***************************************************************** 04/17/02 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 10.97 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POLICY 1 French nuclear workers march in support of their sector 2 US: Midlands Voices: Senate should back cleaner energy policy 3 UK: RPS expands waste water, nuclear advisory ops with £3.45 million acq 4 Russia's atomic energy minister details spent nuclear fuel plans 5 US: Entergy Considering New Nuclear Plant 6 Russia Seals Debt Deal With Prague 7 US: Entergy Considering New Nuclear Plant 8 US: Analyst: Utility Needs To Stay Open 9 Exelon Deals SA Nuclear Energy Plan a Major Blow 10 Czechs To Get Russian Nuclear Fuel, Arms For Debt -Agency 11 French nuclear workers march in support of their sector 12 US: FPL hypes purchase of Seabrook nuclear power plant NUCLEAR REACTORS 13 US: Nuclear security and trust 14 US: Seabrook’s new owner gets good grades 15 US: Firm buying Seabrook sees no losers in proposed deal 16 Iran: Bushehr Nuclear Plant operational in September 17 Czechs To Get Russian Nuclear Fuel, Arms For Debt -Agency 18 US: ISU can't shake reactor's legacy 19 US: Power plant prepares for more scrutiny 20 India: The development of nuclear-powered desalination plants 21 US: NRC Dispatches Inspector to Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station 22 US: NRC to Meet With Amerenue To Discuss Safety Performance at 23 US: Atomic Safety & Licensing Board to Hold Hearing April 23 in 24 US: As Space Runs Out, Indian Point Plans to Change Storage of Spent 25 US: Energy Northwest plant powering down 26 US: Entergy Considering New Nuclear Plant NUCLEAR SAFETY 27 AU: Nuclear research: families to be told 28 Ireland: 'Six hours to take iodine tablets' warning 29 AU: Hotline for nuclear bone tests 30 UK Gulf War Veterans Call For Public Inquiry 31 AU: Hospitals to reveal nuclear test names NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 32 US: Congress Should Block Nuclear Industry, Stop Yucca Mountain Nucl 33 US: Opponents of Yucca Mountain Nuclear Dump Rally in Washington 34 German protesters who blocked disputed nuclear waste shipment go on 35 Supreme Court to Hear Appeals on Hungarian Spent Fuel Shipment 36 US: House could vote on Yucca in two weeks 37 US: Missiles a minor threat to Yucca waste 38 US: Judge Rejects State Guidelines on Nuclear Waste Disposal 39 US: Genetically Engineered Bacteria To Aid in Removal of Nuclear Was 40 US: Oppose Nevada N-site, too 41 US: Nuclear Waste Move Spews Political Fallout in 2 States 42 US: NRC to Meet with Company to Discuss Cleanup of Lakehurst, NJ., 43 US: New TV Ad Targets Nuke Waste Site 44 US: Ad Aims to Sway Senators Over Yucca 45 US: Nuclear cleanup contractor to lay off 66 employees 46 US: Panel raises concerns on cleanup 47 US: Protesters say no to Yucca plans 48 US: Yucca: And your home at half price 49 US: County gives $1.5 million more for Yucca legal fight 50 US: Humanizing Yucca Mountain fight won't work until humans speak up 51 US: Nevada: DOE doesn't need water for Yucca 52 US: Yucca: Guinn sees new roles for firefighters 53 US: Anti-Yucca demonstrators rally Tuesday on Capitol Hill. 54 US: Boxer Statement On Nuclear Waste Disposal At Yucca Mountain 55 US: Sacramento court overturns nuclear waste disposal regulation 56 US: Plutonium Could Travel to South Carolina Next Month 57 US: Hodges readies to halt plutonium 58 US: Yucca ads focus on a handful of states 59 US: S.C. Resists Plutonium Shipments 60 US: New ad aims to sway senators to oppose Yucca Mountain nuclear wa 61 US: Protesters inside and outside Rio Tinto 62 German protesters who blocked disputed nuclear waste shipment go 63 US: Foes of Nevada nuclear waste dump air first TV ad 64 US: Statement from Gov. Guinn regarding Clark County's $1.5 million 65 US: Gibbons Calls on All Americans to Oppose the Yucca Mountain 66 US: Hodges pledges blockade NUCLEAR WEAPONS 67 Japan's plutonium stockpile alarming 68 Scotland: Campaigner cleared over arms protest 69 US: Bush Predicts More Terrorism 70 US: Your Turn: Energy secretary ignores Nye County needs 71 US: Nuclear Consequences US DEPT. OF ENERGY 72 Livermore Lab prepped by DOE for inspection 73 Magistrate bars protesters from entering DOE property 74 Rocky Flats plan could hit impasse 75 12 workers back on job after isotopes discovery 76 Simulations Go Nuclear 77 Atomic Museum Foundation trustee to speak at AMSE Thursday night OTHER NUCLEAR 78 House GOP selects bills for big push ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 French nuclear workers march in support of their sector Tue Apr 16, 1:01 PM ET PARIS - About 1,000 French nuclear workers demonstrated in Paris on Tuesday to defend their industry and its future in France. The protesters marched outside the National Assembly carrying signs that read: "Nuclear energy has its place in energy policy." The Communist-affiliated CGT union, which organized the protest, said France's energy policy must not be dominated by the Green Party, which demands that France phase out nuclear power. However, a "true democratic debate" about nuclear power must include discussion about safety issues and worker compensation, the union said. France has 20 nuclear power plants and gets three-fourths of its energy from nuclear energy. Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, a Socialist, has said he is committed to maintaining France's reliance on nuclear power, a stance that has caused divisions with the Greens. Jospin is a top contender in France's presidential race. The election's first round is Sunday. If elected in the May 5 second round, he would likely team with other leftist parties to form a coalition government, such as the one currently in place, which includes the Green and Communist parties. The Greens, however, have threatened to abstain from a coalition over the issue of nuclear power. (parf-mp-ad-jg) Copyright © 2002 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 2 Midlands Voices: Senate should back cleaner energy policy Omaha.com April 16, 2002 BY BRAD REDLIN AND CHARLES RICHARDSON Redlin is a federal policy analyst at the Center for Rural Affairs in Walthill, Neb. Richardson, of Hastings, Neb., is a member of the Union of Concerned Scientists. It is no secret in Washington that the current Senate debate on a national energy policy is moving in the wrong direction. At almost every opportunity, the Senate has chosen to cater to the interests of the polluting nuclear, coal and petroleum industries and ignore clean energy solutions that could clear the air and reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Fortunately, there is a light at the end of this smog-filled tunnel. Sen. Ben Nelson had the vision to recognize wind, solar and other renewable energy sources as a critical part of our energy future. Joining 57 other senators, he voted for a renewable energy standard - a mechanism that requires utilities to gradually increase the portion of electricity produced from renewable energy sources - to at least 10 percent of their supplies by 2020. A strong renewable energy standard is feasible, economical and necessary to ensure a sustainable energy market. The Bush administration's own study shows that increasing renewable energy to 10 percent by 2020 would reduce electricity prices. We also need more clean, abundant and dependable renewable energy to promote economic development, create jobs and reduce the air pollution that threatens our health. We need more brave senators who will stand up for a clean energy future. A number of senators have filed amendments to weaken or gut the 10 percent standard in the current bill. One such amendment, by Florida's Sen. Bob Graham, would allow new garbage incinerators to qualify for the renewable energy standard. Other amendments could drastically cut the percentage of renewable energy produced. One amendment that was already passed excluded public power from the renewable energy standard. That means no utility in Nebraska would be required to comply with the standard, limiting its usefulness in developing our state's abundant renewable resources. We encourage Senator Nelson and others to support additional measures to develop Nebraska's renewable resources. As the Senate continues debate on the energy bill, we urge Nelson and the rest of the Senate to protect the renewable energy standard and take the first steps to moving the country toward a clean energy future. ©2002 Omaha World-Herald. ***************************************************************** 3 RPS expands waste water, nuclear advisory ops with £3.45 million acquisitions Ananova - RPS Group PLC said it is buying Indepth Surveys Ltd and JR Stansfield and Associates Ltd and its related company Probabilistic Risk Assessments Ltd in deals totalling £3.45 million. RPS said the acquisitions will enable it to continue its strong growth in earnings per share, which has averaged 26% per year compound since 1997. Bristol-based IDS is a leading provider of survey operations and consulting advice to the UK water industry in respect of the management of waste water. In the year ended March 31 2002 IDS's turnover was £1.72 million and pretax profit was £0.44 million. Net assets at year end were £1.22 million. The total price is £2.98 million in tranches over two years. JRS and PRA have common ownership and operate together to provide safety and engineering advice to the nuclear industry. Combined turnover of the two companies at the June year end was £2.895 million, with pretax profit of £82,000. Net assets were £263,000. The price, paid in cash, at completion, was £473,000 for both businesses. © AFX News Story filed: 08:13 Wednesday 17th April 2002 Copyright © 2002 Ananova Ltd ***************************************************************** 4 Russia's atomic energy minister details spent nuclear fuel plans BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Apr 16, 2002 Russia's first contract for the import of spent nuclear fuel will be with the UK and signed in about a year. The Americans prefer to export their spent fuel to other countries, but Russia badly needs cash to maintain security at its nuclear sites and installations - and sees taking in American nuclear waste as a good way of raising that cash. In the wake of 11 September this linkage "should work", according to the Russian atomic energy minister. The following is an excerpt from a report by the Russian newspaper Izvestiya: Aleksandr Rumyantsev, minister of atomic energy of Russia, met yesterday for the first time since he has been in office with representatives of environmental organizations. His predecessor, Yevgeniy Adamov, did such a thing only once. The meeting was held in an atmosphere of relatively strict secrecy. As expected, reporters were not admitted. But Izvestiya greatly needed to obtain from Rumyantsev several answers. It had to find secret ways of infiltrating Izvestiya's questions, and we found them. The questions were put, the answers were obtained. Representatives of six environmental organizations were present at the meeting, which went on for two hours. "The minister tried to be very amicable, he smiled often and retreated into peaceful topics. But the discussion sometimes switched to elevated tones, particularly when the issue of the import and reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel was broached. We are categorically opposed to this, and Rumyantsev hardly hopes to achieve a compromise here," Vladimir Slivak, cochairman of the Ekozashchita [Environmental Protection] group, told Izvestiya. The main sensation of the meeting was the minister's statement that the first contract for the import of spent nuclear fuel would be signed only in a year's time - with Britain. The fuel will be coming to us from low-power research reactors. It is notable that representatives of the Ministry of Atomic Energy have repeatedly called Britain and France their fiercest competitors when it comes to importing fuel. Now Russia's nuclear scientists are about to give refuge to the spent fuel of their competitors. Rumyantsev observed here that it is not worthwhile for the UK to reprocess this fuel. This is the sole contract that awaits Russia in the immediate future. Rumyantsev said about spent nuclear fuel from conventional nuclear plants: "I do not see this nuclear fuel." According to the minister everything has been snatched by competitors and there is no place in the sun for the Russian ministry. In addition, 80 per cent of peaceful nuclear fuel is produced by the Americans. The United States sells it to other countries but reserves the right to dispose of the spent product. Russia cannot unbeknownst to it [this appears to mean "without the Americans knowing"] import fuel from Japan, China, and other countries. Rumyantsev says that he is attempting to persuade the Americans to permit Russia to import this fuel. And is employing an iron-clad argument for this: Russia has nowhere from which to get the money to guard its nuclear facilities. After 11 September, this should work, the minister believes. Aleksandr Rumyantsev also said that he considers very favourable the idea of construction of a burial site on the Kurils and import of low-level waste from Taiwan... At the meeting with the environmentalists Rumyantsev attempted to defend the agreement with Hungary on fuel storage. The Supreme Court of Russia recently ruled the agreement illegal and required Hungary to take the fuel back, but it refused. The Hungarian spent fuel will remain in Russia, by all accounts. But the waste from reprocessing fuel that came in autumn from the Bulgarian Kozloduy station, the minister intends to return to its owners. Only this will not be happening any time soon: Russia has no plant that reprocesses this type of fuel (from a VVR-1000 reactor). And it will not be built, as Rumyantsev said yesterday, for at least 20 years. This is why a future generation of atomic energy ministers will have to be responsible for the imported fuel. Source: Izvestiya, Moscow, in Russian 29 Mar 02 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. ***************************************************************** 5 Entergy Considering New Nuclear Plant Las Vegas SUN April 17, 2002 NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Entergy Corp. has notified the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission that it is considering building a nuclear power plant in Port Gibson, Miss. Entergy officials said the company will take at least three years to decide whether to build the plant. Entergy Nuclear, a subsidiary of the New Orleans-based utility, on Tuesday became the third company to notify the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission of plans to seek an "early site permit" for a new nuclear plant. President Bush last year called on energy companies to resurrect the nuclear power plant construction business, which has been dormant since the mid-1980s after the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island. The company said nuclear energy is an alternative to natural gas, which fuels most of the country's newest power plants. "Having (the nuclear) option available is in the best interest of our power consumers, Entergy and the nation's energy independence," the company said. Entergy officials began considering building a nuclear plant a year ago after a severe shortage of natural gas sent the price of natural gas-generated electricity soaring. Entergy officials have said a new nuclear plant becomes economically viable when the price of natural gas consistently tops $5 per million British thermal units. Although prices in south Louisiana topped $10 per BTU last year during the shortage, they fell back after supplies strengthened. In recent weeks, natural gas has been trading around $3 per million BTU. Economic conditions of the power market will be the main factor in deciding whether to build the plant, the company said. Entergy spent the past nine months studying seven of its existing nuclear plant sites, including Waterford III near Hahnville and River Bend near St. Francisville, to determine which site had the best conditions for building a new reactor, Entergy Nuclear spokesman Carl Crawford said. Entergy already has one nuclear plant at Port Gibson. Transmission lines linking that plant to the region's power grid have enough capacity to handle another reactor because original plans called for two units at the site, Crawford said. The second unit was started but later abandoned. The application will take about a year to prepare and cost the nuclear subsidiary about $9 million, including a $5.4 million application fee from the NRC, Crawford said. The federal Department of Energy has offered to pay for as much as 50 percent of the application cost, he said. The rest will be covered by Entergy Nuclear. Customers of the parent company's regulated electricity utilities, which include Entergy New Orleans and Entergy Louisiana, will not pay for any of the application charges. Exelon, a Chicago-based power utility and the nation's biggest nuclear plant operator, became the first company to start the early site permit application process on March 20. Dominion Resources, based in Richmond, Va., followed two weeks later. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 6 Russia Seals Debt Deal With Prague www.moscowtimes.ru Wednesday, Apr. 17, 2002. Page 2 The Associated Press Russia reached an agreement Tuesday to settle its Soviet-era debt with the Czech Republic, Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov said following his talks with Czech Prime Minister Milos Zeman. Kasyanov said that $1.1 billion will be repaid by supplying $300 million to $400 million worth of combat planes and helicopters to the Czech Republic annually for four to five years, Interfax reported Russia also will provide $200 million worth of supplies for Czech ships and $200 million worth of nuclear fuel for Czech nuclear power stations for a period of four years, Kasyanov said. The remainder of the debt will be repaid with supplies of various scientific instruments and other goods, Zeman said, Interfax said. Russia inherited most of its $3.6 billion debt to the Czech Republic from the Soviet Union. ***************************************************************** 7 Entergy Considering New Nuclear Plant Wed Apr 17, 3:34 AM ET NEW ORLEANS - Entergy Corp. has notified the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission that it is considering building a nuclear power plant in Port Gibson, Miss. Entergy officials said the company will take at least three years to decide whether to build the plant. Entergy Nuclear, a subsidiary of the New Orleans-based utility, on Tuesday became the third company to notify the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission of plans to seek an "early site permit" for a new nuclear plant. President Bush (news - web sites) last year called on energy companies to resurrect the nuclear power plant construction business, which has been dormant since the mid-1980s after the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island. The company said nuclear energy is an alternative to natural gas, which fuels most of the country's newest power plants. "Having (the nuclear) option available is in the best interest of our power consumers, Entergy and the nation's energy independence," the company said. Entergy officials began considering building a nuclear plant a year ago after a severe shortage of natural gas sent the price of natural gas-generated electricity soaring. Entergy officials have said a new nuclear plant becomes economically viable when the price of natural gas consistently tops $5 per million British thermal units. Although prices in south Louisiana topped $10 per BTU last year during the shortage, they fell back after supplies strengthened. In recent weeks, natural gas has been trading around $3 per million BTU. Economic conditions of the power market will be the main factor in deciding whether to build the plant, the company said. Entergy spent the past nine months studying seven of its existing nuclear plant sites, including Waterford III near Hahnville and River Bend near St. Francisville, to determine which site had the best conditions for building a new reactor, Entergy Nuclear spokesman Carl Crawford said. Entergy already has one nuclear plant at Port Gibson. Transmission lines linking that plant to the region's power grid have enough capacity to handle another reactor because original plans called for two units at the site, Crawford said. The second unit was started but later abandoned. The application will take about a year to prepare and cost the nuclear subsidiary about $9 million, including a $5.4 million application fee from the NRC, Crawford said. The federal Department of Energy (news - web sites) has offered to pay for as much as 50 percent of the application cost, he said. The rest will be covered by Entergy Nuclear. Customers of the parent company's regulated electricity utilities, which include Entergy New Orleans and Entergy Louisiana, will not pay for any of the application charges. Exelon, a Chicago-based power utility and the nation's biggest nuclear plant operator, became the first company to start the early site permit application process on March 20. Dominion Resources, based in Richmond, Va., followed two weeks later. Copyright © 2002 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 8 Analyst: Utility Needs To Stay Open Tue Apr 16, 5:01 PM ET By HARRY R. WEBER, Associated Press Writer SEABROOK, N.H. (AP) - A Florida utility that has agreed to buy New Hampshire's only nuclear power plant faces a competitive market and will need to keep the plant running year-round to make money, an analyst said Tuesday. Photos "As long as it's running 85 to 90 percent of the year, you're going to be pretty successful. It's when problems arise that cause you to be down for an extended period of time that you run into trouble," said Andre Meade, an energy analyst with Commerzbank in New York. FPL Group Inc.'s plan to buy an 88 percent share of Seabrook for $837 million was announced Monday. It could take until the end of the year for state and federal regulators to approve the deal. Meade said Seabrook is one of the last nuclear plants in the country to go on line. Because it is a newer plant and has been run fairly well, it has generated a lot of interest in the industry, he said. "New England is fundamentally an attractive market because there isn't a lot of coal-fire capacity there, which means you have gas-fired facilities running around the clock and therefore higher prices," Meade said. The challenge for FPL, Meade said, is making headway in a region that has a lot of power plants. FPL executives said Tuesday they have no immediate plans to change the management of Seabrook and that the 806 Seabrook employees will keep their jobs at similar wages for at least one year. The deal is expected to close by the end of the year. "It very much fits with our overall strategy," said Lew Hay, chairman and chief executive of FPL Group. "We want to have a sizable presence in the market." Customers of three New Hampshire utilities would get rate cuts under the deal, though not right away. They are Public Service Company of New Hampshire, New Hampshire Electric Cooperative and Granite State Electric Co. The 1,161-megawatt plant near the Atlantic Ocean began operating in 1990. FPL Group is the parent company of Florida Power & Light, Florida's largest electric utility. It serves 3.9 million households in 34 Florida counties. It owns power plants in 15 states. The Seabrook shares being sold are those owned by Connecticut-based Northeast Utilities, Public Service's parent company; United Illuminating Co. of New Haven, Conn.; British-based National Grid Group; Boston-based NSTAR; BayCorp Holdings of Eliot, Maine; and the New Hampshire Electric Cooperative in Plymouth. (Granite State Electric is part of National Grid.) Massachusetts Municipal Wholesale Electric Co., Taunton (Mass.) Municipal Lighting Plant, and the Hudson (Mass.) Light and Power Department are keeping their shares, FPL said. Seabrook was a major political issue in New Hampshire from the 1970s through its completion — billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule. The mounting debts pushed Manchester-based Public Service, which owned 36 percent of the project, into bankruptcy in 1988. The company emerged from bankruptcy as a subsidiary of Northeast Utilities. Public Service no longer owns any of Seabrook, but spokesman Martin Murray said it is obligated to buy Seabrook power and its customers still pay construction costs for Seabrook, called "stranded costs," in their monthly bills. He said customers should see rates drop about 7 percent in 2004. Shares of FPL Group closed up 47 cents to $60.98 each on Tuesday on the New York Stock Exchange (news - web sites). ___ On the Net: http://www.seabrookstation.com http://www.fplgroup.com http://www.nationalgrid.com http://www.nu.com Copyright © 2002 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 9 Exelon Deals SA Nuclear Energy Plan a Major Blow allAfrica.com: Business Day (Johannesburg) April 17, 2002 Robyn Chalmers Johannesburg US electricity giant withdraws from project after reviewing investments SA's plans to build revolutionary mininuclear reactors have been dealt a blow with US group Exelon, a key investor, saying it will pull out of the project. One of the biggest electricity groups in the US, Exelon had plans to buy 40 of the pebble-bed modular reactors (PBMRs) if the project got the go-ahead from government. This was over and above the 7,5m it paid in 2000 for a 12,5% stake in the project, and it would have injected billions of rands into the local economy. Exelon said yesterday its decision to withdraw followed a review of its investments. The group had decided to concentrate on its core business of generation, transmission and distribution, with nuclear energy no longer a focus. The review is understood to follow key management changes at Exelon, which saw chairman and joint CEO Corbin McNeill a proponent of nuclear power in the US resigning. "Exelon continues to believe that the PBMR technology has the potential to be viable and successful," said the company. It would remain part of the project until the feasibility study was completed, due later this year. A government task team is considering the outcome of the study, which is understood to have shown that the scheme is broadly viable. Other investors in the project, notably the UK's British Nuclear Fuels which has 22,5% and the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) with 25%, will remain part of the project. Eskom, which has 30% of the scheme and has been the driving force behind it, pledged its support for the scheme. Eskom executive director Steve Lennon said that while Exelon's decision was disappointing, it was not a reflection on the pebble-bed reactor, and Eskom remained bullish about the project. Eskom has been working on the 110MW pebble-bed modular reactor since 1993 as part of its quest to find alternative sources of power. Dave Nicholls, CE of the PBMR company, said yesterday that while Exelon's decision was regrettable, it was based on a shift of focus by the group rather than any concerns about the feasibility of the pebble-bed reactor. "In terms of the process, (Exelon's decision) has not affected us at all and we are moving ahead swiftly." Nicholls said a replacement investor was being sought, and talks were in the pipeline with several international players which had expressed an interest in the technology. In terms of Exelon's proposed order for 40 reactors, Nicholls said the group's withdrawal from its investment did not mean that it had decided against such a move, and the issue could be explored further in the future. Janine Claber, media affairs manager at British Nuclear Fuels, said yesterday the company would continue to be part of the nuclear project. Once the feasibility stage was completed, the board would make a final decision on its continued involvement, as originally envisaged. "Clearly (Exelon's decision) is disappointing, but it has not changed our view that the project has enormous potential," she said. Carlos Galego of the IDC said the move was a setback, but the corporation was committed to the project. Copyright © 2002 Business Day. ***************************************************************** 10 Czechs To Get Russian Nuclear Fuel, Arms For Debt -Agency Tue Apr 16,11:41 AM ET MOSCOW -(Dow Jones)- Russia may repay its debt to the Czech Republic in the form of weapons and nuclear fuel supplies, the Interfax news agency reported Czech Prime Minister Milos Zeman as saying Tuesday. "I hope that today we will sign a treaty that will envisage such supplies worth a total of $200 million to the Czech Republic over the next five years," Interfax quoted Zeman as saying. Zeman also confirmed his country's intention to buy Russian Mi-24 helicopters and An-70 military and transport airplanes worth a total of $500 million. "Our country's position is that payment of the debts should proceed on a mutually beneficial basis," Zeman said. -By Geoffrey T. Smith, Dow Jones Newswires; (+7 095) 974 8055; geoffrey.smith@ dowjones.com [http://dowjones.com] Copyright © 2002 Dow Jones. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 11 French nuclear workers march in support of their sector Politics | AP | Reuters | USA TODAY Tue Apr 16, 1:01 PM ET PARIS - About 1,000 French nuclear workers demonstrated in Paris on Tuesday to defend their industry and its future in France. The protesters marched outside the National Assembly carrying signs that read: "Nuclear energy has its place in energy policy." The Communist-affiliated CGT union, which organized the protest, said France's energy policy must not be dominated by the Green Party, which demands that France phase out nuclear power. However, a "true democratic debate" about nuclear power must include discussion about safety issues and worker compensation, the union said. France has 20 nuclear power plants and gets three-fourths of its energy from nuclear energy. Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, a Socialist, has said he is committed to maintaining France's reliance on nuclear power, a stance that has caused divisions with the Greens. Jospin is a top contender in France's presidential race. The election's first round is Sunday. If elected in the May 5 second round, he would likely team with other leftist parties to form a coalition government, such as the one currently in place, which includes the Green and Communist parties. The Greens, however, have threatened to abstain from a coalition over the issue of nuclear power. (parf-mp-ad-jg) ***************************************************************** 12 FPL hypes purchase of Seabrook nuclear power plant Sun-Sentinel: Staff and Wire Reports Posted April 17 2002 Officials from FPL Group Inc. on Tuesday touted their $837 million purchase of a majority interest in a Seabrook, N.H., nuclear power plant. FPL senior managers continued meeting with community leaders and residents. They also held a conference call with Wall Street analysts and investors. "We believe our decision to invest in New Hampshire will be welcomed by customers, employees, the community and shareholders," said Lew Hay, chairman and chief executive of the Juno Beach-based FPL Group. "This acquisition supports our strategy to become a major energy provider in the Northeast region." Company spokeswoman Carol Clawson said many of the questions at the community meetings concerned FPL's experience with nuclear power plant operations and its environmental record. She also said FPL does not expect problems getting power on the regional transmission grid. Seabrook was a major political issue in New Hampshire from the 1970s through its completion -- billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule. The mounting debts pushed Manchester-based Public Service, which owned 36 percent of the project, into bankruptcy in 1988. The company emerged from bankruptcy as a subsidiary of Northeast Utilities. Officials at FPL said the deal calls for all workers to keep their jobs at similar wages for at least a year. The company has not said what its plans are beyond that. State and federal regulators must approve the sale, announced after the stock market closed Monday. New Hampshire officials were jubilant. "It's incredibly great news for consumers and the state's economy," said state Rep. Jeb Bradley, an architect of the 1996 state law deregulating the electric power industry. Business Writer Antonio Fins contributed to this story, which was based on an Associated Press report. Copyright © 2002, South Florida Sun-Sentinel ***************************************************************** 13 Nuclear security and trust NorthJersey.com - Mike Kelly Tuesday, April 16, 2002 Which story do you believe? Some say security at the Salem Nuclear Power Plant, at the southern tip of New Jersey, is too lax. Others say it's just fine. In these post-Sept. 11 times, when the stakes are so high, it's hard to trust either view. Two weeks ago, a National Guard sergeant played the role of whistle-blower. He stepped forward and told state legislators that maps of Salem had been found in a terrorist cave in Afghanistan. The conclusion: Maybe Salem was a target. And if terrorists damaged any of Salem's three reactors, Philadelphia, Atlantic City, and much of South Jersey, Delaware, and southern Pennsylvania might be contaminated. Quicker than you can say nuke 'em, state and federal officials leapt forward with denials. They said no maps of Salem had been found in Afghanistan. Which version do you believe? Now, a senior security guard at Salem has come forward with a new story. He claims that workers lacking proper security clearance are allowed to roam sensitive areas at Salem. This senior security guard managed to get a Massachusetts congressman to listen to his story. He also spoke to me. "The bottom line is, they're not following security procedures," said the security guard, who asked that his identity be kept confidential. He went on to outline a system in which temporary workers, recently hired to install fuel rods in a nuclear reactor, are granted access to the reactor control room and other key areas at Salem before background investigations are completed. As for a possible terrorist attack, this officer contends that plant supervisors and government officials "have the mentality that it'll never happen here." Rep. Edward Markey, a Democrat from the Boston area who sits on a House committee that monitors nuclear plants, was so perturbed at what this officer said that he sent a two-page letter to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. "I am concerned about this possible breach in security," Markey said. That was last Wednesday. The NRC's response came a day later, after it sent an investigator to Salem: Don't worry, all is well. The same message came from the firm that runs Salem, PSEG Nuclear. But here's the rub: Neither the NRC nor PSEG Nuclear will disclose details of security procedures. "That's classified," said PSEG Nuclear spokesman, Skip Sindoni. So who do you believe? The senior security guard speaks in the cocksure tone of a man who knows what he's talking about. But he reveals this important footnote: "I haven't been to work in two weeks." From his vacation perch, he says he monitors Salem's security woes. How? He says he speaks routinely to his fellow security guards. "You're never going to prove anything," he warns. "The NRC says it's fine, but what are you going to do?" Good question. If nothing else, the stories of the National Guard sergeant and now this senior security guard remind us that the system for monitoring America's nuclear plants does not exactly instill confidence. Trying to instill trust without revealing Salem's secrets, NRC spokeswoman Diane Screnci was reduced to this assessment: "It's a he said, she said story again." Well said. But these days, that's not good enough. Staff Writer Mike Kelly's e-mail address is kellym@northjersey.com 3218057 Copyright © 2002 North Jersey Media Group Inc. ***************************************************************** 14 Seabrook’s new owner gets good grades The Union Leader & New Hampshire Sunday News April 17, 2002 By GARRY RAYNO Union Leader Staff The Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant is a dominant presence on the Seacoast. (File Photo) Florida Power & Light Group generally receives good marks for the operation of its four nuclear plants at two sites in Florida. The company also receives high grades for its diversified generating portfolio, particularly for its wind power holdings, as FPL seeks to move into new markets. However, Florida consumer interest groups say the company has been slow to clean up its fossil-fuel plants — grandfathered under the Clean Air Act — that contribute to Florida’s air quality problems. They also said that at one time, FPL proposed a power plant in the Everglades. Florida Power and Light has been aggressively expanding its generating capacity throughout the country, both through the purchase of facilities such as Seabrook, for which it will pay $837 million for an 88.2 percent interest, and through new construction. FPL is the largest electric utility in Florida, serving about 4 million customers in southern Florida and along its east coast. FPL Energy, a wholly owned subsidiary of FPL Group, will take over the 1,161-megawatt nuclear power plant once the sale closes, which is expected to happen before the end of the year. The unregulated generating subsidiary currently has 5,063 megawatts of capacity, with more than 1,400 megawatts of capacity in New England from 33 facilities. The company entered the New England market when it purchased 30 hydro and two fossil-fuel-fired generating plants from Central Maine Power. The company also owns an oil-burning plant in Massachusetts and is constructing a gas-fired plant in Rhode Island. The company has more than 70 energy-generating facilities in 12 states and says new projects will add more than 5,600 megawatts to its portfolio by the end of next year. The company operates wind fields in the Midwest, Northwest and California and the two largest solar fields in the world in the Mojave Desert in California. In Florida, the company’s four nuclear plants have done extremely well in recent years in meeting safety regulations, according to Roger Hannah, of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Region 2 office in Atlanta. “The four plants are meeting all regulations, and there are no major safety concerns,” he said. An NRC safety assessment letter issued March 4 on the company’s Turkey Point facility in Homestead said, “Overall, Turkey Point operated in a manner that preserved public health and safety and fully met all cornerstone objectives.” Turkey Point and the facility at St. Lucie are pressurized water reactors, as is Seabrook. Tim Winter, a utility analyst for A.G. Edwards, described FPL as “very good operators with a track record that is second to none,” noting the plants in Florida were operating at an average of 92 percent of capacity in 1991, which is among the highest in the industry. With plants similar to Seabrook, FPL should be able to combine expertise and improve efficiency, he said. The sale price per kilowatt hour for Seabrook was a little more than that for Millstrone 3, Winter noted, and he said it is at the higher end of what is being paid for nuclear plants. “Seabrook is at a premium because it is newer, it is near a major load center and there are synergies,” he said. FPL recently reached an agreement with the Public Counsel’s office in Florida to reduce base rates by 7 percent, or $250 million. That reduction is the second base rate reduction in three years, according to Public Counsel Jack Shreve. He said there was also a $350 million reduction three years ago and together they represent a permanent $600 million reduction in rates. Although he and FPL are adversaries, Shreve said, “They are people I can trust. They are forthright with me.” Mark Ferrulo of the Florida Public Interest Research Group said the company tries to keep an open dialogue with the public interest community through consultation and meetings. “We compliment them for that, even if that does not result in the outcome we would like to see,” he said. But he said several of FPL’s fossil-fuel plants contribute to the air quality problems in South Florida in a significant way because they were grandfathered under the Clean Air Act and do not meet current emissions standards. The Union Leader. ***************************************************************** 15 Firm buying Seabrook sees no losers in proposed deal The Union Leader & New Hampshire Sunday News April 17, 2002 By JERRY MILLER Union Leader Correspondent The Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant is a dominant presence on the Seacoast. (File Photo) SEABROOK — The president of the Florida company in line to buy Seabrook Station said yesterday the sale is good news for electricity customers in the Northeast and insisted his company has the financial ability to make whatever improvements are needed at the plant. “We believe Seabrook is the premier generating facility in New England, and we welcome it into our family of companies,” said Lew Hay, who also serves as chairman and CEO of the FPL Group. Hay characterized the sale as “the ultimate win, win” for all parties and said the sale price represents “the high end of the range” for the sale of a nuclear asset. This week, FPL Group agreed to purchase 88.2 percent of Seabrook Station for $836.6 million. At a news conference yesterday, Hay declined to discuss the impact the sale might have on ratepayers. “I don’t think it would be appropriate for me to comment,” Hay said. Rates will be set by the marketplace and will depend in large part on the fossil-fuel markets, he said. But yesterday, Gov. Jeanne Shaheen said the transaction would result in rate reductions not counted in the settlement between the state and Public Service of New Hampshire that cleared the way for deregulation and the sale of the plant. Hay declined to comment on the governor’s statement. Hay said his company has no plans to complete construction of the second nuclear reactor at Seabrook, some of whose parts have already been sold to other utilities. However, he said his company has not precluded the possibility of adding a non-nuclear generating facility on the Seabrook site. Hay said his company would like to seek an extension to the plant’s current nuclear license, which expires in 2026. “It would clearly be advantageous to our company and shareholders,” he said. If approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and other federal and state regulatory agencies, an extension would make the purchase especially attractive to current and future stockholders. Hay said the full cost to decommission Seabrook Station, estimated at $555 million, should be in hand by 2015 and there would be plenty of cash flow from the plant to get the job done. Hay estimated a yearly contribution of $15 million toward the decommissioning costs and said he didn’t think the company’s other customers around the country would have to foot the bill. Under terms of the sales agreement, FPL will receive the entire $237 million that has already been collected for decommissioning. Hay said the acquisition would mean no changes for employees of Seabrook Station for the first year, but he made no commitments beyond that time. “You can never rule out layoffs,” he said. Hay also said, “We have no plans to make management changes.” Hay said FPL would have limited access in operating Seabrook Station until the deal has been closed. That’s expected to happen by the end of the year, after reviews by a host of state and federal regulatory agencies, including the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The Union Leader. ***************************************************************** 16 Bushehr Nuclear Plant operational in September IranMania News - Wednesday, April 17, 2002 - 2002 IranMania.com IFN - The first phase of Bushehr Atomic Power Plant will go into operation in September 2002, Head of the Parliament's Energy Commission, Hossein Afarideh stated on 15 April 2002. He added that the main section of the building is complete and the installation of equipment has recently begun. He hoped that cooperation with Russia will be expanded and the power plant will be completed on schedule. Mr. Afarideh said that Iran, as a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency has the right to use nuclear energy for power generation, agriculture and industrial use. The lawmaker said that the members of the Parliament's Energy Commission inspected the power plant and have been satisfied with the progress of the construction works and installation operation. ©1999-2002 IranMania Copyrights . Terms & Conditions . Privacy ***************************************************************** 17 Czechs To Get Russian Nuclear Fuel, Arms For Debt -Agency Tue Apr 16,11:41 AM ET MOSCOW -(Dow Jones)- Russia may repay its debt to the Czech Republic in the form of weapons and nuclear fuel supplies, the Interfax news agency reported Czech Prime Minister Milos Zeman as saying Tuesday. "I hope that today we will sign a treaty that will envisage such supplies worth a total of $200 million to the Czech Republic over the next five years," Interfax quoted Zeman as saying. Zeman also confirmed his country's intention to buy Russian Mi-24 helicopters and An-70 military and transport airplanes worth a total of $500 million. "Our country's position is that payment of the debts should proceed on a mutually beneficial basis," Zeman said. -By Geoffrey T. Smith, Dow Jones Newswires; (+7 095) 974 8055; geoffrey.smith@ dowjones.com Copyright © 2002 Dow Jones. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 18 ISU can't shake reactor's legacy Omaha.com April 16, 2002 AMES, Iowa (AP) - Iowa State University's nuclear reactor shut down four years ago and has since been destroyed, but the dead reactor still exists in the eyes of the federal government. University officials have had trouble getting rid of the reactor's federal license, especially since the federal government has been busy after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Iowa State professors have set aside other work to research questions on tight deadlines and fill out paperwork to comply with federal security requests. The school still pays about $2,000 a year for liability insurance, although the nuclear materials are long gone. University officials cannot ignore commands from the federal level or some could end up in jail. The four-year wait to wrap up paperwork on the reactor is typical, said Al Adams, licensing project manager for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in Rockville, Md. Planning, surveys and radiation inspections have to be cleared before lifting a license, he said. The reactor opened in 1959, making it the second university reactor in the nation. But demand for nuclear engineers ebbed as the public became fearful of radioactive waste. The school closed its undergraduate nuclear-engineering program in 1990. The graduate program closed six years later. Twenty-eight research reactors were active on university campuses last year, down from 64 in 1980 ©2002 Omaha World-Herald. ***************************************************************** 19 Power plant prepares for more scrutiny Omaha.com April 16, 2002 COLUMBUS, Neb. (AP) - The Nebraska Public Power District will spend nearly $4 million more this year as it hires people to prepare the Cooper Nuclear Station for intensive federal inspections. Contracts have been prepared for nearly 20 additional experts in engineering, management, licensing and corrective actions at nuclear power plants, said power district spokeswoman Marcia Cady. "The Nuclear Regulatory Commission expects rapid action and will monitor the Brownville plant for at least one year," said Mike Coyle, site vice president for the power district. The commission gave the plant, which has a $56 million payroll, the lowest rating possible without closing it down on April 1 because of repeated problems with its emergency preparedness. Upcoming inspections will focus on what the plant has done in response to previous problems, Coyle said. Major inspections have been planned for mid-June, and they will be followed by feedback from the commission, Cady said. Two people already have been contracted through the Nuclear Management Co. to operate the plant through the end of the year, and four troubleshooters have been hired to improve operations at the plant. The power district's board is expected to decide on the plant's future by the end of the year. Options include having the utility continue to operate the plant as it does now, hiring a management company to operate the plant, closing it or selling it. NPPD plans to operate Cooper through September 2004, and the plant is licensed for operation through 2014. ©2002 Omaha World-Herald. ***************************************************************** 20 The development of nuclear-powered desalination plants [Guardian Unlimited] Oceans on tap Jane Burgermeister Guardian Wednesday April 17, 2002 On the sunburnt coast of south-east India, near Madras, engineers at Kalpakkam are finalising plans to connect a new desalination plant to an existing nuclear reactor. Within a year, the plant is expected to be sucking in just over 35,000 cubic metres of seawater each day to produce 5,400 cubic metres of fresh water for the local community. But India is not the only country now developing nuclear desalination facilities. Faced with water shortages, growing populations and global warming, countries from the US to Indonesia are looking to nuclear energy to tap the potential fresh water locked in the oceans that sparkle along their arid coastlines. South Korea has designed a 330-megawatt reactor for desalination and electricity. Canada and Russia are pooling their expertise to build floating nuclear desalination units, which can be moved around the world's oceans on barges. In the US, scientists at the Argonn National Laboratory have renewed their interest in using nuclear energy to power 500 desalination plants. Tunisia is talking to France, and Morocco to China, about nuclear desalination plants to supply the local populations along the north African coastlines with fresh water and electricity. Nuclear desalination is, however, nothing new. For more than 20 years, Japan has been successfully operating nuclear desalination facilities in remote coastline areas. There are currently more than 1,500 desalination plants operating around the world. But the problem is that almost all of them use traditional fossil fuels, which release the greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide. Toshio Konishi, from the nuclear technology and developmental section of the International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA), the global nuclear watchdog, says the main advantage of using nuclear energy to extract fresh water from the sea is that nuclear plants produce far less carbon dioxide. The US energy department estimates that coal-fired power plants produce 964 tonnes of carbon dioxide for every gigawatt hour of electricty, while nuclear plants produce only 7.8 tonnes. But in spite of nuclear's relatively clean bill of health in terms of carbon dioxide emissions, Konishi warns that most developing countries do not have the regulatory and legal infrastructure needed to construct and operate nuclear power plants safely. Furthermore, radioactive waste from nuclear plants comes with its own environmental and economic problems. The world water crisis - which is already biting hard and is expected to leave billions of people without adequate water and sanitation within 20 years - will inevitably hit hardest in developing countries, which are the least able to afford the high capital costs of building a nuclear plant. "Financing is a big, if not the biggest, issue for such countries to make a decision on deploying nuclear desalination programmes," says JoAnne Ford, an IAEA spokeswoman. But she maintains that the small and medium-sized reactors (SMR) currently being developed need less investment, shorter lead and construction times, and could therefore be more attractive to developing countries. Nonetheless, water produced by nuclear desalination can also be expensive. Even though a cubic metre of water can be produced for as little as a few cents, bottling it and transporting it from nuclear plants along the coast to cities can push up the price of a litre to over 20 cents. Pumping water through pipelines to irrigate agricultural inland areas is also prohibitively expensive and technically difficult. Environmental groups argue that renewable energy is the only way forward. Saudi Arabia has led the way by developing desalination plants using solar energy. In spite of the new interest in nuclear desalination, most experts agree that simultaneous action on a number of fronts will be needed to tackle world water shortages, especially in the developing countries, including the better management and conservation of existing water resources. [UP] Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002 ***************************************************************** 21 NRC Dispatches Inspector to Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station Following Discovery of Radioactive Particles Off-Site NRC: Press Release Region III - 2002 - 21 - U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, Region III 801 Warrenville Road, Lisle IL 60532 www.nrc.gov No. III-02-021 April 17, 2002 CONTACT: Jan Strasma (630) 829-9663 Pam Alloway-Mueller (630) 829-9662 E-mail: [opa3@nrc.gov] The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is reviewing an incident in which microscopic radioactive particles were recovered from four individuals, their clothing, residences and hotel rooms after leaving the Davis-Besse nuclear power plant in Ohio. Radiation protection personnel at the Davis-Besse plant were notified on March 22 by the Oconee nuclear facility in South Carolina that discrete radioactive particles were found on a worker's sleeve. The worker was undergoing in-processing for work at the Oconee facility, and had last worked at Davis-Besse. FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company operates the Davis-Besse nuclear power plant near Oak Harbor, Ohio. The licensee's investigation to date has determined that a total of 13 discrete particles were recovered from four individuals, their clothing, residences and hotel rooms in Ohio, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia. The individuals had worked on steam generators at Davis-Besse, which shut down in mid-February for a refueling outage. A senior health physicist from the NRC's Region III Office in Lisle, Il., has been dispatched to the Davis-Besse plant to assess the possible dose consequences to the four contract employees who visited Davis-Besse before traveling to other sites and to evaluate the licensee's investigation into the matter. FirstEnergy is attempting to determine how the particles were transported off-site. Preliminary dose calculations by the licensee indicate no adverse health effects are expected to either the workers or members of the public from the tiny particles. The particles are believed to be byproducts of the fission process with relatively low levels of activity. ***************************************************************** 22 NRC to Meet With Amerenue To Discuss Safety Performance at Callaway NRC: Press Release Region IV - 2002 - 22 - U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, Region IV 611 Ryan Plaza Drive, Suite 400, Arlington TX 76011 www.nrc.gov No. IV-02-022 April 16, 2002 CONTACT: Breck Henderson Phone: 817-860-8128 Cellular: 817-917-1227 E-mail: opa4@nrc.gov [opa4@nrc.gov] The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will meet with representatives of AmerenUE/Union Electric Co. on Monday, April 22, to discuss the results of the agency's annual assessment of safety performance at Callaway nuclear power plant. The facility is located near Fulton, Missouri, and is operated by AmerenUE. The meeting, which will be open to the public for observation, is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. at Capitol Plaza Hotel, 415 McCarty St., Jefferson City. NRC staff will be available before the meeting is adjourned to answer any questions from the public. A letter sent from NRC Region IV to AmerenUE addresses plant performance during the period April 1 to December 31, 2001, and will serve as the basis for the meeting discussion. It is available on the NRC web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/LETTERS/call_2001q4.pdf. Current performance information for Callaway is available on the NRC web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/CALL/call_chart.html. ***************************************************************** 23 Atomic Safety & Licensing Board to Hold Hearing April 23 in Chattanooga on TVA Appeal of NRC Discrimination Ruling NRC: Press Release Region II - 2002 - 25 - U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, Region II 61 Forsyth Street SW, Atlanta, GA 30303 www.nrc.gov No. II-02-025 April 16, 2002 CONTACT: Ken Clark (404) 562-4416 Roger D. Hannah (404) 562-4417 E-mail: opa2@nrc.gov [opa2@nrc.gov] An independent Atomic Safety & Licensing Board appointed by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission will conduct an evidentiary hearing in Chattanooga beginning April 23 on a Tennessee Valley Authority appeal of a $110,000 civil penalty sought to be imposed by the NRC for alleged violation of NRC employee protection requirements. The hearing will commence at 9:30 a.m.(EDT), at the United States Bankruptcy Court, Courtroom A, Historic U.S. Courthouse, 31 East 11th Street, and will continue April 24-26, beginning at 9:00 a.m, and, to the extent necessary, on April 30 - May 9, also commencing at 9:00 a.m. The members of the Atomic Safety & Licensing Board established to preside over the hearing are Charles Bechhoefer, Chairman; Ann Marshall Young and Dr. Richard F. Cole. Parties to this proceeding are TVA and the NRC staff. Issues to be considered are whether TVA violated NRC requirements by discriminating against a former employee for engaging in protected activities; and, if so, whether an NRC Order imposing a civil monetary penalty for the violations should be sustained. Documents related to this proceeding issued prior to December 1, 1999, are available for public inspection in the NRC Public Document Room (PDR) at One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland 20852-2738, telephone 301- 415-4737 or 1-800-397-4209. Documents issued subsequent to November 1, 1999, are available through the PDR and electronically through the NRC's Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS), accessible to the public through NRC's Internet web site at www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. Help in using ADAMS is available by calling the PDR at the above telephone numbers. The hearing is open to observation by interested members of the public. EDITORS: No video and/or audio recording devices will be allowed during the proceeding because they are prohibited inside the federal courthouse. ***************************************************************** 24 As Space Runs Out, Indian Point Plans to Change Storage of Spent Fuel April 17, 2002 By WINNIE HU BUCHANAN, N.Y., April 16 — Behind locked doors and armed security at the Indian Point nuclear plant, technicians in hard hats and safety glasses watch over a pair of turquoise pools that have become an interim grave for radioactive waste. Here rests all the fuel that has ever passed through the plant's two working reactors. But as these pools run out of space, the workers at Indian Point find themselves agreeing with many in the antinuclear movement over what to do with the spent fuel: put it into massive, sealed containers made of steel and concrete in a process known as dry-cask storage. Only they do not agree for the same reasons. While the plant's owner, the Entergy Corporation, says the dry casks will allow it to keep operating by freeing up storage space, opponents — many of whom want to close the plant — say they believe the new system is far safer and less vulnerable to terrorist attacks. The existing spent fuel, they say, contains more radioactive material than the reactor core, and is stored in open pools inside metal buildings that lack the protection of a concrete dome. "I think lots of people have looked at the spent fuel pools and said, `How can we make it safer?' " said Marilyn Elie, a member of the Westchester chapter of the Citizens Awareness Network, which is calling for the decommissioning of Indian Point. "Get it into concrete, and get it isolated." G. Paul Burnett/The New York Times The owner of Indian Point says it is using up space to store spent nuclear fuel in pools and needs to put the fuel in casks made of steel and concrete. Both Entergy and Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials say that the pools are safe, and that even after the dry casks are introduced at Indian Point, a process that is expected to begin in 2004, recently used fuel will still be submerged for a cooling period of about five years. "The pools are not vulnerable," said Jim Steets, an Entergy spokesman. "We're just running out of room, period." The radioactive waste produced by nuclear plants has long posed a problem for their owners and the federal government. Even if the nation's 103 operating commercial reactors were to shut down tomorrow, that would still leave about 45,000 metric tons of spent fuel, by industry estimates, to be kept in isolation for many years to come. Nuclear reactors were once expected to reuse their fuel, but commercial reprocessing plants turned out to be a technical and financial failure. Then, in the 1980's, the federal government proposed a national repository where spent reactor fuel could be buried. Originally scheduled to open in 1998, the proposed site at Yucca Mountain, in Nevada, faces formidable opposition and is not scheduled to be ready until at least 2010, if at all. For now, nuclear power plants have to keep their growing supplies of spent fuel on site in 40-foot-deep pools that were never intended to double as long-term storage bins. The pools have mechanical cooling and filtration systems that circulate water past the spent fuel rods, which continue to generate heat years after being removed from the reactor. Indian Point's technicians place a new set of spent fuel rods in the cooling pools every two years. So far, the working reactors have filled 1,823 of the 2,719 available rack spaces in the pools. Without additional storage, the Indian Point 2 reactor is expected to reach its pool capacity by 2004, while the younger Indian Point 3 has until 2008. (In addition, about one-third of the spent fuel from a long inactive reactor, Indian Point 1, remains stored in another pool. The rest was sent to a reprocessing plant from 1966 to 1970.) As much as possible, the cooling pools here are kept free of contaminants and are guarded from intruders. During a visit last week to Indian Point 3, a reporter and photographer were greeted at the plant entrance by armed security officers and National Guardsmen and escorted through four checkpoints that included metal, explosives and radiation detectors. The steel-lined, concrete-sided pool, when finally reached, was no larger than a basketball court and seemed even smaller than that in the cavernous room. The constantly flowing water had turned turquoise from the boron that was added to inhibit reactions. The fuel rods themselves were barely visible, just a shadowy mass deep below the surface. "See how small it is," Mr. Steets said. "It's just a little pool. How could anyone be worried about that?" Dry-cask storage, which was introduced in the 1980's, has become increasingly prevalent as nuclear plants like Indian Point run out of room and options. The Nuclear Energy Institute, a Washington organization that represents nuclear plant owners and operators, said that 18 nuclear plants had already turned to dry-cask storage, and that 20 more would run out of space in their cooling pools by 2004. John Sanchez, a project manager for spent fuel storage at Indian Point, estimated that Entergy would eventually need 55 dry casks for each working reactor. The casks, which cost $500,000 to $1 million each, are typically placed on a concrete pad in a secure, outdoor area. Entergy has not yet designated a place for them at Indian Point. The regulatory commission currently allows the casks to be stored at plants for up to 20 years, with provisions for an extension of another 20 years. After that, commission officials expect the fuel to be sent to a national repository for permanent disposal. "It was all meant for an interim solution," said John Monninger, chief of the commission's spent fuel licensing section. Most nuclear opponents and others remain skeptical about the long-term safety and effectiveness of both spent fuel storage systems. And in past years, it was not uncommon for antinuclear groups to try to prevent dry casks from being used at the plants, in hopes of forcing them to close once their pools filled up. But today, many nuclear opponents support the move to dry casks — though often grudgingly — because they say that sealed containers are less vulnerable to accidents and sabotage than open pools. "We know the problems of dry casks so well," said Kevin Kamps, a nuclear waste specialist for the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, an antinuclear group in Washington. "These are the kinds of dilemmas we're faced with because nuclear waste exists." In Westchester, a growing number of antinuclear groups, elected officials and residents have called on Entergy to increase protection of the spent fuel rods by moving them to dry casks, among other things. Assemblywoman Sandra R. Galef, whose district includes Indian Point, has collected more than 1,000 petition signatures to send to commission and Entergy officials. "I do think the casks are more secure," said Ms. Galef, a frequent critic of Indian Point who wants the plant to remain open because it generates much-needed electricity. "And it gets the spent fuel ready to move. They weren't meant to be here, and they have to move." Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company | Privacy ***************************************************************** 25 Energy Northwest plant powering down This story was published Tue, Apr 16, 2002 By Chris Mulick Herald staff writer The Bonneville Power Administration on Monday ordered Energy Northwest's 1,150-megawatt Columbia Generating Station nuclear plant to power down to 65 percent for a week to 10 days. There are ample incentives to do so. Officially, the BPA is worried that with so much water in the Snake River, too much water is being spilled over dams, collecting too much atmospheric gas in pools below dams to the detriment of migrating fish. Reducing the nuclear plant's output by as much as 400 megawatts allows dam operators to run more water through turbines instead. "It's pretty routine," Bonneville spokesman Ed Mosey said of the order. He said the action should not be described as an "economic dispatch," an action that has been done in the past. In those cases, the nuclear plant was shut down during the spring because its power couldn't be produced at prices competitive with a hydroelectric system bloated with spring runoff. But it certainly doesn't hurt that taking 400 megawatts off the regional power grid may boost sagging wholesale market prices, benefiting not only Bonneville but all sellers, as well. They have been frustrated in recent months by plummeting wholesale prices that are messing up their projections. If additional revenues don't come through, Bonneville and some utilities may have to raise rates. Among the Northwest's largest power generators, the Columbia Generating Station is big enough to influence the market. A recent rumor in industry circles that was later described as "blatantly false" had the plant heading toward a complete shutdown. That temporarily helped boost prices by about 20 percent. In a move that should have limited market gaming, Bonneville gave Energy Northwest about 40 minutes warning Monday before the plant was to begin powering down. Crews were scrambling to have it down to 65 percent by evening, spokesman Gary Miller said. Prices are suffering thanks to a poor economy, a mild Northwest winter and typically moderate weather in the Southwest, all of which have curtailed energy demand. In the meantime, hydroelectric generation has returned to near normal after last year's drought. Copyright 2002 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This ***************************************************************** 26 Entergy Considering New Nuclear Plant Business - AP Wed Apr 17, 3:34 AM ET NEW ORLEANS - Entergy Corp. has notified the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission that it is considering building a nuclear power plant in Port Gibson, Miss. Entergy officials said the company will take at least three years to decide whether to build the plant. Entergy Nuclear, a subsidiary of the New Orleans-based utility, on Tuesday became the third company to notify the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission of plans to seek an "early site permit" for a new nuclear plant. President Bush last year called on energy companies to resurrect the nuclear power plant construction business, which has been dormant since the mid-1980s after the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island. The company said nuclear energy is an alternative to natural gas, which fuels most of the country's newest power plants. "Having (the nuclear) option available is in the best interest of our power consumers, Entergy and the nation's energy independence," the company said. Entergy officials began considering building a nuclear plant a year ago after a severe shortage of natural gas sent the price of natural gas-generated electricity soaring. Entergy officials have said a new nuclear plant becomes economically viable when the price of natural gas consistently tops $5 per million British thermal units. Although prices in south Louisiana topped $10 per BTU last year during the shortage, they fell back after supplies strengthened. In recent weeks, natural gas has been trading around $3 per million BTU. Economic conditions of the power market will be the main factor in deciding whether to build the plant, the company said. Entergy spent the past nine months studying seven of its existing nuclear plant sites, including Waterford III near Hahnville and River Bend near St. Francisville, to determine which site had the best conditions for building a new reactor, Entergy Nuclear spokesman Carl Crawford said. Entergy already has one nuclear plant at Port Gibson. Transmission lines linking that plant to the region's power grid have enough capacity to handle another reactor because original plans called for two units at the site, Crawford said. The second unit was started but later abandoned. The application will take about a year to prepare and cost the nuclear subsidiary about $9 million, including a $5.4 million application fee from the NRC, Crawford said. The federal Department of Energy (news [http://rd.yahoo.com/DailyNews/manual/*http://search.news.yahoo.com/search/news? p=%22Department%20of%20Energy%22&c=&n=20&yn=c&c=news&cs=nw] - web sites [http://rd.yahoo.com/DailyNews/manual/*http://dir.yahoo.com/Government/U_S__Gove rnment/Executive_Branch/Departments_and_Agencies/Department_of_Energy__DOE_/] ) has offered to pay for as much as 50 percent of the application cost, he said. The rest will be covered by Entergy Nuclear. Customers of the parent company's regulated electricity utilities, which include Entergy New Orleans and Entergy Louisiana, will not pay for any of the application charges. Exelon, a Chicago-based power utility and the nation's biggest nuclear plant operator, became the first company to start the early site permit application process on March 20. Dominion Resources, based in Richmond, Va., followed two weeks later. Copyright © 2002 The Associated Press. ***************************************************************** 27 Nuclear research: families to be told canberra.yourguide.com.au All details held by government agencies about identities of ashed bone samples used in nuclear fallout research from 1957-78 will be made available to next of kin. The Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency said yesterday it would take immediate action to ensure all details were made available. ARPANSA chief executive John Loy said few people would question the value of the medical research. The research clearly showed higher than normal levels of radioisotope strontium-90, a major component of nuclear fallout, in the ashed bones of dead Australians at the height of atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons, he said. "Fortunately the former Australian Atomic Weapons Tests Safety Committee, which coordinated this program, kept meticulous records and ARPANSA, which inherited those records, has compiled them into a database," he said in a statement. The Federal Government ordered last September an investigation into how to tell families their dead children were used in the world-wide investigation of nuclear fallout. Former health minister Michael Wooldridge said the practice was part of a program to measure the presence of strontium-90 in the environment. ***************************************************************** 28 'Six hours to take iodine tablets' warning Irish Newspapers - IRISH people would need to take iodine tablets within six hours of being affected by radioactivity due to an attack or accident involving a nuclear reactor in the UK, an expert warned yesterday. Dr Peter Smyth, of the Department of Medicine and Therapeutics in UCD, said such an incident involving a nuclear reactor on the west coast of the UK could have serious consequences for the Irish population. However, it was learned yesterday the Department of Health has not yet distributed iodine tablets and no date has yet been fixed for sending them to every household in the country. The Department said it is currently liaising with An Post and making the necessary mailing arrangements in order to ensure the secure delivery of a carton of tablets to each household as quickly as possible. Dr Smyth, who will address the BioMedica conference in Dublin today, said radioactive iodine released following a nuclear incident can produce harmful effects in the thyroid glands of exposed populations. "Protection against such hazards in the aftermath of a nuclear incident can be provided by thyroid blockage using high concentration iodine tablets. However such protection depends on availability, speed and efficiency of distribution." The Department of Health said ingestion of stable iodine tablets may be effective in preventing thyroid cancer in certain populations, especially in children exposed to radioactive fallout. Delivery of stocks of iodine tablets were made to the Eastern Regional Health Authority last month. The Midland, Western and Southern health boards are awaiting supplies. Eilish O'Regan Health Correspondent © Copyright Unison ***************************************************************** 29 Hotline for nuclear bone tests news.com.au - [17apr02] WEST Australians who fear the bones of their relatives may have been used in nuclear fallout tests can sign up to receive information when it becomes available later this year. The WA Health Department has set up a hotline for worried families after the federal government decided to throw open records on the 22,000 Australians whose bodies may have been used in such tests. Information about the 1957 to 1978 nuclear testing program was uncovered last year in reports which claimed bone material and tissue samples were taken from bodies without the consent of relatives. The WA Health Department says people who register with the hotline will be given information when it becomes available later this year. The hotline phone number is 1800 555 336. AAP [http://www.ni.com.au] ***************************************************************** 30 UK Gulf War Veterans Call For Public Inquiry By Mike Wendling CNSNews.com London Bureau Chief April 16, 2002 London (CNSNews.com) - British Gulf War veterans have written to Prime Minister Tony Blair demanding a public inquiry into the causes of "Gulf War syndrome." The vets want more information about a host of chemicals servicemen and women were exposed to during the conflict, including vaccines, pest repellents and depleted uranium used in munitions. James Moore, a spokesman for the National Gulf Veterans and Families Association (NGVFA) said Tuesday that vets believe they were exposed to vaccines for diseases such as whooping cough that "shouldn't have been used on adults." "We're also concerned about organophosphates bought locally with instructions in Arabic," Moore said. "Military personnel didn't know what was in them, how to use them properly or what safety precautions to take." Organophosphates are used to kill mosquitoes and other pests. Moore said that while the causes of illnesses of Gulf War vets haven't yet been determined, several other culprits could be to blame, including armor-piercing, radioactive depleted uranium shells and chemical residues from oil fires or the destruction of some of Iraq's chemical weapons plants. The vets are requesting a "full and public inquiry" and allege a Ministry of Defense (MoD) "cover-up." In a letter to the prime minister, lawyer Patrick Allen called the current situation "extremely unsatisfactory." "We are aware that the government has refused to pay compensation to Gulf veterans and has turned down our request for a mediated settlement of their claims," wrote Allen, who represents more than 600 Gulf vets. "The problem of Gulf War illness and veterans' health is one which will not go away. In our view, the veterans have not been adequately compensated or given appropriate treatment for their condition." Allen noted that while progress had been made on some individual pension cases, a recent meeting between vets and government officials on medical and rehabilitation issues was not very helpful. He said a public inquiry would be the "only way that we will get to the bottom of this intractable problem in such a way that will give confidence to veterans and the public that all evidence has come out." The MoD disagrees and contends that a public inquiry "wouldn't contribute to answering the basic questions of why some veterans are ill." "We accept that some Gulf veterans became ill and we are open minded about the various causes," a spokesman said. "Only scientific research would establish (the causes of the illness) and all sorts of research is going on both inside and outside the MoD." A study released last April by the University of Manchester concluded Gulf War veterans are more likely to become ill and suffer more severe symptoms than veterans of other wars. But a report published earlier this year in the British Medical Journal suggested that the variety of symptoms labelled "Gulf War syndrome" are reactions to the stress of battle rather than physical problems brought on by environmental factors. The Pentagon has identified more than 20,000 American Gulf War vets who are suffering from an unknown illness. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has also acknowledged a link between service in the Gulf and Lou Gehrig's disease. An estimated 5,000 British vets became ill after service in the Gulf. [cnsnews@onetel.net.uk] [shogenson@cnsnews.com] ***************************************************************** 31 Hospitals to reveal nuclear test names The West Australian + April 17, 2002 By Mark Mallabone CANBERRA THE Federal Government has agreed to throw open its records on almost 22,000 Australians, including about 700 stillborn babies, whose bodies were secretly used for nuclear tests. The testing program, which ran from 1957 to 1978, involved the extraction of bone tissue from bodies during autopsies without relatives"consent or knowledge. WA hospitals provided almost 2800 samples. The bones were later incinerated and the ashes tested for strontium 90, a radioisotope contained in the fallout from atmospheric detonation of atomic bombs. At the time, the program was justified as a way of gauging whether the atmospheric tests were safe. Hospitals were paid just $50 a year for taking part - later increased to $100. Pathologists were told to keep the practice secret because radioactive testing of bones would not be regarded kindly by the public. The body parts were sent to Britain and the United States until 1969 when Australian scientists obtained the equipment necessary to detect strontium 90. The Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency announced yesterday it would hand over its records to hospitals involved in the tests, to enable relatives to discover whether the remains of family members were used. It would allow the proper burial of 3452 samples still stored in Melbourne. The move follows an inquiry by the Australian Health Ethics Committee, which yesterday unveiled a 25-step plan for informing families and disposing of remains. The committee decided against contacting affected relatives directly, arguing that some people could take years to come to terms with the fact such information existed. It believed the public should be encouraged to find out for themselves and that hospitals should provide professional counselling for those affected. The committee also suggested the unauthorised removal of body parts might have been illegal. The full scope of the tests, set up by the former Australian Atomic Weapons Tests Safety Committee, did not come to light until last year when a British newspaper revealed the details of similar US tests. Operation Sunshine, as it was known, involved the secret use of 6000 babies and infants who died in hospitals throughout the world, including Australia. Australian hospitals took part, supplying the remains of 21,830 Australians for the local testing program, in addition to an unknown number sent to the US. These included the remains of more than 4000 babies and 688 stillbirths. Last year, former health minister Michael Wooldridge said Operation Sunshine, which found that atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons had harmed humans, had contributed to the banning of the atomic tests. © 2002 West Australian Newspaper ***************************************************************** 32 Congress Should Block Nuclear Industry, Stop Yucca Mountain Nuclear Dump Plan Public Citizen April 16, 2002 Statement of Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook We are here today because of the efforts of one very powerful and wealthy special interest lobby – the nuclear industry. Its drive to push this ill-conceived and potentially catastrophic plan through the government as quickly as possible is based on an old premise that highway builders and other government contractors often rely on. That premise is that once a project as enormous as this gets going, it’s hard to stop. But Congress should stop the Yucca Mountain plan, and stop it now, before more investments are made. The idea to put a nuclear dump at Yucca Mountain is phenomenally irresponsible. Yucca Mountain is located in a seismically active area. It lies atop a drinking water aquifer. Government scientists admit they cannot say whether or how nuclear waste would be safely contained. Nor can they guarantee that this waste could be transported safely. There are a host of unanswered questions, yet still, the industry is pressing ahead, and federal agencies are compliantly going along. The Yucca Mountain plan calls for highly radioactive waste now stored at nuclear plants and government weapons facilities to be shipped by truck or train through 44 states and the District of Columbia. We’re talking about 100,000 shipments, possibly going through a neighborhood near you. What many lawmakers ignore is that no one is adequately prepared to deal with an accident or terrorist attack involving this deadly waste. Not police, firefighters, emergency medical technicians or communities. And certainly not the public. The Department of Energy has a long record of investing in wasteful ventures that cost taxpayers billions. Yucca Mountain, if approved, would be another costly disaster to add to the list. It is time for Congress to put public safety over politics and pull the plug on Yucca Mountain. The nuclear industry should not be permitted to use campaign contributions and lobbying clout to buy disastrous public policy. A vote by any member of Congress for the Yucca Mountain dump would be a vote for the reckless disregard of the public. Congress must decisively reject this foolhardy plan and start talking about real solutions to our nuclear waste problem. ***************************************************************** 33 Opponents of Yucca Mountain Nuclear Dump Rally in Washington Public Citizen April 16, 2002 Representatives of More Than 100 State-Based Organizations Join Lawmakers, National Organizations Urging Congress to Sustain Nevada "Veto" WASHINGTON, D.C. – More than 100 representatives of state-based environmental, disarmament and public interest groups joined members of Congress, national organizations and District of Columbia residents at a rally on Capitol Hill today, urging Congress to reject the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear dump. "This proposal threatens the health, safety and environment of Americans nationwide, not just in Nevada," said Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club. "We urge Congress to stand up for public health and the environment by voting ‘no’ on this dangerous plan." Speakers raised concerns about the safety of nuclear waste transportation. Tens of thousands of deadly nuclear shipments would travel on the roads, rails and waterways of 44 states and the District of Columbia en route to Yucca Mountain if dump program moves forward. "This risky transportation scheme cannot be justified," said Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen. "Nuclear waste transportation casks have not been properly tested to ensure they won’t release radiation in a crash. A serious accident or terrorist attack could be catastrophic." Behind the crowd at today’s event loomed a full-sized inflatable model of a nuclear waste transportation canister. Participants held signs that read "Stop Yucca Trucks" and depicted highway signs of routes identified by the Department of Energy (DOE) as likely nuclear waste shipment thoroughfares. In February, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham recommended that 77,000 tons of high-level radioactive waste from commercial nuclear power plants and U.S. Department of Energy weapons facilities be buried at Yucca Mountain, about 80 miles northwest of Las Vegas, Nev. Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn issued a Notice of Disapproval on April 9, effectively vetoing the plan. Congress could override Nevada’s veto with a majority vote in both Houses. A vote is expected in the coming months. Anna Aurilio, legislative director for U.S. Public Interest Research Group, announced the release of a new television advertisement opposing Yucca Mountain nuclear shipments, which will begin running today in Vermont. Other speakers at today’s event included U.S. Sens. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and John Ensign (R-Nev.); U.S. Reps. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Shelley Berkley (D-Nev.) and Jim Gibbons (R-Nev); Martin Butcher, director of Physicians for Social Responsibility’s Security and Nuclear Program; Chris Townsend, political action director for United Electrical Workers; Gerald Pollet, director of Heart of America Northwest (Seattle, Wash.); and Chris Williams, executive director of Citizen Action Coalition of Indiana. Participants were to meet with senators and Senate staffers today. ### ***************************************************************** 34 German protesters who blocked disputed nuclear waste shipment go on trial Yahoo! News - Wed Apr 17, 7:29 AM ET BERLIN - Four activists feted as heroes by Germany's anti-nuclear lobby after they held up a trainload of radioactive waste for almost a day last year went on trial Wednesday on charges that included interference with the work of public services. The four men, along with a teen-aged girl to be tried later, delayed the train carrying waste to the Gorleben waste dump in northern Germany in March last year, evading thousands of police to chain themselves overnight to steel tubes sunk into cement blocks beneath the rails. The train had to reverse to the nearest station and police and engineers spent most of the next day drilling out the concrete to free the protesters unharmed. Police and the state-owned Deutsche Bahn railroad threatened to sue them for the cost of freeing them and repairing the line. The men, aged between 30 and 36, were greeted with applause from supporters in the public gallery at the court in nearby Lueneburg, among them the fifth protester, who will be tried by a youth court in May. She was 16 at the time of the protest. Defense lawyers are seeking acquittal, arguing the charges — which also include coercion — are unclear. Environmentalist groups say the charges threaten their right to protest against the shipments and the dump. If found guilty, the defendants could face several years in jail or a hefty fine. The Gorleben dump has long been a focus for protests by vocal German anti-nuclear activists. During the last shipment there in November, thousands of demonstrators repeatedly defied some 17,500 police to stage sit-down protests along the convoy's route. Authorities earlier this month gave permission for a shipment of 12 containers of waste later this year. No date has been set. The German government and power companies last year signed an agreement to phase out nuclear power within about 20 years. Activists hope protests against waste shipments will push up the security bill and force a quicker shutdown. (swg-gm) Copyright © 2002 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 35 Supreme Court to Hear Appeals on Hungarian Spent Fuel Shipment Spent fuel imports The Russian Ministry of Nuclear Energy (Minatom) is actively promoting plans for large scale imports of spent nuclear fuel to Russia for storage or reprocessing. Supreme Court to Hear Appeals on Hungarian Spent Fuel Shipment (Moscow:) Russia's supreme court this month will hear the federal government's appeal to its decision to stop a load of Hungarian spent nuclear fuel (SNF) shipped to the Mayak reprocessing facility in 1998, Nuclear Power Ministry and court officials said Tuesday. Charles Digges, 2002-04-16 16:01 According to First Deputy Minister of Nuclear Power, Nikolai Shingarev, the court will reexamine its decision to overturn a presidential decree signed by then president Boris Yeltsin in October 1998 that sanction the delivery of SNF from Hungary's Paks nuclear power plant. Court officials confirmed the appeal would be heard at the end of April, but could not confirm a date. The Hungarian shipment predated Russia's 2001 legislation that legalized the import of radioactive waste. As such, it was sanctioned by presidential decree. But environmental groups from Chelyabinsk, where the Mayak reprocessing facility is located, as well as activists from the environmental group 'Greenpeace,' filed suit to have the decree overturned. The court agreed with the plaintiff, but the Federal Government intervened with an appeal. Shingarev said Tuesday in a telephone interview that the court's initial decision had been 'unmotivated and unfounded,' even though legislation at the time prohibited such imports. Shingarev, however dismissed such objections by saying 'it was a presidential decree, and in any case such imports are legal now. We expect to win.' Aside from legalizing imports of radioactive waste, the law also gives Russia the right to ship fuel, once reprocessed, back to its country of origin. Publisher: Bellona Foundation, President: Frederic Hauge Information: info@bellona.no, Technical contact: webmaster@bellona.no Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62 * P.O.Box 2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway ***************************************************************** 36 House could vote on Yucca in two weeks United Press International: By Scott R. Burnell UPI Science News From the Science & Technology Desk Published 4/16/2002 1:09 PM WASHINGTON, April 16 (UPI) -- A bill to override Nevada's veto of the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage site could reach the full House by the end of this month, Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, said Tuesday. The nation is reaching the end of the beginning of the process for selecting a permanent site for storing its nuclear waste, Barton said, with the Bush administration's formal submission of Yucca Mountain. "The governor of Nevada has exercised his right under the law and vetoed the site selection," Barton told a news conference. "(Following a hearing this Thursday,) I intend to move an override bill very quickly, probably next week. (The bill) could come onto the floor of the House for an override vote at the end of this month or in early May." Barton's goal is to get at least 300 votes for the bill, but the process will not be completed until the Senate votes on its override legislation. If Congress passes both bills, the licensing and construction phases of the project would take about a decade, said Angie Howard, executive vice president of the Nuclear Energy Institute, a lobbying group for the nuclear power industry. Rep. Marion Berry, D-Ark., said approving the site should be a "no-brainer," especially in light of the billions of dollars electric utility ratepayers have contributed to a nuclear waste fund for the site. Having waste consolidated at one site also would lessen chances of an environmental incident at the nation's nuclear plants, Berry said. For instance, material released from a site on the Arkansas River could contaminate the lower Mississippi River Valley for the foreseeable future, Berry said. Norris McDonald, president of the African-American Environmentalist Association, said maintaining nuclear power's viability actually will help global ecology. "I know I'll get attacked for saying this, but look at the logic," McDonald said. Fossil-fuel use has contributed to greenhouse gases, which many scientists feel is responsible for global warming. That phenomenon has markedly contributed to unhealthy urban atmospheric conditions and even an increase in airborne allergens, McDonald said, a particular point of concern for asthmatics, such as himself. Continued and increased use of emissions-free nuclear power could help alleviate these conditions, he said. Representatives of senior organizations also spoke in support of Yucca. Jim Martin, president of the 60 Plus Association, said inexpensive electricity from nuclear power is vital for seniors living on fixed incomes; a storage site is needed to help keep nuclear plants running, he said. Don Wainwright, chairman of the National Association of Manufacturers, said nuclear power will remain an important contributor to the nation's energy supply, so a clear plan for storing waste is necessary. "We've got to ask ourselves whether our nuclear waste will be safer in a Fort-Knox-like structure or scattered in more than 130 lesser facilities across the country," Wainwright said. Barton and others agreed new spent fuel would remain at nuclear plants for several years until it cools enough for transport, but that doesn't lessen the need for a site to hold the several decades' worth of such waste that already exists. Copyright © 2002 United Press International Copyright © 2002 United Press International. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 37 Missiles a minor threat to Yucca waste United Press International: By Scott R. Burnell UPI Science News From the Science & Technology Desk Published 4/16/2002 10:02 AM WASHINGTON, April 16 (UPI) -- (Editor's note: This is the second article in a four-part series from United Press International examining some of the scientific issues related to using Nevada's Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waste repository site. Congress has started a 90-legislative-business-day period where it must vote to override the state's objections to continue the project. The House Energy and Commerce Committee is to hold a hearing on the project on April 18.) -0- Those opposed to the proposed nuclear waste site at Yucca Mountain often refer to horrific scenarios involving anti-tank missiles being fired at transport casks filled with waste, but the science of the matter is less dramatic. Although the current debate in Congress involves whether the site itself is suitable for a long-term storage facility, opponents also are focusing on the risks of transporting waste from more than 100 sites around the country. Both rail and road shipments are possible, though no railroad to Yucca exists. Failure to build one would mean more than 100,000 casks of spent nuclear power plant fuel and other waste would have to travel by truck, said Robert Halstead, an adviser to the state of Nevada, which is fighting the Yucca proposal. "If rail access is achieved, the combined number of rail and truck shipments could be reduced to 36,400," Halstead said. "That works out to roughly between 1,000 and 2,900 shipments per year over 38 years." Halstead and Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., are among those who have publicized a video taken during a test of a shipping cask. The warhead of a TOW antitank missile placed against the sidewall of the cask is detonated, putting a hole through the diameter of the container. Thousands of TOW missiles exist around the world, Halstead said. The radioactivity released by such an attack in an urban area could kill several people immediately, and eventually could cause at least 3,000 deaths from cancer, he said. Antitank missiles and their effects present a possibly serious situation, but on a much smaller scale than envisioned by Yucca opponents. A shipping cask consists of an outer jacket of steel a few inches thick, several feet of lead shielding and spent fuel assemblies at the center. The assemblies are tubes of zirconium cladding surrounding ceramic uranium fuel pellets, said Edwin Lyman, scientific director and upcoming president of the Nuclear Control Institute, a group advocating stronger security at nuclear power plants and more effective handling of weapons-grade nuclear materials. When the protection requirements for transport casks were written, intentional attack was not considered, Lyman told United Press International. Sandia National Laboratories later determined such an attack might cause casualties. "On that basis the Nuclear Regulatory Commission imposed a restriction that basically banned casks from going through urban areas," Lyman said. "That was based on a postulated release without technical backup." Further investigation involved tests similar to that shown in the video. Antitank warheads also are called shape charges, where high explosive surrounds a hollow cone of copper, glass, or another dense material, said Charles Cutshaw, a former U.S. Army officer who specialized in antitank weapons and now is an editor with Jane's Infantry Weapons. When the charge hits an object, the extremely rapid detonation of the explosive forces the cone into a thin jet of molten material, whose velocity and density forces its way through armor plate. "It does not actually 'burn through' the armor," Cutshaw told UPI. "As it goes through, it loses weight off the jet, but if it does penetrate, you find a slug of the metal behind the armor." NRC tests showed only the material directly in the path of the jet would be shattered, and half of the zirconium tubes would be ruptured, Lyman said. There also are inert gases present in the fuel assemblies, but there is nothing in the cask to cause a secondary explosion after the warhead detonates, he said. The tests concluded casualties from such an event would be limited to a few latent cancer cases, prompting the NRC to replace the urban transport ban with a requirement for armed escort in such areas, Lyman said. But those tests failed to take into account radioactive gases, such as krypton-85, which are generated by the fuel pellets after use in a reactor, Lyman said. "If (the cladding) is punctured, that gas will be vented," Lyman said. "There are also some isotopes that become gaseous at moderate temperature. Cesium-137 is probably the worst actor, because it becomes volatile at a temperature of about 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit and it's a long-lived isotope." Lyman recalculated the consequences based on the additional materials and determined Sandia's first estimates of several hundred possible latent cancer cases are probable. All of this assumes use of an advanced, actively guided antitank missile, which is not the most likely situation, Cutshaw said. "You don't always look at the worst-case threat, but what constitutes a reasonable threat," Cutshaw said. "First of all, getting a TOW and maneuvering it into position is going to be really problematic." The missile is several feet long and together with its launcher weighs more than 200 pounds. The system is mounted on a vehicle or carried by a team of several people -- not something a terrorist could toss in a backpack and lug around, Cutshaw said. The system is not "fire and forget," either. It requires an operator to keep the guidance scope centered on a moving target for the entire flight of the missile, possibly in the face of return fire from armed escort. This is something reliably achieved only with regular training unavailable outside military installations. A more probable attack, Cutshaw said, would involve human-portable antitank weapons such as rocket-propelled grenades or the LAW and AT4 systems in the U.S. inventory. While these weapons are more easily obtained, they have smaller warheads, less range and are far less accurate, Cutshaw said. "I'm not sure a LAW or an AT4 would completely penetrate a cask. I'm not even sure it would even get through one side," Cutshaw told UPI. Another factor to consider is how the warhead would hit a cask, since the molten jet travels in a straight line. Scenarios such as those Lyman and the NRC investigated assume the warhead hits the sidewall within a few degrees of perpendicular in order for the jet to pass through the center of the cask. Less-than-perfect shots, even with a TOW, would only affect the lead shielding or fail to penetrate the entire cask. Lyman and others have suggested terrorists could cause much greater damage with demolition charges. This scenario, however, would require attackers to gain full physical control of a cask, Lyman said. Copyright © 2002 United Press International ***************************************************************** 38 Judge Rejects State Guidelines on Nuclear Waste Disposal April 17, 2002 Health: Jurist nullifies regulations allowing the dumping of low-grade radioactive material in landfills. By GARY POLAKOVIC, TIMES STAFF WRITER A Sacramento County Superior Court judge has nullified recently enacted state regulations that allowed the dumping of low-grade radioactive waste in ordinary landfills. The court ruling, handed down last week and announced Tuesday, rebuffed state health officials who formulated a rule last year to make it easier and cheaper for companies and institutions to get rid of some nuclear waste. In her ruling, Judge Gail D. Ohanesian stated that the regulations "will have a significant adverse environmental effect." In addition, the judge found that, contrary to the claims of state officials, California has authority to pursue more protective standards for radioactive waste disposal, but failed to consider that option--a breach of state law. The ruling came in response to a lawsuit filed by the Committee to Bridge the Gap, the California Federation of Scientists and Physicians for Social Responsibility. Those groups argued that landfills are not engineered to safely accommodate nuclear waste. In addition, they said that the levels of radioactivity in the waste, though comparatively low, are still enough to cause serious health problems, including cancer, in people exposed to it. "This is a great victory for protecting the public from unnecessary radiation exposure," said Daniel Hirsch, president of the Committee to Bridge the Gap, an anti-nuclear group. "The Davis administration had deregulated the waste, and the court has found it illegal." Businesses and institutions that generate the radioactive waste now await guidance on what standards state health officials will use to govern cleanup and disposal. In California, at least half a dozen power plants and laboratory sites are poised for decommissioning, which will generate large volumes of waste that will have to be stored on site or sent out-of-state to facilities licensed to accept the waste. The cost of disposal in licensed dumps is much higher than the cost of putting the waste in local landfills. Places where nuclear waste cleanups are underway include Rocketdyne's Santa Susana Field Laboratory in Simi Valley and one reactor at Southern California Edison's San Onofre power plant. Universities, major hospitals and some biotechnology firms also generate low-level radioactive waste. Rocketdyne's shipments of nuclear debris to the Bradley Landfill in Sun Valley prompted a public outcry recently. Whether such disposal practices pose a public health threat has been the subject of intense debate. Company spokesman Dan Beck said the waste does not put people's health at risk. "We need to hear from the regulatory agencies on what it [the ruling] means. Then we'll comply with whatever guidelines the state develops," Beck said. California has been struggling to develop a strategy for radioactive waste disposal. One remedy pursued by former Gov. Pete Wilson called for building a disposal site at Ward Valley in the Mojave Desert 20 miles from the Colorado River. However, that plan was blocked by opponents concerned that the waste could make its way into drinking water supplies. The new regulations were intended to allow some of the waste to be diverted to up to 170 landfills statewide. "[California's Department of Health Services] has been playing fast and loose with the facts for too long, and the court caught up with them. "This regulation created a public health threat and an intolerable environmental risk," said state Sen. Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles). Yet the legal ruling tosses California's program for low-level radioactive waste disposal into a quandary. Romero has introduced a bill that would require low-level radioactive waste be disposed at approved sites only. The Senate Environmental Quality Committee is scheduled to consider the bill Monday. The state regulations that the court rejected allowed waste to enter a landfill as long as it averaged no more than 25 millirems of radioactivity per shipment, an exposure equivalent to about 21/2 chest X-rays annually. But the risk of fatal cancer over the lifetime of a person exposed every year even to 25 millirems is one in 1,000, Hirsch said. Hirsch maintained that the 25-millirem average could permit someone to receive far higher doses than the average. Sen. Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica) has introduced a bill that would require cleanup of contaminated sites to meet the strictest federal standards imposed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Kuehl said such cleanup standards would make the risk of cancer hundreds of times lower than was the case under the regulation that was struck down. A spokesman for the state health department declined to comment on the court decision until agency officials had more opportunity to review it. Copyright 2002 Los Angeles Times ***************************************************************** 39 Genetically Engineered Bacteria To Aid in Removal of Nuclear Waste Alteration of Metabolism Allows Reaction with Toxins The Daily Californian By JENNIFER LIZCANO Contributing Writer Wednesday, April 17, 2002 UC Berkeley scientists have created a system to remove toxic substances from the environment—ranging from nuclear waste cleanup to the toxins in Strawberry Creek. In search of an economically viable method to remove actinides and heavy metals from the environment, researchers in the UC Berkeley departments of chemical engineering and chemistry have genetically engineered bacteria to trap these toxic metals on their cell walls. "The research is funded by the Department of Energy, who has numerous sites throughout the US that are in need of contaminant removal," said UC Berkeley chemical engineering professor Jay Keasling. "Our goal is to help remove the various toxins that are present at these sites and engineered bacteria give us the potential to do that." Heavy metal pollutants endanger the environment because they are extremely toxic at trace concentrations and unlike organic pollutants, they are not biodegradable, said UC Berkeley chemistry graduate student Cynthia Gong. "Heavy metal ions such as cadmium wreak havoc on organisms by distorting enzyme morphology," Gong said. "Actinides, such as plutonium and uranium are the most common byproducts of nuclear reactors and are known mutagens and carcinogens." Mutagens and carcinogens can cause various biological problems within an organism, including DNA resequencing and the onset of cancer, respectively. The bacteria engineered by Keasling is Pseudomonas aeruginosa, found in deep sea hydrothermal vents. By tweaking its metabolism through forcing it to overproduce the animo acid cysteine, the bacteria produces hydrogen sulfide. "The sulfide reacts with heavy metals forming a complex which gets deposited onto the outside of the cell wall," Keasling said. "The accumulation then causes the cell to sink, localizing the contaminant and making cleanup easier. At the very least, it prevents any heavy metal contamination from spreading or getting into groundwater because they're now immobilized by the cell." UC Berkeley chemical engineering graduate student Neil Renninger, a member of Keasling's lab, is investigating another approach in removing toxins through modifying a different aspect of bacterial metabolism. "I've engineered Pseudomonas aeruginosa, overexpressing its own polyphosphate kinase gene," Renninger said. These polyphosphates react with actinides such as uranium and plutonium, and are then secreted from the cell in the same fashion as through the sulfide approach. Though P. aeruginosa has been successful in removing heavy metals, its relative sensitivity to radiation prevents it from being utilized in situations where levels exceed 10,000 rads. A dose of 450 rads is fatal for humans. To solve this problem Gong is attempting to engineer the bacteria Deinococcus radiodurans, known for its ability to withstand high levels of radiation. "Exposing P. aeruginosa to 100 Grays kills it, while D. radiodurans can tolerate up to 5000 grays," Gong said. One gray is equivalent to 100 rads. "The hardiness of D. radiodurans has been known for quite some time now," Gong said. "Not only is it resistant to radiation—but it also has a surprising tolerance for dessication." Within a few months Gong hopes to have a strain that can successfully remove large amounts of actinides from its surroundings. Once successful the bacteria would probably be used in nuclear reactors and other enclosed environments, but not likely anywhere else. Despite potential to clean up toxic substances in natural environments, such as Strawberry Creek, Gong said that the bacteria's use would be limited because of the public's fear of genetically engineered organisms. Berkeley, California Email: dailycal@dailycal.org ***************************************************************** 40 Oppose Nevada N-site, too Wednesday, April 17, 2002 By Green Party candidates A recent Deseret News/Dan Jones poll found that while the vast majority of Utahns oppose storing nuclear waste in Tooele County, only 24 percent oppose plans to store high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. The weak opposition to Yucca Mountain appears to be based in large part on the perception of Yucca Mountain as a "permanent solution" to our nation's nuclear waste problem. This perception is fueled by consistent claims by Gov. Mike Leavitt and Utah's congressional delegation that the Skull Valley nuclear waste proposal is "redundant" because Yucca Mountain will soon be able to take all of the country's nuclear waste. Unfortunately, Yucca Mountain is as "permanent" a solution as Skull Valley is a "temporary storage facility." A quick review of the facts with regards to our growing nuclear waste problem reveals the falsehood of both claims. Yucca Mountain, if opened, would receive 77,000 metric tons of nuclear waste. Ten percent of this waste would come from the Department of Defense, leaving Yucca Mountain capable of only receiving approximately 67,000 metric tons of the waste generated by the nation's commercial nuclear power plants. By 2010, a good five to 10 years before Yucca Mountain is likely to be ready to receive waste, the United States will have generated a total of 60,000 tons of nuclear waste. Assuming nuclear waste production does not increase, as it would under the Bush energy plan, the United States will be generating an additional 2,000 tons of waste annually at that time, leaving us with a total of 80,000 tons by 2020. That's a good 13,000 tons more than Yucca Mountain can handle. The Skull Valley "temporary" storage site supported by some members of the Goshute tribe and Private Fuel Storage (PFS), a consortium of nuclear power plants looking for somewhere to dump their waste, is being sold to the public as a good place to put nuclear waste until Yucca Mountain is up and running. Unfortunately, about the time the PFS site's 20 year permit expires, we will have more waste than Yucca Mountain can handle. PFS would, under the proposal being considered by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, enjoy the option of extending its permit for an additional 20 years. When PFS' second 20-year storage permit expires around 2040, the United States would have approximately 53,000 tons more waste than Yucca Mountain is designed to handle. Unless PFS was willing to take back the 40,000 tons stored at Skull Valley at that time, it seems highly unlikely the Skull Valley site is as temporary as its supporters claim. Given the obvious growing nuclear waste problem in the United States over the next half century, why are Utah's political leaders willing to support Yucca Mountain as a "permanent solution" that renders Skull Valley redundant? Similarly, given the facts, why are PFS and its backers willing to mislead the public by claiming Skull Valley is temporary when there will obviously be no room at Yucca Mountain for all the waste Skull Valley will receive over the life of the storage permit? Utah's political leaders should be standing with Nevada in opposition to Yucca Mountain because both states have everything to lose and nothing to gain by accepting nuclear waste. As Western states with a great deal of public desert lands, both Utah and Nevada will continue to be targets of the nuclear industry well into the future unless we are willing to cooperate in resisting the Yucca Mountain and Skull Valley proposals now. Instead, Utah's leaders have opted to support additional nuclear power plants and the extension of existing nuclear power plant licenses by endorsing President Bush's energy policy. This puts Rep. Jim Hansen, Leavitt and others in the awkward position of supporting the production of more waste while simultaneously fighting against storage in Utah. As Green Party candidates, we recognize the first step toward solving a problem is to stop making it worse. The United States must adopt an energy policy that reduces and ultimately eliminates our reliance on nuclear power by supporting conservation efforts and investing in renewable energy development such as wind and solar power. Only once the production of nuclear waste ceases can a true "permanent solution" to the nuclear waste problem be found. In the meantime, we stand with Nevada in its effort to prevent the shipment of nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain, and we appreciate the fact that Nevada has so far supported Utah in its attempts to prevent high level nuclear waste from coming to our state. We recognize the fact that both our states have relatively small congressional delegations, and only together can we keep the nation's nuclear waste from coming to the western deserts of the United States. The above article was submitted by Green Party candidates Craig Axford, 1st Congressional District; David Rowland, Senate District 22; Diana Lee Hirschi, Salt Lake County Council at large; Laura Bonham, Legislative District 53; Patrick Beecroft, Salt Lake County Council 1; Peter Hines, Legislative District 8; Linda Parsons, Legislative District 34; and Rob Morrison, Legislative District 3. © 2002 Deseret News Publishing Company ***************************************************************** 41 Nuclear Waste Move Spews Political Fallout in 2 States April 17, 2002 By DAVID FIRESTONE AIKEN, S.C., April 16 — Less than a month from now, under extreme secrecy and high-tech security, a heavily armed convoy of trucks is to begin rolling from Colorado to a government fortress near here along the Savannah River. It will carry the first shipment of 34 tons of weapons-grade plutonium once aimed at the Soviet Union. After it arrives, the plutonium is to be converted to fuel for nuclear power plants. But a number of arms control advocates and Democratic politicians here say a principal purpose of the shipment is to enhance the re-election prospects of Senator Wayne Allard, a Republican from Colorado who is campaigning on his efforts to rid his state of plutonium. Gov. Jim Hodges of South Carolina, a Democrat, has been trying for months to get the shipments delayed, but late Monday night, the Department of Energy announced that the plutonium could be on the road as early as May 15. Although the head of the private company that is cleaning up the heavily radioactive Rocky Flats nuclear site near Denver has said there is no need to rush the shipments, the secretary of energy, Spencer Abraham, said the plutonium must begin moving to close the site by 2006. Governor Hodges, whose stand against the plutonium will also be useful in his re-election campaign this year, is so angry about the shipments that he met with the state highway patrol today to discuss methods of blocking the plutonium trucks at the state line. In an interview today, he said he was concerned that the radioactive material would never leave South Carolina if the conversion technology did not work. "It seems like the concerns of South Carolina voters are somehow secondary to the concerns of Colorado voters," Mr. Hodges said. "I'll leave it to your imagination as to why that is." One of his close allies, Richard A. Harpootlian, the state Democratic chairman, was not as coy, saying the movement of nuclear waste is part of a clear political calculus by the Bush administration. "The administration has decided that it can dump radioactive junk into our backyard and we'll still vote for Bush," said Mr. Harpootlian, referring to the state's modern history of voting for Republican presidential candidates. "But Colorado is a much closer state, and they want to give the upper hand to Allard." Mr. Allard is now in a close re-election race against Tom Strickland, a former United States attorney for Colorado and a Democrat. Bush administration officials have campaigned for Mr. Allard, hoping not to lose another seat in a narrowly divided Senate, and have backed the effort he led to turn Rocky Flats into a wildlife preserve by 2006. If the plutonium began leaving Colorado for South Carolina this spring, it would be seen as an important political accomplishment for Mr. Allard. Joe Davis, a spokesman for Mr. Abraham, said that if the plutonium did not start moving out of Colorado now, the department would miss its deadline to close down the Rocky Flats site by 2006. In addition, he said, a slowdown now to satisfy Governor Hodges would jeopardize a pact with Russia, which has also agreed to begin reprocessing its nuclear-warhead fuel so that it could no longer be used for weapons. "Getting this done now is a matter of national security, and that's our primary motivation," Mr. Davis said, denying that political considerations had any role. "We can't afford to have our partners in Russia thinking twice about whether they should do this." But even if the plutonium begins moving this spring, it will sit in storage at the Savannah River Site near here for years until the mixed-oxide conversion plant begins operation in 2007 or 2008. Officials at the Nuclear Control Institute, a nonprofit group in Washington that opposes the reprocessing into power-plant fuel, said Russia was nowhere near ready to begin its part of the bargain. "Neither side has overcome the technical hurdles of converting this material," said Tom Clements, executive director of the institute. "They're playing a risky game in getting the plutonium on the road now, just to help Allard's re-election campaign, so that they can say they're closing down Rocky Flats." The Kaiser-Hill Company, a private contractor that is doing the cleanup work at Rocky Flats, said there was no need to begin moving the plutonium now to meet the 2006 deadline. "I'm not particularly interested about when the first shipment goes, just the last one," Alan Parker, Kaiser-Hill's president, told The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists last November. A company spokesman, John Corsi, confirmed today that the company believed it would meet the 2006 deadline regardless of when the plutonium began the move. The plutonium in question is part of the 34 metric tons that the United States and Russia each agreed to take from their warheads and decommission after the end of the cold war reduced the need for nuclear deterrence. While it is in weapons form, it remains extremely dangerous — terrorists could make a nuclear bomb out of 12 pounds. Once it is converted to power-plant fuel, it can no longer be used in such a weapon. Governor Hodges said he was worried that if the conversion technology did not work, or a later administration found the process too expensive, the plutonium would never leave South Carolina. He said his government would block the shipments unless the Energy Department agreed to a legally binding court order to remove the plutonium from the state if it could not be converted. Mr. Abraham said the issue did not belong before a judge, but agreed to seek legislation guaranteeing that the material would not remain in South Carolina, and promised to stop the shipments by Oct. 15 if the bill did not pass. That did not satisfy Mr. Hodges, who said the bill would have to pass before the first shipment would be allowed. Mr. Allard, whose office did not return calls today, has been quite critical of Governor Hodges in recent days, accusing him of threatening national security and playing politics. But it is not just Democratic politicians in South Carolina who are affected by the shipments. Lindsey Graham, a Republican congressman who represents part of this area and who is running for the Senate this year, has been placed in a difficult position, trying to work out a compromise between the Bush administration and state government. In an interview today, Mr. Graham said he believed he could avoid an armed confrontation at the border by getting the bill guaranteeing the plutonium's future passed in the 30 days before the first shipment. Although bills rarely move at that speed, he said he believed the importance of the issue would outweigh the political skirmishing. "If we slip up on this, it's just a matter of time before those plutonium bullets wind up in someone else's gun," he said. Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company | Privacy Information ***************************************************************** 42 NRC to Meet with Company to Discuss Cleanup of Lakehurst, NJ., Site NRC: Press Release Region I - 2002 - 36 - U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, Region I 475 Allendale Road, King of Prussia, Pa. 19406 www.nrc.gov No. I-02-036 April 16, 2002 CONTACT: Diane Screnci (610) 337-5330 Neil A. Sheehan (610) 337-5331 E-mail: opa1@nrc.gov [opa1@nrc.gov] Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will meet with representatives of Heritage Minerals, Inc., on Tuesday, April 23, to discuss the status of cleanup efforts at the Heritage Minerals site in Lakehurst, N.J. Specifically, there will be a review of the company's responses to a March 2002 confirmatory survey of remaining radioactivity at the site, as well as a discussion of any additional required remediation work. The meeting, which is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m., will be held in the Public Meeting Room at the NRC Region I office, 475 Allendale Road, King of Prussia, Pa. It will be open to the public for observation. The site, located off Route 70, had been used for mining and processing local monazite ores to extract heavy minerals. ASARCO, Inc., began operation at the site in 1973, followed by Heritage Minerals, which ceased processing operations in August 1990. The processing of the ores resulted in a waste pile containing natural thorium and uranium in sufficient quantities to require an NRC license. Heritage Minerals has now removed the waste pile and is in the process of checking the site for any remaining radioactivity. ***************************************************************** 43 New TV Ad Targets Nuke Waste Site Las Vegas SUN April 16, 2002 WASHINGTON- Opponents of a nuclear waste dump in the Nevada desert are taking their fight to the airwaves - in Vermont. An ad, which began airing Tuesday and will run for a couple of weeks, asks viewers to call Vermont's senators, who will vote on the Yucca Mountain project this summer. Organizers chose Vermont as the first state to air the commercial because it has a strong environmental movement that often works closely with the state's political leaders. And one of Vermont's senators, independent James Jeffords, chairs the Senate's environment committee. In choosing Vermont, however, opponents also underscored the difficulty of their task. Jeffords, Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy and Democratic Gov. Howard Dean all support the Nevada dump. A prime reason for their backing lies in the cooling pools at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant in Vernon, Vt., where spent nuclear fuel has accumulated for 30 years. "The alternative to Yucca Mountain would be to store spent nuclear fuel in `dry casks' on the banks of the Connecticut River, which I believe poses serious and unacceptable environmental and safety risks," Jeffords said in a statement. Dry casks are giant concrete and steel containers; most spent nuclear fuel is kept in water to cool it. Leahy spokesman David Carle said the senator still favors Yucca Mountain but wants the Bush administration to answer questions raised about transporting the waste around the country. A major thrust of the opposition is that shipping the waste from the nation's nuclear plants through more than 40 states to Nevada runs a risk of accidents, with the potential for radioactive releases. The shipments by truck, train and, possibly, barge also could be targets for terrorists, opponents say. "If we license Yucca Mountain, every day can be Sept. 11 because that is the kind of threat we're exposing our nation, our communities, our families to," said Carl Pope, president of the Sierra Club, at an anti-Yucca Mountain rally Tuesday at the foot of the Capitol. The television commercial stresses the potential for accidents and contends approval of Yucca Mountain would lead to "dozens of new nuclear power plants." "That's the goal of the nuclear power industry," the announcer says in the 30-second ad, paid for by environmental groups. Opponents are considering more ads but will not say where they will run. Environmental activists and members of Congress who oppose Yucca Mountain are recommending the same type of onsite storage that Jeffords criticized. The Senate vote this summer is expected to be the last legislative chance to kill plans for the repository for 77,000 tons of radioactive waste beneath a volcanic ridge 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn, under unusual rules written by Congress, rejected President Bush's recommendation of the site this month. Congress will cast the deciding vote. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., who spoke at the Capitol rally, acknowledged to reporters that opponents lack the votes to kill the project. He said, however, that several senators remain undecided. The House is expected to ratify Bush's recommendation. A vote is likely in late April or early May, Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, said Tuesday at a news conference organized by Yucca Mountain supporters. "We're now coming at least to the beginning of the end," Barton said, referring to the 20 years and $7 billion the federal government has spent studying the issue. --- On the Net: Yucca Mountain Project: http://www.ymp.gov [http://www.ymp.gov] Pro-Yucca Mountain site: http://www.nei.org [http://www.nei.org] Anti-Yucca Mountain site: http://www.nirs.org [http://www.nirs.org] All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 44 Ad Aims to Sway Senators Over Yucca Las Vegas SUN April 16, 2002 WASHINGTON- Opponents of a nuclear waste dump in the Nevada desert are taking their fight to the airwaves - in Vermont. An ad, which began airing Tuesday and will run for a couple of weeks, asks viewers to call Vermont's senators, who will vote on the Yucca Mountain project this summer. Organizers chose Vermont as the first state to air the commercial because it has a strong environmental movement that often works closely with the state's political leaders. And one of Vermont's senators, independent James Jeffords, chairs the Senate's environment committee. In choosing Vermont, however, opponents also underscored the difficulty of their task. Jeffords, Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy and Democratic Gov. Howard Dean all support the Nevada dump. A prime reason for their backing lies in the cooling pools at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant in Vernon, Vt., where spent nuclear fuel has accumulated for 30 years. "The alternative to Yucca Mountain would be to store spent nuclear fuel in `dry casks' on the banks of the Connecticut River, which I believe poses serious and unacceptable environmental and safety risks," Jeffords said in a statement. Dry casks are giant concrete and steel containers; most spent nuclear fuel is kept in water to cool it. Leahy spokesman David Carle said the senator still favors Yucca Mountain but wants the Bush administration to answer questions raised about transporting the waste around the country. A major thrust of the opposition is that shipping the waste from the nation's nuclear plants through more than four dozen states to Nevada runs a risk of accidents, with the potential for radioactive releases. The shipments by truck, train and, possibly, barge also could be targets for terrorists, opponents say. "If we license Yucca Mountain, every day can be Sept. 11 because that is the kind of threat we're exposing our nation, our communities, our families to," said Carl Pope, president of the Sierra Club, at an anti-Yucca Mountain rally Tuesday at the foot of the Capitol. The radio commercial stresses the potential for accidents and contends approval of Yucca Mountain would lead to "dozens of new nuclear power plants." "That's the goal of the nuclear power industry," the announcer says in the 30-second ad, paid for by environmental groups. Opponents are considering more ads but will not say where they will run. Environmental activists and members of Congress who oppose Yucca Mountain are recommending the same type of onsite storage that Jeffords criticized. The Senate vote this summer is expected to be the last legislative chance to kill plans for the repository for 77,000 tons of radioactive waste beneath a volcanic ridge 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn, under unusual rules written by Congress, rejected President Bush's recommendation of the site this month. Congress will cast the deciding vote. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., admitted to the Capitol demonstrators that opponents lack the votes to kill the project. He said, however, that several senators remain undecided. The House is expected to ratify Bush's recommendation. A vote is likely in late April or early May, Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, said Tuesday at a news conference organized by Yucca Mountain supporters. "We're now coming at least to the beginning of the end," Barton said, referring to the 20 years and $7 billion the federal government has spent studying the issue. on the Net: Yucca Mountain Project: http://www.ymp.gov [http://www.ymp.gov] Pro-Yucca Mountain site: http://www.nei.org [http://www.nei.org] Anti-Yucca Mountain site: http://www.nirs.org [http://www.nirs.org] All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 45 Nuclear cleanup contractor to lay off 66 employees Buffalo News - WEST VALLEY News Staff Reporter 4/17/2002 The West Valley Demonstration Project will lay off 66 employees by the end of September, the project's principal contractor announced Tuesday. Jim Little, president of West Valley Nuclear Services, said 51 of the workers are salaried employees working in a variety of administrative, engineering and clerical jobs at the project 35 miles south of Buffalo. They will be gone by the end of May. Little stressed that the layoffs aren't due to budget reductions at the project, a joint state-federal cleanup effort that has pumped nearly 600,000 gallons of highly radioactive liquid waste out of rotting underground tanks and turned it into glass cylinders using a process called vitrification. "The reduction in force is not related to . . . what we're going to get or not get," Little said. "It's simply based on what we see over the next few years." Little said the job cuts are a function of the project's shift in emphasis from vitrification to decontamination and decommission. "The project is changing," he said. "We've got to get a work force in place for the next phase, which is decontamination. We've been working over the last three years to determine what skills we needed to move forward." The federal Department of Energy, which has funded 90 percent of the cleanup, and the New York Energy Research and Development Authority, which has provided the other 10 percent, have spent nearly $2 billion here since 1980. But the federal contribution to the West Valley budget was cut $17 million last year, to $91.6 million, as Congressional appropriators attempted to push stalled negotiations between the DOE and NYSERDA on an agreement for the site's future. The vitrification part of the project will be complete by September, and West Valley Nuclear Services has been trimming jobs from its work force, which was at 716 as recently as last year. The new reductions will bring WVNS employment at the site to just under 500, Little said. Until now, the company has used buyouts, retirements and reassignments to other projects to cut the work force. The layoffs announced Tuesday came after the company concluded that those earlier cuts in personnel still left too many workers. Workers will be offered severance packages, a chance to continue their health care benefits under several programs and retraining, Little said. The 15 hourly workers who will be fired are represented by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. The displaced workers, who will be determined according to union seniority rules, will be gone by September. Their chief steward, Pete Cooney, said that while the layoffs aren't a surprise, he's disappointed that, as some citizen watchdog groups allege, the federal government seems to be planning a cutback on the scope of the cleanup. "We were told from the start that there was going to be work for vitrification and . . . in the decontamination and decommissioning," he said. "Now, all of a sudden, the company looks as if they're trying to make DOE happy and clean up only the hottest few areas." e-mail: jbonfatti@buffnews.com ***************************************************************** 46 Panel raises concerns on cleanup Buffalo News - WEST VALLEY Cattaraugus Correspondent 4/17/2002 WEST VALLEY - Larry Camper, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's decommissioning branch chief, emphasized to the West Valley Citizens Task Force on Tuesday night that the commission's policy statement on decommissioning the nuclear waste site is final. Camper spoke to the group about its concerns that the agency failed to do a job required by the 1980 West Valley Demonstration Project Act. That law states the agency must set criteria for decommissioning the site. But the task force claims the policy creates new loopholes that could lead to higher radiation doses and perpetual licensing for the former fuel-reprocessing facility. The task force invited the NRC and all other federal and state agencies involved in site activities to attend its meeting. The agencies will be meeting at 8 this morning to continue discussions on cleanup standards for regulators. The NRC at 7 tonight will explain its policy statement, containing the cleanup criteria, during a public meeting beginning in the Ashford Office Complex on Route 219. "There are a lot of assumptions. There's a good degree of speculation about what's going to happen down the road," said task force member Eric Wohlers, who also serves as the Cattaraugus County Environmental Health director. Referring to the policy statement issued in January, he said the task force expected better definitions and guidelines on cleanup in case containment structures or site controls fail in the future. Task force members, in inviting the agencies to the meeting, have raised concerns that the federal Department of Energy or the state Energy Research and Development Authority could receive exemptions in radiation-dose levels now spelled out in federal regulations. They also have expressed concerns that the DOE could be dismissed from site activities in the future and that the research and Development Authority could be left holding a license to operate the site under fluctuating cleanup standards and with few resources. Paul Merges of the state Department of Environmental Conservation told the group he has concerns about the policy's criteria for low-level radioactive waste and the possibility for exemptions on radiation dosages. "I'm not sure whether I would change the document or reconsider the (West Valley Demonstration Project Act). Maybe there will be discussion about that later," said Merges, when asked how he would strengthen the policy. Paul Giardina of the Environmental Protection Agency said the final yardstick will be how much radioactive contamination is left in the drinking water, soil and air pathways to the population. He challenged the group to take a new perspective. James Liberman of NRC said the West Valley Demonstration Project Act was unclear about the criteria and reminded the group that the license may not be terminated if cleanup does not meet standards. Susan Breckbill, director of the Department of Energy's Ohio field office, assured the group that decontamination is being accelerated, and her agency will continue to monitor its waste and fix what goes wrong. She further urged the Energy and Research Development Authority to become more involved in finalizing an environmental impact statement that recommends a preferred closure alternative. Copyright © 1999 - 2002 The Buffalo NewsTM ***************************************************************** 47 Protesters say no to Yucca plans Environmentalists, Nevada lawmakers gather in Washington By Doug Abrahms [online@rgj.com] ASSOCIATED PRESS 4/17/2002 12:19 am Capitol Hill in Washington. - Associated Press/ASSOCIATED PRESS] WASHINGTON — Environmentalists from about 40 states Tuesday joined Nevada lawmakers in Washington to lobby Congress against building a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain and dubbed the proposed truckloads and trainloads of nuclear waste that will travel across country “mobile Chernobyls.” About 100 protesters gathered on the west Capitol steps to chant “Stop Yucca!” and promised to rally local support against the proposal. Groups, including the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, and U.S. Public Interest Research Group said they will try to get 500,000 signatures on a petition to oppose Yucca Mountain. They plan to drive six large, inflatable replicas of used nuclear fuel casks around the nation to highlight the issue. “The risky transportation scheme cannot be justified,” said Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen. “A serious accident or terrorist attack could be catastrophic.” Congress will vote this spring on overriding Gov. Kenny Guinn’s veto of placing the high-level nuclear-waste dump at Yucca Mountain — 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. President Bush approved the site in February, but Congress must approve the legislation for Yucca Mountain to proceed. The GOP-controlled House is expected to move quickly, and Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, will hold a hearing on Yucca Mountain in the Energy and Commerce subcommittee on Thursday. He said he expects the bill to pass the entire House in early May. “I think nuclear power is extremely safe,” Barton said. “I hope someday we’ll build even more nuclear power plants.” The real showdown will be in the Senate, where Democrats hold a majority of one. Yucca Mountain proponents believe a majority of senators will vote for the site because they want to move nuclear waste from power plants in their own states to Nevada. But Nevada lawmakers say the transportation issue will bring more opposition to Yucca Mountain as well as support from environmentalists. “At times, this has been a lonely fight because people have just looked at this as a Nevada problem,” said Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev. to the anti-nuclear activists. “The nuclear power industry wants Yucca Mountain because they want to build more nuclear power.” The Nuclear Energy Institute, National Association of Manufacturers and members of Congress voiced support for the waste dump, which has been under consideration since 1982. “This issue has been studied for more than 20 years from every conceivable angle,” said Don Wainwright, chairman of the National Association of Manufacturers. “Further delay on Yucca Mountain will only complicate our efforts to craft a comprehensive energy policy.” Nevada lawmakers still see the transportation issue as the strongest argument they can make in Congress. The plan involves 100,000 truck and train shipments traveling across country over the next five decades, including through some states that have no nuclear power plants. Robert Halstead, a transportation adviser to Nevada’s Nuclear Projects Agency, has said five possible railroad routes into Nevada are being studied but one through Carlin, Reno and Sparks is most likely because it would take the waste through sparsely populated valleys, rather than mountain ranges or Las Vegas. He said up to 13 Nevada counties may be affected. Environmentalists plan to start airing TV ads in Vermont Tuesday to try to sway Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Sen. Jim Jeffords, I-Vt., into opposing Yucca Mountain. “It’s not a question of accidents, it’s a question of how many accidents,” said Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev. “Yucca Mountain is not a Nevada problem, it’s a problem the United States faces.” © Copyright Reno Gazette-Journal, a Gannett ***************************************************************** 48 Yucca: And your home at half price Wednesday, April 17, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal COLUMN: KEN WARD Gov. Kenny Guinn reported last week that Nevada's budget is $244 million short. Saying $53 million must be cut from this year's spending plan to keep it balanced, Guinn intoned: "This is bleak. We will all have to share some of the pain." But your Board of Regents is feeling no pain. This week, it will press full speed ahead with the ill-timed and ill-conceived Henderson college campus -- and to hell with anyone who suggests otherwise. The cheerleaders will be out in force tomorrow when the board convenes in Henderson, of course. They'll quickly dismiss concerns over questionable hires and misdated, $1,000-a-day consulting contracts as so much carping. College backers, including city officials who have directed staff and untold tax dollars to prop up the college, will trot out specious "cost savings" and again try to blame the lack of student and donor support on the media. (At the same time, a munificent City Hall cites tight times for not contributing more to fight this state's most serious threat: Yucca Mountain.) The urgency on the college smacks of desperation. To hear their shaky sales pitch, proponents appear rightly worried that their numbers and projections won't stand up to any more scrutiny. If, in fact, a state college is such a bargain, it will remain so in the next biennium, or the next decade, when demand dictates and budgets permit. But don't expect fiscal responsibility from the politically driven regents. They'll play April Fools, and let everyone else pay for this mess. • How would you like to buy a home for half price? If you're a teacher or administrator, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has a deal for you. HUD's Teacher Next Door program offers 50 percent discounts to educators with down payments of just $100. There are a few conditions. First, you must be an employee in good standing. You must select from HUD (foreclosed) homes in designated "revitalization areas" (ZIP Codes 89015, 89030, 89032, 89101, 89102, 89104, 89106, 89110 and 89115). And the home must be your primary residence for at least three years. But that's about it. Not much for landing a $100,000 house for $50,000 while Uncle Sam carries a $50K "silent second" mortgage. Indeed, the government will split costs up to $147,250 here. The three-year-old HUD program, which also includes police (Officer Next Door), has helped 90 local teachers purchase discount dwellings so far. Nationally, some 6,000 residences have been acquired this way. And there's more: Participants get to snap up HUD housing before the general public ever sees an auction sheet. While education and law enforcement (unlike journalism) are honorable professions, why is HUD so niggardly? If well-heeled school administrators can qualify, why not nurses, or firefighters, or clergy, or school counselors? This is the inherent flaw, and danger, in such government handouts -- especially those that heap privileges on public employees. By redistributing income and extending preferences to selected classes, the federal Leviathan concocts ever more costly social programs that demand even more confiscatory taxes. Then there's fraud. It turns out that some enterprising Officers and Teachers Next Door have been scamming the program. Uttering an all-too-familiar refrain, HUD Secretary Mel Martinez acknowledged recently, "There is no doubt we need to implement more aggressive monitoring and tighten controls." Meantime, he hails this "proven winner." And you thought the Las Vegas Housing Authority was screwed up? • Speaking of giveaways, Station Casinos donated $100,000 to a worthy cause this month. The company awarded cash grants to six area schools as part of its attendance incentive contest. K.O. Knudson, J.D. Smith and Monaco middle schools received $25,000, $15,000 and $10,000 respectively. Palo Verde, Rancho and Eldorado garnered the high school cash. The winning schools had the best attendance among "high-need" campuses last semester. Congratulations ... and a question: How does Palo Verde -- located in Summerlin amidst one of the valley 's most affluent ZIP Codes -- classify as "high-need"? The answer: busing. With some 275 students shipped in from West Las Vegas and other poor enclaves, Palo Verde made the cut. Ken Ward (mail to: kenricward@juno.comkenricward@juno.com) is author of "Saints in Babylon: Mormons and Las Vegas." His education column appears Wednesday. Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002 ***************************************************************** 49 County gives $1.5 million more for Yucca legal fight Wednesday, April 17, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal By FRANK GEARY REVIEW-JOURNAL Nevada politicians applauded the Clark County Commission on Tuesday after it redirected $1.5 million to the fight to prevent Yucca Mountain from becoming the nation's repository for nuclear waste, but a local judge said half that money is desperately needed to replace an outdated courthouse. County commissioners Mary Kincaid-Chauncey and Erin Kenny said a new courthouse and community facility in the rural Goodsprings area southwest of Las Vegas can wait because taxpayer money is needed immediately to combat President Bush's decision to store nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, which is 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. But Goodsprings Justice of the Peace Dawn Haviland said the new joint facility is needed now because seniors and others must travel to Las Vegas for public services that could be provided locally, such as advice on Social Security benefits. "This courtroom needs to be replaced, because there isn't adequate parking or storage and no security," Haviland said by telephone after the commission meeting. "It's more than an inconvenience. It's a slap in the face of the people of the Goodsprings township." Gov. Kenny Guinn and a spokesman for Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the county's contribution is sorely needed to fortify the legal defense fund against Yucca Mountain. By doing so, other money can be freed up for a lobbying campaign aimed at drumming up Senate opposition to the planned nuclear waste repository. "I believe we have an excellent case, but it will cost millions of dollars to wage this fight against the federal government, which has an unlimited budget," Guinn said in a news release. "This money is critically important because the $3 million the Legislature approved last week is contingent upon our counties, cities and private sector matching the state allocation." Reid spokesman Nathan Naylor said of the county's contribution, "It's a real shot in the arm. Regardless of whether we are successful in killing this (in the Senate), you can count on there being lawsuits." The commission allocated to the Yucca Mountain campaign $850,000 that had been recommended for the Goodsprings courthouse facility, $280,000 earmarked for replacement of outdated computers and an extra $370,000 budgeted for fire equipment that no longer is needed. Assistant County Manager Mike Alastuey assured the commission that county services wouldn't suffer from delaying purchase of some computers. Finance Director George Stevens said the allocation won't inhibit the Fire Department's plan to purchase two ladder trucks and seven rescue vehicles this fiscal year. Further punctuating the partisan divide developing in the Yucca Mountain debate, the commission's two Republicans, Bruce Woodbury and Chip Maxfield, voted against Commission Chairman Dario Herrera's request for the funding. Herrera, a Democrat running for Congress this year, won the support of the four other Democrats on the commission, some of whom had expressed reservations about his original request for $3 million in taxpayer money. Woodbury said the county contributed $1 million to the anti-Yucca Mountain legal fund last year and that it wouldn't be prudent to contribute at a time when revenue growth has been stymied by the slumping economy. Maxfield said the commission should continue establishing its fiscal priorities, such as air quality and transportation, before it allocates that much money for an extra expense not included in the county's budget. Kenny, who represents the Goodsprings area, proposed that the money recommended for the community's new courthouse be redirected to the Yucca Mountain fight. Kenny said the move made sense because the county won't be ready to build the facility until it is designed and that $150,000 still is available for the design work. However, County Manager Thom Reilly said after the meeting that the Yucca Mountain allocation could delay construction for a year or longer, depending on the economy and potential budget constraints next fiscal year. The commission's decision didn't come as a surprise to Elizabeth Warren, chairwoman of the Goodsprings Citizens Advisory Council, who said the community has never been a high priority for the county. "It fits. Generally speaking, the people who live out here don't get a lot of respect," she said. Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002 ***************************************************************** 50 Humanizing Yucca Mountain fight won't work until humans speak up Wednesday, April 17, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal COLUMN: John L. Smith Ah, the good old days. They were simpler times in Nevada. Legend has it that, back when the mob ran the place, there was no problem in Nevada so big it couldn't be solved with a bullet behind the ear and a hole in the desert. We were outlaws, but we were autonomous. Alas, times have changed. Gunplay is discouraged now. Nevada's fight against the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump is a daily reminder that our problems no longer are simple. We argue science. We argue politics. We argue until we're dizzy. And still we're having trouble finding anyone in Washington willing to hear our pleas. I believe the only way we can capture the emotion of this issue is to remind the rest of the nation that our children's futures are at stake. We must humanize our coarse image as a glorified gambling den. Despite our lingering outlaw image, it no longer is appropriate to practice the old ways of dispute resolution. So, I turned for help to Eric Dezenhall, author of the fast-selling novel "Money Wanders" and a veteran crisis manager and former Reagan administration image specialist. In brief, his advice to Nevada is this: Get off your derrieres, pick up a bullhorn and go after the nuclear industry and its Washington harem as if your life depended on it. Don't wait for a political savior to emerge, or you'll wait forever. "In a PR fight, whoever attacks wins, whoever defends loses," Dezenhall says. "Always attack, and support that attack with a shameless spectacle anchored in emotion, allegation and victimhood. This doesn't require money; it requires audacity. My clients are the biggest companies in the world, and they live in mortal terror of a nun with a guitar showing up at a shareholders meeting. Corporations fear appearing ungentle and almost never challenge anyone cloaked in vulnerability, which is why they've paid Jesse Jackson whatever he wants over the years NOT to use the R-word." In Nevada, we have our own R-word. Radioactive. Problem is, we have yet to generate much support from a nation of states with their own problems. Compounding our predicament is our tradition of representing the pariah industry of legalized gambling, which has spent decades crafting its evolution into "entertainment" and continues to struggle with its darker image. Humanizing Nevada won't be easy. But it is essential. "You can't separate the Yucca controversy from Nevada's overall battle for its soul," Dezenhall says. "The gnawing question implied by having nuclear waste stored in your back yard is, 'What kind of people are we?' Is Nevada a dump after all?" Well, is it? Contributions to the state's anti-Yucca fight trickle in. Our leaders continue to react to setbacks instead of going on the offensive. But it's unfair to blame our problems on our diminutive congressional delegation. At some point, we should face an awkward reality that, although approximately 80 percent of Nevadans say they are opposed to Yucca, only a few went to the public hearings. Beyond a collection of the usual suspects, there are no protests to speak of and never have been. Wars are not won from the La-Z-Boy. And the hour is late. Dezenhall says, "Your choices are to actively fight it, which requires a motivated public, or to embrace it and justify it. 'Don't think of it as nuclear waste, Billy, think of it as prosperity in a can.' "As my novel's gangster, Mickey Price, tells his grandson the pollster, 'You can fool all of the people who want to be fooled all of the time.' As for Yucca, in prosperous times, it's easy to just paddle around in the swamp of prosperity and let someone else worry about it. "You can't spin a public, let alone motivate one, that doesn't want to be spun. Guys like me -- Machiavellian spin doctors -- are more myth than reality. We need motivated clients, and it doesn't sound like Las Vegas is really motivated. Besides, it's hard to fight an administration that has so much moral authority right now." It's even harder when you have resigned yourself to picketing from the couch and whining about the good old days. John L. Smith's column appears Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. E-mail him at Smith@reviewjournal.com or call him at 383-0295. Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002 ***************************************************************** 51 Nevada: DOE doesn't need water for Yucca Wednesday, April 17, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal REVIEW-JOURNAL Until Congress acts to override Gov. Kenny Guinn's veto of the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, the project is legally dead and the federal government doesn't need more water at the site, Nevada attorneys argued in court papers filed Tuesday. The state's filing in U.S. District Court was an answer to the Department of Justice's efforts to extend temporarily permits for 140 million gallons per year from five Nye County wells. The permits expired April 9. "Only if Congress passes new legislation overriding the Notice of Disapproval and if the President signs this new legislation, the Yucca Mountain Project may be revived," wrote Nevada Senior Deputy Attorney General Marta Adams. "Until this eventually happens, a matter of considerable speculation at this point, the project is legally dead." She noted that enough water has been stockpiled in tanks at the site, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, to last for several months as previously stated by Department of Energy officials. There's enough for 18 days under normal use, she said, citing a statement by one DOE official. "Despite its inconsistencies, whether it is 18 days or several months worth of water, the situation hardly translates into an `immediate and irreparable injury,' " Adams stated. The case, before U.S. District Judge Roger Hunt, concerns the state's denial of permanent water rights for the Yucca Mountain Project. webmaster@lvrj.com Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - ***************************************************************** 52 Yucca: Guinn sees new roles for firefighters Wednesday, April 17, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal THE ASSOCIATED PRESS RENO -- Firefighters and other public safety officials need more training and better equipment to prepare for new kinds of emergencies in a changing world, Gov. Kenny Guinn said Tuesday. "As you in this group move forward in this country, firefighting will still be an important role for you, but I'm not so sure it will be the only role," Guinn told about 250 people attending the 2002 Wildland Fire Safety Summit. Terrorism and threats from deadly materials including nuclear waste will affect firefighters and other first responders, he said. "We know how to fight those standard fires that we've had. We know how to handle a chlorine spill on a railroad track. But we don't know how to handle bioterrorism," Guinn said. On Monday, Guinn signed a plan earmarking $10.4 million in federal money to improve the state's emergency preparedness level for dealing with bioterrorist attacks. Guinn said his goal is to funnel as much of that money as possible to meet the needs of front-line responders. Nevada also faces the added challenge of preparing for accidents or terrorist plots involving radioactive hazards, should the federal government prevail in building the nation's first high-level nuclear repository at Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, he said. President Bush picked Yucca Mountain as the place to entomb up to 77,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel that will remain radioactive for 10,000 years. Last week, Guinn vetoed the Bush action, sending the matter to Congress and, ultimately, the courts. "I don't know if we're going to win the fight or not," Guinn told the audience Monday. "But should we not prevail, I can tell you about 100,000 shipments of high-level nuclear waste moving through our communities will eventually expose each one of you in this room." Being prepared for a nuclear accident is an "awesome responsibility," he said. "And you will not be able to attack that, in my mind, with the hazmat equipment that you have now." Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002 ***************************************************************** 53 Anti-Yucca demonstrators rally Tuesday on Capitol Hill. AP Photo Wednesday, April 17, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal Yucca foes rally on Capitol Hill Ads begin airing to sway senators By STEVE TETREAULT STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- Environmental activists fanned out to lobby senators on Tuesday after embracing Nevada's fight against the Yucca Mountain Project at a U.S. Capitol rally where they chanted "Safety Yes, Yucca No!" The state opened another front with a television commercial, airing in Vermont, that raises questions about the safety of nuclear shipments. Nevada's four members of Congress and environmental and congressional allies addressed the rally. Many of the 150 people were given anti-Yucca placards to wave in front of the media. "If we license Yucca Mountain, every day can be Sept. 11," Sierra Club president Carl Pope said. That's one of the points activists from 20 states are making to lawmakers. Their lobbying aims to supplement efforts by Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and John Ensign, R-Nev., to round up 51 votes against a measure that would override Gov. Kenny Guinn's veto and designate the Yucca Mountain site 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas for nuclear waste burial. "The grass roots re-emphasize what we're doing, to show (senators) that it's not just us," Ensign said. "Anyone who's up here knows how important grass roots are." The anti-Yucca campaign might have some resonance with lawmakers from states where environmentalists are strong, said Richard Semiatin, assistant professor of political science at American University. "If this is Oregon, you would be certain that (Sen.) Gordon Smith would be listening to them," Semiatin said. Smith, a Republican up for re-election, has voted for a nuclear waste repository in the past. Spokesman Joe Sheffo said Tuesday that Smith "has not taken a position yet. He's still exploring options." "We intend to let (Smith) know this will be an electoral issue," said Gerald Pollett, who heads Heart of America Northwest, one of the lobby groups. Other environmentalists reported mixed results. They said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., needs more persuading. Sens. Jean Carnahan, D-Mo., and Jon Corzine, D-N.J., freshmen who have not voted on nuclear waste, have not committed, according to activists. The push continues on a Yucca Mountain vote within weeks in the House. House Energy subcommittee chairman Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, said a resolution to override Guinn's veto will be brought to a vote next week in his panel and will reach the full House by "late April or early May." Vermont's senators began reacting to the nuclear waste commercial, which was to begin running Tuesday night on the state's ABC and NBC network affiliates. Sens. James Jeffords, an independent, and Patrick Leahy, a Democrat, have voted in the past to ship spent nuclear fuel from the Vermont Yankee plant in Vernon. "The alternative to Yucca Mountain would be to store spent nuclear fuel in `dry casks' on the banks of the Connecticut River, which I believe possesses serious and unacceptable environmental and safety risks," Jeffords said in a statement. Leahy spokesman David Carle said the senator still favors Yucca Mountain, but wants the Bush administration to answer questions raised about transporting the waste, the thrust of the TV spots, which are scheduled to run for two weeks. The commercial, prepared by the Washington firm of Greer, Margolis, Mitchell, Burns and Associates, has footage of nuclear plants, highway traffic and children at play. "Dozens of new nuclear power plants, that's the goal of the nuclear power industry," intones a narrator. "And that's why they're lobbying the Senate to let them move 77,000 tons of deadly nuclear waste. "Driving it right through the towns we live in, with over 50,000 nuclear trucks and trainloads moving though our streets, even the government admits, accidents are inevitable," the spot continues. "And terrorist attacks will become harder than ever to prevent." Ensign said Nevada-hired pollsters will measure the ad's effectiveness in Vermont. webmaster@lvrj.com Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - ***************************************************************** 54 Boxer Statement On Nuclear Waste Disposal At Yucca Mountain U.S. SENATOR BARBARA BOXER | CALIFORNIA [Welcome to the Official Website of U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer of California] April 16, 2002 Yucca Mountain is bad for Nevada, it is bad for California, and it is bad for the millions of Americans whose communities would become the chosen route for deadly nuclear waste transfer. It is time for President Bush to stop paying lip service to the idea of states' rights and listen to our states. Let's listen to local county supervisors in my home state of California. They oppose the Yucca site. Three counties have contacted me – Ventura, San Bernardino, and Inyo. They are very worried for two main reasons: First, groundwater contamination. Tests have shown that Yucca Mountain "leaks" – despite earlier beliefs that the Mountain would serve as a fail-proof container. Water from the Mountain goes into the aquifer that California and Nevada share. If that water is contaminated by nuclear waste, it will endanger the drinking water and the water for wildlife in at least these three counties. Second, much of the nuclear waste will be transported through these counties on the way to Yucca – possibly as many as five trucks full per day. In fact, the transport of this waste could impact my entire state because now officials are saying that the waste may have to be trucked all the way north to Sacramento as it makes its way to the Yucca site. After September 11, this could be a nightmare. The terrorists have not gotten hold of nuclear materials yet. Why give them 74,000 opportunities in California alone during the next 39 years to get these materials? America is on the cutting edge of science. I believe in the genius of our people, and I believe that we can soon find a way to neutralize and compact this waste. It's time to start paying attention to science and safety – rather than politics. ***************************************************************** 55 Sacramento court overturns nuclear waste disposal regulation SignOnSanDiego.com By Jennifer Coleman ASSOCIATED PRESS April 16, 2002 SACRAMENTO  A Sacramento Superior Court judge struck down a state regulation that set standards for decommissioning low-level nuclear sites, saying the state failed to conduct an environmental review of the new policy. Judge Gail D. Ohanesian Tuesday ordered state Department of Health Services Director Diana Bonta to set aside her approval of the regulation, which was adopted in November. The DHS regulation mirrors federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission standards for decommissioning nuclear sites. Once sites are released from the state's control, soil and other waste with residual radioactivity could be dumped at landfills. Ohanesian said the state wasn't exempt from conducting a California Environmental Quality Act review as state officials had argued. The department filed an exemption from the law, saying an environmental review wasn't necessary because the regulation increased protection for the public. DHS officials have also said there was an environmental review when the regulations were adopted at the national level. Sen. Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles, has introduced a bill that would ban the dumping of that waste at regular landfills. She said Tuesday the judge's ruling bolstered her argument that DHS "played fast and loose with the facts." "DHS admitted to us that they could have chosen a stronger standard," said Romero, who is also chairwoman of the Senate Select Committee on Urban Landfills. "Garbage dumps should remain garbage dumps, and not be turned into toxic dumps." The standard the state employed let low-level sites be decommissioned if they produced less than 25 millirem of radioactivity per year. State health officials said in the landfill hearing that they had adopted more stringent federal standards. Previously, health officials said, sites could be decommissioned if they were emitting 100 millirem of radiation. "That was fake," Romero said. The judge agreed, saying in her order that the state that there "is no standard in effect at present for decommissioning of a licensed radioactive site. The 100 millirem standard is for sites in operation and not decommissioned sites." DHS spokeswoman Lea Brooks said the department was "looking at our options" including whether to file an appeal. "Nothing has been decided," she said. "We just got the decision today." Romero said she hoped the state wouldn't appeal the decision. "I think (appealing) it would a serious mistake and an abuse of taxpayers' dollars for an agency that is supposed to protect the health of Californians," Romero said. © Copyright 2002 Union-Tribune Publishing Co. ***************************************************************** 56 Plutonium Could Travel to South Carolina Next Month Environment News Service: By Cat Lazaroff WASHINGTON, DC, April 17, 2002 (ENS) - Several tons of plutonium could begin arriving in South Carolina in less than 30 days, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said Monday. Abraham notified South Carolina Governor Jim Hodges that he intends to begin shipping the plutonium from the agency's Rocky Flats facility in Colorado, despite the governor's threats to block the shipments. [Abraham] Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham at his desk (Photo courtesy Office of the Secretary) In a letter to Hodges, Abraham called it "essential" that the shipments begin by May 15 to meet a federally mandated schedule for closing Rocky Flats by 2006. "The department intends to begin shipping plutonium from Rocky Flats to Savannah River no sooner than 30 days from today," Abraham wrote Monday. "It is essential that we begin shipments of materials from Rocky Flats to South Carolina by approximately May 15, 2002 in order to meet the nation's goal of closing the facility." The DOE plans to ship a total of 34 metric tons of plutonium from various DOE weapons facilities around the nation to the Savannah River Site, where it will be turned into mixed oxide (MOX) fuel for commercial nuclear power reactors. The plutonium, pure enough to be used in nuclear weapons, is now located at Rocky Flats, at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, and at the PANTEX Facility in Amarillo, Texas. About 76 trailer loads of plutonium are expected to be shipped from Rocky Flats alone. After receiving Abraham's letter, Governor Hodges again pledged to block the shipments until he receives assurances that the plutonium will not be stored in South Carolina after it is processed. Hodges has previously threatened to use state troopers to physically block the shipments from entering the state. [Hodges] Governor Jim Hodges of South Carolina (Photo courtesy Office of the Governor) "Until there is a legally enforceable agreement that holds the federal government to its word, I will do everything at my disposal to ensure that plutonium does not enter South Carolina," Hodges said. "The federal government is asking us to take them at their word. Given their track record, that's just not good enough." South Carolina Representatives Lindsey Graham, a Republican, and John Spratt, a Democrat, are drafting legislation that would require that the plutonium not be permanently store in the state. However, Hodges said Monday that it is unlikely that the bill can be passed by Congress before the DOE begins its shipments. "While I am open to a congressional solution, the secretary's decision to limit the time frame to 30 days will make this very difficult to accomplish," Hodges said. In Monday's letter, Abraham detailed a list of concessions that he hoped would persuade Hodges not to oppose the shipments, including a formal commitment to ship the plutonium out of South Carolina if the facility that will convert the plutonium into MOX fuel is not completed on schedule. Abraham said he would support efforts to pass legislation backing that pledge, and would suspend shipments to South Carolina if Congress has not passed such a bill by October. Last week, Hodges told the DOE that he wanted a federal judge to oversee the enforcement of whatever agreement was reached between the state and the federal government regarding the plutonium shipments. Abraham rejected that request, saying such a court decree would be of "dubious legality and propriety." [Graham] Representative Lindsey Graham is one of two South Carolina Congress members working on a legislative solution to the plutonium controversy. (Photo courtesy Office of the Representative) "It would be wholly irresponsible for the country to attempt to conduct its national security and foreign policy affairs through the judicial process, but that is what we effectively would be committing ourselves to doing," by seeking a solution to the plutonium controversy in the courts, Abraham wrote. "The courts are an appropriate forum for handling lawsuits, not for performing such Executive Branch duties as overseeing and implementing the U.S.-Russian nuclear non-proliferation agreement," Abraham added. In January 2002, the Bush administration announced it would dispose of 34 metric tons of surplus plutonium by turning it into MOX fuel, as part of a join U.S.-Russian program to eliminate surplus nuclear weapons materials. The decision overturned a proposal by the previous administration to use a portion of the plutonium as fuel, while permanently immobilizing the remainder in glass to prevent its potential use in nuclear weapons. MOX fuel is a mixture of about three percent plutonium oxide with about 97 percent uranium oxide, which can be used in nuclear reactors to produce electricity. Such fuel is routinely used for power generation in Belgium, France, Germany and Switzerland. Critics of the MOX fuel proposal charge that burning MOX in nuclear reactors increases the public health risks from nuclear accidents, particularly when the reactors were not originally designed to burn MOX fuel. [Savannah River] Sunset at the Savannah River Site (Photo courtesy DOE) The Nuclear Control Institute (NCI), a Washington DC based nonproliferation group, released a study in 1999 which concluded that using MOX fuel in a nuclear power plant raises the cancer risks associated with containment failure or core meltdown accidents at such plants. More deaths would result because the quantities of plutonium and other highly radiotoxic elements in the cores of MOX fueled plants are greater than in plants fueled only with conventional low enriched uranium, the NCI study says. The Energy Department plans to construct two major facilities at the Savannah River Site to process the surplus plutonium: the nation's first MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility (FFF), to be in operation by July 2007, and a Pit Disassembly and Conversion Facility, to be in operation by October 2009. Pits are the radioactive materials and other classified components at the core of nuclear weapons. But the DOE's MOX program has been plagued by escalating costs, legal challenges and delays. In February, Duke Power, the utility selected to use the MOX fuel in its McGuire and Catawba reactors, testified before a Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) proceeding that "the future use of MOX fuel at McGuire and Catawba reactors is not a certainty. Substantial uncertainties and contingencies continued to surround the program." The NRC agreed in an April 12 ruling that "the mere possibility that Duke might" in the future seek to amend its reactors' licenses to permit MOX use is "speculative by its very nature." [McGuire] The McGuire Nuclear Power Plant in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina is one of two that could be converted to burn MOX fuel (Photo courtesy NRC) "Duke Power testified under oath that its plans to use MOX fuel are speculative and highly uncertain, and NRC's ruling agreed with them," noted Dr. Edwin Lyman, scientific director and incoming president of NCI. "How, then, can Secretary Abraham credibly promise South Carolina that this plutonium will not remain indefinitely at Savannah River?" An "unknown but substantial amount" of the Rocky Flats plutonium is now considered by DOE to be unsuitable for use in MOX fuel, Lyman added. "In the wake of the cancellation of the immobilization program, DOE has no plans and no appropriate technology to dispose of this 'orphan' plutonium," Lyman said. "If Secretary Abraham knows when or if this plutonium would ultimately leave Rocky Flats and what would be done with it, he hasn't told anyone." "Given the Department's ill considered decision to kill off its immobilization program - which offered the cheapest, safest and fastest way to dispose of excess plutonium - it is highly likely that tons of Rocky Flats plutonium will be stranded at the Savannah River Site for years or even decades," Lyman concluded. Jay Reiff, a spokesperson for Governor Hodges, said the governor may consider suing the federal government to block the plutonium shipments if legislation is not passed to offer assurances that the plutonium will not remain in the state. In a letter sent to Hodges on Friday, Secretary Abraham noted that he wants to keep the controversy out of the courts to avoid involving other parties in the dispute, including groups like NCI. "Once this matter is in litigation, other parties will be entitled to try to intervene and gain status to influence current and future decisions on these issues," Abraham wrote. "Even groups who oppose the objectives or the particulars of our non-proliferation programs, for example those who oppose construction of any MOX facility, could inject themselves into the process. The result would be to turn over to the courts decisions that are integrally related to the foreign policy of the United States." Email the Environment Editor [news@ens-news.com] ***************************************************************** 57 Hodges readies to halt plutonium The State | 04/17/2002 | By SAMMY FRETWELL Staff Writer Gov. Jim Hodges and state law enforcement leaders began pre-paring Tuesday to stop federal plutonium shipments headed for South Carolina next month from a nuclear weapons complex in Colorado. The governor's preparations come amid escalating tensions between the Republican Bush administration and Democrat Hodges, who opposes plutonium shipments to the state without a legally binding agreement that it won't be stored here forever. Plutonium is a highly toxic material used for decades to make atomic weapons. Hodges didn't provide many details of how the state government would stop federal trucks laden with plutonium destined for storage at the Savannah River Site. But, in addition to a possible lawsuit, Hodges hasn't ruled out using state troopers and transport officers to delay or block the plutonium convoy. During a brief meeting open to the news media, the governor told the state Department of Public Safety to examine "safety concerns" about toxic shipments on state highways and report back to him next week. He also ordered the department to "thoroughly examine" the entrances to the SRS site. He wasn't more specific, but his concerns likely center on routes that trucks might take to reach the nuclear weapons complex outside Aiken near the Georgia border. Additionally, Hodges said S.C. transportation officials need to talk with their counterparts from neighboring states about shared concerns over the plutonium shipments. Hodges said officials in other states would need to be aware of South Carolina's plans if it tried to stop plutonium shipments at the border. Hodges' orders will update plans his office made last summer. That's when South Carolina learned plutonium could be shipped to SRS without a clear plan to remove it, Hodges has said. "Our goal is to make sure that no plutonium is shipped into South Carolina's borders without a firm agreement on how the material is going to be treated and when it is going to leave," Hodges said. "We need to look at every-thing that's available to help us in achieving our goal of protecting the public health and safety of South Carolina." Federal Energy Department spokesman Joe Davis criticized Hodges' actions Tuesday, saying the federal government wants a compromise with South Carolina. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham has offered plans to Hodges that Abraham says would ensure the plutonium doesn't stay in South Carolina indefinitely. The DOE formally notified Hodges late Monday that it would start shipping plutonium to SRS as early as May 15. The energy department still hopes to work out a compromise with the governor that satisfies his concerns, Davis said. "I think it's astonishing ‘.‘.‘. that the governor would choose to have a meeting to try to build a better roadblock, rather than work with us and the members of Congress," Davis said. "This is somewhat disappointing." Trucks full of plutonium from the Rocky Flats, Colo., site would be guarded by federal agents, officials have said. The plutonium would come in tightly packed, double-insulated containers for shipment to SRS, Davis said. The office of U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., said Tuesday the senator was working to get the plan added to the fiscal 2003 defense bill. That would ensure the plutonium would leave SRS eventually, his office said. The dispute has simmered for months over federal plans to process plutonium at SRS into fuel for commercial nuclear power plants. The excess plutonium would come from old nuclear weapons sites across the country that are being cleaned up. Arms agreements with Russia call for both countries to neutralize weapons-grade plutonium so it can't again be used for atomic bombs. One way to do that is through the mixed oxide fuel, or MOX, plants to be built at SRS. Hodges, however, says there's no guarantee the MOX plants will be built and South Carolina would be stuck with the plutonium. The Bush administration has pledged nearly $4 billion over 20 years to build the plants. But Hodges argues Bush can't say what will happen in 20 years. In the meantime, Abraham has offered to move the material out of the state if the plutonium program goes awry. Hodges wants a federal court order to make sure that happens, but Abraham has balked at the governor's plan. Tuesday's developments came as state Republican leaders criticized Hodges for failing to accept the Bush administration's offer to resolve the dispute. "What I'm puzzled about is the governor appears determined to have a confrontation," said Attorney General Charlie Condon, a GOP gubernatorial candidate who spoke Tuesday with Abraham. "The energy secretary says he will do anything to let South Carolina have a legally binding and legally enforceable agreement." Lt. Gov. Bob Peeler, also a GOP candidate for governor, and Republican House Speaker David Wilkins issued a joint statement accusing Hodges of political posturing. "The transportation of nuclear material is serious business done by serious people," the statement said. "Holding irresponsible posturing meetings for the public is not helpful." TheState.com ***************************************************************** 58 Yucca ads focus on a handful of states Las Vegas SUN April 17, 2002 By Benjamin Grove WASHINGTON -- The lobbying campaign on Yucca Mountain in the Senate has become a game of inches in which a handful of senators could decide the fate of the proposed nuclear waste repository. That narrow margin has created daily speculation among Yucca watchers and lobbyists for and against the controversial project: Which senators might be on the fence? It appears Nevada officials may focus on 10 senators in five states where Nevada leaders believe it may be worthwhile to run anti-Yucca television advertisements: Missouri, Oregon, Utah, Vermont and Wyoming. An ad, which stresses the risks of shipping waste, began running in Vermont on Tuesday. The other states may be next, a state official said. The ads are needed because of the 10 senators, only two -- Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and possibly Jean Carnahan, D-Mo. -- seem to be considering a vote against Yucca Mountain, aides and insiders said Tuesday. Senators are being heavily lobbied by both the nuclear industry, which wants the dump built, and by Nevada lawmakers and lobbyists, who have been trying to keep the dump out of the state for two decades. Congress will decide the issue in the next three months. Millions will be spent during that time trying to influence a few on-the-fence senators. In part because of the intensity of the issue and the high-pressure lobbying efforts, some senators won't say which way they're leaning. "The audience for all of these events is just 100 people," said Dan Geary of the Nevada chapter of National Environmental Trust, which helped organize anti-Yucca events nationwide. "Will they buy the view of the nuclear industry -- more accurately, will the nuclear industry be able to buy their view -- or will they stand up for their constituents and protect the tens of millions of people along the transportation routes?" Yucca supporters are turning up the heat. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has taken a pro-Yucca stance, on Tuesday urged lawmakers not to be swayed by "the barrage of negative spin by Yucca Mountain's detractors." "The scare tactics and fear mongering by Yucca Mountain's opponents may have good shock value, but they don't hide the fact that sound science has deemed the site safe and reliable," said Bruce Josten, executive vice president for government affairs. Industry lobbyists have been on Capitol Hill in high numbers, anti-Yucca activists say. "We continue to speak with as many members of the House and Senate as we can and will continue to do that into the summer," Nuclear Energy Institute spokesman Mitch Singer said. NEI has run pro-Yucca advertisements in The Washington Post in recent days and ran an advertisement in Time magazine this week that generally touts the benefits of nuclear power: "Nuclear. The Clean Air Energy." On Tuesday NEI officials held a press conference with other pro-Yucca groups and Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, a leading Yucca advocate. Barton, House Energy and Air Quality Subcommittee chairman, plans a Yucca hearing Thursday morning, and hopes to move the pending resolution to the full committee by Tuesday. Barton's strategy is to press for a full House vote by early May to give it momentum going into the Senate, spokeswoman Samantha Jordan said. Meanwhile, Nevada took to the airwaves Tuesday in Burlington, Vt., with the first 30-second anti-Yucca TV commercial running on the NBC and ABC affiliates. Environmental groups helped the state pay for air time. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., has consistently favored a Yucca repository. He still does, spokesman David Carle said. So does Vermont's independent Sen. James Jeffords, spokesman Erik Smulson said. Asked if there was a chance Jeffords could change his mind, Smulson said, "No. He's solid." In a statement released Tuesday, Jeffords said Yucca Mountain was the "safest and most viable plan offered to date for disposing of our nation's nuclear waste." Jeffords said his constituents rely on the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant for one-third of their energy and it has a 29-year-old stockpile of waste. "The alternative to Yucca Mountain would be to store spent nuclear fuel in 'dry casks' on the banks of the Connecticut River, which I believe poses serious and unacceptable environmental and safety risks," he said. Jeffords and Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., often are close allies. Reid is credited with having quietly coaxed Jeffords to drop his Republican allegiance, which tipped the balance of the Senate to 50 Democrats, 49 Republicans and the newly independent Jeffords. Reid downplays his role, but as part of the deal he offered Jeffords the chairmanship of the Environment and Public Works Committee, a position he coveted. It's not known how Reid might be using this relationship to influence Jeffords' vote. Reid spokesman Nathan Naylor would not comment, except to say Reid is hopeful the advertisement will have some effect. Naylor added that state officials would not bother to run commercials in states where the senators already were leaning against Yucca Mountain. "If you can get there through private discussions, there is no reason to take to the air," Naylor said. While a number of senators are not yet saying publicly where they will vote on Yucca, some are dropping clear signals. + In Wyoming, where waste would travel on its way to Yucca Mountain, Republican Sen. Craig Thomas has a long record of favoring the repository and has not changed his stance, spokesman Dan Kunsman said. He will continue to listen to arguments made by Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., who met with Thomas recently, Kunsman said. Republican Sen. Mike Enzi has not taken a public stance on the issue, and likely won't announce it until he casts his vote, spokesman Coy Knobel said. He plans further discussions with both Ensign and Reid. + In Utah, Republican Sen. Robert Bennett has supported Yucca Mountain in the past, but is reviewing some "new science" on the issue, spokeswoman Mary Jane Collipriest said. She could not elaborate. A spokesman for Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch was not available. Hatch has supported Yucca in past votes. + Missouri's Democratic Sen. Jean Carnahan has voiced concerns about transporting waste, but not said how she will vote. Republican Sen. Kit Bond is likely to vote in favor of the project, a spokesman said. + In Oregon, Republican Sen. Gordon Smith has not publicly stated his position. "He's still looking at the issue," spokesman Joe Sheffo said. Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden seems to be leaning "90 percent" against Yucca, said Michael Carrigan, program director for Oregon PeaceWorks, who met Tuesday with top aides for Wyden and Smith. He is concerned about transporting waste in the state among other issues, Carrigan said. Smith is a tougher sell, Carrigan said. He has voted in favor of Yucca-related legislation in recent years. Oregon activists plan a few grass-roots campaigns, but they have little money. "Money for television ads could really make a big difference, really give us a chance," Carrigan said. Nevada lawmakers and anti-Yucca activists are not giving up on anyone who might have even the slightest doubts about supporting the project. Capitol Hill was a flurry of lobbying activity Tuesday as environmental groups from around the nation flocked to a rally and then the offices of their lawmakers. Activists held 44 meetings Tuesday, mostly with Senate staffers, said Kevin Kamps of Nuclear Information and Resource Service, who helped organize the event. Activists plan to make Yucca an issue in their local news and opinion pages, several said. They plan to flood Senate offices with e-mails, and postcards that read: "Do you know where your nuclear waste is? Yucca Mountain is closer than you think. Keep nuclear waste off our roads and rails." "After today the real focus will be on the ground, in the states," Kamps said. "If they want to hear from constituents, they are going to hear from constituents." Kamps met Tuesday with the staff of Michigan's Democrat Sens. Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow. It's not clear how the two will vote, Kamps said after the meeting. The senators' aides were intrigued by the argument that waste will continue to pile up in Michigan as nuclear reactors continue to produce it, even if Yucca is constructed and begins accepting waste, he said. Waste must be stored on-site at plants for several years in cooling pools before it can be moved. "I think we made quite an impression with that," Kamps said. "They don't have a good answer for that." Few people in Missouri favor Yucca because so much waste from the East would travel the state's roads and rails, said Terri Williams, former mayor of Webster Groves, a town of 23,000 eight miles outside St. Louis. She was encouraged by her meeting Tuesday with Carnahan staffers, she said. Williams lives "11 houses away" from railroad tracks that would be used to haul waste and has been a vocal anti-Yucca activist for years. "It's not good for the people of Nevada, and it's certainly not good for the people of Missouri," she said. "Right now we're the 'Gateway to the West.' With this proposal we'll become the floodgates" to nuclear waste shipments, she said. The push for more money to pay for anti-Yucca advertising continues: Nevada has raised about $78,000 and Clark County commissioners voted Tuesday to add $1.5 million. Reid, Ensign and Gov. Kenny Guinn are planning to lead by example and donate personal money, their aides said today. Staffers would not confirm how much the politicians planned to give or when, although an announcement could come as early as today. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 59 S.C. Resists Plutonium Shipments (washingtonpost.com) State Seeks Guarantee Material Won't Stay By Eric Pianin Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, April 17, 2002; Page A03 A bitter dispute between the Bush administration and South Carolina over nuclear waste disposal broke into the open this week, as the Energy Department vowed to force the state to begin accepting cross-country shipments of plutonium next month. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham notified Gov. Jim Hodges (D) late Monday that it was "essential" to begin the shipments around May 15to meet a schedule for closing the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons facility in Colorado by 2006, as part of an agreement with Russia to simultaneously dispose of plutonium from dismantled nuclear weapons. In all, 34 metric tons of plutonium from Rocky Flats and other facilities, enough to make more than 4,200 nuclear weapons, would be reprocessed at the Energy Department's Savannah River nuclear site, near Aiken, S.C., and then sold as fuel to commercial nuclear reactors. But Hodges renewed his threat to deploy state troopers or even lie down in the middle of the road if necessary to block the shipments until he receives a legally binding guarantee that the weapons-grade plutonium will not be permanently stored in his state. The governor met yesterday with his public safety director and members of the state highway patrol and transport police to discuss the options regarding the plutonium. "Until there is a legally enforceable agreement that holds the federal government to its word, I will do everything at my disposal to ensure that plutonium does not enter South Carolina," Hodges said. Energy Department officials said yesterday that the administration has bent over backward to accommodate Hodges, meeting virtually every one of his demands -- except the legally binding guarantee, which would essentially give federal courts authority over an international agreement. Joe Davis, a department spokesman, said the government intends to press ahead with the planned shipments out of a concern for national security, adding: "Armed confrontation serves no useful purpose." The controversy underscores the growing tensions between federal authorities and the states over the handling and storage of nuclear waste and the problems associated with safely transporting it over long distances. Just as Nevada officials are disputing Energy Department claims that it can safely transport and then store vast quantities of nuclear waste beneath Yucca Mountain, Hodges and other South Carolina officials say they fear the government's plans for reprocessing the plutonium might fall through, leaving the Savannah River site stuck with piles of unwanted plutonium waste. Some state officials also say that truckloads of plutonium traveling more than 1,500 miles through seven or eight states could become targets for terrorists. Abraham said the Energy Department "has gone the extra mile" in making concessions to ease the governor's concerns -- including a pledge to limit the initial shipments this year to no more than 3.2 metric tons, a formal commitment to take the plutonium back if the reprocessing plant falls behind schedule or runs into funding trouble, and support for legislation to codify the agreement. But Hodges wants the terms of the agreement entered into an order from a U.S. district court. "The federal government is asking us to take them at their word," Hodges said. "Given their track record, that's just not good enough." Reps. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) and John M. Spratt Jr. (D-S.C.) are drafting legislation that would ensure that the plutonium would not be left in South Carolina, but there is no guarantee that Congress will act on it within the next 30 days or before the Energy Department begins the shipments. "I'm optimistic that everybody will behave in an adult fashion because the material that we're dealing with is very sensitive and failure to stay with the game plan has dire consequences," Graham said. "It would be wrong for anybody at the federal or state level not to roll up their sleeves and try to find a statutory solution because failure is unacceptable." The situation arises from a 1996 agreement in which the United States and Russia pledged to take equal amounts of plutonium out of their nuclear stockpiles in an effort to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands. A subsequent September 2000 agreement called for each side to dispose of 34 metric tons of plutonium, and the Clinton administration provisionally planned to treat the plutonium at the Savannah River site. Under the Bush administration, the plan has focused on developing a system to convert the unwanted nuclear material into a mixed oxide fuel (MOX) for use in commercial nuclear reactors. In a letter to key members of Congress, Abraham said he intends to begin shipping 76 trailer-loads of plutonium from Rocky Flats shortly after May 15, continuing through June 2003. During the administration review, Hodges had stated that South Carolina would not accept any plutonium shipments without assurances that there was a clear pathway out of his state in the event the administration eventually scraps its plans. Fearing that the Energy Department might soon start shipping plutonium to his state, Hodges threatened to mobilize the state government against it and appealed to Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge for help. Ridge refused to get involved, but Abraham subsequently entered into intense negotiations with the governor before signaling his frustration this week. "We need to move forward with our administration policy [to dispose of plutonium] so the Russians will continue to move forward with their policy," Davis said. But Jay Reiff, a spokesman for Hodges, said: "The governor has many tools at his disposal . . . and, quite frankly, we won't discuss all the options for stopping them." © 2002 The Washington Post Company ***************************************************************** 60 New ad aims to sway senators to oppose Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site - 4/17/2002 - ENN.com New ad aims to sway senators to oppose Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site Wednesday, April 17, 2002 By Mark Sherman, Associated Press WASHINGTON — Opponents of a nuclear waste dump in the Nevada desert are taking their fight to the airwaves — in Vermont. An ad, which began airing Tuesday and will run for a couple of weeks, asks viewers to call Vermont's senators, who will vote on the Yucca Mountain project this summer. Organizers chose Vermont as the first state to air the commercial because it has a strong environmental movement that often works closely with the state's political leaders. And one of Vermont's senators, Independent James Jeffords, chairs the Senate's environment committee. In choosing Vermont, however, opponents also underscored the difficulty of their task. Jeffords, Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy, and Democratic Gov. Howard Dean all support the Nevada dump. A prime reason for their backing lies in the cooling pools at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant in Vernon, Vt., where spent nuclear fuel has accumulated for 30 years. "The alternative to Yucca Mountain would be to store spent nuclear fuel in 'dry casks' on the banks of the Connecticut River, which I believe poses serious and unacceptable environmental and safety risks," Jeffords said in a statement. Dry casks are giant concrete and steel containers; most spent nuclear fuel is kept in water to cool it. Leahy spokesman David Carle said the senator still favors Yucca Mountain but wants the Bush administration to answer questions raised about transporting the waste around the country. A major thrust of the opposition is that shipping the waste from the nation's nuclear plants through more than four dozen states to Nevada runs a risk of accidents, with the potential for radioactive releases. The shipments by truck, train, and possibly barge also could be targets for terrorists, opponents say. "If we license Yucca Mountain, every day can be Sept. 11 because that is the kind of threat we're exposing our nation, our communities, our families to," said Carl Pope, president of the Sierra Club, at an anti-Yucca Mountain rally Tuesday at the foot of the Capitol. The radio commercial stresses the potential for accidents and contends that approval of Yucca Mountain would lead to "dozens of new nuclear power plants." "That's the goal of the nuclear power industry," the announcer says in the 30-second ad, paid for by environmental groups. Opponents are considering more ads but will not say where they will run. Environmental activists and members of Congress who oppose Yucca Mountain are recommending the same type of on-site storage that Jeffords criticized. The Senate vote this summer is expected to be the last legislative chance to kill plans for the repository for 77,000 tons of radioactive waste beneath a volcanic ridge 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn, under unusual rules written by Congress, rejected President Bush's recommendation of the site this month. Congress will cast the deciding vote. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., who spoke at the Capitol rally, acknowledged to reporters that opponents lack the votes to kill the project. However, several senators remain undecided, he said. The House is expected to ratify Bush's recommendation. A vote is likely in late April or early May, Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, said Tuesday at a news conference organized by Yucca Mountain supporters. "We're now coming at least to the beginning of the end," Barton said, referring to the 20 years and $7 billion the federal government has spent studying the issue. Copyright 2002, Associated Press Copyright © 2001 Environmental News Network Inc. ***************************************************************** 61 Protesters inside and outside Rio Tinto AGM tomorrow theage.com.au, Breaking News [http://www.theage.com.au] MELBOURNE, April 17 AAP|Published: Wednesday April 17, 10:05 PM Executives of mining giant Rio Tinto will be challenged to make a commitment to ending uranium mining in Kakadu at the company's annual meeting in Melbourne tomorrow. Protesters will leaflet shareholders outside the meeting at the Melbourne Convention centre, while inside sympathetic shareholders will challenge executives from the meeting floor. Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) spokeswoman Dave Sweeney told AAP the intention was to push Rio Tinto to formally scrapping its stalled Jabiluka uranium mine at Kakadu, in the Northern Territory. They also wanted it to begin redeveloping the Jabiluka site, reincorporating it into the Kakadu national park. Shareholders would not be harassed. "There is no intention, nor will there be any moves to obstruct shareholders; quite the contrary," he said. "Every formal and informal poll we have seen shows the majority of people are opposed (to the mine)." Mr Sweeney said the proposed mine had been on hold for two years and the company could have no reasonable expectation that it would get the go-ahead from the area's traditional owners, the Mirrar people. He said the company was a foundation member of an international network of mining companies, the Global Mining Initiative, aimed at improving community perceptions of mining. "We want to clearly call from the floor for Rio Tinto to act in support of what it is saying about the Global Mining Initiative." This evening the Mirrar repeated their call for the company to rehabilitate the Jabiluka site and incorporate it into the park. They re-released a statement which was read to the company's London annual meeting on April 11, saying the owners were not comforted by Rio's commitment not to develop the mine within the next decade. "It is completely unacceptable that this significant threat to Mirrar culture and Kakadu's environment would continue for such an extended period," the statement said. Tomorrow's protest is scheduled to begin at 8.30am, while the meeting begins at 9.30am. Copyright © 2002 John Fairfax Holdings Ltd. All rights ***************************************************************** 62 German protesters who blocked disputed nuclear waste shipment go on trial AP Wed Apr 17, 7:29 AM ET BERLIN - Four activists feted as heroes by Germany's anti-nuclear lobby after they held up a trainload of radioactive waste for almost a day last year went on trial Wednesday on charges that included interference with the work of public services. The four men, along with a teen-aged girl to be tried later, delayed the train carrying waste to the Gorleben waste dump in northern Germany in March last year, evading thousands of police to chain themselves overnight to steel tubes sunk into cement blocks beneath the rails. The train had to reverse to the nearest station and police and engineers spent most of the next day drilling out the concrete to free the protesters unharmed. Police and the state-owned Deutsche Bahn railroad threatened to sue them for the cost of freeing them and repairing the line. The men, aged between 30 and 36, were greeted with applause from supporters in the public gallery at the court in nearby Lueneburg, among them the fifth protester, who will be tried by a youth court in May. She was 16 at the time of the protest. Defense lawyers are seeking acquittal, arguing the charges — which also include coercion — are unclear. Environmentalist groups say the charges threaten their right to protest against the shipments and the dump. If found guilty, the defendants could face several years in jail or a hefty fine. The Gorleben dump has long been a focus for protests by vocal German anti-nuclear activists. During the last shipment there in November, thousands of demonstrators repeatedly defied some 17,500 police to stage sit-down protests along the convoy's route. Authorities earlier this month gave permission for a shipment of 12 containers of waste later this year. No date has been set. The German government and power companies last year signed an agreement to phase out nuclear power within about 20 years. Activists hope protests against waste shipments will push up the security bill and force a quicker shutdown. (swg-gm) Copyright © 2002 The Associated Press. ***************************************************************** 63 Foes of Nevada nuclear waste dump air first TV ad - April 16, 2002 CNN.com - WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Foes of President Bush's plans to put a permanent nuclear waste depository in Nevada warned in their first television advertisement Tuesday the project could be prone to accidents and a target for terrorists. The spot, designed to drum up public opposition to the project, was announced at a rally on the steps of the U.S. Capitol shortly after proponents held a news conference to say they were confident they would win needed U.S. congressional approval for the proposed facility. "After decades of confirming scientific research and billions of dollars spent, it's time for the federal government to fulfill its obligation to safely store the nation's used nuclear fuel," said Rep. Joe Barton, a Texas Republican who supports the nuclear depository and serves as chairman of a House of Representatives energy subcommittee. The House and Senate must decide within a few months whether to sustain or overturn Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn's veto of plans by the Bush administration to bury thousands of tons of nuclear waste from across the nation at Nevada's Yucca Mountain, making it the nation's permanent nuclear waste depository. Foes concede they will be unable to prevent an override by the Republican-led House, but they contend could win in the Democratic-led Senate in an uphill battle. Both chambers must vote to override to put the project back on track. Guinn has also challenged the project in court, arguing that despite government assurances to the contrary, the depository would be unsafe. Opponents also say the shipment of radioactive waste through 44 states to the facility also would pose risks. "This is not just a problem for Nevada, it is a problem for the country," Senate Democratic Whip Harry Reid of Nevada told the rally, sponsored by hundreds of state and local public interest groups. Reid announced the first of what he said would be a number of nationwide TV ads against the project. The ad campaign will begin airing Tuesday in Vermont. The 30-second spot shows trucks laden with nuclear waste and declares the proposed facility would mean such traffic "right through the towns we live in." "Nuclear accidents are inevitable, and terrorists attacks will become harder than ever to prevent," the announcer says. "Only the Senate can stop this now. Call your senators today." Guinn has said his state plans to spend around $10 million in its campaign against the project, scheduled to open in about 2010. Proponents, who include members of the nuclear industry as well as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation's biggest business group, plan to dig deep into their pockets to win approval. Both sides have hired a small army of lobbyists to make their respective cases on Capitol Hill. Copyright 2002 Reuters. ***************************************************************** 64 Statement from Gov. Guinn regarding Clark County's $1.5 million contribution to the Nevada Protection Fund From the office of Governor Kenny Guinn FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATE: April 16, 2002 CONTACT: Greg Bortolin PHONE: 775-684-5670 LAS VEGAS: 702-486-2500 CELL: 775-230-3302 FAX: 775-684-7198 EMAIL: Bortolin@gov.state.nv.us CARSON CITY - Gov. Kenny Guinn's reaction to the Clark County Commission's action today approving an additional $1.5 million for the Nevada Protection Fund for the state's legal case against the designation of Yucca Mountain as the nation's nuclear waste dump: "I would like to compliment the Clark County Commission for partnering with the state in Nevada's fight to prevent nuclear waste from traveling through our state for permanent burial in Yucca Mountain," Gov. Guinn said. "I believe we have an excellent legal case, but it will cost millions of dollars to wage this fight against the federal government, which has an unlimited budget. This money is critically important because the $3 million the Legislature approved last week is contingent upon our counties, cities and private sector matching the state allocation." Clark County previously committed $1 million to the Nevada Protection Fund. ***************************************************************** 65 Gibbons Calls on All Americans to Oppose the Yucca Mountain Project Gibbons (NV02) - Press Release - FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE April 16, 2002 Nevadan Warns of Transportation Risks and Scientific Flaws Washington, D.C.— Detailing the various problems with transporting high level nuclear waste across the entire country, U.S. Congressman Jim Gibbons (R-Nev.) called on all Americans to oppose the Yucca Mountain Project at a media event this morning in front of the U.S. Capitol. Gibbons also highlighted the inherent scientific flaws with the Yucca Mountain site itself. “No one can guarantee that the deadliest substance known to man can be safely transported past schools, hospitals, and homes,” asserted Gibbons, an ardent opponent of the Yucca Mountain site. “Accidents happen, and the Department of Energy has no plan for transporting nuclear waste. For at least the next 38 years, over 96,000 truck shipments of nuclear waste will travel along our interstates. Nearly 20,000 train shipments will go over our rails and through our tunnels. Car accidents happen too often, and a train derailment occurs, on average, every 24 hours. We should not jeopardize the lives of Americans who must travel to work or school alongside deadly nuclear waste.” “Further, evidence continues to mount that the Yucca Mountain site is simply unsound, unsafe, and unsuitable,” Gibbons added. “It is located only 17 miles from an active fault line, and water has been found to seep into the mountain. Over the years, the DOE has been forced to rely upon engineered barriers to prevent radioactive leaks. The DOE can not prove that a hole in the Nevada desert is a safer site than where the waste is already located.” “I urge all Americans to oppose the Yucca Mountain site for the safety of themselves, their families, and the environment. Yucca Mountain is not the solution to our nuclear waste problem,” concluded Gibbons. ### ***************************************************************** 66 Hodges pledges blockade Augusta Georgia: Technology: 04/17/02 Governor wants binding agreement with government Web posted Wednesday, April 17, 2002 By [bhaddock@augustachronicle.com] Staff Writer South Carolina Gov. Jim Hodges is again ready to hit the pavement to stop plutonium shipments to Savannah River Site. The governor met Tuesday with public safety and transportation officials to discuss options for blocking shipments of the radioactive metal, said Mr. Hodges' spokesman, Jay Reiff. The meeting came one day after U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham ordered the shipments to begin in no less than 30 days. Mr. Hodges has said he won't allow plutonium to enter his state until he has a legally binding agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy detailing how and when the agency would treat and remove the radioactive metal from SRS. The governor has said he would personally lie in front of the trucks if necessary. "This is really about whether South Carolina is going to allow the federal government to run roughshod over it," Mr. Reiff said. "The governor is going to use every tool at his disposal to keep plutonium out of South Carolina until there is a legally binding agreement to keep the Department of Energy at its word," Mr. Reiff said. An Energy Department official expressed surprise that the governor would take such a hard line. "It's astonishing that on the first day Gov. Hodges would hold a meeting trying to build a better roadblock rather than working with us and members of Congress on legislation to buttress the agreement we have presented to him," said Joe Davis, an agency spokesman in Washington. Tuesday's meeting included Mr. Hodges, state Public Safety Director Boykin Rose, state traffic czar Harry Stubblefield and representatives from the state's Highway Patrol and transport police, said Cortney Owings, a spokeswoman for the governor. Mr. Abraham and the governor have fought for months over the planned shipments to SRS from the Energy Department's Rocky Flats site in Colorado. The department needs to begin shipments soon to meet Rocky Flats' scheduled closure date in 2006, Mr. Abraham said. The two sides reached an agreement in principle last week only to begin fighting again over how to implement the deal. The Energy Department wants Congress to make the agreement law. Some members of South Carolina's congressional delegation, including Republican Rep. Lindsey Graham and Republican Sen. Strom Thurmond, have pledged to craft such legislation. "I think we can get the job done, and I am prepared to personally commit to fully engage in the effort," Mr. Abraham wrote Monday to Mr. Hodges. The governor is willing to support a legislative remedy, Mr. Reiff said, but Mr. Hodges would prefer that the two sides enter a binding "consent decree" in federal court. South Carolina Attorney General Charlie Condon, a political rival of Mr. Hodges, criticized the governor's stance Tuesday. "He's pursuing this confrontational strategy when it's obvious that the Energy secretary wants to reach a legally binding and legally enforceable agreement." Reach Brandon Haddock at (706) 823-3409 or [bhaddock@augustachronicle.com] ***************************************************************** 67 Japan's plutonium stockpile alarming Japan Today Japan News - Commentary - Andrew Monahan A prominent Japanese politician remarked last week that Japan could easily make thousands of nuclear weapons, drawing on the vast plutonium reserves from its civil nuclear power program. Liberal Party President Ichiro Ozawa made the remarks in a speech delivered in Fukuoka, and said that he had made similar comments to the visiting deputy chief of staff of the Liberation Army of China. "If China gets too conceited, the Japanese will get hysterical," the provocatively-inclined Ozawa said. It could encourage conservatives more aggressively nationalistic than himself to pursue a nuclear weapons program to counter the Chinese threat. He later insisted that he had merely intended to warn against excessive Chinese military buildup, and that he himself would view a nuclear arms race between the two Asian powers as "a tragedy for both countries." Ozawa is a politician who captured the public imagination in the early 1990s, both in Japan and abroad, with his book "Blueprint for a New Japan," that rightly advocated an array of forward looking political and economic policies that a decade and a faltering reformist poster-boy prime minister later, Japan still badly needs to implement. The incident, however, typifies a self-defeating tendency of some Japanese leaders, who speak menacingly about the consequences of perceived future threats, while leaving the historical fact of past unprovoked Japanese aggression largely silent. Such antics illustrate the surest way to fail in achieving a Japan divested of its former hindrances. The Chinese People's Daily ran an unusually measured, strong criticism of Ozawa's bluster, dismissing the politician as out of touch with the anti-nuclear sentiment of his own country, a sentiment that translated into electoral-power makes points concerning weapons capability moot. China and Japan's other Asian neighbors, furthermore, could be counted on, diplomatically, to nip a weapons program in the bud. The merest hint of any possible revival of Japanese militarism plays very poorly from Seoul to Kuala Lumpur, among all the countries Japan depends on for a wealth of trade and human capital. These countries still smolder with indignation over past Japanese aggressions and the continuing Japanese refusal to thoroughly acknowledge those crimes. Tellingly, the People's Daily article on Ozawa ran beside another article detailing a recent contribution of forty-one photos to the Memorial Hall of the Victims of the Nanjing Massacre, otherwise known as the Rape of Nanjing, and startlingly not known at all among some segments of the Japanese youth, kept ignorant by leaders who turn history textbooks into exercises in revisionism. The newly donated photos, like the exhibit on the Nanjing Massacre that opened last December at San Francisco's St Mary's Cathedral and then toured other U.S. cities, document exactly what politicians like Ozawa should want the young Japanese to acknowledge and vow clearly never to repeat. Blueprints bypassing any trace of this past cannot lead to a new Japan, or at least not to the strong and internationally involved Japan that Ozawa, myself, and many others would like. For the moment, though, we had better not wait for the old guard of the Japanese political elite to have a change of heart. Their shortcomings will likely pass when they themselves pass from power. Ozawa's comments, however, highlight a more pressing problem: Japan's huge plutonium stockpile. If the political life of the revisionist right in Japan seems long, consider the 24,000-year half-life of plutonium. Japan's first encounter with this extremely toxic element came in the horrific bombing of Nagasaki on Aug 9, 1945. Unlike the uranium bomb that had been dropped on Hiroshima three days earlier, the Nagasaki bomb was made with plutonium. The 6.2 kilograms used in that bomb, however, pale in comparison to the 30,000-plus kilograms that Japan has accumulated through its plutonium-based civil power production program. This plutonium could, as Ozawa noted, be used for nuclear weapons. It poses a huge threat to nuclear proliferation, as only a small quantity is necessary to produce a bomb. It is an easy target for terrorist groups, who covet it, stolen or purchased on the black market. Certainly bureaucratic inertia, more than any sinister or secretive design, keeps the uneconomical and dangerous plutonium program alive, if but barely. Nonetheless, it compromises Japan's status as a key nation in the nonproliferation regime at a crucial moment. Ozawa and others rightly recognize a Chinese nuclear buildup as undesirable, but the problem demands more than knee-jerk reactionism. Suspicions over the plutonium program already run high, and politicians here are mistaken to think that wielding such suspicions as a deterrent will work. A better approach is suggested by the former director of the Nuclear Energy Division of the Foreign Ministry, Kumao Kaneko, who has been a leading spokesperson for the move to create a EURATOM equivalent in Asia. This ASIATOM would likewise function to allay anxieties in the region over the proliferation concerns of the member nations' nuclear materials and facilities involved in civic programs, including of course Japan's. It would aim to include operable inspection and verification machinery to pave the way for the confidence necessary to establish a nuclear-free zone in the area. Constructive Japanese moves in this direction, coupled with thorough apologies for its destructive past, would assuage Asian anxiety, and substantially elevate Japan's diplomatic voice. Such a voice, if only leaders braver than Ozawa can assume it, will have the strength to challenge the silence, and offer instead the good sense to support an international system that seeks to prevent another Nanjing or Hiroshima from occurring. The writer is a Fulbright Fellow at the Institute for Peace Science in Hiroshima. April 17, 2002 ***************************************************************** 68 Campaigner cleared over arms protest NEWS.scotsman.com - Scotland - Glasgow - Wed 17 Apr 2002 A VETERAN city peace campaigner has been cleared by the courts over her part in a demonstration against nuclear weapons. Maire-Colette Wilkie, 60, from Currie, was arrested in February of last year during a blockade of the Faslane Naval Base, home base of Britain’s Trident nuclear submarine fleet. Along with hundreds of other protesters she had sat on a road in an attempt to stop vehicles entering or leaving the base. But when she appeared on a breach of the peace charge at Dumbarton Sheriff Court on Monday she was found not guilty. The sheriff upheld her claims that police witnesses against her had contradicted their own evidence. Mrs Wilkie said: "I was delighted to be acquitted. The charge is such a feeble one. I was not breaching the peace, and I will be up at Faslane again to protest against the UK’s weapons of mass destruction." Mrs Wilkie was one of 385 people arrested during the blockade. Her trial was delayed for more than a year because Mrs Wilkie, who is deaf, required special hearing facilities in the court. ©2002 scotsman.com | contact ***************************************************************** 69 Bush Predicts More Terrorism Las Vegas SUN April 17, 2002 LEXINGTON, Va.- President Bush said Wednesday the United States is still waging war "day by day, terrorist by terrorist," and warned that the spring thaw in Afghanistan could unearth pockets of al-Qaida fighters seeking to violently undercut the fledging government. Amid fresh questions about the whereabouts of terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden, the commander in chief told military school cadets, "Wherever global terrorism threatens the civilized world, we and our friends and allies will respond - and we'll respond decisively." He said pointedly that the Taliban government was "the first regime to fall" in the U.S.-led war against terrorism. Bush did not say what nation might be next, but his address to the Virginia Military Institute contained thinly veiled references to Saddam Hussein's Iraq, as well as Iran and North Korea. Billed as an update on the war against terrorism, the address came as Secretary of State Colin Powell completed his Middle East peace mission with no cease-fire. Bush cast the bloody Israeli-Palestinian standoff as another front in the global anti-terrorism conflict. "Every leader, every state must choose between two separate paths: the path of peace or the path of terror," Bush said of the region. He has used similar with-us-or-against-us language to define the broader war on terrorism, which began in October after bin Laden's Afghanistan-based al-Qaida network was linked to the Sept. 11 attacks. In the address, Bush highlighted the arrest of a top bin Laden associate, Abu Zubaydah, even as new evidence emerged that the U.S.-led coalition let bin Laden himself escape during the battle for Tora Bora late last year. "He's under lock and key and we're going to give him some company," Bush said of Zubaydah. Bush, who enjoys high public support for his wartime leadership, listed accomplishments in the first phase of the war in Afghanistan: "We're clearing minefields, we're rebuilding roads, we're improving medical care and we'll work to help Afghanistan develop an economy that can feed its people without feeding the world's demands for drugs." "We're making good progress, yet it's important for Americans to know this war will not be quick and this war will not be easy," he said. "Our progress is measured day by day, terrorist by terrorist." Citing intelligence gathered from the laptop computers, maps and drawings seized as U.S. forces scoured al-Qaida hide-outs in Afghanistan, Bush issued a warning about the potential for more attacks: "As the spring thaw comes, we expect cells of trained killers to try to regroup to murder, create mayhem and try to undermine Afghanistan's efforts to build a lasting peace." The speech broke no new ground, and Bush looked tired. The loudest applause came when the president absolved cadets of minor offenses at school. Commanders in chief traditionally grant amnesty while visiting military schools. Bush said the second phase of the war will require a global response against any nation that harbors or helps terrorists. He renewed his pledge to take action against "outlaw regimes" that traffic in weapons of mass destruction and deal with terrorists. Without a specific mention of Iraq, Iran or North Korea, Bush said: "These regimes constitute an axis of evil and the world must confront them." All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 70 Your Turn: Energy secretary ignores Nye County needs By Jeff Taguchi [online@rgj.com] SPECIAL TO THE RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL 4/16/2002 08:47 pm In a recent edition of the Reno Gazette-Journal, Spencer Abraham, secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy, states his opinion (“One safe site is best”) that the national interests would be served by transferring the nation’s highly radioactive wastes from “131 sites located near cities and waterways” to a single permanent disposal site at Yucca Mountain, in Nevada (One View, March 31). Yucca Mountain, he says, is critical for national security. The purpose of this response is not to argue the national, energy or homeland security merits of DOE’s proposal to transfer nuclear waste to one site from 131. My purpose is to raise a question not addressed by the secretary: “What about Nye County, Nevada, the single local jurisdiction to which the federal government would transfer this unwanted material? Is this transfer also good for this single local entity, whose elected government has the responsibility to protect local health, safety and welfare, and which is the only representative government whose first and overriding responsibility is to provide such protection?” The secretary does not mention the site county at all, saying only that Yucca Mountain is “located 90 miles from the nearest major population center” (Las Vegas). He doesn’t mention the “real people” (currently 37,000 and growing), all in Nye County, who live within 50 miles of Yucca Mountain. Perhaps his oversight is understandable. Many VIP visitors, such as the secretary, are whisked from Las Vegas to Yucca Mountain, a distance similar to that between Washington, D.C., and Richmond, Va. At the site, DOE officials and scientists brief them about the project. They do not see the $20 million local dairy whose contribution to the site county economy is 50 percent greater than that of the $300 million Yucca Mountain project. They do not see the nearby community that has grown at an annual rate of 17 percent over the two decades during which DOE has investigated Yucca Mountain, or hear from local elected officials about the legacy of over 50 years of nuclear weapons testing, or the meager contribution that federal activities have historically made to the economy of Nye County, or the ways in which the massive federal presence constrains local efforts to develop its economic and revenue base, or how its education, hospital, roads and emergency response systems have suffered as a result of that presence. Visitors to Yucca Mountain are provided no opportunity to understand that Yucca Mountain is not, as DOE has stated, “remote” — that southern Nye County is now, and over coming decades will increasingly become, part of the growing southern Nevada metropolitan complex. The secretary is to be commended for his concern for the communities near 131 sites where highly radioactive wastes are now stored. At the same time, we believe that the nation and those who will benefit from Yucca Mountain have a special obligation to the single local jurisdiction to which it would transfer their unwanted radioactive wastes. Nye County has not asked for these wastes, and it has its own aspirations for the future, with or without them. If the nation decides to transfer its unwanted wastes to this single county, we believe it has an obligation and responsibility to do so under conditions that address site county concerns and that assist rather than jeopardize legitimate site county objectives. Jeff Taguchi is the chairman of the Nye County Board of Commissioners. © Copyright Reno Gazette-Journal, a Gannett ***************************************************************** 71 Nuclear Consequences The Salt Lake Tribune -- Wednesday, April 17, 2002 I can't believe how complacent the American public seems to be to the idea of nuclear weapons. I guess the general consensus is that as long as it is under the all-encompassing "war on terrorism" label, that makes it perfectly reasonable. After we use our nuclear capabilities, what is to stop India from bombing Islamabad and claiming that they are just "battling terrorism?" I just hope that this administration is reasonable enough to realize the consequences of nuclear weapons. ABRAHAM FROMAN Salt Lake City © Copyright 2002, The Salt Lake Tribune ***************************************************************** 72 Livermore Lab prepped by DOE for inspection Tri-Valley Herald April 17, 2002 - 3:07:50 AM MST Team examines safety, emergency procedures By Glenn Roberts Jr. STAFF WRITER Wednesday, April 17, 2002 - -->LIVERMORE -- An advance team is visiting Lawrence Livermore Laboratory this week to prepare for a June inspection of lab safety and emergency management. The "pre-inspection team," sent by the Energy Department Office of Independent Oversight and Performance Assurance, began its three-day visit Tuesday. Today, a handful of invited community members will speak to team members during a one-hour group discussion at the lab Visitors Center. The team members are seeking feedback on lab safety and emergency management as part of a routine inspection process. Jennifer Franet of the Energy Department regional office in Oakland said the actual inspection team is scheduled to visit the lab from June 10-20. In past years, there was an evaluation of lab environment, safety and health policies and programs, and a separate evaluation of lab emergency management programs, including emergency planning, preparation, operations and response. But this year, Franet said, there will be a combined inspection of those areas. Members of Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment, a Livermore-based nuclear watchdog group, will attend the discussion today. Marylia Kelley, executive director for Tri-Valley CAREs, said this is the first time that members of the group have been invited to speak to a pre-inspection team of the Energy Department independent oversight office. "We're very happy to talk to the team ... We're planning to bring up a number of safety and security issues. I'm hoping to be able to meet with (inspectors) in June," Kelley said. In addition to meeting with community members, the advance team will also meet with individuals during 30-minute sessions, said Charlene Pugh, an Energy Department spokeswoman. The Energy Department Office of Independent Oversight and Performance Assurance, in addition to organizing the inspections, also is responsible for reviewing corrective plans and for publishing the results of the evaluations. ©1999-2001 by MediaNews Group, Inc. and ANG Newspapers ***************************************************************** 73 Magistrate bars protesters from entering DOE property KnoxNews: Local By Laura Ayo and Frank Munger, News-Sentinel staff writers April 16, 2002 A federal magistrate barred four anti-nuclear weapons protesters from entering any U.S. Department of Energy property as part of bond conditions set Monday. U.S. Magistrate C. Clifford Shirley released Mary Elinor Adams, 61, of Bisbee, Ariz.; Lena Shallit Feldmann, 26, of Lexington, Ky.; Sister Mary Dennis Lentsch, alias Elizabeth Ann Lentsch, 65, of Apison, Tenn.; and Timothy Joseph Mellen, 46, of Oak Ridge on their own recognizance, setting $1,000 unsecured bonds for each of them. The group became the first-protesters at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant ever to be charged in a federal criminal complaint with trespassing. In years past protesters have been charged with violating city and state ordinances rather than federal law. The charge stemmed from a demonstration Sunday at Y-12. More than 20 other protesters face state charges for blocking a thoroughfare outside the plant. Oak Ridge police officers said they didn't want to make the arrests Sunday because Jim Ramsey, the district attorney general in Anderson County, previously has declined to prosecute protesters. However, the demonstrators reportedly told police they would not leave the roadway until they were arrested. Police Capt. Bill Moehl said the arrests were made after Ramsey indicated he would prosecute the offenders. Ramsey was unavailable for comment Monday. Mellen, office manager of the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance, and Feldmann said they were pleased Shirley decided not to make them post $1,000 secured bonds to assure their appearance in court. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeff Theodore and Pre-Trial Services officers had recommended the secured bonds. "He (Shirley) said it was an act of trust," Feldmann said. "We're not trying to get out of or scoot out of a trial. The purpose is to get publicity." Mellen, who wore a yellow T-shirt bearing the phrase "Stop the Bombs," agreed a jury trial is something he wants. "We believe we're protesting international laws, and we want to bring that into a court of law," Mellen said. The criminal complaint, lodged by DOE Special Agent William Randall Kizer, accuses Feldmann, Mellen, Lentsch and Adams of ignoring verbal warnings as well as several "no trespassing" signs when they entered the Y-12 premises by crossing a perimeter barrier. In arguing for secured bonds, Theodore said each of the defendants have a recent history of civil disobedience and three of the four had failed to comply with resulting court orders. Adams, who said she moved to Knoxville a month ago "to prepare for this action," admitted she had "done a lot of civil disobedience," but had "always complied with the consequences." Theodore also said Lentsch, who is affiliated with the Catholic-based Sisters of the Presentation, had failed to pay a number of fines stemming from previous offenses. Lentsch's attorney, John Eldridge, said his client, who has taken a vow of poverty, had been convicted in Oak Ridge city court for trespassing at the Y-12 facility, but he said he didn't know the status of any fines she may have been assessed. The misdemeanor federal charge carries a maximum penalty of a year in prison and a $100,000 fine. Laura Ayo may be reached at 865-342-6341 or ayo@knews.com. Frank Munger may be reached at 865-482-9213 or twig1@knoxnews.infi.net. Copyright 2002 The Knoxville News-Sentinel Co. ***************************************************************** 74 Rocky Flats plan could hit impasse The Colorado Daily Archives April 16, 2002 Rocky Flats wildlife refuge timeline could be marred by legal struggle By MICHAEL A. de YOANNA/Colorado Daily Staff Writer The U.S. Department of Energy on Monday formally announced that it intends to ship radioactive weapons-grade plutonium to South Carolina's Savannah River facility by "approximately May 15." The shipments would keep plans for turning Rocky Flats into a wildlife refuge on schedule, but are contingent upon the success of efforts in Congress over the next 30 days to address the concerns of South Carolina Gov. Jim Hodges, who has so far stood in the way of shipments. Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham, who met with Hodges on Monday morning, said he hoped 3 to 5 metric tons of Rocky Flats plutonium could be delivered as planned in a first shipment. According to Joe Davis, a spokesman for Abraham, successful legislation would keep the matter out of court, where the federal government fears the Energy Department's plutonium disposition agreement could be accessed by "black market" dealers, creating national-security concerns. Reps. Mark Udall, D-Colo., Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., are all working on legislation to satisfy the South Carolina governor's concerns. Should efforts to pass legislation fail, Hodges is likely to keep standing in the way of the shipments. On Monday, through spokesman Jay Reiff, Hodges reiterated earlier threats that he would prevent shipments by ordering state troopers to stand guard on the state line. Hodges worries that plutonium will wind up being stored permanently in the facility run by Westinghouse Savannah River Corp. The site lies upstream of scenic Savannah, Ga. A scenario more likely than state troopers at the Georgia line is a battle in court - a situation Reiff conceded would likely prevent Rocky Flats from becoming an open-space reserve by the Dec. 15, 2006 target date. That has alarmed Congressman Mark Udall. "I don't believe it will serve either of our states if the DOE and South Carolina end up in a protracted legal battle in the federal courts," Udall wrote to Rep. John Spratt, D-S.C. on Monday. Spratt is the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, which has jurisdiction over such a proposal. The House committee received notice Monday that the Energy Department intends to ship the plutonium to the Savannah River site. The legislation addresses Hodges' concern that a timeline for plutonium removal be established, Lawrence Pacheco, a spokesman for Udall, said. If the facility is not producing at least 1 metric ton of converted plutonium fuel via mixed oxide, or MOX, treatment for consumption by nuclear power plants across the country by Jan. 1, 2009, the Energy Department would remove the plutonium and ship it to another site, according to Udall's proposal. A plutonium disposition agreement issued by the Energy Department calls for the construction of a $3.8 billion MOX facility to convert plutonium into nuclear fuel for use in reactors around the country. However, the MOX plant is not yet funded. In addition, there is no permanent disposal plan for the 1 metric ton of weapons-grade plutonium that cannot be processed, according to Reiff. That's another reason why Hodges has remained cautious - no other site is currently available to accept plutonium once it is delivered to the Savannah River site. "Prior to any shipments, we want an enforceable agreement," Reiff said. A shipping agreement for the Savannah River site would have to include "painful" monetary thresholds - amounts "high enough that the future governor of South Carolina would have power to get plutonium removed," Reiff said. "Once the camel's nose is under the tent, the game is up," Reiff said of shipments. Pacheco said any legislation would have to move quickly to President George W. Bush's desk in order to keep the Rocky Flats cleanup on schedule. The same point was emphasized by Abraham in his letter to Hodges. "Because no shipments can take place for 30 days and therefore no interest of South Carolina can be affected during that time, I hope that we can spend this interval working together to move legislation," Abraham wrote. Udall and Allard last year were victorious in their efforts to turn the former Rocky Flats nuclear-weapons facility into a 6,400-acre wildlife refuge by 2006, when the estimated $7 billion is scheduled to be complete. Under the law, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will take control of the open-space reserve when cleanup is finished ***************************************************************** 75 12 workers back on job after isotopes discovery Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 11:46 a.m. on Wednesday, April 17, 2002 by Paul Parson Oak Ridger staff A handful of BNFL Inc. employees are back on the job this week following the discovery earlier this month of some radioactive isotopes in a building at the Oak Ridge K-25 site where they were working. Norman Hammitt, a BNFL spokesman, said around 12 of the 120 workers who were sent home as a precautionary measure due to the discovery have reported back to work this week. "We have begun calling people back to work for selected work activities," Hammitt said this morning. "We anticipate work being available by April 26 in most areas. The workers have been informed that they will be called back when work is available in their area." Hammitt said the workers were originally sent home without pay. He should pay will resume when they return to work. Despite repeated requests, BNFL officials did not disclose to The Oak Ridger if and how the employees were being compensated for their time off. At least two sets of lab tests indicated that radioactive transuranic isotopes were present in piping and other components of Building K-31 where the workers were dealing with fissile materials, according to Hammitt. BNFL officials said no workers were injured or received any significant contamination due to the isotope discovery. Transuranic means heavier than uranium, the heaviest naturally occurring element. Transuranic isotopes, which have a half-life greater than 20 years, are the result of the Department of Energy's nuclear weapons work. "The isotopes have not been removed," Hammitt said. "We are initiating work controls for those areas where the transuranics have been detected." According to Hammitt, the isotopes will be removed as part of the ongoing cleanup work BNFL is doing in Building K-31. This facility, which totals around 1.4 million square feet, is one of three that BNFL is under contract with DOE to clean up. BNFL, the U.S. subsidiary of British Nuclear Fuels, employs around 900 workers in Oak Ridge. Based on safety-related concerns, DOE halted work at K-25 involving fissile materials, or uranium, in early November. As a result, BNFL threatened to suspend around 350 of the 900 workers involved in its three-building K-25 cleanup project. Those safety issues were reportedly remedied, and BNFL was given approval less than a month later from DOE to resume work with fissile materials operations. Paul Parson can be contacted at (865) 220-5533 or pparson@oakridger.com [pparson@oakridger.com] . [http://www.oakridger.com] All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 76 Simulations Go Nuclear InformationWeek > Innovation > Simulations Go Nuclear April 8, 2002 By George V. Hulme In what may eventually redefine the term vaporware, scientists studying nuclear weapons have detonated the first "E-bomb." As part of the National Nuclear Security Administration's Stockpile Stewardship Program, which manages the safety, security, and reliability of America's nuclear deterrent, researchers at Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore national labs detonated two of the largest computer simulations ever. The simulations ran on the world's fastest supercomputer, ASCI White, and proved it's possible to imitate a nuclear explosion. That gives scientists a way to study the nation's aging nuclear stockpile and build replacement weapon components without violating the nuclear test ban that's been in effect since 1992. Researchers prepared and revised codes for the Los Alamos, N.M., simulation for about seven months, then needed four months of constant computing by ASCI White to run it. The computation used more than 6.6 million CPU hours, which would take a high-powered home computer more than 750 years to complete. The data consumed was equivalent to 35 times the information available in the Library of Congress. The Los Alamos simulation was run remotely from Los Alamos on the Livermore White machine, explains Jim Danneskiold, a Los Alamos spokesman. "It worked almost as if [I were] sitting at the local supercomputer," he says. To gauge the success of the supercomputer modeling, scientists compared the results with the data from a previous underground detonation. The simulations tracked the physics of the actual blast: pressure, temperature, and other data. That requires a massive amount of computational power, Danneskiold says. ASCI White is capable of 12 teraflops, or 1 million computations per second. That's not fast enough for future needs, he says. Los Alamos is installing a 30-teraflop supercomputer that should be running by early next year. Such computing power isn't limited to weaponry testing. As the technology becomes more widely available, researchers will be able to use supercomputer modeling techniques to speed research in areas ranging from medicine to weather forecasting. InternetWeek | TechWebCopyright © 2002 CMP Media LLC ***************************************************************** 77 Atomic Museum Foundation trustee to speak at AMSE Thursday night Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 11:50 a.m. on Wednesday, April 17, 2002 Gerry Taylor, trustee of the National Atomic Museum Foundation, will speak on "The Manhattan Project: The Fun They Had" at 7 p.m. Thursday in the auditorium at the American Museum of Science and Energy. Admission is free for the program, which is sponsored by the Oak Ridge museum. Taylor was sent to Albuquerque, N.M., in 1944 as a U.S. Army Air Force radar and electronic specialist to work on the secret atomic bomb project. He will talk about the Manhattan Project and his personal experiences working with the secret atomic bomb project, as well as his interactions with the scientists and explosive technicians who were involved with making the first atomic bomb. Following the program, Taylor will sign copies of the book "The National Atomic Museum American Museum Resource for Nuclear Science &History," which can be purchased in the museum's Discovery Shop before or after the program. Light refreshments will be available at the book signing. [http://www.oakridger.com] All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 78 House GOP selects bills for big push =TheHill.com= Dick Morris: Advice to Bush: Don’t get stuck APRIL 17 , 2002 Working with President Bush, House Republican leaders have devised a highly ambitious legislative wish list that promises to consume their attention for the next seven weeks. It includes making permanent the Bush tax cuts enacted last year, overriding Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn’s (R) veto blocking a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, reforming the Immigration and Naturalization Service, passing the Child Custody Act, reauthorizing welfare reform, and completing a overhaul of Medicare that offers prescription drug benefits to seniors. House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert Another top priority for House Republicans is pushing into law the pension reform legislation approved on the floor last week. Also on the agenda: passage of the large Defense Department authorization bill and the supplemental spending measure for the current fiscal year, a potential vehicle to raise the debt limit. “The next seven weeks are going to be a long stretch,” Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) told reporters last week. “We have a lot of stuff on the table.” The leadership plans to take advantage of the seven-week uninterrupted work period between the Easter-Passover break and Memorial Day to do most of their heavy legislative lifting before the inevitable appropriations crunch and the midterm elections loom large on the agenda. “Virtually nothing that’s not at least set into motion [now] will make it through the legislative process by October,” said GOP Policy Committee Chairman Christopher Cox (R-Calif.). “This is a key time.” Noticeably absent from the list is Social Security reform. Republicans acknowledge they probably won’t take it up this year, despite House Democratic calls for a vote this year. House Democrats plan to file a discharge petition to move forward a bill sponsored by Rep. Robert Matsui (D-Calif.) that tracks the findings of President Bush’s Social Security Commission. “Their strategy has been … to brush it under the rug and not deal with it until next year,” said Erik Smith, a spokesman for House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.). “They know there is a political price to pay for privatizing Social Security,” he added. “What we’re trying to do is put the light of day on the whole process.” Smith added that House and Senate Democrats are working together to “better articulate our message.” “We’ve had a lot of success thus far this year [raising issues such as] Social Security, prescription drugs, education, the environment, and will continue to use those issues to draw distinctions with the Republican Party,” he added. The legislation most likely to make it to the president’s desk are those bills where “the impetus to move is pretty strong,” said Maureen Steinbruner, president of the Center for National Policy. She pointed to such legislation as reform of pension rights, immigration policy and welfare reform — each of which face a reauthorization deadline or else reflect such current crisis as the war on terrorism or the Enron collapse. “For all of these [bills], political consensus on those issues that progress really is desirable,” Steinbruner said. When you get to … tax legislation, the energy bill, prescription drugs and Medicare, she added, there are sharp ideological differences between the two parties, making it difficult to enact anything. GOP leaders have been preparing for the upcoming debate on reauthorizing the 1996 welfare reform legislation, which is expected to come to the House floor in May. Earlier this year, House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas) assembled the Helping Others Pursue Employment (HOPE) action team, a group of members and administration officials that meets every Thursday in DeLay’s office to develop both a communications plan and devise a strategy to broaden support. While Republicans appear guardedly confident they can get welfare reform to the president’s desk, the leaders aren’t so confident that their other priorities will make it there as well. Despite this week’s fanfare on making the tax cuts permanent — House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) led a town-hall style meeting advocating permanency of Bush’s tax bill Monday — the leaders acknowledge that this measure is unlikely to be enacted this year. “I’m not optimistic,” Armey said, when asked he if expects the Democratic-led Senate to take up the plan. “I think the Senate is afflicted by two things,” he scoffed. “Indifference and incompetence.” Rep. Jennifer Dunn (R-Wash.) said she sees passing Medicare reform as the greatest challenge in the next seven weeks. “It’s tough to get a bill put together on this” because of its political dynamics, she said. Dunn voiced fears that the Senate would not address much of the House-passed legislation, thereby preventing Republicans from “getting any victories.” But Republicans, she noted, are relying heavily on Bush to dislodge such key legislation as Trade Promotion Authority, now frozen in the Senate. It is up to the administration to shake this legislation loose, said Mike Franc, vice president for government relations at The Heritage Foundation. “The president has the national bully pulpit and to the extent he uses it, especially in targeted situations, he can effectively spring loose some of the bills,” he added, noting that the White House has maneuvered Senate Democrats into making it politically useful for them to bring the trade bill to a vote. He predicted the trade measure is the most likely of the House-passed bills to be enacted this year. “The question is, what would the Senate add to the package as a price of giving the president that authority?” he asked. Even if the Senate passes legislation on a range of issues that greatly differs from the House version, GOP leaders hope to hammer out the changes in conference. “My strategy would be, we’ve got another shot at it,” said House Republican Conference Chairman J.C. Watts (R-Okla.), referring to the energy bill. “Let’s get something to go to conference on.” House GOP leaders have attacked Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) for lack of action. But Steinbruner noted that much of the legislation coming out of the House takes an “all-or-nothing” approach, making compromise difficult. Although Republican leaders in the House also hope to make pass all 13 appropriations bills before the August recess, Rep. David Obey of Wisconsin, the ranking Democrat on the Appropriations panel said he isn’t setting any deadlines. ***************************************************************** 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: *****************************************************************