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                         NUCLEAR POLICY
 
1 China Vows to Press N. Korea on Nukes
2 Two US policies for 2 ?axis? states
3 Bush told to end nuclear double speak for India
4 UK power: energizing the nuclear option*
5 U.N. Arms Experts Step Up Iraq Inspections*
6 Iraq debate goes beyond facts
7 Israel Threatens to Launch Nuclear Attack on Islamic Sites *
8 US: EchoStar, Hughes End Satellite Deal
9 U.S., N. Korea Disagree in Nuclear Talks 
10 US: Expert sees future for nuclear power
 
                         NUCLEAR REACTORS
 
11 US: TXU, inspectors to discuss Comanche reactor problems
12 US: Problems keep reactor at nuclear power plant closed
13 US: 'Extraterrestrial alien' invades nuclear plant*
14 Bulgarian Power Plant?s Fate Hangs in the Balance
15 US: Comanche Peak nuclear plant still down
16 US: Calvert Cliffs FONSI
17 US: Nuclear Plant Equipment Problems Worsening as Reactors Age 
18 US: TVA offers Net site for children -- 
 
                          NUCLEAR SAFETY
 
19 US: Schumer, Clinton ask NRC to look at security
20 US: Detecting smuggled nuclear material
21 Bosnian Bombing AFTEREFFECTS
22 PLAYING CATCH-UP  (health impacts from Bosnia)
23 US: Fact-finding phase of probe into train tunnel fire nears end
24 US: Construction accident sparks radiation concern
25 The UN releases a study that lends credence to health experts? cries
 
                         NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
 
26 Nevada wants larger role in nuclear cask testing
27 US: NRC Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste to Meet December 17 - 19
28 Editorial: Whistleblower probe was full of problems 
29 US: Radioactive truck returning to Twin Falls
30 Nevada wants larger role in nuclear cask testing*
31 Prejudice against nuclear reprocessing must go: Chidambaram
32 State records on LES recruitment sought *
33 US: *Borough Council unanimously opposes landfill?s radiation monito
 
                         NUCLEAR WEAPONS
 
34 Israel Threatens to Launch Nuclear Attack on Islamic Sites 
35 U.N. Teams Head Toward Iraq Uranium Mine
36 India to buy Russian submarines, a strategic bomber, and…
37 US: U.S. Sees Nuclear Deterrence Against WMD Attack*
38 Press freedom prize awarded to Russian reporter Grigory Pasko
39 Inspection teams in Iraq focus on 3 nuclear centers
 
                        US DEPT. OF ENERGY
 
40 Government asks for extension in whistleblower suit 
41 DOE to settle partial debt in land deal 
42 Bechtel Jacobs cites failed work planning in radioactive release 
43 ?Culture of Theft? Reported at U.S. Nuclear Lab
44 LANL Memo Stirs Fear of Reprisals* *
45 Energy Secretary Points to Government/Industry Partnerships to 
46 Los Alamos Memo to Employees Stirs Fear
47 DOE to reserve 3,200 acres for conservation
 
                          OTHER NUCLEAR
 
48 Portrait: Daniel Ellsberg
49 Iraq debate goes beyond facts
50 Judge Knocks GAO Out of Cheney Task Force Lawsuit
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                         FULL NEWS STORIES
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 1 China Vows to Press N. Korea on Nukes

Las Vegas SUN: 

December 09, 2002 By MATT KELLEY ASSOCIATED PRESS 

WASHINGTON- Chinese military officials, in their first high-level 
discussions with the Pentagon in years, said Monday they would 
try to pressure North Korea to drop its nuclear weapons programs, 
U.S. officials said. 

At the same time, the Chinese officials refused to rule out 
military force over Taiwan. 

Douglas Feith, the Pentagon's No. 3 official who headed the U.S. 
delegation at Monday's meeting in Washington, said the talks were 
useful and professional. Gen. Xiong Guangkai, deputy chief of the 
general staff of China's People's Liberation Army, led the 
delegation from Beijing. 

"They were real discussions. They were not just stilted set 
pieces," said Feith, undersecretary of defense for policy. "We 
came away with some additional understanding of the personalities 
on the other side and the ideas on the other side." 

While lunching on salmon, Chinese officials also presented a 
detailed proposal for military-to-military contacts with the 
United States, Feith said. He said it was too soon to offer a 
U.S. reactions to the proposals. 

The Pentagon wants the exchanges to be more than just port calls 
and photo opportunities, Feith said. 

"If the exchanges are structured properly, they will serve our 
interests, our common interests, providing insights, to reduce 
the possibility of mistakes, of misunderstanding," Feith said. 
The talks are the latest sign of warming in military relations 
between the two countries. A low point was April 2001, when a 
Chinese fighter jet collided with a U.S. Navy surveillance plane 
over the South China Sea. 

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld was angered by China's 
accusation that the Navy's EP-3 surveillance violated Chinese 
sovereignty by landing at a Chinese airfield after the aerial 
collision. He also was unhappy that China detained the crew for 
11 days and refused to let the United States repair and fly the 
plane off the airfield. The Chinese fighter jet crashed in the 
sea, killing the pilot. 

But relations have improved since then, with U.S. Navy ships 
resuming port calls in China last month and increasing contacts 
among higher level officials. 

The Chinese said they would try to persuade North Korea to 
abandon its nuclear weapons program, Feith said. The Chinese also 
insisted they no longer sell missile technology or equipment to 
North Korea, Feith said. 

"I don't know whether they're going to take concrete steps," 
Feith said, adding, "There is a common interest that exists 
between China and the United States ... to stop the North Korean 
nuclear program." 

The United States has been consulting with China and other 
countries in the region since Pyongyang's surprise admission in 
October that it has a secret uranium enrichment program to make 
nuclear weapons. Shipments of fuel oil to North Korea have ended. 
Under a 1994 agreement, North Korea had promised to end its 
nuclear weapons programs in exchange for two civilian nuclear 
power plants and the fuel oil aid. 

On Taiwan, the talks were not as harmonious. Feith said Pentagon 
officials objected to China's buildup of missiles across the 
Taiwan strait, while China responded with objections to U.S. arms 
sales to Taiwan. 

China and Taiwan split amid civil war in 1949, and China regards 
Taiwan as a renegade province. The United States does not have 
diplomatic ties with Taipei but is committed to defending the 
island from Chinese attack. 

In a biennial military report given to U.S. officials Monday, 
China said "it will not foreswear the use of force" to reunite 
Taiwan with the mainland. 

"China's armed forces will unswervingly defend the country's 
sovereignty and unity, and have the resolve as well as the 
capability to check any separatist act," said the report, titled 
"China's National Defense in 2002." 

On the Net: CIA factbook on China: 
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ch.html 
[http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ch.html] 

All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
 2 Two US policies for 2 ?axis? states

Monday, December 09, 2002
 
Expressindia <http://www.expressindia.com/>
 
Reuters

* Seoul, December 8 * US Deputy Secretary of State, Richard 
Armitage?s today set out on a week-long tour of Asia for talks on 
Iraq and North Korea, two of three countries US President George 
W. Bush termed an ??axis of evil?? for suspicion of having 
weapons of mass destruction. The tour underscores contrasting US 
approaches towards Baghdad and Pyong Yang and their suspected 
nuclear arsenals and other banned weapons.

Iraq?s declaration yesterday denying it has weapons of mass 
destruction is being analysed by a sceptical Washington, which 
has mustered an international coalition and vowed to force 
Baghdad to disarm if UN inspectors fail to do so.

North Korea, which told the United States in October that it was 
secretly processing uranium for arms, has defiantly asserted its 
right to wield such weapons in the face of what it sees as 
nuclear threats from the United States and it?s 37,000 troops in 
South Korea. While the US-led pressure builds on Iraq, communist 
North Korea has been given a fresh chance to meet international 
demands that it abandon the uranium project, which violates key 
international non-proliferation treaties.

Diplomatic sources said on Friday, the multinational organisation 
in charge of energy projects in North Korea has postponed a 
high-level meeting until January, delaying a joint decision on 
it?s nuclear arms programme.

The Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organisation (KEDO), was 
set up under a 1994 agreement which promised North Korea fuel oil 
and nuclear power stations in return for a freeze on a 
plutonium-based nuclear arms programme. KEDO suspended the oil 
shipments last month, and the meeting of the allied group would 
have discussed the future of two light-water reactors now under 
construction in North Korea.

US officials say there will be no ??cookie-cutter approach?? to 
states posing seemingly similar menaces. However, analysts view 
North Korea?s geographic, political and military circumstances 
quite different from those of Iraq.

© 2002: Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd. All rights 
*****************************************************************
 3 Bush told to end nuclear double speak for India

<http://www.indiatimes.com/>

IANS[ WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2002 02:50:14 AM ]

WASHINGTON: South Asia scholar Selig Harrison has taken up 
cudgels against the Bush administration for treating India 
unfairly in nuclear matters despite its record of honouring 
international non-proliferation norms.

Urging the administration to give up its “obsolete policy that 
bans US civilian nuclear co-operation with New Delhi,” he said 
the time has now come to “end the nuclear double standard for 
India”, especially because it has, unlike Pakistan, refused to 
sell nuclear weapons know-how to any other state.

On the other hand, Pakistan has exported uranium enrichment 
technology to North Korea in exchange for missiles, while India 
has adopted an unflinching policy of not sharing its nuke 
know-how with any other country, he said. “Despite India's 
consistent record of honouring international non-proliferation 
norms, the US clings to an increasingly obsolete policy that bans 
US civilian nuclear co-operation with New Delhi.

“At the same time, Washington permits such co-operation with 
China, even though Beijing has transferred nuclear and missile 
technology to Pakistan and Iran,” Harrison said writing in the 
commentary page of the Los Angeles Times on Monday.

Harrison said the ban is a relic of past decades when the US was 
pressing India not to become a nuclear power. Now that New Delhi 
and Islamabad have joined the nuclear club, Washington needs to 
reshape its policies.

Strategically, Harrison said, US policy is now based on the 
implicit premise that Asia is more stable with India having a 
minimum nuclear deterrent than with China enjoying a nuclear 
monopoly. “It no longer makes sense to refuse US co-operation 
in making Indian civilian nuclear reactors safer and to bar US 
companies from selling civilian reactors to India, as they do to 
China.”

Harrison was a correspondent in New Delhi for several years. He 
is currently a senior scholar of the Woodrow Wilson International 
Centre for Scholars and director of the Asia programme at the 
Centre for International Policy.

Another issue of concern about the Bush administration policy is 
its refusal to help India ensure the safety of nuclear 
installations, Harrison pointed out. Taking up the case for 
India, he said that with 14 operating civilian nuclear reactors 
that produce electricity, and more on the way, India is anxious 
to avoid a nuclear disaster like the one at Chernobyl in Ukraine 
and has periodically asked the US to help in this regard. Last 
month, however, the Bush administration had opened the door 
slightly for a possible policy reappraisal, according to 
Harrison. — IANS

Richard Meserve, chairman of the US Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission, will meet in January with Indian Atomic Energy 
Commission chairman Anil Kakodkar.

The White House approved the visit to India after a bitter 
interagency struggle in which NPT “strict constructionists” 
tried to block the trip.

A compromise was finally reached by permitting Meserve to have a 
“dialogue” but not to arrange actual transfers of nuclear 
safety technology, Harrison revealed in his article entitled 
“End the Nuclear Double Standard for India”.

India branded the NPT as discriminatory and refused to sign. Now 
it wants to sign as a nuclear weapons state, but the US will not 
agree.

The NPT does not bar its signatories from providing nuclear 
technology to non-signatories. But the US Congress went beyond 
the treaty with a law barring non-signatories from receiving US 
nuclear technology even if they accepted International Atomic 
Energy Agency safeguards on its use. This legislation 
specifically bars the US from helping India make its reactors 
safer.

To remedy matters, Harrison suggested that in return for access 
to US civilian nuclear technology, the US should impose two 
conditions, at minimum, on India.

“First,” he said, “New Delhi would have to accept the 
international agency's safeguards not only on any new reactors 
purchased but also on all its existing civilian nuclear reactors, 
as it says it is ready to do.

“Secondly, India would have to make some form of binding 
commitment not to export nuclear technology, formalising its de 
facto policy.

“Thirdly, the administration should follow up the Meserve visit 
with a co-operative nuclear safety programme as the prelude to a 
broader dialogue designed to strengthen India's demonstrated 
commitment to non-proliferation.”

Copyright ďż˝ 2002 Times Internet Limited.
*****************************************************************
 4 UK power: energizing the nuclear option*

<http://www.datamonitor.com/>

*The UK nuclear industry has been buoyed by recent government 
comments.*

December 10, 2002 12:50 PM GMT (Datamonitor) - Comments from the 
DTI have been seen as indicative of the government's support for 
the nuclear option. In fact, it's difficult to see that the 
government has much option - the cost of replacing the UK's 
nuclear generation capacity would be massive, with intolerable 
job losses and an over dependence on foreign gas. It's not great 
news for the taxpayer but should provide hope for private 
investors.

At an atomic energy conference last week, Joan MacNaughton, the 
Director General of Energy at the Department of Trade and 
Industry, insisted that British Energy's problems are not 
symptomatic of wider problems in the UK nuclear industry. Her 
comments are likely to pre-empt a favorable review of the nuclear 
industry in the government's forthcoming energy white paper.

Nuclear energy accounts for around one quarter of existing power 
generation capacity in the UK. It is not entirely surprising, 
therefore, that the government seems determined to find a 
solution to the continuing problems affecting companies in this 
industry.

If the government were to sideline nuclear energy, it would first 
need to replace a significant amount of the country's existing 
generation capacity. While the private sector could be relied 
upon to fulfill some of this responsibility, government 
investment would have to be substantial.

In addition, by replacing nuclear capacity with other forms of 
generation (mostly gas), the country may become overly dependent 
on foreign sources of this fuel, possibly from Russia or Algeria. 
This could lead to price instability and increase the UK's 
economic vulnerability.

Finally, if the government were to give up its support for this 
industry, the employment fallout would be substantial, not just 
for power generators, but also nuclear reprocessers like BNFL. 
While this would partly be offset by new-build gas generation, it 
may not fully compensate for job losses in the nuclear sector.

Whether the course that the government takes is in the best 
interests of the British taxpayer in the longer term is 
questionable. However, this intimation of government support will 
provide a much needed boost to private sector confidence in this 
beleaguered segment.

You can download a FREE energy report at www.dmfreereports.com

*Datamonitor's Digests let you receive more comments like this 
one, for free, direct to your inbox - and you also get a free 
Datamonitor report when you sign up. Click here <newsletters.htm> 
for more information.*

(c) 2002 Datamonitor. All rights reserved. Republication or 
© 2002 Datamonitor plc
*****************************************************************
 5 U.N. Arms Experts Step Up Iraq Inspections*

<http://about.reuters.com>

/ Tue December 10, 2002 06:46 AM ET /

By Huda Majeed Saleh

AL-QAEM, Iraq (Reuters) - U.N. arms experts fanned out to inspect 
several new sites across Iraq Tuesday in the largest one-day 
operation since their hunt for alleged banned weapons resumed 
last month.

A team of inspectors drove for five hours to examine a phosphate 
facility near the Syrian border 400 km (250 miles) northwest of 
Baghdad while other teams inspected four more suspected nuclear, 
biological and chemical sites.

One team headed to an animals vaccine facility in the region of 
Abu Ghouraib, west of Baghdad. A second group went to Al-Furat 
Chemical Industries General Company, which is linked to the 
Ministry of Industry and Minerals. The company site is 41 miles 
south of Baghdad.

A fourth team visited Ibn al-Haitham research facility in 
Wazireyah in a northern Baghdad suburb. A team later returned to 
Tuweitha nuclear site, 12 miles, south of Baghdad, their fourth 
inspection of the facility in one week.

Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and 
the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission 
(UNMOVIC) have visited about 30 sites since their return to Iraq 
last month after a four year gap.

Tuesday's operation covered the largest number of sites inspected 
on the same day. The al-Qaem site is also the furthest the 
inspectors had gone outside Baghdad.

The number of experts had doubled with the arrival Sunday of 25 
inspectors. Teams will be further beefed up with the arrival of 
around two dozen more experts later Tuesday.

The United States is pressing weapons inspectors to be more 
aggressive in uncovering evidence of secret Iraqi arms.

Iraq says it gave a full account of any past and current programs 
involving biological, chemical or nuclear weapons under a new 
U.N. resolution which demands full Iraqi cooperation with the 
weapons inspectors.

It has denied having any such weapons but the United States says 
it has, and warned it is ready to take military action if 
necessary to disarm Baghdad.

U.S. officials began analyzing a 12,000-page dossier detailing 
Iraq's weapons programs Monday. The United States received an 
early unedited copy of the Iraqi declaration after a deal was 
struck to override a U.N. Security Council decision to keep the 
report under wraps.

PURELY FOR CIVILIAN USE

At al-Qaem site, 11 inspectors in four-wheel-drive cars drove 
into the facility, which is run by the Ministry of Industry and 
Minerals, after the long journey from Baghdad.

Accompanied by Iraqi officials, they were allowed into the 
guarded facility immediately. The site is located in a desert 
area few hundred meters away from the border with Syria.

At al-Furat, a company official said after inspectors spent two 
hours checking its facilities that products there were all purely 
for civilian use. "We have nothing (banned) ... Everything was in 
front of them and there is no banned substances," Wahhab Abdul 
Wahhab told Reuters.

Official Iraqi newspapers launched Tuesday more verbal attacks on 
the United States and Britain, accusing them of planning to 
attack Iraq despite Baghdad's hand over of a "complete and 
accurate" weapons declaration.

Al-Iraq daily said the United States wanted to sabotage any 
attempts to reach a just solution for the issue of Iraq by 
lifting the crippling U.N. sanctions, imposed on Iraq for its 
1990 invasion of Kuwait.

"The clear truth is that Iraq has met its commitments and 
continues to deal with the inspection teams," al-Iraq said.

"The report that it handed at the start of the week to the United 
Nations was comprehensive and detailed all its (weapons) 
programs," it said. "This is the true deed, not that croak of 
ravens getting ready to attack and whose dirty media beat the 
drums of war."
*****************************************************************
 6 Iraq debate goes beyond facts

Eastside Journal Local News

2002-12-10 by Tom Wolfe

None of the important questions about Iraq can be answered with 
facts.

But they are a starting point for thinking.

The Rev. Sharon Moe, senior pastor of the University Temple 
United Methodist Church, brought an arsenal of handouts, 
statistics, maps, color slides and personal observations to 
Auburn United Methodist Church Sunday night, drawing on two 
visits to Iraq this year, and a lifetime of asking big questions. 
Her own views are fiercely anti-war, but she emphasizes personal 
reflection over political ideology.

``My goal is to get people thinking,'' she explained later. ``I 
am very careful to respect differences of opinion, and I try not 
to put people on the spot.''

Even so, an evening of immersion in human catastrophe is an 
ordeal. An estimated 500,000 Iraqi children have died from the 
consequences of war -- famine, disease, pollution, birth defects 
-- and thousands more are on the brink.

Moe wants people to think about that, and about depleted uranium, 
leukemia, Gulf War syndrome, so-called collateral damage, our 
dependency on oil, the cultural treasures of modern-day 
Mesopotamia and the true meaning of patriotism.

At the same time Moe was speaking in Auburn, the Eastgate 
Congregational United Church of Christ was hosting a community 
forum in Bellevue. It lasted more than two hours.

I admire the 150 or so people who attended those sessions and 
took up the challenge to learn more about Iraq.

It's a daunting task. And even when you know more, it's not 
enough.

* We know that Saddam Hussein is a ruthless dictator. But we 
don't know what level of threat he now poses outside his borders.

* We know that war is hell, but we don't know how many combatants 
and civilians would die, how it would affect the economy or what 
it would mean to history.

* We know we could conquer Iraq, but we don't know if that would 
promote Mideast stability or provoke anti-American terrorism.

Our history with Iraq is also confusing.

Go back to Aug. 2, 1990, and we have the Iraqi invasion of 
Kuwait, which started the current chain of events.

But go back just a few months more, and the picture changes. Go 
back to January 1990, and you'll see President Bush signing a 
presidential order promoting trade with Iraq. Go back to 1983 and 
you'll see Donald Rumsfeld (now defense secretary; then a White 
House envoy) shaking hands with Saddam Hussein, happy to have an 
ally against fundamentalist Iran. You'll see Arkansas Gov. Bill 
Clinton shaking hands with Iraqi Ambassador Nizar Hamdoon, happy 
to be selling Arkansas-grown rice. Go back to 1981 and you'll see 
the Reagan administration, happy with Iraq's invasion of Iran, 
criticizing Israel for knocking out an Iraqi nuclear reactor.

Saddam Hussein was a ruthless dictator then, too, and working on 
developing a nuclear bomb.

What do you think?

Not everyone can attend a two-hour forum on Iraq. If you'd like 
to be part of the discussion, send an e-mail to 
editorial.page@king countyjournal.com or send us a letter to the 
editor.

We'll publish a selection of responses this weekend.

Tom Wolfe is editor of the Eastside Journal. His column runs 
every Tuesday. Readers can reach him by phone 425-453-4230, 
e-mail tom.wolfe@eastsidejournal.com or fax 425-635-0603.

Eastside Journal 1705 132nd Avenue N.E. Bellevue, WA 98005-2251 
Phone: 425-455-2222 Fax: 425-635-0602
*****************************************************************
 7 Israel Threatens to Launch Nuclear Attack on Islamic Sites *

*December 10, 2002* News Content  
TehranTimes Navigation

/*By Our Staff Writer */

THERAN -- A high-ranking Israeli officer threatened that the 
Zionist regime would launch nuclear attack on Islamic holy sites 
in the Middle East, an Israeli newspaper said Sunday.

In case Israel was attacked by states or groups, the Jewish state 
would respond by dropping nuclear bombs on Islamic cities such as 
Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia and Qom in Iran. The Haaretz 
newspaper quoted an unidentified high-ranking officer a s saying.

It is an irony of our time Iraq has been suffering for a decade 
because it is accused of having some capabilities of 
unconventional weapons, while Israel announces that it possesses 
nuclear weapons, but there is not any international action 
against it.

The officer, a guide in the Israeli military academy, was quoted 
as saying that Israel possesses hundreds of nuclear warheads 
along with their delivery systems, including long-range ballistic 
missiles, long-range bombers and nuclear submarines.

Indeed, while is Iraq under the pressure, Israel is the only 
entity in the Middle East to possess a huge arsenal of weapons of 
mass destruction, including a sizable nuclear arsenal.

It is unfortunate that the United States, Israel's main 
protector, has always prevented any serious move to discuss 
Israel's weapons of mass destruction. But at the same time it has 
accused a number of other countries of trying to acquire weapons 
of mass destruction. It has put them under pressure on the basis 
of the very baseless accusations it has leveled against them.

It is time the Islamic world in the first place and the 
international community too took serious action to contain 
Israel. The Zionist regime is an occupationist, expansionist 
entity. It must be contained, else the entire world will be in 
danger. 
*****************************************************************
 8 EchoStar, Hughes End Satellite Deal

<http://www.holahoy.com>
www.newsday.com

December 10, 2002

An unruly stampede can be readily predicted when President George 
W. Bush seeks to fully exploit the victories that first gave him 
control of the executive branch and now have given him possession 
of Congress.

Peevish commentators will argue that he is master of the world 
based on the 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that effectively 
awarded him the presidency in 2000. A single vote was all that 
stood between Bush and illegitimacy and negated the nearly 
600,000-vote plurality by which Albert Gore won the popular vote.

That was then. Now, the recent election results have provoked the 
business community - and groups such as the National Association 
of Manufacturers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce - to wet their 
pants in anticipation of the conservative agenda they are in 
position to ram through.

First out of the gate is likely to be an energy policy that 
should surprise no one who understands we have both a president 
and a vice president who are oilmen. They might as well be 
marinated in it.

But Bush will earn his pay threading his way through a minefield 
of competing energy sources that include nuclear, oil, coal, 
natural gas and even, I suppose, the idealistic wind and solar 
enthusiasts who offer the best hope that the world will not be 
choked with greenhouse gases.

The coal lobby already won a great victory when Bush took steps 
to permit older coal-fired plants to escape the requirement that 
they install costly anti-pollution devices.

The nuclear people have a claim to their day in court because the 
new chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee is 
Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.), a vigorous proponent of nuclear 
power. This could signal a new lease for an industry in danger of 
withering to insignificance.

The nuclear lobby is demanding the industry be limited in its 
liability from catastrophic accidents. This is in response to 
fears that the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks as easily could have 
involved airplanes crashing into nuclear power plants as into the 
World Trade Center.

The environment is at once Bush's greatest liability and most 
serious weakness. His oil background virtually guarantees this. 
He will, of course, be under tremendous pressure to open up the 
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to rampant exploration. This 
naturally will infuriate environmentalists. But Bush's other 
environmental problems already are so numerous he may figure that 
these lost votes are ones he simply will have to do without.

I guess he has made the judgment that people who get hysterical 
about protecting the air and water, who want to hold on to 
endangered species and spare useless wetlands from development, 
are never going to be the kind of people he feels comfortable 
with.

Meanwhile, timber interests are itching to have a go at more 
extensive logging in the nation's national forests.

I suppose Bush's biggest problem will be just trying to listen to 
forces that made this fall's midterm elections the most expensive 
in history. Imagine the skills he'll need to avoid slighting 
those who think they've bought a piece of him.

Copyright © 2002, Newsday, Inc. <http://www.newsday.com>
*****************************************************************
 9 U.S., N. Korea Disagree in Nuclear Talks 

Tue Dec 10, 9:05 AM ET       

By JAE-SUK YOO, Associated Press Writer 

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - Deputy Secretary of State Richard 
Armitage said Tuesday that Washington would seek a "diplomatic 
solution" to North Korea, however, reiterated its rejection of a 
U.N. watchdog's appeal to abandon its nuclear program and to 
accept foreign inspections. 


Armitage, who arrived in Seoul on Tuesday, discussed North Korea 
with President Kim Dae-jung, Foreign Minister Choi Sung-hong and 
Defense Minister Lee Jun. 

"In my meetings today, we reaffirmed our common interest in 
finding a diplomatic solution to North Korea's destabilizing 
pursuit of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction," 
Armitage said in a written statement. 

Washington and its allies are trying to pressure the North to 
give up its nuclear ambitions. 

Earlier Tuesday, North Korea's state-run news agency, KCNA, said 
the communist state rejects as "unilateral and biased" the 
International Atomic Energy Agency's resolution urging North 
Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program and open its 
facilities to outside inspectors. 

North Korea cannot accept the Nov. 29 resolution because "the 
United States dubbed the (North) an 'axis of evil' and a target 
of the pre-emptive nuclear attack, creating a serious crisis," 
KCNA said. 

During the meetings in Seoul, Armitage also discussed 
Washington's possible war against Iraq. 

Domestic media reported that South Korea is willing to provide 
logistical support. The country dispatched engineering and 
medical units during the 1991 Gulf War.


Armitage was scheduled to leave for China on Wednesday and to 
visit Australia later in the week. 

His visit comes amid rising anti-U.S. sentiment in South Korea 
over last month's U.S. military court acquittals of two U.S. 
soldiers whose armored vehicle hit and killed two Korean girls in 
an accident in June. 

Armitage again conveyed Washington's "deepest apology" for the 
deaths. President Bush  had apologized, but that has failed to 
allay the growing anger.
 
Past anti-U.S. protests involved small groups of activists, but 
current demonstrations are drawing thousands. 

Protesters demand that the two U.S. soldiers be retried in a 
South Korean court and that the 1966 Status of Forces Agreement, 
or SOFA — which covers American troops' legal status — be revised 
to give South Korea more jurisdictional power. 

South Korea is a close U.S. ally and hosts 37,000 U.S. troops. 
Most South Koreans tolerate or support the U.S. military 
presence, but accidents and crimes involving soldiers here have 
been a constant source of discontent. 

President Kim said Tuesday that current demonstrations should not 
be used as a platform for anti-Americanism and demands for the 
withdrawal of U.S. troops. 

"I am relieved that so far protesters only demand an apology by 
President Bush and a revision of SOFA, and that they are 
separating their demands from anti-Americanism and demands for 
the withdrawal of U.S. troops," Kim was quoted as saying by his 
office. 

 Copyright © 2002 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The
*****************************************************************
 10 Expert sees future for nuclear power

Oakland Tribune Online

[http://www.oaklandtribune.com/]                          

Last Updated: Tuesday, December 10, 2002 -
 		   	 	
By William Brand, STAFF WRITER

SAN FRANCISCO -- Nuclear power -- more the butt of sick radiation 
jokes and cost-overrun complaints in recent decades than a prized 
source of energy -- still has a future in America, the former 
head of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Monday. 

"Nuclear power has had a rough ride," said Shirley Ann Jackson, 
who headed the commission during the Clinton administration. "The 
last use permit for a nuclear power plant was issued in 1979, and 
the last nuclear plant went on line in 1996," she said. "And 
since 1979, more than 20 nuclear plants have closed, and more 
than 20 other proposed plants have been canceled. But nearly 20 
percent of America's electricity is still produced by nuclear 
power." 

Much has happened since the Three Mile Island partial nuclear 
meltdown, Jackson said. "In the United States, the nuclear 
industry has had an enviable safety record."                    

She predicted that in the next five to 10 years, electrical power 
primarily will be provided by fossil fuels, burning natural gas 
and coal. Currently, coal-burning generators provide half of 
America's electrical power. 

But a decade from now, nuclear power may well be the energy 
choice, Jackson said. Nuclear power does not contribute 
greenhouse gases or pollutants, she added. 

Ernest J. Moniz, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology 
physicist, suggested the world may have little choice because of 
global warming. 

If one takes the general guideline that during the next century 
we have to emit no more greenhouse gases annually than we do 
today -- despite a large increase in the demand for energy -- 
then nuclear plants begin to look more attractive, Moniz said. 

However, during a morning discussion by scientists at the annual 
meeting of the American Geophysical Union, some problems 
associated with nuclear energy emerged, including plant security, 
disposal of nuclear waste and convincing a dubious public that 
the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl nuclear mishaps could not 
happen again. 

For example, a scientist cited the Department of Energy's own 
environmental impact report on the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste 
disposal site, approved this past summer by Congress. Once the 
site begins accepting nuclear waste, the report estimates it will 
require 3,215 train shipments and 1,079 truck shipments over 24 
years to fill the first bore, 1,000 feet down in the mountain. 

There are now about 70,000 metric tons of nuclear waste at 131 
locations in 39 states. That waste has been produced since the 
start of the nuclear power age. 

The biggest problem, said Jean L. Younker, senior principal 
scientist for Bechtel SAIC, will be lawsuits over the routes 
taken to haul nuclear waste and the site's safety. 

Bechtel represents several private utilities that want to ship 
their waste to Yucca Mountain. 

The Department of Energy notes that more than 2,700 shipments of 
nuclear waste have been made in the United States in the past 30 
years without mishap. There has never been a release of 
radioactive material harmful to the public or environment, 
according to the agency. 

Jackson, president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, 
N.Y., pointed out there already is a resurgence in nuclear power. 
Nuclear plants were originally licensed for 40 years, but since 
1998 plants have been receiving Nuclear Regulatory Commission 
approval to operate an additional 20 years. 

She said 10 have received renewal permits, 25 or more are waiting 
for a renewal permit, and 15 others have indicated they intend to 
ask for a permit to keep producing power, Jackson said. 

She said while nuclear power plants originally were very 
expensive, the older plants have paid off their costs and in the 
future will generate electricity quite cheaply -- half the cost 
of natural gas generation -- she said. 
		   	 	
©1999-2002 by MediaNews Group, Inc. and ANG Newspapers
*****************************************************************
 11 TXU, inspectors to discuss Comanche reactor problems

Star Telegram | 12/10/2002 | 

 By Neil Strassman Star-Telegram Staff Writer

A reactor at the Comanche Peak nuclear power plant that was shut 
down in September because of leaking and corroded tubing is 
having a tough time getting going again, officials said.
 
The reactor -- which was shut down for 50 days to repair more 
than 660 corroded and cracked tubes and for refueling -- has been 
started and stopped twice since Nov. 15 and is under repair and 
out of service.
 
"The reactor should be back in operation in a number of days," 
said TXU spokesman David Beshear. "The bottom line is safety, and 
we have systems in place that work correctly."
 
TXU is scheduled to meet today at the plant with a Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission special inspection team that has 
investigated problems with the steam-generating tubes.
 
"This will be a discussion of the team's preliminary findings and 
a look at what the company has been doing to address the 
problem," said Ken Clark, NRC spokesman.
 
Comanche Peak, near Glen Rose, about 50 miles southwest of Fort 
Worth, went on-line in 1990 with one reactor. It now has two.
 
The troubled reactor, Unit 1, resumed operation Nov. 15 but was 
shut down Nov. 23 because of a potential valve problem, TXU 
officials said.
 
The reactor was back in service two days later. But on Nov. 30, a 
blown fuse triggered a safety mechanism that caused a control rod 
to drop into the reactor's core, Beshear said. The control rod is 
a safety measure that slows the nuclear reaction in the core.
 
On Dec. 3, the reactor was taken off-line again, this time to 
repair an electric coil. That's when plant workers found that the 
coil failure was caused by a leaky weld in a canopy seal at the 
control rod, Beshear said.
 
He said that the weld has been repaired and that other minor work 
is being done.
 
Bill Johnson, NRC branch chief responsible for overseeing reactor 
inspections at Comanche Peak and two other nuclear plants, said 
"such leaks are not uncommon" at the canopy seal by the control 
rod.
 
"It's not a major safety problem," Johnson said. "It's an 
operating problem."
 
None of the problems has posed a safety or public health risk, 
TXU and NRC officials said. Comanche Peak's second reactor, 
completed in 1993, remains unaffected and continues to operate.
 
In early December, Comanche Peak workers found deposits of boric 
acid crystals around the leak, a potential concern because a 
boric acid buildup was blamed for extensive corrosion in the top 
of the Davis-Besse nuclear reactor near Toledo, Ohio.
 
Similar corrosion was not found at Comanche peak, Johnson said.
 
But the leaking and cracked steam-generating tubes, the subject 
of today's meeting with the NRC, are a longstanding problem at 
plants that were built with Westinghouse-engineered pressurized 
water reactors.
 
The Westinghouse systems were installed in both commercial 
nuclear power plants in Texas, Comanche Peak and the South Texas 
Project.
 
The thin tubes are made of a stainless steel alloy called Inconel 
600. They have cracked and leaked within 10 years at some plants 
designed to last 40 years, according to NRC records.
 
The tubes carry superheated, radioactive water from the reactor 
core to convert nonradioactive water into steam for 
electricity-generating turbines.
 
The tube problem has led to at least 14 lawsuits against 
Westinghouse, all of which have been settled out of court with 
most court documents sealed.
 
At least 19 steam-generating systems have been replaced at U.S. 
nuclear power plants for $100 million to $200 million per plant, 
records show. The South Texas project replaced its steam 
generators in the past two years.
 
TXU is "continuing to evaluate replacement" of its steam 
generators at Comanche Peak, Beshear said.
 
Neil Strassman, (817) 390-7657 strass@star-telegram.com 
[strass@star-telegram.com]   

*****************************************************************
 12 Problems keep reactor at nuclear power plant closed

  AP Wire | 12/10/2002 | 

  [miamiherald.com - The miamiherald home page]       
    
 Associated Press
 
FORT WORTH, Texas - A reactor at a nuclear power plant that was 
shut down after leaking radioactive water is still out of service 
despite two attempts over the past month to get it running again.
 
The reactor at the Comanche Peak plant was shut down in September 
to repair more than 660 corroded and cracked tubes and for 
refueling.
 
"The reactor should be back in operation in a number of days," 
said TXU spokesman David Beshear. "The bottom line is safety, and 
we have systems in place that work correctly."
 
TXU is scheduled to meet Tuesday at the plant with a Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission special inspection team that has 
investigated problems with the steam-generating tubes.
 
"This will be a discussion of the team's preliminary findings and 
a look at what the company has been doing to address the 
problem," said Ken Clark, NRC spokesman.
 
Comanche Peak, near Glen Rose, about 50 miles southwest of Fort 
Worth, went online in 1990 with one reactor. It now has two.
 
The troubled reactor resumed operation Nov. 15 but was shut down 
Nov. 23 because of a potential valve problem, TXU officials said. 
The reactor was back in service two days later. But on Nov. 30, a 
blown fuse triggered a safety mechanism that caused a control rod 
to drop into the reactor's core, Beshear said.
 
The control rod is a safety measure that slows the nuclear 
reaction in the core.
 
On Dec. 3, the reactor was taken off-line again, this time to 
repair an electric coil. Plant workers found that the coil 
failure was caused by a leaky weld in a canopy seal at the 
control rod, Beshear said.
 
He said that the weld has been repaired and that other minor work 
is being done.
 
Bill Johnson, NRC branch chief responsible for overseeing reactor 
inspections at Comanche Peak and two other nuclear plants, said 
"such leaks are not uncommon" at the canopy seal by the control 
rod.
 
"It's not a major safety problem," Johnson said. "It's an 
operating problem."
 
None of the problems has posed a safety or public health risk, 
TXU and NRC officials said, but the September incident prompted 
government scrutiny of the utility's plan for finding such leaks.
   
[http://www.knightridderdigital.com
*****************************************************************
 13 'Extraterrestrial alien' invades nuclear plant*
 
<http://www.daily-journal.com

*Mike Lyons <mailto:mlyons@daily-journal.com>, Daily Journal*

*December 10, 2002*

BRAIDWOOD -- A crazed Chicagoan, swearing to be an 
extraterrestrial alien, crashed his car through the gates of the 
Braidwood nuclear facility late Monday before speeding away only 
to be arrested for reckless driving in Wilmington minutes later.

Khalil I. Ghandor, 29, was arrested by Wilmington officer Don 
Thomas at 11:37 p.m. after Ghandor allegedly ran a motorist off 
the road then barreled across the bridge on Baltimore Street with 
his lights off.

Wilmington police Chief James Metta said Ghandor did not appear 
drunk and gave no indication of being connected to a terror cell.

He was also cited by Braidwood police. Will County sheriff's 
police cited him for trespass.

No injuries resulted. Metta said the intruder is alleged to have 
penetrated the parking area by crashing through closed gates, 
flashing past a plant checkpoint and then doing "donuts" in the 
parking lot.

This web site and server is updated and maintained by The Daily 
Journal, Kankakee IL 60901 Copyright 
<http://www.daily-journal.com/policies/copyright.cfm>© 2002 The 
Daily Journal Publishing Co., L.L.C., All Rights Reserved. Please 
*****************************************************************
 14 Bulgarian Power Plant?s Fate Hangs in the Balance

10 December 2002

The Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) announced on 3 December that 
it is drafting an official demand to hold a national referendum 
on keeping open the country?s only nuclear power plant, Kozloduy.

The government agreed in November to a European Union request to 
close units 3 and 4 of the plant in 2006 in exchange for a 
promise to allow the country into the EU in 2007.

The EU considers the units unsafe because of a lack of 
containment, despite Sofia?s numerous claims that the 
Soviet-designed reactors have been upgraded and could run safely 
for up to another decade. ?We are watching a bunch of arrogant 
people who feel free to ignore the will of the nation and turn 
down all calls for real debate on the real issue,? said Rumen 
Ovcharov, deputy chairman of the BSP, when asked to comment on 
the leftists? decision.

?The BSP will hold fast in defending every Bulgarian national 
interest in the course of the accession process to the EU, the 
Kozloduy nuclear power plant issue in particular,? he said.

According to the Bulgarian constitution, only the parliament can 
decide to hold a national referendum. If it decides to do so, the 
president must set the referendum date within one month.

The six-unit Kozloduy nuclear plant provides 45 percent of 
Bulgaria?s electricity. The plant is located some 200 kilometers 
north of the capital, Sofia, on the Danube River near the 
Bulgarian-Romanian border.

On 29 November, in an open vote, the parliament rejected two 
no-confidence motions filed by the leftist Coalition for Bulgaria 
(KB) and the rightist United Democratic Forces (ODS). The 
initiators both from the right and left say that the government?s 
promise to close Kozloduy?s units 3 and 4 in 2006, as required by 
the EU, was in violation of the Bulgarian parliament?s decision 
on the issue.

?If units 3 and 4 of the Kozloduy nuclear power plant are shut 
down in 2006, as required by the European Commission, Bulgaria 
will suffer a loss of $1 billion to $1.25 billion by 2020,? 
analyst Georgy Ganev, programming director for the Center for 
Liberal Strategies, told Novinite Online on 6 December.

?After the closure of the first and second reactors of the 
Kozloduy nuclear power plant, electricity prices will increase 
more than 12 percent during the first stage,? said Kuzma Kuzmanov 
of the Bulgarian Atomic Forum (Bulatom). According to Kuzmanov, 
electricity prices will be at least three times higher after the 
shutdown of the reactors.

Kuzmanov says the Kozloduy units generate about 5 billion 
kilowatt hours annually, or about 12 percent of the total 
electricity generated in the country.

Bulgarian Foreign Minister Solomon Passy defended the planned 
closures, saying that EU pre-accession financial aid for Bulgaria 
would amount to approximately $1.3 billion more than would be 
generated by the reactors.

?Holding a referendum is not realistic at present,? Passy said on 
4 December, pointing out that referendums have not been held for 
more important issues, such as EU and NATO accession. ?From now 
on politicians must manfully take responsibility and not hide 
behind the decision of the people,? he said.

ODS leader Nadezhda Mihailova said the party would not support 
the Socialists? request for a national referendum. ?I think this 
is an act of populism,? she said on 4 November.

?The choice between the European Union and the nuclear plant is 
irrelevant. Bulgaria needs a successful energy policy, and that 
can be maintained by the government, which understands what the 
Bulgarian national interests are,? said Mihailova.

On 4 December the online news site Mediapool.bg published the 
final results of an Internet-based survey on the plant?s fate. 
According to the survey, only 26 percent of Bulgarian adults are 
aware that the dispute centers on the shutdown of the old 
reactors. Almost 20 percent of those surveyed mistakenly believe 
that the EU is demanding that the entire plant be shut down.

Despite a general lack of awareness of the issue among the 
public, over 3,000 people joined in a rally in Sofia on 2 
December to protest the closure of the old reactors. The rally 
was organized by the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary 
Organization (VMRO) and the Civil Committee on Defense of the 
Kozloduy Nuclear Plant. The protesters carried placards reading 
?We want a referendum? and ?VMRO: Let?s defend the nuclear 
plant.?

?Bulgaria is neither economically nor technically prepared for 
the closure of the Kozloduy units,? Radicals Union deputy 
chairman and former nuclear plant director Danail Tafrov told the 
Bulgarian Telegraph Agency.

?Bulgaria can only lose if there is no transparency in our 
relations with the European Commission and, in particular, 
transparency in regard to the Kozloduy nuclear power plant,? 
Bulgarian President Georgy Parvanov told reporters in Stara 
Zagora on 30 November.

?Those who claim that the Kozloduy nuclear power plant?s units 3 
and 4 should be closed down do not have any arguments to back up 
their stand. Bulgaria?s position is strong and we should find a 
way to defend it,? Parvanov said on 3 December in a meeting with 
nuclear power engineering experts.

Parvanov said that there were consistent contradictions 
concerning the fate of the nuclear plant based on the findings of 
the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Bulgaria?s aim is to prompt a peer review that will convince the 
EU that the country can keep units 3 and 4 running, he said, 
adding that he hoped the review would take into consideration the 
IAEA?s conclusions.

Earlier, on 24 October, Parvanov had sent a letter to the leaders 
of EU member countries, as well as to the European Commission and 
the European Parliament, insisting on a peer review of the units 
in order to prove their operational safety. Parvanov?s letter 
quoted the National Assembly?s 2 October decision that said 
Bulgaria would not close down the two reactors before EU 
accession.

Foreign Minister Passy said at the time that Parvanov?s letter 
might have intervened with Bulgarian diplomacy. According to 
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Luibomir Todorov, however, no one 
had exceeded his or her powers and or breached regulations.

?The government has a very clear concept of what is going on with 
Kozloduy units 3 and 4, and, considering that the EU has signaled 
clearly enough its readiness to conduct the peer review we have 
suggested, we continue to believe that the ministers who are 
directly or indirectly engaged in the negotiations are acting in 
the correct manner,? said Todorov.

?I believe we have wonderful relations with the president, and 
having differences on certain matters does not affect either the 
relations or the joint work,? said Passy, referring to the 
differences that have arisen between him and Parvanov on certain 
matters, including Kozloduy.

--by Konstatin Vulkov


/TOL/ article, please email us at react@tol.cz 
<mailto:react@tol.cz>

Copyright © 2002 /Transitions Online/. All rights reserved.

<http://www.tol.cz/
*****************************************************************
 15 Comanche Peak nuclear plant still down

HoustonChronicle.com <http://www.houstonchronicle.com>

/Dec. 10, 2002, 7:33PM/

*Associated Press*

GLEN ROSE - The public was never in danger after a leak at a 
North Texas nuclear reactor, and plant officials followed the 
proper procedures in shutting down the device, a Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission official said today.

A reactor at TXU's Comanche Peak Steam Electric Plant was shut 
down in September after leaking low-level radioactive water, 
which did not escape from a protective containment area, 
officials said Tuesday.

"In response to the indications they had, they took very good and 
appropriate action," said Dwight Chamberlain, director of the 
division of reactor safety at the NRC's Arlington office.

The reactor was shut down when the water was leaking at a rate of 
about half a cup a minute. The plant's requirement for shutting 
down is a leak of 1 cup a minute; the NRC requires action at 2 
cups a minute, TXU officials said.

NRC officials on Tuesday presented a report from a special 
inspection team, which found that three incidents of human error 
led to the steam generator tube leak. The plant is unlikely to be 
fined or otherwise penalized, Chamberlain said.

In two of the mistakes, TXU made the necessary corrections. The 
NRC still is examining the third incident, in which a plant 
employee reviewing computer data failed to report a marginal 
problem that later led to the leak, TXU officials said.

"We've already retrained all of our analysts for looking at this 
data," said Lance Terry, a TXU senior vice president and 
principal nuclear officer. "You take a lesson learned and you 
retrain people."

Comanche Peak, near Glen Rose, about 50 miles southwest of Fort 
Worth, went online in 1990 with one reactor. It now has two.

The reactor was shut down to repair more than 660 corroded and 
cracked tubes and for refueling. It remains out of service for 
unrelated problems despite two attempts over the past month to 
get it running again.

Terry said the reactor could be operating again by later this 
week.

The troubled reactor resumed operation Nov. 15 but was shut down 
Nov. 23 because of a potential valve problem, TXU officials said. 
The reactor was back in service two days later. But on Nov. 30, a 
blown fuse triggered a safety mechanism that caused a control rod 
to drop into the reactor's core, TXU spokesman David Beshear 
said.

The control rod is a safety measure that slows the nuclear 
reaction in the core.

On Dec. 3, the reactor was taken off-line again, this time to 
repair an electric coil. Plant workers found that the coil 
failure was caused by a leaky weld in a canopy seal at the 
control rod, Beshear said.

He said that the weld has been repaired and that other minor work 
is being done.

Bill Johnson, NRC branch chief responsible for overseeing reactor 
inspections at Comanche Peak and two other nuclear plants, said 
such leaks are not uncommon at the canopy seal by the control 
rod.

*****************************************************************
 16 Calvert Cliffs FONSI

FR Doc 02-31167 

[Federal Register: December 10, 2002 (Volume 67, Number 237)] 
[Notices] [Page 75864-75865] From the Federal Register Online via 
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr10de02-56]                         

NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION [Docket No. 50-318]
 
Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant, Inc., Calvert Cliffs Nuclear 
Power Plant, Unit No. 2, Environmental Assessment and Finding of 
No Significant Impact

    The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is considering 
issuance of an exemption from Title 10 of the Code of Federal 
Regulations (10 CFR) part 50.44, 46 and Appendix K for Facility 
Operating License No. DPR-69, issued to Calvert Cliffs Nuclear 
Power Plant, Inc. (the licensee), for operation of the Calvert 
Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant, Unit No. 2 (Calvert Cliffs), located 
in Calvert County, Maryland. Therefore, as required by 10 CFR 
51.21, the NRC is issuing this environmental assessment and 
finding of no significant impact. Environmental Assessment 
Identification of the Proposed Action

    The proposed action, as described in the licensee's 
application for exemption [[Page 75865]] dated July 12, 2002, 
would allow the licensee to use up to four lead fuel assemblies 
(LFAs) with an advanced cladding material, a zirconium- based 
alloy, that does not meet the definition of Zircaloy or ZIRLO, 
which are referred to in Title 10 of the Code of Federal 
Regulations Section 50.46(a)(1)(i). The LFAs are scheduled to be 
loaded into the Calvert Cliffs Unit 2 reactor core during the 
upcoming refueling outage and would remain in the core for two 
(2) cycles.

The Need for the Proposed Action

    The proposed exemption from 10 CFR 50.44, 10 CFR 50.46, and 
Appendix K to 10 CFR part 50 is needed because these regulations 
specifically refer to light-water reactors containing fuel 
consisting of uranium oxide pellets enclosed in zircaloy or ZIRLO 
tubes. A new zirconium-based alloy cladding has been developed, 
which is not the same chemical composition as zircaloy or ZIRLO. 
Therefore, the licensee needs an exemption to insert up to four 
assemblies containing the new fuel cladding material into the 
Calvert Cliffs reactor core for test during operation.

Environmental Impacts of the Proposed Action

    The NRC has completed its evaluation of the proposed action 
and concludes that the proposed exemption will not present an 
undue risk to the public health and safety. The safety evaluation 
performed by Westinghouse demonstrates that the predicted 
chemical, mechanical and material performance of the Advance 
zirconium-based cladding is within that approved for Zircaloy-4 
or ZIRLO under all anticipated operational occurrences and 
postulated accidents. Furthermore, the LFAs will be placed in 
non-limiting core locations. In the unlikely event that cladding 
failures occur in the LFAs, environmental impact would be minimal 
and is bounded by previous environmental impact statements.

    The proposed action will not significantly increase the 
probability or consequences of accidents, no changes are being 
made in the types of effluents that may be released off site, and 
there is no significant increase in occupational or public 
radiation exposure. Therefore, there are no significant 
radiological environmental impacts associated with the proposed 
action.

    In regard to potential nonradiological impacts, the proposed 
action does not have a potential to affect any historic sites. It 
does not affect nonradiological plant effluents and has no other 
environmental impact. Therefore, there are no significant 
nonradiological environmental impacts associated with the 
proposed action.

    Accordingly, the NRC concludes that there are no significant 
environmental impacts associated with the proposed action. 
Environmental Impacts of the Alternatives to the Proposed Action

    As an alternative to the proposed action, the staff 
considered denial of the proposed action (i.e., the ``no-action'' 
alternative). Denial of the application would result in no change 
in current environmental impacts. The environmental impacts of 
the proposed action and the alternative action are similar. 
Alternative Use of Resources

    The action does not involve the use of any different resource 
than those previously considered in the Final Environmental 
Statement for the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant (CCNPP) 
dated April 1973 or the Final Environmental Impact Statement for 
licence renewal for the CCNPP dated October 1999. Agencies and 
Persons Consulted

    On September 5, 2002, the staff consulted with the Maryland 
State official, Richard McLean of the Maryland Department of the 
Environment, regarding the environmental impact of the proposed 
action. The State official had no comments. Finding of No 
Significant Impact

    On the basis of the environmental assessment, the NRC 
concludes that the proposed action will not have a significant 
effect on the quality of the human environment. Accordingly, the 
NRC has determined not to prepare an environmental impact 
statement for the proposed action.

    For further details with respect to the proposed action, see 
the licensee's letter dated July 17, 2002. Documents may be 
examined, and/ or copied for a fee, at the NRC's Public Document 
Room (PDR), located at One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville 
Pike (first floor), Rockville, Maryland. Publicly available 
records will be accessible electronically from the Agencywide 
Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS) Public Electronic 
Reading Room on the Internet at the NRC Web site, 
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html 
[http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving 
FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html] 
. Persons who do not have access to ADAMS or who encounter 
problems in accessing the documents located in ADAMS, should 
contact the NRC PDR Reference staff by telephone at 
1-800-397-4209 or 301-415-4737, or by e-mail to pdr@nrc.gov 
[pdr@nrc.gov] .

    Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 3rd day of December 2002.

    For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission: Guy S. Vissing, Acting 
Chief, Section 1, Project Directorate I, Division of Licensing 
Project Management, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. [FR 
Doc. 02-31167 Filed 12-9-02; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
 
*****************************************************************
 17 Nuclear Plant Equipment Problems Worsening as Reactors Age 
 		 	 	 
[Newhouse News Service]         
  
[http://www.religionnews.com] 

By STEPHEN KOFF
 
WASHINGTON -- Equipment breakdowns at nuclear power plants are 
not unusual.
 
Pipes crack, break or clog, springing leaks with some regularity. 
Pumps stall or freeze up. Steam generator tubes burst. Steel 
components can get brittle from being bombarded with 
radioactivity. Nuclear industry officials acknowledge as much.
 
But the problem is getting worse as the nation's inventory of 
nuclear reactors gets older. In addition, deregulation of 
electrical power is increasing competition, making the nuclear 
industry more reluctant to seek out problems that would require 
the tremendous expense of repair shutdowns. At the same time, 
federal budget squeezes are making it more difficult for the 
Nuclear Regulatory Commission to monitor the industry.
 
The result is growing concern about expensive, potentially 
dangerous nuclear plant failures.
 
"Given plant aging and materials issues," there are likely to be 
other instances of cracks and leaks like those that led to the 
closing of the Davis-Besse nuclear power plant near Toledo, Ohio, 
earlier this year, according to a confidential analysis by the 
influential Institute of Nuclear Power Operations. "This type of 
event is likely to recur," the analysis said.
 
Similarly, a research report compiled last year by engineers at 
several laboratories affiliated with the Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission warned, "The number of occurrences of age-related 
degradation has been increasing as nuclear power plants age."
 
Aging equipment, whether in a nuclear plant or an automobile, 
can, of course, be repaired or replaced.
 
But as many nuclear power plants approach the final 10 years of 
their 40-year operating licenses, they are undergoing fewer 
safety tests and inspections, according to engineers with close 
ties to the nuclear industry. That raises the likelihood that 
cracks and corrosion will not be caught in time, they say.
 
The combination of the two trends -- fewer inspections and aging 
components -- sets the stage for compounding problems.
 
"The utilities are trying to squeeze down their operation and 
maintenance costs," said Harold Ornstein, who until 2000 was a 
senior engineer and technical adviser for the NRC, where his 
investigations included Three Mile Island. He said utilities are 
pushing their staffs to keep the plants running -- at the expense 
of finding equipment problems that might require a shutdown.
 
"The idea is to pass the (inspection) test; the idea is not to go 
out and tell you what the problem is," Ornstein said.
 
The Institute of Nuclear Power Operations, the industry's own 
research group, acknowledges the profit pressures. If a plant 
shuts down its reactor to inspect a potential problem, it has to 
purchase replacement power. The costs often run into hundreds of 
thousands of dollars a day.
 
Pressure on staffs to keep a plant operating was a factor in all 
but one significant reactor problem since 1993, according to the 
confidential institute report.
 
"Therefore, given today's competitive environment, pressure to 
continue operating may be a notable contributor to future 
significant events," the report said. The institute's analyses 
are considered among the most credible in the industry, and 
insurers use them to set rates.
 
"There's a big move on to reduce costs, to take tests that were 
once done monthly and now make them quarterly, and things that 
used to be done quarterly are now done yearly and so on," said 
David Lochbaum, a nuclear safety engineer with the Union of 
Concerned Scientists.
 
"Aging equipment, coupled with fewer safety checks and 
inspections, makes it more likely that something will break or 
fail or be degraded below the prescribed safety margins," 
Lochbaum said.
 
Though the incident at FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Co.'s 
Davis-Besse plant, where leaking boric acid ate a hole in the 
reactor lid, was considered extreme, nuclear power plants in 
South Carolina, Virginia, Arkansas, Florida and Michigan have 
seen signs of similar stress cracks or leaks in nozzles or welds, 
according to incident reports filed with the NRC.
 
In other recent signs of aging:
 
Last December, a backup pump designed to send water to steam 
generators at Union Electric Co.'s Callaway nuclear plant near 
Fulton, Mo., failed to do its job. A piece of foam from a storage 
tank seal had weakened with age and broken loose, lodging in the 
pump's intake valve during a routine test, NRC reports show. Had 
the other backup pumps been turned on, they too could have 
ingested loose foam and become clogged, presenting a potential 
cooling problem if the main systems failed. As had happened at 
Davis-Besse, the plant had ignored industry warnings and deferred 
inspections, according to an NRC review.
 
In 2000, inspectors found cracks, one of them four inches long, 
in the weld of a giant coolant pipe at South Carolina Electric 
and Gas Co.'s Summer plant near Columbia, S.C., where boric acid 
had been leaking for an undetermined time. Workers failed to find 
the cracks during a previous inspection, discovering them only 
when the plant shut down for refueling. Had the cracks burst, a 
massive amount of radioactive coolant could have escaped.
 
And last January, a jet pump inside a reactor vessel broke at 
Exelon Generating Co.'s Quad Cities plant near Moline, Ill., 
requiring a shutdown. Jet pumps increase the flow of water 
through the reactor core. Although the manufacturer had 
recommended replacing the jet pumps in the 1980s, Quad Cities 
never did. Nor had the plant inspected the part that broke -- 
because a manufacturer's guide did not identify it as among the 
components that could weaken with age.
 
More than 30 percent of nuclear power plant equipment failures in 
recent years were at least partly a result of the equipment 
having aged, according to a presentation at a conference in 2000 
by Steve Nichols, a senior evaluator in the Institute of Nuclear 
Power Operations' engineering department. Nichols said he could 
not comment for this article, citing institute policy.
 
Researchers working in concert with the government have quietly 
voiced concerns for nearly a decade about the consequences of 
plant aging.
 
"Effects of aging degradations, if they are not mitigated, will 
eventually lead to failures that could adversely affect plant 
safety and performance," said a 1993 study by the Oak Ridge 
National Laboratory.
 
So far, safety and backup systems at nuclear power plants have 
prevented life-threatening catastrophes in the United States -- a 
fact the industry and regulators cite to dispel fear and 
criticism.
 
NRC officials note that for all the expense and negative 
publicity generated by the 1979 Three Mile Island partial 
meltdown, the public was not harmed. Officials say plants in the 
United States have so many backup and safety systems that the 
massive radiation release and deaths from the 1986 Chernobyl 
disaster could never happen here.
 
"It's not the perfect system from the standpoint of `nothing will 
ever fail.' You will have failures. You will have things that 
leak. You will have cracks," said Alex Marion, director of 
engineering for the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's 
lobbying and trade group.
 
"The challenge, of course, is to have inspection and maintenance 
programs in place where you can identify these kinds of 
situations prior to having a serious problem at a plant."
 
"I think what the public ought to feel good about," said Stephen 
Floyd, the Nuclear Energy Institute's senior director of 
regulatory reform, "is the defense in depth that's built into the 
plants. Not everything breaks at the same time, fortunately."
 
NRC officials say the number of serious incidents at nuclear 
power plants has steadily fallen, one reason the agency lets 
power plants operate longer without shutting down for inspections 
or repairs.
 
The agency periodically issues warnings for parts known to fail 
or crack -- including the nozzles that guide nuclear fuel rods, 
which in the case of Davis-Besse had been leaking boric acid for 
years.
 
Before it will give a plant permission to operate beyond its 
initial 40-year license, the NRC requires a thorough inspection 
that covers passive components such as buried pipes. Many of the 
nation's 103 operating plants are expected to go through a 
relicensing inspection in the next decade.
 
But it's no guarantee. In the case of Duke Energy Corp.'s Oconee 
nuclear plant near Greenville, S.C. -- a relicensing front-runner 
-- cracks were not noticed when it underwent, and passed, an 
extensive inspection to renew its license for an additional 20 
years. After the NRC granted the renewal, the cracks appeared.
 
Critics say that while the number of serious incidents is down, 
that trend is likely to reverse, turning higher simply as a 
function of age.
 
Still, industry defenders say, the problem at Davis-Besse was not 
so much a failure of aging equipment, but rather of FirstEnergy 
to adequately investigate what it should have known was a 
potential problem.
 
"Safety culture includes a good questioning attitude on the part 
of the plant personnel," said George Apostolakis, a nuclear 
engineering professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology 
and chairman of an NRC committee that advises regulators on 
reactor safeguards. "There were several indications (of problems) 
there that people didn't seem to interpret correctly."
 
But the NRC doesn't hold itself blameless. A "lessons learned" 
task force it assembled to assess the Davis-Besse incident 
concluded among other things that the agency, beset with staffing 
and "resource allocation" issues, had too few inspectors at the 
plant and "missed several opportunities" to find the problem.
 
(Stephen Koff is Washington bureau chief for The Plain Dealer of 
Cleveland. He can be contacted at  [skoff@plaind.com] .)
*****************************************************************
 18 TVA offers Net site for children -- 
 
  The Oak Ridger Online -- State News --

12:01 p.m. on Tuesday, December 10, 2002

The Associated Press 

KNOXVILLE -- The Tennessee Valley Authority hopes to reach 
younger residents of the Tennessee Valley with an Internet site 
created especially for children.

 The interactive site, http://www.tvakids.com, offers graphics 
and colorful text geared to fourth- through eighth-graders, along 
with lesson plans for teachers and field trip information.

 "The addition of the Web site devoted to children helps TVA 
reach our future stakeholders across the Tennessee Valley," TVA 
Chairman Glenn McCullough said. "Tvakids.com provides children 
and educators with helpful information about the mission of TVA, 
the importance of our work and the history that brought us here."

 The site covers TVA's multiple roles as the country's largest 
public power producer -- through nuclear power, fossil fuel and 
hydroelectric generation -- and manager of the country's 
fifth-longest river system with responsibilities ranging from 
flood control to recreation.

 TVA supplies electricity to 8.3 million people through 158 
distributors in Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina, 
Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi.

 [http://www.oakridger.com] All Contents ©Copyright The Oak 
Ridger 
*****************************************************************
 19 Schumer, Clinton ask NRC to look at security

<http://www.holahoy.com>
 
By JIM FITZGERALD Associated Press Writer

December 10, 2002, 5:30 PM EST

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. -- Sen. Charles Schumer said Tuesday that the 
Nuclear Regulatory Commission should immediately review security 
at the Indian Point nuclear power plants, which he suggested has 
"more holes than Swiss cheese."

Sen. Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, said she would reintroduce a 
bill that would assign a federal security coordinator to every 
sensitive nuclear plant in the country.

Also Tuesday, Rep. Sue Kelly asked the new federal Department of 
Homeland Security to investigate Indian Point security and 
Westchester County Executive Andrew Spano called on the federal 
government to take over security duties at nuclear plants.

The politicians were responding to a report that only 19 percent 
of the security officers at Indian Point 2 who were questioned 
after the 2001 terrorist attack said they could adequately defend 
the plant.

"When it comes to nuclear security, we expect the highest safety 
and security standards to be met," Schumer said. "The NRC needs 
to step up to the plate and launch a vigorous review so that we 
can accurately assess what is going on at the plant once and for 
all."

In a letter to NRC Chairman Richard Meserve, Schumer, a Democrat, 
said he was also troubled by the report's suggestion that mock 
attacks on Indian Point were manipulated to make sure they would 
not be successful.

Neil Sheehan, an NRC spokesman, said that Schumer's letter had 
not been received but that the commission is "pretty satisfied 
that the security they have at the plant is capable of repelling 
an attack."

Guards "have to meet pretty strong requirements and they have to 
requalify each year," Sheehan said. "If they can't measure up, 
they're not allowed to be on the job."

Kelly, a Republican whose district includes Indian Point, told 
Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge, "The residents of this 
community must know that every precaution is being taken to 
protect Indian Point and any weakness in plant security must be 
addressed immediately."

Spano, a Democrat, said the federal government should take over 
security at nuclear plants just as it has at airports.

"If the federal government believes that airports are a potential 
terrorist target and in need of federal security, it is only 
logical that nuclear power plants are in even greater need of a 
federal security force," he said.

The county executives of Rockland, Putnam and Orange counties, 
all within 10 miles of Indian Point, endorsed Spano's proposal.

The Senate Environmental Committee approved a measure last year 
to assign a federal security coordinator to plants like Indian 
Point, but the bill did not come to a Senate vote. Clinton, 
D-N.Y., said she would reintroduce it.

"We know that terrorists turned airplanes into missiles," she 
said. "We don't want them to turn power plants into nuclear 
weapons."

Clinton also gave the NRC until Jan. 15 to explain what it is 
doing to correct security flaws.

The report on security, which was commissioned by Entergy Corp. 
soon after it purchased Indian Point 2, is a year old but was 
made public this week. Entergy spokesman Jim Steets said many of 
the security concerns raised in the report had been resolved.

Another Entergy spokesman, Larry Gottlieb, said Tuesday that 
giving more power to the private security force at Indian Point 
would be more constructive than turning the job over to the 
federal government.

He said eliminating some "red tape at the state level," including 
restrictions on what guns the private force can carry, would 
strengthen security.

Copyright © 2002, The Associated Press

Newsday.com 
*****************************************************************
 20 Detecting smuggled nuclear material

By Elaine Shannon
Monday, December 9, 2002 Posted: 5:43 PM EST (2243 GMT)

*How concerned is the government that a terrorist could smuggle 
nuclear material into the U.S.?*

Concerned enough that the U.S. Customs Service is quietly 
installing new technology to better detect radiation at mail 
facilities, airports, seaports, rail yards and across the U.S. 
border.

The new "radiation-portal-detection systems," costing $100,000 to 
$150,000 apiece, will supplement current technology, which 
consists of radiation "pagers" worn on the belts of customs 
personnel.

Containers and vehicles will pass through the devices, which can 
pick up a wider variety of radioactive emissions than the pagers, 
from weapons-grade plutonium to medical waste that could be used 
as shrapnel in a "dirty bomb."

And unlike the pagers, which only check containers singled out 
for inspection, the new portal devices will be routinely applied 
to all cargo, not just the high-risk kind.

Customs is installing the devices at the exit gates of the 
nation's major seaports and at key traffic choke points, such as 
international bridges, tunnels, rail crossings and U.S. Postal 
and private parcel-shipping facilities.

One prototype has already been deployed at a busy commercial 
crossing along the U.S.-Canadian border. More will follow--but to 
foil terrorists, Customs isn't advertising where or when. And no 
photos are permitted.

*© 2002 Cable News Network LP, LLLP.*
*****************************************************************
 21 Bosnian Bombing AFTEREFFECTS

TOL home <http://www.tol.cz>

During NATO?s 1994 and 1995 bombings of Bosnian Serb positions 
around Sarajevo, NATO aircraft used munitions containing depleted 
uranium, a slightly radioactive heavy metal that is effective in 
piercing armor. Most of those bombs were fired in Hadzici. In one 
day in October 1995 alone, NATO planes fired 300 projectiles into 
the Sarajevo suburb. According to the Bosnian government, NATO 
forces fired some 10,800 rounds of 30mm armor-piercing 
projectiles during the war.

Under the November 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement, some Sarajevo 
suburbs held by Serbs during the war came under the control of 
the mostly Bosniak and Bosnian Croat federation entity of Bosnia. 
One of those suburbs was Hadzici. Most of the approximately 
30,000 Bosnian Serbs who lived there fled their homes and moved 
as refugees to other parts of the Republika Srpska entity of 
Bosnia and to Yugoslavia.

Some 5,000 civilians from Hadzici fled to Bratunac, in eastern 
Republika Srpska. Medical analysis conducted by the local 
Institute for Health in 1998 showed that the mortality of Hadzici 
refugees was double the mortality rate for the rest of Bratunac?s 
residents. The study?s author, Dr. Slavica Jovanovic, told the 
SRNA news agency that she has no doubt that depleted uranium is 
responsible for the increased death rate of those people.

?We can say that the mortality rate of the refugee population is 
greater because of high stress, poor nutrition, and bad living 
conditions. But we were shocked to discover that deaths among 
Hadzici?s refugees are much more numerous than [among] other 
[refugees],? Jovanovic told SRNA. She blamed those deaths on the 
fact that the refugees from Hadzici were exposed to radiation 
because they lived close to the bombed locations.

In her report, Jovanovic wrote that since the end of the war, 25 
percent of wartime Hadzici residents have died of various 
cancers, tumors, and heart attacks. In Bratunac alone in the last 
four years, 500 of the 5,000 Hadzici refugees have died. One 
Hadzici refugee dies every three to four days, and every second 
one dies from cancer.

Jovanovic said that she could not say for sure how many Hadzici 
refugees have cancer because many do not check themselves into 
hospitals since they cannot afford medical treatment. The doctor 
said she is hoping that the international community will step in 
and find some way to examine the town?s refugee population and 
help provide treatment.

After the UNEP report was released, the Republika Srpska army 
evacuated soldiers from its barracks in Han-Pijesak. Officials 
say that organized medical exams will soon begin for soldiers who 
were in the barracks during the past seven years.

At the same time, medical workers from the federation entity are 
also sending out warnings to people still living in Hadzici--but 
they are expanding their warning to the general public, which 
they fear could also be affected by the presence of depleted 
uranium. Federation health officials say they are also worried 
that that radiation has caused an increase in the number of 
diseases such as cancers--especially leukemia--tumors, cerebral 
palsy, and others.

After the reintegration of Hadzici into the federation entity, 
prewar Bosniak and Croat workers began cleaning out the munitions 
warehouse and tank-repair facility, removing more than 1,000 
truckloads of garbage and munitions

Now those workers fear they too have been contaminated. 
Unfortunately, they will have to wait to find out. Workers have 
begun undergoing medical examinations, but the results will not 
be available until April 2003. What?s more, despite UNEP warnings 
to immediately evacuate all workers because of danger of inhaling 
depleted uranium dust, some workers from Hadzici are still on 
duty.

?Believe me, I am very afraid. But if I have been inhaling 
radiation for the past seven years, I can do it until they 
publish the final results,? Zijad Fazlic, director of the Hadzici 
tank-repair facility, told TOL on November 24. ?All we can do now 
is to wait for the results. I don?t know what we are going to do, 
but if I had known this, I would never have come here to work. 
Families of workers also live here,? he said.

Soon after the UNEP report was published, federation medical 
officials started to speculate that it is possible that depleted 
uranium is the cause for the shocking jump in cases of leukemia 
in children.

?It has not yet been proven, but we cannot see anything else 
except uranium,? Edo Hasanbegovic, director of the ontological 
department in Sarajevo?s Kosevo clinic, told the daily 
/Oslobodjenje/ on 21 November.

Hasanbegovic said that research is set to begin soon to find out 
whether a connection can be made between the increase in diseases 
and depleted uranium. But he said he is certain that depleted 
uranium is one of the elements that causes leukemia in Bosnia. 
?That we can claim without medical research. Every year we have a 
50 percent to 70 percent increase in the number of new underage 
patients,? said Hasanbegovic.

Copyright © 2002 /Transitions Online/. All rights reserved.

<http://www.tol.cz
*****************************************************************
 22 PLAYING CATCH-UP  (health impacts from Bosnia)

TOL home <http://www.tol.cz>

Lejla Saracevic, chief of radiobiology at Sarajevo University, 
told TOL on 29 November that before the depleted uranium affair 
was made known to the public, local experts had asked the 
government to allow them to conduct research in potentially 
contaminated areas. The government, however, refused, saying 
there was insufficient money in the budget for such 
research--research Saracevic said costs little.

Saracevic said that once the most critical locations have been 
decontaminated, it is necessary to find out how much of the rest 
of the region is radioactive. ?It has been a long time. In seven 
years the uranium has migrated into the ground and through the 
water. It is very possible that it now exists in our vegetation 
and possibly in our food. Our priority is to check that now,? she 
said.

Before the war in Bosnia, the annual number of new cases of 
children with leukemia was never greater than 13. Since the end 
of the war, that number has grown every year: Last year it was 
26. The situation is the same with other cancers: Every year the 
number grows. And almost 80 percent of those new cases are coming 
from areas that were exposed to the radiation of depleted 
uranium--areas that were bombed during the war.

The so-called Balkan Syndrome affair first aroused attention in 
early 2001, when Italian media published reports that one Italian 
soldier who had served in Bosnia had died of leukemia and that 
five more were very ill. The Italian media blamed the sicknesses 
on NATO?s use of depleted uranium in its weapons.

At the time, all governments denied that NATO was using 
uranium-tipped munitions. Nonetheless, medical examinations of 
soldiers were promptly begun, with many being diagnosed with 
leukemia and other forms of cancer.

<http://www.tol.cz
*****************************************************************
 23 Fact-finding phase of probe into train tunnel fire nears end

By Stephen Kiehl Sun Staff Originally published December 10, 2002

The National Transportation Safety Board is nearing the end of 
the fact-finding phase of its investigation into the Howard 
Street train tunnel derailment and fire, but it has not yet 
determined what caused the five-day inferno that hobbled the 
city.

NTSB officials said yesterday they have completed several key 
steps of the investigation into the accident July 18 last year 
and should release the public docket, or statement of facts, 
early next year. A final report, which would include the probable 
cause, would come months after that.

"We're not at a point where we can make any conclusions," said 
NTSB spokesman Keith Holloway. While accident investigations 
generally take a year, he said this one has proven more 
complicated. "The issues involved - the fact that this included a 
pipeline and a tunnel and a fire - it's a little more detailed."

So far, the NTSB has completed a computer simulation of the 
derailment using information gathered from the train's event 
recorder, such as the speed of the train and when the brakes were 
applied.

The NTSB has also completed the metallurgical evaluations of rail 
within the tunnel and of the cast iron water pipe above the 
tunnel, which fractured and flooded the Howard Street corridor. 
It's still unclear which came first - the train derailment or the 
water pipe rupture.

Investigators have studied stress points and breaks along the 
rail and the pipe to help determine that.

The NTSB also has enlisted the help of the Army Corps of 
Engineers to study the tunnel substructure and the Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission to evaluate the effects of a fire in a 
tunnel. The National Institute of Standards and Technology and 
the Southwest Research Institute are also contributing.

The CSX train entered the west end of the tunnel near Camden 
Yards. About halfway through the tunnel, the train broke apart 
and 11 cars derailed. One of the derailed cars - a tanker 
carrying tripropylene - was punctured. The chemical caught fire 
and set ablaze seven cars carrying paper products.

Copyright © 2002, The Baltimore Sun <http://www.sunspot.net>
*****************************************************************
 24 Construction accident sparks radiation concern

stltoday.com </home>

By Bill Smith Of the Post-Dispatch
12/09/2002 05:00 PM

A bulldozer struck a piece of buried monitoring equipment at a 
downtown construction site Tuesday, releasing a small amount of 
radioactive material and forcing police to divert traffic away 
from the area for about 15 minutes.

"There is no danger to the public at all," said Dennis Jenkerson, 
St. Louis Fire Department batallion chief and head of the 
department's hazardous materials team.

"It is all contained."

On a scale of 1 to 10, Jenkerson called the severity of the 
accident a 1.

The construction site is at the southwest corner of Tucker 
Boulevard and Chouteau.

Jenkerson said the small device was buried about a foot 
underground and is used to measure soil density and moisture. He 
declined to identify the construction company involved.

"We have to get to within three feet to get any reading at all," 
Jenkerson said of the damaged device.

*/For more information, check back with STLtoday.com or read 
Wednesday's Post-Dispatch./*

*****************************************************************
 25 The UN releases a study that lends credence to health experts? cries
that NATO?s wartime uranium-tipped weapons have left behind a deadly,
cancerous legacy./

TOL home <http://www.tol.cz>

by Anes Alic and Dragan Stanimirovic <#author>

SARAJEVO and BANJA LUKA, Bosnia and Herzegovina--After two years 
of silence, Balkan Syndrome--better known as the depleted uranium 
affair--is getting its due attention. The United Nations 
Environmental Protection Agency (UNEP) in November confirmed the 
dangerous presence of depleted uranium in areas of Bosnia bombed 
by NATO aircraft in 1994 and 1995, which Bosnian officials say 
has led to a shocking increase in cancer-related deaths.

UN experts confirmed the discovery of two locations containing a 
high level of radiation from depleted uranium from NATO bombings: 
the Sarajevo suburb of Hadzici, where a munitions warehouse and a 
tank-repair facility are located, and a Bosnian Serb army 
barracks in Han-Pijesak, also near Sarajevo. Investigators 
discovered uranium materials and dust inside the buildings.

The UNEP task force says that depleted uranium can create an 
increase in uranium concentration 100 times the natural levels 
contained in groundwater.

Upon the release of the November UN expert study on depleted 
uranium, health officials from Republika Srpska confirmed that 
uranium has indeed caused many civilian deaths in those two 
regions. Health officials say that civilian deaths in those 
regions are double what they are in other, unaffected regions.

Earlier this year, the Bosnian government invited 17 
international experts to investigate rumors that depleted uranium 
is still present in the environment and may be adversely 
affecting the health not only of the local population but also of 
international peacekeepers stationed in Bosnia.

The team of experts investigated 14 separate locations over a 
one-month period, finding traces of radiation in three places. 
Investigators were not able to examine eight other 
locations--four small towns near Sarajevo and four others in 
eastern Bosnia--deemed to be too risky due to the presence of 
land mines.

Pekka Haavisto, who heads the UNEP task force, told the daily 
Oslobodjenje: ?We are concerned about the situation at the 
Hadzici tank-repair facility and the Han-Pijesak barracks and the 
health condition of the citizens.? Haavisto said that after being 
analyzed in Western European laboratories, the final results 
would be released in March 2003.

Recent years have brought growing concern among experts that 
shrapnel from depleted uranium-tipped weapons from could cause 
cancer or other radiation-related problems. According to health 
experts, dust particles from depleted uranium could be inhaled, 
or the substance could leach into the ground and the water 
supply.


"Balkan Syndrome Resurrected" Previous page  1  2 
 
3 
Copyright © 2002 /Transitions Online/. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 26 Nevada wants larger role in nuclear cask testing

 Las Vegas SUN: 

December 10, 2002 
 
ASSOCIATED PRESS 

LAS VEGAS (AP) - Nevada's nuclear projects agency chief is urging 
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to delay a scheduled 
transportation briefing until the state delivers its views about 
risks in shipping high-level nuclear waste. 

But officials with the NRC's Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste 
said it was unlikely the agenda for next week's meeting would 
change. 

Bob Loux, the state's top appointed official opposing the Yucca 
Mountain nuclear dump, also asked the federal nuclear regulatory 
agency to give Nevada a "substantive" role in testing casks 
designed to haul nuclear waste by truck and rail to the desert 90 
miles northwest of Las Vegas. 

After complaining that the state was left out of a two-day 
government and industry workshop last month, Loux accepted an 
offer to present the state's research to the federal science 
advisory board in coming months. 

He asked the five-member science panel to postpone its Dec. 18 
transportation briefing before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. 

Loux said in a letter that the delay would help "assure that the 
commission has the benefit of a more complete and balanced 
picture of spent fuel and high level waste transportation." 

Committee associate director Sher Bahadur said the advisers will 
be presenting observations, not recommendations, during their 
annual meeting with the five Nuclear Regulatory Commission 
members. 

The advisers also are scheduled to discuss the regulatory panel's 
Yucca Mountain review plan, the durability of nuclear waste 
containers, repository risk factors and volcanic issues, Bahadur 
said. 

Loux also said in a Monday letter to NRC chairman Richard Meserve 
that Nevada has a stake in ensuring that the casks used to 
transport nuclear material to Yucca Mountain can withstand 
accidents, terrorist acts or sabotage. 

He noted that New Mexico and other states participated in testing 
a container used to ship mixed nuclear waste to the Waste 
Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M. 

Loux said the NRC has yet to release its draft protocol for cask 
testing and has not rescheduled public meetings that were to be 
held in Nevada last summer. 

The advisory committee is composed of scientists who weigh 
technical issues in the planned development of a nuclear waste 
repository at Yucca Mountain. The committee passes its advice to 
NRC commissioners who would review an Energy Department license 
application to build and run the dump. 

Advisory panel chairman George Hornberger denied Nevada was 
snubbed at last month's transportation workshop. He said the 
session was designed to focus on "generic" issues, not Yucca 
Mountain. 

All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
 27 NRC Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste to Meet December 17 - 19 
in Rockville, Maryland
 
NRC: News Release - 2002-142 - 

U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs 
Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 20555-0001     E-mail: 
opa@nrc.gov [opa@nrc.gov] www.nrc.gov   
  
  No. 02-142     December 10, 2002   

NRC ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON NUCLEAR WASTE TO MEET DECEMBER 17 - 19 
IN ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND Printable Version [PDF Icon] 

  
  The Nuclear Regulatory Commissions Advisory Committee on 
Nuclear Waste (ACNW) has scheduled a meeting on December 17 - 19 
in Rockville, Maryland, to discuss, among other issues, staff 
analyses for understanding the performance of the proposed 
nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, and an 
examination of the NRCs nuclear waste safety research and 
technical assistance programs. Committee members also will meet 
with NRC Commissioners to discuss a number of waste-related 
topics.
 
The meeting, which is open to the public, will be held in Room 
T-2B3 of the agencys Two White Flint North building, at 11545 
Rockville Pike, except for the session with the NRC 
Commissioners, which will be held in the Commissioners 
Conference Room of the agencys One White Flint North building, 
at 11555 Rockville Pike. The ACNW meeting will begin at 10:30 
a.m. the first day, 8:30 a.m. on the second day, and 8 a.m. the 
final day. 

A complete agenda is attached.
 
For additional information or schedule changes, please contact 
Howard Larson at 301-415-6805.
 



  ACNW Meeting Agenda   
      
  TUESDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2002, CONFERENCE ROOM 2B3, TWO WHITE 
FLINT NORTH   
            
  10:30 - 10:40 P.M.     Opening Statement   
                  
              The Chairman will open the meeting with brief 
opening remarks, outline the topics to be discussed, and indicate 
several items of interest.   
            
  10:40 - 12:15 P.M.     Staff Analyses for Understanding 
Repository Performance   
                  
              The Committee will hear presentations by and hold 
discussions with representatives of the NRC staff on its analyses 
on the use of risk information for the proposed Yucca Mountain 
repository.   
                  
  12:15 - 1:30 P.M.     ***LUNCH***   
                  
  1:30 - 3:30 P.M.     Preparation of ACNW Reports   
                  
              The Committee will discuss proposed reports on the 
following topics:   
                  
              Staff Analyses for Understanding Repository 
Performance   
                  
              Conclusions Regarding the Safety of Spent Nuclear 
Fuel Transportation   
                  
              Trip Report: October Visit to Swedish Waste 
Management Facilities and Participation in Berlin Quadripartite 
Meeting   
                  
  3:30 - 3:45 P.M.     ***BREAK***   
                  
  3:45 - 6:00 P.M.     Preparation for Meeting with the NRC 
Commissioners   
                  
              The next meeting with the NRC Commissioners is 
scheduled to be held on December 18 at 9:30 a.m. in the 
Commissioners Conference Room, One White Flint North. The 
Committee will review its proposed presentations.   
                  
  WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 18   
                  
  8:30 - 8:35 A.M.     Opening Statement   
                  
              The Chairman will make opening remarks regarding 
the conduct of todays sessions.   
                  
  8:35 - 9:10 A.M.     Discussion of Topics for Meeting with the 
NRC Commissioners   
                  
              Discussion of topics scheduled for the ACNW meeting 
with the NRC Commissioners at 9:30 a.m.   
                  
  9:10 - 9:30 A.M.     ***BREAK***   
                  
  9:30 - 11:30 A.M.     Meeting with the NRC Commissioners   
                  
              The Committee will meet with the NRC Commissioners 
in the Commissioners Conference Room, One White Flint North to 
discuss the following:   
                  
              HLW Program Risk Insights Initiative   
                  
              Yucca Mountain Review Plan   
                  
              Spent Fuel Transportation   
                  
              Igneous Activity at Yucca Mountain   
                  
              Container Life and Source Term KTI   
                  
  11:30 - 1:00 P.M.     ***LUNCH***   
                  
  1:00 - 3:30 P.M.     NRC Nuclear Waste Safety Research and 
Technical Assistance Programs   
                  
              The Committee will hear from representatives of the 
NRC staff and the Center for Nuclear Waste Regulatory Analyses on 
the NRCs Waste Safety Technical Assistance and Research 
programs.   
                  
  3:30 - 3:45 P.M.     ***BREAK***   
                  
  3:45 - 6:00 P.M.     Preparation of ACNW Reports   
                  
              The Committee will discuss proposed reports listed 
under a previous item.   
                  
  THURSDAY, DECEMBER 19   
                  
  8:00 - 8:05 A.M.     Opening Statement by the ACNW Chairman   
                  
              The Chairman will make opening remarks regarding 
the conduct of todays sessions.   
                  
  8:05 - 10:45 A.M.     ACNW Action Plan   
                  
              The Committee members will discuss the ACNW 
2002/2003 Action Plan and outline plans for sessions to assess 
Committee performance and update its priorities.   
                  
  10:45 - 11:00 A.M.     Miscellaneous   
                  
              The Committee will discuss matters related to the 
conduct of Committee activities and matters and specific issues 
that were not completed during previous meetings, as time and 
availability of information permit.   
                  
  11:00 A.M.     Adjourn 139th Meeting   

Tuesday, December 10, 2002         
*****************************************************************
 28 Editorial: Whistleblower probe was full of problems 

Las Vegas SUN: 

December 10, 2002 

In May 2001 the Energy Department hired the Morgan Lewis law 
firm to investigate whistleblower allegations and personnel 
disputes involving the quality assurance program at the Yucca 
Mountain project. James Mattimoe, the whistleblower who said the 
department mishandled quality assurance concerns raised by 
project employees, was fired after a Morgan Lewis report claimed 
that it was actually Mattimoe who abused his authority, a 
finding he disputes. Ultimately the Labor Department sided with 
Mattimoe and found that he was fired unfairly. 

But there's much more to the story. Morgan Lewis previously had 
represented nuclear power industry interests. And just 18 days 
after its report against Mattimoe was issued, the law firm 
registered as a lobbyist for the Nuclear Energy Institute, the 
industry's top trade association, to push Congress to pass 
legislation in 2002 designating Yucca Mountain as the nation's 
nuclear waste dump. The Energy Department's selection of Morgan 
Lewis -- and the firm's subsequent findings against Mattimoe -- 
should not be too shocking for a department that conducted a 
one-sided investigation into Yucca Mountain's suitability, a 
sham review that favored the nuclear power industry. 

Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., is right to call for an Office of 
Government Ethics investigation to probe conflict-of-interest 
issues involving the hiring of Morgan Harris. It's a shame that 
Congress wasn't aware of these facts before it voted earlier 
this year on Yucca Mountain's fate. 

All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. 
*****************************************************************
 29 Radioactive truck returning to Twin Falls

Brigham Young University - Idaho Scroll
                                                                  
TWIN FALLS, Idaho 

(AP) — The U.S. Department of Energy needs state regulatory 
approval before it opens a contaminated nuclear waste shipment 
returned to Idaho in August.
														
The DOE does not have a facility in Idaho or New Mexico with 
permits to deal with shipments of mixed radioactive and other 
hazardous waste in containers that become contaminated during 
transport. 
														
The shipment was going to New Mexico for permanent storage in an 
underground salt bed. But it was sent back to Idaho because 
radioactivity was detected in the innermost compartment of the 
container. 
														
The container was hit by a drunken driver just 23 miles short of 
its destination, but it is unknown if that accident caused the 
contamination deep inside the vessel. DOE officials said they 
found no evidence of a radiation release into the environment and 
the cask was not damaged. 
														
Now the DOE wants a 120-day waste storage variance from the state 
so the shipment can be repackaged and examined for the cause of 
the contamination. 
														
The work would be done at the Idaho National Engineering and 
Environmental Laboratory’s Test Area North, said Brian Monson, 
with the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality in Boise. 
														
The Department of Environmental Quality will likely require the 
DOE to come up with a plan in case this happens again, Monson 
said. 
														
The container holds fourteen 55-gallon drums of mixed waste, 
including plutonium-contaminated trash such as lab coats, and 
plastic covers that also are tainted by substances such as 
cleaning solvents. 
													   									 								
*****************************************************************
 30 Nevada wants larger role in nuclear cask testing*

RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL 

Associated Press <mailto:online@rgj.com>

12/10/2002 11:15 am

Nevada's nuclear projects agency chief is urging the Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission to delay a scheduled transportation 
briefing until the state delivers its views about risks in 
shipping high-level nuclear waste.

But officials with the NRC's Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste 
said it was unlikely the agenda for next week's meeting would 
change.

Bob Loux, the state's top appointed official opposing the Yucca 
Mountain nuclear dump, also asked the federal nuclear regulatory 
agency to give Nevada a"substantive"role in testing casks 
designed to haul nuclear waste by truck and rail to the desert 90 
miles northwest of Las Vegas.

After complaining that the state was left out of a two-day 
government and industry workshop last month, Loux accepted an 
offer to present the state's research to the federal science 
advisory board in coming months.

He asked the five-member science panel to postpone its Dec. 18 
transportation briefing before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Loux said in a letter that the delay would help"assure that the 
commission has the benefit of a more complete and balanced 
picture of spent fuel and high level waste transportation."

Committee associate director Sher Bahadur said the advisers will 
be presenting observations, not recommendations, during their 
annual meeting with the five Nuclear Regulatory Commission 
members.

The advisers also are scheduled to discuss the regulatory panel's 
Yucca Mountain review plan, the durability of nuclear waste 
containers, repository risk factors and volcanic issues, Bahadur 
said.

Loux also said in a Monday letter to NRC chairman Richard Meserve 
that Nevada has a stake in ensuring that the casks used to 
transport nuclear material to Yucca Mountain can withstand 
accidents, terrorist acts or sabotage.

He noted that New Mexico and other states participated in testing 
a container used to ship mixed nuclear waste to the Waste 
Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M.

Loux said the NRC has yet to release its draft protocol for cask 
testing and has not rescheduled public meetings that were to be 
held in Nevada last summer.

The advisory committee is composed of scientists who weigh 
technical issues in the planned development of a nuclear waste 
repository at Yucca Mountain. The committee passes its advice to 
NRC commissioners who would review an Energy Department license 
application to build and run the dump.

Advisory panel chairman George Hornberger denied Nevada was 
snubbed at last month's transportation workshop. He said the 
session was designed to focus on"generic"issues, not Yucca 
Mountain.

© Copyright Reno Gazette-Journal </>, a Gannett Co. Inc.
*****************************************************************
 31 Prejudice against nuclear reprocessing must go: Chidambaram

<http://www.shaadi.com

HYDERABAD, DEC 10 (PTI)

Asserting that existing international atomic energy safeguard 
systems were adequate, Principal Scientific Advisor to government 
R Chidambaram today termed as irrational prejudice the opposition 
by some countries to nuclear fuel reprocessing and closing of 
nuclear fuel cycle and said such approach must be given up.

Concerns about clandestine nuclear weapon related activities and 
nuclear terrorism must of course be addressed. But irrational 
prejudice against closing the nuclear fuel cycle and reprocessing 
must be given up, Chidambaram, who is also President of Indian 
Nuclear Society, said.

He was delivering Presidential address at the three-day 
international conference on 'Characterisation and quality control 
of nuclear fuels', organised by Nuclear Fuel Complex (NFC) here.

Stating that sustainable development of nuclear energy requires 
closing of the nuclear fuel cycle and reprocessing, Chidambaram, 
who had played a key role in the Pokhran nuclear tests, said the 
inhibition some countries have for doing this (closing nuclear 
fuel cycle) are based on proliferation misconceptions.

He favoured a new nuclear world order where 'it is realised that 
nuclear power technology is irrelevant for nuclear weapon 
sophistication'.

Later, interacting with the media, Chidambaram said India's 
nuclear programme was in accordance with the International Atomic 
Energy Agency's (IAEA) safeguards.

Let each country have a safeguard system consistent with its 
international obligations, he said.

outlooktraveller.com <http://www.outlooktraveller.com> |
*****************************************************************
 32 State records on LES recruitment sought *

* *Tuesday, 12/10/02*   

By KELLI SAMANTHA HEWETT
/Staff Writer/

Officials say group will find nothing inappropriate/*

Some opponents of a proposed uranium enrichment plant in 
Hartsville, Tenn., are looking for a state paper trail to see if 
the governor and top economic commissioner actively recruited 
Louisiana Energy Services, a consortium of U.S. and foreign 
businesses.

State and business officials say the wooing never happened.

The Tennessee Environmental Council, a leading opponent of the 
uranium plant, made its requests yesterday for all ''records, 
communications and the names of personnel involved in any 
meetings, discussion or work regarding LES operations in 
Tennessee.''

The state's open records law makes available all state 
communications relating to LES or Urenco, a company in the LES 
consortium whose technology would be used in the proposed uranium 
enrichment plant.

LES wants to build the $1.1. billion plant in Trousdale County. 
It earlier had considered Unicoi County in East Tennessee. Some 
residents and environmental opponents are worried about health 
and safety risks.

''We have speculated for several months that the governor's 
office was involved in recruiting LES,'' said Will Callaway, of 
the environmental council. ''We feel we need to know more about 
incentive offers and to what extent local officials were 
involved.''

Copies of Callaway's letter were sent to both Gov. Don Sundquist 
and Tony Grande, commissioner of the Department of Economic and 
Community Development. Officials from both offices said they plan 
to provide the information.

The governor was among several state officials who made an 
economic development trip in the fall. The trip came after LES 
announced its desire to come to Middle Tennessee.

''The governor and his staff met with Urenco officials,'' said 
Melanie Catania, a spokeswoman for Sundquist. ''It was a standard 
part of the trip. They meet with industry leaders all the time. 
Urenco had expressed an interest in coming to Tennessee. It's 
natural to meet with companies interested in locating in 
Tennessee.''

The recruiting effort was pretty routine, Grande said. A standard 
recruitment letter went out to Urenco in early summer after 
officials learned LES might be interested in Unicoi. State 
officials then sent a similar letter when LES shifted its 
interest to Hartsville.

''There has not been a lot of effort to recruit LES,'' Grande 
said. ''Sometimes these organizations use these requests as 
publicity stunts, but our office has a history of being 
upfront.''

LES spokeswoman Nan Kilkeary also said state officials did no 
early recruitment or special recruitment.

''They are certainly entitled to whatever information, but they 
won't find anything,'' Kilkeary said. ''The state of Tennessee 
made no active recruiting effort.''

This is the second time in less than a week that the Tennessee 
Environmental Council has taken action on the LES issue. On 
Friday, the organization sent out letters to five county 
executives asking them to consider waiting until 2004 to make a 
decision so that the issue* *could be added to the general 
election ballot. The five counties are key members in the Four 
Lake Regional Industrial Development Authority, which owns about 
250 acres of land that LES wants to buy for the new uranium 
enrichment plant. Local leaders say they expect to decide on 
selling the land in March.

HOME <http://www.tennessean.com/> | LOCAL NEWS 
*****************************************************************
 33 *Borough Council unanimously opposes landfill?s radiation monitoring plan*

Evan Brandt, Mercury Staff Writer December 10, 2002

*POTTSTOWN -- Monitoring garbage for radiation should happen 
before it gets on the truck, not when it shows up at the landfill 
-- at least that?s how Pottstown Borough Council sees it.*

A unanimous vote Monday saw a resolution passed that opposes a 
plan by the Pottstown Landfill to monitor incoming trash trucks 
for potential contamination by radiation.

The plan is required by law, and a hearing on the landfill?s 
proposal is set for Monday at the Montgomery County Community 
College?s west campus in Pottstown.

Although these plans are being enacted at landfills around the 
commonwealth, the hearing in Pottstown is the only one being held 
in Pennsylvania.

It begins at 7 p.m.

But before any public comment is taken at that hearing, Borough 
Council has now already registered its unanimous opposition.

Included in the plan, explained Borough Councilman Robert Downie, 
is a proposal to accept three kinds of low-level radioactive 
waste.

Those include waste from nuclear medical procedures, waste 
containing naturally occurring radioactive materials and 
electronics containing naturally occurring radioactive materials.

All three are said to have short half-lives and thus pose little 
public threat.

But Downie and others remain unconvinced.

"We have a duty to protect future generations," said Downie. "We 
have to do the best we can to prevent the creation of a problem 
which could cause them harm."

"Remember," added Councilman Stephen Toroney, "the landfill is 
nearing the end of its capacity. Whatever radioactive stuff they 
take will be at the top of the heap."

"We know there is some (radiation) in there already, but we have 
to be proactive," said Downie. "It?s the cumulative effect which 
may end up causing more harm than we ever believed."

Downie said the council is particularly concerned about the fact 
that the Pottstown Sewer Authority is under a contract to treat 
the landfill?s leachate for 30 years after the closure of the 
landfill.

Allowing low-level radioactive waste into the landfill could 
cause the leachate to become radioactive and thus contaminate the 
sewer system, the waste water treatment plant and even the 
Schuylkill River, into which the borough?s treated sewage is 
spewed.

Also expressing concern Monday night was Donna Cuthbert, an 
activist with the Alliance for a Clean Environment.

She suggested the monitoring plan "won?t protect the public."

"When you consider the number of trucks coming in there, it?s 
impossible for them to inspect them all. They would have to 
monitor a truck every two minutes, and it?s not going to work," 
she said.

"If DEP wants to protect the public, they should put monitors on 
the trucks before radioactive waste gets dragged through this 
community," said Cuthbert. "The responsibility should be dealt 
with at the point of origin.

"Waste Management (which owns the landfill) is in business to 
make money, and with 300 trucks per day coming in, they are not 
going to stop the whole operation because they have detected a 
radioactive tissue," Cuthbert said.

But that is exactly the example John Wardzinski, who runs the 
Pottstown Landfill for Waste Management, used when he spoke about 
the plan after Monday?s meeting.

Noting that the plan and the process by which it will be carried 
out is required by law and "not our idea," Wardzinski said the 
monitors through which the trucks will drive "really can detect a 
radioactive tissue, that?s no exaggeration."

He said, "From the reports I?ve seen from other landfills which 
have already done this, a lot of trucks are being stopped because 
of kitty litter, because people?s cats are getting treated at the 
vet and then it gets into the kitty litter."

Wardzinski said DEP experts, not anyone at the landfill, will 
determine the threat posed by any radioactive waste that is 
pulled out as a result of monitoring.

"It?s the DEP that will be making any determination about whether 
or not it can be safely disposed of in the landfill, not us," 
Wardzinski said.

/©The Mercury 2002/
*****************************************************************
 34 Israel Threatens to Launch Nuclear Attack on Islamic Sites 

December 10, 2002 [News Content] 
[TehranTimes Navigation] 

By Our Staff Writer 

THERAN -- A high-ranking Israeli officer threatened that the 
Zionist regime would launch nuclear attack on Islamic holy sites 
in the Middle East, an Israeli newspaper said Sunday. 

In case Israel was attacked by states or groups, the Jewish 
state would respond by dropping nuclear bombs on Islamic cities 
such as Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia and Qom in Iran. The 
Haaretz newspaper quoted an unidentified high-ranking officer a 
s saying. 

It is an irony of our time Iraq has been suffering for a decade 
because it is accused of having some capabilities of 
unconventional weapons, while Israel announces that it possesses 
nuclear weapons, but there is not any international action 
against it. 

The officer, a guide in the Israeli military academy, was 
quoted as saying that Israel possesses hundreds of nuclear 
warheads along with their delivery systems, including long-range 
ballistic missiles, long-range bombers and nuclear submarines. 

Indeed, while is Iraq under the pressure, Israel is the only 
entity in the Middle East to possess a huge arsenal of weapons 
of mass destruction, including a sizable nuclear arsenal. 

It is unfortunate that the United States, Israel's main 
protector, has always prevented any serious move to discuss 
Israel's weapons of mass destruction. But at the same time it 
has accused a number of other countries of trying to acquire 
weapons of mass destruction. It has put them under pressure on 
the basis of the very baseless accusations it has leveled 
against them. 

It is time the Islamic world in the first place and the 
international community too took serious action to contain 
Israel. The Zionist regime is an occupationist, expansionist 
entity. It must be contained, else the entire world will be in 
danger. 

Home Page [http://www.tehrantimes.com/default.asp] | 
</FONT> [webmaster@tehrantimes.com] 
*****************************************************************
 35 U.N. Teams Head Toward Iraq Uranium Mine
 
Las Vegas SUN
 
December 10, 2002 By CHARLES J. HANLEY ASSOCIATED PRESS 

BAGHDAD, Iraq- International nuclear monitors drove six hours 
across the Iraqi desert to a remote uranium mining site in one of 
five inspections mounted Tuesday, a marked expansion of the U.N. 
field operation. Still more inspectors were flying to Iraq later 
in the day. 

Iraq's chief liaison to the U.N. teams, meanwhile, told a Baghdad 
newspaper the Iraqis have found the inspectors to be working in a 
"calm and professional" manner. But he again complained about 
last week's surprise inspection of one of Saddam Hussein's 
palaces, calling it an American-inspired provocation. 

Tuesday marked the end of the second week of field missions for 
the U.N. inspectors, who have returned to Iraq after a four-year 
absence under a Security Council resolution requiring the Baghdad 
government to give up any remaining chemical or biological 
weapons, and shut down any programs to make them.

Iraq denies it still has such weapons or programs. 

The Iraq field missions were expanding as U.N. analysts began 
combing through 12,000 pages of documents submitted by Iraq to 
the United Nations over the weekend, detailing past programs of 
weapons of mass destruction and what it says are purely civilian 
programs today in the chemical, biological and nuclear areas. 

Inspections in the 1990s, after Iraq's defeat in the Gulf War, 
led to the destruction of tons of chemical and biological 
weapons, and to the dismantling of Iraq's program to try to build 
atomic bombs. 

Tuesday, reporters followed several cars of U.N. nuclear experts 
to mining operations at Ashakat, in the desert near the Syrian 
border 250 miles west of Baghdad. The enormous complex surrounded 
by antenna posts, some broken, sat in an otherwise empty quarter 
of the desert. Reporters were unable to follow the inspectors 
inside. 

The U.N. team presumably wanted to assess current Ashakat 
operations in the light of what was found there by U.N. nuclear 
inspectors in the 1990s. 

In the 1980s, the phosphate deposits at Ashakat had been 
exploited for their uranium content as well as for fertilizer, 
producing some 100 tons of uranium over six years. 

Also Tuesday, other nuclear inspectors headed again for 
al-Tuwaitha, Iraq's major nuclear research center, 15 miles 
southeast of Baghdad, Iraqi Information Ministry officials 
reported. It was their third recent visit to the sprawling 
complex, where Iraqi scientists in the 1980s worked on developing 
technology for enriching uranium to levels usable in bombs. 

A third U.N. team was reported to have gone to a veterinary 
medicine establishment at Abu Ghraib, just west of Baghdad - 
presumably the Amariyah Serum and Vaccine Institute, site of 
biological weapons-related research in the 1980s. 

That institute is reported to have expanded its storage capacity, 
to an extent the U.S. government says exceeds Iraq's needs. Iraq 
contends the facility only makes and stores human vaccines. 

Other inspectors were reported to have gone Tuesday to a military 
training center in Baghdad and to an industrial facility at 
al-Furat, just south of the Iraqi capital. The purposes of those 
visits were not immediately known. 

In London, Prime Minister Tony Blair said it would be "naive" to 
believe Saddam plans to comply with U.N. demands for his 
disarmament in the field of weapons of mass destruction. 

In an interview with the Financial Times, Blair also restated the 
readiness of the United States and Britain to take military 
action against Saddam. 

"If there is a breach and Saddam doesn't comply, then we are 
prepared to take action," Blair was quoted as saying. 

Later Tuesday, about 25 additional inspectors were scheduled to 
arrive on a flight from a U.N. rear base on the Mediterranean 
island of Cyprus, bolstering the U.N. inspection staff to 
approximately 70. Inspection team leaders have said they hope to 
expand operations to eight teams by year's end. 

In an interview published Tuesday in the weekly al-Rafidayn, Lt. 
Gen. Hossam Mohammed Amin, chief Iraqi liaison, said of the 
inspectors' "behavior" that "we're satisfied with it so far 
because it is calm and professional." 

Iraqi officials have complained sharply, however, about the U.N. 
inspection Dec. 3 of Baghdad's al-Sajoud palace, one of Saddam's 
many presidential palaces. Amin reiterated that criticism. "The 
visit took place under pressure from the United States of America 
to create a crisis or confrontation between Iraq and inspection 
teams, but this did not happen," he asserted. 

Such palace inspections contributed to the U.N.-Iraqi tensions 
that ended with the collapse of the previous inspection regime in 
1998. The new U.N. resolution declares the monitors have 
unrestricted power to inspect such sites. 

Asked how long he expects the new U.N. inspections to take, Amin 
said that if the inspection agencies are "sincere," he thinks 
they should take eight months. 

"Then the Security Council should suspend the sanctions imposed 
on Iraq and the monitoring process would continue," he said. 

He was referring to international economic sanctions imposed on 
Iraq after it invaded Kuwait in 1990, and to U.N. plans to 
establish a long-term system of monitoring Iraq's 
military-industrial complex - via surveillance gear, required 
reports and periodic visits. 

All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
 36 India to buy Russian submarines, a strategic bomber, and…

A Package Deal for a Future War 

13:55 2002-12-10
 
We seem to have already forgotten the old-fashioned Soviet 
tradition that was widely used before perestroika: unpopular 
goods were forced upon clients together with the purchase of 
popular goods. It was a package deal, and these goods would not 
be sold separately. Today’s Russian authorities have decided look 
at this Soviet tradition from a different angle 

The Associated Press informs that in the coming years, Russia 
will sell several nuclear submarines and a strategic bomber to 
India. However, if India wants the deal to be successful, it must 
additionally purchase a batch of training fighter planes. 

The Russian website Lenta.Ru quotes RF Deputy Minister of Defense 
Mikhail Dmitriyev as saying in an interview to India’s newspaper 
the Hindustan Times that Russia and India plan to conclude a 
package agreement by the beginning of next summer. It is supposed 
that the Indian armed forces will buy an undisclosed number of 
submarines of the Akula class and a Tu-22 bomber. It is not clear 
yet whether or not the Indian military structures will also buy 
the trainer planes. The Indian Ministry of Defense makes no 
comments on the issue. 

Meanwhile, India is currently the world largest importer of 
Russian weapons. Against the background of the increasing tension 
in the world, it is highly likely that India will find good use 
for Russia’s training planes, which, by the way, can be easily 
transformed into battle-ready planes. 

Ahtyam Ahtyrov PRAVDA.Ru 

Translated by Maria Gousseva 

Read the original in Russian: 
http://economics.pravda.ru/economics/2002/7/21/64/4066_weapons.ht 
ml 
[http://economics.pravda.ru/economics/2002/7/21/64/4066_weapons.h 
tml] 
  
  Copyright ©1999 by "Pravda.RU [http://www.pravda.ru/] ". When
*****************************************************************
 37 U.S. Sees Nuclear Deterrence Against WMD Attack*

/ Tue December 10, 2002 07:12 PM ET /
By Randall Mikkelsen

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States reminded Iraq and other 
countries on Tuesday that it was prepared to use nuclear weapons 
if necessary to respond to an attack from weapons of mass 
destruction.

The warning, which underscored longstanding U.S. policy leaving 
open the use of nuclear weapons if needed, was contained in a 
statement of U.S. strategy against nuclear, chemical and 
biological weapons -- the first update since 1993.

The six-page strategy document says deterring attacks with the 
threat of "overwhelming force" is an essential element in 
protecting America and its allies from weapons of mass 
destruction, also known as WMD.

"The United States will continue to make clear that it reserves 
the right to respond with overwhelming force -- including through 
resort to all our options -- to the use of WMD against the United 
States, our forces abroad, and friends and allies," the strategy 
report said.

"In addition to our conventional and nuclear response and defense 
capabilities, our overall deterrent posture against WMD threats 
is reinforced by effective intelligence, surveillance, 
interdiction and domestic law enforcement capabilities," it said.

Senior U.S. officials said the passage was not included the 
previous U.S. strategy document on weapons of mass destruction, 
which emphasized efforts to prevent proliferation, and said the 
new document did not represent a shift in U.S. policy on when it 
would use nuclear weapons.

But the passage was put in the new report as part of an increased 
emphasis on the role of deterrence against a weapons of mass 
destruction attack, they said.

Other major elements of the new strategy include strengthening 
nonproliferation measures, beefing up defenses and combating the 
effects of an attack on the population.

The strategy report was released amid the looming possibility of 
war with Iraq, which the United States accuses of possessing 
weapons of mass destruction, officials said.

"The language speaks for itself, and I think it does apply to any 
state that would use weapons of mass destruction against us," a 
senior official said.

But the warning emphasizes and makes explicit for other countries 
a private warning Bush's father, former President George Bush, 
made in a letter to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein on the eve of 
the first Gulf War.

In that letter, the United States threatened the "severest 
consequences" if Iraq were to use chemical or biological weapons 
against the United States, destroy Kuwaiti oil fields or 
participate in terrorism.

"It was clear in terms of the message that we would respond with 
all of our options. ... The Iraqis have told us that they 
interpreted that letter as meaning the United States would use 
nuclear weapons, and it was a powerful deterrent," the official 
said.

Although Iraq later set fire to Kuwaiti oil fields and supported 
terrorism, the official said, it did not "cross the line" of 
using chemical or biological weapons.

*****************************************************************
 38 Press freedom prize awarded to Russian reporter Grigory Pasko

<http://www.shaadi.com

<http://www.outlookindia.com

PARIS, DEC 10 (AP)

Media advocacy group Reporters Without Borders today awarded its 
top annual prize to Russian journalist Grigory Pasko, currently 
serving a four-year prison sentence for treason.

Pasko's wife, Galina Morozova, collected the 7,600 dlrs Fondation 
de France prize for the jailed reporter at a Paris ceremony 
marking World Human Rights Day.

Pasko was sentenced last December by a military court in the 
Pacific port city of Vladivostok for attending a meeting of 
Russian naval commanders and taking notes while there. The court 
said he had intended to pass the notes to Japanese media, with 
whom he had worked.

Pasko has called the case retaliation for his reports uncovering 
alleged environmental abuses by the Russian navy - such as 
dumping of radioactive waste into the Sea of Japan.

Advocacy groups and some prominent Russian lawmakers have rallied 
to his cause, appealing to Russia's Supreme Court to reconsider 
the treason conviction.

Pasko was among five journalists nominated for the prize for 
their efforts to uphold press freedom in their own countries. 
Other nominees included Chinese reporter Gao Qinrong, and Cuba's 
Bernardo Arevalo Padron, both of whom are also behind bars.

Reporters Without Borders is a Paris-based international 
organisation that defends imprisoned journalists and press 
freedom worldwide and the right to inform the public.

It said Pasko was among 110 journalists currently in prison 
around the world "just for wanting to do their job.

©Hathway Investments Private Limited 2002, Our Technology Partner 
:
*****************************************************************
 39 Inspection teams in Iraq focus on 3 nuclear centers

Scientists had once tried to make bomb materials at one of the 
larger sites

Associated Press Originally published December 10, 2002

BAGHDAD, Iraq - United Nations inspectors zeroed in on three 
Iraqi nuclear sites yesterday, including one giant complex where 
Saddam Hussein's scientists had previously tried making material 
for nuclear bombs.

Also, weapons inspectors paid their first visit to a chlorine 
plant about 30 miles west of Baghdad. Chlorine can be used to 
make chemical weapons.

Inspection teams scoured the three nuclear sites near the town of 
al-Tuwaitha, 15 miles southeast of Baghdad, picking up from where 
U.N. nuclear agency inspectors left off in 1998, when they left 
Iraq amid disputes between Baghdad and the United Nations.

Many buildings at the three sites - including the giant 
al-Tuwaitha nuclear complex - were destroyed in heavy U.S. 
bombing in the 1991 gulf war. Through the 1990s, al-Tuwaitha was 
scrutinized by U.N. nuclear agency inspectors under a postwar 
U.N. monitoring regime to ensure Iraq did not develop weapons of 
mass destruction.

Faiz al-Bayrakdar, adviser at the al-Tuwaitha complex, told 
reporters that 16 inspectors visited his site yesterday.

U.N. teams want to ensure that Iraqi specialists at al-Tuwaitha 
and other sites did not resume nuclear weapons research during 
the four years when no inspectors were in the country. Recent 
satellite photos show new construction at the plant. A spokesman 
for the U.N. inspectors, Hiro Ueki, said inspections also took 
place at two other nuclear sites - al-Shakyli and al-Qa'qaa - 
near al-Tuwaitha.

The al-Shakyli complex had been a storage area where crucial 
equipment for a nuclear bomb program was discovered during the 
1990s. Al-Qa'qaa was involved in working on the final design for 
a nuclear bomb.

"A detailed inspection was made of al-Shakyli. All buildings were 
inspected and sampled for the detection of radiological 
materials," Ueki said.

At al-Qa'qaa, Ueki said inspectors began inventorying known 
explosive materials from the past nuclear program, which had 
fallen under control of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

They also inspected several key buildings and outdoor sites 
within the huge complex. No further details were available.

On Sunday, a presidential science adviser said the three reports 
- totaling more than 12,000 pages - that Baghdad submitted to the 
United Nations outlined Iraqi efforts to build a nuclear bomb 
until the gulf war in 1991.

The adviser, Lt. Gen. Amer al-Saadi, said Iraq no longer has such 
a program.

On Wednesday, in their first visit to al-Tuwaitha, specialists of 
the the U.N. nuclear watchdog spent five hours going "room to 
room," team leader Jacques Baute said afterward. But they needed 
more time to complete their inspection of the complex of more 
than 100 buildings, he said.

Meanwhile, another group of inspectors visited the Falluja II 
chlorine plant, 30 miles west of Baghdad, since the inspections 
resumed last month.

About 25 U.N. inspectors arrived Sunday, doubling the staff and 
allowing for a rapid expansion of field missions. Over the 
weekend, the U.N. teams also received the first of an expected 
eight helicopters that will enable them to range farther afield 
on their unannounced inspections.

Copyright © 2002, The Baltimore Sun <http://www.sunspot.net>

www.sunspot.net
*****************************************************************
 40 Government asks for extension in whistleblower suit 
	 		 		
MyInKy
 		 		
December 10, 2002

PADUCAH, Ky.- The U.S. Department of Justice has asked for a 
six-week extension to determine whether the federal government 
will join a whistleblower suit accusing Lockheed Martin Co. of 
causing widespread contamination when it operated the Paducah 
Gaseous Diffusion Plant.
 
A request was filed Monday. It is the 14th time since the suit 
was filed in June 1999 that the government has asked for an 
extension, and each one has been approved by U.S. District Judge 
Joseph McKinley Jr.
 
The suit will not be litigated until the government makes its 
decision.
 
In asking for a delay in October, Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill 
Campbell told the judge that he "anticipated the matter will be 
processed for a final decision on intervention" by Dec. 17.
 
The week after that delay was granted, a federal grand jury in 
Louisville began investigating whether Lockheed's activities were 
criminal, according to former workers who have been asked to 
testify.
 
Campbell said the additional time is needed to review thousands 
of pages of documents and material gathered by investigators, and 
that the grand jury investigation is not the reason.
 
Lockheed and its predecessor companies operated the plant for the 
Energy Department from 1982 until 1992.
 
The suit claims Lockheed made false statements involving storage 
and disposal of radioactive waste, exposure of workers to 
contaminants, and contamination of groundwater and soil with 
plutonium, neptunium and other radioactive materials.
 
Because of the false statements, Lockheed was paid hundreds of 
millions of dollars in operating fees that it didn't deserve, the 
suit contends. It also claims the company's activities caused 
contamination that is costing the government hundreds of millions 
of dollars to clean up.
 
Information from: The Paducah Sun
  
[http://www.myinky.com
*****************************************************************
 41 DOE to settle partial debt in land deal 

The Oak Ridger Online -- Area News -- 

11:24 a.m. on Tuesday, December 10, 2002 

by R. Cathey Daniels 
Oak Ridger staff 

In a move calculated to partially settle its debt for damage to 
the Lower Watts Bar Reservoir, the Department of Energy is 
working a land deal that would preserve 3,209 acres in Oak Ridge.

A DOE spokesman said Monday he did not know for how long the 
property would be preserved in the "conservation easement" which 
would be managed by the state. 

The DOE would retain ownership of the land, which begins just 
west of Wisconsin Avenue and continues west to wrap around the 
K-25 site in three parcels. 

The DOE will formally announce its agreement with the state at 
12:30 p.m. Dec. 20 at Horizon Center. Assistant Secretary for 
Environmental Management Jesse Roberson is expected to make the 
announcement, with Gov. Don Sundquist and U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, 
R-3rd District, in attendance. 

The action comes amid negotiations by the state, the DOE, the 
Tennessee Valley Authority and the U.S. Department of Interior 
for a settlement of an estimated $4.8 million to $7.2 million in 
lost recreational use damages at Lower Watts Bar Reservoir due 
to contaminated sediments from DOE activities. 

It is estimated that it would cost $30 billion to remove the 
contaminated sediments. DOE did not take remedial action, 
according to the record of decision, because removal of the 
sediment would cause further dispersion. 

Under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation 
and Liability Act, DOE is liable for the restoration of natural 
resources lost or injured from releases of hazardous substances. 

The deal is worked through a Natural Resources Damage Claim, 
which is part of the CERCLA. The parties form a Trustee Council 
which oversees the action and determines restitution. 

The land deal is reportedly only one of several expected 
actions. 

According to the DOE Oak Ridge Operations office, the Trustee 
Council is continuing to assess the full extent of injuries to 
the Lower Watts Bar Reservoir, and will continue to involve the 
public in its deliberations, including the completion of an 
ecological appraisal of land set aside for a conservation 
easement. 

Walter Perry, spokesman, said Monday that many details of the 
deal "are yet to be determined" but that DOE "is working 
diligently to make this happen." 

The property mirrors that designated by the Land Use Focus 
Group as Oak Ridge Reservation land appropriate for preservation.

R. Cathey Daniels can be contacted at (865) 220-5515 or 
danielsrcd@oakridger.com [danielsrcd@oakridger.com] . 

All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger 
*****************************************************************
 42 Bechtel Jacobs cites failed work planning in radioactive release 

The Oak Ridger Online -- Area News -- 

12:00 p.m. on Tuesday, December 10, 2002 

by R. Cathey Daniels Oak Ridger staff 

A radioactive release at Oak Ridge National Laboratory which led 
to the declaration of a July 1 "operational emergency"; 
activated the UT-Battelle Situation Management Team; and 
required days of surveys and testing has been deemed 
"preventable" and a result of failed work planning by Bechtel 
Jacobs Co. 

Company officials say the release was less than 2 millicuries. 
A millicurie is one thousandth of a curie, which is a measure of 
the rate of radioactive decay. A curie is equivalent to the 
radioactivity of 1 gram of radium or 37 billion disintegrations 
per second. 

The release was attributed to a high-efficiency particulate air 
filter change conducted by Duratek Federal Services, a 
subcontractor to Bechtel Jacobs, the cleanup contractor for the 
Department of Energy. Bechtel Jacobs managed the filter changes. 

The filters were changed on the roof of Building 3038 on June 
26 and June 27 and were pinpointed in the release of strontium 
90 at the entrance to ORNL on 5th Street. 

A Bechtel Jacobs final report was issued Monday. A Bechtel 
Jacobs spokesman said Tuesday that there was "no possible 
exposure off-site and minimal possible exposure on-site." 
Workers and automobiles were sampled for exposure and none 
found, said the spokesman. 

Bechtel Jacobs conducted an investigation and concluded that 
"investigation of potential hazards continues to be an area that 
needs improvement" for the company and its workers and 
subcontractors. 

The investigation's findings included: 

* Pre-filters for hot cells and glove boxes were removed and/or 
left in incorrect positions during operations. 

* Extreme ductwork contamination was not evaluated in facility 
safety documents. 

* Historic hazard screening was inadequate. 

* Appropriately qualified personnel were not utilized during 
planning and review of the work. 

* Environmental hazards were not adequately addressed in the 
work plan. 

* A filter change-out procedure was not completed as required. 

The contamination was first discovered June 29 in 5th Street 
during routine radiological surveying for the opening of that 
area as a new entrance to ORNL. 

After further investigation radiological contamination was also 
found in an alleyway between Buildings 3036 and 3047, at the 
Building 4007 parking lot, the Central Avenue sidewalk, at the 
flagpole parking lot across from Building 4500-N, at the parking 
lot at Building 5000/5002 and in the construction area adjacent 
to ORNL owned by the private sector. 

When the Duratek operations were pinpointed as the suspected 
cause of the problem, Bechtel Jacobs was called in to take over 
investigations. 

R. Cathey Daniels can be contacted at (865) 220-5515 or 
danielsrcd@oakridger.com [danielsrcd@oakridger.com] . 

All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger 
*****************************************************************
 43 ?Culture of Theft? Reported at U.S. Nuclear Lab

*Monday, December 9, 2002* Los Angeles Times

LOS ALAMOS, N.M. ? A ?culture of theft? at Los Alamos National 
Laboratory costs taxpayers millions of dollars each year and 
endangers national security, according to two investigators 
recently fired by the laboratory.

Glenn A. Walp and Steven Doran, both former police officers, say 
they were recruited by Los Alamos officials earlier this year to 
investigate corruption at the lab, which houses the nation?s 
nuclear secrets and monitors the quality of the nuclear arsenal.

But after finding far more corruption than Los Alamos officials 
suspected ? including hundreds of missing items that could prove 
valuable to terrorists or rogue nations ? the investigators were 
handed identical letters of dismissal on Nov. 25 and escorted 
from the laboratory by armed guards.

While becoming yet another embarrassment for the famously 
troubled laboratory, the firings have sparked outcries in 
Congress and conspiracy charges in the public.

?They?re going to rue the day they did this,? said Pete Stockton, 
senior investigator with Project On Government Oversight, a 
nonprofit group that monitors waste and fraud in the federal 
government. ?This ranks as one of the stupidest things I?ve ever 
seen an institution do.?

Laboratory officials say the investigators were fired because 
their overly aggressive tactics and combative attitude alienated 
workers. But the investigators contend they were fired because 
their bosses cared less about safeguarding one of the nation?s 
most important scientific and military sites than about 
protecting the image of the University of California, which runs 
Los Alamos for the Department of Energy.

Los Alamos officials acknowledge that the FBI and the Department 
of Energy are looking into several leads turned up by the fired 
investigators. Walp and Doran say those leads include glaring 
lapses in security ? like one worker who tried to buy a $30,000 
customized Ford Mustang with laboratory money, and another who 
used her laboratory credit card to get $2,500 in cash at a 
casino.

University of California officials said Friday that they will 
urge the Energy Department to widen its inquiry into Los Alamos 
to include the firings. ?We want them to address the assertion 
that (Walp and Doran) may have been fired in retaliation for 
(their) investigation,? said Michael Reese, spokesman for UC 
President Richard Atkinson.

Begin optional trim

Home in the 1940s to the Manhattan Project, the nation?s historic 
nuclear weapons program, Los Alamos has been sullied in recent 
years by a series of security breakdowns ? including the 
disappearance in June 2000 of classified computer hard drives 
that later turned up behind a copy machine and the December 1999 
indictment of Wen Ho Lee, a former lab scientist accused of 
leaking nuclear secrets to China.

Although nearly all charges eventually were dropped against Lee, 
he was found to have removed secret data from the laboratory, a 
stunning breach.

(End optional trim)

?Through the years there has been ingrained within the laboratory 
this culture of theft,? said Walp, 61, former head of the 
Pennsylvania State Police who was hired to lead the internal 
security force at Los Alamos last January. ?There is an attitude 
that (theft) is the price of doing business.?

Los Alamos workers joke about theft increasing around the 
holidays, Walp said, because some fill out their Christmas lists 
with big-ticket items from the lab. ?The problem isn?t with 
scientists,? Walp said. ?They?re just there doing their jobs. 
It?s the middle people.?

Soon after arriving at the laboratory, Walp wrote a damning 
report that estimated $3 million in equipment had been stolen 
since 1999. Among the missing items were more than 260 computers 
? some from the most sensitive areas of the laboratory, where 
nuclear weapons are designed.

The report, Walp said, only served to irritate his bosses, who 
often told Walp that his first loyalty was to the University of 
California, not the U.S. taxpayer.

Los Alamos spokesman Jim Danneskiold dismissed the charge that 
the facility is rife with corruption. ?There is no culture of 
theft here,? he said. ?People do not walk out of here with 
property.?

Danneskiold said roughly one-tenth of 1 percent of the lab?s $1 
billion inventory disappears each year, far below the percentage 
that large retail stores deem acceptable. Many items that appear 
stolen, he said, are stored in some forgotten Quonset hut or 
World War II-era shed. Los Alamos has more than 2,000 buildings 
on its 40-square mile site, he said, and things get mislaid. 
However, he insisted, ?there is no evidence that there is any 
classified information on computers reported as missing.?

Although Walp and Doran considered themselves investigators, 
Danneskiold said, they had no ?investigatory powers? but were 
given the tasks of gathering information and acting as ?liaisons 
with law enforcement.?

?The reason for terminating their employment was that they had 
lost the confidence of different officials they had to work with, 
both inside the laboratory and outside,? Danneskiold said.

Doran and Walp, however, said it was absurd to expect them to 
retain the confidence of workers they were questioning. ?It?s the 
most screwed-up system you ever saw in your life,? said Doran, 
39, whom Walp hired at the laboratory in July. ?The fox is 
watching the chicken house.?

Doran also scoffed at the suggestion that missing items were 
merely ?mislaid.?

?One of the missing items was a 2-ton magnet,? he said. ?How do 
you lose a 2-ton magnet??

The most shocking case of theft, Walp and Doran said, involved 
two workers with access to all top secret areas. The workers 
allegedly went on a brazen spree, using lab purchase orders to 
acquire hundreds of items ? including spy gear, for reasons that 
remain unknown.

?It?s unbelievable,? said Doran, a former Marine and ex-police 
chief in Idaho City, Idaho. ?They bought camping equipment, 
backpacks, lock picks, beacons, radio equipment, high speed 
digital cameras, $9,000 worth of the best knives money can buy, 
tractors, lawn mowers, wood chippers, floor sanders, fencing, 
decks, carports, high-pressure washers, air conditioning units.?

Also, the two workers allegedly stole cryogenic freezers, which 
Doran said could be useful to anyone developing biological 
weapons.

The two suspected workers have been placed on paid leave, Los 
Alamos officials said, while the FBI investigates. Doran called 
it unfair and insulting that workers suspected of felonies remain 
on paid leave, while he and Walp were summarily fired.

Also, Doran said, both he and Walp received outstanding 
performance reviews just before being fired. Walp even got a 
$5,000 bonus.

Both Walp and Doran have hired lawyers and may file a lawsuit.

(Optional add end)

Walp and Doran also may testify before Congress. A spokesman for 
the House Committee on Energy and Commerce said the firings have 
prompted grave concern among lawmakers, who likely will hold 
hearings soon and send a team of their own investigators to Los 
Alamos in the next few weeks.

?For some time now the committee has been quietly looking into 
operations at Los Alamos,? said Ken Johnson, spokesman for Rep. 
W.J. ?Billy? Tauzin, R-La., the committee chairman. ?But these 
dramatic new developments clearly warrant full-scale 
congressional investigation.

?Frankly, the accusations are extraordinary, and we?re determined 
to get to the bottom of this mess.?

This page was created December 9, 2002
Copyright ©2002 The Repository
<mailto:webmaster@cantonrep.com>
*****************************************************************
 44 LANL Memo Stirs Fear of Reprisals* *

<http://www.sfnewmexican.com>

*Santa Fe New Mexican* *_home_*

By JEFF TOLLEFSON | The New Mexican 12/10/2002

 Buried inside a memo ordering all employees at Los Alamos 
National Laboratory to cooperate with federal investigators is 
what might appear to be an inconsequential directive: Any 
material turned over to investigators with the Office of 
Inspector General should be forwarded to lab management as well. 
*

"Employees providing copies of documents to the OIG (Office of 
Inspector General) should provide copies of a set of those 
documents to the Audits & Assessments Office," Los Alamos 
Associate Director of Administration Richard Marquez wrote in the 
Thursday memo.

Lab officials say the order is intended to help the lab respond 
to questions from investigators. But critics pounced on the memo, 
saying such an order compromises the confidentiality of employees 
who fear retaliation by lab management. The reasoning is simple: 
Employees will be less likely to cooperate if they have to go to 
lab management with any material they provide to outside 
investigators.

The memo also caught the eye of the U.S. Department of Energy's 
Inspector General, which is currently looking into allegations of 
fraud and other illegal activities - as well as alleged attempts 
by management to cover up these wrongdoings. After learning of 
the memo, the Inspector General released this response:

"The Office of Inspector General anticipates that audits, 
inspections and investigations can be conducted without 
impediment. We are troubled by any statement that could be 
interpreted as hindering full and open cooperation with the 
Office of Inspector General."

The Office of Inspector General declined to elaborate.

One watchdog group tracking the debate cited the Thursday memo as 
proof the lab still doesn't understand - or doesn't care about - 
recent allegations regarding security, accountability and 
retaliation against whistleblowers.

"Given that Audits and Assessments is one of the central offices 
that appears to be involved in the cover-up, ... that caveat 
shows that Los Alamos management really doesn't get it," said 
Danielle Brian, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based 
Project on Government Oversight. "They don't understand that they 
are the problem."

Laboratory spokesman Jim Danneskiold said the Audits and 
Assessments Office maintains a list of materials provided to the 
Inspector General to ensure the lab can respond to questions 
posed by the investigators.

"The process of providing documents in this manner is part of the 
extra effort the laboratory is making to ensure the IG gets a 
comprehensive picture of the issues it is looking into," he said. 
Citing the lab's whistleblower policy, Danneskiold said anybody 
can provide these or any other documents to Audits and 
Assessments through a process designed to maintain 
confidentiality.

Nonetheless, the lab's whistleblower policy has come under fire 
precisely because it does not protect the identity of those who 
blow the whistle. The section on confidentiality stresses 
situations in which the identity of a whistleblower could be 
released to "supervisors, witnesses and alleged retaliators."

Brian, of the Project on Government Oversight, pointed to recent 
allegations of retaliation against whistleblowers, including the 
recent termination of two lab employees who were investigating a 
current fraud case and other problems within lab ranks. Lab 
officials said the employees "lost the confidence" of management 
in Audits and Assessments and other divisions. But one of the 
fired investigators countered that people in these same divisions 
appeared to be covering up problems and inhibiting 
investigations.

Brian said the memo taps into such fears: "How duplicitous to 
say, 'Feel free to say whatever you want. We just want to know 
everything you said.' "

The House Energy and Commerce Committee on Monday reaffirmed its 
commitment to a "sweeping and far-reaching investigation" of 
activities at the Los Alamos lab. A team of investigators will be 
visiting the lab in the coming weeks, the committee said.

"Obviously we are very concerned about any possible 
recriminations against employees," said committee spokesman 
Kenneth Johnson.

"These are very serious allegations; in fact they are 
extraordinary allegations, and Congress is determined to get to 
the bottom of it," Johnson said. "We intend to use every resource 
at our disposal, including hearings and subpoenas, if necessary, 
to get a handle on what's going on at the lab."

The New Mexican*
*****************************************************************
 45 Energy Secretary Points to Government/Industry Partnerships to 
Solve Transmission Bottlenecks -->      
 
energy.gov - Headquarters' Press Release

RELEASE DATE: December 9, 2002 [Print Friendly Version]

WASHINGTON, DC — Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham today 
praised a government-industry partnership that could one day more 
than double the amount of electricity carried on our nation's 
high-voltage power lines. 

The new cable, developed by the 3M Company, is made up of ceramic 
fibers embedded in an aluminum matrix surrounded by 
temperature-resistant aluminum-zirconium wires. The cable, called 
Aluminum Conductor Composite Reinforced, is smaller in diameter 
and lighter than the steel-reinforced conductor used today. 

"The field test of this new conductor in Fargo is an example of 
government-industry partnership working together to find sound 
ways to upgrade our transmission system infrastructure," 
Secretary Abraham said. "DOE's leadership in the testing phase 
helps to jump-start new technology like 3M's composite conductor 
and bring innovative solutions to market sooner." 

"In this effort, we brought together the technical expertise of 
Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the hands-on operational 
excellence of the Western Area Power Administration with 
innovators such as the 3M Company. This is just one way DOE is 
working hand-in-hand with industry to eliminate transmission 
bottlenecks that restrict future economic growth in several areas 
across our country," Secretary Abraham added. 

The field test in Fargo, N.D., in progress for about a month now, 
is testing the cable's mechanical ability to withstand harsh 
weather conditions including high winds, extreme temperatures and 
icing. 

Media Contact: Jill Schroeder Vieth, 202/586-4940 Tom Welch, 
202/586-5806 Release No. PR-02-255
*****************************************************************
 46 Los Alamos Memo to Employees Stirs Fear

Guardian Unlimited | World Latest | 

Tuesday December 10, 2002 3:10 PM
 	
LOS ALAMOS, N.M. (AP) - A memo from the Los Alamos National 
Laboratory telling employees to give the lab copies of documents 
they provide to federal investigators compromises the 
confidentiality of employees, critics said. 

The message from the lab's associate director, Richard Marquez, 
was in a memo Thursday that ordered employees at the nuclear 
weapons lab to cooperate with investigators. 

The Department of Energy and the FBI are looking into allegations 
of theft and fraud at Los Alamos, including millions of dollars 
in missing equipment and abuse of lab credit cards. The memo 
instructed workers to forward any documents they provide to 
investigators to the lab's Audits and Assessments Office. But 
critics say the order prompts fears of retaliation by lab 
management. 

``How duplicitous to say, 'Feel free to say whatever you want. We 
just want to know everything you said,''' said Danielle Brian, 
executive director of Project on Government Oversight, a 
Washington-based watchdog group. 

Lab spokesman Jim Danneskiold said the audit division maintains a 
list of materials provided to the Inspector General to ensure the 
lab can assist investigators. 

Two lab employees who were investigating fraud charges and other 
problems within the lab were fired last month. Lab officials said 
they had lost confidence in the pair. 

On the Net: 

Los Alamos National Laboratory: http://www.lanl.gov Project on 
Government Oversight: http://www.pogo.org 
  
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002
*****************************************************************
 47 DOE to reserve 3,200 acres for conservation

By Frank Munger, News-Sentinel senior writer December 10, 2002

OAK RIDGE - The U.S. Department of Energy plans to set aside more 
than 3,200 acres of its Oak Ridge reservation for conservation 
purposes. 

Details of the property-management plan are not yet final, but 
the federal agency will sign an agreement in principle Dec. 20 
with state authorities, including Gov. Don Sundquist. 

Walter Perry, a DOE spokesman in Oak Ridge, said Monday the 
proposed action is partly in response to recommendations of a 
land-use focus group, which included local citizens and 
representatives of various business and environmental 
organizations. 

Setting aside the federal land for "green space" also will 
address DOE's liabilities for natural resources damages under the 
Superfund cleanup act, Perry said. Those liabilities are related 
to contamination from Cold War nuclear activities at the 
government's Oak Ridge facilities. 

The land designated for conservation involves three parcels on 
the northwest area of the federal reservation, including a rugged 
section known as Black Oak Ridge. The undeveloped parcels are 
adjacent to the East Tennessee Technology Park, a former 
uranium-enrichment plant that's being cleaned up and converted to 
private industrial uses. 

DOE will retain ownership of the property but will turn over 
management responsibility of the land to the state under an 
easement to be signed later, Perry said. 

The spokesman said there is no known contamination on the 
designated parcels, but if subsequent surveys uncover any 
problems, DOE will assume responsibility for cleanup. 

Future use of the federal reservation has become a major issue in 
Oak Ridge during the post-Cold War period. Some parties want more 
land converted to economic development, with others arguing for 
environmental protection. 

DOE has turned over several parcels for industrial use, and this 
will be the second area set aside for conservation. In 1999, DOE 
signed a land-use permit that designated 3,000 acres for wildlife 
preservation on the southeast part of the reservation near Melton 
Hill Lake. 

Frank Munger is a senior writer who covers the Department of 
Energy. He can be reached at 865-482-9213 or 
twig1@knoxnews.infi.net.  

The Knoxville News-Sentinel Co. All Rights Reserved. 
*****************************************************************
 48 Portrait: Daniel Ellsberg

  Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | 

'It's time to take risks' 
		 	
In 1971, former marine Daniel Ellsberg leaked documents that 
exposed US government lies and helped end the Vietnam war. He 
tells Duncan Campbell why he did it, and why he is calling on 
today's officials to do the same to the Bush regime - and prevent 
a war in Iraq              
 		
Tuesday December 10, 2002 [http://www.guardian.co.uk]            
 		
A little more than 30 years ago, the leaking of 7,000 pages of 
Pentagon documents, which exposed an extraordinary catalogue of 
lies and duplicity on the part of the US government, helped to 
bring an end to the war in Vietnam. Daniel Ellsberg, a former 
marine company commander, who had served in Vietnam, leaked the 
documents, risking a life sentence to do so. Now he is finally 
telling the whole story of how he became perhaps the most 
important whistle-blower of the past half century. 

It is a bright autumnal day in Berkeley, California, and 
Ellsberg, now a sprightly 71, is having a rest day from a 
cross-country tour to promote his memoirs, Secrets. It is his 
account of how he, an analyst with the Rand Corporation, who had 
worked in the Pentagon under defence secretary Robert McNamara 
and for the state department in Vietnam, was finally driven by 
his conscience to reveal how successive US governments had 
stumbled into a war that cost more than a million Vietnamese and 
55,000 American lives, and how successive presidents had lied to 
the American people about the conflict's conduct and 
consequences. 

Ellsberg photocopied what were to become known as the Pentagon 
papers, and then tried to persuade politicians to release them 
and alert the country. When that failed, he gave them to the New 
York Times. To ensure that the papers would all be distributed, 
he went on the run, prompting what was described as "the largest 
FBI manhunt since the Lindbergh kidnapping". When the FBI finally 
caught up with him in June 1971, he was charged with 12 felonies 
and faced 115 years in jail. 

He might well still be in prison were it not for the almost 
psychopathic desire of President Nixon and his team to extract 
revenge: a burglary of Ellsberg's psychoanalyst's office was 
authorised in the hope of finding information that might 
discredit him or, when publicised, drive him to suicide. The 
Watergate burglars, Gordon Liddy and Howard Hunt, carried it out. 
A team of heavies was recruited to break Ellsberg's legs. His 
phone was tapped. It also emerged, during his trial in 1973, that 
the judge had earlier been offered the post of director of the 
FBI, a job he coveted. 

Once these plots became known, the judge had to abandon the trial 
and acquit Ellsberg. The Pentagon papers also helped to so 
discredit the war that they became one of the key factors in the 
US's final withdrawal and Nixon's humiliating resignation.

Ellsberg became a counter-cultural hero. 

Secrets recounts this story, filling in the many gaps that 
remained at the time of the trial. It is also, in a way, a love 
story about how he fell for his wife, Patricia Marx, and her 
pivotal role in ensuring that the papers were leaked. 

The Ellsbergs now live in a rambling, unpretentious home in 
Berkeley, surrounded by buddhas and roses. Ellsberg has been 
speaking so much that his voice is almost gone but he talks with 
the same intensity that took him into the dock three decades ago. 
He sees many parallels between then and now, with the country on 
the brink of another war. 

"One of the key differences is that the military now are clearly 
against this, which was not the case with Vietnam. The military 
hated the way Lyndon Johnson conducted the war but they wanted to 
get into it. This military clearly does not want the war so 
they're leaking. The reasons Bush has given are ridiculous - 
democracy, give me a break." 

He lists "oil, oil and oil" as the main reasons for the present 
war plans. He also anticipates an "incident" that will be used as 
a rationale for the first US strike, just as the Gulf of Tonkin 
incident - a supposed attack on a US destroyer - precipitated 
deeper US military action in Vietnam. "Bush will want to claim, 
just as Johnson did, that he was immediately protecting American 
troops. He will want to say 'I'm bombing because I have 
intelligence that Americans are at immediate risk. They are 
putting chemical warheads on missiles, we think.

I can't take the chance.' 

"I believe Rumsfeld, Cheney and Wolfowitz are using our own 
troops as bait. There will be deaths, and they know that." 
Ellsberg has noted that there have been frequent leaks about the 
war plans in recent weeks. "There is great dissent and that is 
clearly the major reason for the leaking. It is clear that the 
administration is filled with people who believe this is 
reckless, unnecessary, foolish ... I am using every opportunity 
to say to people in the government who are in the position that I 
was then, and who know that their president is lying us into a 
wrongful and reckless war, to do what I wish I had done in 
1964-65: to go to Congress and the press with documents and tell 
the truth. That would be a risk but there are times when big 
risks are worth that to save a lot of lives." 

Ellsberg says that he doesn't like telling people to take risks 
that he is not taking, which is why he is announcing that his 
book contains some still unclassified secrets - one about a 
dialogue between Johnson and the then Canadian prime minister, 
Lester Pearson, in which nuclear war was discussed as an option 
in Vietnam. He is challenging attorney general John Ashcroft to 
prosecute him for breaking the law. 

Ellsberg is understanding about how people in power are co-opted 
into a system in which leaking becomes hard. "There is no set of 
genes, no hypodermic injection you can take which makes you 
immune to going along with cruel, indefensible policies that your 
team and your boss and your president say is what they want to 
do. I did it, but I don't think I was particularly corrupt for 
doing that. I don't think there is any human who is incapable of 
keeping their mouths shut about what they know is wrong." 

Britain crops up periodically in the discussion. He is appalled 
that we still have an Official Secrets Act: "It is an outrage. 
I'd love an opportunity to go to England and testify to anyone on 
my experience and break their law. You cannot be a democracy in 
foreign affairs and have the amount of secrecy unchallenged that 
we have in America or you have in Britain. It's not just a joke, 
it's something that has to be resisted and changed." The book has 
revealing vignettes of Henry Kissinger and how he wanted to use 
journalists to present him as a ladies' man.

Ironically, Kissinger had been a big admirer of Ellsberg's, 
telling an audience of Rand personnel in 1968: "I have learned 
more from Dan Ellsberg than from any other person in Vietnam." 
This credibility, and the fact that Ellsberg was a 
Harvard-educated former company commander in the Marine corps, 
who had been under fire in Vietnam, was what made him so 
dangerous. 

The tapes he reprints of Nixon plotting to damage him is like 
eavesdropping on a Mafia family dinner: 

Nixon: Let's get the son-of-a-bitch into jail. Kissinger: We've 
got to get him. 

Nixon: Don't worry about his trial ... try him in the press. We 
want to destroy him in the press ... Is that clear? Kissinger and 
(attorney general) John Mitchell: Yes. 

Since the 70s, Ellsberg has earned a living from lecturing and 
writing, although anti-nuclear activism is his "top priority". He 
has three children and five grandchildren and a bad back, but 
shows no signs of slowing down. He has been arrested on many 
occasions, protesting against US military actions. 

The almost universally friendly reception of the book has 
encouraged him. Senator and presidential contender John Kerry has 
praised him for the courage "which undoubtedly saved American 
lives in the battlefield". Actor Martin Sheen recommends the book 
as "essential reading for any American who wants to understand 
true patriotism". Yet had it not been for the Nixon team's 
criminality, he says, his release date with good behaviour would 
not have been until 2008. 

However, Ellsberg expresses dread at what he fears is an 
approaching war. "I don't want to test whether Iraqis will fight 
in their own country for this tyrant, and I do not want to test 
what Saddam will do if we really set out to kill him," he says. 
"I can't think when I have felt that it was as ominous as this." 
· Secrets by Daniel Ellsberg is published in the US by Viking.
 	
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002
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 49 Iraq debate goes beyond facts

eastsidejournal.com - 

[http://apmoneywire.ap.org/] 
[U.S. Census Bureau Website] 

 2002-12-10 by Tom Wolfe
 
None of the important questions about Iraq can be answered with 
facts. 

But they are a starting point for thinking.
 
The Rev. Sharon Moe, senior pastor of the University Temple 
United Methodist Church, brought an arsenal of handouts, 
statistics, maps, color slides and personal observations to 
Auburn United Methodist Church Sunday night, drawing on two 
visits to Iraq this year, and a lifetime of asking big questions. 
Her own views are fiercely anti-war, but she emphasizes personal 
reflection over political ideology.
 
``My goal is to get people thinking,'' she explained later. ``I 
am very careful to respect differences of opinion, and I try not 
to put people on the spot.''
 
Even so, an evening of immersion in human catastrophe is an 
ordeal. An estimated 500,000 Iraqi children have died from the 
consequences of war -- famine, disease, pollution, birth defects 
-- and thousands more are on the brink.
 
Moe wants people to think about that, and about depleted uranium, 
leukemia, Gulf War syndrome, so-called collateral damage, our 
dependency on oil, the cultural treasures of modern-day 
Mesopotamia and the true meaning of patriotism.
 
At the same time Moe was speaking in Auburn, the Eastgate 
Congregational United Church of Christ was hosting a community 
forum in Bellevue. It lasted more than two hours.
 
I admire the 150 or so people who attended those sessions and 
took up the challenge to learn more about Iraq.
 
It's a daunting task. And even when you know more, it's not 
enough.
 
* We know that Saddam Hussein is a ruthless dictator. But we 
don't know what level of threat he now poses outside his borders.
 
* We know that war is hell, but we don't know how many combatants 
and civilians would die, how it would affect the economy or what 
it would mean to history.
 
* We know we could conquer Iraq, but we don't know if that would 
promote Mideast stability or provoke anti-American terrorism.
 
Our history with Iraq is also confusing.
 
Go back to Aug. 2, 1990, and we have the Iraqi invasion of 
Kuwait, which started the current chain of events.
 
But go back just a few months more, and the picture changes. Go 
back to January 1990, and you'll see President Bush signing a 
presidential order promoting trade with Iraq. Go back to 1983 and 
you'll see Donald Rumsfeld (now defense secretary; then a White 
House envoy) shaking hands with Saddam Hussein, happy to have an 
ally against fundamentalist Iran. You'll see Arkansas Gov. Bill 
Clinton shaking hands with Iraqi Ambassador Nizar Hamdoon, happy 
to be selling Arkansas-grown rice. Go back to 1981 and you'll see 
the Reagan administration, happy with Iraq's invasion of Iran, 
criticizing Israel for knocking out an Iraqi nuclear reactor. 

Saddam Hussein was a ruthless dictator then, too, and working on 
developing a nuclear bomb.
 
What do you think?
 
Not everyone can attend a two-hour forum on Iraq. If you'd like 
to be part of the discussion, send an e-mail to 
editorial.page@king countyjournal.com or send us a letter to the 
editor.
 
We'll publish a selection of responses this weekend.
 
Tom Wolfe is editor of the Eastside Journal. His column runs 
every Tuesday. Readers can reach him by phone 425-453-4230, 
e-mail tom.wolfe@eastsidejournal.com or fax 425-635-0603.
   
Eastside Journal 1705 132nd Avenue N.E. 
Bellevue, WA 98005-2251 Phone: 425-455-2222 Fax: 425-635-0602 All 
materials Copyright © Horvitz Newspapers, Inc. Any questions? See 
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 50 Judge Knocks GAO Out of Cheney Task Force Lawsuit
 
[http://ens-news.com/events.asp]         
        
WASHINGTON, DC, December 9, 2002 (ENS) - The U.S. General 
Accounting Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, was 
refused legal standing by a federal judge today in its attempt to 
get records related to Vice President Dick Cheney's Energy Task 
Force. Saying it has every legal right to see these records, the 
GAO is considering an appeal of the decision. 

[Bates] Federal District Judge John Bates 

(Photo courtesy DC District Court) Judge John Bates, appointed to 
the U.S. District Court in December 2001 by President George W. 
Bush, ruled in Walker v Cheney that the GAO has no standing in 
the case because it did not suffer any direct harm as a result of 
the withholding of the documents. 

Comptroller General of the United States David Walker, who heads 
the GAO, said the agency might appeal the ruling. “We are very 
disappointed with the judge’s decision," Walker said. 

The agency is in the process of reviewing and analyzing the bases 
and implications of Judge Bates' ruling. Walker said, "We will 
consider whether or not to appeal after we have completed this 
review and consulted with Congressional leadership on a 
bi-partisan basis." 

The GAO has the right and duty to examine the records of meetings 
with energy stakeholders at the time when the Cheney Task Force 
was formulating the National Energy Policy, the investigative 
agency maintains. 

[Walker] Comptroller General of the United States David Walker 
(Photo courtesy GAO [http://www.gao.gov] ) GAO's legislation 
"clearly authorizes it to perform a basic factual review of the 
process the National Energy Policy Development Group (NEPDG) used 
to develop the President's national energy strategy," the GAO 
said today in a statement. 

"Section 712(1), Title 31, U.S.C., authorizes GAO to investigate 
"all matters related to the receipt, disbursement, and use of 
public money," and there is no doubt that public money was used 
to fund the activities of the NEPDG," the GAO stated. 

Three other lawsuits are pending, including two by the Natural 
Resources Defense Council (NRDC), to force the White House to 
turn over the information. One NRDC lawsuit awaits a decision by 
Judge Paul Friedman which is expected any day. 

NRDC sued the Energy Department under the Freedom of Information 
Act (FOIA) for records relating to the energy task force, 
including minutes of meetings that occurred. 

Although the Energy Department and other federal agencies have 
released some information about which cabinet officials met with 
regarding energy policy, the NRDC said today, the White House has 
refused to provide similar information. 

NRDC has argued that the records of Andrew Lundquist, the task 
force executive director, and other key task force staff, all of 
whom were Energy Department employees, must be disclosed under 
FOIA. 

[Cheney] Vice President Dick Cheney (Photo courtesy DOD 
[http://www.dod.gov] ) "Judge Bates' decision to shield the 
activities of Vice President Cheney's secretive energy task force 
seems to be more about politics than the law," said NRDC attorney 
Sharon Buccino. 

The NRDC has also filed a freedom of information case against the 
Department of Interior (DOI) for records related to the formation 
and the implementation of the energy task force recommendations. 
"DOI is already moving forward to expedite energy development on 
public lands across the West, yet refuses to provide basic 
information about the decisions the agency is making and who is 
influencing them," the NRDC said today. 

Two other civil organizations are using the courts to seek the 
Energy Task Force records. In the case of Judicial Watch v. 
National Energy Policy Development Group, the two organizations - 
Judicial Watch and the Sierra Club - sued the Bush administration 
for violating the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which promotes 
open and balanced government decision making. Judge Emmett 
Sullivan ordered discovery in this case, but the DC Circuit Court 
stayed this decision on December 6, pending appeal.   

Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2002. All Rights
    
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