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07/14/02 ****     RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL)       **** VOL 10.179
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                         NUCLEAR POLICY
 
1 Russian-Chinese Cooperation in Nuclear Energy Continues Successfully
2 Taiwan Editorial: Competent decision-making needed
3 Moscow to Deliver Nuclear Turbines to Iran on August: Russian Minist
4 US: Entergy Mulling Vt. Nuke Deal
5 Finnish nuclear plant tender seen in autumn-agency 
 
                         NUCLEAR REACTORS
 
 
                          NUCLEAR SAFETY
 
6 US: Nuclear precaution: State distributes iodide pills 
7 *Cancer rates 'five times higher near nuclear power station'*
8 US: Scientist panel warns of N-plant attack risk
9 Resort near nuclear plant is worst cancer cluster
10 US: Forum: Some of our nuclear fears are all wrong 
 
                         NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
 
11 US: Torricelli's Yucca Mount vote criticized 
12 US: Lesson of postal legend's life: Feds won't deliver any Yucca com
13 US: Utilities' promise to Bennett, Hatch may carry little weight
14 US: Protect nuclear waste from terrorists
15 US: Facts about spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste
16 BNFL in record £2bn loss
17 A Unicoi citizen speaks at a gathering to discuss proposed nuclear
18 AU: Boy, 3, in protest at nuclear cargo 
19 US: Nuclear plant neighbors support Yucca Mountain storage plans
20 US: FROM CARSON CITY: Yucca Mountain fight is just beginning 
21 US: Full funding promised for N-cleanup next year
22 US: Readers offer varying opinions on Yucca Mtn.
23 US: Business leaders mixed over Yucca 
24 US: Wasted effort
25 US: YUCCA MOUNTAIN: Towns mixed on repository
26 US: Nevada petitions NRC to ensure nuclear waste repository is safe
27 US: Waste fee proposal not simple 
28 US: Officials wary, not worried about nuclear waste
29 US: Cotter barred from taking radioactive materials
30 US: Central Illinois on radioactive route 
31 US: editorial: Don't close book on Yucca                            
32 BNFL loses £2bn after nuclear storage write-down
33 US: OP: Yucca Mountain
34 US: Hatch and Bennett compromise on Yucca N-site — sparing Utah
35 US: Nevada urges stricter safety rules for nuke dump
36 US: Skull Valley plan far from dead
 
                         NUCLEAR WEAPONS
 
37 EDITORIAL: Appeal from hibakusha
38 US: The Pentagon is looking to build a nuclear weapon tailor-made fo
39 US: Government interviews ex-Amchitka workers 
40 UK: NUCLEAR SUB DELAYS FORCE YARD REVAMP 
 
                        US DEPT. OF ENERGY
 
41 Hanford cleanup plan seen as cutting corners
42 Grassley requests funding for IAAP probe 
43 Plant suit halted again - 
44 Hanford fuel rod move 63 days behind schedule
45 New Hanford EPA office boss named
46 HAB briefed on accelerated cleanup plan
 
                          OTHER NUCLEAR
 
47 Air Force concerns thwart Nevada Test Site wind farm
48 BNA Guest Sources Experts Available
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                         FULL NEWS STORIES
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 1 Russian-Chinese Cooperation in Nuclear Energy Continues Successfully

Pravda.RU 

Jul, 13 2002   

[http://english.pravda.ru]     

 According to the statement Alexander Rumiantsev, Russia's 
Minister of Nuclear Energy, made during a press conference on 
Friday, Russian-Cinese cooperation in nuclear energy was 
continuing successfully. Mr. Rumiantsev said a delegation of 
Russia's nuclear energy professionals had recently returned from 
China. 

The minister said the delegation had visited a Russian-designed 
Chinese nuclear power plant now under construction, Russian 
equipment used. One of the two power units is nearly completed 
and is being equipped. The construction of the second unit 
continues. The minister said he was delighted with the speed the 
work was done. The power plant is expected to go into operation 
in 2004. 

Mr. Rumiantsev also said, a fast reactor was being made in Russia 
to be sold to China, its design identical with that of the one 
installed at Russia's Beloyarsk nuclear plant. 

The minister admitted that nuclear weapons were also discussed 
during the visit of the Russian delegation. Russian professionals 
related the experience they had gained during conversion process. 
Mr. Rumiantsev said that an official protocol had been prepared 
to summarise the results of this visit. 

© RosBalt

  Copyright ©1999 by " [http://www.pravda.ru/]
*****************************************************************
 2 Taiwan Editorial: Competent decision-making needed

The Taipei Times Online: 2002-07-13
 
Now halfway into his term, President Chen Shui-bian's (³¯¤ô«ó) 
government can no longer be called new. But it's path has been 
rather wobbly so far. The DPP's fitful, jerky policy-making 
model, which the opposition parties have found difficult to 
accept and people in general have had a hard time getting used 
to, is the main problem. 

There are set procedures for the formulation of public policies, 
whereby government agencies discuss and reach a consensus and 
then seek a broader societal consensus. Only then can policies be 
implemented. If agencies hold divergent opinions on a 
controversial policy, then it is obviously not a good time to 
make decisions about it. Even if a decision is forced, there will 
be difficulties implementing it -- the decision to halt the 
construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant is a prime 
example. Without adequate internal coordination or external 
communication, the government announced it was halting 
construction of the plant. It then had to resume construction 
after enormous pressure from business and opposition parties. 
Taiwan paid a big price for that mistake. If the government's 
policy-making process had been more refined, much of that price 
and social cost could have been reduced or even avoided. 

As far as the DPP is concerned, Chang Chun-hsiung's (±i«T¶¯) 
resignation as premier appears to have washed away all memories 
of the nuclear plant fiasco, but the DPP's inept approach to 
policy-making has reared its head again. A cross-party alliance 
appears to be the key to the DPP breaking through the opposition 
blockade in the Legislative Yuan. Chen, however, has been talking 
about both a summit of party leaders to discuss possible 
constitutional amendments and building a majority "alliance for 
national stability." No details have emerged to back up either 
plan. So it is no wonder that the hype coming out of the 
Presidential Office has made the opposition wary and led it to 
accuse the DPP of duplicity or trying to create a "black gold" 
alliance.

Taking about two diametrically opposed options is not only 
incomprehensible to the opposition parties, but also unacceptable 
to society at large. 

Then there is the Romanization fiasco. The government has opted 
for Tongyong Pinyin instead of China's Hanyu Pinyin system -- 
which the UN and most of the rest of the world has become 
accustomed to. However, the central government says it will not 
force local governments to adopt the system. So why bother with 
it in the first place? The Romanization on road signs and 
government material will remain just as bewildering as ever -- 
perhaps even more so -- making it more difficult for foreigners 
to adapt to life here. 

Based on the DPP's administrative record, it appears that both 
the government and the party choose the most confrontational 
decision-making model everytime. Teenagers operate that way, 
governments should not. It is time the DPP matured a bit and took 
the time to fully study the obstacles it faces, work out a 
consensus, try to avoid conflicts and handle political disputes 
in a way that allows stable political, economic and social 
development. The people of Taiwan don't need political 
roller-coaster rides, they need to see concrete action on 
economic development. Otherwise the DPP will have a hard time 
convincing anyone to take a chance on it again.

This story has been viewed 260 times.
 
URL=[http://www.taipeitimes.com/news/2002/07/13/story/0000148122] 

Copyright © 1999-2002 The Taipei Times. All rights reserved. 
*****************************************************************
 3 Moscow to Deliver Nuclear Turbines to Iran on August: Russian Minister 
 
July 13, 2002           

  [TehranTimes Navigation] 
  
TEHRAN -- Russia will hand over turbines destined for Iran's 
Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant in August, IRNA reported.

 Russian Atomic Energy Minister .......told a press conference on 
Friday that the construction work of the first phase of Bushehr 
plant is near completion and the heavy machinery including 
turbines and other atomic reactors parts will be destined for 
Iran.

 He said Russian has proposed Iran the construction of another 
nuclear plant with a 1,000 megawatt capacity but the Tehran has 
not yet decided on the feasibility and the site of the project.

 Russian officials have tacitly reported of the construction of 
another power plant in Iran. 

  Send your questions and comments to: webmaster@tehrantimes.com 
[webmaster@tehrantimes.com]   
*****************************************************************
 4 Entergy Mulling Vt. Nuke Deal
 
Las Vegas SUN
 
July 12, 2002 

NEW ORLEANS- Entergy Corp. said Friday that it was deciding 
whether to back out of its $180 million purchase of the Vermont 
Yankee nuclear plant, a day after the Vermont Public Service 
Board refused to change a key condition of the sale. 

Mississippi-based Entergy Nuclear, a subsidiary of New 
Orleans-based Entergy, had asked the Vermont board to drop a 
requirement that all the extra money in the plant's 
decommissioning fund be returned to ratepayers. 

While Thursday's order denied that request in principal, the 
board included in it a "clarification," which could end up giving 
Entergy at least part of what it wanted. 

"Our holding that Entergy must return all excess money in the 
decommissioning fund after the completion of decommissioning to 
ratepayers is limited to contributions, and growth from 
contributions, made by Vermont ratepayers," the board said. 

In other words, if Entergy puts more money into the 
decommissioning fund between the date of the sale and the plant's 
final shutdown, any excess money attributable to those 
contributions won't have to be returned to ratepayers, under the 
board's order. 

On Friday, Entergy said it was re-evaluating the deal, saying the 
Public Service Board order dealing with excess decommissioning 
funds "differed materially" from a memorandum agreed to by 
Entergy, Vermont Yankee and the state Department of Public 
Service. 

Entergy said that memo stipulated that Entergy would retain any 
excess funds if the plant was decommissioned prior to 2022, and 
would split the funds equally with Vermont Yankee if the plant 
was decommissioned after 2022. 

On the Net: Entergy Corp.: http://www.entergycom 
[http://www.entergycom] 

All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
 5 Finnish nuclear plant tender seen in autumn-agency 

    [http://money.iwon.com]      

   [Reuters]   

Saturday July 13, 9:50 AM EDT 

HELSINKI, July 13 (Reuters) - Finnish nuclear power producer TVO 
plans to launch a tender this autumn to build the country's fifth 
nuclear reactor, the first in Western Europe in over a decade, 
news agency STT said on Saturday.
 
It added France's Framatome ANP (SOUR), U.S. General Electric 
(GE), Britain's Westinghouse and Russia's Atomstroyexport are set 
to take part in the tender, with the best bid seen selected by 
the end of 2003.
 
"We expect to get through this (tender) stage by the end of 2003 
and after that apply for a construction permit. The issuing of 
the permit will take approximately a year," STT quoted TVO's 
expert Ahti Toivola as saying.
 
The company was not immediately available for comment.
 
TVO has said it will have no problem raising the 1.7-2.5 billion 
euros ($1.68-$2.47 billion) needed to build the reactor with a 
planned capacity of 1,000-1,600 megawatts. The reactor would be 
ready by 2008 at the earliest.
 
Teollisuuden Voima OY (TVO), which runs two of the four nuclear 
power plants in Finland, is majority owned by Pohjolan Voima Oy, 
where forestry giants UPM-Kymmene (UPM1V) and Stora Enso (STERV) 
have stakes. 

©2002 Reuters Limited. 		     
*****************************************************************
 6 Nuclear precaution: State distributes iodide pills 

Asbury Park Press | Story
 	 	 	 	 	
  July 14, 2002    The Jersey Shore's News Source       

Published in the Asbury Park Press 7/14/02 By JOSEPH PICARD
TOMS RIVER BUREAU

 MANCHESTER -- Hundreds of people who live or work within 10 
miles of the Oyster Creek nuclear plant in Lacey made the ride to 
Manchester High School yesterday to receive potassium iodide 
tablets.

 The pills help protect people from thyroid cancer if 
radioactivity is released.

 "I hope we never have to use them," said Peter Weber of the 
Bayville section of Berkeley. "But it's good to have them just in 
case."

 The state Department of Health and Senior Services distributed 
the free pills from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. yesterday at Manchester High 
School and in Salem County.

 The state said that 1,200 forms were signed for the tablets at 
the Manchester site yesterday, and 3,800 pills were distributed. 
Heads of households often signed the form and collected pills for 
several people.

 In Salem County yesterday, 720 forms were signed and 4,225 pills 
meted out.

 The tablets are being distributed to people who live or work 
within 10 miles of one of New Jersey's four nuclear reactors. In 
addition to Oyster Creek in Ocean County, there are three plants 
in Lower Alloways Creek in Salem County: Salem I, Salem II and 
Hope Creek.

 State Health Commissioner Dr. Clifton R. Lacy, who visited the 
Manchester site in the morning, said the pills were being offered 
as a precaution, not in response to any imminent danger or 
threat.

 "I don't believe we will ever have to use the pills," he said.

 Nevertheless, the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission made the 
tablets available to the 33 states with nuclear plants in the 
wake of the terror attacks of Sept. 11. New Jersey, among other 
states, requested the pills for the stated purpose of providing 
safety for its residents from possible terrorist attacks.

 Potassium iodide shields the thyroid gland against radioactive 
iodide -- a contaminant released during a nuclear episode. 
Radioactive iodide, if it enters the gland, can cause thyroid 
cancer.

 "Getting the pills is a necessary precaution, that's all," said 
Sandy Fox of the Forked River section of Lacey. "And they've made 
it a very easy process."

 A steady flow of residents entered the reception area, and 
volunteers guided them to tables, where identification was 
checked, instructions given and the pills handed out. Senior 
citizens predominated, but people of all ages came.

 "I don't get scared about it," said Kathy Shinn of South Toms 
River. "I just want to be prepared."

 Sherry Badran of Waretown, who lives within a minute's ride of 
the nuclear plant, brought her sense of humor.

 "I don't know why I got this pill," she said. "It won't help at 
all. I live so close that, if that thing blows, I'll be dust 
before I can swallow any pill."

 Lacy emphasized that the pill distribution was only a part of 
the state's plan in the event of an emergency.

 "We are distributing one dose per person," he said. "One dose is 
good for at least 24 hours. This will give the people within the 
emergency zone time to evacuate to a reception center. Evacuation 
is still the main means of gaining safety."

 But some local officials within 10 miles of the Oyster Creek 
plant are bristling at the way the state has gone about the 
distribution.

 "Since back in April, when we learned the state was working on a 
distribution plan, we have been asking the state to simply let us 
have the pills and our police force could distribute them in case 
of an emergency," said Lacey Township Committeeman Rod Sterling. 
"We wanted residents to know we had plenty of pills, right on 
hand here in Lacey, to give them peace of mind. But the state 
didn't want to do things that way."

 "I think it's ridiculous, making people drive all the way out to 
Manchester for the pill," said Lacey Mayor Louis Amato. He added, 
however, that he was happy the state had taken the step of 
providing the pills.

 Commissioner Lacy responded that the state wanted people within 
10 miles of the plant to get familiar with the route to 
Manchester High School, because it is an emergency reception 
center. The other emergency centers in Ocean County are Brick 
Township High School in Brick, Christa McAuliffe Middle School in 
Jackson, Whiting First Aid Squad in the Whiting section of 
Manchester, Pinelands Regional High School in Little Egg Harbor 
and Lakewood Middle School in Lakewood.

 State officials said that, in the event of an emergency, 
residents would be alerted through sirens. They should then turn 
on their radios or televisions, if they have cable, to learn what 
course of action to pursue -- namely, when to take the pill and 
which way to evacuate.

 Officials said police would be manning evacuation routes. Lacy 
said that a second pool of potassium iodide tablets would be 
ready at the reception centers, and that the state had yet 
another pool of pills in mobile units ready to respond where 
needed.

 "People can also purchase the pills on their own," Lacy said. He 
added that the state, which received 722,000 doses of potassium 
iodide free from the NRC, will study the distribution results 
before considering whether to purchase more pills.

 One of the critics of the state plan is the owner of the company 
supplying the pills. Alan Morris, president of Anbex.com, based 
in Branchville, said that people need greater dosages of 
potassium iodide to be safe and that the 10-mile radius is much 
too small.

 "Thyroid cancer from contamination from Chernobyl has been found 
as far as 300 miles away," Morris said.

 Lacy said the state was following the federal Food and Drug 
Administration guidelines for the dosage.

 Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the NRC, defended the 
10-mile-radius zone.

 "The cases of thyroid cancer at a long distance from Chernobyl 
were due to people eating contaminated food and drinking 
contaminated milk, not from radioactive iodide in the air," 
Sheehan said. "It would never happen in the U.S. because we would 
not allowed contaminated food to be consumed."

 The state also will pass out the tablets on Wednesday at 
Pinelands Regional High School in Little Egg Harbor, from 4 to 8 
p.m. and again at Manchester High School on July 27, from 9 a.m. 
to 3 p.m., as well as at sites in Salem and Cumberland counties.

 People who live or work in the following towns will be eligible 
to get the tablets: Barnegat, Barnegat Light, Beachwood, 
Berkeley, Dover Township, Harvey Cedars, Island Heights, Lacey, 
Long Beach Township, Pine Beach, Waretown, Ocean Gate, Seaside 
Park, Ship Bottom, South Toms River, Stafford and Surf City.
 
*****************************************************************
 7 *Cancer rates 'five times higher near nuclear power station'*

Ananova </>

A report claiming cancer rates in a town close to a nuclear power 
station are up to five times higher than the national average, is 
being defended by its author.

Dr Chris Busby compiled the study with the help of a group of 
residents in Burnham-on-Sea, Somerset, who are worried about the 
health risks of the Hinkley Point power station just a few miles 
away.

The research, which is based on the results of a doorstep survey 
of 1,500 local people, claims that cervical and kidney cancer 
rates in the town are five times the national average, with the 
leukaemia rate four times higher and breast cancer rate double.

But the operators of one of the two nuclear plants at Hinkley 
Point, British Nuclear Fuels Ltd (BNFL), says Dr Busby had been 
"heavily criticised" in the past for his research by health 
professionals.

They said he had never published any of his reports in a 
professional medical journal and said they would wait until his 
latest findings had been scrutinised by the local health 
authority before assessing their impact.

David Cartwright, a spokesman for BNFL, said: "He (Dr Busby) runs 
his own anti-nuclear company and makes a living out of producing 
these anti-nuclear reports.

"He is somebody who has a record of bringing out reports that 
have been heavily criticised by health professionals in the past. 
We will wait to take the advice of the local health authority, 
but we are very wary of his past record because his work has 
always been shown to be full of flaws."

However, Dr Busby, who runs an environmental consultancy firm and 
sits on two Government advisory committees, said his critics 
should ignore him and just "look at the figures".

Dr Busby admits he can not prove that the alleged higher cancer 
rates in Burnham are caused by the discharge of radioactive 
materials from Hinkley, but said he could not think of any other 
explanation.

He said his findings appeared to support his hypothesis that 
radioactive particles from Hinkley were discharged into the sea, 
deposited on the local mud banks, blown downwind and inhaled by 
residents on a chronic basis, triggering cancer.

Story filed: 16:43 Sunday 14th July 2002

*****************************************************************
 8 Scientist panel warns of N-plant attack risk
 
The Patriot-News
                                        
Expert group senses only 'moderate' chance that terrorists would 
detonate atomic bomb on U.S. soil 

Friday, July 12, 2002 BY MILES BENSON Of Our Washington Bureau 

There is a "moderate" chance that terrorists could detonate a 
nuclear weapon on American soil in the next five years, according 
to a team of leading scientists inside and outside the 
government. 

More likely is an attack on a nuclear power plant, or a nasty 
combination of conventional explosives mixed with radioactive 
waste, according to a terrorist "threat matrix" published by the 
National Academies of Sciences and Engineering, the Institute of 
Medicine and the National Research Council. The matrix rated 
those risks as "high" and "very high," respectively. 

The June 25 report, part of a larger assessment of terrorism 
dangers, went to senior Bush administration officials and 
contained a classified section not made public. 

Officials at the Office for Homeland Security did not respond to 
requests for comment on the report's specifics. 

Michael Scardaville, a homeland security specialist at the 
conservative Heritage Foundation, said he found the threat matrix 
a "pretty good" assessment of the danger the nation faces from 
nuclear and radiological weapons. Absent, Scardaville noted, was 
any reference to the threat posed by Iran and Iraq, where efforts 
are believed to be under way to develop nuclear weapons. 

A nuclear weapon detonated on American soil remains the worst 
possible scenario, said Princeton University physics professor 
William Happer, who headed the panel. 

"In terms of catastrophic effects, there is no question that a 
real nuclear weapon is the sum of all fears," Happer said. "We 
know what it will do. We tested it twice in Japan over cities." 

The scientists said there is a "medium" chance that weapons might 
be obtained from Pakistan and India, where political conditions 
are less stable, or from Russia, "where everything seems to be 
for sale," Happer said. 

The scientists saw more risk that terrorists would launch ground 
or air assaults on one or more of 103 operating civilian nuclear 
power reactors at 65 sites around the country, which could have 
consequences ranging from reactor shutdowns to core meltdowns 
with large releases of radioactivity. Other possible targets are 
35 research reactors operating in 23 states, most on university 
campuses, the report said. 

Copyright 2002 The Patriot-News. Used with 
*****************************************************************
 9 Resort near nuclear plant is worst cancer cluster

 Guardian Unlimited Politics | Special Reports | 

Special report: Green politics                      
 	 
Mark Townsend
Sunday July 14, 2002
The Observer [http://www.observer.co.uk]  		
 		
Cancer rates in a Somerset town close to a nuclear power station 
are up to six times higher than average. 

Burnham-on-Sea will be named this week as the most significant 
'cancer cluster' so far discovered near a British nuclear plant. 
The revelation will provide fuel for anti-nuclear campaigners who 
say the industry pollutes the environment and is potentially 
lethal for people living nearby. 

The residents of Burnham, which lies five miles downwind of the 
Hinkley Point plant, have demanded an official inquiry into the 
figures, which were compiled by Dr Chris Busby, a government 
radiation adviser. 

The study will be presented to locals on Thursday - the first 
anniversary of the death of Burnham resident Jo Corfield from 
breast cancer. Corfield's mother, Geraldine Trythall, 86, who 
survived breast cancer five years ago, said yesterday: 'We want 
to know exactly what is causing all these cancers. We have a 
right to know.' 

Some residents are even moving away from the area. The parents of 
18-year-old David Lidgey, who contracted leukaemia three years 
ago, strongly suspect the power station is to blame for his 
illness. Susan and Rob Lidgey said they are in the process of 
moving a mile inland from Burnham in a move to avoid further 
health effects. 

Campaigners believe that radioactive discharge from Hinkley Point 
into the sea could explain the resort's high cancer rate. Busby, 
also a member of the Government's committee on depleted uranium, 
believes dangerous material from Hinkley Point is contaminating 
tidal sediment around power stations. 

When the mudflats off Burnham are exposed at low water, he 
believes that radioactive particles are carried away on the wind 
and inhaled by residents. Of the 95 people diagnosed with cancer 
in Burnham since 1989, more than half took part in sea-based 
activities such as watersports or bait-digging. Only one in five 
cancer sufferers was a smoker. 

'We have known since the 1960s the mechanism by which radioactive 
particles come ashore, and we will be worrying about this problem 
for a few hundred years to come,' said Dr Vyvyan Howard, senior 
anatomy lecturer at Liverpool University and an expert on the 
effects of toxins on human tissue. 

The study, which investigated cancer cases in Burnham since 1998, 
found residents are 5.95 times more likely to get kidney cancer. 
The probability that this is coincidental is just one in a 
thousand. 

It also found that cases of cervical cancer are 5.6 times higher 
than the national average, while leukaemia rates are more than 
four times above the norm. Women from Burnham have more than 
double the risk of breast cancer, with a one in 2,500 probability 
the figures are chance, according to cases over the past six 
years. 

It is the first time both adults and children living near a 
nuclear plant have been examined for such a broad range of 
cancers and the first attempt to examine the incidence of the 
illness rather than deaths. 

'We see a picture confirming my fears that Hinkley discharges are 
responsible for severe health problems. All the epidemiology 
points to that conclusion,' said Busby, who is a member of the 
Independent Advisory Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in 
the Environment. Busby urged similar research to be carried out 
at sites across the UK. 

The range of cancers examined in the report have all been linked 
to the effects of radiation from studies on Hiroshima survivors. 
However, no scientific link has yet been established between 
low-level radioactive discharge of the type from Hinkley Point 
and cancer. 

Last year Busby identified a leukaemia cluster near Chepstow on 
the banks of the Severn near Oldbury power station, north of 
Burnham. Another study in Seascale, close to the Sellafield 
nuclear reprocessing plant in Cumbria, observed cases of 
leukaemia in children under 14 between 1950 and 1983. 

A Department of Health spokesman said: 'No known health effects 
have been shown to be associated with radioactive discharges from 
current nuclear sites.' 

BNFL, which is decommissioning one of the reactors at the Hinkley 
site, dismissed Busby's findings, adding that his previous work 
had been 'heavily criticised' by health experts.
 	
 	Nuclear safety fears
30.06.2002: Nuclear waste poses disaster threat
30.06.2002: Pete Roche: Britain's nuclear danger
Advisory committee report (external link)
[http://www.defra.gov.uk/rwmac/reports/interwaste/index.htm] 
16.06.2002: Secret plan for N-bomb factory

[UP] 

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002
*****************************************************************
 10 Forum: Some of our nuclear fears are all wrong 

Pittsburgh, PA
   		   	 
Nightmare scenarios involving accidents or attacks are often 
overblown. Panic is the terrorist's best ally 

Sunday, July 14, 2002
By Anthony M. Gaglierd 

The debate over storing nuclear waste in Nevada's Yucca Mountain 
has raged for years, and even last week's Senate vote to go 
forward won't quell opposition to the plan. In recent months, 
opponents have been focusing on the potential dangers of 
transporting waste across the United States. They have put 
forward visions of radiological catastrophes resulting from 
ordinary truck and train accidents or, worse yet, extraordinary 
terrorist attacks. Environmental groups have sponsored a Web site 
- www.MapScience.org -- that allows citizens to calculate how 
close a nuclear-waste transportation route might be to their 
home. 

Anthony M. Gaglierd is the lead radiological officer for 
Allegheny County (TGaglierd@achd.net).       
         
I have reviewed the groups' series of documents, "What If . . . 
Nuclear Waste Accident Scenarios." At first glance, it appears to 
me that the assumptions used in the calculations as they relate 
to the nature and extent of damage to the cask that contains the 
nuclear waste, the amount and form of radioactive material 
released and the atmospheric dispersion of released materials are 
unrealistic -- to the point that the analyses themselves are in 
no way credible.

 My conclusion is that it would be virtually impossible to create 
a serious public hazard -- a large number of injuries and deaths 
-- by attacking a spent-fuel shipping cask. I believe most people 
who understand the physics and engineering of the matter agree on 
that point.

 So people say, "Well, it won't hurt anyone, but the people will 
panic." And then they go about making elaborate preparations and 
announcements that are enough to panic anyone.

 I suggest that the way to avert panic is to tell people there is 
no reason to panic. The public should be made to understand that 
there is no feasible way to disperse the fission products so that 
large numbers of people will inhale or ingest medically dangerous 
amounts -- which are not the same as "detectable amounts."
 
Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the nuclear industry and 
its regulators have been re-evaluating plant safety. These 
studies are properly being kept secret. But it is no secret that 
basic engineering facts and laws of nature limit the damage that 
can result. 

Extensive analysis, backed by full-scale field tests, show that 
there is virtually nothing one could do to these shipping casks 
that would cause a significant public hazard. Before shipment, 
the fuel elements have been cooled for several years, so the 
decay heat and the short-lived radioactivity have died down. They 
cannot explode, and there is no liquid radioactivity to leak out. 
They are nearly indestructible, having been tested against 
collisions, explosives, fire and water. Only the latest anti-tank 
artillery could breach them, and then, the result was to scatter 
a few chunks of spent fuel onto the ground. There seems to be no 
reason to expect harmful effects of the radiation any significant 
distance from the cask.

 Similarly, we read that airplanes can fly through the 
reinforced, steel-lined five-foot-thick concrete walls 
surrounding a nuclear reactor, and inevitably cause a meltdown 
resulting in "tens of thousands of deaths" and "make a huge area 
of the United States uninhabitable for centuries," to quote some 
recent stories. 

However, there seems to be no credible way to achieve that 
result. No airplane, regardless of size, can fly through such a 
wall. This has been calculated in detail and tested in 1988 by 
flying an unmanned plane at 480 mph into a test wall. The plane, 
including its fuel tanks, collapsed against the outside of the 
wall, penetrating less than an inch. The engines are a better 
penetrator, but still dug in only 2 inches.

 Analyses show that larger planes fully offset their greater 
impact with greater energy absorption during collapse. Higher 
speed increases the impact, but not enough to matter. And inside 
containment are additional walls of concrete and steel protecting 
the reactor. Is it possible to cause a nuclear reactor to melt 
down? Yes, it happened at Three Mile Island in 1979. Reactors are 
much improved since then, and the probability of such an accident 
is now much lower.

 But suppose it happens, through terrorist action or other. What 
then?

 Well, the TMI meltdown caused no environmental degradation and 
no injury to any person -- not even to the plant operators who 
stayed on duty. It has been said that this lack of public impact 
was due primarily to the containment structure. But studies after 
the accident showed that nearly all of the harmful fission 
products dissolved in the water and condensed out on the inside 
containment surfaces. Even if containment had been severely 
breached, little radioactivity would have escaped. Few, if any, 
persons would have been harmed.

 To test how far the 10-20 tons of molten reactor penetrated the 
5-inch bottom of the reactor vessel on which it rested, samples 
were machined out of the vessel and examined. The molten mass did 
not even fully penetrate the 3/16-inch cladding, confirming tests 
in Karlsruhe, Germany, and in Idaho, that the "China Syndrome" is 
not a credible possibility. 

The accident at Chernobyl in 1986 is simply not applicable to 
American reactors. The burning graphite dispersed most of the 
fission products directly into the atmosphere. Even in that 
situation, with no evacuation for several days, the United 
Nations' carefully documented investigation (UNSCEAR 2000) 
reported that there were 30 deaths to plant operators and 
firefighters, but no deaths or increased cancer due to 
irradiation of the public. The 1,800 reported cases of treatable 
childhood thyroid nodules do not seem to correlate with radiation 
exposure and are still being studied. 

The terrible and widespread consequences of that accident -- 
increased suicide, alcoholism, depression and unemployment, plus 
100,000 unnecessary abortions -- were caused primarily by fear of 
radiation, and misplanning based on that fear. The evacuated 
lands are generally no more radioactive than the natural 
background levels where many people have lived healthily for 
generations.

 It's not surprising that some people overstate the concern, for 
whatever reason. Striving for maximum caution leads to the 
assertion that we should act as if even the tiniest amount of 
radiation might be harmful, despite the large body of good 
scientific evidence that it is not. Such cautiousness has 
drawbacks when applied to design and operation of nuclear 
facilities, but it is particularly dangerous when applied to 
terrorism. To tell people that they and the Earth are in mortal 
danger from events that cannot cause significant public harm is 
to play into the hands of terrorists. It makes a minor event a 
cause for life-endangering panic. Now is the time to clear the 
air and speak a few simple scientific and engineering truths. 

 Copyright ©1997-2002 PG Publishing Co., Inc. All Rights 
*****************************************************************
 11 Torricelli's Yucca Mount vote criticized 

The Express-Times

New Jersey News

Challenger says senator abandoned New Jersey by voting against the plan.
 
Friday, July 12, 2002
 
By TERRENCE DOPP The Express-Times 

TRENTON -- U.S. Senate hopeful Douglas Forrester on Thursday 
criticized incumbent Democrat Robert Torricelli's vote against 
the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site. The plan calls 
for dumping 77,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel from power plants 
such as the Artificial Island complex in a Nevada mountainside 
100 miles away from Las Vegas. 

A Tuesday vote in the U.S. Senate cleared the federal government 
to move ahead with the project. 

"We need a permanent facility to store this type of waste. The 
towns (hosting nuclear plants) were promised storage many, many 
years ago," said Forrester, a Mercer County businessman who will 
face Torricelli in the November election. "Bob Torricelli's vote 
is that this type of waste should be stored permanently in New 
Jersey." 

Forrester said the Democrat's opposition to Yucca Mountain 
equates to an abandonment of the state. 

The project has met with opposition from environmentalists and 
many Democrats who contend transporting the waste is unsafe. 
While not final, preliminary plans call for sending thousands of 
shipments across America's highways in specially designed 
transportation casks. 

If the U.S. Energy Department and Nuclear Regulatory Commission 
green light the project, waste from the Salem I, Salem II and 
Hope Creek reactors will initially be ferried by barge off 
Artificial Island into the Delaware Bay. 

From there, its route across the country to Nevada is unclear. 

If approved, the project could send trains loaded with spent fuel 
near Clinton, Phillipsburg and Bloomsbury. The shipments would 
begin about 2015, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute. 

Those shipment routes have been the subject of Torricelli's 
opposition. In the days before the vote, Torricelli said he 
doubted thousands of nuclear shipments could safely be 
transported through the congested state without mishaps. 

Torricelli denied accusations he voted against the state's 
interests. 

"Nearly every senator in the northeastern part of the United 
States voted against Yucca Mountain," said spokesman Ken Snyder. 
"There is just no safe way to transport nuclear material without 
the danger of the accidental irradiation of people living along 
the transport routes." 

Making election year inroads, Forrester said removing the waste 
is a top environmental and safety concern for South Jersey, home 
to the state's two nuclear facilities. 

Forrester said Torricelli's vote may appease voters in Bergen, 
Essex and Passaic counties but does little for the southern part 
of the state. 

"The issue for South Jersey is very important because, I believe, 
South Jersey is often regarded by candidates as being less 
important," said Forrester, who was flanked at a news conference 
by Lower Alloways Creek Mayor Ellen Pompper. "As a U.S. senator, 
everybody in New Jersey should be your concern." 

Snyder called Forrester's accusations absurd. He said Torricelli 
has a record of bringing billions of federal transportation and 
housing dollars into South Jersey. Torricelli has led the fight 
to force Superfund cleanups and tax polluters to replenish the 
fund, he added. 

"Robert Torricelli is a stalwart champion of the fight against 
the Whitman proposal to slow down the clean up of Superfund toxic 
waste sites," Snyder said, highlighting former South Jersey 
chemical plants and oil refineries as examples. "He's trying to 
obscure the facts because he's wrong on this issue." 

Snyder said Forrester would need a road map to find South Jersey 
and called the tie in between the Yucca Mountain vote and South 
Jersey election gimmicks. 

Pompper, who endorsed Forrester, said the issue is critical for 
the region. 

"Maybe there's not a lot of people there and maybe there's not a 
lot of votes. But Yucca Mountain is critical," she said. 

The project still needs to undergo licensing from the Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission and the end of lawsuits brought by Nevada 
before it can proceed. 


Copyright 2002 The Express-Times. Used with permission.
*****************************************************************
 12 Lesson of postal legend's life: Feds won't deliver any Yucca compensation 

Saturday, July 13, 2002
 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal 
COLUMN: John L. Smith
 
I stood a few weeks ago in the idyllic heart of downtown Genoa 
with my wife and daughter before the handsome bronze statue of 
John A. "Snowshoe" Thompson, the legendary Sierra Nevada mail 
carrier. 

Thompson's life should inspire all Nevadans. If an indefatigable 
spirit exists here, and I think it does, it is embodied in 
Thompson's amazing story. 

As I studied the statue of a man on handmade skis, braced against 
the elements but faithfully carrying the U.S. mail, I was 
reminded that Nevadans still can learn plenty from his example 
and experience. His physical stamina was extraordinary, his 
strength of character renowned, but it was his frustration with 
receiving his due from the federal government that gives us pause 
today. 

Citizens who dream of receiving heaps of compensation from the 
Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, for example, should take 
a history lesson from Thompson's life. 

With Tuesday's 60-39 Senate procedural vote leading to an 
override of Gov. Kenny Guinn's veto of President Bush's site 
recommendation, Yucca is on its fastest track in 20 years. That 
has some Nevadans reassessing their opposition and wondering 
aloud about whether it's time to swallow our pride in the name of 
a radioactive handout. 

But think for a moment about old Snowshoe. He wasn't just any 
postman, you know. 

Born in 1827 in the mountainous Telemark region of Norway, 
Thompson was at home in the high country. After coming to America 
in 1837, he chased the prospect of gold to the West. His dream of 
riches didn't pan out, but he found steady work after answering 
an advertisement in the Sacramento Union for a mail carrier. 

The route was unconventional, to say the least: From Placerville, 
Calif., over the Sierra and down into Genoa and the Carson Valley 
in the dead of winter. The trip was 90 miles one way with 
anywhere from 25 to 100 pounds of mail and goods strapped to his 
back. Snowshoe himself weighed only 160 pounds. 

Carrying jerky and crackers for food, melting snow with the heat 
from his hands for water, wearing nothing heavier than a field 
coat for warmth, he made his trek over mountains that commonly 
killed stout men. 

Stories of his strength and bravery were legion, but it was his 
relationship with his employer, the federal government, that is 
notable 140 years later. 

According to research compiled by the Carson Valley Historical 
Society, Thompson had a handshake agreement with the Placerville 
postmaster, who informed him that his pay would come from Genoa. 
The Genoa postmaster, meanwhile, told him it was up to the U.S. 
government to take care of him. 

"I believe if I do my job -- get Uncle Sam's mail to the people 
-- he'll pay me," Thompson reportedly said. 

But he was wrong. 

Although Snowshoe was supposed to receive up to $1 per letter for 
his efforts and was sometimes compensated by individual senders, 
the federal government neglected to make good on its agreement. 

After 13 years without federal payment, Thompson encouraged the 
Nevada Legislature to request $6,000 from Congress, which 
promptly discarded the plea. 

For 20 winters Snowshoe carried the mail, twice monthly from 
first snow to spring melt. Each year he waited in vain for a 
proper contract. In all that time, he never declined to deliver a 
letter with or without postage. 

"The only money Snowshoe ever received for his mail service was 
the payment given him by people sending letters or delivering 
items he had purchased for them in Placerville," the historical 
society's Thompson biography states. 

By 1872, Thompson decided to go to Washington to meet face to 
face with members of Congress. He spent months attempting to get 
someone to hear his plea for just compensation, but he went home 
a beaten man. 

Thompson died on May 15, 1876, without receiving a nickel of 
federal pay for two decades of devotion. 

More than 125 years later, Nevada has only to look to New Mexico 
for a reminder that previous attempts at federal compensation for 
radioactive waste storage have been as empty as the promises made 
to Thompson. 

It's enough to make even the most patriotic postman quit his 
route. 

Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002
*****************************************************************
 13 Utilities' promise to Bennett, Hatch may carry little weight
 
[deseretnews.com] 
 	
Sunday, July 14, 2002
 	   	 
By Jerry D. Spangler and Lee Davidson, Deseret News staff writers
© 2002 Deseret News

       Just before a deciding Senate vote, six principal members 
of a consortium of mostly Eastern nuclear power utilities 
promised U.S. Sens. Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett of Utah this past 
week that if the Senate approved Nevada's Yucca Mountain as a 
permanent waste repository, the companies would not commit funds 
to building a temporary storage facility in Utah's Skull Valley.

       But what could have been interpreted as a signal that the 
Utah storage facility would be scrapped may be anything but that.

       Sue Martin, a spokeswoman for the consortium called 
Private Fuel Storage, says the two-year, $3.1 billion 
construction phase on the Goshute Indian reservation in Tooele 
County will nonetheless begin soon after the Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission grants a license — probably late this year. That 
despite the Senate 60-39 vote last Tuesday approving Yucca 
Mountain.

       "It was always our intent that construction will be 
financed through service agreements with our customers," not from 
the member companies directly, Martin said.

       In other words, the six companies that wrote the letter 
won't be contributing their money to the construction — but other 
companies wanting to get rid of nuclear waste will be.

       "Yes, that is probably true," Martin said. "We always 
planned on other customers and that we would go ahead and build 
it."

       PFS expects to contract for waste disposal with many other 
nuclear power companies that are not part of the consortium.

       But Mary Jane Collipriest, Bennett's spokeswoman, said 
Saturday that is not likely. "If Yucca is under way, would it 
make sense? It makes sound business sense to stay where they 
are."

       Maybe it would to those nuclear power companies with 
adequate storage space on site, but many are under fire in their 
home states to have the waste removed long before 2010, the 
earliest Yucca Mountain would open. And Minnesota has even passed 
a law limiting the amount of waste that can be stored on site 
there — a limit that will be reached in 2007 when the nuclear 
power plants would be forced to shut down.

       The letter from the consortium members to Hatch and 
Bennett states, "we . . . want to make it clear that our support 
for PFS comes entirely from the past failure of the United States 
government to fulfill its obligations under the Nuclear Waste 
Policy Act and concerns about the timely development of the Yucca 
Mountain facility."

       The letter also says, "we will pledge to both of you that 
our companies will commit no funds to construction of the PFS 
facility past the licensing phase so long as the Yucca Mountain 
project is approved by the Congress and the repository 
development proceeds in a timely fashion."

       The letter was signed by executives with FirstEnergy, 
Nuclear Generation AEP, Entergy Corp., FPL Group, Southern 
California Edison and Southern Nuclear Co. PFS is made up of 
eight nuclear power utilities, including those six that signed 
the letter.

       Collipriest said that without their support, construction 
of a Utah facility is improbable.

       "With six of the eight committing to withdrawing funding 
it would seem difficult if not unlikely for the remaining to make 
up for the withdrawn funds and answer to their rate payers," she 
said.

       Hatch was not available for comment Saturday.

       At a press conference last week with Secretary of Energy 
Spencer Abraham, Hatch and Bennett made references to assurances 
that PFS would not be built. And both used language strikingly 
similar to that in the letter from consortium members.

       For example, Bennett said he believed PFS would likely 
continue with its license application, but he did not think the 
companies would commit a dime to construction unless the federal 
government dragged its feet on construction of Yucca Mountain.

       Abraham said no federal funds would be authorized for the 
transportation or storage of nuclear waste to a temporary site in 
Utah, thereby making temporary disposal in Utah economically 
unfeasible.

       But Martin said PFS had never planned on tapping into 
federal funds set aside for nuclear waste disposal. Those funds 
are generated by a tax on nuclear power that will all go to fund 
Yucca Mountain.

       The PFS facility to be built on Goshute tribal lands could 
be ready for operation by early 2005. The company has a 20-year 
lease with the tribe, with an option for a second 20 years.
 
E-mail: spang@desnews.com [spang@desnews.com] ; leed@desnews.com 
[leed@desnews.com] 

 © 2002 Deseret News Publishing Company 
*****************************************************************
 14 Protect nuclear waste from terrorists

Tri-Valley Herald

Sunday, July 14, 2002 - 3:12:24 AM MST                                          
 			
PRESIDENT Bush and U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft have 
assured the public that federal law enforcement agencies are 
doing all they can to detect and prevent any new terrorist 
attacks on American soil. 

In order to assert this promise, the administration has wreaked 
havoc on the Bill of Rights and the liberties it guaranteed. 

Girded with the armor of the Patriot Act and other congressional 
enactments that increase the authority of federal law enforcement 
agencies, as well as numerous executive orders and AG memos, the 
administration feels secure in the belief it can thwart future 
terrorist attacks. But it has ignored our unprotected Achilles 
heel. 

Months ago, Bush approved the opening of Yucca Mountain in Nevada 
as the nation's high-level nuclear waste repository. The U.S. 
House quickly approved the plan. If the Senate agrees and a 
federal license is granted, Yucca Mountain will begin accepting 
nuclear waste from 131 sites in 39 states by the year 2010. 

Most of the nuclear waste will come from commercial nuclear power 
plants, as spent nuclear fuel rods, and a relatively small amount 
of high-level nuclear waste will come from military sites. 

The radioactive waste will travel to Nevada by rail and by truck, 
and some nuclear waste will be moved to railheads from East Coast 
power plants by barge. Each shipment of nuclear waste will be 
transported at least 2,000 miles. 

The U.S. Department of Energy's plan calls for approximately 
2,700 truck shipments each year for 38 years with the intention 
of entombing 77,000 tons of radioactive waste in Yucca Mountain. 

The plan projects 106,000 shipments of this extremely dangerous 
radioactive material will pass through 43 states and the District 
of Columbia -- yet there are no current plans to realistically 
protect those shipments from terrorist attack. 

Billions of dollars have been spent on security measures at 
nuclear power plants, and billions have been spent for security 
at Yucca Mountain. 

However, currently there is no updated study concerning these 
shipments' vulnerability to terrorist attack. The last such study 
was conducted in 1984, by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and 
the DOE and utilized weaponry now outdated. 

The current DOE plan calls for state highway patrol cars to 
follow trucks carrying nuclear waste. Those shipments traveling 
by rail are to be accompanied by two guards. That level of 
protection couldn't stop a group of thieves who wanted to obtain 
nuclear material. It certainly wouldn't stop dedicated 
terrorists. 

The U.S. Public Interest Research Groups reports that Chicago 
would see one truck shipment of radioactive waste every 15 hours; 
St. Louis, Kansas City and Denver every 13 hours; Des Moines and 
Omaha every 10 hours; Salt Lake City, one shipment every seven 
hours. In fact, on July 5, the City Council for Salt Lake City 
voted in favor of a resolution to oppose the transportation of 
high-level nuclear waste through their city. 

Spent nuclear fuel rods are more dangerous to humans than fresh 
nuclear rods that are ready to be utilized by power plants. Spent 
nuclear fuel rods are stored under at least 20 feet of water to 
provide adequate shielding from their radiation. 

"Spent" simply means the nuclear fuel rod can no longer 
efficiently sustain a nuclear chain reaction -- nuclear fission 
-- in order to power an electrical plant. The uranium in the 
spent rod has been split into a variety of highly radioactive 
fission products, creating radioactive cobalt, cesium, plutonium, 
strontium and radioactive gasses. 

According to Nevada officials who oppose the Yucca Mountain plan, 
the spent nuclear fuel rods will be shielded by less than five 
inches of stainless steel and depleted uranium. The next 
generation of casks used on trucks will use shielding of six to 
11 inches of steel and either lead or depleted uranium. However, 
these proposed casks will hold two tons of nuclear waste, four 
times the amount of nuclear waste as the smaller ones. The only 
tests done on the proposed new casks have been through computer 
models. 

If a cask containing spent nuclear fuel were cleft open, 
inhalation of radioactive gasses would cause lung cancer to those 
within the radioactive plume spread by wind. Those standing close 
by, who were exposed to plutonium radiation in sufficient doses, 
would die within hours. 

Portable rocket-propelled armor-piercing weapons have the 
capability of penetrating 20 to 40 inches of armor plate steel. 
An anti-tank weapon -- the Milan missile -- which only weighs 73 
pounds, can penetrate armor greater than 3 feet thick and has a 
maximum effective range of more than 2,000 yards. 

Commercially produced shaped explosive charges weighing only two 
pounds can penetrate 10 to 20 inches of steel. The 1984 tests 
conducted by the NRC and the DOE used the M-3, a shaped charge 
designed primarily for penetrating concrete structures. It 
penetrates 20 inches of armor steel. In the tests, the M-3 
produced entrance holes about six inches in diameter and exit 
holes in the casks. 

ACongressional Research Service Report for Congress, 
"Transportation of Spent Nuclear Fuel," written by Mark Holt and 
updated in 1998, admits that a "wide-variety of armor-piercing 
weapons could penetrate the heavy steel transportation casks, 
pulverize some of the nuclear waste inside, and allow highly 
radioactive waste particles to escape into the environment." 

The DOE/NRC tests used only a single explosive attack with older 
weaponry, so that the agencies concluded that "such releases, 
while potentially hazardous, would probably not exceed a small 
fraction of a cask's contents." 

With such a simplistic conclusion, the government exposes our 
Achilles heel and potentially exposes Americans across the nation 
to deadly radiation. 

The Yucca Mountain project should not go forward until the 
government has thoroughly studied and created a plan to protect 
the shipments of high-level radioactive waste from terrorist 
attacks.

 Charles Levendosky is editorial page editor of the Casper, Wyo., 
Star-Tribune. 
			 		   	 
©1999-2002 by MediaNews Group, Inc. and ANG Newspapers
*****************************************************************
 15 Facts about spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste

Journal and Courier Online - In the News
	 
posted Saturday, July 13th 2002

By Marc B. Geller, Journal and Courier

The operation of nuclear reactors results in spent reactor fuel. 
The reprocessing of that spent fuel produces high-level 
radioactive waste. 

The fuel for most nuclear reactors consists of pellets of ceramic 
uranium dioxide that are sealed in hundreds of metal rods, 
according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. These rods 
are bundled together to form what is known as a "fuel assembly."
 
Depending on the type and size of the reactor, a fuel assembly 
can weigh up to 1,500 pounds. 

As the nuclear reactor operates, uranium atoms fission -- split 
apart -- and release energy. When most of the usable uranium has 
fissioned, the "spent" fuel assembly is removed. 

Until a disposal or long-term storage facility is operational, 
most spent fuel is stored in water pools at the reactor site 
where it was produced. HLW is the liquid waste that results when 
spent fuel is reprocessed to recover unfissioned uranium and 
plutonium.
 
During this process, the fuel is dissolved by strong chemicals, 
and this results in liquid HLW. Plans are to solidify these 
liquids into a form that is suitable for disposal. Solidification 
is still in the planning stages.
 
While there are no commercial facilities in this country that 
reprocess spent fuel, fuel from defense program reactors has been 
routinely reprocessed for use in producing nuclear weapons or for 
reuse in new fuel. 

Other News Headlines from Saturday, July 13th 2002 

  Copyright © 2001, Federated Publications, Inc. A Gannett Site. Use of this
[http://www.jconline.com/services/terms.shtml] (updated 8/5/2001).
*****************************************************************
 16 BNFL in record £2bn loss

Guardian Unlimited Observer | Business | 

[UP] 

Decommissioning of oldest Magnox plants means massive dive into red
		
Oliver Morgan, industrial editor
Sunday July 14, 2002
The Observer [http://www.observer.co.uk]  		
 		
Atomic energy giant British Nuclear Fuels will this week announce 
a loss of £2 billion for last year - the largest in its history - 
which will add to rising fears about the cost of cleaning up 
Britain's obsolete radioactive sites. 

Most of the loss will be caused by a huge increase in the 
state-owned company's nuclear decommissioning liabilities, which 
it revised upwards by £1.9bn last year. 

On top are two charges of between £150 million and £200m arising 
from BNFL's recent decision to close its two oldest Magnox power 
stations - Calder Hall in Cumbria and Chapel Cross in Scotland - 
three years early. 

Both these sets of figures are 'discounted', meaning that they 
represent the amount of money BNFL has to set aside on its 
balance sheet now to meet its commitments to clear up nuclear 
sites in future. For this reason, they are charges against 
profits this year. 

The undiscounted figures are much higher. BNFL last year carried 
out an investigation of its liabilities, which include the costs 
of cleaning up its Sellafield site in Cumbria, along with 
decommissioning its Magnox reactors. This saw the undiscounted 
figure rise to £40.5bn, up from £34.8bn the previous year - an 
increase of 16 per cent. 

Despite the record loss, BNFL's chairman Hugh Collum and chief 
executive Norman Askew will claim the company is performing its 
day to day tasks well. They will point to a pre-tax profit of 
about £20m, although there is likely to be an operating loss. 

They argue that this proves the company can exist commercially 
and that the Government should press ahead with its much-delayed 
plans for a public-private partnership of the group. 

A source said: 'This will be the biggest BNFL loss ever, but they 
will say this is due to two hefty exceptional items which have 
obliterated an otherwise decent performance.' 

However, this masks wide variations across the company's 
divisions. Magnox made a pre-tax loss of £100m, thanks to 
operating difficulties and a low electricity price, while 
reprocessing and engineering made £30m, and the two remaining 
divisions pushed the company into the black. 

Any future upwards revision to BNFL's liabilities may no longer 
be borne by the company. The Government has plans to create a 
Liabilities Management Authority, which will ensure that 
taxpayers foot the bill, whether or not BNFL is privatised. 

The LMA will take all nuclear liabilities - which total £48bn - 
into the nation's accounts. 

The key commercial part of the company will be reactor design and 
fuel manufacture, which would benefit from any decision by the UK 
or other governments to build new nuclear reactors to replace 
ones that have closed. BNFL is lobbying hard for this to happen. 

BNFL would not comment yesterday on its results. 
	
Useful links

British Nuclear Fuels Ltd 
[http://www.bnfl.co.uk/website.nsf/default.htm] Campaign for 
Nuclear Disarmament [http://www.cnduk.org/] HSE nuclear glossary 
[http://www.hse.gov.uk/nsd/ilrwglos.htm] UK atomic energy 
authority [http://www.ukaea.org.uk/] National Radiological 
Protection Board [http://www.nrpb.org.uk/] World Nuclear 
Association [http://www.uilondon.org/] 

[UP] 

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002
*****************************************************************
 17 A Unicoi citizen speaks at a gathering to discuss proposed nuclear

<http://www.johnsoncitypress.com/>

Story published in the Johnson City Press:
7/14/2002.

facility (Staff Photo by Tony Duncan)

To build or not to build?

By Chris Garland
Erwin Bureau

UNICOI ? There have been strong reactions for and against the 
possibility of a Louisiana Energy Services uranium enrichment 
plant locating in the town.

In recent weeks, Unicoi Countians as well as citizens from 
neighboring counties have started to voice their opinions about 
the prospective plant. While some are strongly for or against the 
plant, there is also a sizable group who say they do not care or 
have not made up their minds and need more information.

The /Johnson City Press/ conducted a door-to-door poll last week 
among property owners in the 100-acre area being considered for 
the plant as well as adjoining neighbors to the north and south. 
Twenty-one households with a total of 38 residents were asked if 
they were: for, against, need information, felt it doesn?t matter 
or had no comment.

In the households along Zane Whitson Jr. Drive, Tinker Road, 
Plemmons Lane and Wiggand Road 19 percent were for, 39 percent 
against, 28 percent needed more information, 9 percent said it 
does not matter and 5 percent had no comment.

Unicoi County Executive Paul Monk said there are 22 property 
owners in the possible site area and that all the owners have 
been approached by the Economic Development Board and most have 
signed a letter of intent to sell property. ?That just means they 
are willing to negotiate a price should the site be chosen,? Monk 
said.

While it is not known how much LES may offer property owners for 
their land, Monk said appraisals are being made and should be 
ready soon.

Carl Jones, owner of Jones & Church Farms, is the largest land 
holder in the proposed site area with approximately 60 acres. 
Jones said he has no comment about the proposed enrichment 
facility site known as ?The Tinker Road Project.?

Carl Houser, pastor of Lighthouse Baptist Church, Zane Whitson 
Jr. Drive said the church property is part of the area under 
consideration. ?We are hearing the company will make an approval 
of a site soon. There are 75 to 85 members here, and so far I 
have not heard anything negative,? Houser said.

?It is our belief the church is not a building, but is a body of 
believers,? he said. Houser said he will remain open minded about 
the plant and possible sale of the church property.

The newly constructed church opened its doors on Easter Sunday 
this year. A steeple ordered for its roof will be put in place. 
But the gravel parking lot will remain as such until more 
information about site selection from LES is made known, Houser 
said.

?If? is a big word when it comes to discussion on the street 
about the proposed $1 billion plant that is said to be safe by 
some and dangerous by others.

The EDB has released statements saying the process is safe and 
the facility will bring major tax revenue into the county for 
many years to come.

?I tried to be for it, but my gut tells me no, and that is the 
way I will have to be,? said Town of Unicoi Alderman Johnny 
Lynch.

The town?s board will have the opportunity to pass or reject a 
request to rezone the property to industrial, if the planning 
commission recommends it, should the site be chosen.

Since Lynch?s public comments, citizens with similar views have 
formed a group called Citizens for the Preservation of The Valley 
Beautiful. Lynch is host to some of the weekly meetings at his 
family business off Unicoi Drive called Farmhouse Gallery and 
Gardens.

Local governmental support for the LES plant includes all of the 
current county school board members and county commissioners. 
Also in favor are Erwin Mayor Russell Brackins and Nuclear Fuels 
Services President Dwight Ferguson.

Unicoi County Schools Director John Payne said in an EDB release, 
?We have had to reduce our school budget by about $1 million in 
the past three years. We are looking to cut another 10-12 
instructional positions in the upcoming school year. The plant 
would turn the tide for our schools with $3.8 million in new 
local tax dollars going toward the education of our children. 
That is more than double the county?s current per-pupil 
allocation of education.?

Citizens for the Preservation of The Valley Beautiful continue to 
ask the following questions:

* What are the long-term health risks?

* What are the environmental risks?

* Should we be concerned with security issues?

* What will happen to adjoining and surrounding property values?

* How will the remaining material be disposed of?

* How will uranium be transported to and from the plant?

* Should we be concerned about a uranium enrichment plant 
locating one mile from an elementary school?

* Should the plant leave, who is responsible for decommissioning?

* After decommissioning, can the facility or property ever be 
used for anything else?

* If water is dangerous to the process, should last year?s flood 
in the site area be a concern?

Unicoi County Commissioner Ulis Miller said recently that should 
this county be chosen for the site, ?the company that will 
operate the facility will prepare a license application to the 
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for review. The public will 
have an opportunity to carefully review the application and learn 
more about the uranium enrichment process. The public will also 
be able to voice their support or opposition to the facility 
before the NRC makes its final decision. An NRC license is 
required before construction or operation of the facility can 
begin.?

According to NRC officials, site decision by LES is expected by 
the end of July.

/(Contact Chris Garland at cgarland@johnsoncitypress.com 
<mailto:cgarland@johnsoncitypress.com>)./

© 2001-02 Johnson City Press and Associated Press All Rights Reserved
*****************************************************************
 18 AU: Boy, 3, in protest at nuclear cargo 

- theage.com.au
 
July 14, 2002       

A flotilla of yachts, one of which has a three-year-old boy on 
board, is forming a symbolic chain across a stretch of the South 
Pacific today, in protest at the shipment of nuclear fuel on the 
edge of Australian waters. 

Three yachts from NSW, six from New Zealand and two from Vanuatu 
are attempting to intercept two ships transporting uranium and 
plutonium oxide from Japan to Britain.
 
The Ballina-based skipper of the sloop Moontide, Ross Barnett, 
said: "I have one grandson and would like to be able to tell him 
one day that I didn't just watch others and do nothing myself to 
make his planet just a little bit better."
 
Greenpeace nuclear campaigner Stephen Campbell said: "Our 
nuclear-free flotilla expects to meet the ships sometime in the 
next week, somewhere between Lord Howe Island and Norfolk 
Island."
 
The purpose-built merchant ships Pacific Pintail and Pacific Teal 
are carrying 225 kilograms of weapons-usable plutonium back to 
Britain, after a Japanese company rejected it because safety data 
on the fuel had been falsified. 

Copyright © 2002 The Age Company Ltd   

*****************************************************************
 19 Nuclear plant neighbors support Yucca Mountain storage plans
 
The Express-Times
                                       
New Jersey News

Sunday, July 14, 2002
 
By TERRENCE DOPP 
The Express-Times 

TRENTON -- For many New Jerseyans, Yucca Mountain means one 
thing: shipments of nuclear waste traveling near their homes, 
schools and businesses. 

But for those living in the shadow of nuclear power plants such 
as the Artificial Island complex in Salem County, it means 
something else -- getting waste such as spent reactor fuel out of 
their backyards. 

"It's a lot safer to have it in one place than it is all around 
the country," said Ellen Pompper, mayor of Lower Alloways Creek 
Township, site of the 292-acre Artificial Island site. 

With the Salem I, Salem II and Hope Creek reactors on the 
man-made island, Salem County boasts the second-largest nuclear 
site in the United States. Local officials such as Pompper look 
to the project's recent momentum after decades of inaction with 
optimism. 

The U.S. Senate pushed Yucca Mountain a step closer to reality 
Tuesday. In an overwhelming vote, the Senate moved to override 
Nevada's objections to locating the country's first permanent 
nuclear storage site within its borders. 

Yucca Mountain, a mountainside cave 100 miles northeast of Las 
Vegas, is designed to ultimately house 77,000 tons of nuclear 
waste. According to proponents, the waste is enough to cover a 
football field 12 to 15 feet deep. 

Bringing the waste there from throughout America would mean 
carting thousands of shipments of waste from 131 reactors and 
defense installations in 39 states by rail, truck and in a few 
instances barge. Many of those deliveries would traverse roads 
and rail lines in New Jersey. 

Officials in towns such as Lower Alloways Creek maintain the 
federal government promised them permanent waste storage decades 
ago when they approved the facilities. 

Pompper has called Yucca Mountain "critical" for her community. 
She said while they are valid, the necessity of the project 
outweighs transportation concerns. 

"Certainly you can't just do it any old way," she said. "They 
have eight years to figure this out. Technology changes. I 
believe the federal government is certainly capable of working 
that out." 

She said likely steps taken would include not passing schools 
during classes and limiting routes and times for shipments. 

"It's not like you are going to ship (waste) during rush hour," 
Pompper said. 

If all steps are eventually approved, Yucca Mountain could begin 
taking shipments in 2010 -- about the time PSEG Nuclear officials 
believe they will need to move toward above-ground storage for 
spent fuel. 

Yucca Mountain opponents have raised fears ranging from 
accidental radiation dispersal during potential traffic accidents 
to fears of terrorists stealing a shipment. 

Under preliminary transit plans, waste from the Salem County 
reactors will initially be ferried by barge off Artificial Island 
into the Delaware Bay, Pompper said. From there, its route across 
the country to Nevada is unclear. 

The project would entail sending trains loading with waste in 
specially designed vessels on rail lines running near Clinton, 
Phillipsburg and Bloomsbury. 

The shipments would begin about 2015, according to the Nuclear 
Energy Institute. 

During shipment, the waste would be entombed in steel casks 
meeting federal guidelines. All shipping containers are tested to 
withstand 1,500-degree fires in jet fuel, 30-foot drops onto 
steel-reinforced concrete among other tests. 

The Yucca Mountain issue has proven divisive. 

On one hand, lawmakers and officials in communities hosting the 
plants contend safeguards are abundant and past experience shows 
the risk is small. Supporters point to over 3,000 shipments of 
nuclear material over 1.7 million miles in the past 30 years as 
proof. 

Equally important, the issue isn't going to solve itself, 
according to officials with PSEG Nuclear, the company that runs 
the Salem County facility. 

"We continue to believe that Yucca Mountain is the best option 
for the long-term storage of used fuel," said Skip Sindoni, PSEG 
Nuclear spokesman, said in a prepared statement. "With nearly 
half of the power in New Jersey and 20 percent of the power in 
the U.S. generated by nuclear power, this is a clear sign that 
nuclear will continue to play a key role in meeting the energy 
needs of our state and nation. 

"But a few -- notably the Garden state's U.S. Senate delegation 
-- argue transportation amounts to an added risk. 

Environmentalists have derided the Yucca Mountain program as 
creating a "Mobile Chernobyl" and an earthquake ridden source of 
drinking water. 

"The somewhat reassuring news is that there has been relatively 
few accidents. The canisters they put the waste in are relatively 
secure," said the Rev. Robert Moore, executive director of the 
Princeton-based Coalition for Peace Action. 

But not every aspect of Yucca Mountain bodes well, he said. 

"It opens the door to permanency for the nuclear industry ... 
Effectively we're saying (nuclear officials) don't have to worry 
about it. If that's the message we're sending, it's not a good 
message." 

Norm Cohen of anti-nuclear group UNPlug SALEM did not immediately 
return a phone call seeking comment. In the past, Cohen has been 
critical of the shipments and has advocated an end to nuclear 
power. 

Elaine Makatura of the DEP said concerns over the risks are 
premature. "There are no designated routes yet. By that time the 
routes and roads could change," she said, adding factors such as 
population and schools will be taken into account. "We as a state 
are working on a task force with other states in the region." 

Gov. James E. McGreevey has not issued any directives for the 
handling of shipments to yucca mountain, according to a 
spokesman. 

Under NRC guidelines, governors have limited oversight over waste 
transportation parameters, such as ordering armed escorts. 

In addition to transportation concerns, some believe the Nevada 
site has been near the epicenter of earthquakes and is not 
properly sealed to ensure waste could not leach into drinking 
water. 

The Senate vote effectively nullified Nevada's objections to 
Yucca Mountain. Before the NRC can move forward with licensing 
the site, it needs to settle several lawsuits with the state. 

Copyright 2002 The Express-Times. Used with permission.

 © 2002 NJ.com. All Rights Reserved.
*****************************************************************
 20 FROM CARSON CITY: Yucca Mountain fight is just beginning 

Las Vegas Business Press

By Dennis Myers
 
For weeks the Guinn administration has been working to prepare 
the Nevada public for the loss in the U.S. Senate on the Yucca 
Mountain issue.

The governor himself has been talking in post-senate terms for 
quite a while. His aides have been seizing on every chance to 
portray the senate vote as a starting gun, not a finish line.

For instance, the capital city's newspaper, the Nevada Appeal, 
published an opinion piece two months ago by someone named Kirk 
Caraway. It was entitled "Yucca Mountain fight was lost two years 
ago." State nuclear projects director Robert Loux immediately 
fired off a response arguing that while the nuclear power 
industry has always had the "home-court advantage" in the 
political arena, once the issue gets into the judicial, technical 
and scientific arenas, the advantage shifts to Nevada. 

Loux wrote that the only reason Nevada was even alive in the 
congressional battle was Sen. Harry Reid's status as assistant 
majority leader, but a loss in the senate "is by no means the end 
of the battle - it is really just the beginning."

"We are now well prepared to move ahead in court ... and I know 
that we have the law on our side," Guinn said.

After the senate vote last week, there was plenty of validation 
that they are not just whistling past the graveyard. Much of the 
coverage of the issue by reporters on the energy beat had a 
now-comes-the-hard-part tone, such as Matthew Wald's piece in the 
New York Times saying Yucca "will be even tougher to pull off" 
after the Senate vote.

Certainly the U.S. Department of Energy is now going to have to 
go from the relatively friendly precincts of Congress to forums 
where it faces monumental skepticism. Last January, the U.S. 
Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board sent a letter to George W. 
Bush's energy secretary saying it has only "limited confidence" 
in the DOE's performance estimates for Yucca Mountain. 

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission represents another substantial 
hurdle. Among these groups of experts, DOE is having to argue 
that while the technology for storing waste does not yet exist, 
it will when it's needed. The NRC is already hypersensitive to 
the pitfalls of this approach - a nuclear waste facility on the 
Savannah River in South Carolina was built on that philosophy. 
After 30 years the technology never developed and the facility 
was finally mothballed (money lost: $20 billion). 

And in court, all the scientific and technical assessments of 
Yucca Mountain that Congress has been willing to ignore will come 
into play, including the devastating General Accounting Office 
investigation that turned up more than 200 questions DOE has 
failed to answer. In addition, because of the national political 
battle over the Senate vote, there is now a whole new network of 
community leaders across the nation who are newly aware of the 
prospect of nuclear transport through their communities.

The problem for Nevada officials and opponents of the dump is 
that journalists either do not know all this, or don't believe 
it. For instance, Scott Burton, a Washington reporter for one Las 
Vegas television station, described Nevada's position before the 
senate vote as "one vote away from nuclear waste", which is 
simply preposterous. That kind of histrionic characterization 
makes for glib news report narrations but hardly represents the 
ordeal now facing the nuclear power industry and DOE.

EDITORIAL: Nevada left holding the nation's bag 2 CENTS: A 
convenient plan FROM CARSON CITY: Yucca Mountain fight is just 
beginning GUEST OPINION: Embrace differences to create 
opportunity GUEST OPINION: A diverse outlook is critical to cash 
flow 

  Copyright 2002 Las Vegas Business Press   
*****************************************************************
 21 Full funding promised for N-cleanup next year
 			 			
Buffalo News - 

WEST VALLEY
   		
News Washington Bureau Chief
 				 						 						7/13/2002
WASHINGTON - The West Valley Demonstration Project will be fully 
funded at $90 million for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, 
lawmakers said Friday. The decision delays a confrontation 
between the state and federal governments over the long-term 
responsibility for maintaining the nuclear cleanup project in 
Cattaraugus County. 

It also avoids a serious election-year embarrassment for Rep. Amo 
Houghton, R-Corning, whose congressional district includes the 
project. 

A year ago, Sonny Callahan, R-Ala., chairman of the House 
Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water, threatened to 
cut West Valley's funding to $30 million, effectively mothballing 
it and triggering layoffs and procurement cuts. 

Callahan cited the impasse between the Energy Department and its 
state counterpart over West Valley's future, but congressional 
sources said the main reason was Houghton's failure to pay 
attention to the issue. 

The intercession of Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds, R-Clarence, a member 
of the Rules Committee and second-in-command of the National 
Republican Congressional Committee, bailed out Houghton and the 
project, bringing funding for the current year up to $90 million. 

Last year's Appropriations Committee report, drafted by Callahan, 
gave the state until Oct. 1 to agree to the federal government's 
terms for paying for West Valley's upkeep. Callahan apparently 
relented on that deadline. 

This year, Houghton hand-delivered a plea to Callahan for the 
money. 

In a news release issued Friday by Houghton's office, Callahan 
was quoted as saying that the new funding for the coming fiscal 
year was approved "out of deference to (Houghton) and his 
vigilant efforts." 

"I can't thank Sonny enough for his personal intervention, which 
averted a likely safety and security problem while saving 
hundreds of jobs at West Valley," Houghton said. 

"I have long held that the federal government has an inherent 
responsibility for the safety and security of this site," 
Reynolds said. "This $90 million is an important reflection of 
the federal government's ongoing commitment to the cleanup of 
West Valley." 

The money does not cover any apparent upgrades of anti-terrorism 
measures and services at West Valley despite warnings by Sen. 
Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., among others, that the high-level 
nuclear waste could be a target for extremists seeking materials 
to make a dirty bomb. 

West Valley officials have refused to discuss counterterrorism 
issues or measures. 

In Albany, William Flynn, head of the State Energy Research and 
Development Authority, said, "On behalf of Gov. (George E.) 
Pataki, we applaud the efforts of the Western New York 
congressional delegation, especially Congressman Houghton's." 

His agency, Flynn said, is "working with the (Energy Department) 
to reach a fair and equitable agreement" on the site's future. 

Bureau Assistant Sarah Nemeth contributed to this report. 

e-mail: dturner@buffnews.com 
[http://www.buffalonews.com/email/email_form.asp?author_dept_id=42]
 

Copyright © 1999 - 2002 The Buffalo NewsTM 
*****************************************************************
 22 Readers offer varying opinions on Yucca Mtn.
 
[online@rgj.com]   

7/13/2002 08:48 pm 
	
The Bush administration (all but supported by our own Senator 
Ensign, who rallied only two Republicans to the cause) showed 
again its complete dedication to corporate welfare at the expense 
of the people. If Yucca Mountain had been voted down, the nuclear 
industry would have been on the ropes; instead, taxpayer money 
has been used to prop up this destructive industry, making sure 
that plenty of nuclear plants and “mobile Chernobyls” are 
available for terrorists attacking the country. 

We need our government to stop supporting environmental damage, 
inflicting potentially huge economic “fallout” to places like Las 
Vegas, and providing opportunities to terrorists. The great state 
of Nevada could be generating huge amounts of energy, if the 
government would just dedicate resources to enhancing solar 
technology. Instead, those in power can see our state only as a 
trash can. If not for Nevada, Bush wouldn’t be president. 
Remember our votes decide who gets the power. Let’s not make the 
same mistakes again!

James Manley, Reno

Yucca Mountain, a Disneyland for the terrorists. They may not 
attack Yucca Mountain in particular, obviously they will attack 
the nuclear waste transportation going through MOST of the United 
States. They have creative minds and we’ve got to think of stuff 
that they would do before they do it. If nuclear energy plants 
use it, then they should keep it. It should be their 
responsibility, not Nevada’s. Have you seen those ancient tombs 
in Egypt? They fall apart, don’t they? I heard on the news 
tonight that the nuclear waste would be safe for “ten’s of 
thousand’s of years.” Didn’t they say something similar about the 
Titanic — the ship that will never sink! Where is it now? Now 
it’s just history repeating itself: “Yucca Mountain, the 
indestructible nuclear dump.” Oh that makes me feel real safe. 
Even though many nuclear bombs were tested in Nevada, this state 
is not a garbage dump! One man’s stupidity can put a mushroom 
cloud so large Colorado can see it! It’s too risky to throw all 
nuclear waste in one solid location. My solution is to put it in 
separate parts of the country, so one mistake can’t do nearly as 
much damage as if it all would be there. 

Robert J. Mead, Sparks

The inevitable occurred Tuesday when the Senate voted 60-39 to 
override our governor’s veto of the selection of Yucca Mountain 
as our nation’s nuclear waste repository. As many predicted, all 
of our best arguments ended up falling on the deaf ears of the 
U.S. Senate. The vote reminds me of the mid ‘80s, when then-Gov. 
Bryan was speaking at UNR. I was a student in the audience who 
posed the unthinkable question, “What are you doing to assure 
benefits for the state in the event that Yucca Mountain is 
eventually selected?” The answer was then, as it was until today 
(and I paraphrase), “We are unwilling to accept that may happen.” 

For the better part of 20 years, state officials and Nevada’s 
congressional delegation have spit in the face of powers 
hell-bent on the selection of Yucca Mountain. One can only wonder 
what benefits Nevada might have been able to negotiate with the 
nuclear industry (some reasonable long term power rates sound 
good about now). It may be a little late, since we have 
thoroughly bitten the hand that will be feeding waste our way, 
but hopefully the time to temper principle with pragmatism has 
not passed. 

Jack Perkins, Reno

Maybe someday — although not soon if the RGJ is any measure — 
Reno will grow out of being a small-time cow town, and join the 
rest of Nevada in the 21st century.

What for heavens sake can you mean by suggesting that Yucca is 
bad for both the nation and this state? It is the best possible 
site for storage of nuclear residue as 20 years of work and study 
have shown, but to follow your lead, one must conclude that there 
isn’t an appropriate site on the entire planet. Europe seems to 
survive, including some 20,000 shipments of nuclear material, and 
in an area that is far more vulnerable to assault by terrorists 
than we are. France alone is 80 percent dependent on nuclear 
power, and they are still on the map! It’s time for the state to 
stop wasting taxpayers’ money with lawsuits, and time for ole 
searchlight Harry Reid to cut off his provincial tom foolery, and 
wouldn’t it be nice if Gibbons and Ensign would cease parroting 
Reid.

Vernon Latshaw, Gardnerville

Marilyn McCluskey, Reno
 		   		   				
Copyright Reno Gazette-Journal, a Gannett Co. Inc. 
*****************************************************************
 23 Business leaders mixed over Yucca 

Las Vegas Business Press

By Brian Sodoma and Valerie Miller, Staff Writers 

After 60-39 vote last week in the Senate, the Yucca Mountain 
nuclear waste repository has the blessing of the U.S. Congress.
   
Martin  

 
The question remains - What comes next? Whether it's legal 
wranglings or shipments of hazardous waste, local business 
leaders are quick to share their thoughts on the state's future.

In the financial community, few were surprised by the decision, 
according to Nevada State Bank President Bill Martin.

"Nevada put up a great fight, but we were stuck with this 
strategy, saying to other states of, 'Do you want this traveling 
through your state?' he said. "But people would rather have it 
traveling though their state than stored there."

The big question seems to be whether it will hurt Nevada's gaming 
and tourism industry.

Martin doubts it will.

"This is heresy, but I don't think it will hurt Nevada," he said. 
"My guess is it will die away."


   
Stanley  

 
The banker said that while he hopes he's right, he could be 
wrong.

"I may be whistling by the graveyard, but I do think it has an 
excellent chance of not impacting us," Martin added. "For the 
most part, I think it will be ho-hum."

Nevada Bankers Association Executive Vice President Ted Wehking 
said the issue could drag out for a while anyway.

"It's never over 'til its over," he said. "There are a thousand 
legal ways to delay it. Whether it can be stopped, I don't know."

Gaming executives doubt the site will be a factor in any business 
decisions. 

"It's not a good thing, but you have to deal with it," said 
George Maloof, owner of The Palms Hotel and Casino. "It won't 
change the way we do business. The same systems and philosophies 
are still in place. ... Who knows what effect there will be, 
nobody knows."

Rob Stillwell, a spokesman for Boyd Gaming, didn't see any impact 
on Boyd's business in the near future. 

"I don't think it will impact tourism unless there's some sort of 
incident," he said, while adding that the issue is still largely 
unresolved. 

"It's something every city along the proposed route is going to 
have to face. There are still a lot of questions to be answered," 
he said. 

Some local business people still hold out hope that it can be 
stopped. 

"Hopefully, the issue will go to court. It may create enough 
delays where the public opinion can turn around," said Dave 
Hamilton, co-owner of the Agave speciality store in Green Valley. 

Others blasted the Senate's decision and feared the 
repercussions.

"I think it is a mistake tracking that much radioactive material 
across the country," said longtime Henderson developer Rich 
MacDonald. "It only gives some lunatic the opportunity to get a 
hold of (it) and create an explosion. It's a foolish, foolish 
thing to do." 

Nevada needs to now look at the Yucca dump as a financial factor, 
according to another local businessman.

"I don't think there is anything we can do to stop it. Nevada has 
to make the best deal possible with the government," James 
Cashman Jr. said through a spokesperson. "As long as we have (the 
dump), we might as well make them pay for it. This could amount 
to $400-500 million a year for Nevada."

Economists were reserved, but said they saw the pluses and 
minuses to having it. 

"I haven't done a full analysis on it, but you have to weigh out 
the economic benefits of the federal government providing money 
to train people to handle hazardous waste, as well as 
construction," said Jeremy Aguero, a principal for Applied 
Analysis, a Las Vegas-based economic research firm. 

Aguero was, however, concerned with the impacts on the tourism 
industry. 

"I would be concerned if even only 1 or 2 percent of the people 
decided not to come here," he said. 

Keith Schwer, a UNLV economist, said the impact from the 
construction would be an economic positive, although he added 
that the cash flow into the local economy from those types of 
jobs tends to be relatively small. 

But he added that a lot of the negatives are based on risks and 
unknowns, which are "increased now because of the issue of 
terrorism."

"We have done some research into if there was a toxic leak and 
that impact would be pretty severe," he said. 

Jerry Stanley is president of Soil-Tech, a hydroseeding and soil 
mitigation company. His business relies on development in the 
valley, and he was uncertain about the impact of Yucca Mountain. 
He said the project would be "under the radar" for the first few 
years. 

"If we go three years without a truck turn over or terrorist 
attack, then I think people will move on," he said, while adding 
that a slowdown in growth would absolutely affect his business. 

"I think it would affect every person in Nevada," he added. 

Business leaders mixed over Yucca Good Read: Local bookstores 
still turning pages Malpractice crisis casting doubt; Economic 
impact expected to batter Southern Nevada Doctors borrowing to 
pay rising insurance premiums Minority builders on the rise 

  Copyright 2002 Las Vegas Business Press   
*****************************************************************
 24 Wasted effort

[Boston Globe Online / Editorials | Opinion] 	   

By Mary McGrory, 7/13/2002

 WASHINGTONHARRY REID stood in the first row of the Senate on 
Tuesday with bowed head and hands loosely clasped before him as 
the ayes for the Yucca Mountain repository rained down on him. 
The Democratic whip can count, and he had known for days that he 
was being beaten - by White House pressure, the power of the 
nuclear industry and ingratitude. 

The humble, natty man who rescued his party from stewing in the 
shadows - he gave his gavel as chairman of the Environment and 
Public Works Committee to Jim Jeffords and made the Senate 
Democratic - had done everything he could, but it was not enough. 
A last-minute caucus plea to his colleagues to help another 
state's cause - as he had so often done - changed no minds. And 
Robert Frost's ''The Road Not Taken,'' which he read just before 
the roll call, couldn't stem the tide.
 
Fifteen Democrats, understandably attracted to the notion of 
shipping their states' nuclear waste to another state, deserted 
him. The vote was 60 to 39.
 
Reid and his Nevada colleague, John Ensign, one of only three 
Republicans to say no, met senators singly and in groups, arguing 
that a solution was not at hand: Yucca's storage capacity of 
70,000 metric tons of waste will be oversubscribed even before it 
opens for business in 2010. Right now, the waste from 103 nuclear 
plants amounts to 50,000 metric tons, and with 7,000 metric tons 
of military waste, no space will be left. Ensign finally got an 
admission from his opponents that they were not really solving 
anything. But they contended that even if only half of the waste 
is stored in the Nevada dump, while more is being produced, it's 
better than leaving it all on site, where voters can see it and 
worry.
 
Senators didn't spend much time worrying about the fact that they 
were giving the green light to the nuclear power industry, which 
wants 20 more nuclear plants operating as soon as possible. The 
Republican caucus lunch did not take up the subject. They had 
already had a showdown on doomsday a few weeks ago and had moved 
on.
 
Democratic minds were plainly more on Wall Street. They had 
listened to George Bush's reproachful speech to tycoons and found 
it wanting. They talked about a sterner bill written by Senator 
Paul Sarbanes of Maryland - which they passed the next day. Harry 
Reid didn't get a chance to launch his impassioned appeal until 
almost 2 o'clock, when senators had begun drifting away.
 
Democrats have been turned on by President Bush's electrifying 
announcement on Monday that he had discovered the color gray. The 
antiterrorism crusader, who sees the world in black and white - 
in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Middle East, you're either with us 
or against us - has lost his moral clarity, which can happen to a 
president's son who files an SEC report eight months late. His 
own experience with corporate responsibility had left him with 
the thought that ''in the corporate world, some things aren't 
exactly black and white when it comes to accounting procedures.''
 
Democrats think that, for the first time, Bush has been singed by 
an issue that is made for them and the November election. The 
Bush closeness to CEOs who played fast and loose with people's 
pension money has raised the hope that the November campaign 
could turn not on military operations but on operators who have 
been fleecing the two-thirds of Americans who invest in the stock 
market.
 
Wall Street gave the speech a thumbs down. The moguls thought he 
was doing too much; the man in the street thought he was not 
doing enough. The Dow Jones slid 178 points on Tuesday and 
another 282 points on Wednesday.
 
Harry Reid thought for a while that Americans would snap to on 
the subject of Yucca when they realized that radioactive trucks 
would be roaring through their neighborhoods. He had a big lift 
from the enviros, who set up a Web site that showed the exact 
distance from your home and your children's school that the waste 
would travel. God threw in an earthquake at a nearby mountain, 
and two Democratic freshmen women senators declared their 
intention to vote against Yucca.
 
Jean Carnahan, widow of Missouri's late governor, was reminded of 
her husband's problems with truckers transporting medical waste 
and arriving in Kansas City during rush hour. Debbie Stabenow of 
Michigan got off the Yucca bus when she was told by the 
Department of Energy that it was considering sending waste from 
Michigan plants across Lake Michigan, the state's crown jewel, on 
barges.
 
But Trent Lott says the discussion has gone on long enough. 
George Bush has scored another legislative triumph, and the 
Senate has said it has found the solution. The rest of us have to 
hope it won't blow up in our faces.
 
Mary McGrory is a syndicated columnist.
 
This story ran on page A15 of the Boston Globe on 7/13/2002. © 

*****************************************************************
 25 YUCCA MOUNTAIN: Towns mixed on repository

Sunday, July 14, 2002
 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal 
 
Some oppose storage of nuclear waste, but most in nearby outposts 
look forward to expected benefits 

By BRET SIGLER REVIEW-JOURNAL 

They are six tiny outposts that surround Yucca Mountain, future 
home to the nation's permanent high-level nuclear waste 
repository if the Department of Energy has its way. 

A clockwise route from Las Vegas around the Nevada Test Site 
would take a traveler through Indian Springs, Amargosa Valley, 
Beatty, Tonopah, Rachel and Caliente. 

Along this path, residents say their communities have the most to 
gain and the most to lose should the waste end up in Nevada. Some 
welcome it, others are wary, but all sense that their lives will 
be changed in some way. 

The news media often report that the repository would be located 
100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. But for those living in these 
towns, it's much closer. 

Indian Springs 

As Sens. Harry Reid and John Ensign battled to keep high-level 
nuclear waste out of Nevada in the Senate last week, some of 
their rural constituents were quietly rooting against them. 

"It's going to put money in this place," Mike Walrath, a 20-year 
Indian Springs resident, said as he sat in the Oasis Bar and 
Restaurant. "It's going to put money in the entire state." 

A haze of smoke obscured the TV screen in the corner as a handful 
of patrons sipped Budweiser and watched the final Senate vote 
that pushed the waste a significant step closer to being stored 
60 miles northwest of their neighborhood. 

Chances are, if you're working in Indian Springs, you're working 
for the government. Residents estimate that 60 percent of the 
town is employed at the Indian Springs Gunnery Range or at the 
test site. Yucca Mountain will bring more jobs, they expect. 

"It'll put more permanent people here; it'll make the town more 
stable," said Rick Fox, the Oasis' manager. "People don't buy 
here because it's all trailers." 

And Indian Springs, population 1,164, has been priming itself for 
stability for years, Fox said, referring to the high school's new 
football field, track and $650,000 school gym. 

He and other locals said they have no qualms about the safety of 
storing nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain. 

"There's 1,000 acres out there, and they've had 710 nuclear 
events," said Red VanEpps, a 20-year test site employee. "The 
land is totally useless for the next 500,000 years. Why not put 
it here?" 

Amargosa Valley 

It's a nondescript mound across the valley: a small, brown ridge 
dwarfed by surrounding peaks. But Yucca Mountain looms much 
larger in the minds of Amargosa Valley residents who live in its 
shadow. 

"We're leaving this legacy here for future generations," said 
Doris Jackson, a tough, weathered woman who chairs the town board 
and owns the Stateline Saloon. 

"It's a mystery because the government says, `Don't worry about 
it.' They say they're going to put a sign on it. But what kind of 
a sign will tell future civilizations, 20,000 years from now, 
that it's still high-level nuclear waste?" she asked. 

Jackson acknowledges hers is a minority view: She estimates 90 
percent of rural Nevada welcomes Yucca Mountain because it might 
bring some economic prosperity to the region. 

"We'll have growth for about 10 years," said the 29-year resident 
of the town, population 1,445. "And then the rods will go 
underground and property value will go down, and people will 
leave." 

For Ed Goedhart, manager at the Ponderosa Dairy Farm, the 
valley's largest employer, a withering Amargosa doesn't bode 
well. And the thought of storing high-level nuclear waste just 18 
miles from his cows, which he says produce 30 percent of the 
state's milk, makes him queasy. 

"We're expendable. The government perceives us as collateral 
damages," he said while sipping on ice water in the cool refuge 
of Jackson's saloon. The fair-skinned Goedhart, whose parents 
were Dutch dairy farmers, may look out of place in this windswept 
hamlet, but there's no doubt that it's his home. 

"They've invested $7 billion in Yucca Mountain and haven't spent 
a single penny in the valley." 

Goedhart says most rural Nevadans have become apathetic because 
they've expected nuclear waste to come to Yucca Mountain for 
years. 

But Jackson and Goedhart haven't given up yet. Jackson has taken 
her cause to the airwaves. She recently appeared on Comedy 
Central's "The Daily Show" to sing a verse of her new song: "We 
don't need the waste of our whole country. We don't want to be 
our nation's dump! If you think that you can bury all your 
problems, well you know you that you can kiss our rural rump." 

Beatty 

The desert night cooled the parched landscape as a local barfly 
buzzed in front of the Beatty Club, flashing her breasts to 
passers-by. Two elderly gentleman sat on adjacent bar stools, 
amused. 

Beatty is their town, home to 1,600, and they say they wouldn't 
change a thing, not even government plans to store high-level 
nuclear waste less than 20 miles away. 

"I worked on atomic bombs, in and around them, with direct 
contact to uranium," said Bob Rice, one of the observers, and an 
ex-nuclear weapons technician. 

"Raw uranium, and it hasn't hurt me yet," he added before 
succumbing to a prolonged coughing fit. 

Rice, like many others in Beatty, believes that Yucca Mountain 
will provide their town with much needed jobs. And money talks in 
this corner of Nevada, where people pride themselves on their 
ruggedness and their independence as much as their patriotism. 

"I don't have any concerns about the high-level nuclear waste, 
and I don't even know anyone who does, unless they're a 
politician," said Alpheus Bruton, owner of the Beatty Club. 

Next door at the Sourdough, Geraldine Senior draws beers for her 
charges, a motley crew of leathery miners and test site workers. 
She says Nevada politicians have misrepresented her and her 
community in their anti-Yucca fight. 

"Harry Reid's got all of these movie stars and singers and 
everything trying to go against Yucca," she said. "Anything he 
does is only for the votes, he doesn't do it because he's really 
concerned about Nevada." 

Tonopah 

John Murley has seen Tonopah at its worst. He moved to the town 
just a year before a 1962 test site accident forced his family to 
change the way they lived. 

The government warning came first, he said, followed by "little 
flying moisture pockets that would come down to the ground." 

"They would never explain exactly what it was," he added. "The 
teachers wouldn't let us out to recess. We weren't explained why, 
but we were told don't eat the snow, stay inside, don't walk 
home." 

Since then, Murley says he has lost many of his childhood friends 
and his father to cancer, and he's battling a pre-cancerous 
condition himself. 

Yucca Mountain is stirring those old memories. 

"The possibility of even low-level nuclear waste is horrendous," 
he said. 

But Joni Eastley, the only woman on the Nye County Commission, 
sees a bright future for Tonopah, a future that includes Yucca 
Mountain. 

Tonopah, population 3,600, has partnered with the government 
before, and the economic benefits have been fleeting. The 
community was hit hard by the decline of test site activity in 
the 1970s and the movement of stealth bomber production to New 
Mexico in the 1990s. 

For Eastley, the benefits for Tonopah far outweigh its risks. 

"The people in this community are very patriotic and they're 
proud of the fact that they had something to do with developing 
the storage facility for this waste," she said as she sipped iced 
tea at a cafe on U.S. Highway 95, one of the possible routes for 
high-level waste through Nevada. 

"Nye County wants people to recognize that Yucca Mountain is not 
located in Las Vegas," she said. "This is not located in Clark 
County. This is located in our home." 

Rachel 

It's just over the hill from the government facility that 
officially doesn't exist -- Area 51, Groom Lake, Dreamland -- but 
with last week's Senate vote, Rachel residents were struck with a 
dose of reality. 

But Chris Atkinson, manager at the Little A'le'inn, isn't 
sweating it. His business is booming with revenue from conspiracy 
theorists and UFO hunters from around the world. He doubts Yucca 
Mountain will have any effect on his community of 98 humans. 

Besides, Atkinson said, a nuclear repository will put his mind to 
rest about one of his own conspiracy theories about high-level 
waste. 

"As of now, they don't have a place to take it, so it just keeps 
moving," Atkinson said as he poured a Pepsi into his "deadly 
force authorized" Area 51 mug. "I know a couple of guys who haul 
the stuff and it's just a constant deal. They just keep trailers 
of the stuff moving because they can't afford to let it sit 
anywhere." 

Fay Day, Rachel's oldest resident, says it's too late to stop the 
repository now. 

"If we were going to fight it, we should have done it years ago, 
not wait until the project was ready to go." 

Caliente 

Trains rumble through Caliente so often most of its 1,100 
residents don't notice. And now, they may soon be hauling 
high-level nuclear waste through town. 

Most say it won't bother them. 

In fact, if the town gets its way, Caliente, the last westbound 
Union Pacific stop before Yucca Mountain, will become a depot 
where waste will be loaded onto trucks and hauled to the 
repository. 

Mayor Kevin Phillips said Caliente may have more to gain from 
Yucca Mountain than other Nevada communities because the depot 
will generate some construction and off-loading jobs, and that 
will pour more money and resources into the town's fire 
department. 

Steve Rowe, Caliente's volunteer fire chief, has some 
reservations, but he supports the mayor's plan. 

"I'm just like everybody else. I'd rather see it go somewhere 
else, but seeing how it's going to come, I'd like to get all we 
can out of it," he said. 

Rowe said he's more concerned about the toxic chemicals that 
already come through town. Between 60 and 70 percent of the 
hazardous freight hauled by Union Pacific passes through 
Caliente, he said. 

"A chlorine accident would probably kill half the people in town 
before they could get anyone out," he said. "With nuclear waste, 
there wouldn't be any big deal. They'd just keep people away and 
clean it up." 

But Dorothy Phillips, a 66-year Caliente resident, and Mayor 
Phillips' aunt, has seen firsthand what radiation can do. Her 
family received money from the government because her siblings 
and her father all died from radiation-induced cancer. 

"They told us that it would all be fine. Just go outside and 
watch it," she said of atomic testing. "And my father died form 
the highest leukemia count that they'd ever seen in the Western 
Hemisphere."
 
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002
*****************************************************************
 26 Nevada petitions NRC to ensure nuclear waste repository is safe
 
Las Vegas SUN
 
July 12, 2002 
 
LAS VEGAS (AP) - Nevada opened a new front Friday in its attempt 
to block the federal government from burying the nation's nuclear 
waste in the state, petitioning the Nuclear Regulatory Commission 
for stricter safety standards at the Yucca Mountain dump site. 

"The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has not asked the Department 
of Energy to demonstrate that the repository is going to be 
safe," said Joseph Egan, the McLean, Va.-based lawyer handling 
the state's challenges of the project in Washington, 

The administrative appeal to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission 
comes three days after Congress gave final legislative approval 
to President Bush's selection of Yucca Mountain as the site to 
entomb the nation's spent nuclear fuel. 

Having lost on Capitol Hill, Nevada officials vowed to turn to 
the courts and regulatory agencies to try to kill the program. 

"We're saying they shouldn't be allowed to go forward until this 
is resolved," said Marta Adams, the senior deputy state attorney 
general coordinating the five federal lawsuits against the 
project that Nevada has pending in Washington and Las Vegas. The 
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, based in Rockville, Md., is the 
agency from which the Energy Department must obtain a license to 
operate the Yucca Mountain repository 90 miles northwest of Las 
Vegas. The site is being designed to accept highly radioactive 
waste from 103 nuclear power plants and more than 30 military and 
industrial sites in 39 states beginning as early as 2010. 

Spokeswoman Rosetta Virgilio said Friday that she could not 
comment on Nevada's petition, which she said will be reviewed 
before the commission makes a decision whether to accept or 
reject it. She did not know when a decision would be made. 

Virgilio said the Energy Department plans to submit an 
application in December 2004 for a license to operate the Yucca 
Mountain repository. Under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, 
the commission has four years to make a decision. A spokesman for 
the Energy Department did not immediately respond to requests for 
comment. 

Egan said Friday's filing "lays out our legal case in chief." 

The state argues in its 46-page petition that the Energy 
Department found during 20 years of study that Yucca Mountain 
could not meet Congress' 1982 requirement that the natural rock 
of the repository be able to keep the nation's most dangerous 
radioactive material from escaping into the air or water. 

The Energy Department plan relies on a combination of natural and 
man-made barriers to meet Environmental Protection Agency 
standards calling for a person living near the site 10,000 years 
from now to receive less radiation than a person gets today from 
a standard chest X-ray. 

"The previous rules were based on safety," Egan said. "The 
current rules are based on meeting numerical requirements." 

The Energy Department plans to encase 77,000 tons of radioactive 
material in alloy casks and place them in a grid of mined 
tunnels, 1,000 deep in ancient volcanic rock. The site, at the 
western edge of the vast Nevada Test Site, would remain 
radioactive for tens of thousands of years. 

Opponents say that even in the desert, water will percolate into 
the tunnels, corrode the canisters and leach radioactivity into 
nearby groundwater. 

If the commission denies the petition, state officials said they 
might file another lawsuit. 

"We hope (the Nuclear Regulatory Commission) will do the right 
thing and amend its rule," state Attorney Gen. Frankie Sue Del 
Papa said in a statement. "If not, we'll ask the courts to do it 
for us." 

All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
 27 Waste fee proposal not simple 

billingsgazette.com - version 5.0
 
July 14, 2002

BY JENNIFER McKEE
Gazette State Bureau
 
HELENA - It sounds like a simple way to raise cash: Tax something 
nobody likes, like hazardous waste. 

Rep. Dee Brown, R-Kalispell, submitted a request for such a bill 
last week as legislators brainstorm ways to dig Montana out from 
its $45 million hole. But a tax on undesirables, in this case, 
might not be so simple. 

Brown said she intended the tax to apply to both nuclear and 
hazardous waste transported through the state. A final draft of 
the bill has yet to be written. 

Her rationale was simple: "There are perils for residents for 
spillage reasons," Brown said. 

If the fee applies only to nuclear waste, U.S. Energy Department 
spokesman Joe Davis said Montana isn't likely to generate much - 
if any - revenue. 

Montana is the only state west of the Dakotas that is not a 
designated route for nuclear waste shipments bound for the 
government's nuclear waste dump, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, 
in New Mexico. 

The other repository for nuclear waste, Yucca Mountain in Nevada, 
will house spent nuclear fuel from nuclear reactors. Davis said 
it's possible that nuclear fuel may one day travel through 
Montana on its way there, but Yucca Mountain has not been built 
and is years from opening. 

The Energy Department does move other nuclear materials around, 
he said, but those include things like actual nuclear bombs and 
nuclear materials moved for national defense and security reasons 
and their movements are secret. Davis wouldn't say if those 
shipments go through the state. 

"Could those shipments be taxed?" Davis asked. "I've never heard 
of that before." 

Dave Dreher, a spokesman for the Montana Department of 
Transportation, said they don't track shipments of either nuclear 
or hazardous waste and don't know how much, if any, of either 
moves across the state. 

Hazardous waste is a different story. Several other states 
already have fees applying to the transport of hazardous waste. 
But Brown may have to be careful about how her bill is worded. 

In 1992, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the State of 
Alabama, which had tried to attach a fee to hazardous waste 
trucked into the state. 

"No state may attempt to isolate itself from a problem common to 
the several states by raising barriers to the free flow of 
interstate trade," the court ruled. In the court's view, a fee 
attached to hazardous waste is not much different from a 
protectionist tax on out-of-state milk. They all violate the 
Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution. 

The court said only fees applied evenly to all hazardous waste - 
that from within and that from without - is OK. 

For now, Brown's hazardous waste bill is just one of dozens 
bubbling to the surface these days as legislators prepare for a 
special session in early August. 


Copyright © The Billings Gazette, a division of Lee Enterprises 
[http://www.leeenterprises.com] .
 
*****************************************************************
 28 Officials wary, not worried about nuclear waste

07/14/02

Pantagraph.com - News - 
 		 		 		 		
Online BLOOMINGTON -- McLean County ESDA Director Jim Wahls 
recalls a day several years ago when the phone rang at his 
agency. --> Sunday, July 14, 2002 

By Scott Richardson 
Pantagraph staff 

BLOOMINGTON -- McLean County ESDA Director Jim Wahls recalls a 
day several years ago when the phone rang at his agency.

 The caller informed Wahls that radioactive material would soon 
pass through the area.

 Wahls drove to an overpass over Interstate 55 at Chenoa and 
waited until he saw the semi carrying the radioactive load. He 
pulled into traffic and followed until the truck reached the 
county line.

 Similar scenes will be repeated many times over when officials 
begin moving nuclear waste from power plants, including the 
Exelon plant in Clinton, to the planned storage facility at Yucca 
Mountain, Nev. Transport could begin within a decade.

 "There is always a concern," said Wahls. "I will treat it as 
though something could happen. But, I don't think it's a big 
worry. I feel comfortable with it."

 Bloomington Fire Chief Keith Ranney, the city's emergency 
services director, agreed.

 He's come away from seminars on the transportation of 
radioactive waste convinced that radioactive shipments can be 
done safely. Trucks containing radioactive loads are surrounded 
by escorts as protection. Casks housing spent nuclear fuel are 
multi-walled containers built to withstand high-speed crashes and 
fire.

 "My own personal opinion is we don't face hazards to speak of 
from this type of accident," Ranney said.

 "There are so many safeguards in place with regards to this 
coming through town that it would be a safer product than 
gasoline. I am confident that in the event of an accident the 
equipment will contain the load," he said.

 U.S. Rep. Tim Johnson of Urbana noted that Illinois is one state 
that requires advance notice of shipments of radioactive waste, 
and Ranney pointed out that Illinois is among states that require 
radioactive shipments be escorted from border to border.

 If an accident would occur, an Air National Guard hazardous 
materials unit stationed in Bartonville would respond to 
Bloomington-Normal within an hour, Ranney said.

 As recently as last month, the guard unit underwent training in 
Nevada that included a simulated crash involving radioactive 
materials, he said. Local emergency personnel would assist by 
keeping people away and evacuating nearby neighborhoods, he and 
Wahls said.

 Bloomington Alderman Mike Matejka thinks local governments 
should take action to ensure that police and firefighters are 
prepared for the worst.

 "Within local capabilities, do we have the technology and what 
does it cost?" Matejka asked. "I don't think we can be too 
prepared."

 State officials recently announced plans to stockpile potassium 
iodide pills for residents living within 10 miles of nuclear 
power plants. In light of the approval of Yucca Mountain, Angelo 
Capparella, an environmental activist and Illinois State 
University biology professor, said local governments should go 
further and distribute the capsules to people along proposed 
routes to Nevada once they are known.

 Potassium iodide can combat thyroid cancers prevalent in the 
former Soviet Union after the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl in 
1986.

 But Capparella doubts such action will be taken because to do so 
would be viewed as an admission that something could go wrong.
 														 													   												 												
Copyright © 2002, Pantagraph Publishing Co. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 29 Cotter barred from taking radioactive materials

The Pueblo Chieftain Online - Saturday July 13th, 2002
 
[http://www.chieftain.com]                                                      
  
Saturday July 13th, 2002 						 						 						   
  					 					 
By TRACY HARMON 
The Pueblo Chieftain
 
CANON CITY - The Cotter Corp. uranium mill has been barred by the 
state health department from receiving any radioactive materials 
until the company addresses unresolved issues relating to worker 
protection.

 In a letter written Tuesday, Jake Jacobi, program manager for 
the Colorado Department of Public Heath's laboratory and 
radiation services division, notified Cotter that "many of the 
items identified in the department's April notice of violation 
are still not resolved."

 "The department is especially concerned about unresolved issues 
relating to the doses to radiation workers - dose calculations, 
bioassay and respiratory protection. Ensuring worker protection 
is of paramount importance to the department," Jacobi wrote.

 Although he recognized that progress has been made as Cotter and 
state health officials meet to resolve issues, Jacobi said, in 
the interest of worker safety, Cotter will suspend future receipt 
of radioactive materials for processing or for disposal. The only 
exceptions are materials already en route to the mill or 
materials meant for lab testing.

 However, radioactive material such as the 470,000 tons of 
Maywood, N.J., Superfund site waste soils which Cotter has been 
subcontracted to dispose of; as well as waste material from the 
Li Tungsten, N.Y., site which Cotter also hopes to accept, will 
not be received at Cotter until issues relating to radiation dose 
have been resolved.

 "We wanted them to make a little bit better and faster 
response," Jacobi explained.

 "A lot is in Cotter's court. I would expect within a week or two 
we may be able to get these issues resolved and then lift the 
suspension," Jacobi said.

 Jacobi said work will start next week when Cotter and state 
official will get together for an all-day meeting in an effort to 
come to a resolution.

 Cotter Mill Manager Patrick Mutz said he believes the suspension 
is temporary. "There is a lot of work we have been doing on the 
notice of violations and we have showed them what is left to do 
and set out a schedule, so we will try to accelerate that 
schedule a bit," Mutz said.

 Mutz said the suspension is not unusual for the state, but he 
believes the state officials decided to put the suspension in 
writing because of all the pressure that is on them from Cotter 
opponents. The suspension does not overly affect Cotter because 
the mill was not expecting any materials in the next few weeks, 
Mutz said.

 "We are expecting clearance from the state for the Maywood 
material and the Li Tungsten material, and if we get a favorable 
answer at the end of the month, we will probably be OK. If not, 
it is going to get real tight here," Mutz said.

 Cotter laid off 45 workers May 1 due to the delay in the Maywood 
shipments and some technical difficulties in processing zirconium 
ore which Cotter hopes will be its mainstay business.

 "It has not been easy, but hopefully it will all come together," 
Mutz said.

 A vocal opposition group which formed to try to stop the 
disposal of radioactive waste at the Cotter Mill - Colorado 
Citizen Against Toxic Waste - takes credit for applying pressure 
on the state health department to respond to the violations, said 
co-chairperson Sharyn Cunningham.

 "CCAT will continue to fight to keep out dangerous, radioactive 
wastes from Maywood and Li Tungsten. We don't want to see Fremont 
County become the radioactive, toxic waste dump site of the 
nation," Cunningham said. 

©1996-2002  [http://www.chieftain.com] The Star-Journal 
Publishing Corp.
*****************************************************************
 30 Central Illinois on radioactive route 

Pantagraph.com - News - 

Online BLOOMINGTON -- Trucks and train cars carrying nuclear 
waste could start rolling through Central Illinois within a 
decade. --> Sunday, July 14, 2002 

By Scott Richardson 
Pantagraph staff 

BLOOMINGTON -- Trucks and train cars carrying nuclear waste could 
start rolling through Central Illinois within a decade.

 After action by the U.S. Senate last week, roughly 100,000 
shipments will pass through 45 states over the next 30 years on 
their way to a permanent storage site in Nevada. More than 70,000 
tons of radioactive waste now are held in temporary storage at 
the nation's 131 commercial nuclear plants, including Exelon's 
facility in Clinton.

 Some estimates say as much as 80 percent of the waste could 
travel through Illinois from the state's 11 plants and from 
others in the East. Illinois ranks No. 1 in nuclear waste 
buildup, comprising 15 percent of the total.

 Exact travel routes are undetermined. But environmentalists who 
oppose the plan say waste from the Clinton plant will likely pass 
through the Twin Cities. Shipments from elsewhere also may travel 
through McLean County because of its location at the hub of three 
interstate highways.

 Waste from the LaSalle Nuclear Plant north of Streator will 
likely travel north to Interstate 80 then west through northern 
LaSalle County, environmentalists say.

 The U.S. Public Interest Research Group issued a report in June 
titled, "Radioactive Roads and Rails: Hauling Nuclear Waste 
Through Our Neighborhoods." In it, the group estimated that 109 
cities with populations exceeding 100,000 will be affected by the 
shipments.

 Environmentalists cite private studies and government estimates 
in predicting that more than 300 accidents could occur during 
transport. One spill could cost from $600 million to $14 billion 
to cleanup, depending on whether it occurs in a rural or urban 
area, and could result in thousands of cancer deaths, claims The 
Sierra Club, which opposes the plan.

 "I'm resigned to the fact it's likely going to pass through 
here," said Bloomington Mayor Judy Markowitz. "I don't know 
there's anything municipalities can do to stop it."

 "It's not appetizing anyway you look at it," added Bloomington 
Alderman Mike Matejka, who supports a central storage site. "But 
are we better off transporting it to where they say it is safe, 
or leaving it underwater down the road at Clinton?"

 The Senate answered that question on the federal level when it 
gave final approval to President Bush's $60 billion plan for a 
nuclear waste storage facility at Yucca Mountain, Nev. The vote 
came over objections from environmentalists and state officials 
in Nevada. Several lawsuits are pending against the project.

 Opponents argue the safety of the technology used to store spent 
nuclear fuel is untested. No one knows if it will stand the test 
of time. Environmentalists point out that some of the waste will 
be radioactive hundreds of thousands of years from now.

 They also note the area has a history of earthquakes and 
volcanoes and worry the mountain is porous enough to allow water 
to seep inside, raising concern about contamination of 
groundwater.

 Angelo Capparella, an environmental activist and biology 
professor at Illinois State University, sees the willingness of 
Congress to send waste to Nevada as a reflection of a 
not-in-my-backyard mentality.

 "It's a common reaction in Illinois -- export our waste instead 
of looking for alternatives," Capparella said. "I thought we were 
supposed to be good neighbors in Central Illinois. This looks 
like the least neighborly thing we can do."

 But even Illinois lawmakers with a history of siding with 
environmentalists support the Yucca Mountain site, including Rep. 
Tim Johnson. The Urbana Republican voted with the president when 
the House took up the issue earlier this year. U.S. Sen. Dick 
Durbin was one of the 15 Democrats who sided with the majority 
last week.

 Johnson underscored that nuclear-related materials already are 
transported through the United States without problems. In a nod 
to post-Sept. 11 security concerns, Johnson also worries that 
stockpiles of spent fuel at nuclear plants are vulnerable to 
terrorist attack.

 And, Johnson pointed out that Congress promised utility 
companies that the federal government would establish a permanent 
storage facility when the nation embarked on a program to use 
nuclear power for electricity more than a quarter century ago.

 "Any vote like this causes discomfort," Johnson said. "But this 
is an imperfect world. Yucca Mountain was the most viable of the 
alternatives."

 Durbin opposed Yucca Mountain in two earlier votes. But he 
recently changed his mind after the U.S. Environmental Protection 
Agency established stronger radiation and groundwater 
contamination standards that exceed previous guidelines.

 In an op-ed article in the Chicago Tribune before last week's 
vote, Durbin wrote: "No site will ever be perfect for the storage 
of high-level nuclear waste, but I believe the studies which have 
already been conducted and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission 
review still to come provide sufficient assurances that Yucca 
Mountain is the most appropriate site available."

 Still, Durbin admits getting the radioactive material to Nevada 
raises the potential of economic damage and property loss in 
cities and communities along shipping routes.

 In response, he is introducing legislation in the Senate "that 
would direct the federal government to develop a comprehensive 
safety program for nuclear waste transportation," he said. The 
legislation "would require the waste containment casks to be 
tested to ensure they could withstand intense fires, high-speed 
collisions and other threats that may occur during transport."

 Durbin also wants states consulted on transportation routes and 
given two weeks' notice of waste shipments. The latter 
requirement could be problematic -- the Public Interest Research 
Group estimates Chicago could see a shipment every 15 hours, St. 
Louis one every 13 hours.

 Durbin also wants a ban on shipments by barge.

 "I'm convinced a safe and reliable transportation plan can be 
developed, but we have to start the process now," he said.

 Johnson agreed.

 "The federal government is going to take every available step to 
make sure the transportation of nuclear waste is fail-safe," 
Johnson said.
 														 													   												 												
Copyright © 2002, Pantagraph Publishing Co. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 31 editorial: Don't close book on Yucca                              

Denver Post.com

Saturday, July 13, 2002                          - 

Congress must continue asking questions and paying close 
attention to the future of the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear 
waste storage project. That the U.S. Senate recently followed the 
House's politically convenient route and approved the site is no 
excuse for Congress to ignore its duty to protect human health 
and the environment. 

If future studies or geological events show Yucca Mountain is 
unsuitable as an atomic waste dump, Congress must summon the 
political courage to nix future development of the project 90 
miles northwest of Las Vegas. In fact, rather than shutting the 
door on alternatives for storing nuclear waste, Congress should 
fund research into new technologies. That is, in fact, how some 
nuclear-dependent European countries are approaching the global 
problem of nuclear waste storage.
 
Indeed, the U.S. commercial nuclear industry has done some 
remarkable work already, squeezing more energy out of each gram 
of atomic fuel, thus reducing the amount of waste that will have 
to be stored or otherwise handled in the years to come. Future 
research could similarly pay big dividends. Congress also must 
recognize that some important scientific studies are still 
underway on the Yucca Mountain site, particularly concerning 
potential groundwater contamination by radionuclides. It would be 
unconscionable for Congress to let the Yucca Mountain project go 
forward if the studies reveal significant dangers. It was 
imprudent and heavy-handed for Congress, in the 1980s, to commit 
itself to only one storage site long before the location had been 
adequately studied. Much of the research conducted during the 
past two decades at Yucca Mountain thus hasn't been asking 
objectively and dispassionately whether the site is safe, but 
intensely focused on proving that it it could be safe regardless 
of how many hard-to-solve problems cropped up during the studies. 
Still, most senators could vote for the controversial project 
because, hey, it's not in their states. But last time anyone 
checked the map, Nevada is still part of our country, and its 
people deserve to be protected against unreasonable risks not 
imposed on residents of any other part of the country.
			
Copyright 2002 The Denver Post
*****************************************************************
 32 BNFL loses £2bn after nuclear storage write-down

   money.telegraph.co.uk - 

By Mary Fagan  	 (Filed: 14/07/2002) 

British Nuclear Fuels, the state-owned nuclear group, will this 
week unveil a colossal loss of more than £2bn for last year, 
after charges linked to nuclear waste storage and the early 
closure of two Magnox electricity generating power plants.
 
However, the loss masks a return to the black at the operating 
level, following the previous year's £210m deficit.
 
BNFL, which the Government eventually hopes to privatise, has 
informed ministers that it will make an exceptional charge of 
£1.9bn linked to a reassessment of the cost of storing of 
radioactive waste.
 
The company had previously based its cost estimates on storage by 
Nirex, the nuclear waste body. However, the future of Nirex has 
been increasingly uncertain since it was refused planning 
permission in 1997 on a site for the storage of low and 
intermediate level waste. BNFL is working with the Environment 
Agency and the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate in an attempt 
to establish a storage solution at Sellafield in Cumbria.
 
The exceptional charges have now been increased by up to £300m 
after BNFL's decision to bring forward the closure of Calder Hall 
nuclear power station in Cumbria and the Chapelcross reactor in 
Scotland. Based on an earlier £140m charge for the closure of 
Hinkley power station, BNFL's total write-downs are likely to be 
£2.2bn.
 
Under plans drawn up by the Government to establish a nuclear 
Liabilities Management Agency, which would take over the 
responsibility for liabilities from BNFL and the UK Atomic Energy 
Authority, those charges would no longer lie with BNFL. However, 
there is no guarantee when the LMA will be up and running.
 
Last week Norman Askew, BNFL's chief executive, told the House of 
Commons Trade and Industry Select Committee that he hoped the LMA 
will be operating by October 2003. But that depends on a Bill 
being included in the Queen's speech this November. DTI sources 
suggest the legislation is likely to be delayed..
 

© Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2002. 
*****************************************************************
 33 OP: Yucca Mountain

The Beaufort Gazette: 
 
If not there, where is a safe place?                    

Published Thu, Jul 11, 2002                     

Many Americans, members of Congress among them, think that the 
nation will regret a Senate vote Tuesday to send the nation's 
radioactive waste to a remove grave in Nevada. The retort to that 
sentiment is: If not Yucca Mountain, where? Where is a safer 
place in the United States?

 The U.S. Senate vote designating Yucca Mountain, a remote area 
100 miles north of Las Vegas, as the final resting place for 
thousands of tons of radioactive waste for eternity, concurs with 
a May vote by the U.S. House of Representatives.

 Even though the United States started creating radioactive 
nuclear waste more than five decades ago when scientists first 
split atoms, the issue of a repository hasn't been settled until 
Tuesday.

 Why Yucca Mountain? How does it work? According to Knight Ridder 
News Service, "Containers of radioactive waste, 10 percent from 
federal weapons work, 90 percent of it from commercial nuclear 
reactors, would be buried in tunnels 800 feet below the surface 
of the 4,946-foot mountain, but still hundreds of feet above the 
water table. The surrounding desert gets only about 6 inches of 
rainfall each year. The water usually evaporates in the high heat 
before seeping underground. Water that does seep into the ground 
is taken up by scarce plant roots, stopped by numerous layers of 
impermeable rocks, and sucked up by other types of rock Ã‰ ."

 Some scientists have said this repository under an ancient 
volcanic ridge isn't good enough because water still could seep 
into the area and that 10,000 years from now, no one knows what 
could happen.

 Few people have talked about the issue of water seepage. Most 
people have complained about getting the waste there safely. The 
waste would travel across nearly every state. 

The problems of long-term storage and shipment to Yucca Maintain 
are exceeded only by allowing the radioactive waste to remain in 
131 sites spread throughout 39 states, says The Sacramento Bee.

 "The peril of the status quo, particularly in this new era of 
terrorism, is conveniently avoided by the critics of Yucca 
Mountain. This waste is a target one way or another wherever it 
is, either in transport or at existing locations, some of which 
are dangerously near population centers Ã‰"

 Concerns about shipment and storage are understandable. Since 
Sept. 11, all Americans have focused on potential terrorists 
attacks. Water seepage into Yucca Mountain is a concern, too, but 
concerns are minimal compared to alternatives. But always, the 
question comes back: If not there, where? "Arguably it would have 
been nicer to have a menu of options rather than one proposal, 
Yucca Mountain. A few sites throughout the country certainly 
would have reduced transportation issues, although there is no 
way to eliminate them. But no state has exactly volunteered to be 
the home of this waste," according to The Bee.

 "Nevada is understandably not happy. Yet this site has been 
studied for about two decades at a cost of $7 billion. The 
scientific consensus is about as strong as one could expect. If 
the Senate gives Yucca Mountain the nod, the ensuing years-long 
court battle will give the nation more time to study both this 
site and the difficult questions of transportation. There's no 
choice but to find the lowest-risk approach to get this 
radioactive waste from here to there. And at this point, Yucca 
Mountain looks like the best option for the endpoint of these 
journeys."                     

Copyright © 2002 The Beaufort Gazette • Use of this site 
*****************************************************************
 34 Hatch and Bennett compromise on Yucca N-site — sparing Utah
 
[deseretnews.com] 

Sunday, July 14, 2002
 	   	 
Deseret News editorial

The Senate has given final approval to store the nation's nuclear 
waste at Yucca Mountain. That means the Bush administration can 
seek a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for the 
underground repository.

Workers leave Yucca Mountain tunnel in Nevada, the approved 
nuclear-waste storage site used by Utah's senators in deal to 
avoid waste storage in Utah. [''] Joe Cavaretta, Associated Press  

       It also marks a new stage in the process: Send in the 
lawyers for what portends to be a protracted legal fight.

       Meanwhile, nuclear waste continues to accumulate at the 
nation's nuclear power plants. With Yucca Mountain tied up in 
litigation for what could be years, the nuclear energy industry 
is going to be looking for options. Thanks to Sens. Orrin Hatch 
and Bob Bennett, the Skull Valley Goshute reservation likely will 
not be one of them.

       Hatch and Bennett struck a deal with the Bush 
administration that should ensure that the proposed Skull Valley 
repository won't come to fruition. In exchange for their support 
for Yucca Mountain, the administration agreed to block the use of 
federal funds collected from utility customers or waste storage 
to help Private Fuel Storage, a consortium of Midwest utilities 
that is behind the Skull Valley project. That means the federal 
government would refuse to help pay for shipping waste to the 
proposed facility in Tooele County. This move should render it 
too costly for utilities to proceed on their own.

       While some environmentalists and anti-nuke activists are 
critical of the compromise struck by Hatch and Bennett, consider 
the dreadful choices they had been presented. Voting against 
Yucca Mountain would have energized the movement to place a 
"temporary" nuclear waste repository in Skull Valley.

       Waste would be transported through Utah in either event — 
the permitting of Yucca Mountain or Skull Valley. That issue was 
really sixes.

       By voting for Yucca Mountain, Hatch and Bennett had an 
opportunity to hold the administration's feet to the fire with 
respect to the Skull Valley repository. While Hatch and Bennett 
couldn't halt the project, they have made it very difficult for 
out-of-state utilities to bankroll the repository and 
transportation costs on their own.

       Still, some accuse Hatch and Bennett of NIMBY politics. 
How oversimplistic.

       This debate has taken many turns in the past 24 years. At 
first, multiple sites were under consideration. Because of 
political gamesmanship and other influence, many candidates 
dropped off the list. In the 1980s, Congress narrowed the 
possible sites to Yucca Mountain and authorized the Department of 
Energy Department to study it. After lengthy studies of its 
geology, the Energy Department concluded it could safely store 
radioactive materials underground for 10,000 years.

       In other words, the political decision that the West would 
be the likely dumping ground for nuclear waste occurred a long 
time ago.

       If the Skull Valley proposal wasn't in the picture, Hatch 
and Bennett would have had other considerations. But Skull Valley 
has been rolling through the regulatory process. As Bennett said, 
"Given the choice before us, I would rather have the waste go 
through Utah than to Utah."

       In a perfect world, out-of-state utilities that generate 
electricity using nuclear power would manage their own waste or 
the approved repositories would, at least, be regionalized. But 
that's not the reality of 2002. The best Hatch and Bennett could 
do was to take proactive steps to keep nuclear waste storage out 
of Utah.

       In politics, there's an old saying about the art of 
compromise that goes "Half a loaf is better than none at all." 
Instead of ridiculing them, as some have, give Hatch and Bennett 
credit for a compromise reached under less-than-optimal 
circumstances. 
	 
	   	 
 © 2002 Deseret News Publishing Company 
*****************************************************************
 35 Nevada urges stricter safety rules for nuke dump
 
   [online@rgj.com]   

ASSOCIATED PRESS
7/12/2002 09:54 pm 
	
LAS VEGAS — Nevada opened a new front Friday in its attempt to 
block the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump, petitioning the 
Nuclear Regulatory Commission for stricter safety standards at 
the site.

The administrative appeal to the NRC comes three days after 
Congress gave final legislative approval to President Bush’s 
selection of Yucca Mountain as the site to entomb the nation’s 
spent nuclear fuel.

“We’re saying they shouldn’t be allowed to go forward until this 
is resolved,” said Marta Adams, the senior deputy state attorney 
general coordinating the five federal lawsuits against the 
project that Nevada has pending in Washington and Las Vegas.

The Energy Department must obtain a license from the NRC to 
operate the Yucca Mountain repository 90 miles northwest of Las 
Vegas. The site is being designed to accept highly radioactive 
waste from 103 nuclear power plants and more than 30 military and 
industrial sites in 39 states beginning as early as 2010.

Spokeswoman Rosetta Virgilio said Friday that she could not 
comment on Nevada’s petition, which she said will be reviewed 
before the commission makes a decision whether to accept or 
reject it. She did not know when a decision would be made.

Virgilio said the Energy Department plans to submit an 
application in December 2004 for a license to operate the Yucca 
Mountain repository. Under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, 
the commission has four years to make a decision.

A spokesman for the Energy Department did not immediately respond 
to requests for comment.

The state argues in its 46-page petition that the Energy 
Department found during 20 years of study that Yucca Mountain 
could not meet Congress’ 1982 requirement that the natural rock 
of the repository be able to keep the nation’s most dangerous 
radioactive material from escaping into the air or water.

The Energy Department plan relies on a combination of natural and 
man-made barriers to meet Environmental Protection Agency 
standards calling for a person living near the site 10,000 years 
from now to receive less radiation than a person gets today from 
a standard chest X-ray.

“The previous rules were based on safety,” said Joseph Egan, the 
McLean, Va.-based lawyer handling the state’s challenges of the 
project in Washington. “The current rules are based on meeting 
numerical requirements.”

The Energy Department plans to encase 77,000 tons of radioactive 
material in alloy casks and place them in a grid of mined 
tunnels, 1,000 deep in ancient volcanic rock. The site, at the 
western edge of the vast Nevada Test Site, would remain 
radioactive for tens of thousands of years.

Opponents say that even in the desert, water will percolate into 
the tunnels, corrode the canisters and leach radioactivity into 
nearby groundwater.

If the commission denies the petition, state officials said they 
might file another lawsuit.

“We hope (the NRC) will do the right thing and amend its rule,” 
state Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa said in a statement. 
“If not, we’ll ask the courts to do it for us.”
 		   		   				
Copyright Reno Gazette-Journal, a Gannett Co. Inc. 
*****************************************************************
 36 Skull Valley plan far from dead
 
[deseretnews.com] 
 	
Sunday, July 14, 2002
 	   	 
Utilities' promise to Bennett, Hatch may carry little weight
 	
Skull Valley plan far from dead                
 	
N-waste foes see Yucca vote as a lose-lose for Utah

By Donna Kemp Spangler
Deseret News staff writer
 	 	 	 	 		 		 		 	 		 		 		 		 © 2002 Deseret News
       There was no cheering by Utah officials fighting to keep 
nuclear waste out of the state. There were no back slaps or high 
fives, and there was no outward sense of victory.

       For, observers note, one possible result of the U.S. 
Senate vote last week authorizing a permanent waste dump at 
Nevada's Yucca Mountain is that a similar, albeit "temporary," 
facility on Goshute tribal lands in Tooele County's remote Skull 
Valley also may have moved closer to reality.

       "If the Nuclear Regulatory Commission decides to license 
Skull Valley, there will be some interest in building it 
regardless of what happens at Yucca Mountain," says Dianne 
Nielson, executive director of the Utah Department of 
Environmental Quality and the state's point person in opposition 
to the Skull Valley project.

       For nuclear waste foes, the Yucca Mountain vote was deemed 
a lose-lose situation for Utah no matter how it had gone.

       If the Senate had defeated Yucca Mountain, the only other 
option on the table for the nuclear power industry would have 
been Skull Valley, where a consortium of utilities called Private 
Fuel Storage has a lease with the Goshutes to store nuclear waste 
in above-ground canisters for up to 40 years.

       By approving Yucca Mountain, the Senate sparked a legal 
chain reaction that is likely to keep the federal storage plan in 
court for years. The earliest Yucca Mountain could open for 
business is 2010, but industry officials expect it to be much 
later than that.

       And because the nuclear power industry needs a storage 
site now, Skull Valley remains a viable option in the interim.

       "The vote on Yucca Mountain was very important," says 
Scott Northard, PFS project manager. "But we are still proceeding 
through the licensing process" for the $3.1 billion Skull Valley 
facility.

       Sens. Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett, both R-Utah, said they 
voted in favor of the Yucca Mountain project in exchange for a 
promise from the Bush administration that it would help 
circumvent PFS by throwing up financial roadblocks.

       But PFS subsequently noted that it had never planned to 
tap federal money to support the project, and there is nothing 
financially the federal government is obliged to do.

       In the meantime, the federal Atomic Safety and Licensing 
Board is expected to make a recommendation to the NRC by the end 
of the year.

 Nuclear economics

       But if Yucca Mountain is set to begin accepting waste 
sometime over the next decade, is a temporary site in Skull 
Valley really necessary?

       Yes, PFS says. Skull Valley is a stopgap until Yucca 
Mountain comes on line, and without Skull Valley, some nuclear 
power plants will be forced to shut down once their storage 
capacity is reached.

       But Steve Kraft, a scientist with the Nuclear Energy 
Institute, an industry group, says the issue is more about 
economics than it is about lack of storage space.

       Most power plants have adequate storage space, and all 
could temporarily store spent nuclear fuel rods in above-ground 
canisters similar to the ones targeted for Skull Valley.

       But storing nuclear waste on-site is a political hot 
button. Local communities don't want the waste, and at least one 
state, Minnesota — where PFS is based — passed a law limiting the 
amount of waste that can be stored on site. That limit is 
expected to be reached in 2007 when the Prairie Island plant 
would be forced to shut down.

       At least 12 nuclear power plants have shut down, but they 
are unable to be decommissioned because there is no place to take 
the waste that built up during plant operations. Until a waste 
solution is found, the utilities are forced to maintain the sites 
and manage the waste, all at a very high cost to the utilities.

       But couldn't the utilities bite the bullet for another 10 
years until Yucca Mountain comes on line?

       "Even when you add the cost of shipping, it is more 
cost-effective to build a centralized facility," Northard says.

       That would seem to support Utah's long-held argument that 
states that generate nuclear waste could leave it where it is 
until a permanent site is ready, but for financial reasons have 
chosen not to.

 A national dilemma

       Kraft says the nuclear power industry is in a pickle. It 
has operated for decades with assurances from the U.S. Department 
of Energy that it would take the waste off its hands. The 
utilities have already paid billions in special taxes to pay for 
permanent storage.

       About 44,000 tons of spent fuel are now stockpiled around 
the country (not counting military waste). Currently, there are 
103 commercial nuclear power plants generating another 2,000 tons 
of spent nuclear fuel each year.

       Yucca Mountain is designed for 77,000 tons, a capacity 
that will be reached soon after it opens.

       Those numbers have Nielson worried. Once Yucca Mountain is 
full, where will the 2,000 tons per year go? If Skull Valley is 
licensed as a temporary facility — a decision on the PFS license 
is expecting late this year — then it becomes likely that the 
waste generated in the decades to come will go to Utah, she says.

       Nielson says it is a matter of simple math: The combined 
capacity of Yucca Mountain and Skull Valley (117,000 tons) almost 
exactly matches the anticipated total of nuclear waste that will 
need to be stored over the next four decades — the lease period 
for Skull Valley.

       Kraft says that argument, while perhaps mathematically 
accurate, ignores the reality that Yucca Mountain has the room to 
store more than 100,000 tons of nuclear waste if Congress so 
authorizes.

       But it also illustrates the national dilemma of creating 
an endless stream of nuclear waste with no coherent plan to 
dispose of it in the decades ahead. Until the Senate vote, the 
industry had no certainty there ever would be a permanent storage 
site, a reality that has stymied the expansion of nuclear power 
for years.

       With the nation in an energy crisis that is expected to 
worsen, nuclear power is championed by many as a clean, 
environmentally friendly solution.

       President Bush, for one, has pointed to expansion of the 
nation's nuclear energy capabilities.

       But the wonders of nuclear power, Nielson says, are an 
illusion if the nation does not first develop a strategy to 
permanently deal with the toxic wastes that remain lethal for 
10,000 years.

       "If you want nuclear power, the jobs, the economic 
benefits that accrue from the power source, you have to assume 
the responsibility for managing the waste," she says.

       That applies to waste already created as well as to waste 
that is yet to come.
 
E-mail: donna@desnews.com [donna@desnews.com] 

 © 2002 Deseret News Publishing Company 
*****************************************************************
 37 EDITORIAL: Appeal from hibakusha

asahi.com : ENGLISH
 
Asahi Shimbun      [http://www.asahi.com/]     

Re-examine standards for determining status.
 
The formula for calculating radiation exposure to decide whether 
someone is an A-bomb victim is vulnerable to error.
 
Applications have been filed by 76 hibakusha nationwide seeking 
government's recognition as suffering from A-bomb diseases under 
the A-bomb Victim Assistance Law. They plan to join a 
class-action lawsuit against the government if their applications 
are rejected. They want the government to change what they regard 
as an unduly strict criteria for the aid.
 
The government provides a special medical allowance of 140,000 
yen a month for those certified as suffering from cancer and 
other diseases attributed to the effects of radiation from the 
atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the closing days 
of World War II.
 
Until recently, the government had refused to reveal the criteria 
for judging such patients. Disclosure was mandated in May 2001 
after a Supreme Court ruling in a suit brought in Nagasaki 
Prefecture seeking redress for lower court rejection of hibakusha 
seeking to qualify two years ago.
 
Probability that a person exposed to A-bomb radiation would 
develop cancer is calculated on the basis of the distance between 
the victim and the focus of the bomb blast, factoring in 
epidemiological findings, the patient's age and sex. Applicants 
determined to be at greater risk of cancer and needing medical 
treatment are qualified for the official designation.
 
It is quite difficult to prove a causal relationship between 
radiation and illness. A-bomb victims complain that the 
government's standards are too rigid. Some also resent the fact 
that the Supreme Court ruling has not been exercised to good 
advantage. Indeed, just about 1 percent of the 285,600 people 
certified as hibakusha on the basis of atomic bomb radiation 
exposure in 1945 have been officially designated as suffering 
from the effects of the bombings.
 
But the government insists it is not necessary to revise the 
standards for designating patients of A-bomb diseases because 
other steps have been taken, even for those who are not able to 
demonstrate clear cause-and-effect relationship between A-bomb 
radiation exposure and their illnesses.
 
Medical fees are waived for victims of A-bomb radiation. The 
government also provides a monthly allowance of about 34,000 yen 
for medical care for about 240,000 victims of heart ailments and 
blood disorders, where a relationship with nuclear radiation 
cannot be ruled out.
 
The formula for calculating radiation exposure to decide whether 
someone is an A-bomb victim is vulnerable to error. It does not 
fully take inito account, for example, the effects of exposure to 
radiation from radioactive materials that were inhaled by 
respiration or taken in with drinking water. Perhaps because the 
government criterion tend to undercompensate for the radiation 
dangers to adult males, it is very hard to accurately judge the 
source of illness for those who entered Hiroshima or Nagasaki as 
rescue workers after the two cities were hit by the bombs.
 
One of the horrors of atomic bombs is that we cannot be sure that 
a small dosage of radiation is not a health hazard. We believe 
the government should review its standards for determining 
hibakusha radiation diseases in this instance, by, for example, 
considering whether the patient has ever experienced acute 
physical disorders such as abnormal hair loss.
 
The applications being filed for being recognized as A-bomb 
disease sufferers en masse have renewed attention to the present 
approach to helping A-bomb victims, which, many people say, has 
begun to fade.
 
The damage dealt by the atomic bombs is not something of the 
past. Even now, some people are reluctant to seek hibakusha 
status for fear of being stigmatized or discriminated against 
until after their children are grown and become independent. Only 
in recent years have people become concerned about post-traumatic 
stress disorder resulting from the bombings.
 
The mass hibakusha applications at this time for recognition as 
A-bomb disease sufferers present a fresh opportunity to recognize 
the horrors of nuclear weapons for those exposed to their 
radiation even nearly 57 years after the atomic bombings. This 
should not be merely a topic of discussion on whether to honor 
their appeals. The Asahi Shimbun, July 12(IHT/Asahi: July 
13,2002)
 
(07/13)
   
  [Copyright Asahi Shimbun
*****************************************************************
 38 The Pentagon is looking to build a nuclear weapon tailor-made for 
the fight against terror (7/22/02)
 
  [usnews.com]

The Pentagon's nuclear priesthood believes an earth-penetrating 
nuclear bomb might be used to destroy underground bunkers–often 
hundreds of feet deep–that may hide chemical and biological 
weapons labs and are out of reach of modern conventional weapons. 
Says a top defense official: "Would you want countries that are 
interested in weapons of mass destruction, and possibly using 
those weapons of mass destruction against the United States, to 
know that they have a sanctuary for these types of capabilities?" 

This dramatic shift in nuclear policy is the most recent evidence 
of a new Bush administration military strategy that contemplates 
pre-emptive first strikes–and even the remote possibility of 
using nuclear weapons–against outlaw states such as Iraq. Its 
"Nuclear Posture Review," completed earlier this year, signaled a 
willingness to use such weapons against nonnuclear states such as 
Syria. Now the administration wants money to study how a nuclear 
weapon can be re-engineered to destroy hardened, underground 
targets. A bunker-busting nuke would be designed to burrow 
through as much as 40 feet of earth and reinforced concrete 
before detonating. Although much of the blast would be contained 
underground, many scientists believe that a resulting radioactive 
cloud could still kill civilians miles away. "Instead of 100,000 
people, it's 10,000 people," says Robert Nelson, a Princeton 
University physicist. "That's still a hell of a lot."
 
The $15.5 million budget request for the RNEP study is pocket 
lint compared with the overall $390 billion defense bill making 
its way through Congress. Yet some lawmakers say the money is a 
Trojan horse designed to free the Pentagon to incorporate nuclear 
weapons into war plans against nonnuclear enemies. "It does raise 
troubling issues in terms of whether or not we are lowering the 
threshold for the deployment of nuclear weapons," says Sen. Jack 
Reed, a Democrat from Rhode Island. Reed and other senators 
persuaded the Senate Armed Services Committee to kill the RNEP 
study, setting up a summer budget showdown with the White House. 

First use. The Pentagon insists the weapon doesn't change nuclear 
doctrine: It would be a weapon of last resort, only the president 
could order its use, and its purpose would primarily be to deter 
adversaries. During the Cold War, the United States did not rule 
out the use of battlefield nuclear weapons, in part to deter the 
numerically superior Red Army from crossing the German frontier. 
Since Moscow knew that it could not attack Europe without risking 
nuclear retaliation, it would not strike. 

The Bush administration is making a similar case that small 
nuclear weapons deter new adversaries. Saddam Hussein, for 
example, may not believe that the United States would ever drop a 
nuclear weapon on Baghdad. He might not be so sanguine about the 
prospect of a strike by a smaller nuke. "You must be able to 
convince the person, the country that you are trying to deter, 
that there is credibility behind that deterrent," said J. D. 
Crouch, a top aide to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. 

What's not clear, however, is how developing a bunker-busting 
nuke that would be used in a first strike strengthens nuclear 
deterrence. The White House is advocating pre-emptive strikes 
against nations building weapons of mass destruction largely 
because it says that Cold War thinking doesn't apply when 
fighting fanatical terrorists. "The underlying logic of Cold War 
deterrence was that rational people would not commit suicide," 
says Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute. "People feel a 
lot less secure making that assumption today." Consequently, some 
in the administration advocate striking at terrorist targets by 
any means possible. 

Such a posture, some argue, is hypocritical as Washington tries 
to keep other countries from joining the nuclear club. "With such 
a strategy, how can you get on your high horse with Iran?" asks 
Lawrence Korb of the Council on Foreign Relations. "What are you 
going to tell India and Pakistan?" Here's what Rumsfeld told 
them, on a recent mission to talk the rivals back from the 
nuclear brink: "We think it's important that the nuclear 
threshold not be lowered." 
  
    Copyright (c) 2002 U.S. News & World Report, L.P. All rights 
*****************************************************************
 39 Government interviews ex-Amchitka workers 

Anchorage Daily News 

 AT RISK: People on island at time of nuclear blasts may be 
eligible for compensation. 

The Associated Press 

(Published: July 13, 2002) 

Fairbanks -- Don Lowell remembers Amchitka Island rocking like a 
boat in stormy seas when a 5 million-ton nuclear device exploded 
deep within the Aleutian chain in 1971.

 Lowell, who attended the explosion on behalf of then-Gov. Bill 
Egan, and other witnesses hunkered down in a bunker miles from 
ground zero. They had placed bets on how the explosion would rank 
on the Richter scale.

 "The scientists were pretty close," Lowell said. The seismic 
wave registered 5.3. 

On Thursday, Lowell attended a meeting for people who worked on 
Amchitka Island and now may be sick from radiation exposure. 
Those people may be eligible for a federal compensation program, 
said Don Weber, program director for the Amchitka Workers' 
Medical Surveillance Program.

 Weber is on a quest to find as many as he can of the 3,000 to 
4,000 people who worked on the island between 1964 and September 
1993. He also is looking for family and friends of those workers.

 Lowell, 73, said he is in perfect health. He witnessed two 
Amchitka nuclear explosions on behalf of Alaska: the 1965 
explosion known as Long Shot and the 1971 explosion called 
Cannikin. Lowell did not witness a 1969 explosion.

 He planned to sign up for the program and get the physical 
examination the program offers.

 "I'll follow through for protection of my wife and family," he 
said.

 The program was started through the efforts of a group of women 
whose husbands worked on Amchitka in the early 1970s and died 
later that decade, Weber said.

 The Atomic Energy Commission sponsored the three nuclear blasts. 
For 20 years, the widows worked to find out what happened to 
their husbands.

 In the mid-1990s, they got the attention of the Alaska State 
District Council of Laborers. From there, the group gained the 
support of the state and the Alaska congressional delegation. 
Together they were able to convince the Department of Energy to 
fund a compensation program.

 In 2000, Congress passed the Energy Employees Occupational 
Illness Compensation Act, covering all employees who worked for 
the Energy Department, its contractors and subcontractors. The 
Amchitka program will help people with the related paperwork, 
Weber said.

 About 20 people came to the meeting on Thursday. Among them was 
Gary Geist, 59, a heavy equipment mechanic in 1988 on Amchitka. 
He's not sick and he's not worried, though his wife, Patty, is.

 "He had lung surgery," she said. "He had a node on his lung. It 
could have been cancer."

 The Amchitka program covers 26 illnesses, including 24 cancers 
and two lung diseases.

 Tina Gardner, 41, was a housekeeper who cleaned workers' 
quarters in 1990. For years she has been getting letters from the 
Amchitka program asking for information about her work 
experience. She's ignored them, but every time she gets something 
as common as a cold, she wonders deep down if she is sick with 
something else.

 "It's weird. It's scary," she said.

 Besides talking to workers, Weber is seeking friends and 
survivors of workers to find out as much information as possible 
about work on Amchitka. More information on the program can be 
obtained by calling the Amchitka Workers' Medical Surveillance 
Program at 888-827-6772. 

 The Anchorage Daily News [http://www.adn.com] 
*****************************************************************
 40 UK: NUCLEAR SUB DELAYS FORCE YARD REVAMP 

The NorthWest Evening Mail
 
[http://www.cumbria-online.co.uk] 

A BIG management reorganisation is on the cards to reduce delays 
on the Astute nuclear submarine programme being completed at 
Barrow shipyard.

The Ministry of Defence has criticised BAE this week for being 
more than a year late on the first new generation Royal Navy 
submarine being built in the Devonshire Dock Hall.

The MoD revealed the first Astute class submarine, costing £1bn, 
will not enter service until late 2006.

BAE spokesman John Bonnick said: "We have to utilise our 
resources as effectively as we can. 

"We have moved on from the early stages of the Astute project and 
have reached a stage of maturity and we are looking to further 
integrate our processes. "The way we are structured we have two 
organisations: the Prime Contract Office, which manages the 
programme including all systems, design, construction, weapons, 
and all technology. 

"A lot of that staff is not based at the yard. 

"Then there is BAE Systems Marine that is based in Barrow. What 
we are doing is having a more integrated approach between the PCO 
and BAE Marine." BAE blames problems at the design stage for the 
delays.

Junior Defence minister Dr Lewis Moonie says the MoD is now 
working closely with BAE Systems to make up the delays.

Dr Moonie said: "BAE Systems is taking a range of management and 
other actions to minimise the slippage.

"This includes a reassessment of the optimum time to perform the 
launch during the build sequence.

"Revised launch dates will not be available until later this 
year. "After the initial entry into service the plan calls for 
considerable trials and work up period before the boat can become 
fully operational.

"BAE Systems is also working to minimise any delay to the other 
two submarines on order, HMS Ambush and HMS Artful."

The MOD plans to buy three more Astute class submarines but a 
firm decision on the order will not be made until later this 
year.

The hunter killer submarines will be based at Faslane in 
Scotland. 

BAE Systems is constructing two other Astute class submarines, 
fitted with Tomahawk cruise missiles at its Barrow yard.

The MoD has rejected a call by BAE to be automatically first in 
the queue for new defence contracts.     

*****************************************************************
 41 Hanford cleanup plan seen as cutting corners
 
Energy Department faulted for trying to 'move the goal line'
 
Friday, July 12, 2002
 
By CHARLES POPE
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT
 
WASHINGTON -- The Department of Energy's attempt to accelerate 
cleanup of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation ran into conflict 
yesterday as a Senate committee worried that the plan could allow 
the government to cut corners and lower cleanup standards.
 
"Moving the goal line," as one Washington state official put it.
 
Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said the program could allow the 
department to leave waste at Hanford by reclassifying it from 
high-level nuclear waste to a less dangerous rating. She also 
said the department has not spelled out how much money will be 
available for cleanup for the next three years, a failure that 
could disrupt complex jobs that require a steady and predictable 
stream of money.
 
"For us, lifting the veil of secrecy (about the plan's details) 
and making sure there are no 'gotchas' is critical," Cantwell 
said.
 
Although Cantwell and others on the Senate Energy and Natural 
Resources Committee said there are some positive signs in the 
cleanup effort, Cantwell said there are "uncertainties that 
linger in the minds of many of my constituents." 

"We have yet to see details or the numbers associated with that 
commitment, for this year, fiscal year 2004 or subsequent years," 
she said. "DOE has broken with tradition and failed to release 
its projected budget requests, which leaves many wondering 
whether the department is writing checks it can actually cash."
 
Money for cleanup is a major issue every year. The administration 
has proposed $1.8 billion for cleanup at Hanford for the next 
fiscal year, an amount that state officials say is $300 million 
less than is needed to comply with the 13-year-old Tri-Party 
Agreement, the contract involving the state, the Energy 
Department and the Environmental Protection Agency dictating how 
cleanup will proceed. 

The Energy Department estimates it will cost $50 billion and take 
nearly 40 years to clean up Hanford, which produced plutonium for 
nuclear weapons during the Cold War but has become one of the 
most contaminated places on Earth.
 
The biggest concern is 57 million gallons of highly radioactive 
waste stored in 177 aging underground tanks. Some of the waste 
has already leaked, and experts fear that it could reach the 
Columbia River.
 
The Energy Department plans to pump the waste from those tanks 
and turn it into glass logs that can be safely buried.
 
But Cantwell and Washington Attorney General Christine Gregoire 
are concerned that an accelerated plan would allow the department 
to reclassify some of the waste and leave it in the tanks. 
Gregoire said that would not be acceptable. Under the Tri-Party 
Agreement, 99 percent of the material of the tanks is to be 
removed and treated, she said. 

Jesse Roberson, the assistant energy secretary for environmental 
management, however, told Cantwell she did not interpret the 
Tri-Party Agreement that way. "We have a commitment to move as 
much waste as feasible," Roberson said. 

Roberson told the committee that bonus money would be available 
to facilities that rework their cleanup plans to move faster and 
save money. The money would come from $800 million that has been 
set aside to reward sites that achieve that goal. Energy 
officials said that Hanford would qualify for $433 million of the 
bonus pool.
 
But Cantwell and others have criticized the fund as a way for the 
federal government to save money by forcing states to accept 
lower cleanup standards.
 
"I, for one, have been concerned that the $800 million ... fund 
proposed by the administration could be viewed as an incentive to 
encourage state regulators to relax cleanup standards," said the 
committee chairman, Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M.
 
Gregoire said, "Washington state will not sit back and allow the 
federal government to declare the Hanford cleanup a success by 
simply moving the goal line. That is not accelerated cleanup by 
our standards. We have far too much at stake to allow our legacy 
to be defined by how much we leave behind."
 
She also fears that the arrangement would pit "state against 
state" in a competition for money.
 
In the end, Gregoire said, the proposed accelerated plan "comes 
up short when held up to the light of Washington state's 
expectations for accelerated cleanup."
 
Moreover, Gregoire said she and the state "remain skeptical that 
the Department of Energy and the state of Washington have a 
shared vision on accelerated cleanup at Hanford."
 
Countless false starts and wasted money have largely defined the 
effort to clean up Hanford and other weapons sites.
 
The government has spent $30 billion in the past five years, Sen. 
Pete Domenici, R-N.M., said, "yet I'm astounded ... by how little 
progress is achieved."
 
P-I Washington correspondent Charles Pope can be reached at 
202-943-9229 or charliepope@seattlepi.com
           
[Seattle Post-Intelligencer] 
101 Elliott Ave. W.
 Seattle, WA 98119
 (206) 448-8000
 
Home Delivery: (206) 464-2121 or (800) 542-0820

 Send comments to newmedia@seattlepi.com [newmedia@seattlepi.com] 
©1999-2002 Seattle Post-Intelligencer
*****************************************************************
 42 Grassley requests funding for IAAP probe 

The Hawk Eye Special: IAAP
 
Friday, July 12, 2002
[Unknown dangers at IAAP]   

By Dennis J. Carroll 
The Hawk Eye 

Sen. Charles Grassley, R–Iowa, has asked Senate budget crafters 
to consider funding the pending radiological investigation at the 
Iowa Army Ammunition Plant, his office announced Thursday. 

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers recently designated portions of 
the plant eligible for funding under the Formerly Utilized Sites 
Remedial Action Program. 

FUSRAP was created by Congress to assess and clean up 
contamination associated with the nation's early atomic weapons 
programs. 

The Atomic Energy Commission assembled, took apart and test–fired 
components of nuclear weapons at the plant from the late 1940s 
until 1974, when IAAP's nuclear weapons operations were moved to 
the Pantex weapons plant near Amarillo, Texas. 

Over the past couple of years, the corps has found evidence of 
radioactive releases at firing sites 12 and 6, and on Line 1, the 
nuclear production line, all associated with the AEC. 

The findings resulted from interviews, existing and recently 
declassified documents, and limited radiological surveys. 

Ten other areas also will be surveyed for possible radioactive 
contamination, the corps has said. 

However, funds for the assessments and cleanups on the sprawling 
plant were not included in President Bush's budget for the next 
federal fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1. 

Grassley said he will attempt to ensure that Congress finds money 
for the cleanup in the budget for fiscal 2003. 

The radiological cleanup is a separate funding source from an 
Army Superfund appropriation, which is being used to clean up 
soil and groundwater contaminated by chemicals and heavy metals 
used in the manufacture of conventional weapons. 

The corps has not released an estimated cost of the radiological 
assessment and cleanup. 

Grassley's request was sent to Sens. Harry Reid, D–Nevada, and 
Pete Domenici, R–N.M., chairman and ranking member of the Senate 
Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development. 

The Hawk Eye 800 S. Main St., Burlington Iowa 52601 319-754-8461 
Front Desk · 319-754-6824 FAX · 1-800-397-1708 Toll Free 
*****************************************************************
 43 Plant suit halted again - 

The Paducah Sun
Paducah, Kentucky
Saturday, July 13, 2002

The Justice Department again delays joining the whistle-blower 
suit on Lockheed Martin's running the Paducah plant. 

By Bill Bartleman bbartleman@paducahsun.com--270.575.8650
 
For the 11th time in three years, the U.S. Department of Justice 
is asking for more time to decide whether to join a 
whistle-blower suit that claims Lockheed Martin Co. filed false 
environmental reports when it managed the Paducah Gaseous 
Diffusion Plant. 

The suit claims Lockheed received hundreds of millions of dollars 
in operating bonuses because of information contained in false 
statements filed with the U.S. Department of Energy. 

The false statements are alleged to have involved illegal storage 
and disposal of radioactive waste, unlawful exposure of workers 
to lethal contaminants and contamination of groundwater and soil 
with plutonium, neptunium and other radioactive materials. 

Revelations made in the suit gained nationwide attention and 
prompted then-DOE Secretary Bill Richardson to visit Paducah and 
admit that some management practices at the plant resulted in 
workers’ being exposed to hazardous materials and widespread 
pollution. 

Lockheed, which operated the Paducah site for DOE from 1982 to 
1992, has strongly denied the allegations. 

The attorney who filed the suit agreed to the latest request for 
a delay, although he said earlier he wanted the decision to be 
made by Tuesday's deadline. If approved by U.S. District Judge 
Joseph McKinley Jr., the deadline would be extended to Sept. 1. 

"We agreed to go along because they convinced us substantial 
progress has been made in the investigation," said Joe Egan, the 
Washington-based attorney. He would not comment further except to 
say the progress was in "developing a very formidable united 
front" in pursuing the case. 

"Although I know I've said it before, this time I really do think 
it is the last extension we'll agree to," Egan said. The request 
for the delay was filed late Friday in Louisville by Assistant 
U.S. Attorney Bill Campbell. 

Campbell also said substantial progress has been made in the 
investigation, but he would not elaborate. 

The motion asking for the extension said government attorneys and 
investigators held additional meetings with Lockheed Martin. In 
the past, Campbell said those talks were centered on reaching an 
out-of-court settlement to avoid what would be lengthy and costly 
court action. 

In his motion, Campbell said Lockheed provided additional 
information about the issues raised in the suit. "The government 
currently is analyzing ... (Lockheed's) disclosure, and reviewing 
extensive documents ... in order to reach a decision whether to 
intervene or not." 

The Sun reported last year that Campbell had made a 
recommendation to his superiors in Washington that the federal 
government join the suit. However, a decision has been delayed 
because of opposition from the Department of Energy, which 
monitored Lockheed's activities when it managed the plant. The 
delays also have allowed for additional investigation and for 
talks to continue in an effort to settle the case. 

On Friday, Egan said that some powerful members of Congress have 
taken an interest in the case and are putting pressure on DOE to 
agree to getting involved. He would not elaborate or identify the 
officials. 

The Justice Department has spent more than $1 million and 
reviewed thousands of pages of documents to investigate the 
claims made in the suit that was filed in June 1999 by three 
workers and an environmental watchdog group, the Natural 
Resources Defense Council. 

If the federal government joins as a plaintiff, it would be 
significant because with it comes almost unlimited resources to 
investigate and prosecute the suit. However, Egan said the suit 
will continue even without participation by the federal 
government. 

Those who filed the suit — plant workers Charles Deuschele, 
Garland Jenkins and Ronald Fowler; the Natural Resources Defense 
Council, an environmental watchdog group; and Thomas Cochran, 
nuclear program director for the council — could receive up to 25 
percent of any amount refunded to the federal government. 

*****************************************************************
 44 Hanford fuel rod move 63 days behind schedule
 
This story was published Fri, Jul 12, 2002
 By John Stang Herald staff writer 

Operations to remove highly radioactive fuel rods from Hanford's 
K Basins are 63 days behind schedule.
 
That means the only way the project can meet a Dec. 31 deadline 
is to reach its never-obtained top speed by the end of July and 
keep up that pace for the rest of the year.
 
"It's possible, not probable. ... We're not optimistic about (a) 
December 2002 (deadline),'' said Steve Veitenheimer, director of 
Hanford's spent nuclear fuel project for the Department of 
Energy.
 
Veitenheimer briefed the Hanford Advisory Board on Thursday on 
the project's status. It is Hanford's second-most important 
environmental cleanup project behind building a tank waste 
glassification complex.
 
Nine weeks ago, the project was 30 days behind schedule. Three 
weeks ago, it was 60 days behind schedule, and it slipped to 63 
days today.
 
The K Basins are two huge indoor pools of water that hold 2,300 
tons of spent nuclear fuel just 400 yards from the Columbia 
River. Hanford contractor Fluor Hanford is moving the fuel from 
the leak-prone basins to a safer huge underground vault in 
central Hanford.
 
The fuel is being moved by a round-the-clock painstaking process 
that requires loading it by remote control and underwater in the 
K West Basin into special canisters called Multi-Canister 
Overpacks, or MCOs.
 
The Tri-Party Agreement, the legal pact governing Hanford's 
cleanup, says almost half the fuel, or 190 MCOs, is to be moved 
by Dec. 31.
 
Fluor Hanford will likely lose some of its annual fee from DOE if 
it misses that target.
 
All the fuel, about 400 MCOs, is supposed to be moved by July 
2004.
 
But by Thursday, the project had moved 80 MCOs when it should 
have moved 109.
 
The project has been plagued with breakdowns at the K West Basin, 
where Fluor and DOE officials say the equipment is too 
complicated. Breakdowns there create a bottleneck that stops the 
rest of the work.
 
Veitenheimer and Bob Heck, Fluor vice president for the project, 
said Fluor has improved how it deals with breakdowns. It has 
stockpiled spare parts and is redesigning some equipment.
 
Work at the K West Basin is in a scheduled maintenance shutdown 
that will end around July 20.
 
After the maintenance shutdown is over, the work quickly needs to 
reach a weekly speed of 4 1/2 MCOs in a week to meet the 
deadline, Veitenheimer and Heck said. That would be top speed, 
although 312 MCOs a week is the optimum speed the equipment is 
designed for.
 
Most recently, the fastest pace the project has achieved is three 
MCOs in a week, Heck said.
 
Even if the December deadline is missed, Fluor believes it will 
still make the July 2004 deadline, Veitenheimer said.
 
In a related matter, construction of equipment to move fuel from 
the K East Basin to the K West Basin was completed this week. The 
K East Basin fuel is corroded and in open-ended containers, which 
will make it harder to move safely than the K West fuel.
 
To save time and money, plans call for transferring the K East 
fuel to the K West Basin, where the loading equipment is already 
in place. That transfer equipment is to be tested in August and 
September. The first fuel transfer is scheduled for mid-October, 
with a deadline of Nov. 30. 

Copyright 2002 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This 
*****************************************************************
 45 New Hanford EPA office boss named
 
This story was published Fri, Jul 12, 2002
 By John Stang Herald staff writer 

Nick Ceto is scheduled to take over as head of the U.S. 
Environmental Protection Agency's Hanford office July 29.
 
Ceto, 46, of the EPA's Seattle office, will assume the slot held 
by Doug Sherwood, who resigned in February to start a 
Hanford-related technical analysis business.
 
"I was ready for a change. I was interested in Hanford. It looked 
like a huge challenge," Ceto said.
 
He has been visiting Hanford on and off this month to get a feel 
for the site and its people.
 
He will live in the Tri-Cities.
 
The EPA and the state Department of Ecology are the two main 
regulatory agencies at Hanford, depending on the specific issues.
 
The EPA is the lead regulator on the K Basins and soil and ground 
water contamination, as well as some other Hanford matters.Ceto 
has been regional mining coordinator for the EPA's Northwest 
region for seven years.
 
That region covers Washington, Idaho, Oregon and Alaska. His 15 
years with the EPA also include five years as project manager for 
the 21-mile Bunker Hill Superfund site in northern Idaho, which 
involves the cleanup of lead and other mining-related 
contaminants.
 
Ceto and his wife, Mary, are Vermont natives.
 
He spent a year at Duke University before going to the University 
of Vermont to earn bachelor's and master's degrees in 
environmental studies and natural resources planning. He spent 
several years with the Department of Agriculture before joining 
the EPA in Georgia, where he handled water and Superfund issues.
 
He later joined CH2M Hill's Atlanta office as a hazardous wastes 
site manager.
 
The Cetos and their children Kristin, 18, and Steven, 13, moved 
to Seattle where he managed a couple of Superfund sites before 
being promoted to manage the Bunker Hill site. Ceto has been 
involved in metal contaminants issues on a national and 
international level. 

Copyright 2002 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This 
*****************************************************************
 46 HAB briefed on accelerated cleanup plan
 
This story was published Fri, Jul 12, 2002
 By John Stang Herald staff writer 

Hanford hopes to send a final accelerated cleanup plan to 
Washington, D.C., on Wednesday.
 
But it might take a little longer for the Department of Energy to 
reveal the dollar figures to put that plan into action.
 
The Hanford Advisory Board was briefed on this matter Thursday in 
Richland.
 
DOE is making a nationwide push to speed up nuclear cleanup at 
Hanford and elsewhere. The federal agency is tying some of its 
fiscal 2003 cleanup allocations to whether sites can produce 
acceleration plans by Aug. 1 that their regulators and DOE's 
Washington, D.C., headquarters can agree upon.
 
DOE has asked Congress for a basic $5.9 billion cleanup 
appropriation for 2003, which is less than the $6.7 billion 
allocated in 2002. But DOE also is asking Congress for another 
$800 million to $1.1 billion to divide among sites that produce 
the acceleration plans.
 
For Hanford, that translates to a request for a $1.46 billion 
basic allocation plus $433 million in incentive money to equal 
$1.893 billion for 2003. That's $117 million more than Hanford's 
2002 budget of $1.776 billion.
 
However, DOE has not unveiled how the proposed $1.893 million 
would be allocated within Hanford, which clouds the regulators' 
and public's abilities to examine budgets for individual Hanford 
projects.
 
DOE unveiled a preliminary Hanford acceleration plan May 1. Then 
the state and Environmental Protection Agency began closed talks 
with DOE so regulators could understand the plan and negotiate 
changes.
 
Those talks are expected to finish with DOE's two Hanford offices 
sending a plan agreeable to the regulators up to Washington, 
D.C., Wednesday to be reviewed for possible approval, said Wade 
Ballard, DOE's assistant manager for planning and integration at 
Hanford.
 
Ballard said DOE has not decided whether it will release fiscal 
2003 budget figures for the plan on Wednesday, on Aug. 1 or 
sometime in between.
 
EPA and state officials said Thursday that they expect to be 
satisfied with Wednesday's plan.
 
"With the first one (on May 1) you were asking: 'Where's the 
beef?' In the next one (on Wednesday), you'll see where the beef 
is," EPA official Dennis Faulk told the Hanford Advisory Board.
 
Roger Stanley, the state's chief Tri-Party Agreement negotiator, 
said: "It's greatly improved over the version I saw on May 1."
 
Regulators said the latest version will cover concerns about the 
waste glassification project, other tank waste matters and ground 
water issues that were raised in early May.
 
However, the Washington Department of Ecology and the EPA are 
still peeved over DOE being closed-mouthed on its budget plans 
for 2003 and 2004 -- a reversal of DOE's open practices of the 
past several years.
 
Two weeks ago, the state and EPA sent a letter to DOE that 
protested the federal agency not briefing them on the 2003 and 
2004 budgets as required by the Tri-Party Agreement, the legal 
pact governing Hanford's cleanup.
 
The letter described what budget information that has been 
unveiled so far as "tentative" and "nonverified."
 
"We fear that repeated delays in meeting (the Tri-Party Agreement 
requirements), the failure to establish budgets to comply with 
the Tri-Party Agreement, and the lack of openness and clear 
accountability threaten the needed support for Hanford cleanup," 
wrote Michael Gearheard, the EPA's Northwest regional director, 
and Mike Wilson, manager of the state's nuclear waste program. 

Copyright 2002 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This 
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 47 Air Force concerns thwart Nevada Test Site wind farm

Wind-power consultant Tim Carlson says $4 million in private 
corporate money has been spent on the project.

File Photo by Clint Karlsen.

Click on the image for an enlargement.
Graphic by Mike Johnson.

Saturday, July 13, 2002
 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal 

By KEITH ROGERS 
REVIEW-JOURNAL 

A $130 million Nevada Test Site wind power project was abruptly 
canceled Friday after Air Force officials said turbine blades 
whirling atop Shoshone Mountain would disrupt radar signals 
during training exercises. 

The decision by the National Nuclear Security Administration, the 
agency that operates the test site for the Department of Energy, 
halted years of work by public- and private-sector leaders during 
the final stage of the project's approval process. 

"We had clearly hoped this project could come to fruition," said 
Kathleen Carlson, the manager of the administration's Nevada 
Operations Office in North Las Vegas. "However, we must support 
the mission requirements of the Air Force to train, test and 
develop tactics in an unfettered environment." 

Darwin Morgan, a local spokesman for the administration, said the 
Air Force made its position clear this week. 

The announcement was another blow to environmentalists and 
Nevada's congressional delegation, coming three days after the 
Senate approved the placement of a high-level nuclear waste 
repository inside the test site at Yucca Mountain. Parties 
involved with the project, including the consultant for the NTS 
Development Corp., the public-private venture behind the 
renewable energy project, said the timing of the termination 
announcement was coincidental. 

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., who led Tuesday's unsuccessful battle on 
the Senate floor to stop the Yucca Mountain Project, expressed 
disappointment the wind farm project was terminated. 

"He's going to keep working to see where we can do this 
(wind-power) project and move forward with it," Reid spokeswoman 
Tessa Hafen said late Friday. She said there was no connection 
between the Air Force decision on the wind-power site and the 
Senate approval of Yucca Mountain. 

She said Reid, who chairs the energy and water subcommittee of 
the Senate Appropriations Committee, spoke earlier this week with 
Secretary of the Air Force James G. Roche. Reid was told the wind 
farm can't go forward "because of national security concerns that 
are classified," Hafen said. 

Wind-power consultant Tim Carlson, who is not related to Kathleen 
Carlson, represents the four companies behind the project. He 
said he was deeply disappointed. Since the project's inception in 
2000, more than $4 million in private corporate money had been 
spent on engineering, planning and collecting wind data. 

The companies that want to build the wind farm are a Danish firm, 
NEG Micon; its development company, Global Renewable Energy 
Partners; Siemens, the fifth-largest company in the world; and BP 
Capital, headed by Texas oil man Boone Pickens. The companies 
still intend to begin construction on the Table Mountain Wind 
Project south of Las Vegas. 

Tim Carlson said plans called for installing some 300 wind 
turbines on 264-foot-tall towers on Shoshone Mountain in three 
phases. The first 55 turbines would have had a capacity to 
generate 85 megawatts of electricity. After the completion of the 
second and third phases, the wind farm's capacity would have 
increased to 375 megawatts, enough to power a city with a 
population of 375,000. 

Utility companies in Nevada and California, including Nevada 
Power Co. and the test site itself, would have been customers. 
The wind-power group still holds a contract with Nevada Power 
that was approved in May by the Public Utilities Commission. 

"I think there were some issues that occurred recently in our 
national security that caused concern," Tim Carlson said, noting 
"it would have been nice" if the Air Force could have 
communicated its concerns earlier. 

"We want to have some time to think about this and determine what 
we can do to solve the problem and address the Air Force's 
concerns," he said. 

Nellis Air Force Base spokesman Mike Estrada said the Shoshone 
Mountain wind farm "would severely degrade our abilities to train 
crews and conduct testing and tactics development out there." 

Nellis Air Force Range flanks the Nevada Test Site on three 
sides, and the top-secret Groom Lake installation, described by 
former workers there as an area where U.S. military aircraft are 
tested against foreign radar systems, sits near the northeast 
corner of the test site. 

"Basically anytime an aircraft has its radar turned on and is 
pointed anywhere near the direction of the proposed wind farm, it 
would jam his radar," Estrada said. "If DOE decides to look at 
other locations, we will assist them in determining if it would 
have impacts." 

Estrada said the Air Force conducted studies to determine whether 
any other material besides metal could be used for the turbine 
blades, but even fiberglass would have caused problems. 

Gov. Kenny Guinn released a statement through his press 
secretary, Greg Bortolin, saying, "For many years in Nevada, we 
have felt wind energy had high potential. It is unfortunate this 
happened. Eventually, we will take advantage of the wind and 
solar potential in this state." 

NTS Development Corp. intends to use the test site for other 
private ventures, including one involving Kistler Aerospace Corp. 
to launch and land reusable space vehicles that put 
communications satellites into orbit.
 
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002
*****************************************************************
 48 BNA Guest Sources Experts Available
   
U.S. Newswire 
10 Jul 15:00 

BNA Experts Available for Comment on Corporate Governance, Energy 
Policy, Yucca Mountain, Campaign Finance Reform 

To: Editors and Producers Contact: Karen James Cody of BNA 
[http://www.bna.com] , 202-452-4169 e-mail: presscontact@bna.com 
News Advisory: What: Guest Sources From BNA, Inc. 

The following BNA staffers are available today for TV and radio 
interviews: 

CORPORATE GOVERNANCE 

BNA's Nancy Ognanovich reports from the White House. President 
Announces Steps to Combat Corporate Fraud, Create New 

Business Ethic 

President Bush announces his administration's ramped-up plan to 
address corporate fraud, root out corruption and restore investor 
confidence in financial markets. Bush says he will create a 
corporate-fraud task force at Justice, propose legislation to 
double the maximum prison terms for those convicted of financial 
fraud, and increase the resources of the SEC to go after 
corporate criminals. Democrats complain that Bush's proposals 
"fall short," charging a failure to propose new ideas, offer 
details of his proposals, or designate sufficient funding for the 
SEC. 

The Senate begins, but then delays, debate of Sen. Sarbanes's 
Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act (S. 
2673). The administration says Bush supports the goals of the 
bill, but with qualifications. Administration officials decline 
comment on Sen. Leahy's proposed amendment to strengthen the 
punishment of corporate fraud and document destruction as 
criminal offenses (S. 2010). Sens. McCain and Levin are 
considering offering an amendment (S. 1940) that would require 
public companies to expense stock option compensation. 
Separately, an aide to Sen. Shelby tells BNA the senator plans to 
offer an amendment that would restore aiding and abetting 
liability in private rights of action for securities fraud. 

ENERGY POLICY 

Stephanie Ingersoll covers it all. 

Energy Bill Conference Hits Snag 

The energy bill conference in the House announced June 27 at the 
first public session of the energy bill (H.R. 4) conference that 
the issues slated for discussion have been grouped into tier one 
and tier two issues--based on whether or not they are considered 
contentious. Tier one issues, or those considered "more 
contentious" include: drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife 
Refuge (ANWR) and oil development; climate change; corporate 
average fuel economy (CAFE) standards; electricity restructuring; 
ethanol mandate; pipeline safety; renewable portfolio standards; 
and tax incentives. Tier two issues include Indian energy; Low 
Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP); the Price 
Anderson Act; clean coal technologies; nuclear issues; and 
efficiency measures (other than CAFE). Rep. Billy Tauzin (R-La) 
is working with Senate Democratic lawmakers and the 
administration to successfully navigate a bipartisan bill through 
conference that can be approved by both the House and Senate. 
July 10 conference committee meeting called to over minor 
disagreements threatening to stall the bill's progress. 

-- NUCLEAR WASTE: YUCCA MOUNTAIN 

David Safford recounts the history of the Yucca Mountain 
controversy. 

Senate Votes, 60-39, to Allow Waste Repository at Yucca Mountain 
The Senate sweeps aside the objections of its Democratic 
leadership and votes to approve the Bush administration's 
recommendation to develop a high-level nuclear waste repository 
at Nevada's Yucca Mountain. The vote completes the congressional 
process of overriding the Nevada governor's veto of the 
centralized storage facility for spent fuel from more than 100 
reactors at commercial nuclear power plants across the nation and 
for defense-related radioactive waste. The vote also could end a 
20-year political struggle and allow the Department of Energy to 
complete construction of the deep-underground facility at Yucca 
Mountain about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. 

-- CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM 

Kenneth P. Doyle tracks Money & Politics. 

National Party Units Raised $227.7 Million in First 15 Months of 
2002 Election Cycle 

The national committees of both major political parties have 
continued to increase the amount of "soft money" they take in 
during the 2002 election cycle, even as a Nov. 6 deadline looms 
for a ban of soft money to the national parties under the new 
campaign finance law. 

The House adopted July 9, by a 410-2 vote, a motion to instruct 
conferees to agree to a Senate provision of election reform 
legislation (H.R. 3295) that would help disabled voters cast 
their ballots. 

http://www.usnewswire.com 
    
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have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for 
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