***************************************************************** 05/20/02 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 10.129 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POLICY 1 North Korea to 'faithfully' engage KEDO, but with a purpose: 2 Unique nuclear power station to be built in Severodvinsk NUCLEAR REACTORS 3 US: NRC Cites D.C. Cook Nuclear Power Station for Violation of Low t 4 US: Fail-Safe Nuclear Fission NUCLEAR SAFETY 5 US: NRC Suspends NRC License of New Jersey Radiography Company 6 HUMAN TRAGEDY OF RUSSIAN PLUTONIUM PRODUCTION PORTRAYED IN 7 US: Cheney: Future attack on U.S. 'almost certain' 8 US: State may spend more than $11M fighting terrorism 9 The Belarus Connection 10 US: Iodine tabs in the post next month NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 11 US: Pro-Yucca arguments have holes 12 US: GOP apathetic about nuclear dump 13 US: Citizen Alert chief faces 'intense' time 14 US: SA: Rossing mine remains a gaint 15 US: State prepared for moving waste material by rail, roads 16 US: Grove: A mountain of problems for homeowners 17 US: GOP nails down anti-Yucca plank 18 US: Economist suggests nuclear waste disposal facilities at golf 19 US: Press: Ex-Nevada governor says Yucca coming, so take the money - 20 Special reports | BNFL spent $1m lobbying in US NUCLEAR WEAPONS 21 Getting rid of nuclear weapons 22 India fully prepared to face nuclear threat: AEC chief : 23 India has minimum nuclear deterrence: DAE 24 30th anniversary of Treaty on Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons 25 Studies Urge Putin, Bush To Secure Nuclear Material 26 Bush-Putin summit in Russia could begin a real partnership / 27 Pruning Nukes 28 Russia has loose grip on nuclear stockpiles 29 US: From MAD to Even Madder US DEPT. OF ENERGY 30 SRS workers sick, but not bitter 31 Disclosure can help restore public trust in government 32 Four years out, ORNL builds staff for Spallation Neutron Source ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 North Korea to 'faithfully' engage KEDO, but with a purpose: experts Korea Herald!!_National http://www.koreaherald.com North Korea will continue negotiating with the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO), the international consortium building nuclear reactors for the communist country, to gain leverage in future Pyongyang-Washington talks, experts here said yesterday. "North Korea aims to convey to the United States that it is doing its due share to implement the Agreed Framework by cooperating in the KEDO project," said Suh Choo-suk, research fellow at the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses. Under the 1994 agreement between Pyongyang and Washington, the U.S.-led international consortium will build two light-water reactors in the North in return for the communist country's promise to freeze its nuclear programs. Despite the deadlock in inter-Korean talks, North Korea sent 10 experts on Sunday to inspect airports here in preparation for the proposed opening of a direct inter-Korean air route on which workers and materials for the construction of the power plant would be transported. Late last month, North Korea held negotiations with KEDO on formulating a protocol regarding compensation for damages in case of a nuclear accident. "Though the North's cooperative gestures will not narrow the fundamental differences between Washington and Pyongyang on the issues of the power plant construction, North Korea may think it can at least gain the upper hand in its talks with the United States," Suh said. Speculation has it that U.S. special envoy Jack Pritchard may visit Pyongyang next month. Washington has insisted that North Korea allow the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to inspect its suspected nuclear weapons facilities before key components for the construction are delivered. Refuting Washington's demand, Pyongyang has asked for additional compensation from the United States for repeated construction delays. An expert said that the North's desperate need for energy also has pushed it to the negotiation table. "It is in Pyongyang's interest to expedite the construction of the power plants, though the construction will take at least five more years," said Yun Duk-min, a senior researcher at the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security (IFANS). Yun played down expectations that the North Korean delegation's visit to the South this week will contribute to the resumption of inter-Korean talks. He noted that the North has not linked its talks with South Korea to negotiations with KEDO. (shj@koreaherald.co.kr By Seo Hyun-jin Staff reporter 2002.05.21 ***************************************************************** 2 Unique nuclear power station to be built in Severodvinsk Pravda.RU ¹ May, 20 2002 The Sevmashpredpriyatiye enterprise of the city of Severodvinsk (the center of the Russian nuclear ship building) is starting work on a unique project that will help to settle both local and global energy problems. People call this project “our answer to Chubais.” The citizens of Severodvinsk have bitter memories of Chubais, as people still remember cold winters of the past, when water was turned into ice in their apartments. Work is starting on the buoyant nuclear power station, and interest in it is enormous already. The citizens of Severodvinsk treat the idea of building a station with understanding. This will be the reserve for the town’s electric and heating power, and it will also provide work for the townspeople and profit for the enterprise. The project went through the independent ecological expertise, and it is considered to be ecologically safe. The new station will become the central one in the town, and it will be geographically available too: any investor will be allowed to come and see everything. The station is planned to be launched 40 months after the start of the works, but this term will depends on funding, of course. The level of protection of the station’s reactors will be five times as efficient: the station will be protected from earthquakes, meteorites, and even from plane crashes. Spent nuclear fuel can be stored at the station itself for twelve years. Andrey Mikhailov PRAVDA.Ru Severodvinsk Translated by Dmitry Sudakov PRAVDA.Ru Vladimir Putin To Visit Severodvinsk PRAVDA.Ru Dmitry Litvinovich: Putin and the Gepard ***************************************************************** 3 NRC Cites D.C. Cook Nuclear Power Station for Violation of Low to Moderate Safety Significance NRC: Press Release Region III - 2002 - 29 - U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, Region III 801 Warrenville Road, Lisle IL 60532 www.nrc.gov No. III-02-029 May 20, 2002 CONTACT: Jan Strasma (630) 829-9663 Viktoria Mitlyng (630) 829-9662 E-mail: opa3@nrc.gov [opa3@nrc.gov] The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff has determined that a violation of NRC safety regulations at the D. C. Cook Nuclear Power Station near Bridgman, Michigan, should be characterized as "white," meaning that it is an issue of low to moderate importance to safety. The plant, which has two reactors, is operated by American Electric Power Company. During an inspection in February and March of this year, NRC inspectors found that the company had failed to promptly correct an equipment problem that led to the failure of a turbine-driven pump in the auxiliary cooling water system to function during testing. The auxiliary feedwater system is used to safely shut down the reactor if problems occur during plant operations and to continue removing heat from the reactor after shutdown. Each unit at D. C. Cook has two motor-driven auxiliary feedwater pumps and one turbine-driven pump. The problem affected only the turbine-driven pump of one unit. During testing on August 10 of last year, the Unit 2 turbine-driven pump failed to start when a valve controlling steam flow to it failed to open. In December the valve vendor diagnosed the valve problem, but the plant failed to promptly correct the problem. On January 18 of this year, the pump again failed to start during testing because of the identical steam valve problem. Under its safety significance determination process, NRC officials classify certain conditions at nuclear power plants as being one of four colors which delineate increasing levels of safety significance, beginning with green and progressing to white, yellow or red. A preliminary "white" finding was described in an inspection report issued April 16 of this year. The letter transmitting the report provided the company with an opportunity to request a regulatory conference to discuss this issue. American Electric Power subsequently informed the NRC that it did not contest the characterization of the safety significance of this finding and did not request a meeting with the NRC staff. In addition to the white determination, the NRC issued a Notice of Violation to American Electric Power for failing to take prompt corrective action to prevent a recurrence of the valve problem. After the January 18 pump failure, the plant replaced the faulty valve mechanism that prevented the pump from operating. The white finding may result in future NRC inspections focusing on the plant's corrective action program and its response to the valve problem. ***************************************************************** 4 Fail-Safe Nuclear Fission BY JIM WILSON Illustration by Patrick Gnan/Paul DiMare If the reactor overheats, the Li-6 (blue) expands, absorbing more neutrons. The alarm in the control room of the Prairie Island 1 reactor, 28 miles southeast of Minneapolis, sounded at 7 am. Inside the adjacent reinforced concrete containment structure, a sensor had detected a sudden drop in the production of neutrons in the steel reactor pressure vessel. Power was automatically cut to the latching mechanism that held fission-stopping control rods poised above the reactor. This is the nuclear equivalent of standing on the brakes. Only it didn't work this time. Gauges in the control room showed that six of the 29 control rods were stuck part of the way down. To stop the nuclear chain reaction, operators flooded the core with 1000 gal. of water mixed with neutron-absorbing boron. The next day, Aug. 3, 2001, as operators attempted to restart the fission reactor, alarms sounded again. A fire broke out in a different electric panel and was extinguished in 10 minutes. "Most likely it was caused by improper maintenance," a spokesman for the regional office of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) told POPULAR MECHANICS. Two members of the plant's fire brigade were treated for heat exhaustion. The reactor was kept off line for maintenance until mid-September and its owner, Xcel Energy of Minneapolis, was forced to ask its customers to curtail their household energy use. Achilles' Heel The control-rod problem at Prairie Island 1 was hardly unique. Control rods that get stuck, give false readings or shoot out of reactors--in one case killing a technician by pinning him to the ceiling--have beset the industry since its infancy. On the very same day that the fire brigade was called in to battle the panel fire at Prairie Island 1, the NRC issued warnings about control rods at 69 other reactors. Maintenance inspections at several of these reactors revealed "cracked and leaking penetration nozzles in the top of reactor pressure vessels." Penetration nozzles are the holes through which control rods are inserted. "One function of the nozzles is to maintain the reactor coolant-system pressure boundary," an NRC spokesman explains. "Control-rod driveshafts pass through penetration nozzles, which sit at the top of a reactor vessel head. Cracking represents a degradation of the primary reactor coolant-system boundary. Hence, it is potentially safety significant." Liquid Advantage Owners of scores of nuclear power plants are now or will soon seek to have their original reactor licenses extended for as long as 40 years. The NRC, while generally supportive of extensions, has opened a technical debate on safety issues. Until recently, the two sides of the relicensing debate divided themselves as they always had, between pro- and antinuclear lobbies. The control-rod problem, however, has caused a debate within the nuclear industry. Engineers who work for companies that operate reactors believe the problems can be solved with technical fixes and additional inspections. Nuclear experts employed outside the power industry, at NASA and major universities, believe it is time to retire reactors that were designed back when Detroit was still putting tail fins on cars, and come up with fresh ideas. Because university-based nuclear-engineering programs in the United States draw about as much interest as courses in pre-Columbian pottery, some of the most forward-looking ideas for 21st century reactor design are coming from abroad. Some engineers believe the best solution to the control-rod problem is to abandon them entirely, and switch to self-regulating fission reactors that work without these trouble-prone control devices. One of the more promising of these innovations is the Refueling by All Pins Integrated Design (RAPID) created by a team led by Mitsuru Kambe, a research fellow at the Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry in Tokyo. Kambe proposes replacing complex, electromechanical control rods with a thermometer-like device that he calls a lithium expansion module (LEM). Kambe's LEM relies on basic physics: Hot liquid expands. "The LEM is composed of a reservoir and an envelope in which 95 percent enriched lithium-6 (Li-6), a neutron absorber, is enclosed. The lower part of the envelope also contains the gas argon," Kambe says. "Li-6 melts at 358°F, so it is liquid during reactor operation." In conventional nuclear reactors, control rods are solid assemblies. Damage to the channels that guide these rods can prevent them from fully engaging. Kambe says that in the LEM, the Li-6 is supported in the upper part of the envelope by the surface tension exerted on the gas-liquid interface. "This is the same principle as a thermometer," he says. "If the core temperature increases to an unacceptable level [see 1], the gas-liquid interface goes down [see 2], and Li-6 in the core region absorbs the neutrons. The reactivity of the core decreases automatically [see 3]." The simplicity and reliability of the design reflect the original plan for the reactor. Kambe had first thought of the idea as a power plant for a base on the moon. "RAPID-A is the terrestrial variation of RAPID-L," he says. The "L" stands for Lunar Base. Its development is funded by Japan's Atomic Energy Research Institute. "The design criteria was to assure maintenance-free and reliable performance without any inspection for 10 years. It would be quite easy to operate similar RAPID-A reactors on the Earth." Introducing a new reactor design won't be as easy as redesigning a car for a new model year. Kambe, however, remains optimistic. "While we have not conducted a reactor test, RAPID designs are based on the proven fast-breeder reactor technology," he says, referring to the Phenix and Super Phenix reactors in France and the Joyo reactor in Japan. A considerable investment was made in this technology because fast breeders, which produce more fuel than they consume, were envisioned as the long-term favorite. In the United States, the technology was abandoned after Three Mile Island sent the nuclear industry into an economic tailspin. "The only new technologies introduced in RAPID designs are the innovative reactor control systems. We have made many test specimens and tested them, so their function is already verified." ***************************************************************** 5 NRC Suspends NRC License of New Jersey Radiography Company NRC: Press Release Region I - 2002 - 39 - U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, Region I 475 Allendale Road, King of Prussia, Pa. 19406 www.nrc.gov No. I-02-039 May 17, 2002 CONTACT: Diane Screnci (610) 337-5330 Neil A. Sheehan (610) 337-5331 E-mail: opa1@nrc.gov [opa1@nrc.gov] The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued an order suspending the NRC license of United Evaluation Services, Inc., of Beachwood, N.J., because of deliberate violations of agency requirements. The order to United Evaluation, formerly Accurate Technologies Inc., is effective immediately. In September 2001, a radiographer from United Evaluation was performing work in Baltimore, Md., and received a very significant radiation exposure to his hands in excess of regulatory limits (at a minimum 250-300 rem) while performing radiography. Apparently, the source failed to fully retract to the shielded position following a previous radiographic exposure and the radiographer approached the device without a survey meter, and without wearing an alarming ratemeter. Either one of those precautions would have alerted the radiographer that the source was not in a shielded position. Although this event occurred while working in Baltimore under a license issued to the company by the State of Maryland (an NRC Agreement State), the company also possesses an NRC license authorizing similar activities within states subject to NRC jurisdiction. Based on the NRC investigation and inspection, which are still underway, the NRC has concluded that the radiographer who was overexposed had not received annual refresher training and not taken the training exam, as required. Instead, an assistant radiographer completed the annual exam in his place. In addition, the President/Radiation Safety Officer provided the NRC with an inaccurate training record. The NRC has also found that the former Operations Manager knowingly transported and used a radiographic device in New Jersey without the required end cap, which ensures proper shielding of the radioactive source. In addition, the President/Radiation Safety Officer, in writing and during the inspection deliberately provided inaccurate information to the NRC. The NRC has also determined that an assistant radiographer performed the duties of a radiographer knowing that he was not certified to do so. In the order, Martin Virgilio, Acting Deputy Executive Director for Materials, Research and State Programs, said, "These actions by the Licensee have raised serious doubt as to whether the Licensee can be relied upon in the future to comply with NRC requirements." The order requires the company, among other things, to suspend all use of NRC licensed material and place it in locked storage. The company also must provide information to the NRC on why its license should not be modified or revoked. The company has 20 days to respond to the order. ***************************************************************** 6 HUMAN TRAGEDY OF RUSSIAN PLUTONIUM PRODUCTION PORTRAYED IN PHOTOGRAPHIC EXHIBITION 20 May 2002 Moscow - Greenpeace today launched an exhibition of photographs (1), at the prestigious Moscow House of Photography, highlighting the 'Cold War' human tragedy resulting from the production of plutonium at Russia's and the world's most contaminated nuclear site, Mayak, in the Chelyabinsk region. While Moscow prepares for the arrival of US President Bush for the signing of an historic treaty on nuclear weapons reduction, Greenpeace released documents exposing a giant experiment conducted on the people of the Mayak region by the nuclear industry and called for the surrounding villages to be evacuated and all plans to expand the site to be abandoned. The documents reveal the horrific extent of radioactive contamination. More than 1.5 million people of the Chelyabinsk region's 3.2 million population are threatened by radiation in their environment and food. Before Mayak began operating in the 1950s, 45 in every 100,000 people had cancer. By 2000 this had rocketed to 360 in 100,000, excluding any data from the areas' closed nuclear cities. In one village, Tatarskaya Karabolka, 500 of the 640 population have cancer - approximately 80%. "The photographs are a testimony to the mass destruction perpetuated by the nuclear industry on surrounding populations. They are a snap shot of life in the shadow of the nuclear industry - A Half Life," said Mike Townsley of Greenpeace at the exhibition launch. Mayak is at the centre of the Russian Nuclear Ministry's, Minatom, ambitions to turn the country into the world's nuclear waste dump. Minatom hopes to import some 20,000 tones of spent nuclear fuel in a deal it believes will earn some 20 billion US dollars. It claims to have had discussions with a number of potential client countries including: Germany, UK, Spain, Switzerland, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea. "We have suffered from radiation so much that almost every week someone in our village dies from cancer. So, why don't the members of the parliament think well before they permit nuclear waste into the country? Please think about our future," appealed Ramzis Fayzullin who lives near Mayak (2). Minatom seeks to justify importing spent nuclear fuel claiming it is the only way to earn money to clean-up the surrounding areas. However, a report from the Russian Federal Court of Auditors exposes this lie. Between 1998 and 2000, the Auditors found that Minatom received 270 million US dollars in international aid to help deal with its spent nuclear fuel management crisis, but was unable trace what the money has been spent on. It is therefore hard to believe that Minatom is a trustworthy organisation and that it only seeks to earn money to increase its nuclear program, which can only lead to further contamination of the environment. "The Russian Government has proven it will not maintain the people's right to a clean environment and does not guarantee that all damage to the health of its people will ever be compensated. In such a situation, further development of the nuclear industry in the country is a crime against morality," said Anna Il'ena, lawyer from the Chelyabinsk region (3). The issue of spent nuclear fuel imports is likely to be discussed during the Bush-Putin summit in Moscow this week. Much of the spent nuclear fuel, which could be sent to Russia for disposal, was originally supplied by the US in contracts which gives it a 'prior consent right' over the transfer of nuclear materials to another country. President Bush could stop this insane proposal by simply refusing his authorization. "The exhibition gives a voice to the people who have already paid the price for the Cold War and are now expected to play host to an international radioactive waste dump. It is an appeal to governments all over the world not to abdicate responsibility for managing their own radioactive waste by sending it to Russia. In particular, if President Bush is to 'liquidate the legacy of the Cold War' he must refuse to underwrite turning Mayak into the world's nuclear waste dump.," said Townsley. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT: - Mike Townsley, Greenpeace International Nuclear Campaigner - in Moscow +31 62 129 6918 - Mhairi Dunlop, Greenpeace International Nuclear Press Co-ordinator in Moscow +31 65 350 4731 Images from the exhibition are available from John Novis, Greenpeace International Photo Desk - in Moscow +31 65 381 9121 Visit www.greenpeace.org/mayak [http://www.greenpeace.org/mayak] for more information. Notes to editors: (1) The photographs were taken by Dutch photo-journalist, Robert Knoth in the villages around the Mayak nuclear complex in 2000 and 2001. His work has been extensively published and since 1994 he has worked in many parts of the world including Afghanistan, Sudan, the former Yugoslavia, Angola, Somalia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. (2) Ramzis Fayzullin suffers from hydrocephalu and requires expensive medication to ease his severe headaches. (3) Lawyer Anna Il'ena has represented over two dozen victims of radiation in their efforts to get compensation for their suffering and the high medical costs. Download the Greenpeace background briefing on Mayak [http://www.greenpeace.org/mayak/documents/mayakbrief.pdf] (in pdf). ***************************************************************** 7 Cheney: Future attack on U.S. 'almost certain' - May 20, 2002 CNN.com - Cheney: "Not a matter of if, but when." WASHINGTON (CNN) -- It is "almost certain" that the United States will again be attacked by terrorists, Vice President Dick Cheney said Sunday. Recent reports of increased communications among suspected al Qaeda operatives are reminders that the war against terrorism remains in high gear, Cheney said. "In my opinion, prospect of a future attack against the United States is almost certain," he said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "We don't know if it's going to be tomorrow or next week or next year." He added that it was "not a matter of if, but when." A government official said Saturday that the volume and pattern of suspected al Qaeda communications were similar to those of messages intercepted in the months before the September 11 terrorist attacks. (Full story) The U.S. vice president warns of another possible terrorist attack, as officials navigate the fine line between public awareness and panic. CNN's Patty Davis reports (May 20) CNN's David Ensor examines recommendations to reorganize the U.S. intelligence community in the wake of the September 11 attacks (May 17) Cheney said the information is "nonspecific," with U.S. investigators facing a major obstacle trying to obtain clues based on the fact that only a handful of terrorists may know the details of any planned attack. He noted that not all of the September 11 hijackers apparently were aware beforehand that they were on a suicide mission, as Osama bin Laden suggested on a videotape last year. "If they can keep the people who actually are carrying out the attack in the dark, then obviously the extent to which you can get access to find out the details of the operation is very limited and it's very hard," Cheney told "Fox News Sunday." Asked about the chance of a nuclear attack, Cheney told NBC that U.S. officials are certain that the al Qaeda organization has been seeking access to weapons of mass destruction -- biological, chemical and nuclear. "Have they been successful? My guess is not," he said. Cheney rejected criticism that the Bush administration and federal agencies had reports foreshadowing the September 11 attacks but failed to act on them. Cheney was asked about an August 6 written briefing in which Bush received information about bin Laden's history and methods of operation, including the possibility of a hijacking plot. There was nothing in that report that contained "actionable intelligence," Cheney said. "There were warnings over a period of months about the possibility of an attack at home," Cheney said, but it was impossible to warn the public effectively without specific information. "What should the notification look like?" he asked. "You can also sustain an alert for only so long." He said the Federal Aviation Administration was sent a series of alerts last summer about possible terrorist activity. "It wasn't as though the system didn't respond," Cheney said. The vice president said reforms have been established to prepare better for future attacks. U.S. agencies have improved intelligence gathering overseas since September 11, and the FBI has become more focused on preventing future strikes instead of concentrating solely on enforcement activities, he said. The White House wants answers about intelligence failures before September 11, Cheney said, but the administration would like congressional intelligence committees, with their special expertise, to handle the probe. "It's absolutely essential that we do it in a way that protects and preserves our capabilities to deal with security in classified information," Cheney told Fox News. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice echoed Cheney's remarks Sunday on CNN, saying the intelligence committees should be handling the investigation. "In the context of this ongoing war, it is extremely important to protect the sources and the methods and the information so that we can try and disrupt further attacks," she said. (Full story) Cheney told NBC he opposes a request by Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-South Dakota, for a copy of a memo from an FBI agent in Arizona who warned last July that Middle Eastern students, possibly with links to bin Laden, could be taking flight classes in the United States. That memo should not be released to the media and public, he said. Meanwhile, the war against al Qaeda and Taliban fighters continues in Afghanistan. On Sunday, a U.S. Special Forces soldier was killed in a firefight in eastern Afghanistan. (Full story) © 2002 Cable News Network LP, LLLP. ***************************************************************** 8 State may spend more than $11M fighting terrorism 05/20/02 The Oak Ridger Online -- State News -- NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- The price of security in the wake of Sept. 11 is becoming more apparent to Tennessee lawmakers, and the tab isn't cheap. An anti-terrorism bill scheduled to go before the state House on Wednesday carries a $1.05 million price tag as the estimated cost of imprisoning persons convicted under the new anti-terrorism law. That's in addition to $8.3 million Gov. Don Sundquist squeezed out of various departments for the state's Homeland Defense Council after the terrorist attacks, and a request for a supplemental appropriation of $1.8 million. Wendell Gilbert, head of the state's homeland defense program, wouldn't give hard figures, but said much of the money to date had gone toward upgrading Health and Agriculture Department laboratories in Nashville, Jackson and Knoxville to protect the state's food supply and be prepared for bioterrorism. Some money will be spent in the Capitol complex for at least 15 video cameras and a sophisticated card swipe system to monitor after-hours entry into the buildings. Nationally, the recession and the economic fallout from Sept. 11 have combined to cause a $40 billion to $50 billion budget shortfall in more than 40 states for the current fiscal year. In Tennessee, lawmakers already need $480 million to close out this year's budget and $800 million to keep the same level of services next year. The cost of the bill before the House is mandated by legislation enacted during a special legislative session on corrections in 1986. It requires that any legislation that might increase prison time be accompanied by an appropriation to pay for the potential additional incarceration. "The purpose of that is to provide enough funding so additional beds can be built for the additional incarceration that may occur over a period of time," said Jim Davenport, executive director of the Legislature's Fiscal Review Committee. Some acts that would become crimes under the proposed state bill are: Committing an act of terrorism, possessing or developing weapons of mass destruction, providing material support in committing a terrorism act, distributing material as a hoax to create fear, and falsifying a driver's license in connection with an act of terrorism. All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 9 The Belarus Connection [http://www.moscowtimes.ru Monday, May. 20, 2002. Page 11 By Mark Lenzi Just days before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell called the Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko "Europe's lone remaining outlaw." While this remains an appropriate description, the relevance of the statement is even more apparent today, as Europe's last bastion of authoritarianism continues to defy international law by supplying Iraq and other rogue states and terrorist regimes with high quality military equipment and an invaluable foothold in Europe. Especially in light of current tensions in the Middle East and Iraq, the Bush administration needs to develop a strategy to counter what this European rogue state is doing right under NATO's nose: Belarus, over the past year, has quietly become the leading supplier of lethal military equipment to the radical Islamic world. During last year alone, according to East European intelligence sources and Jane's Defence International, Belarus secretly delivered more than $500 million worth of weapons, including 120 mm mortars, anti-tank rockets, mines and Katyusha rockets, to Palestinian militants and countries that harbor terrorists, including Syria and Iran. Covert cooperation with Iraq, although risky, is of particular interest to Lukashenko as a way to obtain hard currency. As recently as February, U.S. State Department officials confirmed that Iraqi air defense officers received secret training in Belarus on the highly advanced S-300 anti-aircraft missile system. With three attempts to shoot down U.S. and British aircraft patrolling UN no-fly zones over Iraq since April 1 -- and 420 tries in 2001 -- Minsk's cooperation with Iraq in the air defense sphere should prompt Washington to re-evaluate what so far has been a hands-off approach to such ominous developments coming from Belarus. Especially now that Saddam Hussein has moved air-defense equipment into the no-fly zones, the Bush administration needs to confront the reality that Belarussian equipment and expertise are endangering American and British lives every day over Iraq. Air defense cooperation is only one part of a multi-faceted covert relationship between the two countries. Other prohibited dealings have been documented by a UN arms inspection commission and published in a report last June by two highly respected arms control experts from the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control. Lukashenko has been ostracized by the international community to a degree rivaled only by a handful of other countries; he is not welcome in the West and his list of recent foreign visits reads like the who's who of international bad guys: Libya, Iran, Cuba, Syria -- all nations that the U.S. State Department has designated as state sponsors of terrorism. In the case of Syria, Lukashenko does not even attempt to hide his assistance to Damascus to modernize its military capability. "No matter how severely we are admonished for it," he has been quoted as saying, "We'll continue to help Syria militarily because they have promised to help us in the same way." If anything, Lukashenko seems to relish his role of international outlaw, and threats of U.S. or European Union sanctions do not scare him in the least, since the volume of Western trade with Belarus is negligible. The problem of how to deal with Belarus represents a unique challenge. However, the good news is that a solution is not difficult to find -- it only requires political will. The Kremlin influences Belarus to a degree that cannot be overstated: Heavily subsidized energy from Russia is the only reason the Belarussian economy has not collapsed altogether. President Vladimir Putin is the only leader that Lukashenko respects, because he has the necessary power and political leverage to oust theBelarussian dictator if he chose to do so. During President George W. Bush's upcoming visit to Moscow he must initiate a constructive dialogue with Putin on this issue and persuade him to use the Kremlin's overwhelming leverage on Lukashenko to end covert weapons sales to rogue states and terrorist groups. If Moscow refuses to use its influence and Lukashenko continues his dealings with the terrorist world then Washington should consider all options available including direct interdiction of Belarussian weapons exports. The time for simply talking tough about an "outlaw in the heart of Europe" has passed. The Bush administration must develop a comprehensive strategy to deal with Belarus and compel Putin to force Belarus to cease its support for rogue states and terrorist regimes. Mark Lenzi, a Vilnius-based Fulbright scholar studying U.S. relations with Russia and Belarus, contributed this comment to The Moscow Times. ***************************************************************** 10 Iodine tabs in the post next month Irish Newspapers - HOUSEHOLDERS can expect delivery of long-awaited iodine tablets, to protect people in the event of a nuclear disaster, by the end of June, the Department of Health has confirmed. More than ten million tablets are to be sent out by post. They will be distributed with a booklet explaining how people should react in the event of an emergency. Contracts for cartons and packaging for the tablets were awarded to DC Kavanagh Ltd, Dublin and SonoPress Ireland Ltd, Swords. Kelkin Ltd, Dublin, already has the contract to supply the potassium iodate tablets and it has already delivered a first consign ment of 1.5 million tablets. Defence Minister Michael Smith, who chairs the Government's Emergency Planning Task Force, has said the pills should be kept for use only in the event of fallout entering Irish skies as a result of a major nuclear disaster. © Copyright Unison ***************************************************************** 11 Pro-Yucca arguments have holes Editorial [online@rgj.com] RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL 5/19/2002 09:19 pm It may make little difference in the Senate vote this summer, but holes are popping up in the arguments supporting a national nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain. First, there was the Nuclear Energy Institute’s April newsletter touting the industry as a model of top-notch security in civilian America. Nuclear officials say their plants are among the most “formidable structures in existence.” Except that doesn’t square with what Yucca Mountain proponents say, that it is unsafe to store the waste at nuclear power plants where terrorists could strike. Then, at a Senate hearing last week, Abraham backtracked on previous statements and — after some prodding from Sens. Harry Reid and John Ensign — admitted that Yucca Mountain could not handle the nuclear waste already in existence and also handle what would be produced in the next 30 years. Yucca Mountain’s completion does not mean all of the nation’s nuclear waste will be in one place. More waste storage facilities would be needed. Scientific fact has been irrelevant in the Washington, D.C., debate over whether to house waste at Yucca Mountain. The facts have repeatedly pointed to problems, problems that politicians have ignored in favor of dumping their trash in our state. The facts, though, are getting harder and harder to ignore. © Copyright Reno Gazette-Journal, a Gannett ***************************************************************** 12 GOP apathetic about nuclear dump SPECIAL TO THE RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL 5/19/2002 11:13 pm I suppose if the Democrats can pretend at their convention that the party isn’t dead, the Republicans can feign committed opposition to Yucca Mountain and manufacture a sense of inclusiveness at theirs. If the Democrats stand for nothing in this state — except for a lack of credible candidates and a willingness to roll over — at least the Republicans stand for something: waffling on Yucca Mountain and endorsing a hate-motivated initiative to ban gay marriage. What a spectacle to see on Day One the faithful demonstrate apathy on the dump, refusing to put any mention in the platform because many believe it is inevitable, and then on Day Two the GOP leaders begging their own flock to put something, anything in there. Of course the Republican elected officials are most afraid of political damage. They fear without hard-line opposition, GOP candidates, especially congressional hopeful Jon Porter, will be susceptible to the charge that the party here, like its national analogue, is soft on the dump. Eventually, after prodding from Gov. Kenny Guinn and Sen. John Ensign, the party adopted the “have it both ways” plank that says: “We support Nevada’s elected officials’ fight against the Yucca Mountain project, but in the event the battle is lost, we urge Nevada public officials to work with the Bush administration for the maximum benefit for Nevada.” Not such an outrageous position, although the question of when the battle actually is lost is significant. After the Senate votes? After a few legal losses? After the government licenses the site? What’s so ironic here is that the GOP faithful are not unlike the other party’s faithful in speaking what’s on their minds — they always do, much to the consternation of the politicians and candidates. The Democrats, I’m sure their elected leaders think, at least have the good political sense to keep their mouths shut. As for the gay marriage initiative, the GOP’s support is shameless. The initiative was supported by more than two-thirds of the electorate last cycle and it must pass again this November. There is no pressing need for this initiative. But it is motivated by two clear and unrelated groups — and a smaller third. The latter is those who believe marriage should remain defined as between a man and a woman. They may not fulminate against homosexuals but don’t think they should marry. Then there are the others. One group is exclusionary and intolerant; they don’t like gays, think homosexuality is a choice, don’t want them to have many rights reserved for heterosexual couples. And then there are others for whom the justification is simply political organizing, — those who will stream to the polls to vote to ban gay marriages also are likely to vote for Republicans. GOP elected officials are just fine with that. And if they can tell the truth, as they see it, about Yucca Mountain, at least they should stop pretending and come clean about why they like this, too. Jon Ralston, who publishes The Ralston Report, works for Greenspun Media Group. He welcomes comments and questions. Write him at ralston@@vegas.com. Or call (702) 870-7997. © Copyright Reno Gazette-Journal, a [http://www.gannett.com] ***************************************************************** 13 Citizen Alert chief faces 'intense' time Citizen Alert Executive Director Peggy Maze Johnson says Nevada must offer alternatives to nuclear power to defeat plans to bury spent fuel at Yucca Mountain. Photo by Clint Karlsen. Monday, May 20, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal Anti-Yucca effort atop agenda of new executive director By KEITH ROGERS REVIEW-JOURNAL With political savvy from fighting poverty and running campaigns in Washington state, Peggy Maze Johnson says she's ready to take on the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project as the new chief of the Nevada environmental group Citizen Alert. Describing herself as a "political animal," Maze Johnson, 63, said defeating Yucca Mountain this summer in the Senate, or later if it winds through the court system and licensing reviews, is the priority of Citizen Alert. Her goal is to build anti-Yucca momentum at home and in 44 states that would be affected by hauling the nation's spent nuclear fuel by truck and train to the mountain 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. "Why are we even taking that chance? That's the question we have to keep asking," the Las Vegan said in a recent interview. "We've got to get people around the country to understand that there's as much at risk to them as to the people in Nevada," she said. "We need to keep it where it is. We need to make it safe where it is and we need to stop producing any more." Maze Johnson took over Citizen Alert's reins in March from Kaitlin Backlund, becoming the latest of a half-dozen executive directors who have guided the nonprofit group over its 27 years of existence. She is one of three paid employees, along with nuclear issues coordinator Kalynda Tilges and science specialist John Hadder, in the group's Reno office. The group is supported by about 8,000 members who provide financial backing. Her first month with Citizen Alert has been a period during which the stakes have been the highest on the Yucca Mountain front. Gov. Kenny Guinn cast his veto of President Bush's recommendation for the planned repository on April 8. The House overrode the veto convincingly on May 8. That leaves a vote on the veto in the Senate this summer as the state's last chance, other than in the courts, to stop the project from proceeding toward licensing and construction with the first spent fuel bundles targeted to arrive in 2010. "It's a pretty intense time. Very intense," Maze Johnson said. She says anti-Yucca forces have a lot of ground to make up. "One of the things that is distressing to me is that (the Department of Energy) is light-years ahead of us as far as corralling influence around the issue," she said. "I don't know when transportation became the linchpin for this. It should have been at the beginning. It puts it in everybody's back yard." Maze Johnson said she believes anti-nuclear activists need to keep harping about the risks of terrorism and accidents with hauling nuclear waste across the country. She said they also should offer alternatives to nuclear power to garner more support for their cause. She says that even though the odds are against Nevada in the fight, her experience has shown that the underdog can win. In the mid-1970s, she was a media consultant for a food stamp outreach program in Washington. She said she convinced the governor that allowing power companies to factor in the cost of future nuclear power plants in their rates was unfair to those who needed food stamps to offset utility rate increases. "We went to the governor, and he vetoed it. So here with this little poverty lobbyist, we beat them, and I was convinced then that anybody can beat the system," she said. "I think we can beat this (the Yucca Mountain Project), and the way to beat this is to let people know there are other resources out there," she said. Among the alternatives are solar power and wind power. "We have to keep the lights on in Las Vegas," Maze Johnson said. "When it's windy, I think, 'God, how I wish we could harness that wind.' Or with the sun. We could become (energy) sources just with what we have with the wind and the sun." Maze Johnson's resume includes work as director of marketing and development for United Cerebral Palsy in 1990-91; roles as a consultant and fund-raising director in Washington state in 1982-90; political organizer and training coordinator for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees in Washington, D.C.; legislative assistant for former Rep. Mike Lowry, D-Wash., in 1979-80; media consultant for the Washington Department of Social and Health Services' food stamp outreach program in 1975-77; and executive director of Neighbors in Need, an organization involved with establishing the nation's first food banks. Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002 ***************************************************************** 14 SA: Rossing mine remains a gaint 20/05/2002 13:57 - (SA) Windhoek - The future of the world's biggest open-cast uranium mine, the Rossing mine in the Namib desert, has been secured through one of the most astonishing labour performances in the history of Namibia. An additional seventeen years of production is now expected for Rossing. Rossing's remarkable performance saw the mine through 2001, the toughest year in its 26 years of existence. Moreover, it stubborn survival stunned the uranium industry. Rossing Managing Director David Salisbury's confirmation of the mine's rosy future came just days after similar good news was announced by AngloGold, the other major mine in Namibia's Erongo Region. AngloGold's Navachab gold mine near Karibib also boasts with excellent results for 2001 and is looking forward to a bright future. Rossing's good news doesn't end with its longer life span. The mine knows of other uranium deposits and when the existing resources at Arandis are exhausted, these new deposits can be mined. However, this will require a different way of mining. Target reached To ensure the survival of Rossing Uranium, the workers have received a target to save N$150 million (R150 million) in 2001. This target was reached on December 23 last year. This resulted in a payment of N$17 million (R17 million) to the workforce of some 800 people - an amount equivalent to three or four times the monthly salaries of the employees. Rossing's workers achieved this performance despite the uranium price never reaching the level of US$12 a pound - the price which was used to calculate the targeted savings. Uranium fetched US$8.6 a pound in May last year. The optimism about the uranium industry is boosted by the uranium price which currently fetches US$9.0 a pound on world markets. This represents an increase of 17%. Salisbury said buyers are opposed to a double digit price hike (more than US$10 a pound). It is nevertheless expected that the uranium price will go through the ceiling. Commenting on markets, Salisbury said in the past markets prevailed mainly in Europe and Asia, but that gaps are also opening in American and Canadian markets. Cost-curbing He said Rossing will continue with its programme of cost-curbing and saving despite the mine's excellent performance last year. Workers' inputs are welcomed in this process. Salisbury said some of the workers have been at the mine for many years and that they have valuable experience which can be shared with management. Rossing's performance with its low grade uranium can be measured against production in Australia where the uranium grade can be ten times higher. To produce ten tons of uranium a day, Rossing needs to move 75 000 tons of rock. Only 35 000 tons of this contains uranium ore. After the 40 000 tons of rock and 35 000 tons of ore have been separated, only 10 tons of uranium can be extracted. Salisbury said the future of the uranium industry would be dictated by the price. Price-wise there are positive indications. He is also optimistic because of the worldwide tendency to move away from global warming. - Republikein MyNews24 [http://www.news24.com ***************************************************************** 15 State prepared for moving waste material by rail, roads The Sun Herald | 05/20/2002 | By BETH MUSGRAVEand TOM WILEMON THE SUN HERALD JACKSON - Mississippi officials say there isn't much they can do if Congress decides to ship millions of pounds of nuclear waste on South Mississippi rails and roads in coming years. But many say they aren't worried, because there is already radioactive material on Mississippi roads. The Bush administration is pushing a plan that would place approximately 154 million pounds of nuclear waste on the nation's roads and rails to be taken to Nevada's Yucca Mountain, where it would be buried and stored. The nation has accumulated nearly 100 million pounds of radioactive waste that needs to be disposed of. According to the plan, some of that radioactive waste would travel on Interstate 10 and the CSX rail line that traverses the Coast. Although the news of more radioactive waste on Mississippi highways did catch some state bureaucrats by surprise, many said the state would be prepared. "There really isn't much we could do about it," said Phil Bass, director of pollution control for the Department of Environmental Quality. "We can't restrict multistate commerce. As regulating agencies we have very limited controls." Amy Bissell, spokeswoman for the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency, said her agency hasn't been contacted about the proposed plan yet, but the state already has a radioactive transportation program in place. Bissell said she is not aware of any hazardous material being transported by rail. Radioactive material routinely travels Interstate 55 and Interstate 20, she said. Those drivers have to undergo intensive training and a battery of tests. Also, the specially designed trucks that carry radioactive waste are followed by satellite from state line to state line. "This material has so many redundant safety checks in place," Bass said. "There are a lot of hazardous materials that have less restrictions." Gasoline, for example, may not have as many restrictions but can cause a multitude of problems when spilled, he said. The state also has a safety and alert network for all hazardous material, not just nuclear waste, Bissell said. "We get a warning from MEMA, which says what is being carried and where," said Linda Rouse, director of the Harrison County Civil Defense. Rouse then forwards that information to the fire departments so if there is an accident, firefighters will know how to handle it. Beth Musgrave can be reached at 896-2331 or at bamusgrave@sunherald.com [bamusgrave@sunherald.com] ***************************************************************** 16 Grove: A mountain of problems for homeowners Las Vegas SUN: Columnist Benjamin May 17, 2002 Benjamin Grove covers Washington, D.C., for the Sun. He can be reached at grove@lasvegassun.com [grove@lasvegassun.com] or (202) 628-3100, Ext. 269. WASHINGTON -- For a short time last August, Shawn Murphy and his wife must have been the only people in Nevada who had never heard of Yucca Mountain. That quickly changed when a neighbor told them they had moved into the shadow of a mountain that may become the nation's nuclear waste dump. "I feel that, in a way, we were swindled," Murphy said. Murphy, 50, his wife Sue and their 13-year-old daughter moved to Amargosa Valley from Buckley, Wash., after searching Nevada and Arizona for a quiet spot to settle down with their six horses. Murphy, a truck driver on disability, has arthritis. He wanted someplace dry. They looked at properties in Winnemucca and Spring Creek. But when those deals didn't work out, they sought out Amargosa realtor Michael DeLee, who handles most of the properties in the 1,271-resident town. DeLee steered them to a 2 1/2-acre plot with nice trees. They quickly finalized the paperwork. Not long after they set up house in a double-wide mobile home on the property, neighbors invited the Murphys over for barbeque. One prattled on about something called Yucca Mountain. What is Yucca Mountain? Murphy asked. The neighbor was floored. "He smiled and then he started laughing and said, 'Well, you're 12 miles from where they are going to bury the nation's nuclear waste,' " Murphy recalled. "I said, 'Oh, really? Are you serious?' " The Murphys had visited the Amargosa place before they bought it, and they did a little research. They contacted the school and the Amargosa Chamber of Commerce. Murphy had realtor DeLee send him three copies of the Las Vegas Review-Journal to peruse. The issues had no stories about Yucca Mountain, he said. Murphy said DeLee never told him about the nuclear waste dump proposal, nor did anyone else. Murphy would not have moved if he had known about Yucca, he said. But he doesn't plan to leave. He's invested in the new place and plans to pay it off in 2011, just about the time the Department of Energy plans to begin hauling waste to Yucca Mountain. "Basically, we're stuck," he said. Realtor DeLee contends he mentioned Yucca to Murphy before he sold the place. But to avoid any more dissatisfied clients, DeLee last year began inserting a Yucca disclosure clause in his sale contracts. The disclosure language DeLee uses is unique among Nevada realtors, he said: "BUYER is aware that a large dairy is located in the Amargosa Valley and that the Government Plans to build the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository in the Amargosa Valley and has researched the possible impact of these and other regional factors in making the decision to purchase this land." The disclosure hasn't cost him any sales, DeLee said. "I have yet to hear someone say, 'I don't want to buy here because of Yucca Mountain,' " DeLee said. Murphy and DeLee are grappling with a question that has yet to be answered in the broader debate over Yucca Mountain -- will the project send property values plummeting? Clark County paid for one study completed late last year by Urban Environmental Research, LLC, of Arizona, that said Clark County homes within one mile of a waste transportation route would dip 3.5 percent on average -- a loss of up to $647 million. Values would tumble much further if an accident ever occurred. Mayor Oscar Goodman and county officials filed a lawsuit in January in federal court alleging that Yucca would cause "immediate and irreparable harm" to the area, including lower property values. But not everyone is convinced. DOE officials generally brush off the theory that their project will bring down the value of Southern Nevada. And in Amargosa, DeLee predicts Yucca would actually increase property values. The project, among the biggest and most costly engineering projects in U.S. history, could bring house-shopping workers pouring into town, DeLee said. "There is a perceived risk, no question about that," he said. "But any decreases created by perceived risks are going to more than be made up for by the reality of supply and demand. If anything, housing values are going to go up. It's just a question of how much." A number of Amargosa residents tend to agree, and openly support Yucca. But at least a vocal few are adamantly opposed to the project, including Shawn Murphy. A few hundred workers would be needed to operate Yucca, but Murphy doesn't buy the argument that they will settle in Amargosa. He's worried about the stigma attached to nuclear waste, and about accidents. "There are just too many unanswered questions for Yucca Mountain to drive property values up," Murphy said. "When you buy a place you say to yourself, 'When I'm ready to sell, will I be able to get a good deal?' Right now, I don't know." All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 17 GOP nails down anti-Yucca plank Las Vegas SUN May 20, 2002 By Erin Neff A day after some rank-and-file Republicans said Yucca Mountain is inevitable and should cause Nevada leaders to make a deal with the government, the state GOP adopted an anti-dump plank. Nevada Republican Party Chairman Bob Seale started Saturday's state convention session both admonishing Democrats and telling his delegates that Yucca is still a fight. On Friday several discussions about negotiating for benefits drew sharp contrast to the platform plank adopted the previous weekend by Democrats at their state convention. In a published report Saturday Democratic congressional candidate Dario Herrera criticized Republicans for -- at the time -- failing to have an anti-dump plank in their platform. A miffed Seale told delegates at his convention that Democrats shouldn't criticize an open dialogue Republicans allow when forming their platform. "They go into the back room when they have their conventions," Seale said. "They tell people what their platform is." On Saturday, following a full day of speeches from Republican leaders who have been fighting Yucca Mountain, the state GOP did adopt an anti-Yucca plank. A table outside the convention floor offered signs and T-shirts proclaiming Nevada is not a wasteland and that residents don't want the repository. U.S. Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., and one of just 13 Republicans in the House of Representatives who voted against a resolution to send the nation's nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain, encouraged his party by slamming Democrats. "They are trying to divide voters on the issue that already unites us," Gibbons said. He added that blaming GOP congressional candidates Jon Porter and Lynette Boggs McDonald for Yucca Mountain "is like trying to blame Nevada for all of the nuclear waste around the country." Following Gibbons, Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., rallied his party to "stand with its leaders" on Yucca Mountain. Boggs McDonald, Gov. Kenny Guinn and Attorney General candidate Brian Sandoval also condemned Yucca Mountain. Bob Beers, chairman of the party's platform committee and a state assemblyman from Las Vegas, said the anti-Yucca plank replaced an anti-abortion plank to win passage in the adopted platform. The anti-Yucca plank read: "We support Nevada's elected officials' fight against the Yucca Mountain project, but in the event the battle is lost, we urge Nevada public officials to work with the Bush administration for the maximum benefit for Nevada." Support for Question 2 -- an initiative seeking to define marriage as a union between a man and woman -- was also adopted in the platform. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 18 Economist suggests nuclear waste disposal facilities at golf ranges Korea Herald!!_Business http://www.koreaherald.com A pro-chaebol Korean economist drew attention yesterday by suggesting nuclear waste disposal facilities be built at golf ranges. Min Byoung-kyun, head of the Center for Free Enterprise, a think tank affiliated with the Federation of Korean Industries, said in an article posted on the center's Web site, "It is a shame that we have still not found an adequate nuclear waste disposal site, in light of the fact that nuclear development is crucial for a country like Korea that has to rely entirely on imports for energy. Nuclear waste is not as dangerous as most people fear." "The not-in-my-backyard phenomenon should be done away with first among golfers...it is the leading social figures who need to step up," he added. Min pointed out, "Golfers are those who have succeeded in their lives and those that love to fight against themselves...so how could people like them ignore this gloomy situation." At the end of the article, Min said, "Let's make a famous educational and tourism site out of golf ranges...and it will make golfers a leading group highly aware of environmental problems and national issues." A number of construction projects for dams, waste disposal areas, cremation sites and nuclear waste disposal areas have remained unfinished for the past 10 years due to strong opposition from residents in suggested regions. Not one dam has been erected since 1992, while three waste incineration sites situated in Seoul City show a low mobility rate of 34 percent because waste from other areas in the city is banned. Seoul City and residents of Wonji-dong are in a dispute over construction of a memorial and cremation site in the area. As for building nuclear waste disposal areas, the government has failed a total of 20 times since 1980, to find an adequate site to build such facilities. (angiely@koreaherald.co.kr By Lee Joo-hee Staff reporter 2002.05.21 ***************************************************************** 19 Press: Ex-Nevada governor says Yucca coming, so take the money - By Adella Harding [Elko Daily Free Press] Sunday, May 19, 2002 By ADELLA HARDING, Daily Free Press Staff Writer ELKO -- Former Nevada Gov. Robert List said Friday Yucca Mountain it's almost inevitable that Yucca Mountain will become the nation's nuclear waste storage site so Nevada should focus on economic benefits from having the waste in the state. "There is a huge mood swing. I'm seeing people becoming more and more resigned to the political realities," the Yucca Mountain proponent said after speaking to roughly 100 people at the Mini-Conference sponsored by the Northeastern Nevada Section of the Society of Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration. A show of hands during his speech showed that the majority of those at the lunch believe Nevada will lose its battle against Yucca Mountain. Far fewer raised their hands when he asked how many wanted it to happen, however. The House has already passed a resolution overriding Gov. Kenny Guinn's veto of President Bush's decision to proceed with Yucca Mountain, and List said "it looks like it will go to the full Senate by the end of July." He said whether Nevada likes it or not, Yucca Mountain will be thrust upon the state, and it will be the "largest public works project on this planet." The project cost will total roughly $60 billion, said List, who was governor from 1978 to 1982. "It's massive. It's an incredible amount of money, and much of it is being spent in Nevada," List said. He said already Yucca Mountain provides 1,400 jobs in southern Nevada, and "the payroll will swell by many-fold," when the project actually gets the green light. U.S. Department of Energy grants already have helped the University of Nevada at Reno and at Las Vegas, and the university system should be able to capture money of the money, List told the audience. He said he took a job as lobbyist for the Nuclear Energy Institute to improve communications between the nuclear energy industry and Nevada, rather than to promote Yucca Mountain as the nuclear waste site. "I began on their behalf to build bridges," List said, adding that he felt the Yucca Mountain site was inevitable so Nevada should "make these lemons into lemonade." He said, for example, Nevada should insist on the federal government giving the state more land to broaden its tax base to help solve Nevada's education funding problems. "Here's a 900-pound gorilla that can be our savior," said List, who describes himself as a realist. He also said he believes Nevada should insist on a royalty on any nuclear waste stored in the state because someday it may be reprocessed and used again. In answer to a question, List said the idea of each resident receiving a settlement for having the waste stored in their state has been talked about, just as Alaskans received $1,800 each for allowing the Alaskan pipeline in their state. Another idea has been a "level of forgiveness on income taxes," he said. List said, however, that Guinn is doing the right thing in fighting against Yucca Mountain, because he is speaking for the people and the health and welfare of the people of the state. Nevada's lawmakers also have little choice but to fight against Yucca Mountain because at least three-quarters of those polled opposed having the nuclear waste stored in the state, List said. "I respect what they are doing," he said. "It's my belief, though, that the handwriting has begun to emerge." He said, however, that he was surprised to hear public officials talking about a proposal that nuclear weapons be brought to the Nevada Test Site to be disassembled, when the state opposes have nuclear waste stored in the vicinity. "We're talking about substances that are known to explode," he said about the weapons idea. After his speech, List said in a short interview that DOE still has 293 issues to address about Yucca Mountain and must do so to obtain a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. He said, however, that DOE wasn't expecting to address all those issues in its environmental impact statement on the project because it dealt with land issues, not issues such as transportation of nuclear waste across the country. A day before List's speech, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham acknowledged that Yucca Mountain would be too small to accommodate all the nation's nuclear waste and might have to be expanded. According to Associated Press, Abraham conceded to Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., that the site could handle only a fraction of the waste expected to be generated by commercial power plants and the government in the coming decade. "Thousands of tons "of this stuff is still going to be (stored) around the country, Ensign told Abraham, who agreed this would be the case. Yucca Mountain is limited under its current design to 77,000 tons of waste, but Abraham said a future energy secretary could consider expansion after 2007. ***************************************************************** 20 Special reports | BNFL spent $1m lobbying in US Guardian Unlimited | Antony Barnett and Solomon Hughes Sunday May 19, 2002 The Observer [http://www.observer.co.uk] The state-owned nuclear firm BNFL has spent more than $1 million (£650,000) of British taxpayers' money making donations to George Bush's Republican Party and hiring White House lobbyists to push its controversial nuclear agenda in the United States. Labour backbenchers have described the revelations as a 'scandalous waste of public money', with one describing it as tantamount to 'state-sponsored bribery'. Environmental groups have also attacked the payments as a 'cash for access' scandal. At the end of February the Bush administration gave its backing to BNFL allowing it to ship an unwanted cargo of plutonium fuel from Japan to Britain. The nuclear fuel on board could make large numbers of atomic weapons and opponents argued that following 11 September the shipment would be a target for terrorists and should be blocked. BNFL - wholly owned by the British government - is lobbying the Bush administration for approval to construct new nuclear reactors in the US, which it also wants to build in Britain. Labour MP David Chaytor called the political payments 'outrageous' and will be tabling questions in the Commons this week. He said: 'The fact that a company owned by the British government - and all but bankrupt - is making massive political payments in the US is a scandalous waste of public money. The fact that the timing of this spending relates to key policy decisions raises disturbing questions.' An analysis of the company's donations since it bought US nuclear firm Westinghouse in 1999 reveal BNFL has made $300,000 in political donations, with the majority going to Bush's Republicans, although the firm has also given significant sums to the Democrats. Records seen by The Observer also disclose that BNFL paid $950,000 to Washington lobbying firms between 1998 and 2000. The money was paid to a host of congressional lobbyists to persuade US lawmakers to work to BNFL's agenda on issues from 'transporting radioactive materials' to 'uranium procurement'. In return for its payments, BNFL officials had meetings with officials in the Bush administration, and won backing from the American government for the firm's controversial activities. report
Britain's nuclear industry [antony.barnett@observer.co.uk] Interactive guide Nuclear reprocessing Graphics Nuclear map of Britain US nuclear map Useful links British Nuclear Fuels Ltd [http://www.bnfl.co.uk/website.nsf/default.htm] Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament [http://www.cnduk.org/] HSE nuclear glossary [http://www.hse.gov.uk/nsd/ilrwglos.htm] UK atomic energy authority [http://www.ukaea.org.uk/] National Radiological Protection Board [http://www.nrpb.org.uk/] World Nuclear Association [http://www.uilondon.org/] [UP] Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002 ***************************************************************** 21 Getting rid of nuclear weapons Times Online May 20, 2002 From Professor Sir Joseph Rotblat, FRS Sir, President Bush has said that his agreement with President Putin on the reduction of nuclear arsenals will make the world more peaceful (report, May 14). Any reduction of weapons of mass destruction is, of course, greatly welcome but, unfortunately, the proposed treaty will not free the world from the nuclear menace. For one thing, unlike the provisions for the actual destruction of nuclear warheads which were envisaged for the next stage of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty process, warheads withdrawn under the Bush-Putin treaty — over the unnecessarily long period of ten years — may be kept in storage, as a reserve force, which could quickly be activated should the need arise. Either side has the right to withdraw from the treaty on 90 days’ notice. My main objection, however, is that the proposed treaty, in conjunction with the recent US Government’s Nuclear Posture Review, will sanction the indefinite existence of nuclear weapons in a widening variety of circumstances. This is in direct contradiction of the unequivocal undertaking by the Uni- ted States, Russia and the other nuclear weapon powers to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals under the provisions of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), given just two years ago. President Bush has agreed to sign a new treaty with Russia which undoubtedly he intends to respect, despite his unilateralist policies. He should now show similar respect for other international treaties and implement the United States’ commitment to the NPT by proceeding to the total elimination of nuclear weapons. Yours faithfully, JOSEPH ROTBLAT, 8 Asmara Road, NW2 3ST. pugwash@mac.com
[pugwash@mac.com] May 15. [http://www.timesonline.co.uk ***************************************************************** 22 India fully prepared to face nuclear threat: AEC chief : National News : IndiaExpress.Com 17.50 IST 20th May 2002 By IndiaExpress Bureau India is fully prepared to face any threat having built a minimum credible nuclear deterrent, Department of Atomic Energy secretary Dr Anil Kakodkar said on Monday. He was replying to a specific question on whether in the current scenario India was fully prepared, Dr. Kakodkar, also chairman, Atomic Energy Commission, said the "country is ready" to face any situation. Indian scientists had been able to work successfully on the entire range of nuclear deterrence including the thermonuclear device, he said. Dr. Kakodkar said in view of the dangers of global warming, opinion was veering in favour of nuclear energy. The last few years have seen an acceleration in India’s nuclear energy programme. Indigenous capability for nuclear power plants with all necessary safety measures had also been built, he said. At the moment export of this capability was not considered, but a time might come when India would help other countries in the nuclear power sector. The DAE, he said, aimed at increasing the share of nuclear power in total energy generation from the current about three per cent to 10 per cent by the end of the 11th plan. Talking of private sector investment in the nuclear energy sector, Kakodkar admitted that response had so far been rather slack. This might be due to huge investments needed in setting up power plants. It is true that the public sector Nuclear Power Corporation of India is making huge profits, but it takes a long time before any substantial money starts flowing to investors, he said. ***************************************************************** 23 India has minimum nuclear deterrence: DAE rediff.com: India has built a minimum credible nuclear deterrence and is fully prepared to face any threat, Dr Anil Kakodkar, secretary, Department of Atomic Energy, said on Monday. When asked whether in the current scenario India was fully prepared, Kakodkar, also chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, said, "The country is ready to face any situation. Indian scientists had been able to work successfully on the entire range of nuclear devices, including the thermonuclear device." India had also speeded up its nuclear energy programme during the past few years, he said. (c) Copyright 2002 PTI. All rights reserved. Republication or ***************************************************************** 24 30th anniversary of Treaty on Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons Deployment on Seabed, Ocean Floor Pravda.RU May, 20 2002 Moscow attaches great importance to the Treaty on Prohibition of the Deployment of Nuclear Weapons and Other Weapons of Mass Destruction on the Seabed and the Ocean Floor and in the Subsoil Thereof. As has been pointed out by Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in connection with the thirtieth anniversary of the treaty's coming into force, "the importance of this document is growing especially now that the exploration and the use of the seabed and the ocean floor for peaceful purposes are actively developing." The Russian Foreign Ministry says that the signatories to the Treaty have committed themselves not to emplace on the seabed or the ocean floor nuclear weapons or any other types of weapons of mass destruction and also structures, launchers or any other facilities specially meant for storing, testing or using such weapons. In this way, the Treaty has excluded from the sphere of the arms race a vast part of our planet - the seabed, the ocean floor and the subsoil thereof. The Treaty was signed on February 11, 1971 in Moscow, Washington and London by depository countries and came into force on May 18, 1972. © RIAN Pravda.RU:World ***************************************************************** 25 Studies Urge Putin, Bush To Secure Nuclear Material (washingtonpost.com) By Joby Warrick Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, May 20, 2002; Page A18 Two years after the Soviet Union dissolved, nuclear scientists in newly independent Georgia faced a daunting threat: the loss of nuclear fuel at a research reactor to separatist rebels. With no other help available, the scientists in the town of Mtskheta later recalled that they guarded the reactor with sticks and garden rakes. Scientists at a sister research reactor in Sukhumi were not as lucky. Abkhaz separatists overran the reactor and then apparently took two kilograms of highly enriched uranium. To this day, officials don't know what happened to it. These incidents and dozens of similar ones point to what two new reports describe as a serious gap in efforts to keep nuclear materials out of the hands of terrorists. While the United States and Russia are moving to tighten the security of their nuclear arsenals, few safeguards exist for bomb-grade uranium and plutonium stored at the sites of hundreds of nuclear research reactors, not only in Russia but in 57 other countries around the globe, the studies conclude. As preparations continue for this week's Moscow summit between Presidents Bush and Vladimir Putin, the reports, scheduled for release today, identify civilian-controlled research reactors -- typically smaller reactors run by universities that often use a highly enriched form of uranium that can be used in bombs -- as one of the world's gravest unaddressed proliferation risks. Noting that only a few kilograms of highly enriched uranium stand between terrorists and crude atomic weapons, the studies urge Bush and Putin to adopt measures at the summit that would dramatically increase efforts to keep nuclear fuels secured. "Insecure nuclear bomb material anywhere is a threat to everyone, everywhere," said a report by the Project on Managing the Atom, part of Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. "Yet, there are no binding international standards for how well these stockpiles should be secured." Both the Harvard study and a separate report by the Federation of American Scientists call for rapidly phasing out the use of bomb-grade nuclear material at most of the estimated 300 research reactors around the world, replacing the fuels with uranium that cannot be used in weapons. The action is one of several steps that could be taken immediately to reduce the risk of "catastrophic terrorism," the reports say. They also urge a dramatic acceleration of efforts to destroy or store tens of thousands of pounds of plutonium and uranium, the military legacy of the Cold War arms race, still scattered across Russia and other former Soviet republics. There have been dozens of documented attempts to steal or smuggle nuclear material in the past decade, including at least one apparently unsuccessful effort by al Qaeda terrorists. With so much nuclear fuel available in so many places, the "forces of opportunity are only getting stronger," said Matthew Bunn, who co-authored the Harvard report with a former White House science adviser, John P. Holdren, and Anthony Weir. "Terrorists appear to be working as hard as they can to get these materials," Bunn said. "We need to be working as hard as we can to keep them from getting it." The Harvard study notes "substantial" progress under such non-proliferation initiatives as the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, and others. The United States has poured billions of dollars into improving security at Russian facilities where 40 percent of Russia's nuclear weapons and fuels are kept. The programs also have helped guarantee paychecks for thousands of former Soviet weapons scientists at risk of being lured away by such would-be nuclear powers as Iran and Iraq. At the previous Bush-Putin summit, in Crawford, Tex., the two leaders called efforts to block terrorists from obtaining weapons of mass destruction "our highest priority." Yet spending on nuclear security since Sept. 11 has remained essentially flat, Bunn said. He urged Bush and Putin to place an official in each government in charge of improving nuclear security, and he called on both presidents to lead a "global clean-out-and-secure" effort. Sam Nunn, the former U.S. senator who helped launch the program along with Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), said a strong signal from the two leaders at the Moscow summit was needed to remove bureaucratic obstacles that are slowing current non-proliferation efforts. "I continue to measure the threat against the size of the response, and there is a very big gap," said Nunn, who now directs the Washington-based Nuclear Threat Initiative. Nunn and Lugar are leading a congressional delegation to Moscow this week to explore ways to enhance cooperation on nonproliferation. Both governments could rapidly eliminate much of the highly enriched uranium in research reactors simply by paying universities to switch to new "high-density" forms of low-enriched uranium that cannot be used in bombs, according to a draft of the study by the Federation of American Scientists' Strategic Security Project. The author of the study, Michael A. Levi, also proposed accelerating current U.S. efforts to buy Russia's surplus highly enriched uranium and dilute it with low-enriched fuels used in Western commercial reactors. © 2002 The Washington Post Company ***************************************************************** 26 Bush-Putin summit in Russia could begin a real partnership / Substantive accords expected on nuclear arms control, NATO [http://sfgate.com] [eepstein@sfchronicle.com] Monday, May 20, 2002 Washington -- The summit that begins this week between President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin is a first -- a post-Cold War, post-Boris Yeltsin and post-Sept. 11 meeting that is destined to yield real substance. Major agreements on nuclear arms control and Russia's relations with NATO are set for Bush's visit to Moscow and St. Petersburg, which will begin Thursday. Talks on Russia's role in the war against terrorism, unlocking Russia's vast energy wealth and other ways of helping the country's laggard economy also are expected. The substantive agenda is a symbol of Russia's pro-Western slant under Putin, who was handpicked by Yeltsin to succeed the ailing president at the end of 1999. It also shows the growing personal relationship between Bush and Putin, who have already met three times, most recently last November at Bush's Crawford, Texas, ranch. Those meetings were mostly ceremonial. But from those meetings, Bush and Putin have developed a personal chemistry and now have a strong mutual interest in defeating a brand of terrorism tied to fundamentalist Islam. Amid charges of serious human-rights violations, Putin's military is fighting Islamic separatists in Chechnya, while Bush is battling Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network in Afghanistan -- where Russian intelligence has helped -- and a host of other countries. Human-rights activists say the Bush-Putin warmth shouldn't sweep aside the issue of human-rights violations in Chechnya and across Russia, where they say security services, apparently feeling freer under ex-KGB higher-up Putin, have stifled independent media and harassed rights campaigners. ENORMOUS POTENTIAL But many analysts say the meeting offers potential for bilateral ties unimaginable just a few years ago. "The foundation for a genuine long-term partnership between the United States and Russia is far stronger today than at any time since the collapse of the Soviet Union," said Andrew Kuchins, director of the Russian and Eurasian program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "Both men require real outcomes," he added. Kuchins said Bush needs progress to show that his pro-Putin policy is producing results. Putin has more at stake, because he is under fire from conservative elements at home for leaning toward the West and not getting anything in return. Early in the relationship, Putin was jolted when Bush unilaterally pulled out of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty while insisting on pushing ahead with a multibillion-dollar missile defense system over Russian objections. "It's easy to lose sight of how much better U.S.-Russian relations are today," Kuchins added, since that early bad news. Last week's twin announcements -- of a treaty making two-thirds cuts in the American and Russian nuclear arsenals and the creation of a NATO-Russia council to address counterterrorism efforts and other issues -- fit right into Putin's policy goals. Both events are likely to ease Moscow's concerns over the closer relationships with the West being established by its former satellites and the Baltic republics. "The main thrust of Russian foreign policy right now under President Putin is to ensure international stability," said Fiona Hill, a Russia analyst at the Brookings Institution in Washington. "And a critical component of this is a predictable, stable relationship with the United States, in which Russia is consulted on all of the issues that directly affect its national interests." Putin needs such stability to tackle huge domestic problems in his nation of 146 million -- an economy characterized by a vast manufacturing Rust Bowl, a Third World life expectancy for men of just 60 years, low levels of foreign investment, vast corruption, and civil wars in Chechnya and elsewhere in the Caucasus. HUMAN RIGHTS Critics say Putin has shown himself to be a heavy-handed leader in dealing with many of these issues, little concerned with the niceties of human rights. Sarah Mendelson of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington says Bush shouldn't give Putin a pass on these concerns. "There are many disturbing trends in Russia that are simply not on the Bush administration's radar screen, or the administration has chosen not to focus on them," she said. Mendelson said that in addition to human-rights violations in the Chechen war, Putin's regime has singled out journalists, student leaders, human-rights campaigners and other critics of the regime for harassment and jailings. She said that simply by raising such issues, Bush can make a difference with Putin. "The U.S. government has a role to play in all this. Why should we be surprised that the demand for the protection of rights inside of Russia is not very great if the international community and the United States are not expressing the need for the protection of these rights?" Mendelson asked. Hill, the Russia analyst, said that while Putin has to answer to all kinds of interest groups on domestic policy, he has staked out his solo leadership on foreign policy, and consults only with a small inner circle on these issues. It's that Kremlin inner circle who abandoned Yeltsin, known for his drinking problems, ill health and lack of attention to details, and eventually led him to step aside. "What might happen, if there is a foreign policy disaster, is it might negatively impact his own standing within his inner circle. And that actually could have some negative consequences," Hill said. E-mail Edward Epstein at [eepstein@sfchronicle.com] . ©2002 San Francisco Chronicle   Page A - 1 ***************************************************************** 27 Pruning Nukes The Salt Lake Tribune -- Utah's Statewide Newspaper Monday, May 20, 2002 The United States and Russia will sign a treaty to drastically reduce the number of nuclear warheads each nation has ready to use. In some sense, this agreement will simply formalize a situation made inevitable by the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. But it still represents progress in the quest to limit the risks of nuclear war. Russia cannot afford to maintain an arsenal of 6,000 nuclear warheads, and in terms of spending military dollars efficiently, neither can the United States. Both nations have far more weapons at the ready than they need to reasonably maintain deterrence. So it makes sense for them to cut their arsenals roughly by two-thirds, as they have agreed. The word "cut" must be used advisedly, since the treaty will not require that the weapons be destroyed. Some warheads and delivery systems may be placed in so-called deep storage, and others may be maintained as a sort of ready reserve and for spare parts. But since the numbers of weapons that will be on line, ready to use, will decline, the treaty is a step toward reducing risks from misunderstandings, accidental launch, sabotage or theft. This point is open to debate, since it is possible that a highly guarded missile -- fueled, armed and ready -- is more secure from tampering or theft than one kept in mothballs somewhere. But certainly a disassembled system in storage presents a lesser immediate threat. A warhead that had been destroyed would be the least risky of all, assuming that its nuclear materials had been rendered unsuited to use in a weapon. For the time being, the Bush administration prefers storage to destruction for most weapons, arguing that this strategy preserves the nation's options for reconfiguring its nuclear arsenal to meet changing contingencies. Flexibility is, in fact, one of the factors that will set this new treaty apart from its predecessors. Neither side must complete its obligations until 2012, when the treaty expires, and each nation can choose the route and timing to get there. However, provisions are being made so that each side can verify the actions of the other. This is a new arms-control model. Unlike previous treaties, which ran to hundreds of pages and specified precisely which classes of weapons would be limited, this new pact is only about three pages long and preserves many options for both sides. While the issue of whether to store or destroy weapons should receive close scrutiny by the Senate, the treaty will be a step forward in either case. © Copyright 2002, The Salt Lake Tribune ***************************************************************** 28 Russia has loose grip on nuclear stockpiles NUCLEAR SHADOW By David Filipov and Anne E. Kornblut, Globe Staff, 5/20/2002 [M]OSCOW - Maxim Shingarkin wanted to prove a point about the security of Russia's vast network of aging and depressed nuclear facilities. So one day in February, Shingarkin, an antinuclear campaigner for Greenpeace Russia, led a Russian legislator and a camera crew past unwitting guards, around fences, and into the heart of a supposedly high-security restricted area in Siberia where 3,000 tons of highly radioactive, spent nuclear fuel are stored. Filming the whole way, traveling on well-worn footpaths, the six men spent several hours in the facility and left unnoticed. ''There were no alarms, no signals, no cameras,'' Shingarkin said of his break-in at the Krasnoyarsk Mining and Chemical Plant. ''The guards drove past us several times and we passed by their sentry boxes, but we pretended to be locals and nobody bothered us.'' ''A group of armed men could go in as we did, control the building and approaches, and set off an explosion here,'' he said. ''It would be like 100 Chernobyls.'' NUCLEAR SHADOW A series of occasional articles on the most worrisome threat in the age of terror. May 19 Russia may be boosting Iran's nuclear arms May 20 The decade-old US effort to stem the flow of Russian nuclear technology to nations such as Iran that the United States says are trying to develop atomic weapons is likely to top the agenda when President Bush and Russian President Vladimir V. Putin meet in Russia on Friday. US spends $5 billion to secure facilities Nuclear cooperation with Iran is one of many problems Russia faces in containing proliferation. No one has a ready answer on what to do about the questionable security of Russia's vast, aging nuclear industry, where even the most impregnable facilities are vulnerable to break-ins and where sensitive materials are vulnerable to theft by poorly paid, disillusioned staff members. Shingarkin, a former major in the Russian military department that oversees the country's huge nuclear arsenal, said he also knew the way into the highly guarded weapons-grade plutonium production facility in the closed city of Zheleznogorsk. There, with the help of US financing, the Russians have installed a state-of-the-art security system, but it apparently has not made the facility impregnable. ''People have gone in undetected through the ventilation shafts,'' Shingarkin said. The United States has spent approximately $5 billion since the end of the Cold War to help Russia safeguard its nuclear materials and weapons, developing vast programs at the Defense Department, the Department of Energy, and other US agencies that provide paying work for unemployed scientists and basic security materials, such as fences and alarms. Known broadly as the ''Nunn-Lugar'' program, after the two US senators who launched it in 1991, the effort is credited with securing weapons facilities and deactivating some 6,000 warheads and nearly 400 intercontinental ballistic missiles in Russia and former Soviet states, weapons that were once aimed at the United States. Despite that $400 million-a-year US effort, the Nunn-Lugar programs and their subsidiaries have secured only a portion of the facilities in Russia, leaving numerous aging, underprotected facilities in danger of attack or sabotage, nuclear specialists contend. Among the biggest source of concern: loose nuclear materials unattached to weaponry and guarded by civilian scientists in remote locations with little supervision. ''You've got dozens of stockpiles all over the country, and people safeguarding them who don't get paid for months, and scientists who know how to make weapons of mass destruction who can't feed their families,'' said former US senator Sam Nunn, the Democrat from Georgia who chaired the Senate Arms Services Comittee and teamed up with Senator Richard G. Lugar, Republican of Indiana, to create the US-Russia joint venture. Nunn and Lugar, along with about a dozen members of Congress, are holding their own summit in Moscow this week, timed to coincide with Bush's summit with Putin in part to remind legislators from both countries that the problem still exists. ''The question of theft or sale is the most likely threat,'' Nunn said. ''I think a country that turned over nuclear materials to a terrorist group would be putting its own survival in jeopardy ... It's not nearly as likely as an illicit sale or a theft of this material.'' That differs from the view of the White House. In the months following Sept. 11, Bush identified nations trying to build weapons of mass destruction - namely the ''axis of evil'' countries of Iraq, Iran, and North Korea - as the most dangerous threats to the United States because they might simply deliver nuclear weapons into the hands of terrorists. ''We will not wait for the authors of mass murder to gain the weapons of mass destruction,'' Bush said last November. But even in the seemingly transformed post-Sept. 11 era, as the focus of concern has shifted to the Middle East and Central Asia and international terrorist cells, the more traditional nuclear threat persists in a uniquely old-fashioned place: Russia and the rest of the former Soviet Union. According to Sergei Mitrokhin, the legislator who accompanied Shingarkin on the break-in at the nuclear storage site, there is no federal financing for safety measures at most of Russia's 96 nuclear plants and research centers. US says only a third of stockpile secured The situation is little better at nuclear facilities in the former Soviet republics. Authorities in Lithuania are still looking for 90 pounds of highly enriched uranium - more than enough to make a nuclear bomb - stolen a decade ago from the Ignalina nuclear power plant. No one has ever found 84 nuclear ''suitcase bombs'' that Alexander Lebed, the former Siberian governor who died last month in a helicopter crash, pronounced missing when he briefly became national security adviser in 1996 and ordered an inventory of Russia's nuclear stockpiles. Those stockpiles include all of the warheads from Russia's arsenal of 30,000 tactical nuclear weapons, plus more than 1,000 tons of highly enriched uranium and at least 150 tons of plutonium still remaining in high-security Russian facilities - enough to build some 60,000 nuclear weapons. According to US government estimates, only about one-third of that stockpile has been secured through Nunn-Lugar and related programs. The remaining two-thirds is scheduled to be handled in the next decade, leaving what security analysts describe as an appalling hole in Russia's protection of nuclear material. Nine months before the Sept. 11 attacks, a blue-ribbon congressional panel described the risk this way: ''The most urgent, unmet national security threat to the United States today is the danger that weapons of mass destruction or weapons-usable material in Russia could be stolen and sold to terrorists or hostile nation-states and used against American troops abroad or citizens at home.'' The panel, headed by former senator Howard Baker of Tennessee and former White House counsel Lloyd Cutler, concluded that the threat required a $30 billion program in Russia over the next 10 to 12 years - far more than the United States has ever been willing to commit. In fact, before Sept. 11, the Bush administration prepared to slash its funding for Nunn-Lugar by about $140 million, funding that was restored in Congress and approved after the attacks. Bush, who promised during the campaign to fully fund Nunn-Lugar, has proposed a full budget for the program next year. At the same time, the Bush administration told the Kremlin this spring that it may be forced to curtail a number of aid programs that help Russia keep control of its weapons of mass destruction and technologies because it could no longer certify that Russia complies with treaties banning the spread of such weapons. In particular, the administration was forced to notify Russia that it could not grant certification because of Russia's refusal to share a bioengineered strain of anthrax developed by its scientists and its failure to provide a complete history of decades of secret work on biological and chemical weapons, a US official in Moscow said. Russia has denied Western scientists access to four military-controlled biological laboratories where such weapons were made. Russia maintains it is not violating the biological or chemical warfare conventions it has signed in the last decade. The Bush administration has said it would ask Congress for a waiver of the certification requirement so that it could keep financing Nunn-Lugar programs that seek to prevent the theft of Russian nuclear materials. The International Atomic Energy Agency reports 18 cases of nuclear trafficking in the past decade involving small amounts of plutonium or enriched uranium, virtually all from the former Soviet Union, but each time the missing material was seized. In 1998, a group of workers in a restricted nuclear facility tried to swipe more than 40 pounds of uranium suitable for building weapons. At Stanford's Institute of International Studies, researchers have compiled a database of nearly 700 incidents of international smuggling involving nuclear or radioactive material that could be turned into a so-called dirty bomb (which is expected to cause mass panic but cause fewer deaths than a nuclear bomb). Among the cases: a 2-kilo supply of highly enriched uranium, about 4.4 pounds, that was stolen in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia and never recovered. Scientists contend they may be aware of only a fraction of the missing nuclear goods, given how porous Russia's borders are. Plant faces thefts, addiction, recruitment At the Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant in Sosnovy Bor, 50 miles from the 4 million people who live in St. Petersburg, Russia's northern capital, the potential for more security breaches is evident. Not long ago a worker showed up with a gun just to see whether he could make it through the security check, according to Charles Digges, a researcher for a Norwegian environmentalist group, Bellona Foundation. The man got inside. Like all Russia's important nuclear sites, Sosnovy Bor is closed to everyone but staff members. But after a recent spate of thefts of metals, tools, and computers, Anatoly Volkov, the head of the local police department, acknowledged that the security procedures could not prevent crime by employees. Because the plant does not carry out alcohol or drug screening, employees can and do drink and use narcotics on the job. In 1998, two employees died of heroin overdoses, said Oleg Bodrov, a former physicist at the plant and chairman of the local environmental group Green World. And Bodrov said specialists at the reactor realized that better money was to be made abroad. Ten specialists had already left for projects in China, Iraq, and Iran. This points to a problem that better fences and security guards cannot fix: the potential for scientists to sell their knowledge to the highest bidder. Alexander Pikayev, a specialist on proliferation issues for the Carnegie Moscow Center, said the Taliban have tried to recruit scientists at nuclear research centers in Central Asia. ''A guy with 1960s-era knowledge of nuclear physics is interesting enough for the bomb the Taliban would want to make,'' he said. This story ran on page A1 of the Boston Globe on 5/20/2002. © Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company. ***************************************************************** 29 From MAD to Even Madder Moscow on the Potomac Monday, May. 20, 2002. Page 10 By Matt Bivens WASHINGTON -- Once upon a time, the Pentagon offered a resounding "no" to the suggestion it use nuclear weapons to shoot down hostile incoming missiles. Seems there are some downsides to detonating nuclear blasts high above America's cities. Go figure. Now a powerful congressional committee has recommended that the Pentagon think again. The House Armed Services Committee has tucked a recommendation into a defense spending bill to the effect that exploring the use of nuclear-armed interceptors for missile defense would be "a prudent step, consistent with the commitment to evaluate all available technological options for this critical mission." Prudent? Exploding nuclear weapons to take out incoming missiles could damage radar and telecommunications infrastructure, and, some say, even knock out satellites -- bringing both the civilian and military United States to a grinding halt. It would also probably leave the country defenseless should anyone care to launch a second assault; and don't forget the radiation. That's why past Pentagons rejected the idea years ago. Then again, the antique anti-missile system around Moscow, built in the 1960s, has about 100 nuclear-armed missiles ready to defend the Kremlin's honor (though we all hope it never comes to that). And as arms control expert Pavel Podvig pointed out to me in an e-mail interview, a very similar system, called Safeguard, was in place for a few months in the 1970s around U.S. missile fields in North Dakota. Those limited systems were essentially part of the game of MAD, mutually assured destruction: To prevent two superpowers from going toe-to-toe with thousands of nuclear weapons, the MAD balance demanded uncertainty that either side could ever successfully pull off a preemptive first strike. In that context, protecting the leadership in Moscow or the silos in North Dakota makes a certain sense even when the protection system is itself pretty monstrous. Yet in the 21st century, the missile defense system the Pentagon has been selling to Congress is supposed to be clean and sophisticated. It's triumphantly based on "hit-to-kill" technology -- the daunting business of shooting down an incoming missile, sometimes described as trying to "hit a bullet with a bullet." Billions of dollars have been spent upon the Pentagon's assurances that this can and will be done within just a few years. Then, last month, came an oblique signal that it ain't happening. The old North Dakota Safeguard -- a mushroom-cloud-shaped missile defense shield -- was revived by the chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Science Board, who said Donald Rumsfeld was "interested" in the idea. Republicans in Congress leapt obediently to endorse such "prudence." Hitting a bullet with a mega-explosion is the opposite of the surgical strike. It is clearly a when-all-else-fails scenario -- and the fact it's being discussed suggests the Pentagon is worried the program it has sold year in and year out to Congress won't work. After all, if "hit-to-kill" precision was possible, who in America would turn it down and instead cheer for using nukes over the skies of New York and Los Angeles? So perhaps this is the real story behind the calm with which Vladimir Putin met the White House announcement it would pull out of a treaty to build a missile defense shield. The Russians have good intelligence in Washington; maybe they smell the desperation, and know missile defense is a radioactive dud. Matt Bivens, a former editor of The Moscow Times, is a fellow with the Nation Institute. [ www.thenation.com [http://www.thenation.com] ] [http://www.moscowtimes.ru ***************************************************************** 30 SRS workers sick, but not bitter The State | 05/19/2002 | [http://www.thestate.com] Many employees who worked during the Cold War say their illness is price of freedom By SAMMY FRETWELL Staff Writer SYCAMORE - Gordon Johns went to work every day for 33 years, proud that he was part of the nation's effort to win the Cold War. To him, cleaning the Savannah River Site was as important as the massive facility's primary job: making plutonium and tritium for use in atomic weapons. "The Savannah River Site played a very important part in security for the entire world," Johns said. "I have some pride knowing I might have had a small part in that.'' But after retiring in 1984, Johns began suffering blackouts. He later was diagnosed with colon cancer, a disease that kills 50,000 Americans a year. From there, his health steadily deteriorated. By spring of this year, he was bedridden, coughing and gasping for breath. On March 30, two days after telling his story to The State, Johns died at his home in rural Allendale County. For former employees at SRS, Johns' struggle is painfully familiar. Like Johns, they have vivid stories of life-threatening illnesses suffered after working at the nuclear weapons complex near Aiken. More than 2,000 are seeking federal compensation for diseases they say resulted from their work. The government admitted during the Clinton Administration that its nuclear weapons program probably is liable for some diseases. Illnesses include colon cancer, lung cancer, breathing disorders, kidney diseases and lymphoma. Relatives of some dead workers said their loved ones nearly starved because of complications from cancer, federal records show. Many of the sick said they were glad to help the government win the international arms race with the Soviet Union. It was the price of freedom, they said. "I would do it again,'' said Edgefield resident Bill Brunson, a retired SRS worker who struggles to breathe. 'YOU DIDN'T ALWAYS REALIZE' Still, some former workers said they were bothered that they didn't know more about the dangers of working at SRS. With more information from the government, they might have known how to better cope with radiation and toxic chemicals, Johns said before his death. "You didn't always realize'' the danger, he said, "until after you ran into contact with it.'' The Savannah River Site's nuclear weapons mission halted after the Soviet Union dissolved and the Cold War ended in 1991. Today, as the government looks to process plutonium and fabricate more nuclear weapons material at SRS, the legacy of its past remains. Most of the site's $1.5 billion annual budget is spent managing and cleaning up deadly waste. The facility is one of the world's most contaminated atomic weapons sites. All told, more than 100,000 people worked at the Savannah River Site after it opened in the early 1950s, Department of Energy spokesman Bill Taylor said. During its peak, the site employed more than 25,000 people at one time, he said. Taylor said the government now acknowledges that nuclear weapons sites were a threat to their workers. Although SRS stressed safety, he said, some workers became ill after toiling at the 310-square-mile complex of nuclear reactors, support buildings and burial grounds. "These people did an important job for our national defense,'' Taylor said. "Those who did receive occupational illnesses or injuries are why a program was set up to compensate them.'' Nationally, people have filed more than 26,000 claims seeking compensation of up to $150,000 because of exposure to radiation and some toxic materials at nuclear weapons sites. So far, virtually none of the $199.6 million paid in claims has gone to SRS workers because it has taken time for the government to get the entire program off the ground, federal officials say. As those seeking compensation wait for their checks, they have said plenty about life at SRS. Public meetings with the U.S. Department of Energy the past two years brought overflow crowds of people who detailed their struggles and asked for government help. NUCLEAR SPILL Brunson, among those seeking compensation, said he was exposed to an array of contaminated materials during his 30 years at SRS. The materials ranged from asbestos to radioactive substances. Once, he helped mop up a spill of contaminated water not far from one of the complex's atomic reactors. Because of the water's radioactivity, employees could work on the cleanup for just a limited amount of time. "Just about everybody on the plant was involved,'' said Brunson, a former maintenance worker. "It took a long time to go through all that.'' Brunson said he was routinely exposed to asbestos that he believes now causes him to gasp for breath, particularly when the weather is hot and muggy. Some of the exposure came from taking asbestos out of buildings and putting new supplies in, said Brunson, a non-smoker. Asbestos, an unusually resilient material, was used for decades in industry to insulate and fireproof buildings. Federal studies now show that it can cause cancer and a lung disease known as asbestosis. Today, Brunson must use air filters, inhalers and mentholatum to help bring oxygen into his lungs. At night, it sometimes is difficult for Brunson to catch his breath while in bed. "Breathing is my biggest problem now,'' he said. "Some nights I have to get up and sit in my chair.'' Medical experts who examined Brunson said his breathing problems could be the result of working at SRS, records show. He has been diagnosed with asbestosis. It didn't used to be that way. Brunson said he once took walks, swam and jogged to stay in shape. Now, he can do little more than work sporadically in his yard. "When you can't breathe, you kind of lose everything,'' he said. Still, Brunson doesn't regret the work he did at SRS. A bleeding disorder kept him out of the military and that always bothered his conscience, he said. "I couldn't join the service and I felt like it was part of my life to help out,'' the 84-year-old Brunson said. BREATHING MACHINE When he has difficulty drawing oxygen into his lungs, Robert Lee Kelly uses a machine to help him breathe. Kelly said it's not unusual to use the special inhaler three to four times per day. He, too, believes exposure to toxic chemicals at SRS caused his condition. Sometimes, asbestos was so thick during maintenance work that he could see it in the air. During a public meeting in December 2000, Kelly told Department of Energy officials the chemicals he was exposed to were so bad, "you couldn't hardly breathe while you were working.'' "I've been having a lot of sickness - shortness of breathe, my bones aching,'' Kelly said in an interview with The State. "But I'm still dragging along. I'm sure we got a hold of some of those chemicals down there.'' Still, Kelly said he had good years at SRS, first as a construction worker and later as an operations employee. During the early 1950s, Kelly said he brought home $200 to $250 a week, far better than the 50 cents a day farmers in the area made. Kelly, who grew up on the property where SRS now stands, said he's not upset with the government for the illness he must now deal with. "I'm not angry,'' the 72-year-old Aiken resident said. "At the time, I needed a job and I was glad for the job. We raised three children and put them through college. I bought me a home out of it.'' GLOWING PIPES Robert Eley, 78, recalls the night a large explosion of radioactive material killed a live oak tree on the SRS property. He also remembers being burned by acid at the site. And, Eley said, there were years when he was subjected to heavy doses of radiation from his work as a nuclear reactor operator. Now, Eley suffers from asbestosis because of exposure to air pollutants at SRS, he said. The affliction causes shortness of breath. "I got sick because I worked there,'' said Eley, a Twin City, Ga. resident. On trips with his wife, he must haul portable air tanks with him so he can breathe easily. "It's a damned nuisance,'' Eley said. "A lot of times I have the notion to say, 'To hell with it,' and go ahead and die.'' In addition to breathing problems, Eley said he suffers numbness in his left hand from what he believes was exposure to radiation at SRS. Mervin Russell, who has colon and lung cancer, said he remembers working around steel pipes so radioactive that they glowed "like a lightbulb.'' He retired from SRS in 1981 after 30 years on the job. The pipes were submerged in pools of water inside SRS buildings. Periodically, he and his co-workers hauled the pipes out of the water so other workers could repair them. Today, he has no idea what purpose the pipes served. Russell also had to haul unknown radioactive material in trucks to a burial ground at SRS. "We weren't told too much," said Russell, a 78-year-old Bamberg resident. "What we did was supposed to be confidential.'' Russell said he's not bitter about the work. But he said the cancers have slowed him down -particularly the lung cancer. That's bothersome because he never smoked, Russell said. Simple daily activities can be taxing now, he said. He is unable to tie his shoes without breathing hard. And he no longer has the breath to sing, a once favorite pastime, he said. "I can't do anything,'' Russell said. "I just don't have any wind.'' 'FOR YOUR COUNTRY' Before he died, Gordon Johns said he wished SRS had paid more attention to worker exposure during the hey day of nuclear arms production. Johns remembered when he would be allowed to clean tritium-contaminated areas without the proper equipment. He also was exposed to asbestos as thick as snow, as well as to freon and other toxic chemicals. Those materials put him on his death bed, he said. "I think we ought to have been debriefed every day about what went on,'' he said, adding that the experience led him to advocate more investigation of chemical pollution around the world. Even so, the massive weapons complex produced bittersweet memories for Johns, a father and husband who died with his family at his side. Before his death, Johns told The State that he had a sense of accomplishment that he helped America win the Cold War. "I think most people are basically glad about having worked there,'' Johns said. "You need to be ready to fight for your country.'' ***************************************************************** 31 Disclosure can help restore public trust in government The Oak Ridger Online - Opinion - Another View: 05/20/02 An editorial from the Kingsport Times-News For the last several years, poll after poll shows the public has an unusually high level of cynicism, distrust and low confidence in government at all levels. According to a study by the Center For Public Integrity, Tennessee's reporting system for lobbying information leaves much to be desired. The nonpartisan group notes that, while Tennessee requires lobbyists to file activity forms, they only include campaign contributions in excess of $100 to lawmakers. And the activity forms don't reveal how much lobbyists get paid to do their jobs. For that matter, there is no public requirement that the legislative input of lobbyists be disclosed. A lobbyist can write a piece of legislation or propose a specific amendment as long as he or she finds a lawmaker willing to support it. The interest group most heavily active in influencing Tennessee laws is the health services industry, including health maintenance organizations. According to CPI's study, 48 organizations employed lobbyists in Tennessee in 2000 within the health services arena, ranking 12th in the nation. As elected officials know well, voter suspicion about their motives is a constant of political life. But many of those suspicions could be laid to rest if Tennessee required fuller reporting of the activities and influence of lobbyists on the legislative process. The standards we insist on in our elected leaders -- including those who lobby them -- can make the difference between a deeper descent into cynicism and distrust, or the possibility of something better. In an ideal world, such decisions would be made voluntarily by lawmakers and lobbyists themselves. But current evidence points to the need for additional regulation and documentation. That's because the very individuals who most need to hear such a message are often least likely to heed it. All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 32 Four years out, ORNL builds staff for Spallation Neutron Source KnoxNews: Columnists By Frank Munger, News-Sentinel Senior writer May 19, 2002 The Spallation Neutron Source won’t become operational until 2006, according to the current timetable, but Oak Ridge National Laboratory already is building its scientific staff and hiring others who’ll be needed to run the research facilities. "We’re in a pretty steep recruiting mode at the moment," Thom Mason, the SNS director, said during a recent visit to the construction site atop Chestnut Ridge. "We’ve been hiring on the order of 10 people a month to join us here in Oak Ridge." What types of personnel? "Scientists, engineers, technicians, various types of management and support staff," Mason said. The SNS is a partnership of six national laboratories, and Mason said that arrangement has allowed ORNL to focus on hiring specialists for operation of the scientific facilities. For example, Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico is in charge of developing the project’s linear accelerator. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California is responsible for the front-end system that initiates a string of processes, ultimately providing high-intensity pulses of neutrons for materials experiments. With other labs devoting time to major components that will eventually be delivered to the Oak Ridge site, ORNL has ample time to get ready for its management and operations role. "We’ve been able to really target our hires to the people we need to make this facility work after we finish construction," Mason said. The Oak Ridge staff will include scientists who’ll work closely with researchers from around the globe to make their visit to the SNS productive and successful. "A lot of the researchers who come here won’t be real neutron-scattering experts," Mason said. "They’ll be people - biologists or chemists - who want to use neutrons. ? So we’ll plan the experiments so that they can come in and interact with the scientific staff here. In a sense, the scientific staff here in the facility are every bit as important as the quality of the instrumentation. You can have the best instrumentation in the world, but if you just have people come in and try to figure it out for themselves, you won’t have very effective use of it." Efficient time management is critical because researchers will have limited use of the neutron beams to perform experiments exploring the structural makeup of materials. "The beam time that people get will come in pretty small chunks," Mason said. "A typical experiment is a couple of days to at most a week or two. So, if you’re coming in for a three-day experiment, there’s not a lot of time to mess around. ? That means we have to have not only the scientists to help, but the technical support, computing, data analysis." Frank Munger can be reached at 865-482-9213 or twig1@knoxnews.infi.net. Copyright © 2002 The Knoxville News-Sentinel Co. ***************************************************************** 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: *****************************************************************