***************************************************************** 01/17/02 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 10.16 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POLICY 1 Finland set to back building of new nuclear power plant 2 Finnish parliament to vote on fifth nuclear plant by spring 3 Uranium pact is in jeopardy 4 Price battle threatens Russian uranium deal NUCLEAR REACTORS 5 US: Diablo Canyon Ownership Change 6 US: NRC Begins Special Inspection of Pump Problem at Quad Cities 7 Chernobyl trauma lives on 8 Canada: Fired nuke worker drops suit 9 US: Yankee wants to build security building NUCLEAR SAFETY 10 US: Anti-Radiation Pill Distribution at Least a Month Away 11 US: Politicians Assail Evacuation Plans for Nuclear Plant Disaster 12 US: Rumsfeld clears Army plant workers to talk NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 13 US: Energy secretary selects Nevada's Yucca Mountain as nation's 14 US: Two States Weigh Digging Up Nuclear Waste From New London, Conn. 15 US: Watchdog says EPA in coverup 16 Ireland: Dismantling of Sellafield pile 'must proceed' 17 US: Waste can wait, but keep cash coming 18 US: At the Mercury Cafe, the lights are always on 19 US: NRC Releases Complete Final Environmental Statement on Proposed 20 US: Yucca: Inform yourself 21 US: Study OKs Utah nuke waste dump 22 US: Berkley urges anti-Yucca campaign 23 US: ROCKET FUEL INGREDIENT: EPA reassesses chemical's threat 24 US: Letter: Yucca: Doing our part, and then some 25 US: Letter: Nuclear waste's silver lining 26 US: Editorial: Negotiating for benefits a bad deal 27 US: Nevadans urged to call Bush 28 US: Councilman says Nevadans have paid their nuclear dues 29 US: EPA says perchlorate may cause more harm 30 US: Promises to keep about dump site 31 US: Nuclear fuel rods missing from Connecticut plant for decades wer 32 INB to export uranium to Belgium 33 US: Missing nuclear fuel rods may be in S.C. 34 US: Nuclear waste on its way? 35 New alarm bells over Sellafield 36 US: Dove Lobbies Against Waste Site 37 New Court Date for BNFL Health and Safety Charges 38 No Leakage from Cracked BNFL Pond 39 US: Letter to President Bush from Clark County and the City of Las 40 US: Got Nuclear Waste? Send it to Vermont. 41 US: Berkley Kicks Off Yucca Letter Writing Campaign 42 Chair Herrera, Mayor Goodman Urge President to Reject DOE Recommemdation 43 US: Governor frustrated by lack of action on INEEL waste 44 US: Two States Weigh Digging Up Nuclear Waste From New London, Conn. NUCLEAR WEAPONS 45 US: Nuclear Underachievers 46 Asia's Nuclear Pandora's Box 47 Russian minister says miniature nuclear charges out of reach of 48 Russia looking out for underground nuclear test ban violations 49 Senior general confirms that Russia is reducing its nuclear 50 Belarusian KGB foils attempt to sell 1.5 kg of uranium 51 Radiation levels on Russian Kursk sub are being strictly 52 US: Importance of work by tech firms soars after terrorist attacks 53 U.S., Russia Tackle Nuclear Cuts in 2-Day Talks 54 Asia's Nuclear Pandora's Box 55 US: 'Flame' walk heads toward Oregon 56 North Korea Allows Visit by Nuclear Inspectors 57 US: Tom Nichols on nuclear weapons 58 India: Navy Chief cagey about sea-based nuke capability 59 Terrorist Attack Threat Claims Raised 60 Denmark urges US to adopt nuclear test ban treaty 61 So what is "fail-safe"? 62 N-attack: Naval chief says India can strike back US DEPT. OF ENERGY 63 Wash. Town Fends Off Tumbleweeds 64 New lab unveiled at Oak Ridge $850,000 facility will test for beryll 65 The Chronic Insecurity Of The U.S. Nuclear Weapons Complex 66 Chronic Insecurity: Three Case Studies 67 Net-based stewardship tool now in the works 68 Whistleblowers: Shooting The Messenger 69 USEC, DOE swap barbs 70 Chronic Insecurity: Problems And Solutions 71 POGO Urges Department of Energy to Restore Access to Web Sites OTHER NUCLEAR 72 Talks on nuclear fusion project begin - 73 Nuclear Power Holds Promise for Tiny Batteries ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 Finland set to back building of new nuclear power plant Financial Times; Jan 17, 2002 By NICHOLAS GEORGE Finland is expected to move a step closer to building a new nuclear power plant today, marking an unusual victory for an industry that has been on the retreat in other European countries. At its meeting this afternoon, the Finnish government is forecast to support an application to construct the country's fifth reactor, clearing the way for a final parliamentary vote on the issue this spring. The Finnish decision will be in sharp contrast to developments in its Baltic neighbours, Sweden and Germany, which are planning to phase out nuclear power and decommission plants. "This would be a significant development," says Peter Fraser, a senior adviser at the OECD's International Energy Agency in Paris. "There is no other country in Western Europe where a government is at present supporting a proposal to build a new nuclear power reactor." The application is firmly backed by Finnish industry which says that without the building of new electricity generating capacity the country will face shortages. According to the Finnish Energy Industries Federation, Finergy, electricity consumption will increase by more than 20 per cent by 2015, prompting the need for about 3,500 megawatts of extra capacity. A new nuclear reactor producing between 1,000MW and 1,600MW, to be built on the site of existing plants at Olkiluoto or Loviisa, would go some way towards making up the shortfall. In 2000, nuclear power accounted for 27.3 per cent of electricity generation compared with 18.2 per cent from hydropower, 11.5 per cent from biomass, 10.5 per cent from coal and 10.1 per cent from natural gas. About 15 per cent was imported. There is little scope for expanding the hydropower system, while increasing the use of fossil fuels would run contrary to the Kyoto protocol to limit carbon dioxide emissions. Opponents say Finland does not need a nuclear solution. With Europe's electricity markets increasingly integrated, it can buy power from its neighbours, either in the form of electricity or by increasing the use of natural gas from Russia. Finergy's president Juhani Santaholma doubts it would be sensible to increase the country's reliance on imports from Russia, which he says already accounts for more than 50 per cent of Finland's total energy supply. Although Paavo Lipponen, the Social Democratic prime minister, will back the application, the five-party coalition government is not united on the issue. Some ministers are expected to vote against. Osmo Soinivaara, minister for health and social services and chairman of the Green party, will oppose the application on safety grounds. He also believes production of cheap electricity will take away the incentive for industry to save energy. However, Mr Soinivaara says the Greens will not at present leave the government but will wait until MPs have voted before deciding on its position. "The real battle will be in parliament," he says. This is not the first time parliament has been asked to vote on a fifth reactor. In 1993, MPs rejected a government proposal by a narrow majority and this spring's free vote is also expected to be a close one. Copyright: The Financial Times Limited 1995-1998 ***************************************************************** 2 Finnish parliament to vote on fifth nuclear plant by spring BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Jan 17, 2002 Text of report headlined: "Nuclear power plant venture moves forward in the cabinet" from Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat web site on 16 January Helsinki. The government Financial Affairs Committee supports the application by Teollisuuden Voima to begin construction of a new nuclear power plant. The committee reached its decision Wednesday [16 January] afternoon. At this stage no vote was taken. The entire cabinet will take a position on the issue on Thursday. There will be a vote within the cabinet but the result is expected to support the application, which must then win parliamentary approval. A decision by Parliament is expected in the late spring. Source: Helsingin Sanomat web site, Helsinki, in Finnish 16 Jan 02 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter All Material Subject to Copyright ***************************************************************** 3 Uranium pact is in jeopardy [WBTV] [charlotte.com] Published Wednesday, January 16, 2002 U.S. firm agreed to buy from Russia Uranium pact is in jeopardy Price dispute raises concerns about disposition of material By DAVID WILLMAN ALAN C. MILLER Los Angeles Times WASHINGTON -- A historic 1993 agreement to sell tons of uranium stripped from Russian warheads to fuel American power plants is in jeopardy because of a dispute over price between the Russians and a U.S. company. The standoff between the Russians and the U.S. company responsible for carrying out the deal, USEC Inc. of Bethesda, Md., already has stalled shipment of uranium to the United States. And arms-control specialists are concerned that a collapse of the deal could increase the chance of terrorists or rogue nations obtaining the nuclear material. A senior Bush administration official, Energy Undersecretary Robert Card, told the American company in a letter last week that "U.S. strategic interests may be at risk if the (firm) cannot ensure continuity of shipments of Russian down-blended (uranium) to the United States." Card said the disagreement also could lead to a nuclear power fuel shortage in the United States. USEC, which relies heavily on the Russian uranium, supplies about 70 percent of the uranium fuel used in American nuclear plants. Under the original federal plan, Duke Power's McGuire and Catawba nuclear plants were to begin using a blend of the Russian uranium and a small percentage of plutonium in 2007. A facility to manufacture the new fuel was to be built at the Savannah River Site near Aiken, S.C. S.C. Gov. Jim Hodges warned over the summer that South Carolina could be stuck with the plutonium if the plan fell through. ***************************************************************** 4 Price battle threatens Russian uranium deal - smh.com.au - World Thursday, January 17, 2002 By David Willman and Alan Miller in Washington A historic 1993 agreement to sell uranium stripped from Russian warheads to fuel American power plants is in jeopardy because of a dispute over price. The stand-off between the Russians and the US company responsible for carrying out the deal has stalled shipment of uranium to the United States. Arms control specialists fear that the deal's collapse could increase the chance of terrorists or rogue nations obtaining the nuclear material. The US Energy Undersecretary, Robert Card, told the American company in a letter last week that "US strategic interests may be at risk if the [firm] cannot ensure continuity of shipments of Russian down-blended [uranium] to the United States". He said the disagreement could also lead to "a nuclear power fuel shortage" in the United States. In mid-1998, the US Government ceded to the private company USEC responsibility for implementing the agreement with the Russians to buy 500 tonnes of military uranium. Because USEC and the Russians remain at odds over pricing, no shipments have been authorised for 2002. Responding to Mr Card last Thursday, USEC's president, William Timbers, said his letter "undermines and could significantly affect the ability of [USEC] to reach prompt and successful agreement" with the Russians. A USEC spokesman said the company expected to resolve its differences with the Russians. However, a Bush Administration official said that USEC and the Russians "seem to be at loggerheads ... I think [the uranium agreement] is in jeopardy. I would not characterise this as normal negotiations." The 1993 US-Russian accord, known as "Megatons to Megawatts", was a watershed. The US Government agreed to buy about 500 tonnes of highly enriched uranium stripped from former Soviet warheads over 20 years. The proceeds were to employ thousands of Russian scientists and technicians, who would blend down, or dilute, the material for use as fuel. The securing of the weapons-grade uranium meant it could not be obtained by terrorists, such as Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network. And by employing Russians to blend down the material, the deal would help dissuade them from selling their services to others who covet nuclear materials and expertise. Los Angeles Times ***************************************************************** 5 Diablo Canyon Ownership Change [Federal Register: January 17, 2002 (Volume 67, Number 12)] [Notices] [Page 2455-2456] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr17ja02-87] NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION [Docket Nos. 50-275 and 50-323] Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant, Unit Nos. 1 and 2; Notice of Consideration of Approval of Transfer of Facility Operating Licenses and Conforming Amendments and Opportunity for a Hearing The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (the Commission) is considering the issuance of an order under 10 CFR 50.80 approving the transfer of Facility Operating Licenses Nos. DPR-80 and DPR-82, for the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant, Unit Nos. 1 and 2 (Diablo Canyon) currently held by Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E), as owner and licensed operator of Diablo Canyon. The Commission is also considering amending the licenses for administrative purposes to reflect the proposed transfer, and amending the antitrust conditions in licenses as discussed below. According to an application for approval filed by PG&E, the transfer of the licenses would be to a new generating company named Electric Generation LLC (Gen), which would operate the facility, and to a new wholly-owned subsidiary of Gen named Diablo Canyon LLC (Nuclear), which would hold title to Diablo Canyon and lease it to Gen. PG&E is requesting approval of these transfers in connection with a comprehensive Plan of Reorganization (Plan) for PG&E filed under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code. No physical changes to Diablo Canyon or operational changes are being proposed in the application. The proposed conforming administrative amendments generally would replace references to PG&E in the licenses with references to Gen and Nuclear, as appropriate, to reflect the proposed transfer. With specific regard to the antitrust conditions in the licenses, the application proposes changes such that Gen will be inserted in the conditions and thus become [[Page 2456]] subject to complying with them, and E Trans LLC, a new company that will be affiliated with Gen upon implementation of the Plan and that will acquire the electric transmission assets of PG&E but not have any interest in Diablo Canyon, will be also be inserted in the conditions and thus become subject to complying with them. In addition, the application proposes that PG&E will remain designated in the conditions for the limited purpose of compliance with the conditions, notwithstanding the divesting of its interest in Diablo Canyon, while Nuclear will not be named in the conditions. Notwithstanding the proposed changes to the antitrust conditions proffered as part of the amendments to conform the licenses to reflect their transfer from PG&E to Gen and Nuclear, the Commission is considering specifically whether to approve either all of the proposed changes to the conditions, or only some, but not all, of the proposed changes, as may be appropriate and consistent with the Commission's decision in Kansas Gas and Electric Co., et al. (Wolf Creek Generating Station, Unit 1), CLI-99-19, 49 NRC 441, 466 (1999). In particular, the Commission is considering approving only those changes that would accurately reflect Gen and Nuclear as the only proposed entities to operate and own Diablo Canyon. Pursuant to 10 CFR 50.80, no license, or any right thereunder, shall be transferred, directly or indirectly, through transfer of control of the license, unless the Commission shall give its consent in writing. The Commission will approve an application for the transfer of a license if the Commission determines that the proposed transferee is qualified to hold the license, and that the transfer is otherwise consistent with applicable provisions of law, regulations, and orders issued by the Commission pursuant thereto. Before issuance of conforming license amendments, the Commission will have made findings required by the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended (the Act), and the Commission's regulations. As provided in 10 CFR 2.1315, unless otherwise determined by the Commission with regard to a specific application, the Commission has determined that any amendment to the license of a utilization facility which does no more than conform the license to reflect the transfer action involves no significant hazards consideration. No contrary determination has been made with respect to this specific license amendment application. In light of the generic determination reflected in 10 CFR 2.1315, no public comments with respect to significant hazards considerations are being solicited, notwithstanding the general comment procedures contained in 10 CFR 50.91. The filing of requests for hearing and petitions for leave to intervene, and written comments with regard to the license transfer application, are discussed below. By February 6, 2002, any person whose interest may be affected by the Commission's action on the application may request a hearing and, if not the applicant, may petition for leave to intervene in a hearing proceeding on the Commission's action. Requests for a hearing and petitions for leave to intervene should be filed in accordance with the Commission's rules of practice set forth in Subpart M, ``Public Notification, Availability of Documents and Records, Hearing Requests and Procedures for Hearings on License Transfer Applications,'' of 10 CFR Part 2. In particular, such requests and petitions must comply with the requirements set forth in 10 CFR 2.1306, and should address the considerations contained in 10 CFR 2.1308(a). Untimely requests and petitions may be denied, as provided in 10 CFR 2.1308(b), unless good cause for failure to file on time is established. In addition, an untimely request or petition should address the factors that the Commission will also consider, in reviewing untimely requests or petitions, set forth in 10 CFR 2.1308(b)(1)-(2). Requests for a hearing and petitions for leave to intervene should be served upon Richard F. Locke, Esq., Pacific Gas and Electric Company, 77 Beale Street, B30A, San Francisco, California 94105 (e-mail address rfl6@pge.com), and to David A. Repka, Esq., Winston & Strawn, 1400 L Street, NW., Washington, DC 20005 (e-mail address drepka@winston.com); the General Counsel, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555 (e-mail address for filings regarding license transfer cases only: ogclt@nrc.gov); and the Secretary of the Commission, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555- 0001, Attention: Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff, in accordance with 10 CFR 2.1313. The Commission will issue a notice or order granting or denying a hearing request or intervention petition, designating the issues for any hearing that will be held and designating the Presiding Officer. A notice granting a hearing will be published in the Federal Register and served on the parties to the hearing. As an alternative to requests for hearing and petitions to intervene, by February 19, 2002, persons may submit written comments regarding the license transfer application, as provided for in 10 CFR 2.1305. The Commission will consider and, if appropriate, respond to these comments, but such comments will not otherwise constitute part of the decisional record. Comments should be submitted to the Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, Attention: Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff, and should cite the publication date and page number of this Federal Register notice. Further details with respect to this action, see the application dated November 30, 2001, available for public inspection at the Commission's Public Document Room, located at One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville, Maryland. Publicly available records will be accessible electronically from the Agencywide Documents Access and Management Systems (ADAMS) Public Electronic Reading Room on the internet at the NRC Web site, http://www.nrc.gov/ ADAMS/index.html. Persons who do not have access to ADAMS or who encounter problems in accessing the documents located in ADAMS, should contact the NRC Public Document Room (PDR) Reference staff by telephone at 1-800-397-4209, 301-415-4737 or by email to pdr@nrc.gov. Dated at Rockville, Maryland this 10th day of January 2002. For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Girija S. Shukla, Project Manager, Section 2, Project Directorate IV, Division of Licensing Project Management, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. [FR Doc. 02-1211 Filed 1-16-02; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P ***************************************************************** 6 NRC Begins Special Inspection of Pump Problem at Quad Cities Plant NRC: Press Release Region III - 2002 - 1 - U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, Region III 801 Warrenville Road, Lisle IL 60532 Public Affairs Web Site No. III-02-001 January 16, 2002 CONTACT: Jan Strasma (630) 829-9663/e-mail: rjs2@nrc.gov [rjs2@nrc.gov] Pam Alloway-Mueller (630) 829-9662/e-mail: pla@nrc.gov [pla@nrc.gov] The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has begun a special inspection at the Quad Cities Nuclear Power Station to review damage to a pump which led to the shutdown of the Unit 1 reactor on January 9. The two-reactor plant, operated by Exelon Generation Co., is in Cordova, Illinois. The damaged pump was one of 20 jet pumps which are located inside the reactor vessel. Their function is to increase the flow of water through the reactor core, enabling the reactor to produce more energy. On January 9 a brace holding the jet pump in position broke, causing portions of the pump to separate. Reactor operators promptly began to shut down the reactor to investigate the problem. Reactor cooling was maintained without the need for backup or emergency cooling systems. There was no threat to public safety and no release of radioactivity associated with the incident. Exelon plans to replace the broken brace and the braces on 15 other jet pumps with an upgraded design. The braces on four jet pumps had been replaced earlier. The NRC inspection will monitor the company's investigation of the cause of the broken brace and the replacement activities. The agency is also reviewing the need for replacement of similar jet pump braces at the second Quad Cities unit and at the two reactors at the Dresden Nuclear Power Station, also operated by Exelon. The Dresden Station is located near Morris, Illinois. ***************************************************************** 7 Chernobyl trauma lives on BBC News | EUROPE | Wednesday, 16 January, 2002, 16:46 [Chernobyl nuclear plant, BBC] The Chernobyl disaster has left deep scars on Ukraine Nearly 16 years after the explosions at the Chernobyl nuclear power station in the then-Soviet Republic of Ukraine, the repercussions of the world's worst nuclear accident are still being felt across the region. The official number of people affected by the disaster is put at about seven million, but only a small fraction of these were people killed by the explosions or emergency workers who died or became seriously ill after exposure to intense nuclear radiation. Since the accident, many other victims have reportedly suffered from a range of health problems. Some 2,000 cases of thyroid cancer have been identified. The accident has deprived me of any perspective; I had my dreams and hopes. I became no one and belong to no where. Helena Kostuchenko But a forthcoming UN report is expected to blame many health problems not on radiation, but on the trauma of mass evacuation and official systems of compensation. Patrick Gray, who led the research team, told the BBC that many people were classified as victims either because they lost their homes or were involved in the clean-up and at risk of illness. "Basically the system was one which was established in the Soviet period which involved compensating people for exposure to risk rather than actual medical need," he said. One of the radiation victims is Helena Kostuchenko, a 34-year-old single mother who is now living in Ukraine's capital, Kiev. [Experts measuring radioactivity near Chernobyl, AP] Some villages near the nuclear plant are still contaminated She was 19 and pregnant when the accident happened. In a BBC interview, she recalls the confusion surrounding the evacuation from her home village near Chernobyl to western Ukraine. "We saw all these busses leaving, but it looked like they were not going to evacuate us." In the end, Helena left only by chance: "Thanks to one policeman who saw I was pregnant and told my mother-in-law to send me somewhere at any cost," she said. Like so many others, she did not realise until much later how much danger she had been exposed to. "Radiation does not bite. You cannot see it or feel it. And we always thought they would let us know in case it is something serious. "I realised I am a victim of Chernobyl when my daughter Anna was born. She is handicapped from her birth. She has liver and bone disorders, which lead to blood problems." Psychological scars And then there is the psychological damage. Helena says Chernobyl has ruined her life. "The accident has deprived me of any perspective. I was 19 when it all happened. I had my dreams and hopes. I became no one. I am nothing. I belong to nowhere. "All these 15 years we have been trying to survive. My daughter has no perspective too. She is sick. She doesn't go to school. The teacher comes to us twice a week. So what is her future?" Researcher Patrick Gray says the deep-rooted pessimism among many people in the region is often passed on to the next generation: Many people were unable to find employment because they were farmers and peasants, and had to be moved into blocks of flats in cities Chernobyl expert Patrick Gray "Many people believe that they are, if you like, condemned by the accident." That feeling even affects people in areas where there was little or no radioactive contamination. "It is very difficult to persuade people in Belarus, and Ukraine and parts of western Russia that they have the same life expectancy as people who live in other parts of the world," Mr Gray says. Five years after the disaster, in 1991, Helena Kostuchenko was officially classified as a Chernobyl victim and received compensation. Resentment But that has proved only a small relief, she says, because her new neighbours in Kiev are jealous. The resentment felt by some Ukrainians towards the official Chernobyl victims stems partly from the haphazard compensation system and partly from the collapse of the welfare state, explains Patrick Gray. "With the break-up of the Soviet Union and the economic crisis that followed, the special pensions that were paid for people who were considered to be invalids or severely affected by Chernobyl, took the place of the welfare state." The mass evacuations - about 400,000 people were forced to leave their homes in 1986 - had their own side-effects too, impoverishing some areas and causing severe problems in places where people moved to. [Lenin statue near Chernobyl, AP] The legacy of the Soviet Union is still being felt "Many of these people were unable to find employment because they were farmers and peasants, and they had to be moved into blocks of flats in cities in some cases, " said Mr Gray. But, he says, it would be wrong to blame it all on the authorities as they did what they thought was best at the time. For Helena Kostuchenko though, bitterness is all that remains. "There was a village named Kopachi - my home. It does not exist anymore," she said. "They have ruined it all with bulldozers. So I don't have a place to come back to even if I wished to. "It is a very awkward feeling - when you know that you have lost your childhood. There is no place you can show to your children. There is only this ruined reactor one kilometre north from this place." ***************************************************************** 8 Canada: Fired nuke worker drops suit Ottawa Sun: Fired nuke worker drops suit Thursday, January 17, 2002 By CP An Egyptian-born Muslim who lost his job in a nuclear facility after a visit from security officials has reached an out-of-court settlement in his lawsuit against the RCMP and Canada's intelligence service. A spokesman for Mohamed Attiah said under terms of the agreement no details could be released. Attiah, a nuclear engineer, dropped legal proceedings against Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. after he was reinstated and given a full-time contract at the Chalk River, Ont., nuclear site a few weeks after the incident. Attiah was leaving for lunch on Sept. 20 when two men approached him in the parking lot, identifying themselves as an RCMP officer and an agent from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. They asked him to come and answer some questions. Attiah, 54, was baffled but he went along. They questioned him for 90 minutes about his religion, people he'd met, places he'd been. ORDERED TO LEAVE They assured him everything checked out but, when he returned to work, an AECL security officer told him he was a security threat and ordered him to leave the research facility for good. Attiah sued CSIS, the RCMP and AECL for discrimination and wrongful dismissal. The suit and complaints with the Human Rights Commission against all three parties have been dropped. Attiah became a citizen in 1978, three years after arriving in Canada. He has four Canadian-born children and says he has no sympathy for terrorists. He said fellow workers kidded him about the fact he shared a similar name as one of the hijackers, Mohamed Atta. Previous story: Plaque gaffe 'outrage' Next story: Canuck link in terror plot 2002, Canoe, a division of Netgraphe Inc. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 9 Yankee wants to build security building By Associated Press, 1/16/2002 09:19 VERNON, Vt. (AP) Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corp. wants state permission to construct a new building as part of security improvements. Vermont Yankee is planning to spend an additional $1.5 million on operational costs and $1.1 million in capital costs in 2002. Vermont Yankee spokesman Robert Williams said $325,000 of the $1.1 million in capital costs would be spent on a new 1,500-square-foot, one-story building at the main gate in Vernon. The plant is seeking permission from the Public Service Board to go ahead with construction. The building, 30 by 50 feet, will be used to screen and inspect all shipments to the nuclear power plant. The inspection functions that will be housed in the new building are now being carried out in a location north of the main reactor building. ''This is all based on our post-September 11 review,'' Williams said. But Williams refused to disclose exactly how much money Yankee spent on security, even before Sept. 11. ''It will be a temporary receiving building and it will serve a function now. If there are further security requirements, that might change,'' Williams said. Williams said Vermont Yankee will build the structure as soon as it gets approval. Williams refused to say what the rest of the $1.1 million in capital improvements might be used for, noting that security information by necessity had to be kept secret. According to testimony filed with the Public Service Board about its pending sale to Entergy Nuclear Co., Vermont Yankee has even rebuffed the state Department of Public Service on its questions about the additional security costs. According to Yankee's filing, the building will be used for the receipt, inspection and temporary storage of materials, supplies, mail and equipment that is delivered to the Vernon reactor. The public has until Feb. 11 to file comments with the board about the building. If the board doesn't receive substantive comments, it will grant permission for the construction without a hearing, the board stated. ***************************************************************** 10 Anti-Radiation Pill Distribution at Least a Month Away washingtonpost.com: Emergency Plan Covers Nuclear Plant Neighbors By Raymond McCaffrey Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, January 17, 2002; Page SM03 Distribution of potassium iodide pills to help residents guard against radiation poisoning in the event of an accident at Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant will not begin for at least a month, a state official said this week. Michael Sharon, chief of the emergency response division at the state Department of the Environment, told the Calvert County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday that Maryland is still awaiting delivery of the pills from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. In the interim, the state will meet with representatives of the five Maryland counties with residents living within a 10-mile radius of nuclear power plants in an attempt to decide how to distribute the medication. "It would be nice to have one policy throughout the state," Sharon said after the meeting. "We're going to try to work closely with the counties." Maryland officials announced Friday that they would accept the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's offer to provide the pills to all states with nuclear plants for residents living within 10 miles of reactors. The compound can help prevent thyroid damage. The state will receive about 160,000 doses of potassium iodide, or two pills for each of the 80,000 residents within that fallout zone, according to Sharon. Three-fourths of those individuals live in Calvert, St. Mary's and Dorchester counties, all within a 10-mile radius of Calvert Cliffs, the state's only nuclear power plant. The rest live in Harford and Cecil counties, near the Peach Bottom nuclear facility in Pennsylvania. Maryland's decision to accept the offer the NRC made last month represents a change of policy for the state, which has strictly advocated evacuation and sheltering in response to a nuclear plant emergency, but did not stockpile potassium iodide for residents. "Since 9-11, the whole picture's changed," said David Rogers, the Calvert County health officer. In the past, officials felt that in the event of a mishap at the nuclear plant, they would receive warning, allowing for an evacuation of residents, according to Rogers. Now, in case of a sudden maximum release of radiation, residents might need immediate shelter, Rogers said, explaining that in such a scenario it would be appropriate to take the potassium iodide. "In the aftermath of 9-11, we're looking at the possibility of . . . a terrorism attack," Rogers said. One reason that the state historically did not stockpile potassium iodide was the fear that people would become reliant on a pill that offers limited protection. Commissioner Barbara A. Stinnett (D-At Large) expressed that same concern Tuesday, though she maintained that she is a supporter of distributing potassium iodide. "I don't want them to misunderstand and think this is a cure-all," Stinnett said. The distribution plan, according to Sharon, could involve handing out pills at a central location or delivering them door to door. One method discussed Tuesday would involve local schools. So far, the cost of distribution is unknown. Several commissioners expressed concern about unnecessarily alarming residents or suggesting that there was something unsafe about the Calvert Cliffs plant. "I believe in being prepared, but I also don't believe in being the harbinger of doom," Commissioner Linda L. Kelley (R-Owings) said. "I don't lose a minute's sleep living close to it," John Douglas Parran (R-At Large) said. © 2002 The Washington Post Company ***************************************************************** 11 Politicians Assail Evacuation Plans for Nuclear Plant Disaster January 17, 2002 By ROBERT HANLEY The political wrangling and divisions over evacuation plans for residents near the Indian Point nuclear power plant have deepened in recent days, putting some Hudson Valley officials into conflict. Late Tuesday night, the Rockland County Legislature formally joined critics of the plant, unanimously passing a resolution calling the evacuation plans "highly questionable" and saying that Indian Point's two reactors should be shut pending a "full and independent" review of the plans and the plant's vulnerabilities and security measures. The Rockland resolution contended that the threat of a terror attack against Indian Point — in the Westchester village of Buchanan, 35 miles north of New York City — had placed the region in harm's way. Hours before the vote by the Democratic-controlled Legislature, the executives of Westchester, Rockland, Orange and Putnam Counties rejected a request by an assemblyman and Indian Point critic that they avoid sending state officials the annual reports necessary for approval of the plans before they are sent on to the federal government. The four executives also rejected a request by the critic, Assemblyman Richard L. Brodsky, a Democrat of Westchester, for a meeting to discuss their counties' evacuation plans. "We think they've made a terrible mistake," Mr. Brodsky said yesterday of the county executives. In a letter Tuesday to Mr. Brodsky, Westchester's executive, Andrew J. Spano, a fellow Democrat, defended the county's evacuation plan. Mr. Spano wrote that he had been assured by the chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Richard A. Meserve, and New York State's Public Security Director, James K. Kallstrom, that Indian Point was the nation's "most secure and best protected" nuclear plant. Mr. Brodsky said yesterday that the four counties should not sign and send the annual reports to Albany, because some assumptions in the plans were unrealistic. One assumption, he said, is that no one beyond a 10-mile radius of Indian Point will try to evacuate if a radioactive plume escapes from the plant after an accident or a terrorist attack. A spokeswoman for Mr. Spano said yesterday that Westchester officials were addressing the concerns of Mr. Brodsky and others. Rockland officials also disagree about their county's plan. A Democratic member of the County Legislature, Ellen Jaffee, a co-sponsor of the resolution, said it was unrealistic to think that only those living within a 10-mile radius of Indian Point would try to flee a radioactive leak. The county executive, C. Scott Vanderhoef, disagreed and said he was confident that Rockland's plan was workable and would save lives. But he has asked the N.R.C. to shut down Indian Point, he said, because of inadequate guidance from state and federal officials on how the county should respond to a terror attack. Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company | Privacy Information ***************************************************************** 12 Rumsfeld clears Army plant workers to talk The Hawk Eye Newspaper January 17, 2002 By Dennis J. Carroll The Hawk Eye • Secrecy oaths don't apply to health matters, defense secretary says. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, responding to questions from Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, has assured former workers at the Middletown munitions plant that they need not fear recrimination for talking about their experiences at the plant with health researchers or environmental cleanup officials. "Neither secrecy oaths nor policies prohibit any citizen from discussing exposures to radioactive and hazardous materials with their health care professionals or other appropriate officials," the secretary said. "Individuals bound by secrecy oaths at former defense nuclear weapons facilities, therefore, may respond to questions regarding possible exposure at the plant provided they do not reveal classified information. Classified guidance will be provided to these individuals during notification." Rumsfeld's comments, submitted in written form and released by Harkin's office Wednesday, were in response to Harkin's questions at a Sept. 5 hearing of a defense appropriations subcommittee. Despite reassurances from Army and Department of Energy officials, many former workers at the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant have remained reluctant to talk of their experiences at the plant for fear of recrimination. Some have taken what they know to their graves. Cleanup officials have sought out former workers, hoping they might know of areas contaminated by radioactive or other hazardous materials. In addition, health researchers at the University of Iowa, working with Energy Department grants, have been screening hundreds, if not thousands, of former workers for health problems that may have been caused by exposure to hazardous materials. The U of I researchers are currently helping former workers every Tuesday and Thursday at the Machinists Union hall in Middletown. Rumsfeld also told Harkin that he has approved development of a plan to "identify, notify and provide security guidance" to former Defense Department workers, who though not directly involved in the production of nuclear weapons may have been exposed to some of the same hazards as the nuclear workers. "The workers on the Army side of the IAAP were exposed to many of the same toxic high explosives and radioactive materials as those on the (Atomic Energy Commission) side of the plant," Harkin said in questioning Rumsfeld, "sometimes worked in the buildings and areas, and were employed by the same contractor." Rumsfeld said those workers will also be allowed to speak of their possible exposure to hazardous materials. The Atomic Energy Commission assembled and in later years test-fired components of nuclear weapons in Middletown from the late 1940s until the mid-1970s, when the AEC was shuttered and the nuclear operations were moved to DOE's Pantex plant near Amarillo, Texas. Congress last year approved and President Bush signed legislation to compensate former nuclear weapons workers or their survivors with lump-sum payments of $150,000. To qualify, workers must show they were exposed to radiation, beryllium or silica as part of their jobs. The Labor Department, which is helping to implement the program, will assist former IAAP workers apply for the compensation Jan. 22, 23 and 24 at Pzazz Best Western. The department's traveling resource center will set up operations at Pzazz from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. on all three days. Workers and survivors who want help filling out claim forms can make an appointment by calling toll-free (866) 540-4977, or just stop at Pzazz during those hours. The department also noted in a statement that an amendment to the law now allows adult children to receive compensation benefits if there is no surviving spouse. Originally, children were eligible only if they were under 18, full-time students under 23 or incapable of self-support when their parent died. In answering Harkin's questions, Rumsfeld also defended the Defense Department's policy of neither confirming nor denying that the IAAP ever manufactured nuclear weapons, even though the locations of former atomic weapons storage facilities within the United States are no longer considered classified information. "When Army officials can't say the word 'nuclear' in connection with a plant that everyone knows was a nuclear weapons facility," Harkin said in a question to Rumsfeld, "it sends the wrong signal to former workers who are afraid to talk about it. Now, I don't see why the functioning of a plant that closed in 1975 would be a security risk, so why can't you talk about it?" Rumsfeld said that security classification is not the issue in Middletown. "Classification has no direct bearing on a response to a question regarding the presence, or absence, or nuclear weapons," he said. However, Rumsfeld said as long as there are classified locations of nuclear weapons, U.S. spokesmen are prohibited from confirming or denying the presence of atomic weapons at any location. "The basis for this requirement," he said, "is to deny militarily useful information to potential or actual enemies, to enhance the effectiveness of nuclear deterrence, and to contribute to the security of nuclear weapons, especially against threats of sabotage and terrorism." And Rumsfeld added: "Neither confirm nor deny ... will always be given, even when the location is thought to be known or obvious." The Hawk Eye 800 S. Main St., Burlington Iowa 52601 319-754-8461 Front Desk · 319-754-6824 FAX · 1-800-397-1708 Toll Free ***************************************************************** 13 Energy secretary selects Nevada's Yucca Mountain as nation's Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 13:55:43 -0600 (CST) Health & Science: Energy secretary selects Nevada's Yucca Mountain as nation's nuclear waste dump By H. JOSEF HEBERT, Associated Press WASHINGTON (January 10, 2002 3:14 p.m. EST) - Still facing myriad legal challenges from Nevada, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham on Thursday chose Yucca Mountain as the nation's burial site for thousands of tons of nuclear waste. Abraham concluded the site 80 miles northwest of Las Vegas was "scientifically sound and suitable" as a repository for highly radioactive used reactor fuel now kept at commercial reactors in 31 states, a department spokesman said. A final administration decision will be up to President Bush, who has championed the need for a central disposal site for the waste and is expected to seek a federal license for the site in the coming months. "The secretary made his decision on sound science," said Energy Department spokesman Joe Davis. Nevada officials, who have fought the proposed dump for more than a decade, have vowed to use every means available to keep the waste out of the state. They argue that despite 13 years of intense scientific study the federal government has not adequately shown that the public can be protected from future radiation. Abraham, in notifying Nevada's governor of the decision, said "sound science and compelling national interests" as well as growing concern about nuclear materials since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks require wastes to be consolidated at a central site. But even a presidential decision is not expected to end the bitter debate over siting of a national waste dump. The final word over the Yucca Mountain dump probably will come from Congress. Under a 1982 law, which directed the government to assume responsibility for the commercial nuclear industry's highly radioactive waste, only Congress can override the expected Nevada veto. The site, which still faces a myriad of legal challenges from Nevada, is not expected to be ready to accept waste until 2010 at the earliest. The government has spent $6.8 billion to study the Nevada site since 1983. After reviewing three sites, Congress settled on Yucca Mountain in 1987 as the location to be pursued. The Nevada site is a mountain of volcanic rock formed 13 million years ago. For nearly two decades, scientists have worked to determine whether its geology, volcanic history and hydrology are suitable for storing materials that will remain dangerously radioactive for tens of thousands of years. Power utilities have promoted the Yucca Mountain site as the most secure and safest place to put the used reactor fuel now kept at reactor sites. More than 40,000 tons of wastes already have built up at the plants with 2,000 tons added each year. The site, if finally approved and licensed, is expected to hold up to 77,000 tons of waste, buried in a labyrinth of bunkers 900 feet beneath the surface. ***************************************************************** 14 Two States Weigh Digging Up Nuclear Waste From New London, Conn.-Area Plant Patricia Daddona , The Day, New London, Conn. Knight Ridder Tribune Business News (KRTBN) ( January 17, 2002 ) Jan. 17--WATERFORD, Conn.--Officials at low-level radioactive waste sites in South Carolina and Washington are considering whether it's necessary to dig up casks that might contain fuel rods missing from the Millstone I nuclear plant. Highly radioactive spent fuel is not supposed to be buried at low-level sites like those in Barnwell, S.C., and Hanover, Wash., Todd J. Jackson, leader of a special investigative team for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said here Tuesday. Fuel rods have never before been lost in the history of the commercial nuclear industry in the United States, according to the NRC. The fuel rods have been missing since December 2000, before Dominion Energy of Virginia bought the Millstone Nuclear Power Station from Northeast Utilities. The NRC announced Tuesday that it has found Dominion's investigations into what happened to the rods to be systematic and thorough, but will not decide until March whether to find the company in violation of five federal statutes or levy fines. It is up to the states involved to decide whether to dig up casks, said John Hickman, NRC licensing project manager for Millstone 1. "It's dangerous and cost-prohibitive, but they haven't ruled it out," Hickman said. The NRC may also recommend improvements for the handling of radioactive materials, Jackson said. Barnwell officials have refused to accept Millstone's low-level radioactive waste because of the missing fuel rods, though they have indicated that they would revisit the issue once the NRC makes complete findings, Millstone spokesman Pete Hyde said. William R. Matthews, vice president and senior nuclear executive at Millstone, said the risks associated with digging up contaminated waste far outweigh the benefits, even though the step appears to be the only way to locate the rods. The amount of radiation the rods contain, while harmful, is inconsequential once it's buried, he said. Site contractors in Barnwell and Hanover are using computer models of their sites to determine whether the 13-foot-long, pencil-thin fuel rods pose a significant hazard. The casks containing the fuel rods would have been buried unopened. In 2000, both rods contained a total of 40 grams of plutonium and 7,732 grams of uranium, Jackson said. The NRC concurs with the company's investigators that the fuel rods probably were mistaken for other stored radioactive material and shipped to Barnwell or Hanover. The rods were last mentioned in paperwork in 1980. He emphasized that neither the NRC nor Dominion investigators uncovered security breaches that could have allowed the rods or casks to be stolen. "Even though this happened 20 years ago, it still is painful to hear the description of it," said Alan Price, vice president of nuclear operations at Millstone. "Our reputation is for excellence. This is not where we want to be." Potential violations include failure to account for special nuclear material, complete or submit transfer reports, report missing radioactive material in a timely way, adequately characterize the waste for shipment and burial and provide adequate physical protection of irradiated reactor fuel in transit. NU discovered the missing fuel rods before selling Millstone to Dominion and has paid more than $9 million to investigate what happened. Spokeswoman Deborah Beauchamp said the company is pleased with the NRC's favorable review of efforts to determine what happened. Joe Besade, a whistleblower when Millstone was owned by NU, said he feared the NRC probe would be "another whitewash." NU was fined more than $10 million for violating nuclear and clean-water regulations before selling the power plants. To see more of The Day, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.theday.com (c) 2002, The Day, New London, Conn. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News. ***************************************************************** 15 Watchdog says EPA in coverup Denver Post.com Office won't answer query about toxic gas Mark Obmascik Denver Post Staff Writer --> Thursday, January 17, 2002 - The top staff watchdog of the Environmental Protection Agency is accusing the federal agency's auditing office of a coverup because it won't answer questions about a botched toxic-gas probe. "If they've got nothing to hide, why are they covering up and refusing to respond to the public? They're stonewalling us," said Hugh Kaufman, spokesman for EPA ombudsman Robert Martin. Last week Martin launched an investigation and demanded documents to answer this question: "Did the Office of Inspector General drop an investigation into whether EPA ignored health risks from toxic gases in homes around Superfund sites?" Audit was dropped The ombudsman investigation came after The Denver Post reported this month that the inspector general relied on false information while dropping the audit. Even the EPA managers who would have been targets of the audit said the inspector general relied on erroneous evidence to justify abandoning the review last year. But Eileen McMahon, spokeswoman for the inspector general said they would refuse to answer Martin's questions because the ombudsman is suing EPA. That means the toxic gas review now is mired in internal EPA politics. National EPA Administrator Christie Whitman proposed last year to fold the ombudsman office into the Inspector General Office, but the ombudsman persuaded a federal judge last week to issue a temporary restraining order blocking the switch until a February hearing. The ombudsman and Sen. Wayne Allard, a Colorado Republican, have opposed the merger, saying it would hurt the independence of the EPA ombudsman. Shattuck cleanup hero Martin became a hero to many south Denver residents for forcing EPA to reverse its decision to leave radioactive waste at the Shattuck Superfund site in their neighborhood. After the Post series this month, the EPA ombudsman vowed to launch a national toxic-gas probe that would be the "No. 1 priority" of the ombudsman office, which independently raises issues within EPA. National Superfund managers began answering initial questions in the probe last week. "Why did the Superfund office respond, but not the Inspector General Office?" Kaufman said. "This is a perfect example of why the Inspector General Office should not be doing ombudsman work. They're supposed to be a watchdog office, not a coverup office." All contents Copyright 2002 The Denver Post ***************************************************************** 16 Ireland: Dismantling of Sellafield pile 'must proceed' Irish Times; Jan 16, 2002 The UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAE) said yesterday the Windscale Pile 1 reactor at Sellafield in Cumbria was safe, but acknowledged the decommissioning programme must be completed, writes Rachel Donnelly, in London. The project to dismantle the pile, which caught fire in 1957 in the worst nuclear accident before the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, was halted last year amid fears that the decommissioning could cause the pile to catch fire and concerns about the operation of robotic machinery. The group implementing the (pounds) 60 million project, which includes British Nuclear Fuels and Rolls-Royce, was told to reconsider its proposals and a technical review is under way. ***************************************************************** 17 Waste can wait, but keep cash coming Pahrump Valley Times Content Thursday 17 January, 2002 By: RICH THURLOW, EditorJanuary 16, 2002 "What is not well known is that Nye County's official stance is one of informed neutrality." Back in 1989, when I attended my first public meeting regarding Yucca Mountain, a Dept. of Energy official confidently told the audience high-level nuclear waste would be stored underground there by 2000. That was contingent, of course, on the determination that Yucca Mountain was indeed a suitable, safe site for such storage. Since that time I don't know how many times I've typed, "Yucca Mountain, the only site being studied for the permanent disposal of 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste." There has been talk in the office of permanently saving that phrase, so that we could just push a button on the computer keyboard the one or two times a month we needed it. But no one smarter than me about the ways to use a computer has done it yet. The Yucca Mountain talk went national last week, when Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham announced he was going to recommend to President Bush that the location be approved for development. Politically there will be efforts to spin this issue so as to make one party or the other appear to be responsible. Both are equally guilty (or worthy of praise, depending on your perspective), since votes from both sides of the aisle are needed to keep the project on track. President Bush, a Republican, might look like the fall guy, but Bill Clinton, the Democrat, had eight years to come up with an alternative to Yucca Mountain. Over the past dozen years we've also been entertained with other proposals for getting rid of the waste. My personal favorite was the idea of loading it into a rocket and shooting it at the sun. The possibility of a launch accident spreading the waste over a large populated area was one obvious flaw in the plan, while others pointed out the rocket wouldn't really get all that close to the sun before it started to melt. I guess those doubters to problem No. 2 never thought about going at night. Uh, that was a joke. But while Nevada's delegation of senators and representatives have always been staunch opponents of storing the waste here, what is not well known in the state is that Nye County's official stance is one of informed neutrality. It's a position that I believe has served the residents of the proposed host county well. Nye County has conducted its own studies on the geology of Yucca Mountain, and has also drilled a series of wells designed to track radioactive material that might somehow get into the groundwater. Both were accomplished with a whole lot of federal dollars, and we can only hope that the information compiled by Nye's contracted experts that is supplied to DOE and other decision-makers is treated seriously. On another front, Nye's official neutrality has also served it well in terms of receiving millions of dollars annually from the DOE for Payments Equal to Taxes. It's a cinch Congress would not be inclined to fork over a dime if the county was fighting DOE every step of the way. I'm guessing Nye has received more than $50 million so far. As for the local take on Abraham's decision, I wouldn't be surprised if there was more than minimal support for the Yucca Mountain Project. Some will see it as an economic development opportunity, others will figure the studies on the mountain are adequate and if DOE says it's safe, that's good enough for them. For all I know, Yucca Mountain might just be the perfect spot to store this stuff for 10,000 years, which is about how long those spent fuel rods are lethal. The real problem, and one that stretches way beyond Nevada's borders, is how to get the waste from those nuclear power plants to Yucca Mountain. Those senators and representatives, who are more than happy to support Yucca Mountain as long as their own states aren't viewed as potential storage sites, might have second thoughts. That will happen when they find out there is no avoiding the fact the waste will have to be trucked through their constituents' back yard in order to reach Nevada. That being the case, I'll offer a not-so-bold prediction. There is no way Yucca Mountain will be ready to accept waste by 2010, as is proposed now. And even if it is ready by then, don't count on any waste coming our way. That said, DOE should still feel free to keep sending Nye millions of dollars annually. We're playing in a pretty expensive ball game, and so far it's still the only one in town. ©Pahrump Valley Times 2002 ***************************************************************** 18 At the Mercury Cafe, the lights are always on Nevada Appeal January 17, 2002 By Sheila Gardner Let's look beyond the obvious drawbacks of having the nation's nuclear waste dumped in Nevada's back yard and see the Yucca Mountain Project for the moneymaker it can be. Get in on the underground floor, I say. I am not much of an engineer, so I tried to think outside the box, to define the auxiliary needs of such a huge venture like being home to the country's nuclear garbage. Food -- my favorite four-letter word -- popped right into my head. People have to eat, right? And before long there will be an employee cafeteria or a little cafe -- call it The Mercury -- on the outskirts of the dump. It will be run by a couple named Ruby and Stan who still can't get enough of each other after six kids and 20 years of marriage. The food and the service, always good, are the best right after they've had a big fight and are trying to woo each other back. Down the road a piece, in the shade of Yucca Mountain, are the ranches of the Amargosa Valley that produce everything from milk to pistachios. If we get creative and negotiate a government subsidy of some sort, everybody wins. Some genius in marketing will come up with the Homeland Security menu, a perfect blend of patriotism and hucksterism to cash in on the language of our war effort. Can't you taste these celebrity sandwich and regular menu items being perfected in our own Nevada Test Site kitchens? Let's roll: A continental breakfast of coffee, freshly squeezed juice and a selection from our bread basket. Add bacon, home fries and a soft cinnamon pretzel and you have the Not Over My Dead Body special. Osama's Mama's Omelet: Three eggs and your choice of side dishes. Mrs. bin Laden doesn't believe her son is the culprit and you won't believe your eyes when you strap on the feed bag. The Evildoer: Not for the cholesterol-conscious. A piping hot skillet of eggs, cheese, sausage, onions and butter. Yummy! The Hero: In honor of our nation's emergency personnel. Bring a firefighter, police officer or paramedic and one of you eats for free. The Vegan: We're trying to cater to the tree huggers bound to be demonstrating outside the facility, so we're offering veggie specials. Stan, however, thinks we named it after an actual tourist from Las Vegas who lost his or her shirt at the casinos and had to find work or disappear in a hurry. It's a combination of thinly sliced vegetables stacked high on sourdough bread and drizzled with Stan's secret sauce. The Lone Ranger: We take a flock of chickens and let them roam over Yucca Mountain following a trail of biogenetically engineered corn. The first one back wins (or loses depending on whether you are the chicken or diner). Can't you practically taste it? Best to order ahead. Bury'em shake: After a few of these creamy delights, your insides will radiate with health. This drink is approved prior to certain medical procedures and may be covered under your HMO. See your server for details. Catch of the day: Seafood in the desert is always a dicey proposition, but Stan works wonders. Before sunrise, he throws a line in the cooling ponds and comes up with the most amazing selections. Let us choose one for you. U-khan-du-it, stan: An homage to Project Enduring Freedom and our chef, it's a 44-ounce slab of Amargosa beef with Ruby's favorite side dishes. If you finish it, there's no charge; if you don't, we'll wrap up another one, so you can take it home and share it with the family. That brings us to the children's menu, catering to employees kids and all the scout troops and school children who will be touring the dump. The spent rod: A hot dog and French fries that comes with a Yucca Mountain action figure, collect the whole set! Nook-aroni. A big favorite, macaroni in the shape of Spencer Abraham's head, smothered with creamy cheese from Amargosa cattle. For the over-55 set, we recommend the Bald Pate specials. Losing your hair over Yucca? Try Stan's tuna melt (down) or the mushroom burger, a favorite we carried over from the good old nuclear test days. Be sure to save room for dessert! The specialty is Stan's Silkwood, the finest slice of cheesecake you can find outside of New York, N.Y. (and we don't mean the casino). If this doesn't leave you hungering for more, perhaps you would like to try the Nuclear Waist, our dieters' special. It's just a big bowl of Nevada sunshine warmed by a giant blast of hot air blowing westward from Washington, D. C. Doggie bag, anyone? Sheila Gardner is the night desk editor of the Nevada Appeal. Copyright Nevada Appeal. Materials contained within this site may ***************************************************************** 19 NRC Releases Complete Final Environmental Statement on Proposed Facility near Tooele, Utah NRC: Press Release - 2002 - 6 - U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 20555-001 E-mail: opa@nrc.gov [opa@nrc.gov] Public Affairs Web Site No. 02-006 January 16, 2002 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is releasing its complete Final Environmental Impact Statement on the application by Private Fuel Storage, Limited Liability Company (PFS) for a license to construct and operate an independent spent nuclear fuel storage facility on the Goshute Indian Reservation near Tooele, Utah. Earlier this month, the NRC issued a redacted version of the report, with some information removed, as a cautious measure to avoid possibly providing information that could be helpful to a potential terrorist. (See press release #2-002.) But after further review and consideration, the agency decided that the complete document could be released without meaningful risk. Copies of the complete "Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Construction and Operation of an Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation on the Reservation of the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians and the Related Transportation Facility in Tooele County, Utah," NUREG-1714, were mailed to the parties to an NRC hearing proceeding on the application and to persons who commented on the draft environmental impact statement. A copy is also available through the NRC's Electronic Reading Room at www.nrc.gov as an Agencywide Document Access and Management System (ADAMS) document, and available for reproduction (for a fee) through the NRC Public Document Room, Washington, D.C. 20555, telephone: 301/415-4737 or 1/800 397-4209, e-mail: pdr@nrc.gov [pdr@nrc.gov] . The Public Document Room staff is available to provide help in accessing ADAMS. ***************************************************************** 20 Yucca: Inform yourself [Las Vegas Review-Journal] Thursday, January 17, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal To the editor: The virtual unanimity I see among my fellow Nevadans on the issue of Yucca Mountain is both staggering and woefully misguided. This may not be a popular thing for me to say, but high-level radioactive nuclear waste is no more dangerous to transport than the thousands of gallons of mineral oil, natural gas, and petroleum which daily traverse our state's surface streets and highways. In fact, given that nuclear waste is neither in a liquid state nor flammable, it's actually far safer to transport than any other component or by-product of cheap, efficient energy. And like it or not, that's not the mere opinion of a contrarian lunatic; it's an incontrovertible scientific truth. Our elected officials, media mouthpieces and people-in-the-street seem willing to do anything regarding the issue of Yucca Mountain. Anything, that is, except actually educate themselves on what nuclear waste is and what it can do. Among the myriad Nevadans who are so terrified of nuclear waste seeping into the water table and leaving a toxic legacy for their children's children's children, how many even know what nuclear waste looks like? In contrast to what might be gleaned from popular culture, nuclear waste is not green fluorescent sludge, stored in malleable drums and ready to leak at the slightest provocation. High-level waste consists entirely of metal rods. Solid, unbreakable metal rods, which could no more "spill" than a shipment of girders or I-beams could spill. It's strange how people feel a certain level of comfort in paranoia. Being scared is so much easier than being informed. GREG McFARLANE LAS VEGAS Energy sources To the editor: Enclosed with my electric bill from Nevada Power which came yesterday was a card. It read, "Sources of Energy." It listed the various energy sources which the company uses, and the percentage of each. The list covered every thing from coal, 41.97 percent; natural gas, 25.30 percent; oil, 0.87 percent; hydroelectric, 17.33 percent; and the list goes on to other sources. I don't know what the coal market has been recently, but I have read that natural gas companies had lowered their prices in recent months by 25 percent. Nevada Power has already had two rate increases in the recent past which, as I recall, it blamed on an increase, directly or indirectly, in the price of oil. If less than 1 percent of their energy source is oil, how can an increase of 40 percent be justified? KEN BARRETT LAS VEGAS This story is located at: http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2002/Jan-17-Thu-2002/opinion/17877509.html [http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2002/Jan-17-Thu-2002/opinion/17877509.html] ***************************************************************** 21 Study OKs Utah nuke waste dump [Las Vegas Review-Journal] Thursday, January 17, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal THE ASSOCIATED PRESS SALT LAKE CITY -- The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued a final environmental study that sanctions a plan to store highly radioactive nuclear waste in Utah's Skull Valley. The study cites the economic benefits of consolidated storage for spent nuclear fuel rods from eight of the nation's nuclear-powered electric utilities. It said an industry plan to store up to 40,000 tons of waste in concrete-packed, steel casks had few environmental consequences for the desolate Skull Valley Indian Reservation, 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. The Goshute tribe has agreed to accept the waste from the eight utilities, organized as Private Fuel Storage, that are running out of space for their own spent fuel rods. Gov. Mike Leavitt has vowed to spare no effort to block the waste from Utah, which doesn't have any nuclear-power plants. Larry Jensen, an assistant attorney general, said Tuesday the state will cite the danger of earthquake hazards in Skull Valley during two weeks of public hearings set for April before the NRC's Atomic Safety Licensing Board. Private Fuel Storage, led by Minnesota's Excel Energy, and the Goshute tribe have sued to overturn Utah's retaliatory laws. One law bans nuclear waste storage outright and another demands a $150 billion bond should federal authorities override the state's will. The lawsuit is scheduled for a federal court hearing April 11, when Jensen said the state will argue the NRC has no legal authority to license the project. He said Congress has prohibited nuclear waste storage on private land away from power plants. "They have no leg to stand on," Jensen said. NRC spokeswoman Sue Gagner said she was not aware of any law passed by Congress that would prohibit the Skull Valley project. "This certainly is not the last step because we still have to have hearings and expect (the project) to be vigorously fought," she said. The NRC posted on its Web site Jan. 3 a version of the environmental study that had sensitive information excised because of fears it could be of use to terrorists. But the commission released the full report after deciding the information was widely available through other means, Gagner said. The Associated Press received a copy by mail on Monday. The Skull Valley project didn't become unnecessary with last week's approval from U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham for a permanent storage site for nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. President Bush also would have to give his approval, and Nevada can object, although Congress can override Nevada. Then the Energy Department could apply for an NRC license. "Yucca Mountain is far from being approved," Gagner said. Gagner said she couldn't estimate how soon after the April hearings a decision could be made by the NRC on the Skull Valley project. This story is located at: http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2002/Jan-17-Thu-2002/news/17880598.html [http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2002/Jan-17-Thu-2002/news/17880598.html] ***************************************************************** 22 Berkley urges anti-Yucca campaign Thursday, January 17, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- Nevadans who may have difficulty putting their thoughts on Yucca Mountain into words can lay claim to those of Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev. Berkley on Wednesday posted on her Web site a sample letter to President Bush and urged Nevadans to make use of it in a letter-writing campaign opposing the proposed nuclear waste repository. Bush will decide whether to accept Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham's recommendation to build a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Abraham is scheduled to submit his recommendation to the White House after a 30-day waiting period. "The president will be under intense political pressure from the nuclear industry and from members of his own party in the House of Representatives," Berkley said. "We have to counter that pressure by bringing our own numbers to bear." The letter charges the government "has gradually eroded the health and safety standards" at the proposed site, and is ignoring the findings of congressional investigors who have concluded the Yucca Mountain project is not ready to move forward. Abraham said last week that, to the contrary, "science behind this project is sound and the site is technically feasible" to host a repository. Berkley's Web site is www.house.gov/berkley. Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002 ***************************************************************** 23 ROCKET FUEL INGREDIENT: EPA reassesses chemical's threat Thursday, January 17, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal Substance may be more harmful than thought, draft report says By CHRISTINE DORSEY STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- A draft Environmental Protection Agency report suggests the rocket fuel ingredient perchlorate, which is leaking into drinking water supplies across the nation, is more harmful to humans than previously thought. A copy of the risk assessment document was circulated last week among utilities, state regulators and consultants after it was obtained by a California consultant and posted on his Web site. The EPA suggests the government should pursue a tougher standard for allowable levels of perchlorate in drinking water supplies. Scientists have said the substance may cause thyroid cancer and could be harmful to pregnant women. Any federal limits on perchlorate could affect Southern Nevada's water supply. Perchlorate has been found in the Las Vegas Wash and Lake Mead, the area's main source of drinking water. The rocket fuel ingredient ammonium perchlorate, used in the space shuttles, was produced by two companies in the valley. An official copy of the risk assessment was expected to be published Jan. 9 in the Federal Register, but the agency has delayed its release. EPA spokesman Dave Deegan said the document was undergoing further review and was the topic of a briefing this week for EPA Deputy Administrator Linda Fisher. The EPA has scheduled a March 5 and 6 workshop in Sacramento, Calif., for peer review. The public comment period on the draft started Jan. 9 and lasts until Feb. 11. Among those who received a version of the risk assessment marked "December Draft" was California environmental consultant Mike McGuire, who said he obtained it from within the agency and posted it Jan. 8 on his Web site: www.safedrinkingwater.com. McGuire, chief of the Santa Monica, Calif.-based McGuire Environmental Consultants Inc., said he took down the document several hours later after EPA officials told him it was not the draft the agency planned to publish. Based on the draft McGuire posted, one environmental organization, the Environmental Working Group, calculated that the amount of perchlorate in drinking water the agency might recommend as a federal standard would be 3.2 parts per billion, significantly lower than levels used by states to monitor the substance in water supplies. The group later retracted its news release. Bill Walker, chief of group's California office, said EPA officials did not dispute the group's figures but told him the document was not EPA's official draft. In July, the Environmental Working Group issued a report on perchlorate based on its own study of EPA data showing perchlorate is found in water or soil in 17 states, including Nevada and states downstream on the Colorado River. Publication of a risk assessment will mark the first step toward a federal standard for acceptable levels of perchlorate in drinking water. Water providers not meeting the maximum limits would have to revamp their systems to better protect public health. No legal standard exists for perchlorate, though some states, including California, use "action levels" of between 4 ppb and 18 ppb to gauge safe drinking water supplies. A part per billion is equivalent to about one grain of sand in three residential swimming pools. J.C. Davis, a spokesman for the Southern Nevada Water Authority, said utilities need to have the risk assessment because it could have big ramifications for water treatment. In mid-December, the water utility found perchlorate levels of 14 ppb in intake valves at Lake Mead. The utility tests for the substance weekly, Davis said. Nevada does not have an enforceable perchlorate level, he said. But Davis said that within several months, Kerr-McGee Chemical Corp. in Henderson, which used to produce ammonium perchlorate, is expected to start a new process for extracting perchlorate from groundwater. Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002 ***************************************************************** 24 Letter: Yucca: Doing our part, and then some Las Vegas SUN Today: January 17, 2002 at 8:45:45 PST In reference to the recent comment by John Sununu: "If Nevada is not willing to do its part in what is part of a national plan for homeland security -- maybe Americans ought to vacation somewhere else." He has a good point. However, he is looking at it from the wrong perspective -- but I'm sure money is blocking his view. Hasn't Nevada already done its part? More so than any other state in the Union? After all, what state gave more to shorten not only a cold war but also a couple of hot wars? If there is any question of this, just count the pockmarks! So, based on his own criteria, more people should vacation here than anywhere else. He was a disappointment when he had a high-profile government job, but he is repugnant now. JOHN MOISEVE All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 25 Letter: Nuclear waste's silver lining Las Vegas SUN Today: January 17, 2002 at 8:45:45 PST When the nuclear waste comes trucking in, that is the ultimate test for politicians to prove how much backbone they have to stop a government out of control. Newscasts are scaring the daylights out of many by warning about lower property values. The cloud over Yucca Mountain may have a silver lining. Lower values means lower taxes! None of us old fogeys got a $5,000-plus cost-of-living adjustment like our servants on the Hill! For three generations I paid for bigger schools, larger libraries and lunchboxes changed into cafeterias. Much money was wasted on the dumbing-down of society. Las Vegas is subdivided with gated communities. Roads in between are cut in half by blinking wooden horses and orange-colored cones. Traffic lights are out of sync. The older part of the city has large pockets occupied by illegal aliens with cars on blocks and oil dripping in the gutter. Yet, they are aided and catered to by elected officials counting future votes. Meanwhile the police seem unable or unwilling to enforce laws and ordinances already on the books. What gives us the assurance that the mayor of Las Vegas can protect the entire state from trucked-in nuclear pollutants? My advice to Oscar is to stay downtown and direct traffic around City Hall. Whatever shall be, shall be. It's all cut, dry and in the can. You can take that to the bank. JAN STORM All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 26 Editorial: Negotiating for benefits a bad deal Las Vegas SUN Today: January 17, 2002 at 8:45:45 PST Editorial: Negotiating for benefits a bad deal Now that Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham has recommended that President Bush approve the construction of a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, the whispers are starting again that the state should give up its opposition to the dump in return for money from the federal government. State Sen. Bill O'Donnell, R-Las Vegas, and a few union leaders periodically pop up to argue for negotiations with the federal government only to have an overwhelming number of the state's population and elected officials reject such entreaties. Negotiating for benefits is just as lousy today as it has been during the past decade when these arguments have been made. Remember that the federal government reneged on many promises it made to New Mexico regarding the Waste Isolation Pilot Project, a radioactive waste disposal site opened in 1999 near Carlsbad, N.M. For example, the state of New Mexico was promised that it would receive $190 million for highway upgrades, but it only received $20 million. Besides, why should we trust the same federal government to keep its word that year after year has ignored all the scientific warnings that show how dangerous it is to ship and store 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste in Nevada? To even talk about getting money from the federal government would be tantamount to throwing in the towel in the state's battle against the nuclear waste dump -- and there is no reason to give up. President Bush hasn't signed off on Abraham's recommendation yet. Even if he does, the state can use a veto, which both houses of Congress then would have to override by a majority vote. Granted, getting the support of the president or Congress is a long shot, but there still is a chance. If the state were to give an inch now, the supporters we have in Congress wouldn't stick their necks out for us if we're not willing ourselves to oppose the dump with every option available to us. Half-hearted opposition really is no opposition at all. There are some fights that involve matters of principle and which can't be resolved through compromise. There is no price high enough that would allow us to sacrifice the safety of this state's residents and future generations. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 27 Nevadans urged to call Bush Las Vegas SUN Today: January 17, 2002 at 9:44:15 PST Nevada residents should inundate President Bush with letters urging him to reject his Energy Secretary's recommendation that Yucca Mountain is a suitable site to bury the nation's nuclear waste, Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said Wednesday. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham has notified Gov. Kenny Guinn that he intends to recommend the site, probably next month. Bush is expected this year to approve the recommendation. "If Nevadans can flood the White House with letters and phone calls, and if our congressional delegation keeps holding the administration's feet to the fire, we may be able to convince the President that we are not going to go quietly, and that he should invest in a long-term solution to the problem," Berkley said. Berkley is urging state residents to send Bush letters, or simply sign their name to hers. The letter is on her website (www.house.gov/berkley). Meanwhile, Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins, D-Henderson, is urging other state legislatures to adopt resolutions opposing the designation of Yucca Mountain as a nuclear burial ground. Perkins said said Wednesday he has sent letters speakers in the other states informing them there would be shipments of the radioactive materials through 43 states for more than 20 years. Perkins told the other speakers, "This is Nevada's problem today; federal steamrolling over the rights of your constituents, threatening their health, safety or economic well-being could be next." All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 28 Councilman says Nevadans have paid their nuclear dues Las Vegas SUN Today: January 17, 2002 at 9:44:15 PST By Diana Sahagun Las Vegas Councilman Gary Reese offered a unique perspective to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham's decision to recommend Yucca Mountain as the burial ground for 77,000 tons of the nation's nuclear waste. Reese, 61, who grew up downwind of the Nevada Test Site, gave an emotional speech during Wednesday's City Council meeting, offering support for Mayor Oscar Goodman, who will attend the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Washington next week. Goodman hopes to bring the anti-Yucca message to more than 100 mayors whose cities are along routes that would be traversed by trucks transporting waste to the proposed repository. Reese's family moved to Lincoln County when he was just 3 months old. Without the luxury of television, one family pastime involved watching the above-ground nuclear blasts at the Test Site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas. More than 1,000 above- and below-ground nuclear experiments were conducted at the site from 1951 until 1992. When he was 8, Reese remembers getting up early in the morning with his family and watching the experiments, oblivious to the dangers. "We would see a very bright red, yellow, blue flame come out of the sky, it was just awesome," Reese said. "You'd see the flame that would light up the sky, and then you would see this mushroom ... and just sprinkle out all over." Afterward, his father would wash the windows of an old pickup, which had become coated with dust as a result of the testing. It looked like light snow. "Nobody ever warned us ... that this could be dangerous to you," Reese said. "We always wondered why we got to watch it when the wind was blowing our way, not toward Las Vegas." Reese graduated from Lincoln County High School in 1959 as part of a class of 26. Nine are now dead, seven from various forms of cancer. Former President Clinton in 2000 signed an expanded radiation compensation bill to include more residents -- including those in Lincoln County -- who lived downwind of the Test Site. A $50,000 check from the government did little to comfort his mother, who has struggled with breast cancer, or Reese's father, who died in 1993 from silicosis, a lung disease caused by exposure to dust. Nor did compensation soothe his brother's pain after his wife died three years ago after being diagnosed with a brain tumor. Neither did a check to the survivors of two of Reese's best friends, who died from pancreatic liver cancer. "I don't want your grandkids or your great-grandkids receiving downwinder money," Reese said. "If they can tell us that it's safe 50 years from now ... then why do they have to transport it clear across the U.S.? Why don't they just dig a hole where it's created and bury it there?" All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 29 EPA says perchlorate may cause more harm Las Vegas SUN Today: January 17, 2002 at 10:03:29 PST By Mary Manning Perchlorate, a rocket fuel booster found in Southern Nevada's drinking water, causes more harm to human health than scientists believed, a draft Environmental Protection Agency report says. The EPA is preparing a risk assessment, the first step leading to a national limit of the chemical in drinking water. The process could take 10 years, EPA officials have said. Scientists knew in the 1950s that perchlorate could cause thyroid cancer or slow growth in children. The chemical has been made by two companies in Henderson since 1952. Kerr-McGee Chemical Corp. is working with Nevada environmental officials to clean the chemical, a salt, out of local drinking water. Perchlorate has been found in the Las Vegas Wash and Lake Mead. The highest level of the chemical recorded in local drinking water was 26 parts per billion in December 2000. The Oakland, Calif., organization Environmental Working Group is suggesting a limit of 3.2 parts per billion, Bill Walker, an analyst for the group, said. That's equal to three drops of perchlorate in an Olympic-size swimming pool. The group analyzed the EPA's data in the draft report, Walker said. The Environmental Working Group withdrew its analysis from public access last week after a request from EPA to do so. Southern Nevada Water Authority officials had not seen the EPA's report or the environmental group's study, spokesman J.C. Davis said. The water authority found perchlorate at 14 parts per billion in December, he said. Kerr-McGee Chemical Corp. has said it will begin this year removing most of the perchlorate from the Las Vegas Wash leading to Lake Mead, Davis said. EPA spokeswoman Lisa Fasano said that the public may comment on the draft report until Feb. 11. It can be found at www.epa.gov. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 30 Promises to keep about dump site [RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL] January 17, 2002 Jon Ralston [] We have miles to go before the state’s political elite sleeps on the task of fighting Yucca Mountain. But last week’s expected recommendation by Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham signals an awakening not of substantive action, but of political maneuvering unlike any seen in some time. State Republicans and Democrats can mouth hollow calls for bipartisanship all they want. But those in the political world think in mostly these terms: How will this affect me? Republicans are more vulnerable because they publicly put so much faith in George W. Bush to decide the issue based on “sound science,” which is the epitome of hollow political phrases. But the Democrats battling the dump have to be wary, too, because if Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle doesn’t keep his promise to kill Yucca Mountain, they will have a lot to answer for, too. Politics is, in its rawest form, about playacting. And that’s what you are seeing in the aftermath of Abraham’s announcement that Yucca Mountain is a suitable site for a nuclear waste dump. Tylenol couldn’t produce enough capsules to cure the headache from all of the rhetoric disgorged during the last few days by Nevada pols trying to look angry or defiant or hopeful in the wake of a decision they all knew was coming for years. The Republicans have been especially disingenuous after insisting during the presidential campaign that a Bush administration would listen to “sound science” over nuclear industry contributors or Congress’ NIMBY mentality. Al Gore surely would have done nothing to derail the dump-siting process. But Bush and his surrogate, Abraham, seem to believe there’s no time like the present, even after a stunning report from the General Accounting Office advised the administration to go slow because so much uncertainty exists. Then, as if to add insult to injury, John Sununu, the ex-GOP governor of New Hampshire and former chief of staff to Bush the Elder, suggested that if Nevada doesn’t take the dump, “maybe Americans ought to vacation somewhere else.” Whatever the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is paying Sununu to shill for the dump, it’s too much. I’m surprised he didn’t just repeat that old sick phrase about rape: If it’s going to happen, just lie back and enjoy it. Sununu’s asinine comments notwithstanding, the state will not be prostrate in the face of Abraham’s recommendation. But what happens if Gov. Kenny Guinn, Sen. John Ensign and other Republicans here go to the president and Bush still chooses the site? How will that affect their credibility as well as the GOP’s fortunes in those two contested southern Nevada congressional seats? On the other hand, if Daschle doesn’t keep his pledge, how will the Democrats wipe that egg off their face? Miles to go before they sleep, perhaps. But if anyone thinks we’re even close to being out of the woods yet, they better wonder about the promises President Bush and others have yet to keep. Jon Ralston, who publishes The Ralston Report, works for Greenspun Media Group. He welcomes comments and questions. Write him at 2675Windmill, #3621 Henderson, NV 89074. Or call (702) 870-7997. © Copyright Reno Gazette-Journal, a Gannett ***************************************************************** 31 Nuclear fuel rods missing from Connecticut plant for decades were likely disposed of - 1/17/2002 - ENN.com Thursday, January 17, 2002 By Diane Scarponi, Associated Press WATERFORD, Conn. — Two radioactive fuel rods missing from a nuclear power plant for at least two decades were likely mistaken for other radioactive waste and safely disposed of, federal investigators have concluded. Inspectors from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) said Tuesday they were considering whether to sanction or fine Dominion Inc., which owns the Millstone One nuclear power plant, for the lapse in record-keeping and mishandling of highly radioactive spent fuel. Dominion bought the Millstone complex of three nuclear reactors last year and said it would seek compensation from former owner Northeast Utilities (NU) if fined. A final report is due from the NRC in a few weeks. Fuel rods have never before gone missing in the history of commercial nuclear power in the United States, according to the NRC. The investigation into the missing fuel rods began in December 2000 after NU conducted an inventory of the plant's spent fuel pool. Neither NU nor Dominion could determine conclusively where the rods ended up. The NRC and Dominion insist the rods could not have been stolen. The 13.5 -foot-long rods emit lethal doses of radiation. Anyone removing them would have to use proper equipment and would have to get past numerous radiation monitors and other security measures, the NRC said. "There is nothing that indicated that as a possibility in any way," said Todd Jackson, the NRC's head investigator. Based on records, the NRC and Dominion agreed the rods were probably mistaken for other radioactive material being stored in the spent fuel pool, such as monitoring equipment, and shipped off for long-term storage. The shipping containers are buried on arrival and never opened. The most likely storage sites are in Barnwell, S.C., and Hanford, Wash., investigations by the company and the NRC said. Officials at the Barnwell site, upset that spent fuel rods may have been shipped to them without their knowledge and stored in violation of their license, are refusing to accept more radioactive material from Millstone until the rods are found. "Even though this happened 20 years ago, it is still painful to hear the description of it," said Alan Price, acting vice president of operations at Millstone. The company said it has implemented procedures to ensure nuclear rods never disappear again. While Millstone One is in the process of being decommissioned and has not operated since 1995, the other two plants in the complex are in operation. Dominion, based in Virginia, inherited the missing fuel rod problem from Berlin-based NU when it paid $1.3 billion for the complex last year. NU advised Dominion before the sale that the fuel rods were missing. NU paid more than $9 million to investigate, said Bill Matthews, vice president of Millstone. NU spokeswoman Deborah Beauchamp said the company is pleased that the NRC's investigation backed up NU's findings. She said it was premature to discuss fines. Joe Besade, an antinuclear activist, said Tuesday that NU had paid more than $10 million in penalties in the past for violating nuclear and clean-water regulations. "Nobody's been held accountable for anything I've seen," Besade said. "This is going to be another whitewash." Copyright 2002, Associated Press ***************************************************************** 32 INB to export uranium to Belgium [SABI] Story Filed: Thursday, January 17, 2002 12:00 PM EST Brazil, Jan 17, 2002 (Gazeta Mercantil/SABI via COMTEX) -- Brazil will take part of a select group of exporters of uranium. INB (Industrias Nucleares do Brasil) will ship 500 kg of the uranium to Belgo Nuclear from Belgium, from a total of 3,5 m tons to be exported until late January. The business with Belgo Nuclear was possible due to the expansion and modernization of the Resende-based plant (Rio de Janeiro) and investments in the Caetite-based unit (Bahia), in a total of R$150mil and R$10mil, respectively. The company will reach a capacity of 160 m tons of uranium. In 2001, INB had a loss of R$15mil. Copyright (c) 2002, South American Business Information, All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 33 Missing nuclear fuel rods may be in S.C. [http://www.thestate.com] Columbia, S.C. Thursday, January 17, 2002 WATERFORD, Conn. -- Two radioactive fuel rods missing from a nuclear power plant for at least two decades were likely mistaken for other radioactive waste and safely disposed of in South Carolina or Washington, federal investigators have concluded. Inspectors from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Tuesday they were considering whether to sanction or fine Dominion Inc., which owns the Millstone One nuclear power plant, for the lapse in record-keeping and mishandling of highly radioactive spent fuel. Copyright 2001 The State-Record Company ***************************************************************** 34 Nuclear waste on its way? Recommendation sets wheels in motion By Damon Hodge (damon.hodge@vegas.com [damon.hodge@vegas.com] ) Looking to diversify your portfolio? Think nuclear. If Yucca Mountain becomes a geological crapper for the nation's nuke droppings--a possibility that moved a step closer to reality last week--nuke stocks could be the next hot thing (pun intended). As expected, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham--known as Homeboy to the Nuke Lobby--recommended approval of the site, 90 miles northwest Las Vegas. The Department of Energy's handling of the Yucca Mountain project has been nothing but laughable. After all, if it wasn't amending laws to weaken the application standards, the DOE was suing the Environmental Protection Agency for nitpicking on groundwater radiation standards. If it wasn't dismissing independent analysis critical of its handling of the project, the DOE was ignoring a report from its own inspector general, Gregory Freidman, challenging its timeline for opening the dump. All the while the DOE kept pumping billions into the design of a repository. Save for activists and lawmakers, few Nevadans got angry, making its lube job easier. Abraham informed Gov. Kenny Guinn by phone, the better to avoid giggling in his face. And shortly after he phoned Guinn at 11:05 a.m., telling him of his decision, a press release appeared on the DOE Web site. Its subhead read: "Sound Science & Compelling National Interests Lead to Secretary's Recommendation of Yucca Mountain." As for the critical evaluations from independent scientists, ah, well, they're flawed. And the General Accounting Office report that found 293 problems? Well, DOE spokesman Joseph Davis has an explanation. "There were not 200-plus technical issues that must be resolved before the secretary could make a decision on site suitability," Davis says in an email response to queries by Las Vegas Weekly. "Only nine key technical issues remain that the DOE has submitted to the NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) for review as they relate to a license application process, not site suitability." Davis defends Abraham's decision, delivering the same punch line the DOE has used since 1983, when Nevada "beat out" Texas and Washington to win the nuke dump bonanza. "The secretary believes, in the interest of national security, environmental protection and energy security, it is better to consolidate nuclear waste in one underground repository located far from any major population center," reads the email. Drum roll, please. So as Abraham recommended that President Bush approve the site and Nevada lawmakers, businesses and casino industry moguls prepare for the impending legal war, you'd do well to brush up on your stock-picking tips. All contents © 1998 - 2002 Radiant City Publications, LLC lasvegasweekly.com ***************************************************************** 35 New alarm bells over Sellafield The Irish World - News By Donal Mooney There is fresh alarm in Dublin over the nuclear reprocessing plant at Sellafield, Cumbria, after an expert told the House of Commons defence committee in London that a terrorist attack on the plant could make the north of England uninhabitable. Dr Gordon Thompson, executive director of the Institute for Resource and Security Studies in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has said in a report presented that such an attack could release radioactivity one hundred times greater than the Chernobyl disaster of 1986. Particularly vulnerable to attack, he has said, are facilities dating back to the 1950s – giant tanks of high level radioactive waste which have to be stirred constantly and cooled in order to prevent a chain reaction. These tanks, he has said, could not withstand an airline crash, making them vulnerable to the kind of attack made in New York and Washington on 11 September last. He has also raised the possibility of the plant being hit by a bomb or by a missile and of the cooling tanks being sabotaged by an infiltrated terrorist. He has insisted that none of the documentation he has seen from either the nuclear industry itself or the British government has shown any evidence that the possible threats facing the plant have ever been thoroughly analysed. Dr Thompson previously gave evidence at the 1977 inquiry into operations at Sellafield, then named Windscale, and also at the Sizewell inquiry. He is a recognised expert on the potential fallout from nuclear accident or terrorist attack on nuclear installations. He has also pointed to the danger from liquid waste at the plant. A system designed to convert this waste into safer forms has never worked properly and has built up a fifteen-year backlog. This raises the possibility of a massive release of liquid nuclear waste into the Irish Sea, which would make fishing off much of Britain’s western coastline impossible. Far more seriously, however, anywhere downwind of such a release would become uninhabitable probably for generations. Among the cities that could be affected are Newcastle, Leeds, Edinburgh and Dublin. People exposed to the full force of the fall-out would run a greatly increased risk of cancer. Meanwhile, it has emerged that the European Union has not checked safety at Sellafield for more than eight years. Environment Commissioner Margot Wallstrom has admitted in a written reply to Irish MEPs that the last verification at Sellafield was in 1993. A spokeswoman for the Environment Commissioner said last week that more regular checks have not been carried out because of a shortage of financial resources. The leader of the Republic’s Green Party, Trevor Sargent, has described the situation as “outrageous”. ***************************************************************** 36 Dove Lobbies Against Waste Site [Roll Call Online] [Since 1995] January 17, 2002 By Mark Preston [MarkPreston@rollcall.com] As the federal government moves closer to dumping 77,000 tons of nuclear waste in Las Vegas' back yard, Nevada has hired a former Senate Parliamentarian to help derail the project when it comes to a vote in Congress. Robert Dove, who was fired by then-Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) last May, was hired by Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn (R) on Dec. 10 and is being paid $3,000 a month for his expertise in Senate floor procedure. Dove is working closely with Egan &Associates, a Washington D.C.-based law firm specializing in nuclear power issues that was awarded a $2.5 million contract by Guinn on Sept. 11. "Robert Dove is a brilliant Parliamentarian," the governor said. "His work in our fight against Yucca Mountain helps level the playing field for a state that has only four Members in Congress." Dove's involvement has not come without controversy. Several senior GOP Senate aides suggested that the former Parliamentarian's decision to help fight the Yucca Mountain siting is a direct challenge to the Republican leaders who ousted him. "It won't surprise some people who always had their suspicions, and it will disappoint some people who really thought he was a fair broker," said a senior GOP aide. "This move represents a possibility that he is headed in an interesting direction," added another top GOP aide. But a former Senate Republican floor strategist believes it was a savvy move by Nevada to put Dove on the payroll. "I think it is a great move," the strategist said. "He knows the floor, and he especially knows every Member of the Senate and, more importantly, they know him." Dove and Egan could not be reached for comment. Dove's hiring is just the latest upping of the ante in this high-stakes political game that has pitted Silver State lawmakers against the White House and the energy industry. Nevada intends to launch an issue-advocacy campaign to "educate" candidates and incumbents in both parties about the lack of safety of transporting nuclear waste through their states, said Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.), an opponent of the nuclear dump. "It includes targeting people and trying to convince them of our side," Ensign said. "We are not necessarily going against them, rather raising an issue. "We are not going to try and defeat some of them, but we are going to try and convince voters to convince them," he added. Proponents of storing the waste at Yucca Mountain have no plans at this time to launch a similar lobbying effort, but would not rule it out in the future. Fighting the battle on another front, Senate Majority Whip Harry Reid (D-Nev.) turned the heat up again this week on the casino industry, urging leaders to withhold political donations to the Republican Party if President Bush approves the plan for Yucca Mountain, which is located 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. "I recommended that a long time ago," Reid said. "The way I look at this is, the big key to this is, what is George Bush is going to do? He has it within his power to do nothing." Energy Secretary Spence Abraham recommended to Bush earlier this month that Yucca Mountain be chosen as the permanent repository for the nation's high-level nuclear waste. Even though there is concern about Abraham's recommendation, several casino insiders said it is highly unlikely that the gaming industry would try to punish the Republican Party, because Yucca Mountain is just one of many matters it has before Congress. "This is one issue of many, and you don't break your bank on one issue," one casino insider said. "It is not a sound way to do business," added another source close to the gaming industry. "I don't think you call Minority Leader Lott and threaten him." Throughout this battle, the main lobbying arm for the casino industry has been on the sidelines because it represents companies with gambling operations in several states. "At this point in time the [American Gaming Association] has not been involved in the strategy [or] lobbying because it is a Nevada-specific issue," a spokesman for organization said. Although some Nevada Republicans have openly criticized the GOP leadership for supporting the repository, campaign ties still exist between the state and national parties. House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) is in Nevada today raising money for the Nevada Republican Party and Lynette Boggs McDonald, who is seeking to challenge Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-Nev.). Senate Majority Leader Thomas Daschle (D-S.D.), for whom Reid serves as a top lieutenant, has said he would oppose efforts to make Yucca Mountain the nation's nuclear waste dump. While opponents have enlisted the aide of Dove, a skilled parliamentary tactician, supporters of Yucca Mountain have hired two political heavyweights to represent their interests. Former New York Democratic Rep. Geraldine Ferraro and ex-White House Chief of Staff John Sununu are representing the Yucca Mountain Coalition - a group of business, energy, and state chamber of commerces who support the repository. While Ferraro and Sununu are working the issue in Washington, Bruce Josten, who is organizing the coalition said most of his work lies beyond the Beltway. "I am not sure I have to spend very much money to educate people in Washington," said Josten, an executive vice president for the United States Chamber of Commerce. "I think most people here understand this issue. What I am more interested in is educating my members across the country." Scott Peterson, vice president of the Nuclear Energy Institute, agreed with Josten that they are unlikely to employ a new lobbying strategy in the wake of Abraham's announcement. "I don't think our strategy on this has changed from past years in terms of educating Members of Congress and staff on this issue," Peterson said. Although the chamber's post-employment restrictions only prohibit Dove from lobbying the Secretary of the Senate's office, Josten said he expects Nevada to use Dove's parliamentary skills to work the legislative calendar to their advantage. The way the Yucca Mountain decision-making process is mapped out, Nevada lawmakers would only need to "chew up the Senate schedule maybe for 10 to 15 days," which would allow the legislative clock to run out before the issue could be voted on in this shortened election year. "Bob is clearly considered the best in understanding the entire weird parliamentary process in the Senate," Josten said. But Nevada lawmakers acknowledge it might be difficult to round up the necessary 51 votes to defeat the measure when it does surface for a vote. "It's an uphill struggle for us, no question," said Ensign. "But there are a lot of people that are new to the Senate as well." And Ensign noted that Senate Republicans have not had someone from their own party in the room to present the anti-nuclear dump position for a dozen years. "For the past 12 years they only had the proponents of nuclear waste storage telling their story," Ensign said. As for Dove, Ensign said he recommended hiring the former Parliamentarian late last year because of his acumen in floor procedure. "We wanted to make sure we had the best advice we could have going in," he said. "We are out to win this issue." And Reid, who said he was not consulted on Dove's hiring, said he supports anything that will help stop the high-level nuclear waste from being buried in his state. "I think with something like this, you are always looking for a little edge, and hiring Bob Dove is maybe of no use to us, but you never know," Reid said. "Therefore I support it." Since leaving his post in May, Dove has been consulting private clients in addition to teaching at Georgetown University Law Center and George Washington University. Copyright 2002 © Roll Call Inc. ***************************************************************** 37 New Court Date for BNFL Health and Safety Charges THE WHITEHAVEN NEWS Thursday, January 17, 2002 Health and safety charges against BNFL concerning radiation exposure to a scaffolder working at Sellafield have been put back until next month. The charges appeared on a list before Whitehaven Magistrates last Thursday but after a behind-the-scenes re-arrangement, they will now be heard on Wednesday, February 20. An earlier date of January 24 had been set but BNFL say it was not possible to go ahead then because a Nuclear Installations Inspectorate legal representative was not available. BNFL face four charges stemming from an incident early last year in which a contract scaffolder received a radiation dose to his skin while working in the Thorp plant's crane maintenance cell. The company is charged with failing to ensure that the scaffolder was not exposed to health and safety risks and contravening regulations in not taking all necessary steps to restrict his exposure to ionising radiation. On two other counts, BNFL is accused of failing to ensure that operations were carried out under the control of suitably qualified people and failing to make a sufficient assessment of working risks in the crane maintenance cell. BNFL will not publicly indicate its plea until the court hearing but at a recent meeting of the Sellafield Local Liaison Committee Sellafield's director of operations Brian Watson said he deeply regretted the incident. ***************************************************************** 38 No Leakage from Cracked BNFL Pond THE WHITEHAVEN NEWS Thursday, January 17, 2002 BNFL has said it does not think radioactivity found in a borehole at Sellafield could have come from cracks in the concrete walls of a nuclear waste storage pond. But the company is still investigating the possible cause of radioactive technetium found on site. BNFL spokesman Jamie Reed said when questioned by the News: "Several years ago, BNFL discovered cracks in the surface wall of the B30 pond. The Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII) and EA are well aware of this issue These cracks are a feature of large concrete water retaining structures such as pond walls. Most of the cracks have electronic measuring devices fitted to them (strain gauges), which have shown no change in crack size other than seasonal variation, over several years. In addition to electronic measuring, BNFL structural engineers regularly monitor the surface walls of the B30 pond and report their findings to the NII.." He added: "There is no leakage from B30.'' ***************************************************************** 39 Letter to President Bush from Clark County and the City of Las Vegas re: Yucca Mountain Decision DARIO HERRERA Chairman Board of County Commissioners CLARK COUNTY GOVERNMENT CENTER 500 S Grand Central Parkway P O Box 551111 Lab Vegas, NV 89135•1111 (702) 455•3500 FAX(702)383-6041 OSCAR B. GOODMAN Mayor City of Las Vegas LAS VEGAS CITY HALL 400 Stewart Maw Las Vegas, NV 89101-2986 (702) 229-6241 FAX: (702) 385-7960 January 14, 2002 President George W. Bush The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President: This letter is to state our unequivocal opposition to the Secretary of Energy's premature decision to forward to you a recommendation in favor of Yucca Mountain as an appropriate site for the nation's only high-level nuclear waste repository. We are outraged at the inappropriate timing of this recommendation, which comes with so many critical questions left unanswered. It is beyond our comprehension that three days after his only visit to Yucca Mountain, lasting about one hour, the Secretary was able to reach his decision. We find his recent assertions that his mind was not already made up as dishonest and deceitful as the way the Department of Energy (DOE) has handled this project for the last 20 years. By his actions, the Secretary of Energy confirmed what we have suspected all along: He has little interest in a scientific decision on Yucca Mountain. Panels of experts and experienced scientists have provided more than enough information to cast doubt on the appropriateness of a repository that Undersecretary Card recently characterized as "hypothetical" in his response to the General Accounting Office report issued last month. How the DOE can "spin" gaps and flaws in their technical, procedural and legal requirements into a "hypothetical" situation flies in the face of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, NEPA, as well as the mandate from Congress in this matter. Mr. President, it is not right to approve a "hypothetical" repository for which "hypothetical" storage casks have never been built or tested, based on "hypothetical" plans that will affect future generations for not hundreds, not thousands, but hundreds of thousands of years. The National Research Council, International Atomic Energy Agency, the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board and the General Accounting Office have all found that it would be premature for the DOE to recommend Yucca Mountain as an appropriate repository site on the basis of scientific knowledge at this time. Despite these recommendations, the DOE blindly continues to press on with its ill-conceived program, without regard to any of the identified environmental and geologic limitations, or the threats and impacts identified by the State of Nevada and other affected units of government. It is unconscionable that the Secretary would move forward with a decision without having completed sufficient studies related to water, volcanic activity, and earthquakes. We consider it at a minimum unethical, and perhaps illegal, to dismiss requests for consideration of transportation and terrorism in a Final Environmental Impact Statement. Further, we are certain that it is without precedent that a project with such widespread and long-term environmental impact would move forward without the benefit of the public release of the Final Environmental Impact Statement. We have received no assurances that the DOE has even considered our concerns regarding the Draft Environmental Impact Statement, What has happened to the 14,800 comments received by the DOE? We have never had a response from the DOE, nor have any of the other commentors. Beyond the technical flaws, inconsistencies, and incomplete answers, we have yet to receive an acknowledgment from the DOE that it appropriately considered the impacts to our communities. The DOE has never properly considered such impacts, including health, safety, property values, tourism impacts, and job losses. Threats to our health, safety and our economy are of paramount importance to us. Our extensive studies tell us that a serious nuclear waste related accident in our area would result in long-term damage to our communities, from which recovery would be difficult, if not impossible. A complete analysis of transportation risks, including risk of terrorist activity along transportation routes, is being ignored. Secretary Abraham asserts that the recommendation of Yucca Mountain as the nuclear waste repository is in our best national security interest. However, this assertion does not consider the 100,000 shipments of nuclear waste as new terrorist targets, and it does not consider the more than 100 nuclear power plants in almost 40 states that will continue to be terrorist targets. The proposed repository will only serve to add one more attractive target for such attacks. Further, the DOE now proposes to ship much younger, and thus more dangerous fuel, throughout its shipping campaign, This compounds the risks already inherent in transporting waste from multiple locations across the country to one central location. Public safety and emergency preparedness costs add up to over $1 billion for local governments in Southern Nevada alone. Property value diminution along transportation routes could reach as high as $8.7 billion. None of this seems to matter to the DOE, but it matters a great deal to the residents of Southern Nevada. Whether current or future generations of Nevadans experience the same health effects as former Nevada Test Site workers may not be of concern to Secretary Abraham, but it is of grave concern to us. One 10-year-old in our community feels so strongly opposed that she collected signatures at school on a petition against the proposed repository project. Other children express concern to their parents about being robbed of the opportunity to grow up and to have healthy children of their own due to what they perceive as the serious health risks associated with the proposed repository. An overwhelming majority of Nevada residents are on record as being opposed to the Yucca Mountain Project. Mr. President, the citizens of Nevada and the nation owe you a debt of gratitude for your leadership and strong response to international terrorism. Right now, your leadership is also needed to protect the safety and security of Nevadans and to restore integrity and public confidence in what has been a deeply flawed process. Politics has been the name of the game from the beginning, and the State of Nevada has never had a fair chance in defending itself against the DOE's preconceived intentions. You, Mr. President, have the ability to follow through on your promise to allow science, not politics, to drive this process. Therefore, we respectfully request that you simply reject Secretary Abraham's recommendation. Sincerely, --signed-- Dario Herrera, Chair Clark County Commission --signed-- Oscar B. Goodman, Mayor City of Las Vegas ***************************************************************** 40 Got Nuclear Waste? Send it to Vermont. Washington Bulletin by Ramesh Ponnuru on National Review Online [http://www.nationalreview.com] By Ramesh Ponnuru, NR senior editor January 16, 2002 4:00 p.m. Spence Abraham, the secretary of energy, is recommending that nuclear waste be stored at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. The state's pols — including a Republican governor and a Republican senator — are pretty miffed. Here's what Kenny Guinn, the governor, says he said when Abraham called him about his decision: "I told him that I am damn disappointed in this decision and to expect my veto. I explained to him we will fight it in the Congress, in the Oval Office, in every regulatory body we can. . . . I also told him that on behalf of all Nevadans, I am outraged that he is allowing politics to override sound science. At the conclusion of the call I told the secretary that I think this decision stinks, the whole process stinks, and we'll see him in court." As I said, miffed. There is, however, a solution that should make both the Nevadans and Abraham happy: Send the nuclear waste to a mountain in Vermont. This wouldn't be payback to Jim Jeffords for giving the Senate to the Democrats. That would be petty. It would be payback to Jeffords and to Pat Leahy. Heck, the president could even make a deal with the latter: Confirm Miguel Estrada. Or glow in the dark. ***************************************************************** 41 Berkley Kicks Off Yucca Letter Writing Campaign Congresswoman Shelley Berkley - Legislation: Press Releases 2001 Lawmaker Urges All Nevadans to Write to Bush; Model Letter on Website January 16, 2002 -- (Las Vegas, NV) U.S. Rep. Shelley Berkley today sent a letter to President Bush asking him to reject the decision of the Secretary of Energy to recommend Yucca Mountain, and urged all Nevadans to join the letter writing campaign to the President, expressing their disappointment in the decision, and their faith that the President will reject the recommendation based on inadequate data. Berkley is posting her letter to the President on her official website, where Nevadans can print off a copy to sign their own name and send to the White House, or use as a model for their own letters. Berkley’s website is www.house.gov/berkley During the 2000 Presidential campaign, then-candidate Bush promised Nevadans that he would let "sound science" decide the issue. According to a recent report requested by Berkley, the federal General Accounting Office (GAO) states unequivocally that a recommendation by the Secretary of Energy would be premature until sufficient scientific data has been gathered. Ignoring the findings of the GAO report, the Secretary of Energy, a long time supporter of the proposed nuclear dump, recently expressed his intent to recommend Yucca Mountain to the President. "The President made a promise to Nevada, and the people of our State expect him to live up to that promise," noted Berkley. "The President will be under intense political pressure from the nuclear industry and from members of his own party in the House of Representatives. We have to counter that pressure by bringing our own numbers to bear. If Nevadans can flood the White House with letters and phone calls, and if our Congressional delegation keeps holding the Administration’s feet to the fire, we may be able to convince the President that we are not going to go quietly, and that he should invest in a long term solution to this problem. If they are not interested in our appeal to sound public policy, perhaps they’ll be more interested in their own political futures." Read Shelley's letter to the President or print out your own. ***************************************************************** 42 Chairman Herrera, Mayor Goodman Urge President to Reject DOE Recommemdation FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 14, 2002 Nevadans, Others Asked to Let President Know of Opposition President George W. Bush was strongly urged today by two of Southern Nevada’s most visible leaders to reject the recommendation of Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham to bury the nation’s high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Las Vegas Mayor Oscar B. Goodman and Clark County Commission Chairman Dario Herrera today released a copy of a letter the two jointly wrote to the president and urged Nevadans and others who live in the 43 states where the waste would be transported to let the president know of their concerns. "Threats to our health, safety and our economy are of paramount importance to us," the letter states. "Our extensive studies tell us that a serious nuclear waste-related accident in our area would result in long-term damage to our communities, from which recovery would be difficult, if not impossible. "A complete analysis of transportation risks, including risk of terrorist activity along transportation routes, is being ignored. Secretary Abraham asserts that the recommendation of Yucca Mountain as the nuclear waste repository is in our best national security interest. However, this assertion does not consider the 100,000 shipments of nuclear waste as new terrorist targets, and it does not consider the more than 100 nuclear waste repositories in over 30 states that will continue to be terrorist targets. "We are outraged at the inappropriate timing of this recommendation, which comes with so many critical questions left unanswered. It is beyond our comprehension that after only one visit to Yucca Mountain, lasting about one hour, the Secretary was able to so quickly reach his decision." Goodman and Herrera, who released their letter at a news conference today, also urged others across the country to write and phone the White House to express their concerns. Some 109 cities with a population of at least 100,000 people are located along the proposed transportation routes, which cross 43 states. About 52 million people live within one-half mile of those proposed routes, across which 96,300 shipments of highly radioactive waste would be shipped. Mayor Goodman said he has already begun reaching out to local leaders across the country in an effort to persuade them to join Nevadans in the Yucca Mountain fight. He has begun telephoning other mayors and will meet with many of them when he travels to New York City and Washington, D.C., next week for the U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting. On Jan. 23, Goodman will host a reception in Washington for many of the mayors. "Politics has been the name of the game from the beginning, and the State of Nevada has never had a fair chance in defending itself against the DOE’s preconceived intentions," the Herrera-Goodman letter states. "You, Mr. President, have the ability to follow through on your promise to allow science, not politics, to drive this process. Therefore, we respectfully request that you simply reject Secretary Abraham’s recommendation." Contacts City of Las Vegas Erik Pappa 229-6501, 271-3030 Clark County Carolyn Boyle 455-5186 Clark County Samantha Charles 455-3530 ### Communications [mdw@co.clark.nv.us] ***************************************************************** 43 Governor frustrated by lack of action on INEEL waste News | KTVB.COM | Idaho News, Weather & SportsKTVB.COM | JANUARY 16, 2002, 07:30 AM Associated Press Governor Dirk Kempthorne isn't ready to put armed guards on the state's railroad tracks to bar more nuclear waste to the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory. But he made it clear in the State of the State address that the Department of Energy needs to make good on its promise to remove the material buried above the Snake River Plain Aquifer. Governor Cecil Andrus ordered state troopers at the Idaho border and in Blackfoot to prevent nuclear waste from moving to the federal site in the late 1980s. And Governor Phil Batt cinched a 1985 court agreement to transfer the waste to New Mexico by 2036. The Energy Department is trying to secure an extension on its Pit Nine cleanup project. The state rejected the request. Kempthorne is slated to talk with top federal officials on the issue. 2000, 2001 The Associated Press. ***************************************************************** 44 Two States Weigh Digging Up Nuclear Waste From New London, Conn.-Area Plant Patricia Daddona , The Day, New London, Conn. Knight Ridder Tribune Business News (KRTBN) ( January 17, 2002 ) Jan. 17--WATERFORD, Conn.--Officials at low-level radioactive waste sites in South Carolina and Washington are considering whether it's necessary to dig up casks that might contain fuel rods missing from the Millstone I nuclear plant. Highly radioactive spent fuel is not supposed to be buried at low-level sites like those in Barnwell, S.C., and Hanover, Wash., Todd J. Jackson, leader of a special investigative team for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said here Tuesday. Fuel rods have never before been lost in the history of the commercial nuclear industry in the United States, according to the NRC. The fuel rods have been missing since December 2000, before Dominion Energy of Virginia bought the Millstone Nuclear Power Station from Northeast Utilities. The NRC announced Tuesday that it has found Dominion's investigations into what happened to the rods to be systematic and thorough, but will not decide until March whether to find the company in violation of five federal statutes or levy fines. It is up to the states involved to decide whether to dig up casks, said John Hickman, NRC licensing project manager for Millstone 1. "It's dangerous and cost-prohibitive, but they haven't ruled it out," Hickman said. The NRC may also recommend improvements for the handling of radioactive materials, Jackson said. Barnwell officials have refused to accept Millstone's low-level radioactive waste because of the missing fuel rods, though they have indicated that they would revisit the issue once the NRC makes complete findings, Millstone spokesman Pete Hyde said. William R. Matthews, vice president and senior nuclear executive at Millstone, said the risks associated with digging up contaminated waste far outweigh the benefits, even though the step appears to be the only way to locate the rods. The amount of radiation the rods contain, while harmful, is inconsequential once it's buried, he said. Site contractors in Barnwell and Hanover are using computer models of their sites to determine whether the 13-foot-long, pencil-thin fuel rods pose a significant hazard. The casks containing the fuel rods would have been buried unopened. In 2000, both rods contained a total of 40 grams of plutonium and 7,732 grams of uranium, Jackson said. The NRC concurs with the company's investigators that the fuel rods probably were mistaken for other stored radioactive material and shipped to Barnwell or Hanover. The rods were last mentioned in paperwork in 1980. He emphasized that neither the NRC nor Dominion investigators uncovered security breaches that could have allowed the rods or casks to be stolen. "Even though this happened 20 years ago, it still is painful to hear the description of it," said Alan Price, vice president of nuclear operations at Millstone. "Our reputation is for excellence. This is not where we want to be." Potential violations include failure to account for special nuclear material, complete or submit transfer reports, report missing radioactive material in a timely way, adequately characterize the waste for shipment and burial and provide adequate physical protection of irradiated reactor fuel in transit. NU discovered the missing fuel rods before selling Millstone to Dominion and has paid more than $9 million to investigate what happened. Spokeswoman Deborah Beauchamp said the company is pleased with the NRC's favorable review of efforts to determine what happened. Joe Besade, a whistleblower when Millstone was owned by NU, said he feared the NRC probe would be "another whitewash." NU was fined more than $10 million for violating nuclear and clean-water regulations before selling the power plants. To see more of The Day, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.theday.com (c) 2002, The Day, New London, Conn. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News. ***************************************************************** 45 Nuclear Underachievers washingtonpost.com: By Richard Sokolsky Thursday, January 17, 2002; Page A23 President Bush promised fundamental and long-overdue changes in the antiquated nuclear strategy he inherited from the Clinton administration. The Bush administration recently unveiled the results of its review of the U.S. nuclear posture. They are generally disappointing: The review does not deliver on the fundamental changes that were promised, and it is still overly influenced by the requirement to maintain the capability for large-scale attacks against Russia, despite the new relationship with Moscow the administration is building. While the review takes some steps in the right direction, it commits the United States over the next decade to maintaining far more nuclear weapons than are either necessary or desirable. At the outset of his administration, the president offered a forward-looking vision of the future U.S. nuclear posture. He rejected the Cold War doctrine of mutual assured destruction, which required targeting Russia with thousands of nuclear weapons, and he pledged to rethink the requirements of nuclear deterrence in a new security environment. With Russia no longer our enemy to dictate the size of our nuclear arsenal, he held out the promise of profound changes in its size and structure. His commitment to a break from the past was a welcome change from the timid nuclear policies of the previous decade. The president's decision to unilaterally reduce U.S. strategic force levels from 6,000 to about 1,700 to 2,200 operationally deployed warheads broke the gridlock in the strategic arms process, accomplishing in one bold stroke what years of arms control negotiations had failed to deliver. But the strategic arms reductions announced by the administration are less sweeping than they appear. The force levels envisioned at the end of this decade are virtually the same as those agreed to by Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin in 1997, which were criticized by many observers as too timid. Moreover, only minimal changes are contemplated in the composition of U.S. strategic forces. In fact, at the end of this decade the mix of strategic missiles, bombers and submarines that make up the U.S. nuclear "Triad" will not differ significantly from the force structure established by the Clinton administration's nuclear posture review -- a conservative document that broke little new ground. Additionally, the Bush administration, like its predecessor, has no plans to destroy warheads removed from strategic systems or to eliminate the capacity of these platforms to be rapidly re-fitted with these reserve warheads. This "reconstitution" capability of more than 6,000 warheads is comparable to that planned by the Clinton administration. It is hard to imagine a plausible contingency, if Russia is no longer our enemy, that requires this kind of capability. It's also hard to reconcile this new nuclear force posture with the administration's rhetoric about a completely new relationship of cooperation with Russia. To give substance to its commitment to transform U.S. strategic policy and establish this partnership with Russia, the administration should drastically overhaul the current U.S. nuclear war-fighting plan, which is heavily driven by the Cold War requirement for massive nuclear attacks against Russia. In taking this step, President Bush would be helping Russian President Vladimir Putin defend his pro-American policy from domestic hawks, who have strongly criticized the Bush nuclear posture review as "paper" disarmament. One positive feature of the nuclear review is its shift in planning from a threat-based approach, which sized and structured strategic forces to deal with the Soviet Union, to a capabilities-based approach, which relies on a broader mix of nuclear and non-nuclear forces to respond to a broader range of circumstances. In theory, this shift in emphasis could be significant if it leads to less dependence on nuclear weapons. But whether it does so remains to be seen. Administration officials have said this new standard for sizing the nuclear posture takes into account multiple potential opponents over the next decade. But it is difficult to see how these possible opponents, projected by U.S. intelligence to have a total of fewer than 200 nuclear weapons over the next decade, justify U.S. retention of 1,700 to 2,200 operationally deployed warheads and the much larger force being held in reserve. It is even more difficult to justify the nuclear posture review's force levels if one takes into account, as the authors profess to have done, U.S. plans to build anti-missile defenses and develop non-nuclear strike forces, such as those used in the Balkans and Afghanistan, to perform missions currently assigned to nuclear weapons. We need a completely different yardstick for determining the size and capabilities of U.S. strategic nuclear forces. With the need to maintain an ensured retaliatory capability against no more than a few hundred targets anywhere in the world, the United States should be able to reduce its strategic warhead levels to well below 1,700 and eliminate the excessively larger reserve force it plans to maintain as a "hedge" against a resurgent Russia. The writer is a visiting senior fellow at the National Defense University's Institute for National Strategic Studies. The views expressed here are his own. © 2002 The Washington Post Company ***************************************************************** 46 Asia's Nuclear Pandora's Box Thursday, Jan. 17, 2002. Page 9 By Pavel Felgenhauer When in 1998 India and Pakistan carried out a series of nuclear tests and officially became nuclear powers, some analysts argued that this could be a blessing in disguise. Nuclear weapons prevented the Cold War from turning into an all-out war between the Soviet Union and the United States -- they opined -- so why shouldn't the same nuclear deterrence work in the Indian subcontinent? During the Cold War, some military planners in Moscow and in Washington contended that nuclear bombs were just a more powerful weapon, that they did not change the essence of war and that one could "win" in a nuclear conflict just as in any other. Nonetheless in the military hierarchies of the superpowers, the prevailing wisdom was that limited nuclear confrontations would inevitably turn into all-out global nuclear conflict, which in turn would lead to universal destruction. Nuclear deterrence certainly worked, but is deterrence an intrinsic property of nuclear weapons? During the Cold War right up to the 1980s the leaders of the Soviet Union truly believed that communism would prevail, that capitalism was doomed and that there was no need to go ballistic and risk everything: better to wait and to deter the imperialist aggressors until they collapsed of their own accord. The leaders of the free world in Washington, in turn, believed that communism was doomed, so they were also hesitant to use their overwhelming nuclear superiority in the 1950s and 1960s and allowed the Soviet Union to catch up and establish strategic parity. Cold War government documents and interviews with Cold War decision makers reveal that both East and West were mostly enforcing strategic defense and seeking military balance rather than military superiority. If one side became disproportionately strong in one field or regional theater of conflict, the other did its best to compensate and reach equilibrium instead of pressing ahead in a field where it was stronger at the time. Nuclear deterrence helped to stabilize the confrontation and keep it cold, but it was not the only factor and maybe not even the determining factor. Both sides believed they would eventually win without actually fighting, and so they did not fight. Today's situation in the Indian subcontinent is totally different. India is much stronger than Pakistan militarily -- its army is almost twice as large and is equipped with more modern weapons. India has a relatively large navy with 10 Russian-made Kilo submarines and an operational British-made aircraft carrier. Pakistan does not have a navy worthy of the name. India could blockade Pakistan's major port, Karachi, and destabilize its fragile economy in several weeks. India could also go on the offensive in Kashmir and other border areas, and in the end the Pakistan would be defeated. India's leaders do not seem much afraid of the conflict going nuclear. If a conventionally defeated Pakistan uses its limited reserve of low-yield uranium bombs, India would surely respond with its numerically superior and more sophisticated plutonium-core weapons, conclusively destroying the enemy. In 1971, the Indian army helped East Bengal gain independence from Pakistan and become Bangladesh. Now the rest of Pakistan could be broken up into several tribal states, dominated by Delhi. India would also want to capture the enemy-controlled part of Kashmir and sever the strategic road link-up between Pakistan and China. It is believed in Delhi that with the demise of Pakistan, separatist movements in Kashmir and Punjab would cease. Pakistan's President General Pervez Musharraf obviously is afraid of war with India and has tried to pacify Delhi by arresting Muslim militants. But Pakistan -- an unruly conglomerate of tribes -- was established as a homeland for Indian Muslims when British rule collapsed. Pakistan and its army simply cannot abandon the Muslims in Kashmir that have been fighting the Indian security forces since the 1940s, as without the struggle in Kashmir and aggressive anti-Indian Islamism, there is nothing much to keep Pakistan united. It's not inevitable but very probable that both sides in the Indian subcontinent will eventually use nuclear weapons. The result could be disastrous because of the population density and total lack of serious civil defenses. But the worst possible outcome may be success. If India is seen to "win" by using nukes, then nuclear missiles may be increasingly considered a usable weapon worldwide and no longer as just a deterrent. Pavel Felgenhauer is an independent defense analyst. moscowtimes.ru ***************************************************************** 47 Russian minister says miniature nuclear charges out of reach of terrorists BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Jan 17, 2002 Text of report by Russian news agency Agentstvo Voyennykh Novostey web site Moscow, 17 January: Russian Atomic Energy Minister Aleksandr Rumyantsev believes that individuals cannot build miniature nuclear charges in such countries as Afghanistan and a number of Arab states. The minister told Interfax on Thursday [17 January] that these countries simply lacked the necessary potential and materials. "You cannot make such a charge on your lap," he said. Moreover, major nuclear powers have an effective system of control over miniature nuclear charges, which weigh a total of several dozen kilograms, "and all of these are registered", he said. "It is technically impossible for such charges to find their way into the hands of terrorists," Rumyantsev said. Source: Agentstvo Voyennykh Novostey news agency web site, Moscow, in Russian 1114 gmt 17 Jan 02 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter All Material Subject to Copyright ***************************************************************** 48 Russia looking out for underground nuclear test ban violations BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Jan 17, 2002 Text of report in English by Russian news agency Interfax Moscow, 17 January: Russia will closely monitor "the possible withdrawal of a nuclear power from the moratorium on underground nuclear tests", Russian Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov told Interfax on Thursday [17 January]. "Russia itself does not intend to violate the moratorium," he said. "Mathematical and other modelling methods used by nuclear powers (instead of tests) to a sufficient degree confirm the parameters established in the process of developing nuclear charges," he said. "Russia will closely follow the course of developments and the possible withdrawal of a nuclear power from the moratorium," Klebanov said. However, he added that Russia will also be acting in the interests of guaranteeing its national security. Source: Interfax news agency, Moscow, in English 1137 gmt 17 Jan 02 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter ***************************************************************** 49 Senior general confirms that Russia is reducing its nuclear arsenals BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Jan 17, 2002 Washington, 17 January: Russia and the USA will reduce their nuclear arsenals. However, it is not yet clear whether or not they will manage to do this in an concerted manner, judging by the results of two-day consultations which the first deputy chief of the General Staff of the Russian armed forces, Col-Gen Yuriy Baluyevskiy, held in the Pentagon... The main objective of the consultations, set by the presidents of Russia and the USA, is to draft agreements on the reduction of strategic offensive weapons in conjunction with defensive-offensive weapons by a regular summit due to be held in May-June this year. The Americans earlier declared their readiness to reduce nuclear arsenals unilaterally. Now Yuriy Baluyevskiy confirmed that Russia also had such plans. Replying to a question from an ITAR-TASS correspondent on the subject, he said: "We are already reducing (nuclear armaments). First and foremost, we are implementing the plan for building armed forces which was approved by the president. It is an open secret that this plan envisages reduction of our nuclear arsenals and, therefore, reduction of Russian nuclear forces... The general recalled that he was "one of the apologists who started building nuclear weapons and planning how to use them and who built the armed forces". Now he [Baluyevskiy] and his colleagues are convinced that "there will be no large-scale war, for which we have been preparing ourselves for decades". During his two-day visit to Washington, Baluyevskiy held two-day consultations with US Undersecretary of Defence for Policy Douglas Feith and Assistant US Defence Secretary J. D. Crouch. At the very end of the visit, Baluyevskiy also had an hour-long conversation with US president's special assistant for defence policy and armaments control, Franklin Miller, at the National Security Council in the White House. According to Baluyevskiy, the last meeting helped him understand the US stand probably better than all discussions in the Pentagon. After the discussions it was decided, among other things, to set up working groups for strategic stability, military-technical cooperation and cooperation in the fight against international terrorism. The groups will be set up within the framework of the interdepartmental dialogue between Russia and the USA. The Americans have already nominated their candidates for the posts of co-chairmen of these groups. The Russian side is expected to put forward its counter-proposals within the next few days. The group for military-technical cooperation will deal with cooperation in the field on nonstrategic missile defence and other issues... Source: ITAR-TASS news agency, Moscow, in Russian 2246 gmt 16 Jan 02 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter ***************************************************************** 50 Belarusian KGB foils attempt to sell 1.5 kg of uranium BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Jan 16, 2002 Text of report by Belarusian TV on 16 January [Presenter] KGB officers have foiled an attempt to sell radioactive uranium in Minsk. An undercover agent was sent into a crime ring, disguised as a foreigner. The total cost of the deal stood at 250,000 dollars for 1.5 kg of the dangerous substance. [Correspondent] After a tip-off on a group of businessmen that actively looked for opportunities to sell a large consignment of radioactive uranium was received, an undercover agent was sent into the criminal environment disguised as a foreigner who allegedly wished to acquire radioactive substances. Thus, detectives could study the situation from inside and dictate their bargaining conditions. The total cost of the deal was agreed beforehand: the sellers demanded 250,000 dollars for 1.5 kg of uranium. A test purchase showed that the substance the criminals offered was nothing else but radioactive uranium. The traders were also aware of the danger posed by the substance. [Officer, in Russian] What were you carrying? [Seller, in Russian] Well, what were we carrying? [Officer] What was inside? [Seller] Fuel. [Officer] How it is called? [Seller] Fuel. Your analysis. [Officer] What is the name of the chemical element? [Seller] Uranium. [Officer] Uranium. [Corespondent] A preliminary expert examination says that these cylinders are part of a nuclear reactor's fuel elements. After the tests, the buyer - the KGB agent - agreed to purchase the rest of the radioactive substance. The place and time of the deal were fixed, during which one of the traders was detained. During further search and detection operations, KGB officers detained five more people who traded in radioactive substances. Criminal proceedings have been instituted and an investigation is under way. Source: Belarusian television, Minsk, in Belarusian 1900 gmt 16 Jan 02 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter ***************************************************************** 51 Radiation levels on Russian Kursk sub are being strictly monitored BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Jan 16, 2002 Text of report by Russian news agency ITAR-TASS Kursk nuclear submarine, 16 January: The safety of work on board the Kursk nuclear submarine, which is in dock at the Roslyakovo ship-repair plant, is assured. Immediately after the nuclear submarine was brought into dock, a special structure equipped with modern apparatus for the monitoring of the level of radiation was erected over its reactor section. The corresponding information is displayed for local residents on an indicator board erected on one of the administrative buildings of Roslyakovo village. In respect to staff engaged in the clearing of blockages inside the nuclear submarine and the investigative team of the military prosecutor's office, the control over radiation safety in their work area is even stricter. Next to the Kursk, a floating dosimetric control station has been positioned in the dock. Access to the ship and egress from it are possible only through this station, observing all rules of radiation protection. The Northern Fleet military prosecutor, Vladimir Mulov, told an ITAR-TASS correspondent who was on board the submarine himself that no exception was made even for the Russian prosecutor-general [Vladimir Ustinov]. In order to get onto the Kursk, he had to not only change his clothes, but also undergo all the required dosimetric control procedures. Source: ITAR-TASS news agency, Moscow, in Russian 0811 gmt 16 Jan 02 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter ***************************************************************** 52 Importance of work by tech firms soars after terrorist attacks News-Sentinel photo by J. Miles Cary Dwight Cook, manufacturing director for NucSafe, looks over components for a circuit board. The display panel of a briefcase-sized nuclear materials detector is shown here with two stationary detectors in the background. By Larisa Brass, News-Sentinel business writer Rick Seymour always knew he had a great technology. He wishes it hadn't taken Sept. 11 for everyone else to see that, too. NucSafe, a Knoxville company Seymour started in 1999, produces nuclear detection devices. Seymour found himself doing a lot of pounding on doors and leaving business cards until the week after two hijacked airplanes crashed into New York's World Trade Center and a third hit the Pentagon in Washington. Then his phones started ringing off the hook. NucSafe is one of several small local tech businesses that have suddenly appeared on investor and buyer radar screens since markets became interested in anything security-related last fall. Besides NucSafe, Sarcon Microsystems has drawn interest for its infrared technology, and Atmospheric Glow Technologies has experienced rapid growth thanks to products that combat biological and chemical threats. NucSafe's technology uses tiny glass fibers connected with a special compound to detect neutron-emitting atoms found in weapons-grade radioactive materials. The detectors are more sensitive than those of competitors, Seymour said, and the company makes a suitcase version of the product for portable inspections. Before the attacks, "while (potential customers) were very interested, there was no budget. There was no mandate," Seymour said. "Right after the 11th we were inundated by calls from federal agencies." The company also got feelers from a number of foreign governments, quickly landing a contract from the United Kingdom for 20 of portable devices. The company expects orders from U.S. agencies when funding trickles down from emergency terrorism bills, Seymour said. In the meantime, NucSafe has gotten a $2 million bridge loan, is seeking new space to set up a glass fiber and assembly plant, and is hiring workers. "If it had not been for Sept. 11 it would have taken another year to fund applications to make this (venture) work," he said. At Sarcon Microsystems, infrared imaging devices the company has been quietly developing for the past several years have gotten a second look from customers interested in possible military, identification and lie detection applications. "We're getting calls several times a month from people we've never heard of before," said Don Perrine, president of Knoxville-based Sarcon. "They've come across our Web site and talk about applications we'd never thought of." Each person's face has a unique configuration of arteries that can be scanned by infrared cameras for ID verification, Perrine said. Similarly, infrared detectors could be developed to scan faces of people under interrogation for changes in blood flow that indicate a person is lying, he said. The company is working on prototypes of a device that could be used in multiple applications, Perrine said. "(Sept. 11) hasn't shifted the focus of our company," Perrine said. "What it's done is amplify the importance of what we're doing and the timing of getting it done." Recent events also have brought more investor attention to Sarcon. Because of Sept. 11, Perrine said the company's current backers are "very interested" in putting $2 million to $3 million more into the company come summer. Knoxville-based Atmospheric Glow Technologies has gotten a lot of attention for several devices that have applications for defense against biological and chemical warfare. In the past couple of months, the company has received "well over $1 million" in government grants and private investment, said Kimberly Kelly-Wintenberg, president of the company. The funding helped spin out a new company, Glow Technologies, which will help move these technologies into the market and get more venture funding. When developed, Atmospheric Glow Technologies' products will allow users to decontaminate an area infected by biological and chemical agents, she said. Another product, which is closer to production, can be fitted on a traditional heating and air system to filter out impurities, including microorganisms, Wintenberg said. Before Sept. 11, she said, the company planned to sell the air purifier primarily for residential and office use. Now the most attractive markets are everything from government buildings to subway systems, she said. The air system will be tested in a state building in Knoxville within the next two weeks. Between the two companies, Wintenberg has hired 11 people since last fall and is starting to shop for new office space. It's growth she hadnt expected for another 12 to 18 months, she said. That their growth has come at the expense of national tragedy is an uncomfortable concept for local business owners. Some feel hesitant to talk about the success the attacks have generated for fear it will appear they're just cashing in on the nation's loss. There is a certain amount of guilt over the recent success, Wintenberg said, but also a sense of patriotic duty. "We feel like it's our responsibility to get (the products) out on the market as quickly as we can," she said. Seymour said he wouldn't have foregone a salary for two years, trying to save his tiny start-up, if it was all about money. "This is our small, hopefully non-inconsequential contribution to the greater good," he said. Copyright 2002 The Knoxville News-Sentinel Co. ***************************************************************** 53 U.S., Russia Tackle Nuclear Cuts in 2-Day Talks Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2002. Page 3 By Megan Twohey Staff Writer Two days of talks between Russian and U.S. military officials began Tuesday in Washington, with plans for joint reductions in nuclear arms promising to be one of the more explosive items on the agenda. Russia opposes U.S. plans to store, not destroy, at least some of the thousands of warheads it has agreed to cut, and it wants a formal treaty on the cuts pledged last year by Presidents Vladimir Putin and George W. Bush. U.S. Congressman Curt Weldon, who was in Moscow on Tuesday, reiterated the Bush administration's position that the relationship between the two countries has changed so as to make a treaty unnecessary. "When we deal with the British or French, we don't have to write down how many items we have," Weldon, a senior member of the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, said on Ekho Moskvy radio. "We're friends." But the Foreign Ministry has said Russia wants a treaty that would make the cuts irreversible. At their meetings in November, Bush promised to reduce the U.S. arsenal of about 7,000 strategic warheads down to between 1,700 and 2,200, while Putin promised to cut Russia's arsenal of about 6,000 to between 1,500 and 2,200. Assistant U.S. Secretary of Defense J.D. Crouch alarmed Moscow last week when he said the Pentagon has plans to store at least some of the warheads for possible emergency redeployment. But more important to Russia than the destination of the warheads is what happens to the delivery vehicles -- the nuclear missiles and bombers -- said Alexander Pikayev, co-chair of the nonproliferation program at the Moscow Carnegie Center. "This is the key question," Pikayev said. "Russia wants them to be destroyed or modified in a way that would prevent the U.S. from rapidly uploading the [stored] warheads." If the United States stores both the warheads and delivery vehicles, its arms reduction will be useless, said Alexander Konovalov, president of the Institute for Strategic Assessments. "It would be more of a de-alerting," he said. "The U.S. would be able to install the warheads back on the missiles in a matter of weeks, maybe days." U.S. officials have not spelled out what would happen to the warheads' delivery vehicles. Under past nuclear arms control treaties, which did not specify the treatment of dismantled warheads, Russia and the United States used them for various purposes. During the Cold War, both countries used the fissile materials from them to manufacture new weapons. Afterward, when the demand for more nuclear arms ceased, Russia and the United States used or sold the plutonium and uranium extracted from the warheads. Both have also stored some of their dismantled warheads. What Russia will do with the thousands of nuclear warheads it has pledged to dismantle remains uncertain. It may be cheaper and safer for Russia to do what the United States is doing and store the actual warheads rather than process the plutonium and uranium, experts said. Both options, however, require the funding and construction of storage facilities and security. This week's meeting is likely to lay these issues on the table. When the talks started Tuesday, U.S. Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith met privately with Colonel General Yury Baluyevsky, first deputy of the General Staff, who is leading the Russian delegation, and then they joined their teams in a third-floor conference room at the Pentagon, Reuters reported from Washington. No details of this round of talks were expected before they were completed late Wednesday. Baluyevsky said before leaving Moscow that the aim was to reach an agreement on the arms cuts before Bush visits Moscow later this spring. Also on the agenda this week are prospective joint military exercises and possible cooperation against new terrorism threats, The Associated Press reported, citing a senior official in the Bush administration. Weldon said Tuesday that the United States and Russia should work together on missile defense to protect themselves from countries such as North Korea and China, AP reported. "Russia wrote the book on missile defense systems," Weldon said, citing the missile shield that protects Moscow. U.S. and Russian Nuclear Warhead Stockpiles January 2001 United States Russia Operational Strategic 7,206 5,606 Tactical 1,670 3,590 Spares 500 n.a. Subtotal 9,376 9,196 Nonoperational Active Reserve (1) ~2,500 n.a. Inactive Reserve (1) ~2,500 n.a. Subtotal ~5,000 ~13,500 Total 14,376 (2) ~22,500* *Russia's plans for its nonoperational warheads, many of which are from tactical weapons, are not known. A senior Nuclear Power Ministry official stated in September 1997 that Russia was dismantling well more than 2,000 warheads a year. Source: Arms Control Association, Washington www.moscowtimes.ru ***************************************************************** 54 Asia's Nuclear Pandora's Box Opinion / Columnists / Defense Dossier Thursday, Jan. 17, 2002. Page 9 By Pavel Felgenhauer To Our Readers When in 1998 India and Pakistan carried out a series of nuclear tests and officially became nuclear powers, some analysts argued that this could be a blessing in disguise. Nuclear weapons prevented the Cold War from turning into an all-out war between the Soviet Union and the United States -- they opined -- so why shouldn't the same nuclear deterrence work in the Indian subcontinent? During the Cold War, some military planners in Moscow and in Washington contended that nuclear bombs were just a more powerful weapon, that they did not change the essence of war and that one could "win" in a nuclear conflict just as in any other. Nonetheless in the military hierarchies of the superpowers, the prevailing wisdom was that limited nuclear confrontations would inevitably turn into all-out global nuclear conflict, which in turn would lead to universal destruction. Nuclear deterrence certainly worked, but is deterrence an intrinsic property of nuclear weapons? During the Cold War right up to the 1980s the leaders of the Soviet Union truly believed that communism would prevail, that capitalism was doomed and that there was no need to go ballistic and risk everything: better to wait and to deter the imperialist aggressors until they collapsed of their own accord. The leaders of the free world in Washington, in turn, believed that communism was doomed, so they were also hesitant to use their overwhelming nuclear superiority in the 1950s and 1960s and allowed the Soviet Union to catch up and establish strategic parity. Cold War government documents and interviews with Cold War decision makers reveal that both East and West were mostly enforcing strategic defense and seeking military balance rather than military superiority. If one side became disproportionately strong in one field or regional theater of conflict, the other did its best to compensate and reach equilibrium instead of pressing ahead in a field where it was stronger at the time. Nuclear deterrence helped to stabilize the confrontation and keep it cold, but it was not the only factor and maybe not even the determining factor. Both sides believed they would eventually win without actually fighting, and so they did not fight. Today's situation in the Indian subcontinent is totally different. India is much stronger than Pakistan militarily -- its army is almost twice as large and is equipped with more modern weapons. India has a relatively large navy with 10 Russian-made Kilo submarines and an operational British-made aircraft carrier. Pakistan does not have a navy worthy of the name. India could blockade Pakistan's major port, Karachi, and destabilize its fragile economy in several weeks. India could also go on the offensive in Kashmir and other border areas, and in the end the Pakistan would be defeated. India's leaders do not seem much afraid of the conflict going nuclear. If a conventionally defeated Pakistan uses its limited reserve of low-yield uranium bombs, India would surely respond with its numerically superior and more sophisticated plutonium-core weapons, conclusively destroying the enemy. In 1971, the Indian army helped East Bengal gain independence from Pakistan and become Bangladesh. Now the rest of Pakistan could be broken up into several tribal states, dominated by Delhi. India would also want to capture the enemy-controlled part of Kashmir and sever the strategic road link-up between Pakistan and China. It is believed in Delhi that with the demise of Pakistan, separatist movements in Kashmir and Punjab would cease. Pakistan's President General Pervez Musharraf obviously is afraid of war with India and has tried to pacify Delhi by arresting Muslim militants. But Pakistan -- an unruly conglomerate of tribes -- was established as a homeland for Indian Muslims when British rule collapsed. Pakistan and its army simply cannot abandon the Muslims in Kashmir that have been fighting the Indian security forces since the 1940s, as without the struggle in Kashmir and aggressive anti-Indian Islamism, there is nothing much to keep Pakistan united. It's not inevitable but very probable that both sides in the Indian subcontinent will eventually use nuclear weapons. The result could be disastrous because of the population density and total lack of serious civil defenses. But the worst possible outcome may be success. If India is seen to "win" by using nukes, then nuclear missiles may be increasingly considered a usable weapon worldwide and no longer as just a deterrent. Pavel Felgenhauer is an independent defense analyst. ***************************************************************** 55 'Flame' walk heads toward Oregon The Seattle Times: Local News: By Aydrea Walden [awalden@seattletimes.com] Seattle Times staff reporter Peace-march route For more information and a complete route of the Hiroshima Flame Interfaith Pilgrimage, visit www.dharmawalk.org/schedule.htm [http://www.dharmawalk.org/schedule.htm] . Four students from Puget Sound Community School have joined peace activists from around the world in the Hiroshima Flame Interfaith Pilgrimage, a march and prayer vigil across the United States opposing nuclear weapons and the government's proposed missile-defense system. Connie Allen, 14, Drew Johnson, 13, Adrian Kenepah-Martin, 14, and Jason Marsh, 15, started their journey Tuesday at Chief Seattle's grave in Suquamish, Kitsap County. They took a ferry to Seattle yesterday afternoon, walked around the city and prepared to head south to Oregon. Forty-four people signed up to walk through Washington state. Of those, 15 to 20 plan to make it all the way to New York City, where the walk will end in five months. Walkers will carry the flame, lighted from the smoldering rubble of Hiroshima after an atomic bomb was dropped there in August 1945. Organizers invite anyone to join in the walk along the route. "The peace walk will give me the chance to meet and make friends with other people who think peace is important," said Kenepah-Martin. seattletimes.com home ***************************************************************** 56 North Korea Allows Visit by Nuclear Inspectors Environment News Service: VIENNA, Austria, January 16, 2002 (ENS) - A technical team from the United Nations nuclear oversight agency is visiting a nuclear laboratory in North Korea for the first time this week. Experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency are visiting the Isotope Production Laboratory during their survey of nuclear facilities in the Nyongbyon area of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). At their Vienna headquarters, agency officials said the Isotope Production Laboratory was said by the DPRK to have been involved in the early stages of development of the North Korean nuclear program. [verification] IAEA safeguards seals are verified with laser disk recording. (Photos courtesy IAEA) Last May, the agency proposed to the DPRK concrete steps that need to be carried out to verify that all nuclear material in the country had been declared to the agency, process IAEA officials say could take up to four years. The agency indicated its readiness to start implementing verification measures immediately. At a technical meeting between the DPRK and the agency in Vienna in November 2001, the DPRK did not agree to promptly implement those proposals, citing the delay in implementation of the USA/DPRK Agreed Framework as the principal reason for declining. Under the Agreed Framework signed in 1994, North Korea froze its suspected nuclear arms program in exchange for receiving two safer nuclear power reactors which are being constructed by a U.S. led international consortium. The multi-billion dollar project was supposed to be finished by 2003 but delays now make 2008 the earliest possible completion date. Despite the delay, North Korea did agree to a visit, not an inspection, by IAEA inspectors to the Isotope Production Laboratory, a move viewed as a step towards normalization of relations with the agency. North Korea withdrew its membership from the IAEA in June 1994. [ElBaradei] Mohamed ElBaradei is IAEA director general. "This is a small but welcome step towards a return to full-fledged inspections required under North Korea's safeguards agreement," said Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Since 1993, the IAEA has been unable to fully implement its comprehensive safeguards agreement with the DPRK, and has been therefore unable to verify the completeness and correctness of the DPRK's initial 1992 declaration of its nuclear inventory. Since November 1994, the agency has been monitoring the "freeze" of the DPRK's graphite moderated reactors and related facilities. It has also maintained a continuous inspector presence at the Nyongbyon site. The IAEA has done this monitoring at the request of the United Nations Security Council request and in accordance with the Agreed Framework between the USA and the DPRK. Director General ElBaradei is encouraging North Korea to normalize its relations with the agency including resumption of full safeguards inspections. © Environment News Service (ENS) 2001. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 57 Tom Nichols on nuclear weapons National Review Online Scrap ’Em A bad arms idea. By Tom Nichols, professor of Strategy at the U.S. Naval War College and author of Winning the World: Lessons for America’s Future from the Cold War (forthcoming from Praeger) January 16, 2002 9:00 a.m. Note: The opinions are those of the author and not of any agency of the U.S. government. After a dramatic announcement that the United States is willing, unilaterally, to slash the size of its nuclear forces, the Bush administration is now considering a way to snatch an arms-control defeat from the jaws of a diplomatic victory. Instead of destroying the weapons taken out of service, some military planners in Washington are apparently suggesting they could be mothballed and held as a "reserve." The Russians — rightly, for once — are crying foul. It's a bad idea. During the Cold War, the United States had to endure a lot of pompous lectures from aspiring nuclear states, as well as from the usual anti-American sources in Europe and the Third World, about the huge inventories of nuclear arms kept by both superpowers. (Amazingly, the Soviets were largely spared this hectoring — go figure.) How, we were asked, could Washington and the rest of the nuclear "club" tell smaller powers to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty when both East and West were sitting on tens of thousands of missiles and bombs? The American response was always to point out, sensibly enough, that the Soviets, for their own deluded reasons, were obsessed with numbers, and that if it took 20,000 warheads to deter them, then we had little choice but to stock 20,000 warheads. To be sure, there were military planners in the U.S. and NATO who spent long hours figuring out where to place thousands of nuclear explosions, in an often-hallucinatory game of scenario building. However, for the Soviet Union — an impoverished and detested empire — nuclear weapons were the only claim to superpower status, and they were determined to have as many of them as possible. Needless to say, the American rationale often drew smirks from allies and enemies alike, an all-around cynical dismissal of the idea that the United States would ever really choose to forego being surrounded by a moat of plutonium. The test of sincerity could come only after the defeat of the Soviet Union, and both President Bush and his father (who also made unilateral cuts in nuclear arms) passed that test with flying colors. The voluntary reduction of the American nuclear stockpile has left many of our enemies speechless, so that they are now reduced to braying about the dangers of missile defense — as though interceptors in Alaska are as dangerous as enough mega tonnage to turn the Northern Hemisphere into a desert. But the plan to hold those warheads in "reserve" sends exactly the wrong message at the wrong time — and makes Washington look as if it's playing the kind of sneaky shell game the Soviets were so fond of. Indeed, if the Russians were promoting this idea, we'd be slamming them mercilessly for it, and we would be well within our rights to do so. It is reminiscent of the bickering, in the 1980s, over where to put the intermediate-range Pershing and SS-20 missiles that were then based in Europe: We would put ours in Alaska, they would put theirs in Siberia, and that would theoretically make the world safer. Except, of course, that it was all silliness: The systems were mobile and could be moved fairly quickly, and in the end it was easier to just destroy them than to play diplomatic footsie shuttling them around. Russia may not have much to say about the whole matter; their own weapons are aging, and will have to be destroyed in any case. But to use our superior negotiating position to ram this down Moscow's throat would be an act of ham-fisted diplomacy that does little to enhance U.S. security (much like what was done on NATO expansion and Kosovo… say, come to think of it, is Madeleine Albright back and secretly running the Russian desk at State?). Of course, it would be worth aggravating the Russians if national security were truly at stake. But the real question is whether we need to stockpile those weapons — or if an American deterrent numbering some 1,500-2,000 weapons would be ineffective. Only Dr. Strangelove could argue that several hundred nuclear strikes (let's assume we only fire half the inventory and only half the weapons actually arrive on target) aren't enough to deter even the dumbest or craziest leaders. It may even have been enough, in the end, to deter the Soviet Union — look at the effect of a single nuclear meltdown, much less a nuclear strike, on Soviet thinking after Chernobyl. Or imagine even 20 or 30 nuclear strikes on the United States, or the U.K., or even China. A small nuclear attack (and in the world of nuclear strategy, "small" is a relative term) is enough to deter any nation, and if it's not, then an arsenal of 10,000 weapons isn't going to do what an arsenal a half — or a tenth — of that size can't do. The CIA is reporting that China could field as many as 100 nuclear missiles by 2015, and that for this reason alone we should keep our powder — er, uranium — dry. But again, how much force will it take to deter an attack by a hundred missiles as opposed to, say, by 25? Would the Chinese be less likely to launch against us knowing they'll only take, say, 500 nuclear strikes (and the utter devastation of China) as opposed to 5,000 (which in any case would lay waste to swaths of Russia, Korea, and Japan)? One possible compromise is to agree that a very small fraction of the reduction on both sides can be turned to a reserve; but in general, the Americans should take this opportunity to emphasize that when the President takes a position, he means what he says, and that in this case, "reductions" means "reductions" — and nothing less. The Chinese are going to build up their nuclear forces no matter what we do, and we had best accept the fact that we will soon face another Cold War standoff with another aggressive, nuclear-armed power. If that means building up our nuclear forces again in 15 years, so be it — and we should make plain to the Russians that we reserve the right to do so if China and other states pose an increased threat to us. Indeed, for this reason alone the Bush administration should hold firm to its refusal to codify these numbers in a treaty; treaties are notoriously persistent things and in this case could only hamper American flexibility in a fast-changing world. But in the meantime, destroying the weapons we reduce only makes sense. It's a concession we can afford to offer the Russians (who have accepted the end of the ABM Treaty with a minimum of unseemly complaining), and is it hardly detrimental to our ability to deter, and if need be to destroy, a nuclear aggressor. To do otherwise at this point is to needlessly hand America's enemies a diplomatic victory, without any consequent gain to our security. ***************************************************************** 58 India: Navy Chief cagey about sea-based nuke capability Hindustantimes.com Thursday, January 17, 2002 HT Correspondent (New Delhi, January 16) Admiral Madhvendra Singh on Wednesday made a meaningful statement on India's sea-based nuclear capability while discussing the issue at a conceptual level at his first Press conference after taking over as the Chief of Naval Staff on December 29. "Any country that espouses a no-first use policy (like India) must have an assured second-strike capability. All such countries have a triad of weapons, one of them at sea. "…it's far more difficult to hit a moving target than a stationary one. If it's moving and hidden, it is impossible to find and, hence, impossible to destroy. "The most powerful leg of the triad is the Naval one - hidden, moving, under the sea," Admiral Singh said, refusing to "confirm or deny the existence of nuclear weapons on our ships". While ducking a question on the leasing of a nuclear-propelled submarine (which can stay under the sea for long periods without replenishment), he said two-and-a-half years are required to skill the Navy to operate a nuclear submarine. Admiral Singh said though the Indian Navy is ready, there was no need for an offensive posture yet. "A great deal of mobility and flexibility is inherent in Naval capability. All warships are at an eight-hour notice. These can travel 5,000 miles a day. Within 24 hours, we can be where we want to," he said. To whether the situation demanded a naval blockade of Karachi, he said, "There's no reason for us to make a foray into the North Arabian Sea. We're carrying out surveillance. We have the capability, and we'll do it if we have to." The Admiral said the Navy has been sweating in peace to train for war. "On the operational front, we have been very busy last year in peace-time training exercises," he said. ©Hindustan Times Ltd. 1997. Reproduction in any form is ***************************************************************** 59 Terrorist Attack Threat Claims Raised THE WHITEHAVEN NEWS Thursday, January 17, 2002 A House of Commons defence committee was sent a report last week that claimed a terrorist attack on Sellafield could render the north of England uninhabitable and release 100 times the radioactivity produced by the nuclear accident at Chernobyl in 1986. Gordon Thompson, executive director of the Institute for Resource and Security Studies in Cambridge, Massachusetts, America, said he believed that documents from both the nuclear industry and the government showed neither had ever attempted a thorough analysis of the threat or the options for reducing it. Dr Thompson, who was based in the UK for 10 years and gave evidence at the 1977 Windscale inquiry into reprocessing at Sellafield, raised the possibility of a rogue worker or terrorist infiltrator at Sellafield sabotaging the cooling. Sellafield's head of environment, health, safety and quality, John Clarke, recently carried out a safety review which said that even an impact by an aircraft would not breach the concrete containment of the highly active waste tanks ***************************************************************** 60 Denmark urges US to adopt nuclear test ban treaty Wednesday, 16-Jan-2002 1:40PM Story from AFP Copyright 2002 by Agence France-Presse (via ClariNet) COPENHAGEN, Jan 16 (AFP) - The Danish foreign minister Wednesday sharply criticized the United States for refusing to ratify the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) banning the testing of nuclear weapons. "Denmark has, along with its EU partners, deplored the American decision not to ratify this treaty," Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller told the Danish Parliament. "Denmark last criticized this attitude at a conference in November 2001 where it urged in clear and unambiguous terms that all states which have not yet ratified this treaty, including China, come around," he said. The world's five heavyweight nuclear powers -- Russia, the United States, France, China and Britain -- signed the CTBT, however the parliaments of China and the United States have yet to ratify the treaty. Moeller said he did not expect President George W. Bush to change Congress' 1999 decision to not ratify the treaty. He praised the United States for continuing the voluntary moratarium it enacted in 1992 on testing the atomic bomb as well as the country's recent decision to cut its 6,000-strong arsenal to between 1,700 and 2,200 in the next 10 years. This article is Copyright 2002 by Agence France-Presse. ***************************************************************** 61 So what is "fail-safe"? ContraCostaTimes.com Published Wednesday, January 16, 2002 SUNBEAMS: HARRIET AINSWORTH WHAT IF? DEPARTMENT: While we worry about Pakistan and India's conflict mushrooming into nuclear horror, Nils Diaz, one of five commissioners of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, assures us that all U.S. nuclear power plants, since 9/11 on high alert, are safe. But, just maintenance is not simple, Robert Budnitz, former director of the Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research at the Commission, told members of the Orinda-Tabor Sister City Foundation. "Although eight feet of concrete protect our nuclear reactors and a constant water bath keeps spent fuel pools from exploding, there is no way they could withstand a hit from an airplane hurtling at 500 miles an hour," Budnitz said. NOW SERVING AS A PRIVATE CONSULTANT on reactor safety and radioactive waste management, Budnitz is president of Future Resources Associates, Inc. in Berkeley. The Harvard-trained physicist pointed out that the tanks of spent fuel, with a half-life of 10,000 years, are equally vulnerable to attack until they are (must be) buried 2,000 feet deep. "We've been worrying about this for 50 years," he added. With terrorist acts heightening worry, the scientist is working with Eastern-Europe governments to upgrade reactor safety. There are 400 known nuclear power plants world-wide, with 103 in the United States. Russian and Eastern European plants need backfit, except the Czech Republic's, which are modernized "because in addition to the international funds, the Czechs put their own money into it," he observed. China is building state-of-the-art plants, Budnitz reported. Sounds ominous, progressive, or maybe both? * A FISHY PARADISE: If you're tired of long drives to the snow and want to see the cute new baby otter rescued from the storm, visit the Monterey Bay Aquarium. A few days visit to the seaside peninsula can include, of course, schlepping through Carmel's shops and galleries. While you're in the vicinity, though, don't miss a meal and/or look-see at Phil's Fish Market and Eatery, adjacent to the boats' harbor at Moss Landing. There's so many kinds of fresh seafood to take home, or chow down right there. Phil's grandmother, Mama Nina, added the eatery with her lusty cioppino-to-go in 1982. On your way home, mosey up scenic Highway 1 and turn right into little old Pescadero where the inimitable fragrance of hot fresh sourdough greets you at the table at Duarte's. It was begun by Kathy Duarte's great-grandfather, Frank Duarte, in 1894 when he brought a barrel of whisky from Santa Cruz and offered one whisky for 10 cents, two bits for three. Frank flourished until prohibition. WHEN THAT ENDED IN 1933-34, the second generation of Duartes re-opened the old bar that's still with us today. In the 1950's, the third generation took over. "My father, Ron, invented our green chile soup (to die for) and our artichoke soup," said Kathy Duarte, who runs the place now with her brother, Tim. Right now there's a wonderful crab sandwich, and you can't possibly leave without grandma's famous berry pie (a la mode, it's dreamy). And there's a juke box where you can play "As Time Goes By" or possibly "Dream a Little Dream of Me." * COMING OUT IN MORAGA: Mary Moore has been outed by Linda Hudak, her friend and co-founder of Holy Shepherd Lutheran Church's popular Adult Day Care Center for Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia sufferers. It happened when Mary turned 65 recently and Linda published a flyer revealing a secret Mary's kept from her Moraga bridge and church friends for 31 years : how to make her sought-after double-frosted brownies. "I figured we needed it now, before we're too old to cook anymore," Linda said, in her defense, at the "Old Ladies' Party" Mary and Judge John Moore's daughter, Katie Moore Swanson, created for her mom's birthday. Katie and a couple of buddies served as pert French maids and guests came, as instructed in Katie's purse-shaped invitations, dressed as old crones : from the greeting-card's "Maxine" replete with tinted glasses, sweats and brandishing a rolling-pin, to fox-fur clad (with the beady-eyed animals' heads on) elegance of cartoonist Mary Petty haute couture. Among others in the flock of prize-winning garb were Irene Shabel, Mary Ann Hughes, Jo Ann Reid, Diane Merson, Pat Pribyl, Jeanie Whittington, Sue Thelan, Marion Thornicroft, Ginnie Ruble, Melisse Logan, Sue Holmes and Anne Brossart. Sun columnist Harriet Ainsworth lives in Orinda. ContraCostaTimes.com ***************************************************************** 62 N-attack: Naval chief says India can strike back The Indian Express : Top Stories Thursday, January 17, 2002 EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE NEW DELHI, JANUARY 16: IT was chief of naval staff Admiral Madhvendra Singh’s turn today to assert that India possessed a second strike capability though he avoided a direct question on whether the Navy had the capability of launching a nuclear strike. ‘‘Any country that espouses the doctrine of no first use of nuclear weapons must have a second strike capability. We have a triad of weapons for a second strike and one of the triad is at sea. The most powerful leg of the triad is in the Navy and is hidden under water and moving,’’ he said. Admiral Madhvendra Singh He said the Navy was ready for operations. ‘‘In accordance with the Government directive, all the three wings are mobilised. The warships are armed, provisioned and fully on stand two.’’ Getting a new aircraft carrier was the Navy’s most pressing need, he said, speaking about plans and future acquisitions. Pakistan’s building of a new port with Chinese assistance at Gwadar did not pose an immediate challenge to the Navy, he added. ‘‘It will make it a little more difficult for the Navy but its completion is still eight to 10 years away and it’s not an immediate worry. They are yet to build roads and a railhead there,’’ he said. He added that the Navy still possessed the capability to choke the Karachi port and the new port. The naval chief said the US presence in the Indian ocean region was complicating the issue but only slightly since the ocean was large enough for everyone to operate. ‘‘The US presence does not worry us. Its a huge ocean out there. There is room for everybody. It is customary that if there is a belligerence by two countries, the party that is not involved stays away,’’ he said. Admiral Madhvendra Singh expressed the hope that the Malabar series of naval exercises between the Indian and US navies would kick off with at least the same level of interaction as existed before the exercises were scrapped due to the Pokharan tests. On supply of spares for Sea Kings and Sea Harriers stopped due to the sanctions, he said the process should begin again. ‘The Navy’s immediate need was to acquire an aircraft carrier and submarine rescue vessels and improve its surveillance capabilities. ‘‘The navy is sold on indetermination,’’ he said. Its most pressing need was finding a replacement for decommissioned aircraft carrier INS Vikrant and planning for another one to take the place of the ageing INS Viraat. Russian carrier Gorshkov was the only choice since there was nothing else that suited India’s needs. He said if the price negotiations failed, indigenous production would be the only alternative. The Navy’s air defence ship project, for the building of an indigenous aircraft carrier, had not been scrapped, he added. He said the Navy would also require aircraft and in the future have the Light Combat Aircraft. It was also planning for Il-38 and Tu-142 aircraft modernisation and wished to replace the Sea King helicopters. © 2002: Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd. All ***************************************************************** 63 Wash. Town Fends Off Tumbleweeds Las Vegas SUN January 16, 2002 KENNEWICK, Wash. (AP) - Jim Aust has seen plenty of tumbleweeds in the 26 years he's lived in this Columbia River Basin town, but never anything like this. "It was just like being snowed in," he said. "But it was tumbleweeds." A stiff wind blew thousands of tumbleweeds - dried-out tops of tough weed known as Russian thistle - into town during the weekend. The weeds blocked doorways and driveways, buried 6-foot-high fences and lodged in every conceivable nook in a neighborhood on the south side of the town some 225 miles southeast of Seattle. "It was like the attack of the killer tumbleweeds," homeowner Kim Taverniti-Martyn said. "You should have seen them coming over the hills." Workers spent most of Tuesday burning the weeds, leaving a light layer of ash over the neighborhood. "Some of these were as big as Buicks," said Jill Raebel, whose home was among those beset. She blames a fallow wheat field nearby that has become a virtual tumblewood farm. Others blame a wildfire that cleared sagebrush from a large patch of land several years ago, inviting the thistle to take root. When the weeds' 20-foot-long roots wither and die, their tops become desiccated skeletons that can break off and blow along the ground. Town officials said there's not much they can do about the problem. "It's kind of an act-of-God thing," Councilman Paul Parish said. "I don't know what the answer is." It was the third time this winter residents have had to gather and burn the prickly weeds. Tumbleweeds have bedeviled the nearby Hanford nuclear reservation for decades. Occasionally, special disposal teams are needed to dispose of them, because the weeds' deep tap roots can soak up radioactive waste from the soil at the nuclear reservation. Less than 1 percent of the weeds at Hanford are radioactive. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 64 New lab unveiled at Oak Ridge $850,000 facility will test for beryllium disease By Frank Munger, News-Sentinel senior writer OAK RIDGE - Thousands of workers will be tested annually for beryllium disease at a new Oak Ridge laboratory unveiled Wednesday. Chronic beryllium disease is an incurable, sometimes fatal respiratory illness caused by exposure to beryllium, a lightweight metal used historically in the production of warhead parts at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge. "This may be small space, but it's a mighty space to workers in Oak Ridge," said Leah Dever, the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge manager. U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, R-Chattanooga, said health and safety of workers must be top priority at the federal operations. The 4,000-square-foot, $850,000 laboratory will replace the cramped quarters currently used by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education, which heads DOE's national program for testing beryllium workers. The new lab will be used to analyze blood samples to determine if a worker's body has become "sensitized" to beryllium. That's the first stage in development of beryllium disease. Based on tests conducted since 1992, 114 past or present workers at Y-12 were found to be sensitized to beryllium. There have been 44 documented cases of chronic beryllium disease among workers at the warhead production facility. Those workers or their survivors are eligible for a special compensation program passed by Congress that provides up to $150,000 and medical benefits. The new test lab will receive blood samples from Y-12 and workers at more than a dozen other DOE facilities around the United States. Dr. Donna Cragle, epidemiology chief at the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education and one of the nation's top experts in beryllium screening, said the Oak Ridge facilities are capable of processing more than 3,000 cases per year. That still doesn't meet the demand, Cragle said, noting that all workers exposed to beryllium should be retested every few years - even if they tested negative in the past and even if they haven't been exposed to beryllium since their last test. It can take years for the body to respond to the beryllium exposures, she said. Glenn Bell, a Y-12 machinist diagnosed with beryllium disease in 1993, said the new lab was much needed, but he said he's still not satisfied with the government's response to the beryllium problem. Bell said use of the metal should be eliminated wherever possible because there is no completely safe way to handle it. Copyright 2002 The Knoxville News-Sentinel Co. ***************************************************************** 65 The Chronic Insecurity Of The U.S. Nuclear Weapons Complex TOMPAINE.com - Collateral Damage In The Pesticide Wars Nominated for the Upton Sinclair Award Easy Targets The nation’s nuclear weapons complex is vulnerable to terrorist attack. Security failures at ten sites where nuclear materials are stored and used are "systemic, constant and recurring," according to an investigation by the Project on Government Oversight (www.POGO.org). The Department of Energy (DOE) hires private security firms to guard these sites. It tests site security with mock attacks, often using U.S. military forces as attackers. Unclassified evidence provided to POGO by insiders shows that in more than half the tests security forces fail to protect the facilities (the exact failure rate is classified). In a test at the Rocky Flats facility in Denver, Navy SEAL "terrorists" successfully "stole" enough nuclear material to make several weapons. At DOE’s Los Alamos, New Mexico lab, "terrorists" gained entry and had time to construct an "Improvised Nuclear Device" -- a homemade atomic bomb. DOE’s Transportation Security Division, which moves nuclear weapons and radioactive materials on public highways, failed six out of seven security tests in 1998. In real life, such failures mean plutonium and highly enriched uranium are subject to theft and sabotage. DOE security failings are nothing new. A 1999 review by former Senator Warren Rudman concluded, "More than 25 years worth of reports, studies and formal inquiries... have identified a multitude of chronic security and counterintelli-gence problems at all of the weapons labs.... The Department of Energy is a dysfunctional bureaucracy that has proven it is incapable of reforming itself." Perhaps DOE will be forced to change given the post-9/11 emphasis on "homeland security." We might soon find out: In response to POGO’s report, Representatives Chris Shays and Ed Markey have each initiated Congressional investigations. Published: Jan 14 2002 ***************************************************************** 66 Chronic Insecurity: Three Case Studies TOMPAINE.com - Nominated for the Upton Sinclair Award The Project on Government Oversight investigates, exposes, and seeks to remedy systemic abuses of power, mismanagement, and subservience by the federal government to powerful special interests. The following is an edited excerpt from "U.S. Nuclear Weapons Complex: Security At Risk" by the Project On Government Oversight. See POGO's Web site for the full text of this excerpt and the entire report. Three case studies provide an insight into how the [Department of Energy's security] system has failed: the plant at Rocky Flats, outside of Denver, Colorado; Technical Area-18 (TA-18) at Los Alamos, New Mexico; and the Transportation Security Division, which travels the United States interstate highways. The repetition of problems in these case studies should make it clear that these problems are systemic, constant and recurring. Rocky Flats Rocky Flats, outside Denver, Colorado, was a major weapons production facility during the Cold War where the plutonium parts for nuclear weapons were milled and fabricated. Tens of tons of plutonium [PU] as well as uranium [HEU] are stored at Rocky Flats. DOE is currently in the process of shutting down the plant and de-inventorying -- sending the PU to Savannah River and the HEU to Oak Ridge. Currently, there are still large quantities of Special Nuclear Materials (SNM) at Rocky Flats that are attractive to terrorists. Wackenhut Security, a private security firm, supplies the protective force. Kaiser-Hill LLC is the prime contractor managing Rocky Flats. In 1992, members of the Wackenhut security force were upset because they argued federal oversight was too overzealous. This tension between federal overseers and the contractor is highly unusual in the DOE complex. In a July 16, 1992 letter to Terry Vaeth, DOE Manager at Rocky Flats, Timothy P. Cole, President of Wackenhut Services Incorporated stated, after taking over security at the site in July 1990: "During our first few months we were racing to prepare for an upcoming DOE OSE Inspection and Evaluation. Further, the plant mission was undergoing intense scrutiny based on safety and environmental concerns. Those priority issues coupled with fundamental security needs put us in a position of vulnerability from a performance measurement standpoint. There weren't enough hours in the day. The Protective Force supervisory ranks and the number of cleared, trained Security Inspectors were inadequate for accomplishment of the security mission ... "The purpose is not to make excuses, explain away, or otherwise disclaim our performance deficiencies. We have privately and publicly accepted responsibility for all of our actions and stepped up to problems and emphasized corrective actions rather than arguing the issues.... "I must tell you very frankly that we have been exposed to 'management terrorism' and 'organizational sedition' for well over a year.... "The DOE management oversight process at RFO [Rocky Flats Office] is, in my opinion, heavily slanted toward the negative to include specific 'targeting' of people in management as well as individual members of the Protective Force." As even Cole acknowledged, Wackenhut was having trouble performing some basic security duties. For example, according to sources, in a surprise security test at that time, federal security overseers passed through a secured entrance with a pistol in a coffee can -- an obvious breach of security. Wackenhut President Timothy Cole's letter warned Rocky Flats federal security officials, "The distrust, doubt and fear our Security Inspectors have for certain DOE officials is unhealthy and may lead to serious consequences." (Emphasis added.) The federal Director of Security was removed, and Wackenhut retained their contract.... In 1997, unauthorized taped phone calls with DOE Headquarters Director of Security Col. Edward McCallum by Wackenhut whistleblower Jeff Peters revealed McCallum's concern that terrorists could gain access to large quantities of plutonium and cause a sizable nuclear detonation. McCallum stated, "I've said in front of the Deputy Secretary and people at that level, I think the citizens, the employees at the plant, and the citizens of Colorado are at extremely high risk for no reason." These concerns were first raised in 1995 -- two years earlier -- yet they had remained unresolved.... Several whistleblowers attended a summer 1998 briefing of all DOE Security Directors at Savannah River Site near Aiken, SC, by a Navy Captain regarding force-on-force drills conducted by the Navy SEALs at Rocky Flats. During the tests, the SEALs successfully entered the site through the perimeter fence, getting into a nearby building, and "stealing" a significant quantity of plutonium, exiting the building, getting out through the fence and escaping without being caught. After this embarrassment, for the next two force-on-force tests, Rocky Flats management "over controlled" and demanded that the SEALs could not go through the same hole from which they came in -- they had to take the plutonium and climb a guard tower and rope it over the fence. (Of course, real terrorists could have just thrown it over the fence.) In these two contrived tests, the protective force successfully defended the facility. According to the whistleblowers, the SEAL Captain announced he would never waste the time of the SEALs coming back to a DOE site, because the tests were unrealistic. In July 1999, then-Energy Secretary Bill Richardson sent a security team to Rocky Flats. Two glaring vulnerabilities were found, strikingly similar to those found in 1995 and again in 1997. Rocky Flats management vehemently denied the team's accusation that plutonium was kept out of the vault without additional protective forces in place, as is required. Several hours later in the meeting, they finally admitted they had plutonium out of the vault in a high-risk situation eight hours a day, five days a week. The significance of this dangerous practice was highlighted when, according to security team members, only a few weeks earlier an employee had walked out of a key security door setting off the alarm -- yet the protective force could never find the employee. Because the PU was inadequately protected, the employee could have taken some of it, walked out and thrown it over the fence -- never to be discovered. Also according to sources, the security team found the vehicle barrier on the wrong fence. A vehicle barrier is a heavy steel cable -- strong enough to stop a speeding truck loaded with thousands of pounds of explosives -- that should be attached to the inside fence of a two-fence perimeter. The Rocky Flats cable was on the outside fence, which does not have alarms. Therefore a terrorist could, undetected, cut the cable and drive through the outside fence, easily crash through the inside chain link fence in a truck loaded with explosives, park alongside a nearby vault, and detonate a bomb. This vulnerability had been identified in 1996, and had never been fixed. In late 1999, under pressure from Richardson's team, this problem was addressed within hours at minimal cost by placing large boulders around the fence. In October 1999, the DOE security czar sent DOE and DOD [Department of Defense] experts to Rocky Flats to resolve the outstanding problems found by Richardson's team. At first, Rocky Flats DOE management refused to allow the team on the site. Once they were permitted inside, the experts still found the same problems Rocky Flats had agreed to fix two years earlier. When the experts returned in March 2000 to validate the protective force changes, they found a different but alarming trend. Repeatedly during force-on-force drills, the protective forces were "shooting" everyone in sight - mock terrorists, scientists, "controllers wearing orange safety vests, and each other" - in a simulated test. The rules of deadly force were completely abandoned to pass the tests and prove "low risk," the same problem noted in 1998 and again in 1999. Los Alamos Technical Area-18 Technical Area-18 (TA-18), run by the University of California, is one of a number of technical areas at Los Alamos. It houses several nuclear burst reactors and tons of weapons-grade HEU and PU. The facility was built on the floor of a canyon in the 1940's so that the walls of the canyon would absorb the radiation from the reactors. However, today the lack of control of the high ground around the canyon makes the site extremely difficult to defend. Special Nuclear Materials (SNM) are stored in vaults at several locations on the site. The security infrastructure has been in a state of disrepair. As recently as a few years ago it was found that someone could get inside the fence without being detected because of the poor quality of the closed-circuit TV cameras. Until recently one of the vaults storing SNM even had a window. The House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations was concerned about the security of this site as early as the early 1980's. According to former Chairman John Dingell, "The Subcommittee's work on this matter began in 1981 in response to efforts to undermine independent review of security threats.... [T]he safeguards at the most critical facilities -- which included Los Alamos -- were in shambles while, at the same time, DOE's Office of Safeguards and Security was giving the facilities a clean bill of health." In 1997, a special unit of the U.S. Army Special Forces was the adversary during a force-on-force exercise. The normal theft scenario is to "steal" enough SNM for a crude nuclear weapon that would fit in rucksacks. But, according to the Wall Street Journal, this exercise required that they "steal" more HEU than a person can carry. Not to be outmaneuvered, the Army Special Forces commandos went to Home Depot and bought a garden cart. They attacked TA-18, loaded the garden cart with nuclear materials, and left the facility. "[T]he invaders reached the simulated objective of the game: enough nuclear material to make an atom bomb." And they did so with relative ease. As the Wall Street Journal reported: "The Garden Cart attackers ... used snipers hidden in the hills to "kill" the first guards [protective forces] who arrived. Because they happened to be the commanders of the guard force, the rest of the force was thrown into disarray. Many of them also were "killed" as they arrived in small groups down a narrow road leading to TA-18. '[The Special Forces] took them out piecemeal as they came in,' says one participant in the game, whose account wasn't challenged by DOE or lab officials." As the Wall Sreet Journal further noted, "The 1997 mock invasion succeeded despite months of guard [protective forces] training and dozens of computerized battle simulations showing that newly beefed-up defenders of the facility would win." In 1998, while completing their required annual survey, the Albuquerque Operations Office found the security at TA-18 and other Los Alamos sites unsatisfactory. By the time the report made its way through top management, the unsatisfactory became satisfactory, with no change in actual security. A force-on-force exercise was performed by the 1998 survey team, but they reported that the Los Alamos protective force had compromised the exercise. The DOE Inspector General found that DOE supervisors in Albuquerque refused to investigate the matter.... In the Summer of 1999, Secretary Richardson's security team inspected Los Alamos and recommended that TA-18 be shut down and immediately de-inventoried because it could not be defended. However, DOE management persuaded Secretary Richardson not to shut down the site immediately, but instead to further study the matter. In the Fall of 1999, Secretary Richardson created a relocation team to recommend alternative sites for the TA-18 missions. In January 2000, while on a site visit to TA-18, members of the relocation team raised questions about an obvious vulnerability at this site. In a semi-hardened building, one of the burst reactors with large plates of HEU fuel was properly stored in an upgraded vault. Another almost identical reactor was sitting in the middle of an open area. The obvious security issue was to either put the reactor in a vault, or take the fuel out and store it in a vault. Los Alamos management refused to do either.... In October 2000, the Headquarters Independent Oversight group ran a force-on-force attack -- gaining access to the reactor fuel and potentially causing a sizable nuclear detonation that would have taken out part of New Mexico and caused havoc downwind. On November 22, 2000, shortly after a meeting with Secretary Richardson, NNSA Director General John Gordon sent an angry letter to Los Alamos Lab Director Dr. John Browne threatening to shut down TA-18 after the debacle in October. Gordon wrote: "The failure of the University of California to submit a suitable corrective action plan and to correct in a timely manner the deficiencies cited in an October 2000 assessment of TA-18 security capabilities is unacceptable. As you know, the assessment identified a number of improvements but also several significant weaknesses -- most notably in the security strategy, the level of response training, and in the security forces' understanding of appropriate response procedures. The problems that were noted can be fixed by changes in strategy without the need for the site to incur significant additional costs (emphasis added) . . . If any of these actions do not occur, all activities at TA-18 will be immediately suspended until the actions have been taken and verified." A DOE Headquarters security team went to Los Alamos in December of 2000 to verify that Los Alamos had made adequate upgrades. While they had made upgrades, the changes had not been performance tested to ascertain their effectiveness. An internal DOE memorandum raised basic questions about the adequacy of the "new and improved" protection of this site. Transportation Security Division The Department of Energy Transportation Security Division (TSD) moves nuclear weapons, as well as weapons-grade uranium and plutonium, from site to site across the nation on public highways. The protective forces in the Transportation Division are civilian federal employees. In late 1998, TSD submitted a Site Safeguards and Security Plan (SSSP) to Headquarters for approval. Preliminary examination of the testing scenarios revealed that the SSSP used simplistic attacks and "dumbed down" use of weapons. During planning phases the TSD team of specialists and commanders were aghast at the proposed use of sniper rifles with armor-piercing incendiary rounds by the adversaries. The DOE Inspector General determined that DOE management considered the use of a sniper rifle unreasonable and that only "super adversaries" would use them. In fact, these weapons have been available since World War I. The GAO found in an undercover investigation that more than 100,000 rounds of Pentagon-surplus, armor-piercing incendiary rounds have been sold on the civilian market. At the DOE Pantex nuclear weapons-assembly facility [in Texas], security officials believed that armored Humvees were death traps, because of the availability of armor-piercing incendiary rounds. The Pantex Security Director lamented that he would never allow his protective forces to fight from them, and that it would have been just as effective to buy Yugo's. Incredibly, the next day, Secretary Richardson's security team was at Sandia [in New Mexico], and found officials in the process of buying armored Humvees. Using these readily-available armor-piercing incendiary rounds, terrorists could shoot through the armored truck cabs, killing the driver and protective forces, making the transported nuclear materials ready for the taking. In the simulation phase only four tests were run. According to sources familiar with the test, the TSD protective forces were literally annihilated in tens of seconds after an attack was started. In after-action briefings the convoy commander admitted that they had experienced similar results in force-on-force testing many months earlier. Part of the problem was that the guards' weapons were of inadequate range to reach the adversary. A December 12, 1998 internal DOE memorandum reported on the computerized Joint Tactical Simulations (JTS) evaluations of the Transportation Division's SSSP conducted at Sandia: "JTS results on the first worst case scenario ... were 3 losses and no wins. JTS results on the second worst case scenario ... were 3 losses and 1 win. The high TSD JTS loss rate for the first two worst case scenarios caused TSD to request termination of JTS activity. TSD requested DOE Headquarters' assistance to analyze the poor results and begin to determine possible corrective actions." In early 1999, a special force-on-force test was run at Fort Hood for the luminaries from Washington -- Deputy Secretary, Undersecretary and top security and program officials -- to show that the TSD could handle the threat. The U.S. Army Special Forces provided the adversaries. The protective force won. However, according to a Special Forces representative, he noticed a piece of paper held by a protective force member that he had just "shot" -- it was a complete outline of the mock terrorists' attack plan. The protective force was cheating. Secretary Richardson's Special Assistant, Peter Stockton, proved the cheating to the Albuquerque manager and the TSD manager. No action was taken. In November 1999, an Army Special Forces representative found that the new sniper rifles used by TSD were target range variety, not for combat in rugged terrain. In fact, the sights on the rifles were very sensitive and would not survive the rigors of combat. More than half of the unclassified recommendations made by the DOE Inspector General regarding the SSSP process were focused on improving the security of the TSD program. Published: Jan 13 2002 ***************************************************************** 67 Net-based stewardship tool now in the works Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 12:11 p.m. on Thursday, January 17, 2002 by Paul Parson Oak Ridger staff If all goes according to plan, the Department of Energy expects later this year to launch an Internet-based, "user-friendly" information system featuring comprehensive stewardship data about the Oak Ridge area. The Stewardship Management Archival/Retrieval Tool, or SMART Project, will allow users to electronically retrieve maps, understand land restrictions and acquire remediation information that are relevant to long-term stewardship efforts. Long-term stewardship includes monitoring, maintenance and other activities necessary to ensure protection of human health and the environment from any hazards that may remain after cleanup or disposal of waste. "We want this to be something usable for the public," said Ralph Skinner, stewardship program manager with DOE's Oak Ridge Operations office. "We don't want it to be so complicated or full of techno jargon that the average user would find it difficult." DOE has been working on the project since last year along with Bechtel Jacobs Co., which is responsible for environmental management activities locally, and Q Systems Inc. in Oak Ridge. The SMART Project is a pilot venture that received a total of $200,000 in funding last year from DOE headquarters' Office of Long-Term Stewardship. It was one of nine stewardship-related projects chosen from more than 20 proposals submitted by various DOE sites. Although there are no additional avenues for funding on the project, Skinner said Wednesday that shouldn't prevent DOE from making the SMART Project site available to the public tentatively before the end of the current federal fiscal year. "I think we could maintain where we are for really very little money," Skinner said, especially if the SMART Project is available on the Oak Ridge Operations office or Bechtel Jacobs Co. public Web sites. "If we were to add to its capability or the data that's in it, we would need additional funding." There is at least one issue that will have to be resolved before the public can access the SMART Project site. Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, all of DOE's Web sites have been reviewed as a security precaution. Steven Wyatt, a spokesman for the federal agency, said the SMART Project would also be examined in some manner before it's launched. Paul Parson can be contacted at (865) 220-5533 or pparson@oakridger.com [pparson@oakridger.com] . All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 68 Whistleblowers: Shooting The Messenger TOMPAINE.com - Nominated for the Upton Sinclair Award Reprisals And Retaliation At The Department Of Energy The Project on Government Oversight investigates, exposes, and seeks to remedy systemic abuses of power, mismanagement, and subservience by the federal government to powerful special interests. The following is an edited excerpt from "U.S. Nuclear Weapons Complex: Security At Risk" by the Project On Government Oversight. See POGO's Web site for the full text of this excerpt and the entire report. "In every investigation concerning problems at the DOE weapons facilities and laboratories, the individuals responsible for the operation of defense programs consistently and repeatedly denied the problems, punished the whistle blowers, and covered up the problems to their superiors and Congress." -- Representative John D. Dingell Retaliation at DOE does not necessarily entail attempting to fire federal employees. In the majority of cases in the security area, DOE supervisors attempt to revoke the whistleblower's clearance on trumped-up charges. Then they remove them from any responsibility for oversight of security. On the other hand, contractors often lose their contracts, or their jobs, for blowing the whistle. The frequency of retaliation against nuclear security whistleblowers reached such a crescendo, that in 1999 then-Secretary Richardson sent a memorandum to all DOE and contract employees stating: "Management must also create and foster a work environment that allows free and open expression of security concerns, where workers fear no reprisals or retaliation." Over the last three years, in the face of Richardson's "zero-tolerance" of retaliation against security whistleblowers, DOE still succeeded in eliminating all of the whistleblowers, or "speed bumps" in the road, as one federal official put it. In fact, months after this "zero-tolerance" policy was in effect, when the DOE Inspector General was investigating security failures at Los Alamos, "a number of individuals requested confidentiality. They indicated they feared retaliation for disclosing information to the Office of Inspector General." Currently, there are few DOE employees left in the bureaucracy with the knowledge or willingness to risk the damage to their careers to raise concerns about the lack of security. Retaliation against whistleblowers has been a clear object lesson to the rest of the bureaucracy. Going back to the early 1980s, there has been a pattern of retaliation against federal and contractor employees who raise issues about security problems. For example: * In 1980, DOE did not like the fact that John Hanatio, a security analyst at DOE Headquarters, was cooperating with the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. They immediately went after his security clearance and tried to fire him. Under Subcommittee Chairman John Dingell's (D-MI) protection he is still employed by DOE but has never been placed in a position of significant responsibility or dealt with security issues again. * In 1996, Colonel David Ridenour, a former Strategic Air Command missile officer, became the Director of the Safeguard and Security Division at the Rocky Flats Field Office. Immediately upon taking the position, Ridenour was being harassed for trying to do his job of overseeing the security contractor at Rocky Flats. In a letter to then-Energy Secretary Federico Pena, he said "I was instructed by my direct supervisor ... that my mission was to 'not negatively impact the contractor' and that I was to 'facilitate the contractor (Kaiser-Hill) winning the award fee.'" He resigned several months later, claiming, "In my professional life as a military officer, as a Registered Professional Engineer ... I never before experienced a major conflict between loyalty to my supervision and duty to my country and to the public." * Lt. Mark Graf was Alarm Station Supervisor for the Wackenhut protective force at Rocky Flats. Jeff Peters was Director of Protective Force Operations, also at Wackenhut. Both had serious concerns about security at Rocky Flats and wrote to Congressman David Skaggs (D-CO) about these concerns. Peters was placed on administrative leave, his badge and weapon taken from him. He was ordered into counseling. Federal Office of Personnel Management investigators concluded Wackenhut had acted inappropriately and "retaliated" against Peters. In June of 1996, Peters resigned from his position and left Rocky Flats after reaching a settlement agreement with Wackenhut. Lt. Graf's workload was inexplicably raised to 262 hours, from the staff average of 187 hours. After Graf was sent by Wackenhut for psychiatric review, a psychiatrist concluded that Lt. Graf was fit for duty, noting that the reason for Graf's referral was "based on his preoccupation with security safeguards at Rocky Flats and discussion with outside individuals and the media." Lt. Graf was nonetheless fired and finally won a Department of Labor whistleblower case requiring Wackenhut to reinstate him to his original position and pay compensatory damages. * Edward McCallum was a Colonel in the Special Forces with service in Vietnam. He worked in DOE security for twenty years, and authored the 1996 DOE Annual Report to the President on the Status of Safeguards and Security, which was highly critical of security and caused a serious eruption at DOE. He was immediately put on administrative leave and investigated. In early 1999, McCallum's concerns about the lack of security at Rocky Flats were made public. At about the same time, Secretary Richardson issued a zero-tolerance order against whistleblower retaliation: "Management must also create and foster a work environment that allows free and open expression of security concerns, where workers fear no reprisals or retaliation." It didn't work. McCallum was put on administrative leave based on a security violation accusation that was later dropped. Representative Curt Weldon (R-PA) wrote to his colleagues, "Throughout the past decade, this former Green Beret officer attempted numerous times to alert the Administration to grievous lapses in security which left our nation's nuclear facilities vulnerable to foreign espionage and terrorist attack. Officials at the highest levels, including three Secretaries of Energy and White House personnel, consistently ignored Lt. Col. McCallum's warnings, placing our national security in jeopardy. . .Lt. Col. McCallum deserves accolades for what he did to protect our national security - not the continued destruction of his reputation and career." McCallum took a job at the Pentagon, and is no longer working on security issues at DOE. Ron Timm, and his corporation, RETA Security, were experienced security analysts under contract to the DOE Headquarters Office of Safeguards and Security. RETA Security was the principal analyst for review of all SSSPs for DOE Headquarters since 1997. He told the IG that he had suffered retaliation for raising concerns about public health and safety. Timm's work assignments analyzing SSSP's for all DOE facilities over the previous five years had plummeted. The IG found no retaliation, as Timm's company was performing other DOE work for Secretary Richardson. As soon as the IG inquiry concluded, Timm's contract was terminated. Timm sent a second letter to the new DOE Secretary, Spencer Abraham, in January 2001 thinking the new administration would look into the ongoing security failures at nuclear facilities. Timm wrote, "... time has shown that the existing bureaucracy at DOE have not adequately acted upon the issue of risk to the public other than in ineffective and reactive ways." However, Secretary Abraham delegated the response to the letter to one of the office which Timm accused of covering up security problems, the Office of Independent Oversight. In the six page response Director Glenn Podonsky concluded, "The Department's protection program may not be perfect, we firmly believe it to be effective." Timm is no longer working on Headquarters security issues at DOE and has filed a whistleblower complaint. * According to an IG Report: "[O]ne support services contractor believed that an OSS [Office of Safeguards and Security] program manager threatened him with a reduction in contract activity for his role in supporting the SSSP QA [quality assurance] process and for assisting the [Secretary Richardson's] special assistant. The contractor said that he did not receive any contract work in the area of field assistance after the alleged threat was made, and that he viewed the elimination of his field assistance activities as retaliation." The IG concluded that because he did not seek to file a formal whistleblower retaliation complaint and that he continued to receive contracts from the DOE security czar, he had not suffered retaliation. As soon as DOE security czar General Habiger left however, he lost all DOE Headquarters contracts. * In a desperate attempt to shed light on inadequate physical security at the DOE National Labs, a DOE employee faxed two unclassified IG reports that exposed security failures at DOE to USA Today and the Washington Post. As a result, the employee's security clearance was "suspended due to his admitted release, without prior authorization, of a draft DOE Inspector General report on sensitive DOE security matters. His action was in direct contravention of his signed 'Security Responsibility Statement' promulgated by the DOE Office of Security Affairs specifically to prevent such releases," -- an illegal internal DOE gag order prohibiting direct contact with the news media. According to the Office of Safeguards and Security Notification Letter, the employee "thought that if [he/she] brought this [security] inadequacy to light, then senior DOE officials might be 'sparked' into improving that program. Accordingly, [he/she] decided to send a copy of the draft OIG report to the news media to 'make things better.'" That whistleblower is no longer working on security issues for DOE. As Admiral Rickover once warned, "You can sin against God, and God will forgive you -- if you sin against the bureaucracy, they will never forgive you!" This old adage certainly describes the culture at DOE. Published: Jan 13 2002 ***************************************************************** 69 USEC, DOE swap barbs The Paducah Sun Paducah, Kentucky Thursday, January 17, 2002 USEC's president has accused DOE of distorting facts and delaying talks, while a DOE official expressed concern that the plant couldn't keep up with uranium shipments. By Joe Walker jwalker@paducahsun.com--270.575.8650 USEC President William Timbers has accused the Department of Energy of distorting facts and delaying talks for a plan to preserve the 1,500-employee Paducah uranium enrichment plant. Timbers made the claims in December and January letters to Undersecretary of Energy Robert Card, who meanwhile wrote Timbers that "if the outstanding issues in the negotiations are not resolved expeditiously, the United States could find itself with a nuclear power fuel shortage." The biting dialogue started Dec. 14 when Timbers wrote Card expressing concern about the "growing gap" between USEC and DOE following two fruitful November meetings involving the two men. He said the department had raised "many new issues that neither of us had discussed" regarding USEC's Nov. 15 draft agreement immediately committing to: Maintain the Paducah plant, leased by USEC from DOE, at an enforceable minimum annual production level of 3.5 million units of enriched uranium. That is roughly the amount sold now. Bring on line, subject to milestones, a new plant by 2007 using existing European gas centrifuge technology or by 2009 using new USEC-developed technology. Centrifuge is much cheaper to operate than the Paducah plant's outdated gaseous diffusion process. Allow DOE complete access to run the Paducah plant if USEC ceases operation. Be removed as agent for imported Russian uranium if USEC should default on any of the other obligations. In a Jan. 10 letter, Timbers described Card's Dec. 19 written proprietary response as having "several broadly drawn standards" giving Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham sole discretion to take over USEC business without compensation or appeal. Timbers said USEC negotiators told DOE officials in a Dec. 26 conference call that "no U.S. corporation could subject itself to such unprecedented and unnecessary government authority and remain accountable to its shareholders or remain in business." Card wrote Timbers Jan. 8, saying the domestic nuclear supply could be in jeopardy. "I am also concerned that U.S. strategic interests may be at risk if the USEC cannot ensure continuity of shipments of Russian (uranium) to the United States," Card wrote. USEC has pinned the future of the Paducah plant on lowering prices for the cheaper Russian uranium, which helps offset the plant's high production costs from using massive amounts of electricity. USEC is middleman for sales of the Russian material, recycled from former Soviet warheads and accounting for about half the enriched uranium used by U.S. nuclear plants. About a third comes from the Paducah plant and the rest from European competitors. Card reminded Timbers that the government would not approve any long-term agreement with Russia "until all other domestic issues have been resolved." Timbers' letter last week called Card's fuel-shortage concern "unwarranted and disingenuous." He said USEC had met supply obligations despite Russia's having suspended shipments four times in recent years. Timbers also said Card's characterization of the plant negotiations was just as "factually wrong" as with the Russian deal. "Inaccurate assertions, DOE delays and unworkable intrusions into the operation of a private company, together with unsupported claims of an imminent nuclear fuel crisis directed at a negotiating strategy that unnecessarily puts the future of USEC and Paducah at risk, are not in the mutual support and cooperation" embraced in the November meetings, Timbers wrote. The energy workers' union, which represents nearly half of Paducah's enrichment employees, supports the Russian deal but wants a USEC guarantee to keep running the plant. Phil Potter, Washington-based policy analyst for Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers International, said he was familiar with some of the correspondence between Card and Timbers, but had not talked with DOE officials about the status of the negotiations. "USEC certainly believes the differences (between it and DOE) are substantial, but unless somebody releases the actual proposals publicly, how do you make a comparison of your own? So I just haven't tried," Potter said. "I don't know where all this is going." ***************************************************************** 70 Chronic Insecurity: Problems And Solutions TOMPAINE.com - Nominated for the Upton Sinclair Award Making The U.S. Nuclear Weapons Complex More Secure The Project on Government Oversight investigates, exposes, and seeks to remedy systemic abuses of power, mismanagement, and subservience by the federal government to powerful special interests. The following is an excerpt from "U.S. Nuclear Weapons Complex: Security At Risk" by the Project On Government Oversight. See POGO's Web site for the full text of the report. PROBLEM #1: Nuclear Materials Are Spread Across the Country. Weapons-quantity special nuclear materials are stored at 10 fixed sites. This dispersion is a leftover from the Cold War, when there were many more missions for the various sites. Now, a number of sites have virtually no national security mission, however, they continue to store and try to protect tons of nuclear materials at great cost. DOE can not currently adequately protect this material, and security at each site unnecessarily increases redundancies and costs. However, DOE has resisted consolidation as it would threaten fiefdoms and potentially even lead to the closing down of facilities. SOLUTION: Close Unneeded Facilities. The Base Realignment and Closure Commission should be empowered to recommend closing the unneeded and redundant DOE sites, as well as those sites that have no national defense mission. Not only do the unnecessary sites cost the taxpayers billions annually, but also present a significant health and safety risk to the nearby communities. There have been a number of studies considering the restructuring of the weapons complex over the past 10 years. The Bush Administration is currently considering this path. The following are suggestions for closure and consolidation: Shut down Idaho National Engineering Lab and the Argonne National Laboratory - West, as they have little or no national defense mission. Shut down Hanford, as it has little or no national defense mission. Combine Lawrence Livermore in California and Los Alamos National Labs at Los Alamos, NM -- we don't need two redundant bomb design labs. Livermore is now in the middle of a highly populated community, yet large amounts of plutonium are stored there. Combine Oak Ridge and Savannah River Facilities as both have significantly reduced missions of producing plutonium and fabricating uranium. Rather than repairing or replacing the decaying infrastructure at both sites, it would be more efficient to combine the two. SOLUTION: Consolidate Nuclear Materials. Another solution to this problem would be to consolidate nuclear materials to fewer, more easily protected sites. Not only would this save money, it would reduce the risk to the public. A plan by the DOE to consolidate nuclear materials at two sites that should have been operational by now, has been derailed by the bureaucracy. However, two of the most secure facilities in the world are already available. These two facilities would provide enough storage for the entire DOE weapons complex. One is underground in the middle of Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico (Kirtland Underground Munitions Storage Complex), and the other is a brand new (and totally unused) highly secure facility, the Device Assembly Facility, at the Nevada Test Site. For the past decade, DOE has been planning a national storage facility for [plutonium] at Savannah River and a storage facility for [highly enriched uranium] at Oak Ridge. Both are bogged down in a bureaucratic morass with no end in sight. SOLUTION: Immobilize Excess Nuclear Materials. There is a facility at Savannah River which could be used to meld excess nuclear materials with a radioactive barrier in glass. Once the materials have been immobilized, or "vitrified," they would no longer be attractive to terrorists because it would be virtually impossible to reconstitute the immobilized [nuclear material] into weapons grade material. PROBLEM #2: Bureaucracy Makes Security Tests Easier Rather than Fixing Problems. Without leadership and accountability, there are few incentives for the DOE bureaucracy to address problems. As a result, DOE portrays facilities as being secure and impervious to terrorists and spies when, in fact, they are not. This is largely achieved by sweeping undesirable messages and test results under the bureaucratic carpet and "dumbing down" the current system to hide embarrassing test failures. Ongoing publicized problems at such sites as Los Alamos and the Transportation Safeguards Division attest to this assertion. SOLUTION: Improve Effectiveness of Protective Forces. Until disparate sites are consolidated, DOE should increase the size of its protective force and improve weaponry, tactics, and command, control, and communication to defend against both theft and radiological sabotage. One possibility would be to explore the option of moving the responsibility for protection of nuclear weapons quantities of special nuclear material to [Department of Defense] military personnel. The military personnel should not be used for general site protection of classified information, personnel, or facilities, but only for the protection of [nuclear material]. Another possibility would be to explore whether TSD convoys of special nuclear materials should be supported by military personnel. A 1990 GAO report also suggested exploring the possibility of federalizing the protective forces at the sites similar to the protective force of the Transportation Security Division. In interviews the guards [protective force] themselves told GAO investigators, "a federal force would take security more seriously" and that they would "receive better training." PROBLEM #3: Independence in Nuclear Security is Lacking. The recently Congressionally created National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) exacerbates the problem by elevating the same people who have managed this debacle over the last three decades. As the Rudman report states, due to the "deeply rooted culture of low regard for and, at times, hostility to security issues . . . a reshuffling of offices and lines of accountability may be a necessary step toward meaningful reform, but it will almost certainly not be sufficient." SOLUTION: Take Security Management Out of DOE. POGO suggests exploring the option of setting up an independent agency to provide security from outside DOE entirely, and leave the many other duties of managing the nuclear weapons complex to the NNSA. SOLUTION: Move the Independent Oversight Office Out of DOE. Make oversight of nuclear security independent from those charged with implementing security by making the DOE Office of Independent Oversight an Independent Nuclear Facilities Security Board that is independent of DOE. A model would be the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. This board would report directly to the Congress and be empowered to assess security in the nuclear complex. PROBLEM #4: Computers Containing Nuclear Secrets Remain Vulnerable. It is virtually as easy today for a trusted "insider" to put weapons design information on a tape or disk and walk out the door as it was two years ago. All of our known spies have been insiders with the highest security clearances. SOLUTION: Convert to Media-less Computing. The only way to stop an "insider" is to stop any media (disks, tapes, laptops, etc.) from coming in or out of priority classified areas. At each workstation, the scientist or engineer would only have a monitor, keyboard, and mouse, while the actual computer is locked in a vault. Access to any media would require a "two-man rule" where two people would have to sign-off on any copies. PROBLEM #5: DOE Security Forces Cut by 40 Percent. According to testimony from a high-level DOE official, "Since 1992, the number of Protective Forces at DOE sites nationwide has decreased by almost 40 percent (from 5,640 to the current number of approximately 3,500) while the inventory of nuclear material has increased by 30 percent." The increase has resulted from the dismantling of nuclear weapons and the receipt of nuclear materials from the former Soviet Union. During the same period the threat of terrorism has increased. SOLUTION: Consider Security Budgetary Needs Independently. Decouple nuclear security funding from scientific research and the nuclear weapons program. Security funding currently competes with scientific research funding from within the National Nuclear Security Administration nuclear weapons budget. Security is always fighting for the scraps after the more politically appealing and bureaucratically popular scientific research and weapons projects are funded. Published: Jan 14 2002 ***************************************************************** 71 POGO Urges Department of Energy to Restore Access to Web Sites Project On Government Oversight (POGO) - FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 14, 2001 Contact: Beth Daley (202)347-1122 beth@pogo.org Washington, DC – Today POGO urged Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham to restore citizen access to the Department of Energy's web sites. "Withholding documents such as risk and environmental assessments only serves to create a barrier to real safety and security improvements by impeding meaningful dialogue," said [http://www.pogo.org/nuclear/security/rtksignon.htm] . Since taking down many of its web sites in November, the Department of Energy (DOE) has had two months to determine whether citizen access to web pages poses a threat to national security. A detailed list on the status of DOE's web pages compiled by the New Mexico-based Nuke Watch, the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability and its members can be found at: [http://www.nukewatch.org/nwd/DOEweb.html] . On October 3rd, POGO wrote to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham expressing concern about detailed maps showing the exact locations of stores of weapons-grade plutonium and highly enriched uranium in nuclear weapons facilities. In the wake of September 11th terrorist attacks, POGO was concerned that these documents provided a virtual road map to weapons-grade plutonium and uranium at nuclear bomb facilities. In the following weeks, the Department of Energy took numerous web sites down completely and, has since, failed to restore many of them. # # # # ***************************************************************** 72 Talks on nuclear fusion project begin - Japan Today Japan News - News - Thursday, January 17, 2002 at 09:30 JST TOKYO A conference on an international project on developing nuclear fusion energy will be held in Tokyo on Jan. 22-23, conference organizers said Wednesday. Participants from the current members of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor project — Japan, the European Union, Russia and Canada — will discuss methods to select a construction site for the reactor, the sharing of the cost burden and other basic problems. (Kyodo News) ***************************************************************** 73 Nuclear Power Holds Promise for Tiny Batteries IHT: Anne Eisenberg New York Times Service Thursday, January 17, 2002 Researchers are steadily miniaturizing machines and their parts to create systems the size of a grain of sand or a red blood cell. But so far the batteries needed to power these sensors have not duplicated the amazing shrinking act of the silicon machines. Millions of these miniature machines, known as microelectromechanical systems, or MEMS, may surround us one day, embedded in the concrete foundations of roads and bridges to monitor their conditions, in the atmosphere to check for biological warfare agents or attached to automobile tires to gauge pressure. To address the problem of powering them, a handful of researchers have turned from traditional fossil fuels or electrochemical cells to a new source to create microbatteries: nuclear power. The hope is that high-energy particles emitted by radioactive materials as they decay will one day drive MEMS devices. James Blanchard, an associate professor of nuclear engineering at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, has spent the past three years and about $450,000 awarded by the Department of Energy to develop prototypes of nuclear microbatteries for MEMS use. Mr. Blanchard is not splitting atoms to get his nanonukes, which is the first thing he says when describing his work. "People hear 'nuclear' and 'power' and they think 'fission'" and explosions, he said. "That's not what we are doing - we are not splitting uranium." Instead, Mr. Blanchard and an assistant professor and MEMS expert, Amit Lal, are using minute amounts of a radioactive version of nickel, nickel-63, in one of the prototypes they have developed. As this substance decays, it produces beta particles, high-energy electrons that now yield nanowatts (1 nanowatt is one-billionth of a watt) and may soon, the inventors hope, yield microwatts, or millionths of a watt. This kind of technology - harnessing radioactive isotopes to create a power source - was used to create the far larger nuclear batteries of NASA's Cassini probe, launched in 1997, to help it travel through the far reaches of space. Shrinking such technology became Mr. Blanchard's goal. "We wanted to show it could be done," he said. Resigned to alarmed reactions at the mention of the word "nuclear," Mr. Blanchard is quick to explain how little nuclear material is involved. "Batteries headed for another planet make a few hundred watts using an isotope of plutonium and are the size of a dishwasher," he said. "Ours is about as dangerous as a smoke detector" that falls off the wall and breaks. Smoke detectors contain small amounts of radioactive materials. In one of Mr. Blanchard's prototypes, nickel-63 is dissolved in a solution and poured into micromachined channels; in another, it travels in pyramid-shape indentations in the silicon. The relatively low energy emitted by beta particles does not damage the semiconductor device where the particles collect. The half-life of the isotope - 102 years, meaning that in that time half of the substance will have decayed - makes it attractive for long-term applications. Mr. Blanchard's group has also worked with alpha-emitting radioisotopes and plans to use them for future experiments. Jean-Pierre Fleurial, a physicist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, oversees several projects that tap the power of alpha particles, including an effort at the University of Illinois. Alpha particles give off far more energy than beta particles, he said, but in some prototypes they eventually damage the semiconductor diode where they are collected and converted to electricity. "The work ahead is to find innovative designs that last a long time and are reasonably efficient," Mr. Fleurial said. Because the research has already yielded several prototypes, he said, he is confident that alpha particles will eventually yield powerful batteries. "Most of the power source technologies don't scale down easily," he said. "These do." Kris Pister, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley, is among the scientists who aim to give microbatteries a trial run with a wireless network based on MEMS technology. Mr. Pister is the inventor of smart dust, or networked airborne motes of silicon that are designed to sense, measure and transmit data like temperature, humidity and light intensity. "Everything is getting smaller in MEMS but the batteries," he said. "The batteries remain the single heaviest and most expensive part." Mr. Pister said that he was considering making smart dust that draws its power from the radioactive isotope tritium and that he had been approached by Trace Photonics Inc. of Charleston, Illinois, which is interested in shrinking nuclear batteries to smart-dust size. "Nuclear batteries can potentially give off a staggering amount of energy," he said. Their longevity also makes them attractive. "Many applications of wireless networks are for places you never want to go back to," Mr. Pister said, like the foundations of tall buildings or the walls of houses. "You don't want to have to dig beneath the Sheetrock to change the batteries." What risks might the batteries pose if, for instance, they were scattered through the walls of a large building to monitor air quality or temperature? "They aren't likely to be very dangerous," said Stephen Schwartz, publisher of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, "unless you ate them or threw them in the fire and inhaled the smoke." Still, he added, some people might be alarmed. "Let all the facts be put on the table and then let people decide," he said. Copyright © 2001 the International Herald Tribune All Rights ***************************************************************** 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: *****************************************************************