***************************************************************** 04/24/02 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 10.104 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POLICY 1 US: Tax Vote Agreement Clears Way for Action On Energy Legislation 2 US: Another View: Bad decisions by well-paid TVA managers NUCLEAR REACTORS 3 Chernobyl victims skeptical about radioactive zone's 4 US: Post-9/11, Opposition to Indian Point Plant Grows 5 US: PPL's Susquehanna Unit 1 Reactor Completes Planned Outage 6 US: NRC To Meet With Operators Of Wisconsin Reactor On Safety 7 Defective pipe, bad welding caused small radiation leaks at Japanese 8 Czech nuclear plant near Austrian border restarted 9 US: More security for nuclear sites 10 US: NRC To Meet With Operators Of Wisconsin Reactor On Safety 11 Czech nuclear plant near Austrian border restarted 12 AU: Guide outlines nuclear emergency procedures. 13 Belarusian parliament sums up cost of Chernobyl accident NUCLEAR SAFETY 14 US: North Jerseyans left out of iodide pill program 15 EU's De Palacio Seeks EU-wide Nuclear Safety Standards 16 Russia: Greenpeace voices concern over security at nuclear NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 17 Irish Sellafield protesters in postal blitz on UK 18 US: Five Yucca Mt lies 19 US: Kazakhstan to up uranium output 20 US: Yucca veto override officially underway 21 US: U.S. making right N-waste decision 22 US: Colo. Gov. Owens finds irony in nuke waste furor 23 Hazardous materials signs a ‘definite concern’ 24 US: Tauzin Delivers Statement On Yucca Mountain 25 US: Tauzin, Barton, Energy Secretary Abraham To Hold News Conference 26 US: House panel votes for Yucca 27 US: Governor to testify before House panels on Yucca concerns 28 US: yucca Letter: A compelling reason to donate 29 US: Transportation, Yucca hearings will coincide 30 US: List says Vegas ought to get maglev train as reward for Yucca 31 US: Religions mostly mum on Yucca dump 32 US: Wilderness Advocates Argue Against Rail Spur to N-Storage Site 33 US: Rep. Berkeley testimony on Yucca 34 US: Berkeley: "One Minute" Floor Speech on Yucca Mountain 35 US: Another leak found at the Ranger uranium mine 36 US: Gibbons Foreshadows National Nuclear Waste Disaster 37 US: AU: Distressing levels of uranium contamination found near Range 38 US: AU: Minister calls for Senate inquiry into uranium mine. 39 National nuclear company for burying foreign waste in Kazakhstan NUCLEAR WEAPONS 40 MPs question 'nuclear upgrade' of Israel's Jaguar bombers 41 US: Create a new Cabinet post 42 US: U.S. takes claim of `dirty bomb' seriously 43 Briefing: al-Qaeda and 'dirty bombs' 44 The Mechanics Of A 'Dirty Bomb' 45 U.S. negotiator leaves Russia early after talks on nuclear 46 Russian nuclear power minister mulls role on international US DEPT. OF ENERGY 47 Is security good enough at Oak Ridge plant? 48 No federal layoffs anticipated in Oak Ridge 49 Energy Department wasting millions on old buildings 50 Y-12 protesters feel justified in blocking roadways ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 Tax Vote Agreement Clears Way for Action On Energy Legislation (washingtonpost.com) Bill Faces Tough House-Senate Conference By Helen Dewar Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, April 24, 2002; Page A04 The Senate, weary from a two-month struggle, yesterday cleared the way for passage of energy legislation later this week after Democrats agreed to Republican demands for a vote by June 28 on a permanent repeal of the federal estate tax. Elimination of the estate tax would take 60 votes, and it was not clear yesterday whether Republicans could muster that many. As it moved on to other energy issues, the Senate rejected, 68 to 31, a proposal by California and New York senators to scuttle a provision to triple the amount of corn-based ethanol to be used as an additive in gasoline. Critics called the proposal a giveaway to agribusiness interests that would lead to higher prices and shortages at the pump. But it was a priority for Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) and other farm state senators, who argued that it would help produce cleaner-burning gasoline while reducing dependence on foreign oil and helping farmers. An agreement on taxes ensured that the energy bill will include $14 billion in tax incentives to increase energy production and to encourage greater conservation and more efficient energy usage, including tax breaks to produce hybrid cars and energy-saving appliances. The Senate tax proposals were roughly half the size of a $33 billion tax package approved by the House last year as part of its energy bill, which was tilted far more toward oil, gas, coal and nuclear production than the more conservation-oriented Senate measure. The Senate energy tax provisions were critical because without them, the Senate would have entered negotiations with the House without any officially approved energy-related tax provisions of its own, which senators said could undermine their leverage in producing a final compromise. As it is, the bill is something of a disappointment to both environmentalists and pro-drilling forces. Environmentalists lost a key battle early in the debate with the defeat of a proposal to mandate tough new fuel efficiency requirements for motor vehicles. And last week advocates of increased domestic production failed in their drive to allow drilling for oil and gas in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a proposal included in the House bill. "I think it's fair to say that neither side is completely satisfied with this legislation," said Daschle, while expressing satisfaction that "at long last we are going to come to some conclusion on this legislation." Daschle also noted that some significant proposals still await votes. One of them would require the government to issue regulations aimed at reducing motor vehicle fuel usage by 1 million barrels a day by 2015. The measure stops short of mandating fuel standards. With yesterday's agreement and an 86-13 vote to limit debate on the energy bill to no more than 30 hours, Daschle and others said they believe the bill could come to a final vote as early as Thursday. It would then go to a conference with the House, which could be long and difficult in light of their major differences. The tax on inherited estates was phased out by President Bush's 10-year, $1.35 trillion tax cut enacted last year. But because of budget constraints, those tax cuts will expire in 2010, meaning that the estate tax would come back into force in 2011. The House last week approved a bill permanently extending the tax cuts, including the estate tax. Daschle has vowed the Senate will reject the legislation. But Sens. Phil Gramm (R-Tex.) and Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) served notice they intend to keep pushing for a vote to extend the repeal of the estate tax until they get it, and Democrats were faced with the loss of the energy tax provisions unless they relented. Asked if he thought he had the votes to defeat the Gramm-Kyl proposal, Daschle responded, "We believe we will." But Gramm said he believed Republicans were within two votes of the 60 they will need. Daschle said Democrats would have one or more alternatives. He declined to spell them out, but earlier Democratic alternatives sought to raise the exemption so most farms and small businesses would not have to pay the tax. © 2002 The Washington Post Company ***************************************************************** 2 Another View: Bad decisions by well-paid TVA managers Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 12:15 p.m. on Wednesday, April 24, 2002 An editorial from The Chattanooga Times Since TVA continues to pay its top managers huge bonuses, it ought to get good advice for the money. Considering the board's undiscussed decision to scrap its first major, natural gas-fired electric generating plant after sinking $150 million in the project, TVA doesn't seem to be getting any. The decision to stop building the 510-megawatt plant, and the troubling miscalculation that admittedly underlies it, looks even worse for another reason. TVA is still considering pouring an estimated $1.7 billion into rebuilding a long-idled, 1,200-megawatt Browns Ferry nuclear power unit. Megawatt for megawatt, the nuclear plant would be more than twice as expensive for the power output as the natural gas-fired plant. The gas-fired plant would cost roughly $70 million per 100 megawatts. The Browns Ferry unit would cost at least $142 million per 100 megawatts to build. TVA says it is stopping the natural gas-fired plant, which was scheduled for completion in 2004, because of a falloff in projected power demand. It also says the nuclear plant would require fewer permanent workers and cheaper fuel. But it's hard to imagine that the 40 permanent employees for the gas-fired plant would be much more expensive than the staff required to run, secure and maintain a nuclear reactor. And as for fuel cost, surely TVA's equation does not factor in the cost -- or risk -- of handling and long-term storage of nuclear fuel. TVA's decision seems to merit little credit for good faith or sound thinking. All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 3 Chornobyl victims skeptical about radioactive zone's KPnews.com -- News about Ukraine Category: NATION 23 Apr 2002 redevelopment The Associated Press KYIV, April 23 - Representatives of Chornobyl victims' groups in Ukraine expressed skepticism Tuesday about initiatives to redevelop infrastructure in the isolated zone around the now-defunct Chornobyl nuclear plant. "The proposals to make the zone self-sufficient are groundless," said Pavlo Pokutny, an activist with Ukraine's Chornobyl Union, a non-governmental organization. U.N. Undersecretary-General for humanitarian affairs Kenzo Oshima visited Ukraine in early April, advocating a shift from humanitarian measures to sustainable economic development for the Chornobyl region's residents and for more than 200,000 people who helped clean up the world's worst nuclear accident. Pokutny spoke at a news conference in the capital Kyiv two days before the 16th anniversary of the explosion and fire at Chornobyl, which affected about 3.3 million Ukrainians, including 1.5 million children. Victims groups say they need special social support because of their health problems and because they were forced to evacuate their homes in the contaminated zone. All territory within 30 kilometers (18 miles) of the nuclear plant was evacuated and has been closed off to outsiders for years. The Head of the Chornobyl Invalids' Fund Anatoly Vovk said the worst affected of the 95,500 disabled victims receive a monthly pension of about 219 hryvna (dlrs 41) while others get as little as 129 hryvna (dlrs 24). And many of those payouts are long overdue. The government's debt to Chornobyl victims is 543 million hryvna (dlrs 100 million), he said. Vovk and Pokutny praised U.N. projects being developed to provide direct aid to specific victims, but stressed that Chornobyl zone development measures - including efforts to boost tourism to the region - are not realistic. "We signed agreements with domestic tourism agencies five years ago, but none of them functions," Pokutny said. "We'll travel there in 100 years, not earlier." About 7,500 foreigners have visited the Chornobyl zone over the past 15 years, mostly journalists and scientists who receive special permissions, he said. Chornobyl's No. 4 reactor exploded April 26, 1986 and sent a radioactive cloud over vast parts of then-Soviet Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and parts of western Europe. The plant was closed for good in 2000, but many environmental problems persist. In Russia, President Vladimir Putin signed a decree released Tuesday granting state awards to 25 so-called Russian "liquidators" who helped cleanup the aftermath of the disaster. Three of those honored have already died. © 2000 SputnikMedia.net. ***************************************************************** 4 Post-9/11, Opposition to Indian Point Plant Grows Editorials/Op-Ed April 24, 2002 By WINNIE HU Woodstock Times/Clearwater This September 1997 floating demonstration on the Hudson River against the Indian Point nuclear power plants attracted little attention then, but times have changed. BUCHANAN, N.Y., April 23 — It would have been a moment for the cameras, if only enough had shown up. As a flotilla of boats lined up here on the Hudson River in September 1997, the demonstrators aboard unfurled a bright yellow cloth emblazoned with "Crime Scene" in black marker in front of the Indian Point nuclear power plant. But the world was mourning the death of Diana, princess of Wales, and almost no one other than the most committed of opponents gave much thought to the hulking nuclear plant on the Hudson. So the publicity effort organized by environmental and antinuclear groups went largely unnoticed. How things have changed. Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, growing anxiety over the safety of nuclear power plants has transformed Indian Point from a fringe issue that only antinuclear crusaders care about to a mainstream concern, and not just for Westchester suburbanites, but for New York City and New Jersey residents, who had, until now, barely registered the plant's existence 40 miles north of Midtown Manhattan. This month alone, a headline in The New York Observer asked, "Chernobyl-on-Hudson?" In Bergen County, N.J., The Record published an article with the headline "Generating Fear: Indian Point Casts Nuclear Shadow Over North Jersey." The news media scrutiny reflects probably the biggest groundswell of opposition to Indian Point since its two working reactors started generating nuclear power in the 1970's, and one that has a growing number of residents calling for the plant's closing. Some 20 million people live within 50 miles of the plant, putting it near more people than any other nuclear plant in the country. The evacuation plan for the plant covers a 10-mile radius from the plant, but the federal government also has emergency readiness plans for a 50-mile "ingestion plume pathway" that includes New York City. "On Sept. 11, my whole sense of safety and security went down with the World Trade Center," said Maureen Ritter, 44, who lives in Suffern, N.Y., exactly 12.3 miles on the other side of the Hudson from the plant. She knows because she recently calculated the distance on a map. "Once you open your eyes, you can't shut them," Ms. Ritter said. "Believe me, I want to go back to finding matching socks for my children to wear in the morning, but I can't turn back." So Ms. Ritter and many others have taken a stand against Indian Point. More than a dozen grass roots groups in Westchester, Rockland and New York City are opposing the plant. A Web site for the New York City Campaign to Close Indian Point (nyccloseindianpoint.org) lists forums in churches in Greenwich Village, the South Bronx, and Park Slope in Brooklyn, and asks visitors to fill out an online petition. These community groups have banded together with environmental and civic organizations as the Indian Point Safe Energy Coalition to work toward the goal of decommissioning the plant. Riverkeeper, an environmental group best known for protecting the Hudson, has led the fight by raising $100,000 in donations, including about $25,000 from Rockefeller family members and foundations. It has also released a Marist Institute poll that showed that the majority of respondents who live within 50 miles of the plant want it shut down. Alex Matthiessen, executive director of Riverkeeper, said that since Sept. 11, his staff had received dozens of calls and letters from people who were concerned about the vulnerability of Indian Point's nuclear operations. Riverkeeper decided to respond. In the past, the group had mainly criticized Indian Point for killing fish in the Hudson. "This has not been a movement driven by antinuclear groups," he said. A growing number of local and state politicians have also joined the movement to close Indian Point, including Representative Nita M. Lowey and the two Democratic gubernatorial candidates, Andrew M. Cuomo and State Comptroller H. Carl McCall. Many others have voiced concerns about the plant. Gov. George E. Pataki, who grew up in Peekskill, just north of the plant, has not called for Indian Point to be closed, but has asked the federal government to reassess emergency guidelines for the plant. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is sponsoring a bill that would tighten security at Indian Point and other plants, expand the evacuation area, and stockpile potassium iodide tablets to protect residents from radiation-induced thyroid cancer. She visited Indian Point for the first time after the Sept. 11 attacks. "I think it certainly makes it very clear to me that building a plant in such a highly populated area raises serious issues," she said. Indian Point's owner, the Entergy Corporation, has countered with a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign in newspapers and radio that is intended to reassure the public. It has dropped the word "nuclear" from its name. Entergy made that change on Sept. 6, after buying the reactors from separate owners and uniting the work forces. Now the message is: "Indian Point Energy Center. Safe. Secure. Vital." Indian Point workers themselves have rallied against what they call the "campaign of misinformation" and "fear-mongering" by nuclear opponents. Mark Williams, a union coordinator for 600 workers at the plant, said they should know better than anyone if the plant is safe. "It's very frustrating, because we work there," he said. "They tend to make us out as ignorant canaries going into the mines. In reality, we're a well-educated, highly trained, professional work force." For years, antinuclear groups and others have railed against Indian Point's safety lapses, including a February 2000 radioactive leak that forced the Indian Point 2 reactor to shut down for nearly a year. As a result, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission heightened its scrutiny of Indian Point 2, and assigned it the worst performance rating of any reactor in the nation. (By contrast, the Indian Point 3 reactor is one of 73 plants that have the top performance rating.) But it was only after Sept. 11, when one of the planes that hit the World Trade Center flew along the Hudson almost directly above the plant, that the potential dangers of Indian Point became real for most people. The specter of a plane crashing into Indian Point sent shivers through sleepy enclaves up and down the Hudson, and gave anxious New York City residents and others something else to worry about. Even those who had never given much thought to Indian Point became openly fearful after diagrams of American nuclear plants were discovered in Qaeda strongholds in Afghanistan. Allegra Dengler, a Dobbs Ferry trustee, said that once she started learning about Indian Point, she became concerned about not only terrorism, but also the effects of low-level radiation and other problems. Now her aim is closing Indian Point, even if that increases the price of electricity. "People always care when their bills go up," she said. "But you have to weigh that against the risks." Ellen Wang, 27, who lives on the Upper West Side, said she downloaded a flier from the New York City Campaign to Close Indian Point Web site that listed the top 10 reasons. No. 1 was "It's too close!" She posted the flier on her bedroom door. "I don't worry about it all the time," she said. "But when I do, I get scared. It could be worse than Sept. 11." Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company | Privacy Information ***************************************************************** 5 PPL's Susquehanna Unit 1 Reactor Completes Planned Outage PPL CORPORATE LOGO PPL Corporation. (PR NewsFoto)[PM] ALLENTOWN, PA USA 08/31/2000 BERWICK, Pa., April 24 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The Unit 1 reactor at PPL's Susquehanna nuclear power plant in Luzerne County, Pa., returned to service overnight Wednesday (4/24) after completing its 12th planned refueling and inspection outage. (Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/19981015/PHTH025 ) During the outage, refueling teams replenished about 40 percent of the unit's uranium fuel, enabling the reactor to operate continuously for 24 months before its next refueling. Crews also performed preventive maintenance and made system upgrades to help ensure that Susquehanna safely generates the maximum amount of electricity. "These planned outages are a crucial part of the operating cycle at Susquehanna," said Herb Woodeshick, PPL Susquehanna's special assistant to the president. "Besides refueling, we take the time to examine multiple plant equipment components and identify actions for current and future outages to ensure plant safety and reliability." Of the more than 2,300 work items completed during the outage, crews refurbishing the main electrical generator, as well as installed new equipment that more accurately regulates and measures reactor feedwater flow so the unit can generate 14 megawatts more electricity. "These are examples of how we invest in equipment upgrades during these outages to improve our plant's performance," Woodeshick said. Since its last refueling and inspection outage two years ago, Unit 1 generated about 16 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity - enough to supply 1.6 million average PPL residential customers for a year. The Susquehanna plant has two boiling water reactors; Unit 1 began commercial operation in 1983, and Unit 2 came on line in 1985. Each reactor undergoes a refueling and inspection outage every 24 months during the spring when demand for electricity is lower than at other times of the year. The plant, located about seven miles north of Berwick, is owned jointly by PPL Susquehanna LLC and Allegheny Electric Cooperative Inc. and is operated by PPL Susquehanna. PPL Susquehanna is one of PPL Corporation's generating facilities. Headquartered in Allentown, Pa., PPL Corporation (NYSE: PPL) controls or owns more than 10,000 megawatts of generating capacity in the United States, sells energy in key U.S. markets, and delivers electricity to nearly 6 million customers in Pennsylvania, the United Kingdom and Latin America. SOURCE PPL Corporation Web Site: http://www.pplweb.com ***************************************************************** 6 NRC To Meet With Operators Of Wisconsin Reactor On Safety Tue Apr 23, 2:49 PM ET NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Tuesday that its staff will meet with the operators of the Point Beach nuclear station near Two Rivers, Wis., next week to discuss problems with the plant's cooling system. In early April, the NRC said it had given Nuclear Management Co . LLC, which operates the plant for Wisconsin Electric Power, its most serious rating for safety significance. Following a February inspection, NRC inspectors determined that the 1,022- megawatt, two-unit plant's auxiliary cooling system could fail to function in certain circumstances. Normal plant operations weren't affected, but the problem still warranted a preliminary "red" safety rating from the agency. However, the NRC said Nuclear Management took "prompt corrective actions" to fix the problem, initially detected last November. The purpose of the meeting, scheduled for Monday, April 29 , in Lisle, Ill. , is to hear the utility's evaluation of the cooling system problem, the NRC said. The information presented at the meeting will be used by NRC staff, along with its inspection findings, to determine the final safety significance of the problem. The NRC said it would be another three to four weeks after next week's meeting before a final decision is made. -By Jennifer Morrow, Dow Jones Newswires; 201-938-4377; jennifer.morrow@ dowjones.com Copyright (c) 2002 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. ***************************************************************** 7 Defective pipe, bad welding caused small radiation leaks at Japanese nuclear plant Wed Apr 24,11:01 AM ET TOKYO - Operators of a Japanese nuclear plant said Wednesday that a radioactive steam leak at the plant last year was caused by an accumulation of hydrogen in a pipe with a structural flaw. A small amount of radioactive steam leaked from the pipe, which broke during a routine test on Nov. 7, forcing Chubu Electric Co. to shut down the reactor. Investigators found that a design flaw made hydrogen accumulate in the pipe and burned it, said Makoto Tanaka, a Chubu Electric Co. spokesman. A small leakage of radioactive water two days later was caused by defective welding in a separate part of the reactor, Tanaka said Wednesday, when the company released results of its investigations into the incidents. Neither leak posed any danger to the outside environment or the inspectors who were at the facility at the time, the company has said. The plant is located in Hamaoka, 200 kilometers (120 miles) southeast of Tokyo. Japanese have become increasingly wary of nuclear power since a radiation leak at a fuel-reprocessing plant 110 kilometers (70 miles) northeast of Tokyo in 1999 killed two workers. Japan relies on nuclear power to supply 30 percent of its electricity. Copyright © 2002 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 8 Czech nuclear plant near Austrian border restarted AP Wed Apr 24,10:53 AM ET PRAGUE, Czech Republic - The disputed Temelin nuclear power plant near the Austrian border was restarted Wednesday after a two-month shutdown, an official said. Milan Nebesar, spokesman for the plant, said the reactor at the plant's first unit was restarted Wednesday and was producing a tiny fraction of its capacity of 1,000 megawatt. The energy produced by the reactor Wednesday was so small that Nebesar described it as only "a bit of heat." The plant was shut down Feb. 24 for a planned technical inspection. Faulty turbine valves also were replaced during the check. The plant is to be connected to the country's power grid after the reactor has reached a 30-percent output, Nebesar said, adding that should happen in coming days. The reactor's output will then be gradually raised to full capacity, and experts are to run a series of final tests. Testing at the first unit of the 2,000-megawatt plant based on Russian design and upgraded with U.S. technology started in November 2000, with commercial power production expected by the end of 2003. At the plant's second unit, preparatory works are expected to be completed next week, Nebesar said, adding that unit's reactor should be started next month. The Temelin plant, located just 50 kilometers (30 miles) from Austria's northern border, has caused heated arguments between the neighbors. Austrian politicians want the plant closed, saying it is unsafe. (nr/sl) Copyright © 2002 The Associated Press. ***************************************************************** 9 More security for nuclear sites [St. Petersburg Times Online: Opinion: Editorials and Letters] [http://www.tampabay.com/] A Times Editorial © St. Petersburg Times published April 24, 2002 Recently, the U.S. Department of Energy requested more money to maintain safeguards at U.S. nuclear weapons facilities. Often criticized in the past for lax security, the facilities are seen by some as particularly vulnerable to terrorist attacks. But DOE's request for $26-million "to adequately protect the public, our workers and the environment" was rejected by the White House. The Bush administration, apparently, is waiting for a new security plan to be completed before putting any more money into the effort. But according to U.S. Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., the nation cannot afford to wait. Ten DOE sites reportedly contain enough weapons-grade plutonium and highly enriched uranium to build a crude atomic bomb, Markey said. Two of those facilities are near densely populated Denver and the San Francisco Bay area. He fears that terrorists on a suicidal mission could gain control of a nuclear weapons site and either build a bomb or use conventional explosives to detonate a "dirty bomb" that would spread deadly radioactive material. "Recent press reports have detailed both al-Qaida members' attempts to obtain nuclear materials as well as their desire to attack U.S. nuclear facilities," Markey said in a letter to President Bush, requesting that the funds be released. Terrorism scenarios such as the one described by Markey are no longer unthinkable. The White House is assuring Americans that security is adequate at nuclear weapons sites, yet the history of those facilities suggests otherwise. Considering the magnitude of the threat, President Bush should leave nothing to chance. He should work with Congress to give the DOE the funds necessary to enact emergency measures while it works on a more permanent security plan. ***************************************************************** 10 NRC To Meet With Operators Of Wisconsin Reactor On Safety Tue Apr 23, 2:49 PM ET NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Tuesday that its staff will meet with the operators of the Point Beach nuclear station near Two Rivers, Wis., next week to discuss problems with the plant's cooling system. In early April, the NRC said it had given Nuclear Management Co . LLC, which operates the plant for Wisconsin Electric Power, its most serious rating for safety significance. Following a February inspection, NRC inspectors determined that the 1,022- megawatt, two-unit plant's auxiliary cooling system could fail to function in certain circumstances. Normal plant operations weren't affected, but the problem still warranted a preliminary "red" safety rating from the agency. However, the NRC said Nuclear Management took "prompt corrective actions" to fix the problem, initially detected last November. The purpose of the meeting, scheduled for Monday, April 29 , in Lisle, Ill. , is to hear the utility's evaluation of the cooling system problem, the NRC said. The information presented at the meeting will be used by NRC staff, along with its inspection findings, to determine the final safety significance of the problem. The NRC said it would be another three to four weeks after next week's meeting before a final decision is made. -By Jennifer Morrow, Dow Jones Newswires; 201-938-4377; jennifer.morrow@ dowjones.com [http://dowjones.com] (This story was originally published by Dow Jones Newswires) Copyright (c) 2002 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved Copyright © 2002 Dow Jones. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 11 Czech nuclear plant near Austrian border restarted AP Wed Apr 24,10:53 AM ET PRAGUE, Czech Republic - The disputed Temelin nuclear power plant near the Austrian border was restarted Wednesday after a two-month shutdown, an official said. Milan Nebesar, spokesman for the plant, said the reactor at the plant's first unit was restarted Wednesday and was producing a tiny fraction of its capacity of 1,000 megawatt. The energy produced by the reactor Wednesday was so small that Nebesar described it as only "a bit of heat." The plant was shut down Feb. 24 for a planned technical inspection. Faulty turbine valves also were replaced during the check. The plant is to be connected to the country's power grid after the reactor has reached a 30-percent output, Nebesar said, adding that should happen in coming days. The reactor's output will then be gradually raised to full capacity, and experts are to run a series of final tests. Testing at the first unit of the 2,000-megawatt plant based on Russian design and upgraded with U.S. technology started in November 2000, with commercial power production expected by the end of 2003. At the plant's second unit, preparatory works are expected to be completed next week, Nebesar said, adding that unit's reactor should be started next month. The Temelin plant, located just 50 kilometers (30 miles) from Austria's northern border, has caused heated arguments between the neighbors. Austrian politicians want the plant closed, saying it is unsafe. (nr/sl) Copyright © 2002 The Associated Press. ***************************************************************** 12 AU: Guide outlines nuclear emergency procedures. 24/4/2002. ABC News Online [Australian Broadcasting Corporation Online] Southern Sydney residents are about to get their first official guide on what to do in a nuclear emergency. The residents surround the Lucas Heights facility, which contains a 1950s research reactor, scheduled to be shutdown and replaced by a new one during the next few years. The brochure recommends people and animals be taken indoors, and that windows be shut and air conditioning closed down to stop radiation entering buildings or cars. It outlines the responsibilities of emergency services and gives contact numbers. It says the health authorities will issue iodine tablets if radiation doses are high enough that thyroid glands have to be protected. Although the Australian Radiation Protection Authority has awarded a building licence for the new reactor, it says there still has to be an independent review of emergency arrangements for accidents or attacks before the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation can apply to operate the new reactor. © 2002 Australian Broadcasting Corporation ***************************************************************** 13 Belarusian parliament sums up cost of Chernobyl accident BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Apr 24, 2002 Minsk, 24 April: Belarus has been living "under global radioactive contamination" for 16 years, Vadzim Papow, speaker of the Belarusian House of Representatives [lower house of parliament], said while opening the annual parliamentary hearing on Chernobyl on 24 April. The 1986 reactor explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in neighbouring Ukraine affected every fifth Belarusian, including 500,000 children, the speaker said. The government's 30-year estimate of damage to Belarus from Chernobyl is 235bn dollars. The country spends 10 to 20 per cent of its budget on dealing with the Chernobyl aftermath, but despite the great expense, "we have failed to achieve the desired results", Papow said. The hearing focuses on progress under the Belarusian 2001-05 Chernobyl programme and measures to be taken under the programme in 2002. Participants include Uladzimir Tsalko, chairman of the Council of Ministers Committee on Chernobyl Disaster Relief, and senior officials of the ministries of economics, finance, education, and health. Source: Belapan news agency, Minsk, in English 0955 gmt 24 Apr 02 /© BBC Monitoring ***************************************************************** 14 North Jerseyans left out of iodide pill program NorthJersey.com - North Jersey News Tuesday, April 23, 2002 By BOB GROVES Staff Writer In the event of a nuclear disaster, residents in North Jersey should probably just head for the hills, said state officials who received thousands of free federal thyroid-cancer prevention pills for people in the rest of New Jersey on Monday. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission shipped 722,008 doses of the drug, potassium iodide, to New Jersey for residents who live within a 10-mile radius of any nuclear power plant that might experience a radioactive leak in an accident or terrorist attack. People in Bergen and Passaic counties will not get the pills, however, because the closest nuclear reactor is at Indian Point in Westchester County, N.Y., which is more than 15 miles away. But this should not put North Jersey residents at a disadvantage, New Jersey Health Commissioner Clifton R. Lacy said Monday. "The 10-mile radius was established by the NRC as the range that has the greatest increased risk to the plume [of airborne radioactivity], and therefore the greatest need for prophylactic treatment" against escaping radiation, Lacy said from Trenton. People living outside the 10-mile limit have "a better chance for evacuation and seeking shelter, which are the primary responses to radiological release," he said. Those who live within 10 miles of a nuclear site should also evacuate in an emergency, Lacy said. But, the state will distribute two free doses of KI -Ÿ the chemical designation for the pills -Ÿ for each adult and child living near the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station in Lacey Township, Ocean County, and the Salem I and Salem II and Hope Creek stations on Artificial Island in Lower Alloways Creek, Salem County. "The use of KI is just an adjunct" to evacuation and shelter, he said. Although the pills are earmarked for specific regions, "If there were a threat or risk to any part of the state, we'd move the tablets to protect our people from that risk," Lacy said. Officials in Bergen and Passaic counties did not seem worried Monday about being excluded. "We're not particularly put out that we're not on the list to get the pills because, frankly, we don't know the value of this program for Bergen County," said Thom Ammirato, spokesman for County Executive William "Pat" Schuber and for Sgt. Dwane Razzetti, director of the county's Office of Emergency Management. "We're not in the 10-mile zone, and there seems to be some debate about how effective the KI program would be," Ammirato said. "There's also a lot of logistical problems with distribution." Bergen County would not stockpile its own supply of KI pills "unless they could show some real benefit,'' he said. "We're certainly watching what other areas do. But at this point, we don't think it's something we have to be concerned about." Ammirato said. Passaic County is leaving the decision to state and federal health officials, a spokeswoman for county health officer Michael Guarino said Monday. Guarino "has no comment at this time," Delores Choteborsky said. "Because the state Health Department has not provided his department with any information. [Guarino's] department hopes that the federal government is doing things according to proper policy and protocol," Choteborsky said. Lacy said it is "unclear" at the moment whether the pills will be distributed to residents as a precaution or stockpiled and handed out during an emergency, or some combination of the two. This will be decided the by Medprep -Ÿ New Jersey's Medical Emergency and Disaster Prevention and Response Expert Panel, he said. KI acts to prevent the body's absorption of radioactive iodine, a product of nuclear fission, which can cause cancer of the thyroid, a gland at the base of the neck that secretes hormones to regulate growth in children and metabolism in adults. New Jersey, the 11th of 34 qualified states to ask for the pills, had also asked the NRC for an additional 145,000 doses of the drug to cover potential population growth in the state over the next five years, but the agency has not responded to that request, Lacy said. KI, which retails at 17 cents per tablet, is also available over the counter, he said. Each tablet gives 24 hours' protection against the effects of radioactive iodine, Lacy said. People who stay in an exposed area will need more than two pills, and those who get a radioactive substance in their system would need two weeks' dosage for protection, he said. "The key is to get people evacuated and to shelter -Ÿ to take the first pill and get out, or get out and take the first pill. But nobody should start to take this medication without being told to do so" by emergency authorities, Lacy said.Alan Morris, president of Anbex, Inc., the Tampa, Fla.-based company that makes and distributes the pills, said it is "a fantasy" to think that people outside the 10-mile zone would be safe after a leak. Nuclear accidents, such as the one at Chernobyl in the former Soviet Union, showed that radioactive iodine can cause thyroid cancer in people 200 miles away from the source, Morris, a Denville native, said Monday. Copyright © 2002 North Jersey Media Group Inc. ***************************************************************** 15 EU's De Palacio Seeks EU-wide Nuclear Safety Standards Tue Apr 23,12:51 PM ET BRUSSELS -(Dow Jones)- European Union (news - web sites) Energy Commissioner Loyola de Palacio Tuesday called for E.U.-wide safety standards for nuclear plants and demanded that East European applicants to the bloc sign on to the proposed new strict rules. "The time has come to propose a common dimension of nuclear safety," de Palacio said at an E.U. Parliament committee meeting. Until now, no common standards exist and each of the E.U.'s 15 members set their own policy. Candidate countries must agree on a timetable for closing certain Soviet- designed nuclear power plants before the E.U. accepts them as new members, said E.U. Enlargement spokesman Jean-Christophe Filori. De Palacio's proposal won't be well received in some E.U. capitals. France and the U.K. have long opposed common nuclear safety standards over fears of losing control of an important part of their energy strategies. Nuclear energy has often emerged as a sore point between E.U. member states. Austrian and German citizens want to dismantle nuclear power plants and there are regular protests over shipments of nuclear fuel from Germany to France . But some E.U. member approve of E.U.-wide standards. Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel said last year that he'll seek agreement for common nuclear safety standards. De Palacio said citizens won't accept that the E.U. is strict with candidate countries, but not with current E.U. members. "In an enlarged Europe we can't ignore the danger of the lack of action in this field," she said. At this moment "we're not capable of offering our citizens certainty in the field of nuclear safety," she said. -By Matthew Newman,Dow Jones Newswires;322-285-0133;matthew.newman@ dowjones.com Copyright (c) 2002 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. ***************************************************************** 16 Russia: Greenpeace voices concern over security at nuclear installations BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Apr 24, 2002 Moscow, 24 April: The Russian office of Greenpeace is concerned over what it calls the inadequate protection of Russian nuclear installations from possible terrorist attacks. "At any moment, an accident could take place in Russia, the results of which could be compared to that of Chernobyl," the head of Greenpeace's anti-nuclear project, Maksim Shingarkin, told a news conference in Moscow. The protection and security of "one of the most radioactively dangerous installations of the Russian Ministry of Atomic Energy", a mining and chemical combine in Krasnoyarsk Territory, is insufficient, Shingarkin said. Greenpeace examined the security of this enterprise in February and March this year, which led the environmentalists to the conclusion that the facility is badly protected from unauthorized entry. Greenpeace forwarded corresponding documents to the Federal Security Service, which responded that "the protection of the mining and chemical combine is at a proper level", Shingarkin said. However, the environmentalist said he believes the enterprise is not properly protected. Source: Interfax news agency, Moscow, in English 1114 gmt 24 Apr 02 /© BBC Monitoring ***************************************************************** 17 Irish Sellafield protesters in postal blitz on UK Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2002 11:42:02 -0500 (CDT) Irish Sellafield protesters in postal blitz on UK REPUBLIC OF IRELAND: April 24, 2002 DUBLIN - A celebrity-backed Irish campaign against Britain's Sellafield nuclear plant culminates on Friday when thousands of protest postcards are due to be delivered to Prince Charles and Prime Minister Tony Blair. The campaign has been spearheaded by Ali Hewson, wife of U2 frontman Bono, supported by a string of well-known figures including pop group The Corrs, singers Ronan Keating and Samantha Mumba and Manchester United soccer captain Roy Keane. Norman Askew, chairman of Sellafield's owner British Nuclear Fuels, is also being targeted by the postcard campaign, which is backed by the Irish government. Sellafield, 110 miles (180 km) across the Irish Sea on England's northwest coast, has been a long-running source of friction between the two governments, and Irish fears have been heightened since the September 11 attacks on the United States. "If an accident happens at the plant, or if there is a terrorist attack, depending on which way the wind blows... vast parts of Ireland would be uninhabitable, for ever," said Hewson. Postcards have been delivered to homes throughout Ireland, urging people to sign and return them. The cards have also been on sale in shops and post offices. A spokesman for Ireland's postal service, An Post, said 700,000 cards had been received by Monday evening. An Post is collecting all the cards and will send them to Britain on Thursday for delivery Friday, the 16th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster. The postcard addressed to Blair shows a close up of a human eye, with the message: "Tony, look me in the eye and tell me I'm safe." Prince Charles, heir to the British throne and known for his interest in environmental issues, will receive a card depicting Ireland ravaged by nuclear fallout with the messages: "Greetings from Ireland" and "Charles - wish you were here?" The postcard addressed to Askew shows a pair of lips and the slogan: "Tell us the truth." Irish opponents of Sellafield say it pollutes the Irish Sea and presents a serious risk from accidents or terrorist attack. Last year Ireland unsuccessfully applied to the Hamburg based International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea for an injunction to block the start-up of a 472-million pound mixed oxide (MOX) fuel manufacturing plant at Sellafield. Britain first established nuclear facilities at Sellafield - formerly called Windscale - in the 1940s, and the world's first commercial nuclear power station opened there in 1956. Story by Alex Richardson REUTERS NEWS SERVICE ***************************************************************** 18 Five Yucca Mt lies Top Five Untruths from 4/18 House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee Hearing on Yucca Mountain Public Citizen Gold and Silver Medals Go to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham! · Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham: The proposed repository would consolidate U.S. nuclear waste in one location. Freshly irradiated nuclear fuel is thermally and radioactively too hot to handle and must be stored on site in a "cooling pool" for at least five years before it can be transported. This means that, even if a repository opens, there will be at least five years worth of nuclear waste (110-165 tons) stored on site at each operating reactor. Further, the proposed Yucca Mountain repository could not contain all the waste that U.S. nuclear reactors will generate in their licensed lifetimes. Repository capacity is capped at 77,000 tons, with 10 percent designated for DOE defense waste, whereas the current fleet of commercial reactors alone is expected to generate at least 99,000 tons of waste by 2035. Nuclear industry proposals to construct new reactors would result in yet more waste in excess of the proposed repository’s capacity. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham: Yucca Mountain is out in the middle of nowhere. No, Secretary Abraham, not only is this inaccurate, but it implies an unacceptable ethic that it’s okay to "waste" public land. Secretary Abraham (when questioned on waste transport): The NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) will designate routes. No, Secretary Abraham, that would be your job. The Department of Energy (DOE) is to suggest preferred routes in compliance with Department of Transportation regulations. The NRC's Yucca licensing rule has nothing to do with transport routes. Secretary Abraham: The decision on whether to establish a repository at Yucca Mountain should be left to the "neutral" and "objective" NRC. The NRC licensing rule is very narrow. Under it, the agency will not consider the suitability of the site, or the safety and feasibility of transporting waste to it. In fact, regulatory rollbacks have weakened NRC Yucca Mountain licensing standards. The role of Congress should not be downplayed in protecting health and safety. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, chair of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality (calming fears about terrorism): A test at Aberdeen Proving Ground resulted in no radiation release when a TOW missile was shot at the cask. But Rep. Barton, that’s only because it was an empty cask! The TOW missile blew a hole through the cask wall, which would certainly have resulted in radiation release and possibly damage to any fuel rods inside. ### ***************************************************************** 19 Kazakhstan to up uranium output BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Apr 23, 2002 Kazakhstan's national atomic company, Kazatomprom, plans to invest 22m dollars in production in 2002 and to manufacture 2,500 tonnes of natural uranium a year in the future, the Interfax-Kazakhstan news agency reported on 23 April, quoting the company's president, Mukhtar Dzhakishev. "The Kazatomprom [Kazakh atomic industry] national company plans to invest 22m dollars in developing production in 2002," Mukhtar Dzhakishev told journalists in the Kazakh capital, Astana, on 23 April. In a separate report issued on the same day, the Interfax-Kazakhstan news agency reported that Dzhakishev had also said that the company planned to produce 2,500 tonnes of natural uranium a year in the near future. Dzhakishev also said that this volume of uranium output would enable his company to preserve the "optimal level of profitability". Kazakhstan increased uranium production by 15 per cent in 2001 and by 28 per cent in 2000, the agency quoted the company's president as saying. The company is currently producing 5 per cent of the world's total uranium output and this figure will reach 7 per cent in 2005, he said. Source: Interfax-Kazakhstan news agency, Almaty, in Russian 1153 gmt 23 Apr 02 /© BBC Monitoring ***************************************************************** 20 Yucca veto override officially underway United Press International: By Scott R. Burnell UPI Science News From the Science & Technology Desk Published 4/23/2002 8:56 PM WASHINGTON, April 23 (UPI) -- Nevada's Yucca Mountain moved one step close to becoming the nation's nuclear waste storage site Tuesday when a House subcommittee overwhelmingly approved a bill to override the state's objections. The House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality voted 24-2 to favorably report House Joint Resolution 87, which the full committee will vote on Thursday. "Passage of this legislation is a victory for taxpayers, for nuclear safety and security, for energy reliability and for cleaner air," said Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, the subcommittee chairman and co-sponsor of the legislation. "Consumers of nuclear powered electricity have been contributing to the Nuclear Waste Fund for 20 years; (they) will finally be getting what they paid for." Barton and Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-La., the full committee chairman, were among those pointing out that overriding the veto will only give the Nuclear Regulatory Commission the chance to go through its licensing process with regard to Yucca. Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., said the NRC process would be open to the public, offering them another opportunity to weigh in on the issue. The bill is part of a very specific process laid out in the 1987 Nuclear Waste Policy Act, which directed the Department of Energy to study whether Yucca is suitable for a long-term waste depository. Even if the bill passes the committee and the full House, companion legislation in the Senate also must be passed to nullify the objection filed by Gov. Kenny Guinn, R-Nev., earlier this month. Apart from the silent presence of Rep. Shelly Berkley, D-Nev., in the audience, the bill's only opposition came from Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., and Rep. Bill Luther, D-Minn. Markey, while agreeing there is an immediate need to find a permanent solution to the waste problem, offered a passionate plea for the committee to "let science trump politics" in deciding on Yucca. "The president has decided to hand the nuclear Queen of Spades to the state of Nevada," Markey said. "He may have taken the heat off of some other states, but he is playing a very dangerous game with public health, safety and the environment." Other anti-Yucca groups, including Public Citizen and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, also offered harsh criticism of the process. "The United States should reject its current mismanaged programs that relies on changing the rules when the science isn't favorable to the nuclear industry," said Pierre Sadik, a staff attorney with PIRG. Yucca opponents, and even some of its supporters, continued to note the uncertainties and risks involved with transporting the waste across the country. Rep. John Shadegg, R-Ariz., responded with figures showing thousands of shipments of nuclear material have been completed around the world without any injuries occurring from radiation. The House Transportation Committee will examine the shipment issue in more detail Thursday. Copyright © 2002 United Press International ***************************************************************** 21 U.S. making right N-waste decision Wednesday, April 24, 2002 By Scott Northard Winston Churchill said, "You can always count on Americans to do the right thing . . . after they've tried everything else." For 40 years, this nation has put off making a decision about how to permanently dispose of nuclear waste. Now, this pressing national problem has reached a turning point: President Bush has endorsed Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham's recommendation to license and build an underground repository for high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Nevada's governor has exercised his right to veto the president's decision. The matter is now before Congress for final resolution. It's long past time to resolve this matter. The president's decision deserves support from all Americans, and the government must proceed with building the repository. Here's why : 1. Evidence gathered through extensive research over the past 20 years, at the cost of over $4 billion, shows that Yucca Mountain is more than suitable for a long-term storage facility for spent-nuclear fuel and other high-level nuclear wastes. Moreover, during the last 40 years, the Yucca Mountain area has been used for hundreds of above- and below-ground nuclear weapons tests. It's one of the most secure and remote places in the country, if not the world. 2. The Yucca Mountain proposal allows nuclear material to be sent to one place where it can be monitored, protected and placed underground in a secure, engineered storage facility. In the process, it will allow the government to clean up several other federal facilities and allow the nation's utilities to decommission more than a dozen shutdown nuclear power plants. These reasons alone justify moving forward with Yucca Mountain. 3. Since 1982, customers of U.S. utilities with nuclear power plants have committed more than $18 billion in payments and interest to a federal trust fund that was to finance safe disposal of spent-nuclear fuel from the nation's commercial reactors. The federal government promised it would begin taking the spent fuel in 1998 in exchange for those payments. Utility customers deserve to get what they paid for. 4. Spent fuel from commercial nuclear power plants is not the only high-level radioactive material destined for a national repository. The federal government has tons of highly radioactive materials left over from the nuclear weapons programs of the Cold War, and the U.S. Navy continues to discharge used fuel from its large fleet of nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers. Also, the United States currently is receiving more than 15,000 nuclear research reactor assemblies from 42 countries for storage and disposal in this country to prevent this weapons-grade nuclear material from getting into the hands of terrorists. All of this material must be sent to Yucca Mountain for safe disposal as well. Nuclear power opponents have launched fear campaigns about transporting used fuel from reactor sites to Yucca Mountain. They conveniently ignore the facts: thousands of commercial spent fuel shipments have been conducted safely in this country for the last 40 years, including through Utah, with no leakage of any radioactive materials and no injuries or fatalities resulting from exposure to the cargo. Shippers of other materials would love to have the enviable safety record of the nuclear industry. My own company has had extensive experience with the safe shipment of spent nuclear fuel. Xcel Energy's predecessor — Northern States Power Co. — in the 1980s made 33 shipments of spent fuel by rail from our Monticello plant in central Minnesota to a reprocessing facility in Illinois. Even earlier, an experimental nuclear reactor in Elk River, Minn., that had operated in the 1960s was decommissioned, and when it was shut down in 1970, its spent fuel safely was shipped away. Today, the reactor site is a parking lot. Amazingly, more than 30 years later, we still are arguing about whether spent fuel can be safely transported. It's time to resolve this pressing national issue. It's simply the right thing to do. Scott Northard is director, Nuclear Asset Management, Excel Energy, Minneapolis. © 2002 Deseret News Publishing Company ***************************************************************** 22 Colo. Gov. Owens finds irony in nuke waste furor Rocky Mountain News: Local By News Staff April 24, 2002 Gov. Bill Owens finds it ironic that South Carolina Gov. Jim Hodges opposes accepting Rocky Flats' plutonium in his state for disposal -- considering that much of it came from South Carolina to begin with. Owens released copies of a letter he wrote to Hodges urging him to reconsider his opposition to the shipment of plutonium to the federal government's Savannah River Site in South Carolina. Hodges has threatened to set up blockades on his state's roads and lie in front of the trucks, if necessary. Owens noted the U.S. Department of Energy had made major concessions to address Hodges' concerns. "I also thought you might find it interesting that almost 75 percent of the plutonium that will be shipped from Rocky Flats actually originated in South Carolina," Owens wrote his fellow governor. "It was brought to Colorado from South Carolina to make nuclear triggers at Rocky Flats." Owens said in 1999 he had similar concerns when then-Energy Secretary Bill Richardson in the Clinton administration asked for his reaction about shipping waste to Colorado from Idaho. "The reason I agreed to the secretary's request, despite the obvious political advantages to me in resisting, was because I thought that Colorado's best interest was in working toward a national solution to the issue of nuclear waste." © The E.W. Scripps Co. ***************************************************************** 23 Hazardous materials signs a ‘definite concern’ The Northwestern [mail@jfitzhenry@smgpo.gannett.com] Tue 23 Apr-2002 A hazardous material sign is posted on a tank con-tainer of sulfur dioxide, which is parked on the Hydrite Chemical plant property on 28th Avenue in Oshkosh Monday. Northwestern Photo by Shu-Ling Zhou By Jim Collar of the Northwestern Those small diamond-shaped signs posted on semitrailer trucks and train cars make it easy for the public to iden-tify hazardous contents. If it’s easy for us, it’s easy for terrorists. "There’s a definite concern that people are reading and using those placards for potentially dangerous pur-poses," said Winnebago County emergency manage-ment director Don Wilmot. That concern may lead to changes in how hazardous materials are identified. The U.S. Transportation Security Administration will review regulations for the posting of hazardous material signage as part of continuing anti-terrorism efforts. Fed-eral law requires the signs on vehicles transporting haz-ardous materials as a means to assist emergency workers in the event of an accident. The bright colored signs with words such as "explo-sives," "poison," "radioactive" or "dangerous" give firefighters immediate clues on how to react during crashes or spills. At the same time, reports following Sept. 11 indicate that day-to-day chemical transport could be a big risk for American communities. After Sept. 11, there was speculation that people close to the Sept. 11 hijackers attempted to get licenses to haul hazardous materials. National officials said work must now be done to balance the concerns of accidental threats with concerns of deliberate terrorist acts. Opinions differ on how to achieve both goals. Firefighting organizations across the country have de-fended current sign regulations. Others question the use-fulness of the signs. The law has a very important purpose, though firefight-ers depend on much more than labels before attempting to remedy an emergency situation, said Joe Frank, a bat-talion chief at the Oshkosh Fire Department. Wilmot said crews most often turn to loading bills and other documents to identify chemical contents. When the first reports of the 2000 chemical fire came through to the Oshkosh Fire Department, officials first sought confirmation of the boxcar’s contents. Properties of the chemical demanded accurate identification. If firefighters had followed general protocol and sprayed water on the blaze, they would have further fueled the fire that caused the evacuation of hundreds of homes. When it comes to hazardous materials, it’s always critical to go beyond the signs and get certain confirmation, Frank said. It’s always possible that truck drivers could pick up new cargo and neglect to post updated signage, he said. z "The human factor is always there," Frank said. "A high percentage of the time, the label does match what’s inside, but then again, you never know." Wilmot said terrorism planning continues at all levels of government. Businesses are also doing their part to lessen terrorist risks. The concerns are there. In Wisconsin, right-to-know laws make public the types of chemicals and their quantities at manufacturing plants. That right-to-know could conflict with the need to protect plants from terrorists, Wilmot said. Dick Strand, a regional representative of Hydrite Chemi-cal Company, said the company has taken efforts to maintain safety and security at the Oshkosh plant. He would not reveal the type of security measures taken. It’s still undetermined whether chemical identification policies will change or what changes could take place. Changes could range from new technologies that iden-tify chemical content or subtler signage. Debate regarding signage on hazardous material haulers illustrates that anti-terrorism planning isn’t over. Wilmot said elimination of the signs wouldn’t necessarily com-promise safety in spills or accidents. "It’s nice to eyeball a boxcar for a placard to get some indication of the chemicals," Wilmot said, "but we can find out in other ways." Jim Collar: (920) 426-6676 or jcol-lar@smgpo.gannett.com © Copyright 2001, The Northwestern. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 24 Tauzin Delivers Statement On Yucca Mountain Committee on Energy and Commerce News Release: 04.23.2002 [Chairman Tauzin] Committee News Release The Committee on Energy and Commerce W.J. "Billy" Tauzin, Chairman Contact Peter Sheffield 202.225.5735 [http://energycommerce.house.gov] WASHINGTON (April 23) -- House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Billy Tauzin (R-LA) is scheduled to deliver the following remarks today at an Energy subcommittee markup of H.J. Res. 87, on approving the Yucca Mountain site as a permanent repository for nuclear waste: “Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this important markup. Last week the Subcommittee heard from all sides of the Yucca Mountain debate. The Subcommittee received written and oral testimony from witnesses who study, regulate, and oversee the Yucca Mountain site. We heard from witnesses that strongly oppose opening Yucca, including Members of the Nevada Congressional delegation, the Governor of the State of Nevada, and Public Citizen. We also heard from witnesses who strongly support opening Yucca, including the nuclear industry itself, public utility commissioners, and a labor union. “After last week’s hearing and, indeed, literally years and years of study, I continue to believe there are many negative risks posed by the failure to develop a single centralized disposal site for nuclear wastes. However, I also believe it is unacceptable to proceed with the construction of a disposal site that is considered unsafe or cannot contain nuclear wastes. “We heard a lot of different opinions about Yucca Mountain at last week’s hearing, but not a single witness identified a significant scientific or technical reason not to move forward with this important project. “A vote in favor of H.J. Res. 87 will move the Yucca Mountain project forward to the next stage of review. But even with Congressional approval of this resolution, construction will not proceed at Yucca Mountain unless it passes strict health and safety requirements set by EPA and the NRC. “For the sake of long-term public health and safety, and our national security interests, it is absolutely critical that we move to develop Yucca Mountain. “In its January letter to Congress, the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board stated: ‘eliminating all uncertainty associated with estimates of repository performance would never be possible at any repository site. Policy-makers will decide how much scientific uncertainty is acceptable at the times various decisions are made…’. “On February 15, 2002, the President recommended -- on the advice of DOE Secretary Spencer Abraham -- that Congress approve the Yucca Mountain site, even if the State of Nevada disapproves. “Based on my review and understanding of DOE’s extensive scientific work at the Yucca Mountain site, I am prepared to support this resolution. Thank you Mr. Chairman.” - 30 - Related Documents [http://energycommerce.house.gov/107/keywords/Yucca_Mountain.htm] [http://energycommerce.house.gov/107/keywords/Energy.htm] [http://www.house.gov] [ ] The Committee on Energy and Commerce 2125 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 (202) 225-2927 [http://com-notes.house.gov/cchear/submit.nsf/1900807eb66566a0852 56726006cc80c?OpenForm] ***************************************************************** 25 Tauzin, Barton, Energy Secretary Abraham To Hold News Conference on Yucca Vote Committee on Energy and Commerce News Release: 04.24.2002 [Chairman Tauzin] Committee News Release The Committee on Energy and Commerce W.J. "Billy" Tauzin, Chairman Contact Peter Sheffield 202.225.5735 Home [http://energycommerce.house.gov] [http://energycommerce.house.gov/schedule.htm] Search [http://energycommerce.house.gov/107/search.htm] WASHINGTON (April 24) – Immediately following Thursday’s (April 25) House Energy and Commerce Committee markup of a joint resolution, approving Yucca Mountain, Nevada, as a permanent repository for nuclear waste, Chairman Billy Tauzin (R-LA) -- along with Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality Chairman Joe Barton (R-TX) and Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham -- will hold a news conference on the importance of this resolution to America’s future. WHO: House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Billy Tauzin (R-LA), Energy and Air Quality Subcommittee Chairman Joe Barton (R-TX) and Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham WHAT: News conference on the Energy and Commerce Committee’s markup of Yucca Mountain as a permanent repository for nuclear waste WHEN: Thursday, April 25, at 11:30 a.m. or immediately following the markup WHERE: Room 2123, Rayburn House Office Building Note: Thursday’s Full Committee markup of the joint resolution is scheduled to begin at 9:30 a.m. in room 2123 Rayburn HOB. ***************************************************************** 26 House panel votes for Yucca Wednesday, April 24, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal Lawmakers back nuke disposal site By STEVE TETREAULT STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- The drive to override Gov. Kenny Guinn's nuclear waste veto began with a lopsided House subcommittee vote Tuesday in favor of the Yucca Mountain Project. The House energy and air quality subcommittee voted 24-2 to approve the Nevada site for a repository that will store about 77,000 tons of highly radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel. Nevada leaders have argued that terrorism concerns justify pausing the Yucca Mountain Project, but a number of lawmakers who voted Tuesday said Congress should move faster, not slower, to remove nuclear waste from utilities in their states and send it West. "If we're concerned about terrorism, it's time for us to move forward with speed and vigor," said Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich. "Failure to do that would be highly improper." The vote does not override Guinn's veto. The next step is scheduled for Thursday, when the House Energy and Commerce Committee is scheduled to vote on the override resolution. The full House could vote on the override as soon as next week. Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., attended the hour-long meeting and looked on as the committee clerk conducted the roll call. "I thought it was important for a representative from Nevada to stand up and be counted," she said afterward. "I wanted each one of them, when they voted against the state, to look me in the face." The margin was no surprise. The House subcommittee has a pro-energy focus, and many of its members are from states with utilities that want the government to remove the spent nuclear fuel at their sites. "We knew going in we were going to lose this and lose it big," Berkley said. "This was a done deal long ago." Fourteen Republicans and 10 Democrats voted to override Guinn. Democrats Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Bill Luther of Minnesota voted in support of Guinn's veto. "What we are doing today is a historic mistake," Markey said. He said Congress was compounding a mistake it made in 1987 when it singled out Nevada because powerful congressmen and senators didn't want nuclear waste stored in their own states. "We are witnessing the corrosion of the public trust," he said. "This committee is letting politics trump science, and it's wrong for the health of the country." Most others spoke in favor of moving the project forward and allowing a Nuclear Regulatory Commission review. "I'm not prepared to say close the project and go back to square one," said Rep. Thomas Barrett, D-Wis. Members varied in their concerns about transportation safety. Debating nuclear waste shipments now "is like putting the cart before the horse. We need to settle on a site before we settle on transportation to the site," said Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill. Rep. Karen McCarthy, D-Mo., said she worried about proper training for emergency workers and whether states would have any authority over shipments of highly radioactive materials. She said trucks already carrying nuclear materials have rumbled through Kansas City, Mo., on Interstate 70 while 40,000 people watched the Royals play professional baseball nearby. In the end, she voted for Yucca Mountain anyway. Afterward, subcommittee Chairman Joe Barton, R-Texas, said the vote indicated broad support in Congress for nuclear waste burial at Yucca Mountain. "We are going to override the governor's veto in the House, and I have every reason to believe the veto is going to be overridden in the Senate," he said. "I've got nothing but respect for all the (Nevada) delegation, but like it or not, (Yucca Mountain) is a good site to store that stuff," Barton said. "At some point most people accept reality," he said. The Senate is expected to vote on Yucca Mountain between late June and late July. Both bodies need a majority vote to override the Nevada governor and finalize the site selection. The override would authorize the Energy Department to prepare repository license applications to the NRC. Earlier this month, Guinn vetoed President Bush's approval of the Yucca Mountain site. The veto started a countdown for Congress, which has until late July to override the state's disapproval. Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002 ***************************************************************** 27 Governor to testify before House panels on Yucca concerns Wednesday, April 24, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal Guinn returning to Washington By STEVE TETREAULT STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- Gov. Kenny Guinn is scheduled to arrive in Washington tonight, his second visit this month to lobby Congress against the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. Guinn is scheduled to testify Thursday before two House subcommittees examining nuclear waste transportation at a combined hearing. The governor is expected to demand the federal government halt the repository program because the Energy Department hasn't conducted adequate studies of potential accidents and terrorism threats involving radioactive fuel shipments to the Nevada site. The hearing was organized by Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Don Young, R-Alaska, who shares Nevada's concerns about the safety of spent nuclear fuel moved by truck or rail to a repository 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The highways and transit subcommittee and the railroad subcommittee will hear testimony from about a dozen people. State Sen. Jon Porter, a Republican candidate for Nevada's new congressional district, was granted time to testify. Reps. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., and Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., are scheduled to speak, as are Nevada transportation consultants Robert Halstead and James David Ballard. Representatives from the Energy Department, the Transportation Department, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Federal Railroad Administration have been invited. Ed Hamberger, president of the Association of American Railroads, and Edward Davis, president of NAC International, a nuclear waste shipping firm, also will testify. Ballard, a professor at Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids, Mich., has written on terrorism and nuclear security. He will tell lawmakers they should insist on a "robust and inclusive" assessment of terrorism threats before taking further action on Yucca Mountain. "Transportation terrorism is a very real threat," he said in an advance copy of his testimony obtained Tuesday. "There must be adequate consideration given to the risks posed by massive numbers of radioactive waste shipments." Ballard said in an interview that the mayor of Muskegon, Mich., was surprised to learn recently that nuclear waste might be shipped by barge from the city's port on Lake Michigan. "That's going to be the process all across the country," Ballard said. "You can't approve this project before these people know what's coming." Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002 ***************************************************************** 28 yucca Letter: A compelling reason to donate Las Vegas SUN Today: April 24, 2002 at 9:09:18 PDT Normally I either disagree with, or I am disinterested in, the contents of Brian Greenspun's columns. However, his April 21 column, "Nuclear confrontation," literally hit me where I live. Then on the next page, Erin Neff's column about "Yucca Bucks" gave me a place to put my money where my mouth (and heart) is. As a 30-year resident of Las Vegas, I find it astounding that anyone who lives in this state could ever believe that storing nuclear waste here is a good thing. Former Gov. Robert List must either be senile or brainwashed to believe that it will bring prosperity to our state. Or he must badly need the big bucks they're paying him to parrot this line. I would think we should have learned something from past history. Yes, atomic testing brought jobs to some of our residents, but it also brought sickness to people who were exposed to the ensuing fallout. And we still don't really know the long-term effects on the water table, the wildlife, air quality, etc., for future generations. I believe the nuclear industry uses whatever means it can to justify its own existence, even "fairy tales about the gold at the end of the rainbow." Just remember, fairy tales always had a monster, an ogre, or some evil being, who was usually defeated by someone else's goodness. If nuclear waste goes awry in some manner, be it traffic accident, leakage, earthquake, or whatever, there may not be someone else's goodness still here to defeat the havoc it wreaks. What a legacy to leave to our children, children's children, ad infinitum. As for me, I plan to pay my Yucca Buck-plus to the Nevada Protection Fund. In my small way, I will fight for my community as long as I have breath. It's good to know I will be in good company. NANCY HARDIN All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 29 Transportation, Yucca hearings will coincide Las Vegas SUN Today: April 24, 2002 at 11:14:14 PDT By Benjamin Grove WASHINGTON -- The House Transportation Committee has scheduled a Thursday hearing on transporting nuclear waste that gives Nevada leaders a chance to press their arguments against a Yucca Mountain repository. But the testimony will most likely fall on deaf ears. At the same time in another room, the House Energy and Commerce Committee is scheduled to vote on -- and likely approve -- the plan to ship the nation's nuclear waste to Nevada. That will set up a vote in the full House, which is expected to overwhelmingly approve a Yucca dump as early as next week. The hearing and vote underscore the House's sense of urgency to approve Yucca while Nevada lawmakers scramble to convince colleagues that shipping waste across their states would be dangerous. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, a key Yucca advocate and driving force on the repository in the House Energy Committee, said there were no transportation issues that need to be worked out in Congress before lawmakers vote. Barton, energy and air quality subcommittee chairman, said his panel would hold hearings on waste transportation issues in the coming years, well before waste is actually shipped to the site. "You'll see pretty heavy discussion on the transportation issue," Barton said. "We're certainly going to have (congressional) oversight." Still, Nevada officials requested the transportation hearing to air concerns before the House votes. Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said it was important to put concerns on the risks on the record now. But she said she had no illusions that the hearing would prompt more House members to oppose the controversial dump. "I have no high hopes, but I have an expectation that our point of view will be fully explained and that those members who may be on the fence will get a different perspective by the end of the hearing," Berkley said. Transportation Committee Chairman Don Young, R-Alaska, agreed to hold the hearing as a courtesy to Berkley, a committee member, and Republican ally Rep. Jim Gibbons of Nevada and as a favor to GOP congressional candidate Jon Porter, who was invited to testify. Gov. Kenny Guinn, who flew to Washington April 8 to veto President Bush's approval of Yucca Mountain, is also scheduled to testify. "The modes and methodologies for shipment have not been determined, much less analyzed," Guinn said in written testimony ubmitted last week to Barton's panel. "According to (the Energy Department's) own analyses, a single accident scenario could produce thousands of latent cancer fatalities and lead to many billions of dollars in cleanup costs." An override of Guinn's veto must be approved by both the House and Senate. The ball began rolling Tuesday when Barton's subcommittee approved Yucca by a 24-2 vote. Reps. Edward Markey, D-Mass., and Bill Luther, D-Minn., opposed Yucca. Berkley said she was angered by the vote margin, although she expected it. She sat in the audience's front row so that the panel members could look her in the eye, she said. "This process has been an embarrassment to this country," she said later. "We knew this was going to be a railroad job from the beginning." She predicted the full House will also vote overwhelmingly for Yucca. "Anything over 100 votes is a great victory for us." Before the vote, a number of lawmakers made pro-Yucca statements, including all but two Democrats who spoke. Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., said the repository was in the best interest of all Americans. "I would note that the recommendation of the secretary of energy that Yucca Mountain be chosen for nuclear waste disposal is based on 20 years of scientific characterization," Boucher said. Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Pa., said his state has 3,000 metric tons of nuclear waste, generated by nine reactors at five power plant sites, that should be shipped to Nevada. He said electricity ratepayers from his state contributed $1.4 billion for Yucca's construction since 1983. Rep. Ralph Hall, D-Texas, said the subcommittee in 1987 had taken no pleasure in selecting Yucca as the only site for study. He said Tuesday's vote was just as difficult. "It's not easy to vote against your friends (from Nevada). It's not an easy thing to roll over them in this legislation. It just seems to me that there is a time we have to vote. And that vote seems to be near." Markey pleaded for additional time to speak against Yucca, and Barton gave him about 10 minutes. Markey argued that transporting waste would risk terrorist strikes and accidents. He argued that the subcommittee picked Yucca in 1987 solely because Nevada was politically weak. "What we are doing today is an historic mistake," Markey said. "This process is flawed fundamentally, and it has been since 1987, and it will always be." By contrast, Barton opened the hearing by saying, "This is a historic moment that has been a long time coming." Barton disputed Markey's arguments, arguing that carefully guarded waste shipped in containers poses a lot of trouble for terrorists when easier targets are available. "We need to use a little common sense there," Barton said. "When all is said and done I think it's a mistake for this subcommittee not to act," he said before calling the vote. "We need to let the process go forward." After the hearing Barton said Nevada lawmakers are jeopardizing the state's ability to negotiate for federal compensation for the dump by adamantly opposing it. "It's my opinion they are pushing their luck," Barton said. "At some point people accept reality. They are still acting like, 'Oh, put nuclear waste here? We don't like it. No.' " But Berkley said Nevada officials would not give up and stressed that Nevada would derail the dump in court if need be. She predicted not one shipment of waste would make its way to Nevada. "This will not occur," Berkley said flatly. Barton also told reporters he believed it would be difficult for the Energy Department to meet its goal of shipping waste to Yucca by 2010. Storing waste at the site temporarily was an option if the permanent underground repository is not constructed by then. Congress has rejected temporary storage plans in the past. "Interim storage is something you look at," Barton said. The witness list for Thursday's transportation hearing includes Guinn; Gibbons; Porter; Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich, D-Ohio, who opposes waste shipments; Ellen Engleman, administrator for the Research and Special Projects Administration; Allen Rutter, administrator for the Federal Railroad Administration; Lake Barrett, Energy Department deputy director of Yucca; Carl J. Paperiello, deputy executive director for Operations for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which regulates waste shipping containers; Ed Hamberger, president of the Association of American Railroads; Robert Halstead, waste transportation consultant for Nevada; Edward Davis, president and chief executive for waste-container maker NAC International; and James David Ballard, a waste shipping expert from Grand Valley State University in Michigan. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 30 List says Vegas ought to get maglev train as reward for Yucca Las Vegas SUN Today: April 24, 2002 at 11:14:14 PDT By Cy Ryan SUN CAPITAL BUREAU MINDEN -- Former Gov. Bob List said today the federal government ought to select Las Vegas as the site to build a maglev train as one reward for Yucca Mountain being designated as a nuclear waste dump. List told about 100 people attending a breakfast meeting of the Northern Nevada Development Authority that the repository could bring enormous benefits to the state that is now strapped for money for education and social services. "It could be our answer for the next millennium," he said to the sympathetic audience. After his talk, he asked the crowd how many would like the dump in Nevada. About 20 to 25 raised their hands. About 80 people signaled they thought the dump was inevitable. All raised their hands when asked if Nevada should be compensated. List said Las Vegas ought to be selected over Baltimore and Pittsburgh, the other two finalists, for the high-speed maglev train, which would connect Clark County with Southern California. He said that would be in recognition for Nevada accepting the responsibility for 77,000 tons of the nation's most radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain. The former governor, now a lobbyist for the nuclear industry, said many of the fears being expressed have been exaggerated. He said shipments by rail or truck "probably would not come through the Las Vegas Valley." In addition, he said, the shipments would probably be diverted north of Reno through the Feather River Canyon and Gerlach on railroad cars. Gov. Kenny Guinn has the authority to designate the routes the waste will travel in Nevada, List said. "I doubt Gov. Guinn would designate that route" that could carry the waste through the Las Vegas area. Many people, he said, believe the truck shipments would come through the Spaghetti Bowl in downtown Las Vegas and would explode in an accident. Spent nuclear fuel, he said, doesn't burn, it doesn't explode and it doesn't leak. He said if an accident occurred, the crews would pick up the radioactive pellets and put them back in the containers. The waste would be "far easier to manage," than the present shipments of liquid chemicals or hazardous materials that are travel the highways. He said opponents of the dump site are also exaggerating the amount of shipments to Yucca Mountain. There would be 45 trucks a year and 135 trains. The 77,000 tons of waste would cover Douglas County High School football field two feet deep, he said. There has not been one accident in past years involving the 3,000 shipments of nuclear waste over millions of miles in the United States, he said. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 31 Religions mostly mum on Yucca dump Las Vegas SUN Today: April 24, 2002 at 11:14:14 PDT By Stacy J. Willis Local politicians have taken the fight to Washington. Celebrities are lending their names to the battle. Even the everyday Joe has been asked to pony up in the fight against bringing the nation's nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain. But when Methodist Bishop Beverly Shamana sent a letter to President Bush opposing the repository plans earlier this month, she became one of few regional religious leaders to take a stance. Although churches have proven to be a powerful tool for organizing protests at a grass-roots level, most Southern Nevada religious groups have opted to stay silent on one of the community's biggest issues. Shamana, who oversees the California-Nevada region of the United Methodist Church, says it's time for the faithful to remember their moral obligation to care for the Nevada environment and community safety. "I am asking them to write to their respective legislators and the governor," Shamana, who oversees about 50 churches in Nevada, said. "I am asking for opposition." Her call, however, has yet to inspire many other religious leaders: "We are not really involved in that," said the Rev. Hilda Pecoraro of Green Valley Presbyterian Church. "Our congregation as of now is not doing anything regarding Yucca Mountain," Rabbi Sanford Akselrad of Congregation Ner Tamid said. "My understanding is there is no church position being taken whatsoever on Yucca Mountain," said Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints spokesman Will Stoddard. "Certainly no financial contributions." Rabbi Mel Hecht, leader of Temple Beth Am and a member of the Interfaith Council for Worker Justice, said he thinks religious leaders "have been remiss on this issue." "There has been very little said in religious communities about this, and that really should change," Hecht said. "This does affect our community." Although the spiritually based Nevada Desert Experience organization has been active in nuclear protesting for years, it has not had consistent support from a majority of Las Vegas churches, according to Sally Light, Nevada Desert Experience executive director. "Certainly the (Indian) tribes and their religious groups oppose Yucca Mountain being used this way, but I'm not aware of many mainline Las Vegas churches that are involved," Light said. The exception, she said, is the Catholic Worker organization, a group founded in 1933 to speak out about social issues such as war, homelessness, and labor abuses. "They are so sensitive to the sanctity of all creation. They take nuclear issues very seriously," Light said. The Las Vegas Catholic Diocese issued a printed statement saying that Bishop Joseph Pepe "will be addressing (Yucca Mountain) and the concern of the local parishioners with the U.S. Catholic Bishops Conference in the coming months." But other mainstream religious leaders say they are too focused on the day-to-day spiritual needs of their members to spend time on political issues. For some church groups, Pecoraro said, community outreach is more likely to take the form of helping local poor or homeless people, or assisting the elderly and homebound. However, religious groups have gotten involved in other Nevada political issues. In 2000, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints heavily supported a state ballot initiative aimed at preventing gay couples from legally marrying -- going so far as distributing get-out-to-vote memos at church stakes and contributing more than $1 million to the anti-gay-marriage campaign. Other churches, such as several Southern Baptist congregations, also got involved in this campaign, and the measure passed by more than 60 percent. Other recent issues also have sparked local religious activism. Synagogues are encouraging members to keep up with international politics -- Akselrad said he recently recommended that his congregation write letters to the White House to show support for Israel in the Mideast crisis. Shamana, along with environmentalists and Native American activists who oppose the repository because it is on a Shoshone spiritual site, say that most faiths call for the protection of the environment. Certainly Judeo-Christian theology, Shamana said, mandates opposition to the environmental risks involved in moving nuclear waste across the nation to Nevada. "It really has to do with the stewardship of the earth -- we have been given this awesome task," Shamana said. "It is a theological concern. It goes beyond one community and has to do with the entire cycle of living, so that we don't harm those yet to come." Reinard Knutsen, director of Shundahai Network, an anti-nuclear activism group that has been active in opposing the Yucca project and the Nevada Test Site, said the protests would benefit from church involvement. But, he said, he doesn't anticipate much church participation any time soon. "We are being slammed on all fronts by the U.S. government," Knutsen said. "Unfortunately none of the environmental groups have really pushed that agenda with the churches, none of them have gotten churches organized," Knutsen said. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 32 Wilderness Advocates Argue Against Rail Spur to N-Storage Site The Salt Lake Tribune -- Wednesday, April 24, 2002 BY JUDY FAHYS Utah wilderness advocates set out Tuesday to persuade federal nuclear regulators that the wild character of the North Cedar Mountains will be spoiled if a rail spur is built at their base to haul nuclear waste to the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation. The U.S. Atomic Safety and Licensing Board heard the arguments as part of five weeks of Utah hearings on whether the facility should be licensed to store waste from commercial nuclear power plants running out of their own storage space. The hearings continue today with debate about the possibility that nonradioactive runoff from the facility could pollute groundwater. Proponents say they have chosen the smartest route for a 32-mile spur that would connect the 100-acre storage pad to rail lines along Interstate 80. The proposed route would have the least impact on the people, wildlife and landscape, say the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the federal agency that licenses commercial nuclear facilities, and Private Fuel Storage, a consortium of eight utilities seeking the license. And, for about two miles, it would traverse land the environmental group wants protected under the 1964 Wilderness Act. Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance attorney Joro Walker prodded witnesses to describe the rail-line's environmental impacts -- about how it would gouge a rail route into the mountainside and might separate wildlife from its usual range. But none agreed the area has much worth preserving. Britte Laub, a recreation specialist with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and a witness for the nuclear regulators, noted her agency chose not to include the area in its 1980 assessment of potential wilderness and has found no reason to reconsider -- even after wilderness advocates asked for such a reassessment last year. "The [wilderness study area] process has been followed," said Laub. Going into Tuesday's hearing, SUWA had argued the consortium had given too little attention to rail routes that might be less environmentally harmful. Another route previously favored by the consortium would have been outside the suggested wilderness area but cut through state lands that Gov. Mike Leavitt had threatened to keep off limits to the project. © Copyright 2002, The Salt Lake Tribune ***************************************************************** 33 Rep. Berkeley testimony on Yucca Congresswoman Shelley Berkley - Legislation: Press Releases 2001 Testimony Before The Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality: A Review of the President's Recommendation to Develop a Nuclear Waste Repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada The Honorable Shelley Berkley April 18, 2002 I would like to thank Chairman Barton and Ranking Member Boucher for offering me the opportunity to testify today. Let me begin by expressing the outrage felt throughout Nevada about this ill-advised project. Over 83% of the people I represent vehemently oppose Yucca Mountain. We don’t want the dump, and our country does not need this dump. Yucca Mountain is not the solution to what is the problem of disposal of the bi-product of nuclear energy....nuclear waste. There is a myth that the approval of Yucca Mountain as a high-level nuclear waste repository will solve the problems of on-site storage. Nothing could be further from the truth. Yucca Mountain’s former Acting Director Lake Barrett recently testified that nuclear waste will always be stored at, or near, reactor sites. The U.S. currently produces 2,000 tons of nuclear waste a year. By the time a repository opened (somewhere between 2010 and 2016) there will be 62,000 tons of nuclear waste stored at on-site reactors around the country. The maximum amount of transport per year will be 3,000 tons. At sites where waste is produced, there will be as much waste there 50 years from now as there is today. The claims that Yucca Mountain reduces the threat of terrorism by eliminating waste at 131 sites in favor of one site is completely untrue. Yucca Mountain will not reduce the threat of terrorism at operating reactors. It adds one more site to protect. The real dirty secret that the DOE has tried desperately to ignore is the immense vulnerability of nuclear waste transports. Of the 33 members of this committee, the DOE plan calls for transport of nuclear waste through 30 of your districts. According to the DOE, Ohio will have more then 12,000 shipments, with 13 of the 19 congressional districts affected. According to experts who have analyzed the DOE’s transportation data, more than 123 million people live in the 703 counties traversed by DOE's proposed highway routes, and 106 million live in counties along DOE's rail routes. DOE predicts that between 10 and 16 million people will live within just one-half mile of a transportation route in 2035. Given the frequency of these shipments, even routine radiation from the casks, given off while passing on the highway, or stuck at a red light, would be a health concern for people living and working in the vicinity of the transportation routes -- roughly 16 millions Americans who own homes, and go to school, and go to houses of worship in the communities immediately alongside the routes. Of even greater concern is the threat of an accident -- or even worse, a terrorist attack. If Yucca Mountain is approved there could be more then 108,000 cross-country truck shipments of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste over 38 years. There will be between 957 and 2,855 shipments per year over 38 years, depending on whether and how much rail access is developed. For comparison, over the past 40 years, there have been less than 100 shipments per year in the united states. A terrorist attack or accident would release radioactive materials from the cask that would prove disastrous to the environment and human health, and cost billions of dollars to try to clean up. The DOE acknowledges in the environmental impact statement that we can expect anywhere from 50 to over 300 accidents. Additionally, two separate tests, one done at Sandia National Laboratory and the other at Aberdeen Proving Grounds, demonstrate that readily available munitions can breach a nuclear waste canister. Currently, casks are only licensed through a combination of scale-model testing and computer simulations. Do we really think it is good policy to ship 108,500 shipments in casks that have never actually been tested? According to independent studies, the risks of transportation could result in massive economic costs for communities along transportation routes. Even without an accident or incident, property values near routes could decline by 3% or more. And in the event of an accident or terrorist attack, residential property values along shipping routes could decline between 8% and 34 %, depending upon the severity of the accident. The DOE does not publicize the transportation routes or the transportation problems related with the project because they know that if Members know how much waste is going to be transported through their districts, we would be more likely to oppose the project. More significant, when our constituents find out that they live along the transportation routes, they will demand that we oppose this project. Make no mistake about it, this is our last chance to vote on the Yucca Mountain issue. If we learn a few years from now that our district is a transportation hub, our hands are tied. We will not be able to unring this bell. An honest evaluation of the Yucca Mountain project suggests that the rewards simply don’t match the risks. Yucca does nothing to alleviate the on-site storage problems across the country, and creates a tremendous amount of concern for national security. The projected cost of this boondoggle is any where from $56 billion to $309 billion. The nuclear waste fund has $11 billion. How are we going to pay for this? Raise taxes? Dip into the social security trust fund? And once Yucca Mountain is full, what then do we do? After spending hundreds of billions of dollars we will still be exactly where we are today. A recent GAO report concluded that there are 293 unfinished scientific and technical studies that cannot be concluded until 2006. The Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, a congressionally mandated scientific oversight board said, “when the DOE’s technical and scientific work is taken as a whole, the Board’s view is that the technical basis for the DOE's repository performance estimates is weak to moderate.” And that because of “gaps in data and basic understanding...the Board has limited confidence in current performance estimates generated by the DOE’s performance assessment model” As early as 1987, Representative Morris Udall, one of the main architects of the original 1982 nuclear waste policy act said, “the public and many of us in Congress have lost all faith in the integrity of the process.” That was the case in 1987, and it remains the case today. Yucca Mountain is a political solution to a problem that requires real science. We should empower our nation’s scientific community to find real solutions to this serious problem, and give them the resources and political freedom they need to discover the safest, most effective way of solving our nuclear dilemma. Nevadans were promised that sound science and not politics would drive this process. Sound science? While 293 scientific studies have not been concluded? Sound science? When we still can’t guarantee the safe transport of nuclear waste? Sound science? When the canisters needed to transport the nuclear waste have yet to be invented? I ask you to join the State of Nevada and vote to protect your own constituents by opposing Yucca Mountain. ***************************************************************** 34 Berkeley: "One Minute" Floor Speech on Yucca Mountain Congresswoman Shelley Berkley - Legislation: Press Releases 2001 by U.S. Rep. Shelley Berkley April 16, 2002 There are some in this House who are promoting the idea of a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain. These same advocates consistently fail to mention to others in this House that a Nevada dump will only enable reactors across the country to produce even more deadly nuclear waste, which will continue to be stored at the current sites. In addition to the greater volumes of nuclear waste around the country, the Yucca Mountain repository would necessitate the transportation of tens of thousands of tons of high-level waste on public roads and waterways, thus endangering the health and safety of millions of Americans living near those transportation routes. We should be reducing the dangers of nuclear waste by keeping it off public roadways to the extent possible, and investing in real, long-term solutions to the challenges of nuclear waste. ***************************************************************** 35 Another leak found at the Ranger uranium mine ABC News - 24/04/02 : [Australian Broadcasting Corporation Online] The Office of the Supervising Scientist (OSS) has confirmed it is investigating another leak this month at the Ranger uranium mine in the Northern Territory. Yesterday Dr Arthur Johnston released a report critical of the mine's operator ERA for a leak at the same spot earlier this year. Dr Johnston says the latest incident appears to be seven times worse than the last leak. But he says that at the point where the water enters Kakadu National Park, the uranium levels are still well below the national drinking water standard. "It is disappointing to see these concentrations and we don't know what the cause is in this case," he said. "We know the previous case was one where the mistakes were made by the company. "This one we have to investigate and see what the origin was." Minister signals willingness to act The Federal Minister for the Environment and Heritage, Dr David Kemp, noted from the report released yesterday that even though the Commonwealth's Environmental Requirements were not breached, Energy Resources of Australia's (ERA's) internal management processes had failed. "Fortunately, ERA's backup systems did their job and the uranium levels entering the Park were always at least 80 times better than the Australian Drinking Water Standard," Dr Kemp said. "I am glad the Gundjehmi Aboriginal Corporation, the organisation that represents the traditional owners of the Ranger and Jabiluka sites, have communicated that they are comfortable with this. "However, given the importance of protecting the people and the World Heritage Areas surrounding these mine sites, I expect nothing short of best practice in environmental management. ERA will clearly have to lift its game. "I welcome the fact that ERA has now agreed to upgrade its environmental management systems at Ranger and Jabiluka. "What will be important from ERA is effective action. This is the only way that the Australian public and the local Aboriginal traditional owners can be assured that their environment is safe." Although the regulation of the operations of the mine rests with the Northern Territory Labor Government, Dr Kemp signalled his willingness to use Commonwealth powers if necessary. "If these mistakes continue, I will be discussing the issue with the Commonwealth Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources," he warned. "If necessary, I will ask the Minister to take action to require ERA to improve its performance," he said. Traditional owners The Gundjehmi Aboriginal Corporation says more needs to be done to improve water management at the mine after the discovery of another leak. Andy Ralph from the Gundjehmi Corporation - which represents Mirrar traditional owners - says the latest leak is seven times larger than the one discovered earlier this year. "There is a concern that a lot have bypassed the Magela Creek and bypassed their wetland filter and did not actually get filtered," he said. "Now we are still waiting on advice on that from the Northern Land Council about how much water went through that area and if any contamination has occurred from that source." Mining company ERA has pledged to improve its performance. But environmentalists are not convinced and continue to demand a Senate inquiry. ERA has now agreed to replace its environment manager and employ an external specialist to review its operations. It is cold comfort to the environment centre's Mark Wakeham. "It's an entirely inadequate situation. "The company doesn't have the resources to manage the site properly and the Commonwealth isn't ensuring they manage the site properly," Mr Wakeham said. © 2001 Australian Broadcasting Corporation ***************************************************************** 36 Gibbons Foreshadows National Nuclear Waste Disaster Gibbons (NV02) - Press Release - FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE April 23, 2002 Nevadan Claims Recent Train Accidents Prove High-Level Nuclear Waste Should Not be Shipped Across America Washington, D.C.— Upon learning of the train accident this morning in Southern California, U.S. Congressman Jim Gibbons (R-Nev.) released the following statement detailing his adamant opposition to the transportation of high-level nuclear waste across the entire nation. “This past week, our nation has witnessed first hand that train accidents are a reality. First, a passenger train derailed in northeastern Florida, killing four and injuring hundreds. Then yesterday, a freight train derailed in Wells, Nevada. Now, this morning, a freight train hit a commuter train in Southern California. “Today’s accident certainly is unfortunate. However, the death toll and environmental damage that could result from an accident shipping high level nuclear waste could be much more devastating. Luckily, we can prevent such a hideous disaster by stopping the Yucca Mountain Project. No one, including the Department of Energy, can guarantee the safe shipment of nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain. It is time for every American to demand that their government protect their health and safety by not shipping high-level nuclear waste through their communities.” ### ***************************************************************** 37 AU: Distressing levels of uranium contamination found near Ranger mine The World Today - 24/04/2002: The ABC is currently reviewing the provision of full online transcripts for The World Today program. We apologise for any inconvenience. In order to assist the users of our site, the ABC is providing audio-on-demand files and a summary of each current affairs report. Previous transcripts are still available through the online archives. Distressing levels of uranium contamination found near Ranger mine The World Today - Wednesday, April 24, 2002 12:34 What is going on at the Ranger Uranium Mine next to World Heritage Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory? The global mining giant Rio Tinto makes soothing noises about operations by its investment, but just weeks after a series of contamination scares, Ranger has revealed the highest levels of uranium ever found in the waterways at the edge of the mine site. Levels of 14,000 parts per billion were recorded last month - 700 times higher than the drinking water standard allowed downstream. The Office of the Supervising Scientist, a statutory position monitoring the mine, has criticised Ranger's environmental management, in a report into the earlier incidents. The manager of the Ranger site, Bob Cleary of the Rio Tinto-owned ERA company is overseas, uncontactable by The World Today. But the Supervising Scientist Arthur Johnston is available. Policy [http://www.abc.net.au/privacy.htm] ***************************************************************** 38 AU: Minister calls for Senate inquiry into uranium mine. [Australian Broadcasting Corporation Online] Wednesday, April 24, 2002. Posted: 13:30:32 (AEDT) The Federal Shadow Environment Minister, Kelvin Thompson, is calling for a Senate inquiry into the operations of the two uranium mines located on a lease inside Kakadu National Park. The Gunjhemi Aboriginal Corporation, which represents the Mirrar traditional owners, claims a new leak from the ranger mine is seven times larger than the one discovered earlier this year. The Office of the Supervising Scientist released a report yesterday which found the internal management of the company in charge of the mine had failed. The Opposition's Kelvin Thompson says the water management systems are not working. "When it is reported in the Corridor Creek at the background levels, the report suggests that the company's performance needs the kind of investigation that a Senate inquiry can provide," he said. © 2002 Australian Broadcasting Corporation ***************************************************************** 39 National nuclear company for burying foreign waste in Kazakhstan BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Apr 24, 2002 Astana, 23 April: A single burial site for radioactive waste is being proposed in Kazakhstan. The Kazatomprom [Kazakh atomic industry] national atomic company's president, Mukhtar Dzhakishev, told an expanded-format sitting of a committee of the [Kazakh] parliament's [upper chamber] Senate today that it would also be possible to store radioactive waste from other countries at this burial site. He said that radioactive burial sites were "scattered" all over the country at the moment. Dzhakishev said that Mongolia was proposing its services for burying radioactive waste [there]. He believes that Mongolia could become Kazakhstan's competitor in this sphere. At the same time, he thinks that if Kazakhstan sets up a burial site on its territory for low- and medium-level radioactive waste, including from other countries, then it will be able to raise corresponding revenues. It was reported that there were 237,197,000 tonnes of radioactive waste measuring 15,486,900 Ci in Kazakhstan at the moment. Out of them, high-level radioactive waste, which, above all, includes spent nuclear fuel from the BN-350 reactor (fast neutrons) of the Mangyshlak Atomic Power Plant (in western Kazakh Mangistau Region), totalling 450 tonnes with 1.9m Ci [curie]. The country's medium-level waste (this is mainly waste produced by the former Semipalatinsk nuclear testing ground [in eastern Kazakhstan] and rock smelted by underground nuclear explosions) totals 6,532,000 tonnes measuring 13,165,850 Ci. Low-level waste (in the form of spoil banks and tailing dumps of ore-enrichment and metallurgical combines, etc.) totals 230,663,000 tonnes with a total of 295,050 Ci. The country needs 1.11bn dollars to implement its programme for reprocessing radioactive waste. However, this is quite an approximate estimate based on the calculation of 3 dollars [to reprocess] one cubic metre of rock. At the same time, this figure fluctuates between 2 and 40 dollars per cubic metre in the world. According to some estimates, Kazakhstan can raise about 30bn-40bn dollars from burying medium- and low-level waste [from foreign countries on its territory] during 25-30 years. In addition to the payment for the radioactive-waste burial services, it is also planned to envisage payments in bonuses which may total about 200m-500m dollars a year. Source: Interfax-Kazakhstan news agency, Almaty, in Russian 1320 gmt 23 Apr 02 © BBC Monitoring ***************************************************************** 40 MPs question 'nuclear upgrade' of Israel's Jaguar bombers The Guardian - United Kingdom; Apr 24, 2002 BY RICHARD NORTON-TAYLOR MPs are demanding an explanation after Israel upgraded British Jaguar bombers made by India under licence and potentially capable of carrying nuclear weapons. Tony Baldry, chairman of the Commons cross-party inter national development committee, has asked Patricia Hewitt, the trade and industry secretary, whether the government approved of the deal or had no control over it. Mr Baldry refers in a letter to Ms Hewitt to an article in Jane's Defence Weekly reporting growing military coopera tion between India and Israel and says he understands Israel was upgrading the aircraft to allow them to carry nuclear weapons. He adds: "I find this deeply disconcerting." The Jane's article said defence analysts were speculating that Israel may have violated US embargoes by ex porting to India sensitive and dual-use nuclear technologies. Mr Baldry asks why the government is not introducing measures in the export control bill to tightly control arms built under licence - and why the MoD is encouraging arms exports to India while maintain-ing an embargo on Pakistan. The issue demonstrates, he says, the need to strengthen the bill to cover licensing deals to prevent companies having a "free rein to do unethical deals so long as the smoke-filled room is not on British soil". Special report on the Commons at guardian.co.uk/politics/commons ***************************************************************** 41 Create a new Cabinet post Wednesday, April 24, 2002 Deseret News editorial Tom Ridge has faced a daunting task from the moment he was appointed to be the nation's director of homeland security. The job came with little real authority. President Bush originally said his would be considered a "Cabinet level" position, even though he was not to be a member of the Cabinet. Now, however, the president refers to Ridge as an adviser. His job, coordinating the work of hundreds of local, state and federal agencies, is a tall order for an adviser. Congress, meanwhile, is beginning to demand more and more of him. Many members of Congress have asked for Ridge to publicly answer questions about how he is proceeding. The White House wants to spend $38 billion next year on homeland defense, in addition to the money being spent on regular defense needs through the Pentagon's budget. And reports leak out fairly regularly that this or that agency or public concern is not as tightly defended as it ought to be. The latest came via a letter from a high-ranking Energy Department official who claims the nation's nuclear weapons plants are vulnerable. A logical solution would be for Congress to create a Cabinet position known as the Department of Homeland Defense. The arguments against this generally have to do with fears about an exploding bureaucracy. Set up a new Cabinet post and that department naturally will want to expand. Bureaucracies have insatiable appetites when it comes to gobbling up public money. It's a good argument, except that in this case the bureaucracies already exist. A secretary of homeland defense would have the authority to bring these many bureaucracies together, to blast away at the fiefdom and turf mentalities and to force some effective cooperation. It would make Ridge accountable and would provide some substance to the nation's defense strategies at home. Homeland defense is not a temporary concern. Terrorism is much like the nuclear bomb. Once researchers at Los Alamos, N.M., perfected the technology to create bombs, the world couldn't simply erase that knowledge and hope that it didn't fall into the wrong hands. Through their demented acts of destruction, terrorists have shown downtrodden, marginalized groups with a cause how to get heard. Even if, ultimately, their cause is destroyed, the method remains, and the nation must be ever vigilant against it. Ridge has accomplished much already. He could do much more as a member of the president's Cabinet. © 2002 Deseret News Publishing Company ***************************************************************** 42 U.S. takes claim of `dirty bomb' seriously Chicago Tribune | April 24, 2002 Zubaydah By Michael Kilian, Washington Bureau. Tribune news services contributed to WASHINGTON -- Despite deep skepticism about the credibility of captured Al Qaeda leader Abu Zubaydah, the U.S. intelligence community is taking seriously his claim that his organization has the capability of building a radioactive "dirty bomb," a U.S. official said Tuesday. American intelligence agents have undertaken a widespread search for evidence to corroborate the statement made to U.S. interrogators in an undisclosed location where the Pakistani militant has been held since his arrest last month, the official said. "The United States remains a nation that is at war," said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer at his daily briefing Tuesday. "On the one hand, we have been very fortunate that there has been a real lull, that there have been no incidents taking places in the United States. ... But no one should be under any illusions. We have an enemy that is trying to hit us and strike us." Zubaydah, who is believed to have been Osama bin Laden's chief of operations, said Al Qaeda had given high priority to making such a bomb and using it against important targets in the U.S. "The question of whether or not they have acquired a dirty bomb ... is something that we have previously identified as something we know they wanted to do," Fleischer said. Although Zubaydah may be practicing psychological warfare, the threat has to be taken seriously because of the ease with which such a bomb can be constructed and detonated, the U.S. government official said. "He has a reputation for being much less than truthful," this official said. "You can launch a terrorist attack just by claiming something and causing panic. This kind of disinformation may be what he's trying to do. "But we're taking this very seriously. It doesn't take much skill to make one of those things." Unlike the far more complicated and dangerous atomic bomb, which derives its enormous destructive power from initiating an explosive nuclear chain reaction, a dirty bomb can be made by simply combining radioactive material with explosives. "The idea is to spread radioactive elements over a wide area," said Peter Stockton, former special assistant to the energy secretary for nuclear security. "You can use radioactive waste from medical labs. You simply fill the material with C4 explosive and set it off in a crowded place." Stockton, a senior investigator for the Project on Government Oversight watchdog group in Washington, said an additional concern is lax security at government nuclear weapons labs at Los Alamos, N.M., and elsewhere. In a report issued last fall, the group cited exercises in which mock terrorist teams provided by the U.S. military were able to penetrate defenses at Los Alamos. He said there is also a problem with what the Energy Department describes as "inventory differences" in which U.S. nuclear labs have been unable to account for missing radioactive matter. However, in a recent speech in Washington, Los Alamos National Laboratory Director Donald Cobb said the nation's nuclear weapons laboratories are secure. Whatever the amount or source of radioactive matter, the primary concern about dirty bombs is not simply the casualties at the scene, which would be comparatively light, but the widespread panic and fear. An attack would be "not very effective as a means of causing fatalities," Richard Meserve, chairman of the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, told a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee last month. "But it could have a psycho-social effect, and terrorists' greatest weapon is fear." Cobb told the committee that Russia is working to keep tight control of its nuclear weapons but that other sources of radioactive matter were far more accessible. "Nuclear weapons and weapon-usable materials tend to be focused in military applications under tight government oversight," he said. "Radiological sources are more widespread and have fewer controls." Zubaydah had earlier warned that Al Qaeda had targeted banks in the northeastern United States for terrorist attack, which prompted an FBI alert last week. Fleischer was asked Tuesday whether the White House considered Zubaydah to be credible. "Those are judgments that intelligence experts make based on not only what he says but on other pieces of information that will corroborate information," Fleischer said. "Obviously, his capture is a significant asset to the United States government." Copyright © 2002, Chicago Tribune ***************************************************************** 43 Briefing: al-Qaeda and 'dirty bombs' Times Online April 23, 2002 An al-Qaeda prisoner has told American interrogators that the terror network has the capability to build a "dirty bomb". The information, from Abu Zabaydah, an al-Qaeda field commander, compounds fears about Osama bin Laden's quest to obtain weapons of mass destruction. The following is a summary of what is known about al-Qaeda's ability to build a "dirty bomb". + A "dirty bomb" or a radiological dispersal device, is less sophisticated than a conventional nuclear weapon. It uses explosives to spread industrial or medical-grade radioactive material in a populated area, causing widespread fear of exposure. + "Dirty bombs" are not considered difficult to build. The biggest challenge for terrorists is acquiring the radioactive material with which to make them. There is concern that substances could be stolen from power stations or hospitals for this purpose. It is believed that al-Qaeda has spent more than a million pounds trying to acquire such material. + A "dirty bomb" has never been detonated, making estimates of the damage they could inflict theoretical. Bruce Blair, president of the Centre for Defence Information in Washington, estimated in a recent report that a dynamite-laden casket of spent fuel from a nuclear power station, detonated in Manhattan, might kill 2,000 people and leave thousands more with radiation poisoning. Those living in the city would face a high risk of cancer for decades after the event. + There are "dirty bombs" in circulation. In 1995, separatists from Chechnya announced that they had placed a 32 kg "dirty bomb" containing Caesium 137, a radioactive metal, in Ismailovsky Park, a popular park in Moscow. It was swiftly recovered, but the Chechens continued to threaten using radioactive materials. + The closest the world has come to experiencing the effects of a "dirty bomb" resulted from an incident in Goiania in Brazil in 1987, when a Caesium 137 source was stolen from an abandoned radiological clinic by scrap-metal thieves. The 20-gram capsule was cut into pieces, and the thieves handed sections to friends and family members to sell on. As a result 14 people, four of whom died, suffered radiation burns and another 249 were contaminated. More than 110,000 people had to be monitored for exposure over the following months. + It is conceivable that missing fissile material has fallen into the hands of terrorists. In 1996, it was reported that Russia has "mislaid" more than 300 "suitcase bombs" - small nuclear devices that look like suitcases - that were designed to stop advancing armies. A suitcase bomb has a power equivalent to about 1,000 lb of TNT. There was suspicion that the Russian mafia had sold several of these devices to rogue regimes or terrorist groups. + Material for a "dirty bomb" could also be stolen from hospitals. The Atomic Energy Association, the world nuclear watchdog, has said that isotopes commonly used in cancer treatment could be used effectively in a weapon. The association is concerned that many hospitals, particularly in developing countries, lack the security to prevent such a theft. + Most radiotherapy devices in Britain rely on isotopes such as iridium 192 and iodine 131, hundreds of grams of which are stored in hospitals. If these were used in a "dirty bomb" they would cause widespread, serious contamination, although not the large numbers of deaths that would be associated with some other materials. + Osama bin Laden is not the only leader to be associated with weapons of mass destruction. Last year the New York Times claimed that documents from Iraq proved Saddam Hussein, the country's leader, had tried to develop and test a "dirty bomb". It said he had given up on the project after deciding that radiation levels were too low to achieve the desired killing-rate. Copyright 2002 [http://www.thetimes.co.uk/section/0,,549,00.html] Times Newspapers Ltd. ***************************************************************** 44 The Mechanics Of A 'Dirty Bomb' CBS News | | April 23, 2002 20:01:21 (AP) Depending on different factors ... a potent dirty bomb could kill a few people quickly if they were exposed to enough radiation. Others would face a greater likelihood of developing cancers later in life. (CBS) If terrorists wanted to build a radiological -- or so-called "dirty bomb" -- in America, they might very well start their search for materials in our own scrap metal yards, reports CBS News Correspondent Jim Stewart. Forty-five times a year, on average, radioactive elements are mistakenly thrown away in this country. One of the most recent incidents was at the Nucor Steel recycling plant in Winton, N.C. On its way to being dumped in the furnace, Geiger counters sniffed out a radioactive industrial gauge. It was still loaded, and still hot. Cesium-137 is one of the most common radioactive elements used in heavy industry. Osama Bin Laden knows that. That's why he had it on a shopping list recently recovered in Afghanistan, along with a description of a dirty bomb, which is not a nuclear bomb like the type seen on ICBM missiles, but a conventional bomb surrounded by nuclear material. "A nuclear weapon and a dirty bomb have very little in common," said Gary Milhollin, an expert on nuclear weaponry. "If you're making a nuclear weapon you have to achieve a chain reaction -- and you have to have material that's very hard to get your hands on. To make a dirty bomb, the materials are easier to get and there's no science that's very difficult in how you blow it up." And it is the ease of obtaining those materials that makes a dirty bomb so worrisome. From medical devices, to mechanical gauges using cesium, to food irradiation facilities using cobalt, there are more than 18,000 sources of industrial radiation in America. The old Soviet Union has even more. Woodcutters there stumbled on a lost core of it last December and almost died from the experience. It became a volunteers-only job to recover the stuff. And therein lies the biggest problem in building a dirty bomb. Even if you find all the parts, putting them together can kill you. To make an effective one you need a lot of radioactive material -- which either means making a shield so heavy the bomb becomes impossible to move -- or building a bomb without a shield, which would mean almost instant death for the bomb maker from radiation poisoning. Which is why no military on earth -- save Iraq's, which failed -- has tried to make a dirty bomb. On Monday, CBS News National Security Correspondent David Martin reported that a key lieutenant of bin Laden arrested in Pakistan last month has provided interrogators with alarming information pertaining to al Qaeda's ability to build a dirty bomb and smuggle it into the United States. But as Milhollin said, "The Pentagon has decided that radiation bombs are not militarily effective because no one's been able to figure out a way to take radioactivity intense enough to hurt people and transport it somewhere and make a bomb out of it. It's that simple." What would happen if a dirty bomb was set off near the White House or some other key U.S. institution? Click here [http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/04/24/attack/main507124.shtm l] to find out. CBS Worldwide Inc. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 45 U.S. negotiator leaves Russia early after talks on nuclear arms control deal By Angela Charlton, Associated Press, 4/24/2002 08:01 MOSCOW (AP) A top U.S. arms control negotiator left Russia on Wednesday, the U.S. Embassy said, apparently cutting short talks on a deal on nuclear arms cuts that both sides hope to clinch before a presidential summit next month. The embassy gave no reason for Undersecretary of State John Bolton's departure early Wednesday. Earlier, a U.S. Embassy spokesman had said talks were expected to continue through Wednesday. Bolton led a U.S. delegation in discussing the arms control agreement Tuesday with Russian officials led by Deputy Foreign Minister Georgy Mamedov, in the latest of several arms control consultations ahead of President Bush's visit to Russia in May. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Valery Loshchinin said Wednesday the talks were ''not proceeding very easily,'' and that ''several fundamentally important problems still need to be overcome,'' according to the Interfax news agency. The Russian Foreign Ministry would not comment Wednesday on Bolton's departure. Ministry spokesman Vladimir Oshurkov said only that the talks were scheduled to last two days. In a statement late Tuesday, the ministry said the first day of talks produced ''a constructive and substantive exchange of opinions with the aim of solving the remaining disputed questions.'' Bush has said he is ready to reduce the U.S. nuclear arsenal to 1,700 to 2,200 warheads from the current 6,000 each country is allowed under treaty. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he would go further, to 1,500 warheads. Bush initially favored an informal deal, but later agreed to Putin's push for a legally binding agreement. However, talks have snagged on Moscow's objection to the Pentagon's decision to stockpile decommissioned nuclear weapons rather than destroy them. The ITAR-Tass news agency, citing an unidentified diplomatic source, said the same issued blocked agreement this week. The Foreign Ministry stressed that Russia is pushing for an agreement that would produce ''real, controllable cuts'' to 1,700-2,200 warheads each. Before Tuesday's talks, Bolton sounded upbeat. ''The relationship between the United States and Russia has fundamentally changed. ... We are working as hard as we can to show as much of that progress in the agreement form as we can,'' he said. Top Russian arms control experts spoke out Tuesday against the deal, saying it would require bowing to U.S. demands. They predicted that overall U.S.-Russian relations, bolstered by Putin's support for the U.S.-led war on terror, would remain strong even if a nuclear treaty isn't signed in May. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage will be in Moscow for talks Friday on the global anti-terrorism campaign, including the U.S.-led military operation in Afghanistan. Boston Globe Online: Print it! ***************************************************************** 46 Russian nuclear power minister mulls role on international markets BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Apr 24, 2002 Moscow, 24 April: Domestic producers should be supported through the import of spent nuclear fuel and the re-import of enriched fuel, Russian Atomic Energy Minister Aleksandr Rumyantsev has said. "This market must not be given up," Rumyantsev told the Argumenty i Fakty newspaper. Construction of a nuclear reactor abroad might fetch up to 1bn dollars for Russia's state budget, he said. "We have all we need, including the high technologies, to succeed. The enriched uranium we produce is no worse than other countries' products. There is a demand for it," he said. If Russia ships enriched uranium to non-nuclear states, it must take out spent nuclear fuel. "Otherwise, we would breach the treaty on non-proliferation of fissionable materials that can be used in a nuclear bomb. If we export uranium, we must import it," he said. Asked about the situation on the international market, Rumyantsev replied that "nobody would volunteer to give us contracts, they must be won". "The British and the French control all of Europe and part of Asia. They take uranium from there and they are in no hurry to cut back their positions. Moreover, they keep eyeing our share," he said. Russia needs money to implement clean-up programmes related to nuclear arms production and reactors in submarines and icebreakers, he said. In Russia, "200m tonnes of various nuclear wastes, including low and high-activity substances, have been stockpiled", he said. The state is unable to finance the recycling of spent nuclear fuel. "We expect to make money by building new nuclear power plants and recycling spent nuclear fuel and then deal with the environment," he said. Source: Interfax news agency, Moscow, in English 0903 gmt 24 Apr 02 /© BBC Monitoring ***************************************************************** 47 Is security good enough at Oak Ridge plant? KnoxNews: Today's Editorial By Frank Munger, News-Sentinel Senior writer April 24, 2002 Security is always a hot topic at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant - or so it seems. Even though plant guards last year approved a new contract with Wackenhut, the government's security contractor, there are still issues and concerns. Some security police don't believe they're as well equipped as their counterparts at other federal nuclear facilities, such as the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. Y-12 has a highly trained and capable tactical response team, but one guard said there are still missing capabilities - such as an anti-sniper team - in Oak Ridge. There are weapons needs, as well, he said. Outside expertise has to be borrowed from local police operations under various agreements, and that doesn't sit well with guards who think Y-12's national security operations should be all-inclusive. Some folks weren't happy with the response earlier this year when a too-drunk-to-care man from out of state drove his car into Y-12 at 3 a.m. one Saturday. The car reportedly blew past a security checkpoint and then created a standoff situation until Oak Ridge police came and arrested the guy. One plant guard suggested the situation could have been a nightmare if - for example - the car had been loaded with explosives. However, Bill Brumley, the top federal official at Y-12, and Sharon Daly, his security chief, said they were comfortable with the way the "unfortunate" situation was handled. "Our job is to protect national security," Brumley said. "We don't shoot people just because they go through a portal." The biggest concern was the young man did not respond to security commands, but after determining the driver was drunk, it was a matter of waiting for local police to make the arrest, he said. Brumley and Daly also insisted the Oak Ridge facilities are not under-equipped. "I think our response capabilities are very comparable (to Savannah River and other nuclear installations)," Brumley said. Another issue raised by guards was the recent acquisition of Wackenhut by a Danish firm. Department of Energy spokesman Steven Wyatt said the ownership change won't affect Wackenhut's security contract in Oak Ridge. "I'm told they are organized in such a fashion that this should not be a problem," Wyatt said. "But we are doing an FOCI (Foreign Ownership Control and Influence) review to ensure there is no problem." UPDATING HISTORY: Funds are tight at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, but communications chief Billy Stair managed to get enough money to update the exhibits at the Graphite Reactor. A little rehab was woefully needed at the historic reactor, one of the most popular tourist attractions in the Atomic City. Some of the poster exhibits were simply out of date and did not properly reflect ORNL activities or missions. Plus, the reactor rooms were in need of some housekeeping. Indeed, Stair amplified that point to lab management with photo evidence of dead insects, which, unfortunately, seemed to have congregated en masse in one visitation area. The Graphite Reactor, designated a national historic landmark in 1966, has been neglected in recent years. ORNL spokeswoman Marty Goolsby said the last updating took place in 1992 - when the laboratory celebrated its 50th anniversary. New information displays are being produced and will be installed at the entrance and in the reactor's exhibit room. Workers also are sprucing up the place with a bit of paint and other repairs. LABOR FRONT: Construction workers continue to picket the entrances to Oak Ridge National Laboratory to protest hiring practices at the three-building construction project under way there. The Knoxville Building and Construction Trades Council is unhappy because the project managers have refused to commit to hiring union workers or local workers for the project. Because the modernization project is privately financed, lab officials have insisted that the hiring practices fall outside the work agreement in place for federally funded projects. They said they expect a mix of union and nonunion workers to be employed. That stated policy is still the same, but Ray Whitehead, president of the construction labor council, said there have been changes made since the protests began. Now there are two subcontractors in place hiring local bargaining-unit workers, Whitehead said. "Prior to the protest, there were no local contractors with a history of performing work under the bargaining unit out there," he said. The situation is better than it was but not what it could be, Whitehead said. Even with the Spallation Neutron Source and other big projects under way on the Oak Ridge reservation, the construction workforce is only about half what it was in the late 1980s, the labor leader said. Senior Writer Frank Munger covers the Department of Energy for the News-Sentinel. He can be reached at 865-482-9213 or at twig1@knoxnews.infi.net. This column is also available on the Web at www.knoxnews.com/editorsview/munger/ ***************************************************************** 48 No federal layoffs anticipated in Oak Ridge KnoxNews: State April 24, 2002 OAK RIDGE, Tenn.- The Department of Energy's acting manager says there will be no layoffs of federal workers in Oak Ridge this year. Mike Holland also said no furloughs are expected next year. There had been warnings from DOE earlier this year that up to 70 employees _ about 15 percent of the direct federal work force in Oak Ridge _ could be laid off as part of a national plan to make the agency field offices more efficient and cost-effective. Those warnings created a stir in Oak Ridge, where the federal workforce has been virtually immune from layoffs for many years. Most workers at the government facilities are employed by operating contractors, such as UT-Battelle at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The federal workforce in DOE's Oak Ridge field office currently is about 470. That includes management and support personnel who oversee operations at ORNL and other Oak Ridge facilities. Even though the number of DOE employees has declined significantly over the past decade, those reductions have occurred through retirements and attrition. Oak Ridge National Laboratory: http://www.ornl.gov/ Department of Energy: http://www.energy.gov/ The Knoxville News-Sentinel Co. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 49 Energy Department wasting millions on old buildings KnoxNews: State April 23, 2002 OAK RIDGE, Tenn.- The Department of Energy is wasting millions of dollars trying to maintain decrepit buildings at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant and other installations, an internal audit says. The report issued April 3 by the DOE's Inspector General's office suggested the department is spending some $70 million a year maintaining nearly 1,200 surplus buildings nationwide. Together, these outdated, leaking buildings account for nearly 16 million square feet of unused, unneeded or abandoned space. The investigators, prompted by Congress' decision to approve an additional $60 million last October to start clearing away these old buildings, came to Oak Ridge for examples. The Oak Ridge facilities, created as part of the bomb-building Manhattan Project of World War II, gave the auditors plenty to work with. They found $1.4 million was spent last year on roof repairs on buildings already declared surplus at the national laboratory. Meantime, the lab was having trouble finding a contractor willing to put a new roof on an old nuclear facility to "prevent the potential spread of contamination via rainwater." The auditors said the building had "deteriorated to such a point that site management was unable to perform routine surveillance and maintenance." The University of Tennessee-Battelle consortium managing the laboratory has drawn attention to the deteriorating buildings there, and a multiyear $4 billion modernization of the weapons plant is just beginning. But the auditors said more could be done if cleanup efforts were better coordinated. In an official response, DOE agreed. The auditors noted that plans to build a new uranium manufacturing facility at Y-12 are being hindered by a surplus building that's in the way. DOE's cleanup program is responsible for disposing of about 70 "excess" buildings at the lab complex, and if those are not taken care of, it could affect its long-range modernization schedule, the report said. Auditors found that different DOE programs often had conflicting priorities and there was not enough money to meet all their needs. Neither the defense program at Y-12 nor the science program at the lab contained funding to remove old facilities, the report said. As an example, the science budget for the lab, where no old buildings have been closed and eliminated since 1994, was $465 million last year with virtually no money set aside to decommission old facilities. ___ Oak Ridge National Laboratory: http://www.ornl.gov/ Y-12: http://www.y12.doe.gov/bwxt/y12.html Department of Energy: http://www.energy.gov/ The Knoxville News-Sentinel Co. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 50 Y-12 protesters feel justified in blocking roadways Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 12:15 p.m. on Wednesday, April 24, 2002 Group says plant violates international law by Paul Parson Oak Ridger staff A group of protesters scheduled to appear in court this afternoon say they blocked roadways near the Y-12 National Security Complex on April 14 because they were compelled to take every action they could to stop nuclear weapons activities at the Oak Ridge plant. "Our action was in defense of international law," according to a statement released by the protesters. "The United States is bound by the nonproliferation treaty to pursue disarmament; instead, we are building more bombs at Y-12, a clear violation of the law." Initially, the protesters formed human chains to completely block off both directions of Scarboro Road, which runs in front of Y-12. Despite sitting in the road for a couple of hours, protesters were not arrested until they decided to march into the busy intersection of Scarboro Road and Illinois Avenue. Around 13 people arrested on April 14 for charges of obstructing a highway were scheduled to appear this afternoon in Anderson County General Sessions Court. They were expected to hold a press conference before the hearing in which they intend to plead innocent to the charges. "The Constitution says international treaties are the supreme law of the land," according to the group's statement. "We are calling on the judge to enforce that law. We blocked the road to stop bomb production at the plant. Our action was intended to enforce the supreme law of the land." Paul Parson can be contacted at (865) 220-5533 or [pparson@oakridger.com] . [http://www.oakridger.com] All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 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: *****************************************************************