***************************************************************** 01/21/02 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 10.19 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POLICY 1 India opening nuclear energy to privitisation 2 Results due on bid to shut Czech nuclear plant 3 Austria watching nuclear poll for potential political fallout 4 Czech fury at anti-nuclear campaign by Austrian Right 5 Dismantling Slovene nuclear power plant will cost one billion euros 6 Austria's Haider defiant over nuclear plant, Czech EU entry 7 Bulgarian deputy premier pleased with talks in Russia on energy 8 Finland backs nuclear reactor 9 Austria awaits nuclear poll results 10 A Czech Nuclear Plant Generates Political Heat 11 U.S.-Russia Uranium Crisis Set to Be Defused NUCLEAR REACTORS 12 Czech Nuclear Power Plant Postpones Some Tests 13 Czech nuclear plant's output at 100 per cent 14 Bulgarian plant denies reports on Russia returning used nuclear fuel NUCLEAR SAFETY 15 Russia: Implementation Of Programme For Rehabilitation Of Population 16 US: In Shadow of Reactors, Parents Seek Peace of Mind in a Pill 17 US: EPA Urges Home Testing for Radon, Second Leading Cause of Lung C 18 US: Nuclear Reactors as Terrorist Targets NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 19 Accidents at Uranium Plant Raise Concern in Australia 20 Norway set to join battle on Sellafield 21 US: YUCCA editorial: Stick to science 22 US: Ties to Shattuck's owner hike scrutiny of EPA chief 23 US: NTS Editorial: More tests of water needed 24 US: Only GOP will get Armey's ear on Yucca 25 US: Nuclear waste inevitable 26 AU: Toxic mud: Industrial waste spread on fields NUCLEAR WEAPONS 27 US: GUIDED MISSILES AND MISGUIDED MEN 28 US: Bomb technology goes underground 29 Taking Apart the Nuclear Arsenal 30 Price Clash Stalls Renewal of U.S.-Russia Uranium Pact 31 US: New nuclear threat emerges from the East as Cold War fears fade 32 Russia, US to set up working committees on disarmament 33 US: Keep U.S. Nuclear Testing on the Back Burner US DEPT. OF ENERGY 34 Nuclear 'treasure' causes security, safety headaches for ORNL ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 India opening nuclear energy to privitisation The Frontier Post From Peshawar Pakistan Updated on 1/21/2002 11:04:10 AM ISLAMABAD (NNI): The Chief of Nuclear Power corporation of India, V. K. Chakarveddy has said India is opening nuclear energy sector for Privatisation.He said that the government will maintain its control on nuclear fuel. Mr. Chakarveddy described India's nuclear power houses as fully safe. The head of Nuclear Power Corporation of India, V . K. Chakarveddy told BBC that if India wants to strengthen its nuclear energy sector, it will have to adopt the course or Privatisation. He said amendment is being made in the present law with a view to opening nuclear energy for Privatisation. But Mr. Chakarveddy made it clear that government's control on nuclear fuel would continue. He said government has not enough resources to control to expand the fields of nuclear energy. Thus, there is no harm in producing nuclear energy in collaboration with the private companies. Mr. Chakarveddy said talks with some big Indian companies are continuing in this regard. About burying the waste coming out of nuclear power houses, he said the scientists are in search of safe places at national level to bury the refuse in future. He said uranium has been found at a number of places in India including Rajasthan. He claimed that India's nuclear power houses are fully safe and their security system is better. However, some circles have been raising questions about the security system in these power houses. © Copyright 2001 The Frontier Post ***************************************************************** 2 Results due on bid to shut Czech nuclear plant By Delia Meth-Cohn in Vienna and William Hall in Zurich Published: January 20 2002 21:02 | Last Updated: January 20 2002 21:13 Austria will on Monday announce the results of a nationwide petition over a Czech nuclear power plant that has bitterly divided Chancellor Wolfgang Schussel's coalition with the far-right Freedom party. The petition, supported by the Freedom party (FPO) and its de facto leader, Jorg Haider, calls for Austria to veto the Czech Republic's admission to the European Union if Prague refuses to shut down the plant, at Temelin near Austria's northern border. Chancellor Schussel, leader of the conservative Peoples party, has already agreed not to block Czech entry into the EU after exacting a promise of tighter safety standards from the Czechs just before Christmas. Mr Haider subsequently took up the idea of an anti-nuclear petition, apparently seeking to demonstrate popular support after he and his party were trounced in last year's Vienna local elections. The petition also has the backing of Hans Dichand, the 81-year-old owner of Kronen Zeitung, the country's biggest newspaper. Mr Dichand chose to lead his newspaper last week with a picture of a cat and the message that "we have to protect animals from the nuclear threat because they are not political". Monday's results will commit the Austrian government to nothing apart from allowing a debate in parliament. If Mr Haider wants to use the issue to block Czech entry into the EU, this would need a two-thirds majority in parliament to pass the necessary constitutional law. Since all of Austria's other main parties are against the idea, this is unlikely to happen. Nevertheless, the results of the petition have increased political tensions inside and outside Austria. Milos Zeman, the Czech prime minister, has described Mr Haider as a "populist pro-Nazi politician who understands nothing but talks about everything". Susanne Riess-Passer, Mr Haider's close confidant and Austria's vice-chancellor, says that such comments underline the "democratic immaturity" of the Czech Republic and suggest that it is not ready to join the European Union. Mr Zeman's comments are likely to increase the chances that Mr Haider's anti-Temelin petition will be his most successful yet. In 1993, a FPO-backed anti-foreigner petition drew 417,000 signatures and 253,000 signed up to Mr Haider's anti-euro petition in 1997. If Mr Haider wins substantial support for his latest petition, drawing on Austrians deep opposition to nuclear power, it will increase the pressure on Mr Schussel's coalition government to dance to his tune by abandoning its pro-EU enlargement stance. "Mr Haider, who has seen his support ebbing away, is fed up with the coalition between his party and the Peoples party and seems hell-bent on provoking some sort of reaction," says Professor Melanie Sully of Vienna's Diplomatic Academy. The People's party, which is pro-EU enlargement and believes that it has got the best deal it can from the Czechs, is losing patience with the Freedom party's constant willingness to continue acting like an opposition party even though it is a member of the government. "If the Temelin petition receives over 1m signatures it will be very difficult for the government to ignore and will increase the likelihood that the coalition could collapse before the end of its term in late 2003," says Professor Sully. ***************************************************************** 3 Austria watching nuclear poll for potential political fallout The News - Joerg Haider stands by a sign calling for the closure of Temelin. File photo, AFP Daniel Aronssohn, AFP - 1/21/2002 VIENNA - Austria was keenly awaiting Sunday the results of a petition calling for the closure of a problem-plagued nuclear power station in the Czech Republic as Prague moved to calm a furious diplomatic row over the plant. The week-long national petition, a potential political bombshell for the fragile coalition government in Austria, is due to be published on Monday after provoking a fierce war of words between Vienna and Prague, which branding the poll's far-right organizer a "Nazi." It was organized by far-right strongman Joerg Haider's Freedom Party to demand the closure of the Soviet-built Temelin nuclear plant in southern Bohemia, just 60 kilometers (35 miles) from the Austrian border. The diplomatic row reached boiling point this weekend after Czech Prime Minister Milos Zeman branded Haider a "Nazi" and urged Austrians to rid themselves of him and his party. "If Austria remains under the influence of a politician who is a Nazi and a populist ... then that's your problem and not ours," he said in an interview to be published in the Austrian weekly news magazine Profil on Monday. Austrian President Thomas Klestil on Sunday telephoned his Czech opposite number Vaclav Havel to voice his "surprise" at Zeman's tirade against Haider, whose petition also calls for Austria to veto the Czech Republic's entry into the European Union. "Mr. Havel promised President Klestil an official explanation and said he would hold a personal interview with Mr. Zeman," Kestil's office said. Havel told Klestil that both sides "must get rid of passions and emotions," his spokesman Ladislav Spacek told Czech public radio. The Czech president called on both sides to "come back to the real aspect of the problem," Spacek said, adding that Havel told Klestil "he didn't like harsh words." Czech foreign ministry spokesman Ales Pospisil also called on "diplomats in both countries to bring calm to the currently tense situation," saying that the Czech Republic's entry into the EU would be in Austria's national interest. The nuclear dispute is also straining Austria's long-fractious ruling coalition, of which the Freedom Party is a partner. Although the petition has limited legal force, it could be a political bombshell for conservative Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel, who has shared power with the Freedom Party since 2000 but struck a deal with Prague last November allowing Temelin to go ahead. "If the petition is successful (Schuessel) must rethink how he can adapt his line, it is difficult to imagine how the chancellor wants to govern against the clear will of the Austrian people," said Haider, who is not in the national government, but is increasingly upsetting the Vienna political landscape from his southern Carinthia fiefdom. Haider has said he will consider the petition a success if it gets over some 400,000 signatures. Last week reports indicated as many as one million Austrians may have signed it. Haider has accused Zeman of having failed to mature from his origins under communism. "A specter is haunting Europe, the specter of communism," Haider wrote in a reference to the Communist Manifesto. "Only this time the threat is much more serious because it does not show its true face," he said. Zeman stoked up the heat in the row last week, declaring Haider and his party "post-fascist" and accusing it openly of seeking to veto Prague's EU membership application. Those comments earned Zeman a formal protest from Vienna, which summoned Prague's ambassador to the foreign ministry to warn him against interfering in Austria's internal affairs. Freedom Party parliamentary chief Peter Westenthaler said Zeman's comments showed he was "mentally disturbed... Mr. Zeman is more at home in the jungle than in the European Union," he said. Temelin rouses fierce emotions in Austria, which voted against nuclear energy in a 1978 referendum. These feelings have been further fueled by repeated technical problems at the plant since firing up in October 2000. The anti-Temelin petition has little formal force: if more than 100,000 people sign it, parliament has to debate it, but does not need to take further action. But the number of signatures will be closely watched by Schuessel and all concerned. ©Copyright 2001 TheNewsMexico.com ***************************************************************** 4 Czech fury at anti-nuclear campaign by Austrian Right NEWS.scotsman.com - Mon 21 Jan 2002 Barbara Miller in Vienna AUSTRIA’S fiery right-winger, Jörg Haider, has found a new vehicle to inflame public opinion: a populist drive against a Czech nuclear power plant near Austria’s border. A petition has been drawn up by Mr Haider calling for Austria to block the Czech Republic’s accession to the European Union unless the plant at Temelín is shut down. The campaign has boosted the profile of Austria’s far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ) and its former leader, even as it has sent tensions soaring. The petition has infuriated the Czech government. Prague sees as final a deal on Temelín it negotiated last year with Austria’s chancellor, Wolfgang Schüssel, of the centre-right People's Party (ÖVP), the FPÖ’s partner in government. In an interview with Czech radio, the Czech prime minister, Milos Zeman, said "the sooner Austria is rid of Mr Haider and his post-fascist party, the better". Mr Haider officially withdrew from national politics two years ago amid international outcry over his party’s entry into government. But the charismatic populist continues to pull the Freedom Party strings from the southern province of Carinthia, where he is governor. Susanne Riess-Passer, his successor as party leader and Austria’s vice-chancellor, was quick to hit back at Mr Zeman, accusing the Czech leader of "democratic immaturity". Swift reaction came also from Austria’s foreign minister. Benita Ferrero-Waldner, of the ÖVP, instructed her ambassador in Prague to protest formally against the Czechs’ "interference in internal affairs". The mudslinging looks set to continue. Mr Haider has told Austrian television that Mr Zeman’s comments are indicative of the same mindset that led to the crushing by Soviet tanks of the Prague Spring in 1968. Mr Zeman countered with fresh attacks, describing Mr Haider as a "political Chernobyl" and "an expert in nothing but populism". Those comments are being condemned across the political spectrum in Austria and are likely to boost the anti-Temelín petition. Indeed, Mr Haider has described Mr Zeman as an "involuntary helper" in the campaign. Two years have passed since the FPÖ entered government and its supporters face economic slowdown, rising unemployment and a series of austerity measures. The party looks set to milk this latest cause for all it is worth. To force debate in parliament, 100,000 signatures are required on the petition by today, but a poll predicts up to 900,000 people in the nation of eight million could sign it. The country’s widest-circulation daily, the Kronen-Zeitung, is rallying support with a front-page campaign. In addition, reports of technical glitches during Temelín tests are fuelling already strong anti-nuclear sentiments. Two decades ago Austrians voted against activating what would have been the country's first nuclear power plant . One Temelín opponent, a 76-year-old who gave her name as Getrude, smiled as she stepped out into a frosty morning in Vienna after signing the petition. She said she did not really believe the nuclear power plant would be shut down, "but we have to give it a go". The dispute between Prague and Vienna over Mr Zeman’s outburst is overshadowing Austria’s domestic conflict over the initiative that provoked it. Three of the four parties represented in parliament oppose the anti-Temelín petition. The opposition Social Democrats and Greens are denouncing it as a populist attempt to hinder EU enlargement. Leading ÖVP ministers have described the petition as a "veto trap" and Mr Schüssel is urging functionaries not to sign it. He says the only way to guarantee international safety standards at Temelín is to support the Czech Republic’s EU accession. ©2002 scotsman.com | contact ***************************************************************** 5 Dismantling Slovene nuclear power plant will cost one billion euros Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa) ( January 21, 2002 ) Ljubljana (dpa) - An official at the Slovene-Croatian Krsko nuclear power plant on Monday put the cost of dismantling the facility after closure at around one billion euros. Given the 40-year life expectancy of the average nuclear power plant, Krsko can be expected to remain in operation until 2023, Branko Janc said. Built in the 1970s using technology from United States-based company Westinghouse, Krsko was the former Yugoslavia's sole nuclear power plant. It began generating energy in 1983. Sited in Slovenia, the plant was co-funded by Croatia but since the break up of Yugoslavia in 1991, the two neighbours have been locked in dispute over disposal of its radioactive waste. Slovenian non-governmental organizations have been trying to close down Krsko since the day it was built. Many Slovenians believe the plant is much more important to Croatia, which was affected by the Balkans war, than to Slovenia, whose energy requirement is relatively small. Last month, the two countries signed an agreement to end a decade- old dispute over ownership of the plant, but the agreement has yet to be ratified by their respective parliaments. dpa Copyright 2002 dpa Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH ***************************************************************** 6 Austria's Haider defiant over nuclear plant, Czech EU entry BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Jan 21, 2002 Carinthian Provincial Governor and former Freedom Party Leader Joerg Haider has said it will be excellent if his non-binding petition against the Czech nuclear power plant Temelin gets one million signatures. He added that he then hoped to see the government initiate new negotiations for the closure of the plant. The following is the text of an interview with Haider by Waltraud Kaserer; place and date not given: "German politicians are too cowardly", published by the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag web site on 20 January: The Austrian rightwing populist Joerg Haider hopes to gain domestic votes through the petition for a referendum against [the Czech nuclear power station] Temelin. [Kaserer] The conflict over the Temelin nuclear power station is escalating. The insults are flying back and forth: Czech Prime Minister Milos Zeman has just described you as a "political Chernobyl". The Czech opposition says your speeches are pervaded by the spirit of Hitler - [Haider] This is the old reflex of the post-Communists. Those who are now in power carried out important functions during communism, so they can hardly come forward with a different view today. [Kaserer] That sounds as if you are not about to reply to this once again now? [Haider] No, I do not actually intend to lower myself to that level. [Kaserer] Are you calling for an apology? [Haider] No, an apology would insult me. [Kaserer] You actually have cause to be grateful. Opinion pollsters reckon that Zeman's verbal attacks will be worth more than 100,000 extra signatures for you in your [non-binding] petition for a referendum - [Haider] Maybe, I didn't ask for them. But if one does have to suffer such insults, they should at least pay. If this takes the form of more signatures, then I am very happy. [Kaserer] How many signatures are you now expecting? [Haider] Anything above half a million is very good. Verging on a million is excellent. [Kaserer] What will happen after the referendum petition is finished? [Haider] The parliament in Vienna will then have to concern itself with the matter. And I hope the members of parliament and the federal government realize that they cannot govern against the wishes of their own people - [Kaserer] Meaning? [Haider] - the government must initiate new negotiations for the closure of Temelin. This will certainly determine the course of events leading to the Czech Republic's possible entry into the EU. [Kaserer] But your coalition partner, the OeVP [Austrian People's Party] does not wish to open fresh negotiations. [Haider] The FPOe [Freedom Party of Austria] could still veto the Czech Republic's EU entry. For we agreed in the coalition government that the foreign minister had to register a reservation over the energy chapter. As the Austrian government has to decide unanimously, agreement to the Czech Republic's entry will not happen. The FPOe bears a great responsibility for many people in the neighbouring countries. Such as Germany. Places where, though politicians are officially sceptical towards nuclear power stations, in reality they are too cowardly to just talk this through and stand their ground in the EU. When I take a look at the recent statements by Chancellor candidate Stoiber (over withdrawal from nuclear power - editor's note), I am somewhat horrified over his getting into bed with the nuclear lobby. [Kaserer] But that still does not mean that the OeVP is giving in. [Haider] The OeVP does not need to do anything. For, after the referendum, it will have the historic opportunity to correct its misjudgment over Temelin, and then get into negotiations in order to secure either better safety guarantees for Austria, or the Czech Republic's withdrawal from nuclear power. [Kaserer] Would this not mean Austria's once again being sidelined in Europe? [Haider] We are always threatened with this, when we have our own opinion. This does not frighten us. We have already seen over the EU sanctions that the EU is a paper tiger, when an injustice is done. [Kaserer] But hasn't the actual dispute over Temelin escalated? The goodwill on both sides has been squandered. [Haider] What does goodwill mean here? The Czech Republic is not all alone in the world. This is why we have the right to defend ourselves against an elemental threat from the Czech Republic. [Kaserer] Many domestic politicians, such as Salzburg Provincial Governor Schausberger, are attributing the referendum petition and your statements about the Constitutional Court to your being dissatisfied with your present role in Austria. [Haider] I did not launch the referendum petition. So Mr Schausberger's analysis cannot be correct. [Kaserer] But the FPOe did launch it. And you are a vehement protagonist of the referendum petition. [Haider] The FPOe has a different leader. For this reason, I can be held accountable for things that happen in Carinthia, but not for what is done at federal level. [Kaserer] Nevertheless: to what extent are your actions personally motivated? [Haider] These analyses are nothing but helpless attempts on the part of provincial governors failing to meet their obligations towards the public. [Kaserer] Do you wish to become chancellor in the next term of office? [Haider] That will always depend on the Austrian public. I am assuming that, following recent activities in connection with Temelin, the Austrians' wish to have a sensible chancellor will increase. Source: Welt am Sonntag web site, Hamburg, in German 20 Jan 02 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter ***************************************************************** 7 Bulgarian deputy premier pleased with talks in Russia on energy issues BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Jan 21, 2002 [Announcer] The two meetings Deputy Prime Minister Nikolay Vasilev and the delegation he leads had in Moscow on the morning of 21 January were devoted to energy topics. He met Aleksandr Rumyantsev, minister of atomic energy, and Aleksey Miller [head of Gazprom]. Chavdar Stefanov reports: [Stefanov] So far the meetings are proceeding very well, the deputy prime minister said. In the area of nuclear energy there is unquestionably great potential for cooperation. The supplies of nuclear fuel will continue. Russia will help in the future decommissioning of some of the Kozloduy nuclear power plant reactors. The Bulgarian side has reached an agreement with Gazprom to pay for a part of the supplies through goods and services. The Russian has been very constructive and very serious talks still lie ahead. Nikolay Vasilev stressed that the extremely clear priority of the Bulgarian government on improving relations with Russia was the basic topic discussed at the beginning and end of the meetings. It is assumed that the Russian representatives are aware of this tendency and are very amicably disposed, he added. Nikolay Vasilev also praised the role of personal relations. The meeting in Gazprom was with Executive Director Aleksey Miller. Miller accepted an invitation to visit Bulgaria. The Russian side has confirmed that Bulgaria is a very important strategic partner. The anticipated increase of gas consumption in Bulgaria, through the intensification of industry, increasing the consumer goods industry use of gas, and the possible future construction of new gas-electric power plants, has been discussed. The transit of gas through Bulgaria has also been discussed. The Bulgarian side has pointed out its ability to increase the quantity of gas transited through Bulgarian territory. If the Russian side has interest in this, Bulgaria is prepared to reach agreements on the construction of new gas pipelines... Source: Bulgarian Radio, Sofia, in Bulgarian 1000 gmt 21 Jan 02 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter All Material Subject to Copyright ***************************************************************** 8 Finland backs nuclear reactor The Times JANUARY 21 2002 BY CARL MORTISHED, INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS EDITOR THE Finnish Government is backing the construction of a new nuclear power plant in a move that bucks the worldwide trend against nuclear energy. The coalition Government voted by ten to six to approve the development of a fifth reactor proposed by Teollissuden Voima (TVO), a private energy company owned by leading players in Finland’s pulp and paper industry. Two members of the Government abstained from the vote. The decision, which must still be ratified by the Parliament, will make Finland the only Western European nation with a nuclear build programme. The initiative has the broad backing of both the Social Democrats and Conservatives and should be agreed by a comfortable majority. Finland lacks hydrocarbon resources and, unlike its Swedish neighbour, is too flat to rely on hydropower. The country already has four reactors in two sites and boasts an unblemished safety record. Supporters of the TVO project view with equanimity the risks of nuclear power when compared with reliance on imports of electricity from Russia. With Swedish hydropower resources unlikely to grow, the alternative supplier is likely to be a number of ageing nuclear reactors near St Petersburg of similar design to the Chernobyl plant. Copyright 2002 Times Newspapers Ltd. This service is provided on Times ***************************************************************** 9 Austria awaits nuclear poll results BBC News | EUROPE | 20 January, 2002, The Czech authorities say the Temelin plant is safe Austrian President Thomas Klestil has complained to his Czech counterpart, Vaclav Havel, about remarks made by the Czech Prime Minister, Milos Zeman, in which he called the Austrian far-right politician, Joerg Haider, a "populist pro-Nazi." Over recent days Mr Zeman and Mr Haider have traded a series of insults in a bitter dispute over a Czech nuclear power station near the border with Austria. [Czech Prime Minister Milos Zeman] Zeman had harsh words for Haider Mr Haider's Freedom Party launched a petition last week calling on Austria to veto the Czech Republic's entry to the European Union unless it closed down Temelin, a Soviet-built nuclear plant in southern Bohemia, just 60 kilometres (35 miles) from the Austrian border. The petition results, due on Monday, are a potential political bombshell for the fragile coalition government in Austria. The Czechs insist that Temelin is safe and say the non-binding petition is an attempt to prevent them from joining the EU. Insults exchanged In an interview with the Austrian magazine Profil, Mr Zeman said Mr Haider was a "populist pro-Nazi politician who understands nothing but talks about everything". The Austrian president's office later issued a statement saying: "President Thomas Klestil had a telephone call with Czech President Vaclav Havel today and expressed his indignation over statements by Czech Prime Minister Milos Zeman." [Protesters campaign against Temelin nuclear plant] The plant is controversial among Austrians The row has been going on for days. Mr Haider accused Mr Zeman last week of clinging to communism. "A spectre is haunting Europe, the spectre of Communism," he wrote. "Only this time the threat is much more serious because it does not show its true face." Mr Zeman replied by calling Mr Haider and his party "post-fascist" and accusing it openly of seeking to veto Prague's EU membership application. The Freedom Party's parliamentary chief, Peter Westenthaler, then said Mr Zeman was "mentally disturbed" and "more at home in the jungle than in the European Union". Call for calm A Czech foreign ministry spokesman, Ales Pospisil, called on "diplomats in both countries to bring calm to the currently tense situation." He said that it would be in Austria's interest for the Czech Republic to enter the EU. [Chancellor Schuessel] Schuessel insists Austria will not veto Czech EU membership The Freedom Party's petition has only limited legal force, but it has created a split in the coalition, which was formed in 2000 between Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel's party and the Freedom Party. The chancellor insists Austria will not veto Czech EU membership and last November he made a deal with Prague that Temelin could go ahead. Mr Haider has said the petition would be considered a success if it gets over 400,000 signatures. Reports last week reports indicated that as many as one million Austrians may have signed it. "If the petition is successful [Mr Schuessel] must rethink how he can adapt his line, it is difficult to imagine how the chancellor wants to govern against the clear will of the Austrian people," said Mr Haider. In the Profil interview, Mr Zeman dismissed the petition, saying: "Only someone who is not informed - I avoid the term idiot - can support this petition." ***************************************************************** 10 A Czech Nuclear Plant Generates Political Heat IHT: Peter S. Green New York Times Service Monday, January 21, 2002 Austrian Rightist Throws Wrench in Project PRAGUE Prime Minister Milos Zeman of the Czech Republic and Austria's foremost rightist politician, Joerg Haider, have been slinging epithets across the border over a new Czech nuclear power plant and Austrian attempts to shut it down. Czechs and Austrians have been at odds for years over the plant, at Temelin, 56 kilometers (35 miles) from the Austrian border. Designed by Soviet engineers and later fitted with security and control systems by Westinghouse, Temelin has become a lightning rod for long political disputes. Previous differences over the plant have been settled quietly, but this time, the dispute could bring down Austria's fractious coalition. The latest round of troubles began this month when Mr. Haider opened a petition drive for a referendum on Temelin, calling for the Austrians to block the Czechs' planned entry into the European Union unless the plant was closed. The Czechs have spent $3 billion to $4 billion on the plant, and say it meets all the relevant safety standards. The Austrians point to a continuing series of mechanical problems and a recent leak of a small amount of radioactive material. In a radio interview last week, Mr. Zeman said, "The earlier the Austrians get rid of Haider and his post-fascist party, the better." On Wednesday, he called Mr. Haider "an Austrian political Chernobyl." Mr. Haider retorted that Mr. Zeman "is a Communist who has tried his hand at democracy by changing his clothes." Mr. Zeman, a Social Democrat, was a member of the Communist Party. Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel and his Austrian People's Party, which sits in an uneasy coalition with Mr. Haider's party, have so far only urged restraint on both sides. Not that either man is listening. Mr. Zeman slipped out of town Thursday to lead a trade delegation to Yugoslavia, and Mr. Haider pressed his attack. At a news conference Friday, he called Mr. Zeman arrogant and said he was only helping the anti-nuclear petition drive. [President Thomas Klestil of Austria telephoned President Vaclav Havel on Sunday to try to halt the war of words, Reuters reported from Vienna. "Klestil and Havel agreed that the mutual attacks are only exacerbating the problems between the two neighbors and not solving them," a statement from Mr. Klestil's office said Sunday. The Czech head of state had agreed to make a public statement and talk to Mr. Zeman personally about the matter, it added.] A recent poll in the Austrian weekly News showed 59 percent of Austrians opposed to nuclear power, and news reports last week indicated that as many as a million of Austria's 8 million people might sign Mr. Haider's petition. Mr. Haider clearly sees the petition as a way for him to ride back to national prominence. "It is difficult to see how the chancellor wants to govern against the clear will of the Austrian people," Mr. Haider said Friday. The anti-nuclear tune resonates with Austrians, who identify their country with its pristine Alpine peaks and verdant valleys. Austria's only nuclear power plant, at Zwentendorf, 30 kilometers west of Vienna, was mothballed in 1978 before it opened, after a slim majority voted in a referendum to ban nuclear power. But the dispute also reflects the sustained unease that the Austrians feel toward the Czechs, who were their subjects for 300 years in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. "The Haiderites, of course, hate the Slavs, hate the Czechs, hate the European Union," said Barbara Coudenhove-Kalergi, a Czech-born columnist for the Austrian daily Der Standard, "and Haider personally sees an issue in using the general distrust of nuclear energy to gain votes and gain popularity for his party." It seems to have worked. Since he first began discussing Temelin, Mr. Haider's party has risen as high as 23 percent in some polls, up from a low of 16 percent in the summer. Copyright © 2001 the International Herald Tribune All Rights Reserved ***************************************************************** 11 U.S.-Russia Uranium Crisis Set to Be Defused Monday, Jan. 21, 2002. Page 7 By [korchagina@imedia.ru] Staff Writer A standoff between the Nuclear Power Ministry and a private U.S. company over Russian uranium supplies used to produce some 10 percent of America's electricity looks set to be resolved before deliveries are interrupted. The deliveries, part of the so-called "Megatons to Megawatts" program created in 1993 to purchase 500 tons of highly enriched uranium stripped from dismantled Soviet warheads, was put in doubt after the U.S. firm USEC Inc. demanded a 15 percent reduction from 2001 prices after the previous contract expired Dec. 31, the Los Angeles Times reported last week. Dmitry Kovchegin, an expert with the Center for Policy Studies in Russia, said the deal is "too important to fail for both sides, so an agreement should be reached." Fuel created from Russian uranium is used to run up to 50 percent of U.S. nuclear power stations, the equivalent of 10 percent of all electricity consumed in the United States, said Kovchegin. Since 1995, the deal has been worth some $500 million yearly, a major source of cash for the Nuclear Power Ministry. "The uranium deal is the only thing that stands between anarchy and stability in the Russian nuclear weapon complex," the Los Angeles Times cited Thomas Neff, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology physicist who first proposed the program in 1991, as saying. The Nuclear Power Ministry is responsible for safeguarding nuclear material at production and research facilities. The Russian side said an agreement is likely to be reached before the next shipment -- usually about 3 metric tons of blended-down, bomb-grade uranium -- is due to set sail in March. "We are still negotiating, and I am sure that the deal will be signed," said Nikolai Shingaryov, the head of the Nuclear Power Ministry's department for information policy. Shingaryov also said the ministry will be working only with USEC and will not divert sales to any other buyers as long as USEC remains the official U.S. government agent for Russian uranium. Kovchegin said speculation that Russia might be willing to unilaterally bypass current agreements are unfounded. "The nuclear fuel market is not the oil or gas market, it is strictly regulated and all deals have to be guaranteed by the International Atomic Energy Agency," he said. "Any deals on the side would simply bring more harm to Russia then any possible benefits." Behind the current stall could also be Russia's desire to achieve greater access to the North American market to sell low-enriched uranium, which is not a part of the Megatons for Megawatts program. Russia's access to the U.S. market was blocked following accusations of dumping after an earlier windfall from sales of natural mildly enriched uranium in the early 1990s. Russia could be trying to tie in the USEC deal to the trade limitations imposed by the U.S. government, a source close to Nuclear Power Ministry said. Ministry officials declined to comment. USEC spokesman Charles Yulish said that USEC is not related to the anti-dumping measures and thus is not a part of any possible negotiations on that matter. "[Both sides] have a mutual interest in continuing this important program, and after eight years of a successful business and working relationship, we are confident that the parties will reach agreement on new long-term financial terms for the Megatons to Megawatts contract," Yulish said by telephone. He also pointed out that the deal's importance is growing in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States and the ensuing global terrorist threat. Over the past seven years, the equivalent of nearly 5,600 nuclear warheads have been converted and used as fuel for nuclear power stations, Yulish said. http://www.moscowtimes.ru ***************************************************************** 12 Czech Nuclear Power Plant Postpones Some Tests BBC Monitoring European - Political ( January 21, 2002 ) Text of report by Czech radio on 21 January [Announcer] The Temelin nuclear power plant [southern Bohemia] has postponed some of the tests on the first block. According to Milan Nebesar, the plant's spokesman, there are problems with the operation of water and steam pipeline fittings on the non-nuclear part of the plant: [Nebesar] It is important to note that all this relates to the secondary circuit in places where water is heated. This pipeline brings steam to the feeding vessel. Once the operation is set back to normal, we shall be able to complete the stage of power switch-on. I do not think that the delay will be long. All depends on how the suppliers will cope with the incorrect function of the fittings. [Announcer] According to Milan Nebesar, it is now premature to guess the length of delay. However, it should not be more than several days. (C) 2002 BBC Monitoring European - Political. via ProQuest ***************************************************************** 13 Czech nuclear plant's output at 100 per cent BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Jan 21, 2002 [Announcer] Some tests of the power switch-on at a 100-per-cent level of output on the first block of the Temelin [nuclear] power plant will be delayed. A German company has to repair fittings on the non-nuclear part of the power plant... The delay is not causing any financial loss as the power plant is supplying power into the grid. The staff are now focusing on preparing the second block, while the first block works at 100 per cent and produces 1,000 MW. Source: Czech Radio 1 - Radiozurnal, Prague, in Czech 1100 gmt 21 Jan 02 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter All Material Subject to Copyright ***************************************************************** 14 Bulgarian plant denies reports on Russia returning used nuclear fuel BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Jan 21, 2002 Text of report by Bulgarian radio on 21 January [Announcer] The Kozloduy nuclear power plant has received no official letter from the Russian side about their possibly returning some of the used nuclear fuel radioactive waste to Bulgaria. Iva Antonova reports: [Antonova] The contract between the Kozloduy nuclear power plant and Russia's Techsnabexport for the return of used fuel to Russia has been finalized and adapted to Bulgarian and international legislation on safety for processing used nuclear fuel and radioactive waste, the Kozloduy nuclear power plant information centre reports. Payments, based on this agreement, are made according to the timetable, and the last instalment will be paid at the end of January. Source: Bulgarian Radio, Sofia, in Bulgarian 1100 gmt 21 Jan 02 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter ***************************************************************** 15 Russia: Implementation Of Programme For Rehabilitation Of Population Affected By Nuclear Tests Near Semipalatinsk Underway Pravda.RU Jan, 15 2002 About 12 billion roubles - approximately 400 million dollars - have been spent in the Altai Territory, southern Siberia, on the rehabilitation of the population that suffered from the nuclear tests at the former Soviet testing ground near the city of Semipalatinsk, the top officials of a special committee established in the Altai Territory for doing away with the consequences of tests reported. Semipalatinsk is situated on the territory of present Kazakhstan near the Altai Territory. According to the committee's data, more than 50 hospitals and outpatient clinics and 21 social-maintenance facilities have been put into service over the decade that has passed since the adoption of the rehabilitation programme. More than 60 million dollars have been spent only on the provision of the diagnostic centres in Barnaul and other towns of the Altai Territory with up-to-date medical equipment. All this made it possible to increase early exposure of diseases, among them oncologic ones. Pravda.RU:Economics ***************************************************************** 16 In Shadow of Reactors, Parents Seek Peace of Mind in a Pill January 21, 2002 By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD HAPPAQUA, N.Y., Jan. 17 — If the Indian Point nuclear plants spew radiation from an accident or terrorist attack, at least one child in Westchester County is surely prepared. He is Jacob Tinkhauser, 8, and his protection comes courtesy of his mother, Robin, who, emboldened by reports of the effectiveness of potassium iodide against radiation- induced thyroid cancer, has delivered a supply of the over-the-counter drug to her son's elementary school and given staff members permission to administer the drug to her son. "You have to be cautious and prepare," Ms. Tinkhauser said. Or as Jacob, a third grader, put it, "I'll be safe." Four months ago, Ms. Tinkhauser was only dimly aware of the nuclear plants, which are about 12 miles from her home, leaving both her home and her son's school outside the 10-mile evacuation zone mandated by federal guidelines in the case of a major radiation leak. She had never heard of potassium iodide, known by its chemical symbol KI. But since Sept. 11, a KI fever has settled in, touching not only parents in communities across New York's northern suburbs, but people across the country living anywhere near nuclear plants. A number of school district officials, in response to parents' concerns about reactors' vulnerability to sabotage, are studying the feasibility of acquiring and distributing the drug to children, who are more susceptible to thyroid problems in the event of exposure to radiation. New York and New Jersey state officials met last week to consider applying for a federal program that would provide a stockpile of the drug for people living near nuclear plants; officials in Connecticut are also studying the issue. Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times Robin Tinkhauser gave her son's elementary school in Chappaqua, N.Y., a supply of potassium iodide to give him in case of a nuclear emergency. Manufacturers and vendors of the drug, meanwhile, report that business is booming. A large sign outside the Healthy Choice Apothecary here declares: "KI, potassium iodide, available here," and Jacques Saisselin, the store manager, said he had sold the drug to a steady stream of customers. The tiny white pills are ideally taken before exposure to radiation, but they proved effective in blocking thyroid cancer when given to people within hours of the Chernobyl nuclear plant explosion in 1986. It saturates the thyroid gland with iodide, preventing the body from absorbing any radioactive iodide. When nuclear reactors split atoms, one of the fragments is a highly radioactive form of iodide. But with the movement to stockpile the drug, normally readily available to nuclear plant workers and emergency officials, has come debate over whether the drug is a more of a balm for political and public pressure to do something about plant safety. Some authorities fear that people will see the drug as a panacea and that its widespread distribution could give people a false sense of security and hamper necessary evacuations. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced last month that it had set aside $800,000 over two years to distribute the drug free to the 31 states with nuclear plants. The agency is negotiating with drug manufacturers, but hopes the money will cover the cost of six million pills, which would be designated for people living within 10 miles of nuclear plants. The N.R.C.'s allotment would cover each person for about two days, by which time most people would have been evacuated from contaminated areas, federal officials say. Both the N.R.C. and the Food and Drug Administration emphasize that the drug, which has a shelf life of about five years, should supplement and not replace any evacuation plans. Two states, Massachusetts and Maryland, are already asking for the pills. (Four states have their own stockpiles — Tennessee, Alabama, New Hampshire and Maine.) But officials in at least three states — Georgia, Illinois and Florida — have raised misgivings about the N.R.C. program, noting that potassium iodide does not guard against many other forms of radiation and may discourage people from evacuating. In Illinois, which has 11 reactors, more than any other state, officials said their evacuation and sheltering plans would make widespread distribution of potassium iodide moot, but, as in the other states, no final decision has been made on signing up for the N.R.C.'s pills. "Does this provide an enhancement to the protection of the public?" said Mike Sinclair of the state's Department of Nuclear Safety. "From our perspective it does not. But that may not be true in other states." He added: "We're concerned people will misunderstand the use of KI and believe they are getting a level of protection that is not there. `' New York officials have raised similar concerns. "This is not the silver bullet," said Donald Maurer, a spokesman for New York State's Emergency Management Office. "This is not the ultimate form of protection. We still believe keeping the plants working safely is the best prevention, and evacuation and shelter is the best way of protecting folks in that 10- mile zone." Antinuclear groups have charged that the reluctance to distribute the drug stems from the belief that to do so would imply that the plants are not as safe as claimed by regulators and the industry. The authorities say that while they regard the plants as generally safe, they cannot overlook post-Sept. 11 anxiety and public pressure to consider this option. "Some call it a reversal of policy, but to us it is a natural next step in a changed world," said Roseanne Pawelec, a spokeswoman for the health department in Massachusetts, which had initially resisted the drug until the terrorist attacks. Bills in Congress would expand the program to benefit people in a 50- mile radius of nuclear plants, which would include New York City. But some people cannot wait, fretting that in a disaster it may be hard to get the pills. Nukepills.com, an Internet supplier of the drug under the commercial name Iosat, said thousands of orders for its $9.95 kit with 14 tablets have rushed in since the attacks. Many come from the New York City area, where questions have been raised about the adequacy of evacuation plans for the Indian Point plants, 35 miles north of Midtown Manhattan. Getting the pills, however, may be easier than distributing them. Tennessee, for instance, makes them available at local health department offices, but just 5 percent of the people eligible for them have picked them up, said Dr. Ruth Agstrom, who heads the program for the Tennessee Department of Health. And school officials say distribution could prove difficult, especially in the chaos of an evacuation. Only one of Chappaqua's five schools, Westorchard Elementary, lies within the 10-mile planned evacuation zone, but the authorities could still order one if winds blow radiation toward Chappaqua, and school officials predict that parents would descend on all of the schools in an emergency. Generally, medicines can be given to students only if accompanied by a doctor's note. Even if all 4,000 students in the district had such notes, officials would need extra nurses or staff members trained to administer the drug properly. And James Donovan, the superintendent of schools here, said there were no guidelines on how they would decide when to give the drug. "The infrastructure in the schools is not there for mass distribution," said Dr. Donovan, who is awaiting guidance from county and state health authorities. The Board of Education plans to discuss the matter on Tuesday. Side effects are rare, but they generally include rashes and nausea, and often occur when higher than recommended doses are taken. Advocates for stockpiling potassium iodide say the public can learn to use the drug correctly, just as with aspirin or a fire extinguisher. And they dismiss the notion that people would just pop their KI pills and refuse to leave in a nuclear emergency. "We have a lot of emergency protective devices in the house," Ms. Tinkhauser said. "I would not stay in the house if it was on fire just because I have a fire extinguisher. You protect the part of the body that you can and you leave the area." Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company | Privacy ***************************************************************** 17 EPA Urges Home Testing for Radon, Second Leading Cause of Lung Cancer [United States Environmental Protection Agency] EPA Administrator Christie Whitman urged Americans to heed January as National Radon Action Month by testing their homes for the second leading cause of lung cancer in the country, indoor radon gas. Approximately one home in 15 across the nation has unacceptably high radon levels; in some areas of the country, as many as one out of two homes has high levels. "As many as 22,000 people die from lung cancer each year in the United States from exposure to indoor radon," Whitman said. "Yet Americans could help prevent these deaths and protect their families by testing their homes for radon as soon as possible." "Not only is radon testing a sound investment in the long-term health of your family," Whitman added, "but it could also be a good investment in terms of the resale value of your home. In many areas, radon testing is a required part of real estate transactions." EPA has designated January as National Radon Action Month. EPA and partner organizations are sponsoring activities around the country to increase awareness of the health risks of radon. Radon levels can soar during the colder months when residents keep windows and doors closed and spend more time indoors. Radon can also be a danger in summer when homes are closed tight for air conditioning purposes. Radon, a radioactive product of the element radium, is invisible and odorless and occurs naturally in soil, rock, and water across the country. Although relatively harmless when diluted in the open air, radon can pose a serious health threat when concentrated indoors. When inhaled, radon releases small bursts of energy that can damage the DNA in lung tissue over time and lead to lung cancer. Radon test kits, sold at home improvement and hardware stores, are easy to use and provide accurate readings of home radon levels. EPA and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warn that homes with radon levels of 4 pCi/L (picoCuries per liter of air) or higher pose a dangerto inhabitants and should be fixed by an experienced contractor. For helpin finding a contractor near you, visit EPA's radon website below and click on "find a qualified radon service professional." Although some areas of the country have naturally higher radon levelsthan others, EPA recommends everyone test because isolated radon "hotspots" can occur anywhere. EPA also recommends testing in schools, work places, community centers and other buildings where people spendlong periods of time. For more information about radon testing, call EPA's hotline at 800-SOS-RADON, or contact Kristy Miller of EPA at 202-564-9441 ( [miller.kristy@epa.gov] ) or visit: [http://www.epa.gov/iaq/radon/] . A Video News Release (VNR) is available to reporters via satellite orBeta SP tape. The VNR contains interviews with EPA Administrator Whitman, Dr. Jonathan Samet of Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, a radon mitigation contractor and homeowners with high radon levels. originally created: Friday, January 11, 2002 EPA Home | Privacy ***************************************************************** 18 Nuclear Reactors as Terrorist Targets January 21, 2002 In the recent soul-searching over how best to protect ourselves against further terrorist attacks, much attention has been focused on the potential vulnerability of the nation's 103 nuclear power plants, including the two reactors at Indian Point in Buchanan, N.Y., some 35 miles north of Times Square along the Hudson River. A group of environmentalists and public officials has petitioned the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to close down Indian Point until it can be made safe from terrorist attack. That seems an overreaction. A shutdown would deprive New Yorkers of a valuable source of electricity even as energy companies are scrambling to build more power plants to meet projected demand. Whatever threat is posed by terrorists can more sensibly be addressed by enhancing the plant's security measures. Nuclear plants are built so robustly that they would seem to present a difficult target for terrorists. Their containment domes have walls three to six feet thick made of concrete reinforced with embedded steel bars and a half-inch steel liner. The reactor itself, tucked way down inside the dome, is protected by another thick slab of reinforced concrete. In one dramatic test years ago, a fighter jet was catapulted into a mock containing wall at nearly 500 miles per hour. The plane disintegrated into a pile of dust; the wall suffered a two-inch scratch. Nobody knows what would happen if a much bigger jumbo jet loaded with fuel dived into a containment dome. Engineers at Entergy, the company that operates Indian Point, feel confident that their dome could withstand even that level of force. But some experts say a jumbo jet, or at least its engines, might break through the dome and ignite a fire or explosion that could cause enough disruption to start the reactor toward meltdown and release of radioactivity into the atmosphere. Nuclear regulators will need to assess the likelihood of that sequence and find ways to mitigate the consequences. A far more vulnerable target is presented by the pools where spent fuel rods are stored after they have been used in the reactors. The pools have thick sides to prevent water from leaking even in a large earthquake but little protection overhead. A plane could theoretically plunge into the building and trigger events that could drain the pools and ignite a fire, which could spread radioactivity into the environment. Fortunately, the pool structures are relatively small and so would be hard to target from the air. Even if a leak were triggered, plant employees might have time to replace any water that drained out. Beyond any threat from the air lies the possibility of terrorist assaults over land or from the river. In recent months, Entergy has beefed up its own security forces, National Guard troops and state police have been assigned to the plant, and Coast Guard vessels and military planes have included Indian Point in the areas they patrol protectively. James Kallstrom, the former F.B.I. official who now heads Gov. George Pataki's Office of Public Security, has declared Indian Point "an extremely safe place," based on a recent Federal Bureau of Investigation and state evaluation. He considers it far more secure than any other part of the civilian infrastructure. That is undoubtedly true. Terrorists would have a far easier time igniting a conflagration at a toxic chemical plant or refinery than at a nuclear plant. But it is also true that neither the Nuclear Regulatory Commission nor the nuclear industry has designed its structures or its security tactics to cope with terrorist attacks of the scale and sophistication of those used against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Whether terrorists would elect to go after any nuclear plants is uncertain. But the commission needs to make sure that, should they try, the effort would almost certainly fail. Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company | Privacy Information ***************************************************************** 19 Accidents at Uranium Plant Raise Concern in Australia January 21, 2002 By BECKY GAYLORD SYDNEY, Australia, Jan. 20 — A uranium processing plant in southwestern Australia that is owned by an American company has had a series of accidents involving radioactive material, the South Australia state government says. The plant, run by Heathgate Resources, a unit of the American company General Atomics, is at the Beverley uranium mine, about 340 miles north of Adelaide. It has been in operation for less than two years. A government briefing memo last week marked "urgent" described the most recent accident. As the plant was being shut down for maintenance on the night of Jan. 11, intake pumps continued to operate. Pressure built up, which ruptured a pipe and splashed 16,000 gallons of radioactive fluid around the plant. A small amount of the liquid flowed under a fence and onto a road that rings the plant. There were no injuries, the company and the state government said. State officials, who said they were reviewing their reporting policies, said there had been 24 previous spills at the site. Three were larger than 500 gallons, but the state's minerals and energy minister had not been told of any of the accidents previously because they were classified as minor by inspectors. The most recent spill drew attention to the fact that there is no mandatory public notification of radioactive liquid spills, said the state treasurer, Rob Lucas, standing in for the minerals and energy minister, Wayne Matthew, who was on vacation when the spill occurred. The plant has yet to resume full production. With a state election just a few weeks away, the accident has focused attention on this mineral-rich nation's struggle to strike a balance between encouraging lucrative uranium production and protecting the environment. Australia is the second-largest producer of uranium, after Canada, and exports more than 20 percent of all uranium mined, according to government data. Several of its mines, however, are near ecologically sensitive areas. The deposits at Beverley, which are extracted by pumping a sulphuric acid solution into the ground and leaching out the uranium, sit near a huge underwater lake called the Great Artesian Basin. Monitoring these mines has been left to the states so far. Yet the state's environmental protection agency does not have formal monitoring procedures for uranium production, nor does any department of the federal government. Rather, the job largely rests with the state's chief mining inspector, who is informed of spills and judges whether to pass the information on to the radiation protection branch in the state health department or to the energy minister. Heathgate Resources contends that it is held to strict reporting procedures, and that it abides by them. "This is the most regulated industry in the country," said Stephen Middleton, a vice president. He insisted that the company reported all spills. "We're talking about low levels of radioactive solutions," he said. "The people who understand the process are making the decision that this is of no consequence; no need to wake the minister up and tell him." Only the largest and most recent of the spills contained dissolved uranium, Mr. Matthew said on Wednesday, and that was why it was the only one referred to him. Heathgate has promised to remove the contaminated soil from inside and outside the plant, the government memo said, and dispose of it in approved contaminated waste areas. The company would also build an earthen dike around the plant to stop any liquid from escaping the site in the future, it said. David Blight, executive director of the state's minerals and energy resources office, said his inspectors had looked at the site since the spill. "Our view here is that there's been no damage to the environment," he said in an interview. Mr. Blight's office, however, is the lead agency trying to bring about mineral and petroleum exploration and development in the state. Its operations include actively seeking investors for these industries and luring companies that would provide income to the state. Those goals, critics charge, clash with a monitoring role. John Hill, the state environment spokesman for the opposition Labor Party, said mining had always been a sacred cow in Australia. Planning laws that would apply to any other development did not apply to mining, he said. "The minister has huge executive powers," he said. "It's just a bit too cozy at the moment." Conservation groups concur. "Any industrial operation is going to have leaks and spills," said David Sweeney of the Australian Conservation Foundation. "The problem with this is that the product is radioactive." Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company | Privacy Information ***************************************************************** 20 Norway set to join battle on Sellafield Irish Newspapers - Date: Mon January 21st 02 IRELAND and Norway are to discuss their opposition to the Sellafield nuclear plant after the Irish Government took legal moves to have it closed. Nuclear safety minister Joe Jacob is to meet a delegation from the Norwegian parliamentary committee on energy and the environment in Dublin today to discuss Sellafield and Ireland's legal action to shut the plant down. According to Government sources, the Norwegian government is also in the process of examining its own legal options in relation to Sellafield. The 14-strong Norwegian delegation will this morning be given a presentation on Sellafield by officials in the Department of Public Enterprise's nuclear safety division and experts from the Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland (RPII). The meeting was arranged at the request of the Norwegian parliamentary committee who asked for a briefing about Ireland's decision to take the matter to the international courts. The Norwegians also want to discuss this country's future strategies in relation to Sellafield. The Nordic countries have always been supportive of Ireland's opposition of the plant run by British Nuclear Fuel Ltd (BNFL). Last year Mr Jacob had meetings with politicians in Norway, Iceland, Sweden and Finland in an effort to garner support for Ireland's tough stance on Sellafield. Kathy Donaghy © Copyright Unison ***************************************************************** 21 YUCCA editorial: Stick to science Denver Post.com --> Monday, January 21, 2002 - U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham must be psychic: He declared the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump "scientifically sound" even though his own department hasn't finished key tests to determine if the place is indeed safe. Yucca Mountain is a volcanic ridge in southwestern Nevada, about 90 miles north of Las Vegas. At one time, it was seen as one of several potential nuclear repositories in the country, but years ago Congress declared that only Yucca Mountain would be studied. Originally, Yucca Mountain was supposed to be geologic repository, with the surrounding rocks and deep burial expected to be enough to protect human health and the environment. But after studies showed that geology alone wouldn't do the job, DOE revamped its plan to include putting the wastes in metal containers. Now DOE and U.S. Geological Survey scientists are trying to determine whether heat from wastes stored in the containers could turn nearby groundwater into steam, which might then condense in the surrounding rock. The key question is whether seepage from that condensation could corrode the containers and let radioactive particles escape into the groundwater. If so, people or livestock in the area might be at risk in a few decades - a surprisingly short time frame, given that some wastes will remain hazardous for many centuries. It's because this study hasn't been finished that Secretary Abraham's cheerful assessment seems so incredible. Nuclear utilities, meanwhile, are doing a good job of safely storing spent fuel rods near their reactors. Still, having paid many millions of dollars into a federal fund to build a permanent waste site, they are anxious to rid themselves of the storage expense. Utilities also fear that as long as they have the wastes near their reactors, they're at risk of terrorism. The final decision on whether to store nuclear wastes in southern Nevada is some way off, as President Bush, Congress and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission all must still give their OK. But Secretary Abraham would improve his credibility if he admitted that crucial safety information is still being collected and that his recent recommendation that Bush approve Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waste dump was based largely on political, not scientific, reality. All contents Copyright 2002 The Denver Post or other copyright ***************************************************************** 22 Ties to Shattuck's owner hike scrutiny of EPA chief Denver Post.com By Mike Soraghan [msoraghan@denverpost.com] Denver Post Washington Bureau --> Monday, January 21, 2002 - WASHINGTON - Environmental Protection Agency administrator Christie Whitman's family financial ties to Denver's Shattuck Superfund site are getting increased scrutiny because of her legal battle with a watchdog in her own agency. Shattuck is owned by Citigroup Inc., the politically influential financial giant where her husband worked from 1972 to 1987. He's now a managing partner of a venture capital firm spun off from and backed by Citigroup. His $100,000 to $250,000 in Citigroup stock is the first entry on the financial disclosure form Whitman filed when she was nominated by President Bush. The EPA's Superfund watchdog, national ombudsman Robert Martin, is suing Whitman, saying she's transferring him to a different part of the agency as punishment for trying to make Citigroup pay more to clean up the site. "She's cutting the sweetheart deal and getting rid of people who can raise questions about it," said Jack Sheridan, a lawyer for the Government Accountability Project, or GAP, which is working with Martin on the case. The questions about Whitman's ties to Citigroup, first reported last year by The Denver Post, now extend even to ground zero in New York, where Martin is investigating how well the EPA informed the public about hazardous chemicals left in the air after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. According to GAP, one of the largest insurance companies handling medical claims around the site is Travelers Insurance, which is owned by Citigroup. EPA officials say Martin is completely off-base. They say Whitman isn't punishing Martin, but transferring him to give him more independence. And, while acknowledging Whitman's ties to Citigroup, they say she's staying well within ethical guidelines. "She's just trying to do a good job here, and she's getting these allegations of a conflict of interest that are unfounded," Whitman spokesman Joe Martyak said. "It's really beyond belief." Martin and investigator Hugh Kaufman haven't proven that Whitman made decisions specifically to benefit Citigroup. But they have won a victory in court. U.S. District Judge Richard W. Roberts last week temporarily blocked Whitman from transfering Martin. Among his reasons was the possibility that Whitman began retaliating against the ombudsman for talking to The Denver Post about Whitman's conflict of interest in March. And Whitman faces an array of lawsuits, congressional hearings and administrative actions in which Martin and his allies hope to dig up more incriminating information about her dealings with Citigroup and the ombudsman's office. Martin and the EPA are due to square off again in court Feb. 26. Martin has become a hero to neighbors of the Shattuck site in Denver's working-class Overland Park neighborhood for helping them force the EPA to remove radioactive waste the agency had decided to leave in the middle of the neighborhood. But that left the question of who should pay for the second cleanup - Citigroup or the federal government. That question was pending when Whitman was nominated by President Bush and when she took office. But she never formally recused herself, as Attorney General John Ashcroft did recently in the Enron investigation. Ethics watchdogs say she should have. "The bottom line is she should have recused herself. That is standard practice for a Cabinet official," said Charles Lewis, director of the Center for Public Integrity. The recusal question has been a tricky one for EPA. In December, as Martin started making additional allegations, EPA officials said Whitman had recused herself in the Shattuck matter. But they wouldn't produce any kind of signed document to prove it. Then, as pressure mounted earlier this month, Martyak, Whitman's top spokesman, said that Whitman didn't need to recuse herself. He said she has signed a blanket conflict-of-interest statement agreeing not to handle any matters where she has a conflict. In December, EPA agreed to essentially release Citigroup from liability for $7.2 million in a settlement agreement. That's about one-fifth of what the EPA estimates the Shattuck cleanup will cost. EPA officials say it was the best deal they could get, and say Whitman wasn't involved in the decision. About two weeks before the deal was announced, Whitman had announced she was merging the ombudsman into the EPA's office of the inspector general, saying it would give him independence. But Martin called it a ruse to dismantle his office just as the Citigroup settlement came out. Last week, Martin and the Government Accountability Project sued Whitman, saying Whitman has a financial incentive for protecting the $7.2 million settlement from controversy. Colorado Republican Sen. Wayne Allard, one of Martin's staunchest advocates, hasn't had much to say about the conflict of interest. But when asked about the potential conflict of interest last year, he wasn't concerned. "I wouldn't expect it to be a problem. She'll do her job," he said. All contents Copyright 2002 The Denver Post ***************************************************************** 23 NTS Editorial: More tests of water needed Las Vegas SUN January 21, 2002 From 1951 until 1992, when President Bush ordered a moratorium on nuclear testing, 921 nuclear weapons were detonated underground at the Nevada Test Site. The tests also contaminated some of the ground water at the Test Site, but exactly where that radioactive water is located -- and, equally important, in which direction it is moving -- has been a mystery. The Department of Energy had been using computer models to try to predict which way the water was headed, but a team of independent scientists in 1999 said it was no match for taking real measurements, so they called on the DOE to drill more wells to test the water. In the past two weeks organizations have called on the U.S. Department of Energy to dramatically step up its testing of contaminated ground water between the Test Site, where the detonations occurred, and nearby communities. The department says that it has dug 12 shallow wells in Oasis Valley, north of Beatty and southwest of the Test Site, and also has dug an additional six wells on Air Force land closer to the Test Site. But that simply isn't enough and more wells should be drilled, according to independent scientists from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the Institute for Regulator Science, who were joined later by Citizens Alert, an environmental group that opposes the construction of a nuclear waste dump in Nevada. The Department of Energy hasn't devoted enough attention to this problem, and the contaminated ground water isn't a matter confined to just the Test Site. There also are implications for the Yucca Mountain project, as Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., has noted. The Department of Energy hasn't adequately taken into account the combined radiation produced from the weapons tests and waste buried at a proposed nuclear waste dump nearby at Yucca Mountain in determining the mountain's suitability. The federal government should place a priority on the testing of ground water at the Nevada Test Site. There no longer are atomic tests, but a dangerous legacy lives on in the form of radioactive-contaminated water. The U.S. government conducted these tests that forever scarred the environment; now that same government has an obligation to determine exactly where that water is moving so that the public isn't in harm's way. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 24 Only GOP will get Armey's ear on Yucca Photo: Dick Armey and Lynette Boggs McDonald Las Vegas SUN January 21, 2002 By Erin Neff House Majority Leader Dick Armey entered the partisan fray over Yucca Mountain last week, raising the political ante for local Republicans whose congressional races could determine the balance of power in Washington. In an interview with the Sun, Armey, R-Texas, said the best way Nevadans can fight Yucca Mountain is by electing Republicans to Congress. "Let's say next year John Ensign comes to me, Jim Gibbons comes to me, Lynette Boggs McDonald comes to me and Jon Porter comes to me," Armey said, referring to the Republican senator, congressman and two Republican candidates respectively, "I'll listen to them. "If Shelley Berkley comes to me, I'm pretty interested in saying, 'Forget it,' " he added, referring to the Democratic incumbent. Armey, who was in town to raise money for the GOP and to endorse Boggs McDonald, drove past dozens of protesters en route to a fund-raiser in Summerlin. Armey deflected criticism of himself by attacking Berkley as "the most liberal Ted Kennedy-like person in Congress." "If Shelley Berkley comes up and says 'Dick, I really want you to save me from some grief,' I'm not interested," Armey said. "What has Shelley Berkley done as a member of Congress to make me happy? "Why would I support somebody who's going to vote down my tax cut?" Berkley's spokesman, Michael O'Donovan, said he wasn't surprised by Armey's statements. "His record is so long and clear on the subject," O'Donovan said. "(Shelley) has had a fantastic record of success in fighting Yucca Mountain. "Her defense of Nevada in this has been a thorn in the side of the Republican leadership, and they want to get her out." Thus continued the partisan bickering that began the moment Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham recommended Yucca Mountain as the site to hold 77,000 tons of the nation's nuclear waste. The mountain 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas had been generating Nevada-vs.-the-nation fire for years. But now that the timeline for final approval has been set in motion during an election year, it's each party for itself. Democrats immediately criticized Gov. Kenny Guinn and vowed to use Yucca Mountain as an issue to help the party in two of Nevada's congressional districts. Boggs McDonald was criticized by Democrats for attending the Armey fund-raiser and receiving campaign money from House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., who recently praised Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham's decision to recommend approval of Yucca Mountain. Boggs McDonald defended her decision sharply. "Nobody's going to deny me the opportunity to talk to the leaders of Congress," she said. National Democrats have launched an assault to win back the House of Representatives, keying on the race for Nevada's new district and working to keep Berkley in office. Clark County Commission Chairman Dario Herrera, a Democrat, is running against Republican state Sen. Jon Porter in Nevada's 3rd Congressional District. With his party holding a six-seat margin in the House, Armey told the Sun that Republicans don't need to win either Nevada's 1st or 3rd Congressional Districts to hold the leadership. "We're just looking to increase our margin," Armey said. Telling Nevadans to vote Republican to save them from nuclear waste is ironic, given Armey's past support of Yucca Mountain. He also failed to mention the fact that he's retiring from Congress and might not play a role in a Yucca decision if a vote goes into next year. Abraham cannot officially tell President Bush his decision until Feb. 10 or later. Guinn has 60 days after that -- until April 10 -- to veto the decision, and he has vowed to wait until the last day. Congress would get a chance to override the veto 90 days later -- putting any action at July 10 at the earliest. A vote could come months later, possibly after the elections. Armey said Friday "he doesn't particularly have a dog in the hunt on nuclear storage," but he voted in the past to fast-track shipments of waste to Yucca Mountain. An alternate repository site in Texas was considered until Congress in 1987 designated Nevada the only site to be studied. Armey said he "respected and admired" Boggs McDonald's stance on Yucca Mountain because it showed him she stands true to her convictions. But Armey said that even if Nevada sends three Republicans to Congress next year, it doesn't mean anyone in leadership will change their minds on Yucca Mountain. "I can't promise that," he said. "I'm not saying we'll change our tune, but we'll certainly listen to them." Armey said that in 1996 he listened to then-Reps. John Ensign, and Barbara Vucanovich and then-candidate Jim Gibbons about Yucca Mountain. The three Republicans convinced him to take a vote on Yucca Mountain off the calendar. Meanwhile, Armey said, Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., gave an impassioned but losing speech on the Senate floor. "What happened in 1996 is they got us to pull the vote off the floor, but Harry Reid was more celebrated by the press," Armey said. "Had they not kept it off the floor, the vote would have gone through." Armey deflected a question about what he would do to persuade Republicans to vote against Yucca Mountain by saying, "Don't ask me what I will do. I have already done more than Harry Reid." All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 25 Nuclear waste inevitable Jon Ralston [] RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL 1/20/2002 10:21 pm The captains of this ship of state can do all the imitations of John Paul Jones they can muster, but the SS Nevada is taking on water as an ominous federal tide begins to rise. In fact, this weekend Nevada’s most powerful elected official, Senate Majority Whip Harry Reid, was quoted in the national media as saying that the chances of “stopping the federal government from stuffing Yucca Mountain with nuclear waste . . . (are) no better than 40 percent.” Those words, from veteran Washington Post columnist Mary McGrory, can only be depressing for those who hoped that Reid might be able to use his influence and that of Majority Leader Tom “Yucca Mountain is dead so long as I’m here” Daschle to kill the project. The ship is listing (and, yes, ex-Gov. Bob is on the other side) and it may not be possible to stop it from sinking. And if Reid really thinks that odds are at best two in five, won’t that encourage voices for negotiation such as Bob List to beat their drum even louder? McGrory’s piece, headlined “Nuclear Booby Prize,” was the kind of clear-eyed analysis of the political dynamic that many politicians here don’t like to talk about. And it also contains a priceless description of Nevada’s senior senator and the Sisyphean dump fight: “A natty, indefatigable expediter of Senate business, he is wired with his colleagues, but the legislation was written with a pen dipped in inevitability.” (Natty? Well, I suppose he does dress better now that he is in leadership.) McGrory also is the first non-Nevadan to so publicly recognize what a buffoon ex-New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu was for his comments about how the state should take the dump or the country should vacation elsewhere. McGrory says Sununu is the early front-runner for the “Leaden-Footed Lobbyist” award (she quotes Reid as calling him a “big klutz” for actually helping Nevada) and points out, as have others, the hypocrisy of the man who once tried to keep the dump out of New Hampshire. McGrory illuminates what few others have, though, which is that Sununu based his anti-dump position in the mid-1980s on the controversy over a nuclear power plant there, which he said would dominate talk during the presidential primary. As McGrory wrote: “Nevadans have no such political tool handy. Two million people and four electoral votes gets no respect.” McGrory also wrote what most here know to be true, that a president and vice president who have a love affair with nuclear power probably will rubber-stamp Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham’s decision to site the dump at Yucca Mountain. She also compares the fight to the controversy over drilling for oil in Alaska, saying the battle over nuclear waste could make that “seem a Sunday school picnic.” But if the oracular Reid says the chances of success are only 40 percent, are we closer to the end or the beginning of this fight? Jon Ralston, who publishes The Ralston Report, works for Greenspun Media Group. He welcomes comments and questions. Write him at 2675Windmill, #3621 Henderson, NV 89074. Or call (702) 870-7997. ***************************************************************** 26 AU: Toxic mud: Industrial waste spread on fields The West Australian January 21, 2002 letters@wanews.com.au] By Michael Southwell TAXPAYERS will be billed for any environmental damage caused by tonnes of toxic and radioactive alumina refinery residue spread on South-West farms. A little-known indemnity signed by the Court government in 1999 released Alcoa from any responsibility for monitoring the environmental impact of the disposal plan or paying for any problems it might cause. Alcoa and Agriculture WA scientists put forward the plan in the early 1990s, claiming the red mud would slow the leaching of phosphates from fertiliser into the water system and improve pasture and crops. The mud contains a range of toxic heavy metals, including chromium, lead and cadmium. Some farmers claim it has made animals ill. One wants it removed. Environmental Protection Authority papers say that at the recommended application rate of 20 tonnes per hectare the mud adds up to 30kg of radioactive thorium and one kilogram of uranium to each hectare. Alcoa normally stores the mud in drying ponds and stockpiles near refineries under strict environmental controls to prevent leaching of contaminants into groundwater. The dried mud is called Alkaloam and is given to farmers, who pay transport and spreading costs. A code of practice says the material cannot be used in public drinking water source areas. It says the mud contains small specks of sodium carbonate, which can irritate skin and eyes. Anyone having contact with the mud should use eye, skin and respiratory protection. Agriculture WA said there had been tests and trials on use of the mud over 10 years. None showed any risk to human health, animal health or the environment. Testing of surface water near the red mud trials showed no significant change in water quality but an independent review for the EPA said the tests would not give the full picture. Leaching of heavy metals from the soil would take from a few years to 100 years. The report said some Agriculture WA water test results were unreliable because of uncertainty in the method used. Alcoa spokesman Brian Wills-Johnson said tests had shown that heavy metals would be released into the environment only under exceptional circumstances, such as immersion in concentrated acid. Continuous exposure to farmland treated with mud would result in less than half as much radiation as living in a clay brick house on the coastal plain. © 2001 West Australian Newspapers Limited All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 27 GUIDED MISSILES AND MISGUIDED MEN Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2002 22:33:50 -0800 (PST) By Leuren Moret SAN FRANCISCO BAY VIEW WEEKLY January 23, 2002 This week we observe Martin Luther King Jr. Day. It is a time for Americans to remember the man they have named streets, libraries, and parks for around our great nation. He provided a model for all Americans to follow. He was most remarkable for his moral and spiritual power, the real measure of a man. And he is a man deservedly honored around the world, perhaps more than Americans know. There is a remarkable statue of Martin Luther King Jr. in London, England. It was a surprise to discover so far from home. There you can find his statue in the heart of England – near Westminster Abbey and the British Parliament, where “Big Ben” kept time through the darkest hours of two World Wars. “Big Ben” chimed every hour through the bombings and the fires and the evacuations of London in WWII. While Churchill stubbornly refused to give up or give in. And there is Martin Luther King Jr. in a place of honor alongside Churchill and other great British leaders. Such recognition of him far beyond our shores. They honor this man alongside leaders who fought through 1000 years of turmoil in the British Isles. It made his life seem greater than Americans can know or recognize from our short experience with history. It was something to think hard about and question for a long time. It became a question of his tragic death, and why the very people we need as leaders are demonized. His strength of leadership and spiritual power created fear. He recognized the moral bankruptcy of our leaders and our culture. "Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men." Martin Luther King Jr. The roots of the Nazi missile program merged with the madness to develop a nuclear weapons program after 1945. Led by misguided men, they were encouraged by the horrendous events of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was part of Truman’s deception with the American public that those cities were military targets. He failed to mention the hundreds of thousands of civilians who were also “nuked”. Extreme secrecy became the culture of the Atomic Energy Commission, and destroyed our democratic process. It drove parts of the population into poverty. And continues to escalate at a time when there is no longer a need for such extreme measures. It became a schizophrenic culture turning lies into truth and truth into lies. The “priesthood of science” has taken over through a web of deep and destructive deceptions. A priesthood culture developed by men like Ernest Lawrence, Glen Seaborg, and “Dr. Stangelove” himself - Edward Teller. Ernest Lawrence, who joked that he could use “graduate students as shielding” around his cyclotron. And Glen Seaborg who received a telegram at the Nobel Peace Prize Ceremonies in Stockholm from his grad students who said “where is our share?”. They gave their lives for his Nobel Prize. They died a few years later from radiation poisoning without recognition for their contributions. And Edward Teller, the con man, who sold “Star Wars” to President Reagan in one hour. It was science fraud to the max, and still doesn’t work. Those misguided men worked just across the Bay from Hunter’s Point Naval Shipyard. They created nuclear bombs… like “Little Boy”… the bomb that shipped out from Hunter’s Point Naval Shipyard to be dropped on Hiroshima. It should have stopped there. The moral bankruptcy of those and other misguided men has resulted in economic poverty for some of the population. Radioactive poisoning of the Northern Hemisphere from atmospheric testing more or less ended in 1963. A generation of children were sacrificed for nuclear insanity. Nuclear power plants, needed to make the plutonium for the nuclear weapons, continue to operate and poison our environment with radioactive emissions… sacrificing a new generation of children. Hundreds of thousands of barrels of nuclear trash, contaminated dead animals, and even a Navy battleship were dumped overboard and sunk just outside the Golden Gate – within site of San Francisco. It continues to wash in and out of San Francisco Bay, stirred up by fishing trawlers who drag the seafloor in our “Farallones Marine Sanctuary” turning it into a moonscape. The radiation poisons the fish caught in one of the world’s richest fisheries. Drums and leaking barrels, dead animals, chemicals and petroleum products were dumped into the landfill at Hunter’s Point. It will continue to ferment and cook and “belch” methane, chemicals and radiation for decades. It will continue to poison the air where children, pregnant mothers and old folks are the most at risk. The Navy knows where the radiation and the poisons are. They characterized the site long ago. It has become a game with the Navy, contractors and public agencies to “not find the contamination”. The “don’t look, don’t find” policy of the military pushes the liability into the future. Meanwhile great profits are made by the environmental cleanup consultants such as IT. It is partly owned by George Bush Sr. and his cronies, among them the Bin Ladens, in the Carlyle Group. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was started by former Director Paul C. Tompkins of the secret Naval Radiological Defense Lab at Hunter’s Point. He brought his cronies over from the Atomic Energy Commission to help him start the EPA. The intended purpose of the EPA was to HIDE the health effects of radiation. They continue to through collaboration with the National Cancer Institute (NCI), National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), among others. Local public health departments and environmental agencies are powerless against such entrenched institutions. Tompkins set the radiation standards – the “safe limits” of radiation exposure, another deception – for the U.S. in the 1970’s. He testified in hearings for Columbia University that Harlem, another black community, was a “good place” to site a research nuclear reactor for Columbia University. Fortunately Dr. Ernest Sternglass, an independent scientist with the “Tooth Fairy Project”, testified that no city was safe from exposure to radioactive releases, and won the argument. We have become a nation run by bureaucratized government informed by scientific power and medical arrogance. Bay View Hunter’s Point is a good example of the price of that folly. During a town hall meeting in Hunter’s Point last Fall, broadcast on KPFA, people made public comment. Sounds of people with asthma and breathing difficulties, talk of cancer, death, and other illnesses, filled the hall. The highest rate of breast cancer in the US in women under 40 is there. Young black women, who sixty years ago, would have been nearly cancer free. This is public health insanity. Mayor Willie Brown’s efforts have been to pave over the trash and build condos and business parks on top of the poisons. Pollution and gentrification expediting political profiteering at its deadliest. Senator Diane Feinstein’s rep, Jim Lazarus, told Hunter’s Point folks to “live with it”. In Senator Barbara Boxer’s office, Field Representative John Ormsby met with a delegation from Hunter’s Point asking for Boxer’s support. He told them that Boxer’s office “would need to take their lead from the city…” The case of Tom Olson is just as revealing. In a telephone interview with Olson on September 12, 2001, he described his efforts to get assistance from Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi. A shipyard whistleblower diagnosed with lymphodema due to radiation exposure, he now weighs 700 pounds. He contracted his illness from exposure to 55 gallon radioactive barrels he was dumping into the shipyard landfill. He is in a special group study conducted by military agents from the Agency for Toxic Substances Disease Registry (ATSDR), a branch of the Centers for Disease Control. Four other exposed workers are grotesquely obese like him. He was told by Pelosi’s aide, Carolyn Dobbs, that he might get some assistance establishing his status as a whistleblower once Pelosi was Minority Whip if he “…stopped talking so much… and quit helping the Hunter’s Point community…”. The devastation in Russia is even greater. Today in Russia, twelve percent of the children are born mentally retarded due to exposure to chemicals, heavy metals and radiation – mostly the trash from their nuclear weapons programs. And since radiation respects no borders, their neighbors cannot prevent the radiation from entering their countries. Innocent bystanders, the radiation will continue to poison the future of their children too. The children of the world are paying the price for the arrogance of a few misguided men. The spiritual battle that we fight daily must never end. Like Churchill, we must never give up and never give in. And like Martin Luther King Jr., each of us must have a dream… Leuren Moret is an independent scientist, formerly employed at the Lawrence Berkeley Lab and the Lawrence Livermore Lab where she became a whistleblower in 1991. She is the Bay Area Coordinator of the Radiation and Public Health Project, a group of independent scientists and authors of more than ten books on low level radiation and public health. Radiation and Public Health Project website: http://www.radiation.org ***************************************************************** 28 Bomb technology goes underground [Las Vegas Review-Journal] Monday, January 21, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal By TONY BATT STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- On Dec. 14, an F-15 Eagle combat jet from the 53rd Wing at Eglin Air Force Base in northwest Florida took off from Nellis Air Force Base, flew over the middle of the Nevada Test Site and dropped a newly designed laser-guided bomb into a tunnel about 85 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Rushed into production after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the tunnel-blasting device -- called a thermobaric bomb -- tested successfully, according to E.C. "Pete" Aldridge, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics. The Defense Threat Reduction Agency, a Pentagon branch, said the Nevada experiment "culminated a two-month accelerated effort to produce a weapon with improved lethality against underground facilities." Shortly after the success of the Nevada test, 10 of the new and unusually powerful thermobaric bombs were scheduled to be deployed to Southern Asia. But so far, the bombs have not been used in Afghanistan, and a Pentagon official, who requested anonymity, said at this point the weapons might never be deployed in the region. The production of the thermobaric bomb resulted from a partnership among the Department of Energy, Navy, Air Force and Defense Threat Reduction Agency, according to Capt. Joe Della Vedova, an Air Force spokesman at the Pentagon. The test site was chosen for the experiment because it is a facility "specifically designed to deal with tunnels storing chemical or biological weapons," said John Pike, director of globalsecurity.org, a defense policy Web site. "Obviously, Nevada has a long association with weapons of mass destruction," Pike said, referring to underground nuclear blasts at the test site, which ended in September 1992. Experiments to determine how to penetrate and collapse tunnels at the test site have been going on for the past three or four years, according to Derek Scammell, a test site spokesman. "This all falls under the work for other (agencies) we started when (nuclear) testing ended in 1992," Scammell said. Under development for two years, the thermobaric bomb was rushed into production as a direct result of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Della Vedova said. "It was fast-tracked when we realized it would be very effective in clearing people out of caves," Della Vedova said. Before Sept. 11, the government planned to wait until this year to test the thermobaric bomb, Pike said. "The test on Dec. 14 is the only one I know about, and they did it in a hurry," Pike said. The thermobaric bomb -- "thermo" refers to heat and "baric" to barometric pressure -- features a two-stage explosion. The first blast occurs upon the bomb's penetration of a cave or tunnel and scatters explosive dust throughout the area where the bomb has landed. This is followed a fraction of a second later by a second, larger explosion that literally sucks oxygen out of a cave or tunnel. "Instead of boom, this bomb goes BOOOOOOOM," Della Vedova said. Its powder-based explosive gives the thermobaric bomb a longer burn in confined spaces than the liquid explosive in the 5,000-pound bunker-buster bombs used during the Persian Gulf War, Della Vedova said. One of the advantages of the thermobaric bomb is that it could reduce the need to use ground troops to infiltrate caves and tunnels where booby traps and ambushes abound. But by obliterating caves and tunnels, the thermobaric bomb also makes it more difficult to recover any evidence to determine whether a mission has been achieved. "This thing kills the earthworms," Della Vedova said. The thermobaric bomb was developed by the Naval Surface Weapons Center, Indian Head Division in Charles County, Md. It is one of two new weapons produced for the war in Afghanistan. The other is an earth-penetrating bomb placed on a cruise missile, Aldridge said in a Dec. 21 news briefing at the Pentagon. Scammell said he does not know of plans for additional tests similar to the thermobaric experiment on Dec. 14. This story is located at: http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2002/Jan-21-Mon-2002/news/17830091.html [http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2002/Jan-21-Mon-2002/news/17830091.html] ***************************************************************** 29 Taking Apart the Nuclear Arsenal (washingtonpost.com) Monday, January 21, 2002; Page A16 The Russian reaction to the Pentagon's nuclear posture review [news story, Jan. 12] has identified a flaw in the plan: the absence of any declared or agreed upon mechanism for dismantling nuclear warheads and making this process irreversible. Overlooked in the public discussion of this issue is a negotiation with Russia in 1994-96 that tried to do precisely this. On May 10, 1995, presidents Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin committed their governments to reciprocal monitoring of fissile materials removed from nuclear warheads to help confirm the irreversibility of the process of reducing nuclear weapons. In none of the previous U.S.-Soviet-Russian arms control agreements had any commitments been made to dismantle nuclear warheads. Progress was being made in the talks when, in January 1996, Moscow decided to suspend them. Political support from the top of Mr. Yeltsin's government had evaporated. The new relationship between the two countries, especially in the aftermath of Sept. 11, may make it possible to accomplish in 2002 what could not be done in 1996. The arrangements that could be put in place to monitor warhead reductions will not have to be based on treaties. Monitoring could be relatively nonintrusive. And most important, Russia and the United States will gain valuable experience in working together to replace mutual deterrence with mutual assurance. JAMES E. GOODBY Washington The writer was principal negotiator and special representative of the president for nuclear security and dismantlement, 1995-96. © 2002 The Washington Post Company ***************************************************************** 30 Price Clash Stalls Renewal of U.S.-Russia Uranium Pact (washingtonpost.com) By Martha McNeil Hamilton Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, January 21, 2002; Page E02 USEC Inc., the Bethesda company that takes uranium from Russian nuclear warheads and sells it to nuclear power plants in the United States, is locked in a disagreement with the Russians over terms for continuing the contract that expired at year-end. USEC negotiators are to meet with Russian officials next week in what may be a critical conference, although a spokesman for USEC played down its significance. The Moscow meeting "is part of our continuing negotiations with them," Charles Yulish said. "What happens now is that, as with any negotiations, both parties have to display flexibility and be willing to negotiate an agreement that is good for both parties." Reaching that agreement has been complicated, according to industry and government officials who have kept tabs on the process. The federal government has a keen interest in the ways in which Russia is disposing of its nuclear material and in assuring there is a ready domestic supply of fuel for nuclear power plants. "They're both playing hardball," said one administration official who is familiar with the exchange. The Bush administration is involved in the negotiations, and relations between the Energy Department and USEC are not cordial, a recent exchange of letters has demonstrated. The stakes are complicated because the deal has implications for international security and affects the fortunes of utilities with nuclear power plants, which can choose among only a handful of fuel suppliers internationally. "I am concerned that if the outstanding issues in the negotiation are not resolved expeditiously, the United States could find itself with a nuclear power fuel shortage," Undersecretary of Energy Robert G. Card, wrote to USEC's president on Jan. 8. "I am also concerned that U.S. strategic interests may be at risk if the USEC cannot ensure continuity of shipments of Russian down-blended (highly enriched uranium) to the United States." "I am saddened by the additional distortions and efforts to misrepresent USEC's positions and capabilities as underscored by your letter to me of January 8," USEC President William H. Timbers replied two days later. According to several sources, the Russians are resisting USEC proposals to lower the price they receive for the uranium because a higher anticipated price was included in the budget that Russian President Vladimir Putin sent to the Russian legislature. At the same time, USEC is committed to negotiating a lower price for the Russian material because it is already losing money on its deal. Under an agreement negotiated in 1994, USEC buys processed uranium from Russia in a deal designed to make the world safer by reducing the supplies of nuclear weapons. USEC, formerly the U.S. Enrichment Corp., was a wholly owned government corporation until it was privatized in 1998 under a Clinton administration initiative. USEC has about 70 percent of the market for selling fuel to nuclear power plants, according to utility companies watching the negotiations and a complaint filed with the Commerce Department. In the complaint, USEC claimed that two European suppliers were "dumping" fuel in the United States -- or selling it at lower prices because of unfair government subsidies. Preliminary decisions have sided with USEC, resulting in duties being imposed on fuel sold by Eurodif SA, a company controlled by the French government. If USEC wins a final ruling that it has been damaged by the dumping, the cost of fuel is likely to rise. The combination of events has alarmed utility companies that operate nuclear power plants. Several utility officials wrote the White House last week suggesting that USEC needed more competition. "In USEC's apparent attempt to negotiate a well-below market price with the Russians, the contract authorizing the terms for this year's deliveries has yet to be concluded, likely resulting in an interruption to this key supply as early as March," J.A. Stall, chief nuclear officer for Florida Power & Light Co. said in a letter to President Bush dated Jan. 16. In the short term, USEC can continue to supply the utilities with fuel, said James P. Malone, vice president for nuclear fuels for Exelon Corp. "However, the inventory isn't infinite." Apart from the negotiations with Russia, the Energy Department has been involved in negotiating with USEC for guarantees it says it needs to ensure a continuing domestic source of nuclear power plant fuel. The issues include ensuring that production will be maintained at USEC's operating plant in Paducah, Ky., where a shutdown might hurt constituents represented by two Kentucky Republicans headed into re-election campaigns, Sen. Mitch McConnell and Rep. Edward Whitfield. "The decision the government needs to make is whether we want to have domestic uranium enrichment in this country," said John Longenecker of Longenecker & Associates Inc. in Del Mar, Calif. He managed USEC during part of its transition to a private company and is a consultant in the industry. "Then, if it does, what is needed to pay for it." © 2002 The Washington Post Company ***************************************************************** 31 New nuclear threat emerges from the East as Cold War fears fade Honolulu Star-Bulletin Editorial The Rising East BY RICHARD HALLORAN Sunday, January 20, 2002 Thirty-five years ago, the United States had accumulated an arsenal of 32,000 nuclear warheads. Today, that arsenal has been shrunk to 6,000. By 2015, if new plans go well, the United States will have deployed between 2,200 and 1,700 warheads, with a warfighting doctrine to match. The Russians are making similar cuts. In contrast, India and Pakistan, which tested nuclear devices five years ago, are in a confrontation that could escalate into a nuclear exchange, more likely by rash judgment, accident, or inadvertence than by deliberate decision. Secretary of State Colin Powell spent last week in Islamabad and New Delhi seeking to prevent nuclear hostilities. Elsewhere, China and North Korea are expanding their nuclear forces with greater numbers and greater ranges in ballistic missiles. By 2015, the Chinese will be able to detonate nuclear warheads over American cities from Honolulu to New York while the North Koreans will be able to hit cities from Honolulu to Denver. Said a fresh study by the National Intelligence Council in Washington: "The probability that a missile with a weapon of mass destruction will be used against U.S. forces or interests is higher today than during most of the Cold War, and it will continue to grow as the capabilities of potential adversaries mature." In sum, the threat of nuclear war is still alive today despite the focus on terror, insurgencies, separatist struggles, ethnic conflict and piracy. The threat to the United States, however, is coming from a different direction. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, in response to a mandate from Congress, 10 days ago published a review of U.S. nuclear posture in which he said only 1,700-2,200 warheads would provide "a credible deterrent at the lowest level of nuclear weapons consistent with U.S. and allied security." Known among strategists as minimal deterrence, or just enough to scare off a potential aggressor, that doctrine stands in stark contrast to the doctrine of protracted nuclear warfare embraced by the Reagan administration 20 years ago. It required thousands of warheads in missiles, bombers and submarines linked by robust communications in a complex that could withstand a nuclear barrage and respond in kind, several times over. To nudge along the process of mutual reductions, a senior Russian officer, General-Colonel Y.N. Baluyevskiy, was in Washington last week to meet with Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith. Baluyevskiy told Pentagon reporters that Russia was for transparency, predictability, and "for irreversibility of the reduction of the nuclear forces." In his public utterances in South Asia, Secretary Powell urged caution and said all the right diplomatic things. Left unsaid, at least in public, was the American concern that, in blunt terms, Indians and Pakistanis do not really understand just how devastating nuclear weapons can be. After a nuclear exchange, former Secretary of Defense Harold Brown once wrote, "the living would envy the dead." The Cold War clash between Russia and America had two constraints: They were separated by two oceans and the competition was political and ideological. India and Pakistan bump up against one another and their differences are deeply emotional and nationalistic. Moreover, Pakistan and India have not forged the elaborate controls over nuclear weapons evolved by the Americans and Russians over several decades. Not many years ago, U.S. missileers jokingly doubted they could remove all the locks on their weapons to fire them on time. Presumably, the Russians had similar restraints. The intelligence estimate just released said China's long- range nuclear force would expand from 20 stationary missiles propelled by liquid-fuel that is volatile to possibly 100 mobile missiles with stable solid propellants. China is also adding 50 medium-range missiles a year to the 500 in place that could be fired at U.S. forces in Japan, Korea and at sea in the Pacific. North Korea will have fewer and less capable missiles but enough to endanger the western United States. In this instance, the danger is in the potential for Chinese or North Korean miscalculation. Chinese officials, scholars and journalists have asserted that Americans would back down if their cities were threatened with nuclear attack. North Korea has warned that the United States would perish in a "sea of fire." That was before U.S. B-1 and B-52 bombers appeared over Afghanistan. Those operations, say intelligence analysts, have given Chinese and North Korean military leaders pause. Richard Halloran is editorial director of the Star-Bulletin. He can be reached by e-mail at [rhalloran@starbulletin.com?subject=http://starbulletin.com/2002/01/20/editorial /halloran.html] © 2002 Honolulu Star-Bulletin ***************************************************************** 32 Russia, US to set up working committees on disarmament Zawya.com | ATTENTION - RECASTS with working committees /// MOSCOW, Jan 21 (AFP) - Russia and the United States are to set up three working groups on military cooperation focusing on strategic disarmament, a leading Russian negotiator said Monday. "These groups will work under my responsibility on the Russian side and under the deputy defence minister (undersecretary for defence) Douglas Feith on the American side," said General Yury Baluyevsky, first deputy chief of the army general staff. Baluyevsky last week headed a Russian delegation that travelled to Washington for talks on slashing nuclear arsenals following an agreement by presidents Vladimir Putin and George W. Bush to reduce their stockpiles of strategic offensive weapons. "The first group, dealing with issues relating to strategic arms reductions and anti-missile defence, will be tasked with framing agreements and packages of agreements on these issues," Baluyevsky said, as quoted by the Interfax news agency. On Saturday the chief of the Russian armed forces general staff General Anatoly Kvashnin said Russia and the United States were preparing an agreement on reducing their offensive nuclear stockpiles that could be finalised by the summer. The second working group, Baluyevsky said, "will deal with military and technical-military cooperation." US officials have recently expressed an interest in Russia-US cooperation in anti-missile defence. The third working group will examine cooperation in the fight against terrorism. "We are planning to draw up a set of joint measures with the United States in the fight against terrorism, including carrying out joint investigations into terrorst acts," Baluyevsky said. Meanwhile, US State Department aide John Wolf began consultations Monday with Russian officials on non-proliferation issues regarding weapons of mass destruction, diplomatic sources said. US experts met a Russian foreign ministry delegation headed by a senior security and disarmament official, Mikhail Lysenko, the Interfax news agency reported. The talks were expected to deal with nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, their means of delivery, and also with export controls, it said. Wolf, assistant undersecretary in the State Department's non-proliferation bureau, was due Tuesday to meet Deputy Foreign Minister Georgy Mamedov and officials at the atomic energy ministry before leaving Moscow on Wednesday, the sources said. Washington is particularly concerned at Russian arms supplies to countries it considers as rogue states. One state on Washington's list is Iraq, whose Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz is due to visit Moscow later this week. Moscow has significant trade with Baghdad under the UN oil-for-food programme, which allows Iraq to export oil in exchange for food, medicine and unspecified other essential goods needed by the country. But US representatives on the UN Security Council's sanctions committee regularly block Russian contracts for imports into Iraq, concerned that they have a dual civilian-military use. Russia and the United States are holding talks on a new Iraqi sanctions regime that would establish a list of goods with a military potential that would require authorisation from the Security Council before being sold to Iraq. pcl-bb/zak/gk Copyright © 2002 Zawya.com Ltd. ***************************************************************** 33 Keep U.S. Nuclear Testing on the Back Burner January 21, 2002 COMMENTARY By MICHAEL O'HANLON, Michael O'Hanlon studied nuclear weapons issues at the Congressional Budget Office from 1989 to 1994. He is now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Earlier this month, the Bush administration released the findings of its so-called nuclear weapons posture review. The plan has many good elements. For example, it proposes cutting the deployed force of long-range U.S. nuclear arms to about 2,000 warheads--one-third the current level. The Clinton administration aspired to make similar cuts but was impeded by congressional resistance and the long, slow process of formal arms control with Moscow. President Bush wisely is willing to make the cuts unilaterally and less formally, knowing that Russia would surely follow down the path of deep cuts, given its economic problems. But there are elements of the weapons review that are less desirable. High on the list is the administration's stance on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which was signed by the Clinton administration but never approved by Congress. The Bush administration has no interest in ratifying it. While it has no immediate intention to resume nuclear weapons tests, the administration believes such tests may someday be needed, either to ensure the reliability of the U.S. arsenal or to develop new types of warheads. As a result, it wants to upgrade the readiness of the Nevada nuclear test site. Today, it would take two to three years to prepare a test that abided by environmental and health regulations. The administration appears intent on cutting that time roughly by half. At first blush, such enhanced readiness may seem reasonable. What could be wrong, one might ask, with having a backup plan in case we discover serious problems in the existing nuclear arsenal and need to verify that a possible fix would work?The problem is that with each step toward renewed nuclear testing, the United States inches further away from supporting a treaty that it did much to create and that would serve its interests well. Other nations stand to gain much more from future nuclear tests than we do. A country trying to develop nuclear weapons for the first time almost surely would need to test to develop a relatively lightweight warhead suitable for placement atop a ballistic missile. Simpler warheads, akin to our ''fat man'' and ''little boy'' bombs dropped on Japan, might not require testing, but they would probably be so heavy that they would have to be delivered by truck or airplane. That would give us a chance to intercept them. Keeping other countries from developing advanced warheads should be a goal for the United States. It is true that other countries still could test nuclear weapons even if the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty had been ratified by the U.S. and other major powers. But Washington would have a much easier time punishing violators with economic sanctions--or even justifying the use of military force against their nuclear facilities in extreme cases. The U.S. simply does not need testing to ensure the reliability of a strong nuclear deterrent. Many bomb designers would disagree with that statement, saying that as warheads age, they can deteriorate and fail in ways our computer models and other simulation techniques might not predict. Many of them argue that only actual nuclear testing can really ascertain the reliability of the arsenal. But why do we have to let our warheads age? Following an idea promoted by Richard Garwin, one of the fathers of the hydrogen bomb, we could simply rebuild a fraction of our arsenal every year. Doing this would necessitate using old-fashioned materials and techniques. It would be important to keep making the high explosives and the plutonium "pits" in nuclear warheads the same way they have always been made. We could not modernize the way we make nuclear warheads in the interest of modestly reducing environmental contamination or improving convenience. So be it. Preserving the reliability of our nuclear deterrent without actual warhead testing is more important. In addition, the U.S. could also introduce a new, simpler type of bomb into its inventory that would be sure to work even if it deteriorated partially. There is admittedly one difficult issue. What if, to attack an enemy's deep underground bunkers or weapons production sites, the U.S. wanted a new type of nuclear bomb capable of penetrating many dozens of meters of rock before detonating? Such a new capability might well require testing. But this argument is not compelling since the benefit of making it harder for countries like Iraq and North Korea to develop nuclear arms far outweighs any likely benefit of such a warhead, at least at present. For now, the international moratorium on nuclear testing is generally holding, and we should keep it that way. Taking the first step toward eroding it by readying a test site for nuclear weapons tests is unnecessary to maintain the reliability of the U.S. nuclear arsenal today, and unwise. Keep the Nevada test site, but in a state of cold, long-term storage. If you want other stories on this topic, search the Archives at latimes.com/archives. For information about reprinting this article, go to www.lats.com/rights. Copyright 2002 Los Angeles Times ***************************************************************** 34 Nuclear 'treasure' causes security, safety headaches for ORNL Monday, Jan 21 By Frank Munger News-Sentinel senior writer Oak Ridge National Laboratory's stockpile of uranium-233 is perceived as a treasure. Its nuclear decay products, notably bismuth-213, have shown great promise in treatments for acute myologenous leukemia and possibly other forms of cancer. In truth, however, the U-233 housed in a building near the heart of ORNL's research campus has become a nuisance -- and an expensive one at that -- in recent years. The lab spends millions of dollars annually to provide surveillance because the U-233 and its associated radioisotopes are stored in an old facility that doesn't meet current-day standards. The money also goes for security because, if stolen, the fissile material could be converted into nuclear weapons, and that's more of a concern now than ever before. The U.S. Department of Energy created hope and excitement when it announced many months ago that it planned to hire a company to process and dispose of the dangerously radioactive material. The idea was to extract the valuable isotopes from the stockpile and then relocate the remainder of nuclear cache to a safe site for long-term storage. But DOE's release of a "request for proposals" was put on hold late last year, and it's still not clear when the process of selecting a contractor will begin. Meanwhile, ORNL has launched a program to evaluate the condition of the storage containers, some of which have not been checked for decades. The inspection effort is in direct response to concerns raised by the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, which insisted there's no way to assess the safety conditions in Building 3019 -- not far from the ORNL cafeteria -- until those containers are tested. "So far, everything is looking in good condition," Jim Rushton, who's heading the inspection program, said recently. "We went through an operational readiness review and got the green light in October to begin inspections." The uranium-233 is a legacy from the 1950s and '60s, when the Atomic Energy Commission sanctioned a series of experiments to evaluate the potential use of U-233 as reactor fuel. There are more than 1,000 containers of uranium housed in the ORNL facility, and more than 50 different types of packages, some of them resembling the tin cans found on the shelves of your local grocery story. The lab's tin cans, however, have a sealed outer shell made of stainless steel. Rushton said individual containers are removed from storage and taken initially to a shielded inspection chamber, where a visual check is conducted to make sure there's no leaking. If that passes muster, the container is moved to "hot cell," where additional tests -- including gamma-ray imaging -- can be done to evaluate the condition of the nuclear material. In conjunction with the inspections, the laboratory is opening some packages and processing the uranium stock to extract quantities of throrium-229. The thorium will decay to form the bismuth-213 needed for cancer treatments. These milligram quantities should help ease the demand for the medical isotopes until a full-fledged processing program is approved by the government, Rushton said. Also, it's hoped that the inspection program will verify that the containers of uranium are in a safe condition at ORNL, making that "a non-issue" when the new contractor arrives to begin that project, he said. The inspections should be completed sometime in 2003. 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