***************************************************************** 07/15/02 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 10.180 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POLICY 1 Antinuclear activists demonstrate how solar-power panels work to you 2 Russia: Rumyantsev Confirms Iran Fuel Deal 3 UK: Taxpayers bail out bankrupt nuclear plants 4 Petersburg Baltiisky Plant starts delivering equipment for the 5 Russian-Chinese Cooperation in Nuclear Energy Continues Successfully 6 US: GOV OFF-GUARD ON NUKE WOES: 7 US: A world free of nuclear fears 8 US: Reactor development push to come in Idaho* NUCLEAR REACTORS 9 US: NRC Cites Point Beach Nuclear Plant for Violation Of "High 10 Chashma Nuclear Power Plant closed down 11 US: NB Power nuclear plant back in service after undergoing months 12 US: Regulators take next step in sale of nuclear power plant NUCLEAR SAFETY 13 Cancer rates report defended 14 US: FEMA Preparing for Mass Destruction Attacks on Cities 15 Scotland ill-prepared for nuclear leak 16 US: Military-Widow-Pension, 1st Writethru 17 UK: Cancer rates 'five times higher near nuclear power station' 18 US: Military stocking up on anti-radiation pills 19 US: Researchers will study effects of depleted uranium munitions NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 20 BNFL hit by record £2.1bn losses 21 BNFL to reveal record £2bn loss 22 US: Yucca fight must continue in court 23 US: Money equals power in nuke waste fight 24 US: Yucca factions find answers to 'now what?' 25 Hugh Collum re-appointed as BNFL chairman by UK govt* 26 *BNFL boss gets £15,000 boost 27 Fears grow of BNFL losses 28 US: Watch nuclear transport plans 29 US: Yucca Vote Unlikely to Deter Skull Valley Dump 30 A Unicoi citizen speaks at a gathering to discuss proposed nuclear f 31 US: Ely on route for Test Site nuclear dump 32 US: Truth differs on nuclear waste transport to Yucca 33 US: Yucca Mountain repository fight now moves into court 34 US: There was a time when Nevadans fought to get a nuclear dump 35 US: NRC construction license may serve as block for Yucca Mountain d 36 US: Nevada prepared to fight in court - 37 US: Opinion - Editorial: Yes on Yucca 07/15/02 38 US: Skull Valley plan far from dead 39 US: Utilities' promise to Bennett, Hatch may carry little weight 40 US: Senators are hypocrites NUCLEAR WEAPONS US DEPT. OF ENERGY 41 [psy-op] Idaho Nuclear Lab given Notice of Intent to Sue 42 Science Fraud at the Lawrence Berkeley Lab 43 Lab's future role in fighting terror clouded by politics 44 Hanford Reach: Stepping back in time to what the Columbia once OTHER NUCLEAR 45 Judge says Bush view of executive privilege is too expansive ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 Antinuclear activists demonstrate how solar-power panels work to young tourists at Fulung Beach yesterday. The Taipei Times Online: 2002-07-15 Monday, July 15th, 2002 PHOTO: LAI WEI-CHIEH Antinuclear activists urge tourists to look around ENVIRONMENT: At Fulung Beach, activists prodded those who came for music, sand and sea to look beyond the beach to the site of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant By Chiu Yu-Tzu STAFF REPORTER When tens of thousands of tourists crowded into Fulung Beach (ºÖ¶©®ü¤ô¯D³õ) in Kungliao Township, Taipei County, to enjoy a music festival over the weekend, they were urged by antinuclear activists to think about the conflict between the promotion of eco-tourism and the establishment of a nuclear power plant nearby. The third annual Ho-Hi-Yan Taipei Rock Festival (¥x¥_¿¤°^¼d°ê»Ú®ü¬v­µ¼Ö²½), co-sponsored by the Taipei County Government, the Northeast Coast National Scenic Area Administration and private corporations, ended yesterday. By both holding a music contest and leaving the beach open for free, the festival aimed at promoting local tourism. At the entrance to the beach, however, antinuclear activists of the Yenliao AntiNuclear Self-Help Association (ÆQ¼d¤Ï®Ö¦Û±Ï·|) established a stand, where tourists filled out questionnaires about the impact of the construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant on the coastal environment. "Most tourists don't know that a nuclear power plant is under construction nearby, not to mention the negative impact the construction is having," Wu Wen-tung (§d¤å³q), spokesman of the association, told the Taipei Times yesterday. According to Wu, evidence collected by the activists showed that the construction of a wharf -- where heavy machinery is transferred to the plant -- had caused erosion along the beach. Activists asked the plant's builder and future operator, Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, ¥x¹q), several times to take responsibility for the erosion along the beach but received no response, Wu said. "After being told about the negative impact made by the construction of the plant, most tourists answering the questionnaire agreed to abandon nuclear energy and embrace alternative sources of energy, such as solar energy and wind power, to save this wonderland for them to enjoy during the summer," Wu said. According to recent statistics from the Northeast Coast National Scenic Area Administration, annually about 8 million tourists visit Fulung Beach, whose 3km long "Golden Beach" has been famous for decades. "If the beach dies, Kungliao township will become a declining town with no future," Wu said. To seize the chance to warn the public of the fragility of the environment, local antinuclear activists demonstrated solar panels and windmills used for generating power at the stand. Wu said that eco-tourism will be the only way out for Kungliao residents because fishing -- which has been the mainstay for generations -- would decline if the plant starts operating. According to the Kungliao District Fishermen's Association (°^¼d°Ïº®·|), fishing grounds near Santiao Bay (¤T¶IÆW) -- where warm waste water from the plant will be discharged -- has been listed by the government as Kungliao Fishery Resource Reserve since 1978, to ensure the production of Taiwanese abalone (¤E¤Õ), lobster, and other seafood. Kungliao fishermen now worry that Taiwanese abalone won't be able to survive once water temperatures increase through the discharge of warm waste water from the plant. This story has been viewed 302 times. URL=[http://www.taipeitimes.com/news/2002/07/15/story/0000148337] Copyright © 1999-2002 The Taipei Times. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 2 Russia: Rumyantsev Confirms Iran Fuel Deal [http://www.moscowtimes.ru Monday, Jul. 15, 2002. Page 3 The Moscow Times Nuclear Power Minister Alexander Rumyantsev said Friday that Russia will take back spent nuclear fuel from the nuclear power station it is building in Iran. Rumyantsev's announcement confirmed statements made Thursday by officials in his ministry who spoke on condition of anonymity. Rumyantsev said Russia and Iran were drawing up the protocol, which he said should be signed in September or October, The Associated Press reported "We'll provide them with fresh fuel and take back the spent," he was quoted as saying. And Russia would not provide any fuel at all "until the signed regulations are in place." The spent fuel has been a major concern both for the United States and nonproliferation experts because it could be converted into weapons-grade radioactive material and could thereby accelerate Iran's efforts to develop its own nuclear weapons. [http://www.moscowtimes.ru ***************************************************************** 3 UK: Taxpayers bail out bankrupt nuclear plants Sunday Herald Leaked BNFL report reveals £2bn losses By Rob Edwards [rob.edwards@sundayherald.com] , Environment Editor British Nuclear Fuels, which runs the Sellafield nuclear complex in Cumbria and the Chapelcross nuclear power station in Dumfries and Galloway, has made a £2.1 billion loss because of the huge cost of managing its radioactive waste business. According to a report leaked to the Sunday Herald, the state-owned company is technically bankrupt, with more liabilities than assets. But the Blair government is planning to bail it out by removing £20bn worth of nuclear liabilities -- and giving them to the taxpayer. This, says its chief executive, Norman Askew, will 'liberate the company'. British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) is to publish its annual report for 2001-2002 on Tuesday, when it will disclose a loss of £2bn last year compared to a loss of just £46 million in 2000-2001. The main reasons for such an enormous increase were 'significant lifetime cost increases' of £1.9bn identified by a review of how to deal with large stockpiles of dangerous radioactive waste. These stockpiles consist of all the medium-level wastes created by more than 50 years of civil and military nuclear activities at Sellafield, Chapelcross and elsewhere. It is estimated that there are currently 44,100 cubic metres of nuclear waste in storage, plus another 67,300 cubic metres to come from decommissioning defunct nuclear facilities. BNFL also incurred an 'adverse accounting charge' of £375 million because of its recently announced decision to bring forward the closure of its two oldest nuclear stations: Chapelcross and Calder Hall, next to Sellafield. In addition, the rest of BNFL's worldwide nuclear reprocessing and decommissioning business made an operating loss of £68m. 'While we achieved our own budgetary targets, it is obvious that our performance is still significantly short of where it needs to be,' said Askew. Last year's huge loss has pushed BNFL's overall long-term debt -- the amount by which its future costs exceed its current assets -- to £1.85bn. The company's group finance director, John Edwards, said: 'Whilst it is our belief that we have adequate financial resources to meet our obligations in the short to medium term, it is evident that the group in its current form would not generate sufficient cash to meet these now increased longer-term liabilities.' BNFL is eagerly anticipating the establishment of a new agency that the government has promised will take over its expensive liabilities. These include all the radioactive waste, all the shut-down facilities and all the ageing nuclear reactors -- which amount in total to £20bn worth of liabilities. The new agency, named the Liabilities Management Authority (LMA), will be entirely bankrolled by the government. Details were announced in a White Paper on July 4, causing BNFL to postpone plans to publish its annual report that day. "The UK government's decision to establish the LMA was the most important BNFL-related decision for many years," said Askew. "It will remove a substantial proportion of our net liabilities from the balance sheet. We therefore stand on the threshold of fundamental change within our company." BNFL's plan now is to concentrate on building new reactors, designed by its subsidiary Westinghouse, in Britain and around the world. "Specifically we expect our expertise in new reactor design to pave the way for our participation in the resurgent global nuclear energy market," Askew predicted. BNFL is promoting two new reactors, known as AP600 and AP1000, as replacements for existing stations such as those at Hunterston in Ayrshire and Torness in East Lothian. In the leaked annual report, BNFL chairman Hugh Collum urges the government to fast-track the establishment of the LMA so that BNFL can become a profitable business and be privatised. "Only when legislation has been passed and the new liabilities structure established can the company truly start to take shape." Environmentalists last night savaged the nuclear industry for incurring such mammoth debts. Greenpeace's Peter Roche said: "This report gives the lie to the government's claim that the LMA has nothing to do with a new reactor programme. Clearly it will free BNFL to go and create yet more nuclear waste that we have no idea what to do with". ©2002 smg sunday newspapers ltd. no.176088. all rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 4 Petersburg Baltiisky Plant starts delivering equipment for the Chinese Tian-Wang Nuclear Power Plant Pravda.RU 15:55 2002-07-08 The Petersburg Baltiisky Plant has started delivering equipment for the Chinese Tian-Wang Nuclear Power Plant. As the press service of the Baltiisky Plant reported on Monday, the first heat exchanger, out of the six, which the plant produces for the first and the second power generating units of the Tian-Wang Nuclear Power Plant, has already been made. Till the end of July it is planned to send to China another two heat exchangers for the first power generating unit. The detail design of the heat exchangers has been developed at the Russian Research Institute of Nuclear Machine-Building in Moscow, and the contractor design - at the Specialised Design Bureau of Boiler-Building. The heat exchangers can stand an 8.0 earthquake and have a 40-year strength, reported the press service. The Tian-Wang Nuclear Power Plant is being built in the city of Lianyungan in the East Chinese province of Jiangsu. The first, out of the four, power-generating unit is planned to put into operation in November 2004. © RIAN Copyright ©1999 by " [http://www.pravda.ru/] ". When reproducing our ***************************************************************** 5 Russian-Chinese Cooperation in Nuclear Energy Continues Successfully Pravda.RU Jul, 13 2002 According to the statement Alexander Rumiantsev, Russia's Minister of Nuclear Energy, made during a press conference on Friday, Russian-Cinese cooperation in nuclear energy was continuing successfully. Mr. Rumiantsev said a delegation of Russia's nuclear energy professionals had recently returned from China. The minister said the delegation had visited a Russian-designed Chinese nuclear power plant now under construction, Russian equipment used. One of the two power units is nearly completed and is being equipped. The construction of the second unit continues. The minister said he was delighted with the speed the work was done. The power plant is expected to go into operation in 2004. Mr. Rumiantsev also said, a fast reactor was being made in Russia to be sold to China, its design identical with that of the one installed at Russia's Beloyarsk nuclear plant. The minister admitted that nuclear weapons were also discussed during the visit of the Russian delegation. Russian professionals related the experience they had gained during conversion process. Mr. Rumiantsev said that an official protocol had been prepared to summarise the results of this visit. © RosBalt Copyright ©1999 by "Pravda.RU [http://www.pravda.ru/] ***************************************************************** 6 GOV OFF-GUARD ON NUKE WOES: NYPOST.COM Regional News: ANDY By FRANKIE EDOZIEN and JAMIE SCHRAM [http://www.nypost.com] July 15, 2002 -- Gubernatorial hopeful Andrew Cuomo pressed his case for closing the Indian Point 2 nuclear plant yesterday and warned that city pharmacies don't have enough cancer-fighting drugs in case of a terrorist attack there. "It's one of the worst-operated nuclear plants in the U.S.," Cuomo said. "This is a New York City issue, [yet] it's been dismissed as a Westchester issue." He said the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has warned that anyone within a 50-mile radius of the plant is at risk of injury. But Gov. Pataki only has an evacuation plan for a 10-mile radius of the plant site in Buchanan, Cuomo said. Cuomo lambasted officials' plan to distribute potassium iodide pills to combat thyroid cancer in case of catastrophe. Cuomo said his campaign surveyed 125 pharmacies in the five boroughs and found only eight of them with the pill in stock. "Whatever the risk is that requires the distribution of the pill, in my opinion is a risk that says, ‘shut the plant down,' " he said. "It's not a solution; you can't get it; it's not what our future should depend on." Elizabeth Shanklin of the NYC Campaign to Close Indian Point agreed with Cuomo, saying: "One hit and 21 million people will either be dead or contaminated." She also called Pataki's evacuation plan "bogus." Pataki said he "would be commenting on [the plant] in detail later." Meanwhile, Cuomo's Democratic rival Carl McCall, who has also called for the controversial plant's closure, accused Pataki of reneging on his promise to enroll 200,000 children in pre-kindergarten programs. "George Pataki stands in the way of providing a first-class education for our children," the state comptroller said. "The research showed that the earlier children begin in school, the better they perform, and now we see the results of our tests scores that shows that by the eighth grade our children aren't doing very well," he added. Pataki and his rivals all marched yesterday in the Bronx Dominican Day parade, which began with a ceremony honoring the victims of American Airlines Flight 587. It crashed shortly after takeoff from JFK last Nov. 12, killing all 260 on board, most of them Dominicans. [http://www.nypost.com] ***************************************************************** 7 A world free of nuclear fears /By Hassan Tahsin/ The signing of a landmark agreement by Russia and the United States to reduce the number of nuclear weapons is undoubtedly a major step toward saving the world from the nightmare of a massive nuclear conflagration. According to the agreement, the nuclear arsenal of the US and Russia will be cut by two-thirds. While the US destroys 2,200 warheads, Russia will destroy 1,700. There is some imbalance in the number of weapons to be eliminated between the two. Even after eliminating a greater number of weapons than Russia, the US will still have more weapons of massive destruction than its former rival. This is because both the parties decided to keep the number of weapons which each feels are needed to guarantee security. America decided last November that it needed between 1,800 and 2,250 nuclear warheads while Russia planned to keep 1,500. The world received the decision of the two major nuclear powers with a sigh of relief because the decision assured a safer future for the younger generation. Still the fear about the nuclear weapons in the hands of other countries with nuclear weapons and capability persists. The US stand toward countries with nuclear weapons is not consistent. While Israel is encouraged to carry on with its clandestine nuclear programs, North Korea, Iran and Iraq are labeled an axis of evil because they have been trying to acquire nuclear weapons. The US is not worried about the nuclear arsenals of France and Britain. On other hand, it watches China’s nuclear schemes with great concern. The US also applies an apparent double standard to the nuclear arms race in the Indian subcontinent. While it does not object to Indian nuclear bombs, which might be directed against China as well, its strives to reduce Pakistani nuclear activities probably because Pakistan is a Muslim country. While defending Israel’s right to acquire any number of nuclear weapons, the US does not allow any other country in the Middle East to have such weapons. Americans obviously want to strengthen Israel to strike against Pakistan or Russia if required. It is widely believed that there are between 100 and 200 nuclear warheads in Israel. The unreasonable American stand on nuclear weapons in other countries intensifies the arms race for both conventional and nuclear weapons in the Middle East and elsewhere. There are several other factors that aggravate the nuclear threat at an international level. First, the five advanced countries with nuclear weapons are not willing to reduce their nuclear potentials. Only eliminating all the nuclear warheads can avert a nuclear conflagration. Just reducing their number will not save the world. Comprehensive peace in the world is impossible as long as one party in any region possesses nuclear weapons and others do not. Therefore, the most important obstacle to achieving total peace in the Middle East is undoubtedly Israel’s refusal to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The international community is looking forward to the day when the five advanced countries with nuclear capability will show their willingness to get rid of their weapons. Relentless efforts should also continue to force all countries, which own any type of weapons of mass destruction, to destroy their deadly possessions. ***************************************************************** 8 Reactor development push to come in Idaho* United Press International Published 7/15/2002 5:52 PM IDAHO FALLS, Idaho, July 15 (UPI) -- The Bush administration took another step Monday in its effort to launch a new generation of growth in the nuclear power sector by naming a Department of Energy laboratory in Idaho as the "epicenter" of nuclear energy research in the nation. Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham told employees at the Idaho National Environmental and Engineering Laboratory, or INEEL, that their Idaho Falls facility would change its priority focus from cleaning up after years of Cold War nuclear research to projects that will lead to the development of new reactors. "INEEL will be the epicenter of our efforts to expand nuclear energy as a reliable, affordable and clean energy source for our nation's energy future," said Abraham. "While environmental cleanup remains a priority for us at Idaho, the importance of advanced, safe nuclear energy for the future demands that we return the Idaho labs to their core mission of nuclear technology research, development and demonstration." The projects slated for INEEL include work on nuclear fuel recycling and the Generation IV reactor, which is slated to replace current commercial reactors starting in 2030. The Generation IV project is a multinational effort that will produce an economical design that will replace the reactors installed at U.S. power plants in the 1970s as well as later light-water reactors built primarily in Asia during the past decade. Nuclear power construction has stalled in the United States due to economic concerns and environmentalist opposition, but the Bush administration sees nuclear power as a cheap and reliable source of large amounts of electricity. New technology, its proponents say, will make it possible to boost U.S. power supplies without having to worry about putting more greenhouse gases, mercury and other unwanted emissions into the air. Monday's announcement at INEEL came on the heels of congressional approval of the controversial Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository and a move in March to streamline the process of obtaining construction permits for new nuclear plants from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Last month, the Energy Department awarded $5.5 million to four groups of universities for investment in their nuclear engineering programs. Copyright © 2002 United Press International ***************************************************************** 9 NRC Cites Point Beach Nuclear Plant for Violation Of "High Importance to Safety" NRC: Press Release Region III - 2002 - 43 - U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, Region III 801 Warrenville Road, Lisle IL 60532 www.nrc.gov No. III-02-043 July 15, 2002 CONTACT: Jan Strasma (630) 829-9663 Viktoria Mitlyng (630) 829-9662 E-mail: opa3@nrc.gov [opa3@nrc.gov] The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff has determined that a potential failure in an auxiliary cooling system at the Point Beach Nuclear Power Station, discovered in November of last year, is an issue of "high importance to safety" that would normally lead to additional NRC inspections. The two-reactor plant, operated by Nuclear Management Company, is located near Two Rivers, Wisconsin. (Note: The NRC's preliminary evaluation that this situation was of "high importance to safety" was announced in News Release No. III-02-017, issued April 8.) NRC inspectors found that the auxiliary cooling water system might fail to function under certain abnormal conditions. Normal plant operations were not affected by the problem, which was initially discovered by plant personnel. The utility took prompt corrective actions to revise procedures and train reactor operators to address the immediate safety concerns. The auxiliary feedwater system was subsequently modified to further correct the problem. After evaluating the inspection findings and an April 29 meeting with utility representatives, the NRC staff issued its final determination that the potential failure was a "red finding," meaning it is of high importance to safety. If the utility disagrees with the "red" classification, it may appeal the decision. NRC inspection findings are evaluated using a four-level scale of increasing safety significance, ranging from "green" for a finding of minor significance, through "white" and "yellow" to "red." In addition to the "red" designation, the NRC issued a Notice of Violation to Nuclear Management Co. for inadequate operating procedures for the auxiliary feedwater system and for failing to identify and correct the problem in prior opportunities between 1997 and 2001. During the April 29 meeting, the utility proposed that the finding be treated as an old design issue. As a result, the NRC will conduct additional inspections to determine if the potential failure in the auxiliary feedwater system should be considered an old design issue and to review the corrective actions taken by the utility. Under the NRC's Reactor Oversight Process, a "red finding" would normally lead to an extensive inspection program to broadly assess the utility's management of issues and its corrective action program. If, however, the issue is determined to be an old design issue, the agency's inspection followup would be more limited, focusing on the response to the auxiliary cooling system problem. The decision on the appropriate inspection level will be made after the supplemental inspection to be conducted in the next several months. The details of the NRC inspection findings are discussed in Inspection Report 2001-17 which is available online in the NRC's electronic reading room. This report -- with the accession number ML020950889 -- may be viewed in the NRC's ADAMS document system, accessible at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. Help in using ADAMS is available by contacting the NRC Public Document Room at 301/415-4737 or 1/800/397-4209. The final determination of the safety significance will be posted on the NRC's web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/POIN1/poin1_chart.html ***************************************************************** 10 Chashma Nuclear Power Plant closed down / Updated on 2002-07-15 11:34:08/ *KUNDIYAN, July 15 (PNS): Electricity supply from the Chashma Nuclear Power Plant has been suspended for an indefinite period due to closure of the power plant for renovation purposes. * It has been told that the Chashma Power Plant has been closed for the past four days for necessary renovation due to which 320 megawatt electricity supply to the national grid system has been suspended. It has been learnt that a team from Islamabad would also replace the fuel of the plant that will close the plant for nearly one month. According to plant sources, there is no functional error at the power plant and the closure is part of routine renovation process. End. ***************************************************************** 11 NB Power nuclear plant back in service after undergoing months of maintenance July 14, 2002 FREDERICTON (CP) -- The Point Lepreau nuclear plant was back in service Sunday after undergoing planned maintenance for almost three months.  The maintenance outage at the plant, which supplies about 30 per cent of New Brunswick's electricity, was the first in two years, said a NB Power news release.  Major work included the inspection of the plant's feeder pipes and steam generators and upgrades to the emergency core cooling system.  NB Power recently completed a hearing in front of the Public Utilities Board over its proposed refurbishment of the 19-year-old reactor.  The licence renewal regulatory process will continue this fall before the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. [http://www.canoe.ca/copyright.html] © 2002, Canoe, a division of ***************************************************************** 12 Regulators take next step in sale of nuclear power plant [The Concord Monitor online edition] Monday, July 15, 2002 CONCORD, N.H. - The sale of the Seabrook nuclear power plant to a Florida company moves another step closer to completion this week. FPL Group Inc. plans to buy 88 percent of the plant for $837 million from Northeast Utilities and the plant's other owners. The deal is expected to be approved by the end of the year. As part of the approval process, the state Public Utilities Commission is holding hearings to give interested parties including consumers, lawmakers, businesspeople and environmentalists a chance to comment. FPL executives have said they would like to extend the plant's current nuclear license, which expires in 2026, and possibly build a non-nuclear plant on the site. If approved by federal and state regulatory agencies, an extension would make the purchase especially attractive to current and future stockholders. Officials said they haven't decided whether to finish construction of the plant's second nuclear reactor - which was abandoned in the mid-1980s - but said completing it is likely since doing so would be less expensive than starting from scratch. Seabrook began operating in 1980, billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule. Its construction created years of political turmoil and pushed Public Service Company into bankruptcy. The sale is expected to lead to rate cuts for customers of Public Service Company of New Hampshire, Granite State Electric Co. and the New Hampshire Electric Cooperative. FPL Group is an $8 billion publicly traded company whose primary subsidiary is Florida Power and Light Co., which runs four nuclear plants on two sites on Florida's east coast. The public hearings begin Monday and continue through Thursday. © Concord Monitor [http://www.concordmonitor.com] and New Hampshire Patriot P.O. Box 1177, Concord NH 03302 603-224-5301 ***************************************************************** 13 Cancer rates report defended BBC News | ENGLAND | Sunday, 14 July, 2002, 17:44 [Hinkley plant] Dr Busby said his critics have a "vested interest" The author of a report saying cancer rates in a town close to a nuclear power station are up to five times higher than the national average has defended his claims against criticism. Dr Chris Busby compiled the report with the help of residents at Burnham-on-Sea in Somerset, which is close to the Hinkley Point power plant. Dr Busby admits he cannot prove the alleged high cancer rates were caused by the discharge of radioactive materials from the plant, but he cannot think of another explanation. However, British Nuclear Fuels Ltd (BNFL), which operates one of two plants at Hinkley Point, said it was waiting for local health authority advice on the issue. His (Dr Busby) reports have...been heavily criticised by health professionals David Cartwright, BNFL Dr Busby's research, based on the results of a doorstep survey of 1,500 local people, claims cervical and kidney cancer rates in the town are five times the national average. It also says leukaemia rates are four times higher and rates of breast cancer double. David Cartwright, a spokesman for BNFL, said: "He (Dr Busby) runs his own anti-nuclear company and makes a living out of producing these anti-nuclear reports. 'Look at figures' "He is somebody who has a record of bringing out reports that have been heavily criticised by health professionals in the past. "We will wait to take the advice of the local health authority." Dr Busby, who runs an environmental consultancy firm and sits on two government advisory committees, said his critics should "look at the figures". "All the work that I have produced over the last five years has shown that there is a problem," he said. 'No health effects' "Now we see a picture confirming my fears that Hinkley discharges are responsible for severe health problems here." The results of the study will be presented to the residents of Burnham on Thursday. In a statement, the Department of Health said: "No known health effects have ever been associated with radioactive discharges from current nuclear sites." ***************************************************************** 14 FEMA Preparing for Mass Destruction Attacks on Cities [NewsMax.com] John O. Edwards Monday, July 15, 2002 FEMA, the federal agency charged with disaster preparedness, is engaged in a crash effort to prepare for multiple mass destruction attacks on U.S. cities - including the creation of sprawling temporary cities to handle millions of displaced persons, NewsMax has learned. FEMA is readying for nuclear, biological and chemical attacks against U.S. cities, including the possibility of multiple attacks with mass destruction weapons. The agency has already notified vendors, contractors and consultants that it needs to be prepared to handle the logistics of aiding millions of displaced Americans who will flee from urban areas that may be attacked. The agency plans to create emergency, makeshift cities that could house hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Americans who may have to flee their urban homes if their cities are attacked. Ominously, FEMA has been given a deadline of having the cities ready to go by January 2003 – in about six months. A source familiar with the deadline believes the effort is related to making the U.S. prepared for counterattacks if the U.S. invades Iraq sometime next year. FEMA is currently seeking bids from major real estate management firms, and plans to name three firms in the near future to handle the logistics and planning for these temporary cities. FEMA officials have told these firms they already have tents and trailers ordered. The tents and trailers would provide shelter for displaced populations. The real estate firms are expected to provide engineers and architects to lay the plans for emergency infrastructure needs, such as sewage and electricity. Editor's Note: This story first appeared in NewsMax's Insider Report - ***************************************************************** 15 Scotland ill-prepared for nuclear leak Sunday Herald Planned countermeasures against a radioactive disaster are a laughable, logistical nightmare By Rob Edwards [rob.edwards@sundayherald.com] , Environment Editor Government advisors have warned that Scotland is ill-prepared for a terrorist attack or a major accident at a nuclear power station. The lack of safeguards is leaving thousands of children across central Scotland at risk of thyroid cancer following an escape of radioactivity. Plans to distribute pills which can prevent the cancers are haphazard, inadequate and laughable, according to government safety advisers, nuclear experts and local authorities, while official advice to extend and improve the handout of the pills is being ignored. Pills containing ordinary iodine offer crucial protection in the first few hours after a disaster at a nuclear reactor. They fill up the thyroid gland and stop it from absorbing any radioactive iodine released by the reactor. If young, growing thyroids are exposed to radiation, the risk of cancer rises significantly. The huge release of radioactive iodine 131 from the explosion that blew apart the Chernobyl reactor in the Ukraine in 1986 has given 2000 children in three countries thyroid cancer. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), a further 8000 exposed when they were young are likely to contract the disease in the future. An accidental meltdown or a jumbo jet deliberately dropped on any of Scotland's nuclear stations could produce a similarly massive release of iodine 131, experts say. Clouds of escaping radioactivity from Torness in East Lothian, Hunterston in Ayrshire or Chapelcross in Dumfries and Galloway would threaten children in Edinburgh, Glasgow or Carlisle, depending on the direction of the wind. Yet an investigation by the Sunday Herald has discovered that no arrangements have been made for distributing iodine pills more than two miles from nuclear sites in Scotland. And it will take many years for government advice to extend these areas to be heeded. 'The present emergency plans are next to useless,' said John Large, an international advisor on nuclear safety. 'It's Dad's Army.' Large said iodine pills should be available to people 60 miles or more from a nuclear site. 'The more I've looked into this, the more genuinely concerned I have become,' he added. Over the last month in Ireland, packets of eight iodine pills have been posted to every single household, as part of the Irish government's response to September 11. There are no nuclear plants in Ireland but ministers say the pills are necessary to protect Irish families from a disaster at a nuclear site in Britain. In the US, the government is offering states iodine pills to distribute to populations within 10 miles of nuclear plants. But in Scotland there are no plans for the widespread distribution of pills. They have been given to households within two miles of Torness, but not to people living near Hunterston or near the naval nuclear base at Rosyth in Fife. There may have been some distribution close to Chapelcross. Yet local authorities and the emergency services were urged more than 10 years ago to extend the distribution zones in the wake of Chernobyl. The Department of Trade and Industry sent out a circular in March this year reminding authorities to implement this recommendation. In 1999, the WHO said that, in order to protect children, iodine pills should be available over much larger areas than previously thought. This prompted the Department of Health to commission a group of leading experts to review arrangements for iodine prophylaxis in the UK. It concluded last year that the radiation dose at which pills should be handed out should be cut by a third, thereby greatly expanding the potential danger zones. However, they did not advise widespread distribution in advance to individual households because of the risk that the pills would be lost, implying that they should be kept in hospitals, schools and other centres instead. Rod McKenzie, an Edinburgh emergency planner on the government's Nuclear Safety Advisory Committee, thinks that it could take years to make these recommendations a reality. 'Past experience suggests that this may be implemented in a piecemeal manner,' he told the Sunday Herald. Keith Baverstock, the WHO's radiation specialist in Europe, pointed out that iodine pills have been distributed to schools and hospitals in Finland and Belgium. The German government has three huge stockpiles which it plans to fly by helicopter to affected areas. 'There are huge logistical problems to this,' Baverstock said. 'The task of being prepared for an accident is a major one. It is a serious public health issue and it is important to get it right.' The British radiation watchdog, the National Radiological Protection Board, warned that September 11 had major implications. 'What we learnt from Chernobyl is that it is important to protect children as soon as possible,' said the board's Michael Clark. The Scottish Executive said that although it hadn't made a formal response to the expert group's proposals on iodine prophylaxis, they were being taken into account in regular reviews of emergency planning. 'Plans have been reviewed in light of the September 11 incident,' said an Executive spokes man. 'These consider the operation of a number of countermeasures in the event of a release of radioactive material. The use of stable iodine tablets is one of those countermeasures appropriate only when the release contains radioactive iodine. Local plans will have taken into account whether pre- distribution is necessary,' But this was dismissed by Stewart Kemp, the secretary of the 88-strong group of UK nuclear-free local authorities. 'The current arrangements were inadequate before September 11 and now they are even more so .' It would be sensible for Britain to follow the example set by Ireland and distribute iodine tablets to every household, he argued. 'The nuclear industry has put public relations before public safety. It does not like the message that iodine pre-distribution sends to the public. It reminds them that there are risks attached to nuclear power.' ©2002 smg sunday newspapers ltd. no.176088. all rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 16 Military-Widow-Pension, 1st Writethru Veterans Affairs says soldier's death possibly linked to Bosnia service MURRAY BREWSTER HALIFAX (CP) - Veterans Affairs has determined that a soldier whose illness and death sparked a military inquiry could have contracted his condition while serving in Bosnia. The position appears to contradict the findings of a military investigation into the living conditions faced by Canadian peacekeepers serving in the war-torn region in the mid-1990s. In a letter to his widow, Mary Ann Peace, pension officials said there is "a reasonable doubt" that warrant officer Michael Peace became sick as a result of his duty in Visoko. Peace died of a brain tumour two years ago. "A review of the service records reveals your late husband did have some vague complaints, i.e. headaches, while serving in Bosnia," said the letter dated June 20, 2002. "As well, on all reports concerning the claimed condition he consistently gave a history of his first symptoms beginning while serving in the former Yugoslavia. "Having weighed all the evidence presented, a reasonable doubt has been established regarding the origin of the claimed condition and that doubt has been resolved in your favour." The decision means that Mary Ann Peace will be awarded a full survivor's pension. "Somebody is finally realizing that these guys we sent over to Bosnia are coming back ill," she said from her home in Fredericton. "They go over healthy but come back sick." Before passing away in October 2000, Peace asked his superiors to investigate why he and some of his comrades had become sick after serving in Bosnia. The military convened a board of inquiry which found that while more than 34 soldiers developed mysterious ailments, none could be directly linked to their tours in the region. A spokeswoman for Veterans Affairs cautioned against reading too much into the decision. Janice Summerby said she couldn't talk specifically about the Peace case, but in issuing the letter, the department is saying "we're not sure what caused your disability." When faced with soldiers who develop debilitating illnesses, such as cancer or multiple sclerosis, pension officials must err on the side caution, she said. "When you serve in an area like that, you go in healthy and come back with an illness, we can grant you benefit of the doubt," Summerby said from Ottawa. "We can't say it's due to your service or not due to your service, but because you were healthy before, we're going to give you benefit of the doubt." The military wasn't available to comment. In an April 2000 letter to his commanding officer at Canadian Forces Base Gagetown in New Brunswick, Peace said he believed the fumes from special modifications to armoured vehicles were to blame for his tumour. The modifications took place on Peace's second peacekeeping tour in the former Yugoslavia between the fall of 1994 and spring 1995. The so called "add-on armour" consisted of specialized ceramic tiles that had to be cut and pasted on to the vehicles. The work took place in the basement of the Royal Canadian Regiment's living quarters and, according to the army's own reports, dust from the process was spread throughout the building. The board reviewed medical records and toxicology reports and deemed that the tiles were not toxic and posed no health risk. During its investigation, the board discovered another 34 soldiers were sick, many of them reporting ailments that resemble Gulf War syndrome. The health complaints raised by the soldiers ranged from persistent headaches, vision and memory problems to mysterious bleeding. However, the board found no evidence that the troops had been exposed to a variety of chemicals, or dust from spent depleted uranium ammunition. It attributed many of the illnesses to stress brought on by combat situations. © The Canadian Press, 2002 ***************************************************************** 17 UK: Cancer rates 'five times higher near nuclear power station' Ananova - [http://www.orange-today.co.uk/promo/?id=Orange_personal_news] A report claiming cancer rates in a town close to a nuclear power station are up to five times higher than the national average, is being defended by its author. Dr Chris Busby compiled the study with the help of a group of residents in Burnham-on-Sea, Somerset, who are worried about the health risks of the Hinkley Point power station just a few miles away. The research, which is based on the results of a doorstep survey of 1,500 local people, claims that cervical and kidney cancer rates in the town are five times the national average, with the leukaemia rate four times higher and breast cancer rate double. But the operators of one of the two nuclear plants at Hinkley Point, British Nuclear Fuels Ltd (BNFL), says Dr Busby had been "heavily criticised" in the past for his research by health professionals. They said he had never published any of his reports in a professional medical journal and said they would wait until his latest findings had been scrutinised by the local health authority before assessing their impact. David Cartwright, a spokesman for BNFL, said: "He (Dr Busby) runs his own anti-nuclear company and makes a living out of producing these anti-nuclear reports. "He is somebody who has a record of bringing out reports that have been heavily criticised by health professionals in the past. We will wait to take the advice of the local health authority, but we are very wary of his past record because his work has always been shown to be full of flaws." However, Dr Busby, who runs an environmental consultancy firm and sits on two Government advisory committees, said his critics should ignore him and just "look at the figures". Dr Busby admits he can not prove that the alleged higher cancer rates in Burnham are caused by the discharge of radioactive materials from Hinkley, but said he could not think of any other explanation. He said his findings appeared to support his hypothesis that radioactive particles from Hinkley were discharged into the sea, deposited on the local mud banks, blown downwind and inhaled by residents on a chronic basis, triggering cancer. Story filed: 16:43 Sunday 14th July 2002 [http://www.orange-today.co.uk/promo/?id=Orange_personal_news] Copyright © 2002 Ananova Ltd Terms and ***************************************************************** 18 Military stocking up on anti-radiation pills Planet Ark : : July 2, 2002 WASHINGTON - At the urging of the Bush administration, military commanders are quietly stocking up on anti-radiation pills and making plans to give them to U.S. troops should they be exposed to radioactive fallout from an attack or accident, according to documents and officials. Suppliers of potassium iodide say shipments to the military have increased in recent months amid fears of war between nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan, and new terror threats against American targets including nuclear power plants. One of the largest orders - 134,400 potassium iodide tablets for 9,600 troops - was shipped to the U.S. Army on May 28, according to records obtained by Reuters. If taken immediately after exposure, the tablets have been shown to protect the thyroid gland from diseases caused by radiation. A spokesman for U.S. Central Command said it was not distributing potassium iodide tablets to troops in Afghanistan and other South Asian countries, disputing the claims of several suppliers. The Pentagon would not discuss its potassium iodide policy, which was outlined in an internal memorandum issued two months after the Sept. 11 attacks that killed more than 3,000 people. In the memorandum, dated Nov. 19, 2001, William Winkenwerder, assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, directed Army, Navy and Air Force commanders to assess the risk to troops and to develop "implementation plans on the use of potassium iodide." "The U.S. military overseas, their families, U.S. civilian workers and contractors may be at risk from hostile actions and other events against nuclear power plants resulting in radioactive iodine release," wrote Winkenwerder, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's chief health adviser. In November and in a follow-up memo issued on Jan. 24, Winkenwerder told the services that they "must ensure availability of supply" of potassium iodide. He also provided the secretaries of the Army, Navy and Air Force with guidance on how the tablets should be administered. It depends on whether the radioactive material is inhaled or ingested and on how long troops are exposed to a radioactive plume. Winkenwerder put the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute in charge of reviewing the plans. "We will take appropriate action when we get the plans," said Peter Esker, spokesman for the institute. The Pentagon would not elaborate. "The policy memo speaks for itself," said James Turner, a Pentagon spokesman. "The commanders-in-chief, in any given part of the world, will assess the situation and will be responsible for providing appropriate material to their troops." Underscoring U.S. fears that terrorists will try to use weapons of mass destruction, Winkenwerder announced on Friday a separate policy to vaccinate some military personnel against anthrax and to stockpile the vaccine for civilian use. POTASSIUM IODIDE ORDERS RISE Between January and June of this year, the military purchased more than 400,400 potassium iodide tablets - enough for at least 28,600 troops - through the Defense Logistics Agency and the Defense Supply Center in Philadelphia. That amount represents an 80 percent increase over the amount of potassium iodide purchased by the military during the January to June period in 2001, according to Defense Supply Center records. The tablets were supplied by two companies - Anbex Inc. and Carter-Wallace, which is now part of MedPointe Inc. Potassium iodide orders surged after Winkenwerder's memo. In December and January alone, more than 303,000 tablets were purchased, enough for more than 21,700 troops. A 29,400-tablet order for 2,100 troops was filled by the Defense Supply Center on April 6, followed by the Army's 134,400-tablet shipment on May 28 for 9,600 soldiers. The Defense Supply Center's figures do not include orders placed independently by the military services and their divisions, suppliers say. The move to supply potassium iodide to troops and their families comes amid heightened fears that terrorists might attack nuclear power plants in the United States and abroad, or try to use nuclear or radiological weapons. But potassium iodide's usefulness is limited since it must be taken almost immediately after exposure and only protects against absorption of radioactive iodine. The tablets offer no protection against other radioactive isotopes, which might be released by a "dirty" bomb and other radioactive weapons. Despite these limitations, the military is not alone in stocking up on potassium iodide. The Department of Health and Human Services has purchased 1.6 million doses and plans to buy 5 million to 10 million more this year, officials said. The Department of Veterans' Affairs has placed two large orders so far this year on behalf of HHS - the first went to Salt Lake City in case of an attack on the Olympic Games. The second order was placed within the last month for HHS' office of emergency preparedness, according to Veterans' Affairs. Officials would not disclose its destination. Stored in secret warehouses, HHS' stockpile would be tapped in the event of a "catastrophe, man-made or otherwise, at a nuclear power plant," spokesman Bill Pierce said. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is also stocking up on the tablets as part of a program to make potassium iodide available to people living near nuclear power plants. Story by Adam Entous REUTERS NEWS SERVICE ***************************************************************** 19 Researchers will study effects of depleted uranium munitions The Roanoke Times Monday, July 15, 2002 Va. Tech lab gets grant to study Gulf War Syndrome Some critics think the residue from depleted uranium munitions causes cancer or other neurological disorders. By KEVIN MILLER THE ROANOKE TIMES [http://www.vt.edu/] researchers are once again delving into the mystery of Gulf War Syndrome, this time evaluating whether the uranium used in some high-tech ammunition, when combined with battlefield stress, could cause nerve damage. Depleted uranium ammunition, which is used by U.S. and NATO forces against heavy-armor vehicles such as tanks, has come under fire in recent years from European officials who are concerned that the uranium may increase the risk of cancer in soldiers who come in close contact with the munitions or its residue. Several European soldiers who served in Kosovo with NATO forces have reportedly died of cancer, and American veterans groups have speculated whether depleted uranium could be causing some of the myriad of physical problems experienced by thousands of U.S. personnel who served in the Persian Gulf War. U.S. military officials as well as radiation experts have vehemently denied any link with cancer, saying that depleted uranium is far less radioactive than natural uranium and is not dangerous at the levels encountered by military personnel. Other critics, however, have suggested that depleted uranium may cause chemical poisoning in some circumstances. The Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine in Blacksburg received more than $660,000 to study depleted uranium's chemical effect on the body during both short- and long-term exposure. The researchers will also introduce stress into the equation to see if the toxic effect is greater. "Our feeling is radiation will not be the major issue in this study, just the chemical toxicity," said Bernie Jortner, co-director of the vet school's Laboratory for Neurotoxicity Studies, which is conducting the research. "We're pretty much interested in the parts of the brain it is going to." Laboratory rats will be given doses of depleted uranium and then stressed by forced swimming. Researchers believe that stress may influence the body's reaction to chemicals in a variety of ways, including removing some of the natural barriers that block toxins from reaching the brain during times of low stress. "Stress may contribute to the symptoms of Gulf War Illness but alone cannot be responsible for all of the symptoms, as virtually every participant in the operation experienced stress, but not all veterans developed illness," the Tech researchers wrote in the grant proposal. "Therefore, the ability of stress to exacerbate the effect of other toxicants must be evaluated." This is the vet school's third grant to study the neurotoxicity of chemicals used or present during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Pentagon officials resisted for years any suggestion that Gulf War veterans were more susceptible to certain illnesses. But late last year, military officials announced results of a study showing Gulf War veterans were twice as likely to come down with Lou Gehrig's disease. Other similar studies are under way. Tens of thousands of Gulf War veterans have complained of illnesses, including memory loss, anxiety, fatigue, nausea, and chronic muscle and joint pain. Depleted uranium is the metal left after much of the radioactive material has been removed from uranium ore. Depleted uranium is considerably denser than other metals, making it an effective material for armor-piercing munitions. Critics worry that dust or shrapnel left over from the detonated munition can cause health problems. Jortner said that while the toxicity of uranium has been well established, the chemical dangers of depleted uranium are not well known. In a previous study, researchers found elevated traces of uranium in the urine of Gulf War veterans who still had shrapnel from depleted uranium rounds in their bodies. The veterans also performed poorer on neurocognitive tests than others. Jortner and his colleagues, including Gulf War expert Marion Ehrich, are completing a three-year study of the neurologic effects of two chemicals used during the Persian Gulf War. Jortner said rats suffered serious nerve damage from the chemicals, especially during the long-term exposure. Jortner said it is clear from research that some of the Gulf War illnesses were caused by chemicals. The trick is figuring which chemical or, more likely, what combination of chemicals is causing each problem. "It's not a single thing, it's a whole spectrum of illnesses that are affecting the guys that were over there," Jortner said. ***************************************************************** 20 BNFL hit by record £2.1bn losses Scotsman.com /IAIN DEY/ BRITISH Nuclear Fuels is expected to reveal a record £2.1 billion loss this week, but new government plans will see the atomic energy giant bailed out with taxpayers? money. The state-owned company is understood to be technically insolvent with more liabilities than assets. Decommissioning costs at its ageing nuclear plants, including Chapelcross in Dumfries and Galloway, and Sellafield in Cumbria, are understood to have sent the firm spiralling further into the red from last year?s £46 million loss. But a white paper unveiled by energy minister Brian Wilson two weeks ago will see £20 billion of BNFL?s liabilities foisted on to the taxpayer, even if BNFL goes on to be privatised. A spokesman for BNFL declined to comment on the figures, insisting that the company?s full-year results will not be published until Tuesday. But it is understood that the report contains a statement from BNFL chief executive, Norman Askew, which heralds the energy minister?s white paper as a lifeline for the company. The results statement is believed to show that "significant lifetime cost increases" related to dealing with radioactive waste and the decommissionning of its plants have given it a liability of £1.9 billion. BNFL is also understood to have set aside a one-off accounting charge of £375 million because of its recent decision to close Chapelcross and the Calder Hall plant in Cumbria three years earlier than intended. The rest of BNFL?s global nuclear reprocessing and decommissioning businesses are expected to show an operating loss of £68 million. Low wholesale electricity prices and operating difficulties are believed to have pushed its Magnox power plant division to a pre-tax loss of £100 million. Finance director John Edwards is understood to state in the report that while BNFL can meet its short to medium term finance obligations, it could not support itself in the longer term because of its liabilities. BNFL?s 11 nuclear plants were mainly built in the 1950s and 60s and remained in State hands when the rest of the industry was privatised, because of their age and high running costs. But a partial privatisation of the company was delayed two years ago and rescheduled for late 2002. Plans to form the Liabilities Management Authority, a wholly government-funded organisation, which would take control of nuclear decommissioning, were unveiled on 4 July. Wilson said at the time that the total cost of nuclear clean up in the UK stands at £47.9 billion, once all the clean-up and demolition costs are taken into account. That figure was revised up from £35 billion in March this year. In a written statement to parliament on the issue, Wilson said: "We need to ensure that the nuclear legacy is cleaned up in ways which protect the environment for the benefit of current and future generations." ©2002 scotsman.com | contact ***************************************************************** 21 BNFL to reveal record £2bn loss Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Andrew Clark Monday July 15, 2002 [http://www.guardian.co.uk] British Nuclear Fuels will tomorrow announce its biggest ever loss, totalling £2bn, after being driven deep into the red by huge one-off provisions to cover the cost of storing radioactive waste and closing two power stations. The deficit will be a blow to the government's hopes of privatising parts of the state-owned energy company. The figures will come under fire from environmental groups, which claim BNFL's accounts contain "anomalies". Much of the loss is due to a reassessment of the future cost of cleaning up nuclear sites, including the Sellafield reprocessing centre in Cumbria. BNFL's forecast for total clear-up costs has risen from £34.8bn to £40.5bn, which is taken through the company's accounts gradually over the life of power stations. BNFL will also take a charge of more than £300m relating to the closure of two ageing Magnox electricity generating reactors - Calder Hall, Cumbria, and Chapelcross, Scotland. Exceptional charges are likely to be about £1.9bn, obscuring an improvement in the company's day-to-day performance from last year's £210m operating loss. Chairman Hugh Collum is likely to argue that this improved performance is further evidence that the company could prosper in a commercial environment. In a white paper published this month, the government proposed that a new liabilities management authority (LMA) should manage nuclear waste, with profitable parts of BNFL being sold to the private sector. That plan would involve the LMA taking on liabilities of up to £48bn, underwritten by the government. BNFL is keen for the LMA to be established as quickly as possible. But recent reports have suggested the government is unlikely to include legislation on the issue in the Queen's speech this November, which could delay the authority's creation until 2004. Friends of the Earth will this week accuse the company of subsidising its operations with a fund established to deal with its liabilities, an allegation dismissed by a BNFL spokesman yesterday as "utter nonsense". The pressure group will also attack BNFL's commercial strategy, accusing the company of overpaying for foreign acquisitions, including US nuclear firm Westinghouse. Useful links [http://www.bnfl.co.uk/website.nsf/default.htm] [http://www.cnduk.org/] [http://www.hse.gov.uk/nsd/ilrwglos.htm] [http://www.ukaea.org.uk/] [http://www.nrpb.org.uk/] [http://www.uilondon.org/] [UP] Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002 ***************************************************************** 22 Yucca fight must continue in court July 16, 2002 Editorial [online@rgj.com] RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL Now that the U.S. Senate has made it official that nuclear waste will one day be sent to Yucca Mountain in southern Nevada for permanent storage, the fight against the dump has moved from the political front to the legal front. So far, more than $2 million in state money has been spent on legal challenges to the dump proposal, and the state agency fighting the dump intends to ask lawmakers for another $4-$5 million to continue the legal fight being waged by the Nevada Attorney General’s Office as well as two private law firms. Some residents have quietly argued for years that the state’s money was being wasted on a fight that couldn’t be won, and in light of last week’s vote, there’s no doubt that some of them are feeling vindicated. It’s possible that those quiet murmurs could get quite loud in the coming month as some residents may demand state officials get something from the federal government in trade for being a national dumping ground. However, just because political efforts to stop the Yucca Mountain project have failed doesn’t mean that it’s now to time start negotiating with the government for compensation. A review of the Yucca Mountain project timeline contains several reminders of why negotiations are a bad idea. First, the original bill, dubbed the Screw Nevada law, that designated Yucca Mountain the only site to be studied for a national nuclear waste dump made clear the federal government’s intent years ago to bury waste in Nevada. The recent vote shows that feelings in the Beltway have changed little since then; Congress is still intent on screwing Nevada. Second, Nevadans should not be fooled into thinking that simply because they’re ready to negotiate that Congress will be willing and able to hand over the cash. There’s nothing in the law that requires Nevadans receive compensation, and there’s no guarantee that Nevada’s congressional delegation would be any more successful at getting payoffs than they were killing the Yucca Mountain project. Finally, Nevada’s Yucca Mountain is quite different than Alaska’s oil pipeline. Proponents of negotiations say that Nevada should follow Alaska’s example and demand payment to residents, similar to the annual sums Alaskans receive, but there are key differences between the two. In Alaska, the crude oil is being extracted by private companies, which have the ability to raise money for the payouts, and arguably may have a duty to pay Alaskans to mine the state’s natural resources. In Nevada’s case, the federal government has made an agreement with the nuclear industry to store the waste and has no requirement, and some would argue no ability, to raise the money to pay Nevadans an annual sum. While negotiating for money may seem like a reasonable alternative, it’s a risky strategy in which the outcome is far from certain. Nevada must continue to fight the dump on the legal front, counting on the courts, not the coffers, to right old political wrongs. © Copyright Reno Gazette-Journal, a Gannett ***************************************************************** 23 Money equals power in nuke waste fight Jon Ralston [online@rgj.com] SPECIAL TO THE RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL 7/14/2002 09:46 pm WASHINGTON — You could feel the lack of electricity in the Senate chamber Tuesday as Nevada’s power shortage produced only enough juice to garner token support from the Club of 100. Members expressed their sympathy for Harry Ensign, but Nevada’s Siamese senator spoke with sound and fury, realizing it signified nothing. After two decades of superheated rhetoric, delaying tactics and last-ditch maneuvers (TV ads in other states), pure power politics carried the day as 60 senators voted to send nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain. For much of the “debate” on Tuesday, Harry Reid either sat at his desk with that trademark wry smile or with his head shaking at the demagoguery of Yucca proponents, or he paced the chamber, chatted with aides and walked across the floor to thank colleagues who stood up for the state, mostly out of friendship for him. John Ensign sat at his desk throughout the slow death experience that began at 11:05 a.m. in the East and ended just after 6 p.m., mostly stone-faced, occasionally chatting with an aide or with Reid, who intermittently sat down next to his junior colleague. Dump proponent Frank Murkowski would later acknowledge in an interview that he would not have behaved any differently if the dump was slated for his home state of Alaska. Didn’t most of the Senate just think of Nevada as a vast wasteland, and wasn’t that why they didn’t care much about sending nuclear offal there, I asked him? “You’re right,” he replied, matter-of-factly, summing up 15 years of intervening motivations since Screw Nevada I in 1987. Later, Reid would touch on the other, enduring imperative that has driven this process for decades and especially in the last few weeks: money. If you follow the money, it leads to the members of the Nuclear Energy Institute that have had enough dollars to spread around to curry favor with senators, to blunt the Nevada advertising initiatives and to even purchase a former Nevada governor to plead its case here. Murkowski and others, especially Idaho’s Larry Craig, tried to make the case on the floor Tuesday that this was merely a vote to move the process along, to move to the next step, which is the licensing process. But that was as disingenuous as any argument made since 1987. With hundreds of scientific questions extant, and frightening unknowns about transportation and terrorism, this was much more about getting new nuclear plants on line and reducing a costly liability for the utilities that have waste piling up at reactor sites. And, ultimately, it was about how much juice these utilities could bring to bear on a nuclear power-friendly administration, which started this in January when President Bush flipped the switch that he hoped would eventually turn on the lights at Yucca Mountain. With that kind of juice, no amount of power Harry Ensign could have generated could have short-circuited the political process that climaxed last week. Copyright Reno Gazette-Journal, a Gannett Co. Inc. ***************************************************************** 24 Yucca factions find answers to 'now what?' Monday, July 15, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal Participants move on to new challenges to fill void after long political battle By STEVE TETREAULT STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- On Wednesday morning, Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., spoke at the opening of the Senate's session, as he does most days as assistant majority leader. Except on this day, for the first time in months, he wasn't also thinking about which senators he needed to pull aside to hear his pitch on nuclear waste. The same with Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev. He met with fellow Republicans Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Phil Gramm of Texas about a prescription drug bill. Looking across at his colleagues, Ensign didn't wonder what he could do to persuade them to help him kill the Yucca Mountain Project. Across Capitol Hill and in downtown executive offices, life suddenly assumed a new pace for dozens of politicians, aides, flacks, scientists, lawyers, lobbyists, academics, activists and journalists after the Senate voted decisively to designate Yucca Mountain for nuclear waste burial. Many had invested months, in some cases years, to either side of the intense debate over whether Congress should sign off on the plan to ship 77,000 tons of radioactive waste to the burial site 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Participants compared their efforts to managing a small war. Then, when the Senate voted 60-39 for the Yucca Mountain Project on Tuesday, it was over. When they woke up the next morning, many confronted the immediate question: What now? There will be court cases and challenges before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, but those remain in the future. And besides, they lack the adrenaline rush of a good political scrap. Some felt liberated. Others felt a void. "I felt really good after the vote, but I had a little trouble Tuesday night sleeping," Reid said. "I woke up early thinking about the vote. But then I began to plot a plan to keep after the rats, and so I didn't feel melancholy blue." For Reid, the "rats" are Bush administration officials and nuclear industry executives who engineered the Yucca Mountain vote, a big victory for them and a crushing defeat for Nevada. Jerry Slominski, a lobbyist at the Nuclear Energy Institute, felt "a certain sense of relief and a kind of happiness" after working on Yucca Mountain for the past 3 1/2 years. "I'd rather be on the winning side," said Slominski, who recalled being on the losing side when President Clinton vetoed a nuclear waste bill in 2000. On the day after, "There was a sense we were past the climax, and I definitely did have a moment when I said, 'Whoa, now what?' " said Lisa Gue, a policy analyst with the Critical Mass Energy and Environment Project, one of the groups that organized campaigns around the country to protest the Yucca Mountain Project. Though this in no way compares to death or divorce, people still vary in how they react to changes in their work situation, said Maynard Brusman, a consulting psychologist in San Francisco who advises corporate executives. "Some people spend so much time on something, and now it's gone, and they don't know what to do with themselves," Brusman said. "Others are able to close the lid and move on to something else." Though it remains to be seen whether Reid or Ensign will face political consequences back home, both wasted little time putting distance between themselves and the loss. Tuesday night, the Nevada senators were preparing to be interviewed by television anchors back in the state. Waiting for their cues in the Senate's TV studio, they conversed not about Yucca Mountain but about Serena Williams' powerful tennis serve and how it compared to that of Las Vegan Andre Agassi. For Ensign, the toughest thing was taking part in five hours of Senate debate knowing Nevada was going to lose. "It was like doing the last week of a political campaign knowing you have no chance to win," he said. But after that, "I was pretty excited the rest of the week," he said. Ensign jumped into the issue of prescription drugs, an issue that marked his campaign and his early tenure as a senator before Yucca swallowed most of his time. Today, he was to announce a new bill on the topic. Reid turned his attention to managing the Senate's debate on corporate accountability. Reid said the pain of losing a legislative battle or a court case doesn't match that of losing an election. "To be a candidate in a campaign is very, very personal," he said. "This one was tough, but it's not like a family member getting sick." Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., went through the same decompression back in May after Nevada lost on the Yucca Mountain issue in the U.S. House by a lopsided 306-117 vote. "There was a void in waking up the next morning and realizing there weren't more polls to take or speeches that needed to be polished," Berkley recalled. But as one door closed, another soon opened. Democratic leaders took notice of Berkley's efforts to gather votes on Yucca and invited her to join the party's whip organization. "You don't have the luxury of licking your wounds around here very long," Berkley said. "If you do, you're in a world of hurt." Most lawmakers are quick to move on to other things, said Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, a pro-Yucca leader who claimed victory Tuesday. While the Nevada issue dominated Congress that day, it was completely off the radar by the next day. "It's awful to say this, but because of the crunch of the schedule and other issues, it becomes a matter of, OK, this one is off the plate and now it's on to the next one," Craig said. "Most people aren't going to look back, except maybe the Nevadans," said James Thurber, a government professor at American University who has written about the Yucca Mountain Project and how it's been handled by Congress. "In this case, you lose and you move to another tactic," Thurber said. "When you lose, it's a zero-sum game, but in this case, the fat man isn't singing yet because this issue will continue in the courts and before the NRC." Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002 ***************************************************************** 25 Hugh Collum re-appointed as BNFL chairman by UK govt* Ananova Secretary of State for Trade and Industry Patricia Hewitt confirmed the reappointment of Hugh Collum as chairman of British Nuclear Fuels PLC. Mr Collum's current term of appointment expires on Sept 30, 2002 and he is to be appointed for a further term of 2 years, the Department of Trade and Industry said. Ms Hewitt said: "I am delighted that Hugh has agreed to remain at the helm of BNFL for a further period and I am grateful to him for his hard work since he became Chairman in October 1999" Under the new contract, Mr Collum will earn £165,000 a year, up from £150,000 earlier. © AFX News Story filed: 11:04 Monday 15th July 2002 ***************************************************************** 26 *BNFL boss gets £15,000 boost This is Money THE chairman of British Nuclear Fuels, the state-owned company that runs the Sellafield plant, has been re-appointed to his post and given a £15,000 pay rise. Hugh Collum, 62, will continue in the job for a further two years from October, at a new salary of £165,000. BNFL is this week expected to announce record losses of £2bn following a sharp rise in the company's liabilities for decommissioning its nuclear sites. Trade and Industry Secretary Patricia Hewitt said she was delighted that Mr Collum had agreed to remain as chairman, adding: 'Hugh has re-built the board and steered the company through difficult times'. The minister said the recently announced restructuring of the industry should position BNFL well for the future. The Government announced earlier this month that BNFL's decommissioning liabilities are to be transferred to a new Liabilities Management Agency. Mr Collum is also a non executive director of Safeway, Whitehead Mann Group and Celltech Group. © Associated Newspapers Ltd., 15 July 2002 Terms and Conditions This Is London < ***************************************************************** 27 Fears grow of BNFL losses BBC News | BUSINESS | Monday, 15 July, 2002, [BNFL publicity] Nuclear power accounts for about a quarter of the UK's energy needs State-owned nuclear fuels giant BNFL is widely expected to report a record loss on Tuesday. Weekend newspapers suggest the company could fall into the red by as much as £2bn, the largest loss in the company's history. The figure reflects the cost of cleaning up Britain's radioactive sites as well as the cost of closing some reactors. Last month, the government unveiled proposals to create a separate agency to take on these clean- up costs - effectively passing the costs onto the taxpayer. The creation of this agency was seen as a first step towards the sale of the company, and BNFL is likely to claim that if these one-off costs are stripped out, then the company's performance has improved. Clean-up costs The estimated costs of decommissioning old nuclear plants and storing radioactive waste continue to grow. As of March this year, the total estimated cost was £47.9bn, up sharply from a previous estimate of £35bn. The latest estimate covers decommissioning and demolition of aging plants, processing, storage and disposal of nuclear waste and environmental restoration. "Nuclear clean up is one of the most important technical and environmental challenges facing the UK," energy minister Brian Wilson said in a statement to parliament, when he unveiled proposals for the Liabilities Management Agency (LMA). Crucially for BNFL and the government, ring-fencing the company's liabilities in this way should make it more attractive to potential buyers. BNFL missed out on the last wave of nuclear privatisation. Some of its Magnox plants are old and expensive to run, and as such it was deemed better that they were kept in state hands when the rest of the industry was sold in 1996. ***************************************************************** 28 Watch nuclear transport plans Journal Gazette | 07/15/2002 | The Senate's approval of Yucca Mountain in Nevada as a burial site for nuclear waste places new responsibilities on local officials and Congress to demand as much safety as possible in transporting the waste. Much of the waste from East Coast power plants is likely to be carried through Northeast Indiana by rail or truck on its way to Nevada. The absence of a detailed plan for moving the nuclear waste led Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., to vote against the Yucca Mountain plan. Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., voted for it. Bayh's safety concerns are justifiable, but Lugar's vote served the public interest better. Nuclear waste is hazardous, no matter where it is stored. Maintaining the status quo carries its own risks. The waste is likely to be less hazardous once it is buried inside Yucca Mountain than remaining at 131 power plant and military sites scattered among 39 states. Opponents of the Yucca Mountain site argue that the numerous shipments required to dispose of 77,000 tons of used nuclear reactor fuel risk a catastrophic release of radiation caused by terrorism or accident. The estimated number of annual shipments range from 175 by rail to 2,200 a year by truck. Nuclear waste in larger quantities than those destined for Yucca Mountain have been shipped around the United States and Europe for years. Heavy containers designed to withstand high impacts minimize the chances of the waste escaping. Bayh and other opponents of the Yucca Mountain site would do well to insist on safeguards that equal or exceed anything in the past when the time comes to begin transporting waste to Nevada. The likeliest highway route in northern Indiana would pass through Steuben, LaGrange and Elkhart counties on the Indiana Toll Road. The Department of Energy has identified the CSX and Norfolk Southern lines through Fort Wayne and two others that cross the northern Indiana counties as its choices for railroad routes. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham says a transportation plan with safety requirements designed to guard against terrorism will be ready before the end of next year. Local officials and congressmen representing communities along the likely routes must closely track the DOE's planning process. The planning should be as open as possible and limit secrecy only to issues that raise indisputable security risks. Mayor Graham Richard said he is undecided about whether federal officials should notify the public of times and dates of any shipments of radioactive waste that might pass through Fort Wayne. But Richard said he believes it would be "appropriate that there would be communication with our public safety officials here." Conservation and developing alternative sources of energy are the surest ways to reduce the disadvantages of transporting and storing nuclear waste. Americans have chosen to live in ways that require huge amounts of low-cost energy. The unease caused by transporting and storing nuclear waste will have some benefit if it serves as a wake-up call for the price that is paid by the continuing neglect of alternatives to nuclear power. Until nuclear power is replaced, the public's vigilance is required to make sure that the government and industry handle radioactive waste with all the caution it deserves. ***************************************************************** 29 Yucca Vote Unlikely to Deter Skull Valley Dump The Salt Lake Tribune -- Monday, July 15, 2002 Reporters and scientists ride a mine train into Yucca Mountain, likely future storage site for the nation's nuclear waste. (Tribune file photo) BY JUDY FAHYS Some people are still scratching their heads over the White House deal that Utah Sens. Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett announced last week, a deal intended to foil plans for nuclear-plant waste storage in the desert 45 miles from Salt Lake City. The senators agreed to support the Bush admini- stration's effort to entomb the nation's radioactive discards at Yucca Mountain, Nev., in return for a pledge from Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham to block funds for the Utah facility. A day later, with Utah's votes secured, Congress and President Bush approved Yucca Mountain against the wishes of Nevada. While the senators declared a "victory" for Utahns, others dubbed it a bum deal. Privately, critics whispered that Hatch and Bennett had been duped by the Bush administration. Publicly, some reasoned that Abraham's promise to block financing had to be a ruse, because government money was never budgeted for the private Utah project. "It was never our intent to request money," said Sue Martin, spokeswoman for the consortium behind the Skull Valley storage. "Nor did we expect money" from the Department of Energy. The consortium, Private Fuel Storage (PFS), has always maintained it would go forward with Skull Valley regardless of the vote in Congress because plans for a national waste repository have been dogged by legal and political delays for more than two decades. For the past four years, PFS has worked on a license to park the waste atop a thick, 100-acre pad on the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation, where it would await permanent disposal. The $3.1 billion Utah project could get the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's approval by year's end. If licensed, PFS in two years could begin accepting up to 44,000 tons of waste from the 33 reactors owned by PFS members, as well as waste piling up at the nation's 70 other power plants. Some 10.4 million discarded fuel rods stuffed into 4,000 steel-and-concrete casks -- roughly the nation's entire inventory of commercial nuclear waste -- would stand above ground on top of two earthquake faults in Utah's West Desert and below a busy flight path for bomb-laden jets. Even without delays, Yucca isn't expected to open before 2010. In the meantime, the nation's 103 nuclear reactors are running out of on-site storage, causing fits to an industry eager to relicense old plants and build new ones. "The longer Yucca Mountain is delayed, the more there will be a need for Skull Valley," Martin said. The Utah senators' gambit is based on that premise, in reverse. Now that permanent disposal is on the horizon, Bennett said, it would be "bad business" for the utilities to go forward with the Utah storage because they alone would own the costs and risks of managing the waste. While the utilities might have expected some of the $20 billion in a ratepayer-financed, DOE-controlled nuclear waste fund, Abraham implied in a letter to the Utah senators that the companies would not be eligible for any of it for waste sent to Skull Valley. "All costs associated with the PFS plan would have to be covered by the members of the PFS private consortium," he said in a letter describing his pledge to lawmakers. Hatch was delighted by Abraham's assurances. "This is a big victory for us." But it is a bigger victory for the nuclear industry, say environmentalists, who blamed nuclear industry campaign contributions for swaying the Yucca Mountain decision. Hatch received $29,800 from nuclear power companies and interest groups, and Bennett got $31,000, they said. Both senators dismissed the suggestion their votes were bought. "It appears that Senators Hatch and Bennett traded their vote to proceed with Yucca Mountain for an empty promise from the White House to halt Skull Valley," said Ken Cook, director of the Environmental Working Group, an organization opposed to both nuclear waste sites. "The tragic irony is, Skull Valley is far more likely to gain NRC approval, and open as a 'temporary' site, now that the Senate has voted to proceed with a permanent waste dump at Yucca Mountain," he said. Even proponents of Skull Valley said they were baffled by the deal. "I don't know what it is about," said Steven Kraft, who oversees waste programs for the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry association. "The eight companies in [the PFS consortium] are going to pay for it, and they always were going to pay for it." "The key word in PFS is private," he said. While the Bush administration might try to pressure PFS to mothball its Skull Valley plan by cutting off their access to waste-fund money or licensing appropriations, neither approach is spelled out in Abraham's letter, Kraft points out. And Martin doubted the Energy Department could derail legal or regulatory proceedings. "I'm not sure I understand fully what Secretary Abraham intends [his letter] to mean," she said, "or how the senators interpret it." In fact, nothing in the letter to Hatch and Bennett explains how Abraham intends to deal with a host of factors working in favor of PFS' Skull Valley plan. Those factors include: n Yucca Mountain may take longer than hoped, considering more than two decades and $7 billion went into preparing for last week's vote. Meanwhile, the state of Nevada already has five pending lawsuits to block the project and the five-year NRC licensing process has yet to begin. * The Bush administration supports the industry's push to renew licenses for their first-generation nuclear plants and wants them to begin building next-generation reactors. Increasing the use of "clean" nuclear power is seen as a way to increase the market share of an energy source that already provides electricity to one of every five electricity customers in the nation. All of this means there may be more waste than Yucca alone can hold. * The license for Skull Valley is close to becoming a reality, making it a much quicker solution for the industry's waste problem. NRC staff aides already have deemed it a good project, and regulators are due to decide the remaining questions -- financial viability, earthquake risk, water pollution, wilderness protection and aircraft-crash potential -- by Dec. 5. Despite all of his public posturing to the contrary, even Bennett seemed resigned to Skull Valley storage for at least a few years. And, he conceded, given all the legal, financial and political unknowns ahead, there is no way to know yet whether the Yucca deal truly helped Utah. "It's now a matter of time." fahys@sltrib.com © Copyright 2002, The Salt Lake Tribune ***************************************************************** 30 A Unicoi citizen speaks at a gathering to discuss proposed nuclear facility [http://www.johnsoncitypress.com/] Johnson City Press: 7/14/2002. (Staff Photo by Tony Duncan) To build or not to build? By Chris Garland Erwin Bureau UNICOI — There have been strong reactions for and against the possibility of a Louisiana Energy Services uranium enrichment plant locating in the town. In recent weeks, Unicoi Countians as well as citizens from neighboring counties have started to voice their opinions about the prospective plant. While some are strongly for or against the plant, there is also a sizable group who say they do not care or have not made up their minds and need more information. The Johnson City Press conducted a door-to-door poll last week among property owners in the 100-acre area being considered for the plant as well as adjoining neighbors to the north and south. Twenty-one households with a total of 38 residents were asked if they were: for, against, need information, felt it doesn’t matter or had no comment. In the households along Zane Whitson Jr. Drive, Tinker Road, Plemmons Lane and Wiggand Road 19 percent were for, 39 percent against, 28 percent needed more information, 9 percent said it does not matter and 5 percent had no comment. Unicoi County Executive Paul Monk said there are 22 property owners in the possible site area and that all the owners have been approached by the Economic Development Board and most have signed a letter of intent to sell property. “That just means they are willing to negotiate a price should the site be chosen,” Monk said. While it is not known how much LES may offer property owners for their land, Monk said appraisals are being made and should be ready soon. Carl Jones, owner of Jones &Church Farms, is the largest land holder in the proposed site area with approximately 60 acres. Jones said he has no comment about the proposed enrichment facility site known as “The Tinker Road Project.” Carl Houser, pastor of Lighthouse Baptist Church, Zane Whitson Jr. Drive said the church property is part of the area under consideration. “We are hearing the company will make an approval of a site soon. There are 75 to 85 members here, and so far I have not heard anything negative,” Houser said. “It is our belief the church is not a building, but is a body of believers,” he said. Houser said he will remain open minded about the plant and possible sale of the church property. The newly constructed church opened its doors on Easter Sunday this year. A steeple ordered for its roof will be put in place. But the gravel parking lot will remain as such until more information about site selection from LES is made known, Houser said. “If” is a big word when it comes to discussion on the street about the proposed $1 billion plant that is said to be safe by some and dangerous by others. The EDB has released statements saying the process is safe and the facility will bring major tax revenue into the county for many years to come. “I tried to be for it, but my gut tells me no, and that is the way I will have to be,” said Town of Unicoi Alderman Johnny Lynch. The town’s board will have the opportunity to pass or reject a request to rezone the property to industrial, if the planning commission recommends it, should the site be chosen. Since Lynch’s public comments, citizens with similar views have formed a group called Citizens for the Preservation of The Valley Beautiful. Lynch is host to some of the weekly meetings at his family business off Unicoi Drive called Farmhouse Gallery and Gardens. Local governmental support for the LES plant includes all of the current county school board members and county commissioners. Also in favor are Erwin Mayor Russell Brackins and Nuclear Fuels Services President Dwight Ferguson. Unicoi County Schools Director John Payne said in an EDB release, “We have had to reduce our school budget by about $1 million in the past three years. We are looking to cut another 10-12 instructional positions in the upcoming school year. The plant would turn the tide for our schools with $3.8 million in new local tax dollars going toward the education of our children. That is more than double the county’s current per-pupil allocation of education.” Citizens for the Preservation of The Valley Beautiful continue to ask the following questions: * What are the long-term health risks? * What are the environmental risks? * Should we be concerned with security issues? * What will happen to adjoining and surrounding property values? * How will the remaining material be disposed of? * How will uranium be transported to and from the plant? * Should we be concerned about a uranium enrichment plant locating one mile from an elementary school? * Should the plant leave, who is responsible for decommissioning? * After decommissioning, can the facility or property ever be used for anything else? * If water is dangerous to the process, should last year’s flood in the site area be a concern? Unicoi County Commissioner Ulis Miller said recently that should this county be chosen for the site, “the company that will operate the facility will prepare a license application to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for review. The public will have an opportunity to carefully review the application and learn more about the uranium enrichment process. The public will also be able to voice their support or opposition to the facility before the NRC makes its final decision. An NRC license is required before construction or operation of the facility can begin.” According to NRC officials, site decision by LES is expected by the end of July. (Contact Chris Garland at [cgarland@johnsoncitypress.com] ). © 2001-02 Johnson City Press and Associated Press ***************************************************************** 31 Ely on route for Test Site nuclear dump Daily Times: News Column [Ely, Nevada, Times] By KENT HARPER -- Ely Times Editor Nuclear waste is being shipped through Ely now. But this has nothing to do with Yucca Mountain or spent nuclear power plant fuel rods. And it's been going on for 25 years. Low level nuclear waste, generated by weapons production and research at sites across the nation during the Cold War, is being transported by private companies to the Nevada Test Site, where it is buried in the already contaminated earth. Frank Di Sanza, Division Director at the Nevada Operations Office for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), National Nuclear Security Administration, updated the White Pine County Commission this week on the program. Di Sanza reminded the commissioners that the DOE doesn't set the rules for shipping the low-level, but hazardous wastes. That's all done by the U.S. Department of Transportation. Private carriers are used for the shipments and the carriers are responsible for selecting their routes to the Nevada Test Site. But since 1995, those routes have been limited, Kevin Rohrer, program spokesman, told the Ely Times yesterday. Rohrer attended the commission meeting along with Di Sanza. Rohrer said in 1995 the DOE began a major effort to include local governments in selecting routes for the shipments. "We're trying to come up with alternative routes that will be acceptable..." Rohrer said, while acknowledging there are no routes that are acceptable to everyone. For now, however, there are three routes approved by the state. There are two routes into the Nevada Test Site in Southern Nevada and one route in Northern Nevada. There are waste sites in Southern California and Northern California and another in Idaho, but most of the 22 sites shipping waste to the Nevada Test Site are east of the Mississippi River, with a half dozen in Colorado, New Mexico and the Texas Panhandle. From January through March of this year, 304 shipments of the low level waste came to Nevada -- only four of those shipments took the northern route - I-80 to U.S. 93, through Ely to U.S. 6 to U.S. 95 in Tonopah and then south to Mercury at the Test Site. Those four shipments came from the Princeton Plasma Physics Lab in New Jersey. The lab sent a total of 25 shipments to Nevada during the first quarter, but the other 21 loads came through the southern route. Those routes use U.S. 40 through Kingman, Ariz., and Needles, Calif., before entering Nevada. The route passes through Searchlight before weaving back into California where it breaks into two separate routes at Nipton, Calif., on Interstate 15. One of those routes takes I-15 toward Las Vegas, but turns north at the junction with the highway to Pahrump and through that community to Mercury. The other route continues west on I-15 from Nipton to Baker, where it turns north through Shoshone and back into Nevada at Amargosa Valley before turning off to Mercury. Those routes satisfy the state's major worries about the population center in Las Vegas. No shipments can ever travel across Hoover Dam. Nor can they pass through the "Spaghetti Bowl" interchange of I-15, U.S. 93 and U.S. 95 in downtown Las Vegas. The DOE agreement with Nevada also includes "no intermodal" transfers within Nevada. "Intermodal" transfers are switching from truck to train, either moving cargo from one mode to the other, or sending truck trailers piggy back on rail cars. Despite the existent routes, County Commissioner Kevin Kirkeby told the visiting DOE officials about his concerns if waste ever were shipped into Nevada along the U.S. 50 corridor. He explained the effort to establish the National Heritage Route link between White Pine County and Millard County, Utah. Waste shipments along U.S. 50 could jeopardize the tourism effort and worry visitors to Great Basin National Park. Di Sanza also was grilled about the possibility on an accident on U.S. 6 near Murry Springs. Di Sansa said the agency is aware of the tourism concerns, and the types of shipments traveling along U.S. 6 are usually solid pieces of metal that would take a long time to contaminate a water source in the event of an accident. He was asked about the safety of the shipments. He explained that in the last year, two drivers had reported seeing leaks from their containers (one in Wendover, the other in Arizona). The solid waste, itself, can't leak, but humidity can build up in the containers and leaked on those two occasions. He said the DOE was pleased with the response of the drivers and local emergency management agencies. That's a big part of the program, is helping communities along the routes to be prepared in case of leaks or accidents. Under the DOE grant assistance program, White Pine County received $200,043 from the DOE last fiscal year. The county is to receive $177,902 in grants this fall and, according to Rohrer, more before the end of the fiscal year, likely totalling more than last year's amount. Di Sanza broke down the budget for the $177,902. The vast majority -- $107,525 -- is earmarked for equipment; training, supplies, travel, planning and salaries make up the remainder. The equipment budget includes $45,000 for a 4X4 pickup truck, $21,375 for 45 pagers, $12,000 for four computers, $9,500 for personal protection equipment, $9,100 for a hospital base station, $5,100 for three cutter saws, $4,200 for more training equipment and $1,250 for five electronic dosimeter badges to detect radiation exposure. The waste shipments will continue to be sent to Nevada as the DOE cleans up sites used for nuclear weapons development and research. Rohrer said by 2010 most of that waste should have been sent to Nevada, although some labs will continue to generate it. The shipments arrive in Mercury at the Nevada Test Site and then are taken to blast craters or other areas already contaminated by weapons testing. There they are buried. But it's not a dumping ground. Everything is controlled and monitored, according to Rohrer. "This is one of the best facilities of its kind in the world," he said. ***************************************************************** 32 Truth differs on nuclear waste transport to Yucca Published Sunday, July 14, 2002 By ANDREW SILVA STAFF WRITER Safety of radioactive shipments that may go through Inland Valley a concern Call it the battle of the dueling videos. On one, a speeding train slams into a container similar to the ones that one day may carry extremely radioactive waste to Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. That's provided the site earns a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to become the nation's first repository for its most dangerous waste, and survives the numerous lawsuits challenging it. The cask survives the dramatic crash intact, boosting the contention by supporters of Yucca Mountain that worries about transportation are overblown. The other video shows an anti-tank missile ripping into a shipping cask, a frightening image in the post-Sept. 11 world. While Yucca Mountain is unquestionably remote -- sitting alone in the Nevada desert next to the Nevada Test Site where hundreds of nuclear bombs were detonated -- the issue is a local one for millions of Americans who live along the routes where some day, the dumbbell-shaped containers cradling spent nuclear fuel will travel. An estimated 16 million Americans live within a half-mile of the proposed shipping routes. San Bernardino will likely be a focal point for much of the waste from throughout the country. A glance at a map shows that for areas east of the site, one can't get there without coming into San Bernardino County on Interstates 10 and 40 before turning back northeast to Nevada on Interstate 15. Supporters say concerns about the casks are unwarranted, given their shielding is similar to that on battle tanks and the casks are round, meaning a missile shot would have to hit it dead on to do significant damage. ''You got a terrorist firing at a moving target, and have to hit it just right,'' said Michael Voegele, chief scientist for Bechtel SAIC, the contractor studying Yucca Mountain. He also said a truck bomb next to a shipment or explosives placed along a rail line would be ineffective. ''I just don't believe you could hide enough explosives in the road,'' to make the casks fail, he said. But even the final environmental impact statement admits that readily available explosives can penetrate the casks. The report estimates that a few dozen cancer deaths would result from a successful attack on a truck shipment. The material inside the casks is so deadly that standing next to one of the unshielded, spent fuel assemblies means a fatal dose of radiation within minutes. Other experts argue the assumptions used by the Department of Energy for its casualty estimates are far too low and the scenarios they paint for damage to a cask are woefully incomplete. ''You now have 5-pound explosives you could blow a 6-inch hole in the cask with,'' said Robert Halstead, who has studied the transport of radioactive materials for years and is now working with the state of Nevada to stop the project or to lobby for additional safeguards. Though no tests of full-size casks have yet been done, one of the requirements is that it survive a 40-inch fall onto a 6-inch wide steel post. An analysis done by several experts said a missile can apply that much force even without the warhead detonating. And given the resourcefulness, determination and ruthlessness terrorists have displayed, supporters of the project are being far too overconfident about potential threats, some transportation experts argue. Cleanup costs would run into the billions and possibly thousands of people could die of cancer in a terrorist attack, not to mention deaths from acute exposure firefighters and police officers are likely to receive. Even the accidents envisioned in the Department of Energy analysis are too mild, they argue. Another requirement for the casks is that they be able to stand up to a fire of 1,475 degrees for 30 minutes. But a fire in a rail tunnel in Baltimore in July 2001 burned hotter than that for five days. An analysis done by Radioactive Waste Management Associates based in New York found that a cask of radioactive waste would have started to fail and release radiation within two hours had it been caught in that fire. Halstead argues the Nuclear Regulatory Commission should add several provisions before allowing shipment of waste. The oldest waste should go first because it is less radioactive, though still dangerous. The cask walls should be thickened, which will improve their strength, and reduce the amount of material in each cask, he said. The trade-off is that more shipments would be required, he said. Armed escorts should accompany the shipments at all times, not just through heavily populated areas, as now required. And shipments by rail should be done on dedicated trains, meaning no other cargo should be carried on the same train, he said. Staff Writer Andrew Silva may be reached at (909) 386-3880. Copyright © 2002 Los Angeles Daily News ***************************************************************** 33 Yucca Mountain repository fight now moves into court Daily Times: News Column [Ely, Nevada, Times] By STEVE TETREAULT -- Stephens Washington Bureau WASHINGTON -- The fight over nuclear waste storage in Nevada has shifted from the U.S. Capitol to the federal courthouse, a quarter-mile in distance but a world apart in atmosphere. State leaders failed to redirect the hot rhetoric that led Congress to finalize Yucca Mountain as the nation's waste repository site on Tuesday. They now will try to stop the project with dispassionate legal reasoning. Having already committed millions of dollars to litigation, Nevada's elected officials like their chances. "The Energy Department won't be able to hide behind its political allies in Congress when the courts begin their review of DOE's record on this project," Gov. Kenny Guinn said. "We are confident that we will prevail." For the next few years, much of the grappling between lawyers for the state and its two-headed foe, the Bush administration-nuclear power industry tandem, will take place on paper. Yucca Mountain won't be debated in a trial atmosphere. There will be some public court sessions, but attorneys largely will argue matters of law and procedure among the quiet hallways and high ceilings of the federal appeals court at the bottom of Capitol Hill. The District of Columbia Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals will weigh the Yucca Mountain Project against environmental laws and administrative records that federal agencies have compiled to support the selection of the site, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. It could take two years for individual cases to wind through the process. The state's first lawsuits, filed last summer, have oral arguments scheduled for February. The cases could be wrapped up by the time the Energy Department submits a construction license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission late in 2004. Or, judges could throw the project into chaos, and years of delay, by sending key portions back for more work. "Any one of our cases can wreak havoc on this project," said Joseph Egan, an attorney and nuclear engineer based in McLean, Va., who heads Nevada's special legal team. The state has committed $2.5 million to Egan's group through Sept. 30, 2004. Others on the team include constitutional law authority Charles Cooper, a former member of the Reagan Justice Department who bills $450 an hour, and William Briggs Jr., an administrative law expert and former solicitor at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, who charges $350 an hour. Egan, 47, charges $395 an hour. Since last summer, Nevada has filed five lawsuits in Washington disputing segments of the Yucca Mountain Project: + One lawsuit contends repository radiation standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency won't protect Nevadans far into the future, when radiation escaping from Yucca Mountain should reach its highest levels. + Three allege the Bush administration and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission made decisions based on Yucca Mountain site guidelines wrongfully amended into the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act. + The most recent, filed June 6, picks apart the Energy Department's massive environmental impact statement for Yucca Mountain. The 57-page lawsuit claims there are dozens of violations of procedural law and the 1969 National Environmental Policy Act. A sixth lawsuit, over Yucca Mountain water rights, is being contested in federal court in Las Vegas. And now that Congress has finished its action, a seventh lawsuit probably will be filed soon, officials said. The next one will allege government decisions to single out Nevada for nuclear waste storage were unconstitutional. Deputy Attorney General Marta Adams said the state may argue the Yucca Mountain selection process violated Nevada's state rights. "We think there's something there to argue that Nevada is being unfairly targeted to bear the brunt of the nation's nuclear legacy that is not being shared in any way by the nuclear-generating states," she said. "If in a war, all the soldiers were to come from Nevada, the state of Nevada would have an equal protection type of argument we could take. It's our view there's some real justice issues here." Egan said such a case almost certainly would wind up before the U.S. Supreme Court. "It would basically be, how far can the federal government go to screw one particular state?" he said. "If you didn't stop here (at Yucca Mountain), could Nevada end up being the national sacrifice area for everything? A toxic waste dump for everyone? What are the limits of equal protection under the federal system?" Nevada has been suing the government over Yucca Mountain since 1985. It won its first case, obtaining federal funding to monitor Energy Department site studies. But it has lost more than a half-dozen cases since then, including a challenge of 1987's "Screw Nevada" legislation, which eliminated sites in Texas and Washington state from study and made Yucca Mountain the nation's sole site under consideration for the repository. Michael Bauser, associate general counsel for the Nuclear Energy Institute, said that case, Nevada v. Watkins, is noteworthy because the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected constitutional arguments about the project. The U.S. Supreme Court subsequently declined to hear a Nevada appeal. "People forget about that case because it's over 10 years old, but it was a very significant case," said Bauser, who keeps a copy of the decision on his desk. Adams maintains the project is ripe for lawsuits because the government has laid out its administrative record, and the Bush administration and Congress have made final decisions about Yucca Mountain. The Nuclear Energy Institute has filed its own lawsuit against the EPA radiation standards and has entered the other Yucca Mountain cases to back the Energy Department. "Our position will be to support the sufficiency (of the project) based on what we've seen so far," Bauser said. Jay Silberg, a Washington lawyer who often represents the nuclear industry, said he doesn't think Nevada has a strong case. Silberg isn't involved in the lawsuits, but he says he may be hired to help the Nuclear Energy Institute. Silberg, a partner in the Shaw Pittman firm, said judges won't "flyspeck" federal agencies on matters like environmental impact statements. "The standard is a test for reasonableness. They don't require perfection or for people to foresee the future," Silberg said. "They look to see if the agencies made a good-faith attempt to take a hard look at what the impacts are, and anyone who has seen the (Yucca Mountain environmental study) expects it will pass. "If you throw enough mud around, you hope something will stick, and Nevada has done that for years," Silberg said. But Jim Morman, a top environmental litigator in the Justice Department during the Clinton administration, said "there's never been a case like this one." "If the plaintiffs can show there were shortcuts, I would think a court would be interested. "A NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) case could put a real hole in the waterline of this project," Morman said. "It's happened many times. Agencies are frequently told by the court to go back and do it again." "Chances of the government being upheld are better than 50-50, but on the other hand this is a unique law," Morman said. Egan said an order for the Energy Department to redo key parts of the Yucca Mountain program would be as good as killing it outright. Nevada officials don't think the Yucca Mountain Project can pass muster if done the "right way." "There are certain things (the Energy Department) cannot do right, and that's why they didn't do it right the first time," Egan said. Egan says Nevada believes it has found enough problems to derail Yucca Mountain. "I can't imagine we're going to lose every one of these lawsuits," Egan said. "There's just no way we're going to lose every case." ***************************************************************** 34 There was a time when Nevadans fought to get a nuclear dump Daily Times: News Column [Ely, Nevada, Times] By ED VOGEL -- Ely Times Capital Bureau CARSON CITY -- Assemblyman Lloyd Mann introduced a resolution on Feb. 26, 1975, that said Nevada would welcome the creation of a nuclear waste repository at the Nevada Test Site. Both houses of the Legislature overwhelmingly approved the resolution within weeks. They said the "people of Southern Nevada have confidence in the safety record" of the Atomic Energy Commission. Within a few years, residents began hearing about studies at Yucca Mountain, an ugly razorback a few miles north of Lathrop Wells, now called Amargosa Valley. On Tuesday, Nevada was awarded what its legislators and many of its residents wanted back in 1975, although most of them now view things nuclear much differently. The U.S. Senate overturned Gov. Kenny Guinn's veto of Yucca Mountain as the nation's high-level nuclear waste repository. "It was the biggest political mistake of my life," remembered former U.S. Sen. and Gov. Richard Bryan about the vote he made a generation ago. As a legislator, Bryan supported the repository resolution. He said those votes came when Nevadans, out of a sense of patriotism, would support just about anything nuclear as long as it brought well-paying jobs to the state. During the 1950s, many Nevada schoolchildren rose at dawn to watch the flash of atomic tests. Almost everybody in Las Vegas had a relative or friend who worked at the Nevada Test Site. "When the nuclear age came to Nevada, it was embraced enthusiastically," said Bryan, a Democrat. "Ninety-nine point nine percent of us never thought about nuclear waste or knew it existed. We just knew the bomb brought an end to the war." Not long after the passage of the pro-nuclear resolution, 11 spent fuel rods from a nuclear reactor in Florida were hauled to the Nevada Test Site and placed within the bowels of a mine. There were no protests to this early demonstration of the storage of nuclear waste. Test site officials regularly bused members of the media and local leaders to the mine to show how safely nuclear waste could be stored. "We were very naive in the early days," said Bob Loux, administrator of the state Agency for Nuclear Projects. "We thought the selection would be a fair process." The son of a career Energy Department worker, Loux took a job with the state in 1979 to monitor federal activities in selecting the nuclear repository. "I knew most of the guys at the DOE in the early days," he said. As Loux became Nevada's point man on Yucca Mountain, the views of average Nevadans about the nuclear age began to change. First, there was a spate of lawsuits filed by former Interior Secretary Stewart Udall in 1979 on behalf of downwinders, people who lived downwind of the test site during the days of atmospheric testing. Test site workers started to complain of illnesses and asked Congress to help. A cancer cluster was reported in St. George, Utah. Thyroid problems cropped up in younger people who had been brought up on milk produced by cows downwind of the test site. The Three Mile Island nuclear disaster was blared over newscasts in 1979. Bringing the horror to celluloid reality was the 1979 release of the movie "The China Syndrome," spawning concern of a reactor meltdown in those pre-Chernobyl days. "All of a sudden, we saw nuclear as something exceedingly dangerous," Bryan said. "There was a shattering of innocence. People became less trusting of government. That may be the legacy of Vietnam." "The noose was around our neck from the start," added Bob Fulkerson, who as the leader of Citizen Alert organized the first protests against the Yucca Mountain Project. "Nevada had a gung-ho, all-for-our-country, pro-military position in the '70s and '80s. We begged the government not to shut down nuclear weapons testing, and the same time we said we didn't want nuclear wastes." During that era, the federal government looked at different rock and salt formations across the country in its quest to find a place to dispose of wastes piling up in cooling ponds outside the nation's more than 100 nuclear power plants. Quickly identified as leading contenders for a repository were the basalt formations at the government's Hanford, Wash., Nuclear Reservation, the volcanic tuff at the Nevada Test Site and salt formations in Deaf Smith County, Texas. Sites in Utah, Mississippi, Louisiana and New York also were checked. Congress passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act on Dec. 22, 1982. President Reagan signed the bill into law two weeks later. That act called for the Energy Department to construct two repositories, one in the East, the other in the West, opening the first by 1998. Five sites initially would be studied for each repository. Three would be selected by 1985 for detailed study. Within six months of Reagan's signing, news reports circulated that then-unknown Yucca Mountain was the leading contender for the repository. Bill Vasconi, the Southern Nevada chairman of the Nevada Nuclear Waste Study Committee, said it was not a coincidence that Yucca Mountain was ranked so high. "The test site has been one of the of the most-studied geological sites in the country," said Vasconi, whose group favors the Yucca Mountain site and wants the state to negotiate for compensation in exchange for accepting the repository. "We detonated 928 nuclear devices at the site. We were doing it for our country. All for our country ... should still mean something. Yucca Mountain was chosen because we already had a nuclear facility there." On Dec. 19, 1984, the Energy Department selected Yucca Mountain as one of three finalists for the first repository. In a Las Vegas news conference, officials touted the economic benefits: 8,500 workers would be needed during site construction. About that time, Loux compared notes with his colleagues in other states being considered for the repository. He found the studies there were perfunctory. "They'd say, `Nevada, you're it,' " he remembered. "We had assumed it would be a fair selection, but it was becoming painfully obvious it was a political process." Regardless of the law, Energy Secretary Donald Hodel announced in 1986 there would be no studies for a second repository. He also said if Texas didn't want the repository in Deaf Smith County, near Amarillo, then it would not be built there. By then, Bryan and members of the Nevada congressional delegation were crying foul. Their protests fell on deaf ears. A year later, Congress put into law what Hodel had proposed. On Dec. 17, 1987, a House-Senate negotiating team reworked the Nuclear Waste Policy Act and made Yucca Mountain the only candidate for a high-level nuclear repository. No Nevadans were on the negotiating team. All four members of the Nevada delegation said the decision was pure politics. Deaf Smith County was dropped because of the influence of House Speaker Jim Wright of Texas, and Hanford was rejected because of the clout of Majority Leader Tom Foley of Washington. Sen. J. Bennett Johnston, D-La., who drew up the bill, boasted: "We got a site and we will be able to put nuclear waste there safely. "Nevadans are not particularly happy about it, but they've known for some time they would be picked," Johnston added. "I would bet anything after it is built they would deem it one of their treasures." Five days later, as part of an Omnibus Reconciliation Act, the Yucca Mountain amendments were approved by Congress. The legislation became known in the Silver State as the "Screw Nevada Bill," and Johnston become a persona non grata in Nevada. "What is proposed is an act of naked and unprovoked aggression by the people of several states against a state which is smaller and has less power, the state of Nevada," said Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev. Then in his first year as a senator, Reid called himself a pessimist and predicted "Nevada won't be able to stop the dump." Nevada's political leaders consider that law purely political, but Steve Kraft of the Nuclear Energy Institute said the decision was made on science. "The fact was there was a record before each member of Congress that said Yucca Mountain was ranked Number One," Kraft said. "During the floor debate in the Senate a month before, they argued about costs." Kraft said lawmakers initially thought studies to find a suitable repository would cost $60 million. But by 1987, the estimates of studying a single site reached $1.2 billion. As of today, $4 billion has been spent at Yucca Mountain, with $7 billion on the program overall, and costs may reach $60 billion before a repository actually opens, he said. Shortly after the 1987 vote, Reid blamed the decision to study only Yucca Mountain on former Sen. Paul Laxalt, R-Nev., saying Laxalt did "zip" as a senator to keep it out of Nevada. Laxalt retaliated by saying, "Harry blew it, and everybody in Washington knows it." Laxalt said Democrats had cut the "nasty deal" that essentially brought the dump to Nevada. The legislation later was signed by Laxalt's best friend, President Reagan. If blame is handed out after today's vote, Loux could point his finger at members of both political parties. He remembers one-term Sen. Chic Hecht, R-Nev., infamous for calling Yucca Mountain a "nuclear suppository," beat him up as a witness when Loux journeyed to Washington to testify on Yucca Mountain. Loux said mixed signals were sent by the delegation about Nevada's views on Yucca Mountain. "At the national level, the Democrats put the screws to us," said Loux, pointing to Johnston and Rep. John Dingle of Michigan. Outside the Washington beltway, Loux said, the real culprit is the nuclear power industry, which pulled the strings of politicians who acted on not-in-my-back-yard principles. The nuclear power industry provided the contributions for politicians who did not want a dump in their states, he said. Reno political consultant Andy Barbano says one can go back to President Eisenhower and his "Atoms for Peace" program of the 1950s to find blame. Under Eisenhower, the nation began looking for peaceful uses of atomic energy and started building nuclear power plants. No consideration was given then to waste disposal. "Nuclear power plants were developed as part of the program to justify spending on nuclear weapons," he said. "Blame the military industrial complex." ***************************************************************** 35 NRC construction license may serve as block for Yucca Mountain dump Daily Times: News Column [Ely, Nevada, Times] By KEITH ROGERS -- Las Vegas Review Journal The Yucca Mountain Project has survived Gov. Kenny Guinn's veto, but the Energy Department must clear another procedural test -- and another challenge from Nevada -- before it can begin building the nuclear waste repository. The department is required to submit a construction license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Energy officials say the detailed application, which must include design specifications and a construction schedule, will be ready no sooner than December 2004. Nevada officials, however, say the Energy Department has only three months to put the documents together, and federal legislation seems to back them up. "The secretary shall submit to the commission an application for a construction authorization for a repository at such site no later than 90 days after the date on which the recommendation of the site designation is effective," the Nuclear Waste Policy Act states. Tuesday's Senate vote to override Guinn's veto made the site designation official. Just hours after the Senate vote, Energy Department spokesman Joe Davis restated Secretary Spencer Abraham's promise that only a "full and complete application" will be submitted to the NRC, even if it takes through 2004 to prepare one. "We don't see any significant issue will arise from the 90 days," Davis said. "The fact of the matter is we've already missed one deadline, in 1998, to accept the waste." Bob Loux, Nevada's Nuclear Projects Agency chief, said his office is investigating how to force the Energy Department to adhere to the required 90-day period for submitting a substantially complete license application. "They seem to believe the element of the law they don't like, they don't have to obey," he said. "The laws we have to live with every day they believe apply selectively to them. In essence, they think they're above the law." Jeff Ciocco, senior project manager for the NRC's High-Level Radioactive Waste Branch, says the Energy Department is obligated to meet the 90-day application filing requirement. "The NRC isn't required to take any action if DOE doesn't submit a license application within 90 days," he said in a telephone interview. He added that the Energy Department must make documents supporting the application available electronically to the NRC six months prior to submittal. The application must include general information about Yucca Mountain; a schedule for construction of the repository and receipt of the waste; where the waste will be placed within the repository's maze of tunnels; and a safety analysis that describes the repository's dimensions, material properties and specifications. Nevada officials say the application should include a detailed design that shows how the tunnels will be spaced and how hot or cold the repository will become as the waste decays. Once the construction license application is submitted, the NRC could begin a licensing review that would take several years to complete. If the NRC determines the application is incomplete, it will be sent back to the Energy Department for correc- tions. "What normally happens, if we have questions ... then we ask the applicant to answer those questions. There might be more than one round," NRC spokeswoman Sue Gagner said. NRC staff can reject the application if it demonstrates that both below-ground and above-ground operations cannot be conducted safely. If the application is ruled complete, it will be accepted by entering it into a docket with a notice that gives the public, including Nevada officials, a chance to intervene in a hearing process. Gagner said the hearing will include a number of sessions and will be held in Nevada. It will be "very extensive," she said, although she could not specify how much money the NRC plans to spend to conduct the sessions. A three-member licensing board, appointed by the NRC's Atomic Safety License Board Panel, decides whether to recommend construction to the five-member NRC. The licensing board can hold all issues to the scrutiny of a public hearing, including those pertaining to the suitability of Yucca Mountain, despite Tuesday's Senate vote authorizing the site. Another issue of contention for the state is the length of time the repository would be required to contain the waste. Some of the nuclear materials that would be stored inside Yucca Mountain won't reach their peak dosages for 300,000 to 800,000 years, or longer in some cases. Yet the repository would be required to safely contain the highly radioactive wastes for only 10,000 years. Other issues Nevada officials are concerned about include the size and shape of a proposed 11-mile buffer zone around the mountain. The Energy Department says radioactive materials that leak from the site would be diluted in the zone's groundwater. The buffer zone, according to state officials, contradicts the original intent of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, which calls for the mountain's natural geology to contain the waste and all radioactivity. If the NRC denies the license, the Energy Department can submit another application for review, starting the cycle over again. There is no limit to how many times the Energy Department can submit new applications, Gagner said. Eventually, the Energy Department will need NRC approval to receive spent fuel from commercial power reactor operators and load it into the tunnels of the Yucca Mountain repository. The Energy Department also will need a license modification to close the repository once it has been filled with the highly radioactive used fuel assemblies. The second licensing phase will come as construction of the repository nears completion. At that time, just prior to 2010 under the current schedule, the Department of Energy must submit an application for a license to receive up to 77,000 tons of high-level radioactive waste, most of which is spent fuel from commercial power reactors across the nation. If that license is granted, the Energy Department can begin loading the canisters of spent fuel into the repository's tunnels. In the third licensing phase, after the repository has been filled with waste containers, estimated to be sometime after 2034, the Department of Energy can apply for a license amendment to decommission and close the repository. ***************************************************************** 36 Nevada prepared to fight in court - Frankie Sue Del Papa [http://www.nevadaappeal.com] OPINION Sunday, July 14, 2002 In the aftermath of the United States Senate vote overriding Nevada's veto of the Yucca Mountain project, I am writing to assure you and your readers that the state's ability to defeat the proposed repository is strong. Now that Nevada's political remedy in the form of the veto has been overridden, Nevada is better able to advance its substantial legal arguments in the courts. As Nevada's chief legal officer, I believe that there is every reason for optimism that Nevada will ultimately prevail and prevent development of this ill-conceived project. However, the publics continued support for the litigation is vital to our efforts. At present, Nevada is involved in seven lawsuits involving the Yucca Mountain project. Through the efforts of our excellent legal team, five of the lawsuits were initiated by the State to challenge, among other things, the suitability of the Yucca Mountain site itself to contain and to isolate spent nuclear fuel and high-level nuclear waste from the human and natural environment. Not only are there nearly 300 open-ended technical issues relative to the site identified by neutral third parties, but the most basic legal criteria for building the project are missing. Two additional lawsuits involve federal challenges to the Nevada state engineer's denial of water for the construction and operation of the proposed repository. Each of the state's cases is strong on the merits and portends favorable results for Nevada's cause. Our expert legal team is currently contemplating filing additional lawsuits and an administrative petition with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. In addition, the hurdles the Department of Energy faces in a licensing proceeding are formidable, particularly in view of the technical concerns expressed by the NRC itself. Undoubtedly, Nevada is the David against the nuclear industry's Goliath. Although the nuclear industry's political muscle proved unbeatable in Congress, Nevada's presentation of the science, the facts, and the State's resolve will be potent weapons in the courtroom and before administrative tribunals. We are convinced that the fight is winnable with your support. Frankie Sue Del Papa Attorney General ***************************************************************** 37 Opinion - Editorial: Yes on Yucca 07/15/02 posted Monday, July 15, 2002 Savannah Morning News NO ONE likes having to deal with the radioactive waste of nuclear power plants. But it's a problem that's not going to go away. And the current situation in which spent nuclear material is sitting at more than 130 above-ground sites scattered across 39 states, with differing levels of safety and security, is untenable. Thus, the Senate last Tuesday wisely voted 60-39 to proceed with opening the Yucca Mountain federal facility in the Nevada desert. It's good to see Georgia's Sens. Max Cleland and Zell Miller both supported the move. The measure, which followed a similarly decisive House vote last May, overturns Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn's unique veto of a presidential order last February to use Yucca as a waste site. It hardly was a snap decision. The government began searching for a suitable waste site way back in 1978. By 1987, the list of candidates was whittled down to Yucca Mountain, 100 miles north of Las Vegas. Opponents of the site initially argued that it wasn't remote enough, wasn't secure enough or that earthquakes could release the waste into the environment. When that didn't stand up to scientific scrutiny, they began a scare campaign not about Yucca itself, but about the radioactive shipments that have to pass through many states by rail or road on their way to being stored in Nevada. They conjured images of "mobile Chernobyls" exposing cities and communities to potential health risks. The environmental groups Public Citizen and the Nuclear Information & Resource Service published a pamphlet that alleged that the government "has no idea how their casks will stand up to serious accidents or terrorist attacks." That's simply not true. The casks that will be used to transport the waste to Yucca are safer than the ones being used to store it at the current sites, as demonstrated by numerous, punishing safety tests. The Weekly Standard's Stephen Hayes writes that casks have survived being smashed by a tractor-trailer into a 700-ton brick wall at a speed of 81 mph, being dropped from 2,000 feet onto hard ground and being rammed by a 120-ton locomotive train traveling at 80 mph. In just one instance, he writes, was a cask ever breached: "A powerful explosive placed directly atop the cask managed to blow a small hole (less than an inch in diameter) in its exterior. Scientists estimated that about 0.03 percent of the radioactive substance might have leaked, resulting in an exposure level to those in the immediate vicinity just over what you get from several trips on an airplane." That's hardly the drama of "The China Syndrome." Besides, the government has already transported more than 2,700 loads of spent nuclear waste over 1.6 million miles since the 1960s without an accident that released radiation. So it's not like Uncle Sam is taking a giant leap into the unknown; he already has an impressive safety record over four decades. That's not to say that neither the Yucca Mountain site nor the transporting of nuclear waste is devoid of risk. No one can guarantee with absolute certainty that nothing bad will happen. But then, that's true of anything in life. What the government has done is spend two decades taking steps to minimize those risks. The alternative is to do nothing and maintain the status quo. But that carries far more serious risks than adopting the Yucca plan. Current storage methods aren't nearly as secure as concentrating waste deep inside Yucca and they expose far more Americans to danger, either through an accidental leakage or from a terrorist attack. Furthermore, current storage sites will soon reach their capacity (if they haven't already) and won't be able to accept any more waste. That could lead to a shutdown of America's nuclear energy industry, which ultimately is the goal of many of the environmental groups that oppose Yucca Mountain. The future of nuclear energy is a separate issue to be debated at another time. A solution is needed now, however, to deal with the current, ongoing problems of disposing of radioactive waste. Thankfully, a majority of the Senate has agreed to move forward with Yucca Mountain, the safest and most practical choice. ***************************************************************** 38 Skull Valley plan far from dead [deseretnews.com] Sunday, July 14, 2002 Utilities' promise to Bennett, Hatch may carry little weight N-waste foes see Yucca vote as a lose-lose for Utah By Donna Kemp Spangler Deseret News staff writer © 2002 Deseret News There was no cheering by Utah officials fighting to keep nuclear waste out of the state. There were no back slaps or high fives, and there was no outward sense of victory. For, observers note, one possible result of the U.S. Senate vote last week authorizing a permanent waste dump at Nevada's Yucca Mountain is that a similar, albeit "temporary," facility on Goshute tribal lands in Tooele County's remote Skull Valley also may have moved closer to reality. "If the Nuclear Regulatory Commission decides to license Skull Valley, there will be some interest in building it regardless of what happens at Yucca Mountain," says Dianne Nielson, executive director of the Utah Department of Environmental Quality and the state's point person in opposition to the Skull Valley project. For nuclear waste foes, the Yucca Mountain vote was deemed a lose-lose situation for Utah no matter how it had gone. If the Senate had defeated Yucca Mountain, the only other option on the table for the nuclear power industry would have been Skull Valley, where a consortium of utilities called Private Fuel Storage has a lease with the Goshutes to store nuclear waste in above-ground canisters for up to 40 years. By approving Yucca Mountain, the Senate sparked a legal chain reaction that is likely to keep the federal storage plan in court for years. The earliest Yucca Mountain could open for business is 2010, but industry officials expect it to be much later than that. And because the nuclear power industry needs a storage site now, Skull Valley remains a viable option in the interim. "The vote on Yucca Mountain was very important," says Scott Northard, PFS project manager. "But we are still proceeding through the licensing process" for the $3.1 billion Skull Valley facility. Sens. Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett, both R-Utah, said they voted in favor of the Yucca Mountain project in exchange for a promise from the Bush administration that it would help circumvent PFS by throwing up financial roadblocks. But PFS subsequently noted that it had never planned to tap federal money to support the project, and there is nothing financially the federal government is obliged to do. In the meantime, the federal Atomic Safety and Licensing Board is expected to make a recommendation to the NRC by the end of the year. Nuclear economics But if Yucca Mountain is set to begin accepting waste sometime over the next decade, is a temporary site in Skull Valley really necessary? Yes, PFS says. Skull Valley is a stopgap until Yucca Mountain comes on line, and without Skull Valley, some nuclear power plants will be forced to shut down once their storage capacity is reached. But Steve Kraft, a scientist with the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry group, says the issue is more about economics than it is about lack of storage space. Most power plants have adequate storage space, and all could temporarily store spent nuclear fuel rods in above-ground canisters similar to the ones targeted for Skull Valley. But storing nuclear waste on-site is a political hot button. Local communities don't want the waste, and at least one state, Minnesota — where PFS is based — passed a law limiting the amount of waste that can be stored on site. That limit is expected to be reached in 2007 when the Prairie Island plant would be forced to shut down. At least 12 nuclear power plants have shut down, but they are unable to be decommissioned because there is no place to take the waste that built up during plant operations. Until a waste solution is found, the utilities are forced to maintain the sites and manage the waste, all at a very high cost to the utilities. But couldn't the utilities bite the bullet for another 10 years until Yucca Mountain comes on line? "Even when you add the cost of shipping, it is more cost-effective to build a centralized facility," Northard says. That would seem to support Utah's long-held argument that states that generate nuclear waste could leave it where it is until a permanent site is ready, but for financial reasons have chosen not to. A national dilemma Kraft says the nuclear power industry is in a pickle. It has operated for decades with assurances from the U.S. Department of Energy that it would take the waste off its hands. The utilities have already paid billions in special taxes to pay for permanent storage. About 44,000 tons of spent fuel are now stockpiled around the country (not counting military waste). Currently, there are 103 commercial nuclear power plants generating another 2,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel each year. Yucca Mountain is designed for 77,000 tons, a capacity that will be reached soon after it opens. Those numbers have Nielson worried. Once Yucca Mountain is full, where will the 2,000 tons per year go? If Skull Valley is licensed as a temporary facility — a decision on the PFS license is expecting late this year — then it becomes likely that the waste generated in the decades to come will go to Utah, she says. Nielson says it is a matter of simple math: The combined capacity of Yucca Mountain and Skull Valley (117,000 tons) almost exactly matches the anticipated total of nuclear waste that will need to be stored over the next four decades — the lease period for Skull Valley. Kraft says that argument, while perhaps mathematically accurate, ignores the reality that Yucca Mountain has the room to store more than 100,000 tons of nuclear waste if Congress so authorizes. But it also illustrates the national dilemma of creating an endless stream of nuclear waste with no coherent plan to dispose of it in the decades ahead. Until the Senate vote, the industry had no certainty there ever would be a permanent storage site, a reality that has stymied the expansion of nuclear power for years. With the nation in an energy crisis that is expected to worsen, nuclear power is championed by many as a clean, environmentally friendly solution. President Bush, for one, has pointed to expansion of the nation's nuclear energy capabilities. But the wonders of nuclear power, Nielson says, are an illusion if the nation does not first develop a strategy to permanently deal with the toxic wastes that remain lethal for 10,000 years. "If you want nuclear power, the jobs, the economic benefits that accrue from the power source, you have to assume the responsibility for managing the waste," she says. That applies to waste already created as well as to waste that is yet to come. E-mail: donna@desnews.com [donna@desnews.com] © 2002 Deseret News Publishing Company ***************************************************************** 39 Utilities' promise to Bennett, Hatch may carry little weight [deseretnews.com] Sunday, July 14, 2002 By Jerry D. Spangler and Lee Davidson, Deseret News staff writers © 2002 Deseret News Just before a deciding Senate vote, six principal members of a consortium of mostly Eastern nuclear power utilities promised U.S. Sens. Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett of Utah this past week that if the Senate approved Nevada's Yucca Mountain as a permanent waste repository, the companies would not commit funds to building a temporary storage facility in Utah's Skull Valley. But what could have been interpreted as a signal that the Utah storage facility would be scrapped may be anything but that. Sue Martin, a spokeswoman for the consortium called Private Fuel Storage, says the two-year, $3.1 billion construction phase on the Goshute Indian reservation in Tooele County will nonetheless begin soon after the Nuclear Regulatory Commission grants a license — probably late this year. That despite the Senate 60-39 vote last Tuesday approving Yucca Mountain. "It was always our intent that construction will be financed through service agreements with our customers," not from the member companies directly, Martin said. In other words, the six companies that wrote the letter won't be contributing their money to the construction — but other companies wanting to get rid of nuclear waste will be. "Yes, that is probably true," Martin said. "We always planned on other customers and that we would go ahead and build it." PFS expects to contract for waste disposal with many other nuclear power companies that are not part of the consortium. But Mary Jane Collipriest, Bennett's spokeswoman, said Saturday that is not likely. "If Yucca is under way, would it make sense? It makes sound business sense to stay where they are." Maybe it would to those nuclear power companies with adequate storage space on site, but many are under fire in their home states to have the waste removed long before 2010, the earliest Yucca Mountain would open. And Minnesota has even passed a law limiting the amount of waste that can be stored on site there — a limit that will be reached in 2007 when the nuclear power plants would be forced to shut down. The letter from the consortium members to Hatch and Bennett states, "we . . . want to make it clear that our support for PFS comes entirely from the past failure of the United States government to fulfill its obligations under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act and concerns about the timely development of the Yucca Mountain facility." The letter also says, "we will pledge to both of you that our companies will commit no funds to construction of the PFS facility past the licensing phase so long as the Yucca Mountain project is approved by the Congress and the repository development proceeds in a timely fashion." The letter was signed by executives with FirstEnergy, Nuclear Generation AEP, Entergy Corp., FPL Group, Southern California Edison and Southern Nuclear Co. PFS is made up of eight nuclear power utilities, including those six that signed the letter. Collipriest said that without their support, construction of a Utah facility is improbable. "With six of the eight committing to withdrawing funding it would seem difficult if not unlikely for the remaining to make up for the withdrawn funds and answer to their rate payers," she said. Hatch was not available for comment Saturday. At a press conference last week with Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham, Hatch and Bennett made references to assurances that PFS would not be built. And both used language strikingly similar to that in the letter from consortium members. For example, Bennett said he believed PFS would likely continue with its license application, but he did not think the companies would commit a dime to construction unless the federal government dragged its feet on construction of Yucca Mountain. Abraham said no federal funds would be authorized for the transportation or storage of nuclear waste to a temporary site in Utah, thereby making temporary disposal in Utah economically unfeasible. But Martin said PFS had never planned on tapping into federal funds set aside for nuclear waste disposal. Those funds are generated by a tax on nuclear power that will all go to fund Yucca Mountain. The PFS facility to be built on Goshute tribal lands could be ready for operation by early 2005. The company has a 20-year lease with the tribe, with an option for a second 20 years. E-mail: spang@desnews.com [spang@desnews.com] ; leed@desnews.com [leed@desnews.com] © 2002 Deseret News Publishing Company ***************************************************************** 40 Senators are hypocrites [deseretnews.com] Monday, July 15, 2002 Congratulations, Sens. Bennett and Hatch. You have succeeded in making yourselves look like hypocrites. If you really believe that nuclear waste is a danger for Utahns, why is it not dangerous for Nevada residents? The truth is that nuclear waste, even high-level nuclear waste, is a less dangerous form of pollution than the stuff emitted from our cars every day. Nuclear waste is solid. Nuclear waste can be contained. Even if the containers were hit directly with a bomb, it would be exceedingly hard to vaporize the high molecular weight uranium, plutonium, and their radioactive decay products. Instead of using loaded words like nuclear and radiation to make people afraid, let those who are detractors make a scientific comparison of nuclear waste and other forms of pollution. Clinton King Provo © 2002 Deseret News Publishing Company ***************************************************************** 41 [psy-op] Idaho Nuclear Lab given Notice of Intent to Sue Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2002 23:14:44 -0500 (CDT) Note: forwarded message attached. --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Autos - Get free new car price quotes X-Apparently-To: smilicoyoti@yahoo.com via -40.-120.-82.15; 15 Jul 2002 16:24:46 -0700 (PDT) Return-Path: Received: from 216.136.131.248 (HELO web21205.mail.yahoo.com) (216.136.131.248) by mta536.mail.yahoo.com with SMTP; 15 Jul 2002 16:24:46 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [209.211.143.76] by web21205.mail.yahoo.com via HTTP; Mon, 15 Jul 2002 16:24:46 PDT Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2002 16:24:46 -0700 (PDT) From: eric stewart Subject: Idaho Nuclear Lab given Notice of Intent to Sue To: smilicoyoti@yahoo.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 4376 X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: from multipart/mixed by demime 0.98e X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: Alternative section used was text/plain Note: forwarded message attached. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Autos - Get free new car price quotes http://autos.yahoo.com X-Apparently-To: sonsun2012@yahoo.com via -40.-120.-127.59; 13 Jul 2002 02:02:13 -0700 (PDT) X-Track: 1: 100 Return-Path: Received: from 66.109.139.6 (HELO vortex.wildrockies.org) (66.109.139.6) by mta595.mail.yahoo.com with SMTP; 13 Jul 2002 02:02:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wildrockies.org by vortex.wildrockies.org with SMTP; Fri, 12 Jul 2002 15:41:46 -0700 Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Sender: news@mail.wildrockies.org Date: Fri, 12 Jul 2002 15:41:31 -0600 To: "Wild Rockies Alerts" From: "KYNF" (by way of Wild Rockies News) Subject: KYNF Press Release: Idaho Nuclear Lab given Notice of Intent to Sue Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Sender: Precedence: Bulk Content-Length: 3833 Press Release: KEEP YELLOWSTONE NUCLEAR FREE P. O. BOX 4838 JACKSON, WY 83001 307-732-2040 (307-413-1166 cell) www.yellowstonenuclearfree.com Idaho Nuclear Lab given Notice of Intent to Sue on Unpermitted Radioactive and Hazardous Waste Evaporators (Jackson, WY) - Keep Yellowstone Nuclear Free (KYNF), the Environmental Defense Institute (EDI), and Dave McCoy have given formal Notice of Intent to Sue to the Department of Energy regarding numerous alleged violations of the law at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL). Several facilities at the INEEL, including the radioactive and hazardous waste evaporators, have been operating without, or with partial, environmental permits. KYNF, EDI, and Dave McKoy have now amassed enough information describing the alleged violations, and are prepared to pursue these in court. Federal law requires advance notice of possible lawsuits against the government. The 13-page notice provides details on dozens of potential violations of five environmental laws, including the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act. "INEEL has been operating without the required air permits for decades, and several of the facilities could not physically pass the legal requirements. So, the DOE and the State of Idaho have been dragging out the permit process with the hope that the facilities will complete their job before the State has to reject the permits," stated Erik Ringelberg, KYNF Executive Director. "It has taken the DOE over a year to get KYNF information about how these evaporators even operate through the Freedom of Information Act. We just want the DOE to prove that they can follow the law and operate the evaporators without contaminating our air with radioactive and hazardous waste." "INEEL has a long history of ignoring the law," explained Chuck Broscious. "We are going to put a stop to that." "Just over a week ago, the INEEL admitted to being caught violating the Nuclear Safety Management laws in November of last year," stated Dave McCoy, Idaho Falls resident. "The DOE had identified serious problems as far back as December 2000, and the contractor apparently ignored the warnings." ### And, a recent letter to the DOE outlining our concerns about the lack of followup on Alternatives to Incineration: July 8, 2002 The Honorable Jessie Roberson Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management U.S. Department of Energy 1000 Independence Avenue, SW Washington, DC 20585 Re: Reprogramming Investments in Alternatives to Incineration Dear Ms. Roberson: As you are aware, Keep Yellowstone Nuclear Free (KYNF) has closely tracked the Department of Energy's (DOE) follow up on the Blue Ribbon Panel's recommendations for the development and testing of alternative technologies to incineration. Our interest is to ensure the development of safer alternative technologies for waste treatment and a publicly responsive participation process to avoid a repeat of the contentious problems of the recent past at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL). KYNF urges the DOE to follow up on the Blue Ribbon Panel's recommendations and develop the top tier alternatives as a means to support the DOE's laudable goal of accelerating cleanup schedules and reducing expenditures. The DOE can demonstrate its commitment to the development of alternatives by fully funding the comparative testing of alternative technologies with real waste in the 2003 budget. We appreciate the DOE's efforts in supporting the June 7 and 8 Public Forum on Alternatives to Incineration. While this meeting did not appear to meet the intent of the settlement agreement, it was a useful foundation for the DOE to better understand the issues and concerns that stakeholders have regarding the DOE's development of alternatives. The clear message that we took away from the forum was that the Blue Ribbon Panel members present, as well as the other citizens present, shared KYNF's concerns that the DOE was not following the Panel's recommendations. We understand that the DOE efforts for alternatives testing at INEEL have to this date focussed exclusively on the hydrogen gas generation issue for transportation of a single class of the transuranic (TRU) wastes to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP). While we agree that this is certainly a useful first step, we remain concerned that this strategy ignores what we consider to be the fundamental need, meeting the PCB criteria for disposal. The DOE's expectation that there will be a regulatory solution to the PCB acceptance criteria, by changing the standard from below 50 ppm to some higher number, is not supported by what we understand to be the political and regulatory reality of the State of New Mexico's stake in not changing the criteria. It is our opinion that indefinitely delaying bench scale comparative testing of alternative technologies (with actual wastes) will have the effect of delaying removal of PCB-contaminated aboveground TRU wastes, and pre-defining the outcome of how to deal with the below-ground TRU wastes at INEEL. While KYNF has no official position on the belowground TRU waste at INEEL, we are fully cognizant that the treatment issues will be the same for those wastes as well. The delays in developing alternatives to incineration will likely cost the DOE and the taxpayers many more millions of dollars than if the testing of alternatives were to occur now. In addition, the reorganization of the DOE's Mixed Waste Focus Group into "Strategic Thrusts" appears to have placed too much emphasis on decentralization at the risk of downplaying cross-site problems. From what we have observed to this point, the Strategic Thrust efforts will not be as transparent to the public as the Focus Groups, and their work will be directed to short-term solutions at individual sites. We understand the Rocky Flats sludges that are contaminated with PCB's are found in significant quantities not just at INEEL, but also at their origin at Rocky Flats. A similar waste treatment solution will be required for treating both of these waste streams. The existing DOE investment in human capital of the Focus Groups, as well as research and development capability, can be leveraged to answer the pressing public concerns about the appropriate alternative to incineration treatment. Or, the DOE can discard the current efforts of the Focus Groups and then rebuild the capacity in several years at great expense, when the WIPP waste acceptance issue is finally concluded. KYNF questions, and does not agree with, DOE's new position that the development of alternatives to incineration at INEEL remains British Nuclear Fuel, Ltd. (BNFL) sole responsibility. The DOE has already committed to the research, development, and deployment of alternatives, and the DOE remains the most qualified source of expertise on this issue. BNFL does not have the expertise or the funding to complete comparative testing for alternatives to incineration, and there is no requirement for them to do so under BNFL's contract with the DOE. It would be a disservice to the public to have BNFL make a selection of a treatment technology without prior comparative testing. We look forward to your responses to our concerns. Sincerely, Berte Hirschfield Board Chair Erik Ringelberg Executive Director cc: Hon. Secretary Abraham Ms. Ellen Livingston-Behan, Senior Advisor to the Secretary Hon. Senator Thomas Hon. Senator Enzi Hon. Congressman Cubin Ralph Cavanagh, Chair of DOE's Blue Ribbon Panel Dr. Charles Till, State of Idaho Representative to the Blue Ribbon Panel Dr. Carl Anderson, State of Wyoming Representative to the Blue Ribbon Panel and ATIC Steve Allred, Director of Idaho Department of Environmental Quality Warren Bergholz, Acting Mana ************************************************************************ List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: News Submissions or Problems: This list is a public service provided by WIN: http://www.wildrockies.org ***************************************************************** 42 Science Fraud at the Lawrence Berkeley Lab Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2002 00:47:30 -0700 (PDT) San Francisco Chronicle Berkeley lab found research fabricated Scientist accused of misconduct fired Keay Davidson, Chronicle Science Writer Saturday, July 13, 2002 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Berkeley -- Officials at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have concluded that a sensational but false claim about the discovery of two new elements was based on fraudulent research, the second case of scientific misconduct revealed by the federal energy lab in three years. Originally hailed as a "stunning discovery" into the structure of the atomic nucleus, the finding was retracted by Lawrence Berkeley lab last year after independent scientists were unable to duplicate the results. Lab officials then undertook an investigation. Lab Director Charles V. Shank acknowledged in a speech to employees last month that the false claim was "a result of fabricated research data and scientific misconduct by one individual," according to a summary of his remarks in a lab newsletter. "There is nothing more important for a laboratory than scientific integrity, " Shank reportedly told employees. "Only with such integrity will the public, which funds our work, have confidence in us." In this case, he said, "the most elementary checks and data archiving were not done." Although lab spokesman Ron Kolb declined to identify the individual, citing personnel rules, The Chronicle has learned that lab investigators identified Victor Ninov, a respected expert on the physics of heavy elements, as the scientist behind the fraudulent data. SCIENTIST FILED GRIEVANCE The lab suspended Ninov in November and terminated his employment after the misconduct finding. Ninov, who has filed a grievance against the lab, could not be reached for comment Friday. In 1999, the federal Office of Research Integrity found that Lawrence Berkeley lab scientist Robert P. Liburdy had committed "scientific misconduct" by "intentionally falsifying and fabricating" his data to support assertions of cellular effects from electric and magnetic fields. Liburdy resigned from the lab after the lab yanked his financing. The Ninov case is more dramatic because it supposedly involved a discovery of great importance to our understanding of the periodic table of elements, a copy of which hangs on the wall of every high school chemistry teacher's classroom. The world of physics was thrilled in May 1998, when laboratory officials announced their researchers had discovered the heaviest known element, the "superheavy" element dubbed 118, and its decay product 116. (The numbers refer to the elements' location on the periodic table of elements.) They managed to generate "118," they claimed, by using the lab's 88-inch cyclotron, a particle accelerator, to fire a beam of krypton atoms onto lead. The research team was led by Ninov, a native of Bulgaria who had come to the lab several years earlier. The team reported its findings in the journal Physical Review Letters in an article titled, "Observation of superheavy nuclei produced in the reaction of Krypton-86 with Lead-208." Then-Energy Secretary Bill Richardson called it "a stunning discovery which opens the door to further insights into the structure of the atomic nucleus." Ninov was the first of 15 authors listed for the Physical Review article. The second author, lab scientist Kenneth Gregorich, declined to comment Friday. None of the other authors is suspected of participating in the fraud. COLLEAGUES RETRACTED CLAIM In follow-up experiments, outside labs were unable to replicate the earlier results. Some members of the Berkeley team submitted a follow-up report to Physical Review Letters that retracted the original claim. At that time, Gregorich told Physics Today that he and his colleagues were trying to figure out what had gone wrong. "There's been quite a bit of experimental and theoretical work based on our 1999 data, so that we felt we needed to get the word (of subsequent failure) out," he said. On Friday, lab spokesman Kolb stressed that some personnel were suspicious of the reported findings early on. "The one thing we want to emphasize more than anything is that we had ferreted this out on our own," Kolb said. "Nobody externally came to us and told us, 'This (scientific finding) looks crazy, you ought to check it out.' " In his speech disclosing the fraud to employees, lab director Shank ended with a sobering message on scientific integrity. "Emphasizing that the lab will vigorously pursue all issues involving scientific integrity, Shank said many lessons have been learned from the Element 118 experience, including one 'that all co-authors have a responsibility before a paper is published to verify the data,' " the lab's newsletter said. 'COMMITMENT TO INTEGRITY' But Shank told employees: "I am proud of the intensity and professionalism of the (internal) review to get to the bottom of this, and of the commitment of the laboratory to the highest level of scientific integrity." Asked why the lab did not announce the fraud publicly, Kolb explained that lab Director Shank felt "he had to balance the importance of getting a very strong statement to the lab community about the importance of integrity and, at the same time, not to jeopardize the personnel (grievance) actions that are continuing." Reported cases of scientific fraud are rare but hardly unknown. One of the most tragic occurred in the 1920s, when a respected Austrian scientist was suspected of injecting ink into laboratory frogs in order to prove one of his pet theories. After being accused of fraud, he committed suicide. In recent decades, historians of science have debated whether some of the most famous scientists in history faked or "fudged" their results, including the great ancient astronomer Ptolemy and the famed 20th century British psychologist Cyril Burt. The Berkeley laboratory, named in honor of Nobel Prize-winning physicist Ernest Lawrence, was founded in 1931 under the name Radiation Laboratory. It has 4,000 employees and does no military or classified research, Kolb said. E-mail Keay Davidson at kdavidson@sfchronicle.com. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Autos - Get free new car price quotes http://autos.yahoo.com ***************************************************************** 43 Lab's future role in fighting terror clouded by politics Tri-Valley Herald Monday, July 15, 2002 - 2:58:32 AM MST By Lisa Friedman WASHINGTON BUREAU A NEW MEXICO senator's tirade against Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory last week recharged the diplomatic skills of at least one Bush administration official. A NEW MEXICO senator's tirade against Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory last week recharged the diplomatic skills of at least one Bush administration official. The White House had proposed creating a leading anti-terrorism research center at the nuclear weapons laboratory in Livermore. But that story changed as soon as Sen. Pete Domenici -- who represents Los Alamos and Sandia labs in New Mexico, and holds the purse strings to thousands of energy related projects -- criticized the choice of Livermore. Former Ambassador Linton Brooks, now acting director of the National Nuclear Security Administration, told Domenici not to worry, that Livermore would not be top dog. Instead, he said, all the labs would be on an equal footing. California Sen. Dianne Feinstein was not around to hear Domenici's attack on Livermore or Brooks' response, so she later asked the NNSA chief for some clarification. Rather than illuminate the exact future roles of the labs, Brooks responded that "they are all priceless national assets." To which Feinstein replied, "Are you running for public office?" ©1999-2002 by MediaNews Group, Inc. and ANG Newspapers ***************************************************************** 44 Hanford Reach: Stepping back in time to what the Columbia once was like The Seattle Times: Monday, July 15, 2002, 01:25 p.m. Pacific By Stanton H. Patty Special to The Seattle Times RICHLAND — It's a grand irony. There is an Eden-like stretch of the Columbia River here that exists only because it was zoned "off limits" in World War II as scientists developed plutonium for use in one of the atom bombs dropped on Japan. The more than 50-mile-long treasure is Hanford Reach, one of America's newest national monuments. Here the Columbia, flowing free of the impact of power dams, meanders through a dramatic landscape of ancient cliffs, sand dunes and grasslands. Bald eagles, ospreys, great blue herons, white pelicans and other birds share the refuge with coyotes, mule deer, Roosevelt elk, beavers, jack rabbits and bobcats. "It's a place that massages my soul," says Kris Kelley Watkins, a member of the Hanford Reach National Monument Federal Planning Advisory Committee. The committee is working with the U.S. Fish &Wildlife Service and the U.S. Department of Energy, joint stewards of the 195,000-acre monument, to draft a management plan for Hanford Reach. "We want controlled access for the long term," Watkins says. "Hanford Reach is a jewel, a great opportunity for tourism. But we also have a responsibility to preserve it for future generations. STANTON H. PATTY A lonely sculler rows on the Columbia at sunrise. "One gets the feeling of being on sacred ground." There already is limited access. There are no public roads through the monument, only a few spur roads leading to boat launches. The only commercial operation — Columbia River Journeys — offers jet-boat excursions from Richland between early May and mid-October. Some geography: Hanford Reach begins just north of Richland in southeastern Washington's Benton County. Richland and neighboring Pasco and Kennewick form the Tri-Cities, a destination better known for golf courses and wineries than pristine panoramas. The Reach extends along the river to Priest Rapids Dam. Some history: The 586-square-mile Hanford Site, where plutonium was produced for nuclear weapons, was acquired by the federal government in 1943. It was the time of the super-secret Manhattan Project that led to development of the World War II atom bombs. Residents of two pioneer towns in what now is Hanford Reach — Hanford and White Bluffs — were given 30 days to move out when their properties were condemned by the government. Soon giant reactor buildings were in place to make plutonium. STANTON H. PATTY Great blue herons nest in trees high above the Columbia River. Plutonium: When uranium ore, which occurs in nature, is bombarded with neutrons, the atomic structure of uranium is rearranged to form a new element, plutonium. Then the plutonium goes into the core of nuclear weapons to help create the chain reactions that release vast amounts of energy — like the explosion that shattered the Japanese city of Nagasaki. (The bombs that hit Nagasaki and Hiroshima were different kinds. Only the second bomb, the one dropped on Nagasaki, used plutonium made at Hanford. The first bomb, the one that destroyed Hiroshima, used highly enriched uranium-235 produced at Oak Ridge, Tenn. The Manhattan Project had pursued two different lines of research, and both worked.) Plutonium production here continued through the Cold War into 1988. In June 2000, Hanford Reach National Monument was created by President Bill Clinton. What Lewis and Clark missed "We're going to see a special place today as we travel through Hanford Reach," says Ken Wise, skipper of the jet boat Chinook Wind. "It's the way things were on the Columbia before Lewis and Clark were here in 1805." Actually, visitors to Hanford Reach get to see what Lewis and Clark missed. STANTON H. PATTY The undeveloped stretch of the Columbia was preserved when the government declared it "off limits" so scientists could work in secret during World War II to develop plutonium for the atomic bomb. The explorers canoed down the Snake River to the Columbia and camped about where the two rivers meet. That's the site of today's Sacajawea State Park, on the outskirts of Pasco. Then, instead of turning upriver toward Hanford Reach, the Corps of Discovery hurried down the Columbia to the Pacific Ocean. Chinook Wind's crew is in no hurry. The 20-passenger jet boat skims over smooth water on a Tri-Cities blue-sky day — into the embrace of Hanford Reach. First we hear the cries of thousands of gulls, ring-billed gulls. Clouds of gulls dart overhead. Others are nesting and feuding on a small island toward the eastern shore. A gang of goslings Families of Canada geese have claimed the other side of the river. A gang of goslings climbs the riverbank to join their moms as our boat approaches. Then we see red-wing blackbirds, egrets, loons and cormorants. Birders aboard are busy with their checklists. Here's one for the roster: an American white pelican, with a wingspan of almost 8 feet. Majestic at rest or in flight. A bald eagle circles for a landing. A cormorant, sleek as a black arrow, dives for a fish. STANTON H. PATTY An interpretive sign describes the visit of the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1805. Much of the Reach's natural setting remains unchanged to this day. An osprey couple is busy building a nest atop a fake power pole. The local electric utility erected the pole in hopes of diverting the ospreys from making their home next door on a real transformer. It seems to be working. The tour is supposed to last four hours or so. Ken Wise and Ray Hamilton, his fellow boat driver, are not worried about schedules. They pause whenever it's show time in Hanford Reach. Like now. Is this a mirage? We are abeam of what seems to be a seascape — 6,000 acres of sand dunes, rippling out of desert sagebrush, down to the Columbia. The dunes are reminders of long-ago ages when this area was flooded with lakes, Wise says. So are towering sandstone bluffs just ahead. Locals call these the White Bluffs, sandstone cliffs that form the eastern bank of the Columbia for about 20 miles. Layers of sandstone, lake bottoms once upon a time, deposited more than 3 million years ago. Egyptian temple columns They look almost man-made, with eroded faces like the columns of an Egyptian temple worn by the ages. Depending on the river level, the tawny bluffs range from 350 to 500 feet high. STANTON H. PATTY The White Bluffs, what's left of lakebottom deposits that are about 3 million years old, provide a dramatic backdrop to the stretch of the Columbia River known as Hanford Reach. Fossils of prehistoric camels, rhinos, mammoths and horses have been recovered from the White Bluffs, Wise says. On the western horizon, shut-down nuclear reactors are grim silhouettes. The ghostly shell of old Hanford High School is about all that is left of long-abandoned Hanford town. A shy coyote glances our way, then sprints out of sight. Over on Locke Island, where for centuries the Wanapum Indians of Hanford Reach lived, a quintet of mule deer scampers across a sandbar. A prairie falcon perches like a stone statue in the late-afternoon sun glare. It would be difficult to fault Kris Kelley Watkins, a member of the Hanford Reach planning committee, if she were to advocate opening this wonderland to swarms of tourists. Watkins also happens to be president and chief executive of the Tri-Cities Visitor &Convention Bureau. But it isn't going to happen on Watkins' watch. "No way," she says. "This place is precious." Stanton H. Patty, a Vancouver, Wash., writer, is the retired assistant travel editor of The Seattle Times. Copyright © 2002 The Seattle Times Company ***************************************************************** 45 Judge says Bush view of executive privilege is too expansive [startribune.com] Associated Press Published Jul 13, 2002 WASHINGTON, D.C. -- A federal judge says the Bush administration has a disturbingly broad legal view of confidential advice to the president that would keep a huge amount of government information secret. U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan also accused the Bush administration of making purposefully misleading arguments in defending Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force against two lawsuits. The Sierra Club environmental organization and Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group, are seeking records about how the Cheney task force was influenced by industry executives and lobbyists in formulating national energy policy. Sullivan criticized the Bush administration's position that applying the Federal Advisory Committee Act to the Cheney task force encroaches on the president's right to receive confidential advice necessary to carry out his duties. The judge said the government's position implies that "any action by Congress or the judiciary that intrudes on the president's ability to recommend legislation to Congress or get advice from Cabinet members in any way would necessarily violate the Constitution." "Such a ruling would eviscerate the understanding of checks and balances between the three branches of government on which our constitutional order depends," said the judge, who was appointed to the bench by former President Bill Clinton. The judge said the proper approach is to examine whether disclosure would prevent the executive branch from carrying out any constitutionally assigned function. Sullivan's opinion details his legal reasoning for his May decision to reject the Bush administration's motion to dismiss the cases. Sullivan said Justice Department lawyers had mischaracterized a minority opinion in a Supreme Court case as if it were controlling legal authority that should result in dismissal of the lawsuits. "One or two isolated mis-citations or misleading interpretations of precedent are forgivable mistakes of busy counsel, but a consistent pattern of misconstruing precedent presents a much more serious concern," Sullivan wrote. Justice Department spokeswoman Barbara Comstock noted that the judge granted the Bush administration's motion to dismiss Judicial Watch's claims based on the Freedom of Information Act, and the judge agreed that FOIA does not apply to the vice president. "To the extent that he denied our motions to dismiss the lawsuits, he has indicated he will go forward with discovery, and he is allowing limited discovery to determine whether our legal defenses have merit," Comstock said. Copyright 2002 Star Tribune. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 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: *****************************************************************