***************************************************************** 02/11/02 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 10.36 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POLICY 1 Russia to make India full nuclear power 2 UK: Nuclear plant for Ayrshire gets go-ahead 3 Bulgaria's Speaker supports Belene nuclear plant construction 4 Drive for nuclear power likely in energy review NUCLEAR REACTORS 5 UPDATE - UN sees Chernobyl area as eco-tourism hot-spot 6 US: Experts: Indian Point risks would exist 60 years after closing 7 Ukrainian nuclear station back at full capacity NUCLEAR SAFETY 8 Combing for Nukes 9 Group accused of covering-up missing radioactive device. 10 Soviet Nuclear Tests Linked to Mutations 11 Russian TV reports from ghost town in Crimea NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 12 US: Editorial: Why does this sound so familiar? 13 US: Columnist Benjamin Grove: President has two options to consider 14 US: Columnist Jon Ralston: Inside the president's meeting 15 US: Brian Greenspun: A man of his word? (Bush/Yucca) 16 US: Columnist Jeff German: Bush may be hiding true nuke decision 17 US: Larry E. Craig: Is Yucca recommendation being made too hastily? 18 US: Kenny Guinn: Is Yucca recommendation being made too hastily? 19 US: Las Vegas SUN: Tape shows flaws in casks 20 US: Yucca: Junction duo find themselves at scientific crossroads 21 US: DOE, state scientists reach opposing conclusions 22 US: Yucca Mountain: Opposing camps remain sharply divided 23 US: Nebraska ups ante to fight waste site 24 US: Nebraska ups ante to fight waste site 25 US: Radioactive wastes: the risks on the rails 26 Russia chooses Novaya Zemlya site for nuclear burial 27 Residents of Siberian town block railway to stop nuclear waste train 28 US: Yucca money a political issue 29 US: Perkins: Yucca a homeland security issue 30 US: Nuke casks can be damaged 31 US: Court battle looms on Yucca water shutdown 32 US: WEST VALLEY: Washington meeting set in N-waste dispute 33 US: Abraham's recommendation expected today 34 US: Ex-mining town wants jobs, training from dump project 35 US: Yucca neighbors fear the worst 36 US: Ex-governor says waste dump would be good business 37 US: Nevada dump would mean decades of radioactive shipments across U 38 US: DOT to name administrator 39 US: Energy Department to recommend Nevada nuclear waste storage - 40 US: Los Vegas Chamber letter to state on Yucca 41 US: Mr. Guinn goes to Washington NUCLEAR WEAPONS 42 Jury trials: Conscience verdict for pacifists Pottle and Randle 43 U.S.: Iran Making Headway on Nukes 44 US Concerned by Iran Nuke Capability 45 US: Pat Robertson Warns of Al-Qaeda Nuke Ship 46 Pak, US sign defence agreement 47 Still a Mystery: Nazi Germany's Atomic Bomb Failure 48 Nuclear critic visits Portsmouth 49 US: New Path to Nuclear Policy 50 US: Armed soldiers guarding munitions plant 51 South Korean daily alleges Clinton administration hid North's 52 Calls for investigation as cost of Trident refit rises by £400m 53 UK: submarine refit facility cost trebles to 659 mln stg 54 Anti-nukes block Siberian rail 55 Limited progress reported at Russian-US uranium talks 56 Protesters arrested at Trident base 57 US: Idaho State University's Lax Policies Pose a Nuclear Security Th 58 US: Plan outlined to keep nuclear material away from terrorists US DEPT. OF ENERGY 59 Hanford Lab scientist finds valuable information tucked away 60 Bush's 2003 budget bodes well for ORNL, but Congress is the final ar 61 K-25 water supply study ends 62 Energy Department, USEC near pact on nuclear power 63 Workers angry as DOE ends K-25 water study 64 DOE Officials tackle nuclear dangers OTHER NUCLEAR 65 Nuclear renaissance. . . in space? 66 Blowing the Whistle: Not for the Fainthearted 67 A major contributor to nuclear physics ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 Russia to make India full nuclear power Updated on 2002-02-10 11:11:16 MOSCOW, Feb 10 (PNS): Russia will make India a full-fledged nuclear power and the mightiest nation in the region if the proposed lease of four TU-22M3 strategic bombers and two assault submarines comes through, Russian media on Saturday said. "If the proposed lease of four Tu-22M3 strategic bombers and two "Akula" (Shark) class nuclear-propelled assault submarines of project-971 goes through, then India will not only become a full-fledged nuclear power, but also the mightiest nation in the region," the Russian daily 'Izvestia' said. Commenting on Russian Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov's just concluded negotiations with Indian Defence Minister George Fernandes, another daily "Nezavisimaya Gazeta" said India could become the "the Mistress of the seas" as the proposed deals will enable New Delhi to control the Indian Ocean with its busy maritime routes linking eastern and western hemispheres. Noting that on one hand Moscow's consent to transfer the platforms for the delivery of nuclear weapons to New Delhi indicates Russia's willingness for closer co-operation, Izvestia noted that on the other, Russia has practically nothing else to offer. Russia's rivals in the arms market - the US and Israel - are offering India sophisticated electronic guidance, reconnaissance and control systems, the weakest items in Moscow's defence exports, Izvestia commented. ***************************************************************** 2 UK: Nuclear plant for Ayrshire gets go-ahead Scotland on Sunday - Business - Sun 10 Feb 2002 SHARON WARD BUSINESS EDITOR Hunterston C given green light as report urges massive expansion of nuclear energy through tax breaks BRITISH Energy will go forward with its development plans to build a new nuclear power station at Hunterston C in Ayrshire to take over when the existing plant is decommissioned in 2011. Following the long-awaited publication of the Cabinet Office’s review of government energy policy this week, the report will recommend a huge expansion of nuclear power by offering the beleaguered industry multimillion pound tax and planning breaks for the construction of new plants. "Our submission to the government’s Review of UK Energy Policy basically said if they address a number of key issues, new nuclear output can be delivered in the UK by the private sector. "We are positive about participating in any UK replacement new build programme," said Robin Jeffrey, executive chairman of British Energy. Written by the performance and innovation unit of the Cabinet Office and presented to the Prime Minister before Christmas, it is thought lucrative ‘sweeteners’ which will make nuclear power more competitive than gas and coal will be recommended in the report. Chaired by trade and industry minister Brian Wilson, whose Cunninghame North constituency in Ayrshire includes British Energy’s Hunterston nuclear plant, it will also propose exemption from the green energy tax because, unlike gas and coal, nuclear power stations do not produce damaging greenhouse gases. New nuclear power plants will also be exempt from the government’s climate change levy, which raises over £1bn annually from power companies. Wilson, one of the few supporters of the nuclear industry in the Labour party, insisted: "For the foreseeable future, nuclear power has a part to play in meeting Britain’s energy needs." The PIU recommendations follow on from the trade and industry select committee’s report into the security of the UK’s energy supply published last Thursday. Labour MP Martin O’Neil, who chaired the select committees report, believes the nuclear generation industry has a strong future, but he also called for a curb on planning restrictions that have stopped a huge number of renewable projects. The nuclear and the renewable industries, he said, needed a relaxation of planning laws. The last nuclear power station built in Britain, Sizewell B, took 15 years to complete the planning and construction process. The Cabinet review also calls for a target of 20% of energy needs to be met from renewable sources by 2020. Wilson said this was achievable because renewables were starting from a "pathetically low base". He said: "The biggest source of renewable energy in the UK is hydro-electric, which results from the vision of people in the 1940s and 1950s." He added: "We were the world leader in wind power 20 years ago and threw it away. Nothing was done to support it or create a market. So the technology went to Denmark, which now has a £4bn-a-year manufacturing industry with a near-monopoly of suppliers." Security of energy supply remains a controversial issue, with Russia and the Middle East becoming the main gas exporters. Wilson said: "The only way we could have security of supply without nuclear power would be to become 70% dependent on gas, 90% of which would be imported, some of it from places I don’t think we would probably wish to stake our children’s future on." For the UK to continue generating 25% of its electricity from nuclear sources, this will require the construction of at least 10 new power stations, costing £10bn, each with a capacity of 1,000-1,200mw for commissioning between 2010 and 2025. ©2002 scotsman.com | contact ***************************************************************** 3 Bulgaria's Speaker supports Belene nuclear plant construction BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Feb 11, 2002 Text of report by Bulgarian radio on 11 February [Announcer] National Assembly Chairman Ognyan Gerdzhikov, who is on a working visit to Pleven, said after a meeting with the Pleven Oblast administrator that completing the construction of the Belene nuclear power plant must be supported, because this is a matter of national importance for the country. Gerdzhikov is accompanied by National Assembly members of the region from all political parties. Daniela Kusovska reports: [Kusovska] Ognyan Gerdzhikov also said that it would be necessary to conduct a debate in the region on the Belene nuclear power plant, and simultaneously he stressed that a positive solution of the nuclear power plant issue must be sought. According to him, it is well-known in advance that if a referendum were held on the fate of the Kozloduy nuclear power plant, about 90 per cent of the people would support extending the reactors' running time. Source: Bulgarian Radio, Sofia, in Bulgarian 1000 gmt 11 Feb 02 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. ***************************************************************** 4 Drive for nuclear power likely in energy review money.telegraph.co.uk - (Filed: 11/02/2002) THE Government is expected to unveil its long-awaited review of energy policy this week, a move that is likely to lead to a large-scale expansion of Britain's nuclear power industry. A spokesman for the Department of Trade & Industry would not comment on reports at the weekend that the review will recommend multi-million pound tax and planning breaks for the construction of new nuclear plants. The industry is hoping the Government will propose to give it exemptions from green energy tax and the climate change levy, which raises more than £1 billion a year from energy companies. Such measures would set the UK apart as the only western nation actively encouraging development of new nuclear generating capacity. © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited [http://pressoffice.telegraph.co.uk] ***************************************************************** 5 UPDATE - UN sees Chernobyl area as eco-tourism hot-spot UNITED NATIONS: February 8, 2002 UNITED NATIONS - The area around Chernobyl, site of the world's worst nuclear accident nearly 16 years ago, should be promoted as an eco-tourism destination, a U.N. report suggested this week. The world body's latest study of the human consequences of the tragedy found the international community was gradually losing interest in providing financial aid to the area and said more attention should be paid to its economic development. It called on the international community to explore with Ukraine, Belarus and Russia "the possibilities for promoting specialized ecological tourism and for maximizing the contribution that these areas can make to the preservation of international biodiversity." All visitors except scientists and a few elderly people who have insisted upon returning to their homes are now barred from going within 20 miles (30 km) of the disaster site in Ukraine. While radiation levels remain dangerously high in much of the vast area poisoned by the deadly cloud of radioactivity released in the April 1986 explosion at Chernobyl, some areas are now safe and the near-absence of human activity has enabled local plant and animal life to flourish. Yet "little attempt had been made to exploit the reduction of human disturbance to the ecosystems and cultural landscape in a positive way, and the current national plans for biodiversity protection and cultural preservation hardly refer to this potential," the report said. The zone is anything but a nuclear desert. EXTRAORDINARY OPPORTUNITY "It sounds odd, but the restricted areas have actually developed over the last 16 years or so into an extraordinary environmental opportunity," said Kalman Mizsei, an official of the U.N. Development Program (UNDP). "The natural environment has returned there," he told a news conference. "It is a huge area that is very natural, with lots of wildlife and unique types of animals." U.N. officials said it was time to stop viewing Chernobyl as a crisis zone and start helping it help itself. "By continuing to treat (area needs) as emergency problems, we probably have exhausted the funding available," said UNDP Administrator Mark Malloch Brown. "A self-sufficiency approach will be the next chapter." The report was prepared by the UNDP and the U.N. children's agency UNICEF with help from the World Health Organization and the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. It said poverty and unemployment "blight the lives of people still living in the contaminated areas and of those who have been evacuated." It estimated that some 7 million people are now getting some form of Chernobyl-related aid. While radioactivity levels are gradually declining, some 100,000 to 200,000 people living in the vicinity nonetheless "are facing a complex and progressive downward spiral of living conditions," the report said. That group includes those living in severely contaminated areas, those without jobs and those made sick by the accident, including the many who have developed thyroid cancers. While a long-predicted surge in leukemias has never developed, some 2,000 thyroid cancers have been diagnosed and other types of cancer are expected to emerge in the years to come, the report said. It estimated the number of thyroid cancers would keep rising, eventually reaching 8,000 to 10,000 cases. "While thyroid cancer can be treated, all of these people will need continuing medical attention for the rest of their lives," it said Story by Irwin Arieff REUTERS NEWS SERVICE ***************************************************************** 6 Experts: Indian Point risks would exist 60 years after closing [http://www.thejournalnews.com] --> By ROGER WITHERSPOON THE JOURNAL NEWS (Original publication: Feb. 10, 2002) The potential for widespread contamination from a catastrophic nuclear incident at Indian Point would start to decrease immediately if the plant were shut down, but some threat would remain for several years. Radioactive fuel may be removed from the reactors within weeks of a decision to decommission the plants in Buchanan, officials said. But it would take at least five years before all irradiated fuel could be taken from the spent fuel pools on the property and moved into another system. In addition, state officials said closing Indian Point could raise regional electricity rates by 25 percent. But, they said, the loss of power from the two nuclear generators could be significantly offset by conservation, reduced energy demand, and power bought from other energy producers. From local governments to members of Congress, a growing number of organizations and residents in Westchester, Rockland and Putnam counties have called for Indian Point to cease operating, citing fears raised by the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. Plant opponents want the site converted to burn natural gas. But even if the drive to close the plants is successful, it would not remove the potential for danger, should Indian Point be targeted for an assault in the near future. That means the county would still require an emergency evacuation plan for the 10 miles surrounding the plant, a plan that Indian Point opponents have derided as unworkable in recent months. "Dismantling a plant means construction in reverse," said Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. "And that takes time." Indian Point's owner, Entergy, is seeking to build eight natural gas-powered plants on the site, to meet expected increases in future summer demand for electricity. Those plants each would produce 45 megawatts of power. But Entergy spokesman Larry Gottlieb said that replacing the massive nuclear reactors with natural gas plants would add $1.5 billion annually to the region's costs for power. An order to decommission a nuclear power plant sets in motion a process that can last from five to 60 years, according to the NRC. The process generally costs about $400 million, but Indian Point's owner, like all nuclear plant operators, maintains a dedicated fund to cover such expenses. Indian Point is scheduled to be decommissioned in 2014, but Entergy has said it intends to request a 20-year extension of its operating license. The decision to close Indian Point any earlier rests with Entergy or the NRC, which oversees and licenses its operation and can shut it for safety violations. The plant cannot operate without environmental and other permits issued by the state, but officials said it was unlikely those could be revoked by the state unless Entergy violated permit provisions. If the NRC or Entergy decided to decommission Indian Point 2 and 3 — the two active reactors on the site — they could be shut down virtually overnight, and their 100 tons of nuclear fuel removed within weeks, in accord with NRC guidelines. Indian Point 1 closed in 1974, and is being decommissioned under the agency's 60-year plan. But each of the two operating reactors has an estimated 600 tons of spent fuel in storage pools that are housed in buildings far more vulnerable to terrorist attack than the reactors' massive containment buildings. Spent fuel has to remain in these pools for at least five years before it is cool enough to move off-site or to a less vulnerable storage system. There also are several hundred tons of highly radioactive fuel in the on-site storage pool from Indian Point 1. "The spent fuel is still a primary threat," said David Lochbaum, a nuclear safety engineer with the Union of Concerned Scientists. "It poses the same type of threat as when the plant was up and running." After five years, the heat generated by the decaying radioactive fuel would decrease from nearly 2,000 degrees to about 600 degrees, Lochbaum said. That temperature is low enough to allow the fuel to be air-cooled in 100-ton concrete casks, rather than chilled by circulating water, making them less likely to release large amounts of radiation in the event of a terrorist attack, he said. It takes about 50 concrete casks to hold the contents of each spent fuel pool. Lochbaum said the threat to public safety would be low if the casks were damaged by sabotage or accident. "The dry casks are heavy, but are not anchored to the ground," he said. "If you hit them with a large aircraft, it is not quite like hitting bowling pins, but they would move. As long as you comply with safety requirements, that is an acceptable risk." Entergy would have the option of placing its spent fuel in casks, or leaving them for years in the existing pools. Ronald Bellamy, chief of the NRC's decommissioning and laboratory branch, said both options were acceptable long-term solutions. "You can come up with sufficient systems and safeguards to keep fuel in shielded positions in spent fuel pools for hundreds of years if you have to," Bellamy said. Ultimately, the decommissioning process would entail the removal of all plant parts and buildings, and contamination of the site and water table would have to be reduced to less than the normal radiation residents receive annually from exposure to sunlight. How Entergy and its shareholders would be compensated for the loss of the hundreds of millions of dollars invested in the nuclear installation would have to be determined by the courts, NRC's Sheehan said. Entergy last year paid $502 million to buy Indian Point 2 from Consolidated Edison inc., and $967 million to buy Indian Point 3 and the James A. FitzPatrick plant near Oswego from the New York Power Authority. Indian Point's reactors are each capable of producing about 1,000 megawatts of power at any given time when operating at full power. If they ran continuously, the plant would produce about 8.5 million megawatt-hours of power annually. The reactors have scheduled and unplanned shutdowns of varying time periods, however, so their annual electric production varies. In recent years, total annual electric output from Indian Point 2 and 3 has sometimes dropped to less than half their potential. Each has run at more than 90 percent capacity since being acquired by Entergy last year. State energy officials say it is difficult to determine the effect Indian Point's closing would have on the region's electrical needs due to shifts in demand, the plant's inconsistent performance, the availability of electricity from local and state producers, and the growing effectiveness of conservation efforts. The electricity produced at Indian Point goes into an interconnected, statewide power grid maintained by the New York Independent System Operator. The loss of the two reactors would result in significantly higher consumer rates, system spokesman Ken Clapp said. The potential for rate hikes was seen in an analysis of electric rates in the summer of 2000, when Indian Point 2 shut down because of a Feb. 15 steam generator leak that resulted in the release of nearly 20,000 gallons of radioactive water, and a small amount of radioactive steam. "If Indian Point 2 is not working, the prices in the eastern part of the state are 25 percent higher, and the rest of the state is 20 percent higher," Clapp said. "If you take that 1,000 megawatts out of the picture during peak periods, then it has to be replaced by spot market purchases, which can be extremely high." Entergy is an energy producer, which sells electricity wholesale to utilities like Con Edison and the New York Power Authority, and has long-term, negotiated rates for its electricity. The utilities, which maintain power lines and bill customers, also buy additional power at higher, daily market prices when needed to meet high demand. The system is limited, however, in how much power can be drawn from the electricity pool to the metropolitan region. The southeast New York grid includes 330,000 Westchester County and 2.8 million New York City customers who are served by Con Edison. Orange and Rockland Utilities, a Con Edison subsidiary, serves 279,000 customers in those counties. Con Edison is not expecting an increase in overall electric demand this summer because the loss of the Twin Towers made nearly 100 megawatts of electricity available. There are 103 operating nuclear power plants in the United States and another 18 that are in the process of being decommissioned. In Connecticut, the Millstone One plant in Waterford was shut down in November 1995 and a decommissioning plan submitted in June, 1999. The plant will not be fully taken apart until its companion, Millstone 2, shuts down in 20 or 30 years. The owners of the Maine Yankee plant in Bath, Maine, have spent more than $206 million since they started shutting down the plant in December 1996. The reactor fuel was transferred to the spent fuel pool by June 1997, but the decommissioning plan submitted in January 2000 was opposed by civic groups and the state and had to be revised. A new plan is to be submitted this spring. Send e-mail to Roger Witherspoon [rwithers@thejournalnews.com] Copyright 2002 The Journal News, a Gannett Co [http://www.gannett.com/] . ***************************************************************** 7 Ukrainian nuclear station back at full capacity BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Feb 11, 2002 Kiev, 11 February: The second unit of the Rivne nuclear power plant is running at its rated capacity after repairs to a turbogenerator, sources in the public relations of the Enerhoatom national atomic energy concern have told Interfax. The third turbogenerator of the second unit of the Rivne (VVER-440) nuclear power plant was connected to the power network on Monday morning [11 February] after the repairs. It was turned off in the early hours of Saturday to replace the transformer. The unit's output was halved... Source: Interfax news agency, Moscow, in English 0934 gmt 11 Feb 02 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. ***************************************************************** 8 Combing for Nukes Experts retrieved two deadly devices before terrorists found them. But what about next time? By Stefan Theil NEWSWEEK INTERNATIONAL Feb. 18 issue — The hunt had been on for a month, held back by heavy snow and inaccessible mountain terrain. Finally, last week, in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, a team of local and international nuclear experts secured two highly lethal, radioactive canisters on a mountainside close to the province of Abkhazia, where local nationalists are fighting for independence. The last stretch up a remote logging road took five hours because the heavy military truck carrying a five-ton lead container came close to sinking into deep mud. At the end of the road, two dozen men in heavy protective gear wielding six-foot tongs carefully picked up the two ceramic cylinders, each no bigger than a can of soup, and placed them safely into the lead container. The canisters were so deadly that each man was allowed to spend no more than a minute standing near them, and even so was not allowed within a meter. THIS DISTURBING FIND is the latest wrinkle in efforts to keep weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of terrorists. The canisters are nuclear batteries that once powered a Soviet radio transmitter, now abandoned, on an all but inaccessible mountaintop in Georgia. What worries Western intelligence officials is that Soviet engineers used hundreds of similar batteries as power sources for remote construction projects or military installations throughout the former empire. When the Soviet Union collapsed, records of many of these batteries disappeared, especially in the now independent republics such as Georgia. In the wrong hands, warns the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, these orphaned batteries could be a potent tool to incite panic, contaminate property and cause injury and death. “Before September 11, we thought the deadliness of handling intensely radioactive material was an effective deterrent,” says Abel Gonzalez, the IAEA’s director of radiation and waste safety. “But with terrorists who are both intelligent and willing to give up their lives, we’re facing a far more dangerous situation.” Luckily, the material in these batteries isn’t weapons grade—it cannot be manipulated to create a nuclear explosion. Each of the batteries found last week contains strontium 90, a byproduct of nuclear reactions that is extremely radioactive. Last December, three intrepid villagers hiking in the woods noticed that the batteries had melted the surrounding snow. The hikers lugged the batteries to their campsite nearby for warmth. Within minutes they got sick. Two remain hospitalized with severe radiation burns; one is in critical condition. At least two similarly powerful batteries are known to still be lost in Georgia; the IAEA and local specialists are scrambling to find them. “We really don’t know what else is still out there,” says Tom McKenna, an IAEA adviser who just returned from Georgia. This kind of low-grade radioactive material is especially worrisome because it can be used to build a so-called dirty nuke—a crude bomb that uses conventional explosives to scatter radioactive material over a wide area. Such a bomb may not be particularly deadly—the lethality of radioactive material drops rapidly when it’s dispersed—but it could sow panic. “The effects of a dirty bomb would be relatively harmless in terms of human life,” says Gonzalez. “But psychologically it could create great terror.” It did in the Brazilian town of Goiania. In 1987, scrap collectors scavenging an abandoned radiological clinic found a few grams of cesium 137, chopped it into pieces and gave it to their friends. In all, 249 people were exposed and four died. Officials had to monitor more than 110,000 residents for months, destroy 85 contaminated houses and collect several tons of contaminated clothing and furniture. A dirty bomb could have similar consequences. Not only would it require little expertise to make, but radioactive material can be found in tens of thousands of sources around the world—in devices or chemical brews used for radiotherapy, food preservation or power. For now officials are holding the recovered batteries at a secret location in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, until representatives from the United States, Russia, France, Germany and Georgia can agree on a plan to dispose of them. Experts at the IAEA are continuing their hunt of the remaining orphaned Soviet batteries. Russia’s nukes are reasonably well monitored, and Georgia is fully cooperating with the IAEA. But the agency has little or no contact with neighboring countries like Turkmenistan, Tajikistan or Kyrgyzstan, where many more batteries have been abandoned. With their majority-Muslim populations, these countries are also considered targets for the type of Islamist insurgency sponsored by Al Qaeda. If the countries themselves don’t ask for help, the IAEA has no authority to act on its own. EU governments have suggested granting the agency this authority, but many countries, including the United States and China, are leery of multinational controls. Right now, the IAEA’s Gonzalez says, the only hope is that the good guys find the orphaned sources before the bad guys do. © 2002 Newsweek, Inc. ***************************************************************** 9 Group accused of covering-up missing radioactive device. ABC News Online Sunday, February 10, 2002 . Posted: 07:04:51 (AEDT) New South Wales Greens MP Lee Rhiannon has accused the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation of covering up the loss of a radioactive device from the Lucas Heights nuclear facility in Sydney's south. It was revealed yesterday a search is underway for a hand-held probe that went missing from one of the buildings at the in early January. Ms Rhiannon says the delay in advising the public is appalling. "The public have only just heard about this," she said. "There's been many incidences before where the authorities down there just haven't come clean. "The public has a right to know. "If this material is out in the community, it can be dangerous. "If it's handled correctly, it's not so dangerous. The public needs to know what is happening." But the director of Australian Radiopharmaceuticals and Industrials, Dr Stuart Carr, says there has been no cover up. "We notified the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Authority immediately we discovered that it was missing and then we followed that up with a communication after we'd actually done some searching," he said. "So we let them know as soon as we knew it was missing." © 2002 Australian Broadcasting Corporation ***************************************************************** 10 Soviet Nuclear Tests Linked to Mutations VOANews.com - 12 Feb 2002 06:37 UTC David McAlary Washington 11 Feb 2002 05:34 UTC An international team of scientists has linked Soviet atmospheric nuclear tests in the 1940's and '50's to genetic mutations in people living downwind of the blasts at the time. But there is no evidence that the radiation from the explosions has actually caused disease. Between 1949 and 1956, the Soviet Union exploded four nuclear bombs above ground in Kazakhstan before a 1963 treaty banned such tests. Now, a study in the journal "Science" shows a compelling connection between the blasts and elevated genetic mutations in families who lived up to 100 kilometers away. A Russian, Kazakh, Finnish, and British team examined blood samples from three generations of families that were alive during all or part of the time the blasts occurred. They compared the genetic material in the blood with DNA from Kazakh families who lived in an uncontaminated region further away at the same time. Research leader Yuri Dubrova of the University of Leicester in England says the first generation in the contaminated area had nearly twice the rate of genetic mutations as its more distant counterparts. That's the generation who lived through all four explosions. "So what you've got here, you've got a window of exposure to relatively high levels of ionizing radiation starting from 1949 up to the end of the 1950's," says Mr. Dubrova. The double mutation rate in this first generation may seem proof enough of the physical effect of nuclear radiation. But Mr. Dubrova's group found evidence in their children they consider stronger. The second generation near the nuclear test site also had higher mutation rates than their more distant counterparts, but not as high as their parents, and the rate declined the later the individuals were born. Mr. Dubrova says this reflects their exposure to fewer explosions. "This correlation perfectly corresponds to the improvement in the radiological situation in this area, basically providing quite strong evidence that what we actually found is, indeed, activity to ionizing radiation," he says. The findings support a controversial study six years ago in which Mr. Dubrova linked mutations to fallout from the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power reactor explosion. That study was a revelation because Japanese who survived the 1945 U.S. atomic bombing at the end of World War II had shown no such mutations. But the study was criticized because it compared people living near Chernobyl with people living in Britain. This new study is an effort to overcome that deficiency by analyzing more comparable populations. Yuri Dubrova is also following up on the Chernobyl findings with an improved study now underway in Ukraine. Yet, what these mutations mean for health is a mystery. The director of radiation cancer research at the University of Maryland, William Morgan, says the genetic material studied has no known physical function. "We don't know what any of the consequences of these particular mutations [are]. They are not specific genes. But all genomic change has some potential not to be good," says Mr. Morgan. Mr. Morgan says animal studies show that continuous low doses of radiation cause some genetic mutations that are passed to the next generation. He notes that the Soviet nuclear tests were a similar situation in which radiation was chronic, so he does not rule out the possibility that they may have contributed to disease. "A lot of us are becoming more aware now that long term, continuous exposures are probably different from where you just get a quick flash, if you will, when you go to the doctor's you get an x-ray, you are irradiated," he says. "But it's different when you are continuously exposed because it looks like at different times during development you are more sensitive." Mr. Morgan suggests that the differences in the term of exposure may account for the reason genetic mutations have never been seen in Japanese atomic bomb survivors. |VOA.GOV| ***************************************************************** 11 Russian TV reports from ghost town in Crimea BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Feb 11, 2002 Text of report by Russian NTV on 11 February [Presenter] A town on Kerchenskiy peninsula is on the brink of extinction. Practically all residents of Shchelkino are unemployed. More than a decade ago, a dream city was supposed to be built there. Today however, all that remains in its place is a ghost town. [Correspondent Anna Konyukova] This town turned out to be unwanted right after it was built. A thousand new settlers became unemployed before they had a chance to take up the jobs they came here for. This is the town of Shchelkino. Here, in the Crimea, they call it a ghost town or the town of broken hopes. The whole of the Soviet Union took part in the construction of Krymskaya AES [nuclear power plant] and its satellite town. Protests and hunger strikes staged by environmentalists were taken notice of to only after the Chernobyl disaster. It turned out that Krymskaya AES had been built on a gigantic tectonic fault. The power plant was abandoned at a stage when only two per cent of construction work remained to be completed. Today the lower floors of the reactor are flooded. The construction site has been looted for anything that could be moved and sold. The town market is the only place in Shchelkino where any life exists. It is here that former engineers, doctors and teachers now work selling cheap goods brought in from Turkey. [Unidentified female passer-by] There is no work at all. The town has died out. And people keep leaving this place. [Unidentified female seller] And whom should I blame for this? It is not my fault that I was born in a country where educated professionals are not wanted, is it? [Unidentified female passer-by] In the winter, life here becomes very hard. The town authorities were even thinking of putting up a billboard saying, "Hold on: summer will be coming soon". [Correspondent] In the winter, the town freezes. It was originally planned that Shchelkino would receive heat supplies from the nuclear power plant. That is why not a single boiler room was built here. Official data show that 40 per cent of flats in Shchelkino have already been abandoned. People seal their windows, lock their doors and don't come back. It is only those who have nowhere to go that stay here. [Video shows local scenes, ruins of the nuclear power plant.] Source: NTV, Moscow, in Russian 0400 gmt 11 Feb 02 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. ***************************************************************** 12 Editorial: Why does this sound so familiar? Las Vegas SUN February 08, 2002 Gov. Kenny Guinn emerged from his meeting Thursday with President Bush in a more upbeat mood than when he first entered the Oval Office. Bush had invited Guinn to Washington to give Guinn a last opportunity to explain why the state of Nevada is opposed to a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain. The president seemed to listen closely and indicated he wasn't going to rush a decision, Guinn told reporters later. "We felt much better coming out than we felt coming in," said the Republican governor, who was accompanied at the meeting by Sens. Harry Reid, a Democrat, and John Ensign, a Republican. "We got Nevada's side in," Guinn said. Reid had dreaded the meeting, but he said afterward that it went better than expected. Ensign said he believes that now "the president has doubts in his mind" about Yucca Mountain. Editorial: Why does this sound so familiar? Las Vegas SUN February 08, 2002 Gov. Kenny Guinn emerged from his meeting Thursday with President Bush in a more upbeat mood than when he first entered the Oval Office. Bush had invited Guinn to Washington to give Guinn a last opportunity to explain why the state of Nevada is opposed to a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain. The president seemed to listen closely and indicated he wasn't going to rush a decision, Guinn told reporters later. "We felt much better coming out than we felt coming in," said the Republican governor, who was accompanied at the meeting by Sens. Harry Reid, a Democrat, and John Ensign, a Republican. "We got Nevada's side in," Guinn said. Reid had dreaded the meeting, but he said afterward that it went better than expected. Ensign said he believes that now "the president has doubts in his mind" about Yucca Mountain. The Nevada officials' remarks, while cautious, still have a familiar ring. Nevada's top Republican politicians -- including Guinn, Ensign and Rep. Jim Gibbons -- assured us during the 2000 presidential campaign that George W. Bush would treat the state fairly when it came to Yucca Mountain. They even gave a ringing endorsement to a weak, bland statement Bush made on using "sound science, not politics" to decide Yucca Mountain's fate. In a letter to the editor to the Sun that was published earlier in the campaign, Gibbons defended Bush's views on nuclear waste storage, writing in March 2000 that "Nevadans can be assured that a Bush administration will ensure an open-door policy on each of the critical issues affecting our state." (In a bitter irony for Gibbons, he was shut out of the Thursday meeting with Bush. So much for that open door.) The president so far hasn't lived up to the advance billing, praise that helped him secure in the 2000 election the four electoral votes of Nevada, one of a handful of toss-up states that decided the outcome of the presidential race. Bush, in contrast to Bill Clinton, has put the nuclear waste dump program on a fast track, seeking a 41 percent increase for the Yucca Mountain project over last year's budget. Add to that Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham's intention to recommend that Bush approve the storage of nuclear waste in Nevada, and it sure doesn't seem Nevada has the ear of this administration. Still, there is a possibility -- slim as it may seem -- that Bush finally may realize that he's been fed bad information by the Department of Energy and his White House advisers. Maybe, just maybe, Bush finally is listening to Nevadans who have noted repeatedly the twin dangers of transporting nuclear waste and burying it in Nevada. But Nevadans shouldn't get their hopes up too high. We need to remember that while Guinn and Co. were received courteously by the president himself, White House sources told the Associated Press on Thursday that the president would approve a recommendation to build the nuclear waste dump. "He trusts the energy secretary's judgment," the source said. In addition, Bush administration officials and congressional sources said that the president wants to make a decision quickly so Nevada's congressional delegation has as little time as possible to persuade lawmakers to override a Bush recommendation. Nevadans have seen two sides of George W. Bush: the campaigner who proclaimed science would rule the day on Yucca Mountain, and the president whose administration has dismissed scientific evidence showing how unsafe it would be to ship nuclear waste and bury it at Yucca Mountain. Now we'll just have to wait anxiously to see which side of the president prevails. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 13 Columnist Benjamin Grove: President has two options to consider Las Vegas SUN February 08, 2002 Benjamin Grove covers Washington, D.C., for the Sun. He can be reached at grove@lasvegassun.com [grove@lasvegassun.com] or (202) 628-3100, Ext. 269. WASHINGTON -- You're the president. You're sitting behind Rutherford B. Hayes' old desk in the Oval Office. Yellow walls, nice curtains. Presidential seal on the carpet. And Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham recommends Yucca Mountain as a suitable site for the nation's high-level nuclear waste dump. Now what do you do? Option 1: Give the go-ahead. The nuclear energy industry wants to ship their high-level waste to the Nevada site for permanent burial. And the industry has been good to you, gave you lots of money for the campaign. Their lobbying is intense. Another equally compelling reason is that Congress promised those utilities back in 1982 that the government would haul the waste away. It's a broken contract that could cost taxpayers billions in utility lawsuits. You believe that America needs nuclear power. It keeps the lights on for 20 percent of the nation. You made nuclear power a key part of your energy strategy. You called for a new generation of nuclear plants to be built in America. That won't happen without Yucca. There's political pressure. A bunch of your former fellow governors with nuclear waste in their states want Yucca done yesterday. So do lots of lawmakers in Congress. Top House Republicans are in that group, including friends from Texas, Reps. Joe Barton and Richard Armey. Democrats and Republicans alike want waste shipped out of their districts. Plus, consider the terrorism argument. That's on everyone's mind. The plants were never designed to hold so much waste. The stuff is piling up in pools and in outdoor, dry cask storage areas at the nation's 103 nuclear reactors. Sitting ducks for bad guys. Wouldn't it be better to get it all underground in one safe, secure location? And you have lots of people telling you that Yucca Mountain seems like a safe place for waste, starting with your own energy secretary. Abraham tells you that the scientists at the Department of Energy have been studying Yucca for 20 years! Many of them have dedicated their careers to this project. If they say it's safe, Abraham assures you, it's safe. Option 2: Don't approve the recommendation -- at least not yet. Maybe you could mull this over until after the elections. This would shock every Yucca project watcher in America. But consider the other side. You're no scientist, so you rely on the DOE, the industry, and the contractors who know the project best. But the Nevada people seem to have come up with a number of scientists and other experts who say Yucca wouldn't be safe. They say volcanos could erupt, or earthquakes could crack the site open, or, more likely, water could flow through the mountain and carry radiation into the environment. Short of the Egyptian tombs, humans have never tried to store something for 10,000 years or more. And those mummies aren't toxic. Who knows what could happen in 10,000, 1,000 or 100 years? The Nevadans say the DOE is still trying to come up with answers to nearly 300 outstanding scientific queries. Is it prudent to rubber stamp something so important even after all this time? When Nevada was singled out in 1987 as the only site to be studied for nuclear waste storage, Las Vegas was much smaller. Today the metropolitan area of Las Vegas, which is just 90 miles away from Yucca Mountain, has 1.4 million residents. People in Las Vegas don't want to live anywhere near this stuff. Would you? The project is expensive. Sen. John Ensign of Nevada used the word boondoggle. That got your attention. You hate big government waste. Do you want to continue to throw money at something the Nuclear Regulatory Commission may not approve? Plus, consider the terrorism argument. Do you want 100,000 shipments of waste on the nation's roads and rails? And the Nevada people keep saying there are safe alternatives. You could leave the waste where it is. Maybe the government could take over managing the waste for the utilities. And maybe someday technology will be developed that can zap waste and make it less radioactive. It would be expensive and take decades. Same as Yucca. You told Gov. Kenny Guinn that you would think about what he said last week. He made a lot of good points. But so do some of your top advisers who say it's finally time to give Yucca the green light. You told Guinn you had a very difficult decision to make. That's the only kind of decision you get when you're the president. What do you do? What would you do? All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 14 Columnist Jon Ralston: Inside the president's meeting Las Vegas SUN February 08, 2002 Jon Ralston hosts the public affairs program Face to Face on Las Vegas ONE and also publishes the Ralston Report. Ralston can be reached at ralston@vegas.com [ralston@vegas.com] or (702) 870-7997. Unbeknownst to most visitors to the White House, all conversations there are recorded. What follows is a transcript of a tape recently passed on to me by a capital source: President George W. Bush: So who are these guys again? Karl Rove, presidential counselor: They're from Nevada. The governor -- his name's Kenny Guinn. And the two senators -- Harry Reid, he's the majority whip, but he will play ball with us on some issues. And John Ensign -- Harry says they do everything together, so much so that one press jerk in the state calls them Harry Ensign and CatDog. Just remember, we put Spence (Abraham) out on this because we want this done soon. So make it seem like you are listening to them without having made up your mind. GWB: CatDog! That's good. OK, bring them in, Karl. (Nevada threesome enters. Pleasantries exchanged.) GWB: As Frasier Crane says, gentlemen, I'm listening. Gov. Guinn -- do you mind if I call you Kenny-Boy? I used to call someone else that but he's not a friend of ours anymore after that Enron thing. Whoops, Karl gets mad when I even say the name. Anyhow, Kenny-Boy, what do you have for me? Kenny Guinn: Mr. President, the landscape has changed in only the last few months. There is a lot of science out there that isn't sound. And you said you'd make this decision based on sound science. GWB: Did I say that? Karl, did I say that? KR: Yes, sir. We gave them that statement last election when Gore was getting some traction. Remember, I told you about it. GWB: Oh, yes. Of course. Go on, Kenny-Boy. KG: Mr. President, there is a GAO report, the Nuclear Waste Technical Board says the science is weak to moderate and you guys haven't even done an Environmental Impact Statement. GWB: We didn't do an EIS? Someone get me a pen and paper -- I need to write this down to ask Spence later. That's ridiculous. We didn't even do that for my Texas friends who wanted to bring low-level waste into my state. I'm listening, governor. KG: All I'm asking is you take a look at this, Mr. President. All of this helps our legal case. And you know I will veto your decision if you decide to recommend Yucca Mountain, and we will tie this up in court. GWB: I understand, governor. Harry and John? Harry Reid: Mr. President, the governor has laid out the science very well. I want to talk politics, that's the kind of guy I am. Mr. President, you have to understand what will happen in the state to the Republican Party if you do this. This will kill your chances in two congressional seats. They will lose on this issue alone. If you don't believe me, ask John what I did to him with this issue when we ran in '98. John Ensign: He's right, Mr. President. Harry killed me with that issue. Just killed me. And they'll do it to Lynette (Boggs McDonald) and Jon (Porter), too. The House is so close, Mr. President. Can't you at least delay this for awhile so the clock can't run out before the election? GWB: I must say, Harry, I'm touched by your concern for the Republican Party in Nevada. Listen, John, I'd love to kill that Shelley Berkley, too, with all the nasty stuff she's said about me. And I know Lynette is a quality candidate. And the other guy -- what's his name? -- he probably will win no matter what we do because Karl tells me he's running against some teenager or something. So let's take the politics out of it? Listen fellas, I said I'd base this decision on -- what was that again, Karl? KR: Sound science, sir. GWB: That's right, sound science. And I will. And I have to check into this EIS thing. Get right on it. But I do have a country to run, gentlemen. KG: Thanks for listening, Mr. President. GWB: You're welcome, Kenny-Boy. Hope to get to Vegas soon. They wouldn't let me near there during the campaign. HR: Thanks for your time, Mr. President. Oh, and just so you know, I'll be taking some shots at you later today on the stimulus bill. Nothing personal, sir. Just part of the game. GWB: Don't I know it, Harry. It's all a game. JE: Thank you, Mr. President. Harry and I appreciate it. GWB: My pleasure, John. Keep up the good work. (Governor and senators depart.) GWB: So how'd I do, Karl? You think they bought it? KR: Perfect, Mr. President. They're probably out there right now telling the press jackals that you were open-minded. GWB: So what do we do next? KR: We'll announce the decision next week. Maybe wait a few more days so Kenny-Boy and CatDog can save some face. Maybe throw them a bone with some transportation mitigation money. But it's time to get rid of this. Just in case we need Nevada in 2004, we want this gone. GWB: I'm with you, Karl. Now let's get back to something important ... (Tape ends) All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 15 Brian Greenspun: A man of his word? (Bush/Yucca) Las Vegas SUN February 08, 2002 Brian Greenspun is editor of the Las Vegas Sun. PROMISES, PROMISES. I remember the play on Broadway. I don't remember a play that has brought any more joy than that one did almost 30 years ago. Perhaps it was the old-fashioned moral about making and keeping promises that tugged so hard at my emotions. I thought of that play and, more specifically, the title as I pondered the effort that Nevada officials were making in Washington to try to persuade President George Bush not to do what everyone expects him to do -- break his promise to Nevadans and give us and our future what no one else in this country wants -- 10,000 years of heartache, anxiety and, yes, very bad health. The reports of the meeting that Gov. Kenny Guinn and our two U.S. senators had this past Thursday with the president have been sparse in terms of the substance of the conversations that took place. But if we can read between the very large lines that have been drawn by what has been said, it appears more than likely that Bush will accept the recommendation of his Secretary of Energy, Spencer Abraham, and send the radioactive poison our way. That would be a mistake. A very big one both in terms of the health and safety of Nevadans and everyone else along the routes that the hundreds and hundreds of truckloads will take for the next 20 years, and in terms of the message that Bush would be sending to the citizens of this country. While we have all come to expect our politicians to lie to us when they are running for office -- how else would we ever consider voting for some of them -- we have not yet ever had a president who looked us in the eye, told us he wouldn't do something and, then first chance he got, did it anyway. It is that grave disappointment in the democratic experiment under which we are all living that hangs in the balance of what Bush does to Nevada. Let's back up a bit. When it was candidate George Bush and candidate Al Gore trying to sway the voters in the Silver State for what turned out to be the deciding vote in President Bush's electoral college victory, the issue came down to which of the two men would best protect the citizens of this state from a political drubbing that no state and no people should have to endure in a free and democratic society. Gore had already made his views known -- he would never force the state of Nevada to accept the high-level nuclear waste unless and until science proved the site to be acceptable and safe, and science determined that burial at Yucca Mountain was the best approach. Gore had already joined then-President Bill Clinton in his steadfast refusal to let "bad politics" trump "good science" on this vital issue to Nevadans and the country. We were coming down to the wire and the GOP in Nevada was getting nervous because their candidate still had not shown up in Southern Nevada, where the population was based and where the emotions were highest about being poisoned to death by the federal government. That's when Bush told us that he would match Gore word for word. He promised that only good science would drive his decision. Politics would play no part in this most solemn decision. Now let's get back to our future. This past week our president was in New York raising money and morale in that state, which was so devastated by the events of Sept. 11. Prior to his trip, the pundits had already opined that the $20 billion President Bush had promised New York to help it recover would be cut back significantly. As he stood next to Gov. George Pataki, who has his hands full in a re-election bid and can use the popularity of the war president to help him through, President Bush looked the crowd in the eye and said that he had promised New York $20 billion and he would make darn sure that the Empire State got the full amount because a promise is a promise and he would always keep his word. That's what he said in a state with dozens and dozens of electoral votes come the next election. Only a skeptic would suggest that those numbers had anything to do with his promise-keeping, and I am not one of those. Yet. Now we come to the state of Nevada. Even though we grew by one-third the number of congressional seats we will fill for the 2002 election, we are still close to 28 short of New York when it comes to counting heads in the U.S. House. That, I suppose, is what concerns most of us out here about this president. You see, even though a promise is a promise and President Bush always keeps his word, many people think that politics and not science will drive his decision on whether or not to accept the Abraham recommendation to send the nation's radioactive nightmare our way. That decision would be rooted in the huge dollars the nuke industry throws at the Congress -- mostly Republican members who have been hell-bent to shove that stuff down our throats (here's where you have to listen to statements from none other than the Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert, who can't get that stuff here fast enough) -- and in the desire of the current administration to help its friends in the power industry get on with the business of building more nuclear power plants. Rather than pay attention to the nonpartisan Government Accounting Office and other quasi-governmental agencies which claim without reservation that the work is not done and the science is not yet known -- except the science that would disqualify Yucca Mountain -- the Department of Energy would have this president make his decision without benefit of that which he said he would have before acting. If a promise made is a promise kept for a state like New York which, by the way, did not vote for George Bush and cannot claim, as Nevada can, that we elected him, then a promise made must be a promise kept for Nevadans. If George W. Bush is a man of his word, then now is the time for him to keep it. Now is the time for him to send Abraham and his recommendation back to the drawing board to get this thing right. And while he is at it, he can challenge the DOE to find a 21st century solution to the problem rather than the 18th century fix of burying the problem in our back yard. Now, that would be leadership and that would be promise-keeping. Nevadans deserve at least that much from the man they made President of the United States. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 16 Columnist Jeff German: Bush may be hiding true nuke decision Las Vegas SUN February 08, 2002 Jeff German is the Sun's senior investigative reporter. He can be reached german@lasvegassun.com [german@lasvegassun.com] or (702) 259-4067. IF PRESIDENT BUSH intends to break his campaign pledge to Nevadans and send the nation's deadly nuclear waste our way, he's doing a good job of disguising his decision. Nevada's top elected leaders, Gov. Kenny Guinn and Sens. Harry Reid and John Ensign, came away from a 25-minute meeting with the president last week believing he actually might have concerns about whether Yucca Mountain is scientifically sound to store 77,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel. "Either the president is truly sincere about wanting to get to the bottom of this, or he has a helluva poker face," one Nevada congressional source said. Before you think Bush is sincere, remember where "Texas Hold'em" got its name. Still, the president made a point last week of telling the Nevada leaders that their sit-down was not just another Oval Office photo opportunity. He even had his staffers take copious notes. It gave the Nevada officials reason to smile after they left the president. "We had a face-to-face meeting with him at a very critical time, and all of us felt without a doubt that he very intently listened to what we had to say," Guinn said. Reid, the Senate's No. 2 Democrat, had his doubts heading into the meeting. There was talk that Guinn wanted the senator on hand to help absorb the political fallout of the president's expected decision to single out Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Prior to the meeting, Guinn was nervous about Nevada's chances. White House aides were telling reporters that Bush planned to stick it to the state as early as Monday after getting energy Secretary Spencer Abraham's recommendation over the weekend. But Bush never laid his cards on the table. He never said his decision was forthcoming. And that surprised Reid, who told reporters afterward that he was optimistic the president would remember his pledge and look at sound science before deciding what to do with Yucca Mountain. Reid appeared confident the Nevadans had bought more time in an epic conflict, where each delay is considered a victory for the state. Guinn was optimistic, too, even though it became clear to him that Bush's pro-energy staff was pushing hard for the Nevada site. They've had many more chances to get to the president. What angered the governor was hearing political rhetoric after the meeting from Democratic spinmeisters looking for the upper hand in this year's election. "This has been a seamless fight, with Democrats and Republicans sharing in the blame," he said. "No one has fought it any harder than I have. We've all been in this same position." Reid and other elected Democrats have shied away from criticizing Guinn for not putting more pressure on the Bush administration to kill Yucca Mountain. They know that Reid could be under the gun in a few months to stop the project in the Democratic-controlled Senate. But Democratic operatives have been stirring things up on the streets, hoping to gain an advantage in two hotly contested congressional races and encourage members of their own party to run against Guinn and other statewide Republican office-holders this year. The Democrats have done a miserable job of fielding solid candidates at the top of their slate, and ironically it's giving Bush little reason to feel the need to protect Republicans, like Guinn, in the state. Guinn's only real opponent so far is independent Aaron Russo, whom he trounced in the Republican primary in 1998. The Democrats haven't even fielded a candidate in the race. As for Nevada's five electoral votes in the next presidential election, Bush probably won't need them, as well, if his popularity remains this high. With 90 percent favorable ratings, he could probably stick the nuclear waste in Texas and still get re-elected. So why is the president bothering to disguise his decision to send the deadly nuclear waste to Nevada?com All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 17 Larry E. Craig: Is Yucca recommendation being made too hastily? Las Vegas SUN February 08, 2002 By Larry E. Craig + Larry E. Craig is a U.S. senator from Idaho. Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham made the right decision: Abraham has recommended to President Bush that Yucca Mountain is scientifically suitable for burying the nation's high-level nuclear waste. This is a significant milestone in this country's effort to find a resting place for spent nuclear fuel and the radioactive wastes that are the legacy of our Cold War victory. Although these high-level wastes are currently safely stored at approximately 150 locations around the country, those sites were never intended to be permanent. Moreover, the Department of Energy took on a legal obligation to begin managing spent nuclear fuel from commercial power plants. That obligation began Jan. 31, 1998, and the meter is now running up a significant bill for taxpayers. The urgent need for a permanent repository for spent nuclear fuel is why the Yucca Mountain site has been subjected to extensive scientific study. A total of nine sites were studied between 1982 and 1987, and the cost of continued technical investigation of other potential sites did not make Yucca Mountain the designated repository by default. At the time Congress narrowed the field to only one site, scientists had already collected a lot of information about Yucca Mountain. A comparison of the sites pointed clearly to Nevada as most promising, which is why scientific attention has been focused on Yucca Mountain since then. Opponents of Yucca Mountain expound at length about how dangerous it would be to transport nuclear waste to a repository site. I confess to being very confused by these arguments. Apparently, the only time it is dangerous to transport nuclear waste is if it is on its way to Nevada. Tons of high-level nuclear waste have crossed America for decades, including more than 2,400 shipments of spent nuclear fuel. Idaho alone has completed more than 4,600 shipments of high-level nuclear waste. In not one instance -- ever -- has a shipment cask released radioactive material. Further, waste is being shipped from 40 countries around the world right now to the United States for storage, and research reactors across America are also shipping nuclear waste. The United States has never had any problems with these shipments because nuclear-waste transportation casks have been subjected to every imaginable test to ensure their safety. Casks have been dropped onto steel spikes, hit by locomotives, crashed into walls at 70 miles per hour. In addition, an extensive process for public hearings has already started and will continue, whereby states, local communities and emergency response authorities can express concerns, have questions answered and receive appropriate emergency-response training. But it is not useful to conduct the training and hearings now, when this program is at least a decade away and the Department of Energy has not selected transportation routes. Some have asserted that our nation's reluctance to reprocess used nuclear fuel made a geologic repository the only option. Such an assertion ignores the recommendations made by the National Academy of Sciences in 1990. The Academy found there is worldwide consensus that deep geologic disposal is the best option for disposing of these wastes. Reprocessing does not even eliminate the need for a repository. Every time spent fuel is reprocessed, its radioactive byproducts require disposal. In fact, 16 nations are studying geologic repositories, including every nation that currently reprocesses its spent nuclear fuel. Although I support federal funding to explore new technologies to handle nuclear waste, it is our duty to the safety of future generations to continue the process of repository development -- one which will result in a safe, permanent resting place for these wastes. It would be irresponsible to hope for a technological silver bullet and ignore the environmental obligations of today. Opponents of Yucca Mountain mischaracterize national policy that would allow continual study of Yucca Mountain for 50 to 300 years after spent fuel disposal begins. Having a repository that is more easily monitored can only strengthen public confidence in Yucca Mountain, because the public can have more assurance that rigorous scientific inquiry can easily and regularly be applied to the site. Everyone can agree that the decision about the site's suitability as a geologic repository should be based on sound and thorough science. I have great respect for the governor of Nevada and for my Nevada colleagues in the Congress who represent the Silver State, and do it admirably. I appreciate the difficulties of this process and their need to do whatever they can to advocate the views of Nevada's citizens and take the political actions necessary. Our nation's energy future, however, demands that we evaluate Yucca Mountain on its scientific merits alone and proceed accordingly. (c) 2002 Writers on the Range All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 18 Kenny Guinn: Is Yucca recommendation being made too hastily? Las Vegas SUN February 08, 2002 By Kenny Guinn + Kenny Guinn is governor of Nevada. Last month Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham called to inform me of his decision to press ahead with plans to bury 77,000 tons of high-level radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. "This decision stinks," I told him, "and Nevada will redouble its fight." In implementing its rich propaganda campaign, the nuclear industry now paints Nevada as unpatriotic, obstructionist and a NIMBY warrior. However, this is America's fight, not just Nevada's. Very troubling, and something that should concern every citizen of this nation, is the fact the Energy Secretary made his decision without requiring any analysis of the transportation risks to the 43 states and hundreds of cities and towns through which this dangerous, volatile waste will travel. The citizens of this country have not been told of the danger to them, their children, and future generations caused by shipping through their neighborhoods and possibly alongside their schools, stadiums or through their downtown and industrial areas, 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear fuel at a rate of 3,000 to 4,000 truck and rail shipments per year for 38 years. Such risks include individual exposure to radiation from the mere fact the waste travels through their community, declining property values along the transportation route, and the likelihood of accidents, which would release deadly radiation into the immediate environment. I urge every citizen to review the report entitled, "Radiological Consequences of Severe Rail Accidents Involving Spent Nuclear Fuel Shipments to Yucca Mountain: Hypothetical Baltimore Rail Tunnel Fire Involving Spent Nuclear Fuel," which can be found at the Agency for Nuclear Projects, Nuclear Waste Project Office website, www.state.nv.us/nucwaste. This report examines the circumstances surrounding the July 18, 2001, rail accident that occurred in Baltimore's Howard Street tunnel, igniting a fire that burned for five days. The report assesses the consequences of this accident had the train been carrying a shipment of spent nuclear fuel, concluding that the result of such an accident involving spent fuel would be devastating. Due to the duration of the fire and the extremely high temperatures, the accident would have resulted in a significant and deadly release of radiation from the transportation container. This is what can happen when this waste travels through a community. The likelihood of an accident raises additional issues such as who will pay for and train emergency response crews in each of the hundreds of cities and towns, big or small, through which this dangerous waste will travel? Who will pay for and provide the protection needed to ensure that each shipment is safe from terrorist attack? Many claim Yucca Mountain will somehow aid national security. To the contrary, even if the project proceeds, shipments of highly radioactive spent fuel -- some 100,000 individual terrorist targets -- will not begin for years. Spent fuel will accumulate at reactor sites across the country for at least the next 50 years, even if more plants are not built. The key to addressing this problem is to secure those sites now, possibly with the anti-aircraft guns and troops proposed this month by DOE, not simply shipping the spent fuel to another site where it will be stored above-ground for years. Under that industry-boosted scenario, Yucca Mountain will only create a massive new target, and thousands of smaller mobile ones. There is no need to push through a project; we have time to find a storage site that does not fail the test of science or endanger the citizens of this country, as Yucca Mountain does. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has said spent fuel can be safely stored at reactor sites for at least the next 100 years, and perhaps up to 1,000 years. Only by acknowledging that Yucca Mountain is dangerous and unnecessary can we finally begin the process of finding a safe and workable solution to the nation's spent nuclear-fuel problem. Fortunately, this is a nation of laws, and one of considerable common sense. With our backing, good scientists and good lawyers can now unravel the house of cards created by years of ineptitude and political maneuvering at Yucca Mountain. I have confidence in the common sense of President Bush, who promised me personally and in writing that the project would not be mindlessly advanced in the face of bad science. I believe the president is a man of his word. If he changes course, however, my duty is clearly to Nevadans, and I will spare no effort to ensure that science and the law will ultimately stop Yucca Mountain from going forward. (c) 2002 Writers on the Range All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 19 Las Vegas SUN: Tape shows flaws in casks Photo: Tom Pollog from the Yucca Mountain Project Las Vegas SUN February 08, 2002 Nevada lawmakers rebut nuke industry's 'secret' safety video By Benjamin Grove (c) COPYRIGHT 2002 LAS VEGAS SUN WEEKEND EDITION WASHINGTON -- As Nevada officials mull their options in an intensifying battle against the Yucca Mountain project, could a secret videotape be their next weapon? Consider this tale of the tapes. Last week as President Bush mulled whether to approve Yucca Mountain as the nation's nuclear waste burial ground, the issue of transporting the toxic material got hotter. The topic promises to be critical in upcoming debates about the controversial Yucca project. At issue: is it safe to load giant casks packed with spent uranium fuel rods from the nation's 103 nuclear reactors onto trucks and trains and ship them to Nevada? The nuclear industry says yes. And they have the videotape to prove it. In recent weeks, the nation's top industry group, the Nuclear Energy Institute, has shipped 222 nine-minute videotapes to television stations nationwide as part of a wider marketing campaign. Their message: high-tech, metal alloy waste casks are virtually indestructable, so shipping high-level waste is safe. The tape shows dramatic tests in which the casks are dropped from great heights, burned at high temperatures, and even struck by a speeding train. The casks emerge bruised but not breached. "Pure propaganda," Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said last week after viewing the video. And she's got the tape to prove it, three sources told the Sun last week. The sources said Nevada's four lawmakers in Congress in recent days have been analyzing a videotape in which a missile is fired at a "top-of-the-line" cask -- the same variety that one day might be used to haul waste to Nevada, the same kind as the ones in the NEI video. The experiment was reportedly conducted several years ago, possibly the mid-1990s, at the U.S. Army's Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland -- a joint venture between a private nuclear interest in cooperation with the military. The tape reportedly shows two experiments. In one, a small missile is fired at a cask covered in concrete, similar to waste casks stored on-site at nuclear power plants. The cask holds up. In the other experiment, a missile is fired at a transportation cask as it would be loaded for shipping. The missile pokes a melon-sized hole in it. So far the Nevada lawmakers are keeping the tape under wraps to verify its source and the tests' authenticity. The tape would be useful to the Nevadans if the cask really is a recent, top-shelf model and the missile is one that any well-connected terrorist could get his hands on. The Nevadans' message: leave the waste on-site -- don't put it on a truck or train to roll through America's neighborhoods on its way to Nevada. If the lawmakers do make the tape public, it could be an interesting videotape duel. Both sides could argue that their tape offers the most honest representation of a shipping cask's strength. After all, pictures don't lie. Do they? All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 20 Yucca: Junction duo find themselves at scientific crossroads [RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL] February 10, 2002 Don Cox [dcox@rgj.com] DEATH VALLEY JUNCTION, Calif. — Tom Willett lives in the desert to escape what he perceives as the aggravation of the outside world. Willett, with his white hair spraying in all directions from under an old railroad engineer’s cap, represents half the permanent population of this dusty, middle-of-nowhere, nearly a ghost town seven miles from the California-Nevada border. “Every time I moved, I went farther out in the desert,” said Willett, 73, who grew up in Long Beach, Calif. “I finally ended up here.” It may not be far enough. The junction, where Willett and 77-year-old Marta Becket, are the only residents, is connected to the rest of the world by State Route 373, which runs north to Amargosa Valley in Nevada, where Yucca Mountain is located. State scientists who oppose turning the mountain into a tomb for radioactive garbage claim water seeping through the mountain will eventually carry small amounts of the material across the border into springs near Death Valley and the junction. It could be a long process, taking thousands of years. Willett’s more immediate concern is trucks transporting nuclear waste to the mountain from across the country. If one wrecks near the storage site and spills its contents, the junction could be exposed. “This is why we’re interested,” Willett said. “The little communities up and down the highway are going to have the same problem. I forget how many thousands of tons they said they would be shipping here from all over the U.S.” If the U.S. Department of Energy follows its plan, the site will initially be designed to hold 77,000 tons. The nuclear power industry reports that more than 3,000 shipments of used fuel have traveled by truck ands train more than 1.7 million miles since 1964 with eight accidents that resulted in no fatalities, injuries or contamination. “A lot of trucks pass by here,” said Kathy Sneed, who lives in Pahrump on the Nevada side of the border and works as desk manager in the junction’s only business — the Amargosa Opera House and Hotel. “You never know what they’re hauling.” Of the few towns close to Yucca Mountain, the junction is probably most unique. Willett and Becket preside over the Amargosa Opera House and Hotel, a sprawling mission-style, adobe structure with a single-file line of 13 rooms connected to a small auditorium with 114 seats. There’s a courtyard in front. Early in the 20th century, it was living quarters for workers in the nearby borax mines. Now, it’s where Becket, a former Broadway dancer who came to the junction in 1967, and Willett perform for audiences of tourists. “They come from 200 miles or farther to see the show,” said Willett, who’s been part of the act since 1983. “They come from all over the U.S. You name the state and there will be somebody in our audience from there.” Once in the junction, they leave the outside world behind. In the 13 hotel rooms, there are no television sets or telephones. Willett figures it’s the old West that attracts the tourists, and they’ll keep coming, Yucca Mountain or not. Copyright Reno Gazette-Journal, a Gannett Co. Inc. ***************************************************************** 21 DOE, state scientists reach opposing conclusions [RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL] February 10, 2002 Don Cox [dcox@rgj.com] Richard Craun, an engineer, and Steve Frishman, a geologist, are the yin and yang of Yucca Mountain issue, representing opposite sides of the heated debate about the site’s suitability as a storage facility for nuclear waste. Craun, who lives in Las Vegas, is a senior policy advisor for the U.S. Department of Energy. He gives the DOE’s position that scientific evidence shows Yucca Mountain will work safely. Frishman, who lives in Mason Valley near Yerington, is technical policy coordinator for Nevada. He gives the state’s position that Yucca Mountain is flawed and science hasn’t been able to prove otherswise. Craun and Frishman take turns answering questions about Yucca Mountain and nuclear waste: Q: Why is an underground storage facility needed for nuclear waste? CRAUN: Basically, we’re trying to keep the waste away from humans and humans away from the waste, and we’re trying to do that for a long period of time. These materials go through a decaying process. They start out with a lot of nuclear activity. Over time, they decay down. The (underground) part of this disposal is the isolation of the material so (it) can decay down. FRISHMAN: They are storing it (now) at the reactor (sites). The commission that regulates those reactors says that storing things just as they are storing them now is safe for at least another 100 years. It’s inconvenient, but it’s safe. Q: How is waste stored now? FRISHMAN: It’s what’s called a spent fuel pool. It’s water 40 feet deep. When fuel comes out of the reactor, it’s stored under water. If those pools get full, there is technology so you can take the fuel out of the pool and put it in containers where it’s dry. Those containers are licensed, those licenses are renewable and the containers are replaceable. There is infinite storage available at every reactor. CRAUN: At some point, they do have to make a decision (about underground storage). The replacement of the canister means you have to open the canister, handle the fuel and re-handle it back into a new canister and store that canister, every 30 years forever. Whenever you handle fuel, accidents can take place. Q: Why use Yucca Mountain? CRAUN: In the desert Southwest, studies by the U.S. Geological Service identified the deep water table as a distinct advantage. The water tables are very deep. FRISHMAN: The reason they even looked here was in 1976 the (federal) General Accounting Office suggested that along with looking at sites around the country, they look at government owned atomic energy defense areas just to see if there would be some potential sites. That’s how they got the Nevada Test Site. They ended up with Yucca Mountain because they really couldn’t get anything else. It just turned out to be the one they could easily work on. Q: The water table is about 2,000 feet below the top of Yucca Mountain and 1,000 feet below the planned level of the repository. Can the level of the water table change? CRAUN: We are looking at how much the water table comes up during the wetter periods. The bottom line is, it won’t come up as high as the repository. We can’t have the repository submerged. FRISHMAN: See this area out here? This was marshland until 10,000 years ago. The water table was as high as we are now because 10,000 years ago there was that much water. It gives you a sense of climate change just over the last 10,000 years. We are right at the water table. Q: If it’s approved, Yucca Mountain will be designed to hold 70,000 metric tons of nuclear waste. Can it be expanded to hold more? CRAUN: The nuclear policy act limits us to 70,000 metric tons. If that law is changed, the facility could accommodate 120,000 metric tons. I believe that’s the projection for all of the reactors in the U.S. until about 2030. FRISHMAN: The answer is they plan to expand it and they’ll get the law changed when they want it. Q: Yucca Mountain and the surrounding desert averages about seven inches of rain a year. Studies show that over thousands of years, the area experiences dry periods, when moisture is low, and wet periods, when moisture increases. Why is it important? FRISHMAN: The theory of the operation of Yucca Mountain is that you get precipitation. It flows down through the fractures in the rock. It eventually contacts the nuclear waste containers. Eventually, the waste containers corrode, so the water contacts the waste itself. Some of the waste dissolves in the water and gets into the water table. The water table is flowing south. It’s available to be picked up by irrigation wells and drinking water wells. CRAUN: Of the seven inches, about two-tenths of an inch works its way into the mountain. Most of the water evaporates or runs off into the vegetation. The water that seeps in goes down. Once it reaches the water table, it flows slightly southeast, then into Amargosa Valley and into the Death Valley Junction area. There is a reality there as to the flow of the water. Q: If a storage facility is put into operation in Yucca Mountain, the water table will be 1,000 feet below the waste repository. Are you trying to determine how long it will take moisture to seep from the top of the mountain, down to the repository, then down into the water table? CRAUN: That’s part of our total system performance assessment. Those are the calculations that we use to determine whether or not the releases in the future do or don’t comply with the standards of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. FRISHMAN: In 50 years, water from precipitation has gotten to at least the level of the repository. It confirms logic. I’ve sat on top of Yucca Mountain, where there is practically no soil and you can see the fissures in the rock. I’ve been there in a rainstorm. The water does what the law of gravity says. It goes down the cracks. Q: Will Yucca Mountain work as safe storage facility for nuclear waste? CRAUN: All the calculations and all the analysis today shows the repository can perform within the standards. As we go through the licensing process, will we have more information? Yes. We will continue to gather more information on the performance of the mountain. Can we (absolutely) prove Yucca Mountain? No. Is there a reasonable expectation of performance? Yes. FRISHMAN: Anything that is soluble when the container does fail will end up at the surface. It’s a matter of time. It isn’t “if,” it’s “when.” That could be as early as 200 years or as much as 100,000 years. Q: Scientists are trying to determine what will happen inside the mountain over long periods of time, hundreds and thousands of years. Do they know enough now to convince regulators the project will work? FRISHMAN: I continue to make the point that you can’t go into this unless on the front end you can demonstrate that what you know is sufficient. If you get better (information), fine, take advantage of it. But, you’ve got to have what you need before you start. You can’t go into this, as we say in Nevada, betting on the come. CRAUN: The Nuclear Regulator Commission will (decide) based on our knowledge today. We can’t base it on anticipated knowledge. We will justify the design and operation of this based on the facts and information, and the verification of that information. Q: How can you know how the storage facility will perform thousands of years from now? CRAUN: We have 20 years of scientific research at Yucca Mountain. We have all the national laboratories involved. We have the best experts involved, assessing our current knowledge and the uncertainty of predictions. FRISHMAN: Most of the predictions are heavily dependent on their prediction of how well the waste containers will hold up underground. Their predictions are based on three years of laboratory experiments. Their prediction is the containers will last 10,000 years. Q: Yucca Mountain is located in an active earthquake area. How would that impact a nuclear storage facility? CRAUN: There are earthquakes in this region. They predominately affect the surface facilities. The underground facilities, the repository itself, are not sensitive to the earthquakes. It’s like a submarine underwater. The submarine is oblivious to what’s happening on the surface. As you go down in depth, the effects of an earthquake diminish appreciably. Will earthquakes affect the design of surface facilities? Very much so. Our facilities will be designed to withstand the maximum credible earthquakes for this region. We have seismologists studying this entire region. For the underground facility, when you do calculations of stress, seismic is not a dominant factor. It is a real issue for surface facilities. FRISHMAN: We’re in Rock Valley. It’s probably the most active area around Yucca Mountain. The worst case for the surface facilities is a seismic event that collapses the waste handling facility. You can see a few (earthquake) events per month sometimes. In June 1992 there was the largest earthquake that’s been recorded within 50 miles of here. It was a 5.6. Copyright Reno Gazette-Journal, a Gannett Co. Inc. ***************************************************************** 22 Yucca Mountain: Opposing camps remain sharply divided [RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL] February 10, 2002 Don Cox [dcox@rgj.com] A volatile mix of science, politics, anger and fear makes a plan to entomb the nation’s high-level nuclear waste inside Yucca Mountain perhaps the most explosive public policy issue in Nevada history. It’s also a debate involving the rest of the country, with Nevada lawmakers arguing that bigger, more populous states, and the nuclear industry are using political might to bury their unwanted radioactive garbage in the desert outside Las Vegas. Project advocates contend that an underground repository is the best place to permanently store used nuclear fuel piling up at the nation’s reactors. But Nevada’s political leaders — with Gov. Kenny Guinn, senators Harry Reid and John Ensign and Rep. Jim Gibbons in the forefront — have vowed an all-out battle to stop the dump, which could open as soon as 2010 and last at least 10,000 years. Scientists are lined up on both sides of the debate about whether such a thing, the first of its kind in the world, is feasible and safe. The fight about Yucca Mountain has reached a decisive stage. U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham is expected to submit on Monday his recommendation for site approval to President Bush, who could rule quickly. If Bush endorses Abraham, Yucca Mountain would then need approval from the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, a licensing process that could take years. Suitability of the site almost certainly would be argued in court cases after that. Some worry that so much money has been spent so far, that it is too late to retreat from Yucca. About $5 billion has been spent already on a project that could cost $58 billion. Abraham’s announcement Jan. 10 favoring the mountain as a dump touched off the latest uproar in the nuclear waste argument that’s been going on for 20 years. “The decision was designed to be made when a certain amount of information was available, when a certain amount of science was done,” said Steve Kraft of the Washington D.C.-based Nuclear Energy Institute. “That time has come.” Bush has until the end of his term to make a decision, but is expected to rule much sooner, possibly this week. A favorable decision won’t end the struggle. Nevada already has taken its case to court, and Guinn vows to veto the project. It would force a vote in Congress, where Nevada is greatly outnumbered. “That is not the end for us,” said Guinn, who, along with Reid, a Democrat, and Ensign, a Republican, met with Bush at the White House last week to detail opposition to Yucca Mountain. “We can go through litigation. We have a very strong case.” Although Yucca Mountain rises out of the southern Nevada desert 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, the nuclear waste issue involves the entire state, including Reno and Sparks, through which radioactive material could be transported on its way to the underground site. Proposed routes include Interstate 80, U.S. 395 and the Union Pacific Railroad line that cleaves the Truckee Meadows. “This is a Nevada problem and we’re part of the state,” Reno Mayor Jeff Griffin said. “We’re all in this together.” Ordinary citizens, some of whom live within sight of the mountain, worry they’re caught in the middle of the battle. “The whole deal makes us feel like we’re kind of expendable,” said Ed Goedhart, who runs a dairy farm in Amargosa Valley that’s 15 miles from the proposed repository. “We’re basically a casualty of this whole nuclear waste issue.” In the old mining town of Beatty, located 30 miles northwest of Yucca Mountain, store clerk Kelly Madan wonders what all the fuss is about. “I don’t think it bothers people much,” she said. “Where else would they put it?” That’s a question many Nevadans want answered. Standing up for Nevada Reid, one of the most powerful members of the Senate as number two man in its Democrat majority, blasts the nuclear industry, accusing it of seeking to use Nevada as a dump for nuclear trash. “They know nuclear power is on its way out,” he said. “They don’t want to worry about the poison they’ve produced. Out of sight, out of mind.” The nuclear industry fires back, insisting the number of power plants will grow, producing more electricity for more customers and increasing the need for a permanent waste facility. “We’re not going away: We think demand is going to be there,” said Kraft, the energy institute’s director of used fuel management. “There is a definite need to deal with used nuclear fuel that goes far beyond storage. You can store it on site. That’s just storage. It doesn’t solve the problem. Yucca Mountain is about disposal, not storage.” Yucca Mountain is also about fear. People hear or read about the proposed repository and recall the post-World War II atomic bomb blasts at the Nevada Test Site, on the southwest corner of which the mountain sits. They think about nuclear power plant accidents, such as Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. They think of deadly radiation. “Maybe it will be many generations before we have to worry about it, if it works according to their plan,” Goedhart said of Yucca Mountain. “If they have such a miserable track record, I’m skeptical that it will be O.K. this time. Why will this one be perfect?” Amid all the questions, arguments and rhetoric, research inside the mountain and the process of obtaining approval for it as a repository for 77,000 tons of nuclear waste continues. Scientists split over Yucca Some scientists say the mountain is a good site, maybe the best. They say it’s relatively isolated and geologically sound enough, especially when combined with man-made storage containers, to house the spent fuel rods from power plants across the country in a repository 1,000 feet below the crest of the mountain, but 1,000 feet above the desert water table. Others say the mountain, formed millions of years ago by a series of volcanic eruptions, is porous and the containers unreliable. Moisture, they say, will seep down, erode the containers and carry nuclear waste into the water table. Researchers working for the U.S. Department of Energy, which oversees the project, admit they can’t answer Goedhart’s question absolutely. But they say the evidence supporting Yucca Mountain is more than enough to proceed with the project. “Can we prove Yucca Mountain?” Richard Craun, an engineer and senior policy advisor for the DOE, asked. “No. Is there a reasonable expectation of performance? Yes.” The project’s critics, especially in Nevada, attack the lack of certainty. “I continue to make the point that you can’t go into this unless on the front end you can demonstrate that what you know is sufficient,” said Steve Frishman, a geologist and Nevada’s technical policy coordinator for Yucca Mountain. “You can’t go into this, as we say in Nevada, ‘betting on the come.’ ” Predicting with certainty the ultimate safety of Yucca Mountain is difficult, if not impossible, experts say. “It becomes an issue of balancing acceptable risk with cost and values,” said Anthony Hechanova, a scientist at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas who specializes in nuclear issues. “The best the DOE can say is, ‘We have confidence.’ The opponents can say, ‘Well, we don’t have confidence.’ You can’t quantify confidence. It will be battled in the courts.” Politics vs. science Yucca Mountain opponents claim the project is much more about politics than science, with Congress, pushed by the nuclear power industry, picking Nevada as an easy alternative to states with more people, votes and clout. They point to the 1987 vote by Congress, called the “Screw Nevada” bill by state officials, which eliminated all potential sites except Yucca Mountain for continued study as a repository. “It’s political science,” said Bob Loux, head of the state’s Agency for Nuclear Projects. “It’s the only sort of science the DOE knows.” Loux and state scientists argue federal energy officials are eager to complete work on Yucca Mountain because the government missed its 1998 deadline to start accepting nuclear waste from power plants across the country. “Congress and the friends of the nuclear industry in Congress are very impatient,” Frishman said. “They missed the deadline. Utilities and their supporters want to know what’s going to happen with disposal. They need to know if it’s going to be Yucca Mountain, or not. They don’t even accept the ‘or not.’ They need to know it’s going to be Yucca Mountain. That’s their position.” Goedhart, the Amargosa Valley dairy farmer, shares Frishman’s opinion. “There is a rush for a lot of reasons,” said Goedhart, whose 5,200 cows are responsible for 28 percent of the milk produced in Nevada. “They put themselves into a corner. They are looking for us to be an escape hatch.” Kraft says a variety of factors, including economics, are involved in picking Yucca Mountain. “You need to have certainty about what you’re going to do with these materials so future investments can be made,” he said of the removal of nuclear waste and the construction of more power plants. “In the long run, it’s less expensive to dispose than to continue to store it.” The waste is being kept at the plants, either under water or in dry storage containers. Opponents of Yucca Mountain say there’s enough room at the plant sites to keep waste for another 100 years. Mountain supporters say the plants eventually will run out of room. “We need to put it in a place that’s sequestered, far from people, far from the water table,” Kraft said of the growing amount of waste at the plants. “Yucca Mountain looks like the best place to go.” Work on Yucca already begun While arguments continue above ground, scientists work inside the mountain, testing the rock to see if it’s suitable for waste disposal. The study as been going on for two decades. With the price tag already at $5 billion, Bush earmarked $527 million for Yucca Mountain in the federal budget year that begins Oct. 1. It’s another step toward the projected $58 billion final cost. Digging was completed on a five-mile “U” shaped tunnel in 1997. It’s called the Exploratory Studies Facility. Many smaller tunnels will have to be dug for waste deposit. The tunnels will house the containers. Scientists are trying to predict what will happen in those tunnels and containers thousands of years from now. “It’s a very difficult site to prove,” said UNLV’s Hechanova, who is not associated with Yucca Mountain. “That doesn’t mean it’s not the best. All science makes assumptions. Without that, we wouldn’t have developed the airplane.” A major argument about the mountain’s predicted performance involves geological and engineered nuclear waste disposal. State scientists opposing the project say the man-made waste containers have been developed because the DOE isn’t confident in Yucca Mountain as a geological barrier against radiation. “When they discovered water moving rapidly through the mountain, they had to change their whole view," Frishman said. “They said, ‘We have to make it work. How do we make it work? We build containers. It started out as a geological site. Now, it’s an engineered site.” It’s both, says Per Peterson, chairman of the nuclear engineering department at the University of California, who approves of a repository that combines engineering with geology. “You don’t want all the systems to be the same because they could all fail for the same reasons,” said Peterson, a University of Nevada, Reno graduate. “There isn’t a single repository program that isn’t engineered in some way.” The geology vs. engineering issue is part of Nevada’s lawsuit against the project, which the state claims is required by federal policy to be a geological facility. Repository opponents, along with some neutral observers, say the digging, testing and large amounts of money being spent all are evidence the DOE plans to push ahead with the site, no matter what. “They’ve got so much money in it, they can’t walk away,” said Jack Stroop, a 75-year-old retiree who’s lived in Beatty for a decade. “They have to have a place to dump it. They spent all that money on it. They might as well dump it here.” Energy department officials say money won’t keep them from backing out if the mountain ultimately proves unsuitable. Still many steps toward Yucca Even if the President and Congress support the site, nuclear regulatory authorities still must decide whether to license it. “It’s by no means a slam dunk that this site is going to get licensed,” Kraft said. Hechanova, who is on the staff of UNLV’s Harry Reid Center for Environmental Studies, is, with other scientists from across the country, working on an alternative to dumping large amounts of high level waste in the mountain. It’s called “transmutation,” in which radioactive waste is bombarded with neutrons that set off a chemical reaction, transforming the dangerous nuclear garbage into a substance that’s not radioactive. But research on transmutation started just a couple years ago. It’s a long way behind Yucca Mountain studies. “It would reduce the volume of that waste,” said Denis Beller, a researcher at the environmental studies center who supports transmutation and Yucca Mountain. “It would make it easier to manage the site.” Beller is convinced Yucca Mountain will work. “The people in Las Vegas are in zero danger,” he said of the possibility of large amounts of radiation being released from the mountain. “Even if there was an event, it would never get to Las Vegas. You would never see a harmful level leave the site.” But the fear factor remains. “It’s partially because of the weapons testing,” Beller said of post-war experiments at the Nevada Test Site. “There is some bad history there.” It’s something the nuclear industry has a tough time living down. “That whole horror story was born out of ignorance immediately following World War II,” Kraft said of testing procedures. “Today, the DOE is far more careful of what we do. We have the strongest safety culture of any industry in the world.” But they may have a tough time convincing people. Two economists studying the Yucca Mountain project, UNR’s Doug Shaw and UNLV’s Mary Riddel, say their survey completed last year of about 300 people shows a high level of anxiety and a refusal to accept scientific explanations of the site. “If you have one of the biggest public projects in the history of the U.S., you owe it to people to help them understand what the uncertainties are,” said Shaw, who measured the reaction of people living close to potential waste transportation routes in southern Nevada. “They say, ‘You can tell us whatever you want to tell us, but we don’t believe it.’ ” Copyright Reno Gazette-Journal, a Gannett Co. Inc. ***************************************************************** 23 Nebraska ups ante to fight waste site Lawrence Journal-World: Feb 11, 2002 12:50 am The Associated Press Sunday, February 10, 2002 Lincoln, Neb. — Nebraska lawmakers gave initial approval Friday to spending another $4 million to defend the state in its legal fight over attempts to build a radioactive waste site in Boyd County. The money is included in a bill that would bring the total spent by the state on the lawsuit to more than $14 million — or more than $9,500 a day — during the past four years. "We really have no alternative but to defend ourselves in this case," said Sen. Roger Wehrbein of Plattsmouth, chairman of the Legislature's Appropriations Committee. The lawsuit, originally filed in 1998 by utilities that generate radioactive waste, claims that Nebraska acted in bad faith when it declined to issue a license to build a regional storage site for low-level waste near Butte, near the South Dakota border. "Frankly, we're behind about a million dollars in paying our bills on this lawsuit," Wehrbein said. "That money is being spent quite rapidly." The lawsuit is being handled for Nebraska by the Washington D.C. law firms of Howrey, Simon Arnold &White and Collier Shannon Scott. The Lincoln law firm of Butler, Galter, Obrien &Boehm also is working on the case. The lawsuit involves nearly 2 million documents. The trial, scheduled to start in June in U.S. District Court in Lincoln, is expected to last about six weeks. Nebraska could end up paying an estimated $160 million or more in damages and interest if it loses the lawsuit. The battle over the waste site began in 1970, when Nevada, South Carolina and Washington got tired of accepting low-level radioactive waste from the rest of the country. Congress told states in 1980 to build their own waste sites or join regional groups to dispose of the waste, which includes contaminated tools and clothing from nuclear power plants, hospitals and research centers. Nebraska joined Kansas, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Louisiana in 1983 to form the Central Interstate Low-Level Radioactive Waste Compact, and the other states voted in 1987 to put the waste site in Nebraska. The fight began soon after, with both sides wrestling in court on several issues. The other states in the compact joined the pending lawsuit. It alleges that Nebraska acted in bad faith during the licensing process and allowed "political interference" to taint the process. Nebraska said they denied the license because of concerns about possible pollution and a high-water table near the proposed site. [http://www.lawrence.com] Copyright © 2001, the Lawrence Journal-World. ***************************************************************** 24 Nebraska ups ante to fight waste site Lawrence Journal-World: The Associated Press Sunday, February 10, 2002 Lincoln, Neb. — Nebraska lawmakers gave initial approval Friday to spending another $4 million to defend the state in its legal fight over attempts to build a radioactive waste site in Boyd County. The money is included in a bill that would bring the total spent by the state on the lawsuit to more than $14 million — or more than $9,500 a day — during the past four years. "We really have no alternative but to defend ourselves in this case," said Sen. Roger Wehrbein of Plattsmouth, chairman of the Legislature's Appropriations Committee. The lawsuit, originally filed in 1998 by utilities that generate radioactive waste, claims that Nebraska acted in bad faith when it declined to issue a license to build a regional storage site for low-level waste near Butte, near the South Dakota border. "Frankly, we're behind about a million dollars in paying our bills on this lawsuit," Wehrbein said. "That money is being spent quite rapidly." The lawsuit is being handled for Nebraska by the Washington D.C. law firms of Howrey, Simon Arnold & White and Collier Shannon Scott. The Lincoln law firm of Butler, Galter, Obrien & Boehm also is working on the case. The lawsuit involves nearly 2 million documents. The trial, scheduled to start in June in U.S. District Court in Lincoln, is expected to last about six weeks. Nebraska could end up paying an estimated $160 million or more in damages and interest if it loses the lawsuit. The battle over the waste site began in 1970, when Nevada, South Carolina and Washington got tired of accepting low-level radioactive waste from the rest of the country. Congress told states in 1980 to build their own waste sites or join regional groups to dispose of the waste, which includes contaminated tools and clothing from nuclear power plants, hospitals and research centers. Nebraska joined Kansas, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Louisiana in 1983 to form the Central Interstate Low-Level Radioactive Waste Compact, and the other states voted in 1987 to put the waste site in Nebraska. The fight began soon after, with both sides wrestling in court on several issues. The other states in the compact joined the pending lawsuit. It alleges that Nebraska acted in bad faith during the licensing process and allowed "political interference" to taint the process. Nebraska said they denied the license because of concerns about possible pollution and a high-water table near the proposed site. Copyright © 2001, the Lawrence Journal-World. ***************************************************************** 25 Radioactive wastes: the risks on the rails sunspot.net - Safety: Last summer's tunnel fire would have ruptured containers, contaminating Baltimore, a report says. The nuclear industry says transport is safe. By Mike Adams Sun National Staff Originally published February 11, 2002 The metal containers designed to carry spent nuclear fuel from the Calvert Cliffs plant and other reactors to a proposed storage site in Nevada would have failed if the transport train had been engulfed in the estimated 1,500- degree heat of the Baltimore rail tunnel fire last summer, according to a consultant's report prepared for the state of Nevada. More than 300,000 people would have been exposed to radiation leaking from the containers, built to withstand 1,475 degrees for 30 minutes, said the report compiled by Radioactive Waste Management Associates, which was hired by Nevada's Agency for Nuclear Projects. The Baltimore blaze lasted more than three days, from July 18 to 22. Its duration and intense heat would have breached the two types of rail casks used to haul spent fuel - one made of steel with lead lining and the other of steel - under the conditions of the accident, the report concludes. The fire would not have triggered a nuclear blast, but the city would have been exposed to a catastrophic release of radiation. Each rail cask weighs about 145 tons fully loaded and contains 260 times the amount of radioactive cesium released by the Hiroshima atomic bomb, said Matthew Lamb, a co-author of the report. "While these containers are strong, ... they are not designed to withstand everything that could happen on a transportation route," he said. "People who live along these routes should know what the possible consequences are. I don't want to be a fearmonger, the probability of these accidents is small, but it is not zero." The Nevada agency is monitoring a federal plan to ship radioactive waste to Yucca Mountain, about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Last month, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham selected Yucca Mountain as the depository for about 77,000 tons of spent fuel and high-level nuclear waste that is being stored in 39 states, including Maryland. President Bush is expected to approve the recommendation this week, according to congressional sources. Some of those shipments would pass through Baltimore's Howard Street Tunnel, part of one of the major East Coast rail routes. Opposing views Eileen Supko, a nuclear engineer who often serves as a spokeswoman for the nuclear power industry, dismissed the Nevada report as "fearmongering." "Truthfully, the purpose of that report from the state of Nevada and its contractors was to stir things up and to scare people," she said. "A lot of the rhetoric from the anti-nuclear groups is to generate fear. If you look at the history of spent nuclear shipments, not just in the United States but internationally, there has never been a release of radioactive materials from the containers." Nevada officials, including Sen. Harry Reid, a ranking Democrat, are trying to derail the proposal by focusing on the dangers of transporting radioactive waste. The Yucca Mountain proposal is unpopular in Nevada, where many residents are angry about the nuclear waste it would send streaming into the state. Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley said he was unfamiliar with the report and could not comment on its findings. But he said it might be prudent to direct high-level radioactive waste away from "vulnerable" and "heavily populated" areas. If the plan moves forward, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of shipments of radioactive waste would be sent to Yucca Mountain annually for 24 to 38 years from 131 commercial, research and military reactors. Baltimore is one of 109 cities with populations of more than 100,000 along the likely shipping routes. The storage problem About 20 percent of the nation's electricity is generated by 103 commercial nuclear plants, and the industry's survival depends on the Yucca Mountain disposal site. No nuclear plants have been built since the accident at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania in 1979, and none are likely to be built without a permanent solution to the storage problem. Mitch Singer, a spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's main trade organization, said there are now 18 reactor sites with dry cask storage and 14 more have such plans. By 2010, 60 commercial nuclear plants will need dry cask storage. Nuclear fuel consists of uranium pellets encased in metal rods. Used or "spent" fuel is removed from the reactor to water-filled pools, where it cools for about 10 years. It is then moved to "dry" storage, where it has been piling up at reactor sites because there is no place to dispose of it. Spent fuel has been accumulating at Calvert Cliffs since its first reactor went online in 1975. There is enough storage space there to last the life span of the plant's two reactors, which are licensed until 2034 and 2036, respectively, said Steven W. Unglesbee, a spokesman for the plant. Calvert Cliffs is owned and operated by Constellation Energy Group, the parent company of Baltimore Gas and Electric Co., and produces about 40 percent of the energy generated by the utility. Some utilities are suing the Energy Department because it agreed to start hauling the waste to Yucca Mountain about four years ago and the project has fallen behind schedule. About $7 billion has been spent on the site, which could open in 2010 at the earliest. The completed project is expected to cost about $58 billion. Assessing the risk Yucca Mountain's opponents say the number of shipments and the uncertainties inherent in transporting hazardous waste by truck and train increase the probability of a catastrophic accident. A spent fuel accident in the tunnel would have been disastrous for Baltimore. Whole city neighborhoods would have had to have been razed to reduce radiation to acceptable levels, Lamb said. "It's either that," he said, "or the risk of a serious cancer hazard for the people who live close to where the accident took place and downwind." Singer said nuclear waste has been shipped safely by truck and rail for more than 35 years. During that period, more than 3,000 shipments of spent fuel have traveled about 1.7 million miles in this country. Supko said the shipping containers must be able to survive hypothetical accidents, represented by a 30-foot drop to a flat, unyielding surface, followed by puncture test, heat and immersion in water. She said computer simulations and actual tests on containers show that they will survive any likely accident. Dropping a huge rail container onto a flat, unyielding surface is the equivalent of a high-speed accident because the container absorbs all of the energy, she said. Supko said the thermal test, which subjects containers to an engulfing fire of 1,475 degrees for 30 minutes, simulates conditions that would exceed a real-world accident, such as the tunnel fire. In a transportation accident involving fire, the container would be sitting on a flatbed truck or rail car, and that would result in a heat transfer from the container to the other surface, she said. A fire in which only the container is engulfed in flames is highly unlikely and simulates higher temperatures in a real-world situation, she added. Federal regulations do not prohibit spent fuel from being shipped with other freight, so it could be involved in a rail accident such as the tunnel fire, the report said. But Supko disagreed. She said it is highly unlikely that a railroad would allow spent fuel to be shipped with combustible chemicals or other hazardous cargo. It is much more likely that a "dedicated train," a train that hauls only nuclear waste, would be used to ship spent fuel to Yucca Mountain, she said. Security arguments When Abraham picked Yucca Mountain, he pointed to national security as a reason for having a national nuclear waste repository. "We should consolidate the nuclear wastes to enhance protection against terrorist attacks," he said in a letter to Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn. But critics say that implementing the plan would endanger national security. "If Yucca Mountain moves forward, it merely increases the number of terrorist targets," said Robert R. Loux, the executive director of Nevada's Agency for Nuclear Projects. "We'll have 3,000 shipments moving by truck and train, 103 reactor sites and one big target - Yucca Mountain." Singer contends that tight security for shipments and the nuclear industry's strong safety record negate critics' arguments. "Is it vulnerable to a terrorist attack? Anything is possible," he said. "But due to the rigorous nature of the transportation canisters and the security measures that are taken, any shipment of them - by train or by truck - it would be very, very difficult, if not impossible [target] for a terrorist." Copyright © 2002, The Baltimore Sun ***************************************************************** 26 Russia chooses Novaya Zemlya site for nuclear burial BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Feb 10, 2002 Text of report in English by Russian news agency Interfax Archangel, 8 February: A burial site for radioactive wastes is to be built in Novaya Zemlya, an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean in Archangel Region. This was decided at a session of an expert commission of the Russian state ecological examination service [presumably the Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring]. Taking part in the session were representatives from Severodvinsk in Archangel Region, ecological organizations, defence enterprises, the Ministry of Atomic Energy, for which the burial site will be built, the Moscow design institute Gidrospetsgeologiya, the Kurchatov Institute and the Moscow Sechenov Medical Academy, Oleg Korotkov, of the Severodvinsk city hall press service, told Interfax on Friday [8 February]. In the view of the participants in the session, the burial site for radioactive wastes will meet all the standards of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Moreover, "the subsurface at Novaya Zemlya is perfect for long-term storage of radioactive wastes, as permafrost makes it impossible for water to leak into the storage facility and, as a result, this prevents radionuclides from migrating". It is planned to set up the burial site on the territory of a former nuclear weapons test range. The wastes will be transported only by sea. Source: Interfax news agency, Moscow, in English 1743 gmt 8 Feb 02 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. ***************************************************************** 27 Residents of Siberian town block railway to stop nuclear waste train BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Feb 9, 2002 Text of report in English by Russian news agency Interfax Moscow, 9 February: About 500 people blocked a railway line along which nuclear waste is imported from abroad to a Siberian town, the international environmental group Greenpeace said on Saturday [9 February]. The action by 500 residents of the town of Sosnovoborsk in Krasnoyarsk Region is in support for a planned Krasnoyarsk referendum on a proposal to keep nuclear waste out of the Region. The protesters were chanting slogans, "The Yenisey [river] for Siberia and not for Minatom [Atomic Energy Ministry]" and "Siberia for people and not for nuclear waste". The railway they were picketing is used to bring nuclear waste to a plant in the town of Krasnoyarsk-26. In November last year, 41 tonnes of nuclear waste from the Kozloduy nuclear power plant in Bulgaria came to Krasnoyarsk-26 along this line. The cargo set off protests in Russia and Ukraine, Greenpeace said in a release published in Moscow. The pickets were demanding that the waste be taken back to the country it came from and that those who brought it in should be prosecuted. They approved a letter to the Russian president, the Krasnoyarsk governor and the Regional legislature, demanding a referendum on a proposal for a nuclear-free future for their region. More than 40,000 signatures in support of such a referendum were submitted to the Regional Electoral Commission on Thursday, 5,000 more than is needed to make a referendum mandatory. The Russian branch of Greenpeace and the Krasnoyarsk Social and Ecological Union have filed a lawsuit against the Tekhsnabeksport company to annul its deal with Bulgaria. Source: Interfax news agency, Moscow, in English 1648 gmt 9 Feb 02 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. ***************************************************************** 28 Yucca money a political issue "Yucca Man" Pat Blankenship leans over a can of dry ice portrayed as a radioactive waste container at a Jan. 17 fund-raiser in Las Vegas featuring House Majority Leader Dick Armey, who supports the Yucca Mountain nuclear repository. Photo by Amy Beth Bennett. Monday, February 11, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal Democrats hope contributions from nuclear depository supporters hamper GOP candidates By JANE ANN MORRISON REVIEW-JOURNAL The Democratic definition of dirty money: the money your Republican opponent takes from anyone who wants to send nuclear waste to Nevada. Especially money from GOP House leaders. Democrats send out news releases decrying the acceptance of the filthy lucre. They ask Republican candidates to boycott fund-raisers featuring House leaders. To reinforce their point, "Yucca Man," a cartoonlike anti-nuclear mascot, appears outside these events and preens for the cameras, his face covered by a gas mask. Republicans pooh-pooh the Democrats as being silly. Then, the whole thing gets TV time and newspaper ink. "Obviously, if the Democrats choose to use it, and they're clean on this, they can get an advantage on it," said David Damore, an assistant professor who specializes in campaign politics at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Republicans seem to have no fear of being tainted by the money because they continue to accept such donations. After the year-end Federal Election Commission reports were filed, they showed that former Gov. Robert List, now the Nevada spokesman for the nuclear waste industry, gave money to two of Nevada's Republican congressional candidates: state Sen. Jon Porter in the 3rd District and Las Vegas City Councilwoman Lynette Boggs McDonald in the 1st District. Both candidates also received donations from political action committees controlled by House leaders who want nuclear waste sent to Nevada if Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is proved safe for a repository. Boggs McDonald drew attention to the three checks totaling $8,000 from political actions committees, particularly the ones guided by House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois and House Whip Tom DeLay of Texas. Porter received $29,500 from seven leadership PACs but didn't draw attention to it during an interview about his campaign finance reports. So what did the Democrats have to say about "Yucca money?" Boggs McDonald's foe, Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., wasn't available for comment. But Porter's Democratic opponent, Clark County Commission Chairman Dario Herrera finds the connection questionable. "It's extremely concerning that someone who vows to be adamantly opposed to nuclear waste readily accepts contributions from their hired gun and from their leaders who championed the Abraham decision," Herrera said, referring to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham's Jan. 10 announcement that he would recommend Yucca Mountain as the nation's nuclear waste repository. Porter doesn't view the contributions as a partisan issue. "More than ever, shame on anyone who uses Yucca Mountain or divides our state at this crucial time by using Yucca Mountain," he said. Boggs McDonald welcomed the money from the House leadership and said her acceptance of their money won't hurt her chances. "Most voters understand the big picture and don't see Yucca Mountain as a partisan issue," she said. GOP leaders decide which issues are heard, she said, "and on a lot of issues they are great allies with Nevada -- tax policies, the military and accountability in education." Damore believes accepting money from Yucca Mountain supporters could be a successful issue for Democrats. He compared Yucca Man, who wears a silver radiation suit, to Chicken Bush, who stalked President Bush in 2000. "If the public is aware of an issue, it can be an effective visual," Damore said. Paul Brown, the Southern Nevada director of the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, tracks campaign finance issues closely. He doubts Yucca money will have much effect on voters in Nevada's House races. "I think there's a few it resonates with. I don't think it's the majority of folks. It's strange what sticks in Nevada politics," Brown said. Porter doesn't believe the issue made a difference in his 2000 race against Berkley. "Polls have shown Nevada is wise to the fact that both Democrats and Republicans have been involved" in financing and approving Yucca Mountain over the years, he said. Porter insisted it is wrong to exploit Yucca Mountain and divide the state: "The blame game is not productive." Yet in 2000, he criticized Berkley for voting for appropriations bills that included money for construction at Yucca Mountain. GOP consultant Mike Slanker said Democrats' hands have been dirtied by this issue. Slanker said Democratic House leaders, including Martin Frost of Texas and Minority Whip David Bonier of Michigan, supported the temporary storage of nuclear waste in Nevada when they voted in 1987 for legislation that made Nevada the only state to be studied for a storage site. Despite that fact, Slanker doubts Republicans would protest outside fund-raisers those House Democrats might have for Berkley or Herrera. It's not a new technique. In 2000, the Democratic Party hammered Porter for accepting campaign help from Hastert, Majority Leader Dick Armey and DeLay of Texas and Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia. Now it's 2002, and the pounding has resumed. Democratic Party Chairman Terry Care wrote a letter to Porter and Boggs McDonald asking them to boycott a Jan. 17 fund-raising event featuring Armey. They didn't. Instead, Porter and Boggs McDonald reiterated that they oppose the Yucca Mountain Project and that, although they don't agree with Armey on that issue, they agree on others. Meanwhile, Armey's appearance raised $60,000 for the Nevada Republican Party, money that could help Porter and Boggs McDonald. Republicans try to complain when Democrats take money from nuclear dump supporters. When Porter challenged Berkley, he pointed out that she accepted two $1,000 donations from House Democrats who want to send nuclear waste to Nevada. His staff tallied $92,000 given to congressional Democrats by the nuclear waste industry, a relative pittance compared with the $232,000 the nuclear waste industry gave to DeLay alone over six years. But this year's response is different. Slanker, a campaign consultant for Porter, said, "We didn't respond to Care's partisan silliness. It was a waste of time." Mark Nevins, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said the strategy of objecting to Republican leaders who come to Nevada to help candidates will continue. "It keeps the issue alive ... and the drumbeat can be discouraging to the other side," he said. It also generates publicity. Yucca Man appeared on five Las Vegas television stations. The Review-Journal, CityLife and the Las Vegas Sun mentioned him in advance of his appearance. "There's not a single issue in Nevada that has the potential to impact more people on a more dangerous level than the storage of nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain," Nevins said. "When you have leadership of House Republicans who are for all intents and purposes the primary motivators for putting Yucca Mountain in Nevada, and if it ends up at Yucca it will be primarily because of their efforts, then yes, when they come to Las Vegas to raise money for themselves or to support candidates, questions need to be raised," Nevins said. Democrats keep pounding the issue so Nevadans will realize that, if they want Republicans in the House -- even Republicans who oppose nuclear waste in their state -- a vote "for Lynette or Jon is a vote to keep the same Republican leadership in the House," Nevins said. Republican consultant Mark Brown, who is designing an anti-Yucca Mountain Project public relations campaign, said Yucca Man appearances and protests outside fund-raisers are inappropriate and "cheap shots." "Most voters understand if you're a Nevadan and an elected official, you're opposed to Yucca Mountain," Brown said. Nobody protested a Bellagio fund-raiser for Rep. Don Young, the Alaska Republican who chairs the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and can influence the flow of federal transportation dollars to Nevada. Young raised about $25,000 at the event hosted by Gov. Kenny Guinn. Young voted for the 1987 bill, but he said he is rethinking his position on the issue. "His Yucca comments probably got him some additional friends in Nevada," Brown said. webmaster@lvrj.com Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - ***************************************************************** 29 Perkins: Yucca a homeland security issue Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins, right, shown with Gov. Kenny Guinn in a file photo, said transporting nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain is a homeland security issue. Review-Journal file photo Monday, February 11, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal Ridge appears receptive to speaker's opinion By JANE ANN MORRISON REVIEW-JOURNAL Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins has urged Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge to consider the transportation of nuclear waste as a homeland security issue. Ridge initially brushed off the idea during a Friday meeting in Washington, D.C., and said he viewed nuclear waste as the purview of the Department of Energy, rather than homeland security, Perkins said Sunday. But the former governor of Pennsylvania, a state that creates nuclear waste, appeared more receptive after Perkins expressed his opinion as a lawman that it is easier to guard nuclear waste on site than it would be to guard it while it's being transported across the United States. "We may be able to fight Yucca Mountain based on it being a homeland security issue," Perkins said. Those who support storing nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, also have cited homeland security in their arguments. They argue it would be safer to store the waste at one location than to have it scattered at sites throughout the nation. But Nevada officials hope the prospect of transporting the waste will prove so worrisome that other states will oppose a repository in Nevada. Perkins, a deputy chief of Henderson police, was briefed by Ridge during a meeting Friday because he is one of 19 state legislators appointed to the National Conference of State Legislatures' National Task Force on Protecting Democracy. It was asked to present a report in July to other legislators about improving coordination among federal, state and local governments in crisis situations. The first meetings were Friday and Saturday in Washington, D.C. Saturday was the earliest date that Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham could recommend to President Bush that the nation's nuclear waste be stored at Yucca Mountain. Citing unnamed Bush administration officials, CNN reported Sunday that Abraham will make his recommendation today and that Bush could endorse the recommendation as early as Wednesday. Should the president recommend Yucca Mountain to Congress, Gov. Kenny Guinn would have 60 days to veto the decision. A simple majority vote by both houses of Congress would override the veto. webmaster@lvrj.com Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - ***************************************************************** 30 Nuke casks can be damaged Las Vegas SUN Today: February 11, 2002 at 8:02:50 PST In Army test, missile explosion blew hole in high-level waste transport container By Benjamin Grove WASHINGTON -- As Nevada officials mull their next strike in an intensifying battle against the Yucca Mountain project, a videotape may be their new weapon. Nevada's lawmakers in Congress are analyzing the 4.5-minute video, three sources told the Sun. The footage shows a small missile blowing a hole in a metal cask used to store highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel rods. The rods are the waste product from nuclear power plants and would be transported in the casks by truck to Yucca Mountain. The video was obtained by the four-member congressional delegation in recent days. They believe it may be powerful evidence that high-level nuclear waste casks are vulnerable to terrorist strikes. They believe the video could slow the federal plan to ship 77,000 tons of the nation's high-level waste to Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, for permanent burial. The plan is at a critical point: President Bush is widely believed to be ready to approve the project as soon as this week. Nevada lawmakers are keeping mum and keeping the tape under wraps as they verify details of the footage and devise a strategy. "If the goal is to cast doubt on the safety of transporting this waste, I don't think there is a better piece of evidence out there," said one source, who viewed the tape and declined to be identified. The tape, reviewed by the Sun, features a metal cask that the video claims is commonly used to store and transport nuclear waste today. The video was produced by International Fuel Containers, a U.S. agent for a German waste-cask manufacturer. In the video the cask is called "Super Castor," but it is not clear who makes that cask. According to the congressional delegation's fact sheet, the cask is licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for storage but had not yet been licensed to transport waste at the time of the experiment. It is licensed for transport in other nations, according to IFC. The nuclear industry currently uses NRC-licensed casks to make shipments of high-level waste in this nation. The tape shows two experiments conducted in cooperation with the U.S. Army at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland on June 25, 1998. In one test, a TOW anti-tank missile, less than 50 pounds and common worldwide, is placed on the cask and detonated. The explosion pierces the cask, which is more than one foot thick. The missile creates a softball-sized hole all the way through the container. In the second test, the cask is protected by a "flak jacket" of concrete, to simulate how waste storage casks currently are protected at the nation's nuclear plants. The missile cracks the cask surface but does not completely penetrate it. The tape does not show what would happen to both casks if the missile had been fired. A TOW missile is about six inches in diameter and in use by 40 nations, according to manufacturer Raytheon Co. It has a range of more than 3,000 meters. Still, the experiments may bolster arguments that it is safer to leave nuclear waste casks encased in concrete at nuclear plants than to ship casks cross-country to Nevada, state officials could argue. If the Yucca project is eventually approved by Bush, Congress, and the NRC, as many as 100,000 shipments of high-level waste could roll across America for 30 years or more. The potential risks of shipments are already a key argument against the Yucca project for its Nevada foes. But nuclear industry officials stress that more than 3,000 shipments of high-level nuclear waste have been made in America without a single radiation release. "Transportation, as we see it, is safe," Nuclear Energy Institute spokesman Mitch Singer said in a recent interview. And NEI has a videotape of its own to prove it. In recent weeks, NEI, the industry's top trade group, has shipped 222 nine-minute videotapes to television news stations nationwide as part of a public relations campaign. The tape shows dramatic tests in which the casks are dropped from great heights, burned at high temperatures, and even struck by a speeding train. The casks emerge bruised but not breached. The tape's message: the sophisticated metal casks are virtually indestructable, so shipping high-level waste is safe. "It's fair to say the idea was to educate the public and suggest to them that there is a lot of disinformation and scare tactics out there," Singer said. But Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said the tape was "pure propaganda" last week after viewing the NEI video. Berkley sent a letter last week to Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta referencing a Department of Transportation Inspector General's report that questioned whether the DOT could handle regulating nuclear waste shipments. Berkley asked Mineta for answers to specific questions, including whether a waste transport canister could withstand a terrorist strike. And in a meeting last week with President Bush, Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he raised Bush's interest when he outlined the dangers of shipping waste. "We're confident the president is going to be concerned about transportation," Reid said after the meeting. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 31 Court battle looms on Yucca water shutdown Las Vegas SUN Today: February 11, 2002 at 11:02:15 PST By Cy Ryan SUN CAPITAL BUREAU CARSON CITY -- State Engineer Hugh Ricci says he will probably have to go to court to shut down the wells being used by the federal government at the proposed nuclear dump at Yucca Mountain. If the U.S. Department of Energy continues to pump water after April 9, he said, he will issue a cease and desist order. And if that doesn't work, he will apply to the court for a restraining order. But state workers won't be dispatched to cap the wells, he said. Energy Department spokesman Joe Davis did not return repeated calls for comment on the order Ricci issued Feb. 7 that refuses to extend for another year the temporary state permit to use 438 acre feet a year at Yucca Mountain. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham is expected to recommend Yucca Mountain be used to store 77,000 tons of highly radioactive nuclear waste as early as today. The state has been pulling out all stops in an effort to derail Yucca Mountain. It has at least two lawsuits pending and more are promised, by Gov. Kenny Guinn and Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa. Ricci, asked if he was pressured by Guinn to deny the extension of the temporary permit, said, "This was my decision." He said he's waiting to see what the federal government will do next. The Energy Department and the state are already in a court battle over a permanent right to water for Yucca. The state in February 2000 refused to issue a permanent permit for the water to be used during construction and use of the repository. The Energy Department sued, challenging the order. U.S. District Judge Roger Hunt in Las Vegas ruled in favor of the state but the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sent the case back to Hunt for further hearings. The state engineer's office first issued a temporary water permit to study at Yucca Mountain in 1992. And it has renewed the water rights periodically to permit the studies on the suitability of the site to go forward. But Ricci said the studies have apparently been finished and there is no need for further water authorized by the temporary permits. He quoted the Jan. 10 letter from Abraham to Guinn in which the energy secretary said the site characterization or studies have been completed. "Thus, it is clear from DOE's own document that site characterization ends upon the secretary's decision to recommend the site," said Ricci in his letter to Scott Wade, team leader of the environment, safety and health office of project execution of the Energy Department in North Las Vegas. Ricci said there "no longer exists a need for these permits beyond the expiration date of April 9, 2002." A spokeswoman for Wade said all comments had to come from Davis in Washington D.C. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 32 WEST VALLEY: Washington meeting set in N-waste dispute Buffalo News - Cattaraugus Correspondent 2/9/2002 ASHFORD - The West Valley Citizen Task Force is heading to Washington for a Tuesday morning meeting in the Capitol with some members of the Western New York congressional delegation. Bob VanWicklin of the Washington office of Rep. Amo Houghton, R-Corning, said Friday that Reps. Jack F. Quinn, R-Hamburg, and Thomas M. Reynolds, R-Clarence, plus Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Charles E. Schumer, both Democrats, have been invited to the session. The task force is an official group of community representatives set up by the state and federal agencies overseeing stabilization of nuclear waste at the West Valley Demonstration Project. Members have been trying to get Congress to settle differences over long-term stewardship and fees for disposal of the waste. Negotiating teams from the U.S. Department of Energy and the State Energy Research and Development Authority will open the meeting with an update on their negotiations. Then the task force, which has drafted an amendment to the 1980 West Valley Demonstration Project Act and suggested congressional hearings on the negotiations, will be able to make a presentation and discuss its concerns. As they have in the past, the two agencies pledged to pay the travel costs to the meeting for two task force members. The task force selected Ray Vaughn, the representative from the Coalition on West Valley Nuclear Wastes, and Joe Patti, a West Valley volunteer firefighter and a representative of the West Valley business community. Four other task force members will be responsible for finding alternative ways of paying for their travel. They are Ashford Supervisor Bill King; Eric Wohlers, Cattaraugus County environmental health director; Mark Mitskovski of the Erie County Environment and Planning Department, who represents Commissioner Larry Rubin at task force meetings; and John Pfeffer, a West Valley resident. Copyright © 1999 - 2002 The Buffalo NewsTM ***************************************************************** 33 Abraham's recommendation expected today Las Vegas SUN Today: February 11, 2002 at 11:02:15 PST Bush may decide on Yucca Mountain by Wednesday By Benjamin Grove Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham was expected today to recommend Yucca Mountain as the nation's nuclear repository, setting the White House on course for a political collision with Nevada's leadership. Abraham's recommendation -- which is widely expected to come today, but as of 10 a.m. PST had yet to be made -- will be made to President Bush. CNN reported this weekend that White House sources expected the president to approve the recommendation as soon as Wednesday. Asked about when the president will make his decision, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer today said, "There will not be a decision today." If Bush approves the plan, Gov. Kenny Guinn will have 60 days to veto it. Congress would then vote on the plan, and congressional sources say it appears both the House and Senate would have a majority in favor of storing waste at Yucca Mountain. Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and John Ensign, R-Nev., joined Guinn in speaking to Bush last week on the issue. Guinn would not comment on the Yucca Mountain proposal pending the president's decision, his press office said. Bush has faced criticism from Nevada leaders on Yucca Mountain. During his presidential campaign, he matched then-Vice President Al Gore on the issues, saying "sound science" and not politics would decide the issue. During their Oval Office meeting last week, Guinn, Ensign and Reid stressed not only the science -- and the number of studies that show questions remain about Yucca Mountain as the nation's nuclear waste dump -- but the politics of the situation. State Republicans have warned that a decision for Yucca Mountain could become a campaign issue. Nevada has one more seat in the House this year, and Republican leaders fear two of the three seats could be won by Democrats. Nevada's congressional delegation today was awaiting Abraham's recommendation. Last month Abraham said he would forward his recommendation to the president after a mandated 30-day waiting period. The 30 days were up this weekend. "Obviously it's no surprise if it came today," Ensign spokeswoman Traci Scott said. Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., last week pleaded an anti-Yucca case to Bush's political adviser, Karl Rove, in a private meeting. "We're hopeful that the president will take his time before signing the recommendation, if he decides to sign it, to carefully consider the science and our arguments that we have made during the last week," Gibbons spokeswoman Amy Spanbauer said. Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said it would be "disrespectful" for Bush to immediately agree with Abraham's recommendation, Berkley spokesman Michael O'Donovan said. "We hope that he'll give this some real thought and distance himself from the nuclear industry," O'Donovan said. While most Nevada politicians have lined up against Yucca Mountain, the issue for many the nuclear waste out of their back yards. Yucca, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, would be the final resting place for high-level radioactive waste from 103 nuclear power plant reactors. In a CNN.com poll Sunday, 59 percent of respondants said Bush should approve Yucca as the nuclear waste repository. Of the 41,034 votes cast, 24,185 said yes and 16,849 answered no. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 34 Ex-mining town wants jobs, training from dump project [RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL] February 11, 2002 Don Cox [dcox@rgj.com] 2/10/2002 11:41 pm BEATTY — Danny Jacob comes into daily contact with Yucca Mountain when he fixes dinner for scientists and other technicians who work at the proposed dump site for the nation’s nuclear waste. Jacob’s feelings about the mountain are mixed. He is a cook at the Exchange Club, the hotel casino in this old mining town, where the Yucca project boosts room and food business with personnel on temporary assignment at the mountain. He wants Beatty to prosper. But he doesn’t want radioactive garbage buried in Nevada. “I’m against the storage,” Jacob said. “We need to bring the economy of this town up.” Since nearby gold mines closed in the late 1990s, the town has lost more than half its residents, with the population dropping from about 3,000 to 1,200, according to Jeff Taguchi, a Beatty resident and chairman of the Nye County Commission. Beatty, which lived on mining for much of the 20th century, is about 30 miles northwest of Yucca Mountain on U.S. 95, the main north-south route through Nevada. If nuclear waste is stored in the mountain, Taguchi said Beatty and the rest of Nye County should be compensated with money, jobs and development. “This is something of an issue,” said Taguchi, a church pastor in Beatty. “We are taking on the waste product from reactors around the country. They are going to truck it in, most of it from back east and the Midwest. All roads lead to Nye County.” The county receives $2.2 million annually from the federal government to fund its own Yucca Mountain oversight program. But Taguchi has a shopping list that goes beyond that. He wants equipment and training for the county’s emergency personnel, which may have to respond first nuclear transportation accidents. He wants a hospital and a community college in Pahrump, the county’s biggest community, with a technical program to train potential dumpsite workers. “If you’re going to place the waste in our area, are we going to get an economic boost for it?” Taguchi asked. “These things have to be considered from an economic standpoint. That’s what we’re trying to do.” At the Beatty General Store, Kelly Madan runs the cash register and hopes her town gets something more from Yucca Mountain than a few scientists spending the night. “We need the jobs just as much as anybody,” said Madan, whose husband is the hotel cook. “Since the mines shut down, it’s slowed quite a bit. A lot of people have moved away.” Officially, Nye County is neutral about Yucca Mountain. Taguchi said the middle-of-the-road stance is necessary to maintain good relations with federal agencies that want the storage facility in the mountain and state political leaders who don’t. “We have to play on two different basketball courts,” he said. The federal government has the money Taguchi wants and the politicians the influence he needs. “If you take a negative stance in the beginning, you’ll make enemies,” Taguchi said. “I don’t want that to happen.” The county’s neutrality and Taguchi’s attitude is shared by some Beatty residents. John Lisle, a retired high school science teacher and life-long Beatty resident, gives cautious support to the Yucca Mountain project. “I think it’s the safest place to put it,” he said. “Do you trust the government? Yes, until they are proven wrong.” Larrikin Seely, who moved to Beatty from Missouri three years ago, figures she and the town don’t have much choice. “If the government wants it there, that’s all there is to it,” said Seely, whose husband Montie is head of Beatty’s parks and recreation department. “What the government wants, the government gets. There’s not a lot you can do about it.” © Copyright Reno Gazette-Journal, a Gannett ***************************************************************** 35 Yucca neighbors fear the worst [RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL] February 11, 2002 Don Cox [dcox@rgj.com] AMARGOSA VALLEY — From the top of Yucca Mountain, it’s difficult to see Ed Goedhart’s milk cows, Ralph McCracken’s pistachio trees or Doris Jackson’s roadside bar. But, the cows, trees and bar exist, all within about 15 miles of the proposed burial site for the country’s nuclear waste. The valley is approximately 400 square miles — stretching from Yucca Mountain south to the Nevada-California border — with more cows, 5,200, than people, 1,200. The land, irrigated by groundwater, is agricultural, with some small hotel casinos, mostly for travelers headed north or south on U.S. 95. Goedhart, McCracken, Jackson and their neighbors are the closest Nevadans to Yucca Mountain. They can see the mountain. Some fear it. “Right straight there, between those trees,” said Goedhart, pointing to a ridge across the valley from the 1,500-acre Ponderosa Dairy he manages. “It’s the flat-topped mountain, right ahead of us. See those four trees? The middle two, it’s right behind them.” That’s too close for some valley property owners who claim just the perception of a nuclear waste dump in the vicinity, even if it’s safe, will destroy their rural community 96 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Goedhart fears he won’t be able to sell milk produced near Yucca Mountain. McCracken fears he won’t be able to sell pistachios grown near Yucca Mountain. Jackson fears a mountain filled with used nuclear fuel will drastically lower property values and drive away business. “It’s the stigma that it brings to the valley,” said Jackson, 71, who owns the Stateline Saloon and Casino and serves as chairwoman of the Amargosa Valley Town Advisory Board. “In 10 or 12 years property values will go to nothing.” Doing business in Yucca’s shadow McCracken, 55, who moved to the valley from Las Vegas with his wife, Debbie, in 1992, rattles off another set of numbers when he discusses the impact of Yucca Mountain. “There are 1,500 trees out there,” McCracken said of his pistachio grove. “Probably 1,000 of them will wind up producing nuts. A fully matured tree will produce about 250 pounds of nuts a year. You do the math. Even at $1 a pound, it has the potential to be comfortable.” The arithmetic works out to $250,000 a year, which McCracken figures will be a nice retirement income, unless nuclear waste is stored in Yucca Mountain. “It works, as long as I don’t have actual or perceived radiation,” said McCracken, who was employed at a tractor factory in the San Francisco Bay area before buying a farm. “In other words, real or imagined.” Even if the radiation is only in the minds of potential pistachio customers, McCracken is afraid his trees won’t be worth a dime. It’s the same for Goedhart, whose dairy and its 5,200 cows is the source of 28 percent — 350,000 pounds per day — of the milk produced in Nevada. “It could be perfectly safe,” Goedhart said of Yucca Mountain. “But, in people’s minds there could be this perception.” Milk from Ponderosa Dairy isn’t sold in northern Nevada. Most is shipped to Las Vegas and Southern California, where it’s processed and sold under different brand names. Nuclear waste, Goedhart fears, could give milk from Amargosa Valley a bad name. “The association with Yucca Mountain could definitely have a negative impact on our products,” said Goedhart, whose products include organic milk. For Goedhart, 39, who lives in Amargosa Valley with his wife Renae, 17-year-old daughter Rachelle and 15-year-old son Brandon, the science mixing nuclear waste with milk is basic. “The canisters will leak and the radioactive waste will be released in the ground water,” Goedhart said of the storage containers planned for Yucca Mountain. “There is a tremendous amount of forage produced in the valley, hay, barley, oats and all kinds of alfalfa.” It’s grown in fields irrigated by ground water pumped from wells. It’s what Goedhart’s cows eat. Scientists unsure Scientists working on Yucca Mountain acknowledge the metal waste containers placed inside, if the site receives final government approval, will corrode and leak over a long period of time. Yucca Mountain isn’t supposed to be ready as a repository until 2010, at the earliest. Lawsuits and hearings could delay the project well beyond that. “It’s going to be another 10 to 20 years before they get this thing going,” McCracken said. “By then, I’ll be 75. Personally, it’s not going to do that much to me. But, do the thing right. Our history in this country is doing things right, or, trying to do things right.” Scientists who support Yucca Mountain say the amount of annual radiation exposure from the site will be “well” within federal limits — one-tenth of a millirem, compared to the average of 300 researchers estimate most U.S. residents receive per year. Valley residents aren’t so sure. “You have leaking containers in a leaky mountain,” McCracken said. “They’ve never claimed the materials in the mountain will stop radiation from getting out. It gets out of the containers and it gets out of the mountain, who’s next? We’re their first guinea pigs.” © Copyright Reno Gazette-Journal, a Gannett ***************************************************************** 36 Ex-governor says waste dump would be good business [RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL] February 11, 2002 Don Cox [dcox@rgj.com] Nevada’s nuclear shopping list is long and growing. If Yucca Mountain, a ridge of volcanic rock rising from the desert northwest of Las Vegas, becomes the country’s dump for high-level radioactive waste, there are those who want the state to make the best economic deal possible. They include former Gov. Bob List, who urges Nevada to get paid handsomely for taking the garbage. The ideas range from cutting income taxes to building a railroad. Here’s what’s being mentioned as compensation from the federal government: o An environmental and energy research center for the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. o A training facility, possibly in Clark County, for medical and other emergency personnel. o Income tax credits for state residents. o Funding for education, from elementary schools to universities. o Transfer of some of Nevada’s vast public lands from federal to state control. o Construction of a railroad through central Nevada from Carlin to Yucca Mountain. o A direct annual payment, starting at $100 million, for state oversight of Yucca Mountain. “I would prefer the project not come here,” said List, now working as an advisor to the nuclear power industry. “I’m a realist. I believe there is a strong likelihood we are going to get it, whether we like it or not. We need to seize the opportunity to manage it and maximize it.” List, whose Las Vegas-based consulting firm has a contract with the Nuclear Energy Institute, wants the state to make money on any deal involving Yucca Mountain, where development of an underground waste facility is expected to cost $58 billion. “That is the silver lining in this whole issue,” he said. “I think you have to view it against the backdrop of Nevada’s current economic climate. We are experiencing, in every part of the state, a need for economic diversity.” President Bush is expected to make a decision on Yucca Mountain, possibly this week, after reviewing a recommendation to approve the controversial site by U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham. Plans call for the nuclear repository, which is supposed to last for at least 10,000 years, to begin operation in 2010. But Gov. Kenny Guinn has promised to veto the project if Bush, as many predict, backs Abraham. That would force a vote in Congress, which, if favorable, still wouldn’t end the debate. Yucca Mountain would face lengthy licensing hearings before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, likely followed by a string of court challenges. Nevada: Dollars for nuke waste Nevada already has refused cash payments for nuclear waste. The federal government offered the state $10 million per year during Yucca Mountain’s construction phase and $20 million annually after the underground repository opened for business. The deal was rejected when the attorney general in 1988 said acceptance would imply consent to the waste dump. “We would have had to agree not to oppose the project,” said Bob Loux, head of Nevada’s nuclear projects office. “You have to give up all your rights.” The offer remains in the federal government’s nuclear policy act. Federal officials did make a deal with New Mexico. The state receives $20 million annually for a 15-year period that started in 1999 for a project in which lower-level nuclear waste is stored 2,000 feet underground near Carlsbad. The government has also given New Mexico $21 million since 1978 for project oversight. “It’s not possible to have a long-term binding agreement with the government,” Loux said. “A new Congress comes in and says, ‘Hey, we don’t have the money.’ ” But List’s advice is to be prepared for nuclear waste in Nevada. “This is the largest public works project in the history of the planet,” he said. “Huge amounts will be spent here.” The company managing Yucca Mountain through its development phase, Bechtel SAIC Company, LLC, signed a $3.1 billion contract for five years with the U.S. Department of Energy that started in 2001. The project partnerships combines Bechtel, headquartered in San Francisco, and San Diego-based SAIC. Yucca: boon or bust for state? Project opponents refuse to discuss future money, or any other compensation, saying to do so would send the message that Nevada is willing to accept nuclear waste. “The state and the county have been adamant in not entering a discussion about that because it’s an implied consent to the repository,” said Irene Navis, planning manager for Clark County’s nuclear oversight program. “They don’t want to give any indication that the whole idea of the repository is OK with us. It might get to that point, but we haven’t gotten there yet.” Instead, Navis argues Yucca Mountain would hurt the state economically. She estimates job losses in southern Nevada of anywhere from 5,400 to 54,000 due to a drop in property values and population caused by a waste dump. List counts differently, saying Yucca Mountain, in its present testing and development stage, accounts for 1,300 jobs in the state paying an average of $60,000 annually. “Contrast that with your minimum wage service jobs on the Las Vegas Strip,” List said. List estimated employment figures increasing to about 2,000 during construction of the repository. Reports from the Department of Energy, which oversees the project, show 1,800 workers at the height of construction, dropping to less than 1,000 when the site is finished and operating. “The amount being spent over the years will go up, up and up,” List said. “Nevadans need to position themselves to catch that windfall.” List also estimates that Nevada’s university system has already received $75 million in grants for mountain-related research. The environmental studies center at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas is participating in a $50 million national project to develop a method for drastically reducing radiation in high-level waste. For Yucca Mountain itself, Bush earmarked $527 million in next year’s federal budget. The DOE estimates $1.55 billion will be the highest annual expenditure, in 2008. Nuclear jobs Bill Vasconi, a retired electrician who still belongs to his union local in Las Vegas, sees many construction jobs at Yucca Mountain for fellow members. “It’s not like this would be a project foreign to them,” said Vasconi, a member of a citizens committee looking at waste dump economics. As important to Vasconi as jobs is the wish list of items he wants from the federal government in return for the nuclear industry’s use of Nevada as a dumping ground. “We should proceed with the project,” said Vasconi, who favors the site if science proves it’s safe. “But we feel Nevadans have entitlements and benefits coming.” An energy research center at UNLV and a railroad, used first to transport waste and later to carry a variety of products through the heart of Nevada, are high among Vasconi’s priorities. List wants some of the same things Vasconi suggests, including the transfer of federally controlled land to the state. “Let them spin some of this property off to increase our tax base,” List said. He also seeks millions of federal dollars for Nevada’s school systems. “We are looking at a $1,000 increase annually per student just to catch up with the rest of the country,” List said. For List, it’s simply a matter of making the best of a bad situation. “Plan A is that Yucca Mountain goes off in the sunset,” he said. “Plan B is the reality.” Copyright Reno Gazette-Journal, a Gannett Co. Inc. ***************************************************************** 37 Nevada dump would mean decades of radioactive shipments across U.S. [RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL] February 11, 2002 Forrest Hartman Faith Bremner [fhartman@rgj.com] WASHINGTON — If the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository opens in Nevada in 2010 as planned, tens of thousands of highly radioactive shipments will roll through communities large and small for the next 38 years. Every day, cities like Denver, Des Moines, Iowa, and Kansas City, Mo., will have spent nuclear waste — now stored at 72 power plants and five Department of Energy sites — coming through their neighborhoods. Although the nuclear industry has an excellent safety record moving high-level waste around and the waste itself is not explosive, environmentalists say thousands of people could die from radiation poisoning or cancer if a waste shipment were involved in a major fire or terrorist attack. Officials in some states say the Department of Energy should begin planning a massive national transportation campaign soon, so that states can participate in the decisions. State government lobbying groups say the process for designating the routes could take a long time if it becomes controversial and communities fight among themselves to keep out shipments. But so far, DOE has refused to discuss with states how and over what routes the waste will be shipped. The transportation program would consist of 2,525 truck shipments per year for 38 years or 522 rail shipments per year for 38 years, supplemented by 97 yearly truck shipments from facilities that don’t have rail access. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham gave notice to Nevada last month that he will recommend to President Bush that Yucca Mountain be designated the nation’s high-level nuclear waste dump. Bush is under no time frame to act on the matter. In his budget, released last Monday, Bush proposes raising Yucca Mountain’s budget from $297 million this year to $527 million next year. The state of Nevada, which is fighting the dump designation, says DOE is refusing to start transportation planning because it will be too controversial and communities could derail the repository with their opposition. “They don’t want people in places like Boise to go bonkers when they realize that in order to screw Nevada, they’d have to take all this waste through their back yards,” Nevada’s transportation consultant Robert Halstead said. Halstead prepared his own transportation maps using existing regulations that govern high-level nuclear waste shipments. These routes essentially follow interstate highways and the main rail lines and are the shortest routes that can be taken in the shortest amount of time. Nevada plans to launch a nationwide advertising campaign this spring publicizing the routes. Nuclear waste transportation is even more critical since Sept. 11 when terrorists showed they are willing to kill themselves in order to take innocent people with them, environmental groups say. Until Sept. 11, environmental groups opposed high-level nuclear waste shipments primarily because of the potential for accidents. Environmental groups say the waste should be stored as close as possible to where it is generated until a permanent solution is found. Yucca Mountain, with its proximity to earthquake faults, is not a permanent solution, they say. “This is not something I want to talk about a lot, obviously, but it is a well-known fact that a moving target is harder to protect,” said Lisa Gue, spokeswoman for Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group founded by Ralph Nader. The Nuclear Regulatory Agency is reviewing all of its security regulations, procedures and policies in light of Sept. 11, agency spokeswoman Rosetta Virgilio said. The review will cover not just the waste repository and nuclear waste shipments but also security at the nation’s nuclear power plants, she said. Environmental groups oppose the waste shipments not out of safety concerns, but because their ultimate goal is to shut down nuclear power plants, said Mitch Singer, spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, a lobbying group representing commercial nuclear power plants. Nuclear plants produce 20 percent of the country’s electricity, all without polluting the air and warming the globe, he said. It makes more sense in the wake of Sept. 11 to consolidate the spent fuel in one location and bury it 1,000 feet underground, Singer said. The shipments have not been controversial in the past and there’s no reason to believe they will become so in the future, he said. “There are groups that will try to rile up people and scare them unnecessarily,” Singer said. “If we educate people about how safe it will be, people have enough common sense to realize that.” In December, the Southern States Energy Board — an organization that represents the governors of 17 Southern states plus Puerto Rico on energy and nuclear waste matters — joined the Midwestern and Northeastern councils of state government in asking DOE to begin planning the shipments. Over the past 15 years, the Western Interstate Energy Board, which represents Western governors, has periodically asked DOE to begin the work, said its executive director, Doug Larson. Larson said it could take years for the states to have a rational discussion and for communities to feel comfortable with the chosen routes, he said. “The governors have consistently said, you need criteria by which to select the routes and the modes and they need to be vetted out and publicly debated,” Larson said. “For a campaign of the duration of Yucca Mountain, we can’t rely on existing federal regulations. “The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Department of Transportation wrote rules for the occasional shipment of spent fuel, not (a situation) where you have a truck every few hours for 30 years.” Joe Davis, DOE’s deputy director of public affairs, said he was not aware of any recent requests by the states for the agency to begin transportation planning. He said it would be premature for DOE to begin planning the shipment routes until Yucca Mountain is officially designated by the president, endorsed by Congress and then licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. “People would say we predetermined our course here,” he said. Davis pointed to the nuclear industry’s safe record in transporting high-level nuclear waste. Since 1964, there have been 3,000 shipments of used nuclear fuel over 1.7 million miles without a radioactive leak, he said. Those shipments have had armed guards and were tracked by satellite. Still, the relationship between state and federal officials can be adversarial when it comes to high-level nuclear waste passing through. In Missouri, the shipments have been so controversial that the federal government rerouted two of them through Iowa in 1999 and 2000 rather than risk a fight with the governor. A third shipment, bound for a temporary storage site in Idaho, went through Missouri in June and state officials say DOE bungled it. The shipments were part of the federal government’s Atoms for Peace program, in which nuclear fuel loaned to foreign countries for research purposes is returned. The DOE broke agreements it made with the state to avoid rush-hour traffic through St. Louis and to avoid driving past Kauffman Stadium during a Kansas City Royals Game, said Dru Buntin, Missouri’s interstate issues coordinator. DOE also failed to notify the state that shipment was coming and designate emergency parking areas along the route as promised, he said. “When you’re talking about a shipment that has received so much scrutiny and was opposed by the state for three years and then to have all those things go wrong, it was not reassuring,” Buntin said. “When you start thinking about the number of shipments they’re talking about, this continues to be a concern.” Copyright Reno Gazette-Journal, a Gannett Co. Inc. ***************************************************************** 38 DOT to name administrator [RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL] February 11, 2002 [online@rgj.com] ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON — The Department of Transportation will designate an administrator as a focal point for nuclear waste after auditors warned the department is not prepared for possible shipments to a planned repository in Nevada. The department’s inspector general’s office reported in a Jan. 10 memo that the DOT “needs to take steps to be fully prepared as the Department of Energy ramps up its program for transferring nuclear waste from temporary storage to permanent storage.” “At this time DOT is not fully prepared for the forecasted increase in shipments” to Yucca Mountain if built and also to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, said Alexis Stefani, an assistant inspector general for auditing. Stefani issued a report following a 10-month review of nuclear waste-related activities. Transportation agencies “are concerned there is no focal point within DOT with sufficient authority to deal timely and effectively with budget, resources, regulatory, coordination, infrastructure, routing, environmental and safety issues that may arise,” she said. DOT administrators agreed with the report and said they would designate an office for the function by April. The memo was made public by Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev. Copyright Reno Gazette-Journal, a [http://www.gannett.com] ***************************************************************** 39 Energy Department to recommend Nevada nuclear waste storage - February 10, 2002 CNN.com - State's governor, U.S. senators oppose site From Major Garrett CNN Washington Bureau JACKSON HOLE, Wyoming (CNN) -- President Bush will receive a formal Energy Department recommendation Monday to store all the nation's high-level radioactive nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, administration officials said Sunday. The officials said they expect Bush to endorse the recommendation. A White House announcement could come as early as Wednesday, the officials said. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham spent the weekend putting the final touches on the Yucca Mountain recommendation. The massive, highly technical document will arrive Monday at the White House. Yucca Mountain is the site of a proposed underground storage facility envisioned since 1987 as the final resting place for an estimated 77,000 metric tons of high-level radioactive waste produced by the nation's nuclear power plants. Nuclear reactors operate in 34 states. The Abraham recommendation is a crucial step toward endorsing the Yucca Mountain site. A 1987 law places great weight on the formal Department of Energy recommendation. If Bush endorses it, as expected, the state of Nevada can reject the recommendation. But both houses of Congress would have to support Nevada's veto to block the project. Members of the Nevada congressional delegation said they doubt that both chambers would do so. Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn, a Republican, warned that he likely would veto the proposal, according to a statement posted on his Web site. "This issue is of the utmost importance to Nevadans, which is why I will take this message directly to the president," Guinn said. "Ultimately, my message to President Bush will be that if he decides to go forward with this recommendation, I will exercise a notice of disapproval to the Congress (the governor's veto) based on the overwhelming scientific evidence." Guinn and the state's two U.S. senators -- Democrat Harry Reid and Republican John Ensign -- met Thursday with Bush to discuss their concerns about Abraham's recommendation. RELATED SITES: • Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn [http://gov.state.nv.us/] • Yucca Mountain Project Home Page [http://www.ymp.gov/] © 2002 Cable News Network LP, LLLP. ***************************************************************** 40 Los Vegas Chamber letter to state on Yucca Letter from the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce, re: reallocation of yearly dues to Governor Guinn's Nevada Protection Fund 3720 Howard Hughes Parkway Las Vegas, Nevada 89101-0937 www.lvchamber.com February 1, 2002 Robert Loux Executive Director Agency for Nuclear Projects State of Nevada 1802 N. Carson Street Suite 252 Carson City, NV 89701 Dear Mr. Loux, As a result of the United States Chamber of Commerce advocating the Yucca Mountain Project, the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce has dropped our membership with that organization. Consequently, we have decided to reallocate the $3000 in yearly dues to your agency in support of your efforts in fighting the project. On January 31, 2001, the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce Board of Trustees adopted a resolution opposing Yucca Mountain as the federal choice for nuclear waste storage. We stand by this declaration and you have our full support in helping to stop this misguided plan. Sincerely, Kami Dempsey Director, Government Affairs ***************************************************************** 41 Mr. Guinn goes to Washington Sunday, February 10, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal COLUMN: Steve Sebelius It would be easy to criticize Gov. Kenny Guinn following his trip to Washington, D.C., to talk to President George W. Bush about Yucca Mountain. Guinn is the man who called Bush's hollow "science, not politics" promise during the 2000 campaign "a victory for Nevada." Politicians of both parties have been using the "science, not politics" line for almost as long as they've been kissing babies and enjoying illicit relations with interns. And when Guinn emerged from that 25-minute White House confab with Bush, all he could say was that the president listened very well and, "All of us felt much better coming out than we did going in." Those good feelings are destined to be short-lived. Let's see how everyone feels once Bush -- as expected -- signs off on Yucca Mountain. Yes, it's almost too easy to criticize Guinn. But we shouldn't. The governor is in a tremendously difficult position. As Nevada's leader, his job is to see that Yucca Mountain never comes here. All he has to do is fight the governors, senators and House delegations of more than 40 states that have nuclear plants with waste piling up like Tyson fight-day hotel cancellations. Also, he's got to battle the national administration, comprising fellow Republicans (whom he helped elect in Nevada, by the way). And then there's the nuclear power industry itself, awash in cash. Unlike a pundit's Sunday-morning quarterbacking, Guinn's job is not easy. Just like marching into the Oval Office and telling your president (and your party's national leader) that the course of action his administration is pursuing is wrong, unscientific and downright dangerous. And facing the feeding frenzy of bloodthirsty journalists, all with one basic question: Did you change the president's mind, governor? It's not likely Guinn did, but the presentation he made, along with U.S. Sens. Harry Reid and John Ensign, reportedly gave Bush something to think about. He was a good listener, we're told. The job isn't any easier for Reid, whose party leader -- Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, the South Dakota Democrat -- declared in June that Yucca Mountain is dead, so long as Democrats hold the majority in the Senate. That's a more sweeping promise than Bush ever made. But because Reid isn't a Republican and didn't encourage anyone to vote for Bush, he had less to lose in Thursday's meeting. It was Reid who told Bush he'd been elected in Nevada on the basis of his promise to judge the dump on science, not politics. Bush affirmed that stance. So how can the president reconcile the unanswered scientific questions that Guinn brought up while proceeding with the dump? Unfortunately, the most significant science associated with Yucca Mountain is political science. And sound political science says you go with the most votes. Unfortunately for Nevada, that's the nuclear-powered states. How long will Bush wait before deciding? It's a key question. Too soon, and it looks like the meeting with Guinn, Reid and Ensign was a formality, and the decision was a done deal before they ever strode into the Oval Office. In either case, Guinn will surely veto the idea, and the House will easily vote to override it. (Although U.S. Reps. Jim Gibbons and Shelley Berkley may marshal a surprisingly large number of votes against it, passage is almost certain.) That leaves Reid and his "Yucca is dead" friend Daschle to make a final stand in the Senate, using all the procedural legerdemain that he's amassed over the years. Reid consistently rejects the accusation from the press that he's politically ruthless; for our sake, let's hope he's just being modest. Don't sell your house just yet, however. Even if Bush moves quickly, years of lawsuits will follow the voting. The endgame isn't that close, but you can almost see it from here. Meanwhile, Guinn deserves credit for doing everything he was able to do to stop the dump. There was that "victory for Nevada" line, but who really cares about that? No one really believed him back then anyway ... Steve Sebelius is a Review-Journal political columnist. His column runs Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. Reach him at 383-0283 or by e-mail at Steve_Sebelius@lvrj.com. Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002 ***************************************************************** 42 Jury trials: Conscience verdict for pacifists Pottle and Randle Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2002 19:25:10 -0600 (CST) A constant flow of depressing articles is, well, depressing. It was suggested that once in a while I should send out an alternative. Not easy to find such a beast, but here is a gem. In 1966, Pat Pottle and Michael Randle, two British peace activists, broke George Blake out of Wormwood Scrubs prison. George Blake was a Soviet spy sentenced to 42 years in prison (3 times the maximum sentence). In a 1989 book (_The Blake escape: how we freed George Blake and why_), Pottle and Randle described what they had done. In the resulting trial, they defended themselves so (that) they could appeal to the jury's moral sense and ask for an acquittal in defiance of the law (a `perverse' verdict). Pottle's speech is below. A defence counsel who does that will get disbarred, even though it is an ancient power of the jury and is the main reason for trial by jury (also the reason that governments try to eliminate it). FIJA has more information about this topic. has the transcript of William Penn and William Mead's trial for disorderly preaching (1670) and also Bushell's case, which resulted when the jurors in Penn and Mead's trial refused to follow the judge's order and instead found them not guilty. The jurors were jailed for it, and then freed in a famous ruling by Chief Justice Vaughan: "A man cannot see by anothers eye, nor hear by anothers ear, no more can a man conclude or infer the thing to be resolved by anothers understanding or reasoning..." -Sanjoy The Guardian (London) 27 June 1991 Members of the jury...: A plea for freedom from Pat Pottle, acquitted at the Old Bailey of freeing George Blake By PAT POTTLE THIS IS the only opportunity I have of speaking directly to you. Sitting in the jury box must be boring and frustrating. If it is any consolation to you, I can assure you it beats sitting in the dock. Let's open the windows, let the fresh air in, and blow away the cobwebs. Let common sense, for once, be champion over legal technicalities. This prosecution has come about because 110 MPs signed a motion calling for our prosecution - and because of a threat of a private prosecution from the inaptly named Freedom Association. We do not deny the things we are accused of doing. Not only do we not deny it, we say it was the right thing to do. Your task would be a lot easier if this were a simple case of guilt or innocence, but it is not. It is a case of right and wrong. It is a case of politics, a case of how governments lie, cheat and manipulate, and then cover their tracks in a smokescreen of official secrecy. This is not just a case of a man given an inhuman sentence and of us freeing him. This is a political trial. A political decision was taken in 1970 not to prosecute. When we were publicly named in 1987 it came as no surprise to the police: they had known since 1970. The decision not to prosecute us was taken before any basic routine enquiries were made. We have to remember we are talking about a quarter of a century ago. The cold war was still dominating political thought. Paranoia about Russia and its intentions were still rife. The 1950s and 1960s had been a bad time for the British intelligence agencies: their competence was being questioned throughout the world. America was threatening to stop co-operating with British intelligence because it was riddled with double agents. The accepted theory about George's escape was that it was organised and carried out by agents at the KGB. That was embarrassing to British intelligence, but at least they could argue that the KGB was a world-wide organisation with limitless resources. What would the revelation that a petty criminal and two peace activists had carried out the escape do to our relations with our allies? It was better that the world continued to believe that the whole thing was organised by the KGB rather than the Lavender Hill Mob. The judge has ruled our reasons for freeing George to be irrelevant. In law, he says, these people have no defence. You have no choice but to find them guilty. I disagree with the judge. The idea of a jury system is that you can look at the whole case, not just the legal mumbo-jumbo. You are twelve independent people. Unlike most judges you exist in the ordinary world of everyday life. You are able to use your common sense and humanity and not have your hands and minds tied by legal technicalities. Common sense must tell you that our reasons for helping to free George from prison must be relevant. If you accept the narrow legal position that the judge may direct you to make, you diminish your own roles as jurors. The moral indignation about George's work for the Russians is something I completely agree with. But moral outrage is only genuine when applied to both sides. Have our values become so perverted that we only claim moral outrage at the other side's activities and not our own? What George did for British intelligence and the KGB was wrong - we have never tried to justify it nor whitewash it. But espionage is a dirty business, where rumour becomes fact and fact becomes fiction. The individuals involved in it are exploiters and in turn exploited. Even when caught they can still be used as international pawns in a game, some to be swapped, some to be given immunity, and the unlucky ones left to rot in prison. No one who supports this kind of thing can hold their heads up high. What did George do that sets him apart from other spies uncovered at that time? He was not really British, was he? Not of the old school, not one of us. Deep down he was a foreigner, and half Jewish to boot. He was never part of that privileged undergraduate set at Cambridge in the 1930s. Not like dear old Kim, who was offered immunity, or dear old Anthony, who was not only given immunity but allowed to continue his work as Surveyor of Queen's Pictures. A secret trial, a vicious sentence of 42 years, a secret appeal - is this democracy in action? Is this open justice? Are we not becoming the very thing we condemn? George was no threat to you, me, or our children. He had been caught spying for the Russians, just as they had caught people spying for the West. His usefulness was over, his spying activities at an end. What purpose was served by giving him such a sentence? It was, in the words of Lord Hutchinson: 'so inhuman that it is alien to all the principles by which a civilised country should treat its subjects.' When the Government and its judges allow themselves to be dictated to by mob hysteria you end up with a society whose laws and penal institutions are based on revenge and nothing else. In the end it comes down to this: a fellow human being asked for help. That help meant breaking the law. I feel no shame in having done so, but I would have felt great shame had I turned down George's request for help. Yes, I helped George Blake escape. I did it for purely humanitarian reasons. I think we were right to do so. I would do it again. I have no apologies to make and no regrets. I will finish by quoting Bertrand Russell: 'Remember your humanity; forget the rest.' This is an edited version of Pottle's final plea to the jury ***************************************************************** 43 U.S.: Iran Making Headway on Nukes Las Vegas SUN February 10, 2002 WASHINGTON- Iran may be just a few years away from developing nuclear weapons capability, contributing to a sense of urgency on the need for a more assertive policy toward that strategically placed country, U.S. officials say. The Bush administration's concern over a variety of Iranian weapons programs has been coupled with what it says is an expanded Iranian role in support of regional and global terrorist groups. For a time last fall, there were glimmers of hope that the two countries, implacable rivals since 1979, could find some common ground on terrorism. But those hopes have faded in recent weeks as the administration concluded that Iran has added new frontiers in its pursuit of a radical Islamic agenda. President Bush's more belligerent anti-Iran stance prompted leaders in Tehran to make anti-Americanism the main theme of demonstrations planned Monday on the 23rd anniversary of the Iranian revolution. Bush included Iran as a member the "axis of evil" in his State of the Union speech Jan. 29. He said Iran "aggressively pursues" weapons of mass destruction and "exports terror," and that "an unelected few repress the Iranian people's hope for freedom." CIA Director George Tenet told a Senate hearing last Wednesday that Iran may be able by itself to produce enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon by late this decade. But he went on to say this estimate could be cut by years if Iran is able to obtain materials from outside sources. A CIA report issued a week earlier said Iran "remains one of the most active countries seeking to acquire (weapons of mass destruction and advanced conventional weapons) technology from abroad." "In doing so, Tehran is attempting to develop a domestic capability to produce various types of weapons - chemical, biological, and nuclear - and their delivery systems," the report said. Earlier CIA estimates projected that by 2015 the United States most likely will face intercontinental ballistic missile threats from Iran as well as North Korea, and possibly from Iraq. Just what the administration plans to do to counter these perceived challenges is not clear. Last week, Iran's Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi denied that Tehran is seeking weapons of mass destruction and said that it - unlike the United States - was adhering to international weapons treaties. He accused this country of torpedoing efforts to give teeth to the treaty banning biological weapons and of trying to undermine the Chemical Weapons Convention. He also criticized it for abandoning the nuclear test ban treaty. Following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the normally querulous mood between Tehran and Washington eased somewhat. Iran denounced the attacks and also shared intelligence on terrorism with U.S. officials. Iran, long opposed to the Taliban regime in neighboring Afghanistan, also cooperated with the United States and other countries in laying the groundwork for a successor government in Kabul. It also promised generous reconstruction assistance for Afghanistan. Contacts between American and Iranian diplomats were cordial. Now relations again are at a low point. Of particular concern to the United States were Iran's alleged role in an abortive attempt to ship 50 tons of weapons to the Palestinian Authority and an effort by Tehran to undermine the new interim government in Afghanistan. Javad Zarif, an Iranian deputy foreign minister, denied both allegations in an interview Sunday with Fox News. He also rejected suggestions that Iran was harboring al-Qaida militants who had fled Afghanistan. But Patrick Clawson, who follows Iran at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said Iran appears to be pursuing a two-tiered policy toward Afghanistan. Iran's moderate elected authority is seeking friendly ties with Afghanistan, even as a separate, hard-line, clergy-run apparatus tries to ensure the failure of the pro-Western government in Kabul, Clawson said in an interview. "There is a split between the revolutionary institutions and the formal government structure," Clawson said, adding, "This situation is likely to go on for a number of years." All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 44 US Concerned by Iran Nuke Capability Las Vegas SUN Today: February 11, 2002 at 11:35:22 PST WASHINGTON (AP) - Iran may be just a few years away from developing nuclear weapons capability, contributing to a sense of urgency on the need for a more assertive policy toward that strategically placed country, U.S. officials say. The Bush administration's concern over a variety of Iranian weapons programs has been coupled with what it says is an expanded Iranian role in support of regional and global terrorist groups. For a time last fall, there were glimmers of hope that the two countries, implacable rivals since 1979, could find some common ground on terrorism. But those hopes have faded in recent weeks as the administration concluded that Iran has added new frontiers in its pursuit of a radical Islamic agenda. President Bush's more belligerent anti-Iran stance prompted leaders in Tehran to make anti-Americanism the main theme of demonstrations planned Monday on the 23rd anniversary of the Iranian revolution. Bush included Iran as a member the "axis of evil" in his State of the Union speech Jan. 29. He said Iran "aggressively pursues" weapons of mass destruction and "exports terror," and that "an unelected few repress the Iranian people's hope for freedom." CIA Director George Tenet told a Senate hearing last Wednesday that Iran may be able by itself to produce enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon by late this decade. But he went on to say this estimate could be cut by years if Iran is able to obtain materials from outside sources. A CIA report issued a week earlier said Iran "remains one of the most active countries seeking to acquire (weapons of mass destruction and advanced conventional weapons) technology from abroad." "In doing so, Tehran is attempting to develop a domestic capability to produce various types of weapons - chemical, biological, and nuclear - and their delivery systems," the report said. Earlier CIA estimates projected that by 2015 the United States most likely will face intercontinental ballistic missile threats from Iran as well as North Korea, and possibly from Iraq. Just what the administration plans to do to counter these perceived challenges is not clear. Last week, Iran's Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi denied that Tehran is seeking weapons of mass destruction and said that it - unlike the United States - was adhering to international weapons treaties. He accused this country of torpedoing efforts to give teeth to the treaty banning biological weapons and of trying to undermine the Chemical Weapons Convention. He also criticized it for abandoning the nuclear test ban treaty. Following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the normally querulous mood between Tehran and Washington eased somewhat. Iran denounced the attacks and also shared intelligence on terrorism with U.S. officials. Iran, long opposed to the Taliban regime in neighboring Afghanistan, also cooperated with the United States and other countries in laying the groundwork for a successor government in Kabul. It also promised generous reconstruction assistance for Afghanistan. Contacts between American and Iranian diplomats were cordial. Now relations again are at a low point. Of particular concern to the United States were Iran's alleged role in an abortive attempt to ship 50 tons of weapons to the Palestinian Authority and an effort by Tehran to undermine the new interim government in Afghanistan. Javad Zarif, an Iranian deputy foreign minister, denied both allegations in an interview Sunday with Fox News. He also rejected suggestions that Iran was harboring al-Qaida militants who had fled Afghanistan. But Patrick Clawson, who follows Iran at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said Iran appears to be pursuing a two-tiered policy toward Afghanistan. Iran's moderate elected authority is seeking friendly ties with Afghanistan, even as a separate, hard-line, clergy-run apparatus tries to ensure the failure of the pro-Western government in Kabul, Clawson said in an interview. "There is a split between the revolutionary institutions and the formal government structure," Clawson said, adding, "This situation is likely to go on for a number of years." All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 45 Pat Robertson Warns of Al-Qaeda Nuke Ship NewsMax.com: Inside Cover Story February 11, 2002 Urgent Letter: From Michael Reagan to You Christian Broadcasting Network chief Pat Robertson warned Friday that Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terrorist network will likely try to smuggle a nuclear device into the U.S. onboard a ship, detonating the weapon in a famous harbor. Mixing what sounded like a prophetic vision with cold, factual analysis, Robertson told Fox News Channel's "Hannity & Colmes," "I have a feeling that we're looking at a ship. That's just my feeling. "I don't think that we're going to see an airliner crashing into any buildings," the recently-retired Christian Coalition leader explained. "I think it will be somebody putting some type of nuclear device into a ship." As for location, Robertson predicted, "It could be the Norfolk Naval Base." Other likely targets include, he said, San Francisco's Golden Gate bridge, which he called "highly symbolic." Robertson also cautioned that Detroit may be in danger. "If you look at Detroit, there's a tremendous number of Muslim people living in [nearby) Dearborn, Michigan," he told "Hannity & Colmes." "The head of the Hezbollah used to live in Dearborn - I don't know if you're aware of that. "It could be some other city - it could be anyplace," he warned. "But I think we're going to see those people, the al-Qaeda network, try again." The Christian broadcaster said he was "praying that God will preserve us and keep us from that." NewsMax.com Privacy Statement ***************************************************************** 46 Pak, US sign defence agreement The Times of India FEBRUARY 11, 2002 PTI [ SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 09, 2002 7:38:43 PM ] SLAMABAD: Ahead of President Pervez Musharraf's state visit to Washington, Pakistan and US on Saturday signed an agreement to enhance defence co-operation. Under the agreement called Acquisition and Cross Servicing the two countries will co-operate during combined military exercises, training, deployment, operations or other joint efforts. The US, under the pact, will be able to receive support such as food, water, transportation, communications and medical services in support of American military operations in Afghanistan and elsewhere. It also covers use of facilities like training services, repair and maintenance, an official statement here said. The agreement was signed by Director of Logistics US army, Maj Gen Dennis Jackson, and Additional Secretary of Pakistan's Ministry of Defence, Rear Admiral Irfan Ahmed on behalf of their respective governments in Rawalpindi. The agreement comes just days before Musharraf begins his US visit on February 12. Musharraf has already left for American city of Boston enroute to Washington. During his US tour, Musharraf is expected to have detailed discussions on normalisation of defence relations with US, which came to a halt in early nineties over Pakistan's nuclear programme. Copyright © 2001 Times Internet Limited. All rights reserved. | ***************************************************************** 47 Still a Mystery: Nazi Germany's Atomic Bomb Failure February 10, 2002 EDITORIAL OBSERVER By PHILIP M. BOFFEY A small trove of documents released last week throws cold water on the notion that high-minded German scientists tried to slow work on an atomic bomb for the Nazi regime during World War II. But the documents provide no definitive answer to the question of why German physicists, who were among the best in the world, made so little progress on an atomic weapon compared with their counterparts in the United States. The idea that German scientists worried about the morality of atomic war and tried to head off the development of a bomb was given wide currency in "Copenhagen," Michael Frayn's award-winning play, which focuses on a pivotal meeting in September 1941 between Werner Heisenberg, the scientific head of the German nuclear project, and Niels Bohr, his Danish mentor. Both were Nobel laureates and towering figures in 20th-century physics. The play is built around the differing recollections of the two men and the ultimate uncertainty of exactly what happened. In it, the Heisenberg character explains that he visited Bohr to warn him, in highly guarded language, that atomic bombs could be built and to feel him out on whether physicists on both sides could agree to stop the work. The Frayn play was greatly influenced by a book that argued that Heisenberg and his colleagues actually sabotaged the German bomb program from within, a view that is accepted by few historians who have looked into the question. The puzzle as to why the German atomic bomb program stalled has several overlapping explanations. Some of the best German physicists were Jewish and had been driven into exile, where many worked on the American or British atomic bomb programs. Nazi ideology had only scorn for "Jewish physics" and thus undervalued what theoretical physicists could contribute to the war effort. And as saturation bombing ravaged German cities, the Nazi industrial machine increasingly lacked the ability to mount a vast bomb development project to compete with the American Manhattan Project. Still, it is clear that German physicists, for whatever reason, did fail to push hard enough to reach the goal. Some attribute that to surprising technical errors, like a grotesque overestimate of the amount of fissile material that was needed and a failure to realize that readily available graphite, if highly purified, could be used to moderate the atomic reaction instead of scarce, hard-to-get heavy water. Others blame arrogance and complacency on the part of German physicists who felt that if the job was hard for them, it would be impossible for the Allies. And some believe that there was a genuine reluctance to work on such an awesome weapon, either for moral reasons or for fear of failing and being blamed for a national defeat. Recordings made surreptitiously of Heisenberg and other German scientists held in captivity after the German surrender show that they were stunned by news that the United States had exploded an atomic bomb over Hiroshima and refused to believe that it had actually been done. Even in these early recordings, one can discern the beginnings of a search for the moral high ground, as one German physicist contrasts the American development of "this ghastly weapon of war" with more peaceful nuclear reactor research under Hitler. Heisenberg's own version of his meeting with Bohr was set out years after the war in a letter that was excerpted in a book on the atomic bomb projects. He recalled starting his conversation with Bohr by raising a question about whether it was "right" for physicists to work on uranium during the war, given that it could lead to "grave consequences." He also said he had told Bohr that developing atomic weapons would require such a terrific technical effort that one could hope they would not be ready in time. He felt the situation gave physicists leverage to dissuade government officials from even trying to build the bomb. That letter so angered Bohr that he drafted a number of responses between 1957 and 1962 that were never sent but were released last week by the Bohr family. As Bohr recalled it, Heisenberg left "the firm impression that, under your leadership, everything was being done in Germany to develop atomic weapons." Bohr said that Heisenberg "gave no hint about efforts on the part of German scientists to prevent such a development." Even with these latest documents, we are still left with conflicting versions from the two participants. Most historians seem inclined to accept Bohr's version as more probable and Heisenberg's as revisionist history, a view that gains credence by looking at Heisenberg in a broader context than just that single meeting. David Cassidy, a historian at Hofstra University who wrote a biography of Heisenberg, says there is no evidence from any other sources that moral issues were of particular concern to Heisenberg. Indeed, he says, Heisenberg seemed most concerned about using the war to prove the worth of physics to the nation and its rulers. With those motivations in mind, it seems likely that Heisenberg would have made a bomb if he could. Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company | Privacy Information ***************************************************************** 48 Nuclear critic visits Portsmouth Saturday, February 9, 2002 FORMER NAVAL CAPTAIN — Portsmouth Mayor Evelyn Sirrell, left, leads Alexander Nikitin, center, a Russian human rights activist, and his translator, Sada Aksartova, on a tour of City Hall on Friday afternoon. (Steve Drozell/Staff photographer) By MICHAEL GOOT Democrat Staff Writer PORTSMOUTH — A prominent critic of nuclear waste dumping in Russia visited the mayor’s office Friday afternoon as part of his visit to the Seacoast. Alexander Nikitin, who was a former captain in the Soviet northern naval fleet, exposed Soviet practices of dumping radioactive waste, including parts of reactors from nuclear submarines and other hazardous materials, into the North and Barents seas and Arctic Ocean. These practices began in the late 1950s and continued until the breakup of the U.S.S.R. in 1991. Because he spoke out, Nikitin was arrested and tried on charges of revealing state secrets in 1996 before being acquitted four years later. Mayor Evelyn Sirrell took him on a tour of City Hall on Friday. She showed off some of the various artifacts she has collected over the years in her office and also some of the Russian memorabilia on cases in display in the Portsmouth Room of City Hall. Speaking with the aid of his translator, Sada Aksartova, Nikitin said he was pleased with the warm welcome he received. In Russia, an environmental activist would not have received that kind of welcome from a government official. The two are often at odds. "Here, I see it works in a completely different way," he said. Earlier in the day, Nikitin visited the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. "I was very surprised to see the residents on the base," he said. In Russia, people would have been worried about nuclear contamination, he said. Nikitin has spent the last five months on a Galina Starovoitova fellowship at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. The fellowship is named after a woman who was a member of the Duma — the Russian parliamentary body — who was killed when she spoke out on pro-democracy issues. "She was a very strong advocate of laws to protect the human rights of people in Russia," she said. The purpose of his visit is to become more informed about the relationship between organizations devoted to the environment and governmental agencies, Nikitin said. Nikitin said he wants closer ties between the two countries to work on environmental issues. "I think that both the U.S. and Russian government need to develop an understanding that we share the same planet," he said. Groups like the Portsmouth-Severodvinsk Connection are a way to establish closer ties between the United States and Russia. The two cities have maintained ties since 1994. Over the last two years, several groups of students have visited both cities. Nikitin said with his visit he his hoping to raise the profile of other environmental activists who have been persecuted. A Russian journalist named Grigory Pasko is in jail right now on charges of spying. Pasko also reported on nuclear dumping. Nikitin said he wants to galvanize support to free other people who have been unjustly jailed for trying to expose truths. He encouraged people to write letters to their elected officials and to those being persecuted. "The support of ordinary individuals is important," he said. "When I was in jail, I received letters from thousands of people." Doug Bogen, who is on the board of directors for the Portsmouth-Severodvinsk Connection, said he was glad Nikitin is visiting the area to raise the profile of these environmental issues. "We hope it will galvanize citizens in the area to learn about these issues that they have been facing in Russia," he added. Nikitin will be making several stops in the Seacoast. He visited the Rye Science Center on Friday. There will be a private reception today at the home of Durham Town Councilor Katie Paine from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. On Sunday, Nikitin will be speaking at an open forum at the Unitarian-Universalist Church at 292 State St. in Portsmouth. Democrat Staff Writer Michael Goot can be reached at 431-4888 or mgoot@fosters.com ***************************************************************** 49 New Path to Nuclear Policy February 10, 2002 Talk about itE-mail storyPrint THE NATION Security: Bush wants to keep U.S. options open, including stockpiling warheads, at the expense of treaties. By PAUL RICHTER, TIMES STAFF WRITER WASHINGTON -- Since he began his 2000 campaign, President Bush has sought to win recognition as the leader who cut the American and Russian nuclear arsenal by two-thirds, to "leave the Cold War behind." Yet in the first year of his term, the Bush administration has overhauled the nation's nuclear arms policy in ways that reach far beyond the count of offensive warheads. The Bush team has effectively set aside a 30-year-old tradition of arms control and asserted the need for a "flexibility" that will allow the United States to rebuild its arsenal on short notice. It has ordered construction of long-prohibited defensive weapons and is even considering new nuclear arms, which could mean resuming nuclear testing that has been halted for a decade. The approach aims to reduce the number of deployed nuclear weapons, yet it leaves the nuclear arsenal as the core ingredient of U.S. security. Its framework was sketched out a year ago in a report by an obscure Virginia think tank, the National Institute for Public Policy, that amounted to a blueprint for the administration's nuclear arms policy. "What we're seeing is the steady implementation of a new conservative strategic vision," said Joseph Cirincione, an arms expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a nonprofit group aimed at fostering world peace. "There's no question about it: There's been a plan to do this, and we're seeing it laid out, step by step." In the last year, the administration has again and again demonstrated its willingness to shake up the status quo: It has announced a withdrawal from the landmark Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, distanced itself from a handful of other arms treaties and asserted its prerogatives to rebuild the nuclear arsenal at any time. Administration officials believe that radical changes in the nature of the threat to the United States make it necessary to adopt a new approach to national security. Threats Arising From Many Nations For half a century, the greatest threat came from the Soviet Union, an adversary with well-known capabilities. Now, with the Soviet empire crumbled, threats are emerging from the dozens of countries that are trying to develop chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. Since it's not clear which of these countries may pose the greatest danger and how soon their capabilities will develop, the United States needs a flexibility that isn't possible under restrictive treaties, officials believe. Iran, Iraq and North Korea--Bush's "axis of evil"--pose the most obvious threats. But officials worry about others as well and say they can't exclude the possibility that Russia and China could be led by hostile regimes. Advocates of the new approach, including administration officials who helped write the think tank paper, contend that the United States must break free of the arduous Cold War arms negotiations that sought ceilings on arsenals. Such negotiations were not the path to peace but "just a tool to manage enmity," said former ambassador David Smith, who was chief arms control negotiator during the administration of Bush's father. Now the U.S. and Russia need to build a friendly relationship based on openness and consultation, not on binding treaties, advocates say. Critics of the approach contend that abandoning the treaties and insisting on U.S. "flexibility" will encourage other countries to maintain or increase their nuclear arsenals. They charge that the administration's moves are a sign of its "unilateralist" outlook and contend that nuclear arms remain as important as ever, and perhaps even more so, given the declining role of treaties. "Nuclear weapons remain a core of our security strategy," said Ivo H. Daalder, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a nonpartisan think tank based in Washington. "The message to other countries is: If you want to be truly secure, having nuclear weapons, and maintaining them in large numbers, is a good idea." Treaties Are Seen as Obstacles to U.S. The administration's view, say analysts, grows from a belief that arms control treaties have often held back the United States from safeguarding its interests while giving less scrupulous nations an opportunity to cheat. This wariness was apparent last year as the White House backed away from a proposed treaty to curb illegal small-arms traffic and from a proposal to create an enforcement mechanism for the 30-year-old Biological Weapons Convention. Administration officials have signaled that they will oppose the ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and will not press ahead with the 1993 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty II with Russia, which never fully took effect. "Arms control treaties are not for friends," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld declared last year. The administration's most momentous departure from the old order came Dec. 13, when Bush announced that the United States would withdraw in six months from the 1972 ABM Treaty with Russia. The ABM Treaty was drawn to avoid a spiraling arms race that the governments feared would ensue as the two countries built more and more missiles to try to overwhelm the other's antimissile defenses. But the Bush administration believed that the treaty kept the United States from developing a system to protect the entire country from ballistic missiles. Last month, the administration further fleshed out its view with the release of a major report on the role of nuclear weapons. A publicly released summary of the classified report quoted Rumsfeld as saying that the administration wanted to "put Cold War practices behind us." It intended to reduce reliance on offensive nuclear arms by increasing reliance on defensive hardware, such as the proposed national missile defense system, and, for some missions, nonnuclear weapons. The biggest change described in the report was in the nuclear arms cuts, already announced by Bush, that would slice the offensive arsenal from what is now 7,000 deployed warheads to as few as 1,700. Bush's unilateral proposal gave new life to stalled arms-reduction talks, and, by raising hopes that so many weapons could no longer be fired in minutes, won praise for the administration. Even so, the document clearly embodied a conservative approach to nuclear issues. The decommissioned warheads would not all be destroyed, officials said. Some would remain in the stockpile, ready to be redeployed, a step that could be accomplished in weeks or months if circumstances required, officials said. The nuclear cuts would take place over 10 years, longer than some had hoped. Because of a change in the way warheads are counted, the reductions were really no greater than those envisioned by the Clinton administration, some analysts argued. Officials also stressed that the cuts would take place only if no new threat materialized. While the administration hopes world events will permit continuing reductions, "we may decide that we have to increase our forces," J. D. Crouch, an assistant Defense secretary, acknowledged at a briefing. Crouch stressed that the United States intended to keep the arsenal big enough that no other country would be tempted to challenge it. "We will maintain sufficient forces to put us beyond their reach . . . as a peer competitor," he said. The administration said that, while it has no plans to take the controversial step of developing new nuclear weapons, as some aides have hinted, it wants to be ready to resume testing relatively quickly if such a decision is made. A resumption of testing, which was suspended by Bush's father in 1992, would likely be met with strong opposition abroad. Administration officials say their policy has begun a move away from "mutually assured destruction," the Cold War doctrine that sought to guarantee nuclear stability by ensuring that both countries would be destroyed if one attacked. They hope that in the future, improved antimissile defenses will make nuclear forces less and less important. Yet administration officials acknowledge that they will have a large nuclear deterrent force for the indefinite future and intend that the U.S. will be fully prepared if an unfriendly regime emerges in Russia, China or any other nuclear power. Nuclear arms are "still the ultimate insurance policy," said Tom Z. Collina of the pro-arms control Union of Concerned Scientists. A key question now is whether the Russians will further reduce their arsenal when the Bush administration is keeping a large stockpile and trying to avoid signing an agreement that would limit U.S. options. Russian officials, worried that the Americans are trying to widen their arms advantage, complain that the U.S. plan to stockpile, rather than destroy, warheads undermines the current round of negotiations. U.S. officials would like to have an informal agreement to set out the two countries' unilateral arms reductions for Bush and Russian President Vladimir V. Putin to sign when Bush visits Russia this summer. And U.S. officials have reason to feel they have the upper hand, given the unexpected ease with which they carried out the sweeping policy shifts of the last year, analysts say. Their bold moves to abrogate the ABM Treaty and other agreements have brought only muted reaction from the Russians and Chinese, who are determined to maintain good relations with the American superpower. Likewise at home, few politicians in Congress or elsewhere have challenged the new approach, given Bush's soaring popularity and his standing as the leader of the war effort. "My guess is [administration officials] will go on their way, doing what they want to do," said Collina. "And if the Russians don't like it, that's their problem." If you want other stories on this topic, search the Archives at latimes.com/archives. For information about reprinting this article, go to www.lats.com/rights. Copyright 2002 Los Angeles Times ***************************************************************** 50 Armed soldiers guarding munitions plant Omaha.com February 9, 2002 MIDDLETOWN, Iowa (AP) - The Iowa Army Ammunition Plant is protected by armed guards, both military and civilian, while soldiers with machine guns mounted on Humvees provide backup at the main gates. "This is more of what I'm used to at an ammunition facility," said Lt. Col. Yolanda Dennis-Lowman, plant commander. Military police with automatic weapons patrol more than 100 miles of road and all 19,000 acres of the compound 24 hours a day. Armed civilian security guards check driver's licenses and inspect vehicles entering the plant. The military presence at the plant is as great as it has ever been, said Dennis-Lowman, who led reporters on a guided tour of some of the plant's beefed-up security sites on Thursday. The plant's increased civilian security staff now is supported by the 3rd Platoon of the 1139th MP Company of Moberly, Mo. "It's our job to overwatch the security force that's already here," said a sergeant, who did not give his name. The stepped-up military presence was in great part prompted by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, but Dennis-Lowman said that even when she arrived in July, security was not as tight as it is at similar installations, and the addition of the MPs came at her suggestion. In addition to the guard, a 6-foot fence was built around the administration office, barriers were placed at key points and two of the plant's four gates were closed. Mark Geiger, a civilian with American Ordnance's contract security force, predicted that the added security "is here to stay." American Ordnance is a subsidiary of Mason & Hanger, a Lexington, Ky.-based company that has operated the Army-owned plant since 1951. The plant, which covers more than 19,000 acres, is 10 miles west of Burlington. It makes missile warheads, cratering charges, artillery rounds and other ammunition. From 1949 to 1975, operations included the assembly and disassembly of nuclear weapons. ©2002 Omaha World-Herald. All rights reserved. Copyright | Terms ***************************************************************** 51 South Korean daily alleges Clinton administration hid North's nuclear information BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Feb 11, 2002 Text of article from the "Manmulsang" column, entitled: "Clinton's policy on the North"; published by South Korean newspaper Choson Ilbo web site on 9 February It seems that within Korean political circles, there has been a perception of late that the Sunshine Policy has been shaken because of the Bush administration. On 8 February, for example, one national assemblyman from the Millennium Democratic Party [the ruling party of President Kim Dae-jung] stated during a meeting of the National Assembly's Foreign Affairs and Trade Committee, "The Bush administration within a year has brought down the tower of all that the Clinton administration had built in relations with the North over eight years." An assemblyperson of the Grand National Party [the opposition party] also criticized the Bush administration, stating, "A country that becomes an obstacle to peace and unification on the Korean Peninsula cannot be our ally." Although parliamentarians are free to discuss whatever they please within the National Assembly, it is essential that regardless of the debate, it be based upon some type of fact. There was much being said about North Korea's nuclear programme even within the second term of the Clinton administration. Former Defence Secretary William Perry stated that by 1994, North Korea most likely had extracted enough plutonium to make four to five nuclear bombs, while Charles Kartman, coordinator of North Korean policy, also made reference to the Kumchang-ri nuclear facility. Yet since President Clinton himself regarded the Geneva agreement [Agreed Framework] as one of his diplomatic achievements, high-level US officials refrained from any criticism of North Korea. While high-level officials remained silent, however, US intelligence analysts detected that the North Korean nuclear programme was not frozen and leaked such intelligence to members of Congress. In spite of this, Secretary of State Albright testified a number of times before Congress that the North Korean nuclear programme was frozen, thus angering members of Congress. At a US Senate committee hearing in August 1998, Secretary Albright insisted that no signs were discovered at Kumchang-ri. Yet immediately after her testimony, LTG Patrick Hughes, director of the Defence Intelligence Agency, remarked, "Madame Secretary, that is not correct," adding that a number of intelligence reports were forwarded to the State Department over the previous 18 months stating that underground nuclear facilities were being constructed at Kumchang-ri. Secretary Albright could not respond. In February 1999, she changed her position, stating that North Korea's nuclear activities were continuing, and that the Geneva agreement was being threatened. At around the same time, Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet publicly stated that although North Korea's Yongbyon facilities had remained frozen, nuclear activities were under way in other areas of the North. Ultimately, the Clinton administration had been concealing intelligence on North Korea for several years. Although he was politically adept in his short-term pursuit of popularity, Clinton had no interest in long-term diplomatic strategy and North Korean policy was in essence a typical example of the diplomatic disarray under Clinton. It is quite unclear whether Korean politicians are opening their mouths with a precise understanding of how all these facts are related. Source: Choson Ilbo, Seoul, in Korean 9 Feb 02 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. ***************************************************************** 52 Calls for investigation as cost of Trident refit rises by £400m Scotland on Sunday - Sun 10 Feb 2002 HMS Vanguard, a Trident submarine, enters the Clyde river on its way to the base at Faslane. ANDREW PORTER AND SHARON WARD sward@scotlandonsunday.com THE cost of refitting Britain's Trident nuclear submarine fleet will be about £400m more than originally estimated. It has emerged that a new contract was negotiated at a secret meeting in December. The Ministry of Defence has confirmed that the final cost of the project is now likely to be around £650m. The staggering overspend is set to reignite the controversial decision to award the contract to the Devonport dockyard in Plymouth, rather than give it to the Rosyth shipyard in Chancellor Gordon Brown's Dunfermline constituency. Brown's spokesman made no secret of his anger. He said: "Gordon will be asking some very searching questions about all of this. These revelations certainly vindicate the concerns he expressed at the time. The anger at Westminster was increased when the owners Babcock BES announced another 78 job losses at the Rosyth dockyard, reducing the staff numbers to 2160. A spokesman for Babcock said the losses were part of the further decline in submarine refitting at Rosyth following the shift to Davenport. Now MPs are calling for the House of Commons' public accounts committee to investigate the cost of the project, which has doubled within four years despite constant reassurances from the Ministry of Defence that it would meet its targets. The original estimate, when the contract was won by Devonport Management in 1993, was thought to be in the region of £240m. Colin Breed, the Liberal Democrat MP whose constituency neighbours the dockyard, is demanding the public accounts committee investigates the matter. The committee is the Commons' public spending watchdog, but there are also likely to be calls to bring in the National Audit Office, which monitors government spending. Breed has also asked Leader of the Commons Robin Cook for a ministerial statement on the cost escalation. He said: "The cost of this project has almost trebled over the last four years and yet there has been no ministerial statement as to why. I find that astonishing. The very least the British taxpayer should get is an inquiry from those bodies who are responsible for ensuring costs are not getting out of hand. These costs are out of control." Three years ago John Reid, then armed forces minister, said the cost was likely to be between £335m and £359m and he added that there was no reason to expect the project, called D154, to come in over that figure. Reid's successor at the MoD, Adam Ingram, says the cost of upgrading the facilities at Devonport to cope with the refits of the nuclear fleet is likely to be £638m to £659m. Tougher safety standards and a lack of clarity at the time of the original decision about what the regulators – primarily the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate – would accept as a safe site are being blamed. The SNP's Westminster defence spokesman Angus Robertson said: "This comes from a Tory stitch-up in 1993 when Westminster gave Scotland the danger of having Trident nuclear weapons dumped in our waters but switched the refitting jobs to England. The sell-out of Rosyth was one of the many anti-Scottish decisions that led to them being all but wiped out north of the Border and finished off Malcolm Rifkind’s career in elected politics." The project has long been the subject of much political controversy. In 1993 the Devonport Management company won a fierce battle with the Rosyth shipyard in Fife to secure the contract for the refitting of the Trident fleet. At the time, unions and Labour MPs accused Conservative ministers of giving the contract to Devonport because of the high number of Tory marginal seats in the south-west. Rosyth had been favourite to clinch the deal and felt it may have been the victim of a political trade-off. The Conservative government and then Defence Secretary Malcolm Rifkind announcement stunned management at the Fife yard when they reopened competition for the deal that everyone thought Rosyth had won. Although the official bids have never been released, it was suggested that Devonport underbid Rosyth by £13m. Former Edinburgh Pentlands MP Sir Malcolm Rifkind defended the contract move, saying: "I can’t comment on these figures, which I have not studied, but what I do know is that by moving surface refit work to Rosyth we gave it a much better future." The docks at Devonport needed new construction to accommodate the refit work started in 1997. When it is given the safety all-clear from the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate and the Department of Environment, HMS Vanguard - one of the four Trident vessels - will undergo its refit. Police arrested seven people for obstruction last week as more than 300 took part in a march to protest against the arrival of HMS Vanguard. The submarine is the first of the Trident-carrying class to undergo a long overhaul period at Devonport Naval Base, in Plymouth. To protest against her arrival, a rally and march were organised by local campaigning CANSAR and were supported by other organisations, which included CND, the Socialist Alliance and Friends of the Earth. An MoD spokesman denied that costs had got out of control and blamed environmental regulations and the costs to ensure the yard could withstand earthquakes were higher than expected and added to the burden. He added: "We have the best deal for the taxpayer that we could achieve. We believe that we have value for money." A spokesman for Devonport Management Limited, Devonport’s private sector owners, said: "There have been a number of fundamental drivers behind the final cost of the modernised nuclear facilities at Devonport." ©2002 scotsman.com | contact ***************************************************************** 53 UK: submarine refit facility cost trebles to 659 mln stg UK govt says new nuclear News - Ample (AFX-Focus) 2002-02-10 15:30 GMT: LONDON (AFX) - A row has erupted at Westminster after it was revealed that the cost of switching submarine re-fitting from Babcock International Group PLC's Rosyth dockyard to Devonport in Cornwall has almost tripled to 659 mln stg. Armed forces minister Adam Ingram told MPs the actual cost of moving Trident nuclear submarine re-fitting to the Plymouth yard would be between 638 mln stg and 659 mln, excluding VAT, against an original bid of 240 mln stg. Rosyth bid 360 mln stg, later reduced to 248 mln, having already spent 110 mln stg digging a deep dock for the refit facility. It also emerged on Friday that Babcock is making 78 people redundant at Rosyth, reducing the number of staff there to 2,160. A spokesman for the company said the main reason was the further decline of submarine refitting at Rosyth following the shift to Devonport. Despite winning a number of contracts including building 16 new landing craft and new rail wagons and increasing diversification, job losses still had to be made, he added. The then Conservative government and Defence Secretary Malcolm Rifkind stunned bosses at Rosyth in 1993 when they first re-opened competition for a deal that everyone thought had been done and then gave the contract to Devonport. A spokesman for Chancellor Gordon Brown, whose Dunfermline East constituency covers Rosyth said: "Gordon will be asking some very searching questions about all of this. These revelations certainly vindicate the concerns he expressed at the time." The latest cost follows a secret re-negotiation of a contract between Devonport's private sector owners -- Devonport Management Ltd -- and the Ministry of Defence. Last week the first of the Trident submarines to be refitted -- HMS Vanguard -- arrived at Devonport, despite the fact that DML has yet to be given final safety clearance for the work. An MoD spokesman denied that the costs of Devonport were out of control and insisted the government had got "value for money" from the project. The work at the Plymouth yard had been a "large and complex" project and that, "there is no direct precedent for providing new nuclear facilities of this sort to meet modern nuclear standards. There has been an inevitable learning process", he said. Costs of meeting environmental regulations and making the yard safe to survive earthquakes had been higher than expected. "We have the best deal for the taxpayer that we could achieve. We believe that we have value for money," he said. A spokesman for DML said there have been, "a number of fundamental drivers behind the final cost of the modernised nuclear facilities at Devonport. "These have been the subject of detailed justification and notification within the Ministry of Defence resulting in a revised contract which reflects those requirements," he said. fp/ob The pricing, performance and/or news information provided above is only for your personal information and use and is not intended to address your particular requirements or to be relied upon in making (or refraining from making) any specific investment or other decisions. Interactive Investor Trading Limited and its Data Providers do not warrant the accuracy, timeliness or suitability of any information provided above. Such information shall not constitute any form of advice or recommendation by us. Where you are unsure about any matters raised by the above information you should obtain appropriate expert independent advice. UK equity prices and indices are delayed by 15 minutes and US equity prices are delayed by 20 minutes. Fund prices are updated each business day normally by 10pm and fund performance data is updated at the start of each week normally at the end of the following Wednesday. Past performance of an investment is not necessarily a guide to its performance in the future. The value of investments or income from them may go down as well as up. You may not necessarily get back the amount you invested. ***************************************************************** 54 Anti-nukes block Siberian rail 10/02/2002 13:57 - (SA) Moscow - Some 500 locals blocked a railroad used to transport imported nuclear waste to a dump in Russia's Krasnoyarsk region in Siberia, Greenpeace said in a statement. The protesters assembled at the railroad leading to the dump on Saturday, brandishing slogans reading; "Siberia is for people, not for nuclear waste". "This action was another confirmation of ecological danger and lack of social acceptance of waste imports," Greenpeace co-ordinator Ivan Blokov said. "We demand a stop to the mad schemes of the nuclear ministry, whose activity should be placed under strict state and public control," he added. Some 40 tons of waste, imported from Bulgaria, were illegally transported to the Krasnoyarsk-26 dump last year, causing massive protest in both Russia and Ukraine. The protesters demanded that the waste be returned to its country of origin and that those responsible for the import be prosecuted. US$21 billion over ten years Some 40 000 people also signed a petition calling for a ban on the import of nuclear waste into the Krasnoyarsk region. In June last year, the Duma adopted several amendments to the environment protection law, allowing Russia to import up to 20 000 tons of spent nuclear fuel, despite fierce criticism from environmental activists. The amendments allow Russia to import and store nuclear waste and by-products on a "temporary" basis, and could earn Russia some US$21 billion over the next 10 years, according to official estimates. The scientific community is split over the issue, with many ecologists fiercely protesting the waste imports while other prominent scientists, including Nobel Prize winner Zhores Alfyorov, support it. Greenpeace slammed the decision, vowing to "oppose every single ounce of nuclear waste" entering Russian territory and use "all possible non-violent means to protect Russia from this nuclear invasion." - Sapa-AFP MyNews24 [editor@news24.co.za] ***************************************************************** 55 Limited progress reported at Russian-US uranium talks BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Feb 10, 2002 Text of report in English by Russian news agency ITAR-TASS Moscow, 8 February: Some progress was achieved on prices during talks on the drafting of a new contract for deliveries of Russian low-enriched uranium to the USA, ITAR-TASS was told on Friday [8 February] at the press service of the Russian Atomic Energy Ministry. "But no final result has been achieved so far," press service officials noted. The latest round of the negotiations was held in Moscow, and press service officials said they would be "continued in the Russian capital next week". The previous round of negotiations between representatives of the Russian Atomic Energy Ministry, including Tekhsnabeksport and representatives from the American USEC Corporation, which was also held in Moscow, had yielded no results. The sides failed to reach a mutually-beneficial agreement on the terms for the implementation of the intergovernmental LEU-HEU [low-enriched uranium - high-enriched uranium] agreement for the next term. The agreement on the use of Russian low-enriched uranium, extracted from nuclear weapons, was concluded in 1993. Russia has delivered to the USA 4,000 tonnes of low-enriched uranium in accordance with this 20-year agreement, estimated at 12bn US dollars and unofficially dubbed Megatons into Megawatts, since it was to be used as fuel at American nuclear power plants. This uranium was made from 140 tonnes of high-enriched uranium, which is enough to produce more than 5,600 nuclear warheads. Source: ITAR-TASS news agency, Moscow, in English 1547 gmt 8 Feb 02 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. ***************************************************************** 56 Protesters arrested at Trident base news.telegraph.co.uk (Filed: 11/02/2002) MORE than 70 peace protesters have been arrested during a demonstration outside the home of Britain's Trident fleet. Carol Naughton, chairman of CND is carried away by police Busloads of people from across Europe converged on the Clyde Naval Base at Faslane on the River Clyde. They included members of CND, the Faslane Peace Camp and anti-nuclear weapons group Trident Ploughshares and started arriving at the base from around 6.30am. Some of the protesters lay on the ground in the rain outside the main entrance to the base, linked together by a metal pipe. At 7.15am police began leading the demonstrators away from the gates but organisers remained firm in their determination to try to blockade the base. Trident Ploughshares said more than 70 activists had been arrested by 10am but they planned to continue today's demonstration. Demonstrators said they were expecting 5,000 people to take part in the protest over the next three days. Scottish Socialist Party leader Tommy Sheridan was arrested after taking part in the sit-down protest outside the gates. The politician linked arms with nine other protesters for about 30 minutes before he was taken away by four police officers and charged with breach of the peace. "I came to Faslane today to protest against the illegality and immorality of nuclear weapons. I've not, in any way, caused alarm to any other citizen. I therefore object that I have caused a breach of the peace." 3 November 2001: Faslane protest 'is democratic' 23 October 2001: Sheridan held again in Faslane protest 15 February 2000: 179 anti-nuclear protesters held at Faslane base © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited [http://pressoffice.telegraph.co.uk] ***************************************************************** 57 Idaho State University's Lax Policies Pose a Nuclear Security Threat The Salt Lake Tribune -- Sunday, February 10, 2002 BY KEVAN CRAWFORD Experts have warned that terrorist groups have identified Russia as a source of radioactive and fissile weapons materials. However, focusing on Russia may detract from guarding against thefts of a more practical source of Radioactive and Special Nuclear Materials (SNM). Realistically, transporting any acquired materials great distances through surveilled territory and across national boundaries is a much more difficult task for terrorists than acquiring the material right here in the United States. Drawing full attention to Russia merely diverts focus away from our own weaknesses, our own targets and easy terrorist solutions. A small fraction of our own civilian nuclear activities are operated, managed, administered and regulated by quacks and crooks. Deliberate or not, these facilities could provide significant assistance to the enemies of the United States by eliminating long-distance transportation problems. The fact that incompetence or criminal activity exists at our own nuclear facilities is supported by the federal record. To demonstrate that the sparsely populated Intermountain West is not exempt from terrorist activities, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (USNRC) provides a shameful example with its non-power Reactor License No. R-110, Docket No. 50-284, Inspection Report 93-1, Notice of Violation for Idaho State University. The notice specifically mentions the unlawful distribution of controlled substances which could be used in a "dirty" bomb. What the notice does not mention is that before 1992 the university routinely and unlawfully distributed SNM from its subcritical assembly. With more processing, this could have been used in a nuclear weapon. Furthermore, the notice does not mention that modifications to the Controlled Access Area (CAA) perimeter were made without the safety reviews required by law. Even the initial Safety Analysis Report for the facility, which was submitted fraudulently, is missing a secret access to the subcritical assembly room. In addition, the university has fraudulently claimed that all accesses to these materials are checked for intrusion once every eight hours, which, of course, does not include the unreviewed CAA perimeter modifications or the secret access. These and dozens of other cited and uncited regulatory violations at Idaho State University continued as procedures formally implemented by the university administration and routinely inspected by the USNRC for more than 20 years, some violations of which undoubtedly continue to this day. A campus full of Ph.D.s was "not smart enough" for more than 20 years to know that unlawful distribution of controlled substances and submission of fraudulent Safety Analysis Reviews and Annual Operating Reports are criminal activities. The operations staff was always so incompetently trained by licensed "experts" hired as professors that no one had the sense to put a halt to these criminal activities until 1993, when these violations were reported to the USNRC Office of Investigations by a newly hired Reactor Supervisor. The USNRC inspectors who allowed these criminal activities to continue for more than 20 years must share blame. There are two very frightening legacies from the investigation and violation citation of Idaho State University which we must face today in addition to the fact that Idaho State University radiation exposure and contamination victims were never notified as required by law. First, Idaho State University has trained more than 25 years of graduating engineers that with the proper administrative support, laws can be carelessly or deliberately violated, public health and national security can be placed at risk, and any means to cover up these activities is acceptable. Members of the nuclear profession must now contain and attempt to eliminate this cancer from the profession. The second frightening legacy is that even after the USNRC documented this unacceptable situation, it has done nothing to change their own procedures to address the specific problems identified at Idaho State University. Apparently, the USNRC has forgotten how to learn from its mistakes. From this example there is no reason for the public to believe that the USNRC can or will protect public health and national security. For our society to live safely with nuclear technology, it is urgent that we as a society and nuclear professionals boycott and fiscally strangle those licensed entities which have been associated with blatant risk to public health and national security. Nuclear professionals should engage in that effort for the purpose of professional credibility and survival of the technology. The federal record clearly demonstrates that the USNRC cannot protect us from the few quacks and crooks associated with nuclear activities. Kevan Crawford of Salt Lake City received a Ph.D. in engineering from the University of Utah in 1986. He has been a licensed reactor operator since 1978 and has supervised three research reactor facilities since 1981. He has been a professor at the University of Utah, Texas A University and Idaho State University, and a visiting professor at the Belarusian State Technical University. He was honored by the U.S. Senate as a Fulbright Senior Scholar in 1994-95, serving in the former Soviet Republic of Belarus. He has performed nuclear consulting in Saudi Arabia, Australia, and Wales. © Copyright 2002, The Salt Lake Tribune All material found on ***************************************************************** 58 Plan outlined to keep nuclear material away from terrorists AP Wire Politics Traffic Columnists By H. Josef Hebert, Associated Press WASHINGTON - The Bush administration will accelerate efforts to keep nuclear material from terrorists, especially in helping Russia safeguard its nuclear stocks, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said Friday. Abraham said that a yearlong review of the government's nuclear nonproliferation programs has made clear that the threat of nuclear materials getting into the wrong hands is greater today than ever. The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11 "put an enormous exclamation point" on the need to protect nuclear materials and spend more money on nuclear nonproliferation, especially in Russia, said Abraham. "I don't believe I have any higher priority," Abraham said in remarks prepared for a speech Friday to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council. Earlier this week, the administration proposed, as part of its fiscal 2003 budget, spending nearly $1.2 billion for Energy Department nuclear nonproliferation programs, a 50 percent increase over what Congress originally approved for this year. After the Sept. 11 attacks, Congress tacked on another $226 million for nuclear material protection, bringing the amount to just over $1 billion for this year. Only a year ago, the Bush administration proposed slashing the same programs by $100 million, prompting outcries from nuclear nonproliferation advocacy groups. Congress rejected most of those cuts. A year ago, a bipartisan commission called the need to help Russia protect its nuclear material one of the top U.S. national security priorities. The panel, headed by former GOP Sen. Howard Baker of Tennessee and Lloyd Cutler, former White House counsel in the Clinton administration, said $30 billion over 10 years would be needed to do the job right. February 9, 2002 Copyright © 2002 The Knoxville News-Sentinel Co. All Rights ***************************************************************** 59 Hanford Lab scientist finds valuable information tucked away Tri-Valley Herald Article Last Updated: Sunday, February 10, 2002 - 3:04:19 AM MST Punch cards preserve weapons-test data By Glenn Roberts Jr. STAFF WRITER Sunday, February 10, 2002 - -->Dan Steinberg always said that there was likely some valuable information contained on those punch cards that he had tucked away in small boxes in his office. Those paper IBM punch cards, which contained some nuclear weapons tests data collected from 1971-74, led Livermore Lab physicist Jim Lyle, 70, on a quest to recover the data and translate it to modern computer files. Punch cards, first used for data processing by inventor Herman Hollerith during the 1890 census, are mostly obsolete now -- save for limited applications such as voting machines. In 1928, International Business Machines Corp. developed an 80-column punch card. Lab researchers used punch cards for several decades to store data collected from nuclear weapons tests. Oscilloscopes, instruments that were used by nuclear scientists to display properties of the weapons tests on fluorescent screens, were photographed, and that photographic data was mapped onto punch cards, Lyle recalls. "They would take a picture of it, the picture was enlarged, so that it could be viewed on a screen," Lyle said. And a lab worker would manually "digitize" the oscilloscope patterns with a card-puncher. This actual data was compared with theoretical data so that weapons codes could be perfected. "People used those (cards) an awful lot, especially to do the theoretical calculations," he said. Eventually, the oscilloscopes were replaced by machines that recorded information electronically. Punch cards became obsolete. As computer technology advanced, Lyle said there was a major effort at the lab to preserve information that was recorded on obsolete media. "Efforts were made at the laboratory to round up all the cards that we had and get them onto modern media," he said. Steinberg, a fellow physicist, told Lyle he wasn't going to throw away a collection of about 7,500 punch cards containing oscilloscope information from a number of 1971-74 weapons tests, Lyle said. "Dan said he wasn't going to give up his decks of cards, so he kept 12 boxes of cards under his desk in his office. He thought there was some material hidden in there that was still valuable," Lyle said. David Schwoegler, a lab spokesman, said those punch cards contain information about the effects of shock waves on plutonium -- which is relevant to the continuing effort to maintain the U.S. stockpile in an era without actual nuclear testing. Steinberg died March 17, 1997, at his house in Livermore. It was not until last year, when researchers were cleaning out his office, that they discovered the boxes with the punched cards. Lyle said he began the search for a machine to read them. "Then I ran into the problem: We didn't have a card-reader anymore," he said. He searched the Internet, and it seemed the only existing machines were in museums. He spoke with some people in the computations program at the lab, and they notified him that their card readers were donated to museums years earlier. So he turned to the Internet again. This time, he found Bob Swartz. Swartz, owner of Cardamation Co. in Phoenixville, Pa., rents and sells machines to translate old punched cards into computer files. Punch-card voting accounts for about 80 percent of business, he said, but once in a while he gets a call from researchers about scientific data that is stored on punch cards, he said. Such was the case with Livermore Lab. "This was basically a small but vital amount of information," he said. ob sent (the machine) out and it worked," Lyle said. He ran Steinberg's cards through, and he also found another group of researchers at the lab who translated some punch cards using the rented machine. The data in Steinberg's office "was fairly well-documented," Lyle said. "I could reconstruct each one of the experiments, if I had to." He credits Steinberg for preserving the original punch cards so that the data could be studied further. "I think he knew more information could be gained," he said. "He knew it would be valuable someday." ©1999-2001 by MediaNews Group, Inc. and ANG ***************************************************************** 60 Bush's 2003 budget bodes well for ORNL, but Congress is the final arbiter Monday, Feb 4 By Frank Munger, News-Sentinel senior writer At the risk of repeating what should be obvious and apparent and well understood, I'll offer this disclaimer regarding the 2003 budget President Bush's folks sent over to Congress last week: It's a budget request, a detailed proposal, a financial plan for the nation. It's not a done deal. U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, whose congressional district includes Oak Ridge and its federal operations, offered this perspective. "All in all, there is good news in the President's request, but the real 'heavy lifting' will come in the weeks and months ahead on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue." The statement distributed by Wamp's staff was self-serving, of course. It's another way to remind folks that Congress will have the final say-so and that Wamp himself will play a role in determining the Department of Energy's budget because of his strategically important seat on the energy and water subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee. But Wamp's quote was also accurate. The budget process has just begun, and it's good to keep that in mind. With that said, the early returns look good for Oak Ridge National Laboratory. ORNL Director Bill Madia said he received an early-morning phone call on Budget Monday from someone in the know in Washington. This person told Madia he would be very happy when the budget documents were released. Indeed, Madia was pleased. As he listened to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham deliver his DOE budget speech, the lab director jotted down notes on the major initiatives highlighted for fiscal 2003. "I was struck by how many of those hold a substantial opportunity for activity here at Oak Ridge National Laboratory," Madia said. "ORNL appears to be very central to this new budget." The programs targeted for growth range from genetics and nanoscience to high-temperature superconductors and homeland security Much of the funding has not been assigned to national laboratories at this point, but Madia knows Oak Ridge will get a share of the work because of previously established links to the DOE programs or a recognized expertise in certain research fields. "We happen to be in the hotter areas," he said. Just as Madia was getting wound up and excited about the lab's budget outlook, he paused. "I don't want to overplay this," he said. Science institutions are not, Madia pointed out, seeing the "explosive growth" in funding seen at defense-related facilities - including the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant a few miles from ORNL. Y-12, which comes under the direction of the National Nuclear Security Administration, is poised to get a budget boost of almost $100 million. Despite all the positive things he saw in the budget regarding ORNL, Madia was openly jealous of the money being proposed for modernization of weapons facilities. He's happy for Y-12 because the plant's storage and manufacturing facilities are old, outdated and in need of replacement. But he would like to see ORNL and DOE's other science research labs get the same treatment as Y-12 and the weapons facilities that come under NNSA - the quasi-independent agency within DOE that runs the nuclear weapons complex. "They are not materially worse off than the science labs," Madia said. "Yet there is substantial (funding proposed) for modernization of the weapons complex. I don't begrudge that, but we certainly could use a lot more emphasis in modernizing the science infrastructure. It's, for my liking, too modest of an investment. ... I keep beating this drum, but the irony is we started this press on modernization ... and we're being outfunded by another agency." Oddly, Madia was happiest not about what he saw in 2003 but something several years away - in fiscal 2007. As part of the package sent across to Congress, budget targets are set up for the next five years. For the first time, the operating funds for the Spallation Neutron Source were put into budget type, and the figure was established at $150 million for FY 2007 - the Oak Ridge research center's first year of operation. That is the amount of annual funding that Madia and others closely tied to the science project say is necessary once construction is completed in June 2006. He was delighted to see that got the necessary blessing in Washington, especially because an earlier baseline figure for yearly operating expenditures was about $44 million less than that. "Nailing that number is important," he said. Meanwhile, the 2003 budget request included $225 million to continue construction of the SNS atop Chestnut Ridge. That is significantly less than the current year's funding ($291 million), but it's the full amount needed to keep the project on schedule. The SNS is supposed to be 61 percent complete by the end of fiscal 2003, and at this point there doesn't seem to be anything standing in the big project's way. Madia, like a quarterback who regularly takes his offensive linemen out to dinner, made this verbal offering to friends in high places: "Once again, I need to thank our congressional folks for keeping a priority on SNS." Copyright 2002 The Knoxville News-Sentinel Co. ***************************************************************** 61 K-25 water supply study ends Former workers are irate over decision By Frank Munger, News-Sentinel senior writer OAK RIDGE - The U.S. Department of Energy has called off its investigation of water-quality problems at the K-25 Site, saying the study has accomplished all that's reasonable achievable. Richard Frounfelker, DOE's project manager, said Friday he has "very high confidence" that the Oak Ridge plant's drinking water in past years was not contaminated, as has been alleged. To continue the review of old operations would be a waste of money and not help sick workers looking for answers, Frounfelker said. Former workers at the nuclear facility expressed outrage at the government's decision to drop the investigation. "DOE is just trying to find a way out of this," said Harry Williams, an ex-worker and president of the Coalition for a Healthy Environment. "What they're afraid of is they'll find out that workers were exposed." Janet Michel, another former employee who suffers from health problems she blames on K-25 contamination, said, "I think Mr. Frounfelker is saying what he is supposed to say, and I don't believe a word of it. The only way for everyone to have the confidence that Mr. Frounfelker has is to get in there and do a thorough investigation and not a superficial one. We need to have it done by independent people where everyone is satisfied." DOE spent an estimated $2 million over the past couple of years for contractors to test current water supplies at the plant and evaluate historic operations. K-25 was built during World War II to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons and reactor fuel. That work stopped in 1985, and since then the Oak Ridge plant has been a base for waste treatment and other environmental-management activities. Several workers at K-25 came forward a couple of years ago and said cross-connection of pipes allowed untreated or chemically contaminated water to potentially enter the plant's potable water supplies. There was speculation that water problems might explain some of the illnesses of plant employees, especially office workers who didn't have known exposures to nuclear materials or toxic chemicals. Bob Garber of Parallax, DOE's chief contractor on the project, said investigators identified various pollutants - such as chromates and sulfates - that were above drinking standards in cooling waters and the water system used for fighting fires. But there was no hard evidence of tainted water actually entering the sanitary water system, he said. "The only thing I can conclude is that the water is safe and probably was safe," he said. "There could have been instantaneous excursions (mixing the water supplies), but we can't document them." It's possible more could be done if there was unlimited funding, Garber said. "But we've spent a significant amount of money and were unable to uncover any cross-connections." DOE issued a statement that said: "We believe that the goals of (the review) have been met, including identifying the chemicals of concern and the potential pathways for exposure to employees. Because there is insufficient data on past operations, it is highly unlikely that any additional analysis would result in any significant new information. Thus, we will proceed with closing this project with all work scheduled to be completed by April 2002." Frounfelker said the wrap-up of activities would include some additions to a progress report released last August. Williams said DOE should be ashamed to call it quits without ever digging up suspect areas to evaluate the piping and surrounding soils for contaminants. "Where are they looking for this contamination? On paper? Paper ain't got the contamination on it," he said. Michel said if there's insufficient data available today, it's because DOE did such a lousy job of record-keeping. "I'm sorry, but I'm very, very cynical," she said. "We've just caught them in so many lies, and I'm really saddened to hear that they've made this decision." Copyright 2002 The Knoxville News-Sentinel Co. ***************************************************************** 62 Energy Department, USEC near pact on nuclear power -- The Washington Times February 11, 2002 By Carter Dougherty THE WASHINGTON TIMES The Bush administration and the nation's only producer of fuel for nuclear power plants are nearing a deal aimed at ensuring a steady U.S.-produced stream of the crucial material, according to a senior administration official. The Department of Energy and Bethesda-based USEC are negotiating how to preserve a domestic industry for enriching uranium into commercial fuel, which is used to generate 20 percent of the electricity in the United States. In particular, the department wants USEC to develop new, more efficient technology for this process to avoid complete dependence on imports, which already account for 77 percent of the U.S. nuclear fuel market. "It's an energy security question," a senior administration official said. "It's the same principle as not being reliant on all the Middle Eastern countries for our oil." USEC is the company created through the privatization of the United States Enrichment Corporation in 1998. The move, heavily criticized at the time by national security analysts who feared overdependence on foreign uranium, resulted in a company that has faced repeated financial difficulties. USEC spokesman Charles Yulish declined to comment on the negotiations with the government. Its stock closed on Friday at $5.96, up 16 cents but well below the price of $14.25 in its June 1998 initial public offering. Standard &Poors rates USEC bonds as junk, severely limiting its ability to raise new funds. USEC is also the sole steward of a program created by the American and Russian governments — known as "Megatons to Megawatts" — in which it markets uranium that has been converted into commercial reactor fuel from old Russian nuclear warheads. The plan was developed in the early 1990s to stop fissile material from falling into the hands of terrorists. Importantly for USEC, the deal gives it access to cheap nuclear fuel that it can then resell to its American customers. "They live off the cheap Russian material," the senior official said. "When it runs out, they're in trouble." USEC and the government are close to resolving the main issues that had divided them, said sources close to the negotiation. "We're progressing nicely," the official said. "It will happen." The company's main problem is its technology for manfacturing nuclear fuel; it is outdated and much less efficient than its European competitors, the senior official said. But USEC has been reluctant to commit to a date by which it would develop new technology. "If our technology is going to be competitive, we need to get it to market fast," the official said. "Otherwise, we're reliant on overseas suppliers." To force USEC's hand, the Bush administration has told the company it will lose its role in administering the Russian program if it does not develop new ways to produce nuclear fuel in the United States by a date certain, the senior official said. In the past, USEC has bitterly opposed attempts by the Bush administration to force the company to take these steps. "No U.S. corporation could subject itself to such unprecedented and unnecessary government authority and remain accountable to its shareholders or remain in business," USEC Chief Executive Officer William Timbers wrote Undersecretary of Energy Robert Card in a Jan. 10 letter. The department and USEC have reached a tenative agreement on allowing the Department of Energy to take over USEC's plant in Paducah, Kentucky if the company ceases production there. That facility, government-owned but operated by USEC, is currently the only operating plant in the United States for enriching uranium into nuclear fuel. "We want to be able to step in before the plant is shut down and cannot be started up again," the senior official said. The two sides are still haggling over how to dispose of excess uranium stocks that USEC inherited from the government when it was privatized, he said. ***************************************************************** 63 Workers angry as DOE ends K-25 water study Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 11:21 a.m. on Monday, February 11, 2002 from staff and wire reports The U.S. Department of Energy says it has decided to halt its investigation into water-quality problems at the former K-25 uranium enrichment site. Richard Frounfelker, DOE's project manager, said this morning that continuing the study for another year to 18 months would not yield further significant conclusions. Former workers have expressed dismay and outrage over the decision. The study was initiated in July 2000 after employees voiced concern that cross-connecting water lines could have resulted in exposure to hazardous materials at the plant, which formerly enriched uranium through a gaseous diffusion process. DOE has spent an estimated $2 million for contractors to test water supplies at the plant and evaluate historic operations. "The issue was, if we spent the money, what would we have for the time and dollar investment?" said Frounfelker of continuing the project. "The answer is that we probably would not have any more (answers) than we do right now -- it's not a prudent investment of time or dollars Š "A year from now they (the sick workers) would be thinking some answers were going to come out, and there would not be additional information, and that's not fair to them." Frounfelker said that he thought the DOE study had ruled out the water system at the plant being a common denominator in worker illnesses, and had yielded worthwhile information for those workers. "We've been able to characterize the three water sources and the chemicals that were in them," said Frounfelker. "And we've been able to characterize the piping system Š we've not found multiple instances where the water systems were interconnected indiscriminately. "We've also put enough information on the table in terms of the chemicals so ill workers can take that to their doctors and carry something forward on an individual basis." Frounfelker said there were individual instances of interconnected pipes, but that to carry a study forward based on "finding one water faucet" would not be a good investment of time or manpower. "Everything from there would be based on assumptions," said Frounfelker. Harry Williams, a former employee and president of the Coalition for a Healthy Environment, said "DOE is just trying to find a way out." "What they're afraid of is they'll find out that workers were exposed," Williams said. Janet Michel, another former employee who blames her health problems on K-25 contamination, agrees. "The only way for everyone to have the confidence that Mr. Frounfelker has is to get in there and do a thorough investigation and not a superficial one," Michel said. "We need to have it done by independent people where everyone is satisfied." Bob Garber of Parallax, DOE's chief contractor on the project, said investigators identified various pollutants -- such as chromates and sulfates -- that were above drinking standards in cooling waters and the water system used for fighting fires. But there was no evidence of tainted water entering the sanitary water system, he said. "The only thing I can conclude is that the water is safe and probably was safe," Garber said. "There could have been instantaneous excursions (mixing the water supplies), but we can't document them." DOE issued a statement saying "because there is insufficient data on past operations, it is highly unlikely that any additional analysis would result in any significant new information." Michel said if there are insufficient data, it's because DOE didn't do a good job of keeping records. "I'm sorry, but I'm very, very cynical," she said. "We've just caught them in so many lies, and I'm really saddened to hear that they've made this decision." Frounfelker said that detailed data on the study, as well as technical information on the "back flow preventer program" started in the 1970s, would soon be available in the DOE reading room. The DOE statement said that all work on the project would be closed by April 2002. All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 64 DOE Officials tackle nuclear dangers [http://www.columbiatribune.com/tpc/tpc.htm] Efforts to focus on assisting Russia. Published Saturday, February 9, 2002 WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration will accelerate efforts to keep nuclear material from terrorists, especially in helping Russia safeguard its nuclear stocks, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said yesterday. Abraham said a yearlong review of the government’s nuclear nonproliferation programs has made clear that the threat of nuclear materials getting into the wrong hands is greater today than ever. The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11 "put an enormous exclamation point" on the need to protect nuclear materials and spend more money on nuclear nonproliferation, particularly in Russia, Abraham said. "I don’t believe I have any higher priority," Abraham said in remarks yesterday to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council. This week, the administration proposed, as part of its fiscal 2003 budget, spending nearly $1.2 billion for Department of Energy nuclear nonproliferation programs, a 50 percent increase over what Congress originally approved for this year. After the Sept. 11 attacks, Congress tacked on another $226 million for protection of nuclear material, bringing the amount to more than $1 billion for this year. "This is a major reversal, and it’s a welcomed one," said William Hoehn, director of the Russia-American Nuclear Advisory Council, a private advocacy group on security issues involving the two nations. Only a year ago, the Bush administration proposed slashing the same programs by $100 million, prompting outcries from nuclear nonproliferation advocacy groups. Congress rejected most of those cuts. In his remarks, Abraham said his department will accelerate the program to help Russia improve security at its nuclear-material sites and consolidate nuclear stockpiles. "This is where the rubber meets the road and the results speak for themselves," said Abraham, adding that the security improvements are expected to be completed by 2008, two years ahead of schedule. He also singled out expanding a U.S.-Russia program to help former nuclear scientists and engineers find civilian, commercial jobs or use their expertise in anti-terrorism programs. The goal of the program is to eventually provide civilian jobs for more than 30,000 Russian weapons scientists, engineers and technicians. "By employing these scientists for peaceful, viably commercial purposes, we dramatically reduce the talent pool available to those states that would employ these individuals for their own evil ends," Abraham said. The administration had not always thought that way. A year ago, it proposed virtually eliminating the program to help scientists who once worked on nuclear-weapons jobs, maintaining the program was not working well. Abraham also cited the administration’s agreement with Russia to dispose of 34 tons of excess plutonium in each country. He recently announced a plan to process the plutonium into mixed oxide for use in commercial power reactors. Russia will do the same to its plutonium. In embracing more help for Russia, Abraham said, "We have not undertaken these programs out of charity. They are clearly in our national interest." Copyright © 2002 The Columbia Daily Tribune. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 65 Nuclear renaissance. . . in space? BulletinWire February 8, 2002 On February 4, NASA released its proposed budget [http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2003/bud27.html] for fiscal year 2003. If approved by Congress, it will be a windfall for space exploration initiatives, which would receive a 19 percent increase in funding. But funding for the International Space Station would take a hit, decreasing by more than $200 million. New NASA chief Sean O’Keefe, brought on to bring financial order to the agency, said the budget reflects his desire to “emphasize the basics... [and] the administration’s commitment to this agency’s core research efforts” (February 5, Agence France Presse). This funding shift may come as welcome news to many space scientists who, as Colin Woodard reported in the March/April 2001 Bulletin (“Stuck in Orbit”), felt NASA was sacrificing its space exploration programs in favor of the space station. “The space station is the biggest single obstacle to the exploration of space,” Robert L. Park, University of Maryland physicist and director of the American Physical Society, told Woodard. “With the $100 billion that the space station will cost over its lifetime we could have explored the solar system.” Now it looks like exploration is again a top NASA priority. And concomitant to that commitment is the proposal—to the tune of $125.5 million—for a revival of nuclear power in space. Using the current, solar-powered space vehicles is “like exploring the West using covered wagons,” according to Ed Weiler, NASA’s associate administrator for science. “Nuclear-electric propulsion and nuclear power technologies” will shorten travel times and extend observation times in space, according to the administration. In fact, the budget predicts that “In this decade, nuclear power technology will enable NASA to land a rover on Mars to conduct experiments over several years, instead of several months.” The capability of long-distance space flights was in fact one of two potential advantages of nuclear reactors in space that Maxim Tarasenko wrote about in “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Topaz” (July/August 1993 Bulletin). The Topaz 2, a satellite equipped with a Russian-built nuclear reactor, was never launched because of protests by the space-science community, which feared radiation from the reactor would interfere with the operations of scientific satellites. The second potential application of nuclear reactors in space, Tarasenko wrote, was military. Some activists now fear that possibility. “We know that the nuclear rocket that’s being developed is going to have military applications,” Bruce Gagnon of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space told Space.com (February 6). The idea of nuclear rockets has already been chewed over by the government, as reported in the November 1991 Bulletin (“Nuclear Boom or Bust?”). When John Pike of the Federation of American Scientists revealed plans for a program in which nuclear rockets would deliver Star Wars cargo to space, “angry administration spokesmen complained that merely exposing it could bring the program to an end. Pike charged that accidents involving such nuclear rockets could seriously threaten the environment, and irate Australians, who reside beneath the rockets' planned test trajectory, soon declared that if U.S. officials are confident that there is no danger, test rockets should be routed over U.S. towns and cities, not Sydney or Canberra.” The project never took off. See: “Stuck in Orbit [http://www.thebulletin.org/issues/2001/ma01/ma01rwoodard.html] ,” by Colin Woodard, March/April 2001 “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Topaz,” by Maxim Tarasenko, July/August 1993 “Nuclear Boom or Bust,” by Linda Rothstein, November 1991 February 1, 2002 A credible threat? Has new evidence surfaced to indicate that the government has acknowledged a credible terrorist threat against nuclear plants? Remarks made by the president and a recent report point to that possibility, but intelligence officials say they know of no such threats. In his State of the Union address on January 28, President Bush said, “Our discoveries in Afghanistan confirmed our worst fears. . . .We have found diagrams of American nuclear power plants. . .” —a statement seen by some as a revelation that the United States had in fact found credible evidence of a terrorist threat directed at the nuclear industry. And a recent classified report allegedly warns that terrorists are planning another major attack, and that nuclear facilities are among the targets, according to an article by Bill Gertz in the Washington Times (January 31). The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) recommended that all U.S. nuclear power plants increase their security after September 11. But a January 23 alert issued by the NRC to the nuclear plants was actually a mistake, according to officials cited in the New York Times (February 1). The warning had been based on a tip that officials received and dismissed last fall, the officials said. The NRC has appeared reluctant to institute major security improvements and has maintained all along that U.S. nuclear power stations are secure. NRC Chairman Richard Meserve has opposed legislation to upgrade the NRC’s “design basis threat,” which is the level of threat to nuclear facilities that the NRC recognizes and plans its security measures around. On January 17, Meserve said in a speech to the National Press Club, “Since September 11, there have been no specific credible threats of a terrorist attack on a nuclear power plant,” a statement with which intelligence officials apparently concur. But as Daniel Hirsch reported in the January/February 2002 Bulletin, many believe the current level to be far too lax. “Why does the industry continue to ignore the need to protect its facilities?” Hirsch asked. “First, more security means more expense, and its every instinct is to avoid current expenses. Second, if it admits its reactors are vulnerable, the industry’s dream of a nuclear renaissance is diminished.” See: “The NRC: What, Me Worry?” [http://www.thebulletin.org/issues/2002/jf02/jf02hirsch.html] by Daniel Hirsch, January/February 2002 Japanese MOX order shelved Kansai Electric Power Company, a Japanese utility, halted its order for MOX (mixed oxide) fuel from a Cogema plant in France after Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry refused to accept the utility’s or the plant’s quality assurance procedures, according to Nuclear Engineering International (January 29). This isn’t the first MOX fuel quality control problem for Japan, which sees using the fuel (a uranium-plutonium blend) as a way to dispose of its stockpile of separated plutonium. As Shaun Burnie reported in the May/June 2001 Bulletin: “Officials in Britain and Japan issued assurances that data on the first shipment of MOX fuel had not been falsified. But data that BNFL [British Nuclear Fuels Limited] was forced to release publicly in Japan told a different story, and after three months of denial and a court challenge from citizen groups, BNFL was forced to concede that it had falsified data.” See: “Japan’s Nuclear Twilight Zone [http://www.thebulletin.org/issues/2001/mj01/mj01burnie.html] ,” by Shaun Burnie & Aileen Mioko Smith, May/June 2001 ©2002 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists ***************************************************************** 66 Blowing the Whistle: Not for the Fainthearted February 10, 2002 By MARCI ALBOHER NUSBAUM He became an overnight icon of workplace integrity, celebrated as a corporate insider who had the courage to confront her boss about possible wrongdoing in high places. For warning Enron (news/quote)'s chief executive last summer that the energy company could "implode in a wave of accounting scandals," Sherron S. Watkins has been called a fearless upholder of business ethics. Other whistle-blowers should be so lucky. Though Ms. Watkins has been basking in the glow of the media's softest lights, experts say such hero treatment is far from the norm. "The lone whistle-blower is often set up against a powerful corporate or government entity with more resources and power," said James E. Fisher, director of the Emerson Electric (news/quote) Center for Business Ethics at St. Louis University. "From the get-go, you have the likelihood of retaliation." People committed to bringing out the truth need to steel themselves, as well as their families, for difficult times, according to Tom Devine, legal director of the Government Accountability Project, a nonprofit organization for the protection of whistle- blowers in Washington. That doesn't mean that employees who witness illegal or unethical behavior in their workplaces have to set themselves up as sacrificial lambs, he said. A key is to think carefully before doing anything to shine the spotlight on improprieties. If the organization has an ethics officer and a policy in place for reporting wrongdoing, he recommended that employees use those channels first, rather than making accusations publicly. Talking to a trusted manager or getting outside advice confidentially can also be wise. "When the whistle-blower is perceived as a threat to expose indefensible misconduct, then the `him versus them' mentality kicks in," Mr. Devine said. "We coach people on how to make a difference without sparking an adversarial relationship." Marty Katz for The New York Times Martin Edwin Andersen, a former manager in the Justice Department, said he was "stripped of my security clearance and transferred to bureaucratic Siberia" after complaining in 1997 of what he called "a cesspool of official misconduct." If an employee suffers retaliation, legal recourse is available under a patchwork of state and federal laws. All but 15 states have enacted some form of general whistle-blowing legislation, and more than 50 state measures provide protections in specific industries or for classes of people, like children or workers exposed to hazardous substances. Some of these laws and regulations affect private employment, while others deal with the public sector. In addition, the Federal Whistle-Blower Protection Act provides shields for federal employees who have experienced retaliation. Advocates for whistle-blowers say the safeguards are not enough. "Almost any whistle-blower who relies on these rights and fights to the bitter end will spend many years and dollars on legal fees and be virtually guaranteed to get a formal legal ruling that he or she deserved whatever retaliation was received," Mr. Devine said. Even so, would-be whistle-blowers have some cause for hope. The Enron scandal has increased pressure on companies to create programs that encourage employees to expose wrongdoing without fear of retribution. Last June, Senator Daniel K. Akaka, Democrat of Hawaii, introduced a bill to make it easier for whistle-blowers to sue their employers and to broaden the protections they receive. The measure would also give the United States Office of Special Counsel, the independent federal agency charged with investigating and prosecuting cases involving government whistle-blowers, greater power to litigate cases. Lawyers say the strongest legal protection is in cases falling under the federal False Claims Act, a Civil War-era law that has been rediscovered recently as a tool to challenge fraud in obtaining government contracts. It is also one of the few laws that offer financial incentives for whistle-blowers who pursue a case, entitling them to a percentage of the money recovered. Winning cases is another matter. "Courts are fairly hostile to claims because they so often involve disgruntled employees looking to cash in," said Michael Selmi, an employment law professor at the George Washington Law School in Washington. His advice, particularly if a whistle-blower is interested in keeping his or her job, is to reach the right person and try to handle the problem inside the organization, rather than going directly to law enforcement or regulatory agencies. "Most companies want to stop illegal or fraudulent activities," he said. Even when evidence of wrongdoing is strong, experts advise potential whistle- blowers to do much soul-searching and planning before reporting it. "If you go into your boss's office and say, `You're a crook and you're not going to get away with it,' it would be a miracle not to have a scorched- earth conflict with only one left standing," Mr. Devine said. Experts also say whistle-blowers can be successful if they capture the attention of Congress, the news media or other powerful messengers. "If they make it to `60 Minutes,' their issue will get serious consideration," said Roberta Ann Johnson, author of "Whistleblowing: Power and Policy From the Inside Out," which is to be released later this year by Lynne Rienner Publishers. Still, employees who come forward can expect a rough ride. Talks with whistle-blowers and those who study them paint a picture of David versus Goliath struggles. Consider Martin Edwin Andersen, a former manager in the Justice Department who complained in 1997 of what he called "a cesspool of official misconduct," including sexual favoritism in hiring, breaches of security and visa fraud in the department's overseas criminal training program. After voicing his complaints, Mr. Andersen said, he was "stripped of my security clearance and transferred to bureaucratic Siberia." For a month, he said, he continued to receive his $80,000-a-year salary, but was made to work in a warehouse and given virtually no responsibilities. He passed the time by reading histories of the Civil War. The Office of Special Counsel said Mr. Andersen settled his case with the Justice Department for a package of relief including a lump-sum payment of $87,500. He has since left the agency and joined the Government Accountability Project as media director. The Justice Department declined to comment on his case. In July 2001, Mr. Andersen was given a public service award by the Office of Special Counsel for his whistle-blowing disclosures. For all the recognition, though, he said, his three-year battle exhausted him. "I have two daughters for whom all of this was a distraction of my attention because the only way you can win is to become totally absorbed in your own vindication," he said. Though Mr. Andersen did not lose his job, many whistle-blowers do. C. Fred Alford, a government professor at the University of Maryland and author of "Whistleblowers: Broken Lives and Organizational Power" (Cornell University Press, 2001), says that even though retaliation is illegal, it is easy for organizations to punish troublemakers by firing them long enough afterward to obscure the connection between the whistle- blowing and the termination. He found that many whistle-blowers lost their families and homes as well as their jobs and often turned to alcohol for solace. Most surprising, he found, colleagues and even professional organizations usually turned their backs on whistle-blowers. When whistle-blowers come forward, employers typically seek to discredit them, Dr. Johnson, the author, said. "They try to show you're crazy or have a checkered past — something one academic calls the `nuts and sluts' approach," she said. When she interviewed whistle-blowers, many asked her whether her phone was tapped. "Perspective becomes a little skewed because of the experience, and for good reason," she said. Lashing back at accusers, however, might not be the wisest option after the Enron debacle. In fact, even before the Enron mess, American companies have been given greater incentives to get their ethical houses in order. Under federal sentencing guidelines adopted in 1991, companies convicted of criminal acts could win leniency if they had procedures to ferret out illegal conduct. In 1996, companies got an additional nudge when the Delaware Chancery Court held that corporate directors could be held personally liable for failing to institute proper compliance programs to prevent illegal acts by employees. As a result, codes of ethics, ethics officers, anonymous hot lines and other programs have been cropping up in companies large and small. Still, said Mark Schwartz, a business-ethics lecturer at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, "When it comes to actually providing for protections for employees against reprisals or other forms of harassment, companies have a long way to go." When Mr. Andersen gives speeches, he often begins with the line, "Hi, my name is Martin Andersen. and I'm a whistle-blower," a play on the introduction made famous by Alcoholics Anonymous. He says it captures the stigma attached to the word. If the halo effect surrounding Ms. Watkins endures after the Enron case, perhaps he can change his introduction. Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company | Privacy ***************************************************************** 67 A major contributor to nuclear physics canberra.yourguidewww.yourguide.com.au By JANET BISHOP ROGER BIRD loved his work in physics and believed it could do good in the world. His measurements enabled others to "read the unwritten". As Professor Tony Klein of the School of Physics at Melbourne University put it, "Roger Bird is fondly remembered by many colleagues as a brilliant and congenial physicist who has made significant contributions to many fields of science, well beyond the confines of nuclear physics." Bird's work, using innovative techniques for analysing the composition and age of materials, developed new knowledge and understanding in fields as diverse as hydrology, chemistry, and archeology. Bird grew up in Eltham in Victoria where his parents and grandparents were orchardists and pioneers. His family remembers that as a boy he loved doing sums and figuring out how technology worked. In 1944 he won a Dafydd Lewis Scholarship to study science at the University of Melbourne. In 1947 he joined the first large postgraduate class in the University's School of Physics. He built a mass spectrometer a device that squirts charged nuclear particles through a powerful magnetic field. The particles are separated according to their mass and charged so that they can be identified and counted. Research with the mass spectrometer led to a PhD in 1955. Bird joined the British Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell near Oxford, where he investigated nuclear reactions, and was a British delegate to the Second International Conference on Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy in 1958. Bird returned to Australia in 1964 to work at what is now the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) near Sydney. By 1966 he was among a small group of scientists who built the first proton microprobe, used to analyse the composition of metals. In 1971 the Government decision to defer plans for a nuclear power station at Jervis Bay changed the focus of many research programs at Lucas Heights. Bird spent the next 20 years applying nuclear physics to other scientific fields. Because nuclear measurement techniques are non-destructive, and require only a tiny amount of sample, they can be used to date and authenticate rare and precious items, and they play a role in solving some big puzzles. Bird contributed to over 100 scientific publications on the use of nuclear measurement techniques for the study of minerals and metals; polymer films, pottery, pigments and protein; semiconductors and solar cells; bronze, bottles and blades. He co-wrote two technical books: Ion Beam Techniques in Archaeology and the Arts, 1983; and Ion beams for Materials Analysis, 1989. He was group leader at ANSTO's high power Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) facility, from before its commissioning in 1988 until he retired in 1992. Archeologists acknowledge Bird's significant influence on archeological research in the Pacific region. Obsidian, or volcanic glass, has a distinct signature that flags the volcano of its origin. Bird and his team analysed thousands of obsidian tools, and obsidian from all known volcanic sources in the region. After his retirement, Bird continued to work on the obsidian projects and to co-write a third highly-regarded technical book Accelerator Mass Spectrometry, 1998. Dr J. Roger Bird, born August 26, 1927, died November 22, 2001. ***************************************************************** 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: *****************************************************************