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06/22/02 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 10.158
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RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE
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NUCLEAR POLICY
1 Australia's nuclear clean-up*
NUCLEAR REACTORS
2 Chapelcross nuclear power station in Dumfries and Galloway.
3 N.B. board reserves decision on proposed refurbishment of Point
4 Early end for oldest nuclear station
5 US: Citizens group fights for Cooper
6 BNFL closes its two oldest reactors
7 Russia: Nuclear Reactors Based In Moscow Cause Concern And Fears
NUCLEAR SAFETY
8 [radiation-survivors] The Christmas Island (Grapple Y) Nuclear
9 [radiation-survivors] Strontium 90 and childhood cancers
10 US: [toeslist] Fwd: Take Action on Nuclear Safety
11 US: [radiation-survivors] Roadmap to the Project ACHRE Report
12 US: [radiation-survivors] The History Of Human Guinea Pigs In
13 Nuclear power fraud man jailed
14 US: Trees may hold clues in Fallon cancer cluster
15 US: Potassium iodide Q scheduled
NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
16 US: [toeslist] S.C. Troopers to Watch for Plutonium
17 US: (en) Australia, Beverley Uranium Mine issued Eviction Notice
18 US: Re: Plutonium: South Carolina Govenor Declares State Of
19 US: Petition to Stop Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Dump
20 US: CSP planning safety checks on shipments
21 US: Senate rebuffs second Yucca vote attempt
22 US: Are you worried about the safety of bringing nuclear waste
23 US: Nuke waste shipments to Nevada too perilous
NUCLEAR WEAPONS
24 US: [generalnews] Tenn. Protesters Found Guilty
25 US: Perils of Bush's Nuclear Policy
26 US: A Dragon Out of Puff; 'No Banana Republic Here'; US Tosses ABM,
27 Egypt seeks to build nuclear bombs with Chinese help: report
28 US: Message to the Senate of the United States
29 Book relates tense hunt for Soviet subs in Cuban crisis
30 North Korea urged to allow international nuclear inspection
31 US: A Waste Of Potential Energy
US DEPT. OF ENERGY
32 Lab film chronicles weapons designs
33 Hanford study shows releases didn't cause more thyroid cancer
34 Nuclear material destined for SRS
OTHER NUCLEAR
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FULL NEWS STORIES
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1 Australia's nuclear clean-up*
First published in New Scientist print edition, *subscribe
*Congratulations* on Rob Edwards's excellent article about the
legacy of Britain's quest for nuclear weapons (25 May, p 42).
Unfortunately, while the article describes the many contaminated
sites in Britain, it does not mention what is almost certainly
the largest site in terms of area, and perhaps in radioactivity.
I refer to the Maralinga site in South Australia.
Following the explosion of seven nuclear weapons at that site,
Britain conducted a series of fifteen trials, code-named Vixen B,
between 1961 and 1963. These trials spread plutonium and uranium
over many hundreds of square kilometres. In addition, thousands
of tonnes of plutonium-contaminated debris were buried in 21
pits. In 1967, Britain conducted Operation Brumby to clean up the
mess left by the trials.
In 1994, the Australian government commenced a second clean-up of
the site, to which Britain contributed a paltry £20 million. The
latest clean-up showed that Operation Brumby had been far from
satisfactory. Concrete caps should have covered the debris pits,
but when the contaminated soil was removed, the team found that
the caps were either far too small or in the wrong place.
Plutonium-contaminated debris was found only a few centimetres
below the surface around all of the pits.
The Australian approach to the rehabilitation of contaminated
sites must be unique in the Western world. Since there was no
regulatory organisation to set the standards, the government
relied on an advisory committee to define the clean-up criteria.
When the Australian regulatory organisation came into being
towards the end of the project, they simply accepted what the
committee had specified. Generally, the removal of contaminated
soil from only two out of many hundreds of square kilometres
achieved these criteria, and for that the workers are to be
congratulated.
However, the clean-up of the debris pits became a contentious
issue when the treatment by in situ vitrification, which
immobilises the plutonium for thousands of years, was abandoned
in a cost-cutting exercise. Instead, the government simply buried
the debris only two to three metres below ground in a bare hole
in totally unsuitable geology. This, according to the chief
regulator, was the world's best practice.
I trust that Britain adopts a better approach when those many
sites are tackled.
*Alan Parkinson* Weetangera, Australian Capital Territory
About newscientist.com
*****************************************************************
2 Chapelcross nuclear power station in Dumfries and Galloway.
Scotsman.com
Back Issue: *Saturday, 22nd June 2002*
Sat 22 Jun 2002
Nuclear plants to close three years early
/JAMES REYNOLDS/
TWO of the oldest nuclear power stations in the world are to
start closing three years earlier than originally planned.
British Nuclear Fuels yesterday announced the closures of
Chapelcross, in Dumfries and Galloway, and Calder Hall, in
Cumbria.
It said the decision was driven by the plummeting cost of
electricity over the last two years.
The two plants employ almost 800, 430 of them at Chapelcross.
Numbers are expected to drop to 600 during the ten-year
decommissioning period following the closure of the power
stations.
Management said there would still be about 100 workers needed at
each of the sites for an estimated five years after
decommissioning.
BNFL said both stations had small generating capacity by today?s
standards and were operating under high fixed overheads.
Bruce Crawford, the Scottish National Party?s shadow environment
spokesman, called for job losses to be kept to a minimum, but
added: "Nuclear power is uneconomic full stop and I hope that
this decision signals the beginning of the end for nuclear power
in Scotland."
Michael Russell, a South of Scotland SNP MSP, said he would be
seeking a meeting with management, unions and enterprise agencies
to assess the impact of the company?s decision.
The Chapelcross reactors, originally due to start closing in
2008, will complete a progressive shutdown no later than March
2005, and those at Calder Hall, originally due to start closing
in 2006, will now shut in March 2003.
At full power, both stations produce electricity equivalent to
the needs of about 200,000 homes.
Chapelcross, near Annan, is to operate longer than Calder Hall to
allow completion of a Ministry of Defence contract.
Norman Askew, BNFL?s chief executive, said electricity prices had
fallen to a level that made the plants uneconomic, adding: "We do
not see this fall in price recovering and thus we can no longer
justify running the plants."
Chapelcross union stewards have called on government ministers to
bring forward proposals for a new nuclear power plant at the site
near Dumfries.
SCOTSMAN MAGAZINE
©2002 scotsman.com | contact
Back To Top <#top>
*****************************************************************
3 N.B. board reserves decision on proposed refurbishment of Point
Lepreau
June 19, 2002
N.B. board reserves decision on proposed refurbishment of Point Lepreau
SAINT JOHN, N.B. (CP) -- The Public Utilities Board has reserved
decision on the proposed $845-million refurbishment of the Point
Lepreau nuclear power plant.
The hearings wrapped up Wednesday after four weeks of testimony
and evidence presented by NB Power, Atomic Energy Canada Ltd. and
opponents of the plan.
Both provincial lawyer Peter Hyslop and longtime NB Power critic
Rod Gillis said the deal between the utility and AECL isn't good
enough.
They suggested the contracts be reopened to secure better
guarantees if the plant fails to work properly.
NB Power has asked Atomic Energy Canada Ltd., a federal Crown
corporation and the designer of the current Candu 6 reactor at
Point Lepreau, to refurbish the plant.
Guarantees contained in the proposed contracts would only see NB
Power recover $187 million of the $845-million cost if the
refurbished plant fails to work.
Hyslop said the future of the Canadian nuclear industry hinges
on the proposal, and he's even suggesting Ottawa invest in the
project.
NB Power maintains the refurbishment is the most cost-effective
option available to meet future demands for electricity.
The nuclear plant will reach the end of its natural life in six
years. The expensive upgrade would allow the plant to run for
another 25 years.
NB Power estimates it would cost over $400 million to
decommission Point Lepreau.
Canoe, a division of Netgraphe Inc
*****************************************************************
4 Early end for oldest nuclear station
news.telegraph.co.uk -
By Roger Highfield, Science Editor
(Filed: 22/06/2002)
The world's oldest nuclear power station, which launched the
atomic age when it was opened by the Queen in 1956, is to be
dismantled.
Calder Hall in Cumbria and its sister plant, Chapelcross, near
Annan, south-west Scotland, are to start closing three years
earlier than planned, at a cost of up to £600 million, British
Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) said yesterday.
At full power, the four magnox reactors at each station together
produced electricity sufficient for 200,000 homes.
The Calder Hall reactors will now shut down in March 2003 and
those at Chapelcross will shut down by March 2005. Nuclear plants
are usually designed to last 30 years and the longevity of these
two stations has been put down to being run for much of their
lives at lower temperatures than usual to make plutonium for
Britain's nuclear deterrent.
In 1988, BNFL warned that if a competitive method of plutonium
generation could not be found when the plants were closed,
Britain may have to rely on other countries for supplies.
Yesterday a spokesman admitted that there had been so much
plutonium stockpiled that the plants have not been used as
plutonium factories for decades.
However, Chapelcross is being kept open longer to make tritium,
used in bombs, for the Ministry of Defence.
There are nearly 800 people employed at the two sites. Numbers
are expected to drop to 600 during the 10-year decommissioning
period following the closures.
BNFL chief executive, Norman Askew, said: "I have always said
that we would continue to run these pioneering workhorses of the
nuclear industry while they remain safe and economic. They are
still safe but electricity prices have fallen to a level that
makes them uneconomic."
But BNFL said the plants have also been affected by distorted
fittings, which would make it impossible to guarantee safe
loading and extraction of fuel rods in the longer term.
Chapelcross union stewards called on Government ministers to
bring forward proposals for a new generation nuclear power plant
at the site near Dumfries.
John Rogerson, secretary of the Chapelcross shop stewards'
committee, said: "The real energy debate begins now. It is a
matter of record that once Britain's nuclear fleet begins to
close, the global warming emissions stop going down and start to
rise."
Brian Wilson, the energy minister, said: "Notice of closure is
not unexpected and will give time for the local economies to
re-adjust."
20 June 2002: Cancer risk 'higher for Sellafield children'
20 February 2002: 'Procedural failure' at N-plant 4 October
2001: Nuclear fuel plant approved despite fears over terrorism 9
July 2001: Safety scare as nuclear fuel rods fall 25 June 2001:
Sellafield emissions predicted to rise
© Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2002.
*****************************************************************
5 Citizens group fights for Cooper
BYALGISJ. LAUKAITIS / Lincoln Journal Star
The future of a proposed $221million power plant near Beatrice
could hinge on the fate of the troubled Cooper Nuclear Station
near Brownville.
On Friday, a citizens group fighting to keep Cooper open asked
the Nebraska Power Review Board to postpone its decision on the
Nebraska Public Power District's proposed plant.
"NPPD and this board should be focusing on resolving the single biggest
power generation policy issue facing the state in generations," said Jed
Wagner, executive director of the Nemaha County Development Alliance.
Cooper, which is facing intense scrutiny from the U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission because of management and safety problems,
was thrown into the mix Friday by Wagner, who is fighting to keep
the plant open.
Closing Cooper could cost the economies of Nemaha and surrounding
counties $548million annually, according to a study done by
Creighton University economist Ernest Goss. And with nearly 800
workers on the payroll, the nuclear plant is that area's largest
employer.
The NPPD board has not decided Cooper's fate but is considering
turning it over to a management company, selling it or closing it
down. A decision is expected later this year. Meanwhile, federal
regulators will start a three-week inspection Monday.
Wagner told the review board that NPPD could boost its take of
electricity from Cooper, sell the remaining power, and still run
the plant in a cost-effective manner. He also said there's a
surplus of electricity at Gerald Gentleman Station, a
1,365-megawatt coal-fired plant owned by NPPD near Sutherland.
Bill Fehrman, vice president of energy supply for NPPD, told the
board the Beatrice Power Station and Cooper Nuclear Station are
separate issues.
"The decision not to run Cooper does not impact this decision
whatsoever," he said.
Fehrman said NPPD needs an intermediate plant at Beatrice because
its other plants are aging. For example, he said, a breakdown at
Gerald Gentleman Station in 2000 cost the utility about
$20million. The utility has not built a major power plant since
the late 1970s, and there is little reserve capacity in the
system.
"If we have a problem, we don't have reserve capacity to pick up
generation," Fehrman said.
Because of its unique design, the Beatrice Power Plant can be
started up quickly and put into service when it is needed most,
Fehrman said. The plant would only operate between 20 percent and
40 percent of the time and could serve as a "peaking unit" in the
summer when demand is highest.
If the NPPD board decides to continue operating Cooper, the
Beatrice Power Plant would still be needed as a "hedge" against
losing up to $60million annually because of extended outages from
breakdowns, Fehrman said. Building the Beatrice Power Station
would cut that risk in half, he said.
And if the board decides to close Cooper, the Beatrice Power
Plant would be "incredibly" important because it would replace
NPPD's share of the nuclear plant's energy output, he said.
NPPD shares Cooper's ownership with MidAmerican Energy and the
Lincoln Electric System. But the other two partners have
indicated they won't renew their contracts.
The Power Review Board made no decision on NPPD's application
after hearing more than two hours of testimony. Tim Texel,
executive director, said a decision could be made at the board's
July meeting.
If approved by the board, the $221million Beatrice Power Station
would start generating electricity in the summer of 2005. The
plant would burn either natural gas or fuel oil and also use
steam to obtain maximum efficiency.
NPPD expects to pass on a 3 percent rate increase to its
wholesale customers in 2005-06 to help pay for the plant.
Reach Algis J. Laukaitis at 473-7243 or
alaukaitis@journalstar.com.<@Byline Name>
Copyright © 2002, Lincoln Journal Star. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
6 BNFL closes its two oldest reactors
Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian |
David Gow
Saturday June 22, 2002
[http://www.guardian.co.uk]
British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) said yesterday it would close its
two oldest Magnox nuclear reactors, Calder Hall in Cumbria and
Chapelcross in Dumfriess hire, three years early.
Calder Hall, the world's first commercial nuclear power station,
opened in 1956, will close at the end of March next year, while
Chapelcross, commissioned in 1959, will close in early 2005.
BNFL blamed a 40% drop in wholesale power prices and high
operating costs for the early closure but anti-nuclear
campaigners pointed to a series of technical problems as the root
of the decision.
The two stations, originally due to close in 2006 and 2008
respectively, generate 200MW each and employ about 800 staff
together. Several hundred employees will be kept on to undertake
decommissioning over the next decade.
Their early closure highlights the government's dilemma over the
"nuclear rebuild" issue, with ministers under pressure from trade
unions and BNFL and British Energy, the biggest nuclear operator,
to build about a dozen new atomic power stations.
BNFL will be left with four stations: Sizewell A, due to close
in 2006, Dungeness A (2006), Oldbury on Severn (2008) and Wylfa,
Anglesey (2009); they generate 2,200MW of power. BE's eight
modern reactors are due to close between 2008 and 2035.
Norman Askew, BNFL chief executive, said of the early closures:
"This is a tough but necessary commercial decision... [The
plants] are still safe but electricity prices have fallen
significantly and to a level that makes them uneconomic."
Bryony Worthington, campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said
technical problems, including distortions in fuel rods, had led
to the closures. Even so nuclear could not compete in the new
power market.
Useful links
[http://www.bnfl.co.uk/website.nsf/default.htm]
[http://www.cnduk.org/]
[http://www.hse.gov.uk/nsd/ilrwglos.htm]
[http://www.ukaea.org.uk/]
[http://www.nrpb.org.uk/]
[http://www.uilondon.org/]
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002
*****************************************************************
7 Russia: Nuclear Reactors Based In Moscow Cause Concern And Fears
By Valentinas Mite
In the Russian capital of Moscow, several dozen nuclear reactors
are functioning at various scientific research institutes. Many
of the reactors are located in residential sections of the
densely populated city, and antinuclear activists and ecologists
say they are concerned about the potential risk posed by aging
equipment and spent fuel storage. Authorities, however, deny
there is any danger.
Prague, 17 June 2002 (RFE/RL) -- There are nearly 40 nuclear
reactors of varying capacities functioning in scientific research
institutes in Moscow, a city with 11 million inhabitants. The
installations are not powerful and used only for scientific
purposes, but Russian activists say they represent a risk. State
officials, however insist the situation is completely under
control.
While the reactors used by scientific institutes are less
powerful than those in nuclear power plants, they still use
nuclear fuel, making their presence in a number of Moscow's
residential neighborhoods a worry for many.
The problems posed by Moscow's scientific reactors are similar to
those of Russia's aging brigade of power plants: potential leaks
of radioactive material, the storage of spent nuclear fuel and
waste, and poor security standards leaving open the possibility
of theft.
Nuclear activists and ecologists say they cannot even agree with
state officials on the exact number of reactors currently
functioning in the capital city.
An official with Atomnadzor, Russia's federal inspectorate for
nuclear and radiation safety, told RFE/RL there are 39 reactors
in Moscow. But Vladimir Kuznetsov, the former chief inspector of
Atomnadzor who now works as a nuclear activist, says there are
closer to 45. The most powerful -- and potentially dangerous --
reactors are at the Kurchatov Institute, located in a northwest
district of the city.
Founded in 1943, the Kurchatov Institute played a key role in
the development of the first Soviet nuclear bombs, and is home to
one of the world's oldest nuclear reactors. First activated in
1946, the reactor is still activated occasionally. Kuznetsov
says, "It is impossible to speak seriously about the safety of
such an old reactor." He dismisses Atomnadzor's claim that
Kurchatov has a clean safety record, saying a number of incidents
have occurred at the institute over the years: "There were three
incidents in 1972 involving radioactivity leaks. Four people were
killed. There were also incidents in 1989 when radioactive
materials also leaked."
Aleksei Yablokov is a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences
and president of the nongovernmental Russian Center for Ecology
Policy. Yablokov told RFE/RL that Kurchatov is not the only
institute posing a safety risk to Muscovites. He says even the
weakest reactors can cause big problems if their safety system
fails and a leak occurs: "The danger posed by the reactor does
not depend so much on its power. The fact is that an accident can
happen and bring various unpleasant things."
The secrecy that surrounded the nuclear industry during the
Soviet era has lifted only slightly over the past decade.
Yablokov says it is still difficult to know for sure how many
incidents occur with the country's nuclear reactors, adding that
even now Atomnadzor seems inclined to cover up such reports: "The
incidents with leakages were concealed all the time and you
cannot trust statistics. I think there have been even more
leakages than Kuznetsov was speaking about, but there is no
official information."
Yablokov says that it is possible for scientists to reconstruct
the truth but money and permission are needed to investigate the
facilities. He says the Moscow city government has shown concern
about the potential danger posed by the city reactors. In 1992,
the city opted to shut down or move all of the city's reactors.
But the plan failed to materialize because of lack of funds.
The reactors pose other complicated problems. The nuclear waste
and used nuclear fuel stored in the city are among the biggest of
the problems. Nuclear activist Kuznetsov describes one such
storage site, located near the Kurchatov Institute: "There is a
place in Moscow, where used nuclear fuel is stored. It is not far
away from the metro station Oktyabrskoye Pole. In terms of
radioactivity, the used nuclear fuel that is already stored here
equals half of the amount leaked during the Chornobyl accident
[in 1986]."
Sergei Morozov, a safety inspector with Atomnadzor, admits that
spent nuclear fuel presents a problem in the city and says
serious steps are being taken to move the waste out of Moscow.
But the task of removing 50 years' worth of accumulated nuclear
waste is a complicated one, and Morozov acknowledges it has been
slow going: "We are still working on the plan and it will take
two years to implement it."
The Russian office of the Greenpeace environmental group gave
RFE/RL a letter to the Russian government signed by the director
of the Kurchatov Institute, Yevgenii Velikhov. The letter says
there are 6 tons of used radioactive fuel currently being stored
at the institute. Additional temporary storage of other
radioactive waste has been built over two hectares of land
belonging to Kurchatov. The two hectares, the letter says, have
since been contaminated. Kurchatov officials estimate it will
take $100 million to deal with the problem.
Are Russian authorities doing enough to prevent terrorists from
accessing nuclear materials based in scientific institutes like
Kurchatov? Morozov of Atomnadzor says security measures have been
stepped up considerably and that it is almost impossible to steal
nuclear materials. Yablokov of the Russian Center for Ecology
Policy says that while security standards have improved, many
institutes remain vulnerable to theft.
The problem of scientific reactors is not limited to Moscow.
There are more than 100 research reactors located throughout the
country. The most powerful of them are in Gatchina, near St.
Petersburg; in Obninsk and Dubna outside of Moscow; and near the
town of Ulyanovsk in central Russia.
© 1995-2001 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc., All Rights
*****************************************************************
8 [radiation-survivors] The Christmas Island (Grapple Y) Nuclear
Date: Sat, 22 Jun 2002 00:56:49 -0500 (CDT)
http://www.osti.gov/historicalfilms/opentext/data/0800061.html
http://www.sea-us.org.au/thunder/grappley.html
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA0204/S00417.htm
http://www.janeresture.com/christmas_bombs/
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9 [radiation-survivors] Strontium 90 and childhood cancers
Date: Sat, 22 Jun 2002 00:26:58 -0500 (CDT)
Hello, I am a nurse and mom of a child diagnosed with acute
lymphoblastic leukemia at the age of 4. He is now 10 and doing well
off treatment since June of 1999. I have been volunteering for the
Radiation and Public Health Project of NY collecting baby teeth for
their ongoing study, The Tooth Fairy Project measuring levels of
Strontium 90 in baby teeth related to nuclear reactor emissions.
Nuclear power emits radioactive effluents including long-lived
radioisotopes of Cesium 137, and Strontium 90 (Sr-90)as well as
others. The industry considers this low level, but what is low level
for our children who are most vulnerable to all environmental
pollutants? Sr-90 has a half-life of 28 years and is deposited in
the environment, taken up by the food chain and enters our bodies.
It's properties mimic calcium and deposits in our bones and teeth
continuing to emit radioactivity although it decays over time.
Historically, Sr- 90 from fall-out has been documented in baby teeth
of St. Louis children by scientist Barry Commoner during the 1960's,
leading to A-bomb tests going underground. Sr-90 emissions from
nuclear reactors are indeed less than fall out, but The Radiation and
Public Health Project of NY, a non- profit group of physicians and
scientists are continuing to document Sr-90 in baby teeth of children
today, long after fallout levels should have decreased. Likely
sources are nuclear reactor emissions and medical waste. Preliminary
results of their present study, The Tooth Fairy Project, are showing
a trend of increased childhood cancer among children with higher than
average Sr-90 levels. The RPHP needs 5,000 baby teeth and currently
have approximately 3600. Please help by donating a baby tooth....all
children can donate but if your child has cancer, you can receive
results. We need to collect this important data which may expose the
serious link of low level radiation exposures of nuclear power and
childhood cancer. Please see their press release regarding the
groups study published in the Archives of Environmental Health,
Jan/Feb Vol 57 (1) "Decreased Infant Mortality and Childhood Cancers
as Nuclear Plants Close" The web address for more info is
www.radiation.org. Click on the tooth fairy in the upper left hand
corner to see how. There is a brief form to fill out.
Perhaps you recall donating a tooth to the original St. Louis baby
tooth study of the 1960's? (I gave my Tooth to Science button) please
contact the researcher Mr. Joseph Mangano, Odiejoe@aol.com. 85,000
teeth which went untested during that era have recently been found.
The group is attempting to make contact with those that have donated
a tooth as a child, possibly linking cancers and other chronic
diseases to elevated exposures of Strontium 90 from fall out. Feel
free to email me with any questions and by all means pass this post
along to any individuals interested in safeguarding our health and
futures of our children and ourselves. Thank you again for making
this important "tooth" donation....Sincerely, Agnes
(MerBenzRN@aol.com)
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10 [toeslist] Fwd: Take Action on Nuclear Safety
Date: Sat, 22 Jun 2002 11:24:23 -0500 (CDT)
--- Environmental Advocates of New York wrote:
Date: 14 Jun 2002 16:07:51 -0000 From: "Environmental Advocates of
New York"
To: "Ian Wilder" Subject:
Take Action on Nuclear Safety
Dear Ian,
New York relies on the eyes and ears of its nuclear employees to
prevent nuclear accidents. Fax your state representatives urging
them to support the Nuclear Whistleblower Access and Assistance
Act.
You can take action on this alert either via email (please see
directions below) or via the web at:
http://actionnetwork.org/campaign/Pass_Nuclear_Whistleblower_Protections/igngn72078xmji
Visit the web address below and tell your friends to take action
on this important campaign!
http://actionnetwork.org/campaign/Pass_Nuclear_Whistleblower_Protections/forward/igngn72078xmji
We encourage you to take action by July 4, 2002
Take Action on Nuclear Safety
----------------------
New York's nuclear plants are not only facing the threat of terrorist
attack. In today's deregulated energy market, nuclear plants are
also under more pressure than ever to cut costs and ignore safety
procedures.
New York has six nuclear power plants: Nine Mile Point 1 and 2
(situated along Lake Ontario near Oswego);
Indian Point 2 and 3 (located along the Hudson River, just 35 miles
north of New York City); Robert E.
Ginna (on Lake Ontario, east of Rochester); and J.A.
Fitzpatrick (adjacent to the Nine Mile Point Units). To prevent
nuclear accidents, New York relies on the eyes and ears of workers
at the plants. Incredibly, however, the current law leaves these
employees vulnerable to losing their jobs for voicing safety
concerns.
The Nuclear Whistleblower Access and Assistance Act increases
protection for workers who come forward with their concerns. It
has already passed the Assembly, but remains stuck in the Senate
Energy Committee.
Under existing law, nuclear employees must demonstrate that a law,
regulation, or rule has been violated. This discourages disclosure
of potentially improper conduct and presents workers with a daunting
challenge. The Nuclear Whistleblower Access and Assistance Act
would amend the labor law to protect workers even if their safety
concern does not relate to an actual violation of a law or regulation.
This act establishes a toll free hotline for nuclear workers where
they can report safety issues and receive information about their
rights. The act requires that a preliminary evaluation of any safety
concern identified by a worker be conducted within 72 hours of
being reported.
After this preliminary evaluation, follow-up reports would be
conducted every two weeks. The hotline also gives employees the
option of contacting a consultant for unbiased, non-governmental
information to help resolve safety concerns.
This legislation strengthens provisions to shield the identity of
whistleblowers and all persons within the state's nuclear industry
who have knowledge of issues that affect public health and safety.
This bill also protects independent contractors who are not currently
protected.
----------------------
INSTRUCTIONS TO RESPOND VIA THE WEB:
If you have access to a web browser, you can take action on this
alert by going to the following URL:
http://actionnetwork.org/campaign/Pass_Nuclear_Whistleblower_Protections/igngn72078xmji
INSTRUCTIONS TO RESPOND VIA EMAIL:
Just choose the "reply to sender" option on your email program,
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11 [radiation-survivors] Roadmap to the Project ACHRE Report
Date: Sat, 22 Jun 2002 00:45:19 -0500 (CDT)
http://tis.eh.doe.gov/ohre/roadmap/achre/index.html
Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments
The Final Report is written in an easily accessible style, but it is of
necessity long. This guide provides a roadmap and capsule descriptions of
each section of the report.
Executive Summary
The Executive Summary explains why the committee was created, their
approach, and their key findings and recommendations.
Preface
The Preface explains why the Committee was created, the President's charge,
and the Committee's approach.
Introduction: The Atomic Century
The Introduction describes the intersection of several develop ments: the
birth and remarkable growth of radiation science; the parallel changes in
medicine and medical research; and the intersection of these changes with
government programs that called on medical researchers to play important new
roles beyond that involved in the traditional doctor-patient relationship.
The Introduction concludes with a section titled "The Basics of Radiation
Science" for the lay reader.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
Part I. Ethics of Human Subjects Research: A Historical Perspective
Chapter 1. Government Standards for Human Experiments: The 1940s and 1950s
In chapter 1 we report what we have been able to reconstruct about
government rules and policies in the 1940s and 1950s regarding human
experiments. We focus primarily on the Atomic Energy Commission and the
Department of Defense, because their history with respect to human subjects
research policy is less well known than that of the Department of Health,
Education and Welfare (now the Department of Health and Human Services).
Drawing on records that were previously obscure, or only recently
declassified, we reveal the perhaps surprising finding that officials and
experts in the highest reaches of the AEC and DOD discussed requirements for
human experiments in the first years of the Cold War. We also briefly
discuss the research policies of DHEW and the Veterans Administration during
these years.
Chapter 2. Postwar Professional Standards and Practices for Human
Experiments
In chapter 2 we turn from a consideration of government standards to an
exploration of the norms and practices of physicians and medical scientists
who conducted research with human subjects during this period. We include
here an analysis of the significance of the Nuremberg Code, which arose out
of the international war crimes trial of German physicians in 1947. Using
the results of our Ethics Oral History Project, and other sources, we also
examine how scientists of the time viewed their moral responsibilities to
human subjects as well as how this translated into the manner in which they
conducted their research. Of particular interest are the differences in
professional norms and practices between research in which patients are used
as subjects and research involving so-called healthy volunteers.
Chapter 3. Government Standards for Human Experiments: The 1960s and 1970s
In chapter 3 we return to the question of government standards, focusing now
on the 1960s and 1970s. In the first part of this chapter, we review the
well-documented developments that influenced and led up to two landmark
events in the history of government policy on research involving human
subjects: the promulgation by DHEW of comprehensive regulations for
oversight of human subjects research and passage by Congress of the National
Research Act. In the latter part of the chapter we review developments and
policies governing human research in agencies other than DHEW, a history
that has received comparatively little scholarly attention. We also discuss
scandals in human research conducted by the DOD and the CIA that came to
light in the 1970s and that influenced subsequent agency policies.
Chapter 4. Ethics Standards in Retrospect
With the historical context established in chapters 1 through 3, we turn in
chapter 4 to the core of our charge. Here we put forward and defend three
kinds of ethical standards for evaluating human radiation experiments
conducted from 1944 to 1974. These are (1) basic ethical principles that are
widely accepted and generally regarded as so fundamental as to be applicable
to the past as well as the present; (2) the policies of government
departments and agencies at the time; and (3) rules of professional ethics
that were widely accepted at the time. We embed these standards in a moral
framework intended to clarify and facilitate the difficult task of making
judgments about the past.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
Part II. Case Studies
Chapter 5. Experiments with Plutonium, Uranium, and Polonium
In chapter 5, we look at the Manhattan Project plutonium-injection
experiments and related experimentation. Sick patients were used in
sometimes secret experimentation to develop data needed to protect the
health and safety of nuclear weapons workers. The experiments raise
questions of the use of sick patients for purposes that are not of benefit
to them, the role of national security in permitting conduct that might not
otherwise be justified, and the use of secrecy for the purpose of protecting
the government from embarrassment and potential liability.
Chapter 6. The AEC Program of Radioisotope Distribution
In contrast to the plutonium injections, the vast majority of human
radiation experiments were not conducted in secret. Indeed, the use of
radioisotopes in biomedical research was publicly and actively promoted by
the Atomic Energy Commission. Among the several thousand experiments about
which little information is currently available, most fall into this
category. The Committee adopted a two-pronged strategy to study this
phenomenon. In chapter 6, we describe the system the AEC developed for the
distribution of isotopes to be used in human research. This system was the
primary provider of the source material for human experimentation in the
postwar period. In studying the operation of the radioisotope distribution
system, and the related "human use" committees at local institutions, we
sought to learn the ground rules that governed the conduct of the majority
of human radiation experiments, most of which have received little or no
public attention. Also in this chapter we review how research with
radioisotopes has contributed to advances in medicine.
Chapter 7. Nontherapeutic Research on Children
The Committee then selected for particular consideration, in chapter 7,
radioisotope research that used children as subjects. We determined to focus
on children for several reasons. First, at low levels of radiation exposure,
children are at greater risk of harm than adults. Second, children were the
most appropriate group in which to pursue the Committee's mandate with
respect to notifica tion of former subjects for medical reasons. They are
the group most likely to have been harmed by their participation in
research, and they are more likely than other former subjects still to be
alive. Third, when the Committee considered how best to study subject
populations that were most likely to be exploited because of their relative
dependency or powerlessness, children were the only subjects who could
readily be identified in the meager documenta tion available. By contrast,
characteristics such as gender, ethnicity, and social class were rarely
noted in research reports of the day.
Chapter 8. Total-Body Irradiation: Problems When Research and Treatment are
Intertwined
Moving from case studies focused on the injection or ingestion of
radioisotopes, chapter 8 shifts to experimentation in which sick patients
were subjected to externally administered total-body irradiation (TBI). The
Committee discovered that the highly publicized TBI experiments conducted at
the University of Cincinnati were only the last of a series in which the
government sought to use data from patients undergoing TBI treatment to gain
information for nuclear weapons development and use. This experimentation
spanned the period from World War II to the early 1970s, during which the
ethics of experimentation became increas ingly subject to public debate and
government regulation. In contrast with the experiments that flowed from the
AEC's radioiso tope program, the use of external radiation such as TBI did
not in its earlier years involve a government requirement of prior review
for risk. The TBI experimentation raises basic questions about the
responsibility of the government when it seeks to gather research data in
conjunction with medical interventions of debatable benefit to sick
patients.
Chapter 9. Prisoners: A Captive Research Population
In chapter 9 we examine experimentation on healthy subjects, specifically
prisoners, for the purpose of learning the effects of external irradiation
on the testes, such as might be experienced by astronauts in space. The
prisoner experiments were studied because they received significant public
attention and because a literally captive population was chosen to bear
risks to which no other group of experimental subjects had been exposed or
has been exposed since. This research took place during a period in which
the once commonly accepted practice of nontherapeutic experimen tation on
prisoners was increasingly subject to public criticism and moral outrage.
Chapter 10. Atomic Veterans: Human Experimentation in Connection with Bomb
Tests
Chapter 10 also explores research involving healthy subjects: human
experimentation conducted in connection with atomic bomb tests. More than
200,000 service personnel--now known as atomic veterans--participated at
atomic bomb test sites, mostly for training and test-management purposes. A
small number also were used as subjects of experimentation. The Committee
heard from many atomic veterans and their family members who were concerned
about both the long-term health effects of these exposures and the
government's conduct. In seeking to reconstruct the story of human
experimentation in connection with bomb tests, we found need and opportunity
to examine the meaning of human experimentation in an occupational setting
where risk is the norm.
Chapter 11. Intentional Releases: Lifting the Veil of Secrecy
In chapter 11 we address the thirteen intentional releases of radiation into
the environment specified in the Committee's charter, as well as additional
releases identified during the life of the Committee. In contrast with
biomedical experimentation, individu als and communities were not typically
the subject of study in these intentional releases. The secret releases were
to test intelligence equipment, the potential of radiological warfare, and
the mecha nism of the atomic bomb. While the risk posed by intentional
releases was relatively small, the releases often took place in secret and
remained secret for years.
Chapter 12. Observational Data Gathering
The final case study, in chapter 12, looks at two groups that were put at
risk by nuclear weapons development and testing programs and as a
consequence became the subjects of observa tional research: workers who
mined uranium for the Atomic Energy Commission in the western United States
from the 1940s to 1960s and residents of the Marshall Islands, whose Pacific
homeland was irradiated as a consequence of a hydrogen bomb test in 1954.
While these observational studies do not fit the classic definition of an
experiment, in which the investigator controls the variable under study (in
this case radiation exposure), they are instances of research involving
human subjects. The Committee elected to examine the experiences of the
uranium miners and the Marshallese because they raise important issues in
the ethics of human research not illustrated in the previous case studies
and because numerous public witnesses impressed on the Committee the
significance of the lessons to be learned from their histories.
Chapter 13. Secrecy, Human Radiation Experiments, and Intentional Releases
Part II concludes with an exploration of an important theme common to many
of the case studies--openness and secrecy in the government's conduct
concerning human radiation research and intentional releases. In chapter 13
we step back and look at what rules governed what the public was told about
the topics under the Committee's purview, whether these rules were publicly
known, and whether they were followed.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
Part III. Contemporary Projects
Chapter 14. Current Federal Policies Governing Human Subjects Research
Chapter 14 Reviews the current regulatory structure for human subjects
research conducted or supported by federal departments and agencies, a
structure that has been in place since 1991. This "Common Rule" has its
roots in the human subject protection regulations promulgated by DHEW in
1974. The historical developments behind these regulations are described in
chapter 3. Following a summary of the essential features of the Common Rule,
chapter 14 discusses several subjects of particular relevance to the
Advisory Committee's work, such as special review processes for ionizing
radiation research, protection for human subjects in classified research,
and audit procedures of institutions performing human subjects research.
Chapter 15. Research Proposal Review Project
Chapter 15 describes the Research Proposal Review Project (RPRP), the
Advisory Committee's examination of documents from research projects
conducted at institutions throughout the country, including both radiation
and nonradiation proposals. Documents utilized in the RPRP were those
available to the local institutional review boards (IRBs) at the
institutions where the research was conducted. The goals of the RPRP were to
gain an understanding of the ethics of radiation research as compared with
nonradiation research; how well research proposals address central ethical
considerations such as risk, voluntariness, and subject selection; and
whether informed consent procedures seem to be appropriate.
Chapter 16. Subject Interview Study
The RPRP discussed in chapter 15 reviewed documents prepared by
investigators and institutions and submitted in IRB applications. This study
was complemented by a nationwide effort to learn about research from the
perspective of patients themselves, including those who were and were not
research subjects. The Subject Interview Study (SIS), described in chapter
16, was conducted through interviews with nearly 1,900 patients throughout
the country. The SIS aimed to learn the perspectives of former, current, and
prospective research subjects by asking about their attitudes and beliefs
regarding the endeavor of human subject research generally and their
participation specifically.
Discussion of Part III
The RPRP tried to understand the experience of human subjects research from
the standpoint of the local oversight process, while the SIS tried to
understand it from the standpoint of the participant. Although the two
studies related to different research projects and different groups of
patients and subjects, some common tensions in the human research experience
emerge in both projects, and they are described in the "Discussion" section
of part III. For example, it has long been recognized that the physician who
engages in research with patient-subjects assumes two roles that could
conflict: that of the caregiver and that of the researcher. The goals
inherent in each role are different: direct benefit of the individual
patient in the first case and the acquisition of general medical knowledge
in the second case. The interviews with SIS participants suggest that at
least some patient-subjects are not aware of this distinction or of the
potential for conflict. In our review of documents in the RPRP we found that
the written information provided to potential patient-subjects sometimes
obscured, rather than highlighted, the differences between research and
medical care and thus likely contributed to the potential for patients to
confuse the two.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
Part IV. Coming to Terms with the Past, Looking Ahead to the Future: Finding
s and Recommendations
Chapter 17. Findings
In chapter 17, our findings are presented in two parts, first for the period
1944 through 1974 and then for the contemporary period. These parts, in
turn, are divided into findings regarding biomedical experiments and those
regarding population exposures.
We begin our presentation of findings for the period 1944 through 1974 with
a summation of what we have learned about human radiation experiments: their
number and purpose, the likelihood that they produced harm, and how human
radiation experimentation contributed to advances in medicine. We then
summarize what we have found concerning the nature of federal rules and
policies governing research involving human subjects during this period, and
the implementation of these rules in the conduct of human radiation
experiments. Findings about the nature and implementation of federal rules
cover issues of consent, risk, the selection of subjects, and the role of
national security considerations.
Our findings about government rules are followed by a finding on the norms
and practices of physicians and other biomedical scientists for the use of
human subjects. We then turn to the Committee's finding on the evaluation of
past experiments, in which we summarize the moral framework adopted by the
Committee for this purpose. Next, we present our findings for experiments
conducted in conjunction with atmospheric atomic testing, inten tional
releases, and other population exposures. The remaining findings for the
historical period address issues of government secrecy and record keeping.
Our findings for the contemporary period summarize what we have learned
about the rules and practices that currently govern the conduct of radiation
research involving human subjects, as well as human research generally, and
about the status of government regulations regarding intentional releases.
Chapter 18. Recommendations
Chapter 18 presents the Committee's recommendations to the Human Radiation
Interagency Working Group and to the American people. The Committee's
inquiry focused on research conducted by the government to serve the public
good--the promotion and protection of national security and the advancement
of science and medicine. The pursuit of these ends--today, as well as
yesterday--inevitably means that some individuals are put at risk for the
benefit of the greater good. The past shows us that research can bear fruits
of incalculable value. Unfortunately, however, the government's conduct with
respect to some research performed in the past has left a legacy of
distrust. Actions must be taken to ensure that, in the future, the ends of
national security and the advancement of medicine will proceed only through
means that safeguard the dignity, health, and safety of the individuals and
groups who may be put at risk in the process.
Many of our recommendations are directed not to the past but toward the
future. The Committee calls for changes in the current federal system for
the protection of the rights and interests of human subjects. These include
changes in institutional review boards; in the interpretation of ethics
rules and policies; in the conduct of research involving military personnel
as subjects; in oversight, accountability, and sanctions for ethics
violations; and in compensation for research injuries. Unlike the 1944-1974
period, in which the Committee focused primarily on research that offered
subjects no prospect of medical benefit, our recommendations for the future
emphasize protections for patients who are subjects of therapeutic research,
as many of the contemporary issues involving research with human subjects
occur in this setting. We also call for the adoption of special protections
for the conduct of human research or environmental releases in secret,
protections that are not currently in place.
We realize, however, that regulations and policies are no guarantee of
ethical conduct. If the events of the past are not to be repeated, it is
essential that the research community come to increasingly value the ethics
of research involving human subjects as central to the scientific
enterprise. We harbor no illusions about the Pollyannaish quality of a
recommendation for professional education in research ethics; we call for
much more. We ask that the biomedical research community, together with the
government, cause a transformation in commitment to the ethics of human
research. We recognize and celebrate the progress that has occurred in the
past fifty years. We recognize and honor the commitment to research ethics
that currently exists among many biomedical scientists and many
institutional review boards. But more needs to be done. The scientists of
the future must have a clear understanding of their duties to human subjects
and a clear expectation that the leaders of their fields value good ethics
as much as they do good science. At stake is not only the well-being of
future subjects, but also, at least in part, the future of biomedical
science. To the extent that that future depends on public support, it
requires the public's trust. There can be no better guarantor of that trust
than the ethics of the research community.
Finally, our examination of the history of the past half century has helped
us understand that the revision of regulations that govern human research,
the creation of new oversight mechanisms, and even a scrupulous professional
ethics are necessary, but are not sufficient, means to needed reform. Of at
least equal import is the development of a more common understanding among
the public of research involving human subjects, its purposes, and its
limitations. Furthermore, if the conduct of the government and of the
professional community is to be improved, that conduct must be available for
scrutiny by the American people so that they can make more informed
decisions about the protection and promotion of their own health and that of
the members of their family. It is toward that end that we close our report
with recommendations for continued openness in government and in biomedical
research. It is also toward that end that this report is dedicated. Some of
what is regrettable about the past happened, at least in part, because we as
citizens let it happen. Let the lessons of history remind us all that the
best safeguard for the future is an informed and active citizenry.
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12 [radiation-survivors] The History Of Human Guinea Pigs In
Date: Sat, 22 Jun 2002 00:46:26 -0500 (CDT)
[ excerpt] http://www.thetalkingdrum.com/tus2.html
A Glowing Report On November 19,1996, the Secretary of Energy
announced that a $4.8 million settlement will be paid to the families
of 12 people injected with radioactive materials during the Cold
War period. The official "Report of the Advisory Committee on Human
Radiation Experiments" was published in JAMA. The committee found,
"serious deficiencies in the current system of protections for
human subjects...."
Unlucky charms. Beginning in 1949, the Quaker Oats company, the
National Institutes of Health, and the Atomic Energy Commission
fed minute doses of radioactive materials to boys at the Fernald
School for the mentally retarded in Waltham, Massachusetts via
breakfast cereal. The unwitting subjects were told that they were
joining a science club. The consent form sent to the boys' parents
made no mention of the radiation experiment. Tricks are for kids.
The Advisory Committee reserved its harshest criticism for those
cases in which physicians used patients without their consent as
subjects in research from which the patients could not possibly
benefit medically. These cases included a series of experiments in
which 18 patients, some but not all of whom were terminally ill,
were injected with plutonium at... the University of Chicago and
the University of California, San Francisco, as well as 2 experiments
in which seriously ill patients were injected with uranium, 6 at
the University of Rochester and 11 at Massachusetts General Hospital,
Boston.
Ebb Cabe, for example, a 53-year-old "colored male" who was
hospitalized following an auto accident but was other wise in good
health, was injected with plutonium. A lawyer for the plaintiffs
in ensuing suits said that the scientists, "had a code word for
plutonium in the medical records, so people couldn't figure out
that these people were injected."
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13 Nuclear power fraud man jailed
Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian |
Security manager to serve 18 months
Simon Bowers
Saturday June 22, 2002
The Guardian [http://www.guardian.co.uk]
A senior manager at a British security firm, which is now part of
the US conglomerate Tyco, was yesterday jailed for 18 months
after pleading guilty to an elaborate invoice fraud in the
mid-1990s. John Thoroughgood, former contracts manager at Modern
Integrated Systems, admitted receiving payments from suppliers in
exchange for allowing them to overcharge for supplying
closed-circuit television, electronic monitoring and intruder
systems to British nuclear power stations As a result, business
worth £2m-£3m is thought to have been lost.
The company was later acquired by ADT Fire & Security, a
subsidiary of ADT, where one-time Conservative party treasurer
Michael Ashcroft - now Lord Ashcroft - was chairman. In 1997, ADT
was sold to Tyco, with its chairman netting about $280m (£186m).
There is no suggestion that ADT or Tyco had any connection to the
fraud.
Lord Ashcroft's acquisition of MIS in the wake of a fraud scandal
follows a similar pattern to his attempts in 1999 to take control
of recruitment company Corporate Services Group, a firm which has
also been rocked by fraud allegations.
A long running serious fraud office investigation into CSG's
accounting practices led, in April this year, to three former
directors being charged with fraudulent trading between 1997 and
1998. The company's accounts for both years had to be restated.
Mr Thoroughgood, 38, fled to Antigua in 1998 where much of the
funds stolen from Chessington-based MIS are believed to have been
frittered away on a luxury items including Rolex and Cartier
watches, and on an unsuccessful hotel investment project.
Later that year, he returned to Britain, with much of the money
spent. He admitted to the serious fraud office that he had
received £400,000 from his involvement in overcharging by MIS
suppliers between 1992 and 1996, though the true sum could have
been much higher.
Yesterday at Southwark crown court judge Jeffrey Rivlin told Mr
Thoroughgood: "You were responsible for, or in some way involved
in, processing and approving invoices ... And, in all, some 250
false invoices were provided for work at power stations."
The judged noted that Mr Thoroughgood "stood in the dock when it
might well be thought there should be others there with you".
As well as receiving payments from MIS suppliers, Mr Thoroughgood
also awarded a fencing contract to a firm that was clearly unable
to carry out the work. That firm, in turn, sub-contracted the job
to Paddock Ltd, a company owned by Mr Thoroughgood. The invoice
was inflated and, in some cases, the work was not carried out.
The overcharging came to light in 1996 when lawyers were asked to
investigate whether MIS was in a position to sue one of its
suppliers. Their inquiries led to Mr Thoroughgood, who admitted
his role in the fraud, but insisted others were the main
beneficiaries.
Useful links British Nuclear Fuels Ltd
[http://www.bnfl.co.uk/website.nsf/default.htm] Campaign for
Nuclear Disarmament [http://www.cnduk.org/] HSE nuclear glossary
[http://www.hse.gov.uk/nsd/ilrwglos.htm] UK atomic energy
authority [http://www.ukaea.org.uk/] National Radiological
Protection Board [http://www.nrpb.org.uk/] World Nuclear
Association [http://www.uilondon.org/]
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002
*****************************************************************
14 Trees may hold clues in Fallon cancer cluster
Researchers try to track down cause of leukemia cases
[fmullen@rgj.com]
RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL
6/21/2002 10:37 pm
[Paul Sheppard, a tree-ring expert from Arizona, drills a sample
from a tree Friday near the corner of Maine Street and Wildes
Road in Fallon, in the search for a cause of Fallon's leukemia
cluster. - Marilyn Newton/RGJ]
Marilyn Newton/RGJ
Paul Sheppard, a tree-ring expert from Arizona, drills a sample
from a tree Friday near the corner of Maine Street and Wildes
Road in Fallon, in the search for a cause of Fallon's leukemia
cluster.
FALLON — Independent researchers Friday took core samples from
trees around Fallon that may help trace the cause of the town’s
leukemia cluster of 15 children, two of whom have died.
The scientists from the University of Arizona also have taken
samples from trees in Sierra Vista, Ariz., where seven children
have been diagnosed with leukemia. Both towns have military air
fields and jet fuel is a suspected cause of both clusters.
“Jet fuel is one possible cause and we’ll be looking for that in
the samples as well as other long-chain hydrocarbons and trace
metals,” said Mark Witten, a professor of pediatrics at UA and a
national expert on JP-8 jet fuel, which is used at both military
bases.
It’s the first time scientists have tried to isolate pollutants
from tree rings to attempt to determine the cause of a cancer
cluster. They will attempt to build an environmental profile of
both communities from traces left in the tree rings.
“Fallon and Sierra Vista share four main similarities,” Witten
said. “They are both in deserts, they both have military bases,
they have unmanned air vehicles being used on site, and they are
both in historic mining districts.”
JP-8 fuel has been used at Fallon Naval Air Station, the home of
the Top Gun fighter jet school, since 1993. About 34 million
gallons of fuel travel to the base each year through a 63-mile
underground pipeline that runs from Sparks and through the center
of Fallon to the base.
Most of the families of the leukemia patients live within
one-third mile of the pipeline, but state and federal authorities
last month concluded the 45-year-old steel line “does not pose a
current or future public health hazard.”
“We pretty much put the pipeline to rest,” Randall Todd, Nevada
state epidemiologist, said when the report was released by the
federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.
But federal officials based their conclusions that the pipeline
hasn’t leaked on information provided by Kinder Morgan LLC, the
owners of the line. The firm has said that there’s no way the
pipeline can be related to any public health problems.
Other than flying over and walking along the pipeline route,
neither state nor federal researchers have done any soil testing
along the route, underground surveys or tests of the line.
Critics have called the health officials’ efforts a superficial
review of easily-available data that didn’t really examine the
past or present integrity of the pipeline. When the report was
released, one parent of a leukemia patient said the government
investigation resulted in a “whitewash.”
But Witten said he doesn’t fault other investigators and that his
research doesn’t conflict with what government health agencies
are doing. He said he’s interested in looking at the tree-rings
and lake sediments to see what has changed in Fallon and Sierra
Vista in the last four decades.
He said his team will share data with the state and federal
investigators and the patient families. Although he said he hopes
to secure federal funding for the project, he is so far paying
expenses himself and other experts are donating time and
expertise.
“If there were huge amounts of jet fuel or anything else in the
water, then this thing might have been solved a year ago,” Witten
said. But tests by the U.S. Geological Survey haven’t detected
any man-made poisons in Fallon’s drinking water wells.
“So what we are doing is looking for subtle changes,” Witten
said.
On Friday, Paul Sheppard, a tree ring scientist at UA, removed
core samples from several trees around Fallon. Those samples will
be analyzed, Witten said, and any trace of metals or complex
hydrocarbons will be noted.
Leukemia cells in a laboratory would then be exposed to whatever
substances may be found in the samples. The team would then use a
device called a gene micro ray to look for changes in genetic
patterns in the cells.
“No one has ever tried to do this in this way, so we are in
unknown territory now,” Witten said.
Sheppard removed core samples from trees in Fallon, including
trees near irrigation ditches, a 40-year-old cottonwood on a road
next to Fallon NAS, and a tree in the front yard of one of the
leukemia patients, Dustin Gross, 6.
“I’m up for any research that can be done, the more research the
better,” said Brenda Gross, Dustin’s mother. Her son was
diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia in 1997. He has
completed his treatment and is now free of cancer.
“What Dr. Witten is doing sounds practical and logical,” Brenda
Gross said. “I appreciate him taking the time to do this research
on his own.”
© Copyright Reno Gazette-Journal, a [http://www.gannett.com]
*****************************************************************
15 Potassium iodide Q scheduled
Orange County Register - Local
June 22, 2002
News reports about a plan to distribute potassium iodide tablets
to people living near nuclear power plants have spurred so many
calls to San Clemente officials that City Hall and San Clemente
Hospital have decided to set up a community forum.
The discussion will be at 6 p.m. Wednesday in the Triton Center
at San Clemente High School, 700 Avenida Pico. Residents can
question officials from the city, San Clemente Hospital and San
Onofre Nuclear Generating Station about potassium iodide and
disaster preparedness.
State officials meet Friday in Sacramento to hammer out details
on distribution of the federally provided tablets, which can
combat thyroid problems that can result from radiation exposure.
- Fred Swegles
(949) 492-5127
[http://www.freedom.com] The Orange County Register
*****************************************************************
16 [toeslist] S.C. Troopers to Watch for Plutonium
Date: Sat, 22 Jun 2002 11:37:29 -0500 (CDT)
S.C. Troopers to Watch for Plutonium
Fri Jun 14, 5:58 PM ET
By JACOB JORDAN, Associated Press Writer
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - Gov. Jim Hodges ordered state troopers and
other authorities to South Carolina's borders Friday to stop
federal shipments of plutonium that could begin arriving from
Colorado as early as this weekend.
"I order that the transportation of plutonium on South Carolina
roads and highways is prohibited," Hodges said. "I order that any
persons transporting plutonium shall not enter the state of South
Carolina."
Hodges, who has vehemently opposed the shipments, read a
statement declaring a state of emergency but refused to answer
any questions about specific plans for roadblocks or other
barricades at South Carolina's Savannah River Site, a nuclear
weapons complex near Aiken.
On Thursday, a federal judge refused to block the shipments of
weapons-grade plutonium. Hodges appealed the ruling and asked for
a delay until the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ( news - web
sites) could hear the case.
The Energy Department plans to move the material from the Rocky
Flats weapons installation in Colorado, which is being cleaned up
and closed, to the Savannah River Site, where the material would
be converted into nuclear reactor fuel over the next two decades.
But Hodges has said he fears the government will end up leaving
the plutonium permanently in South Carolina, making the state a
tempting target for terrorists.
"The Department of Energy ( news - web sites) has broken
promises, offered no assurances and left few options. Once
plutonium arrives, it will never leave," Hodges said. "They want
South Carolina to quietly become the nation's plutonium dumping
ground."
The shipments legally could begin as early as this weekend, but
U.S. Attorney Strom Thurmond Jr. said Energy Department officials
told him they would not start until after June 22.
A message left for an Energy Department spokesman was not
immediately returned Friday afternoon.
Vice President Dick Cheney ( news - web sites), in South Carolina
on Friday for a fund-raiser, said the fuel-conversion program is
important to ensure that plutonium "never falls into the wrong
hands."
"This administration is totally committed to helping pass
legislation to guarantee that South Carolina does not become a
permanent storage site for plutonium," Cheney said.
Hodges, a Democrat who is up for re-election in the fall, has
threatened for weeks to use troopers to block roads into the
Savannah River Site and has vowed to lie in the road if necessary
to stop the trucks.
Sid Gaulden, a spokesman for the Department of Public Safety,
said traffic would still flow along the state's roads. He
acknowledged the department does not have enough resources to
close every entry point to the state.
About 6 tons of plutonium are to be shipped from Colorado.
Federal officials have said the nuclear material would be under
constant guard, and its path and time of arrival would be kept
secret. They also say security at the Savannah River site is
sound.
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17 (en) Australia, Beverley Uranium Mine issued Eviction Notice
Date: Sat, 22 Jun 2002 12:04:33 -0500 (CDT)
________________________________________________ A - I N F O S N
E W S S E R V I C E http://www.ainfos.ca/
________________________________________________
Beverley Uranium Mine issued Eviction Notice by Our Sacred Country
oursacredcountry@yahoo.com.au
Inspired by the sacred walk for peace from Lake Eyre to Sydney
during the 2000 olympics, supporters of the Adnyamathanha people,
accompanied by members of the Adnyamathanha community, are leaving
to walk from Mt. Sterle in the Gammon Ranges National Park to the
gates of the Beverley uranium mine in northern South Australia. A
sacred ceremonial fire, started by two of the senior Adnyamathanha
elders will be carried all the way, along with an eviction notice
addressed to the operators of the Beverley mine, Heathgate Resources.
A company that is 100% owned by the US nuclear giant, General
Atomics.
The purpose of the walk is to walk into country, and to walk country
with respect, coming in the right way. Along with the blessings
from the elders of the Adnyamathanha community, they will walk with
the old spirits of the land; walk to heal and bless the land. The
ceremonial fire will be carried right to the gates of Beverley for
the purpose of a healing cermony, as the mine is built directly on
a site of great spiritual significant to the Adnyamathanha people?s
dreaming.
Since trial operations at Beverley began in 1998 there have been
twenty five reported spills of radioactive material, most of which
were kept secret from the public. The largest spill occurred in
January of this year, when over 62,000 litres of radioactive
extraction fluid burst from a supply pipe containing around 8
kilograms of Uranium. Heathgate Resources claimed that this ?had
no impact on the environment? and maintain that there is ?no legacy
of leaks in terms of environmental or human damage?.
The Adnyamathanha people and friends believe that these continued
leaks, surface contamination, direct discharge to groundwater, and
constant desecration of Adnyamathanha land is unacceptable and must
end. Today, the 14th of June 2002, Heathgate Resources received a
final eviction, notifying them to cease operations at the Beverley
Uranium mine and leave Adnyamanthanha country within 28 DAYS. The
eviction of Heathgate resources has been issued as a result of
extensive environmental, cultural, and spiritual degradation.
All mining operations are to terminate and the mine site is to be
closed by 12pm on Friday, the 12th of July, 2002. Immediately
following closure, land rehabilitation, environmental site cleanup,
and the containment of radioactive material and waste is required.
The Adnyamathanha people and friends have also sent an eviction
notice to Southern Cross Resources (as of 14th June 2002) to cease
the further exploration and development of full mining operations
at Honeymoon uranium site.
If Heathgate Resources and Southern Cross Resources have not
responded after 28 days, there will be a call for supporters to
converge at Beverley and Honeymoon Uranium mines to commence
non-violent direct action blockades.
For further information please contact oursacredcountry@yahoo.com.au
******* ******** ****** The A-Infos News Service ****** News about
and of interest to anarchists ****** COMMANDS: lists@ainfos.ca
REPLIES: a-infos-d@ainfos.ca HELP: a-infos-org@ainfos.ca WWW:
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*****************************************************************
18 Re: Plutonium: South Carolina Govenor Declares State Of
Date: Sat, 22 Jun 2002 11:07:01 -0500 (CDT)
The following website has been on top of these issues for almost
a year and a half:
http://unemployment_crisis.tripod.com/HMOS_WeRphucked.html
"Mark Graffis" wrote in message
news:...
Larry Morningstar mana8@earthlink.net
South Carolina Executive Order 2002-14
Friday evening (June 14, 2002, hour unspecified) the Governor of
the U.S.
state South Carolina declared the state of emergency, and ordered
State troopers to prevent plutonium transports to enter the state
borders.
This piece of news has been suppressed and NOT REPORTED by any U.S.
media on Friday when it happened.
Only Canadian television CBC has reported it shortly after 21 hs
(California time), and only once, after that the news disappeared
from their newscast (and website).
Today, June 15, only CNN from all of U.S. media or press reports
it at 7:08 A.M. No other American news outlet reports this event
which, at least potentially, may even escalate into civil war.
Federal authorities (i.e. the United States government, Washington,
the President), ignoring South Carolina's plea NOT TO SEND PLUTUNIUM
TO SOUTH CAROLINA FOR STORAGE (Endlagerung), sent off trucks loaded
with plutonium which will reach the South Carolina border this
weekend.
CNN, as opposed to Canadian CBC, uses (an emergency), instead of
(state emergency), and (police), instead of (state troopers), in
an obvious attempt to play down the event and "not to cause panick".
*****************************************************************
19 Petition to Stop Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Dump
Date: Sat, 22 Jun 2002 11:36:13 -0500 (CDT)
[All ads are inserted by Topica without our consent. Ignore them.]
===
Friends,
Please forgive me if I sent this to you before, but it's so important to
ALL of us that I want to make sure everyone gets a chance to sign - to keep
nuclear waste from traveling all across the country through OUR
towns/cities/neighborhoods, and from being placed inside Yucca Mountain -
in an earthquake zone - they just had an earthquake there last
week.......it's insanity.
Please sign the petition and also tell your congressional reps. that it is
unacceptable to take a chance on the inevitable nuclear accident(s) that
would occur with transportation of this lethal material on trains/trucks
across the US.
Thanks,
Terry
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Dear Friends,
I have just read and signed the petition:
No Nuclear Waste at Yucca Mountain
Please help by signing this petition. It takes 30 seconds and will really
help. Please follow this link:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/816340159
The system centralizes signature collection to provide consolidated, useful
reports for petition authors and targets.
Please forward this email to others you believe share your concern.
Thank you!
Terry A. Benioff
(TABtrans@megapathdsl.net)
Total Signatures: 7,388
The most recent signatures* as of 12:34 AM PDT Jun 16, 2002
# 7,388 6/16/02 12:34 AM Terry A. Benioff, CA, US
# 7,387 6/15/02 11:31 PM Phillip Morrison, UT, US
# 7,386 6/15/02 11:02 PM Mohammad Islam, CA, BD
# 7,385 6/15/02 10:41 PM Jaime Kutcher, IA, US
# 7,384 6/15/02 10:26 PM Paul Jacobson, CA, US
# 7,383 6/15/02 10:09 PM Anonymous, CT, US
# 7,382 6/15/02 10:00 PM Pei-hsuan Wu, CA, US
# 7,381 6/15/02 10:00 PM Ember Muskii, AU
# 7,380 6/15/02 9:57 PM Joe Smysor, KS, US
# 7,379 6/15/02 9:44 PM LORIE P, AZ, US
# 7,378 6/15/02 9:42 PM Anonymous, IA, US
# 7,377 6/15/02 9:41 PM Jim Yobp, CO, US
# 7,376 6/15/02 8:45 PM Jennifer McBroom, CA, US
# 7,375 6/15/02 8:43 PM Lisa Kamphuis, IA, US
# 7,374 6/15/02 8:32 PM Anonymous, CT, US
# 7,373 6/15/02 8:26 PM Gil Seeber, IL, US
# 7,372 6/15/02 8:25 PM Jillian Robbins, CT, US
# 7,371 6/15/02 8:23 PM Anonymous, IA, US
# 7,370 6/15/02 8:17 PM Sharon Dungan, RI, US
# 7,369 6/15/02 7:13 PM Anonymous, VT, US
# 7,368 6/15/02 6:19 PM Anonymous, KS, US
# 7,367 6/15/02 5:59 PM Sue Derx, TX, US
# 7,366 6/15/02 5:58 PM Florence O'Brien, WA, US
# 7,365 6/15/02 5:45 PM Mitzi Kraft, NM, US
# 7,364 6/15/02 5:33 PM Rosie Rodriguez, CA, US
# 7,363 6/15/02 5:27 PM Joline Moore, WI, US
To add your name you MUST use the PetitionSite.com web form located here:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/816340159
*Signers may choose to hide their identity to the public. Such names will
appear as "Anonymous" on the PetitionSite.com and advocacy emails similar
to this. (The signature number above may not match the number assigned to
your signature on the first page of the petition.) To view additional
petitions, please click here:
http://www.thePetitionSite.com
---
________________________________________________
Let me give you a word on the philosophy of reform. The whole history of
the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her
august claims have been born of earnest struggle. Find out just what people
will submit to, and you have found the exact amount of injustice and wrong
which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are
resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants
are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. -- Frederick
Douglass
Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry
into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It
both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums
of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the
mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the
citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by
patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly
so. How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar. Julius
Caesar
_____________________________________________________________________________
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20 CSP planning safety checks on shipments
The Daily Camera: State/west
By Associated Press
June 22, 2002
DENVER — The Colorado State Patrol will be examining the trucks
and checking drivers before any plutonium shipments leave Rocky
Flats for South Carolina, said Capt. Tom Wilcoxen.
"We are out there every day already doing point-of-origin
inspections," Wilcoxen said Friday. Shipments of nuclear waste
from Rocky Flats have been going to New Mexico for several years,
though not necessarily weapons-grade plutonium.
"A month ago they completed their 500th shipment without an
incident," said Wilcoxen. The patrol does not provide escorts. He
said there are hazardous waste shipments on highways every day.
The Department of Energy wants to convert more than 37 tons of
plutonium into mixed-oxide fuel at the Savannah River Site in
South Carolina. The state's governor, Jim Hodges, had threatened
to block the shipments.
He dropped that threat after federal courts agreed to speed up a
hearing on his request for an order blocking them. But the
courts said the shipments could begin in the meantime. —
Associated Press
the Daily Camera
[http://www.scripps.com] Copyright 2002, The Daily Camera
*****************************************************************
21 Senate rebuffs second Yucca vote attempt
[online@rgj.com]
RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL
6/21/2002 12:19 am
WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats said they do not want to interrupt
work on a military spending bill and beat back an attempt by
Republicans to bring up a vote on Yucca Mountain on Thursday.
‘‘Senate Republicans have demonstrated how misguided their
priorities are by making another attempt to ram through a bill
catering to power companies — and do so while the Senate is
considering a Department of Defense authorization bill,’’ said
Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., in a statement.
Under the law calling for the establishment of a nuclear waste
site, any senator can bring up the Yucca Mountain bill for a vote
— an exceptional circumstance since the Senate majority leader
controls which bills get considered.
An aide to Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alas., said he was not trying
to bring up Yucca Mountain for a vote on the Senate floor but
force Daschle to schedule a specific date for the showdown.
Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, had considered trying to bring the
issue up for a vote earlier this week but pulled back.
‘‘I sincerely hope that the two leaders can find a mutually
agreeable time before the July recess for us to take up this
important resolution,’’ Murkowski said in a statement.
‘‘Should an agreement not be reached, we will be forced to use
the procedures outlined in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act to bring
this resolution to the floor.’’
But Democrats chastised Republicans for trying to delay the
military-spending bill in order to debate Yucca Mountain.
‘‘We’re talking about giving our men and women in the military
additional resources to fight the war on terror — to make this
country secure,’’ said Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev. ‘‘To even think
that we would set this aside for (Yucca Mountain) is, to me,
distasteful.’’
Many expect the Senate to vote on Yucca Mountain next month.
© Copyright Reno Gazette-Journal, a [http://www.gannett.com]
*****************************************************************
22 Are you worried about the safety of bringing nuclear waste
(poll expired Mon Jun 24, 2002)*
through Lawrence on the proposed route to a dump site in Nevada?
Yes. bar 51% 1911 votes
No. bar 46% 1742 votes
Undecided. bar 3% 123 votes
*3776 total votes*
*Note:* This is not a scientific poll. The results reflect only
the opinions of those who chose to participate. *Past polls:*
Should Kansas University be allowed to demolish the three homes
on Ohio Street to make way for new student housing?
Copyright © 2002, the Lawrence Journal-World.
All rights
reserved.
*****************************************************************
23 Nuke waste shipments to Nevada too perilous
In a recent editorial supporting the shipping and storing of
nuclear waste in Nevada's Yucca Mountain ("Shipping nuclear
waste," June 5), the News reasoned that if Colorado wants Rocky
Flats plutonium shipped out to storage in South Carolina, then
we're in no position to object to radioactive waste being
shipped through Colorado on it's way to Nevada.
With Rocky Flats, we're talking about six tons of plutonium. But
Yucca Mountain involves transporting more than 75,000 tons of
dangerous nuclear waste through Colorado over the next 24 years!
The News' editorial dismisses concerns about transportation
routes, but the fact is the U.S. Senate will vote on the Yucca
Mountain plan before the transportation routes are finalized. No
wonder Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate Tom Strickland and
Republican Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell oppose the plan.
The real question is why the News and Sen. Wayne Allard are so
gung ho on a plan that would have toxic waste traveling
Colorado's roadways for the next quarter century?
Elizabeth Burnham
Denver
Fixing Denver's leaky water system a priority
Rocky Mountain News: Opinion
Letters to the Editor, June 22
June 22, 2002
Is this a cruel hoax the Denver Water Board is playing on the
populace? All the hype and stories from the media and local
government stress the significance and consequences of wasting
water. Rightfully so!
Should the City and County of Denver be exempt from the
guidelines stressed by the advice on how to conserve water? I
refuse to believe that this is a "do as I say, not do as I do"
scenario!
KMGH-Channel 7 reported that Denver alone wastes a staggering 5
million gallons of water daily! Their excuse: A 100-year-old
antiquated leaking aqueduct water supply system. My challenge to
the water board: Fix it, because it's broke!
They will ask: Where will the money come from? They would do
better to ask: What will we do if we deplete our water supply?
We are all aware that water is our lifeline, and this blatant
disregard for our future must be addressed! Woe be to the
unfortunate citizen who waters on the wrong day or whose
sprinkler system directs water in a wasteful manner. He will be
fined and admonished.
An recent newspaper article stated that a goal of the Denver
Water Board is to save 29,000 acre feet of water annually by the
year 2050.
Let's do the arithmetic:
A acre foot of water is 326,000 gallons. Denver wastes 5 million
gallons or 15.337 acre feet daily. To achieve the goal of 29,000
acre feet annually, we must conserve 79.45 acre feet daily. If
Denver Water board will shore up the daily leak of 15.337 acre
feet of water, they will achieve their objective in only 5.18
days!
Wake up, Colorado!
Donald J. Foster
Parker
ACLU offered refresher course on terrorism
The ACLU has recently admonished the U.S. government for its
efforts to catch or at least identify the terrorist fanatics
intent on killing us, i.e., profiling. The ACLU certainly must
have a short memory:
1972 -- Munich Olympics, Israeli athletes kidnapped and
murdered.
1979 -- U.S. Embassy in Iran taken over.
1980 -- Americans kidnapped in Lebanon.
1983 -- U.S. Marines barracks in Beirut blown up.
1985 -- Cruise ship Achille Lauro hikjacked.
1985 -- TWA Flight 847 hijacked in Athens.
1988 -- Pan Am Flight 103 bombed.
1993 -- World Trade center bombed.
1998 -- U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania bombed.
2001 -- Four airliners hijacked and destroyed and thousands of
people murdered.
2002 -- U.S fights war in Afghanistan.
2002 -- Reporter Daniel Pearl kidnapped and murdered.
The suspects in all of these events are: Muslim male extremists
mostly between the ages of 17-40.
Any patterns here to justify profiling?
Not according to the ACLU!
M.J. Fogarty
Denver
Estate tax should be repealed -- it's immoral
In his letter of June 12, Rocky Mountain News reader Frank Lloyd
Kramer urged that the estate tax be reformed rather than
repealed.
The estate tax should be repealed, simply because it is immoral.
There is no ethical difference between raiding someone's estate
for tax money and raiding their cemetery plot for their gold
teeth or an Indian burial ground for the pottery. And when
government manages to find enough money to give a 70 percent
increase in subsidies to agribusiness, cries that more money is
needed for things like health care ring awfully hollow.
Kramer cited Warren Buffet and Bill Gates as examples of
super-rich people who oppose the repeal of this tax. They have
the right to volunteer as much of their own wealth to government
as they want, but they have no right to volunteer someone
else's. And if they want the bulk of their estates to go to
government, they don't need the estate tax to do it. All they
need to do is include an item to that effect in their wills. It
would be easy for them to do, nobody will stop them and
government will accept it.
Dave Olson
Westminster
Winning over immigrants
I read the letters to the editor every day in the News and I
just want to say that I really appreciate the June 11 letter
from Gabriel Millan, "Massive immigration not a blight on
America."
What many people don't understand (and Rep. Tom Tancredo
obviously does, but doesn't admit) is exactly what Millan
stated: Thousands of migrant workers, legal or not, pay billions
of dollars in taxes and never claim them! That is why the better
part of our government is reluctant to punish them, but rather,
like President Bush, is trying to help them become legal, and of
course, win them over to their party.
If Bush can achieve this, I'm switching parties!
Jesse J. Ortega
Aurora
Tighten our borders
Diane Padilla Gutierrez ("Indigenous, not alien," June 14),
seems to be missing the point. Illegal aliens are not Native
Americans or even Americans for that matter. They are in this
country illegally and should be deported immediately.
In light of Sept. 11, we should tighten our borders. I also feel
it's important for aliens to learn and speak English, specially
in the workplace. It's a slap in the face to me, being an
American, when they don't.
P. Staeck
Denver
Gangsters R U.S.?
Don Giorgio Bush has ordered a hit on Saddam Hussein, after
having gone to the mattresses against the Taliban. When did the
United States government become Murder Inc.?
Mike Phalen
Denver
Fireworks ban, media and society chided in wake of ongoing fire
peril
It's time for Gov. Bill Owens to extend the statewide ban on
fireworks to include professional displays. Given the prospect
of more charred landscapes, smoke-filled skies, loss of homes
and lives, and erosion-clogged waterways, it is simply not worth
the risk for an evening of revelry.
I don't think I could fully enjoy any fireworks display this
year. It sends a message that extreme risks are acceptable if
managed responsibly. Too many people will be tempted to believe
that, since they are responsible as individuals, they are
competent as well to control the risks of their own fireworks or
campfires (notwithstanding the bans).
I simply do not trust the professionals on this one. The
responsible thing to do is to send the message that taking
extreme risks is unacceptable -- period.
Peter Wessel
Denver
I am so concerned and disappointed that all of the media have
been trumpeting that a Forest Service worker "intentionally" set
the horrible Hayman Fire.
Was it her intention, when she burned her personal mail, to set
the surrounding forest on fire? Or, was she -- in an emotional
state -- illegally burning papers in a fire pit and the fire
simply got out of control?
While what Terry Barton did was completely irresponsible -- and
the consequences too horrible to contemplate -- it is my
understanding from all that I have read and heard that she did
not set fire to her personal mail with the intention of starting
a forest fire.
I believe there is a huge difference!
The consequences of her accidental action have affected our
state irreparably, and Barton will have to live with this
carelessness all of her life.
But to brand her as "intentionally" starting a fire does a grave
injustice to an already tragic circumstance -- if, in fact, her
action was unintentional.
A.D. Donaldson
Centennial
It suddenly came to me a couple of days ago -- as I was thinking
about the drought conditions and the resulting fires in our
beautiful state -- that we are just not connecting the dots.
God says in 2 Chronicles, "At times I might shut up the heavens
so that no rain falls" but "If my people who are called by my
name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn
from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and forgive
their sins and heal their land."
Surveys indicate many profess to be believers. We do not think
of ourselves as "wicked," but how many of us truly "love our
neighbor as ourselves"? How many participate in dishonest
business practices, make a mockery of their marriage vows,
promote death instead of valuing life in both the aged and the
unborn, consider anything other than their own needs?
In Jeremiah, God says, "Do what is right, or my anger will burn
like an unquenchable fire because of all your sins. Do not say
'We are safe on our mountain! No one can touch us here.' I
myself will punish you for your sinfulness, says the Lord. I
will light a fire in your forests that will burn up everything
around you."
I think God is sending us a wake-up call. My hope and prayer is
that we would search our hearts and seek God's perspective.
Kaye Nock
Greenwood Village
ARCHIVES PHOTO REPRINTS FAQ 2002 © The E.W. Scripps Co.
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24 [generalnews] Tenn. Protesters Found Guilty
Date: Sat, 22 Jun 2002 12:20:53 -0500 (CDT)
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Tenn. Protesters Found Guilty
By ELIZABETH A. DAVIS
Associated Press Writer
June 20, 2002, 2:32 PM EDT
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- A federal jury Thursday convicted a Roman
Catholic nun and two other protesters of trespassing at the Oak Ridge
nuclear weapons plant during a "stop the bombs" demonstration.
Elizabeth Ann Lentsch, who is known as Sister Mary Dennis, 65; Mary
Elinor Adams, 61; and Timothy Joseph Mellon, 46, were arrested April
14 and charged with federal trespassing violations.
The three had climbed over a metal barricade blocking an entrance at
the Department of Energy site known as Y-12 about 20 miles west of
Knoxville.
Sentencing was scheduled for Sept. 20. The maximum penalty is a year
in prison and $100,000 fine.
The defendants and their attorneys declined to comment. The trial
began Tuesday.
"Stop the bombs" demonstrations are staged each April and August in
Oak Ridge, the city that produced the nuclear bomb dropped on
Hiroshima in World War II. Previous protesters have been charged in
city courts and fined $50. Federal officials have not said why they
chose to prosecute.
The protesters had hoped the case would allow them to speak out
against the production of nuclear weapons and to claim the work at Y-
12 violates international law and the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty
the United States signed in 1970. A judge barred the arguments last
week.
A fourth protester who was arrested in April pleaded guilty and is
awaiting sentencing.
Copyright ) 2002, The Associated Press
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25 Perils of Bush's Nuclear Policy
Date: Sat, 22 Jun 2002 11:30:14 -0500 (CDT)
[All ads are inserted by Topica without our consent. Ignore them.]
Perils of Bush's Nuclear Policy
William D. Hartung, AlterNet
June 13, 2002
In the annals of the nuclear age, this week is historic for two reasons.
June 12 was the twentieth anniversary of the million-person disarmament
march in New York's Central Park. The march helped turn the tide in an era
of perpetual, spiraling arms race, creating the impetus for major
reductions in nuclear weapons.
The next day, June 13, marked the official US withdrawal from the
Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty.
The two events have sparked contradictory responses.
On Wednesday in Washington, the Heritage Foundation hosted a "celebration"
of the imminent demise of the ABM Treaty featuring John Bolton, the Bush
administration's virulently anti-arms control Undersecretary of State for
Arms Control and International Security Affairs.
Later that day in Manhattan, Peace Action and the Nation magazine sponsored
a rally to commemorate the 1982 Central Park disarmament demonstration and
to promote an "Urgent Call" for verifiable nuclear arms reductions.
The convergence of these historic events and the ongoing conflict between
the nuclear-armed states of India and Pakistan raises an obvious question:
are we on the right track to reduce nuclear dangers in the decades to come,
or are we on the verge of a new global arms race?
We already know President George W. Bush's answer.
Bush recently touted the loophole-laden new strategic arms agreement with
Russia as a historic step that will "liquidate the legacy of the Cold War."
Administration officials argue that the Pentagon's new freedom to pursue a
multi-tiered missile defense system will protect Americans from
nuclear-armed ballistic missiles, whether launched by a rogue-state or
accidentally by an established nuclear-weapon state. These new-age nuclear
conservatives also insist that the Bush White House is carrying on the
unfinished legacy of Ronald Reagan, who called for an ambitious missile
defense shield and deep nuclear reductions.
Unfortunately, these comforting views of the administration's nuclear
policy are a gross distortion of recent history and current realities.
It's true that Ronald Reagan rode into Washington like the ultimate nuclear
cowboy, joking that "the bombing will start in five minutes." But by his
second term, it was clear that he was committed to the abolition of nuclear
weapons. Indeed, if he wasn't so taken with the notion of an impenetrable
missile shield, Reagan might have overruled his top aides and agreed to a
plan presented by Mikhail Gorbachev at the 1986 Reykjavik summit to
eliminate all US and Soviet nuclear weapons.
As it was, Reagan negotiated two major arms reduction accords, the
Intermediate Nuclear Forces agreement and the first Strategic Arms
Reduction Treaty, and he endlessly reminded Gorbachev that when it comes to
arms reductions, nations must "trust but verify."
In stark contrast to Reagan's record of supporting verifiable arms
reductions -- which was clearly shaped by a vibrant anti-nuclear movement
and the historic changes in Moscow -- the Bush administration is committed
to a policy of nuclear unilateralism disguised as arms control.
Even after 10 years, last month's Bush-Putin accord will leave both sides
with massive nuclear overkill capability arsenals in the range of 1,700 to
2,200 deployed nuclear warheads each. More critically, the new agreement
doesn't require either side to destroy the weapons removed from active
deployment, leaving the fate of thousands of strategic and tactical nuclear
weapons unresolved.
Worst of all, the new US nuclear posture review emphasizes developing
"usable" lower-yield weapons and expanding the number of scenarios under
which we might use or threaten to use nuclear arms. This is a clear
endorsement of the idea that these ultimate terror weapons have legitimate
uses -- a dangerously hypocritical stance to adopt at a time when the White
House is trying to convince other countries to forego or cut nuclear
arsenals to reduce chances that they might end up in the hands of terrorists.
If President Bush truly wants to fulfill Ronald Reagan's legacy, he should
agree to the prompt destruction of the thousands of nuclear weapons taken
out of deployment under the Bush-Putin accord. He should also move quickly
to broker a deal to destroy all tactical nuclear weapons on both sides, and
to revive plans to cap the nuclear arsenals of states like Iraq and North
Korea through verifiable diplomatic initiatives, rather than scattershot
military threats.
That would be a nuclear policy worth bragging about.
William D. Hartung is a Senior Research Fellow at the World Policy
Institute and the author of "About Face," an analysis of the Bush
administration's nuclear policy. This article originally appeared in
GlobalBeat.org.
Reproduction of material from any AlterNet.org pages without written
permission is strictly prohibited.
2002 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
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26 A Dragon Out of Puff; 'No Banana Republic Here'; US Tosses ABM,
Date: Sat, 22 Jun 2002 11:30:34 -0500 (CDT)
[All ads are inserted by Topica without our consent. Ignore them.]
IN THIS MESSAGE:
* A Dragon Out of Puff
* New Afghan Prez: 'No Banana Republic Here'
* US Tosses ABM, Russia Drops START II Curbs
* Pressure on Musharraf Mounts with Growing Anti-West Sentiment
* JPS Coverage: Japanese Movement Against War
--------------------------------------------------
SURVEY: CHINA
A dragon out of puff
Jun 13th 2002
From The Economist print edition
With WTO membership under its belt, and a new leadership ready to take over
later this year, China would seem well placed to tackle vital reforms. But
expect a long wait, says James Miles
IF THE ebb and flow of China's recent history is any guide, the country is
due for a period of momentous change. Every decade or so since the
communists came to power in 1949 has seen a juddering shift of gearthe
famine-inducing Great Leap Forward, the violent factional strife of the
Cultural Revolution, the start of economic reforms and the nationwide
anti-government demonstrations of 1989. And already two signposts to the
next milestone have come into view.
The first was the country's accession to the World Trade Organisation (WTO)
last December, after a 15-year quest. In theory this should not only
provide the world with unprecedented access to China's markets, it should
also bind China's economic reforms with the norms of international
business. Optimists say it could eventually make China's secretive,
undemocratic and corrupt government more open and accountable. Pessimists
fear it could exacerbate unemployment and financial instability and hasten
the collapse of the Communist Party.
The second is a quinquennial party congress due late in 2002 (with no date
set yet) which will launch a series of leadership changes. These could be
the most wide-ranging of the past two decades and open the way to a
transfer of power to a younger, perhaps politically more open-minded,
generation. It is equally possible, though, that the new leadership might
try to shore up its legitimacy by beating the drum of nationalism and
thereby push China into confrontation with Taiwan, the United States and
Japan. Rarely in recent years have there been such divergent views on where
the country is heading.
That China has entered a critical phase of its economic reforms is not in
doubt. But the hopes (or fears) raised by WTO accession and the prospect of
a new generation of leaders are probably misplaced. The way China is run is
unlikely to change as a consequence, at least not for several years. What
will change China in the nearer term is the handling of the final and most
arduous phase of its reform. The chances of failure are likely to rise as
Chinese leaders become absorbed in the fractious politics of succession.
And the consequence of failure could be the very upheaval that Chinese
leaders have struggled so hard to avoid since the convulsion of 1989.
The terms of China's accession to the WTO are more far-reaching than those
set for any other new member of the trading organisation or its
predecessor, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. They require China
to open hitherto jealously guarded markets, such as banking, insurance,
telecommunications and agriculture. In some sectors, the lowering of trade
barriers will cause unemployment to rise. In others it will create new job
opportunities. But tariff barriers are the least of China's problems: its
own are already among the lowest of any developing country. Much more
important, the country still needs to introduce many changes before it can
call itself a market economy. With or without the WTO, China needs to make
those changes to keep its half-reformed economy from collapsing. To do this
successfully, China must maintain brisk economic growth. Even at the
official rate of 7.3% (which was probably an exaggeration), growth last
year was insufficient to absorb the fast-swelling ranks of the unemployed.
In the coming decade, China needs to create 8m-9m new jobs a year, up from
5.5m-6.5m in the second half of the 1990s, according to conservative World
Bank estimates. It could be more. Yet average annual growth is expected to
stick at around 7%, about 1.5 percentage points less than the average for
the late 1990s.
Where once China was able to able to boost the economy by releasing the
pent-up power of sectors restrained by Maoist folly (first agriculture,
then small private and mixed-ownership enterprises), it has now run out of
easy sources of new growth potential. It must get the marketplace to deploy
labour and capital much more efficiently. Both are still being stifled by
government interference. China's state-owned banks, which dominate the
banking system, are technically insolvent thanks to indiscriminate,
politically inspired lending to loss-making state enterprises. Moribund
though most of it is, the state sector is still vital to China's economic
and social stability because it employs (or at any rate keeps on its books)
45% of the urban workforce and receives most of the state banks' loans.
The various mechanisms that keep a market economy running, from public
listings to bankruptcies, are still fettered by politics. In a recent book
on China's business environment, The China Dream, Joe Studwell put
China's bankruptcy rate in the 1990s at no more than 0.05% a year,
one-twentieth the level in America. China's two stockmarkets, now a decade
old, remain the almost exclusive preserve of inefficient state-owned
enterprises. Most of the shares are held by the state or its employees, so
ordinary shareholders have no influence over the way the companies are run
(usually badly). One of China's richest private businessmen who knows the
markets well calls them congenitally deformed children born after the rape
of capitalism by socialism.
Sustained high growth will require strong demand, yet the incomes of most
rural residents (who account for 65% of the population) have been
stagnating for the past four years. The only long-term solution will be to
move the huge amount of surplus labour in the countrysideat least 150m
peopleinto other sectors. Yet rural credit co-operatives, the obvious
source of funding for rural industries, are bankrupt, and cities cannot
provide enough jobs even for their own people, let alone an influx of
peasants. China will benefit from continuing large inflows of foreign
investment and a better export performance as the global economy recovers.
But given the country's size, the economy still relies primarily on
domestic engines of growth, which are sputtering. Growth over the past five
years has relied heavily on massive government spending. As a result, the
government's debt is rising fast. Coupled with the banks' bad loans and the
state's huge pension liabilities, this is a financial crisis in the making.
Western governments and business leaders once placed great hope in China's
prime minister, Zhu Rongji, who took office in 1997 and successfully
navigated the country through the financial crisis that erupted in the rest
of Asia that year. But Mr Zhu is likely to step down when his current term
of office ends in March 2003, with at best mixed results in reforming state
enterprises and the banking system. Like the rest of China's leaders in
recent times, he has been hamstrung by his unwillingness to do anything
that might bring a repeat of the unrest of 1989. Will China's next crop of
leaders be any more resolute?
New faces, old ideas
The forthcoming change in the party leadership is the first in communist
China's history to be signalled in advance. Until now, changes at the top
of the party have followed death or secretive party struggles. Even this
time, there has been no public announcement that the current party chief,
Jiang Zemin, will step down at the party's 16th congress later this year.
Yet there have been many strong hints, some from Mr Jiang himself in
meetings with foreign dignitaries, that after the congress he will be
succeeded by the vice-president, Hu Jintao. The party's
second-highest-ranking official, Li Pengwho played a prominent part in
suppressing the 1989 protestsis also widely expected to leave the ruling
Politburo, as is Mr Zhu, who ranks as number three. If all this comes to
pass, it will be the first time since Mao's death that so many of the top
jobs have changed hands at once.
Yet how much difference will these changes make to the way the country is
run? Hopeful China-watchers point out that in Taiwan the Communist Party's
erstwhile enemy, the Nationalist Party (Kuomintang), eventually embraced
democracy after four decades of dictatorial rule during a period of rapid
economic growth. But the Nationalist Party was not as weighed down by
ideological baggage as the Communist Party. President Jiang's effort last
year to open the party to the owners of private businesses (once decried as
capitalist exploiters) was an attempt to lighten the load. Yet even that
mild concession aroused furious debate within the party. Since then, party
officials around the country have been told to exercise great caution when
recruiting private businesspeople, and not to give them prominent positions
in the party.
One thing the Communist Party does share with the Nationalist Party is a
record of pervasive corruption. Economic growth helped the Nationalists
survive, despite their poor image, until President Chen Shui-bian of the
opposition Democratic Progressive Party defeated them in 2000. But to
emulate that trick, China would need sustained double-digit growth to keep
unemployment at bay. It has little chance of achieving that, nor would it
want to, remembering the inflationary side-effects of its double-digit
growth spurt in the early 1990s.
So the party's best bet for avoiding destabilising unrest would be to
increase public participation in politics. However, many in the party fear
that surrendering any power to the public might lead to a collapse
reminiscent of the Soviet Union's. The younger generation of leaders show
no signs of being any more courageous in this respect than their
predecessors. Mr Hu, at any rate, does not look like the bold, imaginative
and determined leader that China needs to steer it through the next few
critical years.
In the coming decade, therefore, China seems set to become more unstable.
It will face growing unrest as unemployment mounts. And if growth were to
slow significantly, public confidence could collapse, triggering a run on
banks that would undermine China's financial stability.
As long as the leadership can avoid the kind of vicious internal struggles
that prompted the 1989 unrest, the party will probably remain in power. But
it will be a weakened, inward-looking organisation, vulnerable to crises.
If this forecast proves correct, that is bad news for China and could be
bad news for countries dealing with it. A weakly led and politically
insecure China, roiled by unfulfilled nationalist aspirations, might prove
an unpredictable actor on the world stage.
Copyright ) The Economist Newspaper Limited 2002. All rights reserved.
=======================================
June 15, 2002
Pledge of Afghan Leader: No 'Banana Republic' Here
By JAMES DAO
KABUL, Afghanistan, June 14 A triumphant Hamid Karzai proclaimed today
that he had won a mandate from the Afghan people to clean up government
corruption and to wage war against terrorists and he vowed to press foreign
allies to finance a sweeping reconstruction of the nation's devastated road
system.
On the day after he was overwhelmingly elected to serve as interim
president of Afghanistan by delegates to a loya jirga, or grand council,
Mr. Karzai outlined an ambitious but very pragmatic list of national
priorities. It includes building a national army and police force,
improving schools and health care and creating jobs.
"The objective is to take Afghanistan out of this quagmire," Mr. Karzai
said, speaking in English to scores of local and foreign reporters who had
packed an ornate meeting room inside the presidential palace for his first
news conference after the vote.
"Warlordism, terrorism, hunger, oppression," he said, listing the national
plagues he intends to lift. "Our objective is to bring the Afghan people
dignity and the good life that they so very much deserve."
Mr. Karzai spent much of his day in meetings piecing together his cabinet,
an enormously sensitive process that is being closely watched by the many
ethnic, religious and political factions gathered in this capital city for
the first loya jirga in a generation.
Many delegates have said that Mr. Karzai must find an acceptable ethnic
balance of Pashtun, Tajik, Hazara and Uzbek appointees to his cabinet in
order to build national legitimacy for the fragile central government.
To weaken the grip of military commanders over their regions, advisers to
Mr. Karzai said, he is also expected to offer several senior government
positions, including possibly one or more vice presidency posts, to
warlords. Those offered the jobs could include Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum of
Mazar-i-Sharif and Ismail Khan of Herat.
"One of the tests he faces is whether he can attract regional leaders to
the capital, away from the power bases," said a Western diplomat.
The delegates are expected to begin on Saturday to select some of the 111
members for the national Parliament. It is not clear, however, whether Mr.
Karzai will be able to compile his cabinet selections before the delegates
adjourn on Sunday. The new government is scheduled to take power on June 22.
Mr. Karzai, wearing a green turban and a traditional Afghan shirt under a
dark jacket, repeatedly said during his news conference that eliminating
all traces of Al Qaeda and their Taliban sympathizers from Afghanistan
would remain one of his highest priorities, a message that seemed directed
in large part at Washington.
"This fight will go on, in the same strong manner as in the past six
months," he said, suggesting that he has no intention of asking the United
States to begin drawing down its more than 7,000 troops in Afghanistan, as
some local Afghan leaders have demanded.
"I will continue to have this fight go on until we are completely sure that
there is no danger to civilians anywhere, in any part of society, in any
part of the world, from terrorism," he said.
On the fourth day of the loya jirga, the more than 1,600 delegates spent
much of their time listening to dozens of speakers catalog the nation's
problems. Virtually all the speakers flouted the five-minute time limit,
prompting worried comments from organizers that the gathering would have to
be extended an extra day.
"We have no schools, no hospitals, no electricity and no water system,"
said Omar Qul, who spoke for a Turkmen community near Mazar-i-Sharif.
In one particularly fiery speech, Abdul Rab Rassoul Sayyaf, an Islamic
cleric and military commander from Kabul, urged Mr. Karzai to obey Islamic
law carefully, lest he lose support of the people. He called for renaming
the government, which will serve until national elections are held in 18
months, the Islamic Transitional Government of Afghanistan.
The proposal drew loud calls of "God is great" from the crowd. But several
advisers to Mr. Karzai said later that they believed that under the Bonn
agreement, which established the rules for the loya jirga, the transitional
government could not be renamed.
Mr. Karzai, at his news conference, chided other countries for failing to
deliver promised aid. He called on those delinquent nations to earmark
millions of dollars to a repaving program for Afghanistan's asphalt-starved
roads.
"I will not accept any excuses in that," he said. "I want the world
community to help Afghanistan to rebuild its highways."
Afghanistan has only a skeletal highway system, and those few roads have
been shattered during the last two decades by bombs, mines, tank treads and
simple neglect. Driving 30 miles on the country's main highways can take
four hours because the roads are so deeply rutted. Pulling onto the
shoulder can be a life-threatening experience because of land mines.
As a result, commerce between regions is constricted, and transporting
medicine, clothing and other supplies to remote regions has often been
impossible.
Numerous speakers at the loya jirga today called for swift punishment for
government officials who demand bribes. At his news conference, Mr. Karzai
said he had been struck by the many expressions of anger about corruption
during the day.
"This is an area in which I am determined to fight as we fight against
terrorism," he said. "This menace must go away."
Over the coming months, another council will be created to write a new
Constitution for Afghanistan. Mr. Karzai said he would support the creation
of a legislative branch that has lawmaking powers and an independent
judiciary capable of imposing criminal sanctions and resolving civil
disputes.
"I don't want a banana republic," he said. "I want a real country."
Mr. Karzai also said that as the national army grew stronger, he expected
the power of the regional commanders to diminish. But he also suggested
that he did not consider it a high priority to seek justice against
warlords accused of human rights abuses.
"First, have peace and stability," he said. "Then give the people of
Afghanistan the justice they want. If we can do both at the same time, it
would be great. Do we have that luxury? We will see."
Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company
========================================
June 15, 2002
After U.S. Scraps ABM Treaty, Russia Rejects Curbs of Start II
By MICHAEL WINES
MOSCOW, June 14 One day after the United States formally abandoned the
1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty, Russia responded in curt kind today,
saying it was no longer bound by the 1993 accord known as Start II that
outlawed multiple-warhead missiles and other especially destabilizing
weapons in the two nations' strategic arsenals.
Russia's action was the sort of statement that would have induced global
seizures a decade ago. This time some experts called it a political
gesture, signaling displeasure but little else in a world remade by forces
unleashed after the Soviet Union's collapse.
But that view was not unanimous, and some American experts said Russia's
move could exacerbate a trend toward a more unstable nuclear balance
especially if the current thaw between East and West began to chill.
In Washington, a State Department spokesman said tonight that Russia's
action "was not unexpected."
"Both the United States and Russia have moved beyond the treaty on further
reduction and limitation of strategic offensive arms with the recent
signing of the Moscow Treaty," the spokesman said. "Under the Moscow
Treaty, the United States and Russia will reduce their strategic nuclear
warheads to a level of 1,700 to 2,200 by Dec. 31, 2012, a level nearly
two-thirds below current levels."
Official Russia seemed of two minds today. Even as its Foreign Ministry
proclaimed Start II dead, accusing the United States of wrecking the
arms-control process, its Defense Ministry said there were no grounds to
retaliate against Washington for abandoning the missile defense treaty.
Other senior Russian defense officials told the Interfax news service that
some Russian nuclear rockets might be kept in service longer because of the
American action, but that no major shifts in Russia's strategic posture
were envisioned.
"There's no point in talking about this treaty anymore, just as there is no
point in talking about the ABM treaty," Vladimir Z. Dvorkin, a retired
major general who heads the Russian center for Problems of Strategic
Nuclear Forces, said in an interview tonight. "It's all in oblivion. It's
time to start thinking of something else."
Others noted that the new nuclear-arms accord that Presidents Bush and
Vladimir V. Putin signed in May already would reduce each side's stocks to
between 1,750 and 2,200 warheads, well below the Start II levels. In that
respect, Start II was an outmoded treaty even before Moscow buried it today.
Few doubted that today's announcement was in large part a bow to Russian
politicians who have ached for a stronger response to the United States'
go-it-alone policies on arms control.
In truth, the Start II treaty, which the Kremlin threw overboard today,
while a landmark in arms control accords, had never officially been binding
on either side.
The treaty, agreed upon by Presidents Clinton and Boris N. Yeltsin in 1993,
proposed to slash United States and Russian strategic nuclear stockpiles
over 10 years by nearly half, to no more than 3,500 warheads on each side.
More important, it would have eliminated land-based multiple-warhead
missiles, or MIRV's, and so-called "heavy" intercontinental missiles.
Arms-control scholars call those weapons the most dangerous and
destabilizing in the two nations' arsenals.
Roiled by conservative arguments that Start II endangered American
security, Congress did not ratify the treaty until 1996, and refused a
protocol that would have deferred it. Russia's Parliament approved the
treaty and the new deadline in 2000, but only on the condition that the
United States did not abandon the antiballistic missile accord.
One result is that Russia has yet to remove multiple warheads from some of
its missiles, including ones whose service lives will now be extended. In
the interim, Russia has developed a new missile, the Topol-M, which its
military experts say is decades ahead of any American design and can
penetrate any missile defense the United States can erect.
In the arcane world of arms control, some American experts essentially call
this a heartening development primarily because the United States no
longer views Russia as an enemy, and thus does not worry about a surprise
attack from Moscow. Also because the existence of Russia's Topol-M suggests
that the missile shield the United States is developing is not aimed at
swarms of Russian warheads, but rather at single or double shots from
terrorist nations.
Today the director of the Arms Control Association in Washington, Daryl G.
Kimball, said the Russian move, while long expected, was not to be
dismissed lightly. Among other things, he said, it frees Russia to equip
its new Topol-M missiles with multiple warheads, a move the Kremlin has not
formally endorsed, but that would actually save money as Russia shrinks its
nuclear force.
Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company
====================================
June 15, 2002
Pressure on Musharraf: Anti-West Forces Brew
By DEXTER FILKINS
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, June 14 In a country rife with extremism and
anti-American rage, officials here not only fear new terrorist acts, they
expect them.
Last month, after the suicide assault on May 8 in Karachi that killed 11
French workers and three others, Pakistani intelligence officials told
President Pervez Musharraf that a number of the country's most militant
Islamic groups, including remnants of Al Qaeda, had agreed to join forces
to launch fresh attacks against American targets.
The intelligence officials told General Musharraf, the military leader who
has begun an uncertain campaign to neutralize the country's Islamic
extremists, that the survivors planned to stage another suicide bombing as
an encore to the one on May 8.
With today's deadly strike against the American consulate in Karachi, the
prediction of Pakistani intelligence appears to have materialized.
Pakistani officials suspect that the attack was carried out by a freshly
minted coalition of militant organizations drawn from the remnants of
extremist groups scattered during a crackdown General Musharraf ordered
earlier this year.
The new coalition of militant groups is called Lashkar-e-Omar, formed by
guerrilla fighters in January after leaders of several extremist groups had
been arrested. Officials said the members of the coalition share a
doctrinaire vision of Islam, a hatred of the West and, often, the common
bond of having trained and fought in Afghanistan.
According to the Pakistani officials, Lashkar-e-Omar was formed by the
survivors of three militant Islamic groups targeted by General Musharraf:
Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Muhammad and the Sunni Muslim group
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. While this last group is known for its sectarian attacks
on Shiite Muslim groups, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Muhammad are committed
to waging a holy war against non-Muslims.
The officials said the three Islamic groups, as well as stragglers from
other militant organizations, reached an "operational agreement" to pool
their resources and launch joint attacks.
The new coalition, Lashkar-e-Omar, drew its name and inspiration from Ahmed
Omar Sheikh, the former leader of Jaish-e-Muhammad accused of masterminding
the kidnapping and murder of the American journalist Daniel Pearl.
While a group calling itself Al Qanoon took responsibility tonight for the
attack in Karachi, Pakistani officials said the claim appeared to mirror a
common pattern of larger groups of militant guerrillas spinning off smaller
units assigned to stage single attacks.
"There is near unanimity of opinion among intelligence officials that this
is the work of the loose coalition of extremist jihadis," a senior
Pakistani intelligence official said today, referring to Islamic holy
warriors, adding that they have "possible links to Al Qaeda.
"They want to frighten and drive out the foreigners from Pakistan and they
want to scare the government into reversing its course," he said.
Since the Sept. 11 attacks, General Musharraf has sided strongly with the
United States, abandoning support for the Taliban in Afghanistan and
announcing a clampdown on radical Islamic groups in Kashmir.
If the officials are right, today's attack in Karachi illustrates the
difficulties in tracking the contortions of Pakistan's militant groups, as
well as the shortcomings of what critics regard as General Musharraf's
ambivalent effort to part ways with militants whom the Pakistani government
long supported.
"There are so many forces that have been unleashed in the past months,"
said Talat Masood, a retired Pakistani Army general known for his moderate
views. "We are under pressure from all sides, and from within."
After Sept. 11, General Musharraf came under intense international pressure
to break with the Taliban, the extremist Islamic group whose rise to power
in Afghanistan was engineered by the Pakistani intelligence agencies, and
crack down on militants at home.
But since then, defeated Taliban and Qaeda fighters have poured in from
Afghanistan, Pakistani militant groups have plotted to kill General
Musharraf and India's leaders have massed 700,000 troops on Pakistan's
borders for a possible attack.
Hence General Musharraf's dilemma: to appease the West and his enemy to the
east, he must infuriate the radicals at home.
By many accounts, General Musharraf embarked on a campaign fierce enough to
enrage the extremist groups, but not determined enough to break them. The
effort appears to have left him more vulnerable than ever before.
He had started off in dramatic fashion. In December, with the Indian Army
bearing down on Pakistan's border, Pakistani officials arrested nearly
2,000 militants, outlawed several militant organizations and froze their
bank accounts.
According to an account in The Herald, an influential Pakistani magazine, a
group of enraged militants plotted to assassinate General Musharraf on
Christmas Day last year. The plot failed.
Yet for all the sensation caused by the crackdown, its fervor was
short-lived. Of the 2,000 militants detained, some 1,800 have been
released, including Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, the leader of Lashkar-e-Taiba,
the militant group outlawed by Pakistan and declared a terrorist
organization by the United States.
While General Musharraf promised to block the militants' forays into Indian
Kashmir, the militants themselves said the Pakistani government did not
finally block the infiltration until last month, when Indian military
action seemed imminent. The action enraged Kashmiri militants, some of whom
have sworn to kill General Musharraf.
As the Pakistani extremists were walking out of local jails, fighters were
arriving from Afghanistan to join the struggle.
While many of the Taliban and Qaeda fighters are believed to have dispersed
across the arid wastelands of Pakistan's northwest frontier, many others
are believed to have blended into the sweltering cities of Pakistan's plains.
A Western diplomat interviewed earlier this week said elements of Al Qaeda
appear to have played a role in the three previous terrorist attacks staged
in Pakistan since the beginning of the year: the murder of American
reporter Daniel Pearl, the grenade attack on a Protestant church in
Islamabad that killed five people, and last month's suicide attack on the
French defense workers in Karachi.
The Qaeda fighters appear to have mixed with Pakistani militants dedicated
to ending the Indian presence in Kashmir, the diplomat said.
"The trail goes back to Kashmir," he said.
Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company
================================
From: "John MANNING"
To:
Cc:
Subject: Japan: Rise of the Anti-War Movement
Date: Sat, 15 Jun 2002 08:18:43 -0700
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2615.200
Dear Friends,
The current Japan Press Service web page, dated June 3-June11,
at http://www.japan-press.co.jp
is a page of mass resistance to
the proposed war. The struggle in Japan is growing at every level.
U.S. supporters of a peaceful world would get a big lift from
tracing the activities of broad sectors in all Japan rising to
oppose the war bills.
John Manning
___________________________________________________________
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27 Egypt seeks to build nuclear bombs with Chinese help: report
FRIDAY, JUNE 28, 2002
THE TIMES OF INDIA
INDIATIMES
AFP [ SATURDAY, JUNE 22, 2002 5:20:19 PM ]
BERLIN: Egypt is hoping to extract uranium from the Sinai
peninsula with Chinese help with the aim of enriching it and
making long-range missiles, the /Die Welt/ newspaper reported on
Saturday quoting western intelligence sources.
The newspaper said Cairo denies such plans and that the
Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA ) said it
was unaware of such developments.
But the paper said there were increasing signs that Cairo was
seeking to build nuclear wepaons. It carried a picture of
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on his last official visit to
China in January, during which, according to Die Welt, a
cooperation accord between the two countries was signed on the
"peaceful use of atomic energy."
The deal included Chinese help in extracting uranium from the
Sinai pensinsula, which forms Egypt's border with Israel, the
paper said.
Copyright © 2002 Times Internet Limited. All rights reserved. |
Terms of Use
*****************************************************************
28 Message to the Senate of the United States
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
June 20, 2002
TO THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES:
I transmit herewith, for the advice and consent of the Senate to
ratification, the Treaty Between the United States of America and
the Russian Federation on Strategic Offensive Reductions, signed
at Moscow on May 24, 2002 (the "Moscow Treaty").
The Moscow Treaty represents an important element of the new
strategic relationship between the United States and Russia. It
will take our two nations along a stable, predictable path to
substantial reductions in our deployed strategic nuclear warhead
arsenals by December 31, 2012. When these reductions are
completed, each country will be at the lowest level of deployed
strategic nuclear warheads in decades. This will benefit the
peoples of both the United States and Russia and contribute to a
more secure world.
The Moscow Treaty codifies my determination to break through the
long impasse in further nuclear weapons reductions caused by the
inability to finalize agreements through traditional arms control
efforts. In the decade following the collapse of the Soviet
Union, both countries' strategic nuclear arsenals remained far
larger than needed, even as the United States and Russia moved
toward a more cooperative relationship. On May 1, 2001, I called
for a new framework for our strategic relationship with Russia,
including further cuts in nuclear weapons to reflect the reality
that the Cold War is over. On November 13, 2001, I announced the
United States plan for such cuts -- to reduce our operationally
deployed strategic nuclear warheads to a level of between 1700
and 2200 over the next decade. I announced these planned
reductions following a careful study within the Department of
Defense. That study, the Nuclear Posture Review, concluded that
these force levels were sufficient to maintain the security of
the United States. In reaching this decision, I recognized that
it would be preferable for the United States to make such
reductions on a reciprocal basis with Russia, but that the United
States would be prepared to proceed unilaterally.
My Russian counterpart, President Putin, responded immediately
and made clear that he shared these goals. President Putin and I
agreed that our nations' respective reductions should be recorded
in a legally binding document that would outlast both of our
presidencies and provide predictability over the longer term. The
result is a Treaty that was agreed without protracted
negotiations. This Treaty fully meets the goals I set out for
these reductions.
It is important for there to be sufficient openness so that the
United States and Russia can each be confident that the other is
fulfilling its reductions commitment. The Parties will use the
comprehensive verification regime of the Treaty on the Reduction
and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (the "START Treaty")
to provide the foundation for confidence, transparency, and
predictability in further strategic offensive reductions. In our
Joint Declaration on the New Strategic Relationship between the
United States and Russia, President Putin and I also decided to
establish a Consultative Group for Strategic Security to be
chaired by Foreign and Defense Ministers. This body will be the
principal mechanism through which the United States and Russia
strengthen mutual confidence, expand transparency, share
information and plans, and discuss strategic issues of mutual
interest.
The Moscow Treaty is emblematic of our new, cooperative
relationship with Russia, but it is neither the primary basis for
this relationship nor its main component. The United States and
Russia are partners in dealing with the threat of terrorism and
resolving regional conflicts. There is growing economic
interaction between the business communities of our two countries
and ever-increasing people-to-people and cultural contacts and
exchanges. The U.S. military has put Cold War practices behind
it, and now plans, sizes, and sustains its forces in recognition
that Russia is not an enemy, Russia is a friend.
Military-to-military and intelligence exchanges are well
established and growing.
The Moscow Treaty reflects this new relationship with Russia.
Under it, each Party retains the flexibility to determine for
itself the composition and structure of its strategic offensive
arms, and how reductions are made. This flexibility allows each
Party to determine how best to respond to future security
challenges.
There is no longer the need to narrowly regulate every step we
each take, as did Cold War treaties founded on mutual suspicion
and an adversarial relationship.
In sum, the Moscow Treaty is clearly in the best interests of the
United States and represents an important contribution to U.S.
national security and strategic stability. I therefore urge the
Senate to give prompt and favorable consideration to the Treaty,
and to advise and consent to its ratification.
GEORGE W. BUSH THE WHITE HOUSE, June 20, 2002.
# # #
*****************************************************************
29 Book relates tense hunt for Soviet subs in Cuban crisis
Orange County Register - Nation & World
An angry Soviet skipper ordered a nuclear-tipped torpedo armed.
June 22, 2002
By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV
The Associated Press
MOSCOW – Hunted down by the U.S. Navy off Cuba during the 1962
missile crisis, a furious Soviet submarine commander ordered a
nuclear-tipped torpedo armed for action but then controlled his
anger and brought the sub to the surface, where American ships
were waiting.
The previously unknown incident - which might have pushed the two
superpowers closer to nuclear war - is disclosed in a book
released this week.
The book, written by Russian journalist Alexander Mozgovoi, tells
the story of four Soviet submarines engaged in a cat-and-mouse
game with the U.S. Navy off Cuba at the height of the Cuban
missile crisis. It is based on interviews with former
submariners.
The four diesel submarines, which were armed with both
conventional and nuclear-tipped torpedoes, sailed from the Arctic
Kola Peninsula. They managed to pass unnoticed through U.S. and
NATO cordons in the northern Atlantic, but were spotted by the
Navy as they approached Cuba. The submarines needed to come to
the surface often to charge their batteries, and that made them
easy marks for the U.S. anti-submarine cordons around the
communist island.
Capt. Valentin Savitsky's B-59 submarine was quickly spotted by
Navy patrol aircraft when it appeared on the surface. American
destroyers rushed to block the submarine and began dropping stun
grenades to force it to resurface, said Vadim Orlov, who was in
charge of the submarine's radio intelligence at the time.
"The Americans encircled us and began dropping grenades that were
exploding right next to us," Orlov was quoted as saying in the
book. "It felt like sitting in a metal barrel with someone
hitting it with a sledgehammer. The crew was in shock."
The bombardment went on for several hours, and some sailors lost
consciousness as oxygen ran low and temperatures inside the
submarine soared above 122 degrees.
After an especially strong explosion shook the submarine,
"Savitsky got furious and ordered an officer in charge of a
nuclear-tipped torpedo to arm the weapon," Orlov said in the
book.
"There may be a war raging up there, and we are trapped here
turning somersaults!" Savitsky cried, according to Orlov. "We are
going to hit them hard. We shall die ourselves, sink them all but
not stain the navy's honor!"
The submarines' commanders could use conventional torpedoes only
on order from the navy chief, and the use of nuclear torpedoes
could only be authorized by direct order from the Soviet defense
minister, the book said. However, the close surveillance by the
U.S. Navy made it hard for submarines to resurface for scheduled
communications sessions.
Savitsky eventually controlled his anger and ordered the
submarine to the surface. It was dark but the area was brightly
lit by searchlights from U.S. ships and a U.S. helicopter buzzing
overhead. "We felt like a wolf hunted down," Orlov remembered.
"It was a beautiful but frightful scene." The book has not been
translated into English. Its Russian title, "Kubinskaya Samba
Kvarteta Fokstrotov," translates to "Cuban Samba of the Foxtrot
Quartet."
A spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry on Friday refused to
comment on the incident told in the book.
Mozgovoi said that according to his conversations with
submariners, Savitsky was the only one of four submarine
commanders to consider unauthorized use of a weapon, but added
that it was hard to blame him.
Savitsky himself is not quoted in the book; he had died by the
time Mozgovoi began work on it.
The Orange County Register
*****************************************************************
30 North Korea urged to allow international nuclear inspection
Korea Herald!!_National
http://www.koreaherald.com
With dialogue between North Korea and the United States expected
to resume sometime soon, Seoul, Washington and Tokyo have again
urged Pyongyang to allow U.N. watchdogs to inspect its suspected
nuclear sites.
The three countries "called on North Korea to move forward with
steps needed to begin full cooperation with the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)," their joint statement said.
The statement was issued after a two-day Trilateral Coordination
and Oversight Group (TCOG) meeting in San Francisco on Tuesday,
in which senior officials from the three governments coordinated
their strategies on the communist country.
Officials in Seoul said the agenda for the session included the
envisioned visit to Pyongyang by a U.S. special envoy, which
would signal the resumption of U.S.-North Korea negotiations.
Talks between the two sides have been stalled since President
George W. Bush took office in early 2001.
"We did not determine during the TCOG meeting, however, the level
of the envoy and the timetable for his trip," a senior Foreign
Ministry official said.
South Korean officials previously said they expect Jack
Pritchard, Washington's point man on North Korea, to travel to
Pyongyang as early as this month.
The ministry official, who attended the three-way consultations,
said, "The United States appeared to feel pressure, thinking it
should make sure talks with the North proceed 'well.'"
In June last year, President Bush suggested discussing with the
Pyongyang government its nuclear and missile development programs
and conventional forces.
North Korea froze its suspected nuclear weapons program following
a deal with the United States in 1994, under which a U.S.-led
international consortium is building two safer light water
reactors in the energy-starved country.
With suspicion lingering that the North might have amassed enough
plutonium to make one or two atomic bombs before shutting down
its facilities, Washington has called on Pyongyang to admit IAEA
inspectors to clarify the matter. North Korea promised to
cooperate in such inspections in the 1994 agreement, but without
specifying when the process would begin.
During the TCOG session, the three countries also discussed ways
to end escalating disputes between Seoul and Beijing over China's
recent detention of a North Korean asylum seeker, as well as the
fate of 22 other defectors currently holed up in diplomatic
missions in Beijing.
"(The three governments) also expressed their desire for a
humanitarian resolution to the North Korean refugee issue," the
statement said.
Seoul has criticized Chinese guards for entering the South Korean
consulate without permission to seize the ill-fated asylum
seeker, while Beijing denied the claim, accusing the Korean side
of leveling unfounded blame against it.
(jihoho@koreaherald.co.kr)
By Kim Ji-ho Staff reporter
2002.06.20
(C) Copyright 2000 Digital Korea Herald. All rights
*****************************************************************
31 A Waste Of Potential Energy
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
June 20, 2002
Some years ago, there were plans to develop a fast breeder
reactor that would use spent nuclear fuel and other nuclear
products, such as waste and mine tailings, to be reprocessed into
usable fuel. The major objection to the process was that a
byproduct could be used to produce weapons.
As Daniel A. Mickey [letter, June 18, "Recycling Discussion
Needed"] points out, some countries already recycle. In spite of
some of our security lapses in handling nuclear products, I would
feel safer with any such products under U.S. control than under
that of other countries.
There will come a time in the not-too-distant future when we'll
look longingly at the possibility of power generation without
reliance on a diminishing and questionable oil supply.
It is time to discuss the future of our power requirements and
how to meet those needs. Nuclear must be considered a
possibility.
It is lamentable the energy industry called it "nuclear power,"
rather than using a more acceptable term such as "alternative
energy." Nuclear power is frightening in name only.
Richard I. Lowe Bloomfield
The June 16 special report [Page 1, "Yucca; Mountain Of
Controversy"] stated that a storage cask must maintain its
integrity for 10,000 years. If the commercial nuclear fuel were
processed as was originally planned, the residual fission
products would only have to be isolated for 300 years.
It is a terrible waste of a natural resource to bury unburned
nuclear fuel. We have the technology to reprocess it with
protection from diversion of the plutonium.
The plutonium is not weapons grade. It would be much easier for a
terrorist to access clean uranium if he or she desired to make a
nuclear bomb.
John P. Cagnetta Rocky Hill
/The writer is president of the Connecticut Academy of Science &
Engineering and a former Northeast Utilities senior vice
president with more than 40 years' experience in research and
design engineering in the nuclear energy field./
ctnow.com is Copyright © 2002 by The Hartford Courant
*****************************************************************
32 Lab film chronicles weapons designs
Tri-Valley Herald
Saturday, June 22, 2002 - 2:55:50 AM MST
By Glenn Roberts Jr.
Staff Writer
A film chronicling Lawrence Livermore Laboratory's 50-year
history in nuclear weapons design, from first fizzle to
earthshaking achievements, premiered Friday to a crowd of lab
employees.
The lab-produced, 30-minute film, featuring historic footage of
nuclear weapons tests and warhead delivery systems, was the last
installment of a weeklong series of short films developed in
celebration of the lab's 50th anniversary.
Livermore Lab's first nuclear weapons test, dubbed "Ruth,"
featured a daring design that turned out to be a dud. But lab
scientists proved successful with similarly radical design
concepts in later tests.
The film showed the lab-infamous footage of a bent metal tower at
the Nevada Test Site that had held the Ruth explosive. Had the
test been successful, the tower would have been completely
annihilated.
Seymour Sack, a former lab weapons designer who pioneered some
revolutionary weapons designs, said in the film that the lab's
reputation was built on its creative endeavors. "We had a
willingness to charge ahead even though we didn't know what we
were doing," said Sack, who joined the lab in 1955 and retired in
1990. There were "lots of errors" and blunders, he said, but
efforts paid off in "a tremendous amount of achievement."
Bill Lokke, also a retired lab weapons designer, said in the film
that the early failures in Livermore weapons testing were "part
of the lure when I joined the place." Livermore weapons designs
aided in shrinking warhead designs to allow more options in
deployment. The lab's miniaturization successes led to
specialties in developing systems that could carry multiple,
independently targeted warheads, the film stated.
Development of the W47, a warhead for the Polaris
submarine-launched ballistic missile, was the product of "radical
new designs" in nuclear explosive components, the film stated.
Such work began in 1957.
Lab researchers also designed "enhanced-radiation" weapons,
reduced fallout explosives, atomic artillery shells that could be
fired from tanks, nuclear anti-missile weapons and other weapons.
Footage of the five-megaton underground Cannikin nuclear test in
Alaska's Aleutian Island chain -- the largest underground U.S.
test, was included in the film, as were clips from several
atmospheric tests.
The film described the mandatory six-day weekly work schedules
for weapons workers after the Soviet Union ended a nuclear
testing moratorium in October 1961, and the lab's pursuit of
space-based laser weapons.
©1999-2001 by MediaNews Group, Inc. and ANG Newspapers
*****************************************************************
33 Hanford study shows releases didn't cause more thyroid cancer
The Seattle Times:
Saturday, June 22, 2002, 12:00 a.m. Pacific
By Linda Ashton
The Associated Press
RICHLAND — People who were exposed to radioactive iodine releases
from the Hanford nuclear reservation between 1944 and 1957 seem
no more likely to suffer from diseases of the thyroid than the
general population, a federal study says.
The 13-year Hanford Thyroid Disease Study
[http://www.cdc.gov/nceh/radiation] looked at 3,440 people who
were born in seven Eastern Washington counties downwind of
Hanford and would have been young children during the releases of
iodine-131.
"We did not find an increased risk of thyroid disease in study
participants from exposure to Hanford's iodine-131," said
epidemiologist Paul Garbe, the national Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention's (CDC) scientific adviser for the study.
"If there is an increased risk, it is probably too small to
detect."
The CDC and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle
conducted the study, which was ordered by Congress in 1988.
Results were released yesterday.
Thyroid disease, which ranges from cancerous to benign tumors and
overactive or underactive conditions, was of particular concern
because iodine concentrates in the thyroid, a gland at the base
of the neck. When the U.S. Department of Energy made public a
number of secret documents in 1986, they showed large amounts of
radioactive iodine had been released from Hanford, especially in
1944 and 1945.
Researchers found that rates of thyroid disease in the study
group were generally consistent with the rates of the disease in
other populations in the United States.
Nineteen of the 3,440 men and women studied had thyroid cancer.
"Thyroid disease is fairly common in other populations across the
country, especially among older people and women," Garbe said.
Additionally, "we found people with higher doses of radiation had
about the same amount of thyroid disease as people with lower
doses," said Scott Davis, the study's principal investigator and
a Hutchinson epidemiologist.
Iodine-131 was carried by the wind to surrounding areas and
deposited on vegetation, which was eaten by milk cows and goats.
Drinking contaminated milk was the primary source of exposure for
most people. Eating contaminated fruits and vegetables and
breathing contaminated air also were sources of exposure.
The people with the highest estimated doses of radiation were
generally living closest to Hanford, drank the most milk and were
among the youngest at the time of the releases. Those with the
lowest estimated doses typically lived farther away or moved away
and drank little or no milk from local cows.
Garbe said the study does not prove that radiation releases from
Hanford had no effect on health, nor could the study determine
the cause of a particular individual's disease.
A draft version of the report, released in 1999, drew some
criticism from a panel of the National Academy of Sciences, which
said it was well-designed but overstated its findings.
The $19.5 million report has been reviewed and critiqued since
then and a number of changes were made in calculations and
statistical analysis, Garbe said. But the findings remain
essentially unchanged.
The Hanford nuclear reservation, a 560-square-mile site in
south-central Washington, was established in 1943 as part of the
top-secret Manhattan Project to build an atomic bomb. Plutonium
for nuclear weapons was made at Hanford for four decades. It is
now the most-contaminated nuclear site in the country.
Copyright © 2002 The Seattle Times Company
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34 Nuclear material destined for SRS
Augusta Georgia: Metro:
Web posted Saturday, June 22, 2002
Timeline of events
By Jacob Jordan
Associated Press
AIKEN - With a court order keeping Gov. Jim Hodges at bay,
Department of Energy shipments of weapons-grade plutonium could
begin rolling into Savannah River Site this weekend.
Although some area residents may be questioning their safety a
little more now, many say they're not concerned since much of the
radioactive material was made at SRS.
"We never hurt a grasshopper or an earthworm, much less a person
with plutonium," said Mal McKibben, a retired nuclear scientist.
"It's a very safe history of the site, and the community knows
that. And we've always been open and honest to the community."
Mr. McKibben, a 45-year SRS employee and executive director of
the Citizens for Nuclear Technology Alliance, said SRS is better
equipped to handle the plutonium than any facility in the country
because the site produced tons of nuclear material for bombs
during the Cold War.
The Department of Energy made the same argument last week when a
federal judge sided with the agency in the lawsuit Mr. Hodges
filed to try to stop the shipments.
The DOE is cleaning up and closing its Rocky Flats site near
Denver. About 6.5 tons of plutonium is to be trucked from
Colorado to South Carolina.
The Energy Department has changed its plans several times over
the years and intends to construct facilities to convert the
dangerous material into fuel for nuclear reactors.
The shipments were supposed to start last fall, but Mr. Hodges
said the Bush administration was not giving him the reassurances
he had been getting from President Clinton. Mr. Hodges grew wary
that the conversion facilities would never be built and that the
plutonium would be stored at SRS permanently.
The mixed-oxide fuel facilities would be the first of their kind
in the United States, and some are concerned there's no track
record.
"Putting plutonium in an old reactor where you have people
living 20 miles away is Looney Toons," said Brett Bursey,
director of the South Carolina Progressive Network, a coalition
of groups that include environmental activists, in addition to
groups supporting labor unions, women's and minorities' rights
and the abolition of the death penalty.
When Energy officials announced they would begin sending the
plutonium on May 15, Mr. Hodges sued the DOE and asked for an
injunction to delay the shipments.
U.S. District Judge Cameron Currie ruled against Mr. Hodges on
June 13, clearing the way for the material to enter South
Carolina. The governor threatened to use Highway Patrol troopers
to turn away the shipments at the state line, but Judge Currie
ordered him to stay out of the way.
Environmental activists have said the fight by Mr. Hodges, a
Democrat running for re-election this year, is just a political
ploy. Mr. Hodges, who had said he would lie down in the road to
block the trucks, called those comments "baloney."
"Governor Hodges' attempt to block the plutonium shipments is a
fraud," Mr. Bursey said. "He has come across to many people as an
environmental hero when he in fact wants to do something that
would result in more waste."
Mr. McKibben said he didn't want to criticize the governor but
said his stance has been misleading.
"Was he playing politics with it? Of course he was. He did a lot
of things which gave the anti-nuke community reason to believe he
was trying to keep the plutonium out of the state. Well, that's
not what he was trying to do at all," Mr. McKibben said. "But he
hopes he can convince them of that so they'll vote for him."
Environmentalists say the fuel conversion program, which Mr.
Hodges supports, will result in a "plutonium economy," spreading
nuclear materials and increasing the long-term risks.
"The danger is treating plutonium as a commodity," Mr. Bursey
said.
Environmentalists argue the best way to treat the plutonium is
through immobilization, which stores the material in glass rods.
The DOE, however, scrapped immobilization plans, and Los Alamos
National Laboratory has begun evaluating the potential for
converting weapons-grade plutonium into fuel for commercial
nuclear reactors.
Opponents say a key concern of the fuel program is whether a
similar Russian program takes off. The United States and Russia
have agreed to dispose of 34 metric tons of plutonium each.
"The ongoing funding and technical problems which surround the
Russian program could well mean that plutonium will end up being
stored indefinitely at the Savannah River Site," said Tom
Clements, of the Greenpeace International Nuclear Campaign. "The
SRS plutonium fuel program should be exposed for what it is: both
a public handout to companies which profit from plutonium
proliferation and cover for putting in a new large-scale bomb
factory."
The Energy Department has promised to spend almost $4 billion
during the next 20 years on the fuel program. DOE spokesman Joe
Davis said the recent court battle hasn't delayed any of those
plans.
"What has been delayed have been our shipments from Rocky
Flats," he said.
TIMELINE
South Carolina Gov. Jim Hodges and the U.S. Department of Energy
have been in discussions and disputes during the past year over
whether federal plutonium shipments will enter South Carolina and
when, or if, the weapons-grade material will leave. Though Mr.
Hodges says he has been talking with the DOE for years, this
listing gives a history of what's happened in the past year:
JULY 2001: Mr. Hodges sends a letter to South Carolina's
congressional delegation asking for support to stop the
shipments.
AUG. 6: Mr. Hodges meets with Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham
at the National Governors' Association conference and asks him to
delay shipments until the DOE agrees to a legally enforceable
long-term plan that would remove the material from the state.
AUG. 9: Mr. Hodges threatens to lie down in the road to block
shipments and orders the Department of Public Safety to begin
studying highway roadblocks. Mr. Abraham visits Savannah River
Site.
AUG. 24: House Speaker David Wilkins, R-Greenville, and Lt. Gov.
Bob Peeler meet in Washington and say they have assurances from
Energy Undersecretary Robert Card that no shipments will be made
until a written agreement is reached.
AUG. 27: Mr. Hodges postpones roadblock exercises. The DOE
suspends shipments scheduled to start by Oct. 1.
SEPTEMBER: The Energy Department stops all nuclear shipments
nationwide because of security concerns raised by the Sept. 11
terrorist attacks but lifts the restriction days later.
NOV. 13: U.S. Sens. Strom Thurmond and Ernest "Fritz" Hollings
send a letter to President Bush asking him to fund a plutonium
disposal program at SRS.
NOV. 21: The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board tells the
DOE that plans to store plutonium at SRS for 50 years are
impractical.
FEB. 26, 2002: Mr. Hodges meets with Mr. Abraham, who promises
to give a definitive plan on plutonium shipments to SRS, and both
agree on resolving outstanding issues in the next 30 days.
APRIL 11: The governor agrees to a written proposal from Mr.
Abraham, but the DOE rejects Mr. Hodges' request for legally
enforceable agreement.
APRIL 15: Mr. Abraham gives notice that he is ready to begin
shipments by May 15.
APRIL 19: DOE files a record of a decision that scraps the plan
for immobilization of nuclear material in glass.
APRIL 22: Mr. Hodges holds roadblock exercises.
APRIL 30: Mr. Hodges wants U.S. Rep. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., to
change legislation that would fine the federal government $1
million a day starting in 2011 if more than 1 ton of the
plutonium has not been converted into fuel for nuclear reactors.
Mr. Hodges says the planned legislation doesn't spell out when
the plutonium has to be removed.
MAY 1: Mr. Hodges sues the DOE and Mr. Abraham to stop plutonium
shipments.
MAY 2: Mr. Graham introduces legislation with Mr. Thurmond,
R-S.C., to keep SRS from becoming a permanent storage site.
MAY 3: Mr. Hodges writes Mr. Graham saying the bill doesn't
protect South Carolina from "becoming the nation's nuclear
dumping ground."
MAY 9: DOE postpones shipments so U.S. District Judge Cameron
Currie can hear the lawsuit June 13. Shipments are rescheduled to
begin June 15.
MAY 15: U.S. Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo., introduces a bill that
would require the DOE to pay Colorado $1 million per day, up to
$100 million per year, if it does not remove all plutonium from
Rocky Flats by November 2003. U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo.,
introduced an identical bill in the Senate.
MAY 16: Mr. Hodges asks federal court to block all immediate
shipments.
MAY 20: Mr. Hodges says the federal government should delay
shipments in anticipation of future terrorist attacks.
JUNE 7: Mr. Hodges files a final brief saying the DOE has made
major changes to its plutonium disposition program and failed to
finish a mandated environmental impact study.
JUNE 10: Media outlets including The Associated Press sue the
DOE to keep a judge from sealing records in Mr. Hodges' lawsuit.
JUNE 13: Judge Currie denies Mr. Hodges' preliminary injunction
to stop shipments and throws out the lawsuit asking the DOE to be
required to do more environmental studies. Judge Currie says Mr.
Hodges' roadblocks are illegal but denies the DOE's request to
declare them unconstitutional, saying she can't rule on
speculation that the governor will break the law.
JUNE 14: Mr. Hodges declares a state of emergency, prohibits
shipments from entering South Carolina and dispatches state
police to SRS to begin checking trucks for plutonium. The DOE
says shipments can't logistically begin until Saturday. Troopers
rescind. Late Friday, Judge Currie issues an order that says Mr.
Hodges' action is illegal and presents a possible terrorist
target. Mr. Hodges appeals Judge Currie's ruling to the U.S. 4th
Circuit Court of Appeals.
JUNE 17: The DOE asks the judge to stop Mr. Hodges' blockades.
JUNE 18: Judge Currie bans Mr. Hodges from physical blockades.
The governor says he will follow the order.
JUNE 19: The White House issues a statement saying the Bush
administration backs the legislation offered by Mr. Thurmond and
Mr. Graham.
JUNE 20: Mr. Hodges' last-minute appeal to stop the shipments is
denied in U.S. 4th Circuit Court, but judges decide to expedite
the case and hear arguments July 10.
TODAY: Shipments could begin rolling, but the DOE is keeping the
departure and arrival secret for security reasons.
[http://augusta.com] .
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