***************************************************************** 02/20/02 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 10.45 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POLICY 1 Some push to block N. Korean reactors 2 Analysis: N. Korea standoff or dialogue? 3 Germany: State Loses Ruling on Nuclear Plant 4 Germany: Curtains Up (nuclear power policy) 5 Japan's Hitachi, Mitsubishi Heavy in nuclear deal 6 US: Nuclear commission to issue formal rules for power plant securit NUCLEAR REACTORS 7 US: Indian Point owner: Keep plants open 8 US: Braidwood opening delayed 9 India's nuclear program fails to make the grade 10 US: Nebraska Plant to replace leaking fuel rods 11 US: Leaks at Nebraska nuclear plant get OPPD's attention NUCLEAR SAFETY 12 Scotland: Nuclear accident 'posed no public risk' NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 13 AU: No plan yet for disposal of nuclear waste 14 BNFL warned over 'deficiencies' after fuel rod incident 15 UK govt finds BNFL did not deliberatley deceive over 16 Russian shipyard prepares to dispose of Kursk wreck 17 US: Fort Worth, Texas, Officials Hesitant about Nuclear Waste 18 UK: Safe N-waste will cost £1bn a year 19 US: CCAGW Applauds Bush's Yucca Decision; Nuke Depository is Cost 20 US: Nuclear-waste site too risky 21 US: 'Dump the Dump' campaign considered enlisting Clinton 22 US: Gaming at last breaks long silence on Yucca Mountain 23 US: Nuclear fuel reprocessing plant urged for Yucca Mountain site 24 US: Yuca: Gaming industry steps up 25 UK: BNFL operator cleared of coverup 26 US: Letter: Perfect location found for storing nuclear waste 27 US: Yucca supporters push for speedy approval 28 US: Yucca Dump a dilemma for gaming 29 US: Nevada to publicize nuke shipping routes 30 US: N-waste Critics: Feds have poor record 31 Nuclear waste train leaves Germany for Britain 32 US: Opinions:Explains why MOX plan is good 33 US: Fort Worth, Texas, Officials Hesitant about Nuclear Waste NUCLEAR WEAPONS 34 US: Homeland security director tours Nevada counterterrorism center 35 Kursk submarine: More questions than answers 36 Nuclear Dangers in South Asia: Prospects for Disarmament US DEPT. OF ENERGY 37 Oak Ridge contractor actually pays itself 38 Groundbreaking is progress at Hanford 39 DOE: BNFL not aware of budget woes 40 AC to ask for $482,400 from DOE 41 DOE pushes "nuclear power 2010 Plan" OTHER NUCLEAR 42 Rivals Battled Enron In Energy Lobbying 43 FDA OKs radioactive cancer drug - 44 WNA NEWS BRIEFING 02.08 | 13 - 19 February 2002 45 E.P.A. and Energy Department War Over Clean Air Rules ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 Some push to block N. Korean reactors Chicago Tribune | By Howard Witt Tribune senior correspondent Published February 20, 2002 WASHINGTON -- When President Bush declared North Korea part of an "axis of evil" that must be stopped from developing weapons of mass destruction, he did not mention one particularly complicated fact: The U.S. is helping North Korea build two nuclear reactors that one day could be used to produce weapons-grade plutonium. The deal, struck by the Clinton administration in 1994 to defuse a crisis over North Korea's attempts to develop nuclear weapons, is now the focus of scrutiny among some Korea experts and critics in Congress. They are calling on the administration to halt construction of the reactors, scheduled to begin this summer, until Pyongyang agrees to allow inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency to examine suspected caches of nuclear materials, something the North Koreans are resisting. "Providing plutonium to [North Korean leader] Kim Jong Il will give him more political and military power," Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Calif.) said last week. "It's going to make him even more dangerous." Letter to Bush Cox joined Reps. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and Benjamin Gilman (R-N.Y.) in a letter to Bush this month urging the president to reconsider the agreement to provide the North with two nuclear reactors. "We believe you should give further consideration with regard to whether it is in the U.S. national interest to allow North Korea to obtain access to light-water reactor designs or technologies in light of its ongoing interest in obtaining access to weapons of mass destruction," the congressmen wrote. The decision is a complex one for the administration because it could upset a delicate balance under which North Korea has maintained a freeze on its nuclear weapons development. In the 1994 deal, North Korea consented to halt its refinement of weapons-grade plutonium and submit to international inspections of its nuclear capabilities. In return, Washington agreed to lead an international consortium in constructing two civilian nuclear reactors and to provide fuel oil for the Stalinist nation until those reactors could be brought on line. Critics say the light-water reactors could produce enough material to make 50 bombs in the first 15 months of operation. Supporters of the agreement say the reactors would be operated under international supervision and say enough safeguards would be in place to prevent the North Koreans from attempting to produce weapons. The North Koreans have lived up to part of the bargain: They have not resumed plutonium production, according to congressional testimony this month by George Tenet, the CIA director. But they have not let the IAEA inspectors check plutonium stocks that U.S. officials suspect the North Koreans hid before the agreement took effect. Because those inspections are painstaking and extensive, IAEA officials say they could take at least three years. This means the North Koreans must allow them to begin soon if they are to be completed before the most sensitive nuclear components are scheduled to be installed in the reactors in May 2005. "We have a deal. We have an agreed framework. We're prepared to carry through with it," a senior Bush administration official said last week. "But right now, the North Koreans are not. The IAEA part of this is not accelerated to the point that we think it needs to be. We're not going to do this if they've taken on the IAEA safeguards in some kind of half-baked way." Beyond the issue of nuclear proliferation, the Bush administration is alarmed by North Korea's development and aggressive sales of longer-range ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads. Secretary of State Colin Powell has said that, despite the "axis of evil" label, the administration remains open to negotiations with North Korea on these and other issues. But the North Korean response has been chilled since Bush's State of the Union speech. Clinton aides defend deal Former Clinton administration officials who were instrumental in negotiations with North Korea insist that the 1994 agreement should not be scrapped. "The more you believe North Koreans are evil, the more you'd want to keep their production of plutonium frozen," said Robert Einhorn, the former assistant secretary of state for nonproliferation who led talks with North Korea. The pact "has blocked North Korea from producing a very substantial amount of fissile material," said Stephen Bosworth, former U.S. ambassador to South Korea. The alternative, he said, would be for the U.S. to stop construction of the reactors--and the North Koreans to resume their aggressive production of bomb-grade plutonium. But congressional critics of the arrangement have not been persuaded. They are championing legislation that would bar the United States from indemnifying any American firms that provide necessary technologies to complete the reactors. Without indemnification, the firms would not participate because they would be left vulnerable to huge legal liabilities if the reactors malfunctioned. Copyright © 2002, Chicago Tribune ***************************************************************** 2 Analysis: N. Korea standoff or dialogue? United Press International: By Jong-Heon Lee UPI Correspondent Published 2/20/2002 7:16 AM SEOUL, South Korea, Feb. 20 (UPI) -- North Korea's reclusive leader, Kim Jong Il, spent the first five days of February visiting army units near the heavily fortified border with rival South Korea. While inspecting troops at the front, Kim said the country was "weathering out the raging wind raised by imperialists." He called for more national efforts to further build up the country's 1.1-million-strong People's Army. "No force on earth can overpower these great forces firmly determined not to allow any aggressors to dare invade the inviolable territory of our country. But at the risk of their lives, we will wipe them out to the very last soldier," Kim was quoted by state media as saying. Analysts in the region considered Kim's visit to the front as a strong indication that his hard-line rule would counter Washington's intensive efforts to address the North's suspected development of weapons of mass destruction. "North Korea has toughened its rhetoric against the United States since Bush's State of the Union address late last month," said an analyst who monitors North Korea's propaganda machines. In the Jan. 29 speech before the U.S. Congress, Bush condemned North Korea as part of an "axis of evil" and "a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction, while starving its citizens." Reacting angrily to Bush's robust rhetoric, North Korea said it would regard the statement as a virtual declaration of war, blasting Washington's "disturbing moves" for pushing the situation "to the brink of war." The announcement was followed by a series of strident rhetoric against the United States, mocking Bush as "crazy" and branding him as "moral leprosy" and "chieftain of the empire of the devil." While stressing that North Korea is "capable of dealing deadly blows to any aggressors," Rodong Sinmun, a newspaper affiliated with the ruling Workers' Party, said, "No aggressors attempting to seize the DPRK (North Korea) will be able to go home back alive. Our revolutionary armed forces have unlimited striking power and no aggressors against the DPRK will be safe, no matter where they are on this earth." Ha Young Sun, a Seoul National University professor, interpreted Pyongyang's response as a sign that it would not comply with calls for dialogue with the United States. He said ties would remain strained as long as Bush remains skeptical of the Pyongyang regime and the North sticks to its "army-first" policy. The "army-first" policy was proposed by Kim, who rules North Korea in the capacity of the top military official, to cope with the U.S. "warmongers." Insisting Bush's charge was part of U.S. efforts to make North Korea the next target, after Afghanistan, in its war on terrorism, North Korea has stepped up military vigilance. Huh Moon Young, a researcher at the government-run Korea Institute of National Unification, said North Korea's reluctance to improve ties with the Bush administration was evidenced by its diplomatic maneuvers toward China and Russia. Last week, Kim met a special envoy to Russian President Vladimir Putin and made a rare visit to the Chinese Embassy in Pyongyang, a move widely believed as part of effort to forge stronger ties with the two rivals of the United States. Kim had talks with leaders of China and Russia last year and agreed to take a joint stance with Moscow against U.S. plans to build an anti-missile system. But a majority of analysts here said North Korea is not heading for an eye-to-eye confrontation with the United States because improved ties are necessary to Pyongyang's bid to get much-needed loans from the international lending institutions heavily influenced by the United States. They said North Korea has employed a two-pronged strategy to cope with U.S. threats, using strong words while seeking behind-the-scenes contacts. "In a negotiating tactics, North Korea had stepped up anti-U.S. rhetoric as a prelude to talks," said Kim Dal Sool, a former government official engaged in inter-Korean affairs. "The strong words were a face-saving gesture for the hard-line military," he said. In a reconciliatory gesture, the North's U.N. representative, Pak Gil Yon, recently said North Korea was ready to open talks with the United States, despite the Americans' harsh stance. "North Korea is expected to make a positive response soon on proposals to revive talks with the United States to avoid an Afghanistan-like catastrophe," said Ko Yu Hwan, a Dongguk University professor. North Korea has rejected a U.S. call for dialogue, blasting the Bush administration for pursuing a "hostile" and "vicious" policy toward it. The Bush administration offered in June to reopen talks with Pyongyang on a comprehensive package of issues, including its nuclear and missile programs and heavy concentration of troops and conventional weapons along the border with South Korea. But criticizing Bush for "unilaterally" setting the agenda, the North insists talks must focus on U.S. compensation for the delayed construction of light-water reactors, which it said caused acute energy shortages in the country. Under a 1994 deal, the United States agreed to give North Korea two 1,000-megawatt light-water reactors and an annual shipment of 500,000 tons of heavy oil as alternative energy sources during the time the nuclear power plants were built. In return, North Korea pledged to put on hold its Soviet-designed weapon-grade plutonium producing graphite-moderated reactors. But the $4.6 billion project has been delayed following North Korea's test-fire of a ballistic missile in 1998 over Japan, a main financial contributor to the project. North Korea has also demanded that Washington pay $3 billion in compensation for any economic losses it would suffer from suspending missile exports, but vowed to continue its missile development as a "sovereign right" to guard against military threats from the United States. Many analysts say North Korea would "muddle through" until next year in dealing with the United States because 2003 is the crucial year for Pyongyang-Washington ties. Year 2003 is a target date for the construction of the North's light-water reactors and Pyongyang's moratorium on missile tests ends in that year. "North Korea is expected to step up its leverage in 2003, calling for compensations from the United States," Huh said. "We may see any signs of North Korea's policy direction soon after crucial talks between Bush and South Korean President Kim Dae-jung," said Kwak Seung Ji, a North Korea specialist at Seokyeong University. "Kim Jong Il seems to be keeping a close eye on the outcome of Kim-Bush talks on Wednesday," he said. Copyright © 2002 United Press International ***************************************************************** 3 State Loses Ruling on Nuclear Plant F.A.Z. - English Version 22. Feb. 2002 F.A.Z. KARLSRUHE. Germany's highest court on Tuesday ruled that the federal government did not overstep its authority when it left the states out of negotiations aimed at shutting down the country's 19 nuclear power plants. The central state of Hesse filed the complaint with the Federal Constitutional Court because federal officials failed to consult the state when they conducted negotiations with the RWE company on the shutdown of the Biblis A plant in Hesse. Federal Environment Minister Jürgen Trittin described the ruling as "a good day in the process of phasing out nuclear power," adding that the court's decision represented a "heavy defeat for the Hesse state government." Under the law, the 19 plants will be taken off-line over roughly the next 20 years. The law allows each plant to operate for 32 years and produce a fixed amount of energy. But producers can trade these quotas among plants, allowing older facilities to be closed in order to extend the life of other sites. The Biblis A plant went on-line in 1974 and is one of the oldest nuclear power plants in Germany. It has been the focus of a years-long dispute about its safety. Feb. 19, 2002 © Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 2000 ***************************************************************** 4 Germany: Curtains Up (nuclear power policy) F.A.Z. - English Version 22. Feb. 2002 Stefan Dietrich The legal responsibilities for regulating nuclear power in Germany are akin to the distribution of roles in a theater: The state authorities are the performers, while the federal government writes the script and directs the play. This image also explains why it is often so difficult to understand what is happening on stage. The state authorities generally hold the spotlight because they are the ones who license all nuclear power plants. That they are merely acting "on behalf" of a higher authority that monitors their every move is less apparent. However, supervision by the federal authorities is confined to the legality and expediency of the measures taken by the states as their agents. As long as the states do not stray from the letter of the law on nuclear power, they act on their own responsibility. In many areas this sharing of responsibility between the federal government and states works without a hitch. It was Germany's current foreign minister, Joseph (Joschka) Fischer of Alliance 90/The Greens, who in the mid-1980s as state environment minister in Hesse, put a "phase-out slant" on enforcement of the nuclear power law. The term concealed nothing other than an attempt to dispute the federal government's right to construe this law. The actor thus took over the interpretation of his role himself, thereby picking a fight with the director in full view of the audience, and assumed a heroic pose that no longer had anything to do with his subordinate function as the agent of a higher authority. But unlike Monika Griefahn, the former environment minister in the state of Lower Saxony, Mr. Fischer was careful enough not to let his policy of barbs and pinpricks breach the German Constitution. So he made more progress than Ms. Griefahn, whose infringements of the principle of amenable behavior toward the federal government provoked several reprimands by the Federal Constitutional Court. The ruling handed down by the court's justices in Karlsruhe on Tuesday said that the states were not entitled to any role in government negotiations to shut the nuclear power plants down. The justices once again made it quite clear that the state is an executive organ and not an actor. This cannot be altered by the fact that the actors of old, the opponents of nuclear power, have now adopted the role of director.Feb. 19, 2002 © Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 2000 ***************************************************************** 5 Japan's Hitachi, Mitsubishi Heavy in nuclear deal (02/20/2002) (Agencies) Japan's Hitachi Ltd. and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. said Wednesday they would work together in the nuclear field to meet growing global demand for the technology. "The agreement calls for the two companies to initiate collaboration in the area of existing engineering technologies for piping and auxiliary components, production and maintenance services," the pair said in a statement. It will cover technologies for boiling water reactors and pressurised water reactors. The two firms said they would also explore "innovative reactor technology development where Hitachi and Mitsubishi expect synergy in the future." Both hope to exchange technologies and benefit from each other's know-how. "Having anticipated a steady rise in worldwide energy demand, the nuclear industry is also expected to develop innovative nuclear reactors... to bring the utmost safety and economy in providing a stable source of energy," they said. Copyright 2002 By chinadaily.com.cn. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 6 Nuclear commission to issue formal rules for power plant security PalmBeachPost.com: By Deborah Circelli, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer Wednesday, February 20, 2002 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is preparing to issue formal orders requiring tighter security at the nation's nuclear plants. NRC spokesman Victor Dricks said the federal agency, citing security reasons, cannot disclose the details of the orders, but did say some of the demands are new. Generally speaking, the orders cover access to the plant, stricter training for guards, a greater distance between the plant and vehicle search areas and increased coordination on the part of local, state and federal agencies, he said. "The high-level threat environment has persisted longer than expected," Dricks said Tuesday, explaining the NRC's move. The orders will be issued in the coming weeks to the nation's 103 reactors, which include Florida Power & Light Co.'s four reactors in St. Lucie and Miami-Dade counties. No specific date was given. FPL officials said Tuesday the company believes it has had many of the new requirements in place since the Sept. 11 terror attacks on New York and Washington. "FPL has already incorporated many of these security measures into our program," spokeswoman Rachel Scott said. Meanwhile, a nuclear advocacy group said the NRC orders would amount only to formalizing the recommendations it has made over the past five months. "It's not good enough, in our opinion," said Ed Lyman, scientific director of the Washington, D.C.-based Nuclear Control Institute, which supports having military forces stand watch at nuclear plants. "It's just tinkering around the edges. It's not dealing with the fundamental, systemic problems with reactor security that exists today." The NRC and the Federal Emergency Management Agency will evaluate FPL's disaster response today during the company's annual drill at the St. Lucie Nuclear Plant on Hutchinson Island. The drill, which measures how the plant would respond in case of an event such as a leak of radioactive steam, involves hundreds of employees as well as state and county law enforcement agencies. But Lyman said the NRC needs to go back to having attack drills at nuclear sites, which were suspended after Sept. 11. The attack drills used simulated events such as an armed invasion to test plant security. Roger Hannah, an Atlanta-based NRC spokesman, said the NRC will return to the attack drills sometime in the future. "It's more important than ever to make sure the measures they are proposing are adequate," Lyman said. deborah_circelli@pbpost.com [deborah_circelli@pbpost.com] Copyright © 2002, The Palm Beach Post. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 7 Indian Point owner: Keep plants open By ROGER WITHERSPOON THE JOURNAL NEWS (Original publication: Feb. 19, 2002) BUCHANAN — Entergy Nuclear has asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to reject a petition from environmentalists and elected officials to close the company's Indian Point nuclear power plants because of the threat of terrorism. "The extreme relief requested by Petitioners is based on speculative concerns, lacks an adequate legal foundation, and is factually unsupported," Entergy said in a formal motion to the NRC. "This extraordinary relief is unjustified." Entergy further said that security measures have increased throughout the nation, and "whatever level of risk remains of an act of sabotage or terrorism against Indian Point, that level is indisputably lower than it was before September 11, 2001." The request to shut the Buchanan plants, Entergy said, was made "not on the basis of any non-compliance by Entergy with existing law or NRC regulation, but on the theory that Indian Point could be the subject of terrorist attacks such as those conducted on September 11, 2001, by foreign enemies." In addition, Entergy said the commission and licensed operators of the nation's 103 nuclear power plants have always relied on the federal government and its defense network for protection. That policy must continue, Entergy said, "because it is not practical to turn nuclear facilities into armed fortresses, and because the Commission and nuclear facility licensees should not be required to speculate about enemy threats and the effectiveness of the national security apparatus in defending against them." The Feb. 11 filing, obtained by The Journal News yesterday, is Entergy's formal response to a petition filed in November with the NRC by a coalition of elected officials and environmental groups, including the Garrison-based Riverkeeper. In December, the NRC rejected the coalition's call for an immediate shutdown of the plants, but it is considering the overall request to close the site because of the threat of terrorism. The agency is assessing security needs of nuclear plants nationwide because federal officials have said terrorists have targeted the facilities, although no specific threats have been reported. Only the NRC and Entergy can decide to close the plants, though they do need several operating permits from the state. The NRC has ordered the closing of plants only due to safety violations. Plant opponents, under the umbrella Indian Point Safe Energy Coalition, solicited more than 7,000 signatures for their NRC petition. In addition, the Rockland County Legislature and several school boards in Rockland and Westchester counties have formally supported the petition to close the plants. The coalition, led by Riverkeeper, asked that the Indian Point plants be shut down until it is certain they can be protected. The group also asked for the immediate transfer of the hundreds of tons of spent fuel from storage pools into dry, concrete casks. Fuel that has been out of the reactor for more than five years is generally cool enough — about 600 degrees Fahrenheit — for this type of long-term storage. Riverkeeper Director Alex Matthiessen said yesterday that "Entergy is not arguing with the substance of our concerns as much as they are with the procedures." "Even if Entergy is meeting regulatory requirements, in this new era those regulations are wholly inadequate to protect the public safety," Matthiessen said. Jim Steets, the company's spokesman, said yesterday, "Entergy isn't contemplating decommissioning the plant and recognizes it has tremendous value to Westchester County and New York City and New York state." Entergy filed its response at a time when debate over the plants' future is intensifying throughout the region. On Saturday alone, about 1,000 people on both sides of the issue staged demonstrations in nearby Peekskill. Entergy, meanwhile, is spending millions of dollars to improve the performance of Indian Point 2 and bring it up to industry standards. The company purchased the troubled-plagued Indian Point 2 from Consolidated Edison Co. on Sept. 6. Earlier last year, it purchased Indian Point 3 from the New York Power Authority. Fred Dacimo, Entergy's new vice president for Indian Point, said the company has taken a number of steps to improve performance and safety at Indian Point 2. For example, Entergy has replaced nearly all of the plant's top management and is phasing out its extensive use of contractors for training and other services. Indian Point 2 operated from Sept. 6 to the end of the year — a total of 500,000 employee-hours — without a reportable injury, Dacimo said. The company has taken an extensive inventory and is replacing damaged equipment that Con Edison continued to use. "There are a lot of issues here that we are fixing to our standards," Dacimo said. "It's not so much an issue of safety as it is reliability. You don't cut corners to run this facility." mail to Roger Witherspoon [rwithers@thejournalnews.com] Home [http://www.thejournalnews.com] -News Copyright 2002 The Journal News, a Gannett Co [http://www.gannett.com/] . ***************************************************************** 8 Braidwood opening delayed February 20, 2002 BY DALE BOWMAN STAFF REPORTER March 1 might arrive a month late this year. Exelon Nuclear is looking at early April as the target date for reopening its three cooling lakes in Illinois to public recreation. Braidwood, Clinton and LaSalle lakes have been closed to the public since Sept. 11. All three lakes cool nuclear plants. "Our projections are for early April,'' Exelon spokeswoman Ann Mary Carley said. "That is contingent on no changes to the plan.'' For months, Exelon has been checking "interfaces and actions'' with numerous local, state and federal agencies in putting together a plan that would protect the safety of its nuclear plants and allow public recreation. "Our first priority is safety, but we also understand a large number of people utilize the lake for recreational purposes,'' Carley said. Large number might be an understatement. Some years, Braidwood's traditional March 1 opening resembled the arrival of a country circus. Trucks and trailers lined up days in advance. So many vehicles arrived that local farmers rented out parking spots in nearby cornfields. More than 20,000 people sometimes descended on Braidwood on March 1. LaSalle, located about 100 miles west of Chicago, traditionally opened March 15. Clinton is located west of Champaign. For many of us, March 1 became an automatic circle on the calendar: Braidwood reopens; winter will end. Whether casting the rip-rap for bass from a boat or sitting on shore for channel catfish and bluegill, we knew spring was near, even if snowflakes were flying that day. I will miss the March 1 hoopla at Braidwood, but I can wait another few weeks. Especially when Carley said, "We are pretty solid that this is going to work.'' WEED CHAINS: State and local officials successfully prosecuted the first case involving tightened regulations on weed control on the Chain O'Lakes. Wanton destruction of weed beds long has been a sore point with those concerned about the ecological health of the Chain. Weed beds provide sanctuary for young-of-the-year fish and other benefits. But weed beds also quickly choke channels, hindering or preventing boat passage. For years, homeowners controlled weeds at their whim, often leading to virtual cocktails of overlapping herbicide applications. Under pressure from fishing groups, Administrative Rule 895--Fox Chain O'Lakes Aquatic Plant Management--took effect in 2001. The Ad Rule requires any person, company or organization that proposes to sponsor or conduct chemical or non-chemical treatment for the management of aquatic plants in the Chain to obtain a letter of permission from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. The first test of the new law came in mid-July. Rob Stecher, a homeowner on Channel Lake, allegedly made chemical applications that resulted in a fish kill in a dead-end channel on the north end of Channel Lake. "There were literally thousands of [dead] bluegills,'' local resident Dan Brueggemann said at the time. "They looked like golf balls on the channel.'' Homeowners near the channel were afraid to let their families swim, and fishermen were outraged. (An enraged angler is believed to have committed a still-unsolved act of criminal vandalism: the pouring of motor oil on Stecher's driveway. The oil caused a minor spill on the Channel.) At one point, half a dozen state and local agencies or departments were investigating. As the case dragged on, anglers became more bitter about the lack of action. It looked like the new regulation had no effect. Last Wednesday, Stecher pleaded guilty to one count of depositing contaminants in a waterway under the Clean Water Act and one count of violating the Pesticide Act. "We wanted to send a message that these are serious offenses,'' Illinois DNR investigator Mike Lyne said. Stecher was fined court costs on one charge. On the other, he had to pay $174.88 in restitution, do 75 hours of community service with the Fox Waterway Agency, make a $2,000 donation for the purchase of fish structures or materials to the FWA and pay a $500 fine. For questions on the new regulations, contact the FWA at www.foxwaterway.state.il.us or call the DNR at (815) 675-2319. DUCK: Illinois' top waterfowl biologist, Ray Marshalla, came back from meetings with the news that regulation changes and dry conditions in Canada could lead to a restricted and shortened duck season this year. BIRKIE UPDATE: It was 38 degrees and raining Tuesday morning in Hayward, Wis. With deteriorating snow conditions, the Johnson Bank American Birkebeiner ski race, slated for Saturday, officially was shortened to 25K from its usual 51K. A decision on whether the race will be run at all could be made as late as Thursday. About 9,000 skiers usually participate in the Birkie, Kortelopet and related events, and another 20,000 spectators descend on the area. For updates, go to www.birkie.org. EAGLE FLYING: The year-old bald eagle, hunkered down at Gilson Park in Wilmette, may have finally flown on its way after two weeks. Don Darnell, the Wilmette birder who first reported the sighting, has not seen the eagle for two days. Evanston nature photographer Ken Oberlander first spotted the eagle in dire straits Feb. 3. Wilmette animal control officer Joseph Wideman tended to the bird by feeding it fish heads. That probably broke every rule for human/wild animal interaction, but it may have saved the bird's life. "The bird was so weak and confused [when he arrived] that he hopped up on a Lexus SUV with two Labs in it,'' Darnell said. "The Labs went absolutely crazy.'' E-mail Dale Bowman at outdoordb@aol.com. [http://www.suntimes.com/ ***************************************************************** 9 India's nuclear program fails to make the grade Asia Times: February 20, 2002 atimes.com By T V Padma NEW DELHI - Citing safety reasons, India has for the second time this year ordered the shutdown of a second nuclear plant, amid concerns that the country is steadily falling behind a target of generating 20,000 megawatts of nuclear power by 2020. The Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) has ordered one of the two plants of the Rajasthan Atomic Power Station (RAPS-1) at Rawatbhatta in western Rajasthan state, built more than 30 years ago, to cease operation by April. AERB Secretary K S Parthasarathy said "the plant would be allowed to operate beyond that month only if the officials undertake a detailed safety upgradation program", which can take anywhere beyond 18 months. Earlier, on January 9, the AERB shut down a plant at the Madras Atomic Power Station (MAPS) in southern Tamil Nadu state so that safety improvements could be carried out. RAPS-1, built with Canadian assistance in 1972, is India's first pressurized heavy water reactor (PWHR). It uses pressurized "heavy" water as a moderator to maintain the reactor temperature and prevent it from overheating, as well as a coolant for the reactor. But Canada walked out of the project in 1974, after India's first nuclear test at Pokhran in Rajasthan, leaving Indian scientists to handle, maintain, repair and operate the RAPS plants on their own. An international boycott that followed slowed India's nuclear program but by no means halted an independent program, which does not accept full-scope inspections by the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). "We cannot be blamed for the design limitations of the reactor. It was built with whatever was the latest technology available in 1970s. Thirty years down the line, it is easy to pick on faults by hindsight," said an official of the Nuclear Power Corp of India Ltd (NPCIL), which runs India's 14 nuclear power plants. The impending RAPS-1 closure brings into focus India's lagging nuclear power production program. While atomic scientists set an ambitious target of producing 10,000MW by 2000, the country has up to now barely managed a quarter of the targeted production - 2,500MW as of February 12. Achieving the target of producing 20,000MW of power by 2020 seems even more remote. India has 14 nuclear power plants - two units each at Tarapur in western Maharashtra, four at Rawatbhatta in Rajasthan, two at Kalpakkam in Tamil Nadu, two at Narora in northern Uttar Pradesh, two at Kakrapar in western Gujarat in the west and two at Kaiga in southern Karnataka. All have been beset by problems. The performance of plants at Tarapur and Rawatbhatta is below the original target of 220MW. While the Tarapur Atomic Power Station (TAPS), built in 1969, is operating at a 160MW capacity, the RAPS plants are producing only 100-140MW of power. In a release, the AERB identified failures in turbine blades, cracks in the end-shields that hold the fuel rods together, leaks in tubes in the heat exchanger and pressure relief devices as some of the problems that plagued RAPS-1. "These are some of the technical issues which occurred and were resolved from time to time. Some of these issues required novel engineering solutions and considerable time and effort for implementations," AERB said. The reactor was running again after undergoing some repairs recently, but the AERB said, "of late, some of the components of RAPS-1 have shown signs of aging". Parthasarathy said that after a technical review meeting this month, officials decided to stop operations after April 30, "taking a holistic view of the problems encountered and as a measure of abundant precaution". NPCIL officials in Mumbai said the plant would be shut down for three months beginning in May and the plant will be thoroughly investigated. Disruptions have marked the performance of India's other atomic power plants from the start, accounting for the sub-optimal nuclear power production. Though the country has 12 of the world's total of 34 operating PWHRs, its power production is low, conceded Parthasarathy. Nuclear power barely accounts for 2 percent of India's total power production but work on building new plants continues. In November, India finalized a deal with Russia to buy two large reactors capable of generating 2,000MW of power at a plant at Kudankulam in Tamil Nadu. The Tarapur plant often suffered shutdowns and radiation leaks due to faulty designing. It faced a crisis when the United States stopped the supply of enriched uranium, saying India was diverting spent fuel for its nuclear-weapons program. However, France agreed to supply the fuel, helping the reactor continue with its operation. India's most important supplier of nuclear material has been the former Soviet Union and later its successor Russia. The second in the series - RAPS - whose first plant began commercial operation in 1973, was shut down for almost a year in 1982 due to recurring leaks in one of the shields to cover the cooling tubes. After extensive repairs, the plant continued to operate in fits and starts, with recurring leaks frequently halting power production. The first Madras Atomic Power Station (MAPS) plant at Kalpakkam, near the eastern seashore in Tamil Nadu, also suffered shutdowns in the '80s, when jellyfish swam into a tunnel that brings in seawater used to cool the reactor. There were frequent leaks of heavy water from the tubes, and once two uranium fuel rods got stuck in the tubes at the MAPS plants. Fire broke out in a generator at the Narora Atomic Power Station (NAPS) in 1993, destroying it. Concern has also been voiced over its location - in the quake-prone Himalayan belt in India, though civil engineers have repeatedly stressed that the plant has been designed to withstand jolts of earthquakes measuring over 8 on the Richter scale. At Kaiga in south India, the first power plant suffered a mishap even while it was being built, when a building dome came crashing down, due to faulty design. A former AERB chairman, A Gopalakrishnan, has been the most vocal critic of the safety of India's nuclear power plants. He has gone on record saying India's nuclear power plants were "a disaster waiting to happen" - a charge repeatedly denied by his successors at the AERB, NPCIL and the apex Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). Parthasarathy pointed out that the AERB has never hesitated to order a plant to shut down if it was not satisfied with safety issues. (Inter Press Service) ©2001 Asia Times Online Co., Ltd. Room 6301, The Center, 99 Queen's Road, Central, Hong Kong ***************************************************************** 10 Nebraska Plant to replace leaking fuel rods Journalstar.com: Nebraska The Associated Press FORT CALHOUN - Leaking fuel rods at a nuclear power plant will be replaced about five months ahead of schedule. Officials with the Omaha Public Power District said the public has not been in any danger because of the leaking radioactive fuel at Fort Calhoun Nuclear Station. "It was making it more difficult for us to continue operations in the manner we wanted," said OPPD spokesman Jeff Hanson. The escaped radioactivity has required extra safety measures at added costs. Plant workers have worn additional protective clothing, used additional shields and have had limited time spent in areas where there might be increased radiation, Hanson said. The fuel rods are sealed metal tubes containing ceramic pellets of radioactive material. The rods are bundled together and inserted into a pool of water to form the fuel core of the reactor. Energy from the pellets heats the water, creating steam to turn turbines that creates energy. The rods tend to vibrate and rub against the strap that holds them in bundles in the pool. Eventually, the straps can wear tiny pin holes in the rods, allowing radioactive gas to escape into the water. The plant has a process to scrub out some of the radioactivity, but it is not possible to filter all of it out, Hanson said. Since it was starting to accumulate, OPPD officials decided to switch the fuel rods to reduce the chance of exposure to workers. The fuel replacement, a regular occurrence at nuclear plants, will require OPPD to shut the reactor down in late April. It should be back on line in late May or early June, Hanson said. Other maintenance work that can only be done when the reactor is shut down will also be performed. Copyright © 2002, Lincoln Journal Star. All rights reserved. 926 P Street Lincoln NE 68508 402 475-4200 feedback@journalstar.com ***************************************************************** 11 Leaks at Nebraska nuclear plant get OPPD's attention Omaha.com February 19, 2002 BY NANCY GAARDER WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER Omaha Public Power District Leaking radioactive fuel at the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant has become enough of a concern that plant officials decided to switch out the last batch of it earlier than planned. The plant has been working since 1995 to solve problems with fuel rod leaks, said Jeff Hanson, spokesman for Omaha Public Power District, owner of the reactor north of Omaha. The public has not been in any danger, Hanson said. However, the escaped radioactivity has required extra safety measures at added cost. "The reason we moved (fuel replacement) up five months was because we were continuing to have problems," Hanson said. "It was presenting no danger to the public, but it was making it more difficult for us to continue operations in the manner we wanted." Because of the leaking fuel, plant workers have had to wear additional protective clothing, use additional shields, limit the amount of time they spend in areas where there might be increased radiation and take other safety measures. The fuel replacement, a regular occurrence at nuclear plants, will require the utility to shut the reactor down for a short time this spring. Breck Henderson, spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which monitors the nation's nuclear plants, said most nuclear plants will have this type of problem at some time. Here is what happens: Fuel rods are sealed metal tubes containing ceramic pellets of radioactive material. The rods are bundled together and inserted into a pool of water to form the fuel core of the reactor. Energy from the pellets heats up the water, creating steam to turn turbines. The movement of those turbines generates electricity. When water flows through the core, the rods tend to vibrate and rub against the strap that holds them in bundles, Henderson said. Eventually, the straps can wear tiny pin holes in the rods, allowing radioactive gas to escape into the water. The NRC has limits on how much radioactivity can be present in the water, Henderson said, and Fort Calhoun's water has never exceeded those limits. OPPD's Hanson said Fort Calhoun's readings have not reached "anywhere near" the limits set by the NRC. "Their limits are way over any we like to operate at." The radioactive gases should not present a long-term problem, Henderson said. The plant has a process to scrub the radioactivity out of the water, and the half-life of this type of radioactivity typically is fairly short. It is not possible to filter out all of the radioactivity, Hanson said, and since it was beginning to accumulate, plant officials decided to accelerate the switch to reduce the chance of exposure to workers. The public is not at risk because the system is contained within the reactor building, which has concrete walls 3 to 4 feet thick. The fuel rods were purchased through a $10.5 million contract with Westinghouse Electric Co. When problems were discovered, OPPD worked with Westinghouse to come up with new designs for the fuel rods. Other remedies also were tried. Finally, in 1999, OPPD canceled the last half of its contract with Westinghouse and began switching over to fuel rods from Siemens Power Corp. Generally, about one-third of the rods, or about 7,000, in the reactor are replaced during each refueling outage, and outages are scheduled about 11/2 years apart. The shift in fuels could end up costing about $5 million, Hanson said. The plant plans to begin shutting down in late April for refueling. It should be back in operation in late May or early June. Crews will take advantage of the shutdown to do maintenance and other work that cannot be done while the reactor is in operation, Hanson said. Fort Calhoun provides about 30 percent of OPPD's electricity. ©2002 Omaha World-Herald. A ***************************************************************** 12 Scotland: Nuclear accident 'posed no public risk' Times Online February 20, 2002 By A Scotland Correspondent PROCEDURAL and hardware deficiencies were blamed yesterday for an accident at a nuclear power station, a report said yesterday. The inquiry into the incident at Chapelcross nuclear power station, where 24 radioactive fuel rods slipped to the floor, produced several recommendations for safety improvements. But the authors of the inquiry report, published yesterday, said that no worker or member of the public had been put at risk from radioactive material. An inquiry was launched by the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate after a basket of fuel rods fell while being moved last July. The incident team at the plant, near Annan, was called in and carbon dioxide was sprayed over the basket to ensure it did not catch fire. Friends of the Earth complained afterwards that the public had not been properly alerted about the accident. Laurence Williams, Chief Inspector of Nuclear Installations, said yesterday: “The incident occurred as a result of a combination of procedural and hardware deficiencies. I am satisfied that no worker or member of the public incurred any harm from release of radioactive material. I am also satisfied that there was no deliberate attempt by British Nuclear Fuels to deceive the inspectorate in relation to the reporting of the event or the status of plant at the time.” Kevin Dunion, chief executive of Friends of the Earth Scotland, welcomed the report but called for a better system of disclosure into nuclear plants. He said: “We remain concerned that the accident was not immediately made public even though the Chapelcross emergency plans were activated and the regulatory authorities were informed.” Copyright 2002 [http://www.thetimes.co.uk ***************************************************************** 13 AU: No plan yet for disposal of nuclear waste canberra.yourguidewww.yourguide.com.au By SCOTT HANNAFORD The Federal Government admitted yesterday that it did not know what it was going to do with radioactive waste from a new reactor at Lucas Heights, in Sydney, although it was on the verge of signing a contract for the reactor's construction. During a Senate estimates committee meeting the former environment minister Robert Hill said the Government was yet to complete a plan for the storage of low-level or high-level radioactive waste which would come from the new reactor. Senator Kim Carr had asked Senator Hill and Department of Environment officials what they planned to do with the waste, and was told it was a condition of the construction contract that waste-disposal plans be in place. "I'm at a loss to explain how a contract of this dimension, a new nuclear reactor for $300 million is about to be signed," Senator Carr said. Senator Hill said there were three sites near Woomera in South Australia which were being considered for a national repository for low-level waste, but nothing had been decided. "Recommendations have been accepted and are awaiting approval," the department official said. "However, the contract has [not yet been signed] as far as I know." Senator Carr asked how waste would be transported to a South Australian site when the state Government had recently announced that it would not accept the construction of a repository or the transport of nuclear waste through the state. Senator Lyn Allison asked, "There is no proposal for waste is there? Isn't that the problem?" The department spokesman replied, "We've got bits and pieces [of a waste-disposal plan but] final details still being established." Senator Hill said low-level waste was already scattered throughout the country, being stored in the basements of universities and other places, and the Commonwealth would not have to invoke the Land Acquisitions Act to obtain a repository site, as the three possibilities being looked at were all on Crown land. Some waste from Lucas Heights was now being stored on site and shipping waste overseas for processing was one option which would be considered. Two anti-nuclear protesters bared more than their convictions yesterday when they took to the streets outside Prime Minister John Howard's office in Sydney. They were naked. Sydney People Against a New Nuclear Reactor staged the protest and two women who had undressed for the event were charged. A police spokesman said the women, aged 27 and 30, were charged with wilful and obscene exposure after officers from The Rocks police had bundled them into a police vehicle. ***************************************************************** 14 BNFL warned over 'deficiencies' after fuel rod incident By Matthew Jones in London Published: February 19 2002 17:30 | Last Updated: February 19 2002 17:40 An incident in which 12 nuclear fuel rods were dropped 80ft down a discharge chute was the result of "procedural and hardware deficiencies" by British Nuclear Fuels, the UK's atomic safety regulator said. No-one was hurt in the incident, which happened last July at the ageing Chapelcross power station in Scotland, but the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate described it as having the potential to be serious. Laurence Williams, chief inspector of nuclear installations, ordered BNFL to upgrade defuelling mechanisms at the Chapelcross plant, as well as at the similar Calder Hall power station near Sellafield in Cumbria. No defuelling of the plants would be allowed until the changes had been made. "Should progress be inadequate, NII will not hesitate to use its enforcement powers to ensure safety is maintained," Mr Williams added. BNFL was last summer criticised for taking 10 days to disclose the full extent of the problem. It originally said 24 fuel rods had dropped a distance of two feet during a routine refuelling operation but later admitted 12 had fallen the full length of a discharge chute, breaking three elements. The delay is known to have annoyed the Department of Trade and Industry, which has been at pains to help re-build BNFL's reputation with international customers since a data falsification scandal in 1999. Mr Williams, however, said there was "no deliberate attempt by BNFL to deceive NII". The delay had instead been caused by the time taken to carry out a more detailed inspection of the plant using remotely controlled TV cameras. Calder Hall was opened by the Queen in 1956 and is acknowledged as the world's oldest commercial nuclear power station. Chapelcross was built a few years later to a similar design. The plants are due to close in 2006 and 2008 respectively. Environmentalists have speculated that Calder Hall may never re-open due to the cost of the modifications in relation to the time left in service. But BNFL said yesterday it had already started making the changes. ***************************************************************** 15 UK govt finds BNFL did not deliberatley deceive over Chapelcross accident AFX (UK); Feb 19, 2002 LONDON (AFX) - British Nuclear Fuels PLC had not deliberately attempted to deceive HM Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII) after underestimating the depth to which a number of fuel rods were dropped at its Chapelcross plant last July, according to a report by the UK's Health and Safety Executive. "I am satisfied that there was no deliberate attempt by BNFL to deceive NII in relation to the reporting of the event or the status of plant at the time," said Laurence Williams, HM Chief Inspector of Nuclear Installations. He also said he was confidant nobody had been harmed in the incident. The HSE found, however, that some improvements should be made to improve the safety of the defuelling operation, after a number of procedural and hardware deficiencies were identified as the cause of the incident. The HSE said it will "monitor progress via our normal process of regulation and if progress is inadequate, we will take any necessary action." The accident happened on July 5 2001 as BNFL carried out a routine re-fuelling operation at the plant, which is about 10 miles north of Carlisle. BNFL originally gave the impression it had dropped 24 fuel rods two feet to the floor of a reactor. However, the version of events changed to 50 feet and BNFL revised this later to 80 feet. It had admitted a number of the rods were still missing after being dropped down a discharge chute and that it would have to close down three other reactors on the site to concentrate on their retrieval. dlh/lam For more information and to contact AFX: www.afxnews.com and www.afxpress.com ***************************************************************** 16 Russian shipyard prepares to dispose of Kursk wreck BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Feb 19, 2002 Text of report by Russian news agency RIA Murmansk, 19 February, RIA-Novosti correspondent Yelena Denisenko: Engineering personnel from the Northern Fleet and shipyard officials from Roslyakovo have begun getting the Kursk nuclear submarine ready for scrapping, the head of the Northern Fleet's press office, Viktor Navrotskiy, told RIA-Novosti today. During the initial stage the shipyard will prepare to seal the fissure between the first and second compartments of the submarine, he said. At the same time, a plan to transport the Kursk to a dry dock at the Nerpa shipyard in Snezhnogorsk is being considered. According to Navrotskiy, one option is to break the submarine into two parts along its fifth compartment and separate the reactor compartment from the remaining six torpedoes, which are still in their launch tubes. No final decision has been taken on this yet. The Kursk is due to be taken across the Kola peninsula in April to the Nerpa yard, where its reactor and torpedoes will be removed and its hull scrapped. Source: RIA news agency, Moscow, in Russian 0816 gmt 19 Feb 02 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. ***************************************************************** 17 Fort Worth, Texas, Officials Hesitant about Nuclear Waste Disposal Plan Ginger D. Richardson , Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News ( February 19, 2002 ) Feb. 17--FORT WORTH, Texas--Local officials greeted with trepidation President Bush's decision to pursue a nuclear waste dump in Nevada, saying that the plan is fraught with public safety concerns that could affect millions of Texans. The proposal to create a central repository for nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain -- 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas -- is being decried by environmentalists and Republican and Democratic political leaders alike. In North Texas, there is concern that radioactive waste shipments will cross the Metroplex on highways and rail lines. "Right now, I would have to say I don't like it," Fort Worth Councilman Chuck Silcox said Saturday. Silcox serves on the Regional Transportation Council, a board that serves Tarrant, Denton, Dallas, Collin and Johnson counties. "I suspect the public won't like it one bit either. "The average person should be very cautious and very leery about this." In a telephone interview from Toluca, Mexico, Mayor Kenneth Barr said he, too, has questions and wants more information about any federal safeguards that are being discussed. Bush's plan must win congressional approval before going forward. "It's always a concern, although I don't think anyone should be overly alarmed about it," Barr said. "But I know that for some people it is a major issue, so we really need to learn more about it and how these [shipments] would be handled." In a letter to congressional leaders Friday, President Bush said he decided to proceed with the Yucca Mountain project because it "is necessary to protect public safety, health and this nation's security." More than 77,000 tons of waste has been building up at power plants and defense sites across the United States. Under the plan, Yucca Mountain would be a central repository for the highly radioactive material, which is expected to remain dangerous for 10,000 years. But Bush's decision is being blasted by leaders of both parties -- including Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn, a Republican, who has filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the approval process. State officials argue that the government's studies of the Yucca site are inadequate, and that waste stored in the mountain might seep into the groundwater. Democrats, including former Vice President Al Gore, were also critical, accusing Bush of breaking his campaign promises. Maps and studies indicate that there are at least two nuclear waste transportation routes in Texas that could be used to send the shipments to the Yucca site. One is the Union Pacific rail line that runs north from the South Texas Project nuclear reactor near Bay City, through Houston, and then into the Fort Worth-Dallas area. The other is the Atchison, Topeka &Santa Fe railway that runs west from the Comanche Peak nuclear plant in Glen Rose, through Abilene and Amarillo. Administration officials say that the waste will be shipped safely, and that the president's decision is based on the "culmination of two decades of intense scientific scrutiny." But Pat Remington, who represents the Arlington City Council on the Regional Transportation Commission, said he has his doubts. "I have to believe that the federal government has done its homework," Remington said. "But I would be willing to bet that the RTC would initiate its own investigation." On Saturday, Fort Worth Environmental Director Brian Boerner said there would be little or no danger to area residents and that the transportation plan had been thoroughly researched. "A lot of work and money has gone into this," Boerner said. "These materials are put into casks and they've been dropped on concrete, hit with buses, burned, and they haven't had a breach that I know of." Boerner added that the city's environmental, police and fire departments had undergone extensive training in dealing with a nuclear accident, and that low-level nuclear waste is already transported through Fort Worth en route to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad, N.M. But Saturday, Erin Rogers, outreach coordinator for the Lone Star chapter of the Sierra Club, said she could understand why the president's decision has prompted an uproar, particularly in light of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. "Why would a terrorist need to fly a jumbo jet into a power plant, when we are taking nuclear waste, putting it on the road and practically handing it to them?" Rogers said. "We are completely opposed to putting this stuff on the road and putting citizens on those routes at risk for an accident." The battle now moves to Capitol Hill, where Congress will have to decide -- by majority vote of both houses -- whether to uphold the decision. This report includes material from The Associated Press. ----- To see more of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.dfw.com       (c) 2002, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News. ***************************************************************** 18 UK: Safe N-waste will cost £1bn a year Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Paul Brown, environment correspondent Wednesday February 20, 2002 The Guardian [http://www.guardian.co.uk] Making Britain's nuclear waste safe will cost £1bn a year for the next 10 to 15 years and require new skills and plants to deal with it, the nuclear installations inspectorate said yesterday. The legacy of the cold war and British Nuclear Fuels operations at Sellafield are the main obstacles to safe recovery of the waste, only 15% of which has been properly dealt with. There are still large tanks of high level waste that has to be monitored, stirred and cooled round the clock to prevent a nuclear chain reaction. Plants to turn waste into glass blocks have never worked efficiently and it will take 15 years to catch up on the backlog, Laurence Williams, NII chief inspector, said yesterday. The inspectorate said many old buildings would fall apart before the radioactive waste inside ceased to be dangerous. Between 15 and 20 new plants would be needed to pack and compact this waste into concrete to be stored. New buildings would be needed to house the waste, so it can be monitored and eventually retrieved for safe disposal, Mr Williams said. Following a reassessment of decommissioning facilities at Sellafield last year, BNFL became technically bankrupt when its long term liabilities exceeded its assets. Patricia Hewitt, the trade and industry secretary, announced a liabilities management authority to take over the decommissioning of old plants and deal with the waste problem. A white paper is due in the spring to outline the legislation required to set up the LMA. Mike Weightman, the inspector responsible for overseeing BNFL operations, said: "We welcome the new arrangements to facilitate the proper disposal of all this waste now for the benefit of future generations who should not be left to deal with it." Mr Williams said the aim was to make all nuclear waste safe. Stores for the waste would need to last for 100 years. The NII and the Department of Trade and Industry is concerned that the expertise to deal with the nuclear legacy may be lost. The nuclear workforce is getting older and universities are no longer providing courses or finding students keen to enter the industry. Workshops are being held at home and abroad to try to train a new generation of nuclear engineers to deal with the waste problem. A report was published yesterday by the NII into the accident at the Chapelcross reactor in Dumfries when fuel rods were dropped 80ft to the bottom of the reactor and lay undiscovered for seven days. The inspectorate concluded BNFL had not tried to hide the fact that 12 fuel rods were missing and had fallen, the company's workers had just not realised it had happened. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002 ***************************************************************** 19 CCAGW Applauds Bush's Yucca Decision; Nuke Depository is Cost Effective, and Safeguards Environment, National Security [http://www.cagw.org] WASHINGTON, Feb. 19 /PRNewswire/ -- The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) applauded President Bush's Friday decision to dispose of some 70,000 tons of nuclear waste under Yucca Mountain, Nev. The decision comes after two decades of scientific analysis and political wrangling over where and how to deposit and store nuclear waste. "After spending more than $6 billion to determine the safest and most secure site, the government has now correctly concluded that nuclear waste can be buried at Yucca Mountain," CCAGW President Tom Schatz said. "In addition, keeping the waste at its current location at nuclear plants around the nation is costly and dangerous." The cost of maintaining nuclear waste at sites around the country could be more than $60 billion. In addition, several federal court decisions over the last several years have found the Department of Energy has violated the law by failing to construct a permanent nuclear waste site. The President's support of Yucca Mountain should end that litigation track, but open up another as activists have said they intend to delay Yucca's activation as long as possible. Las Vegas officials, lead by City Attorney Brad Jerbic, have filed several lawsuits in federal courts to block progress. "Nevada's officials should recognize that this project is safe and makes sense, and drop all legal road blocks. Taxpayer money has been allotted for this project; it's time to move forward," Schatz said. "Additionally, Sept. 11 should have taught this country a lesson about its potential weak spots," Schatz added. "Yucca is a crucial security precaution against terrorism. Currently, a terrorist has over 100 chances in 39 states to breach security where nuclear waste is stored, and there are scores of sites -- power plants, old reactors, etc. -- where nuclear material now resides. The shallow nuclear storage pools built in the 1970s were only designed as a temporary measure, and are often located near major U.S. cities. Putting most or all nuclear waste in one facility that can be carefully documented and guarded, like Ft. Knox, ensures high security, not to mention enormous economies of scale financially." "Everyone from the U.S. Geological Survey to the Department of Energy has agreed the Yucca Mountain site is scientifically sound. Further delay means the waste of yet more money -- it's time to act," Schatz concluded. The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste is the lobbying arm of Citizens Against Government Waste, the nation's largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government. SOURCE Council for Citizens Against Government Waste Web Site: http://www.cagw.org [http://www.cagw.org] Copyright © 1996-2002 PR Newswire Association Inc. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 20 Nuclear-waste site too risky Your editorial in support of storing [the nation's] nuclear waste at Nevada's Yucca Mountain (Feb. 12) is highly irresponsible. » More From The Oregonian Letters Nuclear-waste site too risky Your editorial in support of storing [the nation's] nuclear waste at Nevada's Yucca Mountain (Feb. 12) is highly irresponsible. 02/19/02 You claim that if we don't move 41,000 tons of nuclear waste [from nuclear plants in 31 states] to Nevada, we'd "invite a terrorist attack and risk a potential environmental catastrophe." Did it not occur to you that this repository might become the world's largest terrorist target? Did you not understand that the large-scale transportation of nuclear waste on our highways and railroads would threaten the health and safety of more than 50 million Americans in up to 45 states? It only takes 1/100,000 of an ounce of inhaled plutonium to cause lung cancer. Accidents are bound to happen. Yet you want us to plow ahead, since no "better option" is available? The reason that feasibility studies have cost billions is that the government keeps trying to prove the impossible. Nuclear materials with half lives of thousands of years cannot be stored safely. This stuff is deadly. If we can't do it right, we shouldn't do it at all. JANIENE BEAUCHENE Hillsboro MORE LETTERS » Beneficiaries need protection Kathleen Baker ["No: We can't legislate good sense about 401(k) plans, but accounting and disclosure safeguards can protect investors," Feb. 10] would have a strong argument except for one very important law -- The Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA). » County library the better deal Jack McNally's math says that for the same price of library services [for him, based on his property taxes] over the next five years, he could buy almost one whole hardback book per month (Letters, Feb. 13). » Don't slow down Hanford cleanup Hanford Nuclear Reservation is a major threat to the environmental quality of the Columbia River and the Pacific Northwest. © 2002 OregonLive.com. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 21 'Dump the Dump' campaign considered enlisting Clinton Wednesday, February 20, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal By DAVE BERNS lasvegas.com GAMING WIRE Former President Bill Clinton was one of several high-profile political figures recently considered by Nevada gaming bosses to serve as a well-paid lobbyist in the fight against a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain. But gaming executives decided against offering Clinton the job, believing he would add a polarizing force to the political debate, sources said Tuesday. Nevada casino executives announced earlier in the day that their Carson City lobbying group had set aside $250,000 to help pay for a lobbying effort to defeat President Bush's decision to open a nuclear waste repository at the Southern Nevada site 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The Nevada Resort Association money will be pooled with as much as $500,000 recently earmarked by the industry's American Gaming Association in Washington, D.C., to pay for an anti-Yucca lobbying push. Park Place Entertainment, Mandalay Resort Group, MGM Mirage, Harrah's Entertainment and Station Casinos are among the lead players in both organizations. Nevada Resort Association leaders said they are hopeful their $250,000 donation will spur further giving by executives of the region's nongaming companies. "There are homebuilders and construction companies that have made millions and billions of dollars in this community," said Mandalay Resort Group Senior Vice President Mike Sloan, "and if they're concerned that Yucca Mountain is going to be harmful to the Las Vegas business economy we're challenging them to step up." A morning news conference in a Thomas &Mack Center meeting room was scripted by the Las Vegas advertising and public relations firm of R Partners and offered limited details of the Nevada Resort Association's "Dump the Dump" campaign. Republican Gov. Kenny Guinn and Democratic Sen. Harry Reid and Rep. Shelley Berkley joined Park Place Entertainment Chief Executive Officer Tom Gallagher and Harrah's Entertainment Chairman Phil Satre in applauding the monetary set aside -- providing a united front on an issue that has threatened to divide political leaders along partisan lines this election year. "It is time for all of us to work together to stop this railroad job in its tracks," Guinn said, describing the Yucca proposal as "ill conceived" and the product of "incomplete staff work." The Nevada Resort Association and AGA money would augment a separate $5.4 million state-controlled fund that could be used for anti-Yucca lobbying, litigation and advertising in communities through which much of the estimated 77,000 tons of nuclear waste would be shipped to the nuclear repository. Guinn is expected to veto the proposal within the next two months. The U.S. House and Senate must approve or reject the plan later this year before it could become a reality. . "It is a fight that is far broader than the state of Nevada," Gallagher said, referring to the estimated 43 states through which nuclear waste would pass en route to Yucca. Gallagher said Park Place could contribute more money to the political effort. Satre, Sloan, Mandalay Resort Group Senior Vice President Mike Sloan and MGM Grand Resorts Chief Executive Officer John Redmond were less definitive in response to questions about their companies' future giving plans, simply saying they would do their part. American Gaming Association bosses continue to eye several candidates for the anti-Yucca lobbying job, said top casino industry bosses who requested anonymity. In addition to Clinton, others considered include former Sens. George Mitchell and Bob Dole, and high-profile Capitol Hill lobbyists Tommy Boggs and Tom Korologos, sources said. Also under consideration is the Washington-based firm of Barbour, Griffith &Rogers, which is run by former Republican National Committee Chairman Haley Barbour. A casino industry executive had preliminary discussions with Mitchell and Dole, a source said, but that team fell by the wayside because they have clients with interests that conflict with those of Yucca opponents, a source said. "The key to this is to hire somebody that can work with Democratic and Republican senators and doesn't piss off everyone else," a source said of potential anti-Yucca lobbyists. Retired Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., is not among the candidates, although the former two-term senator has tapped into his Capitol contacts to push Nevada's argument. Hovering about the morning news conference were recent comments by Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, who has argued that the state's casino industry has not done much to defeat the Yucca plan. While never mentioning Goodman by name, Reid, Berkley, Bryan, Gallagher and others spoke of the casino industry's long-term commitment to defeating plans to store deadly nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain. Casino executives say that for years they have spoken with congressional members about their Yucca concerns, either in face-to-face meetings or through AGA and Nevada Resort Association lobbyists. "I can't remember a time in my memory we weren't all united against Yucca Mountain," Berkley said. Goodman said Tuesday he is happy that the state's casino industry is increasing its involvement on the Yucca issue, but he stuck by his earlier contention that the industry has not been vocal enough in the past. "As far as I'm concerned, I told the truth," Goodman said. "The only problem I have is I painted with too broad a brush, because there are some wonderful corporate citizens, and I've written to some of them and let them know how much I appreciate their participation." Goodman said he isn't encouraged by arguments from industry leaders who maintain that they have worked against the proposed repository for nearly 20 years. "I would hope that they haven't been working behind the scenes, because if they were that would show they have very little influence" in Washington, Goodman said. A top industry official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said such comments may politically damage Goodman. "I think it did a lot of damage long term to the mayor, and I think this kind of rhetoric between the mayor of the city of Las Vegas and the leading industry is inappropriate," the source said. "The industry supports practically every endeavor we have here, from the university to every charity." One million dollars of the $5.4 million state fund has been set aside for a public relations and advertising campaign to be coordinated by the Las Vegas firm of Brown &Partners, which is run by former Station Casinos executive Mark Brown. The public relations executive said he is working closely with Nevada's state and congressional leaders to determine the best ways to spend that money. The lobbying push and media campaign have led to development of a map detailing the train and truck routes on which nuclear waste would be hauled to a Yucca repository. That would be compared to a map of U.S. congressional districts. The goal is to develop anti-Yucca sentiment among House and Senate members whose districts would have the waste pass through them. Nevada casino executives who attended Tuesday's news conference said the financial set aside does not signal a change in their approach to political giving to House and Senate campaigns. Instead, they will continue to donate to candidates who support the Yucca plan so long as those politicians support casino industry interests on other issues. President Bush received $122,700 from the industry in the 2000 election cycle, third among all federal candidates behind Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., and Senate candidate William Gormley, R-N.J., according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The casino industry figures include donations from tribal and non-Nevada gaming companies. Review-Journal writers Jan Moller and Jeff Simpson contributed to this report. Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002 ***************************************************************** 22 Gaming at last breaks long silence on Yucca Mountain Wednesday, February 20, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal COLUMN: John L. Smith Like a lot of simple observers of the politics of nuclear waste, I had long wondered why the gaming industry had been so church mouse quiet on the issue of Yucca Mountain. Its leadership and lobbyists had strong opinions on everything from sidewalk smut to the price of electricity, but for some reason left the criticism of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project for others. At a Tuesday news conference that could have doubled for a political and Gaming Inc. Hall of Fame presentation, I found out. It turns out the industry has been busy fighting the good fight behind the scenes. You know, on the Q.T. Very hush-hush. Which is amazing when you consider this industry brims with big egos who aren't shy about letting their opinions be known. Some of these guys feel comfortable calling the president and inviting him over for a game of golf. From its larger-than-life megaresorts to its multimillion-dollar courting of congressional candidates, Gaming Inc. has appeared incapable of understatement. The Yucca Mountain fight was a rare exception. Until Tuesday. The Nevada Resort Association's news conference, with its mini-testimonials from present and past public officials, left little doubt that the gaming industry was quietly engaged on the Yucca issue. Its $250,000 contribution to the fight, although barely a belch from a single casino high roller, was a more than symbolic attempt to prime the political lobbying pump. With its donation came a question: Will other Nevada businesses and big developers add chips to the pot? We'd better hope so. With so many ears to bend, that cash won't amount to cab fare. But it's a bright spot in a bleak picture. The news conference produced a formidable cast. On the casino side, there was Park Place Entertainment CEO Tom Gallagher, Harrah's Entertainment Chairman Phil Satre, MGM Grand Resorts CEO John Redmond, Mandalay Resort Group Senior Vice Presidents Dave Belding and Mike Sloan, Station Casinos General Counsel Scott Nielson, and Nevada Resort Association President Bill Bible. On the political side, U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, Rep. Shelley Berkley, Gov. Kenny Guinn, former U.S. Sen. Richard Bryan, former Gov. Bob Miller, and Clark County Commissioner-congressional suitor Dario Herrera. Noticeable by his absence was Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, a critic of the industry's understated manner. The invited took pains not to mention Goodman, but on the side a few tore into him. His irresponsible, ill-informed comments were irritating and unproductive, they said. And, for the record, their plan of attack was in development many months before Goodman's recent oral assault. Others, like Bible, downplayed him entirely. "The character of the issue changed dramatically on Friday (when President Bush signed off on the project)," Bible said. "Quite frankly, I don't pay much attention to Oscar." "I'm not taking credit for anything," Goodman said later. "I'm just happy they're doing it, finally. I just hope it's not too late." On the contrary. If anything, Nevada's fight against Yucca Mountain is just now reaching the legally intriguing stages. Although no one expects either the House or the Senate to vote against a project its members have endorsed in separate votes on several occasions, Bryan on Tuesday restated his confidence that Nevada's legal opposition was sound. And Gallagher, a relative newcomer to the fight, noted a variety of little-explored alternatives to the traditional Not-in-My-Backyard Yucca strategy. While Yucca is now officially and publicly on the gaming industry's radar screen, its leaders also know they can't afford to alienate members of Congress with too much tough talk. Not with a potential ban on college sports betting, Internet gambling legislation and federal highway widening dollars at stake. The deal makers can't afford any deal breakers. Now that the industry has stepped up and cut a check, its leaders are right to raise an important question: Where are Nevada's business and development communities on the Yucca Mountain issue? Who knows, maybe they've been working behind the scenes all these years, too. John L. Smith's column appears Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. E-mail him at Smith@lvrj.com or call him at 383-0295. Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002 ***************************************************************** 23 Nuclear fuel reprocessing plant urged for Yucca Mountain site Wednesday, February 20, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal By STEVE TETREAULT STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- A nuclear power proponent on Tuesday suggested someday adding a fuel reprocessing plant at Yucca Mountain to recycle nuclear waste that would be stored at the Nevada repository if built. "Instead of running away from reprocessing, we should run toward it," said Norris McDonald, president of the African American Environmentalist Association, a group that supports nuclear energy as a "clean air" alternative to fossil fuels. Speaking at a nuclear industry news conference, McDonald described nuclear waste as a "renewable fuel" and said Yucca Mountain "in the not too distant future should be a centralized site for reprocessing spent fuel" for use in new design reactors. McDonald was one of a half-dozen speakers assembled by the Nuclear Energy Institute to congratulate President Bush on selecting Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, for a nuclear waste repository and to urge Congress to advance the program by rejecting an anticipated veto from Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn later this year. After the event, McDonald said he was not aware of anyone in Congress or the Bush administration pursuing a reprocessing plant for Nevada, but said it was a good idea. But others describe fuel reprocessing as highly controversial and unlikely to happen. Tom Clements, executive director of the Nuclear Control Institute, predicted restarting fuel reprocessing in the United States would face "quite a bit of opposition in Congress and nationally." Angie Howard, NEI executive vice president, said the industry group had no position on the idea of reprocessing fuel at Yucca Mountain but described the nuclear waste that would be stored there as a "strategic reserve that...can be brought out of storage and recycled and reused." webmaster@lvrj.com Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - ***************************************************************** 24 Yuca: Gaming industry steps up Nevada Appeal February 20, 2002 Editorial board The battle against nuclear storage at Yucca Mountain so far has been fought largely by state taxpayers and by environmental organizations such as Citizens Alert. Not any more. This week, the Nevada casino industry pledged $600,000 to help the state lobby in Congress and challenge the nuke dump in court, according to the Las Vegas Sun. "This has been in the making for some time," Gov. Kenny Guinn told the Sun. "Every one of (the casino executives) I've talked to has told me they're willing to step up to the plate." The casinos are wise to concentrate their efforts on lobby and legal fronts, because Las Vegas has a tricky image problem when it comes to Yucca Mountain. Situating the nation's nuclear waste site 90 miles from the nation's adult playground could present a real challenge for the country's best marketers. The gaming industry has too big a stake to ignore it. Make too much of a deal about it, however, and tourists may forever associate the two. So the money, $100,000 from the Nevada Resort Association and $500,000 from the Washington-based American Gaming Association, will go to change the minds of those who matter most now: lawmakers and judges. "The fight now has moved to Congress and the courts, and it will require a different level of effort," said Resort Association President Bill Bible. The gaming industry was criticized a week ago by Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman for not being more involved in the campaign against Yucca Mountain. But as long as the myth of "sound science" as the deciding factor was being kept alive, the state's watchdog agency and Citizens Alert were appropriate leaders on the ramparts. Now that there's apparently nothing but politics standing between Nevada and 77 tons of radioactive waste, it's a good time to call on the heaviest hitters. Copyright Nevada Appeal. Materials contained within this site may ***************************************************************** 25 UK: BNFL operator cleared of coverup THE operator of Chapelcross nuclear power station has been cleared of covering up an accident in which 24 radioactive fuel rods slipped from a mechanical grab and fell 83ft. An investigation into the incident, on July 5 last year, found a combination of "procedural and hardware" deficiencies were to blame at the power station near Annan in Dumfriesshire. Laurence Williams, HM Chief Inspector of the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII), said he was satisfied that there had been "no deliberate attempt by British Nuclear Fuels Ltd (BNFL) to deceive NII in relation to the reporting of the event or the status of plant at the time". Mr Williams added: "BNFL has made a positive response to our findings and has initiated a programme to implement the necessary improvements. While I have no doubts that BNFL will deliver the required improvements, we shall monitor progress via our normal process of regulation and if progress is inadequate, we will take any necessary action." BNFL said it was fitting equipment which would prevent a mechanical grab releasing a fuel basket at the wrong moment, installing cameras to establish the grab was correctly attached and improving training. The report, published yesterday, said the inspectorate was satisfied that no worker or member of the public was in danger from radioactive material. The incident happened as operators were preparing to lower a discharge basket containing the fuel rods at reactor number three. After the rods fell, carbon dioxide was sprayed over the basket to ensure it did not catch fire. BNFL said it welcomed the findings "confirming that wild allegations of a cover-up at Chapelcross were wrong". It explained that reactor three was undergoing routine refuelling when a mechanical grab released a basket containing 24 fuel elements inside a shielded fuel discharge machine. "An initial assessment suggested that the fuel elements had fallen only a few feet. Some days later, an internal inspection using a remote camera showed that 12 fuel elements had fallen 83ft into a water-filled flask. All the fuel elements were safely recovered," BNFL said. It added that although it had taken some days to confirm the location of all the dropped fuel elements, this was due to the "thorough, cautious approach adopted by station staff". The SNP, which earlier had accused BNFL of attempting to mislead the public by covering up news of the accident - an allegation rejected by the company - yesterday remained unhappy. Fiona McLeod, MSP for west of Scotland and shadow deputy environment spokeswoman, said: "When a similar accident occurred in 1985 at Calder Hall nuclear power station, a plant modification was made to ensure that it did not recur. I therefore remain deeply concerned that this modification was not implemented at Chapelcross as this could have prevented this incident. "BNFL must now state whether they intend to introduce this modification or will they - in the interests of cutting costs at a station they say they want to close next year - continue pretty much as before? "We know that Chapelcross is due to shut down and has a very short future, but even if they only operate it for one more week I want to be certain they have put these precautions in place." Kevin Dunion, chief executive of Friends of the Earth Scotland, called for a better system of disclosure into nuclear plants. He said: "We remain concerned that the accident was not immediately made public even though the Chapelcross emergency plans were activated and the regulatory authorities were informed." - Feb 20th ***************************************************************** 26 Letter: Perfect location found for storing nuclear waste Las Vegas SUN February 20, 2002 Allow me the liberty of proposing an alternative nuclear waste site to Yucca Mountain. It has plenty of room for waste on about 1,600 acres, is seismically stable, and a place which only 630 people would find objectionable, rather than millions. No need for conclusive scientific research, since that hasn't occurred at Yucca Mountain, either. Since Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham doesn't truly know much about nuclear storage, he should be indifferent, and it's a shoo-in that nuclear power industry lobbyist John Sununu will volunteer to be the custodian since he knows so much about nukes. The place? Crawford, Texas. It's all about location, location, location. FRANK SLAVICK Superior, Colo. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 27 Yucca supporters push for speedy approval February 20, 2002 By Benjamin Grove LAS VEGAS SUN WASHINGTON -- The Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project is vital to the nation's future, representatives from an eclectic group of organizations said Tuesday. The organizations included seniors, electrical workers and African American environmentalists. "The nation has reached the point in time where difficult and important decisions are now imperative with respect to our energy future and economic security," said James Dushaw, director of the utility department for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. "The lawful obligation of the federal government regarding the disposition of (waste at Yucca) is one which cannot be unduly delayed." Congress later this year is expected to vote on the federal plan to bury the nation's most radioactive waste at the Yucca site, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. President Bush approved the plan last week. Nevada officials slammed Bush's decision; nuclear industry representatives hailed it. Nuclear industry officials are cobbling together assorted groups that support the project as part of a larger pro-Yucca lobbying effort. Officials hope the coalition will help them convince Congress to support Yucca. "This is a defining moment in our nation's energy history and for our nation's energy future," said Angelina Howard, a vice president of the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's top lobby group. NEI brought officials from six organizations together for a press conference at the National Press Club Tuesday: the African American Environmentalist Association; United Seniors Association, Inc.; Citizens Against Government Waste; a town leader from Waterford, Conn.; the National Association of Manufacturers; and Dushaw. Dushaw said the electrical workers union had 780,000 members nationwide, including 15,000 who depend on the nuclear industry for jobs. Dushaw told reporters that even the union's Nevada workers support Yucca. The African American Environmentalist Association is the only environmental group that vocally supports the Yucca Mountain plan, group president Norris McDonald acknowledged. The 7-year-old group that urges more African American participation in green causes has about 5,000 members nationwide, he said. Yucca Mountain is "clearly the best site" to bury the nation's waste, McDonald said, adding that the nation should also recycle nuclear waste. Citizens Against Government Waste, a taxpayer watchdog group, has supported the Yucca plan for about five years, president Tom Schatz said. Keeping waste stored at nuclear plants nationwide is "costly and dangerous," Schatz said. Taxpayer money has been allotted for the project and it should proceed, he argued. Schatz later said the unfinished project represents a liability to taxpayers because the government promised nuclear utilities that it would haul waste away to a waste dump by 1998. That date passed and now utilities are suing the government. Taxpayers ultimately could be responsible for billions of dollars in compensation to the utilities. One anti-Yucca activist showed up at the press conference uninvited offering a different viewpoint. Public Citizen's Lisa Gue said the assembled groups had argued that Yucca Mountain seems like the safest site to bury waste in the nation, even though many scientific studies at the site are not complete. "Simply saying that 'Yucca Mountain is the best we can do, let's proceed with it' is not responsible public policy," Gue said. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 28 Yucca Dump a dilemma for gaming Las Vegas SUN February 20, 2002 By David Strow With $750,000, the gaming industry is publicly joining the battle against Yucca Mountain, as a showdown before Congress nears on the fate of a proposed nuclear waste dump 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. But in doing so, the industry will be campaigning against a dump that has broad support in many other states, including some that are home to casinos operated by Las Vegas gaming operators. For that reason, it's a battle that gaming is approaching with caution. "We have a difficult task here because you'll find people who are normally our friends are not on this issue," said Frank Fahrenkopf, chief executive of the American Gaming Association. "We've got to walk a tightrope on this issue, and it's not going to be easy." On Tuesday the Nevada Resort Association said it has established a $250,000 "seed fund" to back lobbying and legal efforts against Yucca Mountain. The AGA voted in December to raise $500,000 through increased dues for "contingency lobbying," and most of those efforts will go to the Yucca Mountain fight as well, Fahrenkopf said. The gaming industry's work will supplement the state's $5.4 million fund to fight a repository. That money has been raised mostly through public monies. Bill Eadington, director of the Institute for the Study of Gambling and Commercial Gaming at the University of Nevada, Reno, said the gaming industry has a full slate of legislative priorities already and should be expected to have a bigger picture in mind. "They have a lot of different battles to fight, and they probably should not be as vehement and willing to take this to the wall as much as (state officials) would," Eadington said. "I would also expect they won't carry it beyond reasonable gentlemanly strategies. "You're up against significant opposition, and you're likely to lose. How much political and economic capital do you burn up in a lost cause?" Yucca Mountain is far from the only issue concerning the gaming industry, which has been fighting for years to ward off federal oversight and restrictions. Still looming is the NCAA-backed bill to ban all college sports betting in Nevada, an effort bitterly opposed by the state's casinos. Congress is also expected to consider several initiatives aimed at banning Internet gambling, though the industry has yet to come up with a cohesive position on these bills. In the past, there have even been proposals to levy a federal tax against the gaming industry, though this issue has not emerged in several years. The concern some industry officials have is fighting Yucca Mountain without losing support for their other issues. Still, Yucca Mountain is still worth fighting against, a top Strip executive said. "The gaming industry has a strong stake in Nevada's future, perhaps stronger than any other industry," said Tom Gallagher, chief executive of Park Place Entertainment Corp. and chairman of the NRA. "We (the NRA) will continue to do all we can to prevent Nevada from becoming the nation's nuclear dumping ground." Gallagher said more would be contributed in the fight against Yucca Mountain by the state's casino operators, and he called on companies that do business with the gaming industry to contribute as well. But no one was willing to estimate how much the gaming industry was planning to contribute to the cause. "We can't make a budget, because you don't know what twists and turns lie ahead," NRA President Bill Bible said. While casinos are getting involved, they won't be taking the gloves off. For example, a politician's stance on the Yucca Mountain issue won't be used as a litmus test, Gallagher said. Threatening to cut off political donations -- or to fund an opponent -- over a Yucca Mountain position "is the worst kind of lobbying," Gallagher said. "We have supported political figures from all across the country," Gallagher said. "We're looking for them to keep an open mind on issues important to us." But listening won't necessarily translate into support, another gaming industry executive acknowledged. "Just because they're our friends doesn't mean they'll side with us," said Mandalay Resort Group Vice President Mike Sloan. The NRA and AGA's lobbying efforts will focus on Congress, where a final battle is quickly nearing in the 19-year debate over Yucca Mountain. On Friday President Bush accepted Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham's recommendation that the mountain be used to permanently store up to 77,000 tons of highly radioactive nuclear waste. Gov. Kenny Guinn can veto the move, and he's vowed to do so. But a majority vote of both the House of Representatives and the Senate would override this veto. The House is expected to do so easily; the Senate is far more uncertain. Sen. Harry Reid, the Senate's Majority Whip, declined to estimate how many senators were prepared to vote against Yucca, but noted that just 35 out of 100 senators sided with Nevada the last time Yucca came up for a vote. Of that number, only two were Republicans. "We'll do the best we can," Reid said. "(Sen.) John (Ensign, R-Nev.,) and I have a big hole we're trying to climb out of." Having the support of the NRA and AGA will assist in that fight, Reid said. "We need help lobbying (on Capitol Hill), and this is what this (the NRA fund) will allow us to do," Reid said. "This is a very important day. I've never been as proud of the gaming industry as I am today." But for senators from states where nuclear waste is accumulating, siding with Nevada would be a difficult proposition at best, even if they've often aligned with the state on other issues. For that reason, the gaming industry plans to focus on the safety hazards of transporting nuclear waste across the country. "We will stand on the issue of safety, and safety is an issue from state to state," said Phil Satre, chairman and chief executive of Harrah's Entertainment Inc. "We're involved with politicians in a lot of different states, and we will use these relationships to say to them, 'This (transporting nuclear waste) is a safety issue.' " If Congress overrides Nevada's veto, the gaming industry warchest would then be used for the second prong of the state's anti-Yucca strategy -- delaying and possibly derailing Yucca Mountain under a flood of lawsuits. Optimism is running higher about Nevada's chances there, as state officials believe the federal government has not built sufficient scientific and environmental evidence to support Yucca Mountain. "I think our case gets stronger and stronger the faster they try to ram this through," Guinn said. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 29 Nevada to publicize nuke shipping routes Wednesday, February 20, 2002 The Detroit News. Protesters picket against the proposed storage site for nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain, Nev., at a demonstration in Washington, D.C. It hopes residents in other states will help kill nuclear waste dump By Faith Bremner / Gannett News Service WASHINGTON -- If the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository opens in Nevada in 2010 as planned, tens of thousands of highly radioactive shipments will roll through communities large and small for the next 38 years. Every day, cities like Denver, Des Moines, Iowa, and Kansas City, Mo., will have spent nuclear waste -- stored at 72 power plants and five Department of Energy sites -- coming through their neighborhoods. Although the nuclear industry has an excellent safety record moving high-level waste around and the waste itself is not explosive, environmentalists say thousands of people could die from radiation poisoning or cancer if a waste shipment were involved in a major fire or terrorist attack. Officials in some states say the Department of Energy should begin planning a massive national transportation campaign soon, so that states can participate in the decisions. State government lobbying groups say the process for designating the routes could take a long time if it becomes controversial and communities fight among themselves to keep out shipments. But so far, the energy department has refused to discuss with states how and over what routes the waste will be shipped. The transportation program would consist of 2,525 truck shipments per year for 38 years or 522 rail shipments per year for 38 years, supplemented by 97 yearly truck shipments from facilities that don't have rail access. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham recommended to President Bush that Yucca Mountain be designated the nation's high-level nuclear waste dump. Bush is under no time frame to act on the matter. In his budget, Bush proposes raising Yucca Mountain's budget 43 percent from $297 million this year to $425 million next year. Nevada, which is fighting the dump designation, says the department of Energy is refusing to start transportation planning because it will be too controversial and communities could derail the repository with their opposition. "They don't want people in places like Boise to go bonkers when they realize that in order to screw Nevada, they'd have to take all this waste through their back yards," Nevada's transportation consultant Robert Halstead said. Halstead prepared his own transportation maps using regulations that govern high-level nuclear waste shipments. These routes essentially follow interstate highways and the main rail lines and are the shortest routes that can be taken in the shortest amount of time. Nevada plans to launch a nationwide advertising campaign this spring publicizing the routes. Nuclear waste transportation is even more critical since Sept. 11 when terrorists showed they are willing to kill themselves to take innocent people with them, environmental groups say. Until Sept. 11, environmental groups opposed high-level nuclear waste shipments primarily because of the potential for accidents. Environmental groups say the waste should be stored as close as possible to where it is generated until a permanent solution is found. Yucca Mountain, with its proximity to earthquake faults, is not a permanent solution, they say. "This is not something I want to talk about a lot, obviously, but it is a well-known fact that a moving target is harder to protect," said Lisa Gue, spokeswoman for Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group founded by Ralph Nader. The Nuclear Regulatory Agency is reviewing all of its security regulations, procedures and policies in light of Sept. 11, agency spokeswoman Rosetta Virgilio said. The review will cover not just the waste repository and nuclear waste shipments but also security at the nation's nuclear power plants, she said. Environmental groups oppose the waste shipments not out of safety concerns, but because their ultimate goal is to shut down nuclear power plants, said Mitch Singer, spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, a lobbying group representing commercial nuclear power plants. It makes more sense in the wake of Sept. 11 to consolidate the spent fuel in one location and bury it 1,000 feet underground, Singer said. The shipments have not been controversial in the past and there's no reason to believe they will become so in the future, he said. "There are groups that will try to rile up people and scare them unnecessarily," Singer said. "If we educate people about how safe it will be, people have enough common sense to realize that." In December, the Southern States Energy Board -- an organization that represents the governors of 17 Southern states plus Puerto Rico on energy and nuclear waste matters -- joined the Midwestern and Northeastern councils of state government in asking the energy department to begin planning the shipments. Over the past 15 years, the Western Interstate Energy Board, which represents Western governors, has periodically asked the energy department to begin the work, said its executive director, Doug Larson. Joe Davis, the Energy department's deputy director of public affairs, said he was not aware of any recent requests by the states for the agency to begin transportation planning. ***************************************************************** 30 N-waste Critics: Feds have poor record - 02/20/02 Wednesday, February 20, 2002 The Detroit News. Agreements to transport waste through Missouri were broken, state says By Faith Bremner / Gannett News Service WASHINGTON -- The relationship between state and federal officials can be adversarial when it comes to high-level nuclear waste passing through. In Missouri, the shipments have been so controversial that the federal government rerouted two of them through Iowa in 1999 and 2000 rather than risk a fight with the governor. A third shipment, bound for a temporary storage site in Idaho, went through Missouri in June and state officials say the Department of Energy bungled it. The shipments were part of the federal government's Atoms for Peace program, in which nuclear fuel loaned to foreign countries for research purposes is returned. The energy department broke agreements it made with the state to avoid rush-hour traffic through St. Louis and to avoid driving past Kauffman Stadium during a Kansas City Royals Game, said Dru Buntin, Missouri's interstate issues coordinator. The energy department also failed to notify the state that the shipment was coming and designate emergency parking areas along the route as promised, he said. "When you're talking about a shipment that has received so much scrutiny and was opposed by the state for three years and then to have all those things go wrong, it was not reassuring," Buntin said. "When you start thinking about the number of shipments they're talking about, this continues to be a concern." ***************************************************************** 31 Nuclear waste train leaves Germany for Britain news.telegraph.co.uk (Filed: 20/02/2002) A TRAIN carrying nuclear waste has left the atomic power plant Unterweser in northern Germany for the Sellafield reprocessing plant. A few dozen people demonstrated against the shipment of two waste containers at its point of departure. About 10 militant anti-nuclear protestors blocked the rails but eventually followed police orders to clear the site and allow the shipment to proceed. According to the ecological group Robin Wood, the convoy will take a southern route through Germany and cross France before continuing on to Britain. Convoys of nuclear waste in Germany are routinely met by protests from environmental activists, who say the cross-country shipments are dangerous. The German government has agreed to phase out nuclear power over the next three decades. [http://adrates.telegraph.co.uk] Privacy Policy. ***************************************************************** 32 Opinions:Explains why MOX plan is good Augusta Georgia: Web posted Wednesday, February 20, 2002 Letter to the Editor I support shipping our nation's weapons-grade plutonium to the Savannah River Site, and subsequent construction of the MOX plutonium uranium mixed-oxide processing plant. Plutonium metal presents little or no danger to the public ... Conversion of weapons-grade plutonium to mixed-oxide fuel, or what I refer to as "energy-grade" plutonium, is not only in the best interest of our nation but also in the best interest internationally. Realistically, the MOX facility will take from 5-10 years to construct and process approximately 2-3 tons of plutonium per year. Our existing excess stockpile is approximately 34 metric tons. Primary national interests are twofold: first, conversion of this material from weapons to energy-grade removes it from the nuclear weapons stockpile and, second, the material is converted into a suitable form for future use as a significant energy resource. Construction of the MOX plant will also demonstrate world leadership. Russia demands that their excess weapons-grade plutonium be converted to mixed-oxide fuel, but they don't have the financial resources to construct a MOX plant. They have turned to the international community for financial support. Their stockpile is not as secure as the U.S. stockpile and is vulnerable to theft. It is clearly in our best national interest to demonstrate good faith in building a MOX plant at SRS as well as work with the international community in securing, controlling and converting the international supply of weapons-grade plutonium... W. Russ Ferrara, Aiken, S.C. AugustaChronicle.com is a proud member of Augusta.com ***************************************************************** 33 Fort Worth, Texas, Officials Hesitant about Nuclear Waste Disposal Plan Ginger D. Richardson , Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News ( February 19, 2002 ) Feb. 17--FORT WORTH, Texas--Local officials greeted with trepidation President Bush's decision to pursue a nuclear waste dump in Nevada, saying that the plan is fraught with public safety concerns that could affect millions of Texans. The proposal to create a central repository for nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain -- 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas -- is being decried by environmentalists and Republican and Democratic political leaders alike. In North Texas, there is concern that radioactive waste shipments will cross the Metroplex on highways and rail lines. "Right now, I would have to say I don't like it," Fort Worth Councilman Chuck Silcox said Saturday. Silcox serves on the Regional Transportation Council, a board that serves Tarrant, Denton, Dallas, Collin and Johnson counties. "I suspect the public won't like it one bit either. "The average person should be very cautious and very leery about this." In a telephone interview from Toluca, Mexico, Mayor Kenneth Barr said he, too, has questions and wants more information about any federal safeguards that are being discussed. Bush's plan must win congressional approval before going forward. "It's always a concern, although I don't think anyone should be overly alarmed about it," Barr said. "But I know that for some people it is a major issue, so we really need to learn more about it and how these [shipments] would be handled." In a letter to congressional leaders Friday, President Bush said he decided to proceed with the Yucca Mountain project because it "is necessary to protect public safety, health and this nation's security." More than 77,000 tons of waste has been building up at power plants and defense sites across the United States. Under the plan, Yucca Mountain would be a central repository for the highly radioactive material, which is expected to remain dangerous for 10,000 years. But Bush's decision is being blasted by leaders of both parties -- including Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn, a Republican, who has filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the approval process. State officials argue that the government's studies of the Yucca site are inadequate, and that waste stored in the mountain might seep into the groundwater. Democrats, including former Vice President Al Gore, were also critical, accusing Bush of breaking his campaign promises. Maps and studies indicate that there are at least two nuclear waste transportation routes in Texas that could be used to send the shipments to the Yucca site. One is the Union Pacific rail line that runs north from the South Texas Project nuclear reactor near Bay City, through Houston, and then into the Fort Worth-Dallas area. The other is the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe railway that runs west from the Comanche Peak nuclear plant in Glen Rose, through Abilene and Amarillo. Administration officials say that the waste will be shipped safely, and that the president's decision is based on the "culmination of two decades of intense scientific scrutiny." But Pat Remington, who represents the Arlington City Council on the Regional Transportation Commission, said he has his doubts. "I have to believe that the federal government has done its homework," Remington said. "But I would be willing to bet that the RTC would initiate its own investigation." On Saturday, Fort Worth Environmental Director Brian Boerner said there would be little or no danger to area residents and that the transportation plan had been thoroughly researched. "A lot of work and money has gone into this," Boerner said. "These materials are put into casks and they've been dropped on concrete, hit with buses, burned, and they haven't had a breach that I know of." Boerner added that the city's environmental, police and fire departments had undergone extensive training in dealing with a nuclear accident, and that low-level nuclear waste is already transported through Fort Worth en route to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad, N.M. But Saturday, Erin Rogers, outreach coordinator for the Lone Star chapter of the Sierra Club, said she could understand why the president's decision has prompted an uproar, particularly in light of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. "Why would a terrorist need to fly a jumbo jet into a power plant, when we are taking nuclear waste, putting it on the road and practically handing it to them?" Rogers said. "We are completely opposed to putting this stuff on the road and putting citizens on those routes at risk for an accident." The battle now moves to Capitol Hill, where Congress will have to decide -- by majority vote of both houses -- whether to uphold the decision. This report includes material from The Associated Press. ----- To see more of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.dfw.com (c) 2002, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News. ***************************************************************** 34 Homeland security director tours Nevada counterterrorism center Las Vegas SUN February 20, 2002 LAS VEGAS (AP) - Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge toured the vast Nevada Test Site on Wednesday as part of a push by state leaders to make it the nation's counterterrorism training center. National Nuclear Security Administrator John Gordon and Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Joe Allbaugh joined Ridge for a series of afternoon demonstrations at the National Center for Combating Terrorism. Allbaugh said it was premature to say where the Nevada Test Site fit with the nation's national security plan. "It's too early to tell but it looks good on paper," he said at McCarran International Airport before boarding a flight to the test site about 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Also expected were Republican Gov. Kenny Guinn and Nevada's senators, Democrat Harry Reid and Republican John Ensign. Demonstrations were to include an assault by law enforcement officers on a simulated nuclear reprocessing facility taken over by terrorists and a response to a hazardous material spill on a dry lake bed. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory also was to demonstrate new technology to stop hijacked trucks. Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld visited troops at Nellis Air Force Base near Las Vegas and planned to attend a live-fire training exercise for Air Force fighter pilots. Ridge, who originally was scheduled to visit the test site in early January, planned to tour Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratories in New Mexico on Thursday before heading to Texas on Friday. Earlier Wednesday, Ridge told Cincinnati police and firefighters that the government plans to increase funding for emergency response teams. "This is a permanent condition we have to accept in America," the former Pennsylvania governor said. "We are better prepared today than we were on Sept. 11, but we're not as well prepared as we need to be. We'll always have to look for ways to improve." Ridge is traveling across the country this week to promote the president's $38 billion budget proposal for homeland security, in light of the terrorist attacks. Reid, the Senate's No. 2 Democrat, has been leading the effort to turn the 1,350-square-mile Nevada Test Site into a center to train police, firefighters and public health workers to respond to terrorism. Underground tunnels served as laboratories for some of the nearly 1,000 nuclear weapons tests conducted at the site from 1951 until such tests were banned in 1992. Nevada lawmakers have advocated the counterterrorism proposal for years, but the idea has received renewed attention since Sept. 11. The test site is used several times a year for limited bioterrorism training for emergency responders from around the nation, including those who are at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, said Reid spokesman Nathan Naylor. "We've got a whole lot of people that need to be trained right away," Naylor said Tuesday. "Several thousand a year are being trained out there now, but (Reid) would like to change that to tens of thousands." All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 35 Kursk submarine: More questions than answers Pravda.RU ¹ Feb, 19 2002 The investigators finished their work on board the Kursk submarine in Roslyakovo dock. Vladimir Ustinov , the Russian Prosecutor general, stated on Monday that there was practically no secrets left about what happened on board the submarine. A group of investigators performed a large amount of work on board the sub. They retrieved 82 bodies, and 79 of them were identified. In total, there were 94 dead bodies found and 91 identified. However, Vladimir Ustinov did not give an answer to the main question: what or who was the reason for the sinking of the submarine? Ustinov claimed that it was all about the traditional negligence, nothing much. The investigators totally rejected the version of a possible collision with another submarine. Ustinov said that there was the evidence that indicates that the Kursk was watching five objects, but those objects were not dangerous. The commander of the Russian navy, Vladimir Kuroyedov, said at a press-conference that the explosion of a torpedo was still “one of the three” versions of the tragedy, and the experts will make their final conclusions on the subject. The mass media outlets write that the Kursk sank because of a torpedo explosion. This version is the major explanation, according to the Russian press. The 65-76 “Whale” torpedoes have been used since 1957. These torpedoes were used in 949A submarines since 1991, and the Kursk belonged to this class of the subs. Noone was aware of the danger that those torpedoes were bearing, until the tragedy happened in the Barents Sea. The whole world refused to use such torpedoes back in 1955, after the catastrophe with a British submarine. It was the death of 118 submariners that made the officials talk about the danger for thousands of Russian submariners. Kuroyedov said that the Russian navy was going to withdraw those torpedoes from the arsenal. So what is so good about those torpedoes that even the sinking of the British submarine did not stop the military officials, and they added the them to the naval armory? If this is so, then who is going to be held responsible? Dmitry Chirkin PRAVDA.Ru Translated by Dmitry Sudakov ***************************************************************** 36 Nuclear Dangers in South Asia: Prospects for Disarmament Regionally and Globally IEER Press Conference: For further information contact: Arjun Makhijani or Michele Boyd [ michele@ieer.org] , (301) 270-5500 WHAT:: A press briefing to meet with the former chief of the Indian Navy, Admiral L. Ramdas (retired), an advocate of nuclear disarmament. He will discuss the current military crisis between India and Pakistan as it relates to terrorism and the risk of nuclear war. In this context, he will discuss the prospects for nuclear disarmament in South Asia and globally. WHERE: National Press Club, First Amendment Room, 13th Floor, 529 14th Street, NW, Washington, DC WHEN: Tuesday, February 26 at 10 AM WHO: Admiral L. Ramdas, retired chief of the Indian Navy, is currently the Chairperson of the Indian chapter of the Pakistan India Peoples Forum for Peace and Democracy and a member of the National Committee of India's Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace. His writings on Indian-Pakistani relations, nuclear matters, peace, and disarmament have been featured in many newspapers and journals. Admiral Ramdas will discuss the military tensions between India-Pakistan and how it relates to the U.S. War on Terrorism in Afghanistan. He will analyze the Indian position on no-first use of nuclear weapons in the context of its conventional military power and Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf's recent offer of a No War Pact with India and "denuclearization" of South Asia, which India has rejected. He will also address the prospects and conditions for regional and global nuclear disarmament and how nuclear risks might be reduced in the interim. Dr. Arjun Makhijani, president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, will host and facilitate the briefing. WHY: Tensions between India and Pakistan escalated rapidly in the wake of two terrorist attacks last fall - one on the Parliament in Kashmir's capital of Srinagar and the other on India's Parliament House in New Delhi. India has accused Pakistan of harboring and supporting the terrorists responsible for the attacks. There is now a standoff at the India-Pakistan border, with both nuclear-armed states amassing troops there. Pakistan has taken some actions to arrest suspects but not to the satisfaction of India. Admiral Ramdas will discuss the military tensions between India-Pakistan and how it relates to the U.S. War on Terrorism in Afghanistan. He will analyze the Indian position on no-first use of nuclear weapons in the context of its conventional military power and Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf's recent offer of a No War Pact with India and "denuclearization" of South Asia, which India has rejected. He will also address the prospects and conditions for regional and global nuclear disarmament and how nuclear risks might be reduced in the interim. Institute for Energy and Environmental Research Comments to Outreach Coordinator: ieer@ieer.org [ieer@ieer.org] Takoma Park, Maryland, USA Posted February 21, 2002 ***************************************************************** 37 Oak Ridge contractor actually pays itself By Frank Munger, News-Sentinel senior writer Many of us don't have a clue about how government contracting works. We just hope it does. For instance, when federal overseers notified BWXT Y-12 LLC that it was receiving more than $16 million in fees for its 2001 management of the Oak Ridge nuclear weapons plant, I just assumed that Uncle Sam (or one of his surrogates) would send a check to the contractor. But that's not how it works. "It's the funniest thing," said John Mitchell, the retired Navy admiral who is president and general manager of BWXT. "They don't actually give us the money. We have the money and transfer it to ourselves because we operate their bookkeeping system for them and have all the money." The money BWXT receives for its management performance is lumped in there with the half a billion dollars spent annually at the Y-12 National Security Complex, where workers manufacture parts for nuclear warheads. "When they (officials at the National Nuclear Security Administration) tell us how much to pay, we transfer that much to ourselves and ... log the payments like we would buying something," Mitchell said. "It's the same thing as us paying utility costs. It's just another charge. Book it and go. Transfer it out, and it's another bill." Because the management fee is considered an overhead cost in the plant's operations, BWXT has to evaluate its own performance and keep a running estimate of how much it is earning (against pre-determined milestones) to make sure there's fee money available at the end of the fiscal year. "For our cost-accounting purposes, we have to guess what we're really going to get, because they don't want us to accrue too much or not enough," Mitchell said. BWXT's fee prediction for its first annual evaluation was almost perfect, he said. The Oak Ridge contractor received $16,135,572 out of a total available fee pool of $20,166,667. While a higher fee would have been a nice surprise, Mitchell joked: "If I earn too much fee, I have to go increase my overhead rate." * WORD GAMES: Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham seems intent on playing politics with the environmental cleanup program. Abraham is trying to push a new cleanup approach, which proposes the establishment of an $800-million-a-year fund to be shared by nuclear sites that come up with plans for accelerated cleanup projects. If this proposal works at touted, DOE could eliminate some of its higher-risk problems in quick order and perhaps save big bucks in the long term by reducing the annual expenditures now needed for surveillance and maintenance of the dirty areas. "When I took office, I was presented with the old plan for cleaning up the department's Cold War nuclear sites, which called for a timetable of some 70 years to complete and at a cost of $300 billion," Abraham said during this year's budget roll-out. "That is not good enough for me, and I doubt it is good enough for anyone who lives near those sites." Unfortunately, Abraham has resorted to hyperbole and deception in order to put a happy face and a pretty blue ribbon on his plan. The figures that he used - 70 years and $300 billion - have little to do with the current-day cleanup reality at the federal facilities. When he referred to that being an "old plan," he was right because that plan was really old - but not the plan he inherited, which is what he implied. At an Oak Ridge workshop last week to talk about DOE's proposed budget for 2003 and other matters, one of the local citizens asked about Abraham's recent references to those old cleanup figures. It was an embarrassing moment for the local DOE officials because there was no way to defend Abraham's misleading words. In this case, somebody turned the question over to Gerald Boyd, the new cleanup chief at DOE's Oak Ridge operations. Boyd was in Oak Ridge for the first time since being transferred from DOE headquarters, where he was deputy assistant secretary for science and technology in the environmental management program. I would love to share with you Boyd's explanation of the secretary's comments, but I can't because I didn't understand what he said. He offered some sort of circular mumbo-jumbo that included the word "uncertainty" about three or four times. If DOE wants to build trust in the cleanup effort, as often stated, this seems like a poor way to go about it. Copyright 2002 The Knoxville News-Sentinel Co. ***************************************************************** 38 Groundbreaking is progress at Hanford » More From The Oregonian 02/20/02 ANDY DWORKIN Three times, the government has started massive projects to clean up millions of gallons of very radioactive waste that sits under Hanford Nuclear Reservation's soil in leak-prone tanks, seven miles from the Columbia River. Three times, those projects have failed spectacularly, costing taxpayers more than $1 billion and leaving a legacy of mistrust among federal officials, local regulators and Northwest activists. "It's been a history of false starts and disappointments," said Harry Boston, a U.S. Department of Energy official who oversees the tank waste cleanup. Now, 13 years after the first project began, construction crews and federal workers are trying to shake off the past and start again. Workers have begun grading the site and laying utilities for a huge complex of buildings in which tons of radioactive soup will be mixed with molten glass and the resulting glass logs sealed in tall steel tubes. If all goes as planned, crews will begin pouring concrete for the vitrification plant this year and start processing waste in 2007. The project will add more than 2,000 jobs to the Northwest economy this year, during a recession. The plant will seal a quarter or more of the tank waste's radioactive materials in glass logs, where the materials pose a much smaller threat to people or the environment. But tank waste cleanup has never gone as planned at Hanford. Activists and state regulators worry that this project will also unravel. Some activists see signs that U.S. Department of Energy leaders in Washington, D.C., are undermining the plan by transferring the top local manager back to headquarters, skimping on the budget and discussing ways to treat waste without vitrifying it. "We're at a point where we've been a couple of times," said Ken Niles, administrator of Oregon's Nuclear Safety Division. "They're at the edge. And the question is: Are they going to take that leap and move ahead on cleanup? If they don't go ahead, we'll be in a world of hurt." Decades of making plutonium for atomic bombs left Hanford, northwest of Richland, Wash., with one of the world's biggest deposits of deadly radioactive waste. More than half lies in 177 underground tanks, at least 67 of which have already leaked a million gallons of waste. The waste is a mixture of liquids, cakes of salt and sludge the texture of chunky peanut butter. The sludge holds the most highly radioactive materials, including cesium, strontium and technetium. Getting the waste out of the tanks and into steel-encased glass logs is the nation's biggest environmental project, said officials with Bechtel National Inc., the project's prime contractor. The project will cost $4 billion over 10 years and use 240,000 cubic yards of concrete -- more than one of the World Trade Center's towers. Although no vitrification plant so large has been built before, smaller ones operate at several sites in the United States and Europe. The basic technology is established and easy to understand. At Hanford, the plan is to dissolve the salt cakes in the existing tanks, then pump the liquid and sludge through underground pipes into a pretreatment plant. There, simple evaporation will reduce the amount of waste, said Todd Wright, research and technology manager for Washington Group International, the main subcontractor designing the vitrification plant. Several steps will then separate the waste into two streams: a larger one with low radiation levels, and a smaller, highly radioactive stream containing most of the sludge. First, an ultrafiltration process will physically strain out the sludge and solids, Wright said. It includes a step called isotopic dilution: Workers add nonradioactive strontium to the waste, which causes radioactive strontium ions to form a solid precipitate, which gets filtered out. Most radioactive elements heavier than uranium will get filtered into the higher-radiation stream by these steps, Wright said. Two ion exchange steps will remove cesium and technetium: Liquid waste flows over packed beds of specially engineered chemicals, reacting with them and exchanging its radioactive elements for much safer ones. For example, a material called SuperLig Resin takes up cesium ions, exchanging sodium ions back into the waste. When the beds reach their capacity for absorbing radioactivity, they will be harvested and added to the highly radioactive waste. The two waste streams then will flow into separate buildings, where they will go through similar glass-making processes: Glass-forming material, mostly silica, is added. Workers make sure that the resulting slurry has the right chemical makeup. Then they feed it into large furnaces, which use electrodes to run a current across the mixture and heat it to nearly 2,000 degrees. That creates a special melted glass, borosilicate glass, in which the waste is trapped evenly throughout the material. Hot finished glass will percolate out into big steel cans -- 7.5 feet high and 4 feet in diameter for the low-level waste, almost 15 feet high by 2 feet in diameter for the high-level waste. After the canisters cool, workers will decontaminate them before trucking them to their final destination. The low-level waste cans will be buried in lined trenches at Hanford. The high-level waste will be held at Hanford until the government opens a permanent high-level nuclear waste storage site, such as the one being considered for Yucca Mountain in Nevada. The finished glass is black and glossy, gleaming like anthracite coal. In the glass made from the low-level stream, about 24 percent is waste, measuring by weight. The more radioactive glass holds 30 percent waste by weight. Previous plans deserted Hanford experts say political and economic concerns, which scuttled the three previous attempts at cleaning up the tanks, pose a far greater threat to this effort than any engineering or scientific challenges. "If there has been one constant there, through 121/2 years of cleanup, it has been a reluctance by Department of Energy headquarters to follow through on the agreement," said Niles, the Oregon energy official. The first plan, in 1989, called for building a $920 million plant to turn some of the most radioactive tank waste into glass. The remainder would be mixed into a groutlike material and stored in 50 or 60 vaults. But after building a grout plant, regulators realized that the grout would decompose long before the waste quit being radioactive. They also realized that the 1940s-era plant intended as a glass pretreatment facility wasn't safe enough. They killed the plan in 1993. Then the government decided to build one big plant to vitrify all the waste. The realization that no one knew just what the tanks held combined with federal budget cuts to sink that plan. Next the government decided to have a private company build the plant and reimburse it by buying the glass. That solved federal budget problems, but the cost of borrowing money to build a private plant raised its projected price from $6.9 billion to $15.2 billion. The Energy Department fired the contractor, BNFL, in 2000. The current project is based on preliminary engineering work by BNFL, which Bechtel has advanced. The government will finance the work year by year, paying Bechtel its costs plus agreed-on profits if the company hits certain milestones. Bechtel hopes to beat one of those milestones by starting to pour concrete in July, instead of by the December deadline, said Suzanne Dahl, who manages the Tank Waste Treatment Project for the Washington Department of Ecology. Many regulators and some activists say that, this time, the project seems to be on track. They hope that by year's end, it will have advanced further than any of the three previous tries. "There's an awful lot of people working really hard to get the job done," Dahl said. "I really think that if the funding keeps going . . . they'll be building a vitrification plant in this calendar year." But the funding is a big "if." Incentive-based budget For 2003, the Bush administration's budget asks for $611.6 million for the Hanford office that cleans up tank waste -- down from $750 million last year. The budget does propose a separate fund of $800 million from which all Department of Energy programs can compete for grants if they propose faster cleanup schedules. But the department hasn't yet created a way to apply. Hanford spokesman Manny Van Pelt said local Energy Department officials will apply for money for tank cleanup, and "we think we're in good position to get our share of it, or more than our share." Doug Riggs, an activist with the Portland-based group Hanford Information, said he thinks "the idea to incentivize performance is a good idea," given previous poor management of projects. But he worries that money channeled from Hanford's cleanup budget into the special incentive fund "won't be put back in" to Hanford. Changes considered Meanwhile, top Energy Department officials are discussing rethinking cleanup programs at sites including Hanford. One plan Boston is floating is to eliminate a planned Phase 2 of the project, which would build a second, larger vitrification plant at Hanford after the first begins running. Design and technology improvements should let the first plant handle about 80 percent of the waste, including the most radioactive, he said. The Energy Department could explore other ways to dispose of the rest. That talk worries some activists and regulators, including Tom Fitzsimmons, director of the Washington Department of Ecology. He is glad to discuss ways to speed the project without cutting it back, he said. "But if the intent of those ideas is to walk away from the waste in those tanks, then those are fighting words." Activists grew more concerned last week when the Department of Energy announced that it will transfer Boston to its Washington, D.C., headquarters. He'll be replaced by Roy Schepens, a manager from the department's Savannah River Site in South Carolina, which also has a waste melter. Many activists said that Boston was perhaps the best waste cleanup manager Hanford has seen and that his loss probably will hurt the cleanup effort. Heart of America Northwest, one of the oldest and most vocal Hanford activist groups, said Boston was "fired" as "part of the Bush administration's plans to abandon high-level waste in the Hanford soil forever." Riggs said he was worried about Boston's move, as well as budget problems and discussion of cutting back on nuclear cleanups. But notable progress has been made at Hanford recently, he said, and prospects for cleanup look more promising than they have in years. "I'm skeptically optimistic," he said. "That's how I describe myself." You can reach Andy Dworkin at 503-221-8239 or by e-mail at andydworkin@news.oregonian.com. © 2002 OregonLive.com. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 39 DOE: BNFL not aware of budget woes Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 11:49 a.m. on Wednesday, February 20, 2002 by Paul Parson Oak Ridger staff When comparing the Department of Energy's fiscal year 2002 budget with proposed funding levels for next year, one of the most notable differences is the decrease in funds for BNFL Inc. Unless Congress makes changes during the appropriations process, BNFL's funding looks to drop from $73 million to $42 million. "We are not aware as to the impact of the 2003 budget on our project," said Norman Hammitt, BNFL spokesman, who added DOE has not contacted the company about the issue. "However, since we are a fixed-price contract, we have every reason to believe the Department of Energy is going to honor that contract." BNFL employs around 900 workers and is responsible for the cleanup of three huge buildings at the Oak Ridge K-25 site. The company signed a six-year contract with DOE in August 1997 to work on buildings K-33, which totals 2.8 million square feet; K-29, 586,880 square feet; and K-31, 1.4 million square feet. In terms of the status of the project, Hammitt said BNFL had removed 166.5 million pounds of material from the site as of Jan. 19. Additionally, the company's supercompactor has compacted more than 50 million pounds of material at K-25, which was formerly used to separate uranium-235 from uranium-238 through a gaseous diffusion process. There are a total of 27 contract milestones and BNFL is nearing completion on its 11th one, according to Hammitt. He added that the company still expects to finish the three- building project by March 2004. "We are expecting to receive approximately $272 million based on the current contract and modifications that have been incorporated," said Hammitt. "To date, BNFL Inc. has received approximately $142.7 million in payment from DOE." BNFL is the U.S. subsidiary of British Nuclear Fuels. Paul Parson can be contacted at (865) 220-5533 or pparson@oakridger.com [pparson@oakridger.com] . All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 40 AC to ask for $482,400 from DOE Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 11:51 a.m. on Wednesday, February 20, 2002 by Donna Smith Oak Ridger staff CLINTON -- Anderson County Executive Rex Lynch will be asking the Department of Energy for $482,400 in lieu of taxes. During its meeting in the Anderson County Courthouse Monday night, County Commission approved a resolution and an amendment authorizing Lynch to request the money from DOE. The amount is DOE's annual in-lieu-of-tax payment. Because it is a government entity, DOE does not pay property taxes on the nearly 35,000 acres it holds in Oak Ridge. Its contractors do not pay taxes on services they render in relation to their DOE contracts. This in-lieu-of-tax payment is designed to help compensate the local governments for this loss in revenue. However, local governments contend that the amount is not enough. Through private means -- such as the Oak Ridge City Council's hiring of the law/lobbying firm of Baker, Donelson, Bearman &Caldwell and Anderson and Roane County governments' participation in a coalition of other local governments with DOE laboratories or plants -- they are seeking to obtain more money from the federal government. The approval of the resolution and amendment does not prevent the local governments from seeking more money from DOE. Last year, DOE approved a 15-percent increase for payments made in lieu of property taxes. It was the first increase since 1998. DOE officials said in a May 4 story that the per-acre figure was increased from $4,610 to $5,327. The high amount is based on a state of Tennessee-mandated reappraisal of property in both Anderson and Roane counties that resulted in a higher valuation of property and a state-mandated reduction in property tax rates. The DOE reservation in Oak Ridge is split between the two counties. Donna Smith can be contacted at (865) 220-5502 or dsmith2@oakridger.com [dsmith2@oakridger.com] . All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 41 DOE pushes "nuclear power 2010 Plan" energy.gov - Headquarters' Press Release RELEASE DATE: February 15, 2002 Energy Secretary Abraham Unveils Nuclear Power 2010; Public-Private Partnership on Clean, Affordable Energy New Initiative to Include DOE’s Savannah River, Portsmouth, Ohio and Idaho Reservations in Site Selection Process for Nuclear Power Plant Construction WASHINGTON, D.C. – Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham unveiled the Nuclear Power 2010 initiative aimed at building new nuclear power plants in the United States before the end of the decade. The Secretary announced the Department’s latest initiative in remarks before the Global Energy Summit in Washington, DC. “We have set an ambitious target for this important work but one that is achievable,” said Secretary Abraham. “In keeping with the President’s National Energy Policy, I am pleased to announce this new public-private partnership aimed at building and operating new nuclear plants in the United States by the end of this decade.” Secretary Abraham also noted that the Department's Nuclear Power 2010 initiative strongly supports the President's recently released climate initiative. The Secretary noted, "It is my hope that as we work to meet the President’s objectives, more and more people will appreciate the strong link between an expanded role for nuclear power and reducing greenhouse emissions.” The Department proposes to invest $38.5 million in FY 2003 as part of a multi-year program to partner with the private sector to explore both federal and private sites that could host new nuclear plants; to demonstrate the efficiency and timeliness of key Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing processes designed to make licensing of new plants more efficient, effective and predictable; and to conduct research needed to make the safest and most efficient nuclear plant technologies available in the United States. Secretary Abraham also announced awards to two nuclear utilities, Exelon and Dominion Resources, to conduct initial studies of several sites that could eventually host new nuclear power plants. Both privately-owned sites and the Energy Department’s own Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory in Idaho (INEEL), Savannah River Site in South Carolina (SRS), and the Portsmouth site in Ohio will be considered in the site selection process. Secretary Abraham noted that “....each of these sites has the right physical characteristics, experienced workforces, and supportive local communities to make a nuclear plant project a success.” The studies will determine the costs, schedule, and specific activities required to submit an Early Site Permit (ESP) application to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The participating utilities will pay most of the cost of these studies. These studies are the first step in the process. Before the end of the month, the Department will invite utilities across the Nation to propose cost-shared projects to demonstrate the NRC’s evaluation process. Identifying and obtaining NRC permits for acceptable sites will determine new power plant construction sites, thereby removing a major hurdle to building a new nuclear plant by 2010. The ESP process was established by the NRC in 1989 for utilities to complete the site evaluation component of nuclear power plant licensing before a decision is made to build a plant. With such a permit approved, a utility or other applicant can proceed with a license application to the NRC, providing a far more predictable and streamlined process toward building a new nuclear power plant. In the other aspects of the initiative, the Department will cooperate with industry to demonstrate the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s “one-step” licensing process and conduct research and development on advanced gas-cooled reactor technologies. The Department is interested in the potential of these advanced nuclear energy plant technologies because of their inherent safety characteristics, potentially very competitive costs, and capability to cost-effectively produce hydrogen. Nuclear energy is among the cleanest sources of power in the world. Since the 1970's nuclear power has enabled the U.S. to avoid emitting over 80 million tons of sulfur dioxide and approximately 40 million tons of nitrogen oxides, noted Abraham. Copies of the Secretary’s remarks are available on the Department’s web site www.energy.gov [http://www.energy.gov] . More information about Nuclear Power 2010 can be found on the Department’s nuclear energy web site www.nuclear.gov [http://www.nuclear.gov] . Media Contact: Jill Schroeder, 202-586-4940 Hope Williams, 202-586-5806 Release No. PR-02-028 ***************************************************************** 42 Rivals Battled Enron In Energy Lobbying (washingtonpost.com) Firm Thwarted in Key Business Moves By Dan Morgan Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, February 19, 2002; Page A04 Just weeks after Enron Corp. Chairman Kenneth L. Lay wrote checks for $175,000 to the Republican Party in April 2000, executives and lobbyists from one of his arch rivals hosted a fundraiser in Alabama for Sen. Frank H. Murkowski (R-Alaska), then chairman of the Senate Energy Committee. Utility giant Southern Co. raised a modest $25,000 for Murkowski's Americans for Sound Energy Policy. But the event, representing a fraction of Southern Co.'s multimillion-dollar lobbying effort, illustrated the competitive battle for political influence in which Enron was not the only energy firm making strategic campaign contributions. Politically speaking, Enron's story is notable not because it gave millions of dollars to elected officials and party leaders, but because its financial implosion pulled back the curtain and exposed the corporate world's sharp-elbowed lobbying that usually remains behind the scenes. "The criticism du jour is that Enron just gave money and things mysteriously happened," an industry lobbyist said. "The fact is, Enron was a mere kid on the block" in many of its Washington battles. Among its adversaries were big utility companies that sought to slow the pace of electricity deregulation; regional telephone companies such as SBC and Verizon, which opposed Enron's attempt to create a competitive market for broadband services to homes and businesses; and national cable companies such as AT&T and AOL Time Warner, which refused to allow Enron and its partner, Blockbuster, to use their cable platforms to deliver "video on demand" services to homes. The New York Mercantile Exchange gave $50,000 to the Democrats' Senate campaign fund in early 2000, when the NYME was fighting energy-trading legislation favored by Enron. After Senate supporters engineered a compromise, the exchange contributed another $50,000 to the Democrats' senatorial committee. Enron also crossed swords with the ethanol industry, dominated by the global company Archer Daniels Midland Co. Corn growers and ethanol producers lobbied the Clinton administration, Congress and governors to ban the petrochemical product MTBE, an additive that competes with ethanol in reformulated gasoline. As the nation's third-largest producer of MTBE, Enron fought the ban. But it proved no match for the ethanol industry. California ordered a phaseout of MTBE in 1999, and a pending Senate energy bill would ban it nationally by 2006. ADM has contributed $1.5 million to the two political parties since 1997, more than Enron's $1.4 million. To counter the influence of entrenched companies, Enron organized a major effort to increase its name recognition in political circles. "We had to make sure people knew what our argument was," because of the power of Enron's competitors, Enron spokesman Mark Palmer said. Since 1989, Enron, its executives and employees have contributed $5.7 million to parties and candidates. Lay, who resigned as Enron's chairman in January, cultivated friendships with President George H.W. Bush as well as President Bush, and he golfed with President Bill Clinton. In 2000, Enron and Lay were among the largest contributors to George W. Bush's presidential campaign, but also donated $532,000 to the Democratic Party. As Enron moved into new businesses such as telecommunications services in the late 1990s, however, it often was a relative unknown in industries dominated by big companies. Enron's strategy in telecommunications was to create a wholesale market, much as it had done in electricity. It installed more than 15,000 miles of fiber-optic cable with an eye to connecting with other carriers and selling time on the network to businesses needing "broadband" capacity. But to deliver the service end-to-end, Enron needed the local wires of regional phone companies, which had their own plans for high-speed Internet services. Although Congress in 1996 mandated open access to local lines, negotiating interconnection agreements with local phone companies turned out to be difficult, sources said. Enron officials met with members of Congress and voiced opposition to Bell company proposals at the Federal Communications Commission. "We didn't get in their face, but we did get more involved," said Scott Bolton, Enron's former director of government affairs. "But while we may have been a gorilla in energy, on the telecom side we were midgets." During the 2000 election, BellSouth and Verizon contributed nearly $2.4 million in unregulated "soft money" to the two parties, nearly double what Enron and Lay gave. Last year, the top Republican and Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, each a heavy recipient of phone company money, introduced a telecommunications bill that would prevent competitors from hooking into new broadband lines built by regional phone companies. Enron proved far more successful in deregulating the nation's electricity markets, but there too it ran into opposition. A more competitive electricity distribution system threatened regulated utilities, which feared an open market could drive prices below a level needed to pay off debts on costly nuclear plants. The utility industry's strategy was to slow the transition long enough to reach deals with regulators and federal officials to recover these "stranded costs." From 1996 to 2000, some of the biggest utilities in the South and Midwest spent $17 million on lobbying and campaign contributions to bottle up Enron-backed legislation requiring states to allow nonutilities to compete with regulated power companies for retail customers. The utilities set up two front groups, Citizens for State Power and the Electric Utility Shareholders Alliance, which were run by veteran Republican operatives and labor union officials. The enterprise, nicknamed "The Project," worked to defeat members of Congress who supported Enron's deregulatory push. Enron was instrumental in setting up a pro-market front group of its own -- Americans for Affordable Energy, headed by former representative William Paxon (R-N.Y.) -- to rally support from business groups that saw deregulation as a way to lower costs. But the legislation made no headway in the House or Senate, where utility companies benefited from years of cultivating friendships. Southern Co.'s top lobbyist in Washington is former Republican National Committee chairman Haley Barbour. Since 1999, Southern Co.'s political action committee has spread more than $700,000 to candidates and parties, exceeding the $500,000 spent by Enron, according to the monitoring group PoliticalMoneyLine. In 1999, Southern Co. and its affiliates reported they had spent more than $20 million on political, civic causes and nonprofit organizations. In the Senate last year, Enron backed a bill calling for retail deregulation of electricity and changes in the federal role in wholesale electricity sales. Murkowski opposed it. "Enron was pushing very hard for a date certain for retail deregulation, but the senator felt Enron wanted to just pick off the large, lucrative industrial customers," a GOP political consultant said. "He saw it as a raid, and wanted to go slow." © 2002 The Washington Post Company ***************************************************************** 43 FDA OKs radioactive cancer drug - CNN.com - February 20, 2002 WASHINGTON (AP) -- The government approved a long-awaited treatment for lymphoma Tuesday -- a drug that uses a "smart bomb" approach to bring radiation directly to cancer cells. Idec Pharmaceuticals' Zevalin becomes the first radioimmunotherapy drug cleared to sell in the United States. It's a novel approach, adding radiation to antibodies that search out a protein called CD20 found on lymphoma cells. The antibodies attach to the cells, flagging them for attack by the immune system. Doctors have long hoped that the radioactive antibodies would prove a potent way of fighting tough-to-treat cancers like non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday cleared Zevalin as a treatment for people who have not been helped by all other treatments for a recurrent form of non-Hodgkin's called low-grade, or follicular, lymphoma. Studies found that about 75 percent of these especially hard-to-treat patients had their tumors shrink significantly after a single dose of Zevalin, said the FDA's Dr. Patricia Keegan, who oversaw Zevalin's evaluation. In between 15 percent and 30 percent of the patients, the tumors seemed to disappear. "It looks like a very promising drug for people who have exhausted the options," Keegan said. But it's far too early to know if that means patients will live longer. This form of lymphoma is slow-moving but tenacious and ultimately fatal. While patients may remain in remission for years, they eventually have relapses that occur more and more frequently, and they gradually become immune to each therapy tried until they run out of options. No one knows if taking Zevalin earlier in the course of the disease would prove more effective, causing longer remissions or perhaps even a cure. Studies to assess that are under way. But Keegan said Zevalin may prove attractive to some patients because, while chemotherapy takes weeks to complete, Zevalin consists of just two shots: A test dose to ensure the patient has the subset of lymphoma that can respond, and the real dose a week later. It is, however, somewhat more toxic than alternatives. Up to 75 percent of patients taking the radioactive Zevalin lose white blood cells and platelets, leading to infections and a need for blood transfusions. That's similar to the number of patients who suffer such effects from chemotherapy, but with Zevalin, the blood problems can last for up to a month, longer than is typical with chemotherapy, Keegan cautioned. Another alternative for lymphoma is a non-radioactive antibody called Rituxan. Zevalin is given with Rituxan; in one study comparing Zevalin to Rituxan, the combination appeared more effective, although Zevalin caused more side effects, the FDA said. Zevalin will begin selling in about two months, said San Diego-based Idec. The company did not reveal a price. About 55,000 Americans are diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma each year, most with the low-grade type. Copyright 2002 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This ***************************************************************** 44 WNA NEWS BRIEFING 02.08 | 13 - 19 February 2002 A weekly summary of international news relevant to the nuclear energy industry. [NB02.08-1] UK: A major review of the country's energy policy by the Cabinet Office's Performance and Innovation Unit (PIU) acknowledged the role of nuclear power in the UK's energy mix as a 'zero carbon source of electricity' and called for the government to treat nuclear in the same way as other sources of electricity generation. The review calls on government to 'initiate a national public debate about sustainable energy, including the roles of nuclear power and renewables'. The review points to 'the need to develop new, low-waste, modular designs of nuclear reactors' and recommends the UK continues to participate in international research aimed in this direction. Energy minister Brian Wilson, who chaired the review committee, said the report 'stresses the potential for renewables and energy efficiency, but also argues that the options of new investment in nuclear power and cleaner coal should be kept open'. BNFL welcomed the report. Chief executive Norman Askew warned that 'if we do not act now on some key policy issues and in a more timely way than recommended by the PIU, nuclear generation will not be an option for the future'. He said that low carbon emissions could only be achieved with 'nuclear generation and renewables contributing in tandem as part of a balanced energy mix'. British Energy's (BE's) executive chairman, Robin Jeffrey, whilst welcoming the report, said 'it's now time to start taking real decisions'. He said 'Britain now needs to move ahead with a balanced, secure and stable energy policy'. The review is available at www.piu.gov.uk/2002/energy/report. (NucNet News, 65/02, 14 February; BNFL, 14 February; British Energy, 14 February; see also News Briefings 01.26-1 and 01.38-6) [NB02.08-2] US: A formal recommendation that Yucca Mountain in Nevada be approved as the site of the country's first permanent underground spent fuel repository was sent by energy secretary Spencer Abraham to President Bush on 15 February. President Bush almost immediately approved the Department of Energy's (DOE's) recommendation of the site. In a letter to congressional leaders, Bush said 'I consider the Yucca Mountain site qualified for an application for a construction authorisation for a repository', adding that they should act 'in an expedited and bipartisan fashion' to move the project forward. The state of Nevada now has 60 days to notify Congress that it opposes the selection of Yucca Mountain. After the notification has been made, both houses of Congress have 90 consecutive days of session to override the Nevada veto. The recommendation by Bush now allows the process to proceed to the licensing phase. (NucNet News, 67/02, 15 February; NucNet News, 69/02, 16 February; Ux Weekly, 18 February, p2; see also News Briefing 02.03-1) [NB02.08-3] Canada: The Saskatchewan government has sold its remaining 10% interest in Cameco, putting all the company's shares in the hands of public shareholders. Crown Investments Corp (CIC) sold its 5.4 million shares for C$41.75 (US$26.25) per share, realising a gain of C$111.5 million (US$70.1 million) on a book value of C$114.9 million (US$72.2 million). (Ux Weekly, 18 February, p4; Nuclear Market Review, 15 February, p3) [NB02.08-4] US uranium production continued to fall in 2001. Production of uranium concentrate in 2001 totalled 2.63 million pounds U3O8 (1011.66 tU), down 34% on the 3.96 million pounds U3O8 (1522.25 tU) produced in 2000, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA). (Ux Weekly, 18 February, p4; see also News Briefing 01.26-2) [NB02.08-5] Canada: The operating licences for Cameco's uranium conversion facility at Port Hope, Cameco's Zircatec Precision Industries also at Port Hope, and its uranium refining facility at Blind River will be renewed, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) has decided. All three facilities now have licences valid until 28 February 2007. (Ux Weekly, 18 February, p4) [NB02.08-6] US energy secretary, Spencer Abraham, announced plans for a major new 'public-private partnership', the goal of which is to ensure a new US nuclear power plant is built and brought into operating no later than 2010. The new initiative - 'Nuclear Power 2010' - would be a joint venture involving the Department of Energy (DOE) and the US electricity utility industry. The initiative will explore a range of potential sites for a new nuclear power plant, prior to any decision to actually build one. Abraham also announced two 'cooperative projects' with utilities Exelon and Dominion Resources, to conduct 'scoping studies' that would consider the suitability of both private and federal sites as potential locations for new reactors. (NucNet News, 68/02, 15 February; NEI InfoWire, #02-06, 15 February; Ux Weekly, 18 February, p3; see also News Briefing 02.07-17) [NB02.08-7] All US nuclear power plant operators are likely to be ordered by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to make 'specific security refinements' at individual plant sites 'over the long-term'. For security purposes, the NRC is not expected to publicly disclose details of the required measures. The order will mark the first time the NRC mandates security measures since the 11 September terrorist attacks, rather than asking for voluntary compliance with recommended measures. The orders being prepared were apparently motivated by political pressure on the NRC to take decisive measures to hold licensees accountable. (NucNet News, 61/02, 13 February; Nucleonics Week, 14 February, p1; see also News Briefing 02.03-5) [NB02.08-8] Canada: Ontario Power Generation (OPG) and Bruce Power plan to restart six idled nuclear power reactors over the next two years. OPG will bring its four Pickering A units back into commercial operation at a cost of about C$1.5 billion (US$944 million), which will restore 2000 MWe of generating capacity. The first unit is expected to be back online during the third quarter of 2002, with the others returning to the grid one every six months. Meanwhile, Bruce Power expects to restart two of the four Bruce A reactors by summer 2003, at a cost of some C$340 million (US$214 million), adding 1500 MWe of capacity. The six reactors were idled between late 1997 and 1998 for performance and safety upgrades. (Nuclear Market Review, 15 February, p2; Ux Weekly, 18 February, p3; see also News Briefings 01.45-8 and 01.41-10) [NB02.08-9] US: AmerGen Energy is reportedly considering a bid to purchase the Seabrook nuclear power plant. The 1161 MWe PWR is estimated at a value of US$500 million because it is only 10 years old and has potentially another 50 years of operating life. AmerGen is a joint venture between Exelon and British Energy. Rival bidders for the plant are expected to be Entergy, Constellation Nuclear and Dominion Energy. Bids for the plant are due to be filed by the third week of March. (Nuclear Market Review, 15 February, p3; see also News Briefing 01.50-6) [NB02.08-10] US: The construction permit of WNP-1 has been extended by 10 years, to 1 June 2011, by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). A final report by a consulting company into the possibility of another company buying the partly-completed plant or forming a partnership with Energy Northwest (EN) to complete it is due by 15 April. However, John Cockburn, chairman of the EN executive board, said he remains doubtful the unit, currently 65% constructed, would be completed. (Nucleonics Week, 14 February, p2; see also News Briefing 02.01-6) [NB02.08-11] India: Construction of the Kudankulam nuclear power plant is scheduled to start on 31 March. Preparatory groundwork for the plant's foundations has reportedly already been completed, together with on-site accommodation for construction workers. Some infrastructure works have also been completed. A contract for Russia to supply the two VVER-1000 reactors was signed in Moscow on 12 February. The Russian-financed plant is set to start operations in 2007 at an estimated total cost of US$2.5 billion. (NucNet News, 71/02, 18 February; see also News Briefing 01.46-10) [NB02.08-12] US: Consumers Energy intends to submit a licence termination plan for its shut Big Rock Point nuclear power plant in early 2003. The company aims to complete a site hydrogeology study and other environmental work during 2002. Consumers plans to return the site to a 'natural state' after removing the plant buildings by 2004 and anticipates approval and release of the site by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in 2005, except for the dry storage facility. (Nucleonics Week, 14 February, p3; see also News Briefing 97.35-15) [NB02.08-13] France: The government has approved two decrees that lay the basis for a long-awaited streamlining of the national nuclear regulatory and radiation protection system. The first decree established a new, unified nuclear safety and radiation protection authority, the DGSNR (Direction generale de la surete nucleaire et de la radioprotection). The new body replaces the current nuclear regulator, the DSIN. The second decree defines the mission and responsibilities of a unified technical support agency for the combined field of nuclear safety and radiation protection, the IRSN (Institut de radioprotection et de surete nucleaire). The IRSN brings together the existing nuclear safety advisory board, the IPSN, and the advisory/support functions of the current radiation protection authority, the OPRI. (NucNet News, 64/02, 14 February) [NB02.08-14] US: President Bush unveiled his long-awaited plan to counter climate change as well as an initiative billed as 'the most aggressive in American history to cut power plant emissions' of three air pollutants. His climate change plant - largely voluntary and incentive-driven - links the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions to the US economic growth rate. It sets a target for reducing carbon dioxide emissions by almost 18% by 2012 - from an estimated 183 tonnes for each US$1 million of gross domestic product (GDP) to 151 tonnes per US$1 million. Also, under the 'Clear Skies Initiative', emissions of sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and mercury would be cut by 70% between now and 2018. The US nuclear industry welcomed Bush's recognition of nuclear energy as a major source of 'clean air electricity'. (Financial Times, 15 February, p8; NucNet News, 66/02, 15 February; see also News Briefing 01.24-15) Previous News Briefing NB02.07 ***************************************************************** 45 E.P.A. and Energy Department War Over Clean Air Rules February 19, 2002 By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE WASHINGTON, Feb. 18 — The Environmental Protection Agency has strenuously objected to the Energy Department's recommendations to the White House to revise air pollution regulations, saying the proposals would "vitiate" the nation's clean air policy. The dispute, detailed in recent internal E.P.A. documents, is indicative of a fierce battle between the two agencies as the Bush administration prepares to announce final plans for revisions to a program that requires factories to modernize their pollution controls when they upgrade their plants. On one side are the E.P.A. and its administrator, Christie Whitman, who, as governor of New Jersey, supported strict enforcement of the so-called new source review program to make plants restrict emissions. On the other are Spencer Abraham, the secretary of energy, and several high-powered energy lobbyists, including Marc Racicot, chairman of the Republican National Committee, and Haley Barbour, former chairman of the Committee, who are close to the Bush administration. Mr. Racicot has said he will no longer be an energy industry lobbyist, but he has acknowledged meeting with Vice President Dick Cheney on energy policy. The energy industry argues that the new source review program imposes billions of dollars in extra costs that unfairly block utilities from modernizing their plants to make them use energy more efficiently. The rules cover more than 17,000 power plants, refineries, pulp and paper mills, smelters and steel mills. Spokesmen for both the environmental agency and the Energy Department acknowledged today that the discussions between the agencies had been intense and cautioned that no final decisions had been reached. The most recent thinking of Mrs. Whitman, who has been at odds with some of the more pro-industry voices in the administration, is not clear. But internal documents from the environmental agency outline the anguish of career staff members as recently as January over what they see as efforts by the Energy Department to weaken the new source review program. The officials criticized the department for recommending changes in how regulators decide what level of emissions from plants or factories would trigger controls and for allowing plants to avoid stricter controls for 15 years under some circumstances. "The current draft report is highly biased and loaded with emotionally charged code words," the environmental agency says of the department's recommendations. The environmental agency again and again questions the legality of many department proposals, saying they lack "a solid legal rationale" and "are hard to justify from a legal perspective." Referring to the proposals on the new source review program, the environmental agency said they amount to "a prelude to recommendations to vitiate the N.S.R. program." If the White House adopts these rules, environmental agency officials warn, it will have to write them in "fuzzy rather than clear language" to cover up the change of policy. The documents were provided to The New York Times by an environmental organization that has opposed a weakening of the clean air rules. The group asked not to be identified to protect the people who provided the internal documents. The review of the existing rules was ordered in May 2001 by Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force. It was to be completed in August, but the fierce internal disputes have delayed the final report. Typically, the environmental agency, as the lead agency on air pollution matters and the agency that would sign the rules, would conduct the review. But the White House ordered the environmental agency to conduct the review "in consultation with" the Energy Department, whose mission includes fostering the industries that produce coal and electricity. When the White House makes its final decisions, all signs point to the department's views prevailing. One proposal that is not in current law, for example, would allow a "clean unit exemption," exempting plants from new pollution controls for 15 years if they had installed controls in the past. It would be retroactive. The E.P.A.'s documents said, "There was concern over using a 15- year time frame as a reasonable period to recoup capital investment, given the I.R.S. only allows 8 years." The environmental agency's internal documents reflected a concern that the industry's positions dominated the Energy Department's draft report. The report "contains only comments by industry and ignores the comments of all other stakeholders," the E.P.A. papers said. They added, "Significant work needs to be done to achieve a reasonable balance." Jeanne Lopatto, a spokeswoman for the Energy Department, said she had no comment on the substance of the agency's complaints. "There's been a lot of negotiation," Ms. Lopatto said. "We've been working very closely with E.P.A. over the last several months on this issue, and we continue to do so." Joe Martyak, a spokesman for the environmental agency, said some issues were closer to becoming final than others. "We are close to conclusion on this," Mr. Martyak said. "The administrator really is interested in doing what is fair. She doesn't want to gut the Clean Air Act, and she wants to draw the line between those issues that are logical outgrowths of topics that are already out there and the other issues that have a lot of controversy around them that will have to go through a whole process for further public comment." An example of a matter that has been under discussion since 1996 is that of setting a baseline level for acceptable emissions, Mr. Martyak said. Even if rules were promulgated on this issue, he said, they would not become effective for several months. At the same time, Mr. Martyak said, the agency was likely to put out newer concepts for public comment, and thus there would be no action on them for a couple of years. This would include matters like defining the term "routine maintenance" to make clear when new pollution control rules would kick in. The staff members at the environmental agency were not the only ones concerned about the recommendations, whenever they may occur. Trade groups representing state and local air program administrators, who have supported some changes in the new source review program, wrote in a recent letter to Mrs. Whitman that they had serious reservations regarding both issues. Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company | Privacy Information ***************************************************************** 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: *****************************************************************