***************************************************************** 05/26/02 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 10.134 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POLICY 1 Moscow summit hits Iran snag 2 European commissioner welcomes Finland's nuclear decision 3 Guards at Russian nuclear facilities ordered to fire warning shots a 4 Guards at Russian nuclear facilities ordered to fire warning 5 Iran 'on course for nuclear status' NUCLEAR REACTORS 6 Water leak detected at Shizuoka nuclear reactor after restart 7 US: Nuke Plants Told to Be More Alert 8 Radioactive Leak Shuts Japan Reactor 9 US: Group looks at ways to cut cost of NW's only nuclear plant 10 US: Davis-Besse Nuclear reactor fix may cost $300 million 11 US: Nuclear stations on highest alert: Catawba plant following NRC 12 US: New security for closed nuke plants 13 US: Fuel Rods and Brass Tacks 14 Another leak found at Hamaoka N-plant 15 US: Nuclear Nightmares NUCLEAR SAFETY 16 US: Soldier trys to bomb nuke plant 17 Nuclear plant blueprints found on street NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 18 US: Shipping nuke waste vulnerable to attack by terrorists, feds say 19 US: OP: Legal process abused 20 US: Yucca Editorial: Who are you going to believe? 21 UK: BNFL in Mox deal with E.ON 22 New nuclear waste storage facility in Siberia 23 US: Where Utah's congressional delegation stands on Yucca Mountain: 24 US: It's time for the nuclear trash man to show up 25 US: Blame Bush, not Reid, for Yucca 26 US: Waste dump fight coming to end 27 US: State could have site, be left out in the cold 28 US: Millions at stake as lawsuit finally goes to trial 29 US: For state, nuke suit a must-win 30 US: McConnell's Mill fans oppose landfill plan NUCLEAR WEAPONS 31 Peace Action: Few Reductions in New Treaty 32 Threat of Nuclear War in Our Region-FOE Sydney 33 [psy-op] Vieques Action Alert as Navy bombs 34 Editorial: A bit of fuss over nothing 35 Nuclear fears cast shadow over Kashmir 36 Limited Nuclear War in Asia Would Kill Millions 37 Bush and Putin Sign Pact for Steep Nuclear Arms Cuts 38 U.S.-Russia Nuke Treaty Does Little 39 Nuclear fears cast shadow over Kashmir 40 Estimated nuclear strength of India, Pakistan - 41 3 million may die in Indo-Pak N-war 42 Tactical nuclear weapons pose major concern - 43 Russian nuke dangers studied 44 Nuclear fallout: The new attack on Hiroshima 45 Nuclear weapons taboo weakening, experts say 46 Russian nuke dangers studied US DEPT. OF ENERGY 47 Flats waste should stay here till solution found 48 Research center gets name change OTHER NUCLEAR ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 Moscow summit hits Iran snag BBC News | EUROPE | Friday, 24 May, 2002, [Presidents Khatami and Putin] Russia's closeness to Iran worries Washington US President George Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin have made clear their differences over Iran, which threaten to overshadow Washington's relations with Moscow. During Mr Bush's visit to Russia, the two men had what he called a "frank" discussion over Moscow's support for Iran's nuclear power programme. We spoke very frankly and honestly about the need to make sure that a non-transparent government run by radical clerics doesn't get their hands on weapons of mass destruction President Bush But the BBC's Nick Bryant says this is diplomatic shorthand for a fundamental disagreement, and that it would be hard for the two leaders to see eye to eye on the issue. Mr Bush said they had talked about the dangers of allowing weapons of mass destruction to fall into the hands of terrorists, and had agreed to "work closely" on the issue. The US president has named Iran, along with Iraq and North Korea, as part of an "axis of evil" sponsoring terrorism. President Putin, however, said Russia's cooperation with Iran was limited to energy resources, and would not undermine nuclear non-proliferation efforts. 'Worrying' Russia is helping Iran to build a nuclear reactor at Bushehr, which the Americans say could help Iran develop weapons-grade plutonium. [Presidents Putin and Bush] There are major differences behind the smiles The Russian Atomic Energy Ministry has said the plant will begin operating in September 2003. But Mr Bush said the Russian president shared his concerns about Tehran's aims. "I worry about Iran and I'm confident that Vladimir Putin worries about Iran, and that was confirmed today," he said. "We spoke very frankly and honestly about the need to make sure that a non-transparent government run by radical clerics doesn't get their hands on weapons of mass destruction," he added. 'Economic character' Mr Putin defended his country's programme. "Our co-operation with Iran is limited to energy, it only has an economic character," he said, adding that the US was building a similar plant in North Korea. He also said that he was concerned about the development of missile programmes by "Taiwan and some other states". ***************************************************************** 2 European commissioner welcomes Finland's nuclear decision Friday, 24-May-2002 9:40AM Story from AFP Copyright 2002 by Agence France-Presse (via ClariNet) WARSAW, May 24 (AFP) - European energy comissionner Loyola de Palacio welcomed Finland's decision on Friday to construct a new nuclear reactor, saying it should help reopen the debate in Europe about energy sources. "I think this is an important decision but will have consequences on the debate on energy sources" in Europe, she told journalists at the end of a two-day Warsaw visit. Palacio said nuclear energy has almost been a "taboo" subject, but it may now change. "Finland has changed the trend in the EU for the past decade of not building nuclear reactors", she said. The Finnish parliament on Friday voted 107 in favour of a fifth nuclear plant and 92 against the proposal, angering environmentalists and bucking the trend in Europe where a number of countries are preparing to phase out nuclear power. "Happy with this decision", Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen told AFP that his country "will be less dependent on imports and will be able to curb (greenhouse gas) emissions", he said. Palacio said it was important to keep the nuclear option open if Europe wants to meet its commitments to reduce greenhouse emissions under the Kyoto Protocol and ensure continued sustainable economic growth. She announced that she intends to submit by the summer to the Commission a new European-wide standards on nuclear safety, storage and transport. She also recognised that improving confidence of Europe's citizens is important for the development of nuclear energy. "I want to give confidence to citizens that high safety and security standards will be met". During a recent EU meeting in Pamplona, Spain, Palacio said it was impossible to renounce nuclear energy and respect Kyoto at the same time. "Either we renounce nuclear (energy) and we do not respect Kyoto, or we do not renounce nuclear (energy) and respect Kyoto. It is as simple as that". Kyoto requires wealthy industrialised countries to make an overall cut of 5. 2 percent in emissions of carbon dioxide gases blamed for global warming by a target date of 2008 to 2012 as compared with 1990 levels. The European Union is committed to an eight-percent cut, which is shared among its members. ***************************************************************** 3 Guards at Russian nuclear facilities ordered to fire warning shots at protesters Yahoo! News - Sat May 25, 9:45 AM ET MOSCOW - Guards at nuclear facilities in Russia have been ordered to fire warning shots at environmentalists who try to break into the premises, the nuclear energy minister said Saturday. Alexander Rumyantsev said there had been several efforts recently by environmental groups to break into nuclear facilities to prove that it's possible to steal nuclear materials, according to the Interfax news agency. "I'm afraid that if the 'Greens' persistently try to enter guarded nuclear territories, it could end tragically," Rumyantsev said. Guards at nuclear power plants and other nuclear facilities have been instructed to "open fire for effect" if their demands are ignored, he added. Environmental groups and U.S. and other international officials have expressed concern about the security of Russia's nuclear facilities since the 1991 Soviet collapse left many of them starved for funding. Rumyantsev's comments came two days after his ministry announced it was considering plans to build a burial facility for nuclear waste on the Arctic archipelago of Novaya Zemlya, prompting criticism from environmental groups. Novaya Zemlya has been used for testing Soviet and Russian nuclear weapons. (adc/ji) Copyright © 2002 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 4 Guards at Russian nuclear facilities ordered to fire warning shots at protesters Yahoo! News - Sat May 25, 9:45 AM ET MOSCOW - Guards at nuclear facilities in Russia have been ordered to fire warning shots at environmentalists who try to break into the premises, the nuclear energy minister said Saturday. Alexander Rumyantsev said there had been several efforts recently by environmental groups to break into nuclear facilities to prove that it's possible to steal nuclear materials, according to the Interfax news agency. "I'm afraid that if the 'Greens' persistently try to enter guarded nuclear territories, it could end tragically," Rumyantsev said. Guards at nuclear power plants and other nuclear facilities have been instructed to "open fire for effect" if their demands are ignored, he added. Environmental groups and U.S. and other international officials have expressed concern about the security of Russia's nuclear facilities since the 1991 Soviet collapse left many of them starved for funding. Rumyantsev's comments came two days after his ministry announced it was considering plans to build a burial facility for nuclear waste on the Arctic archipelago of Novaya Zemlya, prompting criticism from environmental groups. Novaya Zemlya has been used for testing Soviet and Russian nuclear weapons. (adc/ji) Copyright © 2002 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 5 Iran 'on course for nuclear status' BBC News | EUROPE | Saturday, 25 May, 2002 [President Bush, Laura Bush are welcomed by Russian President Vladimir Putin and his wife Lyudmila at an informal dinner] The summit has cemented a new, warmer relationship US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has insisted that there is clear evidence that Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons. They've been getting assistance and they've been making good progress Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Iran's nuclear programme Speaking in Washington, Mr Rumsfeld said Iran was making what he described as an unambiguous effort to develop a range of weapons of mass destruction. The issue of Iran created friction at the US-Russian summit in Moscow, where Presidents Bush and Putin publicly disagreed on the sale of Russian nuclear energy technology to Iran. Iran is one of the states which President Bush has accused of belonging to an "axis of evil" - states that support terrorist organisations. Iran assisted Mr Rumsfeld insisted that the Iranians were "getting assistance" in becoming a nuclear power. "They've been making good progress, and they've been determined to accomplish that goal." [US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld] Rumsfeld insisted Russia was helping Iran "I'm not going to get into how long it will take them, but there's no question but that they're on a path to achieve that." At their summit on Friday, Mr Bush raised concerns that Russia might be helping Iran to develop nuclear weapons. The Bush administration believes that the construction of the first Iranian nuclear reactor at Bushehr, with technical assistance from Moscow, represents the world's single biggest weapons proliferation problem. But Mr Putin defended Russia's contract to build a nuclear power plant in Iran as having only an "economic character" with no implications for weapons proliferation. The Russian president, for his part, said Moscow had concerns about American nuclear co-operation with North Korea and the development of certain missile programmes in Taiwan. Nuclear cuts The American and Russian leaders are to have further talks, in St Petersburg, following Friday's treaty signing. Arsenals and Treaties + 1972: US and USSR sign first arms pact, but weapons arsenals keep growing + 1986: Soviet stockpile reaches its height + 1987: Deal agreed to eliminate short and medium-range weapons + 1987-1993: USSR slashes short and medium-range weapons by half, the US reduces its arsenal by 72% + 1993: US signs a treaty to cut strategic long-range warheads with the nuclear states of the former Soviet Union Their agreement to reduce the number of nuclear warheads by two-thirds was the first major nuclear disarmament deal for almost 10 years. The treaty aims to cut the nuclear arsenals of each side from current levels of between 6,000 and 7,000 to between 1,700 and 2,200 over the next 10 years. As well as talks on arms and Iran, Mr Bush has been discussing economic ties between the US and Russia. Russia is hoping for US help to gain entry to the World Trade Organisation, but trade relations between the two have recently been marred by squabbles over poultry imports and US steel tariffs. St Petersburg, the former imperial capital of Russia, is Mr Putin's home town. Mr Bush will spend most of his time there sightseeing, before flying on to France and then Italy for the last leg of his European tour. ***************************************************************** 6 Water leak detected at Shizuoka nuclear reactor after restart KYODO NEWS SHIZUOKA, May 25, Kyodo - Just one day after resuming operations Friday, a nuclear reactor at a power station in Shizuoka Prefecture was shut down following the discovery of a radioactive water leak Saturday, plant operator Chubu Electric Power Co. said. No radiation has so far been leaked from the No. 2 reactor to the outside environment, the Nagoya-based regional utilities firm said. A patrol guard at the Hamaoka Nuclear Power Station found cooling water leaking from a welded spot of the valve for the No. 2 reactor's low-pressure core injection system at around 2:20 a.m. Saturday. The system is part of the emergency core cooling system that injects a large volume of water into the reactor core in the event of a major accident. Radioactive water, totaling around 600 cubic centimeters per minute, was seen dripping out of the valve, according to Chubu Electric. A manual shutdown procedure was begun at around 2:49 a.m. and the reactor was stopped at 4:34 a.m. At around 6:41 p.m., an internal valve was closed and the leak was halted just past 7 a.m., the company said. The company estimates some 20 liters of water was leaked, but it has yet to determine when the leak started. The power station in Hamaoka, located roughly 210 kilometers southwest of Tokyo, reported a pipe rupture and a water leak at its No. 1 reactor in November last year and shut it down. The No. 2 reactor, which is similarly structured, was also shut down at that time. It resumed operations Friday after a six-month break, and was supposed to start sending power Saturday. Before the resumption of operation, Chubu Electric said it conducted a leakage check on April 23 and confirmed no abnormality in the No. 2 reactor. In a report on the November incident, released in late April, the power company blamed structural defects for the ruptured pipe and an accumulation of platinum in a separate tube for the radioactive water leakage. The cause of the latest incident, which a company official described as a glitch rather than an accident, and the extent of damage are yet to be known. 2002 Kyodo News (c) Established 1945. ***************************************************************** 7 Nuke Plants Told to Be More Alert Las Vegas SUN: May 24, 2002 WASHINGTON- The nation's nuclear power plants have been placed on a heightened state of alert because of information gained by the intelligence community, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The intelligence did not specify that there is a threat directed against plants or outline any plot, NRC spokeswoman Beth Hayden said late Friday, but the agency sent a special advisory to 103 plants to be cautious. "This advisory is telling them to be on the lookout and to report anything suspicious to the operations center," Hayden said. She noted that since Sept. 11 the nuclear power plants have already been directed to increase security patrols, augment security forces, install barricades and look for suspicious people trying to conduct surveillance on the plant. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 8 Radioactive Leak Shuts Japan Reactor Las Vegas SUN May 25, 2002 TOKYO- A radioactive water leak forced officials to shut down a nuclear reactor at a troubled power plant in Japan on Saturday, just one day after it was brought on line following a six-month closure triggered by similar problems. About half a gallon of cooling water dripped from a pipe seam onto the floor in the No. 2 reactor at the Hamaoka plant before the problem was discovered, said Eichi Miyata, a spokesman at the Chubu Electric Power Co. He said the leak posed no danger to the outside environment or inspectors. It was the third accident in less than a year at the plant in Shizuoka prefecture state, about 120 miles southeast of Tokyo. On Nov. 9, Chubu found radioactive water dripping inside the No. 1 reactor. Two days earlier, a small amount of radioactive steam was found leaking from a pipe that ruptured during a routine test of a pressure injection system. The company has said neither of those leaks posed any radiation danger. At the time, it shut both the No. 1 and No. 2 reactors for inspection. The No. 1 reactor has remained off line, No. 2 resumed Friday and had been scheduled to begin supplying electricity on Saturday. Miyata said the company was investigating the cause of the latest accident and could not say when the reactor might be operational again. The plant's third and fourth reactors were still running, he added. Japan relies on nuclear power for 30 percent of its electricity. However, the public has become increasingly wary of nuclear power since a 1999 radiation leak at a fuel-reprocessing plant killed two workers. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 9 Group looks at ways to cut cost of NW's only nuclear plant The Seattle Times: Saturday, May 25, 2002, 12:00 a.m. Pacific By The Associated Press RICHLAND — A committee will study whether the region's only commercial reactor should be run by another nuclear-plant operator or sold — a "remote possibility" — an Energy Northwest official said. A consultant recently reported the 1,150-megawatt Columbia Generating Station near Richland is likely to become increasingly more expensive to run than plants where operations are being merged. "We have to slim down someplace," John Cockburn, chairman of Energy Northwest's executive board, said Thursday. Energy Northwest, a public-power consortium that runs the reactor, would prefer to continue operating it but has a responsibility to examine ways to keep the plant competitive, including a potential sale. "It's a remote possibility," Cockburn said. "There's so many complications. I sense about zero enthusiasm for selling it." Energy Northwest is one of just nine nuclear-plant operators that run only one generating station. Since 1998, nearly one-fifth of the country's 103 nuclear plants have been sold. In a recent report, the consulting team of Goldschmidt-Imeson of Portland said the industry thinks the Columbia plant could be run effectively with 100 to 200 fewer employees. Energy Northwest cut its work force from about 1,660 in 1995 to about 1,000 in 2000. That has increased to about 1,100 with expansion of non-nuclear business and increased security. Now is the perfect time for consolidation because the plant's operating performance is near its peak, Cockburn said. In its report, Goldschmidt-Imeson found substantial interest in Columbia. "It's a valuable asset," Diana Goldschmidt said. "The Columbia Generating Station would be a tasty morsel on the market." The Bonneville Power Administration, which buys and sells all of the power generated at Columbia, is backing Energy Northwest's efforts to explore management alternatives. Benefits of being part of a multiple-plant operation include reduced employee costs by shuttling workers between reactors to perform work when it's needed. Other benefits include increased buying power for purchasing nuclear fuel, reducing overhead, and greater opportunity for employee advancement. Goldschmidt-Imeson said several utilities have expressed interest in a contract to operate Columbia, although they would prefer eventually to own it. The Energy Northwest study committee will begin meeting next week to determine what such a contract might look like. Energy Northwest is a 16-member public-power group formerly known as the Washington Public Power Supply System. Copyright © 2002 The Seattle Times Company ***************************************************************** 10 Davis-Besse Nuclear reactor fix may cost $300 million Beacon Journal | 05/24/2002 | By JIM MACKINNON Akron Beacon Journal And you thought your dentist charged a lot. The cost of getting rid of two cavities at FirstEnergy's Davis-Besse nuclear power plant could approach $300 million. The Akron utility yesterday announced it will spend between $55 million and $75 million to buy and install an unused reactor vessel head to replace the boric acid-damaged one sitting atop Davis-Besse's reactor. The utility said it bought the potential replacement yesterday and hopes to get it in place sometime in the last three months of the year. In addition, the company said it may spend as much as $70 million more in maintenance and upgrade projects at Davis-Besse. That puts the potential price tag for the damage and upgrades as high as $290 million if the plant stays closed through the end of December. The new figure includes the estimated cost for FirstEnergy to purchase electricity from other sources to make up for the loss of Davis-Besse. The company estimates it will pay as much as $20 million a month for power in July and August, when air-conditioning demand peaks, and as much as $15 million in each of the other months the reactor stays shut down. Earlier estimates put the cost to repair the damaged vessel head at $120 million. Davis-Besse, in Oak Harbor east of Toledo along Lake Erie, was shut down in mid-February for refueling and a safety inspection and has remained shut down since the acid damage was found in March. The replacement vessel head, which is not radioactive, will come from the never-completed Midland Nuclear Plant in Midland, Mich. FirstEnergy initially had wanted to repair the damage at Davis-Besse, but NRC staff said they would prefer the vessel head be replaced, not fixed. ``Based on our analysis, replacing the head is our preferred option for returning Davis-Besse to safe and reliable operation,'' Lew W. Myers, chief operating officer for FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Co., said in a prepared statement. ``The repair plan now becomes the contingency plan,'' said FirstEnergy spokesman Richard Wilkins. Installing a replacement head appears to be the better way to go, said David Lochbaum, the nuclear power expert with the Union of Concerned Scientists. ``It seems to be a simpler, safer option than the patch,'' he said. While Lochbaum said he hasn't seen the technical specifications for the potential replacement head, the part will have to be modified to work with the Davis-Besse reactor. The NRC will be watching every step of the way, said spokesman Jan Strasma. ``Essentially, we will be looking at how the Midland vessel compares to the Davis-Besse vessel and if it meets all of the requirements,'' he said. ``We have to approve what they want to do.'' The vessel head is a massive piece of machined steel 17 feet in diameter and 7 feet high weighing more than 100 tons. It sits on top of the reactor, covering the radioactive fuel core. Boric acid, part of the reactor coolant, leaked on top of the Davis-Besse vessel head and created two cavities, one of which went almost entirely through more than six inches of steel. A thin inside lining of stainless steel prevented what is called a ``loss of coolant accident'' that would have released hot, radioactive coolant into the containment chamber that surrounds the reactor. The stainless steel lining was not designed to hold in the coolant, and nuclear power opponents said the plant by luck avoided the worst nuclear incident in the United States since the partial meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979. The type of damage found at Davis-Besse has never been seen in a U.S. reactor, and the NRC says the nation's other nuclear power plants don't appear to be at risk of developing similar cavities. FirstEnergy will have to cut an opening at the Midland plant to remove the vessel head there, and also cut an opening in the Davis-Besse containment building to install it, Wilkins said. Extra security precautions will be taken during the process, he said. FirstEnergy will transport the Midland vessel head either by truck, train, barge or a combination of all three, Wilkins said. The damaged vessel head eventually will be cut up and taken to a low-level radioactive waste site, he said. Jim Mackinnon can be reached at 330-996-3544 or jmackinnon@thebeaconjournal.com [jmackinnon@thebeaconjournal.com] ***************************************************************** 11 Nuclear stations on highest alert: Catawba plant following NRC orders after week of attack warnings The Herald By Jason Cato [jcato@heraldonline.com] The Herald (Published May 25‚ 2002) LAKE WYLIE - Security measures at the Catawba Nuclear Station have been altered in light of a Nuclear Regulatory Commission warning for the Memorial Day weekend, but the plant already was under the tightest possible protection, said a Duke Power official Saturday. "We have been on the highest level of security that we can be since Sept. 11," said Duke Power spokeswoman Sandra Magee. "We are definitely maintaining that level and do change our security in accordance to these types of warnings." On Friday, NRC officials issued a warning for nuclear stations to be on a heightened state of alert because of information gained by the intelligence community. The intelligence did not specify that there is a threat directed against plants or outline any plot, NRC spokeswoman Beth Hayden said, but the agency sent a special advisory to 103 plants to be cautious. "This advisory is telling them to be on the lookout and to report anything suspicious to the operations center," Hayden said. Hayden noted that since Sept. 11, the nation's nuclear power plants already have been directed to increase security patrols, augment security forces, install barricades and look for suspicious people trying to conduct surveillance on the plant. During the past week, warnings have been issued about the possibility of numerous terrorist attacks besides attempts on the nation's nuclear plants. Those warnings included possible efforts by suicide bombers, attacks on subways and railroads and the use of weapons of mass destruction. Vice President Dick Cheney even made a public statement declaring he was certain that terrorists wanted to attack the United States again and were attempting to acquire "the deadliest of all weapons." Magee said officials with Duke Power, which operates the Catawba plant on Lake Wylie and the McGuire nuclear plant on Lake Norman north of Charlotte, were aware of all of the warnings and of Cheney's statements. "As an industry, we are very aware of what's going on in the nation and are staying on our toes," Magee said. Contact Jason Cato at 329-4071 or jcato@heraldonline.com. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Copyright © 2002 The Herald, South Carolina ***************************************************************** 12 New security for closed nuke plants Nuclear Regulartory Commission calls measures ‘prudent’ [Reuters] WASHINGTON, May 24 — In response to general terror threats against the United States, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Friday ordered extra security measures to protect spent fuel stored in water-filled pools at U.S. commercial nuclear power plants that are being decommissioned.Military experts are worried that terror groups may try to wrap such radioactive material around so-called “dirty” bombs, which when exploded could contaminate a large area in a city. The NRC calls the measures ‘prudent, interim steps to address the current threat environment in a consistent manner.’ THE NRC said its order also applied to General Electric’s nuclear fuel storage facility in Morris, Illinois, which was issued an operating permit by the agency in 1967. Some of the requirements formalize security measures the NRC called for after the Sept. 11 attacks, but additional safety steps have been ordered following a comprehensive security review by the agency. “The commission views these compensatory measures as prudent, interim steps to address the current threat environment in a consistent manner,” the agency said. After a nuclear power plant is closed and removed from service, it must be decommissioned. This involves removal and disposal of radioactive components and materials, such as the reactor and associated piping, and the cleanup of radioactive or hazardous contamination that may remain in the buildings and on the site. Enhanced security will required at rectors already decommissioned, including the 849-megawatt Shoreham plant in New York and the Fort St. Vrain facility in Colorado. There are also 17 power reactors either in or entering the decommissioning phase, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute. The plants are: Dresden 1, Illinois; Fermi 1, Michigan; Humboldt Bay, California; Indian Point 1, New York; LaCrosse, Wisconsin; Millstone 1, Connecticut; Peach Bottom 1 and Three Mile Island 2, Pennsylvania; and Zion 1 and 2, Illinois. Other plants are: Connecticut Yankee, Connecticut; Rancho Seco and San Onofre, California; Saxton, Pennsylvania; Yankee Rowe, Massachusetts; Trojan, Oregon; and Big Rock Point, Michigan. U.S. tightens nuclear plant security The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this ***************************************************************** 13 Fuel Rods and Brass Tacks May 26, 2002 By KIRK JOHNSON BUCHANAN, N.Y., May 23 — For many years, the argument over the Indian Point nuclear power plant here in New York City's northern suburbs was one of the great evergreens of Northeastern environmentalism. It could always be counted on and it never really changed. The positions on both sides, repeated by rote for decades, became a liturgy that was sure to inflame passions without much risk of anything actually happening as a result. One side said that the plant was unsafe because residents could not be easily evacuated in the event of an emergency, and that its owners were incompetent. The other side said that the reactors were vital to the power grid and that opponents were overwrought and emotional. September's terrorist attacks added a new note to the chorus, but left the strident rhetoric largely intact. That dynamic is changing. Now, a conversation about Indian Point is likely to drift toward the economic fallout from Enron. People who oppose the plant have also begun to lay out specific horse trades they might be willing to make. Some environmentalists say, for instance, that more air pollution and so-called greenhouse gas emissions, neither of which is a big issue in the case of nuclear power, would be a reasonable price if closing Indian Point meant that the region's old oil-burning plants — many considered to be on their last legs — had to keep running. Both sides are grinding out numbers and studies as never before. Other new variables have entered the picture as well, like the proposed Millennium Pipeline that would carry natural gas into the New York City area. Many residents in this part of New York vehemently oppose the pipeline, which is stalled by environmental and safety concerns. But both sides in the new plant debate concede that if nuclear power were taken out of the region's mix of energy-making fuels, natural gas would become more crucial than ever. What has happened, energy experts say, is that the members of the Indian Point debate team — supporters and opponents alike — have been forced, in a way, to grow up. Although most environmentalists and industry officials say the odds are still long that the plant will close any time soon, playing "what if" is no longer the purely theoretical parlor game it once was, and that has made all the difference. Ideology and philosophy are out; nuts and bolts and real-world implications are in. "When you begin to think through the actual closing of a plant, a lot of issues come up," said Robert H. Socolow, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Princeton, who studies energy issues. "Some are nightmarish. They're all difficult." Certainly, security is still the driving force, especially in the last few weeks since the Bush administration issued a warning about a possible terrorist strike this summer on an American nuclear plant. And the shift toward practical terms and arguments does not make the positions any less sharp or passionately held. But it does alter the terrain. From its once-narrow base as an environmental issue, the question of nuclear power in New York City's backyard has expanded to envelop almost every aspect of how energy is bought, sold and distributed. Any discussion of electricity economics, energy conservation — even the predictions about the length of the recession, which has reduced energy demand since fall — eventually turns to Indian Point's twin brown domes on the banks of the Hudson River, 30 miles north of the George Washington Bridge. Some of these new questions are huge and profound: do deregulated energy markets really work, and how exactly would they deal with something like the closing of Indian Point? Is there a threshold at which the potentially huge costs of decommissioning the plant would become too high for society, or the region's economy, to bear? Other questions are small and profound: should the added security costs needed to operate a nuclear plant be borne by the public or the industry? And if high security is a permanent new cost of business, is it still an economically efficient way to make electricity? "Things are part of the mix now that never were before," said Jim Steets, a spokesman for the Entergy Corporation, the company based in New Orleans that owns and operates Indian Point. Among the most novel of the arguments in the new Indian Point playbook is that closing the plant might actually fix some things that are wrong with New York's electricity system, most of which have nothing at all to do with terrorist threats. One big issue in electricity economics right now is a money drought. Since the collapse of Enron last year, investors who are still bullish on power plant investments in New York have become about as hard to find as Manhattan parking spaces. Seven plants have received regulatory approval around the state, but only one is under construction and no one is sure how many will go forward. The answer, some people say, is to close Indian Point. Removing 2,000 megawatts from the system, plant opponents say — enough to power about two million average homes — would crimp the regional electricity supply and send a signal to Wall Street, which would see an opportunity to make money and so throw open the money spigot. The plants on the drawing board would be built and Indian Point's electricity gap, they say, would be resolved. Case closed. "The loss of Indian Point Units 2 and 3 would allow market forces to essentially trump any Enron effect," said Alex Matthiessen, the executive director of Riverkeeper Inc., a nonprofit conservation group based in Garrison, N.Y., less than 10 miles from the plant. "It's essentially a supply-and-demand question." Other experts say that such a mechanism might in fact work, as odd as it sounds, but that it would be a far more wrenching process than Mr. Matthiessen and other advocates suggest because the triggering event would not be the plant's closing, but the higher electricity prices that would result. Closing alone would not be enough. "Price is the only signal the market understands," said Dr. Rajat K. Deb, the president of LCG Consulting, an energy advisory firm based in Los Altos, Calif. Dr. Deb said that high prices would also have to remain high for a long time to convince investors that they were not just a blip. "But then the question becomes whether that is politically sustainable when it starts hurting the economy and people lose jobs," he said. Underlying all the possible plans for Indian Point is the question of time. Mr. Steets at Entergy said if the plant were to be shut down tomorrow, at least five years of cooling would be required before the radioactive fuel could be safely moved. During that time — if not longer because of the uncertainties about long-term storage — the plant would contribute no electricity, but might still be just as much of a terrorist target because of the fuel inside, so little would actually be gained, he said. Plant opponents, on the other hand, say that there is in New York a window of opportunity that might not come again. A year ago, they say, when the news was filled with talk about the possibility of a California-style energy crisis descending on New York, the idea of taking Indian Point off-line would have been unthinkable. Then new emergency supplies were built in the city, and a recession, compounded by the World Trade Center attack, reduced demand. It's that temporary slack period, they argue, that must be seized. The other trick, people involved in the debate say, is to calculate the risks in the new Indian Point equation — specifically, which factors can be controlled and which cannot. If the air got dirtier from burning more oil or coal, what would that mean? "There are in fact significant health risks from coal plant emissions — they're chronic in nature, and they're serious, but nowhere near as serious as if Indian Point was attacked," said Daniel Rosenblum, a senior lawyer at the Pace Law School Energy Project, an advocacy group that works for sustainable energy and conservation. "And we can do things about coal plant emissions." Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company | Permissions | ***************************************************************** 14 Another leak found at Hamaoka N-plant Daily Yomiuri On-Line Yomiuri Shimbun A leaky pipe was discovered early Saturday in an emergency core cooling system (ECCS) attached to a nuclear reactor in Hamaokacho, Shizuoka Prefecture, prompting a reactor shutdown, Chubu Electric Power Co. officials said later in the day. Officials said about 600cc of water passed through the leak each minute, but the surrounding area was not contaminated. The leak at the Hamaoka Nuclear Power Plant's No. 2 reactor was discovered by an employee during a patrol of the facility at about 2:20 a.m., according to the officials. Chubu Electric, the operator of the plant, initiated a manual shutdown about 30 minutes after the leak was reported, suspending reactor function at 4:34 a.m., the officials said. The utility company officials said the water leak was found at a weld of a valve in the reactor's low-pressure core injection system. The valve is usually closed during operation, but radioactive water sometimes passes through it due to water pressure inside the reactor. The Hamaoka plant's No. 1 reactor suffered a leak in its ECCS in November, and the No. 2 reactor, which has a similar design, was shut down at the time for inspections. On Friday afternoon, just hours before the most recent leak, it resumed operations after having passed safety checks and receiving the go-ahead from local governments. Nuclear power plants usually have a number of welded pipes and valves, and accidents are most likely to occur in these areas. Inspections for possible water leakage are carried out every 10 years. The spot at which the leak was discovered Saturday was last checked in 1997. The No. 2 reactor was first installed 24 years ago, and some observers have said the inspection system should be reviewed to prevent further accidents. Copyright 2002 The Yomiuri Shimbun ***************************************************************** 15 Nuclear Nightmares May 26, 2002 By BILL KELLER Not If But When Everybody who spends much time thinking about nuclear terrorism can give you a scenario, something diabolical and, theoretically, doable. Michael A. Levi, a researcher at the Federation of American Scientists, imagines a homemade nuclear explosive device detonated inside a truck passing through one of the tunnels into Manhattan. The blast would crater portions of the New York skyline, barbecue thousands of people instantly, condemn thousands more to a horrible death from radiation sickness and -- by virtue of being underground -- would vaporize many tons of concrete and dirt and river water into an enduring cloud of lethal fallout. Vladimir Shikalov, a Russian nuclear physicist who helped clean up after the 1986 Chernobyl accident, envisioned for me an attack involving highly radioactive cesium-137 loaded into some kind of homemade spraying device, and a target that sounded particularly unsettling when proposed across a Moscow kitchen table -- Disneyland. In this case, the human toll would be much less ghastly, but the panic that would result from contaminating the Magic Kingdom with a modest amount of cesium -- Shikalov held up his teacup to illustrate how much -- would probably shut the place down for good and constitute a staggering strike at Americans' sense of innocence. Shikalov, a nuclear enthusiast who thinks most people are ridiculously squeamish about radiation, added that personally he would still be happy to visit Disneyland after the terrorists struck, although he would pack his own food and drink and destroy his clothing afterward. Another Russian, Dmitry Borisov, a former official of his country's atomic energy ministry, conjured a suicidal pilot. (Suicidal pilots, for obvious reasons, figure frequently in these fantasies.) In Borisov's scenario, the hijacker dive-bombs an Aeroflot jetliner into the Kurchatov Institute, an atomic research center in a gentrifying neighborhood of Moscow, which I had just visited the day before our conversation. The facility contains 26 nuclear reactors of various sizes and a huge accumulation of radioactive material. The effect would probably be measured more in property values than in body bags, but some people say the same about Chernobyl. Maybe it is a way to tame a fearsome subject by Hollywoodizing it, or maybe it is a way to drive home the dreadful stakes in the arid-sounding business of nonproliferation, but in several weeks of talking to specialists here and in Russia about the threats an amateur evildoer might pose to the homeland, I found an unnerving abundance of such morbid creativity. I heard a physicist wonder whether a suicide bomber with a pacemaker would constitute an effective radiation weapon. (I'm a little ashamed to say I checked that one, and the answer is no, since pacemakers powered by plutonium have not been implanted for the past 20 years.) I have had people theorize about whether hijackers who took over a nuclear research laboratory could improvise an actual nuclear explosion on the spot. (Expert opinions differ, but it's very unlikely.) I've been instructed how to disperse plutonium into the ventilation system of an office building. The realistic threats settle into two broad categories. The less likely but far more devastating is an actual nuclear explosion, a great hole blown in the heart of New York or Washington, followed by a toxic fog of radiation. This could be produced by a black-market nuclear warhead procured from an existing arsenal. Russia is the favorite hypothetical source, although Pakistan, which has a program built on shady middlemen and covert operations, should not be overlooked. Or the explosive could be a homemade device, lower in yield than a factory nuke but still creating great carnage. The second category is a radiological attack, contaminating a public place with radioactive material by packing it with conventional explosives in a ''dirty bomb'' by dispersing it into the air or water or by sabotaging a nuclear facility. By comparison with the task of creating nuclear fission, some of these schemes would be almost childishly simple, although the consequences would be less horrifying: a panicky evacuation, a gradual increase in cancer rates, a staggeringly expensive cleanup, possibly the need to demolish whole neighborhoods. Al Qaeda has claimed to have access to dirty bombs, which is unverified but entirely plausible, given that the makings are easily gettable. Nothing is really new about these perils. The means to inflict nuclear harm on America have been available to rogues for a long time. Serious studies of the threat of nuclear terror date back to the 1970's. American programs to keep Russian nuclear ingredients from falling into murderous hands -- one of the subjects high on the agenda in President Bush's meetings in Moscow this weekend -- were hatched soon after the Soviet Union disintegrated a decade ago. When terrorists get around to trying their first nuclear assault, as you can be sure they will, there will be plenty of people entitled to say I told you so. All Sept. 11 did was turn a theoretical possibility into a felt danger. All it did was supply a credible cast of characters who hate us so much they would thrill to the prospect of actually doing it -- and, most important in rethinking the probabilities, would be happy to die in the effort. All it did was give our nightmares legs. And of the many nightmares animated by the attacks, this is the one with pride of place in our experience and literature -- and, we know from his own lips, in Osama bin Laden's aspirations. In February, Tom Ridge, the Bush administration's homeland security chief, visited The Times for a conversation, and at the end someone asked, given all the things he had to worry about -- hijacked airliners, anthrax in the mail, smallpox, germs in crop-dusters -- what did he worry about most? He cupped his hands prayerfully and pressed his fingertips to his lips. ''Nuclear,'' he said simply. My assignment here was to stare at that fear and inventory the possibilities. How afraid should we be, and what of, exactly? I'll tell you at the outset, this was not one of those exercises in which weighing the fears and assigning them probabilities laid them to rest. I'm not evacuating Manhattan, but neither am I sleeping quite as soundly. As I was writing this early one Saturday in April, the floor began to rumble and my desk lamp wobbled precariously. Although I grew up on the San Andreas Fault, the fact that New York was experiencing an earthquake was only my second thought. The best reason for thinking it won't happen is that it hasn't happened yet, and that is terrible logic. The problem is not so much that we are not doing enough to prevent a terrorist from turning our atomic knowledge against us (although we are not). The problem is that there may be no such thing as ''enough.'' 25,000 Warheads, and It Only Takes One My few actual encounters with the Russian nuclear arsenal are all associated with Thomas Cochran. Cochran, a physicist with a Tennessee lilt and a sense of showmanship, is the director of nuclear issues for the Natural Resources Defense Council, which promotes environmental protection and arms control. In 1989, when glasnost was in flower, Cochran persuaded the Soviet Union to open some of its most secret nuclear venues to a roadshow of American scientists and congressmen and invited along a couple of reporters. We visited a Soviet missile cruiser bobbing in the Black Sea and drank vodka with physicists and engineers in the secret city where the Soviets first produced plutonium for weapons. Not long ago Cochran took me cruising through the Russian nuclear stockpile again, this time digitally. The days of glasnost theatrics are past, and this is now the only way an outsider can get close to the places where Russians store and deploy their nuclear weapons. On his office computer in Washington, Cochran has installed a detailed United States military map of Russia and superimposed upon it high-resolution satellite photographs. We spent part of a morning mouse-clicking from missile-launch site to submarine base, zooming in like voyeurs and contemplating the possibility that a terrorist could figure out how to steal a nuclear warhead from one of these places. ''Here are the bunkers,'' Cochran said, enlarging an area the size of a football stadium holding a half-dozen elongated igloos. We were hovering over a site called Zhukovka, in western Russia. We were pleased to see it did not look ripe for a hijacking. ''You see the bunkers are fenced, and then the whole thing is fenced again,'' Cochran said. ''Just outside you can see barracks and a rifle range for the guards. These would be troops of the 12th Main Directorate. Somebody's not going to walk off the street and get a Russian weapon out of this particular storage area.'' In the popular culture, nuclear terror begins with the theft of a nuclear weapon. Why build one when so many are lying around for the taking? And stealing tends to make better drama than engineering. Thus the stolen nuke has been a staple in the literature at least since 1961, when Ian Fleming published ''Thunderball,'' in which the malevolent Spectre (the Special Executive for Counterintelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion, a strictly mercenary and more technologically sophisticated precursor to al Qaeda) pilfers a pair of atom bombs from a crashed NATO aircraft. In the movie version of Tom Clancy's thriller ''The Sum of All Fears,'' due in theaters this week, neo-Nazis get their hands on a mislaid Israeli nuke, and viewers will get to see Baltimore blasted to oblivion. Eight countries are known to have nuclear weapons -- the United States, Russia, China, Great Britain, France, India, Pakistan and Israel. David Albright, a nuclear-weapons expert and president of the Institute for Science and International Security, points out that Pakistan's program in particular was built almost entirely through black markets and industrial espionage, aimed at circumventing Western export controls. Defeating the discipline of nuclear nonproliferation is ingrained in the culture. Disaffected individuals in Pakistan (which, remember, was intimate with the Taliban) would have no trouble finding the illicit channels or the rationalization for diverting materials, expertise -- even, conceivably, a warhead. But the mall of horrors is Russia, because it currently maintains something like 15,000 of the world's (very roughly) 25,000 nuclear warheads, ranging in destructive power from about 500 kilotons, which could kill a million people, down to the one-kiloton land mines that would be enough to make much of Manhattan uninhabitable. Russia is a country with sloppy accounting, a disgruntled military, an audacious black market and indigenous terrorists. There is anecdotal reason to worry. Gen. Igor Valynkin, commander of the 12th Main Directorate of the Russian Ministry of Defense, the Russian military sector in charge of all nuclear weapons outside the Navy, said recently that twice in the past year terrorist groups were caught casing Russian weapons-storage facilities. But it's hard to know how seriously to take this. When I made the rounds of nuclear experts in Russia earlier this year, many were skeptical of these near-miss anecdotes, saying the security forces tend to exaggerate such incidents to dramatize their own prowess (the culprits are always caught) and enhance their budgets. On the whole, Russian and American military experts sound not very alarmed about the vulnerability of Russia's nuclear warheads. They say Russia takes these weapons quite seriously, accounts for them rigorously and guards them carefully. There is no confirmed case of a warhead being lost. Strategic warheads, including the 4,000 or so that President Bush and President Vladimir Putin have agreed to retire from service, tend to be stored in hard-to-reach places, fenced and heavily guarded, and their whereabouts are not advertised. The people who guard them are better paid and more closely vetted than most Russian soldiers. Eugene E. Habiger, the four-star general who was in charge of American strategic weapons until 1998 and then ran nuclear antiterror programs for the Energy Department, visited several Russian weapons facilities in 1996 and 1997. He may be the only American who has actually entered a Russian bunker and inspected a warhead in situ. Habiger said he found the overall level of security comparable to American sites, although the Russians depend more on people than on technology to protect their nukes. The image of armed terrorist commandos storming a nuclear bunker is cinematic, but it's far more plausible to think of an inside job. No observer of the unraveling Russian military has much trouble imagining that a group of military officers, disenchanted by the humiliation of serving a spent superpower, embittered by the wretched conditions in which they spend much of their military lives or merely greedy, might find a way to divert a warhead to a terrorist for the right price. (The Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, infamous for such ruthless exploits as taking an entire hospital hostage, once hinted that he had an opportunity to buy a nuclear warhead from the stockpile.) The anecdotal evidence of desperation in the military is plentiful and disquieting. Every year the Russian press provides stories like that of the 19-year-old sailor who went on a rampage aboard an Akula-class nuclear submarine, killing eight people and threatening to blow up the boat and its nuclear reactor; or the five soldiers at Russia's nuclear-weapons test site who killed a guard, took a hostage and tried to hijack an aircraft, or the officers who reportedly stole five assault helicopters, with their weapons pods, and tried to sell them to North Korea. The Clinton administration found the danger of disgruntled nuclear caretakers worrisome enough that it considered building better housing for some officers in the nuclear rocket corps. Congress, noting that the United States does not build housing for its own officers, rejected the idea out of hand. If a terrorist did get his hands on a nuclear warhead, he would still face the problem of setting it off. American warheads are rigged with multiple PAL's ( ''permissive action links'') -- codes and self-disabling devices designed to frustrate an unauthorized person from triggering the explosion. General Habiger says that when he examined Russian strategic weapons he found the level of protection comparable to our own. ''You'd have to literally break the weapon apart to get into the gut,'' he told me. ''I would submit that a more likely scenario is that there'd be an attempt to get hold of a warhead and not explode the warhead but extract the plutonium or highly enriched uranium.'' In other words, it's easier to take the fuel and build an entire weapon from scratch than it is to make one of these things go off. Then again, Habiger is not an expert in physics or weapons design. Then again, the Russians would seem to have no obvious reason for misleading him about something that important. Then again, how many times have computer hackers hacked their way into encrypted computers we were assured were impregnable? Then again, how many computer hackers does al Qaeda have? This subject drives you in circles. The most troublesome gap in the generally reassuring assessment of Russian weapons security is those tactical nuclear warheads -- smaller, short-range weapons like torpedoes, depth charges, artillery shells, mines. Although their smaller size and greater number makes them ideal candidates for theft, they have gotten far less attention simply because, unlike all of our long-range weapons, they happen not to be the subject of any formal treaty. The first President Bush reached an informal understanding with President Gorbachev and then with President Yeltsin that both sides would gather and destroy thousands of tactical nukes. But the agreement included no inventories of the stockpiles, no outside monitoring, no verification of any kind. It was one of those trust-me deals that, in the hindsight of Sept. 11, amount to an enormous black hole in our security. Did I say earlier there are about 15,000 Russian warheads? That number includes, alongside the scrupulously counted strategic warheads in bombers, missiles and submarines, the commonly used estimate of 8,000 tactical warheads. But that figure is at best an educated guess. Other educated guesses of the tactical nukes in Russia go as low as 4,000 and as high as 30,000. We just don't know. We don't even know if the Russians know, since they are famous for doing things off the books. ''They'll tell you they've never lost a weapon,'' said Kenneth Luongo, director of a private antiproliferation group called the Russian-American Nuclear Security Advisory Council. ''The fact is, they don't know. And when you're talking about warhead counting, you don't want to miss even one.'' And where are they? Some are stored in reinforced concrete bunkers like the one at Zhukovka. Others are deployed. (When the submarine Kursk sank with its 118 crewmen in August 2000, the Americans' immediate fear was for its nuclear armaments. The standard load out for a submarine of that class includes a couple of nuclear torpedoes and possibly some nuclear depth charges.) Still others are supposed to be in the process of being dismantled under terms of various formal and informal arms-control agreements. Some are in transit. In short, we don't really know. The other worrying thing about tactical nukes is that their anti-use devices are believed to be less sophisticated, because the weapons were designed to be employed in the battlefield. Some of the older systems are thought to have no permissive action links at all, so that setting one off would be about as complicated as hot-wiring a car. Efforts to learn more about the state of tactical stockpiles have been frustrated by reluctance on both sides to let visitors in. Viktor Mikhailov, who ran the Russian Ministry of Atomic Energy until 1998 with a famous scorn for America's nonproliferation concerns, still insists that the United States programs to protect Russian nuclear weapons and material mask a secret agenda of intelligence-gathering. Americans, in turn, sometimes balk at reciprocal access, on the grounds that we are the ones paying the bills for all these safety upgrades, said the former Senator Sam Nunn, co-author of the main American program for securing Russian nukes, called Nunn-Lugar. ''We have to decide if we want the Russians to be transparent -- I'd call it cradle-to-grave transparency with nuclear material and inventories and so forth,'' Nunn told me. ''Then we have to open up more ourselves. This is a big psychological breakthrough we're talking about here, both for them and for us.'' The Garage Bomb One of the more interesting facts about the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima is that it had never been tested. All of those spectral images of nuclear coronas brightening the desert of New Mexico -- those were to perfect the more complicated plutonium device that was dropped on Nagasaki. ''Little Boy,'' the Hiroshima bomb, was a rudimentary gunlike device that shot one projectile of highly enriched uranium into another, creating a critical mass that exploded. The mechanics were so simple that few doubted it would work, so the first experiment was in the sky over Japan. The closest thing to a consensus I heard among those who study nuclear terror was this: building a nuclear bomb is easier than you think, probably easier than stealing one. In the rejuvenated effort to prevent a terrorist from striking a nuclear blow, this is where most of the attention and money are focused. A nuclear explosion of any kind ''is not a sort of high-probability thing,'' said a White House official who follows the subject closely. ''But getting your hands on enough fissile material to build an improvised nuclear device, to my mind, is the least improbable of them all, and particularly if that material is highly enriched uranium in metallic form. Then I'm really worried. That's the one.'' To build a nuclear explosive you need material capable of explosive nuclear fission, you need expertise, you need some equipment, and you need a way to deliver it. Delivering it to the target is, by most reckoning, the simplest part. People in the field generally scoff at the mythologized suitcase bomb; instead they talk of a ''conex bomb,'' using the name of those shack-size steel containers that bring most cargo into the United States. Two thousand containers enter America every hour, on trucks and trains and especially on ships sailing into more than 300 American ports. Fewer than 2 percent are cracked open for inspection, and the great majority never pass through an X-ray machine. Containers delivered to upriver ports like St. Louis or Chicago pass many miles of potential targets before they even reach customs. ''How do you protect against that?'' mused Habiger, the former chief of our nuclear arsenal. ''You can't. That's scary. That's very, very scary. You set one of those off in Philadelphia, in New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and you're going to kill tens of thousands of people, if not more.'' Habiger's view is ''It's not a matter of if; it's a matter of when'' -- which may explain why he now lives in San Antonio. The Homeland Security office has installed a plan to refocus inspections, making sure the 2 percent of containers that get inspected are those without a clear, verified itinerary. Detectors will be put into place at ports and other checkpoints. This is good, but it hardly represents an ironclad defense. The detection devices are a long way from being reliable. (Inconveniently, the most feared bomb component, uranium, is one of the hardest radioactive substances to detect because it does not emit a lot of radiation prior to fission.) The best way to stop nuclear terror, therefore, is to keep the weapons out of terrorist hands in the first place. The basic know-how of atom-bomb-building is half a century old, and adequate recipes have cropped up in physics term papers and high school science projects. The simplest design entails taking a lump of highly enriched uranium, about the size of a cantaloupe, and firing it down a big gun barrel into a second lump. Theodore Taylor, the nuclear physicist who designed both the smallest and the largest American nuclear-fission warheads before becoming a remorseful opponent of all things nuclear, told me he recently looked up ''atomic bomb'' in the World Book Encyclopedia in the upstate New York nursing home where he now lives, and he found enough basic information to get a careful reader started. ''It's accessible all over the place,'' he said. ''I don't mean just the basic principles. The sizes, specifications, things that work.'' Most of the people who talk about the ease of assembling a nuclear weapon, of course, have never actually built one. The most authoritative assessment I found was a paper, ''Can Terrorists Build Nuclear Weapons?'' written in 1986 by five experienced nuke-makers from the Los Alamos weapons laboratory. I was relieved to learn that fabricating a nuclear weapon is not something a lone madman -- even a lone genius -- is likely to pull off in his hobby room. The paper explained that it would require a team with knowledge of ''the physical, chemical and metallurgical properties of the various materials to be used, as well as characteristics affecting their fabrication; neutronic properties; radiation effects, both nuclear and biological; technology concerning high explosives and/or chemical propellants; some hydrodynamics; electrical circuitry; and others.'' Many of these skills are more difficult to acquire than, say, the ability to aim a jumbo jet. The schemers would also need specialized equipment to form the uranium, which is usually in powdered form, into metal, to cast it and machine it to fit the device. That effort would entail months of preparation, increasing the risk of detection, and it would require elaborate safeguards to prevent a mishap that, as the paper dryly put it, would ''bring the operation to a close.'' Still, the experts concluded, the answer to the question posed in the title, while qualified, was ''Yes, they can.'' David Albright, who worked as a United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq, says Saddam Hussein's unsuccessful crash program to build a nuclear weapon in 1990 illustrates how a single bad decision can mean a huge setback. Iraq had extracted highly enriched uranium from research-reactor fuel and had, maybe, barely enough for a bomb. But the manager in charge of casting the metal was so afraid the stuff would spill or get contaminated that he decided to melt it in tiny batches. As a result, so much of the uranium was wasted that he ended up with too little for a bomb. ''You need good managers and organizational people to put the elements together,'' Albright said. ''If you do a straight-line extrapolation, terrorists will all get nuclear weapons. But they make mistakes.'' On the other hand, many experts underestimate the prospect of a do-it-yourself bomb because they are thinking too professionally. All of our experience with these weapons is that the people who make them (states, in other words) want them to be safe, reliable, predictable and efficient. Weapons for the American arsenal are designed to survive a trip around the globe in a missile, to be accident-proof, to produce a precisely specified blast. But there are many corners you can cut if you are content with a big, ugly, inefficient device that would make a spectacular impression. If your bomb doesn't need to fit in a suitcase (and why should it?) or to endure the stress of a missile launch; if you don't care whether the explosive power realizes its full potential; if you're willing to accept some risk that the thing might go off at the wrong time or might not go off at all, then the job of building it is immeasurably simplified. ''As you get smarter, you realize you can get by with less,'' Albright said. ''You can do it in facilities that look like barns, garages, with simple machine tools. You can do it with 10 to 15 people, not all Ph.D.'s, but some engineers, technicians. Our judgment is that a gun-type device is well within the capability of a terrorist organization.'' All the technological challenges are greatly simplified if terrorists are in league with a country -- a place with an infrastructure. A state is much better suited to hire expertise (like dispirited scientists from decommissioned nuclear installations in the old Soviet Union) or to send its own scientists for M.I.T. degrees. Thus Tom Cochran said his greatest fear is what you might call a bespoke nuke -- terrorists stealing a quantity of weapons-grade uranium and taking it to Iraq or Iran or Libya, letting the scientists and engineers there fashion it into an elementary weapon and then taking it away for a delivery that would have no return address. That leaves one big obstacle to the terrorist nuke-maker: the fissile material itself. To be reasonably sure of a nuclear explosion, allowing for some material being lost in the manufacturing process, you need roughly 50 kilograms -- 110 pounds -- of highly enriched uranium. (For a weapon, more than 90 percent of the material should consist of the very unstable uranium-235 isotope.) Tom Cochran, the master of visual aids, has 15 pounds of depleted uranium that he keeps in a Coke can; an eight-pack would be plenty to build a bomb. The world is awash in the stuff. Frank von Hippel, a Princeton physicist and arms-control advocate, has calculated that between 1,300 and 2,100 metric tons of weapons-grade uranium exists -- at the low end, enough for 26,000 rough-hewed bombs. The largest stockpile is in Russia, which Senator Joseph Biden calls ''the candy store of candy stores.'' Until a decade ago, Russian officials say, no one worried much about the safety of this material. Viktor Mikhailov, who ran the atomic energy ministry and now presides over an affiliated research institute, concedes there were glaring lapses. ''The safety of nuclear materials was always on our minds, but the focus was on intruders,'' he said. ''The system had never taken account of the possibility that these carefully screened people in the nuclear sphere could themselves represent a danger. The system was not designed to prevent a danger from within.'' Then came the collapse of the Soviet Union and, in the early 90's, a few frightening cases of nuclear materials popping up on the black market. If you add up all the reported attempts to sell highly enriched uranium or plutonium, even including those that have the scent of security-agency hype and those where the material was of uncertain quality, the total amount of material still falls short of what a bomb-maker would need to construct a single explosive. But Yuri G. Volodin, the chief of safeguards at Gosatomnadzor, the Russian nuclear regulatory agency, told me his inspectors still discover one or two instances of attempted theft a year, along with dozens of violations of the regulations for storing and securing nuclear material. And as he readily concedes: ''These are the detected cases. We can't talk about the cases we don't know.'' Alexander Pikayev, a former aide to the Defense Committee of the Russian Duma, said: ''The vast majority of installations now have fences. But you know Russians. If you walk along the perimeter, you can see a hole in the fence, because the employees want to come and go freely.'' The bulk of American investment in nuclear safety goes to lock the stuff up at the source. That is clearly the right priority. Other programs are devoted to blending down the highly enriched uranium to a diluted product unsuitable for weapons but good as reactor fuel. The Nuclear Threat Initiative, financed by Ted Turner and led by Nunn, is studying ways to double the rate of this diluting process. Still, after 10 years of American subsidies, only 41 percent of Russia's weapon-usable material has been secured, according to the United States Department of Energy. Russian officials said they can't even be sure how much exists, in part because the managers of nuclear facilities, like everyone else in the Soviet industrial complex, learned to cook their books. So the barn door is still pretty seriously ajar. We don't know whether any horses have gotten out. And it is not the only barn. William C. Potter, director of the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies and an expert in nuclear security in the former Soviet states, said the American focus on Russia has neglected other locations that could be tempting targets for a terrorist seeking bomb-making material. There is, for example, a bomb's worth of weapons-grade uranium at a site in Belarus, a country with an erratic president and an anti-American orientation. There is enough weapons-grade uranium for a bomb or two in Kharkiv, in Ukraine. Outside of Belgrade, in a research reactor at Vinca, sits sufficient material for a bomb -- and there it sat while NATO was bombarding the area. ''We need to avoid the notion that because the most material is in Russia, that's where we should direct all of our effort,'' Potter said. ''It's like assuming the bank robber will target Fort Knox because that's where the most gold is. The bank robber goes where the gold is most accessible.'' Weapons of Mass Disruption The first and, so far, only consummated act of nuclear terrorism took place in Moscow in 1995, and it was scarcely memorable. Chechen rebels obtained a canister of cesium, possibly from a hospital they had commandeered a few months before. They hid it in a Moscow park famed for its weekend flea market and called the press. No one was hurt. Authorities treated the incident discreetly, and a surge of panic quickly passed. The story came up in virtually every conversation I had in Russia about nuclear terror, usually to illustrate that even without splitting atoms and making mushroom clouds a terrorist could use radioactivity -- and the fear of it -- as a potent weapon. The idea that you could make a fantastic weapon out of radioactive material without actually producing a nuclear bang has been around since the infancy of nuclear weaponry. During World War II, American scientists in the Manhattan Project worried that the Germans would rain radioactive material on our troops storming the beaches on D-Day. Robert S. Norris, the biographer of the Manhattan Project director, Gen. Leslie R. Groves, told me that the United States took this threat seriously enough to outfit some of the D-Day soldiers with Geiger counters. Bill Keller is a Times columnist and a senior writer for the magazine. Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company | Permissions | ***************************************************************** 16 Soldier trys to bomb nuke plant Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 18:20:13 -0700 Fort Stewart soldier jailed in Florida on $5 million bond Police believe soldier tried to plant explosive device at power plant. Jacksonville, Fla., police arrested a Fort Stewart soldier Saturday after finding him armed, wearing black clothes and leaving a power plant where he allegedly left an explosive. Spc. Derek Lawrence Peterson, 27, is being held on a $5 million bond by the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office Department of Corrections. He has been charged with attempting to detonate an explosive device. Peterson belongs to B Company, 1st Battalion, 64th Armor and has been stationed at Fort Stewart since March, said Dina McCain, a Fort Stewart spokeswoman. McCain said she did not know whether Army investigators were involved with the case and referred all questions about it to Jacksonville police. An officer with the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office stopped Peterson at 11:15 p.m. Saturday for speeding. The officer found Peterson wearing all black clothing and black, plastic pads on his knees and elbows, according to a sheriff's department report. He also had a pistol in a shoulder holster. The officer recognized Peterson's black 2002 Chevrolet Silverado pickup because he had noticed it backed up to the Florida Power and Light station's main gate 30 minutes earlier as he drove to assist another officer. The officer searched Peterson's truck and found a 12-inch knife, a six-inch knife, a 12-gauge shotgun, shotgun shells, .45-caliber bullets, four ammo magazines, a six-volt battery, duct tape, speaker wire and plastic from an explosive device, the report said. After being informed of his rights, wrote arresting officer D.F. Valiante, "the suspect advised me that he was on the power plant property to practice recon tactics." Police followed footprints on a dirt road at the power plant and found an explosive device underneath the power lines, the report said. Peterson allegedly told police he had placed a Hoffman explosive device, equal in power to a half-stick of dynamite. He had planned to detonate the explosive but was worried that he would be injured in the blast, the report said. Instead, Peterson removed a six-volt battery and threw it into the woods. A bomb squad disposed of the explosive. Peterson's next court date is June 4. He is not allowed visitors at the jail, according to the corrections department. Military reporter Noelle Phillips can be reached at phillips@savannahnow.com or 652-0366. http://www.savannahnow.com/stories/051602/LOCsoldierarrest.shtml ***************************************************************** 17 Nuclear plant blueprints found on street May 25, 2002 Nuclear plant blueprints found on street 'If it's nothing, it's nothing. If it's something, we have to do something about it' - safety official: No risk, Bruce Power says Stewart Bell and Diane Francis National Post Documents, including copies of diagrams used in the construction of the Bruce nuclear station on Lake Huron, were turned over to police. TORONTO - Blueprints for the Bruce nuclear power plant have turned up discarded on a street north of Toronto, triggering a review by Canada's nuclear safety watchdog. Officials confirmed the box of documents, including more than a dozen copies of diagrams used in the construction of the Bruce B plant, were found on a road in Richmond Hill and handed over to local police. The company that runs the plant said the plans, which date back to 1978, when the site was under construction, show only the location of light fixtures at the nuclear generator, near Owen Sound. But with nuclear plants on alert since the Sept. 11 attacks and U.S. officials warning that additional terrorist strikes are imminent, the mysterious appearance of the documents is being treated with caution. "We want to see what they are," said Jim Leveque, a spokesman for the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, an independent federal agency. "We don't know what they are but our agent, our investigator, is looking at them now with other authorities." The documents were found on a suburban street on Thursday. Police said they have no idea how they got there. They are drawings not of the plant itself but of the electrical lighting grid within the plant, police said. "We don't have any concerns about them," said Superintendent Gord Smyth of the York Regional Police. He said they had been returned to the Bruce plant's corporate security department. Bruce Power, which operates the plant's four Candu reactors, said it had contacted the Ontario Provincial Police and the nuclear safety commission but said the papers were unclassified and did not pose a security risk. "It's a routine reaction. Documents get found somehow and a citizen picks up the box and says 'this belongs to somebody else.' If it's nothing, it's nothing. If it's something, we have to do something about it," Mr. Leveque said. "They probably want to look and see what are these things, what are the dates on them, what are they in fact, how detailed are these things or are they just schematics, what do they tell you, what do they tell somebody who has them? "They want to look at it to see what would somebody very knowledgeable be able to get from them, and that's where the security concern might be. And then again there may not be a concern at all." The company said it did not know where the plans came from but suggested they may have been discarded by a contractor, adding there was a landfill and recycling depot not far from the spot where they were found. "There's absolutely nothing sinister in this and having assessed this with our security people, there is nothing that gives us any cause for concern," said Susan Brissette, a spokeswoman for Bruce Power. "Our security people have the documents now and they are looking to see if there is any way they can ascertain the source of these. But that is ongoing, but quite frankly I think this is a case of someone clearing out old files of non-confidential information." U.S. authorities have repeatedly warned that nuclear plants could be the next targets of al-Qaeda terrorists. Following the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, Canada stationed CF-18 fighter jets near Ontario plants to protect them from aerial assaults. The nuclear safety commission has been studying ways to protect Canada's 22 nuclear power plants, fearing they could be rammed by a hijacked jetliner. It has also been probing the risk of theft and sabotage at thousands of other facilities that handle radioactive materials. Copyright © 2002 National Post Online | Privacy Policy | ***************************************************************** 18 Shipping nuke waste vulnerable to attack by terrorists, feds say New Haven Register Bloomberg NewsMay 24, 2002 WASHINGTON — The Bush administration must address safety concerns surrounding its plan to ship nuclear waste to Nevada for storage, though there is no single factor that would block congressional approval, U.S. officials said. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Richard Meserve told Congress that his agency must be "satisfied" that spent fuel from U.S. nuclear power plants is safeguarded from accidents or terrorist attack while being transported to the repository being built at Yucca Mountain, 95 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Meserve and other witnesses told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee that transportation safety is the biggest question still to be answered before any waste is shipped to concrete-lined tunnels 1,000 feet under the mountain. The Yucca Mountain site has been under study since 1983. President Bush in February gave his approval to the plan. , and Congress must decided whether to override the objections of Nevada officials. The House already has done so and the Senate has until July 7. Testing for Safety Opponents of the Yucca Mountain proposal, led by Nevada's two senators, said the Department of Energy hasn't done enough to ensure the casks that will contain the radioactive waste are safe. "We are completely irresponsible by going ahead with Yucca Mountain without conducting these tests ahead of time," Senator John Ensign, a Nevada Republican, said. Although opponents concede the Senate probably will approve the Yucca plan, they have focused on the transportation of radioactive material through other states to draw support. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham told the Senate committee last week that the department will submit an application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by 2004 that, if approved, would allow waste shipments to Yucca Mountain to begin in 2010. Abraham also said the Energy Department is "just beginning" to decide on a transportation plan. "After 9-11, a risk assessment should take place to identify what could go wrong," former National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Jim Hall said, referring to the terrorist attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon. "There is no plan." Studying the Issue Department of Energy Undersecretary Robert Card said "we feel very comfortable with transportation." "I would reject the notion that we don't have a plan or haven't thought about this issue," Card said. Hall said the Department of Energy has spent $200 million studying transportation compared with $7 billion examining Yucca Mountain's desert terrain. Meserve said his agency won't approve the license unless the Energy Department submits a plan to address a possible terrorist attack or accident involving radioactive materials. That may delay the first shipments, Gary Jones, of the General Accounting Office said. "DOE is unlikely to achieve its goal of opening a repository at Yucca Mountain by 2010," he said. The U.S. House on May 8 voted to override Nevada Governor Kenny Guinn, who used a veto power granted under the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act. Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell, a Colorado Republican, said the Senate would be making a "big mistake" by approving it. "All that complete testing ought to be done before, not after, the fact," he said. ©New Haven Register 2002 ***************************************************************** 19 OP: Legal process abused Saturday, May 25, 2002 It was no surprise that the Deseret News once again editorialized against the Private Fuel Storage project. However, I was disappointed that your newspaper applauded Rep. Jim Hansen for again attempting to circumvent an established public process for licensing a temporary storage facility for spent nuclear fuel. Furthermore, you seem to share the congressman's and Gov. Mike Leavitt's philosophy that "the ends justify the means," which is a shame. The amendment that Hansen sneaked into the defense authorization bill, with no opportunity for debate or public hearings, would fundamentally change the way federal lands are managed in Utah where public lands and military airspace overlap. Hansen and Leavitt, in disclosing the true motives of this amendment, which was disguised as pro-wilderness, claimed that by blocking transportation and the development of the PFS facility, they would protect the military's use of the Utah Test and Training Range. The politicians have made a knee-jerk assumption that the risk of a military aircraft accident at the proposed facility is great while at the same time, in a Salt Lake hearing room, lawyers for the state, the NRC staff and PFS have spent two weeks presenting evidence and expert testimony on this very complex issue before the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board. It's a sad statement of our society that, if you can't show something is unsafe, you can abuse the legal and political processes to stop it anyway. The public is better served by the rigorous five-year public process for licensing a nuclear facility than a last-minute, stealthy political maneuver that allows no debate or public input. As we have said before, if it cannot be done safely, the facility will not be built. Scott D. Northard project manager, Private Fuel Storage director, Nuclear Asset Management Xcel Energy Inc. Minneapolis © 2002 Deseret News Publishing Company ***************************************************************** 20 Yucca Editorial: Who are you going to believe? Las Vegas SUN May 24, 2002 WEEKEND EDITION: May 26, 2002 Joe Davis, the Energy Department's spokesman, showed the agency's contemptuous side last week -- a side we've seen too often before. Davis was dismissive of a panel of transportation experts that, in its testimony before a Senate committee on Wednesday, pointed out the dangers of shipping nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain. "This panel is bought and paid for by the state of Nevada," Davis sniffed. He was referring to the fact that Nevada's experts, including an ex-chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, were compensated by state government. Imagine that. Paying someone, who agrees with your views, to share their expertise with others. If Davis wants to talk about the influence of money in the Yucca Mountain project -- and who really has been bought and paid for -- that is a debate we'd love to have. The reality is that the nuclear power industry's influence, including that over the Energy Department, is what has tainted and marred the scientific investigation of Yucca Mountain's suitability to store 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste. The multibillion-dollar Yucca Mountain project has been funded principally by the nuclear power industry, with fees being assessed to ratepayers whose electricity comes from nuclear reactors. Nuclear power operators have been urging the government to take the nuclear waste off their hands and bury it somewhere else. In turn, scientists and researchers on the Yucca Mountain project feel a need to please those who are paying their salaries, those who create the nuclear waste, by giving their blessing to a nuclear waste dump -- and ignoring the serious geologic flaws with Yucca Mountain. Congress, whose members in the last 10 years received $28.6 million in campaign contributions from the nuclear power industry, has hardly been the paragon of impartiality, either. The Energy Department was supposed to look at three sites and pick the best, but Congress, bowing to political pressures and wanting to place the project on a fast track, in 1987 reduced the number to just one: Nevada. There have been independent federal studies, such as those by the General Accounting Office and the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, that have raised serious doubts about the Yucca Mountain investigation. But those are concerns that, unfortunately, the nuclear power industry has been able to suppress with its control over the Energy Department and Congress. Maybe Davis could remind us again just who is supposed to have been bought and paid for? All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 21 UK: BNFL in Mox deal with E.ON Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Contract upsets protesters David Gow, industrial editor Saturday May 25, 2002 The Guardian [http://www.guardian.co.uk] British Nuclear Fuels said yesterday it had signed its largest single contract for its controversial £472m Mox plant in Sellafield with German utility E.ON yesterday. BNFL claimed that the E.ON deal would fill 15% of the plant's capacity and, coupled with earlier contracts with Swiss and Swedish nuclear plant operators, guaranteed it a viable 40% capacity utilisation over the coming years. But anti-nuclear campaigners at Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth insisted that the latest deal still left the plant - which produces fuel from spent plutonium mixed with uranium - far short of economic viability. They accused BNFL of excessive secrecy over details of the contracts and warned of hefty protests against any Mox shipments to Germany. E.ON, which is buying UK energy group Powergen, has shares in 12 of Germany's 19 nuclear power plants, including Brokdorf and Isar, scenes of violent protests. German utilities, according to Greenpeace, account for 13.6 tonnes or 30% of the 44.6 tonnes of plutonium waste stored at Sellafield for recycling into Mox. Peter Roach, nuclear campaigner at the pressure group, said E.ON accounted for 13% of the total, or around 5.8 tonnes. "We know from vari ous sources that BNFL has given E.ON bargain-basement prices, partly to overcome its reluctance to buy Mox." BNFL refused to give details of the deal on grounds of commercial confidentiality but said E.ON had committed to turning all of its separated plutonium at Sellafield into Mox. Norman Askew, chief executive, said: "This new contract...confirms that there is a strong customer demand for Mox fuel from the plant. I am delighted that we have signed such an important contract with E.ON who are one of our largest customers." Roger Higman, nuclear campaigner with Friends of the Earth, said BNFL had yet to sign any contracts with Japanese operators which were essential for the Mox plant's viability. "BNFL are being highly secretive about whether the Mox plant is anywhere near capacity. Taxpayers deserve to see detailed figures showing whether this plant will be profitable or not," he said. "The government wrote off the construction costs and taxpayers want to know whether this investment is paying its way or the plant is being kept going with huge subsidies." · The Finnish parliament yesterday voted in principle to build the country's fifth nuclear power plant of up to 1600MW - and at a cost of up to 2.5bn (£1.5bn). Useful links British Nuclear Fuels Ltd [http://www.bnfl.co.uk/website.nsf/default.htm] Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament [http://www.cnduk.org/] HSE nuclear glossary [http://www.hse.gov.uk/nsd/ilrwglos.htm] UK atomic energy authority [http://www.ukaea.org.uk/] National Radiological Protection Board [http://www.nrpb.org.uk/] World Nuclear Association [http://www.uilondon.org/] Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002 ***************************************************************** 22 New nuclear waste storage facility in Siberia Pravda.RU May, 24 2002 Another large nuclear waste storage facility will be built in the closed city of Zheleznogorsk, near Krasnoyarsk, East Siberia, in the coming five years, said Pavel Morozov, head of the press service at the local mining-chemical enterprise, on Friday. In contrast to the existing storage facility, where nuclear waste is stored under a layer of water, the new one will use the so-called "dry" method, which is safer and has already been employed in the USA, France, Hungary and other countries, Morozov said. The existing storage already contains 3,000 tons of fuel in it, and has room for 6,000 more tons at the most, meanwhile the planned capacity of the new storage facility will be gradually increased to 40,000 tons. "This complies with the concept of the nuclear energy development in Russia for the coming decades", the enterprise's head engineer Yuri Revenko believes. In July 2002 he will head a delegation to the USA that will study their colleagues' experience in the "dry" method of storing of nuclear waste. The construction of the new storage facility will start in 2003. Its first block will be put into operation in 2006-2007. The project will require $120 million. © RIAN [http://bbs.newsfromrussia.com/cgi/Ultimate.cgi] ***************************************************************** 23 Where Utah's congressional delegation stands on Yucca Mountain: HarkTheHerald.com The Daily Herald on Sunday, May 26 UTAH'S VOTES For Against Sen. Orrin Hatch-R X Sen. Bob Bennett-R X Rep. Jim Matheson-D X Rep. Chris Cannon-R X Rep. Jim Hansen-R X Note: Matheson, Cannon and Hansen voted on May 8, when the House of Representatives voted to store nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, 306-117. A Senate vote is expected in June or July. A Hatch staffer told the Deseret News he would vote for Yucca Mountain. Bennett told the Las Vegas Review-Journal he would vote for Yucca Mountain. This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A2. © 2002 by HarkTheHerald.com ***************************************************************** 24 It's time for the nuclear trash man to show up Augusta Georgia: Business: Web posted Sunday, May 26, 2002 By Damon Cline [dcline@augustachronicle.com] Business Editor Imagine it's trash day at your home and the garbage truck doesn't show up. When you call the hauler to ask why, you're informed it has run out of places to dump your trash. But, the company says, the problem should be solved in time for the next scheduled pickup. Fair enough. You can just keep the trash over by the garage until next week. Next week comes and there's still no truck. You call again and the excuse remains the same: Just another week and we'll have it all figured out. But the same thing happens week after week. Then one day you climb over the festering heap to check your mail. Inside the mailbox is your bill for trash service. Of course, no individual would tolerate that sort of scenario, but the generators of nuclear waste have been putting up with it since 1982. That's when the federal government, through the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, pledged to build a permanent national disposal site by 1989. The deadline came and went, and the nuclear trash continued piling up in 39 states as the waste repository project moved at the speed of government. But this summer, after years of excuses and billions of dollars, the Senate is poised to give the final approval to a remote site in the Nevada desert known as Yucca Mountain. Folks around here should hope for a thumbs up, because the Augusta-Aiken area is home to two generators of nuclear waste - the Alvin W. Vogtle Electric Generating Plant and Savannah River Site. Plant Vogtle, like all nuclear power plants, has been forced to store its spent uranium fuel rods on-site in steel-reinforced concrete "pools" of water. The pools are safe, but they were never designed to be a permanent solution. Fortunately, nuclear reactors do not produce high volumes of waste. When 2010 rolls around, Vogtle's two reactors will have only produced enough spent fuel to fill a two-car garage. Savannah River Site, on the other hand, is home to 37 million gallons of high-level radioactive waste, byproducts of the plutonium and tritium the facility produced for nuclear weapons during the Cold War. The waste is kept in cannisters on-site. With Yucca Mountain a reality, the facility estimates it will be rid of all high-level waste by 2028. Keep your fingers crossed. If the Senate says the best place for radioactive waste is indeed 1,000 feet below the Nevada desert, then the nuclear garbage truck could begin making stops at Plant Vogtle and Savannah River Site as early as 2010. Reach Damon Cline at (706) 823-3486 or dcline@augustachronicle.com [dcline@augustachronicle.com] . [http://augusta.com] . ***************************************************************** 25 Blame Bush, not Reid, for Yucca [Las Vegas Review-Journal] Sunday, May 26, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal LETTER: Who is at fault? To the editor: Your editorial "End game is near" following the U.S. House vote on Yucca Mountain only served to aid the nuclear power industry and its advocates in the Bush administration. If the Review-Journal opposes Yucca Mountain, this editorial does not make it clear. Instead, you misguidedly place blame on Nevada's leading advocate, Sen. Harry Reid. This attack is unfounded and inexplicably singles out for criticism the person who has been most successful for Nevada on this issue. Every Nevadan -- Democrat and Republican alike -- is working together to fight this scourge attempting to make its way into our back yard. But if you measure success by the support for Nevada that has been obtained in Washington, D.C., then Sen. Harry Reid has certainly had the most success. Sen. Reid, along with me and then-Sen. Richard Bryan, were able to help convince former President Bill Clinton to veto interim waste legislation. Mr. Clinton also recently stated in his address at UNLV that he would not have signed the Yucca bill in its current form. Sen. Reid has also recently not only obtained the support of the majority leader in the U.S. Senate, but when this vote comes before the Senate he will have the majority of the members of his own party. I would point out that only 13 Republican congressmen voted to side with Nevada in the House whereas more than 100 Democrats agreed with Nevada that this was a states' rights issue that the federal government had no business forcing on Nevada. Is the Review-Journal suggesting it is time for Nevadans and our representatives in Washington to throw our hands up in defeat? Should we sit down and bargain? For what? Do you still believe in fighting against Yucca Mountain? Your dismissal of factual ads, a strategy of Gov. Guinn's that I wholeheartedly support, which are designed to educate Americans that the plan to transport deadly nuclear waste through their communities, cities and states en route to Nevada as "scare-mongering" sounds like a response from the Nuclear Energy Institute. You conclude that we should put our hope -- and all our resources -- into a legal battle, even if winning in the courts is a long shot. And you want to abandon political efforts against Yucca Mountain, yet you end the editorial with a political argument that could appeal to senators who support states' rights. No fault lies with Harry Reid. Rather it belongs squarely on President Bush and all members of Congress who vote politics before science on this issue. Remember, it was President Bush who promised Nevada that he would not make a decision based on politics, but one rather based on sound science. It is obvious now that this was a promise he never had any intention of keeping. BOB MILLER LAS VEGAS The writer served as governor of Nevada from 1989-1999. This story is located at: http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2002/May-26-Sun-2002/opinion/187962 36.html [http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2002/May-26-Sun-2002/opinion/18796 236.html] ***************************************************************** 26 Waste dump fight coming to end Journalstar.com: Nebraska BY ALGIS J. LAUKAITIS / Lincoln Journal Star ERICK GREGORY/Lincoln Journal Star Many Boyd County residents hope that the federal trial beginning in Lincoln on June 3 will mean the sun will finally set on the chances for a low-level nuclear waste dump in their county. That sentiment is expressed on this barn west of Spencer on Nebraska 12. BUTTE -- Semi-tractor trailers loaded with cattle instead of nuclear waste whiz along scenic Nebraska 12 just west of this Boyd County ranching community. Near the highway is a tract of land some people say is worth almost $100 million. That's the amount of money invested in that ground by a five-state compact, its developer US Ecology and electric utilities over the past 13 years. The compact, developer and utilities wanted to build a nuclear waste dump on the site to store radioactive waste from Nebraska, Kansas, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Louisiana. And they certainly expected trucks to be rolling down Nebraska 12 by now, hauling clothing, resins, tools and other types of low-level radioactive waste into the site. They counted on storing the nuclear garbage generated by power plants, hospitals and research labs for up to 3,500 years. Instead, they have about a half- section of land planted in prairie grass and overgrown with wetland vegetation. A broken wire from a weather and air monitoring station on the site dangles in the wind like a kite string. No trespassing signs and a rusted, padlocked gate keep out visitors. Few people in Boyd County even pay attention to the site since the state of Nebraska in 1998 denied US Ecology a license to build the dump. Residents interviewed last week say the controversy over the Butte site, which caused deep rifts, mistrust and troubles between family and long-time friends, is mostly a dead issue now. They say people have moved on with their lives and rarely talk about it at livestock sales, farm auctions or other community gatherings, or during chance encounters on Main Street. "It's not even in the top 10 of conversation topics," said Butte Mayor Cindy Schroetlin. "I would say it's not even in the top 30. There are so many other things that people are involved in -- that's the last thing they talk about." That could change on June 3, when the state of Nebraska will defend itself against a $98 million lawsuit filed by the Central Interstate Low-Level Radioactive Waste Compact. Nebraska is in the process of withdrawing from the compact, which wants back the millions of dollars it and its partners have spent studying and engineering the Boyd County site. It also wants a nuclear waste dump in Nebraska, preferably on the Boyd County site. Compact members allege Nebraska officials acted in bad faith when they denied US Ecology's license applications. "We felt it was and is a licensable site and the denial of the licenses was inappropriate and improper," Compact Chairman James O'Connell of Kansas said in a phone interview. "I think the license denial was the result of bad faith acts by the state of Nebraska and the Nelson administration." In 1990, then-gubernatorial candidate Ben Nelson made a controversial campaign promise to Boyd County residents. "If I'm elected governor," Nelson said, "it is not likely that there will be a nuclear dump in Boyd County or Nebraska." Nelson was elected, but in 1999, U.S. District Judge Richard G. Kopf found substantial evidence of bad faith and political influence in the licensing process. Nebraska appealed Kopf's decision, but it was upheld in its entirety by a higher court and that decision paved the way for the upcoming trial. Spencer rancher Lowell Fisher said the compact is twisting Nelson's words. He said he heard Nelson and he believes the gubernatorial candidate did not mean that he would mess with the technical review of the license applications for the Boyd County site. "I've never heard anybody else say anything to the contrary," he said over pie last week at the Nebrask Inn in the tiny town of Gross. "If there's anybody else out there that heard Nelson say he was going to fight it, I've never heard it and never heard anybody else that heard it." For 13 years, Boyd County has been in the midst of a nuclear waste hurricane. Forces outside the state picked Nebraska as the site for the dump. A site two miles west of Butte was selected in late 1989 much to the shock of many Boyd County residents. Some, like Fisher, who went on a hunger strike, fought hard to make community consent a condition of using the Boyd County site. That was a promise made by then- Gov. Kay Orr but never kept by her or the compact. "People don't realize that this was just as much a citizens' rights issue as well as an environmental issue," said Fisher. In the ensuing years, opponents staged mock funerals for the state and for compact officials who attended a meeting in Butte. Opponents like Fisher alleged they were in league with each other, a charge denied by both. Nebraska State Patrol troopers cruised the highways as the tension mounted between supporters and opponents. A SWAT team was put on alert during a tense meeting in Omaha. Dead animals were found in mailboxes. Anti-nuke waste dump signs grew up along the roadsides like orphan weeds. Aged by the elements and some freshly painted, they are still there as reminders that the battle is not quite over. Opponents staged canoe races in a water-filled ditch near the site to publicize what they said was a very bad place for a nuclear waste dump. They held bus tours and made countless road trips to compact meetings in Lincoln and cities in other compact states. They said the site US Ecology picked had wetlands and groundwater problems. They feared US Ecology's state-of-the-art concrete structure would eventually leak and spew radioactivity into the groundwater and poison their drinking water wells and streams. Two state agencies agreed. Even though US Ecology redrew the boundaries of the site to eliminate wetlands and other potential problems, the state agencies denied US Ecology's license applications, citing a high water table and the potential for groundwater contamination. US Ecology and the compact maintained the site was safe and monitoring wells and engineered barriers would contain any migration of radioactivity. Butte rancher Ken Reiser, a long-time supporter of the nuclear waste dump, said he's always pushed for a fair decision on the site, one based on "good science and technical merit." He maintains that didn't happen. "I always felt we had political interference," he said. "I really did." Reiser, once the chairman of the support group People For Progress, still wears a US Ecology cap, his second or third. He still believes there's a chance the Boyd County site will one day open and begin to take nuclear waste. "As long as this trial has not been determined, I still feel we are in the running for a site," he said. "They spent millions of dollars on testing ... If the compact still needs a site and the courts rule favorably for a license, I don't know why we wouldn't be in the running." O'Connell said the US Ecology license application is for a specific site and it will be up to Judge Kopf to make the decision on whether to move forward in Boyd County. He said the compact will be asking for an independent review of the license applications, a process that may or may not involve Nebraska officials. "We want to get the judge to determine what alternatives exist and let the courts make a determination on what is a fair and equitable way to go," he said. Loren Sieh of Naper, chairman of the Boyd County Monitoring Committee, believes Nebraska will win the trial and should not have to pay any money back to the compact. His committee was set up to keep tabs on US Ecology and its work on site development, but some people viewed it as an organization that opposed the process every step of the way. "I think if the truth is presented as it should be, the state of Nebraska is home-free," said Sieh. "It was a fiasco from the beginning." Even though US Ecology no longer has an office in Butte nor does any air or water monitoring at the site, Sieh's committee still meets four times a year. He doubts the compact will ever resurrect the Boyd County site. "I don't see how they can come back," he said. "It's a failed siting. We proved it." As far as the $98 million, Sieh said the generators -- the ones who produce the nuclear waste -- should have been more involved in what US Ecology was saying and doing with their money. "There was basically a hands-off policy from the generators that whatever US Ecology told them was the truth," Sieh said. When talk in these parts does turn to nuclear waste, it opens old wounds. Some people, like Sieh, say it cost him old friends, but he has made new ones. Others are angry at the compact and US Ecology, who, they believe, walked away and left supporters high and dry after the licenses were denied. Some people just want closure but they don't believe the trial will give it to them. Said Mayor Schroetlin: "It's just an issue that needs to be settled. There needs to be closure one way or another." Then there's people like 61-year-old Dave Heien, a ranch hand who has somehow managed to stay neutral on the controversial issue over the years by not talking about it. And some people are still afraid to give their names because they don't want to stir troubled waters. Like the eye of a hurricane, the controversy over the Butte site is quiet for now, but the outcome of the trial may change things. Some people have given depositions but few plan to attend the trial in Lincoln. Fisher said it's the state's problem now. One thing is certain, even though there is a lot less tension in Boyd County, some of the old wounds are still there. As Heien put it: "They're just scabbed over a little." Reach Algis J. Laukaitis at 473-7243 or alaukaitis@journalstar.com. 1/4 s Top Copyright © 2002, Lincoln Journal Star. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 27 State could have site, be left out in the cold Journalstar.com: Nebraska BY ALGIS J. LAUKAITIS / Lincoln Journal Star If the Central Interstate Low-Level Radioactive Waste Compact wins its federal case, there is a possibility it could end up with a waste dump in Boyd County and keep Nebraska from using it. "There is a reading of the compact statutes that could lead one to that conclusion," said Compact Chairman James O'Connell of Kansas. "I think that interpretation could be made ... but whether it would be made is another question." Nebraska is withdrawing from the five-state compact, which includes Kansas, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Louisiana. Meanwhile, the compact and its partners are suing Nebraska for what it claims was a bad-faith effort in reviewing US Ecology's license applications for a site west of Butte in Boyd County. Nebraska denied the license applications in 1998, citing a high water table and potential for groundwater contamination. The state also questioned the financial health of US Ecology and its parent company, American Ecology, saying it did not have enough funds to build the Butte facility without receiving loan commitments or guarantees it did not have at the time. US Ecology is involved in the litigation and is maintaining the site 21/2 miles west of Butte for the compact. Officials say the company is prepared to build the nuclear waste dump in Boyd County if the courts say so. "Absolutely. We're willing to build that site at any time," said Chad Hyslop, a spokesman for American Ecology in Boise, Idaho. He said American Ecology's financial picture has improved in recent years and the corporation has just posted its best operating profit in 10 years. Nebraska's compact representative and University of Nebraska-Lincoln Economics Professor Greg Hayden said US Ecology's current financial condition is irrelevant. What is important is the company's financial condition at the time the license application was made. "No matter which way this trial goes, the loser will appeal," Hayden said. "It's something we are in for for a long time." O'Connell said US Ecology is still the developer of record and would build the storage facility for the compact. "There has been no indication that they are not willing to do the project," he added. More than $600 million has been spent on designating low-level radioactive waste sites across the nation but none has been built, according to the General Accounting Office in Washington, D.C. Siting the dumps is a hot political issue and many people have questioned the need for them because the waste is being disposed of properly now. States are shipping their low-level radioactive waste to storage sites in Barnwell, S.C., and Envirocare in Utah, but the Utah site takes only Class A waste, which is high in volume and low in radioactivity. US Ecology also operates a nuclear waste dump near Richland, Wash., for the Northwest and Rocky Mountain compacts. Nebraska has two nuclear power plants that produce large volumes of low-level radioactive waste. Cooper Nuclear Station near Brownville, for example, ships its waste to the South Carolina and Utah waste sites. O'Connell said even though compacts are not building dumps, there will come a time when they will be needed. That could be as soon as 2008, when the South Carolina site is scheduled to stop accepting waste from other compact states. "Barnwell is on a phase-out schedule to limit waste only to Atlantic Compact member states," O'Connell said. "On the long-term horizon there isn't the availability of these so-called accessible sites. Accessibility is being reduced as we speak." New methods have been found to reduce the volume of low-level radioactive waste for disposal but it continues to be generated by nuclear power plants, research labs, hospitals and universities. Disposal rates, however, have risen substantially over the past decade. "There's still a need for these facilities nationwide or something like this," said O'Connell. "This is the system that is designed to provide these disposal facilities and the one we are required to work with." Reach Algis J. Laukaitis at 473-7243 or alaukaitis@journalstar.com Copyright © 2002, Lincoln Journal Star. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 28 Millions at stake as lawsuit finally goes to trial Journalstar.com: Nebraska BY BUTCH MABIN / Lincoln Journal Star The numbers alone tell much of the tale: * A court file 10 volumes thick, containing some 500 motions and orders. * Roughly 5,000 exhibits. * An estimated 50 witnesses expected to testify at a seven-week trial that could cost the state $1.65 million to defend. But the most daunting figure: $200 million. That's how much the state could be out, according to the Legislature's fiscal office, if a judge finds it acted in bad faith in licensing a proposed multistate nuclear waste dump in Boyd County. Trial is scheduled to begin June 3 in U.S. District Court in Lincoln. According to Washington, D.C., attorney John Wittenborn, one of several private attorneys representing Nebraska, the lawsuit, brought by a multistate radioactive waste commission, is based on "inference, innuendo ... smoke and mirrors. "We are looking forward to the opportunity to vindicate (Nebraska) of the claims," he said in an interview last week. Alan Peterson, attorney for the plaintiff, the Central Interstate Low-Level Radioactive Waste Commission, declined comment. The commission is seeking from the state the roughly $98 million in payments -- plus interest -- it said the nuclear waste generators, the site contractor and the compact's member states made to get the proposed waste dump licensed. Lincoln attorney Steve Seglin, who is representing the contractor, US Ecology, said the state's intent in the licensing process was clear: Prevent construction of the waste dump, with or without valid reasons. "The state of Nebraska engaged in numerous acts of bad faith that made the (generators) and US Ecology's contributions worthless," he said. US Ecology contributed $6.2 million, through the commission, to the state, Seglin said. The generators -- Entergy Arkansas, Entergy Gulf States, Entergy Louisiana and Wolf Creek Nuclear Operating Corp. -- contributed an estimated $88.5 million as "prepayments" on their use of the waste dump once it was completed. Omaha attorney Thomas Johnson, who is representing the utilities, declined comment last week. An additional $3 million was spent by Kansas, Louisiana, Arkansas and Oklahoma, the states that, along with Nebraska, formed the Central Interstate Low-Level Radioactive Waste Compact in 1983. The Legislature's fiscal office used those figures, and estimates of the interest in case of a monetary judgment, and of attorneys fees to reach the $200 million figure. Nebraska has already spent $10 million on the lawsuit, filed by the utilities in late 1998. US Ecology and the commission joined the case later. They are alleging Nebraska attempted to undercut efforts to build the waste dump in Boyd County, contrary to the state's contractual obligations to act in good faith. According to their claims, Nebraska's decision to deny the construction license, announced in late 1998, was the culmination of years of political tampering with the process by state officials. Attorneys for the state have maintained Nebraska's decision was based on genuine environmental concerns, as well as legitimate worries about US Ecology's financial health. Nebraska won a partial victory in the case in March 2001, when the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the state had constitutional immunity against suits brought by US Ecology and the generators. The contractor and generators still have cross claims against the commission that essentially argue the organization should have known Nebraska was acting in bad faith. Yet, the state has come up short in other key rulings. Among them: The federal appeals court, in the same 2001 ruling, said Nebraska did not have immunity against the commission. That ruling upheld a decision by U.S. District Judge Richard G. Kopf, who will sit as judge and jury in the upcoming trial. And Kopf has also ruled that evidence showed the state's licensing process was a "sham." Finally, in 2000, the appeals court said state officials, including former Gov. Ben Nelson, appeared to have been biased against construction of the waste dump. Nelson is scheduled to testify at the trial. Wittenborn, one of the state's attorneys, said Nebraska might not be found financially liable, even if Kopf rules it acted in bad faith. "The commission never spent a nickel" for the licensing, he said. US Ecology attorney Seglin said the contractor's and generators' claims against the commission hinge on the commission's case against Nebraska. Even though US Ecology and the generators have no claims against the state, they will be allowed to present evidence at trial of Nebraska's alleged "bad faith." Nebraska had filed a pre-trial motion earlier this month to bar them from introducing any evidence against the state. The lawsuit has its genesis in 1980, when the U.S. Congress ordered states to manage low-level nuclear waste or form compacts with other states to dispose of the materials. Low-level nuclear waste includes contaminated tools and clothing from nuclear power stations and hospitals. Nebraska joined a compact with Kansas, Arkansas, Louisiana and Oklahoma three years later. In 1987 the commission, composed of representatives from the five member states, selected Nebraska to host a low-level nuclear waste dump. Boyd County in northeast Nebraska was later selected as host county. In December 1998, state officials announced they would deny the contractor a license to build the waste dump. Among their reasons: potential groundwater contamination. The utilities filed the federal lawsuit against the state later that month. Reach Butch Mabin at 473-7234 or bmabin@journalstar.com Copyright © 2002, Lincoln Journal Star. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 29 For state, nuke suit a must-win Journalstar.com: Nebraska BY DON WALTON Lincoln Journal Star The fallout from next week's nuclear waste site trial could ensnare taxpayers, strain the state budget and put Sen. Ben Nelson on the political hot seat. If Nebraska loses the lawsuit, a series of aftershocks may rumble across the landscape: n Taxpayers could be socked with $100 million to $200 million in costs. n That hit would follow on the heels of an economic slowdown that already has triggered $216 million in immediate state budget cuts and $354 million in tax increases over three years -- with warnings of more fiscal agony on the way. n If the court decision points the finger at Nelson and finds the state guilty of acting in bad faith during his governorship in delaying, then denying the licensing of the Boyd County site, the Democratic senator could be politically vulnerable when Nebraskans are asked to pay the bill. But first, the economic and fiscal implications. They include the possibility of another state tax hike as well as a limit on future options, including additional state-supported property tax relief. If Republican Gov. Mike Johanns wins a second term in November, he plans to craft a tax reform proposal next year aimed at increasing local property tax relief. That would require state dollars, lots of them, to make a significant impact. "A judgment against the state would rise to the top of the priority list," Johanns said. "Every other priority gets pushed into the second tier. We wouldn't have a choice." If costs fell within the $100 million to $200 million range, the governor said, those would be "big, big numbers (that) would make it more difficult to fund any priority, property tax relief or whatever." n n n Last year, Greg Hayden, who serves as the state's representative on the Central Interstate Low-Level Radioactive Waste Compact Commission, described the current court battle as one that pits Nebraska against "an interlocked national power structure" of major corporate interests, spearheaded by Entergy Corp. of New Orleans, the third-largest power generator in the nation. Nebraska is like "a little lady bug that flew into a spider web and is now suffering the prospect of facing costs that could range up to $1 billion under the worst scenario," said Hayden, a University of Nebraska-Lincoln economics professor. The lowest estimate begins at about $100 million, he said at the time. Last week, Hayden said he couldn't comment on possible costs because of his role in the litigation. But Brad Reynolds, Nelson's attorney in the lawsuit, said plaintiffs have talked about a $120 million figure, which includes interest on costs incurred during the long licensing process. In a 2001 financial statement, the five-state Central Interstate Low-Level Radioactive Waste Compact Commission estimated the ultimate judgment could be "up to $200 million." However, in a 1999 order grant-ing a preliminary injunction in the case, U.S. District Judge Richard G. Kopf raised a cautionary note indicating damages are not a foregone conclusion even if Nebraska loses the case. A figure in the $100 million range would be roughly equivalent to what a half-cent sales tax increase would produce in one year. Currently, each half-cent raises an estimated $98 million a year. But that figure will rise with this year's broadening of the sales tax base -- by an additional $22 million in fiscal 2003-2004, according to fiscal estimates. So how much does $100 million to $120 million represent in terms of the state budget? It's roughly what it costs to operate the state's entire prison system. A $200 million judgment would represent more than the state spends to support special education or public assistance other than Medicaid. n n n No decisions, even tentative ones, have been reached as to whether state government would turn to the sales tax, the income tax, budget cuts, or a combination of all three, to pay the bill if the state loses in court. "I will guarantee no one has laid out a course to finance this," Johanns said. Instead, the state is focused on "aggressively defending the case," he said. "Obviously, the financial implications have been discussed internally," said Johanns spokesman Chris Peterson. "We've talked about different ways to deal with such a potentially significant budget-buster. Absolutely." State Sen. Roger Wehrbein of Plattsmouth, chairman of the Legislature's Appropriations Committee, said he's been involved in "only minimal discussion about how we'd finance" such a court-mandated obligation. "With appeals, we think (a final court decision) could be as much as three or four years away," he said. "It's premature to have a serious discussion now." Although no one seems ready to champion it publicly, an intriguing funding alternative is quietly making the rounds at the Capitol: Pay the state's costs, if it loses the lawsuit, by levying a surcharge on utility bills. Utility companies with nuclear power plants bore the costs of the compact during the licensing process and are the chief plaintiffs in the court action. But only one of the utilities engaged in the lawsuit -- Omaha Public Power District -- is a Nebraska entity. Nebraska Public Power District, which also has a nuclear plant, did not participate in the action to recover costs. State Sen. Chris Beutler of Lincoln says another option could be a negotiated settlement whereby the state would "avoid paying those costs at the expense of locating the site here," in effect accepting the Boyd County facility. n n n Would Ben Nelson take a political hit if Nebraska loses this lawsuit and damages are assessed? Darn right, says Republican State Chairman David Kramer of Omaha. "There is a huge political danger for Ben Nelson," Kramer said. "If Judge Kopf rules that the state engaged in bad faith, then the state's liability will be the responsibility of Ben Nelson. "There is no question that the GOP would raise this issue against Ben the same way he would raise it against one of our candidates if they had that in their closet." Kramer's Omaha law firm, Baird Holm, represents several of the energy providers who are parties in the lawsuit, but he is not personally involved in the litigation. "I think Ben Nelson will be praying for a quick verdict," said Omaha City Councilman Chuck Sigerson, the former Republican state chairman who was Nelson's most persistent antagonist when he was governor. If a final decision awarding damages was rendered within a year or so -- everyone expects the U.S. District court ruling to be appealed -- the issue could be all but forgotten by the time Nelson would face voters in a likely 2006 re-election campaign, Sigerson said. "But if it takes a few years, and we get to 2004 or 2005, I think he has a problem." n n n Nelson's supporters don't think so. Although Nelson would encounter the snarls of "political wolves with their teeth bared," former Democratic State Chairwoman Anne Boyle of Omaha said, "I think he acted in good faith and in the best interests of his constituents. "His opponents should walk a mile in his shoes at the time. I ask them what would they have done?" Here's how Nelson's defenders are prepared to frame the issue: Nebraskans don't want the regional radioactive waste storage facility in their state, especially since no other state in the union is being asked to host a regional site. If Nelson stonewalled the facility -- by "dotting every `i' and crossing every `t'" during the licensing process, as one supporter described it -- wasn't he doing what most Nebraskans wanted? What he did was accomplished properly and legally, Nelson's lawyers will argue in court. "The state believes the decision was perfectly supportable based on scientific and technical information available to it," said Reynolds, speaking from the Washington law firm of Howrey, Simon, Arnold and White. "We will argue and show conclusively there was no undue political influence or interference in the review process and the charge of bad faith does not have any credence in the entire review activity." n n n If there was bad faith in this whole process, it was exhibited every place but Nebraska, Sen. Beutler suggested. "Nobody was moving forth on this issue in good faith except Nebraska," he said. "One of the great ironies is while we are accused of operating in bad faith on one level, in the broader and most real sense it was the rest of the nation that was acting in bad faith." As other regional compacts backed away from construction of any waste storage facilities -- compacts are only required by federal law to "manage" low-level waste -- continuing pressure applied on Nebraska is "just evidence of the bad faith of the industry in the rest of the nation," Beutler said. Nelson should not be held politically accountable if the state loses the lawsuit, said state Sen. Cap Dierks of Ewing, who fought against construction of the facility in his legislative district. "I was (there) through that whole thing," he said, "and Nelson didn't violate any laws. He followed the law specifically. You can't put this thing in a wetlands." n n n Attorney General Don Stenberg declined comment on Nelson's performance in advance of the approaching court case, but his criticism of the former governor's actions during their 2000 Senate contest is clear evidence the issue would become political fodder. Nelson "mishandled" the pro-cess and it may end up costing taxpayers, Stenberg said in answer to a question during a televised debate in Omaha. "Not once did you advise us that any of our actions was wrong," Nelson responded. The attorney general's comments were "very dangerous" in view of the pending lawsuit, he said. Whether Nelson would suffer any political consequences if taxpayers take a hit would be "for the body politic to decide," state Sen. David Landis of Lincoln said. "He made no bones about saying I will resist this process. He was up front to begin with. He let the state know that when he was running for office (in 1990) and it may be part of the reason he was elected." In fact, Sigerson suggested, it was former Republican Gov. Kay Orr who "paid the price more than anyone else" during this 20-year drama. Although Nebraska joined the compact during the administration of Democratic Gov. Bob Kerrey, Sigerson noted, the storage facility was not sited in Nebraska until the Orr administration. And then Nelson used that to help defeat her, Sigerson said. In 1987, Orr declared that while she was not thrilled with selection of Nebraska -- her representative on the compact voted against the motion -- the state "recognizes its responsibility as a member of the compact and accepts such designation as host state." n n n The issue was "not very controversial" when Nebraska joined the compact in 1983 during his first year as governor, Kerrey says. The Legislature approved that action on a lopsided 44-0 vote. "It seemed to me the compact gave Nebraska more control than we would have if the Department of Energy was making all the decisions," Kerrey said. "The train came off the tracks during Gov. Orr's term, not because of the governor, but because the compact made some terrible mistakes that made them appear to be secretive and unresponsive. Once the trust was broken, it could not be glued back together." Nelson declined to be interviewed for this story because of the pending litigation. He has been subpoenaed as a witness and is expected to testify June 10. In the past, Nelson has maintained his administration acted in good faith in reviewing the application and rejected it for valid reasons. If, in the end, the state loses and is handed a huge bill by the court, Nelson is not the only officeholder who would be politically affected. Not, that is, if Johanns is re-elected this fall and is presented with difficult financing decisions and reduced options. "This would not be a good deal for me," Johanns said, "or for Ben Nelson because it happened on his watch." Reach Don Walton at 473-7248 or at dwalton@journalstar.com. Copyright © 2002, Lincoln Journal Star. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 30 McConnell's Mill fans oppose landfill plan PittsburghLIVE.com - By [lsanata@tribweb.com] TRIBUNE-REVIEW Sunday, May 26, 2002 Standing in a lonely corner of McConnell’s Mill State Park last week, Bob Tait was considering what he would say during a meeting Tuesday night that he thinks could have a decisive impact on the future of the lush, pristine park. About 1,000 yards from the tree line where Tait stood, a Butler businessman hopes to build a residual waste landfill. Robert Sechan Jr., who spent many years mining coal and limestone from that same area, insists that his proposed landfill would not jeopardize the park. But Tait, a Butler resident and state coordinator for the Northcountry Trail Association, is angry and not convinced. "It’s just too nice an area … people don‘t realize how much that park is used," he said. A landfill anywhere near the Butler County park will take away from its beauty and charm and could drive people elsewhere, he said. Tait was especially troubled after learning that Sechan’s original application for the proposed landfill had been revised to include a radiation detection unit and radiation isolation area, which causes him to worry that radioactive waste also might be handled there. But Freda Tarbell, a spokeswoman for Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection's Northwest Region, said both things are required by the agency of all proposed residual and municipal landfills, as well as existing landfills, based on legislation approved this year. There are worries about radioactive materials being commingled with residual and municipal wastes and dumped at landfills, she said. Tait is one of many people, from many organizations, who are making final preparations as they prepare to speak out against the proposed landfill. The meeting, sponsored by the DEP, is scheduled for 7 to 9 p.m. Tuesday in the Prospect Fire Hall, 373 Main St., Prospect. Along with opponents of the project, however, a number of others will be on hand to speak in favor of the proposed landfill. They include engineers and consultants hired by Sechan, who will counter emotional testimony with hard facts, said Dave Mashek, spokesman for Sechan. Sechan has refused to talk to the media and has hired the public relations firm of William J. Green and Associates in Pittsburgh to represent him. Mashek is employed by the firm. "We do understand that there are concerns in the community," Mashek said. Representatives of Malcolm Pirnie of Orchard Park, N.Y., the engineering firm hired by Sechan, will comment on the benefits of the project, Mashek said, and also will address the harms raised by opponents. The harms and benefits of the project will be reviewed at length by DEP officials as they consider Sechan's application. "The harms-benefit (issue) has become an important element in DEP's review of any landfill permit application," he said. Tarbell went a step further. The question of harms and benefits is the single most important element in the DEP’s consideration of this project, she said. After the public hearing, if DEP officials find that the harms outweigh the benefits, the application is denied, she said. Doniele Beck, a junior planner with the Butler County Planning Department and president of the Friends of McConnell’s Mill, said she and others will be focusing on the harms associated with the project when they make their presentations. "There’s too many potential harms. … It’s not a viable land use for that area and for our counties," she said. "We have two landfills now in Butler County that accept residual waste and don’t fill to their maximum capacity." But, Mashek said, those existing landfills are permitted by the DEP to accept only small amounts of residual waste. The proposed landfill would accept waste from a radius of roughly 150 miles, he said. Sechan’s proposed landfill has a 13-year life span, according to the permit filed with the department, Beck said. "After that 13 years, we now have land that will have no tax revenue coming in … and it’s next to a state park," Beck said. She said representatives of other organizations, including the Sierra Club and Clean Water Action, also are preparing testimony to present at the meeting. Butler County Commissioner Joan Chew said she and other commissioners also will testify against the proposed landfill. "It’s the location," she said. "To do anything that might compromise that water (in the state park) is compromising the drinking water of people down the line … in Harmony and Zelienople, and those places," she said. Despite all the efforts being made in anticipation of the public hearing, Chew said she worries that Sechan, a regular contributor to political campaigns, might have influence with people who could play a role in the DEP’s decision. About the proposed landfill Robert Sechan Jr. has asked the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection for approval to create a landfill about a quarter-mile west of Route 19 and about three miles south of Route 422. He owns 50 acres there. The largest portion of that site is in Muddy Creek Township, Butler County, while a small portion is in Slippery Rock Township, Lawrence County. The landfill would be used for the disposal of residual wastes. Residual wastes are classified as nonhazardous wastes, but they can include near-hazardous wastes, according to the DEP. While about 40 percent of the residual waste in Pennsylvania is generated by coal-burning plants and waste incinerators, other residual wastes include contaminated soil, rubber, pesticides, PCBs and paints, the agency said. Lawrence Sanata can be reached at [lsanata@tribweb.com] or (724) 779-7109. Images and text copyright © 2002 by The Tribune-Review Publishing Co. ***************************************************************** 31 Peace Action: Few Reductions in New Treaty Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 00:11:45 -0500 (CDT) Action Alert Nuclear Reductions Treaty Offers Few Nuclear Reductions The nuclear arms reduction treaty that will be signed this week by President Bush and Russian President Putin represents a lost opportunity for the two countries to build global security. While nuclear arms reductions treaties between the US and Russia have, in the past, led to actual nuclear reductions, this treaty seems more bent on creating loopholes than disarmament. On its face, the treaty calls for both the US and Russia to reduce their strategic warheads from 6,000 to between 2,200 and 1,700. Were this to occur it would certainly be a step in the right direction. Unfortunately, this treaty is beset by major flaws. The reductions agreed to aren't intended to be fulfilled until 2012. During that time there is no specific schedule by which either side is required to make reductions. Neither the US nor Russia is required to make real cuts to their nuclear arsenals in the next decade: the White House demanded that decommissioned weapons be stored, not destroyed. Since the US has made it clear that it will take advantage of this option, Russia will likely do the same. For more information see: http://www.peace-action.org/home/senate.html Write to Your Local Paper Find out about your local media at: http://congress.org/congressorg/dbq/media/ You can use our sample letter to the editor below to help raise awareness in your community about this treaty and the need for real nuclear weapons reductions. Sample letter to the Editor Dear Editors, The nuclear arms reduction treaty, recently signed by President Bush and Russian President Putin does little, if anything, to increase global security. While reductions in both countries' arsenals are a good idea, the treaty's flaws are alarming. The treaty doesn't require any weapons to be destroyed, they can merely be set aside in storage where they will be vulnerable to theft or rogue use. There is no timeline nor provisions for enforcement - each country can take up to ten years and eliminate only a few weapons, or even none at all. The treaty allows Russia to deploy new, multiple warhead missiles, the most dangerous weapons in its arsenal. It also ignores smaller, short range tactical nuclear weapons. Either country can withdraw from the treaty, for any reason, on three months' notice. According to the guidelines of this treaty, ten years from now both the US and Russia could have the same number of nuclear weapons as they do now. At a time in which limiting the threat of nuclear weapons is an immediate necessity, this treaty falls flat. Sincerely, (Your name) Carrie Benzschawel Program Associate Peace Action Education Fund (202) 862-9740 ext.3041 cbenzschawel@peace-action.org The Peace Action Education Fund works for global elimination of nuclear weapons, an end to the conventional arms trade, and cutting military spending in order to better address human needs. --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.362 / Virus Database: 199 - Release Date: 05/07/2002 ***************************************************************** 32 Threat of Nuclear War in Our Region-FOE Sydney Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 00:46:47 -0500 (CDT) Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit Threat of Nuclear War in our Region Friends of the Earth Australia (FoEA) joined calls today from around the world for the governments of India and Pakistan to show restraint and come to the peace table to resolve the current crisis before the conflict escalates any further. Nuclear disarmament experts for Friends of the Earth Australia said today, "The current climate along the Kashmir border is leading us dangerously close to a nuclear war in the region. Australia must play a role in de-escalating this conflict." FoEA says that although it is difficult to get real figures of the numbers of nuclear weapons held in the arsenals of India and Pakistan, reliable sources estimate the median numbers as: - India: approximately 65 nuclear weapons (median estimates only) - Pakistan: approximately 24-48 nuclear weapons (median estimates only) "It is extremely hard to find exact figures as both India and Pakistan stand outside international agreements on nuclear weapons non-proliferation," stated John Hallam, spokesperson for FoEA. "However what we do know is that they both have these ultimate weapons of mass destruction, that there is an increasing likelihood of all out war between these nations and therefore we are at grave risk of seeing a nuclear war in our region." Signs that this conflict is building towards a serious war include: -over a million Indian and Pakistan troops amassed along the Kashmir border; -India moved five warships into the area overnight; -nuclear capable missiles are reported to have been moved into the -area; -yesterday Indian Prime Minister Mr Vajpayee addressed troops and told them "to be ready for sacrifice...It's time to fight a decisive battle"; -The Pakistan government responded by saying they would use "full force" if India was to strike; -UK Foreign Minister Jack Straw has ordered UK diplomatic staff and their families to leave Pakistan. "We have all heard the rhetoric of the threat of nuclear war ending with the end of the Cold War, but with hundreds of nuclear weapons in this region alone, the potential for nuclear war is still very real," said Dimity Hawkins. "Friends of the Earth Australia has been actively working against nuclear war and nuclear proliferation for over 25 years - this current crisis has brought us to the brink in ways not seen for a generation." Friends of the Earth Australia calls on Prime Minister John Howard and the Federal government to use all diplomatic links at their disposal to try to assist in de-escalating this situation between Australia's regional nuclear neighbours. "We must use our ties with the Indian and Pakistan governments and those of the other nuclear weapons states to stress that nuclear force can never be permitted to be used in conflict." stated Friends of the Earth Australia. "The abolition of nuclear weapons and on going international monitoring of nuclear materials is the only safe way of ensuring the nightmare of a nuclear war never becomes a reality." For further comment please call: Friends of the Earth Australia National Spokespersons on Nuclear Weapons Issues in Sydney: John Hallam (02) 9567-7533 h(02)9810-2598 in Adelaide: Dimity Hawkins: (08) 8298 5326 or mobile 0425 786 301 or the Friends of the Earth Australia Spokesperson on Nuclear Issues: in Melbourne: Bruce Thompson: (03) 9419 8700 or mobile 0417-318-368 INDIA-PAKISTAN NUCLEAR CRISIS PEACE VIGIL 12 NOON INDIAN CONSULATE 25 BLIGH STREET PROCEEDING TO PAKISTANI CONSULATE 49 YORK STREET You may wish to wear black or bring candles. Organised by Friends of the Earth, People for Nuclear Disarmament, Australian Anti-bases Campaign Committee and NUS Contact: Friends of the Earth 9567-7533, PND 9319-4296, ABCC 9212-0800 ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= ***************************************************************** 33 [psy-op] Vieques Action Alert as Navy bombs Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 01:06:50 -0500 (CDT) ----Original Message Follows---- From: NicaNet To: undisclosed-recipients:; Subject: Vieques Action Alert as Navy bombs Date: Thu, 4 Apr 2002 09:44:46 -0600 (CST) The Nicaragua Network has received this important alert from Vieques Solidarity. Reply to: viequessolidarity@bigfoot.com Call for Solidarity with Vieques, Puerto Rico Navy Bombing Resumes: Support Civil Disobedience & Peace Actions in Vieques and elsewhere April 1-22 bieke@prdigital.com Telefax: 787/741-1717 Send solidarity messages to the Vieques Summit in NYC April 12-13 viequessummit@yahoo.com www.viequessummit.org Spread the word about the Viequethon in Vieques, "Island of Poets" May 3 - 5 viequethon@aol.com www.viequethon.org Visit Web Sites in Solidarity with Vieques for more info/action suggestions ************************************************************** A CALL TO ACTION FOR PEACE ON VIEQUES: After a six-month pause, the U.S. Navy resumed bombing on April 1st and will continue for 22 days. In January, excercises in Vieques were cancelled after the USS John F. Kennedy went elsewhere to practice its war-making. The Puerto Rico Planning Board denied a permit requested by the Navy in December ruling that either live-fire or "inert" bombing destroys coral reefs and archeological sites, threatens endangered species and contaminates water supplies. The USS George Washington battle group is violating this ruling with its bombing. The Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques (CRDV) appeals to the worldwide forces for peace to creatively respond by carrying out solidarity actions for peace in Vieques and elsewhere. Actions are planned in numerous cities including Rome, Hawaii, Australia, Paris, New York, California, and more. Educational activities and protesting through the mass media will help put more pressure on the U.S. to immediately and permanently cease their war practices on Vieques. Declarations from leading religious, political, sports or artistic figures to the CRDV can be very powerful. Messages via email or fax, indicating the possibilities of organizing actions in your geographic area to denounce the continuation of bombing on Vieques are much appreciated. Persons interested in participating in civil disobedience actions should contact the CRDV as soon as possible by email or telephone. A campaign is underway to have U.S. Members of Congress urge President Bush to issue an executive order to stop the bombing in Vieques. Over 110 members have already joined this effort. More are needed. Sample letters are available. CRDV PO Box 1424 Vieques, Puerto Rico 00765 Tel/fax: 787/741-1717 bieke@prdigital.com Vieques Summit: On April 12-13, 2002 community activists, environmentalists, labor leaders, religious leaders, cultural workers, artists and elected officials will gather in New York City for a Vieques Summit, to reactivate the international campaign on Vieques. Please participate as you are able. If you cannot be present, we invite you to send statements of solidarity to be shared at this historic event. Summit supporters and participants unite to: 1. Understand that the central objective of the struggle in the island municipality of Vieques is the universally accepted 4 point program of demilitarization, decontamination, devolution of land, and sustainable economic development; 2. Recognize that the struggle for peace with justice in Vieques is a human rights issue that has had serious ramifications of genocide, and ecological and environmental degradation; 3. Endorse non-violent, peaceful civil disobedience, and other efforts in that spirit, as a strategy to stop military training exercises, demand immediate cessation of such exercises and denounce the occupation of the island municipality of Vieques by the U.S. Navy. Statements can be from organizations and/or community leaders, and sent to: viequessummit@yahoo.org AND viequessolidarity@bigfoot.com More information on how to participate in Vieques Summit: www.viequessummit.org VIEQUETHON May 3-5: A call for poets, musicians, and artists to celebrate world peace in Vieques, Puerto Rico from May 3 to May 5, 2002. This international event will gather artists of all kinds to focus the eyes of the world on the troubled Island of Vieques and transform it through their words and works of art into the Island of Poets. The celebration gathers during the second anniversary of the removal of over two hundred nonviolent protesters by U.S. officials from the bombing range on the eastern tip of Vieques. Excerpts from We Must go to Vieques: Inciting Manifesto All who remember and love their homeland must go to Vieques even if their origins do not lay there should raise their voice in the name of their birth land, in name of future dreams............. We must go to Vieques armed with poems in verse, in prose, in anger, but subtle without fear, using the word to incite others signifying our people............. We must go to Vieques and name it Island of Poets. Ricardo Lesn-Villa, (translation: Sheila Candelario) entire poem www.viequethon.org/Manifesto.htm Please send greetings to Viequethon. Messages from renowned poets/artists especially welcome: viequethon@aol.com AND viequessolidarity@bigfoot.com webinfo: www.viequethon.org Other Web Links: www.viequeslibre.org Information on the struggle to free Vieques of the U.S. Navy (multilingual) www.vieques-island.com Travel Guide for Vieques (English) www.redbetances.com Information about Puerto Rico and its Struggles (Spanish) www.viequesvive.net Clearinghouse for Websites in Solidarity with Vieques (bilingual) www.afsc.org/lac/puertorico.htm Puerto Rico Program sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee (English) www.forusa.org/Programs/puertorico/default.html Programs sponsored by the Fellowship of Reconciliation Task Force on Latin America and the Caribbean {FOR-TFLAC} (English) forlatam@igc.org _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Buy Stock for $4 and no minimums. FREE Money 2002. http://us.click.yahoo.com/orkH0C/n97DAA/Ey.GAA/sDkolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: psy-op-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ***************************************************************** 34 Editorial: A bit of fuss over nothing The Taipei Times Online: 2002-05-26 Sunday, May 26th, 2002 It was surprising to see Taiwan becoming a subject for verbal sparring between US President George W. Bush and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin during the signing of the historic nuclear arms reduction pact on Friday. Responding to US accusations that Russia continues to assist Iran with nuclear weapons technology, Putin said, "We are, for example, concerned to some extent by the development of some rocket programs by Taiwan and some other states where work is being carried out on weapons of mass destruction." It was due to a misunderstanding that this ignominious spotlight fell on Taiwan. It is completely incongruous to compare Iran and Taiwan. Iran has a history of belligerence, of conflicts with Iraq, of military suppression of minority groups and threats to neighboring countries. Iran is also a sponsor of terrorist organizations. In contrast, Taiwan is a peace-loving country that is under military threat from China. This is what makes Putin's comparison fundamentally flawed. Taiwan does not have the capacity, resources or will to pose any military threat to its neighbors. Tai-wan has only developed short- and medium-range missiles which can only reach China's southeastern coast at best. Not even the Philippines nor Japan need worry about them. Taiwan wants the missiles to act as a deterrent to Beijing, but so far there is little sign that China is impressed. Taiwan has the technology to develop nuclear weapons and has long been viewed as a quasi-member of the nuclear club. However, due to close US scrutiny, Taiwan has neither warhead inventories nor weapons-grade nuclear fuel. Each president, from Chiang Ching-kuo (½±Έg°κ) to Lee Teng-hui (§υ΅n½χ) to Chen Shui-bian (³―€τ«σ), has clearly stated that Taiwan will not develop nuclear weapons. Taiwan's strategic guidelines long ago shifted from counter-offensive planning against a Chinese attack to the defense of Taiwan. The US weapons sold to Taiwan are defensive in nature. Breakthroughs are also hard to come by in Taiwan's modest weapons development program, which is faced with technology transfer difficulties, shortages of spare parts and a defense industry that lacks economies of scale. In addition, Taiwan's missiles, which have rather short ranges and no nuclear warheads, are rudimentary and should not be a concern for a nuclear superpower like Russia. For Taiwan's missile systems to receive Putin's attention and be raised as an issue during arms talks with the US was truly flattering. Perhaps Taiwan's missile developers should be given generous bonuses for raising the nation's international profile. But in truth, Putin simply raised the Taiwan issue as a red herring. It can be viewed as either an impromptu response to US accusations about Russian assistance to Iran or a message of goodwill from Moscow to Beijing. If Putin is truly concerned about regional security, he should worry about China's missile development. Beijing has deployed short-, medium- and long-range missiles capable of reaching Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Russia and the US. China also has nuclear warheads, which are a substantial threat. This comparison should make it clear that Putin has misplaced his concerns. This story has been viewed 509 times. URL=[http://www.taipeitimes.com/news/2002/05/26/story/0000137687] Copyright © 1999-2002 The Taipei Times. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 35 Nuclear fears cast shadow over Kashmir Thestar.com/ Fri May 31, 2002 - Updated at 01:35 AM Thestar.com > News > World India condemns Pakistan's weekend missile testing `antics' Charles J. Hanley ASSOCIATED PRESS At a secret plant in Pakistan's northern hills, nuclear technicians are believed to be working overtime in these days of crisis, producing bomb uranium around the clock, specialists say. Next door in rival India, they say, atomic warheads may already be coming out of storage. The impasse over divided Kashmir is more than a showdown between two neighbours' massed armies. It has a nuclear dimension, too, and that has the world worried. Those who follow the Asian powers' emerging strategies doubt they will come to nuclear blows. But ultimate weapons force consideration of ultimate scenarios, and of miscalculation even by the coolest heads. "Vajpayee could drive the Pakistanis up the wall" and into threatening a nuclear strike, said U.S. nuclear proliferation specialist David Albright, referring to Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. Vajpayee wrote a letter to U.S. President George W. Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Russian President Vladimir Putin stressing that India was running out of patience with Pakistan. "We have exercised restraint all these months in the face of requests by the international community that we would see a change in Pakistan's attitude. That hasn't happened," Indian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nirupama Rao said, paraphrasing Vajpayee's letter. New Delhi said it was notified by Islamabad that Pakistan intends to test short and medium-range missiles today through Monday. "The government of India is not particularly impressed by these missile antics, clearly targeted at the domestic audience in Pakistan," Rao said. India and Pakistan routinely conduct missile tests and notify each other according to an agreement designed to avoid misunderstandings that might lead to an unintended conflict. However, Pakistan's announcement was ominous given the heightened tensions between the rival neighbours. In Islamabad, Pakistan's information secretary, Anwar Mahmood, said the missile exercises "are routine tests concerning technical matters." "We have notified neighbouring countries, including India, about these tests," he said. "We have also informed India that these tests have nothing to do with the current situation." Mahmood did not specify the missiles to be tested. Canada criticized Pakistan yesterday for the second time in two days, saying the weekend missile test plans would only exacerbate the increasingly tense standoff with India. "Canada deeply regrets that Pakistan has chosen to test ballistic missiles, particularly at this sensitive time," Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham said in a statement. "These tests will only heighten regional tensions and detract from constructive efforts to find a peaceful solution to the situation." Albright said India is believed to have so far produced 50 to 100 plutonium-core nuclear warheads, and the Pakistanis 30 to 50 using the other bomb material, highly enriched uranium. Some specialists think the Indians have no more than 50 devices. Each warhead's average destructive power is probably equivalent to the U.S. atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945 — around 15 kilotons, or 15,000 tonnes of TNT, said Albright, a physicist with the Institute for Science and International Security. Indian would be expected to mount the bombs on their Russian-made MiG warplanes, and the Pakistanis to rely more on missiles, including Chinese-made M-11s, with a range of 260 kilometres. Albright said that as the crisis deepens, "I think both may be mounting warheads now.'' Pakistani physicist Zia Mian said the two nations are in a race to expand their arsenals. "The Pakistani uranium enrichment facilities, as far as we know, are working three shifts, around the clock," he said. Like others, Mian, of Princeton University, said the scenario likeliest to provoke a Pakistani nuclear strike would be a "last stand" in which national survival is threatened by a deep Indian military thrust or by a strangling naval blockade. Political scientist Sumit Ganguly agreed. "If the Indians made an incursion deep into Pakistan and didn't show signs of stopping, then the Pakistanis might threaten the use of nuclear weapons,'' he said, But the University of Texas scholar said that "everything about Indian military culture speaks of care and prudence," and his fellow Indians wouldn't be "that stupid," to provoke nuclear retaliation. Legal Notice:- Copyright 1996-2002. Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All ***************************************************************** 36 Limited Nuclear War in Asia Would Kill Millions Fri May 24, 2:57 PM ET LONDON (Reuters) - A limited nuclear war between India and Pakistan over the disputed territory of Kashmir (news - web sites) would kill at least three million people, scientists said Friday. Millions would die in the immediate blast and fire and from radiation. Others would suffer from destroyed homes, lack of water and facilities and from disease years later. Although the threat of war between the neighboring South Asian countries eased somewhat Friday, tensions were still high after a week of fighting and heavy firing overnight across the cease-fire line in Kashmir. "It is imperative that the two countries not go to war, however limited in scale. Even the most local conflicts have the potential to escalate into a full-scale war, possibly nuclear," M.V. Ramana, of Princeton University in New Jersey, told New Scientist magazine. Ramana and other nuclear researchers at the U.S. university have estimated that if only a tenth of the nuclear weapons of two countries were exploded above 10 of their largest cities, 2.6 million people would die or be injured in India and 1.8 million in Pakistan. Their chilling calculations are based on what would happen if 10 explosions took place, similar in size to the one over Hiroshima in Japan in 1945, over some of India's and Pakistan's most populated cities. Radioactive dust, if the bombs exploded on the ground, would kill people across hundreds of square miles. Estimates of the countries' nuclear arsenals are based on their stockpiles of weapons-grade plutonium and uranium, according to New Scientist. "The Institute for Science and International Security in Washington suggests that India has about 65 warheads made from 310 kilograms of plutonium, while Pakistan has around 40 made from 690 kilograms of uranium," it said. Diplomatic efforts to quell the crisis between India and Pakistan began in earnest with the arrival of European Union (news - web sites) External Affairs Commissioner Chris Patten who met top Indian officials. Other foreign dignitaries are expected to follow to try to broker peace. The current crisis erupted after an attack on an Indian army camp in Kashmir. India accuses Pakistan of arming and sending militants into Kashmir where it has battled a Muslim rebellion for 12 years. Pakistan says it only provides moral and political support. Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee (news - web sites) and Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf have both said they do not want war. Copyright © 2002 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or ***************************************************************** 37 Bush and Putin Sign Pact for Steep Nuclear Arms Cuts May 25, 2002 By DAVID E. SANGER and MICHAEL WINES MOSCOW, May 24 — In a day devoted to celebrating what President Bush called "an entirely new relationship" with Russia, he and President Vladimir V. Putin signed a treaty today to commit their nations to the most dramatic nuclear arms cuts in decades. But both men tried to smooth over a disagreement about continued Russian exports of nuclear technology to Iran. The three-page Treaty of Moscow was signed early this afternoon inside the Kremlin, in a 300-year-old throne room built by the Russian czars and used today to end what Mr. Bush called "a long chapter of confrontation." While that confrontation has steadily eased since the Soviet empire began to unravel in 1989, the accord today cleared the way for what Mr. Bush and Mr. Putin hailed as a new era of cooperation focused on counterterrorism, trade, Russia's new relationship with NATO and halting the spread of nuclear arms, The treaty commits both countries to reducing their arsenals, now about 6,000 warheads each, to no more than 2,200 at the end of 2012. But then the treaty expires, meaning that either nation would be free to rearm starting the next year unless the agreement was extended or amended. Critics of the accord contend that it will leave Russia with a large supply of deactivated warheads that could fall into the hands of terrorists if they are not sufficiently guarded, and that it frees the United States to stockpile warheads that can easily be reattached to missiles. Mr. Bush's aides counter that none of the past arms control deals have regulated the complicated process of actually dismantling warheads. The treaty was signed almost exactly 30 years after President Nixon and the Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev signed the Antiballistic Missile Treaty and the first of the strategic arms limitations treaties here. Mr. Bush said he had come to end that era, and his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, said the accord should not be considered the first Russian-American treaty of the 21st century but "the last treaty of the last century." Nonetheless, either country can withdraw from the treaty with only three months' notice, and when asked today why it was necessary to keep 2,000 nuclear weapons loaded atop missiles, Mr. Bush made it clear that the future was as unpredictable as the Soviet Union's end a decade ago. "Friends really don't need weapons pointed at each other, we both understand that," Mr. Bush said. "But it's a realistic assessment of where we've been. Who knows what will happen 10 years from now? Who knows what future presidents will say and how they'll react?" It was just for that reason that Mr. Putin insisted on a formal treaty, rather than what Mr. Bush first proposed, an informal agreement between two presidents. But as Secretary of State Colin L. Powell noted recently, the Senate also demanded a treaty, so that it would be able to review the nuclear arms cuts. Both the Senate and Russia's Parliament are expected to ratify the treaty, but Mr. Bush made no predictions today how long that would take. He also defended the administration's decision to store many of its warheads as a "quality control" measure. "If you have a nuclear arsenal, you want to make sure that they work," he said. Mr. Putin added: "Out there, there are other states who possess nuclear arms. There are countries that want to acquire weapons of mass destruction." Neither president mentioned China, but by most estimates it has about two dozen intercontinental ballistic missiles. While the signing of the treaty was the centerpiece of the day, Mr. Putin's mind was clearly on his country's economic state, only four years after the collapse of the ruble, which sent many foreign investors fleeing. Economic growth is back — and he talked during a news conference about Russia's need to gain membership in the World Trade Organization, and for the Congress to revoke cold war-era restrictions on economic relations. The two leaders' efforts to cement the unpredicted partnership they have developed over the last year hit one sour note: a clear difference of opinion about Russia's continued sale of its nuclear expertise to Iran, one of the countries Mr. Bush has identified as a member of the "axis of evil." Mr. Bush told reporters, "We spoke very frankly and honestly" about the need to make sure "a nontransparent government run by radical clerics doesn't get their hands on weapons of mass destruction." But Mr. Putin immediately shot back that cooperation between Iran and Russia was not "of a character that would undermine the process on nonproliferation." He said Russia's aid was entirely focused on nuclear energy projects — projects that the Bush administration says are unnecessary in an oil-rich nation. Mr. Putin then threw the issue back at Mr. Bush, noting that "we have some questions concerning development of missile programs in Taiwan," which receives American technological aid, and said that "the U.S. has taken a commitment upon themselves to build similar nuclear power plants in North Korea." This was a reference to a 1994 accord with North Korea, in which the United States committed itself to helping the country build two "proliferation-resistant" nuclear power plants, but only after the North allows further international inspection of its suspected nuclear sites, something Iran has resisted. This evening a senior administration official said that Mr. Putin had privately assured Mr. Bush that "they are not now, nor would they, do anything to contribute to the Iranian military nuclear program or ballistic missile program." But in that meeting, he also defended Russia's dealings with Iran. In a flurry of side agreements, Mr. Bush and Mr. Putin inaugurated a "joint experts group" to develop a plan within six months to destroy or convert for commercial use Russia's large stockpile of highly enriched uranium and plutonium. Russia is estimated to have 1,000 tons of such material, and there is considerable debate over how well protected it is. The United States intelligence agencies have warned for years of the danger that the material could fall into the hands of terrorists, or that underpaid Russian nuclear scientists could divert some of the material to a rogue state or a terrorist group. In news conferences and interviews, Mr. Bush and his aides have not seemed extremely concerned by the prospect, insisting that they have received assurances about the country's nuclear security. But in a recent op-ed article in The Washington Post, former Defense Secretary William J. Perry, former Senator Sam Nunn and the former commander of the American strategic nuclear forces, Gen. Eugene Habinger, charged that the administration had no "coherent strategy" to secure the Russian nuclear supplies and had failed to insist on an accurate accounting of existing weapons. Other experts, like Graham Allison of Harvard, have contended that today's treaty addresses the lesser threat: nuclear warheads controlled by the two governments, rather than nuclear material that may be on the loose. The dispute over Iran aside, the summit meeting seemed as warm, if more formal, than the one last November at the Bush ranch in Texas. Throughout his day, Mr. Bush struck a relaxed, even casual demeanor amid the blindingly gilded splendor of the Kremlin. Early in the day, as cameras began taping the two presidents' remarks after two hours of talks, Mr. Bush was captured slyly removing a candy or gum from his mouth. Later, as he finished signing the nuclear arms treaty and a strategic relationship agreement in St. Catherine's Hall, the president directed an impish wink at Ms. Rice, who is an expert on the Russian military. It was Ms. Rice who, three years ago, wrote an article in Foreign Affairs expressing deep suspicion of Mr. Putin and his motives. Tonight she helped celebrate the treaty at a dinner at his house. Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company | Permissions | ***************************************************************** 38 U.S.-Russia Nuke Treaty Does Little Las Vegas SUN May 24, 2002 WASHINGTON- The nuclear arms-reduction treaty that President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed does almost nothing to lessen the major nuclear threats now facing the world. It doesn't keep terrorists from acquiring nuclear weapons. It doesn't stop Iran, Iraq and North Korea from developing them. It doesn't end India and Pakistan's risky nuclear standoff. The treaty, the biggest nuclear-arms cut in history, doesn't even significantly lower the chance that America or Russia could accidentally launch missiles, many experts say. The treaty's only purpose is to reduce the chances that the United States or Russia will deliberately attack each other - considered unlikely at this point anyway because the two countries are so close. It might be "a step in the right direction," said John Pike, a defense analyst in Washington. But, "there are a lot of very important problems - both between the United States and Russia and outside of that context - that this treaty doesn't address." Daryl Kimball, director of the Arms Control Association in Washington, agreed. "This is not a comprehensive strategy" to reduce nuclear risks, he said. "It's a partial strategy," and issues like India-Pakistan require urgent attention. No one disputes the treaty is important for what it does do - cut nuclear stockpiles by two-thirds. It limits the United States and Russia within 10 years to between 1,700 and 2,200 deployed strategic nuclear warheads each, down from about 6,000 each now. But the treaty allows the United States to store warheads rather than destroy them, and it leaves both nations with enough missiles to destroy each others' major cities many times over. That contradicts Bush's claim after the signing Friday that the Cold War is now "in the rearview mirror of both countries," Pike said. "It does not move us beyond mutual assured destruction." The agreement also has few additional safeguards to stop the perpetual chance of accidental or inadvertent launch, Kimball said. Perhaps even more importantly, the treaty does little to address emerging threats such as Iran. Even as they signed the treaty, Bush was pressing Putin over Russia's nuclear assistance to Iran - a country the United States has branded part of an "axis of evil," along with Iraq and North Korea, of countries who sponsor terrorism and are trying to acquire nuclear weapons. Putin gave no ground publicly, defending his country's assistance to Iran as largely energy-related, not weapons-related. But behind closed doors, Putin told Bush that Russia had no intention of doing anything to help Iran's nuclear weapons program, an administration official said. The White House is willing to offer Russia economic and other incentives to cooperate on the Iran issue, said two senior officials, speaking on condition of anonymity. Still, the debate over Iranian nuclear capabilities underscores how real remains the threat from nuclear-armed terrorists. "It's far from clear that Bush is going to get satisfaction on Iran," Pike said. Beyond help from Iran, Iraq or North Korea, terrorists also might be able to acquire nuclear material from the "still-enormous stockpile" that is vulnerable to theft, sale or diversion over the long term, Kimball said. The United States and Europe should continue to provide aid to dismantle weapons and dispose of nuclear materials in the former Soviet Union so those materials do not get in the wrong hands, Kimball said. Then there is India and Pakistan, and the nuclear weapons each of those countries hold. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Friday there's no question that India and Pakistan "have the capability for waging a nuclear war." U.S. officials have worried in particular that the two nations, at a state of high tensions because of their dispute over Kashmir, have few protocols to prevent the inadvertent launch of missiles. Asked how catastrophic such a war would be, Rumsfeld said millions of people could die. "It would be bad," he said. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 39 Nuclear fears cast shadow over Kashmir Thestar.com/ May. 25, 2002. 01:00 AM India condemns Pakistan's weekend missile testing `antics' Charles J. Hanley ASSOCIATED PRESS At a secret plant in Pakistan's northern hills, nuclear technicians are believed to be working overtime in these days of crisis, producing bomb uranium around the clock, specialists say. Next door in rival India, they say, atomic warheads may already be coming out of storage. The impasse over divided Kashmir is more than a showdown between two neighbours' massed armies. It has a nuclear dimension, too, and that has the world worried. Those who follow the Asian powers' emerging strategies doubt they will come to nuclear blows. But ultimate weapons force consideration of ultimate scenarios, and of miscalculation even by the coolest heads. "Vajpayee could drive the Pakistanis up the wall" and into threatening a nuclear strike, said U.S. nuclear proliferation specialist David Albright, referring to Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. Vajpayee wrote a letter to U.S. President George W. Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Russian President Vladimir Putin stressing that India was running out of patience with Pakistan. "We have exercised restraint all these months in the face of requests by the international community that we would see a change in Pakistan's attitude. That hasn't happened," Indian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nirupama Rao said, paraphrasing Vajpayee's letter. New Delhi said it was notified by Islamabad that Pakistan intends to test short and medium-range missiles today through Monday. "The government of India is not particularly impressed by these missile antics, clearly targeted at the domestic audience in Pakistan," Rao said. India and Pakistan routinely conduct missile tests and notify each other according to an agreement designed to avoid misunderstandings that might lead to an unintended conflict. However, Pakistan's announcement was ominous given the heightened tensions between the rival neighbours. In Islamabad, Pakistan's information secretary, Anwar Mahmood, said the missile exercises "are routine tests concerning technical matters." "We have notified neighbouring countries, including India, about these tests," he said. "We have also informed India that these tests have nothing to do with the current situation." Mahmood did not specify the missiles to be tested. Canada criticized Pakistan yesterday for the second time in two days, saying the weekend missile test plans would only exacerbate the increasingly tense standoff with India. "Canada deeply regrets that Pakistan has chosen to test ballistic missiles, particularly at this sensitive time," Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham said in a statement. "These tests will only heighten regional tensions and detract from constructive efforts to find a peaceful solution to the situation." Albright said India is believed to have so far produced 50 to 100 plutonium-core nuclear warheads, and the Pakistanis 30 to 50 using the other bomb material, highly enriched uranium. Some specialists think the Indians have no more than 50 devices. Each warhead's average destructive power is probably equivalent to the U.S. atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945 — around 15 kilotons, or 15,000 tonnes of TNT, said Albright, a physicist with the Institute for Science and International Security. Indian would be expected to mount the bombs on their Russian-made MiG warplanes, and the Pakistanis to rely more on missiles, including Chinese-made M-11s, with a range of 260 kilometres. Albright said that as the crisis deepens, "I think both may be mounting warheads now.'' Pakistani physicist Zia Mian said the two nations are in a race to expand their arsenals. "The Pakistani uranium enrichment facilities, as far as we know, are working three shifts, around the clock," he said. Like others, Mian, of Princeton University, said the scenario likeliest to provoke a Pakistani nuclear strike would be a "last stand" in which national survival is threatened by a deep Indian military thrust or by a strangling naval blockade. Political scientist Sumit Ganguly agreed. "If the Indians made an incursion deep into Pakistan and didn't show signs of stopping, then the Pakistanis might threaten the use of nuclear weapons,'' he said, But the University of Texas scholar said that "everything about Indian military culture speaks of care and prudence," and his fellow Indians wouldn't be "that stupid," to provoke nuclear retaliation. Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. ***************************************************************** 40 Estimated nuclear strength of India, Pakistan - CNN.com - [Agni II] India's Agni II intermediate range missile is displayed before the public in New Delhi Confronting each other over the disputed territory of Kashmir, India and Pakistan are the world's newest known nuclear powers. The two countries conducted back-to-back nuclear tests in 1998, but the exact number of warheads held by each side is unknown. The following explains how tension in the region began, and includes estimates of their nuclear arsenal supplied by Jane's Strategic Weapon Systems in London. INDIA In 1966, India declared it could produce nuclear weapons within 18 months. Eight years later, India tested a device of up to 15 kilotons and called the test a "peaceful nuclear explosion." Nuclear weapons: Who has what? In May 1998, India conducted five underground nuclear test in Pokharan, Rajasthan, and declareed itself a nuclear state. Estimated nuclear warheads: 100 to 150 Of these, up to 20 are nuclear bombs that could be dropped from Jaguar or Mirage 2000 aircraft. The remaining warheads could be fitted to Agni or Prithvi missiles Missile types and ranges: + Agni 1 (2,500 km/1,560 miles) + Agni 2 (3,000 km/1,875 miles; upgraded, up to 3,500 km/2,190 miles) + Prithvi SS-150 (150 km/94 miles) + Prithvi SS-250 (250 km/156 miles) PAKISTAN [Musharraf missiles] Pakistani military ruler Gen. Pervez Musharraf examine Pakistani missiles Ghoari and Shaheen In 1972, following its third war with India, Pakistan secretly decides to start nuclear weapons program to match India's developing capability. Pakistan responds to India's nuclear tests in 1998 by announcing it exploded six underground devices in the Chagai region (close to its border with Iran.) Estimated 25 to 50 nuclear warheads, including up to 20 bombs deliverable by F-16 fighter jets Remaining warheads may be fitted to Shaheen or Ghauri missiles Missile types and ranges: + Shaheen 1 (600 km/375 miles) + Shaheen 2 (under development - up to 2,500 km/1,560 miles) + Ghauri 1 (1,500 km/940 miles) + Ghauri 2 (2,300 km/1,440 miles) Copyright 2002 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. © 2002 Cable News ***************************************************************** 41 3 million may die in Indo-Pak N-war [http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/may26/index.htm] Sunday, May 26, 2002 Paris, May 25 (AFP) At least three million people would be killed and another 1.4 million seriously injured if even a "limited" nuclear war broke out between India and Pakistan, the British publication New Scientist said. The estimates, it said on its website, come from a new study made by United States’ and Asian researchers at Princeton University, New Jersey. The figure is based on the impact of 10 Hiroshima-force bombs detonated at a height of 600 metres over the five largest cities in India and the five biggest in Pakistan. The targeted cities used in the scenario are Bangalore, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and New Delhi in India. The targeted cities used in the scenario in Pakistan were Faisalabad, Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore and Rawalpindi, according to the researchers. According to the researchers, casualties on the Indian side would be 1.7 million dead and 9,00,000 injured, while the toll on the Pakistan side would be 1.2 million dead and 600,000 injured. But this toll only comprises the immediate casualties from blast, fire and radiation. An unknown number of deaths would occur from cancer in future years. In addition, if the bombs exploded on the ground instead of in the air, the resulting radioactive dust could kill people across hundreds of square kilometres, the researchers warn. As the prevailing winds are from the west, India is a likelier victim of fallout than Pakistan, they add. The 10 bombs are only a 10th of the two countries' estimated nuclear arsenal, according to the researchers. © Copyright, 1999 The Printers (Mysore)Ltd. ***************************************************************** 42 Tactical nuclear weapons pose major concern - 05/25/02 The Detroit News. By Paul Richter / Los Angeles Times WASHINGTON -- The U.S.-Russian arms deal signed Friday in Moscow has won praise around the globe, yet the agreement says nothing about a class of atomic weapons that experts believe poses the greatest threat: The smaller devices called tactical nuclear weapons. Thousands of these arms are scattered throughout Russia, in the form of missile warheads, artillery shells, aircraft bombs and land mines. Because of the security weaknesses of Russia's decaying military infrastructure, these explosives are more likely than those of any other country to fall into the hands of terrorists or "rogue" states, say Western government officials and independent experts. U.S. officials acknowledge that such tactical weapons pose a proliferation danger, and they discussed safeguards with Russian leaders in the talks that led to the treaty signed Friday. But analysts say the Americans were reluctant to push too hard, for fear of endangering that agreement to reduce by two-thirds the number of nuclear warheads deployed by the two nations. Critics maintain this was a mistake, considering that Sept. 11 attacks have driven home the message that terrorists and rogue regimes might pose a greater risk than a long-range strike by a former Cold War adversary. "In the post-9/11 world, these are the (weapons) that pose the greatest threat," said Alistair Millar, of the Fourth Freedom Forum, an arms control group in Washington. "That's a pretty severe omission." Some prominent centrist and conservative figures have joined liberal arms-control advocates in arguing that the United States should be pushing for greater controls on tactical weapons. Former Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., former Clinton administration Defense Secretary William J. Perry, and retired Air Force Gen. Eugene E. Habiger, former commander of U.S. strategic nuclear forces, argued this week that top priority should be given to gaining an accurate accounting of both countries' tactical nuclear arsenals. "These are the nuclear weapons most attractive to terrorists -- even more attractive to them than (radioactive bomb-making) material, and much more portable than strategic warheads," the three wrote in an opinion-page article in the Washington Post. Tactical nuclear weapons are generally defined as those designed for use against military targets on the battlefield. Strategic nuclear weapons are larger long-range weapons that are designed for use against cities or strategic nuclear missile forces. Alexei G. Arbatov, a ranking member of Russia's Duma, or lower house of parliament, has been quoted as saying that Russia has about 3,800 tactical nuclear weapons. But many Western estimates range as high as 18,000. The U.S. has about 1,670 such warheads, according to Millar, including 180 bombs stored in seven Western European countries. Tactical weapons are generally compact enough to be carried by one or two persons, said Millar. They are usually relatively small in destructive power -- equivalent to less than 100 tons of TNT -- but they range up to 1 million tons or more of TNT. Some are 60 times as powerful as the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima, Japan, in World War II. Experts say these weapons pose more of a danger because they are designed to be set off by front-line troops and do not have the elaborate safeguards employed with strategic missiles and bombs. Also, they are deployed in front line areas near cities, rather than in remote bases or missile fields. Russian officials have insisted that their inventory is safe and in good hands. But some officials have acknowledged the risks. Col. Gen. Yevgeny P. Maslin, a Russian defense official in charge of nuclear munitions, told Special Warfare magazine in 1996 that theft of nuclear weapons from Russian facilities was "impossible." But he acknowledged that the weapons are at risk when being transported, and that he was concerned that they could be stolen by former nuclear-industry specialists, "social malcontents, embittered individuals." So far no weapons are publicly known to have been stolen. But there have been unconfirmed reports of Russian tactical weapons being offered for sale, Millar said. The International Atomic Energy Agency reported the recent case of two Lithuanian arms brokers who offered to sell Russian tactical nuclear weapons to undercover U.S. agents, he said. One of the greatest sources of Western concern about the tactical arsenal has been an unnerving absence of information on what has occurred since Russia began downsizing the arsenal and withdrawing tactical weapons from former Soviet republics at the end of the Cold War. After former President Bush, the current American leader's father, made unilateral cuts in the U.S. tactical force, Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin promised in 1992 to sharply slash the tactical force. But since then, there have been only vague statements about how far that downsizing has progressed. One obstacle to any reduction in the Russian arsenal is the suggestion from Bush administration officials that the Pentagon may need to develop a new class of small "bunker-buster" nuclear weapons to destroy deeply buried enemy command posts and weapons storage facilities. U.S. officials have publicly denied that they have decided to build such new weapons, but several officials are known to privately favor such an effort. Another problem is that Russia's tactical force has become even more important to its defense in recent years. Russia no longer has enough money to maintain the robust conventional forces it would like. And many in the country feel threatened by the continuing expansion of NATO, which is expected this year to add seven members, including Baltic states and others on Russia's western flank. "They see this as their nuclear equalizer," said Thomas Z. Collina of the Union of Concerned Scientists. ***************************************************************** 43 Russian nuke dangers studied United Press International: By Nicholas M. Horrock UPI Chief White House Correspondent From the Washington Politics & Policy Desk Published 5/25/2002 11:30 PM ST. PETERSBURG, Russia, May 25 (UPI) -- Secretary of State Colin Powell said Saturday that a working group of top U.S. and Russian officials will seek to establish how Russia has handled nuclear materials that could be used by terrorists for a "dirty bomb" as well as other tactical nuclear and chemical/biological weapons. In a meeting with reporters here after the signing in Moscow of a major strategic nuclear arms reduction treaty Friday, Powell said the United States is moving to learn the security level of Russian stockpiles of short and medium range nuclear weapons, nuclear material and chemical/biological warfare materials. "With respect to fissile material (nuclear material that could be used in an explosion), I can't tell you how much is unaccounted for, if any." He said the U.S. wants to have a "broader dialogue" with the Russians to establish what they produced and how it has been handled. He said they would seek to get it under "solid accountability, so that the whole world can be more comfortable with the knowledge that it is under solid accountability." Powell said the group has four members including Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Powell and the Russian defense and foreign ministers. Powell said that the Russians haven't given the United States "all the intimation on just what type of technology, chemical activities, biological activities that they've had ongoing over the years." Powell said Rumsfeld has made a particular point of urging the administration to pin down how the Russians are handling so-called "tactical" nuclear weapons, which include short range missiles, artillery shells and other weapons used by military field forces. In 1991, under President George H.W Bush, both Russia and the United States agreed to unilaterally reduce those weapons. The United States destroyed far more of those weapons than the Russians did, and arms control experts believe that the Russians have 20,000 of those weapons in warehouses. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that this stockpile is totally secure, but western intelligence sources claim they have no assurance of that. Powell said the U.S. now wants to know "Have you met the unilateral commitments you made 10 years ago to get rid of these?" Following Sept. 11, U.S. officials have become concerned that al Qaida elements may have obtained either nuclear materials that could produce a "dirty bomb," which is nuclear material that would exploded by conventional explosives but would spread radioactivity. There have also been concerns that terrorists might have obtained two kinds of explosives in the Russian tactical arsenal: the "suitcase" or "backpack" bombs developed to be delivered by Russian commandos in wartime. The Bush administration has feared that a terrorist delivered nuclear explosion in an urban area would be far more devastating that the losses on Sept. 11. Copyright © 2002 United Press International ***************************************************************** 44 Nuclear fallout: The new attack on Hiroshima Independent News © 2002 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd Hiroshima's Peace Park stands at the site where, 56 years ago, the first atomic bomb was dropped in wartime. It's a sacred memorial and a reminder to the world of the horrors of nuclear war. Why, then, are people setting out to vandalise it? Richard Lloyd Parry reports 23 May 2002 In the few seconds that he appears on screen, caught by a security camera, the vandal of Hiroshima appears as little more than a ghostly silhouette. It was late at night when he entered the Peace Park; there was no one about, and only the nearby Flame of Peace provided flickering illumination. The video shows a figure who is clearly male, of average height; he is carrying something as he bends to his task. But the blurred shapes reveal nothing of his clothes or features. Only one thing is distinctive about him: his walk. "If someone was doing a thing like that, you would expect him to be cautious, and to walk nervously," says Minoru Hataguchi, the director of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, who has watched the video over and over again. "But the strangest thing is how relaxed and brazen he is." Just before 11pm, he stepped over the low fence surrounding the Cenotaph, a few hundred yards from the spot where the world's first A-bomb to be dropped in wartime exploded on 6 August 1945. It is here that the Japanese prime minister lays a wreath in a solemn annual ceremony to mark the anniversary. Every year, millions more from all over the world travel to Hiroshima to pay their respects at the great stone casket in which the names of those killed or exposed to the bomb are recorded, 221,893 of them altogether. The security video records the intruder leaning briefly over the casket, before he strides calmly away. The whole thing was over in 30 seconds. Half an hour later, a night watchman on his rounds found the Cenotaph dripping with thick, scarlet paint. Word quickly got round, and within hours, people of all ages had congregated at the park, where the job of cleaning up had begun. A group of elderly survivors of the bombing sat in front of the monument as the work was carried out, in silent protest. "For us, the Cenotaph is a grave for all those people who had no grave and no funeral," says 76-year-old Sunao Tsuboi, whose body is still scarred by the burns he suffered as a 20-year-old student. "Someone called to tell me at midnight, and the next morning, 80 of us met there. The paint was bright red, the colour of blood. We don't know what kind of person is doing these terrible things. But deep in my heart, I can never forgive him." Compared to Japan's other cities, Hiroshima has few ancient temples and shrines, but in many ways it is the holiest place in the country. The various memorials to the bomb – including the Cenotaph and the skeletal Atomic Dome, the only building to survive the explosion – have acquired over the years the aura of holy sites. The annual ceremony is conducted with the solemnity of a religious ritual, and the survivors of the bomb, known as hibakusha, are priests in a secular cult of peace. For 56 years they have travelled around Japan and the world, recounting their terrible stories, and preaching a message of nuclear disarmament. But in the last few months, Hiroshima has suffered a series of what can only be described as desecrations. Since last autumn, at least 16 separate acts of vandalism have been recorded in and around the Peace Park. They began trivially, when someone smashed up electric lamps along its perimeter. Then graffiti appeared on the park information centre and on the Atomic Dome, a UN World Heritage Site. Nearby is one of the park's most touching monuments, dedicated to the many child victims of the bomb. Every week, young visitors cover it with thousands of painstakingly folded origami cranes, symbols of hope and remembrance. In February, somebody set fire to them. The splattering of paint on the monument happened on 5 March; since then, more lamps have been smashed. Vandalism is almost unknown anywhere in Japan; to find it here, in the heart of the self-styled City of Peace, is profoundly shocking to local people. "These are not isolated acts," says Yuji Sumida of the city government's peace- promotion division. "This is no ordinary vandalism. We regard these incidents as a challenge to the peace movement." Who is behind them, nobody knows. The police have made no arrests and no public statements about the violations and, in the absence of official suspects, numerous theories are in circulation. Some point the finger at disgruntled Koreans. Others suspect Japanese right-wingers, or teenage members of motorbike gangs. One theory blames a single group of vandals; another, a number of unconnected individuals, copy-cats drawn by media coverage of the early incidents. Whoever is responsible, the desecrations have revealed a dark side to Hiroshima that outsiders never see. "Our city is famous all over the world as a place of peace," says Mr Sumida. "Unfortunately, it is also a city of crime and violence." The truth is that, since the nationwide commemorations of the 50th anniversary of the atomic bombs, there and in Nagasaki, Hiroshima's status as an international city of peace has been eroding. To some extent, this is inevitable. After nearly six decades, memories of Hiroshima – and of Nagasaki, three days later – are literally dying out. In 1995, 148,000 hibakusha lived in Hiroshima prefecture; five years later, 15,000 fewer were left alive. Those who remain grow weaker and sicker; many of the kataribe – "storytellers" who travel the country recounting their personal experiences of the bomb in schools – have given up. And not only because of old age. More and more, the kataribe report indifference and downright rudeness on the part of their young audiences. Stories are common of schoolchildren chattering during the narrations; a few years ago in Nagasaki, one unruly class pelted a kataribe with boiled sweets. "If I'm addressing a big hall of kids, by the end, a third of them will be asleep," says one of the few kataribe still active, 71-year-old Hiroshi Hara. "It's not just the pupils who don't take it seriously these days, it's the teachers, too." Once Mr Hara's story was interrupted when a schoolboy hurled a chair through a plate-glass window. Visitor figures are in long-term decline as tourists and schools opt for glamorous holidays to Hawaii or the tropical island of Okinawa, rather than in Hiroshima. In 1995, the Peace Memorial Museum had 1.55 million visitors; five years later, it was down to a million. Surveys show that fewer and fewer Japanese schoolchildren know when, or even where, the bombs were dropped, let alone why. "If you ask me who burned the origami cranes, it was someone with a resentment about school," says Mr Hataguchi, the museum's director. But cynical impiety is not confined to the young. Few will talk openly about it, but to many Hiroshimans, the cult of peace is regarded as a positive nuisance. These days, when the city administration closes down for the annual ceremony on 6 August, the city inevitably receives complaints – about rubbish not being collected, and government offices being closed. "How long will you continue with this?" one caller asked. "More than 50 years is long enough." There is a deeper and darker resentment about the people who used to be regarded as the heroes of Hiroshima – the hibakusha. Because of the mysterious long-term effects of radiation, the definition of a hibakusha is surprisingly broad. Anyone who was in the centre of the city when the bomb dropped, or who visited it during the two weeks afterwards, qualifies, as does anyone who was in the womb of such a person. The problem is that not all have been uniformly affected. At one end of the scale are men like Sunao Tsuboi, who was caught in the open 1,200 yards from the centre of the bomb, and whose life has been dominated by the physical suffering inflicted by it. His ears are shrivelled and torn, he is scarred all over his face and body, and he is constantly in and out of hospital. He has suffered from anaemia, angina and colon cancer, all caused by radiation. At the other end there are people like Minoru Hataguchi. His father was killed by the blast, and his mother was exposed to it two months after he was conceived. He was born in May 1946 and is, so far, unaffected, although many others like him died through miscarriage or suffered birth defects. Both men, however, are hibakusha, and both are entitled to the considerable financial benefits that the status brings. Almost three million people live in Hiroshima prefecture, but only the 133,000 hibakusha are entitled to free medical care throughout their lives and to a monthly pension of between 48,000 and 140,000 yen (£260 and £800) a month. In an ageing population, the potential this creates for jealousy and resentment is obvious. "There are hibakusha who show no ill effects," says Mitsuo Okamoto, a professor of Peace Studies at Hiroshima's Shudo University. "Sometimes their neighbours look at them and feel jealous, and call them hypocrites." There are muted complaints that the peace movement is a financial liability and that Hiroshima is peddling its idealist message at the expense of more profitable kinds of self-promotion. The famous ruin of the Atomic Dome, for example, has become Hiroshima's emblem, reproduced on a thousand posters, postcards and badges, but in the natural course of events it would have crumbled away long ago. Its preservation, in the blasted state in which it was left by the bomb, requires constant maintenance and buttressing. This year, it will cost the city 146 million yen (£800,000). "There's a cynical view that Hiroshima should have a different economic policy, that being a city of peace, it has no industrial future," says Professor Okamoto. "There's a saying you hear sometimes: 'You can't eat peace.' By which they mean, of course, that you can't make money out of it. But there are people in Hiroshima who feel isolated from the image of the city as a symbol of peace. It's a taboo to say so publicly, but there's a suspicion that these incidents at the Peace Park might be carried out by people who have that kind of grudge." There are other suspects to add to the list. Bizarrely, in a country of such orderly politeness, Hiroshima has a terrible problem with motorbike gangs, which can be heard every night roaring around its quiet boulevards. Two years ago, they were engaged in a pitched battle with police; at the beginning of last month, tough laws were introduced to clamp down on the teenage bikers. Among the graffiti sprayed in the park were what appeared to be gang logos. Others in the frame include right-wing ultranationalists, who demonstrate daily outside the Peace Museum and City Hall, broadcasting their anti-communist message from black sound trucks and calling for the resignation of the left-wing mayor of Hiroshima, Tadatoshi Akiba. Or the Korean survivors of the bomb, who are engaged in a long-running legal battle with the Japanese government about their entitlement to hibakusha compensation. Recently, the dispute has come close to resolution, and most locals doubt that Koreans are responsible – although the graffiti on the Atomic Dome, in misspelled English, read "NO MORE RACIZM". There are even mutterings that the culprits could be deranged and disaffected members of the peace movement itself. Since the 1960s, it has been split between two rival factions, both calling themselves the Hiroshima Council Against A and H Bombs – the Tweedledum and Tweedledee of peace politics. One is backed by the Communist Party, the other by moderate socialists. Their platforms are virtually indistinguishable, the two groups are divided solely by personality clashes, and the only thing they hate more than nuclear weapons is one another. In fact, the biggest question provoked by the vandalism is not who has done this to the peace movement, but what good has the movement done for the world? Every year, on 6 August, the mayor of Hiroshima dutifully reads out his Peace Declaration; every time a nuclear test is carried out anywhere in the world, the city and its private citizens' groups bombard embassies and governments with letters of protest. And yet the tests go on and the nuclear warheads endure, each one so powerful as to make the Hiroshima bomb look like a firework. Even within Japan, the commitment to pacifism is weakening. During the Gulf War, a furious debate was conducted about whether it was right to dispatch Japanese troops overseas – in the end, there was no agreement and the government simply made a contribution of one billion dollars. But after 11 September, the new prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, managed to get his own way without much opposition. As a result, Japanese naval ships are serving in the Indian Ocean in support of the anti-terrorism coalition, the first such mission since the Second World War and a cause of anxiety to many in Hiroshima. "Japan is less pacifist than it used to be," says Hiroshi Hara. "We no longer have a vision of the kind of nation we want to be. But as long as Japan stays under the American nuclear umbrella, why should anyone else take seriously what we say against nuclear weapons?" The phrase that you hear again and again is heiwa boke, which literally means "peace senility" and suggests also silliness and complacency. "Japan has been at peace for so long that young people have no idea what it means to be at war," says Mr Hataguchi. Today at the Cenotaph, all that is left of the paint attack are a few flecks of red. A new, bigger security camera scans the scene; guards patrol 24 hours a day. But no one believes the attacks are over. "I hope they catch them, but even if they do, that is not the answer," says old Mr Tsuboi. "The answer is education: to get across the message of Hiroshima to the new generation." In the meantime, Hiroshima feels less like a city of peace, and more like a place of violence, resentment and forgetfulness. Also from the Pacific Rim section. ***************************************************************** 45 Nuclear weapons taboo weakening, experts say Sunday May 26, 3:41 AM By Jan Strupczewski SIGTUNA, Sweden (Reuters) - International experts said on Saturday they feared that countries could become less inhibited about using nuclear weapons, a chill warning as tensions between nuclear-capable India and Pakistan threaten to erupt into war. Experts from the Nobel Peace-prize winning Pugwash Committee, who met on arms control and tactical nuclear weapons in the small Swedish town of Sigtuna north of Stockholm, said the end of the Cold War confrontation between Russia and the United States had changed the way nuclear weapons were perceived. Unlike during the Cold War, the use of nuclear weapons in a possible military conflict between Pakistan and India would not lead to a global nuclear holocaust, weakening the taboo of using them, the experts said. India and Pakistan, which both have nuclear weapons, have massed a million men on their border, backed by missile batteries, tanks and fighter planes, since a deadly raid on India's parliament in December. New Delhi says Pakistan-based militants were responsible for the raid. Pakistan denies it backs the guerrillas. "During the cold war any nuclear use was linked to the general thermonuclear holocaust," said Steve Miller, head of the International Security Programme at the Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University. "But no longer. Three weapons used in Kashmir, which of course would be a horrible tragedy, would probably have no great impact on the daily life of the planet." And with the stakes in a potential nuclear conflict lowered, the use of such weapons was becoming more tempting. "The taboos that have been surrounding nuclear weapons in the Cold War may now be weakening," said Professor Gwyn Prins of the European Institute of the London School of Economics. "We are as close to nuclear use as we have ever been in the nuclear age." The experts said Friday's agreement between Russia and the United States to cut long-range nuclear warheads by two-thirds was of small military significance, as it was less ambitious than the 1997 agreement between U.S. President Bill Clinton and Russia's Boris Yeltsin. They also pointed to the fact that most of the warheads would be moved from the missile sites into storage rather than destroyed. Copyright © 2002 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 46 Russian nuke dangers studied -- The Washington Times May 25, 2002 By Nicholas M. Horrock UPI Chief White House Correspondent ST. PETERSBURG, Russia, May 25 (UPI) -- Secretary of State Colin Powell said Saturday that a working group of top U.S. and Russian officials will seek to establish how Russia has handled nuclear materials that could be used by terrorists for a "dirty bomb" as well as other tactical nuclear and chemical/biological weapons. In a meeting with reporters here after the signing in Moscow of a major strategic nuclear arms reduction treaty Friday, Powell said the United States is moving to learn the security level of Russian stockpiles of short and medium range nuclear weapons, nuclear material and chemical/biological warfare materials. "With respect to fissile material (nuclear material that could be used in an explosion), I can't tell you how much is unaccounted for, if any." He said the U.S. wants to have a "broader dialogue" with the Russians to establish what they produced and how it has been handled. He said they would seek to get it under "solid accountability, so that the whole world can be more comfortable with the knowledge that it is under solid accountability." Powell said the group has four members including Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Powell and the Russian defense and foreign ministers. Powell said that the Russians haven't given the United States "all the intimation on just what type of technology, chemical activities, biological activities that they've had ongoing over the years." Powell said Rumsfeld has made a particular point of urging the administration to pin down how the Russians are handling so-called "tactical" nuclear weapons, which include short range missiles, artillery shells and other weapons used by military field forces. In 1991, under President George H.W Bush, both Russia and the United States agreed to unilaterally reduce those weapons. The United States destroyed far more of those weapons than the Russians did, and arms control experts believe that the Russians have 20,000 of those weapons in warehouses. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that this stockpile is totally secure, but western intelligence sources claim they have no assurance of that. Powell said the U.S. now wants to know "Have you met the unilateral commitments you made 10 years ago to get rid of these?" Following Sept. 11, U.S. officials have become concerned that al Qaida elements may have obtained either nuclear materials that could produce a "dirty bomb," which is nuclear material that would exploded by conventional explosives but would spread radioactivity. There have also been concerns that terrorists might have obtained two kinds of explosives in the Russian tactical arsenal: the "suitcase" or "backpack" bombs developed to be delivered by Russian commandos in wartime. The Bush administration has feared that a terrorist delivered nuclear explosion in an urban area would be far more devastating that the losses on Sept. 11. Back to UPI All site contents copyright © 2002 News World Communications, Inc. ***************************************************************** 47 Flats waste should stay here till solution found Rocky Mountain News: Opinion Letters to the Editor, May 25 May 25, 2002 Hurrah for the governor of South Carolina, Jim Hodges. He does not want waste from Rocky Flats in his state. I would not want it either if I lived in South Carolina. The federal government created this problem by creating Rocky Flats. The federal government greatly enhanced the Rocky Flats problem by allowing a succession of private corporations to run Rocky Flats in an unbelievably slipshod manner. I believe Larry, Moe and Curly could have done a better job than Dow Chemical. The place was a nightmare for years, a textbook example of all that has been historically wrong with our nuclear program. Now the federal government wants to foist it off on the citizens of South Carolina. If I were a resident, I would join him in lying down in the middle of the road. The problem is that the federal government located the bomb plant here in Colorado. And the powers that ran this state in those days went along with it. So it is Colorado's problem. And the waste needs to stay here until something can be done with it that does not imperil mankind. Of course this is the problem with any nuclear waste, which is why I have such a dim view of nuclear power plants. Were the situation reversed, and the waste was being shipped here from another state, we would all be screaming bloody murder. Think about it. Brian Kelly Denver 2002 © The E.W. Scripps Co. ***************************************************************** 48 Research center gets name change Amarillo Globe-News: Local News: 05/25/02 By Thomas Doyle tdoyle@amarillonet.com [tdoyle@amarillonet.com] The Amarillo National Research Center has changed its name to the University Research Alliance. "For the type of work we are doing and are going to be doing, it's a more appropriate name. It's a broader name that encompasses more of what we do," said Cathy Dixon, program manager. Dixon described the Alliance as a university consortium between the Texas A University and the University of Texas systems to increase the research capabilities of the two systems and increase the technical expertise in Amarillo. In the past, the program has helped recruit and train personnel at Pantex, a function the consortium is now phasing out, she said. However, the Alliance is still contracting with the Department of Energy to manage the Advanced Accelerator Applications Fellowship program, and has been approached by other entities about establishing new programs, Dixon said. Shortly after the name change, Texas Tech University pulled out of the collaboration. "We just wanted to establish a direct relationship with (BWXT-Pantex) because we have a lot of education and research efforts in common," said Michael Allen, assistant vice president for research at Texas Tech University. Texas Tech is contracting with Pantex to provide engineering education services to the latter's employees, and is negotiating several research projects with the firm, he said. Tech if it also participated in collaborations going through the Alliance, Allen said. Despite the loss of Texas Tech, Dixon said the Alliance has high hopes for the future. "Our mission is definitely changing, no question. We are not 100 percent certain . . . what we're going to be doing in the future, but we are very optimistic it's going to be great things," Dixon said. 1996-2002 Amarillo Globe-News ***************************************************************** NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: *****************************************************************