***************************************************************** 07/09/02 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 10.175 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POLICY 1 US: Letter: Nuclear energy bad from start NUCLEAR REACTORS 2 US: San Onofre Unit 2 Completes Refueling and Maintenance Outage 3 US: NRC Announces New Senior Resident Inspector at Braidwood Nuclear 4 Part of a generator at Czech nuclear plant to be replaced 5 Small radioactive leak reported at Japanese nuclear power plant 6 US: NRC Names New Resident Inspector at Point Beach NUCLEAR SAFETY 7 Legal help for nuclear test veterans 8 US: Sick workers to air concerns during rally NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 9 US: Senators Declare Support for Waste Site 10 US: Republicans say they'll force vote on Nevada nuclear waste site 11 US: Utah senators agree to back Yucca Mountain plan in deal with Whi 12 US: YUCCA MOUNTAIN: Senate vote expected today 13 US: Modbee.com | Opinion 14 US: Utah town worries about uranium production waste 15 US: Senate opens Yucca debate 16 US: Letter: Senate should reject Yucca 17 US: Hatch, Bennett Commit Support For Yucca N-Site 18 US: State charges DOE with illegal dumping 19 Green Activists Cite Terrorism Fears In Opposing Nuke Shipment 20 US: Senate set to pass Yucca project 21 US: More Battles Over Yucca On Horizon 22 US: Yucca Mountain Bound 23 US: Senate poised to OK nuclear disposal site 24 US: La. lawmakers support Yucca nuclear repository 25 US: National PTA Opposes Yucca Mountain 26 Donors Agree on Aid to Clean Nuke Waste in Russia 27 US: Republicans say they'll force vote on Nevada nuclear waste site 28 US: GOP Moves to Force Nuke Waste Vote 29 US: Senate Vote Near on Nev. Waste Site 30 US: Colorado senators split on Nevada nuke waste 31 US: Dodd, Lieberman weigh nuclear dump 32 US: Sides square off over planned nuclear dump NUCLEAR WEAPONS 33 US: Nuclear agency to move workers from NLV offices 34 UK: Mass destruction for sale US DEPT. OF ENERGY 35 Nuclear workers forced to move 36 National Nuclear Security Administration: Ambassador Linton F. Broo 37 Paul Parson: Madia talks security with Senate group 38 ORNL researchers honored for work 39 DOE: Ambassador Linton Brooks to be Acting NNSA Administrator OTHER NUCLEAR ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 Letter: Nuclear energy bad from start Las Vegas SUN July 09, 2002 Nuclear scientists and the eager nuclear energy interests, in 1954, bamboozled and lied to oversell nuclear energy in order to produce electricity. I can hear them telling the gullible and over-anxious President Eisenhower and U.S. Congress: "It will produce electricity too cheap to meter" and "it will relieve the U.S. of dependence on foreign oil." Both of these were then and are now untrue. Don't forget that at this point in 1954 we were awash in nuclear waste. It was nine years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki and we were well aware of the horrific health problems inherent in using nuclear energy. It took years after the Nevada Test Site (1951-1992) closed to force the truth. By then it was too late. Nuclear veterans, Marines and Army, were ill along with NTS workers and down-winders. Did the Department of Energy and Nuclear Regulatory Commission scientists know of the risks and certainty of death, illness and genetic damage? You tell me! Nuclear power produces 20 percent of our energy and should be phased out as Germany will from 2003 to 2017. Solar, wind, geothermal, fuel cells, bio-mass, fuel cells and hybrid auto technology with a very modest conservation is the answer for our energy woes. The nuclear power producers should be weaned off subsidies and tax breaks. FRANK PERNA All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 2 San Onofre Unit 2 Completes Refueling and Maintenance Outage [http://www.edisonnews.com] SAN CLEMENTE, Calif., July 8 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Officials at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) announced today that Unit 2 returned to service on July 2, completing a complex and challenging 45-day refueling and maintenance outage. The outage was completed two days ahead of schedule. This refueling and maintenance outage included, among other things, a detailed inspection of the reactor vessel head nozzle penetrations. The reactor head nozzle penetrations have received industry attention recently when leakage from similar nozzles was identified several months ago at the Davis Besse nuclear plant near Toledo, Ohio. The inspection San Onofre conducted found no indications of leakage in the 102 nozzles that penetrate the vessel head. San Onofre officials report that the plant is operating well at 100 percent reactor power. In addition to the reactor refueling, this maintenance outage included: -- More than 4,000 specific maintenance/inspection activities, requiring 350,000 man-hours of labor; -- Replacement of the existing reactor vessel head insulation with a new design to ease future inspection activities; -- Thorough inspection and maintenance of Unit 2's two steam generators. Located in northern San Diego County, San Onofre is operated by Southern California Edison and is jointly owned by Edison International (75%), San Diego Gas & Electric (20%) and the cities of Riverside and Anaheim (5%). The nuclear plant's two operating units produce about 2,200 megawatts of electric power-enough to meet the needs of up to 2.2 million residential customers. SOURCE Southern California Edison Web Site: [http://www.edisonnews.com] Copyright © 1996-2002 PR Newswire Association LLC. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 3 NRC Announces New Senior Resident Inspector at Braidwood Nuclear Power Station NRC: Press Release Region III - 2002 - 40 - U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, Region III 801 Warrenville Road, Lisle IL 60532 www.nrc.gov No. III-02-040 July 9, 2002 CONTACT: Jan Strasma (630) 829-9663 Viktoria Mitlyng (630) 829-9662 E-mail: opa3@nrc.gov [opa3@nrc.gov] Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials in Lisle, Illinois, have assigned Steven P. Ray as a senior resident inspector at the Braidwood Nuclear Power Station in Braceville, Illinois. Ray, who began his duties at the Braidwood plant in April, joined the NRC in 1988 as resident inspector at the Clinton Nuclear Power Station in Clinton, Illinois. He was also senior resident inspector at the Monticello Nuclear Power Plant in Monticello, Minnesota, and at the Prairie Island Nuclear Power Plant in Welch, Minnesota. Ray was active in the development of the Revised Reactor Oversight Program as one of the ten pilot plant senior resident inspectors. Prior to joining the NRC, Ray ran a company surveying homes for radioactive radon gas. He worked for Westinghouse for six years as an operating crew shift foreman at the Byron Nuclear Power Station in Byron, Illinois, and as a senior reactor operator training instructor. Ray began his career in the nuclear industry in 1972 as an officer in the Naval Nuclear Submarine Program. During nine years in the navy, he served in various positions on the USS Pargo and the USS Plunger and taught at the Naval Nuclear Power School in Orlando, Florida. Ray received a bachelor's degree in Mathematics with a minor in Physics and a Secondary Education Teaching Certificate from the University of Minnesota. He also earned a Westinghouse Pressurized Water Reactor Senior Reactor Operator Instructor Certificate. Ray and his wife Linda live in Morris, Illinois. Ray joined resident inspector Nirodh Shah at the Braidwood plant. They can be reached at (815)458-2852. ***************************************************************** 4 Part of a generator at Czech nuclear plant to be replaced AP World Politics Tue Jul 9, 7:31 AM ET PRAGUE, Czech Republic - Workers at a nuclear power plant near the border with Austria plan to replace part of the generator at the plant's second unit, an official said Tuesday. A short circuit at the Temelin nuclear power plant occurred last week at the generator's rotor, said plant spokesman Milan Nebesar. He said that part would be replaced. "That will cause a delay in the tests at the unit of about six weeks," Nebesar said, adding that the cause of the short circuit was unknown. Fission reaction at the plant's second reactor began May 31, and the unit was scheduled to start running at full capacity by the end of the year. The plant, located just 60 kilometers (35 miles) north of the Austrian border, has been a source of friction between the two countries. While critics in Austria insist that the plant is unsafe and demand that it be shut down, Czech authorities argue the plant poses no safety risks. Tests on the first unit of the 2,000-megawatt plant — based on Russian design and upgraded with U.S. technology — started in November 2000. But testing has been plagued by frequent non-nuclear malfunctions. Last month, the first unit entered the last stage of tests and should be ready for commercial use in 18 months. Nebesar said the first unit is running now at full capacity without any problems. (nr/vg) Copyright © 2002 The Associated Press ***************************************************************** 5 Small radioactive leak reported at Japanese nuclear power plant AP World Politics Tue Jul 9,10:23 AM ET TOKYO - A minor radioactive leak occurred at a troubled Japanese nuclear power plant that has been plagued by shutdowns caused by similar leaks, an official said Tuesday. Water with minute traces of radioactivity was found dripping from a defective pipe on Wednesday last week in the No. 3 reactor of Chubu Electric Power's Hamaoka nuclear power plant in Shizuoka prefecture (state) southeast of Tokyo, said Chubu Electric company official Tetsuya Nagao. There was no danger to employees or the environment, he added. The reactor was not shut down. The leak was not deemed serious enough to be announced immediately, Nagao said. It was first made public on the plant's Internet Web site Tuesday with the weekly online update of the facility's activities. A similar leak occurred on May 25 in the plant's No. 2 reactor, just one day after its operations resumed following a six-month hiatus. The Hamaoka plant first gained attention in November last year when the company found radioactive water dripping inside the facility's No. 1 reactor. Two days earlier, a small amount of radioactive steam was found leaking from a pipe that ruptured during a routine test. The company has said neither of those leaks posed any radiation danger. At the time, it shut down both the No. 1 and No. 2 reactors for inspection. The No. 1 reactor has remained inactive. Japan relies on nuclear power for 30 percent of its electricity. However, the Japanese public has become increasingly wary of the power source since a 1999 radiation leak at a fuel-reprocessing plant killed two workers. Copyright © 2002 The Associated Press. ***************************************************************** 6 NRC Names New Resident Inspector at Point Beach NRC: Press Release Region III - 2002 - 41 - U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, Region III 801 Warrenville Road, Lisle IL 60532 www.nrc.gov No. III-02-041 July 9, 2002 CONTACT: Jan Strasma (630) 829-9663 Viktoria Mitlyng (630) 829-9662 E-mail: opa3@nrc.gov [opa3@nrc.gov] Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials in Lisle, Illinois, have assigned R. Michael Morris as a resident inspector at the Point Beach Nuclear Power Station located in Two Rivers, Wisconsin. Morris, who began his duties at Point Beach in May, replaces Raymond Powell who has been appointed senior resident inspector at the Perry Nuclear Power Station in Perry, Ohio. Prior to his most recent assignment, Morris worked in the Operator Licensing Branch of the agency's Region III office. Before joining the NRC on June 19, 2000, he worked at the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant in San Luis Obispo, California, in emergency planning, engineering and operations training. He received his senior reactor operator certification at Diablo Canyon. Morris has worked as an engineering and operations trainer at Babcock & Wilcox and an auxiliary operator at the Summer Nuclear Power Plant in South Carolina. Morris served as a nuclear machinist on a nuclear submarine U.S.S. Parche SSN-683 for six years. He earned a bachelor's degree in math and physics from the University of South Carolina. Morris, his wife and four sons live near Denmark, Wisconsin. Morris joins NRC Senior Resident Inspector Paul Krohn at the Point Beach plant. They can be reached at 920/755-2309. ***************************************************************** 7 Legal help for nuclear test veterans BBC News | UK | Wednesday, 10 July, 2002 [mushroom cloud] Nuclear tests were carried out in the 1950s and 1960s Two British law firms are investigating thousands of claims by veterans who say they became chronically ill after witnessing nuclear tests during the 1950s and 1960s. The work being carried out by Alexander Harris and Clarke Willmott &Clarke could result in legal action against the Ministry of Defence to claim compensation for the victims. I have since developed diabetes and glaucoma, and I sweat profusely every night and still have bad dreams Veteran Derek Redfern Thousands of British, Commonwealth and United States troops took part in the tests which were held in Australia, Christmas Island and other islands in the South Pacific. Many of those present say they were not given suitable protective clothing as they watched the detonation of nuclear devices by Britain and the United States. Derek Redfern, 62, believes he suffered ill-health after attending H-bomb tests on Christmas Island in the South Pacific in 1958. Boils "Straight afterwards I developed little boils all over my skin, but the doctors put it down to prickly heat, even though I never had it before. "I have since developed diabetes and glaucoma, and I sweat profusely every night and still have bad dreams. "Now I want compensation because if I die of something which the MoD says is not its fault, my wife will not get my pension." We refute very strongly any suggestion that these veterans were used as guinea pigs MoD spokesman The MoD has always denied that the level of exposure was enough to have caused the cancers and associated illnesses which many of the veterans say resulted from the tests. A number have died from cancer and others say the exposure to atomic radiation has made them severely ill. New research Mervyn Fudge, a partner at Clarke Willmott &Clarke, said: "Recently-published research shows that the stance taken by the Ministry of Defence is incorrect and that the veterans have sustained injuries which should allow them to claim compensation from the British Government". It is still unclear how many veterans have been affected and would be in a position to claim compensation. The law firms hope to present their findings and five example cases to the Legal Services Commission in September. David Harris, senior partner of Alexander Harris, said the investigations would include claims from New Zealand and Fijian veterans who are suffering from a similar range of health problems. No compensation "We will be looking at the scientific and medical evidence which is now available to establish whether a link can be made between the ill health that these people are suffering and the nuclear testing which took place." A Ministry of Defence spokesman said independent studies involving 21,000 servicemen have showed no evidence of excess illness or mortality amongst the veterans which could be linked to their participation in the nuclear test programme. "We believe therefore there are no grounds for general compensation," he said. A helpline has been set up for veterans who may have questions about the investigations: 0800 358 1855. ***************************************************************** 8 Sick workers to air concerns during rally The Oak Ridger Online -- Area News -- 07/09/02 by Paul Parson Oak Ridger staff A group of present and former employees at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge facilities will hold a rally/protest next week to voice their concerns about a compensation program for job-sickened nuclear workers. This is the second event of this kind the group has organized in the last two months. Starting at 4 p.m. on Monday, July 15, the group will gather in the parking lot of the Jackson Plaza office complex, 800 Oak Ridge Turnpike. This is the location of a field office for the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program. The compensation program, which officially began July 31, 2001, provides medical care and a payment of $150,000 to sick workers or their survivors, if the workers were exposed to cancer-causing radiation or to silica or beryllium, which are linked to lung diseases. The program is administered by the Labor Department. Some of the problems with the program include the amount of time it takes to work through the program, the number of illnesses not covered and the fact that workers at each of the Department of Energy sites in Oak Ridge are treated differently under the plan. Also at the July 15 event, the group plans to air its concerns about the inadequacies of the retirement program for workers at DOE's Oak Ridge facilities. Paul Parson can be contacted at (865) 220-5533 or [pparson@oakridger.com] . [http://www.oakridger.com/contact/index.html] [http://www.oakridger.com] All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 9 Senators Declare Support for Waste Site Date: Tue, 9 Jul 2002 18:15:53 -0500 (CDT) July 9, 2002 Senators Declare Support for Waste Site By ALISON MITCHELL and MATTHEW L. WALD WASHINGTON, July 8 - Several wavering senators from both parties rallied today to support President Bush's call for a nuclear waste disposal site at Yucca Mountain, prompting Republican aides to predict that Congress will give final passage this week to the plan to bury the nation's atomic waste in the Nevada desert. "We have a majority," said one senior Republican aide, expressing confidence about the outcome. It would cap a struggle of more than 20 years to designate a site to store thousands of tons of high-level radioactive waste from commercial reactors and nuclear weapons plants. On the eve of an expected Senate showdown on the issue, two previously undecided Republican senators from Utah, Robert F. Bennett and Orrin G. Hatch, said late today that they would support the disposal site after a White House meeting this afternoon that included Spencer Abraham, the secretary of energy. "Those of us from Utah are faced with a choice of either having this material go through our state or stop and come to our state," said Mr. Bennett. For that reason, he and Mr. Hatch said, they would vote for the disposal site. The issue of how to dispose of spent nuclear fuel from power plants had raised particular concerns in Utah because several utility companies, fearful that Yucca might not open, have been negotiating with an Indian tribe with a reservation 70 miles west of Salt Lake City for permission to store waste there on an interim basis. Disappointing Democrats and environmentalists, Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, was expected to announce on Tuesday his support for building the repository at Yucca Mountain. An aide said that while the senator still had concerns about the transport of radioactive material across the country, he planned to introduce legislation to address those concerns. Critics of the disposal site contend that the site and the rules that Congress set up to select it do not take science into account and say that there is still danger of contamination from the site. One lawsuit pending in federal district court here, for examples, argues that the Environmental Protection Agency drew the limits within which water pollution would be allowed, to permit excessive leakage from the repository into underground water supplies. The Senate action on the issue will have major implications for the future of the nation's nuclear power industry. As a result, it has been the subject of a fierce lobbying campaign, with environmentalists and major business groups sparring on the airwaves and in grass-roots lobbying state by state. Opponents of the plan to consolidate much of nation's spent nuclear waste at the site have long acknowledged that the odds were against their success. But they were hoping to block a Republican effort expected on Tuesday to bring the Yucca Mountain issue up for debate. Unlike most issues before the Senate, this one cannot be filibustered. "I haven't given up," Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the assistant majority leader, who has tried to keep the site from being placed in his state, said tonight. Mr. Reid and the Senate majority leader, Tom Daschle, sharply accused the Republicans and the Bush administration of favoring special interests like the nuclear power industry in promoting the Nevada site. Supporters of using Yucca said that the Bush administration was taking no chances and that they expected Vice President Dick Cheney to preside in the Senate on Tuesday in case his vote would be needed to break a tie to initiate the debate. Nevada has battled the waste site for 20 years. In 1982, setting a highly unusual procedure, Congress gave Nevada the power to veto any presidential decision about Yucca Mountain, then established a set of procedures for overturning such a veto. The issue became joined in Congress after Gov. Kenny Guinn of Nevada, a Republican, in April exercised that veto over President Bush's decision to build the repository in Nevada. A resolution to overturn Mr. Guinn's veto passed the Republican-run House in May on a bipartisan vote of 306-117. The Democratic-run Senate now has the final say, though it must take action by July 26. The last-ditch sparring was intense, with both sides trying to buttonhole a dwindling list of undecided lawmakers. Proponents of nuclear power regard the Yucca Mountain site as vital to the industry. Backers of new reactors say that the establishment of a repository is an essential step for the construction of new reactors. Without Yucca, they say, the industry seems well on its way to extinction, with all the reactors ordered after 1973 having been canceled. Indeed, California and Connecticut have prohibited construction of new reactors pending resolution of the waste problem. Thus, the politics of Yucca have become tangled with those of the nation's energy future. Critics contend that science has been left behind in the search for a site, and question whether Yucca is even adequate, and whether the engineered protections - as opposed to the natural geology of the mountain - have been sufficiently thought out. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 first had the Energy Department "characterize" three candidate sites in the western United States and choose the best, but Congress - concerned about the schedule and cost, both of which were running over initial estimates - came back in 1987 with an amendment that picked one of the sites: Yucca Mountain. Planners originally contemplated repeating the procedure to find a second repository in the eastern United States, but as nuclear waste became more controversial, that idea died. "The politics won out," said Allison Macfarlane of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Yucca Mountain Project. "The weakest state, politically, that was under consideration, got stuck with it." In recent weeks, opponents made their best gains by raising questions about the safety of transporting nuclear waste across the country. Senator Reid, Democrats say, has been using all his influence in search of votes - including his power as chairman of a key appropriations subcommittee to support projects. He has won some converts, with two first-term Democratic senators, Jean Carnahan of Missouri and Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, declaring their opposition to the repository in recent days. Ms. Stabenow had supported the Yucca Mountain site when she served in the House, but aides said she was now particularly troubled by plans to transport waste by barge across Lake Michigan. In addition, Senator James M. Jeffords, the Vermont independent who owes his chairmanship of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee to Mr. Reid's decision to step aside for him, indicates he is undecided even though he has backed the repository. Erik Smulson, Mr. Jeffords's press secretary, attributed the senator's new doubts not to Mr. Reid but to concerns "about the viability of the Yucca plant." Still, many pro-business Democrats from conservative states were expected to vote with the Republicans, making passage seem assured. Even if the Senate gives its approval, the Yucca project faces numerous technical and legal challenges. The Energy Department has only 90 days to file an application after the Senate acts, but even Yucca's supporters say that the department will not be ready; it may not file for two years, according to some experts. The department has yet to make some basic decisions about the design of the repository. And after the Energy Department makes its filings, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is supposed to decide on a license by applying rules written by the E.P.A. But those rules are being challenged by Nevada and by the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group. Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company ***************************************************************** 10 Republicans say they'll force vote on Nevada nuclear waste site Associated Press [online@rgj.com] 7/8/2002 06:10 pm Republican senators said they will force a vote Tuesday on a proposed nuclear waste site in Nevada, despite a plea by the Senate's top Democrat not to interrupt consideration of a bill to deal with corporate accounting abuses. Meanwhile, two key Republican senators _ Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett of Utah _ were assured that if they go along with the Yucca Mountain site the Bush administration would help keep nuclear waste from being stored in their state. After a meeting at the White House, Hatch and Bennett said they were shifting from undecided to favoring the Nevada site, although they continued to have some concerns about transporting the waste. A Senate vote will determine whether President Bush will be allowed to proceed with his plan, announced in February, to bury 77,000 tons of nuclear waste beneath the volcanic ridge known as Yucca Mountain 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The House already has approved a resolution overriding Nevada's objections to the project. GOP senators have accused Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., of trying to block the project by not bringing it up for a vote by the July 25 deadline. So, GOP senators informed the White House on Monday that they would force the issue on the Senate floor Tuesday, triggering a vote on the resolution. Under a provision unique to a 1982 law governing nuclear waste disposal, any senator can force a vote on the resolution. Normally, only the majority leader brings up legislation for consideration by the full Senate. In a letter to Bush, Daschle asked the president to intervene. he called the GOP push on Yucca"ill-considered and ill-timed"and an attempt to sidetrack action on legislation to overhaul accounting laws in light of recent corporate accounting scandals. But the administration made clear it wants the Yucca decision resolved, and the sooner the better. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said he expects the Senate to begin consideration of the Yucca Mountain resolution Tuesday. The 1982 law limits debate to 10 hours and allows for no amendments or filibuster. Nevada's two senators _ Democrat Harry Reid and Republican John Ensign _ have been scrambling to try to get enough votes to kill the Yucca project. They lost two potential GOP allies Monday when Hatch and Bennett announced their support of the Yucca waste site. For weeks the two Utah senators had expressed concern about the thousands of shipments of used reactor fuel that are expected to go through their state on their way to Nevada if the repository is built, including much of it through Salt Lake City. But they said they feared that if the Nevada site were not approved, the nuclear industry would begin to ship its waste to a proposed private storage site on an Indian reservation in Utah's Skull Valley. "I would much rather have it go through than stop and stay,"Bennett told reporters after he and Hatch met with Abraham and White House chief of staff Andrew Card. In return, the senators got a commitment from the White House: Abraham promised that the Energy Department would refuse to provide any federal money to transport waste to the proposed private site, making it unlikely that utilities would want to ship radioactive waste there. Neither the two GOP senators or Abraham would speculate if supporters of the Yucca site had the 51 votes to override Nevada's veto. "I assume it must be fairly close,"said Bennett, adding that he had been lobbied heavily by opponents. Abraham said that if Yucca Mountain were not approved there would be other"makeshift, ad hoc arrangements"by the nuclear industry to temporarily store waste at sites such the one proposed for Utah, which is undergoing review by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Reid and Ensign have argued that the waste is safe where it is now, at 103 commercial power reactors in 31 states, and would be less safe and more open to terrorist attacks while being shipped by truck or rail to Nevada. If approved and if it gets the NRC license, the Yucca Mountain repository would be scheduled to open in 2010 and receive about 3,000 tons of waste shipments a year for at least 24 years. Copyright Reno Gazette-Journal, a Gannett Co. Inc. ***************************************************************** 11 Utah senators agree to back Yucca Mountain plan in deal with White House By Doug Abrahms and Susan Roth [online@rgj.com] Gannett News Service 7/8/2002 11:54 pm WASHINGTON — Utah’s two senators agreed Monday to vote for a proposal to store nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, after administration officials assured them a rival nuclear waste site on a Utah Indian reservation would not receive federal funding. The pledge of support from Republican Sens. Orrin Hatch and Robert Bennett could be the last two votes the administration needs to win passage of the proposal. “I would rather it (nuclear waste) pass through Utah than stay in Utah,” Bennett said. “My preference would be to leave it where it is, but now I think that is no longer an option.” Bennett and Hatch met Monday with Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham and White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card at the White House. Abraham and others are lobbying senators to back a resolution that would overturn Nevada’s veto of the administration’s plan to establish a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain. On Monday, the administration offered a written promise to block federal funding for the Goshute Indian Reservation nuclear waste project in Utah’s SkullValley. “This is the best we can do,” Hatch said. “I don’t feel good about this at all. These are our neighbors to the west in Nevada. I wish I didn’t have to vote this way.” Supporters and opponents of the Yucca Mountain proposal are working hard to sway undecided lawmakers before the Senate vote. Monday’s meeting shows that the administration is not assuming that it has enough Senate votes to overturn Nevada’s veto. “It just goes to show how close this vote will be,” said Traci Scott, spokeswoman for Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev. “We’re going to work it until the end.” By law, the Yucca Mountain resolution will die unless the Senate passes it by July 27. Copyright Reno Gazette-Journal, a Gannett Co. Inc. ***************************************************************** 12 YUCCA MOUNTAIN: Senate vote expected today Tuesday, July 09, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal Utah Republicans, Illinois Democrat come out in favor of dumping nuclear waste in Nevada By STEVE TETREAULT STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration on Monday collared support for the Yucca Mountain Project from Utah's wavering senators, dealing a severe blow to Nevada leaders as they brace for today's anticipated showdown on the nuclear waste repository. Republicans Orrin Hatch and Robert Bennett said they would vote to override Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn's veto of the Yucca Mountain Project. The Bush administration promised to help the Utah senators derail efforts to store nuclear waste on the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation. Nevada Sens. Harry Reid and John Ensign and other state officials have worked fervidly for months to sway a majority of the Senate against the Energy Department's plans to entomb nuclear waste 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Utah's senators were a primary target of their lobbying. Besides Nevada, Utah stands to be most affected by the Yucca Mountain Project because almost all of the 77,000 tons of radioactive fuel destined for the repository would travel through the state. The Utahns announced their votes following a half-hour White House meeting with Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham and President Bush's chief of staff, Andrew Card. The message from Abraham and Card was clear: if nuclear waste doesn't go to Nevada, it could end up in Utah. "I would rather have nuclear waste come through Utah than come to Utah," Bennett said. Reid, D-Nev., would not concede defeat Monday night, but he acknowledged it's a long shot for Nevada to stop the planned repository in the Senate. "I'm still making calls," he said. "I still have confidence some people will do the right thing in spite of the pressure." At some point after the Senate convenes this morning, a Yucca Mountain supporter, most likely a Republican, will call up the legislation to override Guinn's veto, officials said. That motion will prompt an objection from Reid or Ensign, R-Nev., leading to a procedural vote that will be a crucial test of Yucca Mountain sentiment. If the Nevadans keep the legislation from being brought up for debate, the Senate will put aside the issue at least temporarily while both sides consider their next moves. If the Nevadans lose the procedural vote, the Senate could have Yucca Mountain wrapped up and approved for nuclear waste by the end of the day, officials said. Federal law allows 10 hours of debate on the Yucca Mountain resolution, but pro-repository senators could decide to forsake the allowed time and move quickly to a final vote. In another development Monday, Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., also announced he planned to vote for the Nevada repository. Durbin submitted a commentary that was to be published today in the Chicago Tribune laying out his reasons, Tribune Opinion Editor Marcia Lythcott said. "No site will ever be perfect for the storage of high-level nuclear waste, but I believe the studies that have been conducted and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission review still to come provide sufficient assurances that Yucca Mountain is the most appropriate site available," Durbin wrote. Durbin's announcement further reduced Nevada's odds of killing the nuclear waste program. In Utah, the state had spent tens of thousands of dollars on television ads and considerable grass-roots efforts to persuade Hatch and Bennett to vote against the repository. Abraham said he made it plain that if the Yucca Mountain Project is killed, much of the nation's nuclear waste could end up at "makeshift, ad hoc" repositories such as the facility proposed for the Skull Valley reservation southwest of Salt Lake City. Over the objections of Utah leaders, a consortium of utilities and the Goshute band are seeking a license to store up to 40,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel in above-ground canisters for as long as 40 years. "If Yucca Mountain moves ahead, sites like the Utah site will not move ahead," Abraham said. Durbin, a member of the Senate's Democratic leadership along with Reid, voted against Yucca Mountain in 2000. Subsequently he came under heavy pressure in Illinois, where utilities operate 11 nuclear plants that generate 49.6 percent of the state's electricity. Durbin could not be reached for comment Monday night. Senators continued to come off the fence as they prepare to cap a two-decade legislative process. The Senate has before it a resolution that would finalize the site over Guinn's veto. Provided the resolution reaches a vote, a simple majority would finalize Yucca Mountain as the nation's first high-level nuclear waste repository. The House voted 306-117 on May 8 to override the veto. In the past 10 days, two freshman Democrats, Jean Carnahan of Missouri and Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, declared they planned to vote against the Nevada repository. Stabenow's announcement on July 1 came as a particular surprise to the nuclear industry, prompting the industry and the Bush administration "to pull out all the stops and make all the necessary promises" to secure votes, one congressional official said. Should the Yucca Mountain Project gain approval, Nevada would be left to fight the repository through the courts and a Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing process. On Monday, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., urged President Bush to call off GOP senators and allow the Senate to work on an accounting reform bill rather than nuclear waste. Daschle said that efforts to put the accounting bill aside "would send conflicting signals about Republican priorities" and could lead to questions about how serious Republicans are about restoring confidence in the economy. There was no immediate public response from Bush. Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002 ***************************************************************** 13 Modbee.com | Opinion Yucca Mountain faces radioactive politics The Modesto Bee July 9, 2002 Posted: 04:30:10 AM PDT Since the nation began splitting atoms more than two generations ago, it hasn't settled on a final resting place for the highly radioactive residue this process produces. The federal government has one and only one home in mind for this waste: deep under an ancient volcanic ridge in Nevada known as Yucca Mountain. The problem, and it is a considerable one, lies in safely getting the waste there. This problem is only exceeded by leaving the waste where it is, in 131 sites spread throughout 39 states. The peril of the status quo, particularly in this new era of terrorism, is conveniently avoided by the critics of Yucca Mountain. This waste is a target one way or another wherever it is, either in transport or at existing locations, some of which are dangerously near population centers. In a logical weighing of risks, Yucca Mountain would prevail. But this isn't a decision-making process of logic and science, rather one of politics, lobbying and preying on people's fears. The next forum is the U.S. Senate (and then, most likely, the courts). The Senate could either endorse the Yucca Mountain site, as has the Bush administration, or reject it, sending the issue into nuclear's version of Neverland. The critics of the site, led by the state of Nevada and environmental groups, are seizing on the transportation issue as their best hope for derailing the Yucca Mountain proposal. There are few states in the nation that will escape the shipment of some other state's nuclear waste through their borders on the way to Yucca Mountain. Concerns about shipment are real and understandable, particularly after Sept. 11. And it makes sense for a senator such as Jean Carnahan from Missouri, smack in the center of the nuclear highway, to plan to vote no. But always, the question comes back: If not there, where? Arguably it would have been nicer to have a menu of options rather than one proposal, Yucca Mountain. There's no choice but to find the lowest-risk approach to get this radioactive waste from here to there. And at this point, Yucca Mountain looks like the best option for the endpoint of these controversial journeys. ***************************************************************** 14 Utah town worries about uranium production waste KRT Wire | 07/08/2002 | [http://www.aberdeennews.com] [The Beacon Journal] Posted on Mon, Jul. 08, 2002 By SETH BORENSTEIN Knight Ridder Newspapers [A sign warning of uranium ore tailings is seen on the banks of the Colorado River between two National Parks and the town of Moab, Utah. The pile leaches ammonia and other hazards into a water supply that feeds much of the west including Los Angeles, Calif.] KRT photos/Chuck Kennedy A sign warning of uranium ore tailings is seen on the banks of the Colorado River between two National Parks and the town of Moab, Utah. The pile leaches ammonia and other hazards into a water supply that feeds much of the west including Los Angeles, Calif. MOAB, Utah - John Elmer stands on a mound along the west bank of the mighty Colorado River. Beneath his feet are nearly 12 million tons of radioactive dirt that the federal government inherited from a bankrupt uranium mill. While the Senate plans to vote Tuesday on whether to approve Nevada's Yucca Mountain as the nation's dumpsite for the highly radioactive end products of nuclear power, the action won't do anything about Moab's end of the problem, which is waste from uranium production. What's more, if remote Yucca Mountain is ideal for high-level nuclear waste, it's hard to imagine a worse place for nuclear waste, even low-level waste, than Moab. Across the river is a rare Utah wetland, an oasis in this desert for 200 species of birds. Across the street, the picturesque buttes of Arches National Park reach for the sky. The site is at the juncture of two highways, two national parks, one state park and the Colorado River And below the radioactive mound, two earthquake faults meet. In addition, some day the Colorado River is likely to change course and run directly into the radioactive dirt pile, according to a June study by the National Academy of Sciences. The river supplies water to Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Phoenix and Tucson, Ariz. Although Yucca Mountain gets more attention, the federal government still has nearly two dozen old uranium mining and milling sites like Moab, where cleanup costs could approach $400 million. "You're on top of Yucca Mountain Junior here," said Elmer, a project manager for a firm the government hired to clean up the uranium-tailings site. [moab, utah] Unlike the waste that would go to Yucca, the stuff here is of low-level radioactivity. But there's a lot of it - 11.9 million tons in a 140-acre pile, more than six times the amount of debris trucked away from the World Trade Center. The site's two biggest environmental concerns are ammonia, a toxic pollutant, and radon, a cancer-causing substance given off by decaying radium. In a recent study, the federal government kept fish in cages within 1,000 feet downriver of the Moab site; they all died from ammonia poisoning. But scientists agree that, because the contamination gets diluted quickly, there isn't a problem farther downstream. The radon risk is limited for now to workers on the waste site, who wear protective boots and whose exposures are carefully limited. A shift in the river's course or an earthquake could change all that, however. As at Yucca Mountain, a lot rides on the Moab waste site's unknowable geologic future. The Uranium Reduction Company opened a mill here in 1956. Atlas Minerals Corporation took over in 1962 and ran it until 1984. About half the uranium milled here went to nuclear power plants; the other half went to nuclear weapons work. In 1996, Atlas planned to bury the tailings in the current location, but the company went bankrupt in 1998, and the federal government took over the mess. Now the government has two options: Seal the site and leave it where it is, or move the waste to a designated dump about 18 miles from the river. Scientists and engineers agree the second option is safer, but it's also much more expensive. Leaving the pile in place would cost an estimated $137 million. Hauling it away would cost $386 million and take 10 years, the government reckons. Most residents of the east-central Utah town of Moab would prefer moving the pile to the remote desert site. "We've got an ideal geophysical site," said Moab activist Bill Hedden, Utah director of the Grand Canyon Trust, an Arizona-based environmental group. "We're not trying to dump the problem on anybody else. It's right here in this community." While the Department of Energy won't make a decision until next year, it's more likely to move the waste than to store it where it is, Elmer said. That's because it is what the federal government has done with 20 out of the 22 similar sites it has taken over. "It's hard for me to imagine that capping it in place is going to be acceptable," said Joel Berwick, project manager for DOE. "Everybody who looks at it acknowledges that it would be a lot better to get it away from the river, away from the wetland, away from the town," said Hedden, the environmentalist. About Ohio.com ***************************************************************** 15 Senate opens Yucca debate Las Vegas SUN July 09, 2002 Reid, Ensign make their final pitch By Benjamin Grove WASHINGTON -- Nevada's senators made an impassioned last-minute stand on the Senate floor today trying to stop the government from establishing a high-level nuclear waste dump 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The Senate began debate on a resolution to put the dump at Yucca Mountain this morning after a deal was struck by Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and John Ensign, R-Nev., and Republican leaders that established debate rules. A vote could come as soon as this evening, and Reid and Ensign noted this morning that there was no way they could block it. "Sen. Reid and I obviously are vehemently opposed to this bill and even opposed to this bill being on the floor today," Ensign said. Reid said he knew the matter would eventually surface in the Senate and grudgingly acknowledged "the day has arrived." Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, long a champion of putting the dump in Nevada, introduced the motion to proceed with Yucca Mountain. Ensign launched a debate on Senate procedure, arguing that only Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., should be allowed to bring Yucca to the floor, according to Senate tradition. He said Murkowski's action set a dangerous precedent. "This precedent is in the eye of the beholder and that's what makes it so dangerous," Ensign said. "Every senator needs to reflect on this vote very, very carefully. This vote could literally change the way that the Senate operates." Murkowski said he was well within Senate rules under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. "Despite what has been said, we are proceeding under Senate rules," Murkowski said. "I hope we can put that matter to rest that we are somehow violating or circumventing Senate rules here." Early debate focused on transporting nuclear waste. Ensign challenged the Energy Department statistic cited by Murkowski that only 175 shipments of nuclear waste would travel to Yucca each year. Murkowski acknowledged it was an estimate because transportation plans have not been finalized. The Alaska senator sought to shift focus from waste transportation to the narrow resolution before the Senate: whether to approve Yucca. Reid and Ensign enlisted the help of Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., who asked Murkowski pointed questions about waste shipments. But it was not immediately clear how Specter intended to vote today. Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, another Yucca advocate, derided Ensign's questions about waste shipments as mere fear-mongering. "It is an alarmist political tactic to try to kill this very effort," Craig said. The senators agreed to 4 1/2 hours of debate on the procedures, with a vote coming afterward. The procedural vote was expected to be the final one in which each senator's vote would be recorded -- a simple voice vote on the Yucca resolution was to come directly after the procedural vote. "We call this a procedural vote, but it is in fact a test of the majority," Reid said. In the spirited debate between Ensign and Murkowski, the Alaska senator tried to downplay concerns about Yucca. He said federal agencies would make sure waste shipments were safe. "All we're doing is allowing the (Energy) secretary to apply for the license" for Yucca, Murkowski said. "The act does not address the transportation or storage." But Ensign said that was a paramount concern as the Senate would never have another chance to debate the nuclear dump. "Today is the only time the Senate would have to vote," Ensign said, noting the Energy Department had only provided estimates on the number of shipments and couldn't say if "I have 20 shipments coming through my state or if I have 1,000 shipments a year coming through my state." Reid and Ensign faced long odds on swaying the Senate against the 20-year-old nuclear waste proposal. Dealing a blow to Reid, fence-sitter Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said he will vote for the plan to construct a national waste dump on desert land adjacent to the Nevada Test Site. Durbin, a longtime Reid ally, has opposed Yucca-related legislation in the past. But Illinois is home to more nuclear reactors than any other state, and its lawmakers have been under great industry pressure to support Yucca. Durbin said his support for Yucca is rooted partly in his belief that strict radiation standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency will protect humans and the environment. "All of these standards greatly exceed the standards debated by Congress in the two previous bills I opposed," Durbin wrote in an article in today's Chicago Tribune. Two other "undecided" senators -- Utah Republicans Orrin Hatch and Robert Bennett -- on Monday publicly announced that they would vote for Yucca. The two got assurances from Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham and White House officials that a vote for Yucca was a vote against the Skull Valley reservation proposal. That plan would establish a temporary waste site on Goshute Indian property in the west Utah desert. Abraham emerged with the Utah senators after a White House meeting saying that the private sector would be forced to develop to "makeshift, ad hoc" above-ground waste sites if Yucca is defeated. "My message is, in short, that if Yucca Mountain moves ahead, sites such as the Utah site will not move ahead," Abraham said. The Utah senators agreed that Yucca was the best solution to the nation's waste problem despite grave concerns about the waste traveling through Utah. "I would much rather have it pass through than stop and stay," Bennett said. The Utah senators said Yucca was the lesser of two evils compared to the Goshute repository because waste would be underground at the Nevada site that has been scrutinized for 20 years. "I don't feel good about this at all," a grim-looking Hatch said. "These (Nevadans) are our neighbors to the west. But we all have to represent our constituents the best we can." Ensign spokeswoman Traci Scott would not comment on the Utah senators' decision. Ensign had leaned on the Republicans heavily, and the two said his concerns about waste shipments weighed heavily on their minds. Several other senators today still were not announcing their stance, including Sen. Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I., who has voted against Yucca in a previous vote. A Chafee spokeswoman said he had plans to meet with Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman later today. Goodman arrived in Washington on Monday to lobby key senators, and planned to hammer the message that transporting waste across the country invited accidents and terrorist threats. Goodman, once Specter's law clerk, met with the senator for breakfast this morning. Specter didn't tell Goodman how he intended to vote. Goodman said President Bush and the Energy Department "are willing to play a game of Russian roulette with America's cities." "Our Washington officials are arrogant to think they know all the answers on how to prevent a nuclear accident or terrorist attack when shipping radioactive cargo through our country," Goodman said. "How can they assume this when the DOE has not answered the most basic questions on the subject of the safety of nuclear transportation or public security in its 5,000-page environmental-impact statement?" In other action Monday, Daschle made a final plea to Bush to call off Senate Republicans. Daschle argued that the Senate should focus this week on a bill aimed at corporate reform, not on Yucca. Bush today delivered a speech outlining solutions to a wave of corporate accounting scandals. "I am writing to ask you to prevail upon members of your party in the Senate to refrain from this ill-considered and ill-timed effort to sidetrack the accounting reform bill," Daschle wrote Bush. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 16 Letter: Senate should reject Yucca Las Vegas SUN July 09, 2002 The nuclear power industry claims, in its push to open the flawed, geologically unstable, earthquake prone, volcanically active Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump, that it is better to consolidate the nation's waste at one site, rather than leave it at nuclear reactors across the country. But this dangerous plan will only encourage the industry to produce more high-level nuclear waste, (already Yucca Mountain alone will not contain all of the 109,000 metric tons of waste, so another foul plan to store 40,000 metric tons has been hatched to ship waste to yet another Native American reservation in Utah), plus this toxic material will still remain at every operating reactor site and cost American taxpayers $58 billion and counting (more than the combined expenses of the Panama Canal, Hoover Dam and the World Trade Center). Opening a dump at Yucca Mountain will not solve the nation's radioactive waste problem, it would just introduce potential moving targets for terrorists as it spreads high level waste across our highways and railways. The Senate should reject the earthquake-prone Yucca project and begin work on a real solution to nuclear waste. CELIA SUE HECHT All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 17 Hatch, Bennett Commit Support For Yucca N-Site The Salt Lake Tribune -- Tuesday, July 9, 2002 Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham, left, is joined by Sens. Bob Bennett and Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, during a news briefing outside the White House on Monday in Washington. Bennett and Hatch said they will support President Bush's proposed Yucca Mountain, Nev., nuclear-waste dump, which the Senate is expected to vote on to day. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/The Associated Press) BY JUDY FAHYS THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE Sens. Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett will vote in favor of burying the nation's high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, they said Monday. The Utah Republicans were undecided before a White House meeting Monday afternoon during which U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham agreed to help fight a separate, private nuclear waste facility proposed for Utah. Bennett said Abraham persuaded him that, without permanent disposal at Yucca Mountain, the power-plant waste would wind up at the proposed facility on the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation about 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. "Faced with the choice of having [the waste] come through Utah or to Utah -- and in much greater quantities -- I decided I would rather have it come through," said Bennett. The U.S. Senate is expected to vote today or Wednesday on whether to allow the Energy Department to go forward with construction of an underground disposal facility at Yucca Mountain. Both President Bush and the U.S. House of Representatives favor overriding the state of Nevada's veto of the project. If the Senate agrees, the site will be readied to accept about 77,000 tons of lethally radioactive defense waste and fuel rods from 65 nuclear power plants. Explaining his decision Monday, Hatch cited Abraham's promise that the DOE will withhold financial support from the Skull Valley storage site, although none was ever promised. "This policy statement by the secretary of energy, combined with strong assurances of an enhanced and updated transportation plan, lead me to conclude that I should not stand in the way of sending this waste to its permanent resting place in Yucca Mountain." Ken Cook, director of the Environmental Working Group, which opposes the Utah and Nevada sites, noted that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission -- and not the Energy Department -- has authority over the Utah nuclear-waste storage proposal. He doubted Abraham's promises will derail the GoÂshute site. © Copyright 2002, The Salt Lake Tribune ***************************************************************** 18 State charges DOE with illegal dumping Las Vegas SUN: July 09, 2002 By Mary Manning Nevada environmental officials have issued a violation notice to the Energy Department for sending containers of soil contaminated with both radiation and a chemical solvent from Kentucky to burial at the Nevada Test Site. Two landfills at the Test Site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas, have accepted low-level radioactive waste from nuclear weapons activities nationwide for more than 30 years. However, radioactive wastes mixed with chemicals are not allowed. DOE contractor Bechtel Jacobs in Paducah, Ky., discovered that 127 containers of the tainted soil shipped to a Test Site landfill were mislabeled and contain a solvent. It may cost more than $200,000 to dig up and move the dirt. In addition to radiation, the dirt contains the toxic degreaser trichloroethene, or TCE. Federal law sets different standards for disposing of radioactive waste combined with hazardous waste and the disposal costs are higher, because the material has to be buried at a licensed landfill. The Energy Department operated a uranium processing plant at Paducah during the Cold War. The soils were excavated in 1991 near a drain where ditches and pipes from the processing plant emptied into creeks. Thousands of gallons of TCE poured from the industrial drain at the plant's main maintenance building until 1993, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency records said. The boxes containing the TCE-laced dirt arrived at the Test Site in four shipments between Sept. 28, 2001, and Nov. 19, 2001, records showed. The buried metal boxes do not pose an immediate health or environmental threat, according to Paul Liebendorfer, chief of the bureau of federal facilities in the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection. The state issued a formal finding of "alleged violation." Steps to determine what to do with the buried soils should begin this month, Liebendorfer said. If the government can't determine what wastes are in the soils, removing the waste for burial in a licensed landfill could begin in August. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 19 Green Activists Cite Terrorism Fears In Opposing Nuke Shipment -- 07/08/2002 By Patrick Goodenough CNSNews.com Pacific Rim Bureau Chief July 08, 2002 Pacific Rim Bureau (CNSNews.com) - Anti-nuclear campaigners were sailing Monday towards an unofficial rendezvous-at-sea with two armed British freighters carrying used nuclear fuel. Protestors claim the cargo could pose a serious security risk in the post-Sept. 11 era. The freighters are heading to Britain from Japan, via the southwestern Pacific and the southern tip of Africa. Their route will take them between Australia and New Zealand, and it is from these two countries the protestors are sailing in a small flotilla of yachts. When they meet up with the British ships in the Tasman Sea, the campaigners plan to form what they described as a symbolic chain of protest across the ocean. Onboard the two ships is a mix of plutonium and uranium oxides known as MOX, which could be used in weapons. The initial transportation of the nuclear fuel from the Sellafield nuclear plant in Britain to Japan in 1999 caused an international outcry. The Japanese subsequently refused to use the material, after it emerged that British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) had falsified safety information relating to it. BNFL hopes to secure future business selling fuel to the Japanese nuclear power industry, but first it must take back the original defective shipment - at its own cost. The six-week journey, through sometimes rough seas in mid-winter (in the southern hemisphere) has environmental activists up in arms. They argued that the shipment should have been treated as nuclear waste, immobilized, and stored in Japan. In Britain, the Greenpeace organization sought legal action, but then dropped the challenge after learning that the ships had already left the Japanese port of Takahama late last week. Greenpeace and other critics of the shipment have also seized on the international security climate in the wake of last September's terror attacks on the U.S., claiming the cargo offers a tempting target for terrorists. "To send highly radioactive materials on a six-week, 18,000-mile journey on the high seas was a stupid idea before 11 September," Greenpeace representative Bunny McDiarmid said in Auckland. "In today's context it can only be described as insane," she added. Greenpeace says the cargo contains enough plutonium to make 50 nuclear bombs. Edwin Lyman of the Washington-based Nuclear Control Institute was quoted earlier by the BBC as expressing concern about the shipment's potential to be used by terrorists to build either atomic devices or "dirty bombs." "I definitely think it is irresponsible to move MOX right now, given the [security] situation," he said. Armed, protected But BNFL said in a statement its two ships, the Pacific Pintail and Pacific Teal, are equipped with 30mm naval cannon and have onboard armed members of a special police unit, the UK Atomic Energy Agency Constabulary. The men are reportedly veterans of elite security agencies. Regulatory bodies in the UK and Japan had approved the security arrangements, the company said. Those bodies were satisfied that the arrangements were "sufficient to protect the cargo against theft or sabotage and any other acts of international terrorism." BNFL also responded to concerns about possible physical risks posed by the material, explaining that MOX fuel pellets were so durable, "If dropped into water, they would take thousands of years to dissolve." The hard, ceramic-like pellets were, moreover, packed inside corrosion-resistant fuel rods, able to withstand water pressure at great depths. The rods in turn were transported inside heavy, steel transport casks, which have passed rigorous drop, pressure and fire tests. For security reasons, BNFL said it would not release any details of ships' position during the voyage. Greenpeace has urged supporters around the world to help track them. 'Nuclear-free' The South Pacific has long been a region sensitive about nuclear issues. In the 1940s, '50s and '60s, the U.S. tested nuclear bombs in at least four Pacific locations. In more recent decades, France has carried out tests there. In 1986, a Greenpeace ship was bombed by French intelligence agents while docked at Auckland harbor, where it was preparing for a trip to protest French nuclear testing in the Pacific. Also in the mid-1980s, a previous New Zealand Labor government introduced a "nuclear-free" policy. The move effectively ended the country's defense treaty with the U.S., inasmuch as nuclear-powered or nuclear-armed U.S. ships were denied docking rights. Current Labor Prime Minister Helen Clark, who was a keen advocate of the nuclear-free policy back then, attended the departure from Auckland Sunday of the protest flotilla. "We have advised both Britain and Japan of our opposition to such shipments through the Pacific," said her foreign minister, Phil Goff. "While acknowledging the safeguards which have been put in place, these do not eliminate risks posed by accident or by terrorist attacks." Wellington also announced that Air Force planes would track the movement of the two ships, to make sure that they did not enter New Zealand's 200-mile exclusive economic zone. Australia's conservative government, by contrast, has taken a low-key stance to the shipment, so much so that a Green Party lawmaker who saw off the yachts leaving from Sydney accused it of short-sightedness for not voicing opposition to what he called "this ridiculous transport of that poison cargo from one end of the earth to the other." After this voyage, activists say, BNFL hopes to secure business in Japan that will result in up to 30 nuclear shipments between Britain and Japan over the next 15 years. Another campaign group, the Pacific Concerns Resource Centre, called for firmer opposition from Pacific nations, noting that strong protests from Caribbean and Latin American countries have in the past prevented nuclear shipments from taking the most direct sea route, via the Panama Canal. E-mail a news tip to Patrick Goodenough. [cnsnews@xtra.co.nz] Send a Letter to the Editor about this article. [shogenson@cnsnews.com] ***************************************************************** 20 Senate set to pass Yucca project CNN.com - Aides: - July 8, 2002 WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Proponents have the votes to win final congressional approval as early as Tuesday of President Bush's decision to bury nuclear waste from across the nation in Nevada's Yucca Mountain, senior Senate Republican aides said Monday. They said unofficial head counts show a majority of the Democratic-led Senate supports the proposal to put the nation's first permanent nuclear waste depository 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Backers plan to introduce a motion Tuesday for the Senate to immediately begin consideration of the matter, aides said. If it passes, as expected, there would be up to 10 hours of debate before a vote is held on the $58 billion project itself, also likely Tuesday. "We have a firm majority," one Republican aide said. "There is ample support to get this done," another Republican aide said. "They do seem to have the votes," conceded an aide to a Democratic senator expected to end his undecided status Tuesday and endorse the proposal over the objections of the state of Nevada, which is already challenging it in court. Copyright 2002 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may ***************************************************************** 21 More Battles Over Yucca On Horizon (CBS/AP) The target date for opening the facility, located 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is 2010. Yucca Mountain, a huge salt dome, has been chosen by the government for its remoteness and geological stability. (AP) (AP) After a favorable Senate vote, the political verdict on Yucca Mountain is in, but the proposed nuclear waste dump in Nevada still faces major hurdles, including lawsuits and a long licensing process. The Senate gave President Bush the green light on Tuesday to proceed with the Yucca site, where the administration wants to entomb 77,000 tons of highly radioactive materials, most of it building up at power plants in 31 states. The Senate voted 60-39 to override Nevada's veto of the project following action by the House in May. Under a 1982 law Nevada could have killed the project if Congress hadn't intervened. A disappointed Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., nevertheless, insisted, “this is not over” and said the fight would continue before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and in the federal courts. In Las Vegas, Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn promised to pursue at least five lawsuits the state has filed challenging the Yucca project. “We have made considerable headway in convincing others that Yucca Mountain is a bad idea,” Guinn said. But that message didn't reach enough senators. Despite sharp criticism of the Yucca site by Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle and an intense lobbying effort by Reid and Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., 15 Democrats and all but three Republicans sided with Bush on the issue. The vote “confirms the president's decision very forcefully” and clears the way for the department to prepare a license application to the NRC by 2004, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said. The Nevada lawsuits focus on a broad range of issues challenging everything from the failure of the Energy Department to develop a clear transportation plan to the Yucca engineers' use of man-made barriers to contain waste and the Environmental Protection Agency's health standard. The NRC's review also is expected to be complex and lengthy, taking at least three or four years as the agency decides whether to issue a construction license and then a permit for the Yucca facility to accept waste. “I believe it is a safe repository,” Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., said, adding that whatever issues remain to be resolved, it's up to the NRC to do it during its licensing review. The target date for opening the facility, located 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is 2010. Nevadans expressed mixed views of the Senate vote. Dave Hall, 55, who farms alfalfa about 15 miles southwest of Yucca Mountain, said he didn't think the Yucca Mountain repository was an inevitability. “Maybe they've decided here's the spot,” he said. “But there's still a long way to go and there are a whole lot of obstacles.” Hall said he disagreed with neighbors and some Nevada political leaders who said the state should begin bargaining with the federal government for benefits such as improved roads, schools, water and sewers. “No use fighting,” said Doris Jackson, a saloon owner and chairwoman of the elected advisory board in Amargosa Valley, a rural Nevada desert town of 1,271 residents. “It's done. Let's get what we can out of this.” The Nevada senators tried for months to convince colleagues the issue was much broader than a single state because of the thousands of shipments of highly radioactive used reactor fuel that would be sent over highways and rail lines in 43 states if Yucca Mountain became a central repository. But more senators appeared to be concerned about finding a way to get rid of wastes at reactors in their state, rather than worrying about wastes moving through. Many of the Democrats who voted for Yucca — among them Sens. Richard Durbin of Illinois, Bob Graham of Florida and John Edwards of North Carolina — are from states where utilities are heavily committed to nuclear power. Asked why he couldn't muster more opposition to the Yucca dump, Ensign replied: “Nimby. Not in my backyard.” Reid lashed out at nuclear lobbyists and their “unending source of money” for perpetuating “the big lie” that the Nevada dump was urgently needed. The waste — most of it from nuclear power plants — can be kept safely where it is, avoiding the transportation risks, Reid insisted. Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, said if Congress let the Yucca project die, nuclear power itself would be threatened and a new hunt for a waste site would begin with no assurance where the search would lead. “Looking for another site ... is not realistic,” Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., argued, noting that Yucca Mountain has been studied for 24 years at a cost of $4.5 billion. While there are still uncertainties to be resolved, he said, “we're not likely to find a better site next time.” But Daschle, D-S.D., whose state has no nuclear power plant, complained that there were still “far too many questions” about the Yucca site's suitability to give it the go-ahead now. Opponents also accused the Energy Department of failing to ensure that waste shipments — anywhere from 175 to 2,200 a year, depending on the mix of rail and truck shipments — will be safe and secure. Abraham promised a transportation plan before the end of next year and said stringent safety requirements will provide an “effective first line of defense” against terrorist threats. ©MMII The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. [http://www.cbsnews.com] ***************************************************************** 22 Yucca Mountain Bound [http://www.counterpunch.org/] July 8, 2002 When You Hear That Whistle Blowin', Pray Those Boxcars Ain't a-Glowin by Rick Mercier I thought I really have to care about the plan to stash our country's nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain. I mean, the place is all the way in Nevada, which might as well be Mars as far as most of us here in Virginia are concerned. Then I found out some of the North Anna nuclear power plant's waste would be passing through downtown Fredericksburg, a half-mile from where I work and less than a mile from where I live. Suddenly, Yucca Mountain became a hot issue for me. And it should be for lots of other people, too, because if the Bush administration's proposal for the Nevada site is approved by the Senate (a vote is expected this week), tens of millions of Americans_including nearly 600,000 Virginians_will be in my shoes: They'll be living or working within a mile of a possible nuclear-waste transport route. (To find out whether you live or work near a proposed route, visit .) Oddly enough, the government hasn't demonstrated much concern over how to ship the radioactive waste to a remote part of Nevada. "What I find most shocking about the Yucca Mountain project is that [the Department of Energy] has no plan to transport spent nuclear fuel to its proposed repository," Jim Hall, former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, testified in Congress on May 23. In fact, the Department of Energy is at least a year away from coming up with any detailed plan on how the waste shipments will get to Yucca Mountain, or how population centers along the routes might be affected, The Associated Press reports. The Navy and a handful of utilities currently ship about 60 loads of highly radioactive waste across short distances each year, according to the AP. But those shipments_dubbed "mobile Chernobyls" by critics of the Yucca Mountain project_will climb dramatically under the Bush plan. According to the Environmental Working Group, there would be 619 radioactive shipments through Virginia alone over the 38-year life span of the project if the waste is moved mostly by rail, and more than 7,000 shipments if the waste is shipped mostly by truck. Since dozens of nuclear power plants cannot ship directly by rail, a combination truck-rail solution would be likely (with some barge shipments thrown in for good measure). The upshot would be tens of thousands of nuke shipments across our country in the coming decades. (Fun fact: The U.S. Public Interest Research Group reports that folks stuck in a traffic jam for an hour next to a nuke-transporting truck would receive a radiation dose that's the equivalent of getting a chest X-ray_something generally not advised for children and pregnant women.) Shipping distances also would be far greater than they are now, since most of the waste would have to be sent from east of the Mississippi to the Nevada site. U.S. PIRG estimates that the average shipping distance would be over 2,000 miles. DOE has expressed full confidence in the shipment casks designed to carry the waste, but tests by the government's Sandia National Laboratory have concluded that the containers could be penetrated by a missile or other high-energy weapon. And DOE has admitted that last year's rail-tunnel fire in Baltimore was severe enough to have caused the release of radioactive material had one of the nuclear-waste casks been involved. There are also conflicting assessments of the number of people who would die if one of those casks did leak. DOE's worst-case scenario predicts 48 radiation-related deaths in a terrorist incident and five such deaths in a serious truck accident. But the Environmental Working Group cites experts who estimate thousands of deaths over time if a radiation release occurred in an urban area. Yucca Mountain proponents argue we'd enjoy greatly increased security from having our nuclear waste stored in a central facility. But after the shipments to Yucca Mountain end, in 2048, there still will be nearly the same amount of nuclear waste at power plants as there is today, the Environmental Working Group says. Virginia, for example, now has 1,732 metric tons of nuclear waste; that figure would remain at 1,266 metric tons after Yucca Mountain is filled. Since Sept. 11, the authorities have been assuring us that our nuclear waste presently is stored in safe, secure sites. If that's the case, why is the Bush administration in such a rush to force the Yucca Mountain plan through Congress, especially when they haven't ironed out the transportation details? Hall, the former NTSB chief, believes "they're trying to slip this through before [the transportation questions] are focused on by the American people." He might be right. In any event, there are too many unanswered questions about the Yucca Mountain project for it to go forward at this time. The Senate must do the responsible thing this week and shelve the plan until DOE has done all of its homework. Rick Mercier is a columnist for The Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg. He can be reached at rmercier@freelancestar.com [rmercier@freelancestar.com] [http://www.counterpunch.org/links.html] ***************************************************************** 23 Senate poised to OK nuclear disposal site Bush supports plan to bury spent fuel in Nevada's Yucca Mountain Nick Anderson, Los Angeles Times [chronfeedback@sfchronicle.com] Tuesday, July 9, 2002 --> Washington -- Barring a surprise, the Senate as early as today is expected to approve a proposed nuclear waste burial site at Nevada's Yucca Mountain, delivering a long-coveted victory to the nuclear power industry. Congressional sources said a final vote was likely to come after a short debate with parliamentary procedures stacked in favor of the Yucca Mountain proposal. One aide to a GOP senator who favors the burial site predicted the plan would pass by a comfortable margin, well beyond the required simple majority. "We are very confident," the aide said. The plan's opponents -- led by Nevada's two U.S. senators, Democrat Harry Reid and Republican John Ensign -- were not conceding. But Reid's assessment late Monday of his chances was downbeat. Under the plan, which Bush endorsed in February, the federal government would move to open the first national repository for nuclear waste at a site 90 miles northwest of fast-growing Las Vegas. The Yucca Mountain site is designed to hold up to 77,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel now accumulating at nuclear energy installations scattered across the country. Nevada Republican Gov. Kenny Guinn blocked the Bush plan in April, using powers granted to him by federal law. But the House voted 306-117 in May to overrule Guinn. Today's expected Senate action, and Bush's signature on the resolution, would reverse Nevada's veto. More than 30 of the chambers' 50 Democrats, including Reid, the majority whip, and Majority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota, are expected to oppose the Yucca Mountain plan. But few Republicans have spoken out against a proposal backed by the Bush administration. "We always had hope this (vote) would kill a bad project, and that's what I've worked toward," Reid said in a brief interview. "But with the president being so heavily involved in this personally, we've had no Republicans, and that's been a real downer for me." Late Monday, Daschle sent a letter to Bush urging him to use his influence with Republicans to delay consideration of the Yucca Mountain plan. Voting on the Yucca Mountain plan would temporarily delay this week's Senate debate of a bill addressing the recent spate of corporate accounting scandals. Daschle urged Bush to tell Republicans to stop an "ill-considered and ill-timed effort to sidetrack the accounting reform bill." But his appeal was not expected to be heeded. Opponents of the Yucca plan pledge that if they lose the Senate vote, they will continue their fight in court and during the administrative process of licensing the site. The repository is projected to open in 2011. The opponents also could try in future years in Congress to cut off or limit federal funding. Still, Senate passage would climax a lengthy debate on the issue of storing nuclear waste. In 1982, Congress first agreed to a procedure for establishing a burial site. And in 1987 it decided to study Yucca Mountain as the location, rejecting other potential sites in more populous states. Since then, the nuclear power industry has fought hard to make the plan a reality, over the objections of Nevada and many environmental groups. The lobbying intensified this year as the issue came to a head. Proponents, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business groups, have argued that establishing the site is a matter of national security, consolidating dangerously radioactive waste now stored at 131 facilities in 39 states. ©2002 San Francisco Chronicle.   Page A - 3 ***************************************************************** 24 La. lawmakers support Yucca nuclear repository The Advocate Online News: 07/09/02 By JOAN McKINNEY jmckinney@theadvocate.com [jmckinney@theadvocate.com] and JAMES MINTON jminton@theadvocate.com [jminton@theadvocate.com] Advocate staff writers If nuclear waste ever finds a permanent home at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, Louisiana members of Congress will have played a leading role in burying it there. Nuclear power plant operators in Louisiana support the repository, which could result in a major reduction of the nuclear-waste stockpile in Louisiana. Some Louisiana environmental groups oppose the repository, questioning the stability of the Yucca Mountain site and the wisdom of transporting nuclear waste on trains and trucks through Louisiana and other states. Louisiana's two Democratic senators, Mary Landrieu and John Breaux, are prepared to vote for the proposed Yucca Mountain repository. The Senate is scheduled to vote on it today. The U.S. House voted in May, 306 to 117, for the repository and to override a veto by Nevada. The Yucca Mountain veto-override legislation was produced by the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Its chairman, U.S. Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-Chackbay, was floor manager for the legislation. "For the sake of long-term public health and safety, and our national security interests, it is critically important that we move to develop Yucca Mountain as a permanent underground storage facility for nuclear waste," Tauzin said when the legislation passed. "After nearly a quarter of a century of public debate and scientific research on the feasibility of Yucca Mountain, what's clear is that a single storage facility for nuclear waste is safe, good for our energy security, essential to our homeland security and critical for our prolonged national security." Also voting "yes," were the six other Louisianians in the House -- Reps. Richard Baker, R-Baton Rouge, John Cooksey, R-Monroe, William Jefferson, D-New Orleans, Chris John, D-Crowley, Jim McCrery, R-Shreveport, and David Vitter, R-Metairie. Repository advocates and opponents are fighting about what is more dangerous: the current practice of storing nuclear waste at power plants around the nation, or transporting the waste long distances to a repository. Louisiana would be affected either way. Nuclear waste is stored at River Bend and at other nuclear plants in Louisiana and Mississippi. This stockpiled waste would be shipped to Yucca Mountain. However, assuming that nuclear plants continue to create new wastes, Louisiana plants would continue to hold some. River Bend waste Entergy Corp., which owns the River Bend nuclear power plant in West Feliciana Parish, has been waiting for the Yucca Mountain facility to open. The company has been paying its share for the federal facility and was authorized to pass that cost along to customers through its rates. River Bend, which began commercial operations in 1986, stores its spent fuel rods in a 40-foot-deep pool of water in a building near the reactor. Although they no longer can power the plant's reactor, the spent fuel assemblies still generate heat from the decay of radioactive isotopes. The circulating water in the storage pool acts both as a coolant and a shield against radiation. The concrete and stainless-steel tank was supposed to be large enough to hold River Bend's fuel waste until a national repository opens. However, delays in the construction of a permanent storage site recently caused Entergy to develop an alternate storage plan used by nearly 20 other plants and approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission: dry cask storage. In 2004, River Bend workers will load 68 spent fuel assemblies into the plant's first dry cask, and a motorized crawler vehicle will move the 225-ton cask to a storage pad inside the plant's high-security zone. River Bend spokeswoman Amy Wells said the plant is scheduled to receive its first cask in December or January to give the staff enough time to become familiar with the equipment to be used in transferring the spent fuel. The plant was scheduled to use dry cask storage this year, but the NRC approved a change in guidelines to allow River Bend to put additional fuel in the storage pool. River Bend engineer Jodi Furr said the guidelines, called technical specifications, were somewhat ambiguous on the question of how many assemblies could be stored in the pool. The plant's operators chose the lowest number out of an abundance of caution, Furr said. But as stored fuel began approaching the limit, engineers took a closer look and determined the pool could safely hold more fuel, she said. The NRC accepted the River Bend calculations and gave the plant an additional fuel cycle of 18 months to use the pool, she said. Local opposition The Louisiana chapter of U.S. Public Interest Research Group opposes a repository at Yucca Mountain, saying it would create "a volcano on an aquifer in an earthquake zone." Transporting nuclear waste creates a risk of sabotage on rail lines and highways, and the waste-storage sites at individual power plants are "more securable," U.S. PIRG said in a statement issued this week. The group estimates that Louisiana could have 4,248 truck shipments and 669 rail shipments during 38 years if the Yucca Mountain repository is built. However, Landrieu, a member of the Senate Energy Committee, has said that "aging above-ground storage containers" at power plants are an inviting target for terrorists. A suicide-mission plane crash or other terrorist attack probably would not damage a heavily-fortified reactor facility, but the less-fortified storage containers could be damaged by a "conventional explosion" that would disperse radiation, she said in a statement to the committee last month. About 160 million Americans live within 75 miles of nuclear plants that store wastes above ground, the senator said. In the Senate, Majority Leader Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., opposes building the repository at Yucca Mountain and has refused to schedule a Senate vote. However, this is a rare case in which the majority leader does not control the procedure. The 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act provides for expedited and automatic consideration of issues like Yucca Mountain. Louisianians leading Former Louisiana Sen. J. Bennett Johnston, a Democrat and past chairman of the Senate Energy Committee, helped write the 1982 nuclear-waste act and was a strong proponent of finding a permanent burial site, or national repository. He also was an advocate of temporary, regional storage sites. The temporary storage sites would have relieved power-plant operators of their wastes for an interim period during development of a permanent repository. Johnston's interim-storage policy was never implemented, and 70,000 metric tons of nuclear waste have accumulated at 131 power plants and other facilities in 39 states. Congress has authorized 70,000 metric tons of storage at Yucca Mountain. Consequently, environmentalists warn that the repository would have to be expanded, or a new one built, to accommodate future wastes. Louisiana already had been eliminated as a storage site for other states' nuclear waste. Former Gov. Edwin Edwards had negotiated a trade-off: Louisiana allowed the federal government to use the state's salt domes for crude-oil storage, and the federal government signed a written pledge that Louisiana salt domes would not be used for nuclear waste disposal, as had once been proposed. Landrieu generally has continued Johnston's pro-nuclear tradition. She voted "yes" when the Senate Energy Committee approved Yucca Mountain as a repository site. Technically, the resolution before the Senate will not be in that form. Instead, the Senate (like the House in May) will be asked to override Nevada's veto of the repository. In keeping with her earlier vote in committee, Landrieu will vote to override Nevada's objections, according to her communications director, Rich Masters. When the Senate Energy Committee approved a repository bill, Landrieu said that the Yucca Mountain site has received "scientific peer approval" after 20 years and $7 billion worth of scientific, environmental and engineering field work. Breaux also is expected to vote for the Yucca Mountain repository and against Nevada's veto, according to his press secretary, Bette Phelan. "He thinks it has been studied enough," Phelan said Monday. "He believes it is best to have it (nuclear waste) sited in one central location than a variety of places nationwide." ***************************************************************** 25 National PTA Opposes Yucca Mountain July 8, 2002 U.S. Senate Washington, DC 20510 Dear Senator: The National PTA has a long-standing position supporting hazardous waste management practices that protect the health and safety of children and that provide communities with health and safety information regarding the transportation, storage, and disposal of hazardous wastes. This week the Senate will consider a resolution to override Nevada's veto of the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Project. National PTA believes there are many unanswered questions about the Project's potential risk to children, families, and communities and urges you to defeat this measure. The $50 billion Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site in Nevada is scheduled to open in 2010 and will hold as much as 77,000 tons of radioactive material, most of which will be shipped to the site from 131 nuclear power facilities in 39 states. Nuclear waste shipments to Yucca Mountain would span nearly 40 years, with approximately 2,760 shipments per year. Nuclear waste would travel through at least 44 states by truck, barge, or train going through more than 100 cities with populations of 100,000 or greater. Given that the number of shipments per year to Yucca is far greater than the approximately 70 shipments that occur annually now, the potential for accidents is expanded exponentially and children are at higher risk for radiation exposure. Most Americans are unaware of how, and how much, nuclear waste will be shipped to Yucca Mountain. The unprecedented expansion in the number of nuclear waste shipments to Nevada and the increased distance hazardous material will travel across the United States place children, youth and families at great risk. As a result, a federally initiated public awareness campaign to inform communities about transportation routes and safety plans should be fully developed and activated before Congress approves the project. The Environmental Protection Agency requires that the Department of Energy (DOE) prove the Yucca repository will be able to safely contain the radioactive nuclear waste for 10,000 years. This assurance should be demonstrated to the public before the project is approved. While the DOE contends that nickel alloy containers will resist corrosion for 10,000 years others disagree. Many contend there is not enough scientific research to show how the metal will perform for 10,000 years. In fact, the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, a congressionally created independent panel, called DOE's technical basis for the waste site performance estimates "weak to moderate." Equally troubling is that nuclear casks do emit some radiation, which could be harmful to children and adults who may be exposed to emissions for a period of time. Government estimates are that more than 123 million people live near the DOE's potential highway routes, and 106 million live in counties along potential rail routes. Of particular concern to National PTA is the health and safety of children who live in these communities. How will the government ensure the safety of children living near those routes? What are the health risks to children who attend schools near the proposed routes, some of which could have several shipments passing through daily? What plans does the government have to ensure the personnel in schools, and response teams in those areas near shipping routes, have evacuation plans. Would there be federal funding to train educators and school administers to prepare for a response to a high-level radioactive nuclear waste accident emergency? When routes are selected, will the number of nearby schools factor into the decision? The public must be given answers to these and other questions, such as what the emergency response plan will be if accidents occur, what are the potential effects of a nuclear waste accident, or what security measures will be utilized to protect against potential terrorist attacks. In short, more public discussion and education is needed before moving to approve the Yucca Mountain site. National PTA asks that you vote "NO" on the resolution to override Nevada's veto of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site. Sincerely, Shirley Igo President, National PTA ***************************************************************** 26 Donors Agree on Aid to Clean Nuke Waste in Russia ABCNEWS.com : [Reuters] July 9 BRUSSELS (Reuters) - International donors agreed on Tuesday to launch a $1.78 billion program to help clean up the environment in and around northern Russia, which faces a big threat from nuclear waste. A one-day conference chaired by the European Union and Russia announced initial funds totaling about $110 million for the most urgent projects needed to reduce water and air pollution in the Baltic and Barents Sea regions. The European Commission, the EU's executive body, pledged about $50 million. Six countries -- Russia, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden -- offered $10 million each. "A number of other countries indicated that they may soon be able to come forward with additional contributions," the organizers said in a statement. The start-up funds are to co-finance $1.78 billion worth of loans from international financial institutions such as the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development for more than a dozen clean-up projects already identified. "Future generations will not understand if we do not act now to tackle the legacy of environmental degradation, and above all the legacy of dangerous nuclear material left in northern Europe," said EU External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten. He said about $500 million is to be spent on tackling dangerous nuclear waste in northwestern Russia, which is mainly the legacy of the Cold War when the Soviet Union built hundreds of nuclear submarines. The vessels are now being decommissioned, with many just rusting away in bases on the Barents Sea, and the spent radioactive material is stored in hazardous conditions. "We must make sure that what is hazard today does not become a disaster tomorrow. There are hundreds of nuclear submarines and reactors to be dismantled and vast quantities of radioactive waste to take care of," Patten said. Copyright 2002 Reuters News Service. All rights reserved. This ***************************************************************** 27 Republicans say they'll force vote on Nevada nuclear waste site Las Vegas SUN July 08, 2002 WASHINGTON (AP) - Republican senators said they will force a vote Tuesday on a proposed nuclear waste site in Nevada, despite a plea by the Senate's top Democrat not to interrupt consideration of a bill to deal with corporate accounting abuses. Meanwhile, two key Republican senators - Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett of Utah - were assured that if they go along with the Yucca Mountain site the Bush administration would help keep nuclear waste from being stored in their state. After a meeting at the White House, Hatch and Bennett said they were shifting from undecided to favoring the Nevada site, although they continued to have some concerns about transporting the waste. A Senate vote will determine whether President Bush will be allowed to proceed with his plan, announced in February, to bury 77,000 tons of nuclear waste beneath the volcanic ridge known as Yucca Mountain 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The House already has approved a resolution overriding Nevada's objections to the project. GOP senators have accused Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., of trying to block the project by not bringing it up for a vote by the July 25 deadline. So, GOP senators informed the White House on Monday that they would force the issue on the Senate floor Tuesday, triggering a vote on the resolution. Under a provision unique to a 1982 law governing nuclear waste disposal, any senator can force a vote on the resolution. Normally, only the majority leader brings up legislation for consideration by the full Senate. In a letter to Bush, Daschle asked the president to intervene. he called the GOP push on Yucca "ill-considered and ill-timed" and an attempt to sidetrack action on legislation to overhaul accounting laws in light of recent corporate accounting scandals. But the administration made clear it wants the Yucca decision resolved, and the sooner the better. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said he expects the Senate to begin consideration of the Yucca Mountain resolution Tuesday. The 1982 law limits debate to 10 hours and allows for no amendments or filibuster. Nevada's two senators - Democrat Harry Reid and Republican John Ensign - have been scrambling to try to get enough votes to kill the Yucca project. They lost two potential GOP allies Monday when Hatch and Bennett announced their support of the Yucca waste site. For weeks the two Utah senators had expressed concern about the thousands of shipments of used reactor fuel that are expected to go through their state on their way to Nevada if the repository is built, including much of it through Salt Lake City. But they said they feared that if the Nevada site were not approved, the nuclear industry would begin to ship its waste to a proposed private storage site on an Indian reservation in Utah's Skull Valley. "I would much rather have it go through than stop and stay," Bennett told reporters after he and Hatch met with Abraham and White House chief of staff Andrew Card. In return, the senators got a commitment from the White House: Abraham promised that the Energy Department would refuse to provide any federal money to transport waste to the proposed private site, making it unlikely that utilities would want to ship radioactive waste there. Neither the two GOP senators or Abraham would speculate if supporters of the Yucca site had the 51 votes to override Nevada's veto. "I assume it must be fairly close," said Bennett, adding that he had been lobbied heavily by opponents. Abraham said that if Yucca Mountain were not approved there would be other "makeshift, ad hoc arrangements" by the nuclear industry to temporarily store waste at sites such the one proposed for Utah, which is undergoing review by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Reid and Ensign have argued that the waste is safe where it is now, at 103 commercial power reactors in 31 states, and would be less safe and more open to terrorist attacks while being shipped by truck or rail to Nevada. If approved and if it gets the NRC license, the Yucca Mountain repository would be scheduled to open in 2010 and receive about 3,000 tons of waste shipments a year for at least 24 years. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 28 GOP Moves to Force Nuke Waste Vote Las Vegas SUN July 09, 2002 WASHINGTON- Over the objections of Democratic leaders, Senate Republicans on Tuesday moved to force a vote on a proposal to send thousands of tons of nuclear waste for burial in the Nevada desert. Democrats immediately objected, setting up a pair of votes later in the day on whether to consider and approve a resolution overriding Nevada's veto of the proposed waste site at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. President Bush gave the Yucca project the green light in February, but Nevada filed a formal protest - as was its right under a 1982 nuclear waste law - leaving it for Congress to make a final decision. The House approved the resolution overriding Nevada's objections in May. Senate action, under a special fast-track procedure required by the 1982 law, would end decades of political debate over where to put the nation's nuclear waste that is building up at commercial power plants and at defense sites in 39 states. The waste, mostly used reactor fuel, will remain dangerously radioactive for tens of thousands of years. Bush's plan would bury 77,000 tons of waste beneath Yucca Mountain, a volcanic ridge adjacent to the Nevada Test Site where the government detonated scores of nuclear bombs during the Cold War. While supporters of the site said the waste would be most secure buried at a central location, critics argued that sending thousands of shipments of waste on the nation's highways and rail lines would pose its own security and safety problems. The government has spent nearly $7 billion in search of a waste site, including $4.5 billion since 1978 studying Yucca Mountain. Congress in 1987 directed that the Nevada site be the only one considered. Republicans had accused Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., of blocking consideration of the Yucca resolution. Daschle asked Bush in a letter Monday to hold off on Yucca Mountain until after completion of a bill addressing recent corporate accounting scandals. Under a 1982 nuclear waste law, any senator may bring the matter up for quick consideration by the Senate as long as action is taken before July 25. GOP senators have accused Daschle of trying to block Yucca Mountain by not bringing it up for a vote by the July 25 deadline. For many lawmakers like GOP Sens. Robert Bennett and Orrin Hatch of Utah and Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, the issue has been less about the Yucca site itself than about concern over transporting the waste over highways and rail lines and through metropolitan areas from power plants and defense sites in 39 states. On Monday, Hatch and Bennett said they still had concerns about the transportation since most of the shipments bound for Yucca would go through Utah, including Salt Lake City. But they said they feared that if the Nevada site were not approved, the nuclear industry would begin to ship its waste to a proposed private storage site on an Indian reservation in Utah's Skull Valley. "I would much rather have (the waste) pass through than stop and stay," Bennett told reporters after he and Hatch met with Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham and White House chief of staff Andrew Card. In return, the senators got a commitment from the White House that the Energy Department would refuse to provide any federal money to transport waste to the proposed private site, making it less likely utilities would want to ship wastes there. If Yucca Mountain is not approved, the site at Skull Valley "will likely become ... permanent," Hatch said, adding that the site would be above ground and near an Air Force flight training center. Stabenow said recently she supported the idea of putting the wastes in Nevada but that "the events of Sept. 11 and our ongoing war against terrorism" have raised security issues that caused her to change her mind. The Energy Department, she complained, hasn't provided needed details on a transportation plan. She said she feared a potential catastrophe if wastes were shipped on barges on Lake Michigan. Opponents of the Yucca site, including Nevada's political establishment, have maintained that the truck and rail shipments - anywhere from 175 if all by dedicated trains to 2,200 a year by trucks - raise the potential for terrorist attacks or releases of radiation in a major truck or rail accident. Abraham reiterated Monday that the nuclear industry has a history of safe waste shipments and that wastes will be in containers designed to withstand severe accidents. He predicted that industry would pursue "alternative, makeshift ... arrangements" if Yucca were rejected. In either case, said Abraham, "wastes will be shipped across America." If approved and if it gets the NRC license, the Yucca Mountain repository would open in 2010 and receive about 3,000 tons of waste shipments a year for at least 24 years. --- On the Net: Yucca Mountain Project: http://www.ymp.gov [http://www.ymp.gov] Nevada's Agency for Nuclear Projects: http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste [http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste] All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 29 Senate Vote Near on Nev. Waste Site Las Vegas SUN July 09, 2002 WASHINGTON- The Senate is about to decide whether to end a decades-long debate over where to store the country's nuclear waste, with many senators worried that waste shipments might become tempting targets for terrorists. Republican senators said they will force a vote Tuesday on a proposed waste site at Yucca Mountain in the Nevada desert, despite protests from Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle and other Democrats. The Senate vote will determine whether President Bush's plan to bury 77,000 tons of waste, mostly used reactor fuel, in Nevada will proceed, or be scrapped. The House already has sided overwhelmingly with Bush and against Nevada, which in April vetoed Bush's decision to use Yucca Mountain. It now requires 51 Senate votes to override the state's veto. The government has spent nearly $7 billion in search of a waste site, including $4.5 billion since 1978 studying Yucca Mountain, which is located 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Congress in 1987 directed that the Nevada site be the only one to be considered. Daschle, D-S.D., asked Bush in a letter Monday to hold off on Yucca Mountain until after completion of a bill addressing recent corporate accounting scandals. Under a 1982 nuclear waste law, any senator may bring the matter up for quick consideration by the Senate as long as action is taken before July 25. GOP senators have accused Daschle of trying to block Yucca Mountain by not bringing it up for a vote by the July 25 deadline. For many lawmakers like GOP Sens. Robert Bennett and Orrin Hatch of Utah and Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, the issue has been less about the Yucca site itself than about concern over transporting the waste over highways and rail lines and through metropolitan areas from power plants and defense sites in 39 states. On Monday, Hatch and Bennett said they still had concerns about the transportation since most of the shipments bound for Yucca would go through Utah, including Salt Lake City. But they said they feared that if the Nevada site were not approved, the nuclear industry would begin to ship its waste to a proposed private storage site on an Indian reservation in Utah's Skull Valley. "I would much rather have (the waste) pass through than stop and stay," Bennett told reporters after he and Hatch met with Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham and White House chief of staff Andrew Card. In return, the senators got a commitment from the White House that the Energy Department would refuse to provide any federal money to transport waste to the proposed private site, making it less likely utilities would want to ship wastes there. If Yucca Mountain is not approved, the site at Skull Valley "will likely become ... permanent," Hatch said, adding that the site would be above ground and near an Air Force flight training center. Stabenow said recently she supported the idea of putting the wastes in Nevada but that "the events of Sept. 11 and our ongoing war against terrorism" have raised security issues that caused her to change her mind. The Energy Department, she complained, hasn't provided needed details on a transportation plan. She said she feared a potential catastrophe if wastes were shipped on barges on Lake Michigan. Opponents of the Yucca site, including Nevada's political establishment, have maintained that the truck and rail shipments - anywhere from 175 if all by dedicated trains to 2,200 a year by trucks - raise the potential for terrorist attacks or releases of radiation in a major truck or rail accident. Abraham reiterated Monday that the nuclear industry has a history of safe waste shipments and that wastes will be in containers designed to withstand severe accidents. He predicted that industry would pursue "alternative, makeshift ... arrangements" if Yucca were rejected. In either case, said Abraham, "wastes will be shipped across America." If approved and if it gets the NRC license, the Yucca Mountain repository would open in 2010 and receive about 3,000 tons of waste shipments a year for at least 24 years. On the Net: Yucca Mountain Project: http://www.ymp.gov [http://www.ymp.gov] Nevada's Agency for Nuclear Projects: http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste [http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste] All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 30 Colorado senators split on Nevada nuke waste Rocky Mountain News: State Barry Gutierrez © News A security guard walks across the tops of radioactive material stored on the second floor of the St. Vrain Spent Fuel Storage Installation Facility in Weld County on Monday. The Senate will vote soon on whether to send nuclear waste to a storage site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. By Owen S. Good, Rocky Mountain News July 9, 2002 PLATTEVILLE - It's a good idea to ship Colorado's radioactive waste somewhere out of state, U.S. Rep. Bob Schaffer said Monday, and not just because he was standing in a room holding 14.7 metric tons of the stuff. "Having waste spread out is not the optimal storage strategy for Colorado," said Schaffer, who went to the Fort St. Vrain nuclear waste storage site to stump hard for a U.S. Senate vote on sending the waste to Yucca Mountain in Nevada. The government has spent two decades and $7 billion determining that waste from 39 states should be consolidated at a long-term site. Yucca Mountain, 90 miles from Las Vegas, is the Bush administration's choice, although Nevada's governor has refused to accept the shipments. The Department of Energy has asked Congress to force Nevada to take the waste. The House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved the idea in May. The Senate may vote on it as early as tonight. "Not only is it important for efficiency and safety, it's also important globally," Schaffer said. "We're trying to challenge other nations to establish safer containment strategies. They would be more persuaded if they followed our lead." Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, R-Colo., opposes the shipments, citing safety concerns for how the waste will be transported. According to the Department of Energy, it could take as many as 10,000 shipments over 24 years, beginning in 2010, if most of the waste is moved by train, and 53,000 shipments if trucks are used. Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., will vote for the shipments. Observers say he could be joined by as many as 60. Allard has been part of a standoff with South Carolina over shipping waste there from Rocky Flats. "It's hypocritical for our state to say it's OK for our waste to be shipped to South Carolina, but other states' waste should not be shipped to Yucca Mountain," said Allard spokesman Sean Conway. A concrete tower just north of the Fort St. Vrain Power Station, decommissioned as a nuclear plant in 1989, holds about two-thirds of the spent fuel rods the plant used in 10 years of commercial service. The rest were moved to Idaho. Xcel Energy owns the power station, which now uses natural gas for fuel. The government owns the waste and the storage site and spends $2.5 million annually to maintain it. The site was designed for temporary storage only, Schaffer said, and has nine years remaining on this permit. "To assume the storage of spent fuel rods for several centuries would entail rebuilding this facility several times over," Schaffer said. (303) 442-8729 or goodo@rockymountainnews.com 2002 © The E.W. Scripps Co. ***************************************************************** 31 Dodd, Lieberman weigh nuclear dump Connecticut Post Tuesday, July 09, 2002 - 3:40:03 AM MST By PETER URBAN purban@ctpost.com [purban@ctpost.com] WASHINGTON Although a vote may come as early as tonight, Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman and Christopher J. Dodd have yet to take a stand on a plan to bury the nation's nuclear waste in Nevada. The two Connecticut Democrats continue to weigh arguments, pro and con, to establishing a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Lieberman and Dodd are typically among the first to announce their stand on environmental issues, but this time is different. Unless a central repository is established, nearly 1,600 metric tons of radioactive waste now stored at Millstone plants in Waterford and the Connecticut Yankee plant in Haddam will remain in Connecticut. Connecticut Gov. John G. Rowland and the state Senate are on record in support of Yucca Mountain. It was also supported by five of six House members from Connecticut. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-3, voted against the plan. Marvin Fast, a spokesman for Dodd, said that the senator is still gathering information from a variety of people so that he can make an informed decision on Yucca Mountain. "This is a complicated issue, and Senator Dodd wants to look at it from every angle," Fast said. Lieberman is concerned that security may be inadequate at the on-site storage sites. He also worries that transporting nuclear waste may be dangerous. "He is weighing concerns on both sides," Lieberman press secretary Adam Kovacezich said Monday. In February, President Bush recommended that more than 40,000 metric tons of nuclear waste now stored in temporary casks and spent fuel pools at 72 nuclear plants in 36 states be moved to Yucca Mountain. Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn utilized a provision of the federal law to veto Bush's decision in April, sending the issue to Congress. A majority vote in both the House and Senate is needed to override Guinn's objection. In May, the House voted 306 to 117 to override Guinn, putting the fate of Yucca Mountain solely in the hands of the Senate. Opponents of the Yucca Mountain plan have questioned the wisdom of transporting so much highly radioactive waste by train or truck through densely populated regions. "The nation's highways and railroads are vulnerable enough to terrorism without clogging them with tens of thousands of trips of deadly radioactive waste for which no community is prepared to respond should there be an accident," said Nancy Burton, a spokeswoman for the Connecticut Coalition Against Millstone. Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club, labeled the plan an "unsound scheme" that poses a "grave threat to public health and the environment." Deb Callahan, president of the League of Conservation Voters, said that storing nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain is "neither smart policy nor smart politics." The Associated Press contributed to this report. Connecticut Post incorporates The Bridgeport Post, ***************************************************************** 32 Sides square off over planned nuclear dump The Express-Times New Jersey News Backers believe a single site is easier to protect. Opponents worry about spills. Tuesday, July 09, 2002 By TERRENCE DOPP The Express-Times TRENTON -- A coalition of lobbyists and mayors rallied here Monday in favor of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump. Saying one permanent storage site is safer and easier to protect than waste scattered at America's 131 reactors, the group gathered on the eve of a possible vote in the U.S. Senate. The issue of sending the waste to the site in the Nevada desert on flatbed trucks and railways has proven a major sticking point throughout the project. "Yucca Mountain is critical," said Ellen Pompper, mayor of Lower Alloways Creek Township, home of PSEG Nuclear's Artificial Island facility, the second largest nuclear plant in the nation. "That's what we were promised when they built a nuclear power plant in our town. The federal government has not come through." Both U.S. Senators Jon Corzine and Robert Torricelli said they are undecided on the issue. A spokesman for Corzine said the freshman is still studying the matter. Torricelli has voted against Yucca Mountain in the past. If all steps are eventually approved, waste from the Salem I, Salem II and Hope Creek reactors will initially be ferried by barge off Artificial Island into the Delaware Bay, Pompper said. From there, its route across the country to Nevada is unclear. If approved, the project could send trains loaded with waste in specially designed vessels on rail lines running near Clinton, Phillipsburg and Bloomsbury. The shipments would begin about 2015, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute. "I have serious concerns about the plans to transport hundreds of tons of toxic waste on New Jersey's busy highways and the unloading of this waste in our ports," Torricelli said in a statement issued Monday. "I have serious concerns about the threat this transporting plan may pose to local communities." The Yucca Mountain project calls for storing up to 77,000 tons of waste in a roughly 1,000-foot-deep cavern carved into a mountain 100 miles northeast of Las Vegas. Supporters contend the 230-square-mile Yucca Mountain complex will be better guarded and more environmentally sound than current, temporary storage methods. Many facilities are running out of space in cooling pools used for storage. Some have either begun above-ground dry cask storage or, like the Salem plant, are moving toward it. In the Garden State, 6.4 million people live within 50 miles of a nuclear reactor. Yucca Mountain advocates maintain the waste needs to be buried and guarded. But critics, passing out literature to reporters during supporters' Trenton news conference, panned the entire initiative as unsafe and rife with problems. David Pringle, executive director of the New Jersey Environmental Federation, called Yucca Mountain "an earthquake-ridden drinking water source." He said the current plans contain too many unknowns. "This doesn't solve the problem. It exacerbates it," Pringle said, highlighting earthquakes and the lack of radiation-blocking barriers on the mountain. "We need to go back to the drawing board and find a site with less environmental problems. And we've got to come up with a better site." Pringle said sending up to 3,000 shipments of waste across the nation would increase the possibility of disaster. As proof the site is unsuitable, he said an earthquake recently damaged on-site administrative offices. "Let alone Yucca Mountain having earthquakes and other problems, the real problem for New Jersey is the thousands of trucks," said Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey Sierra Club. "The big thing is having this 'Mobile Chernobyl' going through New Jersey." But supporters contend while imperfect, Yucca Mountain is better than anything currently out there. And transportation is safe, they said. "Is it a perfect site? No, its not a perfect site. But it's the best on the table," said Jim Sinclair, of the New Jersey Business and Industry Association. Pompper conceded the plan may not be perfect, but said it's better than nothing considering the specter of terror threats raised after the Sept. 11 attacks. "We've lived with it a long time and never really thought about it all that much," Pompper said. "I don't know if there is ever going to be a perfect solution." Both Torricelli and Corzine said the vote could take place today or thereafter. If the Senate confirms the location, the project could move to the licensing phase. u Reporter Terrence Dopp can be reached at 609-292-5154 or by e-mail at tdopp@sjnewsco.com. Copyright 2002 The Express-Times. Used with permission. ***************************************************************** 33 Nuclear agency to move workers from NLV offices Tuesday, July 09, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal Move follows experts' recommendation about possible threat of beryllium exposure By KEITH ROGERS REVIEW-JOURNAL The National Nuclear Security Administration will relocate 450 workers from the Energy Department's North Las Vegas office complex, where a worker was diagnosed earlier this year with a debilitating lung disease related to beryllium exposure, agency officials said Monday. The measure by Kathy Carlson, the administration's local manager, follows a review by an independent team of experts on the disease who recommended taking the most conservative approach though levels of beryllium contamination in samples collected from Building B-1 in the complex were well within occupational safety standards. Recent tests on 102 workers from the B complex found three people who are sensitive to beryllium exposure in addition to the one case of chronic beryllium disease, according to a handout that was given to administration workers Monday. The administration is a branch of the Energy Department. "Medical experts have told us sensitization to beryllium does not necessarily mean a person will or will not contract chronic beryllium disease," the handout said. Administration spokesman Darwin Morgan said the 450 workers will be relocated over several months to other offices in the North Las Vegas facility or in leased buildings outside the office complex while an investigation continues. According to the handout, "Based on future findings a determination could be made to discontinue relocation. Until that can be done, it is felt the most prudent conservative action is to assure the well-being and safety of employees by doing a phased relocation" of workers in the B-1 and A-1 buildings. Beryllium had been used in small quantities in Building B-1 as recently as the early 1990s. The alloy was used in switches for diagnostic equipment for collecting data from nuclear weapons tests. Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002 ***************************************************************** 34 UK: Mass destruction for sale [http://www.ft.com] By Farhan Bokhari, Jimmy Burns, Stephen Fidler, Carola Hoyos, Mark Huband, Andrew Jack, James Kynge, Alexander Nicoll and Andrew Published: July 9 2002 5:00 | Last Updated: July 9 2002 5:00 The September 11 attacks on New York and Washington have transformed calculations about the threats posed by terrorists. The idea that a group of killers could acquire - and use - nuclear, biological or chemical weapons is no longer unthinkable. This fear has been combined with intensified concerns among government officials and arms control experts that unstable regimes long determined to acquire weapons of mass destruction may be on the verge of obtaining them. The end of the cold war was supposed to curb the menace of these weapons, as the US and the former Soviet Union abandoned their arms race. Instead, it has led to new dangers, from new quarters. In a three-month investigation, based on more than 100 interviews around the world, the FT has examined the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction and shows why it is right for concerns to have deepened about their spread to terrorists and rogue states. Tomorrow, we focus on what experts say may be the greatest threat of the 21st century: biological weapons. We report on the massive Soviet bioweapons programme and the potential dark side of the phenomenal worldwide growth of the biotech industry. On Thursday, we examine how all these developments pose a unique challenge to the international order, and to the military and economic might of the US at the height of its power. Today, we reveal the responsibility of countries such as Russia, China, North Korea, and Pakistan in the spread of weapons technologies and Saddam Hussein's unstinting efforts to acquire the means of mass slaughter. In the 1960s, followers of international affairs expected that by the turn of the century between 40 and 80 states would possess nuclear weapons. In the event, only eight had them: the US, Russia, China, France, Britain, Israel, India and Pakistan. South Africa and three countries that were part of the Soviet Union - Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine - had given them up. That modest number reflected in part the success of international efforts to prevent the spread - or proliferation - of nuclear weapons technology. Now, that achievement may be in jeopardy. The picture changed fundamentally with the May 1998 nuclear tests by India and Pakistan, which in effect announced their emergence as overt nuclear powers. "The taboo on new entrants to the nuclear club has unfortunately been lifted," says Ellen Laipson, president of the Henry L Stimson Center and, until this year, deputy chairman of the CIA-sponsored National Intelligence Council. "The Indians and Pakistanis have pushed analysts to ask what the world would be like with 10 to 20 nuclear powers." The next big worry is the Middle East. If Iraq or Iran were to acquire nuclear weapons, it would shift the entire balance of power in that region and beyond. "Once Iraq or Iran acquire nuclear weapons, then it's very difficult to stop the slide down the slippery slope to a very unstable kind of world," says Robert Einhorn, a former assistant secretary of state for non-proliferation during the Clinton administration. Western intelligence agencies are particularly worried about Iraq. Germany's federal intelligence service, the BND, estimates Iraq could build a nuclear weapon in just three to five years - though it would need help from elsewhere to do so. The conclusion here, as so often in this field, is cautious. Those seeking to acquire these capabilities operate in a shadow world, and there is much we do not know. Yet all the world's nuclear powers, save the US, used know-how from another country, obtained either openly or covertly. The world's next nuclear power, if there is to be one, will depend on foreign help. That is why Iraq is a great test of the efforts to stop proliferation of nuclear weapons. Throughout most of the 1990s, United Nations weapons inspectors sought to dismantle Iraq's weapons programmes. After the inspectors were expelled in 1998, the country continued to be subject to international sanctions. If Iraq can get the bomb, other less tightly policed regimes stand an even better chance. That is not to say help is easy to find. "Links between potential buyers and sellers are everywhere fraught with mutual suspicion," says Ms Laipson. "Don't assume that these are robust, open relationships. These are very complicated, uptight transactions where the two sides don't fully trust each other and where small secrets get exchanged for a price." Having been trapped by foreign intelligence agencies and the victim of repeated sting operations, Baghdad is extremely suspicious, says Khidir Hamza, a former head of Iraq's nuclear weapons programme, who defected to the US in 1994. He says Iraq is paranoid about using foreigners in Iraq's nuclear weapons programme - though in the 1980s, it got plenty of help from European companies and scientists. "Even Egyptians are not insiders. There are no Palestinians, no foreigners at all in the nuclear programme." Given Iraq's aggressive past efforts to procure technology abroad, western governments assume it is still trying. Observers of Iraqi procurement say it has turned its attention away from the west, its main suppliers in the 1980s, to the former eastern bloc. Parts of the giant Soviet military machine are in a state of advanced decay, and poor security, economic deprivation, and organised crime and corruption have presented opportunities for weapons trafficking. Iraq, for example, has nurtured contacts with Ukraine. It appointed an honorary consul in Ukraine, Yuri Orshansky, whose papers were accepted by the government of Leonid Kuchma in November 2000. Iraq's procurement efforts are also directed to Russia, says Gary Milhollin, director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control in Washington. "Although it's through individual institutions, I think the Russian government has been complicit or unwilling to stop it," he says. The US is also worried about Russian policy in Iran, where it is helping to build a light-water nuclear reactor at Bushehr. Washington says this provides cover for Tehran's nuclear weapons programme, which Iran denies exists. Russia retorts that the reactor will be monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency, and does not represent a proliferation problem. From Washington's standpoint, Russia is not the only source of weapons technology. Most China watchers agree that Beijing sometimes sees proliferation as a policy tool, either as a way of cementing strategic relationships or of extracting concessions from the US on issues such as Taiwan. Kurt Campbell, a former Pentagon official now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says China is "still a relatively serious proliferator". Although conceding that China has curbed aid to other countries' nuclear programmes, a senior US official called China "proliferator-in-chief" of missile technology, a title other officials reserve for North Korea. Bates Gill, senior fellow and director for Northeast Asian Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution, says Chinese proliferation is sometimes deliberate but also happens because of unintended leaks. "The issue poses problems that China's centralised system has become less adept at meeting. The capacity of bad actors to operate more freely has grown," says Mr Gill. One worry is China's relations with Pakistan. US intelligence says that, despite a moratorium agreed with the US in late 2000, China continued to supply Pakistan with sensitive missile technology. As a result, the US slapped sanctions on China last September. "This is a case of very strong government in Beijing saying, 'Gee, we can't seem to track these missile parts that are being manufactured on our territory.' You know, that is a claim that lacks credibility. You don't make these things in garages out in your backyard," says a senior US official. For one regime, North Korea, a weakening centre is hardly the problem. Most arms-control specialists see proliferation by the isolationist and impoverished regime of Kim Jong-Il as part of a policy to wring concessions and aid out of other countries. Western governments believe the secretive regime has biological, chemical and nuclear weapons programmes, but the proliferation risk it poses is almost exclusively related to its missile sales to other countries. Most countries want missiles for one reason: to deliver weapons of mass destruction. A British official says North Korea "has singlehandedly undermined the objectives" of the supplier club aimed at controlling the spread of missile capabilities - the Missile Technology Control Regime. He says its No Dong missile, based on Russia's Scud, has become the industry standard. A senior US official says North Korea, which stunned the world when it launched a three-stage rocket in 1998, has helped missile programmes in Iraq, Iran, Libya, and possibly Syria. Pakistan had also received help. North Korea has declared a unilateral moratorium on missile launches from North Korea until next year. But a senior US official is sceptical: "You can do a lot of testing without lighting the candle all the way." He says North Korea may use tests by other countries - Iran and Pakistan both launched North Korean sourced missiles in May - to extract information. The Pakistani organisation that acquired North Korea's No Dong missile - reborn as Pakistan's Ghauri - was the Khan Research Laboratories (KRL), based in Kahuta, near Islamabad. KRL is in charge of Pakistan's uranium-enrichment programme. Pakistan's government has long been strapped for cash, so how did it pay for the missiles? US officials said North Korea's nuclear programme is based on plutonium, not uranium. But uranium-based bombs use simpler technology than plutonium bombs. "The North Koreans have not been in the uranium-enrichment business. Could the Pakistanis help them? Yes they could. Have they helped them? I don't think we know," says Mr Einhorn. Pakistan rejects such allegations. Brigadier-General Feroz Hassan Khan, an arms-control expert in the Pakistani army, who is now at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, says: "The connection is no longer there." A former Pakistani military commander says there is heavy pressure to avoid nuclear capabilities spreading: "The military is very aware that the moment there's any indication of our nuclear technology being exported, the western world would come down so heavy on us that we'd be strangulated." In spite of those words, US officials fear Pakistani expertise may be finding its way out of the country and into the hands of terrorists. For instance, Chaudhary Abdul Majeed and Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood, two deeply religious Pakistani nuclear scientists are said by US and Pakistani officials to have travelled to Afghanistan several times and met members of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terrorist network. The two, formerly with the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, were twice detained by the Pakistani authorities and released after questioning. "Both these scientists confirmed they had gone to Afghanistan but there's no evidence that they actually transferred any technology or knowledge to anyone there," says a Pakistani official. But US officials say other scientists from Pakistan's two competing nuclear agencies, PAEC and KRL, are also causes for concern. This underlines that stopping the proliferation of know-how is even more difficult than preventing the spread of materials. "What you are worried about is brainpower. Russian scientists, Indian scientists, Pakistani scientists," says Ms Laipson of the Stimson Center. "It's about flows of people and people's interactions. In many cases, it's not a matter of state policy." By Stephen Fidler Also by Mark Huband in London, Farhan Bokhari in Islamabad, Jimmy Burns in London, Andrew Jack in Moscow, James Kynge in Beijing, Alexander Nicoll in London, Carola Hoyos in New York, and Andrew Ward in Seoul FT.com UK: Financial Times ***************************************************************** 35 Nuclear workers forced to move Las Vegas SUN July 09, 2002 Beryllium found in NLV offices By Mary Manning < [manning@lasvegassun.com] > The National Nuclear Security Administration plans to evacuate 450 employees from a North Las Vegas office complex after traces of a metal used in nuclear weapons was found in the complex. General Manager Kathleen Carlson announced the move Monday to Bechtel and IT workers, all contracted by the Nuclear Security Administration. The employees began occupying offices in the complex after 1995. Tests earlier this year revealed traces of beryllium, a metal used in nuclear weapons, Nuclear Security spokesman Darwin Morgan said. The air and swiped samples indicated levels of the metal well below federal workplace standards, he said. One office worker has chronic lung disease from exposure to beryllium dust and three others have sensitivity to the metal, Morgan said. So far 102 employees in North Las Vegas have volunteered to be screened for beryllium sensitivity, which is an immune system response to the metal, Morgan said. Sensitivity to the metal does not mean a worker will develop the disease. "You've got to do the right thing for the peace of mind of the people, for the safety of the people," Morgan said. "So we are going ahead and moving the people out." The employees will be moved either to offices at the Nevada Test Site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas, or to leased offices nearby, Morgan said. Administrators are drawing up a plan for an orderly move, he said. The first workers will leave in about a month. The move will be completed before the end of the year. Last week the Nuclear Security Administration brought in outside experts to review the situation. After that, Carlson decided to empty the complex. Once the employees are gone, the administration will decide whether to clean up the complex or tear it down, Morgan said. The building had been used to mill beryllium metal until the early 1990s. Once former President George Bush stopped nuclear weapons experiments at the Test Site in 1992, the Department of Energy, which manages the nuclear tests, cleaned the building of solvents and chemicals, Morgan said. There were no cleanup standards for beryllium in 1995 when the cleanup was completed, he said. The Energy Department has had problems with beryllium at other sites, such as Hanford in Washington and Oak Ridge, Tenn. The first beryllium exposure standards were published by the Atomic Energy Commission, predecessor to the Energy Department, in 1949. Later the Occupational Safety and Health Administration adopted them. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 36 National Nuclear Security Administration: Ambassador Linton F. Brooks Deputy Administrator for Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation Ambassador Linton F. Brooks was sworn in as the Deputy Administrator for Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation in the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) on October 30, 2001. The NNSA carries out the national security responsibilities of the Department of Energy. In this position, Ambassador Brooks will direct the NNSA’s nonproliferation programs involving nuclear, chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction. The office promotes international nuclear safety and supports programs that ensure the security of nuclear weapons materials in Russia and other countries. The nonproliferation office also supports research and development of detection systems for biological and chemical agents. Prior to joining the Department of Energy, Ambassador Brooks served as Vice President and Assistant to the President for Policy Analysis at the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA), a federally funded research and development center located in Alexandria, Virginia from 1994 to 2001. As such, he was responsible for broad policy analyses of issues of national importance. Ambassador Brooks came to CNA following an extensive career in government service. During the Bush Administration, he served as Assistant Director for Strategic and Nuclear Affairs at the United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, and in the State Department as Head of the United Stales Delegation on Nuclear and Space Talks and Chief Strategic Arms Reductions (START) Negotiator. In this latter capacity, he was responsible for final preparation of the START I Treaty, which was signed by Presidents Bush and Gorbachev in Moscow on July 31, 1991. In December 1992, he performed a similar function during the final preparation of the January 3, 1993, START II Treaty. Thereafter, he served as a consultant on START II ratification to the Clinton Administration. Before becoming Head of the United States Delegation to the Nuclear and Space Talks in April 1991, Ambassador Brooks served for two years as Deputy Head of the Delegation, holding the rank of ambassador. He joined the delegation after spending over three years as Director of Arms Control on the staff of the National Security Council, where he was responsible, among other things, for all aspects of United States strategic aims reductions policy and nuclear testing policy during the final third of the Reagan Administration. Ambassador Brooks' National Security Council service culminated a thirty-year military career. Prior to his retirement as a Navy captain, Ambassador Brooks served at sea in destroyers, ballistic-missile submarines and attack submarines, commanded the nuclear-powered attack submarine USS WHALE (SSN 638), and served in a variety of Washington assignments relating to nuclear policy, military strategy, and arms control. Ambassador Brooks holds a BS in physics from Duke University, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and an MA in government and politics from the University of Maryland. He is a Distinguished Graduate of the U.S. Navy War College and has published a number of prize-winning articles on naval and nuclear strategy. The son of a career Army officer, Ambassador Brooks was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on August 15, 1938. He now resides in Vienna, Virginia with his wife, the former Barbara Julius of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The couple has two grown daughters, Julie and Kathryn. ***************************************************************** 37 Paul Parson: Madia talks security with Senate group The Oak Ridger Online -- Feature: Business -- Tuesday, July 9, 2002 Late-night television is synonymous with such personalities as David Letterman, Ted Koppel and the cast of "Saturday Night Live." It appears that for a brief second, another name -- one with local ties -- was recently added to the mix. Dick Smyser, The Oak Ridger's founding editor, informed me that during the wee hours of a recent morning, he caught a glimpse of Bill Madia, director of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, on C-SPAN. The broadcast was of Madia speaking before a Senate governmental affairs committee. Madia -- a true professional when it comes to public speaking -- was offering some input on how best to organize the nation's science and technology capabilities in order to help secure the homeland against a terrorist attack. The ORNL chief's testimony went a little something like this: "Our homeland security challenges are enduring, daunting in scope, diverse, and technically and logistically complex. The threat we face is dynamic. It changes rapidly with political and social developments around the world. It grows with the technical capacity of our adversaries, and with changes in our own economy and infrastructure. We require a science and technology response that is equally robust. "I believe that science and technology are critical to the primary functions of the proposed Department of Homeland Security Š . We can employ our research enterprise to deliver the best possible technology solutions available to the most critical threats today; deliver the science and technology required for better, more complete solutions tomorrow; and anticipate new threats that may emerge from advances in science and technology or the deployment of new technology in the U.S. economy. "To carry out these functions we need: Clearly assigned leadership; a thorough understanding of the requirements of those responsible for different elements of our security; and understanding of the promise, limits, and costs of our technologies." The Department of Energy's national laboratories will play a substantial role, particularly on weapons of mass destruction issues, according to Madia. These laboratories have specialized capabilities in several areas of science and technology, such as the control and detection of nuclear materials, and expertise pertinent to radiological, chemical and biological threats that will be critical to our homeland security. Several of Oak Ridge National Laboratory's research projects have already received a lot of attention due to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and issues of homeland security. One of these projects is SensorNet, which would place real-time detection and assessment systems on existing cellular towers. The systems would be able to detect a chemical agent within 45 seconds and a biological threat within 5 minutes and then quickly alert local authorities. Paul Parson is the science and technology reporter for The Oak Ridger. He can be contacted at (865) 220-5533 or pparson@oakridger.com [pparson@oakridger.com] . All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 38 ORNL researchers honored for work The Oak Ridger Online -- Area News -- Tuesday, July 9, 2002 from staff reports Three scientists from Oak Ridge National Laboratory are set to receive "early career" awards through the Department of Energy's Office of Science. The winners are as follows: + Ian Anderson, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, for research in electron beam characterization techniques with applications for the development of new, energy-efficient materials. + Vincent Cianciolo, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, for developing a scientific program and detector instrumentation for experiments at the Brookhaven National Laboratory to understand the existence of quark-gluon plasma. + Jizhong Zhou, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, for leadership in functional genomics and microbial ecology and the development of technologies needed for microscale environmental research. According to DOE officials, the "early career" award is the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on outstanding scientists and engineers who are beginning their independent careers. The award winners will receive a citation, a plaque and continued funding of their work for five years. [http://www.oakridger.com] All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 39 DOE: Ambassador Linton Brooks to be Acting NNSA Administrator energy.gov - Headquarters' Press Release RELEASE DATE: July 8, 2002 WASHINGTON, DC - At Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham's recommendation, President Bush today announced his intention to designate Ambassador Linton Brooks, currently the National Nuclear Security Administration's Deputy Administrator for Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation, as the NNSA's Acting Administrator, effective immediately. Brooks will replace General John Gordon, who is joining the National Security Council. "Linton has done an excellent job managing our nonproliferation agenda and is a key member of the NNSA management team," Secretary Abraham said. "Our programs have never been more effective and he is leading our efforts to address new areas of proliferation concerns, including securing radiological materials in Russia and the former Soviet Union States. I am pleased that he has agreed to serve as acting Administrator, and know that he will bring steady leadership to NNSA." Prior to joining the NNSA, Ambassador Brooks was the Vice President and Assistant to the President for Policy Analysis at the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA), a federally funded research and development center located in Alexandria, Virginia. His extensive government experience includes service as the Assistant Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, Chief U.S. Negotiator for the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, and Director of Arms Control for the National Security Council. He also served for 30 years in the U.S. Navy. NNSA enhances U.S. national security through the military application of nuclear energy, maintains the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile, promotes international nuclear non-proliferation and safety, reduces global danger from weapons of mass destruction, provides the U.S. Navy with safe and effective nuclear propulsion, and oversees national laboratories to maintain U.S. leadership in science and technology. Media Contact: Jeanne Lopatto, 202/586-4940 Release No. PR-02-133 ***************************************************************** 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: *****************************************************************