***************************************************************** 04/15/02 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 10.95 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** Send unpublished stories to news@energy-net.org NUCLEAR POLICY 1 US: Enviros to press court fight for more energy papers NUCLEAR REACTORS 2 Reactor repaired at Ukrainian nuclear power station 3 US: Iowa college reactor dispute 4 Czech N-plant seen ready for re-start next week NUCLEAR SAFETY 5 Iraq writes to UN on effects of depleted uranium ordnance 6 Baby bones used for nuclear tests 7 Britain's Gulf War Veterans Demand Inquiry 8 Depleted uranium issue won't go away 9 US: Sick workers: DOE is dragging its feet on compensation program 10 US: Georgia: Fallout was more intense in Rensselaer 11 US: Ohio has a new KI pill plan in the works NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 12 US: Nuclear waste plan not a security hazard - Ridge 13 Blair faces postcard barrage over Sellafield 14 US: Environmental lobby set to turn up heat 15 US: Formula to aid Yucca fight to be pitched 16 US: 'Political neophyte' Dushoff plans run for governor 17 US: UNLV could see Yucca boon 18 US: Reprocess Nuclear Waste 19 US: Safety of N-casks unclear 20 US: It's Nevada vs. Washington over Yucca Mountain - 21 US: Reid wants to have it both ways on Yucca and judgeships 22 US: AU: Jabiluka uranium mine to remain closed for 10 years. 23 US: Letter: Nuclear dump compensation not worth it 24 US: Demos called key to dump fight 25 Sellafield leak buoys anti nuclear lobby NUCLEAR WEAPONS 26 US: Fallout from Nuclear Testing Has Killed Thousands 27 IHT: Nuclear temptation in Japan 28 UK reveals nuclear bomb plans - 29 Why Britain had to make its own A-bomb 30 UK: MoD shows terrorists how to make an A-bomb US DEPT. OF ENERGY 31 About 30 arrested in protests at nuclear weapons plant in Oak 32 Fischer's ORNL job expected to boost tech program 33 Protests end with 25 arrests OTHER NUCLEAR 34 Durham team pursues nuclear project 35 Anger fails to stop irradiation plant ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 Enviros to press court fight for more energy papers USA: April 15, 2002 WASHINGTON - Environmentalists vowed last week to continue a courtroom battle for Bush administration energy policy documents, saying crucial information was missing from thousands of pages the government already has released. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) said a new batch of 950 pages produced by the Energy Department did not include calendar entries and correspondence for key officials on the administration's energy task force last year. These officials were Andrew Lundquist, executive director of the task force, his deputy Karen Knutson and three others. All five were Department of Energy employees detailed to Vice President Richard Cheney's office to oversee the day-to-day operations of the task force, said Sharon Buccino, the NRDC's senior attorney. Cheney headed the administration's energy task force, which produced a policy last May calling for more oil and gas drilling and a revived nuclear power program. Environmentalists complain their views were given short shrift during the energy task force deliberations last year. The NRDC and Judicial Watch, a public interest law firm, sued under the Freedom of Information Act to get the task force's documents from a number of federal agencies. "We will continue to fight in court to get the remaining documents that have been withheld," Buccino said. "The Bush administration provided no legal justification for why these latest records are missing." But the Department of Energy said that it does not have records for officials detailed to the White House. "DOE does not have any responsive records. They do not work in this building, we have none of their records," a spokeswoman said. The White House is not covered by the Freedom of Information Act. However, the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, has also gone to court seeking energy task force documents, including White House papers. The GAO says it is entitled to the papers as part of its oversight of the executive branch. It filed suit in February and is still waiting for a White House response in court. Since the end of March some 17,000 pages of documents have been released by departments involved in the task force, although many are heavily edited. Even so, Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton said the information so far backed the environmentalists' view that they were not consulted in any significant way on energy policy. The documents included an Energy Department memo ordering hasty contacts with environmental groups in late March, after the department's secretary, Spencer Abraham, had met numerous energy industry executives to hear their views. "The Energy Department wasn't terribly interested in what the environmentalists had to say," Fitton said. Buccino said the papers have produced evidence of five meetings between the failed Enron Corp. officials and the administration, in addition to six get-togethers the White House already has acknowledged, but there were few details. Story by Susan Cornwell REUTERS NEWS SERVICE ***************************************************************** 2 Reactor repaired at Ukrainian nuclear power station BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Apr 15, 2002 Kiev, 15 April: The third power unit at the Rivne nuclear power station was connected to the national power grid on Monday morning [15 April] after undergoing repairs, Interfax was told at the Enerhoatom generating company. At 0900 its capacity was raised to 500 megawatts. The power unit with a VVER-1000 water moderated rector was shut down at 2350 on Friday to stop a hydrogen leak from a generator. Repairs were expected to last until Monday evening. Twelve out of 14 power units are currently operational at Ukraine's four nuclear power plants. Repairs are under way at the first unit in Rivne and the sixth in Zaporizhzhya. BBC Monitoring/ © BBC ***************************************************************** 3 DesMoinesRegister.com | News Register Staff Writer 04/15/2002 Ames, Ia. - A 4-foot hole in a basement storage room on campus has commanded protection, time and money from Iowa State University. The school's nuclear reactor shut down four years ago and was later destroyed. The only sign of the historical tool's existence, a leftover hole, is hidden beneath a concrete floor in a dust-filled room used primarily for storage. The bureaucratic hassles haven't disappeared. The process of getting rid of the reactor's federal license is tied up in red tape, especially since federal offices have been busy after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, officials say. In the meantime, the dead reactor is alive and well in the eyes of the federal government. ISU must comply with federal security requests, such as a temporary lockdown after Sept. 11. Professors have set aside other work to research questions on tight deadlines and to fill out paperwork. The university still pays about $2,000 a year for liability insurance, even though nuclear materials are long gone. ISU officials have patience, but "it would be nice to have that chapter of the university's efforts closed," said Daniel Bullen, an ISU mechanical engineering professor. Not that they have a choice. If ISU officials ignore commands from the federal government, "they could put us in jail," Bullen said. Efforts to loosen ISU's ties to the nuclear reactor have failed, despite help from Gov. Tom Vilsack, Bullen said. Because the campus keeps no radioactive fuel, ISU's duties are fewer than universities with active nuclear reactors, said Al Adams, licensing project manager for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in Rockville, Md. He declined to describe the stricter security demands. ISU's four-year wait is typical, Adams said. Intense planning, surveys and radiation inspections must be cleared before lifting a license, he said. The reactor opened in 1959 as the second university reactor in the nation. As fears of radioactive waste surfaced, demand for nuclear engineers dropped. ISU's undergraduate nuclear engineering program closed in 1990. The graduate program followed suit six years later. Federal data show 28 research reactors were active on university campuses last year, down from 64 in 1980. At least three major universities, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, were ready to close last year, a U.S. Department of Energy report shows. [http://DesMoinesRegister.com/help/letter.html] Copyright © 2002, The Des Moines Register. ***************************************************************** 4 Czech N-plant seen ready for re-start next week CZECH REPUBLIC: April 15, 2002 TEMELIN, Czech Republic - The Czech Temelin nuclear power station will be ready to hold controlled fission reactions at both of its two reactors by the end of next week, a plant spokesman said last week. The controversial Soviet-designed power station is 60 km (38 miles) from the border of fiercely anti-nuclear Austria, which has strongly opposed its operation. Temelin spokesman Milan Nebesar told Reuters the plant's first reactor, shut for an inspection seven weeks ago, should be ready for a re-start from the middle of next week, pending permission from Czech nuclear safety regulators. He said the second 981 megawatt (MW) VVER reactor, loaded with fuel in mid-March and preparing for the activation of its inaugural nuclear fission reaction, should be ready by the end of next week. Temelin's owner, state-owned power utility CEZ , has been testing the first reactor since late 2000, but the full commercial launch has been delayed due to a series of glitches in the plant's secondary, non-nuclear circuit. The power station, which has been upgraded with western control systems, has become a source of unrelenting friction between the two central European neighbours. Germany has also opposed Temelin. The EU, however, has said the plant is not an issue in the Czechs' drive to join the 15-nation bloc, expected in 2004. The International Atomic Energy Agency, the world's nuclear watchdog, told a news conference at the plant last week its team of experts inspecting Temelin had found the plant sufficiently protected against a security breach. David Rex Ek, head of the agency's team, told journalists the station's physical protection by electronic systems, security guards and other means was comparable with Western European nucler power plants. The watchdog's week-long mission, which ended last week, did not look at other safety issues. REUTERS NEWS SERVICE ***************************************************************** 5 Iraq writes to UN on effects of depleted uranium ordnance BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Apr 13, 2002 Iraq has stressed that the USA and Britain bear the responsibility for the criminal mass genocide that they are committing against the Iraqi people by polluting the environment in Iraq and in neighbouring countries by using depleted uranium during the unjust 30-state aggression against Iraq. In a letter to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Foreign Minister Dr Naji Sabri referred to documents and facts pertaining to the suffering of the Iraqi people. He said that the US and British forces used 800 tons of military ordnance made of depleted uranium during their aggression against Iraq in January 1991. Dr Sabri also referred to the dangerous effects on public health and the environment that resulted from the use of this radioactive metal. He said that it led to thousands of victims, especially among women and children, and will have catastrophic effects on the coming generations. The foreign minister said that the use of depleted uranium by the USA and Britain during their aggression on Iraq in 1991 has been proven and is well documented. Medical and scientific circles in the world have warned against the immediate and future dangerous effects of the use of depleted uranium. This crime reflects the catastrophic dimensions of the use of this weapon, which has a very destructive effect on the environment and the people of Iraq. The Iraqi people were exposed to the radioactive effects of depleted uranium on the human kidney, the human liver and the human reproductive system, and it has led to deformed births and various kinds of cancer. He stressed that the wide and haphazard use of this devastating weapon raised the number of various cases of cancer, especially in the southern provinces of Iraq, where this lethal weapon was used in abundance. The Iraqi foreign minister also stressed that the USA and Britain bear a double responsibility. They are preventing the arrival of medications and medical equipment to the victims of the aggression they launched against Iraq in 1991. He also pointed out that their representatives in Committee 661 are obstructing contracts pertaining to the purchase of drugs and medical equipment for the treatment of various forms of cancer by claiming that they have a dual purpose. Concluding his letter to the UN secretary-general, the Iraqi foreign minister called for immediate intervention - in accordance with his legal, moral and human responsibility - to release the 21 pending contracts related to the treatment of various forms of cancer. He stressed that these contracts should be released immediately so that the specialized medical quarters could begin to treat the victims of the criminal use of depleted uranium that was committed by the USA and Britain against Iraq. BBC Monitoring/ © BBC ***************************************************************** 6 Baby bones used for nuclear tests news.com.au - 15 April 2002 By COLIN JAMES THOUSANDS of parents across Australia will soon discover bones were secretly removed from their dead children for radiation testing. The Federal Government has received expert advice on how to tell more than 21,000 people – including 3078 in South Australia – that bones from their children or adult relatives were burnt to ash. More than 3400 of these people will be told samples of the ash have been kept for more than 30 years in government radiation laboratories. Letters, telephone calls and a website will ask family representatives if they want the ash samples returned for burial or cremation. The samples were collected between 1957 and 1978 as part of an international program to test Australians for contamination from nuclear tests. The program, run by the British and US governments, measured human exposure to strontium-90, a radioactive isotype which enters bone tissue, causing leukemia and other cancers. It was found to have been absorbed by every Australian living in 1970 through the consumption of contaminated milk, flour, vegetables and meat. Former federal health minister Dr Michael Wooldridge last year called for a report when it emerged more than 21,000 bones had been collected from stillborn babies through to adults. He asked the National Medical and Research Council's Australian National Ethics Committee to develop protocols for notifying relatives. The bones were collected from pathologists at hospitals in Adelaide, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth paid secret bonuses by the high-level Atomic Weapons Tests Safety Committee. The pathologists were asked by the committee's secretary, the late J. R. Moroney, to send the bones of stillborn babies, infants and toddlers as they were particularly vulnerable to absorbing strontium-90 through cow's milk. Whole thigh bones, or femurs, were removed from the children to ensure reliable tests could be conducted while only sections of bones were taken from adults. Many of the pathologists replaced the baby bones with plastic or wooden inserts while older babies and small children were dressed to hide scars during their burial or cremation. Samples were then sent to the US and England for testing until the former Australian Radiation Laboratory established a Victorian laboratory. Comprehensive files detailing the program, which officially ended in 1978, have been found for all cities except Adelaide and Perth. However, the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency has located detailed records which identify the origin of each bone. This database will be used to notify relatives that bones were taken without consent and that ARPANSA has the 3400 ash samples. The Advertiser NEWS.COM.AU ***************************************************************** 7 Britain's Gulf War Veterans Demand Inquiry Xinhuanet 2002-04-15 21:37:52 LONDON, April 15 (Xinhuanet) -- British military veterans have written to Prime Minister Tony Blair, demanding a public inquiry into the health effects of service in the Gulf War, the BBC reported on Monday. Members of the National Gulf Veterans and Families Association, in their direct appeal to Blair, said they want investigations into the role of depleted uranium, the use of multiple vaccinations for a range of deadly diseases, and the possible exposure to pesticides or organophosphates. Many of those who served in the Gulf conflict in 1991 say they have suffered a range of disorders, some claiming their children suffered birth defects. They believe the government has ignored their plight and refused to recognize the existence of "Gulf War illness". Their solicitor Patrick Allen said that the problem of Gulf war illness and veterans' health will not go away. He added: "In our view, the veterans have not been adequately compensated or given appropriate treatment for their condition." A spokesman for the Ministry of Defense (MoD) said: "We accept that some Gulf veterans became ill and we are open minded about the various causes. "But the Prime Minister has considered calls for a public inquiry and he concluded that it wouldn't contribute to answering the basic questions of why some veterans are ill. "Only scientific research would establish that and all sorts of research is going on both inside and outside the MoD." A study of 14,000 servicemen carried out by the University of Manchester, concluded Gulf War veterans were more likely to become ill and suffer more severe symptoms than other servicemen and women. Their findings, published last April, have been forwarded to the MoD, the BBC said. Enditem Copyright © 2000 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 8 Depleted uranium issue won't go away Monday, April 15, 2002 Back The Halifax Herald Limited By Scott Taylor [staylor@herald.ns.ca] ON TARGET EARLIER THIS MONTH, the Canadian Department of National Defence published the results of yet another scientific study into the health hazards posed by depleted uranium munitions. As with all the previous tests conducted by government-funded agencies, the results of this analysis found no link between depleted uranium and the growing legion of mysteriously ill veteran peacekeepers. The reason for conducting this most recent set of tests originated over a year ago with an international media clamour about NATO having used depleted uranium munitions in Bosnia. When air strikes were first launched against Serbian targets in 1994 and 1995, NATO officials vehemently denied using the controversial "mildly radioactive" armour-piercing shells. But when leukemia and cancer rates among peacekeeping contingents rose sharply, journalists began to investigate further. When the British media unearthed documents that proved a large number of such rounds had in fact been used in Bosnia, NATO spokesmen quickly changed their tune. Confronted with the evidence of their duplicity, the spin doctors fessed up while simultaneously issuing categorical denials that depleted uranium ammo poses any long-term health risks. To make their case, NATO PR officials, in conjunction with senior medical officers, relied upon the "inconclusive" findings of over a dozen studies conducted since 1992 by either the U.S. Pentagon or the British Ministry of Defence. These studies were prompted by concerns raised after thousands of sick soldiers began to suffer from what has come to be known as Gulf War Syndrome. Depleted uranium was first used operationally in 1991 by American and British forces during the massive allied air assaults against Iraq's armoured units in Kuwait. In 1978, American scientists discovered that depleted uranium, nuclear waste, had potential as a weapon. Its incredible density makes it capable of easily penetrating the thickest armour; after the shell punches through, the depleted uranium ignites to engulf the hapless crew in radioactive flames. These same scientists also recognized but dismissed as negligible (perhaps prematurely) the inherent dangers to advancing friendly troops that inhale the resultant radioactive aerosol created by the exploding shells. When tens of thousands of American and allied Gulf War veterans developed strange and debilitating illnesses upon their return home, two likely causes were soon singled out - the first ,the saturation of depleted uranium dust (over one million rounds were fired, totalling 270 tonnes of radioactive material), and the second, the experimental use of the anthrax vaccine. While the side-effects caused by the anthrax vaccinations cannot be ignored, depleted uranium has become the prime suspect ever since United Nations' peacekeepers began developing Balkan Syndrome (they received no such inoculations). Needless to say, the inconclusive Pentagon and British defence studies have done little to convince those soldiers suffering from various symptoms. The only two military forces to employ depleted uranium munitions in any quantity, the British and Americans would be the most culpable if test results prove positive. (Imagine tobacco companies being the first agency to prove conclusively that their products cause lung cancer!) Now we have the results of a Canadian study conducted by scientists at the Royal Military College in Kingston, Ont., the very same institution which "misplaced" allegedly toxic Croatian soil samples. Even as he tabled his team's findings, Dr. Brent Lewis admitted they had not set out to find a depleted uranium connection, but to prove critics wrong. "There are a lot of numbers floating around out there that the media picks up on or people quote. What we wanted to do was make sure that we quantify it and put it in writing," he said. The numbers Dr. Lewis referred to are being generated by an independent research team at Memorial University in St. John's, Nfld. Headed by Dr. Asaf Durakovic, the Memorial scientists admit that their results differ from DND's because they are using far more sophisticated equipment. For instance, the Royal Military College studied urine samples, tests on which can only detect soluble uranium, which is considered harmless. Given that such substances pass through the body within 48 hours, it is not surprising that RMC's findings reported "extremely low" levels of uranium. Independent experts believe that the only way to detect the presence of inhaled depleted uranium is through a lymph node biopsy. Although it is relatively painful, former Lieut. Louise Richard, a long-suffering Gulf War veteran, volunteered to undergo the procedure. The military doctors told Richard, "Thanks, but no thanks." Instead, she was offered the opportunity to submit a hair sample. If only she could. Following her stint at a forward field hospital in Kuwait, where she treated Iraqi wounded and was in close proximity to the battle area, Richard no longer has any hair on her body, not even an eyelash. If, at the outset, Dr. Lewis and the RMC scientists were convinced that depleted uranium is harmless, then I ask why they wasted so much time and energy studying it. If the health and welfare of our troops is truly the doctors' goal, then shouldn't they have been spending their limited resources trying to discover the actual cause and developing a cure? Copyright © 2002 The Halifax Herald Limited ***************************************************************** 9 Sick workers: DOE is dragging its feet on compensation program Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 2:38 p.m. on Monday, April 15, 2002 by Paul Parson Oak Ridger staff Sick workers from U.S. weapons facilities are scheduled to gather in Washington D.C. Tuesday to address the Department of Energy's failure in working with a compensation program for job-sickened nuclear workers. At a press conference on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, the National Nuclear Workers for Justice hopes to get its message across to President Brush, Congress and numerous federal agencies. The nuclear workers group is a grass-roots national coalition trying to "right the wrongs" of the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation program. DOE has dragged its feet and failed to fully comply with the compensation program that was mandated by Congress, according to several members of the coalition. Janet Michel, a local sick worker and member of the National Nuclear Workers for Justice, said information regarding what workers were exposed to is still being withheld by DOE, which is a violation of federal law. "This is preventing workers from protecting themselves and their families and obtaining appropriate treatment," she said. The compensation program, which officially began July 31, provides medical care and a payment of $150,000 to sick workers or their families, if the workers were exposed to cancer-causing radiation or silica or beryllium, which are linked to lung diseases. The National Nuclear Workers for Justice is composed of retired, disabled, or active nuclear weapons workers from DOE sites near locations such as Oak Ridge; Portsmouth, Ohio; Hanford, Washington; Paducah, Kentucky; Denver, Colorado; and Amarillo, Texas. [http://www.oakridger.com] All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 10 Georgia: Fallout was more intense in Rensselaer The Independent By: KRISTIN SHAWApril 12, 2002 ATLANTA,GA--A study by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Cancer Institute has brought to light a legacy of the Cold War that may have an impact on the health of people born a half century ago. The study attempts to determine what doses of radiation each county in the lower 48 states received from fallout generated by above-ground tests of atomic and hydrogen bombs between 1952 and 1963, when most atmospheric tests ended. According to the CDC's model, Rensselaer County was among the areas where fallout levels were highest. The map accompanying the study indicates that the fallout levels were lower in Columbia and Greene counties. The report says that based on preliminary estimates, the radioactive materials in the fallout would have had the greatest impact on the risk of developing thyroid cancer. But Kristine Smith, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Health, said that the incidence of thyroid cancer in the county is "unequivocally" lower in women as compared to the rest of the state, based on a review of county-level cancer maps. The level of thyroid cancer is higher in men, she noted, but is within what statisticians refer to as the confidence level, meaning, she said, "We can't say, with scientific certainty, if the level is higher than it should be. Overall, the cancer maps show nothing unusual." Rensselaer County as a whole, she noted, is doing "slightly better" in most cancer levels, than the rest of the state. Ms. Smith said similar studies have been conducted regarding nuclear fallout, one five years ago by the National Cancer Institute and the other about three years ago by the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. This most recent feasibility study by the CDC and NCI has been presented to Congress, which will decide whether further measures should be taken to analyze potential health risks caused by the fallout. "If the CDC wants to do another study, the state Health Department will cooperate," said Ms. Smith. Along with thyroid cancer, non-cancer thyroid disease and leukemia are other health effects that could be studied if a more detailed evaluation is conducted. The study finds a relatively small risk numerically from the fallout: "It is estimated that an additional 550 deaths (cases) from Leukemia may occur among the population of the United States who were alive at any time during the the years 1951-2000." The study, which is dated August 2001, goes on to say, "For the approximately 3.8 million persons born in 1951, it is estimated that 17 excess deaths (cases) from fallout related leukemia will occur." The translates to a risk of 1 in 220,000, according to the report. The report also notes that everyone alive in the lower 48 states in 1951 was exposed to some fallout, and it cautions readers that the results "should not be used to estimate health effects for for specific individuals" because the data are not precise enough. Ms. Smith said the Health Department regularly updates its cancer maps and documents whether any individual with cancer has any "unusual elements" which may have led to the disease. Although the atmospheric testing of U.S. nuclear weapons occurred at government test sites in Nevada and on islands in the Pacific Ocean, researchers have determined where fallout occurred using statistical models, prevailing wind patterns and records of where storms occurred after the tests, according to Ms. Smith. Those formulas can be applied to radioactive fallout generated from tests detonated outside the U.S. as well. Kevin Madden, spokesman for Congressman John Sweeney (R-22), said the congressman is "still digesting" the study, and has received no "specific alert" from the state government. "We expect, as we keep evaluating the evidence presented by the CDC, that we will set up meetings to see what, if any communities were adversely affected by fallout," said Mr. Madden. He noted the study is too preliminary to develop a nationwide plan to deal with possible health issues, but the congressman's office will be "very ambitious in following up on any and all facts which come out of this study." The feasibility study looked at documents related to nuclear weapons fallout, radiation dose estimates, a review of epidemiologic literature, which suggests the association between exposure to nuclear fallout and thyroid cancer and leukemia, risk assessment and development of a health communication strategy that would take place after a more through evaluation. The report is available on the web. Go to www.cdc.gov/nceh/radiation/default.htm and the report can be found at the second link under the Project Profiles section of the page. ©The Independent 2002 ***************************************************************** 11 Ohio has a new KI pill plan in the works The News-Herald Dino DiSantoApril 15, 2002 The state of Ohio isn't following the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's prescription for taking potassium iodide pills. Ohio, for the last couple of months, has been putting together a policy on distributing potassium iodide to people living within 10 miles of nuclear power plants. The pills, better known as KI, would be distributed to about 50,000 residents of Ashtabula, Geauga and Lake counties who live near the Perry Nuclear Power Plant. The North Perry Village-based plant is owned by FirstEnergy Corp. of Akron. KI pills, if taken near the time of radiation exposure, which could result from a nuclear accident, flood the thyroid gland with safe iodine and reduces or eliminates the absorption of radioactive iodine. However, in putting together the policy, the state isn't following the FDA's guidelines on the KI dosage rate for children. Despite this deviation from policy, the FDA isn't upset. The difference, though, shouldn't cause a health risk, the FDA said. Orloff and other health experts said a person should only take one dose in a 24-hour span. Dr. David Orloff, director of the FDA Division of Metabological and Endocrine Drug Products, said the guidelines are just that - guidelines. "The FDA guideline is purely guidance, it is not a decree or law," Orloff said. "We realize that there are complex problems with logistics that may make it impractical to implement these guidelines." Part of the problem with the FDA guideline is that it wasn't written specifically for people who live within 10 miles of a nuclear power plant. "I think that is part of the confusion," Orloff said. "The guidelines were written for what was the optimum conditions for taking KI. It didn't take into account people who would have to evacuate an area in a hurry." Roger Suppes, chief of the Bureau of Radiation Protection for the Ohio Department of Health, has said Ohio's draft policy was ignoring FDA guidelines. Suppes indicated it was just too impractical to expect people to split the tiny white tablets into smaller dosages. The state was concerned people would be worried about splitting KI pills instead of evacuating in case of disaster at one of the two nuclear power plants in Ohio. The difference in the two policies is basically in how much KI should be given to newborns. The FDA recommended dosage is: * Adults 18 years and older take one 130 milligram tablet. * Children older than 1 month through age 17 should take one-half of a 130 mg tablet. * Newborn children who are up to 1 month old should take one-eighth of a 130 mg tablet. However, the Ohio draft policy recommends: * Adults and children 1 year of age or older should take one 130 mg tablet. * Children younger than 1 should take one-half of 130 mg tablet. ©The News-Herald 2002 ***************************************************************** 12 Nuclear waste plan not a security hazard - Ridge USA: April 15, 2002 WASHINGTON - Transportation of nuclear waste to a proposed permanent dump site in Nevada could be done safely without undue danger of disruption by terrorist attack, U.S. Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge said last week. Ridge said a review of the proposal by his office had concluded that adequate safeguards for transporting nuclear waste had already been developed by the Department of Energy and the U.S. military. The proposed Yucca Mountain storage site would be the nation's first permanent repository for radioactive waste and has sparked a battle in Congress. "We feel very confident that this can be done safely," Ridge told the American Society of Newspaper Editors. "We don't believe ultimately that (transportation) should be an impediment." Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn vetoed the proposal on Tuesday and the site's fate now rests with Congress, which has 90 working days to sustain or override the veto. Guinn has predicted an uphill battle to uphold the veto. REUTERS NEWS SERVICE ***************************************************************** 13 Blair faces postcard barrage over Sellafield Ananova - More than a million Irish citizens are set to send postcards to Tony Blair to protest about the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant in Cumbria. The cards will be posted in time for to mark the 16th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster of April 25-26, 1986. The campaign has been organised by Bono's wife Ali Hewson, and is supported by stars including The Corrs and Ronan Keating. Prince Charles and Hugh Collum, chairman of British Nuclear Fuels, which runs Sellafield, will also receive postcards. The protest begins as citizens express their views in the European Parliament on a report outlining the threat of toxic dangers from Sellafield and La Hague. The report - entitled Possible Toxic Effects from the Nuclear Reprocessing plants at Sellafield (UK) and Cap de la Hague (France) - paints a harrowing picture of the disaster which could follow an accident in the high-level waste tanks at the plants, as well as the tragic health risks posed by the two plants' day-to-day activities. Story filed: 04:09 Monday 15th April 2002 Copyright © 2002 Ananova Ltd ***************************************************************** 14 Environmental lobby set to turn up heat Las Vegas SUN April 15, 2002 By Benjamin Grove WASHINGTON -- Local, state and national environmental groups that have helped muster support against shipping nuclear waste in Congress face their toughest battle with Yucca Mountain. The environmental lobby, which plans to gather at the U.S. Capitol Tuesday to pressure lawmakers to oppose the proposed nuclear waste dump, has a record of helping rally their friends in Congress on several key votes to defeat the measures. In 1999, lawmakers rejected a plan to establish a temporary waste site near Yucca until the proposed permanent waste repository was approved and constructed. And two years ago, when the House and Senate passed a Yucca-related bill to move up the project timeline, environmental groups and Nevada lawmakers had enough friends in the Senate to sustain President Clinton's veto -- by a mere two votes. But this year's Yucca showdown promises to be even more difficult for anti-Yucca forces because there's a lack of public knowledge on the issue and the powerful nuclear industry lobby has pressed its influence in favor of the dump. Observers expect the House in the next four weeks or so to approve the project overwhelmingly, effectively overriding a veto filed by Gov. Kenny Guinn last week. Many expect the Senate will pass it, too, although Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and John Ensign, R-Nev., are lobbying to convince their colleagues to reject the project. Green groups aim to help out in record numbers by pressuring lawmakers in Washington and by trumpeting the risks of transporting waste through 43 states to Nevada. They are up against nuclear industry lobbyists who are touting a long record of safe waste shipping. At least 47 national and 477 state and local groups are on record in opposition to Yucca Mountain, said Kevin Kamps, a waste transportation analyst with Nuclear Information and Resource Service. NIRS helped organize a rally and press conference set for Tuesday morning on the Capitol grounds. "When people (in Iowa) heard 'Yucca Mountain a year ago, they had no clue what it was," said Michelle Kenyon, program organizer for Iowa Citizens Action Network, who plans to attend the rally and meet with Iowa senators. "Now people are coming to realize what Yucca Mountain is. What is more difficult is to get them to realize that waste has to come through Iowa." The mushrooming army of activist groups are energizing for a final-hour effort to derail the project in Congress, Kamps said. Activist leaders know that if the Yucca project wins congressional approval, only the Nuclear Regulatory Commission -- or a brilliantly played court strategy -- could derail it for good. A number of activists plan to descend on congressional offices after the rally Tuesday to talk to lawmakers or their staffers. Among them will be Susan Alzner of the Connecticut branch of Citizens Awareness Network, a New England group that opposes nuclear power. Connecticut has two operating nuclear reactors and a decommissioned plant where waste is stored, Connecticut Yankee. Alzner said scientific studies and government reports, like a critical one recently released by the General Accounting Office, do not support the Yucca plan. Alzner often tries to generate discussions about "the ethics of waste." "The worst thing we can do is inflict our suffering on another state," Alzner said. Alzner wages battles with many people in her state who want the waste shipped to Nevada, and she understands the political pressure Connecticut lawmakers face. The state's Democratic Sens., Joe Lieberman and Christopher Dodd, have voted with Nevada senators on previous Yucca bills. But they have not announced their intentions on the upcoming vote. Members of Alzner's group are trying to arrange meetings with Dodd and Lieberman's staff, she said. "The utilities are working hard to get them to support Yucca," she said. "In Connecticut what we're up against is a lack of information in the public about Yucca Mountain." In North Carolina, several grass-roots efforts are underway to pressure Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., to oppose Yucca Mountain. It is a tough sell. Edwards, considered a possible presidential candidate, is under pressure from owners of the five operating nuclear reactors in the state. Nuclear plants produce about 32 percent of the electricity in North Carolina. And Edwards has voted in favor of Yucca legislation before. "We've been working on Edwards for years," said Nora Wilson, project organizer for the North Carolina Waste Awareness and Reduction Network. "Carolina Power &Light is the largest campaign donor in the state and they are a very powerful entity in these parts. I don't think he's willing to alienate them." Wilson is making the trip to the nation's capital in part to meet with Edwards, or his staffers. Wilson's group has met with Edwards twice to discuss their objection to expansion of a nuclear waste pool at the Shearon Harris Plant near New Hill, N.C. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission last year licensed the Carolina Power &Light facility to construct the largest waste pool in the nation. CP has been shipping high-level waste there from two other plants in the Carolinas. Edwards embraced the plan despite protest from the community and municipal and county officials who were worried about waste transportation, said N.C. Waste Reduction and Awareness Network director Jim Warren. After meeting with Edwards in February 2000, and again by telephone in March 2001, Edwards has largely ignored pleas from the group, Warren said. The group, which wanted more in-depth NRC review of the Harris plant waste pool expansion, protested at Edwards' Raleigh office in June last year. "He went silent about the whole thing," Warren said. "It looked like he was more interested in protecting his relationship with the nuclear industry." All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 15 Formula to aid Yucca fight to be pitched Las Vegas SUN April 15, 2002 Clark County administrators on Tuesday will pitch to commissioners a new formula to fund the campaign against the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. County officials will come up with $1.5 million by delaying the construction of a courthouse in Goodsprings, taking about $450,000 from the $6 million computer renewal program and $250,000 from fire transfer funds. Clark County Manager Thom Reilly said the funding will not adversely affect public safety or services at the county. Commissioners are expected to vote on the amount Tuesday. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 16 'Political neophyte' Dushoff plans run for governor Las Vegas SUN April 15, 2002 By Ed Koch < [koch@lasvegassun.com] > Recognizing that he is a "political neophyte," Deputy Attorney General Matthew Dushoff said today he will make his voice heard in his efforts to unseat Republican Gov. Kenny Guinn. The 36-year-old attorney, who twice lost as a candidate for local court positions, surprised fellow Democrats at the Clark County Democratic Convention Saturday with the announcement that he is running for governor. Dushoff, who has worked for the AG's office for more than eight years, said today he knows he will not raise anywhere near the money Guinn has or will have in his warchest. "I am a state employee, so I have tons of money," he joked, then seriously said: "Will I be able to raise money? Absolutely. Will I raise the amount Kenny Guinn has? No. I'm realistic. "I hope to raise enough money to get my message out. I may be a political neophyte, but I will get my message out." Dushoff's message will be that while he likes Guinn, the governor has not properly handled major issues such as the proposed nuclear dump at Yucca Mountain, the medical malpractice insurance crisis and Nevada's poor education rating. "Why was the medical malpractice issue allowed to get so bad? The same is true with Yucca Mountain, which we have known about for years. We are closing the barn door after the cows got out," Dushoff said. "I have friends who are teachers buying supplies out of their pockets for their students because the system cannot afford it. With our state's wealth, we should be No. 1 in education." At the convention Dushoff had not been scheduled to speak, but took the lectern to make what turned out to be an impromptu but rousing announcement. Dushoff ran for Municipal Court judge in Henderson in 1999 and for justice of the peace in Henderson in 2000. He lost both races, but garnered the most votes of any of the challengers. Dushoff was a public defender in New York City for three years before moving to Nevada. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 17 UNLV could see Yucca boon Las Vegas SUN April 15, 2002 By Jennifer Knight While UNLV President Carol Harter doesn't like the idea of a nuclear waste dump coming to Nevada, as an academic she sees the opportunity it holds for her university. "As a university president, it is my job to prepare for the eventuality of Yucca Mountain and be ready to do the kind of research that will be helpful even if it goes somewhere else," Harter said. Congress will decided whether to build a repository to hold 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain in the next three months, and although opponents of the dump deride the idea of gaining "benefits" from the project, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas could see a boom in its research centers if the repository is built in Nevada. "When there is a large federal presence of whatever kind of industry, the universities in the neighborhood naturally become involved in the research that is important to that particular venture," Stephen Rice, vice provost for research, said. Rice said the possibilities for UNLV are boundless. Relationships with scientists would bleed into the colleges of science, engineering, information technology and the field of business management. UNLV's research reputation in nuclear science could benefit, as well. Such large-scale projects draw in enough research money to attract high-profile professors, said Tony Hechanova, a research scientist heading up UNLV's nuclear transmutation project at the Harry Reid Environmental Science Center. "When you bring in good professors who are doing good work, you also attract good students," Hechanova said. "By producing good students, you start increasing your reputation." Three of Nevada's colleges are already involved in researching the Yucca science. Over the past three years, about 65 Yucca projects have been awarded to the university system, bringing in about $20 million in research money, according to officials. The University of Nevada, Reno has received $11.2 million, UNLV received $6.7 million and Desert Research Institute received about $2 million. But, the convergence of the words "benefit" and "Yucca" is anathema to those fighting to keep the nation's high-level nuclear waste out of Nevada's back yard. "I think this is counterproductive," said Nathan Naylor, spokesman for Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev. Reid and other Nevada politicians are leading the opposition to the dump. "The notion that Yucca is good for Nevada is wrong. "Sen. Reid is focused on killing Yucca. He won't even consider picking meat off the bone. This is morbid even considering what we can get out of this." The sensitivity of the question is not lost on academics. When asked whether UNLV's research centers would experience a boon from Yucca, Harter was diplomatic. "It's a little like saying that if there were more cancer, it would benefit our cancer center," she said. "If it expands our activity, wonderful. But I don't want to imply that in any way we would benefit from Yucca Mountain coming here." By way of proximity though, UNLV is at the center of the issue. Just 90 miles southeast of the site, the university is already playing a role in the debate as researchers have studied Yucca Mountain for the last five years. The research has come down on both sides of the argument. One UNLV scientist concluded that a popular anti-Yucca argument -- that water could seep through the ground and corrode the cylinders holding the nuclear waste -- was unlikely. Another UNLV study contradicted a theory that claimed the material being used for the cylinders was too corrosive to use in Yucca Mountain. Conversely, UNLV's work has helped the fight over the years. The most notable project being championed by politicians against Yucca is the Advanced Accelerator Transmutation project. The project is studying new technology that could reduce the radiation of spent nuclear fuel rods, reducing the time that the waste would be lethal and lessening the need for a repository. If such research has cropped up as a result of Yucca Mountain only being studied, a working waste site could bring with it the unintended side effect of expanding research centers at UNLV, officials said. Just look at sites such as Idaho Falls, Idaho, one of the sites of the Manhattan Project and now home to a still-active naval reactor facility just 50 miles northwest of Idaho State University. The relationship between those two has been beneficial, Lawrence Ford, deputy chief research officer for Idaho State University in Pocatello, Idaho, said. "There has been some research interaction between the naval facility and the university in the area of nuclear engineering," Ford said. "We would like to develop more of that." The same holds true for other universities near similar sites. A branch of New Mexico State University in Carlsbad has experienced side benefits from a nearby low-level nuclear waste site. Trucks filled with 55-gallon drums of contaminated clothes and tools from nuclear sites comes to the town of 25,000 each month. Scientists studying the safety aspects of the site have followed. "It has affected us in the sense that people who come to the community with these types of skills benefits the university," Mel Vuk, university's provost, said. "If you want to take a class in nuclear science, you can do that. In a little town like this, that's unique." But Harter sees UNLV's role as a global one that isn't necessarily tied to Yucca coming. Whether the waste is buried in Nevada or some place else, Harter said researchers will continue to work on problems of transporting waste safely and reducing harmful radiation emissions of high-level waste. UNLV's role is something that the Energy Department sees as well. According to a recent quarterly report released by UNLV, the department wants to establish a consortium of institutions patterned after a system in Russia, where each institution handles different parts of nuclear science and engineering. The report notes that "the national consortium is precisely what DOE wants to establish in the U.S., with UNLV as the lead." That designation, Harter said, shows that nuclear science is emerging at the university. "There is a natural tendency to grow in those areas," she said. "But whether Yucca comes here or not, we can be a socially important stakeholder in solving the economic and environmental problems caused by the nuclear waste disposal problem that faces this nation." All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 18 Reprocess Nuclear Waste The Salt Lake Tribune -- Monday, April 15, 2002 If the nuclear power industry is correct that it is safe to ship 77,000 tons of high-level radioactive waste across the country to Nevada's Yucca Mountain, it follows that not moving it is safe as well. Thousands of shipments of government nuclear waste have crisscrossed the country over the years with no loss of life, but neither has anyone died as a result of waste stored on the sites of the reactors that produce it. Still, it is clear to most people that the status quo is not a permanent solution, if only because the 103 U.S. reactor sites eventually will run out of storage space. In addition, the federal government has collected $18 billion from nuclear producers with the understanding that it would take the waste off the industry's hands. Legally and morally, it owes the producers a solution -- but Yucca Mountain isn't it. Packing a mountain cavern full of waste that will remain lethal for 10,000 years is understandably frightening to many people. So is transporting it on the nation's rails and roads, regardless of the unblemished safety record thus far. It is such fears that underlie much of the formidable opposition to nuclear power plants, the last of which was built in this country back in the 1980s. If the industry hopes to overcome that opposition and build more plants -- a positive prospect for America since they generate electricity with no air pollution -- it must make the waste less frightening. The answer is reprocessing. Used for years in France, Britain and Japan, reprocessing separates fissionable materials from nuclear waste for reuse in reactors. The remaining waste, with a small fraction of the volume and radioactive life of the original, poses far fewer disposal challenges. President Carter signed a directive outlawing commercial use of the process in the late 1970s out of fear that the plutonium and enriched uranium produced during recycling would fall into the wrong hands. But current recycling technologies are capable of combining the fissionable materials in a form that can't be used for weapons. Carter's order also scuttled promising work on a new class of fast burner reactors which would have allowed the multiple recycling of spent fuel -- and even less waste. In retrospect, this was a mistake that current U.S. leaders should correct. Even though the waste produced during reprocessing is far smaller and lethal for far less time, it still would need to be stored someplace. Yucca Mountain might one day be the best site for it. To commit to Yucca Mountain today, however, would destroy any incentive to reprocess nuclear waste. That could close the door on nuclear power altogether. Congress, which will vote on the Yucca Mountain proposal sometime between now and July, should take a long-term view toward solving the problem of nuclear waste disposal. The answer lies in Europe and Japan, not Yucca Mountain. © Copyright 2002, The Salt Lake Tribune ***************************************************************** 19 Safety of N-casks unclear Monday, April 15, 2002 In response to Jay Evensen's column of April 7: What kind of tests did the government perform to show that the nuclear waste casks can withstand train wrecks? Some of the train wrecks shown on A&E's "Investigative Reports" are so devastating that it seems doubtful that any nuclear waste cask would not be seriously damaged or even obliterated in such an event. Any one of the 5,000 or 10,000 nuclear waste casks could be a target for a suicide terrorist with a hand-held antitank missile weapon. Are there tests to show reliability against terrorist attacks? It's been stated that as planned, as much as 70 percent of the nation's nuclear waste will be traveling through Utah. Department of Energy reports indicate that a disaster with one of these nuclear waste casks in Salt Lake City would contaminate 40 square miles of the city, with billions of dollars in cleanup costs to the government. If, as you have stated, "A single repository in Nevada is not the best solution," then, it should not be favored by anyone, especially the Deseret News. Rep. Fred Fife House District 26 Page © 2002 Deseret News Publishing Company ***************************************************************** 20 It's Nevada vs. Washington over Yucca Mountain - By Guy W. Farmer [http://www.nevadaappeal.com] OPINION By Guy W. Farmer Sunday, April 14, 2002 I was proud to be a Nevadan last Monday when Gov. Kenny Guinn vetoed President Bush's approval of the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Southern Nevada. Like the governor and our congressional delegation, I'd rather fight than switch, unlike a few of our fellow Nevadans who are willing to sell out their children and grandchildren to the nuclear power industry in exchange for federal handouts. This was an historic moment because it was the first time in U.S. history the governor of a state had vetoed a presidential decision. Congress had. authorized the state's veto power over the nuclear project in 1982, five years before passing the so-called "Screw Nevada" bill, which designated Yucca Mountain as the only site to be studied as the future repository for more than 77,000 tons of deadly radioactive waste. Congress must sustain or overturn Gov. Guinn's veto within 90 legislative days on simple majority votes in both houses. A final vote is expected by late July. "The battle is not over," Gov. Guinn told an enthusiastic audience at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, just 90 miles from the proposed dump site. "In fact, we are just beginning to fight." Following his speech, the governor took off for Washington, D.C., where he spent the rest of the week in an uphill lobbying effort against the fatally flawed project. Uphill because the power brokers in our nation's insular capital couldn't care less about a life-and-death issue facing a small western state. For example, as Gov. Guinn arrived in Washington, NBC's "Today" show questioned Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham about the rising cost of gasoline, but the interviewer failed to ask a single question about the nuclear dump project. And while the broadcast networks :gnored Guinn and Yucca Mountain, Sen. John Ensign, R. Nev., defended Nevada in an effective appearance on CNN's "Crossfire" last Tuesday. State Engineer Hugh Ricci did his part on Wednesday by shutting off water to the controversial project. According to the way the political game is played in Washington, both sides of the nuclear waste battle must hire very expensive (translation: overpaid) consultants to get the attention of our national decision-makers in Congress. The project's proponents have hired former White House Chief of Staff John Sununu, a Republican, and former Democratic vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro, while our hired guns are two more ex-chiefs of staff, Democrat John Podesta and Republican Ken Duberstein. All four consultants share one characteristic: they know virtually nothing about Nevada. But that's the way it works in Washington, and that's the reality we must live with, which is why Gov. Guinn has asked all Nevadans to contribute to a fund to lobby against the project. The nuclear power industry has deep pockets and close ties to the Bush White House, and Podesta and Duberstein don't work cheap. The Nuclear Energy Institute which pays Sununu, Ferraro and ex-Gov. Bob List big bucks to trash Nevada, contributed nearly $14 million to both major parties (mostly to Republicans) during the 2000 election campaign. Guinn and our congressional delegation estimate that Nevada will need at least $10 million to mount an effective national lobbying campaign against the project. Earlier this month, the State Board of Examiners authorized a $3 million emergency grant to the anti-dump campaign and the Legislature's Interim Finance Committee approved another $3 million last Wednesday. That's a good start, but much more is needed. President Bush broke a 2000 election year campaign promise to Nevada Republicans by approving the Yucca Mountain dump site last month. Having promised to base his decision on "sound science," he proceeded to ignore scientific questions raised by General Accounting Office investigators and others including former Yucca Mountain Project Chief John Bartlett, who asserts that the mountain's geology fails to protect Nevada's air and groundwater from radioactive pollution. As Gov. Guinn noted in last Monday's speech, no amount of money can compensate us for this potentially lethal threat to the health and safety of the people of Nevada. Although more than 80 percent of Nevada residents oppose the Yucca Mountain Project, a few misguided Nevadans are willing to cave in and declare defeat. The latter include a Carson City retiree who told the Reno Gazette-Journal that "they've got to put it (the nuclear waste) somewhere but they should compensate us for thrusting the bloody thing in our lap." His attitude reminds me of those idiots who say that if rape is inevitable, just lie back and enjoy it. But Yucca Mountain isn't inevitable and it's time for us to stand up and fight for our best interests. The key, as Guinn recognized, is to point out to 123 million Americans in more than 30 states the dangers of shipping highly radioactive nuclear waste "through their neighborhoods, alongside their schools, their rivers, their parks and their downtown areas." Reno and Las Vegas are among those communities. So now, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., and his deputy, Harry Reid, D-Nev., have an opportunity to deliver on their election year promise to defeat Yucca Mountain. Daschle is already waffling on his promise, however, and senators Reid and Ensign say they are 10 or 12 votes short of a majority in the Upper House. Well, it's time for them to get to work on their fellow senators from states that will be endangered by nuclear waste shipments. Reid has already done yeoman work on this issue, but he needs to mobilize his many friends in the capital to oppose a project that jeopardizes the health and welfare of millions of Americans in Nevada and many other states. As Mills Lane would say (if he could), Let's get it on! Guy w. Farmer, a semi-retired journalist and former U.S. diplomat, resides in Carson City. ***************************************************************** 21 Reid wants to have it both ways on Yucca and judgeships OPINION BY STEVEN MILLER Nevada Policy Research Institute Sunday, April 14, 2002 For almost 20 years Nevada's senior U.S. senator, Harry Reid, has led this state's struggle to block the shipment of nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain. For an elected politician, the senator has been noticeably steadfast on this subject. Some may attribute his consistency to smart local politics, others simply to his native personality. But whatever the explanation, anyone concerned over the kind of majoritarian oppression that the Nuclear Waste Policy Act embodies has to appreciate the senator's energetic investment in this issue. Clearly Senator Reid has identified himself on a profoundly personal level with this fight against what de Tocqueville named "the tyranny of the majority" There is great paradox here. Reid has arguably devoted a lifetime to making himself, in Howard Baker's phrase, "a man of the Senate." Yet on this issue, for years, he has dedicated himself to frustrating the will of an overwhelming majority of his fellow senators. Similarly, Reid is a fiercely partisan Democrat and a key politico-legislative strategist for the parry that for seven decades has sought to move all kinds of social and economic questions into the political realm, where government can decide them. Yet in the matter of Yucca Mountain, Reid has transmogrified into one of the nation's most ferocious critics of government -- at least so long as it is the Department of Energy in the crosshairs. Shining unwelcome light on the DOE's often-substandard competence, integrity and management, Reid regularly demonstrates that Ronald Reagan was right -- the department should be dismembered. Yet close observers of government know -- and many investigations have shown -- that almost any federal department, under similarly close scrutiny, will also suffer deep embarrassment. Reid's DOE critique, therefore, implicitly indicts Big Government per se - notwithstanding all Reid's own long and fulsome service to precisely that principle. But the paradoxes -- or self-contradictions -- residing in Reid's commitments go even deeper. And at least one of them reaches so far that it may doom this cause of Reid's heart, this campaign he has pursued for so many years -- overturning the Yucca Mountain juggernaut. What seems to have escaped observation in Nevada is the extent to which the senator's very successes, as factotum for his party in the U.S. Senate, necessarily undercut Nevada's chances of eventually winning the Yucca Mountain contest. As Gov. Kenny Guinn has emphasized, Nevada's best odds of ultimately prevailing lie in the courts. But these odds decline substantially if Nevada's cases are not conducted before, and decided by, judges who respect the Founders' design for this Constitutional republic. James Madison, in Federalist Paper No. 51, foresaw the kind of situation in which Nevadans today find themselves: "If a majority be united by a common interest, the rights of the minority will be insecure." The Constitution could deal with that danger, Madison showed, through its various applications of the federal principle. And he highlighted the Constitutions blueprint for our "compound republic," where "the power surrendered by the people is first divided between two distinct governments" -- the state government and the federal government. So what Nevada needs in its legal fight are justices who understand, with Madison, that to the degree the federal government gets away with commandeering state powers, to that same degree Americans are deprived of security for their rights. Unfortunately for the Silver State, it is precisely judicial nominees of this cut who are being fought tooth and nail by Reid's own party in the Senate. No doubt our senior senator assumed, when he enticed Vermont's Jim Jeffords to turn coat and give control of the Senate to the Democrats, that he was securing for Nevada (and himself, as Assistant Majority Leader) maximum leverage in the matter of Yucca Mountain. But our senator's "coup" also necessarily delivered control of the Senate Judiciary Committee to a highly partisan claque already infamous for its hostility to the principles of Madison's federal system -- and to judicial nominees known to respect those principles. This is not good for Nevada. Nevada needs -- indeed, all America needs -- its cases heard by Madisonian justices, justices of just the sort that the partisan majority running the judiciary Committee has for the better part of the last year blocked. Sen. Reid needs to find a way to exert his influence in behalf of the state he represents, and all Americans, and end the current shamefulness in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Continuing to attempt to proceed in two directions at once will surely get him, and the Silver State, nowhere. Steven Miller is a policy analyst with the Nevada Policy Research Institute. ***************************************************************** 22 AU: Jabiluka uranium mine to remain closed for 10 years. 15/04/2002. ABC News Online [Australian Broadcasting Corporation Online] Representatives of the traditional Aboriginal owners of the Territory's Jabiluka uranium mine site say the lease owners have reconfirmed their intention not to proceed with the mine for at least 10 years. The representatives attended the annual general meeting of Energy Resources of Australia in Sydney this morning, and read a letter from the senior traditional owner calling for an end to any plans to mine the site. But Justin O'Brien from the Gundjehmi Aboriginal Corporation says the 10-year moratorium promised by ERA's parent company Rio Tinto is not enough. "It's not good news when you have a substantial and divisive development hanging over a community for as long as 10 years. "The Mirrar people are calling for the rehabilitation of that site, this problem is not going to go away from Rio Tinto. They must resolve this now." © 2002 Australian Broadcasting Corporation ***************************************************************** 23 Letter: Nuclear dump compensation not worth it Las Vegas SUN April 15, 2002 I am writing in response to the residents of Nevada who feel that it would be beneficial to the people of our state to accept compensation in exchange for acceptance of the nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain. I am a construction inspector with over 22 years of experience in the field of inspection. In my past I have worked in the aerospace, petrochemical, and utility segments of industry. I was involved with the Space Shuttle program and was devastated when Challenger exploded. I was terrified that perhaps I had faltered in my duties but was only somewhat relieved when it was determined to have been the result of a design and usage flaw. The point of the matter is that we are all human and we are prone to error. Engineering is a great but imperfect science, and we all know that we are all not perfect. I was licensed in both the states of California and Nevada to handle highly radioactive materials as a radiographer. The recurring issue brought out before me in my training was that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is not really sure about the effects of radiation exposure from one individual to another. They had set limits on exposure of individuals involved in our industry and I never exceeded them as far as I know. I spent a total of 82 days at Sunrise Hospital last year undergoing chemotherapy to combat leukemia. I am grateful to the doctors and nurses who brought me back to health. People here are looking at the dump as an opportunity to receive reparations from the government in exchange for risking their health and well-being. I hope the people of this state will think twice about what their lives and futures are worth. JOHN FLORES All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 24 Demos called key to dump fight Las Vegas SUN April 15, 2002 By Jace Radke After pumping up candidates to a crowd of about 200 at the Clark County Democratic Convention Saturday, Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said the proposed nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain has become a high priority for Democrats nationwide. "My understanding is that (House Democratic Leader Richard Gephardt, D-Mo.) will make this a caucus issue," Berkley said after delivering the keynote address at the Riviera. Berkley said she has been saturating representatives in Congress with information on Yucca Mountain. "It has reached a point where some of my colleagues have said that if I bring up Yucca again, they'll vote against us," Berkley said. "I've tried to emphasize that they are going to have to defend their votes on this if anything happens in their district. "Thinking about a spill in their district got them quiet." Berkley told the delegates at the convention that electing County Commissioner Dario Herrera, the main Democratic candidate for the newly created 3rd Congressional District, is key to keeping waste out of Nevada. "If the Democrats have control of the U.S. House of Representatives, it will be Speaker Gephardt instead of Speaker (Dennis) Hastert, (R-Ill.)," Berkley said. "We are six seats away from that, and we're going to pick up a seat in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and two in California. "The sixth seat is in Southern Nevada with Dario Herrera. The nation will be focusing on Nevada and Dario Herrera on election night." Nevada's elected officials may soon have another fight on their hands, Berkley said. "I just heard that (Arizona Sen. John) McCain is going to bring back the NCAA betting ban," Berkley said. "I guess now that campaign finance reform is done and he doesn't have the press surrounding him, he needs another issue." Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins told the delegates that the upcoming election would determine the vision Nevada will follow over the next decade. "We are last or near last in the country in so many indicators," Perkins said. "We've let insurance companies gain control and it's forcing our doctors to leave the state. We have the highest teen suicide rate in the nation and we are spending $1,000 less per pupil than the national average. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 25 Sellafield leak buoys anti nuclear lobby online.ie : News The Irish Examiner 15 Apr 2002 By Vivion Kilfeather THE campaign to close Sellafield moved up a gear yesterday when it emerged that radioactive substances were found in ground samples at the gate of the complex. The leak is believed to have come from waste storage tanks built more than 40 years ago. National chairman of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament Billy Fitzpatrick said it was the latest in a string of mistakes, many of which British Nuclear Fuels Ltd (BNFL) had attempted to cover up. The Irish Sea had long been established as the most radioactive in the world and pollution will only end when the plant is shut down, he warned. He was speaking after it emerged that Radioactive Technetium 99 has been found in the ground and in ground water samples taken from beside the main gate of the Sellafield complex. British Nuclear Installation Inspectors (NII) say the discovery appears to confirm that the radioactive waste reached the area beside the gate entrance to the plant as well as outside it. While a BNFL spokesman claimed the material is not much more than background radiation which poses no public health risk, British nuclear expert John Large warned that the plant should never have been allowed to deteriorate to such an extent. Mr Fitzpatrick said anti nuclear campaigners were very buoyed by the belated support from the Government and believed the postal campaign was critical and would pay dividends as it was well supported. An Post is providing more than 1.3 million post cards to the public which are selling at €1 each and will be delivered to the Prime Minister Tony Blair, the head of British Nuclear Fuels Norman Askew and Prince Charles. The cards are available Post offices, Superquinn, Dunnes Stores, Centra, SuperValu, Champion Sports, Marathon Sports, Wagamamas, Captain America and Nude Restaurants. An Post has promised to deliver the cards free of charge to coincide with the anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster and all profits are going to the Chernobyl Children's Project. ***************************************************************** 26 [smygo] Fallout from Nuclear Testing Has Killed Thousands Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2002 23:42:22 -0500 (CDT) http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo In These Times April 12, 2002 Nuclear Fallout Testing has killed thousands, a new study shows. By Jeffrey St. Clair In the 50s, when the United States selected the Shoshone lands in the Nevada desert as the location for testing nuclear weapons, President Harry Truman said he wanted someplace remote enough that Americans wouldnt worry about the government "shooting bombs in their backyards." Ominously, there is no place on earth remote enough to safely test nuclear weapons. Indeed, the report concludes that nuclear testing has exposed to radiation nearly everyone who has resided in the United States since 1951. The new report, conducted by the National Cancer Institute and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (NCI/CDC), is remarkable for several reasons, not least because it represents the first time the U.S. government has released an assessment of the spread and consequences to human health of radioactive fallout from global nuclear testing. Its also the first time that the government has admitted that a substantial number of cancer deaths nationwide have been caused by nuclear testing. The report was commissioned by Congress in 1998 following public uproar over a 1997 study by the NCI that investigated the fallout of only one radionuclide, iodine-131, and its link to at least 11,300 cases of thyroid cancers among Americans. Iodine-131 was dropped as fallout across dairy country, where it was consumed by cows and goats and concentrated in their milk. This examination of global fallout is much broader, tracking, among other things, exposure to cesium-137. In addition to charting radiation from the Nevada Test Site, the NCI/CDC study also looked at fallout from U.S. tests in the Marshall Islands and Johnson Atoll, British explosions at the Christmas Islands, and Soviet testing at Semipalatinsk and Novaya Zemlya. The irradiation of the global environment has been a uniquely cooperative endeavor, with all of the worlds nuclear superpowers contributing to the toll. The United States has carried out 1,030 nuclear weapons tests (the last on September 23, 1993); the former Soviet Union: 715 tests; France: 210 tests; England: 45 tests; China: 45 tests. The body count from fallout is insidious, largely hidden in the slow but relentless accumulation of cancers, such as thyroid (2,500 deaths), leukemia (550 deaths) and radiogenic cancers from both internal and external exposure (17,050 deaths). The report calculated the risk of contracting each cancer based on the level of exposure to radioactive materials and the associated risk factor over time. "This report and other official data show that hot spotsareas of intense radiationoccurred thousands of miles away from the test sites," says Dr. Arjun Makhijani, president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research. "Hot spots due to testing in Nevada occurred as far away as New York and Maine. Hot spots from U.S. Pacific-area and Soviet testing were scattered across the United States from California to New Hampshire." Indeed, some of the radioactive materials from those tests still circulate in the atmosphere. Even so, the conclusions are far from comprehensive. The CDC/NCI study only included tests conducted from 1951 through 1962. That means that it excluded most French atmospheric testing in the Pacific, pre-1951 testing in the Marshall Islands, the 1945 New Mexico tests, and many others, including the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. The fallout statistics also dont account for the deaths and illnesses of other civilians, including uranium miners, nuclear plant workers and others who live near Hanford, Washington, and Rocky Flats, Colorado, where nuclear weapons were produced until the late 80s. The CDC/NCI study has been gathering dust for at least six months, as the Bush administration and Congress tussled over how to control the import of its grim conclusions. Even in the 50s, the Pentagon and the old Atomic Energy Commission knew that radiation from explosions at the Nevada Test Site was spreading across the country and into Canada and Mexico. Yet they largely chose to conceal this information from the public. And even though the United States is grievously tardy in taking responsibility for inflicting death on its own people, it is ahead of the other nuclear-testing nations, which have remained morbidly quiet on the subject. Bushs new Nuclear Posture Review calls for the development and testing of a new generation of nuclear weapons, the so-called bunker-busters. The plan would not only violate the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (not yet ratified by the United States), but it would put another generation at risk. "While the United States is making every effort to maintain the nuclear stockpile without additional nuclear testing," Defense Department strategists warned in the review submitted to Congress by the Pentagon in January, "this may not be possible for the indefinite future." -- Dan Clore mailto:clore@columbia-center.org Now available: _The Unspeakable and Others_ Including all my fiction through 2001, and more. http://www.wildsidepress.com/index2.htm http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1587154838/thedanclorenecro Lord Werdgliffe: http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9879/ Necronomicon Page: http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9879/necpage.htm News for Anarchists & Activists: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo I've watched the dogs of war enjoying their feast I've seen the western world go down in the east The food of love became the greed of our time But now we're living on the profits of crime --Black Sabbath, "Hole in the Sky" ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Buy Stock for $4 and no minimums. FREE Money 2002. http://us.click.yahoo.com/k6cvND/n97DAA/ySSFAA/2bSolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: smygo-unsubscribe@egroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ***************************************************************** 27 IHT: Nuclear temptation in Japan Robyn Lim IHT Monday, April 15, 2002 No more American umbrella? NAGOYA, Japan A leading Japanese opposition politician, Ozawa Ichiro, said recently that Beijing's bullying could provoke Japan into producing thousands of nuclear warheads at short notice. It would be easy to dismiss Ozawa's comments as the rantings of a sidelined opportunist trying to deal himself back into the game as Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi falters. But there's more to it than that. Ozawa's comments are evidence of a growing nuclear attraction. This results from an increasing sense of insecurity. China is a rising great power with an assertive, authoritarian government. That makes Japan nervous. In particular, Chinese and North Korean missiles targeted on Japan are starting to destabilize the region. Japan knows that China can build missiles faster than the United States can build missile defenses to protect Japan and American bases here. Why should Japan feel more insecure now that the Cold War is over? After all, there are fewer nuclear weapons aimed at Japan than during the Cold War, when Japan was part of the Soviet Union's targeting plans. The main reason that Japan is feeling less secure is the worry that holes might appear in the American nuclear umbrella. In the Cold War, "extended deterrence" worked because Japan and the Soviet Union believed that in a crisis the United States would indeed risk New York for Tokyo. That was because Japan's security was a vital U.S. interest. Without bases in Japan, America could not bring nuclear and maritime power to bear on the Soviet Far East as part of a global containment strategy that presented Moscow with a credible threat of two-front war. As a result, few Japanese felt threatened by the Soviets. Today, U.S. and Japanese strategic interests are not quite as congruent as they used to be. America's strategic options have widened. Now Washington has the option of playing off Japan against China to maintain a balance of power in East Asia. This is a tactic long recommended by Henry Kissinger. Moreover, the Japanese know that although China still wants Japanese aid and investment, in the longer term it intends to exact revenge on all who preyed upon it when it was weak. Japan is at the top of that list. Few doubt that Japan, given its technological prowess, could produce nuclear weapons and the means of delivery them in a relatively short time. It cooperates fully with the International Atomic Energy Agency, but its large-scale plutonium recycling program creates suspicions that it might have enough fissile material to produce many nuclear weapons. Ozawa's comments will fan those concerns. Yet it is hard to see how nuclear capability and the pursuit of strategic independence would enhance Japan's security. It would arouse immense hostility in the region and threaten the peaceful trading environment on which Japan's economy depends. America, while pursuing the war on terrorism, should not take its eye off the East Asian power game. There the great challenge is to help bring China peacefully into the global and regional order, while reassuring Japan. That is why strengthening the U.S.-Japanese alliance is critical to the maintenance of peace in East Asia. Japan must also do more to help itself. If Koizumi wishes to pay homage to Japan's Pacific War dead next August, as he did last August, he should find a venue less offensive to neighbors than the Yasukuni shrine, which includes some convicted war criminals. And if Japan worries about being eclipsed by China's growing economic power, it has all the more reason to tackle structural economic problems that have festered for more than a decade and are undermining Japan's strength and status. The writer, a professor of international relations at Nanzan University, in Nagoya, contributed this comment to the International Herald Tribune. Copyright © 2002 the International Herald Tribune ***************************************************************** 28 UK reveals nuclear bomb plans - April 15, 2002 CNN.com - LONDON, England -- Britain's Ministry of Defence has confirmed it has made public information describing in detail the make-up of a nuclear bomb. The plans give complete cross-sections, precise measurements and full details of materials used for all the components, including the plutonium core and the initiator that sets off the chain reaction causing the blast. According to Conservative opposition defence spokesman Bernard Jenkin, the information is "a monstrous free gift to terrorists" who he said could use the information to creat a do-it-yourself atomic weapon. He said he would be pressing the British government for a full explanation. "The fact that this information has been lying in the public records office is extraordinary. Such information about may already be in the public domain, but why needlessly help rogue states and terrorist organisations with such comprehensive instructions on how to make an atom bomb?" The plans relate to Britain's first operational nuclear bomb, the 15 kilotonne Blue Danube, which was in service with the Royal Air Force's B-bomber fleet from 1953 to 1961. Retired nuclear engineer Brian Burnell told the UK's Daily Telegraph newspaper that the information on the Blue Danube bomb amounted to step-by-step instructions on how to make a nuclear weapon. The newspaper said the ministry had also released papers to the Public Record Office describing ways that such a bomb could be smuggled into the country. A Ministry of Defence spokesman confirmed to CNN that information relating to the Blue Danube bomb had been declassified seven years ago and put in the public domain at the UK's Public Record Office. Observers say it seems likely that the decision was taken in the light of the amount of detailed material on nuclear weapons already posted on the Internet, and the judgment that the information from 40 years ago posed no threat. Making the bomb would require the possession of weapons-grade plutonium. But Burnell, who worked on the British atomic weapons programme, told the Daily Telegraph that the plans were enough to enable a terrorist to make an atomic bomb without difficulty. Burnell said a prospective bombmaker would need only a basic machine shop and the right components -- including the weapons-grade plutonium -- to make the bomb according to the instructions in the files. "These documents should never have been declassified and since the events of September 11 there is a case for removing them from public access," he told the newspaper. Last month researchers based at Stanford University in the United States said they had compiled a database of lost, stolen and misplaced nuclear material. Their research showed that over the past 10 years, at least 88 pounds (40kg) of weapons-usable plutonium and uranium had been stolen from poorly protected facilities in the former Soviet Union. Most but not all of the material was eventually recovered. Russia has said its nuclear inventory is fully accounted for. Last month it was revealed that the U.S. had received an alert in October that terrorists were planning an attack using a smuggled Russian nuclear bomb. The plot was later deemed "not credible." ***************************************************************** 29 Why Britain had to make its own A-bomb news.telegraph.co.uk - By Michael Smith, Defence Correspondent (Filed: 15/04/2002) BRITAIN was forced to produce its own atomic bomb by the discovery in 1946 that Alan Nunn May, a British scientist working on Allied atomic weapons, was a Soviet spy. Blueprints and documentation for Britain's Blue Danube atomic bomb Congress immediately passed the McMahon Act which imposed drastic restrictions on the exchange of any atomic weapons information that would not be lifted until 1956. Blue Danube, a British Mk1 fission bomb, had a 3.6 inch-wide core with 17lb of plutonium wrapped in high explosive which increased the bomb's diameter to 4ft 9in and its weight to just under three tons. Although that is much larger than modern-day nuclear devices, it is still small enough to be brought into Britain undetected by methods first suggested by an MoD committee looking into whether the Russians might be able to smuggle an atomic bomb. The committee's report, which is in a file uncovered by Brian Burnell, an engineer who worked on Britain's atomic programme, concluded that bomb components could be brought in easily by ship and reassembled in a private house in the target city. The possibility of this happening formed the basis of Frederick Forsyth's book The Fourth Protocol, which became a film with Michael Caine and Pierce Brosnan. It would be virtually impossible to detect. "There is no prospect of developing any means of detecting a concealed atomic bomb, either the fissile material or the high explosive in which it is packed." Despite scientific advances, the core of an atomic bomb is a relatively feeble emitter of gamma rays and scientists admit that finding one among all the containers entering Britain would be worse than looking for a needle in a haystack. But the committee also suggested two other means of clandestine delivery that it believed would allow an enemy to bring in an atomic bomb without being caught. The first was to build a bomb into the structure of a ship, sail into a major British port such as Liverpool, Southampton or even London, and then detonate it. "It is perfectly easy to conceal a complete atomic bomb in a merchant ship without there being any chance of its being detected in any normal search. "This seems to us to be so much the simplest and surest method of introducing a bomb into this country and detonating it at the right time and place that we consider it presents the most serious threat of all." The second suggestion, which had uncomfortable echoes of September 11, was "carrying the bomb on a civilian aircraft and detonating it while flying low over a suitable key point". The committee believed use of a civil aircraft to be far less likely than a merchant ship. "Nevertheless it is possible and there does not seem to be any answer to it. Short of firing on every strange civil aircraft we know of no way of preventing an aircraft that sets out on such a mission from succeeding." © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited [http://pressoffice.telegraph.co.uk] ***************************************************************** 30 UK: MoD shows terrorists how to make an A-bomb news.telegraph.co.uk - By Michael Smith, Defence Correspondent (Filed: 15/04/2002) THE Ministry of Defence has placed a step-by-step guide on how to build an atomic bomb in the Public Record Office for anybody to see. It has also released a file describing various ways in which such a bomb could be smuggled into the country. There are complete cross-sections, precise measurements and full details of the materials used for all the components of the first British bomb, including the two key parts: the plutonium core and the initiator that sets off the chain reaction causing the blast. The plans, seen by The Telegraph and available to anybody of any nationality, are contained in files released over the past five years. They would enable a terrorist to make an atomic bomb without difficulty, according to an engineer who worked on the British atomic weapons programme. Brian Burnell said he was not normally an advocate of greater secrecy, but added: "These documents should never have been declassified and since the events of September 11 there is a case for removing them from public access." The Conservatives demanded an immediate Government explanation. Bernard Jenkin, the shadow defence secretary, said the files were "a monstrous free gift to terrorists". He accused the Government of a "horrific dereliction of duty" to keep the nuclear weapons programme secret. The files relate to the construction of Blue Danube, the first British atomic bomb, which was built in the late 1940s and early 1950s after the Americans cut off co-operation on atomic weapons because of fears over British security. Mr Burnell, who is retired, said he went to the Public Record Office as part of a local history project because he wanted to know more about the Blue Danube project than any single engineer had been told at the time. "It was like the production line for a car," he said. "Each person worked on one aspect, so I had a lot of unanswered questions. Asking them at the time would have been a bad career move." Mr Burnell was astonished by the amount of information he found, much of it in a single file. He said: "I am confident that if I were prepared to accept some risk - and we know since September 11 that such people exist - then I would be able to produce the necessary components." All the terrorist would need was a fairly basic machine shop. "No one is suggesting that the bomb would need to be as efficient as the original," Mr Burnell said. "In fact, for terrorist purposes, the dirtier the bomb was the better." The biggest difficulty would be obtaining weapons-grade plutonium. But several rogue states, including Iraq, have access to such material, and Osama bin Laden's al-Qa'eda terrorist network in particular is known to have tried to obtain such material. The ministry refused to comment last night. © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited [http://pressoffice.telegraph.co.uk] ***************************************************************** 31 About 30 arrested in protests at nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge, Tenn. By Associated Press, 4/15/2002 08:20 OAK RIDGE, Tenn. (AP) About 30 protesters were arrested for trespassing or obstructing a highway during a demonstration against nuclear weapons production in Oak Ridge. Department of Energy security officers arrested four people on federal trespassing charges Sunday after they crossed a barrier in front of the Y-12 plant. They each face up to a year in jail and $100,000 in fines. Nearly 30 others were arrested by local police on charges of obstructing a public highway and disobeying police. In the past, protesters have been arrested only on city charges, carrying $50 maximum fines. Protesters linked arms and blocked the road that runs in front of the plant, but none were arrested until marchers moved into a busy intersection. Tim Mellon, 46, one of the four arrested on federal charges, said the demonstrators want their cause heard at a jury trial. ''They are taking this to a higher level, and that's fine,'' Mellon told The Knoxville News-Sentinel. ''That's what we wanted.'' On the Net: Y-12 plant: http://www.y12.doe.gov/bwxt/y12.html Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance: http://www.korrnet.org/fgs/orepa/ ***************************************************************** 32 Fischer's ORNL job expected to boost tech program Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 11:15 a.m. on Monday, April 15, 2002 by Paul Parson Oak Ridger staff Two heads are better than one, officials said, especially when it comes to Oak Ridge National Laboratory's highly successful efforts to market lab technologies to the private sector. Alex Fischer, who is the governor's chief of staff, will join ORNL's management team later this year as head of the lab's technology transfer program. He replaces the program's current director, Jan Haerer, who says she will remain as deputy director of that office. The Oak Ridger first reported Fischer's new job in a story posted early Sunday afternoon on the newspaper's Web site. In response to the question of whether Haerer is being demoted, Jeff Smith, deputy for operations at ORNL, was reluctant to put it that way. Jan Haerer "Jan has done a good job," Smith said this morning. "Our record would show that." Technology transfer has been a priority of UT-Battelle, which has committed staff and resources to create the Center for Entrepreneurial Growth and the TennesSeed Fund to assist start-up companies in the East Tennessee region. During its first two years at the lab, UT-Battelle has averaged one start-up company a month from lab technology. Smith said the combination of the high-profile Fischer and Haerer would serve as a "one-two punch" for the technology transfer program. Discussions concerning Fischer coming to ORNL have apparently been going on for quite some time. "Jan's strength is working the details," Smith said. "Alex's strength is interfacing with the customers." Haerer said she would be responsible for coordinating many of the technology transfer program's complex internal procedures while Fischer acknowledged that he would focus on marketing the lab's technologies to a number of potential clients in Tennessee and beyond. Both Haerer and Fischer said they look forward to working together. Fischer, who plans to relocate to the area, said he should start work in late summer or early fall when he has finished his commitments to Gov. Don Sundquist, who is in his last term as governor. "I'll have a steep learning curve," said Fischer, who declined to say how long he plans to be at ORNL. However, Fischer is no stranger to technology and economic issues. Fischer was founding director of Technology 2020, a public-private telecommunications partnership, and also served for about a year as the state's commissioner of economic development. Fischer previously was chief operating officer of Knoxville-based Akins &Tombras Public Relations and was also affiliated with the Oak Ridge Chamber of Commerce. Paul Parson can be contacted at (865) 220-5533 or pparson@oakridger.com [pparson@oakridger.com] . [http://www.oakridger.com] All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 33 Protests end with 25 arrests 04/15/02 Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 2:40 p.m. on Monday, April 15, 2002 Protesters completely block off both directions of Scarboro Road, which runs in front of the Y-12 National Security Complex. They were participating in the annual April "stop the bombs" rally Sunday at the Oak Ridge weapons production plant. -- Photos by Brenda Mask by Paul Parson and Beverly Majors Oak Ridger staff Only four people risked federal charges of trespassing during the annual April "stop the bombs" rally Sunday at the Y-12 National Security Complex -- a weapons production plant. Instead, crowds of protesters opted to face city charges by forming human chains to completely block off both directions of Scarboro Road, which runs in front of Y-12. Despite sitting in the road for a couple of hours , protesters were not arrested until they decided to march into the intersection of Scarboro Road and Illinois Avenue. According to Oak Ridge police reports, around 21 people were then arrested and charged with obstructing a highway. Those arrested were Elizabeth McLaren Johnson, 54, 108 E. Goddard Ave., Maryville; Marcelle Jones Good, 21, 2514 Washington Pike, Knoxville; Barbara Peede Newcomb, 80, 457 Wildwoods Lane, Sewanee; Gaye Mari Evans, 58, 1718 Albert Ave., Knoxville; Sarah Greenberg Shapero, 20, 113 Coming St., Charleston, S.C.; Glenda Kay Keyes, 55, 302 Redbud Road, Knoxville; Gerald W. one, 63, 321 E. Emerald Ave., Knoxville; Lissa Anne McLeod, 35, 566 Cane Creek Road, Lake City; Ingrid Kay Johnson, 21, 108 E. Goddard, Maryville; Heidi Elizabeth Johnson, 19, 967 Fletcher Martin Road, Alexander, N.C.; Pamela Louise Beziat, 56, 1827 Morena St., Nashville; and Rocio Augeliues Huett, 47, 2119 Southwood Drive, Marryville. Mary Dennis Lentsch uses a sign to inform rally attendees that Y-12 is violating international laws by producing components for nuclear weapons. Also arrested were Jason Christopher Fults, 27, CPO 581 Bingham Dorm, Berea, Ky.; Courtney Anne Whittier, 26, 507 E. Huron, Folly Beach, S.C.; Laura Beth Bernstein, 22, 124 St. Phillips St., Charleston, S.C.; William Edward Glenn, 32, 1230 Delaware Ave., Knoxville; Robert Gary Poeschl II, 27, 9121 Garrison Road, Knoxville; Earl Edward Blanchard, 27, 114 Kingfisher Lane; Paula Elizabeth Rosedatter, 41, 1007 Aurora, Lexington, Ky.; Nita Lys Moore, 29, 323 Montclair St., Ludlow, Ky.; and Lee Dunham Sessions, 25, 3117 Foster Lane, Knoxville. Around 3:30 p.m. Sunday, four people were arrested and hit with federal charges of trespassing for crossing over a small metal fence that had been set up to block the protesters from entering Y-12. This is the first time the protesters have faced federal charges in connection with the annual peace rallies, which are held in April and August. Steven Wyatt, a spokesman for the Department of Energy, said earlier that the federal agency respects the protesters' rights, but added that trespassing would not be tolerated. Charged with felony trespassing and being held in the Blount County jail for federal authorities are Timothy Joseph Mellen, 46, 490 West Outer Drive; Mary Elinor Adams, 61, 408-C Mason Hill Drive, Bisbee, Ariz.; Lena Shallit Feldman, 26, 300 Bobo Lake Drive, Lexington, Ky.; and Elizabeth Ann Lentsch, 65, 10996 Apison Pike, Apison. Paul Parson and Beverly Majors can be contacted at (865) 482-1021 or [oakridge@oakridger.com] . All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 34 Durham team pursues nuclear project Thestar.com/ Apr. 15, 2002. 01:00 AM Stan Josey DURHAM REGION BUREAU CHIEF Durham Region chair Roger Anderson leads a delegation to Moscow this week, seeking support for a multi-billion-dollar nuclear fusion experiment in Clarington. "This is really big — bigger than the Olympics would have been for the GTA and Toronto," says Anderson. He will be joined by Clarington Mayor John Mutton, Durham College president Gary Polonsky and regional economic development commissioner Pat Olive. They will lobby for Canada's bid to be the site of a $12 billion International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER). This week is the third negotiating session for the four international partners — Canada, Russia, Japan and the European Community — to pick the site for the experiment. There will be no final decision on a site at this meeting, but Anderson stressed its importance. "We expect a final decision will come some time later this year, and we want to present all the positive aspects of locating it in Durham," he said in an interview. So far, Canada is the only country with a formal bid for the massive project, but bids are expected from Japan and France within weeks, Anderson said. If the Canadian bid wins, the ITER project would be located at the site of the Darlington nuclear generating station, east of Oshawa. "The economic and scientific impact of locating this project here would be immense," he said. "In fact, it would be a bigger financial bang than Toronto winning the Olympics." At stake would be $12 billion worth of construction contracts spread over a 10-year period. There would also be millions in economic spinoffs for Durham, the GTA and the entire province. It would also bring 250 of the world's top scientists to work at the facility over a period of 25 to 30 years. And if the scientists can figure out how to create energy from non-radioactive matter, then the benefits to the world would be huge, Anderson said. While in Moscow, the Durham delegation will also seek out other economic ties with Russia. The project would include a 13-storey concrete and steel chamber containing superconducting magnets to artificially create a miniature version of the sun. The temperatures inside the special reactor would reach 100 million Celsius in attempts to produce energy through nuclear fusion. The Durham delegation returns to Canada April 24 after hosting a reception for the ITER committee at the Canadian ambassador's residence in Moscow on April 23. ***************************************************************** 35 Anger fails to stop irradiation plant news.com.au - [15apr02] Siobhain Ryan CONSTRUCTION work will begin this year on Queensland's first irradiation plant, despite opposition to the planned development north of Brisbane. The protests over the nature and location of the project, destined for Narangba industrial estate, spilled over to the doorstep of Parliament House in Brisbane last week. Local resident Fran Jell warned that residents would continue lobbying the Beattie Government until it backed away from the controversial plant. "There's a million reasons why it shouldn't go in there," she said. "It's right in the middle of a fast-growing housing development. The whole thing's crazy." The planned irradiation facility will be operated by the firm Steritech, which has two other plants interstate. The controversy centres both on its use of radioactive cobalt-60 as part of the sterilisation process and the company's application to extend the technology to food irradiation. Last year Steritech won the right from the Australian New Zealand Food Authority to irradiate herbs, spices and herbal teas, effectively ending a long-standing moratorium on the practice. ANZFA has since been asked to consider another application by a separate company to irradiate tropical fruit. If successful, the ruling would apply across the industry and extend Steritech's options for food irradiation even further. But Steritech general manager George West said that he was still unsure whether the company would irradiate food at the Narangba site. "We provide a contract irradiation service. People send the stuff to us and we've got no control over what comes up the driveway. Maybe nobody will ever bring herbs and spices up the driveway," he said. But Mrs Jell said Steritech would not have applied to ANZFA to irradiate food if it had no plans to do so. "We don't want to be eating irradiated food," she said. "The long-term results from irradiated food are unknown and we don't need it. It's 50-year-old technology. There's much more modern technology used now in the processing of food and you can turn it off – it's electronic. You can't turn off cobalt-60." The company expected to turn the first sod on the long-running project this year. © News Limited ***************************************************************** 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: *****************************************************************