***************************************************************** 03/27/02 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 10.78 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POLICY 1 UAE team to study nuclear regulations 2 US: Bush faces fresh criticism over energy policy 3 Russia to boost nuclear power output 5.6 per cent in 2002 - 4 Russia to resume selling uranium to US in April 5 Russia, Iran to Complete Reactor Deal 6 US: Nuclear Plants Said to Face Big Attack Risk 7 UAE team to study nuclear regulations 8 US: Restarting old TVA reactor called viable 9 Vietnam Plans to Produce Nuclear Power 10 US: Green groups to seek more energy documents from Bush administrat 11 US: Optimism growing that USEC, PACE to agree on tax bill NUCLEAR REACTORS 12 US: U.S. Orders Checks for Corrosion at Nuclear Reactors 13 US: Seabrook to look closely at acid corrosion 14 Russian engineers convert nuclear-powered icebreaker into 15 US: TVA OKs sale of Hartsville nuke site for industry park 16 US: Creaking nuclear reactors fuelling US alarm 17 US: US nuclear plant was close to disaster 18 CT questions Koeberg legality 19 US: NRC to Meet with CP&L Officials to Discuss Safety Performance at 20 US: NRC to Meet with Amergen to Discuss Three Mile Island 1 21 US: Fort Calhoun plant to inspect reactor lid 22 US: FirstEnergy failed to tell NRC about reactor rust 23 US: TVA says decision on nuclear plant likely by summer 24 US: Federal officials field questions on Fort Calhoun plant security 25 US: Reactor's acid leak years old 26 US: South Texas Project named top nuclear producer 27 US: Markey: List of documents from security report 28 UK: Sizewell B on alert as US plant at risk of meltdown 29 US: Markey Releases Report on Security Gaps at Nuclear Reactor Sites 30 US: Nozzle in Crystal River nuclear plant was cracked 31 UK: Officials consider Sizewell B safety review 32 US: Entergy: Workers checked out fine at Nuclear One NUCLEAR SAFETY 33 U.N. Finds Uranium Toxins From NATO Arms in Serbia 34 Radioactive containers found in eastern Kazakhstan 35 Home News: UK is breaking spirit of radioactive emissions 36 US: Nuclear workers center still open 37 West scours Georgia for nuclear trash 38 US: Fire injures 4 workers at Browns Ferry 39 Yugoslavia contaminated by DU dust 40 Ottawa considers radiation detectors at border points 41 US: Former IAAP worker receives $150,000 42 Ottawa considers radiation detectors at border points 43 Baghdad holds meeting on depleted uranium impact NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 44 Kazakhstan to bury radioactive scrap metal received from China 45 Fire breaks out on nuclear ship 46 Russia to send Iran nuclear fuel, take spent fuel for reprocessing 47 Nuclear fuel transport exercise nears completion in southern Russia 48 Russian MP advocates huge nuclear waste storage on Pacific 49 US: Reactor fuel storage plan worries detailed to NRC 50 Radioactive rod found in Kaohsiung scrap 51 US: NRC Licensing Board to Hold Hearings in April in Utah on Private 52 US: Aides Tour Proposed Nuclear Site 53 US: Energy Secretary met few foes of Nevada nuclear waste dump 54 US: NRC plans hearings on Yucca 55 US: EDITORIAL: No special session 56 US: Official: Acid will speed corrosion of nuke waste casks 57 US: Energy chief says decision was based on sound science 58 US: NUCLEAR REPOSITORY: Abraham met few Yucca foes 59 BNFL NUCLEAR TRANSPORT SHIP FIRE RAISES SAFETY CONCERNS 60 US: Yucca: Letter: Will seniors ever learn the truth? 61 US: Letter: Reid spoke truth about Bush 62 US: Letter: Don't expect nuke dollars 63 US: Letter: Present facts about Yucca to Americans 64 US: 68% support special session 65 US: Lawmakers are split on senators' request 66 US: Herrera works to free $3 million of county money to fight dump 67 Japan Nuclear Fuel sets waste quota 68 Radioactive rod found in Kaohsiung scrap 69 £600,000 Giant Fire Engines To Help Protect Sellafield 70 BNFL Rejects Call Over Director 71 US: COMMISSIONERS RESPOND TO YUCCA MOUNTAIN SURVEY NUCLEAR WEAPONS 72 US tracks 100 gm of plutonium it gave India - 73 United Arab Emirates team to study nuclear rules in Pakistan 74 Chemistry student 'could make up nuclear bomb from Sellafield 75 Following America to nuclear disaster 76 Britain planned nuclear war on back of envelope 77 US: Authors, professor discuss Lee case 78 NZ: N Zea's prex visits D.C. 79 Comment: Bush's nuke bandwagon 80 1947 row on size of nuclear deterrent 81 US, New Zealand at Odds Over Ships 82 NZ Prime Minister not under US pressure on nuclear issue US DEPT. OF ENERGY 83 Weapons Labs Offer Changes to End Boycott 84 Does Goliath want bubble fusion to fail? 85 GOP Donors Who Met With Abraham 86 DOE's revised budget is no time for complacency 87 DOE Energy Contacts Disclosed 88 Report Cites Unaccounted Plutonium 89 DOE Energy policy documents released 90 SRS faces budgetary inspection OTHER NUCLEAR 91 Bush Administration Undermining Air Quality Protections ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 UAE team to study nuclear regulations The Frontier Post From Peshawar Pakistan Updated on 3/27/2002 9:49:46 AM DUBAI (SANA): A high-level official team from United Arab Emirates has left for Pakistan on a three-day visit to “acquaint” themselves with the rules and regulations of the Pakistan atomic energy Commission, official reports said.“A team from the Ministry of Electricity and Water UAE has left for Islamabad on a three-day official visit to acquaint themselves on rules and regulations of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Corporation,” the official news agency WAM said. “The team headed by Ali bin Abdullah Al Owais, Under Secretary of the Ministry, includes Saud Othman Al Humaidan, Assistant Under Secretary for Technical Affairs, Abdullah Mohammed Al Muttawa, Director of Monitoring and Atomic Applications and Salem Abdullah Talib, Director of the Under Secretary’s office “ the report added. Petroleum-rich UAE does not have any nuclear power plants and almost all its power needs are currently generated from oil or gas-fired power plants. The only country in the region which has an ongoing nuclear programme is Iran which has collaborated with Russia to build atomic energy plants monitored by the Vienna-based international atomic energy agency. © Copyright 2001 The Frontier Post ***************************************************************** 2 Bush faces fresh criticism over energy policy By Nancy Dunne in Washington Published: March 26 2002 21:31 | Last Updated: March 26 2002 21:59 Combat over President George W. Bush's energy policy entered a new phase with the release of thousands of pages of documents generated last year when the administration was developing its comprehensive energy plan. The release to 17 different organisations by court order, of records sought under the US Freedom of Information Act, contained new ammunition for Democrats and environmental groups. They have long contended that the energy plan was written at the behest of energy industry groups, such as Enron, which contributed heavily to Mr Bush's election campaign. The picture emerging from the heavily edited records released on Tuesday, is of an administration mostly concerned with increasing production of energy from traditional sources - fossil and nuclear fuels, rather than renewable energies, favoured by environmentalists. Spencer Abraham, energy secretary, met at least eight times with indus tryleaders, but never with environmentalists. The papers show an effort to "green" the plan by meet ing energy efficiency and renewable groups at the last minute. It asked some environmental groups for input within 24 hours. Mr Abraham said the 11,000 pages released by his department confirmed that "it was indeed a balanced plan that not only sought but included all viewpoints". The pages included white papers, issue papers, con gressional testimony and other publicly available documents. They also showed that Mr Abraham met several utility executives, and representatives from American Coal and the Independent Petroleum Association of America. One of their top priorities was a shift in environmental rule enforcement towards which the administration has been moving. Mr Abraham's staff held several meetings with Enron representatives and the energy taskforce - com prised of administration offi cials - met them six times. However, department offi cials pointed out that Mr Abraham had declined to meet Kenneth Lay and Jef frey Skilling of Enron. None of this is considered a sur prise, but it could cost the administration politically. Larry Klayman, head of Judicial Watch, a conservative law firm which investigates government corruption, said the energy department was "hiding" its most incriminating documents. While 11,000 were produced, 15,000 were withheld he said. The groups are planning to return to court to chal lenge much of the informa tion deleted on grounds of confidentiality. Mr Klayman predicted that after a May 2 court hearing he would be allowed to question administration officials under oath. Energy department officials claim they had asked several environmental groups for input. "Not all organisations were responsive. Several did not return phone calls and messages," the department said. David Hamilton of the Alliance to Save Energy, one of the groups cited, said he had been asked to one meet ing at the end of the process, clearly "a last-minute effort to improve the optics on energy efficiency and renew ables". The Center for Responsive Politics yesterday released a list of the top 50 contributors among energy companies. Enron topped the list, hav ing contributed almost $2.5m (E2.8m, £1.8m) to Republicans and almost $900,000 to Democrats. ***************************************************************** 3 Russia to boost nuclear power output 5.6 per cent in 2002 - ministry BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Mar 27, 2002 Text of report in English by Russian news agency Interfax Moscow, 27 March: The Russian nuclear energy sector plans to increase its output by 5.6 per cent to 144bn kilowatt hours in 2002, the Atomic Energy Ministry announced on Wednesday. In 2002 its output amounted to 136.4bn kilowatt/hours, which was 4.7 per cent more than in 2000. Source: Interfax news agency, Moscow, in English 1200 gmt 27 Mar 02 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. ***************************************************************** 4 Russia to resume selling uranium to US in April AFX Europe; Mar 27, 2002 MOSCOW (AFX) - Russia will resume sales of uranium to US nuclear power stations in April, news agency Itar-Tass cited Minister for Atomic Energy Aleksandr Ruminanstev as saying. Exports were suspended at the beginning of the year in a price row. The US importers were seeking a 15 pct cut. Ruminanstev said the two sides will sign a deal on supplies within a month. Under the agreement, Russia will deliver 500 mln usd worth of uranium by 2013, Itar-Tass cited him as saying. He did not say whether the Russians have conceded to the US demand to lower the price. Under a 1993 agreement, USEC (United States Enrichment Corp) was to buy 500 mln tonnes of highly enriched uranium taken from nuclear missile heads over 20 years. neo/jsa/wf All Material Subject to Copyright ***************************************************************** 5 Russia, Iran to Complete Reactor Deal March 27, 2002 By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS MOSCOW (AP) -- Russia will finish building a nuclear power plant in Iran despite U.S. opposition and is considering a tentative North Korean request for a similar plant, Russia's top nuclear official said Wednesday. The reactor Russia is building at an unfinished nuclear power plant in Bushehr, Iran, will be completed by 2005 as planned, Nuclear Energy Minister Alexander Rumyantsev said at a news conference. The United States has repeatedly urged Russia to abandon a 1995 contract with Iran to complete a nuclear reactor at Bushehr worth about $800 million, saying the project could help Iran build a nuclear bomb. Russia denies that, saying the reactor can only be used for civilian purposes and will remain under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency. ``Iran has signed all required international agreements and undertaken full obligations on transparency and checks ... and unfailingly fulfilled them,'' Rumyantsev said. The controversy over Russia's nuclear cooperation with Iran and U.S. claims that Russian companies have leaked missile technologies to Tehran is a major irritant in U.S.-Russian relations amid overall improvement. Rumyantsev said its cooperation with Iran poses no threat of nuclear proliferation. He said a Russian law passed last year strengthened nonproliferation guarantees by allowing spent fuel from nuclear power plants abroad taken back to Russia for reprocessing. ``We will ship nuclear fuel to Iran under the contract, which envisages that the spent fuel will be taken back to Russia,'' Rumyantsev said. ``There has been no other cooperation that could help Iran build nuclear weapons.'' On a conciliatory note, he said Russia views the U.S. concerns with ``great attention'' and hopes for a ``compromise that would help strengthen confidence and peace while allowing Russia to reap economic benefits.'' But he also said his ministry was looking at a tentative request from North Korea for the construction of a nuclear power plant. That could anger the Bush administration, which suspects North Korea is developing nuclear weapons. In January, Bush labeled North Korea part of an ``axis of evil'' seeking weapons of mass destruction. ``We are holding discussions and trying to find out whether it would be economically feasible,'' Rumyantsev said. ``But these are only discussions without any specific foundation.'' North Korea recently threatened abandon a 1994 agreement with Washington in which it froze two Soviet-designed reactors suspected of producing weapons-grade plutonium in exchange for U.S. oil shipments and the construction of two replacement reactors of a type that cannot can produce weapons-grade plutonium. The reactors have not yet been installed. Copyright 2002 The Associated Press | Privacy Information ***************************************************************** 6 Nuclear Plants Said to Face Big Attack Risk March 26, 2002 By JOSH MEYER, TIMES STAFF WRITER WASHINGTON -- The nation's 103 nuclear power reactors are vulnerable to a potentially catastrophic terrorist attack but have taken few safety countermeasures since Sept. 11, even though they have been targeted by Al Qaeda, a congressman alleged in a report released Monday. In the document--which was immediately discounted by the nuclear power industry--Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) said the nation's commercially operated reactors are at risk from a wide variety of assaults, including sabotage from foreign workers who were not adequately screened for ties to terrorist organizations. The nuclear plants are also vulnerable to the same kind of suicide hijackings that leveled the World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon, Markey said in the report, titled "Security Gap: A Hard Look at Soft Spots in Our Civilian Nuclear Reactor Security." Markey, a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, is a longtime critic of the commission who has accused it of being too cozy with the industry it regulates. He said his report was based on information provided by the commission's five members and other regulatory officials in response to his detailed questions about nuclear plant safety after Sept. 11. If hijackers rammed even a relatively small plane into a nuclear reactor, it could cause a full-scale meltdown and widespread radiation contamination, Markey said. The report also contends that guards at nuclear plants are underpaid, undertrained and incapable of repelling an attack from marauding terrorists intent on gaining entry to the facility. And spent radioactive nuclear fuel from the plants also isn't protected as well as it should be, he added. Industry Officials Say Report Is Too Critical Nuclear regulatory officials said Markey's report was far too critical of safety issues at nuclear plants, and inaccurate in places. They would not, however, discuss in detail where the report might be inaccurate, saying they would respond on a point-by-point basis at a later date. "On the whole, we disagree with his contention that we have not done enough to strengthen security," NRC spokesman Victor Dricks said. "Security at nuclear plants was strong before 9/11 and it was strengthened in the immediate aftermath of the attacks." But Markey said many of the responses by NRC officials were unsatisfactory. "Black hole after black hole is described and left unaddressed," he wrote. "Post-[Sept. 11], a nuclear safety agency that does not know--and seems little interested in finding out--the nationality of nuclear reactor workers or the level of resources being spent on security at these sensitive facilities is not doing its job." Markey is co-sponsoring a bill that would allow the federal government to take over security at nuclear plants in much the same way it has at airports after Sept. 11. Such a takeover has been vigorously opposed by the NRC and nuclear industry officials. In his report, Markey said the NRC and its licensed operators have ignored concerns about safety for many years, but that the issue took on far more urgency after the Sept. 11 attacks, when evidence was found indicating that Al Qaeda operatives are interested in targeting nuclear materials and civilian nuclear power plants in the U.S. Last month, The Times reported that a confidential intelligence report indicates that Osama bin Laden's operatives displayed a keen interest in exploiting vulnerabilities in security at sensitive U.S. facilities, including nuclear plants, and noted that Al Qaeda-trained agents were still at large in the United States. "I think Markey is exactly on target in terms of his criticism of the commission's inaction on upgrading nuclear power plant security," said Paul Leventhal, president of the nonpartisan Nuclear Control Institute and a former staff director of the Senate nuclear regulation subcommittee. Markey's report also said: * The NRC does not know what its licensees spend on security or how many security guards are employed at each reactor. * Twenty-one U.S. nuclear reactors are located within five miles of an airport, but 96% of all U.S. reactors were designed without regard for the potential for impact from even a small aircraft. * The NRC has rejected placing antiaircraft capabilities at nuclear facilities, even though other countries have chosen to do so, especially for reactors located close to airports. * Spent nuclear fuel is stored in significant quantities at reactors across the U.S., including in California, yet it is often kept in buildings that are not "hardened structures," some of which reportedly have sheet metal roofs. But Markey said he was particularly concerned about what he described as inadequate screening of nuclear plant employees for potential ties to terrorist organizations. The NRC, he said, does not know how many foreign nationals it employs and requires little in the way of background checks. Security is so poor, he said, that terrorists could already be secretly working at reactors, and the independent operators--and the NRC--would not know it. He noted that Mohamed Atta and the other Sept. 11 hijackers had no criminal records or other problems that would be flagged under the current screening process. Mitch Singer, a spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, said the trade association and lobbying group for the nuclear power industry requires all power plants to screen employees and to monitor them closely. The plants, he said, provide fingerprints and other information about prospective employees to the FBI, which then examines their employment, education and criminal history. Some employees working in sensitive areas must also pass psychological exams. Singer also said the FBI "checks these people against the FBI watch list of suspected terrorists, and the FBI continues to update that list and share it with the [nuclear power] industry." And the trade association has boasted in recent newspaper ads that security forces at nuclear power plants are highly professional. "They are basically paramilitary forces and are highly trained," Singer said. "These are not your typical airport security people." The FBI had no comment on how it works with the nuclear industry to screen prospective employees at nuclear power plants. Copyright 2002 Los Angeles Times ***************************************************************** 7 UAE team to study nuclear regulations ©The Frontier Publications (Pvt) Ltd. Updated on 3/27/2002 9:49:46 AM DUBAI (SANA): A high-level official team from United Arab Emirates has left for Pakistan on a three-day visit to “acquaint” themselves with the rules and regulations of the Pakistan atomic energy Commission, official reports said.“A team from the Ministry of Electricity and Water UAE has left for Islamabad on a three-day official visit to acquaint themselves on rules and regulations of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Corporation,” the official news agency WAM said. “The team headed by Ali bin Abdullah Al Owais, Under Secretary of the Ministry, includes Saud Othman Al Humaidan, Assistant Under Secretary for Technical Affairs, Abdullah Mohammed Al Muttawa, Director of Monitoring and Atomic Applications and Salem Abdullah Talib, Director of the Under Secretary’s office “ the report added. Petroleum-rich UAE does not have any nuclear power plants and almost all its power needs are currently generated from oil or gas-fired power plants. The only country in the region which has an ongoing nuclear programme is Iran which has collaborated with Russia to build atomic energy plants monitored by the Vienna-based international atomic energy agency. ***************************************************************** 8 Restarting old TVA reactor called viable Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 12:14 p.m. on Wednesday, March 27, 2002 by Duncan Mansfield Associated Press KNOXVILLE -- Tennessee Valley Authority directors were told Tuesday that restarting an old nuclear reactor in Alabama -- at a cost of $1.7 billion to $1.8 billion -- is the answer to future power demand. "I feel it can be done right and we can run it well," TVA nuclear chief John Scalice said of a staff recommendation to revive the Browns Ferry Unit 1 reactor near Decatur, Ala. Critics worry that a decision to restart TVA's oldest reactor could virtually erase three years of efforts to reduce the agency's now $25 billion debt. They also questioned whether the plant is needed. "No other utility in the country I think could get away with what TVA is about to get away with," said Stephen Smith, director of the Knoxville-based Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, citing a lack of TVA oversight. The three-member TVA board was briefed on the nuclear staff's recommendation during a meeting Tuesday in Hartsville, Tenn. "This careful and thorough review of the amount of work, the estimated cost and the time required to return Unit 1 to service will help the board make a sound business decision," TVA Chairman Glenn McCullough said in a statement. "The study shows the unit can provide an affordable, reliable source of power for the people of the Tennessee Valley," he said. "However, this is just one of the steps to be taken so that the board can make an informed decision." An environmental study suggesting a 20-year extension of the operating life of all three Browns Ferry reactors must receive a final 30-day public review. TVA's financial officers also must craft a plan to pay for the work, possibly with private assistance. The TVA board could vote as early as May or June on whether to begin the estimated five-year construction project to restore and upgrade Unit 1. Plans are to boost its capacity by some 230 megawatts to 1,280 megawatts -- enough to serve more than 650,000 homes. TVA estimates the renovation project, which would include plumbing and electrical work in the reactor's core, would provide up to 2,400 temporary jobs and be completed in time to meet a projected 1,250-megawatt to 1,750-megawatt growth in electricity demand. But once complete, the reactor would require only 125 to 150 more full-time workers because of shared systems and operations with the rest of the plant. That makes it a better deal long-term than a freestanding gas or coal-fired plant built from scratch, Scalice said. The Unit 1 reactor began operation in 1973. It has been mothballed since 1985 when TVA shut down the federal agency's entire nuclear program over safety concerns. Browns Ferry, scene of a 1975 fire that was the worst commercial nuclear accident in this country prior to Three Mile Island, has been back in business since 1991 when its Unit 2 reactor returned to service. The plant's Unit 3 reactor came back on line in 1995. "The plant has been producing power inexpensively and efficiently since we restarted Unit 2," Scalice said. The reactors have operated at 95 percent capacity, a top performance, with little interruption. The Unit 3 reactor was taken down for refueling Tuesday after operating continuously for 669 days -- the second best mark in American nuclear industry history. "I think the estimates that they are using are ambitious," Smith said. "TVA has a history of low-balling estimates on the nuclear program and being overly ambitious about completing construction dates." But Scalice is confident about restoring Unit 1. "We said we could do it within that price range and that schedule," he said. "I think that preliminarily makes sense for us to do." TVA is the country's largest public power producer, serving 8.3 million people through 158 distributors in Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. [http://www.oakridger.com/dailydouble] All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 9 Vietnam Plans to Produce Nuclear Power Xinhuanet 2002-03-27 18:26:19 HANOI, March 27 (Xinhuanet) -- Vietnam is planning to build its own nuclear power station to meet its increasing demand of electricity. Vietnamese government had given the green light to conducting apre-feasibility study for the construction of a nuclear power plant, according to a report of Vietnam News Agency on Wednesday. The study, expected to be completed in 2003, will be submitted to the country's National Assembly for approval. ¡¡¡¡Local energy experts have devised two energy sources development scenarios to 2020 for Vietnam. Under the first scenario, the country is estimated to need 30,000 megawatt (MW) of electricity by 2020, including 4,000 MW of coal-fuelled power, 10,000 MW of hydro-electric power, 4,000 MW ofimported power, 10,000 MW of gas-fuelled power, and 1,200 MW of nuclear power. In other words, Vietnam's first nuclear power generator should be put into operation in 2019. Under the second scenario, Vietnam will need 35,000 MW of electricity by that time or additional volumes of 3,000 MW and 2,800 MW of coal-fuelled and nuclear power respectively. In this case, Vietnam will need to start operating its first nuclear powergenerator in 2017. The country's first nuclear power plant is likely to be built either in the country's southern central coastal province of Ninh Thuan or its neighboring province of Binh Thuan. Vietnam has been conducting research on the application of nuclear power in the areas of health care, agriculture, industry and environmental protection. Enditem Copyright © 2000 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 10 Green groups to seek more energy documents from Bush administration in court [AFX News - Asia] Summary: WASHINGTON (AFX) - The National Resources Defense Council said it will seek further documents from the Department of Energy, related to President George W. Bush's National Energy Policy, through the federal courts because the DoE continues to "stonewall" its requests. Earlier this week the DoE was forced to release thousands... Date: 03/27/2002 15:59 WASHINGTON (AFX) - The National Resources Defense Council said it will seek further documents from the Department of Energy, related to President George W. Bush's National Energy Policy, through the federal courts because the DoE continues to "stonewall" its requests. Earlier this week the DoE was forced to release thousands of consultative documents related to the president's energy plan to the NRDC in compliance with a federal court order won under freedom of information laws by the NRDC. The documents showed that Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham met with more than 100 energy industry executives and trade officials, but no environmental representatives as his department formulated its contribution to the president's energy plan. The energy department says it did consult with public interest groups "who chose to participate" in its evaluation process, and that some of their measures were included in its recommendations to the president's energy task force. "The Secretary does meet with energy experts, that's his job, so it's no surprise that he meets with people in the energy field... we in many cases reached out to environmental groups by phone and said we would like to have their input, but the organisations were not responsive," said Jeanne Lopatto, a DoE spokeswoman. The NRDC and other environmental groups like Greenpeace say the DoE only contacted them during the closing stages of the consultation process and that they did not have enough time to respond in full. Sharon Buccino, a senior attorney with the NRDC, said at a press conference today that they were forced to launch their legal bid against the DoE because the department and the White House turned oil, utility and coal corporations "wish lists directly into national policy while ignoring proven technologies that can help us meet our energy needs cleanly and reliably." The DoE's Lopatto, however, said: "There was certainly an effort on the department's part to search out and to meet with energy environmental people, but we came up with a lack of interest." She stressed that many environmental measures, including 10 recommendations from the NRDC were included in the department's recommendations for the National Energy Plan. The NRDC says none of its recommendations were incorporated. The DoE was just one of many government departments tasked by the president last year to develop a new National Energy Policy. The White House published its National Energy Policy recommendations in May of last year, most of which were incorporated into a bill which passed the House of Representatives last August. The legislation, which advocates opening federal lands to oil and gas exploration, increasing nuclear capacity, and gives tax breaks to utilities as well as offering measures to improve energy conservation, has met stiff partisan resistance in the Senate where Democrats have countered the bill with their own legislation. Buccino added that the NRDC has filed another legal brief today with the US District Court for the District of Columbia seeking to get the administration to explain to a federal judge why it should not be held in contempt for failing to deliver the released documents by Monday's agreed deadline. jjc/djp NNN © Copyright AFX 2002, All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 11 Optimism growing that USEC, PACE to agree on tax bill The Paducah Sun Paducah, Kentucky Wednesday, March 27, 2002 By Bill Bartleman bbartleman@paducahsun.com--270.575.8650 FRANKFORT, Ky.--Sen. Bob Leeper was optimistic late Tuesday that USEC Inc. and union workers were nearing an agreement on issues that could remove the union's opposition to a bill that would exempt enriched uranium from the state's 6 percent sales tax. Representatives of USEC and the Paper Allied-Industrial Chemical &Energy Workers Union met for three hours Tuesday and will meet again this morning, Leeper said. The meeting included Leon Owens, president of PACE Local 5-550 in Paducah, and Phil Potter, the international union's Washington lobbyist. "I am a little more optimistic now than I was earlier in the day," Leeper said after being briefed on the late afternoon meeting at USEC headquarters in Bethesda, Md. "As long as they are willing to talk, there's always hope that issues will be resolved." The bill exempting the sales tax on enriched uranium produced at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant was sidetracked in the House after PACE and the Kentucky AFL-CIO opposed it strongly. The union is using the issue as a negotiating tool with USEC on a range of issues, Leeper said. He wouldn't divulge those issues because he didn't want to interfere with the negotiations. However, Rep. Frank Rasche, D-Paducah, indicated one of the issues is related to how laid-off workers will be treated at USEC's facilities in Portsmouth, Ohio. The enrichment plant there was closed last summer, eliminating hundreds of jobs. An additional 440 jobs will be eliminated this summer when final shipping operations are transferred from Portsmouth to Paducah. Another issue has been the new positions that will be created in Paducah by the movement of the final shipping operation. USEC spokeswoman Elizabeth Stuckle in the past has said it will create 30 to 50 new positions. Other work will be absorbed by employees involved in shipping the unfinished product from Paducah to Portsmouth. Stuckle would not comment or confirm that those jobs were part of the company's talks with the union, but she did say it appeared progress was made in Tuesday's meeting. "Our people who were involved said it was very productive, and the communications and discussion will continue," she said. Rasche and Rep. Charles Geveden, D-Wickliffe, said they were involved in a conference call with USEC officials earlier in the day. They said they were given an update on the talks with the union but also would not reveal the issues. Leeper, Rasche and Geveden said the top USEC officials they talked to Tuesday did not issue threats that the failure to pass the tax exemption would have a negative effect on future decisions about the Paducah plant. Late Tuesday, Leeper said his conversation with USEC representatives, whom he didn't identify, has been "understanding and cordial regarding our view" that the union opposition must be removed before the tax issue is resurrected. "We (lawmakers) can't affect what they are doing, but they can affect what we are doing," Leeper said of the negotiations between USEC and PACE. "I think that we are all after the same goal, which is to do what we can to help the Paducah plant and the workers." Elaine Spalding, president of the Paducah Area Chamber of Commerce, and McCracken Judge-Executive Danny Orazine were in Frankfort to discuss the importance of the tax bill's approval. ***************************************************************** 12 U.S. Orders Checks for Corrosion at Nuclear Reactors March 26, 2002 By MATTHEW L. WALD WASHINGTON, March 25 — Nuclear reactor operators have been ordered to check their reactor vessels after the discovery that acid in cooling water had eaten a hole nearly all the way through the six-inch-thick lid of a reactor at a plant in Ohio. The corrosion left only a stainless-steel liner less than a half-inch thick to hold in cooling water under more than 2,200 pounds of pressure per square inch. At the 25-year-old Ohio plant, Davis-Besse, near Toledo, the stainless steel was bent by the pressure and would have broken if corrosion had continued, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, where officials were surprised by the discovery. They said they had never seen so much corrosion in a reactor vessel. The commission, which has warned plants for years to watch for any corrosion, has ordered all 68 other plants of similar design — pressurized-water reactors — to check their lids. The commission is particularly worried about a dozen of the oldest plants and ordered them to report by early April whether they were safe enough to keep in service. The commission told these plants to demonstrate that technicians there would have noticed such corrosion in their normal inspections, had it occurred. If the liner had given way in the Ohio reactor, experts say, there would have been an immediate release of thousands of gallons of slightly radioactive and extremely hot water inside the reactor's containment building. The plants have pipe systems that are meant to pump water back into a leaking vessel, but some experts fear that if rushing steam and water damaged thermal insulation on top of the vessel, the pipes could clog. In that event, the reactor might have lost cooling water and suffered core damage — possibly a meltdown — and a larger release of radiation, at least inside the building. Such extensive corrosion "was never considered a credible type of concern," said Brian W. Sheron, associate director for project licensing and technology assessment at the regulatory commission. Small leaks of cooling water are common, Mr. Sheron said, but engineers always thought that if cooling water leaked from the piping above the vessel and accumulated on the vessel lid, the water would boil away in the heat of over 500 degrees, leaving the boric acid it contains in harmless boron powder form. At Davis-Besse, however, it appears that the water was held close to the metal vessel lid, or head, perhaps by insulation on top of the vessel. Boric acid is used in cooling water to absorb surplus neutrons, the subatomic particles that are released when an atom is split and go on to split other atoms, sustaining the chain reaction. Engineers are not yet certain why the corrosion occurred. A nuclear engineer at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit watchdog group that is often critical of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said the discovery was troubling. "This is really something that shouldn't happen," said the engineer, David Lochbaum. "You shouldn't get such a huge hole in a pressure-retaining vessel." Edwin S. Lyman, the scientific director of the Nuclear Control Institute, an anti-proliferation group based here, said: "This is a pretty serious issue, and it has generic implications. And it was discovered by accident." Workers stumbled on the problem in the process of fixing a leaking tube that connects to the vessel head, which is 17 feet in diameter and weighs 150 tons. The tube is part of the reactor control system; inside it there is a control rod, which operators can lower into the core to smother the flow of neutrons and stop the chain reaction, or raise to allow the reactor to run. Technicians discovered that the metal that supports the tube had mostly disappeared. The plant owner, FirstEnergy Corporation, is hoping to patch the hole, an irregular opening about 4 by 5 inches. But the commission is skeptical about whether this is possible. No one in this country has replaced a reactor vessel head, although several plants have ordered parts to do so. FirstEnergy ordered a new head just before the extent of the problem became obvious. A company spokesman said the company hoped to install it in the spring of 2004. That date reflects how the industry, with no new reactor orders in decades in this country, has limited production capacity for such parts. The plant might also be able to use a vessel head from a reactor in Midland, Mich., that was never completed, or from a similar plant that was retired in 1989. Davis-Besse, which began operating in 1977, was not designed with the idea that the head would be replaced; technicians would have to cut a bigger hole in the steel-reinforced concrete containment building to get the new head into it. The company has not said what the job will cost, but Duke Power Company, which operates three reactors similar to Davis-Besse, plans to replace the heads of all three for about $20 million. FirstEnergy could spend nearly that much each month for electricity from alternative sources if it must wait for the replacement part. Because of the discovery at Davis-Besse, the regulatory commission ordered a dozen other plants to report back within two weeks and prove that inspections they have done in the past would have found any corrosion. The inspection cannot be done while the plant is running, and if the utilities cannot convince the commission, they presumably face shutdowns of perhaps several weeks just for the checks. Such shutdowns occurred intermittently in the 1970's and 80's but have become extremely rare as reactors have improved their reliability. The industry is hopeful, however, that inspections it began under commission orders several years ago, to look for leaks, would have found any similar cases. Those inspections began after the heads of French reactors showed signs of leaks and corrosion. "It could be something unique to Davis-Besse," said Alexander Marion, director of engineering at the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's trade association. A goal for the investigation at the plant, he said, would be to find out not only why the corrosion occurred but also why it was not noticed sooner. "The plants are getting older and we're starting to see these kinds of problems," Mr. Marion said. Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company | Privacy ***************************************************************** 13 Seabrook to look closely at acid corrosion The Union Leader & New Hampshire Sunday News - March 27, 2002 By KATHARINE McQUAID Union Leader Staff Seabrook Station will conduct a more thorough inspection of the plant’s nuclear reactor head during its regular shut-down in May because a cavity was found on the top of a similar reactor vessel in Ohio, a Seabrook Station spokesman said yesterday. Al Griffith said a 1999 inspection of Seabrook’s nuclear reactor head showed no evidence of boric acid corrosion, which the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said may be the cause of the cavity at the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station in Ohio. But as a safety measure, Seabrook workers will remove insulation from its reactor head during a scheduled refueling shut-down in May and conduct a full surface inspection using a robotic camera, Griffith said. Meanwhile, the NRC has asked Seabrook and 68 other nuclear plants with pressurized water reactors like the one at Davis-Besse, to submit information on the structural integrity of their reactor vessel heads. “This is all in response to what’s happening out in Ohio,” Griffith said. According to a March 19 news release on the NRC’s Web site, the information submitted by the 69 plants will allow the NRC to determine whether current inspection practices at the plants are enough, or if they should be augmented. Griffith said the NRC’s questions are standard procedure when something goes wrong at any of the nuclear plants in the country. “It’s an opportunity for the industry to learn from other people’s experiences,” he said. But Bob Backus, attorney for the Seacoast Anti-Pollution League, said the reactor head is one of the major barriers against the escape of radiation, and if it’s compromised it could be a very serious concern. “If they are not able to verify the integrity of their reactor vessel, I think they should go on a cold shut-down until they can verify their vessel has not been compromised,” Backus said. Griffith said boric acid corrosion is not unheard of, but it is not spontaneous either. It happens over time and some plants are more susceptible to it than others. “This is not an unknown issue. Boric acid and carbon steel is a very bad mix,” he said. According to Griffith, the Davis-Besse plant had this problem in the past, but Seabrook, which has a different design, has never shown any sign of it. He said calling for the shut-down of one power plant because of a problem at another would be a rush-to-judgment. “There is no indication we’ve ever had a problem like that,” he said. Griffith also said the NRC’s inquiry of other pressurized water reactors, and Seabrook’s decision to do a more thorough inspection of it’s reactor head is only a prudent safety measure. “No one is suggesting even for a second we have this kind of problem at Seabrook or any other plant,” he said. ***************************************************************** 14 Russian engineers convert nuclear-powered icebreaker into power station BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Mar 27, 2002 Text of report by Russian news agency ITAR-TASS Murmansk, 27 March: It turns out that ships, like people, can learn to do several jobs. The Sovetskiy Soyuz nuclear-powered icebreaker today proved this theory - for the first time in Russia it has started functioning as a floating nuclear power station. Its nuclear power-generating set began supplying electricity to all mooring facilities of the Murmansk-based Atomflot technological repair enterprise. "This is not just an experiment," acting chief of the Murmansk shipping company Aleksandr Medvedev said in an exclusive interview with an ITAR-TASS correspondent. "The servicing at the base of nuclear-powered icebreakers which the state passed to the shipping company for it to operate them is very expensive. State subsidies do not cover all the necessary expenses. Therefore, we decided to reduce expenditure in such an unusual manner." "However, this is not the only advantage of using the icebreaker's nuclear generating sets to supply electricity to shore-based facilities," Aleksandr Medvedev said. It has been proved in practice that floating power-generating sets on board nuclear-powered icebreakers can reliably supply electricity not just to one enterprise but to a large city, such as Murmansk, in extreme situations, which are quite common in polar regions. The experience gained during the implementation of the project will also be taken into account by Russian engineers who design floating nuclear power stations for remote populated areas on Russia's Arctic coast. Source: ITAR-TASS news agency, Moscow, in Russian 0739 gmt 27 Mar 02 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. ***************************************************************** 15 TVA OKs sale of Hartsville nuke site for industry park - Wednesday, 03/27/02 By LEON ALLIGOOD Staff Writer HARTSVILLE, Tenn. — More than 25 years after the Tennessee Valley Authority arrived with plans to build a nuclear plant that was touted as the economic savior of Trousdale County, the federal agency revisited the area yesterday, again with economic development in mind. The TVA board of directors approved an auction of 554 acres of the defunct nuclear plant property so Four Lakes Regional Development Authority can build an industrial park. When completed, the park is expected to provide hundreds of jobs. ''I think it's going to be a good thing for us. I feel really good about it,'' said Pat Fergusson, county executive of Trousdale County. He has been hoping to put the TVA property to good use for years. The agency's board of directors met in the courtroom of the historic Trousdale County Courthouse, one of the smallest venues ever visited by the three-member panel, which usually meets in Knoxville or other cities. In the audience to witness the board's approval were county commissioners, city councilmen and aldermen from around the region, as well as Billy Frank Celsor, the last person alive whose property was taken for the proposed nuclear facility. He stood by District Attorney General Tommy Thompson, a longtime advocate for local use of the TVA reservation, as Thompson addressed the directors. ''Billy Frank had to sell his 450-acre farm, and now he's glad to have it used for the people of Trousdale County after all these years. Maybe this will allow our kids and grandkids to stay here and find jobs,'' Thompson said. None of the current TVA directors — Chairman Glenn McCullough Jr., Skila Harris or Bill Baxter — was on the board when the nuclear site was initiated, but Thompson said they had responded well to Hartsville's plea. ''You are listening to the needs of the people,'' Thompson told them. © Copyright 2002 The Tennessean ***************************************************************** 16 Creaking nuclear reactors fuelling US alarm Irish Newspapers THE safety of scores of ageing nuclear reactors dotted across the United States has been thrown into doubt by the discovery of severe corrosion at a plant in Ohio that could have triggered a massive failure. The alarm was sounded after engineers discovered that acid had eaten a hole almost all the way through the six-inch-thick lid of the 25-year-old Davis-Besse reactor outside Toledo, Ohio. All that remained to hold back cooling water contained at 2,200 pounds of pressure was a skin of stainless steel. All 68 plants in the US that are of similar design have been ordered by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, (NRC), to inspect their lids as soon as possible. The nuclear industry accounts for 20pc of electricity generation in the US and already electricity and natural gas prices have started to rise in the US as the industry ponders the possibility that many plants may have to shut down. "This is a pretty serious issue and it has generic implications," commented Edwin Lyman of the Nuclear Control Institute, an anti-proliferation advocacy group in Washington. "And it was discovered by accident." The commission is especially concerned about six reactors that share exactly the same design as the Ohio plant. Among them is the Three Mile Island reactor in Pennsylvania, which suffered a near-catastrophic failure in 1979. Three Mile Island is owned by Amergen, itself 50pc owned by British Energy plc. The operators of these plants and six others considered particularly high risk have been given until April 1 to convince the commission that regular inspections would have detected corrosion of the kind discovered in Ohio. If they fail to do so, they will be ordered to shut down at once. The hole in the lid in Ohio was caused by boric acid, which is used in the coolant bath surrounding the uranium rods inside the reactor core. Engineers found the corrosion last month during a periodical inspection. Had the remaining stainless steel skin, already bent out by pressure, given way, very hot and mildly radioactive water would have rushed into the concrete containment building around the reactor. In a worst case scenario, the reactor might have been starved of cooling water and suffered a dangerous failure and possibly even a full-blown meltdown. The nuclear sector was already in the spotlight this week after a leading US congressman, Edward Markey of Massachusetts, issued a report suggesting that the industry had such feeble security in place that terrorists could easily be working at plants. ( Independent News Service) David Usborne in New York © Copyright Unison ***************************************************************** 17 US nuclear plant was close to disaster Independent News © 2002 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd By David Usborne in New York 27 March 2002 The safety of ageing nuclear reactors dotted across the United States has been thrown into doubt by the discovery of severe corrosion at a plant in Ohio that could have triggered a massive failure. The alarm was sounded after engineers discovered acid had eaten a hole almost all the way through the six-inch thick lid of the 25-year-old Davis-Besse reactor outside Toledo. All that was left to hold back cooling water contained at 2,200lbs of pressure was a skin of stainless steel. All 68 plants in the US that are of similar design have been ordered by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), to inspect their lids as soon as possible. Already, electricity and natural gas prices have started to rise as the industry ponders the possibility that many plants may have to shut down. The commission is especially concerned about six reactors that share the same design as the Ohio plant. Among them is the Three Mile Island reactor in Pennsylvania, which suffered a near-catastrophic failure in 1979. Three Mile Island is owned by Amergen, which is 50 per cent owned by British Energy plc. The operators of those plants and six others considered particularly high risk have been given until 1 April to convince the commission that regular inspections would have detected corrosion of the kind discovered in Ohio. If they fail to do so, they will be ordered to shut down. The nuclear industry accounts for 20 per cent of electricity generation in the US. The hole in the lid in Ohio was caused by boric acid, used in the coolant bath surrounding the uranium rods inside the reactor core. The acid had been leaking from base of some of the control rods that enter the reactor vessel head. It had then eaten through the carbon steel lid. Engineers found the corrosion last month during a periodical inspection. Had the remaining stainless steel skin, which had already been bent by the enormous pressure, given way, very hot and mildly radioactive water would have rushed into the concrete containment building around the reactor. In a worst case scenario, the reactor might have been starved of cooling water and suffered a dangerous failure and possibly even a full-blown meltdown. The nuclear sector was already in the spotlight this week after a leading US congressman, Edward Markey of Massachusetts, issued a report suggesting the industry had such feeble security in place that terrorists could easily be working under cover at plants across the country. "Terrorists may now be employed at nuclear reactors in the United States just as terrorists enrolled in flight schools in the US," he suggested in his report. He said the NRC had to work harder to check all employees for possible terror ties, including links to al-Qa'ida. Meanwhile, the industry is trying to gauge the possible consequences of what has happened in Ohio. Replacing lids on nuclear reactors is tricky and expensive. FirstEnergy, which owns the Davis-Besse plant, has said the cost of fitting a new reactor head is $20m (£14m). ***************************************************************** 18 CT questions Koeberg legality The Koeberg nuclear reactor outside Melkbosstrand. (Antonie Robertson, Die Burger) Decision on power station soon New nuke plant raises concerns Eskom nuclear plans progressing Cape Town - The City of Cape Town says it may take legal steps to challenge the environmental impact assessment being carried out on the proposed pebble-bed nuclear reactor at Koeberg north of the city. It says the assessment (EIA) has been under way for more than two years, but has failed to assure the city that its concerns will be addressed. In a letter sent on Thursday to the consortium carrying out the EIA, city exco member for planning and environment Brian Watkyns also said the impression has been created that the reactor project was already "going ahead at full steam". "This undermines the EIA, the National Nuclear Regulator licence application and the continued involvement of interested and affected parties, including the City of Cape Town," he said. The pebble-bed reactor is a nuclear-powered generator that uses tennis-ball-sized "fuel elements". Each has an inner graphite core embedded with thousands of smaller fuel particles of enriched uranium (up to 10%) encapsulated in multi-layers of non-porous hardened carbon. Too little time The slow circulation of fuel through the reactor provides for a small core size that minimizes excess core reactivity and lowers power density, all of which is credited to safety, the Nuclear Information and Resource Service &World Information Service on Energy explains on its website. The "pebbles", rather than the long rods of conventional reactors, are cooled by helium instead of water. Its developers say it is small, safe, clean, cost-efficient and inexpensive. Watkyns said in his letter however that inadequate time had been allowed in the EIA for a comprehensive review of key documents, and that technical, feasibility and energy planning studies had not been made available to the city. 'Looking into the legality' He said the media had reported that contracts had been signed between a number of role players including the company supplying the pebble-bed reactor and a significant construction company. "The signing of this agreement, in advance of any EIA authorization and the granting of a nuclear licence, is not acceptable and totally undermines the intent and efficacy of the EIA regulations authorizations. nuclear reactor "We find these circumstances unacceptable and intend looking into the legality of the actions taken thus far." It was reported in January this year that two South African companies and a United States-based subsidiary of Shaw Group Inc had been awarded the consulting contract for the development of the reactor, which is to be built as a demonstration project. The Koeberg site is already home to South Africa's only - and ageing - nuclear power station. Eskom has a 30% stake in the pebble bed project, the Industrial Development Corporation 25% and UK nuclear company British Nuclear Fuel a 20% stake. The balance is to go to a black empowerment investor. Eskom hopes to make R1 billion a year in exporting the technology and create 200 000 jobs in South Africa. However, its critics include environmentalists, who say South Africa is moving in the opposite direction to the international trend, which is to seek alternatives to nuclear power. MyNews24 [editor@news24.co.za] ***************************************************************** 19 NRC to Meet with CP&L Officials to Discuss Safety Performance at Robinson Nuclear Power Plant NRC: Press Release Region II - 2002 - 19 - U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, Region II 61 Forsyth Street SW, Atlanta, GA 30303 www.nrc.gov No. II-02-019 DATE CONTACT: Ken Clark (404) 562-4416 Roger D. Hannah (404) 562-4417 E-mail: opa2@nrc.gov [opa2@nrc.gov] The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will meet with Carolina Power & Light Company officials on Tuesday, April 2, to discuss the results of NRC's annual assessment of safety performance at the Robinson nuclear power plant, located near Hartsville, South Carolina. The meeting will be held at 2:00 p.m. in the Hartsville City Hall. The public is invited to observe the meeting, and NRC officials will be available before the meeting is adjourned to answer any questions. A letter sent from the NRC's Regional Administrator to CP&L, which addresses plant safety performance during the previous year and forms the basis of the meeting discussion, is available from Region II Public Affairs or on the NRC web site at www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/LETTERS/rob_2001q4.pdf Current information for the Watts Bar plant is available at www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/ROB2/rob2_chart.html ***************************************************************** 20 NRC to Meet with Amergen to Discuss Three Mile Island 1 Performance NRC: Press Release Region I - 2002 - 24 - U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, Region I 475 Allendale Road, King of Prussia, Pa. 19406 www.nrc.gov No. I-02-024 March 26, 2002 CONTACT: Diane Screnci (610) 337-5330 Neil A. Sheehan (610) 337-5331 E-mail: opa1@nrc.gov [opa1@nrc.gov] Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will meet with representatives of AmerGen Energy Company, LLC, on Tuesday, April 2, to discuss the results of the agency's annual assessment of safety performance at the Three Mile Island 1 nuclear power plant. The facility is located in Middletown, Pa., and operated by AmerGen. The meeting, which will be open to the public for observation, is scheduled to begin at 2 p.m. in Room 119 at the Three Mile Island Training Center, which is located on Route 441, behind the plant's visitors center. Before the session is adjourned, NRC staff will be available to answer questions from the public on the safety performance of Three Mile Island 1, as well as the role of the NRC in ensuring safe plant operation. The performance period to be discussed is April 1, 2001, to December 31, 2001. In addition, NRC staff will provide an overview of the agency's Reactor Oversight Process. A letter sent from the NRC Region I office to AmerGen addresses the performance of the plant during the period and will serve as the basis for the meeting discussion. It is available on the NRC web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/LETTERS/tmi_2001q4.pdf Current performance information for the Three Mile Island 1 plant is available on the NRC web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/TMI1/tmi1_chart.html ***************************************************************** 21 Fort Calhoun plant to inspect reactor lid Omaha.com March 27, 2002 BY NANCY GAARDER WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER Federal officials field questions on Fort Calhoun plant security Nuclear Regulatory Commission: Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant The Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant is one of 68 nationwide that have been ordered to prove that their reactor vessels are safe after workers in Ohio found that acid had eaten a hole almost all the way through a reactor lid there. The Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Station, which opened in 1973. It is the nation's smallest. Plants that can't do so could be shut down. Acid had consumed the approximately 6-inch-thick carbon steel lid at the Davis-Besse nuclear plant near Toledo. All that was left was a stainless steel liner less than a half-inch thick, and it was bent by the 2,200 pounds of pressure. Workers stumbled across the problem - hidden beneath insulation - during a refueling shutdown. If the liner had given way, experts say, there would have been an immediate release of thousands of gallons of slightly radioactive and extremely hot water inside the reactor's containment building. That could have compromised the plant and possibly led to something far more serious. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is concerned enough that it has given nuclear plants only two weeks to prove that they are on top of the situation at their plants, said Victor Dricks, spokesman for the agency. Typically, plants have 30 days to respond to an NRC order. Nuclear plants that have not done a recent inspection would have to shut down and do one, Dricks said, or prove to the NRC why the federal government shouldn't shut them down. A visual inspection can only be done when the reactor is turned off, which in and of itself is a costly procedure. "This is a serious concern," Dricks said. The Omaha Public Power District, owner of the Fort Calhoun plant, had already planned to begin shutting it down in April, even before the order came out, said Jeff Hanson, spokesman for the utility. The plant is to be refueled this spring, which only can be done when it is turned off. Because of problems with cracking at a reactor similar to Fort Calhoun, OPPD already was planning an intensive inspection of its reactor cap. Hanson said crews "will pull the head completely off the reactor vessel and set it aside so that several people can take several days to give it a very thorough inspection of any indication of wear or damage." OPPD has every reason to believe that a problem such as the one in Ohio is not occurring at Fort Calhoun, Hanson said. Portions of the reactor top are inspected about every 18 months, with the last inspection done a year ago, he said. A complete inspection and cleaning of the reactor head was done in 1992 and no problem was found then. Furthermore, Fort Calhoun's plant operates at a lower temperature than the Ohio plant, which should substantially reduce the likelihood of such a problem, he said. And plant monitors can detect leaking water pipes - believed to be the cause of the problem in Ohio. "It's highly unlikely that we would experience a Davis-Besse event," Hanson said. There are 103 commercial nuclear plants in the nation, but not all fall under this order, which applies only to pressurized water reactors. Others, such as the Cooper Nuclear Power Plant near Brownville, Neb., are designed differently and are called boiling water reactors. Both reactors use radioactive material to heat water so that steam is created. The steam propels turbines that create electricity. Fort Calhoun, which is north of Omaha, was brought on line in 1973 and is one of the smallest reactors in the nation. It provides about 30 percent of OPPD's electricity. In Ohio, water had leaked from pipes above the reactor and collected on top of the reactor lid. Engineers had previously believed that leaking water - small leaks are not uncommon - would boil away, leaving a harmless boron powder. So far, no one is certain what exactly happened in Ohio. The answer, Hanson said, should be known by the time Fort Calhoun shuts down, which will help in the inspection here. This report includes material from the New York Times. ©2002 Omaha World-Herald. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 22 FirstEnergy failed to tell NRC about reactor rust 03/27/02 John Funk Plain Dealer Reporter FirstEnergy Corp. neglected to tell federal regulators last fall about years of evidence of rust at the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station, a company spokesman acknowledged yesterday. Now the company says the rust - detected in filters as early as 1999 - is strong circumstantial evidence that the reactor head was being corroded by concentrated boric acid that had leaked out of the reactor. FirstEnergy reported on March 11 that it had found a large hole eaten nearly through the 6½-inch-thick carbon steel head. "It [rust] was not a reportable event for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission," FirstEnergy spokesman Todd Schneider explained last night. "There are certain thresholds that you report to the NRC. This situation was not one of them." In a report made public Monday, FirstEnergy engineers said they were aware of the rust and leakage but did not realize its significance. The NRC in an Aug. 3 bulletin had asked FirstEnergy and other utilities to start inspections of the heads of similar reactors by Dec. 31 for cracked nozzles. The Akron power company successfully argued that it should be allowed to operate the reactor until mid-February. The NRC suspected there might be cracking problems at Davis-Besse and 11 other older power plants that operate pressurized water reactors. The inspection has since been expanded to a total of 69 similar reactors, including Davis-Besse. The company argued that previous inspections had not detected cracks in the control rod sleeves - tubes that allow boron rods to pass through the head and into stacks of radioactive fuel, controlling the reaction. But by March 11, FirstEnergy reported it had not only discovered cracks in five of the sleeves but also a large hole in the center of the 6½-inch carbon steel head, leaving only a ~-inch thick stainless steel cladding on the inside of the head to keep the coolant inside the reactor. David Lochbaum, an engineer with the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the rust and boric acid deposits "should have made bells and whistles go off." "Boric acid [normally in the reactor coolant] is not supposed to be on top of the reactor," he said. "These were signs that something was wrong. This [the company's response] is troubling. "I'm not trying to blame anyone," Lochbaum added. "I don't think this was willfully withheld from the NRC. But it is only after the fact [of corrosion] that they could say, Oh, yeah, that was important.' " NRC spokesman Jan Strasma yesterday declined to comment on the company's omission of what turned out to be crucial evidence that the reactor head had significant leaks and something was rapidly rusting. "We are in the middle of an investigation. We still have inspectors there," said Strasma. "That is the whole point: What information was available to indicate that they had a problem, and how did they deal with that information?" Contact John Funk at: jfunk@plaind.com, 216-999-4138 © 2002 The Plain Dealer. Used with permission. © 2001 cleveland.com. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 23 TVA says decision on nuclear plant likely by summer Unit 1 restart viable: By Dennis Sherer Staff Writer March 27, 2002 TVA is taking the steps necessary to restart Unit 1 at Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant in Limestone County.  File photo by TimesDaily Photographer Daniel Giles Tennessee Valley Authority directors are a step closer to throwing the switch on restarting Unit 1 at Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant. Jon Rupert, chief nuclear engineer at TVA, told board members at Tuesday's TVA director's meeting in Hartsville, Tenn., it will cost about $1.7 billion and take about 5 years to return Unit 1 to service. The unit has been idle since 1985 when it was shut down because of safety concerns. Rupert said the study into the costs associated with the restart determined that restarting the reactor is a "technically viable option." TVA chairman Glenn McCullough said the study will assist board members as they determine the reactor's fate. "This careful and thorough review of the amount of work, the estimated cost and time required to return Unit 1 to service will help the board make a sound business decision," McCullough said. "The study shows the unit can provide an affordable, reliable source of power for the people of the Tennessee Valley. However, this is just one of the steps." The nuclear plant is in Limestone County between Rogersville and Athens. TVA directors are awaiting results of an environmental review of the project and an assessment of the utility's power and financial conditions. McCullough said he expects the decision to be made by the end of June. To avoid increasing TVA's debt load, the directors are considering creating a partnership with private investors to help pay for the project. Elected officials and economic development leaders are hopeful TVA directors will give a green light to the restart. TVA estimates the restart will create up to 2,400 temporary construction jobs. Many of the workers would come from the Shoals. More than 100 permanent jobs are expected to be created. Browns Ferry has about 900 workers now. "If they go ahead with the restart, it will do as much for our economy as anything in the short term," said Steve Holt, president of the Shoals Chamber of Commerce. Florence Mayor Dick Jordan and Sheffield Mayor Ian Sanford are also hopeful TVA will proceed with the restart. "If they approve the restart and some of the other developments we have under way come about, it will reduce our unemployment rate considerably," Jordan said. The Shoals has an unemployment rate of about 10 percent. "It would create a lot of jobs for our people, good paying jobs that will provide a tremendous boost to our economy," Sanford said. Rogersville is among the towns that could benefit from the jobs created as a result of the restart. Mayor Harold Chandler said numerous Rogersville residents worked at Browns Ferry on the restart of the Unit 2 reactor that was completed in 1991 and Unit 3 that wrapped up in 1995. Units 2 and 3 were also shut down in 1985 over safety concerns. Both reactors underwent major renovations before being returned to service. "It would be a big help to our town," Chandler said. U.S. Rep. Bud Cramer, D-Ala., and U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., said they will continue to urge TVA directors to approve the restart. "I am very pleased to hear TVA has declared restarting Browns Ferry Unit 1 to be viable," Cramer said. "Restarting this unit would be great news for our community by meeting our growing power needs in the Tennessee Valley and creating many new jobs for the people of north Alabama." Sessions said he supports the restart and increasing the use of nuclear power to produce electricity. "It's a viable source of energy that needs to utilized more effectively in our country." But environmental groups such as the Knoxville-based Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, oppose restarting Browns Ferry Unit 1 and any increase of nuclear power. Steven Smith, executive director of the organization, said instead of considering spending more than a billion dollars to restart Unit 1, TVA directors should be looking for ways to promote energy conservation. Smith said if electricity consumption is reduced in the Tennessee Valley, TVA would not need more generators to keep up with the demand. In a report released Monday, the General Accounting Office said TVA should do a better job promoting energy conservation by its customers. In another matter related to the Shoals, TVA directors approved holding an auction on 4.1 acres in Sheffield. The land at the corner of Second Street and Hatch Boulevard will be used for economic development, Sanford said. A business, which he declined to identify, has expressed interest in opening a facility there. The business wants to purchase, not lease, the property, he said. TVA officials had initially agreed to lease the land. No date has been set for the auction. Dennis Sherer can be reached at 740-5746 or [dennis.sherer@-timesdaily.com] . Copyright © 2002 TimesDaily | Privacy Statement ***************************************************************** 24 Federal officials field questions on Fort Calhoun plant security Omaha.com March 27, 2002 BY NANCY GAARDER WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER Fort Calhoun plant to inspect reactor lid BLAIR, Neb. - The threat of terrorism was on the minds of the handful of people who questioned federal officials Tuesday about safety at the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission held the meeting in Blair to discuss its review of the plant's performance in the last nine months of 2001. About 35 people attended, most from the NRC or the Omaha Public Power District, owners of the plant. Bill Pook, emergency manager for Washington, Saunders, Dodge and Burt Counties, questioned an NRC statement that it was working closely with local law enforcement. Pook said he has not received any direct communications from the agency since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Claude Johnson, branch chief in the division of reactor projects, said the NRC would look into Pook's concerns. He said the agency's security advisories to nuclear plants contain classified information that cannot be shared with local authorities. Pook said his office maintains a close working relationship with OPPD plant officials. Washington County resident Nancy Goldapp said she was concerned about plans to expand the airport at Blair. The expansion, she said, would bring larger airplanes closer to the plant, which is just south of Blair. Gary Gates, OPPD vice president in charge of the plant, said Fort Calhoun is one of the few nuclear plants designed to withstand an impact from a commercial jet. That's because it's in the flight path for Omaha's Eppley Airfield. However, its design, like that of other nuclear plants nationwide, did not take into account a direct hit from a fully fueled jet the size of the ones that hit the World Trade Center. On the other hand, a jet that size wouldn't be using the Blair airport. Another resident wanted to know what sort of security was in place on the banks of the Missouri River. Fort Calhoun, like Cooper Nuclear Station to the south, is along the river. Johnson said Fort Calhoun has safeguards in place along the river but said those measures are classified. In the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, Johnson said, the NRC has sent inspectors twice to all plants nationwide to review security. On-site inspectors also review security weekly. ©2002 Omaha World-Herald. ***************************************************************** 25 Reactor's acid leak years old Beacon Journal | 03/26/2002 | Trouble at Davis-Besse nuclear plant may have started 8 years ago, report says By Jim Mackinnon Beacon Journal business writer Damage at the Davis-Besse nuclear power plant was caused by acid that started leaking as long as eight years ago onto the reactor vessel head, a preliminary report from FirstEnergy Corp. says. In addition, power plant operators didn't recognize a number of small signs that, when taken collectively, would have alerted them to the fact that boric acid was eating through the 6 inches of carbon steel that makes up the 150-ton safety device that covers the radioactive fuel core, the report shows. But those signs now may help the nation's 68 other nuclear power plants of similar design tell if they also have acid corrosion problems. The Davis-Besse damage has drawn widespread industry attention. Plant staff and management did not understand the significance of dry boric acid deposits on top of the Davis-Besse vessel head or realize it was the result of significant corrosion. Those were among the findings in the five-page report by FirstEnergy scientists and engineers. Plant operators also were hindered by the design of the vessel head, which made it difficult to do thorough cleaning and inspections. Radiation exposure, high temperatures and insulation that covers the vessel head also hid the problem, the report said. FirstEnergy yesterday released a draft of a report showing what a team of experts believes to be the root cause of the damage at the now shut down power plant in Oak Harbor, about 25 miles east of Toledo. The plant was shut down on Feb. 16 for refueling and a safety inspection that subsequently led to the discovery of two acid-caused cavities. ``It doesn't appear it will have an impact on making a repair,'' plant spokesman Richard Wilkins said of the report. ``I'm saying that with a caveat, that this is a preliminary report.'' The Akron utility is making plans to repair the vessel head at a cost of between $5 million and $10 million, and hopes to get the plant restarted no later than the end of June. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has to approve any repairs, and could instead order that the damaged part be replaced, a process that would delay restarting Davis- Besse by two years. Should the NRC allow the vessel head to be repaired, FirstEnergy would modify its inspection and maintenance programs for the reactor vessel head, taking into account the new information in the report, Wilkins said. FirstEnergy decided several years ago not to make modifications to the vessel head that would have made cleaning and inspections easier, knowing that it was going to replace the vessel head in 2004, Wilkins said. The report said FirstEnergy's decision to defer making those modifications contributed to the damage. The report said evidence shows boric acid began leaking out of a device called a control rod nozzle between four and eight years ago. Five of the vessel head's 69 nozzles, which run through the top of the reactor vessel head, were found to be cracked. Three of those nozzles had cracks that went all the way through the walls. Boric acid, which makes up the reactor coolant, leaked through the nozzles and began to corrode the vessel head's 6-inch-thick carbon steel exterior along two of the cracked nozzles. Acid ate through all 6 inches of carbon steel at what is called Nozzle #3, stopping only when it hit a thin layer of stainless-steel cladding that lines the vessel head's interior. It's possible that the nozzle began developing hairline cracks as early as 1987, and that the cracks went all the way through the wall of the nozzle between 1994 and 1996, the investigation shows. Significant acid corrosion was happening by 1998, the investigators conclude. Acid also created a much smaller cavity at Nozzle # 2. Boric acid has been known to leak from other parts on the reactor vessel called flanges -- it's an industrywide problem -- and kept them from suspecting additional acid leaks from the cracked nozzles, the report says. Monitoring equipment in the containment building that holds the reactor detected such things as boric acid, iron oxide (rust) and moisture, ``but no collective significance was recognized. However, it is not clear if these could have led to the discovery of the problem on the (reactor) head in time to prevent significant damage,'' the report says. It will be at least a week before a final root cause analysis report is done and submitted to the NRC, Wilkins said. Investigators need to pull out and examine Nozzle #2 where the smaller cavity was found, he said. That won't happen for another week or two, he said. If the acid had eaten all the way through the reactor vessel head, a ``loss of coolant'' accident would have occurred. That's when coolant spews out into the large containment chamber that surrounds the reactor. Safety systems would have shut down the reactor immediately, with no leak of radioactivity into the environment, officials have said. Jim Mackinnon can be reached at 330-996-3544 or jmackinnon@thebeaconjournal.com [jmackinnon@thebeaconjournal.com] ***************************************************************** 26 South Texas Project named top nuclear producer - 2002-03-26 - San Antonio Business Journal One of the South Texas Project's generating units produced more electricity than any other single nuclear source in the United States in 2001, according to figures compiled by the trade publication Nucleonics Week. STP is jointly owned by City Public Service, Austin Energy, Central Power and Light, and Reliant Energy. CPS has a 28 percent stake in the Wadsworth-based nuclear facility. STP Unit 1 generated 10.8 million megawatt-hours of power last year, even with a scheduled 21-day shutdown for refueling, according to Nucleonics Week. "We sustained a 94 percent capacity factor in Unit 1 in a year with a refueling outage, something that was unheard of in the industry only a few years ago," said Gary Parkey, vice president of generation for the STP Nuclear Operating Co. "This accomplishment is a credit to the STP team and the efforts we have made over the past few years to operate safely with reliable performance and short refueling outages," he added. CPS received 3 million megawatts of power from STP last year. Copyright 2002 American City Business Journals ***************************************************************** 27 Markey: List of documents from security report Congressman Edward J. Markey - Massachusetts' 7th District - Issue - Nonproliferation Task Force/Nuclear Power/Nuclear Waste + Markey press release on report on security at nuclear reactors, March 25, 2002 + Markey report on security at nuclear reactors, March 25, 2002 + NRC correspondence to Rep. Markey, Part 1, March 25, 2002 + NRC correspondence to Rep. Markey, Part 2, March 25, 2002 + NRC correspondence to Rep. Markey, Part 3, March 25, 2002 + NRC correspondence to Rep. Markey, Part 4, March 25, 2002 + Bush response to Markey-Cox-Gilman letter on North Korea and nuclear weapons, March 20, 2002 + Markey press release on NRC and FedEx responses to January 16, 2002 letters on radioactive shipments, March 5, 2002 + Markey press release on NRC's new interim security measures, February 26, 2002 + Markey press response to NRC interim security measures, February 14, 2002 + Markey letters to NRC, U.S. Customs, FedEx and UPS regarding radioactive shipments, January 16, 2002 + NRC response to Markey January 16, 2002 letter regarding radioactive shipments + FedEX response to Markey January 16, 2002 letter regarding radioactive shipments + Markey press release on letters to NRC, U.S. Customs, FedEx and UPS regarding radioactive shipments, January 16, 2002 + Markey-Dingell letter to GAO regarding nuclear security, January 10, 2002 + Markey press release blasting DOE Yucca Mountain designation, January 10, 2002 + GAO report on NRC oversight of decommissiong nuclear reactors, December 20, 2001 + Rep. Markey press release regarding GAO report on NRC oversight of decommissioning nuclear reactors, December 20, 2001 + Massachusetts Delegation letter to MA Commissioner of Public Health regarding Potassium Iodide stockpiling, December 12, 2001 + MA Department of Public Health response to Delegation letter on KI stockpiling + House passes Markey iniative to Stockpile Potassium Iodide around nuclear reactors, December 12, 2001 + Markey Letter to National Governors Association urging stockpiling of Potassium Iodide in wake of recent FDA guidance, December 11, 2001 + Press Release on Markey Letter to National Governors Association urging stockpiling of Potassium Iodide in wake of recent FDA guidance, December 11, 2001 + Markey Letter to Vermont Governor Dean regarding Potassium Iodide, December 7, 2001 + Markey Letter to Illinois Governor Ryan regarding Potassium Iodide, December 7, 2001 + Markey Letter to Chairman Meserve Regarding Security of Nuclear Materials, December 4, 2001 + Press Release on Markey Letter to Chairman Meserve Regarding Security of Nuclear Materials, December 4, 2001 + Markey statement on introduction of Nuclear Security Act of 2001, November 29, 2001 + Nuclear Security Act of 2001 + Press Release on Markey Letter to NRC regarding Aircraft Threat to Nuclear Power Plants, November 28, 2001 + Markey letter to Energy Secretary Abraham on the use of commercial reactor to produce tritium for nuclear weapons, November 27, 2001 + Secretary Abraham response, January 30, 2002 + Markey letter to Meserve regarding Aircraft Threat to Nuclear Plants, November 27, 2001 + Markey floor statement on Price-Anderson, November 27, 2001 + Press Release on Markey Letter to NRC Chairman Meserve Re Security of Spent Fuel Storage Facilities, November 19, 2001 + Markey Letter to NRC Chairman Meserve Re Security of Spent Fuel Storage Facilities, November 19, 2001 + Follow-Up Letter to NRC Chairman Meserve Regarding Nuclear Security, November 15, 2001 + Markey Statement regarding terrorism at nuclear power plants, November 2, 2001 + Markey Amendment on Insurance Denial, offered to Price-Anderson Reauthorization, October 31, 2001 + Markey Press Release on NRC evasiveness about aircraft threats to nuclear power plants, October 25, 2001 + Markey letter to the NRC on potential disclosures of national security information on the NRC website, October 15, 2001 + NRC response to Markey letter on potential disclosures of national security information on the NRC website, November 15, 2001 + Markey statement regarding Price Anderson Reauthorization, October 11, 2001 + Markey Press Release regarding Nuclear Anti-Terrorism Amendment, October 3, 2001 + Markey Statement on Stearns/Markey Penalties Act, October 3, 2001 + Markey Statement on National Guard Defense of Nuclear Power Plants Amendment to Anti-Terrorism Bill, October 3, 2001 + Markey Amendment to Anti-Terrorism Bill Regarding National Guard Defense of Nuclear Power Plants, October 3, 2001 + Markey Statement on Transportation of Radioactive Materials Amendment to Anti-Terrorism Bill, October 3, 2001 + Markey Amendment to Anti-Terrorism Bill Regarding Transportation of Radioactive Materials, October 3, 2001 + Markey Statement on Design Basis Threat Amendment to Anti-Terrorism Bill, October 3, 2001 + Markey Amendment to Anti-Terrorism Bill Regarding Design Basis Threat, October 3, 2001 + Markey Opening Statement Regarding Anti-Terrorism Legislation, October 3, 2001 + Rep. Markey press release regarding letter to NRC, September 20, 2001 + Rep. Markey letter to NRC regarding World Trade Center attack, September 20, 2001 + NRC response to Rep. Markey of Septebmer 20, 2001; October 16, 2001 + Markey Press Release regarding NRC response to Rep. Markey of Septebmer 20, 2001; October 16, 2001 + Rep. Markey press release on NRC response regarding Seabrook emergency shutdown, June 19, 2001 + NRC reply to Rep. Markey regarding emergency shutdown of Seabrook, June 1, 2001 + Special Inspection Team report on emergency shutdown of Seabrook, May 7, 2001 [http://www.house.gov/htbin/leave_site?ln_url=http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/A SSESS/REPORTS/seab_2001005.pdf&ln_desc=NRC+Special+Inspection+Team+report+on +Emergency+Shutdown+of+Seabrook] + Rep. Markey letter to NRC regarding emergency shutdown of Seabrook, April 13, 2001 + Rep. Markey letter to NRC on missing Millstone fuel rods, December 20, 2000 + NRC reply to Rep. Markey, February 1, 2001 + Rep. Markey Letter to the NRC Regarding Radiological Sabotage from Domestic Terrorist Threats, February 4, 2000 + NRC letter replying to Rep. Markey's letter of Feb. 4, 2000; March 9, 2000 + Rep. Markey letter to DOE on North Korea, December 14, 2000 + Rep. Markey letter to NRC on North Korea, December 14, 2000 + NRC reply to Rep. Markey, Januray 17, 2001 + Rep. Markey letter to NRC regarding Y2K and Indian Point 2 nuclear power plant, December 13, 1999 + NRC reply to Rep. Markey, December 29, 1999 + Rep. Markey letter to the NRC on suspension of force-on-force exercise, July 8, 1999 + NRC letter replying to Rep. Markey's letter of July 8, 1999; August 27, 1999 + NRC responds to Energy and Power Subcommittee OSRE questions, September 10, 1999 + Rep. Markey Letter to the NRC Regarding Backup Power Problems at Seabrook and Y2K Implications, April 5, 1999 + NRC reply to Rep. Markey, June 18, 1999 + Rep. Markey press release on NRC reply, June 28, 1999 + Markey Letter to the NRC Regarding Possible Whistleblower Retaliation at Seabrook, March 30, 1999 + Markey Statement and Energy and Power Subcommittee Hearing on Nuclear Waste, March 12, 1999 + Markey Letter to the NRC Regarding Y2K and Nuclear Power Plants, March 10, 1999 + NRC reply to Rep. Markey, May 3, 1999 + Rep. Markey press release on NRC reply, May 12, 1999 + Markey Statement at Y2K Symposium, March 8, 1999 + Markey Letter to the NRC regarding Excessive Employee Overtime at Nuclear Plants, February 25,1999 + Markey Letter to the NRC following up on Terrorism at Nuclear Plants, February 23,1999 + NRC letter replying to Rep. Markey's letters of Nov. 10, 1998, and Feb. 23, 1999; May 3, 1999 + NRC follow-up letter to Rep. Markey; June 30, 1999 + Markey Statement at Energy and Power Subcommittee Hearing on Nuclear Waste, February 9, 1999 + Markey Letter to Chairman Jackson of the NRC Regarding Conflict of Interest, January 6,1999 + Markey Letter to the Better Business Bureau Regarding NEI Ads, December 14, 1998 + Markey Letter to the NEI Regarding NEI Ads, December 14, 1998 + Markey Letter to the GAO Requesting Study of NRC Response to Fire Safety Issues, December 9, 1998 + Markey Follow up Press Release on Terrorism at Nuclear Plants, November 12, 1998 + Markey Letter to the NRC Regarding Terrorism at Nuclear Plants, November 10, 1998 + NRC letter replying to Rep. Markey's letter of November 10, 1998; December15, 1998 + Markey Letter to the NSC Regarding Terrorism at Nuclear Plants, November 10, 1998 + Rep. Markey press release regarding letter to NRC on fire penetration seals + Rep. Markey letter to NRC on fire penetration seals, May 8, 1997 + NRC interim reply to Rep. Markey's letter, June 5, 1997 + Rep. Markey press release regarding on NRC reply, June 30, 1997 + NRC final reply to Rep. Markey's letter, part 1, January 16, 1998 + NRC final reply to Rep. Markey's letter, part 2, January 16, 1998 + NRC final reply to Rep. Markey's letter, part 3, January 16, 1998 + Reps. Markey, Kostmayer, Gejdenson letter to NRC in support of NCI/CBG proposal, January 27, 1992 + NRC reply to Markey, Kostmayer, Gejdenson letter, March 13, 1992 + Reps. Markey and Kostmayer letter to NRC on security upgrades, February 28, 1991 + NRC reply to Reps. Markey and Kostmayer, April 16, 1991 + NRC letter to Rep. Markey on denial of NCI/CBG petition, June 13, 1991 + Rep. Markey letter to NRC supporting NCI/CBG petition, January 15, 1991 + NRC reply to Rep. Markey, February 14, 1991 ***************************************************************** 28 UK: Sizewell B on alert as US plant at risk of meltdown news.telegraph.co.uk - By Roger Highfield, Science Editor and Ben Fenton in Washington (Filed: 27/03/2002) NUCLEAR inspectors are considering a safety review of Sizewell B nuclear power station after corrosion was found to have almost eaten away the vessel that holds the hot nuclear heart of a related American nuclear reactor. Checks were being conducted on 68 pressurised water type nuclear reactors across America after workers at the Davis-Besse plant in Ohio found that the head of the vessel had been so badly corroded that it significantly raised the risk of a meltdown. Engineers are still investigating why the corrosion occurred. The damage is alleged to have been discovered by accident. The Nuclear Installations Inspectorate said last night that it was weighing up the implications for the Sizewell B plant in Suffolk, Britain's only pressurised water reactor. "We are aware of the incident at Davis-Besse and have obtained technical information from the US." A spokesman for British Energy, the operator of Sizewell B, said the vessel would be inspected during the next shutdown. "The reactor head is inspected at regular intervals during planned shutdowns and then continually using a series of detectors." Sizewell B also contains instrumentation to monitor the pressure vessel and is much younger - at seven years - than the 25-year-old plant in Ohio. An inspection at the Davis-Besse plant caught experts by surprise when they found a hole six inches deep, seven inches in length and about five inches wide in the pressure vessel. The corrosion left stainless-steel cladding around 0.375in thick to contain cooling water under more than 2,200lb of pressure per square inch. The pressure had bent the steel outwards by an eigth of an inch over four inches. The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission said vessel degradation "can pose a significant safety risk". If the liner had given way there would have been a serious leak and it significantly raised the risk of a core damage - possibly a meltdown - and a release of radiation. The NRC said it had never seen so much corrosion in a reactor vessel and that it was concerned about a dozen of the oldest plants - one of which is part owned by British Energy. The plants have to report by early April whether they are safe enough to keep in service. One factor is thought to be boric acid, used in cooling water to absorb surplus neutrons, the subatomic particles that are released when an atom is split and go on to split other atoms, sustaining the chain reaction. David Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a non-profit watchdog, said the discovery was troubling. "You shouldn't get such a huge hole in a pressure-retaining vessel." Edwin Lyman, the scientific director of the Nuclear Control Institute, an anti-proliferation group, said the discovery was serious, had generic implications, "and it was discovered by accident". Workers stumbled on the problem in the process of fixing a leaking tube that connects to the vessel head, which is 17ft in diameter. © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited [http://pressoffice.telegraph.co.uk] 2002. Terms &Conditions of reading. ***************************************************************** 29 Markey Releases Report on Security Gaps at Nuclear Reactor Sites News from Ed Markey United States Congress Massachusetts Seventh District EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE CONTACT: Michal Freedhoff March 25, 2002 12:01 AM or Israel Klein (202) 225-2836 Analysis of regulatory agency correspondence reveals `troubling black holes in homeland security,' according to the lawmaker Washington, DC: Representative Edward J. Markey (D-MA), a senior Member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, today released a report entitled "Security Gap: A Hard Look At the Soft Spots in Our Civilian Nuclear Reactor Security" that analyzed more than 100 pages of Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) correspondence sent to the Congressman in response to several letters. "There is little comfort to be found in the agency's response to my questions," said Markey. "Black hole after black hole is described and left unaddressed. Post 9/11, a nuclear safety agency that does not know -- and seems little interested in finding out -- the nationality of nuclear reactor workers or the level of resources being spent on security at these sensitive facilities is not doing its job." The report indicates that: + The NRC does not know how many foreign nationals are employed at nuclear reactors, and does not require adequate background checks of nuclear reactor employees that would determine whether an employee was a member of a terrorist organization. + The NRC does not know what its licensees spend on security or how many security guards are employed at each reactor. + Twenty-one U.S. nuclear reactors are located within 5 miles of an airport, but 96% of all U.S. reactors were designed without regard for the potential for impact from even a small aircraft. + Aircraft impact to the containment structure of a nuclear reactor is not the only way an aircraft could cause a full-scale core meltdown. + The NRC has rejected placing anti-aircraft capabilities at nuclear facilities, even though other countries have chosen to do so and even though many reactors are located very close to airports. + Spent nuclear fuel in significant quantities exists at reactors all across the U.S. and is stored in buildings that are not hardened structures, some of which reportedly have sheet metal roofs. + Security of spent nuclear fuel at decommissioned reactors is lower than that at operating reactors in part because licensees obtained exemptions to the security regulations. The NRC has assumed that spent fuel fires would only occur as a result of an accident and failed to consider fires that could occur as a result of a terrorist attack. + The NRC has not scientifically determined how long spent fuel casks can withstand a continued fire, and has not provided information on worst-case consequences of a breach of a spent fuel cask. + It took the NRC almost 6 months after 9/11 to require enhanced security at nuclear reactors. + The NRC has historically failed to adjust the security regulations to meet the evolving threat, and has yet to begin a permanent revision of security regulations following the events of September 11. + Security exercises at nuclear reactor sites are inadequate, and sites continue to fail the exercises about 50% of the time. For all correspondence on this issue, please refer to our website, www.house.gov/markey [http:// www.house.gov/markey] . ***************************************************************** 30 Nozzle in Crystal River nuclear plant was cracked [St. Petersburg Times Online: News of the Tampa Bay area] By ALEX LEARY, Times Staff Writer © St. Petersburg Times published March 27, 2002 CRYSTAL RIVER -- A crack in a control nozzle was found at Florida Power's nuclear plant last fall, but there was no sign of the type of corrosion that left a serious cavity in the head of a reactor in Ohio, a company spokesman said Tuesday. When the hole was discovered at the Ohio plant this month, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission ordered the operators of 68 pressurized-water reactors to report any signs of corrosion. Florida Power spokesman Mac Harris said the inspection called for by the NRC was conducted in October, when the 25-year-old reactor was shut down for planned maintenance. The presence of boric acid crystals at one of the 69 control rod nozzles led technicians to find a small circular crack, which was repaired, Harris said. Boric acid, used in the cooling water that circulates through the reactor system, helps control the level of nuclear reaction in the core. A control rod nozzle is a steel pipe that penetrates the reactor head and allows operators to manipulate equipment. "We looked at the entire head and found no damage to the metal," Harris said. "There was no evidence of any other cracking." At the Davis-Besse plant in Ohio, the situation was more critical. The problem is still under investigation, the NRC said, but one possibility is that boric acid crystals accumulated at the reactor vessel and later came into contact with water, creating an acid solution. The acid ate through nearly 6 inches of steel, leaving only a half-inch thick liner to contain highly pressurized water. If it escaped, the radioactive water would be contained by a larger shell. But the loss could also threaten the plant's cooling system. "It's a significant problem at Davis-Besse," NRC spokesman Victor Dricks said. "We're trying to find out if a similar problem exists anywhere else." Copyright 2001-2002 St. Petersburg Times. ***************************************************************** 31 UK: Officials consider Sizewell B safety review Ananova - Nuclear inspectors are considering a safety review of Sizewell B nuclear power station after meltdown concerns at a related US station. Corrosion was found to have almost eaten away the vessel holding the hot nuclear heart of the Davis-Besse plant in Ohio. The Nuclear Installations Inspectorate say it's weighing up the implications for the Sizewell B plant in Suffolk, Britain's only pressurised water reactor. Checks were being conducted on 68 pressurised water type nuclear reactors across the US after workers at the Davis-Besse plant found the head of the vessel had been so badly corroded that it significantly raised the risk of a meltdown. Engineers are still investigating why the corrosion occurred, but the damage is alleged to have been discovered by accident, says the Daily Telegraph [http://www.telegraph.co.uk] . A spokesman for British Energy, the operator of Sizewell B, said the vessel would be inspected during the next shutdown. "The reactor head is inspected at regular intervals during planned shutdowns and then continually using a series of detectors." Sizewell B also contains instrumentation to monitor the pressure vessel and is much younger than the 25-year-old plant in Ohio. An inspection at the Davis-Besse plant caught experts by surprise when they found a hole six inches deep, seven inches in length and about five inches wide in the pressure vessel. The corrosion left stainless-steel cladding around 0.375in thick to contain cooling water under more than 2,200lb of pressure per square inch. The pressure had bent the steel outwards by an eigth of an inch over four inches. The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission said vessel degradation "can pose a significant safety risk". If the liner had given way there would have been a serious leak and it significantly raised the risk of a core damage - possibly a meltdown - and a release of radiation. Story filed: 06:56 Wednesday 27th March 2002 SHARE THIS NEWS: Email this story to a friend Copyright © 2002 Ananova Ltd ***************************************************************** 32 Entergy: Workers checked out fine at Nuclear One TheCabin.net :: Arkansas News :: 032602 state 1 1 Log Cabin Democrat Online, Conway, Arkansas LITTLE ROCK -- Despite broad criticism of nuclear security by a congressman, Entergy Corp. said Monday its nuclear plant at Russellville has checked its workers against the FBI's list of suspected terrorists. --> Tuesday, March 26, 2002 --> Tuesday, March 26, 2002 By CHUCK BARTELS Associated Press Writer LITTLE ROCK -- Despite broad criticism of nuclear security by a congressman, Entergy Corp. said Monday its nuclear plant at Russellville has checked its workers against the FBI's list of suspected terrorists. Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., released a report in which he claimed that nuclear plants had not screened workers for terrorist ties. Arkansas Nuclear One, the Entergy-owned plant at Russellville, conducted just such a check after the Sept. 11 attacks and no workers were on the FBI list, plant spokesman Phil Fisher said Monday. Markey's report claims that plants do not do enough to prevent possible terrorists from getting positions that would allow unescorted access inside plants. The report made a variety of other security-related claims. Fisher said the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has addressed a variety of issues, and that security changes have been put in place, with more planned for the future. "All workers at nuclear plants have been screened against lists provided by the FBI," Fisher said. Markey also claimed that plants cannot identify the number of foreign nationals they have working. "We do have information available to us to determine the number of foreign nationals we employ," Fisher said. "It's not typically something we provide, except to agencies which require them." And, for a plant worker to attain the status of unescorted access, the plant first looks at applicants in a variety of ways. "That includes fingerprinting and criminal history checks through the FBI, drug and alcohol screening, psychological evaluations, employment record checks and an educational record review," Fisher said. The plant checks other records and runs a credit report, also, he said. The extensive background research is not something new, he said. "Historically, this has been true since the early days of the nuclear industry," Fisher said. He also said the plant keeps an eye out for signs that workers may signal trouble on the horizon. "Every person with plant access is under a behavioral observation program. Supervisors are trained to identify behaviors that might indicate potential problems," Fisher said. Markey's report included copies of correspondence with the NRC. Regarding background checks, the agency acknowledged that it is tougher to fully check foreign nationals. "U.S. citizens are currently accounted for better than foreign applicants due to the lack of information (e.g., credit history and criminal history) or unwillingness of the country to provide such information," the NRC said in a written response to a question from Markey. "Licensees determine access to the facility regarding foreign applicants on a 'best effort' basis and the applicants are screened and processed as any other individual according to federal requirements," the NRC said. The agency said it is undergoing a full evaluation of security procedures in light of the terror attacks. "This effort includes an examination of the basic assumptions underlying the current program, including access authorization requirements and programs," the NRC said. ***************************************************************** 33 U.N. Finds Uranium Toxins From NATO Arms in Serbia Yahoo! News - Wed Mar 27,10:26 AM ET By Richard Waddington GENEVA (Reuters) - U.N. scientists said Wednesday they found widespread traces of depleted uranium from NATO munitions at five sites in Serbia and Montenegro but the level of contamination posed no immediate health threat. But they warned authorities to take precautions, particularly before allowing development projects, such as house building, on the sites because of the risk of stirring up potentially toxic soil and dust. "There is no health risk at the moment, but we do not know if there could be one if you make major soil removals," team leader Pekka Haavisto told a news conference. The team organized by the U.N. Environment Program went to six areas in the two republics that once formed part of Yugoslavia and found "widespread but low-level contamination" by depleted uranium at five. Depleted uranium is used to harden the tips of tank-busting shells fired by NATO during its mid-1990s Bosnia action and again during the air war to drive Serbian forces out of Kosovo. "The study concludes that the DU sites studied do not present immediate radioactive or toxic risks for the environment or human health," UNEP said in a statement, adding the findings were in line with a similar report last year on Kosovo. The two reports were ordered after a number of soldiers who served in NATO forces in Kosovo and Bosnia contracted leukemia, stirring fears that exposure to depleted uranium may have been the cause. The link has been consistently denied by the World Health Organization, which says levels of depleted uranium in the munitions were not high enough to cause cancer. Lower degrees of exposure have been tied to other health problems, including kidney disease. Although it was not directly part of the study, UNEP noted in the report that the WHO had also found no evidence to link depleted uranium to chromosome changes reported by Montenegro in six people who carried out decontamination work at its site. TRACES IN AIR Haavisto said that there were 11 sites in Serbia where NATO was known or believed to have fired DU-coated munitions, and the team chose the five most representative. There was only one such site in Montenegro. A site is an area of some 100 square yards around the spot where depleted uranium munitions struck a target. Traces of depleted uranium were found in soil samples and in the air, but there was no sign of any contamination of the water supplies, UNEP said. The lack of any trace in the water could be due to the fact that uranium in the soil had not yet permeated deep enough to reach the water table, and there was a need for vigilance, Haavisto told a news conference to present the findings. Haavisto said that drinking water should be tested once a year, adding the team had been surprised at finding depleted uranium in air samples more than two years after the end of the Yugoslav conflict. Copyright © 2002 Reuters Limited. ***************************************************************** 34 Radioactive containers found in eastern Kazakhstan BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Mar 27, 2002 Text of report by Interfax-Kazakhstan news agency Almaty, 27 March: Ust-Kamenogorsk (the administrative centre of East Kazakhstan Region) emergency situations subunits are resolving the issue of scrapping four radioactive containers with dimensions of 3 cm in diameter and 7 cm in height each, the [Kazakh] State Emergency Situations Agency told the Interfax-Kazakhstan news agency today. Containers with a "Radioactive" sign, according to the emergency situations agency, were found in a garage cooperative in the town last night. Gamma radiation on the surface of the containers measured 300 microroentgen per hour and the background radiation level at a distance of 1 m is normal, the emergency situations agency said. A police post has been set up on the spot where the containers were found and the issue of burying them is currently being solved. Source: Interfax-Kazakhstan news agency, Almaty, in Russian 0415 bgmt 27 Mar 02 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. ***************************************************************** 35 Home News: UK is breaking spirit of radioactive emissions pact-Jacob Irish Times; Mar 27, 2002 The Minister of State for Public Enterprise, Mr Joe Jacob, has accused Britain of breaking the spirit of the OSPAR convention on radioactive emissions, saying there was 'no trust, no credibility' in Sellafield. The extent of the Government's ongoing irritation with Britain over the nuclear reprocessing plant was clear yesterday as Mr Jacob, who has responsibility for nuclear safety, insisted he was 'very disappointed' with bilateral relations over Sellafield and that diplomatic efforts at resolving the dispute had progressed 'absolutely nowhere'. Mr Jacob was taking part in a debate on Sellafield at the Foreign Press Association in London with the British Minister for Industry and Energy, Mr Brian Wilson. The debate was dominated by the dis-agreement between Dublin and London over the safety and future of Sellafield, and fears that it is a potential terrorist target. In a wide-ranging discussion about Irish concerns over Sellafield, Mr Jacob told journalists 'there doesn't seem to be an honouring by the UK' of OSPAR, which aims to cut marine emissions to close to zero by 2020, and 'the spirit of it has already been broken'. Pointing to increased levels in the Irish Sea of technetium-99 - a radioactive by-product of spent nuclear fuel - Mr Jacob said Britain had failed to address these concerns. Fears over a terrorist attack or major accident at Sellafield after September 11th were increasing, he said. Rejecting safety concerns over Sellafield as 'patently absurd', Mr Wilson said it was 'utterly fanciful' that Britain could simply close the plant. He said he did not dispute there had been failings at Sellafield, but he was satisfied proper safety and security measures were in place and there was 'no basis' to allegations that the plant's discharges were damaging or threatened to damage the human environment. He also insisted that while he encouraged the exchange of information between Britain's nuclear industry regulator and the Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland, it would be 'highly unusual' to formalise any relationship. Outlining the potential for terrorist attacks, Dr Frank Barnaby, a nuclear physicist, suggested that international safeguards on transporting nuclear material such as the Mixed Oxide (MOX) fuel produced at Sellafield were difficult to enforce. If plutonium oxide from MOX fuel fell into terrorist hands, he said, even a 'second-year chemistry undergraduate' could convert it into a crude nuclear device. ***************************************************************** 36 Nuclear workers center still open Tri-Valley Herald Wednesday, March 27, 2002 - 3:39:49 AM MST Sick employees may get compensation By Glenn Roberts Jr. STAFF WRITER Wednesday, March 27, 2002 - -->PLEASANTON -- Nuclear weapons workers who believe their illnesses are job-related can visit a temporary center in Pleasanton that will remain open through Thursday. Current and former employees of the Energy Department or its contractors and subcontractors can receive lump-sum payments of up to $150,000 and medical coverage if they are suffering from serious illnesses related to workplace exposure to radiation, beryllium or silicon. Family members of deceased workers are in some cases eligible for compensation, and the act also provides $50,000 in lump-sum payments and medical coverage for uranium workers. On Tuesday, a temporary Traveling Resource Center opened at the Four Points Hotel, 5115 Hopyard Road in Pleasanton, to provide assistance to workers and family members who want to apply for benefits under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act. Larry Hoss, resource center coordinator for the compensation program, said that as of March 21, an estimated $147 million has been paid out in 1,970 lump-sum payments. And about 13,300 claims have been filed so far, he said. The Traveling Resource Center made two stops in the Simi Valley area in Southern California since it hit the road in October 2001, and the Pleasanton stop is the first in Northern California. Hoss, who works for the Labor Department, said no future plans have been set for the traveling center to return to the Bay Area. Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories in Livermore, the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center in Palo Alto, and the General Electric Vallecitos Nuclear Center in the Sunol area are among the Bay Area sites where workers may be eligible for compensation. The energy, labor and justice departments are collaborating in the compensation program. To make an appointment for the resource center, call (866) 697-0841. Walk-in visitors also are welcome. For more information about the program, visit www.dol.gov [HTTP://www.dol.gov] . ©1999-2001 by MediaNews Group, Inc. and ANG Newspapers ***************************************************************** 37 West scours Georgia for nuclear trash Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Ian Traynor in Tbilisi Wednesday March 27, 2002 The Guardian [http://www.guardian.co.uk] Leading western countries are planning a massive search in Georgia for potential "dirty bomb" materials - highly radioactive and mobile nuclear batteries which, it is feared, could be combined with conventional explosives to lethal effect by terrorists. An emergency meeting of western nuclear safety specialists, including experts from Britain, in Paris in a fortnight is expected to agree on air, road and foot searches of the post-Soviet state for two missing lead containers of strontium-90, the first such national quest ever undertaken. The alarm was raised in December when three lumberjacks working in the mountains of northern Georgia came across another two nuclear batteries, stripped of their lead casing. The men innocently carried them away in rucksacks and suffered severe burns and radiation sickness. One of the three is fighting for his life in a French hospital. "September 11 has made everyone think differently about this," said Melissa Fleming, a spokeswoman for the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, which will also attend the Paris meeting. "There is more than an assumption that there are two more [abandoned nuclear devices] left in Georgia." In the 1960s and 70s, the former Soviet Union manufactured at least 1,000 of these small nuclear batteries to generate electricity in remote areas to power lighthouses, and transmission towers. They were also used extensively by the Soviet military and in satellites. In the post-Soviet chaos, the devices were abandoned, frequently without supervision. There are believed to be many more of them scattered in remote areas of Moldova, post-Soviet central Asia and the Russian far east. "In Georgia you have a weak state and Muslim extremists," said a senior European official in Tbilisi. "If you put the strontium together with classical explosives, you could make a town highly radioactive." The strontium in the small power generators has a radioactivity of 40,000 curies, so potent that an international salvage crew sent into Georgia to recover the devices found by the lumberjacks operated in special clothing. They were allowed to manipulate the heavy metal only from a distance of two metres and for only 40 seconds at a time. The two batteries are being stored at an undisclosed location outside Tbilisi. Ms Fleming said the strontium in the two missing containers - christened "orphan sources" - would be encased in very hard ceramic, making it difficult to disperse. However, she said: "It is potential for a dirty bomb if it is shrouded in conventional explosives and then set off. But the strontium would need to be naked - someone would need to handle it and shroud it. The person [making the bomb] would need to be prepared to die." In the wake of the September 11 attacks on the US, there is widespread western concern about suicide nuclear bombers. An internal IAEA paper last month by the its director general, Mohammed El Baradei, stressed the sense of increasing urgency because of the discovery of the "two highly radioactive sources" in Georgia, close to the Middle East and cheek by jowl with the war in Chechnya. "Radioactive sources are vulnerable to theft. Some are completely unprotected because they have become orphaned from regulatory control," Mr El Baradei said. The IAEA knows of almost 400 cases of trafficking in nuclear and other radioactive materials since 1993. Of those, 18 involved small volumes of weapons-grade plutonium or highly enriched uranium, and most of those cases originated in the former Soviet Union. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002 ***************************************************************** 38 Fire injures 4 workers at Browns Ferry By Dennis Sherer Staff Writer March 27, 2002 Four electricians at Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant were burned Tuesday while working near an electrical breaker inside the plant. Tennessee Valley Authority spokesman John Moulton said the workers were injured about 6 p.m. in an electrical fire caused by an arc from the 4,160-volt breaker. Moulton identified the injured TVA employees as Fred Pendergrass, David Letson, both of the Shoals, and Ed Minyard of Athens. Also injured was contract worker Dan Young of Florence. Moulton said contract workers are often used in the plant during refueling outages on the reactors. The workers were treated by TVA emergency medical personnel and then transported by helicopter, Moulton said. Three were transported to a Huntsville hospital, while another was flown to a Birmingham hospital. Workers at the plant said late Tuesday that at least one of the workers has severe injuries. Lee Helms, director of the Alabama Emergency Management Agency, said the electrical fire posed no risk to the public from radiation. He said the fire occurred in a non-nuclear area. "It happened in the turbine building," Moulton said. "It was not in the reactor and not on the nuclear side." An investigation is under way to determine the cause of the fire, Moulton said. Spencer Black, director of the Limestone County Emergency Management Agency, said the fire was minor. Because the fire was small and in a confined area, the emergency response plan for the plant was not activated. The nuclear plant near Athens was the scene of a major electrical fire in 1975 when a workers using a candle to search for air leaks ignited insulation on cables in a reactor control room. The fire caused $10 million in damage and forced the plant to be shut down for 18 months while repairs were made. The workers injured Tuesday were helping with a maintenance project on the Unit 3 reactor, which had been taken out of service earlier in the day for scheduled refueling, Moulton said. The reactor had operated nonstop since 11:44 p.m. May 25, 2000, setting a continuous run record for a TVA generator. Details were sketchy Tuesday night on how the accident happened. After the accident, traffic backed up for blocks on roads leading to the nuclear plant as employees arriving for the 7 p.m. shift change were stopped outside its gates. They were later allowed to enter. Dennis Sherer can be reached at 740-5746 or dennis.sherer@times-daily.com [dennis.sherer@times-daily.com] . Copyright © 2002 TimesDaily | Privacy Statement ***************************************************************** 39 Yugoslavia contaminated by DU dust BBC News | EUROPE | 27 March,2002, The United Nations has found widespread low-level contamination of depleted uranium in Yugoslavia, three years after extensive bombing by Nato. UN scientists said that the levels do not pose a direct threat to human health but there are concerns about a potential risk of contamination of water sources by the ammunition tips made out of depleted uranium. They expressed surprise that depleted uranium dust was still found in the air, two years after the conflict had ended. The UN urged the Yugoslav authorities to fence off and monitor the affected sites. ***************************************************************** 40 Ottawa considers radiation detectors at border points globeandmail.com By CAMPBELL CLARK Tuesday, March 26, 2002 – Page A8 OTTAWA -- The federal government is considering giving customs inspectors lapel-pin radiation-detection devices to allay U.S. concerns that Canada could be a conduit for terrorists smuggling a so-called "nuke in a box." Revenue Minister Elinor Caplan said yesterday that her department is "seriously investigating" a proposal to issue the detectors. The small devices would beep to indicate when radioactive materials are near, allowing the inspectors to intercept nuclear bombs or weapons designed to spread radioactive materials. "One of the concerns that the Americans particularly have is the potential in a container for weapons of mass destruction. "And in those kinds of armaments, they use radioactive materials," she said. "So we are investigating lapel pins which customs officers would wear, which would identify radiation within the container." U.S. Customs Commissioner Robert Bonner has cast doubts on efforts to speed up border crossings, saying Canada is more concerned with getting the $1-billion-a-day trade across the border than combatting U.S. concerns about nuclear terrorism. "There is at least a certain number of al-Qaeda terrorists in Canada. One of them could get a job at one of these plants, and then you may have nuclear material inserted in that truck," he said. The radiation detectors would be part of a five-year, $110-million program to beef up high-tech scanners at Canadian seaports, airports, and border crossings. The government is to announce this week that it has placed a $17-million order for 10 high-density X-ray machines aimed at examining the contents of cargo containers. The machines include truck-mounted mobile X-ray machines and larger, stationary X-rays. Their order coincides with the stationing of U.S. and Canadian customs inspectors on each other's territory, which began yesterday. A handful of Canadian customs officers took up posts in ports in Seattle, Wash., and Newark, N.J. At the same time U.S. officers started work in Halifax, Montreal, and Vancouver. © 2002 Bell Globemedia Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 41 Former IAAP worker receives $150,000 The Hawk Eye Special: IAAP Wednesday, March 27, 2002 [Unknown dangers at IAAP] n Morning Sun man is first plant employee compensated for disease exposure. By Dennis J. Carroll The Hawk Eye MORNING SUN — A 74–year–old Morning Sun man has become the first former nuclear weapons worker at the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant to receive a health compensation settlement payment from the Department of Energy. Jess Mills, who with a son owns Mills Sales and Service in Wapello, an automotive body shop, suffers from chronic beryllium lung disease determined to have been caused by his work with nuclear weapons production at the Middletown plant. Mills said he received the $150,000, which was deposited directly to his savings account, about a week ago. The federal government also will pay for treatment of the beryllium disease. "The process works," said Mills, who encouraged other former workers to apply for compensation. "It may be frustrating at times, but ultimately it works." Mills said he was an inspections foreman, checking nuclear weapons on Line 1 "in various stages, from the ground up." He worked at the plant from 1950 until the Atomic Energy Commission moved its nuclear operations to the Pantex plant in Amarillo, Texas, in 1974. Mills said he has no idea exactly where or when he was exposed to the beryllium, a lightweight but sturdy toxic and brittle metal used in the production of atomic weapons. "It was top–secret work," Mills said. "Many times you didn't know what you were working on ... or had no knowledge of the material you were dealing with." Declassified documents analyzed by the Environmental Protection Agency two years ago revealed that particles of beryllium were found in dust samples taken from numerous buildings on the nuclear production line at the plant. Mills said that because of incomplete or nonexistent IAAP worker records, it was difficult for him to prove he had worked at the plant. Eventually, he found a friend and colleague who agreed to sign an affidavit attesting to Mills' employment at the plant. "It was kind of strange that they would believe my wife or a friend, but not me," Mills said. Mills' wife Patricia also worked at the plant for a time, though in a different area than her husband. The DOE's compensation program, administered by the Department of Labor, applies to former nuclear weapons workers or their survivors who suffered medical problems related to their work with radioactive materials, beryllium or silica. Workers who may have become ill or died because of their exposure to other toxic chemicals or metals in the production of conventional weapons do not qualify for the compensation package. Mills said he had no expectations that he would actually receive the compensation package when he began the process about a year ago. "I was surprised that I had the disease, and that they pursued it," said Mills, who suffers from shortness of breath. Mills had high praise for Dr. Laurence Fuortes and his team of health specialists from the University of Iowa College of Public Health. Fuortes' group, working under DOE grants, has been screening former IAAP workers for health problems and helping them apply for the compensation program. A Labor Department team also was recently in Burlington to assist workers in appling for the compensation. Mills said many of his IAAP colleagues have died over the years, possibly from illnesses they contracted at the plant. "Many have died," Mills said, "but you don't know what from." Mills and his wife have been married for 51 years. They have two sons and a daughter. He said that at first he was reluctant to come forward because of what people might say or think about him. "But (former workers} need to know that the system did work," he said. In Washington, Sen. Tom Harkin, D–Iowa, issued a statement concerning Mills. Harkin was instrumental in ensuring that IAAP workers were covered by the compensation program. "I'm glad that Mr. Mills has finally gotten compensation for the illness he contracted while working at IAAP," Harkin said. "He has been unfairly saddled with mounting medical bills as a result of his chronic beryllium disease and this payment has been long in coming." The Hawk Eye 800 S. Main St., Burlington Iowa 52601 319-754-8461 Front Desk · 319-754-6824 FAX · 1-800-397-1708 Toll Free ***************************************************************** 42 Ottawa considers radiation detectors at border points [/globeandmail.com] By CAMPBELL CLARK Tuesday, March 26, 2002 – Page A8 OTTAWA -- The federal government is considering giving customs inspectors lapel-pin radiation-detection devices to allay U.S. concerns that Canada could be a conduit for terrorists smuggling a so-called "nuke in a box." Revenue Minister Elinor Caplan said yesterday that her department is "seriously investigating" a proposal to issue the detectors. The small devices would beep to indicate when radioactive materials are near, allowing the inspectors to intercept nuclear bombs or weapons designed to spread radioactive materials. "One of the concerns that the Americans particularly have is the potential in a container for weapons of mass destruction. "And in those kinds of armaments, they use radioactive materials," she said. "So we are investigating lapel pins which customs officers would wear, which would identify radiation within the container." U.S. Customs Commissioner Robert Bonner has cast doubts on efforts to speed up border crossings, saying Canada is more concerned with getting the $1-billion-a-day trade across the border than combatting U.S. concerns about nuclear terrorism. "There is at least a certain number of al-Qaeda terrorists in Canada. One of them could get a job at one of these plants, and then you may have nuclear material inserted in that truck," he said. The radiation detectors would be part of a five-year, $110-million program to beef up high-tech scanners at Canadian seaports, airports, and border crossings. The government is to announce this week that it has placed a $17-million order for 10 high-density X-ray machines aimed at examining the contents of cargo containers. The machines include truck-mounted mobile X-ray machines and larger, stationary X-rays. Their order coincides with the stationing of U.S. and Canadian customs inspectors on each other's territory, which began yesterday. A handful of Canadian customs officers took up posts in ports in Seattle, Wash., and Newark, N.J. At the same time U.S. officers started work in Halifax, Montreal, and Vancouver. ***************************************************************** 43 Baghdad holds meeting on depleted uranium impact - 3/27/2002 - ENN.com Wednesday, March 27, 2002 By Reuters BAGHDAD, Iraq — The Iraqi government opened a conference Tuesday to examine the effects on health of depleted uranium munitions used by U.S.-led forces during the Gulf War, which it says have caused a rise in cancer in Iraq. "The conference is to meet the urgent need for researchers and specialists in Iraq and other countries to define negative impacts of DU weapons on humans and the environment," Education Minister Fahad Salim al-Shaqra said in his opening speech. Experts at the two-day conference, organized by the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, include researchers from Egypt, Thailand, and Yemen. Shaqra said cancer among children and congenital deformities had increased in Iraq since the 1991 Gulf War, in which a U.S.-led coalition drove Iraq out of Kuwait after it invaded its oil-rich neighbor. "The rate of cancer cases among under-15s has registered a 120 percent increase from 1997 to 1990. Likewise, the rise in leukemia cases was 60 percent for the same year,'' Shaqra said. He added cancer among children had almost trebled from four cases per 100,000 in 1990 to 11 in 1999. Congenital deformities in Basra, southern Iraq, increased four-fold from 1990 to 1999. "The rate cancer increased among children in 1999 was 242 percent, whereas leukemia cases increased by 100 percent in the same year compared with 1990's figures," Shaqra added. Shaqra said incidence of cancers of the breast, thyroid gland, and lymphatic system also rose. An Iraqi vet said Saturday thousands of fish that have died at fish farms near Baghdad were poisoned by munitions used by British and U.S. forces. DU munitions were first widely used in the Gulf War. Declassified U.S. documents show U.S. forces fired about 944,000 cigar-sized rounds against Iraqi armor in Iraq and Kuwait. DU combusts on impact with its target, making it highly effective at piercing tank armor. Last year, the World Health Organization began an in-depth study into the health impact of the shells used in Iraq. But in November, after lobbying from Washington, the U.N. General Assembly voted against an Iraqi proposal for a U.N.-backed study into the effects of depleted uranium used in the Gulf War. A report by Britain's Royal Society scientific organization published earlier this month said topsoil in areas heavily contaminated with depleted uranium should be removed and water quality should be monitored for any contamination. Copyright 2002, Reuters ***************************************************************** 44 Kazakhstan to bury radioactive scrap metal received from China - agency BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Mar 26, 2002 A radiation source stored in a train carriage with scrap metal in Arkalyk [in northern Kazakh Kostanay Region] since November 2001 has been removed and sent to the Baykal-1 testing ground [untraced] for burial, the chief of the Kostanay Regional emergency situations department, Yevgeniy Batov, told the Kazakhstan-Today news agency. [Passage omitted: the train carriage with scrap metal was received from China on 13 November 2001] The work to remove the radiation source has been carried out by specialists from the Kazakh agency for technical exploitation of atomic power-engineering facilities and the St Petersburg scientific centre for atomic power-engineering problems [in Russia]. A total of six capsules and five components of equipment used in mining and a small amount of soil were removed from the train carriage which was stationed at the Arkalyk railway station. The specialists' findings, measuring over 7,000 microroentgen per hour, were placed in a special lead container covered with three layers of concrete blocks and were sent to the Baykal-1 testing ground especially designed for scraping radioactive waste. Radioactive-free metal scrap was also loaded onto train carriages and was prepared for sending for ordinary processing. According to the Arkalyk branch of the Kazvtorchermet [Kazakh secondary ferrous metal] company, the dangerous cargo reached its destination [Baykal-1 testing ground] on 25 March. Source: Kazakhstan Today news agency web site, Almaty, in Russian 0326 gmt 26 Mar 02 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. ***************************************************************** 45 Fire breaks out on nuclear ship New Scientist 10:05 27 March 02 A ship which carries plutonium around Europe had to return to dock on Monday after a fire broke out in its engine room. The Atlantic Osprey, which belongs to the state-owned company British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL), was travelling along the Manchester Ship Canal on its way to sea when the fire started. There was no nuclear material on board. The crew was unable to reach the flames with hand-held extinguishers, so decided to evacuate the engine room and flood it with carbon dioxide. The local fire brigade was called and, after two or three hours, fire fighters re-entered the room and confirmed the fire was out. "The vessel has since returned to the Manchester dry dock for a full technical assessment to identify the root cause of the fire and also the extent of the damage caused," a spokeswoman for BNFL told New Scientist. Roll-on, roll-off The Atlantic Osprey, which used to be called the Arneb, is a roll-on, roll-off cargo ferry that has shipped reactor fuel containing plutonium between Britain and Germany since 1996. In four voyages during November and December last year, it carried 500 kilograms of plutonium from the Dounreay nuclear plant in Scotland to the German port of Bremerhaven. BNFL says the fire was "minor" and no-one was injured. But environmentalists argue that the incident highlights the risk of a fire releasing plutonium, which can cause cancer if inhaled. "This time we were lucky," says Shaun Burnie from Greenpeace International. "If this fire had taken place with a plutonium or nuclear waste cargo the consequences could have been catastrophic." Two other BNFL boats, the Pacific Pintail and the Pacific Teal, are due to leave Britain in the next few weeks to bring back an unwanted cargo of plutonium fuel from Japan. It was shipped there in 1999 but was rejected by the Japanese reactor operator following a scandal over the falsification of safety data. Rob Edwards ***************************************************************** 46 Russia to send Iran nuclear fuel, take spent fuel for reprocessing BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Mar 27, 2002 Moscow, 27 March: Russia will supply fresh nuclear fuel to Iran for the Bushehr nuclear power plant on condition that it be returned to Russia for reprocessing, Russian Minister of Atomic Energy Aleksandr Rumyantsev told a press conference in Moscow on Wednesday [27 March]. The minister recalled that Iran has already signed all international agreements on the nonproliferation of nuclear materials and is observing all the commitments it has taken on. Russia, as well as the US, "are very concerned about the proliferation of fissionable materials," Rumyantsev said. The minister said he discussed this problem with US specialists and expects to reach a compromise with them on this issue... Source: Interfax news agency, Moscow, in English 1202 gmt 27 Mar 02 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. ***************************************************************** 47 Nuclear fuel transport exercise nears completion in southern Russia BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Mar 27, 2002 Text of report in English by Russian news agency ITAR-TASS Rostov-On-Don, 27 March: A headquarters exercise for safe transportation of nuclear fuel is drawing to completion in Russia's Southern Federal District. The exercise programme centred on safety measures in the delivery of nuclear materials and radioactive substances by different means of transport. The problems of safety are topical for the Southern Federal District, as its territory may become a transit corridor for the transportation of waste fuel to the sites of recycling and storage. Experts of the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry and Railways Ministry have held a workshop for the exercise participants to fill them in on the experience of nuclear fuel transportation. They also discussed coordinated programmes of training trains escorting personnel and security forces to ensure safe delivery of the cargoes. The schedule for Wednesday envisions simulation of joint efforts by units of the Russian Atomic Energy Ministry, the Interior Ministry, the Federal Security Service (FSB), the Railways Ministry, the Public Health Ministry, and the State Committee for Nuclear Facilities Supervision in case of terrorist acts and technical incidents. Source: ITAR-TASS news agency, Moscow, in English 0720 gmt 27 Mar 02 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. ***************************************************************** 48 Russian MP advocates huge nuclear waste storage on Pacific island BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Mar 27, 2002 Text of report by Russian news agency Ekho Moskvy [No dateline as received] All nuclear waste should be buried in one place ideally suitable for this, located not on the mainland, and absolutely closed off and fitted with the latest technology, deputy chairman of the Russian Duma Environment Committee Sergey Shashurin said in a live interview with Ekho Moskvy radio. Shashurin said that he had already forwarded a corresponding plan to all agencies concerned. "I agreed with the president of the International Atomic Energy Agency and with 27 countries that nobody should bury the waste on the sea floor or send it to Africa. The whole world supports my project: the European countries have given a positive assessment and the Asian countries are preparing their assessment," he said. "No decision has been made yet," Shashurin said, commenting on media reports that Simushir Island in the Far East is seen as a possible site for nuclear waste disposal. "A search is under way for a place which is safe for people, based on a solid geological platform, which is suitable for ships and which has enough space for the corresponding infrastructure and guards," he said. "The decision will be made after all the data is collected and the economic benefit for Russia is evaluated. Simushir is one of the options," he said. However, the decision will be made "very soon", Shashurin said. When the preparatory work is finished, he will "offer the issue for discussion by the Sakhalin Region authorities, the Russian authorities and the people". Under his plan, central Russia will be cleared of such waste, Shashurin said. Chelyabinsk Region [where a big nuclear waste disposal at the Mayak chemical plant has been located since the 1950s] will be cleared to avoid pollution of the River Ob, and the Lake Baikal area will be cleared, too. Moreover, "things must be put in order in the Kamchatka Peninsula and in Nakhodka [Maritime Territory] where nuclear submarines have been scrapped," he said. The main task is to guarantee safety at an isolated limited-access area protected by paramilitary guards," he said. Source: Ekho Moskvy news agency, Moscow, in Russian 1005 gmt 27 Mar 02 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. ***************************************************************** 49 Reactor fuel storage plan worries detailed to NRC Asbury Park Press   March 27, 2002 Published in the Asbury Park Press 3/27/02 By KAREN SUDOL MANAHAWKIN BUREAU LACEY -- Joe Rullo is terrified about terrorism. He remembers the destruction that occurred on Sept. 11 and wondered at the time if the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant in Lacey, which he lives near, would ever be targeted by terrorists. So, on behalf of a nuclear watchdog group he belongs to, he asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission during an informational meeting last night the one question he wanted answered: What would happen if a jet plane deliberately crashed at 500 mph into concrete vaults that the plant plans to store used fuel in, beginning next month? "How many miles away would people be affected by it?" he wondered. "And can I be guaranteed that there's not a terrorist working at the (Oyster Creek) facility?" Rullo's comments generated much applause from the 300 or so people who attended the meeting. The nearly four-hour session at Lacey Township Middle School was sponsored by the NRC to explain the federal agency's role in the Route 9 power plant's plans to store used radioactive fuel in 10 vaults on site, and answer questions or address concerns raised by the public. In April, the plant plans to load assemblies that contain used radioactive fuel in stainless steel canisters, which are to be stored in concrete vaults on the eastern quadrant of the plant's property, about 600 feet from Route 9. Ten concrete vaults have been constructed; four canisters await being filled with the fuel assemblies. Four vaults, each containing one canister, will be filled in one campaign. The plant's spent fuel pool, which currently holds the fuel, is running out of room. NRC study under way In response to Rullo's question, NRC officials said they are analyzing whether concrete vaults storing spent fuel can withstand the impact of a commercial jet. The NRC is conducting a study on the issue and hopes to complete it within a year, NRC officials said, adding that the vaults are designed to withstand natural disasters like flooding, tornadoes and hurricanes. "If a 747 (jet) penetrated that vault, it would be a weapon of mass destruction, and I wouldn't want to be around," said Rullo, co-chairman of Jersey Shore Nuclear Watch. "This is like waving a carrot in front of a terrorist." A variety of concerns and questions were raised by members of the public, who addressed the panel of a dozen NRC officials on stage by microphone or through questions jotted down on paper and delivered to the group. NRC officials gave a presentation, but the majority of the meeting was devoted to public comment. Lacey resident Michael Masciale asked why there were no plans to erect an earthen berm around the site, and why the vaults weren't constructed underground. "It would give me greater comfort if that would be the case," he said of burying the vaults. He added that his "comfort level" with the plant's operations and the dry cask storage plans has decreased since Sept. 11. NRC officials said berms were never considered for physical protection, only radiation protection, and it was determined they would not be used. As for building the vaults underground, officials noted that Oyster Creek did not present that type of design. Others asked whether there had been any problems associated with interim dry cask storage at other nuclear power plants. NRC officials said there have been only minor problems that were corrected quickly. One woman referred to a newspaper article detailing the detection of corrosion in the reactor of an Ohio nuclear plant. The NRC has ordered operators of the 68 plants with a similar design to that of the Ohio plant -- pressurized water reactors -- to check their lids for corrosion. The 11 oldest plants of that design -- Oyster Creek among them -- are to submit reports early next month proving the plants are safe enough to keep in operation. The federal government doesn't know why the corrosion happened in Ohio and wants operators of other plants to prove their normal inspections would disclose a similar problem if it occurred in their facilities. Some in audience upset But one of the biggest concerns was why the meeting was infor-mational only. The plant received a variance from the Lacey Board of Adjust-ment in 1995 because the project was not considered an accepted use on the property. And Oyster Creek did not have to seek approval from the NRC for the project. However, it did have to obtain a certificate of compli-ance, which showed that the in-terim dry cask storage design conformed with a design that has been approved by the NRC. A public comment period was of-fered when the design was first being considered by the NRC and when it was most recently amended in September 2001. But last night's meeting was to pro-vide insight to the public; the project will begin regardless of any public objection. This upset some members of the audience. "We have not been given the dem-ocratic right to decide on the fate of 3.5 million people that live within 50 miles of Oyster Creek," said Edith Gbur, president of the Jersey Shore Nuclear Watch group. "This meeting today is not even a public hearing. Our needs have not been met to begin with." The NRC had scheduled the fo-rum because there was such an interest in the project, said Char-lie Miller, deputy director of the NRC's spent fuel project office in Maryland. ***************************************************************** 50 Radioactive rod found in Kaohsiung scrap The Taipei Times Online: 2002-03-27 HOT RODS: The discovery of another radioactive rod in scrap metal -- the second this month -- highlights the lax handling of such materials by Taiwanese companies By Chiu Yu-Tzu STAFF REPORTER Atomic Energy Council (AEC) officials, already on edge due to the discovery of a radioactive rod found in scrap metal early this month, were told that a similar rod had been found Monday night at a steel plant in Kaohsiung. Yesterday morning, however, AEC officials said that the rod found on Monday was not one of the five rods linked to the earlier find, as it was not the proper length. The AEC has been searching feverishly for five lost radioactive rods linked to the one found in central Taiwan earlier in the month. The rods are used for quality control in steel and chemical plants around the country. The AEC emphasized that the rods are not from any of the nation's nuclear plants. S.J. Su (ĬÄm³¹), the AEC's new director of the Department of Radiation Protection, yesterday confirmed that the rods came from abroad, but declined to tell the Taipei Times which country produced them. On Monday evening, a radiation alarm at the Tang Eng Iron Works Co Ltd Stainless Steel Plant (­ðºa¤½¥q¤£Äÿû¼t) in Kaohsiung City was triggered by a truck carrying scrap metal. After using radiation survey meters, plant workers confirmed that extremely high levels of radioactivity were being emitted from the 42cm-by-10cm stainless steel cylinder. The rod was emitting 490 milliSieverts per hour. In the UK, a "safe dose" for nuclear plant workers is calculated at 50 milliSieverts per year. Five milliSieverts per year is the regulatory limit in Taiwan, which is higher than the international average. "What I can say is that the alarm system works. After all, it happens," a high-ranking Tang Eng manager with the surname Li told the Taipei Times yesterday. Li said that the radioactive rod could have come from anywhere, because the company has smelted scrap metal collected from counties around the country since 1983. Confidential Taipei Times sources, however, said that the scrap metal in question was from the Jiyang Steel Plant (¦N´­¿ûÅK¼t) in Tainan. The AEC's Institute of Nuclear Energy Research (INER) yesterday transferred the rod back to its laboratory in Taoyuan to carry out further tests to determine the nuclear isotope and look for a series number. If no series number is found, AEC officials said yesterday that it would be impossible to trace. Meanwhile, AEC officials are busy searching for the five lost rods, thought to be 28.28kg cesium-137 (Cs-137) cylinders like the one found earlier this month. According to the AEC, the six radioactive rods were originally purchased by the Tungyi Steel Plant (ªF»õ¿ûÅK¼t) and were then sold to the Hsinhung Steel Plant («HÂE¿ûÅK¼t) before Tungyi went bankrupt. Both plants are located in Taichung. Last year, Hsinhung shut down its production lines due to financial difficulties. Sometime later, the rods disappeared from the Hsinhung facility were they were stored. AEC officials have vowed to find out how this was permitted to happen and prosecute the two companies under the Atomic Energy Act. In response to the evolving problem, AEC Chairman Ouyang Min-shen (¼Ú¶§±Ó²±) has ordered a complete overhaul of the regulations regarding radioactive sources for both medical and industrial uses. Last Thursday, the AEC checked more than forty scrap-smelting plants in Taichung, but the search came up empty. Nevertheless, AEC officials suspect that the five missing rods remain in the Taichung area. Yesterday, the AEC supplied Taichung police with 3,000 posters showing what the lost radioactive rods look like. The AEC has posted a NT$20,000 reward for finding any of the five. Taiwan's lax regulation of radioactive materials has been criticized since the early 1980s, when rebar contaminated with cobalt-60 was discovered in the construction in several counties in Taiwan. In January this year, the High Court ruled that the AEC should offer people who lived in Taipei's Minsheng Villas (¥Á¥Í§O¹Ö) compensation totalling NT$54 million for its failure to regulate radioactive materials. The lawsuit was filed in 1992. On Monday, AEC Chairman Ouyang said that the agency would not appeal the decision and would pay over NT$70 million to cover the compensation, lawyers' fees and related expenses. "This is not in any way a solution to the problem of careless oversight of radioactive sources," said Wei-chieh (¿à°¶³Ç), secretary-general of the Green Citizens' Action Alliance, a Taipei-based anti-nuclear group. This story has been viewed 344 times. URL=[http://www.taipeitimes.com/news/2002/03/27/story/0000129369] Copyright © 1999-2002 The Taipei Times. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 51 NRC Licensing Board to Hold Hearings in April in Utah on Private Fuel Storage Proposal NRC: Press Release - 2002 - 35 - U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 20555-001 E-mail: [opa@nrc.gov] www.nrc.gov No. 02-035 March 26, 2002 A Nuclear Regulatory Commission Atomic Safety and Licensing Board will hold formal evidentiary hearings in Salt Lake City beginning Monday, April 8, and continuing for over a month on the application of Private Fuel Storage, L.L.C. (PFS) to build and operate an independent spent fuel storage installation on the reservation of the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians, about 60 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. In addition, the Board is providing an opportunity for members of the public to make brief oral statements on April 8 in Salt Lake City and on April 26 in Tooele, Utah. During the formal sessions of the hearings, the Licensing Board will receive testimony and exhibits from the parties and allow them to cross-examine witnesses. A schedule of the locations, times and issues to be covered for each hearing session is attached and is on the NRC web site at http://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/public-meetings/meeting-schedule.html#ASLB. The times are subject to change. These sessions are open to public observation, but participation will be limited to those organizations that have been admitted as formal parties to the proceeding. Those parties are the applicant, Private Fuel Storage; the NRC staff; the State of Utah; the Skull Valley Band; Ohngo Gaudadeh Devia; Confederated Tribes of the Goshute Reservation; and Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. The formal hearings will cover four issues: 1. A contention that hazards from military aircraft and other operations near the area have not been adequately considered. 2. Questions about the ability of the facility to withstand possible earthquakes. 3. Potential contamination of groundwater from non-radiological waste. 4. Questions about whether the Environmental Impact Statement adequately addresses alternatives to the placement of the proposed connection railway to the facility. The April 8 sessions at which members of the public may make brief oral statements, called "limited appearances," will be at the Salt Palace Convention Center, 100 South West Temple, Room 251, from 2 to 5 p.m. and again from 7 to 9:30 p.m. The April 26 limited appearances sessions will be at the Tooele High School Auditorium, 240 West 100 South, Tooele, from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. and again from 7 to 9:30 p.m. Anyone wishing to make such a statement on matters related to the hearing should submit a request to make an "Oral Limited Appearance Statement." The requests must be submitted so as to arrive at NRC Headquarters by 4:30 p.m. EST on Monday, April 1, 2002. Requests should be mailed to: Office of the Secretary, Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, D.C. 20555-0001; faxed to (301) 415-1101 (verification 301-415-1966); or sent by electronic mail to: [hearingdocket@nrc.gov] . In addition, a copy of the request must be sent to the Licensing Board by mail to: PFS Limited Appearance Box, Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel, Mail Stop T-3F23, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, D.C. 20555-0001; by fax to: (301) 415-5599 (verification 301-415-7550); or by E-mail to: [mrm@nrc.gov] . Speakers who submit written requests will be given priority at the meetings. If time permits, those who have not submitted requests in writing will be allowed to speak. In order to accommodate as many speakers as possible, time for each statement will be limited to three minutes. A recorded message providing instructions for making a limited appearance is available at 301/415-5036. This phone line will contain an updated hearing schedule after the hearings begin. Members of the Licensing Board who will preside over both the formal hearing and the limited appearance sessions are Michael C. Farrar, Chairman; Jerry R. Kline; and Peter S. Lam. Judge G. Paul Bollwerk, III, whose Board has retained jurisdiction over part of the proceeding, will be in attendance on the opening day to hear the limited appearance statements. Security screening at all hearings and limited appearance sessions will be strict. Attendees are advised to arrive early so that all may pass through a security screening checkpoint before the hearings get underway. PFS HEARING SCHEDULE 1. DATE: Monday, April 8, 2002 LOCATION: Salt Palace Convention Center Room 251 100 South West Temple Salt Lake City, Utah 84101 TIME: 9:00 a.m. to Noon* TOPIC: Opening Statements * Afternoon and evening sessions will be devoted to limited appearance statements. 2. DATE: Tuesday, April 9, 2002 LOCATION: Little America Hotel Ballroom C 500 South Main Street Salt Lake City, Utah 84101 TIME: 3:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. TOPIC: Safety Contention Utah K/Confederated Tribes B ("Credible Accidents") 3. DATE: Wednesday, April 10, through Saturday, April 13, 2002 LOCATION: Utah State Capitol Room 129 350 North Main Salt Lake City, Utah 84114 TIME: 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday 9:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Thursday through Saturday TOPIC: Continuation of Utah K/Confederated Tribes B 4. DATE: Monday, April 22 through Thursday, April 25, 2002 LOCATION: Sheraton City Centre Hotel Wasatch Room 150 West 500 South Salt Lake City, Utah 84101 TIME: 9:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. TOPIC: Environmental Contentions 5. DATE: Friday, April 26, 2002 * Limited appearance statements in Tooele. 6. DATE: Monday, April 29 through Friday, May 3, 2002 (and Saturday, May 4, 2002, if needed) Monday, May 6 through Friday, May 10, 2002 (and Saturday, May 11, 2002, if needed) LOCATION: Sheraton City Centre Wasatch Room 150 West 500 South Salt Lake City, Utah 84101 TIME: 9:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. TOPIC: Safety Contentions Utah L and Utah QQ (Geotechnical and Seismic Stability) b 7. DATE: Monday, May 13 through Friday, May 17, 2002 LOCATION: Sheraton City Centre Hotel Wasatch Room 150 West 500 South Salt Lake City, Utah 84101 TIME: 9:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. TOPIC: If needed to complete other issues ***************************************************************** 52 Aides Tour Proposed Nuclear Site Las Vegas SUN Today: March 27, 2002 at 12:15:17 PST WASHINGTON (AP) - For a few hours trudging through the Nevada mountain where the government wants to store nuclear waste, dozens of congressional aides and a few of their bosses got two or three days in Las Vegas - at the nuclear industry's expense. Since 1999, at least 168 congressional aides and seven House members have taken trips to Yucca Mountain that were paid for by the Nuclear Energy Institute, an Associated Press check of congressional travel records found. The industry is hoping the trips to caverns and casinos will help secure Congress' approval later this year for Yucca Mountain as the nation's storage site for radioactive waste. "Staff people say this is a great deal," said Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., one of many Nevada officials fiercely opposing the site. "They have dreams of their trip to Las Vegas. If you just went to Yucca Mountain and came home, it would be an ugly trip." The trips to Vegas are considered fact-finding missions - meaning they can be paid for by special interests under congressional rules. The review of congressional records shows the Nuclear Energy Institute spent more than $208,000 on the trips since 1999. The records don't detail the activities for each trip. Several congressional aides did describe theirs - provided their names not be used for fear they'd be punished for embarrassing their bosses. "We went to a show. I'm not sure who paid," one aide said. "Liquor was free in the casino," another added. A third congressional worker said he spent an afternoon in the hotel wave pool, while a fourth recalled an industry-paid dinner at a spectacular revolving restaurant with a view of Vegas. Aides were reluctant to say how much they gambled. Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, visited Yucca Mountain at the industry's expense last year. He spent one night in Las Vegas and defended those who stay longer. "Our staffs are not the highest paid government people in the world. If they get a chance to learn on the issue and to spend a few days (in Vegas), I have never seen that as a problem," he said. "Staffers who have gone found it educational and enjoyable." The Nuclear Energy Institute has been paying for trips to Yucca since the early 1990s. The tab for each trip varies with the airfare and number of days, but the cost for a staff member is usually between $1,000 and $2,000. The industry didn't provide money for gambling or shows. Spokesman Steve Kerekes said NEI wants to influence congressional and state officials to support the Yucca site but only spends a fraction of its $28 million annual budget on the trips. "We try to put together a full schedule for those folks while recognizing they have the right to have a little bit of time to decompress," he said. Kerekes said the institute targets lawmakers and aides from states with nuclear power plants. "One would hope that members' constituents would understand their desire and expect them to be on an issue like this," he said. The industry needs a permanent storage site for some 77,000 tons of radioactive waste now held in facilities across the country. President Bush in February recommended the use of Yucca Mountain, northwest of Las Vegas, but he doesn't have the last word. Nevada officials are likely to ask Congress in April to uphold an expected veto by Gov. Kenny Guinn, a Republican. The state also has challenged the decision in federal court. Both sides have hired big-name lobbyists. The anti-Yucca Mountain forces hired two former White House chiefs of staff, Kenneth Duberstein from the Republican Reagan administration and John Podesta, who worked for Democrat Bill Clinton. A coalition of industry groups also hired a prominent Democrat and a well-known Republican. The Democrat is former vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro and the Republican is another former presidential chief of staff, John Sununu from the administration of the first President Bush. House and Senate aides said they took the Yucca visit seriously, writing reports or providing briefings for their bosses. But they acknowledge the personal time in Las Vegas makes the trip enormously popular. One aide said he arrived at his casino hotel in the early afternoon and stayed at the wave pool until early evening, when the industry presented a slide show on Yucca safety. The presentation showed how the storage casks for radioactive waste could survive a drop from a crane or a violent, head-on crash. The next day, staff members donned hard hats and safety glasses as they traveled deep into Yucca Mountain by rail car. They watched workers conduct moisture tests, string wires and check meters and temperatures. Energy Department officials answered questions. The staff members then were driven to the top of the mountain to view a mammoth rock-cutting machine. By dinner time, they were back in Las Vegas. The following day, staff members could leave or stay another night. One aide said three our four of the 20 aides in his group skipped the Yucca tour and went golfing. On the Net: Additional information on Yucca is available on the politics page at http://wire.ap.org [http://wire.ap.org] U.S. Energy Department's Yucca Mountain site is http://www.ymp.gov/ [http://www.ymp.gov/] Nuclear Energy Institute: http://www.nei.org [http://www.nei.org] All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 53 Energy Secretary met few foes of Nevada nuclear waste dump Las Vegas SUN Today: March 27, 2002 at 11:10:41 PST LAS VEGAS (AP) - Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham met more often with people who favor a nuclear waste repository in Nevada than those who oppose it, according to records covering his first nine months in office. The secretary met with two groups favoring a Yucca Mountain repository and met eight times with Republican lawmakers who support nuclear waste burial in Nevada from January to September last year. During the same period, Abraham met separately with two people opposed to Yucca Mountain: Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn and Rep. Peter Visclosky, D-Ind., who has voted against the proposed repository. The meetings were detailed in documents made public late Monday in Washington, D.C. "It's pretty evident what was going on here," U.S. Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., told the Las Vegas Review-Journal for Wednesday's editions. "The administration had a pro-Yucca inclination from the beginning, and the people they met with were all pro-Yucca supporters." Apart from Guinn and Visclosky, "there was no representation from anyone who had a different point of view," Berkley said. DOE spokesman Joe Davis called criticism of Abraham based on his schedule "a ridiculous notion." "You can't take (Abraham's) schedule, given the variety of issues and portfolios these groups and congressmen and senators work on, and say this is all about Yucca Mountain," Davis said. Davis said the energy secretary listened to hundreds of repository opponents at a public hearing in Las Vegas on Dec. 13. Davis said Abraham gave the matter a fair hearing before recommending Feb. 14 that the nation's commercial, industrial and military nuclear waste be entombed at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. President Bush accepted the recommendation. Guinn has said he will use the power provided by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act 1982 to veto Bush's decision by April 16. That will send the matter to Congress, where a majority vote in the House or Senate would be needed to kill the Yucca Mountain plan. Abraham's meetings were described in copies of his daily schedule made public after environmental groups and the Judicial Watch legal foundation filed lawsuits. The schedules covered most days from Jan. 25, 2001, days after Abraham was confirmed as energy secretary, to Sept. 28, days before the end of the 2001 fiscal year. During that period, Abraham and other members of the Bush administration were involved in forming and selling the president's wide-ranging energy policy to Congress and the public. Minutes of the meetings and other information were not included among 11,000 pages released by the Bush administration. Judicial Watch said those documents could be subject to more legal action to force disclosure. Lawsuits also are pending to force the White House to disclose details of meetings between industry officials and the energy task force headed by Vice President Dick Cheney. Developing an underground nuclear waste repository is among the more than 100 recommendations the Bush administration energy policy calls for. Critics of that policy said Abraham's schedule tilts toward those who were pro-nuclear energy and pro-repository. Abraham and Guinn met for 45 minutes on Feb. 26, when the governor was attending a Washington conference. Guinn later said he told the secretary to expect Nevada to sue repeatedly if Yucca Mountain was approved. Several environmental groups that work on Yucca Mountain did not request meetings with Abraham during 2001, according to Lisa Gue, a policy analyst for Public Citizen Critical Mass Energy Project, and Kevin Kamps, a nuclear waste specialist for the Nuclear Information and Resource Service. "We certainly were never invited and they knew our interest," Kamps said. "It was pretty obvious to us we were not welcome, and we were never asked to formulate policy." All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 54 NRC plans hearings on Yucca Wednesday, March 27, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal REVIEW-JOURNAL The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will hold three public meetings next month in Nevada to discuss safety and licensing issues with the Department of Energy's plans to build and operate a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain. The meetings are April 8 at the Beatty Senior Center in Beatty; April 9 at the Tonopah Convention Center in Tonopah; and April 10 at the Prospector Inn in Ely. Each meeting will be from 6:30 p.m. until 9 p.m. The meetings will focus on the NRC's responsibilities in evaluating a potential license application for the proposed Yucca Mountain repository, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. NRC staff members will be on hand for informal discussions and the public will have an opportunity to ask questions, according to an NRC statement on Tuesday. NRC spokeswoman Sue Gagner said no meetings are currently scheduled for Las Vegas but she anticipates similar meetings regarding the Yucca Mountain Project will be held in Las Vegas in the future. "We've been to Las Vegas many times and I'm sure we'll be there again," she said. Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002 ***************************************************************** 55 EDITORIAL: No special session Wednesday, March 27, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal It looks as if Gov. Kenny Guinn will not call a special session of the Legislature to deal with concerns over Yucca Mountain ... despite being openly lobbied last week by U.S. Sens. Harry Reid and John Ensign to do so. The senators want the Legislature to dip into a state "rainy day" fund -- a $136 million account that's meant to be used during fiscal emergencies or when the state is unable to deliver necessary public services. The money would finance a $10 million advertising and public relations campaign against the Yucca Mountain nuclear dump. The state tax revenues would underwrite television and newspaper ads in other states, urging federal lawmakers to vote against the project. So far, Gov. Guinn says he's found little appetite from state lawmakers to convene in Carson City. "The feedback is not leaning that way," he said Friday. Good. It's not even clear whether the Legislature could legally tap the rainy-day fund for this purpose. And state Sen. Ray Rawson, R-Las Vegas, who chairs the legislative committee that handles Yucca Mountain bills, says a special session on Yucca could potentially amount to throwing good money after bad. Instead of a special session, the governor and other officials should continue to push local businesses, philanthropists, the legal profession and the community at large to finance any proposed advertising campaign. Some private entities have donated cash already. But Gov. Guinn's and Sen. Rawson's instincts are sound. Using the rainy-day fund for this purpose would be inappropriate. Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002 ***************************************************************** 56 Official: Acid will speed corrosion of nuke waste casks Wednesday, March 27, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal By KEITH ROGERS REVIEW-JOURNAL Acidic residue left on metal tubes that will hold more than half the spent nuclear fuel destined for the planned Yucca Mountain repository could accelerate corrosion of waste packages, causing them to fail long before the 10,000 years they're supposed to hold up, a Nevada official said Tuesday. But a nuclear engineer for the Yucca Mountain Project was quick to discount the state's claim, saying there would not be enough of the residue present to affect waste-package materials that he said have held up under harsher conditions inside reactors. "Even if there is a certain amount of boron (residue) on those ... tubes and even if waste packages did get flooded over tens of thousands of years, you're not going to have enough boron there to do damage," said Department of Energy nuclear engineer Dan Kane. The Nevada official, State Nuclear Projects Agency Director Bob Loux, said the Department of Energy has never tested the potential long-term effects from boron residue on the tubes, known as cladding, that hold spent fuel pellets from pressurized nuclear power reactors. Loux said the state's own research shows that the corrosive effects of the residue, coupled with environmental conditions inside the mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, show the most resilient waste-cannister material, Alloy-22, "will likely only last 1,500 years maximum." "DOE has never tested one of these things manufactured out of Alloy-22 so no one really knows," he said, responding to a report of corrosion from buildup of boric acid residue on a reactor vessel in Ohio. "DOE has never taken this to a fabricator to see if it can be built," Loux said. Preliminary results presented Sept. 10 in Las Vegas by a state consultant, April Pulvirenti of Catholic University of America, show that cracks and pitting develop relatively quickly in the waste-canister material, Alloy-22. Loux referred to the Energy Department's work so far on waste-package corrosion as "basically advocacy science." Kane said federal scientists "don't need to do all kinds of tests to see how boron affects the waste packages because there will not be any concentration of boron inside the waste packages in solution." Kane cited the track record of zirconium-alloy cladding and stainless steel liners in pools where spent fuel assemblies are stored as evidence those metals can resist corrosion of boron in water at high concentrations of between 700 and 1,000 parts per million. He said the waste package currently envisioned is a dual metal cylinder design with the inner cylinder made of stainless steel surrounded by an outer cylinder of Alloy-22, a high nickel alloy that is resistant to corrosion. Engineers are still adjusting the design for the waste canisters that will be described in an application the Department of Energy intends to submit in December 2004 for review by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The final design will include all the engineered barriers that federal scientists intend to use to contain highly radioactive spent fuel. Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002 ***************************************************************** 57 Energy chief says decision was based on sound science Spencer Abraham Wednesday, March 27, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal Yucca foes accused of using 'scare tactics' Energy secretary defends decision on nuclear repository By TONY BATT STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham on Tuesday accused critics of the Yucca Mountain Project of using "scare tactics" to raise alarms about nuclear waste transportation. In an opinion article in the Washington Post, he said radioactive materials have been transported for more than 30 years, covering 1.6 million miles, without any harmful release of radiation. Abraham repeated the Bush administration's view that choosing Yucca Mountain, northwest of Las Vegas, for a nuclear waste repository is based on sound science. "That's undoubtedly why opponents of Yucca Mountain have now resorted to scare tactics," Abraham said. Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., countered that Yucca Mountain foes are using facts, citing December's report by the General Accounting Office showing more than 200 unresolved Yucca Mountain issues. "Before Sept. 11, no one thought about all the scenarios involving the World Trade Center," Ensign said. "We need to think of all the scenarios in transporting nuclear waste casks before we proceed." Meanwhile, documents released Monday by the Energy Department show Abraham and his aides worked closely with industry executives and lobbyists who were major campaign contributors to frame President Bush's energy plan last year. From last February through July, Abraham met with representatives of at least 20 energy corporations and trade associations that gave more than $4.1 million to Republicans from 1999 through 2001. Democrats received at least $1.7 million from the same sources. The 11,000 pages of heavily edited Energy Department documents are the first glimpse of behind-the-scenes efforts that shaped the energy policy Bush unveiled last May. The documents were released Monday to meet a court-imposed deadline in lawsuits to reveal the work of Bush's energy policy task force chaired by Vice President Dick Cheney. Bush is fighting to keep most of an additional 15,000 pages secret. Abraham's opinion article asked readers to imagine that President Truman "at the dawn of the nuclear age" had decided to store nuclear waste "800 feet beneath a barren desert owned by the government." "Had that choice been made, would anyone today argue it would be safer to remove all this nuclear waste and scatter it around the nation to 131 sites located near cities and waterways, and to place the waste in temporary, above ground storage facilities?" Abraham asked. Keeping the waste at one site is critical to national security, Abraham said, and essential for nuclear power, which provides 20 percent of the nation's electricity. Former White House chief of staff John Podesta, hired by Nevada to fight Yucca Mountain, described Abraham's argument as disingenuous. "He has turned the security issue on its head, because we are not going from 100 plus sites to one," Podesta said. "We are going from 100 plus sites to tens of thousands of mobile sites where the security issue comes front and center for American communities." The Associated Press contributed to this report. Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002 ***************************************************************** 58 NUCLEAR REPOSITORY: Abraham met few Yucca foes Wednesday, March 27, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal Energy chief met dump backers often By STEVE TETREAULT and BRITT FAULSTICK STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham met more often with people who favor Yucca Mountain than those who oppose it, according to records covering his first nine months in office. Documents made public late Monday reveal the groups and individuals with whom Abraham met between January and September of last year. The secretary met with two groups that favor a Yucca Mountain repository and met eight times with Republican lawmakers who support nuclear waste burial in Nevada. During the same period, he met with one person opposed to Yucca Mountain, Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn. He also met with one lawmaker who has voted against the proposed repository. "It's pretty evident what was going on here," said Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev. "The administration had a pro-Yucca inclination from the beginning, and the people they met with were all pro-Yucca supporters and they threw in a meeting with the governor." Apart from Guinn, "The fact of the matter is there was no representation from anyone who had a different point of view," Berkley said. DOE spokesman Joe Davis said criticizing Abraham based on his schedule "is a ridiculous notion." "You can't take (Abraham's) schedule, given the variety of issues and portfolios these groups and congressmen and senators work on, and say this is all about Yucca Mountain," Davis said. He said Abraham listened to hundreds of repository opponents at a public hearing in Las Vegas on Dec. 13. Davis said Abraham gave the matter a fair hearing before he recommended Feb. 14 that Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, be the nation's burial location for highly radioactive nuclear waste and spent nuclear fuel. President Bush accepted the recommendation. Following a process enacted into law 20 years ago, Guinn is expected to veto Bush's decision by mid-April, and the issue will be decided by Congress this summer. Abraham's meetings were described in copies of his daily schedule that were made public as a result of lawsuits filed by environmental groups and the Judicial Watch legal foundation. The schedules covered most days from Jan. 25, 2001, days after Abraham was confirmed as energy secretary, and Sept. 28, days before the end of the 2001 fiscal year. During that period, Abraham and other members of the Bush administration were involved in forming and selling the president's wide-ranging energy policy to Congress and the public. The Energy Department on Tuesday night was unable to provide further details on Abraham's meetings and to specify the extent to which Yucca Mountain may have been discussed. Minutes of the meetings and other information were not included among 11,000 pages released by the Bush administration and may be subject to further legal action to force further disclosure, attorneys for Judicial Watch said. Lawsuits also are pending to force the White House to disclose details of meetings between industry officials and the energy task force headed by Vice President Dick Cheney. Critics of Bush's energy policy, which called for further development of an underground nuclear waste repository among more than 100 recommendations, said Abraham's schedule indicates a tilt toward those who were pro-nuclear energy and pro-Yucca. Abraham and Guinn met for 45 minutes Feb. 26, when the governor was attending a Washington conference. Guinn later said he told the secretary to expect Nevada to sue repeatedly if Yucca Mountain was approved. Abraham's schedule shows he met twice with Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, the ranking Republican on the Senate's energy committee, and Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, chairman of a House energy panel. Both advocate a Yucca Mountain repository, although it was not known whether the issue was raised during those meetings. He also met for an hour March 14 with Rep. Sonny Callahan, R-Ala., who supports locating a repository at Yucca Mountain and who is chairman of the House appropriations subcommittee on energy and water projects. On May 1, Abraham met with Rep. Peter Visclosky, D-Ind., the subcommittee's ranking Democrat, who voted in 2000 against Yucca Mountain legislation. DOE spokesman Davis said those meetings probably concerned the DOE budget. Abraham met March 20 with Joe Colvin, president of the Nuclear Energy Institute, the lobbying arm of the nuclear power industry, and executives from member companies Energy Operations, Westinghouse Electric, Constellation Energy, Duke Power, Northeast Utilities, CMS Energy and Exelon. NEI spokesman Mitch Singer confirmed Yucca Mountain was among a dozen or so issues discussed during the hour-long meeting. On July 25, Abraham met for a half hour with representatives from the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, which advocates the completion of a repository and monitors the government's use of ratepayer money to fund the Yucca Mountain project. Abraham met twice with John Sununu, a former White House chief of staff during the administration of the current president's father. Those meetings took place Jan. 31 and Aug. 1, before Sununu signed on in October as a pro-Yucca lobbyist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Sununu spokesman David Blee confirmed. Yucca Mountain was not discussed, he said. Lisa Gue, a policy analyst for Public Citizen Critical Mass Energy Project, said the meetings still illustrate a coziness between Sununu and the energy secretary. "What this shows is that Sununu is obviously well connected and favored by this administration and by Abraham in particular," she said. "He had access certainly not equivalent to what people on the other side have." Several environmental groups that work on Yucca Mountain did not request meetings with Abraham during 2001, according to Gue and Kevin Kamps, a nuclear waste specialist for the Nuclear Information and Resource Service. They did not receive a response to a request for a meeting in January of this year, Kamps said. "We certainly were never invited and they knew our interest," Kamps said. "It was pretty obvious to us we were not welcome, and we were never asked to formulate policy." Abraham's schedules show him focusing on Yucca Mountain at different points. On Feb. 16 he met with acting program manager Lake Barrett for an hour, likely a budget review, Davis said. On March 15, Abraham met for an hour with Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Christie Whitman at a time when Whitman was considering radiation standards for Yucca Mountain tougher than what DOE was proposing. Abraham met with top advisers twice in August and three times in September to discuss nuclear waste. One meeting occurred Sept. 12 and another Sept. 13. Davis said participants likely discussed rescheduling Nevada hearings following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002 ***************************************************************** 59 BNFL NUCLEAR TRANSPORT SHIP FIRE RAISES SAFETY CONCERNS 27 March 2002 London, England - One of British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) nuclear transport ships, the Atlantic Osprey (1) caught fire during its voyage from dry dock in Manchester to the Irish Sea, it was revealed today. The ship, which was on route to the Irish Sea for sea trials, had recently undergone modifications and upgrades in dry dock. The fire on Monday, 25th March occurred in the starboard engine around 12.00hrs. The crew failed to suppress the fire by themselves and following activation of the ship's fire suppressing system and with assistance of the Salford Fire Department, they confirmed the fire was extinguished. BNFL have been unable at this time to confirm the length of time the fire burned. The ship was returned to dry dock at Salford Quays. "Despite the claims of the nuclear industry there is always a risk that nuclear transport ships will have serious accidents. This time we were lucky - no nuclear cargo and no injuries. However, this clearly demonstrates that it can and does happen. This time it happened in the Manchester Ship Canal, the next time it could be on a ship loaded with plutonium off Bremerhaven in Germany, or in the Panama Canal with a nuclear cargo. There needs to be immediate and full disclosure of all the details of this incident and a thorough review of fire protection on all of BNFL's ships, with no cover-up," said Shaun Burnie of Greenpeace International. The engine fire comes just weeks before two other BNFL operated nuclear transport ships, the Pacific Pintail and the Pacific Teal, are expected to depart from Barrow-in-Furness, in the north of England for Japan for what is the most controversial nuclear transport in history. They will transport a cargo of plutonium MOX fuel back from Japan, which was rejected by its Japanese owners. It was shipped to Japan in 1999 when it was then revealed that BNFL, the producers of the fuel, had deliberately falsified vital Quality Control data. The Atlantic Osprey, operating as the Arneb, transported numerous cargoes of plutonium MOX fuel from the German port of Bremerhaven to the Dounreay nuclear complex during the mid-to-late 1990s. There was widespread opposition to the shipment from Greenpeace and politicians in Germany and the UK citing safety and security concerns. In late 2001, the vessel, still operating as the Arneb, moved hundreds of kilograms of plutonium back from Dounreay to Germany in several voyages across the North Sea. The safety of nuclear transports was hotly debated at the Environment Ministers Conference on the North Sea only last week in Bergen, Norway, with the UK government claiming that the ships used were of the highest standard. International standards for nuclear transports are fundamentally flawed. The containers used to transport plutonium MOX fuel on the Arneb/Atlantic Osprey are classified as "Type-B" under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) guidelines. As such they are required to resist temperatures of up 800 degrees centigrade for 30 minutes. However, ship fires regularly burn at temperatures in excess of 1100 degrees centigrade. The average burning time of a fire on vessels at sea is in excess of 24 hours in spaces with machinery, such as the fire on the Osprey. The Irish government is currently fighting two international legal actions against the UK government citing safety issues of nuclear transports, lack of consultation and compliance with terms of the United Nations Law of the Sea. They are also considering legal action under the International Law of the Sea to stop the shipment of plutonium MOX fuel from Japan to the UK. In a further sign of opposition, Panama is currently debating legislation that would prohibit nuclear transports through the Panama Canal (2). "Governments around the world are opposed to BNFL's nuclear transports. This latest incident will only increase their anxiety about the risk of accident. If this fire had taken place off the coast of one of these countries with a plutonium or nuclear waste cargo the consequences could have been catastrophic. It is an ominous warning of what could happen to the two BNFL ships due to leave Barrow for Japan in a matter of weeks. These transports ships and this industry need to be stopped," said Shaun Burnie of Greenpeace International. Greenpeace supports the right of en-route states threatened by nuclear shipments to have prior notification and consultation on issues related to the safety and security of the shipments. No independent Environmental Impact Assessment has been conducted on these shipments, including the ability of coastal states to manage serious accidents, including fires, involving dangerous nuclear cargoes. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT: Shaun Burnie - Greenpeace International +31 629 001133 (mobile) Mhairi Dunlop - Greenpeace International Nuclear Press Co-ordinator +31 20 523 6608 Stock video and photographs are available from Greenpeace Communications Mim Lowe, Video Desk on +31 653 504 721 (mobile) or +31 20 524 9543 Pete Wilkinson, Photo Desk on +31 20 524 9597 1. The Atlantic Osprey, formerly MV Arneb was built in Hamburg in 1986, and has a gross tonnage of 3640 tonnes, a length of 88.57m, and a speed of 13 knots and is classified by Lloyds Registry as "ice strengthened" and class INF2 (Irradiated Nuclear Fuel Code). This will permit the carriage of irradiated fuel, high level nuclear waste and MOX fuel. In February 2001, it underwent a Port State Control inspection at Hull where a number of deficiencies were found in a range of inspection categories, which included safety in general, fire safety measures and crew certification. Between November 16th and mid-December the Osprey made four voyages from Scrabster, near Dounreay to the port of Bremerhaven, carrying in total approximately 500 kg of plutonium contained in 82 MOX fuel assemblies. BNFL plans to use the ship for transporting plutonium MOX fuel between the UK and mainland Europe, in particular Germany, as well as shipments to and from the United States. It is also believed that it will be used to transport nuclear waste from Dounreay to Sellafield. 2. The Panamanian Environment Committee is due to vote soon on legislation that would prohibit nuclear transports from using the Panama Canal. Citing safety and security concerns, the nuclear industry has continually refused to conduct environmental impact assessments as required under the United Nations International Law of the Sea. ***************************************************************** 60 Yucca: Letter: Will seniors ever learn the truth? Las Vegas SUN March 26, 2002 Want to talk about presidential lies? How about these (they're paraphrased) by our much-ballyhooed "president with integrity"? 1. I am against a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. 2. I will not borrow from Social Security to fund tax cuts. 3. I will guarantee no one now receiving Social Security benefits will see them cut. Well, we know the outcome of No. 1 and No. 2 promises, and his kangaroo commission has recommended an option that cuts benefits for all recipients. Not only that, his treasury secretary, Paul O'Neill, has recommended ending the program altogether. Just think if Nevadans hadn't been so naive to believe his untruthfulness and to vote for the jerk, Al Gore would be president today and Yucca Mountain would be safe, along with Social Security (and Medicare)! So, these seniors who voted for him because they "liked his parents," and younger voters who "just liked the guy," can now experience the results of their folly! Every election year the GOP jerks express their undying support for the program they spend non-election years trying to tear down and dismantle! When will seniors ever learn? I told you so! DANIEL OLIVIER All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 61 Letter: Reid spoke truth about Bush Las Vegas SUN Today: March 27, 2002 at 8:40:11 PST This is in reply to the March 4 letter written by Douglas M. Bryant. He stated that Sen. Harry Reid called President Bush a liar for saying he would base his decision on Yucca Mountain on sound science. Well, science hasn't said Yucca Mountain is safe, so Bush didn't tell the truth. Does that sound better than he lied? As for Bryant's statement that this is a partisan thing: Well, our governor, a Republican, plus our two Republican representatives in Washington, are also fighting Bush's decision. I don't know what false personal attack against the president Harry Reid made, but if telling the truth is attacking, so be it. Nevadans shouldn't be called unpatriotic because we don't want this deadly waste in our state. And yes, Bush is very well supported in the war on terrorism. But when Bush was a young man, there was a war going on called Vietnam. Well, I don't think we want to go there! As for Harry Reid, keep up the fight. FRANK MILES All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 62 Letter: Don't expect nuke dollars Las Vegas SUN Today: March 27, 2002 at 8:40:11 PST This is in reply to Mr. Don Cardiff's March 18 letter. New Mexico thought it had come to an agreement for benefits from the government in exchange for allowing the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant to be placed there. WIPP accepts certain types of radioactive waste. One specific waste is Transuranic Waste. We have some at the Nevada Test Site we want to get rid of. Unfortunately, because of Sept. 11, we may not be able to ship any out this year. The government is worried about terrorist attacks. It is a shame they are not as worried about this possibility regarding shipments to Yucca Mountain. Back to Mr. Cardiff and his letter. Mr. Cardiff should stop having dollar signs in his eyes. It won't happen. The government and the nuclear industry will promise the moon and deliver bovine scatology. Ask the state of New Mexico, Mr. Cardiff. They are still waiting and waiting and waiting ... A. T. LANG All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 63 Letter: Present facts about Yucca to Americans Las Vegas SUN Today: March 27, 2002 at 8:40:11 PST Recently I, like other Americans, learned that our president and the nuclear industry were making good on their threat to dump America's nuclear waste in Nevada. My first thought was, "Why do Nevadans have to take New Hampshire's nuclear waste?" God knows we in New Hampshire didn't want the nuclear plant, because we knew for starters that there was no plan to safely dispose of the waste. Soon after, Washington lobbyist John Sununu reportedly made an inane threat about gamblers, money and Las Vegas. He, of course, was once governor of New Hampshire, helping President Bush Sr. win the infamous New Hampshire primary. History buffs would tell you that he was Bush's chief of staff and made a big splash. He is what you would call a politically connected conservative who has worked for the nuclear industry for decades, and he has a huge cache of political favors due from both Presidents Bush and the Republican Party. Unfortunately, Nevada is being exploited politically. Candidly, the possible impact or ramifications have been considered, and Nevada has lost the roll of the dice. The nuclear industry hedged its bet by contributing millions to politicians around America, knowing that the day of reckoning was nearing. The safety of people is secondary to the bottom line. Some politician has decided that you are expendable. For what it's worth, I apologize that we would do this to each other. I recommend that you present your case directly to the American people. They will demand fairness. JIM RICE Penacook, N.H. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 64 68% support special session Las Vegas SUN Today: March 27, 2002 at 16:28:26 PST Most locals favor increased funding in Yucca campaign By Erin Neff LAS VEGAS SUN Southern Nevada residents overwhelmingly support funding last-ditch efforts to block Yucca Mountain from becoming the nation's nuclear waste repository, according to a poll commissioned by the Las Vegas Sun. A telephone survey of 435 Clark County residents found 68 percent in support of a special session of the Legislature to appropriate $10 million to aid in the state's anti-Yucca Mountain lobbying efforts. The survey found 26 percent against a special session and 6 percent uncommitted. The survey, conducted Tuesday by UNLV's Cannon Center for Survey Research, has a 5 percent margin of error. Those polled were asked the following question: Sens. (John) Ensign and (Harry) Reid have asked Gov. (Kenny) Guinn to call a special session of the Nevada Legislature. The reason for the session would be to appropriate $10 million to fight having nuclear waste buried at Yucca Mountain. Do you think Gov. Guinn should call such a session? "The population was, number one, both very aware of Yucca Mountain and very aware that this question is before the governor right now," said Pam Gallion, survey manager. People surveyed were asked if they thought the governor should call a special session to spend $10 million to fight the proposed nuclear waste dump at Yucca 68% support special session Mountain. Some respondents who said Guinn should call a special session said the state should fight the proposed dump "at any cost," Gallion said. Some of those opposed to a session volunteered to poll takers that they did not know where the state would get the money to fund the fight. "One said he thought that we should have a lottery to do this," Gallion said. Gallion said past polls with Yucca Mountain questions have also shown that residents both know the issue and are overwhelmingly opposed to the dump. "Respondents are always highly aware of the issue," Gallion said. "The responses to this survey aren't a surprise." Gallion noted that the survey found that support for a special session was stronger among younger people. Eighty-five percent of respondents from 26 to 35 years old said they support a special session, and 70 percent of respondents from 36 to 55 years old said they would support the special session. Support dropped off among older respondents. Sixty-five percent of those 56 to 65 years old who responded said they would support the special session, followed by 61 percent of those 66 years old or older. The poll came at the same time as a survey by the Sun of the 63-member state Legislature, which found opposition for a special session in the state Senate and a bare majority of support for one in the Assembly. A number of lawmakers told the Sun they did not believe the state had the money for such efforts, and were unconvinced the money could make any difference. Guinn is expected to veto President George Bush's approval of Yucca Mountain sometime in the next three weeks, sending the matter to the U.S. Congress. Nevada hopes to lobby support from a majority in the U.S. Senate to sustain Guinn's veto. The House of Representatives is expected to override the veto. Reid and Ensign said additional money is needed to fund television ads and grassroots campaigns in states where senators might be persuaded to join Nevada's position because of concerns about the transportation of high-level nuclear waste through their districts en route to Yucca Mountain. Guinn said he will decide this week whether to call a special session. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 65 Lawmakers are split on senators' request Las Vegas SUN Today: March 27, 2002 at 16:28:26 PST By Erin Neff and Cy Ryan Although Nevada's two U.S. senators and governor want to call a special session of the Legislature to add $10 million to the Yucca Mountain fight, state lawmakers are not convinced the funds would help. A survey by the Sun of the 63 state legislators found significant opposition to a session by members of the state Senate and bare majority support for the session in the Assembly. + In the 21-member state Senate, 13 said no, five said yes, one was neutral and two could not be reached. + In the 42-member state Assembly, 23 said yes, 15 said no, three declined to take a side and one could not be reached. Yucca Mountain is a difficult issue to gauge because many lawmakers hedge by saying they will attend a special session if one is called and possibly support giving money if they see a clear need. But Republican Gov. Kenny Guinn has said he won't call a special session without the lawmakers' support. Even most of those who support a special session said they would only go if there was proof the funds could help and that the money is available in state coffers. Guinn's spokesman, Greg Bortolin, said the governor is "still open" to holding a special session. But with one house clearly opposed to such a session, and 36 percent of the other house against it, a special session appears doubtful. Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, said he would have to be shown that the money -- requested by Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and John Ensign, R-Nev. -- could assist the state's lobbyists before he would agree to a special session. "When both Reid and (U.S. Senate Majority Leader Tom) Daschle say there is no way to stop it, why are we being asked to spend $10 million?" Raggio asked. Daschle, who last year called Yucca Mountain "dead," planned to use his power as Senate leader to block the issue from coming to the floor for a vote. Earlier this month, though, he said he couldn't do that because the law that authorized the creation of a nuclear waste repository allows any senator to call for a vote. Senators are trying to build a coalition to defeat the vote, and repository opponents now plan a nationwide campaign to bring pressure on Congress. Reid and Ensign have called for the $10 million to help build the campaign as the issue heads for Congress later this year. The state has already raised $6 million, but $3.5 million has already been spoken for. The $10 million would go to pay for television ads that will air in states through which nuclear waste will travel. The money would also go to grassroots organizing efforts. Assemblyman John Carpenter, R-Elko, said Guinn would have to build a much stronger case for a special session before he would agree. "It looks bleaker every day," Carpenter said. "Daschle came out and said he can't do anything to stop it. Can Sens. Reid and Ensign round up them votes? I don't know." Lawmakers have questioned everything from the need for the money to whether it would be legal to take the money out of the state's rainy day fund. Responses to the poll did not fall along party lines -- most notably with six Assembly Democrats opposing a session. A few Republicans, such as state Sens. Dean Rhoads, R-Tuscarora, and Mark Amodei, R-Carson City, favor a special session. "A special session would be OK if we can do it in one day," Amodei said. "If we just go in to appropriate additional money, that's fine." Democrats such as Assembly representatives David Goldwater and Chris Giunchigliani, both of Las Vegas, said there has not been enough justification for a special session given the state's pressing financial needs and $100 million budget shortfall. "If we can't call a special session to address an educational crisis and a health care crisis, why should we call a special session to pay Washington, D.C., lobbyists and powerbrokers?" Goldwater asked. State Sen. Randolph Townsend, R-Reno, said his constituents are worried about the state's budget and funding for education. "Ten million dollars would not be sufficient money to make a difference," he added. Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins, D-Henderson, said despite concerns about from where the state could draw the money and how it would be spent, he favors a special session. "I think circumstances in Washington, D.C., have created an emergency for us," Perkins said. A few, such as Assemblywoman Dawn Gibbons, R-Reno, were fervently in favor. "I would support absolutely everything and anything this Legislature can do to keep that dump out of here," said Gibbons, wife of U.S. Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev. Last week Raggio, who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, said the Legislature cannot lawfully tap money from the rainy day fund to fund a lobbying campaign. That fund is available only to stabilize the state's budgets if revenues come in below expectations. If lawmakers do convene in a special session to spend money from the rainy day account, they would first have to change the state law governing its use. Assemblyman Mark Manendo, D-Las Vegas, said he would like an opinion from the Legislative Counsel Bureau about whether the fund could be tapped for another emergency. "This is as rainy a day as you can get," Manendo said. Most of those who oppose a session cite the state's financial crises, including the shortfall and dwindling Medicaid and welfare budgets. "It's interesting that instead of getting compensation for Yucca Mountain, it's costing us," said state Sen. Bill O'Donnell, R-Las Vegas. "We should be getting compensation." O'Donnell said that even if a special session were convened, the Senate Finance Committee would not sign off on the $10 million appropriation. If the bill were required to go to that committee -- as is the case in a regular session -- five of the seven members are opposed to a special session and would likely kill the bill. Some lawmakers said they could be swayed to support a session if other issues were added to the agenda. Both state Sens. Ann O'Connell, R-Las Vegas, and Mike Schneider, D-Las Vegas, said they would support a special session only if it also included medical malpractice and construction defect litigation. Guinn is the only one who can call a special session, and it is the governor who sets the agenda for such a session. Guinn has previously said the special session would be for Yucca Mountain only due to the complexity of the other issues and the need to keep the special session to one or two days. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 66 Herrera works to free $3 million of county money to fight dump Las Vegas SUN Today: March 27, 2002 at 11:17:24 PST By Adrienne Packer Clark County Commission chairman Dario Herrera said Tuesday he wants to give $3 million of county money to help fund the state's fight against transporting nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain. "I'm going to ask the board to consider delaying capital improvement projects so that we can provide additional resources in this anti-Yucca Mountain campaign," Herrera said. "I believe if we are able to commit additional resources to the campaign, we'll be able to effectively get our message out and have people join Nevada." Under Herrera's plan, an upgrade of the county's computer system would be delayed to help free up the $3 million. Herrera, who will ask his colleagues on the board next week to approve the money, said the plan is contingent on whether the state Legislature follows Gov. Kenny Guinn's plea to call a special session to earmark as much as $10 million toward the state's high-stakes battle. The county's portion would go toward the $10 million goal, lessening the impact on the state's $136 million emergency fund. With the county's help, state legislators might be more willing to approve the funding, he said. "I talked to (county administrators) exhaustively to identify the least harmful method of coming up with additional resources," Herrera said. "I've also approached Mayor (Jim) Gibson and (Oscar) Goodman and asked them to consider additional resources." Though Herrera has the support of Guinn and state Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and John Ensign, R-Nev., at least one colleague was not ready to back the proposal. Commissioner Bruce Woodbury noted that the county has already pitched in $1 million toward the state's effort to stop shipments from being stored at Yucca Mountain. A poor economy since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks -- combined with unexpected expenses such as cost overruns at the $170 million Regional Justice Center -- makes it difficult for the county to part with cash, Woodbury said. Woodbury said he received a call Tuesday from Ensign, who last week called the effort a "do-or-die fight for the state of Nevada." "I am not prepared to commit to it; I have some significant concerns about it," Woodbury said. "We have a very difficult financial situation already. We have a government to run and a lot of services to provide." County Manager Thom Reilly said he'll leave it up to the commission to decide what the county's priorities should be. "It's all about how we prioritize projects," he said. "If we prioritize one, others obviously become a lower priority." All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 67 Japan Nuclear Fuel sets waste quota Japan Today Japan News Wednesday, March 27, 2002 at 17:30 JST AOMORI Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd said Wednesday it will accept more than 400 tons of spent nuclear fuel and 192 canisters of vitrified high-level radioactive waste for safekeeping in fiscal 2002, which begins next month. The Aomori-based company will store a total of about 403 tons of spent nuclear fuel removed from 12 nuclear reactors nationwide at facilities in the village of Rokkasho, Aomori Prefecture, company officials said. (Kyodo News) ***************************************************************** 68 Radioactive rod found in Kaohsiung scrap The Taipei Times Online: 2002-03-27Wednesday, March 27th, 2002 HOT RODS: The discovery of another radioactive rod in scrap metal -- the second this month -- highlights the lax handling of such materials by Taiwanese companies By Chiu Yu-Tzu STAFF REPORTER Atomic Energy Council (AEC) officials, already on edge due to the discovery of a radioactive rod found in scrap metal early this month, were told that a similar rod had been found Monday night at a steel plant in Kaohsiung. Yesterday morning, however, AEC officials said that the rod found on Monday was not one of the five rods linked to the earlier find, as it was not the proper length. The AEC has been searching feverishly for five lost radioactive rods linked to the one found in central Taiwan earlier in the month. The rods are used for quality control in steel and chemical plants around the country. The AEC emphasized that the rods are not from any of the nation's nuclear plants. S.J. Su (ĬÄm³¹), the AEC's new director of the Department of Radiation Protection, yesterday confirmed that the rods came from abroad, but declined to tell the Taipei Times which country produced them. On Monday evening, a radiation alarm at the Tang Eng Iron Works Co Ltd Stainless Steel Plant (­ðºa¤½¥q¤£Äÿû¼t) in Kaohsiung City was triggered by a truck carrying scrap metal. After using radiation survey meters, plant workers confirmed that extremely high levels of radioactivity were being emitted from the 42cm-by-10cm stainless steel cylinder. The rod was emitting 490 milliSieverts per hour. In the UK, a "safe dose" for nuclear plant workers is calculated at 50 milliSieverts per year. Five milliSieverts per year is the regulatory limit in Taiwan, which is higher than the international average. "What I can say is that the alarm system works. After all, it happens," a high-ranking Tang Eng manager with the surname Li told the Taipei Times yesterday. Li said that the radioactive rod could have come from anywhere, because the company has smelted scrap metal collected from counties around the country since 1983. Confidential Taipei Times sources, however, said that the scrap metal in question was from the Jiyang Steel Plant (¦N´­¿ûÅK¼t) in Tainan. The AEC's Institute of Nuclear Energy Research (INER) yesterday transferred the rod back to its laboratory in Taoyuan to carry out further tests to determine the nuclear isotope and look for a series number. If no series number is found, AEC officials said yesterday that it would be impossible to trace. Meanwhile, AEC officials are busy searching for the five lost rods, thought to be 28.28kg cesium-137 (Cs-137) cylinders like the one found earlier this month. According to the AEC, the six radioactive rods were originally purchased by the Tungyi Steel Plant (ªF»õ¿ûÅK¼t) and were then sold to the Hsinhung Steel Plant («HÂE¿ûÅK¼t) before Tungyi went bankrupt. Both plants are located in Taichung. Last year, Hsinhung shut down its production lines due to financial difficulties. Sometime later, the rods disappeared from the Hsinhung facility were they were stored. AEC officials have vowed to find out how this was permitted to happen and prosecute the two companies under the Atomic Energy Act. In response to the evolving problem, AEC Chairman Ouyang Min-shen (¼Ú¶§±Ó²±) has ordered a complete overhaul of the regulations regarding radioactive sources for both medical and industrial uses. Last Thursday, the AEC checked more than forty scrap-smelting plants in Taichung, but the search came up empty. Nevertheless, AEC officials suspect that the five missing rods remain in the Taichung area. Yesterday, the AEC supplied Taichung police with 3,000 posters showing what the lost radioactive rods look like. The AEC has posted a NT$20,000 reward for finding any of the five. Taiwan's lax regulation of radioactive materials has been criticized since the early 1980s, when rebar contaminated with cobalt-60 was discovered in the construction in several counties in Taiwan. In January this year, the High Court ruled that the AEC should offer people who lived in Taipei's Minsheng Villas (¥Á¥Í§O¹Ö) compensation totalling NT$54 million for its failure to regulate radioactive materials. The lawsuit was filed in 1992. On Monday, AEC Chairman Ouyang said that the agency would not appeal the decision and would pay over NT$70 million to cover the compensation, lawyers' fees and related expenses. "This is not in any way a solution to the problem of careless oversight of radioactive sources," said Wei-chieh (¿à°¶³Ç), secretary-general of the Green Citizens' Action Alliance, a Taipei-based anti-nuclear group. This story has been viewed 345 times. URL=[http://www.taipeitimes.com/news/2002/03/27/story/0000129369] Copyright © 1999-2002 The Taipei Times. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 69 £600,000 Giant Fire Engines To Help Protect Sellafield THE WHITEHAVEN NEWS Wednesday, March 27, 2002 Sellafield is splashing out £600,000 on some of the most powerful fire-fighting machinery in the world to help combat any possible terrorist missile attack on the sensitive nuclear site. With government security services backing, BNFL's Board of Directors has committed itself to the big outlay following an all-embracing safety review. Intensified security and safety arrangements have been No I priority since last September's New York Word Trade Centre catastrophe. Sellafield now awaits delivery of two huge airport-type crash tenders capable of tackling the major conflagration which would be caused by a jet crashing or missiles being fired on to the site. They cost £300,000 apiece, weigh 26 tons and are topped by massive cannon, spraying out an incredible 100,000 litres of foam in just two minutes. Each one is the equivalent in capacity of at least a dozen normal fire-fighting appliances which can take two minutes just to get the foam ready for dispersal. Sellafield has been served by two Dennis fire engines, backed by an incident support unit dealing with chemical spillages, but the new tenders are equipped to put out fires of disaster proportions. To cover any potential immediate threat, the site has just taken delivery of one which is second hand. The two brand new models are on order but could take months to come. Nothing remotely like the giant tenders exist in Cumbria but are in place at airports where they can chase and spray burning planes with blankets of the suffocating foam as well as well as flooding runways. Sellafield's new chief fire officer Rick Lanigan said: "The acquisition of this new equipment will improve the site's already impressive fire fighting capability. It will allow our fire fighting services to deal with some of the most intense fires and accident scenarios imaginable. These tenders are equipped with foam compounds carrying something like 10,000 litres of water and once mixed together they disperse 100,000 litres of produced foam in a couple of minutes." Under his command, Mr Lanigan, who is on a two-year secondment from Cumbria Fire Service, has a total of 64 fulltime fire fighters spread across five watches on round-the-clock cover. They are among the most highly trained in Britain are also capable of administering on the spot emergency medical treatment. Chairman of the Sellafield Local Liaison emergency planning sub-committee John Henney said: "All this has come out of the recent security review. It is very welcome and more reassuring. Obviously £600,000 is a lot of money but at the end of the day you can't put a price on it. I have been in some of the discussions with BNFL over increased security, some bits I know about and others I don't because it is national security." Brian Watson, Sellafield's director of operations, recently told councillors: "We have to be absolutely prepared for all measures resulting in emergency requirements. We are actively reviewing arrangements and have been since September 11 to be sure we have everything possible in place to prevent damage to plants which could lead to the release of radioactivity. "There are some things I am not able to give answers to for obvious reasons. I do not want to make life easier for people who perpetrate terrorist acts." ***************************************************************** 70 BNFL Rejects Call Over Director THE WHITEHAVEN NEWS Wednesday, March 27, 2002 BNFL has rejected Liberal Democrat demands for its latest £20,000 a year non-executive director to stand down from the job because of his environmental links. Scotsman Jim Currie recently left the European Commission after being director-general of the environment department for the past four years. Environmentalists claim it is a gamekeeper-turned-poacher move, suggesting that the nuclear industry has too much influence over environmental policy-making. Chris Davies, the Liberal Democrat environment spokes-man representing Copeland in the Euro Parliament, has tabled questions calling on the European Commission to demand that the new BNFL man steps down. He said. "Jim Currie is a popular and capable man but this move is bound to create the impression that the financial lure of industry has too great an influence over European Commission officials. It will be cited as evidence that the Commission's impartiality in determining environmental policy is not to be trusted." At Sellafield BNFL spokesman Ali McKibben said: "We are pleased to have Jim Currie on the Board because of the experience he brings to the role." ***************************************************************** 71 COMMISSIONERS RESPOND TO YUCCA MOUNTAIN SURVEY Aerotech Lawsuit FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE March 22, 2002 A recent survey of 1000 U.S. adults, conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs, has revealed that the national public is evenly divided over a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain -- with 47% in favor and 47% opposed. Ipsos Public Affairs is a division of the Ispsos Group, which is ranked among the top ten market research companies in the world. In response to the survey results, Clark County Commissioner Chairman Dario Herrera and Vice Chair Myrna Williams have released the following statements: "This poll proves that the Yucca Mountain Project is one of grave national concern," said Commissioner Herrera. "The fact that there are more Americans strongly opposed to the project than there are strongly supporting it is significant and shows that we can win the public battle on this issue. And the fact that 61% of Americans oppose the project when told that waste may transported through their state, without even being provided details on how extreme an effect that would have on their local economies, will provide us ammunition in Clark County's fight to lobby other county officials across the country to oppose the dangerous project and persuade their members of Congress to vote against it." "As people of this country become more informed and learn the truth on the health, safety and economic dangers of the Yucca Mountain Project, we will find the polling numbers in opposition soaring," said Commissioner Williams. " We will also see Congressional Representatives from at least 106 congressional districts where nuclear waste will be transported (on their streets, highways, and beltways), in close proximity to schools, homes and hospitals, rise up against this fool hardy plan. Traffic jams and accidents do not just occur in Nevada." As a result of Commissioner Herrera’s successful trip to the National Association of Counties meeting in Washington, DC, Clark County has begun lobbying other county officials across the country to oppose the Yucca Mountain Project as well as speak out in their own communities and lobby their own members of Congress to vote against the project. The County Commission is sending out packets of detailed information to county officials along the transportation route and making personal calls to targeted officials. Communications [mdw@co.clark.nv.us] ***************************************************************** 72 US tracks 100 gm of plutonium it gave India - The Times of India CHIDANAND RAJGHATTA TIMES NEWS NETWORK [ WEDNESDAY, MARCH 27, 2002 9:13:07 PM ] ASHINGTON: The US energy department has suddenly remembered that it gave for small amounts of plutonium to countries such as India, Iran and Pakistan under a 1954 Atoms-For-Peace program and this might need to be reclaimed to prevent possible radiation hazard from a dirty nuclear device. In the latest instance of America's post-9/11 paranoia, US officials have just woken up to the fact that Washington gave two to three kilograms of plutonium to 33 countries until the 1970s under a government program to promote peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Although the amounts given to each country was small – ranging from 16 to 100 grams – and not sufficient to build a nuclear weapon (which requires at least six kilos), dispersal of even such small amounts could create a radiation hazard, officials say. According to an Energy Department report released Tuesday, the plutonium capsules sent overseas have never been fully accounted for and the government has “inconsistent historical data regarding the ownership of the material.” Among the other countries that received sealed plutonium capsules were Brazil, Israel, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia, Greece, Colombia, Thailand, Turkey, Venezuela and Vietnam. The US-India Atoms-for-Peace deal began in the late 1950s during the Eisenhower years. Narratives from that time suggest that Washington backed the program after initial hesitation because it believed if the US did not get a foot in the door then the Soviet Union would have helped India develop its nuclear energy program. US records indicate that Washington gave some 100 grams of plutonium to India for research purposes between 1968 and 1973. But American officials have often declaimed that US aid in the nuclear area helped kick-start the Indian nuclear quest culminating in the so-called Peaceful Nuclear Explosion at Pokharan in 1974. Plutonium for the test is said to have come from the Tarapur atomic reactor, which was built with US help. US researchers are divided over how much American aid helped the Indian nuclear program. Some say it has been exaggerated. “I think the atoms-for-peace program was fairly insignificant in India’s case. India’s atomic energy program was fairly advanced when the transfers took place,” one researcher who quantified the US supply to India, and who did not want to be named, said. Officials put a different spin, suggesting India’s nuclear program would never have taken off but for US help. “I think its fair to say that US aid did help India accelerate its program. Without Washington’s help India would have still built a nuclear reactor but it would have taken a lot longer,” says David Albright, a nuclear proliferation expert with the Institute of Science and International Security in Washington. Albright counts India, Taiwan and South Africa as “tier one” countries that benefited most from the US Atoms-for-Peace program. By his account, the US not only gave research fuel to India, but also supplied heavy water for its Cirus reactor, helped it with mastering reactor and reprocessing technology, and most of all, sold the Tarapur reactor that set the stage for India’s arrival on the nuclear stage. Indian scientists though say their nuclear program had gradually been unhitched from US aid particularly after the political tensions between New Delhi and Washington during Pakistan’s wars against India in 1965 and 1971. India has now completely mastered the whole fuel cycle, from mining and processing the nuclear raw materials to compacting it into weapons, and there is not a smidgen of foreign imprint on India’s nuclear weapons, they say. But the report that the US was seeking to account for the plutonium it transferred various countries including India drew sardonic remarks. “Plutonium has a half-life of 24,000 years, so I guess it must be around somewhere,” one Indian researcher remarked. US fears of a nuclear strike in mainland America has increased following the 9/11 events. In a report released Monday, a US law-maker raised the possibility of terrorists already having infiltrated US nuclear plants in the form of legitimately employed foreign nationals hired without adequate background security checks. Copyright © 2002 Times Internet Limited. All rights reserved. | ***************************************************************** 73 United Arab Emirates team to study nuclear rules in Pakistan Business Recorder; Mar 27, 2002 DUBAI : An official team from United Arab Emirates has left for Pakistan on a three-day visit to "acquaint themselves" with the rules and regulations of Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, official reports said. "A team from the Ministry of Electricity and Water, UAE, has left for Islamabad on a three-day official visit to Pakistan to acquaint themselves about rules and regulations of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Corporation," the official news agency, WAM, said. "The team, headed by Ali bin Abdullah Al Owais, Under-Secretary of the Ministry, includes Saud Othman Al Humaidan, Assistant Under-Secretary for Technical Affairs, Abdullah Mohammed Al Muttawa, Director of Monitoring and Atomic Applications, and Salem Abdullah Talib, Director of the Under-Secretary's office, " the report added. The petroleum-rich UAE does not have any nuclear power plants, and almost all its power needs are currently generated from oil or gas-fired power plants. The only country in the region, which has an ongoing nuclear programme, is Iran, which has collaborated with Russia to build atomic energy plants monitored by the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency.-Sana ***************************************************************** 74 Chemistry student 'could make up nuclear bomb from Sellafield fuel' Irish Newspapers - Joe Jacob: accused Britain of reneging over emisssions. A SECOND-YEAR chemistry undergraduate could fashion a devastating nuclear bomb using plutonium or mixed oxide (MOX) fuel intercepted on its way to or from Sellafield, a London seminar heard yesterday. The would-be nuclear terrorist would need only freely available text books, the internet, and the same level of planning as that used in the World Trade Centre attacks or the 1995 Sarin nerve gas attacks in the Tokyo subway in 1995, said nuclear scientist Professor Frank Barnaby. "It is less demanding than the illicit procreation of designer drugs," he said. Prof Barnaby was speaking at a Foreign Press Association of London seminar on Sellafield addressed by Junior Minister Joe Jacob and UK Energy Minister Brian Wilson. The nuclear physicist said the only safe option is to permanently dispose of the plutonium oxide in geological depositories but the nuclear industry is keen to promote recycled mixed oxide fuel despite the fact that it costs more than normal uranium oxide and is technically less safe, he said. Britain is reneging on international commitments to reduce radioactive emissions into the Irish Sea given at the OSPAR convention in Portugal in 1998, Nuclear Safety minister Joe Jacob told the seminar. Mr Wilson rejected suggestions that the Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland (RPII) be given official observer status to ensure safety standards at Sellafield. The UK Energy Minister described as "patently absurd and offensive" remarks by Mr Jacob that there was "no safety culture at Sellafield". He said the amount of natural radioactivity to be found in the environment dwarfs the traces of manmade radioactivity found in the Irish Sea. He said the UK government would continue to defend actions taken by the Irish Government but also to "respond rationally to concerns". Bernard Purcell, London Editor © Copyright Unison ***************************************************************** 75 Following America to nuclear disaster The Birmingham Post - United Kingdom; Mar 27, 2002 BY PETER BITHELL HALL GREEN. Sir, - I refer to your news item (Post, Mar 18) featuring Clare Short's concerns over possible joint American and British action against Iraq. She qualifies her views by asserting that the chance of bombing is, at present, remote. Yet only through European and Middle East opposition to a headstrong United States administration, is that sentiment likely to prevail. The recently-leaked American policy document, Nuclear Posture Review, reveals that the United States defence department has been told to prepare for the possibility that nuclear weapons may be required in some future Arab-Israeli crisis. If carried out, an American bombing of Iraq would risk destabilising the whole region, thus hastening consideration of the tactical nuclear option. Mr Blair's self-espoused Christian values would then be tested to the full. In addition to certain Cabinet misgivings, numerous Labour backbenchers are uneasy over America's wreaking of vengeance in response to the events of September 11, 2001. Revolted by a leader who undermines the morale of British workers while endorsing a rampaging American president, the Labour Party may yet regain its soul. ***************************************************************** 76 Britain planned nuclear war on back of envelope Business Recorder; Mar 27, 2002 LONDON : Britain's early post-World War Two nuclear defence strategy was mapped out on scraps of paper, using the roundest of round numbers and elementary schoolboy sums, according to classified files released on Tuesday. The dossier of top secret letters dating from 1947 and now opened by the Public Record Office, reveals that the tradition of the British amateur extended even to planning a nuclear holocaust. Viscount Portal of Hungerford, Britain's Controller of Atomic Energy at the Ministry of Supply, heard that the military wanted a stockpile of 1,000 British atom bombs by 1957 in readiness for a possible all-out nuclear war. But his beleaguered department could churn out enough plutonium for just 15 bombs a year, so he asked top brass if 1,000 were really necessary. Citing top government scientific adviser Sir Henry Tizard, Air Chief Marshal Lord Tedder replied that "the round figure of 1,000 (is) a reasonable estimate of what would be required to constitute a 'valuable deterrent' to war." Tizard, a respected physicist and founding father of radar, had arrived at the figure using the guesstimate that it would take 25 atom bombs to devastate Britain. "The geographical area we have in mind is some 40 times the size of the UK, and 25 x 40 = 1,000," Tedder explained, coyly declining to make explicit mention of the Soviet Union. Atom bomb production could not begin before 1952, they agreed, meaning Britain would have to make nearly one a day to meet the 1957 deadline - an impossible task given the parlous state of her economy. Tedder therefore mapped out a new timeline on a tiny scrap of paper: they should start with 15 bombs in 1952 and then double production every year for five years, giving a grand total of 945 bombs by the end of 1957. Portal's reply was more realistic: "It seems to me that in the present state of the country, it would be a very long time indeed before production at anything like this rate could be achieved," he replied. In the end Britain became a full nuclear power in October 1952 - after the United States in 1945 and the Soviet Union in 1949 - but the papers give no hint of how many devices were actually built by 1957.-Reuters ***************************************************************** 77 Authors, professor discuss Lee case Tri-Valley Herald Tuesday, March 26, 2002 - 11:19:09 AM MST Asian-American boycott may be getting close to resolution By Glenn Roberts Jr. STAFF WRITER Tuesday, March 26, 2002 - -->LIVERMORE -- A suspected spy, a convicted felon, a victim of racism, a political scapegoat, a celebrity -- Wen Ho Lee has been many things to many people. A University of California, Berkeley, professor and the co-authors of a book about Lee spoke Monday at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory about the bungled investigation, political fervor and media maelstrom that surrounded the case. The event was sponsored by the Society for Professional Scientists and Engineers, a Livermore Lab group advocating employee rights. Lee, a former Los Alamos Laboratory nuclear scientist, was fired from the lab in March 1999 and was arrested Dec. 10, 1999. He was never charged with espionage, though the media had widely reported that he was a suspected spy. After Lee was held in solitary confinement for nine months, federal prosecutors dropped 58 counts against him and he plead guilty to one felony count of improperly downloading classified nuclear weapons information to an unclassified computer system. He was released in September 2000. Ling-Chi Wang, the director of the Department of Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley who launched an Asian-American boycott of jobs at U.S. nuclear weapons facilities in response to the treatment of Lee, said Lee was apparently a "convenient scapegoat." Wang, a panelist at the Monday event, said he has engaged in discussions with managers at Livermore and Los Alamos labs to develop proactive policies for workers that will allow the boycott to end. "We are close to agreement," he said. "I really want for us to put this behind us as soon as we can." Dan Stober, a local journalist and co-author of "A Convenient Spy," a book about the Wen Ho Lee case, said Lee was not completely innocent of wrongdoing. While the title of the book seems to imply that government investigators chose Lee as a convenient target for its investigation of the possible theft of U.S. nuclear secrets by China, he said the title also has another meaning. "(Lee) made himself convenient," Stober said, because of his own actions. "Wen Ho Lee was no spy, but on the other hand he was no hero," he added. Ian Hoffman, a former reporter for the Albuquerque Journal in New Mexico who authored the book with Stober, said that some early media reports of the investigation of Lee "succumbed to the basic blood sport of Washington, which is 'the leak game.'" Some information was leaked to the press that later proved to be inaccurate, the authors said. Hoffman said that many scientists at Los Alamos Lab were reluctant to speak about the Lee case in public because of fears that there would be repercussions for their actions. "There was a lack of backbone. I actually think that the scientific community was very late out of the gate," he said. Hoffman and Stober said that there appeared to be a bias toward ethnic Chinese suspects in the investigation, as language in a search warrant stated that intelligence officers in China "virtually always target overseas ethnic Chinese." Lee, an American citizen, was born in Taiwan. In reality, Hoffman said, Chinese intelligence agents are known to target people of all ethnicities if those people are considered to be potential sources of important information. While Lee admitted to downloading some classified information onto an unclassified computer, Hoffman said that the nuclear secrets were not likely the kind of stuff that could make or break a weapons program. "These were not the crown jewels -- they were the crown junk," he said. Wang said he believes that the UC system could have been more proactive in defending Lee's rights during the investigation. The UC system operates Los Alamos and Livermore labs for the Energy Department. "Both the university and the lab are both perpetrator and at the same time the victim," Wang said. Hoffman said the threat that a similar incident to the Lee case could occur is still very real, given the "inherent volatility of the criminal justice system" and the "same kind of political furor and increasing partisanship." ©1999-2001 by MediaNews Group, Inc. and ANG Newspapers ***************************************************************** 78 NZ: N Zea's prex visits D.C. NZOOM - ONE News - Politics The United States has rolled out the red carpet for New Zealand's Prime Minister in Washington. Helen Clark was been received at the White House with an unusually warm welcome from both US President George W Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell. And while the two countries still disagree on the nuclear issue their new closeness over the war against terrorism looks set to continue. America has thrown out the welcome mat to the Oval Office despite New Zealand's nuclear-free stand. Clark is the first Labour prime minister to visit the White House since Bill Rowling in 1975. "I think the way forward can be seen in the United States willingness to work alongside New Zealand in Afghanistan and...a lot of common views on many international issues," Clark said. Powell described the two countries as "very, very, very, close friends". America sees New Zealand as heading in the same direction in the war against terrorism and has not forgotten the cost of previous wars the two countries have fought together. And while the military might have reservations about NZ's nuclear policy, the politicians are more pragmatic. "We simply noted that it has been an issue but moved on to discuss other things in common," Clark said. Powell said he had a clear understanding of the government of New Zealand's position. "It's one of those areas where we have a disagreement, but disagreements between close friends are not that unusual," Powell said. And the New Zealand Government is considering joining the US if it extends the war against terrorism beyond Afghanistan. "We made a commitment to an international effort against those connected with 11 September and those who gave them sanctuary...if those people reform somewhere else to keep doing the same sort of thing, and that could be demonstrated, then we would be likely to take an interest...," Clark said. ONE News sourced from TVNZ, RNZ, Reuters and ['Bridge'] ***************************************************************** 79 Comment: Bush's nuke bandwagon Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Richard Norton-Taylor Wednesday March 27, 2002 The Guardian [http://www.guardian.co.uk] When America's new "nuclear posture review" was leaked last month, the Bush administration was furious. It let the cat out of the bag. Here was the Pentagon laying down policy in a classified document which blurs the long-accepted distinction between nuclear and non- nuclear weapons. It foresees the use of nuclear weapons against targets able to withstand attacks by conventional weapons - such as underground bunkers which could be attacked by the "mini-nukes" US scientists are designing. It adds that nukes could be used "in the event of surprising military developments". Even more chilling, the Pentagon unashamedly seeks to embrace the moral ground - new kinds of nuclear warheads, it says, could actually "reduce collateral damage". What it is saying is that small nuclear weapons might kill fewer civilians than conventional weapons. Such an assertion flies in the face of all scientific studies about the horrendous consequences of radiation, even from a low-yield nuke striking a deep underground bunker. It also ignores the huge dangers in lowering the nuclear threshold by treating nukes like any other war-fighting weapon, driving a coach and horses through the internationally accepted principle, based on both moral and practical considerations, that nukes are qualitatively different and - so nuclear weapons powers claim - are to there to deter, not to use. American military commanders have for years contemplated the use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear targets, including "non-state actors", ie terrorist groups which possess chemical or biological weapons. But as the defence analyst, Dan Plesch, put it yesterday, by developing a missile defence system and new nukes, the Bush administration is "extending the notion of casualty-free war to nuclear war". Bush and the US Congress are warming to those military planners and scientists who were previously dismissed as off-the-wall hawks. Only last week John Foster, a senior American nuclear scientist, asked Congress to allow nuclear tests to start within three months, rather than three years, of a request (the US is not party to the comprehensive test ban treaty). The US, meanwhile, has stopped converting its nuclear cruise missiles to conventional weapons. Washington's new policy directly contradicts the so-called "negative security assurances", the official policy of the US, whereby Washington has pledged to "not use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear weapon state unless that state attacks the US or its allies in association with a nuclear-weapons state". Asked recently whether that was Bush's policy, John Bolton - one of the administration's sharpest-clawed hawks, despite his job as undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, replied: "I don't think we are of the view that this kind of approach is necessarily the most productive... [It] doesn't seem to me to be terribly helpful in analysing what our security needs may be in the real world." Far from distancing himself from his American counterparts, Geoff Hoon, Britain's defence secretary, is enthusiastically jumping on - or being pulled along by Bush's nuke bandwagon. Hoon told the Commons defence committee last week: "I am absolutely confident, in the right conditions, we would be willing to use our nuclear weapons." However, he also said he was less confident that they would deter "states of concern" - a reference to Iraq in particular - threatening or attacking Britain with weapons of mass destruction. On Sunday's ITV Jonathan Dimbleby show, he insisted that the government "reserved the right" to use nuclear weapons if Britain or British troops were threatened by chemical or biological weapons. Would Tony Blair really launch a nuclear strike against Iraq - with an American Trident missile, the only nuclear capability in Britain's arsenal - with all the consequences that would have throughout the Middle East? Is the threat credible? Would it do anything to deter Saddam? As Hoon dug himself in, there was silence from the Foreign Office, one of whose ministers (Peter Hain) is a member of CND and whose official view is that, far from threatening states with nuclear weapons, it is in Britain's strategic national interest to engage constructively with those states which pose a potential threat. Or has Whitehall accepted that, despite its obligations under the non-proliferation treaty, nuclear weapons are not only here to stay, but to be used? Hoon could unwittingly have provoked a debate on this crucial question. There is no sign of it yet. richard.norton-taylor@guardian.co.uk [richard.norton-taylor@guardian.co.uk] Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002 ***************************************************************** 80 1947 row on size of nuclear deterrent Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Public record office Cabinet told to acquire stockpile of 1,000 atom bombs by building one a day Owen Bowcott Wednesday March 27, 2002 [http://www.guardian.co.uk] The post-war Labour government was privately urged to build atom bombs at the rate of one a day so the UK could accumulate a stockpile of one thousand by 1957 that would be sufficient to destroy the Soviet Union, according to public record office files released today. Documents, many marked top secret, expose a row in Whitehall over the size of the atomic weapons programme and the hasty calculations to set the UK's nuclear deterrent. According to letters from Viscount Portal of Hungerford at the Ministry of Supply, in November 1945 (following the dropping by the US of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki) the Cabinet initially agreed to construct bombs at the rate of 15 a year - although, due to the difficulty of processing the requisite plutonium, production could not begin until 1952 at the earliest. In fact the UK exploded its first test bomb in October 1952, while the Soviet Union had exploded one in October 1949. Until the UK test the weapons programme was not publicly admitted - although in private Ernest Bevin, when foreign secretary, reportedly told his officials (after he had been humiliated by the US): "We have got to have this thing over here whatever it costs, and with a bloody union jack flying on top of it". In 1947 the defence research policy committee questioned the target set for the number of bombs needed. Using arguments by Sir Henry Tizard, a senior scientific adviser, the committee, a forerunner of the modern atomic energy authority, called for a rapid escalation. "For atomic weapons to be a useful deterrent," the committee's report said, "we must hold a stock of the order of 1,000 of such bombs, and we must have the means of delivering them immediately on the outbreak of war. "We have no reliable figures on the cost or time factor involved in the manufacture and storage of atomic bombs. A very rough estimate based on published American figures is that, with government backing, manufacture at the rate of one per day could start in about five years from now." An infuriated Lord Portal commented in a note to the Air Ministry: "These estimates were included in the report without referring to the Ministry of Supply [which was responsible for building them]." In a letter to Air Marshal Lord Tedder at the Air Ministry, Lord Portal expressed alarm. He wrote, "I am interested to learn how Tizard obtained his figure of 1,000 bombs; but what concerns me is to know whether the chiefs of staff accept that figure, because if they do ... the question arises whether the task with which I am at present charged should be multiplied by a factor of 24 ... or [be] abandoned, because it's entirely inadequate for the need it is supposed to meet." Sir Henry Tizard's figures were predicated on "a war beginning during the period 1957-62", and his calculation of 1,000 bombs to destroy an enemy presumably referred to the Soviet Union, although no foreign power was mentioned. On August 30 1947, Lord Tedder wrote back: "I understand that Tizard regards the figure of 1,000 as a reasonable estimate of what would be required to constitute a valuable deterrent to war. "This figure is based on the home defence committee's conclusion that some 25 would be required to knock out this country. The geographical area we have in mind is some forty times the size of the UK, and 25x40=1,000. Tizard claims no strategic basis for this, but argues this mathematical approach provides a near enough approximation." Either Sir Henry Tizard or another civil servant had written a short note by hand pointing out that 1,000 warheads would not require a bomb each day, merely for production to be doubled every year from 1952. If 15 were to be built in that year and the number doubled until 1957, then 945 would have been built. Lord Portal, however, dismissed this estimate of the UK's productive capacity as "grossly inflated", observing: "It seems to me that it would be very long time indeed before production at anything like this rate could be achieved". [UP] Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002 ***************************************************************** 81 US, New Zealand at Odds Over Ships Las Vegas SUN March 26, 2002 WASHINGTON- Disagreement persists between the United States and New Zealand over a ban that keeps nuclear-powered ships from New Zealand's waters, Secretary of State Colin Powell said Tuesday. "Disagreements between close friends are not that unusual," he said after a meeting with Prime Minister Helen Clark. Clark also discussed the matter with Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. She again discussed it in a meeting with President Bush, but did not elaborate afterward with reporters. New Zealand has protested Bush's decision to slap tariffs on imported steel, and Clark said she also talked trade with Bush. She said little about that aspect of the conversation aside from noting that New Zealand Trade Minister Jim Sutton will raise the issue with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick in May. New Zealand exports about $25 million of finished steel to the United States each year. Australia announced shortly after Bush's decision that 85 percent of its steel exports to the United States would not be affected by the new tariffs. Clark also promoted a proposal for a bilateral agreement that would increase trade between the United States and New Zealand. She said it would boost American exports to her country by 25 percent. Powell thanked Clark for help New Zealand has provided in the U.S. campaign against terrorism. "New Zealand and the United States have gone through many challenges and crises and conflicts together," Powell said. "We are at it again now." Asked if the nuclear ban was unfinished business between the two countries, Powell replied, "There is a disagreement that continues." Successive U.S. administrations have urged New Zealand to drop the policy, but Clark said last week she had no intention to do so. The Sept. 11 attacks showed that terrorist groups are prepared to "do almost anything" to advance their cause, Clark said. "Therefore a nuclear-powered vessel in your harbor presents a rather interesting target for such groups," she said. Clark said she had been well received in Washington and had discussed a wide range of international issues with Powell. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 82 NZ Prime Minister not under US pressure on nuclear issue President George W-Bush has welcomed New Zealand's Prime Minister Helen Clark to the White House, days after she warned she would not bend to any US pressure over her country's anti-nuclear policy. Mrs Clark described the meeting with President Bush as "overwhelmingly positive". She said the nuclear issue did not dominate discussions which ranged over a wide range of issues, including trade and the US campaign against terrorism. Since 1987, New Zealand has required Washington to declare whether any warships are carrying nuclear weapons before they can enter the country's ports ... a demand that has effectively prevented visits. The issue came up in a lunch for Mrs Clark hosted by U-S Secretary of State, Colin Powell. However, a senior US official, quoted by AFP newsagency, said the New Zealand Prime Minister did not face any U-S pressure on the nuclear issue. 27/03/2002 17:05:35 | ABC Radio Australia News ***************************************************************** 83 Weapons Labs Offer Changes to End Boycott March 26, 2002 By JAMES GLANZ The nation's three premier weapons laboratories have offered to change their hiring and promotion practices in exchange for the ending of a boycott by two Asian-American academic organizations, federal officials and the leader of the boycott said yesterday. Citing anger over the treatment of Dr. Wen Ho Lee, a Los Alamos weapons scientist whom the government accused of spying, as well as longer standing claims of discrimination, the organizations in early 2000 urged Asian-American scientists to boycott the weapons laboratories by not applying for jobs there. But the proposed changes are far-reaching enough, said the professor who led the boycott, that his organization, the Asian Pacific Americans in Higher Education, is prepared to call it off. Moreover, he said, it is willing to help the laboratories start a nationwide recruiting drive for Asian-American scientists. "I will call an end to the boycott and urge Asian-Americans to begin to apply for jobs there," said the professor, L. Ling-chi Wang, director of the Asian American Studies Program in the department of ethnic studies at the University of California. "I would even take a step beyond and get Apahe to develop a plan" for national recruitment, he said. John Browne, director of Los Alamos National Laboratory, has met repeatedly with Professor Wang since the boycott started. Yesterday, Ping Lee, a special assistant to Dr. Browne, said: "We're really close to bringing closure. The three weapons labs have come together with a common set of guidance." That guidance, amounting to a draft agreement for changes, has been sent to the National Nuclear Security Administration of the Energy Department, which oversees the labs and must agree to any changes at the sites, which besides Los Alamos include the Lawrence Livermore and Sandia national laboratories. Gen. John A. Gordon, administrator of the security agency, said yesterday, "This thing we're calling an agreement is really very broad." "I'm very hopeful that this will be the foundation and pave the way to make this change in the the relationship we have with those Asian-American organizations," General Gordon said. "There's a strong business case that I can't afford to cut ourselves off from the best and brightest minds in the country, and there's a strong moral case that we're going to do the right thing." If a formal agreement is signed, Professor Wang said, it will focus on creating a plan for increasing the promotion opportunities for Asian-American scientists and addressing what he regards as disparities in research opportunities that discriminate against minorities. It will also introduce mechanisms that hold the laboratories accountable to their promises to change the workplace environment for minorities. Though the Energy Department declined to release a copy of the document pending its review in Washington, Professor Wang said he had insisted — and the laboratories had agreed — that changes in dealings with Asian-Americans should apply to all minority groups at the laboratories, including women. That requirement is far from academic. At Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, in California, there is a pending class-action lawsuit alleging wage discrimination against women there. Last week, a class-action lawsuit on behalf of hundreds of Asian-American employees was filed against the lab. Professor Wang said he hoped the agreement would serve as a spur for the lab to settle those lawsuits. Though touched off by the arrest of Dr. Lee, who eventually pleaded guilty to one count of mishandling classified data, the boycott focused on what many Asian-American scientists at the labs saw as discriminatory practices in their hiring, salaries, job opportunities, advancement into management positions and their treatment when obtaining and renewing security clearances. The weapons complex is aware that there is still much untapped talent among scientists of Asian descent. They earn more than a quarter of all Ph.D.'s in science and technology at American universities each year, but still make up only 5 percent of the technical work force at Los Alamos. Because of those concerns, both the Asian Pacific Americans in Higher Education and the Association of Asian American Studies passed resolutions urging a boycott of the laboratories by Asian-American scientists. The impact of the initiative has been widely debated, and even some Asian-Americans have criticized it as tending to isolate minority scientists already at the labs. But everyone agrees that the boycott has been an embarrassment to the labs as well as a hindrance to their recruiting efforts, particularly after Sept. 11, as they have focused on revamping staffs in response to new threats to national security. "I would think any time something like this is removed, it would be positive, especially in the climate right now when we're in a large hiring mode," said Richard Mah, an associate director for weapons engineering and manufacturing at Los Alamos. Promoted in October, Mr. Mah fills the highest post ever held by an Asian-American there. The boycott "did have a large impact" on the lab's ability to hire Asian-Americans, Mr. Mah said. Other scientists, including Dr. Jen-Chieh Peng, a professor of physics at the University of Illinois, who until February was a fellow at Los Alamos, said they were unsure of whether a single gesture like lifting the boycott would make a great change. "I don't think the problem terminates once the laboratory offers corrective action to this," Dr. Peng said. "It's a longstanding problem and it's not finished with the lifting of this boycott." But Gene I. Awakuni, vice provost for student affairs at Stanford University and a member of the Asian Pacific Americans in Higher Education Board, said the moves by the labs were a good first step. "If the national labs establish a concrete plan that reflects a genuine effort by the administration to address systemic issues that militate against the interests of Asian-American scientists, I believe the boycott will be lifted," Dr. Awakuni said. Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company | Privacy Information ***************************************************************** 84 Does Goliath want bubble fusion to fail? By Frank Munger, News-Sentinel senior writer Most of us first heard of bubble fusion early this month after Science magazine lifted an embargo on its March 8 edition and released the preliminary results of research by Rusi Taleyarkhan et al. That made headlines around the world. But the fusion establishment got a preview of the work a week earlier, thanks to Oak Ridge National Laboratory's management. Stan Milora, director of ORNL's Fusion Energy Division, briefed his colleagues on what was about to come during a Feb. 27 meeting of the Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee. FESAC is an expert panel that advises the U.S. Department of Energy on fusion research matters. "I thought it was absolutely necessary that the fusion community be inoculated to this before it burst out in Science and other places,'' Milora said. "It was a good thing that they got a heads-up on this.'' Otherwise, he said, the assembled experts wouldn't have a clue what it was all about when they started hearing reports of bubble fusion and some of them might be asked for comment about the controversial research activity. Milora said he got the go-ahead for the briefing from ORNL's top management, specifically Deputy Director Lee Riedinger and Associate Director Jim Roberto. And how was the news received at the FESEC luncheon (held at the Marriott in Gaithersburg, Md.)? "I think the reaction was, hey, very calm and collected,'' Milora said. The information exchange was probably no big deal, not terribly out of the norm, but it's notable and interesting given that some folks view the latest scientific controversy as another round of David and Goliath - the fusion establishment versus the alternative approach, billion-dollar machines versus a table-top experiment. Thus, offering a briefing to fusion folks in advance of Taleyarkhan's publication in Science could give the appearance that ORNL was showing favoritism or, at a minimum, covering its backside. "I didn't really use the Taleyarkhan paper because it hadn't been released,'' Milora said. "But I did describe some aspects of the Saltmarsh and Shapira paper.'' The ORNL official was making reference to Mike Saltmarsh, the former fusion research director at the lab, and Dan Shapira, an experimental nuclear physicist, who collectively evaluated the Taleyarkhan experiment last summer and disputed the results. That, again, could give the appearance of unsportsmanlike behavior. The national lab apparently decided it was necessary to make a briefing on bubble fusion in advance of publication, but decided not to use the peer-reviewed publication itself but instead based the presentation on a not-yet-peer-reviewed dissent of the research results. Maybe that's fair and right, but there are bound to be folks that disagree. Lurking in the background of this news story has been the suggestion that traditional fusion researchers and perhaps much of the nuclear physics community in general don't want bubble fusion to work. If that's true, and I don't know that it is, nobody wants to say that in words that can be understood. Milora, for instance, seemed genuinely surprised at the suggestion of such a thing. "I haven't even heard that charge,'' he said. The fusion community historically has welcomed alternative approaches, albeit usually at lower funding levels "because they are speculative,'' Milora said. "When they start getting to the point of having legs under them and the science is pinned down, they can move on to the next step,'' he said. Even though cold fusion turned out to be nothing at all in 1989, Milora said he remembers serious researchers reflecting on the news reports and wondering, without contempt, "Have we missed something?'' Saltmarsh, Milora's predecessor in ORNL's fusion leadership role, said he believes most researchers would like to see bubble fusion perform as advertised. "People who have been in fusion for many, many years - and that includes me - would love it if we could figure any easier way to do it,'' he said. Despite his skepticism about bubble fusion and his rejection of results from early experimentation, Saltmarsh thinks the whole endeavor is worthwhile. Scientists still don't fully understand sono-luminescence, the physics principle upon which the bubble-fusion experiment is based, he said. That principle involves the use of standing sound waves to expand and collapse bubbles in liquid, with a resulting release of energy in the form of light flashes. There are open questions about whether it's possible to generate the high temperatures necessary to sustain nuclear fusion with this technique, Saltmarsh said. "Maybe we can,'' he said, "but it's a big step. You can't prove that it's wrong. It's a bit off the wall, but science gets along by looking at off-the-wall things. I would not fault somebody for saying, 'I wonder if we could do that?' It's worth investigating. ... If it happens, I would be amazed and excited.'' Senior writer Frank Munger can be reached at 482-9213 or by e-mail at twig1@knoxnews.infi.net. This weekly column on science and technology also is available on our Web site at http://www.knoxnews.com/science/munger/. Copyright 2002 The Knoxville News-Sentinel Co. ***************************************************************** 85 GOP Donors Who Met With Abraham Las Vegas SUN March 26, 2002 Of the 20 companies and industry groups that landed meetings with Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham to discuss the Bush administration's development of a national energy plan, nearly all were Republican donors. Together, they, their employees and parent companies gave at least $4.1 million to the GOP from 1999 through last year and at least $1.7 million to Democrats. The contributions include: WOLVERINE GAS AND OIL CORP.: - GOP: at least $1,164,232 - Bush campaign: at least $7,000 - Bush inauguration committee: at least $100,000 - Democrats: at least $527,888 ENTERGY: - GOP: at least $537,259 - Bush campaign: at least $10,000 - Democrats:: at least $410,764 BECHTEL NATIONAL: - GOP: at least $468,690 - Bush campaign: at least $3,250 - Democrats: at least $176,950 CMS ENERGY: - GOP: at least $468,465 - Bush campaign: at least $5,000 - Bush inauguration committee: at least $100,000 - Democrats: at least $232,150 NUCLEAR ENERGY INSTITUTE: - GOP: at least $436,154 - Bush campaign: at least $1,900 - Democrats: at least $148,433 DUKE ENERGY: - GOP: at least $404,531 - Bush campaign: at least $3,750 - Democrats: at least $143,366 KERR-MCGEE: - GOP: at least $275,408 - Bush campaign: at least $500 - Democrats: at least $20,000 WESTINGHOUSE: - GOP: at least $120,350 - Bush campaign: at least $1,000 - Democrats: at least $40,250 UTILICORP: - GOP: at least $100,550 - Bush campaign: at least $5,250 - Democrats: at least $10,500 NORTHEAST UTILITIES: - GOP: at least at least $81,380 - Bush campaign: at least $500 - Democrats: at least $18,598 CONSTELLATION ENERGY: - GOP: at least $27,800 - Democrats: at least $13,500 MILLER ENERGY: - GOP: at least $18,500 - Bush campaign: at least $1,000 AMERICAN COAL CO.: - GOP: at least $17,050 MUSKEGON DEVELOPMENT GROUP: - GOP: at least $3,450 EOG RESOURCES: - GOP: at least $2,250 - Bush campaign: at least $250 INDEPENDENT PETROLEUM ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA: - GOP: at least $1,250 - Bush campaign: at least $500 CABOT OIL &GAS: - GOP: at least $1,000 NOBLE AFFILIATES: - GOP: at least $750 - Bush campaign: at least $500 Source: Center for Responsive Politics. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 86 DOE's revised budget is no time for complacency The Herald editorial board Published March 27, 2002 Even though top Department of Energy officials have come around on their Hanford budgeting, seeking even more than enough to meet the site's legal cleanup obligations, this is no time for complacency. If anything, Hanford needs to demonstrate more success and beat, not merely meet, deadlines - especially if Congress is to go along with the Energy Department's latest budget request and continue to invest in cleaning up 50 years of Cold War mess the federal government left at Hanford. Faster and cheaper is the mantra of Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham. That value, already embraced in collaborations between Hanford officials and their regulators, is in large part why the Energy Department restored $300 million to its 2003 budget request to fund Hanford cleanup and added another $133 million. Yet Congress must approve the plan. Acceleration of work, such as what is going on at Hanford's K Basins, is just the approach that will keep Congress' confidence. The task of moving 2,300 tons of leftover nuclear fuel from the K Basins to a safer underground vault got a late start and still is 20 percent behind. But managers two months ago ramped up the project, putting three shifts to work round the clock, seven days a week. They expect to be caught up within another two months and finished on time by mid-2004. Then Hanford workers will begin the process of removing sludge and water from the basins - which was supposed to be finished by mid-2007. But the job might be done 10 months early because of a new approach to disposing of that waste. Despite a tardy start, the K Basins have a chance to become an example of how Hanford cleanup can be successfully done faster. And safely. Workers recently set a Hanford record of 4 million work hours without an injury serious enough to cost a day of work. Although our community's and state's tussling with the Energy Department over asking Congress for enough cleanup money appears over for now, we must remain vigilant to ensure results. Without them, the money will dry up. Successes will merit more confidence from the Bush administration and from Congress, which will be more likely to offer more resources to reach the ultimate goal of a clean Hanford. What's your opinon? Copyright 2002 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This ***************************************************************** 87 DOE Energy Contacts Disclosed (washingtonpost.com) Consumer Groups Left Out, Data Show By Dana Milbank and Mike Allen Washington Post Staff Writers Tuesday, March 26, 2002; Page A01 Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham met with 36 representatives of business interests and many campaign contributors while developing President Bush's energy policy, and he held no meetings with conservation or consumer groups, documents released last night show. The information was released by the Energy Department just a few hours before a court-ordered deadline, and after 11 months of resistance by the administration to lawsuits by public interest groups seeking to determine who influenced the writing of the administration's energy plan. A first review of the 11,000 pages of documents bolsters the contention of Democratic lawmakers and environmental groups that the Bush administration relied almost exclusively on the advice of executives from utilities and producers of oil, gas, coal and nuclear energy while a White House task force drafted recommendations that would vastly increase energy production. Of the corporations that met with Abraham, all but a few were large contributors of unregulated soft money to the Republican Party during the 2000 election cycle. A dozen of the companies that had meetings with Abraham contributed $1.2 million to the GOP, mainly for Bush's election. Ten of the 12 gave more soft money to Republicans than Democrats. Large portions had been deleted from the documents released last night by the Energy Department, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Agriculture Department and the White House Office of Management and Budget. Most attachments were missing and in many cases documents were withheld except for the subject line. Thousands of other documents were withheld entirely, and the groups that won release of the documents through lawsuits said they may return to court. Abraham's meetings, between Feb. 14 and April 26 of last year, included groups such as the National Association of Manufacturers, the Independent Petroleum Association of America and the Nuclear Energy Institute. Top executives of Westinghouse Electric Corp., Duke Power, Entergy, Exelon Corp., UtiliCorp United (now Aquila Inc.), American Coal Co. and others sat down with Abraham. Environmental groups said their efforts to meet with the energy task force were rebuffed. The Energy Department has said that environmental groups did not respond to its request for input, and the administration has said it held at least one substantive discussion with 10 environmental groups in late March, prior to the May release of the energy policy. Because of the deletions and omissions, there is little information about what the donors and business interests were seeking in their high-level meetings. The documents released include hundreds of unsolicited suggestions from citizens, companies and lawmakers, most of whom received form responses promising the ideas would receive "close and careful attention." Among the items released is a letter from the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers favoring tax credits for hybrid-fuel and fuel-cell vehicles and similar incentives for fuel efficiency that were included in the Bush energy report. One company, Citgo, urged the administration "to exercise federal authority to prevent states" from establishing separate fuel standards. These "boutique fuels" cause distribution problems for the industry, and Bush's energy plan directed the EPA to work with states to eliminate them. An Energy Department e-mail indicating close coordination with industry notes that Texaco was seeking to help Bush's energy policy rollout. Texaco "has offered to try to produce an announcement on a 1500 megawatt facility at a TVA site in harmony with such a rollout," the May 7 e-mail said. "Finally there is some evidence of who was actually shaping the energy policy," said Sharon Buccino, senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, which won the court order on Feb. 27 requiring the Energy Department's information release. Buccino said the group plans to challenge many of the omissions in court. The Energy Department released a chart suggesting Vice President Cheney's task force had adopted nine NRDC recommendations, which Buccino called "an outright lie." Another 15,000 pages were withheld for privacy, security and other reasons, Energy officials said. Larry Klayman, chairman of Judicial Watch, the watchdog group that won the court order requiring the OMB, EPA and Agriculture releases, said the White House appeared to be "playing games" with the release. He said he expects to "go back to court to seek testimony as to why we don't have the substantive e-mails." Trent Duffy, OMB's spokesman, would not explain the deletions beyond saying, "The items that were part of the deliberative process were redacted." Abraham issued a statement calling the energy plan "a balanced and comprehensive energy plan for America," and said that the administration "not only sought but included all viewpoints." Several of the documents indicate that officials were aware of efforts to obtain information about their actions under the Freedom of Information Act, and they adjusted their correspondence to limit the release of materials. "We have an FOI request for all NEPP material," said one April 25 e-mail, referring to the task force. "Keep in mind that whatever I get I will have to include with it." Another e-mail about the FOIA requests asked, "Did you want me to include Kyle?" -- an apparent reference to Abraham's chief of staff, Kyle McSlarrow, whose e-mails were not included in the release. Abraham held meetings with more than 20 other heads of oil companies and energy trade groups while the report was being written, but the Energy Department said those meetings included other topics. Abraham's staff had several meetings with Enron officials, the documents showed. Enron, a major Bush donor that collapsed late last year and is facing a criminal probe, met with other representatives of the task force six times, the administration has disclosed. Energy Department officials said most of their meetings with Enron were not related to the energy policy. Abraham met with two Enron executives on March 29 as part of a meeting of 16 industry officials about the California electricity shortage. Energy officials said Abraham declined requests for meetings with Jeffrey Skilling and Kenneth L. Lay of Enron Corp. The OMB materials that were released also indicate the energy task force's emphasis on production over conservation. One e-mail from Feb. 22 listed seven chapters for the energy policy report: short-term supply disruptions, consumers, economic impact, alternatives, increased production, infrastructure and energy security. There was no mention of conservation. An e-mail from March 22 made reference to an "energy efficiency" chapter, and a March 27 e-mail indicates that an "environment chapter" had been included. By April 2, there were "energy conservation targets." The Energy Department documents indicate a late surge of activity to include more renewable fuels in the energy report. Karen Knutson, the deputy director of the task force, wrote to the Energy Department on April 27 seeking information about solar energy. The OMB documents indicate Bush was involved in the shaping of the report well before it was released May 16. The task force briefed him on March 19, a schedule indicates, and a final report was circulated on April 23. The e-mails also indicate that the task force was involved in Bush's March 13 decision to reverse a campaign pledge to characterize carbon dioxide as a pollutant that should be restricted, a position shared by environmental groups. A March 7 e-mail among task force staffers refers to "CO2 as a Pollutant." Ultimately, the report did not take a position on whether to raise fuel economy standards for vehicles, but the e-mails indicate there was extensive work on making recommendations about the corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards. The EPA and Agriculture documents were also stripped of content except for meeting and publication schedules and interoffice chatter and bureaucratic fencing. "Lots of typos and the like," said an EPA official, "but I assume they'll catch those." A long redacted section in one memo closed with a comment, "just kidding -- Mona." Included among stacks of documents from the EPA and Agriculture Department were a few position papers from industry groups, including the Fertilizer Institute and the Clean Energy Group -- a coalition of electric power companies urging a "reasonable time frame" for pollution control strategies. Their pitches to the administration appeared to be familiar agendas the groups have lobbied for and testified about many times. The subject lines on thousands of pages of government e-mail traffic described the wide horizon of energy and resource issues, from "boutique" gasolines blended for a particular region's needs to rules on offshore drilling disputes. The documents released indicated some dissension about how the energy report was assembled. A March 28 OMB e-mail requests that "if you see any particularly egregious recommendations that you alert me to by tomorrow 10:30 . . . . I could raise it in the meeting to highlight the process problems." A Feb. 26 e-mail states: "The agency/chapter meetings got a little discombobulated." Bush's energy plan encourages increased production of fossil fuels, including relaxed regulations and subsidies for the coal and nuclear industries, oil and gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and construction of 1,300 to 1,900 power plants over the next 20 years. Most of Bush's energy recommendations were incorporated in a bill that passed the House in August after heavy lobbying from labor unions. The Senate has begun debating its version and is expected to take up the most controversial part, the Arctic drilling, when lawmakers return from recess in two weeks. Large donors meeting with Abraham included Duke Energy, which contributed $61,500 in soft money, all to the GOP, according to figures kept by the Center for Responsive Politics. Constellation Energy gave $38,950, all to the GOP. Northeast Utilities contributed $43,580, all but $2,000 to the GOP. UtiliCorp United gave $66,000, all to the Republicans. American Coal Co. gave $20,500, all to the GOP. Kerr-McGee gave $240,350, all but $20,000 to Republicans. Exelon Corp. gave $454,305, 74 percent to the Republicans. Staff writers Peter Behr and Dan Morgan contributed to this report. © 2002 The Washington Post Company ***************************************************************** 88 Report Cites Unaccounted Plutonium (washingtonpost.com) Amounts Sufficient to Create 'Dirty Bomb,' Official Says By Walter Pincus Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, March 27, 2002; Page A09 The Energy Department cannot fully account for small amounts of potentially dangerous plutonium provided under a 1954 Atoms for Peace program to 33 countries including Iran, Pakistan and India, according to an inspector general report released yesterday. Some of the plutonium, which was packed in sealed capsules, contained between 16 and 80 grams of the radioactive material and "would be a serious health hazard if damaged," an official familiar with the report said. "They would be able to create a dispersal device," the official said, referring to "our concern being the dirty bomb." Although it would take more than six pounds of plutonium to create a nuclear explosion, the chemical explosion of radioactive material in a "dirty bomb" could spread minute amounts of plutonium that, if inhaled or ingested, could be fatal, said Thomas B. Cochran, a physicist with the Natural Resources Defense Council. The Energy Department inspector general report noted that the plutonium capsules sent overseas were supposed to be followed through a Sealed Source Registry, but that program was discontinued by the Reagan administration in 1984. The capsules, which were distributed under the Atoms for Peace program until the late 1970s, were intended for use in calibrating radiation-measuring devices or for research. The Clinton administration disclosed in 1996 that the United States had distributed abroad "approximately two to three kilograms of plutonium mostly in the form of sealed sources to foreign countries since the late 1950s." Among the other countries that received sealed plutonium capsules were Brazil, Israel, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia, Greece, Colombia, Thailand, Turkey, Venezuela and Vietnam. At that time it was unclear as to the ownership of the plutonium capsules because some were only loaned to foreign governments and others were actually transferred. The report says "it has inconsistent historical data regarding the ownership of the material." Robert S. Norris, a researcher for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said yesterday that U.S. nuclear assistance to Iran and India under the program helped those governments' efforts to build a bomb. "The Atoms for Peace program was designed to put a good spin on the atom," Norris said, "and instead it has helped Iran and India to start their bomb programs." Although relatively small amounts of plutonium are involved, Energy Inspector General Gregory H. Friedman said in his report, "Recent world events have underscored the need to strengthen the control over all nuclear materials, including sealed sources." He added, "In the wrong hands, these sources could be misused." © 2002 The Washington Post Company ***************************************************************** 89 DOE Energy policy documents released March 27, 2002 BY GLEN JUSTICE AND HOLLY ROSENKRANTZ Glimpse at Cheney's task force reveals Abraham's contacts --> WASHINGTON--At least 36 industry executives met with U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham last year as the Bush administration was writing its energy policy, according to government documents. The records show no similar access was granted to environmental or conservation groups. Officials from the Independent Petroleum Association of America, the Nuclear Energy Institute, Constellation Energy Group Inc., Exelon Corp., Duke Power Co. and CSX Corp. were among those who met with Abraham, according to more than 11,000 pages of Energy Department documents. The letters, e-mails, schedules, memos, and position papers, some with sections deleted, were released late Monday under federal court orders, offering the first detailed look at how Vice President Dick Cheney's task force operated in crafting the energy plan unveiled last May. They generated renewed criticism from environmental advocates that the policy is tilted toward the oil, coal and natural gas industries and power producers. ''Even these sanitized documents show that big energy companies, many of them big donors, had a strong hand in the White House plan,'' said Sharon Buccino, a senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, one of the two advocacy groups that sued to get the papers. She said the group will ask a federal judge to order more documents released. Abraham defended the task force's final product. ''The national energy plan is a balanced, comprehensive plan,'' he said in a statement accompanying the documents. The task force ''not only sought, but included all viewpoints.'' White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said the meeting schedule was in keeping with Abraham's role. ''It's no surprise to anybody that the secretary of energy meets with energy-related groups,'' he said today. The documents were a portion of more than 26,000 created by the department while the energy plan was developed. The department said it was not legally obligated to release the rest. Bloomberg News Copyright 2000, Digital Chicago Inc. ***************************************************************** 90 SRS faces budgetary inspection Augusta Georgia: Technology: Web posted Wednesday, March 27, 2002 By [bhaddock@augustachronicle.com] Staff Writer This week will be crucial to Savannah River Site's efforts to raise its proposed budget for next year, a federal official said Tuesday. Assistant U.S. Energy Secretary Jessie Hill Roberson said she is spending the week examining the federal nuclear-weapons site's proposals for funding from her agency's new "expedited cleanup account." "We're going to go out and eyeball a lot of stuff," Ms. Roberson said after speaking to members of the site's Citizens Advisory Board at the Sheraton Augusta Hotel. "At the end of this week, I hope to have a pretty good idea of where SRS stands and whether it's ready to advance in the process," Ms. Roberson said. That process likely will decide whether the site's fiscal 2003 budget meets or exceeds this year's level of about $1.6 billion. The Energy Department has proposed a basic budget of about $1.48 billion for the site in fiscal 2003, which begins Oct. 1. WHAT'S NEXT: A visit to the Savannah River Site this week by Assistant U.S. Energy Secretary Jessie Hill Roberson will help determine whether the site is eligible for extra money from a cleanup fund. The site could receive hundreds of millions more from the agency's expedited cleanup account, which is intended to speed efforts to treat the most dangerous radioactive wastes and polluted areas at sites such as SRS, Energy Department officials have said. Some site watchers, including members of the Citizens Advisory Board, had raised concerns about the expedited-cleanup account, saying the funding process actually could strip money from the basic budgets of SRS and other sites. Board Chairman Wade Waters said Tuesday that the site could benefit from the account but raised doubts about whether Congress would allow the account to be created. Congress might not loosen the purse strings to give the Energy Department control over the account, Mr. Waters said. Energy officials have proposed putting between $800 million and $1 billion or more into the account. "I have never seen Congress take its hands off $1 billion and not have any control over it," Mr. Waters said. The chairman said he worries that Congress might reject the account and take the money away from the Energy Department altogether. That would leave the 2003 SRS budget lower than this year's. Reach Brandon Haddock at (706) 823-3409 or [bhaddock@augustachronicle.com] . ***************************************************************** 91 Bush Administration Undermining Air Quality Protections Environment News Service: AmeriScan: March 26, 2002 WASHINGTON, DC, March 26, 2002 (ENS) - U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) documents released by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) details how the Bush administration plans to undermine federal air pollution standards, the conservation group charges. The internal EPA documents are summaries of a two day meeting that EPA staff held earlier this year to discuss the Bush administration's plans for weakening a Clean Air Act provision called the New Source Review (NSR). The provision requires facilities to install modern pollution controls when they upgrade or modify their equipment and increase their emissions. "These documents show in black and white how Bush political appointees at EPA are trying to cripple the Clean Air Act," said John Walke, the director of NRDC's air program. "When Bush appointees had two or more choices for air quality safeguards, the document shows they invariably picked the option that would generate the most pollution. Public health doesn't seem to be an issue." The NSR provision requires more than 17,000 of the country's largest polluting facilities, including oil refineries, chemical plants, power plants, incinerators, iron and steel foundries, paper mills, cement plants, and a broad array of manufacturing facilities, to prevent emissions increases after equipment upgrades. The EPA documents indicate that the Bush administration plans to weaken New Source Review by implementing three separate proposals, the NRDC charges. First, the administration plans to allow facilities to set baselines for its emissions that are higher than their actual emissions. This would let facilities claim that their emissions have remained stable while they increase to the new, artificial baseline, NRDC says. Second, the EPA plans to create a new loophole from the NSR requirements, called the clean unit exemption. The new exemption would allow increases in pollution emissions, which are now regulated under the NSR provision, to avoid cleanup or new pollution controls, NRDC warns. Under the third proposal, the EPA would adopt a plantwide applicability limit (PAL) concept that sets a 10 year cap on pollution emitted by an entire facility. The PAL would last 10 years, allowing pollution decreases that occurred nine years ago to offset actual and continuing pollution increases. The EPA would not mandate pollution control requirements for new or existing polluting equipment under a PAL, and PAL levels would not be required to decline to improve air quality over time, the NRDC says. "More than 30,000 Americans die every year from power plant air pollution alone, and weakening the standards would only make things worse," said Walke. * Security Gaps Found at Nuclear Plants WASHINGTON, DC, March 26, 2002 (ENS) - Representative Edward Markey says documents sent to him by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) show that there are dangerous gaps in security at the nation's nuclear reactor sites. Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, has released a report analyzing more than 100 pages of NRC correspondence sent to him in response to several letters seeking information about the agency's security protocols in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks. The report, "Security Gap: A Hard Look at the Soft Spots in Our Civilian Nuclear Reactor Security," identifies a number of security lapses, Markey said. "There is little comfort to be found in the agency's response to my questions," said Markey. "Black hole after black hole is described and left unaddressed. Post 9/11, a nuclear safety agency that does not know - and seems little interested in finding out - the nationality of nuclear reactor workers or the level of resources being spent on security at these sensitive facilities is not doing its job." Among Markey's allegations: + The NRC does not know how many foreign nationals are employed at nuclear reactors. + The agency's background checks for employees are insufficient to determine whether a worker is or has been a member of a terrorist group. + The NRC does not track how much money its licensees spend on security, or how many security guards each reactor site employs. Markey's report echoes concerns raised by other members of Congress and nuclear watchdog groups regarding the ability of nuclear reactors to resist an impact by a commercial aircraft, such as those used to destroy the World Trade Center towers and damage the Pentagon. Twenty-one commercial reactors are located within five miles of an airport, the report notes. Yet 96 percent of all U.S. reactors were not designed to withstand the impact of even a small aircraft. Other problems cited in the report include insufficient security around stored spent nuclear fuel. If storage casks were breached by a terrorist attack, dangerous amounts of radiation could be released, the report warns. The NRC has not determined how long spent fuel casks could withstand a fire, and has not provided information on the worst scenario for breached spent fuel casks. The report also warns that security exercises at nuclear reactor sites are inadequate, and sites fail to withstand practice attacks about 50 percent of the time. Last August, for example, a security exercise at the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon, Vermont, revealed "potential vulnerabilities in the security program's response strategy," the NRC reported. The NRC has rated the security problems at Vermont Yankee as "yellow," or one level below the highest level of concern. The security weaknesses "were generally predictable, repeatable and indicative of a broad programmatic problem," the NRC determined, creating an issue of substantial importance to safety." Email the Environment Editor [news@ens-news.com] ***************************************************************** 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: *****************************************************************