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NUCLEAR POLICY
1 LIES, DAMNED LIES AND TERROR WARNINGS
2 Russia and India oppose unilateral action against Iraq
3 Skeptics Worry As Blix Takes Top Role
4 AU: Growth in energy use slows
5 French researcher says Iraq, N. Korea N-crises linked
6 News Update on Iraq Inspections
7 North rejects IAEA's call for nuclear site inspection *
8 Putin brings offer of nuclear-tipped arms deal to India
9 Pakistan Premier Says Nuclear Arms in Safe Hands*
10 Lee¡¯s Remarks on NK Nuclear Issue Stirs Controversy
11 NK Stalemate to Last Awhile, Says Former White House Aide
NUCLEAR REACTORS
12 US: NRC Withdraws Direct Final Rule Clarifying Use of Electronic
13 US: NRC communications rule withdrawn
14 US: Regulators, TXU to discuss tubing leak
15 US: St Lucie Nuclear plant license extension recommended
16 US: Governor extends National Guard security at nuclear plants until
17 US: Xcel Energy asks Minnesota to act on waste storage
18 Bulgaria vows to push with energy privatisations
19 French Framatome rejects German nuclear fault claims
20 AU: Reactor work starts
NUCLEAR SAFETY
21 US: Public Lands At Risk From Nuclear Contamination
22 Fiji's nuclear veterans' fight for compensation
23 US: Deal puts radiation blocker in spotlight
NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
24 YMP off the radar?*
25 Archaeologists advise on nuclear waste disposal
26 US: Cotter pushes state to accept waste soil application
27 US: Nuclear industry dismisses scenario
28 Yucca: DOE pushes for Nevada water
29 US: State continues Yucca fight
30 UK: FIFTY years' worth of intermediate level radioactive waste
31 USEC announces its decision today -
32 Dounreay waste store work will create 200 jobs
33 US: Toxic waste to OR least toxic on road
NUCLEAR WEAPONS
34 US: A force of habits: Nuns raid silo site
35 US: Jailed nuns peacefully puzzle officials
36 U.N. Team Inspects Iraqi Nuclear Complex
US DEPT. OF ENERGY
37 Plaintiff elated Rocketdyne case moving forward
38 Experienced contractor passes on Oak Ridge cleanup project
39 LANL money woes surprise Richardson
40 Timeline of operations at Ohio' uranium plant
41 Nickel disposal meeting called
42 Energy Secretary Comments on United States Enrichment Corporation
43 Toxic chemical found in 18 new Simi Valley wells
44 Richardson: Unaware of abuses at LANL
45 TSCA fuels accelerated cleanup
46 New uranium enrichment technology to be developed at Ohio or
OTHER NUCLEAR
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1 LIES, DAMNED LIES AND TERROR WARNINGS
*John Pilger on the evil art of black propoganda*
By John Pilger
ON November 7, the day before the United Nations Security Council
voted on a resolution that made an American and British attack on
Iraq more than likely, Downing Street began issuing warnings of
imminent terrorist threats against the United Kingdom.
Cross-Channel ferries, the London Underground and major public
events were all said to be "targeted".
The anonymous Government sources described "emergency security
measures" that included a "rapid reaction force of army
reservists" and a squadron of fighter jets "on constant standby".
Plans were being drawn up to "evacuate major cities and deal with
large numbers of contaminated corpses". Police snipers were being
trained "to kill suicide bombers" and anti-radiation pills were
being distributed to hospitals. By November 11, Tony Blair
himself was telling the British public to be "on guard" against
an attack that could lead to "maximum carnage".
Curiously, the national state of alert for a likely attack,
colour-coded amber, which such a grave warning would require, was
never activated. It remains on "black special", which is just
above normal. Why?
That was more than two weeks ago, and urgent questions remain
unanswered. Now health service teams are to have smallpox
vaccinations to "meet the threat of a germ warfare attack"; and
the Foreign Office has produced a remarkable video suggesting
that Britain is about to attack Iraq because of its concern for
that country's human rights record. (This must mean Britain will
soon attack other countries because of their human rights
records, such as China, Russia and the United States).
The absurdity of all this is becoming grotesque, and the British
public needs to ask urgent questions of its Government.
Where is the evidence, any evidence, for a national "alert" that
borders on such orchestrated hysteria? And what explains its
uncanny timing with the latest American and British machinations
at the UN on Iraq?
Lying as government strategy is known as black propaganda. The
British invented its modern form. Josef Goebbels, the Nazis'
propaganda chief, was full of admiration for the British model.
Since September 11, 2001, every attempt by black propagandists in
Whitehall and Washington to justify an unprovoked attack on Iraq
by linking the regime in Baghdad with al-Qaeda terrorism has
failed.
FIRST, there was the charge that Iraq was responsible for last
year's anthrax scare in the United States, then it was claimed
that Mohamed Atta, one of the alleged September 11 hijackers, had
made contact with Iraqi intelligence in Prague. Both claims have
been proven false, along with stories planted in newspapers by
American intelligence that Iraq has been training al-Qaeda
terrorists at a secret base.
Surmounting the truth that the secular Iraqi regime actually
fears and loathes Osama bin Laden and his Islamic militants has
always been difficult for American and British propagandists -
even though George W Bush currently babbles nonsense about
"exporting this evil al-Qaeda threat to the world".
Blair is more careful; but his implied message is the same: that
the "scourge" of world-wide terrorism is linked to Saddam
Hussein, whose demonology must now rival that of the "baby-eating
Boche" during the First World War, an early triumph of black
propaganda.
These deceptions and outright lies are aimed at the great
majority of the British people who, as the polls show, are
opposed to attacking Iraq, a country that offers them no threat.
However, if you frighten the public with apocalyptic warnings
about evacuating cities and incessantly link Iraq, September 11
and the Bali bombing, then people may change their minds and be
ready for war - or so the propagandists bargain. "It's a
softening up process," says a former intelligence officer
familiar with the black art, "a lying game on a huge scale".
It is also an indication of the Blair government's desperation.
Blair knows that, however successful his enfeeblement of
parliamentary democracy, public opinion matters and, at times,
has unforeseen power.
So as an antidote to the "softening up" of public opinion, I
offer this pocket guide to the current lying game:
What Bush and Blair want us to forget...
THE LOVE AFFAIR
THE present Iraqi regime is a product of the Ba'athist Party,
which the CIA helped bring to power. The CIA officer in charge of
the operation described it as "my favourite coup". During the
1980s, America and Britain supplied Saddam Hussein with every
weapon he wanted, often secretly and illegally. The relationship
was known cynically in Washington as "the love affair".
When Blair and Bush incessantly refer to Saddam "using chemical
weapons against his own people", specifically the Kurdish village
of Halabja in 1988, they never explain that Britain and America
were accomplices.
Not only did both governments secretly and illegally approve the
sale of chemical weapons' agents, officials in Washington and
Whitehall tried to cover up the Halabja atrocity, with the
Americans even faking a story that Iran was responsible.
And while the gassing was going on, Saddam Hussein was being
congratulated on his wise leadership by David Mellor, a Foreign
Office minister, whose turn it was to sit at the feet of the
dictator. Almost as a reward, the Thatcher governments gave
Saddam £340million of British taxpayers' money in export credits.
When Bush and Blair call Saddam "a threat to his neighbours",
they never mention that George Bush Senior, as head of the CIA
and later President, pushed Iraq to attack Iran and supplied
crucial intelligence to the Iraqi military that ensured the war
went on for eight years. The result was millions of dollars in
profits for American and British arms firms, and a million young
men dead on both sides. A congressional investigation, long
forgotten, described this as a "great crime".
HYPOCRISY UNLIMITED
ON September 12, George W Bush appeared before the UN General
Assembly and asked dramatically: "Are Security Council
resolutions to be honoured or cast aside?"
The answer came a few weeks later when the Security Council
passed Resolution 1435, which demanded that "Israel immediately
cease measures in and around Ramallah including the destruction
of Palestinian civilian and security infrastructure" and withdraw
its "occupying forces from Palestinian cities towards the
positions held prior to September 2000".
The resolution was passed 14-0 with one abstention, the United
States. Israel dismissed it; and nothing happened. This was no
surprise. The Israelis have defied at least 40 Security Council
resolutions and scores of General Assembly resolutions: a record
of dishonouring and "casting aside" the law (to quote Bush)
unequalled by any nation since the UN was founded.
Like Saddam Hussein's Iraq in the 1980s, Israel's defiance is
rewarded with all the weapons and fighter aircraft it wants. Just
as Britain used to supply Saddam with the means of making
chemical bombs, so the Blair government currently supplies the
Israeli regime of Ariel Sharon with chemical warfare technology.
This includes "PCPs" which can easily be turned into lethal sarin
nerve gas which, next to nuclear weapons, is the most feared
weapon of mass destruction.
THE REAL REASON FOR ATTACKING IRAQ
AMERICA burns a quarter of all the oil consumed by humanity. A
study sponsored by the US Council on Foreign Relations says that
"the American people continue to demand plentiful and cheap
energy without sacrifice or inconvenience". Transport in the
United States alone burns 66 per cent of America's petroleum.
One estimate is that the world's oil reserves will begin to
decline within five to 10 years at the rate of about two million
barrels a day. In the Middle East, the only country capable of
significantly increasing its production is Iraq, once described
by Vice President Cheney as "the great prize".
At present, America depends on Iraq's neighbour Saudi Arabia, not
just for oil but for keeping the price of oil down. However,
Saudi Arabia is the home of al-Qaeda, and Osama bin Laden and 15
of the alleged September 11 hijackers.
THE grievance against the Americans for their imperial
interventions in the Middle East is said to be deepest in the
country that was invented by British imperialism and has since
been maintained by the US as an oil colony.
If America installs a colonial regime in Baghdad, certainly its
dependence on Saudi Arabia will be dramatically eased, and its
grip on the world's greatest oil market will be tightened. The
price, for the people of the region, for Americans and the rest
of us, will be an enduring turmoil similar to that of Palestine,
exemplified by last week's terror bombing of an Israeli hotel in
Kenya.
This is the hidden agenda of the "war on terrorism" - a term that
is no more than a euphemism for the Bush administration's
exploitation of the September 11 attacks and America's
accelerating imperial ambitions. In the past 14 months, on the
pretext of "fighting terror", US military bases have been
established at the gateways to the greatest oil and gas fields on
earth, especially in Central Asia, which is also coveted as a
"great prize".
In Afghanistan, the president, Hamid Karzai, guarded by 46
American special forces troops, was employed by a subsidiary of
Unocal, the American oil company. The post-Taliban US ambassador
is a senior executive of Unocal, and a pipeline to carry
lucrative oil and gas across the country from the Caspian Sea
will be built by Unocal.
The majority of Bush's cabinet are from the oil industry, which
has made them extremely rich. Bush's father is still a consultant
for the huge oil services company, the Carlyle Group, and his
personal clients include the family of Osama bin Laden. One of
the reasons the Americans attacked Afghanistan was not to
liberate women but to liberate the pipeline deal. As the BBC
reported on September 18, 2001: "Niaz Niak, a former Pakistani
foreign minister, was told by senior American officials in
mid-July (2001) that military action against Afghanistan would go
ahead by the middle of October. It was Naik's view that
Washington would not drop its war against Afghanistan even if bin
Laden were to be surrendered immediately by the Taliban.
Remember, he said this before the attacks of September 11 had
happened.
Only a pittance of the millions of dollars pledged to rebuild
Afghanistan has arrived. As many as 20,000 people, estimates the
Guardian, if you count those bombed to death and who starved
during the bombing, died so that the West could reconquer
Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden was no where to be seen.
SECRETS AND
CONSEQUENCES
WHILE Saddam Hussein's crimes against his own people are well
known, those of the West in Iraq are generally suppressed. The
suffering of ordinary Iraqi people is never mentioned by Bush and
Blair, and only rarely by the media. This is not surprising.
Under a United Nations blockade that resembles a medieval siege,
devised and controlled by the United States and Britain, Iraq is
allowed to spend little more than £100 per person on sustaining
the life of each of its citizens for one year. This is less than
half the annual per capita income of Haiti, the poorest country
in the Western Hemisphere. It is less than the amount the UN
spends on food for dogs used in Iraqi de-mining operations.
A recent comprehensive investigation by an American academic,
Professor Joy Gordon, has revealed that the United States has
placed "on hold" more than $5billion worth of humanitarian goods
that should have gone to Iraq. All the goods were approved by the
UN and financed from the sale of Iraqi oil. They include flour,
medicines, medical equipment, milk production equipment,
fire-fighting equipment, water tankers.
"Over the last three years," wrote Professor Gordon, "I have
acquired many of the key confidential UN documents concerning the
administration of Iraqi sanctions. What they show is that the
United States has fought aggressively throughout the last decade
to purposefully minimise the humanitarian goods that enter the
country. And it has done so in the face of enormous human
suffering, including massive increases in child mortality and
widespread epidemics."
These are the people, more than half of them children, whom Bush
and Blair are planning to attack once the UN's weapons inspectors
have outlived their usefulness. (In the last three years, the
Blair Government alone has spent £1billion illegally bombing Iraq
- with America. Shepherds, fishermen, truck drivers are blown to
bits with rarely a word in the media. Neither country has a UN
mandate to do this; under international law, it is simply an act
of piracy.
THE one connection between international terrorism and Iraq will
be the undoubted consequence of an Anglo-American attack. Nothing
will do more to convert al-Qaeda from a relatively small gang to
a fanatical international jihad, or network. Nothing will do more
to create a generation of anti-Western bitterness and recruits
for terrorism.
When Blair warns about the threat of terrorist "carnage" in
Britain, the terrible irony of his predictions is that they are
likely to be self-fulfilling if he involves the British people in
a criminal foreign adventure.
For this irresponsible act, he will place at risk every British
citizen at home and abroad. It will spread fear and foster ethnic
division. Such is the true measure of his fawning devotion to
great power. The people of Britain should not allow it.
*****************************************************************
2 Russia and India oppose unilateral action against Iraq
Reuters
04 December, 2002 23:35 GMT+08:00
By Sanjeev Miglani
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Russia and India warned on Wednesday
against any unilateral action against Iraq over weapons
inspections, or any interference in its internal affairs.
Winding up a summit with Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari
Vajpayee that focused on terrorism and defence, Russian President
Vladimir Putin also urged Pakistan to stop rebels entering Indian
Kashmir and to destroy their networks.
Russia and India have supported efforts to ensure Iraq has no
weapons of mass destruction but have expressed concern about
possible U.S. military action.
Putin and Vajpayee, in a wide-ranging joint declaration, urged
efforts to spur Iraq to cooperate with international inspectors
searching for weapons of mass destruction.
"Both sides strongly oppose unilateral use or threat of use of
force in violation of the U.N. charter as well as interference in
the internal affairs of other states," they said.
"A comprehensive settlement of the situation...is possible only
through political and diplomatic efforts in strict conformity
with the rules of international law and only under the aegis of
the United Nations."
IRAQ TO LIST WEAPONS
A U.N. resolution gives Iraq until Sunday to provide a detailed
list of its weapons programmes. Baghdad, which denies having
weapons of mass destruction, has said it will give the United
Nations a list of its arms programmes by Saturday.
U.N. weapons experts searched Iraq's main nuclear facility and a
military base on Wednesday but the United States has demanded a
more aggressive hunt.
Putin also urged Islamabad to crack down on Pakistan-based
militants fighting Indian rule in Kashmir, over which the
nuclear-armed neighbours came close to a third war this year.
"It is not only important that Islamabad would cut the waves of
infiltration of militants into...the state of Jammu and Kashmir,
but would also increase its work to eliminate the whole terrorist
infrastructure," he said through an interpreter.
Putin also said Russia and India were united against
"international terrorism, extremism and separatism".
India is struggling to put down a 13-year revolt in Jammu and
Kashmir, its only Muslim-majority state, which it blames on
Pakistan. Pakistan denies the charge.
Russia has been battling Chechen Muslim separatists who took
hostage hundreds of people in a Moscow theatre in October.
Putin, who said last weekend Moscow was concerned Pakistan's
weapons of mass destruction could fall into the hands of bandits
and terrorists, repeated fears about the spread of such weapons.
Asked on Wednesday what Russia would do to put pressure on
Pakistan, he said: "We really think there is a problem to which
we should counter-act and this danger is the spread of weapons of
mass destruction.
"We should strengthen non-proliferation efforts and then
everything should be done to settle all disputes, including the
dispute between India and Pakistan."
The day-long India-Russia summit focused on a range of defence,
strategic and economic issues between the two countries, who were
close during the Cold War and retain strong military links but
whose bilateral trade is less than $1.5 billion a year.
*****************************************************************
3 Skeptics Worry As Blix Takes Top Role
Guardian Unlimited | World Latest |
[UP]
Wednesday December 4, 2002 6:40 AM
WASHINGTON (AP) - It's hard to imagine anyone whose words are
more subject to international scrutiny these days than Hans Blix,
chief of the U.N. team that began searching for forbidden weapons
in Iraq last week.
After all, his judgments about what Iraq has and doesn't have
could well decide whether there will be another war with Iraq, 12
years after the first one.
When the United Nations authorized the inspection team in 1999,
Blix's fellow Swede Rolf Ekeus was the Clinton administration's
first choice to lead it. But other members of the U.N. Security
Council believed Ekeus had been too confrontational toward Iraq
during an earlier U.N. inspection effort. Blix emerged as the
compromise choice.
U.S. critics worry that the retired international law expert and
collector of Oriental rugs lacks the steely determination
required to expose the hidden weapons that the Bush
administration is convinced President Saddam Hussein possesses.
The U.N. inspectors Blix oversees are on the lookout for chemical
and biological weapons. Mohamed ElBaradei, an Egyptian who heads
the International Atomic Energy Agency, is searching for evidence
of nuclear weapons programs.
Secretary of State Colin Powell says he has confidence in both.
``They are experts in this field and they know what the Iraqis
have done in the past,'' Powell told NPR News last week.
``They know how the Iraqis have deceived previous inspection
regimes. And I think that both of these gentlemen want to do the
best job they can because the whole world is watching this and so
I think they'll be aggressive.''
Of the two, Blix is receiving most of the attention, partly
because of his long experience with Iraq. Blix ran the IAEA for
16 years and was considered to be tougher on North Korea than on
Iraq.
Gary Milhollin, director of the Washington-based Wisconsin
Project on Nuclear Arms Control, is worried that Blix will
preside over a whitewash. He cites Blix's record at IAEA.
``As late as 1990, the same year Iraq invaded Kuwait, Mr. Blix's
inspectors rated Iraq's cooperation as 'exemplary.' But all the
while Saddam was running a vast A-bomb program under their very
noses,'' Milhollin wrote last week in a Wall Street Journal
opinion piece.
He said some of the nuclear weapons production activities went on
at the same places that were being inspected, and were hidden
with the help of an Iraqi official who was himself a former IAEA
inspector. The weapons infrastructure was uncovered and destroyed
by U.N. inspectors years ago.
The Bush administration says the more intrusive inspections
contemplated under the latest U.N. Security Council resolution
make it more difficult for Saddam to hide forbidden weapons. But
Blix seems doubtful about one innovation in the new inspection
regime: giving the U.N. monitors the authority to interview
Iraqis and their families outside the country and away from Iraqi
government observers.
``There would be great practical difficulties in using such
authority, unless there was cooperation by the Iraqi side,'' Blix
told the council in October. The comment was not reassuring to
U.S. officials.
The U.N. teams must report by late January on their progress in
locating and destroying any Iraqi weapons forbidden under U.N.
resolutions.
If they report full Iraqi cooperation and disarmament, U.N.
resolutions call for the Security Council to consider lifting
economic sanctions imposed on Iraq. If they report Iraqi
resistance, the council may debate military action to disarm
Iraq.
After the first week of inspections, Bush seems doubtful the
Iraqis will tell much to Blix's team. ``So far, the signs are not
encouraging,'' Bush said Monday.
Blix said he and ElBaradei don't see the issue of war vs. peace
as hinging on the reports they issue.
``Our job is to report, and the decision whether there is war or
peace or reaction - that is for the council and its members,''
Blix says.
He also says he is not going to let Washington push him around.
``We're in nobody's pockets,'' he says.
^---- EDITOR'S NOTE: George Gedda has covered foreign affairs for
The Associated Press since 1968.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002
*****************************************************************
4 AU: Growth in energy use slows
theage.com.au - The Age
December 5 2002
By Rod Myer
Australia's rate of growth in energy usage has slowed
significantly, according to a report by the Bureau of
Agricultural and Resource Economics.
The report, entitled Australian Energy Consumption and
Production, shows that the growth rate of Australian energy usage
in 2000-01, the latest year for which figures were available, was
1.4 per cent. When population growth of 1.2 per cent is
considered, the actual energy usage growth per head is only 0.2
per cent.
In the late 1990s, a resurgence of energy-intensive activity saw
total energy usage growing at 3 per cent a year. During the 1960s
energy usage growth peaked at 6 per cent. The energy use patterns
differed across the country, with Western Australia recording a
3.5 per cent growth in energy usage while South Australia
recorded 2.3 per cent. In Victoria growth was 1.3 per cent and in
New South Wales only 0.7 per cent.
A major factor behind the growing energy usage over the '90s was
the increased output of the electricity industry. But this seems
to have slowed in recent years, with energy consumption growing
at an annual rate of 2 per cent in the five years to June 2001
compared with 3.3 per cent in the 10 years to 2001.
The growth rate of energy consumption fell in all major
industries. There was an absolute decline of 0.01 per cent in the
manufacturing sector in the five years to 2001 while the
transport sector recorded growth of 3 per cent, compared with 5
per cent for the previous 10 years. ");document.write("
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Residential energy users cut their energy-use growth rates from
3.3 per cent to 2 per cent in the same two periods.
Oil remained the most significant energy source in 2001, with
34.4 per cent of the market. But its overall market share fell
from 34.5 per cent in 1999.
Black coal accounted for 27.5 per cent of energy produced in
2001, up from 27.2 per cent the previous year. Brown coal usage
fell to 13.1 per cent from 13.5 per cent, and natural gas grew
from 18.9 per cent in 2000 to 19.7 per cent the following year.
Actual energy produced in Australia grew by 13 per cent in
1999-2000 and 8 per cent the following year. Energy exports
increased by 20 per cent in 1999-2000 and 16 per cent the
following year. Of this, black coal accounted for 53 per cent,
uranium 44 per cent and net oil and gas exports 3 per cent.
Copyright © 2002 The Age Company Ltd
*****************************************************************
5 French researcher says Iraq, N. Korea N-crises linked
Daily Yomiuri On-Line
Jean Serror
PARIS--Georges Amsel is a prominent French researcher in atomic
physics. As emeritus research director at France's Centre
National de la Recherche Scientifique and adviser on
proliferation issues to former French President Francois
Mitterrand, Amsel was part of a small group of scientists that
revealed the extent and risks of France-Iraq nuclear cooperation
in the 1970s and 1980s.
In an interview with The Yomiuri Shimbun, Amsel said the new
round of U.N. inspections will be crucial to ending the Iraqi
crisis and will directly impact the way the North Korean nuclear
issue is resolved.
The Yomiuri Shimbun: How can U.N. inspections help clear up
doubts about Iraq's nuclear program?
Amsel: One should never forget that India, Pakistan and North
Korea have signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Inspectors
from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have visited
nuclear facilities in these countries regularly. But inspections
have never prevented these nations from developing clandestine
nuclear programs. As NPT rules limit where inspectors can go,
inspectors found nothing in Iraq until post-Gulf War U.N.
inspections in 1991.
The ongoing inspections must be conducted very strictly, and
inspectors must be allowed to go everywhere and interview Iraqi
engineers without witnesses. If these conditions are not met,
inspections will only lead to false guarantees--the inspectors
may not find anything, but that won't mean Iraq has nothing to
hide. The quantity of enriched plutonium needed to make bomb is
about the size of an orange. It's easy to hide in a country as
big as Iraq.
Does that mean the inspections are unlikely to solve the crisis?
Iraq has been misleading the West for 10 years. The only
guarantee against its weapons of mass destruction would be the
inauguration of a pacifist regime. According to Hans Blix, the
U.N. chief inspector, new inspections will take at least a year,
which leaves Iraq some time. I'm afraid that in order to prevent
any automatic use of force by the United States, the U.N.
Security Council may not be strict enough with Iraq.
The current situation is very important for Japan. It will create
a precedent that will determine the way the North Korean crisis
is solved. The question of inspections is crucial. It will be
impossible to impose conditions on North Korea that have not been
imposed on Iraq. The Iraq crisis has taken on more global
dimensions since the revelation of North Korea's nuclear program.
It will be a test of whether a peaceful solution is possible to
the problem of weapons of mass destruction. Japan should be very
aware of what's going on. It will have a direct impact on the
crisis with North Korea.
In the 1970s, France played an important role in the Iraqi
nuclear program by building two research reactors, known as
Osirak 1 and 2. What may remain of this program?
Osirak was a very powerful research reactor, an exact copy of the
reactor the French built in their nuclear research center in
Saclay. Although the French government always has denied it,
Osirak 1 was powerful enough to produce three to five kilograms a
year of so-called military plutonium.
This reactor was destroyed by Israeli planes in 1981, but France
already had delivered up to 14 kilograms of highly enriched
uranium to Iraq. Later, these were recovered by the IAEA, but
since then we haven't known precisely what became of this
uranium.
Do you think Iraq could get a stock of plutonium?
It's clear Iraq has no more means of producing military
plutonium, but it could have bought it from another state. Tons
of plutonium were left in former Soviet republics like Belarus,
Kazakhstan and Ukraine after the partial dismantling of the
Russian nuclear arsenal. In these states, the military and
scientists are often poorly paid, and due to social disruption
and the power of the mafia, they represent a real proliferation
risk. Tons of plutonium produced by civilian nuclear plants also
are circulating around the world. It is highly possible that Iraq
tried to buy some.
It is generally said that this plutonium, which contains only 25
to 30 percent of plutonium 239, cannot be used to make a bomb.
However, 20 years ago the United States succeeded in exploding
such a bomb. As it is a dirty device whose explosion is
uncertain, it would not be very effective in terms of deterrence,
but it would be enough for a terrorist attack. Only a few dozens
kilograms are needed to make an explosive device. As recent
events have proven, it would be difficult to prevent a terrorist
group from planting a nuclear device in the heart of a city.
Copyright 2002 The Yomiuri Shimbun
*****************************************************************
6 News Update on Iraq Inspections
Media Advisory 2002/37 -
[www.iaea.org]
Media Advisory 2002/37 (4 December 2002)
Teams Inspect Presidential Site
Previous media advisories: 2 December, 20 November, 18 November,
15 November. For full coverage, see the pages on IAEA
and Iraq
[http://www.iaea.org/worldatom/Press/Focus/IaeaIraq/index.html] .
As reported by the UN 3 December, teams from the UN Monitoring,
Verification and Inspection Commission and the International
Atomic Energy Agency today conducted an unannounced joint
inspection of one of the eight Presidential sites in Iraq.
The probe at the Sijood site, located on the west bank of the
Tigris River in Baghdad, was the first inspection of a
presidential site since the return of the inspectors to Iraq,
according to a UN spokesman.
The inspection team was able to enter the site within a few
minutes. Although the site was frozen during the inspection in
order to avoid any exit, senior Iraqi officials were allowed to
enter.
When the inspection was finished, the freeze was lifted. Access
to the entire site was provided without difficulty, and the
planned inspection activity was completed, the spokesman
reported.
*****************************************************************
7 North rejects IAEA's call for nuclear site inspection *
*by Choi Won-ki *
December 05, 2002
Pyeongyang has rejected the International Atomic Energy Agency's
demand for inspection of the nuclear facilities in North Korea,
the official Korean Central News Agency reported yesterday.
The agency said that North Korea on Monday sent a rejection
letter under the name of its foreign minister, Paek Nam-sun, to
the international nuclear watchdog.
The report is Pyeongyang's first official reaction to the
nonproliferation monitoring body's resolution.
"Our foreign minister has made clear that we cannot accept the
IAEA resolution," the North Korean news outlet reported. "Our
principal stance over the nuclear issue remains unchanged."
The International Atomic Energy Agency on Nov. 29 adopted a
strongly-worded resolution, calling upon Pyeongyang to dismantle
its nuclear programs in a verifiable manner.
The resolution, which was approved at an IAEA executive board
meeting, also urged that North Korea allow international
inspections of its past nuclear activities, including the newly
revealed uranium enrichment facilities, and explain the reasons
for the continuation of such programs in violation of its own
previous agreements.
¨Ï 2002 JoongAng Ilbo , Joins.com
. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
8 Putin brings offer of nuclear-tipped arms deal to India
Independent.co.uk
By Phil Reeves in Delhi
05 December 2002
Russia and India moved yesterday to forge a strategically
important arms deal that could drastically alter the
nuclear-tipped balance of power in the subcontinent.
As the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, ended a two-day visit
to Delhi, both nations also used the occasion to fulminate about
the need to contain terror and to issue a joint declaration
against a unilateral US strike against Iraq.
But behind the posturing, efforts were under way to advance the
multibillion-dollar arms deal, which could include the
acquisition by India of at least one Russian-made Akula-11 class
nuclear-powered submarine, capable of carrying a payload of
nuclear Cruise missiles.
The deal hinges on a Soviet-built aircraft carrier, the
45,000-tonne Admiral Gorshkov, which has laid up in the Arctic
port of Severodvinsk since 1988. India, eager to become the
region's maritime heavyweight in the face of competition from
China, and harbouring "great power" ambitions, wants to add a big
aircraft carrier to its fleet.
The Russians have for years been offering to give the Gorshkov to
Delhi as a gift, although with many costly strings attached.
These include granting Moscow the contract for the ship's re-fit
? estimates of the cost of this vary from $700m (£450m) to more
than $1bn ? and for the supply of about 40 MiG-29K aircraft
which, after some extensive engineering adjustments to the
vessel, would fly off its deck.
More than two thirds of the equipment in the hands of India's
military, the third largest army in the world, is from Russia or
the former Soviet Union. The relationship ? which analysts expect
to lead to another $8bn worth of military sales over the next
decade ? has continued in the aftermath of the collapse of the
USSR, not least because Moscow is not among those who placed
sanctions on India after its 1998 nuclear tests.
Russia has long been talking with Delhi about the lease of
several Akula-11 class nuclear submarines, but made them
conditional on an agreement over the Gorshkov. India has been
eager to acquire the Russian submarines to add to its ageing
underwater fleet, in line with its long-standing ambition to have
a so-called nuclear "triad" ? in other words, the capability to
deliver nuclear bombs by air, ground-to-ground missile and from
the sea.
Submarines offer a particular advantage, because they can be
hidden beneath the waves from prying enemy eyes. One western
observer said: "There is no doubt that India would like the
nuclear subs to have nuclear-tipped warheads, cruise missiles."
Earlier this week, the head of India's navy, Admiral Madhvendra
Singh, refused to confirm or deny reports about the possible
submarine lease, which would give India a strategic edge in its
nuclear rivalry with Islamabad ? and is therefore likely to cause
unease in Washington, especially given the hostilities between
the two south Asian neighbours and the strident US stance against
nuclear proliferation elsewhere.
But Admiral Singh made little secret of India's ambition to base
nuclear missiles in the ocean, saying that the most powerful part
of the "nuclear triad" should be "at sea, preferably under
water". He added: "It doesn't make sense to keep nuclear weapons
on land. If you keep them on land, they are going to be
targeted."
Many of the aspects of the Gorshkov component of the deal appear
to be settled, although not the price tag.
Korea Times > Nation
North Korea¡¯s secret nuclear weapons program has fueled bitter
partisan bickering ahead of the presidential election as rival
parties yesterday traded scathing denunciations over the issue.
The controversial matter is highly likely to become one of the
major election issues as the two major candidates displayed
sharp differences over whether to take a soft or hard-line in
dealing with North Korea¡¯s nuclear weapons program.
The trigger of the latest tit-for-tat was remarks by Lee
Hoi-chang, presidential candidate of the conservative Grand
National Party (GNP), who claimed the communist country has
nuclear weapons.
``North Korea possesses nuclear weapons and its nuclear weapons
made by enriched uranium could explode over the Korean
peninsula,¡¯¡¯ Lee said in a debate aired live across the
country Tuesday night.
The North admitted in October that it was secretly pursuing a
covert nuclear weapons program, prompting a U.S. decision to
suspend fuel oil shipments to the North Korea.
Under the 1994 Agreed Framework, the North agreed to
discontinue its plutonium based nuclear program in return for
the construction of two light-water nuclear power reactors and
the annual provision of 500,000 tons of heavy fuel oil by the
Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization.
A recent CIA analysis said North Korea is building a plant that
by the middle of the decade could produce enough uranium for two
or more nuclear weapons a year. However, it still remains
unclear whether the Stalinist country has nuclear weapons.
The Millennium Democratic Party (MDP) lashed out at Lee, saying
that if Lee fails to present evidence, he will not be able to
avoid criticism that he tried to scare the public and heighten
tension on the peninsula to gain popularity.
``Lee has to explain to the public the reasons for his remarks
that the North has developed nuclear bombs or possesses
them,¡¯¡¯ MDP spokesman Lee Nak-yon said.
MDP¡¯s chief policymaker Lim Chae-jung joined the offensive
against Lee, saying if Lee fails to provide evidence for his
remarks, it would call into question his qualifications to run
for office.
Lim added that having plutonium, a key ingredient for making
nuclear bombs, is one thing and having nuclear weapons is
another.
In sharp contrast, the GNP dismissed the MDP¡¯s denunciations
as nothing more than a political offensive and accused it of
turning a blind eye to the fact that the North¡¯s possesses
nuclear weapons.
``North Korean First Vice Foreign Minister Kang Suk-joo
admitted North Korea¡¯s nuclear weapons program during U.S.
envoy James Kelly¡¯s visit to the North,¡¯¡¯ said Cho Yoon-sun,
a vice spokeswoman of Lee¡¯s election campaign committee. She
added U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld also said that the
North possesses nuclear weapons.
Rep. Hong Joon-pyo also claimed that Shin Kuhn, director of the
National Intelligence Service, confirmed in October that North
Korea extracted plutonium before a 1992 inspection by the
International Atomic Energy Agency and there was more than a 50
percent chance that the North has one to three crude nuclear
weapons.
As things stand, the political dispute over the North¡¯s
alleged nuclear program is likely to get worse as the rival
parties are poised to take advantage of the issue as part of
their efforts to secure votes.
By Kim Kwang-tae Staff Reporter
12-04-2002 19:05
*****************************************************************
11 NK Stalemate to Last Awhile, Says Former White House Aide
KoreaTimes :
Hankooki.com > Korea Times > Nation
A non-proliferation expert who devoted much of his White House
career in the 1990s to averting a nuclear crisis on the Korean
peninsula expects the current Pyongyang-Washington stalemate to
last for some time, with all parties involved awaiting the
outcome of Seoul¡¯s presidential election and the situation in
Iraq.
Dr. Gary Samore, former deputy under Robert Gallucci who
negotiated the Agreed Framework in 1994, drew parallels between
the situation now and then, and said that the complexity of the
Korean situation left room for negotiations.
While Pyongyang has indeed committed a grave violation of the
Agreed Framework by pursuing a covert uranium enrichment
program, Samore, now a senior fellow at the International
Institute for Strategic Studies in London, pointed out that
neither the United States, North Korea nor other Northeast Asian
countries want a military confrontation.
``It's the same problem the Clinton administration faced. In
1994, there was some concern that we were going down the road
that could ultimately lead to war. Part of the reason for the
Agreed Framework was the fact that everybody could see that the
alternative to negotiations was very dangerous,¡¯¡¯ Samore said
in an interview with The Korea Times yesterday. Samore came to
Seoul to attend an international workshop on disarmament on
Cheju Island.
For the time being, Washington is avoiding putting too much
pressure on North Korea, opting to focus on Iraq instead, he
pointed out. Coupled with the political timetable in Seoul, this
results in added time for Pyongyang.
``I think there is time. I don't think there is an urgent
danger of escalation. Unless North Korea takes corrective
action, the situation will take a turn for the worse over
time,¡¯¡¯ he said.
The most positive scenario Samore envisioned was the current
``gradual¡¯¡¯ strategy adopted by South Korea, the U.S. and
Japan to pressure North Korea into abandoning its nuclear
program.
``I think there is a chance that North Korea will realize it
has made a mistake, and will look for a face-saving way to
abandon the enrichment program. And to provide some way to
convince others that it has in fact dismantled the enrichment
program,¡¯¡¯ he said.
If that doesn¡¯t happen, the Korean Peninsula Energy
Development Organization will suspend or halt the nuclear power
plant construction in North Korea and the situation could
worsen, he warned.
By Seo Soo-min Staff Reporter
12-04-2002 19:04
*****************************************************************
12 NRC Withdraws Direct Final Rule Clarifying Use of Electronic
Communications with Agency
NRC: News Release - 2002-138 -
U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs
Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 20555-0001 E-mail:
[opa@nrc.gov] www.nrc.gov
No. 02-138 December 4, 2002
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has withdrawn a direct final
rule that would have amended its rules to clarify when and how
licensees and other members of the public might use electronic
means to communicate with the agency. The NRC is taking the
action because it has received a significant number of adverse
comments on the rule. These comments will now be considered
regarding an identical proposed rule published concurrently with
the direct final rule. They will be addressed by the NRC in a
later final rule.
Last September, the agency published a direct final rule in the
Federal Register amending its regulations to clarify when and how
all members of the public might communicate with it through use
of electronic media. The rule included guidance on how to submit
documents to the agency electronically. The direct rule and
guidance were scheduled to become effective on December 5. The
NRC also concurrently published for comment an identical proposed
rule on September 6, which stated that if any significant adverse
comments were received, timely notice of the withdrawal of the
direct final rule would be published in the Federal Register. In
addition, it noted that no rule and guidance would take effect
until the comments had been addressed and text of the rule
revised, if necessary.
The NRC, in fact, received several adverse comments on the rule
and, as a result, is withdrawing the direct final rule. Neither
the rule nor the guidance appended to it will take effect on
December 5. The agency will now treat the comments on the
proposed companion rule and address them in a later final rule.
The NRC will not initiate a second comment period on the rule.
For more information about the withdrawal, please contact John
Skoczlas at 301-415-7186, e-mail [EIE@nrc.gov] , or Brenda
Shelton, at 301-415-7233, e-mail [bjs1@nrc.gov] .
Wednesday, December 04, 2002
*****************************************************************
13 NRC communications rule withdrawn
FR Doc 02-30704
[Federal Register: December 4, 2002 (Volume 67, Number 233)]
[Rules and Regulations] [Page 72091] From the Federal Register
Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr04de02-1]
Rules and Regulations
Federal Register
This section of the FEDERAL REGISTER contains regulatory
documents having general applicability and legal effect, most of
which are keyed to and codified in the Code of Federal
Regulations, which is published under 50 titles pursuant to 44
U.S.C. 1510. The Code of Federal Regulations is sold by the
Superintendent of Documents. Prices of new books are listed in
the first FEDERAL REGISTER issue of each week.
[[Page 72091]]
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 10 CFR Chapter 1 RIN 3150-AF61
Electronic Maintenance and Submission of Information Revision,
Withdrawal of Direct Final Rule AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory
Commission. ACTION: Direct final rule: Withdrawal.
SUMMARY: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is withdrawing a
direct final rule that would have amended its rules to clarify
when and how licensees and other members of the public might use
electronic means to communicate with the agency. The NRC is
taking this action because it has received significant adverse
comments on the rule. Those comments will now be considered as
comments on the identical proposed rule that was published
concurrently with the direct final rule.
The agency will address those comments in a later final rule. FOR
FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: John A. Skoczlas, (301) 415-7186,
EIE@nrc.gov [EIE@nrc.gov] ; or Brenda J. Shelton, (301) 415-7233,
bjs1@nrc.gov. [bjs1@nrc.gov.]
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: On September 6, 2002 (67 FR 57084),
the NRC published a direct final rule in the Federal Register
amending its regulations to clarify when and how the public might
communicate with the agency through electronic media. Appended to
the rule, for comment, was guidance on how to submit documents to
the agency electronically. The direct final rule and the guidance
were to have become effective on December 5, 2002. The NRC also
concurrently published for comment an identical proposed rule on
September 6, 2002 (67 FR 57120).
In the September 6, 2002, notice of the direct final rule,
the NRC stated that if any significant adverse comments were
received, a timely notice of withdrawal of the direct final rule
would be published in the Federal Register, and no rule and
guidance would take effect until the comments had been addressed
and rule text revised if necessary.
The NRC received significant adverse comments on the rule;
therefore, the NRC is withdrawing the direct final rule, and
neither it nor the guidance that was appended to it will take
effect on December 5, 2002. As stated in the September 6, 2002,
notice of the direct final rule, the NRC will now treat the
comments as comments on the companion proposed rule, and will
address those comments in a later final rule.
The NRC will not initiate a second comment period on the rule.
Dated at Rockville, Maryland this 27th day of November, 2002.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Annette Vietti-Cook,
Secretary of the Commission. [FR Doc. 02-30704 Filed 12-3-02;
8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
*****************************************************************
14 Regulators, TXU to discuss tubing leak
Star Telegram | 12/04/2002 |
[startelegram.com - The startelegram home page]
By Neil Strassman
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
Leaking and corroded tubing at the Comanche Peak nuclear power
plant has prompted federal officials to call a meeting next week
with TXU Energy, the plant's operator, to talk about the results
of a special inspection.
The inspection followed the shutdown of one of the two Comanche
Peak reactors Sept. 28, two days after plant operators discovered
a leak in a steam-generating tube carrying radioactive water,
said Ken Clark, a Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman.
"TXU did the prudent thing," Clark said. "They shut the plant
down to find the leak."
The leak did not pose a safety or public health risk, TXU and NRC
officials said. Comanche Peak's second reactor, built in 1993,
was unaffected and continued to operate during the shutdown of
the first unit, built in 1990.
The plant, near Glen Rose, is about 50 miles southwest of Fort
Worth.
After the leak was discovered, workers found a hole in one tube
and corrosion and stress cracks in more than 660 others, TXU
spokesman David Beshear said.
"Any time we find a leak, we're concerned," Beshear said.
The leak was caused by a "ding" in a tube, Beshear said. The
tubes carry radioactive water from the reactor's core. The
radioactive water heats four pools that make steam to turn
turbines that generate electricity.
There are 4,578 tubes that pass through each of the four pools in
each of Comanche Peak's two reactors.
The water is contained in a closed system in a controlled area,
Beshear said.
A radiation monitor detected the leak, Beshear said.
Federal rules call for shutting down a nuclear power plant if the
tube leakage rate is about two cups per minute, Beshear said. The
leak rate at Comanche was about a half-cup per minute, officials
said.
"The radiation monitors showed a clear indication of a steam
generator tube leak," said Bill Johnson, NRC branch chief
responsible for reactor inspections at Comanche Peak and two
other nuclear plants.
TXU had to plug some additional tubes and put external sleeves on
others, Johnson said.
An NRC inspection team visited the plant Oct. 17. The inspection
report, which is not finished, will be discussed during a public
meeting at 1 p.m. Dec. 10 at the plant, Clark said.
TXU will be allowed to respond to the inspection report, Clark
said. Regulators have not decided whether to fine or censure TXU,
he said.
Neil Strassman, (817) 390-7657 strass@star-telegram.com
[strass@star-telegram.com]
*****************************************************************
15 St Lucie Nuclear plant license extension recommended
PalmBeachPost.com:
Wednesday, December 4
By Jim Reeder, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 4, 2002
PORT ST. LUCIE -- The St. Lucie Nuclear Power Plant has done
little harm in the past 30 years and is unlikely to do more if
its licenses are extended another 20 years, Nuclear Regulatory
Commission officials said Tuesday.
They were at Port St. Lucie City Hall to hear public comments on
the first draft of an environmental impact study that will be
considered before FPL gets permission to operate its nuclear
reactors for another 20 years after current licenses expire in
2016 and 2023.
Continued operation of the plants will have only minor
environmental impacts, while major impacts could occur if FPL
builds a fossil fuel plant which would emit air pollution, the
draft report said.
Several public officials, many of them who also spoke at an April
meeting, praised FPL for its contributions to the area's economy
and various community organizations.
Bob Bangert, president of the St. Lucie County Conservation
Alliance, praised FPL for its work to protect endangered sea
turtles and urged the licenses be renewed.
But not everyone was happy.
"I oppose extending the licenses," Port St. Lucie resident Bill
Raatz said. "It's premature, and we should look at alternatives
to nuclear power. We should focus on conservation and education."
Fort Pierce resident Betty Lou Wells said she agrees with most of
the good things said about the plant.
But she's still concerned about radioactive waste stored at the
plant and whether evacuation plans are adequate.
Terrorism worries in the wake of Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the
World Trade Center also were on her mind.
"The St. Lucie nuclear reactors are vulnerable to attack from
land, air and water," Wells said. "Should they be closed as soon
as possible instead of extending their operations?"
Federal officials said they'll consider these comments before a
final environmental impact report is issued in July.
But Miami resident Mark Oncavage isn't optimistic.
"In April I raised eight safety issues and not one of them was
addressed in this report," he said.
jim_reeder@pbpost.com [jim_reeder@pbpost.com]
Copyright © 2002, The Palm Beach Post. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
16 Governor extends National Guard security at nuclear plants until March*
December 04, 2002
*Gov. Mark Schweiker said the National Guard and state police
will patrol Pennsylvania's five nuclear power plants at least
until March.*
Following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Schweiker in a
November 2001 disaster emergency proclamation directed the
National Guard to join state police at the plants.
On Tuesday, Schweiker for the fifth time extended the
proclamation, which had been set to expire this week and now
remains in effect until March 4.
Schweiker also made an additional $300,000 in emergency funds
available to the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency. The
money may be used for disaster-related expenses incurred by state
agencies and departments.
/©NEPA News 2002/
*****************************************************************
17 Xcel Energy asks Minnesota to act on waste storage
Planet Ark :
USA: December 5, 2002
MINNEAPOLIS - Xcel Energy (XEL.N) said it will need to close its
two nuclear power plants in Minnesota if the state legislature
continues to limit the storage of waste nuclear fuel at the
plants.
In a report on future power supplies sent to the Minnesota Public
Utilities Commission late Monday, the company said a state limit
on nuclear fuel storage imposed in 1994 likely will force the
closing of the 1,100-megawatt Prairie Island plant in 2007 and
the 600-MW Monticello plant in 2010 if additional storage room is
not approved.
Xcel Energy's report mapped out a five-year plan to get enough
power supplies to meet rising demand in Minnesota, including 500
MW from Canada's Manitoba Hydro utility and purchases of up to
1,000 MW from other suppliers.
The company also proposed taking bids in 2005 for up to 450 MW of
electricity and setting up a 500 MW hedge supply against risks.
One megawatt of electricity is roughly enough to power 1,000
homes.
Xcel said it will ask the Minnesota Legislature to take action on
the 1994 waste storage limits in the session beginning in
January.
In 1994, the company had promised it would not seek more on-site
storage capacity, but its new report said continued operation of
the nuclear plants is its "most effective resource option."
"If nuclear generation is to remain in the state's energy mix, we
need to make decisions soon to keep our two nuclear plants
operating in the future," said Dave Sparby, vice president of
regulatory and government affairs for Xcel Energy.
"If nuclear generation is not in the mix, action may well be
needed during the 2003 session to ensure replacement power is on
line, on time," Sparby said in a statement.
State law limits waste-fuel storage at the Prairie Island plant
to 17 casks, a limit that will be reached in 2007, according to a
company spokeswoman.
The Monticello plant will run out of storage space in 2010 unless
more storage is approved, and the plant must decide by 2005 if it
wants to extend its operating license, the spokeswoman added.
Xcel Energy does not expect the planned federal Yucca Mountain
waste fuel dump in Nevada or a private dump proposed on Indian
land in Utah to be ready in time to avoid a closing of the
Prairie Island plant in 2007.
Xcel shares were off 8 cents at $10.41 in afternoon trading on
the New York Stock Exchange.
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
*****************************************************************
18 Bulgaria vows to push with energy privatisations
Planet Ark :
BULGARIA: December 5, 2002
SOFIA - Bulgaria will press ahead with energy firms sell-offs
next year to boost the sector's efficiency and to retain the
country's position as the Balkans' main energy exporter,
officials said yesterday.
Bulgaria covers some 50 percent of the region's power deficit
with electricity exports, but has been often criticised by
multinational donors for being slow in implementing structural
reforms in the energy sector.
"We will proceed with privatisation which we view as a vehicle
for improving sector efficiency, raising investment and in a long
term, retaining the leading (power export) role in the region,"
Energy Minister Milko Kovachev told a news conference.
He said nine small hydro power stations had been privatised this
year and another 12 would be in private hands in 2003.
A main goal for next year would be the sale of seven electricity
distribution companies, advised by French bank BNP Paribas
(BNPP.PA), Privatisation Agency head Apostol Apostolov told the
same news conference.
Apostolov said the companies would be grouped in three packages,
with the sale of the first one expected to be launched in
February. All seven firms should be privatised by end-2003.
The agency, which handles all sell-offs, is also preparing the
launch of sale procedures for six central heating companies.
Apostolov said he expected next year's revenue from energy
sell-offs to considerably exceed this year's 157 million levs
($80 million).
Speeding privatisation is among the priorities of the government
which took over in July 2001, but has so far failed to attract
substantial foreign investment and is unlikely to meet a $300
million target for sell-off revenue this year.
Bulgaria needs to privatise its energy sector and strengthen its
efficiency also because its dominance in the Balkan's energy
sector is linked to its Soviet-made Kozloduy nuclear power plant,
four of whose six reactors are due to be shut down.
Last month Sofia bowed to European Union pressure, agreeing to
close down units three and four at Kozloduy by 2006. In 1999 it
agreed to close the first two units by end-2003. The more modern
fifth and sixth reactors will remain operational.
The EU, which Bulgaria is striving to join, has voiced safety
concerns over Kozloduy's old reactors. The plant secures over 40
percent of the country's electricity.
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
*****************************************************************
19 French Framatome rejects German nuclear fault claims
Planet Ark :
GERMANY: December 5, 2002
FRANKFURT - French nuclear reactor maker Framatome ANP, facing a
German enquiry into problems at the Unterweser power station,
said yesterday it did not manufacture a faulty component which
caused the closure of the plant.
Last week Germany's state prosecutor launched an enquiry into
whether the problem at the Unterweser power station, owned by
E.ON (EONG.DE), was caused by defective heat exchangers it said
was made by the French company.
Framatome said the faulty equipment was made by one of its
subcontractors.
"Framatome had these heat exchangers manufactured by a
subcontractor whose qualification had been checked by Framatome
prior to the start of production," a company spokesman said. He
said that Framatome had initiated legal action against the
subcontractor who he refused to name.
Framatome said that the problem was a one-off and that it had not
supplied any other components produced by this manufacturer to
other nuclear power plants.
The Lower Saxony environment ministry, which oversees the
Unterweser plant, in northern Germany, said last week that the
fault involved the welded seams of the heat exchanger.
Unterweser went off line on August 10 for regular maintenance and
was recommissioned on September 3. It was shut again the next day
when more technical problems were discovered.
German power prices surged yesterday on talk of problems at
another, undisclosed, nuclear plant in northern Germany.
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
*****************************************************************
20 AU: Reactor work starts
| Privacy Policy
*****************************************************************
21 Public Lands At Risk From Nuclear Contamination
Date: Wed, 4 Dec 2002 22:30:52 -0600 (CST)
To: All Activists
From: Steve Holmer
Date: December 5, 2002
Subject: Public Lands At Risk From Nuclear Contamination
I am writing this alert because it has been revealed to me that the federal
government and industry are failing to protect nuclear facilities and
nuclear waste from terrorist attack. The consequences of a successful
attack could mean millions of acres of the American landscape turned to
wastelands.
A dedicated terrorist can find dozens of ways to melt down a nuclear
reactor, steal plutonium from a U.S. nuclear weapons facility, or use off
the shelf rocket launchers (available at weapons markets all over the
world) to turn to nuclear waste casks into a dirty bombs. Additional
unpublished information suggests that relatively simple attacks could
lead to the melt down of a nuclear plant. There are also very credible
insider reports that both U.S. nuclear weapons facilities and power
plants have too few guards to provide adequate security against a
serious attack.
People will be excluded for generations to come from being able to
safely live or work in these areas. Our children will not be able to
experience many of the wonderful places we now cherish if anything like
9/11 were to happen such as this. As an expectant father, I cannot stand
idly by and be silent. We need to try to address this threat now.
Please contact your Representative and Senators at 202/224-3121 and
urge for them to call for an investigation into the security of U.S.
nuclear weapons and energy production facilities. Let them know that
you are very concerned about the risk of nuclear contamination caused
by a terrorist attack. Also, please contact any reporters you know and
ask them to ask the government why this threat is being ignored.
For more information, please see:
http://www.nci.org/NEW/NT/security-risk.htm
http://www.pogo.org/p/environment/eo-020904-nukepower.html
_________________________________________________________________
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*****************************************************************
22 Fiji's nuclear veterans' fight for compensation
Wednesday December 04, 2002
Sapper 20193 Josateki Ramacake's story is not new. Every time
people ask him to talk about it, the 72-year-old war veteran will
never hesitate.
Ramacake remembers how, as an adventurous young Fijian soldier in
the 1950s, he had followed orders from his commanding officers to
pack his gear and get ready to go overseas.
He vividly recalls disembarking on tiny, flat Christmas Island
with his comrades and was told to set up camp and await further
instructions.
Ramacake acts out how he and fellow Fijian soldiers were told to
cover their faces when it was time for British commanders to
detonate atmospheric nuclear bombs on Christmas and Malden
Islands in 1957-8.
Ramacake notes how, after the thunderous explosions and
subsequent clouds over the island, he felt extreme heat all over
his shirted back and the back of his neck. He also remembers
floating dead fish and plants in waters close to the beach.
What he says they were not told was that their presence to
witness the series of nuclear tests on the island was designed to
allow the British to study the effects of radiation on humans.
Today, those effects are still visible. The old man suffers
terribly. First is a horrible skin ailment, which twice a month
sees Ramacake's thighs and legs covered with blisters as large as
the face of a wristwatch.
"It's just too gross to reveal, they would look so disgusting,"
he said. But he partly lifts an end of his Sulu Vaka Taga and
reveals unsightly scars from years of scratching and ugly
blisters. He also takes five different medications for a lung and
heart ailment.
"The doctors tell me my lungs are flooded with fluids and I have
to take the pills at the right time so that the fluids are
drained out during urination," Ramacake said. "My heart
medication, I have to carry on taking them in case I become
breathless…all these are the effects of Christmas Island."
He is not the only one suffering. He has five other daughters
whose children suffer from various illnesses he suspects are the
effects of the nuclear tests. One of his grandchildren he says
has a brain tumour.
His only son is sterile and this hurts him a lot because it means
he has no direct descendant in the male line of the family.
Ramacake, who comes from Visama village, in Nakelo, Tailevu
Province, around 30 kilometres to the north of Suva, is a
survivor of the British nuclear tests.
Together with British and New Zealand troops, nearly 300 Fijian
soldiers and sailors witnessed the development of Britain's
hydrogen bombs. Stories in their own words recording lasting
health and environmental effects of the tests are documented in a
200-page book Kirisimasi, which was put together by Suva-based
Pacific Concerns Resource Concerns (PCRC) staff, Losena Salabula
(now Fiji's Assistant Minister for Women and Social Welfare),
Josua Namoce and Nic Maclellan.
In the late 1950s, Fiji was still a colony of the United Kingdom.
The Fijian military personnel at Christmas Island were serving
under British military command at the time of the tests, but
never received pensions or compensation, in line with British
policy.
Fijian soldiers who served in World War Two and the Malayan
Campaign have access to Fiji's After Care Fund - the institution
that administers pensions for military service for ex-service
personnel and their dependents.
For 40 years after serving on Christmas Island, Fijian veterans
did not receive these pension rights, as their service was not
seen as a military operation. But the Fiji Government reversed
that in 1999 and announced that the 423 troops who enlisted for
service at Christmas Island were now eligible for After Care
Funds money.
"Despite their dwindling numbers, with many now dead, surviving
veterans and their families continue to persevere under difficult
conditions," said Ema Tagicakibau, PCRC's demilitarization
campaigner.
"Time is not on their side and most of them and their children
and grandchildren suffer from radiation-related illnesses that
require constant medical attention they can hardly afford," she
said. "They were exposed to weapons of mass destruction during
those tests and this was a time when they did not even understand
the likely effects nor were they informed about them.
"Britain has a moral obligation to the Fijian service personnel
who served under British military command at Christmas Island," a
section of the book Kirisimasi reads. "The Christmas Island
veterans deserve a pension for their service, those veterans
whose health have been affected also deserve compensation and
most importantly, they deserve recognition, a recognition they
have been denied for ages.
"Britain was the colonial power in Fiji and Kiribati at the time
of the nuclear tests. Even though nuclear testing has ended in
the Pacific, the legacies of colonialism live on, and it is time
for the government and people of Britain to acknowledge those
legacies."
Kirisimasi was published in 1999. A copy was recently obtained by
Bristol-based law firm Messrs Alexander Harris in the United
Kingdom, which was granted legal aid to investigate, represent
and possibly bring a claim against the Ministry of Defence in
relation to the Christmas Island tests.
A series of emails ensued between lawyers Mervyn Fudge and David
Harris and Ms Tagicakibau. She contacted the executives of the
Fiji Nuclear Test Veterans Association (FNTVA), which immediately
sent out radio and newspaper messages to the surviving veterans
Fiji-wide.
The crunch came via email on 8 November this year. Fudge and
Harris had been to the Fiji High Commission in London and were
preparing to cross the ocean to speak to the Fiji veterans.
The Legal Services Commission in UK, which runs the legal aid
system that's designed to assist people who cannot afford legal
fees, are funding the research, but they made it clear they will
only fund a collective litigation for the veterans. This means
anyone who does not join in will not be given British legal aid
for a separate action and also will not have the benefit of a
group action to protect them as far as costs are concerned.
PCRC and FNTVA did not have to look far for a local lawyer. Adi
Sivo Ganilau, daughter of the Fiji army commanding officer at the
time, the late Lieutenant Colonel Ratu Penaia Ganilau, former
President of Fiji. The Colonel had visited Malden Island in May
1957 to see Fijian troops and witness the second test. Many years
later, he contracted leukaemia and died at Walter Reed Military
Hospital in Washington DC. Two of his younger sons are sterile -
they were born after he witnessed the Grapple test in May 1957.
Adi Sivo was a welcome addition because the veterans had for a
long time wanted to get Ratu Sir Penaia's children in to help
launch efforts in the fight for the cause. She had written to the
European Court of Human Rights sometime before, outlining her
brothers' sterility and another younger brother's on-going health
problems.
"I feel delighted to now work with the veterans, this will surely
clarify a lot of issues they have been fighting for, for a long
time," she said.
As it is, the veterans will, from among themselves, select a
target group that will undergo a series of medical tests to help
the British lawyers fight their case in Britain soon. The group
will include those who were present during the British
atmospheric nuclear tests in Christmas and Malden Islands in 1957
and those who remained behind in Fiji.
British lawyers who will take up the collective litigation case
say the group will comprise veterans of the same age and from the
same group of the Fiji regular force at the time.
Fudge says this will help them determine and define the various
illnesses affecting the veterans as compared to those who did not
go to the tests, in order to process and make the claim from the
British Government.
"When we take a select group, we can make a statistical
judgement," Fudge said. "A radio biologist is to identify or
define if what the veteran suffers from is the actual cancer
caused by exposure to radiation. We have to take them so that it
strengthens their qualification for legal aid, to confirm his
condition or his family's condition."
Three UK lawyers are now interviewing the surviving Christmas
Island veterans in Suva and their case will collectively be
pursued with their British and New Zealand counterparts for one
litigation process.
"The British Government has finally admitted for the first time
that it was responsible for this tragedy and that it has made a
commitment to compensate the veterans," said Ema Tagicakibau of
the Pacific Concerns Resource Centre, an organisation that has
represented the veterans in their fight to be compensated.
Sapper 20193 Josateki Ramacake has waited for this moment for a
long time. He had only one comment.
"God has heard our prayers," he said.
Pac News
[http://www.hellofiji.com/forum/list.php?f=1]
Partner Sites: [http://www.hellofiji.com] |
*****************************************************************
23 Deal puts radiation blocker in spotlight
[St. Petersburg Times Online: News of northern Pinellas
The Postal Service orders 1.6-million pills, which protect
against radioactive iodine, from a company founded by a Palm
Harbor man.
By ED QUIOCO, Times Staff Writer © St. Petersburg Times published
December 4, 2002
PALM HARBOR -- A company whose founder lives in Palm Harbor will
sell 1.6-million radiation-blocking pills to the U.S. Postal
Service, which plans to distribute them to workers in the event
of a nuclear emergency.
The agency announced the deal with Anbex Inc. this week and
called it a "proactive approach," according to Postal Service
spokeswoman Sue Brennan. The pills protect people against
radiation-induced thyroid cancer, one of the hazards following a
nuclear disaster.
The announcement brings new recognition to a personal mission
started by Alan Morris, who founded Anbex in 1982. In the decades
that followed, few people paid him any attention -- until Sept.
11, 2001, focused the nation's attention on the awful
possibilities of terrorism.
As unpleasant as it is to talk about a terrorist plotting a
nuclear attack in this country, Morris said, it's something
everyone should be prepared for just in case.
"Is it going to happen?" Morris said. "I hope not. But it would
be foolish not to acknowledge that possibility and say, 'Is there
something we can do about it.' And of course there is."
Anbex makes potassium iodide pills under the brand name Iosat.
Potassium iodide is a nonprescription drug that reduces the risk
of thyroid cancer during a nuclear disaster by blocking
radioactive iodine from entering the thyroid gland.
Iosat is one of two thyroid-blocking agents approved by the Food
and Drug Administration for over-the-counter use during radiation
emergencies. Before Sept. 11, Anbex sold tablets mainly to
survivalists, nuclear plants, hospitals and some state health
departments. Business picked up a little in 1999 with the Y2K
scare.
Then, in February, Anbex was awarded a contract to supply up to
6-million tablets to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission so it
could create stockpiles of the pills in states that requested it.
Morris said the commission has since increased its contract to up
to 11-million pills.
Anbex sealed the deal with the Postal Service a few weeks ago and
has already started delivering the product, Morris said. The
tablets will be available for all 750,000 postal workers
nationwide. Employees will be given counseling in advance to
understand the use of the pills. The pills, Brennan said, are
being offered much as a precaution, like free flu shots.
"Employees are out there in all of these communities nationwide
and we wanted to err on the side of caution," Brennan said.
The recommendation came up in meetings of the mail security task
force, composed of representatives of postal unions, management
associations and the Office of the Inspector General, along with
safety and medical specialists and members of the mailing
industry.
The Postal Service was paying 18.3 cents per pill, Brennan said.
"It's a proactive approach regarding the safety, health and
well-being of employees nationwide," Brennan said.
Anbex sells the product on its Web site, www.Anbex.com, for $10
for a package of 14 130-milligram pills. That amount is enough to
protect an adult for about 30 days.
Anbex has four full-time employees. The tablets are manufactured
in New York and packaged in Michigan. Morris, who has lived in
Palm Harbor for five years, is the company's president; his wife
is the chairman; and his business partner, Bruce Rodin of New
Jersey, is the vice president.
To critics who say he is profiting from the Sept. 11 tragedy,
Morris says that he has been pushing his pills for 20 years.
Plus, he said, the company is offering the pills to the
government for less than 20 cents per tablet even though it has a
monopoly on the product.
"If I was price-gouging, I could understand people getting
angry," Morris said. "But name me another product sold as
inexpensively as mine. Name me one single medication that sells a
two-week supply for under $3."
Since the Postal Service announced the deal, national newspapers
such as the Washington Post, New York Times and the Los Angeles
Times and wire services such as the Associated Press and
Bloomberg News have called the company.
"What drives me nuts is who doesn't have it," Morris said. "You
know who doesn't have it? The cops don't have it. The
firefighters don't have it. The National Guard doesn't have it."
"Who are you going to call during a nuclear emergency?" Morris
said. "The fire department. And they don't have it. What will
they do? Borrow the pills from the post office? That's crazy."
-- Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.
© Copyright St. Petersburg Times.
*****************************************************************
24 YMP off the radar?*
By: December 04, 2002
*12-04-02*
Looking back on the recent election, it's easy to see that Yucca
Mountain isn't on the political radar and really never has been
on the public's radar either. I think the reason is that most
people think it's inevitable.
I'm using this letter to wonder aloud when our elected officials
will begin to deal with Yucca Mountain in a responsible manner
with some common sense aimed at making the project benefit the
entire state. I'm talking about economic diversification, a
significant benefit package, and involving our university system.
Nevada could and should become the nuclear medicine research
capital in the country for instance.
Just a couple other things as I look at the writing on the wall
and try to figure out our state's feelings about things nuclear.
Nuclear testing has been OK in the past, but Yucca Mountain nukes
are bad. Bringing nuclear weapons grade plutonium to the Nevada
Test Site from Los Alamos is good, and the Department of Energy
(DOE) is planning to do just that by 2006 or 2007. And the test
site is also one of five locations being considered for a
plutonium factory. The factory is expected to cost between $2
billion and $4 billion and would be completed by 2011 or 2012,
with around 1100 jobs created.
Let me leave you with this: The DOE office working on Yucca
Mountain is no longer the Site Characterization Office; it's now
the Office of Repository Development. Am I the only person to
read the writing on the wall? Yucca Mountain is reality and
inevitable; there's a little time left to make this project
benefit all of us instead of drain our state budget fighting it
in the courts. What will our elected officials decide to do?
Sincerely,
Bill Vasconi
/©Pahrump Valley Times 2002/
*****************************************************************
25 Archaeologists advise on nuclear waste disposal
Materials Research Society Meeting,
Boston, December, 2002
Ancient glass gives clues to the future of buried radioactive
material.
5 December 2002 PHILIP BALL
No one can predict how a storage system will behave over
millennia.
© GettyImages
Glass artefacts made in Iraq more than 4,000 years ago might help
scientists to evaluate the risks of storing nuclear waste,
researchers told the Materials Research Society meeting in
Boston, Massachusetts, this week.
Ancient glasses that have spent thousands of years buried in the
earth can hint at how the modern packaging might fare over the
many thousands of years it will take for nuclear waste to decay
to safe levels of radioactivity.
Waste is currently encased in glass, enclosed in metal cans and
buried. The United States currently has 100 million gallons of
high-level radioactive material awaiting such disposal, from
defence-based nuclear projects alone.
But no one can predict how any storage system will behave over
millennia. Eventually, the cans will corrode, the glass will
start to break down, thanks to water or microbes in the soil and
rock, and the dangerous contents will leak out. The question is:
when?
Attempts to simulate such burial schemes reveal next to nothing
about these very long timescales. "Sixteen years counts as a
long-term experiment," explains Russell Hand of the University of
Sheffield in England.
That's where the archaeologists come in. Glassy materials, such
as glazes on ceramic pots and figurines, date back at least as
far as 4000 BC, when they were produced in the Middle East by
melting sand with other minerals.
These ancient artefacts are now in various stages of decay. Some
are astonishingly well preserved. Others look totally opaque,
having been completely altered, for example by water percolating
into the material or chemical elements leaching out of it. Small
differences in the composition of the glass or its environment -
how wet, how warm, how acid - can make big differences to the
extent of the corrosion.
"There has been a long dialogue between nuclear-waste people and
archaeological people," says Pamela Vandiver of the Smithsonian
Center for Materials Research and Education in Suitland,
Maryland, USA. Some of the candidate glasses being studied for
waste storage have similar ingredients to those made in ancient
times. Both have a higher proportion of alkaline components, such
as soda, than typical modern glasses.
The metals that colour historical glasses, such as cobalt in
medieval blue glass, can stand proxy for the radioactive elements
in nuclear waste. They leach out into the surrounding soil, which
doesn't contain them naturally, indicating how radionuclides
might disperse.
The analogy isn't perfect. Nuclear-waste glasses typically
contain boron, for example, whereas ancient ones do not, and this
might influence their behaviour. But, as Hand stresses, even a
partial similarity is valuable in the absence of any other
long-term data.
Time capsule
Hand is currently overseeing a field experiment on buried-glass
corrosion that has been running at Sheffield since the early
1970s. Researchers buried glass samples, based on Roman and
medieval recipes, under soil at a quarry at Ballidon in the north
of England.
Sixteen years counts as a long-term experiment Russell Hand
University of Sheffield
The idea was to better understand the decay of archaeological
artefacts by exhuming samples after 2, 4, 8, 16 years and so
forth. The project recently made its 32-year exhumation; the next
is due in 2034.
In the 1980s, the project was joined by George Wicks of the
Westinghouse Savannah River Company, which is studying glass-clad
nuclear-waste burial in South Carolina. Wicks buried some
nuclear-waste candidate glasses at Ballidon in 1986, alongside
the fake historical materials. Some of these samples received
their 16-year exhumation earlier this year.
It's still early days for these projects, but their instigators
hope they will continue after they have gone.
© Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2002
*****************************************************************
26 Cotter pushes state to accept waste soil application
The Pueblo Chieftain Online - Tuesday December 3rd, 2002
[http://www.chieftain.com]
[The Pueblo Chieftain]
By TRACY HARMON The Pueblo Chieftain
CANON CITY - A uranium processing firm on Monday responded to the
Colorado Department of Public Health's rejection of its
application to accept Superfund waste from New Jersey at the
uranium mill here.
In October, the state health department ruled that an
environmental assessment conducted on Cotter Corp.'s behalf was
incomplete. Although the state found both radiological and
non-radiological risks to both the public and workers are
acceptable, officials believe the assessment did not fully
address transportation issues and socioeconomic impacts on the
community.
Cotter has been named the subcontractor to dispose of 470,000
tons of waste soils from a Superfund site at Maywood, N.J., at
its uranium mill here.
Cotter Vice President Rich Ziegler said Monday that Cotter plans
to use the Maywood material to cover mill tailings and to reduce
future emissions of radon from existing tailings ponds.
Ziegler said that quick action in approving receipt of the
Maywood material is needed to maintain existing jobs at the mill.
Although both state and Cotter officials agree that Cotter will
need to redo the transportation and socioeconomic impact portions
of the assessment, they do not agree on whether Cotter will be
required to again host two additional public meetings.
"Cotter's response details areas where the (state health)
department has made significant errors in their application and
interpretation of House Bill 1408," Ziegler said.
Dave Butcher, state health department laboratory and radiation
services director, said he disagrees with Ziegler.
"The law was vague in that area, which allows us to interpret it
how we want to. We've asked them to be prepared to present their
findings again in two public meetings and they did not feel we
had any right to ask them to hold two public meetings again,"
Butcher explained.
Co-chair Sharyn Cunningham, whose Colorado Citizens Against Toxic
Waste group opposes Cotter's plan, said that her understanding is
that the legislators who drafted the bill helped the health
department interpret the meaning.
"I basically feel like Cotter is arguing with the agency that
regulates them and telling them how to regulate them. The whole
point of that bill was to allow the community to state opinions
and give us a say about what is happening in our own community,"
Cunningham said.
Cunningham said she believes Cotter is desperate to get the
Maywood material because they need it to stay in business.
"The Maywood material is not the only radioactive waste they are
planning to receive and that is where Cotter has been dishonest
with the public. I think they are in the waste business and if
you look at their five-year plan, which is a part of their
license renewal application, a large portion of the business plan
calls for storing or processing radioactive waste," Cunningham
said.
"If time is of the essence, they (Cotter) can get ahead of the
game and be on better terms with the public by going ahead with
the public meetings," Butcher said.
Ziegler also announced that Cotter has submitted worker radiation
dose assessments as required by the state health department.
Cotter has not been able to receive shipment of materials for
processing since July 9 pending the ironing out of unresolved
worker safety issues.
"Cotter has submitted revised radiation dose assessments for 2001
and has completed calculations for the first three quarters of
2002. These assessments again verify that no worker at the Canon
City mill received a dose higher than federal or state
regulations allow and that the majority of workers received less
than 10 per cent of the regulatory limit," Ziegler said.
"This assessment again verifies that the radiation protection
program in place at the Canon City Mill is functioning
correctly," Ziegler said.
Butcher said his staff is reviewing the revised and completed
assessments. If they do not find any trouble with the data,
Cotter likely will be able to resume receipt of shipments, he
said.
©1996-2002 Chieftain.com [http://www.chieftain.com] The
Star-Journal Publishing Corp. Pueblo, Colorado U.S.A.
*****************************************************************
27 Nuclear industry dismisses scenario
reviewjournal.com -- News:
Wednesday, December 04, 2002
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
Anti-Yucca lawsuit ponders missile attack on waste cask
By KEITH ROGERS
REVIEW-JOURNAL
Can an anti-tank missile cause enough damage to a nuclear waste
transportation cask to create conditions for catastrophic nuclear
chain reaction?
In court papers filed this week in opposition to the planned
Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, Nevada officials say
it's possible.
But the lobbying arm of the nuclear power industry, the
Washington, D.C.-based Nuclear Energy Institute, says the state's
claim is far-fetched and highly unlikely.
"A test at Sandia Laboratories in the late '70s or early '80s
subjected a container to a shaped-charge device 30 times more
powerful than a typical anti-tank weapon, resulting in a very
small hole (about 1/4 of an inch) through the primary wall,"
Nuclear Energy Institute spokesman Mitch Singer said Tuesday in
an e-mail message.
"Because of the robust cask design and the fact that the fuel is
a solid material and cannot leak, evaporate or burn, the
estimated release of radiation was negligible," he stated.
"I think it's unrealistic and far-fetched to think someone could
use a TOW missile and fire it at a transportation cask and hit it
in any spot that would result in a radiation release," Singer
said in a telephone interview.
According to the state's court documents, filed Monday with the
District of Columbia Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals, the
Department of Energy "acknowledged the danger of criticality
events in connection with the mere storage of these same casks."
The papers state that rainwater and fire could induce nuclear
chain reactions in spent fuel in storage, but "ignored the far
more realistic risks of criticality occurring in a sabotage
event, where, for example, an exploding TOW missile might shred
the front and back hulls of a cask moving through a city,
exposing spent fuel to rain, fire or firefighters' spray,
inducing criticality."
TOW stands for "tube-launched, optically tracked, wire-guided."
The TOW anti-tank missile weighs less than 50 pounds, costs less
than $200,000, and is in use by militaries in 40 countries,
according to its manufacturer, Raytheon Corp. It can be fired
from a 200-pound launcher stationed on the back of a flatbed
truck.
Energy Department officials have had no comment, other than to
say the state's court case is an attempt to stymie development of
a repository in the mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
But a nongovernment organization that monitors nuclear issues
pondered the TOW missile scenario.
"It's an intriguing idea and certainly something that sounds
troubling," said Stephen Schwartz, publisher of The Bulletin of
the Atomic Scientists, a Chicago-based magazine of global
security news and analysis.
"I'm not sure how one would achieve criticality under the
conditions described" in the state's court filing, said Schwartz,
who clarified he is not an expert on the technical aspects of
spent fuel shipments and their vulnerability to a guided-missile
strike erupting into a chain reaction.
Schwartz noted that the spent fuel assemblies hold the solid fuel
pellets as opposed to being loose in the container.
"It's hard for me to understand how water alone is going to
create that sort of problem," he said.
But a fire such as last year's in a Baltimore tunnel poses a
different situation, he said.
"Presumably, an intense enough fire could melt fuel rods and
cause pellets to spill out and into the confines of a cask or
truck.
"Anything, I suppose is possible. The question is how likely is
it to happen and how much time do responders have," Schwartz
said.
Concerning another issue mentioned in the state's legal brief,
the prospect for nuclear utilities storing spent fuel assemblies
in above-ground, dry cask facilities in lieu of paying into the
nuclear waste fund as is the case with PECO Energy, Singer said
the arrangement is not an alternative to a repository at Yucca
Mountain. PECO Energy operates the Peach Bottom nuclear plant
near Philadelphia.
"The fuel is eventually going to be moved anyway and it overlooks
the fact that moving the fuel far from any population centers to
a more secure location where it can be efficiently managed for
generations, ultimately reduces risks and costs," Singer said in
his e-mail.
"You also should note that there was a recent opinion by the 11th
Circuit Court of Appeals that keeps DOE from using money from the
Nuclear Waste Fund -- a levy of one-tenth of a penny on
ratepayers who get electricity from nuclear plants to fund a
permanent repository -- to cover costs of the PECO deal.
"If not overturned on appeal or by Congress, the decision
strongly implies that taxpayers have to foot the bill for
construction and operation of dry cask storage," Singer said.
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002
*****************************************************************
28 Yucca: DOE pushes for Nevada water
reviewjournal.com -- News:
Wednesday, December 04, 2002
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
Justice Department asks court to force Yucca site permits
By KEITH ROGERS REVIEW-JOURNAL
Justice Department attorneys said Tuesday the Yucca Mountain
nuclear waste project is running out of water at the site, 100
miles northwest of Las Vegas, and have asked a U.S. District
Court judge to force Nevada to extend permits for withdrawing
water from Nye County wells.
On behalf of the Department of Energy, Justice Department
attorneys Stephen Bartell and Daniel Bogden filed a renewed
motion for a preliminary injunction against the state engineer's
decision to deny permanent withdrawal of water for the repository
project and extension of temporary permits that DOE held to study
the mountain.
"The DOE will exhaust its potable water supply imminently,
possibly as soon as Dec. 19," according to the Justice
Department's motion filed late Tuesday.
On June 11, U.S. District Judge Roger Hunt denied a similar
request that sought extension of temporary permits for 140
million gallons per year from five Nye County wells in the
vicinity of the planned repository site.
At the time, Hunt said his calculations showed the more than 1
million gallons that DOE had stockpiled in tanks before temporary
permits expired in April was enough to support the project's
needs beyond the summer.
Reacting to the motion, Nevada Nuclear Projects Agency chief Bob
Loux said, "They made a similar complaint in June and the judge
determined they had a year's worth of supply," he said, noting
that state officials intend to examine the water consumption rate
for the project.
In 2000, former state engineer Michael Turnipseed rejected DOE's
application to permanently withdraw water from the Nye County
wells because using the water for operation of a nuclear waste
repository was not in the state's interest.
In Tuesday's court filing, Bartell wrote, "The United States will
suffer irreparable injury unless it can withdraw water necessary
to provide sufficient potable water to support ongoing activities
at the Yucca Mountain site, as it has been doing for many years
without any evidence of harm to the state."
Nevada officials have contended that "site characterization"
ceased when Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham recommended the site
for development into a repository in February.
His recommendation and that of President Bush was approved by
Congress on July 9 over the veto of Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn.
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002
*****************************************************************
29 State continues Yucca fight
Associated Press [online@rgj.com]
ASSOCIATED PRESS 12/3/2002 11:12 pm
WASHINGTON — A decision to bury thousands of tons of nuclear
waste in Nevada should be overturned because the government
cannot assure the site’s geology will keep radiation from seeping
into the environment, the state of Nevada argues in a court
filing.
The brief, filed in a suit challenging the decision to entomb the
waste at Yucca Mountain, maintains that the Energy Department
violated the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act by resorting to
“engineered barriers” to contain the waste.
In papers filed Monday with the U.S. Court of Appeals in
Washington, the state argues that the Bush administration was
“essentially abandoning” the 1982 law’s “mandate that the site’s
geology form the primary isolation barrier” in selecting the
Yucca Mountain site for waste burial.
The mountain is a ridge of volcanic rock and ash about 90 miles
northwest of Las Vegas, adjacent to the Nevada Test Site. Last
February, President Bush declared it scientifically suitable and
safe as the nation’s central repository for 77,000 tons of waste
from commercial reactors and the government’s nuclear weapons
program.
After Nevada challenged the decision, Congress endorsed the
president’s declaration in July and overturned what could have
been a veto of the site by Nevada. The Energy Department is
seeking a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and
hopes to open the waste repository by 2010.
But Nevada, joined by the city of Las Vegas and surrounding Clark
County, has promised to continue the fight in court and filed a
number of lawsuits challenging the project.
In a 100-page filing in support of its lawsuit before the appeals
court, Nevada contends that the 1982 law that directed
construction of a federal nuclear waste repository specifically
required that natural geology at the site “form the primary
barrier keeping waste from people and the environment” over tens
of thousands of years.
The suit also argues that the Energy Department conducted a
“flawed environmental review” of the Yucca site, disregarded
procedures required under the law in determining the site’s
suitability and failed to assess adequately problems involving
the transportation of waste to the site.
Yucca Mountain initially was chosen because Energy Department
scientists believed it had the geology required to contain the
waste. They later found it did not and adopted a “total system
performance” approach in violation of the 1982 law, the state
argues in its suit.
Now, the suit maintains, the project relies extensively on
manmade barriers — metal alloy waste containers and drip shields,
for example — to keep waste from escaping.
The Energy Department had no immediate response to the Nevada
court filing.
Nevada officials have made similar arguments repeatedly in public
meetings and in outlining their opposition to the Yucca Mountain
project over the years.
Energy Department officials have maintained the site is in full
compliance with the 1982 requirements, it relies on geology to
contain the waste and the engineered barriers only provide
additional protection.
Congress declared in 1987 that Yucca Mountain should be the only
site to be considered for nuclear waste disposal. Since then,
nearly $7 billion has been spent on studying the area’s geology
and developing a waste package and design.
© Copyright Reno Gazette-Journal, a Gannett
*****************************************************************
30 UK: FIFTY years' worth of intermediate level radioactive waste
generated at Dounreay is to be stored for up to 60 years in a
huge facility, capable of housing more than 70 double decker
buses, on the Caithness site.
The UK has no national policy on the disposal of such waste. One
of the last acts of the Conservative government in 1997 was to
refuse the nuclear waste agency Nirex permission to construct an
underground facility in Cumbria.
Opponents of nuclear dumping last night warmly welcomed the
announcement of the latest project which will be the cornerstone
in the £4bn decommissioning of Dounreay.
The new store will operate until a national policy is finally
developed. It is understood the final cost could reach £100m,
generating 200 jobs in its
construction.
Much of the solid waste was stored in Dounreay's now notorious
shaft between 1958 and 1977 when an explosion forced the UK
Atomic Energy Authority to seal it. Thereafter, it was stored in
a wet silo.
The UK Atomic Energy Authority unveiled its plans yesterday and
announced it wanted to form an alliance of companies to build a
secure and modern facility. The project is a candidate for
funding under the public-private partnership scheme.
The formation of the alliance next year is expected to result
in the largest block of contracts to be let at Dounreay since
the site restoration plan was published two years ago.
Construction of the store is expected to begin in 2005, with the
facility ready for active commissioning by the end of 2008.
Restoring the environment of Dounreay is forecast to produce
almost 10,000 cubic metres of intermediate-level waste
conditioned in drums of cement, equivalent in volume to 70
double-decker buses. The new ILW conditioned waste store will
allow other major decommissioning projects at Dounreay such as
the complex and costly emptying of the shaft, to proceed.
Peter Welsh, UKAEA Dounreay's director, said yesterday: "The
new store will be fundamental to the management of existing and
future arisings of ILW from the site restoration work, and its
delivery by the end of 2008 is one of the key milestones in our
plan. It will provide a safe and secure environment for ILW
until such time as a national solution is determined."
Neil Money, director of the decommissioning strategy
taskforce at Highlands and Islands Enterprise, said: "This major
project emphasises the important role that traditional civil
engineering skills will play in the decommissioning of Dounreay."
Lorraine Mann, of Scotland Against Nuclear Dumping, said:"This
is wonderful news. For years we have argued that the waste
should be stored above ground where it could be monitored in
exactly this sort of facility and not left forgotten,
underground."
-Dec 4th
*****************************************************************
31 USEC announces its decision today -
[http://www.paducahsun.com/]
The Paducah Sun
Paducah, Kentucky
Wednesday, December 04, 2002
Centrifuge test plant will employ 50
By Joe Walker jwalker@paducahsun.com--270.575.8650
USEC Inc. will announce today in Washington, D.C., whether
Paducah or Piketon, Ohio, will get a 50-job plant to test
enriching uranium using gas centrifuge technology.
Company spokeswoman Elizabeth Stuckle confirmed that William
"Nick" Timbers, USEC president and chief executive officer, will
make the announcement at 8:30 a.m. CST at the National Press
Club.
"USEC looks forward to announcing the siting of the lead cascade
centrifuge test facility, which is an important step toward
deploying the most efficient advanced uranium enrichment
technology in the world," she said.
Stuckle would not reveal the winner. Various Paducah area leaders
said earlier Tuesday that they expected an announcement, perhaps
as early as today, but had heard nothing official and did not
know if Paducah won or lost.
Some nuclear energy experts speculate Piketon will get the nod
because of having two centrifuge buildings mothballed since 1985
and not having the earthquake-risk problems posed at Paducah,
which is at the northern tip of the New Madrid Fault zone.
Two months ago, the governors of Kentucky and Ohio gave the
Bethesda, Md.-based firm economic incentive packages seeking the
roughly $60 million plant, which will test more than 200 gas
centrifuge machines for about three years. Amid greatly sagging
profits, USEC is counting on the performance to generate
sufficient financial backing for a 500-job, $1.5 billion
commercial centrifuge plant that is expected to replace the
outdated, energy-intensive Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant
starting early next decade.
USEC plans to name Paducah or Piketon as the commercial plant
site a few months before seeking Nuclear Regulatory Commission
licensing in the spring of 2007. The plant would be operational
by 2010 if built at Piketon, or by 2011 if built at Paducah. A
USEC agreement with the Department of Energy requires the
existing Paducah plant to operate at least until 2010.
*****************************************************************
32 Dounreay waste store work will create 200 jobs
Scotsman.com
Wed 4 Dec 2002
/JOHN ROSS/
ABOUT 200 jobs will be created during the building of the biggest
construction project yet in the £4 billion clean-up of the
Dounreay nuclear plant.
The UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) announced yesterday it
wants to form an alliance of five companies to build a huge store
for intermediate-level radioactive waste (ILW) arising from the
decommissioning of the Caithness plant over the next 50 years.
Work is expected to start on the facility in 2005 and take three
years to complete. It will cost up to £100 million and be able to
store almost 10,000 cubic metres of waste, equivalent in volume
to 70 double-decker buses, which has accumulated over the past 50
years.
The store, which could be the first project at Dounreay to be
undertaken under the Public Private Partnership (PPP), will be a
cornerstone of the decommissioning programme.
The UKAEA plans to restore the Caithness complex to a near
greenfield site within 50-60 years. Waste from existing stores
and that left from the clean-up of Dounreay and the neighbouring
Ministry of Defence site at Vulcan will be sealed in cement at
another plant yet to be built, before being stored in the new
facility.
Solid intermediate-level waste (ILW) has been generated at
Dounreay since the first experiments were carried out during the
1950s in support of fast reactor research and development. It
consists largely of metal fuel wrappers, and circuitry and
components from reactors and fuel facilities.
The store will also take waste from the Dounreay waste shaft,
which contains a cocktail of material from decades of work at the
complex and was the scene of an explosion in 1977. Solid ILW was
disposed of in the shaft between 1958 and the 1970s, and latterly
stored in a wet silo.
Currently, the UK has no nationally-agreed strategy for the
long-term management of ILW and the new store will aim to provide
a secure storage for the waste pending a long-term strategy being
adopted.
Peter Welsh, the Dounreay director, said: "The new store will be
fundamental to the management of existing and future arisings of
ILW from the site restoration work, and its delivery by the end
of 2008 is one of the key milestones in our plan.
"It will provide a safe and secure environment for ILW until such
time as a national solution is determined."
Neil Money, the director of the decommissioning strategy task
force at Highlands and Islands Enterprise, said: "This major
project emphasises the important role that traditional civil
engineering skills will play in the decommissioning of Dounreay.
"Scotland has a long heritage of companies with civil engineering
expertise that is second to none, and this is an opportunity for
Highland and Scottish businesses to become involved in the
decommissioning process."
©2002 scotsman.com | contact
*****************************************************************
33 Toxic waste to OR least toxic on road
The Oak Ridger Online -- Area News --
12:10 p.m. on Wednesday, December 4, 2002
The TSCA Incinerator, above, will start operation in January
-- Staff photos by Marie Moffitt
by R. Cathey Daniels
Oak Ridger staff
How toxic is toxic waste transported into Oak Ridge and burned
at the TSCA Incinerator?
Relatively speaking, not very, say a variety of officials and
citizens charged with oversight of the nation's only incinerator
licensed to burn low-level radioactive wastes as well as wastes
containing polychlorinated biphenyls.
The state recently gave the OK for this fiscal year's
approximate 600,000 pounds of out-of-state waste shipments to
begin early deliveries, allowing the Toxic Substances Control
Act Incinerator to kick into action as soon as scheduled
maintenance tasks are cleared in late January.
"We don't burn high-activity waste," said Bob Sleeman of the
Department of Energy. "There's nothing in there extremely
contaminated or we would not be able to burn it at TSCA -- the
waste criteria is too tight for that."
"As far as hazardous materials go, they're classified as some
of the least hazardous on the roadway," said Randy Walker,
program manager with the National Transportation Research Center
for Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Walker has a long work
history in packaging and transportation of materials in and out
of Oak Ridge.
Technical expert Tom Rogers examines the control room of the
TSCA Incinerator, which is expecting out-of-state waste
deliveries in the next few weeks.
-- Staff photos by Marie Moffitt
"In terms of danger in transport, these materials are
classified as a seven in a classification system of one to
seven, with one being the most hazardous," Walker said, noting
that explosives, flammable gases and poisonous gases would be
classified at the more dangerous end of the scale.
"And as far as (radioactivity level), what's coming into K-25
is low-level, and you don't even need high-level packaging on
most of it."
In fact, what's going out of Oak Ridge carries probably the
highest level of toxicity, and that's from the lab.
"That would be spent nuclear fuel out of ORNL," said Walker.
"And that's highly controlled quantities and packaging with
escort coordinated with states well ahead of time."
See TOXIC, Page 5A
Tom Rogers, Bechtel Jacobs' technical oversight expert on the
incinerator, says local folks need look no further than the
recent tanker spill of sulfuric acid in Knoxville for a
comparison of transport of dangerous substances.
"Compared to that, what's coming into the incinerator is not
going to be reactive," said Rogers. He noted that liquid-waste
deliveries are generally considered more hazardous than solids,
but most of that is oil- or water-based.
"There is danger of a spill, but not anything that would create
a catastrophic situation," said Rogers.
The Local Oversight Committee, which keeps an eye on Department
of Energy activities, has studied and reported on the
incinerator, and has encouraged the continued use of the
facility.
"Look at what goes down the Oak Ridge Turnpike and plugs into
each gas station and drops a load of highly explosive fuel into
underground tanks each day," said LOC Executive Director Susan
Gawarecki. "That's one of the more dangerous transportations,
and no one thinks about it."
And as to emissions, Rogers said that over 99 percent of waste
is removed prior to going out the stack.
"What you see coming out is basically water," said Rogers. The
ash left at the bottom of the stack is removed and shipped out
of state, though there has been some talk recently of trucking
it down the road to a local waste disposal site.
"I have absolutely no problem with TSCA starting up," said Bill
Pardue, a member of Gov. Don Sundquist's statewide review panel
that reported in the late 1990s on the incinerator's activities.
The panel was formed after a series of controversial media
reports. Pardue is retired from Battelle where he worked in the
nuclear industry for 38 years.
"I believe it's run safely and doesn't impact the health and
safety of the community or the workers -- it's a service to the
nation to get rid of wastes that nobody else can treat," said
Pardue.
Though the state continues to ask DOE to investigate
alternatives to incineration, the facility continues to get
favorable reviews.
"The incinerator is an effective and efficient method to treat
that waste," said John Owsley, director of the Tennessee
Department of Environment and Conservation's DOE Oversight
office. "It does deal with radioactive and hazardous materials,
so judgment calls have to be made -- but it meets all the
requirements that are in place on the incinerator."
"People get a little crazed when you talk about radioactive or
toxic waste, but a lot of waste that comes to TSCA has a very
low radioactive level," noted Gawarecki. "The emissions have
been way below permit levels."
Opened for production in 1991, the $12.8 million-a-year
operation at the K-25 site this fiscal year will burn about 1
million pounds of solid and liquid waste, with most shipped in
the next two months.
The state continues to press DOE to ship more waste out of Oak
Ridge in reciprocal waste disposal agreements.
Shipments of solid waste from out of state started in 2000.
Liquid wastes have been shipped from DOE's Oak Ridge Operations
sites since 1991, with other out-of-state sites shipping in
later years.
Bechtel Jacobs manages cleanup for the Oak Ridge Operations
office. Shaw Environmental and Infrastructure has the contract
to run the TSCA Incinerator.
R. Cathey Daniels can be contacted at (865) 220-5515 or
danielsrcd@oakridger.com.
All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger
*****************************************************************
34 A force of habits: Nuns raid silo site
Rocky Mountain News: State
Wearing jumpsuits with the acronym CWIT - standing for Citizen
Witness Inspection Team - the nuns enter the missile site. They
were arrested 44 minutes later.
Trio tweaks nose of military, refuses to renounce activism
By Charlie Brennan, Rocky Mountain News
December 4, 2002
Not long after sunrise on Oct. 6, three people armed with a bolt
cutter sliced through a security chain to invade what the U.S.
Defense Department calls "November 8" - N8 - an unmanned
Minuteman missile site in northeastern Weld County.
Within 44 minutes, the intruders were arrested by the United
States Air Force 321st Missile Squadron Security Response Team
and the 791st Security Forces Squadron Fire Team.
Outfitted in matching white jumpsuits bearing the unfamiliar
acronym "CWIT'' and the labels "DISARMAMENT SPECIALIST," the trio
was arrested at gunpoint and swiftly hauled off into federal
custody.
"These military installations contain some of the most sensitive
and sophisticated weaponry in the country," said William Taylor,
chief of the major-crimes unit for the U.S. attorney's office.
"They are a critical part of our national defense and must be
protected. Those who interfere with these installations will be
prosecuted."
Even if they are Catholic nuns.
Carol Gilbert, 55, Jackie Hudson, 68, and Ardeth Platte, 66, are
members of the Dominican order. The letters on their suits stood
for Citizen Weapons Inspection Team. But they were not at the
missile site - one of 49 located in northeastern Colorado - for
an inspection.
According to a federal affidavit, they poured their own blood,
carried in plastic baby bottles, on the missile silo lid, doing
so in the shape of six crosses. The fact that the date they chose
was one day short of the one-year anniversary of America
launching its bombing campaign in Afghanistan was not a
coincidence.
As they carried out what they called a "symbolic disarmament,"
and, as they were arrested at gunpoint and were carted off to
jail, they continually chanted, "God, teach us to be peacemakers
in a hostile world."
There was nothing symbolic about the military's response. "It was
all very sudden, but we were totally surrounded by Humvees,"
Gilbert said in a telephone interview from Clear Creek County
Jail, where the three have decided on principle to remain.
"And there was some kind of guns; I've had M-16s pointed at me
before, and these were bigger than M-16s. We were totally
surrounded. They were all screaming."
The nuns, also carrying small household hammers, would still have
had to break through 120 tons of concrete to touch the actual
missile. Nevertheless, they were indicted Oct. 21 on federal
charges of injury, interference and obstruction of the national
defense, plus damaging government property. They are to be in
court today for a pretrial hearing.
The combined charges could earn each of them up to 30 years in
prison and a fine as high as $250,000.
They initially said they wanted to represent themselves. Now, two
of the sisters are accepting lawyers, who are taking their cases
for free.
Well-known Denver attorney Walter Gerash now represents Hudson.
Former U.S. Attorney Ramsey Clark may also come to their aid,
most likely taking Gilbert's case in tandem with local lawyer
Susan Tyburski.
Aide to Lyndon Johnson
Clark, the nation's top prosecutor under President Lyndon
Johnson, has become a prominent civil-rights advocate. Earlier
this year, he was among those who filed a petition in federal
court challenging the conditions of captured al-Qaida and Taliban
fighters at the U.S. Navy detention facility in Guatanamo Bay,
Cuba.
As for Gerash, he will be using "an international law defense,
which is very intricate."
Among the arguments he expects to make is that America's
long-term deployment of nuclear warheads with first-strike
capability violates the United Nations charter.
"They camped out on a first-strike weapon that can hit a city
8,000 miles away in 30 minutes to wipe out the whole city and
then the whole suburbs," Gerash said. "We have a lot to say, but
I'm not going to let the cat out of the bag.
"It's not a murder case," Gerash said. "They admit what they
did."
Indeed they do, but they could be free on personal-recognizance
bonds today if they would promise not to do it again - which they
won't.
Gilbert and Platte, in phone calls from the jail in Georgetown,
said they and Hudson are unrepentant. They believe it is the
United States government that is breaking treaties and
international law by maintaining its nuclear-weapons program and
by militarizing space by pursuing a "Star Wars" missile-defense
system.
At their impending trial, Platte said, "We will bring forth the
truth of the illegality of the practices that are going on right
now in our government."
Platte said they acted out of the same sense of obligation which
would have justified any illegal acts by citizens in prewar Nazi
Germany against Adolph Hitler and those he commanded.
"We're talking about a threatening of life, that is a genocide,
that is an 'omnicide,' " Platte said. "These nuclear weapons,
it's a gun at the heads of God's people throughout the world. You
cannot wait until the nuclear weapons are used. You must stop the
crime beforehand."
Added Gilbert: "We had no criminal intent at any level. We were
justified, according to law. This was an attempt to hold the
government accountable. We have heard, for months now, about
'citizen-witness inspection teams' going into Iraq, and this was
our attempt, as U.S. citizens, to hold our own government
accountable."
Jonah House members
Gilbert and Platte are members of the nondenominational Jonah
House Resistance Community in Baltimore, Md. Its membership
includes peace activist and former Roman Catholic priest Philip
Berrigan. Berrigan, now 79, is battling cancer, and could not be
reached for comment on the nuns' actions.
The sisters called their Weld County mission "Sacred Earth and
Space Plowshares II." All three were also arrested for taking
part in the first Sacred Earth and Space Plowshares in Colorado
two years ago.
In that action, Gilbert, Hudson and Platte - plus two other Roman
Catholic nuns - were arrested for taking advantage of an open
house at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs to strike a
grounded Marine fighter jet with a hammer and throw a bottle of
their own blood on the aircraft's landing gear.
Charges of criminal mischief and destruction of government
property against all five were eventually dropped.
Pro-military atmosphere
The sisters recognize that the climate in post-Sept. 11 America
is as pro-defense - and as pro-military - as perhaps any time in
our country's history since the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor
61 years ago. But they don't believe this necessarily gives them
a slim chance in front of a jury.
"I would have to say that we never know, when we attempt to speak
truth and hold our government accountable to its laws and do what
our God calls us to, what the consequences of those actions will
be," Gilbert said.
Father Mike Kerrigan, pastor at Our Lady of Lourdes in
Georgetown, has visited the nuns four times.
"They're amazing women," said Kerrigan, who has found them
seeming a bit tired but generally in good health.
"They're very, very much at peace with what they've done. And
they are showing an interest in everybody else that's there, by
their attitude and their support."
The sisters look at their time in jail as another opportunity to
practice their faith.
In a telephone interview, Gilbert said this is actually another
reason that the three have not signed the personal-recognizance
bonds they've been offered, enabling them to enjoy freedom while
waiting for their trial.
"It's our understanding that the women that we are doing time
with here, some are charged with far lesser crimes and have never
been offered P.R. bonds," Gilbert said.
"So some of this is in (keeping) solidarity with the poorest,"
Gilbert added.
Jonah House member Elizabeth McAlister said a large community of
people around the world support the nuns - and join them in their
opposition to nuclear proliferation and what they perceive as an
American bid to dominate and heavily militarize space. "I proudly
respect their consciences in this," McAlister said. "They've
certainly chosen a harder way."
brennanc@RockyMountainNews.com or (303) 892-2742.
2002 © The E.W. Scripps Co.
*****************************************************************
35 Jailed nuns peacefully puzzle officials
Rocky Mountain News: State
By Charlie Brennan, Rocky Mountain News
December 4, 2002
Three Catholic nuns held on charges stemming from a recent
nuclear weapons protest could be free in exchange for just their
signatures.
But they'd rather sit in jail.
Sisters Carol Gilbert, 55, Ardeth Platte, 66, and Jackie Hudson,
68, spent Thanksgiving in Clear Creek County Jail. They have been
in custody since their arrests at a nuclear missile silo in
northeastern Weld County on Oct. 6.
Sisters Gilbert and Hudson both observed birthdays last month
behind bars.
They're in the Clear Creek facility because the Federal Detention
Center in Englewood can't accommodate female prisoners.
The three will likely be in jail at least until their trial,
currently set for Dec. 16 - despite being granted a personal
recognizance bond at their Oct. 16 hearing before U.S. Magistrate
Judge Boyd N. Boland.
To win their release, the Dominican nuns would merely have to
sign a piece of paper, pledging - among other things - to stay
out of further trouble.
That, they say, they won't do.
A transcript of their Oct. 16 hearing offers a glimpse at the
depth of conviction that has led the pacifists to choose
incarceration over freedom.
"There is no way, with where we are as a nation today, that I
would in any way, in conscience, be able to promise - to promise
that," said Sister Gilbert, of Baltimore.
It's not something the magistrate is accustomed to hearing. "I
guess if you don't want to sign it, you don't - I can't make you
sign it," Boland said. "If you won't sign it, though, you will be
held in jail until trial."
Sister Hudson, of Poulsbo, Wash., said her refusal to agree to be
law-abiding "would save being picked up again and having another
hearing," and that she would "just as soon say that I cannot
abide by these restrictions."
At the same hearing, Sister Platte, also of Baltimore, said, "We
would not be able to be in this area and allow the government to
continue its illegal and immoral actions of threatening, and, you
know, continuing to kill - massively - men, women and children in
other countries."
The government has considered charging the nuns, in effect, rent
for their stay in the Clear Creek jail.
The cost for each is about $55 per day. That would amount to
nearly $8,000 for the three so far.
Magistrate Boland cautioned the nuns that a prosecutor is "going
to file a motion . . . to assess against you the costs of your
stay in jail, just the same as if you were staying at the Holiday
Inn - which it's not."
Boland acknowledged, however, that the nuns' indigent status
means the government would likely be hard-pressed to collect that
bill.
Sister Gilbert agreed, saying, "Well, it will be difficult, since
we are full-time volunteers."
"I hear you," said Boland.
A motion seeking to collect that reimbursement has not yet been
filed.
Meanwhile, those overseeing the sisters' detention seem to be
taking the matter in stride.
"Usually, people want to get out of jail," Clear Creek County
Sheriff's Sgt. Rick Albers said. "I don't know what they're
doing, but it's strictly up to them."
brennanc@RockyMountainNews .com or (303) 892-2742
2002 © The E.W. Scripps Co.
*****************************************************************
36 U.N. Team Inspects Iraqi Nuclear Complex
ABCNEWS.com :
December 4, 2002
(AP Photo) U.N. Team Inspects Iraqi Nuclear Complex U.N.
Inspectors Visit Former Chemical Weapons Factory in Iraq While
Second Team Visits Nuclear Complex
The Associated Press
AL-MUTHANNA STATE ESTABLISHMENT, Iraq Copyright 2002 The
Associated Press. All rights reserved. Dec. 4 — U.N. inspectors
entered a former chemical weapons factory in the desert Wednesday
while a second team of monitors inspected an Iraqi nuclear
complex.
A team of inspectors who work for the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the
International Atomic Energy Agency, went to the al-Tuwaitha
nuclear complex, about 16 miles southeast of Baghdad.
Israeli warplanes attacked al-Tuwaitha in 1981, destroying the
nuclear reactor known as Tamouz. The site was heavily bombed
during the Gulf war in 1991, but recent satellite photos have
spotted new construction. Wednesday's inspection was presumably
designed to determine the purpose of the new structures.
The inspectors who drove to the desert chemical weapons factory
were making a return visit to check that Iraq had not resumed
production at the site.
In the late 1990s, U.N. inspectors demolished the al-Muthanna
State Establishment, in wastelands 40 miles northwest of Baghdad,
after finding it had been key to Iraq's production of some of the
deadliest chemical weapons known: mustard gas, tabun, sarin and
VX nerve agent.
Al-Muthanna also became instrumental in the development of
biological agents, apparently including anthrax.
The desert center operated under the name of Iraqi State
Establishment for Pesticide Production, but the Iraqis finally
admitted to the U.N. monitors that al-Muthanna produced 4,000
tons of chemical warfare agent per year.
Wednesday's searches came at the end of the first week of renewed
inspections under a U.N. Security Council mandate for Iraq to
shut down any continuing chemical, biological or nuclear weapons
programs.
When the inspectors arrived at the remote front gate of
al-Muthanna at 10:25 a.m., after a circuitous drive from Baghdad,
they were admitted quickly to what appeared to be a vast desert
installation.
Al-Muthanna appeared to cover at least several square miles. From
the outer gate, through a morning fog, the ruins of scattered
buildings could be seen.
The site was bombed by U.S. planes in the 1991 Gulf War and then
had its equipment and material destroyed under the supervision of
U.N. inspectors in the late 1990s.
The disarmament of al-Muthanna was a major achievement of the
U.N. inspectorate. A recent Iraqi report said the U.N. teams at
al-Muthanna had destroyed 38,500 artillery shells and other
chemical-filled weapons, almost 520,000 gallons of liquid
material, 150 pieces of equipment used to make chemical weapons,
and four production facilities.
So far, the inspectors have reported the Iraqis to be generally
cooperating. In New York on Tuesday, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi
Annan described Iraq's cooperation as good, but he cautioned
"this is only the beginning."
Annan's assessment appeared at odds with that of President Bush,
who said Monday that early signs from Baghdad "are not
encouraging."
A senior Iraqi official said Tuesday that his government will
reaffirm that it no longer has mass destruction weapons in a
long-awaited declaration later this week.
In Vienna, Austria, Melissa Fleming, spokeswoman for the U.N.
nuclear control agency, said the Iraqis were expected to submit
their report to the U.N. office in Baghdad on Saturday one day
before the deadline mandated by the Security Council.
Gen. Hossam Mohammed Amin, the chief Iraqi liaison officer, told
Baghdad reporters that the Iraqi declaration "will include new
elements, but those new elements don't mean that Iraq has weapons
of mass destruction.
"Iraq is free of weapons of mass destruction," Amin said.
The Bush administration alleges Iraq retains chemical and
biological weapons missed during the 1990s inspections and has
not abandoned its nuclear weapons program.
Bush threatens to wage war on Iraq with or without U.N. sanction
if it doesn't disarm. Other governments say that only the
Security Council can authorize an attack on Iraq in a situation
not involving immediate self-defense.
The Iraqi Foreign Ministry on Wednesday criticized the inspectors
for their visit to the presidential palace, Al-Sajoud, the
previous day.
A statement issued by an unidentified ministry spokesman
questioned the validity of the visit.
"What did they search for in Al-Sajoud Palace?" the statement
asked. "Was this visit really to search for banned weapons or for
other aims?"
Tuesday's search of the opulent palace in western Baghdad was the
first time the U.N. inspectors had entered a presidential
compound since inspections resumed last week.
Inspections of presidential palaces in the 1990s had to be
undertaken according to strict rules agreed with the Iraqis.
However, Tuesday's visit took place under the new U.N. Security
Council mandate that gives inspectors the right to enter
presidential compounds without notice or any other restriction.
The visit was seen as a test of the new mandate.
The inspectors left Al-Sajoud palace after 1 1/2 hours, issuing
no comment to reporters as they departed.
The inspectors of the 1990s eliminated tons of Iraqi chemical and
biological weapons and the equipment to make them, dismantled
Iraq's effort to build nuclear bombs, and destroyed scores of
longer-range Iraqi missiles. However, the inspectors reported
that they suspected they had not found all of Iraq's weapons of
mass destruction.
photo credit and caption:
A U.N. weapons inspector walks past an Iraqi officer as he
transfers a box of equipment between two UNMOVIC vehicles in the
Al-Muthanna state establishment 70 kms (40 miles) north west of
Baghdad Wednesday Dec. 4, 2002. The Al-Muthanna complex was the
main production facility for chemical and biological agent
production in the 1990's. Previous weapon inspection teams
rendered the facility inoperative. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)
Copyright 2002 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This
*****************************************************************
37 Plaintiff elated Rocketdyne case moving forward
Chemical perchlorate found in Simi wells
Ventura County Star: County News
Simi woman, 17 others suing firm
By Roberta Freeman, [rfreeman@insidevc.com]
December 4, 2002
Miriam Hintz, of Simi Valley, said she has long been suspicious
of activities on the hilltop perch of the Santa Susana Field Lab.
"All those plumes of smoke and the house shaking," Hintz said,
referring to rocket testing at the site.
Suspicion turned to concern when Hintz, 45, developed a large
growth on her thyroid in 1994. With no history of thyroid
disorders in her family, Hintz thought it was odd. In July of the
same year, two employees were killed in a blast at Rocketdyne,
but Hintz didn't immediately make a connection between her
illness and the events unfolding in the hills above Simi Valley.
"When those strange accidents occurred I started to wonder, 'What
is going on up there?' " Hintz said.
Two other employees later were charged with felonies, accused of
illegally burning chemical waste at a secluded outdoor test site
that caused the deaths. Rocketdyne's parent company, Rockwell
International, was fined $6.5 million by the federal government
after pleading guilty to improper storage and disposal of
hazardous materials -- both felonies -- in 1996.
Ultimately, it was concern for her two children that prompted
Hintz to join 51 other residents in waging a lawsuit against
Boeing Rocketdyne in 1997. The Hintz family is Jewish and sends
their children to summer camp at Brandeis-Bardin Institute near
Rocketdyne. They were alarmed when, in 1997, Rocketdyne reached
an undisclosed settlement with Brandeis-Bardin, after it accused
Rocketdyne of polluting its ground water and devaluing its
property. Some of the institute's property, which had belonged to
Rocketdyne, was returned to the company.
Fearing that contamination from the Rocketdyne site was affecting
local health, residents who lived near the lab in the Simi and
San Fernando valleys sued. Plaintiffs charged Boeing Rocketdyne
with causing increased incidence of cancer, thyroid disorders,
various diseases and other health problems from pollution of the
air, soil and ground water over a period of more than 40 years.
Five years have passed since Hintz and the others filed suit, and
Hintz was pleased, but surprised, to hear that she is one of 18
of the 52 original plaintiffs who will be able to move ahead with
her lawsuit. Attorneys on Monday had not yet contacted clients
about a decision issued by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on
Nov. 27.
The three-judge panel ruled 2-1 in favor of reversing a
lower-court ruling that had determined the group had not filed
suit in a timely manner and therefore had barred it from pursuing
the suit. Despite the victory for 18 of the original plaintiffs,
the 9th Circuit judges did uphold the ruling against 34 others,
citing various reasons, including insufficient evidence of why
they were filing claims against Boeing.
The 9th Circuit decision not only clears the way for the 18
plaintiffs to move ahead with their suits, but also could open
the door for another 314 people who are waiting to file suit,
accusing Rocketdyne of making them sick.
"Our attorneys have not yet advised me what the next move is, but
the cases are completely without merit," Rocketdyne spokesman Dan
Beck said Tuesday.
Throughout the proceedings, Beck said, none of the plaintiffs had
any scientific proof to back up their claims. If the cases were
to go to trial, he said, Boeing would prevail.
Hintz, now permanently on thyroid medication for a disorder often
associated with exposure to perchlorate, is more concerned about
the principle of the lawsuit than any cash settlement.
Perchlorate, a chemical that is associated with rocket fuel,
explosives and is used in other applications, has not been linked
to cancer in humans, but high doses can lead to thyroid
disorders, according to the state Department of Toxic Substances
Control.
"That lawsuit had to happen," she said. "People need to be made
aware that they (Rocketdyne) did not clean things up properly
there."
Boeing officials continue to maintain that contaminants have not
been emitted from the site into the community and that the
plaintiffs' claims are without merit. Nuclear testing has been
discontinued, and Rocketdyne is in the midst of a $186 million
environmental cleanup effort that has stirred debate in the
community for years. Critics want to see a more complete program
of environmental testing for contamination and cleanup than the
U.S. Department of Energy has been willing to pay for.
A Ventura man, prohibited by the 9th Circuit judges from pursuing
his claim further, shrugged at the news.
"I understand how these things go on and on," Miles Teicher, 80,
said.
Before moving to Ventura, Teicher and his wife, Jacqueline, lived
for 20 years in Bell Canyon, a mile from Rocketdyne. In 1987,
Teicher was diagnosed with bladder cancer, a disease found to be
at higher than normal levels in the census tracts around
Rocketdyne, according to a study conducted in the early 1990s by
the California Department of Health Services.
Teicher, who did not know why he was barred from pursuing a
lawsuit, is now in remission from the disease, but his wife, 71,
has bladder cancer and is on chemotherapy.
Teicher reflected back on all the years he and his wife inhaled
the belching smoke emanating from the testing at the lab and
wondered aloud about the possible health consequences from
breathing the "second-hand smoke."
"I don't know much about the environment, but you have to think
that had an effect," he said.
2001 © The E.W. Scripps Co. Ventura County Star
*****************************************************************
38 Experienced contractor passes on Oak Ridge cleanup project
KnoxNews: Local
By Frank Munger, News-Sentinel senior writer
December 4, 2002
OAK RIDGE - One of the biggest cleanup projects in recent years
will go up for bids soon, perhaps as early as this week, but BNFL
Inc. - the most experienced contractor - insists it will remain
on the sidelines.
The project involves the decommissioning of two old
uranium-enrichment facilities, K-25 and K-27, at the U.S.
Department of Energy's Oak Ridge complex.
BNFL officials earlier complained about plans to use a
fixed-price contract on the big project and tried to get Bechtel
Jacobs Co., the government's cleanup manager, to change that
strategy to cost-plus-fee or some other arrangement.
But John Christian, BNFL's vice president for decommissioning and
decontamination, said the company is not pouting because it
didn't get its way.
The decision to boycott the bidding is a business decision, pure
and simple, he said.
The financial exposure to a company doing the work on a
fixed-price basis is too great, Christian said.
He cited the uncertainties of the cleanup and the possibility
that a company may have to invest large sums of cash to keep work
going while negotiating cost issues that arise during the
project.
BNFL, the American subsidiary of British Nuclear Fuels, has
acknowledged that it will probably lose in excess of $150 million
on its current project. In 1998, the company signed a $238
million fixed-price contract to clean up three other
uranium-processing buildings - K-29, K-31 and K-33.
According to Christian, the financial impact of that project is
more than just the anticipated losses. BNFL has had to invest at
least double that amount on the Oak Ridge project while awaiting
settlement of cost overruns with DOE, he said.
"The cash requirements to keep the project running will run well
in excess of any losses . . . and money isn't free. You have to
pay for money," Christian said.
The BNFL executive said the Department of Energy has been
"professional and fair" in responding to the contractor's
requests for cost adjustments. About 80 percent of the company's
claims have been settled so far, he said.
The problem is that were so many changes in the scope of the
cleanup work, and those changes had to be negotiated after the
project began, Christian said.
"There were changes on changes on top of changes," he said.
The company cannot risk that type of financial drain on the
K-25/K-27 work, especially if the cleanup uncertainties are
similar to those found on the current project, Christian said.
The new contract coming up bids is the second of three phases of
cleanup at the K-25 and K-27 buildings. The first phase focused
on asbestos removal. The second phase is equipment removal and
disposal. The third phase, to be bid later, will involve
demolition of the two huge buildings, one of which is a mile long
in a U-shape.
Bechtel Jacobs and DOE have maintained that the scope of work
will be clearly defined for upcoming contract at K-25 and K-27.
They also have said that fixed-price contracting gets the best
value for taxpayers and supports the accelerated cleanup program
in Oak Ridge.
Steve Liedle, the president of Bechtel Jacobs, said the upcoming
work will be broken down into well characterized units that can
be charted throughout the process. He also said the winning
contractor will be paid in regular increments that should
eliminate the need for large cash outlays to keep the project
going.
Liedle questioned why BNFL would declare its intent and concerns
before ever seeing the scope of work on K-25/K-27.
He said he's confident that Bechtel Jacobs will receive an
adequate number of fixed-price bids from other companies with the
expertise to do the work.
"Absolutely," Liedle said.
Mark Allen, the director of projects for Bechtel Jacobs, said the
K-25/K-27 project will have far fewer uncertainties than BNFL's
three-building project.
Christian said that kind of statement makes him wonder if anybody
values BNFL's four-year experience in Oak Ridge. BNFL is the only
company that has done any extensive work in decommissioning the
gaseous diffusion equipment, once used to separate U-235 for
bombs and reactor fuel.
Much of the uranium-laden equipment remains under classification
requirements.
Liedle said the how-to knowledge resides with the Oak Ridge
workforce, and he said many of those workers with security
clearances will become available for the new project when BNFL's
work concludes in 2004.
While Christian said BNFL will not bid on the K-25/K-27 project,
he said the company definitely plans to make future bids on other
projects at Oak Ridge and other uranium-enrichment plants at
Portsmouth, Ohio, and Paducah, Ky.
He also didn't rule out the possibility of working as a
subcontractor to whomever wins the fixed-price contract from
Bechtel Jacobs.
"Under the right scope and right terms I would work for another
subcontractor," Christian said.
It's not clear, however, how many companies will actually submit
bids on the big cleanup projects. About a half-dozen reportedly
have pre-qualified for the work.
Other companies have raised similar concerns to those expressed
by BNFL.
Jenny Freeman, executive director of the East Tennessee
Environmental Business Association, which represents about 120
companies that do cleanup work in Oak Ridge, said there is a
strong sentiment against fixed-price contracting on complex
cleanup projects.
She recently conducted a survey on what type of pricing scenario
companies would like to see on the K-25/K-27 project.
"Not one company chose fixed price," Freeman said. "In fact,
several responded by saying they wouldn't consider bidding. It's
the complexity and the uncertainty and the risk associated with
that work."
Freeman said she wouldn't venture a guess on how many companies
will be bid on the cleanup project, but she said she believes the
fixed-price strategy will hurt the competition.
Frank Munger can be reached at 865-482-9213 or
twig1@knoxnews.infi.net.
The Knoxville News-Sentinel Co. All Rights Reserved.
*****************************************************************
39 LANL money woes surprise Richardson
* Gov.-elect Bill Richardson said Tuesday that when he served as
Energy secretary he was unaware of any allegations of financial
wrongdoing at Los Alamos National Laboratory or attempts to cover
up such problems.
"All I can say about what happened at the labs, that better not
happen here in state government," Richardson said at a news
conference when asked about recent problems at LANL.
Richardson will take office as governor in January. He served as
DOE secretary of the Energy Department from August 1998 until
January 2001. The University of California operates the
nuclear-weapons laboratory for DOE.
The DOE and the FBI are looking into allegations of theft and
fraud at the lab, including millions of dollars in missing
equipment and abuse of lab purchase cards and credit cards.
The DOE's office of inspector general says it is investigating
whether lab managers have tried to cover up the problems.
Lab officials say they have been cooperating fully with the
federal investigations.
/©Santa Fe New Mexican 2002/
*****************************************************************
40 Timeline of operations at Ohio' uranium plant
AP Wire | 12/04/2002 |
BEACON JOURNAL
Associated Press
A look at the history of the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant
in southern Ohio:
1950s - Uranium conversion operations begin at a government-owned
plant in Paducah, Ky., in 1952. That same year, Pike County,
Ohio, is chosen for the new Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant,
which goes on line in 1954. Full production starts two years
later.
1964 - The power industry begins buying lower-grade uranium from
the Ohio and Kentucky plants for use in commercial nuclear power
plants.
1976_ The Department of Energy breaks ground in Piketon on a $4.4
billion centrifuge technology plant, which would replace the
gaseous diffusion process of enriching uranium.
1985 - DOE briefly tests, then abandons work on centrifuge
technology in favor of another more promising uranium enrichment
method: Atomic Vapor Laser Isotope Separation process, or AVLIS.
1991 - Portsmouth plant is reconfigured to eliminate its ability
to produce military-grade uranium.
1993 - Russian Federation agrees to ship uranium from old
warheads to the United States to be sold commercially to nuclear
power plants.
1995 - First shipment of Russian uranium arrives at the
Portsmouth plant. A plan for privatizing plant operator, the U.S.
Enrichment Corp., is sent to President Clinton.
1996 - The USEC Privatization Act is signed into law.
1998 - The government sells the government-owned corporation now
known as USEC Inc. for $1.9 billion in a public stock offering.
Stock for the Bethesda, Md.-based company finishes its first day
at $14.25 a share.
1999 - USEC abandons AVLIS after spending $100 million because it
says additional work on the project would take too long, cost too
much and provide too little profit.
2000 - Amid plunging stock prices, lower earnings and junk bond
credit ratings, USEC announces it will shut down the Portsmouth
plant.
2001 - USEC stops uranium enrichment operations at its Portsmouth
plant and consolidates work at Paducah. About 530 workers lose
their jobs.
2002_ USEC moves some shipping and transfer jobs from Portsmouth
to Paducah; DOE agrees to allow the company to continue importing
Russian uranium; DOE agrees to build plants in Ohio and Kentucky
to convert spent uranium into a more stable form; USEC agrees to
build a commercial centrifuge plant and announces it will build a
smaller test plant in Piketon.
| [http://www.knightridderdigital.com/about/about.htm] Terms of
*****************************************************************
41 Nickel disposal meeting called
[http://www.paducahsun.com/]
The Paducah Sun
Paducah, Kentucky
Wednesday, December 04, 2002
U.S. Department of Energy officials wants to recycle 6 1/2 tons
of slightly radioactive metal but wants suggestions how to do it.
By Bill Bartleman bbartleman@paducahsun.com--270.575.8650
Representatives of at least five firms will meet with U.S.
Department of Energy officials Thursday to discuss proposals for
recycling more than 13,000 tons of scrap nickel, most of which is
stored at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant.
It is DOE's latest effort to find a use for the nickel that was
once used in production equipment at enrichment plants in
Paducah; Piketon, Ohio; and Oak Ridge, Tenn. The nickel, which
has a low level of radioactive contamination, has a potential
value of more than $10 million.
The proposals will be limited to use in government or commercial
nuclear industry because of a 1999 ban imposed by the Clinton
administration prohibiting the metal's use in consumer products.
The ban was imposed after environmental and health groups
expressed concern that recycling the nickel for use in consumer
products would cause a health risk. Supporters of recycling,
however, say the contamination levels are below federal standards
and don't pose a health threat.
"If the ideas we receive on Thursday look promising, we'll draft
a request for proposals and invite firms to submit formal bids
for the recycling," said Rich Meehan, team leader of DOE's
facility reuse operation in Oak Ridge. He said the request should
be out by February.
The firms were not identified.
In the request for solicitations, DOE said it is "particularly
interested in concepts that would result in beneficial impacts to
local communities at Paducah, Portsmouth and Oak Ridge."
The benefit would be in the form of jobs created at a recycling
facility.
Meehan said it is too early to predict whether recycling plants
would be built at all three sites, one site or at another
location. "We'll have to wait and see what is in the proposals we
receive," Meehan said.
Paducah has 9,600 tons of nickel ingots in storage, and Oak Ridge
has 3,600 tons of shredded nickel. There is none stored in
Piketon.
DOE officials estimate that 21,000 more tons of scrap nickel will
be generated as plants are decommissioned at the three sites
during the next 25 years.
A recycling plant could employ 50 or more people, according to
previous estimates.
*****************************************************************
42 Energy Secretary Comments on United States Enrichment Corporation
Uranium Technology Announcement Domestic Enrichment of Nuclear
Plant Fuel Remains Key Administration Energy Priority
energy.gov - Headquarters' Press Release
December 4, 2002
WASHINGTON, DC - Responding today to the United States Enrichment
Corporation (USEC Inc.) announcement to site new uranium
enrichment technologies at the Department of Energy's Portsmouth,
Ohio, facility, U.S. Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham
applauded the progress industry is making to ensure that domestic
uranium enrichment activities remain a key contributor to
ensuring America's energy security and the future of nuclear
energy.
"As a clean, affordable and reliable energy source, nuclear
energy is important to the Nation's future energy supply,"
Secretary Abraham said. "As a first step, the establishment of
new technologies, like the lead cascade facility, will help
ensure long-term, domestic capacity to enrich uranium fuel for
our commercial nuclear reactors. USEC, and its partners in the
nuclear industry, continue to take important steps enhancing
national energy security with private sector development of
advanced American technology."
The site for a future uranium enrichment plant will be selected
from Portsmouth, Ohio, or Paducah, Kentucky, after satisfactory
demonstration of the technology at the Lead Cascade facility.
With this announcement, USEC Inc. will establish a test facility
for new uranium enrichment technologies and production, based on
28 years and more than $2 billion of research by the Department
of Energy to establish new enrichment technologies.
Today's announcement is an important milestone in the agreement
between the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and USEC Inc. signed
earlier this year. The agreement, signed on June 17, 2002, is
designed to meet three priorities for the Bush administration.
First, maintain America's nonproliferation initiative by
requiring USEC to take delivery and market commercial nuclear
fuel derived from Russian nuclear weapons at no expense to U.S.
taxpayers. Second, ensure the future of domestic uranium
enrichment operations through USEC's agreement to deploy a new
advanced technology enrichment plant at Portsmouth, Ohio, (by
2010) or Paducah, Kentucky (by 2011). Third, until an economic
replacement technology is deployed in the United States, continue
domestic enrichment of uranium at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion
Plant by requiring USEC to maintain production at a level of 3.5
million SWU (the standard unit of measure for enriched uranium
fuel) per year.
Media Contact: Joe Davis, 202-586-4940 Release No. PR-02-253
*****************************************************************
43 Toxic chemical found in 18 new Simi Valley wells
L.A. Daily News
Article Last Updated: Tuesday, December 03, 2002 -
By Lisa Mascaro Staff Writer
A toxic chemical has been found at 18 more wells across a wide
area of Simi Valley, but state investigators said Tuesday that
they cannot link the presence of perchlorate to Rocketdyne's
nearby Santa Susana Field Lab.
The substance was found in wells north of the hilltop field lab
about two months after it was discovered south of the lab, near
the proposed Ahmanson Ranch housing development.
No drinking water supplies have been contaminated with
perchlorate, which can cause thyroid dysfunction, officials said.
State investigators could not determine the chemical's source,
although they noted that Rocketdyne is the nearest known
location with perchlorate contamination.
"We're not any closer to an answer," said Gerard Abrams of the
state Department of Toxic Substances Control. "There seemed to
be no cluster of the detects in no one area or another. We
didn't see it in what we expected to be the pathways."
A spokeswoman for Rocketdyne, whose parent company Boeing owns
the longtime rocket and nuclear testing facility in the hills
between Simi Valley and Chatsworth, said science has yet to show
any link between contamination at the lab and in the community.
"We have yet to find anything out in the community that is
linked to our site," said Rocketdyne spokeswoman Blythe Jameson.
"The science just isn't there to have that pathway come from us."
She noted that perchlorate, a powdery white substance, is also
found in fireworks, and that company officials saw Fourth of
July celebrants this summer dousing fireworks in street water in
a neighborhood where perchlorate was initially found.
The company has previously said the perchlorate found near
Ahmanson Ranch did not come from its site.
However, anti-nuclear activist Daniel Hirsch, who has long
monitored cleanup at the site, said the finding further points
to the lab as a possible source of contamination in the
community below.
"This suggests that there is a very large potential problem
with leaking contaminants from Rocketdyne headed out off-site in
all directions," said Hirsch of the group Committee to Bridge
the Gap.
Rocketdyne had conducted rocket testing and nuclear energy
research for decades at the lab until chemical and nuclear
contamination was found in 1989. Some non-nuclear work
continues, and the lab is now undergoing a federally funded $186
million cleanup.
The state toxics department has been increasingly testing
groundwater in Simi Valley since perchlorate was found in a city
well in 2001.
More perchlorate was found earlier this year in four wells near
Erringer Road and Royal Avenue. The DTSC has continued its
investigation, taking water or soil samples from 80 wells, 25
seeps or springs and 30 drainage ditches between Rocketdyne and
Simi Valley.
The results released Tuesday showed perchlorate in 18 wells, as
far northeast as the intersection of Stearns Street and the
Ronald Reagan Freeway, and as far southwest as the original
findings. The highest reading was 19.2 parts per billion --
which is nearly five times the allowable limit of 4 ppb at a
well in the city.
Most of the wells tested were situated at gas stations, which
maintain wells for their own monitoring purposes. The state also
tested some private wells and those owned by a local water
company and found no contamination, Abrams said.
No perchlorate was detected in any of the springs or seeps in
the undeveloped area around Rocketdyne, or in the pounds of soil
taken from the canyons downhill, he said.
At Rocketdyne, perchlorate has been found in a former burn pit
where wastes were disposed and on the eastern part of the field
lab where propellant and munitions testing had been conducted,
Abrams said.
Concentrations as high as 600 ppb were found in that eastern
testing area, he said.
Abrams added that when investigators learned of the discovery
near the Ahmanson Ranch site south of the lab, they conducted
additional tests along Rocketdyne's southern border but found no
contamination.
Additionally, they have begun tests in northern Simi Valley, in
areas near current and abandoned landfills, but have found no
contamination.
The findings will be presented as part of an upcoming open
house and meeting of the Santa Susana Field Lab Workgroup, made
up of regulatory agencies and community representatives
monitoring the cleanup.
OPEN HOUSE ON FIELD LAB
The Santa Susana Field Lab Workgroup will hold an open house at
5:30 p.m. and a meeting from 6:30 to 10 p.m. Dec. 11 at the
Grand Vista Hotel, 999 Enchanted Way, Simi Valley. For
information, call the Environmental Protection Agency at (800)
455-7464.
RETURN TO TOP
Copyright © 2002 Los Angeles Daily News
*****************************************************************
44 Richardson: Unaware of abuses at LANL
The Current Argus
Tuesday, December 03, 2002 - 11:03:11 PM MST
New Mexico Briefs By The Associated Press
SANTA FE - Gov.-elect Bill Richardson said Tuesday that when he
served as Energy secretary he was unaware of any allegations of
financial wrongdoing at Los Alamos National Laboratory or
attempts to cover up such problems.
"All I can say about what happened at the labs, that better not
happen here in state government," Richardson said at a news
conference when asked about recent problems at LANL.
Richardson will take office as governor in January. He served
as DOE secretary of the Energy Department from August 1998 until
January 2001.
The University of California operates the nuclear weapons
laboratory for DOE.
The DOE and the FBI are looking into allegations of theft and
fraud at the lab, including millions of dollars in missing
equipment and abuse of lab purchase cards and credit cards. The
DOE's office of inspector general says it is investigating
whether lab managers have tried to cover up the problems.
Lab officials say they have been cooperating fully with the
federal investigations into the allegation.
Albuquerque mayor vetoes smoking ban vote
ALBUQUERQUE - Mayor Martin Chavez has vetoed a proposal that
would have let city voters decide whether to ban smoking in
bars, restaurants and other public places in New Mexico's
largest city.
The complexity of the ordinance made it a poor choice for a
referendum, Chavez said in vetoing it Monday.
The mayor also said he feared the debate over smoking would
overshadow more important issues in the October municipal
elections.
"It'll dominate everything," he said.
Chavez said he would support a ban on smoking in restaurants.
Councilor Brad Winter, who proposed the referendum, said he
would ask the council to overturn Chavez's veto. An override
would take six votes from the nine-member council.
The referendum had been approved on a 6-3 vote of the council
last month.
Border Patrol seizes ton of marijuana
SANTA TERESA - Border Patrol agents seized 1,865 pounds of
marijuana from a sport-utility vehicle near Santa Teresa after
the driver rammed a patrol vehicle.
Agents estimate the marijuana, found wrapped in 256 bundles, is
worth $1.5 million.
The SUV was spotted crossing the U.S.-Mexico border about two
miles west of the Santa Teresa port of entry Monday. When agents
tried to stop it, it headed south toward Mexico, ramming the
Border Patrol vehicle and disabling it along the way, agents
said.
The vehicle drove through the desert and hit a storage
container a half mile north of the port of entry, authorities
said.
The driver was identified as 20-year-old Saul Lopez of Ciudad
Juarez, Mexico.
~
© 1999-2002 MediaNews Group, Inc.
*****************************************************************
45 TSCA fuels accelerated cleanup
The Oak Ridger Online -- Area News --
12:08 p.m. on Wednesday, December 4, 2002
by R. Cathey Daniels
Oak Ridger staff
Slated for shutdown in 2003, the Toxic Substances Control Act
Incinerator earlier this year received a stay of execution until
2006.
That's in part because the only incinerator in the nation
permitted to burn low-level radioactive wastes and
polychlorinated biphenyls is considered a gas pedal for local
accelerated cleanup.
"It's a part of our accelerated cleanup plan," said Bob Sleeman
of the Department of Energy. "That operation is part of the
commitment we made to ship waste off-site, to dispose of all
legacy low-level waste stored on site, in some cases for over a
decade, by (fiscal year) 2005."
The cost to dispose of all legacy low-level waste is about $80
million, according to Sleeman.
"That disposal cuts across all three (projects) -- there's
low-level waste in all areas, so we consider it a cross-cutting
issue."
Accelerated cleanup is the latest DOE initiative to clean
high-risk projects first and fast, and DOE sites that agree get
a boost in funding.
The K-25 site, Melton Valley and the "balance of programs" are
the three main projects on DOE's Oak Ridge Reservation list to
clean and close in the next several years.
"When the DOE headquarters looked at how long the incinerator
would be needed to handle complex-wide needs, their reaction was
to run it through 2006," said Sleeman.
The incinerator also got a boost in lifespan when Assistant
Energy Secretary Jesse Roberson ran into stumbling blocks when
searching for commercial alternatives.
As is typical each year, incinerator operators are awaiting
both federal funding and the state's final OK on the burn plan
for fiscal year 2003.
The state has been pressuring the DOE to ship more waste
off-site in return for the agency's Oak Ridge Operations
accepting other states' shipments, and has turned up the heat
this year to complete reciprocal agreements.
Sleeman said he's working on it.
"The state would like to see more progress this year," said
Sleeman, who noted plans call for the bulk to be shipped in 2004
and 2005.
"I have faith we should be able to do it, every indication is
that Congress is supportive of accelerated cleanup, so hopefully
we'll get the money."
R. Cathey Daniels can be contacted at (865) 220-5515 or
danielsrcd@oakridger.com [danielsrcd@oakridger.com] .
All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger
*****************************************************************
46 New uranium enrichment technology to be developed at Ohio or
Kentucky
The Oak Ridger Online -- State News --
12/04/02
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A $150 million facility that will test a new
way to produce nuclear fuel would bring economic promise to the
Ohio or Kentucky site that lands the project.
USEC Inc. planned to announce Wednesday which one of its two
plants will host the test project. Construction on the test
facility was expected to begin in 2004 with operations starting
in 2005.
The company has pledged to build by 2010 a permanent plant that
will use new centrifuge technology to process uranium into
nuclear fuel for use at commercial power plants. The state that
lands the test project would be in a good position to be chosen
for the permanent facility.
USEC, a privatized federal corporation, ceased
uranium-enrichment production at its Portsmouth Gaseous
Diffusion Plant in Piketon, Ohio, last year and consolidated
operations at its sister plant in Paducah, K.Y. The Ohio plant
remains on standby, with 1,350 employees.
In centrifuge processing, which is used in several other
countries, uranium molecules are separated by gravity in tall,
spinning cylinders, allowing technicians to extract enriched
uranium and waste. The method uses 10 percent of the power
needed for the 1940s-era gaseous diffusion process and produces
much less waste.
Centrifuge technology was tested briefly at the Piketon plant
in the 1980s, then abandoned when the federal government
predicted laser technology would be the future of uranium
processing. Now, centrifuge is again the government's top choice.
The Bush administration has pledged about $70 million in 2004
to clean up the Piketon plant's never-opened plant, which houses
1,300 centrifuge cylinders. Now, these machines stand locked
behind a thick fence topped with barbed wire and monitored by an
armed guard.
The federal funding and the existing centrifuge buildings have
been considered advantages for Ohio's bid. The Piketon site in
southern Ohio also has less risk of an earthquake because the
Paducah site is near the New Madrid fault, which could mean a
bigger price tag for a plant.
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