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                         NUCLEAR POLICY
 
 
                         NUCLEAR REACTORS
 
1 Taiwan: Activists demand broader probe
 
                          NUCLEAR SAFETY
 
2 US: Thyroid disease study finds no link to Hanford releases
3 US: Customers line up for iodide in case of nuclear attack / Health 
 
                         NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
 
4 US: Bush plans to put U. professor on board
5 US: Yucca: That sound you hear is a hair being split 
6 US: Nevada lawmakers put Senate loyalty to test over Yucca
7 US: Yucca: Govt considers giving billions to N-waste fund 
8 US: Yucca Editorial: Betrayal just around the corner
9 US: Ralston: Yucca rhetoric reaches new low
10 US: Grove: These anti-Yucca activists are driven
11 Russia's Floating Nuclear Graveyard
12 US: Plutonium could start rolling into S.C. 
13 US: Information available on nuclear waste disposal, shipment 
14 US: Storing nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain site is safest option 
15 Russia set to build nuclear dumpsite
16 US: Nuclear waste could travel through Central Texas under proposal
17 US: Atom trash may come our way
 
                         NUCLEAR WEAPONS
 
18 More concerned voices 
19 Hiroshima lesson lingers
20 Hiroshima lesson lingers                   
21 US: 'Dirty bomb' fodder vulnerable 
22 US: CBS Poll: 25% Back Preemptive U.S. Nuke Strike
 
                        US DEPT. OF ENERGY
 
23 Plutonium is ready to roll
24 SRS neighbors have mixed views 
25 Energy should open up about Hanford cleanup
26 Contaminated soil, debris moved at Hanford
 
                          OTHER NUCLEAR
 
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                         FULL NEWS STORIES
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 1 Taiwan: Activists demand broader probe

The Taipei Times Online: 2002-06-23
 
FOURTH NUCLEAR POWER PLANT: Kungliao residents suspect problems 
with the facility have yet to be uncovered and are asking 
prosecutors to boost their efforts

By Chiu Yu-Tzu STAFF REPORTER

As prosecutors prepare to interrogate high-ranking officials from 
China Shipbuilding Corp next week about construction defects with 
the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant, anti-nuclear activists called on 
the authorities to step up their investigation. 

Prosecutors began their investigation into China Shipbuilding's 
procedures for awarding contracts to subcontractors on June 12. 
That investigation has resulted in the detention of four 
construction supervisors from the company and its subcontractor.

 As of yesterday, prosecutors had interrogated more than 20 
people involved in the plant's construction, ranging from 
employees with subcontractors to Taiwan Power Company (Taipower) 
and China Shipbuilding officials. 

On Thursday, accompanied by Atomic Energy Council (AEC) officials 
and Lin Mao-lin (ªL­Z¾F), who reported the construction defects 
in April, prosecutors revisited the China Shipbuilding site in 
Kaohsiung to look for details on how inferior materials were 
secretly used in the construction of the second to the fifth 
layers of a reactor pedestal for the plant.

 After Lin, a retired engineer from a subcontractor of China 
Shipbuilding, pointed out places where inferior materials had 
been secretly used, prosecutors confirmed that less 
pressure-resistant materials were employed at hundreds of welding 
points.

 "Inferior welding materials used at the 282 points were covered 
with goods that met standards in order to deceive inspectors," 
Chou Chang-chin (©P³¹´Ü), a spokesman for the Kaohsiung District 
Prosecutors' Office, said on Tuesday.

 On Friday, after searching the homes of managers of 
subcontractors in Kaohsiung and Pingtung counties, where both 
accounting records and financial statements were discovered, 
prosecutors decided to interrogate high-ranking officials of 
China Shipbuilding this week.

 Prosecutors said that they suspect high-ranking officials of 
China Shipbuilding or other influential political figures may 
have received commissions in exchange for awarding contracts to 
certain subcontractors. Prosecutors are expected to interrogate 
China Shipbuilding President Chiang Yuan-Chang (¦¿¤¸¼ý) and 
Chairman Yu Chen-nan (§E¨°«n) this week.

 Anti-nuclear activists and law-makers yesterday demanded an 
expansion of the investigation, saying that there are likely 
other construction defects at the plant. 

"Construction defects surrounding the pedestal were just part of 
Taipower's problems," said Lai Wei-chieh (¿à°¶³Ç), 
secretary-general of the Green Citizens' Action Alliance, a 
Taipei-based anti-nuclear group. 

"We hope prosecutors can probe into the problem of Taipower's 
failure to supervise plant construction thoroughly."

 Before the Cabinet announced a halt to plant construction in 
October 2000, residents in Kungliao township, Taipei County, 
where the controversial plant sits, discovered many construction 
defects.

 Wu Wen-tung (§d¤å³q), an anti-nuclear activist from Kungliao, 
said at a press conference at the Legislative Yuan on June 14 
that an unusual grouting operation at the construction site, 
which was carried out after the devastating 921 earthquake, 
deserved a comprehensive investigation.

 In July, 2000, anti-nuclear activists in Kungliao reported to 
the Environmental Protection Administration that construction 
waste from the site for a wharf, where heavy machines would be 
transferred, was dumped illegally into the sea. These activists 
did not get any response. Since the Cabinet's decision to resume 
construction of the plant in February last year, activists have 
continued to challenge Taipower's construction safety. 

According to Taipei Times' sources, lawmakers who oppose the 
project will soon reveal more unexposed construction defects 
based on information supplied by retired Taipower engineers.
 
This story has been viewed 297 times.
 
URL=[http://www.taipeitimes.com/news/2002/06/23/story/0000141475] 

Copyright © 1999-2002 The Taipei Times. All rights reserved. 
*****************************************************************
 2 Thyroid disease study finds no link to Hanford releases
 
Saturday, June 22, 2002
 
By TOM PAULSON
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
 
The scientists who conducted the controversial Hanford Thyroid 
Disease study yesterday released the final report on the $20 
million-plus project to determine if airborne radioactive 
releases from Hanford in the 1940s and '50s had harmed anyone.
 
Their conclusion: It's possible, but not probable. 

"No study like this is capable of determining if an individual's 
disease is due to an exposure," said Scott Davis, lead 
investigator on the thyroid study and an epidemiologist at the 
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.
 
The final report was released the same week that a federal court 
revived the legal claims of thousands of "downwinders," people 
who believe they were made ill by Hanford radiation releases. On 
Tuesday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the U.S. 
District Court in Eastern Washington to reconsider two lawsuits 
that had been reduced in scope. 

The thyroid study, launched in 1988 and conducted by the cancer 
center but administered by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control 
and Prevention, could only have determined if the population 
living near Hanford at the time had a higher rate of thyroid 
cancers and diseases compared with the normal population.
 
Just as was announced in a draft report released in 1999, the 
researchers said they found no evidence of higher rates of 
thyroid disease or cancers among people exposed to Hanford's 
massive airborne releases of radioactive iodine, I-131, between 
1944 and 1957. 

The report was released yesterday in Richland at a public forum 
attended by about 100 people where the researchers took 
questions. 

"Large amounts of radioactive iodine were released at Hanford, 
and it's well known iodine is taken up by the thyroid," said Ken 
Kopecky, lead statistician on the project and Davis' colleague. 

"If there was a (health) effect, it was very small." 

Because of criticism after the release of the draft report, the 
researchers sought outside review, including one by the National 
Academy of Sciences, re-evaluated the data and corrected errors 
in some of the dose estimates as well as characterizations of 
statistical certainty. The CDC even asked a public relations firm 
for advice on how best to present the information. 

But none of these refinements changed the overall conclusion: 
There is no clear evidence that Hanford's releases caused harm. 

Martha McNeely, 59, now living in Gilroy, Calif., has trouble 
with such statistical generalizations. Her father was an engineer 
at Hanford and, as a child, she lived downwind of the nuclear 
works from 1947 to 1953. 

She ate food and drank water that everyone now acknowledges was 
contaminated with radioactive effluent from the nearby bomb 
works. 

"I've had cancer of the lip and salivary gland," McNeely said. 
She has had tumors in her sinuses, hypothyroidism and auto-immune 
problems and was diagnosed with severe osteoporosis in her 20s. 

She is convinced that this is not just bad luck but the result of 
her exposure to radiation. 

"I think the study is seriously flawed," said McNeely, who is one 
of the downwinders suing former Hanford contractors for 
compensation. 

She regards the researchers' decision to focus on thyroid disease 
and just iodine-131 as akin to the joke about the drunk who looks 
under the streetlight for keys he lost a block away in a dark 
alley -- because it's easier to see under the light. "I can't 
help but wonder if the thyroid study is just sort of a 
diversionary tactic," McNeely said. She said it seemed to her 
designed not to find anything of use to people like her. 

Paul Garbe, a CDC epidemiologist and lead investigator for the 
federal agency on the project, said this is just one of a number 
of public misunderstandings about the nature of the thyroid 
study.
 
The focus on I-131 and the thyroid was justified by the fact that 
this was by far the main airborne radioactive waste from Hanford, 
Garbe said. Other releases were taken into account, he said, but 
investigators felt their best chance of documenting health 
effects would be from focusing on the thyroid. 

Jim Thomas, who had served on the study's public advisory 
committee and is now a paralegal working on some of the 
downwinders' lawsuits, said the study investigators do appear to 
have shifted their stance. 

"They've changed their tune in that they no longer appear to be 
arguing that this is strong evidence of no (health) effect," 
Thomas said. 

Now, he contended, they more readily acknowledge many of the 
uncertainties that undermine the statistical power of the study's 
findings.
 
It's too early to say if the final report will have any effect on 
the litigation, Thomas said, adding that it certainly offers no 
surprises or much comfort to many downwinders.


+ HANFORD STUDY: To access the report, go to 
www.cdc.gov/nceh/radiation [http://www.cdc.gov/nceh/radiation] 

On the Net: www.cdc.gov/ [http://www.cdc.gov/] nceh/Radiation P-I 
reporter Tom Paulson can be reached at 206-448-8318 or 
tompaulson@seattlepi.com
           
[Seattle Post-Intelligencer] 
101 Elliott Ave. W.
 Seattle, WA 98119
 (206) 448-8000
 
*****************************************************************
 3 Customers line up for iodide in case of nuclear attack / Health 
experts warn tablet does nothing to reduce radiation
 
[http://sfgate.com] 
 
Keay Davidson, Tanya Schevitz, Chronicle Staff Writers
[kdavidson@sfchronicle.com]         Sunday, June 23, 2002 -->   
  
Fears of a terrorist nuclear attack have prompted a nationwide 
interest in an imagined "magic pill," potassium iodide, for 
protection against radiation exposure. 

People are buying the tablets online. The federal government is 
shipping or planning to ship millions of the pills to states that 
request them. 

So far, 14 states including California have applied for or 
received the pills, which are relatively inexpensive. The U.S. 
Nuclear Regulatory Commission's total budget for purchases is 
$800,000, chicken feed by Beltway standards. 

California wants 886,000 tablets to give to residents around the 
only active commercial reactors left in the state: Pacific Gas 
and Electric Co.'s Diablo Canyon plant near San Luis Obispo, and 
Southern California Edison's San Onofre plant north of San Diego. 

Health experts, however, caution that the tablet protects against 
only one of many forms of radioactivity -- from decaying isotopes 
of the element iodine, which can cause thyroid cancer years down 
the line. It's useless against other effects of an atomic 
disaster, such as noniodine radiation sources and the effects of 
heat and blast. 

Potassium iodide, for example, wouldn't protect at all against 
the likeliest form of atomic terrorism, a so-called "dirty bomb" 
that would combine a conventional explosive with radioactive 
waste. 

But health authorities are having trouble getting that message 
out, given the public thirst for something, anything, that will 
calm their dread of atomic terrorism, especially as the Fourth of 
July approaches -- a potentially juicy symbolic target for 
terrorists. 

"My neighbors have come up and asked me for a prescription for 
potassium iodide," said Dr. Eric Weiss, associate director of 
trauma at Stanford Medical School and chair of the campus 
bioterrorism committee. 

"I ask them, 'What do you think it will do?' They reply, 'It will 
protect us from radiation,' " Weiss said. "They don't understand 
it just protects the thyroid gland from cancer." 

"The Web sites are just selling a zillion doses" of the tablets, 
said Dr. Robert Lull, chief of nuclear medicine at San Francisco 
General Hospital and president of the San Francisco Medical 
Society. 

One online vendor refers to potassium iodide as an 
"anti-radiation pill" in its Web site headline, although the text 
acknowledges there is "no magic pill or medicine that will 
protect you from all radiation sources." 

"We started in '99 and if we had a dozen orders in a day that was 
a big day, " said the site's owner, Shane Connor of Gonzales, 
Texas, who charges $24 for a bottle of 100 tablets. "Then Sept. 
11 happened and we've been sold out four times since then. Our 
sales are up to 200 to 300 orders day. 

"With every headline they jump up even higher." 

The problem, experts agree, isn't that potassium iodide is a 
crank form of protection -- one of those panaceas sought by 
misinformed people in tense times, like the people who, in 1910, 
sealed their doors and windows against "poison gases" from 
Halley's Comet. 

Potassium iodide fulfills a narrow function very effectively. It 
works by flooding the thyroid with harmless iodine, thereby 
preventing any radioactive iodine from getting in. 

To use a hydrological analogy, "the reservoir's full, so no more 
water can go in," said Jon Wolfsthal, deputy director of the 
nonproliferation project at Carnegie Endowment for International 
Peace in Washington, D.C. 

Potassium iodide is so effective in forestalling thyroid cancer, 
in fact, that the federal government is shipping the tablets to 
communities near commercial nuclear reactors that might be 
targeted by terrorists. 

Assuming people swallow the pills soon enough, they can protect 
against thyroid cancer triggered by nuclear "events" -- say, a 
plume of radioactive iodine caused by terrorists who commandeer a 
jetliner and plunge it into a reactor. 

Even so, in a nuclear crisis, radioactive iodine would be one of 
authorities' lesser concerns. 

"This isn't some Star Trek superpill (that you can swallow) and 
suddenly you're immune to radiation," said Lucien Canton, head of 
San Francisco's emergency preparedness office. 

Around the country, some emergency planners feel so strongly that 
they've refused to accept the federal government's free pills. 
Among these dissidents are officials in Illinois, Arkansas and 
South Carolina. 

"Evacuation is the best protective action in an event involving 
nuclear power plants," said Jared Thompson, a health physicist 
and program leader of the radioactive materials program for the 
health department in Arkansas.

"Potassium iodide is only effective against one type of 
radiation. . . . It's not the magic pill everybody makes it out 
to be." 

Officially, the pills are to be provided free by the Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission to states that want to give them to 
residents who live within 10 miles of a commercial reactor. 
However, the 10-mile limit is murky and might be expanded, 
especially as the bioterrorism bill that President Bush signed 
this month provides for a 20-mile radius. 

California officials haven't worked out distribution yet. 
Officials in San Diego, almost 50 miles from the San Onofre 
reactor, said they haven't decided whether to demand inclusion in 
the pill plan. 

In San Luis Obispo County, officials are pressing for enough 
pills to be distributed to all 140,000 residents and 80,000 
tourists in the entire 40-mile emergency zone around Diablo 
Canyon, 18 miles to the north and 22 miles to the south. 

Under the current federal rules, "the community of Los Osos, 
which is about 18,000 people, would receive the iodide pills and 
Morro Bay, which is about 10, 000 people and which is not all 
that far away, would not," said Shirley Bianchi, the county 
supervisor representing the communities north of the plant. 

"You can't split the community like that." 

At the same time, some fear the brouhaha over potassium iodide 
distracts attention from the real issues. 

"The people I've talked to almost laugh at the idea. What we need 
is a plan to get out and if we can't, we need shelter capacity 
and safety suits and communication equipment for emergency 
workers," said Seamus Slattery, president of the Avila Valley 
Advisory Council and a resident of Avila Beach, where the pills 
will be distributed. 

"The pills are a cover-your-ass situation. The most good they can 
do is bring some awareness to the situation." 

Others don't think the pills are such a bad idea. 

Sitting on the curb eating barbecued ribs from the Farmers 
Market, Jenny and Joe Stenger of Pismo Beach said they had 
already developed an emergency evacuation procedure for their 
family and now plan to order the iodide pills. "I don't want to 
be one of those people scrambling to get to a drugstore at the 
last minute," said Jenny Stenger, 42. "I care. I've got three 
kids. I was aware of it (the dangers of the plant) before kids, 
but now with kids you definitely have to have a game plan." 

Having lived near the San Onofre reactor before they moved to the 
Central Coast, they carry liquid iodine in their car to swab on 
their palms and necks, which they heard could help in the event 
of a radiation leak. 

Jack Biesek, 54, and his wife, Susan, 49, live down a long, windy 
road tucked away in See Canyon, just five miles from the plant. 
They even have a Geiger counter on their kitchen windowsill, and 
they take comfort in the fact that it hasn't gone off in the 25 
years they've lived there. 

But if anything did go wrong at the plant, Jack Biesek said, the 
couple have "thrown up their arms" in defeat at the thought of 
evacuating. 

"It is going to be gridlock, guaranteed," he said. A potassium 
iodide pill "is a cheap sense of security, but I would take it if 
the sirens went off." 

Susan Biesek, a member of Mothers for Peace, a local anti-nuclear 
group, said the story shouldn't be that the pills are being 
handed out but why they are needed at all. 

"If you limit the amount of waste that is stored there, you will 
limit the possibility of an accident," she said. "The plant 
shouldn't be there at all. They only provide 10 percent of the 
state's energy, and last year we saved 15 percent to 17 percent 
by conservation." 

Terje Johansen, 22, a lifeguard at a local resort, had a macabre 
view of the whole thing and said it might be better to give the 
pills to those who are farther away. 

"If anything did happen, everyone would be toast anyway," he 
said. "Probably the people within 10 miles are the ones who are 
going to die first. They have no chance." 

Although the Carnegie Endowment's Wolfsthal supports the 
government distribution of potassium iodide, he says the 
government needs to launch an education campaign to go along with 
it. 

People need to know what to do if something bad happens at the 
local nuclear power plant, he said. "It's no different than the 
training you give people if they live in hurricane zones." 

Unfortunately, Wolfsthal says, nuclear safety education -- for 
example, how to get out of a city -- is "not a sexy front-line 
issue. The public wants a magic pill, and the Bush administration 
is trying to give them that." 

Keay Davidson reported from San Francisco and Tanya Schevitz from 
San Luis Obispo. / E-mail the writers at 
kdavidson@sfchronicle.com [kdavidson@sfchronicle.com] and 
tschevitz@sfchronicle.com [tschevitz@sfchronicle.com] . 

©2002 San Francisco Chronicle.   Page A - 23 
*****************************************************************
 4 Bush plans to put U. professor on board
 
[deseretnews.com] 
 	
Sunday, June 23, 2002
 	   	 
WASHINGTON — President Bush has announced that he intends to 
appoint University of Utah geology professor Thure E. Cerling to 
the federal Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board.

       Cerling was one of five people Bush said he plans to 
appoint to terms that would expire on April 19, 2006. He said 
Cerling would represent experts in geochemistry, while others 
announced would represent experts in transportation and 
corrosion.

       Cerling has a doctorate from the University of California, 
Berkeley, and bachelor's and master's degrees from Iowa State 
University. Cerling was a member of Utah's Governor's Nuclear 
Waste Task Force Geologic Working Group. 
	 
© 2002 Deseret News Publishing Company 
*****************************************************************
 5 Yucca: That sound you hear is a hair being split 

LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL: OPINION: COLUMN: Steve Sebelius
 
Sunday, June 23, 2002
 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal 
COLUMN: Steve Sebelius
 
I was pleased this week to see the Nevada AFL-CIO take a strong 
stand on the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump. They're against 
it. But if it has to be built, it should be done with skilled 
union labor. 

I can understand that perspective. I've long been opposed to the 
dump myself. I don't think the government can guarantee the site 
will be safe, much less prevent accidents or terrorism from 
disrupting the shipments on their way to Nevada. 

But should the dump come here, I sure hope they offer those 
special glow-in-the-dark spent plutonium fuel rod wind chimes 
that I heard about. Those seem like they'd be pretty cool. 

Another reason I'm against the dump is that I'm against nuclear 
power. They say it's safe and has none of the foul emissions of 
coal-burning power plants. But nobody ever died from just 
standing around big piles of the coal they use to fuel normal 
power plants, did they? 

Even the chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission says the 
industry doesn't absolutely need Yucca Mountain. If the Senate 
sustains Gov. Kenny Guinn's veto of the dump, the industry can 
continue storing waste in dry casks or cooling pools until a 
permanent solution is found. 

But if we're going to get the dump, I really look forward to 
visiting the Yucca Mountain Research Center and Gift Shop to pick 
up the official Yucca Mountain key chain. (It glows brightly, 
even in the midday sun, so you never have to worry about losing 
your keys. But it's probably not a good idea to put your new 
keychain in your pocket.) 

And speaking of Yucca Mountain, I would never vote for a 
candidate who took money from someone who supports the dump. 
Clearly, they are prostitutes who will do or say anything to get 
elected, only to rush back to Washington, D.C., and push deadly 
nuclear waste down our throats. 

That's deadly nuclear waste. Not the other, non-deadly kind. 

In my district, for example, state Sen. Jon Porter is running for 
Congress. And I went to a news conference where his Democratic 
opponent, Clark County Commissioner Dario Herrera, revealed that 
Porter has taken nearly $70,000 from evil bastards such as House 
Speaker Dennis Hastert and Majority Whip Tom DeLay, who love 
Yucca Mountain like a teen-ager loves porn. 

Porter may claim he's against nuclear waste, he may have spoken 
out against it, and even passed resolutions, and blah, blah, 
blah. But that money can only mean one thing: He's secretly cut a 
deal to vote in favor of Yucca! 

(Don't try to object that it doesn't matter because the Yucca 
vote has already taken place. I happen to known U.S. Sen. Harry 
Reid's got a secret plan to cut Yucca's budget until it's down to 
$4.93.) 

But then I found out Herrera has also taken campaign 
contributions from people who favor the dump. Can you imagine my 
disillusionment at the discovery that someone in politics would 
accuse his opponent of doing something of which he himself is 
guilty? 

Herrera says it's not the same, because his donors just voted for 
the dump, they're not actively pushing for it with an erotic 
passion the way Hastert and DeLay are. 

And that makes sense. I could be friends with someone who only 
committed a couple murders, but never with someone who not only 
committed murders, but also encouraged other people to commit 
murders! That's crossing the line. 

So, I'm in a quandary. Both my would-be congressmen are 
compromised on the nuclear issue. What should I do? 

That's why I've decided to run as a write-in candidate in the 3rd 
Congressional District. I'm old enough, I've lived in the 
district, and -- best of all -- I've got the right credentials. 

Unlike others, I've never even been to Yucca Mountain -- never 
taken their free tour or chowed down on their free hot dogs 
afterward. Anyone who eats a free Yucca Mountain dog is a big, 
old whore, if you ask me. 

So write my name in when you go to your voting booth in November. 
I promise I will always fight against Yucca Mountain, and I won't 
take an irradiated dime from the proponents of nuclear waste, or 
anyone who would make common congress with them. 

But if the dump does come, can they serve Hebrew National hot 
dogs after the Yucca tours? Anybody who knows hot dogs knows 
Hebrew Nationals are the best ... 





Steve Sebelius is a Review-Journal political columnist. His 
column runs Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. Reach him at 383-0283 
or by e-mail at ssebelius@reviewjournal.com.
 
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002
*****************************************************************
 6 Nevada lawmakers put Senate loyalty to test over Yucca
 
Sen. Harry Reid Majority whip counting on Senate tradition and 
process

Sunday, June 23, 2002
 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal 
 
Anti-repository strategy shifts to insider game hinging on 
personal ties, political authority 

By STEVE TETREAULT STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU 

WASHINGTON -- The Yucca Mountain landscape in Congress has 
shifted in the weeks since Nevada's senators began a strategy to 
make the issue a test of loyalty rather than nuclear waste burial 
in the state. 

Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and John Ensign, R-Nev., have 
introduced an element of uncertainty to the Yucca debate. They 
have added a new focus that plays to the strength of friendships 
in the Senate as much as to the 20 years of government science 
and $8 billion spent so far on the proposed repository. 

The Nevadans have constructed a Senate blockade that will force a 
showdown procedural vote probably early in July. 

Repository supporters in the Senate and in the business community 
and nuclear power industry say they still expect to win final 
approval for the Yucca Mountain Project. 

"I think we can win, but I'm not assuming it," said Sen. Larry 
Craig, R-Idaho. 

Pro-Yucca forces wonder what Reid, the majority whip, has up his 
sleeve now that the Yucca Mountain issue may turn on personal 
friendships and the Senate's historically strong bow to custom, 
tradition and process. 

By using his positions of authority, Craig said, Reid is cutting 
deals for votes, a strategy Reid did not deny when asked last 
week. 

And by framing a senator's Yucca Mountain stance as a loyalty 
vote to his leadership and that of Senate Majority Leader Tom 
Daschle, D-S.D., he will peel some Democrats to his side, 
lobbyists predict. 

"It's become more of an inside game, and the inside game is where 
Reid wants it to be," said David Blee, a nuclear industry 
consultant. 

In basketball terms, Blee said, Reid "is working in the paint, 
and he's working hard. If they make this a test of Daschle's 
authority, that puts Democrats in an awkward situation." 

Heading into the final weeks before votes expected after the 
Fourth of July, between 41 and 45 Republicans and around 12 to 15 
Democrats are said to favor the Nevada repository. 

Nevada senators count roughly 35 Democrats and two or three 
Republicans on their side opposing the Yucca Mountain Project. 

A few senators reportedly are undecided on the merits. But some 
senators may shift on the key procedural vote. 

A few Democrats are swing votes, said Bruce Josten, executive 
vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a leading 
pro-Yucca group. 

"On the procedural votes, you've got some people that are a 
little bit undecided, I think four to six of them," Josten said. 
"This is a difficult challenge for them, because personal 
relationships in the U.S. Senate do count for something." 

That " is a factor that has us concerned," said William Kovacs, a 
chamber vice president. 

"Our internal tracking says the same senators that are telling us 
they are with us on the substance are telling us they are with us 
on the procedure," Kovacs said. 

"We think the numbers will be somewhat lower on the simple fact 
that Reid is going to call in some chits. We think we have more 
than enough votes at this time to win even on a procedural 
question." 

One pro-Yucca lobbyist who has been working Capitol Hill said: 
"This is nail-biting time. We're holding (senators') hands as 
tight as we can." 

Reid deflected a question last week on his lobbying efforts. 
Nevada congressional staffers who met Wednesday at a weekly 
strategy session talked of several senators who may be moving 
into the state's column, but no names were disclosed. 

"I'm hopeful," Reid said of chances to prevail. 

Reid had yet to launch his hardest sell, officials familiar with 
his efforts said. 

"We'll see what happens when it comes to nut-crunching time," one 
said. 

Ensign made a pitch to fellow Republicans at a June 12 caucus, 
but GOP senators have said they doubt he will gain many 
sympathizers. Pro-Yucca Republicans such as Craig and Sen. Frank 
Murkowski, R-Alaska, have been delivering daily speeches 
countering Ensign's arguments. 

Since that GOP session, Ensign has talked with some senators but 
also is relying on the state's paid lobbyists to do their job, 
spokeswoman Traci Scott said. 

"For us, we're just keeping an eye on things," Scott said. 

One Democrat who has voted for Yucca Mountain in the past, Debbie 
Stabenow of Michigan, said she is rethinking her position. 

Stabenow said she doesn't expect pressure from Reid as the vote 
approaches. 

"I don't think Senator Reid will use his authority 
inappropriately," Stabenow said. 

But Reid and Ensign have concluded that challenges to Yucca 
Mountain science and transportation alone aren't going to get 
them 51 votes to kill President Bush's plan to build a nuclear 
waste repository 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. So, three 
weeks ago they dusted off a strategy that had been proposed to 
them in the spring by hired parliamentarian Robert Dove. 

With the help of Daschle, a Reid ally and friend, the Yucca 
Mountain resolution will remain on the Senate's calendar until a 
Republican makes a procedural motion to start debate. 

The Nevadans will object that Senate custom holds that only the 
majority leader, Daschle, can make such a motion and will force a 
vote on that matter. 

The question before senators becomes this: Do they want to 
challenge a tradition that invests the majority leader with 
authority to run the show in the Senate? 

If senators vote to proceed anyway, the game's up for Nevada, 
Ensign has said. On a final vote, estimates have been as many as 
62 senators would be expected to vote for the repository. 

If senators vote to uphold the majority leader, Daschle could 
continue stalling the Yucca Mountain bill until the end of July, 
when a deadline will expire and kill the project. 

"This is the only way we can win," one Nevada strategist said 
last week.
 
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002
*****************************************************************
 7 Yucca: Govt considers giving billions to N-waste fund 

Daily Yomiuri On-Line

Yomiuri Shimbun 

The government is likely to pledge several tens of billions of 
yen at the upcoming Group of Eight summit meeting to a fund to 
prevent nuclear materials from Russia and former communist 
countries flowing into the hands of terrorists, government 
sources said Saturday. 

Antiterrorism measures will be a key issue at the G-8 summit, 
which opens in Kananaskis, Canada, on Wednesday, as it will be 
the first G-8 meeting since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the 
United States. 

The government began considering extending the money after the 
United States urged the Group of Seven industrialized countries 
to provide a total of 20 billion dollars (about 2.4 trillion yen) 
to process plutonium left over from Russian nuclear weapons and 
to tighten controls of nuclear-related facilities in former 
communist countries. 

Washington also urged that the fund be used to set up a system to 
protect nuclear materials possessed by former communist 
countries. 

Canada and Germany expressed their intention to support the 
proposal during preparatory meetings for the G-8 summit meeting, 
according to the sources. 

While Germany is thought to back the plan out of a desire to 
prevent nuclear materials being leaked from its neighbors, Canada 
decided to share the financial burden of the scheme in its role 
as summit chair, the sources said. As conditions to extend the 
money, Japan is calling for: 

-- Effective use of the financial assistance in Russia. 

-- Smooth access to highly confidential military information. 

In particular, Tokyo seeks to strictly limit the use of the fund 
to ensure it is not used for military or other purposes outside 
the plan's scope.   

Copyright 2002 The Yomiuri Shimbun 
*****************************************************************
 8 Yucca Editorial: Betrayal just around the corner

Las Vegas SUN
 
June 21, 2002 
 WEEKEND EDITION: June 23, 2002

 Bill Simon Jr., the Republican nominee in the California 
governor's race, was happy last week after emerging from his 
meeting at the White House with presidential aides. Simon told 
reporters that he extracted a promise that President Bush would 
open discussions on removing oil rigs along parts of the 
California coast. "The bottom line really is that the Bush 
administration is willing to sit down and talk about these 
issues," said Simon, who is struggling in his bid to unseat 
Democratic California Gov. Gray Davis. Bush previously has 
opposed getting rid of oil rigs along the California coast, a 
position that has hurt his popularity in that state.

 Hmmm. Now why does the situation in California have such a 
familiar ring?

 Flash back a few months to February. Nevada Republican Gov. 
Kenny Guinn, accompanied by Nevada's U.S. senators, Harry Reid 
and John Ensign, had a meeting in the Oval Office with President 
Bush to lay out the state's opposition to a nuclear waste dump in 
Nevada. "After today I believe he's going to give this some 
serious thought," Guinn told reporters after the meeting. "I did 
feel much better." A few days later Guinn choked on that good 
feeling when President Bush went ahead and recommended that 
Congress bury 77,000 tons of nuclear waste in Nevada, a decision 
that broke his cynical 2000 campaign promise that a Yucca 
Mountain recommendation would be based on science. It was a 
promise, by the way, that Guinn crowed about and which helped 
secure Nevada's electoral votes in the presidential election.

 Simon might end up getting a better response from Bush because 
California has so many electoral votes (more than 10 times as 
many as Nevada). Still, if Bush doesn't see California as being 
in play in 2004, California's environmental's concerns will get 
ignored, and the energy industry's demands will be met, just as 
they were in Nevada. Unfortunately for Simon he's not related to 
the president. A few weeks ago Republican Florida Gov. Jeb Bush 
had a meeting in the Oval Office with his brother, and the 
president gave him a nice gift for his gubernatorial re-election 
bid: a deal to set aside $235 million to buy back oil leases in 
the Everglades and off the Florida coast. Something tells us the 
president will honor that commitment. 

All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
 9 Ralston: Yucca rhetoric reaches new low
 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 
[Las Vegas SUN]                                                                    [Click here!]                                                   

 	June 21, 2002 	
 	 	
Jon Ralston hosts the public affairs program Face to Face on Las 
Vegas ONE and also publishes the Ralston Report. Ralston can be 
reached at ralston@vegas.com [ralston@vegas.com] or (702) 
870-7997.
 
 I'M SURE it bothers some people -- particularly some of the 
people who run this newspaper -- but I have become inured to all 
the nuclear dump rhetoric after covering the issue since Screw 
Nevada I in 1987.

 Despite the Herculean efforts of true believers such as Richard 
Bryan and Grant Sawyer, I acknowledge being worn down by the 
tiresome metaphors (Is it really a mobile Chernobyl, folks?), the 
reflexive pandering by grandstanding pols, the opportunistic 
partisan finger-pointing and the some-times-chilling intolerance 
of any dissent from the anti-dump orthodoxy. I'm sick of it. Sick 
of watching it, sick of hearing it, sick of writing about it.

 Yet, here we are, 20 years after, perhaps literally on the eve 
of a vote that could be the last one ever on this issue as a 
process started in 1982 is consummated (can't avoid those damn 
coital metaphors even now) within days or weeks. And I find 
myself surprised, after having my senses dulled by rhetorical 
bludgeoning and hollow promises, actually feeling astounded by 
what went on last week in the U.S. Senate.

 As someone who has seen some liars in my time -- from Stewart 
Avenue to Grand Central Parkway to Carson Street to Pennsylvania 
Avenue -- the professional prevaricators who took to the Senate 
floor last week have reached a new nadir of chutzpah, 
disingenuousness and haughtiness.

 It was nothing short of amazing to watch on successive days 
Republican senators take to the floor to express concern for the 
state they are trying to (may I say it one more time?) screw, 
reverence for Senate rules they want to subvert and history they 
are trying to revise.

 This is a smattering of what nuclear dump proponents said, 
captured for all to see on C-SPAN, with earnestness and faux 
sincerity, following the president's lead and lying about what 
George W. Bush and others still insist is a decision based on -- 
talk about phrases I'm sick of hearing -- science, not politics:

 Alaska's Frank Murkowski: "The resolution (to override Gov. 
Kenny Guinn's veto) gives the Department of Energy the go-ahead 
to begin the licensing process with the Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission, and that's simply all there is to it."

 All there is to it? I can just hear Ben and James et. al. 
telling King George III on that July 4 of 226 years ago: "This is 
just the beginning of our desire to be independent, and that's 
simply all there is to it."

 Murkowski again: "The solution that (was) proposed and which is 
included in the legislation was passage of a joint resolution 
coupled with suspension of procedures that would eliminate any 
opportunity to obstruct or delay. In other words, trying to make 
it fair to the state that was affected."

 So that's what they were doing when they passed that measure 
that was designed to minimize science and maximize politics by 
giving the governor a phony veto and ensuring that a state with 
little political clout was chosen for the dump. They were being 
fair. Now I understand.

 Minority Leader Trent Lott: "I want everybody to understand that 
nobody's trying to shove this in an unfair way."

 No, of course not. That's why Republicans are so eager to get 
off the defense authorization bill to vote on Yucca Mountain a 
month before the 90-day clock expires.

 One of the most annoying aspects of this issue -- and many 
others, actually -- is the lack of plain-spokeneness during the 
debate. If these Republicans would just be honest, I would have 
more respect for their intentions, which are at a minimum to bury 
the waste in what they see as a literal and political wasteland, 
and at a maximum to reimburse the energy and nuclear interests 
that own various folks who work along Pennsylvania Avenue.

 Why couldn't we hear Lott or Murkowski or Idaho's Larry Craig 
simply declare on the floor: "Look, we have the votes, we just 
don't want all the responsibility. So we want Tom Daschle to 
bring this up so we don't look so culpable and then the Democrats 
won't try something on us if we take control next year. Besides, 
we want to get to this before too many people realize how many 
scientific questions remain unanswered, before too many people 
click on that mapscience.org website and before too many senators 
start getting unbought."

 Instead, these Republicans act as if they are characters created 
by Lewis Carroll, running around with artificial urgency yelling, 
"We're late, we're late." And these Mad Hatters of the GOP are 
eager to get to the party that already has been paid for by the 
Nuclear Energy Institute and others who helped pay the way to 
this inevitable conclusion.

 They probably will get there, too. In politics, crime does pay. 
And no matter how criminal the targeting of Nevada and the 
manipulated science has been, this is about vote-counting now.

 Maybe it's all hidden. Maybe the ad campaign has worked. Maybe 
people are furiously clicking on mapscience.org. Maybe Harry 
Ensign has had miraculous success -- John Ensign with his book of 
facts that has inculcated and influenced his colleagues and Harry 
Reid with his "you want a water project, fork over your vote" 
style.

 But that seems unlikely. So once again, in another commonality 
of politics, bad behavior is rewarded. And guess who gets to pay?

 Now that really makes me sick.                 
 	
All contents © 1996 - 2002 Las Vegas Sun, Inc.
*****************************************************************
 10 Grove: These anti-Yucca activists are driven

Las Vegas SUN: Columnist Benjamin 

 	June 21, 2002 	
at grove@lasvegassun.com [grove@lasvegassun.com] or (202) 662-7245.
 
 THE LIFE of an anti-Yucca activist is never glamorous, and 
sometimes it's smelly.

 Consider Indiana activist Chris Williams, who last week had been 
on the road for 11 days hauling a 20-foot, gray wooden mock 
version of the steel containers that would be used to haul 
nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain. Unwashed, unshaven and 
exhausted, the director of Indiana's Citizens Action Coalition 
was nevertheless in good spirits.

 "Please forgive my grubby appearance," the disheveled Williams 
joked with reporters and bystanders at a Capitol Hill press 
conference last week.

 Williams and five other drivers have been hauling mock casks on 
U.S. highways and interstates in recent weeks. Their mission: 
draw attention to the risks associated with the federal plan to 
transport high-level nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain.

 The six casks, based in different U.S. regions, met up Monday 
night outside Washington, in the parking lot of a warehouse owned 
by an environmental group. The activists crashed there. They 
seemed grateful for the shelter; the warehouse had a shower.

 On Tuesday they made a high-profile appearance on the interstate 
beltway around Washington, at times slowing the early morning 
rush-hour traffic.

 Commuters shot the caravan various looks -- of annoyance, 
curiosity, empathy. A few honked in support. The activists are 
used to seeing thumbs up -- and middle fingers.

 The "wagon train" eventually made its way into the city for a 
press conference in front of the Capitol. I was riding along in 
one cask-toting sport utility vehicle. In a last-minute shuffling 
of crews, I ended up in the GMC of North Carolina activists and 
retirees Bonnie and Claude Ward. ("They call us Bonnie and 
Clyde," Bonnie said with a chuckle.) Joining us was Williams, 
riding shotgun. Packed in the back seat were Reno anti-Yucca 
activist John Hadder; Bonnie; the Wards' 11-year-old Shih Tzu, 
BJ; and me.

 Each of the six crews had tales of woe from the road, including 
bad weather and breakdowns. Hadder's cask-toting pickup, donated 
for the trip by a sympathetic benefactor, gave out in South Bend, 
Ind. Hadder rented a U-haul to continue his journey to 
Washington.

 Mostly the activists want to talk about the responses they get 
from people they meet. Most people still haven't heard about 
Yucca Mountain and are hungry to learn more, the activists said.

 "First they are dumbfounded," Williams said. "Then they are 
angry. They can't for the life of them understand why the 
government wants to do this."

 The activists speak out at protests, "teach-ins" at colleges, 
town councils, at stoplights and gas stations. They pack 
everything they need into the back of their tow vehicles: food, 
gear, piles of anti-Yucca brochures and posters.

 The activists also pack an unwavering optimism.

 They are not naive. They understand the political momentum Yucca 
Mountain has gathered in Congress. They know industry lobbyists 
have outspent and outmanned them in recent months. They know the 
odds are stacked against them -- that the Senate will likely 
approve Yucca next month. After that, only the Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission or federal courts can stop it.

 Still, the activists are undeterred. They cling to the belief 
that they can eventually help defeat the federal plan. Their 
deep, personal belief that Yucca Mountain is a hopelessly flawed 
project drives them.

 Hadder, with his long, blond pony tail and bushy mustache, had 
been on the road for 23 days. He had a long trek back to Nevada 
ahead. He had to deal with that pickup in South Bend. He missed 
his wife. He was tucked next to a tired dog with flaky skin.

 But throughout the morning Hadder's focus rarely strayed from 
what he considers the utter folly of burying waste at Yucca 
Mountain for 10,000 years.

 "This project is so immense and complex that it is beyond the 
DOE's capabilities, and that is going to become more evident over 
the life of the project," Hadder said, as the Wards' SUV poked 
along in traffic. "It's difficult for people to get their minds 
around the scale of this. The magnitude of the hazard is just 
something people don't have a handle on. We're talking about 500 
generations." 

 
As the anti-Yucca activists were circling their wagon train 
Tuesday, a group of nuclear industry executives had assembled a 
conference to showcase the long history of safe high-level 
nuclear waste shipping in America.

 The conference, held just blocks from the anti-Yucca press 
conference, was convened by several waste shipping leaders, 
including Jack Edlow.

 Washington-based Edlow International Co. has been shipping waste 
worldwide since the 1950s. The company was started by Edlow's 
father, Samuel, and Edlow's voice swells with pride when he 
mentions him. Edlow is also proud of the fact that more than 
2,700 shipments have been made in the United States dating back 
decades -- some managed by his company -- and none have resulted 
in accidents that released radiation.

 Edlow said the conference was designed to show the public that 
anti-Yucca forces were generating pure myths that waste shipping 
is risky.

 The event was held in an ornate, air-conditioned hall, a setting 
in contrast with the warehouse where the anti-Yucca activists 
bedded down the night before. The industry executives wore 
expensive suits, not T-shirts and jeans.

 They may not suffer modest trappings, but the industry officials 
are equally committed to their message that waste transportation 
is safe, and can be just as passionate as slogan-shouting Yucca 
protesters.

 A day earlier, Edlow had called on Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., to 
stop "throwing rocks" at the waste transportation industry. Reid 
responded by saying that industry officials were being 
"deceitful" by downplaying risks. Edlow seemed genuinely hurt by 
that, saying he was surprised "someone of a senator's stature" 
would call him a name.

 When Edlow talks, it's clear he truly believes the United States 
can safely launch thousands of shipments of waste to Yucca 
Mountain without a serious accident.

 As Edlow exited the conference, some of the anti-Yucca activists 
were there to heckle him and the other industry types, to Edlow's 
apparent surprise.

 "I do not understand how they can say that there is something 
wrong with transportation. There isn't," Edlow said. "They cannot 
say that it cannot be done safely. It can."           
 	
All contents © 1996 - 2002 Las Vegas Sun, Inc.
*****************************************************************
 11 Russia's Floating Nuclear Graveyard
 
DISCOVER Vol. 23 No. 7 (July 2002) 

 News of science, medicine, and technology
 
by Kathy A. Svitil

 Echoes of the Cold War reverberate around Russia's Kola 
Peninsula in the Arctic and the Pacific coast port city of 
Vladivostok, where more than 160 nuclear submarines—nearly 
two-thirds of the old Soviet nuclear armada—sit rusting in the 
water. The subs, some of which have their nuclear cores still in 
place, need to be carefully dismantled. But Russia says it cannot 
afford the cleanup bill and lacks the infrastructure to 
decommission the radioactive vessels wasting away in the Arctic. 

"Some of the subs are sinking into the sea. The service ships 
that are supposed to remove the radioactive fuel, store it, and 
take it to a land base are full and in disrepair," says Frank L. 
Parker of Vanderbilt University, who runs a contamination 
evaluation project at the International Institute for Applied 
Systems Analysis, near Vienna, Austria. Environmental groups such 
as Norway's Bellona Foundation see an ecological disaster in the 
making. "I wouldn't say it is life threatening unless there is an 
accident, but that is not out of the question," Parker says. 

So far, researchers have not detected significantly elevated 
levels of radiation near the Russian ports. And ocean waters may 
ameliorate the risk.

"On land you see bioaccumulation: Radioactive iodine might get 
incorporated into grass, and then into cows that eat the grass, 
and then into their milk—where the concentration of the radiation 
is increased 800-fold," Parker says. In the ocean a radioactive 
leak would get diluted quickly, although Bellona researchers 
remain wary of the possible consequences. Russia claims it could 
decommission its idle nuclear fleet by 2007 if it received 
significant outside financial assistance. But Parker sees a 
crisis of bureaucracy as much as one of poverty: "I don't believe 
they could meet the 2007 target even with the money." 

© Copyright 2002 The Walt Disney Company. Back to  
[http://www.discover.com] .
*****************************************************************
 12 Plutonium could start rolling into S.C. 

Sunday - June 22, 2002
 	 	
   CNN.com - 

  Hodges said he believes the federal government is trying to use 
South Carolina as "the nation's plutonium dumping ground."        

COLUMBIA, South Carolina (CNN) -- Shipments of plutonium could 
begin to cross the border into South Carolina as soon as Sunday 
night, and Gov. Jim Hodges said he will not try to stop them, as 
he once vowed to do. 
				 
Thursday, the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond 
refused to grant an injunction blocking the shipments while it 
considers South Carolina's appeal of a lower court ruling 
allowing the U.S. Department of Energy to move plutonium into the 
Savannah River Site, located south of Aiken, along the border 
with Georgia. 
				 
Hodges announced Friday he will not try to block the shipments 
while the court case continues. Oral arguments in the state's 
appeal have been set for July 10. 
				 
  •     Fact Sheet: Tug-of-war over plutonium    

  •     Debate: The pros and cons of storing nuclear waste    

The Energy Department plans to move 34 tons of surplus plutonium 
from the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons facility near Denver, 
Colorado, which is closing, to the Savannah River Site, where it 
will be converted into nuclear reactor fuel over the next 20 
years. 
				 
But Hodges, a Democrat facing a tough re-election battle, said he 
believes the federal government is trying to use South Carolina 
as "the nation's plutonium dumping ground," which will make it a 
tempting terrorist target. 
				 
Hodges declared a state of emergency June 14 and ordered state 
law enforcement officials to block the shipments. He told the 
Charlotte Observer newspaper he was willing to "lie down in front 
of the trucks" if necessary to stop them. 
				 
But Tuesday, in a sharply worded rebuke to the governor, U.S. 
District Court Judge Cameron Currie granted the Energy 
Department's request for a permanent injunction preventing Hodges 
or anyone acting on his behalf from trying to block the 
shipments. 
				 
Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham issued a statement saying he was 
"gratified" by the circuit court's decision not to halt the 
"national security" shipments. 
				 
"South Carolina will continue to play an important role in 
helping ensure America's national security, and we look forward 
to working cooperatively with South Carolina's congressional 
delegation to protect the citizens of the state and to achieve 
success in this vital national security program," he said. 
		 
© 2002 Cable News Network LP, LLLP.
*****************************************************************
 13 Information available on nuclear waste disposal, shipment 
 
TheDay.com: Local and National News
 
Published on 06/22/2002 

State legislators have made available at town libraries a 
nine-minute videotape and informational booklet on the safe 
disposal and shipment of spent nuclear fuel.

The video, titled An American Success Story: The Safe Shipment 
of Used Nuclear Fuel, was produced by the Nuclear Energy 
Institute. The booklet, titled Reference Design Description for 
a Geologic Repository, was written by the U.S. Department of 
Energy, the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management and 
the Yucca Mountain Project.

This is an opportunity for residents concerned about the nuclear 
waste storage and transportation issues to learn more about how 
we are to deal with this complex challenge, Rep. Andrea 
Stillman, D-Waterford, said. The videotape and printed materials 
provide some of the latest information on what the government and 
appropriate agencies are planning as it relates to nuclear waste 
storage and shipment of the used nuclear fuel.

Other legislators involved in the project include Reps. Kevin 
Ryan, D-Montville; Gary Orefice, D-East Lyme; Nancy DeMarinis, 
D-Groton; Mary McGrattan, D-Ledyard; and Wade Hyslop, D-New 
London, and Sen. Melodie Peters, D-Groton.

The videotape and booklet will be available for viewing and 
reading at the public libraries in East Lyme, Montville, New 
London and Waterford.  


© 1998-2002 The Day Publishing Co. 
*****************************************************************
 14 Storing nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain site is safest option 

Lincoln journalstar.com
 
[oped@journalstar.com] 		   		 		 
   
What will be done with the highly radioactive spent fuel being 
stored at Cooper, Fort Calhoun and other nuclear power plants 
around the country? And what will be done with the high-level 
waste from the nation's defense program? The September terrorist 
attacks have cast much needed attention on improving security at 
our nuclear facilities after years of security practices that 
have been insufficiently tough and vigilant. 

But in the name of protecting public safety, some in Congress are 
opposing President Bush's decision to store commercial and 
defense nuclear wastes in a deep underground repository at Yucca 
Mountain in Nevada. That misguided approach would actually 
jeopardize our public safety. 

Today, some 48,000 metric tons of nuclear waste are stored at 131 
widely dispersed sites in 39 states. The material would be far 
safer if stored under thousands of feet of rock beneath Yucca 
Mountain and protected by tight security at the nearby Nellis Air 
Force Range, than spread across the country at scores of reactor 
sites. Long-term storage at nuclear plants is unacceptably risky. 
There are too many storage sites, maintained by different private 
and public utilities. Many of the nuclear waste facilities are 
located near major rivers or the ocean, each one compounding 
risk. 

America has the technology -- and perhaps more importantly, the 
experience -- zrequired to safely transport nuclear waste by 
highway and rail to Yucca Mountain. Over the years, there have 
been more than 3,000 shipments (more than 30 from Cooper Nuclear 
Station) of spent nuclear fuel in the United States without a 
single accident that resulted in a release of radiation. 

The transportation casks used to ship spent fuel typically have 
walls several inches thick with shielding materials between outer 
and inner metal walls. Those designed for truck transportation 
weigh between 25 and 40 tons. Railroad casks weigh up to 120 
tons. The casks have been tested by, among other things, being 
hit by a locomotive traveling at 60 miles per hour and being 
driven into a concrete wall at 80 miles per hour. They have been 
exposed to fire and submerged under water for prolonged periods. 
The casks have not failed. 

Yet, anti-nuclear groups oppose efforts to transport spent fuel 
to the Yucca Mountain repository, contending that people along 
the routes would be at risk from an accident on the scale of a 
"mobile Chernobyl." Never mind that for years -- and with 
scarcely any opposition from environmentalists -- spent fuel from 
research reactors in Europe and Asia has been shipped to the 
United States and transported long distances by highway and rail 
for storage at the Savannah River nuclear installation in South 
Carolina. 

Leave aside the fact that steel drums containing 
plutonium-contaminated wastes from the defense program -- which 
are called transuranic wastes and must be isolated from the human 
environment essentially forever -- are being transported along 
interstate highways almost daily for disposal at an underground 
repository in southeastern New Mexico. The first shipments to the 
New Mexico repository began three years ago, and they have been 
carried out with absolute safety. 

The quest for a suitable place to store spent fuel dates to 1954, 
when nuclear technology that had been developed for use on 
submarines was licensed to generate commercial electricity. 
Nuclear power plants were built with the understanding that the 
government would supply a repository for the spent fuel. In 1982, 
Congress passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, which gave the 
responsibility to the Department of Energy. Five years later, 
Congress designated Yucca Mountain, situated far from any 
population center, as the candidate site for the repository. 

Since then, the Department of Energy has assigned teams of 
scientists to evaluate Yucca Mountain's geology, hydrology and 
geochemistry in what is probably the most comprehensive and 
systematic assessment ever conducted of a piece of land anywhere 
on the planet. 

Now is the time for Congress to approve the Bush administration's 
plan to transport the nuclear waste for storage at Yucca 
Mountain. Physical reality -- not arguments about hypothetical 
risks or biases -- ought to inform decisions vital to the United 
States economic and national security. Considering the threat of 
terrorism, it's imperative that the federal government move ahead 
on this. 

Harold Borchert of Lincoln, a health physicist, works for the 
Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services. His opinions 
are not intended to represent those of the department. Health 
physicists work to protect people and the environment from 
adverse effects of radiation. 

Copyright © 2002, Lincoln Journal Star. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 15 Russia set to build nuclear dumpsite

sunspot.net - nation/world 

Arctic grounds can hold 55,000 tons of old sub fuel 

Associated Press
Originally published June 23, 2002
 	
 
MOSCOW - Russia will build a dumpsite on an Arctic archipelago to 
store spent nuclear fuel from decommissioned Northern Fleet 
submarines, a top nuclear official said Friday. 

The dumpsite will be at the southern tip of Novaya Zemlya, which 
was used for nuclear tests during the Cold War, said Valery 
Lebedev, Russia's deputy nuclear power minister. The last 
explosion there was conducted October 1990. 

State environmental experts have given approval for a burial 
ground that could hold 55,000 tons of nuclear waste and cost an 
estimated $70 million, Lebedev said at a news conference. 

Lebedev said the project was vital for dismantling 190 
decommissioned nuclear submarines, two-thirds of which are in the 
north. 

Nuclear fuel has been removed from 97 submarines, officials have 
said, while others have languished dockside with nuclear fuel for 
as long as 15 years because of a shortage of funds for 
dismantling the vessels and storing the spent fuel. 

The dismantling effort was estimated to cost from $2.5 billion to 
$3 billion. Some European Union nations have offered to provide 
funds for dismantling the submarines, but talks have been 
difficult because of Russia's refusal to accept full legal 
responsibility for all nuclear risks, offer tax breaks and give 
Western inspectors unlimited access to all dismantling sites. 

Lebedev said the government would finance the construction of the 
burial ground on Novaya Zemlya. He said it wasn't clear how long 
it would take to complete the project, but said that it could 
take from five to seven years to build the first part. 

Copyright © 2002, The Baltimore Sun [http://www.sunspot.net]     
*****************************************************************
 16 Nuclear waste could travel through Central Texas under proposal
 
 By RICHARD L. SMITH Tribune-Herald staff writer

 A rail route through east Central Texas is one possible path 
over which nuclear waste could travel if a radioactive waste dump 
opens in Nevada, according to an environmental group's new Web 
site. 

The Environmental Working Group put up the interactive Web site 
June 10. It lets the public view maps of nearby waste routes. One 
such route is a rail line that runs near Interstate 45 through 
Leon, Freestone and Navarro counties going from Houston to the 
Dallas-Fort Worth area. Visitors to the Web site can type in an 
address to find out how near they would be to such a route. 

A vote in the U.S. Senate could come as early as next week to 
override Nevada's objection to the proposed Yucca Mountain 
nuclear waste dump. The planned facility about 90 miles from Las 
Vegas faces stiff opposition in the Senate that is being led by 
Majority Leader Sen. Tom Daschle, a Democrat from South Dakota. A 
spokesman for the environmental organization said the group is 
taking no position on the dump but wants to make the public aware 
of potential dangers in transporting radioactive waste. 

"We think the public has a right to know that the Bush 
administration wants to ship high-level nuclear waste for 38 
years and not tell anyone about it," said Richard Wiles, 
Environmental Working Group's senior vice president. "Our beef is 
not with Yucca Mountain per se. Our concern is on issues of 
health and the environment." 

The U.S. Department of Energy has estimated that there could be 
as many as 2,200 long-distance shipments of radioactive waste per 
year over a 24-year period if moved by highways to Yucca 
Mountain. There could be as few as 175 trips if shipped by rail. 
The department said no decision has been made on actual routes 
that would be taken if the Nevada radioactive waste depository is 
built. Joe Davis, an Energy Department spokesman, said the 
"actual routes will be classified" and developed in conjunction 
with state and local officials. 

Information for the Web site, including proposed routes, came 
from the thousands of pages filed by the Energy Department in an 
environmental impact statement for the proposed Nevada facility. 

Nuclear waste in Texas that would be sent to Yucca Mountain would 
come from the state's two nuclear power plants, Comanche Peak 
near Glen Rose and the South Texas project in Matagorda County on 
the Gulf Coast. 

Dangers from accidents or terrorist attacks are among issues 
pointed out on the Web site. The environmental group said that 
cask models for hauling nuclear waste are protected by less than 
five inches of steel, but weapons available on the black market 
can pierce 12 to 30 inches of steel. Information on the Web page 
cites a study by the state of Nevada that indicated the 
penetration of a waste cask by a portable anti-tank missile 
launcher could cause 3,000 to 18,000 latent cancer fatalities. 

The environmental group also warned that many communities in 
which the waste would travel are protected by volunteer 
firefighters and first responders with little radiation training. 
The map shows that the waste route by rail is located 9.6 miles 
from the Fairfield City Hall. That city has a volunteer fire 
department and its chief said most of their training has been in 
preparation for other types of hazardous materials incidents. 

"We've had very, very little (radiation) training," said 
Fairfield Fire Chief Ronnie Drake. "It's pretty much left up to 
us and it's something we've not touched on much." 

Steve Kerekes, a spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, the 
nuclear industry's trade group, questioned why the Web site would 
single out nuclear shipments that won't take place for years and 
ignore the more than 1 million shipments of hazardous materials 
now traveling by truck and rail. Those shipments range from toxic 
chemicals to gasoline. 

The consumer interest group Public Citizen also has route maps 
for each state on a Web site. 

On the Web: Environmental Working Group, www.mapscience.org 
Public Citizen, www.atomicroadshow.org 

Richard L. Smith can be reached at 757-5745 or at 
rsmith@wacotrib.com. The

Associated Press contributed to this story.   
    
The Waco Tribune-Herald and Cox Interactive Media
*****************************************************************
 17 Atom trash may come our way
 
New Jersey News

Train carrying waste would pass through heavily populated areas.
 
Sunday, June 23, 2002
 
By PETER HALL 
The Express-Times 

The Unites States Senate could vote as soon as Tuesday on a plan 
that would bring rail shipments of highly radioactive waste 
through Northwest New Jersey and the Lehigh Valley. 

The Senate will vote whether to approve President Bush's 
recommendation of Yucca Mountain in Nevada as the site of a 
national nuclear waste storage site. 

[http://ads1.advance.net/RealMedia/ads/click_nx.ads/www.nj.com/xml/story/expres
s_times/n/nnj/@StoryAd?x] The facility would be used to store 
77,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel from power plants and 
government reactors in 39 states. The radioactive fuel has been 
stored in vaults at the reactors since the dawn of the nuclear 
age about 50 years ago. 

According to the Environmental Working Group, a Washington, D.C. 
advocacy group, shipments of used fuel from the Oyster Creek 
nuclear power plant in Ocean County, N.J. would roll along a rail 
line that passes though some of the most densely populated parts 
of Hunterdon and Warren counties in New Jersey and Northampton 
and Lehigh counties in Pennsylvania. 

The route passes close to or through Clinton, Bloomsbury, Alpha, 
Phillipsburg, Easton and Bethlehem according to the group, which 
used maps in a federal Department of Energy document to develop a 
Web site on the project. 

The upcoming Senate vote only allows the Department of Energy to 
submit a license application for the project to the Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission, which has power to further review the 
plans, according to a statement from Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M. 

The Senate must vote on the project before July 25, the statement 
said, but a spokeswoman for Sen. Robert Torricelli, D-N.J. said 
the vote could happen anytime. 

Officials in several New Jersey counties have taken action to 
fight the planned shipments, saying they would threaten the 
safety of residents. 

Debra DeShong, a spokeswoman for Torricelli, said the senator has 
voted against the Yucca Mountain project in the past. 

"The senator is very concerned about nuclear waste being shipped 
by road or rail through populated areas of the state," DeShong 
said. 

She also said Torricelli has raised questions about how the 
safety and security of the shipments could be guaranteed and 
whether local emergency workers would be trained to respond to an 
accident involving the nuclear waste. 

"There are a whole host of issues that are raising concern," 
DeShong said. 

Sens. Jon Corzine, D-N.J. and Arlen Specter, R-Pa., could not be 
reached for comment Saturday. 

Erica Clayton Wright, a spokeswoman for Sen. Rick Santorum, 
R-Pa., said the senator has supported the Yucca Mountain plan in 
the past because there are a number of nuclear sites in 
Pennsylvania. 

She said while the routes currently proposed are not final, 
nuclear waste will almost certainly be transported through 
Pennsylvania if the Yucca Mountain facility is built. 

She said Santorum's position is that it makes sense to 
consolidate the waste in one place where it can be properly 
handled. 

"The safeguards that will be put in place are significant," 
Clayton Wright said. 

"If we can ensure that those measures will be put in place, the 
senator will be supportive of the Yucca Mountain concept," she 
said. 

Reporter Peter Hall can be reached at 908-689-4800 or by e-mail 
at pah@express-times.com. 

            Copyright 2002 The Express-Times. Used with 
*****************************************************************
 18 More concerned voices 

Pasko Case

 Gregory Pasko, an investigative journalist who worked for the 
Pacific Fleet's newspaper, was arrested on 20 November 1997 by 
the FSB and charged with high treason for his writing about the 
nuclear safety issues in the Russian Pacific Fleet. 

As the hearing of the appeal case of Grigory Pasko is closing in, 
the Committee to Protect Journalists and the International 
Helsinki Federation has joined in the chorus of concerned voices. 

Jon Gauslaa, 2002-06-22 15:32

In a statement 
[http://www.cpj.org/news/2002/Russia21june02na.html] dated June 
21, the New York based Committee to Protect Journalists, who has 
followed the case closely and sent several delegations to 
Vladivostok where Pasko was tried and now is jailed, calls for a 
full exoneration of the imprisoned journalist. 

-- Russian authorities have been persecuting Grigory Pasko since 
1997 in retaliation for his articles about environmental dangers 
that jeopardised the health of the Russian people, says the 
Committee's executive director Ann Cooper. On June 25, we hope 
the Military Collegium sees that justice is done by clearing 
Pasko's name and setting him free. 

Open letter to Putin 

The International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF), a 
non-governmental human rights organisation representing a network 
of 41 national Helsinki Committees and co-operating organisations 
around the world, expersses in an open letter 
[http://www.ihf-hr.org/appeals/020620.htm] to President Vladimir 
Putin its concerns regarding the case. 

The respected human rights organisation finds it alarming that 
the de facto foundation of the verdict against Pasko is secret 
military regulations, which according to recent Supreme Court 
rulings partly contradicts federal law and partly have no legal 
force. - Thus, the legal basis for the verdict no longer exists, 
concludes the IHF. 

The IHF also states that a number of Russia's obligations under 
the European Convention on Human Rights, which Russia ratified in 
May 1998, have been ignored in the case. 

It doubts that a Military Court can be considered as an 
"impartial and independent tribunal" in the sense of Article 6 
(1) of the convention. Since the proceedings against Pasko has 
continued for almost five years, the IHF also believes that his 
right to have the charges determined "within a reasonable time" 
under Article 6 (1) has been violated. 

Moreover the IHF concludes that the Vladivostok Court's 
evaluation of the evidence of the case contradicts the principles 
of the presumption of innocence expressed in Article 6 (2) of the 
European Convention and that the use of secret and non-normative 
legal acts as basis for the conviction violates its Article 7. 

Obedient servants

 Concluding the letter the IHF quotes Sergei Kovalyov, the former 
Human Rights Ombudsman in Russia, who recently said that the 
conviction of Pasko shows that Russian courts are still obedient 
servants of a repressive system. 

Still, the IHF hopes that the Supreme Court uses this opportunity 
to "prove its independence and trustworthiness in its commitment 
to its international obligations." 

***** Grigory Pasko was arrested on November 20, 1997 and charged 
with treason through espionage. He was acquitted of these charges 
by the Pacific Fleet Court in Vladivostok of on July 20, 1999, 
but sentenced to a three-year imprisonment for 'abuse of his 
official position although he was not charged with that crime, 
and released on a general amnesty. 

After both sides had appealed, the Military Supreme Court 
cancelled the verdict in November 2000 and sent the case back for 
a new trial at the Pacific Fleet Court. The re-trial started on 
July 11, 2001 and ended on December 25, with Pasko being 
convicted to four years of hard labour and taken into custody. 
Both sides again appealed against the verdict. The appeal case 
has been scheduled to June 25, 2002.
   
  Publisher: Bellona Foundation [bellona@bellona.no] , President: 
Frederic Hauge [frederic@bellona.no] Information: info@bellona.no 
[info@bellona.no] , Technical contact: webmaster@bellona.no 
[webmaster@bellona.no] Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 
38 38 62  * P.O.Box 2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway
*****************************************************************
 19 Hiroshima lesson lingers

Lawrence Journal-World: 

Bombing survivor perpetually haunted by atomic blast 

By Bill Snead, Senior Editor 

Sunday, June 23, 2002 

Who would have believed that India and Pakistan ever would be 
talking about settling their long-standing differences with 
nuclear weapons? And, as history repeats itself, the U.S. 
president is warning his nation to listen as he and his Cabinet 
talk seriously about threats of nuclear explosions and "dirty" 
bombs on American soil. 

  Bill Snead/Journal-World Photo

 A U.S. Air Force Atlas Intercontinental Ballistic Missile makes 
its way down a main thoroughfare in Topeka in 1962 on the way to 
a launch site southwest of the city. In the early '60s, there 
were 19 Atlas missile sites in Kansas, all armed with nuclear 
warheads. Some were rated at 4 megatons, 250 times more powerful 
than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Missouri was home to 150 
Minuteman II missiles. All sites were active around the clock. 
Senior editor Bill Snead was a photographer for the Topeka 
Capital-Journal when this photo was taken.   

It's like the bad old days of the Cold War when Soviet Premier 
Nikita Kruschev threatened the United States with the words "We 
will bury you," and Americans knew he had the bombs to do it.
 
Since the Berlin Wall toppled, fears of a nuclear war went the 
way of Douglas County's 53 fallout shelters. 

But Hiroshima, Japan, resident Akihiro Takahashi, 71, a survivor 
of the World War II atomic blast, thinks it's better that we 
don't forget the devastating power of nuclear weapons. 

"I fear what will happen in Japan when the generations who 
experienced World War II are gone," said Takahashi, former 
director of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. 

In a 2000 interview, Takahashi talked about surviving the bomb. 
Given recent news, that discussion again appears timely.
 
The bomb dropped on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, was called "Little 
Boy." It was rated at 15 kilotons, the equivalent of 30 million 
pounds of explosives. Compared with today's nuclear weapons, it 
truly was a little boy.
 
Through a teen's eyes
 
Still, the Hiroshima blast generated temperatures estimated at 
7,000 degrees Fahrenheit and winds of 620 miles an hour. More 
than 100,000 people died when the bomb burst. Within five years, 
another 70,000 were dead of radiation-related illnesses.
 
When Little Boy hit Hiroshima, Takahashi was a 14-year-old junior 
high student. His school was about a mile from the center of the 
blast. 

  Above is a replica of "Little Boy," the atomic bomb that was 
dropped on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945. Rated at 15 kilotons, it's 
considered small by today's megaton standards. It's hanging in 
the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum in Japan.   

Through a translator, he told his story:
 
"When I started junior high, all of the boys wanted to grow up to 
be soldiers. Maybe to be a pilot and go to the enemy and kill as 
many as possible was my dream. I was told by my teachers that 
this was the right thing to do," Takahashi said.
 
In fragile health, he spoke slowly and deliberately.
 
"Basically the war on civility lies as the fault of the Japanese 
government. During the war as a child, I participated. Now, I 
know it was wrong. As students we didn't attend classes. We 
demolished houses to make "fire escape zones" in the event of a 
bombing attack. There was forced labor and no freedom," he said.
 
Takahashi's ears sit flat against his head, and when he stroked 
his face with his hands, his fingers were bent at odd angles.
 
"We lined up in the school yard with 160 students. A student 
pointed and said there was a B-29 in the sky. The sky was clear 
and beautiful, and the plane approached with a vapor trail. 
Because we weren't afraid we watched it. Teachers came out and 
ordered us to line up when there was a roar of sound, and it 
suddenly turned pitch black. There was a flash of light around my 
head. Suddenly a blast came with blue light ... blue flash. 
Without knowing, we were blown away by the blast. Smoke was 
clearing when I came to. I was blown 10 meters. Other students 
were lying in the school yard. The wooden school was flattened. I 
saw distance but no buildings ... only a few. I thought Hiroshima 
had vanished.
 
'I felt a fear'
 
  Akihiro Takahashi, 71, was a 14-year-old student at Municipal 
Junior High School when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima 
in 1945. Heavily scarred, he is one of 10 alive today in a class 
of 60.   

"I checked my body. The heat had ignited my uniform. I had burns 
all over my body. The red flesh was exposed and burned. All of 
the students had the same burns. I felt a fear. We had been 
trained to run to the river bank to avoid fire. I ran to the 
river. A voice said, 'Takahashima, wait for me.' I looked back to 
see my friend Yamamoto. We walked to school together every day. 
He was crying for his mother to help him. It did no good to cry."
 
Takahashi stared into space as he waited for his translator to 
catch up.
 
"Many survivors made a line and proceeded holding their hands and 
feet in front of them with the skin peeled down, virtually naked. 
Their skin was hanging off their bodies. My body and others were 
covered with glass fragments. I saw a woman standing with her eye 
hanging out. A woman with red flesh exposed. I saw some corpses 
among them, a gruesome one with her internal organs hanging out 
of her stomach. A baby was crying by its dead mother.
 
"These things I remember."
 
As he ran for the river, the path was blocked by burning debris 
from houses. He and his friend managed to crawl over the fire. 

"At the moment we got to the river, fire spread all over the 
place like a volcano eruption. I still remember clearly the fear 
I felt that time. We were really lucky. Fire was started by the 
heat rays that ignited everything. Many people were trapped under 
the debris. Many people had to leave family members trapped in 
their burning homes. At the river bank, we ran across a small, 
wooden bridge that saved our lives. At some point without 
noticing I lost my friend Yamamoto. He was found but died five 
days later. When I recovered from my burns, I hid from his 
mother.
 
Struggling back home
 
  Bill Snead/Journal-World Photo

 A mural in the Hiroshima peace memorial museum shows a 
devastated city with few buildings remaining. The building to the 
right, once a Japanese government exhibition hall, is now called 
the A-Bomb Dome and stands on the museum property.   

"My body was hot. I got into the river, which comforted me. The 
river was covered by dead bodies. There was a small rescue point 
in the river where someone took me. Lots of people were seeking 
treatment." 

Then, he said, came black rain containing lethal radioactive 
dust. 

"Some people covered with black rain had effects of radiation. I 
was inside a tent the first time I saw it," Takahashi said.
 
After the rain stopped, he began walking toward his home, nearly 
four miles away. 

"I wondered how a boy badly injured could walk so far. Someone 
called my name and said 'Please bring me home ... help me.' It 
was a classmate. The bottom of his feet were peeled off to the 
bone. He couldn't walk. I was too burned to carry him, so I told 
him to crawl on his hands and knees. We would alternate that with 
him standing on his heels as I supported his weight. We were 
exhausted when suddenly I saw my great uncle and his wife. I 
shouted, and they looked shocked."
 
His relatives had been in a nearby town and escaped the blast. 
They carried the boys home. 

"When I got home, my mother cut my clothes off with a knife," 
Takahashi said. "For a year and a half, I underwent treatment for 
burns. My family knew an ear, nose and throat doctor who came to 
our house every day to treat my burns." 

Before the bombing, there were an estimated 300 doctors in 
Hiroshima. Sixty survived.
 
Since 1971, Takahashi has been hospitalized 32 times and has 
various injections weekly. 

"I've seen all kinds of doctors except gynecologists and 
pediatricians. I fear for my life every day. I realize the 
hardness of life. There remains scars all over my body. Most 
seriously on my right hand. I remember seeing red flesh there. 
Can't move my right hand, only my thumb. Both ears are flattened.
 
"I am an example of what can happen by the atomic bomb, and I 
believe nuclear weapons should be abolished."
 
  The gloved hand of a pilot holds the controls of the eight 
engines required to lift the giant B-52 bomber off the runway. 
During the Cold War B-52's and their crews were on 24-hour alert 
to deliver nuclear weapons anywhere in the world. The first B-52 
was built 50 years ago and many flying today are older than their 
pilots.   

  The structure in the background is called the A-Bomb Dome. It 
was one of the few structures standing after the 1945 nuclear 
blast. It's on the grounds of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial 
Museum, a site that's visited often by Japanese school children.   

  A lone police officer stops traffic in 1962 as an Atlas 
Intercontinental Ballistic Missile traveled down Topeka Ave. on 
its way to a base southwest of the Kansas Capital. In the early 
1960's there were 19 Atlas missile launch sites in Kansas. Before 
the missile went into service it was fitted with a 1 to 4 megaton 
nuclear warhead. Missiles were placed in Kansas and Missosuri 
because the U.S. government thought there would be less chance of 
anti-war demonstrations.   

Copyright © 2002, the Lawrence Journal-World.
*****************************************************************
 20 Hiroshima lesson lingers                   

  Bombing survivor perpetually haunted by 
  atomic blast
                                          
  By Bill Snead, Senior Editor
                                          
  Sunday, June 23, 2002
                                          
  Who would have believed that India and Pakistan ever would be 
talking about settling their long-standing differences with 
nuclear weapons? And, as history repeats itself, the U.S. 
president is warning his nation to listen as he and his Cabinet 
talk seriously about threats of nuclear explosions and "dirty" 
bombs on American soil.                          
                                          
                       
               Bill Snead/Journal-World Photo A U.S. Air Force 
Atlas Intercontinental Ballistic Missile makes its way down a 
main thoroughfare in Topeka in 1962 on the way to a launch site 
southwest of the city. In the early '60s, there were 19 Atlas 
missile sites in Kansas, all armed with nuclear warheads. Some 
were rated at 4 megatons, 250 times    
                       
more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Missouri was 
home to 150 Minuteman II missiles. All sites were active around 
the clock. Senior editor Bill Snead was a photographer for the 
Topeka Capital-Journal when this photo was taken.                 

  It's like the bad old days of the Cold War when Soviet Premier 
Nikita Kruschev threatened the United States with the words "We 
will bury you," and Americans knew he had the bombs to do it.               
                       
  Since the Berlin Wall toppled, fears of a nuclear war went the 
way of Douglas County's 53 fallout shelters.            
                       
                       
  But Hiroshima, Japan, resident Akihiro Takahashi, 71, a 
survivor of the World War II atomic blast, thinks it's better 
that we don't forget the devastating power of nuclear weapons.             
                                          
  "I fear what will happen in Japan when the generations who 
experienced World War II are gone," said Takahashi, former 
director of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum.
                                          
  In a 2000 interview, Takahashi talked about surviving the bomb. 
Given recent news, that discussion again appears timely.                                 
                                          
  The bomb dropped on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, was called 
"Little Boy." It was rated at 15 kilotons, the equivalent of 30 
million pounds of explosives. Compared with today's nuclear 
weapons, it truly was a little boy.                                    
                                          
  Through a teen's eyes                   
                                          
  Still, the Hiroshima blast generated temperatures estimated at 
7,000 degrees Fahrenheit and winds of 620 miles an hour. More 
than 100,000 people died when the bomb burst. Within five years, 
another 70,000 were dead of radiation-related illnesses.            
                                          
  When Little Boy hit Hiroshima, Takahashi was a 14-year-old 
junior high student. His school was about a mile from the center 
of the blast.           

Through a translator, he told his story:             
                            
                            
"When I started junior high, all of the boys wanted to grow up to 
be soldiers. Maybe to be a pilot and go to the enemy and kill as 
many as possible was my dream. I was told by my teachers that 
this was the right thing to do," Takahashi said.                       
                                                                      
In fragile health, he spoke slowly and deliberately.                              

Above is a replica of "Little Boy," the atomic bomb that was 
dropped on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945. Rated at 15 kilotons, it's 
considered small by    
                                          
   today's megaton standards. It's hanging in the Hiroshima Peace 
Memorial Museum in Japan.      
               
"Basically the war on civility lies as the fault of the Japanese 
government. During the war as a child, I participated. Now, I 
know it was wrong. As students we didn't attend classes. We 
demolished houses to make "fire escape zones" in the event of a 
bombing attack. There was forced labor and no freedom," he said.

  Takahashi's ears sit flat against his head, and when he stroked 
his face with his hands, his fingers were bent at odd angles.

  "We lined up in the school yard with 160 students. A student 
pointed and said there was a B-29 in the sky. The sky was clear 
and beautiful, and the plane approached with a vapor trail. 
Because we weren't afraid we watched it. Teachers came out and 
ordered us to line up when there was a roar of sound, and it 
suddenly turned pitch black. There was a flash of light around my 
head. Suddenly a blast came with blue light ... blue flash. 
Without knowing, we were blown away by the blast. Smoke was 
clearing when I came to. I was blown 10 meters. Other students 
were lying in the school yard. The wooden school was flattened. I 
saw distance but no buildings ... only a few. I thought Hiroshima 
had vanished.

  'I felt a fear'

  "I checked my body. The heat had ignited my uniform. I had 
burns all over my body. The red flesh was exposed and burned. All 
of the students had the same burns. I felt a fear. We had been 
trained to run to the river bank to avoid fire. I ran to the 
river. A voice said, 'Takahashima, wait for me.' I looked back to 
see my friend Yamamoto. We walked to school together every day. 
He was crying for his mother to help him. It did no good to cry."                        
                               
Akihiro Takahashi, 71, was a 14-year-old student at Municipal 
Junior High School when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima 
in 1945. Heavily scarred, he is one of 10 alive today in a class 
of 60.           



  Takahashi stared into space as he waited for his translator to 
catch up.

  "Many survivors made a line and proceeded holding their hands 
and feet in front of them with the skin peeled down, virtually 
naked. Their skin was hanging off their bodies. My body and 
others were covered with glass fragments. I saw a woman standing 
with her eye hanging out. A woman with red flesh exposed. I saw 
some corpses among them, a gruesome one with her internal organs 
hanging out of her stomach. A baby was crying by its dead mother.

  "These things I remember."

  As he ran for the river, the path was blocked by burning debris 
from houses. He and his friend managed to crawl over the fire.

  "At the moment we got to the river, fire spread all over the 
place like a volcano eruption. I still remember clearly the fear 
I felt that time. We were really lucky. Fire was started by the 
heat rays that ignited everything. Many people were trapped under 
the debris. Many people had to leave family members trapped in 
their burning homes. At the river bank, we ran across a small, 
wooden bridge that saved our lives. At some point without 
noticing I lost my friend Yamamoto. He was found but died five 
days later. When I recovered from my burns, I hid from his 
mother.

  Struggling back home

                        
                  Bill Snead/Journal-World Photo  

   A mural in the Hiroshima peace memorial museum shows a 
devastated city with few buildings remaining. The building to the 
right, once a Japanese government exhibition hall, is now called 
the A-Bomb Dome and stands on the museum property.

"My body was hot. I got into the river, which comforted me. The 
river was covered by dead bodies. There was a small rescue point 
in the river where someone took me. Lots of people were seeking 
treatment."             
                        

Then, he said, came black rain containing lethal radioactive 
dust.       

"Some people covered with black rain had effects of radiation. I 
was inside a tent the first time I saw it," Takahashi said.

  After the rain stopped, he began walking toward his home, 
nearly four miles away.

  "I wondered how a boy badly injured could walk so far. Someone 
called my name and said 'Please bring me home ... help me.' It 
was a classmate. The bottom of his feet were peeled off to the 
bone. He couldn't walk. I was too burned to carry him, so I told 
him to crawl on his hands and knees. We would alternate that with 
him standing on his heels as I supported his weight. We were 
exhausted when suddenly I saw my great uncle and his wife. I 
shouted, and they looked shocked."

  His relatives had been in a nearby town and escaped the blast. 
They carried the boys home.

  "When I got home, my mother cut my clothes off with a knife," 
Takahashi said. "For a year and a half, I underwent treatment for 
burns. My family knew an ear, nose and throat doctor who came to 
our house every day to treat my burns."

  Before the bombing, there were an estimated 300 doctors in 
Hiroshima. Sixty survived.

  Since 1971, Takahashi has been hospitalized 32 times and has 
various injections weekly.

  "I've seen all kinds of doctors except gynecologists and 
pediatricians. I fear for my life every day. I realize the 
hardness of life. There remains scars all over my body. Most 
seriously on my right hand. I remember seeing red flesh there. 
Can't move my right hand, only my thumb. Both ears are flattened.

  "I am an example of what can happen by the atomic bomb, and I 
believe nuclear weapons should be abolished."


   The gloved hand of a pilot holds the controls of the eight 
engines required to lift the giant B-52 bomber off the runway. 
During the Cold War B-52's and their crews were on 24-hour alert 
to deliver nuclear weapons anywhere in the world. The first B-52 
was built 50 years ago and many flying today are older than their 
pilots.

   The structure in the background is called the A-Bomb Dome. It 
was one of the few structures standing after the 1945 nuclear 
blast. It's on the grounds of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial 
Museum, a site that's visited often by Japanese school children.

   A lone police officer stops traffic in 1962 as an Atlas 
Intercontinental Ballistic Missile traveled down Topeka Ave. on 
its way to a base southwest of the Kansas Capital. In the early 
1960's there were 19 Atlas missile launch sites in Kansas. Before 
the missile went into service it was fitted with a 1 to 4 megaton 
nuclear warhead. Missiles were placed in Kansas and Missosuri 
because the U.S. government thought there would be less chance of 
anti-war demonstrations.

Copyright © 2002, the Lawrence Journal-World. All rights
*****************************************************************
 21 'Dirty bomb' fodder vulnerable 

PittsburghLIVE.com - 

 By  [cosher@tribweb.com] 
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
 Sunday, June 23, 2002 

Nine months after Sept. 11, America is not keeping track of 
low-level radioactive waste — the stuff terrorists could use to 
build the crudest of "dirty bombs." 

Hundreds of devices containing radioactive material are reported 
missing each year, and federal officials say they don't have the 
resources to collect all the old radiation-laden equipment that 
private industry has nowhere to bury. 

The issue took on new urgency this month after a man was arrested 
on suspicion of plotting a dirty-bomb attack on the United 
States. A dirty bomb is a conventional explosive laced with 
radioactive material meant to spew over a wide area. While not 
immediately lethal, like an atomic bomb, a dirty bomb could leave 
radioactive contamination with devastating long-term 
consequences. 

"The whole question of what could be used for a dirty bomb is now 
getting a much higher level of attention," said Neil Sheehan, a 
spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. "The difficulty 
is that we live in a society where there are 2 million sources 
out there in active use. Controlling that is a formidable task." 

Radioactive material is used in medical devices, scientific 
instruments and even construction equipment. Many of these 
devices are not under lock and key. A terrorist cracking open 
that equipment to obtain the radioactive material could do so in 
many cases without receiving a lethal dose, according to 
scientists who studied the issue at Los Alamos National 
Laboratory. 

The low-level radioactive waste cannot cause a chain reaction or 
explosion like that of a nuclear weapon. It can be found on gowns 
and gloves used to work with radioactive material and in 
dismantled parts from nuclear power plants. It also can be 
byproducts from hospitals, food-irradiation plants and 
nuclear-weapons production. Some of that waste quickly becomes 
harmless; some retains its potentcy for hundreds of years. 

Nobody can say how much of the waste there is, where it is or how 
radioactive it is. Like highly radioactive material, can cause 
cancer and death. 

"This is going to thousands of hospitals and thousands of 
universities," said Marshall Drummond, chancellor of the Los 
Angeles Community College District and a former member of the 
National Academy of Sciences. "Once it gets sent to where it is 
going, it is spread to hell's half-acre." 

The lack of accountability makes the nation vulnerable, he said. 

"I don't think anybody has denied that there is a glitch in the 
system," he said. "We want to make sure that it is better 
controlled and really tighten it up so it can be properly 
audited." 

Officials at the region’s main hospitals, including Allegheny 
General, West Penn, Mercy and the UPMC system, insist they abide 
by federal regulations and restrict access to storage areas for 
radioactive materials. They said the Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission licenses the hospitals and conducts surprise visits to 
ensure compliance. 

"Those sources are not in places where the public can get access 
to," said Sylvia Lesic, director of radiation at Pittsburgh Mercy 
Health System. "We feel our risk is very minimal of somebody 
being able to get out the stuff that dirty bombs are made of." 

Less powerful elements such as radioactive iodine, used to treat 
thyroid problems, lose any harmful levels of radiation in days, 
Lesic said. Those that are more toxic — such as cobalt and cesium 
to treat cancers — are stored in protective containers that are 
heavy and difficult to carry. The materials that take longer to 
decay are picked up at hospitals by the companies that sell them, 
she said. Those companies then are responsible for disposal. 

LESS OBVIOUS SOURCES VULNERABLE 

Terrorism experts aren't focusing their concerns on high-level 
radioactive waste, such as the spent fuel rods from nuclear power 
plants or weaponry material, as a source for dirty bombs. Two 
years ago a nuclear power plant in Connecticut reported the only 
known case of losing spent rods. And dealing with such rods and 
weapons-grade material likely is beyond the expertise of 
terrorists, federal officials say. 

"Spent fuel rods are at nuclear power plant sites that are 
heavily protected and have raised their security since Sept. 11, 
and anyone who came into contact with those spent fuel rods would 
be exposed to a lethal dose," said Victor Dicks, spokesman for 
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. 

A food-irradiation plant typically holds hundreds of cobalt 
"pencils," which are about an inch in diameter and a foot long. 
According to congressional testimony by the American Federation 
of Scientists, a terrorist exploding 10 pounds of TNT and a 
single piece of that radioactive cobalt would make New York City 
uninhabitable for decades. 

Dicks discounts that scenario, though. 

"Nuclear irradiators, like cobalt-60, are protected by security 
measures," he said. "They are parts of devices that are heavily 
shielded. Even brief exposure would cause lethal doses and would 
kill anyone attempting to remove it." 

Federal officials say they are especially worried about 
radioactive equipment discarded by the oil and construction 
industries and lower-level radioactive waste generated by 
industries, utilities and academic institutions. 

"Significant quantities of radioactive material have been lost or 
stolen from U.S. facilities during the past few years, and thefts 
of foreign sources have led to fatalities," Henry Kelly, the 
president of the Federation of American Scientists, testified in 
March before the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. "In 
the U.S., sources have been found abandoned in scrap yards, 
vehicles and residential buildings." 

A terrorist could harvest the material without receiving a lethal 
dose, according to scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory. 
The explosion generated by this type of industrial material would 
force costly evacuations and cleanups in large swaths of urban 
areas, Kelly testified. 

"This stuff does pose a serious threat if it is misused by 
terrorists," said Leroy Leonard, a Los Alamos project manager who 
is helping the federal government collect and dispose of such 
equipment. "It is now an inventory that is vulnerable to misuse. 
The urgency to get it off the streets to those of us responsible 
for it has increased." 

Experts worry that security in foreign countries is even weaker 
than in the United States. In September 1987, scavengers broke 
into an abandoned cancer clinic in Brazil and pillaged 
radioactive material, contaminating themselves. About 250 people 
were exposed to radiation, and four died. In 1995, Chechen rebels 
placed in a Moscow park a shielded container holding the 
radioactive cesium-137 core from a cancer-treatment device. They 
then tipped off Russian reporters to its location. 

MATERIALS FOUND IN YARDS, CLOSETS 

Joel Grimm is in charge of the federal program that gets rid of 
the castoffs from private industry that could be used in a 
dirty-bomb attack. "Somebody who knew what they were doing would 
be able to get what they needed," Grimm said recently. 

The Off-Site Source Recovery Project that Grimm manages for the 
U.S. Department of Energy has found abandoned medical devices and 
construction equipment —- all containing deadly material for a 
dirty bomb — stashed in closets, backyard sheds, even garages. 

Once, the owners of a defunct company that used gauges containing 
deadly radioactive americium used to map oil wells asked his 
agency for help in getting rid of the equipment. Grimm's staff 
found the gauges buried in polyvinyl chloride pipes sticking out 
of the ground in a back yard. In another case, the owners of a 
bankrupt company piled the same type of equipment in a truck they 
abandoned in a Chicago-area parking lot. They left a note 
alerting authorities and then fled to Costa Rica. 

In each instance, if the radioactive material had been used to 
build a dirty bomb, the explosion would have contaminated at 
least 60 city blocks beyond acceptable limits, according to 
congressional testimony. 

DISPOSAL, TRACKING MEASURES LAX

 Grimm's agency is struggling to collect and dispose of the known 
5,300 old radioactive devices scattered in warehouses, closets, 
back yards and dumps throughout the nation. These devices have 
the potential to emit radiation in excess of limits considered 
safe for commercial dump sites. By law, the federal government 
must dispose of them at a single site in New Mexico. More than 
half the equipment contains radioactive powder, the type of 
material most prized by terrorists because it is the easiest to 
disperse in the wind, he said. 

Grimm concedes, though, that far more material could be awaiting 
collection, but he has no way of knowing because his agency 
relies on industry to voluntarily report problems. Nobody knows 
for sure how many businesses illegally toss aside dangerous 
devices, avoiding costly environmental regulations, Grimm said. 

His agency's annual budget for this year is just under $3 
million, down from $7 million for the fiscal year that ended in 
August 2000. Next year, it's slated to go down to $2.2 million. 

The declining funding concerns the Federation of American 
Scientists, a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., 
dedicated to ending nuclear arms, said Jamie Yassif, a research 
associate there. 

Yassif said industry does a good job of protecting the devices as 
long as the devices are still in use. 

"However, once there ceases to be an economic incentive for the 
materials, the likelihood of abandonment or theft or accidental 
loss increases," she said. 

Grimm's agency at least knows the location of those radioactive 
items industries have asked the government to bury. The 
difficulty is in tracking radioactive material reported missing. 

Sheehan, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman, said that 
annually more than 300 such devices —- which he could not 
describe — are reported missing to the federal government. Only 
about 150 of those are found each year, he said. 

The federal government also has no system for tracking how much 
low-level radioactive waste is generated each year. 

That's because the government — except in instances involving 
nuclear power plants — assumes the amount of waste buried is the 
amount of waste generated. 

"Obviously they should be keeping track of what's generated, and 
that should be reported and that should be something regulators 
have a handle on, but they don't," said Diane D'Arrigo, the 
radioactive-waste program director of the Nuclear Information 
Resource Service. "There's no way to really know if anything 
slips out." 

Ron Fuchs, a recently retired Department of Energy official, used 
to track how much waste went to disposal sites. The information 
is of little use to regulators, he said, because under an 
agreement with burial sites, the federal government does not 
tabulate the data to identify where the waste came from. 

Last year, the funding for the project dried up, forcing the 
federal government to temporarily stop collecting the 
information, he said. The money only recently was restored, he 
said. He thinks the government needs to do more, including 
getting a handle on how much waste actually is generated each 
year. 

"But there has to be some sort of funding source to pay for that 
because it is a monumental task," he said. 

PROBLEMS UNCOVERED DECADES AGO 

The General Accounting Office, the congressional agency that 
audits federal programs, found the tracking system lacking more 
than 20 years ago. In 1980, the agency reported: "Without a 
method to track waste from the point of generation to the point 
of disposal, it is highly probable that illegal dumping occurs." 

Some of this waste, such as the radioactive iodine used to treat 
thyroid problems, is used in small doses and becomes harmless 
within days. Other substances, such as cobalt, cesium, uranium 
and plutonium, remain potent far longer. 

Although industrial waste generators are subject to inspections, 
critics contend the inspection system is faulty because the work 
is spread among a patchwork of federal and state agencies. 
Anti-nuclear groups also complain that the Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission, which in 1974 was spun off from the Atomic Energy 
Commission, has failed to fulfill its regulatory duties. 

"In recent years it seems more and more that the NRC is acting as 
an advocate for the industry," said Edwin Lyman, of the 
anti-nuclear power Nuclear Control Institute. "It was meant to be 
independent of the promotional part. But NRC recovers most of the 
fees from the industry licenses, and that creates difficult 
situations." 

The NRC retains authority to conduct inspections in 18 states, 
including Pennsylvania, but not in the 32 other states. 

The General Accounting Office raised concerns about this system 
almost 10 years ago. A 1993 report found that the commission had 
failed to discipline deficient state programs. In fact, that 
report stated, only Idaho had ever had its radioactive program 
terminated, and it was by the governor, not federal authorities. 

Pennsylvania relies on the federal agency to do much of the 
inspection work. In fact, Pennsylvania has started requiring 
low-level radioactive waste generators to report less 
information, not more. 

Rich Janati, chief of the Division of Nuclear Safety in the 
Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, said that 
two years ago, his office used to require waste generators to 
file detailed reports of their waste for comparison to what 
burial sites reported receiving. 

Now, the state requires reports that don't even specify volumes 
shipped, he said. For now, he relies on the federal commission's 
inspections to ensure that generators keep proper records. With a 
staff of one full-time worker and two part-time workers, Janati 
is planning to take over the inspection duties from the federal 
government soon. 

"We trust the system," he said. "The system has been so accurate 
in the past that we don't believe we have to get the detailed 
reports from them anymore." Chris Osher can be reached at  
[cosher@tribweb.com] or (412) 320-7910.

2002 by The Tribune-Review Publishing Co.
*****************************************************************
 22 CBS Poll: 25% Back Preemptive U.S. Nuke Strike

NewsMax.com: Inside Cover Story
 
Saturday, June 22, 2002 12:05 p.m. EDT

 A surprisingly high percentage of Americans surveyed this week 
said they would support a preemptive nuclear strike on countries 
that harbor terrorists if President Bush decides it is justified 
to stop another attack on the United States, a CBS News poll 
released late Friday found.

 While still a mere fraction of the population, a full 25 percent 
of respondents told CBS pollsters that the U.S. would be 
"justified in using a nuclear weapon first against another 
country" if that country is planning another terrorist attack 
against America.

 And nearly three-quarters of those surveyed, 73 percent, said 
they "trust Bush to make the right decisions about the use of 
nuclear weapons," a CBSNews.com report on the poll said.

 However, 65 percent said the U.S. would "not ever be justified 
in using a nuclear weapon first against another country." Support 
for a non-nuclear first strike is much higher, with 83 percent 
saying the U.S. would be justified in doing so to stop another 
attack. Only 9 percent opposed a non-nuclear first strike.

 When pollsters asked specifically about Iraq, a full 70 percent 
said they support a non-nuclear preemptive attack to remove 
Saddam Hussein from power, with only 20 percent opposed. CBS 
pollsters did not ask about a nuclear first strike against Iraq 
specifically.

 The CBS News survey randomly interviewed 892 adults between June 
18-20, 2002. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 
percentage points.  
 
All Rights Reserved © NewsMax.com
*****************************************************************
 23 Plutonium is ready to roll

Rocky Mountain News: State
 		 		
Rocky Flats could start to ship today under court ruling

By Todd Hartman, News Staff Writer
June 22, 2002

Drive carefully. 

That 18-wheeler chugging along next to you this weekend might be 
carrying some hot stuff -- plutonium, to be precise. 

Shipments of the highly radioactive material could be rolling 
from Rocky Flats near Boulder as soon as today, after a federal 
appeals court Thursday refused to stop the shipments to the 
Savannah River Site in South Carolina. 

Times and routes are classified, but in recent legal proceedings, 
the Department of Energy said that shipments could begin today -- 
or not. 

"As we told the court, the earliest we could begin is June 22," 
said Joe Davis, a DOE spokesman in Washington. Beyond that, "I 
can't tell you when we are shipping." 

The Colorado State Patrol will be examining the trucks and 
checking drivers before any shipments leave, said Capt. Tom 
Wilcoxen. 

"We are out there every day already doing point-of-origin 
inspections," Wilcoxen said. 

He and others note that shipments of nuclear waste are not 
uncommon in the country, and that nuclear waste from Rocky Flats 
has been going to New Mexico since 1999, although that material 
isn't necessarily weapons-grade plutonium. "A month ago they 
completed their 500th shipment without an incident," said 
Wilcoxen, adding that hazardous waste shipments of all kinds dot 
the highways every day. 

Davis said the trucks hauling the plutonium "look like an average 
18-wheeler," unlike the more distinctive trucks with a trio of 
squat cylindrical cases that haul materials from Rocky Flats to 
the underground Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M. 

"These are safe, secure transports that employ a variety of 
protective measures," Davis said. Those include oversight by the 
DOE's Office of Transportation Safeguards and escorts by federal 
officers, he said. 

Shipping the estimated six tons of plutonium to the energy 
department's Savannah River Site is a major step in closing Rocky 
Flats by the target date of Dec. 15, 2006. 

The material -- pure plutonium and plutonium oxide produced 
during the manufacture of bomb parts -- will fill about 1,900 
containers, about 700 of which are ready for shipment, officials 
say. 

Shipments to the Palmetto State are expected to take 12 to 18 
months. The DOE wants to convert the Rocky Flats plutonium into a 
mixed-oxide fuel at Savannah River for use at nuclear reactors. 

The legal battle over the shipments isn't over. The 4th Circuit 
Court of Appeals has agreed to hear arguments opposing the plan 
on environmental grounds in July. But the same court declined to 
bar the transports in the meantime. 

South Carolina Gov. Jim Hodges has said he isn't opposed to 
allowing the plutonium in his state temporarily. But he said he 
fears the federal government won't move the material later -- 
despite assurances by Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham that it 
will. 

For months, Hodges threatened to lay down in the road and use 
state troopers to block the shipments. But a federal judge this 
week ordered Hodges not to interfere. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 
  

2002 © The E.W. Scripps Co.
*****************************************************************
 24 SRS neighbors have mixed views 

Augusta Georgia: Metro:

06/23/02
 
062302 metro 14 @ugusta AIKEN, S.C. -- Harry Holston has lived a 
lifetime within miles of nuclear material and a new shipment of 
plutonium isn't going to keep him up at night.--> SRS neighbors 
have mixed views 

Web posted Sunday, June 23, 2002
 
By Jennifer Holland Associated Press [http://wire.ap.org/] 

AIKEN, S.C. -- Harry Holston has lived a lifetime within miles of 
nuclear material and a new shipment of plutonium isn't going to 
keep him up at night.

 "I've got six kids, two grandkids and they've all grown up next 
to the bomb plant and we have no problem with it," Holston said 
Saturday at a corner convenience store near the U.S. Energy 
Department's sprawling Savannah River Site.

 On Saturday, there were more political campaign signs for 
Tuesday's Republican runoffs than there were people outside the 
plant's entrance.

 Any day now, the Energy Department will begin shipments of six 
tons of weapons-grade plutonium that will be trucked from Rocky 
Flats in Colorado to South Carolina's former nuclear weapons site 
on the Georgia border.

 After more than a year of harsh words and a court fight, South 
Carolina Gov. Jim Hodges was ordered to drop efforts to block 
shipments this week.

 Holston said the shipments don't need the uproar.

 "If you keep it confidential and move it in small quantities, 
we've got nothing to worry about," said Holston, a 40-year-old 
New Ellenton trucker.

"It's getting to the gate that we've got to worry about."

 Biker Dorsey "Cowboy" King, 48, doesn't want his state to 
continue to be a nuclear dumping ground. South Carolina already 
has one of the nation's only low-level nuclear waste sites.

 "It shouldn't be here. We've got enough," King said. "I drilled 
out there for years and we found all kinds of contamination in 
the water and ground," said King, who worked for an environmental 
monitoring company at the site.

 So far, about 600 containers are packed and ready to move from 
the Energy Department's Rocky Flats facility in Colorado. In all, 
about 2,000 of the 35-gallon containers will head to the Savannah 
River Site.

 Plans to convert that material into a fuel for commercial 
nuclear reaction continue to draw criticism.

 Leaders of the Green Party from North Carolina, South Carolina 
and Georgia said Saturday they supported Gov. Jim Hodges' efforts 
to block the plutonium, but disagreed with plans to convert the 
plutonium.

 "We oppose plutonium fuel and are dedicated to fighting any 
plans to force this dangerous poison onto our communities," said 
Tom Turnipseed, chairman of the South Carolina Green Party.

 Turnipseed said the group will recruit candidates for the fall 
elections that will run and raise visibility about plutonium 
shipped to the Savannah River Site near Aiken and the plans to 
convert it to fuel.
 
 [letters@augustachronicle.com] 
*****************************************************************
 25 Energy should open up about Hanford cleanup

The Seattle Times: 

Editorials &Opinion 

Sunday, June 23, 2002, 12:00 a.m. Pacific 

"Trust us." 

That continues to be the not-very-reassuring message from the 
Department of Energy to regulators, advisers and members of the 
public nervous about the agency's intentions at the Hanford 
nuclear reservation in Eastern Washington. The Energy Department, 
which is in the middle of negotiations with regulators on a 
dramatic plan to speed cleanup and reduce cost, suddenly reversed 
a standard practice of making its advance-year budget plans 
public. 

Although the agency's nuclear cleanup request for fiscal year 
2003, which begins Oct. 1, is public, its details for which sites 
get how much money remain unclear. Hanford has been promised 
about $1.5 billion but might get as much as another $433 million 
from an incentive fund. Congress is haggling over the details. 

What is most concerning to Hanford watchdogs lately, however, is 
the Energy Department's decision to keep its 2004 budget plan 
secret for now. Chief Hanford regulators are concerned enough to 
protest the secrecy, which is in violation of an agreement 
mapping out Hanford cleanup. 

The Environmental Protection Agency and the state Department of 
Ecology are co-signers of the now-13-year-old Tri-Party 
Agreement. Under the pact, Energy is required to request enough 
money to meet certain milestones. 

With early disclosure of future budget estimates, Hanford 
watchers were able to ride herd on Energy by evaluating its 
budget requests, raising hell when they fell short, threatening 
lawsuits when necessary and mobilizing Congress to fix any 
shortfall. Earlier this year, for instance, regulators pitched a 
righteous fit when Energy asked for less than they thought 
necessary. Then the department suggested more money might be 
coming from this incentive fund. 

Being kept in the dark greatly reduces time not just for scrutiny 
by regulators but for such rabble-rousing in the public interest. 

Those opportunities are all the more important now as the Energy 
Department attempts to launch its plan to accelerate completion 
of Hanford cleanup to 2035 — 35 years ahead of schedule. Energy 
officials hope to conclude negotiations with EPA and the state by 
Aug. 1. 

Critics of the draft plan worry it relies too much on technology 
not yet determined and that it will leave much undone. The 
Tri-Party Agreement requires 99 percent of the liquid radioactive 
waste now stored in aging tanks be removed, but Energy is angling 
to leave more waste in the tanks — a major disagreement in the 
negotiations. 

In reviewing Energy's plan, the Hanford Advisory Board earlier 
this month expressed concern that some shortcuts weren't in the 
public interest: "It appears the plan may sacrifice quality and 
rigor for cleanup required by current laws and regulations for 
the sake of expediency." HAB also expressed concern about the 
lack of details and urged Energy to ensure more public disclosure 
and participation. 

Quicker and cheaper ways to clean up 50 years of defense nuclear 
wastes should be the goal of everyone — but regulators and the 
public must have confidence that the new tack will be effective. 
With change as radical as Energy is proposing, agency officials 
should be bending over backwards to share its plans, encourage 
scrutiny and answer questions. 

The Energy Department should start with disclosing its early 
budget plan for 2004. 

Copyright © 2002 The Seattle Times Company
*****************************************************************
 26 Contaminated soil, debris moved at Hanford

The Seattle Times: 

Sunday, June 23, 2002, 12:00 a.m. Pacific 
By The Associated Press 

RICHLAND — About 3.3 million tons of contaminated soil and debris 
have been removed from around nine old plutonium-production 
reactors at the Hanford nuclear reservation. 

The soil comes from where contaminated water was dumped after it 
was used to cool the reactors. That water left behind radioactive 
and nonradioactive chemicals in the soil. 

The amount removed represents about 40 percent of the 7.8 million 
tons of contaminated soil and debris being moved from the 
Columbia River shoreline to a huge landfill in the center of the 
560-square-mile reservation, the state Department of Ecology 
said. 

"There's an enormous amount of work left to do at Hanford, but 
occasionally we need to recognize accomplishments along the way," 
Ecology Director Tom Fitzsimmons said in a news release. 

"Cleaning up the contamination left by the cooling waters has 
been some of the least-complicated cleanup work, but it's still 
great to see it done safely and quickly." 

John Price, the Washington Department of Ecology's Hanford 
environmental-restoration project manager, said the 
river-shore-cleanup efforts next will concentrate on 45 large 
burial sites around the reactors. They contain radioactive 
hardware and other contaminated trash. 

The U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Environmental Protection 
Agency and the state recently negotiated deadlines to finish 
removing radioactive soil and other buried contamination from the 
reactor areas by 2012. 

Copyright © 2002 The Seattle Times Company
    
*****************************************************************

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material is distributed without profit or payment to those who 
have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for 
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information go to: 
<http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml> 
    
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