***************************************************************** 01/25/02 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 10.23 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POLICY 1 US: BUSH DRIVE TO REVIVE NUKE POWER INDUSTRY 2 US: US nuclear insurance law faces Senate fight 3 US: Cheney again refuses to give energy policy details 4 Austria nuclear row sparks election calls 5 US: Future of Nuclear Power May Hinge On Insurance Renewal, Panel Sa 6 Austrian parties agree N-plant deal - 7 US: DOE release on plan to go ahead with MOX 8 US: Future of Nuclear Power May Hinge On Insurance Renewal, Panel Sa NUCLEAR REACTORS 9 Chernobyl's Real Victims... 10 Bulgarian PM sows confusion over N-plant 11 US: Haddam offered $13 million in nuclear waste storage deal NUCLEAR SAFETY 12 NZ: Nuclear test veterans welcome ruling allowing legal action 13 US: Wash. Radiation Levels in Dispute NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 14 US: Toxic matter still untouched at lakefront park site 15 US: US to use weapons plutonium as nuclear plant fuel 16 US: NRC seeks revised standards for US nuke waste site 17 Wallstrom suggest EC arbitration on Sellafield 18 British Energy restarts Dungeness nuclear reactor 19 US: Panel: Yucca science `weak to moderate' 20 US: Las Vegas City, county join Yucca legal fray 21 US: Money from Dick muddles Yucca unity 22 US: Las Vegas sues to halt nuclear dump 23 US: State joins Yucca action 24 US: States: Case against Nebraska is strong 25 US: Letter to Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham from Governor Guin 26 US: Berkley Calls on White House to Reject DOE Yucca Recommendation 27 US: DOE PR on NWTRB Yucca report 28 US: Govt caught out over uranium leak: Opp. 29 US: Panel seeks to stabilize West Valley funding 30 US: Mayor’s Yucca comments show lack of leadership NUCLEAR WEAPONS 31 US: GUIDED MISSILES AND MISGUIDED MEN (website & photos) 32 US: US reverses weapons plutonium policy 33 Nuclear team heads for Baghdad - US DEPT. OF ENERGY 34 State of Rocky Flats improving 35 More Hanford radiation? Indians may have higher exposure than 36 Whistle-Blowers Keep the Faith 37 Rocky Flats Waste Could Head South 38 HANFORD WORK PROGRESSES, DOE REPORTS 39 Energy Department tosses immobilization 40 Security of nuclear sites questioned 41 New facilities test land, workers for radiation 42 Plutonium deal is not finalized 43 Bulk of radioactive uranium removed from Flats OTHER NUCLEAR 44 IAEA Daily Press Review Date 2002-01-24 Number 11 ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 BUSH DRIVE TO REVIVE NUKE POWER INDUSTRY Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2002 05:05:03 -0800 Excellant anti-nuke, environmental videos at: http://www.envirovideo.com http://www.emagazine.com/november-december_2001/11 01feat2.html FEATURE The Nuclear Phoenix The Bush Administration is Pushing Ahead with a Full-Scale Revival of Atomic Power By Karl Grossman The last time anyone ordered a new nuclear power plant in the United States was in 1978, but if you think that means nukes are dead forever, guess again. The Bush Administration and the nuclear industry are making an intense push to rehabilitate nuclear power in the U.S. "It's like reviving Frankenstein -- this is the sequel," says Robert Alvarez, executive director of the Standing for Truth About Radiation (STAR) Foundation and co-author of Killing Our Own: The Disaster of America's Experience with Atomic Radiation. Diane D'Arrigo of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS) uses another word when describing the Administration's work. Says D' Arrigo: "It's the push to relapse." Workers at the West Valley Demonstration Project in New York sort and package low-level nuclear waste for shipment by truck to a storage facility in Utah. © AP Photo Ever since the accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl shattered public trust in atomic power, advocates in government and industry have been laying the groundwork for a nuclear energy comeback. An unbridled drive has started under George W. Bush in what "may be the most ardently pro-nuclear power Presidency in U.S. history," says Michael Mariotte, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based NIRS. The Bush Administration's stance is aggressive, and it minimizes the dangers of nuclear power. As Bush's Secretary of Treasury, Paul O'Neill, told The Wall Street Journal, "If you set aside Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, the safety record of nuclear power really is good." In Bed with the Industry The Bush Administration struck a close working relationship with the nuclear industry well before taking office. The administration's energy "transition" advisors included Joseph Colvin, president of the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), which describes itself as "the policy organization of the nuclear energy and technologies industry"; J. Bennett Johnston, who as a U.S. Senator was a leading pro-nuclear power figure in Congress and who now runs a consulting firm that assists the nuclear industry; Thomas Kuhn, president of the Edison Electric Institute, former head of the American Nuclear Energy Council (forerunner of NEI) and a reported "Bush buddy" going back to their days together at Yale; and representatives of four nuclear utilities. There were no advisors representing renewable energy or environmental organizations. San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in San Diego provides electricity to 2.75 million homes in Southern California. The Bush Administration wants to dramatically expand American dependence on nuclear power by building more plants. © J. Blank / H.Armstrong Roberts Two weeks after being sworn in, Bush set up a "National Energy Policy Development Group" and appointed as its chairman Vice President Dick Cheney. Its members included O'Neill and other top administration officials. Ten weeks after it was organized, the group issued a report declaring its support for "the expansion of nuclear energy in the United States as a major component of our national energy policy." The plan would substantially increase the use of nuclear power both by building new nuclear power plants -- many to be constructed on existing nuclear plant sites -- and extending the 40-year licenses of currently operating plants each by another 20 years. "Many U.S. nuclear plant sites were designed to host four to six reactors, and most operate only two or three; many sites across the country could host additional plants," says the energy policy group's report. "Building new generators on existing sites avoids many complex issues associated with building plants on new sites." It could also greatly amplify the impacts of an accident, notes Paul Gunter, head of NIRS' Reactor Watchdog Project. If one nuclear plant in a cluster of facilities undergoes a catastrophic accident, there is the potential, says Gunter, for a "cascading loss amplifying the release of radiation." In 1990, four years after the near-meltdown of the Chernobyl nuclear plant in the then-Soviet Union, these young victims were still hospitalized with serious intestinal ailments. © AP Photo According to the policy report, "the licensing of as many as 90 percent of the currently operating nuclear plants may be renewed." There are 103 nuclear plants now in the U.S. They are, on average, 19 years old. Of the longevity of nuclear plants, "No one foresaw them running for more than 40 years," says Alvarez of STAR, who was also senior policy advisor at the Department of Energy (DOE) from 1993 to 1999. The effects of intense radioactive bombardment, especially on metals, have been seen as limiting the operating life of nuclear plants. And then there's the standard deterioration that occurs when any machine gets old. "These reactors are just like old machines, but they are ultra-hazardous," says Alvarez. By pushing their operating span to 60 years, he says, "disaster is being invited." New Nukes? The Bush Administration's policy also supports "advanced" nuclear power plants -- supposedly new-and-improved nukes. "Advanced reactor technology promises to improve nuclear safety," it says. One example the report provides is "the gas-cooled, pebble bed reactor, which has inherent safety features." In fact, says Gunter, the pebble bed reactor is not new; it's just "old wine in a new bottle." It's a hybrid of the gas-cooled, high-temperature design that "has appeared and been rejected in England, Germany and the U.S." And far from being "inherently safe," a reactor of similar design, a THTR300 in Germany's Ruhr Valley, spewed out substantial amounts of radioactivity in a 1986 accident, leading to its permanent closure. David Lochbaum, nuclear safety engineer for the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), says that the pebble bed reactor uses blocks of graphite to slow neutron action, although "graphite is a form of carbon, which can ignite in a reactor fire. It was the graphite that kept burning at Chernobyl for 10 days, releasing much of the radiation." Also, the pebble bed would produce 10 times more high-level waste per amount of electricity generated as compared to existing plants, says Lochbaum, who worked in the nuclear power industry for 17 years and became a whistleblower before coming to UCS. Further, Exelon, the builder of the pebble bed reactor, wants five such units operated from a single control room, which is a dubious proposition, says Lochbaum. He also notes that the pebble bed systems' designers "reduced costs by eliminating a key safety feature -- the reactor containment building." The Bush National Energy Policy, with its reliance on more nuclear power and greater fossil fuel generation, comes at a time when safe, clean, renewable energy sources have arrived. The need is for broad-scale implementation. Wind power, solar energy, hydrogen fuel technologies including fuel cells, among other renewable energy sources, are more than ready after years of dramatic advances. Coupled with energy efficiency, they can be tapped and widely used. A coalition of renewable, safe-energy advocates -- including the Safe Energy Communication Council, Greenpeace USA, Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program, Global Resource Action Center for the Environment and NIRS -- says of the National Energy Policy: "The Bush/Cheney Administration is recklessly promoting the building of new nuclear plants to address an energy crisis that in large part is being manufactured by the energy corporations that will benefit from building new power plants..We believe that instead of promoting dangerous and dirty forms of energy, the United States should be a world leader in promoting renewable energy and energy efficiency. Let us not sell our children's future." Nuclear waste from a federal laboratory in Idaho rolls down I-285 on its way to the Waste Isolation Pilot Program in New Mexico. Such interstate trucking of nuclear waste has engendered fierce opposition in traversed states. © AP Photo / Carlsbad Current-Argus / Alfred J. Hernandez But the Bush Administration is not to be turned around. As Cheney, in one speech, said of nuclear power: "If we are serious about environmental protection, then we must seriously question the wisdom of backing away from what is, as a matter of record, a safe, clean and very plentiful energy source." Or, as he declared in another speech, "We're now at about 20 percent of our electricity being generated by nuclear. We'd like to increase that..If you're really concerned about global warming and carbon dioxide emissions, then we need to.aggressively pursue the use of nuclear power, which we can do safely and sanely, but for 20 some years [it] has been a big no-no-politically." Not surprisingly, the nuclear power industry stands solidly alongside President Bush. Says NEI President Colvin, "The administration's support for nuclear power as a proven energy technology that protects our air quality is a tremendously positive development for our nation..The industry looks forward to working with the White House and Congress to make this long-term vision a reality." Pushing Ahead To fast track its vision of our radioactive future, the Bush Administration advocates a "one-step" licensing process for nuclear plants. It was part of an Energy Policy Act bill overwhelmingly approved by Congress in 1992 and signed into law by the former President George Bush. "One-step" licensing allows the NRC to hold a single hearing for a "combined construction and operating license." No longer can nuclear plant projects be slowed down or stopped at a separate operating license proceeding, at which evidence of construction defects can be revealed. As the New York Times described the passage of the 1992 Energy Policy Act, "Nuclear power lobbyists called the bill their biggest victory in Congress since the Three Mile Island accident." That Energy Policy Act was approved by a Democratic-controlled Congress. As NIRS reported in its Nuclear Monitor in 1992: "As the bill wound its way through the Senate and House, the nuclear industry won nearly every vote that mattered, proving that Congress remains captive to industry lobbying and political contributions over public opinion." That remains the situation today. Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program documents how the NEI regularly showers Congress -- including members of both major parties -- with political contributions. And when the nuclear industry gives, members of Congress act, notes Public Citizen, which charts the record of politicians on key nuclear issues. Likewise, nuclear industry money pours into Presidential campaigns. The Republican Bush-Cheney posture on nuclear power is hard-line, but that doesn't mean the Democratic alternative was (or is) much different. The NEI's website includes a page of "Endorsements of Nuclear Energy," and among those quoted are Al Gore: "Nuclear power, designed well, regulated properly, cared for meticulously, has a place in the world's energy supply," he reportedly said in a speech at the Chernobyl Museum in Kiev in 1998. And Gore's former running mate, Senator Joseph Lieberman, is quoted as saying at a Senate hearing in 1998: "I am a supporter of nuclear energy. I believe it can be part of the solution to solving the world's energy, environment and global warming problems." Basically, there is a difference in degrees and rhetoric between the politicians from the major parties, says Wenonah Hauter, director of Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program. And "the Clinton Administration is by no means blameless" in the push to revive the moribund nuclear industry, she says, especially because of its support for development of "advanced" nuclear plants. The Department of Energy would like to store high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, even though the site is on or near 32 earthquake faults. © Department of Energy The Bush National Energy Policy says that because of "one-step" licensing, which it terms the "reformed licensing process," getting new nuclear plants built and operating will now be streamlined. And, to make sure public involvement is minimal in the process, the NRC is now seeking to undo the public's right to formal trial-type hearings on nuclear plant licensing. It plans to "deformalize" the hearings by eliminating due process procedures. Documents would be restricted to what the NRC staff and company deem relevant. Instead of cross-examining witnesses, interested parties will have to submit written questions as suggestions for the NRC's presiding officers to ask at their discretion at a hearing. Says Mariotte, "The administration should learn from Seattle, Prague and Quebec that when people are shut out of public policy pro-cesses, the streets are their only alternative." Redefining Safety Also to help in a nuclear power comeback is the effort to alter the standards for radiation exposure. As more has been learned about radioactivity, the realization has come that there is no "safe" level. This is called the "linear no-threshold theory," and it has been adopted by the NRC and other U.S. government agencies. Now nuclear advocates in government and industry want to alter the standards premised on a contention that low doses of radiation are not so bad after all. They are "engaged in an all-out assault on radiation protection standards," says D 'Arrigo. There is even interest in a long-rejected notion called "hormesis," which claims that a little radiation is good for people and helps exercise the immune system. The instrument for this change is a new Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation (BEIR) panel of the National Academy of Sciences, which is to make recommendations to the federal government. "The only way to convince the public that additional radiation is acceptable is to put together a skewed panel," says D'Arrigo. The new BEIR panel, she says, is thus stacked with high-level radiation advocates. Nuclear waste is another obstacle the nuclear proponents in government and industry are seeking to get around. "If we don't deal with the waste problem," acknowledged Cheney in a speech, "then my guess is we won't get the investment in new facilities in the nuclear arena.. It's within our grasp as a government ... to move forward, to get the issue addressed and get it off the table so that utilities are prepared to invest in nuclear." How is this being done? For high-level nuclear waste, there are drives to open Yucca Mountain in Nevada (100 miles northwest of Las Vegas) as a repository and also to use Utah's Skull Valley Goshute Reservation and possibly other Native American reservations. The huge problem with Yucca Mountain, which the government began exploring as a repository in the 1980s, is that it is on or near 32 earthquake faults and has a "history and prospects of volcanoes and a likelihood of flooding and leakage," says D'Arrigo. Nevertheless, the Bush Administration is still seeking to "ram through" Yucca Mountain, says Mariotte. Resistance from people in Nevada and their elected representatives is so far blocking the scheme. In 1997, tribal leaders of the Goshute Reservation "leased land to a private group of electrical utilities for the temporary storage of 40,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel," according to the Goshute's website. But some members of the tribe are fighting the deal in court, demanding to know who got what for what. Utah government officials are also challenging the arrangement. Governor Mike Leavitt says, "We intend to leave no stone unturned to make sure this waste does not come to Utah. The state's authority and responsibility to protect its citizens and the environment is clear." But clear to advocates in government and the nuclear industry is that working with ostensibly sovereign American Indian reservations is a way to unload atomic garbage. Critics describe it as a new form of environmental racism -- "nuclear racism" -- seeking to take advantage of the poverty of Native Americans. The drive to "recycle" low-level nuclear waste has been percolating for years. In 1980, the NRC first proposed that irradiated metal scrap could be converted, stressing that "radioactive waste burial costs could be avoided, [and] the resulting use of smelted scrap could be made into any number of consumer or capital equipment products such as automobiles, appliances, furniture, utensils, personal items and coins." Some thought the push for radioactive quarters and hot Pontiacs was too crazy to be true. But now the scheme is coming down the pike full-speed with the DOE, Department of Transportation and the NRC moving to facilitate the "recycling of contaminated metal and other radioactive wastes," as the DOE recently announced. Says D'Arrigo: "Bush wants more nuclear power, and we are being told we'll have to do our part by accepting atomic waste in our daily use items." Those behind the nuclear push are moving to extend a key piece of U.S. law that facilitated the nuclear power industry in the first place: the Price-Anderson Act. This law drastically limits the amount of money people can collect as a result of a nuclear power plant disaster. It was originally enacted in 1957 after nervous utilities and insurance companies balked at building nuclear power plants. "The potential for catastrophe is apparently many times as great as anything previously known in industry," said Herbert W. Yount, vice president of Liberty Mutual Insurance, before the Congressional Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, from which Price-Anderson emerged. The committee was part of the earliest promotion for a nuclear establishment of government and corporations that had grown out of the World War II-era Manhattan Project. With the war over, nuclear scientists, government bureaucrats and corporate contractors involved in the Manhattan Project-like Westinghouse and GE-sought to perpetuate their nuclear activities through electricity generation. In what was supposed to be a temporary measure to boost the nuclear power industry, the Price-Anderson Act passed, limiting liability in the event of a nuclear plant accident to $560 million, with the federal government paying the first $500 million. It was supposed to last for only 10 years, but Price-Anderson has been repeatedly extended. Now the Bush Administration and the atomic industry are seeking to use it as a financial umbrella for the push to revive nuclear power. "The renewal of Price-Anderson is only to build new reactors," says Mariotte."That's the issue. Existing nuclear plants are covered by the present law." The Bush Administration and nuclear industry are proposing that the current liability limit of $9 billion be extended for another 10 years. The initial $560 million cap rose to, in recent years, $9 billion. Still, notes Alvarez, this is all just a fraction of what the NRC itself has concluded would be the financial consequences of a nuclear plant accident. Those figures are contained in a 1982 report prepared for the NRC by the DOE's Sandia National Laboratories entitled Calculation of Reactor Accident Consequences for U.S. Nuclear Power Plants. It calculates (in 1980s dollars) costs as a result of a nuclear plant disaster as high as $314 billion at the Indian Point 3 nuclear plant north of New York City and $174 billion for the Millstone 3 nuclear plant in Connecticut. The report projects "early fatalities" with figures as high as 100,000 dead for the Salem 1 nuclear plant in New Jersey and 72,000 dead for the Peach Bottom 2 nuclear plant in Pennsylvania. What are the chances of such a disaster occurring? In 1985, the NRC was asked by a House oversight committee chaired by Congressman Edward Markey (D-MA) to determine the probability of a "severe core melt accident" for reactors now operating and those expected to operate during the next 20 years. The NRC concluded: "The crude cumulative probability of such an accident would be 45 percent." To that danger now has to be added the possibility of a World Trade Center-style airborne terrorist attack on American nuclear plants. Tom Clements, who heads the Nuclear Control Institute, says existing plants are vulnerable to such an attack, "which would be many times worse than what we've seen in New York because it could result in radiation and fallout over a vast area." And so the nightmare of our affair with nuclear power continues. KARL GROSSMAN, a George Polk Award-winning journalist, teaches investigative and environmental reporting at the State University of New York/College at Old Westbury. ***************************************************************** 2 US nuclear insurance law faces Senate fight USA: January 25, 2002 WASHINGTON - The second-ranking Senate Democrat this week signaled a rocky road for a bill to renew an expiring nuclear accident insurance law which the industry sees as key to new plant construction. Harry Reid of Nevada, who also is chairman of the Senate's Transportation, Infrastructure and Nuclear Safety subcommittee, said at a hearing that the nation's 103 nuclear power plants should provide more of their own insurance before receiving government help. Under the law, the nation's 103 operating nuclear plants are protected from liability claims exceeding $9 billion in the event of a serious accident. The Republican-led House of Representatives last November approved a 15-year extension of the Price Anderson Act, set to expire in August 2002. The Democratic-controlled Senate has yet to rule on reauthorization. The Bush administration and the nuclear industry both see renewal of the law as key to future plant construction. Critics contend that no other U.S. industry receives similar benefits. Reid said he opposed a bill offered by Ohio Republican George Voinovich to reauthorize the act, which covers nuclear power plants providing 20 percent of the nation's electricity. "Coal and nuclear power have been inappropriately demonized over the last few years ... but the fact of the matter is both are efficient and cost-effective sources of energy," Voinovich said at the hearing. Reid is also fighting the Energy Department's recent choice of his state to build storage for 70,000 tons of U.S. nuclear waste. The proposed site at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles (144 km) from Las Vegas, is expected to be challenged in court. $9 BILLION POOL The act, passed in 1954, requires nuclear operators to carry the maximum available amount of accident insurance of $200 million and collectively fund a $9 billion pool for paying claims for large accidents. If the cost of a nuclear accident exceeds $9 billion, the law says the federal government will pay the rest. Some lawmakers question whether the industry's $9 billion pool is big enough. "We cannot allow nuclear power plants to operate without adequate insurance - it's as simple as that," Reid said. Reid's skepticism was joined by Vermont Independent Jim Jeffords, chairman of the Senate Environment committee. Jeffords cited "a number of very legitimate questions about the appropriateness and adequacy of this legislation," including whether the insurance law would cover a potential terrorist attack on a nuclear plant. The Sept. 11 attacks in New York and Washington have raised concerns among lawmakers about nuclear plant vulnerability. American Nuclear Insurers, which administers the industry's collective insurance pool, has not excluded acts of terrorism from coverage eligibility. In response to last September's events, it limited industry liability to $200 million, said John Quattrocchi, the senior vice president of underwriting. NO FEDERAL PAYMENTS EVER MADE Reid also criticized the bill as an unfair subsidy for the industry. He asked a Nuclear Regulatory Commission official at the hearing to identify any other industry that enjoys a government-backed insurance program. "The short answer is no," said William Kane, the agency's deputy executive director for reactor programs. Kane said that so far, the U.S. government "has not paid a penny" for nuclear accident claims, and that the act gives adequate public protection. To bolster his case, Reid enlisted supermodel Christie Brinkley to appear at the hearing. Brinkley spoke against the inadequacy of nuclear accident insurance and U.S. funding of alternative energy sources. "You can get insurance against a meteor hitting your home, but not one private insurance company in America will cover your home from a nuclear power plant accident," Brinkley said. Story by Chris Baltimore REUTERS NEWS SERVICE ***************************************************************** 3 Cheney again refuses to give energy policy details USA: January 25, 2002 WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney's office again refused this week to turn over details of how the White House formulated its energy policy - including bankrupt Enron Corp.'s involvement - despite increased pressure from Congress. The investigative arm of Congress has been seeking more information about contacts between industry and the administration's energy task force, headed by Cheney. "Our statement of Aug. 2 (rejecting the request) stands," senior Cheney aide Mary Matalin told Reuters. The agency, the General Accounting Office, is contemplating going to court to force the White House to provide information. Environmentalists say they were largely shut out of the policy-making process. Four Democratic senators involved in probes of Enron sent a letter to the GAO this week supporting its efforts to pressure Cheney for further details. The energy plan announced in May called for more oil and gas drilling and a revived nuclear power program. It contained many provisions sought by Enron. Cheney was likely to face questions on the issue when he appears on television talk shows on Sunday to discuss Bush's pending State of the Union address but will not release the information, Matalin said. "He (Cheney) is happy to answer questions regarding the principle, how important it is for the country that the executive branch, just like the executive branch, be able to get candid information, candid opinions" for formulating policy, she said. Matalin also said the GAO has no constitutional authority to investigate the issue. The White House has already revealed that Cheney or the energy task force staff met six times last year with Enron representatives but has refused to provide other details on how the administration's policy was crafted. "I think all this information will come out in the very near future," said Sen. Don Nickles, an Oklahoma Republican and the assistant Senate Republican leader. The four Democratic senators who sent a letter to Comptroller General David Walker, head of the GAO, backed his efforts to get information about the makeup and deliberations of the Bush administration's energy task force. "Who helped shape the administration's energy policy?" they asked in the letter. "What did they recommend? ... The American public deserves answers to these questions." The letter was signed by Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, whose Governmental Affairs Committee will hold a hearing yesterday into Enron's collapse. It was also signed by Carl Levin of Michigan, who chairs the Governmental Affairs subcommittee that has issued 51 subpoenas in its Enron probe. The other two signatories were Sen. Ernest Hollings of South Carolina, chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, who last month chaired a hearing that heard from Enron workers who lost their savings when the company's stock collapsed. "The four senators said they feel the Senate deserves the information prior to its consideration of the energy bill," said a statement from Dorgan's office. It noted that Sen. Fred Thompson, a Tennessee Republican, had publicly said that the administration should release the information. Enron went in a few weeks from Wall Street titan to filing the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history on Dec. 2. Its downfall refocused congressional attention on the administration's refusal to give details of how it formulated its energy policy. Walker began his pursuit of the energy task force last spring at the request of Rep. Henry Waxman of California and Rep. John Dingell of Michigan, both Democrats. (Additional reporting by Susan Cornwell). Story by Randall Mikkelsen REUTERS NEWS SERVICE ***************************************************************** 4 Austria nuclear row sparks election calls BBC News | EUROPE | 22 January, 2002, 23:49 [Protesters demonstrate against the Temelin nuclear plant] Nearly a million people signed the petition The junior partner in Austria's ruling coalition has challenged the government to call a general election amid a row over a nuclear power plant on the Czech-Austrian border. Buoyed by the results of a petition against the Temelin plant, the far-right Freedom Party called on Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel to make clear his views on the future of the coalition. If he (Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel) wants to end the coalition to launch an election campaign on the European Union and Temelin, the Freedom Party is ready Freedom Party statement More than 900,000 people signed the Freedom Party's petition urging the Austrian Government to veto the Czech Republic's bid to join the European Union unless it shuts down the controversial station. Earlier, the chancellor refused to obstruct EU enlargement, saying it was the "central point" of his government's programme. Election call In its statement, the Freedom Party said: "If he (Schuessel) wants to end the coalition to launch an election campaign on the European Union and Temelin, the Freedom Party is ready." Haider accused the Czech prime minister of clinging to communism The statement was signed by the leader of the Freedom Party, Vice Chancellor Susanne Riess-Passer, her predecessor Joerg Haider, and the party's leader in parliament, Peter Westenthaler. The BBC's Bethany Bell in Vienna says the Freedom party might be hoping to capitalise on its success in the petition to try to surpass the People's Party in new elections. But whether the coalition will actually break up over the issue remains unclear. Our correspondent says the Freedom Party has little other choice when it comes to a coalition partner as the People's Party is the only Austrian party which has shown itself willing to work with the far-right movement. Frosty relations The Freedom Party launched the week-long petition in spite of a deal signed between the Austrian and Czech governments last November allowing the power plant to go into commercial operation. The Czech Government has promised to improve safety at Temelin The result means the petition will now be debated in parliament, but the People's Party and the opposition Greens and Social Democrats have said they will not allow the veto threat to become law. The petition caused a war of words between Austria and the Czech Republic. Czech Prime Minister Milos Zeman called Mr Haider a "populist pro-Nazi politician who understands nothing but talks about everything", while Mr Haider accused Mr Zeman of clinging to communism. The power station, which is situated 60 kilometres (38 miles) from the Austrian border, has been blighted by technical problems since it began operating in October 2000. None of the EU's 14 other members oppose the plant or the Czech Republic's drive to join the union. EU enlargement commissioner Guenter Verheugen dismissed the petition, saying "Austrians will understand that it is not in their interest to block the process of enlargement." ***************************************************************** 5 Future of Nuclear Power May Hinge On Insurance Renewal, Panel Says E Publishing ( January 24, 2002 ) The nuclear industry says it needs the Price-Anderson Act to develop future projects, but some witnesses at a Senate Transportation, Infrastructure, and Nuclear Safety Subcommittee hearing Wednesday questioned specific components of the law and why it is needed at all. But it is unclear when, or if, the Environment and Public Works Committee will approve language to put into the Democratic energy bill (S. 1766) that would reauthorize the federal nuclear insurance program. "We are looking at reauthorizing it, but it might lapse," said subcommittee Chairman Harry Reid (D-Nev.) after the hearing. He said there will be more hearings on the issue in light of the controversy raised Wednesday. "Without the framework provided by the act, new private sector participation in nuclear power would be discouraged because of the risk of potentially large liability claims if such an accident were to occur," said William Kane, deputy executive director for reactor programs at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Kane stressed NRC is not a promotional agency but that it does recommend the law be reauthorized. The Price-Anderson Act "provides a valuable public benefit by establishing a system for the prompt and equitable settlement of public liability claims resulting from a nuclear accident," Kane said. Martin Fertel, senior vice president of the Nuclear Energy Institute, told the committee that Congress should renew the act indefinitely and that the industry supports renewing it with no changes. He stressed nuclear's emission-free electricity production should not be ignored when evaluating the country's future energy policy. There are 103 commercial nuclear reactors that provide about 20 percent of the country's electricity. Nuclear power is an emission-free form of electricity production, however, its critics are quick to point to the 2,000 tons of radioactive spent fuel the collection of reactors produce each year and the absence of a safe place to store it at this point. The Price-Anderson Act expires in August. If it is not renewed, existing plants licensed while the act was in effect would still be covered by the insurance through a grandfather clause, but any new plants would not be covered until a new act is passed. Since the financial coverage would not be there, it would not be easy to get investors to build new plants, some sources say, so even new technology, like Pebble Bed Modular Reactors, would not go online. Two levels of coverage exist under the law. First, all nuclear power plants must take out a $200 million liability insurance policy. If an accident were to occur and go beyond that amount, the second tier would kick in. The plants are then responsible for $88 million assessments per reactor per incident in the event of a nuclear accident. However, nuclear sites cannot pay more than $10 million per reactor per year under the law in these "retroactive" payments. This puts close to a $9.5 billion cap on the industry's responsibility in the event of a nuclear accident. Congress must then decide how to fill any gap, should the cost of a nuclear accident go beyond the $9.5 billion. The act also indemnifies DOE contractors that could be involved in nuclear accidents from liability, which means that should a nuclear accident occur, DOE would be held responsible under the act. The Senate energy committee has jurisdiction over this portion of the law and has included provisions in S. 1766 to allow DOE to indemnify contractors indefinitely and increase the maximum amount of DOE contractor indemnification to $10 billion. Model Christie Brinkley testified on behalf of the Standing for Truth About Radiation (STAR) Foundation, a New York-based activist group against nuclear power, saying her husband and three children live between three nuclear power plants. She pointed out that the $9.5 billion cap would not come close to the $59 billion damage estimate a spent fuel pool fire could create. She also discussed the retroactive payment portion of the law, saying that the reactor owners do not have to come up with more than 98 percent of the insurance money until after an accident has occurred. "This is like having a homeowner's insurance policy where most of the insurance premiums don't have to be paid until after the house burns down," she said. Brinkley said the nuclear power industry should pay those premiums up front. "If the nuclear industry can't come up with the funds to compensate victims because they can't afford it, is it really fair and reasonable for the taxpayer to be stuck with the costs of paying for a major nuclear accident?" She also asked how "acts of war" play into the Price-Anderson Act coverage and said the financial cap should be based an estimate of damage not a number "simply pulled out of thin air." John Quattrocchi, senior vice president of underwriting at American Nuclear Insurers, said the financial protection the act gives the public is better than any other system and the public is better off having this protection than not. He said terrorist acts are included under the act, but not acts of war. Adding another element to the debate, Peter Bradford, a visiting lecturer in energy policy and environmental protection at Yale University, said that the Price-Anderson Act has anti-competitive effects when putting nuclear power against fossil fuels and renewable resources in competitive markets, markets that did not exist when the act was created 44 years ago. "First, new nuclear capacity appears cheaper than it really is relative to other sources," he said. "Second, any nuclear design that is truly inherently safe or that is at least capable of doing more than $9 billion in damage does not enjoy the benefit of improved safety in competition with the nuclear plants that do benefit from liability limitation." Bradford said this limits market incentives such as remote or underground siting since they do not get protection under the law. "Rather than underwrite industry costs in the event of such an accident, it would seem wiser for Congress to adopt a framework that encourages the deployment of energy sources -- conceivably inherently safe nuclear sources -- that do not carry with them the potential for inflicting such large damages." Reid, also the Senate majority whip and chairman of the Appropriations Energy and Water Development Subcommittee, will need to examine the issue this session while in the middle of a fight with DOE and White House over the proposal of permanently storing 77,000 tons of spent fuel, now temporarily stored at reactor sites, in his state's Yucca Mountain. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham indicated Jan. 10 that he intends to recommend to the president that the site is suitable for storage. "This has nothing to do with Yucca Mountain," Reid said at the start of the hearing, "Even though the amount of energy produced by alternative energy is small, we haven't given them as much help. I am not opposed to looking at future generation of nuclear power, but why treat this any differently than any other industry I can think of?" Reid compared the nuclear industry to the builders of the Titanic that the ship was unsinkable and "only when the boat was in the water did its vulnerabilities become apparent." Besides saying that renewable energy also produces emission-free electricity and should be utilized more, Brinkley also pointed to the waste produced by nuclear generation. "You can't ignore the waste that is produced," she said. "It is irresponsible to be producing nuclear waste with no disposal system. You can't truly call this clean energy." Reid said more attention needs to be paid to renewables and that a large reason it could take up to 15 years to get more renewables on line is the fact Congress has not done anything to support it. "Coal and nuclear power have been inappropriately demonized over the last few years but the fact of the matter is both are efficient and cost-effective source of energy, and like or not we are going to be dependent upon them for the foreseeable future," said Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio) at the hearing. The House agreed to extend the law until 2017 by approving Rep. Heather Wilson's (R-N.M.) H.R. 2983, the Price-Anderson Reauthorization Act of 2001 (H.Rpt. 107-299, Part I), in late November. It raised the reactor assessment from $88 million to $94 million and the limit on per-reactor annual payments from $10 million to $15 million. The bill also contained several amendments added during its markup involving security issues. The House energy bill, H.R. 4, approved in August, did not contain any language on reauthorizing the act. -- Suzanne Struglinski To see more of Environment and Energy Daily, or to subscribe online, please visit http://www.eenews.net © 2002 E Publishing. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 6 Austrian parties agree N-plant deal - CNN.com - January 24, 2002 Temelin nuclear power station has been plagued by problems VIENNA, Austria -- The threat to the coalition government in Austria appears to have passed after the dispute over a nuclear power plant in the neighbouring Czech Republic was resolved. The far-right Freedom Party called on Wednesday for early parliamentary elections if its senior coalition partners, Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel's right-of-centre People's Party, did not join its campaign to have the Temelin nuclear plant shut down. But on Thursday, the centre-right coalition parties said they had patched up their differences. "Our project of reform has not come to an end," Schuessel told a news conference. "On the contrary we want to carry on with full commitment until the end of the legislative period (in autumn 2003)." Austrians are overwhelmingly opposed to atomic power and have no nuclear plants of their own. Schuessel, flanked by far-right Freedom Party leader and Vice-Chancellor Susanne Riess-Passer, conceded there had been "massive tensions" between his People's Party and the Freedom Party in recent days. These were sparked by a Freedom Party petition, signed by 15.5 percent of Austrian voters, demanding that Austria should veto Czech accession to the EU unless the controversial Temelin was shut down. 'Energy partnership' Prague insists the plant, 60 km (40 miles) from the border with Austria, is safe and said the petition was really aimed at preventing it from joining the EU. Schuessel, a committed European, had categorically ruled out an Austrian veto. But the Freedom Party's controversial former leader Joerg Haider raised doubts over the ruling coalition's future by saying elections not due until the end of 2003, could take place in the next few months. Under the deal ending the most bitter public dispute between the parties since the government took office in February 2000, the Freedom Party re-affirmed its commitment to EU enlargement as long as Austria's interests were properly protected. Schuessel agreed to seek further talks with the Czech Republic over Temelin once a new Czech government is in place after elections this year, while stressing this would not mean renegotiating an existing treaty with Prague. The treaty, enshrining safety guarantees for the Temelin plant, had also created an "energy partnership" between the two countries which allowed them to discuss any relevant issues. "This energy partnership includes the possibility of talking about everything to do with the energy policy of this country (the Czech Republic)," Schuessel said. "Austria could contribute a lot to ensuring alternatives to nuclear energy." Riess-Passer said: "We agreed to take up negotiations with the new Czech government after the election with the joint goal of doing everything to reach a solution in the Temelin question with a view to its closure." © 2002 Cable News Network LP, LLLP. ***************************************************************** 7 DOE release on plan to go ahead with MOX Secretary Abraham Announces Administration Plan to Proceed with Plutonium Disposition &Reduce Proliferation Concerns Says Plan Will "Enhance National Security &Advance Nonproliferation Goals" energy.gov - Headquarters' Press Release RELEASE DATE: January 23, 2002 WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham announced today that the Department of Energy and the Bush Administration will dispose of 34 metric tons of surplus weapons grade plutonium by turning the material into mixed oxide fuel (MOX) for use in nuclear reactors. The decision follows an exhaustive Administration review of non-proliferation programs, including alternative technologies to dispose of surplus plutonium to meet the non-proliferation goals agreed to by the United States and Russia. "Today's announcement is central to enhancing our national security and advancing our nonproliferation goals," Secretary Abraham said. "This path forward is a workable, technologically possible, and affordable solution, that meets our commitments to environmental improvement, energy and national security, and the nuclear nonproliferation policies agreed to by the United States and Russia." In September 2000, the United States and Russia signed the Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement committing each country to dispose of 34 metric tons of surplus plutonium. The decision on plutonium disposition comes after a thorough reexamination of more than 40 disposition alternatives that considered costs, workable technologies, national defense requirements, and compliance with nuclear non-proliferation agreements directed by the Department in cooperation with the National Security Council and the Department of State. The program has been under review since early last year. Previously, the government endorsed a dual-track approach to dispose of the plutonium including turning some of the material into MOX reactor fuel and immobilizing the remaining plutonium in self-protecting radioactive glass logs for long-term storage. Eliminating immobilization from the disposition pathway saves nearly $2 billion in funding, decreases plutonium storage costs, and facilitates the closure of the Department's former Nuclear Weapons Complex sites. "There is an increased urgency to move forward with the elimination of surplus weapons grade material like plutonium," Abraham said. "Focusing on proven technologies to eliminate this material, reducing costs in the process, and keeping our commitment to national security and the clean-up of former weapons sites is the right path to follow," Abraham said, noting that European countries have used MOX fuel in their reactors for over 20 years. The MOX conversion process is expected to cost $3.8 billion over 20 years, including the construction of two new conversion facilities at the Department of Energy's Savannah River Site in South Carolina, including disassembly and fuel fabrication facilities. Construction of the facilities, set to begin in Fiscal Year 2004, will create on average 500 new jobs and operation of the facilities will result in approximately 800 new jobs. The Department of State and the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration will work with their counterparts in Russia to achieve the disposition of Russian surplus plutonium through the MOX process. Bilateral cooperation and inspections will ensure progress. Media Contact: Joe Davis, 202-586-4940 Release No. PR-02-007 ***************************************************************** 8 Future of Nuclear Power May Hinge On Insurance Renewal, Panel Says E&E Publishing ( January 24, 2002 ) The nuclear industry says it needs the Price-Anderson Act to develop future projects, but some witnesses at a Senate Transportation, Infrastructure, and Nuclear Safety Subcommittee hearing Wednesday questioned specific components of the law and why it is needed at all. But it is unclear when, or if, the Environment and Public Works Committee will approve language to put into the Democratic energy bill (S. 1766) that would reauthorize the federal nuclear insurance program. "We are looking at reauthorizing it, but it might lapse," said subcommittee Chairman Harry Reid (D-Nev.) after the hearing. He said there will be more hearings on the issue in light of the controversy raised Wednesday. "Without the framework provided by the act, new private sector participation in nuclear power would be discouraged because of the risk of potentially large liability claims if such an accident were to occur," said William Kane, deputy executive director for reactor programs at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Kane stressed NRC is not a promotional agency but that it does recommend the law be reauthorized. The Price-Anderson Act "provides a valuable public benefit by establishing a system for the prompt and equitable settlement of public liability claims resulting from a nuclear accident," Kane said. Martin Fertel, senior vice president of the Nuclear Energy Institute, told the committee that Congress should renew the act indefinitely and that the industry supports renewing it with no changes. He stressed nuclear's emission-free electricity production should not be ignored when evaluating the country's future energy policy. There are 103 commercial nuclear reactors that provide about 20 percent of the country's electricity. Nuclear power is an emission-free form of electricity production, however, its critics are quick to point to the 2,000 tons of radioactive spent fuel the collection of reactors produce each year and the absence of a safe place to store it at this point. The Price-Anderson Act expires in August. If it is not renewed, existing plants licensed while the act was in effect would still be covered by the insurance through a grandfather clause, but any new plants would not be covered until a new act is passed. Since the financial coverage would not be there, it would not be easy to get investors to build new plants, some sources say, so even new technology, like Pebble Bed Modular Reactors, would not go online. Two levels of coverage exist under the law. First, all nuclear power plants must take out a $200 million liability insurance policy. If an accident were to occur and go beyond that amount, the second tier would kick in. The plants are then responsible for $88 million assessments per reactor per incident in the event of a nuclear accident. However, nuclear sites cannot pay more than $10 million per reactor per year under the law in these "retroactive" payments. This puts close to a $9.5 billion cap on the industry's responsibility in the event of a nuclear accident. Congress must then decide how to fill any gap, should the cost of a nuclear accident go beyond the $9.5 billion. The act also indemnifies DOE contractors that could be involved in nuclear accidents from liability, which means that should a nuclear accident occur, DOE would be held responsible under the act. The Senate energy committee has jurisdiction over this portion of the law and has included provisions in S. 1766 to allow DOE to indemnify contractors indefinitely and increase the maximum amount of DOE contractor indemnification to $10 billion. Model Christie Brinkley testified on behalf of the Standing for Truth About Radiation (STAR) Foundation, a New York-based activist group against nuclear power, saying her husband and three children live between three nuclear power plants. She pointed out that the $9.5 billion cap would not come close to the $59 billion damage estimate a spent fuel pool fire could create. She also discussed the retroactive payment portion of the law, saying that the reactor owners do not have to come up with more than 98 percent of the insurance money until after an accident has occurred. "This is like having a homeowner's insurance policy where most of the insurance premiums don't have to be paid until after the house burns down," she said. Brinkley said the nuclear power industry should pay those premiums up front. "If the nuclear industry can't come up with the funds to compensate victims because they can't afford it, is it really fair and reasonable for the taxpayer to be stuck with the costs of paying for a major nuclear accident?" She also asked how "acts of war" play into the Price-Anderson Act coverage and said the financial cap should be based an estimate of damage not a number "simply pulled out of thin air." John Quattrocchi, senior vice president of underwriting at American Nuclear Insurers, said the financial protection the act gives the public is better than any other system and the public is better off having this protection than not. He said terrorist acts are included under the act, but not acts of war. Adding another element to the debate, Peter Bradford, a visiting lecturer in energy policy and environmental protection at Yale University, said that the Price-Anderson Act has anti-competitive effects when putting nuclear power against fossil fuels and renewable resources in competitive markets, markets that did not exist when the act was created 44 years ago. "First, new nuclear capacity appears cheaper than it really is relative to other sources," he said. "Second, any nuclear design that is truly inherently safe or that is at least capable of doing more than $9 billion in damage does not enjoy the benefit of improved safety in competition with the nuclear plants that do benefit from liability limitation." Bradford said this limits market incentives such as remote or underground siting since they do not get protection under the law. "Rather than underwrite industry costs in the event of such an accident, it would seem wiser for Congress to adopt a framework that encourages the deployment of energy sources -- conceivably inherently safe nuclear sources -- that do not carry with them the potential for inflicting such large damages." Reid, also the Senate majority whip and chairman of the Appropriations Energy and Water Development Subcommittee, will need to examine the issue this session while in the middle of a fight with DOE and White House over the proposal of permanently storing 77,000 tons of spent fuel, now temporarily stored at reactor sites, in his state's Yucca Mountain. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham indicated Jan. 10 that he intends to recommend to the president that the site is suitable for storage. "This has nothing to do with Yucca Mountain," Reid said at the start of the hearing, "Even though the amount of energy produced by alternative energy is small, we haven't given them as much help. I am not opposed to looking at future generation of nuclear power, but why treat this any differently than any other industry I can think of?" Reid compared the nuclear industry to the builders of the Titanic that the ship was unsinkable and "only when the boat was in the water did its vulnerabilities become apparent." Besides saying that renewable energy also produces emission-free electricity and should be utilized more, Brinkley also pointed to the waste produced by nuclear generation. "You can't ignore the waste that is produced," she said. "It is irresponsible to be producing nuclear waste with no disposal system. You can't truly call this clean energy." Reid said more attention needs to be paid to renewables and that a large reason it could take up to 15 years to get more renewables on line is the fact Congress has not done anything to support it. "Coal and nuclear power have been inappropriately demonized over the last few years but the fact of the matter is both are efficient and cost-effective source of energy, and like or not we are going to be dependent upon them for the foreseeable future," said Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio) at the hearing. The House agreed to extend the law until 2017 by approving Rep. Heather Wilson's (R-N.M.) H.R. 2983, the Price-Anderson Reauthorization Act of 2001 (H.Rpt. 107-299, Part I), in late November. It raised the reactor assessment from $88 million to $94 million and the limit on per-reactor annual payments from $10 million to $15 million. The bill also contained several amendments added during its markup involving security issues. The House energy bill, H.R. 4, approved in August, did not contain any language on reauthorizing the act. -- Suzanne Struglinski To see more of Environment and Energy Daily, or to subscribe online, please visit http://www.eenews.net © 2002 E&E Publishing. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 9 Chernobyl's Real Victims... TCS: Enviro-Sci - 01/26/2002 06:23:02 Dr. Roger Bate Director, International Policy Network, London The UN Development Programme and Unicef have finally admitted in a new report what many scientists and policy wonks have known for years. Chernobyl killed thousands -- not from radiation, but from policy based on radiophobic hysteria. (Editor's note: The two organizations have yet to make the report available on their websites.) The exhibitions of photographs of deformed victims, which raised millions of dollars for pressure groups and charities, have been exposed as fraudulent. However, it is unlikely that anti-nuclear activists will acknowledge their culpability in the deaths they have caused since it would undermine their entire thesis that low-level radiation is harmful. It is, in fact, entirely harmless In the nearly 15 years since the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe thousands of people have died and hundreds of thousands of births affected by its fallout. But the deaths are due to radiophobia, which caused extensive political fallout, and not from radiation-induced illness. According to UN scientists looking at the medical effects of Chernobyl, the real disaster has been psychosomatic disorders that were exacerbated by the mass media hysteria at the time. This hysteria encouraged inappropriate government actions in the former Soviet Union such as forced evacuations from locations that might have been contaminated with radiation. (For a related article describing the potential consequences of this hysteria in the U.S., click HERE.) The nuclear core meltdown that occurred at Chernobyl in the Soviet Union in April 1986 was a tragedy for the hundreds of people actually working at the plant. Of these about one third (134 people) were diagnosed with acute radiation sickness, and 28 of these died within the first four months of the accident. Since then, 17 more of the patients who survived the acute phase have died. These later deaths were caused by lung gangrene, thigh sarcoma, and non-radiation diseases or accidents. For them and their families, Chernobyl was a disaster. But for many others it didn't have to be. Partly because the international media were denied access to the site -- but also because of acute radiophobia that has gripped western thought since the World War II atomic bombing of Japan -- western media assumed the worst. The British Daily Mail on April 29th 1986 filled half its front page with the words "2000 DEAD." They further claimed that the dead were not buried in cemeteries but at "Pirogovo in the radioactive wastes depository." The next day, The New York Post claimed that 15,000 bodies had been bulldozed into nuclear waste pits. Later, the Natural Resources Defence Council claimed there would be 110,000 post-Chernobyl cancers in Central Europe and Scandinavia. Several years later, on October 13, 1995, Reuters announced "800,000 children were hit by Chernobyl, as in a nuclear attack." Over the following months, the BBC, Greenpeace and the numerous European dailies joined the bandwagon to claim that tens of thousands were dead or dying because of radiation. According to Professor Zbigniew Jaworowski, a medical adviser to the UN on the effects of radiation "perhaps the most important factor in creating the Chernobyl mythology was the assumption that any radiation dose, even one close to zero, has some detrimental effect." Jaworowski has been arguing this point for nearly a decade, and finally the UN is beginning to listen. This assumption, on which the world's regulations are based, is called the "linear no-threshold hypothesis." This means that there is no threshold below, which the effects of radiation, which are observed at high doses, cease to appear. This hypothesis contradicts all experimental and epidemiological evidence. That evidence demonstrates no harm -- and even some benefit -- at low radiation doses. Our bodies can obviously deal with a low level of exposure to radiation, and it may even stimulate our systems' defences and make us healthier. The LNT hypothesis is similar to assuming that one should fear a temperature of 75 Fahrenheit because at 750 Fahrenheit one would receive fatal burns. There are numerous places on the planet (Norway, Iran and even Cornwall in Britain) where natural radiation is far higher than occurred within a few miles from Chernobyl after the meltdown, with no known human harm. Following the accident there was a small increase in radiation levels in Russia, the Ukraine and Belarus. Massive radiation screening programmes were established in these regions and in other countries such as Poland. Incidents of thyroid cancers (the form of cancer most likely following acute exposure to radiation) had not increased until 1996. Indeed the Brestoblast region of Belarus, the area with the second lowest radiation level, had the highest incidents of thyroid cancer. There has been an excess of 1,800 cases of childhood thyroid cancer in the whole of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, according to the recent report, but even this may be partly due to previous under-reporting. According to a Swedish radiobiologist, Professor Gunnar Walinder, the LNT hypothesis, and not radiation, is the real health hazard. The belief that any exposure may be harmful leads to disproportionate policies to remove people from this hypothetical danger. Jaworowski estimates that nearly 5 million people in the former Soviet Union have been affected by severe psychological stress, leading to psychosomatic diseases. The main stress was inflicted on those living in areas where the media and Government informed them that it was fatal to live. Forced evacuations of the 850,000 newly categorized "Chernobyl victims" was planned. In the end, 400,000 people were forced to move. Many of these people suffered from gastrointestinal, endocrinological and other non-radiation induced problems. Relocation occurred for over 5 years, causing the destruction of family and community social networks, and according to Jaworowski "exposed the relocated persons to resentment and ostracism in the new localities, where old inhabitants treated them as privileged intruders." Relocation started with those exposed to most radiation (levels about the sixth the background level in Iran), but soon people exposed to doses of radiation lower than in Cornwall were being moved. Among those moved, morbidity and mortality rates were far higher than those who stayed behind. And the cost of the process ran into billions of dollars. One estimate endorsed by Jaworowski puts the cost to Belarus at $86 billion. Perhaps saddest of all is that as many as 200,000 abortions were conducted of wanted pregnancies in order to avoid non-existent radiation damage to the fetus. The end result of government action, activist pressure and media campaigns has been the spawning of a victim culture, where half of the Ukraine says their health has been adversely affected by Chernobyl. Apportioning blame between the media and the Supreme Soviet is a difficult task. But unfounded western fears based on the linear no-threshold hypothesis undoubtedly encouraged the mass evacuation program undertaken by the Soviet authorities. Chernobyl was the worst possible meltdown of a poorly designed, constructed and managed nuclear reactor, with the release of significant quantities of radionuclides into the atmosphere. Yet, according to the UN Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, the death toll from the accident itself and directly related effects is 41. There were no early death cases among the public. Apart from increase in thyroid cancer registry (probably due to increased screening rather than a real increase in incidence) there is no evidence of a major public health impact related to the ionizing radiation 15 years after the accident. No increase of overall cancer incidence or mortality that could be associated with radiation exposure has been observed. Many more deaths were induced by poor policies based on outdated scientific understanding. And yet today the LNT hypothesis still forms the basis of radiation thinking. This is a bizarre indictment of the anti-nuclear world we inhabit. Let us hope that the recent UN report will begin to change this perception. But don't hold your breath. Dr. Roger Bate is Director of the International Policy Network in London ***************************************************************** 10 Bulgarian PM sows confusion over N-plant BULGARIA: January 25, 2002 SOFIA - Bulgaria's Prime Minister Simeon Saxe-Coburg appeared to have sown confusion over when the European Union aspirant state plans to close two of the older reactors at its Kozloduy nuclear power plant. The local media have interpreted his remarks made this week as a surprise agreement, under pressure from the European Commission to close them in 2006. This week the premier and top government officials failed to clarify the issue which had triggered public uproar in which opposition demanded a special parliamentary hearing. Bulgaria bowed to the EU pressure in 2000 and agreed to shut down Kozloduy's first two oldest 440-megawatt reactors, number one and two, before 2003. But there is still no clarity on when it would close the other two 440 MW reactors, number three and four. According to a 1999 deal with the European Commission, Bulgaria should close them in 2008 and 2010, respectively, but in the last two annual reports on Bulgaria the commission insisted it should be in 2006 at the latest. Most Bulgarian officials have been saying that the two reactors in question have been modernised to be safe and the country which is the main power exporter in the Balkans cannot afford to close them so early. On Tuesday, Saxe-Coburg talking to reporters after meeting Prime Minister Costas Simitis of Greece, a main supporter of an earlier closure, told reporters: "We have taken firm international obligations to take reactors one and two out of exploitation by the end of this year and will make neccessary efforts to meet the dates of taking out of use reactors number three and four." Local newspapers said that when asked later on Tuesday if he meant 2006, the former king answered: "Things are moving in this direction". This week, Saxe-Coburg said: "We are making efforts to combine the interests of Bulgaria and the European Union." Several ministers made evasive statements. Deputy Prime Minister Kostadin Paskalev said that the issue would be addressed in a new energy strategy which the government would approve after January 31. "It is not clear. And I am telling you this clearly - it is not clear yet. Until we approve that strategy everything else is just tales," he said. Energy Minister Milko Kovachev told reporters: "I can not make any comment. I think that a solution to the question is to publish the 1999 agreement (with the European Commission)...There is an agreement." The Soviet-designed 3,760 MW Kozloduy plant, which has two other 1,000 MW recators, supplies some 44 percent of Bulgaria's power a year. It produced 19 billion kWh last year, its highest output for 10 years. Bulgaria opened the energy chapter in its pre-accession talks with the EU in November and hopes to close it in 2003. REUTERS NEWS SERVICE ***************************************************************** 11 Haddam offered $13 million in nuclear waste storage deal By Associated Press, 1/24/2002 01:12 HADDAM, Conn. (AP) Town selectmen on Wednesday voted 2-1 to accept $13 million from the Connecticut Yankee Atomic Power Co. in return for allowing the company to store spent nuclear fuel three-quarters of mile from its decommissioned nuclear power plant. The agreement also puts an end to litigation filed by Connecticut Yankee that charged the town with illegally preventing it from storing its spent nuclear fuel at the best possible site on its property. The company and the town were trying to reach a settlement before a Feb. 6 deadline, after which a federal court would decide the issue. ''We're making the best of a bad situation and doing what's pragmatically in our best interests,'' Selectman Keith Ainsworth said. The dry cask storage complex would be situated on a 15-acre residentially zoned parcel less than a mile from the nuclear plant. Haddam would earn $800,000 cash for allowing the facility to be built in that area and would receive 10 years of annual minimum payments of at least $1 million that would increase 2.5 percent each year. Connecticut Yankee also has made assurances that only its own waste would be stored at the proposed site, after residents expressed concern that the facility would become a national nuclear dumping ground. Connecticut Yankee also would routinely monitor water runoff and the air for radiation. The company has agreed to have an extra transportable cask on site should a problem be detected. ''We're on a path now to real true economic development with some real strong structural dollars that we're going to be using to move this town forward,'' Second Selectman Philip Pessina said. ***************************************************************** 12 Nuclear test veterans welcome ruling allowing legal action Ananova - New Zealand veterans planning legal action against the British government over exposure to nuclear tests have welcomed a High Court ruling allowing ex-servicemen to launch injury-compensation claims. The ruling will permit court claims by the veterans exposed to Britain's Pacific nuclear tests in the 1950s, lawyer Gordon Paine says. He represents 200 New Zealand veterans of the British nuclear-test programme, as well as widows, children and close relatives. The High Court has ruled a law barring legal claims against the Ministry of Defence by veterans injured through negligence clashed with the Human Rights Act guaranteeing the right to a fair hearing. The judge allowed a claim to proceed by a former electrical engineer who served in the Royal Navy between 1955 and 1968. Mr Paine says the ruling means the New Zealand nuclear-test veterans will not have to fight any further for access to the British courts. Preparations on their case claiming compensation from the British government are well under way. The servicemen say they suffered exposure to radiation during the British bomb tests in the South Pacific in 1957-58 which led them and their families to suffer from various forms of cancer and hereditary diseases. The British government says personnel involved in the tests gave informed consent and denied they were exposed to unsafe levels of radiation. The veterans' claim, which also includes compensation for widows, is expected to be filed later this year. Story filed: 04:39 Friday 25th January 2002 Copyright © 2002 Ananova Ltd ***************************************************************** 13 Wash. Radiation Levels in Dispute Las Vegas SUN January 25, 2002 KENNEWICK, Wash. (AP) - American Indian tribes that fished in the Columbia River were exposed to more radiation from the bordering Hanford Nuclear Reservation than previously thought, a federal report suggests. The Indians ate so much fish they were more exposed to potentially cancer-causing radiation than were white farmers and other people living in the area, according to a draft report prepared for the U.S. government by Risk Assessment Corp. The study, presented Wednesday, looks at fish consumption and radiation releases from 1944 to 1972. Previous studies had been aimed at estimating the exposure rates for people living downwind of the nuclear reservation when radioactive iodine was released into the atmosphere in the 1940s and early 1950s. Those studies had assumed that people ate about 90 pounds of fish per year, said Ed Liebow, a cultural anthropologist and consultant on the new study. But historians and representatives of tribes that fished downstream from Hanford say fish were so central to the diet of many Columbia River Indians that they might have been consuming as much as 1 1/2 pounds a day. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 14 Toxic matter still untouched at lakefront park site Chicago Tribune | January 26, 2002 By Julie Deardorff Tribune staff reporter Published January 24, 2002 Two years after radioactive thorium was discovered in a 3-acre patch where the Chicago River meets Lake Michigan, the extent of the contamination still isn't known, members of the Grant Park Advisory Council said Wednesday. DuSable Park, a hard-luck little meadow, cannot be developed into a park until the thorium contamination is resolved. For park advocates, the DuSable League, community organizations and some in the Streeterville neighborhood, the wait has been unacceptably long. "Years (later) we're sitting here with a pile of radioactive soil on a visible lakefront park that could be honoring DuSable, said Bob O'Neil, president of the Grant Park Advisory Council. "This isn't debatable." Streeterville resident Barbara Puechler spoke on the history of thorium contamination in the area at a meeting of the advisory council Wednesday. The Chicago River Rowing & Paddling Center proposed making the site--if it is ever deemed suitable for development-- a river center that would improve public access to the waterway. In December 2000, the Environmental Protection Agency surveyed the area as part of a general investigation into the Streeterville area where several sites had already been contaminated with thorium. The source is most likely the Lindsay Light Co., which used thorium in the manufacture of lantern mantles from 1910 to 1936. The EPA sent the results showing possible contamination to Kerr-McGee, River East LLC, the former site owner's corporate successor, and the Chicago Park District, the current site owner. Kerr-McGee and EPA have been working together since last summer to determine the extent of the contamination, said Fred Micke, on-scene coordinator in the EPA's Superfund Division. Kerr McGee submitted its latest draft work plan on Nov. 12, according to the EPA. "We know there's some radioactive material out there, but we don't know how much we have and at what depth," said Micke. "But the site is secure." In December the Friends of the Park asked the EPA for help, but the agency said it does not have authority to dictate the timetable for park development. Copyright © 2002, Chicago Tribune ***************************************************************** 15 US to use weapons plutonium as nuclear plant fuel USA: January 25, 2002 WASHINGTON - The Bush administration this week unveiled a plan to convert 34 metric tons of surplus weapons-grade plutonium into fuel for nuclear power plants. The plan will allow the United States to comply with a Sept. 2000 agreement with Russia to dispose of an equal amount of surplus plutonium, said the Department of Energy (DOE), which will oversee the program. The plan to turn the material into mixed oxide fuel is a result of the administration's review of nonproliferation goals agreed by the United States and Russia, including high-tech disposal methods. The plan "is central to enhancing our national security and advancing our nonproliferation goals," Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said in a release. Conversion will cost $3.8 billion over 20 years, including construction of two new facilities at the DOE's Savannah River weapons and research site in South Carolina, set to begin in 2004, DOE said. REUTERS NEWS SERVICE ***************************************************************** 16 NRC seeks revised standards for US nuke waste site USA: January 25, 2002 WASHINGTON - The Nuclear Regulatory Commission this week proposed revised guidelines for determining whether it should issue a license for the U.S. government's planned nuclear waste storage site in Nevada. The Energy Department earlier this month accepted Yucca Mountain as the final resting place for radioactive waste from the nation's nuclear power plants. The site would store 70,000 tons of waste for about 10,000 years deep within the mountain. The NRC said it will consider changing its guidelines to exclude "unlikely events" like volcano eruptions from the guaranteed protection of groundwater supplies at the proposed Yucca Mountain waste repository near Las Vegas. The new guidelines would exclude "features, events or processes that are estimated to have less than a 10 percent chance of occurring within 10,000 years" at the site, NRC said in a release. NRC will take public comment on its proposal for 75 days. Some $8 billion has been spent over the last 20 years to determine if Yucca Mountain would be a safe storage site, with critics contending the studies have shown it is unsuitable. The major concern over making Yucca Mountain a repository is the question of whether the radioactive waste will contaminate ground water in the area. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham is expected to soon forward his department's formal approval recommendation for the site to President George W. Bush. If Nevada objects to the administration's plan, as is likely, Congress would have 90 days to decide the issue with a simple majority vote. The NRC would then decide whether to issue a license for the site. Used fuel from the nation's 103 nuclear power plants is piling up at a rate of about 2,000 tons a year, according to the U.S. utility industry, which has pressed the federal government to designate Yucca Mountain as a waste repository. The Yucca Mountain site is not expected be in operation until at least 2010. REUTERS NEWS SERVICE ***************************************************************** 17 Wallstrom suggest EC arbitration on Sellafield online.ie 24 Jan 2002 The European Union's Environment Commissioner, Margot Wallstrom, has advised the Government to seek talks with Britain over the controversial Sellafield nuclear plant. Ms Wallstrom said Ireland should submit details of the legal challenges its has launched against British Nuclear Fuels to the European Commission, which could then broker talks. The commissioner also said today that Ireland must comply with EU environmental directives, particularly a 10-year-old nitrates directive which has been implemented in all EU member states except Ireland. Yesterday, figures released to the Green Party showed that Ireland has received 111 complaints from the EC over its failure to implement environmental measures, including many relating to waste and waste management. This is the highest per-capita number of complaints received by any EU member state. Environment Minister Noel Demspey defended his record in the face of this criticism and said Ireland has implemented 97% of all EU directives. ***************************************************************** 18 British Energy restarts Dungeness nuclear reactor UK: January 25, 2002 LONDON - British Energy restarted the 550-megawatt reactor 21 at its Dungeness B nuclear power station in southern England earlier yesterday, according to data from the National Grid. British Energy could not immediately be reached for comment. The reactor had been off since January 6 in an outage for refuelling. It had reached about half capacity by 0845 GMT yesterday, according to the Grid's BM Reports website. Nuclear plants have to be restarted gradually, taking several hours to return to full production. British Energy restarted the 550-megawatt reactor 22 at the 1,100 megawatt Dungeness B plant on Saturday. Reactor 22 had been off for two weeks while engineers worked on a faulty sprinkler system. UK: UPDATE - British Energy restarts Dungeness nuclear reactor. REUTERS NEWS SERVICE ***************************************************************** 19 Panel: Yucca science `weak to moderate' Friday, January 25, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal By KEITH ROGERS REVIEW-JOURNAL On the same day that Gov. Kenny Guinn told Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham that the threat of terrorism was a newly invented reason for burying nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, an independent panel said Thursday federal scientists' work on the project is "weak to moderate." Nevada officials said Guinn's three-page letter and the evaluation by the panel -- the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board -- bolstered their claims that a decision on the mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, will not be based on sound science. Guinn's letter was a point-by-point response to the reasons Abraham laid out when he notified Guinn on Jan. 10 that he intended after 30 days to recommend to President Bush that the Yucca Mountain site be developed into a repository for entombing 77,000 tons of highly radioactive waste. Congress charged the 11-member board in 1987 with evaluating the technical and scientific aspects of disposing spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste. It has expressed concerns to Abraham and Congress in the past, most recently in September. "And DOE does nothing with them," Nevada Nuclear Projects Agency chief Bob Loux said late Thursday. Loux said the board voiced concerns "at this point in time hoping to influence the recommendation because (it) feels the scientific basis for a site at Yucca Mountain is weak to moderate at best. "The board has gotten to the heart of the science questions and asked DOE to address those questions and DOE literally cannot do it without revealing that the site should be disqualified," he said. Department of Energy officials confirmed they received Guinn's letter and said a response will be made. Abraham's spokesman, Joe Davis, said that DOE officials disagree with the state's interpretation that a decision to build the repository will not be based on sound science. And he said there is one aspect of the panel's assessment that the DOE does agree with: that there is no single scientific or technical issue that would disqualify Yucca Mountain as a repository site. The panel said in a three-page letter to Abraham, House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., that its review "is not an assessment of the board's level of confidence in the Yucca Mountain site" and that "confidence in the DOE's projections of repository performance can be increased." But when the work by federal scientists is taken as a whole, the panel said it's view "is that the technical basis for DOE's repository performance estimate is weak to moderate at this time." After scientists studied Yucca Mountain for more than 20 years, the board found that questions remain about: • the integrity of waste packages; • the rate that water moves through the mountain; • the temperature at which the repository should be designed to operate; • uncertainties in the hydrology, geology, waste package materials and computer models for predicting how a repository will perform. Meanwhile, Guinn asserted in his letter that Abraham's desire to build the repository for urgent security reasons in light of heightened concern about terrorist attacks on nuclear power plants is unjustified, last-minute logic. "This new rationale for rushing forward with Yucca Mountain was invented by DOE and the nuclear industry in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks," Guinn wrote. "But what this rationale fails to acknowledge is that even if the Yucca Mountain project moves forward, spent fuel will continue to be stored at reactor sites across America for at least the next 50 years." Guinn noted that instead of reducing any terrorist threat, "rushing forward will actually significantly increase the potential threat by adding a massive new above-ground site in Nevada, in addition to the more than 100,000 shipments of spent fuel that will travel throughout the nation's cities." Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and John Ensign, R-Nev., said the board's conclusions reinforce what Nevada officials have been saying since the mountain was singled out in 1987 as the only site to be studied for disposal of high-level nuclear waste. "We wouldn't dream of settling for weak to moderate techniques from a surgeon trying to save someone's life or a pilot trying to land a plane," Reid and Ensign said in a joint statement. Loux said the panel's concerns for the proposed repository's heavy reliance on engineered barriers, including metals used in the waste containers, "confirms all the other scientific bodies that any decision at this point could not be made on sound science." In the letter signed by board Chairman Jared Cohon and the other 10 panel members, the panel noted that more work needs to be done regarding how waste packages corrode under designs based on high and low temperatures. "Confidence in waste package and repository performance potentially could increase if the DOE adopts a low-temperature repository design," the board stated. "However, a full and objective comparison of high- and low-temperature repository designs should be completed before the DOE selects a final repository design concept." Energy officials said they agree with the board's recommendation that the department "continue a vigorous, well-integrated scientific investigation to increase its fundamental understanding of the potential behavior of the repository system." Currently comprised of appointees from the Clinton administration, board members were nominated for their appointments by the National Academy of Sciences without regard to political affiliation, Loux said. The board is scheduled to meet in Pahrump on Tuesday and Wednesday. webmaster@lvrj.com Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - ***************************************************************** 20 Las Vegas City, county join Yucca legal fray Friday, January 25, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal Lawsuit seeks to delay Abraham decision By STEVE TETREAULT STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- Clark County and the city of Las Vegas joined the legal fray over Yucca Mountain on Thursday when they asked a federal court to set aside Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham's recommendation for nuclear waste burial in Nevada. Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman accompanied one of Nevada's nuclear waste lawyers to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. There, a lawsuit was filed stating that Abraham's decision "will cause immediate and irreparable harm." The decision will reduce property values and the Las Vegas Valley's tax base, discourage population growth, and cause "high levels of anxiety and stress among people" in the valley, the lawsuit states. The lawsuit, filed jointly by the county and city, asks the court to have Abraham delay his recommendation to President Bush until their case can be judged. "This is a first step to stop Yucca Mountain," Goodman said at the courthouse, shortly after he watched a White House speech by Bush as part of a U.S. Conference of Mayors gathering. Goodman said he did not get the chance to talk to Bush about nuclear waste as he had planned. Abraham announced Jan. 10 that he will ask Bush to authorize licensing a repository at the site 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, but he must wait at least 30 days from that date to do so. Energy Department attorneys were studying the latest lawsuit, DOE spokesman Joe Davis said. Nevada and the federal government are in court on at least two other nuclear waste matters. On Las Vegas's claim of harm from nuclear waste, Davis said, "It's difficult to understand how a recommendation that's yet to be made, that's yet to be decided by the president, that would perhaps become entangled in congressional action, could cause immediate and irreparable harm, given that Yucca Mountain, if licensed, would not receive waste for a decade from now." The city-county lawsuit was coordinated with Nevada's nuclear waste legal team headed by Washington attorney Joe Egan. It is almost identical to a state lawsuit filed in Washington on Dec. 17. Both lawsuits contend that the Yucca Mountain site guidelines used by Abraham are contrary to what Congress intended when it passed its first nuclear waste disposal law in 1982. The Las Vegas-Clark County lawsuit has a strategic purpose, attorneys and local officials said. They said it was conceived after the Energy Department argued in a court filing last week that the state lacks standing to pursue its case against Yucca Mountain at this time. They argued that the state has no case until the president selects Yucca Mountain, Nevada exercises its veto, and Congress votes on the matter. In a letter sent Wednesday to Abraham, Gov. Kenny Guinn said the court "should be allowed to rule on the merits" of the state's case rather than on technical points. "We know, as you do, that DOE retroactively changed its site suitability rules when it learned that the mountain's natural site features could not safely contain the waste," Guinn wrote. "The government is asserting the state can't bring the lawsuit because the state has the right to veto the president's recommendation. We think that's a silly argument, quite frankly," said William Briggs Jr., an attorney for Nevada. "But if we can bring in someone else (like the city and county) who doesn't have the right to veto, why not do that and eliminate this as an issue," Briggs said. "The governor called me yesterday and said we need the county to be part of this," Clark County Commission Chairman Dario Herrera said. "By working together on this legal angle, we preserve our right to continue challenging the site recommendation." "This represents the county's commitment to continue working with the governor and other elected officials to make every effort to ensure Nevada doesn't become America's dump," Herrera said. webmaster@lvrj.com Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - ***************************************************************** 21 Money from Dick muddles Yucca unity Yucca Man (aka Pat Blankenship) models the 2010 Las Vegas zoot suit. By Heidi Walters Just when you thought most Nevadans were united in bipartisan love against the proposed high-level nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, along comes Yucca Man, stumpin' for the Democrats. At least, that's the accusation nine Young Republicans lobbed at the HAZMAT-suited, gas-masked man and his dozen anti-Yucca cohorts last Thursday night, Jan. 17, at a state Democratic Party-sponsored protest ou tside the exclusive Tournament Hills development. In side the Summerlin gated community, House Majority Leader and fish-kissing Texan Dick Armey (see his website) was honoree at a $500-a-person, private Republican fund-raiser. Local bigwig (and bighair) Republicans expected to be dining with him included Nevada congressional candidates Jon Porter and Lynette Boggs McDonald. The reason the Dems were so bent about the fund-raiser is that Armey and other House GOP leaders have long favored sticking Nevada with the dump. "We don't understand how someone like Lynette Boggs McDonald can boast about having the support of the top GOP leaders when all of them have been staunch supporters of Yucca Mountain," said Jeff Burbank, spokesman for the Nevada State Democratic Party (and, for the record, a former reporter at the Las Vegas Business Press, CityLife's sister pub). The Party had sent a letter to Boggs McDonald and Porter asking them to boycott the Armey dinner. "Even if you went to Dick Armey and told him you don't agree with him on Yucca Mountain - to then accept funds from him is just really hypocritical," Burbank said at the protest. At first, before the protesters and protest-protesters staked out their respective corners, there was confusion. The Yucca Man group thought the younguns who'd joined them were part of their protest, until, at the crosswalk, they hung back while the Democrats crossed the street. Turns o ut, the Young Republicans are opposed to Yucca Mountain but apparently supportive of Nevada Republicans cashing in on (pro-Yucca) Armey's visit. Over on the Young Republican corner, Nathan Taylor said he thought the Democrats should have stayed at home to write letters protesting Yucca Mountain instead of making a scene on the street. "We don't think the Democrats should be out here playing politics with an issue that al l Nevadans are u nited on," Taylor said. "They're saying all our elected officials shouldn't show up here. But we think this is an opportunity for our governor and for [Republican Sen. John] Ensign to come talk to Mr. Armey about the issue and try to convince him to stop [the dump]." Devin Smith - a candidate for the District F Clark County Commission seat, as the card he had handy points out - agreed. "It's just ridiculous that they would stand out here and protest that the Republican le adership is for [the dump]," Smith said. "I'm gonna fight against it, and all Nevadans are going to fight against it." Taylor added: "We just want to show them that we're not going to let them pull cheap political stunts." Well, the same could be said of these Young Republicans and their decidedly political signs such as "GOP for Nevada" and "Democrats Introduced Nuke Legisla tion." "We're only out he re because we want our elected officials to know we support them," Taylor insisted. Nevertheless, Steve Tompkins, state chair of the Nevada Young Republicans, spoke of Yucca in partisan terms - further diminishing the sincerity of the group's indignation. "I think Dick Armey is going to listen to two Republican candidates more than he's going to listen to Dario Herrera," he said. Tompkins blames Demo crats for legislation in the 1980s that initiated the search for a centralized nuclear waste repository and that made Nevada the only site to be studied for the dump. "The point is, the folks across the street are trying to pin the fact that Nevada will probably [get the dump] on the Republican Party. But if Harry Reid, John Ensign, Shelley Berkley and Jim Gibson couldn't stop Yucca Mountain, what makes them think Berkley and Herrera will do a bette r job than Lynette Boggs McDonald and Jon Porter?" On the other street corner - with their "Why Not Texas?" and "We Don't Want Dick Armey of Hypocrites!" signs - the Democrats scoffed similarly, while also denying that they were trying to make Yucca a divisive issue. "If the GOP really wanted to stop Yucca Mountain, they'd not be here," Burbank said. "They'd be at home writing letters." Some of the Democrats said it was, in a way, heartening to see the other protesters. It showed they cared about Yucca Mountain enough to stand out in the cold. And, to casual motorists, it might sort of look like they were part of the anti-Armey protest, too, so what the heck. That isn't to say all was peaceful. At one point, when some of the Young Republicans moved halfway into the crosswalk, a Democrat shouted to them: "What does your sign say?" A man shouted back: "'Bill Clinton Started It!'" Then Democrat Coco Hall, reading another sign, shouted, "'GOP for Nevada'?! Ha! They're fascist!" Confused, angry shouting ensued, until another Democrat woman soothed, "Let's not get into this. Let's not play into their game!" Hall, calming down, said she was there to fight Yucca Mountain. Period. "We are not here as Democrats, as Republicans, but as citizens of the state," she said. "Party lin e is immaterial." She and others emphasized this by s houting at traffic, "Yucca Mountain, hell no! Yucca Mountain, hell no!" And they hoisted their signs, including the "GOP Fallout" one, a bit higher. Copyright 2002 Las Vegas City Life ***************************************************************** 22 Las Vegas sues to halt nuclear dump -- The Washington Times January 25, 2002 WASHINGTON, Jan. 25 (UPI) -- Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman on Thursday filed a lawsuit to stop Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham from recommending that the nation's nuclear waste be buried in southern Nevada. Goodman, attending the U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting in Washington, filed a joint petition with U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia on behalf of Las Vegas and Clark County. Abraham has said he plans to tell President Bush that Yucca Mountain is a suitable place for the nation's nuclear waste. The proposed site is 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. "The recommendation of Yucca Mountain as a high level waste repository will cause immediate and irreparable harm to the city of Las Vegas and Clark County," the suit charges. According to the suit, the damage would include but not be limited to "a reduction of property values, a reduction of the city and county tax base, a reduction of tourism, a reduction of the population and/or population growth, and high levels of anxiety and stress among the people who resident in the city and county." Energy Department spokesman Joe Davis was unavailable for comment late Thursday. ***************************************************************** 23 State joins Yucca action Las Vegas SUN January 25, 2002 State joins Yucca action LAS VEGAS SUN The state has joined the city of Las Vegas and Clark County in the federal appeals court case against the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain. According to the petition for review filed in the court in Washington, D.C., the proposed dump will cause "immediate and irreparable harm" to Southern Nevada. Egan &Associates, the law firm hired by Gov. Kenny Guinn to help fight the Yucca project, joined the petition Thursday afternoon, hours after Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman filed the original petition on behalf of the city and county. The Department of Energy did not oppose the state's legal action. Guinn also sent a letter to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham to say he was "disappointed" in the secretary's Jan. 10 notice that he would recommend Yucca as the nation's nuclear waste repository. Guinn noted in a three-page letter to Abraham that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, licensing agency for any repository, has yet to solve 293 technical issues related to the proposed repository 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 24 States: Case against Nebraska is strong CJOnline.com | The Topeka Capital-Journal | 01/24/02 By Kelly Wiese The Associated Press LITTLE ROCK -- A five-state nuclear waste compact has a strong case in its lawsuit against Nebraska for trying to back out of the deal to build a waste dump, an attorney for the group said in a compact meeting Wednesday. The Central Interstate Low-Level Radioactive Waste Commission held its midyear meeting in Arkansas. Among the issues discussed, a 1989 plan to build the low-level nuclear waste dump in Nebraska. The compact includes Nebraska, Louisiana, Arkansas, Kansas and Oklahoma. In 1998, Nebraska backed off its support for the waste disposal site in Butte, Neb. It refused to issue a license for the dump's construction over concerns about a high water table and potential pollution. Nuclear waste generators and the waste compact are suing Nebraska, alleging that it has acted in bad faith. A trial is set to start in June. That is a trial the group should win, compact attorney Alan Peterson told the group Wednesday. "The usefulness of an idea of a compact between states depends on the resolution of this case," he said. "It's not just this compact." He referred to an expert report that he said helps the compact's case. The report came from David Siefken at PMC, a Rockville, Md., company. Siefken has been involved with nuclear waste disposal sites in many other states, Peterson said. Peterson said the report concluded that bad faith appears to be the only reason Nebraska tried to bail out. The dump would be a reinforced-concrete bunker that could hold used filters from nuclear generators and resins, contaminated tools and clothing, and materials from nuclear utilities, industries, academic research centers and hospitals. Peterson said the report also found that specifics in the site plan are sound. For example, the buffer zone around the disposal site is adequate, and the monitoring system is capable of early warning if radioactive materials are released at the site. The report also found that Nebraska acted in bad faith by using water-level readings provided by the company hired to build the dump to deny the license. Those reviewing the license application and the company also should have communicated better, the report found. F. Gregory Hayden, Nebraska's delegate to the compact, said the storage system as proposed in the license application isn't viable, and that the commission should research legislation in other states for dealing with all kinds of waste. "The current system isn't working," he said. If the commission wins the lawsuit, Nebraska could be liable for $160 million or more, Peterson said. The compact is seeking money on the deal dating to 1991 -- about $75 million -- and a neutral license reviewer to finish considering the license for the site, he said. If that doesn't happen, the commission wants about $94 million plus interest. © Copyright 2002 Morris Digital Works and The Topeka Capital-Journal. ***************************************************************** 25 Letter to Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham from Governor Guinn re: Intent to recommend to President Bush approval of Yucca Mountain OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR One Hundred One North Carson Street Carson City, Nevada 89701 KENNY C. GUINN Governor The Honorable Spencer Abraham Secretary of Energy Washington, DC 20585 January 24, 2002 Dear Secretary Abraham: I was disappointed, to say the least, with your letter notifying me of your intent to recommend to President Bush approval of the Yucca Mountain site for the development of the nation's high level nuclear waste repository. Framing the decision in part as a "security" issue was somewhat surprising, since no analysis has ever been done to suggest that Yucca Mountain will contribute to national security. It appears that the Department of Energy is the only entity familiar with the facts at Yucca Mountain that does not see your decision as premature. As you know, your own contractor Bechtel/SAIC, as well as the General Accounting Office, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste, the Yucca Mountain Technical Review Board, the National Academy of Sciences, and, recently, the International Atomic Energy Agency and the OECD's Nuclear Energy Agency, have each concluded that significant additional studies need to be performed before DOE can seriously consider whether to recommend the Yucca Mountain site for permanent nuclear waste disposal. For example, NRC has indicated that at least 292 major studies remain to be completed in 19 key areas, including corrosion of the waste packages, potential effects of volcanic activity, rapid groundwater flow rates through the mountain, large uncertainties in predicted repository performance, even the very design of the repository itself. In particular, many of the organizations noted above have commented on DOE's newly improvised "total system" approach to nuclear waste storage at Yucca Mountain, an approach that appears designed to ignore the blatant unsuitability of the geology at Yucca Mountain for the isolation of radioactive waste. As you know, Nevada has taken legal action against DOE over this very issue on the grounds that DOE has abandoned the Nuclear Waste Policy Act's requirement that geologic isolation must be the primary form of containment. We know, as you do, that DOE retroactively changed its site suitability rules when it learned that the mountain's natural site features could not safely contain the waste. At the very least, the D.C. Court of Appeals should be allowed to rule on the merits of that action before any recommendation is made. For the reasons set forth below, I respectfully disagree with each of your articulated reasons for rushing forward with Yucca Mountain. Security Against Terrorism. This new rationale for rushing forward with Yucca Mountain was invented by DOE and the nuclear industry in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks. But what this rationale fails to acknowledge is that even if the Yucca Mountain project moves forward, spent fuel will continue to be stored at reactor sites across America for at least the next 50 years. Even on an optimistic schedule, Yucca Mountain will not be capable of receiving most of the waste for decades. Indeed, once at the site, much of the spent fuel will be stored above ground for the next 100 years. Instead of reducing any terrorist threat, rushing forward will actually significantly increase the potential threat by adding a massive new aboveground site in Nevada, in addition to the more than 100,000 shipments of spent fuel that will travel through the nation's cities. Upon examination of the facts, the terrorism argument does not ring true. National Security. Yucca Mountain is not, and has never been, about national security and nuclear nonproliferation, as you suggest. Spent nuclear fuel and waste products do not pose a non-proliferation threat, since they do not contain separated fissile materials that can be utilized for nuclear weapons. If you mean to suggest that if Yucca Mountain does not open, the United States will be unable to dismantle its nuclear weapons or operate its nuclear submarines, I believe this is misleading. For example, I understand that DOE is currently building a brand new spent fuel storage facility in Idaho to house foreign research reactor spent fuel, and that this will be accomplished in a matter of only two years. If this can be done so readily to aid our foreign trading partners, I'm sure it can also be done to keep our nation secure should such a need arise. Energy Security. During the next several decades, Yucca Mountain will contribute nothing to the nation's energy security. Nuclear plants across the nation are building inexpensive and safe dry storage facilities for their spent fuel, and successfully renewing their licenses as a result. They will continue to do this regardless of whether Yucca Mountain proceeds or not, since, even under the best of conditions, Yucca Mountain could not provide storage for several decades. DOE has even agreed with one utility, PECO Energy, to take title to its fuel on site, and to purchase and operate its storage facility. Environmental Protection. It is simply untrue to suggest that Yucca Mountain is stalling cleanup of the nation's defense nuclear facilities. These sites are contaminated with massive quantities of low-level radioactive waste, which Yucca Mountain will not accept at any time. Higher-level transuranic wastes are already going into the successful repository at the Waste Isolation Pilot Project in New Mexico. DOE rejected efforts to develop additional low-level waste disposal sites in several states for defense cleanup activities. If environmental protection is DOE's main concern, perhaps the Department should explain to Nevadans why we should tolerate an uncertainty factor of 10,000 in the radiation dose projections for the Yucca Mountain repository system. Our slot machines have better odds than that. Though you've clearly made up your mind, I remain hopeful that President Bush, when he receives your recommendation, will keep his promise to me and Nevada not to push the Yucca Mountain project forward against the imperatives of sound science. If that is not the case, however, please rest assured that Nevada will continue to pursue every means available to ensure that science and the law will ultimately prevail. Sincerely, --/s/-- KENNY C. GUINN Governor ***************************************************************** 26 Berkley Calls on White House to Reject DOE Yucca Recommendation Congresswoman Shelley Berkley - Legislation: Press Releases 2001 Government Science Panel Criticizes Yucca Mountain; Writes of "Gaps in Data" January 24, 2002 -- (Las Vegas, NV) The Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board (NWTRB), a panel of scientists charged by Congress with overseeing the scientific and technical work done on Yucca Mountain, wrote a letter today to Secretary of Energy, Spencer Abraham, expressing strong reservations about the DOE’s scientific study, or so-called "performance estimates" for Yucca Mountain. The DOE uses the performance estimate as a model for how well the repository would function as a nuclear waste repository, and is a key element in supporting the DOE’s recommendation to the White House. The letter from the NWTRB to Secretary Abraham states that, "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 at this time." Additionally, "gaps in data and basic understanding cause important uncertainties in the concepts and assumptions on which the DOE’s performance estimates are now based. Because of these uncertainties, the Board has limited confidence in current performance estimates generated by the DOE’s performance assessment model (emphasis added)." Said U.S. Congresswoman Shelley Berkley, "Between the GAO and the NWTRB -- both unbiased, independent, and objective panels -- we have been able to determine just how far the DOE is from establishing the scientific basis they need to support their recommendation. It has become painfully clear how premature and irresponsible the recommendation is, and how this decision is driven solely by the disgraceful bias of Spencer Abraham and the Department of Energy. In light of the GAO report, and now the NWTRB's criticisms, President Bush has a clear obligation to reject the Secretary's recommendation, and send the DOE back to the drawing board." Many of the issues touched on by the NWTRB have been cited in the past as weaknesses of the government’s study, but have yet to be adequately addressed by the DOE. Despite these shortcomings and lack of reliable data, Secretary Spencer Abraham, a long-time advocate for the dump in the U.S. Senate, gave notice in January that he would recommend the site to the President. The President must now accept or reject the Secretary’s recommendation. The State of Nevada can veto the decision of the President, but can be overturned by a majority vote of the U.S. Congress. ***************************************************************** 27 DOE PR on NWTRB Yucca report energy.gov - Headquarters' Press Release RELEASE DATE: January 24, 2002 Energy Department Welcomes NWTRB Report: 'No Individual Technical or Scientific Factor' Eliminates Yucca Mountain Agrees with Board on Importance of Ongoing Research WASHINGTON, D.C. - The U.S. Department of Energy today welcomed a report of the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board (NWTRB) regarding the ongoing scientific study of Yucca Mountain that provided valuable independent confirmation of a critical conclusion reached after 24 years and $4 billion of research. The Board stated, and DOE agrees, that "no individual technical or scientific factor has been identified that would automatically eliminate Yucca Mountain from consideration as the site of a permanent repository" for the country's nuclear waste. In addition, the Department also agrees with another of the Board's recommendations in the report that the Department "continue a vigorous, well-integrated scientific investigation to increase its fundamental understanding of the potential behavior of the repository system." The Department said Secretary Abraham welcomed the Board's report. "The Department welcomes the Board's statement that 'no individual technical or scientific factor has been identified that would automatically eliminate Yucca Mountain from consideration.' Moreover, the Department fully agrees, and believes that such a course of research, as contemplated by both the Board and the Secretary, will increase confidence in long-term projections of repository performance," Under Secretary of Energy Robert Card said. "The Secretary is committed to ensuring the safety of citizens of Nevada and of the nation, a timely recommendation on a repository, and an ongoing course of research that would last so long as the repository is in its operating and monitoring period-as much as 100-300 years after its opening," Card said. "The Secretary looks forward to working with the Board in developing and conducting a course of research for the future." The Department also agrees with another of the Board's findings that, "[e]liminating all uncertainty associated with estimates of repository performance would never be possible at any repository site." The Department is committed to reducing uncertainties with estimates of performance thousands of years in the future, and will continue to prove its commitment through aggressively seeking and utilizing resources for important research, Card explained. In addition, the Department notes that the Board did not disagree with the Department on the most pressing issue for this generation-that a repository at the site would be safe throughout its operating and monitoring period, hundreds of years into the future. In fact, Card said, there is no legitimate scientific organization that disagrees on this issue. The Board also recognized in its report that it is a matter of policy on whether to proceed. If the President decides to recommend the site, the State of Nevada will have the opportunity to disapprove the recommendation, meaning that Congress would ultimately have the responsibility for designating a site for development. Proper exercise of this responsibility, along with the power of the Congress to fund the important research recommended by the Board, NRC, and the Department, will ensure that this project is conducted in the safest manner possible. "The Board's review of the 24 years of scientific study at Yucca Mountain is important, as is the decision on whether or not to address the country's nuclear waste problem at this time, given the impacts to national security, environmental protection, and continued clean-up of nuclear waste," Card said, noting that spent nuclear fuel and high level radioactive waste is currently scattered across 131 sites in 39 states. Media Contact: Joe Davis, 202-586-4940 Release No. PR-02-011 ***************************************************************** 28 Govt caught out over uranium leak: Opp. 25/01/2002. ABC News Online The South Australian Opposition believes it has caught the Kerin Government out over its handling of a uranium leak at Olympic Dam last month. Shadow Environment Minister John Hill claims the Government's excuse for not telling the public about the leak immediately does not make sense. Mr Hill says yesterday Minister Wayne Matthew said he was "unaware" that 420,000 litres of mining slurry containing uranium, had accidentally spilled at Olympic Dam because radiation from the spill was below reportable levels. But Mr Hill claims that last week Mr Matthew said that all spills that contained uranium had to be reported to him. "Now he can't be right on both occasions, he was either wrong last week or he's wrong yesterday," he said. "Either way, it shows there is either a massive cover-up in the Government or there's massive incompetence." © 2001 Australian Broadcasting Corporation ***************************************************************** 29 Panel seeks to stabilize West Valley funding Buffalo News - Cattaraugus Correspondent 1/24/2002 ASHFORD - The West Valley Citizen Task Force will draft an amendment to the 1981 West Valley Demonstration Project Act in an effort to stabilize funding and continue cleanup efforts at the former commercial nuclear fuels reprocessing facility in Ashford. Task Force member Eric Wohlers, director of Environmental Health for Cattaraugus County, said lawmakers have begun to show interest in meeting with the group after receiving a Jan. 14 letter requesting congressional hearings into unresolved issues at West Valley. The task force, meeting since 1997 to recommend closure, cleanup and long-term management options at the request of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority and the federal Department of Energy, met Tuesday night to chart a course to keep the project on track. Wohlers said staffers from the offices of Reps. Amo Houghton, R-Corning, and Jack F. Quinn, R-Hamburg, were in attendance to help schedule a larger meeting in Houghton's Washington office sometime in February. The aides came in response to a Task Force letter of appeal, which had not yet generated replies from the other recipients, including Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., and Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Reps. Sonny Callahan, R-Ala., John J. LaFalce, D-Town of Tonawanda, Louise M. Slaughter, D-Fairport, and Thomas M. Reynolds, R-Clarence. "They're starting to talk and think," said Wohlers, upbeat about the lawmakers' grasp of the details of the nuclear waste site's 40-year history and the task force letter's potential to attract their interest. He said the task force will meet Feb. 5 to begin drafting its amendment to the West Valley Demonstration Project Act and an outline of points to be made at the Washington gathering. Members hope an amendment may help advance stalled state and federal talks designed to settle responsibilities for long-term site stewardship and cost of high-level waste disposal fees. Wohlers said the task force plans to ask Congress to waive the fees - estimated to run as high as $200 million for eventual underground burial at a repository such as a proposed Nevada site - in passage of the amendment, because of West Valley's "unique situation." The act created the mechanism for the Department of Energy to lead the efforts in solidification of high-level waste, now completed. It also directs that specific criteria be established by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for final decontamination and decommissioning of storage areas, equipment and buildings before agency oversight is concluded. Copyright © 1999 - 2002 The Buffalo NewsTM ***************************************************************** 30 Mayor’s Yucca comments show lack of leadership 1/24/2002 09:46 pm In a recent article on Yucca Mountain, I was not surprised, but again disappointed with Reno Mayor Jeff Griffin. It is not that I do not like Mayor Griffin, but I question his leadership and intelligence when he makes a statement that he had no idea that nuclear waste would be transported through Reno. A typical political response for someone who has done very little regarding this entire issue. But the real issue is one of safety and no one to date has stated the obvious. After Sept. 11, wouldn’t one think that storing all of our nation’s nuclear waste in one place makes an inviting target? Are we not at war? If so, should we not then remember Pearl Harbor and how we grouped all of our planes together, making one nice target for our enemy? Let us learn from history, not making what could be a fatal mistake not only for Nevadans, but millions upon millions of Americans. By all means we need to prevent this ludicrous event from taking place. If we fail, God forbid, but then let us elect those who will act with knowledge, skill and intelligence and represent Nevadans, and not personal political agendas. Robert N. Morgan, Reno Copyright © 2002 The Reno Gazette-Journal ***************************************************************** 31 GUIDED MISSILES AND MISGUIDED MEN (website & photos) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 02:02:01 -0800 (PST) Old photos of the Hunter's Point Naval Shipyard: http://www.islaiscreek.org/HPweaponspix.html GUIDED MISSILES AND MISGUIDED MEN By Leuren Moret SAN FRANCISCO BAY VIEW WEEKLY January 23, 2002 "Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men." Martin Luther King Jr. This week we observe Martin Luther King Jr. Day. It is a time for Americans to remember the man they have named streets, libraries, and parks for around our great nation. He provided a model for all Americans to follow. He was most remarkable for his moral and spiritual power, the real measure of a man. And he is a man deservedly honored around the world, perhaps more than Americans know. There is a remarkable statue of Martin Luther King Jr. in London, England. It was a surprise to discover so far from home. There you can find his statue in the heart of England – near Westminster Abbey and the British Parliament, where “Big Ben” kept time through the darkest hours of two World Wars. “Big Ben” chimed every hour through the bombings and the fires and the evacuations of London in WWII. While Churchill stubbornly refused to give up or give in. And there is Martin Luther King Jr. in a place of honor alongside Churchill and other great British leaders. Such recognition of him far beyond our shores. They honor this man alongside leaders who fought through 1000 years of turmoil in the British Isles. It made his life seem greater than Americans can know or recognize from our short experience with history. It was something to think hard about and question for a long time. It became a question of his tragic death, and why the very people we need as leaders are demonized. His strength of leadership and spiritual power created fear. He recognized the moral bankruptcy of our leaders and our culture. The roots of the Nazi missile program merged with the madness to develop a nuclear weapons program after 1945. Led by misguided men, they were encouraged by the horrendous events of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was part of Truman’s deception with the American public that those cities were military targets. He failed to mention the hundreds of thousands of civilians who were also “nuked”. Extreme secrecy became the culture of the Atomic Energy Commission, and destroyed our democratic process. It drove parts of the population into poverty. And continues to escalate at a time when there is no longer a need for such extreme measures. It became a schizophrenic culture turning lies into truth and truth into lies. The “priesthood of science” has taken over through a web of deep and destructive deceptions. A priesthood culture developed by men like Ernest Lawrence, Glen Seaborg, and “Dr. Stangelove” himself - Edward Teller. Ernest Lawrence, who joked that he could use “graduate students as shielding” around his cyclotron. And Glen Seaborg who received a telegram at the Nobel Prize Ceremonies in Stockholm from his grad students who said “where is our share?”. They gave their lives for his Nobel Prize. They died a few years later from radiation poisoning without recognition for their contributions. And Edward Teller, the con man, who sold “Star Wars” to President Reagan in one hour. It was science fraud to the max, and still doesn’t work. Those misguided men worked just across the Bay from Hunter’s Point Naval Shipyard. They created nuclear bombs… like “Little Boy”… the bomb that shipped out from Hunter’s Point Naval Shipyard to be dropped on Hiroshima. It should have stopped there. The moral bankruptcy of those and other misguided men has resulted in economic poverty for some of the population. Radioactive poisoning of the Northern Hemisphere from atmospheric testing more or less ended in 1963. A generation of children were sacrificed for nuclear insanity. Nuclear power plants, needed to make the plutonium for the nuclear weapons, continue to operate and poison our environment with radioactive emissions… sacrificing a new generation of children. Hundreds of thousands of barrels of nuclear trash, contaminated dead animals, and even a Navy battleship were dumped overboard and sunk just outside the Golden Gate – within site of San Francisco. It continues to wash in and out of San Francisco Bay, stirred up by fishing trawlers who drag the seafloor in our “Farallones Marine Sanctuary” turning it into a moonscape. The radiation poisons the fish caught in one of the world’s richest fisheries. Drums and leaking barrels, dead animals, chemicals and petroleum products were dumped into the landfill at Hunter’s Point. It will continue to ferment and cook and “belch” methane, chemicals and radiation for decades. It will continue to poison the air where children, pregnant mothers and old folks are the most at risk. The Navy knows where the radiation and the poisons are. They characterized the site long ago. It has become a game with the Navy, contractors and public agencies to “not find the contamination”. The “don’t look, don’t find” policy of the military pushes the liability into the future. Meanwhile great profits are made by the environmental cleanup consultants such as IT. It is partly owned by George Bush Sr. and his cronies, among them the Bin Ladens, in the Carlyle Group. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was started by former Director Paul C. Tompkins of the secret Naval Radiological Defense Lab at Hunter’s Point. He brought his cronies over from the Atomic Energy Commission to help him start the EPA. The intended purpose of the EPA was to HIDE the health effects of radiation. They continue to through collaboration with the National Cancer Institute (NCI), National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), among others. Local public health departments and environmental agencies are powerless against such entrenched institutions. Tompkins set the radiation standards – the “safe limits” of radiation exposure, another deception – for the U.S. in the 1970’s. He testified in hearings for Columbia University that Harlem, another black community, was a “good place” to site a research nuclear reactor for Columbia University. Fortunately Dr. Ernest Sternglass, an independent scientist with the “Tooth Fairy Project”, testified that no city was safe from exposure to radioactive releases, and won the argument. We have become a nation run by bureaucratized government informed by scientific power and medical arrogance. Bay View Hunter’s Point is a good example of the price of that folly. During a town hall meeting in Hunter’s Point last Fall, broadcast on KPFA, people made public comment. Sounds of people with asthma and breathing difficulties, talk of cancer, death, and other illnesses, filled the hall. The highest rate of breast cancer in the US in women under 40 is there. Young black women, who sixty years ago, would have been nearly cancer free. This is public health insanity. Mayor Willie Brown’s efforts have been to pave over the trash and build condos and business parks on top of the poisons. Pollution and gentrification expediting political profiteering at its deadliest. Senator Diane Feinstein’s rep, Jim Lazarus, told Hunter’s Point folks to “live with it”. In Senator Barbara Boxer’s office, Field Representative John Ormsby met with a delegation from Hunter’s Point asking for Boxer’s support. He told them that Boxer’s office “would need to take their lead from the city…” The case of Tom Olson is just as revealing. In a telephone interview with Olson on September 12, 2001, he described his efforts to get assistance from Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi. A shipyard whistleblower diagnosed with lymphodema due to radiation exposure, he now weighs 700 pounds. He contracted his illness from exposure to 55 gallon radioactive barrels he was dumping into the shipyard landfill. He is in a special group study conducted by military agents from the Agency for Toxic Substances Disease Registry (ATSDR), a branch of the Centers for Disease Control. Four other exposed workers are grotesquely obese like him. He was told by Pelosi’s aide, Carolyn Dobbs, that he might get some assistance establishing his status as a whistleblower once Pelosi was Minority Whip if he “…stopped talking so much… and quit helping the Hunter’s Point community…”. The devastation in Russia is even greater. Today in Russia, twelve percent of the children are born mentally retarded due to exposure to chemicals, heavy metals and radiation – mostly the trash from their nuclear weapons programs. And since radiation respects no borders, their neighbors cannot prevent the radiation from entering their countries. Innocent bystanders, the radiation will continue to poison the future of their children too. The children of the world are paying the price for the arrogance of a few misguided men. The spiritual battle that we fight daily must never end. Like Churchill, we must never give up and never give in. And like Martin Luther King Jr., each of us must have a dream… Leuren Moret is an independent scientist, formerly employed at the Lawrence Berkeley Lab and the Lawrence Livermore Lab where she became a whistleblower in 1991. She is the Bay Area Coordinator of the Radiation and Public Health Project, a group of independent scientists and authors of more than ten books on low level radiation and public health. Radiation and Public Health Project website: http://www.radiation.org Old photos of the Hunter’s Point Naval Shipyard: http://www.islaiscreek.org/Hpweaponspix.html __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Great stuff seeking new owners in Yahoo! Auctions! http://auctions.yahoo.com ***************************************************************** 32 US reverses weapons plutonium policy New Scientist 14:20 24 January 02 Rob Edwards The US has reversed its policy and decided to burn plutonium from decommissioned nuclear weapons in reactors, instead of "immobilising" it in other radioactive waste. Critics say the move increases the risk of nuclear terrorism. The Bush administration announced on Wednesday that 34 tonnes of surplus weapons grade plutonium was to be converted into mixed oxide (MOX) fuel for reactors. The previous Clinton administration backed the alternative of immobilisation - solidifying it in glass with other waste. Spencer Abraham, the US Energy Secretary, argues that ditching immobilisation will save nearly $2 billion. MOX fuel, used in continental Europe for 20 years, is also favoured by Russia, which has promised along with the US to get rid of 34 tonnes of weapons plutonium. The US Department of Energy (DOE) now plans to start building two new plants at Savannah River Site in South Carolina in 2004, one to take apart the plutonium cores of weapons and the other to make MOX fuel. The fuel will be burnt in two existing nuclear power stations near Charlotte, North Carolina, run by Duke Power Company. Lock up The MOX route will lock up plutonium in radioactive spent fuel from the reactors, which would be as unattractive to terrorists as radioactive blocks of glass, the DOE says. "We are trying to keep the world's most dangerous materials out of the hands of the world's most dangerous people," it adds. But Tom Clements from the Nuclear Control Institute, a lobby group based in Washington DC, claims that the extra processing and transport necessary for MOX fuel will increase the opportunities for terrorists. Encouraging Russia, where there are serious doubts about nuclear security, to make MOX "invites catastrophe", he says. "Immobilisation presents fewer proliferation, terrorism and environmental risks." "Decent, not perfect" Other experts are more forgiving, and point out that at least Bush has decided to limit the time the plutonium will remain in a form usable in bombs. "This is a decent but not a perfect decision," says Jon Wolfsthal, a former nuclear policy adviser to Clinton now with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington DC. Immobilisation is facing technical problems, he argues, but there are also potential pitfalls in regulating MOX fuel. He thinks ruling out one option puts the programme at risk "because it is no longer standing on two legs". In a separate development, Bush's political opponents have claimed nuclear material stored at 10 US sites is not properly protected. Suicidal terrorists could break in and detonate a crude atomic bomb, claims Democrat Representative, Edward J Markey, a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. 14:20 24 January 02 ***************************************************************** 33 Nuclear team heads for Baghdad - CNN.com - January 25, 2002 Posted: 6:44 PM HKT (1044 GMT) BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A team of nuclear experts is due to arrive in Baghdad for an annual inspection of Iraq's uranium stockpiles. The International Atomic Energy Agency's team is unrelated to U.N. weapons inspections blocked by the Iraqi government since the end of 1998. But it is essential in verifying that Iraq is not diverting uranium stocks left in the country for use in weapons. The seven-member team will examine low-enriched uranium sealed by the IAEA after it dismantled Iraq's nuclear programme following the Gulf War. High-enriched uranium, which could more easily be used in weapons, was removed from Iraq by the agency. The team will also examine stockpiles of depleted and natural uranium. For the first time the team includes safety experts who will ensure that the uranium is being properly stored and the containers are not leaking radiation. The IAEA, the world's nuclear watchdog, conducted more intrusive inspections after the Gulf War under the same mandate as U.N. weapons inspectors. Those inspections stopped when all the weapons inspectors pulled out of Iraq in December 1998 just hours before a major U.S. bombing. Iraq is demanding that U.N. sanctions against it be lifted before the inspectors return. The IAEA had declared Iraq's nuclear program essentially dead. But since the standoff over allowing nuclear and other inspections to resume, the agency says it cannot certify that Iraq is not trying to revive that programme. ***************************************************************** 34 State of Rocky Flats improving By KATY HUMAN The federal government has declassified figures on the amount of highly enriched uranium at Rocky Flats, a former nuclear weapons plant south of Boulder. Fewer than two tons of the toxic material remain at Rocky Flats today, down nearly five tons since 1994. That was just one piece of news presented at Wednesday evening's annual "State of the Flats" presentation, a meeting generally appreciated more for its food than its newsiness. Building 771 at Rocky Flats is no longer the most radioactively dangerous building in the country, said Barbara Mazurowski, the Department of Energy's manager at Rocky Flats. And just hours before the Arvada gathering, colleagues of hers from Washington, D.C., announced they had forged an agreement with South Carolina that could soon make it possible to ship tons of weapons-grade plutonium from Rocky Flats south. That was welcome news to Mazurowski, who had hoped to begin shipping the material to the federal Savannah River Site last October. Once the dangerous material is offsite, Rocky Flats managers will be able to shift money from extra security to decontamination and demolition work, Mazurowski said. Site managers are now aiming to make the first shipments of weapons-grade material in March, she said. In response to a question from the audience, Mazurowski said managers need to obtain certifications and pass several environmental assessments before shipments begin. Alan Parker, president of Kaiser-Hill, the company managing cleanup at Rocky Flats, praised workers there for helping create one of the best safety records in the Department of Energy complex. Then, he discussed some challenges. An accidental release of chemicals into a building last fall sent several workers to the hospital and disrupted work for a few days. "They got pretty sick," Parker said. "That's a concern." And earlier this month, ambulances whisked two more workers to the hospital after they took apart an old sink filter containing a chemical called trichloroethylene. But even activists agreed that last year appears to have been a relatively safe one for workers and the public. "I think they've improved a lot," said LeRoy Moore, a consultant with the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center, a watchdog group. (Contact Katy Human of the Daily Camera in Boulder, Co., at humank(at)thedailycamera.com) January 24, 2002 Copyright © 2002 The Knoxville News-Sentinel Co. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 35 More Hanford radiation? Indians may have higher exposure than previously estimated The Seattle Times: Local News: Friday, January 25, 2002 - 12:00 a.m. Pacific By Dave Birkland KENNEWICK — A new report suggests that American Indians may have had more exposure to radiation from the Hanford nuclear reservation than was previously estimated. "There's always been that big concern," said Bill Burke, one of the leaders of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation in Oregon. Indians may have eaten more fish from the Columbia River, which borders Hanford, than other people living in the area and prepared it in a way that exposed them to more potentially cancer-causing radiation, according to a draft report prepared for the U.S. government by Risk Assessment Corp. The study was presented this week at the Inter-Tribal Council for Hanford Health Projects. The federal government spent $25 million in the 1990s to develop comprehensive estimates of the amounts and types of radiation people were exposed to during the four decades that Hanford made plutonium for the nation's nuclear arsenal. No new estimates have been made on the potential exposure levels for tribal members, but the study did conclude that earlier estimates may have been too low. Much of the Hanford Environmental Dose Reconstruction project was devoted to estimating the exposure rates for people living downwind from the nuclear reservation when radioactive iodine was released into the atmosphere in the 1940s and early 1950s. But the project also examined the contamination in the Columbia River by radioactive isotopes from water that had been used to cool fuel rods at the plutonium-making nuclear reactors. The dose reconstruction project concluded, and the new study confirmed, that most of the danger from the contamination would be from eating fish that had accumulated radiation. The project assumed that people ate about 90 pounds of fish per year, said Ed Liebow, a cultural anthropologist and consultant on the new study. But historians and representatives of tribes said that many Columbia River Indians might have been consuming as much as 1-1/2 pounds daily. The fish estimates in the dose reconstruction project did not consider radioactive strontium, which concentrates in the bones of the fish rather than the flesh. Indian families would smoke the fish they had caught and put leftovers in a stew pot. Boiling fish releases radioactive strontium. ***************************************************************** 36 Whistle-Blowers Keep the Faith - Insight on the News Posted Jan. 21, 2002 By Martin Edwin Andersen William Cor, shown with his family, exposed safety defects at the U.S. nuclear lab where he worked — and his managers tried to fire him for it. William Cor, age 47, found that acting in the tradition of a well-prepared good Samaritan was just too much for his bosses at the nuclear-weapons laboratory in Los Alamos, N.M., where he had worked since 1998. Cor was the in-house, nuclear glove-box expert for a Department of Energy (DOE) contractor at the site. A glove box is used to handle hazardous atomic material or weapons-grade uranium or plutonium. By all accounts, Cor was good at his job — maybe too good. In early 2000, a mechanical failure in the lab involving one of the glove-box units exposed several workers to highly toxic plutonium. "I had expressed safety concerns prior to this, so I was kept out of the loop when DOE investigated. I later found that the report of the investigation was riddled with error," Cor recalls. "I tried to bring up my concerns again, at a time when the demands of my job had become very complicated by the urgent needs arising in the aftermath of the accident." However, instead of addressing the issues Cor had raised, his managers unleashed a campaign of retaliation against him. His health declined (problems included stress-related internal bleeding) and his managers used his medical absences from work, together with his unwelcome safety warnings, to portray him as insubordinate. He was fired in early October 2001 after having worked without pay for three months. "My faith played a part in my determination to speak out despite risks to my career," says Cor, an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. "More importantly to me, it is the security I find rooted in my religious convictions which largely sustain me in enduring discouraging circumstances resulting from expressing professional concerns." Since the founding of the republic, constitutional principles concerning the separation of church and state have been debated in myriad contexts. In one instance, that of faith-based whistle-blowers, religion apparently helps shape and inform their workplace dissent, allowing them to make positive contributions to the general welfare through example rather than overt proselytizing. Most whistle-blowers risk their professional careers, as well as friendships and family, when they decide to come forward in the public interest to disclose waste, fraud and abuse of power in the workplace. For those without a firm religious grounding, the fall from public grace can be particularly hard since security and success at work tend to be two of their most important psychological safety nets. For many faith-based whistle-blowers, however, religion provides not only solace and staying power but also the necessary context in which to make their principled dissent and then endure misperceptions of themselves as malcontents and nitpickers motivated by attention-seeking. Despite the risks, their whistle-blowing becomes part of a tradition of showing individual responsibility and concern for others. It also allows them to live up to the Judeo-Christian idea of bearing witness. Whistle-blowing forces practitioners to confront bad behavior in terms that reflect their own efforts to live as moral and ethical people. Faith-based whistle-blowers, says Myron Peretz Glazer, a tenured sociology professor at Smith College in central Massachusetts and coauthor of Whistle-blowers: Exposing Corruption in Government and Industry, have "a sustaining belief, one that allows them to say, 'Here I stand, I can do no other.'" Although the awful price exacted on many whistle-blowers often makes their experience a study in martyrdom, faith-based whistle-blowers interpret what they are going through in a different manner, Glazer reports. Often, religiously observant people join government service because they look forward to holding positions of trust that should require higher standards of ethics, he says. "And it is precisely their keen sense of responsibility that allows them to feel that the price they pay for becoming whistle-blowers is what is required of them to be faithful to what is most important to them — their own deep-seated convictions," he says. But in many government offices the first rule of management is employee loyalty to superiors. Faith-based dissenters at the workplace, Glazer adds, are particularly suspect by management because their personal commitment to a higher authority makes them classic "loose cannons" during working hours, and operating out of a personal moral code can make coworkers uncomfortable. Meanwhile, for the whistle-blower acting in the Judeo-Christian tradition, he says, silence can mean acquiescence. Zalman Magid, a staff psychiatrist at the San Diego County Mental Health Center and an Orthodox Jew, challenged the quality of care given to patients at the facility. Stripped of his medical functions and reassigned to clerical duties, he found comfort and purpose in the Talmudic saying: "He who saves one life saves the whole world." Former high-school teacher Billie Garde blew the whistle on political corruption and sexual harassment at a Census Bureau office in Muskogee, Okla., only to see a local judge, the twin brother of her boss' closest ally, take away her children for a year. Her Lutheran parish took up a collection for her and, recalled one friend, "sustained her in her darkest hour." The FBI's most-renowned whistle-blower, Frederick Whitehurst, was forced repeatedly to visit a bureau psychiatrist as a result of his disclosure of mismanagement and corruption at the prestigious FBI National Crime Laboratory. Today Whitehurst frequently appears at good-government forums, where he credits his faith in God with giving him the strength to make his disclosures and to endure the resulting reprisals. A pipe fitter and whistle-blower at the Hanford nuclear-power reactor in eastern Washington state drives around in his truck with a bumper sticker proudly proclaiming: "My boss is a Jewish carpenter." The reference is to Jesus. Glazer, the whistle-blower expert, says that not withstanding the example of Garde's support from her church, in all too many cases faith-based whistle-blowers find scant succor from their own religious communities. "Their beliefs sustain them in a personal way but, frequently, their church or synagogue does not rally around them — a paradox many find very troubling." National-security whistle-blower Linda Lewis, one of a small number of people in the world with a specialized degree in emergency administration and planning; she worked for the Food Safety and Inspection Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). For more than a decade she represented both the USDA and Argonne National Laboratory in dozens of interagency emergency-planning exercises directed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), as well as serving as USDA's interagency liaison for chemical-weapons emergencies. As a whistle-blower, Lewis registered warnings about USDA's and FEMA's lack of preparedness for nuclear, chemical and biological emergencies, and particularly the potentially catastrophic impact of such an emergency on the U.S. food supply and agricultural industry. She also warned of the need to develop chemical/biological emergency plans but, at the time of the Sept. 11 attacks in New York City and Washington, her agency still had no plan to address a terrorist attack on the food supply. Lewis' attempts to address emergency-preparedness deficiencies resulted in what she describes as stonewalling and retaliation by officials at USDA and FEMA. After she reported safety problems to Congress, USDA suspended her security clearance — in violation of agency procedures and ignoring the recommendation of the USDA's own chief medical officer — and declared her unclassified duties to be classified. She was placed on administrative leave without assignments for more than two years — at a cost to taxpayers of more than $140,000. Lewis currently is preparing her case to be heard before the U.S. Office of Special Counsel under the federal Whistleblower Protection Act. Although she is Lutheran, Lewis says she finds solace in the example of Sir Thomas More. The Roman Catholic saint was executed after he refused to swear allegiance to King Henry VIII, who sought a divorce between his kingdom and the Church of Rome. More's final words on the scaffold were: "The King's good servant, but God's first." True to her own upbringing, Lewis says she also believes that Martin Luther's injunction — "Peace if possible, but truth at any rate" — is particularly useful for federal employees preparing to "commit the truth." There is an impressive courage here, say advocates for whistle-blowers. "My model is the account in the Old Testament of three Jews in ancient Babylon who were willing to brave a molten furnace rather than bow down to some false idol," says Cor. "They survived the ordeal miraculously but, more important, they set an example for courage and integrity under fire." Today, he says, "ordinary people still risk themselves merely to be true to themselves before God, resisting something they believed was false and drawn thereby to a very public event." Martin Edwin Andersen is a reporter for Insight magazine. Nuclear Safety Matters to God, Too "I'm a Christian. I contend that one's work matters to God and that if a Christian is privileged to be a member of a profession, to model and advocate the trustworthy, ethical, competent and accountable practice of that profession is a necessary outworking of one's Christian faith," Joe Carson, a nuclear-safety whistle-blower, tells Insight. "I don't claim that only Christians are trustworthy in a profession, I don't claim that all Christians are trustworthy in their professions and I acknowledge that there are other good reasons for members of a profession to be trustworthy," he continues. "My profession is secular, its code of ethics is secular — although quite moral — but I have risked and suffered with my family to uphold and defend my profession and its code of ethics for, ultimately, spiritual reasons." Carson, age 47 and an evangelical Christian, is a licensed professional engineer employed as a nuclear-safety assessor for the Department of Energy (DOE) at the nuclear power plant in Oak Ridge, Tenn. In late 1991, he first voiced concerns about safety and security violations, along with abuses in rewarding extremely lucrative contracts. Since then, he has investigated and criticized the erasure of documents citing safety shortfalls, the deficiencies in the facility's accident-investigation program and DOE's refusal to put accidents in the context of previously known safety hazards or similar accidents. In response, he says, his managers at Oak Ridge suppressed many of his significant safety findings while attempting to revoke his security clearance so there would be grounds to fire him. In December 1997, Carson was ordered to transfer to Washington by March 1998 or be fired. He took the case to the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), the federal administrative court that rules on whistle-blower disputes. The MSPB ruled in his favor and revoked the transfer. Carson consistently has prevailed in whistle-blowing reprisal appeals against DOE but to date, because of a defect in the law, the department has been able to sidestep a hearing without admitting or being found at fault. Carson has remained a DOE employee and continues his efforts to bring accountability. As a result of his experiences, Carson cofounded and currently heads the Affiliation of Christian Engineers (www.christianengineer.org), an organization dedicated to reaffirming commitment to the ethical canons of the engineering profession. "Your faith and your profession are what you get to choose in life," Carson notes. "Your work matters to God. If your profession doesn't matter in your relationship to God, you kind of have to wonder about your faith — after all, work is where you spend most of your time." insightmag.com ***************************************************************** 37 Rocky Flats Waste Could Head South The Salt Lake Tribune -- Friday, January 25, 2002 BY KATY HUMAN SCRIPPS-McCLATCHY NEWS SERVICE BOULDER, Colo. -- The federal government has declassified figures on the amount of highly enriched uranium at Rocky Flats, a former nuclear weapons plant south of Boulder. Fewer than two tons of the toxic material remain at Rocky Flats today, down nearly five tons since 1994, officials announced Wednesday during the annual "State of the Flats" briefing. Building 771 at Rocky Flats is no longer the most radioactively dangerous building in the country, said Barbara Mazurowski, the Department of Energy's manager at Rocky Flats. And just hours before the Arvada gathering, DOE officials announced they had forged an agreement with South Carolina that could soon make it possible to ship tons of weapons-grade plutonium from Rocky Flats south. That was welcome news to Mazurowski, who had hoped to begin shipping the material to the federal Savannah River Site last October. Once the dangerous material is off-site, Rocky Flats managers will be able to shift money from extra security to decontamination and demolition work, Mazurowski said. Site managers are now aiming to make the first shipments of weapons-grade material in March, she said. Certifications and several environmental assessments are required before shipments begin, she said. © Copyright 2002, The Salt Lake Tribune All material found on ***************************************************************** 38 HANFORD WORK PROGRESSES, DOE REPORTS Thursday, January 24, 2002 By KEN OLSEN, Columbian staff writer PORTLAND -- Three million tons of toxic soil have been stripped from the banks of the Columbia River. A million gallons of liquid waste have been pumped from leaking storage tanks. More than 200 tons of deteriorating nuclear fuel rods have been moved from aging riverside storage pools. This shows substantial cleanup progress at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, U.S. Department of Energy officials said Wednesday. Thousands of gallons of cesium-, strontium-, technetium-, and plutonium-laced groundwater are moving toward the Columbia River. Pollution from the nuclear weapons works is transforming up to 80 percent of the salmon from males to females threatening to wipe out the largest remaining wild Chinook salmon run in the Columbia Basin. Two significant toxic waste dumps aren't yet covered by cleanup plans. This shows the federal government isn't tackling the most serious problems at the most polluted nuclear site in the nation, watchdog groups say. Such is the state of Hanford, depending upon who's talking, nearly 13 years after Hanford switched from making plutonium to the billion-dollar-a-year task of decontamination. Keith Klein and Harry Boston, two of the federal Energy Departments top Hanford officials, came to Portland on Wednesday to deliver their version of progress at the site, which sits more than 220 miles upriver from Vancouver. They were joined by officials from the Washington Department of Ecology and Environmental Protection Agency for an evening public forum on the nuclear reservation. There's plenty of progress, Klein and Boston said in interviews earlier in the day. More than 220 tons of leaking fuel rods have been moved from the "K basins," which sit 400 yards from the Columbia River, Kline said. That job will be done on time by August 2004 and at the projected cost $1.8 billion. Nine million tons of contaminated soil will be removed from the river corridor by 2012, and the Energy Department will be petitioning to remove the area from the Superfund list, Kline said. Eight of the riverside reactors will be mothballed, and one will be stabilized to the point it can become a museum. Four tons of plutonium, left on the production line when Hanford stopped making bombs, will be put in triple-walled containers and moved to the center of the nuclear reservation along with all of the spent fuel. Essentially, the Energy Department and its contractors are well on the way to reducing Hanford from a sprawling 580-square-mile waste site to a 70-square-mile waste site located well away from the river, Kline said. But Washington state has been fining the Energy Department $10,000 a week since midsummer because it has missed deadlines on a project to convert 53 million gallons of waste, housed in questionable storage tanks, into glass a process called vitrification. The total penalty is $250,000 and climbing. The Energy Department is quite close to getting back into compliance with the state, said Boston, who manages the vitrification plant and the tanks. He believes Betchel Corp. will have the plant running by 2007 and most of the waste converted to glass by 2028. Now Energy Department officials are ready to talk about picking up the pace of the cleanup wherever possible. And that worries groups like Columbia Riverkeeper, a Bingen-based Hanford watchdog. Most of what the Energy Department talks about doesn't address groundwater problems, said Cindy DeBruler, executive director of Columbia Riverkeeper, whose group called for an independent assessment of Hanford's risks Wednesday evening. "The whole ecosystem of the Columbia could be devastated by (that groundwater) pollution," DeBruler said. "And the Columbia runs through Vancouver's front yard." Copyright © 2002 by The Columbian Publishing Co. P.O. Box 180, Vancouver, WA ***************************************************************** 39 Energy Department tosses immobilization BulletinWire January 24, 2002 The Energy Department announced yesterday plans to dispose of surplus weapons-grade plutonium by turning it into mixed oxide (MOX) fuel to be burned in nuclear reactors. The government’s previous plutonium disposition strategy was a dual-track approach: Some of it would be turned into MOX fuel, and some of it would be immobilized through vitrification. But the Bush administration has now abandoned research into immobilization, citing high costs and technical difficulties, and chosen instead to focus only on the MOX option. In the Bulletin’s special issue [http://www.thebulletin.org/issues/2001/mj01/mj01toc.html] on plutonium disposition (May/June 2001), Allison Macfarlane, et al., reported on a “third way” to dispose of plutonium—storage MOX. “Instead of being used to fuel reactors, storage-MOX rods would be mixed in with spent fuel rods headed for geological burial,” the authors wrote. See: “New Plans—Or No Plans—For Plutonium? [http://www.thebulletin.org/bulletinwirearchive/BulletinWire010830.html] ” BulletinWire, August 30, 2001 “Plutonium Disposal, The Third Way [http://www.thebulletin.org/issues/2001/mj01/mj01vonhippel.html] ,” by Allison Macfarlane, Frank von Hippel, Jungmin Kang & Robert Nelson, May/June 2001 “Meanwhile, in Britain [http://www.thebulletin.org/issues/2001/mj01/mj01vonhippel.html#barker] ,” by Fred Barker and Mike Sadnicki, May/June 2001 “Japan’s Nuclear Twilight Zone [http://www.thebulletin.org/issues/2001/mj01/mj01burnie.html] ,” by Shaun Burnie and Aileen Mioko Smith, May/June 2001 “Plutonium: Can Germany Swear Off? [http://www.thebulletin.org/issues/2001/mj01/mj01hibbs.html] ” by Mark Hibbs, May/June 2001 “Plutonium, The Contest [http://www.thebulletin.org/issues/2001/mj01/mj01rothstein.html] ,” by Linda Rothstein, May/June 2001 ©2001 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists ***************************************************************** 40 Security of nuclear sites questioned Augusta Georgia: Technology: Web posted Friday, January 25, 2002 By Less Blumenthal Scripps Howard News Service WASHINGTON - In a detailed, 23-page letter to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, a Massachusetts congressman Wednesday raised serious questions about the Department of Energy's ability to protect its nuclear sites from attacks by suicidal terrorists. "We have to make security a priority rather than an afterthought," said Rep. Ed Markey, a longtime critic of the Energy Department and a senior Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Markey's letter built on a report issued in October by the Project on Government Oversight, a watchdog group that used unclassified materials in concluding there were major security problems at DOE's 10 nuclear weapons complexes. The report was written before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and focused on problems at DOE's Rocky Flats, Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos sites. While Hanford wasn't the focus of the report, it was included. Among other things, the report found mock terrorist attacks led by such special forces units as Navy SEALs were successful more than half the time in penetrating the sites and stealing nuclear materials. Energy Department officials have said many of the problems identified in the report have been corrected and security at all the sites has been heightened since Sept. 11. But Markey, at a news conference, remained skeptical. "I am alarmed by what appears to be a decades-long failure by DOE to take security seriously," Markey said. "We now know what we are up against in the war against terrorism. We know we may be dealing with large groups of individuals who have the money, the training and the suicidal determination to carry out massive attacks on our soil. We also know al Qaeda members have been trying to obtain nuclear materials and want to attack U.S. nuclear facilities." Markey said it would take one soda can's worth of weapon's grade plutonium or a chunk of weapon's grade uranium the size of a volleyball to make a crude nuclear bomb. The congressman said terrorists could penetrate a weapons site, rapidly build such a bomb and set it off in a suicide mission. They could also steal the nuclear material and use it in a dirty bomb in which conventional explosives are used to spread radioactivity. "Unfortunately, security is so lax at some Department of Energy nuclear weapons sites where these materials are kept that terrorists could find what they need to launch a nuclear attack right here in America," Markey said. In his letter, Markey asked for details about the earlier mock terrorist attacks, the ability of storage vaults for nuclear weapons materials to withstand the impact of large commercial aircraft or truck bombs and additional details on security plans at the sites. The congressman also had questions about safeguards for nuclear materials being transported from one site to another. Markey also asked about a report of a DOE program that trains foreign nationals to "identify holes" in security systems including those at department sites. Among those enrolled in the classes at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico were students from Yemen, the Philippines and Kenya. "I am concerned that if this report is true, that the existence of this program could have the unintended consequences of teaching future terrorists how to penetrate U.S. security systems," Markey wrote. Markey said he realized that many of the responses to his questions would be classified, but he asked Abraham to also prepare an unclassified response. The report from the Project on Government Oversight recommended that all of the nuclear materials be consolidated at one site and security be assigned to an independent oversight agency rather than DOE. Some have suggested the military should be used for security at the weapons sites. Markey didn't comment on those recommendations but said "insufficient" funding had been dedicated to protecting the weapons sites. "DOE has been ignoring expert critical reports on security of its facilities for decades, and as a result we are all at risk," he said. "This has never been acceptable and it is even less so given the events of Sept. 11." 1996 - 2002 The Augusta Chronicle. ***************************************************************** 41 New facilities test land, workers for radiation Augusta Georgia: Technology: Web posted Friday, January 25, 2002 By Brandon Haddock [bhaddock@augustachronicle.com] Staff Writer Savannah River Site now has a one-stop shop to monitor the health of its employees and its environment. The federal nuclear-weapons site recently opened a new $33 million lab, the Regulatory Monitoring and Bioassay Laboratory. The 80,000-square-foot lab, which replaced two separate facilities that were nearly 50 years old, tests samples to measure radioactive exposure to SRS employees and the environment. The new lab is an improvement over its predecessors, which were cramped, inefficient and ill-equipped for analyzing 38,000 samples per year, SRS executives said. "There are numerous advantages," said Ronie Spencer, the facility manager for Westinghouse Savannah River Co., which operates SRS for the Department of Energy. "We have state-of-the-art equipment, and we have all our technical resources concentrated in one area." Lab technician Mildred Quiller tests samples submitted by SRS employees for radiation tests at the new $33 million, 80,000-square-foot Regulatory Monitoring and Bioassay Laboratory at Savannah River Site. ANDREW DAVIS TUCKER/STAFF One wing of the new RMBL - or "Rumble" in site jargon - tests urine and fecal samples from SRS employees to determine whether workers have been exposed to radiation. The second wing tests air, water and soil samples collected from the site to determine its radiological impact on its environment. The lab also analyzes the thermoluminescent dosimeters worn by many SRS employees. The devices measure exposures to specific types of radiation. Unlike its forerunners, Rumble has its own waste-treatment equipment to treat the chemical wastes generated as it analyzes samples, Mr. Spencer said. At older labs, waste had to be collected for treatment elsewhere. The lab also has a distribution system for pressurized gases and chemicals, reducing the need to use bottled gases, said Jim Heffner, Westinghouse's deputy manager of environmental protection. Bottled gases can be difficult and hazardous to transport. And the new facility has a high-tech ventilation system lined with an acid-resistant polymer, addressing a key shortcoming of the older facilities, Mr. Heffner said. In the older labs, ducts often were corroded by the acids used to analyze samples, Mr. Heffner said. The corrosion reduced the accuracy of samples and slowed the pace of work, he said. "The old building was getting to the point where it was costly to maintain and it wasn't as reliable as we'd like," Mr. Heffner said. "We won't have corroded duct work and failing motors like we had in the past." Reach Brandon Haddock at (706) 823-3409 or bhaddock@augustachronicle.com [bhaddock@augustachronicle.com] . 1996 - 2002 The Augusta Chronicle. ***************************************************************** 42 Plutonium deal is not finalized Augusta Georgia: Technology: Web posted Friday, January 25, 2002 By [bhaddock@augustachronicle.com] Staff Writer South Carolina Gov. Jim Hodges and the U.S. Department of Energy tried again Thursday, without success, to reach an agreement on plutonium shipments to the state. Two Energy Department officials visited Mr. Hodges in Columbia to discuss the issue, but did not sign a "memorandum of agreement" that the governor presented, said Cortney Owings, Mr. Hodges' spokeswoman. "There are a lot of questions we don't have answers to, and the Energy Department is still very reluctant to sign a binding agreement with the state," Ms. Owings said. The governor met with Ambassador Linton Brooks, assistant energy secretary and deputy administrator for defense nuclear nonproliferation, and Ed Siskin, assistant deputy administrator for the agency's Office of Fissile Materials Disposition, Ms. Owings said. Joe Davis, an Energy Department spokesman in Washington, said he could not comment on the meeting until he spoke to the officials who attended. Mr. Hodges' memorandum would have laid out a timetable for plutonium treatment at the Savannah River Site and removal of the radioactive metal from the state, Ms. Owings said. The document also would have committed the Energy Department to long-term funding of the mixed-oxide, or MOX, fuel project at SRS. That project is responsible for the planned shipments of plutonium to the federal nuclear weapons site. The MOX plan would dispose of 37.4 tons of surplus plutonium by using it in fuel for nuclear power plants. The Bush administration announced Wednesday that it would provide $300 million in fiscal 2003 to begin construction of the MOX facilities. The project is expected to cost $3.8 billion. Reach Brandon Haddock at (706) 823-3409 or [bhaddock@augustachronicle.com] 1996 - 2002 The Augusta Chronicle. ***************************************************************** 43 Bulk of radioactive uranium removed from Flats Denver Post.com By --> Friday, January 25, 2002 - Officials at Rocky Flats announced Thursday that nearly 80 percent of radioactive uranium has been removed. Rocky Flats, northwest of Denver, has shipped 5.3 of the 6.7 metric tons of radioactive uranium at its facilities to sites in Amarillo, Texas, and Oak Ridge, Tenn., according to officials. The amount shipped had been classified since its removal began in 1994. Federal officials on Wednesday released a plan that would ship radioactive plutonium from Rocky Flats to a site in South Carolina. There were 12.9 metric tons of plutonium at Rocky Flats in 1994, but the current amount remains classified. All contents Copyright 2002 The Denver Post ***************************************************************** 44 IAEA Daily Press Review Date 2002-01-24 Number 11 1. Non-proliferation US DoE decides to destroy 34 metric tons of surplus plutonium from its nuclear weapons programme by converting it into fuel for nuclear reactors. (NOR; WSJ - 24/1) Russian Federation; United States of America 2. Terrorism UN Panel states that fighters of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network and Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime could possess scud missiles and chemical weapons including deadly sarin and VX gas projectiles. (WP - 23/1) Afghanistan; UN 3. Nuclear power International concerns have been raised over Myanmar's decision to build nuclear reactor with help from Russia: US, Europe and China say country is not adhering to IAEA's recommendation on setting up regulatory framework to ensure safety of plant. Bulgarian Government under domestic criticism for plans to close down two reactors of Kozloduy NPP by 2006. Reactors at three Russian NPPs have been shut down in recent days because of malfunctions, nuclear energy officials say. (AFP; BBC; ITAR; Xin - 24/11) Bulgaria; China; EUROPE; IAEA; Myanmar; Russian Federation; United States of America 4. Chernobyl UN denies its Mission found Chernobyl aftermath exaggerated. (UNW - 23/1) Chernobyl; Ukraine; UN 5. Radiation, health Report about lethal radioactive waste dumped in landfill as ordinary waste in Ireland in 1999. Officials investigating large spill of radioactive waste at uranium mine in Australian outback find site had 24 other leaks. (IRI - 23/1) Australia; Ireland 6. Radwaste, fuel US NPP reportedly cited by federal regulators for repeated improper handling of low-level radioactive waste: NRC says contaminated clothing and maintenance equipment were left outside a controlled area. Plans for Finland's nuclear waste repository reportedly may have to be modified if the Eduskunta, Parliament, agrees with Finnish Government and approves application for construction of fifth power reactor. (G; NF - 24/1) Finland; United States of America 7. R&D Second negotiation meeting held in Tokyo on joint implementation of ITER. (NOR - 24/1) Japan ***************************************************************** 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: *****************************************************************