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NUCLEAR POLICY
1 European Parliament pledges support for nuclear clean-up in north-we
2 Sweden: Nuclear delay protest*
3 US: Against Nukephobia
4 UK: Labour lobbies to save TXU
NUCLEAR REACTORS
5 US: SONGS 1: 600-ton reactor removed in delicate decommissioning
6 US: Acid stains found at Davis-Besse
7 US: CP's Robinson Plant Completes Record 517-day run
8 US: Acid spots found on D-B reactor bottom -
9 US: At the Heart of a Nuclear Power Plant Ticks a Pitchman's Soul
10 Withdrawal from use is the best option for Temelin--
11 Russia: Urals nuclear power station to close down reactor for repair
NUCLEAR SAFETY
12 US: Idaho: Radioactive devices found in Portneuf River
13 UK: My husband was used as nuclear guinea pig
14 UN testing for depleted uranium contamination in Bosnia
15 US: Dirty Nukes May be Part of Saddam’s 11th Hour Defenses
16 US: Hot to handle
NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
17 UK: Cumbrian base for nuclear cargo ship
18 US: State spent $2.8 million on Yucca fight
19 US: EPA to begin site cleanup at Benton Harbor
20 US: UEA stifles dissent on Initiative 1
NUCLEAR WEAPONS
21 US: Activists walk 800 miles to end nuclear grip on Southwest
22 N-sites evoke memories of Cuban missile crisis
23 After 40 years, a closer look (Cuba)
24 US: Resolving to Use Force / Straight answers on war
25 Iraq's potential to gain nuclear materials questioned
26 Iraq: Saddam's Weakened Military
US DEPT. OF ENERGY
27 FFTF restart effort costs have passed $100,000 this year
28 Hanford plan would accelerate tank work
29 FFTF supporters continue to plead for facility
30 FFTF restart effort costs have passed $100,000 this year
31 Official: Plutonium pit plant at test site would be good for state
32 Akers is speaker for next FORNL meeting
33 DOE: Hanford tank waste agreement
OTHER NUCLEAR
34 Report: Military space spending soars -
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FULL NEWS STORIES
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1 European Parliament pledges support for nuclear clean-up in north-west Russia
Inter-Parliamentary Working Group
In 1998 Bellona organised an Inter-Parliamentary Working Group
(IPWG), which is a forum of Russian and Western parliamentarians.
The main goal of the IPWG is to address issues of nuclear safety
co-operation that require political attention. Jump to section
[The Arctic Nuclear Challenge]
MURMANSK-OSLO - On a trip organised by Bellona and the Russian
Duma, members of the European Parliament visited Kola's nuclear
sites and pledged support to fill the gaps in the existing
programmes.
Igor Kudrik, 2002-10-10 19:00
While the Nobel Peace Prize favourites, senators Nunn and Lugar,
fight in the US Congress for the very existence of the
Co-operative Threat Reduction programme, we register an increased
European interest in the issue. Last week, Bellona and a member
of the Russian State Duma, Valentin Luntsevich, took a group of
ten members of the European Parliament to Murmansk to study
nuclear safety and security issues, which have been haunting the
region since the late 1980s. A more active and structured
participation from the European countries regarding nuclear
safety in north-west Russia is becoming vital. Moreover,
politicians may have to compromise on their misunderstandings,
which up to now have obstructed the successful implementation of
the existing programmes.
The Kola region, of which Murmansk is the capital, in north-west
Russia, hosts Russia's once mighty Northern Fleet, which operated
two-thirds of the 250 nuclear powered submarines built in the
Soviet Union. Today, the submarine fleet has fallen to 34 nuclear
powered vessels. The remaining 115 submarines have been taken out
of active service and are currently scattered along the coast
line of the Kola Peninsula and in Arkhangelsk county, awaiting
decommissioning. The Northern Fleet's dilapidated infrastructure
for managing spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste has turned
into ruins during the past decade.
Inter-Parliamentary Group Working Group background
In 1998 Bellona created an Inter-Parliamentary Working Group,
IPWG, whose members visited Murmansk last week. This forum
provided the possibility for politicians from Russia, Europe and
the United States to focus on the issue of nuclear safety
co-operation. Currently, the IPWG is co-chaired by Bart Staes,
member of the European Parliament, and Sergey Mitrokhin, member
of the Russian State Duma.
To intensify the economic development of the Arctic, the Soviet
Union built nine nuclear powered civilian vessels — eight
icebreakers and one container ship. But with the industry's
downsizing following the collapse of the Soviet Union, this
nuclear fleet faced economic hardships, as well as enormous
expenses to handle radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel.
The management of the hazardous products of submarine and
icebreakers' operation was not a top priority in the Soviet
Union; Russia therefore inherited a whole package of problems it
was unable to cope with on its own.
USA steps in
In the period following the break-up of the Soviet Union, the
Soviet Nuclear Threat Reduction Act of 1991, championed through
Congress by Senators Nunn and Lugar, has achieved significant
results. The act, renamed the Co-operative Threat Reduction (CTR)
programme in 1993, was designed to help the countries of the
former Soviet Union destroy nuclear, chemical and biological
weapons of mass destruction and their associated infrastructure,
and establish verifiable safeguards against the proliferation of
those weapons.
According to the US government's Defense Threat Reduction Agency
website (http://www.dtra.mil/ctr/ctr_score.html
[http://www.dtra.mil/ctr/ctr_score.html] ), as of July 7th 2002
5,970 nuclear warheads have been deactivated, 1,269 ballistic and
long-range nuclear cruise missiles eliminated, 829 missile
launchers destroyed, 97 long-range bombers eliminated and 24
ballistic missile submarines destroyed.
To ensure the decommissioning of ballistic missile submarines,
CTR has created the infrastructure for their elimination both at
the shipyards in north-west Russia — Nerpa at the Kola Peninsula
and Zvezdochka in Severodvinsk, Arkhangelsk county — and in the
Russian Far East where the Pacific Fleet is based — Zvezda
shipyard. Later CTR started to contract shipyard directly to
carry out the decommissioning of submarines as well as to create
the infrastructure for spent fuel management. This year a nuclear
fuel unloading site was commissioned at Zvezdochka shipyard. The
first submarine to be de-fuelled there is a Typhoon class
(TK-202) — the world's biggest submarine and a cold war
demolition machine. All in all, CTR is planning to completely
dismantle 41 ballistic missile submarines by 2007.
CTR has been a success first of all in terms of securing weapons
of mass destruction and its carriers, but the programme also
assisted in creating the needed infrastructure to dismantle
submarines and to manage unloaded spent nuclear fuel, as well as
to process liquid radioactive waste generated as a result of
decommissioning.
The water area of Nerpa shipyard: Diesel submarines are on the
left side and Deltas are on the right side.
Vincent Basler
But any assistance that goes beyond the weapons' destruction has
been never popular among Republicans in the US Congress. Starting
in 1996, the US Congress added amendments to funding bills to
limit CTR's authority in assisting with environmental restoration
projects and has continued to include prohibitive language in
defence authorisation bills. The debate around CTR culminated
this October when Senator Lugar attempted to get approval of a
permanent waiver from the Capital Hill.
Under current legislation, the Pentagon must "certify" Russia as
committed to non-proliferation, or else roughly one-third of CTR
activities controlled by the US military shuts down. That
certification process is run on a fiscal-year basis. The waiver
for the 2002 fiscal year was signed by President Bush August 2002
and was valid only until October 1st. This was the day when the
hard battle for CTR started. And all the old anti-CTR arguments
emerged in that debate.
"[The opposition] says Nunn-Lugar is foreign aid, they say the US
military should not be involved, they think [Nunn-Lugar deals
with] environmental issues, they think they are issues the
Pentagon should not be involved with," said a US government
official to Bellona Web earlier this week.
According to non-proliferation experts, CTR is unlikely to
receive a permanent waiver and its activities may become limited
solely to weapons' destruction. In today's reality, though, it is
very hard to separate environmental and non-proliferation
programmes. Securing radioactive and nuclear material has become
crucial not only for the environment, but also to a larger extent
it has become vital in preventing "evil doers" getting hold of
such materials.
Fortunately, European countries have recently shown greater
interest in providing their share of assistance, which is now
starting to be of great importance.
Nerpa shipyard exemplified
Nerpa shipyard was one of the visit points for European
Parliament members, their State Duma colleagues and Bellona last
week. The shipyard has so far decommissioned nine submarines,
including six ballistic missile submarines, or SSBNs.
SSBNs were scrapped using of CTR supplied equipment and with CTR
funds. But CTR's contract with Nerpa is due to expire, as CTR
plans to transfer all future decommissioning operations to
Severodvinsk where an extensive infrastructure for spent nuclear
fuel management has been built.
While Nerpa has American supplied equipment for cutting-up
submarines, it is unlikely to use these equipment since the spare
parts are expensive and the Russian state budget does not have
enough funds to pay for the decommissioning of non-strategic
submarines, largely referred to as multi-purpose submarines.
Around 80 multi-purpose submarines are waiting to be
decommissioned in the Northern Fleet, posing no strategic danger
to the United States, but threatening the surrounding environment
and containing tonnes of spent nuclear material in their
reactors. The long debate over western assistance for
decommissioning multi-purpose submarines has so far achieved no
result from the USA, despite Senator Lugar's intensive lobbying
of such an initiative. But the European countries may well step
in and fill the gaps which CTR has been unable to fulfil so far.
And Nerpa shipyard has the available infrastructure to deal with
multi-purpose submarines.
Bellona's position papers
On the recent initiatives by G8 countries and the European
Union to secure nuclear materials. The Northern Dimension
Environmental Partnership (NDEP)
»
[http://www.bellona.no/en/international/russia/waste-mngment/ipwg/26350.html]
The G8 Global Partnership against the Spread of Weapons and
Materials of Mass Destruction
»
[http://www.bellona.no/en/international/russia/waste-mngment/ipwg/26340.html]
In July this year, the Northern Dimension Environmental
Partnership, or NDEP, a European initiative to channel funds to
environmental problems in north-west Europe, arranged a pledging
conference, where European Union countries, Norway and Russia
contributed 110 million euro, including 62 million euro
exclusively for nuclear safety issues in north-west Russia. In
the draft projects list, the sites, which were not covered by CTR
due to the restrictions imposed on the programme, but may well be
secured with the European assistance. Among those sites is
Andreeva Bay, an infamous dumping ground for spent nuclear fuel
and radioactive waste in the western part of the Kola Peninsula.
The European delegation was able to visit the premises of
Andreeva Bay during their visit last week.
During the visit to Nerpa, Bart Staes, the head of the European
delegation and member of the European Parliament, also announced
that his group — Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance —
filed an amendment to the EC's 2003 budget for 60 million euros
for assistance in the nuclear sector, which contains a specific
item about channelling the funds for radwaste management at the
Kola Peninsula. Mr Staes mentioned specifically that the
amendment was prompted by Bellona's work in the area of nuclear
safety in Russia.
G8 pledge — uniting the efforts
The G8 "Global Partnership against the Spread of Weapons and
Materials of Mass Destruction [WMD]" issued by the world's eight
leading industrial nations at the G8 Summit on 27 June 2002, is
an initiative aimed at accounting, securing and clearing up
Russia's vast nuclear legacy.
The initiative is still in a rather vague state, but it can be
seen as an attempt to unite all efforts aimed at securing
Russia's nuclear legacy. This gives the chance to involve Europe
and other countries more actively into the work that the United
States has been doing for the past decade.
The countries taking part in the initiative can fill the gaps,
which arose due to the limitations in the existing programmes,
such as CTR, and ensure that the artificial distinction between
environmental issues and non-proliferation are wiped away. After
all, any radiological device can become a weapon, thus securing
those devices makes the world a safer place both from the
environmental and security standpoints.
Huge undertakings stem from small steps
Bellona has created an Inter-Parliamentary Working Group, IPWG —
whose members visited Murmansk last week — back in 1998. This
forum provided politicians from Russia, Europe and the United
States with the possibility to focus on issues in nuclear safety
co-operation. Such issues still exist and require quick
resolution. The signing of the agreement referred to as the
Multilateral Nuclear Environment Programmes in the Russian
Federation, or MNEPR, is just one example. This agreement would
free the funds pledged by the NDEP, for example. The harsh debate
over CTR in the US Congress is another issue.
In Bellona's opinion, the lawmakers from different countries
should understand the importance of nuclear security issues and
act swiftly in the areas where executive bodies fail to come to
an agreement. The MNEPR agreement is a prime example. There is
always room for compromise when a goal is clear, and unless this
room is used words and pledges will just evaporate. And it is
important those compromises should be agreed to move ahead with
such undertakings as the G8 initiative.
Publisher: Bellona Foundation [bellona@bellona.no] , President:
Frederic Hauge [frederic@bellona.no] Information: info@bellona.no
[info@bellona.no] , Technical contact: webmaster@bellona.no
[webmaster@bellona.no] Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22
38 38 62 * P.O.Box 2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway
*****************************************************************
2 Sweden: Nuclear delay protest*
The Copenhagen Post
10. oktober 2002 Print Article (IE & NS 4+)
*A letter of protest has been sent to the Swedish Government
following official remarks over the delayed closure of the
nuclear power plant's second reactor.*
On Wednesday, the Danish Government posted an official letter of
protest to the Swedish Government, which has announced plans not
to close the second reactor at Barsebäck nuclear power plant
before 2004.
The promised closure has been amended to a 'long term strategy,'
according to a speech by re-elected Swedish Prime Minister Göran
Persson at the opening of the Swedish Parliament.
Danish Minister of Health and the Interior Lars Løkke Rasmussen
told TV2 News that he was 'shocked' by the decision.
Göran Persson elaborated on his position on Barsebäck, saying, "I
live in Malmø, and I will not freeze just because Barsebäck is
closed. Before we close Barsebäck, we must know that we have
another source of power instead."
The Danish Interior Minister promised that the Government will
continue to put the pressure on Sweden over the plant.
"It is considerably more important that we have high security in
the capital city area, than if Persson freezes or doesn't freeze
at Christmas," Lars Løkke Rasmussen told TV2 News.
All rights reserved CPHPOST.DK ApS Reproduction in whole or in
part without permission is prohibited by law.
*CPHPOST.DK ApS * Store Kongensgade 14 * 1264 Copenhagen K *
Denmark * Tel: 33 36 33 00 * Fax: 33 93 13 13 *
E-mail:info@cphpost.dk *
*****************************************************************
3 Against Nukephobia
TIME - Leon Jaroff - Against Nukephobia
TIME.com
Tuesday, October 15, 2002
Reactors and nuclear waste are perfectly safe from attacks like
flying a plane into them
Saturday, Oct. 12, 2002
America's focus on terrorism has breathed new life into the
faltering campaign of anti-nuke activists, whose goal is the
elimination of nuclear power. Many activist groups, such as the
Nuclear Control Institute, Greenpeace and Long Island's Standing
for Truth About Radiation (STAR), in TV interviews and newspaper
ads, have raised the specter of suicide skyjackers crashing
planes into the containment vessels of nuclear plants, causing
disasters that they say would result in hundreds of thousands of
deaths and leave entire regions of the country uninhabitable for
years, if not centuries. Anticipating terrorist attacks on the
spent nuclear fuel rods being shipped to Nevada for storage, they
label these casks "mobile Chernobyls" containing radioactive
material that they insist could kill tens of thousands. They have
gone largely unchallenged---until now. Writing in the journal
Science, 19 members of the National Academy of Engineering take
issue with the activists, declaring. "Now is the time to clear
the air and speak a few simple scientific and engineering
truths."
The engineers, many of them with ties to the nuclear industry,
state flatly that no airplane, regardless of size, can breach the
five-foot-thick, steel-lined concrete walls of a nuclear plant's
containment vessel. They note that in a 1988 crash test, an
unmanned plane flying at 485 mph. collapsed against a
steel-reinforced concrete test wall, its fuselage penetrating
less than an inch, its heavy engines digging only an inch deeper.
And what about aircraft the size of those that brought down the
World Trade Center towers? They authors point to analyses showing
that larger, even faster planes can't penetrate the containment
vessels; they fully offset their greater impact by absorbing more
energy during their collapse.
Those mobile Chernobyls? Field tests show, say the engineers,
that there is "virtually nothing" anyone could do to the "nearly
indestructible" casks in which the spent fuel rods are shipped.
They can't explode and there's no liquid radioactivity to leak
out. Only the latest anti-tank artillery could breach the casks,
and even in that worst-case scenario, say the authors, the
radioactive chunks scattered nearby by those weapons could expose
only those in the immediate vicinity.
The authors also put to rest the "China Syndrome," the notion
made popular by the Jane Fonda movie of the same name. It held
that a reactor meltdown could cause the superheated reactor core
to melt through the bottom of the vessel and so far into the
earth beneath it that it would eventually emerge in China.
Several tests of the vessel bottom at Three Mile Island
demonstrated that the molten reactor core, weighing between 10
and 20 metric tons, had penetrated less than a fifth of an inch
into the vessel bottom.
The anti-nuke activists have been wrong for decades. Nuclear
plants have operated in the U.S. for a half century and. Despite
some poor management, with the exception of Three Mile Island
they have had only minor leaks and mechanical failures. Now
consider this: Three Mile Island was by far the worst U.S.
nuclear accident, and activists for years have been blaming the
partial meltdown for a host of ills, particularly for what they
claim are high cancer rates in the surrounding region.
Pennsylvania health authorities have consistently challenged
those charges and were proven correct in 2000, when the
prestigious University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health
completed a 13-year study of 32,000 people who lived within five
miles of TMI at the time of the accident. The study found no
significant increase in the incidence of any kind of cancer in
that group compared with the incidence in those living at greater
distances from the plant. Indeed, there is no evidence that the
TMI disaster caused any cancer, let alone any death.
The Pittsburgh study reined in some anti-nuke activists, but the
new terrorist threats again has them at full gallop. Now, they
feel, there is even better reason to campaign for shutting down
all U.S. nuclear plants. That plays directly into the hands of
the terrorists. For one thing, this kind of shutdown would
immediately reduce the nation's electric energy generation by a
fifth, and plunge the already-battered U.S. economy into
depression. It would also require importing additional millions
of barrels of oil to make up for the energy shortage. All in all,
it would be a bad deal for America. It's time for the anti-nuke
activists to face reality and to mend their ways.
TIME.com
*****************************************************************
4 UK: Labour lobbies to save TXU
[Guardian Unlimited]
Hewitt's plea to power generators Terry Macalister Guardian
Monday October 14, 2002
The government is putting pressure on power generators to
renegotiate their contracts with TXU in a desperate attempt to
prevent the UK's third largest energy supplier going into
administration.
Trade and industry secretary Patricia Hewitt has been insisting
publicly that the industry must sort out its own overcapacity
problems. Privately she is doing all she can to avoid another
embarrassing failure.
The growing crisis at TXU could benefit German-owned Powergen,
which has told TXU that it is willing to buy its gas and
electricity supply business if it comes up for sale, as seems
likely, at the right price.
TXU insisted last night that it would do all it could to retain
security of supply to its 5.3m retail customers in Britain while
Powergen said it wanted to grow its own base of 3m energy users.
The position of TXU in Britain has become critical because it has
been refused a £450m lifeline by its US parent group and has
hired lawyer Herbert Smith to help with a restructuring to save
the operations.
The government is pushing rivals such as E.On-controlled Powergen
to dilute the price of its contracts with TXU to relieve some of
the pressure on it. TXU and Powergen both buy and sell power to
each other.
The department of trade and industry's policy of pushing down
wholesale power prices through the new electricity trading
arrangements (Neta) has already forced it to fork out £650m of
public money to save nuclear power generator British Energy.
Talks over a long-term solution for British Energy continue while
TXU is being helped to find a solution to its difficulties
without letting down the customers won from the takeover of
Eastern, Nor web and Amerada. TXU has already mothballed two of
its three coal-fired generating plants, Drakelow and High
Marnham, but believes it can sell off its attractive supply
business. "We can reassure TXU customers in Britain that we will
continue to supply electricity and gas and that this is of
paramount importance to us," said a spokesman.
Sources close to the company added that the DTI and regulator
Ofgem as well as its rivals were all taking a constructive
approach to trying to find a solution to a power market which
Powergen described last week as "bust".
· The government will be urged today at the start of Energy
Efficiency Week to introduce new environmental taxes to cut
energy inefficiency in the home in an effort to curb greenhouse
gases. It will be unpopular with business - already critical of
the climate change levy.
[UP]
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002
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5 SONGS 1: 600-ton reactor removed in delicate decommissioning
SignOnSanDiego.com > News > Metro --
Heart of San Onofre's Unit 1 headed for South Carolina
By James Steinberg UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER October 13, 2002
SAN ONOFRE It's a sight few people, even those in the industry,
have ever seen.
The nuclear reactor that once contained the uranium-fission fire
that flashed water into the superheated steam that turned the
generators that made millions of watts of electricity.
Early yesterday, the 600-ton reactor, once the heart of the San
Onofre Nuclear Generating Station's Unit 1, hung briefly in the
air as it was lifted out of its steel-and-concrete containment
vessel, the first step in a journey that eventually will take it
to South Carolina and burial.
The reactor, completed in 1968, was shut down 10 years ago as the
first step in a $500 million decommissioning process that is now
only 25 percent completed, said Ray Golden of Southern California
Edison.
The utility operates the plant, with San Diego Gas & Electric a
20-percent minority partner that takes one-fifth of the
electricity produced. The power is carried across Interstate 5 on
a series of 220,000-volt transmission lines just south of the
Orange County line.
A small group of San Onofre workers and their families was on the
bluff overlooking Unit 1 yesterday as a 383-foot crane,
counterweighted with nearly 3 million pounds of concrete, raised
the reactor and swung it over the 115-foot wall of its tomb-like
containment building.
"This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see a reactor
vessel," said Betsy Shepherd, who drove to San Onofre from
Claremont with her sons Matthew, 13, and Cameron, 15.
Shepherd's husband, Steve, an engineer at the plant, was inside
the security perimeter videotaping as the 35-foot-by-15-foot
reactor, looking very much like a big, blue bomb, emerged into
the daylight for the first time in 33 years.
With its stainless-steel fuel rods filled with uranium-dioxide
removed nearly a decade ago, Unit 1's lifeless reactor is only
minimally radioactive, said Steve Shepherd, who worked on the
design of the reactor's concrete containment building.
"Even if they dropped it, nothing would happen just a heavy
thud," he said. Measurement of the reactor's radiation level as
it was hoisted out of the containment building's roof, into which
workers had cut a 25-foot hole, was even less than expected, said
David Gilson of San Onofre's health physics unit.
Once clear of the roof, the reactor, stuffed with 170 tons of
concrete, was lowered into an upright steel containment vessel.
Workers in the next few days will fill it with additional
concrete, weld it shut, and ready it for shipping sometime next
year either through the Panama Canal or around the southern tip
of South America, Golden said.
Unit 1's demise leaves Units 2 and 3 still in operation, each
producing 1,150 megawatts. A megawatt is 1 million watts of
power, enough electricity for about 1,000 homes.
"Units 2 and 3 are licensed to operate until 2022, and we have an
option to operate them for another 20 years after that, until
2042," Golden said. "We have made no decision about that."
When it was built, the $89 million Unit 1 was a state-of-the-art
facility. It had problems over the years, including a big one in
1985, when a pair of valves failed, resulting in a major loss of
coolant. Unit 1 was shut for eight months.
Seven years later, faced with $100 million in safety-related
retrofits and other upgrades required by the California Public
Utilities Commission, the utility opted to retire Unit 1 12 years
ahead of schedule.
When it was taken off line in November 1992, it had set a
record-breaking 377-day run of uninterrupted service.
Workers next will remove Unit 1's three 304-ton steam generators
and its 110-ton pressurizer. The containment building then will
be reduced to more than 60,000 tons of rubble and shipped to a
low-level radiation disposal site in Utah, Golden said.
The bulk of Unit 1's spent fuel was sent long ago to a Midwest
burial site, Golden said. The remainder is stored under water at
the plant, along with spent fuel rods from Units 2 and 3.
Unit 1, along with the rest of the San Onofre site, eventually
will revert to the Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base, with its
radioactivity reduced to zero, he said.
Betsy Shepherd watched the reactor make its up-and-down journey
with mixed feelings.
"It's a disappointment to see a reactor go out of commission,"
she said. "But they all have a limited lifetime."
James Steinberg: (619) 542-4569; jim.steinberg@uniontrib.com
© Copyright 2002 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
*****************************************************************
6 Acid stains found at Davis-Besse
Beacon Journal | 10/14/2002 |
Inspectors test reactor's bottom to see if tubes are leaking,
need repair
Associated Press
TOLEDO - During repairs to a reactor head at the Davis-Besse
nuclear power plant, a contractor found acid stains on the
reactor's bottom when it was inspected for the first time,
FirstEnergy Corp. said.
The Akron-based utility is testing the stains to make sure tubes
through the bottom of the reactor vessel weren't leaking, which
would mean more repairs before the plant can reopen next year.
Such leaks are ``highly unlikely,'' company spokesman Todd
Schneider said Saturday.
``We believe these stains we saw at the bottom of the reactor are
related to washing the reactor head over the last several
years,'' Schneider said. ``This is the first time we've looked at
the bottom of the reactor because the bottom has been covered in
insulation.''
The nearly transparent, whitish streaks containing boric acid
along the sides and bottom of the reactor vessel were discovered
in June.
The streaks could have been an early clue that acid was pooling
on the head, Schneider said. Workers originally thought the acid
was coming from equipment above the head.
Davis-Besse shut down for routine maintenance in February, but in
March, investigators found leaking boric acid had nearly eaten
through the steel cap on the reactor vessel. The plant, about 20
miles east of Toledo, has been closed since then.
A new cap has been installed. But last week, FirstEnergy pushed
back the projected reopening to early 2003 instead of the end of
this year.
A Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman said it was too early
to tell if the stains indicate a problem on the reactor bottom.
*****************************************************************
7 CP's Robinson Plant Completes Record 517-day run
HARTSVILLE, S.C., Oct. 14 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Employees
at CP's H.B. Robinson Nuclear Plant in Hartsville, S.C., today
proudly raised a 70- foot-long, 12-foot-high banner across the
plant's bulk warehouse that reads: "Team Robinson - Safe
Operation - Breaker To Breaker - 517 Days."
The banner commemorates the completion of a safe,
breaker-to-breaker run of 517 days, 23 hours and 58 minutes,
which established a new Progress Energy record for continuous
operation by a pressurized water reactor (PWRs). Both CP and
Florida Power are Progress Energy companies.
The record-setting run began at 12:08 a.m., May 12, 2001,
when Robinson employees closed the generator-output breaker and
returned the nuclear unit to service following a refueling
outage. The safe, continuous run was completed at 12:06 a.m.,
Oct. 12, 2002, when employees opened the breaker and began its
next refueling outage.
The banner's emphasis on "safe operation" is a reflection of
Robinson employees' top priority -- nuclear safety. Robinson
employees have an outstanding record for safe operation of the
plant. Collectively, Robinson employees have worked more than
8.8 million working hours without a lost-time accident, a record
that began in January 1994.
"All Robinson employees and everyone who worked the refueling
outage in Spring 2001 share in this momentous achievement," said
John Moyer, vice president of the Robinson Nuclear Plant. "The
high-quality work during our last refueling outage provided the
foundation for this success. This performance also is a
testament to the teamwork of the employees at Robinson and their
commitment to nuclear safety, ongoing maintenance and operational
excellence."
Tim Cleary, Robinson Plant General Manager, added, "There are
only a handful of nuclear units that have achieved continuous
runs of more than 500 days, so this is a significant
accomplishment. Our success is a result of the teamwork and
professionalism of each person at Robinson, focusing each day on
performing every task and job in a safe and effective manner."
Progress Energy, headquartered in Raleigh, N.C., is a Fortune
250 diversified energy company with more than 21,800 megawatts of
generation capacity and $8 billion in annual revenues. The
company's holdings include two electric utilities (CP and Florida
Power) and a natural gas distribution company (NCNG) serving more
than 2.9 million customers across the Carolinas and Florida.
Progress Energy also includes non-regulated operations (Progress
Ventures) covering merchant generation, energy marketing and
trading, fuel extraction (Progress Fuels), rail services
(Progress Rail) and broadband capacity (Progress Telecom). For
more information about Progress Energy, visit the company's Web
site at http://www.progress-energy.com
[http://www.progress-energy.com] .
Copyright © 1996-2002 PR Newswire Association LLC. All Rights
*****************************************************************
8 Acid spots found on D-B reactor bottom -
[http://www.centralohio.com]
Monday, October 14, 2002
Associated Press
CARROLL TOWNSHIP -- As repairs were under way on a damaged
reactor head at the Davis-Besse nuclear power plant, a contractor
found acid stains on the reactor's bottom when it was inspected
for the first time, FirstEnergy Corp. said.
The Akron-based utility is testing the stains to ensure that
tubes through the bottom of the reactor vessel weren't leaking,
which would mean more repairs before the plant could reopen next
year.
Such leaks are "highly unlikely," company spokesman Todd
Schneider said Saturday.
"We believe these stains we saw at the bottom of the reactor are
related to washing the reactor head over the last several years,"
Schneider said. "This is the first time we've looked at the
bottom of the reactor because the bottom has been covered in
insulation."
The nearly transparent, whitish streaks containing boric acid
along the sides and bottom of the reactor vessel were discovered
in June.
The streaks could have been an early clue that acid was pooling
on the head, Schneider said. Workers originally thought the acid
was coming from equipment above the head.
Davis-Besse shut down for routine maintenance in February. But
investigators in March found that leaking boric acid had nearly
eaten through the 6-inch steel cap on the reactor vessel. The
plant has been closed since then. A new cap was installed at the
end of August. But last week, FirstEnergy pushed back the
projected reopening of the plant to early 2003 instead of the end
of this year.
A Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman said it was too early
to tell if the stains indicate a problem on the reactor bottom.
"There is no evidence at this point to show that they have
leakage," spokesman Jan Strasma said. "I would not say the
situation is serious at this point."
The NRC has criticized FirstEnergy, saying the leak on the
reactor's head could have been detected up to four years earlier.
But in an internal review last week, the agency also said it had
failed to perform inspections that could have detected the leak.
The utility must give the agency a written report next week on
the stains on the reactor bottom.
The bottom tubes, called nozzles, are made of the same nickel
alloy as those in the head that leaked. But the nozzles in the
head are subjected to 600-degree heat, Schneider said, unlike the
smaller tubes on the bottom. "The temperature is much cooler,
making these nozzles less susceptible to cracking," he said.
Originally published Monday, October 14, 2002
Copyright ©2002 News Herald. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
9 At the Heart of a Nuclear Power Plant Ticks a Pitchman's Soul
The New York Times
*October 14, 2002*
*By WINNIE HU*
BUCHANAN, N.Y., Oct. 11 ? Give him a chance, and Fred Dacimo will
try to convince you that the Indian Point 2 nuclear plant is not
so bad. He will tell you that it generates power for hospitals
and police stations, not to mention your air-conditioner on hot,
sweaty days.
If you change the subject, Mr. Dacimo, vice president for
operations at the plant, will find a way to change it back.
"What we're doing here is an important thing for society," he
said during an interview at his office this week. "The real
question is not why aren't you shutting us down, but why aren't
you extending our license and building more nuclear plants?"
Since taking charge a year ago, Mr. Dacimo, 49, has been working
overtime to turn around a troubled plant with one of the worst
safety records in the nation. He has overseen sweeping changes by
a new owner, the Entergy Corporation, and sought to motivate the
plant's 700-member work force with a forceful management style
that mixes tough love with inspirational speeches.
But perhaps his biggest challenge has been deflecting public
criticism about Indian Point since the World Trade Center attack.
Mr. Dacimo, a big presence with his stocky build and
confrontational attitude, has debated the plant's opponents and
even invited them to tour Indian Point. Many have accepted his
offer.
He often answers his own phone, though he has assistants and a
media relations office at his disposal. "I think the adversity
makes it more interesting," Mr. Dacimo said. "It adds a dimension
to the job that keeps you busy."
It is Mr. Dacimo's unwillingness to take no for an answer that
gets results, his supporters say. In the past year, Indian
Point's records show that human errors at the plant have dropped
by two-thirds, to 0.35 errors per 10,000 work hours. A backlog of
work orders for equipment repairs has also dwindled to fewer than
130, from more than 560 a year ago.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission took note of improvements when
it raised the plant's dismal safety rating, if only slightly, in
August. Indian Point no longer has the worst safety rating of the
nation's 103 commercial nuclear plants. Instead, it is only among
the six worst.
Mr. Dacimo says it is just the first step. "I'll invite you back
in January, and we won't even be one of the worst six," he says.
"I hope this doesn't come across as boastful, but we will be one
of the best plants in the next three years."
Indian Point's critics remain skeptical, however. "They've fixed
the easy things first, and they've been overselling the
improvements," said State Assemblyman Richard L. Brodsky, who
represents central Westchester and has called for the plant's
closing.
Mr. Dacimo grew up in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, the older of two sons
of a New York City firefighter and a homemaker. He says he
started thinking about alternative energy sources waiting in long
lines at the gas station to fill up his father's car.
He earned a degree in nuclear engineering in 1974 from the State
University of New York's Maritime College in the Bronx, and went
to work for nuclear power companies in Connecticut and Illinois.
In 1999, Mr. Dacimo was hired as the plant manager for Indian
Point 3, the other working reactor at the site. Under his
supervision, both Indian Point plants have made improvements, but
he does not like to take credit alone. He salts his sentences
with words like "teamwork," "accountability" and "pride." He has
printed up plastic cards for his employees that list the plant's
2002 goals on the front, and the requisites for "personal
contribution to success" on the back.
Some of his employees say that he can be demanding and impatient,
though also dynamic and inspiring. "I think some people here
really like him," said Thomas Burns, a health physics supervisor
at the plant. "And everybody respects him."
Mr. Dacimo arrives at the plant every weekday by 6:30 a.m., and
cannot recall the last sick day he took. His idea of a family
vacation a few years ago was piling their sleeping bags into a
pickup truck and driving around the country, covering 14,000
miles in 21 days.
But Mr. Dacimo has a sense of humor. On a table in his tidy
office, he keeps a stash of Tootsie Rolls in a candy tray
fashioned from the defective lid of a fuel container. Next to it,
a clear glass jar bears the sign, "Failure to Use Phonetic
Alphabet."
If an employee forgets to converse in alpha, bravo or delta when
he or she is supposed to, he makes the offender drop a quarter
into the jar. About $5 in bills and coins was in it this week.
"This is how I pay for the candy," he said with a grin. "It's
important because when using phone communications, you can make
mistakes easily."
Copyright The New York Times Company
*****************************************************************
10 Withdrawal from use is the best option for Temelin--
| About Hoover's UK
Czech News Agency:
Riha in press October 13, 2002 10:03pm
PRAGUE, Oct 13 (CTK) - Halting the nuclear power plant Temelin
JETE in South Bohemia and putting it in mothballs is the optimum
solution of all the options under discussion, the weekly Euro
says in its Monday edition referring to a study of the
governmental commission member Josef Riha.
Riha, a member of the commission assessing JETE's environmental
impact, made the analysis at the order of the nongovernmental
organisation V havarijni zone JETE (In JETE's Accident Zone). He
used the method of a multicriteria analysis dealing with
environmental and safety aspects but mainly with economic
parametres and their social impacts. And, the outcome of the
study is not to allow the commercial use of Temelin and put it in
mothballs.
On the other hand, the outcome of the government commission which
assessed JETE's impact on the environment was positive. The
commission said that the environmental impact is low,
insignificant and acceptable. The impact on hydrology had the
best assessment, while the impact on nature and landscape got the
worst assessment. The impact on the atmosphere and climate was
somewhere in between. However, the multicriteria analysis is
sceptical about the power plant, Euro writes.
The dragging on dispute over the completion of Temelin which was
a hot potato for the previous governments was put an end to by
the Social Democrats CSSD when their ministers gave the green
light to Temelin's completion in May 1999. The cabinet set a time
schedule and decided that the cost of Temelin's construction
should not exceed Kc98.6bn.
The construction of Temelin's first and second units started in
1987. Fission reaction in the first unit was launched in October
2000 and in Dec of that year Temelin supplied power to the grid
for the first time. Since the beginning of the year the first
unit has put out 3.955m MWh of electricity. The installed output
of Temelin's two units is 981 MW.
The second unit should be put in trial operation by the end of
this year.
vr/er
Copyright © 2002 CTK Czech News Agency. Source: Financial Times
*****************************************************************
11 Russia: Urals nuclear power station to close down reactor for repairs
| About Hoover's UK
October 13, 2002 8:43am
10/13/2002
Yekaterinburg, 13 October: A BN-600 reactor of the third unit of
the Beloyarsk nuclear power plant will be halted for planned
maintenance and reloading of nuclear fuel in the small hours
today. The director of the nuclear plant, Nikolay Oshkanov, has
said that the radiation background at the plant and on the
adjoining territory does not exceed the standard level.
BN-600 is the most powerful reactor [working] on fast neutrons in
the world. Specialists of Russia's Nuclear Power Ministry plan to
use waste nuclear fuel imported into Russia in reactors of this
type. The service life of the third unit of the Beloyarsk nuclear
power plant is 30 years and expires in 2010. A fourth unit with a
800-MW BN-800 reactor is being built at the plant. The unit is to
be put into operation in 2009.
According to data from the information centre of Russia's Nuclear
Power Ministry, 21 units out of 30 are operational at 10 Russian
nuclear power plants. Units of the Bilibino, Kola, Kursk,
Leningrad, Novovoronezh and Smolensk nuclear plants are under
repair.
Source: ITAR-TASS news agency, Moscow, in English 2256 gmt 12 Oct
02
*****************************************************************
12 Idaho: Radioactive devices found in Portneuf River
Idaho State Journal
10/14/02 By Sean Ellis - Journal Writer
Respond to this story [sellis@journalnet.com]
LAVA HOT SPRINGS — Two radioactive devices were found in the
Portneuf River near Lava Hot Springs Sunday morning.
According to health physicist Luke Paulus, hazardous material
crews tested the devices and determined there was no leakage or
harm to the environment. “There was no contamination and no
public threat,” said Bannock County Sheriff Lorin Nielsen.
County roads supervisor Bill Aller said the devices, called
nuclear densometers, are used by road construction crews to
measure the condition and thickness of asphalt.
Aller said Bannock County doesn’t own any; they are used mainly
by engineering firms and the state highway department. While they
are clearly labeled radioactive, he said, they’re not dangerous
to be around unless they’re damaged.
Paulus, a member of Idaho Radiation Control, said the radioactive
material in the devices is held in stainless steel containers.
“They’re pretty tough. I don’t think there have been any
situations where” they’ve been broken, he said.
If someone had purposely damaged the containers before dumping
them into the river, that person would have been more at risk
than the river, Paulus said. Nielsen said the devices were found
by hunters early Sunday morning near Blazer Highway, about five
miles north of Lava.
That part of the river is popular with fishermen and home to
native yellowstone cutthroat trout, introduced rainbow and brown
trout, and carp. The Portneuf begins above Chesterfield Reservoir
on the Fort Hall Indian Reservation, flows through Lava and
Pocatello and empties into the American Falls Reservoir.
The Idaho State Police is handling the hazardous material part of
the incident while Bannock County is handling the possible
criminal aspect of it. Paulus said the devices are transported in
locked cases about the size of a 32-quart cooler. For them to be
found outside their cases indicates criminal activity or that
whoever placed them there had no idea what they were doing, he
said.
If they were put there on purpose, Paulus said, it would be a
serious criminal activity. “I don’t think the perpetrators
realize to what extent” it would be a criminal act, said Paulus,
who is also part of the Idaho National Engineering and
Environmental Laboratory oversight program.
*****************************************************************
13 UK: My husband was used as nuclear guinea pig
Oct 14 2002
By Hywel Trewyn Daily Post Staff
A SECOND North Wales family yesterday claimed to have suffered
health problems as a result of a relative's exposure to nuclear
bomb tests in the Pacific Ocean.
Army veteran Keith Dennis, of Kinmel Bay, died of lung cancer
last year, aged 65, and other family members have been born with
health problems.
Mr Dennis' family yesterday blamed the Government for sending him
to Christmas Island during the 1950s to clean up after British
nuclear tests.
And they accused the Ministry of Defence of using him as a human
guinea pig to see what effect radiation had on troops.
His case follows that of Norman Callender, from Caernarfon, who
witnessed the nuclear bomb tests and was also sent to clean up
the contaminated island.
Mr Callender's family claim they have been affected by medical
problems passed down generations as a direct result of his
exposure to radiation.
His granddaughter Louise Roberts had to abort her baby because it
had no limbs. Her mother, Michelle, 36, a social worker, was born
with a heart defect and miscarried her first baby.
Britain and the US exploded a large number of atomic bombs off
the coast of Australia during the 1950s. The US, Australia and
New Zealand governments have all paid compensation to test
veterans and civilians. Britain has not.
Mr Dennis was sent to Christmas Island in 1958, only a week after
his marriage to Joyce, and was there for a year.
Mrs Dennis said yesterday: "He was there just after the tests,
which of course had contaminated everywhere. He was a welder with
the Royal Electrical Mechanical Engineers and was with the army
for 22 years. I don't think the soldiers really knew much about
it at that time. They didn't have any choice.
"He had cancer of the lungs which apparently takes 40 years to
appear after contamination.
"But the Government have washed their hands of it."
Mr Dennis was first diagnosed with cancer on December 14, 2000 -
within a few months of his retirement. He died a few weeks later,
on January 5, 2001.
Joyce's eldest daughter, Lesley Mary Price, 41, now lives in
Norfolk but as a child had an operation for a hole in her heart.
Her other daughter, Alison, who has two children herself, said:
"They had massive contamination. It can take 40 years for lung
cancer to appear. With my dad it was practically to the day. It's
too much of a coincidence. My father had problems with his
stomach for years and took tablets for indigestion. We never
really got to the bottom of what was wrong with him.
"My sister had a hole in her heart when she was six years old.
She was playing up and couldn't keep up and got tired. Not one
army doctor found it - it was a civilian doctor who found it and
she had an op."
Alison said both her sister's children and her own daughter are
fine but that her 19-monthold boy suffers with breathlessness.
She said: "The Government should register everybody and set up an
independent body to look at all the cases. You get the feeling
that the majority of them are going to be dead."
The Ministry of Defence is repeating its previous position that
"studies have shown no evidence of excess illness or mortality or
nuclear test veterans."
Trinity Mirror Plc 2002 icNorthWales^TM is a trade mark of
*****************************************************************
14 UN testing for depleted uranium contamination in Bosnia
Monday, 14-Oct-2002 9:10AM Story from AFP
Copyright 2002 by Agence France-Presse (via ClariNet)
SARAJEVO, Oct 14 (AFP) - Experts from the UN Environment
Programme (UNEP) on Monday began tests for contamination in
several locations in Bosnia where NATO forces used depleted
uranium shells during the country's 1992-1995 war.
"The UNEP's aim is to determine whether the use of depleted
uranium during the conflict in Bosnia may pose health and
environmental risks either now or in the future," team leader
Pekka Haavisto told reporters.
Last year the UNEP concluded that depleted uranium shells used by
NATO forces in Yugoslavia had not caused widespread
contamination.
But in early 2001 many NATO and non-NATO countries raised concern
over possible link between the use of depleted uranium ammunition
in the Balkans and increased cancer rates among soldiers who had
participated in peacekeeping operations in Bosnia and the Serb
province of Kosovo.
Over the next 10 days, the 17-member UNEP team plans to take
soil, water and vegetation samples from 12 sites across the
country.
Six of the sites have been identified by NATO as having been
struck by depleted uranium weapons during air strikes against
Bosnian Serbs in 1994 and 1995.
The samples will be tested in nuclear laboratories in Italy,
Britain and Switzerland, Haavisto said, adding that the final
conclusions were expected be published in March next year.
At the request of the local authorities, the UNEP will also
examine cancer rates in Sarajevo, Banja Luka and the eastern town
of Bratunac, where many refugees from areas hit during bombing
raids now live.
Bosnia was hit by three tons of depleted uranium NATO shells in
1994-1995, Haavisto said.
Bosnian officials said at the time that the number of cancer
cases increased after the war, but gave no evidence to link it
with depleted uranium.
A NATO committee has said that scientific and medical research
has so far not shown any link between depleted uranium and
reported health problems.
*****************************************************************
15 Dirty Nukes May be Part of Saddam’s 11th Hour Defenses
[NewsMax.com]
October 15, 2002
Dave Eberhart, NewsMax
Monday, Oct. 14, 2002 [Editor's note: part three of a series.
See: Veterans Groups Berate U.S. Biochemical Force Protection and
Are We Ready for War?.] Some experts have suggested that American
and allied troops may find themselves fighting their way into
Baghdad through clouds of deadly bio-chemicals - wearing
protective suits that degrade after 24-hours out of the bag.
Others, however, see an even worse scenario with the desperate
despot setting radiological booby traps in the urban battle
terrain.
A defector from the Mukhabarat, Iraq’s intelligence
organization, recently admitted that he was part of a team buying
Russian radioactive material routed through an African country.
This was not bomb-quality material but components for so-called
"dirty bombs” or "dirty nukes,” which utilize conventional
explosives to disperse radioactive material.
According to reports filed by U.N. inspectors, Iraq has long
recognized that while a dirty bomb is not an effective weapon of
war (not killing fast enough or in a wide enough area), it
remains an effective weapon of terror.
By experimentation, Saddam’s regime settled on a tactic: release
radioactive materials, not in the open desert, but in a confined
environment such as a building, where it is more concentrated,
more likely to poison, and more likely to eventually kill.
In a spate of candor with U.N. weapons inspectors in the
mid-1990s, Iraqi officials disclosed that country’s development
in 1987 of radiological weapons with short half-lives -
calculated to contaminate areas and cause long-term genetic
damage, yet be virtually undetectable after a few months.
Furthermore, the Iraqi weapons experts were reportedly sold on
the idea to mix it up with their grab bag of weapons of mass
destruction, adding dirty bombs to the threat of bio-chemical
agents. This deadly mix, they confided to the inspectors,
increased the risk to the enemy of serious medical effects, and
increased dramatically the enemy’s chores of decontaminating
personnel, food, and water. It also increased the terror factor.
Both the inspectors and the Iraqis understood the implications
of such a weapon of "disruption,” rather than "destruction,”
that, for instance, didn’t kill lieutenants but prevented them
from ever becoming colonels. Iraq’s "scorched earth” tactic was
actually born back in the Iran-Iraq War when the regime was last
fighting for its very survival.
Doomsday Tactic
It was 1987, and Iranian troops were entrenched in Iraq’s only
seaport, Fao. To their consternation, the Iraqi generals found
that even the heaviest shelling would not dislodge the enemy. The
last resource did the trick – the Iraqis cut off the Iranian
supply lines by contaminating and poisoning the border region
with Iran.
Best choice for the "dirty” part of the bomb to confront the
western invader: plutonium dust. Unlike those tricky anthrax
spores, no great sophisticated technology is required to create
it, and once lodged in a soldier’s lungs, it is a death sentence.
Another prime alternative: powdered caesium 137, a powerfully
radioactive substance plenty of which is said to be adrift in the
former Soviet Union. With a sufficient quantity in Saddam's
hands, he would easily be able to contaminate a large urban area
such as Baghdad, forcing its evacuation by allied occupiers.
Even a relatively crude device made up of spent medical isotopes
or reactor fuel rods set off in a single building in the Iraq
capital might require months of cleanup on a level such as we saw
during the cleanup of the Hart Senate Office Building after the
anthrax-letter attacks.
Post War Nightmare
Rehabilitating a contaminated post-war Baghdad would cost the
U.S. millions, and even then fear would linger for both citizens
and occupiers alike. The only good news comes from Iraq itself.
If the Iraqi reports to the weapons inspectors are to be
believed, there were poor test results with both ground detonated
and air-launched dirty-nukes back in 1987. This coupled with
safety issues involving the handling and transport of the
irradiated materials supposedly nixed Iraq’s program.
Reportedly by mid-1988, a negative report was issued to the
Military Industrialization Corporation, which passed it along to
the Iraqi leadership, who elected to shelve the whole project.
Iraq declared to the U.N. inspectors that no order to produce
radiological weapons was ever given.
All Rights Reserved © NewsMax.com
*****************************************************************
16 Hot to handle
newsobserver.com : front : Editorials
OCTOBER 15, 2002
Monday, October 14, 2002 12:00AM EDT
In June, congressional Republicans nervously chastised U.S. Sen.
Jim Jeffords of Vermont for holding an open hearing on security
at U.S. nuclear power plants, fearing what terrorists might find
out about vulnerabilities at the plants. So it's reasonable that
North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper is expressing
skittishness of his own about terrorism and this state's three
nuclear plants, one of which, the Shearon Harris plant in New
Hill, is within 30 miles of the big Triangle population centers.
Cooper sensibly joined 26 other attorneys general last week in
calling on Congress to increase efforts to protect power plants
from terrorist attacks. Specifically, he wants federal officials
to take a stronger hand in coordinating power plant security,
under a task force run by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and
the proposed Department of Homeland Security.
From what's known to the public, Shearon Harris' owner, Progress
Energy, seems to be doing a good job of guarding the plant, but
that may not apply to every such facility in the United States.
And while federal authorities presumably share terrorism-related
intelligence with the companies, it makes sense that security
might be improved if the authorities who possess the information
directly coordinate security at the plants.
Shearon Harris should be of particular concern because it is one
of the largest storage sites of highly radioactive spent fuel
rods in the nation. In the relatively innocent days before 9/11,
designers weren't as concerned about securing the buildings that
house large pools for cooling the spent rods as they were about
the reactor containment structures, serious damage to which could
result in a regional catastrophe.
Post-Sept. 11, it would be nice if the storage pool buildings
could be hardened, but that's wishful thinking for now. In the
meantime, according to U.S. Rep. Ed Markey of Massachusetts,
nuclear plants "are at the very top of the list of targets that
al-Qaeda would attack if they could successfully do so." Federal
officials continue to issue security alerts, and power plants are
among their main concerns. It may be time for the feds to put
those plants under their protection.
© Copyright 2002, The News &Observer Publishing Company. All
*****************************************************************
17 UK: Cumbrian base for nuclear cargo ship
BBC NEWS | UK | England |
Tuesday, 15 October, 2002, 09:14 GMT
BNFL said the move will boost the local economy British Nuclear
Fuels (BNFL) is planning to base a nuclear cargo ship at the Port
of Workington.
The Atlantic Osprey, which is due to arrive on Tuesday, will be
used to transport shipments of mixed oxide (Mox) nuclear fuel for
the company's customers in Germany and Switzerland.
The Port of Workington has handled nuclear shipments since 1980,
but the last time such an operation took place there was 1999.
BNFL said its decision will provide extra income for the county
council-run port and help support jobs there.
'Positive move'
The company said it will be able to use the facility more
frequently and make its transport needs more flexible.
Cumbria County Council has welcomed the move and said the nuclear
industry continued to make a contribution to the west Cumbrian
economy. The council said it was also happy with BNFL's security
procedures which would be needed when shipments are made.
Mark Fryer, leader of Allerdale Council, described it as a
positive move for the town.
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/cumbria]
*****************************************************************
18 State spent $2.8 million on Yucca fight
Las Vegas SUN:
October 14, 2002
By Cy Ryan SUN CAPITAL
BUREAU
CARSON CITY -- In its unsuccessful campaign to persuade Congress
to stop Yucca Mountain, Nevada spent $2.8 million nationwide, a
good share of it on television, radio and newspapers ads in other
states.
The state Office of Nuclear Projects released a detailed
breakdown of the money, which also went to consulting firms,
telemarketing, direct mail and the formation of a coalition of
environmental and justice groups to join Nevada.
The program, called "Nuclear Neighborhoods," sought to impress
on residents of other states the dangers inherent in transporting
nuclear waste across their states and cities.
Despite the loss, Bob Loux, director of the state office, said
the efforts were not in vain.
"Nuclear Neighborhoods served its purpose of exposing
inconsistencies in the government's arguments for Yucca Mountain
and provided the public with an alternative viewpoint to this
controversial national issue," Loux said.
"We managed to persuade a number of senators who were either
uninformed of or favored the federal government's plans for Yucca
Mountain and enlisted their support of Nevada."
Loux said he could not supply specific numbers but he said the
final vote in the Senate was better than expected when the
campaign began.
Loux said the $2.8 million represented the state's effort and
that other money was spent to hire lobbyists and others.
For instance, the breakdown shows the Podesta Matton Consulting
Services of Washington received $1.1 million in state money used
to produce television and radio advertisements and then to buy
air time.
John Podesta, White House chief of staff for former President
Bill Clinton, heads the firm. But Podesta also received other
retainers from other funds for his lobbying efforts.
Ken Duberstein, chief of staff for former President Ronald
Reagan, was also paid from other funds to help persuade Congress
members to vote against Yucca Mountain.
A breakdown of those funds was not immediately available.
Loux said Brian Greenspun, president and editor of the Las Vegas
Sun, developed a website for the campaign but was not
compensated.
The state report, which was filed with the Nevada Legislature,
showed IDI Consulting Services of Washington received $688,000 to
push a direct mailing and Internet program.
The states targeted were Vermont, Utah, Wyoming, Iowa, Missouri,
Georgia, Pennsylvania, Montana, Minnesota, Connecticut and Rhode
Island. The television efforts in those states cost $830,713 and
radio buys totaled $44,960.
The most expensive television campaigns were conducted in Iowa
at $227,045 and in Utah at $149,985.
Newspaper advertisements ran $567,362 in the targeted states.
The advertising campaign started in Vermont with the message,
"Pure Maple Syrup, Fresh Dairy Products and Juicy Macintosh
Apples; Vermont Can Now Serve up Highly Radioactive Nuclear Waste
To Its Citizens."
The national campaign, Loux said, produced 9,900 faxes to
targeted senators and signatures from 270 environmental groups
supporting Nevada's resolution. Thousands of hits were recorded
on the campaign website and more than 5,500 calls were patched
through from an 800 number to targeted senators.
About $250,000 was raised from businesses and individuals for
the Nevada Protection Fund.
All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
19 EPA to begin site cleanup at Benton Harbor
SouthBendTribune.com:
October 12, 2002
Tribune Staff Report
BENTON HARBOR -- Cleanup by the Environmental Protection Agency
at the aircraft component site in Benton Township will begin Oct.
21, U.S. Rep. Fred Upton, R-St. Joseph, announced Friday.
The $1.5 million cleanup of the site at 671 North Shore Drive in
Benton Township is expected to be completed by December,
according to Upton.
"This is a critical juncture for Benton Harbor," Upton said.
"It's the right decision for the future health and well-being of
our communities and I'm anxious to move ahead as quickly as
possible."
The Aircraft Components factory once sold glow-in-the-dark
aircraft components until going out of business.
The paint used to make the World War II era gauges glow in the
dark contained a radioactive and cancer-causing agent,
radium-226, according to the federal Environmental Protection
Agency and the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality.
Going out of business in the early 1990s, the owners left behind
thousands of dials and gauges. The radioactive dust and flakes
chipping off the parts contaminated the 17-acre property, which
is located near residential areas.
In 1997, cleanup began at the factory under the Superfund
program, a federal initiative using polluting industries' tax
dollars to decontaminate dozens of seriously toxic sites across
the nation.
The funding was part of $27 million that was made available in
June to clean up 11 of 33 Superfund sites in 18 states that an
EPA inspector general's report identified as having received no
money as of May.
In July, after reports indicated the EPA did not intend to
allocate funds to clean up the site, Upton sent a letter to EPA
Administrator Christie Todd Whitman indicating possible
contamination of the site, the Paw Paw River and possibly
surrounding wetlands. According to a statement from Upton's
office, shortly thereafter he received assurances from the EPA
that the project would go forward.
[http://www.southbendtribune.com/copyright.html]
*****************************************************************
20 UEA stifles dissent on Initiative 1
[deseretnews.com] Sunday, October 13, 2002
UEA is 'not for 2 days off'
By Jennifer Toomer-Cook Deseret News staff writer
The Utah Education Association won't let opponents of a
radioactive waste tax initiative speak at its convention.
Utahns Against Unfair Taxes asked to present its views on
Initiative 1, which would raise taxes on low-level radioactive
waste accepted at Envirocare of Utah and bar the company from
accepting hotter wastes.
But UEA President Pat Rusk refused to let the group speak
during Monday's "town meeting," where elected officials answer
teacher questions on education issues.
"Our town meeting has been planned for a long time, and
it's not about the initiative," Rusk said. "Our members are free
to get information anywhere they want, but we do not feel obliged
to present the opposition at our convention."
The exchange is the latest in an ongoing fight between the
two groups.
The UEA is a major sponsor of the waste tax, which it says
would generate $150 million for schools and homeless programs.
Opponents say the 13,000-word initiative weakens oversight
of the radioactive disposal industry, could have unforeseen
financial consequences and tax Envirocare out of business.
"Teachers who feel strongly about education should be
willing to listen to both sides of an issue before taking such a
strong position," group chairman Hugh Matheson said.
Teachers last week received letters suggesting they are
pawns in a "contentious high-stakes corporate battle between
hazardous waste competitors" and urging them to vote against the
initiative.
The letters are signed by teacher and Sen. Alicia Suazo,
D-Salt Lake, and Reps. Sheryl Allen, R-Bountiful and Davis School
District foundation director; Jim Gowans, D-Tooele and retired
school administrator; Richard Siddoway, R-Bountiful and state
electronic high school principal; and Marda Dillree, R-Farmington
and education budget subcommittee chairwoman.
The UEA has responded on its Web site to the letter, which
it calls biased and bankrolled by Utahns Against Unfair Taxes,
"which is funded by Envirocare of Utah." It also says the
proposed tax would be on the out-of-state waste producers, not
the Utah company.
"Teachers do their homework, we've seen the research, and
we know that this initiative is the Smart Choice for Utah's
children," the Web response states, adding former U.S. Sen. Jake
Garn, former three-term Gov. Cal Rampton and former first lady
Norma Matheson agree.
E-mail: jtcook@desnews.com [jtcook@desnews.com]
© 2002 Deseret News Publishing Company
*****************************************************************
21 Activists walk 800 miles to end nuclear grip on Southwest
[Las Vegas Mercury]
In a "die-in" Monday in front of the federal building in downtown
Las Vegas, nuclear abolitionists portray their utmost disrespect
for the nuclear chain. Photo by BILLY LOGAN
Thursday, October 10, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury
Metropolis
When a jet from Nellis roared low overhead last Friday, you could
tell by the looks on the faces of the Family Spirit Walkers that,
for them, this jet--this deafening noise of war-preparedness that
drowned out their circle of prayer--just firmly placed the
exclamation point on their demand: Stop the nuclear chain of
uranium mines, nuclear bomb tests, nuclear bomb drops and nuclear
power and its insidiously dangerous waste. And stop the
warmongering against Iraq, too.
Most of the 30 walkers, including Native American spiritual
leaders Gilbert Sanchez, a Tewe from the San Ildefonso Pueblo in
New Mexico, had journeyed on foot for two months and almost 800
miles from Los Alamos, N.M. They wandered through indigenous
lands talking to the people affected by uranium mining in several
states. And they finally arrived in Las Vegas Thursday night,
ready for a string of demonstrations in Las Vegas then the final
60-mile leg to the Nevada Test Site.
The jet passed, and they resumed their ritual on the little patch
of landscaping at the foot of the U.S. Department of Energy's
headquarters on Losee Road in North Las Vegas. The DOE wouldn't
let them come inside the compound--Sept. 11-inspired caution,
said Kalynda Tilges, executive director of the Shundahai Network,
one of the organizers of the Action for Nuclear Abolition
gathering taking place through Oct. 15 at the entrance to the
Test Site. While the others formed a circle, planted a burning
bundle of sage in the center, and shuffled around it to the low
beating of a drum, Tilges talked heatedly on her cell phone
outside the circle, seeking to gain a hearing from the DOE.
"I asked [DOE spokesman] Darwin Morgan to come down here, but he
said, `I don't see a need to talk about any of this,'" Tilges
said after she got off the phone. She admitted the walkers hadn't
told the DOE they were coming.
This curtailed their plan for a larger demonstration, said walker
Jen Petrullo. Petrullo, from Reading, Pa., said she heard about
the walk from a friend. "I live near a lot of nuclear reactors,"
she said. "So my community in Reading has been told that they're
going to start shipping waste right through there" on the way to
Yucca Mountain.
She's against that plan. "From what I've heard about Yucca
Mountain, it's not a reasonable solution."
Corbin Harney, spiritual leader of the Western Shoshone, joined
the group, telling them to "think of the younger generation, the
unborn and such."
Among the younger generation on the walk was 15-month-old Malaya,
daughter of Michelle and Mateo Peizinho. "Our whole route from
Los Alamos to here, we met people that were affected by the
mining and the mills," said Mateo. "You know, people would come
up to us with stories."
Often they were joined by elders from local tribes, said
Michelle. "Every place we came to, somebody local stepped in to
guide us through," she said.
They started in Tewe country, went over the mountains into Diné
land, and then through Crown Point "where they want to open new
uranium mines," Mateo said. "Then we went up through Hopi land,
and then up through Marble Canyon and then up on to the North
Rim" of the Grand Canyon. "At the North Rim, a Havasupai man came
up to meet us and guide us through. Then just outside of St.
George, a Paiute-Shoshone elder came to greet us. Then we were
met by Northern Paiute. And now that we're here, the Shoshone are
with us."
On the weekend, the walkers demonstrated outside the Nellis Air
Force Base air show, and on Monday they performed a "die-in" in
front of the Lloyd George Federal Building. They're now en route
to the Test Site.--Heidi Walters
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury, 2001 - 2002
*****************************************************************
22 N-sites evoke memories of Cuban missile crisis
Buffalo News -
Wednesday, October 16, 2002
By ANITA SNOW Associated Press 10/14/2002
SAN CRISTOBAL, Cuba - Retired Navy Capt. William B. Ecker stood
Sunday before the warhead bunker he photographed from an altitude
of 500 feet four decades ago, giving then-President John F.
Kennedy extra evidence that Soviet missiles were being stockpiled
in Cuba.
"I knew there was something there, but I didn't know exactly what
until the film was developed in Florida," Ecker, 78, said as a
group of key people related to the Cuban missile crisis toured
sites related to the Cold War drama. "I was really only here for
two or three seconds."
After the film was developed in Jacksonville, Fla., later that
day of Oct. 23, 1962, Ecker continued on in the same RF-8A plane
to Washington. There, he was rushed to a briefing with Kennedy
and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
"The pictures I took that day were Kennedy's evidence to back
down Khrushchev," said Ecker, who now lives in Punta Gorda, Fla.
"(U.S. Ambassador) Adlai Stevenson later showed them at the
United Nations."
The black and white photograph of the bunker, now whitewashed and
surrounded by towering palm trees, showed several men standing on
the roof and several in front. What appears to be construction
materials are piled up off to the side. "Probable Nuclear Warhead
Bunker Under Construction San Cristobal Site 1," reads the title
given by CIA photo analysts.
Other photographs taken by Ecker's team showed an apparent
missile launch site at this military installation about 80 miles
west of Havana. One image showed large tentlike constructions
that CIA analysts said appeared to be sheltering medium-range
missiles that could travel up to about 1,500 miles, along with a
missile erector.
Wearing a black navy pilot cap, Ecker pulled out his wallet to
show the black and white photograph taken the following year when
Kennedy stood before him on the tarmac at the naval base in Key
West, Fla., to award him the Distinguished Flying Cross.
The visits Sunday followed a two-day gathering of American, Cuban
and Russian protagonists in the missile crisis drama, which
brought the world to the precipice of nuclear war.
"I have these extremely strong feelings standing on this site
where the photos were taken - the photos we were shown in the
briefing room," said former Kennedy adviser and speechwriter
Theodore C. Sorensen, who was present when Ecker was summoned to
Washington. "It could have been the end of the world, but here we
are 40 years later - Americans, Cubans, Russians."
Studying thousands of newly declassified materials from the
governments involved, conference participants learned that
fast-moving events nearly spun out of control and brought them
closer to nuclear disaster than they earlier imagined.
Cuban President Fidel Castro participated in the conference's
closed-door sessions on Friday and Saturday, as did Robert S.
McNamara, who was Kennedy's defense secretary.
The former Cold War rivals said goodbye late Saturday with a warm
handshake as McNamara left Havana calling for an end to the risks
of nuclear catastrophe. McNamara suggested moving "toward
eliminating the risk of destruction of nations by nuclear
weapons. That risk is unacceptable today. We ought to address
it."
The crisis began in mid-October 1962 when Kennedy learned that
Cuba had Soviet nuclear missiles capable of reaching the United
States. The crisis was defused two weeks later when the Soviet
Union agreed to remove the missiles. Former Kennedy aides Arthur
M. Schlesinger Jr. and Richard N. Goodwin also attended the
conference, as well as former CIA spy photo analyst Dino
Brugioni.
Copyright 1999 - 2002 - The Buffalo News
*****************************************************************
23 After 40 years, a closer look (Cuba)
Boston Globe Online: Print it!
US spy pilot returns to site that touched off Cuban Missile
Crisis
By Marion Lloyd, Globe Correspondent, 10/14/2002
SAN CRISTOBAL, Cuba - Captain William Ecker's first glimpse of
this unremarkable patch of Cuban countryside lasted only a few
seconds, but it made an impact that rippled throughout the world.
The date was Oct. 23, 1962. Ecker, a retired US Navy
reconnaissance pilot, flew the first low-level flight over a
Soviet missile site in San Cristobal, an agricultural community
75 miles west of Havana.
The photos he brought back to Washington confirmed that the
Soviet Union was deploying offensive nuclear missiles in Cuba,
just 80 miles south of Florida, and pushed President John F.
Kennedy into a nuclear showdown with his Soviet counterpart,
Nikita Khrushchev.
Yesterday, Ecker, 78, returned to the site for the first time
along with other veterans of the Cuban Missile Crisis, including
Kennedy administration officials, retired Soviet generals, and
Cuban military officers.
The field trip came at the end of a three-day conference marking
the 40th anniversary of the most dramatic episode of the Cold
War.
''It's kind of nice to be back,'' said Ecker as he toured the
remains of a Soviet missile bunker, the only surviving evidence
of the once-extensive military installations in Cuba. Today, the
site is used as a training base for Cuban army cadets. Swing sets
and picnic tables have replaced the ammunition stockpiles and
troop tents.
In 1962, the Soviets had more than 40,000 soldiers stationed on
the island to guard several dozen medium- and long-range nuclear
missiles, as well as hundreds of tactical nuclear weapons.
For the missile crisis veterans, most of whom are now in their
70s and 80s, the visit evoked vivid memories.
''I am kind of a different person since I took that photo,'' said
Ecker, who was accompanied by his wife, Hazel, of Medford, Mass.
Ecker told how moments after returning to his base in Florida, he
was ordered to fly immediately to Washington to debrief the top
US military commander, General Maxwell Taylor, and hand over the
spy film. He was later awarded a medal of valor for carrying out
the dangerous mission.
''The photo I took helped Kennedy back down Khrushchev and
[Adlai] Stevenson at the UN,'' he said. In a pivotal moment of
the 13-day crisis, Stevenson, Kennedy's ambassador to the United
Nations, caught the Soviets when he produced the proof of the
missile site in San Cristobal before the UN General Assembly.
Previously, Khrushchev had insisted that the Soviet Union did not
have such weapons in Cuba.
''Imagine all that in just two to three seconds,'' Ecker said,
referring to the time it took him to blow by San Cristobal in his
F-8 fighter jet. Ecker's big moment in history was brought to
public attention by Kennedy's nephew Christopher Kennedy Lawford.
Lawford, who joined Ecker yesterday at the missile site, played
the pilot in a film about the crisis, ''13 Days.''
''It's amazing to be here with these guys. Really amazing,'' said
Lawford, who earlier sat beside President Fidel Castro of Cuba at
a private showing of the film in Havana in 2000.
Asked how his mission differed from the movie version, Ecker said
that while he was fired on, he was never hit by Soviet
antiaircraft fire. He said vultures flying over another Soviet
base posed a greater danger, since a collision could take off a
plane's wing.
''If you really want to protect your missile site, put a bunch of
dead mules all around it, the buzzards will come, and you'll be
safe,'' he joked. Another key figure visiting the site was
Anatoly Gribkov, 84, the Soviet general who was in charge of the
secret missile deployment in Cuba. He argued that despite fears
in Washington, the missiles were never intended to be used in a
preemptive strike against the United States, but rather as a
deterrent against an imminent US attack on Cuba.
''Not a single missile was operational,'' he said, pounding his
fist against his chest. ''Everything possible was done to prevent
an unsanctioned launching.''
Gribkov described security measures that included housing the
warheads at least 90 miles away from the missile sites, which
were scattered throughout Cuba. However, he told how a jittery
local commander ordered warheads sent to a missile site on Oct.
26, at the height of the crisis, without having received orders
from Moscow.
Details on Soviet security lapses were among several new pieces
of information to surface during the weekend conference, which
was the sixth focusing on the missile crisis.
During the last meeting, in 1992, scholars and veterans learned
from declassified documents that the Soviets already had tactical
nuclear weapons on the island - information that would have
drastically changed Kennedy's thinking.
This story ran on page A8 of the Boston Globe on 10/14/2002. ©
Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.
*****************************************************************
24 Resolving to Use Force / Straight answers on war
Laurance M. Kelley [chronfeedback@sfchronicle.com] Sunday,
October 13, 2002 -->
For those of you still opposed to our opening this second theater
of the war against Islamic fundamentalist aggression, consider
the following very plausible scenario: Suppose that, in the
not-so-distant future, we learn through definitive intelligence
that Iraq, together with shadowy stateless terrorist proxies, has
acquired suitcase nukes -- lots of them -- and, as many
reasonable observers have feared, delivered them in containers,
complete with remote detonation devices, to various U.S. port
cities. To our horror, we learn the devices (like sleeper cells)
are already here.
In short, what if your assumptions are very wrong? Would you have
any regrets about your previous pacifism? Or would their minds be
a bit more focused? In short, what if their assumptions are very
wrong?
OK, that was a loaded question. Given that this may be a very
costly theater in terms of blood and treasure, what follows is my
attempt at a few straight answers to the questions about hard
evidence of Iraqi threats and the role the United States in
eliminating them.
The new policy of pre-emption, also being called the Bush
Doctrine, is quite simply a destiny-shaping foreign policy
initiative equal in stature to the Monroe Doctrine, which served
notice to European monarchies in particular and to the rest of
the early 19th-century world that the Western Hemisphere was off
limits to further colonial conquest. The United States pledged
that it would unilaterally wage war to deflect further tyranny.
As did Monroe in 1823 with his doctrine, and Harry Truman in 1947
with his containment policy of the Soviet Union, President George
W. Bush submitted to Congress on Sept. 20 the "National Security
Strategy of the United States." Perhaps the following excerpt is
one that you might want to reflect upon: "The gravest danger our
nation faces lies at the crossroads of radicalism and technology.
Our enemies have openly declared that they are seeking weapons of
mass destruction, and evidence indicates that they are doing so
with determination. And as a matter of common sense and
self-defense, America will act against such emerging threats
before they are fully formed."
(For the full text, see www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss
[http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss] .) Recently in these pages, a
columnist issued a plea for something to tell the families of
Iraqi innocents who will be killed in the coming war. To this,
let me say that Saddam Hussein is much more a menace to his own
region than are we. Although we're his sworn enemy, the great
Satan, he has twice attacked neighboring Muslim countries and is
responsible for more Muslim deaths than any man alive: 1.5
million in the Iran-Iraq war, and 50,000 to 100,000 Iraqi Kurds
killed in gas attacks.
Also, Iraqi regime change will not enflame the Middle East any
more than it already is. Furthermore, it will endear us to sane
Muslims! Kuwaiti diplomats are reportedly working the back rooms
at the United Nations, reminding their Islamic brethren that the
region will be much better off when Hussein is deposed, or dead.
The Israelis' pre-emptive sneak attack on the French-built Osirak
reactor near Baghdad earned them nearly worldwide condemnation,
including the New York Times and presumably most of you reading
this who are in the anti-war camp today. But as Jeff Goldberg,
who earlier this year broke the story of al Qaeda operations in
Northern Iraq for the New Yorker, points out, "Today,it is
accepted as fact by most arms control experts that, had Israel
not destroyed Osirak, Saddam Hussein's Iraq would have been a
nuclear power by 1990, when his forces pillaged their way across
Kuwait."
And remember last November's photos of overjoyed men and boys
dashing out of the utterly drab, impoverished Kabul to greet the
Northern Alliance liberators? Deep down, you know that similar
celebrations will take place in Baghdad before this campaign is
over. And even if it could somehow be demonstrated that Hussein
had no plans to use weapons of mass death on us or our allies,
what's wrong with deposing a mass murderer, as we did with
Milosevic?
(By the way, were we as concerned about the innocent civilians in
Belgrade when the United States and NATO were bombing Serbia? Or
is it that this war will be prosecuted by a Republican president
that delegitimizes it?) Securing and preserving freedom has
almost always been a costly and fearful enterprise. Although a
majority of Bay Area journalists and readers will likely not
change their minds and support this war, a historic footnote may
be instructive. American historians have reminded us that by
1776, when the Revolutionary War was already a year old, a third
of the colonial citizenry were neutral, roughly a third remained
loyalists, and only a third were revolutionaries.
So near unanimity (in the absence of a much larger attack than
the one we sufferred a year ago) may not be achievable. But by
historical standards, President Bush already has more than enough
support for this second theater of the war.
Laurance M. Kelley is a marketing research analyst for TeleAtlas
North America, a Belgium-based high-tech firm.
©2002 San Francisco Chronicle. Page D - 5
*****************************************************************
25 Iraq's potential to gain nuclear materials questioned
All Eyes on Iraq
KnoxNews: World
Saddam Hussein continues to defy the international community's
efforts to monitor Iraq's weapons. As a result, many believe a
future military conflict with Iraq is inevitable. Learn more
about the country, its military and regional relations in this
multimedia Web feature.
By JAMES ROSEN October 14, 2002
When President Bush describes the urgent need to disarm
or dislodge Saddam Hussein, he invariably focuses on the Iraqi
dictator's efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction.
At the core of Bush's concern is the deadliest weapon of
them all - nuclear bombs.
While there is widespread agreement among experts that
Saddam is trying to build a nuclear arsenal, most believe that he
is years away from being able to produce the plutonium or highly
enriched uranium needed to fuel the warheads.
CIA Director George Tenet told the Senate Armed Services
Committee in March that Saddam never abandoned his nuclear
weapons program despite significant disruption from the 1991
Persian Gulf War and subsequent U.N. inspections. Since kicking
inspectors out of Iraq in 1998, Iraq has reconfigured the
program, Tenet said, with a large number of nuclear scientists,
documentation and manufacturing facilities that could be used to
make bomb components.
Certainly, the fissile material Saddam needs exists in
abundance - hundreds of pounds of it - at sites around the globe.
Large quantities are concentrated in Russia and other nations of
the former Soviet Union, along with smaller amounts at some 130
research reactors in dozens of countries.
Most alarmingly, a big share of the nuclear materials is
stored at poorly guarded sites.
There's just one catch: Despite the availability of
fissile materials and the lack of security, the small group of
folks who closely track the shadowy world of nuclear smuggling
see no evidence of Iraqi agents trying to buy the fuel Saddam
needs to make a bomb as quickly as possible.
The disconnect between opportunity and actual activity
puzzles some of the nuclear sleuths.
According to experts, Iraq did spend a fair amount of
effort and money trying to score illegal caches of nuclear
materials in the 1980s and early 1990s, only to get burned by
scam purveyors who delivered nothing but empty promises.
Khidhir Hamza, who headed the Iraqi nuclear program until
he defected in 1994, said Saddam's agents were discouraged by
their experiences in Russia.
Iraq has enjoyed more success buying bomb components and
technology for the missiles that might deliver them. In the
1990s, after the Gulf War and the start of U.N. economic
sanctions, Baghdad obtained missile guidance systems directly
from the Russian labs that had made them. And a German man was
imprisoned for supplying nuclear technology to Iraq.
But the illicit market for nuclear fuel is a more complex
and mysterious world, filled with hoaxes, false claims and bogus
deals. Since 1993, the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy
Agency has documented 18 cases of nuclear smuggling. All of the
cases have fingered sellers, not buyers; none have involved
Iraqis.
The absence of visible activity by Iraqi agents, said
Matthew Bunn, a Harvard University nuclear proliferation expert,
doesn't mean they are not present in the nuclear black market.
"Unfortunately, this is a shadowy world of nuclear
traffickers, and we know very little of what's going on," he
said. "The question is, what fraction of this traffic are we
seeing? When you look at drugs, you're doing well if you
intercept 10 percent of the flow. This is a very different
commodity. It's possible that all the cases we know of are almost
all the cases there are, but I wouldn't bet on it. We just don't
know what we haven't detected."
David Albright, a former inspector who searched for
nuclear weapons in Iraq in 1996, said Western assessments of
Baghdad's current nuclear program are little more than guesses.
Albright said even the best nuclear sleuths would be
unlikely to detect smuggling of fissile materials into Iraq.
"This would be very secret," he said "The Iraqis would be
very cautious about how they did it. This has been a concern for
10 years. Iraq is so good at smuggling, it cannot be excluded
that they already have enough highly enriched uranium for a
nuclear weapon."
Ron Bee, an international security analyst at the
University of California's Institute on Global Conflict and
Cooperation, said Bush and Blair may have classified intelligence
about Iraq's nuclear program that they cannot make public.
"There may not be enough public evidence that can be
shared at this time, but the Bush administration rhetoric
suggests we cannot wait for all the evidence to present itself
publicly," Bee said. "After all, we don't want a nuclear 9/11 to
be the conclusive proof that nuclear materials have been shared
with either the Iraqis or by extension with terrorists."
Gary Milhollin tracks Iraq's attempts to acquire nuclear
weapons as executive editor of Iraqwatch.org, an online monitor
of its weapons of mass destruction.
"The barrier to success for the Iraqis now is the lack of
nuclear weapons fuel - highly enriched uranium, in particular,"
Milhollin said. "Smuggling in enough for one device or more is
the quickest and cheapest way to success for them. Since they
have shown a very great appetite for nuclear weapons and have
tried to import just about everything useful for making one, you
have to assume they're interested in buying the fuel as well."
Milhollin doesn't believe Iraq has managed to buy fissile
materials to date - but he says that failure is no guarantee for
the future.
"A lot would be at stake," Milhollin said. "This would
not be a casual transaction. Extreme measures would be taken to
conceal it. I think we've been lucky so far, but who know how
much longer our luck will hold?"
The Knoxville News-Sentinel Co. All Rights Reserved.
*****************************************************************
26 Iraq: Saddam's Weakened Military
TIME.com:
Iraq/Intelligence Politics and the CIA The agency is supposed to
provide honest intel on Iraq. But does the Administration want to
hear it?
BY DOUGLAS WALLER AND MASSIMO CALABRESI/WASHINGTON
ISAAC MENASHE/ZUMA The CIA said Iraq might not actually pose an
immediate threat to U.S. interests
CNN: Election all but assured for Saddam
Monday, Oct. 14, 2002
For more than a year, George Bush stood by CIA Director George
Tenet, dismissing critics who said the agency failed at its core
mission — preventing attacks against the homeland. But loyalty is
a two-way street for this White House, and since Bush began
making his case for war with Iraq, his aides — particularly the
hard-line ones — have pressed Tenet to join the march. For the
President's war speech in Cincinnati last week, Bush aides
badgered the CIA to declassify more intelligence on Saddam
Hussein's ties to Osama bin Laden. As a result, Bush was able to
disclose that "a very senior al-Qaeda leader received medical
treatment in Baghdad this year" (intelligence sources tell TIME
that it is a Jordanian operational commander named Abu Musab
Zarqawi) and that "Iraq has trained al-Qaeda members in
bombmaking and poisons and deadly gases."
But when a recently released CIA report seemed to paint too dire
a picture of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, Democrats on the
Senate Intelligence Committee pressured Tenet to declassify
testimony by a top aide who rated the likelihood of Saddam's
initiating a chemical or biological weapons attack against the
U.S. as "low." That testimony appeared to contradict Bush's claim
in Cincinnati that Saddam could lob those weapons at the U.S. or
its allies "on any given day." Bush sympathizers saw a sellout by
the CIA. "That wasn't intelligence, that was pure speculation,"
groused a former senior Pentagon official.
So which is it? Is the CIA politicizing the intelligence on Iraq
to help the hard-liners persuade people that war is in the
national interest? Or is Tenet, a former Senate staff member with
keen survival instincts, working to keep the moderates happy too?
Tenet denies both charges. "It's ludicrous," he told TIME. "I
work for a guy who expects our honest judgment, period. There's
no cooking of the books."
Every faction in the Administration reads the evidence gathered
by the CIA about Iraq's actions and capabilities in different
ways — usually to justify its preferred outcome. And then the
factions press for more. The agency has tried not to take sides,
but the rift between it and the Administration hawks is widening
as the White House "pushes the envelope" on evidence against
Saddam, says a senior intelligence official. The pressure from
the hard-liners to paint Saddam in the most dangerous hues "is
intense," the official explains. "There is one overriding
emphasis, and that is to sell the policy of regime change."
The friction is greatest on the question of whether Iraq and
al-Qaeda are working together against the U.S. Some intelligence
analysts accuse Bush of grasping at examples that imply an
alliance while ignoring others that don't — like the fact that in
the past the secular Saddam and the fundamentalist bin Laden have
not been ideological soul mates. (Bin Laden offered to fight
against Saddam when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1991.) Complicating
the fight is the fact that the spooks don't want to overlook
evidence on Iraq — as they did with al-Qaeda — so they are trying
to turn over every stone. For example, a top Iraqi intelligence
official visited bin Laden in Sudan in the mid-1990s, an
intelligence source tells Time. There is also more evidence that
al-Qaeda operatives who turned up recently in Baghdad may have
been plotting chemical-weapons attacks on U.S. soil. "As we peel
the onion," says another senior U.S. intelligence official, "we
continue to find things that indicate people should at least be
troubled and pay attention to the relationship [between Saddam
and bin Laden]."
The peeling, however, hasn't quelled complaints from both hawks
and doves that the agency tilts its product. Agency analysts are
more pessimistic than are White House hard-liners about possible
chaos in Iraq after a U.S. invasion. (The Administration is
considering a broad military occupation of Iraq much like the
U.S. Army's presence in Japan after World War II.) But State
Department intelligence officials remain unconvinced that
high-strength aluminum tubes Baghdad has been trying to import
are meant to be used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons, as
the CIA claims. The tubes, they argue, could just as easily be
used to manufacture conventional arms.
"It's all politics," says a senior CIA hand. "We're the meat in
the sandwich. People hear what they want to hear from our
reports." Agency insiders say that if Tenet tried anything
heavy-handed to please one side or the other, he would have a
rebellion on his hands from CIA analysts. Insists Tenet: "We draw
lines in the sand about anybody ever telling us what to do. I
wouldn't stand for it, and the President wouldn't stand for it."
Tenet fact-checked a footnoted version of Bush's Cincinnati
speech before the President delivered it, correcting a few items
and satisfying himself that it represented the agency's view. So
perhaps it is not surprising that, according to a White House
aide, Bush was miffed that testimony Tenet later declassified
seemed to contradict part of his speech. Tenet wasted no time
rectifying the situation. The next day he issued an unusual
clarification that there was "no inconsistency" between the CIA's
view and that of the President.
With reporting by James Carney and Michael Duffy/Washington From
the Oct. 21, 2002 issue of TIME magazine
Copyright © 2002 Time Inc. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
27 FFTF restart effort costs have passed $100,000 this year
published 10/13/02
By Nathan Isaacs
Herald staff writer
The costs of trying to save Hanford's test reactor continue to
climb, with a pending lawsuit against the federal government
expected to add to the bill.
But legal expenses aside, the fight also has included the price
of the occasional ham and cheese omelet, cell phone call or hotel
stay in Washington, D.C.
In 2002 alone, those costs are estimated at more than $100,000.
That figure is based on a Herald review of various agency
agreements, county reimbursement vouchers, credit card bills,
cell phone bills, salaries and other contributions.
Supporters want the Fast Flux Test Facility reactor saved to
produce isotopes for new medicines to treat cancer and other
diseases. They also say saving FFTF would create jobs and
possible tax revenue.
However, the restart efforts are in a race with the federal
government, which is moving forward with plans to close the
plant. The Department of Energy plans to begin draining liquid
sodium from the dormant reactor's cooling systems in November, a
step that would make it unlikely the reactor could be restarted.
Benton County Commissioner Claude Oliver has led efforts to
restart FFTF since he was assigned the responsibility to
represent the county in 2000.
Oliver, also chairman of the Citizens for Medical Isotopes, has
racked up many of the costs for the campaign. But he says the
price tag for trying to save FFTF pales in comparison with the
possible benefits, specifically the chance to save someone from
cancer.
He maintains it is the federal government that is being fiscally
irresponsible. He said the costs with shutting down FFTF continue
to grow and put at risk other Hanford cleanup projects.
And Oliver said some of his costs would have occurred anyway
because his other duties as county commissioner require him to
travel.
But either strictly for FFTF or piggybacked onto another issue,
Oliver has made four trips this year to Washington, D.C., as
recently as last week, to plead his case to senators, congressmen
and others willing to listen.
And on the eve of success or failure, he said it's likely he'll
return to the Capitol in the coming weeks.
So far, the bill for two of those trips, in March and June, has
added up to more than $5,700. Receipts for the other two trips
have either not yet been turned in or still are being processed.
The $5,700 included airfare, hotels, meals, room service, hotel
phone bills, print services, taxi cab rides, a rental car and
some conference registration fees.
Oliver has picked up about an additional $1,000 in meal and
travel costs for FFTF business in the Pacific Northwest.
And despite having a government phone card that provides cheap
long-distance service, Oliver rang up almost $1,400 in roaming
charges for using his county cell phone during three of his
Washington, D.C., visits.
In fact, Oliver's $3,179 cell phone tab for the year is 58
percent of the total $5,453 billed to the county for the year
through August for cell phones.
The county commissioner's office has five cell phones with
AT&T Wireless service, one for each commissioner, another for
the county administrator and a spare for the office.
The next-highest bill, so far this year, was $1,268 for
Commissioner Leo Bowman. Commissioner Max Benitz Jr. followed in
third place with a bill of $683.
Oliver said he spends "a lot" of his time working to save FFTF -
"more than my wife wants me to keep doing." He gets paid about
$75,000 annually as a commissioner.
The commissioners also have assigned an employee to work up to
half time on FFTF issues. That employee draws more than $40,000 a
year in salary and benefits.
The commissioners also have a limited partnership with the Port
of Benton and Richland to share expenses and resources in the
fight to save FFTF.
That's equated to about $40,000 total for consultant studies,
part-time staff and other services. The port also has provided
office space for the effort.
Oliver estimated Citizens for Medical Isotopes has spent more
than $20,000 in its efforts to save the reactor, including hiring
an attorney in September.
The potential legal action to stop the decommissioning effort has
been mentioned but has not yet been filed in court. Oliver
expects to bring the issue this week to his fellow commissioners,
the port and the city of Richland.
Specifically, the three partners are being asked to pay $50,000
toward the lawsuit. Each party's cost would be about a third of
the total.
The legal action would aim to halt the reactor's decommissioning
while a federal judge determined if the government completed all
the steps necessary before deciding to shut the reactor down.
But Richland Mayor Bob Thompson said the proposed lawsuit would
change the dynamics of the city's partnership. Thompson, a
defense attorney, said the legal costs with such a lawsuit are
often open-ended as is the duration of the fight. In that case,
the Richland City Council would have to re-examine its commitment
to the cause.
"It gets to the point that we think it's a tragedy to let FFTF
go, but the flip side is how much are the residents of Richland
going to have to pay to fight the battle?" Thompson asked.
Oliver asks himself another question: Did he do everything he
could do to save the reactor?
"We're talking peanuts," he said, referring to the costs. "That's
nothing compared with what's at stake. Now's the time when we can
pull together and win this one."
www.tri-cityherald.com
*****************************************************************
28 Hanford plan would accelerate tank work
This story was published Wed, Oct 9, 2002
By John Stang Herald staff writer
Hanford unveiled a plan Tuesday to speed up removal of
radioactive wastes from the site's underground tanks.
However, state officials are puzzled by the plan's details, which
they have not yet agreed to.
There's also questions about gaps in the plan and whether the
Department of Energy can complete all the legally required
studies fast enough to keep to this latest accelerated timetable.
Hanford has 53 million gallons of radioactive wastes in 149
older, leak-prone, single-shell tanks and in 28 newer and safer
double-shell tanks. Hanford is moving all wastes to double-shell
tanks and plans to permanently seal the 149 single-shell tanks.
Most liquid wastes are gone from the single-shell tanks. But 31
million gallons of solids and super-thick sludge remain in them.
At a Tuesday news conference, DOE and CH2M Hill Hanford Group
announced a plan to accelerate plans to empty and close the
single-shell tanks.
"We're entering a new important phase," said John Swailes,
assistant manager for tank farms at DOE's Office of River
Protection.
He said Hanford can keep the new pace without extra money,
although the budget may be revisited in two years.
The plan's main goals are to:
-- Remove all wastes and permanently close 26 to 40 single-shell
tanks by the end of 2006.
-- Remove and treat 1 million gallons of transuranic and
low-level radioactive tank wastes by 2006 without glassifying the
material. The transuranic wastes then would go to a permanent
underground storage site in New Mexico.
-- Remove the final 550,000 gallons of pumpable fluids from the
single-shell tanks by 2004.
-- Increase efforts to upgrade systems to deliver wastes to a
glassification complex now under construction.
Tuesday's announcement surprised state officials, who only
recently heard inklings of the plan.
DOE and Washington's Department of Ecology, which is the lead
regulator on Hanford tank waste matters, have not yet entered
serious talks on DOE's proposal.
And state officials were confused about how DOE's proposal fits
with an agreement that DOE and the state signed two months ago to
close seven tanks by 2011.
Under the August agreement, Hanford would begin "closing"
single-shell tank C-106 in 2004, 10 years ahead of schedule. Tank
C-106 is to be the first of seven tanks to be closed through 2011
in an effort to find the best ways to handle tank closures. After
that, emptying and sealing single-shell tanks are expected to
drastically speed up.
A confusing factor is that the federal-state legal timetable has
only Tank C-106 emptied and sealed by 2006.
Tuesday's DOE-CH2M Hill plan would seal at least 26 tanks by
2006, possibly stretching that to 40 tanks.
State officials could not figure out Tuesday how the plans would
mesh.
Swailes and Dale Allen, CH2M Hill Hanford Group's senior vice
president, said the seven tanks in the August agreement are to be
demonstration tanks to work out technical, chemical and
regulatory problems -- then serve as templates for quickly
removing wastes from other single-shell tanks.
"The goal of closing (26 to) 40 tanks over a limited period of
time may seem improbable," Swailes said. "Right now, we think 40
is an achievable number."
Besides tank C-106, DOE and CH2M Hill still have to select 25
more tanks for the accelerated waste removal. DOE and the state
have not conferred on that selection.
It is unclear how much tank C-106 would be a template for the
other 25 tanks. It holds a relatively small amount of liquid
wastes with even less solids.
Tanks among the first 25 will likely be a mix of liquids, solids
and sludge of various volumes, with budget and environmental risk
considerations also entering the selection process, Swailes and
Allen said.
Meanwhile, the state and DOE have not agreed on what "closing" a
tank means -- a definition that is the key to declaring work done
on a tank.
Suzanne Dahl, the Ecology Department's tank waste disposal
project manager, noted that it would likely take one to two years
to complete the required federal and state environmental studies
and permit work in order to empty and seal 26 tanks in four
years.
She said wastes could be removed from those tanks during the
study and permitting processes. But that work has to be finished
before a tank could be sealed.
Meanwhile, details are sketchy on DOE's proposal to remove 1
million gallons of wastes from the tanks by 2006 to dispose by
means other than glassification. This concept targets mostly
wastes that contain highly radioactive transuranic wastes that
would be shipped to New Mexico.
A major hurdle exists in that the New Mexico repository does not
accept any fluids of any type for storage. And wastes removed
from Hanford's tanks are fluids and water-logged sludge.
Consequently, Hanford will have to build a facility to convert
tank liquids and sludge into something solid that meets the New
Mexico repository's standards.
Allen and Swailes declined to comment on the construction of that
facility, citing procurement sensitivity matters. DOE has sent
out a request for proposals on this concept.
Dahl speculated that the required federal and state environmental
studies and permits for this facility could take up to three
years to complete.
Copyright 2002 Tri-City Herald. All rights
*****************************************************************
29 FFTF supporters continue to plead for facility
This story was published Fri, Oct 11, 2002
By Annette Cary Herald staff writer
Dr. Peggy Patchett of Pasco spent the evening of what would have
been her ninth wedding anniversary, asking government officials
why medical isotopes were not available in the United States for
her husband.
Dr. Gregory Mosher endured 13 rounds of chemotherapy and several
surgeries while he and his wife searched for a successful
treatment.
"We were disheartened to learn (we) would have to travel to Italy
or Switzerland to get medical isotopes that could be made in our
backyard," she said. "We could not save him."
He died in July, leaving small children.
"How do I explain to them what happened?" she asked.
Thursday evening in Richland Tri-Party Agreement officials held
the fourth and final hearing to take comments on a proposed
shutdown schedule for Hanford's Fast Flux Test Facility.
But as people in the crowd of 90 filed up to the microphone to
speak, the testimony returned again and again to the potential
for the reactor to save lives by producing isotopes that can
treat cancer in new ways.
Dr. Craig Howell, president of the Benton Franklin County Medical
Society, presented a petition calling for FFTF to be saved for
its medical potential. It was signed by 140 doctors, 38
registered nurses and 11 others.
It would have been signed by nearly every doctor in the two
counties, but he ran out of time as he spent the last three days
taking the petition from office to office, he said.
Dr. Huibert Vriesendorp of Seattle, an expert in using medical
isotopes to treat relapsed Hodgkins disease, waited on a
telephone line for more than two hours to testify in support of
FFTF.
"Only 50 percent of cancer patients are being cured," he said.
"We need to find more ways (to treat cancer). Do not close this
wonderful reactor."
Thursday afternoon, Marlene Oliver of West Richland took calls as
she does nearly every day from cancer patients and their families
across the nation seeking her expertise in new medical
technologies, she said.
Among them was a 42-year-old with lung cancer, said Oliver, who
is a consultant for new medical and environmental technology and
a consumer advocate for the National Cancer Institute.
She told the man his cancer could not be cured in the United
States, but that in Europe doctors were having success treating
lung cancer with radiation using medical isotopes.
"These patients are dying," she said. "I'm sick and tired of
telling them they have to go to Europe."
In the United States, the Department of Energy is not producing
some valuable medical isotopes in the amounts needed to treat
patients even in small research trials, she said.
One medical trial treating patients with the isotope copper 67
for metastasized breast cancer at the University of California
Davis ran out of isotopes before the study could be completed,
said Mike Fox of Richland.
"They were sent home to die," he said.
"I am just outraged as a taxpayer and a citizen about the way DOE
has failed to produce one of its missions," the production of
isotopes for medicine, said Gordon Rogers of Pasco.
Among the minority who testified in support of shutting down the
reactor or addressed how quickly it should be done was Armand
Minthorn, representing the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla
Indian Reservation.
He reiterated the stand of tribes across the nation that the
reactor be shut down.
Dave Johnson, representing Heart of America Northwest, a Hanford
watchdog group, said the reactor needed to be shut down
permanently rather than produce waste that could harm future
generations. Instead, medical isotopes could be produced in
accelerators without generating the long-lived waste of a
reactor, he said.
But those who testified after him responded that accelerators
cannot produce many of the most valuable isotopes for medical
uses. Also, one of the proposals for using the reactor had been
to support a process that would reduce waste that would be
harmful for more than 10,000 years to waste that would
deteriorate in 300 years.
Copyright 2002 Tri-City Herald. All
*****************************************************************
30 FFTF restart effort costs have passed $100,000 this year
This story was published Mon, Oct 14, 2002
By Nathan Isaacs Herald staff writer
The costs of trying to save Hanford's test reactor continue to
climb, with a pending lawsuit against the federal government
expected to add to the bill.
But legal expenses aside, the fight also has included the price
of the occasional ham and cheese omelet, cell phone call or hotel
stay in Washington, D.C.
In 2002 alone, those costs are estimated at more than $100,000.
That figure is based on a Herald review of various agency
agreements, county reimbursement vouchers, credit card bills,
cell phone bills, salaries and other contributions.
Supporters want the Fast Flux Test Facility reactor saved to
produce isotopes for new medicines to treat cancer and other
diseases. They also say saving FFTF would create jobs and
possible tax revenue.
However, the restart efforts are in a race with the federal
government, which is moving forward with plans to close the
plant. The Department of Energy plans to begin draining liquid
sodium from the dormant reactor's cooling systems in November, a
step that would make it unlikely the reactor could be restarted.
Benton County Commissioner Claude Oliver has led efforts to
restart FFTF since he was assigned the responsibility to
represent the county in 2000.
Oliver, also chairman of the Citizens for Medical Isotopes, has
racked up many of the costs for the campaign. But he says the
price tag for trying to save FFTF pales in comparison with the
possible benefits, specifically the chance to save someone from
cancer.
He maintains it is the federal government that is being fiscally
irresponsible. He said the costs with shutting down FFTF continue
to grow and put at risk other Hanford cleanup projects.
And Oliver said some of his costs would have occurred anyway
because his other duties as county commissioner require him to
travel.
But either strictly for FFTF or piggybacked onto another issue,
Oliver has made four trips this year to Washington, D.C., as
recently as last week, to plead his case to senators, congressmen
and others willing to listen.
And on the eve of success or failure, he said it's likely he'll
return to the Capitol in the coming weeks.
So far, the bill for two of those trips, in March and June, has
added up to more than $5,700. Receipts for the other two trips
have either not yet been turned in or still are being processed.
The $5,700 included airfare, hotels, meals, room service, hotel
phone bills, print services, taxi cab rides, a rental car and
some conference registration fees.
Oliver has picked up about an additional $1,000 in meal and
travel costs for FFTF business in the Pacific Northwest.
And despite having a government phone card that provides cheap
long-distance service, Oliver rang up almost $1,400 in roaming
charges for using his county cell phone during three of his
Washington, D.C., visits.
In fact, Oliver's $3,179 cell phone tab for the year is 58
percent of the total $5,453 billed to the county for the year
through August for cell phones.
The county commissioner's office has five cell phones with AT&T
Wireless service, one for each commissioner, another for the
county administrator and a spare for the office.
The next-highest bill, so far this year, was $1,268 for
Commissioner Leo Bowman. Commissioner Max Benitz Jr. followed in
third place with a bill of $683.
Oliver said he spends "a lot" of his time working to save FFTF --
"more than my wife wants me to keep doing." He gets paid about
$75,000 annually as a commissioner.
The commissioners also have assigned an employee to work up to
half time on FFTF issues. That employee draws more than $40,000 a
year in salary and benefits.
The commissioners also have a limited partnership with the Port
of Benton and Richland to share expenses and resources in the
fight to save FFTF.
That's equated to about $40,000 total for consultant studies,
part-time staff and other services. The port also has provided
office space for the effort.
Oliver estimated Citizens for Medical Isotopes has spent more
than $20,000 in its efforts to save the reactor, including hiring
an attorney in September.
The potential legal action to stop the decommissioning effort has
been mentioned but has not yet been filed in court. Oliver
expects to bring the issue this week to his fellow commissioners,
the port and the city of Richland.
Specifically, the three partners are being asked to pay $50,000
toward the lawsuit. Each party's cost would be about a third of
the total.
The legal action would aim to halt the reactor's decommissioning
while a federal judge determined if the government completed all
the steps necessary before deciding to shut the reactor down.
But Richland Mayor Bob Thompson said the proposed lawsuit would
change the dynamics of the city's partnership. Thompson, a
defense attorney, said the legal costs with such a lawsuit are
often open-ended as is the duration of the fight. In that case,
the Richland City Council would have to re-examine its commitment
to the cause.
"It gets to the point that we think it's a tragedy to let FFTF
go, but the flip side is how much are the residents of Richland
going to have to pay to fight the battle?" Thompson asked.
Oliver asks himself another question: Did he do everything he
could do to save the reactor?
"We're talking peanuts," he said, referring to the costs. "That's
nothing compared with what's at stake. Now's the time when we can
pull together and win this one."
Copyright 2002 Tri-City Herald.
*****************************************************************
31 Official: Plutonium pit plant at test site would be good for state
Sunday, October 13, 2002
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
Facility to manufacture atom-splitting triggers would boost economy, bring
jobs to Nevada
By KEITH ROGERS REVIEW-JOURNAL
When the debate begins this week on where to put the nation's
next plutonium pit manufacturing plant, Troy Wade will be rooting
for the Nevada Test Site.
Among the five candidates, the sprawling facility 65 miles
northwest of Las Vegas is the most remote, secure location to
make the atom-splitting triggers that will be needed to replace
those aging in U.S. nuclear weapons.
In Wade's estimation, chances are 50-50 that the
multibillion-dollar project will come to Nevada, with the main
competition being the Savannah River Site in South Carolina,
where the nation's stockpile of plutonium metal is kept.
Wade is chairman of the Nevada Alliance for Defense, Energy and
Business, which is a Southern Nevada trade group that represents
contractors and technology companies. He would like to see the
project boost the local economy, complement other high-tech
ventures at the test site and serve as a catalyst for scientific
endeavors in the University of Nevada system.
"It's high on our priority list because it's the kind of
high-tech project that fits the future of the test site," he said
last week at alliance's temporary quarters at the Desert Research
Institute, the research arm of the university system.
The Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration
plans a meeting at 7 p.m. Thursday at the agency's North Las
Vegas offices, 232 Energy Way, about siting a so-called Modern
Pit Facility. Plans call for having it ready for production in
2020. Government officials say the facility is needed to fill the
role of the plant in Rocky Flats, Colo., that was shut down in
1989, after some 40 years of operation.
The plant, 16 miles northwest of downtown Denver, is now a
cleanup site and holds the largest quantity of radioactive and
hazardous wastes in Colorado, the state's Department of Public
Health and Environment show.
Though the test site has its own share of environmental woes with
scientists trying to track radioactive contamination from
hundreds of below-ground nuclear tests, Wade said locating the
Modern Pit Facility there will not be the dirty job it was at
Rocky Flats.
An important difference between the facilities at Rocky Flats and
the test site, Wade said, is that the plutonium metal is already
in a form that can be worked with to fashion into pits. At Rocky
Flats, the materials had to be processed using liquids that
created a waste stream that contributed to contamination.
Wade's experience in nuclear weapons operations and policy
matters spans four decades of the Cold War. He started as a miner
at the test site in the 1950s. He was the engineer who personally
assembled the nuclear device that created the landmark Sedan
Crater there in 1962.
Because the number of plutonium pits that will have to be made is
unknown, Wade envisions a facility built in modules, so that more
modules could be added if production levels increase.
Plutonium pits are a critical component of nuclear weapons. They
are the fission triggers for the bombs. Not replacing them over
time could jeopardize the nation's nuclear deterrent ability that
relies on thousands of weapons.
A contingent of anti-nuclear activists are expected to converge
on the test site this week to protest continued U.S. nuclear
weapons programs. Wade is not persuaded by their arguments.
"As long as the defense of this country is based on a nuclear
deterrent, we need to support that nuclear deterrent with
facilities like this and at places like the Nevada Test Site
where it can be done safely and securely," he said.
Wherever it is built, the project is expected to boost the local
economy. The plant is estimated to cost $2 billion to $4 billion
and would be completed by 2011 or 2012, National Nuclear Security
Administration officials have said. Between 1,000 and 1,500
permanent jobs would be created.
In Southern Nevada that would mean filling an economic void left
when the test site's $1-billion-per-year, full-scale nuclear
weapons testing program was put on hold indefinitely in 1992.
Officials currently are studying what it would take to resume
full-scale tests should the need arise to fix a problem in the
stockpile. Defense Department adviser Dale Klein, assistant to
the secretary of defense for nuclear and chemical and biological
defense programs, said corrosion issues that scientists have
found mean full-scale nuclear tests in Nevada might need to be
resumed in perhaps five or 10 years to check results of materiel
experiments on how the stockpile ages. Klein toured the test site
in August.
Wade said he is most impressed with the Modern Pit Facility's
potential for bringing cutting-edge technology to Nevada.
Manufacturing pits would require precision machining, and
state-of-the-art safety and environmental controls.
"This is technology that would put Nevada in the basic research
business and that relates to the test site and that would have
enormous implications at the university," he said.
But there are hurdles to overcome. The specter of the Yucca
Mountain nuclear waste project looms in the background. Plans for
disposing the nation's spent fuel from commercial reactors and
highly radioactive defense wastes from plutonium production is
unpopular with state officials who are warring with the Energy
Department in the courts over the repository planned for the
southwestern boundary of the test site.
Plutonium metal would have to be hauled to the test site from
South Carolina to reach a pit manufacturing plant, if one is
built.
The Savannah River Site has the inside track on those aspects,
Wade said. "Less transportation is required, the reprocessing
facilities are there and they have a huge technology base that we
don't have," he said.
"But they don't have the remote, secure location," Wade noted.
The other candidate sites have similar drawbacks. The Los Alamos,
N.M., national laboratory, for example, is vulnerable to wildland
fires. A fourth candidate, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near
Carlsbad, N.M., is really a backup site to Los Alamos, Wade said.
The fifth candidate, a site near Amarillo, Texas, is "certainly a
player," Wade said, because it would not be illogical to put a
pit production plant near the Pantex plant there where nuclear
weapons are assembled and stored nearby in concrete bunkers.
Troy Wade The chairman of the Nevada Alliance for Defense, Energy
and Business says state good candidate for plant
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002
*****************************************************************
32 Akers is speaker for next FORNL meeting
The Oak Ridger Online - Community -
Monday, October 14, 2002
Frank Akers, associate director of the National Security Division
at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, will be the featured speaker at
the monthly meeting of Friends of ORNL to be held from 11 a.m. to
1 p.m. Wednesday at the A/B Room of the Oak Ridge Civic Center.
Akers will give a briefing on the work that the National
Security Division is doing in the post-Sept. 11 world.
Lunch will be catered by The Soup Kitchen at a cost of $7, and
includes at least two choices of hot soup, choice of sandwich,
pickle, chips, choice of iced tea or hot coffee, and choice of
dessert.
A social period with coffee starts at 11 a.m., followed at 11:30
by lunch and the lecture at noon.
All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger
*****************************************************************
33 DOE: Hanford tank waste agreement
Opportunities for Involvement
Proposed changes to the Tri-Party Agreement concerning
Single-Shell Tank Waste Retrieval and the Establishment Of
Accelerated Waste Retrieval and Closure Demonstration Projects.
Public comment period October 14- November 25, 2002
The Washington State Department of Ecology (Ecology), the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the U.S. Department of
Energy-Office of River Protection (DOE-ORP), have concluded
negotiations intended to resolve Ecology and DOE-ORP's dispute
regarding Hanford Federal Facility Agreement and M-45-00C
requirements. A draft change package has been developed which
proposes new milestones to test retrieval equipment and determine
the best way to empty radioactive waste from aging underground
single-shelled tanks. The information gained from these retrieval
actions will aid the agencies in determining at a future time,
how to define what is tank closure. The proposed changes to the
Tri-Party Agreement include: Establishing deadlines for
retrieving waste from and closing three "high risk" single-shell
tanks;
Conducting closure activities for tank C-106; Completing closure
activities for three current "demonstration retrieval" tanks. A
45-day public comment period will begin October 9 and run through
November 25, 2002. No public meetings are planned at this time.
If you are interested in a public meeting in your community,
please contact Mary Anne Wuennecke [mwue461@ecy.wa.gov] (509)
736-3036. To request a copy of the proposed changes or submit
comments, please contact: Woody
Russell, [woody_russell@rl.gov] U.S. Department of Energy,
Office of River Protection, P.O. Box 450 (H6-60), Richland, WA
99352, Fax: 509-376-2002 or Jeff Lyon [jlyo461@ecy.wa.gov] ,
Washington State Department of Ecology, Nuclear Waste Program,
1315 West 4th AV, Kennewick, WA 99336, Fax: 509-736-3030.
Change Package Information Sheet Tentative Agreement
Modification of Tri-Party Agreement Revising Closure Schedule for
the Fast Flux Test Facility
Public comment period August 28 -October 14, 2002
The Washington State Department of Ecology, the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency, and the U.S. Department of
Energy are asking for your feedback on draft changes to the
Tri-Party Agreement that will revise the schedule for closure
activities at FFTF. The comment period runs from August 28th to
October 14, 2002
The proposed changes to the Tri-Party Agreement include deadlines
for:
+ Starting to drain sodium coolant from the reactor’s heat
transport system by June 2003 +
Completing sodium drain from the heat transport system by June
2005 + Deactiviating the facility by February 2011
The 45-day public comment period will run from August 28 -
October 14, 2002. Public meetings have been requested in
Portland, Seattle, and Yakima. If you are interested in a public
meeting in your community, or want to provide input to the
agencies in planning the meetings, please contact Yvonne Sherman
[Yvonne_T_Sherman@RL.gov] or Mary Anne Wuennecke.
[mwue461@ecy.wa.gov]
Responsiveness Summaries to be Issued
Draft Environmental Impact Statement for US Ecology Inc.
Commercial Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Facility Comment
period ended November 30, 2000
Briefing Sheet
DEIS and Appendices
[http://www.ecy.wa.gov/biblio/0005010.html] (2.38 MB)
For more information, please contact: Nancy
Darling [Nancy.Darling@doh.wa.gov] , WDOH, (360) 236-3244
or Larry Goldstein
[lgol461@ecy.wa.gov] , WDOE, (360) 497-6573.
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34 Report: Military space spending soars -
CNN.com -
Oct. 14, 2002
By Richard Stenger
Infrared System High satellites] Drawing of one of the proposed
Space Based Infrared System High satellites [ width=]
(CNN) -- The Pentagon earmarked at least $4.22 billion on
space-related projects this year, well more than double its total
from the year before, according to an aerospace and defense
consulting firm study released Monday.
Most of the unclassified allotments in fiscal year 2002, which
ended September 30, were due to beefed up spending on missile
defense related research and development, the Teal Group
reported.
Lockheed Martin Space Systems, for example, was awarded $2.15
billion to restructure its proposed system to track ballistic
missiles and detect nuclear detonations.
Known as Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS) High, it would place
four satellites in geostationary Earth orbit and two more in
highly elliptical orbits.
But technical glitches and cost overruns have plagued the
program. And its scheduled 2002 launch will likely be delayed
until at least 2004.
In all, the Defense Department dispensed contracts to 32
companies and 31 corporate subsidiaries this year, including
joint ventures, Teal Group researchers said.
The smallest 2002 earmark was $10,000 to ADC International for
work on the Defense Information System's Agency's International
Maritime Satellite Network.
In 2001, the total military spending on unclassified space
contracts was $1.56 billion. The Fairfax, Virginia-based Teal
Group presented the findings at the World Space Congress in
Houston, Texas.
© 2002 Cable News Network LP, LLLP.
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