***************************************************************** 07/06/02 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 10.172 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POLICY 1 US: Landfills opened to radioactive waste 2 Guidelines needed for reactor demolition NUCLEAR REACTORS 3 [radiation-survivors] radiation news 4 US: NRC engineers wanted to shut Davis-Besse 5 Installation of new security system at nuclear power plants to 6 From Chernobyl with love 7 Gauge trouble reported at nuclear plant NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 8 US: Moving nuclear waste a target for terrorists, activists 9 Greenpeace activists stage protest at Japan embassy over nuclear 10 Protests build as nuclear fuel is shipped back to Britain 11 US: Revised nuclear waste dump plans could change Sen. Durbin’s stan 12 US: Grave Unanswered Questions About Nuclear Waste Disposal 13 US: EPA may clean up site, seek payment 14 US: A CLOSER LOOK: THE BATTLE OVER YUCCA - Foes face off before vote 15 US: Benton Harbor toxic site cleanup is uncertain 16 NZ: Nuke ships not welcome in our waters 17 US: Abraham once expressed concern over plutonium shipment 18 US: Scientists creating Yucca warning signs to last 10,000 years 19 US: Yucca mineral deposits bolster state's argument 20 US: Train derailments up 26% since 1997 NUCLEAR WEAPONS 21 US: Atomic legacy: Test Site museum will preserve history of nuclear 22 Does Egypt want nuclear weapons? 23 US: Bill bars nuclear warheads US DEPT. OF ENERGY 24 Construction due to start on Hanford cleanup plant ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 Landfills opened to radioactive waste SignOnSanDiego.com > News > State/The West -- State gives consent despite judge's ban By Dana Wilkie COPLEY NEWS SERVICE July 4, 2002 WASHINGTON  California this week began allowing biotech companies, hospitals and universities to again send their low-level radioactive waste to regular landfills even though a judge banned the practice. Since the judge's April ruling, companies have not been allowed to occupy, rent or sell property where they had once used radiation because the judge struck down state laws governing whether the property is free enough of radioactivity to use for something else. But on Monday, the state allowed 15 companies that use radiation to immediately close old offices so they can move or expand to new ones  and allowed radioactive waste to be dumped at landfills. "We are moving forward to get back to business as usual," said Kevin Reilly, deputy director for prevention services with the California Department of Health Services. He would not reveal the names or locations of the 15 companies, though sources said some were in San Diego. State officials are now relying on an old regulation  one they believe the court ruling does not cover  that requires companies to clean properties to radiation levels "as low as reasonably achievable." In most cases, Reilly said, this will result in about half the amount of radiation that California was allowing at landfills before. But critics said this leaves things exactly as they were before Sacramento Superior Court Judge Gail D. Ohanesian ruled that the state must first conduct environmental studies of its policy. "I think the judge, the moment she reads this, is going to be infuriated," said Daniel Hirsch, director of the Committee to Bridge the Gap, which won April's ruling. "We view this as contempt of court." Biotech companies  which worried about a chilling effect on an industry that has helped revolutionize and enrich the state's economy  were elated. "When you unnecessarily terrify people about low levels of radiation that are not harmful, there are consequences that could be economically devastating," said Terese Ghio, a spokeswoman for BIOCOM San Diego, a trade group for biotech companies. About 2,500 hospitals, universities, engineering firms and biotech companies in California use radiation, often to conduct research, such as tracking cancer-fighting drugs in animals. (About 300 of them are in San Diego.) The resulting contamination  on glassware, paper towels, gloves and counters  needs to be cleaned to the state's satisfaction before companies can close old offices. Each year, the state releases as many as 100 companies from their radioactive licenses so the firms can end their leases, sell their property or use it for something else. Such mobility is common among biotech companies that are expanding. But because public outcries and political maneuvering killed a low-level radioactive waste dump planned for the Mojave Desert, such waste is piling up at sites across California. Since 1997, California had allowed radioactive debris to go to landfills  those that take household garbage  after it was cleaned to a level that would expose a person to no more than 25 millirems of radioactivity a year. The average person is exposed to about 300 millirems of radioactivity each year. After Ohanesian struck down that practice, the dumping was stopped and some buildings were put in limbo. Then health authorities decided to rely on a regulation they had used before they adopted the 1997 standard. Last Thursday, state Attorney General Bill Lockyer told Ohanesian that companies would now clean property to radiation levels "as low as reasonably achievable," and no higher than 25 millirems a year. Once waste meets that standard, the state says it can go to normal landfills. This means health officials will now consider the costs and time involved in a clean-up before deciding how much radiation can be left at a property. Biotech companies typically clean their property to relatively low levels  about 2.5 millirems a year, Reilly said. No matter what the radiation levels, the court may conclude that the state is defying its order. "The bottom line is they're going to try to submit the same (rules) again, but they'll say, 'This isn't the one you ruled on,' " said state Sen. Shiela Kuehl, a Los Angeles Democrat who wrote a bill tightening rules for radioactive-waste dumping. "My guess is that it will fail under the same test that the court" used in April. Keith Asmussen, director of licensing, safety and nuclear compliance with General Atomics in San Diego, said he hopes the state's lawyers are correct. "This still protects the health and safety of the public," Asmussen said, "and it allows a business to conduct business." © Copyright 2002 Union-Tribune Publishing Co. ***************************************************************** 2 Guidelines needed for reactor demolition Daily Yomiuri On-Line Kyoichi Sasazawa Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer Thirty-six years after the nation's first nuclear reactor began commercial operation, the decommissioning of old reactors is becoming a headache for power companies. Just as their European and U.S. counterparts have, the companies face having their profits eroded by the time and money required to decommission the reactors. There are 53 power-generating reactors in Japan, 52 of which are light-water reactors that use light-water (ordinary water) to extract heat from the reactor cores and to moderate the nuclear reactions. The oldest is Tsuruga Power Station Unit 1 in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture, which began operations in March 1970. The unit's operator, Japan Atomic Power Co., announced in May that it will cease operations at the 32-year-old reactor in 2010 and decommission it. It will be the third nuclear reactor to be decommissioned in the country following the company's Tokai Power Station in Tokaimura, Ibaraki Prefecture, which was Japan's first commercial nuclear power station, and Fugen, a nuclear converter reactor operated by the Japan Nuclear Cycle Development Institute in Tsuruga. Operations are to cease at the reactor just as it reaches its life expectancy of 40 years. Following the removal of spent nuclear fuel, it will take a further 10 to 20 years to decommission the unit, company officials said. Japan Atomic Power Co. President Yoshihiko Sumi said the company decided to close the plant after giving much consideration to its power output and economic potential. At the time nuclear reactors were first built in Japan, they were expected to have a life span of 30 to 40 years. However, in February 1999, the government ruled that electric companies could continue operating plants for up to 60 years provided maintenance and plant inspections were enhanced. Such assurances, however, are unlikely to comfort residents in areas where old reactors are in use. Tsuruga Power Station Unit 1, with an output of just 357,000 kilowatts, is not competitive with modern reactors, which have an output of more than 1 million kilowatts. The Japan Atomic Power Co. also plans to build additional units, Unit 3 and Unit 4, with outputs of 1,538,000 kilowatts each, near the site of Unit 1 at a power station on the Tsuruga Peninsula. Peninsula residents have said they will support the power companies as long as the number of nuclear reactors on the peninsula does not exceed 15. The officials noted that the new plants would not push the number of plants above this limit if the station's Unit 1 and Fugen, of Japan Nuclear Cycle Development Institute, were demolished. In addition to providing an opportunity to operate bigger nuclear reactors, closure of the plant will be a valuable chance for the power company to study technology related to the decommissioning of light-water reactors, which will be needed more in the future. More plants near end of life More than 30 years also have passed since operations began at Mihama Nuclear Power Plant Unit 1 of Kansai Electric Power Co. (KEPCO) in Mihamacho, Fukui Prefecture, and Fukushima Daiichi Power Station Unit 1 of Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) in Okumamachi, Fukushima Prefecture. The Mihama Nuclear Power Plant Unit 2 also will be 30 years old on July 25. Both KEPCO and TEPCO have not yet revealed when they will stop operations at the reactors, but plan to run them at least until about 2010 when Tsuruga Power Station Unit 1 will close. A TEPCO official said that advances in technology and maintenance techniques enable the company to safely continue operating old reactors. One of the reasons the electric companies cannot specify when they will close the reactors is the high cost of decommissioning. Japan Atomic Power Co. estimates it will cost about 32 billion yen to decommission Tsuruga Power Station Unit 1. However, that is considered cheap compared to the average of 60 billion yen that it costs to decommission a 1-million-megawatt light-water reactor. Japan Atomic Power Co. wants to reduce costs by developing more efficient technology, but decommission costs could be even higher because the disposal of radioactive contaminated waste material is still a new area of expertise, nuclear experts said. It is estimated that it will cost more than 100 billion yen to decommission Fugen, which is a nuclear converter reactor. Electric companies already include estimated decommissioning costs in electricity bills to their subscribers. If decommissioning costs are higher than expected that portion of the bill would increase, raising the cost of electricity generated by nuclear power plants, the experts said. An electric company executive admitted that companies would actually lose money by decommissioning reactors, revealing that firms benefit financially from continuing to operate old reactors. Experts expect that many light-water reactors will be demolished in this country in the late 2010s, and that more than 10 reactors will be demolished almost at the same time after 2020. In Europe and North America, where nuclear reactors were introduced earlier than they were in Japan, the reactor decommissioning process is considered a business opportunity. Some companies in the nuclear business are involved in the decommissioning of reactors, and consultants are employed to estimate the cost of decommissioning. Copyright 2002 The Yomiuri Shimbun ***************************************************************** 3 [radiation-survivors] radiation news Date: Sat, 6 Jul 2002 00:20:47 -0500 (CDT) British scientists suspect that deaths and deformities caused by the 1986 Chernobyl disaster may have extended beyond the Ukraine, Russia and Belarus. According to the scientists, the cloud of radioactivity from the world's worst nuclear accident could have increased infant deaths and birth defects in England and Wales in the three years that followed. John Urquhart, a researcher based in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, estimated that at least 200 more children than normal died during those three years. He also calculated that the fallout may have caused more than 600 additional cases of Down Syndrome, spina bifida, cleft palate and other abnormalities. After studying deaths and birth defects in children born in 15 health regions of England and Wales between 1983 and 1992, Urquhart found that most of the deaths and deformities occurred in just five regions spread throughout the two countries. Urquhart stated, "We've probably been too complacent about the health effects from Chernobyl in Western Europe." Urquhart's findings were presented to a conference on low-level radiation that took place in June in Dublin. (source: Reuters, 26 June 2002) 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals Revives Hanford Radiation Cases The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals revived two lawsuits on 18 June filed by thousands who claimed they were sickened by radiation releases from the Hanford nuclear weapons complex. The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals ordered a federal trial court in Washington state to reconsider the claims that were dismissed in part in 1998. In one lawsuit, a judge dismissed 4,500 plaintiffs saying scientific evidence of radiation injury was too complex for a jury to determine. The suit was filed in 1990 after the US government admitted to secret radiation releases from 1945 to the early 1960s that could have harmed anyone living downwind from Hanford nuclear site where plutonium was made for 40 years for the nation's nuclear arsenal. In the second lawsuit with 1,000 plaintiffs, a judge dismissed all the claims except those from people who had certain types of cancer and from those who could show that exposure to radioactive emissions put them at great risk for those cancers. The appeals panel ruled that the lower court needed to consider whether there was proof that exposure to radiation at the level alleged by the plaintiffs could cause illness in the general population. The appeals panel also rejected contentions from five former Hanford contractors--E.I. Du Pont de Nemours & Co., General Electric Co., UNC Nuclear Industries, Atlantic Richfield co. and Rockwell International Corp.--that residents should have to show they were exposed to so much Hanford radiation that it more than doubled the risk of harm. Roy Haber, a lawyer representing about 600 plaintiffs, stated, "It's a great victory for the people who have suffered from the last 50 years as a result of enormous radiation releases from Hanford." (source: AP, 18 June 2002) Mapscience.org allows visitors to enter their addresses and view a map showing proximity to routes the US government would likely use to transport nuclear waste to the Yucca Mountain repository. It also shows proximity to the nearest nuclear power plant. http://www.mapscience.org ***************************************************************** 4 NRC engineers wanted to shut Davis-Besse The Plain Dealer 07/06/02 John Funk, John Mangels and Stephen Koff Plain Dealer Reporters Staff engineers at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission last fall wanted their bosses to order the shutdown of the Davis-Besse nuclear power station by year's end. They feared there might be dangerous cracks in nozzles in the reactor's lid. They were concerned about the lack of inspection information they were getting from the plant, according to NRC documents. And they realized FirstEnergy Corp. intended to operate the reactor without a new inspection beyond the time the NRC considered prudent. But top NRC managers ultimately decided not to issue the order. They reasoned it was "very unlikely" that cracks would cause the lid to rupture. They also judged that even if such an accident happened, the public's risk was acceptably low. They went along with Davis-Besse's request to operate six weeks beyond the Dec. 31 date the agency set for inspecting other nuclear plants. What neither the NRC nor FirstEnergy, Davis-Besse's operator, knew was that the reactor not only already had cracks, but also that acid in the reactor's coolant had leaked through them and bored a 5- by 7-inch hole all the way through the heavy steel lid. Only the lid's thin stainless steel liner, bulging into the hole, kept the radioactive coolant from spewing into the reactor building in an unprecedented accident. NRC Chairman Richard Meserve revealed the internal debate in a letter this week responding to questions about the close call at Davis-Besse. The questions came from U.S. Reps. Marcy Kaptur of Toledo and Edward Markey of Boston. "Had we been aware of the degradation [rust hole], the agency would have taken the appropriate regulatory actions to shut down the reactor for the required inspection," Meserve wrote. The NRC's inspector general is examining how the decision to delay the Davis-Besse inspection was reached, and whether it mirrored what the inspector general found to be a flawed agency decision in a similar case two years ago involving a reactor near New York City. "When Arthur Andersen gets it wrong, the shareholders pay the price," said Steve Fought, legislative director for Kaptur. "If the NRC gets it wrong, everybody could end up paying the price." Fought said Kaptur's congressional staff is reviewing Meserve's letter and its hundreds of supporting documents. "It's not just a question about the company," he said. "It's a question about how the NRC acted too." To justify a shutdown order, the NRC would have had to prove the action was necessary to protect the public, Meserve wrote. Relying on FirstEnergy's own risk assessment calculations, the NRC staff determined that operating the plant past Dec. 31 could increase the risk of a reactor core-damaging accident beyond what the agency normally would consider acceptable. But the chance of such an accident posing a danger to the public was low enough to be within the agency's allowable limits. Based on the information the agency had at the time, NRC managers decided they didn't have enough reason to halt Davis-Besse's operation early. "After considerable deliberation and increased [FirstEnergy] management attention, it is the staff's judgment that sufficient information is available to justify operation of the Davis-Besse facility until Feb. 16," according to a confidential NRC staff report issued Nov. 30, 2001. The date was a compromise, since FirstEnergy originally had sought to operate until March 31. During the shutdown, workers inspecting for cracks in the nozzles that allow control rods to pass through the reactor lid accidentally found the rust hole, covered by a thick layer of "lava-like" boric acid. The company is estimating it will spend $200 million buying replacement power and repairing the crippled reactor. The issue that prompted the debate within the NRC about what to do with Davis-Besse began last year. In early 2001, operators of a nuclear plant in South Carolina similar to Davis-Besse reported finding cracks in some of the stainless-steel tubes, or nozzles, that allow the reactor's control rods to pass through the lid and into the nuclear core. The cracks were large and threatened to encircle the nozzles, increasing the risk they would fracture and shoot out of the lid, propelled by the reactor's high operating pressure. The NRC last August alerted utilities across the nation operating all 69 pressurized water reactors like Davis-Besse. They asked 13 plants, including Davis-Besse, that were at the greatest risk for having the kinds of cracks found at the South Carolina facility to explain why they believed their reactors could safely operate beyond Dec. 31. FirstEnergy said it had reviewed inspection records from 1998 and 2000 and had concluded that there was no sign of leakage from nozzle cracking. It made this argument even though its own records showed that much of the reactor lid was caked with brown/red deposits of boric acid more than an inch thick and that workers had to use crowbars to remove the rock-hard deposits. The company wanted to delay inspection until its long-scheduled April 1, 2002, shutdown for refueling. That way, costs would be lower and inspectors' exposure to radiation would be limited. When the skeptical NRC staff asked for more information, FirstEnergy promised that it would lower the temperature of the reactor to limit growth of any cracks. It also pledged to defer inspection and maintenance of safety systems to keep them available in case of an accident. Finally, the company told the NRC it would give reactor operators special training on how to handle the kind of lid rupture the agency believed could happen at Davis-Besse. In an August internal memo, an NRC analyst worried that the operators' current level of training might be inadequate. "There is concern that the event would evolve in a different manner than that expected by plant operators and cause confusion," a staffer in the Division of Systems Safety and Analysis wrote. Union of Concerned Scientists nuclear engineer David Lochbaum said using risk assessment analysis to justify a six-week extension is flawed, charging that the NRC was merely looking for an excuse to allow the company to continue operating. "If you think nozzles are broken and you are not allowed to operate with broken nozzles, then I think your answer is that that is your answer," Lochbaum said. "When you don't like that answer . . . you play with the numbers again. That's what they did." © 2002 The Plain Dealer. Used with permission. © 2002 cleveland.com. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 5 Installation of new security system at nuclear power plants to cost $1m Pravda.RU Jul, 05 2002 [http://english.pravda.ru] $1m is required for the installation of the new passive nuclear security system SPOTIK at Russian nuclear power plants. Konstantin Soplenkov, director of the Tekhnologiya and Ekologiya company, reported at the presentation of the results of an examination of the SPOTIK system within the framework of a TACIS project that the development of this system had taken 10 years. The European Commission allocated EUR100,000 within the framework of the TACIS project for testing and analysis of the efficiency of that system in 2001. Tekhnika and Teknologiya as the holder of the patent for the SPOTIK system and the Nuclear Energy Ministry as the customer for the examination took part in this project on the Russian side. The analysis was conducted by experts of the French company Framatom-ANP. As Soplenkov underlined, the question of the installation of the passive protection system SPOTIK at Russian nuclear power plants will be resolved by the Rosenergoatom concern before the end of 2002. © RBC Pravda.RU: Copyright ©1999 by " [http://www.pravda.ru/] ". When reproducing our ***************************************************************** 6 From Chernobyl with love MetroWest Daily News.c o m - LOCAL NEWS Yuri Pichukov, 13, has his height and weight measured by nurse Donna Nugent. (Photos by John Nihen) Maksin Grabahenkov, 14, waits for phlembotomist Linda Roberts to take a blood sample at Caritas Norwood hospital. She is assisted by phlembotomist Gloria Denneen. MetroWest Daily E-NEWS By Brian Falla Friday, July 5, 2002 NORWOOD - Bob Bowers has been in villages near the site of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster and knows the havoc radiation still wreaks on the people there. He knows the water, the food, even the dirt is contaminated. But Bowers wore a huge smile Tuesday night, because dozens of children from those damaged villages were getting medical attention at Caritas Norwood Hospital. Bowers is president of Dedham-based Chernobyl Children Project USA, and he takes satisfaction in its efforts to help Russian, Belarussian and Ukrainian children suffering the effects of the disaster's radioactive fallout. "Look around," he said. "These people's lives will never be the same. They will be changed forever because of this experience." Patty Doyle remembers clearly when her kids burst into the house one day in 1995 and announced that the family was going to host kids from Chernobyl. Doyle never imagined that seven years later, she would be executive director of the program which brings children from villages poisoned by fallout to Boston for medical attention. Since 1995, when Doyle and nine other families hosted Chernobyl kids, the project has brought more than 800 children to the United States, where they receive checkups and treatment they cannot receive at home. Tuesday night, Doyle and a throng of hosts gathered at Caritas Norwood for the children's checkups. Although the American hosts could not speak the children's language, they wore the same worried expressions on their faces as parents everywhere. These children's lives were changed before many of them were born. The disaster, still considered the worst in history, took place April 26, 1986, at the Chernobyl nuclear plant, located in the town of Pripyat, in northern Ukraine, near the Belarus border. It is roughly 65 miles north of Kiev. The reactor exploded when engineers attempted an unauthorized experiment on one of the four plant reactors. The explosion spewed at least 8 tons of radioactive material into the air. It was reported that 32 people died from over-exposure to radiation the day of the explosion, but it is estimated that more than 8,000 have died from the effects since. Additionally, residents of the area have shown a high rate of thyroid cancer and birth defects from parents exposed to the radiation. "It's in their water, their food - affects anything with a root system in the soil," said Bowers. "When kids kick up dust, they are exposed to low levels of radiation. It's horrible." And it's that constant exposure to low-level radiation that is the impetus for the project. Bowers helped launch the program, which was modeled after one in Ireland. Bowers said the project started in 1995 when five churches joined to organize an effort to bring 10 affected children to the United States for exams and treatment. It was such a moving experience, he has been involved since. "I never thought I'd be doing something like this," he said yesterday. Sharon resident Donna Goldstein and her family are hosting two children, Sergey and Yuri. Goldstein said her involvement came in steps, from contributing money and gifts and helping out peripherally to finally hosting. Although Yuri and Sergey only flew in last week, Goldstein said her house has already been changed forever as her children, Matthew, 7, and Emily, 4, adapt to their new house mates. Goldstein said the experience has been wonderful for Matthew, since he now has two 13-year-olds to hang out with. But the experience for Emily, who Goldstein said is shy around strangers, was different. "Yesterday she saw the three boys playing on the computer and she asked me if she could go sit on Sergey's lap," Goldstein said. "It was really cute." Goldstein said the language presents obstacles, but everybody understands swimming. "That was the first place I really saw them loosen up and smile," she said. "At first, everything overwhelms them," she said, "because they've never seen a shopping mall or a grocery store When they first walk in these places, they can't believe it." Sharon resident Joan Goodman has had a similar experience as her two foreigners adapt to life with her two children. "It's been wonderful," said Goodman. "My 6-year-old thinks he has a new brother - they're chasing each other around the room and laughing. Pretty soon, they'll probably be fighting like brothers, too." Goodman said she got involved in the program after some friends were hosts last year. "So far, it's been more positive than I had imagined," said Goodman. According to Caritas Norwood Hospital's Russian language translator Luda Slavin, the foreign children are very aware why they are in the States, but still enjoy themselves. "The feedback I get is they are very excited to be here, almost overwhelmed with joy," said Slavin. "One girl told me she likes everything here, expect pizza." For Bowers, Doyle and others who stay involved with the program, it's not all smiles and laughs. Bowers said more than once on his trips to the Chernobyl area, he's had to visit the grave of a child who didn't make it. "It's sad, but it's part of the deal," said Bowers. On the flip side, Bowers said meeting the children's parents is the experience of a lifetime. "Many of them are so overcome when they see us, they can't speak," he said. © Copyright by the MetroWest Daily News and Herald Interactive ***************************************************************** 7 Gauge trouble reported at nuclear plant Saturday, July 6, 2002 at 21:00 JST MATSUYAMA ? A water flow gauge at a nuclear power plant on the island of Shikoku malfunctioned Saturday morning but no radiation leaks were reported, the Ehime prefectural government said. The malfunction occurred at around 9 a.m. at the No. 2 reactor at a nuclear power plant run by Shikoku Electric Power Co in the town of Ikata, local government officials said. The gauge, designed to monitor high-pressure water, erroneously showed 100 cubic meters of water flowing because of a failed device used to check water flows, they said. (Kyodo News) 76 A-bomb survivors seek recognition Radioactive water leak at nuke plant For letters and editorial questions or comments, please contact jteditor@japantoday.com . ***************************************************************** 8 Moving nuclear waste a target for terrorists, activists KRT Wire | 07/05/2002 | [http://www.ledger-enquirer.com] [Ledger-Enquirer] Knight Ridder Washington Bureau BY SARA SHIPLEY St. Louis Post-Dispatch ST. LOUS, Mo. - - It's a horrifying specter: A terrorist hides along a busy highway, waiting for a truckload of used nuclear fuel to pass. When the target comes into sight, he launches a shoulder-mounted missile that pierces the thick walls of the dumbbell-shaped cask. A plume of highly radioactive particles escapes from the damaged container. Everything the particles touch becomes contaminated. Everyone who inhales them faces an increased risk of cancer. How likely is such an attack, how far would the contamination spread, and how many people would get sick or die? That depends on whom you ask. The nuclear industry says the risks are minimal. But anti-nuclear activists claim that shipments would provide an irresistible and deadly target. The nuclear industry has recognized the possibility of sabotage for years. Now, in light of the recent disclosure of a "dirty bomb" plot, some officials and activists are calling for a deeper investigation of the terrorist threat to nuclear waste shipments. At issue is the Bush administration's plan to create a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. The Senate is expected to vote on the plan by the end of next month. It would require shipping an estimated 77,000 tons of radioactive waste across the country to a desert facility 90 miles from Las Vegas. The Department of Energy hasn't yet finalized shipping routes or decided upon the mode of transportation. Nuclear industry representatives say it would be highly unlikely, if not impossible, for terrorists to turn a nuclear waste shipment into a "dirty bomb." "You can talk about what-if scenarios until you're blue in the face," said Melanie Lyons, a spokeswoman for the Nuclear Energy Institute. "We have a transportation record that stands for itself. It's been 45 years, 3,000 shipments, and no release of radiation." Yucca Mountain opponents counter that industry and government officials have played down the threat of sabotage in order to push through the plan. Opponents reacted immediately when federal officials announced the dirty bomb plot June 10. Suspect Jose Padilla allegedly plotted to detonate a bomb with radioactive material, government officials said. The shipments provide "tens of thousands of opportunities for terrorists to hijack ready-made, deadly `dirty bombs,' " said Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., an outspoken critic of the Yucca Mountain plan. Both sides lay claim to the terrorism argument, an issue likely to be aired before the Senate vote. When Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham recommended the site to President George W. Bush in February, he cited homeland security. More than 161 million Americans live within 75 miles of the 131 sites where nuclear waste is now stored, he said. Those sites were intended to provide temporary storage, he said. The sites "should be able to withstand current terrorist threats, but that may not remain the case in the future," Abraham wrote to Bush. "These materials would be far better secured in a deep underground repository at Yucca Mountain, on federal land, far from population centers." Shipments would be packed in metal casks 8 to 12 inches thick and protected by armed guards in heavily populated areas. Meanwhile, nuclear waste is piling up at the Callaway nuclear plant 100 miles from St. Louis and other locations. The Callaway plant has about 613 tons of spent fuel in its storage pool, which is about the size of a tennis court and 40 feet deep, said Mike Cleary, a spokesman for plant owner AmerenUE. Since the pool is only about half full, other plants that are running out of storage space would be first in line to ship their waste to Yucca Mountain, Cleary said. Callaway wouldn't run out of space until 2024, he said. The fact that nuclear waste will remain at many of the sites shows that the Yucca Mountain plan will not improve national security, said Mary Olson, a spokeswoman for the Nuclear Information &Resource Service. "All they're doing is making room to make more," she said. Olson believes that the waste is vulnerable where it is. But better to leave it there, cooling to lower levels of radioactivity while a better solution is found, than to put it on wheels, she said. "Talk about a sitting duck," Olson said. On Friday, Sen. Jean Carnahan, D-Mo., announced that she will vote against Yucca, citing concerns about truck and rail shipments of nuclear waste passing through Missouri en route to the Nevada site. "I don't want Missouri to become the nation's nuclear waste superhighway," Carnahan said. Spokesman Ernie Blazar said Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond, R-Mo., is leaning toward voting in favor of the Yucca plan because if that plan isn't approved, the waste will be left scattered at sites across the nation that were never meant to be permanent storage sites. He said the senator's approval of the plan would come only with assurances that shipments to the Yucca site would meet "the absolute highest safety standards." A spokesman for Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said he plans to announce his position on the Yucca site next week. Sen. Peter Fitzgerald, R-Ill., supports the Yucca plan, a spokesman said. --- Few tests have explored what could happen if terrorists attacked a nuclear waste cask, and the results have been interpreted in dramatically different ways. Predictably, nuclear industry supporters say that an attack would produce minimal damage. Opponents - including the state of Nevada - say thousands of people could die. A Department of Energy report takes the middle ground. Although the Bush administration supports the Yucca plan, a recent DOE study concluded that a terrorist attack on a shipment could result in dozens of deaths. The only real-life government tests on terrorism attacks were conducted 20 years ago. In 1982, scientists at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M., conducted tests that included smashing containers into concrete walls and hitting them with trains. The casks survived the abuse battered but intact - except for the sabotage test. In that test, scientists detonated an explosive charge on top of the cask. The explosion ripped a small hole in the cask "about the size of your little finger," said Bob Jefferson, a nuclear energy consultant in Albuquerque, N.M., who supervised the tests. Spent fuel is solid, contained in ceramic pellets stored in metal tubes. If an attack cut through the cask and damaged the fuel rods, some tiny radioactive particles would become airborne. At the time, Sandia scientists estimated that the container would have released 1 percent of its radioactive contents. But in a follow-up test the next year at Sandia, scientists replayed the test inside a giant steel bottle to capture the discharge. They found that the actual amount released was much less, only about 0.03 percent of the contents, Jefferson said. In a separate industry test in 1998, officials fired a missile directly at a nuclear waste storage cask at the Army's Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. The TOW missile, placed directly against the cask, blew a small hole in the container. A private company wanting to promote its concrete cask reinforcement sponsored the test. No official government estimates have been done of the size of the hole or the amount of waste that would have been released. An effective attack would require lining up several elements: a failure of security forces, a head-on missile hit and high winds to spread the contaminants, said Jefferson, who has been a consultant to the Nuclear Energy Institute. Assuming the worst, a 1 percent release could spread over a 1-mile radius, Jefferson said. The decontamination required for most of that area would be a simple hose-down or a shower for affected people, he said. He said that the additional radiation exposure would be about 1 rem, which is three to five times the average person's annual exposure rate. Any contamination released probably would be limited to a very small area, Jefferson said. If a successful attack happened "in downtown Manhattan in rush hour, you'd expect half of one additional cancer in 30 years in that population," Jefferson said. Bob Halstead, a transportation consultant to the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, said the consequences would be much worse. Halstead co-authored a study for Nevada that re-evaluated the available data. He estimated that a successful attack could release from 1 to 10 percent of a truck cask's contents. Depending on the size of the shipment, the weapon used and the weather conditions, the radioactivity would spread over 5 to 30 square miles, he said. An estimated 100,000 to 500,000 people would get a dose of radiation five to 10 times more than they would normally get in a year, he said. That would cause anywhere from 300 to 18,000 latent cancer deaths, he testified before the Senate's Committee on Energy and Natural Resources last month. Cleanup costs could exceed $10 billion, he estimated. Releasing even a small amount of the cargo would be disastrous, Halstead said. "Unfortunately, it's relatively easy to take these casks down" with weapons available on the black market, he said. Jefferson and Halstead, both longtime nuclear energy consultants on opposite sides of the issue, have faced off in this debate many times. Each one claims the other is misrepresenting facts. That's why Halstead, who works for Yucca plan opponents, is surprised that the Department of Energy's own report would conclude that a terrorist attack could have serious consequences. The DOE's February environmental study evaluated the damage that could be done by sabotage. Using data from Sandia labs, the study estimated that a successful terrorist attack in an urban area would release enough radioactivity to expose 96,000 people and cause 48 fatal cancers. Joe Davis, a spokesman for the agency, said the study considered a worst-case scenario. It assumed that people would live in the contaminated area for a year, that the damaged vehicle would be onsite for 12 hours, and that there would be no immediate evacuation - all unlikely events, Davis said. Terrorists are much more likely to target nuclear waste where it is now stored than to wait until Yucca shipments begin in 2010 and try to track down a moving target, Davis said. To conclude otherwise "is nothing short of scare tactics," he said. Post-Dispatch correspondent Lisa Eisenhauer contributed to this report from Washington. ***************************************************************** 9 Greenpeace activists stage protest at Japan embassy over nuclear fuel shipments AP World Politics Fri Jul 5, 1:16 AM ET CANBERRA, Australia - Two Greenpeace protesters scaled the roof of the Japanese Embassy Friday and unfurled a banner criticizing a nuclear fuel shipment from Japan to Britain. The protesters — about a dozen in all — parked a truck with a large cardboard imitation nuclear bomb on the back in front of the building. Wearing orange coveralls, two activists used ladders to climb onto the embassy's roof before unfurling a banner that read "Stop Plutonium Shipment" as others held up a similar sign at the embassy gates. On Thursday, a ship left Japan bound for Britain with plutonium-and uranium-based mixed oxide fuel, or MOX, on board. The fuel was being returned to its manufacturer because of questions over its quality, and protesters said the journey is too dangerous and the radioactive cargo is not secure from possible attack. After brief negotiations with two Japanese officials who climbed the roof to talk to them, the two agreed to come down in exchange for a meeting later Friday between Greenpeace representatives and diplomats to discuss nuclear fuel shipments. Police later arrested the pair for trespassing. There was no immediate word on whether they were charged. Greenpeace spokesman Stephen Campbell told reporters outside the embassy in Canberra that the protest had sent a message to Tokyo "that it is absolutely irresponsible and unjustified to shift plutonium nuclear fuel half way around the world." Copyright © 2002 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 10 Protests build as nuclear fuel is shipped back to Britain Go Asia Pacific Breaking News Pacific - New Zealand will send its airforce to track two British ships carrying nuclear waste from Japan to Britain to ensure the ships don't enter its territorial waters. Although the route is secret, such shipments previously have passed through the Tasman Sea between New Zealand and Australia. The first of the ships - carrying a mix of plutonium and uranium oxides which could potentially be used in weapons - left the Japanese port of Takahama on Thursday. New Zealand Foreign Minister, Phil Goff, says while he has had assurances that safeguards have been put in place, this does not eliminate risks posed by accident or by terrorist attacks. The waste is being returned to state-owned British Nuclear Fuels after Japan's Kansai Electric Power Co discovered that data for a 1999 shipment from Britain had been deliberately falsified. Meanwhile, Greenpeace has announced a flotilla of yachts plans to gather next week in the northern Tasman Sea to wait for the two ships. As the protest builds, two Greenpeace activists have appeared in an Australian court after a roof-top protest at the Japanese Embassy in Canberra. Samantha Hawley reports the group also converged on the British High Commission: "Greenpeace activists turned up at the Japanese Embassy this morning unannounced, upset about the transfer of plutonium mixed oxide aboard the 'Pacific Pintail' that left Japan bound for Britain yesterday. It caught police by surprise, taking 15 minutes for them to arrive on the scene. Detective Superintendent, Gary Gent, says Japanese officials were obviously distressed; 'They were upset about it and asked us to take the appropriate action which we've done.' Two protestors were arrested and charged. But Greenpeace activist, Stephen Campbell, says it was for a good cause: 'We are always aware of the consequences of our actions. We are also aware of the importance that they have." 05/07/2002 18:38:23 | ABC Radio Australia News [http://www.abc.net.au] ***************************************************************** 11 Revised nuclear waste dump plans could change Sen. Durbin’s stance By MIKE RAMSEY COPLEY NEWS SERVICE CHICAGO — U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin hasn’t decided whether to reverse his previous opposition to a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, Nev., a spokeswoman said Wednesday as the Springfield Democrat faced new pressure to take a stand. Durbin twice voted against plans for the national storage facility, most recently in 2000. Spokeswoman Stacey Zolt said a new version of the measure alleviates some of Durbin’s safety concerns by barring the most dangerous radioactive materials and by limiting the amount of groundwater contamination at the site. But Zolt said Durbin is concerned that the resolution, which could come up for a Senate vote next week, still doesn’t stipulate how nuclear waste would be transported through Illinois on highways or railroad lines. "The waste won’t be transported for another eight years. There is the possibility that we could try and deal with the transportation question at a later date," Zolt said. "But the senator’s really continuing to go through all the arguments in his mind and (will) come up with a decision that makes sense for the people of Illinois." Durbin was expected to decide within "a few days," she said. Illinois, besides being a pass-through point for hazardous material from the East, has more than 6,000 tons of radioactive waste stored near nuclear power plants. It has the largest number of active and decommissioned nuclear reactors of any state — a major reason why Durbin’s Republican opponent in the Nov. 5 election, state Rep. Jim Durkin of Westchester, says he supports the Nevada repository. Durkin on Tuesday tried to turn up the heat on Durbin by sending him a letter challenging the senator to "cast a vote that reflects what’s best for Illinois families." Spokesman Thom Karmik said Durbin has been hard to pin down lately on Yucca Mountain. "Depending on what group he’s speaking to, his opinion tends to differ," he said. If Durbin does change his tune, he’ll disappoint a group of recording artists who oppose the nuclear dump. Representatives of the rock groups Midnight Oil, the Indigo Girls and the B-52s joined Illinois-based environmental organizations at a Chicago news conference. The bands were in the city for local performances. "I’m not an expert on the nuclear industry, but I’m here to amplify the voices of people I respect, that I think are experts," Indigo Girl Amy Ray said. Participants, including the state chapters of the Sierra Club and the League of Women Voters, cited what they called flaws in the federal government’s plan to ship and bury the nuclear waste. They urged Durbin and his Illinois counterpart, Republican Sen. Peter Fitzgerald of Inverness, to vote against the pending resolution. Fitzgerald continues to support the selection of the Nevada site, a spokeswoman said. Mike Ramsey can be reached at (312) 857-2323 or cnsramsey@aol.com. © Copyright 2002, Copley News Service ***************************************************************** 12 Grave Unanswered Questions About Nuclear Waste Disposal The Tampa Tribune [http://keyword.tbo.com] Published: Jul 8, 2002 This week the Senate is expected to agree with the House and create a permanent storage vault for nuclear waste inside Yucca Mountain in Nevada. So far the debate on the merits of the project has been misleading. The strongest selling point of the storage plan is that the dangerous pellets of spent fuel must be stored in a safe, central location, and indeed they must. Consider the recommendation of Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham to President Bush on the problem of temporary storage of waste at nuclear power plants: ``These materials would be far better secured in a deep underground repository at Yucca Mountain, on federal land, far from population centers.'' Yucca Mountain does seem to be the ideal place. The question of how to get the radioactive wastes safely to Nevada, through many towns and cities, has yet to be fully debated, but it is reasonable to assume that it can be done. A more important consideration is the absence of a plan to store all the wastes in the safe confines of a federally maintained site for the required 10,000 years. Even after many years of shipments, the waste problem will remain far from solved. USA Today reports that the Energy Department's own environmental report ``shows that by the time Yucca Mountain is filled with waste in the year 2036, almost as much high-level nuclear waste will remain at temporary storage sites around the country as there is today.'' Kenneth Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group, questions the safety of the plan. He used federal documents to estimate that by the time Yucca Mountain is filled to capacity, the nation's power plants will still be storing 93 percent of the nuclear waste they now have. That's because Yucca can't hold it all and the plants keep producing more. In Florida at the Crystal River nuclear power plant in Citrus County, Cook tells us, 382 tons of waste are in storage. After nearly four decades of regular shipments to Yucca, by truck and rail, the plant will still be storing 293 tons. The case for approving Yucca glosses over this reality. The Chicago Tribune quoted an Energy Department spokesman: ``You can't leave nuclear waste in Illinois and 38 other states where it's stored temporarily above ground next to schools, rivers, lakes and downtown metropolitan areas. It's just not the smart thing to do in the interest of national security and environmental protection.`` That's right, and the Heritage Foundation reached a similar conclusion: ``We can't keep using the present haphazard quilt of storage facilities, and the security threat will only increase as time goes by.'' That's why the Senate should withhold its approval until it finds out if it is politically possible to open another storage area as safe as Yucca. To approve an incomplete plan means that trucks and trains would be hauling nuclear waste every day for many years, and almost all the temporary sites would remain active. Nationwide, the Energy Department expects to make a minimum of 10,600 shipments to Yucca Mountain over 24 years, starting in 2010. If trucks rather than trains are used for most trips, there would be some 53,000 shipments, about 3,000 tons a year. A Map Without Cities The probable routes are identified on an Energy Department map, which oddly has all the towns and cities removed. It shows the Turkey Point plants but not Miami, the St. Lucie plants but not Fort Pierce, and the Crystal River plant but not Tampa, Brooksville or Ocala. The absence of towns reflects the lack of public participation in this process. Nuclear power is a safe source of energy if properly handled. So far, the federal government has not faced the problem of where to store all the wastes. It is unclear whether opening Yucca will help resolve the storage problem or just postpone a fair accounting of the total costs of generating electricity from uranium. The Senate should find out before giving the green light to putting thousands of tons of radioactive wastes on the roads and railroads every day for 24 years. TBO.com IS Tampa Bay Online © 2002, Media General Inc. All rights reserved ***************************************************************** 13 EPA may clean up site, seek payment 07/05/02 [The Advocate Online News] Superfund dwindling, companies asked to help By MIKE DUNNE mdunne@theadvocate.com [mdunne@theadvocate.com] Advocate staff writer Federal officials will decide today if they will quit waiting for three companies to agree to clean up the old Coastal Radiation Services on Bayou Paul Road and just do the work and seek compensation later. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has asked three companies that used the now-defunct Coastal Radiation to come to an agreement on the $1.5 billion cleanup. As of Wednesday, no agreement appeared to have been hammered out, so the agency is getting ready to use Superfund emergency money to clean up contaminated soil and concrete. Later, the EPA can seek to recover its expenses -- up to triple what it spends. The three companies -- which probably didn't know EPA gave itself an internal deadline of today -- are ExxonMobil, Kaiser Aluminum and Holcim (formerly Ideal Cement), according to EPA Region 6 spokesman Dave Bary. The EPA says Coastal Radiation documents indicate the three companies sent used gauges and other equipment containing radioactive materials for dismantling and recycling. Cleanup was originally planned for last fall, then again in January. But the EPA, in an effort to conserve the dwindling Superfund Trust Fund, decided to negotiate with the companies. If EPA does the cleanup, it should start sometime in late summer, said Nancy Jones, the EPA official in charge of cleanup. Scott Lamb of Kaiser Aluminum said his company continues to work with EPA for a negotiated settlement on cleanup but company attorneys told him that they were unaware of today's deadline. Kaiser is also working on reorganization in bankruptcy court. Carla Faulkner-Danna of ExxonMobil said the company is continuing to negotiate and there has been no decision. Efforts to contact Holcim, based in Switzerland, went unanswered. Jones said the owner of Coastal Radiation does not have the financial resources to pay for the cleanup. The site, surrounded by residences, was cleaned in 1979 to an old standard of 500 millirems of exposure a year. Today's standard is only 25 millirems of exposure per year, according to the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality. Radiation exposure is measured in millirems. Models conducted by DEQ and EPA indicate personal exposure at the Coastal Radiation site could be as high as 100 millirems per year, or the equivalent of getting five to six chest X-rays a year. Officials say the radiation levels are about 25 percent more than what most people would be exposed to by "background" radiation in the Baton Rouge area. In September 2001, the EPA brought in a whole-body scanner that could detect any internally deposited radiation and none of the nearby residents screened showed any evidence of radioactive Cesium-137 contamination in their bodies, the EPA said. The EPA said about 4,800 cubic yards of radiation-contaminated dirt and concrete from the site at 6745 Bayou Paul Road need to be removed and disposed of in a licensed dump. Residents around the former workshop have expressed concern about their health. Most have hired attorneys who have advised the residents not to discuss the case. Copyright © 1995-2002, The Advocate, Capital City Press, All Rights ***************************************************************** 14 A CLOSER LOOK: THE BATTLE OVER YUCCA - Foes face off before vote The News Tribune - Tacoma, WA [Tribnet.com] Greg Gordon; News Tribune Washington Bureau WASHINGTON - Images of a truck carrying a huge cask of deadly nuclear waste flash across the TV screen as a narrator voices a foreboding message. "The government admits that nuclear accidents are inevitable" if the nation's high-level radioactive waste is hauled to a Nevada mountain, actor Ed Begley Jr. pronounces in the 30-second ad. "What if it happened ... while our children were getting out of school or playing soccer?" Environmental groups and the State of Nevada say their ad has spurred thousands of people to phone, e-mail or write Capitol Hill in advance of this week's expected Senate vote on legislation easing the way for Nevada's Yucca Mountain to serve as a permanent disposal site for the waste. The nuclear power industry and its business allies have countered with their own ads heading into the vote that could have broad implications for the future of nuclear power in America. One industry ad says that $7 billion in studies over two decades have established Yucca as "the safest place to store America's nuclear waste," now scattered at 131 sites in 39 states. The dueling ads are just one element of the strategy wars over legislation to let the Energy Department seek a Nuclear Regulatory Commission license for Yucca. The better-financed nuclear industry has hired swarms of lobbyists and encouraged thousands of its employees to contact their senators. Environmentalists have mobilized nationwide. The Senate vote could mark the final congressional act in a lengthy, tangled political and regulatory approval process laid out in the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act, whose authors contemplated an uproar from any state picked to host the repository. Under the 1982 law, and 1987 amendments that named Yucca as the potential site to be studied first, Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn got an extraordinary power. He was allowed to "veto" President Bush's decision last February to allow the Energy Department to seek a license for Yucca. Guinn contended in vetoing Bush's decision April 8 that it was not based on sound science. The law also gave Congress 90 legislative days to override the governor's veto. In May, the House voted to do so. The Senate has until July 25 to act. Washington Sen. Patty Murray (D-Edmonds.) is leaning in favor of overriding Guinn's veto. But Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Shoreline) voted against overriding the veto last month as a member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. She says only 13 percent of the waste from the Hanford Nuclear Reservation would actually be sent to the Nevada site because it would be rapidly filled with spent fuel from the nation's 103 commercial nuclear reactors. But even though the Senate voted 65-34 in the industry's favor in the last Yucca-related vote in May 2000, and although dozens of senators are under pressure from constituents to get the waste out of their states, industry lobbyists aren't overconfident. Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), the assistant Senate majority leader, has used his clout and his friendships with colleagues to galvanize opposition. Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) has refused to bring the measure to the floor. Sen. Frank Murkowski (R-Alaska), who has championed the industry's cause for years, plans this week to take the unusual step of trying to force a floor vote without Daschle's consent. Reid said in a phone interview that Yucca foes could have their best chance in a procedural vote on whether to consider the resolution, because many Republicans are also leery of setting a precedent of bypassing the majority leaders. Environmentalists and the State of Nevada have increasingly sought to focus the debate on transportation risks - with some success. Nevada, through a "Transportation Safety Coalition" that unites it with environmental groups, has purchased nearly $1 million in ads targeting wavering senators, particularly those whose states would face heavy nuclear waste traffic, including Vermont, Utah, Iowa, Georgia, Wyoming, Pennsylvania and Missouri. The Environmental Working Group has set up a Web site that invites each citizen to plug in his address and see how close he lives to a possible waste route. The group also has used a computer model from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to project the impact of theoretical nuclear accidents. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, whose members include nuclear utilities, declared last week that it was "pulling out all the stops" with ads in 14 states. William Kovacs, the chamber's vice president for regulatory affairs, said his umbrella group is spending "a lot of money," but he declined to say how much. Energy Department spokesman Joe Davis said that every U.S. waste shipment is monitored round-the-clock via satellites and armed escorts. Nuclear utilities, which operate 103 reactors at 64 sites, have doled out millions of dollars in campaign donations in the last couple of years. Among the industry's "hired guns" are two dignitaries heading a pro-Yucca coalition under the U.S. Chamber's auspices - former Democratic Sen. Geraldine Ferraro of New York and Reagan White House chief of staff John Sununu, a former New Hampshire governor who has coaxed governors to weigh in with their senators on the industry's behalf. Nevada's consultants include a former NRC commissioner, a former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board and a former Senate parliamentarian. Jim Hall, who served as NTSB chairman from 1993-2001, acknowledges being paid $100,000 by the state, but he says his views aren't for sale. He called the upcoming vote "the most significant transportation decision thus far in the 21st century." Before approving Yucca, he said, the Senate should require a "risk assessment" of the terrorist threat of shipping 70,000 metric tons of nuclear waste to Nevada, draft a transportation plan involving state and local officials and "full-scale testing of the casks." Whatever the vote, industry officials and environmental groups predict years of court battles before the issue is finally settled. Nevada has sued to challenge the way the Energy Department found Yucca "suitable" as a permanent waste repository. Utilities have filed breach-of-contract suits over the government's failure to keep promises in the early 1980s to begin taking industry waste by 1998. (Published 12:30AM, July 6th, 2002) • The 2000 Census [http://www.tribnet.com/news/census] ***************************************************************** 15 Benton Harbor toxic site cleanup is uncertain South Bend Tribune July 6, 2002 Benton Harbor toxic site cleanup is uncertain *By EDDY OKADA GREEN* *Tribune Correspondent* BENTON HARBOR -- Candidates and residents gathered Friday, upset and uncertain about the Bush administration's recent decision delaying financing of a federal program designed to clean up 33 toxic waste sites in 18 states. Standing on a bridge arching over the Paw Paw River, Scott Elliott joined several others in a news conference on the bridge overlooking one of the sites that will be affected by those cuts. On the banks of the river where Potawatomi Indians once camped sits the abandoned Aircraft Components factory, located on 671 North Shore Drive in Benton Township. The company once sold glow-in-the-dark aircraft components until going out of business. The paint used to make the World War II-era gauges glow in the dark, however, contained a radioactive and cancer-causing agent, radium-226, according to the federal Environmental Protection Agency and Michigan Department of Environmental Quality. Going out of business in the early 1990s, the owners left behind thousands of dials and gauges. The radioactive dust and flakes chipping off the parts contaminated the 17-acre property, which is located near residential areas. In 1997, cleanup began at the factory under the Superfund program, a federal initiative using polluting industries' tax dollars to decontaminate dozens of seriously toxic sites across the nation. The Department of Defense, Elliott said, had promised to finish cleaning up Aircraft Components, but in light of the recent cuts, cleanup efforts seem to be at a standstill. "There was an absolute commitment from the Department of Defense to get this finally cleaned up this year, and now they've pulled the funding on it," said Elliott, Democratic candidate for state representative for the 79th District. U.S. Rep. David Bonior of Mount Clemens confirmed that Aircraft Components' cleanup will be delayed this year because of budget shortfalls. In a statement, Bonior, a candidate for governor, said the site has leeched radium into the Paw Paw River. About $3.5 million is needed to finish the current phase of the cleanup, and an additional $3.5 million is needed to complete secondary cleanup efforts, Bonior said. Elliott said the financial cuts meant a setback for area redevelopment projects and the arts district. Work at the Benton Township site began in 1997. The EPA used to charge fees to polluting industries to pay for future cleanup efforts, providing money for the Superfund program, but that is no longer the case. President Bush's recent proposal, Elliott said, would shift the cost of cleaning up toxic sites to the government's general accounts, thus putting the burden on all taxpayers. "There was an absolute signed and sealed commitment to do this, and everything -- the public's health, to the Edgewater Project, and downtown Benton Harbor redevelopment project and arts district -- depends on it," Elliott said. Contact the southbendtribune.com Web staff . News coverage and editorial content provided by the South Bend Tribune unless otherwise specified. Copyright © 1994-2002 South Bend Tribune ***************************************************************** 16 NZ: Nuke ships not welcome in our waters [http://thestar.com.my/] The Star Online > News > World Saturday, July 6, 2002 WELLINGTON: New Zealand said yesterday its airforce would track two British ships carrying nuclear waste from Japan to Britain to ensure they did not enter its territorial waters, as protests against the shipments mounted. Although the route is secret, previous such shipments have passed through the Tasman Sea between New Zealand and Australia. The first of the ships, carrying a potentially weapons-usable mix of plutonium and uranium oxides (MOX), left the Japanese port of Takahama on Thursday. “We have advised both Britain and Japan of our opposition to such shipments through the Pacific,” Foreign Minister Phil Goff said in a statement. “While acknowledging the safeguards which have been put in place, these do not eliminate risks posed by accident or by terrorist attacks,” he said. The MOX fuel is being returned to state-owned British Nuclear Fuels after Japan’s Kansai Electric Power Co Inc discovered that data for a 1999 shipment from Britain had been deliberately falsified. Goff said New Zealand Airforce planes would track the ships to ensure they did not enter New Zealand waters, except in a humanitarian emergency. “New Zealand is also seeking the transport states to accept full responsibility and liability for compensation for any accident that might occur.” Greenpeace said a flotilla of yachts plans to gather next week in the northern Tasman Sea to wait for the ships. In the Australian capital, Canberra, two Greenpeace campaigners were arrested yesterday after an hour-long protest against the shipments on the roof of the Japanese embassy. Police said a 25-year-old woman and 30-year-old man were arrested for trespassing on protected premises after they agreed to come down off the roof. A police spokeswoman said the two were expected to be charged and appear in court later yesterday, while 15 other protesters, with a large paper mache bomb, continued a demonstration outside the embassy gates. The Australian government has not voiced any protests against the shipments, with a spokesman saying the government is satisfied all the necessary safeguards are in place. — Reuters Copyright © 1995-2002 Star Publications (Malaysia) Bhd (Co No 10894-D) Managed by I.Star. ***************************************************************** 17 Abraham once expressed concern over plutonium shipment July 7, 2002 Ellyn Ferguson and Faith Bremner [online@rgj.com] Gannett News Service WASHINGTON — As a senator, Spencer Abraham wrote the Department of Energy raising concerns about a possible shipment of plutonium through his state and warning that failure to involve the local communities in the planning would be “irresponsible and offensive.” An environmental group Thursday accused Abraham — now the nation’s energy secretary — of dismissing similar concerns now being raised about thousands of potential nuclear waste shipments that would cross the country if Yucca Mountain becomes the nation’s permanent storage site for spent nuclear fuel. As many as 108,544 truckloads of high-level waste could be shipped from the nation’s 104 commercial nuclear power plants to Nevada over a 34-year period, an environmental study the DOE prepared for the Yucca Mountain project shows. Preliminary plans from the DOE show radioactive waste could be shipped by rail and truck through northern Nevada. In his 1998 letter, he urged DOE officials to look closely at the Port Huron, Mich.-Sarnia, Canada, portion of the route because of expected heavy traffic on the Blue Water Bridge that connects the two cities. Abraham and then-House Minority Whip David Bonior questioned the proposed route through Port Huron and the Clinton administration eventually dropped Port Huron from its list of potential routes. “Sen. Abraham seems to have been much more sensitive to the concerns of people living along transportation routes than Secretary Abraham has turned out to be,” said Ken Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group, which released the Abraham letter. Energy Department spokesman Joe Davis, who was Abraham’s communications director in the Senate, said there is no discrepancy between his boss’ action in the Senate or at the Department of Energy. “As a senator, he represented his constituents and as secretary of energy he will continue with that approach,” Davis said. He said the Environmental Working Group, which has not officially taken a position against the Yucca Mountain site but continues to publicly question the safety of nuclear waste shipments, is painting a false picture of Abraham’s beliefs about local involvement in the Yucca Mountain project. “I think the Environmental Working Group’s concerns are unfounded,” Davis said. Mike Casey, spokesman for the Environmental Working Group, said the letter from Abraham to then-Energy Secretary Bill Richardson raises the kinds of questions his organization has raised with a database Web site outlining possible transportation routes to Yucca Mountain for spent fuel from commercial nuclear power plants. The Energy Department finalized its environmental impact statement for the Yucca Mountain project in March without holding any public hearings on the federal government’s plan to transport 77,000 tons of high-level radioactive waste to Nevada, Casey said. “It’s remarkable that Secretary Abraham is asking other senators to ignore the concerns he once had as a member of the Senate,” Casey said. If Congress gives final approval to the Yucca Mountain site, Davis said the Energy Department would “be involved in talking to state and local communities about the transportation routes. There will be years of coordination between the Department of Energy and local communities.” The first shipments to Yucca Mountain would start in 2010. © Copyright Reno Gazette-Journal, a Gannett Co. Inc. ***************************************************************** 18 Scientists creating Yucca warning signs to last 10,000 years Saturday, July 06, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal Symbols send danger alert By KEITH ROGERS REVIEW-JOURNAL Scientists designing the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository must account for future changes in technology, climate and geology. But they're counting on one constant over the next 10,000 years: the way people express danger. In making plans to entomb the nation's spent nuclear fuel 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, the federal government wants to keep future would-be explorers from tampering with the waste. Project officials envision etching on 25-ton granite monoliths distraught faces patterned after artist Edvard Munch's 1893 painting, "The Scream." They hope the images will remain intact over the millennia to illustrate the horror of what could happen if someone retrieved metal canisters holding a combined 77,000 tonÂs of decaying fuel pellets buried deep within the mountain. To complement the artwork, they will write in at least six languages -- English, French, Arabic, Chinese, Spanish, and Russian -- words that express the phrase, "Caution: Biohazardous waste buried here." Such a plan was crafted for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., where the nation's plutonium-tainted, so-called midlevel nuclear waste is being put in caverns in a 2,000-foot-thick salt formation. Department of Energy scientists were pursuing a similar plan for warning markers at Yucca Mountain. But when budget cuts curtailed the work, they opted to follow the course set for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, an agency spokesman said. Roger Nelson, the chief scientist at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, said the warning plan approved by the Environmental Protection Agency is a conceptual design. It will be developed gradually until construction begins on permanent markers in about 35 years. By then, Nelson said, the most robust materials will be available for an array of surface and subsurface markers encrypted with the most simple expressions of danger. Candidate materials include granite, basalt and ceramics. Magnetic signage also is being considered. "There is no way we can predict what the language structure will be 10,000 years into the future," he said. He said the permanent marker work is based on the notion that future generations will retain an institutional memory. In theory, future travelers to nuclear waste burial sites will seek to understand the meaning of the messages much like archaeologists try to interpret the intentions of the creators of England's Stonehenge and Egypt's pyramids. "The data point is that civilization has always gotten smarter, not dumber," Nelson said. "You will say people will be smarter in the future. Will they understand these languages? The answer is yes." Like Stonehenge and the pyramids, the spiked monoliths atop the perimeters of the planned Yucca Mountain repository and the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant could attract the curious and create a nuisance. "The panel of experts debated that question as well. Some said, 'Yeah, it will be an attraction,' " Nelson noted. But he said they concluded that signs, like locks, are built for honest people, and only honest people obey signs. To reach the materials, intruders would have to sustain a substantial effort, digging or drilling 1,000 feet to 2,000 feet down from the surface. "So, if you're an honest person, you'll obey the signs," Nelson said. Former Sandia National Laboratories engineer Kathleen Trauth, who coordinated the effort to design permanent warning markers for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, said a goal of the project was to use simple symbols and words for broad, accurate and comprehensive communications. "One way of communicating the nature of risk is through the human face," she said. "It's a means of communication that goes across cultures and languages." Trauth said the experts decided to use a multi-language approach, because no one can predict with absolute confidence what language people will speak in 10,000 years. Ten thousand years is the regulatory requirement for containing high-level nuclear waste, even though Nevada scientists who oppose the Yucca Mountain Project note peak doses from some of the decaying materials won't occur until much later, in the 300,000-year to 800,000-year time frame. "If you had some sort of key, you could unlock languages," said Trauth, assistant professor for civil and environmental engineering at the University of Missouri. "There are ways of writing very clear without a lot of idioms to make it very clear in the future." The object is to relate symbols, experiences or figures that are very easy to interpret, she said. The U.S. Senate is expected to vote later this month on a resolution to override Gov. Kenny Guinn's veto of the Yucca Mountain Project. A majority vote of the Senate would formally approve the repository plans, although Nevada officials plan to fight the project in court. Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002 ***************************************************************** 19 Yucca mineral deposits bolster state's argument Saturday, July 06, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal By KEITH ROGERS REVIEW-JOURNAL Nevada's attorney general intends to bolster the state's case against the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository with a new report that shows the volcanic-rock ridge is ripe for catastrophe. In a statement Friday, Frankie Sue Del Papa said the report by an international team of scientists was completed in anticipation of the Department of Energy seeking a federal license to build the repository 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The report fulfills a contract between the state and TRAC Corp., led by Colorado geophysicist Charles Archambeau. The Senate will decide this month whether to override Gov. Kenny Guinn's veto of the Yucca Mountain Project. The report revisits a dispute between state and federal scientists over the origin of mineral deposits in and around the mountain. State scientists, citing the work of geologist Jerry Szymanski, say the minerals were deposited by hot water that has risen upward through the mountain's rock layers. If nuclear waste canisters are put there, the scientists say, the hot water could shoot rapidly upward again, releasing radioactivity from spent reactor fuel into the atmosphere. Federal scientists contend the minerals were deposited by rain that fell on the mountain's surface and percolated downward through cracks in the rock layers. The new report's summary says a plume of hot water from deep within the mountain would destroy the repository's excavated tunnels and, eventually, barriers built to protect the waste cannisters. "The release of radioactivity directly into the atmosphere could be very large, potentially attaining catastrophic proportions," it says. Del Papa's statement says, "The alarming evidence presented in this report reaffirms that the decision to name Yucca Mountain as the national repository has been based purely on politics rather than on sound science. "This report establishes that the proposed use of Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waste repository poses an enormous threat to the safety of this entire country." Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002 ***************************************************************** 20 Train derailments up 26% since 1997 Wausau - http://www.wausaudailyherald.com Thu, Jul 4, 2002 By Doug Abrahms and Faith Bremner Gannett News Service WASHINGTON - A train ran off the tracks in Colfax, Calif., in May. And in Runnels, Iowa. And Kanapolis, N.C. A derailed train in Potterville, Mich., leaked liquid propane over Memorial Day weekend, forcing 2,200 people to evacuate their homes for several days. The number of train derailments has jumped 26 percent since 1997, according to railroad statistics. The amount of freight hauled over that period grew about 10 percent. The railroad industry takes a longer view, pointing out that since the 1970s the overall number of accidents, most of which are derailments, is down significantly - 73 percent. But railroad unions say in recent years cost-conscious railroads have slashed the number of maintenance workers checking the safety of the tracks while at the same time moving longer and heavier freight trains that put more stress on tracks. "The railroads are changing the way they maintain track," said Spencer Morrissey, a Nebraska track inspector for Burlington Northern since 1975. "They're increasing the tonnage, pushing the physical plant to the limit and cutting workers," he said. "It's an ongoing experiment to see how much they can get out of their facilities." The Federal Railroad Administration, which oversees the train industry, said the industry achieved a number of safety records last year, including reporting the fewest number of employee deaths (22) and injuries (7,575). "Over the last two decades, the number and rate of train accidents, total deaths arising from rail operations, employee fatalities and injuries and hazardous-materials releases and deaths related to those releases all fell dramatically," FRA Administrator David Rutter told a House transportation hearing in June. The question of rail safety is getting extra attention now that the government is proposing to transport 77,000 tons of spent radioactive fuel from the nation's nuclear power plants to Yucca Mountain, Nev. A Senate vote on the plan is expected this month. The Energy Department's preference is to carry most of the waste by train in steel and alloy casks designed to withstand most accidents without releasing radiation. But these nuclear-waste casks would be some of the heaviest loads carried on rail cars and could add further stress to an aging railroad infrastructure. Already this year: • Investigators suspect track defects are to blame for an Amtrak derailment in Crescent City, Fla., that killed four passengers. • A Minot, N.D., man died from breathing a toxic cloud of ammonia released after a train carrying fertilizer derailed in a wreck that may have been caused by track failure, and • Railroad officials say the Potterville, Mich., derailment might have been caused by a fracturing of the steel track. The National Transportation Safety Board - which is responsible for investigating plane, train and ship accidents - is concerned about the increase in derailments, from 1,741 in 1997 to 2,200 last year. Almost half of the derailments have been attributed to track problems, and the safety board has recommended that the railroad administration increase track inspections. "We take this very seriously," said Tom White, a spokesman for the Association of American Railroads. "We expect that we will bring those numbers back down." But he noted the industry has become vastly safer since the late 1970s, when there were nearly 11,000 accidents a year. In 1990, large railroad companies spent $6.9 billion to maintain and upgrade 119,758 miles of track, compared with more than $9.5 billion on 99,250 track miles in 2000, White said. Train accidents tend to draw a lot more media attention than truck accidents, so it only seems that there are a lot of spectacular derailments, he said. "Your memory plays tricks on you. There are many instances where areas are evacuated because of a highway situation," White said. But there are some trends that are worrisome for the industry. Since railroad deregulation began in 1980, the industry has undergone a massive consolidation that culminated in the creation of four huge railroads: CSX, Norfolk Southern, Union Pacific Santa Fe and Burlington Northern. During the same period, railroads have slashed rates for carrying autos, grain and coal to compete with each other and with the trucking industry, said Peter Swan, a Penn State business professor who specializes in the railroad industry. That has led railroads to cut costs by reducing maintenance crew sizes, he said. At the same time, the industry has started to shift from 131-ton cars to 143-toncars, which put more stress on the track, Swan said. One possible culprit for track accidents could be joint bars, which hold the rail pieces together and are old and difficult to inspect, Swan said. "Part of what we're seeing is some weak spots in the infrastructure that are coming to light with the heavier cars," he said. FRA statistics show more derailments being caused over the past five years by tracks shifting out of alignment, tracks buckling due to temperature changes, switch equipment failing or the steel track cracking. Derailments caused by track fissuring have tripled over the past five years to 78, and is likely the cause of the fatal Amtrak train crash in Nodaway, Iowa, last year. Rutter of the FRA said possible reasons for the increase in track-related accidents are: reduced spending on infrastructure, reduced maintenance staffs, increased traffic, heavier loads or insufficient monitoring of track inspectors. The Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees, which represents workers who inspect and repair the tracks, says the main culprit is the railroads substantially cutting back on maintenance workers to save money. Its solution is to require the railroads to hire back some of those employees. "In 20 years, we've lost 50 percent of the maintenance forces out there," said Rick Inclima, director of education and safety for the union. "I believe there is a direct correlation in the 50 percent reduction and all of a sudden you see these numbers going up." On the Web http://safetydata.fra.dot.gov/OfficeofSafety/Index/Default.asp, Federal Railroad Administration safety data. www.aar.org, Association of American Railroads. nrsalliance.org, National Rail Safety Alliance. Front Page [http://www.wausaudailyherald.com/] | News Gannett Wisconsin Online ***************************************************************** 21 Atomic legacy: Test Site museum will preserve history of nuclear experiments Las Vegas SUN July 05, 2002 By Mary Manning Those who wonder what it was like living in Las Vegas when atomic bombs burst into mushroom clouds less than 100 miles away will be able to experience some of those sights and sounds by the end of next year. The Nevada Test Site Historical Foundation has broken ground at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, on a museum that will capture a unique and controversial piece of Southern Nevada history, keeping it from slipping into obscurity. The $12.3 million museum, funded through a combination of federal and state money and private donations, is expected to open in October 2003 at Flamingo Road and Swenson Street. Part of that funding was supposed to come from a special license plate that featured a mushroom cloud and the words Nevada Test Site, but the cancellation of the plate has instead given the museum a cloud of controversy. "I was surprised," Nevada Test Site Museum Foundation Chairman Troy Wade said of the Department of Motor Vehicle's decision. The plate, designed by Northern Nevada resident Richard Bibbero, was prominently displayed during the May debate on Yucca Mountain in the House of Representatives. In early June the license plate design was dropped. Ginny Lewis, chief of the Nevada Department of Transportation, said the design had created controversy and was insensitive to the times. The financial support could still come. The foundation will decide on a new plate design later this summer -- after the Yucca Mountain debate is finished in Congress, Wade said. In the meantime the foundation announced last week that it had received a $500,000 donation from Dorothy Grier in the name of her late husband Herbert E. Grier, a nuclear scientist and co-founder of longtime Test Site contractor EG. The Scientific Discovery and Innovation Gallery will be named for Grier. That will be only one of many features of the museum, which will focus attention on the Nevada Test Site, one of the most secret battlegrounds of the Cold War. The stark Southern Nevada desert shook for 41 years as 928 nuclear weapons exploded in the air and beneath the Test Site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The Department of Energy stopped nuclear weapons experiments in 1992. The museum is a dream of former Test Site workers who didn't want its legacy to be forgotten. They formed the foundation on April 15, 1998. "The NTS Historical Foundation didn't have anything but grand plans and dreams, not a penny," Wade said. Once the foundation announced its intentions, the idea of a museum drew support from places and people the foundation members never expected to show an interest, Wade said. For example, state Sen. Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas, a nuclear testing critic and a staunch foe of the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, gave her support for the museum. Las Vegas Sun Executive Editor Mike O'Callaghan, a former two-term governor, also supported the museum in his newspaper column. The Smithsonian Institution was so intrigued by the idea that it granted the museum affiliate status before a site was selected, Wade said. The proposed three-story, 63,000-square-foot building ultimately will include research laboratories, said Peter Ross, director of campus planning and facilities manager at the Desert Research Institute. A history of nuclear weapons experiments will be revealed in displays. Without leaving Las Vegas, those visiting the museum can immerse themselves in a virtual tour of the Test Site. Visitors entering the museum will receive a "security pass," reminiscent of a film badge that measured radiation exposure on each person received before passing the checkpoint to enter the Test Site. Beyond gazing at glass cases filled with memorabilia, museum visitors will see and hear the flavor of the 1950s and 1960s when the Test Site was the second largest employer in Nevada. Mining was the state's leading industry then. In the Ground Zero Theater, museum visitors can watch films of the above-ground tests. Eyewitness accounts of observers of above-ground explosions also will be told. "It was an indescribable sight -- the huge fireball seemed to be right above us, with every color of the rainbow," Army combat infantryman Jack Roeder said, describing one shot in the early 1950s. "Everyone was silent." Visitors also can learn basic physics principles involved in a nuclear explosion. Or listen to a radio program that might have come from a local station in the '50s, filled with period music, political speeches and news from Las Vegas. A section devoted to nuclear rocket experiments also is planned. Many of the exhibits will be interactive. "I can't tell you how much time we're putting into this," Wade said, "but it is a labor of love." But the area had a history long before bombs started exploding there. Artifacts from 17 Western Indian tribes from Southern California to Washington state from as far back as 11,000 years have been found there, which will be included in the museum. The area also played host to ranching and mining activities long before the government selected the site in 1950, and artifacts from those years also will be on display. Once the museum opens, the foundation will begin work on the planned Nevada Atomic Testing History Institute next door, which will house decades of records on nuclear testing for use by scholars and historians. The records -- more than a million documents -- currently are housed inside a building in North Las Vegas that is bulging at the seams, Wade said. Nevada and the United States will not lose this important and once-secret history, said Stephen Wells, president of Desert Research Institute. "It is a duty of an academic institution to make the information available to its citizens," Wells said. In addition to 368,000 documents housed in the North Las Vegas facility, Dey said that the DOE has more than 1 million film badges that recorded radiation exposure. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 22 Does Egypt want nuclear weapons? By Amil Khan Middle East Times staff STORY WAS CENSORED FROM THIS WEEK'S PRINTED EDITION Ayman Nagi, a 29-year-old Arab nationalist from Cairo's lower-income district of Shubra is certain that Egypt needs nuclear weapons. "We need them because Israel has them... the peace treaty doesn't mean anything," he says. "They fear us and know that we hate them.... Israeli politicians are always talking about blowing up the High Dam with their nuclear bombs. So we need them to defend ourselves," he says. Egypt signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty in 1981. But since 1990, the government has become more vocal in its condemnation of Israel's undeclared, but widely known, nuclear arsenal. Having failed to pressure the United States to put a halt to Israel's nuclear weapons program, a recent report suggests that Egypt might have decided to acquire nuclear arms itself in a bid to match the Jewish state. However, Egypt's close relations with its main benefactor, the United States, will hamper any attempts to acquire weapons of mass destruction. On June 22, the German newspaper Die Welt reported that Egypt is hoping to extract and process weapons-grade plutonium from the Sinai Peninsula with Chinese help. The newspaper quoted its sources as "Western intelligence," but said, "Cairo denies such plans." The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is said to be unaware of such plans. The newspaper went on to state that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak signed an accord on the "peaceful use of atomic energy" with China on his last official visit to Peking. The deal, the paper explained, included Chinese help with the extraction of uranium from the Sinai. Egyptian academics and political commentators as well as the public feel the threat from Israel's nuclear weapons. In a book titled Cairo's Nuclear Treaty Policy, author Taha Al Majdub, states: "Egypt is considered Israel's second enemy after Syria, according to a classification by Israeli academic institutes and strategic thinkers... "Israel possesses nuclear warheads, and missiles that can carry them to any Arab capital. It also possesses nuclear bombs that American-made F-16 aircraft stationed at the Israeli Tel Nof airbase can carry. "Does this not represent an actual threat not only to Egypt but also to all the Arab states that lie within the range of Israeli missiles and American-made aircraft?" As is the case in many countries, the Egyptian government is keen to prevent information on its military capabilities leaking out into the public domain. However, when the government does address matters associated with military secrets the statements tend to be vague and confusing, leaving Egyptians to jump to their own conclusions. For example, Field Marshal Tantawi has made a speech alluding to Israel's nuclear capabilities and said that, "Egypt has all the means at its disposal to defend itself." However, the military is not alone when it comes to making vague statements. In a speech last year, Mubarak told the nation: "Egypt has the might and power to stop Israel from using any nuclear weapon." Such statements lead some Egyptians to conclude that their country has already acquired nuclear weapons. Waleed Abdul Latif, a student at Cairo University, says, "I'm sure we have the weapons. The president has said we have all the necessary means to defend ourselves, doesn't that mean nuclear weapons?" When asked how acquiring nuclear weapons would affect Egypt's relations with the United States, Abdul Latif answers: "We have lots of desert, they wouldn't need to know. And they can't tell us what to do anyway." In reality, America's aid, heavy foreign investment and trade agreements with Egypt give it a considerable amount of influence. And nuclear non-proliferation is a high priority on Washington's foreign policy agenda. However, Egypt does have a peaceful nuclear program. Inshas Nuclear Research Center in Cairo hosts a two-megawatt, Soviet-supplied research reactor that started operation in 1961. The reactor was shut down for renovation during the 1980s, but started up again in 1990. Egypt's Atomic Energy Agency said the reactor should serve the country's research needs until 2000. Egypt had hoped to complete a larger research reactor to replace it, but the authorities were unwilling to confirm or deny to the Middle East Times whether this had taken place. According to Justus Medley, a former electronic warfare technician with the U.S Army, it would be impossible for Egypt to develop nuclear weapons without the Americans knowing about it. "When you build nuclear weapons you have to test them and we have seismic monitoring stations all around the world that will pick up the signals from a test." Medley is also clear about how the U.S. government would see Egyptian efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction. "The government definitely wouldn't like it and it would jeopardize aid," he says. ***************************************************************** 23 Bill bars nuclear warheads Anchorage Daily News "> [http://www.adn.com] DEFENSE Senate votes not to fund nuclear-armed interceptor missiles. By Liz Ruskin Anchorage Daily News (Published: July 6, 2002) Washington -- The Senate has passed a bill that would block the use of nuclear warheads in the nation's missile defense program, part of which is under construction in Alaska's Interior. The Missile Defense Agency says it isn't exploring the possibility of using nuclear interceptors. The system it is testing relies on kinetic energy -- basically a very high-speed crash -- to knock out an incoming missile with a defense one. "I think we've all taken the position we don't like nuclear weapons in space," said Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska. But a Pentagon advisory group thinks nuclear interceptors are worth exploring, and a bill the House approved directs the Pentagon to request a study of them. The appeal of going nuclear is that the defensive missile would not need to be precise. It could clear a large area, destroying a number of incoming warheads, and it wouldn't be fooled by decoys -- one of the challenges of the current hit-to-kill program. On the other hand, critics say, the first nuclear-tipped missile launched to explode in space might be the last. The electromagnetic pulse that results would destroy satellite and electronic circuitry, they say, rendering useless everything from modern cars to the missile defense system itself. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said she also worries about radioactive fallout. She and Stevens sponsored an amendment to the annual defense authorization bill that would prohibit using federal money to research or deploy nuclear-armed interceptors in a missile defense system. The amendment passed unanimously, and the Senate approved the bill June 27. The two versions of the defense bill must be reconciled before it is sent to the president to be signed. Stevens said he never thought there was much danger the Missile Defense Agency would resort to nuclear warheads, and the idea -- promoted by the Defense Science Board, a Defense Department advisory body -- needlessly alarmed many Alaskans. "Some little think tank over there in the basement of the Pentagon was saying, 'Maybe we ought to think about this,' " Stevens said. "And we told them, in this amendment, 'You can't spend money to even think about it. If you want to think about it on your own time, go ahead. But don't think about it on government time.' " Reporter Liz Ruskin can be reached at 1-202-383-0007 or [lruskin@adn.com] . Copyright © 2002 [http://www.adn.com] ***************************************************************** 24 Construction due to start on Hanford cleanup plant Friday, July 5, 2002 SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER STAFF AND NEWS SERVICES The contractor designing and building the $4 billion radioactive-waste treatment complex at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation expects to begin construction later this month. "We're very close," said Suzanne Heaston, a spokeswoman for Bechtel National. The vitrification plant, which will turn radioactive waste into glass cylinders for long-term storage, is to be ready in 2007. More than 53 million gallons of highly radioactive waste is stored in 177 underground tanks, 67 of which have leaked more than 1 million gallons into the soil over the years, contaminating groundwater and threatening the Columbia River. [Seattle Post-Intelligencer] 101 Elliott Ave. W. Seattle, WA 98119 (206) 448-8000 Send comments to [newmedia@seattlepi.com] ©1999-2002 Seattle Post-Intelligencer ***************************************************************** NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: *****************************************************************