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                         NUCLEAR POLICY
 
1 No time frame yet for retiring plants
2 US: NRC to Discuss Apparent Violations With Framatome ANP, Inc.
 
                         NUCLEAR REACTORS
 
3 US: NRC Staff to Hold Public Meeting to Discuss Inspection of McGuir
4 US: Energy NW unsure of contractor
5 US:  Vt. Yankee Nuke Plant Sale to Go On
6 US: Cooper demonstrates safety measures
 
                          NUCLEAR SAFETY
 
7 US: NRC Proposes $3,000 Fine Against Northern Engraving for the Loss
8 US Official’s Claim of Russia Plutonium Theft has Authorities 
9 US: Security of radioactive material at low ebb 
 
                         NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
 
10 plutonium transport ships and protest flotilla
11 U.S. Lab Aids Disposal of Nuclear Waste In Romania*
12 Plutonium ships slowed by Tassie protester 
13 Commissioners table discussion on litigation against 'Record' *
14 US: Panel Cuts Yucca Mountain Funds
15 LES announcement of proposed sites delayed
16 US: Locals react to decision on Yucca Mountain - 
17 US: Few members of public have no opinion on nuclear dump
18 US: Reid takes bite out of Energy Department spending
19 US: Panel cuts funds for nuke dump
20 AU: Protesters move in on nuke ships *
21 US: Commentary: Radio-active politics
22 US: Counties adopt resolution on transporting nuke waste
23 US: Reid-led subcommittee cuts proposed Yucca budget
24 US: With little fanfare, Bush signs Yucca resolution
25 US: Destination: Yucca Mountain
26 US: What will happen when Yucca Mountain fills up?
27 US: Science supports plan to store waste at Nevada site
28 AU: Protestors leap in front of nuclear waste ships *
29 US: Utah Waste Act Foes Defend State Ballot Law 
30 US: President signs bill making Nevada's Yucca Mountain the nation's
31 US: Idaho court considers nuclear waste case 
32 USEC rival adds enrichment firm based in Canada - Tennessee, 
33 US: Gov. Guinn's statement regarding President Bush signing House Jo
34 Deal: Cameco Buys Uranium Plant
35 U.S.-Europe Group Wants to Build Nuclear Fuel Plant in U.S.
36 Despite small crowd, organizer says Unicoi group gaining steam
37 Commission postpones editorial agenda item
 
                         NUCLEAR WEAPONS
 
38 US: Bush Jr.'s Nuclear Sabre-Rattling
 
                        US DEPT. OF ENERGY
 
39 DOE contract talks to slow shore cleanup
40 PNNL director decides to resign
41 Hanford regulators still concerned about cleanup
42 Tri-Party agreement, sister pacts key to nuclear cleanup, report say
43 Senate panel OKs $2 billion for Hanford cleanup 
44 Wamp: DOE needs one local manager 
45 Y-12 Mercury saga - Health impact little, cleanup impact big 
 
                          OTHER NUCLEAR
 
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                         FULL NEWS STORIES
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 1 No time frame yet for retiring plants

The Taipei Times Online: 2002-07-23
 
  Tuesday, July 23rd, 2002   

DENIAL: Despite reports to the contrary, Taipower says there are 
no plans as of yet to take offline the nation's operating nuclear 
power plants earlier than scheduled

By Chiu Yu-tzu
STAFF REPORTER

No timetable has been set to decommission the nation's three 
operating nuclear power plants, officials from Taiwan Power Co 
(Taipower) said yesterday.

 A Chinese-language media report yesterday said the First Nuclear 
Power Plant would be taken offline by 2004, or 14 years before 
its 40-year lifespan is up.

 But Taipower officials denied the report yesterday, saying no 
date has been set.

 The First Nuclear Power Plant in Taipei County has been 
operating since 1978.

 According to the report, the plant will be decommissioned by the 
2004 presidential election as part of the DPP's plans to ensure 
support for Chen Shui-bian (³¯¤ô«ó), who has promised to phase 
out the use of nuclear energy.

 The nation currently has electricity reserves of 22 percent. 
Decommissioning the First Nuclear Power Plant -- which has a 
capacity output of 1,272 megawatts and accounts for just 4 
percent of the nation's power supply -- would have little impact, 
according to the report.

 The report also states that retiring the plant 14 years early 
would lead to a loss of NT$518 billion.

 In denying yesterday's report, Taipower officials noted that no 
regulations have been established to allow for the early 
decommissioning of the nation's nuclear power plants.

 "Taipower has no specific time frame to decommission the nuclear 
plants," Huang Huei-yu (¶À´f¤©), the head of Taipower's public 
affairs department, told the Taipei Times yesterday.

 Huang said that if any policy is made, Taipower would be glad to 
implement it.

 According to the Taipower representative, the nation's three 
operating nuclear plants were originally designed to operate for 
about 40 years.

 The idea of retiring the plants early was first raised in 
February last year, when the Cabinet announced it was reversing 
an earlier decision to halt construction on the Fourth Nuclear 
Power Plant. At the time, the Cabinet said it would decommission 
the first three nuclear power plants seven years earlier, or in 
2011, 2014 and 2017, respectively.

 But the Cabinet is now mulling moving the timetable up to 2004, 
2008 and 2011 respectively.

 Wang To-far (¤ý¶îµo), an economics professor at National Taipei 
University, said yesterday that the three nuclear power plants 
should be taken offline as early as possible if electricity 
reserves can be ensured.

 "You can't count the safety-risk into the cost of running 
nuclear power plants," Wang said.

 The professor said climbing maintenance costs, operational costs 
and components replacement made it too expensive to run nuclear 
power plants.

 Officials from the Atomic Energy Council (AEC) said yesterday 
that some aging nuclear plants in the US lasted less than 40 
years because of out-of-date designs or difficulties in 
maintaining the facilities.

 But from a safety perspective, however, the three operating 
nuclear plants are capable of running at least 40 years, 
officials said.

 "The same types of nuclear plants in the US have received 
renewal licenses from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which 
allows them to run an additional 20 years" past their 40-year 
lifespan, said Shen Li (¨HÂ§), director of the AEC's department 
of nuclear regulation.
 
This story has been viewed 328 times.
 
URL=[http://www.taipeitimes.com/news/2002/07/23/story/0000149340] 

Copyright © 1999-2002 The Taipei Times. All rights reserved. 
*****************************************************************
 2 NRC to Discuss Apparent Violations With Framatome ANP, Inc.

 NRC: Press Release Region IV - 2002 - 33 - 

 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, 
Region IV 611 Ryan Plaza Drive, Suite 400, Arlington TX 76011 
www.nrc.gov
   
  No. IV-02-033           July 22, 2002 CONTACT:     Breck 
Henderson Phone: 817-860-8128 Cellular: 817-917-1227     E-mail: 
opa4@nrc.gov [opa4@nrc.gov]   
  
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will hold a 
predecisional enforcement conference Friday, July 26, with 
officials of Framatome ANP, Inc., of Richland, Wash., to discuss 
several apparent violations of NRC requirements.
 	 	 
The conference will begin at 8:30 a.m. at NRC Region IV offices 
in Arlington, Texas. The meeting will be open to public 
observation; NRC officials will be available for questions before 
the meeting is adjourned.
 	 	 
Framatome manufactures uranium fuel used in commercial power 
reactors. There are times during fuel fabrication and handling 
when, without the proper safety controls, uranium could be 
present in sufficient quantity to lead to a fission chain 
reaction. The apparent violations involve the failure of 
Framatome to properly maintain all the required safety controls 
during a certain uranium handling process.
 	 	 
Specifically, on April 3, a Framatome worker filled a 45-gallon 
drum with uranium oxide powder. The drum is required to have a 
neutron-absorbing fixture inside as one of the controls to 
prevent an uncontrolled criticality. The worker observed that the 
drum did not have the required fixture, and reported the event to 
plant management. An inspection team from the NRC was sent to 
review the incident April 15-18. The team found five apparent 
violations; however, the NRC does not believe that a fission 
chain was possible at any time because other conditions required 
for such an event were not present.
 	 	 
The decision to hold a predecisional enforcement conference does 
not mean that NRC has made a final determination that violations 
did occur or that enforcement action, such as a monetary fine, 
will be taken. The purpose of the meeting is to discuss the 
apparent violations, their causes and safety significance. The 
meeting will also provide Framatome officials with an opportunity 
to point out any errors that may have been made in the NRC 
inspection report and to present its corrective actions.
 	 	 
No decision on the apparent violations or any contemplated 
enforcement action will be made at this conference. Those 
decisions will be made by senior NRC officials at a later time.
   


*****************************************************************
 3 NRC Staff to Hold Public Meeting to Discuss Inspection of McGuire 
and Catawba Plants' License Renewal Programs
 
NRC: Press Release Region II - 2002 - 37 - 

 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, 
Region II 61 Forsyth Street SW, Atlanta, GA 30303 www.nrc.gov

  No. II-02-037           July 22, 2002 CONTACT:     Ken Clark 
(404) 562-4416 Roger D. Hannah (404) 562-4417     E-mail:  
[opa2@nrc.gov]   
  
  Officials of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission will meet 
with Duke Energy management at 9:00 a.m. Friday, July 26 at the 
Duke Energy corporate offices, 526 S. Church Street in Charlotte, 
to present the results of the NRC's second inspection of the Duke 
Energy license renewal programs for the company's McGuire plant 
north of Charlotte and its Catawba plant south of Charlotte near 
York, South Carolina. Duke Energy filed a joint application to 
renew the operating licenses of the two units at McGuire and the 
two units at Catawba in June last year. Duke's Oconee plant near 
Seneca, South Carolina, was the first plant in the southeast to 
file for license renewal and received a license extension for its 
three units from the NRC in May 2000.
 
NRC officials said a report on the second inspection will be 
issued approximately 45 days after the meeting and will be 
available to the public.
 
The meeting is between the NRC and Duke but is open to 
observation by interested members of the public. NRC officials 
will also be available prior to its conclusion to answer any 
questions observers may have.
   


*****************************************************************
 4 Energy NW unsure of contractor
 
This story was published Sat, Jul 20, 2002
 By Chris Mulick Herald Olympia bureau 

SEATAC -- Energy Northwest continues to spin its wheels studying 
the future management of the Columbia Generating Station while 
1,100 workers are left in limbo.
 
Officials at the Richland reactor have drawn few conclusions 
about whether it's a good idea to follow the lead of other owners 
of lone nuclear plants and hire a third-party contractor to 
mangage the plant.
 
But while a study team flounders, some workers are seeking other 
opportunities instead of waiting to see if their jobs go to a 
contractor. That's particularly true as escalating cleanup 
activities at Hanford create new jobs for nuclear workers.
 
One senior manager already has left the organization, though not 
because of the uncertainty over future management of Columbia, 
and another may be on the way out, Chief Executive Officer Vic 
Parrish told the study team in a meeting Friday. "I need 
finality," he said.
 
There's agreement that time is of the essence.
 
"We sent the question up like a skyrocket," said Steve Hickok, 
deputy administrator of the Bonneville Power Administration, 
which buys all the 1,150 megawatts the plant generates. "It's 
burning up there. People are looking at it. We've got to bring 
this thing back to Earth and make a decision."
 
Executive Board Chairman John Cockburn wants to solicit 
expressions of interest from other nuclear operators who could 
run the plant to see if they could do it more efficiently.
 
That would give the organization some numbers to compare with the 
cost of current operations.
 
He first needs to convince Energy Northwest's 16-member utilities 
that it's a good idea.
 
But the information gathered so far doesn't conclusively indicate 
whether there would be cost savings if a third party were to run 
the plant.
 
Nicholas Reynolds, an industry attorney hired to consult on the 
study, reported Friday that almost all potential third-party 
operators would only be interested in arrangements that 
ultimately allowed them to buy the plant, which Energy Northwest 
has indicated is not for sale.
 
Consultant Diana Goldschmidt presented reasons why seven other 
nuclear operators who run just one plant haven't sold.
 
But most of those plants are owned by private companies with 
profit-driven motives. "They have different motives for staying," 
Cockburn said. "I don't know that applies in our case."
 
Energy Northwest is a consortium of public utilities, which means 
it's more motivated to keep costs down than to turn a profit. The 
study team is scheduled to present its findings next week to 
representatives of Energy Northwest's Board of Directors, with 
representatives of each of the consortium's member utilities. But 
what they have to report is far less conclusive than anybody 
would have liked.
 
"You go in there with what we've got and they're going to say 
'What the hell have you been doing?' " said Tom Casey, a Grays 
Harbor PUD commissioner and a member of both Energy Northwest 
boards. "We've got nothing. We're wasting our time. It's over."
 
The rest of the member utilities will get their say next week. 
        
Copyright 2002 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This 
*****************************************************************
 5  Vt. Yankee Nuke Plant Sale to Go On
 
Las Vegas SUN
 
July 22, 2002 

MONTPELIER, Vt.- The sale of the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant 
isn't dead yet. The plant's owners said Monday they had reached a 
deal with Entergy Nuclear that will let the $180 million sale go 
forward. The agreement was designed to lessen the impact of a 
condition placed on the sale by state regulators that Entergy 
said it could not accept. 

"Our agreement today allows both the buyer and the seller to meet 
the conditions set by the (Public Service Board) and to move 
forward with the sale," said Ross Barkhurst, Vermont Yankee's 
president and chief executive. Monday's agreement came after a 
year of negotiations and board hearings, and just 10 days before 
a previously agreed-to drop-dead date: if the deal didn't close 
by July 31 it was off, parties to it had said. 

Jackson, Miss.-based Entergy announced last week that it would 
not go forward with the purchase if it came with a key condition 
attached by the board when it approved the sale on June 13. 

That condition required that any surplus in the fund set aside to 
pay for dismantling the plant when it is retired be returned to 
ratepayers. Entergy had negotiated an agreement with the 
Department of Public Service, which represents consumers before 
the board, that any decommissioning fund surplus would be split 
50-50 between Entergy and ratepayers. 

After days of negotiations, Vermont Yankee and Entergy said they 
decided to allow any extra decommissioning money that had been 
put into the fund by Vermont ratepayers to be returned to them 
when the plant's dismantling is completed. 

The key phrase was "Vermont ratepayers," they said - 45 percent 
of Vermont Yankee is owned by out-of-state utilities; those 
ratepayers would not share in the decommissioning fund surplus, 
under Monday's agreement. 

Instead, Vermont Yankee's two major Vermont owners, Central 
Vermont Public Service Corp. and Green Mountain Power Corp., said 
they would pay a combined $1.5 million to the plant's 
out-of-state owners to compensate their ratepayers for any gain 
they might hope to make from a decommissioning fund surplus. 

The decommissioning fund currently stands about $300 million; 
about $135 million of that is attributable to contributions made 
by other New England ratepayers. 

Vermont Yankee is located in Vernon and generates about 510 
megawatts of power. It went into operation in 1972. Its license 
is currently set to expire in 2012, but Entergy has said it wants 
to seek an extension from federal regulators if it takes control 
of the plant. 

Entergy is a subsidiary of Entergy Corp. of New Orleans, the 
nation's third largest power generator. Entergy Nuclear operates 
nine reactors in Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Massachusetts 
and New York. 

It agreed last year to buy Vermont Yankee for $180 million in a 
deal that called for the Vermont utilities to buy the plant's 
power output for the next 10 years. 

All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
 6 Cooper demonstrates safety measures

Omaha.com

July 23, 2002

*BY NANCY GAARDER*

WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

BROWNVILLE, Neb. - The floor vibrated and the lights dimmed in 
the training center at Cooper Nuclear Station Monday morning. A 
drill simulating an earthquake was under way, and within five 
seconds the "reactor" had shut down.

The mock earthquake was one of three emergencies that Cooper 
staff demonstrated Monday to members of the news media.

"We take our responsibility of protecting the public very 
seriously," said Michael Coyle, site vice president. "If you 
think about it, in large part we're talking about our families. 
The communities that would be most affected (by a problem) are 
those populated by Cooper families."

That point was echoed by several employees during the briefing. 
Cooper's 760 workers, they said, have a personal stake in safety 
at the plant.

Cooper is under intense scrutiny by the Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission for shortcomings in its performance. It is one of two 
stations in the nation that have the lowest grade a nuclear plant 
can have and remain open.

But Monday's focus was less on the NRC review, which is 
continuing, and more on opening lines of communication with the 
news media. Phone numbers were handed out, staff members were 
introduced, nuclear fission was explained and the different 
levels of alert were outlined.

Should a problem occur at Cooper, the plant has the ability to 
shut itself down without anyone lifting a hand, said Michael 
Tackett, operations supervisor, as he stood before a wall of 
dials, knobs, buttons, graphs and video screens. Licensed 
operators are in the control room at all times, but should the 
plant need to, it could automatically shut down.

The control room in the training center is an exact replica of 
the one in the plant. The re-creation of the control center is a 
result of the partial melt-down at Three Mile Island in 1979.

Before that accident, nuclear plant operators trained on 
equipment that didn't resemble their home plant. Since Three Mile 
Island, the NRC has required that plant operators train for 
emergencies on equipment that is identical to the room they work 
in day in and day out.

That change has been one of the most significant things done over 
the years to improve the safety of nuclear plants, Cooper's 
executives said Monday.

The other key component of safety at nuclear plants is 
redundancy, said David Wilson, chief nuclear officer. For every 
system at Cooper, there is a separate, duplicate system.

On Aug. 27 and 28, Cooper will conduct an extensive safety test, 
one that is done every six years. The test will involve Cooper's 
staff as well as local, state and federal officials.

©2002 Omaha World-Herald. All rights reserved. Copyright 
*****************************************************************
 7 NRC Proposes $3,000 Fine Against Northern Engraving for the Loss 
of Control over Static Eliminators
 
 NRC: Press Release Region III - 2002 - 45 - 

 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, 
Region III 801 Warrenville Road, Lisle IL 60532 www.nrc.gov
   
  No. III-02-045           July 23, 2002   
  CONTACT:     Jan Strasma (630) 829-9663
 Viktoria Mitlyng (630) 829-9662     E-mail: opa3@nrc.gov [opa3@nrc.gov]   
  
  The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff has proposed a $3,000 
fine against Northern Engraving Corporation, Sparta, Wisconsin, 
for the improper transfer of a static elimination device 
containing a sealed radiation source. On January 17, the NRC 
asked Northern Engraving to provide information about any 
generally licensed devices currently or formerly in its 
possession. In its March 13 response, Northern Engraving 
erroneously reported that it did not possess any generally 
licensed devices.
 
However, on April 10, Northern Engraving transferred a static 
eliminator from its Sparta, Wisconsin, facility, containing 
radioactive americium-241, to an aluminum scrap hauler. The 
device was subsequently transferred to a scrap processor, where 
it set off radiation detectors. A survey of the device for 
removable contamination indicated that a small amount of 
americium-241 was present but presented no health hazard to the 
public. The hauler had slightly damaged the device's radioactive 
material surface when he removed a protective grid before 
transporting the static eliminator to the scrap processor. 

After the device was returned to Northern Engraving, the company 
transferred it to the manufacturer, as is provided for by federal 
regulation.
 
The NRC conducted inspections into the circumstances of the 
incident and held a predecisional enforcement conference with 
Northern Engraving to discuss apparent violations of NRC 
requirements and to prevent recurrence of the violations. 

The NRC staff identified two violations of federal regulations 
based on inspection findings and information provided during the 
conference: (1) failure to transfer generally licensed devices 
only to authorized recipients; and (2) failure to provide 
complete and accurate information to the NRC.
 
The company has until August 21 to either pay the fine or to 
protest it. If the fine is protested and subsequently imposed by 
the NRC staff, the company may request a hearing. 
  


*****************************************************************
 8 US Official’s Claim of Russia Plutonium Theft has Authorities 
Scratching Their Heads
 
MOSCOW - An unnamed US nuclear official has said that highly 
radioactive materials — possibly including plutonium — have been 
stolen from Russia’s new Volgodonsk nuclear power plant by 
Chechen separatists.

  Volgodonsk NPP, located in Rostov region, south of Russia, was 
launched in 2001. It operates one VVER-1000 reactor unit. 
www.rosatom.ru   

Charles Digges, 2002-07-23 11:50

Russian nuclear and law enforcement authorities, however, have 
strenuously denied the charge, calling the leak by the US 
Official to Britain’s Guardian newspaper a concoction planted in 
the press by the Central Intelligence Agency, or CIA, to 
discredit Russian nuclear security. US nuclear experts— though 
not ruling out the theft of less volatile radioactive metals — 
have also cast doubt on the plutonium theft detailed by the 
anonymous US official, citing the extreme danger to thieves that 
such a theft would involve. 

Speaking anonymously with the Guardian, the US official 
attributed the theft from the plant, located near Rostov-on-Don, 
to Chechen rebel factions — who the Russian government says, and 
many US Administration officials believe, have ties to the al 
Qaeda terror network. 

The US official said the alleged heist occurred sometime within 
the last 12 months and added that the United States fears that 
weapons-grade plutonium — which may have been stolen during the 
robbery — may have fallen into the hands of Iraq or Libya, the 
Guardian reported. 

But other US experts familiar with the supposed theft say the 
particulars of the case, including how much material was stolen, 
are murky and the precise details of the security breach — if any 
occurred — remain unclear. The US official quoted by the Guardian 
said there was the “possibility that a significant amount of 
plutonium was removed,” together with other radioactive metals. 
These included caesium, strontium and low-enriched uranium, which 
pose a threat to human health if detonated with conventional 
explosives — a so-called “dirty bomb.” 

“Chechen groups have relationships with countries we do not find 
exceptionally desirable. The possibility that these metals may 
have been given to another party is very troubling,” the unnamed 
US official said. 

The Volgodonsk nuclear plant — one of the newest atomic 
facilities in Russia — went online last December, after a 
nine-month trial period. It uses a VVER-1000 reactor and is 
slated to get a second power bloc soon. 

But thus far, there is no real agreement among experts who have 
studied the case as about what, if anything, was taken from the 
plant. Russian accounting practices for radioactive materials are 
widely acknowledged to be lacking. Yegor Obukhov, head of the 
plant’s press service, touted security and accounting at the 
Volgodonsk station as “the best in Russia,” Obukhov told Bellona 
Web. 

“Not a single gram of radioactive substances has ever gone 
missing in the plant’s 16-month operation," Obukhov said. 

Obukhov also denied that the weapons-grade plutonium referred to 
in the Guardian report would ever have been stored at his plant, 
saying “we are not running a secret weapons construction 
facility.” 

But assessing the information piling in from a variety of sources 
is not easy for those who track the theft of radioactive 
materials in Russia. 

“It is a bit difficult to speculate not knowing exactly what kind 
of material was stolen. Reports vary from caesium, strontium and 
depleted uranium to low-enriched uranium and ‘weapons-grade 
plutonium,’” said Lyudmila Zaitseva, of Stanford University’s 
Institute of International Studies, which runs the world’s 
perhaps most comprehensive database on the theft and smuggling of 
radioactive materials. 

She added that any weapons-grade plutonium that the US official 
suggested was stolen from the Volgodonsk facility was simply 
impossible. 

“There is no weapons-grade plutonium at nuclear power plants,” 
she told Bellona Web in an interview. 

“On the other hand, if it was spent nuclear fuel (SNF) that was 
stolen, that does contain plutonium — though not of weapons grade 
— as well as other, highly radioactive materials.” 

But to make plutonium from SNF weapons-usable, Zaitseva said the 
plutonium would have to be separated from other substances in the 
SNF, which is a technologically demanding and costly procedure 
that only a few countries in the world can afford, like England, 
France and Russia. 

“Besides,” said Zaitseva, “it would be extremely difficult to 
steal spent fuel from a nuclear power plant due to the large size 
and, most importantly, very high radioactivity of fuel 
assemblies, which makes them self-protective.” 

A US nuclear physicist involved in non-proliferation efforts in 
Russia, speaking on conditions of anonymity with Bellona Web, 
agreed with Zaitseva’s assessment. 

“This stuff is stored mostly in pools of highly radioactive wet 
storage facilities — the SNF assemblies themselves are seven 
meters long and weigh around 300 kilograms,” he said.
 
“And anybody trying to handle that and get it out of a plant 
clandestinely would get a very high dose of radiation on the spot 
— that’s what ‘self-protective’ means. It just doesn’t sound like 
a feasible theft at all if the plutonium the US official is 
referring to is plutonium contained in spent fuel,” he said. He 
echoed Zaitseva’s assertion that weapons-grade plutonium would 
not be found at a nuclear power plant. 

“That would be nonsense,” said the US physicist. 

What would not surprise US nuclear analysts would be the theft of 
low-enriched uranium (LEU) from the Volgodonsk facility. 

“It would not be too surprising if nuclear fuel had been stolen 
from a power plant. This has happened before in the former Soviet 
Union,” said Matthew Bunn, senior research assistant at the 
Managing the Atom project at Harvard University. 

“If it was fresh nuclear fuel — low-enriched uranium — I agree 
[…] that it wouldn't be too surprising,” said Zaitseva. “For 
example, a whole fuel assembly, seven meters long and weighing 
280 kilograms, was stolen from the Ignalina nuclear power plant 
in Lithuania in 1992 as a result of collusion between the 
facility employees and guards, who tied the assembly to the 
bottom of the personnel bus and thus carried it outside the 
facility. Parts of the material were later recovered on several 
occasions in Eastern Europe and former Soviet Union.” 

When offered a similar scenario for the Volgodonsk facility, 
Zaitseva nonetheless remained perplexed. 

“[…] Because caesium and strontium are also mentioned, I am still 
puzzled as to what exactly was stolen,” she said. 

The US official said that the theft was reported by Russian 
officials to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which 
then informed the US Department of Energy (DOE) about the 
incident. 

Russia has an estimated 125 tonnes of weapons-grade plutonium 
considered by Western experts to be “at risk” for theft because 
of poor security. US government experts are negotiating with 
Russian officials to speed through urgently needed safety 
upgrades via programmes like Nunn-Lugar. Furthermore, the G8 
group of nations last month pledged $10 billion over the next ten 
years to help Russia protect its ageing weapons arsenals. 

A spokeswoman for the IAEA said her organization confirmed 
receiving reports of the theft from the Russian government. 
However, by Monday, the IAEA, the Volgodonsk nuclear power 
station, and even the secretive Russian Nuclear Ministry, or 
Minatom — all but the DOE, which would not comment — had reached 
a consensus that the theft never took place. 

Aleksandr Turinsky, chief press relations officer for the Rostov 
Federal Security Service, or FSB, told Bellona Web that the 
Guardian report was “just part of the psychological and 
information war that Chechen rebels are waging against Russia.” 

“I also don’t understand why this American official decided to 
share this information with a British paper as opposed to a 
representatives of Russia’s press, who are, after all, the 
supposed allies of the United States in the war on terror,” 
Turinsky said. 

But the US official told the Guardian that: “[this] incident is 
tied to a broader issue. There are a couple of other occasions 
when the Chechens may have acquired nuclear or radioactive 
sources. Russia is rightly very concerned about that. We should 
not just blame Russia. The United States does not protect its 
materials better than anyone else.” 

Southern Russia, bordering nations of Central Asia and the 
Caucasus — which are seen by the United Stated as posing a world 
security threat — is considered a flashpoint in 
non-proliferation. The US official said there have been a “number 
of occasions” in which Iranian agents tried to buy weapons-grade 
plutonium from facilities in Southern Russia. 

“[These facilities] seem to have been scammed a few times,” he 
told the Guardian. 

But the involvement of Chechen separatists in the alleged theft 
at the Volgodonsk facility seemed “illogical” to Zaitseva. 

“I believe that if they seriously wanted to sell weapons-grade 
plutonium to Iraq or Libya, they wouldn't look for it at a 
nuclear power plant,” she said. “On the other hand, if they 
needed radioactive material for a dirty bomb, they wouldn't have 
to go to such lengths [as stealing it from the Volgodonsk 
station] either, because they seem to have successfully used the 
Radon facility — a disposal site for used ionising radiation 
sources and other radioactive waste from the North Caucasus 
region of Russia, [situated] near the Chechen village of 
Tolstoy-Yurt — for this purpose.” 

In that incident, Zaitseva’s data indicate, half of the 900 cubic 
meters of radioactive waste with radioactivity levels of 1,500 
Curies stored at Radon was reportedly found missing from the 
depository after the first military campaign in the breakaway 
republic of Chechnya in 1996. 

Many of these stolen radioactive containers and sources were 
found later on numerous occasions in the Chechen capital of 
Grozny, and other parts of the region, by the Russian Ministry of 
Emergency Situations during the second military campaign, which 
began in 2000. 

Russian intelligence officials believed that this material might 
have been used by Chechen militants for making “powerful bombs,” 
as some of it was found in a workshop for the production of 
mortars and grenade cup discharges, which was set up before the 
second campaign and reportedly belonged to Chechen warlord Shamil 
Basayev. 

However, there were only two incidents suggesting that such dirty 
bombs were actually made and meant to be used by Chechen 
militants. In 1998, a container full of radioactive substances 
was found next to a railway line near Argun in Chechnya with a 
mine attached to it. Russian intelligence officials touted the 
discovery as a foiled act of sabotage, Zaitseva said. 

Earlier, in 1996, Chechen rebels left a substantial quantity of 
caesium-137 wrapped in conventional explosives in Izmailovo park 
in Moscow. They notified the local media and the device was 
safely removed by police.   

  Publisher: Bellona Foundation [bellona@bellona.no] , President: 
Frederic Hauge [frederic@bellona.no] Information: info@bellona.no 
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[webmaster@bellona.no] Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 
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 9 Security of radioactive material at low ebb 

  The Sacramento Bee -- sacbee.com -- 

Boxes of medical equipment wait to be sterilized at an industrial 
irradiation facility. Hundreds of different tools use more than 
enough radioactive material for a "dirty bomb," warns a nuclear 
expert. 

Sacramento Bee/Hector Amezcua                                                                           

Terrorists building a 'dirty bomb' could find the ingredients all 
around.
 
By Carrie Peyton Dahlberg -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 a.m. PDT Sunday, July 21, 2002

 Radioactive materials are scattered across California at 
thousands of sites, and hundreds of them hold enough for a "dirty 
bomb," state and federal records show.

 Machines that operate using large amounts of radioactivity have 
become commonplace in medicine, research and construction, among 
other fields. Radioactive material can be found in the 
lunchbox-sized construction tool used to peer inside pipelines 
and walls; in the giant irradiators used to purify foods and 
sterilize medical supplies; in the medical equipment used to cut 
brain tumors and treat blood.

 In some places, such equipment is left unattended for hours or 
days behind locked doors.

 The finding underscores fears raised by Sept. 11: With the 
exception of nuclear plants and weapons sites, the nation's 
system of radiological safeguards is aimed at preventing 
accidents, not thwarting well-planned thefts.

 "Safety is different from security. We need to do a much better 
job of controlling the radioactive materials we have out there," 
said Steven E. Koonin, a nuclear physicist and provost at the 
California Institute of Technology who has advised the government 
on security issues.

 Across the nation, there are countless sources that could make a 
bomb "dirty," spreading radiation that has been packed in with 
standard explosives.

 At three sites less than two dozen blocks from California's 
Capitol, for example, are a surgical "gamma knife," two blood 
irradiators and several small radiography cameras, the tools used 
for examining pipelines, welds and the insides of walls. 
Together, the machines hold enough radioactivity to produce at 
least nine big dirty bombs or thousands of smaller ones -- if 
someone could get to them and break through their shielding.

 A dirty bomb, known formally as a radiation dispersal device, 
probably would kill no more people than a conventional blast. It 
would cause far fewer deaths than a chemical or biological 
attack, experts say.

 But awareness that it could be used as a terrorist tool has 
soared since federal officials announced in June they had 
arrested a man in Chicago suspected of planning to build one. 
Some predict the dirty bomb is one of the likeliest weapons to be 
unleashed by terrorists because the ingredients are so easy to 
get and the potential damage in panic and cleanup costs so huge.

 "I would be surprised if we didn't see one within a decade," 
said Koonin.

 Although medical and industrial uses of radiation are widely 
documented, The Bee has chosen not to name the owners of 
significant quantities in light of concerns about how simple it 
might be to gather enough radioactivity to create a dirty bomb.

 While nuclear power plants have been ordered to impose some 
added safeguards since Sept. 11, far less attention has been 
given to other uses of radioactive materials.

 Today, the radioactive cores of research calibrators, 
radiographic cameras and other equipment are manufactured in 
nondescript industrial parks where curious neighbors can get 
tours of the process. Product lists and driving directions can be 
found on Web sites.

 The tools they produce are shipped by FedEx or other carriers, 
often without guard or escort. The cobalt 60 cores of giant 
irradiators arrive from Canada on flatbed trucks.

 People have to take safety courses before getting a license to 
own even small amounts of radioactive materials, but they do not 
need to undergo criminal or background checks. A federal law to 
require background checks for hazardous materials haulers is at 
least two months away from being implemented.

 The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission recently reduced the 
frequency of inspections for most radioactive materials license 
holders and does not fully check large inventories to ensure 
their owners know what is on hand.

 "The NRC is horrifically undermanned," said John Wolfsthal, 
deputy director of the nonproliferation project at Carnegie 
Endowment in Washington, D.C.

 And the industry that nuclear regulators oversee is not accident 
proof.

 Last month, the NRC fined owners of a Connecticut power plant 
$288,000 for losing track of two intensely radioactive rods of 
spent fuel -- something the NRC called an unprecedented safety 
breach. After months of investigation, regulators still are not 
certain what happened. They believe the rods were not stolen but 
probably accidentally shipped to a low-level waste site in South 
Carolina or perhaps Washington state.

 Smaller amounts of radioactive materials go missing far more 
often, and many never have been accounted for.

 In a chilling international episode that illustrates how little 
technology is needed to pry open a sealed radioactive source, a 
stolen radiotherapy machine in Brazil was disassembled in 1987 
with a power saw and other hand tools by those searching for 
salvage material.

 The niece of one of the dismantlers discovered the cesium power 
inside glowed in the dark. She decorated herself, and showed her 
mother and friends. Days passed before anyone in the city of 
Goiania realized they had been exposed to hazardous levels of 
radiation. The girl, her mother and two others died within six 
weeks. Twenty others were hospitalized and about 250 were 
contaminated. Three buildings were demolished and dozens were 
decontaminated.

 While the episode shows that closed equipment can be opened with 
time and effort, it also demonstrates the health risks.

 Terrorists wanting to make a dirty bomb would have to steal 
equipment that holds radioactive material or get lengthy, 
uninterrupted access. They would have to open the equipment, 
risking a slow death or a fast one, depending on how much 
radioactivity it contains. Finally, they'd have to assemble the 
bomb itself and get it to its target site. During that time, they 
would get increasingly intense doses of radiation and risk 
detection from authorities who have begun checking for radiation 
on roads and bridges.

 In the Brazilian incident, the radiotherapy machine contained 
about 1,400 curies of cesium 137. A curie is a unit of 
radioactivity, measuring how many atoms per second are decaying 
and emitting particles and rays.

 A recent study of dirty bomb impacts concluded that just two 
curies of cesium 137 would be enough to contaminate about 40 city 
blocks.

 By comparison, one blood irradiator sitting in a Sacramento 
building less than 25 blocks from the state Capitol contains 
2,700 curies of the substance. A gamma knife in a nearby basement 
contains 6,000 curies of cobalt 60.

 These are big machines, weighing more than a ton because of 
their heavy shielding, and at least one is constantly surrounded 
by people. But others around the state are unattended for hours, 
their owners acknowledge, relying on remote alarm systems to warn 
of intruders.

 Michael Levi, a nuclear security expert with the Federation of 
American Scientists, said the optimal radioactivity for dirty 
bomb material would be more than one curie and less than 10,000. 
The smallest one would spread low levels of radioactivity for a 
few blocks. The largest could taint hundreds of square miles and 
contaminate a Manhattan-sized core where cancer risks would rise 
for anyone who kept living there.

 Hundreds of different tools in medicine and industry use a curie 
or more, said John Hickey, chief of the NRC's materials safety 
branch. He estimated that at least one-third of the 20,000 
licenses issued nationwide are for amounts greater than a curie.

 In California, more than 600 licenses have been granted for one 
curie or more.

 The industrial radiography camera, which can be lifted by hand, 
contains 100 curies of iridium 192. The cameras are mishandled 
with such regularity that the NRC has singled them out as the 
only piece of equipment whose owners still must submit to annual 
inspections.

 "The industrial part of this has gotten very little attention," 
said Daniel Hirsch, who heads a nuclear watchdog group called 
Committee to Bridge the Gap. "People are not used to looking at a 
construction site as a national security location."

 Large caches of radioactive material abound in California, even 
excluding weapons sites and the two operating and two shuttered 
nuclear power plants. The state is home to at least one major 
manufacturer of iridium 192 and a supplier of radioactive sources 
for a range of equipment, including research devices used for 
taking exacting measurements. Their material departs by Federal 
Express or is carried away by customers.

 Recently, one industrial irradiator, which has rods containing 
more than 1 million curies of cobalt 60 sitting in an underground 
pool, announced a two-day holiday closure with a sign on its 
door. The building, in a well-kept light industrial park, had no 
guards, no cameras and no alarm that would sound remotely if 
anyone broke in during the time it was vacant, its operator said.

 The operator said the 3-foot-thick steel shielding surrounding 
the cobalt would thwart any thieves. Health officials said the 
intensity of the radiation alone probably would keep a would-be 
thief from leaving that building alive.

 But Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., called the situation a glaring 
security hole typical of other potential risks his staff has 
found. He and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., have 
introduced a "Dirty Bomb Prevention Act" that would require the 
NRC and other agencies to form a task force to improve material 
tracking, handling and safeguards.

 After Sept. 11, the NRC sent a list of recommended security 
precautions to research reactors, irradiators and other sites 
where large amounts of radioactivity are found, but unlike some 
of its edicts to power plants, it did not require that the 
recommendations be followed.

 "We're still contemplating additional security improvements like 
better alarms and better barriers to prevent intrusion," said the 
NRC's Hickey.

 He said the commission isn't publicly discussing what levels of 
radioactivity could be subject to tougher controls but might do 
so after it has announced more security improvements "over the 
next few months."

 In California, officials with the state Department of Health 
Services, which oversees radiological health, say they have 
stepped up security but offer few specifics, citing a federal 
request that details not be disclosed.

 The state passed along frequent NRC safety reminders and 
warnings in the days after Sept. 11 to about 50 of the largest 
users, said Kevin Reilly, a Health Services deputy director.

 About two months ago, it also began denying access to records 
that once were available for public inspection: lists of those 
licensed to hold radioactive materials and the licenses 
themselves.

 The decision was made because of the "potential for terror," 
Reilly said.

 But there could be bigger risks in secrecy than in disclosure, 
according to Tri-Valley Cares, a prominent community group that 
has prompted safety changes after inspecting licenses and other 
documents.

 Most recently, said Marylia Kelly, the group's executive 
director, the Department of Energy abandoned plans to ship 
plutonium in containers that were not crush-proof after her group 
found an internal memo outlining the shipment plan and sued to 
stop it.

 "That list should be publicly available," Kelly said.

 Like federal regulators, the state has given license holders its 
recommendations for preventing theft and attacks but has not 
required that its suggestions be followed.

 Most of its ideas have been adopted anyway, said Reilly.

 "Licensees themselves typically are very cooperative," he said. 
They're "very interested in security."

 
Radioactive Materials and Their Uses


 Scores of radioactive materials are used daily in medicine, 
industry and research. Some of those used in large amounts 
include:

 Americium 241: Used in trace amounts in many smoke detectors. 
Used in larger amounts in many types of research and to help 
determine where oil wells should be drilled.

 Cesium 137: Used to treat cancers, to measure and control the 
liquid flow in oil pipelines and to disable white blood cells 
before some transfusions.

 Cobalt 60: Used to sterilize surgical instruments and research 
products, to provide interior views of very thick substances and 
to preserve poultry, fruits and spices. 

Iridium 192: Used to test the integrity of pipeline welds, 
boilers and aircraft parts, and to survey deep inside concrete 
slabs and other solid materials.

 Plutonium 238: Used to power at least 20 NASA spacecraft since 
1972. 

Plutonium 239: Used in nuclear weapons.

 Uranium 235: Fuel for nuclear power plants and naval nuclear 
propulsion systems. Also used to produce fluorescent glassware, a 
variety of colored glazes and wall tiles.

 
 The Bee's Carrie Peyton Dahlberg can be reached at (916) 
321-1086 or cpeytondahlberg@sacbee.com 
[cpeytondahlberg@sacbee.com] . 
 
Copyright © The Sacramento Bee / ver. 4 
*****************************************************************
 10 plutonium transport ships and protest flotilla
 
Date: Tue, 23 Jul 2002 12:23:53 -0500 (CDT)

 
http://www.greenpeace.org/news/details?news%5fid=18635

Ships try to outmanoeuvre then run from small protest flotilla

Mon 22 July 2002
	AUSTRALIA/Tasman Sea

The plutonium transport ships are large, fast and bristling with guns and
security personnel. But they balked at the prospect of passing a tiny
flotilla of sailboats armed only with cameras, because it posed one
unbearable risk: exposing a deadly and foolhardy mission to the full glare
of public scrutiny.

Their fears may have been justified, for today the Nuclear Free Seas
Flotilla intercepted the plutonium transport and sent a powerful
anti-nuclear message around the world.

"We may only be 10 boats but we carry the wishes and demands of millions
of people, who want an end to the monstrous nuclear industry worldwide,"
said flotilla protester Henk Haazen.

For almost a week the small yachts of the Nuclear Free Seas Flotilla
sailed across the Pacific to demonstrate the huge public opposition to the
dangerous nuclear shipment. On Sunday, July 21 the flotilla of ten boats
moved into position in the Tasman Sea, halfway between Australia and New
Zealand.

The two nuclear freighters, carrying a load of highly dangerous nuclear
MOX (mixed oxides of plutonium and uranium) from Japan to the UK, seemed
reluctant to face the full glare of publicity. They drastically reduced
their speed for the first time since leaving Japan, temporarily halting
their passage through the Tasman Sea -- an apparent attempt to avoid the
Nuclear Free Seas Flotilla.

Greenpeace and the flotilla expected the two armed UK nuclear freighters
to try to sneak through the flotilla protest line during the dead of
night. And that's exactly what happened. When darkness fell the nuclear
freighters sped up and at midnight, local time, they attempted to pass
through the flotilla's protest line between Lord Howe and Norfolk Islands.

But the nuclear transport vessels were detected as they passed between the
protest vessels SV Tiama and Fio-oko. The protesters launched an
inflatable to shadow the ship, and at dawn they caught up with the nuclear
transports. Two swimmers, Australian parliamentarian Ian Cohen and Stuart
Lennox of Tasmania, were dropped into the water. They held up a banner
that read "Nuclear Free Pacific" as the two nuclear ships steamed past.

"I wanted to make sure that there was no doubt in these shippers minds
that they are not welcome in this region," said Cohen, who says he came
there to represent Australians who express a strong anti-nuclear
sentiment.

The flotilla boats also radioed their message of protest to the ships.
Opposition is reaching a crescendo in nations along the shipment's route.
On July 17, the government of Vanuatu roundly condemned the shipment, and
the next day the Fijian prime minister used a regional summit to express
his outrage and opposition "to those who are so willing to put the Pacific
and our peoples at risk." Then the 78 nations at the
African-Caribbean-Pacific summit condemned and isolated Japan and the UK
for their shameful nuclear waste MOX shipment in the summit's final
declaration.

The shipment of MOX is being returned to the UK because its producers, the
government-owned British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL), falsified critical safety
data on the MOX and the Japanese refused to use it.

======================

*** NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material
is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest
in receiving the included information for research and educational
purposes. Feel free to distribute widely but PLEASE acknowledge the
original source. ***
*****************************************************************
 11 U.S. Lab Aids Disposal of Nuclear Waste In Romania*

EarthVision Environmental News <http://www.earthvision.net/>/

LOS ALAMOS, NM, July 22, 2002 - Working through a U.S. Department 
of Energy program, the Romanian government is getting help 
establishing a shallow-land disposal site that can effectively 
hold radioactive waste.

Working through a collaboration developed under the "Sister 
Laboratory" program, researchers from the U.S. Department of 
Energy National Nuclear Security Administration's (NNSA's) Los 
Alamos National Laboratory and the Romanian Institute of Nuclear 
Research are coming together to develop an effective disposal 
area for low- and intermediate-level radioactive wastes in 
Cernavoda, a town located along the Danube River in southeastern 
Romania. The work is one of the ways that the Los Alamos 
Laboratory helps to resolve global environmental issues.

"It's actually a relatively small effort on our side, but it 
makes a world of difference to the collaborators since they have 
limited resources," Greg Valentine, the leader of the Hydrology, 
Geochemistry and Geology group at Los Alamos said.

In March, two Romanian scientists visited Los Alamos to utilize 
sophisticated computer models that predicted the effectiveness of 
the proposed waste site in isolating radioactive wastes from the 
environment and human population, by simulating the contaminant 
transport processes likely to occur in the area of the Romanian 
aquifer being studied. The team also conducted experiments that 
examined the transport properties of native Romanian soils and 
rocks in terms of radioactive wastes. Technical information 
pertaining to possible approaches for controlling the spread of 
environmental contamination was also collected.

Earlier this summer, a team of researchers from Los Alamos 
traveled to Romania to further the collaboration by conducting 
follow up for numerical modeling and experimental work. In 
addition to their efforts in Romania, Los Alamos scientists are 
working on similar projects to develop solutions to radioactive 
waste disposal problems in Peru, Mexico and Egypt.

The "Sister Laboratory" program is part of an effort by the U.S. 
Department of Energy and NNSA to provide bilateral technical 
cooperation for peaceful uses of nuclear energy in developing 
nations by creating a direct line of communication between U.S. 
scientists and their counterparts in participating countries.

Index of all EarthVision Stories* <news_top10.cfm?start=1>
*****************************************************************
 12 AU: Plutonium ships slowed by Tassie protester 

NEWS.com.au | 


By ELLEN WHINNETT 
Chief Reporter
July 21, 2002
 				 				 				
TASMANIAN Greenpeace campaigner Stuart Lennox yesterday threw 
himself into the path of two ships carrying nuclear waste through 
the Tasman Sea.

Mr Lennox and New South Wales MP Ian Cohen jumped into the ocean 
between Norfolk Is and Lord Howe Is as the two British ships 
taking putonium from Japan to Britain headed towards them. 

The Pacific Pintail and Pacific Teal both slowed and took evasive 
action to miss the two protesters. 

An 11-strong Greenpeace protest flotilla confronted the two 
vessels in international waters as they sailed between Australia 
and New Zealand on a course that will take them south around 
Tasmania. 

Mr Lennox, of Murdunna on the Tasman Peninsula, last year 
narrowly avoided being jailed in the United States after taking 
part in a protest against a missile test firing. 

He remains on a 12-month unsupervised probation order after 
facing a prison sentence of more than 10 years. 

Greenpeace said yesterday the mixed oxide fuel being carried on 
the two ships was being returned to its maker, British Nuclear 
Fuels, after Japan refused to accept it. 

Mr Lennox and Mr Cohen chased after the ships in an inflatable 
vessel for six hours before jumping into the water at dawn and 
holding aloft a banner bearing the words "Nuclear Free Pacific." 

The Greenpeace flotilla comprising small yachts waited in 
Australian waters until the ships were picked up on radar. 

The New Zealand Press Association quoted British Nuclear Fuels 
spokesman Mark Scott as describing the Greenpeace action as 
reckless. 

"To throw themselves into the water in front of a vessel is the 
height of maritime lunacy and does Greenpeace no credit 
whatsoever," Mr Scott said. Greenpeace said the ships had 
drastically slowed to get past the protest flotilla under the 
cover of darkness. 

Greenpeace Australia's pacific nuclear campaigner James Courtney 
said the vessels were carrying a cargo that included 255kg of 
weapons-grade plutonium. "It is clear from the strength of 
government and public opposition to this current shipment that it 
is no longer a question of if these shipments are stopped but 
when," he said.                             

The Mercury
*****************************************************************
 13 Commissioners table discussion on litigation against 'Record' *

Erwin Record

 *Bristol / Johnson / Kingsport - Tri-City Regional Airport, TN*

07/23/02
*/By Robin Cleavenger -- Staff Writer /*

Citing absence of the county attorney Monday evening, 
Commissioner Kenneth Lewis asked that the Unicoi County 
Commission table discussion of a possible lawsuit against The 
Erwin Record and Mark A. Stevens, the newspaper's executive 
editor and general manager.

Lewis asked County Executive Paul Monk last week to place the 
item on the agenda for the July 22 meeting. However, when the 
issue came before the commission Monday, Lewis withdrew the item 
and requested it be tabled for consideration at a future meeting.

Following the meeting, Stevens said, ''Freedom of speech and 
freedom of the press are liberties that make our nation great. 
This matter once again reminds us all how privileged we are to 
live in a country where all citizens Ñ not just reporters Ñ but 
all citizens can question and even criticize public officials 
without fear.''

Lewis' request stemmed, according to the agenda addendum, from an 
editorial Stevens wrote that was published in the newspaper July 
17. The editorial, titled ''Commission's action doesn't inspire 
trust,'' focused on the Unicoi County Commission's endorsement of 
a proposed uranium-enrichment plant near Tinker Road in Unicoi.

The letter of support was signed by all nine commissioners; 
however, a vote on the endorsement was not taken during a public 
meeting, which the newspaper believes may have violated state 
law.

''The residents of Unicoi County have a right to know when their 
elected officials are endorsing anything Ñ whether it is a tax 
increase, a road project or a nuclear energy plant,'' Stevens 
wrote in his editorial. ''If commissioners didn't violate state 
law when they each made the decision to silently sign that 
letter, they certainly violated the public's trust.''

After learning about Lewis' request last week, Stevens, while 
vacationing in South Carolina, issued the following statement: 
''One of the most sacred liberties guaranteed and protected by 
our Constitution is that of a free press. As our founding fathers 
knew, and as I learned from a dear mentor years ago, what the 
people don't know will hurt them. The Erwin Record stands for our 
community and stands by our editorial.''

In making a motion to table his request, Lewis said he would like 
to wait until County Attorney Doug Shults was able to return to 
his duties before proceeding with the matter. Shults remains 
hospitalized after emergency surgery, and Lewis said he had not 
had an opportunity to consult with the lawyer about possible 
litigation against The Erwin Record and Stevens.

Attorney David Shults, who also serves as Unicoi County General 
Sessions Court judge, filled in as county attorney at the meeting 
in his brother's absence.

In other business, commissioners voted to impose a 25 mph speed 
limit on the left prong of Odom Branch Road in the Martin's Creek 
community. They also tabled a request from Dorsey Huel Higgins 
for a quit claim deed of an abandoned bridge right-of-way on 
Spivey Mountain Road in Ernestville.

  ©2001 _MyWebPal.com_ <http://www.mywebpal.com>. All rights
*****************************************************************
 14 Panel Cuts Yucca Mountain Funds
 
Las Vegas SUN
 
July 22, 2002 

WASHINGTON- A Senate subcommittee voted Monday to cut one-third 
of the money President Bush requested for work at the proposed 
nuclear waste burial site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. 

The panel, headed by Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., a foe of the 
storage site, would provide $336 million for preliminary work at 
the location, which is 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The 
president, a supporter of the plan, proposed $525 million, the 
same amount a House version of the bill would provide. 

Two weeks ago, advocates of the proposed $58 billion project won 
a pivotal victory when the Senate voted 60-39 to block Nevada 
from vetoing the plan. The House had voted its consent in May. 

Reid and other opponents have pledged to keep fighting the 
project in the courts and at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. 

The plan envisions burying 77,000 tons of highly radioactive 
materials, mostly from power plants in 31 states, under Yucca 
Mountain. 

Supporters hope it will be ready by 2010. The site has been 
studied for two decades at a cost of nearly $7 billion. 

A Senate Appropriations Committee subcommittee included the money 
in a $26.3 billion measure financing next year's energy and water 
projects, which are widely popular among lawmakers. The overall 
bill is $800 million above Bush's request and $1.1 billion over 
this year's total. 

All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
 15 LES announcement of proposed sites delayed

Elizabethton Star - Online Edition
 
By Kathy Helms-Hughes
 STAR STAFF
 khughes@starhq.com [khughes@starhq.com] 

   An announcement of proposed sites for a $1 billion uranium 
enrichment facility -- including a location in Unicoi County -- 
has been postponed for four to five weeks, according to Rod Krich 
of Exelon.

    Members of the Louisiana Enrichment Services consortium met 
with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission the last week of June to 
discuss issues related to LES's proposed license application, 
which is due to be submitted to the NRC in December along with an 
environmental report. Krich said the NRC was told of the delay at 
the meeting.

    A tract consisting of approximately 100 acres, located on 
Tinker Road in Unicoi County, is under consideration for the 
project by Louisiana Energy Services -- a partnership made up of 
Urenco, Exelon, Duke Energy, Louisiana Light & Power, and Fluor 
Daniel.

    Urenco is the sole competitor of U.S. Enrichment Corp. of 
Bethesda, Md., in the import of low-enriched uranium into the 
United States. The facility would employ Urenco's gas centrifuge 
technology.

    Word of the proposed Unicoi facility has touched off 
opposition from some local residents, who say the site is located 
in a 100-year flood plain. Krich said Thursday that he had only 
just heard about the opposition and that it was not a factor in 
delaying the announcement.

    At the NRC meeting in June, Patrick Upson of Urenco Ltd. 
updated the NRC on the status of partnership negotiations and 
site selection for the LES facility. Upson indicted that LES 
staff is still negotiating with prospective partners but no 
commitments have been made. He also said the site selection 
process is proceeding.

    LES plans to use several protected information categories, 
including classified National Security Information in its 
licensing submittals. Under European Community requirements, 
Urenco enrichment technology must be protected under dual-use 
requirements which apply to technology and hardware that 
potentially could be used for production of nuclear weapons.

    LES has applied for, but has not yet received, an export 
license that would allow transfer of information on Urenco's gas 
centrifuge technology.

    A 1992 Quadripartite Agreement between the United Kingdom, 
Germany, The Netherlands, and the United States addresses the 
protection of information transferred to the United States, 
however, some procedures need to be updated to meet U.S. and 
European Community requirements. A process also is needed for 
handling dual-use information. A meeting of the agreement's 
working group is scheduled July 29 in The Hague to address the 
needed changes.

    Krich said The Hague meeting is "more a matter, not so much 
of the technology transfer, but how we handle classified 
information, because particularly some of the information on 
highly enriched uranium is classified. It's a matter of making 
sure the procedures for handling that are agreed among all of the 
parties."

    Urenco's gas centrifuge plants, "particularly the plants in 
Europe ... are pretty clean," Krich said, and indicated that any 
releases from the U.S. facility would be "well below any 
regulatory limits."

    He also said that all low-level waste would be shipped off to 
a radiological burial ground designed for low-level waste, 
however, "In Europe, the tails are recycled and enriched back up 
to natural uranium." That also is a possibility for uranium tails 
produced from the U.S. facility.

    Other wastes produced would be those typical for industry, 
such as water and sewage, or that released from the ventilation 
system, which would be at background levels, he said.

    The capacity of enrichment plants is measured in terms of 
"separative work units" or SWU. LES told the NRC in March that it 
wants to license and construct a 3 million SWU plant which would 
consist of six 500,000 SWU cascades. Urenco, which is approaching 
about 15 percent of the world enrichment market, provides 
enrichment services in Western Europe, the United States and 
Asia.

    Centrifuges for the LES facility would be assembled onsite 
from kits received from Europe. For a 3 million SWU plant, LES 
estimated the gas centrifuge facility would require 8,600 tons of 
feed (uranium hexafluoride) per year. It also would produce 7,800 
tons of depleted uranium, 800 tons of enriched product, and 12 
tons of unprocessed low-level waste annually.

    According to a June 28 announcement in the Federal Register, 
211,742 kilograms of U.S.-origin uranium hexafluoride from Cameco 
Corp. of Ontario, Canada, will be retransferred to Urenco's 
facility in Capenhurst, England, for enrichment in the near 
future. Once enriched, the material will be shipped to Duke 
Energy Corp., in Charlotte, N.C. for use as fuel.

    The NRC has determined that the arrangement is not inimical 
to the common defense and security and will take effect 
approximately 15 days from the June 28 notice. 
  
Copyright © 1996 - 2002 Elizabethton Newspapers, Inc. Direct 
questions or comments to webmas [webmaster@starhq.com] 
ter@starhq.com [webmaster@starhq.com] Elizabethton Newspapers, 
Inc., 300 Sycamore Street Elizabethton, Tennessee 37643 - 
423.542.4151 
*****************************************************************
 16 Locals react to decision on Yucca Mountain - 

Friday, July 19, 2002 - 

Las Vegas View Neighborhood Newspapers
 
County official: Nye needs to make sure project done correctly
 By MARK WAITE 
VIEW STAFF WRITER 

Nye County Commissioners Jeff Taguchi and Henry Neth sat in the 
gallery of the U.S. Senate July 9 when the momentous vote was 
taken to override Governor Kenny Guinn's veto and approve a 
proposal to store 77,000 tons of nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain. 

Taguchi predicted during the next session of Congress there will 
be a bill introduced to allow interim storage of nuclear waste at 
Yucca Mountain until the permanent repository is completed. 
President Clinton vetoed the last bill to allow interim storage 
and Congress couldn't muster the two-thirds vote to override his 
veto. 

"Previously, that particular vote died on the basis that we 
didn't have an approved site," Taguchi said. "Well guess what? 
We've got an approved site. So do I assume an interim storage 
bill will be promulgated? My guess is yeah." 

"If they decide to start shipping waste earlier than the 2010 
time frame and put in an interim storage bill, there are 
significant issues that won't be addressed for a while and we've 
got to take that into consideration, none the least of which is 
transportation," Taguchi said. 

While the Yucca Mountain environmental impact statement talks 
about building a rail line, that may not be built for a number of 
years. After that, a lot of waste could be shipped to Nevada for 
interim storage, he said. 

"The dominoes are falling little by little," he said. "The hard 
one to swallow is if the Congress comes out with an interim 
storage bill. I believe that's going to happen." 

Taguchi said while he was in Washington, D.C., for a few days, 
the commissioners completed canvassing senators about the Nye 
County Community Protection Plan, watched the vote on Tuesday, 
then met with the National Association of Regulatory Utility 
Commissioners on Wednesday. Taguchi said he thought the vote 
would've been closer, but said U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., did 
an honorable job arguing against the project, adding at times, 
the debate got heated. 

"After the vote has taken place, we have to begin the process of 
making sure the science is verified because Nye County science 
participates in the licensing procedure," Taguchi said. He 
referred to the next phase in the project, the licensing by the 
Nuclear Regulatory Commission. "The best way to ensure the 
health, safety and welfare of your citizens is to make sure the 
NRC licensing is good. They have to go through a lot of 
selections not the least of which is transportation." 

Taguchi disagreed with the contention Nye County doesn't have 
much of a bargaining tool now that Congress approved the project. 

"On the contrary. I think we now have that bargaining chip. Nye 
County has to be a central player in this, they can't just march 
in here," Taguchi said. "I think there will be more of an 
inclination to communicate with the county commission." 

Taguchi said Nye County's population has grown a great deal from 
when the Nuclear Waste Policy Act was passed in 1982, giving it 
more of a voice. The county will continue to grow to where by 
2010 Pahrump alone could have 75,000 people, he said. 

"We never had an opportunity to say yes or no (to Yucca Mountain) 
from a county level. That's why the county maintained a neutral 
position and maintained a more aggressive position later on. You 
have to deal with the site county, I believe that," he said. 

"Now we have to get on the stick and be pro-active in our 
response to this and make sure everything is done correctly. If 
that's going to be the decision of the Congress, we may not like 
it but we have to live with it and work with it to make sure the 
citizens are properly indemnified," Taguchi said. 

Commissioner Neth described his feelings after witnessing about 
five hours of the final debate on the project. 

"It was kind of disappointing, the process and the posturing that 
took place. Witnessing history was definitely awe inspiring. it 
was historical in that it was brought to the floor by somebody 
other than the majority leader. I personally wish that our 
legislators from all states would take more time to get the 
actual facts before they submit something to the record. I'm 
thankful that we have federal legislators that fight so hard for 
something they believe in, I just wish that when things don't go 
the way they envision, they don't feel like it's necessary to 
take it out on an entity like Nye County," Neth said. 

Neth referred to published remarks by U.S. Sen. John Ensign, 
R-Nev. July 10 that senators wouldn't pay attention to lobbying 
trips by the county commissioners because Nye County had a small 
population compared to the rest of Nevada and called the trips a 
waste of money. Neth said he was very upset at Ensign's remarks 
which he called unprofessional. He said it was upsetting to see 
someone take pot shots at their efforts, when the county didn't 
have a say in where the nuclear waste dump would be and is only 
trying to protect its residents. 

Neth also applauded the fight opponents of Yucca Mountain made on 
the floor of the U.S. Senate. 

"If I had to grade the job that they did on a scale of one to 10 
it was absolutely a 10. They pulled out all the stops, they did 
everything they could from facts and figures, to directly 
attacking the other side as far as where the money goes and the 
big lobbyists. They did a great job of fighting it on the floor," 
Neth said. 

Neth sought to reassure the public this isn't the final vote. 

"This one's been in the works for 20 years and I think that's 
what a lot of people don't understand about this. This does not 
make Yucca Mountain a given. All this particular vote does is 
allow DOE (Department of Energy) to move forward with the 
licensing process. What it's going to do is either give the 
thumbs up or the thumbs down because all the questions that are 
unanswered have to be answered during the licensing process," he 
said. 

When asked if he was concerned about letting the Yucca Mountain 
project happen while he was a county commissioner, Neth said, 
"I've been a citizen of Nye county for 40 years. I lived through 
a big majority of the tests at the Nevada Test Site. I worked out 
there for 15 years. On the large scale of things you think about 
the detonation of a nuclear weapon or the storage of high level 
nuclear waste, which one has the bigger impact on a person's 
life?" 

Ed Hanson, chairman of the Pahrump Nuclear Waste and 
Environmental Advisory Board and a nuclear industry worker for 40 
years, said his board will continue to be neutral on the subject 
in order to best serve the town board and continue to evaluate 
the transportation issues, which the board considers the major 
concern. But Hanson said in 50 years he is unaware of a single 
fatality due to radiation exposure from transportation. 

"The board has published radiation dose calculations to the 
public based on the maximum allowable radiation levels allowed by 
the DOT (Department of Transportation) for transport vehicles, 
these doses are very low," Hanson said. "There are potentially 
far more dangerous shipments on the road every day, gasoline, 
acids, propane, etc. At this point our preferred transit is by 
rail. 

"I personally don't believe Nye County or Pahrump is in 
jeopardy," he said. "I believe the R and D (research and 
development) projects to treat and reprocess the waste will be 
successful in the next 50 to 100 years." 

Ed Goedhart, manager of the Ponderosa Dairy in Amargosa Valley, a 
vocal opponent of Yucca Mountain, said he wasn't surprised at the 
60-39 vote. After some arm-twisting, the Utah delegation was 
persuaded to vote for the project by allaying their fears there 
could be interim storage of nuclear waste on the Goshute 
Reservation. 

"The real test is going to come in the courts and I think this 
litigation is going to make the tobacco litigation seem like 
peanuts, because this is the whole State of Nevada united in 
their opposition against it as far as the constitutional offices 
of the state," Goedhart said. 

[http://www.lasvegas.com] 
*****************************************************************
 17 Few members of public have no opinion on nuclear dump
 
 Friday, July 19, 2002 - 


- Las Vegas View Neighborhood Newspapers
 
 By MARK WAITE 
VIEW STAFF WRITER 

Public hearings held in Pahrump on the Yucca Mountain project 
have largely been dominated by anti-nuclear activist groups like 
Citizen Alert and Shundahai. While many Pahrump residents didn't 
bother to attend the hearings, many of them do have opinions 
about Congress giving the go-ahead to the project; most voiced 
opposition to the project. 

Comments in opposition to Yucca Mountain center around either 
fears the project will be hazardous to their health or a feeling 
it isn't fair the nation is sending all its nuclear waste to 
Nevada. The minority who spoke in favor of it, felt there was no 
better place for it or it could create jobs. 

"Even though they say it's going to be safe, there's always the 
possibility it could be in our groundwater," Yvonne Hickman said 
outside the Smith's Food Store store Friday afternoon, wearing a 
tag identifying her as an employee of Home Health Services of 
Nevada. "Routing it here, it's not going to be safe with the 
Al-Qaida thing. They could get us on that." 

"I don't like it one bit," said Wesley Willis. "I don't like 
they're going to ship all the nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain. 
That puts a lot of people's lives in danger." 

"We've already done our part," Patti Couture said. "We've never 
been compensated for all of that. 

"They just want to use us as the dumping ground of the world," 
Couture said. She referred to health problems Nevadans are 
suffering already, like the Fallon cancer cluster. 

"It's a done deal. I moved here three years ago, so I know about 
it," said Tom Grogan, a transplant from Henderson. "All the 
states ganged up on us. (U.S. Sen.) Harry Reid could've done 
something about it 10 years ago." 

But Carl Wofford echoed the feelings of some residents however, 
in saying, "It's inevitable. We might as well go with it and see 
what we can get out of it." 

"I think it was a done deal 10 years ago. My problem is, I think 
it was crammed down our throats. I don't think Texas and 
Washington were ever looked at seriously," Sharon Ankrum said. 
The U.S. Department of Energy originally looked at sites in 
Hanford, Wash. and West Texas to send the waste. "The test site's 
got so much bad stuff, I think Beatty's got hazardous materials, 
we always worked around uranium. I have a concern about shipping 
it and I don't know why it couldn't be stored in the place it is 
now." 

"I think it's pretty sad, why should they ship here from all over 
the United States to our state?" Greg Cazimero asked. 

"I don't really want it in our state, but I know it's got to go 
somewhere," Dean Leslie said. 

Leslie said he used to transport nuclear material as a truck 
driver for Tri-State and predicted there will be ample safety 
precautions in shipping the nuclear waste. But he added, 
"Granted, there's always the human error factor, you can't get 
around that." 

"Of course it does bother me, what if we have an earthquake, that 
sucker's going to go down, contaminate all our water supply," 
said Crystal resident J.C. Ficarro. "They should put it somewhere 
else where they won't endanger people's lives." 

But Heilman Tate said, "It was going to come in anyway, might as 
well get the money from the government they're going to give us." 
Tate said if state officials wanted to oppose it they should've 
done so when the project was first proposed. 

"I'm unhappy with it, I don't favor having everybody's garbage in 
our neighborhood," said Lucille Jackson. 

But Ron Feldshau said, "It doesn't bother me, after 40 years in 
the Navy working on nuclear powered ships." 

"Are we going to get any more radiation than we got from the 
nuclear testing?" Joe Wells asked in response to the question. 

"I think it's disgusting when the people don't have that much of 
a vote or a say in it, especially the whole state," said Sandi 
Martino, a recent arrival from Southern California. 

"I think the water table is suffering enough without it," Martino 
said. She expressed fears of a future radioactive leak. "Who 
knows how many years it'll take, no matter how much they try to 
seal the mountain or seal those cannisters." 

"Look how many people have passed away from that radioactive 
material," Martino said. 

"By the time that comes around, it'll be 2020. They already got 
the test site, all that junk that comes around," said Joanne 
Nielson. "If money is given, it should certainly go to Nye 
County, not Clark." 

Jason Paskvan said if local officials wanted money for Yucca 
Mountain they should've asked for it years ago. He said the 
county wasted its money sending Commissioners Jeff Taguchi and 
Henry Neth to Washington, D.C., when the project was practically 
built. "We should get some compensation, but Nye County should've 
secured that 10, 15 years ago." 

"It's coming so we may as well accept it. What better place to 
put it than a place that's already contaminated," said Chuck 
Stevens, admitting his view may not be popular. He said building 
a railroad to ship the waste through Nye County could be a big 
benefit to Pahrump. 

Marilyn Mikulis, wife of a Nevada Test Site worker, was a 
wholehearted supporter of the Yucca Mountain project. 

"My husband works out there, people don't understand what it's 
all about. It's absolutely the only place it can go," Mikulis 
said. 

"I think it'll produce a lot of jobs out here and boost the 
economy," she said. "It's already contaminated, what can they do 
already? They're burying it 900 feet underground."
 

[http://www.lasvegas.com] 
*****************************************************************
 18 Reid takes bite out of Energy Department spending

Tuesday, July 23, 2002
 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal 

CORRECTION (7/25/02): This story contained several errors. The 
bill contains only a nominal increase for the Nuclear Waste 
Technical Review Board. The University of Nevada, Las Vegas would 
receive $4.5 million for nuclear waste research. The National 
Renewable Energy Laboratory would be given $4 million for Nevada 
projects. And groundwater tracking at the Nevada Test Site would 
be funded at $2.5 million. 
 
Nevada Democrat's committee unveils plan to cut nuclear waste 
disposal budget by 36 percent 

By STEVE TETREAULT STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU 

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Harry Reid took a fresh swipe Monday at the 
Yucca Mountain Project, proposing to cut the Energy Department's 
budget for nuclear waste disposal by more than a third. 

The Nevada Democrat, chairman of a Senate energy and water 
subcommittee, unveiled a 2003 spending plan with $336 million for 
the department to continue preparing a license application for 
the nuclear waste repository. 

That is a 36 percent cut; Energy Department officials had 
requested $527 million. 

Reid did not explain how he reached his figure, saying only 
"we'll have to see" what Congress decides as it sets next year's 
spending levels on nuclear waste. 

Reid had said he would continue challenging President Bush even 
after Congress voted to designate the Yucca Mountain site 
northwest of Las Vegas for a repository. 

Congressional officials predicted the budget fight will play out 
as it did last year, when lawmakers compromised between deep cuts 
Reid forced in the Senate and more generous Yucca Mountain 
funding passed by the House. 

The result was a Yucca budget of $375 million, a $70 million cut 
from Bush's budget that contributed to decisions within the 
Energy Department to push back the timeline to submit a 
repository license to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. 

Energy Department officials will seek to restore the newest 
cutback, spokesman Joe Davis said. 

Last month, White House officials said a substantial cutback 
would have a devastating impact on the goal of submitting a 
license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by late 
2004. 

The Yucca Mountain Project was the only major program to take a 
big hit in the $26.3 billion energy and water bill that won 
subcommittee approval at a short meeting Monday. 

The bill will be considered by the Senate Appropriations 
Committee later this week, although changes in the Yucca numbers 
were not expected. 

What Reid took away from Yucca Mountain, he gave to others. The 
DOE budget was increased substantially for renewable energy 
research, nuclear nonproliferation and environmental cleanups. 

Programs that research accelerator transmutation and other 
possible alternatives to nuclear waste burial also were given 
increases, including $6 million for research performed at the 
University of Nevada, Las Vegas. 

The state of Nevada would receive $2.5 million for monitoring 
DOE's work at Yucca Mountain and in the licensing process. Nevada 
counties would receive $6 million for Yucca monitoring programs. 

Some $4 million is allocated for advanced sensors to track 
groundwater beneath the Nevada Test Site, a project that could 
play a role in tracking migrating nuclear materials. 

The Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, which examines Yucca 
Mountain issues, would receive a 13 percent budget boost. 

The bill also contains more than $160 million in other earmarked 
energy and water spending for the state, much of it directed 
through the test site or at UNLV and the University of Nevada, 
Reno. 

The bill would boost anti-terrorism programs conducted at the 
test site, adding $27 million to an Energy Department $10 million 
request. Added to other homeland security bills, anti-terror 
training conducted on the Nevada range could receive about $80 
million for the coming year. 

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo., would 
be given an additional $5 million to open a branch in Nevada. The 
state's universities would get $3 million for geothermal power 
research. Solar energy projects would get $2 million. 

Flood control for the Tropicana and Flamingo washes would get $45 
million, including $5 million reimbursement to the Clark County 
Regional Flood Control District.
 

Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002
*****************************************************************
 19 Panel cuts funds for nuke dump
 
  Associated Press [online@rgj.com]   

ASSOCIATED PRESS
7/22/2002 10:01 pm 
	
WASHINGTON — A Senate subcommittee voted Monday to cut one-third 
of the money President Bush requested for work at the proposed 
nuclear waste burial site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

The panel, headed by Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., a foe of the 
storage site, would provide $336 million for preliminary work at 
the location 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The president, a 
supporter of the plan, proposed $525 million, the same amount a 
House version of the bill would provide.

Two weeks ago, advocates of the proposed $58 billion project won 
a pivotal victory when the Senate voted 60-39 to block Nevada 
from vetoing the plan. The House had voted its consent in May.

Reid and other opponents have pledged to keep fighting the 
project in the courts and at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The plan envisions burying 77,000 tons of highly radioactive 
materials, mostly from power plants in 31 states, under Yucca 
Mountain.

Supporters hope it will be ready by 2010. The site has been 
studied for two decades at a cost of nearly $7 billion.

A Senate Appropriations Committee subcommittee included the money 
in a $26.3 billion measure financing next year’s energy and water 
projects, which are widely popular among lawmakers. The overall 
bill is $800 million above Bush’s request and $1.1 billion over 
this year’s total.
 		   		   				
Copyright Reno Gazette-Journal, a Gannett Co. Inc. 
*****************************************************************
 20 AU: Protesters move in on nuke ships *

thestar.com.my <http://thestar.com.my/>

*Tuesday, July 23, 2002*

HIGH-SEA ACTION ... Cohen and Stuart Lennox, a crew member of the 
African Queen, one of the Pacific Peace Fleet Flotilla, 
protesting in front of the Pacific Teal, one of the two ships 
carrying plutonium through Tasman Sea Monday.

SYDNEY: Greenpeace protesters leapt into the sea in front of two 
ships carrying nuclear waste off the Australian mainland 
yesterday after an overnight game of maritime cat and mouse. 

The controversial transportation of the weapons-grade material is 
the first of its kind since the Sept 11 attacks on the United 
States, and has sparked international outrage from governments 
and environmental groups who say the cargo is a tempting target 
for militants on the high seas. 

The lightly armed ships are returning the waste that state-owned 
British Nuclear Fuels Plc (BNFL) shipped to Japan three years ago 
but agreed to take back after it emerged that BNFL had falsified 
documentation associated with the cargo. 

BNFL described the protesters? actions as ?lunacy? and said 
Greenpeace had ?endangered lives?. 

Greenpeace?s ?Nuclear Free Flotilla? caught up with the British 
registered freighters, Pacific Pintail and Pacific Teal, with 
around 225kg of plutonium on board, in international waters in 
the Tasman Sea around dawn.  

New South Wales Senator Ian Cohen and another protester threw 
themselves into the water just 400m in front of the oncoming 
ships brandishing a ?Nuclear Free Pacific? banner. 

Cohen jumped into the water with his trademark surfboard. 

The nuclear ships are currently around 1,000km east of the 
Australian mainland and heading south round Tasmania and west 
around Australia and out across the Indian Ocean. 

BNFL hit back at Greenpeace, saying the protesters who had jumped 
into the sea had endangered not only their own lives but also the 
lives of others. 

?To throw themselves into the water in front of the vessel is the 
height of maritime lunacy and does Greenpeace no credit 
whatsoever,? BNFL spokesman Mark Scott said in a statement. 

?They should be condemned for their stupidity.? 

The Australian Democrats, Greens and Greenpeace have all said the 
shipment put the Australian mainland at risk but a spokesman for 
Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said the government 
was satisfied about security. 

But New Zealand is unhappy and has ordered its air force to track 
the ships. ? AFP  

Copyright © 1995-2002 Star Publications (Malaysia) Bhd
</info/thestar.asp> (Co No 10894-D)
Managed by I.Star.
*****************************************************************
 21 Commentary: Radio-active politics
 
 	Posted: July 22, 2002. (from The Washington Times)
 	By Gordon Prather
 
Just weeks after a federal judge overruled South Carolina Gov. 
Jim Hodges' orders to forcibly prevent the Department of Energy 
from trucking several tons of nuke plutonium to its Savannah 
River Site (SRS), where it is to be converted into mixed oxide 
reactor fuel (MOX), Congress overruled the objections of Nevada 
politicos, authorizing the department to truck tens of thousands 
of tons of partially "spent" nuclear fuel to Yucca Mountain for 
indefinite burial.

We're recycling weapons-grade plutonium as MOX, which makes 
sense. Why aren't we recycling the reactor-grade plutonium? 
Thereby hangs a tale.

In the fall of 1991, as the Soviet Union was disintegrating, 
officials from MinAtom ? the Soviet equivalent of our Department 
of Energy (DOE) ? came to see Sens. Sam Nunn, Richard Lugar et 
al. MinAtom was in the process of dismantling tens of thousands 
of Cold War-surplus nukes. MinAtom was determined to dispose of 
the recovered plutonium as MOX, but it didn't have the funds to 
build the necessary plants. Would the United States help? 

"You bet." cried Messrs. Nunn and Lugar. Because of the 
difficulty of accounting for and protecting stocks of 
weapons-grade plutonium from theft, Messrs. Nunn and Lugar judged 
dismantled Soviet nukes to be more of a nuke-proliferation threat 
than nukes still in stockpile. So, Congress promptly authorized 
the to Bush-Quayle administration to help assist the Russians to 
peacefully dispose of those stocks of excess plutonium. 

The Bush-Quayle administration ? also eager to prevent terrorists 
from acquiring nuke materials ? quickly developed a plan to 
assist MinAtom. But then ? surprise, surprise ? we had an 
election. Exit Bush-Quayle (Stage Right). Enter 
Clinton-Greenpeace (Stage Left).

Recall that ? back in the 1970s ? Carter-Greenpeace thought they 
had killed nuclear power. Jimmy Carter prohibited the recycling 
of slightly "spent" reactor fuel. It had to be buried at Yucca 
Mountain instead. The Europeans recycled, but we couldn't.

Now, in the 1990s, Clinton-Greenpeace was being asked to assist 
MinAtom in making MOX. Greenpeace realized that, once Russia had 
used up all its excess nuke plutonium, it would turn to making 
MOX from spent fuel. Nuclear power ? running on reprocessed spent 
fuel ? would have a new lease on life.

"MOX nix." cried Clinton-Greenpeace. 

But, Messrs. Nunn and Lugar insisted that we help the Russians 
reduce the threat of nuke terrorism. What was Clinton-Greenpeace 
to do? Why, delay,delay,delay, of course. Run out the clock. 
Negotiate endlessly with the Russians, the International Atomic 
Energy Agency, the G-7 group of industrial nations, the lady from 
Philadelphia, whoever.

Then we had an election. Exit Clinton-Greenpeace (Stage Left). 
Enter Bush-Cheney (Stage Right). 

Bush-Cheney discovered that Clinton-Greenpeace had saddled them 
with a real mess, the US-IAEA-Russia Trilateral Agreement. 

At the end of the Cold War, Bush-Quayle had also begun 
dismantling thousands of our surplus nukes. Now, no one judged 
our recovered plutonium to be vulnerable to theft by terrorists. 
Nevertheless, in 1993, Clinton-Greenpeace offered to provide 
Messrs. Nunn and Lugar assistance to Russia if and only if we 
both transparently disposed of ? under the watchful eyes of the 
IAEA ? an equal amount of plutonium. The Greenpeace ploy? We got 
to tell the Russians what they could do with their plutonium. 
They promptly told us what we could do with ours.

The result is that 10 years after Messrs. Nunn and Lugar 
authorized it, and five years after the trilateral agreement was 
signed, practically nothing has been done to actually dispose of 
the Russian nuke plutonium. President Bush and Russian President 
Vladimir Putin have just now announced they would begin 
trilateral implementation, and that the G-8 would fund it.

How did Mr. Hodges get in the act? Well, Clinton-Greenpeace had 
offered to make a teeny-tiny amount of MOX if the Russians would 
mix some of their plutonium ? as we intended to do with all of 
ours ? with highly radioactive nuclear waste and bury it at a 
Russian equivalent of Yucca Mountain. 

Eventually, the Russians agreed. South Carolina competed for ? 
and won ? the right to have our teeny-tiny MOX plant built at 
SRS. 

But Bush-Cheney soon discovered that DOE had already concluded 
that the Russians had the right idea. Turn all our excess 
plutonium ? not just a teeny-tiny amount ? into MOX. Of course, 
that would mean modifying our end of the trilateral agreement. 

Meanwhile, the scheduled shipments of plutonium to SRS began. Mr. 
Hodges ordered state troopers to stop them. Mr. Hodges had fought 
to get a teeny-tiny MOX plant, but was now fighting against 
getting a much larger plant? Why? 

Democrat Hodges said that Bush-Cheney had violated the agreement 
he had made with Mr. Clinton. What do you suppose he and Mr. 
Clinton had agreed to do? Run out the clock on MOX?

Gordon Prather is a former national-security adviser with several 
federal agencies, including the Defense Department. He also 
worked as a nuclear-weapons specialist at Lawrence Livermore 
National Laboratory in California and Sandia National Laboratory 
in New Mexico.                                                        
                                    								
 [http://www.townhall.com]                                                                                                                   
 		   
  Copyright © 2002 News World Communications, Inc.
*****************************************************************
 22 Counties adopt resolution on transporting nuke waste

Las Vegas SUN: 

July 23, 2002 
 
LAS VEGAS SUN

 Although it came after the Senate approved Yucca Mountain as the 
nation's nuclear waste repository, the National Association of 
Counties adopted a resolution last week concerning transportation 
effects of radioactive waste.

 The association's resolution urges the Energy Department to 
address concerns of the counties along the 39-state route on 
which nuclear waste will be shipped if Yucca Mountain, 90 miles 
northwest of Las Vegas, is opened.

 "We're very pleased we were able to lobby NACO to adopt a strong 
resolution urging the DOE to take action and address the grave 
health and safety risks of shipping 77,000 tons of high-level 
nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain," Clark County Commission 
Chairman Dario Herrera said after the discussion led by former 
Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev.

 "Discharge of radioactive and toxic effluent poses a significant 
threat," County Commission Yvonne Atkinson Gates said.

 Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa announced a news 
conference at 10 a.m. Wednesday at the Grant Sawyer Building. It 
will outline the seven lawsuits filed against the nuclear 
repository and future strategies. 

All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
 23 Reid-led subcommittee cuts proposed Yucca budget
 
Las Vegas SUN
 
July 23, 2002 
 
By Benjamin Grove < [grove@lasvegassun.com] >

 WASHINGTON -- A key panel led by Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., 
slashed next year's proposed budget for Yucca Mountain by 
one-third, setting up a showdown with pro-Yucca lawmakers later 
this year.

 The Senate Appropriations Energy and Water Subcommittee approved 
a budget framework Monday that sets aside $336 million for Yucca 
Mountain -- $191 million less than what the Energy Department 
requested, and $39 million less than this year's budget.

 It is an annual ritual: Reid, subcommmittee chairman and the No. 
2 Senate Democrat, uses his influence to reduce project funding 
in an attempt to slow its progress, and Yucca advocates negotiate 
to restore the money.

 A final compromise likely will be worked out between House and 
Senate negotiators in a conference committee room behind closed 
doors later this fall.

 "I just wanted to keep it lower than this year," Reid said. "As 
you know they will try to raise it up in conference higher than 
it was this year."

 The annual budget wrangling unfolds in a new context this year 
-- when the Senate approved Yucca just three weeks ago, Congress 
had officially endorsed the Yucca site.

 Nevada has long battled to keep the national high-level nuclear 
waste dump out of the state. While Nevada lawmakers can no longer 
stop Yucca in Congress, Reid has vowed to slow project progress 
by squeezing its budget.

 Energy Department officials are urging lawmakers to restore the 
$527 million they requested, so that they can stick to an 
ambitious timeline for opening the site as early as 2010.

 "Our budget request reflects the amount we believe necessary to 
conduct ongoing work on the Yucca Mountain project," DOE 
spokesman Joe Davis said. "The appropriation process has many 
steps before final budgets on this project are set."The Yucca 
budget is wrapped inside a broader $26.3 billion bill that will 
be the subject of further House-Senate negotiations.

 In addition to the Yucca budget, the bill contains a long list 
of energy and water projects, including about $160 million for 
Nevada. That includes $2.5 million for the state of Nevada and $6 
million for Nevada counties for Yucca oversight. The legislation 
also includes $2.5 million for the University of Nevada, Las 
Vegas to continue groundwater studies around Yucca Mountain.

 According to Reid's office, the latest version of the bill also 
includes:
 
+ $45 million for continued construction on flood control 
projects in the Tropicana and Flamingo Washes;
 
+ $37 million for a counter-terrorism training center at the 
Nevada Test Site, $27 million more than what Bush requested;
 
+ $33 million for Cold War nuclear materials clean-up at the 
Nevada Test Site and millions more for a variety of work and 
research at the test site.
 
All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
 24 With little fanfare, Bush signs Yucca resolution
 
Las Vegas SUN
 
July 23, 2002 
 
By Benjamin Grove <grove@lasvegassun.com [grove@lasvegassun.com] 
>

 WASHINGTON -- President Bush today signed a congressional 
resolution approving Yucca Mountain as the nation's nuclear waste 
repository, and delivering one final, anti-climactic blow to 
Nevada officials who lost their battle on Capitol Hill to kill 
the project.

 Bush was "pleased" to sign the resolution, according to a 
statement released this morning by White House spokesman Ari 
Fleischer.

 "The successful completion of the Yucca Mountain project will 
ensure our nation has a safe and secure underground facility that 
will store nuclear waste in a manner that protects our 
environment and our citizens," Fleischer said.

 A congressional source said Bush invited five key pro-Yucca 
Republican lawmakers to the White House to witness the signing: 
Sens. Frank Murkowski of Alaska and Larry Craig of Idaho, and 
Reps. Billy Tauzin of Louisiana, Joe Barton of Texas and House 
Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois.

 Nevada leaders reacted with anger when they heard about the 
signing.

 Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said today was "dark day" for 
Nevada. Bush proved "that this administration doesn't give a damn 
about the people of the state of Nevada or the tens of millions 
of people put in jeopardy by the transportation routes across our 
nation," she said.

 "The president's signature will haunt this nation for 
generations to come," Berkley said. "Shame on President Bush and 
(Vice President Dick) Cheney and (Energy Secretary) Spencer 
Abraham for uniting with their nuclear industry buddies."

 After 20 years of study at Yucca, and months of intense lobbying 
by both pro- and anti-dump forces, the House approved the project 
in May, and the Senate followed suit July 9.

 With the battle over, one penstroke was all that was left to 
make the resolution official and end the political fight over the 
dump.

 The president signed the resolution that stated congressional 
support for constructing the dump underground at the desert 
ridge, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

 When lawmakers approved it, they effectively had overridden 
Republican Gov. Kenny Guinn's unique veto April 8 of Bush's 
approval. The veto was allowed by law.

 Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Bush today offered final proof 
that he broke his campaign promise to approve Yucca Mountain only 
if sound scientific study confirmed the site was a safe place to 
bury waste.

 Nevada officials point to 293 questions identified by the Energy 
Department and Nuclear Regulatory Commission that were unresolved 
when Bush approved the site.

 "President Bush was the only one who was in a position to stop 
(Yucca) or slow it down and he didn't," Reid said. "He mislead 
the state of Nevada, and that was confirmed with his signature."

 Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., who alongside Reid fought Bush over 
the dump, today said simply, "I think the administration is 
wrong, they have been wrong and they are still wrong."

 Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., sought to deflect criticism from the 
Republican president, but still stressed his disappointment with 
Bush's action.

 "Unfortunately, our state began this 'David versus Goliath 
battle' back in 1987 when Yucca Mountain became the one and only 
site for consideration," Gibbons said today. "Consequently, the 
Department of Energy for more than a decade has continued along a 
dangerous course -- approval of Yucca Mountain no matter what 
criticisms or concerns may arise."

 Gibbons said he hoped Nevadans would remain dedicated to 
continuing to fight Yucca in federal court.

 Nevada has several lawsuits filed against the project and 
officials vow a fight in front of the Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission when the Energy Department applies for a license for 
Yucca.
 
All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
 25 Destination: Yucca Mountain
 
JS Online: 

How safe will it be to transport nuclear waste?

 By SARA SHIPLEY Last Updated: July 20, 2002 

It's a horrifying specter: A terrorist hides along a busy 
highway, waiting for a truckload of used nuclear fuel to pass. 
When the target comes into sight, he launches a shoulder-mounted 
missile that pierces the thick walls of the dumbbell-shaped cask.
 
A plume of highly radioactive particles escapes from the damaged 
container. Everything the particles touch becomes contaminated. 
Everyone who inhales them faces an increased risk of cancer.
 
How likely is such an attack, how far would the contamination 
spread, and how many people would get sick or die? That depends 
on whom you ask. The nuclear industry says the risks are minimal. 
But anti-nuclear activists claim that shipments would provide an 
irresistible and deadly target.
 
The nuclear industry has recognized the possibility of sabotage 
for years. Now, in light of the recent disclosure of a so-called 
dirty bomb plot, some officials and activists are calling for a 
deeper investigation of the terrorist threat to nuclear waste 
shipments.
 
At issue is the Bush administration's plan to create a nuclear 
waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. It would require 
shipping an estimated 77,000 tons of radioactive waste across the 
country to a desert facility 90 miles from Las Vegas.
 
The Department of Energy hasn't yet finalized shipping routes or 
decided upon the mode of transportation.
 
Nuclear industry representatives say it would be highly unlikely, 
if not impossible, for terrorists to turn a nuclear waste 
shipment into a dirty bomb.
 
"You can talk about what-if scenarios until you're blue in the 
face," said Melanie Lyons, a spokeswoman for the Nuclear Energy 
Institute. "We have a transportation record that stands for 
itself. It's been 45 years, 3,000 shipments and no release of 
radiation."
 
Yucca Mountain opponents counter that industry and government 
officials have played down the threat of sabotage in order to 
push through the plan. Opponents reacted immediately when federal 
officials announced the dirty bomb plot June 10. Suspect Jose 
Padilla allegedly plotted to detonate a bomb with radioactive 
material, government officials said.
 
Both sides lay claim to the terrorism argument.
 
When Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham recommended the site to 
President Bush in February, he cited homeland security. More than 
161 million Americans live within 75 miles of the 131 sites where 
nuclear waste is now stored, he said. Those sites were intended 
to provide temporary storage.
 
The sites "should be able to withstand current terrorist threats, 
but that may not remain the case in the future," Abraham wrote to 
Bush. "These materials would be far better secured in a deep 
underground repository at Yucca Mountain, on federal land, far 
from population centers."
 
Shipments would be packed in metal casks 8 to 12 inches thick and 
protected by armed guards in heavily populated areas.
 
Meanwhile, nuclear waste is piling up at nuclear plants across 
the country. But the fact that nuclear waste will remain at many 
of the sites, where there is still storage room, shows that the 
Yucca Mountain plan will not improve national security, said Mary 
Olson, a spokeswoman for the Nuclear Information &Resource 
Service.
 
Olson believes that the waste is vulnerable where it is. But 
better to leave it there, cooling to lower levels of 
radioactivity while a better solution is found, than to put it on 
wheels, she said.
 
"Talk about a sitting duck," Olson said.
 
Few tests have explored what could happen if terrorists attacked 
a nuclear waste cask, and the results have been interpreted in 
dramatically different ways. Predictably, nuclear industry 
supporters say that an attack would produce minimal damage. 
Opponents - including the state of Nevada - say thousands of 
people could die.
 
A Department of Energy report takes the middle ground. Although 
the Bush administration supports the Yucca plan, a recent DOE 
study concluded that a terrorist attack on a shipment could 
result in dozens of deaths.
 
The only real-life government tests on terrorism attacks were 
conducted 20 years ago. In 1982, scientists at Sandia National 
Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M., conducted tests that included 
smashing containers into concrete walls and hitting them with 
trains. The casks survived the abuse battered but intact - except 
for the sabotage test.
 
In that test, scientists detonated an explosive charge on top of 
the cask. The explosion ripped a small hole in the cask "about 
the size of your little finger," said Bob Jefferson, a nuclear 
energy consultant in Albuquerque, N.M., who supervised the tests.
 
Spent fuel is solid, contained in ceramic pellets stored in metal 
tubes. If an attack cut through the cask and damaged the fuel 
rods, some tiny radioactive particles would become airborne.
 
At the time, Sandia scientists estimated that the container would 
have released 1% of its radioactive contents. But in a follow-up 
test the next year at Sandia, scientists replayed the test inside 
a giant steel bottle to capture the discharge. They found that 
the actual amount released was much less, only about .03% of the 
contents, Jefferson said.
 
An effective attack would require lining up several elements: a 
failure of security forces, a head-on missile hit and high winds 
to spread the contaminants, said Jefferson, who has been a 
consultant to the Nuclear Energy Institute.
 
Assuming the worst, a 1% release could spread over a 1-mile 
radius, Jefferson said. The decontamination required for most of 
that area would be a simple hose-down or a shower for affected 
people, he said. He said that the additional radiation exposure 
would be about 1 rem, which is three to five times the average 
person's annual exposure rate.
 
Any contamination released probably would be limited to a very 
small area, Jefferson said. If a successful attack happened "in 
downtown Manhattan in rush hour, you'd expect half of one 
additional cancer in 30 years in that population," Jefferson 
said.
 
Bob Halstead, a transportation consultant to the Nevada Agency 
for Nuclear Projects, said the consequences would be much worse. 
Halstead co-authored a study for Nevada that re-evaluated the 
available data. He estimated that a successful attack could 
release from 1% to 10% of a truck cask's contents.
 
Depending on the size of the shipment, the weapon used and the 
weather conditions, the radioactivity would spread over 5 to 30 
square miles, he said. An estimated 100,000 to 500,000 people 
would get a dose of radiation five to 10 times more than they 
would normally get in a year, he said.
 
That would cause anywhere from 300 to 18,000 latent cancer 
deaths, he testified before the Senate's Committee on Energy and 
Natural Resources last month. Cleanup costs could exceed $10 
billion, he estimated.
 
Jefferson and Halstead, both longtime nuclear energy consultants 
on opposite sides of the issue, have faced off in this debate 
many times. Each one claims the other is misrepresenting facts. 
That's why Halstead, who works for Yucca plan opponents, is 
surprised that the Department of Energy's own report would 
conclude that a terrorist attack could have serious consequences.
 
The DOE's February environmental study evaluated the damage that 
could be done by sabotage.
 
Using data from Sandia labs, the study estimated that a 
successful terrorist attack in an urban area would release enough 
radioactivity to expose 96,000 people and cause 48 fatal cancers.
 
Joe Davis, a spokesman for the agency, said the study considered 
a worst-case scenario. It assumed that people would live in the 
contaminated area for a year, that the damaged vehicle would be 
on site for 12 hours, and that there would be no immediate 
evacuation - all unlikely events, Davis said.
 
Terrorists are much more likely to target nuclear waste where it 
is now stored than to wait until Yucca shipments begin in 2010 
and try to track down a moving target, Davis said.
 
To conclude otherwise "is nothing short of scare tactics," he 
said.
 
Sara Shipley is a writer for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 

         Appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on July 21, 
2002.
 
 Journal Sentinel Inc. All rights reserved.

Journal Sentinel Inc. is a subsidiary of Journal Communications 
[http://www.jc.com] , an employee-owned company.
*****************************************************************
 26 What will happen when Yucca Mountain fills up?

JS Online: 

 By ALFRED MEYER Last Updated: July 20, 2002 

In the 1980s, Wisconsin was seriously considered as a site for 
long term storage of highly radioactive nuclear waste. If our 
current nuclear policies, practices and plans are maintained, the 
Wolf River batholith, the large granite formation in north 
central Wisconsin, could again be considered as a site for a 
nuclear waste repository.
 
The Senate recently voted to proceed with the Yucca Mountain site 
in Nevada for geologic storage of these dangerous, long-lasting 
products of nuclear power and nuclear weapons production. Oddly 
enough, the Yucca "solution" for nuclear waste makes it more 
likely for a waste site to one day be located in Wisconsin.
 
Simply put, by the time Yucca Mountain is full in 2036, we will 
have as much dangerous waste needing permanent storage as we do 
now. If new nuclear power plants are built, and existing ones 
relicensed, the amount of waste needing storage could be several 
times as much as we have now. One or more additional waste 
disposal sites will thus be needed, and Wisconsin could be one of 
them.
 
Presently, we have 46,000 metric tons of waste in temporary, 
on-site storage around the United States, mostly in cooling pools 
and dry cask storage at our 103 nuclear power plants, including 
four storage sites in Wisconsin. These storage facilities were 
not designed for long-term storage, and they constitute a real 
and present danger today.
 
Accidents, like Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, and the threats 
of terrorist attack and war, remind us of the great risks and 
awesome powers of nuclear materials. Health effects from exposure 
to nuclear radiation and weapons range from instant vaporization 
to radiation burns and sickness to increased rates of cancer to 
genetic damage for generations to come.
 
The Yucca Mountain plan does not address these immediate and 
dangerous public health and national security problems of on-site 
storage.
 
Rather, Yucca Mountain will, in essence, rotate the stock of 
nuclear waste stored on-site, slowly providing storage for the 
older nuclear waste and making room for newly generated nuclear 
waste.
 
As long as a nuclear power plant is in operation, it will produce 
new amounts of hot, spent nuclear fuel. This new spent nuclear 
fuel needs to be cooled on-site for 5 to 10 years before it can 
be moved; it is too hot in temperature and radiation to be moved 
sooner. Thus, the on-going generation of spent nuclear fuel 
maintains the current dangers of on-site storage even as older 
waste is removed.
 
The above numbers do not reflect the additional amounts of highly 
radioactive waste that will be generated by any new nuclear power 
plants, relicensed older plants or the production of new nuclear 
weapons. The same day in February that Energy Secretary Spencer 
Abraham presented the Yucca Mountain plan to President Bush, he 
also announced an initiative to build 50 new nuclear power plants 
between 2010 and 2020.
 
Existing nuclear power plants are being relicensed early and for 
longer periods of time. In addition, the Defense Department's 
Nuclear Posture Review calls for developing new (and more easily 
used) nuclear weapons.
 
Thus, the concern that there will be even more waste than 
currently projected is very real. Increased amounts of waste 
increase the need for additional disposal sites. A Wisconsin 
waste disposal site would provide regional equity (one site in 
the West and one in the Midwest), and it would reduce 
transportation costs compared to a western site, because much of 
the waste is in the eastern part of the country.
 
Transportation of high level nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain or 
Wisconsin presents many significant dangers. Suffice it to say 
that if the 100,000 planned shipments occur, there will be 
accidents. If the train that derailed and burned in the Baltimore 
tunnel last summer had been carrying nuclear waste, the 
consequences for the Baltimore and Washington, D.C., areas could 
have been catastrophic.
 
So what are we to do in response to this dismal and frighteningly 
dangerous situation?
 
Physicians for Social Responsibility has always maintained that 
the only practical response to the possibility of nuclear 
catastrophe is prevention. There is no adequate medical response 
available for a significant nuclear disaster.
 
We need to have an open and comprehensive discussion of our 
nation's energy and defense policies and the role that nuclear 
power and nuclear weapons should play in them.
 
Have we fully explored and developed sustainable energy 
production, such as wind, solar, geothermal and biomass, as well 
as energy conservation? Do we really want another generation of 
nuclear power plants and their resulting deadly waste?
 
The July 2002 edition of National Geographic magazine has an 
excellent article titled "Half Life: The Lethal Legacy of 
America's Nuclear Waste," written by a pro-nuclear ex-Marine. The 
article concludes with the suggestion that homo sapiens might 
evolve into a species called homo furioso, a group that would 
furiously ask "what were those ancient Americans thinking when 
they put that hot stuff in the Earth and decided 10,000 years was 
time enough to contain it?"
 
The recent Senate vote on Yucca Mountain was one step on a long 
path toward dealing with the lethal legacy of high level nuclear 
waste. For the survival and well being of our species, we must 
make wise and informed decisions.
 
Yucca Mountain, and a potential second site in Wisconsin or 
elsewhere, are not adequate solutions.
 
Alfred Meyer is executive director of the Madison chapter of 
Physicians for Social Responsibility (www.psr.org and 
www.psrmadison.org).
 
         Appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on July 21, 
2002.
 
Journal Sentinel Inc. is a subsidiary of  [http://www.jc.com] , an
employee-owned company.
*****************************************************************
 27 Science supports plan to store waste at Nevada site

JS Online: 

 By CHARLI COON Last Updated: July 20, 2002 

What's right is rarely what's easy, as President Bush is finding 
out as he begins to change the way America stores nuclear waste.
 
It would be easy to leave things as they are. The waste is spread 
among 131 sites in 39 states, which stops officials of any one 
state from complaining that they're treated unfairly. Those stuck 
with nearby storage facilities are generally those who benefit 
most from nuclear power.
 
And with no new power plants even in the planning stages, the 
demand for storage space probably won't increase for a few years.
 
But leaving things as they are isn't right. What's right is what 
President Bush is doing: pushing to open the Yucca Mountain 
Geological Repository in Nevada as soon as possible. It's safe, 
solid, stable, remote and easy to secure.
 
Still, making the case publicly won't be easy.
 
The Bush administration got a taste of how tough it will be when 
Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham told Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn 
that he planned to recommend that Yucca Mountain be approved as a 
nuclear-waste repository. Politicians from both sides of the 
aisle in Nevada and in Washington, D.C., rose in protest. Liberal 
activists and the anti-nuclear crowd joined in.
 
No one wants to be the lawmaker who says, "Yes, our state would 
be a great place for nuclear waste."
 
And no liberal activist wants to admit that anywhere in America 
is suitable for nuclear waste. But the spent rods of nuclear 
power plants and discarded nuclear power elements from the 
military have to be stored somewhere - and soon.
 
America has spent more than $6 billion - $400 million in fiscal 
2001 alone - to determine the best site. About half the money 
came from the Nuclear Waste Fund, which gets its money in part 
from the nuclear-power industry and in part from a surcharge 
levied on those who use nuclear power.
 
The research has gone on for almost a half-century. In 1957, 
researchers from the National Academy of Sciences concluded that 
the safest way to store nuclear waste was to bury it deep in rock 
to prevent weather disasters or terrorist attacks.
 
Then they looked for a place that could safely hold 77,000 metric 
tons of hazardous radioactive materials (about 38 years' worth of 
waste) for at least 10,000 years. They studied three - Hanford, 
Wash.; Deaf Smith County, Texas; and Yucca Mountain - and found 
that Yucca Mountain, alone among the three, satisfies the 
requirements.
 
Researchers at universities nationwide and scientists and 
engineers from around the world reviewed the data and agreed. 
Yucca Mountain, with its natural and engineered barriers, can 
provide America the safe, clean storage facility it needs for 
nuclear waste.
 
Critics say the waste will be vulnerable to terrorist attack or 
potentially catastrophic accidents as it travels to Yucca 
Mountain.
 
But surely moving the waste to one site, where it can be stored 
on protected federal land, is better than trying to secure all 
the sites now in use. Particularly when, thanks to the nearby 
Nevada Test Site - which is contaminated by earlier weapons 
testing - military forces capable of responding, rapidly and 
professionally, to any radiation problems already are stationed 
nearby.
 
Besides, burying the waste 1,000 feet below ground in steel 
casks, rather than in the cooling ponds we now use, would limit 
exposure to terrorist attack.
 
Some opponents try to turn the "one-site vs. many" argument on 
its head. If we can't secure waste at dozens of locations around 
the country, they say, then we shouldn't maintain our present 
nuclear power facilities, let alone propose new plants.
 
Yet we can't do without nuclear energy. One in five homes, 
businesses and factories depend on it and more undoubtedly will 
in coming years as we seek to become less dependent on fossil 
fuel. We can't keep using the present haphazard quilt of storage 
facilities, and the security threat will only increase as time 
goes on.
 
President Bush can expect an onslaught of opposition from liberal 
activists, Nevada natives and the anti-nuclear-power crowd. But 
he has something on his side that they don't: sound science.
 
That's why, unless opponents know of some place that the entire 
scientific community somehow has overlooked, they should get out 
of the way and let President Bush's plan go forward.
 
The time is now. And Yucca Mountain is the place.
 
Charli Coon is an energy policy analyst at The Heritage 
Foundation, a Washington-based public policy research institute.
 

         Appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on July 21, 
2002.
 
Journal Sentinel Inc. is a subsidiary of  [http://www.jc.com] , an
employee-owned company.
*****************************************************************
 28 AU: Protestors leap in front of nuclear waste ships *

online.ie home </>

 /The Irish Examiner 23 Jul 2002/

*By Phil Smith, Sydney*

GREENPEACE protesters leapt into the sea in front of two ships 
carrying nuclear waste off the Australian mainland yesterday 
after an overnight game of maritime cat-and-mouse. The 
controversial transportation of the weapons-grade material is the 
first of its kind since the September 11 attacks on the United 
States, and has sparked international outrage from governments 
and environmental groups who say that the cargo is a tempting 
target for militants on the high seas.

The lightly armed ships are returning the waste that state-owned 
British Nuclear Fuels Plc (BNFL) shipped to Japan three years ago 
but agreed to take back after it emerged BNFL had falsified 
documentation associated with the cargo.

BNFL described the protesters' actions as "lunacy" and said 
Greenpeace had "endangered lives".

Greenpeace's Nuclear Free Flotilla caught up with the 
British-registered freighters, Pacific Pintail and Pacific Teal, 
with about 495 pounds of plutonium on board, in international 
waters in the Tasman Sea around dawn yesterday. New South Wales 
Senator Ian Cohen and another protester threw themselves into the 
water just 450 yards in front of the oncoming ships, brandishing 
a Nuclear Free Pacific banner.

BNFL hit back at Greenpeace, saying the protesters who had jumped 
into the sea had endangered not only their own lives but the 
lives of others.

The Australian Democrats, Greens and Greenpeace have all said the 
shipment put the Australian mainland at risk but a spokesman for 
Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said the government 
was satisfied about security.

The shipment is destined for the British reprocessing plant at 
Sellafield on England's northwest coast.

The Irish government, whose coastline is just 110 miles across 
the Irish Sea, has long campaigned for the plant's closure


The Examiner Logo <http://www.examiner.ie/>

*****************************************************************
 29 Utah Waste Act Foes Defend State Ballot Law 

The Salt Lake Tribune -- 

    Tuesday, July 23, 2002   

BY JUDY FAHYS

    Opponents of the Radioactive Waste Restrictions Act, 
including five state legislators, on Monday urged the Utah 
Supreme Court to throw out a lawsuit attacking the state's ballot 
initiative process. 

    David Jordan, attorney for the opposition group led by Utahns 
Against Unfair Taxes, defended the state's tough initiative law, 
which allows an initiative onto the ballot only if it has a 
certain level of voter support in at least 20 of the state's 29 
counties. 

    "The multiple county requirement for initiatives, which has 
been a fixture of the Utah Code since 1917, is an appropriate and 
constitutional method chosen by the Legislature to ensure that an 
initiative has statewide support," Jordan said. 

    The proposed radioactive-waste law failed to qualify for the 
ballot earlier this month because it garnered sufficient levels 
of support in only 14 counties -- although overall, the proposal 
received more signatures than any other initiative in Utah 
history. 

    Both sides are expected to appear today for arguments before 
the justices. 

    About 95,975 registered voters signed petitions saying they 
wanted to see new limits and taxes on radioactive waste. 

    County-by-county support eroded, however, under an 
unprecedented signature-withdrawal effort mounted by opponents. 

    Proponents of the waste initiative called the multicounty 
requirement a breach of free speech rights. 

    In their petition to the Utah Supreme Court, the group said 
the requirement "discriminates against urban voters by making 
rural voters gatekeepers who can effectively keep initiatives off 
the ballot." 

    Utah's law-by-ballot process is considered one of the 
toughest in the nation. 

    fahys@sltrib.com 
    
  © Copyright 2002, The Salt Lake Tribune 
*****************************************************************
 30 President signs bill making Nevada's Yucca Mountain the nation's 
nuclear and radioactive waste site 
                                       
Tue Jul 23,11:02 AM ET 

By SCOTT LINDLAW, Associated Press Writer 

WASHINGTON - Over Nevada's fervent protests, President Bush 
signed a bill Tuesday making Yucca Mountain the nation's central 
repository for nuclear waste. 


"The successful completion of the Yucca Mountain project will 
ensure our nation has a safe and secure underground facility that 
will store nuclear waste in a manner that protects our 
environment and our citizens," White House spokesman Ari 
Fleischer said in a statement. 

The project had been studies for more than 20 years, and Bush 
signed the measure with no fanfare. Reporters were not allowed to 
witness the bill-signing. 

The House and Senate voted earlier this year to entomb thousands 
of tons of radioactive waste inside Yucca Mountain — in the 
desert some 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. 

Nevada's senators, who tried for months to rally their colleagues 
against the Yucca waste dump, argued that the issue was much 
broader than Nevada. They hoped concerns over thousands of waste 
shipments crossing 43 states would sway some lawmakers, but they 
were defeated. 

Bush has long backed Yucca Mountain as a repository site, 
formally recommending it in February. 

Nevada filed a formal protest — as was its right under a 1982 
nuclear waste law — leaving it for Congress to make a final 
decision. The House approved it in May, the Senate this month. 

The state has five lawsuits pending against the project, and the 
Energy Department must still get a license from the Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission. That process could take up to five years. 

Even some Yucca supporters admit that plans to open the site by 
2010 may be too optimistic. 

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said he was convinced that 
77,000 tons of waste destined for Yucca could be stored there 
safely for the tens of thousands of years that it will remain 
highly radioactive. 

The Bush administration and other Yucca site supporters said 
leaving the radioactive garbage at 131 power plants and defense 
sites in 39 states would pose an even greater risk than hauling 
it to Nevada. And they said waste has been transported for years 
without radiation releases. 

But critics, including Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, 
D-S.D., complained that there were still "far too many questions" 
about the Yucca site and transportation safety issues 

Environmentalists dubbed the planned waste shipments "mobile 
Chernobyl" — a reference to the nuclear disaster in the former 
Soviet Union. They see a disaster in the making as the 
radioactive cargo moves past major cities, over bridges and 
through tunnels on its way to Nevada. 

Abraham promised a transportation plan before the end of next 
year and said stringent safety requirements will provide an 
"effective first line of defense" against terrorist threats. 
"We've proven we can move it safely," he said after the Senate 
vote. 

On the Net: Yucca Mountain Project: http://www.ymp.gov 
[http://rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/ap/ap_to_po/inlinks/*http://www.ymp.gov]
 
Nevada's Agency for Nuclear Projects: 
           
http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste 
[http://rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/ap/ap_to_po/inlinks/*http://www.state.nv.us/nucw
aste] 

  Copyright © 2002 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The 
information
*****************************************************************
 31 Idaho court considers nuclear waste case 

KTVB.COM | News | Idaho News on Demand
 	 	 
07/22/2002 
Associated Press 

Attorneys for two environmental groups pressed a federal judge 
today to reject an Energy Department plan to reclassify highly 
radioactive residual waste in Idaho and elsewhere so it does not 
have to be removed. 

But the federal government maintains that U-S District Judge Lynn 
Winmill should dismiss the claim on grounds that classification 
of radioactive material is solely within its purview. Government 
lawyers also contend the agency is following procedures used for 
years and in fact has made no determinations yet that would be 
subject to court review. 

The challenge is over plans to leave some residual sludge in 
buried tanks that once held thousands of gallons of liquid 
radioactive waste. The government wants to cap that material with 
cement and leave it in the tanks. Environmental groups and the 
state want it all removed, citing the threat of contamination it 
poses to the Snake River Plain aquifer. 

*****************************************************************
 32 USEC rival adds enrichment firm based in Canada - Tennessee, 
North Carolina and Virginia seem favored for a competing plant

The Paducah Sun Paducah, Kentucky Tuesday, July 23, 2002

Staff Report

Cameco Corp. has joined a consortium of other energy-related 
companies that plans to build a uranium enrichment plant in the 
United States that would compete with USEC Inc., now the nation's 
only producer of enriched uranium used in nuclear fuel. 

The consortium is headed by Urenco Limited, a major producer of 
nuclear fuel in Europe. Urenco is expected to announce later this 
summer a location for the new plant. Company officials have 
confirmed that Paducah has been considerd for the plant, but 
recent news reports say that three sites are under active 
consideration in Virginia, Tennessee and North Carolina. 

The proposed plant would cost $1.1 billion and use centrifuge 
technology similar to what Urenco uses at its plants in Europe. 
The capacity would be 1 million units of nuclear fuel when it 
begins operating in 2007, and 3 million by 2012. It would employ 
about 200 people. 

Cameco, with headquarters in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, is the 
world's largest uranium enrichment supplier. 

USEC Inc. also has announced it will build a new centrifuge plant 
that would be in operation in about eight years. The plant will 
be built in either Paducah or Piketon, Ohio, and replace the 
plant currently operating in Paducah that uses the 50-year-old 
gaseous diffusion process. 

*****************************************************************
 33 Gov. Guinn's statement regarding President Bush signing House Joint Resolution

  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATE: March 19, 2002 CONTACT: Greg 
Bortolin PHONE: 775-684-5670 LAS VEGAS: 702-486-2500 CELL: 
775-230-3302 FAX: 775-684-7198 EMAIL: Bortolin@gov.state.nv.us   
 
Gov. Guinn's statement regarding President Bush signing House 
Joint Resolution 87
 
CARSON CITY - The fact that the President signed House Joint 
Resolution 87 does little more than end the political process. I 
have always believed that our best chance in defeating Yucca 
Mountain is in the federal courts, where impartial judges will 
hear the factual and scientific arguments as to why Yucca 
Mountain is not a safe place to store this nation's high-level 
nuclear waste.
 
In addition to our strong legal challenges, we now have the 
opportunity to unveil to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) 
the flawed science upon which the Yucca Mountain decision was 
based. The nuclear energy industry will no longer be able to use 
its political power and dollars to push ahead a scientifically 
flawed project. The NRC has the tremendous responsibility to 
determine whether Yucca Mountain should be licensed. Unlike 
Congress, the NRC is required to examine all the science before 
it can license this project. I am confident that once it does so, 
the NRC will also conclude that Yucca Mountain is not safe, and 
that the better decision is to explore safer alternatives that 
will not put at risk the citizens of our county. The NRC itself 
has concluded the nuclear waste can be safely stored at existing 
reactor sites in dry casks for at least 100 years, and possibly 
up to 1,000 years.
 
###
   


*****************************************************************
 34 Deal: Cameco Buys Uranium Plant

<http://www.canoe.ca/Canoe/home.html>
    
Canada (Jul. 22, 2002 - 11:59)

SASKATOON (CP) -- *Cameco Corp., *(CCO 
<http://www.webfin.com/en/home/quotes/index.html/?symbol=CCO&marche=CAN>)
the world's largest uranium supplier, and a consortium of 
partners have signed an agreement to build a $1.1-billion-US 
uranium enrichment plant in the United States.

The Saskatoon-based company said Monday the deal to establish a 
U.S. facility is being proposed by companies that include Cameco, 
U.K.-based Urenco Ltd., Westinghouse Electric Co. and three US 
utilities. 
<http://ads.canoe.ca/event.ng/Type=click&ProfileID=2611&RunID=19936&AdID=13429&TagValues=193.2796.2800.2851.2857&FamilyID=1&GroupID=154&Redirect=http:%2F%2Fcanoe.matchcontact.com>


Urenco Ltd. will provide the uranium enrichment technology.

Cameco's short-term commitment to the project over the next three 
years is expected to be $8.5 million US.

Discussions about the project have already been started with the 
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The NRC's approval is 
required, along with other government clearance, in order for the 
project to proceed.

Under the terms of the memorandum agreement, Cameco will obtain 
an initial 20 per cent interest in the project.

Once the partnership is licensed and fine-tuned, Cameco's 
interest will increase to 25 per cent.

"This proposal represents an excellent opportunity for Cameco, 
given that the United States is the world's largest user of 
enrichment services and Cameco's biggest customer base," said 
Bernard Michel, Cameco's chair and chief executive officer.

"We would enhance our existing uranium and conversion business in 
the key US nuclear fuel market, build our relationship with 
partners committed to the nuclear business and advance our 
company's strategy to further integrate in the nuclear fuel 
cycle."

Shares of Cameco were trading at $36.37, up $1.03, on the Toronto 
stock market Monday.

 © 2001, Canoe Limited
*****************************************************************
 35 U.S.-Europe Group Wants to Build Nuclear Fuel Plant in U.S.

The New York Times 

 *July 23, 2002*  

*By MATTHEW L. WALD*

WASHINGTON, July 22 ? A consortium of European and United States 
nuclear companies said today that it would apply soon for a 
license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build a $1.1 
billion plant for processing reactor fuel, the first in this 
country in half a century and one of the largest private nuclear 
projects here since the 1980's.

The plant would enrich uranium for use in power plants, using a 
technology that consumes about 5 percent as much electricity as 
the one now used in the United States. It would break a domestic 
monopoly held by USEC Inc. 
</redirect/marketwatch/redirect.ctx?MW=http://custom.marketwatch.com/custom/nyt-com/html-companyprofile.asp&symb=USU>,
formerly the United States Enrichment Corporation, which runs an 
Atomic Energy Commission plant in Paducah, Ky., that was 
privatized in July 1998.

USEC announced a month ago that it would also seek to build a 
plant but that it would first have to modernize a prototype plant 
tested in the 1980's.

The consortium's proposal poses a serious threat to USEC, some 
experts said. "As a business, they are dead," Thomas L. Neff, a 
scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said of 
USEC. In the 1990's, Dr. Neff came up with the idea of buying 
weapons-grade uranium from Russia and diluting it for use in 
United States reactors, a job once done by the Energy Department 
and now done by USEC. If USEC does not build an enrichment plant, 
he said, it will become merely a broker of the Russian uranium.

Patrick C. Upson, the chairman of the consortium, said, "We have 
a significant head-start on the technical side."

But USEC executives said their technology would be even better.

"USEC remains the leading supplier of enriched uranium fuel in 
the United States market, and we're on track to be enriching 
uranium using new advanced gas centrifuges by the end of the 
decade," a spokesman for the company, Charles Yulish, said. "We 
expect our technology to be proven the most efficient in the 
world."

The company wants to incorporate advanced composite materials 
into the Energy Department's older centrifuge design. When the 
plant was privatized four years ago, the company said it would 
seek to commercialize an enrichment technology using lasers, but 
it later dropped the idea.

USEC has shut down one of two plants it took over, and it has 
kept itself afloat partly by winning a trade case and forcing 
tariffs on two European suppliers that it accused of taking 
government subsidies. But a plant built here using European 
technology would face no such tariffs.

USEC has also raised revenue by taking electricity it had bought 
under long-term contracts, intending to use it for enrichment, 
and selling it in peak demand periods.

The consortium raising the challenge includes Urenco, a 
British-Dutch-German company that uses a technology called gas 
centrifuge to enrich uranium; the Cameco Corporation 
</redirect/marketwatch/redirect.ctx?MW=http://custom.marketwatch.com/custom/nyt-com/html-companyprofile.asp&symb=CCJ>
of Canada, the world's largest uranium supplier; the Westinghouse 
Electric Company and Fluor 
</redirect/marketwatch/redirect.ctx?MW=http://custom.marketwatch.com/custom/nyt-com/html-companyprofile.asp&symb=FLR>
Daniel, which are active in many areas of the nuclear industry; 
and affiliates of three companies that operate power reactors in 
the United States: Exelon 
</redirect/marketwatch/redirect.ctx?MW=http://custom.marketwatch.com/custom/nyt-com/html-companyprofile.asp&symb=EXC>,
Entergy 
</redirect/marketwatch/redirect.ctx?MW=http://custom.marketwatch.com/custom/nyt-com/html-companyprofile.asp&symb=ETR>
and Duke Energy 
</redirect/marketwatch/redirect.ctx?MW=http://custom.marketwatch.com/custom/nyt-com/html-companyprofile.asp&symb=DKE>.

The same group, but with a different United States utility 
partner, tried several years ago to build a plant in Louisiana, 
but it gave up because of opposition at the site.

This time, Mr. Upson said, the partnership will seek to build at 
a site that is already licensed for nuclear uses.

Industry experts say the group is looking at sites in Lynchburg, 
Va.; Wilmington, N.C.; and Erwin, Tenn. All have been used for 
uranium enrichment. Environmental advocates in Erwin have already 
organized to oppose that choice.

The consortium, still known as Louisiana Energy Services, said it 
would pick a site soon.

Enrichment means raising the proportion of uranium-235, the kind 
that is easy to split in reactors. Natural uranium is about 0.7 
percent uranium-235. The problem is that the dominant type of 
uranium, uranium-238, is chemically identical; the only 
difference is in the weight. USEC's plant, built in the 1950's, 
uses a method called gaseous diffusion, in which uranium, 
converted to gaseous form, is forced through a barrier, with one 
type slightly more likely to pass through than the other. The 
European technology uses a centrifuge.

Enrichment is measured by "separative work units," or S.W.U.'s, 
and the United States market is about 11 million units a year. 
USEC meets more than half of United States demand by blending 
down Russian bomb uranium. USEC also enriches uranium at the 
plant in Paducah. It shut down a plant in Portsmouth, Ohio, with 
a capacity of 10.5 million units.

The consortium plans to build a plant that would begin operation 
in 2007 or 2008 and reach a capacity of 3 million units a year in 
2012.

USEC shares closed at $7.06, down 10 cents.


Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company
*****************************************************************
 36 Despite small crowd, organizer says Unicoi group gaining steam

Story published in the Johnson City Press:
7/23/2002.

By Alyssa Spradlin
Press Staff Writer

ERWIN ? Though the crowd at Monday night?s Citizens for the 
Preservation of the Valley Beautiful meeting was smaller than at 
previous meetings, organizer Johnny Lynch reassured those in 
attendance that the movement was only gathering steam, not 
waning.

?You can see the crowd?s smaller tonight. We?re all spread out 
all over Unicoi County tonight,? Lynch said.

A town board meeting, a school board forum and a county 
commission meeting were also held Monday and members of the 
Citizens group were said to be in attendance at each.

Those who were present asked questions, gave opinions and 
brainstormed on further action the group could take to prevent a 
uranium enrichment plant from coming to the county.

One plan, according to Lynch, is to file the proper paperwork to 
become a recognized nonprofit political action organization. 
Lawyers associated with the group are considering the best way to 
proceed, he said.

Arguments against the proposed development, both sentimental and 
practical, were met with applause.

Dr. Ed Stead, a professor in East Tennessee State University?s 
college of business, denounced numbers cited by local leaders 
touting the economic benefits of the proposed uranium enrichment 
plant. A potential $9 million a year, with over $3 million of 
that earmarked for education, is a possibility only if the plant 
operates at full capacity, he said.

He said full capacity will take 10 years to reach and probably 
only last 1-4 years, if at all.

?That assumes there will be a demand for this fuel.?

Stead said he had prepared a letter to the editor in response to 
officials promoting the uranium plant.

?But none of our public officials feel the need to tell us what 
we might lose,? he said. ?What tourist is going to want to stay 
here when the Valley Beautiful becomes the Valley Nuclear??

Fellow letter-to-the-editor-writer Marty Landis took a more 
personal direction in the letter she read to the crowd.

?It?s funny what people consider progress . . . value for the 
land has been replaced by value of the land.

?I believe Unicoi County is at a critical fork in the road. The 
choice we make will decide our future.?

Lynch said Landis? letter was not run because it was more than 
twice the acceptable word limit. A large portion of it, preceding 
the above statements, reflected on the beauty of the area, the 
friendliness of neighbors when she moved here and how much things 
have changed.

During a question and answer time, comments ranged from sending 
an appeal to the Office of Homeland Security due to the proximity 
of the proposed site of the uranium plant and Nuclear Fuel 
Services, to addressing the lack of information about security at 
the proposed site.

?Any security system can be defeated. Period. . . . Nobody from 
URENCO has said what they?re going to do about security,? Bill 
White said.

URENCO is the major investor in Louisiana Energy Services, the 
company that has placed Unicoi on a ?short list? of potential 
sites for the uranium enrichment plant.

Lynch said he was told by members of the Economic Development 
Board other sites include Wilmington, N.C., and Lynchburg, Va.

According to one woman at the meeting, the League of Women Voters 
will hold a candidate forum Thursday at 6:30 p.m., specifically 
to hear candidate feedback on the uranium plant.

The Citizens for the Preservation of the Valley Beautiful will 
meet again at 7 p.m. July 30 at Farmhouse Gallery.

/(Contact Alyssa Spradlin at aspradlin@johnsoncitypress.com 
<mailto:aspradlin@johnsoncitypress.com>)./

© 2001-02 Johnson City Press and Associated Press All Rights 
*****************************************************************
 37 Commission postpones editorial agenda item
 
<http://www.johnsoncitypress.com/>

Story published in the Johnson City Press:
7/23/2002.

By Chris Garland Erwin Bureau

ERWIN ? Unicoi County Commissioner Kenneth Lewis asked that the 
item to consider legal action against a local newspaper for its 
editorial be removed from the agenda Monday until he can speak 
with the county attorney.

Last week, Lewis asked County Executive Paul Monk to include in 
the regular board meeting agenda an addendum that reads: 
?Consider possibility of legal action against /The Erwin Record/ 
and Mark Stevens concerning editorial in /The Erwin Record/ 
published Wednesday, July 17, 2002.?

With the recent hospitalization of the county?s attorney, Doug 
Shults, Lewis said he has been unable to discuss the item with 
their council and would like to do so before bringing it back to 
the meeting.

Lewis said Monday he has no comment about the issue and would 
like to discuss it with the attorney before making any public 
comments. Stevens appeared at the meeting, and said there was 
nothing to say for now.

Stevens said last week, ?One of the most sacred liberties 
guaranteed and protected by or constitution is that of a free 
press. As our founding fathers knew and as I learned from a dear 
mentor years ago, what the people don?t know will hurt them. /The 
Erwin Record/ stands for our community and stands by our 
editorial,? he said.

The editorial that has Lewis seeking possible legal action says 
the county commission may have violated Tennessee?s Open Meetings 
Act and ?did? violate the public?s trust when quietly signing an 
endorsement for a $1 billion nuclear enrichment plant.

/(Contact Chris Garland at cgarland@johnsoncitypress.com 
<mailto:cgarland@johnsoncitypress.com>)./

© 2001-02 Johnson City Press and Associated Press All Rights 

*****************************************************************
 38 Bush Jr.'s Nuclear Sabre-Rattling
 
[http://www.counterpunch.org/]

July 21. 2002
 
July 22, 2002
 
 The Rogue Elephant
 
by Francis A Boyle
 
When George Bush Jr came to power in January of 2001, he 
proceeded to implement foreign affairs and defense policies that 
were every bit as radical, extreme and excessive as the 
Reagan/Bush administrations had starting in January of 1981. To 
be sure, Bush Jr had no popular mandate to do anything. Indeed, a 
majority of the American electorate had voted for his 
corporate-cloned opponent.
 
Upon his installation, Bush Jr's "compassionate conservatism" 
quickly revealed itself to be nothing more than reactionary 
Machiavellianism--as if there had been any real doubt about this 
during the presidential election campaign. Fascism with a 
friendly face. Even the Bush Jr cast of Machiavellian characters 
were pretty much the same as the original Reagan/Bush foreign 
affairs and defense "experts," many of whom were called back into 
service and given promotions for international crimes they had 
committed anywhere from ten to twenty years ago. It was deja vu 
all over again, as Yogi Berra aptly put it.
 
International Legal Nihilism 

In quick succession the world saw these Bush Jr Leaguers 
repudiate the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, the International 
Criminal Court, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), an 
international convention to regulate the trade in small arms, a 
verification Protocol for the Biological Weapons Convention, an 
international convention to regulate and reduce smoking, the 
World Conference Against Racism, and the Anti-Ballistic Missile 
Systems Treaty, inter alia. To date the Bush Jr Leaguers have not 
found an international convention that they like. The only 
exception to this rule was their shameless exploitation of the 11 
September 2001 tragedy in order to get the US House of 
Representatives to give Bush Jr so-called "fast-track" trade 
negotiation authority so as to present the American People and 
Congress with yet another non-amendable fait accompli on behalf 
of American multinationals, corporations, banks, insurance 
companies, the high-tech and biotech industries, Wall Street, 
etc. The epitome of "globalization," American-style.
 
More ominously, once into office the Bush Jr Leaguers adopted an 
incredibly belligerent posture towards the Peoples' Republic of 
China (PRC), publicly identifying the PRC as America's foremost 
competitor/opponent into the 21st Century. Then their needlessly 
pugnacious approach towards the downing of a US spy plane in 
China with the death of a Chinese pilot only exacerbated these 
already tense US/Chinese relations. Next the Bush Jr Leaguers 
decided to sell high-tech weapons to Taiwan in violation of the 
USA/PRC Joint Communique of 17 August 1982 that had been 
negotiated and concluded earlier by the Reagan/Bush 
administration. Finally came Bush Jr's breathtaking statement 
that the United States would defend Taiwan in the event of an 
attack by the PRC irrespective of Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 
of the United States Constitution expressly reserving to Congress 
alone the right to declare war. President Jimmy Carter had long 
ago terminated the US-Taiwan self-defense treaty.
 
For twelve years the Constitution and the Rule of Law--whether 
domestic or international--never deterred the Reagan/Bush 
administrations from pursuing their internationally lawless and 
criminal policies around the world. The same was true for the 
Clinton administration as well--invading Haiti; bombing Iraq, 
Sudan, Afghanistan, and Serbia; the Lewinsky scandal, etc. The 
Bush Jr administration has behaved no differently from its lineal 
Machiavellian predecessors. Their bellicose handling of the 11 
September 2001 tragedy was no exception to this general rule.
 
Jr's Withdrawal from the ABM Treaty 

Then, as had been foreshadowed, whispered, hinted at and finally 
broadcast over a period of several months, came the monumentally 
insane, horrendous, and tragic announcement on 13 December 2001 
by the Bush Jr administration to withdraw from the ABM Treaty, 
effective within six months. Of course it was sheer coincidence 
that the Pentagon released their self-styled Bin Laden Video just 
as Bush Jr himself publicly announced his indefensible decision 
to withdraw from the ABM Treaty in order to pursue his 
phantasmagorical National Missile Defense (NMD) Program, the 
lineal successor to the Reagan/Bush Star Wars dream. Predictably, 
the Bin Laden Video back-staged this major, pro-nuclear 
announcement. Once again the terrible national tragedy of 11 
September was shamelessly exploited in order to justify a 
reckless decision that had already been made for other reasons 
long before. Then on 25 January 2002, the Pentagon promptly 
conducted a sea-based NMD test in gross violation of Article 5(I) 
of the ABM Treaty without waiting for the required six months to 
expire, thus driving a proverbial nail into the coffin of the ABM 
Treaty before its body was even legally dead.
 
The Bush Jr withdrawal from the ABM Treaty, which was originally 
negotiated by those well-known Machiavellian realpolitikers 
Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, threatens the very existence 
of other seminal arms control treaties and regimes such as the 
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the Biological Weapons 
Convention, which have similar withdrawal clauses. The prospect 
of yet another round of the multilateral and destabilizing 
nuclear arms race now stares humanity directly in the face, even 
as the Bush Jr administration today prepares for the quick 
resumption of nuclear testing at the Nevada test site in outright 
defiance of the CTBT regime and NPT Article VI. The entire 
edifice of international agreements regulating, reducing, and 
eliminating weapons of mass extermination (WME) has been shaken 
to its very core. And now the Pentagon and the CIA are back into 
the dirty business of researching, developing and testing 
biological weapons and biological agents that are clearly 
prohibited by the Biological Weapons Convention and its US 
domestic implementing legislation, the Biological Weapons 
Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989.
 
The US first-strike nuclear strategy 

With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the impoverishment of 
Russia leaving the United States as the world's "only superpower" 
or "hyperpower," we are getting to the point, if we are not there 
already, where only the United States has the capability to 
launch an offensive first-strike strategic nuclear weapons attack 
upon any adversary. For that precise reason, deploying the 
so-called "national missile defense" (NMD) has become a critical 
objective of the United States government. NMD is not really 
needed to shoot down a stray missile from some so-called "rogue 
state." Rather US NMD is essential for mopping up any residual 
Russian or Chinese strategic nuclear weapons that might survive a 
US offensive first-strike with strategic nuclear weapons systems.
 
The successful deployment of NMD will finally provide the United 
States with what it has always sought: the capacity to launch a 
successful offensive first-strike strategic nuclear attack, 
coupled with the capability to neutralize a Russian and/or 
Chinese retaliatory nuclear attack. At that point, the United 
States will proceed to use this capability to enforce its 
Hegemonial Will upon the rest of the world. Strategic nuclear 
"thinkers" such as Harvard's Thomas Schelling call this doctrine 
"compellance" as opposed to "deterrence." With NMD the world will 
become dominated by this US "compellance" strategy.
 
Honest nuclear war-mongering 

Consequently, it should come as no surprise that the historically 
covert intent of America's nuclear "deterrence policy" should now 
come to light through almost off-the-cuff remarks such as those 
by the omnipresent US Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz 
appearing in the 9 January 2002 edition of the New York Times:
 
"We're looking at a transformation of our deterrence posture from 
an almost exclusive emphasis on offensive nuclear forces to a 
force that includes defenses as well as offenses, that includes 
conventional strike capabilities as well as nuclear strike 
capabilities, and includes a much reduced level of nuclear strike 
capability," the deputy secretary of defense, Paul D Wolfowitz, 
said. [Emphasis added.]
 
Well at least he was honest about it.
 
Wolfowitz admitted that the current US practice of so-called 
nuclear "deterrence" is in fact really based upon "an almost 
exclusive emphasis on offensive nuclear forces." To reiterate, 
since this deserves emphasis: The US Deputy Secretary of Defense 
has publicly admitted and conceded that "almost" all US nuclear 
forces are really "offensive" and not really "defenses." That 
Statement could be taken to the International Court of Justice 
and filed against the United States government as an Admission 
Against Interest, Wolfowitz acting within the scope of his 
official duties. Of course the Peace Movement and informed 
American public knew this was true all along. Nonetheless, it 
should be regarded as an ominous sign of the times that the 
Pentagon has become so brazen that it is publicly admitting US 
nuclear criminality to the entire world. The arrogance of the 
Hyperpower!
 
A Nuremberg crime against peace 

Then, writing in the March 10, 2002 edition of the Los Angeles 
Times, defense analyst William Arkin revealed the leaked contents 
of the Bush Jr administration's Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) that 
it had just transmitted to Congress on January 8. The Bush Jr 
administration has ordered the Pentagon to draw up war plans for 
the first-use of nuclear weapons against seven states: the 
so-called "axis of evil"--Iran, Iraq, and North Korea; Libya and 
Syria; Russia and China, which are nuclear armed. This component 
of the Bush Jr NPR incorporates the Clinton administration's 1997 
nuclear war-fighting plans against so-called "rogue states" set 
forth in Presidential Decision Directive 60. These warmed-over 
nuclear war plans targeting these five non-nuclear states 
expressly violate the so-called "negative security assurances" 
given by the United States as an express condition for the 
renewal and indefinite extension of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation 
Treaty (NPT) by all of its non-nuclear weapons states parties in 
1995.
 
In this regard, Article 6 of the 1945 Nuremberg Charter provides 
in relevant part as follows:
 
"The following acts, or any of them, are crimes coming within the 
jurisdiction of the Tribunal for which there shall be individual 
responsibility: "(a) Crimes against peace: namely, planning, 
preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression, or a 
war in violation of international treaties, agreements or 
assurances, or participation in a common plan or conspiracy for 
the accomplishment of any of the foregoing; "... "Leaders, 
organizers, instigators and accomplices participating in the 
formulation or execution of a common plan or conspiracy to commit 
any of the foregoing crimes are responsible for all acts 
performed by any persons in execution of such plan." [Emphasis 
added.]
 
To the same effect is the Sixth Principle of the Principles of 
International Law Recognized in the Charter of the Nuremberg 
Tribunal and in the Judgment of the Tribunal, which were adopted 
by the International Law Commission of the United Nations in 
1950:
 
"PRINCIPLE VI "The crimes hereinafter set out are punishable as 
crimes under international law: "(a) Crimes against peace: "(i) 
Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of 
aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, 
agreements or assurances; "(ii) Participation in a common plan or 
conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned 
under (i)." [Emphasis added.]
 
Notice that both of these elemental sources of public 
international law clearly provide that the "planning" or 
"preparation" of a war in violation of international "assurances" 
such as the aforementioned US negative security assurance 
constitutes a Nuremberg Crime against Peace. Such is the Bush Jr 
NPR!
 
The Rogue Elephant of international law and politics 

Equally reprehensible from a legal perspective were the NPR's 
call for the Pentagon to draft nuclear war-fighting plans for 
first nuclear strikes (1) against alleged 
nuclear/chemical/biological "materials" or "facilities"; (2) 
"against targets able to withstand non-nuclear attack"; and (3) 
"in the event of surprising military developments," whatever that 
means. According to the NPR, the Pentagon must also draw up 
nuclear war-fighting plans to intervene with nuclear weapons in 
wars (1) between China and Taiwan; (2) between Israel and the 
Arab states; (3) between North Korea and South Korea; and (4) 
between Israel and Iraq. It is obvious upon whose side the United 
States will actually plan to intervene with the first-use nuclear 
weapons. And quite ominously, today the Bush Jr administration 
accelerates its plans for launching an apocalyptic military 
aggression against Iraq, deliberately raising the spectre of a US 
first-strike nuclear attack upon that long-suffering country and 
its people.
 
The Bush Jr administration is making it crystal clear to all its 
chosen adversaries around the world that it is fully prepared to 
cross the threshold of actually using nuclear weapons that has 
prevailed since the US criminal bombings of Hiroshima and 
Nagasaki in 1945. Yet more proof of the fact that the United 
States government has officially abandoned "deterrence" for 
"compellance" in order to rule the future world of the Third 
Millenium. The Bush Jr administration has obviously become a 
"threat to the peace" within the meaning of UN Charter article 
39. It must be countermanded by the UN Security Council acting 
under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. In the event of a US veto of 
such "enforcement action" by the Security Council, then the UN 
General Assembly must deal with the Bush Jr administration by 
invoking its Uniting for Peace Resolution of 1950.
 
There very well could be some itty-bitty "rogue states" lurking 
out there somewhere in the Third World. But today the United 
States government has become the sole "rogue elephant" of 
international law and politics. For the good of all humanity, 
America must be restrained. Time is of the essence!
 
Francis A. Boyle, Professor of Law, University of Illinois, is 
author of Foundations of World Order, Duke University Press, and 
The Criminality of Nuclear Deterrence 
[http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0932863337/counterpunchmaga] 

, Clarity Press. He can be reached at: FBOYLE@LAW.UIUC.EDU 
[FBOYLE@LAW.UIUC.EDU] 


*****************************************************************
 39 DOE contract talks to slow shore cleanup
 
This story was published Wed, Jul 17, 2002
 
By the Herald staff
 
The Department of Energy plans to enter discussions with teams 
bidding for a contract to clean up the Columbia River shore area 
at Hanford, which will delay the contract.
 
DOE's Richland office had been prepared to award the contract as 
soon as late August but now likely will not award it until 
November. The project is estimated to cost $1.5 billion for the 
first phase of the project, but later work should bring the cost 
to about $2.7 billion.
 
DOE officials will meet with potential contractors to negotiate 
details and allow revisions within their proposals.
 
Although DOE has declined to say who has bid for the project, 
Bechtel, CH2M Hill, Fluor Corp. and Foster Wheeler have said they 
are among the teams making bids.
 
The first phase is supposed to cover removal of a large amount of 
contaminated soil along the river; cleanup, demolition and 
sealing of four defunct reactor complexes; and cleanup and 
demolition of a major portion of the 300 Area. 

Copyright 2002 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This 
*****************************************************************
 40 PNNL director decides to resign
 
This story was published Sat, Jul 20, 2002
 By Annette Cary Herald staff writer 

Lura Powell will resign as director of Pacific Northwest National 
Laboratory in Richland at the end of the year, she announced 
Friday.
 
"My decision to resign was prompted by a desire for more time 
flexibility and a more balanced life," she said. "It's my attempt 
to have more of a life."
 
She has led the lab since April 2000 and also has served as a 
senior vice president of Battelle, which operates the lab for the 
Department of Energy. She will leave both positions.
 
Battelle is starting a search for her successor, planning to look 
at candidates inside and outside the lab over the next several 
months. Powell was hired after a 13-month search.
 
"Lura has provided many solid contributions to DOE, PNNL, the 
Tri-Cities community and Battelle during her tenure at the 
laboratory," said Carl Kohrt, Battelle president and chief 
executive.
 
"In particular, she has been very active in the Tri-Cities 
community promoting economic growth and providing leadership in 
the role science and technology can play in the education work 
and daily lives of every citizen."
 
Among Powell's accomplishments was forging new partnerships with 
Northwest universities. The lab has formed a broad research 
alliance with public and private universities in Oregon, is 
working on nanotechnology projects with the University of 
Washington and this week announced a partnership to develop 
bioproducts from farm waste with Washington State University and 
two institutions in Idaho.
 
Under her leadership, Battelle's contract was extended for five 
years, and the last two annual reviews of the lab by DOE resulted 
in "outstanding" ratings.
 
She'll leave the lab with two new pieces of world-class equipment 
-- a $24.5 million supercomputer and the world's first 
900-megahertz wide-bore nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometer, 
which allows scientists to see cells and molecules.
 
"The staff, customers and local community have been wonderful to 
my family and me," Powell said. "My one regret is the amount of 
time I have spent away from the Tri-Cities and my family."
 
As director of a national lab, she frequently traveled to 
Washington, D.C., to meet with DOE officials.
 
Powell has not made definite plans for next year but does not 
expect to look for a full-time job. She and her family are 
considering remaining in the Tri-Cities, but no decision has been 
made.
 
"The Tri-Cities is the friendliest place that I have ever lived, 
and I have found it to be a great place to raise and educate 
children," she wrote in a message given to lab staff Friday.
 
Powell, who holds a doctorate in analytical chemistry, is 
interested in using her business and technical knowledge to find 
a position on a for-profit board. Before taking the lab job, she 
worked for the Department of Commerce's National Institute of 
Standards and Technology and could only serve on nonprofit 
boards.
 
In the Tri-Cities, she served on the boards of Kadlec Medical 
Center, United Way, the Tri-City Industrial Development Council 
and Three Rivers Community Roundtable. She also is a member of 
the Washington Roundtable, the Washington Technology Alliance 
Board, DOE's Nuclear Energy Research Advisory Council, the Fred 
Hutchinson Cancer Research Center Board and the Environmental 
Health Committee at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
 
Her replacement ideally should be someone interested in 
involvement in the Tri-City community, and someone who is 
interested not only in strong science and technology programs, 
but also is able to continue to build strong ties to other 
research institutions, she said.
 
"The lab is and will be in the future important to the economic 
growth of the Tri-Cities and the region," she said. Copyright 

2002 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This material may not 
*****************************************************************
 41 Hanford regulators still concerned about cleanup
 
This story was published Sat, Jul 20, 2002
 By Les Blumenthal Herald Washington, D.C., bureau 

WASHINGTON -- Hanford regulators still are concerned that the 
Department of Energy's accelerated cleanup plans could result in 
radioactive waste being left permanently in underground tanks at 
the nuclear reservation.
 
"We're not there with (DOE) if that's what they propose," Mike 
Wilson, who oversees nuclear programs for the Washington state 
Department of Ecology, told a congressional panel Friday.
 
Washington and DOE officials are negotiating an accelerated 
cleanup plan for Hanford that could increase Hanford's proposed 
fiscal 2003 budget by $433 million from $1.46 billion to $1.893 
billion. That would be $117 million more than Hanford's 2002 
budget of $1.776 billion.
 
But Wilson and Christine Gregoire, Washington's attorney general, 
have expressed unease with any plan that would allow DOE to 
reclassify some high-level nuclear waste in the underground tanks 
and allow it to remain there for the foreseeable future.
 
"We believe there can be smarter, more cost-effective cleanup and 
accelerated cleanup within terms of our agreement," Wilson told 
the House Energy and Commerce Committee's oversight and 
investigation subcommittee. "What there cannot be, and what we 
cannot accept, is less cleanup. Less cleanup is not accelerated 
cleanup. It's just less cleanup."
 
Wilson said the Tri-Party Agreement between the state, Energy 
Department and federal Environmental Protection Agency requires 
99 percent of the waste to be removed from the tanks. If that 
turns out to be unfeasible, the Energy Department can ask to 
leave more.
 
"But it's way too early to talk about how much to leave," Wilson 
said. "We haven't even started to remove any tank waste."
 
He also said the state would likely resist any effort to 
reclassify waste and leave it in place.
 
"We don't expect to be waving a wand over waste at Hanford and be 
reclassifying it," he said.
 
Since the Tri-Party Agreement was signed 13 years ago, Wilson 
said it has proved to be a usefully flexible document, with the 
state approving more than 300 changes. Wilson said the agreement 
has to remain at the core of any plan to accelerate cleanup.
 
"The (agreement) must be the document that guides the cleanup, 
and there must be no reduction in final cleanup of the site," he 
said. "The state of Washington has not agreed to any reduced 
cleanup and we have not been blackmailed into negotiating away 
the Tri-Party Agreement on the promise of additional funding."
 
Jesse Roberson, DOE assistant secretary for environmental 
management, testified that consent agreements such as the 
Tri-Party Agreement have turned out to be "living" documents and 
state regulators seem "eager" to work with DOE to streamline and 
accelerate cleanup.
 
"We are determined to make changes," Roberson said, though 
adding, "Our goal isn't to leave more waste at the sites. I 
disagree with such statements." 

Copyright 2002 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This 
*****************************************************************
 42 Tri-Party agreement, sister pacts key to nuclear cleanup, report says
 
This story was published Sat, Jul 20, 2002
 By John Stang Herald staff writer 

The Tri-Party Agreement and its sister pacts elsewhere are X 
factors in the Department of Energy's master plan to speed up 
nationwide nuclear cleanup, said a federal report submitted to 
Congress on Friday.
 
DOE's new master plan could lead to some cleanup sites receiving 
less money than before and to more wastes being left at those 
sites than previously planned, said a General Accounting Office 
report submitted to the U.S. House's Energy and Commerce 
Committee's oversight and investigations subcommittee.
 
The GAO report noted that specific acceleration proposals have 
just begun moving from a few DOE sites to DOE's headquarters in 
Washington, D.C. DOE has not released any details on those plans, 
including the one submitted by Hanford.
 
"It is unclear how the site compliance agreements (such as the 
Tri-Party Agreement) will affect ... DOE's latest cleanup 
reforms," the GAO report said.
 
The GAO is Congress' investigative arm. The Tri-Party Agreement 
is the legal pact among the state, DOE and the U.S. Environmental 
Protection Agency that governs Hanford's cleanup.
 
DOE is making a nationwide push to accelerate its nuclear cleanup 
program, which will influence the budgets for its individual 
sites.
 
For 2002, DOE is spending $6.7 billion nationwide on nuclear 
cleanup, including $1.776 billion to Hanford. For 2003, DOE asked 
Congress for $5.9 billion for basic cleanup nationwide, including 
$1.46 billion for Hanford. DOE is also asking for another $1.1 
billion to go solely to sites that produce accelerated cleanup 
plans, including a tentative $433 million to Hanford.
 
That would put Hanford's 2003 budget at $1.893 billion, which 
would be $117 million more than its 2002 budget.
 
So far, five states with DOE sites have signed letters of intent 
to seek mutually agreeable ways to speed nuclear cleanup. In 
return , DOE has tentatively promised those five states -- 
Washington, Nevada, New Mexico, Idaho and Tennessee -- $757 
million of the $1.1 billion in acceleration money.
 
The GAO noted letters of intents don't automatically translate 
into approved acceleration plans. Numerous technical and 
regulatory details need to be hashed out before a plan can be 
nailed down, the report said.
 
However, Hanford recently sent a tentative plan to DOE's 
headquarters in Washington, D.C., the first DOE site to do so.
 
But several major DOE sites have not even signed letters of 
intent yet to get some of the acceleration money, and that 
increases their chances of losing funding. These include Savannah 
River, S.C.; Paducah, Ken.; Fernald Ohio; Rocky Flats, Colo.; and 
Pantex, Texas. Fernald and Rocky Flats are already behind in 
their present cleanup timetables.
 
The GAO noted DOE has 70 legal compliance agreements, including 
Hanford's Tri-Party Agreement, in place.
 
In the past, these compliance agreements did not hinder DOE's 
efforts to improve its cleanup programs, the GAO said.
 
However, DOE's latest master plan will likely pick which sites 
get more money, with other sites inevitably getting less. And the 
GAO predicted that the states will protest if their DOE sites 
receive less money.
 
DOE is scheduled to coordinate the individual sites' cleanup 
plans and approve them by Aug. 1. The plans and budget numbers 
are to go to the federal Office of Management and Budget by Aug. 
8. The OMB, the president's budget-writing agency, will then 
submit those updated requests to Congress for funding.
 
Another major unknown is that DOE has not revealed how much money 
will be needed for DOE to meet its legal obligations under its 70 
compliance agreements, the GAO said. 

Copyright 2002 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This 
*****************************************************************
 43 Senate panel OKs $2 billion for Hanford cleanup 

The News Tribune - Tacoma, WA                                 
[Tribnet.com]                 

Les Blumenthal; News Tribune Washington Bureau 

WASHINGTON - A Senate appropriations subcommittee agreed Monday 
to provide $2 billion in cleanup funding directly to the Hanford 
nuclear reservation. Committee members pointedly rejected a 
controversial Department of Energy plan to link additional 
funding to concessions from state regulators.
 
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Edmonds), a member of the energy and water 
appropriations subcommittee, said the $2 billion would be enough 
to meet all current provisions of the Tri-Party Agreement, which 
governs the Hanford cleanup. It also included the $433 million in 
additional cleanup funding that DOE said it would give to Hanford 
if regulators agreed to accelerate the effort.
 
The department had proposed cutting cleanup funding at Hanford 
and other sites and setting the savings aside in a special $1.1 
billion fund that DOE officials would control. Money from the 
special fund, which Murray called a "slush fund," would be 
provided to sites where regulators had agreed to speed up 
existing cleanup plans.
 
Washington state officials had signed a letter of intent with the 
department indicating they would agree to negotiate changes in 
the Tri-Party Agreement and adopt an accelerated cleanup schedule 
at Hanford in exchange for $433 million in additional funding. 
The agreement is to be finalized by Aug. 1.
 
But over the past week or so, state officials, including Attorney 
General Christine Gregoire, have told congressional committees 
they were concerned DOE may be pushing a plan that would allow 
some of the highly radioactive waste to permanently remain in the 
underground storage tanks at Hanford.
 
In rejecting the creation of the special fund, the appropriations 
subcommittee said, "The complete lack of information from the 
Department (of Energy) to Congress concerning the specific tasks 
to be performed with $1.1 billion of the taxpayers' money is as 
shocking as it is arrogant."
 
Creation of the fund and the push to accelerate the cleanup had 
become the cornerstone of the Bush administration's environmental 
management plan for Hanford and other sites. The proposal 
followed a top-to-bottom review that concluded under the current 
schedule it would take 70 years and $220 billion to finish 
cleaning up all the sites.
 
"I think we sent a strong message," Murray said of the 
subcommittee's approval of a $26.3 billion energy and water 
appropriations bill that included the cleanup funding.
 
Murray, an outspoken critic of the administration's proposal 
creating the special fund, said the subcommittee's action "puts 
to rest" the question of whether the department will meet its 
obligations at Hanford and elsewhere.
 
"Leaving a significant portion of the environmental management 
funds unassigned would have left states vulnerable to accept new 
cleanup agreements or face denial of adequate funding," she said. 
"I certainly support innovative and cost-effective new cleanup 
efforts, but they cannot come at the expense of safety or 
standards."
 
Of the $2 billion earmarked for Hanford in the Senate bill, $760 
million would go to DOE's Richland Operations office and $1.132 
billion for the Office of River Protection.
 
An additional $125 million would be provided for program 
direction and safeguards and security at Hanford.
 
Overall, the Senate bill provides $7.1 billion for the 
department's environmental management program, a $300 million 
increase over what President Bush had sought.
 
The Senate bill will be considered by the full Appropriations 
Committee on Wednesday, and Murray said she didn't expect any 
problems.
 
The House energy and water appropriations subcommittee, 
meanwhile, last week approved the administration's plan for a 
special fund and accelerated cleanup.
 
The House subcommittee said the proposal would "produce more real 
risk reduction, accelerate cleanup and achieve much needed cost 
and schedule improvements. The House version of the bill was not 
to be released to the public until after the full House 
Appropriations Committee acted. But action on the bill by the 
full committee was postponed until September after it got caught 
up in a broader budget debate.
 
Senate and House negotiators will eventually have to resolve 
differences in the two bills.

(Published 12:30AM, July 23rd, 2002) 
  
Tacoma News, Inc. 1950 South State Street, Tacoma, Washington  
98405   253-597-8742 Fax Machines:   Newsroom, 253-597-8274     
Advertising, 253-597-8764 Send comments to the  
[webmaster@tribnet.com] at  [webmaster@tribnet.com] .
*****************************************************************
 44 Wamp: DOE needs one local manager 
 
The Oak Ridger Online -- Area News --

Tuesday, July 23, 2002

by Paul Parson 
Oak Ridger staff 

The Department of Energy's proposed new management plan for the 
Oak Ridge Reservation is quickly becoming a controversial issue, 
resulting in the federal agency's going on the defensive and 
Congressman Zach Wamp objecting to the changes.

 Mike Holland, who is acting manager for DOE's Oak Ridge 
Operations office, voiced concern this morning over an article in 
Monday's edition of The Oak Ridger which stated the federal 
agency would essentially be eliminating the position he's 
currently holding.

 "The manager position remains," Holland contended in a phone 
interview.

 As The Oak Ridger reported Monday, a so-called "manager" 
position will exist, but on paper it's far different from the job 
currently held by Holland and once filled by Leah Dever. In less 
than a day, the position has gone from being called manager of 
the Office of Operations Support to something like manager of the 
Office of Enterprise Support.

 "In my mind, it's not a whole lot different," Holland said of 
the new management position.

 However, one major change is that local science-related missions 
and cleanup activities will report to DOE headquarters. 
Previously, these programs reported to the manager of the Oak 
Ridge Operations office.

 "I do not see a diminishment of power," Holland argued.

 However, U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, R-3rd District, during a separate 
telephone interview, disagreed, adding that he does not support 
the proposed management change for Oak Ridge.

 "It's critical that we have a strong, experienced manager that 
oversees everything," the congressman said.

 Wamp said DOE should not take away the responsibility for 
science-related missions and cleanup activities from the Oak 
Ridge manager because the move could result in increased costs 
and communication problems, among other things. The congressman 
also pointed out that DOE's proposed management change isn't set 
in stone.

 "It's not a done deal," Wamp said.

 However, DOE is apparently looking for a person to assume the 
so-called new "manager" role, according to Holland, whose Oak 
Ridge duties are expected to end in September. He was brought in 
about three months ago after Dever left her post for a position 
with DOE's Office of Science.

 Holland said he does not plan to apply for the manager's 
position with the Office of Enterprise Support. Whoever is named 
to that job will also chair a newly created executive council, 
which will include the leaders of Oak Ridge's science and cleanup 
programs.

 DOE is hoping the National Nuclear Security Administration will 
agree to participate on the executive council, which will serve 
as a liaison among DOE, the federal agency's regulators and the 
public. The NNSA is the quasi-independent agency within DOE that 
oversees the nuclear weapons complex.
 
Paul Parson can be contacted at (865) 220-5533 or 
pparson@oakridger.com [pparson@oakridger.com] .

[http://www.oakridger.com] All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger 
*****************************************************************
 45 Y-12 Mercury saga - Health impact little, cleanup impact big 
 
   The Oak Ridger Online - Opinion - Dick Smyser: 

Tuesday, July 23, 2002

Dick Smyser: Y-12 Mercury saga - Health impact little, cleanup 
impact big 

Mercury losses from the Y-12 plant were a local issue for 30 
years -- from the mid-1960s until about seven years ago.

 Concern heightened and ebbed. At first it seemed mostly just a 
waste of public money. In time, however, there were fears of 
serious health effects.

 Ultimately there were assurances that the dangers to Y-12 
workers and area residents, if any, were minor. Finally, all 
things being relative, the great mercury saga ended with the 
saving -- or at least the avoidance of the expenditure -- of 
millions of dollars.

 Carolyn Hay Krause, in the 1970s The Oak Ridger's science 
reporter and more recently the editor of the Oak Ridge National 
Laboratory Review, has compiled an 86-page document "Mercury in 
Oak Ridge: Much Ado About Nothing?" subtitled, "A History of the 
Scientific Community's Response to Mercury Contamination in Oak 
Ridge, Tennessee."

 Emphasizing that this has been her personal project, not 
something she did as ORNL Review editor, she talked about her 
compilation at the monthly luncheon discussion of Friends of Oak 
Ridge National Laboratory Wednesday of last week at the Oak Ridge 
Unitarian-Universalist Church.
 
*

 Mercury, 24 million pounds of it, first came to Y-12 within a 
period of 15 months beginning in 1953. Then President Dwight D. 
Eisenhower had signed directives permitting the tapping of the 
nation's mercury stockpile. It was needed for a process at Y-12 
crucial to the production of the hydrogen bomb.

 Reading Carolyn's report, I was struck by the parallel with Oak 
Ridge's role in the development of the nuclear bomb just a decade 
before during World War II. Then Y-12, through the 
electromagnetic process, and, ultimately, K-25 (Oak Ridge Gaseous 
Diffusion Plant) were separating out precious fissionable uranium 
235 from natural uranium.

 Beginning in the mid-1950s, Y-12, through a process known as 
Colex, was separating the lithium isotopes Li-6 and Li-7 from 
natural lithium. Li-6 makes up only 7 percent of natural lithium. 
Used together, Li-6 and Li-7 produced lithium-6 deuteride which 
was key to increasing the explosive power of the H-bomb. A part 
of this process was mercury in which Li-6 can be dissolved to a 
slightly greater extent than can Li-7.

 Which is why even just mouthing the word "mercury" was 
discouraged at Y-12 in those years. Losses of mercury, an element 
liquid at normal temperatures and thus easy to lose, were even 
more sensitive. Officials feared our enemies -- principally the 
Soviet Union at that time -- could make important extrapolations 
about Y- 12's lithium operations if they knew how much mercury 
was escaping from those operations.

 Thus the secrecy about the missing mercury which was no longer a 
secret after a major spill in March 1966. The Knoxville 
New-Sentinel's Washington reporter Powell Lindsay learned about 
the spill from a document of the Joint House-Senate Committee on 
Atomic Energy. Lindsay wrote a story and there followed much 
finger pointing but chiefly about waste of government funds, not 
possible health or environmental threats.

 The Oak Ridger's headline on the spill report read "Y-12 Lithium 
Plant Digs for $300,000 in Lost Liquid Mercury." The report, 
however, did not link the lithium operation to the hydrogen bomb. 
Nor did an Oak Ridger editorial which emphasized the loss of 
money, not any threat to Y-12 workers or residents.

 At Y-12, however, since the very start of the lithium 
processing, there had been health as well as economic concerns. 
Huge fans were installed to ventilate the process buildings, 
workers were tested regularly and extensive records were kept on 
the missing mercury along with steps that reduced the losses 
significantly.
 
*

 By the early 1970s, Oak Ridge National Laboratory scientists 
were studying the possible health effects of mercury as then used 
widely by the public -- in thermometers, barometers, fluorescent 
lamps, pesticides and latex paints. They studied also mercury 
releases from nearby Tennessee Valley Authority coal-fired steam 
plants. And they probed the effects of mercury lost at Y-12 which 
had found its way into the East Fork of Poplar Creek which flows 
through the center of Oak Ridge.

 ORNL compiled all of these data into a lengthy report completed 
in 1977 but not made public.

 By the fall of 1982, after more studies and confidential 
advisories from ORNL researchers, signs were posted along the 
creek cautioning about fishing and later also about swimming or 
even wading in the waters. Then in May 1983, in response to a 
Freedom of Information Act request by Ed Slavin, editor of the 
Appalachian Observer, no longer existent Anderson County weekly 
newspaper, the Department of Energy released the 1977 report and 
a new phase of the mercury saga -- the cleanup -- began.
 
*

 Krause's report then details cleanup measures taken both at Y-12 
and in the city, including removal of tons of soil from creek 
banks, chiefly along South Illinois and Jefferson Avenues. During 
all of this remediation a debate continued as to what level of 
mercury in this soil was acceptable. The verdict ultimately -- 
and largely due to citizen input at public meetings -- was for a 
significantly higher level than at first considered acceptable 
with resulting savings of hundreds of millions of dollars.
 
*

 So was it all "much ado about nothing," as Krause asks in her 
title? She doesn't think so: "The 1983 announcement ... spurred 
the DOE to investigate and clean up nuclear and non-nuclear 
contamination at all its facilities nationwide. ... The mercury 
investigation prompted a large flow of government funding for 
studies of a number of different environmental contaminants in 
the Oak Ridge area and at other DOE sites ... . ORNL scientists 
helped advance the science of environmental mercury ... . DOE's 
Oak Ridge Operations became more responsive, open and candid ..."

 And her conclusion:

 "The Oak Ridge mercury saga has been marked by many successes, 
errors of judgment, new scientific information, and some good 
luck. To date no deaths or other health effects attributable to 
eating fish from local waterways or to exposure to other sources 
of mercury contamination have been documented in the Oak Ridge 
area population."
 
*

 Two interesting asides in the Krause report:

 Early in Y-12's mercury possession and use, when the mere 
mention of the word brought concern, one Y-12er bought a new car. 
Asked what make, he replied "a Solvent."

 At one point in the studies there was consensus that there was 
danger only if one ate creek soil. So who might eat it? Result: 
the "lollipop theory." What hazard to a child who dropped a 
lollipop onto contaminated soil and then picked it up and licked 
it again? None, the researchers concluded, unless the lollipop 
was dropped and then licked over and over. -- RDS
 
Richard D. Smyser is founding editor of The Oak Ridger. He can be 
reached by

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