by First Energy. The meeting, which will be open to the public for observation, is scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. at the Beaver Valley Emergency Response Facility, Conference Room A, at the site. Before the session is adjourned, NRC staff will be available to answer questions from the public on the safety performance of the plant, as well as the role of the NRC in ensuring safe plant operation. The performance period to be discussed is April 1, 2001, to December 31, 2001. In addition, NRC staff will provide an overview of the agency's Reactor Oversight Process. A letter sent from the NRC Region I office to First Energy discusses the performance of the plant during the period and will serve as the basis for the meeting discussion. It is available on the NRC web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/LETTERS/bv_2001q4.pdf. Current performance information for Beaver Valley Unit 1 is available on the NRC web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/BV1/bv1_chart.html. Current performance information for Beaver Valley Unit 2 is available on the NRC web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/BV2/bv2_chart.html. ***************************************************************** 20 NRC Approves Power Uprate for Clinton Nuclear Power Plant NRC: Press Release - 2002 - 42 - U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 20555-001 E-mail: opa@nrc.gov [opa@nrc.gov] www.nrc.gov No. 02–041 April 4, 2002 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved a request by AmerGen Energy Company, LLC, to increase the generating capacity of the Clinton Power Station by about 20 percent, or about 186 megawatts. The power uprate at the plant, near Clinton, Illinois, will increase the generating capacity of the reactor to about 1,116 megawatts of electricity. The facility intends to implement the power increase in two phases beginning this spring. The application for the increase in power was submitted to the NRC on June 18, 2001. The NRC's safety evaluation of the requested power uprate for the plant focused on several areas, including nuclear steam supply systems, instrumentation and control systems, electrical systems, accident evaluations, radiological consequences, operations and technical specification changes. The NRC staff determined that the licensee could safely increase the power output of the reactor primarily by using new fuel in the core and making certain plant modifications. ***************************************************************** 21 NRC Approves Power Uprate for Waterford Electric Station, Unit 3 NRC: Press Release - 2002 - 42 - U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 20555-001 E-mail: opa@nrc.gov [opa@nrc.gov] www.nrc.gov No. 02-042 April 4, 2002 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved a request by Entergy Operations, Inc. to increase the generating capacity of the Waterford Electric Station, Unit 3, by about 1.5 percent, or about 16 megawatts. The power uprate at the plant, 20 miles west of New Orleans, Louisiana, will increase the generating capacity of the reactor to about 1,169 megawatts of electricity. The facility intends to implement the power increase during its current outage. The application for the increase in power was submitted to the NRC on September 21, 2001. The NRC's safety evaluation of the requested power uprate for the plant focused on several areas, including nuclear steam supply systems, instrumentation and control systems, electrical systems, accident evaluations, radiological consequences, operations and technical specification changes. The NRC staff determined that the licensee could safely increase the power output of the reactor by making certain plant instrumentation modifications. ***************************************************************** 22 NRC to Meet with FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company April 10 to Discuss Proposed Repairs to Davis-Besse Reactor Vessel NRC: Press Release - 2002 - 43 - U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 20555-001 E-mail: opa@nrc.gov [opa@nrc.gov] www.nrc.gov No. 02-043 April 4, 2002 The staff of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will meet April 10 with representatives from FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company to discuss proposed repairs and modifications to the reactor pressure vessel head at the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station. The meeting will be held from 1:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. in the Commissioners' Conference Room in the agency's One White Flint North Building, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland. The meeting will be open to the public for observation and NRC officials will be available before the meeting adjourns to answer any questions. The meeting contacts are Stephen Sands at (301) 415-3154 and Douglas Pickett at (301) 415-1364. Interested individuals may listen to the meeting via telephone by calling: (301) 231-5539 or 1- 800-638-8081 and entering passcode 5315# at the prompt. Fifty phone lines will be available. If difficulties are experienced, help will be available in accessing the conference by calling 1-800-368-5642 and requesting operator assistance. The plant, located at Oak Harbor, Ohio, shut down February 16 for refueling and maintenance. Inspections revealed a cavity in the top of the reactor pressure vessel head that may have been caused by corrosion from boric acid deposits. As announced March 12, the NRC sent an Augmented Inspection Team to the site to monitor the licensee's investigation and evaluation of the degradation to the reactor pressure vessel head and issued a bulletin requesting prompt information from all of its pressurized water reactor licensees on vessel head inspections. An exit meeting to discuss the team's findings will be held in Oak Harbor, Ohio, on April 5. To help keep the public informed of its activities, NRC has established a section on its web site where information about reactor pressure vessel head degradation is posted and updated, including press releases, correspondence with NRC licensees and other related documents. The web address is: http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/ops-experience/vessel-head-degradation.htm l ***************************************************************** 23 Yucca and Chernobyl April 4, 2002 o the Editor: The bipartisan campaign in Nevada to stop the shipment of high-level nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain (news article, April 2) is based in part on the General Accounting Office's December conclusion that nearly 300 scientific and engineering questions about the Yucca plan remained unanswered. But there are even more serious flaws in the plan. Transporting the deadly radioactive material across the roads of the United States exposes people to the very real possibility of a far more serious threat than roadway accidents. These shipments would become easy targets for terrorists. One need only read your April 2 World Briefing item about what remains of the radioactive contamination from the Chernobyl accident 16 years ago to envision what could happen on any given day with nuclear waste shipments on open roads in this country. JOEL SELBIN Boulder, Colo., April 2, 2002 Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company | Privacy Information ***************************************************************** 24 Japanese nuclear plant shutdown after workers detect cooling water problem (04/04/2002) (Agencies) A cooling water problem shut down a nuclear power plant in northern Japan on Thursday, but technicians said there were no radioactive leaks. Engineers discovered that one of two cooling water supply systems wasn't working Wednesday morning while trying to boost output at the power plant, said Yoshimichi Inada, spokesman for the Japan Atomic Power Co. The company began shutting down the plant that afternoon and completed the shutdown early morning Thursday, Inada said. No radiation leaks were detected, he said. Workers were still investigating the cause of the water supply problem. Engineers had been trying to increase the plant's output after a lightning strike on Sunday caused the plant to temporarily come off line. The plant is in the city of Tokaimura in Ibaraki prefecture (state), about 112 kilometers (70 miles) northeast of Tokyo. The town is also the cite of Japan's worst nuclear power accident. A September 1999 leak at a nearby uranium processing plant killed two workers and exposed hundreds of others to radiation. On Tuesday, a nuclear power reactor in central Japan was also shut down because workers there discovered a problem with its cooling pipes. No radiation leaks were discovered in that case. Resource-poor Japan depends on nuclear power for about 30 percent of its electricity needs. Recent accidents and cover-ups, however, have made many Japanese uneasy about nuclear power. Copyright 2002 By chinadaily.com.cn. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 25 U.N. humanitarian chief discusses Chernobyl in Belarus Yahoo! News - Thu Apr 4, 2:51 AM ET GOMEL, Belarus - The United Nations (news top humanitarian official on Thursday visited two villages in Belarus that were affected by the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster. The 1986 explosion and fire at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in nearby northern Ukraine was the world's worst nuclear disaster. The accident spewed radiation over parts of Ukraine, Belarus and western Russia. Kenzo Oshima, U.N. undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, earlier this week visited Russia and Ukraine to promote a new tack to aiding Chernobyl victims that focuses on economic development, rather than emergency aid. Oshima visited one village in Belarus that has been completely depopulated as a result of the disaster and one where residents are trying to make a living, primarily through agriculture. (sg/dgs) Copyright © 2002 The Associated Press. ***************************************************************** 26 Officials stick by nuclear claims They say maps found in cave; Guard says no » More From The Express-Times New Jersey News 04/04/02 By TERRENCE DOPP The Express-Times TRENTON - Two state lawmakers Wednesday stood behind their statements that U.S. forces found detailed plans for a Salem County nuclear complex while searching a seized al-Qaida cave in Afghanistan. Members of the state Assembly’s anti-terrorism committee disclosed this information following a tour Tuesday of security at Artificial Island, the nation’s second-largest nuclear plant. "I feel the onus is on me as a legislator and vice chairman of the Homeland Security and State Preparedness Committee to bring this information out and ensure something is done about it," said Assemblyman Gary Guear, D-Hamilton. "Let them prove me wrong." Assemblywoman Joan Quigley, D-Jersey City, chairwoman of the security committee, also stood behind the statement Wednesday. "We were told that by a member of the National Guard," Quigley said, adding documents for other plants were found. According to the two legislators, American soldiers found the plans while searching a terrorist cave during the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan. Both said the plans outlined the Artificial Island complex, a grouping of three nuclear reactors on the shores of the Delaware Bay. Searchers found diagrams and maps of the site, not plans for an attack, Guear said. Exactly which forces found the blueprints and the timeline remains unclear. Guear, a Democrat and 25-year veteran of the Trenton police force, said National Guard troops never told him the information was secret. A "reliable, confidential source" confirmed the discovery, he said. "As a result of the site visit to the Salem nuclear power plant, it is my information and belief that detailed plans were found in a cave," Guear said during a telephone interview. "That is something I wholeheartedly believe right now. If I didn’t, we wouldn’t be having this conversation." Skip Sindoni, spokesman for PSEG Nuclear, which runs the plant, again said federal officials have not told the company about the diagrams. Diane Screnci of the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission also said her agency was never apprised of any threat to the facility. Col. John Dwyer of the Army National Guard’s public affairs office said the committee members got bad information. "A bad piece of information got out and was taken as confirmed information," Dwyer said. "I can’t say it any other way." But Dwyer was unable to categorically deny that the plans may have been found. "I can say to our knowledge, that is to the best of our knowledge, we have never been briefed, never been made aware of any specific threat," he said. Guear said PSEG Nuclear and National Guard briefers are "back pedaling." "I’m not trying to be an alarmist here but that information is out there," he said. In a letter sent to Guear and Assemblywoman Quigley on Wednesday, New Jersey Assistant Attorney General Kathryn Flycker said that after speaking to state police, the Board of Public Utilities and the FBI she ruled the statements "erroneous." However, Flycker acknowledged in the letter the statements were made during a National Guard briefing Tuesday. "It is my understanding that in an offhand comment, a Master Sergeant remarked ‘he had heard’ that information regarding plans for the Salem nuclear power plant had been found in a cave in Afganistan (sic)," Flycker wrote. "We investigated this immediately, and we can assure you that the remark made to you was totally and wholly inaccurate." When contacted by reporters later, she stood by the letter, which castigated Guear’s statement as "irresponsible." Guear’s initial statement came during what was expected to be a routine news conference held following a tour of security at Artificial Island. The group has been touring a number of the sites statewide, according to Quigley. Since the Sept. 11 attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center, security at the facility has been tightened, officials contend. Beefed-up security includes a coordinated effort by in-house guards and the National Guard, and intelligence gathering by federal agencies. Sindoni has said access has been restricted to much of the facility and its perimeter better guarded The Salem I, Salem II and Hope Creek reactors all sit on one site in Lower Alloways Township. Combined, the three reactors comprise the second largest nuclear generating facility in the country. The information comes as PSEG Nuclear, the company that runs the plant, is lobbying for so-called "dry cask" storage at the site. Community activists were shocked when they learned of the discovery. Norm Cohen of the anti-nuclear organization UNPLUG Salem said the group does not want to use the discovery for self-promotion. Quigley said security at Artificial Island is strong. But the perimeter of the site, including possible access by water, needs to be improved, she and Guear said Tuesday at a National Guard airfield in West Trenton. The two said Gov. James E. McGreevey has proposed spending $66 million in the coming year to beef up anti-terrorism capabilities around the state. © 2002 NJ.com. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 27 Progress Unit Found Nuclear Plant Leak, But No Corrosion Yahoo! News - Wed Apr 3, 6:59 PM ET By: Jon Kamp, Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES CHICAGO -(Dow Jones)- Progress Energy Inc.'s (PGN) Florida Power Corp. unit found a crack and a boric acid leak at its Crystal Rivers nuclear plant in Florida during a refueling outage last fall, according to a document made public by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Wednesday. The crack was in a control rod drive mechanism tube, and acid was found on the metal surface of the reactor vessel head around the cracked tube. After cleaning the acid, the company did a 100% inspection of the vessel head and found no evidence of corrosion, spokesman Keith Poston said. "We're pretty confident at this point," he said. A boric acid leak from a cracked tube at FirstEnergy Corp. (NYSE: FE [http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=fe&d=t] - news [http://biz.yahoo.com/n/f/fe.html] ) 's (FE) Davis Besse nuclear plant in Ohio has been associated with a significant area of corrosion found last month in the reactor vessel head, or lid that covers the reactor core. Because that kind of damage has never been seen before in the industry, and because 68 other plants in the U.S. use similar technology as Davis Besse, the NRC wanted to know whether corrosion could be occurring elsewhere. The agency sent out a letter two weeks ago to the 68 plants, including Crystal Rivers, asking whether they had done complete corrosion checks. Responses, which must be postmarked by Wednesday, are starting to be posted by the NRC. According to Florida Power, it performed a complete inspection of its vessel head last fall because of an earlier NRC memo, sent last August, that asked plant owners to specifically look for a tube cracking problem. That memo was sent after cracks were found at Duke Energy's (DUK) Oconee plant in South Carolina. As at Oconee and Davis Besse, Crystal River's vessel head was originally manufactured by Babcock &Wilcox Co ., now a unit of McDermott International Inc. (MDR). Poston said Florida Power also decided to do a 100% visual inspection of Crystal River's vessel head because it recognized that there could be some susceptibility for cracking at B plants. The company is also planning to completely replace the vessel head during an outage in late 2003, because the cost of a new head will be less than continued intense inspections, Poston said. "Frankly, it was so expensive for us to do inspections and repairs one time, it's better for us to replace the head," he said. During a conference call last week, Progress Energy said a new vessel head would be less likely to have these problems. The company also said that its Robinson 2 unit in South Carolina hasn't had any cracking or corrosion. Florida Power's fall inspection first turned up visual evidence of boric acid on the reactor vessel head. Much of it was caked up around one of the control rod drive mechanism tubes, which was later found to be cracked following ultrasonic testing, Poston said. The plant's other 68 tubes were not cracked. The boric acid was then cleaned, and a following 100% inspection showed there was no corrosion on the vessel head. At Davis Besse, corrosion ate a 6.5-inch cavity into the head that displaced 40 pounds of carbon steel. The NRC hasn't called the Davis Besse cavity a safety concern, but it has launched a wide investigation to determine whether the problem is an anomaly or more common. It will use the letters sent to other utilities to determine whether inspection outages are needed at other plants to search for corrosion. NRC spokesman Victor Dricks said Wednesday that the agency won't offer early analysis of the information from utilities. -By Jon Kamp, Dow Jones Newswires; 312-750-4129; jon.kamp@dowjones.com [http://dowjones.com] Copyright © 2002 Dow Jones. All rights reserved. Copyright © 2002 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 28 Council warns of community backlash over nuclear facility . 4/04/2002. ABC News Online [Australian Broadcasting Corporation Online] Sutherland Shire Council says there will be a powerful community backlash against any decision to build a new nuclear facility at Lucas Heights in Sydney's south. The Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency will tomorrow announce its decision on the construction of a replacement reactor in Sydney. An Argentinian firm, INVAP, has been contracted to build the reactor by 2005, allowing the current reactor to be phased out. Sutherland Councillor Genevieve Rankin says if the replacement facility is approved, the Government will face enormous community anger over the new reactor's location. "There's the health and safety risk for a start from regular emissions," he said. "There's the anxiety that people have to live with particularly post September 11 of accident and the worst case accident happening there and there's also the major problem of nuclear waste." © 2002 Australian Broadcasting Corporation ***************************************************************** 29 Suit Claims Radioactive Leak Newsday.com - Jo Ann Estevez and David Einbinder are among plaintiffs (Newsday Photo / Dick Yarwood) By Indrani Sen STAFF WRITER April 4, 2002 A lawsuit filed yesterday in federal court contends that a nuclear processing plant in Hicksville leaked radioactive materials and toxins into the air, soil and water, causing a host of cancers and deaths in the area. The suit, filed on behalf of 25 families, mostly from the Jericho Gardens neighborhood, also says that GTE and Sylvania, which operated the plant, and Verizon, their parent company, conspired to keep the contamination secret from residents. "These people were lied to for 50 years, and they deserve their day in court," said Mineola attorney Bob Sullivan, who filed the suit in U.S. District Court in Central Islip. The suit alleges that the facility, which operated from 1952 to 1966, discharged uranium, thorium and other toxins and caused various illnesses, including lymphoma, leukemia, multiple myeloma and cancers of the kidneys, lungs, pancreas, liver and breasts. A Verizon spokesman denied the charges. "We had engineers and agencies do testing of the air, the soil and the water, and they all agreed that no one is exposed to unacceptable levels of anything at the site," spokesman John Bonomo said. Uranium, thorium and other contaminants were found in the soil, he said, and Verizon's plan to remove the soil is awaiting approval by the state's Department of Environmental Conservation. "We are sensitive to the residents' concerns, and we think we have kept them involved all along the way," he said, adding that his company held a public hearing on the situation in 2001. "There's absolutely nothing secret about the facility or anything with regards to the plant." A DEC report on the site says the contaminated soil is only in the immediate vicinity of the former plant, at 70, 100 and 140 Cantiague Rock Rd., and is covered with asphalt, making human contact with it unlikely. DEC spokeswoman Jennifer Post said the agency was not aware of the radioactive contamination until testing was done voluntarily by Verizon in 1999. Sullivan said environmental and epidemiological tests will be done on behalf of the plaintiffs in the suit, but that the claim is based for now on what he calls a large number of cancer cases in the area. One of the plaintiffs, Jo Ann Estevez, 44, said she had long suspected something was wrong in Jericho Gardens, where she grew up and lived until 1979. "It was a constant. There was always someone else getting sick and dying," she said. In 1991, Estevez was diagnosed with non- Hodgkins lymphoma. Six months later, her mother was told she had chronic episodic leukemia. "To me, that didn't seem right," Estevez said. She and other residents and former residents formed an informal group and hired Sullivan about a month ago. Copyright © 2002, Newsday, Inc. ***************************************************************** 30 Hiroshima porcelain (Major find on radiation impacts) [Guardian Unlimited] Sanjida O'Connell Thursday April 4, 2002 The Guardian [http://www.guardian.co.uk] Safe levels of exposure at sites of nuclear devastation have been underestimated, according to new research on porcelain found at ground zero in Hiroshima. Scientists have based estimations on levels of neutron fluence: the number of neutrons from a nuclear blast per square centimetre. But geologist Jonathan MacDonald, from Union College, Schenectady, New York, has found that some procelain fragments contained levels of neutron fluence 2.5 times higher than current safe estimates. "If correct, the latter value may be important for regulation of human exposures in the US, because many of the current regulations are based on theoretical calculated values," MacDonald says. Nuclear accidents such as Three Mile Island make this data essential. Cloned bunny Rabbits have been notoriously difficult to clone, but Jean-Paul Renard and colleagues from the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique, Jouy-en-Jousas, France, perfected a technique that takes into account the precise physiological features of rabbit eggs and embryos. Renard argues that his research, published in Nature Biotechnology, could facilitate the use of cloned rabbits for biomedical research since they are closer to us in evolutionary terms than traditional experimental animals such as rats and mice. Poetic geology Emily Dickinson was a poet who loved nature. Geological historian Michele Aldrich, from Cornell University, New York, goes further: she believes Dickinson was a closet geologist. Aldrich, during the course of research on the 19th century geologist Edward Hitchcock, discovered that he had taught Dickinson at Amherst Academy, now Mount Holyoke College. Aldrich searched Dickinson's poems for geological terms. Her poem about volcanoes indicates she had understood her lessons ("Volcanoes be in Sicily / And South America / I judge from my geography"). Aldrich believes teaching Dickinson might be a route to inspire students who are "not otherwise interested in geology or who might be timid about science". [UP] Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002 ***************************************************************** 31 St. Mary's Distributes Radiation Pill Supply (washingtonpost.com) Emergency Precaution Expected in 5 Counties By Raymond McCaffrey Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, April 4, 2002; Page SM01 St. Mary's County has begun distributing potassium iodide pills to help some residents guard against the effects of radiation in the event of a mishap at nearby Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant. The effort -- which began with the delivery of doses to five local schools within 10 miles of the facility last week -- comes as Maryland officials are close to announcing a uniform distribution policy for four other similarly affected counties. The St. Mary's plan, which calls for the pills to be stockpiled at certain schools as well as distributed to other residents at central locations, could serve as the model for the other counties. Seventy-five percent of affected residents live in St. Mary's, Calvert and Dorchester counties, within 10 miles of Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant, the state's only such facility. The rest live in Harford and Cecil counties, near the Peach Bottom nuclear plant in Pennsylvania. Calvert has received its own stockpile of pills, but has not yet begun distribution. "We're still talking through the issues," said Donald F. Hall, the county's emergency management director. Maryland received roughly 160,000 doses of potassium iodide, or two doses for each of the 80,000 state residents who live within 10 miles of a reactor. Last week, St. Mary's delivered enough doses for students and staff members at Esperanza Middle School, St. John's Catholic school and Green Holly, Hollywood and Town Creek elementary schools. The pills will be stockpiled at those sites so they are available in the event of an accident at Calvert Cliffs, according to Mary H. Novotny, a spokeswoman for the St. Mary's County Health Department. Doses also will be distributed soon "at locations still to be determined," she said. If the supply of potassium iodide pills comes up short, more will be purchased, Novotny said. In January, Maryland became the second state to announce that it would accept the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's offer of potassium iodide, which can help prevent thyroid damage. Maryland's announcement came days after Massachusetts announced that it had stockpiled the NRC-provided potassium iodide. Maryland's decision was a policy change. Like most states, it had strictly advocated evacuation and sheltering in response to a nuclear plant emergency, but had not stockpiled potassium iodide, partly in fear that residents would become reliant on a pill that offers limited protection. In January, a state official acknowledged that Maryland's policy change was largely influenced by a strong public reaction to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The NRC in January 2001 had changed its own policy and began advocating potassium iodide as a supplement to be used in response to nuclear emergencies. The NRC limited its offer of potassium iodide to those living within 10 miles of a plant. © 2002 The Washington Post Company ***************************************************************** 32 State says iodide pills overrated April 4, 2002 CHESTERFIELD (AP) — Since the attacks of Sept. 11 demand for potassium iodide pills to help thwart effects of radiation in a nuclear emergency has skyrocketed, a state official says. But almost everyone at a meeting of area safety officials this week said the value of the pills is overrated and it’s too much work for local governments to distribute them in an emergency. Representatives of the state Office of Emergency Management met with selectmen, emergency directors and other public safety personnel from Hinsdale, Swanzey, Richmond, Winchester and Chesterfield, towns within a 10-mile radius of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon. The meeting was called to discuss how the 350,000 tablets of potassium iodide the federal government gave the state should be distributed. Most local officials said the state should handle distribution. Joseph Novick, Hinsdale’s emergency management director, expressed concern about liability for towns if they are responsible for distributing the pills. The priority in an accident is to evacuate people from the area, he said, and distributing the pills could interfere with evacuation. Potassium iodide pills have been shown to be effective in preventing thyroid cancer in nuclear accidents. The pills saturate the thyroid with iodine so that harmful radioactive iodine isotopes can’t be absorbed. But Mike Nawoj of the state emergency management team said the pills won’t protect other parts of the body from radiation; they have to be taken before exposure and they can have harmful side effects, he said. Nawoj also said the pills would be of no value if there’s an explosion at the Vernon plant or if there’s a nuclear attack. "In all reality, if this happens there isn’t going to be anyone in town anyway," said Mike Starr, emergency management director for Winchester. "I can get them out of town before I can get them the pills." Nawoj said other options for distributing the pills might include a mail-in program or setting up a distribution center where residents can pick up the tablets. 2001 Geo. J. Foster Co. ***************************************************************** 33 Neighbors of Old Nuclear Fuel Plant Sue Over Sicknesses April 4, 2002 By ELISSA GOOTMAN MINEOLA, N.Y., April 3 — When Jo Ann Estevez heard the diagnosis of lymphoma on her 33rd birthday, she was devastated. When her mother was told six months later that she had the same disease, Ms. Estevez was suspicious. "I thought it was very unusual," said Ms. Estevez, who is now 44. Today, Ms. Estevez and members of two dozen other families touched by cancer filed a lawsuit, charging that a long-gone nuclear fuel processing factory in Hicksville, N.Y., is to blame. The lawsuit names Verizon, the successor to Sylvania, which operated the plant, and other companies with a connection to the site. "These are 25 families who have all had people suffer from or die from cancer, frequently more than one person per family," said Bob Sullivan, the lawyer who filed the suit in Federal District Court in Central Islip. All of the plaintiffs live or once lived less than half a mile away from the factory, which made nuclear fuel rods from 1952 to 1966. But beyond anecdotal evidence of a high incidence of cancer in the area, including parts of nearby Westbury, where Ms. Estevez grew up, there is little to indicate the factory was at fault. Mr. Sullivan said he planned to commission epidemiological and soil studies but wanted to file the lawsuit because the statute of limitations was running out for many of the families. At a meeting last year, officials of the State Health Department and the Department of Environmental Conservation assured residents that while uranium, thorium and nickel contaminants, as well as industrial solvents, had been found in the soil where the factory once stood, they were not believed to pose a substantial health risk. Most of the contaminated soil was paved over years ago, they said, and drinking water in the area was found to be safe. "We have done significant testing, and the testing has determined that there is no risk to anyone working or living in the area," said Peter Thonis, a spokesman for Verizon. Of the contaminants that were found, he said, "All of the tests show that if you go 10 feet away from the site or even close to the edge of the site, they don't exist at all." The State Department of Environmental Conservation in 1986 started examining the land where Sylvania operated the plant, after a contractor digging the foundation for a building addition there found harmful industrial solvents in the soil, said Mark Lowery, a department spokesman. The department did not start testing for radiological contaminants until about six years ago, Mr. Lowery said, after learning that the nuclear fuel factory once operated there. A subsidiary of Verizon conducted much of the investigation, under the supervision of the Department of Environmental Conservation, he said. The research results were presented at last year's meeting, which was intended to inform and reassure residents. Mr. Lowery said today, "At this time, we have no reason to believe that anyone living in that community is experiencing substantial exposure to radiation or any other contaminant." Meantime, Verizon is planning to remove all remaining contaminants from the soil. The cleanup is scheduled to begin in June. Mr. Lowery declined to comment on the lawsuit. Mr. Thonis said Verizon's lawyers had not had the chance yet to review it carefully. "We're not aware of any facts that would support a lawsuit in this matter," he added. While the lawsuit charges that Westbury and Hicksville residents were "unaware that there was a nuclear processing facility and other facilities utilizing hazardous chemical materials in their neighborhood," Mr. Thonis insisted that during its operation the neighbors knew about the nuclear fuel factory, which even offered tours. "There was nothing secret about the facility," he said. But Ms. Estevez disagreed. She remembered passing the cluster of Sylvania buildings while riding the bus to school and on her way to play tennis at a nearby park. Not until last year, she said, did she hear of her hometown's nuclear legacy. "No one had any idea," she said. Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company | Privacy ***************************************************************** 34 Yucca Mountain Transport Danger Dramatized on West Wing Date: Thu, 4 Apr 2002 09:58:22 -0600 (CST) Environment News Service Yucca Mountain Transport Danger Dramatized on West Wing LAS VEGAS, Nevada, April 3, 2002 (ENS) - The nuclear industry has a fat war chest to lobby for the permanent disposal of the nation's high level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, but the project's opponents including Nevada lawmakers have been failing to bring in big funds to fight it. A report issued Monday by the pressure group Public Citizen Critical Mass said a review of lobby disclosures found the nuclear power industry spent more than $25 million to lobby Congress in 2000, the last time nuclear waste storage in Nevada was debated. But Nevada Governor Kenny Guinn and U.S. Senators Harry Reid and John Ensign had little luck with their pitch last week for $10 million for a national TV ad campaign that will urge members of Congress to vote No on Yucca Mountain. The Yucca Mountain proposal, which President George W. Bush has approved, means that 77,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel rods and other highly radioactive material generated by power reactors and nuclear weapons production must travel by road and rail across the country to Nevada. Currently, the waste is stored in temporary surface storage facilities located at 131 sites in 39 states. Nevada is, by law, the only site being considered for the nuclear waste dump. If Yucca Mountain is permitted to go forward, radioactive waste will travel the nation's highways and railroads through 43 states and thousands of communities, day after day for upwards of 40 years, the governor warns. "A severe transportation accident or successful terrorist attack in an urban area could release radioactive materials to the environment, causing hundreds of latent cancer fatalities and costing hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars for cleanup and compensation." The concern over an accident on any route over which the waste could travel will be dramatized tonight on "West Wing," the NBC television series about life in the White House. The episode will feature a story line about the crash of a truck carrying uranium fuel rods in a remote Idaho tunnel. Martin Sheen, who plays President Jeb Bartlett on the political series, is an outspoken environmental activist who has been arrested at several protests. Nevada Congresswoman Shelley Berkley will be watching "West Wing" tonight with her constituents in Las Vegas. An opponent of Yucca Mountain, as are all Nevada lawmakers, Berkley has on her website a video showing a TOW missile penetrating a nuclear waste cask in a U.S. Army test. The video demonstrates the dangers of nuclear waste transportation, and makes the case for on-site storage, Berkley says. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham recommended the site 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas to President Bush as scientifically suitable to receive the nation's high level nuclear waste "based on sound science and compelling national interest." The waste must be safely contained for at least 10,000 years. Abraham says he relies on more than 20 years and $4 billion in scientific study that demonstrates Yucca Mountain is scientifically and technically suitable for development. He makes the case for the Yucca Mountain dump in volumes of material on the Energy Department website. Senator Harry Reid says President Bush "betrayed our trust and endangered the American public by deciding to ship 77,000 tons of nuclear waste across the entire country and store it at Yucca Mountain." Reid's website displays a map showing in detail, state by state, the routes by which the waste would travel. "A central repository would actually increase the risk of terrorism," says Berkley, "by guaranteeing that hundreds of nuclear targets will be traveling on America's roads and rails every day for at least the next 30 years. Also, even if a central repository is created, nuclear waste will never be entirely removed from on-site locations; for, as plants continue to generate waste, they must also continue to store that waste until a long term solution has been found." Berkley points to a safe alternative to transport advanced by PECO (Philadelphia Electric Company). Under this plan, the nation's 103 nuclear power plants build storage facilities and, in return, reduce their payments to the Nuclear Waste Trust Fund. The U.S. Energy Department becomes titleholder, owner and operator of the waste and facilities. "This is an attractive solution because it lets utilities remove spent fuel from their reactors, as well as costs and liabilities from their books," the congresswoman says. President Bush's approval of Yucca Mountain will be vetoed by Governor Guinn on behalf of the state of Nevada. The proposal then goes to Congress, which by a simple majority vote could override Nevada's veto. To influence public opinion away from Yucca Mountain, Guinn had hoped to raise $4 to $6 million in addition to the $4 million appropriated by the Nevada Legislature last year for legal expenses and a public information campaign. So far, donations amount to about $2 million including $1 million from Clark County. Bob Loux, administrator for the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, says a few private donations have come in, the largest $300,000 from the Nevada Resort Association which represents the gaming industry. Tonight's episode of West Wing is a bit of free television advertising for the anti-Yucca Mountain cause. ***************************************************************** 35 Canada's independent on-line source of news you can use Straight Goods - `Major changes’ to world’s biggest nuclear storage site never approved Government didn’t follow its own rules when it approved the storage facility planned for Inverhuron, Ontario. Dateline: Friday, March 29, 2002 By Normand de la Chevrotiere As the president of a volunteer community group, I’ve just learned some hard lessons. Let me explain, first by way of a question: what would you expect would happen if a small group tried to point out to government agencies that they seemed to have forgotten to follow their own processes and procedures? For our group, the Inverhuron and District Ratepayers' Association (IDRA) in the tiny hamlet of Inverhuron near Kincardine, Ontario, it means facing about $100,000 in punitive cost awards, plus legal fees, the result of rulings from the top three courts in the land. The costs were awarded to the federal government (the Ministry of the Environment and the Atomic Energy Control Board (AECB) - now Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, the federal nuclear regulator) and Ontario Hydro (now Ontario Power Generation, OPG). OPG is the owner and operator of what will be the world’s largest nuclear waste storage facility when it opens likely later this year at the Bruce nuclear complex, next to Inverhuron on the shoreline of Lake Huron. Actually, the courts didn’t quite rule. Both the Federal Court and Federal Court of Appeal said they weren’t an "academy of science" and were not able to judge the technical issues before the court. But they did award costs against our citizens group and in favour of the government and Hydro. The Supreme Court of Canada refused to hear an appeal, but awarded further costs against the IDRA. While our community must face the consequences of its judicial experience, the rulings and the fines have not diminished our concerns. The IDRA still wants OPG to submit its huge, new, above ground, high level radioactive waste storage facility to an independent and expert environmental assessment. If the world’s largest nuclear waste facility doesn’t merit an independent assessment, what would? After all, if the world’s largest nuclear waste facility doesn’t merit an independent assessment, what would? The Canadian Environmental Assessment Act has such provisions for projects of this scope and seriousness. But the government and the courts appear to have seen no need for such assessment. However, a funny thing happened on the way through litigation. The court process gave us access to documents previously not made public. The documents provide a clear paper trail of letters between Hydro and AECB showing that the design of the waste facility had been radically changed by Hydro after it was presented to the public for comment and to AECB for approval. The letters clearly show that the AECB deemed the changes made by Hydro to be “major,” and requiring of further study and scrutiny through an additional public comment period. AECB notified at least four government departments of this opinion. Even Hydro’s own consultants, GE Canada, flagged Hydro’s new choice of design as requiring further safety study and assessment. Yet despite these cautions and a direct request from the AECB, plus a commitment from Hydro to inform the public of the changes, nothing happened. Instead, Hydro wrote back to AECB to urge approval of the nuclear waste project as soon as possible, saying that further delays in the approval process could have a negative impact on the start-up. AECB appears to have acquiesced. Everything, apparently, was now fine. The Minister of the Environment agreed (did she even know about the changes)? The waste facility was quickly licensed for construction. It became apparent we were seen as bothersome, pest-like The Inverhuron and District Ratepayers Association has taken care of parks, beaches, social activities and other matters of interest to the hamlet since 1946. As its president, I was one of those convinced that the agencies in question would be more than open to hearing concerns about our nuclear neighbour, including those over increased cancer rates in the area. But as we went through layers of public hearings and correspondence with Hydro, AECB and other agencies, it became apparent we were seen as bothersome, pest-like. We thought that introducing our concerns to the process would eventually lead to a safe, permanent storage of toxic waste materials, a goal everyone supported. Instead, I’m now concerned about the ability of a community group to bring such issues before the courts without fear of extensive, punitive measures. Two days after the Supreme Court refused to hear our appeal, lawyers for Hydro and then the government were at our door demanding their money Two days after the Supreme Court refused to hear our appeal, lawyers for Hydro and then the government were at our door demanding their money, and in Hydro’s case, with interest at the maximum allowable rate. Although community donations made it possible to bring the case to court, raising funds to pay Hydro and the federal government will be much more difficult. People sense a gross inequity. Ironically, Hydro was originally not even named as a party to the IDRA litigation. They asked the IDRA to allow them to be included, and we extended them this courtesy. Now we owe them the lion’s share of the costs awarded by the courts, and Hydro continues to accrue interest daily. Meanwhile, something still has to be done with hundreds of thousands of deadly used fuel bundles at nuclear sites. This has been a completely obvious and predictable dilemma for decades. The government's failure to find a permanent site for these toxic materials now means a “medium” term solution is being established in our community for a yet-to-be-determined period, regardless of any risks which may arise as a result of not applying what seem to be the prescribed processes under federal legislation. On April 16, the IDRA will have an opportunity to make a presentation to an all party Standing Committee in Ottawa regarding changes to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. It is our hope the committee will agree that the public process of community involvement in these important matters needs a little tweaking. Normand de la Chevrotiere is the President of the Inverhuron and District Ratepayers Association . © Straight Goods, 2000-2002. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 36 Shine light on waste plans Denver Post.com editorial --> Wednesday, April 03, 2002 - Companies proposing or operating radioactive waste dumps should communicate their plans with local officials and nearby residents. A pending legislative proposal, HB 1408, thus would make a useful addition to Colorado law. In its amended form, HB 1408 would reasonably require that companies planning to store radioactive waste hold two public hearings, at their expense, and gather and disclose information on potential environmental and economic effects of their plans. HB 1408 passed the House Tuesday, so now it will be debated by the Senate. Its chances look good because its primary sponsors are two powerful lawmakers: Senate Majority Leader Bill Thiebaut, a Pueblo Democrat, and House Majority Leader Lola Spradley, a Republican representing Fremont County, whose district includes the Cotter Corp.'s radioactive waste site. The measure, in fact, sprang from a dispute in Can~on City, where Cotter has contracted to accept 450,000 tons of radioactive soil from New Jersey. The plan provoked a public outcry largely because of historic fights between Cotter and residents of Fremont County, who say that contaminated dust and groundwater from Cotter's mill harmed their health and properties. From 1958 to 1987, the mill transformed uranium ore into yellowcake for nuclear reactor fuel. It was declared a Superfund site in 1984. Of four lawsuits filed against it, Cotter settled one and lost three. It is appealing one of the cases it lost. Given that past, Fremont County residents were appalled to learn that Cotter not only will store its own radioactive materialon its property just south of Can~on City, but also will bring in railroad freight cars of waste from elsewhere. Fremont County commissioners, Can~on City and Florence officials asked the state to impose a six-month moratorium on the shipments. Cotter says it did quietly inform some local government officials and business leaders. But by not telling the general public about its plans early on, Cotter tossed political fuel on already-smoldering local resentments against the company. However, Cotter's existing state hazardous-waste license lets it accept radioactive soil and similar waste - and doesn't limit Cotter to storing only waste from its own mill or other Colorado sites. The state isn't helpless, though. Cotter says the New Jersey soils aren't as radioactive as waste it already keeps at its mill. But the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment isn't sure, so it ordered Cotter to sample the New Jersey soil. Since Cotter can accept only naturally occuring radioactive materials, such as radium and thorium, the state could bar Cotter from accepting the New Jersey waste if it contains other radioactive substances. Gov. Bill Owens told the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment to block the New Jersey shipments until Cotter can prove the material is safe and legal. Regardless of what that study shows, Cotter - or any other nuclear waste site - should have to publicly explain its plans. Lawmakers should support HB 1408. Editorials alone express The Denver Post's opinion. The members of The Post editorial board are William Dean Singleton, chairman and publisher; Glenn Guzzo, editor; Sue O'Brien, editorial page editor; Bob Ewegen, deputy editorial page editor; Peter G. Chronis, Angela Cortez, Al Knight, Penelope Purdy and Billie Stanton, editorial writers; Mike Keefe, cartoonist; and Barbara Ellis and Peggy McKay, news editors. Copyright 2002 The Denver Post ***************************************************************** 37 Nevadans say show helps Yucca fight April 04, 2002 By Erin Neff LAS VEGAS SUN Nevada leaders wanted a bit more out of Wednesday's episode of "The West Wing," but admit that anytime a national audience gets even a glimpse of what could occur if Yucca Mountain is approved as the nation's nuclear waste repository, the outcome is beneficial. State leaders were glued to the popular NBC drama Wednesday night because the plot included the White House staff dealing with a crash of a truck carrying spent uranium fuel rods. Although the fictional crash was cleaned up without any radioactive material spilled, the show's writers hit on the Nevada delegation's main argument about transportating nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain -- shipping waste is dangerous. "I think this is the beginning of a national push against transporting nuclear waste," Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said after playing host to a party at Texas Station to watch the show. Nevada leaders say although the show didn't go far enough to dramatize the risks, the message helped because "The West Wing" typically reaches 15 million people. "It alluded to some of the issues we have, but it didn't really go into any detail, and it was only a small part of the plot," said Gov. Kenny Guinn, who spent time Wednesday discussing the dangers of transporting nuclear waste on MSNBC. "But, we'll take what we can get." As Guinn prepares to veto President Bush's recommendation that Yucca Mountain become the nation's nuclear waste repository, state leaders are trying to mount a public relations campaign against the repository by highlighting the potential dangers, especially transporting 77,000 tons of high-level waste across country. Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and John Ensign, R-Nev., have proposed a $10 million campaign that would included television ads and grass-roots organizing efforts to build opposition to Yucca Mountain. Nevada officials hope the episode achieved what some advertising would have done. Guinn said he believes any PR at this stage in Nevada's fight against the dump is good, even if -- as he said -- some viewers might have missed hearing the state's message in the storyline written by former Clinton press secretary Dee Dee Meyers. At the end of the story line, fictional President Josiah Bartlet, played by Martin Sheen (who has been arrested several times protesting at the Nevada Test Site), notes that radiation didn't escape but hit a key point about the safety of the shipping casks. It's a point Nevada officials hope people understood. "We pack this stuff in two inches of stainless steel, four inches of lead. We've rammed it with trains and dropped it from helicopters," the president says on the show. "And it still isn't going to protect us from the thing we haven't thought of. "They took a cask out to Aberdeen Proving Ground and shot a TOW missile clean through it. They showed me a video of it." The show's writers were noting a real test in 1998 in which a missile strapped to a cask blew a hole in the shipping container. Critics said the plot was not realistic and defended the safety of shipping nuclear waste. Nuclear industry officials have noted that the casks have been tested at in high-impact crashes and in fires with temperatures of more than 1,000 degrees. In Washington this morning two the nation's leading manufacturers of nuclear waste transportation casks, Edlow International and NAC International, formed a coalition that intends to refute statements made by Yucca Mountain opponents about shipping waste. The companies launched the coalition because of "The West Wing" episode, which they said was full of glaring inaccuracies. They said they are also frustrated by statements Nevada officials have made in recent months. "The fact is that nuclear materials transportation has an impressive, unblemished safety and operations track record over 40 years, both in the United States and globally," Edlow President Jack Edlow said. "Our companies and others have already met the challenge of shipping nuclear materials under a climate of terrorism and other comparable conditions." Company officials criticized the TV show's portrayal of nuclear waste transportation, saying the situation wouldn't have happened because of escorts with the nuclear waste. Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins, D-Henderson, said he believed the show minimized Nevada's fight in a number of ways. On the show the crash was 20 miles from an Idaho city of 20,000 in an otherwise barren area -- not along railways passing the nation's largest cities or in a mountain 90 miles from 1.2 million people. "It doesn't compare to the transportation issues of taking this waste past cities like Chicago and St. Louis," Perkins said. "And it was such a subplot, I'm not sure many people could relate." Nevadans who read and hear about Yucca Mountain every day probably heard the fictional president's concerns about transporting nuclear waste, especially the plea at the end. But did that play in Peoria? "It certainly is a start," Perkins said. "Maybe we have to develop that message more and that's why I support getting the funding to pay for our campaign." Ben Prochazka of U.S. Public Interest Research Group said, "It's great that the impression of a nuclear accident made it into pop culture and it is a new realism. For Nevadans, it resonates stronger than for people in other parts of the country. "In reality, it will be traveling through small towns across the country, Prochazka said. "We do not have a litmus test on this. An Exxon Valdez we can clean up. A nuclear accident is a whole new ball game." Jane Feldman of the Sierra Club said she did not see enough details in "The West Wing" episode. "I don't think we have to worry so much about a TOW missile," she said. "The risk is more mundane, much more scary for us to have to live with every day. All it takes is a heavy rain to wash out the shoulder on a road." Reid thought the program was "excellent," and serves as a prime example of the type of message Nevada could get out with its proposed television campaign. "I really believe that the state legislators on the (Interim Finance Committee) and the county commissioners and the city or whoever else is thinking of giving us money, should have watched," Reid said. "I hope they saw it." Guinn is asking the state legislative committee to help fund a publicity campaign, and state leaders have asked local governments to pitch in as well. Reid said "every thing helps" in the fight to keep waste out of Yucca Mountain. And, he noted, the program "did a little research" by mentioning a missile penetrating a cask. Ensign had high hopes for the program and even taped an interview with the syndicated entertainment show "Extra" to discuss the parallels between fact and fiction. "The president talked about the problems with the casks, but for the average person, it might not have sunk in," Ensign said. "He just kind of said it and moved on with the rest of his monologue near the end." Still, Ensign called the show "very, very" well done. "This was almost like earned media," Ensign said. "In a campaign you have your paid media and whatever you get for free. This was like that." Sun reporters Benjamin Grove and Mary Manning contributed to this story. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 38 Radioactive waste bill would seek public's input Denver Post.com By Julia C. Martinez [jmartinez@denverpost.com] Denver Post Capitol Bureau Thursday, April 04, 2002 - A little more than two weeks after Gov. Bill Owens ordered the state health department to halt Cotter Corp.'s plan to begin accepting 470,000 tons of mildly radioactive waste from a New Jersey Superfund site, a Senate committee Wednesday approved a plan to let the public help decide the matter. House Bill 1408, by Sen. Bill Thiebaut, D-Pueblo, would prohibit the disposal of "classified" radioactive waste in Colorado without first holding two public hearings and obtaining the state health department's approval. Cotter president Richard Cherry said he was disappointed by the unanimous decision of the Senate Business, Labor and Finance Committee. The bill now moves to the full Senate. Cherry said his Fremont County company had hoped to begin receiving shipments of the thorium-contaminated mill tailings - left over from the manufacture of lantern mantels - this month. The total shipment would occur over seven years. Now, he said, it could take one to two years to complete the hearing and approval process if the bill becomes law. "I'm disappointed and surprised that it's moving so rapidly," Cherry said. Cherry declined to say how much Cotter stands to earn by taking the waste and burying it, but he said it's far less than the $90 million that has been batted around. If the health department and citizens approve the shipments, the mill tailings will be buried like a layer cake at a site where Cotter already buried uranium tailings. Ultimately, clean soil and rocks will cap the burial site above the surface to prevent erosion from rain and wind, Cherry said. HB 1408 stemmed from a dispute between Cotter and residents of Fremont County over Cotter's contract to take the radioactive waste from Maywood, N.J. Residents in the Can~on City area learned last month that Cotter's state permit allowed it to become a radioactive dump, taking out-of-state waste in addition to simply processing waste on site. A public outcry ensued, and county commissioners asked the Army Corps of Engineers for a six-month moratorium on the disposal project. Owens stepped in and ordered the health department to block the shipments until further notice. Thiebaut told the committee it was crucial to involve citizens in the process so the governor won't be forced to step in if a similar situation arises in the future. Witnesses testified Wednesday that the New Jersey waste is far less contaminated than tailings already on the site. All contents Copyright 2002 The Denver Post ***************************************************************** 39 Contamination complicated by area geology Elizabethton Star - Online Edition By Kathy Helms-Hughes STAR STAFF khughes@starhq.com [khughes@starhq.com] NFS, a nuclear fuel fabrication and uranium recovery facility, has operated since the late 1950s on a 64-acre site in Erwin. In 1987 it was contracted to decommission plutonium fuel fabricating facilities in two separate buildings onsite. Since 1988, three inactive, enriched uranium/thorium production facilities have been decommissioned. NFS also has cleaned up a mixed waste impoundment which included sediment containing highly enriched uranium and plutonium, and remediated a burial ground which had been used from the mid-'60s to 1975. The burial trenches were evaluated, filled with approximately 20,000 cubic yards of clean dirt, compacted and identified with permanent markers, then reseeded and erosion control measures begun. Erwin Utilities, which supplies water to the town, uses a combination of wells and springs for its water supply, with its nearest intake, the "Railroad Well" about 1/2 mile north of the northern boundary of NFS. Banner Spring Branch, a small spring-fed stream located entirely inside the complex, flows west and also north into Martin Creek, which eventually finds its way to the Nolichucky River. The town of Jonesborough uses the Nolichucky for its source of drinking water and recently purchased a 17-acre tract of land off Arnold Road, about 3/4-mile closer to NFS, where it plans to install a new intake in a deeper pool of the river and eventually to build a water treatment plant, according to Bob Browning, town administrator. "We'll be pulling a much larger volume," he said. Jonesborough will double the size of its intake from a 12-inch line to a 24-inch. "The Nolichucky is a good source of water, but it has a tremendous amount of sand and turbidity," Browning said. By changing the intake structure, the town is hoping to avoid having large piles of sand dumped on its intake, as is now happening. "The river doesn't have a tremendous amount of deep spots," he said. Six public groundwater wells are located within five miles of the NFS complex. Leo Romanowski of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said geologic formations underlying the area include surface clays and silts approximately 5 feet deep followed by a layer of sand about 2 to 5 feet deep. Copyright © 1996 - 2002 Elizabethton Newspapers, Inc. Direct questions or comments to webmaster@starhq.com [webmaster@starhq.com] Elizabethton Newspapers, Inc., 300 Sycamore Street Elizabethton, Tennessee 37643 - 423.542.4151 ***************************************************************** 40 Plutonium, other contaminants found offsite near NFS Elizabethton Star - Online Edition By Kathy Helms-Hughes STAR STAFF khughes@starhq.com [khughes@starhq.com] A 13-acre plume of chemical and radioactive contamination, including plutonium, has been identified in groundwater located offsite from Nuclear Fuel Services Inc. in Erwin. State and federal regulators say NFS is meeting all compliance standards and the contamination poses no threat to public health. All radionuclides present are below the Maximum Contaminant Level considered safe by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency which regulates monitoring wells outside the NFS complex. Activities and monitoring inside the fence are relegated to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, while Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation's Division of Radiological Health in Knoxville oversees thorium and depleted uranium in association with the facility. According to NFS sampling results from monitoring wells located along the property boundary line, Plutonium-234, 238, 239/240 and 241, were detected in groundwater samples as early as September 1993. In November 2001, radioactive plutonium, thorium and uranium were observed in monitoring wells located in the county industrial park which parallels NFS on the northwest side. Technetium-99, which does not exist in nature and is radioactive, also was detected in two of nine offsite wells. All were within levels considered safe. Total uranium is present in onsite groundwater above EPA's safe drinking water standard. Plutonium and uranium pose minimal risks to human health outside the body, unless exposure is on a sustained basis. However, if plutonium or uranium gets into the body, the alpha radiation can damage cells and cause mutations that can lead to cancer. But it's not offsite migration of radionuclides that have federal officials concerned at the moment; it's chemical contaminants leaving NFS property. PCE (tetrachloroethylene), TCE (trichloroethylene), cis-1,2-DCE, and vinyl chloride all were detected beyond acceptable limits. For example, PCE was found in seven of nine offsite wells during fourth quarter 2001. The highest level charted was 1.403 mg/L (milligrams per liter); 0.005 mg/L is considered safe, according to EPA. NFS recently completed a six-month pilot study of a promising new technology which it is hoped will stop the spread of contamination of volatile organic compounds such as PCE and its "daughter products," according to EPA's Leo Romanowski. The company plans a full-scale project which includes drilling 17 to 20 injection wells beginning in June. According to groundwater modeling simulations conducted for NFS by Geraghty & Miller, PCE concentrations are expected to decline significantly by 2003 and should be limited to onsite locations by 2011 with concentrations falling below the maximum contaminant level by 2018. According to future projections, the uranium plume will be almost identical in 2003 to what it is now, with concentrations dipping below the maximum contaminant level by year 3850. "But that's modeling. There's a lot of magic in that," Romanowski said. "It's kind of the best guess they could do based on the current technology of the model and what they know at the site." Groundwater in the area generally flows in a northwest direction toward the Nolichucky. "Groundwater is very shallow. A lot of times they just go down like 6 feet," Romanowski said. Shallow and deep monitoring wells generally average 15 to 30 feet in depth, he said. Groundwater flow patterns in the bedrock aquifer beneath the site extend to a depth of about 350 feet. NFS attempted to install deeper wells offsite, "but they weren't real fortunate," Romanowski said. "I think they lost circulation, meaning that it was like a void where they lost all of their drilling fluids. It just kind of disappeared." Romanowski said underlying geological features could have had something to do with the drilling problems. "When the deeper wells were installed, I want to say five years ago, they had problems, and so we said, 'Look, let's just not mess things up any more. We'll just call that off right now.' "Hopefully we can go after the shallower plume and attempt something that will destroy that plume, and if we can continue to add the same nutrients, then maybe those nutrients will follow that same pathway and will go deeper and will destroy whatever might be down in the subsurface. Ultimately there could be an issue with needing to rethink the installation of a deeper well. Probably we wouldn't want to put it onsite, because that's where the source of the contamination is. We don't want to drive it any deeper or give it another pathway." Romanowski said he wrote a letter to NFS several years ago telling the company it needed to start looking at offsite migration and source remediation. "We found a couple of source areas that they were pumping and treating for years ... But that's not a real efficient way to remove the source of contamination. Even though EPA has advocated pump-and-treat for many years, it's kind of like that was the best thing we had going at the time. You can pump and treat forever but you're still going to have contaminants in the ground. The intent now is to destroy the contaminants and try to stabilize the plume." Once injections stopped after the pilot test, PCE levels actually increased as more of the contaminant moved into the area where it had just been destroyed, Romanowski said. "Where the injection well was placed may not be the absolute, only source in that area," he said. "It might be a 200-foot-wide area, so even though you killed the PCE in a 25-foot section, if you stop the injection of molasses, there could be some migration of PCE from the outlying area back into it." Copyright © 1996 - 2002 Elizabethton Newspapers, Inc. Direct questions or comments to webmaster@starhq.com [webmaster@starhq.com] Elizabethton Newspapers, Inc., 300 Sycamore Street Elizabethton, Tennessee 37643 - 423.542.4151 ***************************************************************** 41 N-Waste Tax Hike Is Sought The Salt Lake Tribune -- Thursday, April 4, 2002 BY BRENT ISRAELSEN THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE An influential group of Utahns on Wednesday launched a ballot initiative to prohibit certain types of low-level nuclear waste and tax other types to benefit the homeless and schoolchildren. "Utahns for Radioactive Waste Control" wants to place a referendum on November's ballot that would significantly increase the state tax on out-of-state radioactive waste disposed of in Utah. The action comes as a shock to Envirocare of Utah, which operates a radioactive waste dump in the desert 85 miles west of Salt Lake City. Calling the proposed tax "unfair, exorbitant, arbitrary and capricious," Envirocare President Ken Alkema said the initiative is based on incorrect data about Envirocare's business and the radioactive waste market. In a news conference at the Capitol, referendum proponents said it is time for Utah to derive more benefits for being a dumping ground for the nation's nuclear waste. "Utah is the single largest disposer of [low-level] radioactive waste in the United States . . . yet we receive virtually no benefit for assuming this burden," said Salt Lake City advertising executive Mickey Gallivan, chairman of the referendum committee. Gallivan is a son of Salt Lake Tribune publisher emeritus John W. "Jack" Gallivan, chairman of the Utah Crusade for the Homeless. Also backing the referendum are the Utah Education Association (UEA), former Gov. Calvin Rampton and former first lady Norma Matheson. The proponents hope to raise $1 million for the initiative campaign. They already have raised $400,000, mostly from the UEA and Jack Gallivan. The referendum would impose hefty taxes on low-level "class A" radioactive waste imported into Utah and would prohibit "class B" and "class C," hotter low-level wastes for which Envirocare has been seeking a license. Alkema said the referendum would put Envirocare out of business, leaving 400 people unemployed and wiping out a revenue source for the state and Tooele County, where the landfill is located. Referendum proponents are not sympathetic. They argue Envirocare is the largest disposer of low-level radioactive waste in the country and owns a monopoly on certain types, such as "mixed wastes," which are tainted with radioactivity and hazardous chemicals. Envirocare annually disposes of about 14 million cubic feet of radioactive waste. Waste operators in Washington and South Carolina dispose of 58,000 and 120,000 cubic feet, respectively. Much of the reason for the disparity, said Mickey Gallivan, is that Washington levies a state tax of $20 per cubic foot and South Carolina charges $235 per cubic foot. Proponents say Utah, by contrast, charges just 10 cents, which covers the cost of regulating Envirocare. Under the referendum, that fee would jump to between $4 and $150, depending on the specific type of waste. Referendum proponents calculate the new fee schedule has the potential to raise $200 million per year. Fifty percent of the revenues would go to public education, 25 percent to environmental regulation and economic development in Tooele County and 25 percent to establishing a $200 million endowment for the homeless. Envirocare's Alkema said he is "baffled" by the proponents' data and math. How, he asked, can the state raise $200 million in taxes from a company whose gross receipts are $100 million? He also took umbrage at the suggestion his company does not pay taxes and is a monopoly. Envirocare, he said, pays a state royalty of between 5 percent and 12 percent of its gross receipts, depending on the type of waste. The company also pays a 5 percent royalty to Tooele County. To publicize the referendum and help acquire an estimated 77,000 signatures needed by May 31 to place the measure on November's ballot, proponents have enlisted well-known lobbyist Doug Foxley, a former Utah deputy secretary of state; lobbyist Frank Pignanelli, a former state House minority leader; former Tax Commissioner Roger Tew, and Lisa Watts Baskin, a former legislative attorney who helped craft the English-only initiative that voters passed last year. © Copyright 2002, The Salt Lake Tribune ***************************************************************** 42 US nuclear panel to hear Utah waste dump challenge USA: April 4, 2002 SAN FRANCISCO - While Nevada battles a White House plan to bury 70,000 tonnes of nuclear waste in the state, neighboring Utah will go before federal regulators next week seeking to scrap another controversial $3.1 billion radioactive dump proposal. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board will begin month-long hearings in Salt Lake City Monday on a bid by eight utilities to store up to 40,000 tonnes of used nuclear fuel in outdoor cannisters on an Indian reservation. Utah is working to torpedo the project, which the utilities say is temporary storage until a planned permanent facility at Nevada's Yucca Mountain is activated. The NRC panel may make a decision in September, according to project supporters. The Utah dump - on land owned by the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians about an hour's drive from Salt Lake City - would be run for 20 years by Private Fuel Storage LLC, led by utility holding company Xcel Energy , of Minneapolis. The project also carries a 20-year extension. Utah officials and dump proponents also will meet April 11 in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City to argue competing motions to toss out or allow the dump plans. Utah argues that the 1982 federal Nuclear Waste Policy Act bars private waste storage away from nuclear plants. But Indian reservations, because of their special status as semi-sovereign land, might be able to skirt the federal law and the Goshute tribe has actively solicited the storage project. "This is a war that is being fought on many fronts," said Monte Stewart, appointed last year by Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt as lead attorney to keep the waste out of Utah. Utah has no nuclear power stations of its own and has adopted laws banning in-state waste storage. The state also is making environmental challenges against the project, Stewart said. "STOP GAP" PROJECT Sue Martin, spokeswoman for Private Fuel Storage, said permanent storage in Nevada is "the ideal situation" for waste nuclear fuel, but Utah offers "a stop-gap" solution until Yucca Mountain is ready. The project also would generate lease revenues for the Goshute Indians to finance housing, health care and education. The proposed Yucca Mountain site, about 90 miles (145 km) northwest of Las Vegas, would be a permanent federal underground dump for waste fuel piling up at the nation's 103 atomic reactors. President George W. Bush endorsed the Yucca Mountain project in February, over the objections of Nevada officials and environmental groups worried about the risks of trucking radioactive material over long distances and groundwater contamination from the waste. Groundwater and transport issues are also on the NRC panel's agenda in Utah, plus questions about the dump's ability to withstand possible earthquakes and potential hazards from aircraft operating from a nearby military base. Unlike Yucca Mountain, where the radioactive waste would be buried deep inside a mountain, used fuel in the Utah project would be packed in 175-tonne steel and concrete canisters called dry casks and stored outside. The containers would be shipped by rail from nuclear power plants to Utah to sit on thick concrete above-ground pads until Yucca Mountain is ready. Private Fuel Storage insists that cask storage has been proven safe in the United States and at nuclear plants overseas. The project has been endorsed by the Nuclear Energy Institute, a Washington-based nuclear trade group, as an alternative site until Yucca Mountain starts up. In addition to Xcel Energy, the other Private Fuel Storage members are utilities American Electric Power , Edison International's Southern California Edison unit, the Southern Nuclear unit of Southern Co. , FirstEnergy , FPG Group's Florida Power & Light subsidiary, and Genoa Fuel Tech. Utilities say they are running out of space to store waste fuel and the federal government must live up to a 1982 law mandating that a national repository be built. About 44,000 tonnes of spent fuel rods now are stored in fuel pools and casks in the U.S. - enough to cover a football field 15 feet (4.6 meters) deep - and reactors produce another 2,000 tonnes each year. Story by Leonard Anderson REUTERS NEWS SERVICE ***************************************************************** 43 Remember, 'West Wing' is fictional CNN.com - -- New Mexico - April 3, 2002 [Martin Sheen] A New Mexico department issued a news release reminding New Mexico TV viewers that Wednesday's scheduled episode of "The West Wing," starring Martin Sheen as President Bartlet, is "completely fictional." ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico (AP) -- This just in: Martin Sheen is not president. Just in case New Mexico television viewers were wondering, the state Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department wanted them to know that an episode of "The West Wing" scheduled to air Wednesday night is fictional. The NBC drama series about life in the White House was to feature a story line about a crash of a heavy rig bearing uranium fuel rods in a remote Idaho tunnel. "The scenario described is completely fictional," the department said in a news release issued Tuesday, later adding, "New Mexico has no tunnels." Neither, it added, does Idaho. In fact, New Mexico does have a tunnel on U.S. 82 between Alamogordo and Cloudcroft. Anne Clark, the department's Waste Isolation Pilot Plant coordinator, said Wednesday that the news release should have said New Mexico has no tunnels on roads designated for vehicles hauling radioactive and other hazardous materials. Diane Kinderwater, spokeswoman for Gov. Gary Johnson, approved the release, issued on the governor's letterhead. "We're not trying to offend anybody's intelligence but they see vignettes and think that it could happen," Kinderwater said. "Why not try to give correct information?" Kinderwater said the idea for the release came from state Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Secretary Betty Rivera. The release was prepared by Clark, who said Wednesday the issue portrayed on the show is "going to be hot on people's minds because of September 11." "We want to assure people that this is not a possible scenario and we're prepared for anything that could happen in terms of an accident or some kind of security issue," she said. WIPP, which opened in March 1999 near Carlsbad, is a federal underground storage facility for plutonium-contaminated waste from defense work. It does not store nuclear fuel rods from civilian power plants. "As officials of the state, they (Rivera and Clark) felt this was the time to let the public know that they don't have anything to fear from anything on the program," Kinderwater said. "Sometimes the power of television is very strong. They're just trying to be responsible." Maria Stasi of Warner Bros. Television Publicity said no one was available Tuesday evening to comment. A "West Wing" publicist also did not return a phone call late Tuesday. Warner Bros. Television is a division of AOL Time Warner, which owns CNN.com. Copyright 2002 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This ***************************************************************** 44 U.S. nuclear panel to hear Utah waste dump challenge IWon Money Existing Members Wednesday April 3, 3:24 PM EST By Leonard Anderson SAN FRANCISCO, April 3 (Reuters) - While Nevada battles a White House plan to bury 70,000 tonnes of nuclear waste in the state, neighboring Utah will go before federal regulators next week seeking to scrap another controversial $3.1 billion radioactive dump proposal. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board will begin month-long hearings in Salt Lake City Monday on a bid by eight utilities to store up to 40,000 tonnes of used nuclear fuel in outdoor cannisters on an Indian reservation. Utah is working to torpedo the project, which the utilities say is temporary storage until a planned permanent facility at Nevada's Yucca Mountain is activated. The NRC panel may make a decision in September, according to project supporters. The Utah dump -- on land owned by the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians about an hour's drive from Salt Lake City -- would be run for 20 years by Private Fuel Storage LLC, led by utility holding company Xcel Energy (XEL), of Minneapolis. The project also carries a 20-year extension. Utah officials and dump proponents also will meet April 11 in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City to argue competing motions to toss out or allow the dump plans. Utah argues that the 1982 federal Nuclear Waste Policy Act bars private waste storage away from nuclear plants. But Indian reservations, because of their special status as semi-sovereign land, might be able to skirt the federal law and the Goshute tribe has actively solicited the storage project. "This is a war that is being fought on many fronts," said Monte Stewart, appointed last year by Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt as lead attorney to keep the waste out of Utah. Utah has no nuclear power stations of its own and has adopted laws banning in-state waste storage. The state also is making environmental challenges against the project, Stewart said. "STOP GAP" PROJECT Sue Martin, spokeswoman for Private Fuel Storage, said permanent storage in Nevada is "the ideal situation" for waste nuclear fuel, but Utah offers "a stop-gap" solution until Yucca Mountain is ready. The project also would generate lease revenues for the Goshute Indians to finance housing, health care and education. The proposed Yucca Mountain site, about 90 miles (145 km) northwest of Las Vegas, would be a permanent federal underground dump for waste fuel piling up at the nation's 103 atomic reactors. President George W. Bush endorsed the Yucca Mountain project in February, over the objections of Nevada officials and environmental groups worried about the risks of trucking radioactive material over long distances and groundwater contamination from the waste. Groundwater and transport issues are also on the NRC panel's agenda in Utah, plus questions about the dump's ability to withstand possible earthquakes and potential hazards from aircraft operating from a nearby military base. Unlike Yucca Mountain, where the radioactive waste would be buried deep inside a mountain, used fuel in the Utah project would be packed in 175-tonne steel and concrete canisters called dry casks and stored outside. The containers would be shipped by rail from nuclear power plants to Utah to sit on thick concrete above-ground pads until Yucca Mountain is ready. Private Fuel Storage insists that cask storage has been proven safe in the United States and at nuclear plants overseas. The project has been endorsed by the Nuclear Energy Institute, a Washington-based nuclear trade group, as an alternative site until Yucca Mountain starts up. In addition to Xcel Energy, the other Private Fuel Storage members are utilities American Electric Power (AEP), Edison International's (EIX) Southern California Edison unit, the Southern Nuclear unit of Southern Co. (SO), FirstEnergy (FE), FPG Group's (FPL) Florida Power & Light subsidiary, and Genoa Fuel Tech. Utilities say they are running out of space to store waste fuel and the federal government must live up to a 1982 law mandating that a national repository be built. About 44,000 tonnes of spent fuel rods now are stored in fuel pools and casks in the U.S. -- enough to cover a football field 15 feet (4.6 meters) deep -- and reactors produce another 2,000 tonnes each year. ©2002 Reuters Limited. Copyright © 1999-2002 iWon.com All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 45 Use N-waste over and over Thursday, April 4, 2002 By William D. Peterson Spent nuclear fuel is more than 95 percent U238, which becomes fuel. SNF needs to be reprocessed and reused, over and over again. When SNF has been out of a reactor only a few years, it still is making a lot of heat. Especially for the first 50 years, and preferably for the first 100 years, it only makes sense to store SNF at or near the surface where it can be cooled with natural air convection and easily monitored and accessed. The cost to store SNF at the Pigeon Spur Repository is less than a tenth as expensive as Yucca storage. Deep storage in Yucca requires 50 years of 10,000 horsepower of fan cooling, costing more than $5 million per year just for electricity. Near surface storage at the Pigeon Spur requires no fans; cooling cost is zero. If SNF is reprocessed after use and is stored in Yucca Mountain rather than in an interim storage facility, it could be shipped to and from, in and out of Yucca Mountain, making nine highway trips if it is only reprocessed twice. This creates much unnecessary heavy-haul trucking over 250 miles of Nevada roads and through Las Vegas. It also creates unnecessary train hauls across Utah's prestigious Wasatch Front, which Utahns object to. With interim or temporary storage in Utah, only three trips will be required to Yucca Mountain across these routes, which would be much smaller one-way loads. Even with reprocessing and reuse of SNF, there will still be some waste. So Yucca Mountain must be completed and prepared for use. The Private Fuel Storage facility on the Skull Valley Goshute Indian reservation and the Pigeon Spur Repository in Box Elder County, both currently in the licensing process, need to be completed and put into use. SNF reprocessing facilities need to be reconstructed at INEEL or Hanford. Then, for the first 75 to 100 years, SNF should be stored at PFS or PSR and shuttled back and forth between them and the power utilities as it is reprocessed and reused. The small percentage that cannot be reused each time is the true waste or fission products, which can be melted into glass for 300-year storage, after which it is harmless. It is necessary now that we have the Yucca Mountain storage availability, but by using interim storage in Utah, storage needed at Yucca Mountain will be drastically cut back. Nevadans and Utahns do not want SNF hauled repeatedly across their states. But the SNF issues must be resolved, and right now the only alternative the U.S. Congress has is Yucca Mountain. Nevadans and Utahns need to offer and support DOE's alternative solution of extended natural ventilation surface storage. Just saying "no" is no solution. Interim storage in Utah with reprocessing in Idaho is a much better solution. Both Nevadans and Utahns need to assist in getting both Pigeon Spur Repository and Private Fuel Storage licensed and operating. Willam D. Peterson is a professional engineer for nuclear waste and is associated with Pigeon Spur Repository. © 2002 Deseret News Publishing Company ***************************************************************** 46 Vieques Action Alert as Navy bombs Date: Thu, 4 Apr 2002 09:44:46 -0600 (CST) The Nicaragua Network has received this important alert from Vieques Solidarity. Reply to: viequessolidarity@bigfoot.com Call for Solidarity with Vieques, Puerto Rico Navy Bombing Resumes: Support Civil Disobedience & Peace Actions in Vieques and elsewhere April 1-22 bieke@prdigital.com Telefax: 787/741-1717 Send solidarity messages to the Vieques Summit in NYC April 12-13 viequessummit@yahoo.com www.viequessummit.org Spread the word about the Viequethon in Vieques, "Island of Poets" May 3 - 5 viequethon@aol.com www.viequethon.org Visit Web Sites in Solidarity with Vieques for more info/action suggestions ************************************************************** A CALL TO ACTION FOR PEACE ON VIEQUES: After a six-month pause, the U.S. Navy resumed bombing on April 1st and will continue for 22 days. In January, excercises in Vieques were cancelled after the USS John F. Kennedy went elsewhere to practice its war-making. The Puerto Rico Planning Board denied a permit requested by the Navy in December ruling that either live-fire or "inert" bombing destroys coral reefs and archeological sites, threatens endangered species and contaminates water supplies. The USS George Washington battle group is violating this ruling with its bombing. The Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques (CRDV) appeals to the worldwide forces for peace to creatively respond by carrying out solidarity actions for peace in Vieques and elsewhere. Actions are planned in numerous cities including Rome, Hawaii, Australia, Paris, New York, California, and more. Educational activities and protesting through the mass media will help put more pressure on the U.S. to immediately and permanently cease their war practices on Vieques. Declarations from leading religious, political, sports or artistic figures to the CRDV can be very powerful. Messages via email or fax, indicating the possibilities of organizing actions in your geographic area to denounce the continuation of bombing on Vieques are much appreciated. Persons interested in participating in civil disobedience actions should contact the CRDV as soon as possible by email or telephone. A campaign is underway to have U.S. Members of Congress urge President Bush to issue an executive order to stop the bombing in Vieques. Over 110 members have already joined this effort. More are needed. Sample letters are available. CRDV PO Box 1424 Vieques, Puerto Rico 00765 Tel/fax: 787/741-1717 bieke@prdigital.com Vieques Summit: On April 12-13, 2002 community activists, environmentalists, labor leaders, religious leaders, cultural workers, artists and elected officials will gather in New York City for a Vieques Summit, to reactivate the international campaign on Vieques. Please participate as you are able. If you cannot be present, we invite you to send statements of solidarity to be shared at this historic event. Summit supporters and participants unite to: 1. Understand that the central objective of the struggle in the island municipality of Vieques is the universally accepted 4 point program of demilitarization, decontamination, devolution of land, and sustainable economic development; 2. Recognize that the struggle for peace with justice in Vieques is a human rights issue that has had serious ramifications of genocide, and ecological and environmental degradation; 3. Endorse non-violent, peaceful civil disobedience, and other efforts in that spirit, as a strategy to stop military training exercises, demand immediate cessation of such exercises and denounce the occupation of the island municipality of Vieques by the U.S. Navy. Statements can be from organizations and/or community leaders, and sent to: viequessummit@yahoo.org AND viequessolidarity@bigfoot.com More information on how to participate in Vieques Summit: www.viequessummit.org VIEQUETHON May 3-5: A call for poets, musicians, and artists to celebrate world peace in Vieques, Puerto Rico from May 3 to May 5, 2002. This international event will gather artists of all kinds to focus the eyes of the world on the troubled Island of Vieques and transform it through their words and works of art into the Island of Poets. The celebration gathers during the second anniversary of the removal of over two hundred nonviolent protesters by U.S. officials from the bombing range on the eastern tip of Vieques. Excerpts from We Must go to Vieques: Inciting Manifesto All who remember and love their homeland must go to Vieques even if their origins do not lay there should raise their voice in the name of their birth land, in name of future dreams............. We must go to Vieques armed with poems in verse, in prose, in anger, but subtle without fear, using the word to incite others signifying our people............. We must go to Vieques and name it Island of Poets. Ricardo Lesn-Villa, (translation: Sheila Candelario) entire poem www.viequethon.org/Manifesto.htm Please send greetings to Viequethon. Messages from renowned poets/artists especially welcome: viequethon@aol.com AND viequessolidarity@bigfoot.com webinfo: www.viequethon.org Other Web Links: www.viequeslibre.org Information on the struggle to free Vieques of the U.S. Navy (multilingual) www.vieques-island.com Travel Guide for Vieques (English) www.redbetances.com Information about Puerto Rico and its Struggles (Spanish) www.viequesvive.net Clearinghouse for Websites in Solidarity with Vieques (bilingual) www.afsc.org/lac/puertorico.htm Puerto Rico Program sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee (English) www.forusa.org/Programs/puertorico/default.html Programs sponsored by the Fellowship of Reconciliation Task Force on Latin America and the Caribbean {FOR-TFLAC} (English) forlatam@igc.org ***************************************************************** 47 Editorial: Nuclear-free, but not unilaterally The Taipei Times Online: 2002-04-04 Minister of National Defense Tang Yao-ming (´öÂ`©ú) recently expressed opposition to the possible use of nuclear weapons by the US in the Taiwan Strait, as postulated in Washington's Nuclear Posture Review. The defense ministry's declaration of an anti-nuclear- weapons stance -- without coordinating with other government agencies -- not only surprised Washington, but flabbergasted Taiwan's National Security Council and the Presidential Office. The move cast a pall over US-Taiwan cooperation. Unfortunately, it looks as if the ministry over-reacted to the publicizing of a long-held US position. In 1953, during the Korean War, then-US president Dwight D. Eisenhower discussed the possibility of using nuclear weapons against China. In 1988, Beijing successfully tested a neutron bomb and the US military began to study more seriously the possibility of using nuclear weapons against China. Despite thEditorial: Nuclear-free, but not unilaterally The Taipei Times Online: 2002-04-04 Minister of National Defense Tang Yao-ming (´öÂ`©ú) recently expressed opposition to the possible use of nuclear weapons by the US in the Taiwan Strait, as postulated in Washington's Nuclear Posture Review. The defense ministry's declaration of an anti-nuclear- weapons stance -- without coordinating with other government agencies -- not only surprised Washington, but flabbergasted Taiwan's National Security Council and the Presidential Office. The move cast a pall over US-Taiwan cooperation. Unfortunately, it looks as if the ministry over-reacted to the publicizing of a long-held US position. In 1953, during the Korean War, then-US president Dwight D. Eisenhower discussed the possibility of using nuclear weapons against China. In 1988, Beijing successfully tested a neutron bomb and the US military began to study more seriously the possibility of using nuclear weapons against China. Despite the differences in the nuclear policies of successive US presidents, their view of China as a possible target of tactical nuclear weapons did not change. The nuclear contingency plan, reported on last month by the Los Angeles Times, was therefore simply a continuation of past policy. Soon after taking office, US President George W. Bush vowed to "do whatever it takes to help Taiwan defend itself." During his visit to Japan earlier this year, he described both Japan and Taiwan as friends of the US. Clearly, the US lists Taiwan in the same category as Japan and South Korea -- and puts it under the same nuclear protection umbrella. This defense mechanism is the foundation for security in East Asia. The US policy of strategic ambiguity on the use of nuclear weapons is the key to maintaining its nuclear deterrence. This newspaper has always advocated making the Taiwan Strait a nuclear-free zone. But Taiwan unilaterally declaring the Strait a non-nuclear zone is not a smart idea. Given that China remains unwilling to renounce the possible use of force against Taiwan, a unilateral declaration would destroy the existing strategic ambiguity, do more harm than good and cause problems for Taiwan's allies. China has more than 300 ballistic missiles deployed against Taiwan. It's hostility toward Taiwan is on the rise as Beijing continues to whip up nationalist fervor for unification as part of its internal power struggles. The Strait should be a nuclear-free zone, but Taiwan's national security and defense institutions first need to integrate their political and military strategies -- and then seek a consensus with the US on the issue. The next step would be to seek a formal agreement with the US and China through a tripartite-negotiation mechanism. The US position on the Strait is rather passive: it will not take the initiative to intervene. That leaves China as the key factor. Beijing's use of nuclear weapons against Taiwan would draw strong condemnation from the international community, not to mention the fact that it would destroy the very prize it claims to have been seeking for decades. The US might be forced to retaliate with its own nuclear weapons. No one would emerge a winner from such a scenario. A promise from China for a nuclear-free zone in the Strait would not only reduce Washington and Taipei's concerns about Beijing's threat, but would be a substantial goodwill gesture toward the people of Taiwan. It would also go a long way toward improving Sino-American ties and cross-strait relations -- a winning situation for all three parties. This story has been viewed 535 times. URL=[http://www.taipeitimes.com/news/2002/04/04/story/0000130492] Copyright © 1999-2002 The Taipei Times. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 48 Editorial: Nuclear-free, but not unilaterally The Taipei Times Online: 2002-04-04Thursday, April 4th, 2002 Minister of National Defense Tang Yao-ming (´öÂ`©ú) recently expressed opposition to the possible use of nuclear weapons by the US in the Taiwan Strait, as postulated in Washington's Nuclear Posture Review. The defense ministry's declaration of an anti-nuclear- weapons stance -- without coordinating with other government agencies -- not only surprised Washington, but flabbergasted Taiwan's National Security Council and the Presidential Office. The move cast a pall over US-Taiwan cooperation. Unfortunately, it looks as if the ministry over-reacted to the publicizing of a long-held US position. In 1953, during the Korean War, then-US president Dwight D. Eisenhower discussed the possibility of using nuclear weapons against China. In 1988, Beijing successfully tested a neutron bomb and the US military began to study more seriously the possibility of using nuclear weapons against China. Despite the differences in the nuclear policies of successive US presidents, their view of China as a possible target of tactical nuclear weapons did not change. The nuclear contingency plan, reported on last month by the Los Angeles Times, was therefore simply a continuation of past policy. Soon after taking office, US President George W. Bush vowed to "do whatever it takes to help Taiwan defend itself." During his visit to Japan earlier this year, he described both Japan and Taiwan as friends of the US. Clearly, the US lists Taiwan in the same category as Japan and South Korea -- and puts it under the same nuclear protection umbrella. This defense mechanism is the foundation for security in East Asia. The US policy of strategic ambiguity on the use of nuclear weapons is the key to maintaining its nuclear deterrence. This newspaper has always advocated making the Taiwan Strait a nuclear-free zone. But Taiwan unilaterally declaring the Strait a non-nuclear zone is not a smart idea. Given that China remains unwilling to renounce the possible use of force against Taiwan, a unilateral declaration would destroy the existing strategic ambiguity, do more harm than good and cause problems for Taiwan's allies. China has more than 300 ballistic missiles deployed against Taiwan. It's hostility toward Taiwan is on the rise as Beijing continues to whip up nationalist fervor for unification as part of its internal power struggles. The Strait should be a nuclear-free zone, but Taiwan's national security and defense institutions first need to integrate their political and military strategies -- and then seek a consensus with the US on the issue. The next step would be to seek a formal agreement with the US and China through a tripartite-negotiation mechanism. The US position on the Strait is rather passive: it will not take the initiative to intervene. That leaves China as the key factor. Beijing's use of nuclear weapons against Taiwan would draw strong condemnation from the international community, not to mention the fact that it would destroy the very prize it claims to have been seeking for decades. The US might be forced to retaliate with its own nuclear weapons. No one would emerge a winner from such a scenario. A promise from China for a nuclear-free zone in the Strait would not only reduce Washington and Taipei's concerns about Beijing's threat, but would be a substantial goodwill gesture toward the people of Taiwan. It would also go a long way toward improving Sino-American ties and cross-strait relations -- a winning situation for all three parties. This story has been viewed 534 times. URL=[http://www.taipeitimes.com/news/2002/04/04/story/0000130492] Copyright © 1999-2002 The Taipei Times. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 49 Egypt calls for complete scrapping of nuclear weapons BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Apr 4, 2002 Text of report in English by Egyptian news agency MENA web site New York, 4 April: Egypt and its partners in the new international alliance for nuclear disarmament are concerned over the continuation of old security policies and theories that encourage countries to hoard nuclear arms and other weapons of mass destruction, Egypt's permanent delegate to the United Nations Ambassador Ahmad Abu-al-Ghayt said Thursday [4 April]. This will be expressed in a working paper that Egypt, as rotating chairman of the alliance, intends to submit during Monday's preparatory talks for the UN conference on the revision of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The seven-member alliance, which groups besides Egypt, Brazil, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa, Ireland and Sweden, issued a press release earlier to assert that the full scrapping of all weapons of mass destruction, including nukes, is the only way to guarantee global security. They also called for speeding up steps to implement the international treaty to ban nuclear tests and to start negotiations on the adoption of a new treaty on control of nuclear material. The working paper that the seven countries intend to moot for discussion in New York on Monday will call upon Israel, India and Pakistan to join the NPT unconditionally and as quickly as possible. Source: MENA news agency web site, Cairo, in English 4 Apr 02 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. ***************************************************************** 50 Defector reveals extent of Iraqi weapons programme Guardian Unlimited | Archive Search An Iraqi defector has claimed Saddam Hussein is developing a missile system which could deliver chemical, biological and eventually nuclear warheads to Middle Eastern capitals, writes Chris Alden Chris Alden Thursday April 4, 2002 Iraq is developing a long-range ballistic missile system that could carry weapons of mass destruction up to 700 miles, according to an Iraqi defector interviewed in this month's Vanity Fair. The defector, who fled Iraq last year, says he had access to some of the most secret operations of the Mukhabarat, Iraq's security and intelligence service. At a meeting with Vanity Fair journalist David Rose - arranged by the Iraq National Congress, an opposition organisation funded by the US government - the defector describes how he worked on plans to acquire components for project Tammooz, "a new-generation long-range ballistic-missile system, equipped to deliver chemical, biological, and eventually nuclear warheads". The missile, the defector says, has been designed with an initial range of 600 to 700 miles: "far enough to hit Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; Ankara, in Turkey; Cairo and Alexandria, in Egypt; Nicosia, in Cyprus; and Tehran, capital of Iraq's historic enemy, Iran." It was at a meeting held in Dubai to arrange how to buy components for the Tammooz project that the defector fled the Iraqi regime. In the interview, the defector identifies sites where chemical and biological weapons are designed, manufactured and tested, as well as one where nuclear weapons are again being tested. He also reveals how Iraq used a network of front companies to evade Western sanctions. He says the Mukhabarat's firms sold items imported as part of the UN's "food for oil" program, in return for money for arms procurement; and smuggled military equipment and raw materials via Dubai for Iraq's Military Industrial Commission. His next mission, he says, would have been to procure items for Iraq's nuclear project - codenamed al-Bashir, and based at Fahama, a populous residential area of Baghdad. The defector describes a meeting held in Tanzania in 1994, in which he and other Iraqis met five eastern Europeans. At the meeting, he says, cash was exchanged for the contents of a heavy trunk. "They had a sports bag and took out gloves, face masks which were like gas masks, and a small electronic gadget," he tells Vanity Fair. "They opened the trunk, and the scientist bent over it. Inside were what looked like pieces of black rock, glittery". Nuclear experts are sceptical of some details of this meeting, Rose says. But they also say the black material sounds like "a description of spent reactor fuel rods cut into sections, which could be used to build a 'dirty' radiological bomb". While not as devastating as an atomic explosion, a "dirty" bomb - a conventional explosive surrounded by a layer of radioactive material - could bring chaos and mass destruction to a city. In the interview, the defector takes credit for the idea of converting Renault trucks - bought legally - into mobile factories of mass destruction. "They look like meat cars, yoghurt cars," he says. "And inside is a laboratory with incubators for bacteria, microscopes, air conditioning." But the Mukhabarat was eventually to turn on him. In 1998, he says he was tortured and interrogated over a supposed plot to topple Saddam Hussein. During a six-month incarceration, crocodile-clip electrodes were attached to his eyelids and genitals, and he was sexually abused. After his release, he decided to gather as much information as possible, and flee when he could. The Vanity Fair interview lends fresh ammunition to those who support a US attack on Iraq. Early in his career, it says, the defector worked for a department which provided support and training for terrorists abroad, including the Palestinian terrorist group, Hamas. A "stream of Hamas fighters" learned skills such as sabotage, assassination, hijacking, and suicide bombing, the interview says. "The defector's testimony reveals the true depth of the Iraq-Hamas connection," says Rose. "It places Iraq squarely on the front line of President Bush's war on international terrorism: even without the added factor of weapons of mass destruction, this might be held to justify a US attack." [UP] Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002 ***************************************************************** 51 U.S. questions full compliance by Russia to arms treaties Carthage Press: WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration plans to hold back on some disarmament projects with Russia because of concerns over Moscow's compliance with chemical and biological weapons treaties, a senior U.S. official says. U.S. law requires the government to certify that Russia is committed to full compliance with existing treaties before new initiatives can be started or additional money provided for existing programs to reduce the treat of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, the official noted. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, commented shortly before Secretary of State Colin Powell left Washington on Sunday night for a round of meetings with Russian and other foreign leaders, mostly focused on the Middle East. Powell plans to dine with Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov in Madrid on Wednesday to lay the groundwork for an upcoming arms-control summit. A State Department cable sent to Russia last week laying out the U.S. position on treaty compliance came a month before President Bush is to meet Russian President Vladimir V. Putin in Moscow. The United States is not accusing Russia of violating biological and chemical weapons treaties and is not ruling out certification of compliance in the future, the U.S. official said. Moreover, the administration is seeking a congressional waiver for the certification requirement so that new and expanded programs can be pursued even in the absence of formal certification Among the programs potentially affected are several intended to help stop the theft of Russian nuclear warheads. That effort began in 1991 and has enjoyed strong support from Congress as well as the Clinton and Bush administrations. Existence of the State Department cable was first reported by The New York Times. The U.S. decision was prompted by a range of actions by Russia, including its recent refusal to share a bioengineered strain of anthrax developed by its scientists and failure to provide a complete history of decades of secret work on biological and chemical weapons, the Times said. While Western scientists have been able to visit several former Soviet facilities where such weapons were made, Russia has denied foreigners access to the four biological laboratories that have been controlled by the military, the newspaper added. Russia maintains it is not violating the biological or chemical warfare conventions and argues that American military labs are not open either. ***************************************************************** 52 Rule of Power or Rule of Law? An Assessment of U.S. Policies and Actions Regarding Security-Related Treaties For release after 10 a.m., Thursday, April 4, 2002, National Press Club news conference For further information contact: [ ieer@ieer.org] : (301) 270-5500 Bob Schaeffer: (941) 395-6773 P R E S S R E L E A S E SYSTEMATIC UNITED STATES DISREGARD OF ITS TREATY OBLIGATIONS JEOPARDIZES NUCLEAR NONPROLIFERATION AND GLOBAL SECURITY New Report Concludes Five Countries - United States, France, Britain, Japan, Germany - Appear to Violate Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Terms Washington, D.C., April 4: The United States is disregarding crucial treaty obligations and creating a dangerous slide away from the rule of law into a power-based world that is likely to be far more insecure, according to a detailed analysis of U.S. policies and actions in relation to major security-related treaties released today. The new study, Rule of Power or Rule of Law? An Assessment of U.S. Policies and Actions Regarding Security-Related Treaties, was prepared jointly by two non-profit groups, the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER) and the [http://www.lcnp.org/] (LCNP). "The United States has violated, compromised, or acted to undermine in some crucial way every treaty that we have studied in detail," said Nicole Deller, principal editor and co-author of the report. "Recent shifts of U.S. policy toward greater reliance on military force, including nuclear weapons, as the main component for securing the people of the United States from a variety of threats sets a dangerous course and a poor example." Ms. Deller, a lawyer, was a consultant to IEER and LCNP during the preparation of the report. The study concludes that five of the signatories to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) - the United States, France, Britain, Japan, and Germany - appear to be violating it already, though they claim to be in compliance. The apparent violation involves the planned laboratory thermonuclear explosions in huge new laser devices being built in the United States (the National Ignition Facility) and in France (Laser Mégajoule). The devices would be used for experiments aimed at producing thermonuclear explosions of as much as ten pounds of TNT equivalent. "The CTBT bans all nuclear explosions, even if the devices in which they are carried out cannot be weaponized," said Dr. Arjun Makhijani, president of IEER and a co-author of the study. "It also bans all activities that are designed to encourage or cause nuclear explosions. The explanations that the United States Department of Energy has offered to suggest that the planned explosions in NIF comply with the CTBT simply do not stand up to scrutiny. There is some evidence of an agreement between a few states, not known to all the parties, to brush this issue under the rug." Britain is helping fund the U.S. laser project. Subsidiaries of a Japanese company Hoya, and a German company, Schott, are supplying the highly specialized glass that would be used to make the lasers. Rule of Power or Rule of Law? concludes that the United States is also flouting its obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). "The January 2002 Nuclear Posture Review makes a mockery of U.S. commitments under the NPT," said Dr. John Burroughs, executive director of LCNP and a co-author of the study, and an expert in international law as it relates to nuclear weapons. "The disclosure of a variety of options for use of nuclear weapons, including by preemptive attack, against non-nuclear weapon states, are contrary to a commitment to a 'diminishing role for nuclear weapons in security policy' made less than two years ago." An advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice in 1996 unanimously concluded that the NPT requires nuclear weapons states not only to negotiate but also to actually achieve nuclear disarmament "in all its aspects." The study argues that a failure to fulfill treaty commitments when it involves some constraints on the part of the United States will undermine the security of the people of the United States. Global cooperation is needed, the authors say, to detect materials that may be used in dirty bombs, to ensure that international cargo does not contain hidden nuclear weapons, and to create comprehensive accounts of nuclear materials to reduce the risk of proliferation. "The September 2001 attacks on the United States point to the urgent need to marginalize nuclear weapons and intensify global cooperation on nuclear weapons and nuclear materials," said Dr. Burroughs. "Instead, the United States has adopted an irrational policy of elevating the role of nuclear weapons in its overall military strategy. This will reduce U.S. and global security, not increase it." The report makes an important connection between the build up of greenhouse gases and security and concludes that the United States is violating the United Nations Convention on Global Climate Change. Ratified by the United States in 1992, it obligates wealthy countries to take the lead in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. "If food production conditions changes and vast areas of the world are flooded, climate change could create millions or tens of millions of refugees," said Dr. Makhijani. "This would pose serious economic and security concerns, in addition to environmental ones. The Bush Administration's plan to reduce greenhouse gas 'intensity' does not come close to complying with the Convention on Climate Change by a long shot." The report details evidence that U.S. policy is drifting away from regarding treaties as an essential element in global security to a more opportunistic stand of abiding by treaties only when it is convenient. "The United States is setting itself above the rules and rejecting the notion that treaties are instruments among equals, in which all parties give up something and get something," said Ms. Deller. "This is a perilous direction for the United States, which gave the world the very concept of the rule of law. If the United States sets itself up above the law, and bases itself on the rule of power instead, what's to stop other countries from doing the same?" The report recommends that the United States: + Unconditionally ratify the CTBT and abandon plans for laboratory thermonuclear explosions. + Commit itself to irreversible nuclear arms reductions and help set in motion a process leading to a global agreement to eliminate nuclear weapons in fulfillment of its NPT commitments. + Reassess its unilateral withdrawal from the ABM treaty and commit itself to negotiated changes only. + Re-engage in the process to create a verification regime under the Biological Weapons Convention. + Set itself long-term goals for large reductions in greenhouse gas emissions to comply with its climate change obligations and re-engage in the Kyoto Protocol process on that basis. The other treaties that the report examines are: the Chemical Weapons Convention, the Treaty Banning Anti-Personnel Mines, and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. It contains recommendations for action on each. Contact numbers for other authors: John Burroughs and Nicole Deller: 1-212-818-1861. The report Rule of Power or Rule of Law? will be posted on IEER's web site by early afternoon Thursday, April 4, 2002. Advance embargoed copies of the report available upon request. -30- Institute for Energy and Environmental Research Comments to [ieer@ieer.org] Takoma Park, Maryland, USA Posted April 4, 2002 ***************************************************************** 53 Lecture to address nuclear weapons, terrorism TRN Online: News Wichita Falls, Times Record News Richard Carter, Special for the Times Record News The First Annual Speakers and Issues Series resumes at 7:30 p.m. today with internationally recognized scholar Dr. Gary K. Bertsch lecturing on the topic "Weapons of Mass Destruction, Terrorism, and U.S. Security in an Unsettled World." Bertsch is the director of the Center for International Trade and Security and professor of political science at the University of Georgia. He will speak on the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and what the United States and the world community are doing to prevent the spread of the nuclear arsenal of the former Soviet Union. The professor's talk will be held at the Shawnee Theater in the Clark Student Center and is sponsored by the MSU political science department. A question and answer session will follow. Bertsch's lecture is part of the town forum-like First Annual Speakers and Issues Series, a presentation of the MSU College of Liberal Arts and the World Forum, a gathering of local community interests. Bertsch has taught at the University of Georgia since the early 1970's. After receiving his doctorate from Oregon, he focused his studies on Yugoslavia. In the late '80s, following the fragmentation of the Soviet Union, he switched to proliferation issues. Bertsch regularly testifies before Congress on proliferation and trade issues. Dr. Samuel Watson, MSU professor of political science, said Bertsch will tie proliferation into the problem of terrorism. "From the caves in Afghanistan," he said, "we have documents now that show that bin Laden was very interested in nuclear and biological weapons. There's also worry that Iran, Iraq Syria, Libya and North Korea are getting their hands on weapons." The lecture will also focus on terrorist efforts to try and hire former Soviet nuclear scientists and efforts to buy enriched uranium that may come up on legal and also black markets. In addition there is the current problem of not being able to account for all of the old Soviet small nuclear weapons. Despite the recent use of airplanes as weapons, nuclear materials are still a considerable threat. "Terrorists are in the business of shock value. Psychologically, if they could detonate a nuclear weapon, that would be a big hit," Watson said. "Bertsch is good about addressing a general audience and it will be appropriate for the general public," he said. Today at 9:30 a.m., a screening of the Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko's film "Stalin's Funeral" (1990) will take place in Room 108 of Bridwell Hall on the MSU campus. Following the film, a discussion will be held with the director. The subtitled 110-minute film recounts a developing romance and a tragedy at Joseph Stalin's funeral. © The E.W. Scripps Co. ***************************************************************** 54 Incinerator to resume operations by summer Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 12:13 p.m. on Thursday, April 4, 2002 by Paul Parson Oak Ridger staff Routine annual maintenance activities associated with Oak Ridge's toxic waste incinerator have been completed, and the incinerator is expected to resume operations by late spring or early summer. The Toxic Substances Control Act Incinerator, which is located at the Oak Ridge K-25 site, was shut down in November 2001 for a routine maintenance outage, and it is scheduled to start up again by June, according to Dennis Hill, a spokesman for Bechtel Jacobs Co. -- the Department of Energy's cleanup manager. "During the shutdown, operators have been repackaging solid waste to prepare it for incineration and will continue that process until restart," Hill said. "They also completed some repairs and performed preventive maintenance." The Oak Ridge incinerator burns low-level radioactive wastes in addition to some wastes containing hazardous chemicals such as polychlorinated biphenyls. IT Corp. operates TSCA under a subcontract with Bechtel Jacobs. During a visit to Oak Ridge in December, Helen Belencan, a waste program manager with DOE headquarters, indicated that the federal agency was considering shutting down TSCA in 2003. But DOE has yet to announce a decision on the incinerator's fate. Paul Parson can be contacted at (865) 220-5533 or pparson@oakridger.com [pparson@oakridger.com] . All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 55 Blaine Construction, SNS contractor, recognized for workplace safety Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 12:28 p.m. on Thursday, April 4, 2002 by Paul Parson Oak Ridger staff A big contractor for the Spallation Neutron Source project has been recognized with a national safety award. The Associated General Contractors of America honored Blaine Construction Co. of Knoxville as the safest contractor in the nation in its particular building division, which involves 100,000 to 500,000 annual man-hours. Blaine received the Construction Safety Excellence Award for the company's "exceptional safety program" and its employees' commitment to safety, according to a press release from the Associated General Contractors of America. Blaine has four contracts associated with the SNS construction project near Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The $1.4 billion SNS is one of the largest scientific facility construction projects that the United States has undertaken in several decades. When the SNS is completed in 2006, researchers from the United States and abroad -- an estimated 2,000 a year -- will come to the facility to study materials that will form the basis for new technologies and improvements in telecommunications, manufacturing, transportation and health, among other areas. The SNS will fire an ion beam down its linear accelerator tunnel toward a mercury target; a beam that, at 80 percent of the speed of light, could reach the moon in 1.5 seconds. The resulting protons will bombard a mercury target, generating neutrons for use in research. One of the other local projects that Blaine is working on is a parking garage at the University of Tennessee. Paul Parson can be contacted at (865) 220-5533 or [pparson@oakridger.com] . [http://www.oakridger.com/dailydouble] All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 56 TDEC: DOE activities pose no health threat Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 12:28 p.m. on Thursday, April 4, 2002 by Paul Parson Oak Ridger staff No immediate threats to public health exist from the Department of Energy's current activities on the Oak Ridge Reservation, a just-released report indicates. However, that's not to say the potential isn't there if surveillance or maintenance lapses occur and cleanup projects fail to progress. The report is the result of the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation's monitoring and oversight of local DOE activities during fiscal year 2001 (July 1, 2000, to June 30, 2001). The FY 2001 findings essentially match those reported by TDEC during FY 2000. Susan Gawarecki, executive director of the Oak Ridge Reservation Local Oversight Committee, says she agrees with the findings in TDEC's report. Her organization also keeps a close eye on DOE's Oak Ridge work. "It shows the state is doing extensive oversight," Gawarecki said. "I'm satisfied there are no immediate threats Š and the state is satisfied. The scientific and technical evidence backs up the statement." In the report, TDEC states that it is "satisfied that DOE's current operations typically meet the requirements of state and federal permits as well as DOE orders guiding self-regulation, but they fall short of the spirit of DOE orders requiring the proper management of radioactive waste. "Although there is no immediate health risk to the public, there is the potential for contaminant release from wastes stored under improper conditions or from cleanup sites that have yet to be addressed." TDEC's report states that DOE must allocate sufficient funding to significantly reduce the quantities of waste stored in Oak Ridge. For more than 50 years, a variety of wastes -- including hazardous and radioactive -- have been buried, poured into ponds and streams, burned, and discharged into the air. And, DOE continues to release low levels of contaminants into the air and water from legacy sites that are being cleaned up, according to the TDEC report. Due to concerns over pollution on the Oak Ridge Reservation and potential impacts on public health and the environment, the state of Tennessee signed an agreement with DOE in 1991 that called for monitoring and oversight of the federal agency. A year later, DOE and the Environmental Protection Agency drafted a specific set of objectives and timetables DOE must meet to ensure local cleanup activities proceed. For the most part, TDEC's report supports the theme of a soon-to-be-released "environmental guide" to Oak Ridge that indicates the municipality is a safe place to live. "The bottom line is there are problems on the reservation, but they don't impact the residential and commercial areas," Gawarecki said. Copies of TDEC's FY 2001 report will be available at the Local Oversight Committee's office in the Midtown Community Center, located at 102 Robertsville Road, and at the Oak Ridge Public Library. Paul Parson can be contacted at (865) 220-5533 or pparson@oakridger.com [pparson@oakridger.com] . All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 57 Opinion - Unauthorized paint job, unspent funds and still more ORNL lore opEd 2 Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 12:33 p.m. on Thursday, April 4, 2002 Further in the matter of "Oak Ridge National Laboratory -- Now It Can Be Told": Like how one scientist, bored with the color of his office walls, came in one Saturday morning armed with paint bucket and brush and brightened things up, only to cause a major crisis. One simply does not take that kind of maintenance initiative, the scientist was told in no uncertain terms by union-contract-sensitive management. Like one experimental fusion device -- the so-called Elmo Bumpy Torus -- that ORNL fusion people decided was simply not about to work and informed Washington officials that they would not spend all funds appropriated for it. Washington, unaccustomed to such candor, promptly dispatched a fusion-science-savvy committee to make certain that the device was performing as poorly as ORNL said it was. * Oak Ridge Institute for Continued Learning scheduled three sessions during the current winter-spring class period at which top ORNL officials of the past confided these and other tales, anecdotes, fables about the laboratory in days gone by. A previous column detailed memories told at a session on Feb. 21. Follow-up sessions were held Feb. 28 and March 21. Murray Rosenthal spoke of the regular presence of Alvin M. Weinberg, ORNL director for 25 years, in the front row of the ORNL auditorium when new members of the ORNL staff, like him fresh out of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, were making a presentation: Weinberg not just seated there but virtually always the first to stand and ask a searching question. (Rosenthal confessed that, although he was aware that ORNL was doing fusion research, he once had to ask "What is fusion?") Don Trauger and Alex Zucker recalled an ORNL mission to Iran in 1979 to discuss an ongoing collaboration between ORNL and the Iranian government. The ORNL mission had barely gotten under way when the Shah was overthrown and the prospects for further collaboration overthrown with him. On their return some accused the ORNL team of engineering the coup. Trauger also wistfully recalled the Experimental Gas Cooled Reactor project that was scuttled just as it seemed about to be completed and go into operation. The domed reactor building still stands off Bethel Valley Road on the shores of Melton Hill Lake, home in years since to ORNL's robotics division. "I really liked that reactor," Trauger allowed, and he is now somewhat comforted that the EGCR concept is getting renewed attention, ORNL now authorized to explore it further. Rosenthal recalled also how he, Ken Jarmolow, chief of local operations for Martin Marietta, then the new plant operating contractor, and Lou Dunlap, then an aide to Jarmolow, flew to Washington and approached Sen. Howard Baker Jr. on the Senate floor to make a pitch for another new ORNL fusion device. Baker ushered them into a small anteroom and asked "How much do you need?" "About ten million," they told the state's senior senator, then the Senate majority leader. Baker summoned an aide and told him to hurry to fellow Republican Sen. Pete Domenici and have him add that amount to whatever appropriations bill was involved -- just like that. And then there was the two-headed cricket found somewhere on ORNL land by the Environmental Sciences Division, a picture of which appeared on the cover of Science magazine. It caused such a stir that Alvin Trivelpiece, then ORNL director, later confided that it almost led to an order from Washington to cease all ORNL biology research. Trauger was wistful about another ORNL project: exploration of salt mines in Kansas as possible repositories for hazardous nuclear wastes. All the preliminaries were going well until this too became a political issue and the project, which Trauger still thinks has merit, was abandoned. * Not part of the ORICL programs but confided separately over borscht at the Homeland Cafe in the Oak Ridge Mall by Ellison Taylor, distinghished retired ORNL chemist: - How Eugene P. Wigner, if most politely as was his way, instructed a Mr. Marlow, an ORNL security person, that his last name was properly pronounced "Vigner." Mr. Marlow complied only to have Wigner return a few days later and advise that the W should be pronounced like a W. "But," Marlow pleaded, "just a few days ago you asked that I pronounce it 'Vigner.'" True, the distinguished physicist responded, "but my vife wants me to be Wigner." - How S.C. Lind, another ORNL great, was fond of driving his sporty car somewhat over the speed limit, this despite some loss of driving skills he suffered in his later years. One day Lind was driving down Bethel Valley Road in a heavy rain, a patrol car in hot pursuit. The distinguished chemist kept accelerating until his car slid off the road and into a ditch just at the entrance to the lab. "So why didn't you stop?"the patrolman asked. "I didn't want you to pass and splash rain water on my car," was Lind's explanation. - How once M.D. Peterson and Charley Winters, early ORNL senior staff members, while exploring some out-of-the-way ORNL site, wandered into an area that guards then secured. Seemingly trapped in an isolated spot with night coming on, Peterson and Winters scaled a fence and, of course, were apprehended in the act. Only after detailed explanations were they released. - How indeed it can now be confirmed that, in those very early lab years when, under Tennessee's county option rule, Anderson County was strictly prohibitionist dry, holiday parties were sometimes enlivened with punch spiked with grain alcohol that somehow found its way out of laboratory confines. Taylor, however, even in retirement and after all these years, would neither confirm nor deny the oft-told Oak Ridge urban legend about innovative lab workers who bought cooking sherry at food stores and took it to the lab for desalting in ion chambers. -- RDS Richard D. Smyser is founding editor of The Oak Ridger. He can be reached by e-mail at [rdsandmps@aol.com] . [http://www.oakridger.com/dailydouble] All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 58 Former Ames Lab employees test positive for toxins Ames Tribune By: Liz Allen, Staff writerApril 03, 2002 Four former Ames Lab or Iowa State University employees have tested positive for health problems linked to a highly toxic metal used to make bombs during World War II. Of 49 people tested, three had a sensitivity to the metal beryllium and one person has beryllium disease, which causes inflammation and scarring to the lungs. Symptoms of beryllium disease include shortness of breath, cough, chest pain, fatigue, weight loss or loss of appetite. About 776 living Ames Lab employees received letters last summer alerting them to the federal government's program to test for beryllium problems. The letters went to another 222 ISU employees who may have been exposed to the metal while working in Gilman or Wilhem halls during the 1940s and '50s. There are 127 more people who want to be tested. Scientists at the Ames Lab, which is part of the U.S. Department of Energy, used beryllium as a way to purify uranium during the Manhattan Project. The purifying process was done at Gilman Hall and production was later moved to Little Ankeny, which was a small building on campus named after an ammunitions plant in Ankeny. Wilhelm Hall also was used during the Ames Lab project. Another part of the testing program was swiping floors, walls and utility channels in Wilhelm and Gilman halls for traces of beryllium. Those results showed that nine samples had between .5 micrograms and 9 micrograms of beryllium, said Jim Withers, an industrial hygienist for the Ames Lab. One aspirin tablet weighs 300,000 micrograms. Withers said the areas won't be decontaminated but signs were posted warning people that some surfaces contain beryllium. The sign also warned people that beryllium may cause cancer. He said few people are at risk because the rooms aren't high-traffic areas. They contain utility equipment and steam and electrical lines. The only people who go into the rooms are mechanics and they have to wear a safety suit and respirator, he said. ©Ames Tribune 2002 ***************************************************************** 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: *****************************************************************