*****************************************************************
07/17/02 ****     RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL)       **** VOL 10.182
*****************************************************************
   RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE
*****************************************************************

                         NUCLEAR POLICY
 
1 US: What are the true costs of nuclear energy? 
2 US: 'Li'l Abner' has more than a ring of truth in current times
 
                         NUCLEAR REACTORS
 
3 US: NRC questions attitudes 
4 Nuclear plant sours Bulgaria-EU ties
5 Swedish Forestry Industry Produces the Energy of One Nuclear Reactor
6 US: Extortion charges in Palo Verde Nuclear plant case show security
 
                          NUCLEAR SAFETY
 
7 US: Homeland Security Cost Weighed 
8 US: In New Jersey, Nuclear Fears Have to Stand in Line
 
                         NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
 
9 US: Anti-Yucca group questions mailing 
10 US: Wasting nuclear waste 
11 US: UK: Radioactive fuel rod found in scrapyard
12 US: Yucca won't solve Florida's nuclear problems
13 US: N-Waste Foes Take Case to High Court
14 US: Rails need upgrade for nuclear waste - 
15 EXCITING JOBS ON NUCLEAR SHIPPING OFFERED 
16 US: N-waste activists cry foul over petition ruling
17 BNFL chief unaware of party donations in US  
18 BNFL confirms political donations in the US  
19 US: Letters: Taxpayers shouldn't pay for nuclear cleanup 
20 Losses confirm Irish stance on Sellafield - minister 
21 US: Deadline looms for EPA
22 US:  Statement of Senator Dianne Feinstein in Opposition to a 
23 Taxpayers to fund BNFL waste liabilities
24 BNFL comes clean  
25 BNFL remains bullish despite record losses of Ł2.3 billion
26 Sellafield subsidising operations with clean-up funds, says report *
27 Sellafield row continues*
28 US: Radioactive soil removal delayed in Maywood
 
                         NUCLEAR WEAPONS
 
29 Nuke sub makes Splendid sight
 
                        US DEPT. OF ENERGY
 
30 Hanford parlor tricks
31 Lab plans to revive plutonium project
32 Senate bill includes funds for IAAP health study, work 
33 INEEL turns to its nuclear past for future longevity 
34 DOE Awards $300,000 to Nevada Test Site Development Corporation
35 DOE Awards $300,000 to Savannah River Regional Diversification 
 
                          OTHER NUCLEAR
 
36 Nuclear Planet
37   WNA NEWS BRIEFING 02.29 | 10 - 16 July 2002   
*****************************************************************
*****************************************************************
                         FULL NEWS STORIES
*****************************************************************
*****************************************************************
 1 What are the true costs of nuclear energy? 

The Plain Dealer
                                       
Letters to the Editor

07/17/02
 Brian Cummins 
Cleveland 

I n response to Tom Diemer's July 10 story regarding the Senate's 
approval of Yucca Mountain to serve as the nation's nuclear trash 
dump: 

What have we created? Nuclear power begot the monster we call 
nuclear waste - a monster so horrific that it must be locked away 
from any living organism for more than 10,000 years. To make 
matters worse, our government wants to parade this monster around 
the country on the way to its resting place. 

Why is Yucca Mountain the only site the government has studied 
and targeted to serve as a nuclear waste dump? There are serious 
questions concerning the site's geological suitability, and Yucca 
Mountain is on the other side of the country from the majority of 
nuclear power plants, requiring as many as 100,000 nearly 
coast-to-coast shipments of nuclear waste over the next three 
decades. 

The government must consider forgoing the inherent risks of 
transporting nuclear waste such great distances and find 
alternative solutions or regional storage sites. 

So what is the real cost of nuclear energy? With disposal costs 
running for more than 10,000 years, plus safety-related risks, 
the cost is just about incalculable. Renewable energy looks 
pretty cheap in comparison. 

We must insist that the nuclear industry take responsibility for 
the legacy of toxic garbage it has produced. We must insist that 
our lawmakers re-examine our energy policy and recalculate the 
true cost of nuclear power. 

Brian Cummins

Cummins is a member of the Green Party of Ohio. 

Š 2002 The Plain Dealer. Used with permission. 

 Š 2002 cleveland.com. All Rights Reserved.
*****************************************************************
 2 'Li'l Abner' has more than a ring of truth in current times

Wednesday, July 17, 2002
 Copyright Š Las Vegas Review-Journal 

By CAROLYN WARDLE 
REVIEW-JOURNAL 

Is it life that imitates art? Or does art imitate life? It's hard 
to tell with Super Summer Theatre's presentation of "Li'l Abner," 
the story of a little town chosen by the U.S. government as the 
site for a nuclear bomb test because it is deemed "worthless." 

Written as political satire based on characters created by Al 
Capp, the musical comedy by Norman Panama and Melvin Frank seems 
more prophetic than improbable. 

The annual Sadie Hawkins Day race has been interrupted by the 
announcement that Dogpatch is to be evacuated. The deserving town 
has been chosen as a bombing site. Daisy Mae (Stephanie Frogley) 
is beside herself because she won't be able to catch Li'l Abner 
(Brian Gressley) and marry him. Mammy (Andee Gibbs) and Pappy 
Yokum (Ric Blomgren) are very upset, too, because they dearly 
want Daisy Mae to join their family. 

The only solution is that Sadie Hawkins Day and Dogpatch must be 
saved. Everyone's happiness depends on it. So, they all decide 
something unique and very necessary must be found to prevent the 
bombing. 

Mammy does find something. 

Director Joy DeMain emphasizes the cartoonish qualities of the 
characters while still allowing their shared humanity to speak. 
So Gibbs and Blomgren mimic the caricatured poses of Mammy and 
Pappy while still portraying a very human parental concern for 
their offspring and his intended. Frogley and Gressley create a 
warm and innocently romantic rapport. Other standouts are John 
Ivanoff as Marryin' Sam and Robert Blomgren as Earthquake McGoon. 

Happily, this production features a live band. Not enough can be 
said about the difference live music makes to a production. 

This production is a lot of fun. Pacing is good, staging is 
inventive and Louis Kavouris' choreography is delightful. 

Well, after all the shenanigans, there is a happy ending. 
Dogpatch is saved. The bombs are stopped. 

The worthless town is home to a national shrine. And it is 
against the law to deface or destroy a national monument.
 
 Copyright Š Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002
*****************************************************************
 3 NRC questions attitudes 

The Plain Dealer

07/17/02
 John Funk and John Mangels 
Plain Dealer reporters 
Oak Harbor

- While giving FirstEnergy measured praise for the extensive 
repairs it is making to its crippled Davis-Besse nuclear plant, 
federal regulators yesterday pressed the company to further 
explain how it intends to fix the attitudes of its people, from 
top executives to maintenance workers. 

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission wants to know how the company 
will change the culture that allowed rust to eat through the 
reactor lid unnoticed for six years, nearly causing the worst 
American nuclear plant accident since Three Mile Island in 1979. 

"I am still frustrated in this area," said Jack Grobe, who chairs 
the NRC panel overseeing FirstEnergy's efforts to restart its 
plant, which has been idle since Feb. 16. 

"I have great confidence in your ability" to make repairs at the 
plant, Grobe said during the committee's meeting with FirstEnergy 
and Davis-Besse officials. 

"Clearly you've made management changes. But every individual in 
the plant has to be a leader for excellence," he said, adding 
that the company has not yet explained how changes in the 
executive suite will carry over to the plant floor. 

Company officials said they are still working to refine their 
plans for improving how they operate the plant and promised to 
provide details at their next monthly meeting with the NRC. 

In recent months FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Co. has changed or 
added 17 people to Davis-Besse's top management, toured 
industry-leading nuclear plants for ideas, brought in consultants 
and set up several powerful internal review panels. 

"We are re-evaluating all our standards," said Lew Myers, the 
nuclear division's chief operating officer. "A strong management 
team is now present at Davis-Besse with proven leadership. We 
need and have to build teamwork between management, supervisors 
and line workers." 

FirstEnergy officials said they are going well beyond the minimum 
repairs needed for the NRC's approval to restart the plant. 
Besides replacing the damaged reactor lid and inspecting and 
repairing electrical and other equipment that may have been 
harmed by corrosive boric acid leaking from the reactor, workers 
are: 

Rebuilding the three giant air coolers that help lower the air 
temperature inside the containment building, which houses the 
605-degree reactor. "We could probably clean the coolers and meet 
the (NRC's) requirements. We have an opportunity to replace them 
and gain a ton of (safety) margin," said Myers. 

Upgrading insulation near the inlet to sump pumps that keep the 
reactor cool during an emergency. The NRC is concerned the inlet 
to the pump might clog in an accident. 

Cleaning and painting the steel liner of the containment 
building. 

Installing a permanent water barrier around the top of the 
reactor. When the reactor's fuel rods are periodically replaced, 
they must be kept submerged to stay cool. Workers must flood the 
area above the reactor. The improved stainless steel barrier will 
keep water from spilling down the side of the reactor. 

"A lot of the things that we are doing are not required to be 
done, but we are doing them," said Howard Bergendahl, vice 
president of FirstEnergy's nuclear division. 

Grobe questioned company officials about concerns raised in a 
Plain Dealer report Tuesday regarding the possibility that ground 
water leaking into the containment building may harbor bacteria 
that has corroded equipment at other plants. 

"That is something that has to be evaluated," said Davis-Besse 
plant manager Randy Fast. He said the company has sent water 
samples to be tested. 

Fast also said inspectors are continuing to examine a gap at the 
bottom of the containment building between the concrete floor and 
the walls of the steel liner. The concrete shrank with age, he 
said, and the company wants to determine if water has dripped 
into the gap and is corroding the liner, the final barrier for 
the radioactive reactor. 

The gap is dry to a depth of nearly four feet, but inspectors 
intend to probe all the way to the bottom and will check the 
liner's thickness. 

The NRC panel unveiled an early draft of a checklist that it and 
other senior NRC officials will use to determine whether 
Davis-Besse is fit to restart. 

The company believes it will have the reactor reassembled and all 
other repairs completed before the end of the year. But the NRC 
has the final say on whether all equipment, managerial, safety 
and licensing issues have been resolved. 

NRC panel vice chairman Bill Dean was reluctant to say whether 
Davis-Besse can meet a year-end deadline: "There is a lot of 
stuff on their plate - a lot of questions they've got to answer 
and a lot of things they've got to assure themselves of and we've 
got to assure ourselves of." 

To reach these Plain Dealer reporters: 

jfunk@plaind.com, 216-999-4138 jmangels@plaind.com, 216-999-4842 

 2002 The Plain Dealer. Used with permission. Š 2002 
cleveland.com. All Rights Reserved.
*****************************************************************
 4 Nuclear plant sours Bulgaria-EU ties

BBC News | EUROPE | 

Tuesday, 16 July, 2002, 

[The Kozloduy nuclear power plant]                      

The Kozloduy plant provides 50% of Bulgaria's electricity
 	 	 
By Paul Anderson BBC correspondent in Kozloduy, Bulgaria                                            

In the accident simulator room of the Kozloduy nuclear power 
plant, alarms ring and warning lights spring to life. 
		 			
[Control room]                                                                                  
In the last 10 years, many safety improvements have been made
 		 		 		 			  
The signs of impending nuclear nightmare - here an exercise 
involving a cooling pipe rupture - flash across the screens. 

The tough reality, as the Bulgarians explain to a team of 
visiting experts, is that the chances of it actually happening 
now are miniscule - and no more than at any other nuclear plant, 
anywhere in the world. 

In the past 10 years, they argue, they have introduced so many 
safety improvements, they have exceeded international standards. 

Safety concerns 

The Bulgarians have agreed to close down the two oldest reactors 
at the Kozloduy nuclear power station on the Danube at the end of 
this year. But the EU wants the next two reactors closed as well, 
despite the decade of safety improvements. 

"This unit is now subject to large and very important 
reorganisation program", said Sabin Sabinov, Deputy Chief 
Engineer, "In addition to improvement of safety it is a source of 
a lot of profit." 

The profit is the millions of dollars Bulgaria earns from 
exporting electricity. Kozloduy provides around 50% of country's 
power. 
	
 I want Bulgaria to be accepted in Europe. But, on an equal 
basis. Not to be forced to enter like a beggar   
   	
   Maya Hrisova, Kozloduy worker 	  

 Closure of four of its six plants, as demanded by the European 
Union for accession talks to continue, would have a catastrophic 
economic impact. "The EU has a responsibility for the safety of 
our citizens and also for the citizens of future member states," 
said the EU head of mission in Bulgaria, Dimitris Kourkoulas. 

"We don't ask the Bulgarians to close Kozloduy altogether but 
only the first four units which we believe have some designs 
problems that could not be upgraded." 

'No Chernobyl' 

But the Bulgarians now reject the pressure. They say Kozloduy is 
no Chernobyl - the nuclear plant in Ukraine, one of whose 
reactors exploded in 1986. 
		 			
[Bulgarian women] Many people will lose their jobs if the 
reactors close
 		 		 		 			  
Milko Kovachev, Minister of Energy, said: "Some people are 
judging this as blackmail because to put some conditions to 
someone coming to the club you have to the same conditions within 
a club." 

Maya Hristova may be hit badly by the closure of Kozloduy's old 
reactors. Currently, she and her husband both work there. 

She said, "I want Bulgaria to be accepted in Europe. But, on an 
equal basis. Not to be forced to enter like a beggar". 

But the slow pedal to the European Union could become even slower 
if they don't accept the terms. In Kozloduy, like everywhere 
else, living standards border on dismal. 

The people are learning what price they have to pay for 
improvement. 
	         
*****************************************************************
 5 Swedish Forestry Industry Produces the Energy of One Nuclear Reactor 

- Report 

M2 Communications ( July 17, 2002 ) 

The Swedish pulp and paper industry last year produced 4 TWh of 
energy - equivalent to the annual output of one reactor at the 
Barseback nuclear power plant.

This comes out of a report by the Swedish forest industries 
federation, in which it raises concerns regarding the Swedish 
government's decision to close the Barseback plant in favour of 
renewable energy sources.

The forest industry's energy usage last year totalled 21 TWh, 
corresponding to 40% of the total energy usage of all Swedish 
industries.

Goran Lundin, chairman of the federation, said he expects the 
government to take the forest industry into better consideration 
when it shortly starts planning alternative energy supply 
solutions.


 (C)1998-2002 M2 Communications Ltd 
*****************************************************************
 6 Extortion charges in Palo Verde Nuclear plant case show security 
measures working
 
Las Vegas SUN
 
July 16, 2002 
 
PHOENIX (AP) - Extortion charges against two California men 
regarding repair work on a $3 million cooling system part from 
the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station show plant security 
measures are working, regulators and watchdog groups said. 

Kevin Mitlo, 20, of Azusa and Tony Mitchell, 31, of Duarte were 
arrested last week and booked for investigation of extortion, 
grand theft and conspiracy. They were being held in a San 
Bernardino County jail on $2 million bail each and were scheduled 
to make their first court appearance Tuesday. 

Authorities said the suspects were supposed to provide a cost 
estimate for repairing the part, but instead billed the plant for 
work they didn't do. Watchdog groups, state officials and federal 
regulators said the public should be reassured by how the 
incident was handled, not alarmed. 

"For the people living around the plant, it's an indicator that 
there's a program out there trying to flag people who try to 
supply counterfeit parts or take shortcuts on safety," said David 
Lochbaum, a nuclear safety engineer for the Union of Concerned 
Scientists, which monitors nuclear plant operations. 

Palo Verde officials filed a complaint Thursday with the Maricopa 
County Sheriff's Department alleging that a Fontana, Calif. 
company, All Machines Specialists, failed to return a part that 
was sent to the company under a contract. 

The part was a 45,000-pound circulating water pump shaft. It 
helps send water from a condenser to a cooling tower at the plant 
in Wintersburg, 55 miles west of Phoenix, said Jim McDonald, a 
spokesman for Arizona Public Service, which operates Palo Verde. 

Palo Verde, which supplies power to 4 million customers in 
Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and California, has 12 of the pumps 
operating at all times and routinely rotates them out of service 
for maintenance and repairs, he said. 

"It's a water pump you could find in many, many industrial 
facilities," McDonald said, noting that the part is not connected 
with the plant's nuclear reactors or any security concerns. "It's 
two systems removed from any nuclear purposes." 

San Bernadino County Sheriff's investigators say the men 
misrepresented All Machines Specialists as being a large company 
with resources to do the job when in reality they didn't have any 
equipment at all. 

They received a contract to inspect the pump shaft and estimate 
the cost of repair. After receiving an estimate that was about 
five times the typical $40,000 to $45,000 for such work, the 
power plant asked to get the part back. 

Investigators said the men then billed the power plant $92,000 
for alleged work that had not been done at the time and refused 
to return it without payment. After billing Palo Verde, the men 
allegedly took the parts to a machine shop for minor cleaning and 
machining that cost in the $6,000 range. 

The men were arrested and the part was recovered at a California 
truck stop where they had arranged a meeting with representatives 
of the plant. "What you have here is somebody trying to pull a 
scam and they failed," McDonald said. 

McDonald said security measures are in place to prevent such 
problems from interrupting plant operations. 

"Nothing goes in the plant without a thorough check," he said. 
"Anything related to reactor or safety goes through an even 
higher level of scrutiny than what worked here." 

Nuclear Regulatory Agency spokesman Breck Henderson said no 
special security measures are required for routine maintenance of 
mechanical parts that are not associated with a nuclear plant's 
reactor. 

"Parts is parts," he said. "The vast majority of the parts in the 
plant, they just pump sewage water from Phoenix out there." 

Even so, the incident demonstrates the good job Palo Verde is 
doing with its security and why officials need to pay attention 
to such matters, said Scott Celley, Gov. Jane Hull's energy 
adviser. 

"Everybody has their eyes open and are being more vigilant. If 
everybody's doing that you're going to detect things," he said. 
"It's a sign that the system is working on one hand, but it's 
another attention getter for all of us to be vigilant on the 
other." 

All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
 7 Homeland Security Cost Weighed 

Washington Post, Jul 17, 2002) 
  
By Bill Miller
 Washington Post Staff Writer
 Wednesday, July 17, 2002; Page A08 

The biggest gap in President Bush's homeland security strategy is 
a lack of specifics on the cost of protecting the nation from 
terrorist strikes or who will pay the enormous tab, according to 
lawmakers, analysts and state and local officials who took their 
first look at the proposal yesterday.
 
Many credited Bush and Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge with 
crafting the first comprehensive plan to identify the country's 
most serious vulnerabilities, but raised questions about how the 
nation can shore up security at a time when the federal 
government faces a sizable budget deficit and many cities and 
states are strapped for cash.
 
The 88-page White House plan calls for new technology to identify 
nuclear, chemical and biological weapons; beefed-up security at 
the nation's ports, power plants and other potential targets; an 
overhaul of computer systems so that dozens of federal agencies 
can be linked with one another; and developing vaccines against 
bioterror attacks, among its many provisions.
 
The strategy's cornerstone is the creation of a Department of 
Homeland Security, comprised of all or part of 22 federal 
agencies, that is being debated in Congress.
 
"There is a lot here that strikes me as really sensible and laid 
out well," said Stephen E. Flynn, a retired Coast Guard commander 
who is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. "It 
does a very good job of candidly laying out the state of 
vulnerabilities. But will there be resources available? That's 
the real question."
 
"It's fine as a blueprint," agreed Ashton B. Carter, a professor 
at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government who has 
studied homeland security matters. "But it's a far cry from a 
specific investment plan. That we still await and need. None of 
this will come to pass unless the investments are made."
 
Meeting with congressional leaders at the White House yesterday, 
Bush said the strategy, the result of nine months of planning, 
"lays out clear lines of authority and clear responsibilities . . 
. for federal employees and for governors and mayors and 
community and business leaders and the American citizens." But he 
acknowledged that "there are a lot of tough decisions that will 
be made" in the months to come.
 
According to the White House, the public and private sectors are 
spending $100 billion a year on homeland security. The 
administration is seeking $38 billion for homeland security in 
the next fiscal year, much of which would be channeled to state 
and local governments.
 
The strategy does not project how long that level of spending 
would continue, or whether it must be increased to achieve the 
strategy's objectives of preventing attacks, reducing the 
nation's vulnerabilities and minimizing the damage if a terrorist 
strike occurs.
 
Karen Anderson, president of the National League of Cities and 
mayor of Minnetonka, Minn., said that many local anti-terror 
efforts could "come to a screeching halt very soon" because 
communities are running out of money.
 
"Cities are doing everything they can, but we need some relief 
for training, buying equipment, help with overtime," said Boston 
Mayor Thomas M. Menino, president of the U.S. Conference of 
Mayors.
 
In an interview yesterday, Ridge said the strategy, which Bush 
formally released yesterday, was meant to be a "road map" that 
included goals and budget priorities but no exact figures. He 
said the costs at this point remain unknown.
 
Ridge said that some of the biggest unknowns are the costs of 
strengthening cyber-security, guarding food and water supplies 
and protecting other underpinnings of the nation's 
infrastructure. Because the private sector controls as much as 90 
percent of such assets, he said, it will be called upon to foot 
much of the bill.
 
"This is the beginning strategy, not the end," Ridge said.
 
The proposed Homeland Security Department, with roughly 170,000 
employees, would oversee border and transportation security, 
emergency preparedness and defenses against weapons of mass 
destruction. The administration had been criticized for proposing 
such a department before it had developed a homeland security 
strategy.
 
A few details of the plan quickly came under attack. The American 
Civil Liberties Union objected to a proposal to create minimum 
uniform standards for driver's licenses, saying the move appeared 
to be a step toward a national identification card. Ridge said 
yesterday that was not the case, maintaining that the government 
wants to crack down on fraudulent documents.
 
Sen. Jon S. Corzine (D-N.J.) criticized a proposal to put new 
limits on the Freedom of Information Act to prevent release of 
information about the terror risks faced by various industries. 
Corzine said the proposal interferes with the public's right to 
know about hazards at chemical plants and other facilities in 
their communities.
 
For the most part, however, lawmakers praised Bush's plan but 
emphasized that it did not represent a dramatic development in 
the country's war against terrorism.
 
"There's not a lot new here, but it's a very valuable statement," 
said Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.), who chairs the 
Governmental Affairs Committee, which will write a Senate version 
of the Homeland Security Department next week.
 
Lieberman and Sen. Fred D. Thompson (Tenn.), his Republican 
counterpart on the committee, said that the strategy does not 
fully address weaknesses in the ways that intelligence is 
analyzed and shared.
 
Staff writer Juliet Eilperin contributed to this report. 


                      Š 2002 The Washington Post Company
*****************************************************************
 8 In New Jersey, Nuclear Fears Have to Stand in Line

The New York Times 

*July 17, 2002*  


*By RICHARD LEZIN JONES*

MANCHESTER TOWNSHIP, N.J., July 16 ? The talk was of terrorists 
and the possibility that they might strike 15 miles from here at 
Oyster Creek, the nation's oldest operating commercial nuclear 
plant. But as she stood in line last weekend to collect federally 
issued potassium iodide tablets ? a precaution in case of 
radiation exposure ? Marcie Ekelmann said that in the event of an 
attack, she would most likely opt for something less medicinal, 
but perhaps more soothing.

"Chances are it will be too late," she said, "so I'll just grab a 
six-pack and head out onto my boat."

Sunglasses perched atop her head, Ms. Ekelmann, 36, said she was 
collecting her handful of foil-covered pills mostly to calm the 
fears of her three children. But for herself, she waved away talk 
of any barleyfree precautions: "I think there is a lot of 
worrying over nothing."

She might well have been speaking for much of the rest of New 
Jersey. Residents of other communities in the New York region 
that are near nuclear reactors ? the Indian Point plant in New 
York and Millstone in Connecticut ? have been moved to anxiety 
and activism by fears of terrorism. But the response has been 
noticeably muted in New Jersey, which has four nuclear plants.

Distributions of potassium iodide tablets here have drawn a small 
fraction of the takers they have attracted elsewhere. The public 
debate over other steps that might be taken to prevent nuclear 
terrorism has been more subdued. And people on all sides of the 
debate say there is a perceptible nonchalance about potential 
dangers here that may be born of such factors as income levels, 
the chemical hazards common in New Jersey (insert your own toxic 
waste joke here) and this state's somewhat cynical view of 
itself.

"Bad things are part of being in New Jersey," said Frank Kasmer, 
43, a maintenance worker in an Atlantic City casino who lives 
about a mile from the Oyster Creek plant. "It's a part of being 
everywhere. People in New Jersey have that type of attitude ? you 
have to take the good with the bad."

New Jerseyans are well acquainted with the painful toll of 
terrorism: nearly one of every five people killed in the World 
Trade Center attack was from the state. There is a growing chorus 
of residents concerned about a possible nuclear disaster, and 
state emergency officials remain at their highest state of alert.

Still, the vague threat of calamity has left many here unfazed.

"Perception is always worse than reality," said Dr. Barry E. 
Truchil, a sociologist at Rider University. "If you look at what 
New Jersey has faced ? we've had anthrax scares, chemical dumping 
in Toms River, the nuclear accident at Three Mile Island, we have 
Superfund sites ? New Jersey has a lot of reality that they can 
use to put this risk into context.

"It may be a false sense of security, but it also qualifies why 
people may not react in a loud, scary way."

Their silence may also stem from the location of the state's 
reactors, in small towns in South Jersey, far from densely 
settled places like Westchester County, N.Y., where Indian Point 
sits. The Oyster Creek reactor is in Forked River, about 80 miles 
south of Manhattan on the Jersey Shore. The Hope Creek and the 
Salem 1 and 2 generators are clustered in Lower Alloways Creek 
Township, in the southwesternmost corner of the state.

"This is a small town, and I don't think they've had anything 
happen here yet," Dolores Aviles, a waitress at the Forked River 
Diner, said of the threat of terrorism. "You're closer to it in 
New York, so you're more likely to be sensitive to it."

Consider the turnout for potassium iodide pills on Saturday at 
Manchester High School, about 15 miles north of Oyster Creek ? 
one of five giveaways planned statewide during the next few 
weeks.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has offered the pills to 
everyone who lives or works within 10 miles of any of the 
nation's 74 nuclear power plants, suggesting that the tablets be 
ingested in the event of radiation exposure. Officials say the 
pills prevent cancer-causing radioactive iodines from invading 
the thyroid.

At Manchester High, residents took home only about 4,000 of the 
100,000 doses that Ocean County emergency officials had on hand. 
Three times as many pills were distributed last month during a 
similar handout in Rockland County, N.Y., across the Hudson River 
from Indian Point in Buchanan. Rockland has about half the 
population of Ocean County, but had stocked almost twice as many 
pills.

Likewise, there are more potassium iodide pills than people in 
Westport, Conn., where town officials last month bought 50,000 
doses ? a figure roughly twice the town's population. And 
Westport is not even within the 10-mile radius in which the pills 
are recommended; Indian Point is more than 40 miles away, and the 
Millstone plant is more than 60 miles away, in Waterford, Conn.

Dr. Truchil wonders if the difference in the public response can 
also be traced to economics. The median income levels in Rockland 
and Westchester Counties are at least $15,000 more than those in 
Ocean and Salem Counties.

"The higher up the social plane you are," he said, "the more 
likely you are to have the wherewithal to deal with governments, 
the more likely you are to know how to work the system," he said.

In smaller, more remote communities, a power plant can also be a 
major economic engine, a provider of jobs and money. That is the 
case in Salem County, where an antinuclear group, the Unplug 
Salem Campaign, has been urging since September that all four New 
Jersey plants be closed because of the terrorist threat and other 
potential hazards.

A similar campaign to close Indian Point has drawn hundreds of 
supporters to rallies. But the response in South Jersey has been 
disappointing, said Norm Cohen, a coordinator of the campaign.

"Salem County is unfortunately an econmically depressed area," he 
said. "People are looking at day-to-day realities like putting 
food on the table."

The group has actually been more successful in marshalling 
opposition the farther it gets from the Salem plant. But it is 
still difficult to mobilize New Jerseyans over issues of plant 
safety, advocates say.

"They don't seem concerned, but I think that people certainly 
need to be concerned," said Joe Deckelnick, an organizer with the 
New Jersey Environmental Federation, which has tried to focus 
public attention on ecological threats from the plants.

He attributes much of the indifference he has seen to a belief 
that safeguards will prevent accidents like the one in 1986 at 
the Chernobyl plant in the former Soviet Union. But he said Sept. 
11 had shown the dangers of such assumptions.

"We're not talking about people who think the way we think," he 
said of terrorists. "Certainly, if they could fly a plane into 
the trade towers, they can fly a plane into a nuclear plant."

Even if that were to occur, experts in nuclear power say that a 
large-scale catastrophe is unlikely.

"The chances are just very, very small that you'll get a large 
leaking of radiation," said Raymond W. Durante, a Washington 
consultant on nuclear power issues.

Mr. Durante, a former official with Westinghouse Electric, a 
manufacturer of nuclear plants, said the buildings designed to 
contain nuclear reactors in the United States were stronger than 
those in other countries. That, he said, would prevent major 
radiation exposure.

He conceded that in an extreme case like Sept. 11 ? heavily 
fueled jets striking power plants at sensitive points and 
starting hard-to-extinguish fires ? "we'd see a lot of serious 
damage, a lot of problems related to nonnuclear equipment."

But even then, at least four layers of protective coverings 
around the radioactive core must be destroyed before there is any 
serious danger of extreme radiation exposure, Mr. Durante said.

Emergency management officials have ordered extra security 
measures outside the state's nuclear plants since September. 
National Guard posts and loaded dump trucks in front of entrances 
at Oyster Creek are just some of the visible signs of the 
security changes. "Everything that can be done is being done," 
said Capt. William A. Nally, deputy coordinator of emergency 
management for Lacey Township, which includes Forked River.

Many people here seem content to leave the worrying to someone 
else. Even those who stopped by Manchester High for potassium 
iodide pills seemed to do so more out of curiosity than concern.

Carole Lake, 55, a software saleswoman from Bayville, a town that 
was evacuated last month because of a fire in the pinelands that 
ravaged 1,300 acres, said the blaze was a reminder that some 
preparations can be pointless. "I have plenty of bottled water 
and an evacuation route, if necessary," she said, "but it'll be 
useless if we all get vaporized anyway."

Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company 
*****************************************************************
 9 Anti-Yucca group questions mailing 

Wednesday, July 17, 2002
 Copyright Š Las Vegas Review-Journal 
Press kit arrives after vote
 
By SEAN WHALEY 
REVIEW-JOURNAL CAPITAL BUREAU 

CARSON CITY -- A press kit mailing aimed at winning Senate votes 
in the Yucca Mountain battle was received by a Citizen Alert 
official on Friday, well after the issue was a fait accompli. 

Peggy Maze Johnson, executive director of the anti-Yucca Mountain 
environmental group, questioned whether the mailing was worth the 
money, arriving as it did following the 60-39 Senate vote on July 
9. 

But Mark Brown, chief executive officer of Brown &Partners, which 
handled the mailing, said all but a handful of the 5,000 press 
kits were sent out first-class mail from April through June to 
media outlets, political leaders and others across the country. 

About 75 press kits were sent to Nevada groups just as a way of 
keeping them informed of the anti-Yucca efforts, he said. The 
first-class mailing to the Nevada groups went out on the Friday 
before the Senate vote, Brown said. 

The inexpensive, 86-page press kit was only a small part of the 
effort to win votes for Gov. Kenny Guinn's veto of the nuclear 
waste repository at Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las 
Vegas, he said. The photocopied press kits, containing newspaper 
articles and other information about the project, cost about $1 
each to mail, Brown said. 

In all, he said, the public relations firm handled about $2 
million in the anti-Yucca Mountain campaign, most of which went 
for television and media advertising purchases and for the 
grass-roots effort, including Web sites and phone banks. 

The money spent by the agency on behalf of the effort to defeat 
Yucca Mountain, which now moves to the regulatory and legal 
arenas, will be accounted for and submitted to the Agency for 
Nuclear Projects in the next several weeks, Brown said. 

Johnson said her concerns relate not only to the press kit, but 
the overall campaign against the project. 

"I know with my organization, we're in the hole," she said. "We 
participated in the cask tour, which went over budget." 

Citizen Alert was one of several groups nationally that toured 
with a replica of a nuclear waste cask to draw attention to the 
Yucca Mountain project and the dangers of transporting nuclear 
waste. 

While acknowledging it could be viewed as "Monday morning 
quarterbacking," Johnson said more effort should have been made 
to win over the 15 Senate Democrats who ultimately voted to 
override Guinn's veto. 

Brown said the state did the best it could with limited resources 
and being outspent by the Nuclear Energy Institute, the pro-Yucca 
Mountain lobby. 

 Copyright Š Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002
*****************************************************************
 10 Wasting nuclear waste 

-- The Washington Times
 
July 17, 2002

Gordon Prather
 
According to Nevada Sen. Harry Reid, allowing Yucca Mountain  
known to the cognoscenti as the Jimmy Carter Waste-of-Fuel Dump  
to open for business in 2010 will make all you SUV-driving soccer 
moms vulnerable to being run over by a "mobile Chernobyl." 

Why call it a waste-of-fuel dump? Well, it turns out that the 
tens of thousands of tons of nuclear "waste" that are to be 
trucked to Yucca Mountain is not waste at all. It's good, 
slightly spent, nuclear fuel.

You see, when a fuel element is removed from a light-water 
reactor, it is far from being "spent." It still contains at least 
two-thirds of its original zoop, which is uranium 235, plutonium 
239, or a mixture of the two. More importantly, only about 4 
percent of its zoop potential has been realized.

If that's the case, why take it out? Why not leave it in the 
reactor until it has run out of zoop? Well, the explanation is a 
bit technical, but here goes. 

Most of our nuclear power plants are designed to run on fuel that 
is about 3 percent zoop. The other 97 percent of the fuel element 
is uranium 238, which is fertile but not fissile. Fissile stuff 
will "burn," but fertile stuff won't. 

When the fuel element is removed, it has burned two-thirds of the 
original uranium zoop. But, in the process of burning, almost as 
much plutonium zoop is produced from the fertile uranium 238 as 
is burned. Hence, the total amount of zoop in the burning fuel 
decreases very slowly over the years. When the total zoop gets 
down to about 2 percent, the fuel element is removed. 

In a breeder reactor, many times more plutonium zoop is produced 
than is consumed.

Yahoo. All we have to do in order to have unlimited, 
pollution-free electrical energy for the next several centuries 
is to (a) chemically process the fuel elements we take out of our 
light-water and breeder reactors, (b) recover the uranium and 
plutonium, (c) make new fuel elements containing the proper ratio 
of zoop to fertile materials, (d) put the new fuel elements back 
in the reactor and (e) hit the start button. 

That is exactly what the rest of the world has been doing  on a 
small scale  for the past 20 years. Some of their new fuel 
contains both uranium and plutonium zoop, and is calledMOX 
(mixed-oxide) fuel. Now, it looks like we're about to help the 
Russians implement the MOX cycle on a huge scale. 

President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin just 
announced that, in order to prevent nuke proliferation, the group 
of industrialized nations is going to help the Russians get rid 
of their excess nuke-useable plutonium and uranium stocks by 
blending them down  under the watchful eyes of the International 
Atomic Energy Agency  to make reactor fuel. That is, turn 
nukesinto MOX. 

When the nuke materials are all gone, what then? You guessed it; 
the Russians start making MOX from spent fuel. Even though we'll 
be funding the MOX cycle, we can't participate. You see, 
President Carter not only killed our plutonium-producing breeder 
reactor programs, he also decreed that the plutonium remaining in 
light-water reactor spent fuelcould never be recovered. 

Mr. Carter apparently had a thing about plutonium.

So, thanks to Mr.Carter's edicts, once removed from the reactor, 
our valuable spent fuel has to be treated as "waste." A 
liability, not an asset. To be transported to the Valley of the 
Dead in Nevada and entombed, like pharaohs, for the next 10,000 
years.

Which brings us back to Nevada's Mr. Reid. He probably isn't 
really worried about you soccer moms getting run over by a mobile 
Chernobyl. Unless, of course, you're a Nevada soccer mom. He just 
doesn't want any mobile Chernobyls headed towards Nevada. 
Oklahoma? That's OK.

Nevertheless, Congress just voted to allow shipments of nuclear 
waste  the spent fuel that has been stacking up for 20 years in 
the back yards of power plants in 36 states  to begin in 2010. 
Nevada politicos and various eco-wackos have vowed to fight the 
opening of Yucca Mountain to the death, if need be. 

Congress could easily prevent those deaths. Just allow U.S. 
nuclear power plant operators to ship their spent fuel to Russia 
 rather than Nevada  for storage, reprocessing and eventual 
incorporation into MOX fuel. 

Of course, we should give back to the owners of all that spent 
fuel the billions of dollars they have been forced to ante-up for 
construction of the Jimmy Carter Waste-of-Fuel Dump in Nevada.

Gordon Prather is a former national-security adviser with several 
federal agencies, including the Defense Department. He also 
worked as a nuclear weapons specialist at Lawrence Livermore 
National Laboratory in California and Sandia National Laboratory 
in New Mexico.

All site contents copyright Š 2002 News World Communications, 
Inc.
*****************************************************************
 11 UK: Radioactive fuel rod found in scrapyard

BBC News | ENGLAND | 

Tuesday, 16 July,
2002, 

[The uranium rod]                       

The rod is at BNFL Springfields for recycling

A rod of radioactive uranium was lying at a West Midlands 
scrapyard for 12 months before it was spotted by suspicious 
workers, a report has revealed. No-one knows where the rod of 
nuclear fuel came from or how it arrived at the yard at Tamworth 
in Staffordshire, the Environment Agency has discovered. The 
material was discovered by suspicious workers. It is now being 
recycled by BNFL in Lancashire. 

 We were looking... to prepare a case for prosecution, but we 
just aren't able to identify who really is to blame for losing it        
   	
   Dr David Hudson, Environment Agency 	  

The rod, which could be as much as 40 years old, had been due to 
be scrapped. The maximum penalty for dumping radioactive waste is 
a five-year prison sentence or an unlimited fine. But in this 
case there is unlikely to be a prosecution. 

A detailed two-year investigation into how the material reached 
the yard has drawn a blank. 

The rod, which is now being stored at BNFL Springfield, near 
Preston, Lancashire, had been tampered with. 

"The rods we manufacture at Springfields have a specific unique 
identifier at the end of the road - a number that is stamped on 
the rod. 

"On this particular rod the ends have been removed at some stage, 
there that unique identifier was lost," said David Williams, of 
BNFL. 

After its two-year investigation the Environment Agency believes 
the rod was probably made at Springfield in the 1960s then sent 
to an engineering company in Newcastle. 

There the trail goes cold until it turned up at Tamworth's Mormot 
Alloys scrapmetal dealers where it was found by suspicious 
workers who dediced to check it with a Geiger counter and found 
it was radioactive in March 2000. 
		 			
[BNFL Springfields] BNFL's Springfields plant in Lancashire
 		 		 		 			  
Environment Agency spokesman Dr David Hudson said: "We are not 
able to prosecute anybody on this. 

"We were looking in the initial time of the investigation to 
prepare a case for prosecution but we just aren't able to 
identify who really is to blame for losing it." 

The rod is now to be recycled by BNFL, which cannot confirm it 
made it. "We only hold records for 30 years. It was beyond that 
period so there were no records that could state if it was one of 
ours or if it wasn't one of ours."    
        
*****************************************************************
 12 Yucca won't solve Florida's nuclear problems

 The Miami Herald | 07/17/2002 | 

Re the editorials Deep under Yucca Mountain and Yucca Mountain, 
Part I: The Herald has glimpsed relief for Florida's 
nuclear-waste worries at the sight of Yucca Mountain, rising in 
the distance above the Nevada desert.
 
But what you see is a mirage.
 
As it happens, the five nuclear reactors currently operating at 
three separate power plants in Florida will continually have 
massive amounts of nuclear waste on-site for decades, even if 
shipments to Nevada proceed.
 
That's because as older waste is hauled off, newly relicensed 
plants will continue to generate waste. The two Turkey Point 
nuclear reactors south of Miami have been relicensed by the Bush 
administration for another 20 years of operation. A similar 
request is pending for the reactors at St. Lucie that would 
extend waste generation through 2043.
 
These and other relicensings will increase in the state's waste 
stockpile from its current 1,982 to 2,023 metric tons in the next 
40 years.
 
It's civic of you to sound off now in favor of sound 
transportation plans and procedures for the Nevada-bound waste. 
But the two million Floridians living within a mile of one of the 
proposed shipment routes surely would have been better served if 
their senators had insisted on seeing such precautions set forth 
in detail before giving away their only leverage to ensure that a 
pro-nuclear bureaucracy in Washington does a thorough job in 
planning for these shipments.
 
Now it's up to a handful of federal bureaucrats to determine 
shipment routes, timing and safety plans. They are obliged to 
''consult'' as they see fit with Florida's officials, not the 
other way around. Might Florida have been better served by a 
statewide debate over the future of nuclear power in your back 
yard before Senators Graham and Nelson voted to give those 
reactors the green light to freshen Florida's nuclear-waste 
stockpiles well into mid-century?
 
Imagine what the billions spent perpetuating nuclear energy in 
Florida might have achieved for energy efficiency, or to 
harnessing the clean power potential of the most abundant 
resource in ``the sunshine state.''
 
KEN COOK 

President Environmental Working Group 

Washington, D.C.
   
*****************************************************************
 13 N-Waste Foes Take Case to High Court

The Salt Lake Tribune -- 

Wednesday, July 17, 2002   

BY GREG BURTON

   Supporters of a citizens initiative to raise taxes on 
low-level nuclear waste asked the Utah Supreme Court on Tuesday 
to overturn portions of a state law that requires such 
initiatives attract sufficient backing in 20 of Utah's 29 
counties. 

    Proponents of the Radioactive Waste Restrictions Act also 
asked Utah's highest court to order the lieutenant governor to 
place the measure -- which attracted 95,974 signatures, the most 
ever for a citizens initiative -- on the November ballot. 

    "We are simply asking the Supreme Court to restore the rule 
of one-person, one-vote as assured by the United States 
Constitution," said initiative backer Mickey Gallivan. "There is 
no doubt that Utah's multicounty requirement imposes severe and 
discriminatory restrictions on the initiative process and on a 
petitioner's constitutional rights of free speech and 
expression." 

    Although enough Utahns overall signed petitions in favor of 
the initiative, state elections officers ruled backers had 
gathered enough signatures in only 14 counties, six shy of the 
required multicounty threshold. 

    Opponents of the initiative called Tuesday's petition sour 
grapes. 

    "Initiative proponents knew the rules going into this process 
and are trying to change those rules midstream," said Hugh 
Matheson, chairman of Utahns Against Unfair Taxes, the chief 
group opposed to the initiative. "They have argued all along that 
the voice of the people should be heard. For them to be attacking 
the law that gives Utah citizens in smaller counties protection 
seems a bit hypocritical." 

    The Radioactive Waste Restrictions Act would have banned 
nuclear waste more potent than what already is allowed in Utah. 
It also would raise taxes on low-radioactivity waste and direct a 
portion of those tax revenues to public school and homeless 
programs. 

    The opposition campaign's strongest backer was Envirocare of 
Utah, a Tooele County radioactive waste landfill that would have 
felt the biggest impact from the measure. 

    In the Supreme Court petition, proponents said "Utah's 
multicounty requirement discriminates against urban voters by 
making rural voters gatekeepers who can effectively keep 
initiatives off the ballot." 

    "Sparsely populated counties made it very clear that there is 
an extreme difference of the power of one signature over 
another," Gallivan said. 

    Under law, the State Elections Office and the Supreme Court 
are required to respond to the petition by July 30. 
    
  Š Copyright 2002, The Salt Lake Tribune All material found on 
Utah OnLine is
*****************************************************************
 14 Rails need upgrade for nuclear waste - 

Wednesday, July 17, 2002               
  

The Detroit News. 

 Energy Department needs strong roadbeds for heavy trains

 By Faith Bremner and Doug Abrahms / Gannett News Service

WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department hopes to ship nuclear waste 
to Yucca Mountain, Nev., in rail cars that would be about 40 
percent heavier than today's largest rail cars, which could put 
more strain on the nation's aging railroad infrastructure. 

Coal cars weighing 143 tons are about the heaviest cargo that 
moves in nonspecialized trains over mainline track, which carries 
the bulk of the country's railroad traffic. 

The industry is moving to make that size the standard for all 
railroad cars. 

Short line and small regional railroads, which operate the lines 
that connect far-flung customers to the mainlines, say that will 
require billions of dollars in track upgrades. 

The Energy Department's preliminary plans for hauling nuclear 
waste to a proposed central repository at Yucca Mountain envision 
using rail cars weighing more than 200 tons. 

So far, neither the Energy Department nor the rail industry is 
considering whether the nation's railroad infrastructure will 
need to be further overhauled to handle these extra-heavy nuclear 
waste cars, which are still in the design stage. 

If the Senate and Nuclear Regulatory Commission approve the 
plans, about 77,000 tons of nuclear waste would be transported to 
Nevada starting as soon as 2010. 

Nearly a quarter of the nation's track is owned and maintained by 
about 550 short line and regional railroads. A study two years 
ago by the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association 
and the Federal Railroad Administration found these small 
railroads will need $6.9 billion to rehabilitate their equipment 
to handle the 143-ton cars. 

A bill that would give the railroads $350 million a year for 
three years to help upgrade tracks and bridges awaits action in 
Congress. 

The big railroads and most of the mainlines can probably handle 
the Energy Department's nuclear waste shipping campaign without 
spending a lot of money, said Allan Zarembski, an engineering 
consultant to the railroads. 

"Where the concern would be is the branch lines where the track 
is not in tip-top shape," he said. 

Frank Turner, president of the American Short Line and Regional 
Railroad Association, said his group has not looked at whether 
small railroads will have to do more upgrades later if they'll 
have to handle nuclear waste shipments. The Federal Railroad 
Association is evaluating bridges owned by the short line and 
regional railroads to see whether they can handle the 143-tons 
cars, Turner said. 

Power plants already ship some nuclear waste across the country 
on trains -- about eight shipments a year between 1979 and 1997, 
according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. 

But today's nuclear waste railcars weigh about 113 tons. 

*****************************************************************
 15 EXCITING JOBS ON NUCLEAR SHIPPING OFFERED 

The NorthWest Evening Mail
 
[http://www.cumbria-online.co.uk] 

A BARROW-based shipping fleet which carries controversial nuclear 
cargoes is offering jobs to local young people looking for 
adventure.

Pacific Nuclear Transport Ltd is majority owned by BNFL but also 
part-owned by French and Japanese nuclear firms.

Its five nuclear freighters are based at Barrow docks and ply 
back and forth from the town's Ramsden Dock nuclear terminal.

The ships are managed and crewed by Barrow firm James Fisher and 
Sons. Now the firm is recruiting more teenage navigating and 
engineering cadets to train to work on the unique fleet of double 
hulled ships.

It promises the chance of "an adventurous lifestyle with exciting 
career prospects".

The ships carry nuclear fuel and nuclear waste to and from 
Sellafield, Japan and France. 

The recruits will be trained at nautical college interspersed 
with periods at sea.

Each ship has a permanent crew of around 26 whether they are at 
sea or not. Crews can be away for four months at a time.

Two of the fleet, Pacific Teal and Pacific Pintail, have been 
armed with canon at Barrow shipyard to work in convoy and carry 
the more efficient mox reactor fuel made by BNFL at Sellafield 
and by Cogema in France.

The fuel is controversial because it contains plutonium.

The two ships are on their way back from Japan with a consignment 
of rejected mox fuel. Greenpeace and other anti nuclear 
demonstrators plan to meet the ships with a protest flotilla in 
the Irish Sea when they return next month.

The protests should come just as PNTL celebrates its 25 
anniversary of carrying nuclear fuel without accidents or 
radiation leaks.     

*****************************************************************
 16 N-waste activists cry foul over petition ruling
 
[deseretnews.com] 
Wednesday, July 17, 2002
 	   	 
By Donna Kemp Spangler

Deseret News staff writer

Proponents of a petition drive to hike the taxes on Envirocare of 
Utah cried foul when six rural county clerks ruled they were 
nearly 150 signatures short of placing the issue on the November 
ballot.

       Now the proponents are asking the Utah Supreme Court to 
rule portions of the state's initiative law unconstitutional 
because it gives rural counties a greater say than urban counties 
in whether an issue makes it onto the ballot.

       Backers of "Radioactive Waste Restrictions Act" also want 
the court to order the lieutenant governor to place the measure 
on the November ballot.

       "More than 95,000 Utahns signed the petition yet 147 
signatures are keeping the issue off the ballot," said Mickey 
Gallivan, one of the chief sponsors of the initiative. "We are 
simply asking the Supreme Court to restore the rule of 
one-person, one vote as assured by the United States 
Constitution," he added. "There is no doubt that Utah's 
multi-county requirement imposes severe and discriminatory 
restrictions on the initiative process and on a petitioner's 
constitutional rights of free speech and expression."

       Despite the fact that signature gatherers collected well 
more than the state's minimum threshold of 76,180 signatures 
necessary to put the issue before voters this November, it failed 
because of a second requirement  signatures must be collected 
from at least 10 percent of registered voters in 20 of Utah's 29 
counties. State elections officers ruled they were six counties 
short of that requirement.

       Utahns Against Unfair Taxes and Envirocare of Utah, the 
company affected by the proposed tax, led the opposition by 
campaigning in much of rural Utah to get petition signers to 
remove their names. About 2,000 to 3,000 signatures were removed 
and the petition failed.

       They say it was all part of the democratic process.

       "Initiative proponents knew the rules going into this 
process and are trying to change those rules midstream," said 
Hugh Matheson, chairman of Utahns Against Unfair Taxes. "They 
have argued all along that the voice of the people should be 
heard. For them to be attacking the law that gives Utah citizens 
in smaller counties protection seems a bit hypocritical, a 
person's voice in Carbon or Garfield County or any other rural 
county is just as important as those along the Wasatch Front."

       The initiative, had it been approved by voters this fall, 
would impose a range of taxes depending on the type of waste  
from $20 per cubic foot for the so-called Class A waste, 
primarily contaminated soil, to $150 per cubic foot for mixed 
waste shipped in containers. It would raise money for public 
schools and homeless programs.

       The petition before the Supreme Court notes that "Utah's 
multi-county requirement discriminates against urban voters by 
making rural voters gatekeepers who can effectively keep 
initiatives off the ballot."

       Under state law, petition proponents have until July 20 to 
appeal the insufficiency declaration of the State Elections 
Office and the Supreme Court is required to respond by July 30.

       The argument before the high court strikes at the heart of 
legislative intent when lawmakers passed the law allowing 
residents to collect signatures to place an issue on the ballot.

       Lawmakers several years ago increased the number of 
counties that must deliver the 10 percent signature threshold. 
GOP legislators feared residents in the heavily populated Wasatch 
Front counties, who are generally more liberal in their political 
outlooks, could support an initiative that rural Utahns, usually 
more conservative, didn't want but couldn't stop at the voting 
booth.

       Decades ago, Utah had 29 senators, one from each of 29 
counties. But in a landmark court case, the U.S. Supreme Court 
ruled that provision violated the one man, one vote guarantees in 
the Constitution because it gave sparsely populated rural 
counties a disproportionate power in the Legislature.

       Those seeking Utah Supreme Court intervention  John W. 
and Michael D. Gallivan, Linda Sue Dickey, lobbyist Frank 
Pignanelli and Utah Education Association officials Susan Kusiak 
and Phyllis Sorenson  are making the same argument.

       "The imposition of the multi-county requirement (in the 
citizens initiative process) suggests that Utahns are incapable 
of governing themselves through the initiative process," said 
Deno Himonas, an attorney at Jones Waldo Holbrook and McDonough. 
"The multi-county requirement is an unconstitutional attempt to 
make it more difficult for Utahns to place initiatives on the 
ballot."
 
E-mail: donna@desnews.com [donna@desnews.com] 

 Š 2002 Deseret News Publishing Company 
*****************************************************************
 17 BNFL chief unaware of party donations in US  
       
 [http://www.ft.com]           

By Matthew Jones  
Published: July 17 2002 5:00 | Last Updated: July 17 2002 5:00  
     
British Nuclear Fuels, the state-owned atomic energy group, 
yesterday confirmed it had donated tens of thousands of dollars 
to US politicians last year without the knowledge of its chief 
executive or British ministers.

The news follows criticism earlier this year that BNFL had spent 
a total of $1.5m (Ł1m) on political lobbying in the US since 
acquiring Westinghouse, the US nuclear services company, in 1998.

It came as the company suffered its worst losses of Ł2.3bn due to 
a rise in projected waste management costs and charges for the 
closure of its Calder Hall and Chapelcross reactors.

A BNFL official admitted that the company had donated about 
$150,000 to fund Democratic and Republican events last year as 
part of a lobbying campaign to win business in the US.

The so-called "soft money" donations, which were not directly 
used to fund political campaigns, were against company policy and 
at least one payment of $50,000 had been made without the 
knowledge of Norman Askew, chief executive.

"The donations will all be disclosed in our annual report at the 
end of the month. This is part of the way business is done in the 
US but it is not the way things are done in Britain. As soon as 
we found out about this we informed ministers and put a stop to 
it," said an official.

Mr Askew said the payments had done little to win business in the 
US, where the group was dropped from a clean-up contract two 
years ago after costs more than doubled to $15.2bn.

But he added that BNFL hoped to win work on two atomic power 
stations expected to be built in the US by 2010 and on the Yucca 
Mountain waste repository in Nevada.

"Things haven't been good for us in the US but they are now under 
control - there has been a significant turn around in the last 
two years," Mr Askew said.

BNFL's losses before tax rose from Ł66m last year to Ł2.3bn on 
turnover up slightly from Ł2.15bn to Ł2.26bn. Its underlying 
operating performance improved from a loss of Ł210m last year to 
Ł22m.

The main cause of the losses was a Ł1.9bn provision relating to 
increased waste storage costs and a Ł375m charge for the closure 
of the power stations.

Environmentalists de-scribed the losses as "staggering" and 
called for an investigation into the government's management of 
the company.

Ministers have admitted BNFL is technically insolvent and are 
preparing to transfer its Ł27.2bn of nuclear liabilities to a new 
government body responsible for civil waste management. The move 
is expected to clear the way for a partial privatisation of the 
company, though this will not take place until 2004 at the 
earliest.
  
FT.com  
*****************************************************************
 18 BNFL confirms political donations in the US  

  By Matthew Jones  
  Published: July 16 2002 11:06 | Last Updated: July 16 2002 12:32  
     
British Nuclear Fuels, the state-owned atomic energy group, on 
Tuesday confirmed it had donated tens of thousands of dollars to 
US politicians last year without the knowledge of its chief 
executive or British ministers.

The news follows criticism earlier this year that BNFL has spent 
a total of $1.5m on political lobbying in the US since acquiring 
Westinghouse, the US nuclear services company, in 1998.

The news came as the company suffered its worst ever financial 
losses of Ł2.3bn because of a rise in projected waste management 
costs and charges for the closure of its Calder Hall and 
Chapelcross reactors.

BNFL admitted that the company had donated about $150,000 to fund 
Democratic and Republican events last year as part of a lobbying 
campaign to win new business in the US.

The so-called "soft money" donations, which were not directly 
used to fund political campaigns, were against company policy and 
at least one payment of $50,000 had been made without the 
knowledge of Norman Askew, chief executive.

"The donations will all be disclosed in our annual report at the 
end of the month. This is part of the way business is done in the 
US but it is not the way things are done in Britain. As soon as 
we found out about this we informed ministers and put a stop to 
it," BNFL said .

Norman Askew, chief executive, said the payments had made little 
impact in winning new business in the US, where the group was 
unceremoniously dropped from a clean-up contract two years ago 
after costs more than doubled to $15.2bn.

But he added that it hoped to win work on two new atomic power 
stations expected to be built in the US by 2010.

BNFL's losses before tax rose from Ł66m ($104m) last year to 
Ł2.3bn on turnover up slightly from Ł2.15bn to Ł2.26bn. The 
group's underlying operating performance improved from a loss of 
Ł210m last year to Ł22m.

The main cause of the losses was a Ł1.9bn provision relating to 
increased waste storage costs and a Ł375m charge for the closure 
of the power stations.

Environmentalists described the losses as "staggering" and called 
for an investigation into the government's management of the 
company.

Ministers have admitted BNFL is technically insolvent and are 
preparing to transfer its Ł27.2bn of nuclear liabilities to a new 
government body responsible for civil waste management. The move 
is expected to clear the way for privatisation of the company 
after 2004.
  
FT.com  
*****************************************************************
 19 Letters: Taxpayers shouldn't pay for nuclear cleanup 

Letters | csmonitor.com
   	               
from the July 17, 2002 edition 	

Regarding "States' last-ditch attempts to keep out nuclear waste" 
(July 11): Several weeks ago, the Environmental Protection Agency 
announced that because of a lack of funding, 33 of our nation's 
most toxic hazardous sites will not be cleaned up. One in every 4 
Americans lives within four miles of a Superfund site and is 
consequently at greater risk of developing serious health 
complications.
 
Five years ago, the polluter-pay tax, which ensured that 
polluters pay for the cleanup of their toxic sites, expired. 
President Bush would have the tax burden shifted onto regular 
taxpayers to account for the $1 billion needed to clean up the 
sites. The last thing this country needsis another tax increase, 
especially one that's strictly to clean up someone else's toxic 
mess. Jared McCaffree Worcester, Mass.
 
  Copyright Š 2002 The Christian Science Monitor. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 20 Losses confirm Irish stance on Sellafield - minister 

Ananova - 

The Irish Government says the financial losses incurred by 
British Nuclear Fuels vindicates Dublin's view that nuclear 
energy is economically unsustainable.
 		
Environment minister Martin Cullen says the Irish government is 
demanding that reprocessing activities at the Sellafield plant in 
Cumbria be stopped.
 		
Mr Cullen says there is no justification, economic or otherwise 
for nuclear spent fuel reprocessing activities.
 		
British Nuclear Fuels has revealed that it made a record 
full-year loss of more than Ł2 billion.
 		
He adds: "Even if the economics were different, the many dangers 
and risks to public safety and health and to the environment 
associated with reprocessing significantly outweigh any possible 
economic benefits of this activity."
 		
The Irish minister says a separate report criticising BNFL's 
accounting policies reflected what the Irish Government has been 
saying for some time.
 		
He says it raises doubts about whether the company has the 
resources necessary to cover its long-term decommissioning 
liabilities.
 		 
Story filed: 15:47 Tuesday 16th July 2002
 
[http://www.orange-today.co.uk/desktop/_alert_roo.html?alert_id=4655]
 
Copyright Š 2002 Ananova Ltd Terms and 
*****************************************************************
 21 Deadline looms for EPA

Rocky Mountain News: Politics
 		 		
Coalition seeking to reverse decision on ombudsman

By M.E. Sprengelmeyer, Scripps Howard News Service
July 17, 2002

Congress is racing the calendar to try to restore independence to 
the Environmental Protection Agency's ombudsman office, Rep. 
Diana DeGette said Tuesday. 

A bipartisan coalition is building momentum in the House and 
Senate to reverse EPA Administrator Christie Todd Whitman's 
decision to merge the ombudsman's office into her agency's 
Inspector General's office earlier this year. 

At a joint hearing of two House subcommittees on Tuesday, 
lawmakers from both parties said the move left the ombudsman with 
no power to determine its budget, staffing or the cases it 
investigates, leaving a vital public watchdog "toothless." 

Bills working their ways through the House and Senate would give 
"teeth" back to the office, restoring and even expanding its 
independence directly under the administrator's office. 

DeGette, who has co-sponsored the House version, called on 
leaders from both parties to move the bill high on the agenda. 
Otherwise, efforts will lapse in a few months and lawmakers would 
have to build momentum from scratch next year. 

"Where there's a will there's a way," DeGette said. "There's such 
a bipartisan consensus here." 

Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Loveland, has co-sponsored a similar bill in 
the Senate. DeGette and Allard both have credited former 
ombudsman Robert Martin for responding to citizen concerns near 
the Shattuck superfund site in Denver, forcing the EPA to change 
plans and remove all hazardous materials. 

Martin later resigned his position to protest the administrative 
reshuffling, claiming it was an intentional move to silence him. 
He repeated his statements in testimony Tuesday. 

Some lawmakers, including Energy and Commerce Committee chairman 
Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-La., support Whitman's decision, saying she 
was trying to improve the ombudsman's resources and effectiveness 
to respond to criticism from the General Accounting Office, the 
investigative arm of Congress. 

Meanwhile Tuesday, the Inspector General's office released a 
report that found no merit to Martin's charges that Whitman had 
an illegal conflict of interest because of her husband's 
financial dealings with the company that owns the Shattuck site. 

"It's a seven-month investigation," said EPA spokesman Joe 
Martyak. "It has involved dozens of experts in criminal law, 
government ethics and investigators in general, and they all come 
back with an absolutely, simple, clear story. What the ombudsman 
had to say and allege was false and totally unfounded." 

sprengelmeyerm@shns.com or (202)408-2729. 
  
2002 Š The E.W. Scripps Co.
*****************************************************************
 22  Statement of Senator Dianne Feinstein in Opposition to a 
Resolution Making Yucca Mountain the National Repository for 
Nuclear Waste
 
July 9, 2002 

Washington, DC - The following is Senator Feinstein's statement 
in opposition to the resolution that would establish Yucca 
Mountain as the National Repository for Nuclear Waste:
 
"I am voting against this resolution. I support the development 
of a long-term strategy of storing our nation's nuclear waste. 
However, a single storage repository is not the answer to our 
nuclear waste problem. I have three major concerns about the 
proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository: 


  + First, the repository's inadequate storage capacity. + 
Second, the environmental risks of storing nuclear waste at the 
site. + And third, the risks of transporting nuclear waste to the 
site. 

Based on these factors, I believe it would be a mistake to bring 
all of our nation's nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain. Instead of a 
single repository, it would be better to develop regional nuclear 
waste permanent storage facilities which would increase overall 
storage capacity and reduce risks associated with transporting 
waste great distances.
 
Today nuclear waste is stored at 131 facilities in 39 states. 
These facilities hold nearly 47,500 metric tons of nuclear waste. 
This amount is growing rapidly. Within 40 years, it is estimated 
that our country will have generated nearly 108,000 metric tons 
of nuclear waste. The Yucca Mountain repository, as I understand 
it, is authorized to hold only 70,000 metric tons. So at our 
current rate of nuclear waste production, we will have generated 
this amount by the earliest estimated date of the repository's 
opening in 2010. In fact, we may generate the full 70,000 metric 
tons of nuclear waste before the site ever opens. 


What is the point of creating a storage site that will be filled 
to capacity before it even opens? I am very concerned about the 
environmental risks surrounding the site storage. DOE was 
supposed to recommend or reject the Yucca Mountain repository 
with geologic considerations to be the primary criteria. I find 
it disturbing that the suitability of the Yucca Mountain 
repository has instead focused on container material. 

These titanium waste containers are DOE's principal method of 
providing safety and security of the nuclear waste and repository 
and ensuring the protection of surrounding areas. Yet how can we 
be so confident in our support of such containers when we don't 
know about their longevity and durability? 

The Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, which was established 
by Congress specifically to ensure that a repository adequately 
protects the public health and the environment and it has voiced 
similar concerns. Last year, the Board termed the technical basis 
for DOE's repository performance estimates as weak to moderate.' 

As a result, the NWTRB has limited confidence in current 
performance estimates generated by the DOE's performance 
assessment model. The Board has found that high temperatures in 
the DOE's repository design increase uncertainties and decrease 
confidence in the performance of these metal storage containers. 
According to Dr. Jared Cohon, the Chairman of the Board, 'gaps in 
data and basic understanding cause important uncertainties in the 
concepts and assumptions on which the DOE's performance estimates 
are now based.' 

The half-life of these titanium storage containers is still 
unknown. Scientists have found that the first container failures 
could occur after 10,000 years, although one board member said it 
was 'hopeless' to know how long the container would last, given 
just a few years of research. Perhaps failure could occur much 
sooner. In comparison, Uranium 235, the basic fuel used by 
nuclear reactors, has a half-life of 704 million years. It would 
be simply irresponsible for us to bury such hazardous nuclear 
waste when we don't have a good idea about how long the 
containers could hold up.
 
One of the most significant problems found at the site is the 
amount of subsurface water present under Yucca Mountain. Water 
promotes corrosion and movement of radioactive material and its 
presence in a repository is a serious drawback. As the titanium 
casks erode over time, we could face a potential disaster as this 
water becomes contaminated and flows into the water table.
 
California counties have expressed their rightful concerns of 
subsurface water at Yucca Mountain surfacing at populated areas 
downstream of the site. For instance, Inyo County in California, 
with a population of 17,945, lies downstream of the proposed 
repository. Contaminated water could very easily spread from the 
repository directly into their towns and homes. Death Valley, one 
of our nation's ecological and environmental treasures, is also 
only about 20 miles from the repository. Water contaminated with 
nuclear waste could destroy one of the jewels of our National 
Park System. 

DOE refutes the idea of possible harm of water contamination 
based on the titanium casks the Department has proposed to store 
the nuclear waste. Yet in March of 2001, the NWTRB wrote to DOE 
expressing its concern that important water flow processes around 
Yucca Mountain remain poorly understood and should be further 
studied. 

The Board has criticized the lack of critical corrosion data on 
the titanium casks in the DOE's basic design concept. According 
to the Board, "we are betting the performance of the systems on 
the long term performance of these effectively new materials." 
The fact is we simply do not know enough about the durability of 
these containers and how they will hold up under intense natural 
conditions for thousands of years. 

If we are so confident of the safety and durability of these 
titanium storage casks, why not use them to store nuclear waste 
at or near existing reactor sites and thereby eliminate the risk 
of transporting these hazardous materials across the country?
 
The most immediate question that need to be answered, however, is 
how will we transport all of our nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain. 
While some argue that the repository will increase national 
security by decreasing the number of storage sites, the 
transportation of nuclear waste to the site would actually create 
thousands of moving targets.
 
In order to move the nation's nuclear waste to the Yucca Mountain 
repository, DOE would have to transport thousands of metric tons 
of nuclear waste across the country and those shipments would 
take decades just to move the waste that has already been 
generated. Keep in mind that nuclear power provides a quarter of 
our nation's energy needs and we generate hundreds of spent 
nuclear fuel rods each day and nearly 2,200 metric tons of 
nuclear waste each year. 

If we had a way to magically move all of the nuclear waste to 
Yucca Mountain, it might be safer to have a single repository. 
However, this is not the case and the transportation of nuclear 
waste poses unnecessary risks for accidents and attacks. 
According to DOE, it would take an estimated 24 years for the 
full 70,000 metric tons of nuclear waste to be transported to 
Yucca Mountain. DOE has not yet determined exactly how this 
nuclear waste would be transported. The Department estimates that 
it would take 53,000 trips by truck over the proposed 24 year 
time period. If the nuclear waste traveled by train, that 
scenario would involve an estimated 10,700 rail shipments. 

The site is scheduled to open in 2010 according to DOE's earliest 
predictions and at the end of all shipments in 2034, there would 
still be n early 42,000 metric tons of commercial nuclear waste 
stored in 63 nuclear power plant sites in 31 states and about 
7,000 metric tons of DOE generated waste stored in 4 states. This 
is why I believe a single repository is not capable of meeting 
our long-term nuclear waste storage needs.
 
Such shipments present unnecessary risks in transporting numerous 
shipments of hazardous materials from New England to Nevada. As a 
result of this plan, significant amounts of nuclear waste will 
undoubtedly move through or near populated urban areas, 
potentially jeopardizing the safety of millions of Americans. And 
commercial spent nuclear fuel from nuclear power reactors would 
comprise about 90 percent of the waste shipped to the repository. 
DOE has acknowledged that this waste is "usually intensely 
radioactive."
 
According to DOE's Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) 
more than 123 million people currently live in 703 counties 
traversed by DOE's proposed highway routes and 106 million live 
in counties along DOE's proposed rail routes.
 
Using potential truck and rail transportation routes identified 
by DOE, the Environmental Working Group, a national environmental 
research organization, estimated that waste shipments to the 
Yucca Mountain repository could pass within a mile or less of 
14,510 schools, 933 hospitals and the homes of 38.5 million 
people. When the distance from routes is expanded to five miles, 
waste shipments could pass 36,228 schools, 1,831 hospitals and 
the homes of 109 million people.
 
Preliminary routes in Southern California slate waste from the 
Diablo Canyon power plant to be shipped about 200 miles on a 
barge to Port Hueneme in suburban Ventura County just north of 
Los Angeles, which is one of California's five busiest ports and 
the nation's biggest export site for citrus. These shipments pose 
potential threats to some of the most densely populated areas in 
the U.S. 

Additionally, routine radiation from shipping casks poses a 
significant health threat to workers handling such shipments. In 
the most extreme example, motor carrier safety inspectors could 
receive cumulative doses large enough to increase their risk of 
cancer death by 10 percent or more and their risk of other 
serious health effects by 40 percent or more. 

According to the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, public 
perception of transportation risks could also result in economic 
costs to those communities along shipping routes. Even without an 
accident or incident, property values near these routes could 
decline by 3% or more. In the event of an accident, residential 
property values along shipping routes could decline between 8% 
and 34%, depending on the severity of the accident.
 
DOE takes great pride in its record of safe transportation of 
hazardous materials for over more than 30 years. During that 
time, there have been only eight accidents and none of them 
resulted in the harmful release of radioactive material. However, 
during that time period, we were moving fewer than 100 shipments 
per year.
 
Over the next 24 years, there would be an estimated 2,200 
shipments per year heading to the Yucca Mountain repository 
alone. There would also be more than 10,700 cross-country 
shipments occurring at an average of 450 per year. This enormous 
increase in shipments would greatly increase potential accidents. 
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 
457,000 large trucks were involved in traffic crashes in the year 
2000 alone. 

And according to the FEIS, a very severe highway or rail accident 
could release radioactive materials from a shipping container, 
resulting in radiation exposures to members of the public and 
latent cancer fatalities among the exposed population.
 
The July 2001 Baltimore rail tunnel fire has been cited as an 
example of the dangers of shipping nuclear waste by train. The 
fire burned for three days with temperatures as high as 1500 
degrees Fahrenheit. A single rail cask in such an accident could 
have released enough radioactive material to contaminate an area 
of 32 square miles. In addition to the harm inflicting 
surrounding populations, the FEIS estimates the clean-up costs of 
such an accident could potentially reach $10 billion. 

Failure to clean up the contamination of such an accident could 
cause 4,000 to 28,000 cancer deaths over the next 50 years. 
Between 200 and 1,400 latent cancer fatalities would be expected 
from exposures during the first year.
 
A successful terrorist attack using high energy explosives could 
result in similar destruction and damage.
 
The FEIS concedes that a high-energy explosive device could 
rupture the wall of a truck cask, leading to the dispersal of 
contaminants into the environment. A single blast resulting in 90 
percent penetration of a truck cask could lead to 300 to 1,800 
cancer fatalities. Full perforation of a cask could cause 3,000 
to 18,000 cancer fatalities. Cleanup and recovery costs of such 
an incident would exceed $10 billion. These threats should be 
taken very seriously and this assessment furthers my belief that 
the long and complex transportation of nuclear waste to a single 
site is a threat to our national security.
 
Based on these concerns, I do not believe that Yucca Mountain is 
the answer to our current nuclear waste security nor our long 
term nuclear waste storage problem. According to Dr. Victor 
Gilinsky, a former Commissioner of the Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission, Yucca Mountain is not needed to continue, or even 
expand, nuclear power use. There is ample opportunity to expand 
existing, NRC-approved, on-site storage. As he testified before 
the Senate Energy Committee: 

'The important thing now is to recognize that there is no 
immediate crisis, that there is time to do this and to do a good 
job and responsible job in terms of safety and security, and to 
do it at a much lower cost to taxpayers than Yucca Mountain 
represents.'
 
I believe a regional system will provide us with both immediate 
and long-term results. Immediate in the sense that we can explore 
expanding storage at current NRC-approved sites. Long-term in the 
sense that it will produce a system of regional permanent storage 
sites that will meet our long-term nuclear waste storage needs. 

I cannot support a site that does not have the capacity to meet 
our nation's long-term nuclear waste storage needs and poses 
serious risks to our environment and national security. A system 
of regional storage repositories could eliminate these risks and 
provide the adequate and safe permanent storage of nuclear waste 
that our country needs."
 
*****************************************************************
 23 Taxpayers to fund BNFL waste liabilities

 Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | 

David Gow, industrial editor
Wednesday July 17, 2002
The Guardian [http://www.guardian.co.uk]  		
 		
British Nuclear Fuels yesterday cleared the decks for its 
re-emergence as a privatised nuclear power operator and clean-up 
expert by taking on an extr

a Ł2bn in waste liabilities to be funded by taxpayers. 
   
Announcing record losses of Ł2.3bn after an operating profit of 
Ł22m, BNFL pressed the government for early legislation to set up 
the proposed new liabilities management authority, or LMA, that 
will take over more than Ł40bn of liabilities on its sites. 

As the company pressed for legislation governing the LMA to be 
announced in the next session of parliament, it emerged that the 
group's two US units, Westinghouse and BNFL Inc, had been paying 
hundreds of thousands of dollars to US political parties. Norman 
Askew, the chief executive, said both he and his board had been 
unaware of these controversial payments until recently. 

The state-owned company, which admitted some Ł100,000 had been 
paid in US political donations last year, said the payments had 
now been stopped. BNFL wants legislation to be announced in the 
next session of parliament and to be enacted preferably by the 
autumn of 2003 or April 2004 at the latest. 

The LMA "enables the rest of the company to be put into a very 
competitive and commercial position," said chairman Hugh Collum, 
alluding to plans for a partial privatisation which he believes 
will now take place in 2006. 

"The establishment of the LMA will liberate the company," he says 
in BNFL's annual report, which is viewed by anti-nuclear 
campaigners as a sustained lobby for a dozen new nuclear power 
stations. The report is due to be published later this month. 

BNFL's loss last year was swollen by Ł375m of provisions for the 
early closure of two Magnox power stations, Calder Hall and 
Chapelcross. Its generating business lost a further Ł160m and is 
likely to lose even more in the current year when reduced output 
at the Thorp reprocessing plant could also depress earnings. 

"We are technically insolvent," Mr Askew conceded as he reported 
that BNFL's net asset deficit is now Ł1.84bn. But the group can 
carry on trading as it has Ł1bn in cash and a further Ł9bn in 
guarantees from the government to meet its net share (Ł12.8bn) of 
liabilities. 

"We have run out of money to discharge these liabilities for many 
years to come," he said. "We rely on the secretary of state's 
statement that when the LMA comes in, this will reconstruct our 
balance-sheet." BNFL will transfer about Ł20bn in liabilities to 
the LMA. 

The liabilities were swollen by BNFL's decision to change the 
management of historic nuclear waste at its sites, primarily 
Sellafield. Mr Askew said these liabilities, dating back to the 
50s, were mostly waste from the UK's original atomic bomb 
programme and early Magnox reactors. 

The waste was originally due to be stored in a repository by 
waste management body Nirex, but its plans have been abandoned. 
"We cannot wait any longer and need to put it in a safe and 
passive form," Mr Askew said, pointing to the need for new 
facilities. 

The waste is likely to be encapsulated in concrete and stored in 
stainless steel drums. But Pete Roche of Greenpeace said: "The 
real agenda is to use the LMA to give them the freedom to go off 
and build more nuclear reactors and create more waste when they 
don't know how to handle it." 

Mr Askew said: "This has nothing to do with nuclear new-build as 
today's plants are built to deal with decommissioning." BNFL is 
pressing ministers to adopt its modern Westinghouse-designed 
reactors for the period from around 2015, when new power stations 
will have to be built. 
	
Useful links British Nuclear Fuels Ltd 
[http://www.bnfl.co.uk/website.nsf/default.htm] Campaign for 
Nuclear Disarmament [http://www.cnduk.org/] HSE nuclear glossary 
[http://www.hse.gov.uk/nsd/ilrwglos.htm] UK atomic energy 
authority [http://www.ukaea.org.uk/] National Radiological 
Protection Board [http://www.nrpb.org.uk/] World Nuclear 
Association [http://www.uilondon.org/] 

[UP] 

Guardian Unlimited Š Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002
*****************************************************************
 24 BNFL comes clean  

Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | 

City diary
 	 
Richard Adams
Wednesday July 17, 2002
The Guardian [http://www.guardian.co.uk]  		
 		
ˇ After a series of leaks from British Nuclear Fuels (not the 
life-threatening kind, thank goodness), the company yesterday 
came clean about the Ł2.3bn loss on its accounts for last year. 

This was the second big figure regarding BNFL in two days - the 
first, issued at a quiet time, was the news that BNFL chairman 
Hugh Collum was to get a 10% pay rise. While the rest of the 
world was contemplating the comprehensive spending review on 
Monday, trade and industry secretary Patricia Hewitt announced 
that Collum's fee for his part-time job was to rise from Ł150,000 
to Ł165,000 with his appointment extended for another two years. 

It must be a taxing job to require such an increase, especially 
after a record deficit, but Collum manages to combine it with 
non-executive posts on the boards of Safeway, Celltech and 
Whitehead Mann. He was of course brought in to prepare BNFL for 
impending privatisation - but now we learn that's been put off 
until 2006 at the earliest. 

ˇ Gordon Brown seemed below par on Monday, introducing the 
comprehensive spending review without his usual machine gun 
delivery. Maybe it's the state of the financial markets - it 
seems Gordon recently planned to give a big speech on his fellow 
Kirkcaldy native Adam Smith, recasting the father of modern 
economics as an early New Labour guru, rather than a laissez 
faire Thatcherite. The market meltdown appears to have put him 
off for the time being. 

ˇ What is it about the DTI's press office? Not so long ago it had 
poor Patricia Hewitt talking of manufacturing's "death throws". 
Then Brian Wilson (the energy minister, not the Beach Boy) 
mentioned a place known to the DTI as "the Isle of White". 

By yesterday, competition minister Melanie Johnson was announcing 
plans to modernise company law, replacing a legal framework 
"rooted in the Victorian ear". Assuming the Victorian ear had 
little influence on business legislation, it's time the DTI got 
some help. Does anyone out there have a spare dictionary that 
they'd like to donate? 

ˇ With the stock market sinking like a lead balloon and 
capitalism in crisis (Financial Times), things seem a little 
gloomy. To cheer everyone up, here is a true story as told to me 
by a man in a pub, who heard it from his brother. So it must be 
true. 

A German merchant seaman has been hauled up before a local 
magistrate in a UK port for being drunk and disorderly. But the 
sailor doesn't speak English, so the magistrate asks if there's 
anyone in the court who can speak German. A punter in the public 
gallery jumps up and says "I can," so he is brought down and 
sworn in as an interpreter. "Right," says the magistrate, "ask 
him his name". The punter turns to the sailor and shouts in an 
exaggerated accent: "Vot isss your name!" Naturally, the punter 
is fined for contempt. 

ˇ Hats off to the Wall Street Journal for tracking down an 
88-year-old accountant named Al Bows, who was hired by the actual 
Arthur Andersen back in 1935 to join his fledgling firm. 

Al had no doubts what the original Arthur would have thought 
about the firm's recent managers: "He would be disgusted with 
what these guys did to his company." 

ˇ It's a very special day today - or so it says here - since it's 
the 100th anniversary of the invention of air conditioning. Yes, 
on July 17 1902, Dr Willis Carrier invented the modern aircon - 
and the corporation that bears his name is still going, albeit 
now owned by United Technologies Corporation (which also owns 
Pratt & Whitney, the aero engine maker). 

Air conditioning has of course made life bearable in the world's 
hotter climates. Who knows? Sometime during the next 100 years we 
might get some in the Guardian office. 

richard.adams@guardian.co.uk [richard.adams@guardian.co.uk] 

[UP] 

Guardian Unlimited Š Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002
*****************************************************************
 25 BNFL remains bullish despite record losses of Ł2.3 billion

Scotsman.com <http://www.scotsman.com/>

*Wednesday, 17th July 2002* 

/Brian Gorman/

Bgorman@scotsman.com <mailto:Bgorman@scotsman.com?subject=BNFL 
remains bullish despite record losses of Ł2.3 billion>

BRITISH Nuclear Fuels reported record losses of Ł2.3 billion but 
said its operating performance had improved.

The record losses were due to the company?s liabilities for 
decommissioning its nuclear sites as well as the early closure of 
two Magnox power stations - Calder Hall in Cumbria and 
Chapelcross in Dumfries, where it employs 300 people.

Chairman Hugh Collum said it had been a "landmark year" for the 
company, which had achieved an underlying profit before tax and 
exceptional items of Ł22 million.

Confirmation of the feared losses came amid news that the company 
has made payments of nearly Ł200,000 over the last four years to 
US political parties, as part of a lobbying exercise.

A spokesman said yesterday: "Some of our US subsidiaries had been 
in the habit of making these payments before we took them over. 
We didn?t know it was going on. We?ve put a stop to it. The 
amounts weren?t great."

BNFL donated Ł109,000 to both the Republican and Democratic 
parties, the two main political forces in the US, last year 
alone.

But Collum said no further donations will be made because the 
company had decided it was "not the best way" to do business. He 
denied reports that the donations had been hidden from the 
government and insisted ministers had been told.

But Friends of the Earth called for an investigation into the 
government?s management of the company.

The group?s nuclear campaigner, Roger Higman, said the scale of 
the losses was "staggering", adding: "They undermine the fact 
that nuclear power is completely uneconomic."

BNFL said in its final results for the year ended 31 March that 
its underlying performance had "significantly improved" in all 
businesses, while safety and environmental performance targets 
had been met.

The government?s recent decision to transfer BNFL?s 
decommissioning liabilities to a new Liabilities Management 
Authority would bring greater commercial and competitive focus, 
said the company.

Collum praised the Ł22 million pre-tax profit, which compared 
with a Ł210 million loss in the previous year.

"This has been a landmark year for BNFL during which significant 
decisions have been made against a backdrop of substantial 
achievements," said Collum, who was this week awarded a Ł15,000 
per year pay rise, taking his salary to Ł165,000.

BNFL?s chief executive, Norman Askew, said this was a time of 
"major opportunity" for the company, which runs the giant 
Sellafield plant in Cumbria.

"Building on the hard work and achievements of the past two 
years, BNFL is now taking shape, having regard to the highest 
safety and environmental standards."

The group?s turnover increased by 5 per cent over the year to 
Ł2.26 billion, mainly because of increased business at the 
Sellafield site.

BNFL said its pre-tax profit of Ł22 million was modest compared 
to its turnover, but represented a "major turnaround" from the 
previous year?s substantial losses.

But Friends of the Earth said the losses would be a setback for 
government ministers wanting a new generation of nuclear plants.

 Š2002 scotsman.com <http://www.scotsman.com> | contact 
*****************************************************************
 26 Sellafield subsidising operations with clean-up funds, says report *

online.ie home </>

 /The Irish Examiner 17 Jul 2002/

*By Fionnán Sheahan, Political Reporter*

BRITISH Nuclear Fuels, the company which runs Sellafield, was 
accused yesterday of using British Government grants for 
environmental clean-ups to subsidise its day-to-day running 
costs. The claim comes as the company announced record losses of 
3.1 billion. The massive losses for the State-owned nuclear giant 
coincided with a report by a nuclear analyst saying BNFL has been 
re-directing money from a fund established to deal with its 
liabilities.

Commissioned by Green Party MEP Nuala Ahern, the examination of 
BNFL's reports and accounts, written by independent expert Mike 
Sadnicki, also claims the company is losing money on the THORP 
reprocessing plant at Sellafield.

The findings of the Sadnicki report should be investigated by the 
British National Audit Authority, according to Ms Ahern. The MEP 
is also complaining to the European Commission that the British 
Government is effectively subsidising the running costs of the 
company, in contravention of EU regulations.

"The main finding of this report is they were apparently using 
money for waste management and clean-up for current operations," 
she said.

The Sadnicki report also says BNFL has paid over the odds to 
acquire foreign nuclear companies and has seriously 
underestimated its liabilities.

Less than two weeks ago, the British Government estimated 
Britain's nuclear clean-up bill to have risen to 68bn. 
Responsibility for the clean-up is to be taken away from BNFL and 
handed over to a new government agency.

The creation of this agency was seen as a first step towards the 
sale of the company. Ring-fencing the company's liabilities in 
this way should make it more attractive to potential buyers.

The company's published accounts justified a previous report by 
Mr Sadnicki, again commissioned by the Green Party MEP, that 
stated BNFL was practically bankrupt, according to Ms Ahern.

"BNFL's accounts admit huge losses, yet the company said for 
years it was making money from reprocessing," she said.

Despite the worst financial results in the company's history, 
BNFL claimed that its operating performance had improved. BNFL 
chairman Hugh Collum said it had been a landmark year for the 
company and it had achieved an underlying profit of 30m before 
tax and other costs.

But the record losses are thought to reflect the cost of cleaning 
up Britain's radioactive sites as well as the cost of closing 
some reactors

The Examiner Logo <http://www.examiner.ie/>

*****************************************************************
 27 Sellafield row continues*

TUESDAY 16/07/02 15:20:03  

The Irish government today claimed that big financial losses 
incurred by British Nuclear Fuels Limited vindicated Dublin's 
view that nuclear energy was economically unsustainable.

Environment minister Martin Cullen said the deficit run up by 
BNFL confirmed the Irish position in demanding that reprocessing 
activities at the Sellafield plant run by the company in Cumbria 
should be stopped.

Repeating the anti-Sellafield stance of successive Irish 
governments because of the pollution and environmental threats, 
Mr Cullen added: ``We have on a number of occasions articulated 
our views on the lack of economical justification for the 
operation of the Sellafield mixed oxide plant.

``There is no justification, economic or otherwise for nuclear 
spent fuel reprocessing activities.

``Even if the economics were different, the many dangers and 
risks to public safety and health and to the environment 
associated with reprocessing significantly outweigh any possible 
economic benefits of this activity.``

The Irish minister said a separate report criticising BNFL`s 
accounting policies reflected what the Irish Government had been 
saying for some time by raising doubts about whether the company 
had the resources necessary to cover its long-term 
decommissioning liabilities.

``The recently announced establishment by the UK government of 
the Liabilities Management Agency which would have responsibility 
for the nuclear liabilities of BNFL, will allow BNFL to operate 
independently of the loss making side of its operations.

``This development - when viewed along with the huge losses 
reported today by BNFL - strengthens the Irish government`s 
resolve to continue to press for the cessation of activities at 
Sellafield.``

*****************************************************************
 28 Radioactive soil removal delayed in Maywood

BERGEN COUNTY 

Wednesday, July 17, 2002

By TOM DAVIS
Staff Writer

A Colorado-based company has suffered another potential setback 
in its plan to receive up to 470,000 tons of radioactive soil 
from the Maywood Superfund site.

Colorado regulators have ordered Cotter Corp. to suspend its 
receipt of radioactive materials until the company corrects 16 
radiation-related violations at its Canon City, Colo., uranium 
mill. The violations, which were first cited in April, primarily 
involve airborne radioactivity, and urine tests recently showed 
higher-than-acceptable levels of radiation in an employee.

Federal officials had hoped to start transporting soil from 
Bergen County to Colorado earlier this year, but that plan was 
delayed because of public outcry in Colorado. The latest setback 
for the company, outlined in a letter last week from the Colorado 
Department of Public Health and Environment, could further 
complicate plans to dispose of the soil.

Pat Mutz, Cotter's mill manager, is hopeful that his company can 
resolve their issues with the state by next month and begin 
accepting the soil. "This is a short-term problem," he said. "We 
have all agreed to accelerate our efforts."

The troubled company, which is depending on the Maywood dirt to 
stabilize its revenue stream, laid off 45 people in April, 
blaming it on the wrangling over the soil.

In the meantime, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says the 
situation will have little or no impact on its plans to clean up 
sites in Maywood, Lodi, and Rochelle Park that were contaminated 
by Maywood Chemical more than 40 years ago. The corps is removing 
radioactive thorium, which seeped into the area's groundwater 
after it was dumped on the plant's property prior to 1959.

As the corps waits for a resolution in Colorado, it has been 
using a dump in Utah as a temporary solution. The corps, which 
hopes to complete the cleanup by 2008, has been sending as much 
as 20 rail cars of tarp-covered dirt a week to Envirocare in Utah 
- the government's second and more expensive choice for locating 
the soil - since the Cotter plan was shelved.


Copyright <corporate/copyright.html> Š 2002 North Jersey Media 
*****************************************************************
 29 Nuke sub makes Splendid sight

 [http://www.news24.com]                                      
	
17/07/2002 13:26  - (SA)                         

Cape Town - The Royal Navy nuclear-powered submarine HMS Splendid 
has berthed in Simon's Town naval dockyard on Wednesday. 

Lieutenant Commander Lisa Hendricks said approval for the 
goodwill visit was granted after close consultation with the 
National Nuclear Regulator. 

When Splendid leaves on July 22 she may carry out exercises with 
SAS Assegaai, a Daphne Class submarine. 

This is the third visit by a nuclear submarine to a South African 
port since 1974, when HMS Dreadnought visited. 

HMS Splendid was launched in October 1979 and saw action in the 
Falkland conflict in 1982. She has completed more than 140 000 
nautical miles to date. She has a displacement of 4 400 tons 
surfaced and 4 900 tons dived and can reach speeds in excess of 
30 knots underwater. 

HMS Splendid carries a complement of 116 of which 13 are 
officers. The submarine will not be open to visitors.

MyNews24
*****************************************************************
 30 Hanford parlor tricks

The Seattle Times: 

Editorials &Opinion 

Wednesday, July 17, 2002, 12:00 a.m. Pacific 

Attorney General Christine Gregoire is taking a hard, skeptical 
line on modifying cleanup regimes at the Hanford Nuclear 
Reservation. 

History says her doubts are wholly appropriate. 

Gregoire's stance is in contrast to that of state Department of 
Ecology Director Tom Fitzsimmons, who says the state and the 
federal government are oh-so-close to a deal that could bring in 
more money to get a difficult job done sooner. 

The Bush administration's package of 40-plus potential targets is 
being parsed to find ways to do things differently at Hanford. 
Examples include exploring ways to handle some tank waste without 
turning it into glass blocks. Hanford might also consider 
receiving, repackaging and temporarily storing highly radioactive 
debris from other states before it is permanently stored out of 
state. 

The list of possibilities is being pared down in hot pursuit of 
an August deadline. 

Gregoire told a Senate committee in Washington, D.C., last week 
she will not settle for a quick fix that falls short of a 
complete cleanup of dangerous wastes. 

The U.S. Department of Energy's performance at Hanford over the 
years, through several administrations and multiple 
administrators, justifies Gregoire's skepticism. 

The federal agency has no basis for asking to be trusted that 
new, aggressive deadlines will be met, or that higher levels of 
cleanup money would be sustained. 

Gregoire had Fitzsimmons' job when the pact that defines the 
working relationship between the state and federal government was 
signed. The working history of the Tri-Party Agreement is as much 
about confrontation and legal fisticuffs as achievement. 

No one can oppose the cleanup of Hanford being done at lower cost 
in less time, and still assuring quality standards are met. But 
it's also reasonable to suspect bureaucratic parlor tricks that 
reclassify dangerous waste into a cheaper treatment regime. 

Halfway measures are not acceptable. Washington citizens deserve 
and expect real cleanup, not inventive ways to cut corners. Let's 
hope Fitzsimmons' optimism wins out. Unfortunately, Gregoire's 
skepticism has the credible ring of bitter experience. 

Copyright Š 2002 The Seattle Times Company
*****************************************************************
 31 Lab plans to revive plutonium project

Mercury News | 07/17/2002 | 

 By Dan Stober
 Mercury News
 
Saying the project will pose no harm to the surrounding 
community, officials at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory 
said Tuesday that they plan to revive controversial equipment 
built a decade ago to purify radioactive plutonium for nuclear 
weapons research.
 
``All we're going to be doing there is purifying isotopes for 
experiments,'' said Bruce Goodwin, the lab's associate director 
for defense and nuclear technologies.
 
But anti-nuclear activists vowed to renew their opposition, which 
halted a similar program in 1991.
 
``It poses a very serious hazard,'' said Marylia Kelley, the 
leader of Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive 
Environment. ``We're going to insist on a full environmental 
study.''
 
Plutonium purification
 
During a recent public meeting, a reference to a ``defense 
nuclear technology, classified project'' in a lab planning 
document had Kelley and others guessing that the lab was going to 
build ``dirty'' radiological bombs as part of anti-terrorism 
research, or perhaps manufacture plutonium spheres for nuclear 
weapons. Either enterprise would have been sure to raise 
opposition in this fast-growing town.
 
But Goodwin said the reference in the document was to the 
plutonium-purification project.
 
``We're not designing `dirty bombs,' '' he said Tuesday. ``It 
also does not involve weapon `pits' manufacturing.''
 
A detailed understanding of plutonium, a silvery-gray metal with 
several unusual properties, is helpful in maintaining the U.S. 
nuclear stockpile without live nuclear tests, government 
scientists contend.
 
The purification research at the lab began in the 1970s, designed 
to purify uranium for nuclear reactors and plutonium for bombs. 
The uranium program ended in 1999 after several billion dollars 
had been spent. The technology was transferred to the United 
States Enrichment Corp., which decided against using it to 
produce commercial reactor fuel.
 
SWAT protection
 
The technology involves heating the uranium or plutonium until it 
melts and turns to vapor. Special lasers are shined through the 
vapor, separating out the desired isotopes of the metals. For 
weapons, plutonium-239 is collected. The process is known as 
Atomic Vapor Laser Isotope Separation, or AVLIS.
 
The earlier plutonium work was intended as a pilot demonstration 
program for a full-scale plutonium production plant proposed for 
Idaho. The Idaho factory was never built; the demonstration 
equipment in Livermore was built but never used after Tri-Valley 
CARES and the Natural Resources Defense Committee filed suit, 
alleging that the lab had failed to conduct the required 
environmental studies.
 
The equipment is still in the lab's plutonium building, which is 
protected around the clock by a SWAT team in a guard tower. The 
facility is surrounded by two barbed-wire fences, electronic 
sensors and a black net the size of a city block that is 
suspended above the building on telephone poles to prevent 
terrorists from landing in helicopters.
 
The lab has resumed testing the equipment using surrogate 
materials instead of plutonium. Goodwin said the machinery, 
roughly the size of a large truck, is needed to produce pure 
isotopes for weapons research. Some of the plutonium produced 
will be used in non-nuclear explosions in an underground testing 
facility north of Las Vegas in Nevada. Those painstaking 
experiments provide researchers with a better understanding of 
what happens to plutonium as it is compressed by high explosives 
in an atom bomb.
 
Environmental impact
 
The sprawling lab, with 8,500 workers and hundreds of buildings, 
is in the preliminary stages of a site-wide environmental impact 
study. The plutonium project is mentioned in a classified 
appendix to the study.
 
The plutonium building is authorized to keep up to 700 kilograms 
of the element, one of the heaviest metals on earth. Lab official 
say the current inventory is classified but is somewhere near 400 
kilograms. Goodwin said the laser isotope project would deal with 
only a few hundred grams at a time. Over a 10-year period, he 
said, only 50 to 100 kilograms would be used.
 
But Kelley maintains that the lab's own safety documents 
acknowledge that some release of plutonium into the environment 
-- even if it's a tiny amount -- is inevitable.
 
Contact Dan Stober at dstober@sjmercury.com 
[dstober@sjmercury.com] or (650) 688-7536.   

SiliconValley.com
*****************************************************************
 32 Senate bill includes funds for IAAP health study, work 

The Hawk Eye Special: IAAP
 
[The Hawk Eye Special Edition] 
Wednesday, July 17, 2002
[Unknown dangers at IAAP]   

Money earmarked for survey of conventional weapons workers, munitions
production. 

By Dennis J. Carroll The Hawk Eye 

U.S. Senate budget crafters Tuesday voted to include several 
funding packages in the defense appropriations bill for fiscal 
2003 that would benefit the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant in 
Middletown. 

A key appropriations subcommittee voted to approve several 
IAAPrelated projects. The full Appropriations Committee is 
expected to approve them Thursday, said Bill Burton, an aide to 
Sen. Tom Harkin, DIowa. 

They are: 

$1 million for a study of the health of former and present Army 
munitions workers at the plant. 

For the past two and half years, the University of Iowa College 
of Public Health has been surveying the health of thousands of 
the plant's former nuclear weapons workers. 

The new funding, sought by Harkin, would begin the process of 
assessing the health of those who manufactured conventional 
weapons. 

Over the past several years, former workers on both Army and 
nuclear production lines have complained of lifelong illnesses 
and even deaths caused by their exposure to hazardous materials 
such as chemicals, heavy metals and radioactive agents. 

$8.7 million, much of which likely would fund the assembly of 
additional munitions for the Army's M830A1 120mm tank program at 
IAAP. 

Tony Noll, American Ordnance's director of business development, 
said the new order may require the hiring of additional workers. 

$14.7 million, up $10 million from this year, for the ARMS 
initiative program, which encourages military installations such 
as the IAAP to lure private companies to set up shop in unused 
buildings or areas. 

ARMS is an acronym for Armament Retooling and Manufacturing 
Support. The $14.7 million would be spread around military 
facilities across the country. 

Advanced Environmental Technologies' munitionswaste treatment 
plant, which is to open later this year on the IAAP grounds, was 
constructed under the ARMS program. 

The program also was used several years ago to attract ICI 
America to build automobile airbag initiation systems at the 
plant. That company has since left the plant, however. 

Both Iowa Sens. Tom Harkin, a Democrat, and Republican Charles 
Grassley praised the appropriations vote. 

"I'm proud that this bill reflects the important role that the 
Burlington area has played in our nation's defenses since World 
War II," Harkin said. 

"The health study will go a long way toward getting help for 
those who have suffered as result of exposure to dangerous 
materials at the plant," he added. 

Said Grassley: "The investment will help sustain employment and 
spur economic growth in the area" 

The Hawk Eye 800 S. Main St., Burlington Iowa 52601 319-754-8461 
Front Desk ˇ 319-754-6824 FAX ˇ 1-800-397-1708 Toll Free 
*****************************************************************
 33 INEEL turns to its nuclear past for future longevity 

KTVB.COM | News | Idaho News on Demand
 	 	 
07/16/2002 
Alyson Oüten
Idaho's NewsChannel 7 

A surprise announcement by the Energy Secretary changes the 
course of Idahos largest employer. And the INEEL finds a new 
sense of security in science. 

Lou Riepl, INEEL: "It's future looking, it's all about pushing 
the scientific envelope. That's a huge sea change for us, but it 
also reconnects us to our roots." 

Workers at the Idaho Environmental and Engineering Laboratory say 
they had no idea change was in the works. 

But, on Monday, Energy Secretary, Spencer Abraham announced that 
INEEL will be the nation's leading center of nuclear research and 
development. 

Spencer Abraham, Energy Secretary: "We have a whole new plan of 
action we're going to be talking about, to put more than just 
mere words on the table, to really offer a long-term vision." 

The announcement moves INEEL from Environmental Management to the 
Office of Nuclear Energy. Which is where this laboratory started 
in the first place - back in 1949. 

Lou Riepl, INEEL: "This announcement just absolutely brings us 
back to the future. We're going back to our roots and using 
science and technology to drive this site and all of Idaho into 
the future." 

The Idaho National Engineering Laboratory got its start in Idaho 
Falls, 52 years ago. 

Riepl: "At that point and time, the Atomic Energy Commission 
looked at well over 100 sites for where the country would do key 
development on what was then the very fledgling technology; 
atomic energy. And, we emerged as the top sight back in 1949." 

Over the years, the INEL developed more than 50, first of their 
kind nuclear reactors. But, two decades after it opened, the 
government wanted more: 

Riepl: "Back in the early 1970s, we started taking on new 
missions for then the Energy Research and Development 
Administration." 

Scientists started researching everything from hydropower to 
cancer cures. 

Then, in the 1990s, another shift - and another e - this one for 
environment. INEEL was put in charge of cleaning up the nuclear 
aftermath of the cold war. 

Riepl: "Environmental management is about cleaning, closing, 
saving tax money and moving on. And, for a national laboratory, 
that's not a good recipe for long-term success." 

As a matter of fact, 900 workers have been laid off in the past 
year - and the future of INEEL was uncertain. 

That is, until the Energy Secretary made an unexpected and 
welcomed announcement. INEEL will - once again - be the nation's 
center of nuclear research and development. 

Riepl: "We now know what we're going to be doing from this point 
forward and it's nuclear energy, science and technology." 

INEEL will get $5-million to expedite the transition. It hopes to 
be completed as early as October. 
 
    KTVB.COM Features  
*****************************************************************
 34 DOE Awards $300,000 to Nevada Test Site Development Corporation

energy.gov - Headquarters' Press Release

RELEASE DATE: July 17, 2002     

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Department of Energy (DOE) today 
announced that it will award $300,000 to the Nevada Test Site 
Development Corporation (NTSDC). This block grant will enable the 
NTSDC to continue to provide administrative support for rural 
economic development, renewable energy, aerospace activities, 
asset management and business incubation. 

"The Energy Department is a good neighbor to the communities 
surrounding our sites," Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham said. 
"Working with the NTSDC and other community reuse organizations 
around the country, the Department has retained, expanded or 
created over 25,000 jobs for workers affected by restructuring 
efforts at DOE sites." 

The goal of the NTSDC is to diversify the local economy and build 
new jobs in science and technology based industries through the 
development of sustainable private commercial activities which 
maximize the use of DOE resources, expand non-government 
opportunities and add long-term value to the regional economy. 

The DOE's Office of Worker and Community Transition and the NTSDC 
have created or retained 1,876 new economy jobs, and estimate 
that 3,273 jobs will be created or retained by 2005. 

For more information please sign-on to the Office of Worker and 
Community Transition's website: www.wct.doe.gov 
[http://www.wct.doe.gov] . 

Media Contact: Dolline Hatchett, 202/586-5806 Joe Davis, 
202/586-4940 Release No. PR-02-141 

*****************************************************************
 35 DOE Awards $300,000 to Savannah River Regional Diversification 
Initiative
 
energy.gov - Headquarters' Press Release

RELEASE DATE: July 17, 2002     

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Department of Energy (DOE) today 
announced that it will award $300,000 to the Savannah River 
Regional Diversification Initiative (SRRDI). This block grant 
will fund SRRDI's administrative expenses as it continues working 
with other economic development organizations to diversify the 
economic base within the region. 

"The Energy Department is a good neighbor to the communities 
surrounding our sites," Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham said. 
"Working with SRRDI and other community reuse organizations 
around the country, the Department has retained, expanded or 
created over 25,000 jobs for workers affected by restructuring 
efforts at DOE sites." 

SRRDI was established in 1993 to mitigate the adverse effects of 
the downsizing of the DOE Savannah River Site on Barnwell, Aiken, 
and Allendale counties in South Carolina, and Richmond, and 
Columbia counties in Georgia. SRRDI's goal is the creation of a 
positive economic development environment in the two-state region 
through job creation, job retention, and entrepreneurial 
development in high-tech and manufacturing businesses. 

The DOE's Office of Worker and Community Transition and the SRRDI 
have created or retained 7,155 new economy jobs, and estimate 
that 12,833 jobs will be created or retained by 2005. For more 
information please sign-on to the Office of Worker and Community 
Transition's website:  [http://www.wct.doe.gov] . 

Media Contact: Dolline Hatchett, 202/586-5806 Joe Davis, 
202/586-4940 Release No. PR-02-142 

*****************************************************************
 36 Nuclear Planet
 
DISCOVER Vol. 23 No. 8 (August 2002) 
Table of Contents 

Is there a five-mile-wide ball of hellaciously hot uranium 
seething at the center of the Earth? 

By Brad Lemley Photograph by Dan Winters and Gary Tanhauser--> 

What is Earth? Poets say it's a celestial sapphire, a cerulean 
orb. Astronomers say it's a medium-size planet orbiting an 
average star. Some environmentalists say it's Mother. Biologists 
say it's life's only known home.

But the most scientifically precise definition may prove to be 
the one that no one suspected. Earth, says geophysicist J. Marvin 
Herndon, is a gigantic natural nuclear power plant. We live on 
its thick shield, while 4,000 miles below our feet a 
five-mile-wide ball of uranium burns, churns, and reacts, 
creating the planet's magnetic field as well as the heat that 
powers volcanoes and continental-plate movements. Herndon's 
theory boldly contradicts the view that has dominated geophysics 
since the 1940s: that Earth's inner core is a huge ball of 
partially crystallized iron and nickel, slowly cooling and 
growing as it surrenders heat into a fluid core. Radioactivity, 
in this model, is just a supplementary heat source, with widely 
dispersed isotopes decaying on their own, not concentrated. 

Full text of this article can be found in the current issue of 
Discover Magazine. 

Š Copyright 2002 The Walt Disney Company. Back to  
[http://www.discover.com] .
*****************************************************************
 37   WNA NEWS BRIEFING 02.29 | 10 - 16 July 2002   
  
A weekly summary of international news relevant to the nuclear energy
industry. 

[NB02.29-1] The US Senate approved Yucca Mountain as the site for 
a national repository for spent nuclear fuel and high-level 
radioactive waste. Senate approval of the resolution came 
immediately after senators approved by a margin of 60-39 a 
'motion to proceed' to bring the resolution to the floor. By 
mutual agreement between Senate leaders, there was no recorded 
final vote on the resolution itself. Approval of the resolution 
paves the way for the Department of Energy (DOE) to prepare and 
file a licence application with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission 
(NRC). DOE's current plans call for applying for an application 
for the construction permit in 2004, with construction planned to 
start in 2007. The nuclear industry and business organisations 
praised the Senate's approval of the Yucca Mountain resolution. 
(NucNet News, 242/02, 10 July; Nuclear Energy Overview, 15 July, 
p1; Nucleonics Week, 11 July, p1; see also News Briefing 02.28-2) 
Private Fuel Storage (PFS) will continue with its US$3.1 billion 
plan to store up to 40 000 tonnes of spent nuclear fuel at the 
Skull Valley Indian Reservation in Utah, despite the Senate's 
approval of Yucca Mountain. PFS - a consortium of eight utilities 
- plans to seek a licence for the facility because Yucca Mountain 
will not be ready until at least 2010 and storage at many nuclear 
plants could be filled before then. (Ux Weekly, 15 July, p3; see 
also News Briefing 02.02-14) 

[NB02.29-2] World nuclear power generation increased nearly 4% in 
2001 to just under 2544 TWh and accounted for some 16% of total 
global electricity production, according to figures released by 
the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). At the end of 
2001, there were a total 438 nuclear power reactors in operation 
in 30 countries with a combined capacity of 353 GWe. There were 
also 32 new reactors under construction in ten countries in 2001. 
(IAEA, 11 July; see also News Briefing 01.19-2) 

[NB02.29-3] Kazakhstan: Kazatomprom aims to become the world's 
largest uranium producer within the next 30 years, the company's 
president Mukhtar Dzhakishev announced. He said the company 
anticipated increasing uranium output from 2500 tonnes to 15 000 
tonnes per year by 2028. In order to reach this goal, Kazatomprom 
will 'develop technologies, innovation and personnel policies'. 
Mr Dzhakishev said those plans include related industry projects, 
the development of joint ventures with Russian nuclear 
enterprises, as well as the development of new mines in 
Kazakhstan. He said new investments in the domestic uranium 
industry would be some US$540 million. (NucNet Business News, 
45/02, 15 July; see also News Briefing 02.18-5) 

[NB02.29-4] France: In a poll conducted among a representative 
sample of 2000 people over 18 years old in December 2001 and 
January 2002 by opinion analysis organisation Credoc, 42.3% of 
those questioned said nuclear energy was 'rather advantageous', 
while 43.9% found it 'rather disadvantageous'. A further 13.8% 
were undecided. The results of the poll can be found, in French, 
from here 
[http://www.industrie.gouv.fr/energie/statisti/ins-barometre.htm] 
. (Nucleonics Week, 11 July, p6; see also News Briefing 01.22-3)

[NB02.29-5] Finland: Teollisuuden Voima Oy (TVO) will begin the 
process of selecting a contractor to build its fifth nuclear 
power reactor this autumn. Four companies are expected to submit 
proposals: Framatome of France; Atomstroyexport of Russia; 
BNFL-Westinghouse of the UK; and General Electric of the US. TVO 
expects to make its selection in late 2003. The reactor would 
begin operation in 2008 at the earliest. (Ux Weekly, 15 July, p4; 
see also News Briefing 02.22-1) 

[NB02.29-6] Electricite de France (EDF) has reported two 'generic 
anomalies' involving the ability of equipment at several nuclear 
power plants to meet design criteria for seismic resistance. The 
first anomaly involves the seismic resistance of spent fuel 
assemblies at 10 EDF sites (comprising 26 reactors). The other 
involves the seismic resistance of several components of mobile 
cranes used for lifting and handling operations inside the 
reactor building at seven sites. Both anomalies have been 
provisionally classified as level one on the INES scale. EDF 
points out that, while the anomalies demonstrate a lack of 
conformity with original design criteria, there is no indication 
that seismic resistance is not adequate in practice. (NucNet 
News, 243/02, 10 July) 

[NB02.29-7] Russia: A decision on whether to restart construction 
of Volgodonsk-2 (formerly Rostov-2) - which is about 50% complete 
- is expected to be made by the Ministry of Atomic Energy 
(Minatom) in late July. If a decision to continue is reached, the 
financing of construction will begin in 2003, and the reactor 
could enter commercial operation in 2005. (FreshFUEL, 15 July, 
p5; Ux Weekly, 15 July, p5; see also News Briefing 02.03-7) 

[NB02.29-8] US: Entergy is re-evaluating whether to complete its 
purchase of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant following the 
Vermont Public Board's decision not to reconsider conditions it 
has imposed on the sale. (Ux Weekly, 15 July, p3; see also News 
Briefing 02.26-11) 

[NB02.29-9] Bulgaria: A statement concerning its recent Safety 
Review Mission of Kozloduy-3 and -4 has been released by the 
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The Bulgarian 
government requested the IAEA mission as a 'wrap-up of more than 
a decade of safety upgrades and assessments, including a series 
of actions recommended by various IAEA review teams'. Plant 
officials estimate that more than 700 million euro (US$704 
million) will be spent on safety improvements between 1991 and 
2006. The 2002 IAEA safety review shows 'sizeable progress' at 
Kozloduy-3 and -4 since 1991, when the first IAEA safety review 
of the plant was conducted. (IAEA, 9 July; see also News Briefing 
99.07-6) 

[NB02.29-10] Ukraine's President Leonid Kuchma has urged the 
government to 'speed up' the country's development of a complete 
nuclear fuel cycle, find 'additional mechanisms' to complete 
outstanding new-build projects and take action to clear debts 
owed to EnergoAtom, the national nuclear utility. He told a 
special meeting of top government and industry officials that 
there is 'no alternative to further development and advancement 
of nuclear power'. Mr Kuchma called the meeting to address 
'serious problems' in the country's nuclear industry, noting the 
'unsatisfactory' pace of work in the construction of new nuclear 
power reactors and the upgrading of existing operating units. 
(NucNet News, 241/02, 9 July; see also News Briefing 02.27-4) 

[NB02.29-11] Construction of the first Chinese fast neutron 
reactor is 'proceeding successfully' and Beijing has asked Russia 
to 'further accelerate' work on the joint Tianwan-1 and -2 
nuclear power plant project, Russia's atomic energy minister 
Alexander Rumyantsev said. Construction of the experimental fast 
reactor used 'mainly Russian technology', Mr Rumyantsev reported. 
Construction is due to be completed by 2005. He added that work 
was 'going well' on construction of the two Tianwan units. 
(NucNet Business News, 44/02, 12 July; see also News Briefing 
00.23-8) 

[NB02.29-12] Russia's nuclear cooperation with Iran will probably 
end with the completion of the Bushehr nuclear power plant, 
Russia's atomic energy minister Alexander Rumyantsev announced. 
However, in addition to the plant's first reactor - currently 
under construction - Russia is likely to build a second, and 
possibly even a third and fourth reactor. The US has been 
pressuring Russia to end its involvement in Iran's nuclear power 
program. Russia has pledged that all of Bushehr's spent fuel will 
be sent back to Russia for reprocessing. (Ux Weekly, 15 July, p5; 
SpentFUEL, 15 July, p4; see also News Briefing 02.22-8) 

[NB02.29-13] Russia: Investments of up to US$3.4 billion are 
needed within the next 30 years to develop the country's spent 
nuclear fuel reprocessing industry, according to the Ministry of 
Atomic Energy (Minatom). Some US$1.1 billion is needed in the 
period up to 2010 said Nikolai Shingarev, the head of Minatom's 
board for relations with government bodies and information 
policy. He said this money would come from electricity tariffs 
and income raised through the import of spent nuclear fuel. 
Russia currently reprocesses about 130-150 tonnes of spent fuel 
annually. (NucNet Business News, 44/02, 12 July; see also News 
Briefing 01.24-1) 

[NB02.29-14] UK: British Nuclear Fuels plc (BNFL) reported a 
pre-tax loss of 2.33 billion UK pounds (US$3.64 billion) after 
exceptional items for fiscal. The main exceptional items were a 
provision for dealing with historic waste management at 
Sellafield (1.935 billion UK pounds (US$3.03 billion)), and the 
early closure of the Calder Hall and Chapelcross Magnox reactors 
(375 million UK pounds (US$587.03 million)). However, Chairman 
Hugh Collum said it had been a 'landmark' year for the company, 
which had achieved an underlying profit before tax and 
exceptional items of 22 million UK pounds (US$34.44 million). 
(BNFL, 16 July; see also News Briefing 01.27-18) Meanwhile, Mr 
Collum has been reappointed as Chairman of BNFL for a second 
term, Secretary of State for Trade and Industry Patricia Hewitt 
confirmed. He is to be appointed for a further term of two years 
with effect from 1 October 2002. (BNFL, 15 July; see also News 
Briefing 99.31-16) 

[NB02.29-15] US: Plans to transform the Idaho National 
Environmental and Engineering Laboratory (INEEL) into the leading 
US centre for nuclear energy research and development (R) have 
been announced by Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham. Under the 
plan, INEEL would take the leading role in several key projects - 
in particular the Generation IV advanced nuclear technology 
programme and development of advanced nuclear fuel cycle 
technologies. The initiative, which would also involve the 
Argonne National Laboratory West, would see oversight of INEEL 
being transferred from the Department of Energy (DOE) office of 
environmental management to the office of nuclear energy, science 
and technology. (NucNet News, 249/02, 16 July; see also News 
Briefing 02.24-16) Previous News Briefing NB02.28 

All news and views are those of the publications cited, whose 
staffs have undertaken the research to enable this compilation 
for WNA members. We refer readers to those publications for 
fuller details.   
    
*****************************************************************

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: 
<http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml> 
    
*****************************************************************