***************************************************************** 01/15/02 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 10.14 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POLICY 1 French nuclear industry concerned that PS will make concessions 2 Armenian nuclear plant threat to entire region - British envoy 3 US: Hopeful Signs On Nuclear Policy 4 Krsko mayor disagrees with Slovene-Croatian nuclear power plant 5 US: Bush's Nuclear shell game 6 US: Forum for a Peoples' Nuclear Policy, February 16-18 NUCLEAR REACTORS 7 Criticism rises of call for referendum on Temelin issue 8 Disputed Czech nuclear plant to continue planned tests after 9 US: NRC Issues Finding of Low to Moderate Safety Significance To 10 The Shaw Group Inc. Signs Contract to Provide Services for PBMR NUCLEAR SAFETY 11 Probe into water leak at nuclear waste site begins in Rokkasho 12 Work continues to ease lot of Russian victims of thermonuclear 13 US: Michigan Company Key to Nation`s Nuclear Emergency Preparedness NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 14 US: Yucca Mountain Fallout 15 US: California to Accept Radioactive Waste at Non-Designated Landfil 16 UK: Letters: Shut down Sellafield 17 US: Nevada GOP gov holds fire despite Dems' criticism 18 US: AU: Conservationists call for better uranium mining regulation. 19 US: AU: Conservationists, legislators say uranium mine should close 20 US: AU: Uranium mine 'must close' for inquiry 21 US: EDITORIAL: How far has Mr. Sununu fallen? 22 US: Alabama: Send nuke waste to Nevada 23 US: Yucca: Senators serve food, unity 24 US: Berkley: Terrorism used to justify dump 25 US: The battle of Yucca Mountain -- 26 US: AU: Twenty-four spills at u-mine 27 US: Aust's Beverley uranium mine blocked from full production 28 US: Experts Convene at Moab On Fate of Atlas Mill Site 29 UK: Meltdown fears halt Sellafield site demolition 30 US: Poll shows Nevadans' views on Yucca Mountain nuke dump 31 US: Reid, Ensign reiterate bipartisan opposition 32 US: Local officials clash with Sununu on Yucca 33 US: Sununu could not have been more insulting, and ignorant 34 US: Herrera backs Guinn, raps Porter on dump issue 35 US: Nuclear waste site applauded 36 US: Yucca: And another thing ... 37 US: LETTERS: Nevadans have already contributed plenty 38 US: WHAT NEVADANS THINK: Poll: Press Yucca fight 39 US: State is geared for years of opposition 40 US: Conflict of interest for Christine Todd Whitman? NUCLEAR WEAPONS 41 US: Don't withdraw from ABM Treaty 42 Russian anger over diplomats at rally 43 UN nuclear watchdog agency to inspect North Korean nuclear 44 Russia to favour navy in nuclear force - 45 How Many Nukes Did Russia Hide? 46 Russia disagrees with US proposal of storing decommissioned 47 UN Nuclear Agency Officials in N.Korea 48 Russian Delegation Opens Talks in D.C. 49 U.S., Russia Discuss Nuclear Cuts 50 Russia: Glasses raised at the FSB 51 Pak: No Nuclear Weapons in the Field 52 Nuclear deployment danger 53 Russia: Pasko's Treason And Espionage Conviction Draws Protest US DEPT. OF ENERGY 54 INEEL to help Ohio site prepare for closure 55 Plan to harness DOE funds could cost $200,000 per year 56 EPA to issue Hanford violation notice 57 2 firms embroiled in Hanford lawsuits OTHER NUCLEAR 58 IAEA Daily Press Review Date 2002-01-14 Number 9 ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 French nuclear industry concerned that PS will make concessions to Greens (Le nucleaire francais s'inquiete de possibles concessions du PS aux Verts) Les Echos - France; Jan 15, 2002 A Socialist Party working document which was circulating last week has alarmed French national electricity provider EDF and Areva, the French nuclear pole. The presumed author of the document is Geraud Guibert, the PS's national secretary in charge of the environment, who appears to have drawn up a plan for a PS-Green Party joint stance on energy questions. This plan envisages energy saving and the development of renewable energy sources. However, it is the section on nuclear energy which has led to most concern. Under its terms, the number of nuclear power stations using MOX would be frozen until 2010. Above all, electricity produced by nuclear power would be reduced to 60 per cent by 2007 (it stood at 82 per cent in 2000) and there would therefore be "no increase in production capacity deriving from nuclear power". Abstracted from Les Echos ***************************************************************** 2 Armenian nuclear plant threat to entire region - British envoy BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Jan 15, 2002 Text of report by Armenian news agency Arminfo Yerevan, 15 January: The British embassy will represent the interests of Spain, which is presiding over the European Union, in the South Caucasus states, the ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary of Britain to Armenia, Timothy Jones, told journalists today. The ambassador said that the EU was interested in cooperating with the countries of the South Caucasus region. As for the level of cooperation, the states themselves, including Armenia, should determine this. Timothy Jones pointed out that the EU was one of the biggest investors in Armenia's economy. By means of various programmes, the EU is giving Armenia support in providing the population with food, as well as ensuring the safety of the Armenian Nuclear Power Station. In the EU's opinion, the Armenian Nuclear Power Station should be frozen as it is dangerous for the whole region. Besides that, the Armenian Nuclear Power Station is not the main source of energy in the country today as it was almost out of action in the second half of the past year and there was no special demand for electric energy in Armenia at the time, the British diplomat said. Timothy Jones also stressed that the European Union was currently engaged in creating a fund of donors, which will provide financial support when freezing the Armenian Nuclear Power Station. The ambassador pointed out that Armenia should develop low energy consuming spheres of industry, which would enable the republic to save power. Source: Arminfo, Yerevan, in Russian 1035 gmt 15 Jan 02 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter ***************************************************************** 3 Hopeful Signs On Nuclear Policy ctnow.com: EDITORIALS EDITORIALS January 15, 2002 The Bush administration is on the right track in planning to ask Congress for budget increases to safeguard or dispose of weapons-grade nuclear material. Once dubious about the effectiveness of such critically needed programs, the White House has commendably shifted its view. In fact, the administration will ask for an eye-catching 37 percent increase in money for nuclear nonproliferation programs, such as one to dispose of plutonium and enriched uranium. Those efforts are aimed at helping Russia to dismantle Soviet nuclear weapons, which are degrading and aren't secure against theft, and at finding jobs for displaced Russian scientists who might be tempted to sell their expertise to unfriendly nations. Bush administration officials at first were cool to the U.S.-funded programs to help safeguard former Soviet weapons and scientists. But President Bush and Russian leader Vladimir Putin have established a close relationship, and Russia signed on early to the U.S.-led campaign against terrorism. So, after a review, the White House recently said that the programs "work well." The administration still is not asking for as much money as Congress is likely to approve for the vital work. More support than the president will propose will be needed to protect insecure nuclear weapons from the Soviet era. But the change of thinking at the White House is promising. It is also encouraging that the Pentagon recommends that the United States continue its moratorium on nuclear weapons tests. Over the long run, a permanent, worldwide ban on nuclear testing is the surest way to protect mankind from nuclear disaster. ctnow.com is Copyright © 2002 by The Hartford Courant ***************************************************************** 4 Krsko mayor disagrees with Slovene-Croatian nuclear power plant agreement BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Jan 15, 2002 Text of report by Slovene radio on 15 January [Announcer] The Krsko municipality disagrees with the [Slovene-Croatian] bilateral contract on the Krsko nuclear power plant ownership and status. The Krsko municipality representatives are prepared to suggest a state referendum on this matter. Before that, they will try to persuade the Slovene public, deputies and mayors that such a contract is not good for the Posavje [region] and for Slovenia. Politics has been interfering with this expert project. Experts are not prepared to discuss this openly, but there have already been some doubts among them. Irena Majce reports: [Reporter] It is interesting how experts did not really express their opinion on the contract. Their positive opinion on the matter was not convincing. Franc Bogovic, the Krsko mayor, says that experts are against the contract although they do not want to admit this at official meetings. [Bogovic] During my talks with people and with experts who were involved in the preparation of this agreement directly or indirectly, I have noticed an opinion that this agreement was wrong. [Reporter] And that its starting points should be changed. According to Bogovic, they wish to be fair towards a Croatian co-investor: [Bogovic] Because 50 per cent of electricity belongs to the Croatian co-investor. We have the nuclear [power plant] and we are internationally responsible for its nuclear waste. This is why we wish to keep control over the building and ensure a kind of management of the building which will enable safe operations. [Reporter] They are mostly concerned about poor plans for the storage of waste products and for the nuclear power plant decomposition. The nuclear power plant contract was acceptable for experts within the [Slovene-Croatian] border agreement. Following a thorough analysis of its consequences, it became clear that it was wrong to combine the politic border agreement with the business contract on the nuclear power plant which did not even require an international document. The Krsko municipality plans to inform the Slovene deputies, mayors and citizens on the agreement's inadequacies. They will be invited to visit the Krsko nuclear power plant and join in a public discussion. If this does not succeed, the Krsko municipality is prepared to suggest a state referendum on this matter. Source: Radio Slovenia, Ljubljana, in Slovene 1200 gmt 15 Jan 02 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter All Material Subject to ***************************************************************** 5 Bush's Nuclear shell game By The Globe, 1/14/2002 WITH THE RELEASE of an unclassified version of its Nuclear Posture Review, the Bush administration risks making the United States look like a shifty salesman performing a classic bait-and-switch. During his campaign, President Bush professed a determination to scuttle the old nuclear doctrines of the Cold War. Accordingly, he promised to slash the 6,000 nuclear warheads permitted in the START I treaty by as much as two-thirds and also to remove those weapons of mass destruction from their hair-trigger alert. This promised a sensible and long-overdue adjustment to the security needs of the contemporary world. The version of the Nuclear Posture Review made public last week and comments on it by Defense Department officials suggest, however, that many of the warheads to be decommissioned by the administration will remain in what the Pentagon calls ''responsive capability.'' In other words, they will be removed from missiles, but instead of being destroyed, they will be held in reserve in case new threats require their redeployment. If it turns out to be something more than an aggressive opening gambit in arms-control negotiations with Moscow, this shell game with nuclear warheads will make Bush's campaign promises look like artful or cynical fibs. As was to be expected, Russia reacted in the tone of a party that believes it may have been deceived. A foreign ministry spokesman complained, sensibly, that Russia wants anticipated nuclear arms reductions to be ''irreversible, so that strategic defensive arms will be reduced not only `on paper.''' The underlying reality is that President Vladimir Putin's government cannot afford to maintain its nuclear arsenal at START I levels. Not only do Putin's negotiators know this; their American counterparts know it as well. Nonetheless, the United States gains no advantage from its ability to afford the cost of maintaining a large stockpile of decommissioned warheads. On the contrary, America stands to lose quite a lot by obliging Russia to match its own folly and maintain thousands of warheads in a reserve status. The risk - and it is all too real - is that some of those superfluous warheads may be stolen by or sold to terrorists like Osama bin Laden or a criminal holding state power such as Saddam Hussein. Another dangerous element of the Nuclear Posture Review is its proposal to spend $15 million on technology and personnel that would enable the Pentagon to resume, faster than it now can, underground nuclear tests. For the sake of American security and a working partnership with Russia, Bush should agree to destroy decommissioned warheads before his summit this spring with Putin, and he should also abjure Pentagon plans to revive nuclear weapons testing. This story ran on page A10 of the Boston Globe on 1/14/2002. © Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company. ***************************************************************** 6 Forum for a Peoples' Nuclear Policy, February 16-18 Forum Hosts- HOME: Healing Ourselves & Mother Earth and San Luis Obispo County Grandmothers for Peace Sponsors- Fresno CA Center for Nonviolence & Shundahai Network January 14, 2002 Dear friends, We are writing to you as two mothers, and women who are deeply concerned about the harmful effects of radiation- on our communities, the planet that sustains us, and generations of all life to come. Molly Johnson, after four years of successfully coordinating the effort to stop the Ward Valley Waste Dump, has returned home to live in the shadow of the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant. Jennifer Viereck lives fifty miles downstream from the proposed Yucca Mountain High-Level Waste Repository, beside the river which will carry many radionuclides that escape in the future. We are both acutely aware that there is no sound policy for the safety of nuclear reactors, the communities around them, or the disposal of the waste they generate, which is one million times more radioactive than before use. Existing federal nuclear policies are as bankrupt as Enron and solely benefit nuclear utilities, not public health and safety. Secretary of Energy Abraham made his move on January 10th to satisfy his nuclear industry campaign donors, by conveying his intent to Nevada Governor Guinn to recommend the Yucca Mountain Repository. We anticipate that he will make his recommendation to the President as soon as the thirty-day period is up, February 11th. The Congressional General Accounting Office and independent peer review have made it clear that this recommendation is premature, and defies sound science and the legal procedures established under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act as amended. The impacts of 100,000 shipments on the nation's freeways and potential terrorism have not even been considered. Meanwhile, reactor operators are well aware that legal hurdles will draw out the Yucca Mountain process for years to come, and many are establishing alternative plans for on-site storage. Communities living in the cloud of reactors are further threatened by the possibility of nuclear terrorism. A consortium of nuclear utilities is also moving forward with plans to build a 'temporary' high-level waste dump on Goshute tribal lands in Utah, in an earthquake zone. Everywhere, community advocates are struggling for sound sane solutions to these problems. A number of California communities and organizations are working on a variety of alternative local or legislative plans to cope with reactors and their waste. In Eastern California, Nevada and Utah, efforts focus on preventing importing nuclear waste to new dump sites and related massive transportation. What we propose is a Forum for a Peoples' Nuclear Policy, February 16-18- where we can all get together, listen to each other's proposed solutions, get to know each other better, and explore common ground. On President's Day, we will issue a joint statement to the President on our findings. * We invite you to join us if possible at the Fresno Center for Nonviolence, Saturday through Monday morning. See attached flyer for details. Please respond soon if you are interested. * We invite you to endorse this effort, or sponsor it if you can with a donation towards costs. * We ask all interested people or groups to send a brief statement of your High-Level Waste project, and what you hope to achieve through this forum. This will help with forum agenda planning. * We also ask that you provide educational materials about your project. These will be posted on HOME's website for downloading immediately, and included in packets for all forum participants. We hope to see you there, and send our best wishes toward your piece of the struggle, Jennifer O. Viereck and Molly Johnson -- Jennifer Olaranna Viereck, Director HOME: Healing Ourselves & Mother Earth 760-852-4151 heal@h-o-m-e.org http://www.h-o-m-e.org Molly Johnson - SLO CO Grandmothers for Peace 6290 Hawk Ridge Place, San Miguel, CA 93451 805/467-2431 mallypj@yahoo.com For regularly updated info- http://www.h-o-m-e.org/Forum/forum.htm Downloadable letter and flyer http://www.h-o-m-e.org/Forum/forumflyer2.pdf ***************************************************************** 7 Criticism rises of call for referendum on Temelin issue (Temelin-Volksbegehren: Die Kritik wird heftiger) Der Standard - Austria; Jan 15, 2002 The proposals by the far-right Austrian Freedom Party for a referendum over the Temelin nuclear power station across the border in the Czech Republic has received relatively strong support in the Austrian provinces of Upper Austria, Vienna and Vorarlburg. However, criticism has intensified from the Green party, Austrian People's party and Social Democrats. Surprising support has come from a "Committee against party dangers and atomic danger", which said that low support for the campaign would be seen as a victory for the atomic industry lobby. Abstracted from Der Standard ***************************************************************** 8 Disputed Czech nuclear plant to continue planned tests after second shutdown BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Jan 15, 2002 Text of report by Czech radio on 15 January Following the 16-hour shutdown of the first bloc, the staff of Temelin nuclear power station have reconnected the [power station's] generator to the distribution grid. The reactor's output is 44 per cent now and the generator is producing about 330 MW of electric power. The output will be gradually brought to 100 per cent [of the design capacity] and scheduled tests will continue already in the afternoon. The control system shut down the bloc yesterday afternoon as the pressure in the feed [water] tank dropped when German-made fittings [Czech: armatury] malfunctioned. Source: Czech Radio1 - Radiozurnal, Prague, in Czech 1000 gmt 15 Jan 02 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter All Material ***************************************************************** 9 NRC Issues Finding of Low to Moderate Safety Significance To Limerick Unit 2 Nuclear Power Plant NRC: Press Release Region I - 2002 - 3 - U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, Region I 475 Allendale Road, King of Prussia, Pa. 19406 Public Affairs Web Site No. I-02-003 January 14, 2002 CONTACT: Diane Screnci (610) 337-5330/ e-mail: dps@nrc.gov [opa3@nrc.gov] Neil A. Sheehan (610) 337-5331/ e-mail: nas@nrc.gov [nas@nrc.gov] The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff has issued a "white" finding for an issue involving a valve at the Limerick Unit 2 nuclear power plant. The NRC considers the issue to be of low to moderate importance to safety but one which may require additional NRC inspections. The plant, which is located in Montgomery County, Pa., is operated by Exelon Nuclear Corp. The finding was identified during an NRC inspection conducted from September 30, 2001, through November 10, 2001. It pertains to a failure to have adequate measures in place to identify that one of the plant's safety/relief valves was in a degraded condition and vulnerable to not reclosing after opening. (Safety/relief valves are used to control temperatures and pressures in nuclear power plants' reactor coolant systems.) Specifically, Limerick personnel had been tracking the temperature of the valve in question, with a plan to repair or replace it if the component's temperature dropped below 497 degrees Fahrenheit. An analysis had shown that the valve might not reclose if it opened below that temperature. However, in August 2000, the temperature threshold was reduced to 475 degrees Fahrenheit. Subsequently, beginning on December 5, 2000, the temperature did drop below 492 degrees, resulting in what the NRC describes as an "actual condition adverse to quality." But the condition was not identified until February 23, 2001, when the valve opened and did not immediately reclose. The NRC issued a Notice of Violation to Exelon for not having adequate measures in place to identify the adverse conditions. Using the agency's significance determination process, NRC officials classify certain conditions at nuclear power plants as being one of four colors which delineate increasing levels of safety significance, beginning with green and progressing to white, yellow or red. In the case of this finding, the company declined an opportunity for a regulatory conference to discuss this issue or to respond in writing. ***************************************************************** 10 The Shaw Group Inc. Signs Contract to Provide Services for PBMR Pebble Bed Modular Reactor Monday January 14, 9:20 am Eastern Time Press Release SOURCE: The Shaw Group Inc. BATON ROUGE, La.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 14, 2002--The Shaw Group Inc. (NYSE:SGR [http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=sgr&d=t] - news; ``Shaw'' or ``the Company'') announced today that its subsidiary, Stone & Webster will participate in a contract to provide the consulting services to support the development of a demonstration power plant that will utilize the new advanced Pebble Bed Modular Reactor nuclear technology. The technology is being developed for Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (Pty) Ltd., (``PBMR'') and its investors consisting of Eskom (the primary electric utility in South Africa), British Nuclear Fuels (Plc) (BNFL), the Industrial Development Corporation of South Africa (IDC) and Exelon. The demonstration plant will be located in South Africa. A joint venture of Murray & Roberts of South Africa and Stone & Webster, supported by Proman Management Services, a South African black empowerment consultant, has been selected to provide the consulting services to advise and assist PBMR in the areas of engineering, procurement, construction management and project management in order to take the project from the conceptual phase through an interim phase of development preceding the commitment to construction. PBMR has completed a design feasibility study for the design, development, construction and commissioning of a Demonstration Pebble Bed Modular Reactor Power Plant. ``We anticipate that with the support of the team from Murray & Roberts and Stone & Webster and the successful implementation and operation of the demonstration plant, PBMR will be able to bring the technology to the United States and other countries and build safe and economical operating nuclear power plants,'' stated David Nicholls, Chief Executive Officer of PBMR. ``We are very excited to be selected to participate in this pioneering nuclear technology,'' stated J.M. Bernhard, Jr. Shaw's Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer. ``With our vast experience in the nuclear generation industry we believe that we will be able to provide an unparalleled level of technical expertise to the project.'' The Shaw Group Inc. is the world's only vertically-integrated provider of complete piping systems and comprehensive engineering, procurement and construction services to the power generation industry. Shaw is the largest supplier of fabricated piping systems in the United States and a leading supplier worldwide, having installed piping systems in power plants with an aggregate generation capacity in excess of 200,000 megawatts. While the majority of Shaw's backlog is attributable to the power generation industry, the Company also does work in the process industries, including petrochemical, chemical and refining, and the environmental and infrastructure sector. The Company currently has offices and operations in North America, South America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific; and has more than 13,000 employees. For additional information on The Shaw Group, please visit the Company's web site at www.shawgrp.com [http://www.shawgrp.com] . The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 provides a ``safe harbor'' for certain forward-looking statements. The statements contained herein that are not historical facts (including without limitation statements to the effect that the Company or its management ``believes,'' ``expects,'' ``anticipates,'' ``plans,'' or other similar expressions) and statements related to revenues, earnings, backlog, or other financial information or results are forward-looking statements based on the Company's current expectations and beliefs concerning future developments and their potential effects on the Company. There can be no assurance that future developments affecting the Company will be those anticipated by the Company. These forward-looking statements involve significant risks and uncertainties (some of which are beyond our control) and assumptions and are subject to change based upon various factors. Should one or more of such risks or uncertainties materialize, or should any of our assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary in material respects from those projected in the forward-looking statements. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. A description of some of the risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from such forward-looking statements can be found in the Company's reports and registration statements filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its Form 10-K and Form 10-Q, reports and on the Company's web-site under the heading ``Forward Looking Statement.'' These documents are also available from the Securities and Exchange Commission or from the Investor Relations department of Shaw. For more information on the company and announcements it makes from time to time on a regional basis visit our web site at www.shawgrp.com. Contact: The Shaw Group Inc. Kevin LeBlanc, 225/932-2500 www.shawgrp.com [http://www.shawgrp.com] Copyright © 2002 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved. Privacy ***************************************************************** 11 Probe into water leak at nuclear waste site begins in Rokkasho KYODO NEWS ROKKASHO, Jan. 15, Kyodo - Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd. on Tuesday began investigating whether water is leaking from a pool at its nuclear waste storage facility in Rokkasho village, Aomori Prefecture, it said. The company said it will check if water found by a leak detector is from the pool by using chemicals from the end of this month until February, after transferring spent nuclear fuel stored in the pool to another pool. About 1 liter of water is flowing to the detector every hour, and some 4,750 liters has accumulated since the water began leaking in July last year, it said. Several dozen liters of water flow to the detector every year, though the water stops flowing in three to four months during a summer-fall period. The company decided to investigate as the leak picks up again and continues even through winter. Also, the quantity of water is larger than what normally would be found due to condensation. The storage pool stores spent nuclear fuel from nuclear power plants nationwide until the fuel can be reprocessed. The pool contains some 165 tons of nuclear waste, the company said. Japan Nuclear Fuel said the water includes radioactive materials but will not affect the environment as the water will be reprocessed by a disposal facility for radioactive liquid waste. 2001 Kyodo News (c) Established 1945. ***************************************************************** 12 Work continues to ease lot of Russian victims of thermonuclear tests BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Jan 15, 2002 Text of report by Russian news agency ITAR-TASS Barnaul, 15 January: More than 60m dollars have been spent in Russia's Altay Territory over the past 10 years to provide state-of-the-art medical equipment for hospitals and polyclinics as part of the Poligon programme, drawn up to eliminate the consequences of nuclear tests at the Semipalatinsk testing ground. The two-stage programme had been completed last year, ITAR-TASS was told at the Territory's administration today. Approximately R12bn at today's prices have been spent during that time to rehabilitate the victims. This made it possible to increase the early diagnosis rate of illnesses, including oncological illnesses, from 20 to 40 per cent. More than 50 hospitals and polyclinics, 40 schools and children's establishments, 313,000 sq. m. of housing and 21 facilities for the public and much else besides have been handed over for use in the course of the programme's implementation. However, the long-term consequences of more than 58 nuclear experiments, including tests of thermonuclear weapons in August 1953, when people received radiation doses bordering on the fatal, are still making themselves felt in Altay Territory, above all where new generations are concerned. That is why Aleksandr Surikov, the governor of Altay Territory, said that the adoption of the federal programme to surmount the consequences of radiation accidents for the period until 2010 was a timely and important step. This programme will make it possible during the next nine years to continue comprehensive work in Altay Territory aimed at the social, economic and psychological rehabilitation of the population and the protection of the health of the Territory's residents who were subjected to radiation. It is planned to spend R740m to implement the new programme in the Territory. The financing will come from the federal, territorial and local budgets. Source: ITAR-TASS news agency, Moscow, in Russian 0847 gmt 15 Jan 02 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter All Material Subject to Copyright ***************************************************************** 13 Michigan Company Key to Nation`s Nuclear Emergency Preparedness HoustonChronicle.com Jan. 14, 2002, 9:00AM Business Editors/Health &Medical Writers (c) 2002 Business Wire. STERLING HEIGHTS, Mich.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 14, 2002--Macomb County is now is the home to a distribution center for a North Carolina company known as Two Tigers Management. Known well to those on the front lines of homeland defense, and in particular, nuclear emergencies, Two Tigers is one of the nation's leading volume suppliers of the anti-radiation pill known as potassium iodide, or KI. Taken prior to exposure to radioactive fallout, potassium iodide protects the thyroid gland from radioactive iodine poisoning during a nuclear emergency. The thyroid is especially vulnerable during nuclear emergencies as radioactive iodine is a major constituent in nuclear power plants, as well as in the fallout from a nuclear detonation. Carried for hundreds of miles on the winds, if radioiodine is taken into the body through breathing or consumption of contaminated food, it is collected and retained by the thyroid gland. There, this concentration of radioactive material results in a variety of life-threatening illnesses including cancers and leukemia. Children are particularly at risk due to their small physical size and weight. Potassium iodide saturates the thyroid with a safe, stable form of iodine, thus preventing the uptake of radioactive iodine. Potassium iodide is the only FDA approved thyroid-blocking agent and is approved for over the counter sale. Unfortunately for the general public, too few counters offer the product. After nearly 20 years of debate, the federal government has only recently decided to acquire a national stockpile. "While the State of Michigan has effective plans in place for nuclear emergency response, in many communities across the USA, this is not the case. For instance, in the event of a nuclear emergency, many of the 31 states with nuclear communities plan to distribute potassium iodide to first responders only," says Steven Aukstakalnis, Managing Director of Two Tigers. "What about the rest of the downwind population? The wind often moves faster than emergency response organizations. Cancer and other diseases, directly resulting from radioiodine poisoning from the Chernobyl accident, have been documented up to 500 km from the site." While Two Tigers is principally a volume supplier of the potassium iodide tablets to official government emergency-response organizations, the anti-radiation pills are offered to the general public on a limited basis via their website, www.TwoTigersOnline.com [http://www.TwoTigersOnline.com] . The website is also home to the nation's largest repository of public resources on nuclear, biological and chemical emergencies, including preparedness and response strategies. Headquartered near Wilmington, NC with a second distribution center in Texas, it is anticipated that Two Tigers new Sterling Heights operation will result in upwards of ten full-time jobs to the area during the next 6 months. Picture available at http://www.twotigersonline.com/images/radblock1.jpg [http://www.twotigersonline.com/images/radblock1.jpg] . --30--CT/ch* CONTACT: Two Tigers Steven Aukstakalnis (Awk-sta-call-niss), 919/458-0279 or 810/978-8176 steve@twotigersonline.com [steve@twotigersonline.com] www.TwoTigersOnline.com [http://www.TwoTigersOnline.com] ***************************************************************** 14 [toeslist] Yucca Mountain Fallout Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 12:44:30 -0600 (CST) Notice who has given campaign loot to Abraham, small world, don't you think? January 11, 2002 CBS Market Watch Yucca Mountain Fallout Energy Sec. Abraham Got Thousands from Nuke Biz by William Spain LAS VEGAS (CBS.MW) -- Although Enron's large contributions to key legislators and members of the Bush administration apparently were not enough to pull its financial fat out of the fire, one group of major energy-business political donors just hit the jackpot. While it will be at least a decade -- if then -- before radioactive waste begins pouring into Nevada's Yucca Mountain, the Department of Energy's decision to recommend the site is a big victory for the nuclear power industry. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said Thursday he plans to formally recommend the Silver State site as a new federal repository for nuclear waste -- delighting plant operators and infuriating Nevada businesses, politicians and environmentalists. Transporting all of its radioactive byproducts to one central location and storing it there -- both at taxpayer expense -- has long been at the top of the nuclear industry's wish list. Currently, most nuclear waste generated from commercial plants is stored on-site, a cost shouldered by the operators. The Nuclear Energy Institute wasted no time in hailing Abraham's decision: "Safely transporting nuclear waste from 35 states to one secure, specifically designed federal disposal facility underground is the best solution to protect our environment and our national security," said Joe Colvin, president of the trade group. Companies backed Senate bid Abraham received thousands of dollars in contributions from the industry in his campaign for reelection to the U.S. Senate from Michigan in 2000. In addition to NEI's $4,000, private nuclear-plant operators DTE Energy, with $5,000, Exelon, at $2,000, Constellation, $2,000, and FirstEnergy, also $2,000, ponied up for his failed bid. Abraham also accepted at least $9,500 from energy-trading company Enron between February of 1999 and October 2000. Although Attorney General John Ashcroft recently recused himself from involvement in the criminal probe of Enron because he had accepted over $50,000 of the company's money in the past, Joe Davis, a spokesman for the Department of Energy, insisted that Abraham has no such conflict. Abraham based his decision solely on "sound science and compelling interests [of] national security and environmental protection," he said. While the nuclear industry has given to both major parties, the GOP has long received the lion's share of the booty. For instance, the Center for Responsive Politics said that in the last election cycle Republican candidates got more than two-thirds of the $335,000 given by NEI and nearly three quarters of $819,000 contributed by leading nuclear operator Exelon. The next call in the ongoing battle will be made by the White House, which is on record as being in favor of both expanded nuclear power and the establishment of a central repository for nuclear waste. If, as expected, the Bush administration approves the site, Nevada's governor or state legislature gets a chance to veto the decision, which will stop the project until and unless Congress overrides it. Furious members of the state's congressional delegation, including Senate Majority Whip Harry Reid, have vowed to do whatever it takes to keep the Yucca from opening. And, even should they fail, Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn, a Republican, has vowed a court battle. William Spain is a reporter for CBS.MarketWatch.com in Chicago. $B%%(B 1997-2002 MarketWatch.com, Inc To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: toeslist-unsubscribe@egroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ***************************************************************** 15 California to Accept Radioactive Waste at Non-Designated Landfills Danielle Jackson Online Exclusive, Jan 14 2002 Brought to you by: Sacramento, Calif. -- California officials have announced plans to allow shipment of radioactive waste debris to landfills that are not designed to safely store the material. Under a policy finalized in November by the state Department of Health Services, dirt and debris from decommissioned nuclear power plants and other facilities can be disposed of without the oversight, licensing and monitoring that normally are associated with radioactive waste. The Committee to Bridge the Gap is suing the state over its new disposal policy, but a state radiologic health official says that a provision of federal law allows disposal of radioactive debris and soil from decommissioned nuclear sites in landfills. The policy was created as a result of an abandoned plan to open a nuclear waste dump at Ward Valley in the Mojave Desert. Throughout the state, at least six power plants and laboratory sites currently are ready for decommissioning. © 2002, PRIMEDIA Business Magazines & Media Inc. All rights ***************************************************************** 16 UK: Letters: Shut down Sellafield Irish Independent > LettersIssue Date: Tue January 15th 02 Sir Congratulations are due to the Taoiseach Bertie Ahern on his firm stance over the opening of a further pollution-causing facility at Sellafield. The Windscale Plant which caught fire in 1958 discharged vast amounts of windborne radioactive pollution over the north east of Ireland. There is no doubt in my mind that the subsequent increase in leukaemia in Dundalk and surrounding areas was a direct result of this. What action did the British authorities take? They changed the name to Sellafield. Because of the economic and employment implications involved it is unlikely that any British government would close the plant, and therefore sustained political pressure needs to be applied at European level. Having lived for over 40 years in England and been a member of the Council of Irish Counties Association, I have long complained against this grotesque facility. It should not go unnoticed that there is a large number of politically aware returned emigrants who would welcome and support the Taoiseach in his campaign to have Sellafield closed. P J Rouse, Castlegal, Co Sligo © Copyright Unison ***************************************************************** 17 Nevada GOP gov holds fire despite Dems' criticism Las Vegas SUN January 14, 2002 CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) - Republican Gov. Kenny Guinn isn't firing back at the Nevada State Democratic Party, which called him "cannon fodder" and ineffective in preventing Yucca Mountain from becoming the nation's nuclear waste dump. Guinn said he shrugged off the party's news release last week "because it makes them look smaller than they really are." Guinn said he's more concerned about setting up a sit-down meeting with President Bush. Bush's political director, Karl Rove, told Guinn such a meeting would be arranged before Bush makes any decision on the dump. "The president indicated during the election he'll base his decision on sound science, and I'm still optimistic," Guinn said. But Republican Party Chairman Bob Seale didn't hold back in responding to the Dems' criticism of Guinn, saying, "It's disingenuous to the extreme that the Democrats have stooped to these kind of tactics." Seale thinks the possibility of Yucca Mountain becoming the storage site for the nation's nuclear waste isn't among the top 10 concerns of Nevadans. He said they're more concerned about terrorism, education and prescription drug coverage for seniors. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 18 AU: Conservationists call for better uranium mining regulation. 15/01/2002. ABC News Online Environmental groups are calling for stronger regulations of uranium mining, after an incident at the Beverley Uranium Mine in South Australia's far north. A valve failure appears to have caused the spill of about 60,000 litres of radioactive liquid, most of which was contained within the mine site's evaporation ponds. Bruce Thompson, a nuclear campaigner with Friends of the Earth, says current legislation does not give the government strong powers to halt unsafe operations. "If they are going to be regulated, they need to be taken out of the hands of the company and they actually need strong federal government regulation, with an active state government, that's actively on site and monitoring routinely their operation," he said. Meanwhile, the company which operates Honeymoon Uranium Mine about 80 kilometres from Broken Hill, says uranium mining is one of the most regulated industries in existence. Southern Cross Resources project executive Tom Hunter says lessons can be learnt from the leak, but urges people to remember it was well contained. He says this is because the design of the plant is well thought out and has been checked by many levels of government. © 2001 Australian Broadcasting Corporation ***************************************************************** 19 AU: Conservationists, legislators say uranium mine should close after radioactive leak - 1/15/2002 - ENN.com Tuesday, January 15, 2002 By Associated Press CANBERRA, Australia — Conservationists and legislators on Sunday said a uranium mine should be temporarily closed after 60,000 liters (15,600 gallons) of radioactive fluid leaked from a pipe at the site in South Australia state. The leak, at the Beverley mine 600 kilometers (372 miles) north of the state capital Adelaide, occurred Friday, but was not revealed publicly until Saturday night. A spokesman for mine operator, Heathgate Resources, said the liquid comprised salty ground water, sulfuric acid, uranium, and oxygen and was "naturally radioactive." The spill had been contained in a drain surrounding the plant, spokesman Stephen Middleton said. "There was no spillage beyond the immediate plant area. There's been no impact on the environment and no impact on worker's safety," he said. Sandra Cake, deputy leader of the Australian Democrats party in the state legislature, said the leak had to be taken seriously because the mine was "very, very close" to a major underground water catchment area known as the Great Artesian Basin. "It matters a great deal and we should not allow this mine to continue operating when we do not know that things are safe," Cake told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio. The Australian Conservation Foundation said the mine should not resume operation until a full public inquiry had been completed. The Foundation spokesman said the technique used at the mine, known as in situ leach or ISL and involving pumping acid underground, was not approved in any other OECD country and had caused serious pollution in eastern Europe. "At a minimum, mining at Beverley must be halted until there has been a detailed and independent assessment of what went wrong and what the impacts are," he said. South Australia's acting Minerals and Energy Minister Rob Lucas on Saturday night said there would be a full inquiry. South Australia's chief inspector of mines was to visit the site Monday with inspectors from the government's radiation protection branch, he said. Copyright 2002, Associated Press All Rights ReservedMore ENN news Copyright © 2001 Environmental News Network Inc. ***************************************************************** 20 AU: Uranium mine 'must close' for inquiry canberra.yourguidewww.yourguide.com.au ADELAIDE: The Beverley uranium mine in South Australia must close until an independent inquiry was held into a 60,000-litre spill of radioactive liquid, federal and state politicians said yesterday. As the Australian Democrats said they smelt "a cover up", a computer error was blamed yesterday for the spill. Heathgate Resources said a computer kept radioactive liquid flowing into the mine's processing plant when it was in non-production mode, as it currently was. But a computer glitch caused a build-up of the liquid in a pipe, which burst and sent the material flowing into spillage areas at the mine, about 600km north of Adelaide. "We're not sure precisely why, but the computer shut down the plant but it didn't shut down the flow of material into the plant. That's what caused the pressure build-up in the pipe and its eventual failure," company spokesman Stephen Middleton said yesterday. Radiation measurements in the plant immediately after the spill were marginally above normal background levels, he said. "It wasn't a catastrophe in environmental or worker safety terms," he said. The company was staging an investigation into the spill as the federal Opposition joined a chorus of SA politicians yesterday to call for an independent inquiry. Opposition environment spokesman Kelvin Thomson said it was deeply concerning that the Government had left SA to deal with the spill. "The Commonwealth . . . can and should intervene in serious threats to the environment such as the spill at Beverley," Mr Thomson said in a statement. "It's no use having a federal Minister flick-passing the issue back to the states when the Minister, under Commonwealth legislation, has the power to do something about it. "This mine should be shut down immediately until a complete independent investigation can be carried out." The SA Opposition and Australian Democrats also called for an independent probe when they gathered at an anti-uranium mine rally at Parliament House in Adelaide. Democrats mines spokeswoman Sandra Kanck said, "The public has a right to know precisely what environmental damage occurred. "There is a smell of a cover-up involving an incident at a uranium mine." SA Opposition environment and natural resources spokesman John Hill said mining should not continue at Beverley until it was certain the mine was safe. Inspectors from the Radiation Protection Branch, the Department of Mines and the Health Commission have inspected the site and were expected to report to the SA Government yesterday. The Australian Workers Union was also attempting to gain access to the mine to determine its safety for employees. ***************************************************************** 21 EDITORIAL: How far has Mr. Sununu fallen? Tuesday, January 15, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal Now a paid lobbyist, former governor questions Nevadans' patriotism It would be hard to come up with a more aggressively stupid comment than the one uttered over the weekend by lobbyist John Sununu on the issue of Nevada's opposition to Yucca Mountain. "If Nevada is not willing to do its part in what is part of a national plan for homeland security ..." the former New Hampshire governor said, "maybe Americans ought to vacation somewhere else." Leave aside for the moment the fact that Mr. Sununu's home state can lay claim to some of the oldest, stablest granite mountain ranges in the nation, coincidentally located at far greater proximity to the sites where all those spent fuel rods are now bubbling away in pools of hot water adjoining nuclear reactors in the states whose residents benefited most directly from their use -- primarily in the Northeast -- itself a great site for the waste dump. But that's beside the main point. Nevadans gladly welcomed nuclear testing in the 1950s and '60s when they were told it was for the good of the nation -- and far more Nevadans and Utahans and Arizonans have suffered illness or death hastened by windborn nuclear fallout and military-related contamination of sundry sorts (including that encountered by Navajo uranium miners, who were not well advised of the risks) than have New Englanders or civilian residents of Washington, D.C., the last time we checked. Nevada still hosts several major federal military bases as well as a bombing range and the huge Nuclear Test Site itself. Military personnel have always received a warm welcome here. Meantime, for a lobbyist retained by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce specifically to push for the Yucca Mountain dump to characterize the "Screw Nevada" siting of spent nuclear fuel here -- a plan underway for the past 15 years -- as something newly necessitated by the events of last Sept. 11 is both cynical and insulting to the intelligence. Mr. Sununu would apparently have us assume only federal bureaucrats and vote-counting politicians know what's best for Nevada and the nation as a whole -- that the whole due process of law and system of checks and balances established by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights must now be abandoned -- based on what? On how well federal planning of the nation's airport security panned out on Sept. 11? By and large, Nevada politicians have expressed a commitment to aggressively pursue all legal remedies in the Yucca Mountain fight on behalf of the constituents who elected them. The John Sununu who served as White House chief of staff would once have understood that. Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002 ***************************************************************** 22 Alabama: Send nuke waste to Nevada Birmingham Post-Herald January 14, 2002 OUR VIEWS Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham has recommended Yucca Mountain in Nevada as the U.S. burial ground for as much as 77,000 tons of nuclear waste, and if that strikes some as worrisome, they should understand that the alternative is not that the toxic material somehow disappears. The alternative is that it sits where it is, in dozens of above-ground repositories in 39 states — not a smart idea. Supposing there's a fear that terrorists might steal or bomb the waste, what's better — to have most of it 1,000 feet underground in a single place surrounded by U.S. security forces, or to have most of it dispersed hither and yon? As for all the other sorts of things that could go wrong, the same, obvious answer applies: It's far better to put this material in a central spot where it can be guarded and monitored with extreme care, especially if it is far from any population center in a location deemed geologically suitable. Nevada officials are against plunking the waste 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas because, after all, that's their back yard. They warn the waste could poison Nevada water someday. It's true that a General Accounting Office report said there are matters that need to be addressed about Yucca. But raising questions is not the same as finding fault. Abraham is confident research demonstrates the site's safety, just as he thinks transporting waste to the site can be done safely. Those expressing exaggerated concern about placing the waste in trains and trucks ought to acknowledge that sooner or later it has to happen and that transporting nuclear materials is not new. The Abraham decision is not a spur-of-the-moment sort of thing. More than 40 years ago, the government began searching for a place where nuclear waste from power plants and weapons facilities could be kept safely for thousands of years. Congress selected the Yucca site for further study. There's been plenty of that, 14 years' worth at a cost of billions. What happens now is that the president has to accept or reject the Abraham recommendation. If he says yes, Nevada officials get their say. If those officials say no, and they will, the issue goes to Congress. If Congress says yes, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission must still decide on issuing a license. If it says yes, construction begins and the site is opened in 2010, maybe. Some say 2015. Federal law called for a site to be opened in 1998, but politics has continuously intervened and, meanwhile, some of the country's nuclear plants are running out of storage room. Further postponement of a decision will only aggravate a bad situation. Copyright (c) 2001 Birmingham Post Co. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 23 Yucca: Senators serve food, unity Las Vegas SUN Today: January 15, 2002 at 10:10:43 PST Troops to benefit from partnership By Erin Neff Typically a press release from a senator is a solo act, but Nevada's two senators are changing that. Whether you call them Harry Ensign or John Reid, Nevada's senators are together everywhere from joint press releases to tours of Nellis Air ForceBase. On Monday, Sens. Harry Reid, a Democrat, and John Ensign, a Republican, once again put aside their party differences to serve food for troops and talk to military personnel. "I think it's important that people see us acting as adults," said Reid, the Senate Majority Whip. "We can disagree on issues. "People don't care about the cat fights," he added. "They want to see us working shoulder to shoulder." On Monday that meant dishing up meatloaf with volunteers from Opportunity Village who serve 800,000 meals a year at Nellis' Mountain View Dining Facility. Ensign, who said he now counts Reid as a "true friend," viewed Monday's events at Nellis with greater importance during the current war on terrorism. After a briefing from the base commander, the senators got a chance to talk with soldiers about their views. "There are places where we think we can make a difference by working together," Ensign said. "It helps us strategize and not worry about each one using it against the other." Reid was particularly interested in visiting Nellis during this current recess to see how some of the pork he has directed to the base is being spent. A new hangar now houses an F-22 and land has been purchased for a runway safety project. Reid has leveraged his position in the Senate leadership and on the Ways and Means Committee to direct millions of dollars to Nevada programs, including military operations at Nellis. While Reid clearly was responsible for some of the improvements at Nellis, he also diverted plenty of attention to Ensign -- starting with the joint press release. "When you're talking about which troops have been deployed and who will going next to Afghanistan, it just highlights how unimportant the political differences are at a time like that," said Reid, who stayed behind Thursday from a Senate leadership tour of Afghanistan. Ensign said whether the issue is the war on terrorism or Yucca Mountain, he and Reid must work together. "I thank him for breaking ranks with his party in their criticism of Gov. Kenny Guinn when the Yucca Mountain decision was made," Ensign said. "I think that was a huge mistake on their part and he rose above it." All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 24 Berkley: Terrorism used to justify dump Congresswoman returns from weeklong trip to India Shelley Berkley Tuesday, January 15, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal By TONY BATT STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- Terrorism is being used as an excuse by the Bush administration to justify placing a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Rep. Shelley Berkley said Monday. Berkley, D-Nev., who returned from a weeklong trip to India on Sunday night, said Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham was "grasping at straws" when he said the threat of terrorism could be reduced by moving nuclear waste from reactor sites in 31 states to a repository 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. "While September 11 changed many things in this nation, I think we are seeing a lot of policy coming out of this administration that has nothing to do with terrorism or national security," Berkley said. "September 11 is being used as an excuse to forward a political agenda that has been in the works for many years," she said. Abraham never would have been appointed energy secretary by the Bush administration unless he supported nuclear power and its push for the Yucca Mountain repository, Berkley said. White House spokesman Ken Lisauis declined to respond directly to Berkley's comments. "Any comments I would make would be prefaced by the fact that the president still has not received a recommendation from the Department of Energy, and will not for no less than 30 days," Lisauis said. A phone call to the Energy Department was not returned. Nevada's chances of winning a majority vote in favor of a Yucca Mountain veto by Republican Gov. Kenny Guinn are better in the Senate than the House, Berkley said. She said she will increase efforts to educate House members about the transportation risks of hauling nuclear waste across the country to Nevada. Though her trip to India with four other House Democrats was intended to promote business, Berkley said the threat of war between Pakistan and India was a constant in her conversations with India's industrial and political leaders. "They expressed grave concerns that our alliance with Pakistan in the fight against terrorism is somewhat hypocritical in that Pakistan is home to many terrorist organizations," Berkley said. A Dec. 13 attack on the Indian Parliament in New Delhi left 14 people dead and led India and Pakistan to the brink of war. Berkley said tensions between the two countries seemed to subside during her trip. "I think they have averted a very serious and explosive situation," she said. Ethel M Chocolates executives in Las Vegas are eager to do business in India, Berkley said, but high tariffs make foreign trade impossible. She said she urged Indian officials to reconsider their trade policies. "They assured me that are making every effort to modernize their economy," Berkley said. Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002 ***************************************************************** 25 The battle of Yucca Mountain -- The Washington Times EDITORIAL • January 15, 2002 Another act in the radioactive drama of Yucca Mountain began last week. As expected, Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham gave a glowing review to developing the mountain (located somewhere near "Nowhere, Nevada") as a storage facility for high-level nuclear waste. This provoked a heated response from Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn, who complained, "This decision stinks." The governor and the administration will probably be exchanging a few more unfriendly lines, since President Bush is expected to approve the project, and Mr. Guinn is expected to veto it. Since Congress has ultimate authority in that case, and since Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle has already vowed to kill the project, the sequence would set the stage for (sigh) another election-year confrontation between the administration and Senate Democrats. All of this is entirely predictable. In the first place, taxpayers have already fronted nearly $7 billion for the project's development. While (predictably) no one, including the Energy Department, is certain how much the final project will cost, it could rise to $50 billion. That's serious money, even by Beltway standards. However, so is the problem that the repository has been designed to solve, namely, the continuing buildup of high-level nuclear waste. Each year, about 2,000 tons of excess plutonium, spent nuclear fuel and other high level radioactive waste are added to the already existent 40,000 tons. That waste is currently being stored at 131 different sites in 39 states around the country. However, those sites are running out of room — the Nuclear Energy Institute estimates that by 2010, when (hopefully), the curtain will officially lift on the repository at Yucca Mountain, nearly 80 percent of nuclear power plants will have exhausted their storage capacities. Such short-sighted storage has scripted a tragedy in-waiting. Mr. Abraham correctly cited national security as a primary reason for moving forward with the Yucca repository, since by explosively releasing containment, a terrorist could turn any one of those storage sites into a "dirty" radioactive bomb. A consolidated repository at Yucca would fulfill the solution offered by Mark Twain's Puddn'head Wilson, "Put all your eggs in one basket and — watch that basket." Moreover, if a terrorist did somehow penetrate security at the Yucca repository, he would face the problem of having to penetrate a mountain to cause a radioactive problem. Such a drama would play out a long way away from any significant population centers, but near the Nevada Test Site, where numerous explosive nuclear dramas have already run. It can only be hoped that Senate Democrats decide to respond with a chorus of "Ayes" at the denouement of the decision on the Yucca repository later this year. All site contents copyright © 2002 News World Communications, Inc. ***************************************************************** 26 AU: Twenty-four spills at u-mine news.com.au - By Environment Reporter CATHERINE HOCKLEY 15jan02 TWENTY-FOUR spills had occurred at Beverley uranium mine in the past four years, the State Government said last night. Three of the spills involved more than 2000 litres of acid mining liquid, some of it infused with uranium. The Treasurer, Rob Lucas, announced an independent review of the Government's monitoring of uranium mines and the public reporting of spills would be conducted. Acting for Minerals and Energy Minister Wayne Matthew, who is on holiday, Mr Lucas said: "The public will want to be assured there are proper procedures." The Government had been informed of the numerous spills through mandatory quarterly reports by mine operator Heathgate Resources, Mr Lucas said. But he did not know "who was aware in Government" of the reports. The Government acted last night after green groups, the State Opposition and the Australian Democrats accused it of a cover-up. It was revealed at the weekend a 62,000-litre spill had occurred at the mine on Friday night. Opposition environment spokesman John Hill said last night revelations of additional spills were "a scandal". Mr Hill called on Premier Rob Kerin – the Mines Minister when Beverley was approved – to explain why the spills had not been made public earlier. "What did Rob Kerin know and when did he know it?" Mr Hill said. `And if he wasn't aware of these spills . . . why not?" Democrats MLC Sandra Kanck called for the release of "unedited copies" of reports into the latest spill. "Again there is the smell of a cover-up involving an incident at a uranium mine," she said. SA Nuclear Free Future urged Heathgate Resources to release information on the impact of the spill on workers at the mine. In Friday night's incident, liquid carrying uranium spilled from a ruptured pipe at the mine in the state's Far North. A malfunction in the power supply to the plant has been blamed for the spill. Power supply to the plant was disrupted before 6.30pm, closing down valves in the pipe system. But pumps in the well fields continued operating and the pressure forced liquid to burst through the elbow joint of a pipe entering the plant. A worker used a backhoe to dig a trench, but some of the liquid escaped outside the plant fencing. The Government yesterday released an interim report by the Radiation Protection Branch which dismisses health and environment concerns over the spill. But Friends of the Earth called for tougher controls over the industry, saying, "SA uranium mining operations, including the controversial in-situ leach mines, have unclear and weak regulation." Heathgate Resources vice-president Stephen Middleton said last night: "The reporting procedure in place at the moment is extremely stringent and the Government is informed of any incident at the mine, no matter how minor". Australian IT [http://australianit.com.au] . ***************************************************************** 27 Aust's Beverley uranium mine blocked from full production theage.com.au, Breaking News ADELAIDE, Jan 15 AAP|Published: Tuesday January 15, 2:15 PM South Australia's Liberal government was accused today of long term cover-ups and collusion with uranium mining companies, as it blocked the Beverley mine returning to full operations. The government's chief mines inspector said today there were several issues at the mine he wanted addressed before allowing it to resume normal operations. In his report into last Friday's spill of about 60,000 litres of radioactive liquid from the Beverley mine, in the state's north, inspector Greg Marshall said there was no environmental damage from the spill. He said no personnel were exposed to a hazard when a computer error caused a buildup in a pipe of the radioactive ground water, which subsequently burst and emitted the liquid. The spill was one of 24 spills of radioactive liquid at the mine in the past two years, a revelation which prompted an angry response from the SA Nuclear Free Future Party. Party candidate Cherie Hoyle said she was outraged at "the long term cover ups and collusion between uranium mining companies and the Kerin government". "This is the same government that wants to bring all the nation's radioactive waste to our state, how can we trust them to manage these issues," Ms Hoyle said today. Mr Marshall found the liquid which spilled on Friday was contained within the processing plant's perimeter fence, except for a minor amount which flowed into an adjacent track's gutter. He said issues which the mine's operator Heathgate Resources must address included assuring power supply to the main control system responsible for the pipe failure could not be interrupted and to construct earthen bunds to prevent any processing fluids escaping beyond the perimeter fence. SA Premier Rob Kerin said today "the public have got a right to know when things happen", despite Friday's spill not being revealed until 24 hours later. Mr Kerin also said the 24 recent spills should be kept in context. "The way some people understand it is this is 24 radioactive spills, that is not the case," he told ABC Radio. "We've put such strict guidelines on the company that they need to let the Department of Mines and Energy know whenever there's almost the leak of a tap." Heathgate Resources spokesman Stephen Middleton said the company was confident of returning to full production by the end of the week. "They government has asked us to implement some procedural changes which we will be doing," he said. "That will take a few days and hopefully we'll be in a position to recommence commercial mining operations at the end of the week, subject to approval." Meanwhile, environmental group Friends of the Earth today called for federal intervention to regulate uranium mining in SA. "There have been a series of accidents at mines in South Australia which should never have happened," the group's hydrogeologist Dr Gavin Mudd said today in a statement. "However without open independent monitoring and assessment, it's hard to establish the number, scale and impact of accidents." Copyright © 2002 John Fairfax Holdings Ltd. All rights ***************************************************************** 28 Experts Convene at Moab On Fate of Atlas Mill Site The Salt Lake Tribune -- Tuesday, January 15, 2002 BY JUDY FAHYS MOAB -- A National Academy of Sciences team began brainstorming Monday over what can be done to stop pollution from the abandoned Atlas Corp. mill site, which is contaminated by radioactive and hazardous waste leftover from uranium processing. A dozen experts from a range of disciplines, including law, geology, groundwater and government, gathered to hear from local officials, the public, environmentalists and others knowledgeable about the 130-acre tailings pile north of Moab, its impact on residents, harm to endangered species in the adjacent Colorado River and possible affects on millions of downstream water users. U.S. Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, and Department of Environmental Quality Director Dianne Nielson were expected to speak today before the group. A public hearing also is scheduled today from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. "Our role is one of scientific appraisal," said Chairman Kai Lee as he opened Monday's meeting. Lee's statement implied a warning for anyone who hoped the National Academy of Sciences panel will tell Congress exactly how to fix the problems, a task with a price tag of between $137 million and $387 million. Ultimately, it will be up to Congress to choose whether to keep the tailings in place or relocate them and to pay for the work. The U.S. Department of Energy assumed title to the site last fall from an Atlas bankruptcy trustee. "What I'm hoping they will be able to lend is an impartial overview of all the factors that are unique to this particular site," said Grand County Commissioner Kimberly Schappert. In the late 1990s, the commission passed a resolution urging removal of the tailings. Commissioners are not only concerned about Moab Valley residents, exposed to high levels of lung-cancer causing radon gas that blows off the pile, but also about more than a million annual tourists, who run the rivers that converge at the base of the pile and who visit the area's national parks. Bill Hedden of the the Grand Canyon Trust, an advocate for removing the tailings, said the panel can focus on long-term solutions, not just inexpensive ones. "The cheap alternative now may turn out to be the expensive alternative in the long run," said Hedden, who used to work at the Atlas mill and also served on the county commission. Panel members and guests visited the pilings Monday afternoon. About four dozen people tugged on two pairs of yellow rubber boots and two pairs of gloves apiece to take the tour. They saw flags marking spots where the red dirt is being analyzed for radioactive contamination. They walked to the riverbank at the bottom of the massive tailings pile for a look at the area where newly hatched pike minnows and humpback chubs -- both endangered species -- die each spring because of ammonia leaching into their nursery. They trudged onto the mound of mine waste itself. Technicians used radiation monitors to check the visitors' exposure as they left the site. Among the possible solutions: the International Uranium Corp.'s suggestion of propelling the tailings via slurry pipeline to the its White Mesa uranium reprocessing facility near Blanding. fahys@sltrib.com © Copyright 2002, The Salt Lake Tribune All material found on ***************************************************************** 29 Meltdown fears halt Sellafield site demolition Irish Newspapers - Date: Tue January 15th 02 FEARS that nuclear fuel at the original Sellafield site would ignite has led to the suspension of a €97m dismantling plan. The UK Atomic Energy Authority confirmed yesterday the risky decommissioning programme has been halted over concern that the fuel would spontaneously catch fire. The authority confirmed that risks in the reactor core were behind the decision to halt the project until a safe method is found. There was also a risk of a collapse at the plant which contains vast quantities of uranium and plutonium. The fuel is from the original Windscale plant, which is now part of the Sellafield site. In 1957, Windscale caught fire and produced the world's worst nuclear accident prior to Chernobyl. It affected part of Ireland's east coast with claims it led to increased leukaemia and Down's Syndrome. The fire sent a plume of radioactive contamination into the atmosphere, contaminating milk supplies in the process. Windscale, an old ammunition factory, had been making nuclear material for the British government's nuclear weapons programme. Windscale Pile 1, as it is named, is owned by the UK Atomic Energy Authority, but the Sellafield site - the name was changed after the disaster - is owned by British Nuclear Fuels. Since the fire, it has been sealed in case air reached the tonnes of melted fuel and sparked spontaneous combustion, according to reports yesterday. There is known to be a major risk in dismantling such a huge amount of dangerous unstable radioactive material and such an exercise has never been previously attempted. British Nuclear Fuels and Rolls-Royce were jointly awarded the contract to decommission the Windscale Pile 1 plant in Cumbria, just 60 miles from the Irish coast. They have spent more than €32m over the past three years on the project. But now they have been told to reconsider the project as it may not be safe. Andrew Munn, a UK Atomic Energy Authority spokesperson, told the Irish Independent yesterday that the contract to decommission the plant and restore the site was signed in 1997. Problems have arisen in connection with robotic arms used to dismantle graphite blocks in the core of the reactor. Another problem has to do with the need for an inert atmosphere in the reactor core. This would have required large amounts of argon gas to prevent fire spontaneously breaking out. Mr Munn said the contractors were carrying out a technical review to assess what other method could be used to carry out the dismantling project. When Windscale caught fire on October 8, 1957, clouds of radioactivity covered much of Ireland and the UK as it burned for three days before it was extinguished. As a result, the millions of gallons of milk which were contaminated with radioactive iodine had to be poured down drains. A British newspaper reported yesterday that the true nature of the disaster was kept from the public. It also claimed that apart from those injured in fighting the huge fire, some 100 people would probably have died or would die eventually of cancer from the radioactivity. The UK Atomic Energy Authority also confirmed the plutonium and uranium was originally earmarked for the UK nuclear weapons programme. It was also reported that decommissioning of the Windscale plant and other nuclear facilities dating back 50 years will cost more than euro40m. Treacy Hogan, Environment Correspondent © Copyright Unison ***************************************************************** 30 Poll shows Nevadans' views on Yucca Mountain nuke dump Las Vegas SUN Today: January 15, 2002 at 11:30:33 PST Poll shows Nevadans' views on Yucca Mountain nuke dump LAS VEGAS (AP) - Nevada's opposition to a high-level nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain is as strong in 2002 as it was in 1990, a new poll shows. But an increasing number of Nevadans believe it's inevitable that the site, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, will one day be home to 77,000 tons of nuclear waste. One-third say it's time to deal for benefits. After more than 20 years of back-and-forth between foes and supporters of the dump, the poll numbers show a hardened opposition as well as an increasing cynicism about the government's ability to research the site honestly. The poll for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, lasvegas.com and KVBC-TV, Channel 3, also shows an increase in support for politicians fighting against a repository. Some 85 percent of respondents want Nevada leaders to keep up the battle, up from 80 percent in 1990. The findings also show: -Eighty-three percent of the 625 Nevada voters polled disagree with Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham's decision to recommend the site. In 1990, 77 percent were opposed to the dump. Support for the site was nearly identical in both polls; 11 percent backed Abraham's decision this year, and 12 percent favored Yucca Mountain for waste burial in 1990. -Seventy-three percent believe the federal government is not being honest in its site research, compared with 68 percent in 1990. -Sixty-eight percent believe the site is inevitable, up from 52 percent in 1990. -About one fifth, 21 percent, would consider moving out of state if waste is buried in Yucca Mountain. -Sixty-two percent would volunteer or financially contribute to an organized campaign to fight the repository. -A third of those polled want the state to negotiate for benefits. In 1990, 23 percent of respondents were ready to make a deal in exchange for the dump. Nevada officials credited the slight increase in skepticism about the research in part to the recent General Accounting Office report that found nearly 293 unanswered scientific questions on Yucca Mountain. But Energy Department officials say those questions are related to licensing a dump, not the site selection. The poll was by Mason-Dixon Polling &Research on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. On Thursday, Abraham informed Gov. Kenny Guinn that he will recommend to President Bush that Yucca Mountain be selected to store the nation's nuclear waste. Guinn plans to meet with Bush to persuade him to reject Abraham's recommendation. "Nevada is as galvanized against Yucca Mountain as ever," Guinn said Monday through a spokesman. "I think these numbers show we have the same mandate we had 12 years ago. As long as I'm governor, I'm going to continue fighting against the dump coming to Nevada." U.S. Sens. Harry Reid and John Ensign, who must try to rally congressional opposition to placing nuclear waste in Nevada, both said they were not willing to negotiate for benefits. But former Gov. Robert List, now a lobbyist for the nuclear power industry and the highest-profile proponent of negotiations, said, "I hear in the D.C. circles there's anticipation Nevada will expect to have some offset here. I see some willingness to have some dialogue." Former Sen. Richard Bryan, who since the 1980s has opposed any negotiations, said there's "been a steady drum beat for at least 15 years the site is inevitable, and the nuclear waste industry has spent millions to make that point and engaged List to make that point." He called it a false premise "that somehow there's something out there that people are dying to give us. They've created this aura that if we only sit down and negotiate, there's a pot of gold at the end of the nuclear rainbow." All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 31 Reid, Ensign reiterate bipartisan opposition Tuesday, January 15, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal Sununu reacts to criticism from senators By KEITH ROGERS REVIEW-JOURNAL Sens. Harry Reid and John Ensign continued their bipartisan attack Monday on the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project, saying pro-Yucca lobbyist John Sununu was wrong to claim Nevada is shirking its national security responsibilities by resisting the energy secretary's intention to recommend the site. "I wasn't a big fan of John Sununu before this," Ensign, R-Nev., said while at Nellis Air Force Base with Reid to promote an Opportunity Village project. "It was so outrageous," Ensign said. "I think it hurts his side. There's no question it should be an embarrassment to their side to make such a statement." Reid, D-Nev., cited a number of roles Nevada has served in the name of national security, including the more than 900 nuclear weapons tests conducted at the Nevada Test Site from 1951 to 1992; more than 50 years of training the nation's fighter pilots on the sprawling Nellis Air Force Range; and activities at Fallon Naval Air Station, all of which have left their mark on the state's environment. "I personally feel the state of Nevada has done a great deal for this country and we've been glad to do all we've done," Reid said. Sununu, a Republican who was New Hampshire's governor for three terms and served as chief of staff to the first President Bush, was hired late last year by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to lobby for building a repository for high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. On Friday, the day after Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham notified Gov. Kenny Guinn that he will recommend to President Bush after 30 days that a repository be constructed at Yucca Mountain, Sununu bristled at criticism from Nevada officials. "If Nevada is not willing to do its part in what is part of a national plan for homeland security ... maybe Americans ought to vacation somewhere else," he said. In a telephone interview Monday, Sununu clarified his comment when asked his reaction to statements made by Ensign and Reid. "If Nevada doesn't deal with the issue properly, it could create resentment across the country," Sununu said, noting, "It's OK for folks in Nevada to take a position on this. "This is a 20-year national strategy supported by four presidents and eight secretaries of energy. It was legislation passed by Congress, the technology has been shown to be proper and the transportation technology appropriate," he said. "All I'm hearing from the other side is personal attack. "Let's decide what is the right thing to do from the science technology and what's appropriate for national policy at this time," Sununu said. Reid said Nevada's anti-Yucca Mountain strategy doesn't single out the Bush administration or Congress. "We have lots of plans that we can do to be successful," he said. "We're waiting to see what the president does," Reid said, adding later, "The longer he waits, the better off we are." Bush would be under no time constraints to act on Abraham's recommendation, if the Energy secretary makes one as intended. While at Nellis, Reid and Ensign donned hats and aprons provided by Opportunity Village and served lunch to troops at the base's Mountain View Inn dining facility. Opportunity Village is a privately run business that trains and employs people with disabilities. The senators visited the base to recognize Opportunity Village's program that employs 91 of their disabled clients to bus tables at four dining facilities at the base. Cooks laid off by Las Vegas hotels in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks have also been employed at the base through the program, according to George Allen, Opportunity Village government contracts administrator. Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002 ***************************************************************** 32 Local officials clash with Sununu on Yucca Today: January 15, 2002 at 9:55:11 PST By Jeff German LAS VEGAS SUN Top local officials and a leading nuclear industry lobbyist are clashing over the effect of Yucca Mountain on national security. Both sides have accused the other of putting up a smokescreen to cloud the hotly debated issue of sending high-level nuclear waste to Nevada. In a letter Monday to President George W. Bush, Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman and Clark County Chairman Dario Herrera said shipping the waste to the state ignores the risks of terrorism along the transportation routes. But John Sununu, the industry's Yucca Mountain point man, accused Goodman and Herrera of trying to steer the president off course in their bid to stop the multibillion-dollar Yucca Mountain project's approval process. "I think what you are hearing from the mayor and the commissioner is just a smokescreen," Sununu said. "Nevadans can't have it both ways. They can't say transporting it is a problem and leaving it at the facilities is not. What you're hearing is a disingenuous argument from the opponents of Yucca Mountain. Herrera and Goodman, however, lashed back. "Mr. Sununu is paid a lot of money to muddy up this issue," Herrera said. "The fact of the matter is Yucca Mountain does nothing to promote the national security issue, and he's using it as a smokescreen to show Nevadans that we should accept this dump in our backyard." Goodman this morning called Sununu a "prostitute" and a"hired gun" for the nuclear industry. "Why should anybody want to listen to him?" Goodman asked. "If he was a true public servant talking about the good for the country, it would be one thing. But he's on the industry's payroll." In recent days Sununu, a former New Hampshire governor and chief of staff to former President George Bush, has suggested Nevadans have a patriotic duty to accept the repository. His remarks have enraged local leaders. In their letter to the current president, both Goodman and Herrera urged Bush not to follow Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham's recommendation finding Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, suitable to store the deadly nuclear waste. Abraham last week informed Gov. Kenny Guinn that he will ask the president to designate Yucca Mountain as the nation's sole repository for 77,000 tons of nuclear waste now being stored at reactors in 39 states. He said shipping spent nuclear fuel to Yucca Mountain was important to national security. "We should consolidate the nuclear wastes to enhance protection against terrorist attacks by moving them to one underground location that is far from population centers," Abraham wrote Guinn. But in their letter, Goodman and Herrera tried to turn the tables on Abraham. They insisted the risks of terrorism are much less if the radioactive materials remain at the reactor sites, which can be heavily guarded. Abraham, the two officials said, failed to consider in his recommendation that the government would be creating new potential terrorist targets by shipping the waste to Nevada. "Unless you plan on shutting down the nuclear reactors those will still remain viable threats," Herrera said in an interview. "Then you'll have truckloads full of waste, and those will be new moving targets for potential terrorist attack. And then you'll have another central threat, Yucca Mountain, which happens to be 90 miles away from Las Vegas." Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Nuclear Projects Office, the state's Yucca Mountain watchdog, estimated that the nuclear industry will have to make 100,000 waste shipments to Yucca Mountain over a 38-year period beginning as early as 2015. That averages out to between 3,000 and 4,000 shipments a year, he said. "I guess they just assume they're going to beam it over here like they do in Star Trek," Loux said. But Sununu and Mitch Singer, a spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's chief Washington lobbyist, said the transportation of nuclear waste has proven to be safe in the past. "We're confident of the procedures set in place and the ability to ship it safely," Singer said. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 33 Sununu could not have been more insulting, and ignorant Tuesday, January 15, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal COLUMN: John L. Smith Hey, that was quick. Even in the long, twisted political history of Yucca Mountain, where politicians and nuclear pitchmen have often melted down, rarely has a man managed so swiftly to sound like a moron and alienate himself from an entire state population in fewer than 100 words. Talk about efficiency. Barely a day after Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham announced his endorsement of Yucca as a high-level nuclear waste dump site over the vociferous objections of lowly Nevada, pro-nuke lobbyist John Sununu chimed in and managed to question our state's patriotic heart while insulting generations of residents. "If I were advising Nevada long term, I would suggest they do whatever they have to do politically in a way that doesn't create resentment in the country," Sununu told a Review-Journal reporter. "If Nevada is not willing to do its part in what is part of a national plan for homeland security ... maybe Americans ought to vacation somewhere else." Believe it or not, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce actually pays Sununu to open his mouth on this issue. What will he do for his next trick, desecrate our state flag? Pluck a mountain bluebird? Gun down a desert bighorn? If Nevada is not willing to do its part? Nevada Test Site workers and their families, please rise and introduce yourself to Mr. Sensitivity. You toiled for decades during the heart of the Cold War to ensure the United States stayed ahead of the atomic weapons race. You were there for 928 nuclear bomb tests. You made certain America won the world's most dangerous game. And you paid the price. Many, who were later diagnosed with cancer, suffered for their loyalty. Many more of the downwinders afflicted by radioactive fallout paid our Cold War debts with their lives. Nevadans are only now beginning to understand the level of contamination present in the groundwater around the test site. If Nevada is not willing to do its part? Nellis Air Force Base has been doing more than its share of heavy lifting in its more than 50 years, training the best fighter pilots on the planet and making sure the United States maintained its air superiority. There's tiny Indian Springs with its proud history of military service, and the Fallon Naval Air Station. At Fallon, the presence of a leukemia cluster in the rural farming community has been linked by some to fuel emissions from the air base. From Wendover, where the crew of the Enola Gay prepared for its atomic mission, to Hawthorne's vast ammunition storage facility, Nevada has played an integral role in the defense of this nation for generations. Sununu's remarks not only insulted Nevadans but potentially residents of every state along the nuclear waste transportation route. That's 43 in all. Ironically, his observation might have provided a boost to Nevada's flagging spirits following Abraham's announcement. On Monday, Mayor Oscar Goodman and Clark County Commission Chairman Dario Herrera announced they were sending a letter to President Bush critical of Abraham and the site selection process. At Nellis, U.S. Sens. Harry Reid and John Ensign blasted Sununu's fighting words. He provided them with further confirmation that those forcing nuclear waste down our throats are only too happy to take cheap shots. "The Department of Energy for 20 years has been trying to sell Nevada on the (idea of accepting) nuclear waste, there's lots of good things in it for you. Nevadans have not agreed," Reid said. "There's a small group of people that would prostitute the state of Nevada. I have said and will continue to say, we are not in the business of being whores and, therefore, we are not going to talk about price." If it were really a matter of national security, Reid noted, perhaps as governor of New Hampshire Sununu should have embraced a nuclear waste storage site in that state. "He did everything he could, and he was successful, at keeping nuclear waste out of New Hampshire," he said. "So he's speaking out of both sides of his mouth." And they actually pay Sununu to speak. John L. Smith's column appears Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. E-mail him at Smith@lvrj.com or call him at 383-0295. webmaster@lvrj.com Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - ***************************************************************** 34 Herrera backs Guinn, raps Porter on dump issue LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL: NEWS: Herrera backs Guinn, raps Porter on dump issue Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, foreground, and Clark County Commission Chairman Dario Herrera speak at a news conference Monday, where they unveiled a letter they're sending to President Bush urging him to reject Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham's recommendation that high-level nuclear waste be stored at Yucca Mountain. Photo by Jeff Scheid. Tuesday, January 15, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal By JAN MOLLER REVIEW-JOURNAL Clark County Commission Chairman Dario Herrera on Monday rejected suggestions by Nevada Democratic officials that Gov. Kenny Guinn has been ineffective in the fight against storing nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, and said he doesn't think the issue should become a partisan one. But moments later, Herrera referred to Republican leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives as a "three-headed monster" and questioned whether his likely opponent in this year's congressional race could be an effective fighter against the project. "I think it's extremely difficult to on Friday night eat their shrimp and drink their champagne and on Monday morning criticize (the project) with any kind of credibility," Herrera said. The statement was a reference to fund-raising help that Sen. Jon Porter, R-Henderson, received from House Republicans in his unsuccessful 2000 bid to unseat Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., and gave clear indication that Herrera plans to paint the highly charged nuclear waste issue in partisan tones during his upcoming race for Congress. Herrera's comments followed a morning news conference with Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman at which the two Democrats unveiled a letter urging President Bush to reject Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham's recommendation that Yucca Mountain become the nation's permanent storage site for high-level nuclear waste. House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., Majority Leader Richard Armey, R-Texas, and Majority Whip Tom DeLay, R-Texas, all paid fund-raising visits to Nevada on Porter's behalf during the 2000 campaign, helping the Henderson insurance executive raise more than $100,000. The three Republicans have long been among the leading advocates for the repository. Herrera and Porter are the leading candidates in the race to represent the newly created 3rd Congressional District, which contains nearly equal numbers of registered Democrats and Republicans and is considered a key battleground in the parties' quest for majority control in the House. Last week Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., acknowledged that Abraham's recommendation could hurt Republicans in the fall elections. "When you have the control of the House and the Senate so close, it is a legitimate, easy argument to make when you only have a six-seat majority. Every House seat counts," Ensign told The Associated Press. Porter was traveling Monday and unavailable for comment. But his campaign manager, Mike Slanker, said it's "truly a shame" that Herrera has made nuclear waste a partisan issue. "For someone like Mr. Herrera to attack a person in Jon Porter who's been publicly opposed to Yucca Mountain and been a member of the Legislature and fought this issue for longer than a lot of people have lived in the Las Vegas Valley is just ridiculous," Slanker said. Slanker added that Porter might take a different approach to his fund raising in the upcoming election, though he did not rule out the possibility that Porter would seek financial assistance from lawmakers who support the Yucca Mountain project. "We've had that discussion and I think at this stage of the game we're going to take this on a case-by-case basis," Slanker said. "We're not going to disavow someone out of hand." Although Nevada elected leaders are united in their opposition to the proposed nuclear waste repository, Democrats moved quickly last week to seek partisan advantage after Abraham announced his decision to recommend Yucca Mountain as suitable. "It's obvious now that Guinn has no juice at all with the Republicans, who have made him look like cannon fodder," said a Thursday statement from the state Democratic Party. Herrera said that statement was unfair, and praised Guinn for his work on the issue. "I support the governor's efforts wholeheartedly," he said. webmaster@lvrj.com Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - ***************************************************************** 35 Nuclear waste site applauded Monday, January 14, 2002 BY BILL KRASEAN KALAMAZOO GAZETTE U.S. Rep. Fred Upton has joined nuclear energy supporters in applauding a decision by Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham endorsing Yucca Mountain in Nevada for the nation's nuclear spent fuel storage facility. "The need for a nuclear repository is no longer just an environmental issue," said Upton, R-St. Joseph. "Since the Sept. 11 attacks, it's a national security issue as well." In a letter to Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn and the Nevada Legislature, Abraham said that he intends to recommend to President Bush within 30 days that the Yucca Mountain site is "scientifically sound and suitable for development as the nation's long-term geological repository for nuclear waste." Abraham said in the letter that a repository "will help ensure America's national security and secure disposal of nuclear waste, provide for a cleaner environment and support energy security." Even with Bush's approval, however, the issue is not settled. The next battleground in the debate will be Congress, where Nevada's delegation vows to continue opposition. Upton's nuclear waste policy amendments act was passed by the House and Senate in 2000 but vetoed by President Clinton. He said that Consumers Energy's Palisades nuclear power plant has to store its excess spent fuel in casks on its property, "just a stone's throw from Lake Michigan, almost in the back yard of neighbors." Consumers Energy spokesman Jeff Holyfield said that there are 18 130-ton concrete and steel casks on a cement pad just north of the main plant. The casks have been built since the mid-1990s to store excess fuel.Palisades and a number of other nuclear power plants have run out of storage space inside their plants in deep water pools. Another seven casks will be built at Palisades to accommodate more spent fuel by the year 2007, Holyfield said. The plant's license to operate extends to the year 2011. Any decision what to do with spent fuel generated after 2007 will be based on the Yucca Mountain decision, he said. Holyfield said that the energy company "applauds the important step by the Department of Energy. This is an important milestone to help fulfill the government's obligation to safely dispose of and store spent nuclear fuel." Upton said the decision to pursue the Yucca Mountain repository was "sound policy based on sound science." Alice Hirt, a Don't Waste Michigan board member from Holland whose organization opposes nuclear energy, said that the Bush administration is using fear generated by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to push through an agenda it haswanted all along. "We feel it is a decision that is not based on science," Hirt said.Yucca Mountain, located about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is the only site under consideration for storage of spent nuclear fuel and high-level nuclear wastes. The federally owned land is on the western edge of the Department of Energy's Nevada Test Site. The repository would be about 1,000 feet below the top of the mountain and 1,000 feet above the ground water. Eileen Supko of Energy Resources International said in a telephone interview that Yucca Mountain would be limited by regulations to storage of 70,000 metric tons of spent fuel and radioactive wastes, although there is physical space for as much as 120,000 metric tons, depending on how the wastes are arranged. American nuclear power plants currently have 45,000 metric tons of excess spent fuel, and the military has 2,500 metric tons, she said. If all 103 currently operating nuclear power plants operate for the length of their licenses, they will ultimately generate 90,000 metric tons of spent fuel, she said. Americans have paid more than $18 billion as part of their electric bills to finance the study of the Yucca site, Supko said. Abraham said in his letter that spent nuclear fuel, high-level radioactive waste and excess plutonium is currently stored at more than 130 sites in 39 States."We should consolidate the nuclear wastes to enhance protection against terrorist attacks by moving them to one underground location that is far from population centers," he wrote.Cameron Davis, director of the Chicago-based Lake Michigan Federation, said the Bush Administration is ignoring the bigger issue. "Until we phase out nuclear power plants, we will continue to generate and transport spent nuclear fuel through our communities," Davis said. Hirt said that if Yucca Mountain is a repository, an estimated 36,000 train and truck shipments of radioactive fuel will cross the nation over two decades. "There's is no good solution to the storage of spent fuel," Hirt said. Bill Krasean can be reached at 388-8577 or bkrasean@kalamazoogazette.com. ***************************************************************** 36 Yucca: And another thing ... Tuesday, January 15, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal COLUMN: Steve Sebelius Not quite forgotten in the avalanche of publicity that attended Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham's decision to formally recommend Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waste dump last week was more shameless, craven exploitation of the Sept. 11 attacks. It should come as no surprise that an administration which would use an attack on America to begin eroding American freedoms would use such an excuse to do just about anything. But it still announces itself like a bright Hawaiian shirt at a funeral. Nuclear waste piles around the country are a security risk, Abraham says, and we need Yucca Mountain to keep terrorists from laying their hands upon spent nuclear fuel. And while security at nuclear plants has been proven lax, what kind of sophistry suggests we create thousands of mobile targets over two decades of waste shipments, instead of simply bolstering security at the sites, as U.S. Sen. Harry Reid suggests? Worse still were the comments from the ethically challenged political has-been John Sununu, who has sold his negligible public relations talents to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to promote the dump. He tried to mitigate the state's negative reaction to the dump by questioning Nevada's patriotism thusly: "If Nevada is not willing to do its part in what is part of a national plan for homeland security ... maybe Americans ought to vacation somewhere else." Sununu and Abraham both know full well that the only security to be assured by Yucca Mountain is the continued security of the nuclear power industry, comfortably ensconced in a cocoon of government benefits, from insurance subsidies to Uncle Sam's complete willingness to literally take out its garbage. It doesn't seem to be the sort of up-by-your-bootstraps capitalism Republican icon Ronald Reagan would have endorsed. Reid responded by saying Sununu ought to be ashamed of himself for his ignorance of history. Nevada -- home of the Nevada Test Site, scene of dozens of above-ground nuclear explosions -- has done more than its part for the country. But the senator's approach has one fatal flaw: It's clear Sununu is beyond capacity for shame. Moreover, Sununu is also a hypocrite. In 1986, he was governor of New Hampshire, where some had proposed putting a nuclear waste dump. Then-Gov. Sununu objected, according to a United Press International story, saying the area in question was home to parks, wildlife areas, state forests and even a geological site. (Now we know the punchline to the joke about how one makes a Republican into an environmentalist.) Sununu, according to the story, said officials would "prepare the strongest possible case to make sure (New Hampshire) is not selected." And he was successful. Mayor Oscar Goodman took some heat after calling Abraham "that piece of garbage." Abraham's flack, Joe Davis, said it's unfortunate when people divert from the issues into personal attacks. But what did the secretary expect from Goodman, flowers? If anything, the mayor was uncharacteristically restrained. He could have noted, for example, that Abraham is a whore in the White House brothel, turning tricks for his pimps in the nuclear energy industry and paid with the crack cocaine of power. If he'd wanted to be restrained, the mayor could have said that Abraham's quick decision makes a liar out of President George W. Bush, who promised during the 2000 campaign (after lengthy negotiation with Nevada officials) that "science, not politics" would decide Yucca. According to the General Accounting Office, there are 293 scientific questions that remain to be answered; the political question has apparently been settled. (The only comfort is that, even when Republicans from Gov. Kenny Guinn to U.S. Rep. Jim Gibbons to then-Senate hopeful John Ensign were extolling Bush for his vapid "promise," the rest of us knew it was all for show.) Nevadans should feel no pangs of disloyalty for opposing the dump, no matter what the morally vacuous front-men in Washington say. This battle doesn't have a damn thing to do with fighting terrorism, or keeping the flag waving over the land of the free and the home of the brave. It's all about keeping the water boiling at 103 nuclear plants around the country, and perhaps opening a few new ones while we're at it. In a recent speech, Bush repeated the Christian mantra that we must be "good stewards" of the Earth. And yet Bush supports drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and initially balked at backing tougher arsenic drinking-water standards. Clearly, he'll say anything. Don't buy it for a second, Nevada. This state should choose principled dissent over power-industry patriotism any day. Steve Sebelius is a Review-Journal political columnist. His column runs Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. Reach him at 383-0283 or by e-mail at Steve_Sebelius@lvrj.com. webmaster@lvrj.com Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - ***************************************************************** 37 LETTERS: Nevadans have already contributed plenty Tuesday, January 15, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal To the editor: John Sununu's outrageous suggestion that Americans might wish to boycott Nevada as a tourist destination because of our unwillingness to accept a nuclear waste dump implies that Nevadans are shirking their patriotic duty to play a part in the nation's defense. I submit that Mr. Sununu's statements display a level of ignorance which is shocking given the high offices he has held. May I remind Mr. Sununu that the federal government already utilizes huge tracts of land in this state for defense purposes. Until 10 years ago, Nevada was the only state regularly subjected to nuclear bombing in the name of national defense. As late as the 1960s, atmospheric nuclear testing exposed thousands of people in the region to the deadly effects of atomic radiation. To this day, a huge portion of the state is subjected to conventional bombing, both in the south, via Nellis Air Force Base, and in the north, via the Navy's installation at Fallon. These facilities, and especially the base at Groom Lake, continue to poison our environment and subject our citizens to various hazards. Generally, Nevadans accept all of this as our portion in the defense of the nation. Has your home state of New Hampshire made any similar contributions, Mr. Sununu? All that aside, how can the citizens of Nevada be expected to willingly accept the entire nation's nuclear waste when we have no nuclear power generating plants and contribute not one ounce of the radioactive garbage you propose to bury in our backyard? ANDY WINDES LAS VEGAS Slick puppet To the editor: A little more than a year ago, I relocated to Las Vegas after nearly 25 years in the Los Angeles area. Nevada not only provided a refuge for me when I sorely needed one, but also gave me many new chances in life that I am convinced would not have come about had I not moved here. Within less than two weeks I had been offered a great job with one of the city's corporate mainstays. Within three months, I was a student at the Community College of Southern Nevada and would soon be accepted at the UNLV as an English major. I made new friends who have come to mean the world to me and I enjoyed the closeness I was able to re-establish with my immediate family. In short, the Silver State became my home. All of the above are just a few of the reasons why I was outraged by John Sununu's recent derogatory comments about my adopted state. How dare he imply that Nevada and her citizens are being anything less than patriotic in their opposition to a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain? Even worse, how dare he invoke the tragedy of Sept. 11 in connection with the site? The decision to build the repository at Yucca Mountain was never, ever motivated by the possibility of terrorist attacks. It was motivated by politics -- nothing more, nothing less. It is a sad day indeed when someone of Mr. Sununu's "stature" turns the sickening terrorist attacks perpetrated against our nation into a weapon of propaganda callously aimed at even more of her innocent citizens. Doing so shows Mr. Sununu for the overpaid, slick-tongued puppet he so obviously is. ANTHONY GUY PATRICIA LAS VEGAS No patriots To the editor: I am sickened by the statements of John Sununu. He is worse than the garbage that Oscar Goodman labeled Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham. These people aren't patriots, they're whores. They have been paid to make these statements supporting nuclear waste in Nevada. They don't care about us. They just care about the extra "vacation homes" and "trips" they can take with the extra money they made on this issue. EVAN LIPTON LAS VEGAS Out of touch To the editor: After reading John Sununu's comments regarding Yucca Mountain in Saturday's paper, it all comes back to me why the name "Sununu" raises my hackles. To insinuate that Nevadans oppose this because we are not willing to do our part for homeland security is an outrage. I'm sure Nevada's military sites, military recruitment statistics and donations show otherwise. I am not worried about his threat that "maybe Americans ought to vacation somewhere else." I have been so proud of the ability of the American people to see through nonsense and flock to support our leaders who are honest and speak from the heart -- Donald Rumsfeld, for example. I wonder what Mr. Sununu's justification would have been if Sept. 11 hadn't happened? I am disgusted that a person would use the tragedy of Sept. 11 to justify his agenda as a paid lobbyist. Further, his comments that it's much easier to protect a single site from terrorism may be true, but completely sidesteps the issue of protecting the transportation of the waste. Certainly, the facts must show that the multiple initial shipments and the continued shipments over time from all over the nation will be more susceptible to accident and terrorism than the existing sites. Finally, his comments that the people of Nevada should give him 150 acres on the site to build a vacation home for himself and his family to show how safe it is, harkens back to the story about how the first President Bush had never seen a grocery store scanner. How out of touch with reality are these people? What kind of person needs 150 acres for a vacation home? MARIANNE McPHERSON LAS VEGAS Hot spot To the editor: In an act of grand hypocrisy, John Sununu suggests people should select a place other than Las Vegas to vacation if we resist efforts to allow our nest to be fouled with nuclear waste. He joins a growing list of public relations "artists" who are paid to shepherd through the plan to deposit some of the world's most toxic waste in Nevadan's backyard rather than his own. If nuclear storage is truly a patriotic calling, then perhaps the people of Crawford, Texas, or scenic New Hampshire should rise to the occasion. Nevada's value as a tourist destination relies on maintaining a safe environment for visitors as well as residents. Mr. Sununu is welcome to spend his summer holiday in Chernobyl, a really "hot" spot, if he would prefer. ERIC STEFIK LAS VEGAS Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002 ***************************************************************** 38 WHAT NEVADANS THINK: Poll: Press Yucca fight A new poll shows most Nevadans want elected officials to continue the fight against burying nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, but many residents have a looming sense that there will be no light at the end of the tunnel. Photo by Gary Thompson. Tuesday, January 15, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal Many resigned to inevitability of nuke dump By JANE ANN MORRISON REVIEW-JOURNAL Nevada's opposition to a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain is as strong in 2002 as it was in 1990, three years after Congress singled out the state as the only site to study placement of the nation's highest-level nuclear waste, a new poll shows. But an increasing number of Nevadans believe it's inevitable that the site, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, will one day be home to 77,000 tons of nuclear waste. One-third say it's time to deal for benefits. After more than 20 years of back-and-forth between foes and supporters of the nuclear waste repository, the poll numbers show a hardened opposition to a facility at Yucca Mountain as well as an increasing cynicism about the government's ability to research the site honestly. The poll for the Review-Journal, lasvegas.com and KVBC-TV, Channel 3, also shows an increase in support for politicians fighting against a repository. Some 85 percent of respondents want Nevada leaders to keep up the battle, up from 80 percent in 1990. The findings also show: • Eighty-three percent of the 625 Nevada voters polled disagree with Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham's decision to recommend the site. In 1990, 77 percent were opposed to the repository. Support for the site was nearly identical in both polls; 11 percent backed Abraham's decision this year, and 12 percent favored Yucca Mountain for waste burial in 1990. • Seventy-three percent believe the federal government is not being honest in its site research, compared with 68 percent in 1990. • Sixty-eight percent believe the site is inevitable, up from 52 percent in 1990. • About one fifth, 21 percent, would consider moving out of state if waste is buried in Yucca Mountain. • Sixty-two percent would volunteer or financially contribute to an organized campaign to fight the repository. Nevada officials credited the slight increase in skepticism about the research in part to the recent nonpartisan General Accounting Office report that found nearly 293 unanswered scientific questions on Yucca Mountain. But Energy Department officials say those questions are related to licensing a repository, not the site selection. The poll was by Mason-Dixon Polling &Research on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. On Thursday, Abraham informed Gov. Kenny Guinn that he will recommend to President Bush that Yucca Mountain be selected to store the nation's nuclear waste. Guinn plans to meet with Bush to persuade him to reject Abraham's recommendation. "Nevada is as galvanized against Yucca Mountain as ever," Guinn said Monday through a spokesman. "I think these numbers show we have the same mandate we had 12 years ago. As long as I'm governor, I'm going to continue fighting against the dump coming to Nevada." U.S. Sens. Harry Reid and John Ensign, who must try to rally congressional opposition to placing nuclear waste in Nevada, both said they were not willing to negotiate for benefits, even if 33 percent of those polled want them to. In 1990, 23 percent of respondents were ready to make a deal in exchange for the facility. "The message I want to deliver to all of them is that no one should think that Nevada should get anything economical from the waste site," Democrat Reid said. "Look at New Mexico and the facility there. They've given them all kinds of promises, and they've gotten nothing." The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, which opened in 1999, is 26 miles southeast of Carlsbad, N.M., and serves as the nation's disposal site for so-called transuranic waste, or waste tainted with plutonium. And although 33 percent of respondents said it's time to negotiate, 37 percent said they would accept nuclear waste for an annual tax abatement or cash payment from the federal government. "If that 37 percent knew that no money would be there, that number could be cut in half in 10 minutes of discussion," Reid said. Republican Ensign said it's a misconception that a tax abatement or a cash payment from the federal government is on the table. It's not, he said, because the state's politicians decided in the 1980s that to negotiate for benefits would weaken their opposition. But former Gov. Robert List, now a lobbyist for the nuclear power industry and the highest-profile proponent of negotiations, said while nothing is on the table, "I hear in the D.C. circles there's anticipation Nevada will expect to have some offset here. I see some willingness to have some dialogue." Any discussion about benefits would have to include Guinn and Reid, the assistant majority leader in the Senate, and both have said they will not negotiate. "I'm not willing to make any kind of a deal," Reid reiterated Monday. List said he was intrigued by the question about how much people would want to be paid either in cash or through an annual tax abatement in order for them to accept the facility. He said he hasn't seen that kind of question posed to Nevadans. Instead, he's been testing the receptiveness to a "shopping list" of benefits. He said people are interested in obtaining money for education or the environment, to enhance police and fire protection, or to cut taxes. The largest percentage of people who would accept compensation, 41 percent, said they would accept between $5,000 and $9,999. Twenty-eight percent wanted $10,000 or more; 18 percent would accept the repository for less than $5,000 a year. The margin of error for the question was 6 percentage points in either direction. The other questions have a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points. "The let's-make-a-deal number looks a little low to me, based on polls I've seen," List said. He cited a recent nuclear energy industry poll that found 68 percent support negotiating for benefits. "Of those who feel there should be negotiations, over half feel there should be negotiations now," he said. "While people are still reluctant to have it come here, we're seeing folks' attention turning to what they can get for it," said List, a former one-term Republican governor. Former Sen. Richard Bryan, who since the 1980s has opposed any negotiations, said there's "been a steady drum beat for at least 15 years the site is inevitable, and the nuclear waste industry has spent millions to make that point and engaged List to make that point." He called it a false premise "that somehow there's something out there that people are dying to give us. They've created this aura that if we only sit down and negotiate, there's a pot of gold at the end of the nuclear rainbow." The figure of 21 percent, representing those who say they would consider moving if the waste site is approved, might be artificially high because of the intensity of news coverage the past few days, said Brad Coker, managing director of the Mason-Dixon polling firm. "In the heat of the moment, if the state proposed a 1 percent increase in sales tax, 10 percent would say they would move," Coker said. Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002 ***************************************************************** 39 State is geared for years of opposition Las Vegas SUN Today: January 15, 2002 at 10:55:29 PST Nevada leaders plan delaying tactics, suits over the long haul By Mary Manning Yucca schedule If the Department of Energy's Yucca Mountain Project to build a nuclear waste repository goes according to schedule, here is a timeline: + Feb. 10 or later: Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham recommends Yucca Mountain as a suitable nuclear waste repository to President Bush. If Bush approves the site: + April 10 or later: Gov. Kenny Guinn or the Nevada Legislature vetoes the president's decision. + July 10 or later: Congress has 90 days to override Nevada's objection. Both the House and the Senate must act by majority vote. + 2003 or later: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will take three years to review the Department of Energy's scientific evidence on Yucca Mountain. By law, the commission can add an additional year to its review. + 2006 or 2007: The DOE, if the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approves the Yucca Mountain site, begins construction. + 2010 or later: Up to 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste begins arriving at Yucca Mountain and shipments will continue for 30 to 50 years. + 2050-2350: The U.S. government seals Yucca Mountain. A specific date for closing the repository has not been determined. Sources: Department of Energy, Nuclear Energy Institute. Despite the urgent concerns of Nevada politicians over Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham's decision last week to back a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, it will be years -- if not decades -- before any radioactive waste could be sent to the site. The time frame for the site is mired in, and will likely be delayed by, a series of complex regulatory and logistical issues. As well, there's a contentious political debate brewing in which Nevada officials plan to use every resource available to block the project. Gov. Kenny Guinn intends to take advantage of every day between now and the opening of a repository if, that is, one is actually built, he said. "We will fight this with every ounce of energy, from the Oval Office to regulatory agencies," the governor said. "It's outrageous that politics overrode sound science." State officials stepped up that fight last week, after Abraham told Guinn that he would recommend Yucca Mountain to President Bush as the world's first high-level nuclear waste dump. Now they are putting into action a strategy that includes legal hurdles and legislative maneuvers to throw every obstacle in the way of the Energy Department's nuclear waste disposal plan. They hope the extra time will allow the development of a new solution to deal with the tons of radioactive waste building up at nuclear power plants nationwide. Bush can't accept Abraham's recommendation until Feb. 10, at the earliest. He has no deadline for approving it, but if he does, Guinn will have 60 days to a lodge a veto, which he has promised to do. The governor's veto stands unless both houses of Congress override it with a simple majority vote. The Republican-led House is likely to give the majority vote needed, but in the Senate, Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., and Majority Whip Harry Reid, D-Nev., have vowed to kill the project. They have admitted that they may not have the votes, but at the very least, they can slow it down. "We're checking into all the parliamentary options," Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said in a bipartisan display of support regarding the repository battle. Beyond that, the project has to clear some hurdles of its own. A General Accounting Office report acknowledges that if everything goes according to plan at Yucca Mountain, a repository would not open before 2015. The Energy Department missed its original deadline of accepting the nation's waste in 1998 and had planned to open Yucca by 2010. The congressional investigation noted that 293 technical issues -- ranging from how fast water flows in the mountain to possible volcanic eruptions -- remain unresolved. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has to approve a license if a plan for a repository is to proceed. In addition, the Energy Department would have to build a rail spur to Yucca Mountain. There are no railroad tracks to the site, and the department has yet to designate highway routes for trucks delivering waste. If the repository is approved by Congress, Nevada's strategy calls for court challenges, which could include a U.S. Supreme Court hearing if the issue proceeds through the legal system. That strategy is bolstered by a defense fund seeded by $4 million from the 2001 Legislature and fed by local governments including Clark County, Las Vegas and Fallon. In September the state spent $2.5 million to sign Egan &Associates of Washington to a three-year contract to help the attorney general's office fight the repository. Lead attorney Joe Egan was trained as a nuclear engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. At least five future lawsuits are being reviewed by the attorney general's office, according to Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Nuclear Projects Agency. They include: + A challenge to Abraham's recommendation, because the Energy Department has not completed scientific studies of the mountain. + A second challenge if Bush recommends the site. + Legal action against the final environmental impact statement, which could be issued when the president announces his decision. + A lawsuit over the Energy Department's license request to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission if Congress approves Yucca Mountain. + Another lawsuit if the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approves the construction of a repository. "We're going to have to examine the letter (from Abraham) and have the lawyers look at it before we decide what to do about the 30-day notice," Loux said. The state has already initiated a number of legal challenges: + The environmental impact statement on Yucca, released in 1999, has been challenged. + The state refused to grant ground water permits to the Energy Department for building a repository, and those challenges are pending in federal court. + The siting guidelines used to find Yucca Mountain suitable were the subject of a lawsuit that has reached the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The state claims the Energy Department changed the guidelines to fit a flawed site. + The state sued the Environmental Protection Agency in July over the radiation exposure standard it set last year. The payoff of the delaying tactic for the state could be great if scientific research on an alternative solution progresses. Congress appropriated $50 million this year for research into a process that may be able to transform highly radioactive waste into less harmful material. The University of Nevada, Las Vegas, received $4.5 million as its share, which helps support accelerator research by 40 students in physics, engineering and chemistry. Such a process, if it is perfected, would not eliminate the need for a repository, but it would make the waste less dangerous, and it could produce energy as a byproduct. "A high-level radioactive waste repository may only need to be engineered for 300 years, if transmutation and reuse were instituted," nuclear engineer Anthony Hechanova of the Harry Reid Center for Environmental Research said. The current repository must keep the waste safe for 10,000 years. "It shouldn't be buried. It's too valuable," Hechanova said. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 40 Conflict of interest for Christine Todd Whitman? Salon.com Politics | The EPA's ombudsman says Whitman muzzled him for criticizing a sweetheart Superfund settlement with a big investor in her husband's firm. By Mark Hertsgaard Jan. 14, 2002 | The ombudsman for the Environmental Protection Agency says he was punished by administrator Christine Todd Whitman after he opposed an agreement to sharply limit the amount of money financial titan Citigroup -- a principal investor in Whitman's husband's venture capital firm -- would have to pay in a controversial Superfund cleanup case. EPA ombudsman Robert J. Martin, who functions as the agency's public interest advocate, alleges that Whitman ordered his office reassigned within the EPA bureaucracy and stripped of its independence after he opposed a nuclear-waste cleanup settlement with Citigroup that would limit its liability to a fraction of the cleanup cost. Martin made the conflict of interest charge against Whitman in a lawsuit filed Jan. 10 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The suit sought a temporary restraining order to prevent the ombudsman's duties and investigative files from being transferred to the EPA's Office of Inspector General, an agency Martin has clashed with in the past and is currently investigating. Through a spokesperson, Whitman denied Martin's charges. Martin won a crucial legal battle Friday, when Judge Richard W. Roberts ruled in his favor, delaying his reassignment until Feb. 26. "Before the hearing I said that I was cautiously optimistic," Martin said. "I now rejoice that truth has prevailed and justice has been done." Martin is opposing, among other EPA moves, a pending agreement that will limit Citigroup's liability to $7.2 million for cleaning up a nuclear waste Superfund site in Denver. Officials in EPA's Region 8, which includes Colorado, reckon the cost of cleaning up the Citigroup-owned Shattuck site will be $22 million to $35 million. Martin's own analysis separately concluded that a proper cleanup of the site, which is located in a working-class neighborhood and contains a 15-foot tall mound of radioactively contaminated soil, would cost as much as $100 million. Limiting Citigroup's liability to $7.2 million would therefore transfer as much as $93 million of the cleanup's cost to taxpayers, Martin alleges. Whitman's actions, the ombudsman charged in his lawsuit, will "have the immediate effect of muzzling the voice of accountability within the EPA that has been, and would otherwise continue to be, the primary source of information about the inadequacy of clean-up plans of highly toxic waste sites affecting the public and the environment." Historically, the ombudsman has not wielded decision-making authority at EPA, but has responsibility for investigating complaints about the agency brought by citizens, local governments and corporations. The role has caused friction between the ombudsman and the rest of the EPA before, but this is the sharpest conflict to date. Whatever the reason for Whitman's move -- and Martin has not produced evidence that she intervened to benefit Citigroup -- the reassignment could well de-fang an office that has been a sharp critic of industry and an advocate for tougher environmental protection. Coming at the same time as the widening Enron scandal, the lawsuit is one more headache for the Bush administration, which stands accused of being more concerned about its corporate patrons than the public interest. Whitman's move against Martin has been harshly criticized on Capitol Hill -- with the strongest opposition coming from Western-state Republicans. Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., wrote to Whitman Jan. 8 asking that she delay the transfer until Congress can analyze it. "She's decided to put him in the Inspector General's Office, and the way I understand the way it's set up ... he does not maintain his independence," he says. Allard praises ombudsman Martin and his chief investigator, Hugh Kaufman, for reversing what he calls EPA's mistaken approach to the original cleanup of Denver's Shattuck site, and for being the first representatives from the EPA who listened to his constituents' concerns about radioactive waste. Kaufman is also a plaintiff in the lawsuit against Whitman. Allard declined to express an opinion on the validity of the financial conflict-of-interest allegations against Whitman. "The charges of conflict of interest by the ombudsman, I think, need to be reviewed," said Allard, who added, "If the courts determine that there is an improper settlement [in the Shattuck cleanup] because of conflict of interest, I think that they will deal with that." Judge Roberts' Friday ruling means that Martin will remain ombudsman at least long enough for him to challenge the Shattuck cleanup settlement in court and for Congress to hold hearings on Whitman's attempt to reassign him. Martin and Kaufman are not newcomers to controversy. In the early 1980s, it was Kaufman's whistleblowing that led to the resignations of President Ronald Reagan's EPA administrator, Anne Gorsuch, and Superfund program administrator, Rita Lavelle, over a scandal involving diversion of EPA money to Republican Party political activities. Kaufman was then the chief investigator of EPA's Hazardous Waste Management Division. Kaufman argues that his current dispute with Christine Todd Whitman involves even more serious public interest concerns. "If Whitman doesn't back down on this, we may as well kiss representative government as we've known it goodbye. Because it means that a top government official can rule in cases that directly benefit her financially, get called on it, tell her accusers to get lost, and get away with it." No one has proven that Whitman made her decision with the specific intention of benefiting Citigroup. But the company is the first one listed on the public financial disclosure report that Whitman filed upon being confirmed as President Bush's EPA administrator. She and husband John Whitman are listed as owning between $100,000 and $250,000 worth of Citigroup stock, but the couple's ties to Citigroup go much deeper. John Whitman worked directly for Citigroup from 1972 to 1987 and reportedly received a year-end bonus from the company as recently as 2000. Today, he is a managing partner in Sycamore Ventures, a $550 million venture capital firm whose Web site explains that it was "spun out of Citicorp Ventures, Ltd. [in 1995]. Today we continue to enjoy the backing of the worldwide network of Citigroup, which remains one of our largest investors." Whitman declined, through agency spokesman Joseph Martyak, to be interviewed for this story. Deriding the ombudsman's charges as "specious allegations," Martyak says that "the administrator, of course, is concerned that these kind of accusations are being raised because they're totally unfounded ... The conflict of interest that's being proposed here simply doesn't exist, because she's been up front about what her involvement is with Citigroup." He claims that the terms of agreement between the EPA and Citigroup were first reached in December 2000, under the Clinton administration, and before Whitman even took office. The administrator's reassignment of the ombudsman, Martyak emphasizes, is a "totally separate decision" from the Shattuck case, and one that he says will give the office greater independence. John Whitman was unavailable for comment, but another managing partner in Sycamore Ventures, Peter Gerry, called the conflict of interest accusations "far-fetched, convoluted, self-serving and contrived." Gerry, who said Whitman and the other founding partners of Sycamore Ventures had trained and worked together at Citigroup, added, "I'm not going to deny that [Citigroup] is a big investor of ours. We treasure our relationship there. But we have lots of other big investors, too." Gerry declined to specify how much of Sycamore's investment capital came from Citicorp, but he said Sycamore was "not on the radar screen of Sandy Weil [Citigroup's CEO and chairman], and I'm sure whoever is doing the cleanup in Colorado is absolutely unaware of this coincidental relationship [with Whitman]." Richard Howe, a spokesman for Citigroup, said, "Citicorp Venture Capital has had a financial relationship with Sycamore Ventures for many years and still does. Never have there been any discussions between us and anybody at Sycamore on any matter of public policy." Whitman's responses to questions about her potential conflict of interest on the Shattuck cleanup site have changed over time. When the issue was first raised in a Denver Post article last March, EPA spokeswoman Tina Kreisher said such concerns were irrelevant because decisions about local Superfund sites are made not by the administrator but by regional EPA officials. Then, in a Jan. 3, 2002, interview for this story, EPA spokesman Dave Ryan said that Whitman had recused herself from the Shattuck case, but Ryan could not produce Whitman's recusal form. In a Jan. 9 interview, EPA's Martyak noted that Whitman is not obliged to sign an individual recusal form. He pointed out that the federal government's Office of Government Ethics (OGE) stipulates that a two-step process for government officials -- declaring one's financial interests and avoiding substantial participation in decisions that could affect those interests -- is sufficient to comply with one's ethical obligations. A spokesman at OGE said separately that officials who wish to document their non-involvement in forbidden matters can either sign formal recusal forms or send letters to colleagues directing them not to refer such matters to them. Whitman apparently has not taken either step. Nor has she placed her assets in a blind trust, another common option for wealthy government officials, such as Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and Vice President Dick Cheney. But Martyak insists such steps are irrelevant, because Whitman hasn't been part of the Shattuck Superfund deliberations. "The fact of the matter here is that the administrator has not been involved in the decision-making on this case," said Martyak. "The terms of the agreement [between EPA and Citigroup] on the Shattuck case were reached [in] December 2000, before the administrator was even nominated for this position. What's in the works right now is simply finalizing the documents on that settlement." Kaufman argues that Whitman's attempted muzzling of the ombudsman is itself participation in the Shattuck case, because it effectively prevents Martin and his office from challenging the agreement the EPA has negotiated with Citigroup. "The reassignment of the ombudsman's office limits the ability of the ombudsman to do his job as it relates to the Shattuck case," says Kaufman. "And Mrs. Whitman knew that at the time that she made the decision. She also knew that she has a conflict of interest on cases that Mr. Martin is presently in the middle of investigating. And that's a violation of the civil and criminal statutes of the United States." Martyak, speaking for Whitman, dismisses those charges. Martin and Kaufman's lawsuit cites another instance where Whitman may have engaged in prohibited participation in the Shattuck case. According to an internal EPA e-mail of March 16, officials in Region 8 were preparing materials to brief Whitman about the Shattuck cleanup. Martyak says he can't confirm that Whitman was briefed on the case, but adds that a briefing, if it did occur, does not amount to substantial participation in a government decision. As for Martyak's contention that the EPA's approach on Shattuck was decided before Whitman took office, Kaufman insists "there were lots of options [for Shattuck] being discussed under Clinton. But once she became the administrator, Christine Todd Whitman had to decide if she wanted to give Citigroup the same sweetheart deal. And the first signatures on the [Shattuck] agreement came in October 2001, eight months after Whitman took office." The pending agreement between the EPA and Citigroup cannot take effect until it is approved by a federal judge in Colorado, following a 30-day public comment period that begins the day the agreement is printed in the Federal Register, which is expected to happen within the next few days. Martin and Kaufman had planned to organize public hearings in Denver about the agreement and present their findings to the judge. They complained that this would be impossible if they were reassigned as Whitman proposed. When Whitman announced her reassignment of the EPA ombudsman on Nov. 27, she said the move was intended to increase his independence and improve accountability. Citing a report by the General Accounting Office (GAO), Congress' investigative agency, that urged greater independence for ombudsmen throughout the federal government, Whitman said that shifting the EPA's ombudsman from the Solid and Hazardous Waste Office to the Office of the Ispector General would ensure "an effective, impartial and independent ombudsman." In a Dec. 27 letter to Sen. Allard, Whitman insists she is committed to maintaining the ombudsman's independence. But in response to specific questions from Allard, Whitman makes it clear the ombudsman will not control his budget, staff or what cases he investigates. "Assignment of staff resources, including hiring, is a responsibility retained by each Assistant Inspector General," Whitman's letter states. As for whether the ombudsman will remain able to select his own investigations, the letter says that "no single staff member [within the Inspector General's Office] has the authority to select and prioritize their own caseload ..." Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, says that reading Whitman's Dec. 27 letter led him to request that Whitman not reassign the ombudsman. "The [Bush] administration has time to delay this decision and work with us in Congress to assure a truly independent position for the EPA ombudsman," says Crapo, who adds that he thought the EPA bureaucracy tried to muzzle the ombudsman in a previous Superfund case in Idaho concerning the Coeur d'Alene Basin, a mining area suffering from severe toxic pollution. He said he made his request in a Jan. 10 meeting with Gary L. Johnson, EPA's assistant inspector general. Aside from the opposition in the Senate, a bipartisan group of House members led by Florida Rep. Michael Bilirakis, a Republican, had urged Whitman before Christmas to withdraw the reassignment plan until congressional hearings could be held. Lawsuits opposing the reassignment have also been filed by local governments in Idaho and Pennsylvania and by a citizens group in Florida. They argue that preventing the EPA ombudsman from doing his job will injure their rights to due process in environmental investigations underway in their states. "I don't know of any decision that's been made where categorically the ombudsman is not going to be allowed to do anything further on Shattuck," said EPA spokesman Martyak, who argued that putting the ombudsman within the Inspector General's Office is the best possible location "because the Inspector General is independent of EPA. It does not report to the EPA. It does file a report to the U.S. Congress on its activities. I can't underscore enough the independence of the Inspector General. That office gets its appropriations directly from the Congress; we have no say in that; it has its own staff, in which we have no say." But Martin and Kaufman have tangled with the Inspector General's Office on numerous occasions. They charge in their lawsuit that their investigation of the Marjol Battery Superfund site in Pennsylvania, with whose contractor, Gould Electronics, Citigroup has a $1.5 billion business venture in Idaho, was "obstructed" in 2001 by Assistant Inspector General Johnson (who is slated to become the ombudsman's boss in Whitman's reorganization plan). And last week, the ombudsman opened an investigation into the Inspector General's Office itself. "Right now we are investigating the EPA inspector general doing a cover-up in Denver, Colo., on air pollution in people's homes -- not just in Denver but all over the country," says Kaufman. "That investigation will be closed down once we go to the Inspector General's Office. Because we can't investigate the inspector general." Martin and Kaufman have tangled with Whitman and Citigroup at least indirectly in at least one other case. The financial giant also owns Traveler's Insurance Co., which faces numerous medical claims from people living or working at New York's ground zero in the wake of the Sept. 11 terror attacks. After the EPA performed testing at the site, Whitman announced, "I am glad to reassure the people of New York ... that their air is safe to breathe and their water is safe to drink." But the Washington Post reported Jan. 8 that area residents and rescue workers have suffered an epidemic of respiratory illnesses, possibly linked to toxic exposure at the site from contaminants such as asbestos, mercury and other metals. And on Jan. 9, the ombudsman announced he would investigate the EPA's testing at ground zero. "Mrs. Whitman said the air is safe [at ground zero]," says Kaufman, the ombudsman's investigator, "when in fact the documentation of test results show the air has not been safe and people are being made sick. All of the two dozen cases that we're doing around the country will now lose a public advocate because Mrs. Whitman wants to protect the financial interest of the Citigroup Co. that she has had a longstanding and ongoing financial relationship with." Regardless of whether Whitman tried to protect Citigroup specifically, Martin and Kaufman's defenders say she's clearly acting to muzzle two staunch advocates for the environment, who've been a thorn in the side of industry before. When she was New Jersey governor, Whitman eliminated the state's environmental ombudsman and sharply reduced related regulations, critics say. "Administrator Whitman says she's making this reassignment in the spirit of the General Accounting Office report," said Tom Devine, legal director of the Government Accountability Project, a public interest group in Washington that is representing Martin and Kaufman in their suit against Whitman. "But nothing could be more contradictory to the report. Instead of beefing up the ombudsman, she has abolished the concept. Thanks to Judge Roberts' ruling, Whitman's fait accompli has been thwarted." About the writer Mark Hertsgaard is the author of "Earth Odyssey" and a contributor to National Public Radio's "Living On Earth." This story is an investigative collaboration with "Living On Earth," whose Web site contains audio interviews and further information. Sound Off Send us a Letter to the Editor Copyright 2001 Salon.com Salon, 22 4th Street, 16th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94103 Telephone 415 645-9200 | Fax 415 645-9204 E-mail | Salon.com Privacy Policy | Terms of Service ***************************************************************** 41 Don't withdraw from ABM Treaty Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 12:43:15 -0600 (CST) Reply-To: Jim Harris Here is a new Progressive Secretary Letter. [ ] Send - Send this letter to congress people for zip code ________ [ ] Send - Send this letter to congress people for the state of ____ Sign my letter _____ [ ] No - Don't send this letter Note: This letter supports campaigns by Greenpeace and Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space. It goes to the President, Vice President, and Congress. Further information: http://act.greenpeace.org/ (Click on "Ask Senator Biden to oppose ABM withdrawal") http://www.globenet.free-online.co.uk/index.htm From: Your Name and eMail Address To: The President, The Vice President, Your Senators, Your Representatives Subject: Don't withdraw from ABM Treaty Dear _________________: President Bush's announcement on December 13 of withdrawal from the ABM Treaty is chilling and disturbing. It must not be allowed to happen. The ABM Treaty has helped for almost 30 years to reduce stockpiles of nuclear weapons and to retard the production of new ones. The tendency for a number of countries to develop nuclear arsenals is, if anything, greater now that thirty years ago. We badly need the ABM Treaty! Withdrawal would signify to the world that the U.S. has abandoned its commitment to a nuclear-free future and is bent on rearming with new and more deadly weapons. The U.S. will be perceived as abdicating its leadership responsibility. The result will surely be the launch of a new arms race. Further, the "star wars" ambitions of the Bush Administration are demonstrably too costly, full of weaknesses, and unnecessary. I urge Washington to retract this intention to withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missiles Treaty, and instead seek new ways to promote nuclear restraint and disarmament. Sincerely, Your name Sincerely Jim Harris http://www.ProgressiveSecretary.Org. Make Your Voice Heard. Enroll in http://www.ProgressiveSecretary.Org. Progressives send far fewer letters than conservatives. This is an easy way to level this field. ( ~#\L=AMB_Treaty1\P=22216\S=P),1353738 ***************************************************************** 42 Russian anger over diplomats at rally BBC News | EUROPE | 14 January, 2002, Russia has formally protested to the United States about the presence of American diplomats at a demonstration and rally in Vladivostok on Thursday. The rally was in support of a former Russian navy captain and environmental campaigner, Grigory Pasko, who was sentenced to four years in prison last month on espionage charges. A tribunal in Vladivostok found Mr Pasko guilty of passing details of nuclear waste dumping by the Russian navy to a Japanese television company. Mr Pasko's lawyers said they would appeal against the verdict. From the newsroom of the BBC World Service ***************************************************************** 43 UN nuclear watchdog agency to inspect North Korean nuclear sites - South report BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Jan 15, 2002 Text of report in English by South Korean newspaper Choson Ilbo web site on 15 January The International Atomic Energy Agency's [IAEA] technical team will visit nuclear facilities in North Korea from 15 to 19 January for a safety inspection, for the first time since the signing of the Agreed Framework Between the US and DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of Korea] in 1994. Led by Safety Operations Director Ollie Heinonen, the IAEA visit will include an inspection on an isotope production laboratory in Nyongbyon nuclear complex. The IAEA has been monitoring the management and maintenance of North Korean nuclear facilities to confirm the "freeze" of operations in accordance with the "Agreed Framework", however, the facilities were inaccessible since the heightened tension of 1993. The IAEA has been persuading Pyongyang that full safety inspections were necessary before the completion of the light water reactor for the North to clear suspicions. A government official said that allowing the IAEA team to visit the production laboratory was an encouraging improvement, while further reactions from Pyongyang needed to be watched carefully. Source: Choson Ilbo, Seoul, in English 15 Jan 02 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter ***************************************************************** 44 Russia to favour navy in nuclear force - The Times of India AFP [ MONDAY, JANUARY 14, 2002 10:04:31 PM ] MOSCOW: The navy would be the main component of Russia's nuclear capability and would be developed accordingly, the first deputy chief of general staff General Yury Baluyevsky said on Monday, on the eve of arms talks in Washington. "In all the long-term plans regarding the future of our armed forces, the naval component gets first priority," he told the Interfax news agency. Baluyevsky is heading a Russian delegation which left on Monday for two days of talks in Washington aimed at agreeing massive cuts in nuclear weapons by the summer. Washington has announced a plan to slash its nuclear arsenal by two-thirds to between 1,700 and 2,200 nuclear warheads, while Russia has offered to reduce the number of its nuclear warheads to around 1,500. Russia's preference for the naval component of its nuclear panoply is due to the fact that its missiles would be deployed on submarines, which are hard to locate, in contrast to missile-bearing aircraft, silos or other land-based systems. Baluyevsky reaffirmed Russia's pledge not to resort to asymmetric measures in response to the US withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty announced last month. One such proposed measure is the installation of several warheads on the latest generation of intercontinental Topol-M missiles in violation of the START-II disarmament treaty. "It would be possible to increase the number of missiles deployed, and the number of warheads that they carry, but that's a road that leads nowhere, and would be a further step towards an arms race. Russia need not and will not adopt such a course of action," he said. Copyright © 2002 Times Internet Limited. All rights reserved. | ***************************************************************** 45 How Many Nukes Did Russia Hide? NewsMax.com: Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2002 The Center for Security Policy thinks Moscow doeth protest too much about a U.S.-Russian agreement allowing the two countries to keep some nuclear weapons. "After Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Strategic Policy J.D. Crouch discussed the conclusions of the new Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) last week, Russian officials decried one of its conclusions: The decision to retain an unspecified number of nuclear weapons above and beyond the 1,700-2,200 warheads and bombs that will be kept on operational status," the center said. "That theme will presumably be much in evidence this week as a Russian delegation seeks American agreement on an accord formalizing the two nations' respective nuclear reductions with a view to a signing ceremony when President Bush visits Moscow later this year. "This is, of course, characteristically cheeky of the Kremlin. The Russians have never accounted for the total number of nuclear arms in their stockpile, and it is safe to assume that they have squirreled away large quantities as a strategic reserve. As a result, even if they agreed to dismantle some number of the weapons currently deployed, the United States would never know how many others remain in an undeclared stockpile. "Apart from such uncertainties, the U.S. decision to retain some quantity of non-deployed nuclear weapons is only prudent, in light of very real uncertainties about the nation's future deterrent requirements. As those may actually increase over the next ten years, President Bush should continue to resist pressure from at home and abroad to agree to a permanent - and low - bilateral limitation on the number of weapons we retain. "He should also ensure that the ability to re-deploy such stockpiled weapons is a real one, a status that will require that they are periodically subjected to underground testing and that delivery systems are retained as well in sound working condition," CSP concluded. Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics: Bush Administration Russia NewsMax.com Privacy Statement ***************************************************************** 46 Russia disagrees with US proposal of storing decommissioned nuclear warheads BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Jan 15, 2002 [Presenter] Russian-US military consultations on the subject of cuts in strategic offensive arms have begun in Washington... [Correspondent] The presidents of Russia and the USA have reached an accord on radical cuts in strategic offensive arms. Now a corresponding agreement has to be prepared. This is the purpose of the two-day Russian-American consultations which have begun in the Pentagon. The American delegation is headed by US Under Secretary of Defence Douglas Feith, the Russian delegation by First Deputy Chief of Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Col-Gen Yuriy Baluyevskiy. The principal difference of opinion that has arisen recently is on how to deal with nuclear warheads that have already been deactivated. Russia advocates their complete destruction, but the US would like to store them in special depots. [Baluyevskiy] We find it difficult to understand, for instance, what the difference is between 1,700-2,200 warheads and the current figure, which we had arrived at by 5 December, of about 6,000 on each side, if the difference in warheads is to lie in storage. We both know perfectly well how much time is needed to put these warheads back onto their delivery systems. [Correspondent] Among the other questions to be dealt with at the consultations are how to deal with the problems of offensive and defensive arms in the new strategic reality that has arisen as a result of the US decision to leave the 1972 ABM Treaty; new approaches to Russian-American cooperation in the military sphere; the struggle against international terrorism. The Russia delegation believes that the proposed agreement on cuts in strategic offensive arms can be achieved by the summer of this year and signed during the upcoming visit of US President George Bush in Moscow. The leaders of the Russian military delegation at the consultations in Washington believe that the agreement on cuts in strategic offensive arms between the US and Russian should be set out on paper. It should be precise and should provide for a system of inspection. Source: Russian Public TV (ORT), Moscow, in Russian 0800 gmt 15 Jan 02 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter All Material Subject to Copyright ***************************************************************** 47 UN Nuclear Agency Officials in N.Korea Las Vegas SUN Today: January 15, 2002 at 4:40:22 PST VIENNA, Austria- A team of international experts from the United Nations' nuclear watchdog agency arrived in North Korea on Tuesday to visit nuclear facilities, a spokeswoman said. Three senior inspectors from the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency arrived in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang and were scheduled to continue on to nuclear facilities in the Nyongbyon area, spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said. It is the first official visit by agency representatives at the Nyongbyon complex's isotope production laboratory, an installation which North Korean leaders say is used to develop nuclear materials for medical and industrial purposes. In November, the North Korean government agreed to allow agency officials to visit the site, insisting however that the technical experts only visit and not carry out an inspection. North Korea was a member of the IAEA until 1994, when it chose to pull out. Since that time, it has been under pressure to resume normal relations with the group and allow inspections of its nuclear facilities. Agency officials view the North Korean decision to allow international officials to visit the site as a gesture toward normalizing relations with the organization. Nuclear experts fear that the North Korean government could be diverting peaceful nuclear materials into a clandestine weapons program. "This is a small but welcome step toward a return to full-fledged inspections required under North Korea's safeguards agreement," the IAEA's director general, Mohamed ElBaradei, said in a statement. Since 1993, the group has been unable to verify whether North Korea's nuclear inventory corresponds to what it declared to have in 1992. The agency has said that even if North Korea allowed full-fledged inspections, it would take the group three to four years to verify that all nuclear materials have been declared to the agency. Although no longer a member of the U.N. nuclear agency, North Korea has allowed some of the group's officials to be stationed permanently at Nyongbyon. The officials monitor an agreement that freezes certain facilities that could be used to divert weapons-grade materials. The three nuclear experts are scheduled to finish their visit of the North Korean facilities on Saturday, Fleming said. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 48 Russian Delegation Opens Talks in D.C. Las Vegas SUN Today: January 15, 2002 at 0:35:16 PST WASHINGTON- A Russian military delegation is holding two days of talks with top Pentagon officials on cooperating against new terrorism threats and creating a new military relationship overall. The two sides will look for ways to shield themselves against a terrorist attack, especially from so-called rogue states, a senior Bush administration official told The Associated Press. On the agenda are prospective joint military exercises with the American and Russian troops, based on the concept that the United States and Russia have long ceased being adversaries and are now friends, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Still, there are areas of difference, including Russian technology sales to Iran, the official said. Iran is believed to be engaged in a program to develop nuclear weapons and American officials fear that Russian technology could give the program a boost. The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks heightened Russia's interest in countering terrorism and cooperating with the United States against it, the official said. The two countries are not in a hostile relationship and have met several times in Washington and Moscow since the onset of the Bush administration a year ago to plot joint efforts. The official said Russia clearly was interested in working with the United States on joint improvements in security that could produce an understanding when President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin hold talks next spring in St. Petersburg, Russia. Last week another senior U.S. official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said the United States would be willing to help Russia in an anti-missile venture and provide technology for such a program. The Bush administration is embarked on an ambitious program to develop a shield against a missile attack from such states as Iran and North Korea, as well as terrorist cells, and Bush is withdrawing the United States from a 1972 treaty with Moscow that barred the kind of missile defense tests now in the offing. At the same time the two sides are committed to major reductions in the arsenals of strategic offensive nuclear weapons. At their November meetings in Washington and in Texas, Bush pledged to cut back to 1,700 to 2,200 long-range warheads from the current U.S. level of about 7,000. Putin said Russia, which has about 6,000 strategic warheads, would respond in kind. However, the Russian leader suggested that mutual reductions be incorporated into a treaty. Bush, who has voiced skepticism about such binding agreements, did not go along with that suggestion. But since their meetings, senior U.S. officials have expressed a willingness to "put something on paper" if Russia insisted on it. The Russian delegation is headed by Col. Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky, the no. 2 official in the Russian military establishment. Douglas Feith, undersecretary of defense for policy, heads the U.S. group. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 49 U.S., Russia Discuss Nuclear Cuts Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2002. Page 4 By Charles Aldinger Reuters WASHINGTON -- Senior U.S. and Russian defense officials meet Tuesday to begin planning joint deep cuts in nuclear arms and discuss Moscow's objections to U.S. plans to store unused warheads instead of destroying them. Defense Undersecretary Douglas Feith will hold two days of talks at the Pentagon with a team headed by the first deputy of the General Staff, Colonel-General Yury Baluyevsky. Both countries have pledged to reduce by about two-thirds their deployed strategic nuclear arsenals of more than 6,000 warheads each over the coming decade. But the Pentagon said last week that some U.S. arms would be shelved for possible emergency redeployment. The Foreign Ministry quickly urged Washington to fulfill pledges to proceed with real cuts, saying, "That means strategic nuclear weapons must be cut not only 'on paper.'" But a senior U.S. diplomat expressed confidence to reporters that a deal would be reached with Russia that could quell any fears about the U.S. plans. "The Russians have fired their opening salvo on the issue but I think we'll be able to wrestle it to the ground," the diplomat told reporters Friday, speaking on condition of anonymity. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov agreed in Brussels last month to begin planning in January on when and how to begin cuts promised by their presidents, including "predictability and accountability" on the cuts. U.S. President George W. Bush is expected to visit Russia at midyear for talks with President Vladimir Putin on the growing strategic, political and financial ties between the two former Cold War enemies. Bush has vowed to cut the deployed U.S. arsenal to between 1,700 and 2,200 warheads, while Putin has said he plans cuts to between 1,500 and 2,200. "The forthcoming Russian-U.S. consultations will focus on the drafting of a strategic offensive arms agreement," Baluyevsky said Sunday, Itar-Tass reported. Baluyevsky said the agreement would be drafted by summer and that parameters of future strategic offensive arms reductions and verification mechanisms would be the main components. Itar-Tass quoted military and diplomatic sources in Moscow as saying Russia and the United States would hold another round of strategic offensive arms consultations in late January. The Russian delegation would be led by Deputy Foreign Minister Georgy Mamedov. In Washington, the senior U.S. official said Friday that the two sides would look at additional inspections for storage sites and data exchange to keep accurate track of weapons held in storage. "The Russians may well propose some numerical cap, either through an absolute or a percentage, and that is something we will have to consider," he said. "We're thinking very much in terms of threats from other quarters than Russia ... and while advances in conventional weaponry are giving us alternatives to nuclear deterrence, in some scenarios we still think nuclear deterrence has a role to play." The U.S. plan for a missile defense costing billions of dollars has dominated negotiations on arms reductions that began after the Soviet Union broke up. Baluyevsky said missile defense and Bush's announcement that the United States would withdraw from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty this year would also be on the agenda for this week's walks. [http://www.moscowtimes.ru ***************************************************************** 50 Glasses raised at the FSB The Pasko Case Gregory Pasko, an investigative journalist who worked for the Pacific Fleet's newspaper, was arrested on 20 November 1997 by the FSB and charged with high treason for his writing about the nuclear safety issues in the Russian Pacific Fleet. The conviction of Grigory Pasko seems to have been expected - at least within certain circles. Still, Pasko is prepared to fight for his acquittal. Jon Gauslaa, 2002-01-15 08:07 At a party to celebrate the 85th anniversary of the FSB on December 17, Major Aleksandr Egorkin, who was reprimanded for committing several law violations while he led the investigation of the Pasko case, got an award for his 'distinguished work' on the case. Glasses raised at the FSB At the same party, the FSB branch of the Russian Far East celebrated the departure of their old boss and their successes in 2001. When the new chief raised his glass in order to make a toast for the 'victory' in the Pasko-case, his new subordinates reminded him that the case was still handled by the courts, and that no decision had been made. -- Wait until next Tuesday, then all will be dropped into a cocked hat, said the resigning FSB-boss, before the 'checkists' clinked their glasses. Pasko got another hint that his conviction had been anticipated when he arrived in handcuffs at the detention centre in Vladivostok on December 25. -- We have been awaiting you, said the director of the detention centre, who told Pasko that they had been notified about his 'arrival' several weeks before the verdict was announced. Glasses installed in prison cell On the more positive side can be noted that glass has been installed the window of Pasko's cell. The installation came after a meeting between Pasko's attorney, Ivan Pavlov, and the speaker of the Russian Federation Council, Sergeiy Mironov. The latter was told that Pasko was placed in a cell without glasses in the window, despite temperatures in Vladivostok having fallen way beyond the freezing point. Mironov apparently discussed Pasko's case with President Putin last weekend. Yet there is no reason to believe that Grigory will be released in anticipation of the Supreme Court's hearing of his appeal, said Ivan Pavlov to Bellona web. -- Several signals may however, indicate that the proceedings have been speeded up so that we would not have to wait very long for the hearing of the appeal case. Pavlov, who arrived in Vladivostok on January 13 in order to go through the protocol of the trial and file a more detailed appeal, also told that he had met Pasko. -- He feels good and is ready to fight, Pavlov said. * Grigory Pasko was arrested on November 20, 1997. He was acquitted by the Pacific Fleet Court in Vladivostok of treason through espionage on July 20, 1999, but sentenced to a three-year imprisonment for misusing his position and released on a general amnesty. Both sides appealed the verdict. In November 2000 the Military Supreme Court cancelled the verdict, and sent the case back for a new trial at the Pacific Fleet Court. The re-trial started on July 11, 2001 and ended on December 25, with Pasko being convicted to four years of hard labour for treason and taken into custody. Amnesty International adopted Pasko as a prisoner of conscience on January 7, 2002, saying that the prosecution of Pasko seems "motivated by political reprisal for exposing the practice of dumping nuclear waste". Also the latest decision has been appealed by both sides. Publisher: Bellona Foundation, President: Frederic Hauge Information: info@bellona.no, Technical contact: webmaster@bellona.no Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62 * P.O.Box 2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway ***************************************************************** 51 Pak: No Nuclear Weapons in the Field IHT: Ralph A. Cossa IHT Tuesday, January 15, 2002 HONOLULU President Pervez Musharraf's bold speech on Saturday pledging to crack down on religious extremism, and Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's acknowledgment of a "significant step forward," have reduced the prospects of war between Pakistan and India. Continuing American diplomatic pressure, including this week's visits by Secretary of State Colin Powell, should help to further defuse the immediate crisis. But a real danger remains and should be recognized and acted against. It is the growing international acceptance of India and Pakistan as members of the nuclear weapons club, and what this means as they both proceed down the nuclear weapons path. The politically expedient lifting of remaining sanctions imposed by the United States after India and Pakistan came out of the nuclear closet with their 1998 tests makes sense, given the sanctions' ineffectiveness (few others supported this U.S. effort) and the need to have both states firmly in the U.S. anti-terrorist camp. But going back to "business as usual" (as India arrogantly but correctly predicted that Washington would do) is to neglect dangers that lie ahead if either country takes the next step: operational field deployment of its nuclear weapons. If either side deploys missiles equipped with nuclear warheads - and India seems determined to pursue this course - the other will almost automatically follow suit. This would greatly increase the danger of inadvertent or unauthorized use, while encouraging preemptive strikes and a use-or-lose attitude that would "justify" a nuclear response to a conventional attack. One assumes that both sides' nuclear warheads are tightly guarded today. Deploying them to the field, however, would make them that much more vulnerable to seizure by terrorists. The United States today talks about going beyond "business as usual" to establish a deeper military-to-military relationship with India, including arms sales. There is little talk of strings being attached to this increased cooperation. At a minimum, Washington should demand assurances that India will refrain from field deployment of its nuclear weapons. Even more effective would be a coordinated message to New Delhi and Islamabad from the four major regional powers - the United States, Russia, China and Japan - that "business as usual" would cease if either field-deployed its nuclear weapons. Such a dangerous, destabilizing action should result in an immediate halt to all four nations' economic and military support. Unilateral sanctions after the fact have proved ineffective, but a carefully coordinated multilateral reminder of the costs involved in future destabilizing actions might dissuade India and Pakistan from taking the next step. The time to act is now, while deployment plans are still on the drawing boards in India and Pakistan and while the United States, Japan and others are stepping up economic support to South Asia, and the carrot of U.S. arms sales still dangles in front of New Delhi. What better way for the United States, Russia and China to demonstrate their commitment to a nuclear weapons-free world than by drawing a definitive line in the sand against field deployment and its potentially disastrous consequences on the subcontinent? This topic should be on General Powell's agenda in South Asia this week. The writer is president of the Pacific Forum CSIS, a Honolulu-based nonprofit research institute, and senior editor of Comparative Connections, a quarterly electronic journal [www.csis.org/pacfor]. He contributed this comment to the International Herald Tribune. Copyright © 2001 the International Herald Tribune All Rights Reserved ***************************************************************** 52 Nuclear deployment danger The Frontier Post From Peshawar Pakistan Ralph Cossa Updated on 1/15/2002 10:28:54 AM The handshake between Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in Nepal last Saturday caused an international sigh of relief as the two nuclear powers took a tentative step back from the brink of war. Tensions will remain high on the Indian subcontinent, however, as New Delhi waits to see if Islamabad follows through with its current crackdown on Kashmiri terrorist camps and havens in Pakistan. But those worrying about a deliberate nuclear war between these two historic rivals are missing the real danger. Even if Indian decides to launch surgical strikes against terrorist camps in Pakistan, and even if Pakistan retaliates (and China rattles its sabers in support), the odds are extremely high that neither leader would resort to the use of his limited nuclear arsenal; Vajpayee because he doesn’t have to and Musharraf because the arsenal represents his major ace in the hole, to be saved until national survival is truly at risk. Nor is there much danger of Musharraf playing his “China card.” Although Pakistani leader made a point of traveling to Katmandu via Beijing, where Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji expressed China’s steadfast support for Pakistan, China’s last attempt to “teach a lesson” to one of its neighbors for attacking one of its friends - its brief but bloody invasion into northern Vietnam in 1979 - will likely cause it to think twice before reacting against a much more capable foe, especially if India’s objectives are limited to terrorist targets. All of this is not to dismiss either the likelihood or seriousness of a new Indo-Pakistani clash. It would be extremely deadly and have the added consequence of detracting from the US-led war against the terrorists of choice, Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network. The real danger is the growing international acceptance of India and Pakistan as ex-officio members of the nuclear weapons club and what this means as they both proceed down the nuclear weapons path. I would agree (somewhat begrudgingly) that the politically expedient lifting of the remaining sanctions imposed by the US after India and Pakistan came out of the nuclear closet with their 1998 tests made sense, given both their general ineffectiveness (few others supported this US effort) and the need to have both states (and especially Pakistan) firmly in the US anti-terrorist camp. I also concede that it would be virtually impossible today to convince either country to put its nuclear genie back in the bottle. Yet going back to “business as usual” - as India arrogantly but rightly predicted we would when confronting the initial international uproar after its 1998 tests - neglects the real dangers that lie ahead if either country takes the next logical (or, in my view, illogical) step - namely, the operational field deployment of its nuclear weapons. If either side deploys nuclear warhead-equipped missiles in the field (and India seems determined to pursue this course), the other will almost automatically follow suit. This will greatly increase the danger of inadvertent or unauthorized use, while encouraging pre-emptive strikes and a “use or lose” philosophy that would “justify” a nuclear response to a conventional attack (or perhaps even threat of imminent attack) against the other’s field-deployed sites. And, while one assumes that both sides’ nuclear warheads are tightly guarded today, deploying them to the field makes them that much more vulnerable to seizure by terrorists or even by renegade national forces. In truth, the US is today talking about going beyond “business as usual” to establish a deeper military-to-military relationship with India, to include the initiation of arms sales, something Washington has resisted doing in the past. Yet there is little talk of strings being attached to this increased cooperation. At a minimum, Washington should seek - indeed demand - assurances (privately, if not publicly) that India will refrain from field deployment of its nuclear weapons as a quid pro quo for any enhanced military cooperation. Even more effective would be a coordinated message to New Delhi and Islamabad from the four major regional powers - the US, Russia, China, and Japan - that “business as usual” will cease if either field deploys its nuclear weapons; that such a dangerous, destabilizing action would result in an immediate halt in all four nations’ economic and (where applicable) military support. Unilateral sanctions after the fact have proven to be ineffective, but a carefully coordinated multilateral reminder of the costs involved in future destabilizing actions just might preclude both from taking the next step. The time to act is now, while deployment plans are still on the drawing board in India and Pakistan and while the US, Japan and others are stepping up economic support to South Asia and the carrot of US arms sales is still dangling in front of New Delhi. What better way for the US, Russia, and China to demonstrate their commitment to a nuclear weapons-free world than by drawing a definitive line in the sand against field deployment and its potentially disastrous consequences on the Indian subcontinent. © Copyright 2001 The Frontier Post ***************************************************************** 53 Russia: Pasko's Treason And Espionage Conviction Draws Protest By Francesca Mereu The prosecutor's office of Russia's Pacific Fleet is protesting last month's Vladivostok court decision to sentence journalist Grigorii Pasko to four years in prison, saying the sentence is too lenient and that he should be given a nine-year term instead. Pasko, who has spent years battling prosecutors over the case, was convicted of espionage and high treason for attempting to pass sensitive material to the Japanese media about the fleet's dumping of nuclear waste in the Sea of Japan. RFE/RL Moscow correspondent Francesca Mereu speaks to Pasko's wife and lawyer about the case. Moscow, 14 January 2002 (RFE/RL) -- Neither the defense nor the prosecution is satisfied with last month's court ruling sentencing military journalist Grigorii Pasko to four years in prison for attempting to pass sensitive information to Japan about Russia's Pacific Fleet in 1993. Lawyers for the 40-year-old Pasko say the conviction -- on charges of espionage and high treason -- is unjust and that they will seek an appeal. They say the decision is a kind of political reprisal for Pasko's work exposing hazardous environmental practices by the Russian navy, including the dumping of radioactive waste in the Sea of Japan. Prosecutors, meanwhile argue that the sentence is too lenient and that the journalist should receive at least a nine-year term. The Military Procuracy made a similar argument in 1999, when Pasko's first court appearance ended with acquittals on all but a minor charge. This time around, prosecutors used a secret Defense Ministry decree to secure the conviction. Pasko's case, which has seen him in and out of courtrooms and prison cells since he was first arrested by Federal Security Service (FSB) agents in 1997, has caught the attention of environmental and free-press advocates worldwide. It bears a striking similarity to the case of Alexander Nikitin, a retired navy captain who spent five years fighting treason charges after co-authoring a report on the dangers of Russia's nuclear fleet. Nikitin was finally granted a final acquittal in 2000. But the fate of Pasko -- a former naval officer and reporter with the Pacific Fleet newspaper "Boyevaya Vakhta" -- remains uncertain. Last week, protesters gathered outside the Vladivostok headquarters of the FSB to demand the journalist's release. Similar protests were held outside FSB headquarters in Moscow, and Federation Council speaker Sergei Mironov criticized the ruling as unfair. "I consider it unnecessary for him to go and prove his innocence along the circles of hell of appeals to court," Mironov said. "The world public has long figured out who is right and who is to blame here." Pasko's wife, Galina, told RFE/RL her husband was surprised by the court ruling: "[Grigorii] had no illusions about our Soviet -- and in particular, military -- judicial system. I mean that it hasn't changed since Soviet times. [Grigorii] had no illusions, but he was hoping for a fair court decision, since a person who isn't guilty always hopes for a fair sentence. He didn't expect the sentence he got, or, [at least], he didn't imagine he would be blamed to such a degree." A member of Pasko's defense team, Alexander Tkachenko, spoke with RFE/RL from Vladivostok. He says Pasko was sentenced for allegedly attending a secret gathering of military commanders and handing the notes from the meeting to a Japanese newspaper. "He was accused of having attended a meeting of the Military Council [commanders] and of having taken notes [during the meeting] in order to write an article for ['Boyevaya Vakhta']. [Moreover], he is accused of intending to hand over these notes, illegally taken at the Military Council, to journalists of the [Japanese] paper 'Asahi Sinbun.' [Note that the prosecutors say] he only intended. This means that he is not accused of espionage, but only of intending to give 'Asahi Sinbun' an article about the military-tactical training of the Pacific Fleet. The accusation is not only ridiculous, but also unclear." Pasko, as a journalist, collected information about nuclear contamination in Russia's Pacific Fleet -- information that was used by Japanese newspapers like "Asahi Sinbun" to expose environmental abuses by the Russian navy. But Pasko has repeatedly asserted that he never passed militarily sensitive information to the Japanese. After his 1997 arrest, he was held in preventive detention for 20 months and eventually sentenced to three years in prison on the relatively minor charge of "abuse of office." He was immediately released under an amnesty law, but in November 2000, the Military Collegium of the Russian Supreme Court canceled the decision and called for new hearings. Tkachenko calls the latest hearing and sentencing an FSB "conspiracy." "I believe that [Pasko's case is] a plot [organized by] the FSB. [The FSB] has always put pressure on the court, to force it to make such a decision. [The FSB] wanted, at any cost, for Pasko to be accused of something. It is a plot among the FSB, the military prosecutors, and the court." Pasko's trial is not Russia's only espionage case. Last week, 55-year-old Valentin Moiseev, a former diplomat convicted of spying for South Korea, lost his appeal to the Russian Supreme Court. Moiseev has been in jail since his arrest three years ago. Still another case is that of Igor Sutyagin, a 36-year-old military researcher at the Moscow-based U.S. and Canada Studies Institute. Sutyagin was arrested in 1999 and charged with high treason for passing state secrets to the U.S. He has been in jail ever since. Some analysts believe that these three cases signal a gradual swing back toward Cold War-style politics and note that since being elected president, Vladimir Putin, himself a former KGB agent, seems to have given a green light to espionage prosecutions. Russian parliamentary deputy and human rights advocate Sergei Kovalev told RFE/RL that all these espionage cases are part of a sad political trend. "Look how many trials are going on now and how many trials have just finished. All of them are espionage trials. Take the Pasko [case]. Have you ever in the world seen a spy who under his name openly published information from his spy investigations? The same is true for the Sutyagin or Moiseev cases. Look how our [supposedly] independent judicial system works. No judicial reform will change this sad situation. The reason is very simple -- this is a political order, and a political trend. And this is very sad." Pasko's lawyer, Tkachenko, says the journalist intends to appeal his case until a fair sentence is delivered. Pasko's wife Galina says that in the meantime, her husband is spending his time in jail studying and keeping himself busy. Her husband, she says, "has not lost the hope that someday in the future he may assert his rights." (RFE/RL's Russian Service contributed to this report.) © 1995-2001 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc., All Rights Reserved. http://www.rferl.org ***************************************************************** 54 INEEL to help Ohio site prepare for closure IdahoStatesman.com Sunday, January 13, 2002 The Associated Press IDAHO FALLS -- Engineers from the Idaho Engineering and Environmental Laboratory are lending a hand to another U.S. Department of Energy site in Ohio. The Idaho laboratory will use cooperate funds to help with cleanup activities to prepare the Mound facility near Miamisburg, Ohio, for closure in 2006. When the department agreed to a contract stipulation requiring corporate reinvestment, a percentage of the annual Idaho laboratory contract fee was set aside for Corporate Funded Research and Development. The Mound facility and the laboratory are managed and operated by the same company, Bechtel BWXT. "Since we share common management ties, a portion of the CFRD funds are being used to share INEEL´s environmental management technologies and cleanup expertise with BWX Technologies managed sites such as Mound," said Tom Bechtold, an engineer at the Idaho site. "And the receiving party doesn´t pay for it." The Idaho laboratory and Mound engineers have worked on several projects to help meet the site´s goal of cleaning up and closing the Ohio site before turning the land over to the city of Miamisburg. "Benefiting from INEEL´s CFRD program is like having a supporting arm to lean on since we are a closure site with limited research capabilities," said Don Krause, Mound project manager. "For a closure site like Mound to have free access to the DOE´s lead environmental management laboratory and its capabilities has been unbelievable," Krause said. Officials said the laboratory may look for opportunities to fully use and enhance its technical capabilities at other company managed sites in the future. ***************************************************************** 55 Plan to harness DOE funds could cost $200,000 per year Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 12:29 p.m. on Tuesday, January 15, 2002 by R. Cathey Daniels Oak Ridger staff The cost to enact a law/lobbyist firm's eight proposals to harness more funds from the Department of Energy could total about $200,000 per year for about five years, according to Leonard Abbatiello, Oak Ridge City Council member. "But the gains you see are also large," said Abbatiello. "It's probably the best return on your investment you can make, not that I'm saying we should pursue all of them." Abbatiello chairs council's Committee for Enhanced DOE-Related Remuneration, which in April hired Baker, Donelson, Bearman &Caldwell, of Washington, D.C., to study the issue. Baker Donelson filed a final eight-initiative plan with the city Dec. 31, and reported to City Council at its work session Monday at the Scarboro Community Center. Council paid the firm $75,000 for the plan that outlines a combination of lobbying, legislation and a leveraging of current laws to help Oak Ridge; and $10,000 for some lobbying services in 2001. Abbatiello described the city's current financial state as bleak and said the gap between expenditures and revenues is 3 percent or greater; that the city had been "filling that gap with drawdown funds that were running out"; and that the firm's proposals are the quickest fix. "No housing program will do what we need to do in two to four years," said Abbatiello. "No industrial recruitment program will do that in two to four years. The redevelopment of the mall won't do this in that time frame. "We believe this is the single most important thing the city can do Š and if we don't do this it's (the expenditure/revenue gap is) going to bite us good in about four years," said Abbatiello. Bob Worthington, attorney for Baker Donelson, presented the plan which estimates more than $15 million in revenues should every action succeed, which would be unlikely, said Worthington, who warned that some items might be mutually exclusive, but advised pursuing several actions simultaneously "so that we might hit on at least one of them." When asked by David Mosby, council member, whether pursuing just one alternative would be viable, Worthington responded: "We could do less than all of it but I'm not sure that would be economical to you or economical to us." Abbatiello said that council is not limited to Baker Donelson to implement the action plan, but could choose to put out for bids that contract. The committee will reconvene Jan. 29, with hopes to take a recommendation to council in early February, said Abbatiello. R. Cathey Daniels can be contacted at (865) 220-5515 or danielsrcd@oakridger.com [danielsrcd@oakridger.com] . All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 56 EPA to issue Hanford violation notice This story was published Sat, Jan 12, 2002 By John Stang Herald staff writer The Environmental Protection Agency expects to issue a violation notice later this month to Hanford for a two-year glitch in measuring the radioactivity of wastes from one of the site's projects. The nature of the violation and potential penalties still have to be sorted out, said Doug Sherwood, the EPA's Hanford site manager. The glitch showed up last May, raising the possibility that the wrong radioactive wastes went to the wrong Hanford landfill for two years. "They had inadequate procedures to designate the wastes (into the proper categories). ... It was an embarrassment," Sherwood said. On Friday, the EPA and the Department of Energy announced they have confirmed the error did not send the wrong wastes to a huge specialized central Hanford landfill, easing that earlier fear. The long-term error addressed how Fluor Hanford checked radioactive waste from Bechtel Hanford's decontamination and demolition of the highly radioactive 233-S plutonium processing building in central Hanford's 200 West Area. Fluor was subcontracted to determine if the removed 233-S materials were transuranic wastes or low-level radioactive wastes. These wastes consist of radioactive tools, clothes, debris and junk. Transuranic wastes consist of certain elements such as neptunium and plutonium whenever those elements' radiation also meet or exceed concentrations of 100 nanocuries per gram. The bottom line is radiation from transuranic wastes lasts a long time and is more potent than the short-lived radiation found in low-level wastes. Hanford buries low-level wastes in the monster-sized central Hanford landfill. Transuranic wastes are stored in above-ground metal buildings, awaiting eventual shipment to a permanent underground storage site in New Mexico. In May 1999, Fluor made mistakes in some calculations and in calibrating two radiation detectors. That meant those two machines were not sensitive enough to detect the 100-nanocurie dividing line between transuranic and low-level radioactive wastes. Subsequent recalibrations of those detectors used the original errors, so the problem was not discovered until another company's radiation checks did not agree with Fluor's figures in May 2001. At that time, Fluor admitted the mistakes and immediately began tracking down the problems and fixing them. "That was all resolved (several months ago)," said George Jackson, Fluor's vice president for nuclear materials stabilization. "The error was ours. The error was limited to 233-S. We have taken action to have stronger procedures so it will not happen again." DOE officials agreed Friday that Fluor has successfully overhauled its procedures to guard against that mistake occurring again. And it was determined the mistakes affected only wastes coming from 233-S. During the two years, Bechtel buried 28 containers holding about 600 items from the 233-S project in the central landfill. DOE, Bechtel, Fluor and the EPA suspected seven containers might have contained transuranic wastes. Friday's announcement said that none of the suspected containers held transuranic wastes. However, the most radioactive container -- measuring 98 nanocuries per gram -- was moved to a transuranic waste storage building as a precaution. The incorrectly analyzed wastes never threatened human health nor the environment, DOE officials said. But the procedural errors needed to be fixed so the public can be assured Hanford handles nuclear wastes properly, they said. "If the public loses confidence in how the department and contractors handle radioactive and nuclear wastes, that is not good," said Pete Knollmeyer, DOE's assistant manager for Hanford's central plateau. Copyright 2002 Tri-City Herald. All ***************************************************************** 57 2 firms embroiled in Hanford lawsuits This story was published Sun, Jan 13, 2002 By John Stang Herald staff writer Think of it as a bitter divorce. Fluor Hanford and a former major subcontractor are suing each other over how their relationship fizzled and died in 1999. BWXT Hanford Co., formerly B&W Hanford, filed a lawsuit in District Court in Yakima on June 4 against Fluor Hanford, its parent Fluor Corp. and two other Fluor companies. The lawsuit alleges the Fluor corporations lied to B&W Hanford during contract negotiations, then illegally yanked away a promised contract extension so Fluor could keep the contract fees. Then on June 22, Fluor Hanford filed a countersuit, alleging B&W Hanford is to blame for a two-year halt in moving and processing scrap plutonium at Hanford's Plutonium Finishing Plant. The suit claims B&W's work was substandard and not acceptable to Fluor or its regulatory agencies. That delay cut into fees Fluor Hanford could have earned from the Department of Energy, Fluor alleges. DOE also eventually fined Fluor and B&W Hanford $112,500 for the safety violations that led to the two-year delay. Both sides are seeking unspecified damages from each other in the case, which is to go to trial Sept. 17 in Yakima. On Thursday in Yakima, District Judge Alan McDonald heard arguments over whether co-defendants Fluor Corp., Fluor Federal Services and Fluor Enterprises should be dismissed from B&W Hanford's lawsuit. He did not issue a ruling yet. B&W Hanford was a major player in Fluor Hanford's original, much-ballyhooed 13-company team that took over running Hanford in 1996. The 13-company concept stumbled badly, and Fluor quietly eased out B&W Hanford in 1999. Now the dueling litigants blame each other for B&W Hanford's unhappy departure. B&W Hanford was in charge of converting 4.4 tons of plutonium into safer forms at the PFP, operating the Fast Flux Test Facility, closing and doing the preliminary cleanup at B Plant and PUREX, managing the 300 Area and supervising a 200 Area indoor pool holding radioactive cesium and strontium. B&W Hanford inherited the PFP from Westinghouse Hanford Co. on Oct. 1, 1996. It soon became one of Hanford's most troublesome sites. In late 1996 and early 1997, a series of plutonium handling mistakes increased the chances of a potentially fatal burst of radiation being released. B&W Hanford stopped work at the PFP in January 1997 and started overhauling the facility's procedures and training. Fluor's court documents allege B&W Hanford told it PFP operations would restart within 60 days. Instead, the shutdown and overhaul took two years until January 1999, delaying scheduled completion of the PFP cleanup from May 2002 until December 2004. Neither side's court filings mention the PFP's notorious May 1997 chemical tank explosion. In B&W Hanford's lawsuit, the company said Fluor sent a June 29, 1998, letter to B&W Hanford, saying it would extend B&W's contract 18 months beyond Sept. 30, 1998. After some delays, Fluor told B&W Hanford again in spring 1999 that the subcontractor had met all of Fluor's requirements for renewing their contract. Fluor also gave B&W excellent ratings, telling company officials it would extend the contract to Sept. 30, 2001, B&W Hanford's filings said. But then on Sept. 16, 1999, Fluor told B&W Hanford it would not extend the contract beyond Dec. 29, 1999. Fluor said publicly that it wanted companies to compete for its subcontracts, hoping to encourage innovative proposals. Fluor said it encouraged B&W Hanford to enter that competition. B&W's court papers claim Fluor and B&W had earlier renegotiated part of their original contract that gave Fluor the power to reduce the amount of B&W's work. B&W Hanford contended Fluor verbally assured B&W Hanford it would not use that revised clause. Then Fluor took away all of B&W Hanford's work Nov. 29, 1999. Fluor absorbed most of B&W Hanford's employees, keeping a handful of B&W advisers until March 31, 2000, court documents said. Copyright 2002 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This ***************************************************************** 58 IAEA Daily Press Review Date 2002-01-14 Number 9 1. Non-proliferation China's nuclear ballistic missile force is said to include between 75 and 100 warheads by 2015, according to a new US government intelligence report. Op-Ed on US efforts to assist Russia to dismantle its Cold War nuclear weapons and secure its bomb-grade uranium from sale to terrorists. Moscow scientist details his observances on Iran's quest for ballistic missiles. Indian General says that in the event of a nuclear attack, the country would retaliate in kind, as any other nuclear weapon country would. Defence minister stresses that diplomatic efforts are pursued in the present conflict with Pakistan. (FT; IHT; NYT - 12/01) China; India; Iran, Islamic Republic of; Pakistan; Russian Federation; United States of America 2. IAEA IAEA awaits Burma's response to its inspection team's visit last year to assess the country's preparedness to use and maintain a nuclear reactor safely. More on IAEA inspection team's visit to DPRK, which starts today. (R - 12/1) Dem. P.R. of Korea; IAEA; Myanmar 3. Terrorism According to a report by the Institute for Resource and Security Studies in the US, a terrorist attack on the Sellafield nuclear plant would lay most of Northern England to waste. (BBC - 11/01) United Kingdom 4. Nuclear power Temelin NPP working at full output after restart. Austria's far-right Freedom Party launches referendum against controversial Czech NPP Temelin. Fears that Sellafield's reactor core could catch fire leads to suspension of its dismantling project. (BBC; FT; G - 14/01) Austria; Czech Republic; United Kingdom 5. Radiation, health Demands for an independent inquiry mount after 60,000 litres of radioactive liquid flow from a pipe at a South Australian uranium mine. (BBC; R - 14/01) Australia; United States of America 6. Energy, environment Scientists find that temperatures on the Antarctic continent have fallen steadily for more than two decades. (WP - 14/01) WORLDWIDE 7. Miscellaneous Adviser to the US defence secretary states that the US Defence Department anticipates expanding expenditures in preparation for underground nuclear tests. DPRK cites Japanese opposition to planned US nuclear tests. Interview with Russian defence expert on USA's alleged plans using small nuclear weapons and planned underground tests. Iraq denies it has weapons of mass destruction in a Sunday editorial published in a government-run newspaper. (CNN; FT; WP - 11/01) Dem. P.R. of Korea; Iraq; Russian Federation; United States of America ***************************************************************** NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: *****************************************************************