***************************************************************** 03/24/02 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 10.75 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POLICY 1 UK: On the case to help companies bag contracts 2 UK: Green is the goal 3 US: A Company's Gain From Energy Report's Recommendation 4 US: Michigan State Wants Physics Lab 5 France: Jospin's support of nuclear power angers Greens 6 UK: Vital task of keeping job creation at top of the agenda in NUCLEAR REACTORS 7 UK Only the best should apply to join new alliance of contractors 8 US: Oyster Creek's radioactive waste will be kept on-site in vaults 9 US: Davis-Besse about more than money 10 Can: Bruce-reactor profit forecast raised $1 billion 11 Can: Bruce-reactor profit forecast raised $1 billion 12 UK: 60-year strategy open to the public 13 UK: Safety first for staff and environment 14 UK: A world of opportunity lies ahead (Dounreay) 15 UK: Legacy of pioneering scientists presents new challenges today NUCLEAR SAFETY 16 US: Glowing fish put tribes at risk along Columbia 17 US: Cancer levels worry workers at former atomic site 18 US: Panel reviews vets' radiation doses NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 19 US: State politicians once courted nuclear waste 20 US: They're not just pointing fingers, they're giving the finger 21 US: Nuclear waste passing through the Valley NUCLEAR WEAPONS 22 US: Our Only Option Can't Be Nuclear 23 US: The new nuclear debate 24 US: Panel recommends US to prepare for nuclear testing - 25 UK: NPR leads down slippery slope to nuclear conflagration 26 US: Pleading for Peace 27 US: Selling War or Making Peace? 28 UK: A nuclear threat - Labour's biggest surprise so far 29 Iraqi Vet Says Depleted Uranium Killing Fish US DEPT. OF ENERGY 30 Opinions:SRS' perilous delay ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 On the case to help companies bag contracts NEWS.scotsman.com Sun 24 Mar 2002 A SERIES of training programme workshops enabling firms throughout Caithness and Sutherland to access lucrative public sector contract work - including those associated with the £4bn decommissioning of UKAEA Dounreay - is under way. Caithness and Sutherland Enterprise (CASE) is behind the initiative which involves local businesses improving their competitive tendering skills, as they bid to win thousands of pounds worth of contracts in the north of Scotland. CASE head of skills development Anne Sutherland said the workshops are being delivered by CS Tendering Services, with the aim to train people all about how to compile comprehensive bids and tenders for standard contracts to ensure quality and profitability in equal measures. "Ensuring businesses in our area are aware of all the latest requirements in this critical aspect of business success is essential, if they are to take advantage of opportunities which arise," she added. CASE is committed to supporting businesses as they bid to maximise their competitiveness and profitability. "The workshops are free of charge to local participants." A typical workshops course is one at Royal Dornoch Golf Club - further information and bookings can be made by contacting Colin Stewart on freephone 0800 917 4158 or by e-mailing: training@cstendering.co.uk. ©2002 scotsman.com | contact ***************************************************************** 2 Green is the goal NEWS.scotsman.com - Sat 23 Mar 2002 It has been described as a blue-print for Scotland’s environmental future, a "rolling horizon" looking 25 years ahead, even a modern Doomsday Book. Natural Heritage Futures, Scottish Natural Heritage’s wide-ranging vision of a potentially "green" Scotland, unveiled at the beginning of the week, constituted a parting flourish for Roger Crofts, SNH’s chief executive, who retires on Monday. The series of 28 glowingly illustrated brochures, setting out possible agendas to navigate Scotland towards a more environmentally sound and sustainable 2025, is based on a comprehensive audit of natural resources and other factors, from land use to climate change, and predicated on responsible stewardship of natural resources and the fulfilment of existing plans, strategies and initiatives. But can this ambitious clutch of documents ever be more than a glossy-brochure vision? "Well, they were never meant to be just a glossy vision," retorts Crofts. "They’re there to enthuse and excite and stimulate interest, not only in the public sector, but so that the wider public can say, ‘Hey, these things can be done and we would like to see them done. It’s trying to push things up the political agenda". At a time when the First Minister is calling for across-the-board sustainable development to be at the very heart of Scottish executive policy, the Futures documents, delineating 21 zones by environmental type, rather than administrative boundaries, encompass issues such as pollution, climate change, public transport, countryside access, agricultural and renewable energy alongside habitat and species maintenance. The "vision" for the North East Glens, for instance, offers wildlife-friendly agriculture, cattle rather than sheep on the hill, with less heather loss through overgrazing, and ready access through footpath networks, while on Speyside and Deeside, only native woodlands have been planted. Bird of prey populations have stabilised, and while the richer heather moorlands continue to be managed for red grouse, others have regenerated into native woodland. Or, in Orkney and northern Caithness, a thriving but environmentally sustainable local fishing industry is envisioned; pollution risk from oil tanker traffic dramatically reduced due to stricter enforcement and surveillance; wave , tide and wind generators are proliferating while that environmentalists’ bogey, Dounreay, has become a centre of excellence for green technologies. Crofts, however, doesn’t believe SNH is viewing the future through rose-tinted spectacles: "It’s not trying to be the perfect world, far from it, but we believe further changes in policy and a shift in resources could make these things achievable." During last Monday’s launch, he stressed that Futures was not a blueprint to be imposed on communities. Much consultation has been carried out, and would continue. The past few years have seen a reaction in certain quarters, accusing agencies such as SNH and the RSPB of being faceless, autocratic bureaucrats imposing unpopular policies on rural communities. Crofts dismisses the most vocal of these and points to some of the positive feedback he has already received on Futures, from bodies as diverse as Angus Council, the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency and the Shetland Farmers’ union. "I don’t thing everybody is ever going to agree with a body which is both a government organisation and deals with the environment. The headline seekers - and there are a few of them - want to portray us as a waste of taxpayers’ money, or as being in effect fascist. I mean ... if they only read the statutes and knew more about what we did, it would be obvious that was arrant nonsense." "What you never see exposed in public are the views of the silent majority who are saying, ‘You’re doing a difficult job but it’s an important one’." He is speaking just after his farewell meeting with his SNH managers, and believes the agency to be in good heart: "They’re not ducking issues but they’re confident that we have moulded a new institution over the past ten years, with lots of successes." His own feelings on the environmental state of Scotland as it stands he describes as optimistic. "There are always things we can do more and do better, but some things have improved - the quality of rivers and some bird populations are improving. However other things are declining." Not one to dwell on worst-case scenarios, he points to positive developments such as the Scottish Executive’s Forward Strategy for Scottish Agriculture, which recognises environment as a critical issue: "We have to make sure there is more money than there is at present for farmers to manage the environment. "We have the commitment, but we still need more resources." Copies of Natural Heritage Futures are available, free, from SNH’s publications department. Telephone 01738 444 177. ©2002 scotsman.com | contact ***************************************************************** 3 A Company's Gain From Energy Report's Recommendation March 24, 2002 By DON VAN NATTA Jr. WASHINGTON, March 23 — In Chapter 5 of Vice President Dick Cheney's national energy report, executives of the once-moribund nuclear power industry were probably thrilled to read that the White House supported "the expansion of nuclear power in the United States as a major component of our national energy policy." The energy report had embraced a wide array of proposals that the executives advanced in private meetings with Mr. Cheney and documents submitted to members of the task force that formulated a national energy policy. One such proposal was the development of a new nuclear reactor designed to produce electricity — a gas-cooled reactor built on tennis-ball-size graphite spheres — that the report said "has inherent safety features." "The industry has an interest in this," the report said, "and other advanced reactor designs." But only one company, the Exelon Corporation of Chicago, which provided hundreds of thousands of dollars to Republican campaigns in recent years, has an interest in promoting the so-called pebble-bed reactor. Exelon, the nation's largest nuclear energy company, is the only American corporation developing a design for the pebble-bed reactor, which it says will lead to a new generation of cheaper, smaller and more efficient nuclear reactors. The company says the pebble-bed reactor will be safer, too, though environmentalists in the United States and in other countries have sharply disputed this, calling the pebble-bed reactor a failed system vulnerable to terrorist attack. The May 2001 national energy report is filled with dozens of positive assessments of proposed new technologies, including nuclear designs and wind-generated power. Most of those assessments favor sectors of various industries, and some undoubtedly favor individual corporations. But it is impossible to know how and why the task force endorsed most of those proposals, and which corporations they help, because Mr. Cheney has steadfastly refused to release the names of industry executives who advised the energy task force as it was researching and compiling its report. Next week, more than 14,000 pages of documents related to the task force will be released by the Energy Department, which was ordered by a federal judge to make the material public under the Freedom of Information Act. The Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmentalist group, had sued for the information. The General Accounting Office, an investigative arm of Congress, has sued Mr. Cheney for a list of industry executives who advised the task force. The administration's endorsement of Exelon's technology was learned through interviews and documents provided to The New York Times by the corporation itself. Although Exelon's name is not mentioned in the energy report, its executives lobbied the task force on the benefits of the pebble-bed design. The task force's endorsement of the reactor was contained in a single paragraph. But a paragraph in a national energy report, like a sentence in a State of the Union Message or a line in a legislative bill, can be a huge boon to a corporation. Don Kirchoffner, a spokesman for Exelon, said campaign contributions had nothing to do with the pebble-bed reactor's mention in the report. "We didn't influence anybody," Mr. Kirchoffner said. Using the initials of the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor, he added: "I don't think that it's correct to connect dots between contributions the company made and the fact something on P.B.M.R. appeared in the national energy policy. The P.B.M.R. is just an example of the advanced nuclear technology that everybody says we need." For Exelon, the paragraph was seen as "a good thing," Mr. Kirchoffner said, but he insisted that the mention of the reactor's design did not necessarily represent a boon for the corporation. "A good thing for the industry and the country was the fact that the administration came out with a recommendation for new forms of nuclear power, and our pebble-bed modular reactor is a byproduct of that," Mr. Kirchoffner said. "We just happened to have it. They took a look at what we gave them and they said this kind of makes sense." Exelon owns and operates about 20 percent of the nation's nuclear capacity. Its co-chief executives, John W. Rowe and Corbin A. McNeill Jr., who has since retired, were among a group of about 75 energy executives who met with Mr. Cheney in March 2001. Along with other participants of the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's trade group, Mr. McNeill also met that month with Karl Rove, President Bush's chief strategist, and Lawrence B. Lindsey, the president's top economic adviser. That information was revealed by Exelon officials, not the White House. Critics of the task force have noted that many companies represented at its meetings gave financial support to the Bush campaign or the Republican Party in the 2000 election. Exelon was no exception. Exelon, its executives and its political action committee, gave the Republican Party a total of $564,661 in the two years before the 2000 election. Last year, Exelon increased its donations to the Republican Party, giving it a total of $347,514, according to Federal Election Commission reports. Representative Henry A. Waxman of California, a frequent critic of the administration's energy policies, said: "The more we learn about the Cheney task force, the easier it is to understand why the White House is fighting so hard to keep everything secret. The biggest donors didn't just have the best access — it now appears they were allowed to write specific sections of the administration's energy plan." Anne Womack, a spokesman for the White House, disputed the notion that campaign contributions were responsible for the endorsement of Exelon's reactor design. "Advanced reactor technology would increase our energy supply and do it in a way that is safe and clean," Ms. Womack said. "That benefits not only the industry but the American people." Ms. Womack also said that the task force had consulted "a broad variety of groups, including industry, unions, environmental groups and consumer groups." "They all had input, and the product of all the input is in the report," Ms. Womack said.' Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company | Privacy ***************************************************************** 4 Michigan State Wants Physics Lab AP Wire | 03/24/2002 | [http://www.ledger-enquirer.com] DEE-ANN DURBIN Associated Press Writer LANSING, Mich. - Scientists know that when the universe began, it consisted mainly of hydrogen and helium. The other elements - including silver and gold - were created by nuclear reactions within the stars. Still, much remains a mystery. No one knows exactly how those reactions occurred. No one knows where or when they took place. The answers may lie in a facility called a rare isotope accelerator. There is no RIA in the world - for now. But the U.S. Department of Energy is planning to build the $900 million facility, and will likely choose either Michigan State University or the Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago to be its home. If the government selects Michigan State, it would be a boon for a nuclear physics program that is already considered one of the best in the country. It also would be a boon for the state, generating an estimated 400 jobs and $80 million a year. The buzz has been enough to make Gov. John Engler a champion of nuclear physics. Engler included $2 million in his 2003 budget for designing the RIA and building prototype equipment. Still, it could be a tough sell. Argonne, which is owned by the Department of Energy and run by the University of Chicago, has more than 4,000 employees and has been operating since 1946. Donald Geesaman, director of physics at Argonne, said the lab already has about $60 million worth of facilities Michigan State would need to build to house the RIA. It also has more experience dealing with the low-level nuclear waste the facility will generate, he said. Geesaman said the state of Illinois also has promised major investments, including building a research center. Illinois gave Argonne $1.6 million last year and $2 million this year to study RIA. But Geesaman stressed that both locations offered benefits. "I have tremendous respect for the Michigan State scientists, so I believe they can do it," he said. "Both Michigan State and Argonne want this facility to be built, wherever it ends up, because of the science." The Department of Energy - and Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, a Michigan State graduate - haven't said when they plan to announce the RIA's future home. Wherever the RIA is built, it probably won't be operational before 2010, said Rex Morin, an engineer who serves as executive director of Michigan State's National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory. A federal task force has estimated the facility will take five years to build. Michigan State contends the university is the best place for the RIA because of the experience it has gained with its cyclotron lab. A cyclotron is a machine that accelerates particles to 100,000 miles per second so they can be smashed together. The speed allows scientists to separate the nuclei of the atoms and study their properties. Michigan State built its first cyclotron in 1982, its second in 1988. Last summer, the university and the National Science Foundation completed a $20 million upgrade that combined those cyclotrons to make the most powerful cyclotron in the world to date. The NSF, an independent government agency that awards $3.3 billion a year in research grants, earlier this year announced plans to give Michigan State about $75 million each year to operate the cyclotron. That's an increase of $25 million a year. The RIA would be at least 10,000 times more powerful than the combined cyclotrons. Unlike the cyclotrons, which are circular structures housed within rooms full of wires and pipes, the RIA would consist mainly of a long corridor. Beams of stable isotopes - the nuclei of the elements - would be shot at high power through the corridor. The process would break those stable isotopes into the rare isotopes the accelerator is named for. Rare isotopes are the unstable nuclei that scientists believe formed the known elements. The problem is, rare isotopes decay so quickly - sometimes within 10 milliseconds - that they have never been studied on earth. At first, research at the lab would be basic, focusing simply on the question of how elements were formed. The research eventually could have other applications. Information about radiation can be used by the medical community as well as for national defense. "If you're doing cutting edge, basic research, it's very difficult to say how it will apply," Morin said. "But history says eventually a good part of that does do some good for the common person." On the Net: National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory: [http://intra.nscl.msu.edu/] Argonne National Laboratory: [http://www.anl.gov] ***************************************************************** 5 Jospin's support of nuclear power angers Greens Yahoo! News - Sat Mar 23,10:50 AM ET PARIS - French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin has angered the Green Party by saying he is committed to maintaining France's reliance on nuclear power. In an interview published Saturday in several regional newspapers, Jospin said he "wasn't in favor of France giving up nuclear power" because the country would become too dependent on outside energy sources. Jospin, a Socialist, is a top contender in France's presidential race. If elected, he would likely team with other leftist parties to form a coalition government, such as the one currently in place, which includes the Green and Communist parties. The Greens say they won't take part in a coalition unless its leaders work to phase out nuclear energy — which represents three-fourths of the nation's power. However, the four other parties in the coalition support nuclear energy. Noel Mamere, the Green Party's presidential candidate, said Jospin's remark amounted to "a declaration of war against the Greens." "Perhaps (Jospin) just wrecked the future of the leftist coalition," Mamere told Le Monde newspaper. Jospin and incumbent President Jacques Chirac, a conservative, are expected to be the main contenders in presidential elections to be held in two rounds, April 21 and May 5. (parf-ad) Copyright © 2002 The Associated Press. ***************************************************************** 6 UK: Vital task of keeping job creation at top of the agenda in climate of advantage NEWS.scotsman.com - Sun 24 Mar 2002 HIGHLANDS and Islands Enterprise (HIE) is actively developing a strategy designed to maximise the opportunities that the decommissioning of Dounreay offers the area. To this end, Caithness and Sutherland Enterprise chief executive Neil Money has taken up a permanent post to concentrate on the long-term benefits expected to flow from the decommissioning plan. Money is working from CASE’s Thurso premises in a move that follows the publication of the Dounreay site restoration plan by UKAEA - a document that describes how decommissioning will be completed by the middle of this century. HIE’s chief executive Sandy Cumming described it as "one of the most important developments for the Highlands and islands over the next three to four decades". He added: "It is essential that we identify the opportunities this process can provide so the maximum benefit is gained for the area." He said a priority under investigation was to identify and sustain employment in the longer term, to take account of the eventual reduction in jobs at Dounreay. "The next two to three years will be critical in developing and implementing a strategy to these ends," said Cumming. He warned: "The potential economic benefits could drift away from the area and be lost forever if we do not undertake this process now." Peter Welsh, the atomic energy authority’s director at Dounreay, said UKAEA Dounreay currently spent £140 to £150m a year, of which around £61m was injected into the local economy. "Whilst we acknowledge that our role in the local economy as a major employer will eventually be less than it is now, we hope that by planning for the future and working in conjunction with the HIE network, we can maximise the benefits for the Highlands and islands during decommissioning and minimise its effects after its completion," he said. Money reported that he was working with David Richard-Jones, the director of strategic programmes at CASE, and that their work would impact on a number of fronts, taking on board key aspects of supply chain management. One area is sourcing cement in an environmentally friendly manner. "Amounts will be equivalent to 5,000 tonnes a year for the foreseeable future," Money said. He also has to ensure local businesses receive a fair share of work that will present itself in terms of the UKAEA and contract procurement procedures. An important part of Money’s work is to make sure local people involved are capable of acquiring the skills for decommissioning work. This involves making available training linked to access to information about what jobs will be available. Part of that aspect of ongoing work is the development of a dedicated website with page links. It will be up and running soon. ©2002 scotsman.com | contact ***************************************************************** 7 UK Only the best should apply to join new alliance of contractors NEWS.scotsman.com Sun 24 Mar 2002 SIGNIFICANT progress has been made with decommissioning since the site restoration plan was published two years ago. New plants have been built and several upgraded as the UKAEA begins to dismantle the legacy of the fast reactor experiment at the site. UKAEA has no single preferred contract type, though the NEC family of contracts is widely used. UKAEA uses fixed-price design and build through to alliancing. Alliances are being formed to undertake some of the most complex tasks at the site. This new strategic approach to contracts reflects the complexity of some of the decommissioning work and underlines the need to work in partnership with others, utilising a broad range of skills. Alliances are playing key roles in decommissioning the two fast reactors at the site. These include an alliance of six companies - Halcrow (design), Interserve (mechanical and electrical), Edmund Nuttall (building and civil works) Mitsui Babcock (plant operations), NNC (safety and environment) and Framatome (robotics) - to deal with 9km of pipework in the Dounreay Fast Reactor. This work is valued in the region of £30m and will take until 2013 at least to complete. The Dounreay Fast Reactor (DFR), which operated from 1959 until 1977, used an alloy of sodium-potassium (NaK) as its coolant. Seventy-three tonnes of the liquid metal was removed from its secondary circuit shortly after its closure, but 57 tonnes remain in the primary circuit. A significant number of the 977 elements still in its breeder blanket are jammed. All fuel has been removed from the core except a single experimental fuel assembly. Approximately £10 million of the pipework contract value is expected to go to locally-based companies, with an initial 50 jobs created or retained locally. A key feature of the alliance will be the transfer of specialist skills, such as robotics, from major contractors to local firms. This will improve their ability to compete for future decommissioning work at Dounreay and elsewhere in the world. Another alliance is being formed to remove the remaining nuclear material in the Dounreay Fast Reactor. Upgrading the DFR electrical systems is costing £4m and the total cost of decommissioning this reactor is likely to be in the region of £250m. At the Prototype Fast Reactor, UKAEA has invested £17m in the construction of a plant to deal with the bulk liquid metal that cooled the reactor. Another alliance has been formed with JGC Engineering and Technical Services, Babtie, Ingenco and Alstec to deal with residual metal. This is worth up to £15m and will take three to five years to complete. An experimental cell that was the scene of the first criticality to occur on Scottish soil in the 1950s has been cleaned out and demolished. A new effluent treatment plant that will improve UKAEA’s control of radioactive discharges has been built at a cost of £7.5m. Significant investment has also been made in the modernisation of plants to deal with a variety of wastes that are generated in decommissioning. Looking ahead, major works are planned to enable the retrieval of wastes from the shaft and silo, and this will also require the construction of a plant for conditioning and storing intermediate-level waste. Solidification of high-level liquid waste is another major environmental challenge to be addressed. All contracts are advertised through the UKAEA website and those valued at more than £150,000 are listed in the Official Journal of the European Union. UKAEA will normally invite several bidders to present detailed solutions, which are assessed by expert, technical and cost panels. Firms are evaluated by their track record, technical and financial robustness, safety and quality record, manpower and problem-solving capabilities. ©2002 scotsman.com | contact ***************************************************************** 8 Oyster Creek's radioactive waste will be kept on-site in vaults Asbury Park Press | Story   March 24, 2002 The Jersey Shore's News Source Published in the Asbury Park Press 3/24/02 By KAREN SUDOL MANAHAWKIN BUREAU LACEY -- Almost seven years ago, the township's Board of Adjustment approved the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant's plans to store spent nuclear fuel in on-site concrete vaults. It was the second time it did so -- a Superior Court judge in 1995 remanded the case to the Zoning Board to allow expert testimony by those who had appealed the decision. The appeal had been brought by an anti-nuclear activist and Berkeley. Now, as the April date approaches when some of the oldest radioactive fuel will be moved from a cooling pool to the vaults, the concerns, fears and questions raised at those countless hearings nine years ago are resurfacing. And even though the power plant has sought and received the necessary approvals, it and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission aren't taking any chances. Both agencies have held, and plan to hold, public informational hearings to shed light on interim storage plans that plants across the country are increasingly using because they are running out of room to store radioactive material. Oyster Creek's history When the power plant was constructed in 1969, the pool used to store and cool used radioactive fuel was designed to hold only limited amounts. The notion was that the fuel would be reprocessed and used to produce yet more electricity. That thinking changed, though, in the late 1970s, when the federal government decided against recycling fuel. That left the plant with a storage problem. Operators redesigned the racks in the fuel pool to increase the capacity. Initially, about 840 fuel assemblies were stored; that number has risen to an acceptance of 2,600 fuel assemblies. Still that wasn't enough room. Plant operators have predicted the pool will no longer be able to hold any more fuel assemblies by 2003. Knowing the federal government is still far from permanently accepting the waste -- federal officials predict by 2010 it can be shipped to an underground repository called Yucca Mountain, Nev. -- plant officials began considering using a dry-cask storage system in 1991. The dry-cask system involves storing spent fuel in airtight canisters that are then placed in large concrete vaults on the plant's property. The plant is permitted to construct 20 vaults, which resemble one-car garages, and store the canisters there. Each canister can hold 61 fuel assemblies, and each vault can hold one canister. The vaults are designed to withstand natural disasters such as tornadoes, hurricanes and severe flooding, but they have not been analyzed for the ability to withstand the crash of a commercial aircraft. The first dry-cask storage system was approved by the NRC in 1986 at the Surry Nuclear Power Plant in Virginia. Since then, 18 out of 65 nuclear sites -- some of which have more than one reactor -- across the country have started using them. It is also estimated that 78 of the country's 103 nuclear reactors will have no room left in their spent fuel pools by 2010, according to the NRC. The plants do not technically have to seek license approval from the NRC. But storage-cask vendors and designers -- in Oyster Creek's case a company called Transnuclear Inc. -- must submit designs for detailed technical reviews. The plans have to agree with certain designs that have been approved by the NRC. The NRC issued a certificate of compliance for the design of the horizontal dry-cask storage system at Oyster Creek. "We do inspections and such to ensure that it's in compliance, but it doesn't need formal approval from the NRC," said Diane Screnci, an NRC spokeswoman. Local approvals vary by state. For example, the Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station in Delta, Pa., only had to seek a building permit to construct a dry-cask storage facility. But Oyster Creek had to receive Zoning Board approval from the township because constructing a facility related to nuclear power is not considered an acceptable use. Contentious, long hearings were held in 1994 before the Lacey Township Board of Adjustment granted the plant a variance. But the decision was appealed by Ocean County resident and environmentalist Willie deCamp and Berkeley. A Superior Court judge remanded the case, claiming the Zoning Board decision was made too hastily. Additional hearings were held in 1995 with more expert testimony. Objectors to the plan raised concerns about its safety, claiming it could be the target of a terrorist attack. Others were concerned about the impact it would have on the area's water and that the vaults would be used as a permanent storage facility. The Zoning Board again approved the application with conditions, finding that the spent-fuel facility "will not pose an immediate threat to the health, safety and welfare of the residents of Lacey Township and its surrounding communities," according to an August 1995 Zoning Board resolution. The plans were then delayed because there were problems with the canister design. Then the vault's roof had to be modified, said NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan. Meanwhile, the plant rearranged the racks to make more room while awaiting the OK to start construction of the system. Oyster Creek has estimated the project's initial cost at $15 million, according to Zoning Board meeting minutes. It is still being determined what impact the project will have on rate payers, said David Simon, a spokesman for Exelon, the company that operates the plant. Dry-cask plans Oyster Creek plans to start storing the spent fuel in April. An exact date, however, won't be issued for security reasons, according to Simon. A dry run of the process was conducted weeks ago. While the plant has the approval to use up to 20 concrete vaults, 10 are on-site right now, located on the eastern quadrant of the property about 600 feet from Route 9. The company also has four empty canisters on-site, according to Exelon. The process works like this: Outside the reactor building, a steel canister is inserted into a steel transfer cask. The cask is then brought up to the operating floor of the reactor building, where there is access to the spent-fuel pool. The transfer cask is then hooked up to a crane that will lower it into the pool. While in the pool, a hoist is used to lift fuel assemblies from the racks in the pool and insert them into the canister and cask. The transfer is done in the pool because the fuel assemblies are still radioactive, and water provides shielding, said Paul Czaya, a senior licensing engineer at Exelon. Sixty-one fuel assemblies are transferred into the canister. When it's full, a large steel disk is placed on top of the cask as it's removed from the pool to protect against radiation. The transfer cask is then slowly set down on the operating floor, where one lid is placed on it. All moisture is then drawn out of the cask and canisters. Another steel lid is then welded into place, sealing the fuel assemblies. The space inside the canister is then pumped with helium to keep moisture out. The cask is lifted and placed horizontally on a specially designed trailer. The trailer takes a straight road a couple of hundred feet to the vaults, which are 2-feet thick with steel-reinforced concrete. Once at the vault, a hydraulic ram is used to push the stainless steel canister along rails on the floor of the vault and out of the transfer cask into the unit. A large steel door is then lifted into position and bolted shut. The structure uses natural air circulation to cool and ventilate the assemblies containing spent fuel at the plant. Only fuel stored at least 10 years in the pool can be used in the vaults. The vaults are located on a base concrete mat that will be surrounded by concrete vehicle barriers and fencing. The same intruder-detection system employed around the reactor building, as well as closed-circuit television cameras and radiation monitors, will be used at the site. Public opposition growing As the date has approached for the fuel to be transferred, opposition to the plan has grown in the area. It started with a group called Jersey Shore Nuclear Watch, which has lobbied concerns about the vaults' proximity to Route 9, among other issues. The group's efforts have led to a majority of Ocean County municipalities, the county freeholders and U.S. Rep. H. James Saxton, R-N.J., to ask for hearings on the matter. "The solution is for Oyster Creek to stop production until they can think of a safer way," said the group's president, Edith Gbur. "It's their problem. They should think about producing energy that's safe." She also said she's pleased with the amount of support the group has received. "I guess when people respond to something you feel is important, you're happy because people are finally involved in this," she said. In response, the NRC plans to host an informational meeting in Lacey on Tuesday to discuss the plans with residents. Exelon hosted what it called an open house on Thursday to explain the process. About 90 people attended the informational meeting. "The community there is more activist than (at) most plants in the country," said Simon. "We need to respond to that and be aware of the need to meet increased standards." Nuclear Energy Institute spokeswoman Thelma Wiggins questioned whether it wasn't so much strong opposition to the plan as much as people wanting to know exactly what's happening at the plant. "By and large, the community has supported the facility," she said of Oyster Creek. "But people want to know what's going on and what has changed." "This is something that in some places is controversial and in other places isn't," she added. "But interim dry storage is a very safe method of storing used nuclear fuel and is something that is necessary for many plants." The amount of opposition to the storage system varies from plant to plant, said Sheehan. While some who live near Oyster Creek are against dry-cask storage, residents near the Indian Point nuclear site in Buchanan, N.Y., are clamoring for it. An environmental coalition there has asked the NRC to close Indian Point because of the threat of terrorism. But it also has asked for the immediate transfer of hundreds of tons of spent fuel from the storage pools into the dry concrete vaults. When Pennsylvania's Peach Bottom's station, also operated by Exelon Nuclear, considered dry-cask storage in 1997, the only opposition received was from fishermen who had to stop fishing in the discharge canals because they were located next to the storage facility, said Peach Bottom spokeswoman Fran Reining. Reining credits a lack of opposition, though, to the plant's efforts to communicate with anyone who had questions. Town officials were contacted and given tours of another plant that used the system, and community information days were sponsored by the plant, she said. "I think mostly people appreciate the fact that you tell them what's going on," she said, adding that the storage began in summer 2000. Four to six canisters will be stored there per year. Peach Bottom has had no problems with the storage system, she added. ***************************************************************** 9 Davis-Besse about more than money Beacon Journal | 03/24/2002 | Posted on Sun, Mar. 24, 2002 FirstEnergy must show it values public's trust On March 11, FirstEnergy's stock hit an all-time closing high of $38.64. Yet by Tuesday, only eight days later, shares had tumbled to $32.25 to close at a six-month low. Shares closed Friday at $33.60. That is because bad news will send investors fleeing. And the bad news at FirstEnergy: Corrosion had been discovered in the lid of an atomic reactor at the company's Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station near Toledo. Davis-Besse accounts for about 7 percent of the power that FirstEnergy can produce. The plant is now shut down, at least until the end of June, and maybe the whole year. FirstEnergy estimates it will spend $10 million to $15 million a month buying electricity on the open market while Davis-Besse is down. Fortunately for FirstEnergy, though, the company reported a healthy profit last year of $655 million. Earnings for this year were revised downward as a result of Davis-Besse, which is why the stock fell. ``This is just another issue we're dealing with,'' said company spokesman Ralph DiNicola. ``We will deal with it. This issue is in the millions of dollars. Others have been in the billions.'' True enough. Issues such as electric deregulation had the potential to be financially devastating for FirstEnergy. Yet in the case of Davis-Besse, it's not just money on the line. It's public trust. Today, nuclear power plants are widely viewed as safe, in no small part because of the enormous safety mechanisms required. Yet there are still risks. ``A well-engineered nuclear reactor is not a threat,'' commented physicist Lawrence Krauss of Case Western Reserve University. ``The question is almost always one of cutting corners.'' Setting a standard In many ways, the Davis-Besse situation offers reassurance. There was a 6-inch-deep hole on a 150-ton lid -- and it was discovered. A protective layer of stainless steel stopped the corrosion from spreading. And finally, the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission rushed in with a team of inspectors to assess the extent of the problem and how to fix it. In the meantime, inspections revealed a second spot of corrosion. The NRC's Chicago spokesman, Jan Strasma, described the problem at Davis-Besse as a ``major degradation.'' He also noted that FirstEnergy discovered the first hole in doing repairs while the plant was shut down -- not while it was active. In early April, the NRC will issue a report on Davis-Besse that addresses what must be done. Strasma said the report will also include an assessment of whether FirstEnergy should have found the corrosion sooner. FirstEnergy has been one of the bright spots of business in Northeast Ohio. And it's not just because the company is growing and has performed well financially. In addition, the company's chief executive, H. Peter Burg, has set a tone for integrity in leadership. Burg advocates an adherence to high values in the workplace. He engages the nonprofit Heart to Heart Communications to lead seminars on this subject inside FirstEnergy. In the tough world of business, speaking out for values means you take whatever financial hit is necessary when it comes to assuring public safety. And you don't just do the minimum. You go the extra length. ``A well-run plant will not stop at meeting minimum regulations,'' said the NRC's Strasma. Burg has set the standard. Now he is in a position to demonstrate how a corporation ought to behave, even with financial fortunes on the line. Diane Evans' column appears every Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. She can be reached at 330-996-3587. ***************************************************************** 10 Can: Bruce-reactor profit forecast raised $1 billion Thestar.com/ Mar. 23, 2002. 01:00 AM British Energy sees gains from leased nuclear station John Spears business reporter British Energy's investment in the Bruce nuclear generating plant will kick out $1 billion more profit than first projected over the life of its 18-year lease, the company says. The Bruce reactors will produce higher annual profits sooner than expected. British Energy PLC reports it will earn an unexpected $181 million next year from its stake in the Lake Huron plant. And starting a year from now, Bruce will generate annual profit 25 per cent greater than previously estimated. That's $68 million a year beyond the company's projections. The figures were presented to analysts and investors who toured the facility yesterday. The reactors are performing better than expected, says the company, which now figures prices will be higher than it had earlier anticipated when the electricity market opens for competition May 1. British Energy is the lead partner in Bruce Power, with an 80 per cent interest. Uranium supplier Cameco Corp. holds a 15 per cent stake, and two unions representing Bruce workers hold 5 per cent. Bruce Power's lease runs to 2018 with an option to extend for up to 25 years. Bruce Power has agreed to pay $625 million to Ontario Power Generation, which owns the facility. Bruce Power also makes annual payments that vary with market conditions. The payment for the year ending March 31, 2002, is $86 million. The facility consists of two complexes, known as Bruce A and Bruce B, each containing four reactors. Bruce B is currently operating, while Bruce A has been mothballed since 1998. Bruce Power is spending $340 million to restart two of Bruce A's four reactors in the summer of 2003. British Energy hadn't expected to make any profit in the year ending March 31, 2003. Now, the company figures it will make $181 million from running the four Bruce B reactors during the year. That's not all. Starting in the year ending March 31, 2004, two newly started Bruce A reactors will join the four Bruce B reactors. British Energy had originally projected profit of $45 million a year from each reactor, or an annual total of $270 million for all six. Now, it expects an annual profit of $56.3 million per reactor, for a total of $338 million. Over the 15 years remaining in the lease, that produces slightly more than $1 billion above previous expectations. Legal Notice:- Copyright 1996-2002. Toronto Star Newspapers ***************************************************************** 11 Can: Bruce-reactor profit forecast raised $1 billion [Thestar.com] Mar. 23, 2002. 01:00 AM British Energy sees gains from leased nuclear station John Spears business reporter British Energy's investment in the Bruce nuclear generating plant will kick out $1 billion more profit than first projected over the life of its 18-year lease, the company says. The Bruce reactors will produce higher annual profits sooner than expected. British Energy PLC reports it will earn an unexpected $181 million next year from its stake in the Lake Huron plant. And starting a year from now, Bruce will generate annual profit 25 per cent greater than previously estimated. That's $68 million a year beyond the company's projections. The figures were presented to analysts and investors who toured the facility yesterday. The reactors are performing better than expected, says the company, which now figures prices will be higher than it had earlier anticipated when the electricity market opens for competition May 1. British Energy is the lead partner in Bruce Power, with an 80 per cent interest. Uranium supplier Cameco Corp. holds a 15 per cent stake, and two unions representing Bruce workers hold 5 per cent. Bruce Power's lease runs to 2018 with an option to extend for up to 25 years. Bruce Power has agreed to pay $625 million to Ontario Power Generation, which owns the facility. Bruce Power also makes annual payments that vary with market conditions. The payment for the year ending March 31, 2002, is $86 million. The facility consists of two complexes, known as Bruce A and Bruce B, each containing four reactors. Bruce B is currently operating, while Bruce A has been mothballed since 1998. Bruce Power is spending $340 million to restart two of Bruce A's four reactors in the summer of 2003. British Energy hadn't expected to make any profit in the year ending March 31, 2003. Now, the company figures it will make $181 million from running the four Bruce B reactors during the year. That's not all. Starting in the year ending March 31, 2004, two newly started Bruce A reactors will join the four Bruce B reactors. British Energy had originally projected profit of $45 million a year from each reactor, or an annual total of $270 million for all six. Now, it expects an annual profit of $56.3 million per reactor, for a total of $338 million. Over the 15 years remaining in the lease, that produces slightly more than $1 billion above previous expectations. Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. ***************************************************************** 12 60-year strategy open to the public scotsman.com - NOW that its mission is complete, the next step in the story of Dounreay is its decommissioning. The Dounreay Site Restoration Plan, or DSRP, is the most detailed strategy ever produced for the decommissioning of a nuclear site anywhere in the world. It brings together some 1,500 activities that will need to be carried out to deal safely with a legacy of radioactive wastes and so enable the site to be dismantled. The objective of the DSRP is to restore the environment of Dounreay. This will take 50 to 60 years, by which time the landscape will be very different. All the current facilities - except the famous sphere, which is to be listed for its industrial heritage significance - should have disappeared. Complete environmental restoration will have occurred when all radioactive wastes and materials have been removed from the site. This will be followed by a period of surveillance while any residual material in the ground decays. Radioactive waste from historical operations currently exists in a variety of forms at Dounreay. Additional wastes will be generated during post-operational clean-out of redundant facilities, such as old laboratories. Waste from the decommissioning of the reactors and waste retrieved from the former shaft disposal facility will also need to be dealt with. All this requires the construction of new facilities to handle this waste and make it suitable for disposal or storage pending its ultimate removal from the site. In addition, there are some 107 tonnes of nuclear fuel that Dounreay currently is responsible for. New plants will also be needed to characterise and condition this fuel so that it can be removed from the site. Some new facilities will be needed to maintain the infrastructure of the site and its supporting services. In total, up to 20 new plants may need to be built over the next two decades. In time, these new plants will need to be dismantled and parts of them consigned as radioactive waste. Dounreay’s historic step in becoming the first nuclear plant to publish its entire programme of work for public scrutiny was only the first step in efforts to improve communications with its stakeholders, of whom there are many. An extensive series of discussions and presentations about the plan with stakeholders has been followed by a communications strategy that includes a commitment to consult where options exist for dealing with particular wastes. The first phase of the site restoration plan is characterised by a period of intense work to construct new plants, so that within 25 years all the major radiological hazards at the site will be eliminated. New facilities will be needed for: The solidification and storage of high-level liquid waste z The retrieval of wastes from the shaft and silo The treatment and storage of solid intermediate level waste from the shaft, silo and other sources on site Radioactive solvents and oils Solid low-level waste Characterisation of nuclear fuels Oxidation of carbide fuels Reactor decommissioning Removal of radioactive wastes from the site Sorting of contaminated soil Other new facilities needed to support this activity include: Police command and control centre Office accommodation Electrical sub-station Laundry Oil tank farm Compound for contractors Revised traffic management Visitor centre The DSRP contains some of the most technically challenging tasks in the UK today. It is a ‘living’ document - any programme of work that stretches over 60 years must be flexible so that it can adjust to new technologies and policies. UKAEA’s commitment to be open and honest about this work includes publication of the complete DSRP on the internet - the first time a nuclear plant as complex as Dounreay has published its entire programme of work for public scrutiny. Sunday, 24th March 2002 ***************************************************************** 13 UK: Safety first for staff and environment scotsman.com - SAFETY remains the UK Atomic Energy Authority’s top priority and a fundamental factor in the decommissioning of Dounreay is to provide a long-term guarantee of public safety. The decommissioning process itself requires the deployment of staff and contractors sometimes in potentially hazardous working environments. In undertaking all the activities of the Dounreay Site Restoration Plan, the energy authority and its contractors observe strict safety procedures and are governed by the regulations and guidelines laid down by the independent regulators. The authority has developed a safety management system that is independently accredited to internationally recognised standards. The plant has been graded at level eight on the International Safety Rating System, placing it among the top 5% of industrial units that are audited by the independent foundation Det Norske Veritas. An international organisation with 300 offices in 100 countries, DNV currently audits around 6,000 industrial units worldwide and is recognised as a leading international authority on risk management in sectors such as shipping, offshore oil, gas and nuclear production. The foundation’s William Hamilton said: "This is an excellent performance which shows the commitment of Dounreay in maintaining and improving their established loss control system. Staff at Dounreay should be congratulated on their significant achievement." Only four sites in the UK have achieved level nine grading and Dounreay is among six graded at level eight. Sixty-five per cent of sites have been assessed as level five or below. The wider implications The plan’s long-term aim is the environmental restoration of the Dounreay site and to achieve that aim some activities will inevitably generate discharges to the environment. But these will be kept to minimum levels in accordance with the requirement to use best practicable means to minimise activity in all the waste discharged. Any emissions will continue to be carefully monitored by the atomic energy authority and the regulators. Discharges will remain substantially lower than under previous operations and will reduce over the timeframe of the plan to minimal levels by 2020. Sunday, 24th March 2002 ***************************************************************** 14 UK: A world of opportunity lies ahead (Dounreay) scotsman.com - The demise of Dounreay has resulted in a chance to develop specialist skills that will be much in demand IN THE 1950s, the construction of Dounreay brought new opportunities for social and economic growth to the far north of Scotland. Half a century later, decommissioning of the work started by those early atomic pioneers is again bringing new opportunities to the area, particularly for business. "Restoring our environment and addressing the legacies of our operational past will cost in excess of £4bn and take 50 to 60 years to achieve," explained UK Atomic Energy Authority site director Peter Welsh. "Our expenditure has almost doubled in the last few years and is now in the order of £140m to £150m per annum - a level we anticipate will continue into the next decade." The authority undertakes no implementation work directly but retains, and is growing, a core of technical, project management, risk analysis, safety, health and environmental expertise. Last year, the total value of design, decommissioning and construction contracts placed by the authority at its sites in Britain was £184m. Of this, around £80m was let in contracts at Dounreay. Across the organisation, contracting spend is expected to peak at £250m in five years. Some £61m a year is injected into the economy of the far north in wages, pensions and contracts, making this one of the biggest economic influences in the region. Welsh added: "The authority is continuing to build up its core strength to ensure the site restoration plan is managed safely and efficiently. But to deliver the 1,500 or so highly interdependent projects that make up the plan we require the skills and expertise of the marketplace. "There are three key areas of business at Dounreay for our contractors in technical support, implementation and for the provision of routine services. For companies, large and small, decommissioning is a major opportunity - and not just at Dounreay. "I believe the skills and experience built up as the decommissioning progresses here will become sought after worldwide. For smaller companies there are major opportunities through alliances such as the ones we announced recently to undertake the next phase of decommissioning - the prototype fast reactor and Dounreay fast reactor. "This is the gateway through which smaller businesses can grow and expand in what will become a massive global marketplace. "The site restoration plan is a major challenge, not only to the UKAEA but to the business sector as well. With the right mix of local, national and international skills and expertise, I’m confident we can deliver and restore our environment." Employment in recent years at Dounreay has risen to around 2,200 as the site begins to decommission. In the past three years, UKAEA has recruited some 300 additional staff, taking its workforce at the site to 1,200 or so. Another 100 are due to join this year. Employment levels are expected to remain high for the next decade, with further job opportunities created when the major construction work begins. A wide range of engineering, scientific and administrative skills are needed to decommission Dounreay and other sites in Britain and abroad after they have reached the end of their operational lives. Dounreay is uniquely placed for school leavers in the region who want to enter such careers in their own community. Welsh said: "The site restoration plan published by the UK Atomic Energy Authority has put Dounreay at the forefront of decommissioning worldwide, and can be the gateway to a career in engineering, science and administration in an industry valued in tens of billions of pounds in the UK alone. "I would advise people not to view Dounreay as a facility in terminal decline but a plant that is at the cutting edge of an industry that can only grow as more nuclear facilities in this country and overseas reach the end of their natural lives." BILL McCLUSKIE Sunday, 24th March 2002 ***************************************************************** 15 UK: Legacy of pioneering scientists presents new challenges today NEWS.scotsman.com - Sun 24 Mar 2002 UNTIL 1954, Dounreay was an area of grazing land on the remote northern coast of Scotland, known only for the presence of a 16th century ruined castle, a farm and a Second World War aerodrome that never saw any combat action. But the decision that year by the government to choose it as the site for research and development of a new type of atomic energy turned Dounreay into a household name. Uranium was a scarce metal in the 1950s. The energy it contained was enormous, however, and Britain saw this metal - and its by-product, plutonium - as being vital to meeting the nation’s growing post-war demand for electricity. A new type of electricity-generating reactor was needed that would use uranium much more efficiently than any other type of reactor then under development. The solution in 1954 was the fast breeder reactor - a type that not only unlocked more of the energy potential of the fissile uranium but also took a non-fissile form of uranium and turned it into plutonium that itself could be used as new fuel. In effect, the reactor would breed more fuel than it consumed. Over the next 40 years, UKAEA scientists led the world in research and development of this new technology. An experimental reactor, the landmark Dounreay Fast Reactor, or "Dome of Discovery", operated from 1959 until 1979; a larger model, the Prototype Fast Reactor, ran from 1974 until 1994; and a materials test reactor operated from 1958 until 1969. A variety of laboratories and chemical plants were built to handle the fuel for these reactors and various facilities developed for the chemical treatment, storage and, where appropriate, disposal of the wastes that arose from this programme. For many years Dounreay was the most advanced nuclear establishment of its kind in the world. Construction started in 1955 and UKAEA built more than 180 facilities on almost 140 acres of land. It also acquired a further 1,350 acres of adjoining ground that it continues to let to agricultural tenants today. At the peak of operations, some 2,400 people worked on the fast reactor programme at Dounreay and a huge influx of people transformed the local economy. Thurso, the nearest town eight miles away, trebled in size to 9,000 people. Dounreay proved that fast reactors could work. But by the late 1980s uranium was no longer the scarce resource it was thought to be in the 1950s and the government concluded that fast reactors would not be required on a commercial scale for the foreseeable future. Funding for this programme at Dounreay came to an end in 1994 when the last of the reactors shut down. To make up for the loss of this work and the government funding, UKAEA turned to customers abroad to utilise the spare capacity in its chemical plants at the site. Several contracts were signed in the commercial fuels market. But by the late 1990s it was clear this business could not be sustained and UKAEA decided not to accept any further commercial reprocessing. Now, its operational life over, Dounreay is being dismantled. But decommissioning a complex site after 40 years of atomic experiments is a difficult and expensive task. Significant quantities of nuclear materials and wastes in a variety of different forms, some of them unique, must be dealt with safely and responsibly. It requires the long-term commitment of significant public resources, from the Department of Trade and Industry that funds this work to the regulators whose role is to ensure it is carried out safely and acceptably. Employment at the site has risen from a low of 1,200 in the 1990s to 2,200 today as UKAEA gears up for these challenges. The design, construction, operational and decommissioning phases of several new plants it needs to build to deal with legacies of past operations will require significant additional manpower over the next two decades, creating significant opportunities to generate economic growth locally and nationally. Yesterday’s scientists proved that fast reactors could operate safely. The challenge today is to demonstrate that their legacy can be dismantled safely. ©2002 scotsman.com | contact ***************************************************************** 16 Glowing fish put tribes at risk along Columbia ICT [2002/03/26] Posted: March 23, 2002 - 7:00AM EST by: Jennifer Hemmingsen / Correspondent / Indian Country Today Justine Miles, left, and Viola Allen weren’t surprised by a recent study showing Columbia Basin tribes’ exposure to radiation from the Hanford nuclear site was previously underestimated. Both women suffer from lupus, an autoimmune disorder that has been l LAPWAI, Idaho -- A new study shows local Indians were exposed to more Hanford site radiation than previously thought, but tribal members aren’t surprised. For more than 40 years, the U. S. government produced weapons-grade plutonium at the Hanford Site in south central Washington State. During its operation, the facility released significant amounts of 11 different radioactive materials. From 1944 to 1957, most of these releases were into the air. From the 1950s and 1960s, radioactive substances were released into the Columbia River through water used by Hanford reactors. The Hanford Environmental Dose Reconstruction project was established to estimate what radiation dose people living near Hanford might have received from releases of radioactive materials. A recent reevaluation of the HEDR project by the Centers for Disease Control showed the study underestimated Native American fish consumption -- the primary means of radioactive material transmission. In a February meeting, Risk Assessment Corporation scientist Dr. Helen Grogan told tribal representatives that culturally biased assumptions led researchers to underestimate Indians’ exposure to river-borne radiation. Columbia Basin tribes ate more fish and more parts of the fish than was assumed by the earlier study, Grogan found. That means tribal members are also at greater risk for cancer and genetic mutations that have been linked to chronic ionizing radiation exposure. That’s no surprise to Justine Miles or Viola Allen, Nez Perce women who have both been diagnosed with lupus. In lupus, the immune system attacks the body’s joints and ligaments. It is similar to rheumatoid arthritis and it hurts, the women said. Scientists have identified a possible link between the disease and ionizing radiation. A look around the Nez Perce reservation seems to prove the link, the women said. At least eight of the 4,000 Nez Perces in Lapwai have been diagnosed with lupus -- almost five times the average for North American Indians. "We just blow the statistics right out of the water," Miles said. The Nez Perce are a fishing tribe. Allen says she’s eaten salmon from local rivers at least three times a week her whole life. During fishing season, that’s about all Miles’ family eats. But both women think the traditional foods that sustain them are full of poisons that may have caused their illnesses. "I’ve seen glowing fish -- cut them open and they’re fluorescent," Miles said. Doctors won’t say what causes lupus, but residents do know Lapwai is a "cesspool," gathering waste from all sides. Lapwai means land of the butterflies, but there aren’t any butterflies here anymore. There are few frogs left. Noxious weeds have mostly replaced the hillside grass. Over-spray from nearby farms douses houses and schools. There are days residents can smell the Potlatch pulp mill -- seven miles away in Lewiston -- from inside their homes. They are downwind from the Hanford nuclear site. Since lupus doesn’t have many outward symptoms, it can be hard for relatives and spouses to be sympathetic. After 21 years of marriage, Allen’s husband divorced her because he couldn’t take it any more, she said. Rich Ramsey, Miles’ husband, used to think she was just making it up. Ramsey said that although he understands more about Miles’ disease now, it’s hard because they can’t do things normal couples their age do. "I get frustrated," Ramsey said. "I just have to keep pinching myself and saying it’s not her, it’s her disease." During lupus flare-ups, the women said they get hot, every part of their body feels swollen and painful. Nothing seems to alleviate the pain. "You don’t have any control over your own body," Miles said. "One minute you’re fine, and the next minute all you can do is go to the emergency room and say ‘somebody help me.’" "At times, I thought about suicide," Allen said. "You’ve got all the pills," Miles said. Miles takes 24 prescriptions daily to control her lupus and related health problems. She takes several pain relievers and two separate antidepressants, but she still can’t sleep at night. Allen has literally fought with pharmacists who questioned her pain prescriptions and treated her like a drug addict. She tried going to a support group, but when members started dying it was too painful for her. Both women feel hopeless, isolated. They can’t even begin to tally what they’ve lost. "I’ve basically lost four years of my life being sick," Miles said. "How do you replace that?" Simple acts like grating cheese, opening a jar of jelly are too painful for lupus sufferers. Allen said she hasn’t cooked in two years and it makes her feel helpless. When a community member dies, she can’t cook food for the family. She said it feels like her womanhood has been taken from her. When Allen was diagnosed 10 years ago, she was in the prime of her life. For years since, she has been in terrible shape, her medicine chest overflowing with prescriptions. "I was so bad I couldn’t even function my own body movements," she said. "I had to take pills to go pee, pills to have bowel movements." Now Allen has joined the Native American Church. She is down to one pill a day. Twice daily, she drinks peyote tea and prays. "It helps my depression, it helps me physically, mentally," she said. "I don’t know where I would be without the Native American Church." Miles was diagnosed with lupus two years ago, when she was 26. It was another chapter in a series of health problems that started in her 20s and included several miscarriages, broken bones, endometriosis, life threatening infections and meningitis. Miles says that some days the only thing that keeps her going is the thought of her family. But her thoughts of loved ones aren’t always comforting. "The scary thing is we send fish back to my brother-in-law’s family in Chicago," she said. "I think, God, those people are probably going to get sick from our fish." ***************************************************************** 17 Cancer levels worry workers at former atomic site Newsday.com - Authorities investigate suspicious package dumped in reservoir March 23, 2002, 4:30 PM EST TONAWANDA, N.Y. (AP) _ A state Health Department study that found elevated cancer rates in neighborhoods around a plant that helped built the first atomic bomb has former employees wondering if there is a connection. Plant officials still insist workers at the Linde Ceramics Plant have never have been in danger _ not those involved in developing the atomic bomb as part of the "Manhattan Project" during the 1940s, not those who worked there later on when radioactive material remained on site, and not those currently at the plant, now known as Praxair, as cleanup continues. "They always said it was safe," John Lauer said of the Linde managers while he worked at the suburban Buffalo plant in the 1950s. "But every year, they came in and took samples and drilled in the ground." Lauer and former co-workers said they knew very little of the Manhattan Project, or the uranium ore processed there for the nation's first atomic bomb. They said there was never a mention of potential safety risks. However, a review by The Buffalo News of dozens of government documents, secret for half a century before being declassified a few years ago, indicate the federal government worried about health risks to Linde workers. Among the newspaper's findings: _A survey in 1948 by the New York Operations Office of the Manhattan Engineering District found 18 of 138 employees were exposed to "above preferred levels" of radioactive particles. Fifteen of the 18 were exposed to concentrations 32 times above acceptable workplace levels. _Some low-level radioactive materials workers were exposed to "may produce toxic effects on the body from a chemical standpoint," according to the project's in-house medical volume published in 1947. _The medical team believed it could be years before some of the effects of exposure surfaced. In 2000, the federal government set up a pool of money to compensate workers directly involved in the atomic bomb development project. Now, there's a move to study the effect radioactive material had on sites such as Linde since government's atomic energy projects. Representatives of U.S. Rep. John J. LaFalce's office hope the study will help workers to one day share in the compensation pool, now available only to workers at Linde between 1943 and 1949. Critics, however, complain of bureaucracy that has slowed payments even to workers directly involved in the atomic projects. Proving a direct link between a person's cancer and their job exposure is all but impossible, they say. "It's a dog-and-pony show," said Ralph Krieger, a former union president who worked at the plant for 30 years before retiring in 1998. Dennis Conroy, site manager for Praxair, which now owns the Linde site, told the newspaper the company was unaware of the specific testing referred to in the secret government documents. Nonetheless, Conroy said there's nothing to establish a direct link between the low-level radiation at the Linde/Praxair site and worker illness either during the 1940s or later decades. Repeated studies done by the company as well as the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration support that finding, he said. In 1954, Conroy said, the site was declared "clean" by the standards at the time. In 1974, based on new standards, the federal government reported low-level radiation did exist at Linde, Conroy said. A government-ordered cleanup of the site began in 1995 and is about 80 percent complete. "People do not understand radiation. We are very concerned about our employees and our neighbors but there have been four scientific studies that show no statistically significant excesses of disease," Conroy said. "We do not believe there is a health risk." Former workers disagree. Tony Cioppi, 69, started at Linde in 1951 sweeping floors at age 18 before working his way up to the carpenter shop and as a lab mechanic. He spent much of his time at two buildings suspected to be radioactively contaminated. "When I started there, the buildings that were used (by the Manhattan Project) were taped off and signs said 'Do Not Enter,"' Cioppi said. "No one to my knowledge ever said anything about radiation." Cioppi had a prostate problem in his 50s and is now undergoing chemotherapy for bladder cancer. Joseph Cinelli, 68, of Grand Island started at Linde in maintenance in 1952, and worked at the plant in a variety of jobs until retiring in 1994. He was diagnosed with cancer three times in 11 years. The former Linde workers said they became even more skeptical over the years as they heard talk of the government removing buildings and soil from the grounds where they worked. Copyright © 2002, The Associated Press ***************************************************************** 18 Panel reviews vets' radiation doses Tri-Valley Herald Sunday, March 24, 2002 - 4:05:56 AM MST Carcinogenic effect of atomic weapons under review By Glenn Roberts Jr. STAFF WRITER Sunday, March 24, 2002 - -->They obeyed orders, participating in military exercises before the dust of the nuclear clouds had settled. Some would not realize the hazards of their missions until many years later, when the cancers appeared. From 1945-62, an estimated 200,000 U.S. military personnel were subjected to some levels of radiation from about 230 aboveground nuclear tests conducted at the Nevada Test Site or among the Pacific Islands. All U.S. nuclear weapons were designed by scientists at either Lawrence Livermore Laboratory or Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico. About 195,000 other military personnel were at risk for radiation exposure, too -- they were either involved in the U.S. occupation of Japan after two atomic bombs were dropped there in 1945 or were prisoners of war in Japan at the time. Thousands of the so-called U.S. atomic veterans have filed claims associated with illnesses they believe to be caused by exposure to radiation. And a National Academy of Sciences panel is studying some of the claims and investigating a range of nuclear test and health effects data to determine if changes are needed in estimating radiation exposure to individuals. The Review of the Dose Reconstruction Program of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, begun in December 2000 by a committee of scientists, is expected to complete its work in April 2003, recommending changes to existing policies if necessary. Evan Douple, who serves as director for the dose-reconstruction review and for the National Academy of Sciences Board on Radiation Effects Research, said the review is focusing on some cases selected from about 3,000 claims by atomic veterans. The committee is tasked with evaluating the existing methods used to estimate veterans' radiation doses. Radiation-dose assessments are used to determine "whether a veteran is, in fact, an atomic veteran," Douple said, even when individual records lack detail. The committee seeks to ensure that the methods for estimating radiation doses "are not only being done using the best science, but are being done consistently and they are as accurate as possible." Also, Douple said, the intent is that atomic veterans should receive "the benefit of the doubt when that is necessary." Richard "Dick" Conant, a resident of Albuquerque, N.M., and national commander for the National Association of Atomic Veterans, said he has supported the committee effort. "I've been involved totally with it," he said, and he allowed some committee participants to review the association's records on radiation-exposed veterans. As for the estimates on radiation exposure, Conant said, "I call them 'educated guesses,' and that's about what they are." In some cases, veterans have been told that records related to their radiation exposure were destroyed in a fire, or the available records don't seem to show the extent of their exposure. When an atomic veteran submits a claim to the Department of Veterans Affairs over an illness that may be related to the veteran's radiation exposure during military service, a dose reconstruction estimate is sometimes necessary to validate or refute the claim. In some cases, though, Conant said federal offices are calling for dose reconstructions when they are not required, which he said has resulted in some claims being rejected that should be approved. For atomic veterans, it's a matter of receiving free treatment from the VA for illnesses related to radiation exposure if the illness is considered service-related, or having to pay for their own medical care if the claim is rejected, said Conant. There are also benefits available to the family members of atomic veterans who have died from service- related radiation exposure, he added. About 2,300 atomic veterans have joined the national association, which was founded in August 1979 by Orville E. Kelly, who died from lymphoma seven months after he won approval for a service-connected disability. William "Bill" M. Duffy, an Alameda resident who participated in military exercises during "Operation Redwing," a series of nuclear tests conducted in the Pacific in 1956, said dose reconstruction "has been a very controversial deal for years" for atomic veterans seeking medical benefits for radiation-caused illnesses. A member of the atomic veterans group, Duffy allowed his radiation- exposure records to be reviewed by the dose-reconstruction committee. He said he has hopes that the committee work will lead to new opportunities for atomic veterans to receive benefits. "I've had minor problems," Duffy said of his own health. "There are guys who have lost eyes." Conant noted that there has been other progress in the struggle for atomic veterans' benefits. On Tuesday, five types of cancer will be added to an existing list of cancers that are presumed to be service-related for radiation-exposed veterans. Eligible veterans can receive benefits ranging from $103 to $2,163 per month for their radiation-related illnesses, depending on their level of disability. Those cancers added to the list under the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act are: lung, colon, bone, brain and central nervous system, and ovary. Douple of the dose-reconstruction committee said that the review "is a very important project." Atomic veterans "are people who are very concerned about their health and about the exposures they received while serving this country," he added. "We feel it's very important to examine this dose reconstruction process very carefully, because it's something that the veterans deserve to have done right. We owe that to the people who received radiation exposure in the service of this country." Information about the National Association of Atomic Veterans is available online at www.naav.org [HTTP://www.naav.org] and information about the dose-reconstruction committee is available at www.nationalacademies.org [HTTP://www.nationalacademies.org] . ©1999-2001 by MediaNews Group, Inc. and ANG Newspapers ***************************************************************** 19 State politicians once courted nuclear waste Sunday, March 24, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal In 1975, officials who would later oppose project passed resolution in support of dump By JANE ANN MORRISON REVIEW-JOURNAL Remember when Nevada politicians wanted high-level nuclear waste to be stored at the Nevada Test Site? The year was 1975. Two high-profile political figures who later became vociferous foes of nuclear waste coming to Nevada supported an Assembly resolution "strongly urging" the government "to choose the Nevada Test Site for the storage and processing of nuclear material." The rationale behind the resolution: jobs. Nevada, it noted, had an unemployment rate 20 percent higher than "the disturbingly high national unemployment rate." Richard Bryan, then a state senator, voted for the resolution. And Mike O'Callaghan, then the governor, signed it. Some of the "whereases" probably would be considered heresy if uttered by Nevada politicians today. One read: "The people of Southern Nevada have confidence in the safety record of the Nevada Test Site and in the ability of the staff of the site to maintain safety in the handling of nuclear materials." Twenty-seven years later, safety is the argument brought up most often in opposing the placement of a repository at Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Today, Bryan and O'Callaghan don't see this chapter in history as having any significance, particularly since resolutions carry no legislative weight other than being an expression of opinion. But Bryan acknowledged last week that in retrospect, it was a vote that was not well thought out. O'Callaghan said he signed it only because governors cannot veto reso- lutions. Neither believes Assembly Joint Resolution 15 played any role in the steps that culminated in Nevada being selected this year by President Bush as the nation's nuclear waste storage site. Opposition to the 1975 resolution came largely from Northern Nevada. In the Assembly, only one Southern Nevadan, Jean Ford, voted against it. Ford has since died. The resolution was introduced by Assemblyman Lloyd Mann, D-Las Vegas, who said at the time he didn't anticipate any safety problems in storing nuclear waste. He predicted that if Nevada were chosen, such a program would pump $1.5 billion into the economy over the next 40 years. "I've got six kids and one due in June," he said in 1975. "I want that as safe as anyone else." Sue Wagner, now a member of the Nevada Gaming Commission, was one of the Reno Assembly members who voted against the resolution. "I understood the rationale of the people from Clark County, because it would mean more jobs," she said last week. "That's the kind of issue used on the floor of the Assembly to get all of us to support it." But after attending a hearing where Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Dixie Lee Ray made a presentation in support of the resolution, Wagner said she wasn't convinced. After talking it over with her husband, who was a scientist at the Desert Research Institute, "We agreed it was questionable in terms of safety." Bryan, who fought the dump as governor and U.S. senator, said his opposition solidified by 1983. The 1979 nuclear accident at Three Mile Island contributed to his change of view. Could the resolution have opened the door to Nevada becoming the only state where a nuclear repository site would be studied? "God, no," Bryan said. "Other than in a political contest, it has never been the subject of any discussion." In his governor's race in 1988 and his U.S. Senate race in 1994, Bryan's political foes made hay of his vote. Bryan fended off the comments by saying his support for the resolution was a mistake from which he had learned. Bryan said he agreed with a recent article by the Nevada Policy Research Institute's Steven Miller, who said the resolution was a result of the eternal chase for federal pork. Although Bryan is rarely in agreement with the conservative think tank, he said, "There's some validity to the criticism. That's the way it was presented to us, as a wonderful opportunity for jobs. And we were not enlightened about the risks." Both Bryan and O'Callaghan were of the generation that was proud of the above-ground nuclear weapons testing at the test site, and both said that contributed to their support of the resolution. Bryan recalled that his 1953 Las Vegas High School yearbook had a nuclear detonation on its cover, an example of the pride Nevadans had then for the nuclear tests. O'Callaghan, now the executive editor of the Las Vegas Sun, said he worked with Assembly Speaker Keith Ashworth to improve the resolution, but never obtained the language he most desired, that voters should be able to approve or reject a repository. "At that time, it was not that big of an issue," O'Callaghan said of the resolution. But by 1979, his opposition was firm and in 1980 he testified in the U.S. Senate against a nuclear repository. By that time, the confidence expressed in the Atomic Energy Commission had dis- appeared. O'Callaghan told the Senate that Nevada "now resents not being told all the truth about the dangers our citizens and the citizens of neighboring states were subjected to during the time of atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons." Again, he stressed the need for giving Nevada voters veto power to block the repository for any reason. In his testimony 22 years ago, O'Callaghan said Nevadans have been more than cooperative with the federal government. "However, we have reached the point where we are feeling used rather than needed." Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002 ***************************************************************** 20 They're not just pointing fingers, they're giving the finger Sunday, March 24, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal COLUMN: Steve Sebelius Everybody is a liar these days. When President George W. Bush signed off on Yucca Mountain, despite a promise to hold off on his decision until "sound science" determined whether it was the right place to dump nuclear waste, U.S. Sen. Harry Reid called him a liar. And when Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, the South Dakota Democrat, said this week that he couldn't keep the Yucca Mountain legislation from coming to the Senate floor, despite a promise last May that "as long as we're (Democrats) in the majority, it's (Yucca) dead," U.S. Sen. John Ensign and U.S. Rep. Jim Gibbons hinted Daschle might be a liar, too. Who's right? Everybody. Bush clearly signed off on Yucca Mountain before all the science was in -- and Reid was right to call the president on it. But Daschle made a promise, too -- one more strongly worded and absolute than Bush's. Daschle now says he didn't realize that, according to some parliamentarians, any senator can bring the bill to the floor. It wasn't a lie; he just didn't know all the facts when he made his statement, Daschle's defenders argue. Perhaps it all depends on what the meaning of "dead" is? If by "dead," Daschle meant "heading to the floor on a fast-track for a vote," then yes, Yucca is dead. But if by "dead," he meant the more commonly understood notion that the bill wouldn't ever come to the floor, then Daschle has some explaining to do. Whatever Daschle's motives -- and in this case, it seems clear he made his statement as a favor to his good friend Reid -- this comment will come back to haunt him. If the Guinn veto comes to the floor for a vote -- and it seems almost certain it will -- Daschle will have without question gone back on his word to Nevada, albeit unwillingly. And aren't the Republicans delighted? They've endured weeks of headlines about Bush's approval of Yucca, and they've been asked constantly by rude newspaper columnists why Bush did it. They've said they were disappointed in Bush, but they'd rather munch on a broken-glass sandwich than say their president broke his promise. Ensign by all counts has been singularly ineffective in persuading his Republican colleagues from nuclear-waste-producing states (not to mention those lawmakers awash in energy industry campaign cash) to switch sides and join Nevada's lonely fight for justice. And since Daschle was nice enough to open the door to being attacked by promising more than he could deliver, Ensign sees no problem walking through it. But the approach is shortsighted. As one Washington wag noted, Ensign campaigned on his promise to get more Republicans to switch to Nevada's side in the Yucca fight. (Yet another broken promise?) As Ensign paints a target on Daschle's back, he's encouraging every Republican who ever wanted to settle scores with the majority leader. A vote for Yucca is a vote to embarrass Daschle. "To try to set up Daschle to take the fall is dishonest, dumb and dangerous," the source says. "Ensign has now given a reason for every single Republican to want Daschle to take a fall." Republicans insist Yucca Mountain is a bipartisan issue -- that it's Nevada against the rest of the nation. But in this case, it's clear that if Daschle could stop Yucca Mountain, he would. It may be more out of his friendship with Reid than a deep-seated commitment to the principle, but in the Yucca endgame, that doesn't matter. As Reid has noted, Bush had the chance unilaterally to stop Yucca, but didn't. Unlike Daschle, Bush wants a nuclear waste dump, and Yucca Mountain just happens to be the place. There are plenty of Democrats who favor Yucca Mountain, but these days, it seems the dump's biggest backers almost always have an "R" affixed to their names. So, in the end, we have Bush, who made a promise and didn't keep it, and Daschle, who made a promise, without knowing whether he could keep it. Each side calls the other a liar, but neither can admit that both men, for very different reasons, weren't honest. The sad fact is, it's Nevada that's once again getting screwed. Steve Sebelius is a Review-Journal political columnist. His column runs Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. Reach him at 383-0283 or by e-mail at Steve_Sebelius@lvrj.com. webmaster@lvrj.com Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - ***************************************************************** 21 Nuclear waste passing through the Valley Sunday, March 24, 2002 By Erik N. Nelson Staff Writer The U.S. Energy Department plans to transport high-level radioactive waste from the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant to Nevada, likely taking it through the San Fernando Valley, San Gabriel Valley and San Bernardino County. The department is considering taking the waste by barge from San Luis Obispo County to Port Hueneme but hasn't made any recommendations on truck or train routes to get it to the planned underground repository at Yucca Mountain. Elected officials and anti-nuclear activists have reacted with alarm to the possibility of spent fuel passing through their communities, exposing thousands of residents to the risk of a catastrophic accident. "There are train derailments and fires all the time. The amount of just one train would be greater than the amount of radioactivity released at Chernobyl (the 1986 nuclear plant meltdown)," said Dan Hirsch of the anti-nuclear Committee to Bridge the Gap. "You could have an unbelievable mess at Chatsworth, and not just for a moment, because the radioactivity is very long-lived. You could have Hiroshima-type prompt fatalities, followed by large numbers of latent cancer." The Yucca Mountain repository, just across the California border from Death Valley, would hold up to 77,000 tons of high-level radioactive waste, which when unshielded would be fatal to anyone standing nearby, even for a moment. The underground facility was approved by President George W. Bush in February but faces strong opposition from Nevada officials. The possibility of barge shipments came to light with the recent release of an environmental impact statement for the repository project. It lists possible routes for shipping spent fuel by rail, which the Energy Department officials prefer, truck and barge. Environmentalists and anti-nuclear activists said the barge shipment plan adds another level of danger to the shipments of spent nuclear fuel, which they have dubbed "mobile Chernobyls" because they contain so much high-level nuclear waste. Physicist Marvin Resnikoff said he sees the radioactive exposure potential of a transport container of spent fuel as comparable to that of the first military use of nuclear weapons. An improbable escape of radioactive strontium and cesium from the heavily armored casks of spend fuel could release devastating levels of radiation, although it would not explode like the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945, said Resnikoff, whose Radioactive Waste Management Associates is analyzing waste transport risks for the states of Nevada and Utah. "However, each cask holds the equivalent of 240 times the long-lived radioactivity that was released in the Hiroshima bomb," said Resnikoff, who expects to be called to testify before Congress to support Nevada's challenge to the Yucca Mountain storage facility. Department of Energy representatives defended the safety of the possible nuclear shipments. "We have been moving nuclear material around this country for 50 years, and the safety record is outstanding. No other industry comes close," said Allen Benson, spokesman for the department's repository project in Nevada. "There's no such thing as a 100 percent guarantee. People need to know this," he added. Waste shipments would only be done through a "very rigorous, controlled process ... we take every possible precaution." The transport casks are made to withstand damage that might come from a rail, truck or barge accident, said Mitch Singer, a spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, which promotes nuclear power. The metal and concrete containers are required to withstand a 30-foot drop onto a hard surface, a 3-foot drop onto a sharp point and 30 minutes' exposure to a 1,475-degree fire. Resnikoff said his organization studied the July chemical-train fire in a tunnel in downtown Baltimore, which burned for four days at temperatures estimated to reach 1,500 degrees, and concluded that it would have breached a spent-fuel cask. Rep. Elton Gallegly, R-Oxnard, said Friday that he had just learned about the barge train or truck transportation scenario and has serious questions. "Every time you load and unload and handle or rehandle (nuclear waste), you're increasing the likelihood of a problem," said Gallegly, who as a freshman representative voted against a catch-all 1987 bill that included both the Yucca Mountain project and a tax hike. "If they are advocating putting this repository in the San Fernando Valley or in Ventura County, you can be assured that I would be out there with my fellow residents opposing it," Gallegly said. But the Yucca Mountain repository, "on the surface, it appears to be a very practical way to deal with it." Until he has more information on the repository and transport plans, however, Gallegly said, "I'm not prepared to embrace it or oppose it." While the federal government is committed to providing long-term storage for nuclear plants nationwide, a spokesman for Diablo Canyon's owner, Pacific Gas &Electric, said such shipments would take place after 2017, at the earliest. "We don't expect to send any fuel anywhere for probably many, many years," said PG spokesman Jeff Lewis, explaining that older facilities, such as many plants in the Eastern United States, would get their spent fuel stored before Diablo Canyon. With that in mind, PG has applied for permission from the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission to construct an above-ground, "dry cask" fuel storage facility at Diablo Canyon to use when its current spent-fuel pools run out of space as expected in 2006. "We're trying to build in some flexibility, so that whatever happens with the national repository, we would have the ability to store, on site, all of the spent fuel ever produced by the plant," which is scheduled to close down in 2025, Lewis said. http://www.dailynews.com Los Angeles Newspaper Group Newspaper ***************************************************************** 22 Our Only Option Can't Be Nuclear March 24, 2002 News Analysis: Bush Finds That Ambiguity Is Part of Nuclear Deterrence (March 18, 2002) o the Editor: Re "Thinking the Unthinkable, Again" (news analysis, March 18): For those who worry about rogues with weapons of mass destruction, a former Clinton administration nuclear strategist raises a troubling question: "But what if the C.I.A. director walks into the Oval Office one day and says, `Mr. President, we know where there are nuclear and biological weapons deep down in Tora Bora, but the only way to get at them is with a nuclear weapon'?" If the United States is trapped in a situation where nuclear weapons are our only option, it will be because our infatuation with nuclear weapons has diverted our attention from pursuing conventional approaches. The means to defeat biological and nuclear threats are within our reach. We do not need nuclear weapons for the task; with the right intelligence, conventional weapons can do the job. Surely the world's sole superpower, dominant in conventional capabilities, can develop a more sensible weapon to fill this pressing need. MICHAEL LEVI Washington, March 18, 2002 The writer is director, Strategic Security Project, Federation of American Scientists. Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company | Privacy Information ***************************************************************** 23 The new nuclear debate Chicago Tribune | Published March 23, 2002 The Bush administration is revising its nuclear strategy to put less emphasis on Russia and more on nations deemed to be a growing threat: China, North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Libya and Syria. It is also debating whether to build small nuclear arms for battlefield options. The smaller nuclear arms might be needed as earth-penetrating, low-yield weapons against targets that can withstand a non-nuclear attack. All this is part of the Pentagon's Nuclear Posture Review, which was sent to Congress Jan. 8 and is meant to bolster America's ability to deter nations developing weapons of mass destruction from ever using them. Predictably, the report generated concern from Russia, and howls from China and the Mideast that President Bush is readying some sort of pre-emptive nuclear strike against U.S. enemies, such as the "axis of evil" nations named in Bush's State of the Union address: Iraq, Iran and North Korea. The U.S., of course, hasn't used an atomic bomb against an enemy since Nagasaki--nor would it, unless provoked, and only then as a very last, extreme resort. European and moderate Arab allies, while expressing some understandable concerns about loosing the nuclear genie, seem to understand that Bush is simply exercising the effective, longtime U.S. strategy of nuclear deterrence. That is, holding out the threat to use nuclear arms if necessary to deter an enemy from striking first with massive force. The strategy has a proven track record. It worked with the Soviets during the Cold War. NATO's threatened first use of nuclear weapons essentially deterred Moscow from sending superior conventional forces across Europe in an attack NATO otherwise couldn't stop. It also apparently deterred Iraq's Saddam Hussein from using weapons of mass destruction against coalition forces during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Secretary of State James Baker warned Iraq the U.S. wouldn't hesitate to use nuclear weapons if Iraq launched a chemical attack. "The American people will demand retribution," Baker told Iraq's foreign minister, "and we have the means to extract it." Saddam Hussein did not provoke a nuclear response. Given that this strategy is not new, the current criticism of Bush seems overwrought. Vice President Dick Cheney put it succinctly in London a week ago, observing that the notion put forward by critics that "we are preparing pre-emptive nuclear strikes against seven countries . . . I would say that is a bit over the top." Moreover, Bush is continuing his laudable efforts to cut strategic nuclear weapons by about two-thirds, in cooperation with Russia. This comes while increasing U.S. deterrent strength by specifying more precisely which nations are targeted in a post-Cold War world. This retasking of possible targets--revealed publicly for the first time--warns U.S. adversaries that this nation means business. But it is still ultimately designed to prevent the use of nuclear weapons, either by or against the U.S. The administration may not have planned the leak of the classified report, but it clearly benefits by signaling it is prepared for some specific scenarios. While the report states Russia is no longer an enemy, it indicates that a Chinese attack on Taiwan, a North Korean attack on South Korea or an Iraqi attack on Israel or another neighbor--especially involving weapons of mass destruction--are scenarios that could draw a swift and overwhelming U.S. response. That better defines the terms of the battlefield of the 21st Century, and such clarity is healthy. The threat is implied. It will make potential adversaries think twice before provoking an American response. If terrorists should detonate a "dirty bomb" spewing radiation in Washington, D.C., any state harboring or helping the terrorists is on notice that it risks terrible retaliation. In another sense, this not-so-veiled U.S. threat is likely to have a much more immediate deterrent effect on U.S. adversaries than the prospect of America developing a national missile defense. The U.S. may one day have missiles that can knock enemy rockets out of the sky. Until then, however, deterrence is the most effective way of preventing an enemy attack. It starts working today. "Everyone else in the world understands how ruthless we are and plans accordingly," reasoned John Mearsheimer, a professor and director of the University of Chicago's Program on International Security Policy. "These revelations aren't going to surprise many people and certainly not those states we have put the cross-hairs on. Furthermore, what most states fear is not an American nuclear strike, but U.S. conventional forces swooping down out of the sky and wrecking their country." Critics of Bush's posture review claim it may have the opposite impact, that is, it may spark other nations to develop nuclear weapons to deter America. But it is America's conventional superiority more than its nuclear arsenal that may drive other nations to explore a nuclear option, given their utter inability to compete with us in conventional weapons Despite the cries, Bush has not lowered the threshold for possible use of nuclear weapons. The report was not a warmongering move by Bush. It was one designed to keep the peace as America reduces its nuclear arsenal. Copyright © 2002, Chicago Tribune ***************************************************************** 24 Panel recommends US to prepare for nuclear testing - The Times of India PTI [ SATURDAY, MARCH 23, 2002 10:30:41 PM ] SILICON VALLEY: Close on the heels of controversial 'Nulcear Posture Review', a special nuclear security panel in a report to US Congress has recommended that Washington prepare to resume nulcear tests within three months. John S Foster, who led the four-member panel, said the country needed to put more resources to prepare for testing nuclear weapons, The Argus newspaper reported today. "This is not because the need to test is imminent, but because prudence requires that every president have the means to test," the local daily quoted Foster as saying. The report on the safety and reliability of the country's nuke stockpile, due to be out next week, also revealed that the nuclear weapons complex continued to be in poor shape despite Congress' creation of semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Agency three years ago to oversee laboratories and production plants. Foster said the inefficiency in the weapons complex amounted to an "unacceptable" 30 to 50 per cent reduction in capability — at a loss of $1 billion each year. He said the report would recommend the agency create a chief financial officer to iron out budget scuffles with the Department of Energy. 'Nuclear Posture Review', a report submitted to Congress early this year, had recommended resumption of nuclear tests, producing or modifying new nukes and preparing for nuclear strikes against seven potential adversaries — Russia, China, North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Libya and Syria. The report, which drew worldwide criticism, was first leaked by the Los Angeles Times. Copyright © 2002 Times Internet Limited. All rights reserved. | ***************************************************************** 25 UK: NPR leads down slippery slope to nuclear conflagration New Straits Times Sunday Timese-Media By Dr R.S Mc Coy THE news of a Bush administration policy document, the US Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), makes explicit a dangerous shift in US policy that threatens to violate US legal and political obligations and undermine nuclear disarmament. It becomes clear that the US now projects the role of nuclear weapons into the 21st century as legitimate weapons for waging war. This flouts the 1996 ruling of the International Court of Justice. The NPR has named seven countries as possible targets: Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Libya and Syria. The Pentagon has been ordered to draft contingency plans for the use of nuclear weapons against these countries. The thinking behind the NPR is reckless and dangerous. The NPR, a partially classified document that will guide US nuclear policies, expands the role of nuclear weapons beyond their core function as a deterrent against nuclear attack. It recommends a lowering of the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons, including against targets able to withstand a conventional attack, as a response to the threat or use of chemical or biological weapons, or "in the event of surprising military developments", meaning terrorist attacks. The NPR establishes the broad outline of Pentagon planning for a new nuclear strategy, force levels and infra-structure for the next ten years and beyond. The entire report is classified and usually receives little attention from the news media and analysts. This is most unfortunate. The logic and assumptions underlying the administration's hostility to arms control and its infatuation with nuclear weapons deserve close public scrutiny and vigorous debate. Not since the resurgence of the Cold War in Ronald Reagan's first term has there been such an emphasis on nuclear weapons in US defence strategy. The Bush administration assumes that nuclear weapons will be part of US military forces for a long time to come and is planning an extensive and costly programme to sustain and modernise the existing force. Behind the rhetorical mask of post-Cold War restraint lie expansive plans to revitalise US nuclear forces within a so-called "New Triad" of capabilities that combine nuclear and conventional offensive strikes with missile defences and a nuclear weapons infrastructure that has the capacity to upgrade existing nuclear weapons and develop and produce entirely new, low-yield, earth-penetrating nuclear weapons. This military posture of integrating nuclear with conventional weapons removes the firewall that has for long separated the two and lowered the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons in a conflict. The NPR's eventual goal is in "adjusting its immediate nuclear forces requirements" downward, from 8,000 warheads today to 3,800 in 2007 and then to 1,700-2,000 "operationally deployed weapons". With an accounting system worthy of Enron, this claim of weapons reduction is a deception, because under the plan an additional 7,800 intact nuclear warheads and components for 5,000 more, making a total of 15,000, will remain in storage, ready for deployment at any time. The NPR effectively precludes further US "good faith" participation in international negotiations on nuclear disarmament under Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Together with its announced withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, its rejection of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, its development of new nuclear weapons, and its implicit threat to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapon states, the US is losing its credibility as a responsible member of the international community. The posture of avoiding constraints on its nuclear policies will be viewed by many nations as a blatant breach of good faith, tan-tamount to a US "breakout" from the NPT. The Cold War is being reinvented as a war against terrorism. Last month, the US abandoned its longstanding pledge not to use nuclear weapons against countries that do not possess them, by threatening to attack any nation that is suspected of developing biological or chemical weapons of mass destruction. Far from deterring terrorism, it guarantees that sooner or later nuclear devices will be in the hands of suicidal terrorists. Does the Bush administration not realise that nuclear bombs kill millions in minutes? Has it not heard enough about genocide and crimes against humanity in the Milosevic trial going on in The Hague? Friends and allies of the US will be just as culpable if they continue with their military alliances or remain silent. Non-nuclear countries, allied to the US in Nato, must re-examine their military obligations, repudiate them on moral and legal grounds, and end their membership of an outdated military alliance that is a major impediment to nuclear disarmament. The world is teetering on a slippery slope to damnation. The terrorist attacks on the US on Sept 11 should not be a justification for this tide of nuclear militarism that threatens to engulf the world eventually in a nuclear holocaust. Living in a democratic country, the American people must recover from their fear and hysteria and assume responsibility for the policies and actions of their government. All governments, including the Malaysian, must make representations to Washington and oppose policies that would have a disastrous impact globally. o mccoy@pc.jaring.my Copyright © The New Straits Times Press (Malaysia) Berhad, Balai Berita 31, Jalan Riong, 59100 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. ***************************************************************** 26 Pleading for Peace Anti-nuclear demonstrators gather for the March 12, 1988, rally near Peace Camp, across from the Nevada Test Site. More than 1,100 people were arrested for trespassing, including activist Daniel Ellsberg, actor Robert Blake and disc jockey Casey Kasem. REVIEW-JOURNAL FILE PHOTO Archaeologists John Schofield, front, and Harold Drollinger show graffiti left by demonstrators in a tunnel at Peace Camp. Photo by Gary Thompson. Archaeologists Colleen Beck, left, John Schofield and Harold Drollinger examine a star made of white rocks at Peace Camp. Photo by Gary Thompson. Sunday, March 24, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal Archaeologists studying camp where anti-nuclear activists staged protests By KEITH ROGERS REVIEW-JOURNAL Like the towers and craters from 41 years of nuclear weapons testing that dot the landscape of the Nevada Test Site, a patch of ground on the other side of the highway has attracted archaeologists charting the last years of the Cold War. It's known as Peace Camp, the location where anti-nuclear activists from around the world staged some of the largest civil disobedience actions in America. Last week, Desert Research Institute archaeologists Colleen Beck, Harold Drollinger and their British colleague, John Schofield, set out to record Peace Camp's rock-art and graffiti even though the site still is used by tribes, environmentalists and faith-based groups to protest continued U.S. nuclear weapons research. Beck said a report about their project will be submitted to the Bureau of Land Management and Western Shoshones. In addition, they intend to publish articles about it and make presentations. Schofield describes the work as "the archaeology of opposition," or "how the anti-nuclear movement will be represented in the record." "If we don't record it now, it will all be gone and no one will know how the anti-nuclear activists left their mark on the landscape," he said last week when snow covered many of the more than 90 features the team has logged at Peace Camp, located across from the entrance to the government town of Mercury. They believe the site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas, could in another 35 years become a historic place. To be eligible for inclusion in the national registry, sites must be at least 50 years old. Beck has charted historical places at the test site, and Schofield, a military archaeologist, has recorded Greenham Common, site of the Women's Peace Camp and anti-nuclear protests west of London, from 1981 to 2000. Realizing their work converged, they began planning the project after discussions three years ago at the World Archaeology Congress in Cape Town, South Africa. "We thought it was important," Beck said. "People think (anti-nuclear activists) just take down their tents and leave. I don't think they realize how much they used the landscape to express their views." She said logging the site marks the first time she's been involved in an archaeological recording of a place that's in continued use. The camp and its sweat lodges are expected to be used later this month for the annual Desert Lenten Experience and Western Shoshone gatherings. "Certainly this camp is very important. It's the other side of the picture of the testing program," Beck said. Besides using a variety of rocks found in the Mojave Desert to shape peace symbols, doves, stars and walkways to tent sites, activists painted graffiti and pictographs inside culvert tunnels that channel runoff under U.S. Highway 95. One script across a tunnel wall reads, "U cannot kill everything with your nuclear grey paint cover-up because real eyes realize real lies." Beck said she thought a lot about the aspect of including graffiti spray-painted by peaceniks in their research and concluded that "there are places where modern-day graffiti are important," such as the wall around Elvis Presley's Graceland mansion in Tennessee. "It's the idea of people putting something out there for all the people to read and try to understand their feelings," she said. Peace Camp, as it became known around 1986, was a mecca for downwinders, atomic veterans, Japanese bombing survivors, former Soviet anti-nuclear activists, religious groups, American Indians and native people from the South Pacific and other parts of the world where nuclear weapons have been tested. Communal lifestyle prevailed at the camp where drummers pounding monotonic rhythms provided the backdrop for rallies. The atmosphere was a mix of Woodstock and nonviolent civil disobedience actions. Celebrities such as actors Martin Sheen and Ed Asner and Daniel Ellsberg of the "Pentagon Papers" fame joined in the protests. It was home base for the American Peace Test, the nation's largest anti-nuclear group. Across the road, from 1951 until 1992, the Rhode Island-size Nevada Test Site was the continental proving grounds where 100 atmospheric atomic bombs and 828 underground nuclear devices were detonated. Two dozen of the tests were conducted jointly by the United States and the United Kingdom. Full-scale detonations stopped in September 1992 when the U.S. began a moratorium that's still in effect today. From 1986 through April 1994, government records document 536 American Peace Test demonstrations near the test site involving 37,488 participants and 15,740 arrests. The arrests usually were for trespassing or blocking roads. Sometimes, to avoid multiple arrests, test site and Nye County authorities would cite trespassers, drive them 140 miles northwest to Tonopah, then release them. The largest American Peace Test demonstration occurred from March 12 through March 20, 1988. The Energy Department estimates there were as many as 8,800 total participants. Some 2,067 arrests were made. Dubbed the "Reclaim the Test Site" demonstration, the event cost American Peace Test $130,000 to pay cooks, printers, bus drivers, portable toilet companies and ambulance medics. Disc jockey Casey Kasem used his limousine to give activists a ride from jail. In compiling a thesis, Hugh Gusterson, associate professor of anthropology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said despite the large number of arrests, which was nearly four times the number of people arrested during the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, the demonstrations "remained almost unknown to most Americans since television stations tend not to be interested in stories in the middle of the desert." Established in 1985, American Peace Test disbanded in 1994 after tax-deductible contributions had dwindled from $100,000 during the peak years of the 1980s to $15,000 in 1993. Schofield's assessment of the anti-nuclear movement's role in ending nuclear testing: "I think it had an influence. I don't think I'd go as far as to say it brought an end to nuclear testing." Stephanie Fraser, a former American Peace Test staff member who now lives in New York, said she is amazed and excited that archaeologists are interested in Peace Camp. "I would love to be out there walking around, showing them what I know," she said. As for symbols left by the hordes of anti-nuclear activists who came to Peace Camp, Fraser said, "The artwork was an expression of emotion they felt ultimately standing at the gates of hell. "It's a tribute, a rightful inclusion of this perspective in the history of the nuclear era," she said. Las Vegan Anthony Bondi, who served as archivist for American Peace Test, noted that finding any remnants from the demonstration heydays will be a challenging task because the aim of Peace Camp participants "was not to leave anything behind" after rallies. "In the long time ahead, people may look back and say, how was it that so many residents of Nevada were indifferent, or ignorant of the public challenge of Yucca Mountain and how it relates to the Nevada Test Site," he said about the government's plans to bury nuclear waste in the mountain on the southwestern edge of the test site. "Had there been a great deal more embrace of Peace Camp, perhaps Yucca Mountain" would not be on track for consideration in Congress this year. "There were people who were making as much noise as they could to alert the public of what was ahead," Bondi said. "Peace Camp sort of tried to wake up the state." Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002 ***************************************************************** 27 Selling War or Making Peace? (washingtonpost.com) [Mary McGrory] Sunday, March 24, 2002; Page B07 Vice President Cheney is back from his long, vain trip to the Middle East with the prospect of having to go back almost immediately if Yasser Arafat comes across on peace promises. His mission was to sell a war in Iraq, but he was lectured at every stop about the greater need to make peace in Israel and the West Bank. Cheney was making his last stop in Turkey when the spin began. In the House, Republicans were pushing the line that the real story was not what seemed to be happening -- that is the almost unanimous rejection of the Iraq attack (Ariel Sharon alone was game). SaddamHussein's neighbors hate and fear him, was the GOP line: Onstage, it was "no"; off, it was "go, go." At an early-morning White House press conference, Bush praised his vice president for so effectively carrying the U.S. message of resolve to root out terrorism. To paraphrase John Kennedy's inaugural address, Bush will pay any price, bear any burden to keep Saddam from using chemical or biological weapons or setting off the nuclear bomb we're pretty sure he has. What we really want him to do is to admit U.N. weapons inspectors. The trouble is, the more we threaten and rumble and he hangs tough, the more we commit ourselves to an invasion that could take up to a half-million soldiers. Cheney adviser Richard Perle, who is of the "piece of cake" school about the enterprise, told the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera that when we land, people in Iraq "will dance in the streets." Others, who believe we should fight one war at a time, have a slightly starker vision, citing the need for the 500,000 troops. The possibility of heavy casualties suggests that any radical action would be postponed until after the November elections. Military action is unlikely before then, even though Bush emphasizes the importance of convincing the world that "we are not posturing" on Iraq. Cheney got back just as Congress was leaving for its Easter recess, and not a moment too soon. The new era of bad feeling proclaimed by Senate Republican leader Trent Lott in the wake of what Republicans call the "lynching" and "Borking" of Bush judicial candidate Charles Pickering is well advanced. The Senate passed the McCain-Feingold campaign reform bill amid much jubilation on the floor, and the president said sourly that he would sign it even though it was "flawed." The House passed the Bush budget, while Republicans bade it remember Sept. 11 and Democrats foresaw financial ruin. It figured that the Republicans would make a major fuss over the Pickering defeat -- they sulk even when they win. Who could forget their gnashing of teeth that followed the confirmation of John Ashcroft? Sen. Chris Bond (R-Mo.) seethed over the effrontery of the opposition. Gen. Tommy Franks gave a rapturous review of the Afghan campaign: "an unqualified success." New countries with enormous domestic problems are floated as candidates for engagement. Colombia and Indonesia are on the list. Osama bin Laden, with whom he was once obsessed, has been officially "marginalized" by George W. Bush. But criticism is at a minimum, even among those who wished that the president were as aggressive about seeking peace in Israel as he is about waging war in Iraq. There is one constant in Washington life: the steady 80 percent standing of George W. Bush in the polls. He is the strong wartime leader of citizens' dreams, and if he looks as though he is biting off more than he can chew, voters don't want to hear about it. Democratic hopes of off-year gains are taking blows. Another Republican governor in Democratic Massachusetts looks likelier since the hapless acting incumbent, Jane Swift, tearfully gave way to a man with a torch. Mitt Romney, still glowing from Olympic glory, stepped forward, while feuding Democrats continued to take gold in their favorite sport, cannibalism. New York's Republican governor, George Pataki, a mediocre chief executive who had the wit to tag along wordlessly with Rudy Giuliani in the ruins of Manhattan, could get a third term. Two Democrats, former Housing and Urban Development secretary Andrew Cuomo and state comptroller H. Carl McCall, are engaged in a bitter, party-splitting primary. In Florida, presidential brother Jeb Bush soars while stubborn Janet Reno drives her signature red truck into oblivion. In Tennessee, Tipper Gore, the Democrats' best hope of beating Lamar Alexander in the race to fill the Senate seat of Fred Thompson, mysteriously stuck her toe in the water, then took it out a day later. Her fling briefly cheered Democrats, who thought her candidacy might head off another national go by her newly shaven spouse. What this all means is that George W. Bush has a free hand. It seems unlikely the fervor he shows for war in Iraq will be rechanneled into the search for peace in Israel. It's out because it's the kind of thing Bill Clinton did. © 2002 The Washington Post Company ***************************************************************** 28 A nuclear threat - Labour's biggest surprise so far opinion.telegraph.co.uk - By John Keegan (Filed: 24/03/2002) IT is not only Labour members of Parliament who are puzzled and perturbed by the warning last Wednesday by Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, of the Government's willingness to use nuclear weapons "in the right conditions" against "the states of concern" by which he meant Iraq, Iran, Libya and North Korea. He appeared to imply that, if that threat failed to deter, Britain might use its nuclear weapons in a first strike. Not only to deter the use of nuclear weapons against us, moreover; the use of chemical or biological weapons, he seemed to suggest, would also invoke the action. The Government's position, if correctly interpreted, is a very robust one, and has no precedent in the polices of any British government, Labour or Conservative, since Britain became a nuclear power. It is not surprising that the Labour back benches, packed as they are with past and present supporters of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, are signing up to motions deploring plans to attack Iraq. The protests will grow stronger if those plans are seen to include preparations for the use of nuclear weapons in a first strike. Labour protesters will be joined by many unpolitical people, who dislike the use of military force, fear its consequences and see no reason to initiate conflict when it has not yet begun. The states of concern - Iraq, Iran, Libya and North Korea - are all far away, have not been demonstrably implicated in mass terrorism and seem not to offer us a threat, not at least in the immediate future. Warnings that they are developing weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivery, to be ready perhaps as soon as five years hence, merely recall the atmosphere of the Cold War. They lack substance and five years, anyhow, is a long time. It is certainly difficult to understand why the Government has so suddenly adopted so menacing a stance. The states of concern are all keeping a low profile, probably to avoid provoking action against them. If the United States and Britain are threatening action anyhow, it must be because their governments know something their population cannot. Their intelligence services must have persuaded their leaders that the rogue chiefs are surreptitiously proceeding with weapon developments that are highly injurious to our interests and are resolved to halt those developments before they become irreversible. A gruesome catchphrase circulated in Hitler's Germany in his last year: "Enjoy the war, the peace will be terrible." So it proved to be, for Germany. The country was occupied and divided, its sovereignty extinguished, millions of its population displaced. For the victor states, however, the peace brought a blessed stability. We called it the Cold War. The United States and the Soviet Union ruled over worldwide spheres of influence within which the old inter-state and ethnic enmities were squashed. Conflict was forbidden and such international wars as occurred - in Vietnam, for example - were strictly limited by great power agreement, overt or tacit. Above all, access to nuclear weapons was monopolised by the super powers, who agreed that only they and their most trusted allies should be allowed nuclear power. The end of the Cold War brought that happy state of affairs to an end. The consequences of the Cold War's end were long foreseen. There was widespread agreement about what consequences would ensue, particularly a return to instability. There was no agreement about what form that instability would take. The American political scientist Samuel Huntington, in a now famous essay, predicted a "clash of civilisations", particularly between the Islamic and Christian world. There is clear evidence that he was partly right. But there was an alternative prognosis: that the collapse of the two great superpower blocks, to which states had to belong like it or not according to their geographic location, would result in the reawakening of local hostilities which predated not only the Cold War but the era of European imperialism. So it has come about. Before 1989, it was in the interest of the new post-imperial states to obey one master or the other, American or Soviet, because the two superpowers effectively agreed to accept each other's control over their unofficial empires. There were exceptions to the principle but they were few. The superpowers supported each other. With only one superpower left, the mechanism of worldwide control has broken down and old regional mini-powers are flexing their muscles once again. Iran, for 2,000 years, was a power in the Gulf lands and further afield. Iraq has inherited the regional power of its sector of the Ottoman empire. Libya, the base of the aggressive Senuissi and a slave-taking system that penetrated central Africa, is striving to reassert its old status as a pirate power. North Korea is the odd man out; but, until crushed by Japan, the Koreans were a major North Pacific military people, feared by the Japanese and Chinese alike. There is this difference, however, between superpowers and regional mini-powers. Both superpowers, in their different ways, attempted to serve the cause of order and stability in their spheres of influence. The regional mini-powers, by contrast, are driven simply by the idea of ethnic superiority and the ambition of their leaders. Saddam, Gadaffi, North Korea's leader and the Iranian Ayatollahs are worse than ideologues. They are power-crazed aggressors, who seek to dominate simply for the pleasure of exercising force as a means to satisfy their local ambitions and lust for wider power. None offers anything to the wider world. Their motives are hate, greed and the urge to dominate. In the physics of nuclear power, the chemistry of lethal gases and the biology of anthrax and its like, they have perceived the means to reassert the importance of their tiny countries, once great, now globally diminished, against that of the modern world. Of course the leaders of the United States and the United Kingdom have cause to be worried. Of course they are right to be concerned that, unless the rogue states are checked while there is time, civilisation will pay a terrible price. Kind, well-meaning people in the advanced states, who shrink from thinking ill of anyone, are naturally repelled by the idea of taking pre-emptive action. No doubt the inhabitants of the Christian lands said as much to each other before the eruption of Genghis Khan. They paid the price, which took centuries to recoup. Genghis Khan merely killed. Nuclear weapons lay waste, permanent waste. We have been warned. + Sir John Keegan is Defence Editor of The Daily Telegraph Next story: We pay for this blight © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited ***************************************************************** 29 Iraqi Vet Says Depleted Uranium Killing Fish Posted on Sat, Mar. 23, 2002 BAGHDAD - (Reuters) - An Iraqi vet said on Saturday thousands of fish that have died at fish farms near Baghdad were poisoned by munitions used by British and U.S. forces. ``Mortality rate among fish has reached 100 percent in some of the fish farms,'' said Dhahir Habib Dhahir, a veterinary surgeon at state-run Swairah fish farm 30 miles south of the capital. Iraqi television showed large quantities of the diseased fish being burned by workers at one of the fish farms. ``Researchers and specialists have attributed this disease which affected the fish to the use of banned weapons dropped by American forces against Iraq,'' the vet told Reuters television. Head of the farm Adel al-Samaraee said the Iraqi Agriculture Ministry was due to study the fish, adding that the deaths were ``clearly caused by depleted uranium and poisonous materials dropped by American and British forces.'' Depleted uranium is used as a component of armor piercing munitions. When a uranium-tipped weapon hits an object, it produces a vapor that is weakly radioactive. Iraqi authorities say the allied forces used an estimated 300 tons of depleted uranium munitions against Iraq in the U.S.-led 1991 offensive to recapture Kuwait. The fish farms are within a southern no-fly zone set up by the United States, Britain and France after the 1991 Gulf War to prevent possible attacks by Baghdad forces on Shi'ite Muslims. A similar no-fly zone was established in the north to protect a Kurdish enclave. Baghdad, which does not recognize the zones, says U.S. and British warplanes patrolling them have frequently hit Iraqi targets. Iraq also says the number of cancer cases among Iraqis has soared since the Gulf War because of depleted uranium. Last year, the World Health Organization began an in-depth study into the health impact of the shells used in Iraq. In November, however, after lobbying from Washington, the United Nations General Assembly voted down an Iraqi proposal for a U.N.-backed study into the effects of depleted uranium shells in the Gulf War. A report by Britain's Royal Society scientific organization published earlier this month said topsoil in areas heavily contaminated with depleted uranium should be removed and water quality should be monitored for any contamination. © 2001 siliconvalley and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved. http://www.siliconvalley.com ***************************************************************** 30 Opinions:SRS' perilous delay Augusta Georgia: Web posted Sunday, March 24, 2002 Augusta Chronicle Editorial Staff When the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board speaks, it's a good idea to sit up and take notice. This isn't a nuclear scaremongering group with a partisan or phony environmental ax to grind. It's an independent review board, created by Congress in 1988, to provide non-partisan safety oversight of the nuclear weapons complex operated by the U.S. Department of Energy. The board's staff is comprised of some of the best and brightest minds in the field of nuclear science. And the only ax they grind is to provide straight talk to the public and the best safety advice to DOE and its contractors. What they have to say about the more than 24,000 tons of depleted uranium stored at Savannah River Site is scary stuff. Although some of the storage facilities and containers are safe, there's no guarantee they all are. Indeed, many of the 36,000 fifty-five-gallon drums in which the depleted uranium is stored, the review board says in a letter to DOE, "show signs of long-term and active corrosion." Even though there appears to be no leakage, "since only a small percentage of the drums can be surveilled ... one cannot be completely confident that none have leaked or are leaking." Other forms of "packaging" the depleted uranium, reports the panel, "have resulted in significant combustible loading" which could contribute to starting a dangerous toxicological fire. The depleted uranium problem was first brought to DOE's attention in 1998, and despite assurances it would be dealt with, little progress has been made since. Most worrisome is that containers and facilities haven't even been maintained or upgraded enough to ensure the health and safety of workers and the public or to protect the environment. The board urges quick action to get the growing problem under control. Everyone living in SRS' shadow should second the motion. The site's budget is about $1.5 billion and it's forever spending multi-millions starting up and then abandoning experimental programs - the most recent being the costly "melt and dilute" project earlier this month. It's time to take some of those big bucks and spend it on routine maintenance and upkeep that could prevent an environmental tragedy, or worse. For safety's sake, it's time DOE and SRS get moving. Take the review board's advice: Fix the site's storage needs and then develop a program to get rid of the depleted uranium. No more laxness or procrastination. It's too dangerous. And this time: Get it right. ***************************************************************** NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: *****************************************************************