***************************************************************** 11/10/02 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 10.291 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** Send News Stories to news@energy-net.org with title on subject line and first line of body NUCLEAR POLICY 1 US: More Than 100 Public Interest and Environmental Groups Urge Cong 2 `Chicken Little' scores a big coup (Canadian privatization) 3 North Korea Told to Dismantle Nuclear Arms Project Promptly 4 Saudi Arabia funding Pakistan?s nuclear programme?* 5 US: Lame duck session unlikely to pass new laws 6 Gaps Cloud Iraq Nuclear Assessments 7 Arabs Expect Iraq to Submit to U.N. 8 Six-point Accord Reached in Inter Korean Talks 9 US Insists on No More Oil to NK 10 Saudi Arabia funding Pakistan’s nuclear programme’ : 11 Public 'must remain vigilant' 12 Korean cross-border rail, roads project on track despite nuclear 13 Bush demands 'zero tolerance' Iraq policy 14 `Chicken Little' scores a big coup 15 Former Weapons Inspector Doubts Iraq Will Comply 16 U.N. Plans Immediate Test of Iraq Inspections 17 Analysis / Blix has his finger on the trigger NUCLEAR REACTORS 18 India: Eight new nuclear reactors by 2007: AEC Chairman 19 Nuclear power stations "need huge subsidies" 20 US: Vermont Yankee sheds yellow security rating 21 US: Federal evaluators praise work in San Onofre disaster drill - 22 US: Cook Nuclear Plant lays off 100 employees - 23 Nuclear power stations "need huge subsidies" 24 US: Seabrook battleground fades to background NUCLEAR SAFETY 25 Mysterious illnesses plague gulf war vets 26 US: Ailing lab workers are sick of waiting 27 US: Nuclear worker claims in Bay Area 28 US: NRC study warns of 500-mile radiation spread 29 UK: LISTEN, TONY (atom victims go to parliment) NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 30 US: Nuclear Regulatory Commission Preparing to Dump More Radioactive 31 US: Utah: Hansen's swan song* 32 US: DOE hedges on 2028 deadline 33 Protesters prepare for nuclear convoy 34 German Nuclear Dump Faces Protest 35 US: Federal court to hear three major Yucca Mountain suits together 36 US: K Basins leak prompts questions on safety 37 US: NRC probes complaints about Yucca meetings 38 US: Federal court to hear three major Yucca Mountain suits together 39 US: Yucca: What lies beneath? 40 UK fails nuclear waste test 41 Germany: RWE to operate first on-site nuclear waste storage NUCLEAR WEAPONS 42 AU: Diggers in Iraqi plans 43 Scott Ritter: If Israel uses nuclear weapons it will be destroyed US DEPT. OF ENERGY 44 Trigger factory sets off debate 45 Boise company set to build atomic accelerator 46 DOE set to retry pit-sealing technology 47 Cry for more outreach at Livermore lab 48 Surprise as top (LLL) lab manager resigns 49 Oregon seeks status in nuke case 50 Hanford faces tight schedule to 'close' tanks by 2006 51 FFTF receives 2-week reprieve OTHER NUCLEAR ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 More Than 100 Public Interest and Environmental Groups Urge Congress to Reject Energy Bill* Public Citizen */Nov. 8, 2002/* WASHINGTON, D.C. - More than 100 environmental, public interest and consumer organizations from 32 states sent a letter to Congress today urging lawmakers to reject the pending energy bill. Last year, the House passed a pro-corporate energy bill and the Senate followed suit, but the legislation has been held up in conference committee due mainly to the objections of Senate Democrats to certain damaging provisions, including oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the repeal of important consumer protections within the electricity market. It is unclear whether energy conferees will attempt to hammer out a final bill in the lame-duck session scheduled to begin next Tuesday. The broad coalition of environmental and public interest organizations endorsing today?s letter urged lawmakers to abandon the legislation. Click here to view the letter and list of 103 organizations signers. "While H.R. 4 is packed with numerous incentives for destructive polluters, it does virtually nothing to advance conservation and efficiency in this country, or meaningfully promote safe, clean and affordable renewable energies," the groups wrote. "Do not give billions of dollars to the oil, nuclear, and coal industries at the expense of your constituents? health, safety and tax dollars. We urge you to defeat the energy bill." With the Republicans now in control of the Senate, House and White House, the 108^th Congress is expected to return next year to the issue of comprehensive energy legislation, likely pushing a package that will largely resemble the controversial Bush-Cheney National Energy Policy crafted in May 2001. Promoting increased fossil fuel and nuclear generation, as well as the further deregulation of electricity markets, such a bill could spell disaster for consumers and the environment. Energy companies contributed heavily to election campaigns this cycle, with the nuclear industry alone doling out more than $5 million to candidates, according to a Public Citizen analysis. "Polluting energy industries have set themselves up to wield considerable influence in the 108^th Congress," said Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook. "But Americans who are committed to safe, sustainable and affordable energy policy will stand together to oppose polluter pay-out energy legislation and hold politicians accountable for policies that protect the corporate interests that bankrolled their campaigns rather than consumers." Public Citizen ***************************************************************** 2 `Chicken Little' scores a big coup (Canadian privatization) Thestar.com Sun Nov 10, 2002 - Updated at 09:31 PM Hampton loath to say `I told you so' over hydro costs By Richard Brennan QUEEN'S PARK BUREAU CP Photo/Sue Reeve Provincial NDP leader Howard Hampton says he warned what would happen if the Tories went ahead with Ontario's Hydro's privatization. When NDP Leader Howard Hampton started warning more than two years ago that electricity privatization would result in higher prices and other problems he was written off as a "Chicken Little" just trying to whip up hysteria. "Nothing is going to go wrong," said former premier Mike Harris last December when he announced the market would open to competition May 1 of this year. Since May, a lot has gone wrong, says Hampton, who is loath to say, "I told you so." Prices have skyrocketed and the power supply within the province has dwindled. "We had done the research and we were confident we were right," Hampton told The Star on Friday. "Hydroelectricity is an absolutely essential service like health care that should not be put into the hands of private, profit-driven corporations. "There are just too many ways where they can manipulate the market, create an artificial electricity shortage and drive up the price and gouge consumers," he said. Hampton is calling for a regulated, not-for-profit publicly owned hydroelectricity system, similar to the Ontario Hydro system that existed before, which critics point out ran up a $38 billion debt. As recently as this past June, when Hampton asked then energy minister Chris Stockwell why he wasn't doing more to protect consumers, Stockwell responded: "This guy is unbelievable ... two years telling everybody, `When the market opens, rates are going to double and we are going to have blackouts' ... but nothing has come true. You've come in here on every issue, every single time, Chicken Little, telling us the sky is going to fall." The sky didn't fall but prices went up and there were brownouts this past summer, despite government assurances that would never happen. Henry Jacek, a political science professor at Hamilton's McMaster University, said Hampton was "a voice in the wilderness" when not many others were paying attention just a couple of years ago. "Hampton was ahead of the wave ... and everything bad that he said was going to happen has happened, unfortunately for all of us," Jacek said. Promises by Ontario Power Generation to get the nuclear reactors on at Pickering A back on line were just that, which meant the Independent Market Operators had to buy expensive imported power during the heat wave of the summer. And now the Tories are scrambling to bring in a plan to protect consumers from runaway electricity costs and are expected to announce the details tomorrow ? likely a rebate program and some kind of rate cap. On many occasions, Hampton asked then energy minister Jim Wilson to assure Ontarians that the problems of privatization that crippled California and forced Alberta to spend billions of dollars on consumer rebates would not happen here. "Every jurisdiction in the world that has introduced competition has seen savings in generation from 5 per cent to 40 per cent," Wilson said on June 8, 2000. Hampton wasn't buying it: "That is the dirty little secret of this government in terms of energy policy. The cost of power, the price of power to people all across Ontario is not going to go down, it's going to go up." Since then, he has campaigned against privatization of the electricity and the sale of Hydro One, which controls the wires that deliver electricity. And to get his message beyond the walls of Queen's Park, Hampton hit the road in the spring of 2001 with his Public Power bus and travelled to more than 100 communities. Now he gets people coming up to him in coffee shops across the province, "and they pull out their hydro bill and they say, `You were right. I remember what you said and you were absolutely right. Look at my bill ... I'm now paying double what I was a year ago.'" The Liberals claim the NDP is not totally without blame, saying the New Democrats totally supported a 1998 legislative select committee report that called for changes to Ontario's electricity market. But the NDP says it offered a dissenting opinion claiming it would only work "as long as the environment and the consumers are protected." *Legal Notice:*- Copyright 1996-2002. Toronto Star Newspapers ***************************************************************** 3 North Korea Told to Dismantle Nuclear Arms Project Promptly The New York Times November 10, 2002* *By HOWARD W. FRENCH* TOKYO, Nov. 9 ? The United States, Japan and South Korea called on North Korea today to dismantle its nuclear weapons development program in a "prompt and verifiable manner." At a meeting here, the three allies also pledged to seek a peaceful resolution of the crisis caused by North Korea's recent admission that it had been secretly developing nuclear weapons, in violation of a number of international agreements. "North Korea can benefit from greater participation as a member of the international community, but that participation rests on North Korea's prompt and verifiable dismantling of its nuclear weapons programs," said a joint statement issued after the meeting. However, diplomats here said the discussions, which were held at the assistant foreign minister level, had failed to achieve a consensus on whether to punish North Korea for having broken its commitments or how to do it. The meeting today comes amid an intense flurry of consultations leading up to a meeting scheduled for Thursday in New York of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization, or KEDO, an international consortium that has been building two light-water nuclear reactors for North Korea as part of an agreement with the country that obliges it to surrender its nuclear materials. Among the three allies, the United States has been pushing for the hardest line, with the Bush administration saying it has no interest in talking further with North Korea until it complies with the nuclear weapons agreements it recently acknowledged violating. Douglas J. Feith, under secretary of defense for policy, said this week that there was a "fundamental disagreement" between the United States and South Korea over how to deal with the North's nuclear program. In pointed comments to reporters after meeting with Japanese officials here on Friday, Mr. Feith said "there should be a penalty, not a reward" for North Korea's behavior. Some administration officials are believed to favor the suspension of oil deliveries to North Korea that the United States provides as part of the Agreed Framework, the 1994 commitment by the North not to produce nuclear weapons that led to the start of the power plant construction. Under the consortium's division of labor, South Korea agreed to provide the nuclear cores for North Korea's new reactors, which are believed to be less prone to weapons proliferation than North Korea's own reactors, which are now under international surveillance. Japan, meanwhile, has committed itself to providing much of the financing. "It is important to deepen our understanding of each other's positions,"Japan's foreign minister, Yoriko Kawaguchi, said in a statement on Friday. But despite routine comments emphasizing their common ground, each of the United States' main allies in the region has displayed serious reluctance to support any hard-line approach to North Korea. South Korea's departing president, Kim Dae Jung, has staked his legacy on reconciliation with the North and has resisted the American approach by pressing on with a series of economic cooperation agreements with North Korea at a time when Washington is calling for more pressure. Indeed, South Korea announced new agreements with North Korea on cross-border cooperation today while the meeting in Tokyo was under way. "Inter-Korean relations are on a path toward reconciliation and peace, even though they are affected by `turns and twists,' " Mr. Kim said. Japan, for its part, is locked in talks to normalize relations with the North. Although Japan has said North Korea must comply with its nuclear commitments before new economic cooperation begins, security issues have been trumped here by the drama over the fate of five Japanese citizens kidnapped by North Korea in the late 1970's and early 1980's. The five are now visiting Japan for the first time since then and their every move is recorded by television crews. Japanese diplomats appear more eager to persuade North Korea to allow the children and spouses of the five to join their relatives here, rather than risk a diplomatic rupture by backing harsh penalities related to the nuclear weapons issue. North Korea, mindful of the intense Japanese attention to the kidnapping victims, warned Japan on Friday that if it pressed the nuclear issue it would destroy any progress made so far in normalization talks. Copyright The New York Times Company ***************************************************************** 4 Saudi Arabia funding Pakistan?s nuclear programme?* IndiaExpress Network News 18.49 IST 10th Nov 2002 /By IndiaExpress Bureau/ US Defence Intelligence Agency(DIA) has uncovered startling information that, apart from North Korea, Saudi Arabia has also been funding Pakistan?s nuclear and missile programme purchases from China. DIA's senior China analyst Thomas Woodrow said in a research paper that "Saudi Arabia has been involved in funding Pakistan's missile and nuclear programme purchases from China, which has resulted in Pakistan becoming a nuclear weapon-producing and proliferating state." It was probable Saudi Arabia was buying nuclear-capability from China through a proxy state with Pakistan serving as the cut out, Woodrow said in his recent paper, entitled "The Sino-Saudi Connection". Saudi Defence Minister Prince Sultan had "toured the uranium-enrichment plant and missile production facilities in Kahuta" in Pakistan just after the May 1999 nuclear tests, he said, adding that the Saudi Minister may also have been present in Pakistan during the test-launch of its nuclear-capable Ghauri missile. "If Riyadh's influence over Pakistan extends to its nuclear programmes, Saudi Arabia could rapidly become a de facto nuclear power through a simple shipment of missiles and warheads," the former DIA officer said. ***************************************************************** 5 Lame duck session unlikely to pass new laws Sentinel &Enterprise EMAIL ARTICLE Saturday, November 09, 2002 - 9:29:34 PM MST By Ian Bishop Sentinel &Enterprise Washington Bureau WASHINGTON -- There were two distinct facets to the 107th session of Congress: an unprecedented level of bipartisanship in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks juxtaposed by a legislative gridlock that is on pace to produce the fewest laws in the past 54 years. In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks, Congress enacted four laws on Sept. 18, 2001, that provided federal aid to the victims and the recovery effort, expressed a sense of sorrow on Capitol Hill and authorized military action against the perpetrators. On the other days of the two-year session, Congress passed 247 bills. "It's really been a dismal record," Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, said from the Senate floor prior to the Oct. 17 recess. Congress is set for a lame-duck session beginning Tuesday. Upon their return, members will complete a federal budget for the fiscal year that began on Oct. 1. They must also address several bills they previously failed to deliver legislation on, including Homeland Security, welfare, health-care rights, special education, Social Security, minimum wage, faith-based charities and prescription drugs. As a member of the House Appropriations Committee and the subcommittee on transportation, Rep. John Olver, D-Mass., will be in the center of the frenetic exercise awaiting lawmakers. "In the short term, my priorities include passing the remaining appropriations bills and working to ensure that Amtrak and highways receive necessary funding," he said. As it stands, Congress has completed two of the 13 annual budget-enacting bills. Even with a late legislative flourish, the current Congress is unlikely to significantly add to the 251 public laws already passed. The current total is well behind the 957 bills passed during the 106th Congress, and trails the previous low mark set by the 97th Congress ending in 1982, which passed 704 bills. Frank Bryan, a political science professor at the University of Vermont, said several factors played a role in the legislative slowdown. The first was when the U.S. Supreme Court weighed in to halt Florida recounts and ultimately determine the outcome of the presidency. He said that with President Bush entering office without a mandate from the electorate, and Capitol Hill split between the Democrats and the Republicans, a "highly competitive situation" has developed. A Republican stronghold on the executive and legislative branches was wiped out shortly after Bush settled into the White House, when Vermont Sen. James Jeffords defected from the GOP and control of the Senate swung to the Democrats. "You don't have anyone in Congress that can assert leadership," Bryan said. "You've got the worst possible situation." He said the terrorist attacks provided the impetus for a divided Congress to work together. "You have to realize how huge that was," he said. Congress was forced to scramble to address military, security and recovery needs. The Massachusetts delegation spent considerable effort on the issue, with Olver joining in a push to secure an additional $2 million from the Department of Justice for the Massachusetts Office of Victim Assistance. But the bipartisan initiatives waned as the shock of Sept. 11 subsided. Olver has proposed several pieces of environmental legislation that remain stalled in various committees. "Unfortunately, on the environmental front, most of the 107th Congress was spent playing defense," said Olver, whose First Congressional District stretches from Berkshire County to Fitchburg. This week, Olver and U.S. Rep. Edward Markey, a Malden Democrat, wrote a letter signed by more than 100 Democrats urging the White House to oppose the Environmental Protection Agency's proposed changes to the New Source Review, which they claim would "fundamentally weaken the Clean Air Act." The proposed changes would allow emissions to rise at any industrial facility, including power plants, and make it more difficult for states to limit air pollution. "This proposed plan would undoubtedly make our region's air dirtier," Olver said in a statement. During the 107th Congress, Olver sponsored nine pieces of legislation -- the majority pertaining to environmental issues -- and lent his name as a co-sponsor to more than 350 other bills and resolutions. Olver sought to amend the Clean Air Act by establishing a registry of greenhouse gas emissions that would be available to the public. He also proposed legislation to require fuel-efficiency standards for light trucks. Both remain tied up in committee reviews. "Unfortunately, the Republican leadership has blocked these initiatives and any common sense means to address climate change," Olver said. But the slow pace of domestic legislation wasn't necessarily detrimental, Bryan said. He said the Founding Fathers intended for the tug-of-war struggles when they established a government of checks and balances, preventing legislation from being passed on a whim at the bullying of a single political party controlling the process. "They like it this way," he said. "In order to get something done, you have to have a mandate and a movement." Several pieces of landmark legislation were enacted since the 107th Congress was sworn in to office on January 2001. Congress adopted campaign finance, corporate, education and election reforms and approved a major tax cut proposed by the president. The nation's agriculture policy was rewritten, and agreement was reached on Yucca Mountain in Nevada as the site for the nation's nuclear waste. Bryan said previous sessions of Congress that passed large numbers of bills, including the 2,360 bills passed by the 84th Congress, largely focused on the frivolous. "That number means a lot of (previous sessions) spent a lot of time dotting Is and crossing Ts," he said. But this Congress spent quite a bit of time doing that, also. Congress named 31 post offices, seven federal courthouses and eight federal facilities in honor of various dignitaries. Four laws focused on former President Ronald Reagan; two recognized his 90th and 91st birthdays, one named a Florida post office in his honor and another established the Ronald Reagan Boyhood Home National Historic Site. The second law passed by Congress at the start of the session named the new federal courthouse in Boston in honor of long-time U.S. Rep. John Joseph Moakley, who died just months after the honor. And in the spirit of bestowing recognition, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts ensured the passage of a Senate resolution he sponsored honoring the "Splendid Splinter," Ted Williams, and extending the condolences of the Senate on the occasion of Williams' death in July. Despite loose ends to be tied on Capitol Hill, and the continuing slide of the economy, Olver was able to secure funding in a variety of areas to benefit communities in his district. He procured more than $18 million in transportation aid, including $2 million for buses in Berkshire County and $5.1 million for the Montachusett Regional Transit system. © 1999-2001 MediaNews Group, Inc. and Mid-States Newspapers, Inc. ***************************************************************** 6 Gaps Cloud Iraq Nuclear Assessments Las Vegas SUN November 09, 2002 By CHARLES J. HANLEY ASSOCIATED PRESS In tens of thousands of words, many of them "may," "could" and "probably," intelligence agencies and private analysts have sketched out a portrait in uncertainty and called it the Iraqi quest for doomsday weapons. A close review of recent in-depth reports shows that at times U.S. and British intelligence organizations and other specialists contradict or fail to support each other's assertions on Iraq and nuclear weapons, assertions that are often unsubstantiated. A key passage in the U.S. intelligence report, for example, says Iraq "may" have acquired technology to substantially speed production of atomic bomb material. But no concrete evidence is offered, and the British intelligence report suggests the opposite - that U.N. sanctions have kept such equipment out of Iraqi hands. The British, for their part, refer vaguely to "African" uranium sought by Iraq. But they don't say in which decade this might have happened, and no other report mentions it. What isn't in the documents can be as significant as what is: In early September, President Bush declared that satellite photographs proved Iraq had revived its nuclear weapons program. In their subsequent reports, however, neither the U.S. nor British government agencies even mention those photos. The Baghdad government has further obscured the reality with its own detailed rebuttal, in which it doesn't acknowledge its past obstruction of searches by U.N. weapons inspectors or that it has barred inspection teams for four years. This nuclear fog over Iraq clouds public debate at a critical moment. The ambiguities led Washington's two newspapers to headline starkly different conclusions from one major assessment, by London's private International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS). "Iraq Lacks Material for Nuclear Bomb, Study Says," reported The Washington Post, while The Washington Times headlined, "Report: Iraq Close to Nuclear Reality." The U.N. inspectors, armed with a tough Security Council resolution adopted Friday, plan to return to Baghdad on Nov. 18 to resume investigating whether Iraq is developing nuclear, chemical or biological weapons in defiance of the council's edicts. They may take months to reach conclusions, however, and until then - while the world ponders war against Iraq - the reports by the U.S. and British agencies and the prestigious IISS; the Iraqi rebuttal; and follow-up analyses by specialists at such organizations as Washington's Carnegie Endowment for International Peace will remain the most thorough public look at the question. It's a look that, time and again, is conflicting and confusing. Iraq's "aluminum tubes" are a case in point. The Iraqis reportedly sought to buy thousands of high-strength aluminum tubes in the past two years. The 25-page CIA summary of Oct. 4 says the tubes are banned and adds that "most intelligence specialists" believe they were intended as core cylinders of centrifuges to enrich uranium for bombs. But the 50-page intelligence dossier released by British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Sept. 24 said "there is no definitive intelligence" that the tubes were intended for a nuclear program. Moreover, buying such tubes is not banned under anti-Iraq sanctions, but is subject to U.N. approval and monitoring because the tubes have dual uses - both non-nuclear and nuclear. The Iraqi government scoffs at the tubes issue in its 6,000-word rebuttal, saying such centrifuges don't use aluminum. Primitive designs do, in fact, but Iraq was already using more advanced materials as it tried to master centrifuges before the 1990-91 Gulf War, after which inspectors dismantled what they found of Iraq's nuclear program. Physicist David Albright, a former U.N. inspector, is not convinced the tubes were meant for centrifuges. "The Iraqis could do much better," he said. In a detailed analysis, Albright's Washington research group, the Institute for Science and International Security, notes that Iraq has long imported such tubing for non-nuclear uses. He says experts are more worried about centrifuge components that are more sophisticated and harder to get than cylinders. It was the Iraqis' former centrifuge site - and photos of new construction there - that Bush said showed the nuclear bomb program had been resurrected. "I don't know what more evidence we need," the president said Sept. 7 as he sought to muster support for potential U.S. military action against Iraq. The reconnaissance photos give no clue to the new building's function, however. Dozens of foreign journalists later visited the site, al-Furat, under Iraqi escort and did not report seeing centrifuges, and the photos were notably absent from the U.S. and British intelligence reports. "These photos provide weak support for any military action," said Albright. The CIA report, after speculating the Iraqis "may have acquired uranium enrichment capabilities" to speed bomb production, says that since December 1999 they have engaged in more than 100 deals to buy dual-use items that would be useful for nuclear or other weapons programs. But the report doesn't go on to explain that such contracts are under close U.N. scrutiny, approved or disapproved by inspectors who often mandate follow-up checks to ensure the items aren't used for nuclear purposes in violation of U.N. sanctions. Those checks are carried out by some of the 158 U.N. observers currently in Iraq. The British report takes a tack opposite to the Americans', saying London's Joint Intelligence Committee "assessed that U.N. sanctions on Iraq were hindering the import of crucial goods for the production of (nuclear) material." In their key conclusions, the British, U.S. and IISS reports all find that Iraq is unlikely to be able to produce bomb-grade uranium for five or more years. But each also points to what the IISS calls a "nuclear wild card" - that Iraq might fashion a bomb sooner if it somehow obtains enough highly enriched uranium on the black market. Their time frames vary. The IISS and a Carnegie Endowment report suggest this could be done in mere months; British intelligence forecasts it might take two years. None, however, ties this wild card to what experts know: Even if the Iraqis managed to get hold of the 50 to 100 pounds of bomb-grade uranium needed, they would take much longer to develop a warhead-and-missile combination that could deliver such a nuclear strike effectively beyond their borders. The Iraqis are forbidden by U.N. resolutions to possess missiles with greater than a 90-mile range. But the IISS, British and U.S. reports suggest they retain some old, inaccurate Scud missiles, with ranges up to 400 miles - "about a dozen," "up to 20" or "a few dozen," the various reports say. However, these reports fail to note that U.N. inspectors said in 1997 that all but two of 819 such missiles had been used by Iraq or destroyed - an accounting previously acknowledged in CIA reports. Iraq is also developing prohibited longer-range missiles, contend the U.S. and British intelligence dossiers. Among other things, they cite reconnaissance photos showing a new, larger test stand at a site where liquid-propellant engines have been tested. Iraq's rebuttal counters with what it calls "strong technical evidence": that the test stand is horizontal, not vertical, and therefore unsuited for large liquid engines. The Iraqis are "technically correct," says Tim McCarthy, a researcher at California's Monterey Institute of International Studies and a former U.N. missile inspector in Iraq. McCarthy speculates, however, that Iraq might be able to test larger engines on the stand using solid propellants. On such fine points hinge the uncertainties about Iraq, pending exhaustive new inspections by hundreds of U.N. specialists. The IISS report's editor, former White House official Gary Samore, said after issuing his institute's assessment in London on Sept. 9 that the state of Iraq's nuclear program is a "tremendous unknown." Hans Blix agreed. The chief U.N. inspector said early in the recent U.N. debate over Iraq that there are "many open questions" about its weapons programs. "But this," Blix said, "is not the same as saying there are weapons of mass destruction." EDITOR'S NOTE - Charles J. Hanley has reported on nuclear weapons issues for 20 years. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 7 Arabs Expect Iraq to Submit to U.N. Las Vegas SUN November 10, 2002 By SARAH EL DEEB ASSOCIATED PRESS CAIRO, Egypt- Despite official Iraqi silence, Arab ministers said Sunday they expect Saddam Hussein to accept a U.N. resolution to disarm. Syria's foreign minister assured Arab governments the document does not authorized the use of military force. If Baghdad fails to follow through, however, U.S. officials said a Pentagon plan calls for more than 200,000 troops to invade Iraq. Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri said Saturday that "no decision has been taken," but several other Arab diplomats at a late-night meeting of the Arab League here said that in effect Iraq had already accepted the resolution. Sabri did not speak to reporters Sunday morning after meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak or as ministers headed into the afternoon session. However, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher said early Sunday morning, "I think we can expect a positive position by the Iraqis." And Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal also indicated Iraq would accept the resolution that dictates return of arms inspectors. "They (Arab ministers) welcomed Iraq's approval of this resolution with the confirmation that Syria received that there would be no automatic military action," Saud said. Syria, whose surprise agreement to the U.N. Security Council resolution allowed for 15-0 passage on Friday, defended its vote. "We have struggled and shouldered a lot of difficulties to bring about the resolution," Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa told journalists Sunday. Al-Sharaa said he received a letter from Secretary of State Colin Powell "in which he stressed that there is nothing in the resolution to allow it to be used as a pretext to launch a war on Iraq and that if the U.S. administration had any intention of resorting to military action, this resolution wouldn't have taken seven weeks." On Sunday, Iraq's state-controlled media carried no news about the resolution, not even the usual vitriolic editorials blaming the United States for pushing the Security Council into a tough stance. Saddam himself has said nothing publicly about Friday's unanimously adopted resolution. The United States and Britain have threatened military action against Iraq if Baghdad does not fully comply with the U.N. resolution. The New York Times reported late Saturday on its Web site that Bush has approved a Pentagon plan for invading Iraq, should the new U.N. arms inspection effort fail. Several White House officials reached Saturday declined to comment on the report, but defense officials said on condition of anonymity that the plan calls for a land, sea and air force of 200,000 to 250,000 troops, at least twice the number initially considered. The Pentagon already is moving forces into position to ensure that it will be capable of launching swift strikes into Iraq, should Bush decide on war. Sabri tried Saturday to put the best face on the U.N. blueprint for renewed arms inspection. He said that in the diplomatic haggling that led to passage of the resolution, the international community succeeded in diluting U.S. plans for aggression on Iraq. In Washington, President Bush praised the 15-0 vote, saying the resolution "presents the Iraqi regime with a test, a final test." Iraq, he said, must now cooperate with U.N. inspectors and dismantle its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons capabilities. Arab officials and commentators have said the resolution - revised to satisfy French and Russian concerns - has at least set back the chance of war. But some have expressed fear that Washington still could use the document as an excuse to attack Baghdad at the earliest opportunity. Beyond al-Sharaa's assurances, Russian President Vladimir Putin was quoted Sunday by Russian news agencies as saying the resolution "does not contain a mechanism for the use of force." Maher, the Egyptian foreign minister, said early Sunday that Iraqi acceptance would depend on guarantees that "inspectors would act in a neutral ... and objective way, respecting strictly all the resolutions of the Security Council particularly those with regard to the respect of Iraqi sovereignty." Iraq had accused inspectors who were in the country during 1991-1998 of acting as spies. The new resolution gives inspectors unrestricted access to any site, and that could remain a point of dispute. Iraq insists on respect for its sovereignty, an argument it has used in the past to restrict access to Saddam's palaces. subservient to foreign intelligence agencies," Tishrin daily newspaper said in an editorial. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 8 Six-point Accord Reached in Inter Korean Talks Digital Chosunilbo (English Edition) : Daily News in English About Korea Updated Nov.10,2002 16:38 KST After remaining divided over energy cooperation and fishing in the East Sea, economic officials from the two Koreas produced a six-point accord in Pyongyang, late Friday. The relinking of the cross-border Gyeongui and Donghae railways is expected to get a major boost with the South and North agreeing to conduct a joint study this month to mark the connecting points. "Our goal is to have the Gyeongui rail and road links reach Kaesong to boost the development of an industrial complex, while getting the Donghae rail and road lines to Mount Kumgang to spur tourism," said a spokesman. This is a key agreement of the six-point accord of the third round of inter-Korean economic cooperation talks. The two sides also agreed to kick start work on the envisioned Kaesong Industrial Complex late next month with the North promulgating a special law on development there in mid-November, and the South providing necessary supplies to build its infrastructure. Other agreements include staging working-level talks on the November 19 to discuss fishing cooperation, convening working-level meetings next month to set legal criteria to guarantee previously agreed economic exchanges, and holding the fourth round of economic talks in Seoul next February. On the North's nuclear efforts, the South urged Pyongyang to give up its ambitions with the North responding it was "seriously contemplating" the issue. (Arirang TV) ***************************************************************** 9 US Insists on No More Oil to NK Digital Chosunilbo (English Edition) : Daily News in English About Korea Updated Nov.10,2002 19:09 KST by Kwon Kyung-bok (kkb@chosun.com) TOKYO - In the Trilateral Coordination and Oversight Group (TCOG) talks in Tokyo on Saturday, South Korea, US and Japan decided to recomend withholding the latest 42,500 metric tons of fuel oil shipment to North Korea, currently at to the KEDO executive board which is to decide whether to stop this and other oil shipments. The US adopted a stern approach saying it was reviewing whether to refuse payment for the oil and the 500,000 metric tons shipped annually under the 1994 Geneva Agreed Framework unless the North dismantles its nuclear weapons development program immediately and visibly. Both South Korea and Japan expressed reluctance at this regarding it as a too premature hardening of Washington's stance. Each country decided to finalize the matter of fuel oil shipment at the KEDO executive board meeting to be held in New York on November 14. If they fail to agree on the matter, the fuel oil tanker currently on the way to the North will remain at seas until a decision is made. The three delegations decided to pursue a common position through further close negotiatons after reporting the talk results to each nation's government, an official said Sunday. The three nations are planning to come up with countermeasures to North Korea's nuclear weapons program, including the latest fuel oil shipment and the future of Geneva framed agreement in Seoul-Tokyo foreign ministerials talk and a vice ministerial talks between Seoul and Washington to be held in Seoul on November 11 and 12h. ***************************************************************** 10 Saudi Arabia funding Pakistan’s nuclear programme’ : World News : IndiaExpress.Com 18.49 IST 10th Nov 2002 By IndiaExpress Bureau US Defence Intelligence Agency(DIA) has uncovered startling information that, apart from North Korea, Saudi Arabia has also been funding Pakistan’s nuclear and missile programme purchases from China. DIA's senior China analyst Thomas Woodrow said in a research paper that "Saudi Arabia has been involved in funding Pakistan's missile and nuclear programme purchases from China, which has resulted in Pakistan becoming a nuclear weapon-producing and proliferating state." It was probable Saudi Arabia was buying nuclear-capability from China through a proxy state with Pakistan serving as the cut out, Woodrow said in his recent paper, entitled "The Sino-Saudi Connection". Saudi Defence Minister Prince Sultan had "toured the uranium-enrichment plant and missile production facilities in Kahuta" in Pakistan just after the May 1999 nuclear tests, he said, adding that the Saudi Minister may also have been present in Pakistan during the test-launch of its nuclear-capable Ghauri missile. "If Riyadh's influence over Pakistan extends to its nuclear programmes, Saudi Arabia could rapidly become a de facto nuclear power through a simple shipment of missiles and warheads," the former DIA officer said. ***************************************************************** 11 Public 'must remain vigilant' BBC NEWS | UK | Politics | Sunday, 10 November, 2002, 10:29 [Police search the scene of the bombing at the Sari nightclub in Bali] Blunkett says the Bali bombing holds key lessons Britons must be on guard against terror threats over Christmas and New Year, but there have been no specific "dirty bomb" warnings, Home Secretary David Blunkett has said. A draft home office statement released by mistake last week warned of a possible chemical or nuclear terrorist attack on the UK using a "dirty bomb" or poison gas. All of us have got to be vigilant coming up to Christmas and the New Year David Blunkett But speaking on BBC One's Breakfast with Frost, Mr Blunkett again apologised for the mistake in sending out the release, and stressed the need for vigilance. The suggestion in the document that terrorists could use boats or planes in future attacks was fanciful, "not serious warnings to the public". Mr Blunkett, who has said the statement was toned down to avoid creating unjustified panic, said the danger to the UK was "very similar to this time last year". "All of us have got to be vigilant coming up to Christmas and the New Year," said Mr Blunkett. 'Be watchful' The home secretary said the mistaken release had sent mixed signals but said the real message was that the government would "do everything we can to protect Britain". "We need the vigilance of everyone around us, particularly at major airports and those particular gathering points where people know there is a risk, as there is today on Armistice Day." [David Blunkett] Blunkett: Searching for the right security balance Mr Blunkett said the Bali bombing underlined the need to balance keeping normal life running with ensuring necessary safeguards were in place. The draft Home Office statement was released in error on Thursday, but withdrawn minutes later and replaced with a revised text. Text of withdrawn terror statement The later statement contained a more general warning of "ever more dramatic and devastating" terror attacks. Poison gas The draft statement warned that al-Qaeda could strike with traditional terror tactics or new, "surprising" methods. "Maybe they will try to develop a so-called dirty bomb, or some kind of poison gas; maybe they will try to use boats or trains rather than planes," it said. The second statement said: "If al-Qaeda could mount an attack upon key economic targets, or upon our transport infrastructure, they would." The warnings came in the foreword to a summary of anti-terrorist measures taken by the UK in recent months. Both statements urged people to remain vigilant to the continuing threat of Irish and international terrorism. Wider threat [Home Office press releases on terrorism] The two statements released by the Home Office Professor Paul Wilkinson of the Centre for Terrorism Studies at St Andrews University said it was a "possibility" that there was a threat from a "dirty bomb" attack in the UK. So-called "dirty bombs" scatter deadly radioactive material using conventional explosive devices, he said. They were not as immediately destructive as traditional explosives, but they could ultimately prove far more devastating in terms of casualties. That was because they had the potential to spread radioactive material over a wide area, possibly leading to cancer and radiation poisoning, argued Prof Wilkinson. © MMII | News Sources | Privacy ***************************************************************** 12 Korean cross-border rail, roads project on track despite nuclear tension Nov 10, 3:40 AM ET By JAE-SUK YOO, Associated Press Writer SEOUL, South Korea - Despite tension over North Korea's recently disclosed nuclear weapons program, the inter-Korean project to build railways and roads across their border remained on track, South Korean officials said Sunday. North and South Korea in September began removing mines in parts of their heavily fortified border area to build two sets of railways and roads through the western and eastern sectors. The Koreas hope to reconnect a road as early as this month and a railway by year's end. The last train ran across the border just before the Korean War broke out in 1950. "Both sides are expected to finish the de-mining operation by the end of November as scheduled," said a Defense Ministry spokesman on customary condition of anonymity. The spokesman said there have been "no changes" so far in the cross-border rail project despite the nuclear tension. Last week, South Korea warned that inter-Korean cooperation could suffer unless North Korea scraps its nuclear weapons program. The South plans to use all available inter-Korean dialogue channels to press the North on the nuclear issue. The United States also has been mustering international pressure on North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambition. North Korea says it would clear U.S. concerns if Washington signs a nonaggression treaty with it. The de-mining operation inside the 4-kilometer (2.5-mile)-wide demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas was part of a broader inter-Korean political accord reached in August. The two Koreas began a fitful reconciliation process following a historic summit of their leaders in 2000. The Koreas were divided in 1945. The 1950-53 Korean War ended in a cease-fire. Copyright © 2002 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 13 Bush demands 'zero tolerance' Iraq policy Independent.co.uk By Rupert Cornwell in Washington The Bush administration declared yesterday that it would have "zero tolerance" for any attempt by Saddam Hussein to thwart the UN weapons inspectors when they start their mission - the only chance of averting a US-led attack. "If he doesn't intend to co-operate, we shouldn't waste the time of the world and of the UN inspectors," said Condoleezza Rice, the National Security Adviser. The Security Council resolution passed unanimously last week "said the next violation is a 'material breach' and everyone knows what that means", she added, referring to the code phrase for a return to war. Iraq said that its parliament would meet today to decide whether to accept the resolution. But Ms Rice dismissed the move as ludicrous. "Saddam Hussein is an absolute dictator and tyrant. It's up to him, yes or no. He needs to acknowledge he's changed attitude and is prepared to co-operate." In separate but co-ordinated appearances on morning television talk shows, she and Colin Powell, the Secretary of State, set out the Bush administration's interpretation of the resolution, which gives the inspectors sweeping and intrusive powers when they return to Iraq later this month. Geoff Hoon, Britain's Secretary of State for Defence, and the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, also made clear that military action would follow if Iraq continued to prevaricate. Mr Hoon, asked if the US would need a further UN mandate before going to war, told the BBC's /On The Record/ programme: "I don't think that's necessarily the case, no." The showdown could come in little more than a month if Iraq accepts the terms of the resolution by next Friday's deadline. Within 30 days thereafter, Baghdad must provide a full inventory of its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programmes and of its missile capability. "A false declaration constitutes of itself a material breach," General Powell said. Hans Blix, the chief of Unmovic, the UN weapons inspection organisation, and his team "can go wherever they want to go. There can be some announcement but the notice will be very short, a matter of hours, not of days, to allow them to cook the books. The question is, are the Iraqis finally co-operating," General Powell added. At the first report of Iraqi obstruction, the UN Security Council would convene. The US would participate in that debate "but at no point will we give up the authority, if we conclude the debate is going nowhere, to act as we believe necessary", he said. November 09, 2002 09:12 PM ET SYDNEY (Reuters) - Former U.N. weapons inspector Richard Butler doubts Iraq will fully comply with the U.N. resolution to disarm, leaving the Security Council split over whether to take military action. Butler said he believed President Saddam Hussein will not meet the council's November 15 deadline to promise to allow weapons inspections of any Iraqi sites suspected of being used to develop biological, chemical or nuclear arms. "I will predict Iraq will not simply comply, they will give a version of compliance," Butler told Australian television on Sunday. "The Americans will say 'that is not enough, that's not full compliance'. The Russians will say, 'let's wait a minute, maybe they need a little more time'," he said. "Then an argument will start in the Security Council on whether or not Iraq is in material breach. The clock is ticking, this is not over." The U.N. Security Council passed a unanimous resolution on Friday calling for Iraq to allow U.N. inspections or face serious consequences. The United States and Britain have threatened military action against Iraq if Baghdad does not fully comply. President Bush has approved a war plan for Iraq to initially capture parts of the country for footholds to thrust in 200,000 or more troops, U.S. officials said on Saturday. UNILATERAL ACTION ILLEGAL Butler congratulated the U.N. Security Council for passing the resolution on Iraq, saying it gave weapons inspectors the powers they had always needed to force Iraq to comply. "These powers are extreme. They are powers we needed in the past. It (the council) has come up with something that is tough, legal and clear," he said. "It has been made crystal clear to him (Saddam), you have a choice, you come forward make an honest declaration, allow us to take those weapons away from you, or you are in deep trouble." Butler said the resolution also brought the issue of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction back under international law. "This field has been returned to where it always should have been, that is squarely under international law in the hands of the Security Council," he said. "If the Americans go off separately...any such action is in fact illegal under the charter of the U.N. and it should not occur," he said. He said he believed the issue of toppling Saddam Hussein was now off the international agenda. "Regime change in my mind is off the agenda for the time being, what is center stage is getting rid of those weapons," he said. "The key issue is whether Saddam will do it or not." "The ball is more in that guys court than it has ever been before." ***************************************************************** 16 U.N. Plans Immediate Test of Iraq Inspections The New York Times November 10, 2002* *UNITED NATIONS* *By STEVEN R. WEISMAN* WASHINGTON, Nov. 9 ? United Nations weapons inspectors plan to force an early test of Saddam Hussein's intentions by demanding a comprehensive list of weapons sites and checking whether it matches a list of more than 100 priority sites compiled by Western experts, Bush administration and United Nations officials say. The officials said the site list had been quietly put together in the last several months, winnowed down from more than 800 in the United Nations' database. The short list was derived from the findings of previous weapons inspections and the latest intelligence culled from defectors and other sources by American and other intelligence experts. Fortified by the approval on Friday of a tough Security Council resolution demanding that Iraq comply with a new inspection regime, United Nations officials are expected on the ground in Iraq on Nov. 18. A week or so later, the first inspectors are to arrive and begin their work. A provision in the resolution says that any "false statements or omissions" regarding weapons sites would constitute a "material breach of Iraq's obligations." Many experts say Mr. Hussein is more likely to defy the inspectors than to cooperate. But the concern in the administration is to make sure any defiance by Iraq is beyond dispute. Only then could the administration convince the United Nations, its allies and Americans in general that war is necessary. Many administration officials say they would far prefer a bold rebuff by Mr. Hussein, rather than have him seem to cooperate but actually try to run out the clock with evasions and confusing tactics in the hope that support for war will subside. Speed is important, military experts say, because the cooler winter months, ending in February or March, are the optimal time for an attack against Iraq. The chief of the inspection team is Hans Blix, executive chairman of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, or Unmovic. Mr. Blix, who is to lead the inspections of biological and chemical weapons, said this week that the first team of inspectors would number between 80 and 100. Mohamed ElBaradei is to lead the team of nuclear weapons inspectors. Mr. Blix and Mr. ElBaradei have personally assured top Bush administration officials ? including Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, and Paul D. Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary ? that their teams will be assertive in their demands of inspection sites. Their first order of business is to ask for Mr. Hussein's list of such sites. Administration officials say it should be easy to tell whether those sites match the ones on the inspectors' list. But not everyone is convinced. Martin Indyk, a former staff member of the National Security Council under President Bill Clinton, recalled that while monitoring Iraq inspections in the 1990's, he frequently went to bed at night convinced that Washington had solid intelligence information on weapons sites. But often, he said, the next morning showed nothing was there. "There's a risk in the whole enterprise of not finding anything," he said. Senator Richard G. Lugar, Republican of Indiana, who will be chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee in the new Senate, said: "The inspectors may have some success unearthing things and revealing them to the world. But my own view is that it will be very difficult to find and discover the evidence. How can you tell if a kettle where shampoo is being made was once used to make anthrax?" As for Mr. Hussein's list of sites, people with experience in the matter recall that shortly after the end of the Persian Gulf war in 1991, Mr. Hussein declared that Iraq had no nuclear weapons or biological programs but that his forces had already used chemical weapons. "It was a blatantly false declaration," said Timothy McCarthy, a former weapons inspector. "As we went along, the lies became smaller and more calculated." *Continued* 1 | 2 Copyright The New York Times Company ***************************************************************** 17 Analysis / Blix has his finger on the trigger Back Home 14:59 10/11/2002 Last update - 15:26 10/11/2002 By Zvi Bar'el , Ha'aretz Correspondent Now that the resolution has been passed, we need to wait for the Iraqi bride to say yes. Judging by Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri's words, the reply will be a slow one, but positive. Sabri regards the resolution as a "great victory" that stopped the U.S. race for war in its tracks. The United Nations resolution on Iraq, which was unanimously passed by all 15 members of the Security Council, including Syria, was an instructive lesson in managing international power relations, but now the global confrontation has ended, the difficult implementation begins. Iraq has until Thursday to signal whether or not it will adopt the UN resolution and if it is ready to meet the conditions it lays out. The most severe sections in the resolution call for inspectors to be allowed to search some 90 of Saddam Hussein's palaces, as well as enabling them to take Iraqi scientists outside the country for questioning, in order to allow them to cooperate with the inspections without fearing for their lives. If Iraq does respond positively, it will be required to present the delegation of inspectors, headed by Dr. Hans Blix, with a detailed list of all its stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, including raw materials used to manufacture these weapons and materials that have both civilian and military purposes. It is expected that compiling such a list, even if Iraq does make an effort to retrieve all the information, will take longer than the allocated 30 days. The Russian delegate to the UN said Saturday that extending the period of time would not be regarded as a violation of the resolution. From Iraq's point of view, the resolution somewhat dilutes the two threats it is currently facing: The division of Iraq into two or three countries or regions, and the automatic right of the United States to wage war. Any violation reported by Blix (another concession made by the U.S. administration, which initially demanded that other countries and bodies besides the inspectors be allowed to report Iraqi violations) would be discussed by the Security Council before additional measures are taken against Iraq. To prevent a situation in which such a discussion would tie American hands, the resolution stated that the discussion would not prevent "any country" from acting to protect itself. Iraq - who had condemned the resolution before it was voted upon and declared it as a declaration of war - is now changing its tone. In fact, it seems as if Saddam's perception of reality has greatly improved since the 1991 Gulf War. Iraq's journey back in time, strewn with concessions, began in September, when deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz met with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in Johannesburg. The decision is a complex one not only for Iraq, but also for Arab states fearing the possibility of a war in the Middle East. Arab leaders believe such a war would bring the masses out to the streets and threaten the legitimacy of their own regimes. It would also cause enormous economic damage to states such as Egypt, Jordan and Syria, whose economies are more and more dependent on trade with Iraq. These countries will now have to be used as a kind of safety belt for the implementation of the UN resolution. Syria's vote in favor of the resolution and the declaration of Arab leaders that Iraq must fully comply with the resolution conditions may not guarantee that Iraq, which hitherto has ignored Arab pressure, will change its position. But, from the viewpoint of the Arab leaders, all aspects of the resolution - in particular the Syrian vote - are important as they enable them to join the world bloc. The resolution sets out reasonable checks against an automatic attack on an Arab state and in time could be used as a calming factor in any dialogue between the Arab leaders and their populations. In the period before any Iraqi response, the resolution is the document which, while not preventing a war against Iraq, has at least saved the UN from having the status of an ineffectual body and delivered another victory to U.S. President George Bush (despite its limitations, Bush will be able to go to war under an international umbrella). It has also given sufficient protection to the Arab states. The Syrian vote, which is perceived as the representative vote of the Arab states, means that if there is a war it will have international legitimacy, and will not be seen as a U.S. war against the Arabs. UN inspectors are expected to begin work 45 days after the time Iraq announces it will adopt the decision. The inspectors will then have 60 days to present an initial report. In an ideal situation, one in which Iraq fulfills all the conditions and meets all the deadlines, the UN resolution grants an extension of 150 days past the end of February, when the first decisive report must be submitted. Throughout this period, Blix will be the one with his finger on the trigger. Publicly, the chief inspector enjoys UN and U.S. backing, but talks in the corridors have already begun leaks about his "soft character": his willingness to make concessions and his past failures. This image of Blix is highlighted by his failure to expose Iraq's nuclear plans during his tenure as chairman of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which supervised Iraq, among others. In interviews in the media over the past few days, Blix has declared that not every small thing will be a pretext for reporting resolution violations. Furthermore, for now, Blix is the one who decides what constitutes a "small thing." Western diplomats expect that for as long as Iraq shows "reasonable" cooperation, Blix will not take upon himself the responsibility for the outbreak of a new Middle East war. On the other hand, the same diplomats estimate that the UN delegation, even though it presents itself as an independent body, will be under meticulous monitoring that will limit Blix's freedom of interpretation. © Copyright 2002 Ha`aretz. All rights reserved ***************************************************************** 18 India: Eight new nuclear reactors by 2007: AEC Chairman Sify News Mon, Nov 11, 2002 *Jamshedpur, Nov 10* Chairman of Atomic Energy Commission and Secretary to the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) Anil Kakodkar said that DAE planned to set up eight nuclear power reactors by 2007 to boost power generation in the country. Kakodkar, who visited Jadugoda to inaugurate the Turamdih Mines of Uranium Corporation of India Limited (UCIL) on Saturday, said "at present there are 14 reactors in the country which are generating 2,720 MW of power. Eight more reactors are under construction at Tarapur, Kaiga, Rajasthan and Kudankulum." By the end of the 11th five-year plan, the country would have 29 units producing about 9,935 MW of power, he said. Kakodkar said: "We have sufficient deposit of uranium now, which could meet the requirements of the country's nuclear programme." He said three mines under UCIL produced 1680 tonnes per day while Turamdih mines, which was reviewed in view of the need of country's nuclear programme, would produce 750 tonnes of uranium per day. "Although at present uranium is the main source to generate nuclear power, we would gradually shift our focus to thorium," he said adding that one-third of world's deposit of thorium is in India. Kakodkar also said technology was being upgraded for the proper use of the mineral. The Commission Chairman said two survey reports revealed that there were no dangers to the health of people, who lived in the periphery of UCIL at Jadugoda, due to radiation and added DAE had introduced safety measures in all its operations including UCIL. / UNI/ ***************************************************************** 19 Nuclear power stations "need huge subsidies" 10 November 2002 Any new programme of nuclear power stations is likely to need public subsidies of more than �1 billion a year, according to a new report. A pressure group says that at the height of a nuclear building programme, up to �1.8 billion could be needed every year from taxes or hidden customer bills. The Socialist Environment and Resources Association, which counts more than 100 MPs among its membership, said the Government should accept that phasing out nuclear power was the only sensible option. "This billion pound bombshell underlines that the nuclear option is a busted flush," said Bill Eyres, the association's chairman. The Government has been urged to speed up the deployment of renewable and energy efficient options. ©2002 Associated New Media | Terms ***************************************************************** 20 Vermont Yankee sheds yellow security rating Brattleboro Reformer Saturday, November 09, 2002 - 12:35:46 AM MST Guard towers, video cameras among $8 million in upgrades By EESHA WILLIAMS Reformer Staff VERNON -- Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant is no longer the most vulnerable plant in the nation, federal regulators announced late Thursday. Jay Thayer, vice-president in charge of Yankee for New Orleans-based plant owner Entergy Corp., gave a slide show, speech, and tour of the plant to reporters Friday to announce the good news. "We now fully meet or exceed all the security requirements set out by the NRC," Thayer said. In August 2001, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission gave Vermont Yankee a yellow security rating -- the worst score ever received by any plant in the nation -- after a so-called "force-on-force" mock terrorist attack showed weaknesses in Yankee's ability to repel terrorists. The drill took place about two weeks before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, but the news wasn't released until November 2001. Yankee appealed the finding, but the NRC refused to change the evaluation. "This plan did not perform well," Thayer admitted Friday. Since then, the plant's owners have spent $8 million on security improvements, many of which Entergy officials showed to a group of reporters Friday. The plant is surrounded by no fewer than five fences and four tall, bullet-proof guard towers. Anyone entering the plant had to walk past numerous video cameras and through a metal detector and one of two "explosives detectors" that cost $250,000, said Fred Marcussem, director of plant security. The possessions of anyone who entered were x-rayed. Thayer said a recent study proved that even a Boeing 767 jumbo jet, fully loaded with jet fuel, could not penetrate the walls of the reactor or the giant tank that holds all the nuclear waste Yankee has created since 1972. But Deb Katz of the Citizens Awareness Network in Shelburne Falls, Mass., disputed his data. "Sandia National Labs, which conducted those tests, has said they never showed a plane could not penetrate a concrete wall," she said. Katz said a public speech scheduled for Wednesday at 7 p.m. at the West Village Meeting House in Brattleboro by Prof. Gordon Thompson of Clark University will demonstrate that Yankee's waste storage facilities are vulnerable to a terrorist attack. "A terrorist standing across the river from Vermont Yankee could fire a missile or an unmanned aircraft and puncture the plant's storage pool, causing a nuclear fire," Katz said. After an inspection in September, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission decided it was satisfied with security at the plant. "Our independent review of security features and enhancements determined that the measures that were implemented effectively addressed the extent of condition in the area of physical protection and plant security," Wayne Lanning of the NRC wrote Thayer in a Nov. 6 letter about the visit. William Sherman, the state nuclear engineer, said that change in the yellow rating was a significant development for Vermont Yankee. "They worked very hard after Sept. 11 and after they received the yellow rating," Sherman said. Thayer said Entergy would apply in early 2003 for permission to build a dry cask storage facility to relieve crowding in Yankee's river water-filled spent fuel pool. Entergy will also apply next year for permission to increase Yankee's power output by 20 percent, he said. Finally, the company will ask the NRC for permission to operate Yankee for up to 20 years beyond its currently scheduled closing date in 2012. ©1999-2002 by MediaNews Group, Inc. and NENI Newspapers ***************************************************************** 21 Federal evaluators praise work in San Onofre disaster drill - 11/9/02 - NCTimes.net PHIL DIEHL Staff Writer DANA POINT ---- Federal evaluators said Friday that they were pleased with the way local emergency workers handled San Onofre's nuclear disaster drill, but pointed out several small areas for improvement. The all-day drill Wednesday simulated an accident at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station that released radioactive contamination to the environment and required the evacuation of everyone within a 10-mile radius of the plant. Between 700 and 800 people in Orange and San Diego counties participated. "It's something we hope never happens ... but you have to be ready," said Colin Harding, a consultant working for the Federal Emergency Management Agency. "After 9/11, you can't assume that it won't." Harding and other agency officials and consultants reviewed the exercise Friday during a public meeting at the Doubletree Hotel in Dana Point. Participants are not graded in the exercise, though the observers point out areas for improvement. "If nothing goes wrong and everything goes right, you've had a rotten exercise," Harding said. A small team of Oceanside fire inspectors took part as the operators of a radiation detection center set up on Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base. The inspectors used Geiger counters and air sampling equipment to determine how much radiation people could have received. Evaluators Hollis Berry, also an agency consultant, said the Oceanside team was well organized, worked efficiently and met all its objectives. She offered one suggestion. "Their probes on their instrumentation were not covered with plastic," Berry said. Without plastic protection, she said, the instruments could become contaminated with radioactive material and give false readings. "It's basically a training and planning issue," she said. "Their plan didn't tell them to do it." Richard Echavarria of the federal agency's regional office in Oakland agreed that the drill went well overall, but said he noticed "a few troubling things" at the mock news conference in San Clemente. Press releases issued at the conference were sometimes unclear or confusing, Echavarria said. For example, one early on about a radiation release failed to indicate whether the release was contained inside the plant or went out into the atmosphere. The federal agency requires the disaster drill be held every two years. Wednesday's drill was originally scheduled for Sept. 12, 2001, but was postponed because of the terrorist attacks that happened a day earlier. Contact staff writer Phil Diehl at (760) 901-4087 or [pdiehl@nctimes.com] . 11/9/02 [http://www.nctimes.net] ***************************************************************** 22 Cook Nuclear Plant lays off 100 employees - WNDU-TV: News Story: November 09, 2002 This is the second round of lay-offs for Cook Nuclear Plant employees Posted: 11/09/2002 06:49 pm Last Updated: 11/10/2002 04:32 pm The Michiana economy has taken another hit. A hundred employees at the Cook Nuclear Plant [http://www.cookinfo.com/] are now out of a job. The layoffs are effective immediately. The plant says they are all part of a staff reduction ordered by its parent company, American Electric Power. The fact that many people are looking for a job these days only exacerbates the situation. This is the second round of lay-offs at the Cook Power Plant since August. The first round of cuts eliminated about 200 jobs. A spokesperson for Cook says this is a cost cutting measure intended to increase earnings, but AEP customers should not see any change in their services. When asked if more lay-offs are to come, AEP says it's too early to make any promises. William Schalk, AEP spokesperson, says, “You can never say there won't be. A lot depends on the factors that led up to it, like the down economy and how soon that turns around. In the meantime, we're going to try to regroup. It's hard on everyone--obviously the hardest on those that were released. It is always tough to face staff reductions.” Employees that lost their jobs in these lay-offs will receive severance packages based on seniority. Even after the lay-offs, the Cook Power Plant remains the third largest employer in Berrien County. Copyright 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002 Michiana Telecasting Corp. All rights ***************************************************************** 23 Nuclear power stations "need huge subsidies" 10 November 2002 Any new programme of nuclear power stations is likely to need public subsidies of more than £1 billion a year, according to a new report. A pressure group says that at the height of a nuclear building programme, up to £1.8 billion could be needed every year from taxes or hidden customer bills. The Socialist Environment and Resources Association, which counts more than 100 MPs among its membership, said the Government should accept that phasing out nuclear power was the only sensible option. "This billion pound bombshell underlines that the nuclear option is a busted flush," said Bill Eyres, the association's chairman. The Government has been urged to speed up the deployment of renewable and energy efficient options. ;2002 Associated New Media [http://www.anm.co.uk] | Terms | Privacy ***************************************************************** 24 Seabrook battleground fades to background Boston Globe Online: Print it! ECONOMIC LIFE By Charles Stein, Globe Columnist, 11/10/2002 The Seabrook nuclear power plant in New Hampshire was sold last week. The story attracted almost no attention, which is a story in itself. For almost 20 years, from the early 1970s to the early 1990s, Seabrook was front page news. For a variety of reasons, it became one of the nation's key battlegrounds in the fight over nuclear power. People who loved nukes strove mightily to build it; people who loathed nukes worked just as hard to kill the project. I spent more years than I would care to admit covering Seabrook. I learned a lot, including one lesson that has stuck with me to this day: Be skeptical of all sweeping predictions about the future. They almost always turn out to be wrong. At Seabrook, both sides were sure their view of the future was the right one. The plant's builders envisioned a world in which demand for electricity would grow 6 to 7 percent per year, a forecast that justified the need for a massive two-unit plant at Seabrook. The same crew expected to build the facility quickly for just under $1 billion. Seabrook would be a bargain at that price, because it would displace costly foreign oil, which in the 1970s seemed to get more expensive by the day. The future unfolded differently. The combination of high energy prices and conservation radically cut the demand for electricity, making the second unit at Seabrook superfluous. The plant took longer to build than the pyramids. (That's an exaggeration. It actually took 14 years, in part because of all the political haggling). The price tag for the one completed unit eventually reached $6 billion. Foreign oil got cheaper, not more expensive. Adjusted for inflation, the price of oil has fallen sharply in the past 20 years. ''Nothing they predicted came true,'' said Doug Foy, president of the Conservation Law Foundation and a longtime skeptic of Seabrook's economics. Many Seabrook opponents were sure the plant was an environmental horror in the making. They said it would destroy marine life in the nearby coastal waters. They also said that in the event of an accident, the nearby beaches could not be evacuated in time, a scenario fit for a disaster movie. At an anti-Seabrook rally in 1976, peace activist Helen Caldicott described nuclear power as ''the greatest health hazard the world will ever witness, bigger than malaria and smallpox have been.'' Not quite. Seabrook has been operating for 12 years. The fish are still there. So are the people on the beach. The plant has had a good safety record, which explains why it has dropped out of the headlines. It has also been a dependable supplier of electricity. Seabrook has become more efficient over time. Downtime at the plant has been reduced significantly in the past 10 years. Similar improvements at other plants explain why nuclear power has steadily increased its share of the nation's electricity market - to 20 percent - even though no new plants have been built in years. Environmental problems remain. Congress recently approved a plan to dispose of spent nuclear fuel in Nevada, but given the strong feelings about nuclear energy, it could be years before any waste is shipped there. On the other hand, nuclear plants don't emit greenhouse gases, so they don't contribute to the problem of global warming. Nuclear power, in short, is a mixed bag. It hasn't solved all our problems, or destroyed the world. The subject still generates plenty of passion, however. Some people are convinced that nuclear power will rise again when a new generation of cheaper, safer plants wins public acceptance. Others are certain nuclear plants are dinosaurs, relics from an earlier era that eventually will die off. I'm not sure. In a world where criminal profilers can't tell us anything useful about snipers, and pollsters can't accurately call the results of elections two days in advance, I'm not making any bold pronouncements. I'll just wait and see what happens. Charles Stein is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at stein@globe.com [ stein@globe.com] . This story ran on page C1 of the Boston Globe on 11/10/2002. © Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company. ***************************************************************** 25 Mysterious illnesses plague gulf war vets Sending soldiers again to Iraq raises concerns newsobserver.com : front : News Sunday, November 10, 2002 12:00AM EST By MARTHA QUILLIN, Staff Writer FAYETTEVILLE -- If they would give him a fresh Air Force uniform, former Staff Sgt. Richard Wadzinski Jr. gladly would climb into the cargo hold of the first C-130 headed toward Southwest Asia to supply a U.S. assault on Iraq. "I'd go today. Right now," he said, taking a deep breath that stiffened his spine, briefly recalling the career military man he once was. Just one thing holds him back: Wadzinski is so sick from his deployment during Desert Storm 11 years ago that the military wouldn't take him. Like the rest of the country, Persian Gulf War veterans are divided over the long-term political effects of a U.S. war with Iraq. But those like Wadzinski, who suffer from illnesses linked to their duty in the gulf, say there is one certain outcome of sending troops back to the region to fight: another generation of service members with medical problems that may haunt them for life. Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs said it would spend $20 million on research into gulf war illnesses in 2004, more than twice what it has spent in any previous year. In announcing the funding, Leo S. Mackay, deputy secretary for the VA, said, "There is increasing objective evidence that a major category of gulf war illnesses is neurological in character" and not related to combat stress, as some scientists have said. Many sick vets believe their illnesses are caused by a combination of toxins they were exposed to in the war. North Carolina bases might supply as many as 50,000 of the 300,000 or so troops analysts say would be needed to fight a new war with Iraq, whose army President Bush says could be expected to respond with chemical or biological weapons. Many sick gulf war vets believe that they were exposed to chemical and biological agents in Iraq and that those agents contributed to their mysterious health problems. Long-term effects North Carolina bases sent about 100,000 men and women to serve in the last gulf war, of a total force of 697,000. Although casualties of that conflict were relatively low -- 150 Americans died as a result of injuries -- many came home sick or fell ill later with a litany of symptoms doctors still can't explain. The Research Advisory Committee on gulf war Illnesses has estimated that 25 percent to 30 percent of gulf war vets have unexplained illnesses. Veterans advocates say it may be closer to 40 percent. Without definitive causes for their complaints, many of these now-disabled vets say they fear that whatever happened to them might also await a wave of new recruits. "Some of my neighbors are already over there," Wadzinski said. "And before they left, this is what I told them: 'Have a good gas mask that's in good working order, and know how to use it. And every time something happens, put it on. There is no such thing as a false alarm.' " About 224 federally funded studies costing more than $213 million have not been able to tell veterans whether chemical or biological weapons, smoke from oil-well fires, depleted uranium, pesticides, vaccines, antidotes, combat stress or something else, alone or in concert, caused their ailments, which range from mild to crippling. Veterans groups and government officials disagree over the extent to which Iraqi president Saddam Hussein might have used chemical and biological weapons during the gulf war. The Department of Defense has said that 15,000 chemical alarms that sounded during the war went off by mistake. But many soldiers are thought to have been exposed to the toxins through contact with tainted soil in areas where they had been tested and through the air when stockpiles of the materials were found and destroyed. Recurring threat Since the end of the war, Saddam is thought to have been rebuilding his chemical and biological arsenal, and this time, he is considered by some more likely to use it. "A lot of gulf war vets are furious about this," said Joyce A. Riley, a registered nurse and spokeswoman for the American Gulf War Veterans Association in Versailles, Mo., who has mostly recovered from a muscular illness she attributes to her service during the war. "They know the problems these guys are walking into." When he was sent into the desert before the start of the war, Wadzinski said, his job -- as a loadmaster on the bulky C-130s -- was to fly around the region gathering supplies the U.S. military had buried and deliver them to where they were needed. Later, he certified misfired U.S. Patriot missiles before they were shipped back to the Department of Defense. Before his deployment, his military records show, Wadzinski was vaccinated against a host of diseases and infectious agents, including anthrax and botulism. Some service members have reported receiving 13 shots at a time. While in the theater of operations, Wadzinski said, he swallowed as many as 70 more pills the military provided as protection against nerve gas, taking another each time an alarm went off indicating the presence of gas. By the time he got home, he had recurring rashes on his arms, chest and legs. Later, the headaches began, followed by chronic fatigue and joint and muscle aches. First, he said, the military said it had no proof he had ever served in the gulf. When he produced records of his own, he said, the doctors told him his problems were in his head. He took early retirement in 1994, after 18 years of service. He took a job as an emergency services worker, which made good use of his frenetic nature. Then, in December 1997, he showed up for work one day with eyes as gold as Krugerrands. His liver was failing. A transplant Christmas Eve saved his life, but he says he lives in constant pain. In his flyboy prime, he ran 12 miles a week and lifted weights regularly. Now, at 42, he's barely able to raise the black leather satchel filled with paperwork detailing his fight to get the military to take responsibility for his illness. Quest for truth Jim E. Brown of Gastonia gave up that battle long ago. He doesn't seek treatment at Veterans Affairs medical centers, and he doesn't get VA disability payments, which top out at $2,200 a month for veterans found 100 percent disabled. When he feels like working, he uses his energy searching out government documents and disseminating what he and others find through Gulf Watch, which he founded in 1991 to advocate for gulf war veterans. For instance, he said, the group has acquired copies of mission logs detailing the destruction of a chemical-weapons storage facility near Khamisiyah, Iraq, which the U.S. government only recently acknowledged. The Pentagon has said the explosions might have exposed 101,000 troops to sarin and mustard agents. Brown, who said his work with the 514th Maintenance Company, part of the 10th Mountain Division out of Fort Drum, N.Y., brought him in contact with intelligence sources throughout the government, said Gulf Watch has learned that although U.S. officials know what kinds of toxins are in Saddam's arsenal -- the United States supplied some of them during friendlier times -- the U.S. military has never updated its equipment to adequately protect against them. Dustborne and airborne agents can permeate most of the suits and masks soldiers are given to pull on in case of a chemical or biological attack, Brown said, and by the time current sensors warn of the presence of toxins, some soldiers already will have been exposed. Military gets ready Lt. Col. Cynthia Colin, a defense press officer, said in a statement that the military has stepped up its protective measures. "Since the gulf war, the Defense Department has advanced its chemical and biological defense capabilities particularly in the areas of chemical and biological agent detection, biological vaccines, nuclear/biological/chemical reconnaissance and protective masks and suits. We have modern chemical and biological detectors that did not exist ten years ago that provide significant improvements over their predecessors. "The Army has a fleet of reconnaissance vehicles and trained operators that can cover an entire theater. We have a strong ongoing vaccination effort and have replaced all former protective masks with better-fitting and less constrictive masks in addition to procuring a new protective ensemble for all forces. "These measures have significantly improved the joint force's ability to survive and sustain operations in a chemical and biological warfare environment." Brown doesn't think it will be enough. "We weren't prepared in 1990, and we're even less prepared now," he said. "We know we are not up to the task of defending against this stuff, yet the people in charge are sending us anyway." Randy Hebert of Emerald Isle, who has been diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's Disease that government doctors have attributed to his service during the gulf war, is more supportive of the Bush administration's stance. So is his wife, Kim, who looks after Randy now that he cannot care for himself. But she, too, worries about what awaits the next desert deployment. "I think we're probably more ready than we were the first time, because we know now what [Saddam] is capable of, and what's out there. But as a wife, I fear for other men," she said. "I cringe to think anybody would come home like my husband did." Staff writer Martha Quillin can be reached at 829-8989 or marthaq@newsobserver.com. The News &Observer Publishing Company is owned by The McClatchy ***************************************************************** 26 Ailing lab workers are sick of waiting Tri-Valley Herald Sunday, November 10, 2002 - 10:15:27 AM MST Ernesto Archibeque in the living room of his home in Pojoaque, N.M. hooked up to 200 pounds of oxygen, a week's supply. Archibeque is one of the current and former employees of the nation's nuclear weapons laboratories, plants and testing sites across the nation who have filed more than 34,000 compensation claims with the Department of Labor in connection with radiation sickness and other illnesses they incurred while working with toxic substances for the government. Toby Jorrin - Photos Rep. Tauscher, other lawmakers propose legislation to speed up compensation process By Lisa Friedman - WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON - Ernesto Archibeque, 73, can't talk long. He's hooked up to 16 liters of oxygen, his body ravaged by decades of exposure to asbestos and toxic solvents. After three decades working as a janitor at the University of California-managed Los Alamos National Laboratory where he routinely handled poisonous cleaning agents, Archibeque's lungs have all but deteriorated. So too, he fears, have his chances of seeking redress. ``We did the dirty work there at Los Alamos. We went into the radiation areas, all kinds of things,'' Archibeque said in a telephone interview from his home in Pojoaque, N.M. ``So far, nobody has done nothing.'' Archibeque is one of thousands of former nuclear workers still waiting for the government to do what it said it would - compensate the men and women who became sick making Cold War-era bombs at facilities like New Mexico's Los Alamos and California's Lawrence Livermore national laboratories, and weapons plants across the country. Now a group of lawmakers, including Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Alamo, has introduced legislation aimed at fixing some of the problems - from foot-dragging at the highest levels of the Department of Energy to a basic inability of the agency to pay nearly half its claims. Former workers, many of them elderly and in frail health, say they just hope Congress acts before its too late. ``I told these politicians, I would like to have help now when I'm alive, not when I'm dead,'' Archibeque said. Signed into law in October 2000, the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program was created to compensate nuclear workers whose on-the-job exposure to toxic substances made them sick. Since then, about 53,000 people have applied for help. According to the most recent admissions from the Department of Energy, about 19,000 of those claims - from California and across the country - remain unanswered. At the root of the problem, workers and activists said, is a poorly designed program that creates two different paths toward compensation. One goes through the Department of Labor. That route was designed specifically for workers suffering from exposure to radiation, beryllium and silica. Workers whose claims are approved are entitled to medical care and $150,000. So far the Department of Labor has won high marks from activists who praise the agency for working quickly through claims. Of a total 34,214 requests for assistance, the Department of Labor already has approved 5,265 and denied 2,934. In all, the agency has paid out $3.4 million. Of that, $450,000 has gone to three Livermore lab employees. Another 14 of the 71 Livermore employees who applied for compensation have been approved for medical aid and are awaiting payment. None came forward to talk with ANG Newspapers about their experiences. In the meantime, another group of ailing former employees who were sickened by a range of toxic chemicals other than radiation - asbestos, mercury, freon or nitric acid, for example - are having a much harder time obtaining compensation. They are on a different track because their ailments fall short of those specifically designated for compensation, like radiation cancer. Instead, they suffer from a host of unexplained illnesses - kidney disease, lung cancer, mysterious blistering hives and skin rashes, violent coughing spasms, vision loss and immune deficiencies to name a few. They have been ordered to seek redress through the Department of Energy, which in turn is supposed to help them obtain state workers' compensation. So far, none of them has seen a dime. And almost all of the cases are still piled up at the Department of Energy waiting for replies. By the DOE's own admission, only six of its 19,000 claimants - including 94 from California - have even been sent before an panel of physicians. The physician panel is charged with deciding if a claim has merit. If doctors make a positive determination, a worker can then - theoretically, at least - obtain compensation. But Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., pointed out that at the rate the Energy Department is going, it will take 166 years for sick nuclear workers to see financial help. ``The slow pace is unacceptable and must be improved,'' he wrote in an Oct. 24 letter to Secretary Spencer Abraham. Beverly Cook, the Energy Department's assistant secretary for environment and safety, said rather than being blamed for inefficiency, her agency should be praised for helping the Department of Labor move quickly. ``They couldn't have paid anybody anything if we hadn't been aiding them,'' she said. "I want to make sure that these people are taken care of as they should be," Cook said of the estimated 600,000 sick nuclear workers covered by the law. But, she stressed, processing sick worker claims "is a very lengthy process ... I'm not expecting miracles." Filimon Casados, 71, isn't expecting miracles either. He's just hoping that his former co-workers at Los Alamos, where he worked in electrical maintenance for 35 years, will hear something, anything, soon. ``They've been dragging their feet over here. Any more and a turtle can outpace them,'' he said. ``It's nerve-racking.'' Casados, who suffers from beryllium sensitivity, is - if such a thing can be said - one of the ``lucky'' ones. His claim went through the Department of Labor and is in the final stages of the bureaucracy. But, he said, ``People in Livermore, people in other parts of the country, their cases are still in limbo.'' Under the legislation proposed by Rep. Ted Strickland, D-Ohio and Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., and co-sponsored by Tauscher, the Department of Energy would be stripped of its obligations to help workers obtain compensation. Instead, Congress would create a uniform claims process that would work entirely through the Department of Labor. ``We need to have a more uniform claims process. It should be something that works for people, Tauscher said. Added Richard Miller, a policy analyst for the Government Accountability Project watchdog group who helped write the original law, ``This hasn't taken a priority at DOE.'' ``The Department of Energy is in the business of making nuclear weapons and cleaning up after them,'' he said. ``The Department of Labor is competent to run a program like this. The DOE is not competent.'' The problem at the Department of Energy extends beyond its massive backlog. According to activists and lawmakers, even if the agency was processing claims at a clip it would be unable to pay anything to anyone. That is because many of the nuclear workers were not technically federal employees, but rather contractors. Therefore, in most cases, the DOE has no authority to pay their claims outright. The University of California, which manages both Livermore and Los Alamos national laboratories, is self-insured. Theoretically, that means that the Energy Department could direct the university to pay any approved claims. However, UC has only been self-insured for the past 20 years. What that means for workers who claim illnesses acquired before 1980 remains unclear. ``I don't have a simple answer,'' said UC spokesman Jeff Garberson. ``Cases that may come up will be covered on a case-by-case basis.'' The process is further complicated in other states like Ohio, Nevada and Washington whose contractors receive worker compensation insurance by paying into state-run insurance funds. In those instances, the DOE also has no authority to instruct the state funds to pay compensation claims. Ultimately, this means that for thousands of nuclear workers, even the acknowledgement of independently appointed doctors that their work for the government made them sick is no guarantee that the government will ever do a thing about it. ``The law did not give us the authority or the money to override state workers compensation,'' Cook acknowledged. She declined to comment on the proposed legislation but said the agency is working with companies to devise mechanisms that will let them pay contract employees. Under the proposed bill, the Department of Labor would become the willing payer of benefits approved by the DOE - thereby eliminating an Energy Department role that lawmakers said the agency wasn't fulfilling in the first place. It also would set 180-day time limits for DOE to process a claim so that workers are not waiting indefinitely to learn their fate. ``It just cuts through and treats everybody equally. It eliminates the disparity,'' said Miller. Finally, the legislation adds lung cancer to the list of diseases that automatically are eligible for $150,000 compensation. The Senate version of the bill goes even further, adding work-related mercury disease and kidney disease to the list as well as lung cancer. The legislation is not expected to move until next year. And while workers said they are pleased lawmakers are trying to improve the system, many said they also are bitter that their path toward compensation is still so difficult. Ben Ortiz, 64, said he has suffered from severe respiratory failure since the 1970s along with vision loss and chronic insomnia - symptoms he attributes to working as a mechanical technician for 20 years at Los Alamos handling solvents with little protection. Ortiz, who has been on medical leave since 1988, is still waiting for the government to acknowledge its role in his failing health and compensate him for it. Changes to the current law, he said, can't come fast enough. ``We went to work in good faith and really enjoyed our jobs,'' Ortiz said. ``That has been taken away from me. I never had the opportunity for a full retirement.'' Contact Lisa Friedman at lisafriedman@angnewspapers.net [lisafriedman@angnewspapers.net] ©1999-2002 by MediaNews Group, Inc. and ANG Newspapers ***************************************************************** 27 Nuclear worker claims in Bay Area Tri-Valley Herald Sunday, November 10, 2002 - 9:38:07 AM MST The Department of Labor's occupational illness program said the agency decided not to build a resource center in California because ``there was not one central, large population of DOE (Department of Energy) employees.'' The labor department recently released to ANG Newspapers the status of all 253 claims filed by employees of California facilities, which are listed below: Arthur D. Little Co., San Francisco Facility description: Under contract to the Atomic Energy Commission from 1948-1956, initially as the Merrill Co., A.D. Little researched the separation and recovery of uranium from various ores. Specific work included the recovery of uranium and vanadium from alkaline carbonate leach solutions from domestic ores. Claims filed: 0 California Research Corp., Richmond Facility description: Using small amounts of plutonium and uranium, the California Research Corp. performed experiments to investigate ways of separating plutonium and zirconium from uranium. The California Research Corp. performed the work as a subcontractor to the Kellex Corp., which was under contract to the Atomic Energy Commission to investigate waste recovery methods. Claims filed: 2 Status: Both referred to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health Dow Chemical Co., Pittsburg Facility description: The Dow operation involved process studies and experimental investigations on different uranium ores and thorium-bearing ores, including pilot-scale solvent extraction of uranium from phosphoric acid. Claims filed: 28 Status: 4 claims approved; 1 denied; others still under consideration Total compensation paid: $300,000 General Electric Vallecitos, Pleasanton Facility description: In 1958, General Electric constructed four hot cells for postirradiation examination of uranium fuel and irradiated reactor components. Claims filed: 10 Status: 6 have been referred to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health; others remain under consideration Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley Facility description: Since the early 1930s, the University of California has leased the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to the Department of Energy for a wide range of energy related research activities, including research in nuclear and high energy physics, accelerator research and development, materials research, and chemistry, geology, molecular biology and biomedical research. Claims filed: 15 Status: 0 claims approved; 4 denied; 6 referred to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health; others under consideration Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore Facility description: The Atomic Energy Commission established the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory as a facility for nuclear weapons research. The Department of Energy (DOE) owns the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Main Site and Site 300; DOE and the University of California jointly operate the sites. Claims filed: 171 Status: 17 claims approved; 15 claims denied; others under consideration Total compensation paid: $450,000 to 3 claimants Sandia National Laboratories, Livermore Facility description: Sandia National Laboratory-Livermore was established in 1956 to conduct research and development in the interest of national security. The principal emphasis was on development and engineering of the parts of nuclear weapons outside the warhead physics package. Claims filed: 9 Status: 1 claim approved; 1 claim denied; 4 claimants referred to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health; others under consideration Total compensation paid: $0 Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Palo Alto Facility description: The Stanford Linear Accelerator Center is owned and operated by Stanford University under contract with the Department of Energy. The Stanford Linear Accelerator Center was established in 1962 as a research facility for high energy particle physics. Claims filed: 7 Status: 0 approved; 1 denied; 4 referred to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health; others under consideration Stauffer Metals Inc., Richmond Facility description: Stauffer performed electron beam melting tests on uranium metal for National Lead of Ohio (Fernald). The company had performed similar tests for Hanford, Wash. Claims filed: 0 University of California, Berkeley Facility description: Gilman Hall, on the University of California-Berkeley campus, was the site of nuclear research involving plutonium and uranium. These activities were conducted during the 1940s, first in support of the OSRD and then for the Manhattan Engineer District and Atomic Energy Commission. Claims filed: 24 Status: 0 approved; 2 denied; 9 referred to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Source: Department of Labor Note: About 19,000 claims have also been filed with the Department of Energy. DOE officials say they can not determine how many claims come from each facility, or the status of those claims. ©1999-2002 by MediaNews Group, Inc. and ANG Newspapers ***************************************************************** 28 NRC study warns of 500-mile radiation spread THE JOURNAL NEWS: A Gannett Suburban webpaper [http://www.thejournalnews.com] --> By ROGER WITHERSPOON THE JOURNAL NEWS (Original publication: November 10, 2002) A catastrophic meltdown in the spent fuel pool of a nuclear power plant could cause fatal, radiation-induced cancer in thousands of people as far as 500 miles from the site, according to a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission study. The analysis of spent fuel pool meltdowns also states that millions of people within such a 500-mile zone might have to be evacuated for periods ranging from 30 days to one year and that people living within 10 miles of a nuclear plant, such as Indian Point in Buchanan, might never be able to return to their homes. It also cites the potential for "prompt fatalities" from radiation poisoning that would occur in areas close to a plant site, where many radioactive particles would be expected to fall. The extent of possible radiation damage described in the NRC documents is far more severe than anything that federal, Westchester County or Indian Point officials have disclosed in public forums or written statements mailed to thousands of residents in Westchester, Rockland, Putnam and Orange counties. The agency's assessments are contained in a special report prepared by experts within the NRC and the Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M., in October 2000 that was designated as an official NRC planning regulation in February 2001. A copy of the report was obtained by The Journal News. The study has been criticized by nuclear industry representatives who say it reflects a worst-case scenario based on unrealistic assumptions and ignores the effectiveness of plant safety systems. Michael Slobodien, director of emergency programs at the site for Entergy Nuclear Northeast, which owns Indian Point 2 and 3, said even if an accident did occur at Indian Point's spent fuel pool, the facility had the ability to control the situation and prevent the release of radiation into the atmosphere. "This is a generic report and is not applicable to Indian Point," Slobodien said. "It neglects the Indian Point design features, and I cannot accept the premise of a meltdown and fire in the spent fuel pool when it comes to Indian Point. You cannot set up a case where it can happen at Indian Point." Sandia laboratories maintain a computer simulation system that enables the NRC to predict the possible spread of radiation from any of the nation's 103 nuclear plants based on their location, geography and area population densities and the prevailing or seasonal weather patterns within hundreds of miles of the sites. Damage assessments — including the number of prompt fatalities, long-term cancers, affected population centers and durations of evacuations for specific areas — can then be estimated for any region of the country. Within 500 miles of Indian Point, there are nearly 82 million people living in the United States and 11 million in Canada. The report provides the basis for any future NRC regulations on evacuation needs, safety requirements and insurance and compares the possible damage caused by a spent fuel pool meltdown with that of a meltdown in a fully operational nuclear reactor. It was developed to show the NRC what types of problems could occur in spent fuel pools when nuclear plants are shut down, at which point no new fuel rods would be placed in the pools, and how long they might pose a danger from a meltdown and fire. The potential spread of contamination cited in the report far exceeds the 10-mile zone the nation's nuclear plants currently utilize in developing emergency evacuation plans. NRC and Indian Point officials said the evacuation plans are intended to deal only with short-term radiation poisoning, which is not likely to occur outside the 10-mile zone. The report was pulled from the NRC's public database following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks because, agency spokesman Neil Sheehan said, "if a terrorist decided to attack any plant in the U.S., not just Indian Point, that is information about what fatalities it could cause, and the exact knowledge of that could be very advantageous to them." The information was returned to the database in April, however, because it is an official regulation governing spent fuel pool operations and must be accessible to plant operators. The report states that analysts did not base their findings on "events due to sabotage. No established method exists for estimating the likelihood of a sabotage event. Nor is there a method for analyzing the effect of security provisions on that likelihood." Instead, analysts examined various accident scenarios, ranging from worker mishaps to plane crashes into a spent fuel pool building. The report concluded that while the probability of such accidents is extremely low, the impact of a meltdown would be enormous. The protection and disposition of spent fuel is a national problem. Every two years, plants such as Indian Point replace a third of the nearly 100 tons of fuel used in their reactors with new fuel. The spent fuel at Indian Point 2 and 3 is stored in pools of water 40 feet deep, and both are nearing their storage limit. The federal government is developing a permanent repository for spent fuel under Yucca Mountain in Nevada, which is expected to open around 2010. The uranium fuel used in reactors has a zirconium coating that permits nuclear reactions to occur but helps prevent the fuel from literally burning up and being dispersed into the atmosphere. The cooling water in the reactor and the spent fuel pools keep the temperature low enough that there is no danger of fire. The internal heat of the nuclear fuel drops over time, and after about five years spent fuel rods can be removed from the pools and stored in dry casks that are air cooled. It had been thought by plant operators that there was little chance of a zirconium fire in fuel that was out of a reactor for at least five years. As a result, nuclear plant operators were not required to have emergency evacuation plans for events involving spent fuel pools, even though the pools hold hundreds of tons of radioactive material, far more than is used in the reactors. The NRC was considering industry requests to reduce insurance requirements for pools containing only older fuel. But the report states that a zirconium fire still can occur 30 years after fuel rods are removed from a reactor, as significant an accident as a worst-case reactor-core meltdown, and that the danger of cancer-causing, radioactive contamination would not significantly decrease at least for that long. The report assesses the effects of a fuel fire that would be triggered if water were completely or partially drained from spent fuel pools. Cesium-137, which is among the radioactive particles that could be released into the atmosphere, is the primary cause of long-term cancers, according to the NRC study. In that regard, cesium-137 is more significant than radioactive iodine. Westchester, Rockland, Putnam and Orange county officials have distributed pills to residents living within 10 miles of Indian Point as a possible protection against thyroid cancer induced by the radioactive iodine. Current evacuation plans approved by the NRC for Indian Point are based on the premise that it would take several hours or days to reach the stage where a fuel fire would release radiation into the atmosphere. The agency's 2000 report states that a zirconium fire could erupt and begin releasing radiation within two to four hours after water was completely or partially drained from a spent fuel pool. Charles Tinkler, a senior adviser in the NRC's office of research and co-author of the report's section on meltdown consequences, said the NRC studied the effects of contamination at Chernobyl in Ukraine, which suffered a catastrophic meltdown in 1986. There is a permanent exclusion zone extending about 35 miles around the site of the former reactor. A permanent exclusion zone also would be needed following such an accident at Indian Point, Tinkler said. "I am not sure it would be comparable to the same radius as Chernobyl," Tinkler said in an interview. "We would predict that persons would be excluded from that property for the duration if they live within the 10-mile, emergency-planning zone." Tom Hinton, a radiation ecologist at the University of Georgia's Savannah River Ecology Lab, said the extent of contamination from a meltdown depends on how high the contaminants are pushed into the atmosphere, local weather conditions and the type of radioactive isotopes involved. "At Chernobyl," he said, "there was contamination spread around the world, though the majority of it was within 300 kilometers or so. Contamination depends on local weather conditions, specifically rain. If a (radiation) cloud passes over you and it is not raining, you will not get as much contamination as if it were raining. Rain scavenges contaminants out of the air and deposits them locally. That is the reason for many hotspots that occurred around Europe after the Chernobyl accident." Some radiological isotopes, such as plutonium, will stay where they land, Hinton said, while others travel through the environment contaminating plants and waterways. Officials in the four counties around Indian Point conducted a mock evacuation drill of the 10-mile zone on Sept. 24 under the auspices of the NRC and Federal Emergency Management Agency, which certifies emergency evacuation plans. Officials at the time said radiation leaking from the reactor would dissipate after about five miles and the evacuation plans would protect the public from any harmful radiation. Though the drill did not entail the scope of accident studied by the NRC and Sandia, Westchester County Executive Andrew Spano last June hosted a briefing for about 80 municipal and school officials, where they were assured there was little danger of contamination if a meltdown occurred in the reactor. Herschel Specter, a consultant for Entergy, said that 90 percent of county residents were "not at radiological risk. They may be terrified, but there is no danger." Specter said a massive release of radiation would be of short duration and do little damage. Slobodien acknowledged last week that the emergency planning zone was designed to protect the public from acute health effects, but that "the latent effects of cancer can occur far beyond that." Concurring in that assessment was James Lee Witt, former director of FEMA under President Clinton. During his tenure, Witt approved the effectiveness of emergency plans for residents living near each of the nation's nuclear power plants. In an interview last week, Witt said none of the plans deals with protecting residents from long-term radiation effects from a reactor or spent fuel pool accident. "If you are dealing with a meltdown at that level," Witt said, "you potentially have a threat to deal with that could reach beyond the 10 miles. I was aware of it. But our task has been to look at the emergency preparedness in a 10-mile radius, and that is what we were looking at." Witt, now a private emergency management consultant, was given an $800,000 contract by Gov. George Pataki to examine the effectiveness of the emergency plans for the 10 miles around Indian Point. His report is due in December. David Lochbaum, a nuclear safety analyst for the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington, D.C., said that the argument that radiation couldn't go more than five miles or so "was never accurate." "If they put the correct information out there and involved the American public and got a majority of people to agree that only those 10 miles need to be protected, that would be one thing," he said. "But for a small group of people to make a decision behind closed doors is what the Kremlin used to do, isn't it?" Tinkler, who worked on the NRC report, said the study's estimates of possible fatal cancers was based on the conservative premise that a spent fuel pool fire would release up to nine times as much cesium-137 as the meltdown at Chernobyl, and that any dose of radiation above the normal background level for a region could induce cancer at some point. "It means our figures ... represent the upper bounce," Tinkler said. "But it is not beyond the physical limits of the material involved. It provides us an outside limit for planning." A decision on how many millions of people might have to be evacuated following a real spent fuel pool fire, he said, would depend on the cost of evacuation, and what is perceived to be an acceptable death rate. "The decision would depend on what level of radiation the government decided people could receive without a significant health effect," Tinkler said. "That means some acceptable increase in the risk of cancer." Send e-mail to Roger Witherspoon [rwithers@thejournalnews.com] [http://www.thejournalnews.com/theline/] -Contact Us -914-694-9300 - Copyright 2002 The Journal News, a Gannett Co [http://www.gannett.com/] . ***************************************************************** 29 UK: LISTEN, TONY (atom victims go to parliment) sunday mirror Friday 8th Nov 2002 ATOM bomb test victims and their families are to take their campaign for justice to the heart of Parliament with a historic rally and personal plea to Tony Blair. Commons authorities have given the go-ahead for a meeting of MPs and victims of the A-bomb tests in the Grand Committee Room of the Commons. Surviving veterans of the 1950s tests, their children and grandchildren will be supported by dozens of MPs from all parties. They have backed the Sunday Mirror campaign for an independent inquiry and compensation for the victims of radiation exposure. The protest will also go to the Prime Minister's office in Downing Street where a demand for recognition of the Government's role in the tragic tests will be delivered to Mr Blair. The protest, on Monday, November 25, will come just days ahead of a Commons emergency debate on the issue. Ministers have been invited to address the meeting to explain to the veterans and their families why the Government is not honouring pledges by Cabinet members - when they were in Opposition - to offer compensation. The Sunday Mirror-sponsored rally adds further pressure on the Government to end the decades of lies over the nuclear bomb tests and the deliberate exposure of military personnel as guinea pigs to the effects of radiation. The rally will mark the biggest political step in the years of campaigning for fair treatment of the veterans. It comes as the Ministry of Defence continues to hide behind flawed and outdated surveys which claim that there is no link between the tests and cancers and deformities in those that were there and their descendants. Evidence shows that up to three generations have been affected. The political pressure on the Ministry of Defence to admit a link with the tests is growing. More than 70 MPs signed a motion congratulating the Sunday Mirror campaign and calling for a judicial inquiry. But in a letter to the Sunday Mirror, Defence Minister Dr Lewis Moonie claimed that our article last week, which showed how the Government had lied over how servicemen were deliberately exposed to radiation, was "untrue". And, apparently ignoring our study of 350 veterans and their offspring, he claimed we had produced no new evidence about the genetic effects of radiation on servicemen. Today, however, new evidence from respected medical researcher Sue Rabbitt-Roff backs up our claims. Veterans and their families who want to support the Parliamentary Rally should go to the Grand Committee Room at 4pm on November 25. For further details, call 01642 559903. c.mclaughlin@sundaymirror.co.uk ***************************************************************** 30 Nuclear Regulatory Commission Preparing to Dump More Radioactive Waste on American Public* Public Citizen through */Nov. 8, 2002/* */Stating Preference to Release and Recycle Nuclear Waste, Agency Betrays Public Trust to Support Nuclear Corporations/* WASHINGTON, D.C. ? The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission?s (NRC) recently stated preference to release and recycle radioactive wastes strongly indicates that it is more concerned with assisting the nuclear industry than protecting the public, Public Citizen said today. In a news release issued Wednesday, the NRC announced that it will press ahead in a rulemaking that could dramatically increase the volume of radioactive waste material that is dumped in unlicensed landfills and recycled into consumer goods. The NRC?s current policy allows all materials (metal, concrete, soil, etc.) to be released or recycled on a case-by-case basis. The agency is exploring allowing widespread recycling of contaminated solid materials into consumer products. While the NRC?s preference to allow the nuclear industry to disperse much of its waste has been made clear by its actions for many years, the agency is now stating it openly. In written comments submitted with his vote approving the rulemaking procedure, NRC Chairman Richard Meserve discouraged agency staff from trying to "mask the Commission?s continuing support for the release" of the waste. While the NRC?s news release attempts to put a friendly face on the process, vowing that "NRC staff will seek broad public participation and engage diverse viewpoints," Meserve?s guidance in his written comments that public "(w)orkshops are resource-intensive and expensive?and additional workshops should be limited" was not mentioned in the release and will likely compromise the public?s ability to voice objections to the plan. Additionally, Public Citizen said, it is distressing to see how dismissive the NRC has been regarding the National Academies? March 2002 report on this issue, done at the NRC?s request. This report, while not recommending that the NRC immediately halt the radioactive waste recycling program, did suggest that it take a very cautionary approach and seriously address public concerns on the issue, in part to overcome a "legacy of distrust." Instead of beginning a broad, deliberative process, as suggested by the Academies? report, the NRC is opting to proceed with a rulemaking and ignore public concerns. "The Academies? report emphasized that the NRC not prescribe an outcome on the issue and that real consideration of public input was essential," said Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook. "But in limiting public workshops and stating their preference from the get-go, it looks like they?ve already made a decision. The upcoming ?process? will most likely be a public relations maneuver and sham." The NRC claims on its Web site that its "primary mission is to protect the public health and safety, and the environment from the effects of radiation from nuclear reactors, materials, and waste facilities." The agency also agrees with the firmly established scientific tenet that "any amount of radiation may pose some risk for causing cancer and hereditary effect." With this in mind, it is particularly alarming to note NRC Commissioner Jeffrey Merrifield?s observation in his written comments on the rulemaking that "(r)ecycled solid material is different in that there is a potential that the radioactive component may be concentrated in the recycling process or that the material will be recycled in a form resulting in more actual contact with the general public." Incredibly, Merrifield goes on to say that "(it) would be nice to have a separate industry devoted to the recycling of radioactive material." "One can only assume that the NRC is not concerned about abdicating its regulatory role to protect the public and making cynical calculations of how many additional cancer deaths are ?acceptable,? " said David Ritter, policy analyst with Public Citizen?s Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program. "The agency knows that this dumping can lead to radioactive consumer products like bicycles and belt buckles. It knows that this practice is wholly unnecessary and its sole beneficiary is the nuclear industry." Both the NRC and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) are addressing the issue of nuclear waste release and recycling. The NRC has jurisdiction over commercial nuclear reactors, while the DOE oversees waste from nuclear weapons facilities and energy research facilities. The DOE also allows case-by-case release or recycle of all materials, except metals. "The American public has spoken loudly and clearly on this issue before, and that?s why Congress banned the ?Below Regulatory Concern? policy in 1992, conceding that radiation is always a concern," Ritter said. "So now, industry and the so-called regulators are trying to come in the back door via word-play, public relations marketing and outright lies. The industry refuses to accept responsibility for proper handling and disposal of its deadly waste. The only responsible action for it to take is isolate and contain it, not try to ?dilute? it by dispersing it across the country in recycled products." The NRC is scheduled to complete its rulemaking within three years. Public Citizen ***************************************************************** 31 Utah: Hansen's swan song* deseretnews.com Sunday, November 10, 2002 Jim Hansen timeline 22-year lawmaker is forging a lasting legacy *Copyright 2002 Deseret News* *By Lee Davidson * Deseret News Washington correspondent WASHINGTON ? In his 42 years of public office and 22 years in Congress, Rep. Jim Hansen says he's never had as much fun as this year. But it's about to end. Image Rep. Jim Hansen looks out from his office in the Cannon House Office Building in Washington, D.C. He's ending his congressional career with a flourish. /Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News/ The Utah Republican retires when Congress finally adjourns this year. Until then, he's having the time of his life fully flexing the muscle he's gained as one of the most senior members of the House and chairman of its Resources Committee. It has led to some bold creativity, even audacity, in his lawmaking, including: * Quietly tucking language into the annual defense bill to create 500,000 acres of wilderness in the Utah desert. Nuclear utilities were slow to realize that was really designed to block a rail spur necessary to allow a proposed nuclear repository in Skull Valley. Hansen beat them in the House before they knew they were under attack. * Making Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., an unwilling ally to help him force the sale of Martin's Cove, the Wyoming site of a handcart pioneer disaster, to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Hansen attached his controversial legislation to a Daschle bill seeking relief for South Dakota Indians. If Daschle wants that relief, Martin's Cove must also pass. * Quickly changing the House agenda, as a GOP floor manager, to pass a controversial San Rafael Swell land trade. Hansen noticed that critics were not in the House chamber. So he called for a voice vote and passed the bill before opponents could arrive and demand a recorded vote, which they almost surely would have won. "I've enjoyed this last term," Hansen says, laughing and shaking his head in delight while recounting such maneuvering. He sits in an ornate office that itself is a sign of his seniority and power. In 1906, it served as office of the speaker of the House, and it is among few offices offering a ground-level view of the Capitol across the street. Rep. Jim Hansen takes one of his last walks up the steps to the U.S. Capitol. One of the reasons he's retiring is he's "sick to death of travel." /Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News/ "It takes so long to get any clout around here, it's kind of nice to use it. I tell you one thing, it's a lot more fun to be a chairman," he says eying office decorations that show his legislative loves: paintings of Utah back country as signs of his environmental battles, and models of military craft as signs of his fights on national defense. It's the powerful end to a career that began 42 years ago in Farmington. As a 28-year-old insurance man and recent college graduate, Hansen was upset that the local water lines had little pressure. He was urged to run for the City Council to help fix it. He won and helped push for a new pumping station. "When we first threw the switch, it blew up," he says. Little else has blown up in Hansen's career. He never lost an election in a dozen years on the City Council, another eight in the Utah Legislature (serving his last two years as speaker of the House) and 22 years in the U.S. House. He's the only Utahn ever to achieve enough seniority to chair a full House committee, which he has done twice, with the resources and ethics panels. He's been in the middle of everything from investigating scandals of former House speakers to leading President Bush's fight in the House this year to allow controversial oil drilling in Alaska (winning against long odds). Some see him as the savior of Hill Air Force Base, or the top House opponent of environmental groups. He may have been destined for politics. After all, he was in the same East High School class as Sens. Jake Garn and Bob Bennett. He grew up down the street from former Gov. Scott Matheson (an older kid who gave Hansen a scar that he still points to, from an accident when Matheson chased him with a lawn mower). He says it's a ride he's thoroughly enjoyed, and one that he is now realizing changed and mellowed him somewhat through the years ? making him more likely to reach across party lines ? even if some opponents don't quite believe it. *So why retire?* "So people ask why I am quitting," Hansen says. He has some unexpected answers. Congressman Jim Hansen, enjoying the view from his office, began his political career 42 years ago. /Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News/ "The main reason is I just get sick to death of travel," he said. "I'm pushing 5 million miles now with Delta (Air Lines). I've got about 250,000 each with Continental and United. . . . I get so I can't stomach the thought of getting on another airplane." Other reasons to retire, he said, include "I didn't like what the Legislature did to me" in redistricting. It made his district more Democratic, but still strongly Republican. Still, it would have made Hansen travel more and work harder for re-election. Also, Hansen's health presented some challenges. Doctors removed some skin cancer last year. He also has had intense headaches. And Hansen's hearing has worsened. An embarrassing incident led him to wear hearing aids full time. "A couple from Texas had been great supporters of mine for a long time," he said, remembering how the wife came up to him alone at a reception. "She came up to me and said, 'Ralph passed away.' I said, 'Oh, that's wonderful!' Boy did I feel stupid. . . . So basically I wear this hearing aid all the time now." Still, Hansen looks younger and more fit than most 70-year-olds ? which led to a funny incident between him and House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas. "I announced I was going to retire, and Armey announced he was too about a week later. We were standing around in the cloak room and he said, 'Hansen, why are you retiring?' I said, 'Well, why are you retiring?' He said, 'I'm 61.' I said, 'Well, I'm 69.' "He looked at me and said, 'Really? Hell, I'm going to join the Mormon Church.' " Hansen says he isn't sure what he wants to do after retiring. "I don't know what you do when you retire," he said. "I'd like to do something that's beneficial for people. I've been in public service all my life." Still, the only specific thing he's thought about doing is following the example of his old high school classmate, Garn, and "rebuild an airplane. I'd like to find an old Super Cub somewhere because I used to fly those all the time." He noted his wife, Ann, volunteers a day a week in the Bountiful LDS Temple, and he might like to do something like that, too. Mostly, after years of much separation from her for congressional work, he says, "I may just take care of her." *Gaining power* Hansen says he never foresaw becoming the longest-serving House member ever from Utah. In fact, ironically, he once led the Coalition On Limiting Terms, which sought to limit service in the House to no more than 12 years. He now has served 22 (eight years longer than any other Utahn in the House). Photo Hansen often said that while term limits would bring new blood and views to Congress, it was silly for Utah to limit its own members until all states are forced to do so. That's because seniority decides everything from office location to committee chairmanships. So Hansen kept running and winning. He says he realized early in his political career, "The freshmen always tell you the same thing: 'I spent a million dollars of my own money, I worked for a solid year, I kissed my wife and was on the front page of the newspaper on the night I won, and after the first week of hoopla, no one even pays a lick of attention to me.' " He adds that they, as he once did, ask, "Why did I do this? I get to vote ? that's about it. Even at committee meetings, I have to wait forever to talk' " because more senior members do that first. Things changed big time for Hansen in 1994 when Republicans won control of the House for the first time in 40 years. He became chairman of a subcommittee ? on national parks and public lands in the Resources Committee. Two years later he would become the first Utahn to chair a full committee, but one he did not want: ethics. It had just suffered a partisan meltdown over penalties for relatively minor ethics violations against House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Hansen had earlier served 12 years on that committee as a favor to GOP leaders and had been in the middle of numerous high-profile investigations, including one that led to the resignation of former House Speaker Jim Wright, D-Texas. Armey, the GOP majority leader, said, "With full knowledge that he had already done his time, I went to Jim again. . . . I told him he had established personal standards of conduct that are beyond question," and was among few who both parties would trust after the meltdown over the Gingrich probe. Armey says that even now, GOP leaders still turn to Hansen to handle tough and distasteful chores ? often giving him the gavel during expected nasty floor debates on controversial issues. For example, he presided over debate on the recent expulsion of Rep. James Trafficant, D-Ohio. Trafficant taunted Hansen and other members. Hansen remained calm ? only lightly reminding him when salty language had breached House rules. *Using power* By agreeing to such undesirable work, Hansen won support to become Resources Committee chairman two years ago and receives other favors from House leaders. For example, it helped him this year to quietly include in the annual defense bill some highly unusual language to create 500,000 acres of wilderness in and near the Utah Test and Training Range. No one realized at first that what Hansen did was block a rail spur needed for a controversial nuclear waste repository proposed for the Goshute Reservation. Killing the spur would kill the repository. Nuclear utilities didn't even realize the threat until the bill passed the House. It is currently one of the sticking points in House-Senate negotiations in what should be included in the final, compromise bill. Hansen has also used seniority on the Armed Services Committee and friendships to help Hill Air Force Base, one of Utah's largest employers. He continually won money through the years to beef up its facilities and missions to help it survive base closure battles. Hansen also used it to stop Bill Clinton from sidestepping base closure commission orders in 1995 to shut down air bases in California and Texas that competed with Hill for survival. Clinton tried to win election-year favors in those big states by keeping their work in place with private contractors. But Hansen convinced Armey ? the majority leader from Texas, where one of the bases was located ? to help him. In sports terms, that would have been like convincing Michael Jordan to leave the Chicago Bulls and play for the Utah Jazz in the NBA finals. Armey wrote the law that created the base closure procedure and sought to keep it free from politics. Hansen convinced him that Clinton abused it and threatened to ruin the process for the future. So Armey joined Hansen, at the expense of the Texas base. Hansen has wielded his power most often on issues relating to public lands. "I like to think that I have saved the environment from the environmentalists," he said. He's used some trickery, including calling for a voice vote on a San Rafael Swell land exchange when he saw critics were not on the House floor ? passing it before they could return and object. He's attached some controversial measures to popular bills to try to move them through the Senate. That brings both disgust and admiration from Larry Young, director of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. "It shows just how powerful a chairman that Hansen is. When you add to it that he is the third-ranking member on Armed Services, it will be a long time before Utah has someone in federal office with similar power." But Young says, "A lot of these issues will be back next year, and opponents will be more energized. . . . Any Utah land trades (for state school trust lands) will receive much higher scrutiny now. Bruised feelings are going to come back and hurt people." Nevertheless, a recent Deseret News/KSL-TV poll found 69 percent of Utahns say Hansen's legacy in Congress should be viewed as positive. *Lessons learned* Hansen says he is a changed man from when he was first elected to Congress 22 years ago. Early on, he was often rated among the most conservative of all House members. He now is often seen as relatively moderate among House GOP leaders. Hansen says experience has mellowed him. "You learn how to compromise here. When I say that, all my right-wing friends groan and say, 'You have given up your principles.' No, you learn you're not going to get a full loaf. You learn to be tolerant of other people's viewpoints." Included in that, Hansen says, is that many of his best friends now are Democratic members of Congress. "I look at my friend (Rep.) Howard Berman (D-Calif.). Here is a labor lawyer, liberal Jewish boy from California, and he's my best friend." Rep. Nick J. Rahall, D-W.Va., ranking Democrat on the Resources Committee, also praises the more mellow Hansen. Rahall said that before Hansen took over that committee, "It was bitter acrimony. . . . People were huffing and puffing and leaving the room. Well, Jim Hansen took over. Believe you me, he has brought a leadership to our committee that has been calm, cool, collective reasoning." All of that is much different than Hansen's early years ? when he was famous for tantrums. He hung up on a radio interview when asked questions he disliked. Twice in his career, he refused to talk to the Deseret News for months after being asked questions that he thought besmirched his character. In recent years, he has managed usually to get along with the reporters he had sparred with earlier. The only time he still seems to get his dander up is when talking about the Senate, which he constantly derisively calls "The House of Lords." "They don't seem to do anything over there except get their faces on TV. We do the work. They get the glory. Everything is bottled up over there." Still, Hansen says that after 22 years in Congress, "I hope I'm more tolerant of other people's viewpoint. I hope I'm not as outspoken. I hope I'm a better listener." He adds, "Serving in the Congress has been a high privilege. . . . I will miss it, and the people here. Over the years you share so much with them, that it will be very hard to leave those guys. This year especially has been nice ? probably the best." /E-mail: leed@dgsys.com / © 2002 Deseret News Publishing Company ***************************************************************** 32 DOE hedges on 2028 deadline This story was published Fri, Nov 8, 2002 By John Stang Herald staff writer Hanford won't make its 2028 legal deadline to get rid of all of its tank wastes unless it adds new technology beyond conventional glassification, Bechtel National figures say. About two-thirds of Hanford's 53 million gallons of tank wastes will have to be neutralized by some undetermined method for the Department of Energy to make the deadline, the figures said. Washington's Department of Ecology officials worry about the trend. "There's been this slow erosion of DOE's commitment to (glassify) all the tank wastes," said Suzanne Dahl, Ecology Department tank waste disposal project manager. DOE, contractors and state officials briefed the Hanford Advisory Board on Thursday. The briefings addressed a fundamental question that DOE, Bechtel, the state and everyone else has not yet settled as Hanford builds its huge waste glassification complex: What exactly will DOE and Bechtel put inside the complex to glassify and otherwise neutralize all that radioactive waste? This question expands to: How many high-level radioactive waste melters should be installed? How many low-activity waste melters should be installed? and What else should be installed to tackle the rest of the wastes? A melter mixes and heats glass flakes and wastes to create a cylinder of glassified wastes. Hanford's master plan had called for one high-level waste melter and three low-activity waste melters. Now DOE is pushing for two high-level waste melters and two low-activity waste melters to help it make a Tri-Party Agreement legal deadline of 2028 to remove and neutralize all of Hanford's tank wastes. Ron Naventi, Bechtel's glassification project manager, outlined the dilemma facing Hanford's 11 million gallons of high-level tank waste and 42 million gallons of low-activity wastes in its tanks: -- With one high-level and three low-activity melters, 8 million gallons of high-level wastes and 26 million gallons of low-activity wastes would be left in 2028. This has a tentative $5.6 billion cost estimate to build and test. -- If Hanford later doubled those melters, it would have 6 million gallons of high-level wastes and 17 million gallons of low-activity wastes left by the deadline. A cost estimate has not been calculated. -- With two high-level melters and two low-activity melters, 7 million gallons of high-level wastes and 27 million gallons of low-activity wastes would be left. DOE wants to do this for $5.6 billion or less. -- With, two high-level melters and three low-activity melters, 6 million gallons of high-level wastes and 15 million gallons of low-activity wastes would be left. No cost estimate has been calculated. DOE and Bechtel want to go with two high-level melters and two low-level melters to tackle 19 million gallons of wastes with some new technologies and possibly a third melter to tackle the remaining 34 million gallons. "My goal is to meet that 2028 date," said Roy Schepens, manager of DOE's Office of River Protection. All this brings into play four proposals to neutralize the remaining waste. One method is to remove sulfur-laced chemicals from the low-activity wastes because sulfates don't bind well with glass in the melting process. Consequently, a glass cylinder heavily laced with sulfates would contain little actual wastes. Another potential method would use chemicals and extreme heat to turn some low-activity wastes into pebble-sized crystals. Cementlike grout plus glassifying some wastes with portable electrodes in their containers also are being considered. Hanford's master plan calls for glassification to be in full operation by 2011 with the supplemental technologies running by 2010. Lab tests are under way on the supplemental technologies with the first complete set of information scheduled to be ready by August 2003. DOE does not expect to nail down the actual technologies until 2005 or later. DOE also is considering another option. It believes there are almost 1 million gallons of transuranic wastes in 10 tanks. At an undetermined date, DOE hopes to convert those liquid and sludgy wastes into something solid with the right chemical properties to be shipped to an underground storage site in New Mexico. This plan is still in its infancy. No cost figures have been calculated for the supplemental technologies. However, DOE and Bechtel believe shipping transuranic tank wastes to New Mexico can save $800 million by eliminating two years worth of glassifying wastes. "This is a pig in the poke. The poke is the supplemental technology. A second pig in the poke is the transuranic wastes. ... With pigs inside these bags, it adds uncertainty," said HAB member Tim Takaro, representing the University of Washington. Dahl said DOE has three past attempts to build a glassification complex, each time deciding to do something else after the state agreed to support a proposal. This year, DOE is again trying to change the long-term plan from what the state agreed to, she said. The state does not object to DOE exploring supplemental technologies. But the state is worried about DOE trying to lock in the bulk of its efforts on undetermined technologies that the state has not reviewed or approved, Dahl said. The state agreed in February to consider possibly using supplemental technology to tackle 12.6 million gallons of the low activity wastes -- much less than the 21 million to 34 million gallons of high-level and low-activity wastes to be addressed by new technologies in DOE's most aggressive scenarios. The state supports a combination of two high-level melters and three low-activity melters as a minimum, plus any new technologies that pass muster, Dahl said. Copyright 2002 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This ***************************************************************** 33 Protesters prepare for nuclear convoy Saturday, November 9, 2002 Posted: 1805 GMT The convoy carrying nuclear waste arrives in Gorleben in November 2001 *GORLEBEN, Germany --* *Several thousand anti-nuclear protesters have begun the start of their planned opposition to a shipment of nuclear waste to a dump in northern Germany.* The activists, who were joined by around 100 farmers and their tractors on Saturday, gathered for a rally near to the site at Gorleben where the shipment of 12 containers of reprocessed waste is expected to arrive within days. The shipment is making its way from a reprocessing plant at La Hague in France. Police estimated that 2,200 people took part, while organisers put the figure at more than 4,000. Anti-nuclear activists argue that neither the waste containers nor the dump, at a disused salt mine, are safe. The shipment is the first since last November when demonstrators repeatedly defied over 17,000 police to stage sit-down protests on the rails and the road along the route through Germany of 80 tonnes of nuclear waste. Up to 270 were arrested and almost 100 other were treated for injuries. As on previous occasions, authorities have banned demonstrations along the final stretch of the route to Gorleben during the shipment itself. Nuclear power is a controversial issue in Germany, where government and industry agreed last year to gradually to phase out all reactors by around 2025. Germany sends its nuclear waste to France and Britain for reprocessing, but has been slow to take it back for storage because of political wrangling over where to store it and safety issues over shipping it across Europe. Previous shipments have been hit by violence and disruption from Germany's anti-nuclear lobby. Germany resumed waste shipments last year, following a three-year break imposed by the previous government after radioactive leakage was discovered in some containers. *© 2002 Cable News Network LP, LLLP.* An AOL Time Warner Company. ***************************************************************** 34 German Nuclear Dump Faces Protest Las Vegas SUN November 09, 2002 ASSOCIATED PRESS GORLEBEN, Germany- Several thousand anti-nuclear activists joined about 100 farmers on tractors Saturday to protest a forthcoming shipment of nuclear waste to a dump in northern Germany. The demonstrators, whistling and beating drums, gathered for a rally a few hundred yards from the dump at Gorleben, where the shipment of 12 containers of waste from a reprocessing plant at La Hague in France is expected to arrive in midweek after a trip across France and Germany that starts Monday. Police estimated that 2,200 people took part, while organizers put the figure at more than 4,000. Anti-nuclear activists argue that neither the waste containers nor the dump, at a disused salt mine, are safe. The latest shipment is the first since last November, when demonstrators repeatedly defied police to stage sit-down protests on the rails and the road along the shipment's route through Germany. As on previous occasions, authorities have banned demonstrations along the final stretch of the route to Gorleben during the shipment itself. Spent fuel from Germany's 19 nuclear power plants is sent to France and Britain for reprocessing under contracts that oblige Germany to take back the waste. Germany resumed waste shipments last year after a three-year break imposed by the previous government after radioactive leaks were discovered in some containers. Also last year, the government and power companies signed an agreement to phase out nuclear power within about 20 years. Anti-nuclear activists hope that protests against the shipments will push up the security bill and force a quicker shutdown. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 35 Federal court to hear three major Yucca Mountain suits together Las Vegas SUN November 09, 2002 ASSOCIATED PRESS LAS VEGAS (AP) - At the request of lawyers for the state of Nevada, a federal appeals court has agreed to hear three major Yucca Mountain lawsuits together. At the same time Thursday, the court agreed to have the same three-judge panel consider all three suits challenging federal plans to build a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Oral arguments on the cases are scheduled for September 2003 before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. The three lawsuits will remain separate but will be argued during the same week, the court said. Nevada officials praised the court's decision, saying they wanted the same judicial panel to weigh all three lawsuits rather than assign them to different teams. "We didn't want any one panel to hear any one of the cases without seeing how appalling the other cases were," said Joe Egan, a Virginia lawyer who heads Nevada's Yucca Mountain legal challenge. Nevada officials also wanted the same panel to hear all three major lawsuits together rather than spread them out over a period of months. "With simultaneous consideration of our three cases, the court will be in a position to address all the administrative failings identified across all three cases," said Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa. U.S. Justice Department attorneys opposed the idea. They argued it would delay decisions in two of the cases that already had been set for oral arguments in February and May. Egan said the new schedule could allow the court to decide the legal merits of Yucca Mountain by the end of 2003. In a related matter, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is nearing the end of an investigation into allegations by Nevada officials that they were kept out of the loop on Yucca Mountain meetings between NRC and Energy Department staff. NRC spokeswoman Sue Gagner said the findings of the investigation would be given to agency Chairman Richard Meserve, but declined to provide further details. Del Papa charged that NRC and Energy Department staff members held private meetings to discuss the Nevada nuclear waste project without proper notification to state officials and the public. Gov. Kenny Guinn this week plans to make a radio advertisement to tell Nevadans he will continue the battle against Yucca Mountain. "If we negotiate now, we give up our rights to fight this travesty in the courts," Guinn will say in the ad. Plans call for the ad to be broadcast if the nuclear power industry runs its own ads urging Nevadans to give up the Yucca Mountain fight and negotiate for benefits. A spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute said the industry has no plans to run any such ads. Information from: Las Vegas Review-Journal All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 36 K Basins leak prompts questions on safety This story was published Sat, Nov 9, 2002 By John Stang Herald staff writer Radioactive water seeped out of a spent nuclear fuel container and contaminated a truck at Hanford, leading state and federal officials to question ongoing safety procedures. No people were exposed to radioactivity in the Oct. 24 incident, but the Environmental Protection Agency sees this as a series of continuing troubles transporting and processing K Basins fuel, said EPA official Larry Gadbois. The K Basins are two leaky indoor pools holding tons of spent nuclear fuel within yards of the Columbia River. Fluor Hanford already has moved more than a third of the fuel to an underground vault at Hanford. Fluor declined to discuss the incident. But Department of Energy officials disagree with the EPA's interpretation of the ongoing problems. Larry Early, DOE's operations and maintenance manager for the project, says performance has been improving at the K Basins, where fuel movement is complicated and detailed. The recent problem started when a container lid was not on as tightly as it should have been when it was bolted shut. Then when helium was pumped into the container to prevent dangerous radiological and chemical reactions, contaminated water dribbled out. Fluor employees cleaned up the contaminated water, but missed some that had seeped between the bottom of a shipping cask and the cradle that holds the cask in a truck. That water was not discovered until the cask reached the storage vault. The water was laced with radioactive cesium, which binds to metal, so the cask's bottom and the truck's cask-carrying cradle are probably permanently contaminated. "This was not a health risk. This was a procedural violation that resulted in contamination escaping," Gadbois said. The EPA sees the incident as a symptom that it does not want escalating into more serious problem later and wants more emphasis on preventing them, he said. Early did not agree with the extent of Gadbois' contention, but said DOE and Fluor are working on ensuring the incident is not repeated. Copyright 2002 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This ***************************************************************** 37 NRC probes complaints about Yucca meetings reviewjournal.com -- News: Saturday, November 09, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal By STEVE TETREAULT STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is investigating allegations by Nevada leaders that state officials were kept out of the loop on Yucca Mountain Project meetings between NRC and Energy Department staff. The investigation is nearly complete, NRC spokeswoman Sue Gagner said Friday without providing further details. She said the findings of the investigation would be given to agency Chairman Richard Meserve. It was not clear whether the findings would be made public. Nevada officials said they were contacted by an investigator on staff to NRC Inspector General Hubert Bell several days after Nevada Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa sent a complaint to Meserve on Sept. 18. Del Papa charged that Energy Department and NRC staff members were holding private meetings to discuss the Nevada nuclear waste project without proper notification to state officials and the public. She questioned whether the practice might violate regulations meant to ensure that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is an impartial judge of the Energy Department's efforts to develop a high-level radioactive waste repository at the Yucca Mountain site 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Bob Loux, head of the state Agency for Nuclear Projects, said the NRC wanted to discuss the allegation. Subsequently, Charles Fitzpatrick, one of the state's nuclear waste lawyers, said he was interviewed Oct. 4 at NRC headquarters in Rockville, Md., by investigator Cheryl Montgomery White. Neither White nor an investigations supervisor in the inspector general's office replied to phone messages left Friday. Del Papa sent a similar letter to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, but the matter has not been referred to Energy Department Inspector General Gregory Friedman, a spokeswoman said. Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., raised the same issues in letters to Meserve and Abraham last month. Del Papa said she made the inquiry after Energy Department officials at a September public meeting in Las Vegas made reference to communications with the NRC that didn't ring a bell with state officials. Loux, his staff and state-hired consultants closely monitor the Yucca project in an effort to expose flaws in the program. At the meeting, Yucca Mountain Project head Margaret Chu said the Energy Department had made commitments to the NRC on five aspects of the repository program, according to the state's complaint. Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002 Stephens Media ***************************************************************** 38 Federal court to hear three major Yucca Mountain suits together At the request of lawyers for the state of Nevada, a federal appeals court has agreed to hear three major Yucca Mountain lawsuits together. At the same time Thursday, the court agreed to have the same three-judge panel consider all three suits challenging federal plans to build a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Oral arguments on the cases are scheduled for September 2003 before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. The three lawsuits will remain separate but will be argued during the same week, the court said. Nevada officials praised the court's decision, saying they wanted the same judicial panel to weigh all three lawsuits rather than assign them to different teams. "We didn't want any one panel to hear any one of the cases without seeing how appalling the other cases were,"said Joe Egan, a Virginia lawyer who heads Nevada's Yucca Mountain legal challenge. Nevada officials also wanted the same panel to hear all three major lawsuits together rather than spread them out over a period of months. "With simultaneous consideration of our three cases, the court will be in a position to address all the administrative failings identified across all three cases,"said Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa. U.S. Justice Department attorneys opposed the idea. They argued it would delay decisions in two of the cases that already had been set for oral arguments in February and May. Egan said the new schedule could allow the court to decide the legal merits of Yucca Mountain by the end of 2003. In a related matter, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is nearing the end of an investigation into allegations by Nevada officials that they were kept out of the loop on Yucca Mountain meetings between NRC and Energy Department staff. NRC spokeswoman Sue Gagner said the findings of the investigation would be given to agency Chairman Richard Meserve, but declined to provide further details. Del Papa charged that NRC and Energy Department staff members held private meetings to discuss the Nevada nuclear waste project without proper notification to state officials and the public. Gov. Kenny Guinn this week plans to make a radio advertisement to tell Nevadans he will continue the battle against Yucca Mountain. "If we negotiate now, we give up our rights to fight this travesty in the courts,"Guinn will say in the ad. Plans call for the ad to be broadcast if the nuclear power industry runs its own ads urging Nevadans to give up the Yucca Mountain fight and negotiate for benefits. A spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute said the industry has no plans to run any such ads. Information from: Las Vegas Review-Journal © Copyright Reno Gazette-Journal, a Gannett ***************************************************************** 39 Yucca: What lies beneath? Sunday Herald The fight is on to halt a planned US nuclear waste dump beneath a sacred mountain, says Environment Editor Rob Edwards, reporting from Nevada Deep in the Nevada desert by the flanks of Yucca Mountain stand a cedar pole, a sweat lodge and a circle of stones. It is a place sacred to the Western Shoshone Indians, who gather there every year to perform their ritual cleansing. On Friday morning it was being blasted by a merciless wind from across the vast, dry plains to the southwest, presaging a storm. But it was not the weather that Kalynda Tilges feared, as she trod carefully amongst the stones; it was nuclear waste. 'What they are doing here is a crime of international proportions,' she said. 'With full knowledge, they are in the process of creating something that has an incredibly high potential for genocide.' If the Bush administration has its way, Yucca Mountain is destined to become the dumping ground for all the radioactive waste from the USA's nuclear industry. But unfortunately it stands in the centre of a field of volcanoes. According to scientists commissioned by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, an eruption under the mountain would cause a devastating explosion which would spew huge lethal radioactive clouds into the air. More than 35,000 people live within a 50-mile radius of Yucca Mountain. The contamination would not only threaten their health but could spread round the world, warned Tilges, the executive director of the Shundahai Network, a Western Shoshone group campaigning against the waste dump. 'This could wipe out large numbers of people,' she said. 'We are talking about the largest dirty bomb ever.' The eyes of the world are on Yucca Mountain because it could become the planet's first fully-fledged underground repository for nuclear waste. Power companies in Europe and Britain are hoping it will blaze a trail that other countries can follow. What to do with nuclear waste, some of which remains dangerously radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years, has always been the biggest problem for the nuclear powers. Many decision-makers, like the Scottish Executive, conclude that new plants should not be built until the problem has been solved. So, to ensure its future, the nuclear industry has become increasingly anxious to find a solution. Now most of its hopes are pinned on Yucca Mountain, which was given the go-ahead by President Bush in February and then by Congress in July. Successfully disposing of waste at Yucca will, says US Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, 'promote our energy security by removing a roadblock to expanding nuclear power'. And if it works in the US, the argument goes, why can't Britain and other countries do the same? The US Department of Energy (DOE) has been studying Yucca Mountain, a long, featureless ridge 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, for the last 20 years, spending $7 billion in doing so. It is now preparing a licence application for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, with the aim of accepting its first delivery of waste before the end of 2010. By the time the repository is closed more than a century later it will have cost a massive $58 billion, according to the DOE, making it the biggest public sector project in history. Tunnels drilled through the rock will be filled with at least 77,000 tonnes of waste in specially strengthened steel containers. Even the DOE accepts that in the worst-case scenario a volcanic eruption could blow the mountain apart and shower Nevada with radioactivity -- though it doesn't believe the consequences would be as dire as Tilges predicts. According to Dr Michael Voegele, a senior DOE adviser, there is a good chance of an eruption in the area in the next 10,000 years. Eight volcanoes have erupted within 30 miles of Yucca Mountain in the last one million years. There is also a risk of earthquakes. 'Nevada is the second most seismically active state in the US after California,' said Voegele. 'There have been 40,000 seismic events here in the last 10 years.' Nevertheless he drew comfort from evidence that no earthquake in the last 600,000 years has been strong enough to shift the rocks which cling to the steep sides of Yucca Mountain. Voegele, chief scientist with the DOE Yucca Mountain Project, said he was also reassured by the numerous experiments that he claims show it will take at least 10,000 years for any leaking radioactivity to reach local water supplies. The people most at risk are the farmers of the Amargosa Valley, 14 miles away, including the Ponderosa Dairies, the biggest in Nevada, which supplies milk to 30 million people on the west coast. Much of it is organic. Nevertheless, Voegele argued that Yucca Mountain was a safe place to put nuclear waste and he was confident that the DOE would win a licence to open it. 'We gotta do this,' he told the Sunday Herald last week in a research tunnel 1000 feet under Yucca Mountain. But his confidence may turn out to be misplaced. Although it has the backing of the federal government, the waste repository is still fiercely opposed by the Nevada state government, which has taken legal steps on five occasions to try to stop it. Steve Frishman, the state's technical policy coordinator, believes such attempts will one day succeed and force the abandonment of the project. Frishman argued that the way the DOE was going about the project blatantly contradicted the law. Alternative sites had been ruled out without proper consideration, the science had taken second place to politics, and powerful, more populated states had held more sway in Congress than Nevada. 'We're a victim of the tyranny of the majority,' he said. 'We've got a politically expedient solution that isn't safe.' Transporting the waste from 77 nuclear sites through 43 states to Yucca Mountain would bring it within half a mile of 50 million people, Frishman estimated. In one year there would be as many nuclear shipments across the US as there had been in the last half century, hugely increasing the probability of accidents. Over the past 15 months the credibility of the DOE's case for Yucca Mountain has been seriously undermined by three government agencies. The assumptions on which it is modelled 'mask a realistic assessment of risk', according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste. The General Accounting Office said the DOE would miss the deadline for its licence application because it will take 'several years' to resolve many technical issues. And the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board concluded that the technical grounds for estimating how the repository would perform were 'weak to moderate'. Conveniently, the mountain happens to be on the 12,000 square mile testing range in Nevada where Britain and the US exploded nuclear warheads until a worldwide ban in 1992. The site, which features such alluring place-names as Plutonium Valley and Skull Mountain, is now used for the purposes of chemical and biological warfare research. The federal government claims to own the land but this has long been disputed by the Western Shoshone, who regard it as their traditional homeland. They say it was stolen from them when they were unlawfully evicted in the 1950s . They are demanding its return . For John Wells, the southern representative of the Western Shoshone National Council, making the area into a radioactive waste dump would be the final insult. 'We will seek every means within our power to stop this happening,' he said. 'With the Nevada testing site we have already done more than our fair share for the country.' In many ways the Yucca saga is reminiscent of the prolonged fiasco that led to the cancellation of Britain's nuclear waste disposal programme five years ago. Plans for an underground 'rock laboratory' at a farm near the Sellafield nuclear complex in Cumbria were rejected by the then Conservative government because of 'scientific uncertainties and technical deficiencies'. It is difficult in retrospect to avoid the conclusion that Sellafield was initially selected more for political reasons than scientific ones. And that, in the end, was its downfall. Nirex, Britain's nuclear waste agency, is now desperately anxious not to make the same mistake again. The country has just embarked on a lengthy and exhaustive consultation process with the aim of identifying options for disposing of waste by 2007. This has brought Britain into conflict with the European Union, which wants member states to decide on waste burial sites by 2008, and then to bring them into operation by 2013 for low-level waste, and by 2018 for high-level waste. John Mathieson from Nirex accepted that it would be impossible for Britain, under its current plans, to meet the EU's timetable. No decision has even been taken on whether underground burial is the best method of disposal or not. The solution preferred by environmentalists -- to keep storing the waste in tanks above the ground at the nuclear sites where it was created -- has not been ruled out. However, most policy-makers clearly favour some form of underground disposal, though at the moment they have no idea where. I t is no wonder, then, that the nuclear industry was sufficiently interested in what is happening at Yucca Mountain to fly a party of journalists (including one from the Sunday Herald) to Las Vegas to tour the site last week. What it perhaps didn't bargain for was the strength of local opposition to the proposed dump. Opinion polls show that more than 80% of people in Nevada are against it. One of its few supporters, as the DOE's Yucca Mountain Project manager, Russell Dyer, wryly remarked, is the madam in charge of the nearby brothel in Pahrump, who is hoping for more business from workers. Even if the legal challenges under- way by Nevada state fail to halt the project, it is bound to face escalating direct action from local people. More than 30 protesters have already been arrested for trespassing onto the site. Kalynda Tilges vowed that when the first truckload of nuclear waste left for Yucca Mountain she would be sitting down in front of it. 'In the past they have done nothing but lie to us, contaminate us and kill us,' she said. 'I am going to do my best to stop them doing that again.' ©2002 smg sunday newspapers ltd. no.176088. all rights reserved. contact ***************************************************************** 40 UK fails nuclear waste test Sunday Herald By Rob Edwards, Environment Editor BRITAIN will fail to meet new European targets for disposing of radioactive waste, the nuclear industry has admitted. Last week the EU Energy Commissioner, Loyola de Palacio, proposed a directive that would require all member states to decide on waste burial sites by 2008. They would then have to bring them into operation for low-level waste by 2013, and for high-level waste by 2018. But the British government has only just embarked on an exhaustive consultation exercise, which is not due to finish until 2007. Even if that succeeds in identifying a site, it will probably take several years before it is given planning permission and then several more before it is actually built. Nirex, Britain's radioactive waste agency , says presently there is no way the country can keep up with the EU timetable. Nirex has estimated that there will be 200,000 cubic metres of medium-level waste from nuclear facilities to dispose of over the next 50 years. The agency had compiled a list of at least nine sites which were viewed as possible contenders. Despite being abandoned, this list has never been published. U nder Nirex's new policy of openness it would like to release the list but has been forbidden from doing so by the Department of Trade and Industry, who claim it would serve no purpose. Every country with nuclear reactors is facing difficulties in disposing of the waste they inevitably create. T he United States has recently given the green light to plans for a repository in the Nevada desert, though it has provoked fierce opposition. ©2002 smg sunday newspapers ltd. no.176088. all rights reserved. contact ***************************************************************** 41 Germany: RWE to operate first on-site nuclear waste storage Planet Ark : GERMANY: November 11, 2002 FRANKFURT - German utility RWE said last week it had obtained approval to operate an on-site interim storage for nuclear waste at its Emsland reactor in northern Germany. The approval is the first for one of 12 such sites which will hold German nuclear waste for up to 40 years prior to it going into a final repository. Under a nuclear consensus deal between the German government and power industry in 2000, utilities said they would build the sites to avoid the unpopular atomic waste transports. "KKW Lippe-Ems, majority-owned by RWE, today received the approval for an interim site at the Emsland nuclear reactor in Lingen...from the federal authority for the protection against radiation (BfS)...," RWE said in a statement. "The storage of (CASTOR) nuclear storage containers will start in due course." "The facility will help to secure the disposal of waste from Emsland until the government has met its obligation to provide a permanent repository." "Construction of other interim sites will be probably be completed by 2005." Construction of the 25 million euros ($25.28 million) site which can hold 130 CASTOR containers took 18 months. A permanent storage site has yet to be chosen for use after Germany shuts all its nuclear plants, which under the consensus deal is due by the early 2020s. The utilities have to build the interim sites at costs of around 25 to 50 million euros each, although central storage sites at Gorleben and Ahaus could hold all of the nuclear waste until final decommissioning of Germany's 19 nuclear plants. But the costs to police transports to the two central sites exploded in the past because of large demonstrations by anti-nuclear protestors, who cite safety risks. Some groups say they aim to disrupt transports in order to force operators to pull out of nuclear power production sooner. Utilities may have nuclear waste reprocessed abroad, but this covers only 10 percent of present waste volumes and may only take place until 2005. REUTERS NEWS SERVICE [http://www.reuters.com] ***************************************************************** 42 AU: Diggers in Iraqi plans Herald Sun: [11nov02] By RICK WALLACE UNITED States war plans likely to include elite Australian SAS troops in an invasion of Iraq have been approved by the Bush Government. And Australia's Defence Minister Robert Hill yesterday suggested our SAS troops in Afghanistan could be brought home. "There's no doubt that Afghanistan is moving towards the next phase, which is really an emphasis on reconstruction," he said. "That really is separate and distinct from the issue of any engagement in Iraq, although it would be difficult for us to have special forces in Afghanistan and Iraq." US newspaper reports claim the Bush Government has settled on plans for a short, sharp air bombardment, followed by an invasion of up to 250,000 allied troops by land, air and sea. US and coalition forces would quickly establish bases in Iraq as the invasion gathered force, a New York Times report said. The bases in northern, western and southern Iraq would alleviate the need for pressuring neighbouring Arab nations into volunteering their territory as a springboard for the attack. Once US forces are established, they would "encourage" local military officials and scientists to tell where to find any hidden weapons of mass destruction. "Our message will be that the faster we find the weapons and arrest Saddam's guys, the faster they get normalcy," a senior military official told the Times. "While we would not want to kill many Iraqi soldiers, if they stupidly fight, we will." Britain is expected to this week announce it is preparing 15,000 troops for a ground war in Iraq if diplomacy fails. The ALP's foreign af fairs spokesman Kevin Rudd yesterday questioned the focus on Iraq, saying North Korea was a bigger threat to Australia. "They have enriched uranium (for nuclear weapons). They are also in the process of developing an intercontinental missile," he said. "Now contrast that with Iraq, where at present we have no evidence of enriched uranium within Iraq and we have no evidence yet of Iraq developing a missile capability of that magnitude or of that range." © Herald and Weekly Times ***************************************************************** 43 Scott Ritter: If Israel uses nuclear weapons it will be destroyed The former chief UN weapons inspector made his comments in a “Globes” interview. Gil Tamari, Washington 10 Nov 02 17:08 Former chief UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter sharply criticized US President George W. Bush’s intention to attack Iraq. “I don’t fear Iraq, but I fear US policy toward Iraq,” said Ritter in an interview that will be published in the upcoming “Globes” weekend supplement. “Saddam Hussein does not constitute a threat to our [US] national security. He is a terrible man, a brutal dictator who represses his people, but that is not a sufficient reason to sacrifice the lives of American soldiers. Until we have proof that Saddam is threatening US national security, there should be no talk of war.” Ritter says the talk about a possible Israeli retaliation with non-conventional weapons was very dangerous, and the use of such weapons could lead to Israel’s destruction. “There is no better way to ensure Israel’s destruction than its use of nuclear weapons,” said Ritter. “The moment Israel uses its nuclear card, Arab countries will not stop until they get the Bomb and drop it on Israel. If you think a nuclear bomb on Baghdad will prevent Iran from dropping a nuclear bomb on Tel Aviv, you’d better think again.” Ritter believes that the way to prevent Iraq from getting weapons of mass destruction is through an effective inspections regime and not regime change. Commenting on Israel’s concerns about an Iraqi attack, Ritter said, “The idea that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction and would use them against Israel has been disproved. Israel knows exactly the degree to which Iraq’s arms have been dismantled. Israeli intelligence estimated in 1998 that Iraq had no more weapons of mass destruction and that the arms inspection regime was an effective tool. “Even Israel ought to prefer that inspectors return to Iraq, so that weapons will continue to be dismantled. Dismantlement serves Israel’s security interests far more than war. Such a war would be the first step in US aggression that will ignite instability throughout the Middle East. There is no greater threat to Israel than regional instability, which would bring Islamic fundamentalism to power in moderate countries.” Ritter attaches great importance to Friday’s UN Security Council resolution. “It makes it clear to Iraq that the international community is united in its demand to allow inspectors to return.” However, Ritter says, “I am bothered by the US interpretation of the resolution. I am convinced that the Bush administration is determined on regime change in Iraq, and they see the Security Council resolution as a tool that will lead to a military blow. I fear that the administration will use the inspectors as an excuse to go to war.” It should be pointed out that Scott Ritter acknowledged, in an interview with CNN on September 13 this year, that he received $400,000 in funding from a US citizen of Iraqi origin for a documentary film he made about Iraq. Allegations have been brought that the provider of the finance for the film is a Saddam Hussein sympathizer. Ritter himself denies any link between the financing of the film and Saddam Hussein. /Published by Globes [online] - www.globes.co.il - on November 10, 2002/ Globes Scepia ***************************************************************** 44 Trigger factory sets off debate Augusta Georgia: Metro: Web posted Saturday, November 9, 2002 at 11:03 p.m. EST By Eric Williamson [eric.williamson@augustachronicle.com] South Carolina Bureau AIKEN - The Bush administration says it needs to build new plutonium-based triggers for nuclear weapons to ensure the future reliability of the nation's arsenal. To deter a strike by another country or group, the Defense Department states in its most recent Nuclear Posture Review, "infrastructure must provide confidence in the reliability of the nuclear stockpile." To that end, the Department of Energy has started the process for construction of a new triggers plant, known as a Modern Pit Facility, and Savannah River Site is among the contenders. Environmental and anti-nuclear activists say new production of the pits, spherical triggers that are inserted into warheads, is an unnecessary proliferation gamble. They say the government has not made a case for the need. "The Cold War is over," said Louis Zeller of the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League. He was among the outnumbered protesters at last month's public meeting in North Augusta. "If there is an analogous situation here, I don't see it. We flattened Afghanistan in a matter of weeks. And Iraq? Our military budget is more than the next 20 nations combined." Mr. Zeller points out that the government, by its own admission, doesn't have accurate predictions on the reliability of aging triggers. The thousands of deployed and stored warheads could work fine - or simply create "a little bit less destruction," Mr. Zeller said. Tests meant to simulate the effects of aging on the pits will continue, and project officials say the $2 billion to $4 billion facility could be scaled back or scrapped if research shows that existing triggers can be considered reliable for longer than a few decades. Douglas B. Shaw, an international relations professor at George Washington University in Washington, was an appointee of President Clinton who served in the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. He agrees with the government's approach. "Maintaining the United States' ability to service and produce nuclear weapons is necessary for the foreseeable future," he says. But he says the United States is sending mixed signals to the rest of the world. "We advocate nuclear nonproliferation for others while U.S. officials make statements - such as the suggestion we might use nuclear weapons first in a conflict - that are flatly in variance with our own nonproliferation agreements," Mr. Shaw said. The exact number of pits the plant would produce, between 125 and 450 a year, likely will be influenced by the upcoming outcome of the Moscow Treaty. The U.S.-Russia treaty, if ratified, would cut deployed arsenals to between 1,700 and 2,200 warheads each. The two nations now have about 6,000 deployed warheads each. Although the treaty appears to be a positive nonproliferation move, critics say it lacks strong verification measures. HOW TO COMMENT The Department of Energy is accepting comments on the possible placement of a nuclear triggers plant at Savannah River Site and its potential environmental impact. Mail comments to James "Jay" Rose, NA-53, 1000 Independence Ave. S.W., Washington, DC 20585. Mr. Rose also will accept comments via e-mail at James.Rose@nnsa.doe.gov [James.Rose@nnsa.doe.gov] or by fax at (202) 586-5324. The deadline is Nov. 22. Reach Eric Williamson at (803) 279-6895 or eric.williamson@augustachronicle.com [eric.williamson@augustachronicle.com] . --From the Sunday, November 10, 2002 printed edition of the Augusta Chronicle [http://www.augustachronicle.com/faq/copyright.html] 1996 - 2002 The Augusta Chronicle. All rights reserved. Read our privacy ***************************************************************** 45 Boise company set to build atomic accelerator *11-10-2002* POCATELLO ? A Boise company will build a $1.3 million atomic accelerator for its own use at Idaho State University´s Accelerator Center. Officials said the addition is certain to attract other high-technology industries and will bring millions of dollars to the Pocatello economy. Steve Bolen, president of Positron Systems, Inc., said his company will use the accelerator to check for internal defects in metal airplane and power plant parts. University scientists will advise the company about design ideas, and the university will have access to the accelerator. The facility eventually will employ up to 30 engineers, technicians and physicists. ?Some of the great things that happened in Silicon Valley in California were a direct result of the accelerator at Stanford. This is going to be a facility on the level of Stanford,? Pocatello Mayor Roger Chase said. ?As you start bringing in companies that have technology on the leading edge, that tends to attract others.? The Pocatello Development Authority donated $400,000 to build a shielded cell to house the accelerator. The Regional Development Agency is considering giving money for the accelerator. ?This is another significant advance for the Accelerator Center, which is rapidly becoming one of Idaho State University´s identifying activities,? ISU President Richard Bowen said. The company expects to break ground by late spring and complete the project within a year. The Idaho Accelerator Center has operated since 1994 in partnership with the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory and the Department of Energy. Accelerators are used to study subatomic particles. Last month, Gov. Dirk Kempthorne announced a $400,000 grant to expand the Idaho Accelerator Center at Idaho State University. The money comes from the fund the state got as part of its 1995 nuclear waste cleanup agreement with the federal government. Bolen said his company has contracts with Rolls Royce, Bechtel, the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory and a host of other agencies and companies. Edition Date: 11-10-2002 These polls are an unscientific sample of our online users. - Suggest a question ***************************************************************** 46 DOE set to retry pit-sealing technology Process resulted _in accident in 1996 By Frank Munger, News-Sentinel senior writer November 10, 2002 OAK RIDGE - The U.S. Department of Energy is reviving a technology that turns nuclear waste pits into glass, even though a 1996 pilot project resulted in a costly, embarrassing accident and was never completed. DOE and its environmental contractor, Bechtel Jacobs Co., are making plans to use "in situ vitrification" to permanently seal two high-radioactivity waste trenches near Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The effort is part of the government's accelerated cleanup campaign in Oak Ridge. A contract will be put out for bid next year, and most of the work will take place in 2004 and 2005. The technology relies on powerful electrodes to melt the waste and surrounding dirt, with temperatures reaching 2,600 degrees Fahrenheit. As the molten mass cools over many months, it forms a resistant glass similar to obsidian. ISV is supposed to seal the radioactive constituents inside for thousands and thousands of years, keeping hazardous materials out of the groundwater and reducing the danger to humans. Oak Ridge officials said they are confident the project can be completed without a repeat of the steam eruption that occurred six years ago. The 1996 incident spewed 20 tons of molten, radioactive glass into the air. No one was hurt or seriously contaminated at the time, but project workers acknowledged that was due more to good luck than good planning. "You can't give a 100 percent guarantee it won't happen again," said Bob Sleeman, an environmental manager with DOE's Oak Ridge office, "but we can take a lot of actions to minimize the possibility of it happening, and that's what we will do." Sleeman said additional measures will be taken to protect workers at the site in case of an accident. Greg Eidam, a Bechtel Jacobs projects manager, said much has been learned from the 1996 demonstration that went afoul. Plus, the waste technology has improved in recent years, he said. "ISV has come a long way," Eidam said. During the earlier Oak Ridge test, a pressurized bubble of steam developed from water trapped in the melting zone. The powerful bubble raised the protective hood and belched molten glass into the air - showering the immediate area with radioactive shards and hot gas. Four members of the project team were nearby at the time, but no one was hurt. The accident caused an estimated $500,000 in damage to the equipment and rendered much of the ISV apparatus unusable. After a lengthy evaluation, DOE and its contractors decided not to complete the $15 million demonstration. But, six years later, the Department of Energy plans to use ISV to stabilize two other trenches where large amounts of liquid nuclear waste were poured into the ground during the 1950s and '60s. The targeted trenches are two of the most radioactive sites on the Oak Ridge reservation. David Adler, a team leader at DOE, estimated that waste containing about 1 million curies of radioactivity was buried in the two 100-yard-long trenches. Eidam said further research suggests the waste trenches received "only" about 640,000 curies - still an extraordinary amount of radioactivity. Among the nuclear elements in the waste were ruthenium, tritium, strontium and cesium. Those elements have varied half-lives, but much of the radioactivity should have dissipated over the past few decades due to the decay process. Eidam said each trench currently has a radioactivity level of about 150,000 curies. The old trenches are slowly leaking their contents into the area's groundwater, making a remedial project essential. However, because of the high radioactivity, DOE and its contractors were reluctant to excavate the wastes pits and relocate the material elsewhere. Such a project might expose workers to dangerous levels of radiation. Environmental planners also rejected capping the burial grounds or grouting them with concrete, saying those measures would be ineffective over the long term. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation agreed to use in situ vitrification as part of the overall cleanup strategy for the Melton Valley area near ORNL. That was included in the official "record of decision," which legally enforces the cleanup requirements. John Owsley, who heads the state's environmental oversight office in Oak Ridge, said he believes ISV is a proven technology for selective uses. He said he supports the plan to glassify the old trenches at ORNL. Unlike the 1996 test pit, which was saturated with water at the time of the demonstration, the two trenches selected for the upcoming melt are at the top of a hill - well away from the water table. "They're high and dry, and they shouldn't have any problem," Owsley said. Eidam noted, "These are perfect candidates for ISV." While regulators concurred with DOE's strategy, one activist was upset to learn that in situ vitrification was returning to Oak Ridge. "That's the most outrageous thing I've ever heard," said Ralph Hutchison, coordinator of the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance. The alliance closely monitored the 1996 waste demonstration, and Hutchison said DOE promised him that the group would be informed if any future use of ISV was considered. "Their last experiment was catastrophic, and if somebody had been on the hood when it happened they very likely would have been killed," he said. The earlier test involved only a small amount of radioactive material, Hutchison said. A similar accident on two heavily loaded pits could have enormous consequences, he said. The proposed ISV project will cost about $29 million. Eidam said that's at least three times cheaper than what it would cost to dig up the old nuclear waste, repackage it and dispose of it elsewhere. ISV uses massive amounts of electricity, Eidam noted, adding, "TVA will love us." Apparently, Geosafe Inc., which was involved in the 1996 test, is the only company in the United States currently available to conduct such a project. Eidam said that poses a bit of a concern from a competition standpoint, but he said Bechtel Jacobs plans to explore all options - including the availability of European firms with expertise. Susan Gawarecki, executive director of the Local Oversight Committee, which reviews environmental issues for local governments in the region, said plans for using the waste-to-glass technology are worthwhile. Gawarecki said future projects can be designed to avoid earlier problems. "It looks like they should be able to do it without trapping the groundwater," she said. "They've learned some lessons and made good progress." Gawarecki said it bothers her that critics are unwilling to give emerging technologies a chance to work. "People think everything should work perfectly the first time it's tried. That's not the nature of research and development. You go in and constrain the test the best you can and look at the results. Then you go back and fix things so they work better." Frank Munger can be reached at 865-482-9213 or twig1@knoxnews.infi.net. Copyright 2002, Knoxville News-Sentinel Co. ***************************************************************** 47 Cry for more outreach at Livermore lab Tri-Valley Herald Sunday, November 10, 2002 - 9:36:29 AM MST Critics say facility needs resource center to inform employees By Lisa Friedman - WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON - Two years after the federal government vowed to help sick nuclear workers, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory still has no special office to help people obtain compensation. Just 171 claims, or .5 percent of all the ones filed with the Department of Labor have come from Livermore lab, and activists said that's because the government hasn't done enough outreach at California's nuclear weapons design facility. ``It's the single largest facility in the country that does not have a resource center,'' said Richard Miller, a policy analyst with the nonprofit watchdog Government Accountability Project. He described the number of claims from Livermore as ``paltry'' compared to the number filed from other, smaller facilities. But Department of Energy spokesman John Belluardo said the compensation program has been well-publicized in employee newsletters, fliers and a March 2002 field hearing. The real reason fewer claims stem from Livermore lab than other facilities, he said, is that fewer of its workers were ever exposed to toxic substances. ``Livermore is not really a production facility,'' Belluardo said. ``Livermore lab employees were not exposed to the same hazardous materials,'' as the men and women who helped build Cold War-era bombs at places like the government's uranium plant in Paducah, Ky., or the now-shuttered uranium facility at Oak Ridge, Tenn. Since the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program was signed into law in October 2000, the Department of Labor has fielded 34,214 claims from former employees or their survivors who believe they were made sick by on-the-job exposure to toxic substances. Those whose claims are approved are eligible for medical assistance and $150,000 compensation. So far, the Department of Labor has approved 17 claims from Livermore lab, paying $450,000 to three people. Far more has been done at other facilities. At Los Alamos National Laboratory, for instance, former employees and survivors have filed 1,230 claims for assistance. The agency has approved 20 of them, paying $1.3 million. At Rocky Flats, the Colorado former nuclear production facility, 1,215 claims have been filed. The agency has approved 117, paying a total of $9.7 million. And the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant has filed a whopping 2,350 claims and has seen 390 payouts - a total of $62.7 million. Activists insist the common denominator is that those facilities all have resource centers and Livermore lab does not. ``Putting to paragraphs in the employee newsletter does not satisfy the information requirement,'' Miller said. Countered Livermore lab spokeswoman Susan Houghton, ``We have tried to promote this as much as possible.'' As to the smaller number of claims, she said, ``We should be happy, because that means less people are ill. I would think that would be a good thing.'' Roberta Mosier, deputy director of the Department of Labor's occupational illness program said the agency decided not to build a resource center in California because ``there was not one central, large population of DOE employees. It wasn't a suitable location.'' Between Livermore lab, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratory, the Bay Area labs employ more than 15,000 people. She said a three-day hearing at Livermore lab in March produced only 43 claims. ``Given that we didn't have a huge response at that point in time, we haven't gone back there,'' she said. But shortly after making these statements to ANG Newspapers, Mosier's office called back to announce they had scheduled a second trip to the Bay Area in an attempt to help workers with claims. The hearings will be over four days in December. On Dec. 2 and 3, federal officials will be at the Four Points Hotel by Sheraton on Hopyard Road in Pleasanton, and on Dec. 4 and 5 they will be at the Oakland Marriott (City Center) in Oakland. Miller praised the decision to have another session to help workers in California, but maintained it still did not make up for the lack of a permanent resource center. He also rejected the argument that fewer Livermore employees became sick because the facility was cleaner, saying ``There was a ton of manufacturing done at Livermore ... it's anything but pristine.'' Stewart Tolar, who manages Paducah's resource center, said he believes the work his office does has a lot to do with the number of claims filed there - an average, he said, of 40 to 50 each week. ``People ask us things like, `Do I qualify?' or `I got this letter from DOE and I don't understand it,' or `How do I get medical records,'' Tolar said. ``We're the face of the program. We're the first face they see.'' Tolar noted that both the Energy and Labor departments provide toll-free numbers so employees anywhere can ask for help. But, he said, ``A lot of our clientele are elderly. It gets confusing sometimes.'' Of Livermore, he said, ``Would they do better if there were a resource center there? Perhaps. Having a place here, it probably makes it easier for people.'' April Boyd, spokeswoman for Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Alamo, said the congresswoman is concerned that Livermore lab does not have a resource center and supports establishing better outreach there. Boyd said the absence of a resource center ``probably'' accounts for the smaller number of claims filed there. But, she added of the disparity, ``You also have very famous cases coming out of Paducah that generate awareness there.'' In addition to Paducah, Los Alamos and Rocky Flats, the government also has resource centers in Anchorage; Idaho Falls, Idaho; Las Vegas; North Augusta, S.C.; Oak Ridge, Tenn.; Portsmouth, Ohio, and Richland, Wash. Said Mosier, ``We do not have plans at this time to put a resource center in California.'' Contact Lisa Friedman at lisafriedman@angnewspapers.net [lisafriedman@angnewspapers.net] ©1999-2002 by MediaNews Group, Inc. and ANG Newspapers ***************************************************************** 48 Surprise as top (LLL) lab manager resigns The Oakland Tribune Sunday, November 10, 2002 - 3:10:51 AM MST Security, budget on John McTague's reform agenda at Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos By Ian Hoffman STAFF WRITER A former Ford Motor Co. executive drafted to rescue the nation's nuclear weapons-design labs from mismanagement and security scandals has asked the University of California to find his replacement. John P. McTague's departure as UC vice president for lab management raised eyebrows and mixed reviews at Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos national laboratories that were the focus of his attention. U.S. Energy Department officials, UC officials and Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Alamo, heaped praise on McTague for improving management of the labs. Tauscher thanked him for his "service in what is undoubtedly a tremendous assignment -- managing 18,000 of the world's smartest men and women ... while keeping the work environment open and ensuring strong accountability." McTague led a UC campaign to reverse its labs' painful record on worker safety, information security and projects such as the National Ignition Facility that missed its budget by more than $1 billion and its construction dates by years. In mid-October, the Energy Department's defense arm -- the National Nuclear Security Administration -- gave top marks to Los Alamos and Livermore for safety, security, accountability and project management, among others. "They agreed that we had done everything that was expected," McTague said by phone. Anticipating the high grades, McTague told UC president Richard Atkinson of his plans to leave. Atkinson asked him to keep those plans quiet for a while longer. "It's clear that John's leadership and private sector experience have led to real changes in the day-to-day management of the labs," Atkinson said Friday of his friend, whom he personally brought to UC offices in Oakland as a reformer a year and a half ago. Lab officials who dealt with McTague were less effusive. "He didn't personally do anything. He just kept harping on us," said one senior executive. "Certainly he was focused on those performance measures, (but) that is all he did." McTague's notice of resignation, which is effective once the university finds a successor, comes six months after he committed what is widely seen inside the laboratories as an egregious blunder: He advanced a Los Alamos weapons executive over insiders for the directorship of Lawrence Livermore. It was an audacious, if perhaps naive, effort to morph a sibling rivalry spanning three generations into a new cooperation. Livermore scientists took to the phones and air waves in protest, suggesting Los Alamos candidate Ray Juzaitis was tainted beyond consideration by the Wen Ho Lee security scandal, a matter over which Juzaitis had dubious direct responsibility. He withdrew his candidacy, however, and the university turned to a popular Livermore weapons designer, Michael Anastasio, as director. The incident embarrassed Atkinson and top officials of the Energy Department and both labs. To an extent, its effects countered McTague's desire to bring the labs together by deepening their historic rift. McTague suggested Friday that those wounds are healing, however. "The cooperation among the labs is at a historic high," McTague said. "They still haven't stopped competing as I'm sure you're aware." Once a successor is chosen, McTague will return to UC Santa Barbara and a professorship in materials. Contact Ian Hoffman at ihoffman@angnewspapers.com [ihoffman@angnewspapers.com] . ©1999-2002 by MediaNews Group, Inc. and ANG Newspapers ***************************************************************** 49 Oregon seeks status in nuke case The Oregonian 11/10/02 Oregon on Friday asked to file a "friend of the court" brief in a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Energy. Several environmental groups have sued the department in U.S. District Court in Boise, challenging the department's claim that it has the power to redefine some high-level radioactive waste stored at sites, including Washington's Hanford Nuclear Reservation, as low-level waste. Low-level waste is governed by less-restrictive environmental rules. Oregon Attorney General Hardy Meyers said the state wants to make a case that reclassifying the waste could be a threat to the Columbia River, which borders the Hanford site. Idaho and Washington already have friend of the court status in the case, and South Carolina recently filed for similar standing. -- Andy Dworkin FROM THE OREGONIAN © 2002 OregonLive.com. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 50 Hanford faces tight schedule to 'close' tanks by 2006 This story was published Fri, Nov 8, 2002 By John Stang Herald staff writer Hanford will have to keep to an extremely fast and tight schedule to stand a chance of "closing" at least 26 waste tanks by 2006. The Department of Energy is beginning environmental impact studies on the project, with final conclusions and decisions due in April 2004. That will leave the rest of 2004, 2005 and 2006 for DOE and CH2M Hill Hanford Group to actually close 26 to 40 tanks as planned. Right now, none is closed. "It's a very aggressive schedule," said Ed Aromi, president of CH2M Hill Hanford Group on Thursday at a Hanford Advisory Board meeting. DOE and CH2M Hill officials acknowledged few details, ranging from costs to the definition of closure, have been determined. "We're not far enough (in the planning) to be able to answer all the questions," Aromi said. Hanford has 149 older, leak-prone single-shell tanks and 28 newer, safer double-shell tanks that hold 53 million gallons of radioactive wastes as liquids, sludges, chunks and salts. Hanford is in the final stage of moving the liquid wastes from the single-shell tanks to the double-shell tanks. But 31 million gallons of solids and super-thick sludges remain in the single-shell tanks. Hanford must remove almost all the solids from the tanks before the state Department of Ecology will allow it to it to permanently seal off each tank. Each tank and any remaining wastes have to meet state approval before a tank can be sealed. Those conditions have not been hashed out yet. A month ago, DOE and CH2M Hill announced a new plan to close 26 to 40 tanks by 2006. CH2M Hill's budget will be tight. DOE plans to bump CH2M Hill's budget from $337 million in fiscal 2002 to $410 million in fiscal 2003, which began Oct. 1, to get some cleanup acceleration projects into motion. With 2003's acceleration preparation work done, DOE then plans to pay for CH2M Hill's total work at $360 million annually from 2004 through 2006, said a Nov. 1 letter from Roy Schepens, manager of DOE's Office of River Protection, to the state. The Office of River Protection's tank waste glassification project's budget is scheduled to stay steady at $690 million in 2003 and 2004. That means the Office of River Protection's annual budget appears on track to increase from $1.027 billion in 2002 to $1.1 billion in 2003 to drop to $1.05 billion in 2004. Congress and the administration have not yet finalized the Office of River Protection's 2003 budget. The agency is operating at 2002 budget levels until the 2003 figures are approved. Copyright 2002 Tri-City Herald. All rights ***************************************************************** 51 FFTF receives 2-week reprieve This story was published Sat, Nov 9, 2002 By Annette Cary Herald staff writer The Department of Energy agreed Friday to halt permanent shutdown of Hanford's Fast Flux Test Facility for two weeks after Benton County filed suit. Work was scheduled to begin Monday on draining sodium from FFTF's secondary cooling loops. Once sodium is drained and corrosion begins, restarting the reactor would be difficult. "We cannot figure out why they want to tear it apart," said John Bolliger, the attorney representing the county, after a court hearing. "It is a state-of-the-art facility." Benton County filed suit Friday morning in federal court in Richland, saying the Department of Energy failed to follow environmental regulations when it decided to permanently shut down the reactor. The suit points out that the last environmental assessment of the reactor, done in 2000 as DOE considered sources for isotopes for medicine and federal space missions, said final decontamination and decommissioning were outside the scope the report covered. Yet federal regulations require a full environmental study of each phase of decommissioning nuclear reactors, according to the suit. County officials also believe DOE was legally required to consider interest by other federal agencies after it decided in December that the reactor should be permanently shut down, said Claude Oliver, county commissioner and president of Citizens for Medical Isotopes. Republican and Democratic administrations have concluded DOE has no use for the reactor, which has cost up to $40 million a year to keep on standby for a decade. But a coalition of Mid-Columbia governments want the reactor declared surplus and turned over for private use. They would like it to be used to make isotopes for medicines, including new treatments for cancer. In a letter a month ago, Tommy Thompson, secretary of health and human services, asked that DOE consider a proposal for private use of FFTF. He was concerned about possible shortages of isotopes as new uses increase demand and was concerned that 90 percent of medical isotopes used here are imported. DOE also has failed to update documents to reflect the president's energy policy, which will require advanced nuclear testing for the next generation of reactors, Oliver said. That testing only can be done in the United States at FFTF. The county asked the federal court to issue a restraining order to keep DOE from draining sodium from the reactor and maintain it in condition for a restart. But before Judge Edward Shea began a hearing on the matter Friday afternoon, DOE and the county reached an agreement to delay shutdown work for two weeks. That will give supporters of FFTF more time to convince federal officials that the reactor has valuable roles to play in saving cancer patients and supporting the president's energy policy. The county also will use the two weeks to agree on future delays or allow the court to decide if the sodium drain should be delayed further. "In good faith we are not going to shut down without forewarning them," said William Beatty, assistant U.S. attorney in Spokane. Copyright 2002 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This ***************************************************************** NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: *****************************************************************