***************************************************************** 04/27/02 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 10.107 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POLICY 1 US: US nuclear scientists chart a new course 2 Russian company begins work on Indian N-plant 3 UK: Whitehall scientist sees need for nuclear plants 4 Moscow Police Beat Anti-Nuclear Protesters on Chernobyl Day 5 Canada's nuclear agency can keep environmental review under Wraps 6 UK: Anti-Nuclear Protest Planned For City NUCLEAR REACTORS 7 Ukraine, Russia mark somber Chernobyl anniversary 8 IAEA Monitors 428 Nuclear Plants Worldwide 9 Ukrainians Haunted by Chernobyl Past 10 US: Davis-Besse fix to take more time, money 11 LA VANGUARDIA DIGITAL 12 Modern-day Chernobyl disaster: poverty 13 Flowers laid to memorial to radiation disaster victims in Kursk 14 US: Heard About the Near-Accident at the Ohio Nuclear Plant? I'm Not 15 US: Lithuanian premier says Belarusian plan to buy N-plant "utopia" 16 US: Romania: Government decides to shut down research nuclear reacto 17 Belarus ready to buy nuclear plant from Lithuania - president NUCLEAR SAFETY 18 New Zealander men who watched n-tests given medals 19 US: Penn. OP: An ounce of prevention (potassium Iodide) 20 Greenpeace Stunt Questions Spain's Nuclear Safety NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 21 US: Panel's Vote for Nuclear Waste Site Points to House OK 22 US: Senator Cites N-Dump Politics 23 US: N-waste in Utah? Bennett balking 24 US: Utah Group just says no to N-waste at Goshute 25 US: Commentary: So many nuclear messes to clean up (In Missouri) 26 Nuclear fuel vessels leave British port for Japan 27 MOX ships depart U.K. for Japan 28 US: 'Mobile Chernobyl' to Circle Beltway 29 US: S.C. governor leads revolt 30 US: Hodges demands assurances 31 US: CCAGW Applauds Committee's Yucca Decision 32 US: Scientists Voice Concerns about Yucca Mountain Repository: 33 BNFL SETS NUCLEAR TIMEBOMB TICKING ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE 34 US: Columnist Susan Snyder: Waste issue more than pulp fiction 35 'Shut Sellafield' postcards flood Downing Street 36 US: Senator Cites N-Dump Politics 37 US: Impoverished Utah desert tribe sees salvation in nuclear waste; 38 US: Scientists reject nuclear dump NUCLEAR WEAPONS 39 India's multi-ethnicity danger to its nukes: report US DEPT. OF ENERGY 40 U.S. could face hefty fine in SRS deal ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 US nuclear scientists chart a new course CERN Courier - IOP Publishing More than a year after being asked to study the opportunities and priorities for US nuclear physics research in the coming decade, the Department of Energy/National Science Foundation Nuclear Science Advisory Committee (NSAC) has recently submitted its latest long-range plan for the field. This is the fifth in an influential series of reports that NSAC has prepared on a regular basis since 1979. The US nuclear physics community is a diverse one which has its roots in nuclear structure studies, but which has branched out in recent years to address questions at the forefront of a number of related areas including nucleon structure, nuclear astrophysics, the nature of hot nuclear matter and searches for physics beyond the Standard Model. As part of the planning process, town meetings sponsored by the Division of Nuclear Physics of the American Physical Society for major subfields have provided a forum for presenting new ideas. A long-range plan working group then drafted overall priorities, taking into account current developments in nuclear physics on the world scene. Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider Recent investments in facilities such as the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven, CEBAF at Jefferson Laboratory and the newly upgraded National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory at Michigan State University have positioned the field well for the future. Because of this, the plan concludes that "the highest priority of the nuclear science community is to exploit the extraordinary opportunities for scientific discoveries made possible by these investments." Unfortunately, as with many branches of the physical sciences, funding for nuclear physics in the US has not kept pace with inflation in recent years. The plan's first recommendation therefore calls for a 15% increase in base funding, which would allow more effective operation of accelerator facilities, increase support for university researchers, and revitalize the nuclear theory programme. Looking further into the future, the plan recommends investment in areas where capabilities in the US can be dramatically improved, providing significant new capabilities on the international scene. The highest priority for major new construction is given to the Rare Isotope Accelerator - RIA (see Climbing out of the nuclear valley). This will provide higher intensities of radioactive beams than any present or planned facility worldwide, and will be used primarily for nuclear structure and astrophysics studies, with opportunities also for experiments on fundamental symmetries and in a number of applied areas. Next, the plan recommends the construction of the world's deepest underground science laboratory, noting that: "This laboratory will provide a compelling opportunity for nuclear scientists to explore fundamental questions in neutrino physics and astrophysics." The plan also recommends the upgrade of CEBAF to 12 GeV by the addition of additional, high-field, superconducting cavities (see How CERN became popular with US physicists). Finally, the plan endorses a number of smaller initiatives, including R&D towards an electron-ion collider that could be integrated into the RHIC facility. The scientific case for such a facility is currently under active consideration within the nuclear physics community. The full report can be found here. Copyright © IOP Publishing Ltd 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002. All ***************************************************************** 2 Russian company begins work on Indian N-plant BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Apr 27, 2002 Moscow, 27 April: The Russian Atomstroyeksport company has started building the walls for a nuclear power plant in Kudankulam, India, its director, Viktor Kozlov, told Interfax. "The construction of the foundation was completed on 31 March, and now we are beginning to construct the reactor section and the plant building itself," he said. "Orders for the manufacture of the facility's main equipment have been placed at Russian engineering plants that have launched their production," Kozlov said. For instance, Elektrosila and the Leningrad Metal Plant, both in St Petersburg, will make the turbo-generator and steam turbine for the No 1 power unit. Izhora Motors of St Petersburg, since November 2001, has been making the reactor body and other equipment for Kudankulam. "We plan to start the assembly of the main equipment in 2-3 years," Kozlov said. A total of 300 Russian companies will deliver equipment for the Indian plant, he said. "The total construction period of such a station is six years," he added. The contract for the construction of two power units with VVER-1000 water-moderated reactors in Kudankulam was signed in Moscow on 6 October 2001. The Indian plant is being built according to a Russian design in keeping with an intergovernmental agreement between the USSR and India. Kudankulam will have the safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Source: Interfax news agency, Moscow, in English 1031 gmt 27 Apr 02 /© BBC Monitoring ***************************************************************** 3 UK: Whitehall scientist sees need for nuclear plants By Clive Cookson Published: April 26 2002 18:20 | Last Updated: April 26 2002 18:32 Britain must build more nuclear power stations to replace its ageing or obsolete reactors, according to the government's chief scientist. Professor David King said new plants were essential if Britain were to cut its dependence on fossil fuels. Speaking to the Financial Times, Prof King made clear that he intends to be a powerful advocate for the nuclear cause. "Although I am not gung-ho for nuclear power, and I accept that we do not have a satisfactory solution to the problem of nuclear waste, rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are a much bigger problem," he said. "The world is going to have to make much more serious cutbacks in carbon dioxide emissions than is implied by the Kyoto agreement or the alternative American position." Britain can obtain 20 per cent of its electricity from alternative sources (wind, solar, tidal and so on) by 2020, Prof King believes, but this will not reduce the amount of fossil fuel burnt unless new nuclear plants are built to replace some of the old ones that will have to close before then. "At present 27 per cent of our electricity is nuclear-generated but that will fall to 7 per cent by 2020, leaving us with no net gain in getting away from fossil fuels, if we do not replace some reactors," he said. Prof King said Britain could adopt a modern reactor design - the Westinghouse AP1000 or the South African "pebble bed" reactor - that produces less waste and is inherently safer than previous generations such as the Sizewell B pressurised water reactor. As well as resuming the construction of power stations based on nuclear fission, he is keen to drive ahead research to develop nuclear fusion reactors. He believes that a concerted international programme - building a $5bn (£3bn) experimental fusion plant while at the same time developing better materials to withstand the extreme conditions inside the reactor - could deliver commercial fusion power within 25 years, laying to rest the old jibe that fusion always lies half a century in the future. Prof King, 62, came to Whitehall at the end of 2000 from Cambridge University, where he ran the chemistry department - and was soon immersed in the fight against the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak. He emerged from this with his reputation and confidence strengthened. "At the time it was just as time-consuming and nerve-wracking as anyone could have imagined," he said. "But for me it was a very positive experience. It has enormously helped my work as chief scientific adviser by showing the need for high-quality science at the centre of government." Following the foot-and-mouth epidemic, Tony Blair asked Prof King to review scientific advice and research across the government. One conclusion is that government laboratories should be subject to a research assessment exercise, similar to the process that universities undergo. Another is that every department should have a chief scientist with direct access to the secretary of state. A further indirect consequence of Prof King's foot-and-mouth experience - and the lack of preparation in government to handle the disease - is a new look for the Foresight programme, which since 1994 has looked at the implications of future developments in science and technology across all sectors of the economy. On Monday, Foresight will be relaunched to focus on no more than four projects at a time. The point, according to Prof King, is to look at areas that are likely to present particular problems or opportunities in the future. ***************************************************************** 4 Moscow Police Beat Anti-Nuclear Protesters on Chernobyl Day Environment News Service: MOSCOW, Russia, April 26, 2002 (ENS) - Anti-nuclear activists and journalists documenting their protest were roughed up by police Thursday on Red Square in front of the Kremlin. More than 20 activists from Moscow, Kaliningrad, Voronezh, Vladimir, Yekaterinburg, Ryazan, Orel, and Ozersk were arrested. [protest] Journalist videos protesters in white jumpsuits crawling across Red Square. (Photos by Alisa Nikulina and Vlad Tupikin courtesy Socio-Ecological Union [http://www.seu.ru/index.en.htm] ) The action was organized by Ecodefense and the Youth Human Rights Movement and was dedicated to the 16th anniversary of the explosion and fire at the Chernobyl nuclear plant on April 26, 1986. Activists from 30 Russian cities gathered in the center of Moscow to protest the government's intention to import nuclear waste to Russia and against nuclear energy development in general. Journalists from international media outlets came to cover the action on the Red Square, which was considered a bold venture, as it is one of the most heavily guarded places in Russia. Dressed in white jumpsuits marked with a radiation danger sign, activists crawled across Red Square up to the Kremlin gates. Vladimir Slivyak of Ecodefense says this action "symbolized bringing of the nuclear waste right to the Kremlin, where the chief decision maker sits." The action had been in progress for about 10 minutes, when police came and without issuing warnings or requests to leave, started beating people, activists said. One woman demonstrator was slammed with her head against bars of the metal fence. Slivyak was thrown down and stamped by police boots and so was Nadezhda Kutepova of the environmental group in Ozyorsk, the location of the Mayak nuclear waste reprocessing plant, Russia's only such facility. [police] Police grab a photographer in Red Square Journalists covering the event were also beaten and arrested, their video and photo cameras were taken away, videotapes and film cassetes were taken out of the cameras. One of the cameras was broken. Many tourists walking around the Red Square observed the police action. Police searched the nearby streets for activists and journalists who escaped from Red Square. Police arrested journalists from several newspapers and from the Russian nonprofit news agency Internews. "After the action the square was covered by the light-struck films," said one witness. [police] Police wrestle a photographer to the ground to confiscate his camera while tourists look on. "We have not seen such violence from police for a long time. It seems that there was a special order to act like this," said an activist who escaped the arrest and managed to smuggle film and camera away. Police have released all the demonstrators they arrested. According to Slivyak, 23 protesters appeared in court today and Thursday, and two more will appear in court at a later unspecified date. All those who came to court were charged with "participation in a not permitted action" under administrative, rather than criminal law. The judge found all the demonstrators guilty and handed down a "warning" to everybody, the lightest action the court could take. According to administrative law, for participating in a not permitted action, people can get a warning, or a fine of up to $500, or up to 15 days in jail. The arrests in Red Square did not stop the protesters. Today there was an anti-nuclear rally in Moscow organized by a coalition of groups. The demonstrators are protesting a plan sponsored by the Russian Ministry of Atomic Power (Minatom) to import spent nuclear fuel to Russia. It was approved by both the Russian parliament and President Vladimir Putin in 2001, and Russian law was changed to permit such imports. A plan sponsored by the Russian Ministry of Atomic Power (Minatom) to import spent nuclear fuel to Russia was approved by both the Russian parliament and President Vladimir Putin in 2001, and Russian law was changed to permit such imports. Earlier this month, Minatom chief Alexander Rumyantsev confirmed to a meeting that included some of the same activists who demonstrated Thursday in Red Square that a contract to import spent nuclear fuel from British research reactors would be signed next year. Russian environmentalists say their country cannot even handle its own nuclear waste safely, and until problems with Russian waste are solved, waste from anywhere else should not be imported. ***************************************************************** 5 Canada's nuclear agency can keep environmental review under wraps: court SCOC-Sierra-Reactors, 1st Writethru SUE BAILEY OTTAWA (CP) - Canada's top judges say court documents detailing environmental reviews of two Candu reactors being built in China can be protected with a confidentiality order. The Supreme Court of Canada ruled 7-0 on Friday to support Canada's flagship nuclear company in its efforts to prevent wider public access to that information. Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. had argued that the documents are sensitive both to its commercial interests and to the Chinese government. The judgment is a defeat for the environmental watchdog the Sierra Club, which took Ottawa to court for allegedly dodging environmental assessments before it gave China $1.5 billion to help build the reactors. Friday's ruling allows the nuclear agency to present in court volumes of documents describing reviews done by Chinese officials, without fear those details will be publicly released. The Sierra Club is arguing that such assessments should have been done by Canadian officials, according to Canadian standards. On balance, the high court said the nuclear agency's right to a fair trial and the need to protect potentially sensitive nuclear data would justify the confidentiality order. "Although the exact contents of the documents remain a mystery, it is apparent that they contain technical details of a nuclear installation," wrote Justice Frank Iacobucci. "And there may well be a substantial public security interest in maintaining the confidentiality of such information." Any encroachment on the principles of open court and freedom of expression are "minimal" in this case, Iacobucci concluded. Canada sold two nuclear reactors to China in 1996 and both are still under construction in Qinshan on the edge of the East China Sea. Canada helped finance the project through an Export Development Corp. credit of $1.5 billion. The first one will be operational in early 2003. The Sierra Club argued in its original suit that environmental assessments are routine on most overseas projects involving the federal government that could have negative impacts. For instance, they were conducted on a rabbit-breeding farm funded in India by the Canadian International Development Agency, and on latrines and showers the government helped install at a mission in Bolivia. But nuclear reactors have been exempted. Officials for Atomic Energy Canada Ltd. have said the Sierra Club's lawsuit is groundless because the nuclear agency conducted joint assessments with China. They've also stressed that Candu reactors are built to Canadian standards. © The Canadian Press, 2002 ***************************************************************** 6 UK: Anti-Nuclear Protest Planned For City thisisDevon Plymouth Evening Herald Western Morning News : Plymouth Evening Herald 12:00 - 26 April 2002 More than 300 anti-nuclear campaigners are to gather in a Plymouth park tomorrow for a peaceful protest against radioactive waste being pumped into the River Tamar. Protesters from CND, Campaign Against Nuclear Storage and Radiation (CANSAR), the Green Party, Socialist Alliance, Unison and other groups are to hold a rally in Devonport Park during the afternoon. The campaigners will be combining a spring festival-style event with a protest against the nuclear submarine HMS Vanguard, which arrived in Devonport in February. On its arrival at the Dockyard, hundreds of anti-nuclear campaigners travelled from across the country to gather around the naval base in protest. And now they want to renew their campaign in Plymouth and expect more than 300 people to turn out for the rally tomorrow. In the morning they will be in the city centre gathering signatures for a petition and giving out leaflets. They will also be making their presence felt with a huge inflatable mock missile in New George Street from 10am to midday. The protesters will then make their way to Devonport Park. Campaigners claim the nuclear Trident fleet will mean an increase by 500 to 700 per cent in radioactive waste in the River Tamar, and a 400 per cent increase in radioactive waste in the atmosphere. They are also concerned about the concentration of nuclear warships and weaponry in such a densely populated area. As well as the Trident class nuclear-submarines the campaigners will also be protesting about the possibility of chopping up decommissioned submarines and storing them on land. Sue Baxter, co-ordinator of the event, said it was about raising awareness of protestors fears about radioactive waste going into the River Tamar from operations at the dockyard. ***************************************************************** 7 Ukraine, Russia mark somber Chernobyl anniversary The News - Anna Dolgova holds a portrait of her husband Vladimir, who died after he helped with the cleanup of the Chernobyl explosion. Efrem Lukatsky, AP AFP - 4/27/2002 CHERNOBYL, Ukraine - A somber Ukraine marked the 16th anniversary Friday of the Chernobyl disaster, with nationwide commemorations and an overnight vigil near the site of the world's worst nuclear accident. President Leonid Kuchma prayed for the victims of the disaster at a church service in the capital Kiev, after some 250 people observed a minute's silence near the doomed power plant at 01:23 am (2223 GMT Thursday), the exact time of the blast on April 26, 1986. During the vigil in the northern Ukrainian town of Slavutich, 50 kilometers (30 miles) from the nuclear plant, the participants laid wreaths and candles near the monument to the 26 people -- many of them rescuers -- who died in the weeks immediately after the blast. Slavutich was built in 1987, a year after the blast, for people working on the program to contain the after-effects of radiation caused by the explosion of the plant's reactor number four. "It is our duty to pay a tribute to those who gave their lives so that we could continue to live here. I want to remain in this town, because there is hope and a future for youth here," said Sasha, a 21-year-old resident. At Chernobyl itself, a small town about 20 kilometers (10 miles) from the power plant mainly inhabited by nuclear industry workers, 800 people observed a minute's silence overnight Thursday and, in accordance with a Slav tradition, drank a glass of vodka in memory of the "liquidators", the emergency workers who fought to limit the nuclear contamination. "I had to come. This day changed my life," Valentina Netrebko, a doctor and former Chernobyl resident, said through her tears. Vassyly Lamonov, one of the "liquidators", said the anniversary was the occasion to remember his friends and colleagues who died of radiation sickness. "No-one must forget them. They gave their lives to protect the world," he said. In Moscow, several hundred people gathered at the Mitino cemetery in the northwest of the city to commemorate the event, with Russian Orthodox priests celebrating a mass for the several dozen Chernobyl dead who are buried there. The widows of several "liquidators" laid carnations on the tombs where their husbands lay. In the shadow of a monument representing a mushroom cloud and a man whose face is creased in pain, Chernobyl veterans embraced, murmuring to each other: "God be praised, you're still alive." Here too, vodka was on hand to honor the dead. Sixteen years ago, reactor number four at the Chernobyl nuclear power station in Ukraine blew up, spewing out a radioactive cloud and contaminating most of Europe. An estimated 15,000 to 30,000 people have died in the aftermath. The three other reactors continued in service until one of them was shut down in 1991 following a fire and another was taken out of service in 1996. The plant was finally shut down in December 2000 under a 2.3-billion-dollar deal with the world's richest nations. Nearly six million people continue to live in contaminated zones, including 2.3 million Ukrainians, 1.8 million Russians and 1.6 million Belarussians, according to UN figures. Around three million Ukrainians suffer in varying degrees from health problems related to radiation exposure, and the number of thyroid cancers has risen sharply. © Copyright 2002 AFP ***************************************************************** 8 IAEA Monitors 428 Nuclear Plants Worldwide April 27, 2002 IRIB TV TEHRAN TIMES POLITICAL DESK TEHRAN -- The chairman of the Conference on Security of Nuclear Plants said on Friday that there are 448 nuclear power plants in the world, 428 of which are supervised by and affiliated to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Speaking at a press conference held at the United Nations Office in Vienna after the end of the Second Conference on Security of Nuclear Power Plants, he added that the nuclear power plants in Iran, India, Taiwan and Kazakhstan are among those plants which are not supervised by the IAEA. He added that Iran's nuclear power plant is not affiliated to the organization because it is not yet completed and has not become operational, saying that the Kazakh power plant will be closed due to failure to observe safety standards and age. Pointing to the fact that great progress has been made in the field of nuclear power plant safety, he said that preparedness to counter any accident, increasing security at older nuclear power plants, exchanging information, using the experiences of other countries, and becoming familiar with the problems of nuclear power plants were discussed at the conference. Some 400 experts from 53 member states of the Convention on Nuclear Power Plant Security gathered in Vienna for nine days to discuss the security level at nuclear power plants. The convention was ratified on January 17, 1994 and the first conference was held at the United Nations Office in Vienna in 1999. webmaster@tehrantimes.com ***************************************************************** 9 Ukrainians Haunted by Chernobyl Past Las Vegas SUN April 26, 2002 SLAVUTYCH, Ukraine- Clutching flickering candles and bunches of spring flowers, survivors of the world's worst nuclear disaster held a solemn memorial in the pre-dawn darkness Friday in the town built to house Chernobyl workers displaced by the accident 16 years ago. Crowds also gathered at churches, cemeteries and public squares across the former Soviet Union for ceremonies that began at 1:23 a.m. - the time on the clocks at the Chernobyl plant when its No. 4 reactor exploded on April 26, 1986, spewing radiation across Europe and contaminating swaths of then-Soviet Ukraine, Russia and Belarus. While painful memories of the past were foremost in people's minds Friday, many Ukrainians who live in the contaminated areas around the now-shuttered Chernobyl plant are focusing more on their poverty than on their fragile health. "People talk about Chernobyl less and less every year. Economic problems are much more pressing," said Igor Pashinsky, chief psychologist at the Center for Social and Psychological Rehabilitation in Korosten, a city 60 miles west of Chernobyl whose 65,000 residents were all affected by the accident. The Ukrainian government says more than 4,000 people involved in the hastily and poorly organized Soviet cleanup effort after the accident have died and that more than 70,000 Ukrainians were disabled by the disaster. Officials acknowledge that survival often takes priority over health concerns for the estimated 3.3 million Ukrainians, including 1.5 million children, affected by the accident. "Parents try however they can to make money to survive," said Valeriy Bekh, head sociologist at the Korosten center. "Often kids with two parents live like orphans because their parents are gone all the time" trying to eke out a living. The birth rate in Ukraine has dropped by 50 percent since 1986, while the death rate has doubled. Aleksandr Tiplitsky, chief doctor at the Norodychi hospital, 35 miles west of Chernobyl, said that of the illnesses he treats, "It's very hard to say how many cases are directly related to Chernobyl because inadequate nutrition weakens the immune system. "I might see a sick child and say, 'It's radiation,' but then I go to his house and see it's starvation." However, doctors and public health officials are unequivocal in linking the sharp rise in thyroid cancer - especially among children - to Chernobyl. More than 2,100 Ukrainians who were under 18 at the time of the accident have undergone thyroid treatment since 1986, and doctors say that number could spike to 10,000 in the next two years. Tens of thousands of people disabled by Chernobyl-related illnesses receive inadequate health care and 25,000 evacuated families are still waiting for housing, said Emergency Situations Minister Vasyl Durdynets. Of the 160,000 people who were resettled from the area around Chernobyl, many have returned to evacuated lands because economic conditions were as bad or worse in their new homes. Hana Yavchenko, 67, was evacuated from Parishchiv, a village near the plant, but later returned. She and her husband grow their own vegetables and fruits because semiweekly government deliveries of radiation-free food are not enough. "Is the food clean? Who knows?," she said. "What else do we have?" U.N. officials say some 450 to 600 people live in the "exclusion zone" - the area within 18 miles of the plant that was evacuated and closed off after the accident - and as many as 200,000 live in "severely contaminated areas" further away. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 10 Davis-Besse fix to take more time, money 04/27/02 John Funk Plain Dealer Reporter FirstEnergy Corp. said yesterday that fixing the hole in the reactor lid of the Davis-Besse nuclear power station will take a larger and more expensive patch. And it will require more time to weld into place. All of that will affect the bottom line. Earnings for the year could be reduced by about 25 cents to 30 cents per share, a company spokeswoman agreed, assuming the plant will be repaired and restarted by Oct. 1. FirstEnergy's top financial officers on Wednesday estimated earnings per share for the year would be cut by 11 cents based on previous repair and outage estimates. As a result of the revision, they said they had contracted to buy outside power through August. The new price for the repair is $25 million, up $9 million from earlier estimates. And the estimated time to do the work has been increased to 40 days, up from a month. What's unknown is how long federal regulators will take to approve the fix. The company shut down Davis-Besse Feb. 16 for refueling and a federally mandated inspection for cracks in control rod mechanisms that pass through the head. Inspectors found cracks in five control rod sleeves and a 5-by-7-inch rust hole nearly through the 150-ton head. The company believes boric acid normally in the reactor's coolant got into the head through the cracks. FirstEnergy filed the detailed repair proposal yesterday with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The plan calls for using robots to cut a 17½-inch diameter hole through the portion of the head containing the rust hole and weld a 450-pound plug of stainless steel alloy into the area. In earlier discussions with the NRC, the company proposed a 13-inch hole and 300- to 400-pound plug but was told the repair would be too close to an adjacent control rod. The reactor head must be able to withstand pressures of more than 2,200 pounds per square inch. The NRC has not given itself a deadline to evaluate the plan, inspect the work and test the reactor. These factors - plus a petition pending before the NRC for an independent inspection of the plant - spell uncertainty to some investors. "It's a good company, and they are trying to give investors a clear picture," said Jeffrey Gildersleeve of Argus Research in New York City. "However, it does seem like there are a lot of factors that could make it [repair] much more costly. Holding the shares is prudent." James Halloran, of National City Private Investment Advisers, said, "If they cannot restart the reactor by the end of September, there is no way to estimate the impact . . . They have an unknown if they are not allowed to go ahead with the weld." FirstEnergy is also considering a backup strategy of buying a reactor head from a plant in Michigan that never operated. But the lid will require modifications. A new head will arrive in 2004. The company is still projecting 7 percent to 8 percent earnings growth next year. And analyst Thomas Hamlin of Wachovia Securities, said he considers the stock a strong buy. "Either way, whether the reactor is repaired or replaced, the plant will still be there," he said. "If I thought Davis-Besse were going to go on forever, I would look at the stock differently." Contact John Funk at: jfunk@plaind.com, 216-999-4138 © 2002 The Plain Dealer. Used with permission. © 2002 cleveland.com. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 11 LA VANGUARDIA DIGITAL OPINIÓN > EDITORIALES Seguridad nuclear LA VANGUARDIA - 03.51 horas - 27/04/2002 . Activistas de Greenpeace provocan el parón de la central de Zorita al subirse a su cúpula LA VANGUARDIA - 03.52 horas - 26/04/2002 INAUGURADA en 1968, cuando la energía eléctrica de origen nuclear no despertaba el recelo y los temores que hoy provoca, la central de Zorita de los Canes (Guadalajara) fue la primera de una larga serie de instalaciones que hoy son parte fundamental de la producción eléctrica del país. En la actualidad, cuando ha estado más de 30 años activa, la central está financieramente amortizada y además ha quedado técnicamente obsoleta, lo cual, junto a su notable antigüedad, plantea dudas sobre su seguridad, pese a lo cual el Consejo de Seguridad Nuclear permite que siga operativa aun admitiendo los inconvenientes que plantea. El gobierno autónomo de Castilla-La Mancha ha pedido su cierre y el pasado jueves un grupo de activistas de Greenpeace burló la escasa vigilancia encaramándose a la cúpula de la central, en un incidente que resultaría chusco, si no fuera en extremo preocupante. Que los accesos a una instalación de este tipo hayan sido tan fácilmente vulnerados revela que Zorita es fuente de preocupaciones por los problemas técnicos que presenta -en 1997 tuvo que estar parada durante un año y medio-, pero también por las medidas de protección de sus instalaciones, que, visto aquel incidente, parecen insuficientes. Es fácil pensar que en lugar de los activistas de Greenpeace, quizás incordiantes, pero, desde luego, pacíficos, podrían haber sido terroristas quienes invadieran la central. Sin ir más lejos, estos días se ha detenido en España a presuntos miembros de Al Qaeda, la organización terrorista islámica que protagonizó los atentados del 11-S en Nueva York. Una instalación de este tipo no puede despertar tantas inquietudes. [INFORMACIÓN] + DE EDITORIALES Copyright La Vanguardia Ediciones S.L. y La Vanguardia Digital S.L. All Rights Reserved ***************************************************************** 12 Modern-day Chernobyl disaster: poverty Orange County Register - Nation & World Merely surviving is of more concern than staying healthy 16 years after the world's worst nuclear accident. April 27, 2002 By TIM VICKERY The Associated Press SLAVUTYCH, Ukraine -- Clutching flickering candles and bunches of spring flowers, survivors of the world's worst nuclear disaster held a solemn memorial in the pre-dawn darkness Friday in the town built to house Chernobyl workers displaced by the accident 16 years ago. Crowds also gathered at churches, cemeteries and public squares across the former Soviet Union for ceremonies that began at 1:23 a.m. - the time on the clocks at the Chernobyl plant when its No. 4 reactor exploded April 26, 1986, spewing radiation across Europe and contaminating swaths of then-Soviet Ukraine, Russia and Belarus. While painful memories of the past were foremost in people's minds Friday, many Ukrainians who live in the contaminated areas around the now-shuttered Chernobyl plant are focusing more on their poverty than on their fragile health. "People talk about Chernobyl less and less every year. Economic problems are much more pressing," said Igor Pashinsky, chief psychologist at the Center for Social and Psychological Rehabilitation in Korosten, a city 60 miles west of Chernobyl whose 65,000 residents were all affected by the accident. The Ukrainian government says more than 4,000 people involved in the hastily and poorly organized Soviet cleanup effort after the accident have died and that more than 70,000 Ukrainians were disabled by the disaster. Officials acknowledge that survival often takes priority over health concerns for the estimated 3.3 million Ukrainians, including 1.5 million children, affected by the accident. "Parents try however they can to make money to survive," said Valeriy Bekh, head sociologist at the Korosten center. "Often kids with two parents live like orphans because their parents are gone all the time" trying to eke out a living. The birth rate in Ukraine has dropped by 50 percent since 1986, while the death rate has doubled. Aleksandr Tiplitsky, chief doctor at the Norodychi hospital, 35 miles west of Chernobyl, said that of the illnesses he treats, "It's very hard to say how many cases are directly related to Chernobyl because inadequate nutrition weakens the immune system. "I might see a sick child and say, 'It's radiation,' but then I go to his house and see it's starvation." However, doctors and public-health officials are unequivocal in linking the sharp rise in thyroid cancer - especially among children - to Chernobyl. More than 2,100 Ukrainians who were under 18 at the time of the accident have undergone thyroid treatment since 1986, and doctors say that number could spike to 10,000 in the next two years. Tens of thousands of people disabled by Chernobyl-related illnesses receive inadequate health care, and 25,000 evacuated families are still waiting for housing, said Emergency Situations Minister Vasyl Durdynets. Of the 160,000 people who were resettled from the area around Chernobyl, many have returned to evacuated lands because economic conditions were as bad or worse in their new homes. ***************************************************************** 13 Flowers laid to memorial to radiation disaster victims in Kursk Pravda.RU Apr, 26 2002 Russia's Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu on Friday laid flowers to a memorial to victims of radiation accidents and disasters in Kursk, a regional centre in southern Russia. At a rally dedicated to the 16th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, Shoigu recalled that in Russia there were now more than 200,000 former clean-up workers, with 36,000 of them disabled. "We want less said and more done for these people" who "stopped the spread of this misfortune to other territories of this country and Europe," the minister said. Replying to a question by journalists after the ceremony, Shoigu recalled that the Emergencies Ministry has been tasked with coordinating work to eliminate the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster and rendering help to victims. "We give real help," he emphasised. As part of a number of special federal programmes Russia has built in the past few years scores of hospitals, provided clean-up workers with housing, and continued to construct preventive treatment centres. The disaster contaminated 1,200 square kilometres of the Kursk region. There are 118,500 people living on this area now. The Kursk region has 3,000 former clean-up workers, with more than 300 of them disabled. Shoigu discussed with the regional administration a number of programmes to help Chernobyl victims, in particular build hospitals and put into operation an infectious diseases centre. Pravda.RU ***************************************************************** 14 Heard About the Near-Accident at the Ohio Nuclear Plant? I'm Not Surprised (washingtonpost.com) By Victor Gilinsky Sunday, April 28, 2002; Page B01 You wouldn't know it from the bland pronouncements of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), but the U.S. nuclear industry just had its closest brush with disaster since the 1979 Three Mile Island accident. The Davis-Besse nuclear power plant, located about 30 miles east of Toledo, Ohio, was operating with a rust hole in the top of its reactor pressure vessel -- a hole wide and deep enough to put your fist into. All that was left to contain the reactor's highly pressurized supply of cooling water around the reactor core was a three-eighths inch liner of stainless steel, and the liner had started to bulge ominously. If the liner had burst, it would have drained cooling water vital for safety and also threatened the reactor's emergency shutdown system. The plant operator's neglect is bad enough. If this had occurred in Russia, we would be saying it could never happen here. Equally disturbing is the NRC's barely audible response. The preliminary report of FirstEnergy, the nuclear plant owner, details what happened. During a routine refueling shutdown in February, the company inspected several dozen nozzles to check for cracks, as required by the NRC. The nozzles, located on the head of the reactor vessel, permit control rods to enter the vessel to shut down the reactor, quickly if necessary. A workman discovered the rust hole by luck -- when he happened to bang into one of the control rod tubes coming out of the top of the reactor and it moved. If the reactor had gone back into operation, as it very nearly did, the consequences could have been enormous in terms of public safety as well as the future of the nuclear industry. It turned out that corrosion had reduced 70 pounds of steel, half a foot thick, to rust. The corrosion was caused by boric acid on the outside of the head. How did the acid get there? The water inside the reactor vessel contains dissolved boric acid, which is used to assist reactor control. Because boric acid corrodes carbon steel, the reactor vessel's interior is lined with stainless steel. The boric acid is not supposed to get to the vessel's exterior, which remains vulnerable to corrosion. But at Davis-Besse the reactor's water leaked through cracks -- it still isn't clear which ones -- and created a boric acid crust on the outside of the reactor head. This accumulation and damage doesn't happen overnight. The company report explains the hole hadn't been found earlier because, "Boric acid that accumulated on the top of the [Reactor Pressure Vessel] head over a period of years inhibited the station's ability to confirm visually that neither nozzle leakage nor vessel corrosion was occurring." In plain English that means that the company watched the boric acid crust cover an increasing area of the head for years and did nothing about it. That's not all. Some of the reactor vessel rust became airborne and clogged the reactor building's air filters. The filters had previously been changed monthly, but from 1999 on they had to be changed every other day. The company's report says the possibility of corrosion "was not recognized as a safety significant issue by the staff and management of the plant." Obviously the NRC, which had inspectors on site, did not recognize it either. How important is this? The reactor vessel head resembles a rounded lid that is bolted to the vessel. It's about 15 feet in diameter. The reactor vessel and the vessel head are designed and manufactured with exquisite care from special steel a half-foot thick (with the thin liner of stainless steel). The vessel and head of every reactor have to be monitored throughout their life to make sure that radiation has not caused the metal to become brittle. This is vital because the NRC licensed the plant on the assumption that a break in the reactor vessel is not credible. As a result, the reactor's safety analysis does not deal with breaks in the vessel wall. The reactor's emergency actions operators are trained to cope with breaks in pipes, not the vessel. Some safety systems might work for such a break; then again they might not. The problem was not studied. There would likely be unforeseen complications. An obvious complication would involve malfunctioning of the control rod system that is supposed to stop the chain reaction in an emergency. There is no backup to the control rods for immediate shutdown. The plant's safety analysis considers the possibility that a limited number of rods, out of several dozen, could fail to drop. The control rod adjacent to the rust hole would have been one of these. But what about the damage that might be caused to other control rod drives above the head if a hole in the vessel unleashed a jet of steam and water coming out of the pressurized vessel? A telling sign that the industry understands the seriousness of the Davis-Besse problem is the silence from the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's lobbying arm, which is usually quick to spin a nuclear story. All in all, what happened at Davis-Besse was a narrow escape. But that isn't the way the NRC has described it in public. The agency's spokesperson told the media that the rust hole didn't pose a safety threat. If the last bit of metal had failed and "allowed steam to escape," the NRC official said, safety systems would have immediately cooled the reactor. Anyway, he said, there would have been no danger to the public. "It's only when you get into the what-ifs that you would have had any leakage from the reactor cooling system." The man was talking through his hat. In reality, the NRC doesn't know what would have happened because the possibility has been considered too unlikely to plan for. The failure to face up to reality reflects an unhealthy situation. Such spokesmen say what their bosses want them to say, and for several years, the NRC has been knocking itself out to please the industry. The situation worsened in 1998 when the NRC's Senate oversight committee, Environment and Public Works, with strong prompting from the industry association, threatened the NRC with a sharp budget cut. The NRC chairman got the message and revamped the agency's regulatory approach along the lines suggested by the industry. The current commission has by and large continued the same approach, but with a less experienced senior staff. The previous chairman had forced the resignation of the agency's most experienced and competent top officials, who had showed an unwelcome independence of mind. Just before Davis-Besse's problem surfaced, the NRC gave the plant its quarterly rating under the new rating system. Davis-Besse got the top grade in all 18 categories. From my experience in two terms as an NRC commissioner, during which I visited most of the plants, including this one, I find it inconceivable that everything was fine at Davis-Besse except for one corrosion hole in the reactor vessel. If the plant managers let this problem go, they must have let others go, too. People working in nuclear plants are pretty smart and generally want to do a good job. But they stop asking questions about things that aren't right when they know what answer management is going to give them. At that point, danger lurks. The NRC has investigated and has now asked other plants to check to make sure they are not suffering from the Davis-Besse problem, but on an unhurried schedule. To a greater extent than ever before we are relying for nuclear safety on the self-regulation of the nuclear operators. Most of them have done a good job, steadily improving their performance. But there are limits to the idea put forward by the industry that post-deregulation financial pressures make for better safety because the operators want to protect their investment. As we know, short-term bottom line orientation also leads some to overreaching, defer necessary modifications or neglect maintenance. Congress and NRC management need to acknowledge that private and public incentives differ. The late Morris Udall, who as chairman of the House Interior Committee was the principal congressional overseer of the NRC in its eary years, used to say that a forceful and respected NRC was an essential condition of nuclear power. It is still true. Victor Gilinsky, a Washington-based consultant on energy, was an NRC commissioner from 1975 to 1984. © 2002 The Washington Post Company ***************************************************************** 15 Lithuanian premier says Belarusian plan to buy N-plant "utopia" BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Apr 27, 2002 Vilnius, 27 April: Lithuanian Prime Minister Algirdas Brazauskas has called Belarus's alleged intention to buy the Ignalina nuclear power plant "a utopia". Brazauskas said that no-one had approached Lithuania regarding this matter and that he therefore did not want "to comment on rumours". The talk about the purchase of the plant is "a utopia which is not worth discussing". "Let Belarus first repay the debt for electricity supplied to it," Brazauskas said. He recalled that Lithuania is selling electricity to Belarus through the UES [Unified Energy System of Russia] on good conditions. Belarus owes Lithuania some 50m dollars for electrical power supplied over five years. In spite of efforts made at government and other levels, the debt has still not been repaid. Source: Interfax news agency, Moscow, in English 0851 gmt 27 Apr 02 /© BBC Monitoring ***************************************************************** 16 Romania: Government decides to shut down research nuclear reactor BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Apr 26, 2002 Bucharest, 26 April: The Romanian government has approved the definitive shutdown of the nuclear reactor used for research and isotope production at the Horia Hulubei National Institute of Research and Development for Physics and Nuclear Engineering based in Magurele, near Bucharest. According to the government decision, the expenses for the maintenance, exploitation and security of the installation in conditions of nuclear security will be borne by the Ministry of Education and Research during the period starting with the definitive shut down until the used nuclear fuel is sent to the final deposit. The Magurele nuclear reactor is a source of fast and thermal neutrons used for the development of physics and nuclear energy researches. The main activities carried out over four decades of functioning were related to nuclear energy and material research, the production of radioisotopes for medical purposes, and radioactive sources for industry. Source: Rompres news agency, Bucharest, in English 1453 gmt 26 Apr 02 /© BBC Monitoring ***************************************************************** 17 Belarus ready to buy nuclear plant from Lithuania - president BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Apr 26, 2002 [Presenter] Today the Belarusian president [Alyaksandr Lukashenka] said he was ready to consider Belarus buying Lithuania's Ignalina nuclear power plant. The country is working seriously on acquiring additional supplies of electricity, the president stressed. [Lukashenka, in Russian] I know the Lithuanians want to close this station, and this is a condition of their joining the EU. My experts, our Belarusian experts, have proposed several options of buying this station and we do not rule out these options, we are considering them. Unfortunately, not everything here depends on us. I am sorry for this nuclear plant, this is an excellent plant. And certainly, if the Lithuanians ruin this station, they will lose a lot. The West will not give them what they want. Therefore, I do not rule out such options. And we will try to do our best to preserve and ensure this station's security if we succeed. Source: Belarusian television, Minsk, in Belarusian 1800 gmt 26 Apr 02 /© BBC Monitoring ***************************************************************** 18 New Zealander men who watched n-tests given medals ONE News New Zealander [http://nzoom.com] Six naval veterans who watched nuclear tests in the 1950s have received special service medals from the Minister of Defence, and Minister of Veterans' Affairs Mark Burton. Three of the medals were awarded posthumously. The president of the New Zealand Nuclear Test Veterans Association, and veteran of Operation Grapple Roy Sefton, says the medals are tangible recognition of the role the veterans played. Mr Sefton says since veterans first spoke out in the 1980s of long-term damage to their health, governments and the armed forces have sometimes branded them as trouble makers and ignored them. "It's extremely significant. It's some...tangible recognition that veterans can actually hang onto, look at, and probably more importantly, hand onto their children," Sefton says. Another veteran of Operation Grapple, Tere Tahi, said he was proud to receive his medal. "But also I'm not very happy with the way it was left for so long," he says. Also not happy are veterans of the Mururoa nuclear tests in the 1970's, although they now have a medal, they're still not eligible for full war pensions. Mark Burton, however, says he is committed to righting veteran's grievances. "There are outstanding issues and certainly these veterans are, along with 18 other groups, currently under review of moving from partial to full pension," he says. Roy Sefton says the minister has assured him that Mururoa veterans are under review and will be considered for full war pensions. "Hopefully that wont be too far away," says Sefton. It is estimated that as many as 1,100 New Zealanders may qualify for the special service medals, including some civilians such as former cabinet minister Fraser Coleman, and some news reporters. The 150 veterans gathered in Palmerston North for the presentation were also being updated on Massey University research on their health. The medal for nuclear test veterans is thought to be a world first, and is expected to bring pressure for something similar in Australia, Britain and Canada. © ONE News / RNZ Published on Apr 27, 2002 ***************************************************************** 19 Penn. OP: An ounce of prevention (potassium Iodide) Philadelphia Inquirer | 04/25/2002 | Editorial | Posted on Thu, Apr. 25, 2002 [story:PUB_DESC] Gov. Schweiker made a wise decision last week. He said Pennsylvania will accept the federal government's offer of free potassium iodide pills to protect citizens in the event of an accidental radiation release. Potassium iodide - or KI as it's known to chemists - is a safe, over-the-counter drug with proven benefits in preventing the thyroid cancer and thyroid disease that can develop years after radiation exposure. In the event of a nuclear power plant attack or accident, KI pills, taken quickly, are able to block the human thyroid from absorbing dangerous radioactive iodide. The pills are especially effective in protecting the developing thyroids of children and babies, including those still in the womb. The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is offering the free pills to 34 states that have nuclear power plants or are near them. Pennsylvania joins New Jersey and Delaware, and also Maryland, in saying yes to the deal. Smart decisions all around. But that's only the start of a daunting process. The pills (two each for every person living or working within 10 miles of a nuclear plant) will need to be distributed. Pennsylvania is getting 1.5 million of them; New Jersey about 722,000, and Delaware 78,000. As state agencies work on plans to get the pills to citizens in the most effective way, they must also do a good job of citizen education. Here's the lesson that must be conveyed: Evacuation is still and always will remain the best response to nuclear disaster. Potassium iodide will protect you from only one kind of deadly radiation, not the rest. The KI pills heading Pennsylvania's way are in the adult, 130 mg size. According to the Food and Drug Administration, adult doses are "extremely" safe for children aged one month and older. (Newborns would have to get the drug in crushed form, dissolved in liquid.) Gov. Schweiker has, understandably, asked the NRC to send Pennsylvania child-size potassium iodide pills when and if they become available. The federal government should be working harder at providing them. But there's no reason for states not to accept adult-size pills for now. This is one drug you want to have handy at all times - and hope you and your children never have to take. ***************************************************************** 20 Greenpeace Stunt Questions Spain's Nuclear Safety Yahoo! News - Fri Apr 26, 1:49 PM ET By Begona Quesada MADRID (Reuters) - The storming of a 34-year-old nuclear power plant in Spain by Greenpeace activists has opened debate about the safety of Spain's aging reactors and security measures supposedly tightened after September 11. Six Greenpeace environmentalists scaled the dome of the Jose Cabrera nuclear plant at Zorita, 30 miles northeast of Madrid Thursday, and hung a banner demanding "Close now!." Spain's Nuclear Safety Council has begun a preliminary investigation. It intends asking for a formal probe that could lead to a possible fine for Union Fenosa, the power firm that runs the plant. "Results from the first emergency inspection show no damage to any of the sensitive parts of the plant. Nuclear security was never at risk," a spokeswoman for the council told Reuters on Friday. "Now we have to conduct further analysis and see what extra physical security measures should be taken and who is to blame for this, especially after security measures had been increased after the attacks of September 11," she said. El Mundo newspaper said Greenpeace had exposed poor security at the plant. "What if Greenpeace were al Qaeda?" it asked. Greenpeace, which said only one security guard chased the intruders and fired a shot into the air in an unsuccessful bid to stop them, said the oldest of Spain's nine nuclear plants suffered from rust and cracks in some of its key containers. Greenpeace said its team needed just 10 minutes to get from the main gate to the top of the nuclear plant, which the ecologists claim has released radioactive material into the air and toward the nearby Tajo River. "PROPORTIONATE RESPONSE" A spokesman for the nuclear plant said the ecologists were able to get to the top of the dome because the response from the security guard was "proportionate" to the threat. "All the security measures were working ... We would rather wait for the inquiry from the authorities before we talk about responsibilities," he said. It was unclear whether any investigation could affect the renewal of Union Fenosa's permit for the plant, due in October. "Once the technical and legal analysis of the situation is over, we will ask for a formal probe," the CSN said in a statement. The Greenpeace protest was timed to roughly coincide with the 16th anniversary of Ukraine's Chernobyl nuclear disaster and the fourth anniversary of Spain's worst ecological disaster, the Aznalcollar spill when a mining reservoir burst and dumped almost seven million cubic meters of toxic sludge near a wildlife reserve. "We were able to see with our eyes the decrepit state of this old plant. They have to close down Zorita before we have a serious accident," said Carlos Bravo of Greenpeace. The nuclear council disputed that, saying, "If the nuclear plant was unsafe, we would have taken appropriate measures." Copyright © 2002 Reuters Limited. ***************************************************************** 21 Panel's Vote for Nuclear Waste Site Points to House OK April 26, 2002 Legislation: The 41-6 tally gives a bipartisan endorsement to the administration's Yucca Mountain plan. By NICK ANDERSON, TIMES STAFF WRITER WASHINGTON -- A plan to bury the nation's nuclear waste in southern Nevada won lopsided endorsement Thursday from a congressional committee, signaling easy passage by the full House to override the state's objections. While approval from the House Energy and Commerce Committee had been expected, the breadth of the margin gave a bipartisan stamp to the Bush administration's effort to make Yucca Mountain a permanent site for tens of thousands of tons of radioactive waste now stored in many states.17 Democrats Join Forces With GOP In the panel's 41-6 vote, 17 Democrats joined 24 Republicans to back a bill to allow the federal government to move ahead with opening Yucca Mountain to receive waste as early as 2010. The vote came amid continuing scientific debate about the Yucca Mountain plan. The site is about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas and 215 miles northeast of Los Angeles. In an article to be published today in Science magazine, two researchers who describe themselves as "pro-nuclear" contend that the government should postpone decisions on Yucca Mountain until more is known about its geology and the durability of storage devices. "A project of this importance . . . should not go forward until the relevant scientific issues have been thoughtfully addressed," wrote Rodney Ewing, a geologist at the University of Michigan, and Allison Macfarlane, director of the Yucca Mountain Project at MIT. Ewing and Macfarlane wrote that politics rather than science is driving the Yucca Mountain decisions, a view that Bush administration officials vigorously dispute. Rep. W. J. "Billy" Tauzin (R-La.), chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, said Thursday's vote was "an enormous show of support" for an administration plan backed by the nuclear energy industry. "Whether you like nuclear energy or not," Tauzin said, "this country can't do without it." President Bush signed off on the Yucca Mountain plan in February, but Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn, a Republican, reversed that decision earlier this month. Under federal law, a simple majority vote in both houses of Congress is required to overrule Guinn. Tauzin said a vote on the House floor would come within two weeks. Gephardt Says Store It Where It's Produced House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) is among those intending to fight the proposal. "I don't think it makes sense to have all this nuclear waste travel across the country by truck or rail," Gephardt told reporters. He said he favors a European approach: "Do your best to store this stuff safely at the site where it has been produced." The six opponents in Thursday's vote were all Democrats, three from California: Reps. Jane Harman of Venice, Lois Capps of Santa Barbara and Anna G. Eshoo of San Mateo. Still, House opponents appear outmatched. In its last vote on Yucca Mountain in early 2000, the House approved a waste-storage plan, 253 to 167. Most of the opponents at that time were Democrats. But some foes of the earlier plan have now switched, including Rep. John D. Dingell of Michigan, top Democrat on the commerce panel. Barring a surprise in the House, the focus of the battle would then move to the Senate, where foes hope to make a last stand against the Yucca Mountain plan. A Senate vote is projected for June or July. At first glance, the Senate would seem a formidable obstacle for the plan's advocates. Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), the assistant majority leader, and Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) are vehemently opposed to it. So is Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.). But in this case, federal law bars most parliamentary maneuvers against the legislation. Opponents have said their only hope to kill the plan is to amass a 51-vote majority; so far they appear to be well short. In a Senate vote in May 2000 on the issue, 35 senators opposed nuclear waste storage at Yucca Mountain. That vote upheld President Clinton's veto of a Republican-crafted bill. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham expressed confidence that in the current dispute, the Bush administration would prevail. "The actions here in the House demonstrate the broad bipartisan support we have to move ahead in this process," Abraham told reporters. "At the end of the day, the Senate will follow the House's lead." Copyright 2002 Los Angeles Times ***************************************************************** 22 Senator Cites N-Dump Politics The Salt Lake Tribune -- Saturday, April 27, 2002 Activist Stephen Erickson displays a video cassette that he says shows the vulnerability of nuclear waste containers in testimony before nuclear licensing board. (Danny La/The Salt Lake Tribune) BY JUDY FAHYS TOOELE -- Sen. Bob Bennett told a federal licensing board Friday that finding a solution for the safe disposal of nuclear waste that might be bound for Utah is not so much a scientific problem as a political one. The Utah Republican was among dozens of Utahns who showed up at Tooele High School to speak during a hearing before the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board. The 4 1/2-hour hearing was expected to be the last time citizens will have an opportunity to address regulators before they decide on a license for a proposed facility that would store the nation's high-level nuclear waste on the Skull Valley Goshute Reservation. More than five dozen people attended. Noting that hard-shell containers for transporting and storing the lethally radioactive waste are said to keep it safe for up to 200 years, Bennett suggested that policy-makers should scrap "artificial" deadlines that will force removal of the waste from nuclear plant sites until it can be disposed of permanently. "If it is safe in dry-cask storage in Skull Valley, and if it is safe to convey it to Skull Valley, why is it not safe in dry cask storage where it is?" asked the Utah Republican. "It is a politically created problem that could be a politically solved problem." The three-judge administrative panel is in the state for five weeks of mainly technical debate about a proposal to store the nuclear plant waste in steel and concrete casks in Skull Valley, about 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. The panel plans to decide by September whether to license the $3.1 billion facility, which would be operated by a consortium of eight out-of-state utilities. Project opponents came to the hearing buoyed by the cautionary statement issued earlier in the week by leaders of the Huntsman Cancer Institute in Salt Lake City. Director Stephen M. Prescott and Huntsman's top research leaders said safety must be a priority for dealing with such high-level waste. "The key questions include whether appropriate precautions are in place to prevent the release of stored material -- either rapidly or gradually over time," they said, "and whether the procedures for transporting radioactive waste offer sufficient protection against sudden release." There also were proponents in the audience, including Goshute Chairman Leon Bear, who is facing an internal tribal challenge to his leadership, and a group calling itself Scientists for Secure Nuclear Waste Storage. "If the Skull Valley Tribe of Goshute Indians wants this facility, let them have it," the group said in its written testimony. "Let the rest of us thank them and congratulate them for choosing a facility that is important for any sensible U.S. and world energy policy and far safer than many others -- in particular, it is a much better choice than a casino." The licensing panel has been steeped for weeks in technical talk about the mathematical probability of aircraft crashes, the legal definition of wilderness and the like. Friday's comments dealt with heartfelt issues, such as fears about terrorism, government lies, health risks and becoming a national dump for dangerous wastes. Corporate officers at Sinclair Oil weighed in against the project. Sinclair spokesman Clint Ensign told the licensing board the tiniest accident could prove devastating to tourism. "The positive image of the state and the perception of people is critical to tourism," said Ensign, whose company owns two downtown hotels and a ski resort. © Copyright 2002, The Salt Lake Tribune All material ***************************************************************** 23 N-waste in Utah? Bennett balking Saturday, April 27, 2002 Senator airs his concerns about PFS proposal By Stephen Speckman Deseret News staff writer TOOELE — Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, doesn't want to rush bringing nuclear waste to the West Desert. "If it's safe in a dry cask, then why are we in such a hurry to move it?" Bennett asked at a Friday press conference, which preceded two public hearings with the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board. The hearings are set to continue Monday — the focus will be on the threat posed by possible seismic activity — as Private Fuel Storage seeks permission to build a $3.1 billion nuclear waste storage facility on Goshute tribal land in Skull Valley. If it's an issue of no more storage space at the sites where the waste was created, then let the political decision makers who drew the boundaries around those sites redraw the lines to make more room, Bennett said. "It can be a politically solved problem," Bennett added. He suggested that the same storage technology being studied for use in Utah might be used at the sites where the waste is being created. Critics of a proposal to temporarily store 40,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel rods on the Goshute reservation fear the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is rubber stamping the project. The NRC recently issued a favorable environmental impact statement recommending formal NRC approval for PFS to build a waste facility on the reservation. Bennett and former state Rep. Beverly White say to store the waste at Nevada's Yucca Mountain site, which Congress is considering for a permanent repository for the nation's nuclear waste. Bennett, though undecided, said he is "leaning" toward support of the Yucca site. "We have done our fair share in Tooele County . . . of taking waste," White said. There are too many unexplained illnesses in the area, she added, to allow the storage of more hazardous waste to possibly threaten human health. A group calling itself "Scientists For Secure Waste Storage" don't quite see it that way. Harvard University physics professor Richard Wilson, spokesman for the group, spelled out in detail for the advisory board the minimal risk to humans if PFS is allowed a site on Goshute land. Wilson said the facility would be important for any "sensible" U.S. and world energy policy. Tooele resident Jenny Williams agreed the waste needs a better temporary storage site before landing in its permanent resting place. "It's been generated," said the mother of two girls, "and we need to do something with it." Williams said she has nothing to gain personally from bringing the waste into Utah. Not all residents are unified in their support. Tooele resident David Gladden, 60, believes that within his lifetime it's possible that natural and man-made corrosive agents will affect the integrity of the waste storage units and allow a thermal radioactive plume to travel downwind and affect human health in his hometown. Other fears, as told through the microphone Friday, included possible terrorist attacks on a nuclear waste storage site, train accidents while transporting the waste to the West Desert and the potentially damaging effects that adding more waste to Utah would have on the state's tourism industry. For those among the Goshutes who are against PFS coming onto their reservation, it becomes a matter of protecting sacred land. Said one tribal member, "We are saying 'no' to this . . . to protect our future generation." E-mail: sspeckman@desnews.com © 2002 Deseret News Publishing Company ***************************************************************** 24 Utah Group just says no to N-waste at Goshute Saturday, April 27, 2002 By Amy Joi Bryson Deseret News staff writer Political, business and former military leaders joined Gov. Mike Leavitt on the steps of the Capitol Thursday to decry plans to store 4,000 canisters of nuclear waste in Utah's western desert. Members of the NO Coalition say the event represents the first time many of the groups have announced public positions in opposition to the plan by Private Fuel Storage to park the spent nuclear fuel on 100 acres of land at Skull Valley Indian Reservation. "These announcements represent the diverse group of people in Utah, more than 14,000 people, who are opposed to having this happen," coalition member Mary Draper said. "Once people understand what the plan is, I have not met one person who says, 'Gosh, this is a groovy idea,' " Draper said. The public pronouncement, which included representatives from Draper city, the Utah Defense Alliance and the Utah Association of Realtors, coincides with hearings being conducted by the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board. The hearings concluded Friday and will result in a recommendation by the board to either grant or deny the permit to Private Fuel Storage. That recommendation will then be considered by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which is expected to make its decision by fall. Steve Rush, Utah Defense Alliance's vice president, said his group has taken an active stance against the proposal because of the risks it poses to military interests. "One of the issues we have been dealing with is encroachment on the Utah Test and Training Range. By placing nuclear waste out there, it in effect creates a de facto no-fly zone and it diminishes the mission of that range." Skull Valley is right in the low-level flight path of the southern part of the range, Rush said. The alliance, a group that guards the interests of Hill Air Force Base and other military installations, has had members repeatedly raise the concern of aircraft incidents and the storage canisters well before Sept. 11, Rush added. "We've raised those issues before and after that, it certainly brought it home for us. Now, it is much more of a reality than anyone was willing to accept before." Although industry officials have dismissed concerns about aircraft, insisting the canisters can withstand practically any impact, Rush said the storage canisters can be penetrated by certain weapons systems. "What a beautiful terrorist target," Draper added. "You crash a jet into one of those 4,000 canisters and we are seriously toast in the West for thousands of years." Despite a maelstrom of protest by Utah's congressional delegation, Leavitt, the state Legislature and a wide assortment of groups, coalition members fear the NRC will ignore public sentiment and grant the permit. For the Goshute tribe at Skull Valley, the deal is an economic jackpot, anticipated to funnel as much $3 billion their way. E-mail: amyjoi@desnews.com © 2002 Deseret News Publishing Company ***************************************************************** 25 Commentary: So many nuclear messes to clean up (In Missouri) STLtoday - By Steve Mahfood 04/22/2002 07:03 AM EARTH DAY 2002 It was the spring of 1942 - two years after German scientists first confirmed the power from splitting atoms, and just a few months after the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor. The U.S. government was desperate to develop an atomic bomb. Under the gathering storm clouds of war, Dr. Arthur Compton, a Nobel Laureate from Washington University, lunched on April 17 with Edward Mallinckrodt Jr., head of the Mallinckrodt Chemical Co. Compton explained why uranium was needed for the war effort. Like countless patriotic Missourians before and since, Mallinckrodt agreed to help. By December, Missouri workers had produced enough uranium to supply Enrico Fermi's reactor in Chicago -- the first step in the Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb. From that quiet lunch, Missouri's role in building the U.S. nuclear arsenal expanded to include a decade of uranium production in downtown St. Louis, uranium waste disposal at North County sites, another decade of uranium production at the Weldon Spring site in St. Charles County and a nuclear factory near Hematite in Jefferson County that supported U.S. Navy nuclear submarines. Some work remains classified to this day. Now we are facing the long-lived legacy of these nuclear weapons operations. A dedicated crew at the Weldon Spring site has nearly completed cleanup there. And since taking over the job in 1997, the Army Corps of Engineers has made enormous progress in cleaning up the St. Louis waste sites. The cleanup of the Hematite site is just beginning, however. This delay brings with it tragic consequences to the families whose wells have been tainted by the toxic leftovers of the federal government's nuclear operations there. Despite the progress, much work remains. Fortunately, Missouri's congressional delegation is helping force the federal Energy Department to deal with the residual groundwater contamination at Weldon Spring. Also, we are working to make sure that the federal government meets its long-term obligations and does not leave Missouri with a giant unfunded mandate. Similarly, we are now entering a crucial stage to ensure that the St. Louis cleanup is completed in a way that supports community land use. Every day in Missouri we are proving that economic and environmental health go hand-in-hand. We see this with regular low-tech and new high-tech businesses operating with a sound environmental ethic. Regrettably, we also see examples where skimping on environmental protection bears the bitter fruit of economic calamity for families and entire communities. In north St. Louis, for example, the Army abandoned a contaminated ammunition plant nearly 10 years ago. The cleanup delays have stifled efforts to develop the site safely and replace the 5,000 jobs that were lost when the Army moved out. Because radioactive waste will outlast us all, we owe it to future generations of Missourians to build a vigorous program that does more than organize a perpetual maintenance and monitoring operation at these sites. We must insist that a serious investment be made to address the fundamental scientific and engineering challenges related to this waste. Properly supported scientific research may lead to better cleanup and surveillance methods and a better understanding of the potential health impacts. We must ensure that the federal government builds information systems detailing exactly where any residual contamination is located. Only in this way can people be protected and will future investors and insurers have the confidence to help develop these parcels. Finally, we must insist that the federal government provide adequate reliable funding to support this work. In the future, before allowing the federal government to sully our soil, we must insist that the environmental consequences be fully considered. Uncle Sam should play by the same environmental rules imposed on private companies. Self-regulation by the federal government has failed miserably and should end. Being a pioneer is not easy. Missouri's pioneering at the dawn of the nuclear age now demands development of a sustainable environmental cleanup. Expedient and near-sighted cut-and-run environmental projects will only kick the nuclear can down the road to another generation. This is not what pioneers do. Steve Mahfood is director of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, Jefferson City. ***************************************************************** 26 Nuclear fuel vessels leave British port for Japan Japan Today Japan News - News - Saturday, April 27, 2002 at 09:30 JST LONDON Two ships which will return a nuclear fuel shipment from Japan to Britain in June left their English port Friday morning amid a barrage of protests by Greenpeace. The two vessels, the Pacific Pintail and Pacific Teal, departed Barrow-in-Furness in northwest England around 9:30 a.m. local time and are expected to arrive in Takahama, Fukui Prefecture, in June. Both vessels left the port amid a heavy police presence, but there were no demonstrations or disruption to the departure. One of the ships is loaded with a special container which will hold plutonium-uranium mixed oxide (MOX) fuel when it returns to Britain from Japan. It is expected that the Pacific Pintail will carry MOX fuel back to Britain while the Pacific Teal will provide security. Both vessels will have armed guards aboard. The British and Japanese governments agreed that the eight assemblies of MOX fuel should be returned to the British manufacturer, British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL), after it was discovered in 1999 that quality control data on the fuel had been falsified at the company's Sellafield plant. The fuel was made for Japanese utility company Kansai Electric Power Co. Greenpeace attacked the shipping operation, claiming that the "U.K. and Japan have started the countdown to the most controversial nuclear shipment in history," citing environmental and safety concerns. The environmental group has written to the British government and to BNFL this week to outline its case that the transport from Japan would be unlawful and violate international agreements. They argue that Britain is breaking a promise it made to the Irish government that there will be no transports associated with the operation of the Sellafield MOX plant before October this year. Greenpeace also claims that approval for the shipment was given by the United States on the basis that the plutonium in the tainted MOX will be recovered and returned to Japan in the form of fresh MOX. However, it claims that no decisions have been made yet by BNFL about what to do with the shipment. According to Greenpeace, the vessels will arrive in Takahama sometime during the second week of June, with the loading process taking roughly two weeks, and the shipment will arrive in Barrow during the second half of August. On Friday, Kansai Electric Power announced it was informed of the departure by BNFL earlier in the day. Norman Askew, the chief executive of British Nuclear Fuels, said in a statement released by the company Friday, "This is an important milestone for BNFL as it begins to draw a line under the issue and we now look forward to an increasingly positive relationship with our Japanese customers." BNFL said that no date has been finalized for the departure of the vessels from Japan, although it was the company's intention to return the fuel during this year. In the statement, the company said that no decision had been made on the future use of the fuel, but that it would be in accordance with the customer's wishes and with the relevant regulatory requirements. According to Kansai Electric Power, the departure of the two ships from Japan needs the approval of the Land, Infrastructure and Transport Ministry for design changes of the containers as well as for two other procedures, including one to confirm the container filled with MOX fuel meets safety standards. The MOX fuel is currently being stored at Kansai Electric Power's nuclear power plant in Takahama on the Sea of Japan coast. (Kyodo News) ***************************************************************** 27 MOX ships depart U.K. for Japan The Japan Times Online Saturday, April 27, 2002 OSAKA -- Two ships that will transport mixed plutonium-uranium (MOX) fuel currently stored in Takahama, Fukui Prefecture, back to England began their journey to Japan on Friday, Kansai Electric Power Co. Ltd. officials said Friday. "The Pacific Pintail and Pacific Teal departed Britain this morning," said Yuichiro Matsuo, an official at Kepco's nuclear fuel division. "It will take the two ships between one and two months to arrive in Japan." The fuel the ships will carry was originally delivered to a Kepco-operated nuclear power plant in Takahama in October 1999 by British Nuclear Fuels Ltd. However, after antinuclear activists in Britain and Japan voiced concerns over anomalies in the MOX fuel's quality control data, BNFL admitted that the data had been falsified and Kepco, bowing to public criticism, decided not to use the fuel. Kepco said final preparations are under way concerning the loading of the fuel onto the ships. However, the firm would not reveal the ships' route, citing security concerns. Greenpeace and other antinuclear activists have expressed concerns that the fuel will be loaded onto the ships in June -- a time when Japan and South Korea will be jointly hosting the World Cup soccer finals and concern in the region over potential terrorist threats will hit new heights. Kepco officials would not reveal whether the ships would arrive during the World Cup or the exact date when the fuel would be loaded on board, saying only that no final decisions have been made. The Japan Times: April 27, 2002 (C) All rights reserved ***************************************************************** 28 'Mobile Chernobyl' to Circle Beltway Local - WJLA Friday April 26 01:17 PM EDT If you travel the Beltway Friday, it's possible that youmightsee a radioactive waste container traveling along side of you. The full-size container is emblazoned with radioactivity and danger symbols such as "Danger- High-Level Radioactive Waste, Mobile X-Ray Machine that Cannot Be Turned Off and Nuclear Rust-ulatory Commission." But don't be alarmed. It's not real. The "Mobile Chernobyl" is just a replica, and it's on the road to protest the 16th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Russia and the dumping of radioactive waste at YuccaMountain. The Mobile Chernobyl will circle interstates 95 and 495 around the District from 7 to 10 a.m. and will hit the road againFriday afternoon from 3:30 to 6:30 p.m. It will also make a trip to Calvert Cliffs in Calvert County and downtown Baltimore. © Copyright 2002 WJLA-TV ***************************************************************** 29 S.C. governor leads revolt Rocky Mountain News: State Ellen Jaskol © News Virginia Sanders, an organizer for the Sierra Club in Columbia, South Carolina, protests the shipping of plutonium from Colorado's Rocky Flats. South Carolina Governor Jim Hodges has vowed to stop the shipments unless he is reassured that the plutonium will not remain in the state. Hodges rallies unlikely bedfellows in bid to turn back Rocky Flats plutonium By M.E. Sprengelmeyer, News Staff Writer April 27, 2002 COLUMBIA, S.C. -- The rebel leader took to the steps of the South Carolina Statehouse with a defiant message for the United States government. "They will be turned back at South Carolina's border," Gov. Jim Hodges proclaimed Thursday, and there were cheers from a small group of folks gathered under a scorching sun. The Confederate flag was flapping nearby. Civil War memories are never far away in this state once ravaged by the Union army. But Hodges is not your typical "rebel." He's a Democrat -- one branded a liberal grandstander by Republican critics and dismissed by others as "Elmer Fudd." And the crowd Thursday was no red-eyed militia. It was a group of about 80 environmentalists: housewives with their children, college students and other activists. Their message, printed in big black letters on yellow placards: "Keep it in Colorado," a reference to radioactive plutonium from the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant near Denver. To keep the Colorado plant on track for closure in 2006, the federal Department of Energy plans to truck the waste to South Carolina's Savannah River Site in mid-May. The governor has pledged to lie down in the road and use state troopers to block the shipments because the federal government has not given any enforceable legal guarantee that the plutonium will ever leave South Carolina. Hodges might win cheers at the Capitol, but mentioning his name also draws scoffs and ridicule in the string of small towns that owe their entire economies to the nearby Savannah River Site. "I was talking to a friend," former plant worker Billy Thomas said, kicking back at his wife's vegetable stand in Barnwell. "He wished the governor would lie down in the road and one of the trucks would run over him and leave just a grease spot. "What the governor is doing is, I think, just something to get some publicity with all these do-gooders and stuff," Thomas said. The governor also has his allies in the quaint communities surrounding the 300-square-mile Savannah River Site. And he will need them there, for that's where the next big battle is looming in the conflict between federal interests and states' rights. New Ellenton Last Monday, Hodges rehearsed the looming showdown near the crossroads of state Highway 19 and U.S. Highway 278, a spot called Johnson's Crossroads in the town of New Ellenton. With state troopers and a gaggle of media in tow, Hodges watched as a mock blockade successfully turned back a state-owned tractor-trailer pretending to be carrying the dreaded plutonium cargo. Nearby, newly elected Mayor Jim Sutherland watched in disapproval. A mountain of a man who is nearly deaf, he is an environmental engineer at the Savannah River Site. He was elected mayor promising to turn around the withered retail district along Highway 19. In the past few years, the Piggly Wiggly store shut down. The Kentucky Fried Chicken is boarded up. So is the Waffle House, and the old hardware store and auto parts outlet are long gone. One reason is that job cutbacks at the old nuclear site have reduced traffic on the road leading to genteel Aiken. At its height, SRS employed 22,000 people. Today it's around 13,000. "New Ellenton has had its ups and downs," Sutherland said. And that was an understatement. Until 1952, the town occupied some of the same land where the Savannah River Site now sits. Then the federal government came, said it needed the land for national security interests, and families moved their homes, their schools and even their cemetery several miles up the road toward Aiken. Now, Sutherland is worried that the governor's theatrical threats could jeopardize something that could bring new life -- and more jobs -- to the community. Sutherland expects the federal government to live up to its past plans to build a plant to turn the Rocky Flats plutonium into mixed-oxide fuel for commercial nuclear power plants. The governor and some of his supporters see the blockade threat as a way to pressure the federal government to make a binding, legal commitment to build the so-called MOX facility. Sutherland and his wife, Rebekah, disagree. "It could have a negative impact because it could force the Department of Energy to pull back on what they're doing," said Rebekah Sutherland, a nuclear lab technician who this year is the first female Republican to run for governor. "Governor Hodges is doing something very dangerous," she said. "He is opening the state to military intervention. Here we go again. The feds came in in the Civil War, and here they come again." A colorful and controversial local character, she is listed as "Reb" Sutherland on the ballot to win the votes of Southern heritage backers who read it as shorthand for "Rebel." Not everyone in New Ellenton is against the governor. At the antiques haven Lucy's Attic, 75-year-old Lucille Stallings remembers when her family was forced to move up the road and out of the new town. She worked 18 years at the facility's cafeteria and said the governor is right to push for assurances on when the plutonium will be processed and moved out. "I don't really blame him," she said of the governor. "I think they should give us a date or something close, don't you?" If Stallings were governor, she adds, "I'd barricade it, too." Aiken A few miles down the road in the tree-lined, genteel town of Aiken, Mal McKibben's office is tucked in the basement of a building on the local country club's grounds. Aiken is populated by Ph.D. nuclear scientists from SRS, plus many rich, refugee Yankees who have been raising thoroughbred horses in this "Polo Capital of the South" for generations. McKibben, 68, worked as a nuclear chemist at the site from 1955 to 2000. Now he runs Citizens for Nuclear Technology Awareness, which promotes the facility's mission and lobbies for things like the mixed-oxide fuel, or MOX, plant that could give it a longer lease on life. That usually puts him at odds with environmentalists, who sound the alarm about potentially deadly pollution and also oppose the MOX plant. But on this issue, his group and the Sierra Club both support Hodges' blockade threats for opposite reasons. "They (environmentalists) are hoping this governor, by stopping this, stops MOX also," McKibben said. "I'm hoping that in taking this position, the governor will assure that we do get the MOX program." What those two interest groups have in common is their fear that the Savannah River Site might become nothing more than a permanent storage site for the plutonium. That would mean no additional jobs but extra anxiety over dangerous contamination. "Tell the people of Colorado it's nothing personal," Sierra Club organizer Virginia Sanders of Columbia said. "It's self-preservation for them, and it's self-preservation for us. I just feel South Carolina has more than its share of waste." Gov. Hodges knows he has pulled together some strange bedfellows to back his call for a blockade. And he knows it has made him a villain of sorts in Colorado. Just last week, a spokesman for Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., referred to Hodges as "Elmer Fudd." "I could care less," Hodges said, laughing at the nickname. "My concern is about South Carolina," Hodges said, sitting inside a capitol building that had to be rebuilt after it was destroyed by Gen. Sherman's Union troops during the Civil War. "I also think I'm doing a favor to the nation in trying to reach some kind of final resolution about what we're going to do with plutonium." He adds: "What people in Colorado think, I could care less." Barnwell Still, his defiant words aren't winning the governor universal support in Barnwell, just down the road from the Savannah River Site's southern guardhouse. Until the facility opened in the 1950s, the town's biggest claim to 20th century fame was that it housed Nazi prisoners of war during World War II. The town's first police headquarters -- a shack-sized octagon designed and built by those German prisoners -- is the centerpiece of a circular, downtown plaza. It's a peaceful refuge from the nearby strip malls, and the local government even broadcasts easy listening music from loudspeakers planted on a building nearby. Still, the governor's blockade threats have disturbed the peace among some who live or work in Barnwell, including barber Renee Patton. "Three-fourths of the people who come in here work at that plant," Patton said. "It's their livelihood. People want to keep it there. I'm not an advocate of this, but the waste has got to go somewhere. I don't know why they want to stop it all of a sudden." Around the corner, a tall stone pillar erected in 1900 honors those who "fell in the war for the rights of the states." As the inscription describes the Confederate dead: "Their courage never quailed, their convictions were never deserted and their manhood was never surrendered." Gov. Hodges, the newest "rebel," said he still hopes the latest war of words with the U.S. government can end without a showdown on the road. "I felt I had to send a very clear message to Washington about what we're willing to do," Hodges said of the blockade. "Honestly, people call me from Aiken and say, 'Hang in there. This is the right thing to do. We're worried about the long-term aspects of this.' " Hodges shows a visitor the collection of autographed football helmets that line several shelves behind his desk. He is asked which helmet he might wear if he lies down in the road to block the trucks. The governor quips without a pause: "University of Colorado." News staff photographer Ellen Jaskol contributed to this report. The E.W. Scripps Co. ***************************************************************** 30 Hodges demands assurances Rocky Mountain News: State 'I had to send clear message' By M.E. Sprengelmeyer, News Washington Bureau April 26, 2002 COLUMBIA, S.C. -- South Carolina Gov. Jim Hodges isn't backing down. He has said he will lie down in the road to stop truckloads of plutonium from Colorado's Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant from reaching his state's Savannah River Site. For that, the Democratic governor wins praise from local environmentalists and others, while critics accuse him of grandstanding. In an interview this week with the Rocky Mountain News, Hodges said his threat is real. He said his state wants "ironclad" assurances from the Department of Energy that the plutonium will be processed into mixed oxide fuel for nuclear plants (also known as MOX) or be moved out. ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS: Did you ever think you would be famous in the Rocky Mountain states? GOV. HODGES: No, and I don't particularly care to be. Our interests really are similar here. Colorado wants the plutonium out and I've always said we're willing to be a part of treating the plutonium as long as we have an enforceable agreement. Colorado's frustration is South Carolina's frustration. RMN: There are different people supporting your actions with totally different long-term goals. You have environmentalists supporting you for one reason, and you have people who are defending the plant supporting it for other reasons. Can you explain to a Colorado audience how that dynamic has worked to create these kinds of strange bedfellows on this one particular issue? GOV. HODGES: Well, because we're so right, and the position we are taking. The dual-track strategy that the Department of Energy originally undertook was an opportunity to create new missions and new jobs in the Savannah River Site and the Aiken community. When the Department of Energy backed away from that and opened the door to long-term storage of plutonium at the site, those who were very pro-SRS and pro-jobs realized that was not in their best interests, that long-term storage would not create jobs or economic opportunity, that it would basically make SRS a dumping ground. On the other hand, people who are anti-nuclear don't like MOX and like immobilization . . . they didn't like the fact that immobilization was taken off the table. And they're angry about that. RMN: Jobs and economics are a big part of your thinking, aren't they? GOV. HODGES: The major part of our thinking is we'd be foolish to take plutonium without ironclad assurances about what's going to be done with it. We at one time had promises we felt comfortable with that have been pulled off the table. What's to keep that from happening again? . . . We've got to have the capacity to say to the federal government: "You've broken your word. Come back and get your plutonium." RMN: Are you aware that the term "Elmer Fudd" has been floating around Colorado in reference to yourself? What do you think of the way you're portrayed among politicians and their spokespeople? GOV. HODGES: (Laughing) I could care less. (Laughing) I could care less. My concern is about South Carolina. I also think I'm doing a favor to the nation in trying to reach some kind of final resolution about what we're going to do with plutonium. Nobody at the federal level seems to be willing to make their minds up about how this is going to be treated. And I believe that I'm causing them to come up with some definitive, certain plans, which is in Colorado's interests, in South Carolina's interests and the nation's interests. What people in Colorado think, I could care less. RMN: What will happen if the trucks get into the state -- if you don't stop them at the border? GOV. HODGES: They won't make it to the Savannah River Site. They'll go back. Once they're in our state, we have some mechanisms available to address making them leave our state. RMN: We went to barber shops, fruit stands, places like that with average folks, and almost without fail, the first thing out of people's mouths when you asked them about what the governor was doing was: "It's all political. He's trying to cash in during an election year." What do you say to those average folks out there? GOV. HODGES: Well, it's not all political. And I think you'll find from our mail and the calls we receive, people are saying, "Hang in there." They don't want plutonium in South Carolina if it's just going to be stored here. They want a long-term solution to it. People resent the federal government believing that it can get by with simply sending it here with no plan for it. RMN: Do you have anything you'd like to say to the Colorado delegation, leaders from Colorado and also the people of Colorado? GOV. HODGES: Well, I think our interests are similar. The people of Colorado want to see the plutonium issue resolved and they want to see plutonium leave Rocky Flats. We have always been willing to be a part of treating the plutonium, safely treating it and then sending it somewhere else for final disposition. That position hasn't changed. . . . All we're asking for is to be treated fairly, to have an enforceable agreement in place that, if violated, gives us the capacity to make the federal government honor its word. RMN: Can you make a prediction about what you think is going to happen a month from now, or several weeks from now? GOV. HODGES: Well, I can't. I hope it's resolved. Every day we're out there working to reach an amicable solution of it. RMN: Did you feel you had to go to the step of actually blocking the road, rather than just doing it behind closed doors, trying to get signatures on paper? GOV. HODGES: I felt I had to send a very clear message to Washington about what we're willing to do. We've been trying the other path for the better part of a year. We make some progress and then they back up. We make some progress and then they back up. The E.W. Scripps Co. ***************************************************************** 31 CCAGW Applauds Committee's Yucca Decision U.S. Newswire 25 Apr 17:55 CCAGW Applauds Committee's Yucca Decision; Nuke Depository is Cost Effective, Safeguards Environment, National Security To: National Desk Contact: Sean Rushton or Mark Carpenter, 202-467-5300, both of the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste WASHINGTON, April 25 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) applauded the House Energy and Commerce Committee for voting to move forward with making Yucca Mountain, Nevada the nation's primary nuclear waste depository. The decision comes after Nevada Governor Kenny Guinn vetoed the government's initial decision to move forward on Yucca. That decision came after two decades of scientific analysis and political wrangling over where and how to deposit and store nuclear waste. "After spending more than $6 billion to determine the safest and most secure site, the government has correctly concluded that it is safe to bury nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain," CCAGW President Tom Schatz said. "In addition, keeping the waste at its current location at nuclear plants around the nation wastes taxpayer dollars." The cost of maintaining nuclear waste at sites around the country could be more than $60 billion. In addition, several federal court decisions over the last several years have found the Department of Energy has violated the law by failing to construct a permanent nuclear waste site. The president's support of Yucca Mountain should end that litigation track, but open up another as activists have said they intend to delay Yucca's activation as long as possible. "Nevada's officials should recognize that this project is safe and makes sense, and drop all legal road blocks. Taxpayer money has been allotted for this project; it's time to move forward," Schatz said. "Additionally, Sept. 11 should have taught this country a lesson about its potential weak spots," Schatz added. "Yucca is a crucial security precaution against terrorism. Currently, a terrorist has over 100 chances in 39 states to breach security where nuclear waste is stored, and there are scores of sites -- power plants, old reactors, etc. -- where nuclear material now resides. The shallow nuclear storage pools built in the 1970s were only designed as a temporary measure, and are often located near major U.S. cities. Putting most or all nuclear waste in one facility that can be carefully documented and guarded, like Ft. Knox, ensures high security, not to mention enormous economies of scale financially." "Everyone from the U.S. Geological Survey to the Department of Energy has agreed the Yucca Mountain site is scientifically sound. Further delay means the waste of yet more money -- it's time to act," Schatz concluded. The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste is the lobbying arm of Citizens Against Government Waste, the nation's largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government. Web site: [http://www.cagw.org] http://www.usnewswire.com ***************************************************************** 32 Scientists Voice Concerns about Yucca Mountain Repository: Scientific American April 26, 2002 NUCLEAR WASTE Scientists Voice Concerns about Yucca Mountain Repository Normally, engineers can assess and improve upon the reliability of a new technology through operation. If a model car breaks down, the problem can be fixed before it hits the market. But not all developers have that luxury. In the case of geologic storage of high-level nuclear waste, currently planned for Nevada’s Yucca Mountain, the potential consequences of a leak leave little room for experimental error. Such a plan, say researchers writing in the current issue of the journal Science, demands a much sharper analysis of geologic and atomic-scale processes than has been conducted thus far. For this reason, they argue, President George W. Bush's recent decision to recommend Yucca Mountain as a disposal site for high-level nuclear waste is premature, and the plans should not advance until the relevant scientific issues have been thoroughly explored. The push to establish a repository at Yucca Mountain is based on political considerations and national security concerns, not hard science, Rodney Ewing of the University of Michigan and Allison Macfarlane of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, assert. They point to recent shifts in the design strategy to support their view. For one, the role of engineered barriers for the waste has increased. Originally, Yucca Mountain was selected because of its natural characteristics: a repository could be placed 300 meters above the water table and, presumably, kept dry. But subsequent research results indicated that water may actually circulate upwards through the mountain, and near the proposed waste storage area. Accordingly, the plan now depends on engineered barriers, including durable drip shields that would prevent water from carrying away radioactive material. "By lessening the importance of geologic barriers, the properties of the site become less important," the authors write. "Indeed, the original concept of geologic disposal has been turned on its ear." But this is hardly the only problem with the Yucca Mountain proposal, Ewing and Macfarlane observe. Other long-term factors, such as the influence of climate change, the durability of the metallic waste packages, and the impact of volcanic activity require detailed probing as well. Yucca Mountain may yet prove to be a good location, the researchers concede, but the proposal warrants more thoughtful and complete consideration before any such decision can be made. Quoting Thomas Jefferson, they conclude, "Delay is preferable to error." —Greg Mone ***************************************************************** 33 BNFL SETS NUCLEAR TIMEBOMB TICKING ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE CHERNOBYL DISASTER [Nuclear Transport Homepage] 26 April 2002 London - Two armed British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) freighters left Barrow-in-Furness in northern England this morning, setting the clock ticking on the most controversial nuclear shipment in history. The vessels are bound for Japan to undertake a proposed transport containing plutonium, sufficient to build 50 nuclear bombs, from Japan to Sellafield. The return of the material, a mixture of plutonium-uranium oxide (MOX), to the UK would be in defiance of both international and UK law. "The UK and Japan have started the countdown to the most controversial nuclear shipment in history on the anniversay of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster (1)," Greenpeace International Nuclear Campaigner Shaun Burnie said. "They could not have chosen a more fitting date to remind the international community of the arrogance and dangerous risk-taking of the nuclear industry”. Greenpeace has written to the UK government and to BNFL this week to outline its case that the transport from Japan would be unlawful and in breach of international agreements (2). The return shipment would also violate an undertaking given by the UK government to the International Law of the Sea Tribunal in November 2001. Following a challenge against the newly approved Sellafield MOX Plant by the Irish Government to the Tribunal, the UK told the Tribunal that no imports of MOX fuel associated with the operations of the Sellafield MOX Plant would go ahead before October 2002. The two vessels, the Pacific Pintail and the Pacific Teal, one acting as an armed escort, the other carrying the plutonium, would face a barrage of international opposition if they make their global journey, the environmental organisation predicted. Demonstrations are planned in Ireland today (3). The ships plan to pick up the plutonium MOX material, at Takahama in Japan in June, and return it to the UK in early August. The material is being returned to the UK solely because after being shipped as fuel to Japan in 1999 it was revealed that the manufacturer, BNFL, had falsified critical quality control data during its production. "The industry is creating a floating terrorist target and a dangerous hazard simply in order for BNFL to be able to get new contracts with its Japanese customers. This would result in yet more shipments of plutonium fuel, perhaps as many as 80 over the next decade," Mr Burnie said. The nuclear industry is keeping secret the route of the proposed June shipment, but it if it goes ahead it is likely to take one of three possible routes from Japan to the UK: via the Pacific, Panama Canal, Caribbean, Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea via the Pacific, Cape Horn, Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea via the Pacific, Tasman Sea, Cape of Good Hope, Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea. "BNFL lied to the world about the falsification of safety data; countries along the routes have every right to be concerned that a company with such a dangerous and discreditable history should be in charge of the safety of this shipment," Burnie said. Caribbean countries have already this year voiced their "implacable opposition" to nuclear shipments through their region and Latin American countries have also voiced protest. During a shipment of MOX to Japan through the Tasman Sea last year, a flotilla of small yachts sailed from Australia and New Zealand to oppose the PNTL vessels. The flotilla protest was supported by the New Zealand government. There are also serious concerns about the safety of the shipment, which should also have prevented the PNTL vessel leaving. The cask in which the plutonium is to be transported has not yet been licensed by the Japanese authorities. An earlier licence was revoked when it was discovered that levels of the single largest source of radioactivity in the cask, the radioisotope Plutonium-241, will be up to twice as high as originally estimated. "This shipment must be abandoned before it is too late. When this BNFL MOX fuel arrived in Japan in 1999, Japan was experiencing its worst ever nuclear accident at Tokai-mura. On the present schedule, the plutonium shipment will take place right in the middle of the FIFA World Cup in Japan, in spite of the enormous diversion of security resources this will take. The nuclear industry in the UK and Japan clearly has not learned from its mistakes, and are showing total disregard for public safety, the environment and international security," Burnie concluded. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT: Shaun Burnie, Greenpeace International Nuclear Campaigner +44 1557 814 195 Simon Boxer, Greenpeace International Nuclear Campaigner +31 62 900 1132 Mhairi Dunlop, Greenpeace International Nuclear Press Co-ordinator +31 65 350 4731 For photographs of PNTL vessels leaving, John Novis, +31 65 381 9121 For video, Mim Lowe, +31 65 350 4721 1. Today is the 16th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor accident, the worst disaster in the history of the nuclear industry. More than 100 emergency workers on the site of the accident on 26 April 1986 suffered radiation sickness and 41 of them died. There has been a dramatic increase in childhood thyroid cancer, normally a very rare disease. 2. Under international law the shipment cannot go ahead unless authorised by the US. The US has given approval on the basis that the plutonium is to be recovered and returned to Japan in the form of fresh MOX fuel assemblies. Yet the UK Government has told Parliament that the faulty MOX is to be imported and stored at Sellafield while BNFL decides what to do with it. And the UK has promised the Irish Government and the International Law of the Sea (ITLOS), that there will be no transports associated with the operation of the Sellafield MOX plant before October 2002. The import must be in breach either of the US authorisation or the undertakings given to ITLOS. Greenpeace has asked for a response from the UK Government by April 30th. A copy of the letter is available from Greenpeace. 3. There will be protests against the proposed shipment in Ireland at the UK and Japanese embassies in Dublin at 4.30pm organised by Greenpeace, the Gluaisteach student movement and VOICE and many other anti-nuclear groups. Contact: Kay Lynch on +353 8687 50827 for further details. ***************************************************************** 34 Columnist Susan Snyder: Waste issue more than pulp fiction Las Vegas SUN April 26, 2002 Susan Snyder's column appears Fridays Sundays and Tuesdays. Reach her at snyder@lasvegassun.com [snyder@lasvegassun.com] or (702) 259-4082. Lilina and Analise Lucchese are getting quite the civics lesson. The curriculum content is the kind that could keep adults awake at night. Trains and trucks packed with nuclear waste barreling across the land of the free to a repository tucked inside Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The Lucchese sisters learned of the proposal while reading the newspaper April 10. Lilina, 11, and Analise, 10, are home-schooled by their mother, Lisa Lucchese (pronounced as though it rhymes with "suitcase"), and reading the newspaper is part of their social-studies lessons. "Mostly we focus on local stuff. (Analise) is a fourth grader, and so we spend a lot of time on Nevada history," Lucchese said. This month, however, they focused on Nevada history in the making. When the girls saw that the nuclear waste was not only going to be stored near their hometown but toted across the entire country, they decided to speak up. They read that the Nevada Protection Fund was raising money to fight the repository, and they figured it was a good place to jump into the fight. "We wanted to do something to support the fund because it (the waste) may spill, and it may get to us," Analise said. Lilina said their Peccole Ranch neighborhood had a community garage sale that weekend, so they decided to set up an information booth about Yucca Mountain and sell lemonade for the cause. They made fliers giving information for making donations to the protection fund. They made other fliers listing the names, address, phone numbers and e-mail addresses of Nevada's congressional delegation. They cut out newspaper articles and printed proposed transportation routes off the Internet and mounted them on a presentation board. They spent about two hours a day doing research. On April 13, they were ready. "Some people really got an education," Lucchese said. Some people, the girls said, didn't have a clue as to what was happening even with all the recent publicity. The maps alone could scare a person. "Some people didn't even know about it," Analise said. "They didn't really understand it," Lilina added. "When we saw the routes, it showed that it goes through Indiana. We have relatives in Indiana." "It goes through Oregon, too, and we have a grandma there," Analise said. They sold $52 worth of lemonade, pitched in their combined monthly allowance of $40 and scraped up another $8 for a total fund donation of $100. "Some people just gave money. They didn't even want lemonade," said Analise, who nonetheless sold about 7 gallons. "One guy even came up to me and said he wanted to give me a hug." We'd all sleep easier if the most complicated subject Lilina and Analise had to research was what kind of hummingbird is building its nest on their front porch light. Nuclear waste accidents are scary brain fodder for 10- and 11-year-olds. But it's good to learn how one decision here can make a difference over there. Some grown-ups never get it. "I think they were surprised as to how far-reaching it is," Lucchese said. "And they wanted to know, 'How come we didn't have more of a say -- to say no?' " All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 35 'Shut Sellafield' postcards flood Downing Street online.ie : News The Irish Examiner 27 Apr 2002 By Mark Sage MORE than a million postcards were delivered to Prime Minister Tony Blair and the Prince of Wales yesterday as part of an Irish bid to have the Sellafield nuclear installation closed down. People throughout Ireland posted the cards after weeks of campaigning, backed by celebrities such as soccer international Roy Keane and pop stars Ronan Keating and Samantha Mumba. The 1.3 million postcards were set to reach 10 Downing Street and St James's Palace yesterday on the 16th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster. Others were heading for Norman Askew, head of British Nuclear Fuels Ltd which operates Sellafield. The Shut Sellafield campaign, spearheaded by Ali Hewson, wife of U2 star Bono, urged people to express fears that the Cumbrian power and reprocessing plant threatened the Irish environment and offered a target for terrorists. Ms Hewson was at Downing Street yesterday and said she was delighted with the response. . 'I am very proud to be Irish. The response from the Irish nation to the Shut Sellafield campaign has been overwhelming. Over 1.3 million people in this country have expressed their desire to close the reprocessing plant, which is a very strong message to the British Government." The postcards being sent to Mr Blair show an eye and carry the message: "Tony, look me in the eye and tell me I am safe." The card sent to Prince Charles at St James's Palace shows an image of Ireland suffering the fallout of a nuclear disaster at Sellafield. A third shows human lips calling on Mr Askew to "tell us the truth". Ms Hewson called on members of the public from across Britain to join them in their campaign because, she said: "You are at as much risk as we are. There's the potential for it to be very serious. " If the British people were to make this an election issue, then they (the Government) will have to listen. We are taking all the risks and yet we do not have a say in this," she said. ***************************************************************** 36 Senator Cites N-Dump Politics The Salt Lake Tribune -- Saturday, April 27, 2002 Activist Stephen Erickson displays a video cassette that he says shows the vulnerability of nuclear waste containers in testimony before nuclear licensing board. (Danny La/The Salt Lake Tribune) BY JUDY FAHYS TOOELE -- Sen. Bob Bennett told a federal licensing board Friday that finding a solution for the safe disposal of nuclear waste that might be bound for Utah is not so much a scientific problem as a political one. The Utah Republican was among dozens of Utahns who showed up at Tooele High School to speak during a hearing before the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board. The 4 1/2-hour hearing was expected to be the last time citizens will have an opportunity to address regulators before they decide on a license for a proposed facility that would store the nation's high-level nuclear waste on the Skull Valley Goshute Reservation. More than five dozen people attended. Noting that hard-shell containers for transporting and storing the lethally radioactive waste are said to keep it safe for up to 200 years, Bennett suggested that policy-makers should scrap "artificial" deadlines that will force removal of the waste from nuclear plant sites until it can be disposed of permanently. "If it is safe in dry-cask storage in Skull Valley, and if it is safe to convey it to Skull Valley, why is it not safe in dry cask storage where it is?" asked the Utah Republican. "It is a politically created problem that could be a politically solved problem." The three-judge administrative panel is in the state for five weeks of mainly technical debate about a proposal to store the nuclear plant waste in steel and concrete casks in Skull Valley, about 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. The panel plans to decide by September whether to license the $3.1 billion facility, which would be operated by a consortium of eight out-of-state utilities. Project opponents came to the hearing buoyed by the cautionary statement issued earlier in the week by leaders of the Huntsman Cancer Institute in Salt Lake City. Director Stephen M. Prescott and Huntsman's top research leaders said safety must be a priority for dealing with such high-level waste. "The key questions include whether appropriate precautions are in place to prevent the release of stored material -- either rapidly or gradually over time," they said, "and whether the procedures for transporting radioactive waste offer sufficient protection against sudden release." There also were proponents in the audience, including Goshute Chairman Leon Bear, who is facing an internal tribal challenge to his leadership, and a group calling itself Scientists for Secure Nuclear Waste Storage. "If the Skull Valley Tribe of Goshute Indians wants this facility, let them have it," the group said in its written testimony. "Let the rest of us thank them and congratulate them for choosing a facility that is important for any sensible U.S. and world energy policy and far safer than many others -- in particular, it is a much better choice than a casino." The licensing panel has been steeped for weeks in technical talk about the mathematical probability of aircraft crashes, the legal definition of wilderness and the like. Friday's comments dealt with heartfelt issues, such as fears about terrorism, government lies, health risks and becoming a national dump for dangerous wastes. Corporate officers at Sinclair Oil weighed in against the project. Sinclair spokesman Clint Ensign told the licensing board the tiniest accident could prove devastating to tourism. "The positive image of the state and the perception of people is critical to tourism," said Ensign, whose company owns two downtown hotels and a ski resort. © Copyright 2002, The Salt Lake Tribune ***************************************************************** 37 Impoverished Utah desert tribe sees salvation in nuclear waste; Utah officials are aghast RICH VOSEPKA, Associated Press Writer Friday, April 26, 2002 (04-26) 10:52 PDT SKULL VALLEY, Utah (AP) -- For 150 years, the Goshute Indians have scratched a poor living in Utah's West Desert while watching their ancient homeland overrun by white encroachment and industrialization. Now the small, impoverished tribe has found what it thinks is a great way to survive and prosper. Some members want to generate big money by storing much of the nation's spent nuclear reactor fuel on the reservation for up to 40 years. Utah's non-Indian population is aghast, and the Utah Legislature has passed laws to block the effort. But the tribal sovereignty that federal law recognizes limits the state's ability to veto the plan. And the tribe has few other economic options. In his 1872 book "Roughing It," Mark Twain called the Goshutes a wretched tribe living in a repulsive landscape. Time hasn't brought them much prosperity. They are a desert tribe. Goshutes traditionally survived in western Utah by ranging over a vast area in small groups, gathering pine nuts, tracking game and making use of virtually everything that grows in the desert. Those skills make for thin soup today. But waste storage could bring as much as $3.1 billion to the 124-member tribe if the waste storage facility operates for 40 years. Even the head of Utah's Indian Affairs office said he isn't sure what else the Skull Valley Goshutes can do with their 18,000-acre reservation if the nuclear waste dump is killed. "There's a lot that could have been done, but not now that the area's been polluted. They either join in the (pollution) process or they wither away and die," said Forrest Cuch, director of the Utah Division of Indian Affairs. If they succeed, it won't be the first time the tribe has gotten its way, despite the government. In 1864, President Lincoln signed a law ordering all American Indians in Utah to relocate to the Uintah Valley, 170 miles to the east of the Goshutes' turf, in terrain vastly different from their desert hunting and gathering grounds. The Goshutes refused. They stayed in the Skull Valley, about 50 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. The fight between the Goshutes and Utah's government is part of a bigger nuclear debate. In March, President Bush approved a plan that would make Yucca Mountain in Nevada the nation's permanent dump for spent nuclear fuel. The Goshutes and a group of nuclear utilities want to store the stuff in Skull Valley while the Nevada site is built. For up to 40 years, high level waste would sit in 16-foot-high, concrete-and-steel casks on the reservation. The plan is now undergoing review by the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board. The board will make a recommendation to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission this fall. It will be up to NRC to decide on a permit for the storage dump. A lawsuit over the issue is moving through federal court, but it is not expected to slow the NRC's decision. The Goshutes aren't strangers to society's toxic byproducts; disposal and storage facilities are their neighbors. The military stores and destroys chemical weapons nearby at the Tooele Army Depot and incinerator. Dugway Proving Ground tests countermeasures to biological weapons near the reservation. And low-level nuclear waste is already stored at Envirocare, about 20 miles away. But high-level nuclear waste, which stays deadly for as long as 10,000 years, shouldn't be kept in Utah, Gov. Mike Leavitt says. State officials worry that trains transporting the waste could be attacked by terrorists, or that an accident would expose people to radiation. They also have suggested that the waste site would be vulnerable to plane crashes. Air Force F-16s frequently fly over the site on the way to a nearby bombing range. The nuclear industry dismisses the fears, saying the casks could withstand nearly any kind of impact. Leavitt already put up a highway sign on the lonely road that leads to the Skull Valley Reservation: "High Level Nuclear Waste Prohibited, Except by Permit." The sign is largely for show. Spent fuel would reach the reservation via railroad. And issuing permits to nuclear facilities is up to the NRC, not the state. Leavitt is also defending Utah's anti-nuclear laws in federal court after the Goshutes and the utilities sued. No one denies that the Legislature passed these laws to block the plan. But the issue is the extent of Goshute sovereignty. Indian sovereignty is an evolving legal concept, but it has its roots in the historical status of Indian tribes as separate nations, recognized by Congress, and entitled to nation-to-nation relations with the U.S. government. Today, tribes are not treated as equals by the federal government. But their special status is respected, and they generally are not subject to state taxation or regulation. Sovereignty is the legal concept that allows tribes to operate casinos on their reservations, even in states that forbid gambling. For gambling, Congress established specific procedures that give state government some voice. But for nuclear waste storage, there are no rules specific to tribal lands, said Sue Martin, spokeswoman for Private Fuel Storage, the utilities working with the Goshutes on the plan. Tribal Chairman Leon Bear says the storage deal is an agreement between the tribe, the utilities and federal regulators -- and the state is not a player. Leavitt says the storage plan, opposed by a third of the band's 73 adult members, has potentially disastrous effects outside the reservation, so waste storage is very much the state's business. The economic outlook for the Goshutes is grim without the dump. As it is, tribe members need to leave the reservation to find jobs, he said. Fewer than 30 members live in Skull Valley. "There's no jobs here," said Joey Rush, a tribal member who works at Pony Express Station, the only store on the reservation. "This is it." "There is no question that economic development is difficult to accomplish in remote areas," Leavitt acknowledged. But beyond ordering a study of options for the Goshutes, the Legislature hasn't created any specific programs to help them. The tribe has promised to spend the windfall on a cultural center, fire and police stations and new homes for tribal members who work at the waste site. That would consume only a tiny portion of the potential income, however, and tribal leaders have declined to speculate on how they would spend or distribute the rest. Cuch is sympathetic with the dilemma facing the Goshutes. "The culture is not being passed on," Cuch said. "Now that we've succeeded in destroying their traditional ideals, we're mad at them because they want to put money in the bank." On the Net: Goshutes: www.skullvalleygoshutes.org [http://www.skullvalleygoshutes.org] Private Fuel Storage: www.privatefuelstorage.com/project/partners-svb.html [http://www.privatefuelstorage.com/project/partners-svb.html] Leavitt: www.utah.gov/governor/nukewaste.html [http://www.utah.gov/governor/nukewaste.html] The San Francisco Chronicle ©2002 Associated Press   ***************************************************************** 38 Scientists reject nuclear dump Atlanta Journal-Constitution: ajc.com: April 26, 2002 Nevada gets allies, but odds slim Jeff Nesmith - Cox Washington Bureau Friday, April 26, 2002 Washington --- Scientists published a report Thursday that the plan to store highly radioactive waste from nuclear power plants inside Nevada's Yucca Mountain is based on ''unsound engineering.'' On the same day, the House Energy and Commerce Committee voted 41-6 in favor of a resolution to overrule Nevada's rejection of the repository and sent the plan to the House floor. The House is expected to vote within weeks to override Gov. Kenny Guinn's ''veto'' of President Bush's decision to create the repository. Opponents of the site are pinning their slim hopes on the Senate. Writing in today's issue of Science Magazine, engineers Rodney C. Ewing of the University of Michigan and Allison Macfarlane of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology say the government is going ahead with the waste-storage plan without dealing with ''relevant scientific issues'' about the way spent nuclear fuel rods will react with the environment inside the mountain. ''With further study, Yucca Mountain may be judged to be an adequate site for the disposal of nuclear waste, but a project of this importance, which has gone on for 20 years, should not go forward until relevant scientific issues have been thoughtfully addressed,'' they wrote. ''In our view, the disposal of high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain is based on an unsound engineering strategy and poor use of the present understanding of the properties of spent fuel,'' they wrote. The Energy Department has been under pressure from owners of nuclear power plants to approve Yucca Mountain as the ultimate storage site for 77,000 tons of spent fuel rods now stored in ''cooling ponds'' at power plants around the nation. On Feb. 15, Bush designated the long, ridge-topped mountain on the government's nuclear test site about 90 miles from Las Vegas as the official national nuclear-waste storage site. The proposed repository is not popular in Nevada, and on April 8 Guinn ''vetoed'' Bush's designation. Congress has 90 days from the date of the governor's action to over-ride him with simple majority votes in both the House and Senate. If those votes happen, the Energy Department will apply to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a license to operate the repository. ''We believe that sufficient science has been done over the past 20 years to move forward to the licensing phase,'' said Steve Kerekes, a spokesman for the industry group Nuclear Energy Institute. Consideration of the licensing application by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission would take as long as four years, and waste shipments would not begin before 2010, Kerekes said. Thousands of truck and rail shipments then would cross the country annually, carrying casks loaded with the spent nuclear fuel to Nevada. Although the nuclear industry and Energy Department officials maintain that the casks are safe, a consultant to the Nevada state government told another House committee Thursday that they never have been tested and are vulnerable to terrorist sabotage. Nevada advocates full-scale testing of the casks and the vehicles that will haul them before the plan is approved, transportation specialist Robert Halstead told the Transportation Committee. Both Nevada senators and several state officials who oppose the Yucca Mountain plan also testified, while several Bush administration officials supported it. Edward M. Davis, president of the nuclear waste hauling firm NAC International, testified that he is ''fully confident that spent nuclear fuel can be safely and routinely transported to Yucca Mountain.'' The Yucca storage plan also was supported by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, in a statement submitted to the committee. © 2002 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution ***************************************************************** 39 India's multi-ethnicity danger to its nukes: report Pakistan News Service Updated on 2002-04-27 11:59:29 WASHINGTON, April 27 (PNS): Stating that New Delhi's "overconfidence" about its ability to keep its nuclear weapons and materials from falling into terrorist hands could be misplaced, a report by US policymakers and think-tanks has warned that the country's multi-ethnic society may pose a serious danger to its arsenal. "India is a multi-ethnic society with the world's second-largest Muslim population, and Arab fighters could blend into Indian society," reports PTI referring to a report, prepared during a conference in Washington by the NGO Stanley Foundation of IOWA. The vulnerability of Indian nuclear weapons or material to theft or diversion was an "overlooked" matter, it said adding it was "unclear whether Delhi has given serious consideration to this potential in the light of official overconfidence about the security of India's nuclear weapons." The report also expressed concern about the danger of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal falling into the hands of Islamic fundamentalists in case of a coup. Several observers were of the opinion that, in such a scenario, the US military should be ready to provide security over the nuclear weapons or even to take the weapons out of Pakistan entirely without the permission of Pakistani authorities, David Albright, president and founder of the Institute for Science and International Security, said. ***************************************************************** 40 U.S. could face hefty fine in SRS deal The State | 04/26/2002 | By SAMMY FRETWELL Staff Writer The U.S. Department of Energy and the state are negotiating an agreement that could result in heavy penalties against the federal government if it fails to eventually remove weapons-grade plutonium from the Savannah River Site near Aiken. A fine of $1 million-per-day of violation is under discussion, said two sources familiar with the negotiations. U.S. Rep. John Spratt, D-S.C., declined to confirm the fine amount, but said it's "a big number.'' He said Thursday night that state negotiators "are making progress" with federal officials, who have been reluctant to accept penalties if they do not make good on a pledge to process or get rid of the plutonium. The Department of Energy plans to begin plutonium shipments as soon as May 15 to South Carolina from a closed atomic weapons site in Rocky Flats, Colo. Gov. Jim Hodges has pledged to block shipments of plutonium if the federal government won't agree to remove the material should federal officials not process it as planned. Spratt, who along with U.S. Rep. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., has been involved in discussions with federal and state officials, said the agreement would come in the form of a bill that would be introduced in Congress. "The indication I have is that we are really making some progress, and it's in the direction the governor wants with monetary consequences,'' Spratt said. Energy Department spokesman Joe Davis could not be reached for comment Thursday night. The DOE has said it won't leave the plutonium in South Carolina indefinitely, but the agency and Hodges have been at an impasse on how to enforce the government's pledge. Graham, a candidate for the U.S. Senate, said Wednesday the Bush administration had resisted the idea of including fines and penalties against the federal government in a guarantee to keep its promises about plutonium disposal in South Carolina. Hodges sent U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham a letter Thursday, asking him to continue to work with Congress to find a solution before the shipments arrive. Hodges, speaking to reporters after an anti-plutonium rally in Columbia, said he likes the congressional delegation's resolve to work out an agreement. "Our congressional delegation proposed that we have enforceability terms in place that would involve significant financial penalties if the Department of Energy did not keep its promise," Hodges said Thursday. "I think it's reasonable and I think it's appropriate." Hodges said he wants an agreement that has "adequate teeth'' to protect South Carolina. Plutonium is considered to be among the more deadly radioactive materials. Small amounts in the air can increase a person's chances of lung cancer in certain circumstances. It is a metallic, radioactive material that once was fabricated at the Savannah River Site for use in nuclear weapons. The material was shipped to Rocky Flats, where it was further processed for atomic bombs. DOE says 75 percent of the material is returning from Rocky Flats to SRS. According to federal plans, plutonium is to be blended with uranium and turned into mixed oxide fuel (MOX) at SRS. The processing plants then would ship the material to Duke Energy Corp., for use in company power reactors in the Charlotte area. The Associated Press contributed to this story. ***************************************************************** 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: *****************************************************************