***************************************************************** 06/25/02 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 10.161 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POLICY 1 Russia fails to secure Tehran nuclear deal 2 Pakistan Chief: Nukes for Deterrence 3 Going nuclear in North Korea 4 US: Three companies to seek nuclear permits 5 US: Nuclear supplies at risk 6 Two more N plants to be built in Pak NUCLEAR REACTORS 7 AU: Govt to produce reactor papers 8 Reactor could make nuclear power as economical as gas 9 US: Regulatory Conference with Nuclear Management Company on Point 10 US: NRC Proposes $288,000 Fine Against Dominion Nuclear for 11 US: Phase 1 of Calvert Cliffs retooling done Generators, transformer 12 Japan: Agency to set plane crash safety standard for nuclear plants NUCLEAR SAFETY 13 US: NRC Proposes $3,000 Fine Against Howard University Hospital 14 US: Scientists Urge Terrorism Defense 15 US: Panel Urges Gulf War Illness Research 16 US: Nuke Pill Sales Skyrocket in D.C. 17 Lost radiation fuels dirty bomb threat 18 US: Science groups make homeland security recommendations NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 19 US: Cleanup won't end nuclear waste sites* 20 US: AU: Uranium inquiry soon 21 *Skull Valley no answer* 22 US: Nuclear Waste Shipping Poses Problem 23 US: Feds still studying how to get nuclear waste to Yucca safely 24 US: Yucca: Money can be used to fight project 25 Union makes nuclear site plea 26 Toxic Nazi legacy threatens Europe 27 US: Cleanup won't end nuclear waste sites 28 US: Matching $1.5 million now available for nuke campaign 29 US: Few legislators contribute to Yucca fight fund 30 US: Yucca: Cooler heads prevail 31 US: 3 Republicans may oppose Yucca dump NUCLEAR WEAPONS 32 Russian Federation: Journalist and environmental activist Pasko 33 IAEA visit to North Korea delayed 34 Pasko Appeal Will Be Heard in Supreme Court Tuesday 35 Supreme Court Upholds Pasko Treason Sentence 36 U.N. Says Bomb Materials Available 37 Scot: MSP Cleared of Nuclear Demo Charge US DEPT. OF ENERGY 38 More secrecy at DOE 39 LOC drafts list of 'issues' for DOE to address 40 Buckley takes 'business' post at Y-12 41 OR defense efforts target of funding 42 Issues arise over K-25 burial ground 43 Group positive about compensation changes 44 Commentary: State committed to reaching agreement with DOE 45 'Because Groves was given and then took full responsibility for OTHER NUCLEAR 46 Nuclear Regulatory Commission Honors Employees On June 27 in ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 Russia fails to secure Tehran nuclear deal Guardian Unlimited | Archive Search Ian Traynor in Moscow Guardian Monday June 24, 2002 Russia has failed to secure guarantees from Iran that Tehran will return spent nuclear fuel which could be converted into weapons-grade plutonium, despite repeated assertions to the contrary from Moscow. Internal Russian government documents obtained by the Guardian show that no agreement has been reached on the sensitive issue of how to handle the used nuclear fuel from a power station being built by Russia in Iran, which is due to come into operation in a couple of years. Russia's nuclear cooperation and military deals with Iran have become a major bone of contention with the US since September 11. The Russian construction of the 1,000-megawatt reactor at Bushehr, 500 miles south of Tehran, is at the centre of this tension. Russia's ministry of atomic energy, which will earn $800m (£570m) from the contracts, says the risk of nuclear arms proliferation is non-existent and has stated repeatedly that the spent fuel is to be repatriated to Russia for storage or reprocessing. But a paper in the confidential documents, written for the Kremlin by the atomic energy ministry, contradicts that assurance. The paper states: "The question of managing the spent nuclear fuel is absent in the agreement between the governments of Russia and Iran on the construction of the Bushehr nuclear power plant on Iranian territory. "Negotiations are taking place on the return of the spent nuclear fuel to the Russian Federation." In an interview with Russian television earlier this month, Alexander Rumyantsev, Russia's atomic energy minister, said: "We have agreed with Iran that the used fuel will be returned to Russia. "This is fulfilment by Russia of our obligations on the non-proliferation of weapons-grade fissile materials." He made a similar declaration last November. The lack of an agreement suggests Iran is playing for time and may want to retain the spent fuel which, when reprocessed, yields weapons-grade uranium and plutonium. "Iran would be in possession of weapons-usable material, plutonium," said Tobias Muenchmeyer, a nuclear expert for Greenpeace in Berlin. "For a country like Iran, it would not be difficult to reprocess the spent fuel and isolate the plutonium. It would be a matter of weeks, not months." The disclosures will increase broad unease about Russia's determination to push ahead with the lucrative contracts for the Bushehr power plant and reinforce US criticism of the project. Despite the recent warming in relations between the White House and the Kremlin, Russia's nuclear assistance to Iran - a country on the US list of "rogue states" - is one of the biggest irritants in the Russian-American relationship. In February President Vladimir Putin ordered the atomic energy ministry to provide an "analysis" of Russia's plans to import nuclear waste, a project critics contend will turn Russia into the world's nuclear dump. The Russian parliament passed three bills last year on the importation of nuclear waste and the analysis was required by the Kremlin for Mr Putin to give the final go-ahead, probably within months. Mr Rumyantsev has acknowledged the dangers of the spent fuel remaining in Iranian hands. At a dinner in Washington last month he conceded that it was a "very sensitive issue", saying: "It is true that a nuclear power plant can become a source of proliferation once it has accumulated a certain amount of spent nuclear fuel." The documents recognise that the Iranian connection could scupper Mr Rumyantsev's plans to make Russia the world's leading importer of nuclear waste, a scheme that could, his ministry claimed to widespread derision, earn Russia $20bn over 10 years. The US controls the world market in spent nuclear fuel, commanding a veto over what happens to between 80% and 90% of the highly radioactive waste. For the Russian import scheme to work, America's blessing is required. Russia needs a political agreement with the US for the nuclear imports plan to be feasible, the documents state. "For a long time now the US has been making the issue of such an agreement conditional on Russia refusing nuclear cooperation with Iran," they add. [UP] Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited ***************************************************************** 2 Pakistan Chief: Nukes for Deterrence Las Vegas SUN June 24, 2002 ISLAMABAD, Pakistan- President Gen. Pervez Musharraf praised scientists Monday for building the country's nuclear weapons and bringing the country to parity with rival India, but said the nuclear program was designed only to deter attack. "Our nuclear and missile potential is defensive in nature and is a deterrence," Musharraf said. Pakistan "has no offensive designs against anybody." Musharraf's remarks, reported by state-run news agency Associated Press of Pakistan, came as tensions between nuclear-armed neighbors eased after they were on the brink of all-out war. "This achievement (nuclear weapons) is not by choice but has been through threat and compulsion that Pakistan was facing," Musharraf told a gathering of scientists at International Nathiagali Summer College, about 550 miles Islamabad. Musharraf's remarks, reported by state-run news agency Associated Press of Pakistan, came as tensions between nuclear-armed neighbors eased after they were on the brink of all-out war. India has a no-first-use nuclear policy, but Pakistan, which has a much smaller army, never matched that pledge. The lack of balance raised fears that any new war between the hostile neighbors could go nuclear. Tensions flared after a Dec. 14 attack on the Indian parliament, which New Delhi blamed on Pakistan-based Islamic militants fighting Indian forces in the Indian-occupied section of Kashmir province. Pakistan denied any role in the attack. Both countries dispatched hundreds of thousands of troops to their border in the biggest military mobilization in the region since 1971. Tensions eased after intensive U.S. and other international diplomacy and after Musharraf pledged to stop insurgents from crossing into the Indian-controlled part of Kashmir. In New Delhi, India warned Musharraf against reneging on his commitment to "permanently" end cross-border incursions into the disputed region. "We want Pakistan to abide by its commitment. There is no going back on this, if we want peace in the region," Indian foreign ministry spokeswoman Nirupama Rao told a news briefing. The Indian government was responding to Musharraf comments in a Newsweek magazine interview in which he was quoted as saying he could not promise there would never be crossings of the Line of Control that divides Kashmir between India and Pakistan. "I've told President Bush nothing is happening across the Line of Control. This is the assurance I've given. I'm not going to give you an assurance that for years nothing will happen. We have to have a response from India, a discussion about Kashmir," Newsweek quoted Musharraf as saying. A U.S. Embassy spokesman in New Delhi said Musharraf had assured Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage on June 6 that "ending of infiltration across the Line of Control would be permanent." However, Musharraf suggested in Sunday's Washington Post that his promises were less far reaching than those described by the State Department. On Monday, the State Department stood by previous statements that Musharraf promised to permanently end cross-border infiltrations. Spokesman Richard Boucher suggested Musharraf already has carried through on his commitments, citing the "significant decline" in infiltrations. He also said India's conciliatory actions over the past two weeks suggest Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee is pleased with Musharraf's actions. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 3 Going nuclear in North Korea -- The Washington Times June 25, 2002 Notra Trulock There is a new crisis looming for the Bush administration this summer and it is not Iraq, although it does feature a harshly repressive regime trying to hide its weapons of mass destruction from international inspection. The crisis is brewing on the Korean Peninsula and involves the end game of a deal made eight years ago by the Clinton administration. In 1994, in return for a freeze on its nuclear facilities, the United States promised to build Pyongyang "proliferation-resistant" nuclear reactors and supply North Korea with 500,000 tons of fuel oil annually. The North Koreans promised to open their facilities to international inspection and get out of the nuclear-weapons business all together. The Clinton administration managed to defuse the immediate crisis and keep North Korea off the nation's front pages for most of its two terms. Administration spokesmen gradually began to tout the deal as a major Clinton foreign-policy success; Mr. Clinton himself claimed that he got the North Koreans out of the nuclear business. In truth, few of the original U.S. negotiators thought there would be a North Korea by the time the bill came due. But North Korea is still standing and, with regard to nuclear weapons, it has not been standing still, according to the intelligence community. It looks like the North Koreans didn't "freeze" their program after all and used the time to produce nuclear warheads. This startling news was first revealed in the public version of a National Intelligence Estimate on Foreign Missile Developments published in December 2001. The estimate says, "The intelligence community judged in the mid-1990s that North Korea had produced one, possibly two, nuclear weapons." In fact, that is not what the community said in the mid-1990s. Those judgments dealt only with plutonium production, not nuclear warheads. Presumably, this new assessment was not made lightly. It implies that North Korea has accomplished all the other phases of nuclear warhead manufacturing. The use of plutonium implies an implosion-type warhead, as plutonium is unsuitable for simpler gun-assembly designs. Implosion designs require more sophisticated non-nuclear testing and manufacturing skills. Intelligence community statements also indicate that the North Koreans have engineered a warhead small enough for delivery on a North Korean missile. More worrisome are new assessments that indicate those light-water reactors may not be so "proliferation resistant" after all. Henry Sokolski, of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, has unearthed a Livermore National Lab assessment concluding that one reactor alone could produce enough weapons-grade plutonium for 50 nuclear warheads. Former U.S. officials involved in the original negotiations admit that they did not seek such assessments at the time of the original deal, but categorically reject Livermore's recent analysis. They cite technical reasons that would prevent the North Koreans from producing plutonium from the spent fuel from these reactors, but North Korea has fooled international observers (read: the U.S. intelligence community) before. This spring the Bush administration refused to certify Pyongyang's compliance with the terms of the Agreed Framework, claiming that North Korea was resisting new inspection arrangements with international inspectors. But the intelligence com-munity's new findings and continued suspicions about covert North Korean activities more likely was the reasoning behind non-certification. As for North Korea, which had suspended reactor talks after being tagged by President Bush for being on the "axis of evil," has decided to begin talking again after all. Pyongyang is probably betting that the United States will be too preoccupied by the Middle East and that the Bush administration will have many incentives to compromise to avoid another crisis. Despite its refusal to certify North Korea, the administration granted Pyongyang another year's worth of fuel oil. Look for lots of pressure from Senate Democrats, like Joe Biden, and the mainstream media to stick to the deal — no matter what. North Korea is not going away soon, no matter how bad things get or how many predictions our intelligence community makes. Those predictions have consistently proved too pessimistic (or optimistic, depending on your point of view). Some argue for syncing reactor construction with the timetable for inspections. Better to stop the head long rush to the end game and rethink our overall objectives. Test North Korea by offering to convert the deal to non-nuclear power plants while upgrading the country's power grid, as Mr. Sokolski recommends. If this is really about economic development and power generation, North Korea should jump at that deal. Notra Trulock is the associate editor at Accuracy in Media. He is a former director of intelligence at the Energy Department. ***************************************************************** 4 Three companies to seek nuclear permits United Press International From the Washington Politics & Policy Desk Published 6/24/2002 9:34 PM WASHINGTON, June 24 (UPI) -- The Bush administration's campaign to kick-start a new wave of nuclear power plant construction in order to meet the growing energy demand in the United States took a step forward Monday with the selection of three utilities for a $17 million program that will speed up the permit process. The Department of Energy announced that it had selected Virginia-based Dominion Energy for assistance in going through the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Early Site Permit process along with Exelon of Illinois and Entergy, based in Louisiana. "By working with these utilities to put potential nuclear plant sites through the rigorous ... process, we will remove one more barrier to seeing the nuclear option fully revived in the United States," Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said in a statement. The White House has given a shot in the arm to the nuclear power industry by touting these power plants as capable of producing large volumes of electricity the nation will need in coming decades without creating harmful emissions. Nuclear power accounts for about 20 percent of the U.S. electricity supply. Nuclear energy is capable of producing the large amounts of power that will be needed to cover an anticipated increase in demand that the Energy Department concludes will require nearly 2,000 new non-nuclear generating plants by 2020. The Energy Department is pushing research into two types of safer and more-efficient reactors -- one cooled by water and the other by gas -- that planners envision will replace aging reactors that are currently in service. The department has also launched a $5.5 million effort to bolster the training of nuclear engineers at four U.S. universities. The three companies have committed to obtaining permits to build new reactors on the sites of existing nuclear plants. The companies, with the financial assistance of the Energy Department, expects to have their applications turned in to the NRC by the autumn of 2003, with the regulatory agency expected to make its ruling about two years later. When Entergy announced its intention to seek a permit last spring, company officials said they would hang on to the permit until a time when the economics of the electricity market made the massive investment practical. Although none of the companies has committed to actually building a new power plant, they will go through with the permit process. The Energy Department said Dominion would apply for permission to build on its North Anna site in Virginia; Entergy at the Grand Gulf site in Mississippi, and Exelon at its Clinton site in Illinois. "As a clean, affordable and reliable energy source, nuclear energy is important to the nation's future energy supply," Secretary Abraham said. "These public-private partnerships are the first step toward seeing that new, safe nuclear plants are built in this country by 2010." -- (Reported by UPI Chief Energy Correspondent Hil Anderson.) Copyright © 2002 United Press International ***************************************************************** 5 Nuclear supplies at risk PittsburghLIVE.com - By Chris Osher [cosher@tribweb.com] TRIBUNE-REVIEW Tuesday, June 25, 2002 Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. Senate expect to boost legislation today that would add more than $100 million annually to the effort to secure overseas stockpiles of radioactive material. Staffers for Sen. Pete Domenici, a New Mexico Republican, said he would attempt to amend a $379 billion defense bill to seek the additional funding. The amendment primarily would bolster programs aimed at safeguarding Russia's aging nuclear weapons program. It also would provide additional money to help track down radioactive devices the United States shipped to 33 countries for disposal that have since disappeared. The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported Sunday that there are so few controls on tracking low-level radioactive waste that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has no idea how much waste is generated domestically each year. Federal officials also say they need more resources to recover radioactive material that could be fashioned into a so-called dirty bomb. The issue has taken a high profile following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. A terrorist suspect was arrested recently and accused of plotting a "dirty bomb" attack against the United States. In a compromise to build support for passage, the new legislation would scale back an earlier request for an additional $400 million more annually to such programs. Domenici's legislation already has secured some high-profile support. Co-sponsors include Sens. Joseph Biden, a Delaware Democrat; and Richard Lugar, an Indiana Republican, both former presidential candidates. Congressional staffers familiar with the latest strategy said the legislation had a good chance at passage. Attempts to reach Pennsylvania Sens. Arlen Specter and Rick Santorum, both Republicans, were not successful yesterday. The United States currently spends from $1 billion to $1.5 billion annually on nuclear nonproliferation issues. The legislation would pump an additional $40 million annually into programs that render highly enriched uranium and plutonium in Russia unsuitable for nuclear weapons. The legislation also would allow other countries to participate in that program for the first time. An additional $30 million annually would go to research into how to detect and respond to acts of radiological terrorism. One method would be to provide radiation censor devices at border crossings. Another $30 million would be available for increasing foreign aid for safeguarding nuclear reactors overseas from terrorist assaults and theft. Some of the new money would be used to secure orphaned industrial radioactive devices in foreign countries. According to a March 2001 report from the U.S. Department of Energy, some of those devices had been shipped overseas by the U.S. government. That report said that the federal government shipped radioactive-laden devices to 33 countries, beginning in 1954. Those shipments continued for decades, but the federal government no longer can account for those devices, the report stated. All of the devices together contained about 5 pounds of plutonium. The legislation follows the release in January 2001 of a report from a task force chaired by former U.S. Sen. Howard Baker, a Tennessee Republican; and Lloyd Cutler, former White House counsel to President Carter and President Clinton. Their report called for $30 billion to be spent over the next 10 years to secure Russia's radioactive stockpile. "The most urgent unmet national security threat to the United States today is the danger that weapons of mass destruction or weapons-usable material in Russia could be stolen and sold to terrorists or hostile nation states and used against American troops abroad or citizens at home," the report concluded. That report found that Russia built more than 40,000 nuclear weapons during the Cold War and has enough highly enriched uranium and plutonium to build another 40,000 nuclear weapons. It also documented delays in payments to guards at nuclear facilities and inadequate protections of stockpiles. The report listed several attempted thefts of radioactive sources, including the December 1998 arrest of an employee from Russia's premier nuclear weapons laboratory in Sarov, in central Russia southwest of Moscow. The individual was arrested for espionage and charged with attempting to sell documents on nuclear weapons designs to agents of Iraq and Afghanistan for $3 million, the report stated. In addition, when Russia officials reported that case, they confirmed that this was not the first case of nuclear theft at Sarov. They explained that such thefts were the result of the "very difficult financial position" of workers at such defense enterprises. Chris Osher can be reached at cosher@tribweb.com [cosher@tribweb.com] or (412) 320-7910. copyright © 2002 by The Tribune-Review Publishing Co. ***************************************************************** 6 Two more N plants to be built in Pak / Updated on 2002-06-25 11:08:38/ *ISLAMABAD, June 25 (PNS): Pakistan will continue its pursuit of the development of nuclear energy with additional nuclear power plants in the years to come, says Dr Pervez Butt, Chairman Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC). * In his welcome address, the PAEC chief exulted that his organization was contributing valuable pioneering work in several areas of vital national interest, and presented an abstract of PAEC?s achievements. Excerpts from his address follow. Please allow me to briefly describe some of our own activities, which span nuclear applications in areas of nuclear power, agriculture, physical and biological sciences, industry, hydrology and health. I will start with nuclear power. The availability of cheap and abundant and clean energy supply is a ?sine qua non? for development. The availability of fossil fuels like coal, oil and hydro electricity contributed significantly to the industrial development of the West. In the last several decades this supply of energy has been augmented by nuclear power. With 438 operational nuclear power plants worldwide, nuclear energy is supplying 16% of the world?s electricity needs. This figure is 20% for the US, 39% for Korea, 75 % for France and 34% for Japan. As you are well aware, Pakistan has only two nuclear power plants, KANUPP and CHASNUPP. Nuclear electrically is only about 3% of the total generation of the country. However, these two plants are providing the much-needed electricity, particularly during the dry months, when our hydroelectric power plants are short of water. At the international level, there are signs of resurgence of nuclear power. Nuclear power plants continue to be built in Asia. In Europe, Finland has recently announced its intention of building a new nuclear plant. In the USA, a large number of older Nuclear Power Plants are being licensed for life extensions. In keeping with these international trends, Pakistan will continue its pursuit of the development of nuclear energy with additional nuclear power plants in the years to come. All nuclear power plants, all over the world, pay special attention to safety. As a responsible nuclear power, we are conscious of it. In order to ensure the safety of our nuclear facilities and on our own recommendations, the Government has set up a totally independent organization, namely the Pakistan Nuclear Regulatory Authority (PNRA), which reports directly to the Chief Executive of Pakistan. This is in keeping with the international practice of complete separation between regulatory and production activities. Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology (PINSTECH) continues to be the premier research institute of the country. It has two reactors which are used for research and isotope production. PINSTECH has published more than 1100 research papers in international journals. To further widen its radioisotopes production capability, we have recently initiated a plan to set up a plant for the production of Mo-Tc. generators which have wide applications in medical diagnosis and which are hitherto imported. PINSTECH has also developed, and is selling, laser land levelers which help to save irrigation water requirements. The Commission is performing a vital role in Biosciences. It supplements the efforts of federal and provincial agencies in agriculture, biotechnology and health sector using radiation methods and other advanced technologies, such as genetic engineering. Forty-one varieties of different crops have been evolved by PAEC. These crop varieties are higher yielding, resistant to diseases and insects. To usefully utilize salinity-affected lands, a biological method has been developed by PAEC?s agricultural center - NIAB. This technology is now being provided to ten developing countries under the auspices of IAEA. Based on the expertise achieved in this technology, the Commission has prepared a development project Farmers? participatory saline Agriculture Development project in Pakistan for restoration of 25,000 acres of wasteland in the four provinces of the country. This project has recently been approved by the Federal Government at a cost of Rs. 177 million and is under implementation. Biotechnology is the technology of future. PAEC is also a pioneer in this field and established the National Institute of Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering (NIBGE) in 1994 at Faisalabad. The Ministry of Science & Technology has declared it as a Centre of Excellence in Biotechnology. The Commission is also a pioneer in using the nuclear and other advanced techniques for the well being of the people in health care. PAEC has established 12 Nuclear Medical Hospitals in different parts of the country for diagnosis and treatment of cancer and the 13th one is coming up at Abbottabad. Beside this, four Cancer Hospitals are in planning stage at Gilgit, Nawabshah, D.I. Khan and Swat. These Cancer Hospitals provide nuclear medicine, radiotherapy and chemotherapy facilities to as many as 310,000 patients/year. The Commission has also been requested by the Government to set up mammography clinics countrywide, for which the Government has recently allocated a sum of Rs.158 million. We realize that science alone is not enough for development. Science and Technology must lead to industrialization and greater indigenisation. PAEC has established specialized centers for non-destructive testing, specialized soil testing, welding, material analysis, hydrology, etc. which are providing assistance to industry. We have also established industrial plants and, in our quest for greater indgenisation, are now amongst the largest equipment manufacturing organization in the country. Sir, we are proud of our contribution to greater self-reliance. In spite of our well-defined targets, PAEC has a liberal and open door policy with international scientific organizations like IAEA, COG, ICTP and CERN. We have a long-standing and close cooperation with CERN in a number of scientific and technological fields. This cooperation - which started with collaboration in areas of manufacturing heavy structures, sophisticated software packages, fabrication of some parts of detectors, laser alignment system etc. - is going to be enhanced manifold. We look forward to negotiating agreements with CERN involving million of dollars. Our cooperation with CERN has really opened a window for international cooperation for our scientists and Engineers. CERN has also very enthusiastically been providing speakers for our Nathiagali Summer College. As far as the National Center for Physics is concerned, PAEC not only played a vital role in its establishment but has always stressed that the Center should be put on sound footing. In spite of all the financial constraints, PAEC has been helping to keep NCP alive and active. In our envisaged agreements with CERN, we have agreed that 5% of the earnings will go to the fund, which will support NCP activities. ***************************************************************** 7 AU: Govt to produce reactor papers news.com.au - By Linda McSweeny and Denis Peters THE Senate has demanded the Government release documents from nuclear safety authorities on a fault line under the Lucas Heights reactor site. The fault line at the site in southern Sydney was discovered during a routine examination as excavation began. The Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA) this week said more work was needed to establish the extent of the fault and its implications. Greens Senator Bob Brown successfully moved a motion demanding the Government release by the end of Question Time tomorrow the ARPANSA and Australian Nuclear Safety and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) report. Argentinian company INVAP has been contracted to build a replacement nuclear research reactor at the site of the current Lucas Heights facility. Construction is already underway at the southern Sydney site and Senator Brown has said it is unconscionable of a government to keep any details of a fault line secret. The Government said ANSTO noted a possible fault that could be of significance from a seismic perspective. The note was made once inspections of the site began. "It's not as if they categorically ruled out any possible seismic problem in the first instance and now they're categorically saying there is a seismic problem now," Communications Minister Richard Alston, speaking on behalf of Science Minister Peter McGauran, said. "It's only prudent behaviour to err on the side of caution and to conduct further inquiries." But he accused Labor of peddling community hysteria on the issue. Labor's Michael Forshaw (ALP, NSW), who lives in the region, said ANSTO's application for a site licence in 1999 categorically stated no seismically active geological structures had been identified. The application also said there were no major faults within 35km of the Lucas Heights Science and Technology Centre, he said. But Senator Alston said ANSTO's brief, when it undertook its original assessment, was to do its best to identify any problems. "The finding they handed down at the time one assumes was provided in every good faith after there'd been all necessary, exhaustive scientific tests had been conducted," he said. "That is not a perfection test. In other words, in the real world you can never be absolutely sure of anything." AAP [http://news.com.au ***************************************************************** 8 Reactor could make nuclear power as economical as gas -- The Washington Times June 25, 2002 By Marie Beaudette THE WASHINGTON TIMES AECL Technologies yesterday announced its plans to introduce a new nuclear reactor into the U.S. market that company representatives say is economical enough to rival natural gas as a source of power. The Ontario, Canada-based company is in the process of licensing its ACR-700 reactor — which AECL says is cheaper and faster than most U.S. reactors — in the United States and abroad. "Our confidence in this product and this technology we're bringing to the market is very high," said Robert Van Adel, chief executive officer of Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., the parent of AECL Technologies. The company is in negotiations with several U.S. companies interested in breaking into the nuclear energy market. However, little can be done until the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approves the reactor's design for use in the United States. AECL has already started going through the licensing process with the NRC, Mr. Van Adel said. AECL's plans come at a time of heightened concern about the safety of nuclear reactors, and some question whether the company's reactor is really more economical than what is already in place in the United States. Mr. Van Adel said this reactor is both more economical and safer than other reactors. It uses a more cost-efficient cooling system and is a 700-megawatt construction, rather than the 1,000-megawatt reactors that are now common in the United States, he said. The ACR-700 could be built for $1,000 per kilowatt and will operate for $30 per megawatt-hour, which is comparable to gas-fired technologies, he said. AECL predicts its ACR-700 technology will be competitive in price with natural gas by 2010. "We believe that the ACR-700 is the first reactor on the market that has the right combination of cost, safety, security, size, reliability and environmental advantages to meet the needs of generators selling into competitive markets," Mr. Van Adel said. David Lochbaum, an expert in nuclear safety for the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the company could face problems selling new reactors, because at least 85 percent of the existing reactors in the United States are expected to be relicensed. "As those reactors get relicensed, that delays the period of time they have to be replaced," he said. Since September 11, many have questioned the vulnerability of nuclear power plants to attack and the wisdom of building more reactors. There are 103 licensed nuclear plants in 31 states, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute. Nuclear energy, which generates about 20 percent of the country's electricity, is considered to be a cleaner alternative to power generated by natural gas, oil and coal. However, there have always been concerns about how to store the 2,000 metric tons of spent radioactive fuel produced each year in the United States. This high-level radioactive waste can be very dangerous, but according to a survey by the Nuclear Energy Institute, about 66 percent of Americans believe nuclear power is a safe option. Despite the increasing public acceptance, there are no known plans to build more nuclear power plants in the United States, and this could pose problems for AECL in marketing its new reactor, Mr. Lochbaum said. It also costs more to get a nuclear plant up and running, and it is unlikely that nuclear power's share in U.S. power generation will grow, he said. Mr. Lochbaum also questioned the company's use of a water-based cooling system, which he says is being dismissed in most of the world in favor of more economical gas cooling models under development. "It doesn't look like anyone in the U.S. has been able to find a way of using water economically," Mr. Lochbaum said. But AECL is confident of its chances in the United States.He said the company is working with several major U.S. utilities to bring this reactor to the country. There are 31 of AECL's CANDU reactors in place worldwide and six more under construction. AECL is owned by the Canadian government. ***************************************************************** 9 Regulatory Conference with Nuclear Management Company on Point Beach Plant Canceled NRC: Press Release Region III - 2002 - 39 - U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, Region III 801 Warrenville Road, Lisle IL 60532 www.nrc.gov No. III-02-039 June 24, 2002 CONTACT: Jan Strasma (630) 829-9663 Viktoria Mitlyng (630) 829-9662 E-mail: [opa3@nrc.gov] The meeting between the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and representatives of Nuclear Management Company to discuss recent inspection findings at the Point Beach Nuclear Power Station, scheduled for June 25 in Lisle, Illinois, has been canceled. The meeting was previously announced in News Release III-02-038. The Regulatory Conference had been scheduled to discuss the safety significance of the NRC's inspection findings associated with a February 12 emergency exercise at the Point Beach plant, located near Two Rivers, Wisconsin. Rather than discuss the safety significance in the meeting, the company has elected to submit its views in writing on the safety significance. NRC inspectors determined that the Point Beach staff inadequately critiqued two items during the emergency preparedness exercise. One item dealt with the initial Protective Action Recommendation (PAR) to offsite government officials. And the second dealt with the decision-making on the simulated removal of non-essential personnel, who were not members of the current shift of emergency responders, from the site. The NRC staff had preliminarily evaluated the inspection findings as "white," meaning the findings were of low to moderate importance to safety. Once the utility submits its views, the NRC staff will issue its final determination on the safety significance. Emergency preparedness drills and exercises are held to identify performance and procedural deficiencies through a critique process to ensure that corrective action takes place before these problems can occur during an actual emergency and have an adverse reaction on public health and safety. To make drills and exercises effective, the plant staff's critiques be thorough and self-critical. Under its safety significance determination process, NRC officials classify certain conditions at nuclear power plants as being one of four colors which delineate increasing levels of safety significance, beginning with green and progressing to white, yellow or red. A preliminary "white" determination for the emergency exercise critique was described in an inspection report issued April 30. The letter transmitting the report provided the company with an opportunity to request a regulatory conference to discuss the issue. Nuclear Management Company initially disagreed with the NRC's evaluation of the problem's safety significance and requested a regulatory conference. The company subsequently informed the NRC that it wished to submit its views in writing rather than participate in a Regulatory Conference. A "white" finding may result in a future NRC inspections to review the company's response to the inspection findings. The notice to the utility of the final safety significance will be available on the NRC web site at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/enforcement/actions/reactors/ ***************************************************************** 10 NRC Proposes $288,000 Fine Against Dominion Nuclear for Violations at Millstone NRC: Press Release Region I - 2002 - 45 - U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, Region I 475 Allendale Road, King of Prussia, Pa. 19406 www.nrc.gov No. I-02-045 June 25, 2002 CONTACT: Diane Screnci (610) 337-5330 Neil A. Sheehan (610) 337-5331 E-mail: opa1@nrc.gov [opa1@nrc.gov] The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has cited Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, Inc., for two violations of NRC requirements associated with the loss of two irradiated fuel rods at the Millstone Unit 1 nuclear power plant in Waterford, Conn. The NRC has proposed a $288,000 civil penalty for one of the violations. Northeast Nuclear Energy Company (NNECO), the former operator of Millstone Station, informed the NRC in November 2000 that two fuel rods were unaccounted for. The company was conducting a spent fuel pool inventory when it determined the fuel was missing. A subsequent investigation by NNECO concluded that the fuel most likely had been cut into segments and sent to a low-level radioactive waste facility along with other irradiated reactor hardware sometime between March 1985 and December 1992. The NRC conducted an inspection to review the results of the company's investigation. The special inspection was conducted between October and December of last year. A public meeting to discuss the findings was held in January and the report was issued on February 27. Based on that inspection, the NRC agrees with NNECO's conclusions. The NRC has also concluded that there are adequate controls to account for all of the spent fuel at Millstone, except for the missing rods. Since Dominion is now the operator of Millstone Station, it is accountable and was offered the opportunity to meet with the NRC staff at a predecisional enforcement conference to discuss the apparent violations. It declined to do so. The company responded in writing and did not contest the violations. In a letter to Dominion, NRC Region I Administrator Hubert J. Miller said, "Notwithstanding the fact that there was no realistic threat, past or present to the public health and safety, the loss of highly radioactive fuel rods is unprecedented and is a very significant violation." Dominion was cited for two violations. The first violation, categorized as a Severity Level II, related to inadequately accounting for special nuclear material contained within the spent fuel rods. The second violation involved untimely reporting to the NRC that the licensed material was missing. The second violation is a Severity Level IV violation for which a civil penalty was not assessed. A base penalty of $96,000 is considered for a Severity Level II violation. In this case the NRC has decided to triple the base amount because of the "unprecedented nature of the loss of highly radioactive material and to further emphasize the importance of adequate accounting of irradiated fuel at nuclear power reactors," Miller said. Because of the radiological controls that are in place at any of the possible locations of the missing fuel, the NRC believes there is no current threat to public health and safety. There was no evidence found by the NRC team to support the possibility of theft or diversion of the rods. The very high radiation level of the material would have made theft difficult, dangerous and highly unlikely. In reviewing the company's corrective actions, the NRC noted the investigation into the missing fuel was thorough and complete, the root cause analysis was comprehensive and the physical inspection of the spent fuel pool was comprehensive. Dominion has 30 days to respond to the notice of violation. ***************************************************************** 11 Phase 1 of Calvert Cliffs retooling done Generators, transformers in reactor of nuclear plant are refueled and replaced By Dan Thanh Dang Sun Staff Originally published June 25, 2002 Work to refuel and replace steam generators and transformers in a reactor at Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant has been completed, wrapping up the first phase of the largest refurbishment project in the plant's history, Constellation Energy Group Inc. officials said yesterday. In the next phase, a second reactor will go through similar maintenance work next year. Although the maintenance work lasted 33 days longer than projected, Unit 1 reactor's reconnection to the electricity supply system comes just in time for summer energy demands. "It is important for them to have completed this work because it provides much more safe, reliable and long-term operation," said Daniele M. Seitz, an energy analyst with Salomon Smith Barney. "Peaking season started June 1, so this was definitely something they wanted to have done before summer demand grew." Seitz said that the delay probably cost Constellation about 5 cents per share in earnings. Constellation blamed the hindrance on a shortage of contract workers. "We had expected the work to be completed in 80 to 90 days," said Angela Walters, a Constellation spokeswoman. "But we ran into some unexpected problems with the welding to put the huge steam generators in place. We didn't anticipate the crafting shortage." Calvert Cliffs was the first nuclear plant in the country to be relicensed for another 20 years of operation by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in March 2000. The work on Unit 1 at Calvert Cliffs began with five years of planning and manufacturing time to make key components needed for the maintenance work, company officials said New steam generators and main transformers replaced original equipment dating to Unit 1's startup in 1974. About 40 percent of the reactor's uranium fuel was replaced, and other tests and inspections of its turbine and other safety systems were conducted during the outage. Calvert Cliffs produces about 1,700 megawatts, or enough to meet the needs of more than 500,000 homes. Constellation had been purchasing replacement electricity on the wholesale market since Unit 1 was shut down Feb. 15. Total cost for the refurbishment work on Unit 1 was not available, said Constellation spokesman Charles B. Welsh. The company had estimated that the original 90-day outage would shave about 11 cents off earnings for the year. "There's no reason to change the guidance that we gave of 50 to 55 cents per share for second quarter earnings because of the delay," Welsh said. Copyright © 2002, The Baltimore Sun ***************************************************************** 12 Japan: Agency to set plane crash safety standard for nuclear plants Tuesday, June 25, 2002 at 09:30 JST TOKYO ? The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency in the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry will set a new safety standard for nuclear plants by requiring operators to confirm the probability of planes crashing into plants to be less than one-10 millionth, agency sources said Monday. Setting safety standards by probability is very rare, the sources said. The new standard will apply to new plants currently under safety evaluations. The agency will also check existing plants to see if they meet the standard. The current standards say there is no need for crash likelihood provisions if there is no airport within 10 kilometers of a plant. Under the new standards, if there are airports near the plants or the plants are under flight routes, the crash probability for large airplanes will be calculated based upon past accident data in departing and landing at the airport or the probability of crashing during flight. The agency will calculate an average nationwide uniform probability for small airplanes since they could crash regardless of airport or flight path locations. The likelihood of crashes involving planes from the U.S military in Japan or the Self-Defense Forces will be calculated based on the location of training areas. The agency does not intend to include consideration of possible terrorist attacks on plants in the safety standard, it said. (Kyodo News) ***************************************************************** 13 NRC Proposes $3,000 Fine Against Howard University Hospital NRC: Press Release Region I - 2002 - 44 - U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, Region I 475 Allendale Road, King of Prussia, Pa. 19406 www.nrc.gov No. I-02-044 June 24, 2002 CONTACT: Diane Screnci (610) 337-5330 Neil A. Sheehan (610) 337-5331 E-mail: [opa1@nrc.gov] The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has cited Howard University Hospital for two violations of NRC requirements. The staff has proposed a $3,000 fine. The NRC conducted an inspection at the Washington, D.C., hospital on April 17 and 19 to review the circumstances surrounding the loss of four seeds containing iridium-192. On April 4, a patient was undergoing treatment for a cancerous tumor. During the treatment, one of eleven ribbons containing iridium-192 seeds was lost. The hospital was unable to determine exactly how the ribbon was lost, but concluded it was likely flushed into the sewer system because subsequent surveys of the hospital laundry and other areas within the hospital didn't identify any radioactive material. The ribbon might also have been placed in the laundry bag along with the patient's soiled gown and removed from the patient's room without being surveyed. However, this is less likely since the source was not found. There is no indication the radioactive material was intentionally removed from the patient's room or the hospital. Because it is likely the material was flushed into the sewer system, the seeds do not pose a significant threat to public health and safety. This fact, along with the relatively low radiological activity and short half-life of the material combine to effectively preclude use of the seeds in a malevolent act. The NRC has cited Howard University Hospital for two violations: failure to control radioactive material; and failure to make, or cause to be made, surveys to evaluate the radiological conditions that could be present. In a letter to the hospital, Region I Administrator Hubert J. Miller said, "The safety significance of these violations was minimized by the fact that the source, whether discarded in the sewer or the laundry, is unlikely to come in close contact with any individual." These violations are of concern to the NRC, Miller said, because failure to control the radioactive material resulted in the loss of a source and such sources can result in "substantial unintended radiation dose to an individual if placed in close contact with the skin." The hospital has 30 days to respond to the notice of violation. ***************************************************************** 14 Scientists Urge Terrorism Defense Las Vegas SUN June 25, 2002 WASHINGTON- The United States needs to establish an in-depth counterterrorism program to protect essential services, from energy delivery to information systems to emergency medicine, according to an analysis by a scientific panel. The National Academy of Sciences report, released Monday, provides a blueprint for using science and technology to prevent or reduce the damage from terrorist attacks, said Lewis M. Branscomb of Harvard University, co-chairman of the committee that prepared the study. "We assume any potential terrorist is looking at all their options, how they might attack us," he said. "We need to think about how to deprive them of those options." The study noted, "Our society is too complex and interconnected to defend against all possible threats." Still, it called for prompt action to identify and repair the weakest links. Much of Congress was turning its attention to homeland security on Tuesday, with the first of a dozen House and Senate hearings on President Bush's proposal to create a new Cabinet agency. The president's homeland security adviser, Tom Ridge, was to appear before a House panel examining the department's proposed capabilities to respond to chemical, biological and radiological attacks. House Science Committee Chairman Sherwood Boehlert, R-N.Y., welcomed the Academy study. He said it is essential to focus research and development and coordinate it within the new Department of Homeland Security. The Academy report called for "defense in depth," not just perimeter defense or firewalls. Alan I. Leshner, head of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which issued a separate report on combating terrorism, stressed the complexity of the problem. "Yes, terrorism and terrorist acts can come about because of the availability of technology, and you need technology to protect us from terrorist technology," he said. But Leshner cautioned against restricting openness in scientific communications. "While protecting ourselves against potential problems, we don't want it to obstruct the future progress in science that we need to advance society," he said. The massive National Academy report looked at nuclear and radiological threats; possible attacks on human health systems and agriculture; use of toxic chemicals and explosives; the vulnerability of information technology, energy systems, transportation and cities; and the human response to terrorism. Suggestions for immediate action included: -Developing improved methods to protect and account for nuclear weapons and other nuclear materials. -Ensuring the production and distribution of treatments for disease threats. -Designing and installing in-depth security for transportation, in particular shipping containers and vehicles that carry toxic or flammable materials. -Improving security for energy distribution systems. -Developing improved air filtration methods for ventilation systems. -Ensuring that first responders such as police and fire departments can communicate with one another. The study was launched after the Sept. 11 attacks, bringing in scientists, engineers, doctors, counterterrorism experts and arms-control specialists from the Academy and its components, the National Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council. The Academy is an independent organization chartered by Congress to provide scientific advice to the government. It held briefings on the study Monday at the White House and Congress. In its separate report, released at the same time as the Academy's findings, the American Association for the Advancement of Science concluded that the nation is poorly prepared to deal with either bioterrorism or attacks on its information systems. The report by AAAS, the world's largest association of scientists, includes a series of papers looking at the potential hazards of terrorism. "Bioterrorism is not going to go away," wrote D.A. Henderson, chairman of the Department of Health and Human Services' Council on Public Health Preparedness. "We are concerned with a comparatively short list of dangerous diseases that would be catastrophic and potentially destabilizing," Henderson said in one of the papers. "They are smallpox, anthrax, plague, tularemia, botulinum toxin and the group of diseases that manifest themselves as hemorrhagic fevers." On the Net: National Academy of Sciences: http://www.national-academies.org [http://www.national-academies.org] American Association for the Advancement of Science: http://www.aaas.org [http://www.aaas.org] All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 15 Panel Urges Gulf War Illness Research Las Vegas SUN June 25, 2002 WASHINGTON- A panel advising the Veterans Affairs secretary on Gulf War illness research urged investigation of veterans' neurological problems, more spending for studies and a better plan for carrying them out. The panel was appointed by VA Secretary Anthony Principi to redirect Gulf War illness research, which has yielded few answers for the ailments of sick vets more than a decade after the war. Their suggestions Tuesday recommended spending $450 million over three years on future research, but only after a plan is established to coordinate studies and set objectives and a timeline. James Binns, panel chairman, justified the request by citing the VA's own recent study that acknowledged the possibility of a Gulf War syndrome, with symptoms that appear to be consistent with neurological damage. "We now have a road map and someone pointing a direction where we can say if we spend money and do research in that direction we will gain insights and results that ultimately lead to treatments," said Binns, a Vietnam veteran. The panel said discovering why some veterans of the Persian Gulf War have experienced neurological system breakdowns should be a priority for research. Samuel Simmens, a George Washington University researcher who co-wrote the VA study, said its results should be considered cautiously. He said its findings are tentative, pending results of follow-up clinical studies. Principi was an eager and inquisitive recipient of the panel's suggestions but set no immediate deadline for implementing them. He did say the recommendations could affect how current VA research money is spent. Deputy VA Secretary Leo Mackay Jr. said they also would be useful for planning now under way for the fiscal year 2004 budget. Tens of thousands of Gulf War vets - the precise number is in dispute - returned home with a variety of illnesses, and some have become very sick. Symptoms include chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, chronic diarrhea, migraines, dizziness and loss of balance among other symptoms. Some have been diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease or ALS, a progressive, fatal disease. Some vets have been frustrated with government research, largely because early studies linked their problems to battlefield stress. The advisory panel includes some researchers who have been critical of government efforts on Gulf War illness. Principi said he would share the findings with the Department of Defense. A DOD spokeswoman said the Pentagon is awaiting the report and working closely with VA on the research. Binns and Principi said research findings on Gulf War vets also could have greater implications. "Unfortunately, nerve agents and biological and chemical warfare are subjects no longer for the battlefield. They are subjects for the home front as well," Principi said. In the VA study, researchers found a cluster of symptoms in Gulf War vets that are consistent with neurological damage, including blurred vision; loss of balance and dizziness; tremors and shaking; and speech difficulty. Vets with all those symptoms were three times more likely than non-Gulf vets to report that they had been exposed to certain toxic substances said to have been present in the Gulf theater. Other recommendations by the panel include: -Designate a central agency, possibly a branch of the National Institutes of Health, to be responsible for the research program, which would instill veteran confidence in government research. -Identify available treatments for Gulf War vets, and establish a program to monitor their effectiveness. -Consult with specialists in neurobiology and neurological illnesses. -Merge Department of Defense databases on veteran locations and exposures with the Veterans Administration database on health claims and diagnoses and other government databases with information on Gulf War vets. -Revise the VA and Defense Department peer-review process for research grants to follow the process used by the National Institutes of Health. Place veterans on the peer-review panels. --- On the Net: Veterans Affairs: http://www.va.gov [http://www.va.gov] -- All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 16 Nuke Pill Sales Skyrocket in D.C. NewsMax.com *July 04, 2002 * * *Ann Coulter's New Book : **Get It Cheaper Than Amazon!* Ever since the announcement of the arrest of suspected al-Qaeda radiation bomber Jose Padilla, sales of potassium iodide pills, used as an antidote to radiation poisoning, have been skyrocketing in the Washington, D.C., area. "In fact, both Nukepills.com and KI4U, another potassium iodide distributor, agree that the greater Washington region has become one of the country's hottest markets, the Washington Post reported Monday. "We've been selling to the federal government, to individuals in D.C., Maryland, Virginia, Baltimore and even the Eastern Shore, and to a lot of businesses around the Beltway," one distributor explained. The Post report follows NewsMax.com's Insider Report, which first detailed D.C.'s potassium iodide buying frenzy, along with the reasons behind it, this weekend: "If a dirty bomb nuclear material detonated with normal explosives hits the U.S. it will likely be in Washington, so we hear from numerous governmental and media sources. "NewsMax hears that potassium iodide, a substance that prevents lethal radioactive iodine from lodging in a person?s thyroid, has been selling like hotcakes. We also hear that the firms selling the substance are getting many of their orders from the Washington, D.C., area and from citizens and governmental organizations. "One reason for the flurry of orders is that intelligence sources believe Washington will be the No. 1 target for this weapon. Al-Qaeda or an affiliated group [read: the Iraqis] could detonate one or more of the weapons in the vicinity of the White House or Capitol Hill. "Such a move would continue their strategy, begun on 9-11, of seeking to 'decapitate' the political leadership of the U.S." Ironically, the best salesmen for D.C.'s nuke pill vendors seem to be Bush administration Cabinet officials charged with delivering terrorist warnings. "Every time [Secretary of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld or [Office of Homeland Security Director Tom] Ridge gets on TV, there's a sales spike," Nukepills.com's Troy Jones told the Post. "Ridge just says the word 'nuclear,' and our phones start to ring," he added. All Rights Reserved © NewsMax.com ***************************************************************** 17 Lost radiation fuels dirty bomb threat Sunday Herald Missing and stolen radioactive sources on increase Exclusive by Rob Edwards [rob.edwards@sundayherald.com] , Environment Editor Millions of radioactive sources around the world are so badly safeguarded that they could be stolen by terrorists and made into dirty bombs, the Sunday Herald can reveal. Controls on 'loose radiation' are defective in over a hundred countries. Thousands of potentially lethal radiation sources have gone missing, some in former Soviet republics and developing countries, others in the US and Europe. In Scotland several sources have been lost, and some companies have not bothered to tell the authorities they were handling radioactivity. 'What is happening at the moment is disgraceful,' said Dr Frank Barnaby, a nuclear consultant who used to work at the Aldermaston atomic weapons plant in Berkshire. 'These sources are not secure. Yet in the hands of terrorists, they could contaminate the centre of a city for months, if not years.' A dirty bomb is a large amount of radioactivity wrapped around a small amount of conventional explosive. Such a weapon is unlikely to cause thousands of deaths, though it would scatter radioactivity over a large area, creating chaos. 'I don't think deaths are the point. Panic is the point ,' added Barnaby. 'It is the fear of radioactivity that makes it a terrorist's dream. It's not as serious as stealing nuclear material to make an atomic bomb, but it's the next best thing.' Fears that terrorist groups might revert to dirty bombs were given some credence earlier this month, following the arrest in the US of al-Qaeda sympathiser, Jose Padilla. The Bush administration claimed he was planning to explode a dirty bomb, though no evidence backed up the claim. This week the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna will warn that the control of radioactive sources is inadequate in most countries. Millions are used in factories, hospitals, universities around the globe for radiology, calibrating instruments and research. 'Security of radioactive materials has traditionally been relatively light. A large source could be removed quite easily ,' said Abel Gonzalez, the IAEA's radiation safety director. ' In many countries the regulatory oversight of radiation sources is weak. As a result an undetermined number of radioactive sources have become orphaned of regulatory control and their location is unknown.' The most alarming lost sources are boxes of powdered caesium 137, reported missing in the past few days. They each contain radioactivity ideal for a dirty bomb which could, according to Barnaby, 'contaminate half of Scotland'. Incidences of stolen and missing radiation have risen dramatically since 1996, (see panel). In the US 1500 radiation sources have gone astray over the past six years. Half of them were never found, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The European Commission estimates that 30,000 old sources in Europe are difficult to control, and that about 70 go missing every year. In Scotland, 530 businesses, hospitals and research organisations are licensed to handle many thousands of radioactive sources, some of which have been lost . And there is an emerging problem with companies who have radioactivity but forget to license it. In the past two years, Alcan, Siemens and Quintiles were caught failing to register radioactive material with the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (see panel). And the Sunday Herald understands that another company in Scotland is under investigation for the same offence. 'Sepa regulates the system rigorously and takes enforcement action as and when necessary,' said a spokeswoman for the agency. 'We take the issue very seriously.' To environmentalists, the reality of radiation on the loose is frightening. 'The ease with which a dirty bomb could be constructed makes it all the more disturbing,' said Kevin Dunion, chief executive of Friends of the Earth Scotland. 'Since Scotland is no stranger to losing radioactive materials, it is vital that secure systems are put in place to ensure they can never be stolen. The fact that Sepa is often unaware of the presence of some radioactive materials means that we would never know if these sources were to be illegally removed.' Experts on nuclear terrorism argue that dirty bombs are attractive to extremist groups as weapons of 'mass disruption' rather than 'mass destruction'. They would present an effective challenge to governments' ability to cope with emergencies and protect their populations. 'Modern terrorism is interested in instilling fear and instability ,' said Friedrich Steinhausler from the University of Salzburg. As well as dirty bombs, radioactivity 'could be introduced into ventilation systems of major civilian structures like an airport, subway or shopping mall, potentially causing radiation exposure of inhabitants and users'. ©2002 smg sunday newspapers ltd. no.176088. all rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 18 Science groups make homeland security recommendations The Nando Times: Updated: June 25, 2002 1:19 p.m. EDT By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, Associated Press WASHINGTON (June 25, 2002 7:17 a.m. EDT) - The United States needs to establish an in-depth counterterrorism program to protect essential services, from energy delivery to information systems to emergency medicine, according to an analysis by a scientific panel. The National Academy of Sciences report, released Monday, provides a blueprint for using science and technology to prevent or reduce the damage from terrorist attacks, said Lewis M. Branscomb of Harvard University, co-chairman of the committee that prepared the study. "We assume any potential terrorist is looking at all their options, how they might attack us," he said. "We need to think about how to deprive them of those options." The study noted, "Our society is too complex and interconnected to defend against all possible threats." Still, it called for prompt action to identify and repair the weakest links. Much of Congress was turning its attention to homeland security on Tuesday, with the first of a dozen House and Senate hearings on President Bush's proposal to create a new Cabinet agency. The president's homeland security adviser, Tom Ridge, was to appear before a House panel examining the department's proposed capabilities to respond to chemical, biological and radiological attacks. House Science Committee Chairman Sherwood Boehlert, R-N.Y., welcomed the Academy study. He said it is essential to focus research and development and coordinate it within the new Department of Homeland Security. The Academy report called for "defense in depth," not just perimeter defense or firewalls. Alan I. Leshner, head of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which issued a separate report on combating terrorism, stressed the complexity of the problem. "Yes, terrorism and terrorist acts can come about because of the availability of technology, and you need technology to protect us from terrorist technology," he said. But Leshner cautioned against restricting openness in scientific communications. "While protecting ourselves against potential problems, we don't want it to obstruct the future progress in science that we need to advance society," he said. The massive National Academy report looked at nuclear and radiological threats; possible attacks on human health systems and agriculture; use of toxic chemicals and explosives; the vulnerability of information technology, energy systems, transportation and cities; and the human response to terrorism. Suggestions for immediate action included: -Developing improved methods to protect and account for nuclear weapons and other nuclear materials. -Ensuring the production and distribution of treatments for disease threats. -Designing and installing in-depth security for transportation, in particular shipping containers and vehicles that carry toxic or flammable materials. -Improving security for energy distribution systems. -Developing improved air filtration methods for ventilation systems. -Ensuring that first responders such as police and fire departments can communicate with one another. The study was launched after the Sept. 11 attacks, bringing in scientists, engineers, doctors, counterterrorism experts and arms-control specialists from the Academy and its components, the National Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council. The Academy is an independent organization chartered by Congress to provide scientific advice to the government. It held briefings on the study Monday at the White House and Congress. In its separate report, released at the same time as the Academy's findings, the American Association for the Advancement of Science concluded that the nation is poorly prepared to deal with either bioterrorism or attacks on its information systems. The report by AAAS, the world's largest association of scientists, includes a series of papers looking at the potential hazards of terrorism. "Bioterrorism is not going to go away," wrote D.A. Henderson, chairman of the Department of Health and Human Services' Council on Public Health Preparedness. "We are concerned with a comparatively short list of dangerous diseases that would be catastrophic and potentially destabilizing," Henderson said in one of the papers. "They are smallpox, anthrax, plague, tularemia, botulinum toxin and the group of diseases that manifest themselves as hemorrhagic fevers." Copyright © 2002 Nando Media Do you have ***************************************************************** 19 Cleanup won't end nuclear waste sites* /Tue Jun 25, 8:20 AM ET/ /Jim Drinkard USA TODAY / WASHINGTON -- The nuclear power industry and the Energy Department are on the verge of victory in their long fight to establish a national repository for nuclear waste in the Nevada desert. But their likely triumph has been built on an argument that the Yucca Mountain facility would allow waste to be cleaned up from temporary sites in 39 states -- a claim belied by the department's own figures. A little-noticed appendix to the Energy Department's environmental report on the project shows that by the time Yucca Mountain is filled with waste in the year 2036, almost as much high-level nuclear waste will remain at temporary storage sites around the country as there is today. Those facts have been obscured in a government-industry public relations crusade to sell the public on the wisdom of the project. The urgency has been heightened by the threat that waste sites could be used by terrorists as radioactive ''dirty bombs.'' As the Senate approaches a showdown on whether to begin shipments of spent nuclear fuel to the Nevada site, ads and Web sites portray the facility as an alternative to the current temporary storage. ''The Senate must vote * . . .* by July 25 or risk leaving nuclear waste in 39 states,'' said an ad that ran in Capitol Hill publications last week. Energy Department spokesman Joe Davis has pushed the same line. ''You can't leave nuclear waste in Illinois and 38 other states where it's stored temporarily above ground next to schools, rivers, lakes and downtown metropolitan areas,'' he told the /Chicago Tribune/. ''It's just not the smart thing to do in the interest of national security and environmental protection.'' Similar words appear on the department's Web site, attributed to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham ( news - web sites ). ''America's national, energy and homeland security, as well as environmental protection, is well served by siting a single nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, rather than having nuclear waste stranded in temporary storage locations at 131 sites in 39 states,'' Abraham said in a May 8 press release. Currently, 45,662 metric tons of nuclear waste is stored at scores of sites in 39 states. Government figures show that even when Yucca Mountain has reached its congressionally mandated capacity, 42,416 tons will remain scattered in more than 30 states. As waste is carted off to Nevada at a rate of 3,000 tons a year, nuclear power plants will continue to produce 2,000 tons a year of new waste. Nuclear Energy Institute spokesman Steve Kerekes acknowledged that opening Yucca Mountain would not amount to a complete cleanup of nuclear waste. ''But inaction is not resolution of this issue,'' he said. The government has a legal obligation to the industry to provide for long-term disposal of its waste, he noted. The Energy Department estimates that Yucca Mountain could hold all the nuclear waste produced now and in the future if Congress lifted the storage limit of 70,000 tons. The limit was set in a 1982 law to ensure that not all the nation's nuclear waste would go to one site. Davis said there are other reasons to go forward with the Yucca Mountain site, including providing a home for waste from nuclear bomb making and from nuclear-powered Navy vessels. Critics say the arguments of Yucca's proponents hide the real reason for the lobbying push: the self-interest of the nuclear power industry. ''It's all about political payback to these companies that have poured a lot of money into campaigns,'' says Robert Alvarez, a senior adviser to former secretary of Energy Bill Richardson in the Clinton administration. ''These guys are looking at ways to transfer waste and cut their storage costs.'' The nuclear power industry has helped itself with heavy political spending. Members of the Nuclear Energy Institute gave $13.8 million to candidates for federal office in the 2000 elections. They also spent $25 million that year to lobby Washington. That puts them among the nation's top-spending industries. Copyright © 2002 USA TODAY ***************************************************************** 20 AU: Uranium inquiry soon news.com.au - [http://www.news.com.au] A national inquiry into uranium mine operations will soon begin, with advertisements to appear in the press tomorrow calling for public submissions. The Senate inquiry was set up last week after Labor, the Australian Democrats and the Greens teamed up to raise the issue in the federal parliament. The inquiry should report by December this year on the regulatory, monitoring and reporting regimes that govern environmental performance at the mines. Advertisements calling for submissions will appear in the press tomorrow and public hearings and site visits will begin after the submission deadline of August 9 this year. Chair of the Senate committee conducting the inquiry, Senator Lyn Allison, today urged people to have their say. "The committee has now met to discuss its program for the conduct of the inquiry and it has agreed that advertisements will appear in the press tomorrow inviting submissions to be lodged by Friday, 9 August, 2002," she said. "Once submissions have been received and considered, the committee plans to hold a program of public hearings and site visits to enable it to gain a comprehensive appreciation of the issues." The inquiry is to focus on the role of the Commonwealth in ensuring adequate health and environmental standards. Energy Resources of Australia Ltd (ERA) has said it looked forward to expressing its views on the effectiveness of reporting regimes and changes and improvements the company wanted adopted. The Northern Territory government recently announced an environment review of ERA's Ranger mine and Jabiluka lease within Kakadu National Park. The independent technical review follows concerns over elevated uranium levels in water run-off earlier this year. In South Australia, a state government investigation found the Beverley uranium mine must make sweeping changes to safety and operation procedures following four separate spills this year. AAP ***************************************************************** 21 *Skull Valley no answer* deseretnews.com Tuesday, June 25, 2002 In his June 14 letter to the editor, Mr. Pidgeon claims the Private Fuel Storage nuclear-waste storage site in Skull Valley will make the world a "cleaner and better place." It's probably worth kicking the tires and looking under the hood before we buy into this project. First, the proposal is to be temporary, yet there are no plans in the final environmental impact statement as to where this waste will go once it gets here. Second, if there was an accident, and radiation leaked out of the storage casks, there is no equipment on site to repair the casks. PFS claims that it will send leaking casks back to the site of origin with no mention of how it will repair the casks. While many of us would like to believe that the answer to our nation's nuclear-waste problem could be solved so easily, it can't. The reason Skull Valley was selected is because the nuclear industry has preyed upon economically depressed and socially marginalized American Indian communities to take what no one else will. It may not be up to us to tell other communities how to generate their power, but we can say whether or not we want to become responsible for the lethal wastes they create. *Jason Groenewold * Director, Families Against Incinerator Risk Salt Lake City © 2002 Deseret News Publishing Company ***************************************************************** 22 Nuclear Waste Shipping Poses Problem Las Vegas SUN: June 25, 2002 WASHINGTON- Every year the Navy and a few utilities ship about 60 loads of highly radioactive used reactor fuel from submarines and atomic power plants over short distances, usually by rail, without public notice or protest. The national numbers will soar as shipments start moving by rail or truck through all but a handful of states if a nuclear waste dump is put 90 miles from Las Vegas, as President Bush hopes to do. The Senate plans to decide soon whether to remove the last political hurdle to burying the waste in Nevada's Yucca Mountain, and opponents are using the transportation issue in an uphill effort to sway lawmakers to vote against the project. The government has spent $7 billion over two decades studying Yucca Mountain as the preferred site for the proposed dump, but it has devoted only $200 million to figuring out how to get the wastes there. "They're trying to downplay transportation because they know once the American people realize their homes lie on these transportation routes they'll be outraged," said Kevin Kamps, an anti-nuclear activist. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham has asserted repeatedly that the wastes - mostly used reactor fuel - can be shipped safely to Nevada. Once there, he has argued, the material will be more secure than at dozens of reactor sites in 31 states where it is being stored now. The Energy Department, however, is at least a year away from providing any detailed plan on how waste shipments will get to Nevada, or how cities and towns along the route might be affected. Also undecided are whether the shipments would be mainly by rail or by truck and the design of shipping containers. Railroads have suggested that if they are to be the primary carrier, special trains should be devoted to the shipments. The government hasn't made a decision on that either. The leading Senate opponent of the project, Democratic Whip Harry Reid of Nevada, says the Bush administration "has refused to focus" on the danger posed by hundreds or thousands of waste shipments, most of them from the eastern third of the nation. A preliminary Energy Department estimate predicts 10,600 shipments to Yucca Mountain over 24 years - beginning in 2010 when the facility would open - if most of the waste was moved by train. If trucks are the primary transport, there would be more than 53,000 shipments. On any given day, several dozen trucks would be on a highway somewhere in the country. In all, the waste site would hold 77,000 tons with 3,000 tons going there each year on average. Abraham recently told senators that as few as 175 shipments a year are likely. But that assumes virtually all-long distance shipments going by dedicated trains, each carrying two to four railcars full of waste and no other cargo. Bob Halstead, a transportation consultant hired by Nevada, calls such a scenario unrealistic, saying it would require building a 100-mile rail line to Yucca Mountain as well as other rail lines from barge or truck connections to at least two dozen reactor sites in the East. Shipping costs also would soar, he maintains. Energy Department officials concede that transporting the wastes has not been a priority. "We are ramping up very quickly on the transportation program," Margaret Chu, head of the DOE office that oversees the Yucca project, recently told a panel of scientists. Added Energy Undersecretary Robert Card: "We feel quite confident that we can arrive at a successful transportation plan." Department officials and the nuclear industry argue it's only logical that a detailed transportation plan await a decision on the site itself. Others contend the public and lawmakers ought to know details of where wastes will travel and how the shipments will be protected before they agree to the Nevada dump. "They're trying to slip this through before (the transportation questions) are focused on by the American people," says Jim Hall, former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board and now a consultant for the state of Nevada. If the Senate affirms overriding Nevada's objections and letting the administration proceed with the project, "the momentum of the decision will sweep everything else aside," Hall said. Supporters of the Nevada project say critics are ignoring the protection afforded such shipments and the fact that wastes have been shipped for years without a release of radiation. "It all boils down to the waste canisters," says Scott Peters, a spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's trade group. The cylinders - with 15-inch thick triple-layer walls of steel and lead - are designed to withstand severe accidents. Tests have shown them to stand up to impacts equal to a 120-mph collision, puncture tests and exposure to a 1,475 degree Fahrenheit fire. Still, the September terrorist attacks brought a new dimension to the issue and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is re-examining the vulnerability of waste shipments to potential terrorist attacks. Tests by the government's Sandia National Laboratory have concluded that waste containers could be penetrated by a missile or other high energy weapon. Nevada officials say the radiation released from such an attack would produce cancers in 48 people at some point in their lives and billions of dollars in economic and cleanup costs. On the Net: Yucca Mountain Project: http://www.ymp.gov [http://www.ymp.gov] State of Nevada: http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste [http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste] Environmental Working Group: http://www.mapscience.org [http://www.mapscience.org] All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 23 Feds still studying how to get nuclear waste to Yucca safely Las Vegas SUN June 25, 2002 WASHINGTON (AP) - Every year the Navy and a few utilities ship about 60 loads of highly radioactive used reactor fuel from submarines and atomic power plants over short distances, usually by rail, without public notice or protest. The national numbers will soar as shipments start moving by rail or truck through all but a handful of states if a nuclear waste dump is put 90 miles from Las Vegas, as President Bush hopes to do. The Senate plans to decide soon whether to remove the last political hurdle to burying the waste in Nevada's Yucca Mountain, and opponents are using the transportation issue in an uphill effort to sway lawmakers to vote against the project. The government has spent $7 billion over two decades studying Yucca Mountain as the preferred site for the proposed dump, but it has devoted only $200 million to figuring out how to get the wastes there. "They're trying to downplay transportation because they know once the American people realize their homes lie on these transportation routes they'll be outraged," said Kevin Kamps, an anti-nuclear activist. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham has asserted repeatedly that the wastes - mostly used reactor fuel - can be shipped safely to Nevada. Once there, he has argued, the material will be more secure than at dozens of reactor sites in 31 states where it is being stored now. The Energy Department, however, is at least a year away from providing any detailed plan on how waste shipments will get to Nevada, or how cities and towns along the route might be affected. Also undecided are whether the shipments would be mainly by rail or by truck and the design of shipping containers. Railroads have suggested that if they are to be the primary carrier, special trains should be devoted to the shipments. The government hasn't made a decision on that either. The leading Senate opponent of the project, Democratic Whip Harry Reid of Nevada, says the Bush administration "has refused to focus" on the danger posed by hundreds or thousands of waste shipments, most of them from the eastern third of the nation. A preliminary Energy Department estimate predicts 10,600 shipments to Yucca Mountain over 24 years - beginning in 2010 when the facility would open - if most of the waste was moved by train. If trucks are the primary transport, there would be more than 53,000 shipments. On any given day, several dozen trucks would be on a highway somewhere in the country. In all, the waste site would hold 77,000 tons with 3,000 tons going there each year on average. Abraham recently told senators that as few as 175 shipments a year are likely. But that assumes virtually all-long distance shipments going by dedicated trains, each carrying two to four railcars full of waste and no other cargo. Bob Halstead, a transportation consultant hired by Nevada, calls such a scenario unrealistic, saying it would require building a 100-mile rail line to Yucca Mountain as well as other rail lines from barge or truck connections to at least two dozen reactor sites in the East. Shipping costs also would soar, he maintains. Energy Department officials concede that transporting the wastes has not been a priority. "We are ramping up very quickly on the transportation program," Margaret Chu, head of the DOE office that oversees the Yucca project, recently told a panel of scientists. Added Energy Undersecretary Robert Card: "We feel quite confident that we can arrive at a successful transportation plan." Department officials and the nuclear industry argue it's only logical that a detailed transportation plan await a decision on the site itself. Others contend the public and lawmakers ought to know details of where wastes will travel and how the shipments will be protected before they agree to the Nevada dump. "They're trying to slip this through before (the transportation questions) are focused on by the American people," says Jim Hall, former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board and now a consultant for the state of Nevada. If the Senate affirms overriding Nevada's objections and letting the administration proceed with the project, "the momentum of the decision will sweep everything else aside," Hall said. Supporters of the Nevada project say critics are ignoring the protection afforded such shipments and the fact that wastes have been shipped for years without a release of radiation. "It all boils down to the waste canisters," says Scott Peters, a spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's trade group. The cylinders - with 15-inch thick triple-layer walls of steel and lead - are designed to withstand severe accidents. Tests have shown them to stand up to impacts equal to a 120 mph collision, puncture tests and exposure to a 1,475 degree Fahrenheit fire. Still, the September terrorist attacks brought a new dimension to the issue and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is re-examining the vulnerability of waste shipments to potential terrorist attacks. Tests by the government's Sandia National Laboratory have concluded that waste containers could be penetrated by a missile or other high energy weapon. Nevada officials say the radiation released from such an attack would produce cancers in 48 people at some point in their lives and billions of dollars in economic and cleanup costs. On the Net: Yucca Mountain Project: http://www.ymp.gov [http://www.ymp.gov] State of Nevada: http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste [http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste] Environmental Working Group: http://www.mapscience.org [http://www.mapscience.org] All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 24 Yucca: Money can be used to fight project Tuesday, June 25, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal REVIEW-JOURNAL CAPITAL BUREAU CARSON CITY -- Nevada's advertising and public relations effort to fight U.S. Senate approval of Yucca Mountain as a permanent repository for nuclear waste will get an extra $1.5 million after all. A legal opinion from the Legislative Counsel Bureau issued last week said a $1.5 million donation to the Nevada Protection Fund by the Clark County Commission could not be used as a match for some of the $3 million set aside by lawmakers for the public relations and advertising fight. But Bob Loux, executive director of the Agency for Nuclear Projects, said after the opinion was released that the Clark County money was never proposed to be used as matching funds. Instead, it was put into the state's legal fund to fight Yucca Mountain, freeing up $1.5 million in state money for the public relations campaign that could be matched by the lawmaker appropriation made April 10. With the $1.5 million in state money freed up for the fight, and another $435,000 in other donations, nearly $2 million was available to match with the $3 million set aside by lawmakers, Loux said. Legislative Counsel Brenda Erdoes, in a letter dated June 21, accepted Loux's analysis of how the county money was used. Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002 ***************************************************************** 25 Union makes nuclear site plea BBC News | SCOTLAND | Monday, 24 June, 2002, 12:32 [Chapelcross] The union wants the plant replaced A nuclear power plant in south-west Scotland which is to close in 2005 should be replaced with another power station or nuclear facility, a union has insisted. But British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) management responded by saying there were "no current plans" to build such a facility in the future. The Chapelcross power station near Annan, Dumfries and Galloway, which employs 450 staff, is to close three years earlier than originally planned. The Transport and General Workers' union (T) said the skilled workforce and local community believed it was "an issue of national importance". We have a licensed site and we have the support of an experienced and knowledgeable community Livie Reid T union Livie Reid, T national organiser, said: "The T is calling on British and Scottish government ministers to bring forward proposals for a new generation nuclear plant at Chapelcross in Dumfries and Galloway. "We have a licensed site and we have the support of an experienced and knowledgeable community. "Importantly too, we have a workforce with top rank processing, electrical and mechanical skills. "Now is the time to proceed with the debate for Chapelcross Mark 2. Power stations are not built overnight and this is an issue of national importance." 'Sensible debate' The issues of global warming had to be tackled head-on and the union believed it was "time for action", Mr Reid said. However, BNFL spokesman Tim Jones told BBC News Online that there were no current plans to replace Chapelcross with a similar facility. BNFL had, however, welcomed the decision by British Energy to assess the feasibility of a new pressurised water reactor design called the Westinghouse AP1000. [Chapelcross] The plant will close in 2005 The reactor is being evaluated as a possible replacement for BE's nuclear power stations when they reach the end of their operating lives. BNFL carried out an economic review following a collapse in electricity prices and decided to bring forward the shutdown of the 41-year-old plant. Half of the Chapelcross workforce will be kept on for defuelling and decommissioning after production ceases in March 2005, giving employment until the end of the decade. Energy Minister Brian Wilson said last week that he hoped there would be "a sensible debate" about the future power needs. Chapelcross contributes £15m to £20m to the Dumfries and Galloway economy annually. Last week Greenpeace said the plant should be replaced by an offshore windfarm. ***************************************************************** 26 Toxic Nazi legacy threatens Europe Sunday Herald Concern as German chemical weapons dumped off Danish coast by Britain after the second world war start leaking into seas By Rob Edwards [rob.edwards@sundayherald.com] , Environment Correspondent More than half a century ago, Britain dumped over 100,000 tonnes of the Nazi's deadly chemical weapons in the sea. Now they are coming back to haunt us. Scientists fear millions of ancient shells and bombs resting on the short stretch of seabed between Denmark and Norway have begun to leak their lethal payload. Danish fishermen have been injured, Norway has launched an investigation and coastal authorities are worried a 'historic time bomb' could be about to explode. The Sunday Herald has obtained a copy of a report by the Ministry of Defence which details for the first time the extraordinary scale of the postwar operation to get rid of Germany's chemical weapons. Between 1945 and 1947, at least 112,000 tonnes were loaded into 33 German boats, which were then scuttled in Skagerrak, the strait across the North Sea that separates Norway and Denmark (see table). The chemicals, confiscated from Hitler's Third Reich at the end of the second world war, were mustard gas, phosgene, tabun and lewisite, all of which can inflict appalling injuries. They may also have included hydrocyanic acid and Cyclone B, two of the poisons used to murder millions of Jews in Nazi concentration camps. Before they were packed into the hulls of ships, the weapons were put into wicker baskets by German workers. The hope was that any chemicals that leaked out would be absorbed by the wicker, and prevented from contaminating the sea. That may have been a false hope, however. An expedition to Skagerrak by Russian scientists has discovered evidence that the weapons -- sometimes only two hundreds metres deep -- are falling apart and spilling their contents into the marine environment. The investigation by the Russian Academy of Science in St Petersburg found levels of arsenic up to 200 parts per million around one of the dump sites. This was 'extremely high', they said, and was probably due to arsenic leaching from corroding weapons. They also detected high concentrations of lead and other heavy metals. The weapons could poison fishermen who pulled them up from the seabed, were a target for terrorists and posed 'a large danger to the environment', the Russian scientists warned. 'It is a terrible menace for Europeans,' said Albert Bikmullin, from the International Ecological Parliament, a Russian environmental group. 'Poison gas, dissolving slowly in the water, is able to pollute vast areas and get into food chains.' He added: 'Plankton absorbs poison gas very easily, is mutated and gets into fish as a food. Fish, in their turn, get to carnivores and in this way poison gets into a man's meal.' The Russian government has formally approached NATO, seeking support for a programme to monitor and prevent leakages from the chemical dumps. But NATO, which is considering the request through its Committee on the Challenges of Modern Society, has not yet decided what to do. Meanwhile the Norwegian Pollution Control Authority has just begun its own investigation, which involves sending a remote-controlled mini-sub marine to the seabed to take pictures and samples. 'We have to keep it under control to make sure that it doesn't harm people,' said Hilde Keilen, the authority's senior executive officer. Danish studies have suggested that over 150 fishermen have accidentally brought up chemical munitions in their nets. In some cases, they have been burnt by leaking mustard gas, which, despite its name, is a thick, viscous liquid. KIMO, an organisation which brings together over 100 local authorities representing five million people around the coasts of northern Europe, is planning a Scottish conference on chemical dumps at sea this November. Due to take place in Ayr, it is entitled Time Bombs From The Past. 'We are increasingly concerned about the historic time bomb which is ticking away at over 80 dump sites in northern seas. We are asking governments to investigate the exact locations of chemical and conventional weapons dump sites, compile inventories and make this information available,' said KIMO's Rick Nickerson. 'These materials are increasingly washing up on our coasts and endangering fishermen at sea. It is important that a clear picture is obtained of the state of these dumps so that appropriate action can be taken if and when a site becomes a problem.' The cause has been taken up by the Labour MP for Glasgow Baillieston, Jimmy Wray. He has put down an motion in the House of Commons calling on the British government to combat the pollution from the sunken ships, and has been backed by 28 other MPs. 'It is important that this kind of pollution is dealt with soon. These ships have been sitting on the seabed for the past 50 years and are now rotting away. Dangerous chemicals are being leaked into the sea, and we could have an environmental catastrophe on our hands within a few years,' he said. The British government, however, has no plans to even monitor the chemicals dumped in Skagerrak. 'The consensus of international scientific opinion is that munitions on the seabed present no risk to human health or the marine environment, provided they are left undisturbed,' said the defence minister, Dr Lewis Moonie. He confessed that much of the historical documentation detailing the dumping had been lost. 'After the second world war it was the administrative practice to destroy records of sea disposals of munitions, including chemical weapons, when such records were perceived to be of no further administrative use,' he explained. The admission has infuriated Wray. 'It is terrible that important documents have been destroyed by the Ministry of Defence,' he declared. 'It doesn't bear thinking what other documents have been disposed of.' ©2002 smg sunday newspapers ltd. no.176088. all rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 27 Cleanup won't end nuclear waste sites Tue Jun 25, 8:20 AM ET Jim Drinkard [http://www.usatoday.com:80/] WASHINGTON -- The nuclear power industry and the Energy Department are on the verge of victory in their long fight to establish a national repository for nuclear waste in the Nevada desert. But their likely triumph has been built on an argument that the Yucca Mountain facility would allow waste to be cleaned up from temporary sites in 39 states -- a claim belied by the department's own figures. A little-noticed appendix to the Energy Department's environmental report on the project shows that by the time Yucca Mountain is filled with waste in the year 2036, almost as much high-level nuclear waste will remain at temporary storage sites around the country as there is today. Those facts have been obscured in a government-industry public relations crusade to sell the public on the wisdom of the project. The urgency has been heightened by the threat that waste sites could be used by terrorists as radioactive ''dirty bombs.'' As the Senate approaches a showdown on whether to begin shipments of spent nuclear fuel to the Nevada site, ads and Web sites portray the facility as an alternative to the current temporary storage. ''The Senate must vote . . . by July 25 or risk leaving nuclear waste in 39 states,'' said an ad that ran in Capitol Hill publications last week. Energy Department spokesman Joe Davis has pushed the same line. ''You can't leave nuclear waste in Illinois and 38 other states where it's stored temporarily above ground next to schools, rivers, lakes and downtown metropolitan areas,'' he told the Chicago Tribune. ''It's just not the smart thing to do in the interest of national security and environmental protection.'' Similar words appear on the department's Web site, attributed to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham ( [http://rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/usatoday/ts_usatoday/inlinks/*http://rd.yahoo.co m/DailyNews/manual/*http://search.news.yahoo.com/search/news?p=%22Spencer%20Abr aham%22&c=&n=20&yn=c&c=news&cs=nw] - [http://rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/usatoday/ts_usatoday/inlinks/*http://rd.yahoo.co m/DailyNews/manual/*http://search.yahoo.com/bin/search?cs=nw&p=Spencer%20Abraha m] ). ''America's national, energy and homeland security, as well as environmental protection, is well served by siting a single nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, rather than having nuclear waste stranded in temporary storage locations at 131 sites in 39 states,'' Abraham said in a May 8 press release. Currently, 45,662 metric tons of nuclear waste is stored at scores of sites in 39 states. Government figures show that even when Yucca Mountain has reached its congressionally mandated capacity, 42,416 tons will remain scattered in more than 30 states. As waste is carted off to Nevada at a rate of 3,000 tons a year, nuclear power plants will continue to produce 2,000 tons a year of new waste. Nuclear Energy Institute spokesman Steve Kerekes acknowledged that opening Yucca Mountain would not amount to a complete cleanup of nuclear waste. ''But inaction is not resolution of this issue,'' he said. The government has a legal obligation to the industry to provide for long-term disposal of its waste, he noted. The Energy Department estimates that Yucca Mountain could hold all the nuclear waste produced now and in the future if Congress lifted the storage limit of 70,000 tons. The limit was set in a 1982 law to ensure that not all the nation's nuclear waste would go to one site. Davis said there are other reasons to go forward with the Yucca Mountain site, including providing a home for waste from nuclear bomb making and from nuclear-powered Navy vessels. Critics say the arguments of Yucca's proponents hide the real reason for the lobbying push: the self-interest of the nuclear power industry. ''It's all about political payback to these companies that have poured a lot of money into campaigns,'' says Robert Alvarez, a senior adviser to former secretary of Energy Bill Richardson in the Clinton administration. ''These guys are looking at ways to transfer waste and cut their storage costs.'' The nuclear power industry has helped itself with heavy political spending. Members of the Nuclear Energy Institute gave $13.8 million to candidates for federal office in the 2000 elections. They also spent $25 million that year to lobby Washington. That puts them among the nation's top-spending industries. Copyright © 2002 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc. ***************************************************************** 28 Matching $1.5 million now available for nuke campaign Las Vegas SUN: June 24, 2002 By Cy Ryan SUN CAPITAL BUREAU CARSON CITY -- The Legislative Counsel Bureau has reversed its decision that $1.5 million donated by Clark County to fight a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain could not be matched by state funds. State officials plan to use the funds to make a final public relations push as the U.S. Senate prepares to vote on the issue next month. Gov. Kenny Guinn said today the money permits Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and John Ensign, R-Nev., to fulfill the contractual commitments they made for the national advertising campaign. Brenda Erdoes, chief attorney for the Nevada Legislature, said Friday she changed her legal opinion after she received more information. She told the Legislative Interim Finance Committee last week matching funds could not be used for the county's donation for legal expenses. On Friday she said she started to notify state legislators about the change. Bob Loux, Nevada's Nuclear Projects Office director, said this will allow the state to "intensify its efforts." The legislative committee allocated $3 million for the public relations campaign on the condition that it on be matched. Clark County allocated $1.5 million for the legal fight against the proposed nuclear dump 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. "They had a misunderstanding," Guinn said this morning of the original legal opinion. Loux added there was "miscommunications" with Erdoes that led to her first opinion. The money from Clark County will be put into a legal fund. A like amount in the state legal fund will be withdrawn and used as the match. Loux said there were no restrictions on the money he is taking out of the legal account. The money comes just in time, Guinn said. "We're getting close to the final day." The Senate is expected to vote in the next few weeks to override Guinn's veto of the proposed repository. "We're seeing progress all over the country," Guinn said of the effort on television, radio, the website, meetings with newspaper editors and TV appearances. Reid, who has urged state and local governments as well as the public to rally behind a fund-raising effort, believed it would have been an error for the legislative panel to not match the $1.5 million. "Sen. Reid had hoped all along that they would release that money," his spokeswoman, Tessa Hafen, said this morning. However, Reid did not call Guinn or state lawmakers to ask them to make the match, Hafen said. "This was a state decision." Guinn's chief of staff, Marybel Batjer, said the state would have had to stop some of its planned advertising if the $1.5 million had not been forthcoming. "It would have been a disaster." Batjer said those directing the advertising campaign may target Pennsylvania and Georgia next. Nevada has to be careful about its strategy because as soon as the nuclear waste industry learns where the state is going, it comes in with more money to offset its effort, she said. Proponents of a high-level nuclear dump have been pushing for an early Senate vote. Loux said Nevada supporters see that as a sign that the state may be making progress as it tries to gather 51 votes to stop the Yucca dump. Guinn said Reid, the Senate majority whip, and Ensign are directing the national effort. "They decide where the money should go. They're making a tremendous effort." Sun reporter Benjamin Grove contributed to this story. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 29 Few legislators contribute to Yucca fight fund Las Vegas SUN June 24, 2002 By Cy Ryan SUN CAPITAL BUREAU CARSON CITY -- The Legislature gave $7 million in taxpayer funds to a public relations and legal fight against a proposed nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, but few lawmakers dipped into their own pockets to contribute. Only six of Nevada's 63 state legislators donated personal money to the drive that raised $1.9 million after Gov. Kenny Guinn issued the public call for help in April. A list compiled by Nevada's Office on Nuclear Projects shows more than 1,500 people or companies donated, with about 1,000 coming from Clark County, where 66 percent of the state's population lives. All of the main state elected officials, except members of the Nevada Supreme Court, chipped in. But only three state senators and three Assembly members gave personal donations. Guinn, Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev. and John Ensign, R-Nev., and Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., all gave $1,000. Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev. donated $200. Lt. Gov. Lorraine Hunt gave $100, as did Secretary of State Dean Heller and Controller Kathy Augustine. Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa donated $100 personally and gave $250 from her campaign fund. State Treasurer Brian Krolicki gave $50. Among legislators, Sen. Jon Porter, R-Boulder City, donated $500 personally and $1,000 from his campaign fund for his run for Congress. Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas, contributed $100 and added $250 from her campaign fund. Sen. Terry Care, D-Las Vegas, chipped in $100. In the Assembly, Speaker Richard Perkins, D-Henderson, contributed $100; Dawn Gibbons, R-Reno, gave $777 out of her campaign coffers and Sheila Leslie, D-Reno, gave $50. Clark County Commissioner Erin Kenny, a candidate for lieutenant governor, gave $500. Commissioner Dario Herrera, a candidate for Congress, donated $250. Commissioner Myrna Williams gave $200 from her campaign committee. And the Clark County Democratic Party sent in $338. * The list showed Stephens Media Group, which operates the Las Vegas Review-Journal, gave $3,227. Las Vegas Sun Publisher Barbara Greenspun donated $1,000. Both candidates for attorney general contributed. Republican Brian Sandoval and Democrat John Hunt each gave $500. Some former office holders also made contributions. Former Gov. Mike O'Callaghan, now Las Vegas Sun executive editor and chairman, donated $250; former Congresswoman Barbara Vucanovich gave $100; Betty Sawyer, the widow of the late Gov. Grant Sawyer, and Sawyer's daughter Gail each contributed $1,000; and Richard Urey, former press secretary for Gov. Bob Miller, chipped in $50. Some of the major individual contributors were Stephen Cloobeck of Las Vegas for $20,000; the Molasky family of Las Vegas -- Andrew, Steve and Alan -- who each chipped in $5,000; and Reno lobbyist-businessman Harvey Whittemore for $10,000. The fund received $50,000 from Station Casinos; $3,000 from the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce; $25,000 from High Rise JV LLC of Las Vegas; $10,000 from the Association of Gaming Equipment Manufacturers in Las Vegas; $75,000 from the Lemelson Education and Assistance Program of Incline Village; and $25,000 from Marshall Management Co. of Las Vegas. Among government donations were $2.5 million from Clark County; $150,000 from the city of Las Vegas; $20,000 from the city of Reno; $11,000 from Sparks; $10,000 from North Las Vegas; $50,000 from Mesquite; $7,500 from Fallon; $1,367 from Wells; and $1,000 each from Mineral County, Lovelock and Douglas County. There were hundreds of contributions for $1, $5, $20 and even up to $1,000 from private citizens who heeded the Guinn's call. There was a $48 donation on June 14 from "Mrs. Johnson's Class/Lemonade Sale" but no school name or address was indicated. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 30 Yucca: Cooler heads prevail Las Vegas SUN June 25, 2002 AHA! Leadership. You can't imagine what it was like in Washington, D.C., last week for the folks in the offices of Sens. Harry Reid and John Ensign who have been working night and day to stop the Yucca Mountain madness from infecting the United States Senate. That's when they learned that an off-the-cuff legal opinion from the lawyer for the state's Interim Finance Committee effectively shut off all funds to the ongoing effort to convince Americans that everything about Yucca Mountain was wrong and very bad for them. It is bad enough that the nuclear power lobby in Washington outspends Nevada and its allies at least 20 to 1 at every turn, now they were faced with the worst news they could get at the 11th hour of their struggle. Nevada -- the state for which they were all fighting so diligently -- had pulled the rug out from under them! How do you deal with that kind of news? It wasn't the enemy around us, it was the enemy from within our own ranks. Talk about morale busting. Now, can you imagine what it would have been like in the Senate offices of Trent Lott, Larry Craig and Frank Murkowski if and when they heard that Nevada's own lawyers had scuttled our state's effort to fight this madness? Something akin to outright glee, I suspect. Travel farther down the street to the Nuclear Energy Institute -- they are the people who have spent the millions and millions of dollars buying the hearts and minds of senators and congressmen so they can convince the lawmakers of the power companies' inalienable right to make a profit on the backs of Nevadans and millions of other innocent Americans -- and just imagine what they would have thought if they had heard the news last Thursday. Then, imagine what every newspaper and television news organization would have headlined the following day, once the news was out. It would have read something like this: Nevada quits, Yucca rolls. Fortunately, we don't have to imagine what the enemy would have made of the news because cooler heads prevailed, which included a significant bit of leadership from Nevada's governor, Kenny Guinn, and the aforementioned senators. When Gov. Guinn -- who is up to his ears in the kind of alligators that could devastate a medical community, remove the power from the people and turn the state into a 10,000-year nuclear nightmare -- heard what had happened, he got right on the problem. After talking to our senators, the governor probably found a way to convince the lawyers involved to consider all of the facts and circumstances, which in lawyer talk is what provides the ability for a legal eagle to change his or her mind when necessary. The result was that the $1.5 million that Clark County Commission Chairman Dario Herrera took the lead on getting to the state nuclear dump fund can be used for the fight. I suppose, in hindsight one day soon, it will be interesting to find out why Brenda Erdoes, the chief attorney for the Nevada Legislature, was even asked such a question when an unresearched answer could have created the kind of havoc we can only imagine, but that will be a cause for another day. Suffice it to say that the governor's immediate response and some deliberate thought saved the day. That doesn't mean that all is well in the U.S. Senate because it isn't. But there is reason to believe that the light at the end of the tunnel is not the proverbial oncoming train. With Colorado's largest newspaper, The Denver Post, editorializing this weekend against Yucca Mountain because of the unanswered scientific questions losing way to the imposition of political hype, it is not unrealistic to believe that other major newspapers will do the same in the coming days. So to cut off television advertising in the various states where their senators are in play and the editorial boards are thinking this thing through, would be foolish and counterproductive. And, while I am on the subject -- we all love Oscar Goodman and love to hear him talk, almost as much as he does himself -- there is no point in second-guessing Sens. Reid and Ensign right now on their Yucca Mountain strategy. Oscar did as much when he questioned the use of city of Las Vegas funds to help pay for television advertisements that our happy mayor thought might have been better used to send him around the country for face-to-face meetings. While he is not wrong about the benefits of meeting senators one on one, he is wrong about the effect of television, radio, newspaper and grass-roots efforts when they are brought to bear in combination to help sway an electorate. Where he is also right, though, is the need for enough money to do so much more in what appears to be the last couple of weeks of this particular fight in the Senate. What Oscar should do is get on a plane and meet the senators one on one because every little bit does help. And, if he needs the money to do that, there are plenty of business folks in his city who have not chipped in dollar one who should be only too willing to help the mayor when he asks. This fight is not over and Nevada can still win what appears to be a much closer vote than anyone ever thought possible. One thing is certain, though. Now is not the time to do anything or say anything that will help those who wish us harm. Good leaders knows that. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 31 3 Republicans may oppose Yucca dump Las Vegas SUN June 25, 2002 By Benjamin Grove WASHINGTON -- Three Republican senators may vote against a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said this morning. In the high-stakes scramble to secure 51 votes against the project, Reid and Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., have been lobbying colleagues to stop the proposed dump, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Reid said about a dozen Republican senators would be needed to supplement the Democrats he has corralled. Three more GOP votes would still leave the Nevadans shy of the votes they need, but any conversions could signal a significant shift in the lobbying momentum. So far, the only two GOP senators that openly oppose Yucca are Ensign and Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell of Colorado. Reid today said it would be fair to categorize three other Republicans as "leaning" toward voting against Yucca, in addition to siding with the Nevada senators on a procedural motion designed to block the vote altogether. Reid would not name the senators. Ensign, who has been trying to woo Republican colleagues, would not comment, spokeswoman Traci Scott said. Reid would say little to explain why three Republicans would consider opposing Yucca. He said senators are becoming more aware of the project's flaws as the vote nears. "I think they must be reading the news," Reid said. Nevada officials in recent days have stressed the risks of shipping high-level nuclear waste cross-country to Yucca. They pointed to a Denver Post editorial Sunday that opposed Yucca, although many newspapers nationwide have supported the project. Reid today sent Democratic senators a copy of a USA Today story that describes a misleading public relations campaign by the nuclear industry and Energy Department to build support for Yucca. Nevada has been managing a multimillion-dollar public relations campaign of its own, which the industry and Energy Department have said unfairly inflate transportation risks. Reid may be using his influence as an Appropriations Committee member to win votes on Yucca, GOP sources say. The committee budgets money for federal projects. Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, last week said Reid was making deals in exchange for support in the Yucca vote. Several Republican Senate staffers today said Reid's comments are likely just bluster. Reid is trying to generate speculation that there are breaks in the GOP rank, the sources said. Energy officials, who manage Yucca, also are not aware of any senators who are reconsidering their vote. "Every member, Democrat and Republican, who has told us that they support Yucca Mountain is still saying that," department spokesman Joe Davis said. While most observers expect the Senate to approve Yucca -- Craig said between 58 and 62 would vote for the project -- it is difficult to count votes, said Melanie Lyons, spokeswoman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, which has led a pro-Yucca lobbying effort. It does not have a vote count, she said. Some senators are keeping their stance a secret until the vote to avoid a swarm of lobbyists on both sides of the issue. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 32 Russian Federation: Journalist and environmental activist Pasko Date: Tue, 25 Jun 2002 10:00:41 -0500 (CDT) * News Release Issued by the International Secretariat of Amnesty International * 25 June 2002 EUR 46/025/2002 Amnesty International delegates present in the Supreme Court in Moscow today, expressed their dismay at the court's failure to overturn Grigory Pasko's conviction. The Military Collegium of the Supreme Court upheld a previous decision by a Vladivostok military court that sentenced Pasko to four years in a labour camp. The prosecution alleged that he gathered information with the intention of handing it over to Japanese media. The prosecution against Grigory Pasko appears motivated by political reprisal for exposing the practice of dumping nuclear waste into the Sea of Japan, as well as alleged corruption within the higher military command of the Russian Pacific fleet. Since all domestic remedies in this case have now been exhausted, the next step in seeking justice for Grigory Pasko is an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. Amnesty International continues to call for Pasko's immediate and unconditional release. The organization adopted the Russian journalist and environmental activist as a prisoner of conscience in January 2002. Mariana Katzarova, Amnesty International's researcher, who was present at today's trial, is available for interview on: + 44 7778 472 107. **************************************************************** You may repost this message onto other sources provided the main text is not altered in any way and both the header crediting Amnesty International and this footer remain intact. Only the list subscription message may be removed. **************************************************************** To subscribe to amnesty-L, send a message to with "subscribe amnesty-L" in the message body. To unsubscribe, send a message to with "unsubscribe amnesty-L" in the message body. If you have problem signing off, contact . handles only messages concerning list administration. Past and current Amnesty news services can be found at . Visit for information about Amnesty International and for other AI publications. Contact amnestyis@amnesty.org if you need to get in touch with the International Secretariat of Amnesty International. ***************************************************************** 33 IAEA visit to North Korea delayed Korea Herald!!_National http://www.koreaherald.com A planned visit to North Korea by officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was put on hold due to the North's reluctance to talk with the agency, diplomatic officials here said yesterday. The IAEA delegation was to discuss with North Korean officials the implementation of a safeguard program regarding the North's nuclear facilities, as well as inspection of its past nuclear activities, during the working-level talks which were scheduled to start yesterday. A government official said Pyongyang said it is difficult to hold negotiations on a nuclear inspection schedule when the construction of nuclear reactors by a U.S.-led international consortium is delayed 2002.06.26 (C) Copyright 2000 Digital Korea Herald. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 34 Pasko Appeal Will Be Heard in Supreme Court Tuesday Gregory Pasko, an investigative journalist who worked for the Pacific Fleet's newspaper, was arrested on 20 November 1997 by the FSB and charged with high treason for his writing about the nuclear safety issues in the Russian Pacific Fleet. MOSCOW - One day before he argues an appeal before the Russian Supreme Court, 31-year-old Ivan Pavlov repeats a dark joke that has sustained him through four years of court battles to secure freedom for his client Grigory Pasko, a military journalist who exposed illegal nuclear waste dumping practices by Russia's Pacific Fleet. Charles Digges, 2002-06-24 19:42 "The comment is attributed to some judge," said Pavlov, casually reclining on the bed in his Moscow hotel room. "He said this: "If I can't send an innocent man to jail, then I sentence him to probation." Pavlov lets the dark resonance of the comment hang for a moment before he energetically springs to explain the implications — if you can't find a man innocent in this legal system, then you have to sentence him to something. "And this applies to Pasko," said Pavlov, whose client was staring down a 20-year stretch for espionage when he was sentenced to four years last December. "They gave him three times below the minimum penalty for espionage because he is innocent — innocent." Pavlov himself is young, but also wise beyond his years — partly thanks to the arduousness of the Pasko case, and he is capable at once of youthful pop-culture references and quotations from the Bible and allusions to Russian history. Energetic in mind and body, he has come from his native St Petersburg for the appeal to not only free his client, but, as much as possible, to avenge those who convicted him in the first place. "This is not a case that belongs in the year 2002," said Ragnhild Astrup Tchudi of the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights at a press conference Monday. "It is a chilling reminder of earlier times — illegal searches, secret decrees — these violations of the fundamental principles of the European Convention on Human Rights." On Tuesday, the case of Grigory Pasko will be heard in appeal by the Military Collegium of the Russian Supreme Court, though the defendant himself will not be present — a decision taken by his lawyers to avoid the 10-day train trip from his prison in Vladivostok and the stop-over jails Pasko would be forced to endure to attend the Moscow appeal. If the appeal is successful, Pasko will be free. If it is not, he will be forced to serve his four-year sentence while Bellona and other rights groups try to obtain justice at the Council of Europe courts. Grigory Pasko in front of the Military Court building in Vladivostok. Victor Tereshkin The original trial On Dec. 25, 2001 Pasko, a military reporter for the Boyevaya Vakhta newspaper, was convicted of treason in a Pacific Fleet military court and sentenced to four years in prison for attending a meeting of naval brass and possessing notes he made there. The Federal Security Service, or FSB, maintained that Pasko had intended to pass this information, which allegedly concerned "secret naval manoeuvres," to the Japanese media — though he was never accused of actually having done so. He was, in other words, convicted for allegedly harbouring the notion of giving these notes to the Japanese. "Even the verdict of the Pacific Fleet court confirms he did not disclose any state secrets," said Bellona's Jon Gauslaa at the Monday press conference. "He was convicted for the thoughts he allegedly had in his head." In 1999, the same court had convicted Pasko of negligence for passing films to Japanese TV journalists of Russian Pacific Fleet ships illegally dumping nuclear waste in the Sea of Japan. Pasko was subsequently amnestied by Russia's Supreme Court, but appealed the decision based on the notion that an innocent man cannot be amnestied. The unexpected result was a new trial and a conviction on fresh charges of treason, which Pavlov, Bellona, the US-based Sierra Club, the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights, the European Union, Amnesty International — and at least 23,000 individuals who have sent letters to the Kremlin in Pasko's defence — maintain were fabricated by the FSB and relied heavily on two spurious Defence Ministry decrees. Even Federation Council Speaker Sergei Mironov and Deputy Prime Minister for social issues, Valentina Matviyenko — both allies to President Vladimir Putin — spoke out against the December verdict, and dangled the notion of a pardon, which Pasko flatly refused. One of these Defence Ministry decrees — which forbid military officers from fraternizing with foreigners — was abolished by the Supreme Court in May. The other, known as order No. 055, lays out broad terms for items that could be considered state secrets. Information deemed a threat to national security under the decree includes reporting on the loss of military hardware or battlefield casualties, technical problems of naval vessels and any information concerning radiation accidents aboard Russian vessels. Decree No. 055 was determined at the same day in May not to have the force of law. Defence strategy and "secret" notes The abolished Defence Ministry decrees, among other things, will be part of Pavlov's strategy when he argues for Pasko's freedom on Tuesday. Just as crucial, however, will be the roll of Pasko's notes — which Pavlov says never left the pages of his notebook, except for examination by the FSB — as well as several telephone conversation transcripts between Pasko and the Japanese journalists that the prosecution maintains contained secret messages. According to text transcripts of several telephone conversations between Pasko and his Japanese media contacts — which the prosecution says proves intent to pass off secret information — Pasko can be heard, according to Pavlov, taking down mundane directions from the airport to his Japanese colleagues' home. For their part, one Japanese journalist sent more detailed directions via the Internet. "For a Russian citizen, or any citizen without knowledge of the Japanese alphabet, it would be a little hard to navigate Japan," Pavlov said. Becoming animated again, Pavlov said that Pasko was living under an FSB "bell jar, like those people on Za Steklom," or Behind the Glass, a popular "reality" television programme on Moscow's TVS, in which the on-screen participants are filmed 24 hours a day. "Pasko was watched like a regular TV show, except the viewers where the security services — yes they followed him, yes they listened to him, yes, they checked all his mail — every one of his steps was under the control of the FSB," Pavlov said. "He didn't even tell anyone that he had been to this meeting of naval brass," according to the transcript, Pavlov said. As such, said Pavlov, the notion that Pasko intended to pass these notes — which had been in his possession for months — to anyone is absurd. Winning evidence? With what would appear to be overwhelming evidence on Pasko's side, Pavlov refuses to make any predictions about the outcome of Tuesday's appeal. "Prognoses are a thankless business," said Pavlov, "all the more so because Pasko should have been found innocent on Dec. 25." According to Pavlov, a month's recess last year was enough time for the secret services to go to work on the judges in a case that by all indications was a sure victory for the defence. As a result of this interference from the secret services, Pasko was found guilty on two charges — related to the nullified Defence Ministry decrees — out of a possible 60 counts of espionage. "Obviously, if they wanted to convict him as a spy, he would have been found guilty on more counts," said Pavlov. "This to me proves that someone got to the judges and convinced them to bring in at least some sort of conviction." The appeal The presiding judge in Tuesday's case will be Yury Parkhomchuk, who, in 1994, caused a minor ripple in the judicial world by reviewing the case of a man who had been brought before a firing squad for espionage in 1974. His review of the case revealed the man had not deserved the death penalty. As a result of Parkhomchuk's re-investigation, the man was re-sentenced, post-mortem, to 10 years. Parkhomchuk will decide on the day of the hearing whether the proceedings will be open to the media. As for Tuesday's appeal, Pavlov said that "the decision is already made. I have no doubt — it's the usual practice that when they appoint a judge he already knows the case. I am sure that they have studied all our arguments." "But if you put our arguments on one side of the scale and the arguments of our opponents on the other," Pavlov continued, "ours will outweigh. But if on the other side of that scale is some kind of governmental or ministerial expediency, then this expediency [to jail Pasko] will win out." Even with the public utterances of Mironov and Matviyenko, Pavlov said that for them to follow through on their initial words would have to take "incredible political courage" in a state slowly reverting to the rule of the security services. "Big thanks to [Mironov and Matviyenko] for that but we are not awaiting help," said Pavlov. "We know they want to help, but the only thing that can help us is an honest court, which will weigh all the arguments." Pavlov added that the judge will be keeping his ears open for hints, and those hints won't be coming from Mironov or Matviyenko. "[The judge] will be hearing hints from people who can put pressure on him." Read the recent background document on the Pasko case written by Bellona's legal adviser Jon Gauslaa. [http://www.bellona.no/en/international/russia/envirorights/pasko/24748.html] Is acquittal enough Even if the Supreme Court frees Pasko on Tuesday, Pavlov has doubts that that would be ample restitution for what his client has been through. "Of course Pasko must be exonerated, but? to be so slandered and insulted by these convictions of Dec. 25, the decision to exonerate Pasko, free him from jail appears to me too little," said Pavlov. "I don't want blood, but I think the people that trumped this up must be punished — but as practice shows, these people get promotions. These people are needed by the state, this state, and because of this, in my view, we have no future, we are not developing." In Pavlov's view, Russia, as evidenced by incidents like the Pasko case, is on an aimless journey. "Russia is trying to change, but Moses led his people through the desert for 40 years to escape slavery," he said. "But Russia isn't 40 yet, and isn't wandering in the desert — it's marinating in its own juices [?] They are attempting to hang the Iron Curtain again — the last ten years have taught us nothing." Publisher: [bellona@bellona.no] , President: [frederic@bellona.no] Information: [info@bellona.no] , Technical contact: [webmaster@bellona.no] Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62 * P.O.Box 2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway ***************************************************************** 35 Supreme Court Upholds Pasko Treason Sentence Gregory Pasko, an investigative journalist who worked for the Pacific Fleet's newspaper, was arrested on 20 November 1997 by the FSB and charged with high treason for his writing about the nuclear safety issues in the Russian Pacific Fleet. MOSCOW - In a major upset for environmental and human rights activists worldwide, Russia’s Supreme Court’s military collegium Tuesday upheld a treason verdict against Vladivostok-based military journalist and environmental whistle-blower Grigory Pasko. Charles Digges, 2002-06-25 13:58 The appeal was Pasko’s last chance to avoid spending the next couple of years in one of Russia’s crumbling, Soviet-era work camps for the crime of bringing to light the brewing nuclear disaster represented by the Russian Navy’s aging Pacific Fleet and its negligent waste disposal practices. Calling for the hearings to be made public, Pasko legal team member Genry Reznik said the defence was "convinced that there is nothing secret involved in this case, and we are not going to reveal anything that the court could describe as state secrets." However, military prosecutor Igor Murashkin insisted the hearings should be held behind closed doors, saying that "issues relating to state secrets could be mentioned during the hearings." Presiding Judge Yury Parkhomchuk decided in favor of Murashkin, and some 70 journalists, observers and western diplomats were evacuated from the courtroom. Pasko, who is jailed in Vladivostok, was not present for the hearing on the decision of his three lawyers because of the long train journey his attendance would have entailed. The court also ruled that Alexander Tkachenko, president of the Russian PEN Club, which defends media rights, could attend the hearings with the lawyers as a representative of civil society. Appeal denied In its decision Tuesday, the court upheld the original Vladivostok verdict, but changed some of the wording. According to Pasko’s defence lawyers, the judges will introduce two changes to the Dec. 25 verdict, which will presumably make Pasko’s violation of two no longer legally enforceable defence decrees moot – although Pasko will have to serve the four years all the same. Lawyers said the court excluded from the verdict a reference to Pasko's having illegally attended a meeting on Pacific Fleet exercises in September 1997, and also excluded a mention of the reporter’s maintaining contacts with foreigners. Both of these exclusions come presumably as a result of a Supreme Court decision in May to overturn Defence Ministry Decree No. 10, which barred military personnel from fraternizing with foreigners. Defence Ministry decree No. 55 – which was a broad vague list of items considered to be state secrets – was also declared by the Supreme Court not to have the force of law, and thus not a legal foundation for prosecution. According to Pasko’s lawyer Ivan Pavlov, the judges’ decisions as to what changes will be made in the original Vladivostok verdict will not be known until Wednesday, when an official decision will have been prepared by the court. “The court considers this a legal decision and the changes [being made to the verdict] are simply cosmetic and will not lead to any legal consequences,” said Reznik. “The defence will take further measures to make sure this sentence faces protest,” Reznik said. Reznik added that, statistically, acquittals are rare in Russia. “Any defence is constantly encountering situations where its views are not shared,” Reznik said. Pasko’s lawyer Anatoly Pyshkin said he would be filing an appeal to the latest decision to higher bodies at the Supreme Court. Like Reznik, he called the modifications made to the original sentence “cosmetic.” The original verdict On Dec. 25, 2001 Pasko, a military reporter for the Boyevaya Vakhta newspaper, was convicted of treason in a Pacific Fleet military court and sentenced to four years in prison for attending a meeting of naval brass and possessing notes he made there – which, according to the new “cosmetic” changes in the verdict, will no longer be included in the conviction. The Federal Security Service, or FSB, maintained that Pasko had intended to pass this information, which allegedly concerned “secret naval manoeuvres,” to the Japanese media -- though he was never accused of actually having done so. He was, in other words, convicted for allegedly harboring the notion of giving these notes to the Japanese. In 1999, the same court had convicted Pasko of negligence for passing films and other information to Japanese TV journalists of Russian Pacific Fleet ships illegally dumping nuclear waste in the Sea of Japan. Pasko was released on a general amnesty, but appealed the decision based on the notion that an innocent man cannot be amnestied. Also the prosecution appealed, insisting that Pasko was a spy. The result of the appeals was a new trial and a treason conviction, which his lawyers, Bellona, the US-based Sierra Club, the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights, the European Union and Amnesty International maintain were fabricated by the FSB, and relied heavily on the two now dead Defence Ministry decrees. Lost tapes and extended sentences According to Pasko’s lawyers, however, simply upholding the current sentence was not the military prosecutor’s goal. In fact, he wanted to add time to Pasko’s sentence. “[Murashkin] was not the kind of guy who would cancel a sentence,” said Pavlov in an interview while the judges were deliberating. “He came to save the original verdict however he could.” Part of the original conviction, Pavlov said, hinged on a number of Federal Security Service, or FSB, tapes in which Pasko is allegedly conspiring to pass secret information to his Japanese counterparts. The taping was fraught with legal violations and, furthermore, many of the original FSB recordings were lost, forcing the defence to rely on written transcripts. “But the prosecutor told the judges it was fine for us to work with violations,” said Pavlov. “‘Although the protocol was falsified,’ said the prosecutor ‘that doesn’t mean the whole thing is falsified,” Pavlov fumed. “[On the tape] there are fragments about military exercises, and the [FSB] is trying to guess there is something more,” Pavlov continued. “But by doing that they actually make our case stronger.” Murashkin refuses to comment on any of the day’s proceedings. Next steps Bellona and other environmental and human rights groups Tuesday vowed to take the case to the European Human Rights Court in Strasbourg, but even that, according to Bellona’s Jon Gauslaa, is cold comfort. “The court there is backed up for six to seven years, mostly with due process cases like this,” he said Tuesday. “In fact, not one case from Russia has yet been heard there.” Mariana Katzarova of Amnesty International – which has proclaimed Pasko Russia’s third Prisoner of Conscience since Andrei Sakharov and Bellona’s Alexander Nikitin – said Amnesty will “continue to fight for Pasko’s unconditional release from prison.” “Today’s decision puts into question the PR we hear about judicial reform in Russia,” she said. Pasko’s lawyer Reznik said: “We will get a probing look at this verdict.” “The verdict is built on assumptions, and these assumptions require an ironic evaluation – in fact, this would all be considered a farce if Pasko were not sitting in jail now.” As for Pasko, despite his incarceration, he is to edit a journal on ecology and law that will publish five issues this year, Nikitin said. Publisher: Bellona Foundation [bellona@bellona.no] , President: Frederic Hauge [frederic@bellona.no] Information: info@bellona.no [info@bellona.no] , Technical contact: webmaster@bellona.no [webmaster@bellona.no] Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62 * P.O.Box 2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway ***************************************************************** 36 U.N. Says Bomb Materials Available ABCNEWS.com : June 25, 2002 U.N. Agency Says Materials a Terrorist Would Need to Build a 'Dirty Bomb' Are Available Around the World The Associated Press L O N D O N, June 25 — Radioactive materials that a terrorist would need to build a "dirty bomb" are available around the world, and more than 100 countries may have inadequate programs to prevent or even detect thefts, a U.N. agency said Tuesday. Governments, including the United States, must take urgent steps to raise security to prevent theft and to recover supplies that are missing, the International Atomic Energy Agency said. "What is needed is cradle-to-grave control of powerful radioactive sources to protect them against terrorism or theft," said Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the IAEA. Since the Sept. 11 terror attacks, the organization has stepped up efforts to prevent terrorists from obtaining weapons-grade nuclear materials or radioactive sources for a "dirty bomb." Fears of radiological terrorism grew when an alleged plot to detonate such a weapon in Washington, D.C., failed with the May 8 arrest of Jose Padilla, described by U.S. officials as a protege of Abu Zubaydah, a senior leader in the al-Qaida terror organization. Priority must be given to help states create and strengthen national regulatory infrastructures to ensure that radioactive sources are properly registered and secured, the IAEA said. The IAEA did not list the more than 100 countries that may have inadequate security programs. But it did identify one widely known problem area former Soviet states that have become a traffickers' marketplace for radioactive materials. The U.N. agency said "uncontrolled radioactive sources are a widespread phenomenon" in states, such as Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. Even the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has reported that American companies have lost track of radioactive materials within the country since 1996, much of which was never recovered, the IAEA said. A European Union study estimated that every year up to 70 sources are lost from regulatory control in the EU, and that a recent European Commission report estimated that 30,000 unused sources held in storage in the EU are at risk of being lost from regulatory control, the IAEA said. A "dirty bomb" is not a weapon of mass destruction like a nuclear bomb, but uses conventional explosives to disperse radioactive materials. Nuclear experts say such an attack would kill no more people than a conventional bomb, but the dispersal of radioactive materials could lead to the exposure of some victims and cause widespread panic. In its report, the IAEA identified radioactive sources used in industrial radiography, radiotherapy, industrial irradiators and thermoelectric generators as those that are the most significant from a safety and security point of view because they contain large amounts of radioactive materials. As part of its worldwide efforts to improve security, the agency, Russia and the United States agreed on June 12 to develop a strategy to recover, secure and recycle radioactive sources that are outside official regulatory control in former Soviet states. On the Net: IAEA: http://www.iaea.org/worldatom Copyright 2002 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This ***************************************************************** 37 Scot: MSP Cleared of Nuclear Demo Charge Scotsman.com Tue 25 Jun 2002 /By Natalie Walker, PA News/ Scottish socialist leader Tommy Sheridan was today cleared of causing a breach of the peace during a mass demonstration outside the home of Britain?s Trident nuclear submarine. The 38-year-old Glasgow MSP had pleaded not guilty to the offence at a mass protest at Faslane naval base on the Clyde on October 22 last year. During his 40-minute trial at Argyll and Bute District Court in Helensburgh, he told how he felt he had every right to participate in the demonstration, one which he said was described as ?peaceful and friendly? by police officers and naval base staff afterwards. Justice of the Peace John MacPhail dismissed the case telling the court: ?I am not persuaded there is a sufficiency of evidence.? ©2002 scotsman.com | contact ***************************************************************** 38 More secrecy at DOE Published June 24, 2002 The Department of Energy doesn't think taxpayers ought to know how much the agency wants to spend in 2004. We wish we were surprised. Sadly, the Bush administration's Energy Department seems to think less is best when it comes to open government. It doesn't even like to share the budget information with its government partners, the state Department of Ecology and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency - which makes the situation all the more suspicious, since those agencies are in charge of making sure the Energy Department lives up to its promises to clean up Hanford. Asked to explain itself, the Energy Department got its Washington, D.C.-based spokesman, Tom Welch, to give this illuminating justification: "That's the official policy."There are areas of government where there is a compelling need for secrecy - national security among them. Once was that Hanford could make that claim, but that time has long past. Budget numbers are, fundamentally, of interest to the public. The Energy Department arrogantly insists that the public's business is best done in the dark. It is wrong. What's your opinon? Copyright 2002 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This ***************************************************************** 39 LOC drafts list of 'issues' for DOE to address 06/25/02 The Oak Ridger Online -- Feature: Business -- Paul Parson: The Citizens' Advisory Panel of the Oak Ridge Reservation Local Oversight Committee is working on a list of issues that the organization will be taking a closer look at and pushing the Department of Energy or other entities to resolve. Susan Gawarecki, executive director of the Oak Ridge Reservation Local Oversight Committee, told me these are issues that the group believes can be settled. Funded through the state of Tennessee, the LOC closely monitors DOE's local environmental activities. The "to-be-resolved" issues include the following: + Give increased attention to historic preservation. + Expand health screening beyond gaseous diffusion plant workers to workers at the Y-12 National Security Complex and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. + Address the public's limited access to information, like DOE's budget. + Accelerate certain phases of stewardship, like educational activities and registering deeds on the reservation. + Ensure that the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency finalizes a multi-jurisdictional plan for dealing with emergencies on the Oak Ridge Reservation. * RECOGNITION: An Oak Ridge National Laboratory team has earned a 2002 Federal Laboratory "award of excellence" for what is being touted as a major breakthrough in imaging technology. Described as a direct-to-digital holography process, this technology allows for high-speed and high-sensitivity detection of defects in semiconductor device structures. ORNL researchers involved with the project include Phillip Bingham, Matt Chidley, Jim Goddard, Jim Hardy, Greg Hanson, Kathy Hylton, Jeff Price, Chuck Schaich, John Simpson, Ken Tobin and John Turner, all of the lab's Engineering Science and Technology Division. Larry Baylor and Dave Rasmussen, both of ORNL's Fusion Energy Division, also worked on the project. The award recognizes laboratory employees who have accomplished outstanding work in the process of transferring a technology developed by a federal facility to the commercial marketplace. The technology received an award in technology transfer earlier this year from the Southeastern Federal Laboratory Consortium, which includes more than 40 federal laboratories in nine southeastern states. * GOOD PROGRAM: BWXT Y-12's work with Tennessee State University has earned the company the Department of Energy's "Mentor Protégé" award. The award recognizes the Y-12 National Security Complex's "outstanding achievement as a mentor to Tennessee State University, a historically black college." Y-12 and Tennessee State University started the mentor program in the summer of 2001. It is the first of its kind in the National Nuclear Security Administration's nuclear weapons complex. * IN THE SPOTLIGHT: Articles by Jim Harless spotlighting the importance of local government environmental advisory boards were published in recent issues of the Journal of Environmental Health and the environmental publication On Tap. Harless is a program manager with the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation's Department of Energy oversight office in Oak Ridge. The version of the article published in On Tap was even accompanied by a photo of four members of Oak Ridge's Environmental Quality Advisory Board hard at work during a meeting. Pictured were Ken Haerer, Ed Frome, Marty Cole and Jimmy Groton. Paul Parson is the science and technology reporter for The Oak Ridger. He can be contacted at (865) 220-5533 or pparson@oakridger.com [pparson@oakridger.com] . All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 40 Buckley takes 'business' post at Y-12 The Oak Ridger Online -- Feature: Business -- 06/25/02 Steve Buckley has joined the staff of BWXT Y-12 as director of business and information systems. In his new position, Buckley will be responsible for a variety of areas at the Y-12 National Security Complex, including procurement, property management, information and computer systems programs, communications services, records management, and administration. Buckley replaces Doris Heim who has taken a job on a Bechtel project in England. Prior to joining Y-12, Buckley managed Bechtel's Oak Ridge office while also serving as Bechtel Jacobs Company's vice president for reindustrialization and community investment. As president of Bechtel Jacobs Development Company (Bechtel Jacobs Company's economic development subsidiary), Buckley has helped to diversify the local economy, and he will continue in that capacity. Prior to joining Bechtel Jacobs, he managed a wide variety of successful business development and project management efforts as vice president of Bechtel Environmental. He is chairman of Technology 2020 and the Oak Ridge Economic Partnership. He also serves on the boards of Nine Counties-One Vision, the Knoxville Area Chamber Partnership, the Oak Ridge Chamber of Commerce, the East Tennessee Economic Council and the Community Reuse Organization of East Tennessee, among others. Buckley has been a Bechtel employee for 29 years and has lived in Oak Ridge since 1986. BWXT Y-12, a limited liability enterprise of BWX Technologies Inc. and Bechtel National Inc., operates the Y-12 National Security Complex for the National Nuclear Security Administration. The NNSA is the quasi-independent agency within DOE that oversees the nuclear weapons complex. All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 41 OR defense efforts target of funding The Oak Ridger Online -- Area News -- 06/25/02 by Paul Parson Oak Ridger staff Some high-tech Oak Ridge defense initiatives are expected to get a significant financial boost, says U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, R-3rd District. The House Appropriations Committee met late Monday night to vote on a defense spending bill that includes $5 million for SensorNet, an Oak Ridge National Laboratory program. The full House of Representatives is expected to vote on the 2003 defense spending bill later this week. SensorNet would place real-time detection and assessment systems on existing cellular towers. The systems would be able to detect a chemical agent within 45 seconds and a biological threat within 5 minutes and then quickly alert local authorities. Given the events of Sept. 11 and the ongoing War on Terrorism, Wamp said homeland security is a top priority. "Many of these high-tech detection systems that are developed in East Tennessee have an important role to play," said Wamp, who has served on the House Appropriations Committee since 1997. Billy Stair, an ORNL spokesman, said this morning that the federal facility and its manager, UT-Battelle, are pleased about SensorNet's funding. "Congress has been inundated with thousands of proposal to support the nation's homeland security efforts," Stair said. "The $5 million earmarked for SensorNet would be a tremendous vote of confidence in Oak Ridge National Laboratory's breakthrough technologies." In addition, Wamp said a $4 million increase over the president's budget request -- totaling $28.9 million -- for the Joint Robotics Program is also included in this bill. This funding will dramatically increase the research and the number of robotic deployments that can be made by REMOTEC, an Oak Ridge company. By further developing robotic systems that can go into dangerous situations -- such as disabling a bomb through remote control -- the lives of many law enforcement officers can be saved. Many of these robots are currently being used across the country as well as in Israel and the United Kingdom. "The robotics technology being developed at REMOTEC is fascinating," said Wamp. "East Tennessee technology is helping solve problems all over the world." Wamp said REMOTEC engineers came to the Tennessee Valley Corridor Technology Summit that he hosted last month in Nashville to showcase their work and how it can dramatically reduce the risk to law enforcement here in the homeland or our soldiers in the field. The 2003 defense bill includes a total of $354.7 billion to support resources to fight the War on Terrorism and other defense-related programs. This is $33.8 billion more than the amount in the 2002 defense spending bill. Paul Parson can be contacted at (865) 220-5533 or pparson@oakridger.com [pparson@oakridger.com] . All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 42 Issues arise over K-25 burial ground The Oak Ridger Online -- Area News -- 06/25/02 by Paul Parson Oak Ridger staff One local organization is asking that the contents of a waste burial ground at the Oak Ridge K-25 site be identified before any information associated with job-related illnesses is lost. However, officials in charge of the site say the information is already available. Excavation of the K-1070-A burial ground, located on the east end of the K-25 complex, is under way. The purpose of this project is to remove contaminated soil and buried debris that is contributing to groundwater contamination, according to Dennis Hill, a spokesman for Bechtel Jacobs Co., the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge cleanup contractor. The excavation of 20,000 cubic yards of material is expected to take approximately nine months, with the material being shipped to the newly opened Environmental Management Waste Management Facility for disposal. K-1070-A will then be filled in with clean dirt. Hill said Shaw E Inc., a subcontractor, has already collected samples and information associated with the burial ground's contents. He said K-1070-A contains trichloroethylene, an industrial solvent, as well as radioactive materials such as uranium and beryllium. However, the Coalition for a Healthy Environment objects to removing any waste until there is a complete characterization of all contents of the burial ground by the Environmental Protection Agency or the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation. "We want to know what was in it," said Harry Williams, president of the coalition, which consists of sick and disabled Department of Energy workers who say their conditions resulted from work at the federal agency's facilities. The coalition made its request to DOE in a June 9 letter. "Failure to characterize the burial ground will eliminate knowledge for present and future workers as well as the neighboring communities," the letter states. "This knowledge could help to determine medical conditions, treatments and/or reconstructions of contaminants necessary to civil or criminal claims. DOE's past hurried action to tear down K-1001 Administration Building destroyed evidence which hindered workers from finding answers. "There is a large migrating plume of contaminants under K-25. We believe that this burial ground has been a large source of contaminants feeding this plume. We would like to know how far this plume has migrated off site. We ask DOE to quit being a local source of concern and be a good neighbor." Williams said the coalition has not yet received a response from DOE regarding the letter. Paul Parson can be contacted at (865) 220-5533 or pparson@oakridger.com [pparson@oakridger.com] . All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 43 Group positive about compensation changes 06/25/02 The Oak Ridger Online -- Area News -- by Paul Parson Oak Ridger staff Harry Williams said he feels positive about recent meetings with members of the Tennessee congressional delegation over proposed changes to a compensation program for job-sickened nuclear workers. "We found a lot of support in Washington," said Williams. "We were pleasantly surprised." Williams, president of the Coalition for a Healthy Environment, took a three-day trip to Washington, D.C., last week along with Janine Anderson and Janet Michel. The three longtime crusaders for sick-worker assistance did so after hearing that changes could be made to the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program. "We want to make everything equal," Williams said. "Our philosophy is really very simple. It doesn't make any difference what made you sick, if it's attributable to the workplace, it should all be the same." Administered by the Labor Department, the federal compensation program provides medical care and a payment of $150,000 to sick workers or their survivors, if the workers were exposed to cancer-causing radiation or to silica or beryllium, which are linked to lung diseases. During the trip to Washington, the three Coalition for a Healthy Environment members visited the offices of several members of the Tennessee delegation, including U.S. Reps. Zach Wamp, R-3rd District; Van Hilleary, R-4th District; John Duncan, R-2nd District; Bob Clement, D-5th District; and Ed Bryant, R-7th District. The coalition consists of sick and disabled Department of Energy workers who say their conditions resulted from work at the federal agency's facilities. One sticking point, according to Williams, is the issue of dose reconstruction, which can be required to basically characterize the occupational radiation environment to which a person was exposed. "We want dose reconstruction done away with because DOE absolutely doesn't have the data," he said. Williams said he understands that the compensation program needs standards, but he said it doesn't need so many hoops for the sick workers to jump through. "The goal is to help people," said Williams. "We're going to push this until we get this done." The proposed changes to the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program are expected to be included in a Senate defense authorization bill. Paul Parson can be contacted at (865) 220-5533 or pparson@oakridger.com [pparson@oakridger.com] . All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 44 Commentary: State committed to reaching agreement with DOE The Paducah Sun Paducah, Kentucky Tuesday, June 25, 2002 EDITOR: Let me assure the editorial staff, the readers of The Paducah Sun, but more importantly the workers at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant and nearby residents, that the state of Kentucky is not delaying its response to an accelerated cleanup plan proposed by the Department of Energy (DOE). As a matter of fact, the state, as well as the federal Environmental Protection Agency, provided an initial response to the DOE proposal last month. Last week I had conversations with William Murphie, of DOE's Senior Management Team, as well as with Ms. Jessie Roberson, assistant secretary of environmental management for DOE. I have assured both of them that the state of Kentucky is committed to doing what it can to reach an agreement with DOE on an accelerated cleanup plan. We're also committed to supporting efforts in obtaining cleanup funds for the plant, continuing efforts by Gov. Paul Patton and myself that began several years ago. Politics has not played a part in our effort as we have worked hand-in-hand with our congressional delegation. Gov. Patton and I have met with the previous DOE secretary and have testified before congressional committees on the need for environmental cleanup at the Paducah plant. At the public meeting last week, Mr. Murphie and representatives of the Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Cabinet and the federal EPA all agreed now is the time to work out the details of the plan. As Mr. Murphie pointed out last week, this is not an "us-versus-them" situation. Negative publicity about the Paducah plant pales in comparison to the very serious contamination at the site. These are serious problems requiring solutions and a lasting commitment from all parties. Any skepticism we may have can be traced to previous DOE proposals, even as Mr. Murphie admitted he was another in a line of DOE managers presenting a another cleanup plan to the community. Gov. Patton has asked that I take the lead in resolving these issues with DOE. Working jointly with Marcia Morgan, secretary of the Cabinet for Health Services, our staffs and other appropriate state officials, that is what I am doing. Our goal is to have an enforceable agreement with DOE that provides for protection of human health and the environment. Make no mistake, though, about our commitment. We want the site cleaned up, as quickly as possible, and will work hard to see that is accomplished. The residents who have been affected by the contamination as well as the workers at the plant deserve nothing less. JAMES E. BICKFORD Secretary, Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Cabinet Frankfort ***************************************************************** 45 'Because Groves was given and then took full responsibility for it all' The Oak Ridger Online - Opinion - Dick Smyser: Tuesday, June 25, 2002 Why did the Manhattan Project succeed? There were seven primary reasons, concludes Bill Wilcox. A part of that success himself from the first months of Oak Ridge's role in that urgent effort to develop an atomic bomb, Wilcox says "Reason No. 1" was the choice of Gen. Leslie R. Groves to lead the project. Wilcox looked back at the World War II crash program in a luncheon talk to the Rotary Club of Oak Ridge appropriately on June 6, the 58th anniversary of D-Day, the landing of Allied troops on the beaches of northern France. Less than a year later, Hitler's Nazi armies surrendered and only months after that the first nuclear bomb was dropped on Japan, which then also promptly surrendered. * Gen. Groves' intelligence and personal skills were important, Wilcox said, but chiefly he was effective "because he was given and then took full responsibility for the entire project." "The organizational decision to put the whole U.S. program under him with full support from our top government was a major difference between our atomic program and the programs of Germany, Japan and Russia," Wilcox told the Rotarians. (On his retirement, Wilcox was technical director for the Oak Ridge Y-12 Plant and the Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant -- K-25.) Gen. Groves autographs his book, "Now It Can Be Told," in Oak Ridge in 1962. Reason No. 2: "Masterful corporate recruitment and delegation," says Wilcox. "In his first four months on the job (September through December 1942), Groves enlisted the help of top corporations with strength in chemistry and chemical engineering to sign on as their patriotic duty, and teamed each of them with the top university scientists that had been doing the R in the years just before the project" -- Tennessee Eastman, Stone and Webster, E.I. DuPont, Union Carbide, University of Chicago, University of California, Columbia University. "By summer 1943, only six months into the Project, Groves had many thousands of people Q-cleared and already hard at work, scientists, engineers and architects designing exotic equipment, and construction workers building plants and towns. Marvelous!" Wilcox said. Third on Wilcox's success list: "Maybe not in importance but in timing, was the availability of almost new sites for building the needed facilities at Oak Ridge, Hanford (Wash.) and Los Alamos (N.M.). There was not a lot of tearing or rebuilding to do anywhere." When Gen. Groves came to look at the Oak Ridge site in September 1942, the same month he took command of the Project, he scrapped a plan to locate all of the facilities here, Wilcox said. The general was especially concerned about the planned plutonium production facilities being located so close to Knoxville. Thus their location thousands of miles away in the less populated Hanford area. Reason No. 4: Secrecy. Because of the intense secrecy, Wilcox says, things were accomplished faster. "Groves early on decided to compartmentalize each of the main parts of the Project ... and within those areas each was still further divided into secret compartments. ... Secrecy worked to a great advantage in decision-making and progress. ... there was no need to consult with the administration, get congressional buy-ins, and gather stakeholder input. Plant managers reviewed options, made decisions and that was that. It sure saves time when you don't have to 'sell' your plans or decisions to others." Reason No. 5: "... the availability of money with minimal paper work. Groves virtually had a blank check. If anything was wanted to keep the program on schedule or that might speed it up, it was bought, not studied. ... to order something I just made a list on a handy scrap of paper and took it up to Sally in the front hall! A few days later the boxes would appear." Reason No. 6: Gen. Groves had top priority in getting help from contractors, suppliers. Reason No. 7: "But I think the most important reason so much got done so fast," Wilcox said, "was that everyone from Gen. Groves on down to the operators on all three shifts had a common purpose -- to do whatever they could seven days a week to help end the war. "Nobody told us we ought to work extra long hours and extra hard; we had convinced ourselves that we should by reading the papers each day and hearing on the radio every night of the atrocities and the killing of our countrymen and our allies ... . "This is what is difficult to share and get across to the next generation. I've had a hard time describing it to my own children -- that patriotism that made you work so hard, keep the secrets, restrain your natural curiosity, put up with all the shortages, and live with rules you often could not understand. It was all wrapped up in that phrase 'to help win the war.'" * Wilcox's Rotary talk came just days after television's History Channel had aired a program on the Manhattan Project which featured quotes from Wilcox along with other Oak Ridgers. "I thought the way they handled the history leading up to the Manhattan Project was the best of any treatments I've seen," Wilcox said. However, while covering the role of Los Alamos thoroughly, Wilcox said, the program failed to reflect "how much greater were the problems in number and size at Oak Ridge in supplying the critical mass of U-235 for the first bomb." Out of the $2 billion total cost, he said, 60 cents of every dollar was spent at Oak Ridge compared to four cents at Los Alamos. In a postscript to his "Seven Reasons," Wilcox said: "Nobody that I knew felt any glory in the killing of the Japanese at Hiroshima any more than we gloried in the fire bombing of Tokyo on the night of March 10 a few months before -- that bombing that burned out 16 square miles of Tokyo, four times as much as was burned out at Hiroshima. What we did take pride in was that the shock of our Project's success finally caused (Japan's) reluctant emperor to stand up to his die-hard militarists and insist on bringing their war to an end at last. A war they started against us at Pearl Harbor ... . The six-year World War that we helped stop had caused a nearly incomprehensible total of 54 million people killed by other humans!" * Wilcox, as were others interviewed by the History Channel, saw an advance showing of the program at the American Museum of Science and Energy. He was also given a tape. As he previewed the show, Wilcox noted a series of errors and told Marilyn McLaughlin of UT-Battelle, who had arranged the local interviews. She contacted the show's producers and, just a few nights before the program was to air, they contacted Wilcox. They talked with him for an hour and, as a result, all but a very few of the errors were corrected before the national telecast. * Just a year ago Wilcox compiled and published "An Overview of the History of Y-12, 1942-1992." His fellow Rotarians responded to his D-Day talk with a standing ovation. -- RDS Richard D. Smyser is founding editor of The Oak Ridger. He can be reached by e-mail at rdsandmps@aol.com [rdsandmps@aol.com] . All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 46 Nuclear Regulatory Commission Honors Employees On June 27 in Rockville, Md NRC: Press Release - 2002 - 76 - U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 20555-001 E-mail: [opa@nrc.gov] www.nrc.gov No. 02-076 June 25, 2002 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will hold its Twenty-Fifth Annual Awards Ceremony at 2 p.m. on Thursday, June 27, on the Green of the White Flint Complex. The ceremony will also be broadcast to all four regional offices and the Technical Training Center in Chattanooga, Tennessee. During the ceremony, NRC will acknowledge recipients of Presidential Executive Rank Awards and the NRC's Distinguished and Meritorious Service Awards. The following individuals are NRC's Presidential Executive Rank Award Recipients for 2001: Presidential Meritorious Executive Rank Awards Richard J. Barrett Deputy Director, Division of Engineering Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation A. Randolph Blough Director, Division of Reactor Projects, Region I E. William Brach Director, Spent Fuel Project Office Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards James L. Caldwell Deputy Regional Administrator, Region III Samuel J. Collins Director, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation Karen D. Cyr General Counsel John T. Greeves Director, Division of Waste Management Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards Paul H. Lohaus Director, Office of State and Tribal Programs The NRC Distinguished and Meritorious Service Awards are the highest awards that the NRC can give to its employees. For 2001, these awards are being granted to the following individuals: NRC Honorary Distinguished Service Awards William F. Kane Deputy Executive Director for Reactor Programs Office of the Executive Director for Operations Linda Portner Associate Director-Assistant to the Chairman for Congressional Communications Office of Congressional Affairs NRC Distinguished Service Awards Lee R. Abramson Senior Research Statistician Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research Annie Mitchell Bennette Administrative Assistant, Office of the General Counsel Gary F. Sanborn Enforcement Officer, Region IV NRC Honorary Meritorious Service Award Ledyard (Tad) B. Marsh Acting Deputy Director Division of Licensing Project Management Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation NRC Meritorious Service Award for Equal Employment Opportunity Excellence Susan Castro Senior Management Analyst Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation NRC Meritorious Service Awards Deborah Bailey-Mahdi Senior Accountant Office of the Chief Financial Officer Ramona C. Bouling Licensing Assistant, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation Michael C. Cheok Senior Reliability and Risk Analyst Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation Brent Clayton Enforcement/Investigations Officer, Region III James W. Clifford Chief, Projects Section 2, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation James R. Creed Safeguards Program Manager, Region III Lynn Deering Senior Staff Scientist, Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste Yawar Faraz Senior Project Manager Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards Howard J. Faulkner Senior International Relations Officer Office of International Programs J. Bradley Fewell Regional Counsel, Region I Kathy Halvey Gibson Chief, Emer Prep and Health Physics Section Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation Pamela J. Henderson Senior Health Physicist, Region I Anthony M. Huffert Senior Health Physicist Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards James W. Hufham Emergency Response Coordinator, Region II William D. Hutchison Assistant to the Director, Office of Investigations Victoria A. Ibarra Secretary, Office of the Executive Director for Operations E. Neil Jensen Senior Attorney, Office of the General Counsel Sandra M. Joosten Executive Assistant, Office of the Secretary Roger M. Kenneally Senior Structural Engineer Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research Judy A. Kilcrease Secretary, Region IV Julio F. Lara Senior Resident Inspector, Region III Karen A. McCallie Secretary, Region II Sheila L. McKelvin Secretary, Office of the Chief Financial Officer Maureen Moriarty Licensing Management Systems Analyst Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards Catherine J. Poland Management Analyst (Team Lead) Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards Ann Ramey-Smith Technical Assistant, Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research Benjamin W. Randall, Jr. Senior Communications Specialist Office of the Chief Information Officer William J. Raymond Senior Resident Inspector, Region I Leonard J. Reidinger Chief, Specialized Training and Support Office of Human Resources Mary Lynn Scott Chief, Property and Acquisition Oversight Branch Office of Administration Joseph Shea Chief, Regional Operations and Program Management Staff Office of the Executive Director for Operations Leigh Trocine Nuclear Systems Engineer (Hdqtrs. Operations Officer) Office of Nuclear Security and Incident Response Brenda G. Usilton Management Analyst, Office of State and Tribal Programs Peter K. Van Doorn Senior Reactor Inspector, Region II Evelyn Spellman Williams Assistant for Correspondence and Records Office of the Secretary Peter R. Wilson Senior Reactor Analyst Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation ***************************************************************** 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. 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