***************************************************************** 03/28/02 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 10.79 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POLICY 1 US has the power to get around no nukes policy, says Clark 2 US: Energy secretary met with 109 corporate executives, lobbyists 3 RBMK fuel to be cut into pieces 4 Iranian TV commentary criticizes US nuclear policy 5 US: Activists Asked For Energy Meetings 6 US: GOP Donors Lobbied Hard on Energy 7 Russia to continue building nuclear power plants abroad 8 Nuclear reactor in Iran will be built by '05 9 US: A Company's Gain From Energy Report's Recommendation 10 US: Environmentalists say they were rebuffed in request for meeting 11 US: Judge rejects securities suit against USEC 12 US: Alabama: Feds to fund nerve agent protection at incinerator NUCLEAR REACTORS 13 US: Gore critical of way U.S. energy policy developed 14 US: NRC to Meet with Exelon Generation Co. April 3 to Discuss Dresde 15 US: Millstone officials say reactors free of corrosion problem 16 US: Corrosion shock puts aged nuclear plants on top alert 17 US: Energy firm to keep Zion power plant shut 18 Closing ceremony for 'oldest' nuclear plant 19 US: NRC to Meet With Firstenergy April 3 to Discuss Perry Nuclear 20 US: Browns Ferry N-reactor restart viable 21 US: Jet could wreck TMI, NRC admits 22 US: Operators of S.C. reactors say plan... 23 US: NRC to Meet with Exelon Generation Co. April 2 to Discuss Quad 24 US: Entergy buy of Vermont nuclear plant cleared NUCLEAR SAFETY 25 US: Fallout, Cancer and Politics 26 Fiji: Nuclear test victims to undergo medical examinations 27 Taiwan: Nuclear safety OK: AEC 28 UN plays down Kosovo risk from uranium 29 UN Study Finds Depleted Uranium Contamination in Yugoslavia 30 UK: Nuclear safety OK: AEC 31 US: Ginna area to get radiation pills 32 US: Gauge with radioactive material recovered in Stokes County 33 US: Beryllium exposure test expands at Argonne 34 UN finds DU traces in Yugoslavia 35 Yugoslavia still contaminated by depleted uranium three years 36 US: Former IAAP worker receives $150,000 37 US: Nuclear plant burn victims in satisfactory condition NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 38 UK: Protests after fire on Sellafield nuclear waste ship 39 Russian radioactive waste plant treats 800 tonnes since November 40 US: NRC to Hold Public Meeting on Decommissioning Activities For 41 US: NRC holds public meeting on plan for nuclear storage 42 US: Aides Tour Proposed Nuclear Site 43 US: Senators, governor need $10 million to fight Yucca Mountain 44 US: Nuclear industry hopes trips to waste site, casinos will win 45 US: DOE says Nevada lawmakers ignored Yucca meeting invitation 46 US: Nuclear industry hopes trips to waste site pay off 47 US: WASTE REPOSITORY: Nuclear industry pays for Las Vegas junkets 48 US: Yucca: EDITORIAL: Acid test 49 US: Herrera urges county to put $3 million in anti-Yucca fight 50 US: Poll: Little known about Yucca Mountain 51 US: NUCLEAR WASTE: DOE: Yucca foes spurned talks 52 US: Yucca Editorial: Listen to what the people say 53 US: DOE, Nevada lawmakers in war of words 54 US: Guinn seeks alternative to session 55 US: E lands $20 million waste contract - 56 US: Ensign promises all out battle against Yucca NUCLEAR WEAPONS 57 Dr. Helen Caldicott's 'The New Nuclear Danger' 58 Letter: Birth defects and toxins 59 US: Nuclear daydreams and the Pentagon 60 US: Letter From Ground Zero 61 The man who built the Bomb 62 Russia's ex-nuclear minister speaks for resumption of nuclear tests 63 Back to the USSR? 64 Russia voices concern over US position on nuclear test ban treaty 65 Russia: N-subs clean-up too costly 66 Russia: Top Court Overturns Military Secrets Ruling 67 Hiroshima porcelain pieces provide insight into exposure levels 68 Russia: N-subs clean-up too costly - 69 US: Nix the mini-nukes 70 Russia's ex-nuclear minister speaks for resumption of nuclear tests US DEPT. OF ENERGY 71 Weapons Plant Modernization Begins 72 Argonne a candidate for $900 million facility 73 New DOE manager's stay expected to be brief 74 Storage facility 'anchor tenant' for Y-12 effort 75 Designer, builder of reactors; striver, innovator for 'Atoms For Pea 76 Modernization project gets under way at Y-12 77 SRS' F-Canyon plant closes OTHER NUCLEAR 78 Indian Scientists Use Radiation to Cure Flatulence 79 WNA NEWS BRIEFING 02.13 | 20 - 26 March 2002 ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 US has the power to get around no nukes policy, says Clark New Zealand News - NZ - New Zealand refused to allow the USS Buchanan to visit in 1985. Herald file picture 28.03.2002 Prime Minister Helen Clark says the United States can get around New Zealand's no-nukes policy and suggested she would let in a ship similar to that banned by former prime minister David Lange's government. In the 1980s, the US tested New Zealand's no-nuclear policy by asking permission for the USS Buchanan to visit. It was conventionally powered and was unlikely to be carrying nuclear weapons. However, because the US refused to confirm or deny the presence of nuclear weapons Mr Lange refused permission for the ship to visit. Since then no US navy ship has visited New Zealand despite the US announcing more than 10 years ago that no surface vessel carried tactical nuclear weapons. Speaking to journalists in Washington today, Miss Clark said the US had ways to get around New Zealand's firmly entrenched no-nukes policy if it wanted to. "The British and French navies sent vessels to New Zealand from time to time in compliance with the policy... That is an option for it (the US) to take if it wishes but I understand they believe they shouldn't have to pick and choose (which ships they send)... I understand where they are coming from, but it is also my duty to advocate for the New Zealand policy." The anti-nuclear legislation requires the prime minister to certify that a visiting ship is not nuclear powered or armed. Asked if she would allow the USS Buchanan or similar ships to visit, Miss Clark said: "You'd have to make a judgment on the information available to you. What has changed since 1985 is that the US has made an announcement that it has removed tactical nuclear weapons off its navy. So you would look at it in that light." Miss Clark said the Cold War was over and the issue of the ships had to be looked at in a new way. - NZPA ©Copyright 2002, New Zealand Herald ***************************************************************** 2 Energy secretary met with 109 corporate executives, lobbyists The Spokesman-Review.com - March 27, 2002 Analysis of schedule belies claim of only 36 WASHINGTON -- A review of newly released government records shows that Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, while working on the administration's national energy plan, met with more industry officials than his aides had previously reported. Many of the special interests who lobbied the administration while the plan was being drafted were big campaign contributors to the Republican Party. A day after the Energy Department and other agencies released 16,000 pages of records that had been sought under the Freedom of Information Act, the legal and political fracas intensified over how much influence industry lobbyists and campaign contributors wielded in shaping the administration's energy policy. Environmentalists, who documents show did not receive an audience with Abraham, said the material supported their contention that the policy was drawn up to favor the coal, gas, oil and nuclear industries. "The overwhelming evidence is that the Bush administration listened to their campaign contributors when they weighed in with their wish lists of policies," said Daniel Becker, director of the Sierra Club's global warming and energy program. But White House spokesman Ari Fleischer responded that environmentalists' views were included, citing a $3-billion provision to promote hybrid fuel-cell vehicles, and he downplayed Abraham's meetings with energy companies. "News flash: It's no surprise to anybody that the secretary of Energy meets with energy-related groups," Fleischer said. The release of the documents did nothing to calm the debate over whether the White House should have to identify individuals who met with Vice President Dick Cheney and other task force members and to disclose what was discussed in those meetings. Recent court rulings required only the Energy Department and other agencies to release documents related to the task force, formally known as the National Energy Policy Development Group. Because much of the information on the documents released Monday was deleted, Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group that had sued to obtain the material, vowed to go back to court to make the administration justify the omissions, as well as explain why it withheld 15,000 additional documents. Recommendations from government officials on policy options were deleted from the documents, because, the Energy Department argues, they are exempt from the Freedom of Information Act as part of the "deliberative process." Environmental groups said they had requested meetings with Cheney and Abraham and were turned down. Representatives of those groups did meet a handful of times with lower-ranking officials, including one large meeting April 4 with Andrew Lundquist, the task force's executive director. The meeting with Lundquist merely gave the environmentalists time to introduce themselves, Becker said. Lundquist then asked them to send their ideas in writing. "Contrast that with the Exxons, Enrons and General Motors of the world. They were consulted early, throughout and late -- and got what they wanted," said the Sierra Club's Becker. The documents show that Abraham met with more than the 36 representatives of business interests that his aides listed on an attachment Monday. Abraham actually met with 109 representatives of energy industry companies and trade associations, according to a comprehensive review of his daily calendar from late January 2001 to May 17, the day the White House released its national energy report. The meetings included groups such as the Nuclear Energy Institute, which has contributed $436,154 to Republicans since 1999, and executives of Excelon Corp., which contributed $937,386, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Abraham met Feb. 21 with representatives of the American Petroleum Institute and five oil companies, including the president of Anadarko Petroleum, which contributed $838,921 to the GOP since 1999, and the president of Chevron Texaco, which contributed more than $1.6 million to the GOP since 1999. In total, Abraham met with industry groups and lobbyists that have contributed more than $17 million to politicians since 1999, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. More than $12.6 million of that total went to Republicans. ***************************************************************** 3 RBMK fuel to be cut into pieces (St Petersburg:) The Leningrad Atomic Energy Station, or LAES, may have hit on a solution to an age-old overcrowding crisis in its nuclear waste storage pools and is forecasting that a new and supposedly safer dry storage facility could be ready for use by 2003. Leningrad Atomic Energy Station (LAES). photo: Thomas Nilsen/Bellona Charles Digges, 2002-03-27 22:58 The Leningrad Atomic Energy Station, or LAES, may have hit on a solution to an age-old overcrowding crisis in its nuclear waste storage pools and is forecasting that a new and supposedly safer dry storage facility could be ready for use by 2003. But a number of Russian environmentalists, while agreeing relocation of the waste is necessary, think the pending move to the new dry storage facility — which is still under construction — is hasty and could create ecological distress on par with or worse than what may happen if the fuel were simply left in its current state while better solutions are sought. One such environmentalist, Sergei Kharitonov, a former LAES employee turned whistle blower, even alleges that the new project, instead of increasing safety, will enrich LAES's coffers because of the patented new process it will involve. LAES press officials denied this charge, however, and would comment no further on it. The proposed plan, according to an official from Gosatomnadzor, or GAN, Russia's titular nuclear regulatory body, involves removing 22,000 15 to 27-year-old spent uranium and plutonium rods that were used by RBMK-1000 reactors — the same kind of reactor model that exploded at Chernobyl in 1986 — from the waste storage pools where they are currently hanging in LAES's dilapidated building 438 in dangerously close quarters — and where several substantial radioactive water leaks have been documented over the past several years. The rods themselves, several of which have been submerged in coolant for decades, are also severely corroded. Fuel from the fatally flawed RBMK-1000 cannot be reprocessed and, thus presents massive storage problems once it is used. The dry storage building would house those rods from building 438, presumably in an atmosphere of pure carbon dioxide, a speculation provided by David Cartwright, a reactor decommissioning specialist at Britain's BNFL Magnox, in a telephone interview Friday. Though Cartwright said this was the standard method of dry storage, Nikolai Afanasniev, spokesman for the regional branch of GAN that is overseeing the transfer of the rods refused to confirm the new storage method. Cutting the rods Storage pool for spent nuclear fuel at LAES. photo: GreenWorld The concerns environmentalists have about the waste relocation plan at LAES is twofold: Firstly, it is the tens of thousands of litres of radioactive cooling water from building 438 — a squat cement structure a mere 90 meters from the Gulf of Finland — that will have to be disposed of somewhere, most likely, given LAES's record, in the Gulf of Finland itself. Much of this water was shown as far back at 1996 to contain caesium 137. According to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, caesium 137 is a highly penetrating, dangerous radioactive isotope. According to the Bulletin, older cooling pools, should they catch fire, could release 100 percent of the isotope. For comparison, on 40 percent of the caesium 137 at Chernobyl was released into the atmosphere. Ironically, the water in 438's pools is not supposed to be radioactive, but the fact that building is filled to double its capacity — with 10,000 tonnes of assembly rods of spent uranium and plutonium, the water has become contaminated as the zirconium cladding surrounding the spent fuel corrode and rust. This highlights the second concern of environmentalists regarding the transfer of the waste: These waterlogged rods will also have to be sawed into pieces to be placed in dry storage — a process one physicist from the US based Nuclear Regulatory Commission, or NRC, said in a telephone interview Friday, could be "a contamination disaster if not handled properly." Sergei Kharitonov, a former LAES employee who worked in building 438 turned environmental whistle-blower agreed. "Sawing these rods will be releasing two decades of contamination," he said in an interview last week. "These things contain uranium 237 and 238 and weapons grade plutonium. If handled improperly, it could be a catastrophe. It possesses dangers to the workers themselves, and an ecological emergency for the surrounding area." The cutting of such substantial and corroded 10-meter long fuel assemblies is, furthermore, a first in the world of nuclear power. England and France routinely cut rods for transfer from water to dry storage at their Sellafield and Cape La Hague plants respectively. But spent fuel rod sawing at these plants is, according to Cartwright, conducted only after their meter-long rods have been submerged for a maximum of two years, at which point they are stripped of their magnox sheaths and cut in labs that have be doing the work for years. Cutting a 2-tonne-10-meter rod is a substantially different process. "Our nuclear industry has never tried anything like this — the experience of the Europeans notwithstanding," said Vladimir Slivyak of Ecodefence in a telephone interview. "This is a typically risky experiment from our nuclear authorities — they are risking contaminating hundreds of LAES workers, as well as perhaps the town, and their attitude its that what the general public doesn't know wont hurt them," he said. Despite the success of western plants in dismembering nuclear fuel, the experience doesn't really translate, said Kharitonov, because it places far more demands on the delicate RMBK-1000 rods themselves. First they are removed from their cooling pools, creating a drastic temperature change, the effect of which no one really knows. Secondly they are stood on end while they await sawing. According to Kharitonov, preliminary experiments at the sawing of the rods, preformed by inexperienced workers, yielded several injuries that were covered up by the plant. LAES press spokesman Sergei Averyanov said in a telephone interview Wednesday, however, that the new process was safe and denied that any workers have been hurt in preliminary tests. "That's just a lot of nonsense," he said. "This is an entirely safe process and one environmentalist have been wanting for a long time. I don't see any reason to complain." Averyanov was supported by Afanasiev from GAN — an organization being increasing marginalized in its decision making power by Minatom, Russia's Nuclear Power Authorities, which, according to Kharitonov, will likely be the government authority that rubber-stamps the waste transfer plan. "Obviously something needs to be done about [building] 438, but we are still at a very technical stage," Afanasiev said in a telephone interview from his St Petersburg office. "So far things seem to be proceeding safely, though the plans are in the hands of Moscow." Afanasiev's Moscow bosses refused to comment, deferring to Minatom, who also refused comment. Despite this opacity, calls to Rosenergoatom, that body which oversees Russia's nuclear power plants, confirmed that waste transfers — including the sawing of RBMK-1000 rods — would soon be underway at the Kursk and Smolensk nuclear power plants. A history of building 438 Building 438. photo: GreenWorld Indeed, the last few years have not been kind to LAES's building 438, and practically all environmental organisations that have contact with LAES have demanded its destruction. In 1996, the already groaning facility was forced to accept another 5,000 tonnes of radioactive fuel rod assemblies for lack of space. In a plan backed by LAES and approved by the Nuclear Power Ministry, new fuel rod hanging assemblies that doubled the load — and were even patented — the building was packed to capacity. In a recent visit from delegates of the Finnish Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 22 leaks were counted in building 438, leading to a daily water seepage in excess of 400 litres. What environmentalists feared and still fear for building 438 is an Andreeva Bay scenario. In the disaster at Andeeva bay, on the Kola Peninsula, dozens of spent fuel assemblies that hung on hangers broke free and sank to the bottom of a cooling pool, damaging both the rods and the pool's thin steel lining. The water grew ever more radioactive and began to leak at a rate of 30 litres a day, a report on the incident by Bellona established. Two months later, the water was leaking at 100 litres a day. Ten months later, it was leaking 10 tonnes of highly radioactive water into the soil a day. Possible solutions/ulterior motives Kharitonov has submitted several plans to LAES officials — all of them rejected — that he says would make the waste transfer safer: build bigger containers for the waste. "That you have to saw them up is a fantasy, unless you are trying to save room for more waste," he said in an interview Wednesday. That waste may very well be Ukrainian waste that was sold to the break away republic when it was still a part of the Soviet Union. The sawing may also be to provide room for more paid waste imports from abroad, a policy the Russian government instituted earlier this year. "So LAES will become a nuclear waste dumping ground like the rest of Russia," Kharitonov said. "This waste [from building 438] is best disposed of by burial." Nonetheless, environmentalists from Kharitonov to BNFL's Cartwright to physicists at Britain's World Nuclear Organization agree that dry storage of spent RBMK-1000, is preferable to the system LAES currently uses now. "Dry storage with rods cooled in pure carbon dioxide is much preferable to the water cooling [they are using at LAES]," said Cartwright. "In the end, if it is handled correctly, it could be a feasible system." Publisher: Bellona Foundation, President: Frederic Hauge Information: info@bellona.no, Technical contact: webmaster@bellona.no Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62 * P.O.Box 2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway ***************************************************************** 4 Iranian TV commentary criticizes US nuclear policy BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Mar 28, 2002 Text of report by Iranian TV on 28 March According to the latest published reports, the American war ministry, the Pentagon, is currently working on a plan for manufacturing penetrating hydrogen bombs. This demonstrates that Washington, without paying any attention to protests raised by states and nations which advocate a policy of weapons control and disarmament, is endeavouring to increase the volume and destructive yield of its weapons of mass destruction. America which, in spite of growing international pressure, has so far avoided joining the treaty on a comprehensive nuclear test ban, and demonstrated its refusal to commit to the clauses of the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, is, on the one hand, bent on developing conventional weapons and, on the other, under the pretext of fighting terrorism and increasing American security measures, has also placed the increasing of nonconventional weapons on its official agenda. In the opinion of observers, this militarized policy of America will carry negative consequences, among which one can name a revival of a fresh arms race. Remarks made by Russian Defence Minister Sergey Ivanov that Moscow is currently working on a set of countermeasures vis-a-vis America's missile defence shield, is an example of the reactions to Bush administration's policy of expanding military technology. Undoubtedly, Bush's insistence to bolster missile technology through the implementation of the missile defence project, and also his insistence on manufacturing penetrating nuclear bombs, which is at the heart of international conventions and treaties regarding banning of weapons of mass destruction, will draw negative reactions from other countries and organizations. These reactions should be heeded from two angles: Firstly, other countries have regarded the American initiative as factor conducive to reducing international security, hence a serious threat to world peace. Secondly, rival countries, too, will become intent on increasing their military capability in order to prevent a disturbance of a global strategic balance; this would in effect mean increasing weapons rivalry in the world. A dangerous rivalry that the international society holds America directly responsible for. Source: Vision of the Islamic Republic of Iran Network 1, Tehran, in Persian 0930 gmt 28 Mar 02 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. ***************************************************************** 5 Activists Asked For Energy Meetings Las Vegas SUN March 27, 2002 WASHINGTON- Environmentalists said Wednesday they had requested a meeting with Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham in the months prior to release of the administration's energy report, but were rebuffed by an aide who cited Abraham's' busy schedule. John Adams, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the refusal to meet with the environmentalists stands in sharp contrast to the eight meetings Abraham had with energy and business groups in early 2001 to discuss the energy plan. Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force issued its report in May. "Big energy companies all but held the pencil for the (energy) task force," said Adams at a news conference where NRDC attorneys discussed some of the 11,000 pages of documents the Energy Department provided the group under a court order. The documents, released Monday, included a calendar schedule that showed Abraham's meetings with representatives of nuclear, oil, natural gas, electric utility and manufacturing groups. "It should come as a surprise to no one that the energy secretary consults with energy experts," said DOE spokeswoman Jeanne Lopatto. "That is his job, that is something we have done from day one." NRDC attorney Sharon Buccino said the documents released Monday in response to an NRDC lawsuit were "scrubbed, purged and sanitized" but still provide the "first hard evidence" of the influence the energy industry had in crafting the Cheney energy report. But she said NRDC was filing papers with the federal court seeking a hearing to get additional documents released. She expressed astonishment that among the 11,000 pages she could find only one document mentioning Enron, which had been an aggressive advocate on energy issues in Washington before it collapse. "We're in court asking for what was left out," said Buccino. The Energy Department, in releasing the documents, maintained that it had sought out environmental organizations, but suggested a lack of interest. "Even though contact was sometimes unsuccessful, DOE actively sought all viewpoints," the department said. "That's the biggest lie since Richard Nixon," snapped Buccino. The NRDC released a letter, dated Feb. 20, 2001, from the Green Group, a coalition of the major environmental organizations, that asked Abraham "to set aside a short while (in mid-March) to discuss important energy and environmental concerns." The letter was signed by Fred Krupp, executive director of Environmental Defense. A few days after it was sent, Abraham's appointments secretary called to say Abraham was too busy, according to the environmentalists. In March, Abraham held separate meetings with groups representing the nuclear industry, the oil industry and public utility industries to discuss the energy task force, according to the papers released this week. The environmentalists also asked to meet with Cheney, but that request too was denied. Instead, members of the Green Group met with Andrew Lundquist, the task force director, on April 4. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 6 GOP Donors Lobbied Hard on Energy March 27, 2002 THE NATION Politics: Green groups, largely left out of the policy planning process, say the documents show the Bush team favored industry interests. By RICHARD SIMON and ELIZABETH SHOGREN, TIMES STAFF WRITERS WASHINGTON -- A review of newly released government records shows that Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, while working on the administration's national energy plan, met with more industry officials than his aides had previously reported. Many of the special interests that lobbied the administration while the plan was being drafted were big campaign contributors to the Republican Party. A day after the Energy Department and other agencies released 16,000 pages of records that had been sought under the Freedom of Information Act, the legal and political fracas intensified over how much influence industry lobbyists and campaign contributors wielded in shaping the administration's energy policy. Environmentalists, who documents show did not get an audience with Abraham, said the material supported their contention that the policy was drawn up to favor the coal, gas, oil and nuclear industries. "The overwhelming evidence is that the Bush administration listened to their campaign contributors when they weighed in with their wish lists of policies," said Daniel Becker, director of the Sierra Club's global warming and energy program. But White House spokesman Ari Fleischer responded that environmentalists' views were included, citing a $3-billion provision to promote hybrid fuel-cell vehicles, and he downplayed Abraham's meetings with energy companies. "News flash: It's no surprise to anybody that the secretary of Energy meets with energy-related groups," Fleischer said. The release of the documents did nothing to calm the debate over whether the White House should have to identify individuals who met with Vice President Dick Cheney and other task force members and to disclose what was discussed in those meetings. Recent court rulings required only the Energy Department and other agencies to release documents related to the task force, formally known as the National Energy Policy Development Group. Because much of the information on the documents released Monday was deleted, Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group that had sued to obtain the material, vowed to go back to court to make the administration justify the omissions and explain why it withheld 15,000 additional documents. Recommendations from government officials on policy options were deleted from the documents, because, the Energy Department argues, they are exempt from the Freedom of Information Act as part of the "deliberative process." Environmental groups said they had requested meetings with Cheney and Abraham and were turned down. Representatives of those groups did meet a handful of times with lower-ranking officials, including one large meeting April 4 with Andrew Lundquist, the task force's executive director. The meeting with Lundquist merely gave the environmentalists time to introduce themselves, Becker said. Lundquist then asked them to send their ideas in writing. "Contrast that with the Exxons, Enrons and General Motors of the world. They were consulted early, throughout and late--and got what they wanted," said the Sierra Club's Becker. The documents show that Abraham met with more than the 36 representatives of business interests that his aides listed on an attachment Monday. Those meetings, held from Feb. 9 to May 10 of last year, included groups such as the Nuclear Energy Institute, which has contributed $436,154 to Republicans since 1999, and executives of Excelon Corp., which contributed $937,386, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Abraham's own schedule shows at least 20 additional meetings with lobbyists, oil and coal industry representatives. Abraham met Feb. 21 with representatives of the American Petroleum Institute and five oil companies, including the president of Anadarko Petroleum, which has contributed $838,921 to the GOP since 1999, and the president of Chevron Texaco, which has contributed more than $1.6 million to the GOP since 1999. In total, Abraham met with industry groups and lobbyists that have contributed more than $17 million to politicians since 1999, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. More than $12.6 million of that total went to Republicans. The documents indicate that key energy officials frequently sought information from lobbyists and industry groups as they were preparing the administration plan. There are several groups of e-mail volleys between Joseph T. Kelliher, senior policy advisor and chief coordinator of the agency's efforts on the energy plan, and lobbyists or representatives from various energy industries. Kelliher was nominated in October as a member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. For instance, Linda Stuntz, an energy lawyer and lobbyist and former senior official in the first Bush administration's Energy Department, e-mailed Kelliher on May 21, replying to his request for "concrete examples" of states having trouble siting transmission lines. She offered a Southern California example--the Rainbow Valley Project, which she said long had tried unsuccessfully to site 31 miles of transmission lines connecting Romoland to San Diego County. "I think what [Kelliher] was doing was asking us to be a resource," Stuntz said Tuesday. Stuntz also reached out to Kelliher, whom she described as a personal friend, to ensure that the energy plan made electricity grid standards mandatory. Both issues were priorities for one of Stuntz's clients, the North American Electric Reliability Council, which represents all public and private utilities. Times staff writer Edwin Chen and researcher Robert Patrick contributed to this report. Copyright 2002 Los Angeles Times ***************************************************************** 7 Russia to continue building nuclear power plants abroad thr 008 Russia-Nukes-Plants /WRD/ Moscow, March 28, Itar-Tass/ACSNA/IRNA -- Construction of nuclear power plants in China, India, Iran and Bulgaria according to Russian specifications will continue, Russian Atomic Energy Minister Alexander Kudryavtsev said. At a press conference on Wednesday, he said that work at the Tianwan nuclear power plant in China is going by schedule. He also said assembly work has been completed at units one and two, and 8, 500 tons of various equipment have been delivered to the construction site. He further said Russia and India have signed a memorandum containing the principles by which the Kudankulam nuclear power plant is to operate. "The schedule and volume of deliveries have been approved, and the mutual obligations of the parties determined." Moreover, he said about 5,000 tons of equipment have been shipped to the Bushehr nuclear power plant construction site in Iran. The Russian government has approved the Iranian Atomic Energy Ministry's concept of cooperation between Russia and Iran in the peaceful use of atomic power. Russia and Bulgaria have signed a contract to modernize units five and six at the Kozlodui nuclear power plant. The contract will enter into force in July of this year. Russia also plans to take part in a tender to build a 1,000-1,500 megawatt nuclear power station in Finland on a turn-key basis, the minister said. LS/LS ***************************************************************** 8 Nuclear reactor in Iran will be built by '05 -- The Washington Times March 28, 2002 By Vladimir Isachenkov ASSOCIATED PRESS MOSCOW — Russia will finish building a nuclear power plant reactor in Iran despite U.S. opposition and is considering a tentative North Korean request for a similar plant, Russia's top nuclear official said yesterday. The reactor Russia is building at an unfinished nuclear power plant in Bushehr, Iran, will be completed by 2005 as planned, Nuclear Energy Minister Alexander Rumyantsev said at a news conference. The United States has repeatedly urged Russia to abandon a 1995 contract with Iran to complete a nuclear reactor at Bushehr worth about $800 million, saying the project could help Iran build a nuclear bomb. Russia denies that, saying the reactor can only be used for civilian purposes and will remain under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency. "Iran has signed all required international agreements and undertaken full obligations on transparency and checks ... and unfailingly fulfilled them," Mr. Rumyantsev said. The controversy over Russia's nuclear cooperation with Iran and American claims that Russian companies have leaked missile technologies to Tehran is a major irritant in U.S.-Russian relations amid overall improvement. Mr. Rumyantsev said Russia's cooperation with Iran poses no threat of nuclear proliferation. He said a Russian law passed last year strengthened nonproliferation guarantees by allowing spent fuel from nuclear power plants abroad to be taken back to Russia for reprocessing. "We will ship nuclear fuel to Iran under the contract, which envisages that the spent fuel will be taken back to Russia," Mr. Rumyantsev said. "There has been no other cooperation that could help Iran build nuclear weapons." On a conciliatory note, he said Russia views the U.S. concerns with "great attention" and hopes for a "compromise that would help strengthen confidence and peace while allowing Russia to reap economic benefits." But he also said his ministry was looking at a tentative request from North Korea for the construction of a nuclear power plant. That could generate considerable anger in the Bush administration, which suspects North Korea of developing nuclear weapons. In January, President Bush labeled North Korea, Iran and Iraq an "axis of evil" seeking weapons of mass destruction. "We are holding discussions and trying to find out whether it would be economically feasible," Mr. Rumyantsev said. "But these are only discussions without any specific foundation." North Korea recently threatened to abandon a 1994 agreement with Washington in which the former agreed to freeze its nuclear program, including two Soviet-designed reactors that the United States suspected of producing weapons-grade plutonium. The move by Pyongyang was made in exchange for U.S. oil shipments and the construction of two replacement reactors of a type that cannot produce weapons-grade plutonium. ***************************************************************** 9 A Company's Gain From Energy Report's Recommendation By DON VAN NATTA Jr. The New York Times The national energy report released in May 2001 embraced a reactor being developed by a company that has provided hundreds of thousands of dollars to Republicans. WASHINGTON, March 23 In Chapter 5 of Vice President Dick Cheney's national energy report, executives of the once-moribund nuclear power industry were probably thrilled to read that the White House supported "the expansion of nuclear power in the United States as a major component of our national energy policy." The energy report had embraced a wide array of proposals that the executives advanced in private meetings with Mr. Cheney and documents submitted to members of the task force that formulated a national energy policy. One such proposal was the development of a new nuclear reactor designed to produce electricity a gas-cooled reactor built on tennis-ball-size graphite spheres that the report said "has inherent safety features." "The industry has an interest in this," the report said, "and other advanced reactor designs." But only one company, the Exelon Corporation of Chicago, which provided hundreds of thousands of dollars to Republican campaigns in recent years, has an interest in promoting the so-called pebble-bed reactor. Exelon, the nation's largest nuclear energy company, is the only American corporation developing a design for the pebble-bed reactor, which it says will lead to a new generation of cheaper, smaller and more efficient nuclear reactors. The company says the pebble-bed reactor will be safer, too, though environmentalists in the United States and in other countries have sharply disputed this, calling the pebble-bed reactor a failed system vulnerable to terrorist attack. The May 2001 national energy report is filled with dozens of positive assessments of proposed new technologies, including nuclear designs and wind-generated power. Most of those assessments favor sectors of various industries, and some undoubtedly favor individual corporations. But it is impossible to know how and why the task force endorsed most of those proposals, and which corporations they help, because Mr. Cheney has steadfastly refused to release the names of industry executives who advised the energy task force as it was researching and compiling its report. Next week, more than 14,000 pages of documents related to the task force will be released by the Energy Department, which was ordered by a federal judge to make the material public under the Freedom of Information Act. The Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmentalist group, had sued for the information. The General Accounting Office, an investigative arm of Congress, has sued Mr. Cheney for a list of industry executives who advised the task force. The administration's endorsement of Exelon's technology was learned through interviews and documents provided to The New York Times by the corporation itself. Although Exelon's name is not mentioned in the energy report, its executives lobbied the task force on the benefits of the pebble-bed design. The task force's endorsement of the reactor was contained in a single paragraph. But a paragraph in a national energy report, like a sentence in a State of the Union Message or a line in a legislative bill, can be a huge boon to a corporation. Don Kirchoffner, a spokesman for Exelon, said campaign contributions had nothing to do with the pebble-bed reactor's mention in the report. "We didn't influence anybody," Mr. Kirchoffner said. Using the initials of the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor, he added: "I don't think that it's correct to connect dots between contributions the company made and the fact something on P.B.M.R. appeared in the national energy policy. The P.B.M.R. is just an example of the advanced nuclear technology that everybody says we need." For Exelon, the paragraph was seen as "a good thing," Mr. Kirchoffner said, but he insisted that the mention of the reactor's design did not necessarily represent a boon for the corporation. "A good thing for the industry and the country was the fact that the administration came out with a recommendation for new forms of nuclear power, and our pebble-bed modular reactor is a byproduct of that," Mr. Kirchoffner said. "We just happened to have it. They took a look at what we gave them and they said this kind of makes sense." Exelon owns and operates about 20 percent of the nation's nuclear capacity. Its co-chief executives, John W. Rowe and Corbin A. McNeill Jr., who has since retired, were among a group of about 75 energy executives who met with Mr. Cheney in March 2001. Along with other participants of the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's trade group, Mr. McNeill also met that month with Karl Rove, President Bush's chief strategist, and Lawrence B. Lindsey, the president's top economic adviser. That information was revealed by Exelon officials, not the White House. Critics of the task force have noted that many companies represented at its meetings gave financial support to the Bush campaign or the Republican Party in the 2000 election. Exelon was no exception. Exelon, its executives and its political action committee, gave the Republican Party a total of $564,661 in the two years before the 2000 election. Last year, Exelon increased its donations to the Republican Party, giving it a total of $347,514, according to Federal Election Commission reports. Representative Henry A. Waxman of California, a frequent critic of the administration's energy policies, said: "The more we learn about the Cheney task force, the easier it is to understand why the White House is fighting so hard to keep everything secret. The biggest donors didn't just have the best access it now appears they were allowed to write specific sections of the administration's energy plan." Anne Womack, a spokesman for the White House, disputed the notion that campaign contributions were responsible for the endorsement of Exelon's reactor design. "Advanced reactor technology would increase our energy supply and do it in a way that is safe and clean," Ms. Womack said. "That benefits not only the industry but the American people." Ms. Womack also said that the task force had consulted "a broad variety of groups, including industry, unions, environmental groups and consumer groups." "They all had input, and the product of all the input is in the report," Ms. Womack said.' More than 400 corporations and groups sought meetings with the energy task force last spring. About half that number were granted access, a group that included 158 energy companies and corporate trade associations, 22 labor unions, 13 environmental groups and a consumer organization, task force staff members have said. Some environmental groups and Congressional Democrats have complained that industry executives and, in particular, executives from corporations that supported the Republican Party received far more time and had greater influence than environmental groups. On Friday, Mr. Waxman released a study that identified 65 provisions in the energy report that he said benefit donors to the Republican Party who had met with task force members or Mr. Cheney last year. The pebble-bed reactor has attracted sharp criticism from environmentalists as being unsafe and vulnerable to terrorist attack. "There are many safety problems with this reactor," said Carl Pope, the executive director of the Sierra Club. "It's not safe, and it's certainly not clean. It has already failed once, in Germany. "And this pebble-bed facility is not going to have a containment shell. It will be a terrorist target just sitting out there waiting for someone. This is just not sensible." Exelon lobbied the task force on the safety and economic benefits of its design, according to interviews and several documents turned over to the task force. Exelon provided The New York Times with two documents that the company submitted to the task force that had not been made public by Mr. Cheney: a pamphlet describing the pebble-bed reactor and a one-page description of the reactor's benefits. The document begins, "Exelon Corporation believes that we have found a technology that possesses the characteristics necessary to successfully compete in a deregulated environment in the P.B.M.R., a design under development in South Africa." The document argues that the reactor is "safe, economic and clean." "We provided it to them," Mr. Kirchoffner said of the single-page document. "I can't tell you what they did with it." The pebble-bed reactor would be cooled by helium, in contrast to the water-cooled reactors now used in the United States. The plant has fewer moving parts and requires a smaller crew, making its operations less prone to problems, the company said. Exelon has a 12.5 percent interest in the project with Eskom, the state-owned utility in South Africa, the Industrial Development Corporation of South Africa, a state-owned investment firm, and B.N.F.L., the former British Nuclear Fuels Limited. The partnership is studying the feasibility of the pebble-bed reactor, company officials said. In its papers submitted to the task force, Exelon wrote that the technology "is an evolutionary improvement of a proven design previously utilized in Germany." But several environmentalists said that the Germany prototype failed. "When you build a design on a proven failure, you are likely to get another failure," Mr. Pope said. Mr. Kirchoffner said company executives were somewhat less enthusiastic about the pebble-bed reactor today than they were a year ago. "As a result of the decrease in natural gas prices, and the economy and the less than favorable weather, things have changed since then," he said. "We are being very disciplined now in our approach to looking at P.B.M.R., which may be a lot farther off than it was a year ago." But the pebble-bed design is still scheduled to be reviewed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission soon. This month, the commission announced that the design was submitted for its approval by Eskom, the South Africa utility. Copyright © 2002 Yahoo! Inc. ***************************************************************** 10 Environmentalists say they were rebuffed in request for meeting - 3/28/2002 - ENN.com Thursday, March 28, 2002 By H. Josef Hebert, Associated Press WASHINGTON — Environmentalists said they had requested a meeting with Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham in the months prior to release of the administration's energy report but were rebuffed by an aide who cited Abraham's busy schedule. John Adams, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, said Wednesday that the refusal to meet with the environmentalists stands in sharp contrast to the eight meetings Abraham had with energy and business groups in early 2001 to discuss the energy plan. Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force issued its report in May. "Big energy companies all but held the pencil for the (energy) task force," said Adams at a news conference where NRDC attorneys discussed some of the 11,000 pages of documents the Energy Department provided the group under a court order. The documents, released Monday, included a calendar schedule that showed Abraham's meetings with representatives of nuclear, oil, natural gas, electric utility, and manufacturing groups. "It should come as a surprise to no one that the energy secretary consults with energy experts," said DOE spokeswoman Jeanne Lopatto. "That is his job, that is something we have done from day one." NRDC attorney Sharon Buccino said the documents released Monday in response to an NRDC lawsuit were "scrubbed, purged, and sanitized" but still provide the "first hard evidence" of the influence the energy industry had in crafting the Cheney energy report. But she said NRDC was filing papers with the federal court seeking a hearing to get additional documents released. She expressed astonishment that among the 11,000 pages she could find only one document mentioning Enron, which had been an aggressive advocate on energy issues in Washington before it collapse. "We're in court asking for what was left out," said Buccino. The Energy Department, in releasing the documents, maintained that it had sought out environmental organizations but suggested a lack of interest. "Even though contact was sometimes unsuccessful, DOE actively sought all viewpoints," the department said. "That's the biggest lie since Richard Nixon," snapped Buccino. The NRDC released a letter, dated Feb. 20, 2001, from the Green Group, a coalition of the major environmental organizations, that asked Abraham "to set aside a short while (in mid-March) to discuss important energy and environmental concerns." The letter was signed by Fred Krupp, executive director of Environmental Defense. A few days after it was sent, Abraham's appointments secretary called to say Abraham was too busy, according to the environmentalists. In March, Abraham held separate meetings with groups representing the nuclear industry, the oil industry, and public utility industries to discuss the energy task force, according to the papers released this week. The environmentalists also asked to meet with Cheney, but that request was also denied. Instead, members of the Green Group met with Andrew Lundquist, the task force director, on April 4. Copyright 2002, Associated Press Copyright © 2001 Environmental News Network Inc. ***************************************************************** 11 Judge rejects securities suit against USEC The Paducah Sun Paducah, Kentucky Thursday, March 28, 2002 BETHESDA, Md.--A federal judge has dismissed a federal securities lawsuit filed against USEC Inc. related to the initial public offering of common stock in July 1998, the company announced Wednesday. A USEC release said Senior U.S. District Court Judge Alexander Harvey II found the prospectus contained detailed and meaningful cautionary language tailored to the specific risks that USEC faced. In addition, the court found that the lawsuits were filed after the statute of limitations had run out, the company said. USEC supplies enriched uranium fuel for commercial nuclear power plants, and operates the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant. ***************************************************************** 12 Alabama: Feds to fund nerve agent protection at incinerator The Oak Ridger Online -- State News -- Story last updated at 12:49 p.m. on Thursday, March 28, 2002 By JAY REEVES Associated Press Writer BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) -- The Bush administration will fund gas mask-like safety gear for thousands of people who live near an incinerator where the Army is preparing to burn deadly nerve agents, the governor's office said Wednesday. As many as 35,000 east Alabama residents could receive the protective hoods and training under a deal reached in Gov. Don Siegelman's lawsuit over the incinerator, according to the state. The Federal Emergency Management Agency said the state must meet several conditions before getting the money, and it denied the agreement was linked to the lawsuit. The deal laid the groundwork for what could be the first mass distribution of such safety gear to civilians on U.S. soil. State, local and federal emergency management officials said they were unaware of any such previous effort. A 1995 report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended against mass distribution of protective hoods or masks in areas near chemical weapons storage sites. FEMA said no money will be released until the state provides a plan for purchasing and maintaining the hoods, plus training people to use them. "We always have and always will have" concerns over mass distribution of the hoods, said John Czwartacki, a FEMA spokesman in Washington. In conjunction with the government agreeing to provide $7 million to fund the gear and training, Siegelman spokesman Rip Andrews said the state would withdraw its motion asking a judge to block the opening of the incinerator. Siegelman filed suit last month to halt planned operation of the $1 billion chemical weapons incinerator at the Anniston Army Depot. The protective hoods, which function like gas masks but are larger and simpler to use, would be given to people who live nearest the incinerator to be worn during an accident, said Mike Burney, emergency management director for Calhoun County. The money would also be used to purchase gear sometimes referred to as "moon suits" for as many as 500 police, firefighters and emergency management workers who would respond to any accident at the incinerator, Burney said. Burney and state EMA director Lee Helms said they were unaware of any U.S. community that has distributed protective hoods or gas masks to civilians on such a large scale, making it more difficult to determine exactly what is needed. "This has never been done before," said Burney. FEMA spokesman Mary Hudak said federal officials also were unaware of any precedent for the move. An estimated 75,000 people live within about nine miles of the incinerator, located about 60 miles east of Birmingham. "Even a small accident could be catastrophic," Burney said. While the military has destroyed aging nerve agents at incinerators in the Pacific and the Utah desert, the Anniston installation is the first to be located in a populated area. The Army plans to begin trial burns of nerve gas in September. It recently completed test burns involving inert chemicals. All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 13 Gore critical of way U.S. energy policy developed By The Associated Press March 28, 2002 COOKEVILLE, Tenn. - Former Vice President Al Gore said this week that the public deserves to know who is shaping energy policy. "It is a disservice to the American people to treat us like children and say we're not allowed to know who came in to write the policies that were going to affect all our lives," Gore said. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham held at least eight private meetings with industry leaders - but none with environmentalists - as the administration crafted its energy plan, newly released documents show. The meetings between Abraham and the energy industry executives were disclosed in thousands of papers made public Monday. The documents concerned agency participation in Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force in early 2001. "When our country's energy policy was made, only one side came in," Gore said. "Who came in? Well, that's a secret." Gore addressed more than 800 people at Tennessee Technological University, where he was keynote speaker at a symposium on the environment Tuesday night. He called on students to "gain the power of the facts," educate themselves on environmental issues and become involved in the political system. Global environmental issues will be the "principal challenge facing our civilization," he said. Copyright © 2002 The Knoxville News-Sentinel Co. All Rights ***************************************************************** 14 NRC to Meet with Exelon Generation Co. April 3 to Discuss Dresden Nuclear Power Station Performance NRC: Press Release Region III - 2002 - 9 - U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, Region III 801 Warrenville Road, Lisle IL 60532 www.nrc.gov No. III-02-009 March 27, 2002 CONTACT: Jan Strasma (630) 829-9663 Pam Alloway-Mueller (630) 829-9662 E-mail: opa3@nrc.gov [opa3@nrc.gov] The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will meet with representatives of Exelon Generation Co. in Morris, Illinois, on Wednesday, April 3, to discuss the results of the agency's annual assessment of safety performance at the Dresden Nuclear Power Station. The two-reactor facility is located near Morris. The meeting, which will be the open to the public for observation, is scheduled to begin at 2 p.m. in the County Board Room of the Grundy County Administration Building, 1320 Union St., Morris. Before the meeting is concluded, NRC officials will answer questions from members of the public. The performance period to be discussed is April 1 through December 31 of last year. A letter sent from the NRC Region III office to Exelon addresses plant performance during the period and will serve as the basis for the meeting discussion. It is available on the NRC web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/LETTERS/dres_2001q4.pdf Current performance information for the Dresden facility is available on the NRC web site at: (Unit 2) http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/DRES2/dres2_chart.html and (Unit 3) http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/DRES3/dres3_chart.html (Note: Dresden Unit 1 was shut down in 1978 and is undergoing decommissioning.) ***************************************************************** 15 Millstone officials say reactors free of corrosion problem TheDay.com: By Paul Choiniere - More Articles Published on 03/28/2002 Waterford — Officials at Millstone Power Station say they are confident that the two nuclear reactors there do not have the same problem that nearly ate a hole all the way through the six-inch-thick lid of a reactor in Ohio. Nuclear reactor operators at 68 plants have been ordered to check their reactor vessels. The corrosion at the Davis-Besse plant, located near Toledo, left only a stainless-steel liner three-eighths-inch thick to hold in cooling water under more than 2,200 pounds of pressure. The thin liner was found bent under the stress. The Millstone 2 plant here is shut down to undergo a refueling. Opened three years before the Davis-Besse plant, the reactor is of the same vintage and similar design. During the Millstone 2 refueling the reactor lid was inspected using ultrasonic equipment and no significant erosion was detected, said station spokesman Pete Hyde. Some minute cracking was found around three of the sleeves through which the control rods travel. The damage was repaired, Hyde said. The control rods are used to slow or stop the atomic reaction. Millstone 2 is expected to return to service within the next week. As for Millstone 3, the station owner, Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, is hoping to avoid an unscheduled reactor shutdown. Dominion is asking the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to allow it to wait until next autumn to inspect the reactor during its normal refueling. Hyde said that because the reactor is newer — it began operations in 1986 — and has a good operating record, the chances of it having a similar problem are remote. Delaying the inspection is reasonable, Hyde said. At the Ohio plant, the stainless steel liner was bent by the pressure and would have broken through if corrosion had continued, according to the NRC. The extent of the corrosion in a reactor vessel was unprecedented in the industry. The NRC has ordered all 68 other plants... © 1998-2002 The Day Publishing Co. ***************************************************************** 16 Corrosion shock puts aged nuclear plants on top alert New Zealand News 28.03.2002 By DAVID USBORNE in New York The safety of scores of ageing nuclear reactors dotted across the United States has been thrown into doubt by the discovery of severe corrosion at a plant in Ohio that could have triggered a huge failure. The alarm was sounded after engineers discovered that acid had eaten a hole almost all the way through the 15cm-thick lid of the 25-year-old Davis-Besse reactor outside Toledo, Ohio. All that remained to hold back cooling water contained at 1000kg of pressure was a skin of stainless steel. All 68 plants in the US of similar design have been ordered by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to inspect their lids as soon as possible. Already natural gas prices and electricity have started to rise as the industry ponders the possibility that many plants may have to close. The commission is especially concerned about six reactors that share the same design as the Ohio plant. Among them is the Three Mile Island reactor in Pennsylvania, which had a near-catastrophic failure in 1979. Three Mile Island is owned by Amergen, itself 50 per cent owned by British Energy. The operators of these plants and six others considered particularly high-risk have been given until early next week to convince the commission that regular inspections would have detected corrosion of the kind discovered in Ohio. If they fail to do so, they will be ordered to shut down at once. The hole in the lid in Ohio was caused by boric acid, which is used in the coolant bath surrounding the uranium rods inside the reactor core. The acid had been leaking from the base of some of the control rods that enter the reactor vessel head. It had then eaten through the carbon steel lid. Engineers found the corrosion last month during a periodic inspection. Had the remaining stainless steel skin, which had already been bent out by the enormous pressure, given way, very hot and mildly radioactive water would have rushed into the concrete containment building around the reactor. In a worst-case scenario, the reactor might have been starved of cooling water and had a dangerous failure and possibly a meltdown. The nuclear sector was already in the spotlight this week when a leading US congressman, Edward Markey of Massachusetts, issued a report suggesting the industry had such feeble security in place that terrorists could easily be working under cover at plants across the country. "Terrorists may now be employed at nuclear reactors in the United States just as terrorists enrolled in flight schools in the US," he suggested. Meanwhile, the industry is trying to gauge the possible consequences of what has happened in Ohio. Replacing lids on nuclear reactors is tricky and expensive. FirstEnergy, which owns the Davis-Besse plant, has estimated the cost of fitting a new reactor head at US$20 million ($45.8 million). "This is a pretty serious issue and it has generic implications," said Edwin Lyman of the Nuclear Control Institute, an anti-proliferation advocacy group in Washington. "And it was discovered by accident." - INDEPENDENT ©Copyright 2002, New Zealand Herald ***************************************************************** 17 Energy firm to keep Zion power plant shut Chicago Tribune | Published March 28, 2002 After reviewing the economic feasibility of reopening the Zion nuclear power plant, owner Exelon Corp. has decided to keep it closed, the utility announced Wednesday. "We did a cursory review over the past six months and determined that, at this time, we don't think it's something we want to pursue further," said Ann Mary Carley, an Exelon spokeswoman. The Zion facility's two nuclear generating units have not operated since early 1997, when a reactor operator accidentally shut down a reactor, then tried to restart it without proper startup procedures. The plant was permanently closed in 1998 after the Nuclear Regulatory Commission rebuked Commonwealth Edison, then a division of Unicom, for its apparent inability to safely operate its power plants. Edison said it closed the plant for economic reasons. In October 2000, Unicom and PECO Energy merged to form Exelon. Reports in the last year about Exelon increasing its generating business led to speculation that the Zion plant might be reopened. As part of a broad examination of all Exelon nuclear sites, company engineers inventoried Zion's equipment and conducted an analysis of the facility. "The examination confirmed the company's decision to maintain the plant in its current shutdown status," a company news release stated. Copyright © 2002, Chicago Tribune ***************************************************************** 18 Closing ceremony for 'oldest' nuclear plant online.ie 28 Mar 2002 An official ceremony was being held today to mark the closure of one of Britain's oldest nuclear power stations. Bradwell power station on the Essex coast will stop generating electricity this weekend, said its operator British Nuclear Fuels. The plant, near Burnham on Crouch, was opened in 1962. Past managers of the station were attending the shutting of the plant ready for decommissioning. It was officially being closed by the Lord Lieutenant of Essex, Lord Braybrooke. One of the station's two reactors will close on Saturday, and the other on Sunday, the last working day of Bradwell's licence to operate. Environmental campaigners Friends of the Earth and residents were due to hold a demonstration outside the station at the same time as the ceremony. The organisation said it welcomed the closure. It is calling on the Government to rule out the building of another nuclear power station on the site, and instead encourage renewable energy, such as wind power. Bryony Worthington, Friends of the Earth energy campaigner, said: "Nuclear power is uneconomic, unsafe and unpopular and leaves a legacy of toxic waste that will last for tens of thousands of years. "No one knows how much it will cost to clean up Bradwell or where the waste will go. "Wind power is clean and safe and is a logical successor to the Bradwell dinosaur. "It would be madness to build any more nuclear power stations." Bradwell generated enough electricity to support three towns, and is one of 19 BNFL sites in the UK. ***************************************************************** 19 NRC to Meet With Firstenergy April 3 to Discuss Perry Nuclear Power Station Performance NRC: Press Release Region III - 2002 - 10 - U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, Region III 801 Warrenville Road, Lisle IL 60532 www.nrc.gov No. III-02-010 March 27, 2002 CONTACT: Jan Strasma (630) 829-9663 Pam Alloway-Mueller (630) 829-9662 E-mail: [opa3@nrc.gov] The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will meet with representatives of FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company in Perry, Ohio, on Wednesday, April 3, to discuss the results of the agency's annual assessment of safety performance at the Perry Nuclear Power Station. The facility is located near Perry. The meeting, which will be the open to the public for observation, is scheduled to begin at 3:30 p.m. in Room 6 of the Tarbuck Educational and Community Center, 4325 Manchester Road, Perry. Before the meeting is concluded, NRC officials will answer questions from members of the public. The performance period to be discussed is April 1 through December 31 of last year. A letter sent from the NRC Region III office to FirstEnergy addresses plant performance during the period and will serve as the basis for the meeting discussion. It is available on the NRC web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/LETTERS/perr_2001q4.pdf Current performance information for the Perry facility is available on the NRC web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/PERR1/perr1_chart.html ***************************************************************** 20 Browns Ferry N-reactor restart viable al.com: News Opportunity: TVA study gives Unit 1 technical go-ahead; 2,400 jobs possible 03/27/02 By BRIAN LAWSON and CHRISTOPHER BELL Times Staff Writers ATHENS - TVA is a step closer to spending $1.7 billion to restart the Unit 1 reactor at the Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant in southwest Limestone County. Up to 2,400 temporary workers could be hired if the federal utility's three-member board gives the project its OK. The board, meeting Tuesday in Hartsville, Tenn., heard that a detailed cost and planning study found that restarting the reactor is a technically viable option for meeting future power demand. But the board will await results of an environmental review and an assessment of power and financial conditions before deciding whether to make extensive repairs required by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The technical study requested by the board last September shows that the reactor, idle since March 19, 1985, can be returned ''safely and economically,'' Chief Nuclear Engineer Jon Rupert told the board Tuesday. It would take five years to make the necessary repairs, according to the study. All three Browns Ferry units were shut down in 1985 because of safety problems. Unit 1 has remained idle since. Unit 2 was restarted in 1991, Unit 3 in 1995. The NRC has given TVA high marks in recent years for its operation of Units 2 and 3. No nuclear reactor in the world has been idled as long as Unit 1 and then restarted. Unit 1 is also unique among U.S. nuclear reactors. No other reactor in the United States has been placed in an ''administrative hold'' position by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, a status without federal regulaUnit 1 is also unique among U.S. nuclear reactors. No other reactor in the United States has been placed in an ''administrative hold'' position by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, a status without federal regulations governing maintenance or monitoring. tions governing maintenance or monitoring. TVA Chairman Glenn McCullough Jr. said the board will base its decision on ''the amount of work, the estimated cost and the time required to return Unit 1 to service.'' Later this week, TVA will mail copies of a Browns Ferry Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for public review. After publication of a notice in the Federal Register, the public has 30 days to review the Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement. That review is one of the steps TVA must complete before it can apply to the NRC to extend operating licenses for all three reactors. The NRC has issued 40-year permits for all three reactors at Browns Ferry. An extension and the decision to restart would allow TVA to operate Unit 1 until 2033. The current license expires on June 26, 2013. A team of experts with experience in recovering and restarting nuclear plants and major engineering and construction companies conducted the detailed planning and cost study and evaluated Unit 1's physical condition, according to TVA. The agency expects its additional financial assessments and power planning forecasts to be presented to the board by the end of May, according to spokesman John Moulton. TVA spokesman Craig Beasley said if the TVA board decides to restart Unit 1, an additional administration building would have to be built and the plant's cooling towers would have to be expanded. TVA's forecasts indicate that additional capacity will be needed in the next decade to meet power demand in the eight-state TVA region. When Unit 3 went into service, Browns Ferry became the world's largest power plant. Each of its three units can generate about 1,153 megawatts of electricity, or enough power for 200,000 homes. Critics have questioned the wisdom of spending $1.7 billion on a reactor that is nearly 30 years old, especially when TVA's debt exceeds $25 billion. Browns Ferry originally cost $900 million to build. HUNTSVILLE TIMES ***************************************************************** 21 Jet could wreck TMI, NRC admits Designers didn't anticipate size, speed of today's planes Thursday, March 28, 2002 By Brett Lieberman Of Our Washington Bureau WASHINGTON -- Government regulators have acknowledged for the first time that neither Three Mile Island nor any of the nation's other 102 operating nuclear reactors could withstand the impact of an airliner the size of those that crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Industry representatives and federal government officials downplayed the threat in days after the Sept. 11 attacks, insisting that nuclear containment buildings are "robust" and capable of withstanding explosions and natural disasters. In newly released documents, however, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission concedes that even an accidental airplane crash was not factored into the designs of 96 percent of U.S. nuclear plants. At those plants where the threat was considered, design changes were aimed at smaller airplanes traveling at slower speeds. "When the plants were designed, large aircrafts that are presently used were not in use," NRC spokeswoman Sue Gagner said. The agency also acknowledged that critical systems that provide cooling, electricity and storage of spent fuel are mostly in nonhardened buildings that could not withstand an aircraft or missile attack. The revelations were included in a report made available by U.S. Rep. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., based on responses to his queries from NRC Chairman Richard A. Meserve. Markey, a frequent critic of the NRC, said the agency's acknowledgment shows additional steps must be taken to improve nuclear plant safety. The "NRC has admitted that even an aircraft impact at the auxiliary electrical or cooling facilities could trigger a core meltdown at a nuclear reactor, and yet the NRC refuses to upgrade security, refuses to install anti-aircraft weaponry, refuses to ensure that security at decommissioned reactors is maintained, and refuses to ensure that foreign nationals employed at the reactors undergo security background checks," he said. Yesterday, the agency maintained that reactors remain difficult targets although it has not evaluated the effects of a plane crash. "Even though they were not designed to withstand aircraft crashes, they are extremely rugged structures," Gagner said. While many nuclear plants, including those in Pennsylvania, have had additional protection from National Guard troops and state police since Sept. 11, the NRC has rejected the idea of deploying anti-aircraft weapons. When most plants were built in the 1960s and 1970s, the NRC and plant owners never contemplated that a large airliner would intentionally be crashed into a nuclear plant. Consideration of an airplane crash was limited to accidents. Fifty-five of the nation's 60 nuclear plants lie within 15 miles of public airports. Most are small airports, carrying fewer than 100,000 departing passengers a year, according to NRC and FAA data. Nine operating plants, including TMI, are near airports that serve more than 100,000 passengers. Other airports near nuclear plants include international airports in Charlotte, N.C., and near Pittsburgh. Three Mile Island in Londonderry Twp., three miles from Harrisburg International Airport, is the only nuclear power plant "constructed with special design features to protect vital areas from crash impact and fire effects," the new documents state. However, those features -- reinforcement of outer walls, thickening of concrete sections, special fire protection and ventilation -- would likely be inadequate, according to the NRC. TMI -- which was hit by the nation's worst nuclear accident 23 years ago today, on March 28, 1979 -- was designed to withstand the impact of 200,000 pounds at 230 mph. A Boeing 757 or 767 such as those used in the New York and Washington attacks on Sept. 11 weighs 272,500 to 450,000 pounds. The planes used in those attacks traveled at speeds of 350 mph to 537 mph when they struck. TMI was not built to withstand the impact of a larger airplane because "the probability of an on-site crash was sufficiently low," the NRC stated. Two other plants -- the Limerick nuclear plant near Pottstown and Seabrook plant in Portsmouth, N.H., -- incorporated more modest features to help them withstand the impact of an airplane weighing up to 12,500 pounds. "With respect to the remaining sites, the probability of an aircraft impact was either estimated or judged by inspection to be sufficiently low such that the event need not be considered in the design basis," NRC documents state. David Lochbaum, nuclear safety engineer for the Union of Concerned Scientists, said it would be difficult to retrofit existing plants, but new safety features should be incorporated in the next generation of plants. "The plants are what they are," said Lochbaum. "It's too late to go back and install 6 more feet of concrete." Brett Lieberman may be reached at (202)383-7833 or blieberman@patriot-news.com. Copyright 2002 The Patriot-News. Used with ***************************************************************** 22 Operators of S.C. reactors say plan... heraldsun.com: The Associated Press Mar 27, 2002 : 4:25 pm ET COLUMBIA, S.C. -- The operators of four South Carolina nuclear power plants deemed to be susceptible to a specific type of corrosive leak say their plants have been repaired or passed inspections. Duke Energy Corp.'s Oconee plant was the first to show the leaks in welded material leading to the reactor vessel head. Those cracks were repaired November 2000 and no additional corrosion was found, said Tim Pettit, nuclear public affairs manager for the Charlotte, N.C.-based energy company. Progress Energy Corp. said an inspection last spring at its Robinson Unit 2 in Hartsville showed no cracks similar to those found at the Oconee plant or any corrosion like what was recently found at FirstEnergy Corp.'s Davis-Besse plant near Toledo, Ohio. The discovery of corrosion in the metal cap that covers reactor vessels led the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to ask operators of the nation's 68 other pressurized water reactors to give detailed information about inspections to discover similar problems. Twelve plants were identified as potentially having the same problem as the Davis-Besse plant. Duke and Raleigh, N.C.,-based Progress Energy said they would be providing the NRC with inspection information on their South Carolina plants. Duke's three units at Oconee and Progress Energy's Robinson Unit 2 were on the list of 12 susceptible plants. Others on the list were Exelon Corp.'s Three Mile Island 1 in Pennsylvania, Dominion Resources Corp.'s Surry 1 and 2 and Anna 1 and 2 in Virginia, Progress' Crystal River 3 in Florida, Entergy Corp.'s Arkansas Nuclear 1 and American Electric Power Co.'s Cook 2 in Michigan. The NRC has said the corrosion, while significant, does not pose a safety risk. Copyright 2002 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not 2002 The Durham Herald Company ***************************************************************** 23 NRC to Meet with Exelon Generation Co. April 2 to Discuss Quad Cities Nuclear Power Station Performance NRC: Press Release Region III - 2002 - 8 - U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, Region III 801 Warrenville Road, Lisle IL 60532 www.nrc.gov No. III-02-008 March 27, 2002 CONTACT: Jan Strasma (630) 829-9663 Pam Alloway-Mueller (630) 829-9662 E-mail: opa3@nrc.gov [opa3@nrc.gov] The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will meet with representatives of Exelon Generation Co. in Bettendorf, Iowa, on Tuesday, April 2, to discuss the results of the agency's annual assessment of safety performance at the Quad Cities Nuclear Power Station. The two-reactor facility is located near Cordova, Illinois. The meeting, which will be the open to the public for observation, is scheduled to begin at 2 p.m. in the Mozart 1 Conference Room at the Lodge (formerly Jumer's Castle Lodge), Spruce Hills Drive and Utica Ridge Road, Bettendorf, Iowa. Before the meeting is concluded, NRC officials will answer questions from members of the public. The performance period to be discussed is April 1 through December 31 of last year. A letter sent from the NRC Region III office to Exelon addresses plant performance during the period and will serve as the basis for the meeting discussion. It is available on the NRC web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/LETTERS/quad_2001q4.pdf Current performance information for the Quad Cities facility is available on the NRC web site at: (Unit 1) http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/QUAD1/quad1_chart.html and (Unit 2) http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/QUAD2/quad2_chart.html ***************************************************************** 24 Entergy buy of Vermont nuclear plant cleared Yahoo - [Reuters] Wednesday March 27, 3:15 pm Eastern Time WASHINGTON, March 27 (Reuters) - Entergy Corp. (NYSE:ETR was cleared to complete its $180 million purchase of a nuclear power plant in Vermont with antitrust authorities ending their review with no further action, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission said on Wednesday. The Vermont Yankee plant, built in 1972, is owned by eight New England-based utilities. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in January gave its approval for the sale of the 506 megawatt plant. The largest shareholders of the Vermont Yankee plant are Central Vermont Public Service Corp., New England Power Co., Green Mountain Power Corp. and Connecticut Light and Power Co. Copyright © 2002 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy - Terms of ***************************************************************** 25 Fallout, Cancer and Politics The Nation 03/26/2002 @ 12:38am You've heard of our new enthusiasm for nuclear weapons: the Administration's pursuit of mini-nukes, its hit list of targets from Baghdad to Beijing and its talk of periodically detonating a few by way of "testing." [See, for example, David Corn, ""Bush's New Nuclear Weapon Plan: A Shot at Nonproliferation," and Raffi Khatchadourian, April 1, 2002, "Relearning to Love the Bomb" March 11, 2002.] You've probably heard less about a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, completed in August 2001, but only published in dribs and drabs over the past few weeks. Mandated by Congress, the study is the first ever to estimate what effect radioactive fallout from nuclear testing has had on the lower forty-eight American states. The CDC finds such fallout has likely killed 11,000 Americans since the 1950s. They died from all manner of cancers, from melanoma to breast cancer to leukemia. Fallout has also caused about 22,000 nonlethal cases of cancer. For those keeping score, that's 33,000 cases of cancer among Americans, courtesy of global nuclear testing. And it's not just Nevada anymore: The study's maps suggest the definition of "downwinder"-someone living uncomfortably close to a nuclear test site-needs revision. Fallout spreads surprisingly far and wide, with high concentrations in places like Idaho and Montana. "Hot spots due to testing in Nevada occurred as far away as New York and Maine," says Arjun Makhijani, president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER), a Maryland-based think tank that has conducted its own analysis of the CDC's data. "Hot spots from US Pacific area testing and also Soviet testing were scattered across the United States-from California, Oregon and Washington in the West to New Hampshire, Vermont and North Carolina in the East." A little perspective: Fallout cancers represent only a tiny fraction of all cases of cancer. The CDC notes, for example, that among the 3.8 million people born in the US in 1951, about 760,000 would normally be expected to die of cancer, while fallout exposure adds only an additional 1,000 deaths to that total. But even so, it's a helluva price tag for testing the bomb: Eleven thousand dead Americans. Thirty-three thousand American cancers. That price tag is a subtext in today's nuclear debates. Take Yucca Mountain: The Department of Energy says it will be safe for Nevadans to store the nation's nuclear waste there. But Robert Loux, executive director of the state's Agency for Nuclear Projects, says, "There's huge distrust of DOE here." During nuclear testing, he says, "They promised us it was all perfectly safe too-even as DOE officials moved their own families out of town [on test days]." Yes, that was then and this is now. But dismissing the ugly sides of this tale as relics of the cold war begs a question: Why were forerunners of the CDC study squelched as late as the mid-1990s? Robert Alvarez, a Clinton-era Energy Department official, recalled hearing in 1997 of a "suppressed" study of fallout by the National Cancer Institute, and asked for a briefing. "They were showing me these color-coded [fallout] maps of the United States. And I'm looking at this and it's really grotesque stuff, because I know what the numbers mean," Alvarez says. "And I look down at the bottom of the page and it's dated September 1992, and here I am in 1997." That NCI study looked at one kind of cancer-that afflicting the thyroid-and concluded that nuclear-test fallout caused somewhere between 11,300 and 212,000 incidences of the disease among Americans. After it was finally published in 1997, Congress demanded a CDC follow-up. A report to Congress on the CDC follow-up emphasizes its conservative approach. The study has a large margin of error-the mathematically modeled cancer tolls are more illustrative than definitive-and it is only now being peer-reviewed by the National Academy of Sciences. Caveats aside, the estimate of 33,000 cases of cancer seems restrained if only because it covers fallout generated over just eleven years, between 1951 and 1962, and sprinkled acorss the forty-eight contiguous US states. As the IEER notes, that omits: * all Chinese atmospheric tests, which were conducted from 1964 to 1980; * French atmospheric tests from 1963 to 1974; * pre-1951 tests in the Marshall Islands and in the Soviet Union; * the original three 1945 atomic blasts-in New Mexico, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The 11,000 Americans killed by an eleven-year run of nuclear testing represent a fraction of a larger story-a cold war epic that spans five decades and dozens of nations. Nuclear powers ''owe the world a real accounting of what they did to its health,'' says Makhijani. "It is high time for the United Nations to create a Global Truth Commission that would examine-in detail comparable to the US government studies-the harm that has been inflicted upon the people of the world by nuclear weapons production and testing." Until that Truth Commission convenes however, the CDC's study is sobering enough. Alvarez says that any one of more than a dozen atmospheric tests in that eleven-year period released Chernobyl-scale radiation levels. "There were at least nineteen shots in the ballpark of the Chernobyl accident," he said. "We're talking about levels [of radioactivity] so large during that period that if today's existing safety standards to protect the public had been applied, large portions of the nation's milk supply would have had to have been withdrawn on numerous occasions." Makhijani of IEER adds that some US farm children who drank milk after the hottest atmospheric blasts were as severely exposed as "the worst-exposed children" of Chernobyl. Reasonable people could argue, if they were so inclined, over whether 11,000 people in America killed by eleven years of nuclear testing is "a lot." But whether one sees it as horrifying or as merely a few thousand eggs broken for our cold war omelettes, the link between fallout and cancer is a reality oddly absent from discussions of busting bunkers under Baghdad or Tora Bora. © 2002 The Nation Company, ***************************************************************** 26 Fiji: Nuclear test victims to undergo medical examinations BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Mar 28, 2002 Text of report by Fiji Village web site on 28 March A group of Japanese doctors and nuclear scientists will be in the country in May to examine navy veterans who attended the testing of the atomic bomb at Christmas Island in the early 1940s. The navy veterans suffered various skin diseases, lung cancer and asthma from residue of the fallout and have been fighting a losing battle in a court of law in Britain. The ex-navy personnel are members of the Fiji Nuclear Test Veteran Association. According to their secretary, Tekosi Rotan, some of their children were born without limbs and legs and have breathing problems due to the nuclear test. Source: Fiji Village web site, Suva, in English 28 Mar 02 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. ***************************************************************** 27 Taiwan: Nuclear safety OK: AEC The Taipei Times Online: 2002-03-28Thursday, March 28th, 2002 CALMING FEARS: The nation's nuclear materials supervisory body said that precautions on the use and storage of radioactive materials were adequate By Chiu Yu-Tzu STAFF REPORTER Atomic Energy Council (AEC) Vice Chairman Chiou Syh-tsong (ªô¿üÁo) yesterday denied lax supervision of radioactive materials. Taking the discovery of two radioactive rods at steel plants in Taichung and Kaohsiung respectively as examples, Chiou said that current monitoring systems function well. Chiou said Taiwan's 19 steel works that operates melting furnaces have been obligated to establish alarm systems since 1995. By the end of 2001, 114 reports of the discovery of radioactive materials have prevented potential radioactive contamination of steel products. The radioactive rod discovered on Monday in Kaohsiung contains krypton-85, a radioactive isotope of the noble gas krypton, according to the AEC's Institute of Nuclear Energy Research yesterday. Officials said that no series number was imprinted on the rod, to help identify its source. Researchers will further carry out further non-destructive examination to ascertain where the rod might have come from. Krypton-85 is produced naturally, as well as by human activities, mainly the nuclear industry. Officials said, it is an ideal tracer due to its chemical stability as an inert gas. In Taiwan, a number of companies use it to monitor the thickness of products, including paper and polyethylene. The AEC's Department of Radiation Protection yesterday checked all listed krypton-85 items but found all could be accounted for and were kept safely. "We suspect that the rod might be used by the industry three decades ago," Chiou said, adding that the agency did not form its radiation protection department to monitor and safeguard radioactive materials in Taiwan until 1979. Chiou said, after 1979, the agency has urged illegal holders of radioactive sources to report and the deadline would be this year. When the revised Ionizing Radiations Regulations takes effect next year, unauthorized holders of regulated radioactive sources will be prosecuted and/or fined severely. Also yesterday, Chiou denied that Taiwan has ever imported any plutonium from overseas and said all spent fuel from nuclear plants which contains plutonium has been stored safely and under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Chiou spoke in order to deny a March 27 Washington Post report, which claimed Taiwan was on a list of 33 countries which have been provided by the US with plutonium under the 1954 Atoms for Peace program. The report said that the US Energy Department cannot fully account for small amounts of potentially dangerous plutonium sent to other countries, including Iran, Pakistan and India. "Never has Taiwan imported plutonium from overseas because the material has been highly regulated by the IAEA," Chiou told the Taipei Times, adding that he had never heard of plutonium capsules. Taiwan, however, has plutonium spent fuel because the element is created in nuclear reactors as a by-product of using uranium-238 at nuclear power plants. "Plutonium spent fuel is stored at interim repositories at plants. The Taiwan Power Company will find or build final repositories for spent fuel by 2032," Chiou said. This story has been viewed 187 times. URL=[http://www.taipeitimes.com/news/2002/03/28/story/0000129527] Copyright © 1999-2002 The Taipei Times. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 28 UN plays down Kosovo risk from uranium By Frances Williams in Geneva Published: March 27 2002 20:25 A new report by the United Nations environment programme says the use of depleted uranium weapons in Serbia and Montenegro during the 1999 Kosovo conflict has led to localised low-level contamination, but this does not present any immediate risks for the environment or human health. The report, which is broadly consistent with Unep's report on Kosovo last year and a study published earlier this month by the Royal Society, the UK's academy of science, recommends continued monitoring of levels of radioactivity at the identified sites, especially to check possible longer-term contamination of water supplies. Unep said its latest investigation found much more rapid corrosion of depleted uranium penetrators (ammunition tips) than expected, increasing concern about the potential for polluting groundwater. Though no water contamination was found at any of the six sites studied, the report recommends annual inspections of water quality at all affected sites. The report also detected airborne depleted uranium particles at two sites. "While the detected levels were still below international safety limits, these results have implications for site decontamination and construction work, activities that could potentially stir up depleted uranium dust from the ground surface," Unep says. Pekka Haavisto, chairman of the Unep depleted uranium assessment team, said on Wednesday that all 12 sites in Serbia and Montenegro that had been the target of depleted uranium strikes by Nato during the Kosovo conflict had been signposted and fenced off by the authorities. Clean-up operations had also begun, though Mr Haavisto said experience suggested that 100 per cent decontamination "may not be technically possible". Depleted uranium munitions were used by US forces in the Gulf war and the Balkans because the ultra-hard metal is an effective armour-piercing weapon. Veterans' groups, and the Iraqi government, have linked the munitions to cancer and congenital malformations. However, the World Health Organisation says the health risks to civilians from depleted uranium, which is less radioactive than naturally occurring uranium, are small. In the latest Unep report, WHO says depleted uranium is unlikely to have been the cause of chromosomal changes identified in six Montenegrin clean-up workers, though it recommends further study. ***************************************************************** 29 UN Study Finds Depleted Uranium Contamination in Yugoslavia Bloomberg.com : 03/27 21:48 By Andrew Hobbs Geneva, March 28 (Bloomberg) -- A United Nations team found radioactive depleted uranium contamination in soil and air in Yugoslavia, three years after munitions containing the material were used in a NATO bombing campaign, the British Broadcasting Corp. and the Associated Press said. The study found ``widespread but low-level'' contamination at five of the six sites examined in Serbia and Montenegro in October and November last year, the news services cited the UN Environment Program report as saying. ``We did not find levels of radioactivity that could pose a direct threat to the environment or human health,'' the BBC quoted UNEP Executive Director Klaus Toepfer as saying. ``Nevertheless, we strongly recommend taking precautionary measures.'' These include monitoring the water at the sites. The safety of depleted uranium has been questioned since the 1991 Persian Gulf War, after concern it may be among the causes of so-called Gulf War Syndrome, a term used to describe high rates of sickness among veterans. Symptoms of the syndrome include some cancers, brain and nervous system diseases and breathing problems. Depleted uranium, a by-product of converting natural uranium for use as a fuel, is heavier and denser than most metals and is used in armor-piercing shells. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization fired about 31,000 shells tipped with depleted uranium during its 78-day bombing campaign to end a crackdown on ethnic Albanians in the Serbian province of Kosovo. ``The most important concern is the potential for future ground water contamination by corroding penetrators (ammunition tips made out of DU),'' the BBC cited the UN team as saying. A 49-country committee set up by NATO found in a report in January 2001 there wasn't any evidence to show depleted uranium caused cancer. ©2002 Bloomberg L.P. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 30 Nuclear safety OK: AEC The Taipei Times Online: 2002-03-28 CALMING FEARS: The nation's nuclear materials supervisory body said that precautions on the use and storage of radioactive materials were adequate By Chiu Yu-Tzu STAFF REPORTER Atomic Energy Council (AEC) Vice Chairman Chiou Syh-tsong (ªô¿üÁo) yesterday denied lax supervision of radioactive materials. Taking the discovery of two radioactive rods at steel plants in Taichung and Kaohsiung respectively as examples, Chiou said that current monitoring systems function well. Chiou said Taiwan's 19 steel works that operates melting furnaces have been obligated to establish alarm systems since 1995. By the end of 2001, 114 reports of the discovery of radioactive materials have prevented potential radioactive contamination of steel products. The radioactive rod discovered on Monday in Kaohsiung contains krypton-85, a radioactive isotope of the noble gas krypton, according to the AEC's Institute of Nuclear Energy Research yesterday. Officials said that no series number was imprinted on the rod, to help identify its source. Researchers will further carry out further non-destructive examination to ascertain where the rod might have come from. Krypton-85 is produced naturally, as well as by human activities, mainly the nuclear industry. Officials said, it is an ideal tracer due to its chemical stability as an inert gas. In Taiwan, a number of companies use it to monitor the thickness of products, including paper and polyethylene. The AEC's Department of Radiation Protection yesterday checked all listed krypton-85 items but found all could be accounted for and were kept safely. "We suspect that the rod might be used by the industry three decades ago," Chiou said, adding that the agency did not form its radiation protection department to monitor and safeguard radioactive materials in Taiwan until 1979. Chiou said, after 1979, the agency has urged illegal holders of radioactive sources to report and the deadline would be this year. When the revised Ionizing Radiations Regulations takes effect next year, unauthorized holders of regulated radioactive sources will be prosecuted and/or fined severely. Also yesterday, Chiou denied that Taiwan has ever imported any plutonium from overseas and said all spent fuel from nuclear plants which contains plutonium has been stored safely and under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Chiou spoke in order to deny a March 27 Washington Post report, which claimed Taiwan was on a list of 33 countries which have been provided by the US with plutonium under the 1954 Atoms for Peace program. The report said that the US Energy Department cannot fully account for small amounts of potentially dangerous plutonium sent to other countries, including Iran, Pakistan and India. "Never has Taiwan imported plutonium from overseas because the material has been highly regulated by the IAEA," Chiou told the Taipei Times, adding that he had never heard of plutonium capsules. Taiwan, however, has plutonium spent fuel because the element is created in nuclear reactors as a by-product of using uranium-238 at nuclear power plants. "Plutonium spent fuel is stored at interim repositories at plants. The Taiwan Power Company will find or build final repositories for spent fuel by 2032," Chiou said. This story has been viewed 186 times. URL=[http://www.taipeitimes.com/news/2002/03/28/story/0000129527] Copyright © 1999-2002 The Taipei Times. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 31 Ginna area to get radiation pills Democrat & Chronicle: [Rochester, NY] http://cf.democratandchronicle.com Potassium iodide protects in case of a leak or terrorist attack By Bennett J. Loudon [metronews@democratandchronicle.com] (March 27, 2002)  Officials in Wayne and Monroe counties are developing a plan to distribute pills to protect residents in case of a possible radiation leak from an accident or terrorist attack at the Ginna nuclear power plant. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has provided New York state with 1.2 million potassium iodide pills that could prevent thyroid cancer caused by the release of radioactive iodine from a nuclear power plant. "We've been holding meetings and trying to come up with the best way to be able to get (potassium iodide) to the general public that need it," said Thelma Wideman, Wayne County's director of emergency management. State officials obtained enough potassium iodide for 600,000 people to receive a two-pill dose. State officials actually estimate that only 402,000 people live within 10 miles of the state's five nuclear power plants, but the state asked for enough pills to include travelers, students and people who live elsewhere but work in the area. Officials estimate about 60,000 people live within 10 miles of Ginna, which is in Ontario, Wayne County. About 120,000 pills are earmarked for the area within 10 miles of the plant, which includes all or part of the Wayne County towns of Ontario, Walworth, Williamson and Marion, and the Monroe County towns of Webster and Penfield. Until local officials work out a plan to distribute them, the pills will be stored at the New York State Emergency Management Office in Albany. "We still need to work with New York state to make sure that what we do fits with their overall plan, as well," said Mary Louise Meisenzahl, administrator of the Monroe County Office of Emergency Preparedness. Officials are discussing whether to pre-distribute the pills or make them available at a central location at the time of a potential radiation leak. They also are discussing how best to educate the public about potassium iodide. Emergency and health officials near the state's five other nuclear power plants also are devising plans to distribute the pills to people within 10 miles of the facilities. The other nuclear reactors in the state include three in Scriba, Oswego County -- Fitzpatrick, Nine Mile I and Nine Mile II; and two reactors in Buchanan, Westchester County -- Indian Point II and Indian Point III. New York is one of 11 states that have taken advantage of the federal program to supply the pills. The other states that have received pills are: Alabama, Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey and Vermont. Potassium iodide pills, known more commonly by the chemical symbol KI, have been available to emergency workers for years. It wasn't until December that federal officials recommended making them available to the general public. "Sept. 11 has heightened the concerns of the public," said Dennis Michalski, a spokesman for the New York State Emergency Management Office. Potassium iodide can be purchased without a prescription, but it's not readily available in the Rochester area. A package of 14 pills sells for $9.95 on the Internet. Michalski and other public officials cautioned that the pills are only one tool in providing help to the public in case of an emergency. "It protects one organ from one source of radiation and it's only one small part of our arsenal to protect people from radiation," he said. Potassium iodide, taken in the proper dose, is absorbed by the thyroid gland. The gland becomes so saturated with KI that radioactive iodine is blocked. But KI is only useful when the leaking radiation contains a high level of radioactive iodine. Officials of Rochester Gas and Electric Corp., the company that owns Ginna, say that only the most extreme set of circumstances would trigger such a release. "It would take a very serious accident involving the melting of the nuclear fuel to release radioactive iodines," said spokesman Mike Power. "If it got to that point of an accident involving the fuel melting, we would have recommended to the counties that evacuation proceed before that occurred. People would probably be advised at that time to take their potassium iodide before they evacuate," Power said. State officials have asked local authorities to develop a KI distribution plan by the end of this year, but Wideman expects to have it worked out sooner. "At this point we're still in the planning process. Everything right now is kind of fluid and I don't know if all of the kinks have been ironed out. We're trying not to duplicate what someone else is doing," said Wideman. "When we do come out (to tell the public about the plan) ... it'll be speaking with one voice and the public won't be confused with people coming out with different statements." For more information, click on "Potassium Iodide in Emergency Planning" at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's site: www.nrc.gov [http://www.nrc.gov] ***************************************************************** 32 Gauge with radioactive material recovered in Stokes County [newsobserver.com, Raleigh, NC] COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) -- The operators of four South Carolina nuclear power plants deemed to be susceptible to a specific type of corrosive leak say their plants have been repaired or passed inspections. Duke Energy Corp.'s Oconee plant was the first to show the leaks in welded material leading to the reactor vessel head. Those cracks were repaired November 2000 and no additional corrosion was found, said Tim Pettit, nuclear public affairs manager for the Charlotte, N.C.-based energy company. Progress Energy Corp. said an inspection last spring at its Robinson Unit 2 in Hartsville showed no cracks similar to those found at the Oconee plant or any corrosion like what was recently found at FirstEnergy Corp.'s Davis-Besse plant near Toledo, Ohio. The discovery of corrosion in the metal cap that covers reactor vessels led the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to ask operators of the nation's 68 other pressurized water reactors to give detailed information about inspections to discover similar problems. Twelve plants were identified as potentially having the same problem as the Davis-Besse plant. Duke and Raleigh, N.C.,-based Progress Energy said they would be providing the NRC with inspection information on their South Carolina plants. Duke's three units at Oconee and Progress Energy's Robinson Unit 2 were on the list of 12 susceptible plants. Others on the list were Exelon Corp.'s Three Mile Island 1 in Pennsylvania, Dominion Resources Corp.'s Surry 1 and 2 and Anna 1 and 2 in Virginia, Progress' Crystal River 3 in Florida, Entergy Corp.'s Arkansas Nuclear 1 and American Electric Power Co.'s Cook 2 in Michigan. The NRC has said the corrosion, while significant, does not pose a safety risk. ***************************************************************** 33 Beryllium exposure test expands at Argonne Chicago Tribune | Subcontractors at Argonne added By Sam Roe Tribune staff reporter Published March 28, 2002 Responding to the discovery of blood abnormalities among several workers at Argonne National Laboratory, the federal government said it will greatly expand its testing program at the facility for workers who might have been exposed to the highly toxic metal beryllium. The U.S. Department of Energy will soon offer blood tests to thousands of subcontract workers, including electricians, carpenters and plumbers, who have periodically worked at the laboratory over the last 50 years. Recent testing of full-time employees at Argonne revealed that seven current or former workers have blood abnormalities linked to beryllium disease, an often fatal lung illness caused by the metal's dust. "Argonne and the Energy Department never intended to cause harm to people who came to work here," said Brian Quirke, spokesman for the Energy Department, which owns Argonne. "Argonne tried to keep exposure to a minimum, but we know that in some cases we did cause injury." Quirke said it was unclear whether subcontract workers were exposed. "We are taking the cautious approach, and it's a possibility they were exposed. So let's test them," he said. Argonne consists of dozens of buildings on 1,500 acres near Lemont. Managed by the University of Chicago, the laboratory conducts research in high-energy physics, chemistry and materials science. The facility has used beryllium since the 1940s. In recent years, the strong, lightweight metal has been used in X-ray machine windows and in neutron beam experiments to study the properties of materials. Argonne officials said the laboratory has employed numerous safeguards, including extensive ventilation, to protect workers from beryllium dust. Subcontract workers, officials said, are properly trained and warned about all hazards at the facility. The laboratory currently does not handle beryllium in a way that could create toxic dust, Argonne officials said. The facility once had a beryllium machine shop, but it closed around 1980. "That machine shop was operated under the strictest possible guidelines," Argonne spokeswoman Catherine Foster said. She said officials are investigating how the seven workers with blood abnormalities were exposed to beryllium dust. Their jobs varied, from truck driver to secretary, and no clear route of exposure has emerged. Energy Department officials said local unions will help notify subcontract workers who are eligible for expanded screening. The tests are voluntary and will be paid for by the Energy Department. Because it is difficult to determine who might have been exposed, the testing is open to all subcontract workers who spent time at Argonne--a group that numbers in the thousands. But officials expect a much smaller number, perhaps dozens, to take the test. Similar testing has uncovered beryllium disease or blood abnormalities at other sites owned by the Energy Department, which has used beryllium for decades in nuclear weapons. At the former Rocky Flats bomb plant near Denver, four subcontractors--two sheet metal workers, an electrician and a custodian--have beryllium disease. Several more have blood abnormalities. People with blood abnormalities do not necessarily have beryllium disease; but it means that the body's immune system has reacted to beryllium exposure. Further tests, such as a lung biopsy, are needed to confirm the illness. Experts estimate that about half of the people with blood abnormalities will develop the disease. Microscopic amounts of beryllium dust can cause disease, and workers who inhale the dust have a lifelong risk of developing it . Studies show about 3 percent of people who have been exposed contract the disease. Ken Lambert, assistant business manager for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 701, said he expects about 70 electricians to be tested. Retired electrician Bob Hightower, 66, said he occasionally worked at Argonne and does not recall being warned about beryllium. He said he does not know if he was exposed but thinks he should be tested because his job was often dirty. "Concrete dust, sawdust and fumes and what have you," said Hightower of Addison. "You open walls up, and you don't know what the hell is in there." The electricians union first raised the issue of screening Argonne subcontract workers last year after reading about the hazards of beryllium in the Tribune, officials said. The union contacted the Energy Department, which agreed to the tests after problems were detected in full-time Argonne workers. In recent years, the Energy Department has been testing the blood of current and former beryllium workers at nuclear weapons and research facilities nationwide. Of the 27,835 workers screened, 729 have beryllium disease or blood abnormalities. One hundred and fifty current and former workers at Argonne have been tested, with six former and one current worker showing blood abnormalities. The Energy Department's decision to screen additional workers at Argonne occurs at a time when the Defense Department has come under fire for not testing its employees. The Defense Department reports that beryllium dust has been detected at dozens of Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps facilities, with some levels exceeding the federal limit. The agency estimates that 9,500 people might have been exposed in the last 10 years, but it has ignored federal health guidelines by failing to test them. This month, several members of Congress called for such screening. Copyright © 2002, Chicago Tribune ***************************************************************** 34 UN finds DU traces in Yugoslavia BBC News | EUROPE | 27 March, 2002, [Pane landing PA] A-10 tankbusters like this fired DU rounds over Kosovo Three years after Nato's bombardment of Yugoslavia, United Nations scientists say they have found areas where the soil and the air is still contaminated by depleted uranium (DU). We strongly recommend taking precautionary measures Unep Executive Director Klaus Toepfer The study of six sites in Serbia and Montenegro, bombed at the time of the Kosovo conflict, found "widespread, but low-level" contamination, says a report by the UN Environment Programme (Unep). "We did not find levels of radioactivity that could pose a direct threat to the environment or to human health. "Nevertheless, we strongly recommend taking precautionary measures," said Unep Executive Director Klaus Toepfer. Wave of alarm The six sites were in the Presevo valley region of southern Serbia and at Cape Arza in Montenegro. Contamination was found at five of them. "The most important concern is the potential for future groundwater contamination by corroding penetrators (ammunition tips made out of DU)," the report says. Any soil disturbance at these sites could risk releasing DU particles in the air Team leader Pekka Haavisto US forces used DU armour-piercing munitions during the 78-day air campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999, as well as in Bosnia in 1994 and 1995. The UN's investigation follows a wave of alarm about the possible effects of DU weapons that swept Europe last year. Former Nato soldiers and civilians in the region are concerned that the radioactivity in the weapons could be a health hazard. Surprise Most scientists agree that it is dangerous to inhale high concentrations of microscopic dust dispersed in the air at the moment the shells explode. The UN report emphasises that the greatest danger now is that people might touch any pieces of DU that remain. The head of the Unep assessment team, Pekka Haavisto, said: "The team was surprised to find DU particles in the air two years after the conflict's end." "Any soil disturbance at these sites could risk releasing DU particles in the air," he added. The sites have been fenced off and signposted by authorities in keeping with recommendations issued after a similar report on Kosovo last year. Decontamination work has also begun, Unep says. ***************************************************************** 35 Yugoslavia still contaminated by depleted uranium three years after NATO bombing - 3/28/2002 - ENN.com Thursday, March 28, 2002 By Naomi Koppel, Associated Press GENEVA — Three years after NATO forces bombarded Yugoslavia during the Kosovo conflict, U.N. scientists said Wednesday they found areas where the soil, plants, and even air were contaminated by depleted uranium. The study of six sites in Serbia and Montenegro found "widespread but low-level" contamination, said the 199-page report by the U.N. Environment Program. "We did not find levels of radioactivity that could pose a direct threat to the environment or to human health. Nevertheless, we strongly recommend taking precautionary measures," said UNEP Executive Director Klaus Toepfer. U.S. aircraft used armor-piercing munitions containing depleted uranium, a slightly radioactive heavy metal, during the 78-day air campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999 as well as in Bosnia in 1994 and 1995. UNEP investigated following concerns among former NATO soldiers and civilians in the region that the radioactivity in the weapons could be a health hazard. "The team was surprised to find DU (depleted uranium) particles still in the air two years after the conflict's end," team leader Pekka Haavisto said. "Based on these findings, the authorities should carefully plan how DU-targeted sites are used in the future. Any soil disturbance at these sites could risk releasing DU particles into the air." He said continued monitoring was needed, and the local population should be told of the risks of depleted uranium. The biggest long-term concern, the study said, was the possible contamination of groundwater by penetrators — ammunition tips made from depleted uranium — that are slowly corroding. The water quality at the sites should be monitored on an annual basis, the report said. Haavisto told reporters UNEP would not become involved in debate over whether depleted uranium should be used in weapons in the future, but he hoped that the scientific findings would be considered. The team of 14 experts, funded by the Swiss government, traveled to the region last Oct. 27 through Nov. 5. They investigated 5 of the 11 sites that were struck by ordnance containing depleted uranium in Serbia as well as the only site in Montenegro and one armored personnel carrier that was hit by a penetrator tipped with depleted uranium. The team collected 161 samples, which were sent for study at laboratories in Switzerland and Italy. The study also printed a report by health authorities in Montenegro, who carried out tests on a group of experts involved in clearing up a contaminated site. It found that there were changes to chromosomes and blood cells in some of the group. The World Health Organization, which studied the Montenegrin report, said it was not sure that the tests were carried out accurately and that even if they were, the results were not conclusive. "It is certainly not clear, given that the chromosomal changes are real, whether they are due to any environmental exposures — including radiation — the workers may have encountered at the cleanup sites. The data simply aren't strong enough to draw any conclusions," the U.N. health agency said. In a similar report produced last year following a study of 11 sites in Kosovo, UNEP said it found low levels of radiation in the immediate vicinity of targets and mild contamination from depleted uranium dust. It said remaining radioactive debris could cause contamination that was above normal health standards and recommended action to fence off affected sites and improve monitoring procedures. The International Atomic Energy Authority is carrying out a similar survey in Kuwait, which was hit by depleted uranium munitions during the Gulf War. Haavisto said that the amount used in the Gulf was more than 30 times as great as that used during the Kosovo conflict. Copyright 2002, Associated Press ***************************************************************** 36 Former IAAP worker receives $150,000 The Hawk Eye Newspaper Wednesday, March 27, 2002 An Morning Sun man is first plant employee compensated for disease exposure. By Dennis J. Carroll The Hawk Eye MORNING SUN — A 74–year–old Morning Sun man has become the first former nuclear weapons worker at the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant to receive a health compensation settlement payment from the Department of Energy. Jess Mills, who with a son owns Mills Sales and Service in Wapello, an automotive body shop, suffers from chronic beryllium lung disease determined to have been caused by his work with nuclear weapons production at the Middletown plant. Mills said he received the $150,000, which was deposited directly to his savings account, about a week ago. The federal government also will pay for treatment of the beryllium disease. "The process works," said Mills, who encouraged other former workers to apply for compensation. "It may be frustrating at times, but ultimately it works." Mills said he was an inspections foreman, checking nuclear weapons on Line 1 "in various stages, from the ground up." He worked at the plant from 1950 until the Atomic Energy Commission moved its nuclear operations to the Pantex plant in Amarillo, Texas, in 1974. Mills said he has no idea exactly where or when he was exposed to the beryllium, a lightweight but sturdy toxic and brittle metal used in the production of atomic weapons. "It was top–secret work," Mills said. "Many times you didn't know what you were working on ... or had no knowledge of the material you were dealing with." Declassified documents analyzed by the Environmental Protection Agency two years ago revealed that particles of beryllium were found in dust samples taken from numerous buildings on the nuclear production line at the plant. Mills said that because of incomplete or nonexistent IAAP worker records, it was difficult for him to prove he had worked at the plant. Eventually, he found a friend and colleague who agreed to sign an affidavit attesting to Mills' employment at the plant. "It was kind of strange that they would believe my wife or a friend, but not me," Mills said. Mills' wife Patricia also worked at the plant for a time, though in a different area than her husband. The DOE's compensation program, administered by the Department of Labor, applies to former nuclear weapons workers or their survivors who suffered medical problems related to their work with radioactive materials, beryllium or silica. Workers who may have become ill or died because of their exposure to other toxic chemicals or metals in the production of conventional weapons do not qualify for the compensation package. Mills said he had no expectations that he would actually receive the compensation package when he began the process about a year ago. "I was surprised that I had the disease, and that they pursued it," said Mills, who suffers from shortness of breath. Mills had high praise for Dr. Laurence Fuortes and his team of health specialists from the University of Iowa College of Public Health. Fuortes' group, working under DOE grants, has been screening former IAAP workers for health problems and helping them apply for the compensation program. A Labor Department team also was recently in Burlington to assist workers in appling for the compensation. Mills said many of his IAAP colleagues have died over the years, possibly from illnesses they contracted at the plant. "Many have died," Mills said, "but you don't know what from." Mills and his wife have been married for 51 years. They have two sons and a daughter. He said that at first he was reluctant to come forward because of what people might say or think about him. "But (former workers} need to know that the system did work," he said. In Washington, Sen. Tom Harkin, D–Iowa, issued a statement concerning Mills. Harkin was instrumental in ensuring that IAAP workers were covered by the compensation program. "I'm glad that Mr. Mills has finally gotten compensation for the illness he contracted while working at IAAP," Harkin said. "He has been unfairly saddled with mounting medical bills as a result of his chronic beryllium disease and this payment has been long in coming." The Hawk Eye 800 S. Main St., Burlington Iowa 52601 319-754-8461 Front Desk · 319-754-6824 FAX · 1-800-397-1708 Toll Free ***************************************************************** 37 Nuclear plant burn victims in satisfactory condition By The Associated Press March 28, 2002 ATHENS, Ala. - Four electricians at Browns Ferry nuclear power plant burned in an electrical accident were in satisfactory condition Wednesday at a hospital in Birmingham. The accident occurred in the turbine room of the plant's Unit 3 reactor, which had set a record for days in continuous operation, _more than 600 days, officials said. Safety officials stressed that the accident took place away from the reactor building. The reactor was shut down Tuesday morning to begin "maintenance and refueling outage," said John Moulton, spokesman for the Tennessee Valley Authority, which runs the plant. The accident occurred when a 4,160-volt breaker in the turbine room failed about 6 p.m. Tuesday. The breaker emitted an electrical arc, burning the workers and starting a small fire. Spencer Black, director of the Limestone County Emergency Management Agency, said the fire was in a confined area, so the emergency response plan for the plant was not activated. An investigation is under way to determine the cause of the accident, Moulton said. The workers were treated at the site by TVA emergency medical technicians. Three were taken to a Huntsville hospital and were first listed as critical, but all were eventually moved to the burn unit at University Hospital in Birmingham. The injured workers are TVA employees Fred Pendergrass and David Letson of Florence and Ed Minyard of Athens, and Dan Young of Florence, a contract employee with the engineering firm Stone &Webster. Traffic backed up for blocks on roads leading to the plant as employees arriving for the 7 p.m. shift change were stopped outside its gates. They entered later. Copyright © 2002 The Knoxville News-Sentinel Co. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 38 Protests after fire on Sellafield nuclear waste ship Irish Newspapers - A SHIP due to bring nuclear waste to and from Sellafield via the Irish Sea went on fire during a trial, it was revealed last night. The Atlantic Osprey, owned by British Nuclear Fuels, will bring MOX (mixed oxide fuel) plutonium from the UK to mainland Europe, passing close to the Irish coast. The ship transported 500kg of plutonium from Sellafield to the German port of Bremerhaven towards the end of last year. It only emerged last night that a fire broke out while it was crossing the Manchester Ship Canal on Monday. It was believed to be on its way to the Irish Sea at the time. A Department of Public Enterprise spokesman said they viewed the disclosure with "grave concern", and that it illustrated the concerns of the Government over the transfer of nuclear waste by sea, even though it appeared there was no nuclear waste on board at the time. The spokesman said these concerns centre on the threat of a terrorist attack and an accident such as that on Monday. Public Enterprise officials yesterday contacted the Department of the Marine following the disclosure about the fire to evaluate possible risks to the Irish marine environment if this happened during a nuclear shipment close to Ireland. Last night, BNFL admitted there was a fire on board the Atlantic Osprey , formerly the MV Arneb, while it was crossing the Manchester Canal. A company statement said the engine fire was quickly extinguished and the ship was being kept in dry dock pending repairs. There was no cargo on board and no risk. The BNFL statement claimed the shipping of MOX fuel in pellets reduced "any security threat" because the fuel was "less attractive to potential terrorists and has safety advantages over separated plutonium during transport." However, this is rejected by the Government. The Government has told UK authorities that one pellet of MOX, smaller than a coin, would contain 0.4 grammes of plutonium, which could kill 5,000 people. Labour's public enterprise spokesman Emmet Stagg last night called on the Government to renew its efforts to halt BNFL's nuclear shipments. A campaign has begun, supported by Ali Hewson , wife of U2 singer Bono, involving members of the public sending postcards to British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Prince Charles, and the BNFL chief Norman Askew, demanding closure of Sellafield. Treacy Hogan Environment Correspondent © Copyright Unison ***************************************************************** 39 Russian radioactive waste plant treats 800 tonnes since November BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Mar 28, 2002 Text of report in English by Russian news agency Interfax Moscow, 28 March: The Far Eastern Landysh floating complex for reprocessing liquid radioactive waste has disposed of more than 800 t of radioactive waste since it was put into operation, Russian Atomic Energy Minister Aleksandr Rumyantsev [has] told Interfax. The floating complex, designed for reprocessing low-radioactivity liquid radioactive waste from decommissioned nuclear submarines, was put into operation in November 2001. The Landysh complex is located on an autonomous barge anchored near the Far Eastern plant for decommissioning nuclear submarines Zvezda in the town of Bolshoy Kamen in Maritime Territory. The complex has a capacity of 7,000 cu.m. of liquid radioactive waste a year. Source: Interfax news agency, Moscow, in English 1218 gmt 28 Mar 02 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. ***************************************************************** 40 NRC to Hold Public Meeting on Decommissioning Activities For Hematite, Missouri, Fuel Processing Facility NRC: Press Release Region III - 2002 - 11 - U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, Region III 801 Warrenville Road, Lisle IL 60532 www.nrc.gov No. III-02-011 March 28, 2002 CONTACT: Jan Strasma (630) 829-9663 Pam Alloway-Mueller (630) 829-9662 E-mail: opa3@nrc.gov [opa3@nrc.gov] The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will hold a public meeting Wednesday, April 3, in Hematite, Missouri, to discuss the agency's activities associated with the decommissioning of the Westinghouse nuclear fuel processing plant at Hematite. State of Missouri personnel will also participate in the meeting. The meeting will be at 6 p.m. in the First Christian Church Hematite on Highway P in Hematite. There will be two portions of the meeting. The first portion will be between the NRC staff, state personnel, and Westinghouse officials to discuss an amendment of the company's NRC license covering the cessation of operations and preparations for decommissioning. Current issues in the environmental monitoring program will also be discussed. The second portion of the meeting -- expected to begin about 7 p.m. -- will be conducted by the NRC staff and the State of Missouri to describe NRC and state activities during the decommissioning of the plant. Brief presentations by the NRC and the state will be followed by a question-and-answer session for the public attending the meeting. The Hematite facility processed uranium and fabricated fuel for use in commercial nuclear power plants. Manufacturing activities were halted in June of last year, and Westinghouse consolidated its fuel production in its South Carolina facility. ***************************************************************** 41 NRC holds public meeting on plan for nuclear storage Ocean County News: The Press of Atlantic City March 27, 2002 By REBECCA B. HENDRICKS Staff Writer, (609) 978-2011, E-Mail [rhendricks@pressofac.com] LACEY TOWNSHIP - The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's public meeting Tuesday evening at the township Middle School drew a long line of people with questions. A panel of engineers, inspectors and other employees of the NRC were present to provide answers following a pair of presentations on dry-cask storage of spent fuel. The event was the NRC's response to requests from area residents, municipalities and legislators for a public hearing on Oyster Creek Generating Station's plan to start using a dry-cask storage system to hold spent fuel. The question and answer session was a fairly orderly affair, although participants didn't adhere strictly to the stated format - questioners were supposed to sign up ahead of time but questions were routinely called out from the crowd and answered. Edith Gbur, chairwoman of Jersey Shore Nuclear Watch, was the first speaker on the list. Her statement primarily asked why the NRC held a public meeting and not a hearing. She said there have been accidents ever since dry-cask storage of nuclear waste was put into use in the country, and local residents should have the chance to decide whether the accidents are significant or not. Her statement was made to the audience more than to the panel. "People make the laws and laws can be changed," she said. Her comments drew several rounds of applause from no more than a third of the audience, a group that consistently applauded the more critical and skeptical questioners. Most of the audience listened attentively. John D. Monninger, chief of the spent fuel licensing office of the NRC, already addressed Gbur's question in his opening presentation. The Nuclear Waste Police Act of 1982 mandated that the Department of Energy had to set up a national depot for the storage of spent nuclear fuel. It also said the NRC had to develop rules for onsite dry-cask storage that nuclear plants could use in the meantime. The NRC has licensed a number of dry-cask-storage vendors to produce storage systems that already have been subject to NRC hearings and scrutiny. Nuclear plants that meet the requirements to use systems with a general license can do so without the need for a hearing. Oyster Creek is using a Nuhoms system, one of those that have a general license. Monninger said that nine of the 20 dry-cask storage sites in the country use systems with general licenses. "This is not anything unique to the Oyster Creek site," he said. The panel member who spoke about accidents related to dry cask storage described several of the incidents and indicated that none resulted in the release of radiation. Michael Masciale, of Forked River, said he was comfortable with the presence of the plant and the storage plan prior to Sept. 11 but now, "all things could happen." He was concerned about the exposure of the above-ground storage bunker and questioned why it wasn't surrounded by a dirt berm or buried. He also wondered why the country didn't have a central location for storage that could be made extremely secure. NRC officials said the berm had been considered previously as a way to prevent radiation leaks, but wasn't needed with the bunker. However, the NRC may consider it as a security measure in the future. Other questioners also raised the issue of a central depository. Panel members explained that President Bush has approved the Yucca Mountain, Nevada site, but several steps are necessary before the depository could be built. One question brought up a report from Rep. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., which charged that soft spots in nuclear facilities' security could be exploited by terrorists. It cited Oyster Creek specifically over its storage of still radioactive spent fuel in buildings that are not hardened structures Without detailing specific security measures, Dave Simon, spokesman for Exelon Corp., which operates the Lacey Township nuclear plant, said the Markey report is "off base." "There are legitimate questions being raised, but there are a lot of scenarios being posited that could not occur. There is a demonstrated track record of safety" that has not penetrated the public consciousness, Simon said. In addition to his concerns about storage of spent fuel, Markey charged that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission does not do thorough enough background checks on nuclear plant workers. Skip Young, panel member at Tuesday's meeting, said the NRC was studying Markey's concerns and would make any changes that might be needed, although he said he thought that the security enhancements the NRC implemented after Sept. 11 were probably adequate. Although people began to drift out by 8:30 p.m., the meeting continued past press time Tuesday evening. ***************************************************************** 42 Aides Tour Proposed Nuclear Site Las Vegas SUN March 27, 2002 WASHINGTON (AP) - For a few hours trudging through the Nevada mountain where the government wants to store nuclear waste, dozens of congressional aides and a few of their bosses got two or three days in Las Vegas - at the nuclear industry's expense. Since 1999, at least 168 congressional aides and seven House members have taken trips to Yucca Mountain that were paid for by the Nuclear Energy Institute, an Associated Press check of congressional travel records found. The industry is hoping the trips to caverns and casinos will help secure Congress' approval later this year for Yucca Mountain as the nation's storage site for radioactive waste. "Staff people say this is a great deal," said Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., one of many Nevada officials fiercely opposing the site. "They have dreams of their trip to Las Vegas. If you just went to Yucca Mountain and came home, it would be an ugly trip." The trips to Vegas are considered fact-finding missions - meaning they can be paid for by special interests under congressional rules. The review of congressional records shows the Nuclear Energy Institute spent more than $208,000 on the trips since 1999. The records don't detail the activities for each trip. Several congressional aides did describe theirs - provided their names not be used for fear they'd be punished for embarrassing their bosses. "We went to a show. I'm not sure who paid," one aide said. "Liquor was free in the casino," another added. A third congressional worker said he spent an afternoon in the hotel wave pool, while a fourth recalled an industry-paid dinner at a spectacular revolving restaurant with a view of Vegas. Aides were reluctant to say how much they gambled. Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, visited Yucca Mountain at the industry's expense last year. He spent one night in Las Vegas and defended those who stay longer. "Our staffs are not the highest paid government people in the world. If they get a chance to learn on the issue and to spend a few days (in Vegas), I have never seen that as a problem," he said. "Staffers who have gone found it educational and enjoyable." The Nuclear Energy Institute has been paying for trips to Yucca since the early 1990s. The tab for each trip varies with the airfare and number of days, but the cost for a staff member is usually between $1,000 and $2,000. The industry didn't provide money for gambling or shows. Spokesman Steve Kerekes said NEI wants to influence congressional and state officials to support the Yucca site but only spends a fraction of its $28 million annual budget on the trips. "We try to put together a full schedule for those folks while recognizing they have the right to have a little bit of time to decompress," he said. Kerekes said the institute targets lawmakers and aides from states with nuclear power plants. "One would hope that members' constituents would understand their desire and expect them to be on an issue like this," he said. The industry needs a permanent storage site for some 77,000 tons of radioactive waste now held in facilities across the country. President Bush in February recommended the use of Yucca Mountain, northwest of Las Vegas, but he doesn't have the last word. Nevada officials are likely to ask Congress in April to uphold an expected veto by Gov. Kenny Guinn, a Republican. The state also has challenged the decision in federal court. Both sides have hired big-name lobbyists. The anti-Yucca Mountain forces hired two former White House chiefs of staff, Kenneth Duberstein from the Republican Reagan administration and John Podesta, who worked for Democrat Bill Clinton. A coalition of industry groups also hired a prominent Democrat and a well-known Republican. The Democrat is former vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro and the Republican is another former presidential chief of staff, John Sununu from the administration of the first President Bush. House and Senate aides said they took the Yucca visit seriously, writing reports or providing briefings for their bosses. But they acknowledge the personal time in Las Vegas makes the trip enormously popular. One aide said he arrived at his casino hotel in the early afternoon and stayed at the wave pool until early evening, when the industry presented a slide show on Yucca safety. The presentation showed how the storage casks for radioactive waste could survive a drop from a crane or a violent, head-on crash. The next day, staff members donned hard hats and safety glasses as they traveled deep into Yucca Mountain by rail car. They watched workers conduct moisture tests, string wires and check meters and temperatures. Energy Department officials answered questions. The staff members then were driven to the top of the mountain to view a mammoth rock-cutting machine. By dinner time, they were back in Las Vegas. The following day, staff members could leave or stay another night. One aide said three our four of the 20 aides in his group skipped the Yucca tour and went golfing. On the Net: Additional information on Yucca is available on the politics page at http://wire.ap.org [http://wire.ap.org] U.S. Energy Department's Yucca Mountain site is http://www.ymp.gov/ [http://www.ymp.gov/] Nuclear Energy Institute: http://www.nei.org [http://www.nei.org] All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 43 Senators, governor need $10 million to fight Yucca Mountain Las Vegas SUN March 27, 2002 Senators, governor need $10 million to fight Yucca Mountain LAS VEGAS (AP) - When even the president wants nuclear waste stored in Nevada, the odds don't look good for the state to stop it. But this is the gambling capital, and Nevada is doing what gamblers do when they're down - upping the ante. Gov. Kenny Guinn and Sens. Harry Reid and John Ensign said Wednesday that the state needs an additional $10 million for a national campaign to try to block the Yucca Mountain project. "We feel this is money we're taking a chance on," Ensign, R-Nev., said during a news conference. "We have to do everything we can to win this battle." The state has raised $6 million, but $3.5 has already been committed. The additional $10 million would pay for national television commercials that would air in states where nuclear waste will travel. Reid, D-Nev., said the money would also go to local organizing efforts across the nation. Clark County Commission Chairman Dario Herrera said the county will try to provide an extra $3 million to fund the fight against Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The county has given $1 million already. Guinn said the state needs money from city, county and state governments, businesses and anyone else who will donate. He noted that the small communities of Mesquite and Fallon gave money to the initial campaign. "We have to do this now or our opportunity will be gone," Guinn said. Guinn said he will veto President Bush's approval of Yucca Mountain sometime in the next few weeks. It will then go to Congress. The senators hope to get support from a majority in the Senate to sustain Guinn's veto. They believe there's no chance of winning enough support in the House to block the dump. Reid and Ensign have called for a special legislative session to tap the state's rainy-day fund to get money for the campaign, but Guinn said he is still looking at whether the session is needed. Yucca Mountain is a volcanic ridge at the western edge of the Nevada Test Site. The Energy Department wants to open the repository in 2010 - entombing 77,000 tons of nuclear waste from more than 100 commercial, industrial and military reactor sites around the nation in casks 1,000 feet beneath the surface. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 44 Nuclear industry hopes trips to waste site, casinos will win congressional support Las Vegas SUN March 27, 2002 WASHINGTON (AP) - For a few hours trudging through the Nevada mountain where the government wants to store nuclear waste, dozens of congressional aides and a few of their bosses got two or three days in Las Vegas - at the nuclear industry's expense. Since 1999, at least 168 congressional aides and seven House members have taken trips to Yucca Mountain that were paid for by the Nuclear Energy Institute, an Associated Press check of congressional travel records found. The industry is hoping the trips to caverns and casinos will help secure Congress' approval later this year for Yucca Mountain as the nation's storage site for radioactive waste. "Staff people say this is a great deal," said Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., one of many Nevada officials fiercely opposing the site. "They have dreams of their trip to Las Vegas. If you just went to Yucca Mountain and came home, it would be an ugly trip." The trips to Vegas are considered fact-finding missions - meaning they can be paid for by special interests under congressional rules. The review of congressional records shows the Nuclear Energy Institute spent more than $208,000 on the trips since 1999. The records don't detail the activities for each trip. Several congressional aides did describe theirs - provided their names not be used for fear they'd be punished for embarrassing their bosses. "We went to a show. I'm not sure who paid," one aide said. "Liquor was free in the casino," another added. A third congressional worker said he spent an afternoon in the hotel wave pool, while a fourth recalled an industry-paid dinner at a spectacular revolving restaurant with a view of Vegas. Aides were reluctant to say how much they gambled. Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, visited Yucca Mountain at the industry's expense last year. He spent one night in Las Vegas and defended those who stay longer. "Our staffs are not the highest paid government people in the world. If they get a chance to learn on the issue and to spend a few days (in Vegas), I have never seen that as a problem," he said. "Staffers who have gone found it educational and enjoyable." The Nuclear Energy Institute has been paying for trips to Yucca since the early 1990s. The tab for each trip varies with the airfare and number of days, but the cost for a staff member is usually $1,000 to $2,000. The industry didn't provide money for gambling or shows. Spokesman Steve Kerekes said NEI wants to influence congressional and state officials to support the Yucca Mountain site but only spends a fraction of its $28 million annual budget on the trips. "We try to put together a full schedule for those folks while recognizing they have the right to have a little bit of time to decompress," he said. Kerekes said the institute targets lawmakers and aides from states with nuclear power plants. "One would hope that members' constituents would understand their desire and expect them to be on an issue like this," he said. The industry needs a permanent storage site for some 77,000 tons of radioactive waste now held in facilities across the country. President Bush in February recommended the use of Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, but he doesn't have the last word. Nevada officials are likely to ask Congress in April to uphold an expected veto by Gov. Kenny Guinn, a Republican. The state also has challenged the decision in federal court. Both sides have hired big-name lobbyists. The anti-Yucca Mountain forces hired two former White House chiefs of staff, Kenneth Duberstein from the Republican Reagan administration and John Podesta, who worked for Democrat Bill Clinton. A coalition of industry groups also hired a prominent Democrat and a well-known Republican. The Democrat is former vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro and the Republican is another former presidential chief of staff, John Sununu from the administration of the first President Bush. House and Senate aides said they took the Yucca visit seriously, writing reports or providing briefings for their bosses. But they acknowledge the personal time in Las Vegas makes the trip enormously popular. One aide said he arrived at his casino hotel in the early afternoon and stayed at the wave pool until early evening, when the industry presented a slide show on Yucca safety. The presentation showed how the storage casks for radioactive waste could survive a drop from a crane or a violent, head-on crash. The next day, staff members donned hard hats and safety glasses as they traveled deep into Yucca Mountain by rail car. They watched workers conduct moisture tests, string wires and check meters and temperatures. Energy Department officials answered questions. The staff members then were driven to the top of the mountain to view a mammoth rock-cutting machine. By dinner time, they were back in Las Vegas. The following day, staff members could leave or stay another night. One aide said three or four of the 20 aides in his group skipped the Yucca tour and went golfing. On the Net: Additional information on Yucca is available on the politics page at http://wire.ap.org [http://wire.ap.org] U.S. Energy Department's Yucca Mountain site is http://www.ymp.gov/ [http://www.ymp.gov/] Nuclear Energy Institute: http://www.nei.org [http://www.nei.org] All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 45 DOE says Nevada lawmakers ignored Yucca meeting invitation Las Vegas SUN March 28, 2002 LAS VEGAS (AP) - The Energy Department insists that Nevada lawmakers ignored Secretary Spencer Abraham's invitation to discuss their opposition to burying nuclear waste in the state. "We asked the Nevada congressional delegation to meet with us," Energy Department spokesman Joe Davis said Thursday. "It was a serious offer. They haven't responded to date." Davis said from Washington that the Sept. 5 invitation showed the energy secretary was seeking opinions from a variety of sources, not just groups supporting the Yucca Mountain project. Nevada's congressional delegation dismissed the invitation as lip service, saying Abraham knew their position well and that he waited until late in the process to attend Nevada hearings on the Yucca Mountain plan. "We had been pressing him to go out and actually and hear from Nevadans," Nathan Naylor, aide to U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Thursday. "If he wants to know Harry Reid's opinion and John Ensign's opinion, all he has to do is pick up a newspaper." Ensign, R-Nev., said in a statement that Abraham knew the Nevada delegation in Washington was "just a phone call away." "We never got that phone call," he said. Abraham attended one hearing - the last of 66 on the Yucca Mountain plan, Dec. 13 in Las Vegas. He issued notice a month later that he would recommend to President Bush that the site 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas was suitable for burial of the nation's radioactive waste. Bush endorsed the plan Feb. 15. The Nevada officials are accusing Abraham of publicizing the offer now to blunt reports he met often last year with groups and individuals who were likely to support nuclear waste burial in Nevada. Abraham's daily schedules for his first nine months in office last year were made public this week as part of a Freedom of Information lawsuit. They showed he met more often with proponents than opponents of the Yucca Mountain project. Abraham also met with Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn, who promises to veto Bush's presidential order by an April 16 deadline, sending the issue to Congress. Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., said in a statement Wednesday that there would have been little to talk about at a meeting with Abraham. Nevadans want the program stopped, while Abraham was charged with moving it forward. Michael O'Donovan, aide to U.S. Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said the Nevada delegation didn't want to meet with Abraham until he heard the concerns of Nevadans firsthand. Davis, who said Energy Undersecretary Robert G. Card also met with Yucca Mountain opponents and environmentalists, maintained that the DOE "took every opportunity to meet with both sides." All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 46 Nuclear industry hopes trips to waste site pay off By Larry Margasak [online@rgj.com] ASSOCIATED PRESS 3/28/2002 09:47 am WASHINGTON — For a few hours trudging through the Nevada mountain where the government wants to store nuclear waste, dozens of congressional aides and a few of their bosses got two or three days in Las Vegas — at the nuclear industry’s expense. Since 1999, at least 168 congressional aides and seven House members have taken trips to Yucca Mountain that were paid for by the Nuclear Energy Institute, an Associated Press check of congressional travel records found. The industry is hoping the trips to caverns and casinos will help secure Congress’ approval later this year for Yucca Mountain as the nation’s storage site for radioactive waste. “Staff people say this is a great deal,” said Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., one of many Nevada officials fiercely opposing the site. “They have dreams of their trip to Las Vegas. If you just went to Yucca Mountain and came home, it would be an ugly trip.” The trips to Vegas are considered fact-finding missions — meaning they can be paid for by special interests under congressional rules. The review of congressional records shows the Nuclear Energy Institute spent more than $208,000 on the trips since 1999. The records don’t detail the activities for each trip. Several congressional aides did describe theirs — provided their names not be used for fear they’d be punished for embarrassing their bosses. “We went to a show. I’m not sure who paid,” one aide said. “Liquor was free in the casino,” another added. A third congressional worker said he spent an afternoon in the hotel wave pool, while a fourth recalled an industry-paid dinner at a spectacular revolving restaurant with a view of Vegas. Aides were reluctant to say how much they gambled. Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, visited Yucca Mountain at the industry’s expense last year. He spent one night in Las Vegas and defended those who stay longer. “Our staffs are not the highest paid government people in the world. If they get a chance to learn on the issue and to spend a few days (in Vegas), I have never seen that as a problem,” he said. “Staffers who have gone found it educational and enjoyable.” The Nuclear Energy Institute has been paying for trips to Yucca since the early 1990s. The tab for each trip varies with the airfare and number of days, but the cost for a staff member is usually $1,000 to $2,000. The industry didn’t provide money for gambling or shows. Spokesman Steve Kerekes said NEI wants to influence congressional and state officials to support the Yucca Mountain site but only spends a fraction of its $28 million annual budget on the trips. “We try to put together a full schedule for those folks while recognizing they have the right to have a little bit of time to decompress,” he said. Kerekes said the institute targets lawmakers and aides from states with nuclear power plants. “One would hope that members’ constituents would understand their desire and expect them to be on an issue like this,” he said. The industry needs a permanent storage site for some 77,000 tons of radioactive waste now held in facilities across the country. President Bush in February recommended the use of Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, but he doesn’t have the last word. Nevada officials are likely to ask Congress in April to uphold an expected veto by Gov. Kenny Guinn, a Republican. The state also has challenged the decision in federal court. Both sides have hired big-name lobbyists. The anti-Yucca Mountain forces hired two former White House chiefs of staff, Kenneth Duberstein from the Republican Reagan administration and John Podesta, who worked for Democrat Bill Clinton. A coalition of industry groups also hired a prominent Democrat and a well-known Republican. The Democrat is former vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro and the Republican is another former presidential chief of staff, John Sununu from the administration of the first President Bush. House and Senate aides said they took the Yucca visit seriously, writing reports or providing briefings for their bosses. But they acknowledge the personal time in Las Vegas makes the trip enormously popular. One aide said he arrived at his casino hotel in the early afternoon and stayed at the wave pool until early evening, when the industry presented a slide show on Yucca safety. The presentation showed how the storage casks for radioactive waste could survive a drop from a crane or a violent, head-on crash. The next day, staff members donned hard hats and safety glasses as they traveled deep into Yucca Mountain by rail car. They watched workers conduct moisture tests, string wires and check meters and temperatures. Energy Department officials answered questions. The staff members then were driven to the top of the mountain to view a mammoth rock-cutting machine. By dinner time, they were back in Las Vegas. The following day, staff members could leave or stay another night. One aide said three or four of the 20 aides in his group skipped the Yucca tour and played golf. © Copyright Reno Gazette-Journal, a Gannett ***************************************************************** 47 WASTE REPOSITORY: Nuclear industry pays for Las Vegas junkets Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, center, climbs to the peak of Yucca Mountain on Jan. 7 with Lake Barrett, left, director of the Office of National Civilian Radioactive Waste Management. Photo by Associated Press Thursday, March 28, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal Trips considered fact-finding missions By LARRY MARGASAK THE ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON -- For a few hours trudging through the Nevada mountain where the government wants to store nuclear waste, dozens of congressional aides and a few of their bosses got two or three days in Las Vegas, at the nuclear industry's expense. Since 1999, at least 168 congressional aides and seven House members have taken trips to Yucca Mountain that were paid for by the Nuclear Energy Institute, an Associated Press check of congressional travel records found. The industry is hoping the trips to caverns and casinos will help secure Congress' approval later this year for Yucca Mountain as the nation's storage site for high-level radioactive waste. "Staff people say this is a great deal," said Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., one of many Nevada officials fiercely opposing the site. "They have dreams of their trip to Las Vegas. If you just went to Yucca Mountain and came home, it would be an ugly trip." The trips to Las Vegas are considered fact-finding missions, meaning they can be paid for by special interests under congressional rules. The review of congressional records shows the Nuclear Energy Institute spent more than $208,000 on the trips since 1999. The records don't detail the activities for each trip. However, several congressional aides did describe theirs, provided their names not be used for fear they'd be punished for embarrassing their bosses. "We went to a show. I'm not sure who paid," one aide said. "Liquor was free in the casino," another added. Aides were reluctant to say how much they gambled. Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, visited Yucca Mountain at the industry's expense last year. He spent one night in Las Vegas, and defended those who stay longer. "Our staffs are not the highest paid government people in the world. If they get a chance to learn on the issue and to spend a few days (in Las Vegas), I have never seen that as a problem," he said. The Nuclear Energy Institute has been paying for trips to Yucca since the early 1990s. The tab for each trip varies with the airfare and number of days, but the cost for a staff member is usually between $1,000 and $2,000. The industry didn't provide money for gambling or shows. The industry says it needs a permanent storage site for some 77,000 tons of radioactive waste held in facilities across the country. President Bush in February recommended the use of Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Nevada officials are likely to ask Congress in April to uphold an expected veto by Gov. Kenny Guinn, a Republican. The state also has challenged the decision in federal court. House and Senate aides said they took the Yucca visit seriously, writing reports or providing briefings for their bosses. But they acknowledge the personal time in Las Vegas makes the trip enormously popular. One aide said he arrived at his casino hotel in the early afternoon and stayed at the wave pool until early evening, when the industry presented a slide show on Yucca safety. The next day, staff members donned hard hats and safety glasses as they traveled deep into Yucca Mountain by rail car. They watched workers conduct moisture tests, string wires and check meters and temperatures. The staff members then were driven to the top of the mountain to view a mammoth rock-cutting machine. By dinner time, they were back in Las Vegas. The following day, staff members could leave or stay another night. One aide said three or four of the 20 aides in his group skipped the Yucca tour and went golfing. Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002 ***************************************************************** 48 Yucca: EDITORIAL: Acid test Thursday, March 28, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal Backers of the Yucca Mountain nuclear repository say they can ensure the waste site would pose no significant risks to human health or safety for at least 10,000 years. But, of course, the reliability of such long-term forecasting is impossible to judge ... particularly considering the unstable, highly toxic nature of the radioactive substances that would be stored at Yucca Mountain. Some risks may not yet have been unearthed by even the most capable scientists, as the recent near-disaster at a nuclear reactor near Toledo, Ohio, brings to mind. Tuesday's New York Times reports that at the 25-year-old Davis-Besse nuclear plant, "(boric) acid in cooling water had eaten a hole nearly all the way through the six-inch-lid of a reactor ... ." Corrosion threatened the reactor core, which could have led to a meltdown. Officials at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission "said they had never seen so much corrosion in a nuclear vessel." Indeed, the threat of a corrosion-related shutdown "was never considered a credible type of concern," said Brian Sheridan, an associate director of the NRC. The vessel head may have to be replaced -- a process which would require the plant to close and cost millions of dollars, because Davis-Besse "was not designed with the idea that the head would be replaced," the Times reported. Other reactors of similar design may also face extensive repairs and renovations. The lesson is clear: Even the most sound current science can't envision every possible risk. But while scientists didn't anticipate this potential risk in a nuclear facility that's a mere 25 years old, we're supposed to buy that they can guarantee the safety of Yucca Mountain for 10,000 years? Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002 ***************************************************************** 49 Herrera urges county to put $3 million in anti-Yucca fight Thursday, March 28, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal By FRANK GEARY REVIEW-JOURNAL Clark County Commission Chairman Dario Herrera on Wednesday proposed the county contribute an additional $3 million toward the state's fight against the Yucca Mountain Project, but other commissioners said the plan is too expensive and might be unlawful. Meanwhile, Gov. Kenny Guinn said he is leaning against calling a special legislative session to dedicate millions more state taxpayer dollars against the planned high-level nuclear waste repository. Instead, Guinn said he hopes to generate money for the state's legal and public relations campaign in some other way, and that his staff is developing recommendations for his consideration. Herrera, a Democratic candidate for Nevada's new 3rd Congressional District, was flanked by Guinn and other top elected officials at a news conference to announce his county proposal. He said the cash-strapped government would otherwise use the $3 million to replace outdated computers. "I think this is more important than replacing old computers," Herrera said of the battle to derail the federal government's efforts to construct the repository 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. "It's a small price to pay." Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and John Ensign, R-Nev., and Guinn, a Republican, applauded Herrera's proposal, saying an additional $10 million is needed for a media blitz and lobbying effort aimed at turning federal lawmakers against the nuclear waste dump. However, attorneys advised county officials Wednesday that they're legally prohibited from spending taxpayer money on a media or political campaign such as the one being proposed, Commissioners Bruce Woodbury, Yvonne Atkinson Gates and Mary Kincaid-Chauncey said. The commission is expected to consider Herrera's proposal Tuesday. The funding would come on top of the $1 million commissioners allocated last year to help fight the planned repository in court. "I am told legally we cannot spend county money on a media campaign or a political campaign," Woodbury said. "The only thing I would consider spending somewhat more money on is legal expenses, but not $3 million." Commissioner Myrna Williams wasn't available after the news conference, and Commissioners Chip Maxfield and Erin Kenny were out of town Wednesday. At the news conference, Herrera supported the proposed media campaign put forth by the governor and senators. Later Wednesday, he said that all along he had proposed the county's money cover legal expenses so other contributions can be stockpiled to pay for a media campaign. Herrera said Guinn told him the state's funding can be used for a media campaign. "I am confident that as more details are presented to my colleagues, they will be more supportive of the proposal, especially when you consider that, as Senator Ensign put it, this is a `do or die situation' for the state of Nevada." Woodbury, Kincaid-Chauncey and Atkinson Gates also questioned whether the county can spare $3 million earmarked for new computers two months after a national organization gave the county a below-average grade for its computer capabilities, and at a time when revenue growth is flat. "It's an important cause, but keeping the county solvent at this point is more important," Kincaid-Chauncey said. "There just isn't a money tree, and we have to look at everything and have a very serious conversation about the needs of the county." Additional details on the legal ramifications of Herrera's proposal weren't available late Wednesday because County Counsel Mary-Ann Miller couldn't be reached for comment. Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002 ***************************************************************** 50 Poll: Little known about Yucca Mountain Thursday, March 28, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal By ED VOGEL REVIEW-JOURNAL CAPITAL BUREAU CARSON CITY -- Yucca Mountain may be big news in Nevada, but most folks around the country don't know much about the place. Fifty-three percent of 1,000 Americans polled by Ipsos Public Affairs said they know so little about Yucca Mountain that they cannot give an opinion. Of those who offered their views, 23 percent said they favor a repository to house nuclear wastes in Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The remaining 24 percent oppose a Yucca Mountain repository. The survey has a 3.1 percentage point margin of error. Thom Riehle, president of Washington-based Ipsos, said Wednesday the lack of knowledge about Yucca Mountain is the most interesting result of the survey and the reason why the issue could go either way in Congress. "It is an undeveloped issue," he said. Riehle said no one paid Ipsos to ask the Yucca Mountain question during a March 14-17 survey of Americans. He said his company does weekly market research polls on products for companies such as Colgate. As part of those surveys, he said Ipsos asks its own questions about public affairs. Yucca Mountain was the question asked during that period. President Bush announced in February that he wants to place nuclear waste generated by power plants in Yucca Mountain. Gov. Kenny Guinn has said repeatedly he will veto the Bush decision. Once he vetoes the Bush plan, expected before April 15, Congress will have 90 days to override or sustain his veto. Guinn said last week that Nevada has no chance of winning in the House, but that it might prevail in the Senate. Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and John Ensign, R-Nev., have asked Guinn to convene a special session of the Legislature on Yucca Mountain. They want the state to approve a $10 million appropriation to pay for a television campaign to induce opposition to the repository project. Commercials would be run in the East and Midwest. Given that the state has a $100 million shortfall in its budget, Guinn said last week a special session would be unlikely. He is expected to announce early next week whether he will call the session. Riehle said the public was equally divided on Yucca Mountain: 47 percent for the repository and 47 percent against it. Among Republicans, 65 percent favor the repository, while 29 percent oppose it. Democrats, however, have just the opposite numbers: 36 percent of Democrats back the repository and 59 percent oppose it. Poll results were posted on the Ipsos Web site at www.ipsos-reid.com March 20. Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002 ***************************************************************** 51 NUCLEAR WASTE: DOE: Yucca foes spurned talks Thursday, March 28, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal Energy secretary spokesman says Sept. 5 offer to state's lawmakers shows varied input on project was sought By STEVE TETREAULT STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- Taking off the gloves as the Yucca Mountain issue prepares to enter a climactic phase, the Energy Department said Wednesday that Secretary Spencer Abraham volunteered to meet with Nevada lawmakers in September about the nuclear waste project but was never taken up on the offer. An Abraham spokesman said the Sept. 5 offer showed that the Energy secretary was seeking input from a variety of sources, not just groups that support the project, as he considered whether to recommend the Nevada site for a nuclear waste repository. "The point is, we have reached out to the opponents of Yucca Mountain with our meetings, we met with environmental groups, we even asked the congressional delegation. We offered to meet with them, and we didn't get a response, ever," spokesman Joe Davis said. Members of the congressional delegation dismissed the offer at the time as disingenuous, state officials said. They charged that Abraham is publicizing the offer now to blunt reports of meetings he held last year with groups and individuals who were likely to support nuclear waste burial in Nevada. Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., said the Energy Department is "grasping at straws" to show Abraham had an open mind on Yucca Mountain. Gibbons said there would have been little to talk about at a meeting: Nevadans want the program stopped while Abraham was charged with moving it forward. Nevada's elected officials have roundly criticized Abraham and President Bush for selecting Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, for a nuclear waste repository. Bush administration officials appear less restrained from countering knocks as the Yucca Mountain issue prepares to enter a climactic phase in Congress. Lawmakers are expected to vote by mid-summer on finalizing the Nevada site selection. Increasingly, the pros and cons of the Nevada-targeted repository are being aimed at Capitol Hill. Abraham penned an opinion piece in the Washington Post this week defending Energy Department studies and stating Yucca foes are resorting to "scare tactics" in challenging the safety of proposed nuclear waste shipments to Nevada. His spokesman echoed his comments Wednesday. "We are focusing on the substantive facts of this issue, and it appears in every instance that our opponents are focusing on the politics," Davis said. "For those who criticize us, we have proof we offered to meet with them and they refused to meet," he said. "They don't have a leg to stand on to criticize the secretary." Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said in a statement that if Abraham really wanted to meet, "we were just a phone call away." He said Vice President Dick Cheney, Interior Secretary Gale Norton and Environmental Protection Agency chief Christine Todd Whitman sought appointments in that way. "We never got that phone call from Secretary Abraham," he said. Nathan Naylor, spokesman for Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Abraham's offer "was a throwaway line in the middle of a letter" in which the secretary said he was not going to attend a Sept. 6 public hearing in Las Vegas but was sending someone in his place. Naylor said Reid was focused at the time on getting Abraham to attend public hearings to hear from Nevadans. "Abraham already knew how Harry Reid felt on Yucca Mountain," Naylor said. Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., was observing the start of Passover and was not available for comment Wednesday, spokesman Michael O'Donovan said. "Abraham's offer to meet with members of the delegation did not speak to the issue of him hearing firsthand the concerns of Nevadans," O'Donovan said. Abraham's daily schedules for his first nine months in office last year, made public this week as part of a Freedom of Information lawsuit, showed the secretary met more often with those likely to favor Yucca Mountain than those who oppose it. Davis protested the documents do not reflect the department's Nevada outreach later in the year and early in 2002 as Abraham neared his decision, which he announced Jan. 10. Davis noted that the Energy Department held 66 public hearings on the project between mid-September and mid-December around the state. Abraham showed up without advance notice at a final public hearing Dec. 13 in Las Vegas. The same day, Energy Undersecretary Robert Card met in Las Vegas with officials from Clark County and other communities affected by the project. Card also met that day with Nevada environmentalists and American Indian representatives including Kalynda Tilges and Kaitlin Bachlun of Citizen Alert, and Susi Snyder and Corbin Harney of the Shundahai Network. Also in the meeting were Judy Treichel of the Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force and businessman Steve Cloobeck. Treichel said afterward that Card "tried to buffalo us." Tilges said the session was "just for show." "To characterize us by saying we met with relatively few foes of Yucca Mountain is a little bit unfair," Davis said. "Saying we had a pro-Yucca stance from the very beginning, that's absolutely false." Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002 ***************************************************************** 52 Yucca Editorial: Listen to what the people say Las Vegas SUN March 28, 2002 Politicians and government leaders frequently refer to the good sense of the general public, as in Secretary of State Colin Powell saying the American people are committed to Afghanistan. It's good to invoke the name of the people when you can be positively sure of their support and it's even better to carry out their reasonable wishes. We cannot imagine a more compelling time than now to invoke the good sense of the Nevada people. A special session of the Nevada Legislature is necessary in order to appropriate enough money to carry the fight against Yucca Mountain to a national audience. Polls for the past decade have shown that Nevadans are overwhelmingly against the federal plan to bury high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain. And a new poll, commissioned by the Las Vegas Sun and conducted by UNLV's Cannon Center for Survey Research, revealed that 68 percent of the respondents favored a special session. Therefore, it's unfathomable why so many Nevada legislators are balking at the idea of a special session. A Sun survey shows that 13 of 21 state senators oppose a special session and 15 members of the Assembly are against it. Gov. Kenny Guinn is hesitant to call for a special session without solid legislative support. As the leader of his state Republican Party, maybe Guinn can persuade the nine recalcitrant senators and nine recalcitrant Assembly members who are Republican. Politics aside, the naysayers should allow the good sense of Nevadans to have more influence over their position on this issue, before they cause the state to miss what may be its best chance to tap into the good sense of all Americans. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 53 DOE, Nevada lawmakers in war of words Las Vegas SUN March 28, 2002 Abraham never met with state officials before Yucca decision By Benjamin Grove Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham never met with Nevada lawmakers before he recommended a nuclear repository at Yucca Mountain, and now Nevada lawmakers and DOE officials are engaged in a war of words over why. Abraham made a good-faith offer to meet with the lawmakers in a Sept. 5 letter, Energy Department officials said. In the letter Abraham told Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., that he had dispatched his Under Secretary Robert Card to attend a public hearing on Yucca. He added, "I also would be happy to meet with you, the Governor, and the members of the Nevada Congressional Delegation to hear your and their views directly." Nevada lawmakers never responded to the invitation and are now "backpedaling" as they try to explain why they never followed through with Abraham, DOE spokesman Joe Davis said. "I would think that the Nevada delegation would take every opportunity to meet with a member of the Bush administration about this issue," Davis said. Abraham's offer to meet was serious, Davis said. "It's poor staff work for them to say that we did not take this seriously," Davis said. "This is a Cabinet member offering to meet with a U.S. senator." Nevada lawmakers dismissed the claims, saying the offer was a flimsy line tossed into a letter about public hearings on Yucca Mountain. "If the secretary ever wanted to meet with us about Yucca Mountain, we were just a phone call away," Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said in a written statement Wednesday. But Abraham never followed up with staffers for Nevada lawmakers to set up a meeting, Ensign said. "We never got that phone call from Secretary Abraham." The DOE and Nevada lawmakers are trading barbs at a time when the lawmakers are bracing for a critical vote in Congress on the Yucca project, a federal plan to bury the nation's highly radioactive nuclear waste 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Meanwhile, DOE officials are fending off criticism that they met mostly with energy company officials as they were drafting a national energy policy, which included an emphasis on nuclear power and called for a permanent waste repository. Abraham knew well the reasons that Nevada lawmakers oppose the Yucca project, Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., said. The DOE's effort to stress that it reached out to the lawmakers misses the point, which is that the DOE has long been biased in favor of putting nuclear waste in the state and never had an open mind to the opinions of people in the state, Gibbons said. "The Department of Energy is grasping at straws to prove that they have been fair, when they have been unfair all along," Gibbons said. "This is an effort to make us look like we are inconsistent." The context of the letter is important, Reid spokesman Nathan Naylor said. At the time the letter was sent, Nevada lawmakers were urging Abraham to attend a public hearing in Nevada, which he later did. But at the time, the lawmakers were concerned that Abraham would consider a meeting with them to be an adequate substitute for attending a hearing in the state, Naylor said. "It is 100 percent spin to say that this was a genuine request to meet with us," Naylor said. "This is him trying to duck out of meeting with Nevadans in the state." That's "absolutely unbelievable" reasoning, Davis shot back. Davis added that Abraham heard plenty of input from Nevadans. In addition to the hearing he attended in Las Vegas, DOE officials attended 66 public hearings on Yucca Mountain during a four-month span late last year, Davis said. Abraham spoke to Gov. Kenny Guinn for an hour at Nellis Air Force Base on Jan. 7, and again for a brief, less formal meeting of the National Governors Association in Washington on Feb. 26. "We had more contact with the governor than with the entire Nevada delegation," Davis said. "(Abraham) was impressed with the governor. He made a firm case." Naylor said Nevada lawmakers did not have time to follow up a meeting with Abraham after he visited the state in mid-December. Shortly afterward -- on Jan. 10 -- Abraham recommended the Yucca site to President Bush, Naylor said. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 54 Guinn seeks alternative to session Las Vegas SUN March 28, 2002 Governor searching for other sources to fund Yucca campaign By Erin Neff Gov. Kenny Guinn said he is looking for an "off-budget" alternative to convening a special session to find $10 million for the state's campaign against the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump. In a press conference Wednesday with U.S. Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and John Ensign, R-Nev., and local leaders, Guinn said he is committed to trying to find the money to boost Nevada's fight. "The issue here is can you figure out a different way to get the money," Guinn said. The state's Nevada Protection Fund has $6 million to fight the dump but much of the money has been accounted for. State leaders have called on local governments and businesses to contribute. Reid and Ensign have asked Guinn to call a special session of the Legislature to appropriate $10 million that would be used for a national television ad campaign and a grass-roots organizing effort. Guinn had suggested lawmakers could tap into the state's $136 million rainy day fund in a special session, but he has run into lukewarm support in the Legislature. A Sun poll of lawmakers this week showed a slight majority in the Assembly and strong opposition in the Senate to a proposed special session. Sixty-eight percent of Clark County residents, however, support the move, according to a UNLV poll commissioned by the Sun this week. State Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, questioned the need for and legality of a special session on the issue since the fund cannot be accessed to pay for a proposed nationwide public relations campaign against the dump without a change in state law. Guinn said the money could be found through the the state's Interim Finance Committee. The committee, which is next scheduled to meet April 10, has the ability to tap $8 million in state money for emergency purposes. Guinn said he presented the idea to Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins, D-Henderson, and Raggio, hoping to gain their support for the expenditure. "If there's another way, a better way, a different way of doing this, I support it," said Perkins, who does support a special session. "As long as we can get the (advertising) program together." Raggio, chairman of the interim committee, said he still doesn't know where the state can find $10 million, but will "defer" to Guinn and "work with him to any extent possible." "The state has no capability to come up with $10 million from any source," Raggio said. "It would have to be partial." Already Clark County Commission Chairman Dario Herrera said he wants to give $3 million more from the county to the Nevada Protection Fund. The county has already donated $1 million. No one at the county is currently sure of where the additional money would come from and whether it is a legal use of the funds. Even Commissioner Myrna Williams, also a Democrat and Yucca opponent, said she would support the expenditure only if it would not impact jobs or services. If Guinn gets $3 million from Clark County, he will only have to find $7 million for the new campaign. Reid and Ensign, meanwhile, are putting together a plan to use the money, although neither is making promises that the money can guarantee victory. Both stressed Wednesday that the battle over Yucca Mountain in the U.S. Senate will be "difficult." However -- in seeking more money for the fight -- both also remained confident Nevada can get the 51 votes needed to sustain Guinn's expected veto of President George Bush's recommendation that Yucca Mountain serve as the nation's nuclear waste repository. "Some have suggested that we just throw in the towel and walk away," Reid said. "The answer is not only, 'no,' but 'hell no.' " Reid characterized the next few months of the fight as "big time" and said "we think we can do this." "We feel that with the right effort, we can prevail," Reid added. Ensign said the vote in the Senate -- which must take place within 90 legislative days of Guinn's veto -- is "our best chance to stop this." Neither Reid nor Ensign would comment specifically about the proposed ad campaign, because they said they did not want to tip off the deep-pocketed nuclear power industry. That industry has spent $30 million in the past 30 months to lobby for Yucca Mountain. "We want to challenge each and every local government to look for every dime," Ensign said. "We're also going to be going to private citizens for help." The senators plan to set up a website to collect donations from residents. But it is the ad campaign that both hope can help sway Republican senators to Nevada's side. The senators also asked local governments to see if there is any additional money to contribute. Clark County has already pledged $1 million and Las Vegas has pledged $100,000. Fallon, Mesquite and Reno have all pledged money as well. Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman said he has just gone over the city's preliminary budget and sees no obviously available money. But he also said he "can't think of any better way" money could be used given his staunch opposition to the dump. "It's not Nevada's problem," Goodman said. "(Yucca Mountain) might be 90 miles from here, but it's the nation's problem." As a result, he and others said they support an ad campaign targeting transportation concerns. North Las Vegas Mayor Mike Montandon said his city has not been lobbied to contribute to the anti-Yucca fight. He said he didn't think the city could contribute more money because, "we don't have the depth in our budget that the county does." Boulder City Mayor Bob Ferraro was also doubtful that his city would contribute. "I doubt you're going to see any contributions from Boulder City because, frankly, we have a tight budget," he said. "It's a reality of the times." In Henderson, the story was different. Mayor Jim Gibson could not confirm if his city will add to the $50,000 already pledged, but said he will meet with the city finance director and city manager this week to see "what we can steal from." "What I will do, because I was asked to and I want to be supportive -- we will look at whether we can squeeze some more money out," Gibson said. Some state lawmakers are also taking another look at the issue and reconsidering their opposition to spending the money. State Sen. Randolph Townsend, R-Reno, originally opposed a special session, but after talking to Guinn, Ensign and Reid, he said he could support both a session and the appropriation of funds. "They feel it's of value and I support their efforts," Townsend said. A second Sun survey of lawmakers found a few others -- like state Sen. Mike Schneider, D-Las Vegas -- willing to change their position to support for a special session. However, Guinn still has quite a task to find the money and prove the ad campaign is a worthy expenditure. Some lawmakers remain unconvinced the $10 million is needed. State Sen. Jon Porter, R-Henderson, said he would prefer the state first use the $6 million currently in the Nevada Protection Fund to create a test campaign in a particular market while Guinn starts the process to allocate more money through the IFC. "Let's target a state and see how we're doing," Porter said. "If we're not able to make a dent, then we should reconsider." All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 55 E lands $20 million waste contract - 2002-03-27 - Business First of Buffalo Ecology & Environment Inc. of Lancaster has been awarded a five-year, $20 million contract by the Kansas City district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The contract covers hazardous, toxic and radioactive waste cleanup programs in various U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regions. E&E's first assignment under the new contract is designing a remediation plan for the Hudson River PCB site. The company will be responsible for project management and community relations, including establishment of an EPA Hudson River field office. The cleanup encompasses approximately 2.65 million cubic yards of PCB-contaminated sediments along a 40-mile stretch of the upper Hudson River from Hudson Falls to north of Troy. Copyright 2002 American City Business Journals Inc. ***************************************************************** 56 Ensign promises all out battle against Yucca Battle Mountain Bugle March 21, 2002 Says Feds can't help with school budget shortfalls By Gary Begin Humboldt Sun Editor and Dave Woodson Bugle Editor Nevada's junior U.S. Senator John Ensign said Thursday he feels the state's fight to stop the federal government from using Yucca Mountain near Las Vegas as a nuclear waste repository is "far from over." Ensign promised "an all out battle mode" by the Nevada delegation against the dumping of high-level nuclear waste at the Nevada site. He said he is meeting on a daily basis with his counterpart, Senator Harry Reid, to orchestrate a strategy to defeat the Yucca Mountain site in Congress. Nevada Governor Kenny Guinn has vowed to veto Yucca Mountain and promised that he would send the issue to the US. Congress. Ensign noted that there does appear to be the votes in the Senate to keep the project from going ahead, but that the two senators believe they have a much better chance in the House. However, Ensign noted there is still an opportunity to block the Yucca Mountain selection in the Senate because of the opposition of Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, Dem.-S.D. Ensign said if Daschle can keep the bill from reaching the Senate floor that it could die during the current session of Congress. While the fight in Congress over Yucca Mountain continues, Guinn also plans to take the state's case against the nuclear waste dump into the federal courts. Guinn has been compiling a war chest for litigation against the site. Both the senators and the governor have charged that the decision to locate the dump at Yucca Mountain was based on politics and not sound scientific evidence. When the decision was announced by the Bush administration, Reid accused President George W. Bush of going back on a campaign promise and labeled the President a "liar." Guinn contends that the decision was made before most of the scientific studies had been completed. Ensign, in a 20-minute phone news conference with half a dozen Nevada reporters, also said malpractice lawsuits should be subjected to capping of jury awards and to tort reform much in the way California has done. "I have a friend in Las Vegas who spent $175,000 on malpractice insurance last year. She moved to Southern California where the population base is similar and the cost of her insurance there was $17,000," he said. Ensign said he's heard from the nursing home industry about the high cost of insurance saying it was "outrageously expensive to get liability insurance." "A couple of malpractice cases will blow the lid off of rates in the area," he said, calling for the state and/or the federal government to step in with controls. A bill before the House about Indian land claims, Ensign said, will not affect the rights of Native Americans in a negative way despite rumors to the contrary being circulated by some Indian groups and individuals opposed to the Reid/Ensign bill. Ensign said northern Nevada's Congressman Jim Gibbons also has a similar bill and said he expected the bill(s) to pass. Ensign said the decline in northern Nevada population hurting school system revenues due to "zero growth or negative growth is playing havoc on budgets," but said most of the school funding comes from state coffers. He mentioned a bill in Congress which will bring $10 million into Nevada for schools, but it is uncertain how much of that money is earmarked for rural counties hard hit by mine closures and the subsequent exodus of workers and their children. Regarding environmental issues brought to the Senate floor by California's Sen. Barbara Boxer, Ensign said he was against designating the Carson River on the Nevada side as a "Wild and Scenic River." In closing, Ensign said the Homeland Security Office would be channeling money "mostly to local levels - local governments." Ensign said the money is designed to "get them up to speed," and would be spent on preparedness and preparation "against domestic terrorism." ***************************************************************** 57 [toeslist] Dr. Helen Caldicott's 'The New Nuclear Danger' Date: Thu, 28 Mar 2002 23:10:36 -0600 (CST) ***** FORWARDED MESSAGE ***** To: GSN@yahoogroups.com Dear Friends, I have just written a new book called THE NEW NUCLEAR DANGER, GEORGE BUSH'S MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX, which is to be published both in the US and Canada (by The New Press) in early April, and in Australia and New Zealand (by Scribe Publishing) on May 16th 2002. I believe THE NEW NUCLEAR DANGER could not be more timely for, as we have seen in the last two weeks, the Pentagon's Nuclear Posture Review calls for the use of nuclear weapons on non-nuclear nations - if they deem it necessary - for the first time in history. Never in the almost three decades that I have been campaigning against the use of nuclear weapons and nuclear power have I felt that the world is in so much danger. We simply must have an informed debate - around the world - on this issue and it is my hope that THE NEW NUCLEAR DANGER will both inform and inspire people of conscience to enter that debate. To order the book from The New Press (USA/CANADA) or Scribe (ANZ) follow the instructions below. PLEASE FORWARD THIS EMAIL ON TO ANY INDIVIDUALS OR GROUPS WHO MIGHT BE INTERESTED. ***************************************************************** 58 Letter: Birth defects and toxins Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Thursday March 28, 2002 [http://www.guardian.co.uk] Your report on a boy born without eyes (Boost for parents' court fight, March 25), indicated the involvement of benomyl, a plant fungicide, in causing this condition. Benomyl is a member of the methyl benzimiadazolecarbamates which are widely used in human and veterinary medicine for the treatment of various worm infections, particularly in developing countries. Important compounds include albendazole, mebandazole and netobimin. These compounds are also associated with destructive teratogenic effects. I have not seen any reports on anophthalmos cases (babies born without eyes) associated with these compounds, but this data may well be in company files. If it is, then it must be published. If not, then studies are urgently needed. A recent study in Iraq, following the Gulf war, has identified 20 anophthalmos cases out of a birth cohort of 4,000. The natural occurrence of these tragic cases is one in 50 million. The Iraq rate is some 250,000 times the expected one. The extensive poisoning of Iraq's environment by chemical and biological toxins, including depleted uranium dust, suggests that anophthalmos might arise following exposure to a wide range of toxins, not just benomyl and related compounds. Malcolm Hooper Chief scientific adviser to the Gulf war veterans [UP] Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002 ***************************************************************** 59 Nuclear daydreams and the Pentagon sunspot.net - opinion Bunker-busters: Looking for a rationale now that rogue states present such a satisfying target. Originally published March 28, 2002 IS A LITTLE nuclear bomb more dangerous than a big one? Sure, the big ones can do a lot of damage, but they have a way of not being used. We've never had to flatten Moscow. It was unthinkable - and unnecessary. But what if we changed our thinking, and started making little ones - with low fallout, precision guidance and a doctrine that, for instance, calls a bioweapons bunker in Iraq a legitimate nuclear target? Under the right circumstances, wouldn't we be tempted to give one of them a try? That is precisely what is worrying a lot of people. The Pentagon commissioned something called a Nuclear Posture Review, which is classified but has been leaked, and it amounts to a thorough rethinking of the ways the United States could use its nuclear bombs. It points out that Russia is no longer an adversary, and that there are bad actors out there among lesser nations who know we'll never drop a big one on them, but who just might be deterred by a dose of nuclear-lite jitters - or who, if it came to it, could be neutralized by a few well-placed missiles. Fine. If you think of a nuclear bomb as a weapon to use and not some totem of horror, and if you think of a nuclear explosion as just a bigger version of a conventional one, then why should we tie one hand behind our back? Since our great big nuclear weapons aren't of so much use these days, surely it's only prudent to give ourselves some small ones in their place. Inside the Pentagon, that makes sense. Out here, it's a different story. There's only one reason to have small usable nukes, and that is if they can do something that would otherwise be impossible. The Nuclear Posture Review points with alarm to hardened underground bunkers in such places as Libya, North Korea, Iraq and Iran, where potent biological or chemical weapons that could be directed against us might be brewing. But the United States can already do tremendous damage with conventional weapons. It can probably destroy any bunker in those countries, and it can certainly cut off access to bunkers and render them ineffective. America can pre-empt evildoers as effectively with the arms we now have as we could with nuclear ones, and if we should again suffer catastrophic terrorist acts, the means of terrible retaliation and retribution are at hand. Now, consider the possibility of bad intelligence. Certainly, even if we could have, we probably wouldn't have dropped a nuke earlier this year on those Afghans who turned out to be on our side, or on the pharmaceutical factory in Sudan that was thought back in 1998 to be producing chemical weapons, or on the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. But how would we be sure of our targets? And what would we say, after a mistake? This is getting at the real problem. A nuclear weapon is one thing in the military mind, but something else entirely in the minds of everyone else, both here and abroad. Nuclear weapons are, in some emotional way, out of bounds. A military objective could be achieved with a mini-nuke, and maybe even with limited civilian casualties, but the political fallout would be immense and poisonous. No American president would use a nuclear bomb in a first strike, unless the continuing existence of the United States was at stake. In the real world, that's the way it is. And that's good to know. But the Pentagon has done the country a disservice in compiling such a provocative document, one that was sure to be leaked. It makes the administration look dangerously irresponsible, and it could perversely lead other countries into their own nuclear buildups. The thinking behind it harkens back to the Reagan years, even while it stoutly maintains that the Cold War is done with. (We're still going to have 2,000 warheads pointed at Russia, by the way) In the early 1980s, Pentagon thinkers suggested that the United States could "win" a nuclear war. Hardly anyone bought it, but now the new review talks about using nuclear weapons to "provide greater flexibility in the design and conduct of military campaigns to defeat opponents decisively." That sounds reasonable, until you reflect that Russians, Chinese and others will interpret this as an American determination, yet again, to win a nuclear war. Well, it's better than losing a nuclear war. But there really is another way, which is to cut out the robust fantasies of weapons intellectuals and acknowledge that we don't really have to find a new use for a lot of nuclear weapons. If we don't need all of them, there's a simple solution: Get rid of them. Copyright © 2002, The Baltimore Sun SunSpot.net is Copyright © 2002 by The Baltimore Sun. ***************************************************************** 60 Letter From Ground Zero by Jonathan Schell Manhattan Nuclear Disarmament New York, the city in which I was born and grew up and have lived all my life, and in which my children were born and have now grown up, was also the birthplace of the atomic bomb. The first practical steps toward building the bomb were taken at Columbia University, where the Hungarian physicist Leo Szilard and the Italian physicist Enrico Fermi, among others, did preliminary experiments demonstrating that a chain reaction of nuclear fission could be initiated. Even in the first days of the nuclear age, Szilard, who, after helping create the bomb spent the rest of his life agitating to get rid of it, understood right away that the makers of the bomb could one day be its victims. In 1945 he wrote, "The position of the United States in the world may be adversely affected by their existence.... Clearly if such bombs are available, it will not be necessary to bomb our cities from the air in order to destroy them. All that is necessary is to place a comparatively small number in major cities and detonate them at some later time.... The long coastline, the structure of our society, and the heterogeneity of our population may make effective controls of such 'traffic' virtually impossible." The next stop on the road to the bomb was Chicago, where, under the Chicago University sports stadium, the first chain reaction was loosed; and then it was on to Los Alamos, where the bomb was built, and to the Valley of the Journey of Death, where, on July 16, 1945, the first nuclear weapon was detonated. Still, the New York origins of the bomb were preserved for history in the name given to the enterprise: the Manhattan Project. Now it's fifty-seven long years later. A lot has happened--among other things, acquisition of the bomb by seven other nations, the Cuban missile crisis, the Soviet collapse and September 11. But humanity is still toiling through the Valley of the Journey of Death, currently with a burden on its collective back of 32,000 nuclear weapons. Not until this year, however, has Szilard's prophecy returned to disturb the sleep of New Yorkers. Time magazine recently disclosed that in October federal officials received a plausible report that a nuclear attack on New York by terrorists was in the works--perhaps with a ten-kiloton weapon they were told was missing from the Russian arsenal. "It was brutal," an official said of the experience. Meanwhile, we learned that the Bush Administration had set up a "shadow government" of officials hidden away in underground bunkers to keep the government operating in case of a nuclear attack on Washington. The alarm proved--thank God!--to be false. But everyone knows that the next time it could be real. The news has prompted new mental exercises. A full-scale nuclear holocaust does not invite much detailed thought. Everything will be gone. What is there to think about? The reported peril from one bomb to New York is a different matter. Thought and imagination, tutored by September 11, got more specific--more visceral, more tactical. At Hiroshima, I knew, survivors on the outer edges of the sphere of annihilation directed their steps into the countryside. There would be no such luck for the injured of sea-girt Manhattan, escapable only by a few bridges and tunnels. The psychiatrist Robert J. Lifton has quoted the description by a Hiroshima grocer of the people fleeing the city: "At a glance you couldn't tell whether you were looking at them from in front or in back...they held their arms [in front of them]...and their skin--not only on their hands but on their faces and bodies too--hung down." Not many people in that condition will get through, say, the Brooklyn Battery tunnel. When the Trade Center was hit on September 11, some people had the presence of mind to steal kayaks from sports stores and paddle to New Jersey. But these were vain thoughts, futile plans. Even this level of nuclear destruction--"low" in comparison to a general holocaust--seems to involve the imagination in defeat. Does someone want to crumple up this great and beautiful city and throw it into history's trashcan like a piece of Kleenex? Does someone want to put an end to the rough-edged but sweet New York life we have here? It appears that they may and that soon they may possess the means. With these fears pervading the atmosphere, other news of the bomb was arriving--news not of nuclear attacks the United States might suffer but of nuclear attacks the United States might deliver upon others. Reports of the Administration's new Nuclear Posture Review reveal that it is not going to reduce the strategic arsenal down to about 2,000, as recently announced by George W. Bush; it is going to warehouse the "cut" weapons. It has also drawn up plans to expand nuclear weapons production, to design and build new varieties of nuclear warheads and, most shocking, to use nuclear weapons against at least seven countries: Russia, China, North Korea, Libya, Syria, Iraq and Iran. Other countries are looking on with alarm--fearful that a monster, driven mad by righteous fury and dizzy with its own power, is rising out of the ashes of September 11 to bellow destruction to the world. In short, at exactly the moment New York and Washington, reeling from the attacks of September 11, were awakening to their helplessness in the face of possible nuclear attack, our government was moving to relegitimize the use of nuclear weapons in general and throwing down the nuclear gauntlet to the Middle East in particular--the very part of the world from which New York and Washington and other cities most fear attack. Did the decision-makers in Washington reflect, when they gave themselves the right to launch nuclear attacks on the Middle East and elsewhere, that they might inspire those targeted to do likewise to us? Did they forget that there is no defense against nuclear arms and no rescue for those attacked by them? Leo Szilard was right fifty-seven years ago. In the long run, nuclear destructive power is available to all, just as it menaces all. No country is omnipotent. None are invulnerable. What the United States has done to others at Hiroshima and Nagasaki--and what we may yet do to others at Teheran and Tripoli--others can do to us. The offspring of the Manhattan Project are circling back toward Manhattan. Two towers of blue light rise where the towers of glass and steel once rose. What monument would be conceivable as the gravestone of all New York? What can we do to save our beloved, injured, perishable city? thenation.com Webmanager | Subscribe | Subscription Help | Privacy © 2002 The Nation Company, L.P. Permissions ***************************************************************** 61 The man who built the Bomb icLiverpool - Mar 28 2002 By Peter Elson Daily Post Staff ONE of the greatest intellects to grace Liverpool academic life was honoured in the city yesterday. Professor Sir Joseph Rotblat, 93, who initiated work on the atomic bomb while working in Liverpool, received an honorary fellowship from Liverpool John Moores University. In 1995, Prof Rotblat was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for founding and chairing the Pugwash Conferences. Set up with Albert Einstein and philosopher Bertrand Russell, the conferences were devoted to averting the danger posed by nuclear weapons. After taking British citizenship, he also became Professor of Physics at St Bart's Hospital in London, in 1950, where he pioneered the use of radiation for the widespread treatment of cancer. Prof Rotblat's honorary fellowship was for his contribution to science and humanity. It was awarded by LJMU vice-chancellor Michael Brown before Sir Joseph delivered his Roscoe Century 21 Citizenship Lecture at the Philharmonic Hall, organised by Lord Alton. Prof Rotblat, who commands a 50-line entry in Who's Who, arrived in Liverpool having just returned from a conference in India. He stood for over an hour giving his lecture on "Citizenship and the Challenge of Science" and taking questions from the packed hall. He said: " I am deeply moved and immensely gratified by being awarded this honorary fellowship. I only spent one decade of my long life in Liverpool, but I have indelible memories. It was a decade of dramatic world events with World War II and, for me, the making of the atom bomb. I was involved from the beginning in November, 1939, and worked about three minutes' walk away from here at Brownlow Hill. "The difficulties of the war in Liverpool and the nightly air-raids by the Luftwaffe have forged lasting links with the city and I consider myself as Liverpudlian . . . but not Scouse!" Now he believes that the time has come to formulate guidelines for the ethical conduct of scientists with a Hippocratic Oath, similar to that taken by doctors. Looking some 20 years younger than his age, he said: "My theme is survival. We have to go on to world citizenship. The more interaction and inter-dependence we have, the more we can no longer afford to have wars. "When we started researching the atom bomb, the idea was that it should not be used, but it was felt it was needed. The scientists were humanitarians pursuing science for its own sake. The underlying idea was science was used for the benefit of mankind. "As soon as the Manhattan Project took over when we moved to the USA, they felt it should be used. The Second World War was suddenly stopped with the bomb on Japan, then we were plunged into the Cold War with Russia, which easily could have become the hot war. "The Pugwash conferences were a consequence of the arms race, as we thought eventually there would be a collision. We, as scientists, were an international channel of communication when the politicians had only hostile relations. "Still I feel social organisation has not kept pace with scientific progress. In the nuclear age man is an endangered species. We must not squander the riches bequeathed to us by previous generations. "Our motto should be 'If you want peace, prepare for peace, not war'. "We cannot de-invent nuclear weapons. Our only hope is education and the fostering of a new attitude to security and a new loyalty to mankind."..SUPL: © owned by or licensed to Trinity Mirror Plc 2002 icLiverpoolTM is a trade mark of Trinity Mirror Plc. ***************************************************************** 62 Russia's ex-nuclear minister speaks for resumption of nuclear tests Yahoo! News - ·N. Korea Reactor Project on Course - Washington Post Thu Mar 28, 8:58 AM ET By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV, Associated Press Writer MOSCOW - Disputing the Russian government's strong support of a global nuclear test ban, a former atomic energy minister said Thursday that the resumption of test explosions is vital for preserving the combat readiness of Russian nuclear weapons. "If we decide to keep nuclear weapons, nuclear tests are inevitable," said Yevgeny Adamov, who served as nuclear power minister until President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites) fired him a year ago. "A nuclear device comes through a certain life cycle, it's being periodically disassembled and certain materials are changed ... so no one can be sure that it functions properly if not tested," Adamov said at a news conference. Russia conducted its last nuclear test explosion in 1990, and the United States has banned underground nuclear testing since 1992. The U.S. administration, although committed to the test moratorium for now, seeks a reduction in the time it would take to resume such tests in case they are needed to ensure the reliability of nuclear warheads as the United States and Russia trim their arsenals. It currently would take about two or three years. U.S. officials haven't ruled out nuclear tests in the future, but said there are no current plans to resume testing. Russia has voiced its strong adherence to the moratorium and urged the United States to do the same. The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, signed by 161 nations and ratified by 84 of them, will only become binding if all 44 countries that possess nuclear weapons or have nuclear power programs ratify the treaty. Only 31 such nations, including Britain and France and Rusisa, have ratified the 1996 accord that bans nuclear tests in any environment. The United States is among 13 non-ratifiers. In order to ensure the reliability of its weapons, Russia has relied on lab modelling and the so-called sub-critical tests, which aren't prohibited by the comprehensive ban because the amount of plutonium used is not enough to create a nuclear explosion. But Adamov has argued that such tests along with other methods aren't enough to sustain confidence in nuclear weapons. Adamov said that some experts believe that Russia's need to resume nuclear tests could be even more pressing than that of the United States, because Russian nuclear weapons used to include components built in other ex-Soviet republics and were modernized with home-made parts after the 1991 Soviet collapse. His successor, Alexander Rumyantsev, said Wednesday that nuclear test explosions would be necessary to modernize nuclear weapons, but toed the official line saying there is no need to resume testing. (vi/jh Copyright © 2002 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The Copyright © 2002 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 63 Back to the USSR? The Pasko Case Gregory Pasko, an investigative journalist who worked for the Pacific Fleet's newspaper, was arrested on 20 November 1997 by the FSB and charged with high treason for his writing about the nuclear safety issues in the Russian Pacific Fleet. The Russian Supreme Court Presidium has cancelled the previous Supreme Court rulings that nullified the secret Ministry of Defence decree 055. The effect of the decision of the Presidium is yet unclear. Jon Gauslaa, 2002-03-27 16:09 The Presidium of the Russian Supreme Court has today cancelled two rulings of respectively the Supreme Court's Military Collegium and Appeal Collegium regarding the secret and unregistered decree 055 of the Russian Ministry of Defence. The former ruling was issued on September 12, 2001 nullifying ten provisions of decree 055 from the date of their enforcement (August 10, 1996) because they were normative legal acts affecting the rights and duties of the citizens and thus, had to be subject to state registration. The latter ruling was issued on November 6, 2001 confirming the former decision and giving it legal force. Appeal from Prosecutor General The decision of the Presidium came after the Prosecutor General had used his right to have the two previous decisions evaluated by the governing body of the Supreme Court. In what appears as a cunning plan with the purpose to maintain the legal force of the unregistered and unpublished decree, the Prosecutor General acknowledged that the provisions were normative legal acts affecting the rights and duties of the citizens, but claimed that they should be cancelled from November 6, 2001 when the verdict cancelling the provision reached legal force, and not from August 10, 1996. The consequence of this position would be that decree 055 would have full legal effect throughout practically the whole period in which it was not registered. Thus, the attorneys of Aleksandr Nikitin, who had successfully challenged decree 055 in the first place, argued that the disputed provisions had to be cancelled from the date of their enforcement. Mixed up Confusion It turned out that the Presidium did not approve any of the above-mentioned positions. In stead it chose a third path, cancelling the previous decisions and ruling that the case regarding the validity of decree 055 should be sent back to the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court for a completely new evaluation. It is not known what lies behind this decision. The Presidium may however have paid attention to the position of the Ministry of Defence, who argued that the decree is not a normative legal act affecting the rights and duties of the citizen and that it thus, is not the subject to state registration and official publication. If that is the case, the decree would impose no duties for Russian citizens, and violations of it would not imply criminal responsibility. Nevertheless, individuals all over Russia, from St. Petersburg in the West to Vladivostok in the East, have been and are being prosecuted for having violated the provisions of decree 055. Since the grounds of the Presidium's decision are not yet known, it is hard to estimate what concrete effect its decision will have for the ongoing cases against Grigory Pasko, Igor Sutyagin and others. At the time being the confusion regarding the validity of decree 055 and whether it is a normative legal act or not, seems however, to be more or less total. Publisher: Bellona Foundation, President: Frederic Hauge Information: info@bellona.no, Technical contact: webmaster@bellona.no Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62 * P.O.Box 2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway ***************************************************************** 64 Russia voices concern over US position on nuclear test ban treaty BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Mar 28, 2002 Text of report in English by Russian news agency Interfax Moscow, 28 March: Russia "is especially concerned about" the US position on the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), sources in the Foreign Ministry told Interfax on Thursday [28 March]. The treaty "is a key barrier in the path of proliferation of nuclear armaments and their modernization", they said. "However, the United States is not in a hurry to ratify it and seems to be preparing the ground for quitting the accord." "Washington has decided to upgrade the alert at the Nevada nuclear testing grounds for the possible resumption of tests. Appeals for testing small nuclear devices are mounting," the sources said. "This position casts a shadow on the very idea of the treaty and, consequentially, does not promote confidence of our states in the document, which actually dooms the treaty to death," they said. Source: Interfax news agency, Moscow, in English 1130 gmt 28 Mar 02 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. ***************************************************************** 65 Russia: N-subs clean-up too costly - March 27, 2002 CNN.com - Russia has just buried the last recovered victims of the Kursk disaster MOSCOW, Russia -- Fears of an environmental disaster have grown after Russia said it could not afford to decommission its fleet of ageing nuclear submarines. Russia has decommissioned 190 submarines, but fuel still needs to be removed from 97 of them, most of which are left to rot in docks while they await dismantling. Scrapping the entire fleet of old nuclear submarines will cost about $3 billion. "We carry a heavy burden left by the nuclear weapons programme and industrial use of nuclear power," The Associated Press quoted Russian Atomic Energy Minister Alexander Rumyantsev as saying. "We have the necessary technology to dismantle and bury the nuclear waste but we are short of money. "Our state isn't ready for the task, and dismantling programmes have lagged behind schedule." Last year, nuclear fuel from 18 nuclear submarines was unloaded and another 18 more are expected to be dismantled this year. Among them is the wreck of the nuclear submarine Kursk which sank during naval manoeuvres in August 2000, killing the entire 118-man crew. The wreck was raised from the Barents Sea last October. Environmental groups have criticised the deteriorating condition of the decommissioned submarines, some of which have been mothballed for up to 15 years with fuel aboard. Rumyantsev voiced hope that imports of spent nuclear fuel for reprocessing would let his ministry earn funds to speed up the dismantling programme. If this happened, he said all submarines could be dismantled around 2007. A project of building a storage for low-active nuclear waste at Russia's Shimushir Island was economically feasible, Rumyantsev said, but it stands little chance of implementation because of strong protests by environmentalists. Back to the top© 2002 Cable News Network LP, LLLP. ***************************************************************** 66 Top Court Overturns Military Secrets Ruling http://www.themoscowtimes.com Thursday, Mar. 28, 2002. Page 3 By Nabi Abdullaev Staff Writer In a setback for human rights activists, the Presidium of the Supreme Court on Wednesday overturned an earlier ruling that invalidated part of a secret Defense Ministry document used to prosecute high-profile espionage suspects such as environmentalist Alexander Nikitin, military journalist Grigory Pasko and arms analyst Igor Sutyagin. But the Presidium said the court should take another look at the document, Order No. 055, which gives a list of data that the Defense Ministry considers to be state secrets. "The judges didn't tell us that we were not right, they just returned us to the starting point," Nikitin said. The Supreme Court ruled last September that 10 of the document's 650 articles should be annulled, and said the decision would apply retroactively to 1996, when the order was issued. The Defense Ministry appealed the ruling, and its appeal was denied in November. The chief military prosecutor later filed his own appeal, saying the 10 articles should be annulled only as of November. Thus the use of the secret decree against Nikitin, Pasko, Sutyagin and others would stand. To further complicate the case, the military arm of the Supreme Court ruled in February to invalidate the entire order. This ruling has not gone into effect, and it is unclear how it will be affected by Wednesday's decision. In any event, the Supreme Court will hear an appeal of the February ruling on Tuesday. Yury Shmidt, Nikitin's lawyer and a human rights activist, urged the 11-member Presidium to let the September decision stand. "It is a practice of the Supreme Court to invalidate legal documents as of their date of issue," he said. "A computer search in the court's database showed that in not a single case was a document invalidated only as of the court decision." Nikitin, whose appeal led to the September ruling, said that what he and his supporters are demanding is a clear legal playing field. "As an ecologist exploring nuclear issues, at any moment I can once again run into a fact that this order considers a state secret," said Nikitin, who now heads the St. Petersburg-based Human Rights Ecological Center. Russia has a federal law on state secrets, but its categories of classified information are very general and it allows ministries and other federal agencies to draw up their own lists of secret data. Nikitin, a former navy officer, was arrested in 1996 and spent more than 11 months in prison, charged with treason for writing a report for the Norwegian environmental group Bellona that divulged information about the navy's dumping of nuclear waste into the North Sea. He was acquitted in 1999. To a considerable extent, the case against him was based on Order No. 055. In annulling the 10 articles in September, the court said the order was not issued solely for the Defense Ministry's internal use and thus should have been registered with the Justice Ministry and made public. But the ministry's representative, Lieutenant Colonel Konstantin Rusanov, told the Presidium on Wednesday that the court made a mistake. "This order is just a list of information, it is not a law and it is dedicated for internal use," he said. But Rusanov conceded that the order should not have been used by prosecutors from a different agency -- for instance, the Federal Security Service, which filed charges against Nikitin, Pasko and Sutyagin -- or against civilians. He warned that if the court, after its review, upholds the September ruling, then the Defense Ministry would issue a new order that would be equally strong. If the court continues to consider such orders to apply to other agencies, the ministry would register the new order and then it could indeed be used to prosecute civilians as well as members of the military, Rusanov said. Shmidt criticized the decision Wednesday to send the order back for a new review. "The court couldn't satisfy the illiterate protest of the military prosecutor and decided to drag out the case to give the Defense Ministry time to register the order or for other surprises," he said. The Presidium deliberated for less than 15 minutes before its decision was read out by the chairman of the Supreme Court, Vyacheslav Lebedev. He gave no explanation. Pasko's lawyer, Ivan Pavlov, said he could not comment on the decision until the Presidium released its written statement . Rusanov was not so reticent. "I am very, very satisfied," he said as he left the courthouse. Order No. 055 was also the basis of the case against Pasko, who was charged with treason in 1997 for giving Japanese journalists information about the dumping of nuclear materials by the Pacific Fleet. He was acquitted of treason in 1999 but convicted of the lesser charge of abuse of office. Last year, after he appealed the decision, Pasko was sentenced on treason charges and is serving a four-year term in Vladivostok. ***************************************************************** 67 Hiroshima porcelain pieces provide insight into exposure levels Public release date: 25-Mar-2002 Contact: Ann Cairns acairns@geosociety.org [acairns@geosociety.org] 303-357-1056 Geological Society of America [http://www.geosociety.org] Scientists are still studying the after-effects of the nuclear disaster caused by an atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. The amount of neutron fluence, for example, has been calculated from the site to establish what might be a safe level of exposure for humans. (Neutron fluence is the number of neutrons from the blast found per square centimeter.) The advent of nuclear accidents such as Three Mile Island and potential nuclear accidents in the future makes accurate information imperative. But scientists have recently realized that there are discrepancies in earlier estimates and have been looking for ways to resolve them. According to the latest research, the standards for a safe level of exposure to humans might be too conservative. Analyzing the neutron-induced fission tracks on certain objects found in Hiroshima enables scientists to calibrate the nuclear fluence. Geologist Robert L. Fleischer (Union College in New York), S. Fujita (Radiation Effects Research Institute in Japan), and M. Hoshi (Research Institute for Nuclear Medicine and Biology in Japan) have published their findings on a glass button found near ground zero in Hiroshima in the Health Physics Society Journal. More recently, Union College geology student Jonathan MacDonald joined the team to determine the track density of fission tracks in porcelain fragments that were also found near ground zero. This study complements the previous work. “At face value, these results are fluence values from a specific bomb event that will hopefully never be used again. These fission events occurred when thermal neutrons from the bomb caused fission in the normal trace amounts of uranium in the material,” MacDonald explained. “We determined the track density on the exterior glaze (glass), on the outside of one porcelain fragment and in a cross section of the glaze in another.” While the value of the one sample nearly matches the previous estimates, the other one is 2 to 2.5 times higher. MacDonald will report the new values at the Geological Society of America’s North Eastern Section Meeting on March 25. “If correct, the latter value may be important for regulation of human exposures in the U.S., because many of the current regulations are based on theoretical calculated values,” MacDonald said. “If this latter dose is correct—being higher than what is currently assumed—then the current standards should be less restrictive.” By Kara LeBeau, GSA Staff Writer Contact information: Jonathan S. MacDonald Department of Geology Union College Schenectady NY 12308 USA E-mail: macdonaj@union.edu [macdonaj@union.edu] Phone: 518-631-0659 Abstract available at: http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2002NE/dis/papers/index.cgi?username=31504&password=co lo Northeastern Section, Geological Society of America 36th Annual Meeting March 25-27, 2002 Sheraton Springfield Hotel Springfield, Mass. For information and help during the meeting, please see the media assistant at the GSA registration table or call 413-263-2185. ***************************************************************** 68 Russia: N-subs clean-up too costly - CNN.com - March 27, 2002 Russia has just buried the last recovered victims of the Kursk disaster MOSCOW, Russia -- Fears of an environmental disaster have grown after Russia said it could not afford to decommission its fleet of ageing nuclear submarines. Russia has decommissioned 190 submarines, but fuel still needs to be removed from 97 of them, most of which are left to rot in docks while they await dismantling. Scrapping the entire fleet of old nuclear submarines will cost about $3 billion. "We carry a heavy burden left by the nuclear weapons programme and industrial use of nuclear power," The Associated Press quoted Russian Atomic Energy Minister Alexander Rumyantsev as saying. "We have the necessary technology to dismantle and bury the nuclear waste but we are short of money. "Our state isn't ready for the task, and dismantling programmes have lagged behind schedule." Last year, nuclear fuel from 18 nuclear submarines was unloaded and another 18 more are expected to be dismantled this year. Among them is the wreck of the nuclear submarine Kursk which sank during naval manoeuvres in August 2000, killing the entire 118-man crew. The wreck was raised from the Barents Sea last October. Environmental groups have criticised the deteriorating condition of the decommissioned submarines, some of which have been mothballed for up to 15 years with fuel aboard. Rumyantsev voiced hope that imports of spent nuclear fuel for reprocessing would let his ministry earn funds to speed up the dismantling programme. If this happened, he said all submarines could be dismantled around 2007. A project of building a storage for low-active nuclear waste at Russia's Shimushir Island was economically feasible, Rumyantsev said, but it stands little chance of implementation because of strong protests by environmentalists. © 2002 Cable News Network LP, LLLP. ***************************************************************** 69 Nix the mini-nukes | csmonitor.com from the March 28, 2002 edition By Henry C. Kelly and Michael A. Levi WASHINGTON – The Bush administration's leaked Nuclear Posture Review suggests dramatic and dangerous changes in policy. Congress should reject a key result of it – the request for funds to study a new earth-penetrating nuclear weapon. The review argues that the US must build a new generation of small nuclear weapons designed to penetrate deep into earth and destroy underground bunkers. The idea is that a nuclear weapon would penetrate so deep that its explosion would be contained, there would be no fallout, and a nuclear weapon that kills fewer people is somehow less nuclear. This is wrong – a nuke is a nuke. The risk to the US incurred by use of nuclear weapons doesn't depend on their sizes. Dangerous states are deterred from nuclear use by the certainty they would invite US nuclear retaliation. This provides the US's best barrier against nuclear use. Any US use of a nuclear weapon would destroy that barrier and US moral leadership. The US would raise the probability that nuclear arms would be used against it. A penetrating nuclear weapon of the sort the administration plans to study cannot be "clean." The depth the weapon can penetrate before detonating is limited by how hard the bomb or missile can hit the earth and still function. Calculations suggest that, using a weapon with one-third the power of the Hiroshima bomb, 650 feet of earth penetration is needed, but the best available missile technology can achieve far less than 100 feet. Such an explosion would eject large amounts of radioactive dirt. We could get deeper penetration by landing troops above the bunker and boring a hole in the ground. But if we are to do that, we can use advanced conventional explosives or incendiary weapons to do the job. • Henry C. Kelly is president of the Federation of American Scientists. Michael A. Levi runs its Nuclear Security Program. Copyright © 2002 The Christian Science Monitor ***************************************************************** 70 Russia's ex-nuclear minister speaks for resumption of nuclear tests Yahoo! News - Russia's ex-nuclear minister speaks for resumption of nuclear tests Thu Mar 28, 8:58 AM ET By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV, Associated Press Writer MOSCOW - Disputing the Russian government's strong support of a global nuclear test ban, a former atomic energy minister said Thursday that the resumption of test explosions is vital for preserving the combat readiness of Russian nuclear weapons. "If we decide to keep nuclear weapons, nuclear tests are inevitable," said Yevgeny Adamov, who served as nuclear power minister until President Vladimir Putin fired him a year ago. "A nuclear device comes through a certain life cycle, it's being periodically disassembled and certain materials are changed ... so no one can be sure that it functions properly if not tested," Adamov said at a news conference. Russia conducted its last nuclear test explosion in 1990, and the United States has banned underground nuclear testing since 1992. The U.S. administration, although committed to the test moratorium for now, seeks a reduction in the time it would take to resume such tests in case they are needed to ensure the reliability of nuclear warheads as the United States and Russia trim their arsenals. It currently would take about two or three years. U.S. officials haven't ruled out nuclear tests in the future, but said there are no current plans to resume testing. Russia has voiced its strong adherence to the moratorium and urged the United States to do the same. The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, signed by 161 nations and ratified by 84 of them, will only become binding if all 44 countries that possess nuclear weapons or have nuclear power programs ratify the treaty. Only 31 such nations, including Britain and France and Rusisa, have ratified the 1996 accord that bans nuclear tests in any environment. The United States is among 13 non-ratifiers. In order to ensure the reliability of its weapons, Russia has relied on lab modelling and the so-called sub-critical tests, which aren't prohibited by the comprehensive ban because the amount of plutonium used is not enough to create a nuclear explosion. But Adamov has argued that such tests along with other methods aren't enough to sustain confidence in nuclear weapons. Adamov said that some experts believe that Russia's need to resume nuclear tests could be even more pressing than that of the United States, because Russian nuclear weapons used to include components built in other ex-Soviet republics and were modernized with home-made parts after the 1991 Soviet collapse. His successor, Alexander Rumyantsev, said Wednesday that nuclear test explosions would be necessary to modernize nuclear weapons, but toed the official line saying there is no need to resume testing. (vi/jh Copyright © 2002 The Associated Press. ***************************************************************** 71 Weapons Plant Modernization Begins Las Vegas SUN March 27, 2002 OAK RIDGE, Tenn.- Workers began dismantling a rusty guard tower at the Oak Ridge nuclear weapons plant Wednesday, a symbolic first step in modernizing the 59-year-old facility involved in building weapons ranging from the Hiroshima bomb to the MX missile. The $4 billion modernization of the Y-12 plant includes rebuilding facilities that date back to 1943 and building a giant warehouse to house stockpiles of weapons-grade uranium. Most of the uranium is now stored in at least five locations around the complex owned by the U.S. Department of Energy. The warehouse will be as big as four football fields and hold up to 32,000 cans and drums of bomb-grade material. "It will be a concrete, heavy structure, seismically resistant. But the key features of it are designed to keep the bad guys out" said Bill Brumley, of the Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration. "While uranium itself is radioactive and toxic, the real concern we have is with theft," he said. The 20-year modernization plan also calls for consolidating the number of buildings. Many of the 650 buildings on the high-security reservation date to the Y-12's World War II's roots as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project. The Y-12 plant enriched uranium for the first atomic bomb dropped on Japan in 1945. On the Net: Department of Energy: http://www.energy.gov [http://www.energy.gov] All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 72 Argonne a candidate for $900 million facility Daily Southtown: Serving Chicago area's Southland Wednesday, March 27, 2002 By Guy Tridgell Staff writer When the universe began, it consisted mainly of hydrogen and helium. The other elements, including iron and gold, were created by nuclear reactions within the stars. Beyond that, much about how the basic materials of the universe were formed remain a mystery. No one knows exactly how those reactions occurred. No one knows where or when they took place. The mystery might be unlocked in a facility, called a rare isotope accelerator, being considered for the Argonne National Laboratory near Lemont. There is no RIA in the world for now. The U.S. Department of Energy is planning to build the $900 million facility at Argonne or Michigan State University in Lansing, Mich. A site will be picked next year. Argonne officials are touting their prominence in the field of nuclear physics to sway the energy department. Argonne spokeswoman Catherine Foster said the RIA would supplement an existing accelerator called the Argonne Tandem Linac Accelerator System. The RIA essentially would finish, or boost, a process started with the ATLAS facility. "In essence, part of the new facility is already here," Foster said. If Michigan State is chosen, the RIA would be a boon for a nuclear physics program considered one of the best in the country. The state that receives the project will gain an estimated 400 jobs and $80 million a year. The buzz has been enough to make Michigan Gov. John Engler a champion of nuclear physics. Engler included $2 million in his 2003 budget for designing the RIA and building prototype equipment. Mary Reynolds, Illinois chief technology officer, said the state that gets the RIA would draw top scientists, corporate sponsors and major research projects to its universities."It is really a monumental project field of nuclear physics," Reynolds said.Illinois appears to have the early advantage. Argonne, which is owned by the Department of Energy and run by the University of Chicago, has more than 4,000 employees and has been operating since 1946. Donald Geesaman, director of physics at Argonne, said the lab already has about $60 million worth of facilities Michigan State would need to build to house the RIA. It also has more experience dealing with the low-level nuclear waste the facility will generate, he said. Geesaman said the state of Illinois also has promised major investments, including construction of a new research center. To make Argonne a more attractive site for the RIA, Illinois gave the laboratory $1.6 million last year and $2 million this year for studies. The facility would consist mainly of a long corridor. Beams of stable isotopes, the nuclei of the elements, would be shot at high power through the corridor. The process would break those stable isotopes into the rare isotopes that gives the accelerator its name. Rare isotopes are the unstable nuclei that scientists believe formed the known elements. The problem is, rare isotopes decay so quickly, sometimes within 10 milliseconds, that they have never been studied on earth. At first, research at the lab would be basic, focusing simply on the question of how elements were formed. The research eventually could have other applications. Information about radiation can be used by the medical community as well as for national defense. "If you're doing cutting edge, basic research, it's very difficult to say how it will apply," said Rex Morin, an engineer who serves as executive director of Michigan State's National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory. "But history says eventually a good part of that does do some good for the common person." Geesaman stressed that both locations offer benefits. Recently Michigan and Illinois officials wrote a letter to energy officials, urging them to make a decision soon so valuable research time is not lost. Wherever the RIA is built, it probably won't be operational before 2010 A federal task force has estimated the facility will take five years to build. "I have tremendous respect for the Michigan State scientists, so I believe they can do it," Geesaman said. "Both Michigan State and Argonne want this facility to be built, wherever it ends up, because of the science." The Associated Press contributed to this report Guy Tridgell may be reached at gtridgell@dailysouthtown.com or (708) 633-5970. © 2002 Associated Press — ***************************************************************** 73 New DOE manager's stay expected to be brief Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 12:46 p.m. on Thursday, March 28, 2002 Michael Holland by Paul Parson Oak Ridger staff Michael D. Holland says he's ready to begin his duties as interim manager of the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge Operations office. However, Holland told The Oak Ridger Wednesday that he doubts his assignment will be permanent. Beginning next week, Holland replaces Leah Dever, who has been detailed to the Office of Science at DOE headquarters. Holland was in town this week to attend a ceremony at the Y-12 National Security Complex and some other functions at which U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, R-3rd District, introduced him to members of the public. "He's here on a six-month assignment," Wamp said. "He's here to change the culture at ORO (the Oak Ridge Operations office) and Š make sure our missions don't miss a stride." Officials say Holland is "on loan" to Oak Ridge from the Department of Energy's Brookhaven Area Office in New York where he oversaw activities at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Frank Crescenzo, deputy manager of the Brookhaven Area Office, will fill in for Holland while he is working in Oak Ridge. Holland has more than 26 years of federal and private-sector experience in conducting operations of reactors and other large facilities. He has a bachelor's degree in nuclear technology from the State University of New York Regents College in Albany. Paul Parson can be contacted at (865) 220-5533 or pparson@oakridger.com [pparson@oakridger.com] . All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 74 Storage facility 'anchor tenant' for Y-12 effort Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 12:46 p.m. on Thursday, March 28, 2002 Ronald Haeckel, a senior official with the National Nuclear Security Administration, and Ron Kroon, an engineer at the Y-12 National Security Complex, unveil a sign indicating where the Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility will be built. They did so during a ceremony Wednesday morning to celebrate the modernization of the aging Oak Ridge weapons plant. -- Photo by Tommy Maxwell by Paul Parson Oak Ridger staff Although construction on a new storage facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex won't begin for a couple of years, officials say it will be the nation's repository for highly enriched uranium. In addition to that, U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, R-3rd District, points out the facility will be a key element in the modernization of the aging Oak Ridge weapons plant. "If this were a shopping mall, this Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility would be Sears," Wamp said. "It would be your anchor tenant. It's that big in terms of the pieces that go to the Y-12 of the future. It would be the first major anchor tenant that you could land as you begin modernization." And when officials say the new facility will be big, they aren't exaggerating. "It's roughly four football fields," said John Mitchell, BWXT Y-12's president. "So, whatever that is in square feet." The Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility will be built on the west end of Y-12 on a site that is currently a 500-car parking lot. Bill Brumley, who heads the local National Nuclear Security Administration office, said construction on the facility should begin in early 2004, with the project being completed by early 2007 at a cost somewhere between $220 million and $300 million. Officials with the NNSA, which oversees the Department of Energy's weapons facilities, and BWXT, Y-12's manager, say construction of the storage facility should not encounter a problem that has arisen with a new facility being built at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. A group of unions has voiced concern that local labor outfits aren't being hired to work on the lab project. "That particular contract Š is actually funded by private funds, not by government funds," Mitchell said. "In our case, for all the government work that we do, we have standing agreements with the various labor unions. So we'll be using our normal labor contracts." Officials begin dismantling a portion of a guard tower to make way for the new highly enriched uranium storage facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex. The guard tower stands around 30 feet tall and was built in 1984. The new facility will be built on the west end of Y-12 on a site that is currently a 500-car parking lot. Mitchell estimated that up to 150 to 200 full-time construction workers could be involved in the project, which is expected to have a fairly significant purpose. "There may be small amounts of uranium stored at other facilities, but the intent is this will be the nation's repository for highly enriched uranium," Brumley said. "We don't talk about the exact amount of storage or its location in specific facilities, but basically there are five separate facilities in Y-12 where enriched uranium is stored. This will collapse the bulk of that storage into a single facility. It will have the capability to store all of our enriched uranium." Although uranium is radioactive and toxic, Brumley said one of the government's major concerns associated with the material is theft. "The main objective of the facility is to protect it (the uranium)," the NNSA official said. "It's a concrete, heavy structure designed to be seismically resistant, but again the key features of it are designed to keep the bad guys out." Construction of Y-12 started in the early 1940s as part of World War II's Manhattan Project. The uranium enriched at Y-12 ultimately fueled the "Little Boy" bomb, which was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, near the end of the war in 1945. Today, Y-12 is responsible for the refurbishment of nuclear weapons components, the storage and protection of special nuclear materials, surveillance of the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile and the dismantlement of nuclear weapons components. Y-12's 20-year, $4 billion modernization was greenlighted earlier this month when Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham issued a "record of decision" that authorized the construction of the storage facility and a special materials production complex at the aging plant. Mitchell said Wednesday the original plan for the special materials complex called for a single building, but now BWXT and the NNSA are looking at "breaking it into series of separate sites" within Y-12. Paul Parson can be contacted at (865) 220-5533 or [pparson@oakridger.com] . [http://www.oakridger.com/dailydouble] All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 75 Designer, builder of reactors; striver, innovator for 'Atoms For Peace' The Oak Ridger Online - Story last updated at 12:48 p.m. on Thursday, March 28, 2002 Editor's License Dick Smyser Thomas E. Cole was totally involved from the very beginnings of reactor development at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, most especially research reactors, of which at one time there were seven operating simultaneously there. In his book "The First Nuclear Era," Alvin M. Weinberg writes of Cole as "the intellectual force" behind ORNL's competence in designing, constructing and operating these reactors. His ideas -- his insistence on standards -- often conflicted with others', Weinberg recalls. Ultimately, however, the former ORNL director says, most of Tom's controversial views proved to be right. In the early 1950s, one of my first Oak Ridger reporting experiences at ORNL was a visit to the Oak Ridge Research Reactor (ORR), of which Tom was not only principal architect but also unconditional enthusiast. I remember clearly the immense pride he exuded in this handsome facility that resembled so much the bridge of an ocean liner. A swimming pool type facility, there were even life preservers mounted on the walls, although not for atmosphere. They were at ready in the very unlikely possibility that someone might fall into the reactor pool, from the depths of which shone the heavenly blue Cerenkov glow. It was soon after the ORR went critical that Tom was inspired to propose what turned out to be a major ORNL triumph. It was a time -- 1955 -- when nuclear science and nuclear scientists and engineers were still in huge favor with the public -- before the advent of the astronauts. The first United Nations International Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy would be held in Geneva, Switzerland, in August and would attract the cream of science and technology along with scores of world political leaders. What could ORNL do to demonstrate its sensitivity for -- its contributions to -- "Atoms For Peace"? The constructive use of this still very new nuclear science was of intense concern to Tom. Tom Cole with Laura Fermi, widow of nuclear physicist Enrico Fermi, in front of the swimming pool reactor that Cole conceived for the U.S. exhibit at the first United Nations International Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy in August 1955 in Geneva, Switzerland, for which Mrs. Fermi was official historian. Searching for a concept, he literally woke in the middle of the night at his home on Disston Road with the idea that ORNL should build a miniature swimming pool reactor to be shipped to Geneva for operation and display at the conference. Thus, under his supervision, what became known as "Operation Aquarium" was designed and constructed in record time. Then, as Tom had further conceived, it was disassembled and loaded aboard a Military Air Transport C-124 Globemaster and flown from McGhee Tyson Airport in Knoxville to Geneva, where it was reassembled and began operating in time for the conference opening, an extraordinary feat. Immediately, "Aquarium" was the hit of the show. Tom was photographed with dignitary after dignitary, including then President Dwight D. Eisenhower, as they came to see and marvel at the ORNL exhibit. But while this was Tom's showpiece, his contributions to making all reactors more efficient and, most important, safer, were many and significant over his decadesORNL. * A handsome, low-key but decisive person -- his words always carefully chosen -- Tom left his mark in town as well. He was one of the principals in the founding of Oak Ridge Technical Enterprises Corp. (ORTEC), radiation and particle detection instrument development and manufacturing firm, a thoroughly private industry in an Oak Ridge that had virtually none of that in those years. Further, ORTEC was indisputable evidence that such private enterprise could indeed "spin off" from the giant government science establishment here. He further enriched the community and the region as well through his total support for Jean, his wife, in her pioneering efforts for Planned Parenthood of the Southern Mountains and later as one of the Oak Ridge Art Center's more gifted potters and potting instructors. Both Coles were champions of Oak Ridge's most gifted potter of all, the late Charles Counts. The Coles, proud of their 56-year residence in the city's original "cemesto" housing area, were Watts Bar Lake people as well, owners of a handsome cottage south of Kingston off River Road. There Tom indulged his love for sailing and his rich appreciation of all of nature. He was very much a "water person," having spent his childhood in Florida and his service during World War II as an ensign aboard a minesweeper involving him in some of the fiercest of the naval battles and island landings in the Pacific. * His "extraordinary powers of observation"; his "intuitive feel for engineering"; his ability to "think effectively about large systems before doing calculations." "He did not create problems. He sought solutions." His "astute observational skills, great humor and quiet competence." These were among many qualities of Tom Cole cited by his peers and close friends at his memorial service Tuesday afternoon: qualities that made him essential to reactor engineering at Oak Ridge National Laboratory during its first half-century. Qualities also that shaped his yearning that nuclear science, born of war, be focused postwar on meeting human needs -- a yearning so manifest in his middle-of-the-night inspiration that so innovatively brought ORNL's "Atoms for Peace" message to Geneva that August in 1955. -- RDS Richard D. Smyser is founding editor of The Oak Ridger. He can be reached by e-mail at rdsandmps@aol.com [rdsandmps@aol.com] . All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 76 Modernization project gets under way at Y-12 By Bob Fowler, Anderson County editor March 28, 2002 OAK RIDGE - As more than 100 onlookers watched Wednesday morning, a crane slowly lowered a tiny, rust-covered guard shack from atop its 40-foot tower at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant. The symbolic act marked the start of a years-long, $4 billion modernization effort at the nuclear weapons plant. First up will be the construction of a $250 million warehouse that will serve as the nation's repository for its weapons-grade, highly enriched uranium. The amount that will be stored there is classified. Four football fields large, the windowless building made of thick concrete will consolidate stockpiles of uranium now stored in vaults in five other buildings on the Y-12 complex. The enriched uranium, which has a half-life of 700 million years, is harvested from outdated nuclear weapons and available to use in refurbished bombs. "This is your anchor tenant for your new Y-12 of the future," proclaimed U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, R-Tenn., of the Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility. "This further solidifies the long-term mission of the Y-12 plant. We're here to stay." Wamp said a turnaround in the nation's emphasis on maintaining its nuclear weapons stockpile came as a result of both the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and a "top-to-bottom review" of the nation's military status by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. The uranium storehouse will be built in what's now a 500-car parking lot on the Department of Energy's 811-acre Y-12 complex. The guard tower, at one end of the parking lot, has been a fixture on site since 1984. "For the first time in over 30 years, we will be using capital dollars in the reinvestment" in the aging complex, said John Mitchell, president and general manager of BWXT Y-12, the DOE contractor that manages the plant. Bill Brumley, Oak Ridge manager for DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration, said construction of the new storage building will begin in early 2004 and be completed in late 2006. Mitchell said about 150 to 200 people will be involved in its construction. Earthquake-proof with numerous security precautions built in, the facility will be designed "to keep the bad guys out," said Brumley. The Y-12 plant, now with 650 buildings, was built during World II as part of the nation's Manhattan Project to assemble the first atomic bomb. With the modernization program, the sprawling complex will be halved in size, with old buildings razed and functions consolidated. Y-12 employs 4,300 workers, and a years-long downtrend in jobs was reversed last year, said Mitchell, when between 50 and 75 people were added to the payroll. Hiring is expected to increase, he said, particularly since the current work force is aging. Y-12 has reopened job recruiting on college campuses "for the first time in years," Mitchell said. Bob Fowler may be reached at 865-481-3625 or bfowler@infi.net. Copyright 2002 The Knoxville News-Sentinel Co. ***************************************************************** 77 SRS' F-Canyon plant closes Augusta Georgia: 03/28/02 F-Canyon crane operator Willie Cummings observes its condition on television monitors at the Savannah River Site. The F-Canyon ceases operation after 48 years. CHRIS THELEN/STAFF Web posted Thursday, March 28, 2002 By Brandon Haddock [bhaddock@augustachronicle.com] Staff Writer Some observers called Savannah River Site's F-Canyon a national nuclear treasure. Others considered it a dangerous disgrace. On Wednesday, it became a radioactive relic. Just after 1 a.m., the massive plant began what could be its final day of operation. The U.S. Department of Energy says it has no more need for F-Canyon, which opened in 1954 and spent ensuing decades producing plutonium for the nuclear weapons of the Cold War. Since the end of that era, the plant has treated radioactive leftovers of weapons production to ease disposal of such waste. Now, treatment of those leftovers is finished, SRS officials said. "It's a major change," said Phil Breidenbach, F-Canyon's manager. "The world is a safer place. We won the Cold War, and now it's time to move on." A nuclear watchdog called F-Canyon's closure long past due. "It's certainly been a long time coming, and it's certainly welcome from an environmental and nonproliferation perspective," said Tom Clements, the executive director of the Nuclear Control Institute in Washington, D.C. For years, the institute had stated that F-Canyon's age, and its generation of highly radioactive wastes, made it a safety and environmental hazard. "They've been threatening to come up with a closure schedule for years," Mr. Clements said. "It's welcome news that they've actually followed through with a shutdown plan." Not everyone agreed. The federal Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, which monitors efforts to treat dangerous radioactive materials at nuclear-weapons sites such as SRS, has pushed the Energy Department to keep F-Canyon and its sister plant, H-Canyon, operable. "The canyons are the only remaining capability we have of taking this kind of material and putting it in a more stable form," said John T. Conway, the defense board's chairman, in 2000. "Those canyons are necessary, in the board's opinion, until we can stabilize this material." The defense board soon will issue a statement about the canyons, Mr. Conway said Wednesday. He said he could not speak further until the statement had been cleared for release. For at least the immediate future, SRS officials will be able to reopen F-Canyon if the Energy Department finds more material to be treated there, Mr. Breidenbach said. Karrene Williams, F-Canyon control room senior operator, observes instruments at SRS. The F-Canyon made plutonium for the nuclear weapons of the Cold War and then treated radioactive leftovers of weapons production to ease disposal. CHRIS THELEN/STAFF And the plant's FB-Line will continue to repackage and store plutonium until new plants are built at SRS to dispose of the radioactive metal, he said. But F-Canyon's 450 workers soon will begin putting it into "suspension," removing more than 500,000 pounds of liquid solutions from it, Mr. Breidenbach said. As the workload decreases, F-Canyon workers will be reassigned to other SRS plants, he said. The first 40 transfers will take place by May, he said. The Energy Department will decide this fall whether to begin deactivating F-Canyon, Mr. Breidenbach said. During deactivation, workers will remove all known hazards from the plant to prepare it for its eventual demolition. It cost $200 million annually to operate F-Canyon and FB-Line, Mr. Breidenbach said. By deactivating the facilities, SRS officials say, they hope to trim annual costs to less than $10 million, he said. "Anything we save by putting F-Canyon through suspension and deactivation is money that can be put into other projects," Mr. Breidenbach said. A former F-Canyon executive agreed but mourned the plant's passing all the same. "The truth is that it's run its course," said Mal McKibben, now executive director of the Aiken-based group Citizens for Nuclear Technology Awareness. He worked for 20 years as technical-support supervisor for the canyon. "It really is time to light a candle and say grace over its demise," Mr. McKibben said. "It has served the nation extremely well." Reach Brandon Haddock at (706) 823-3409 or bhaddock@augustachronicle.com [bhaddock@augustachronicle.com] . [http://augusta.com] ***************************************************************** 78 Indian Scientists Use Radiation to Cure Flatulence Yahoo! News - Wed Mar 27, 2:35 PM ET LONDON (Reuters) - Indian scientists have come up with a cure for flatulence, by blasting guilty foodstuffs such as beans with gamma rays to knock out the offending chemicals that cause the problem, New Scientist magazine said on Wednesday. Bacteria in the large intestine are responsible for the gases that cause flatulence, and when these bugs eat certain types of carbohydrate called oligosaccharides they produce a mixture of methane and smelly sulphurous gases, which cause the social embarrassment. The finger of blame is most commonly pointed at beans and vegetables, 60 percent of whose carbohydrates are made up of oligosaccharides. So Jammala Machaiah and Mrinal Pednekar in the food-science laboratory at India's Bhabha Atomic Research Center in Trombay decided to see whether small doses of radiation affected these carbohydrates in various beans common in Indian cuisine. Using standard food treatment technology, they irradiated samples of mung beans, chickpeas, black-eyed beans and red kidney beans with a low-intensity gamma-ray, before giving the beans their standard two day soak prior to cooking. The scientists, whose research will appear in the journal Food Chemistry, found the irradiation dramatically accelerated a reduction in oligosaccharides which occurs naturally in the soaking process, the magazine said. After two days soaking, the levels of oligosaccharides in mung beans had fallen by 70 percent, compared to a 35 percent reduction in un-irradiated, but soaked, beans. Black-eyed beans and chickpeas also showed a marked fall but kidney beans were found to hold stubbornly onto their oligosaccharides. "In India, beans are a very popular and important part of the national diet, but some people can't eat a lot of beans because of the flatulence problem," Machaiah said. "This is unfortunate as it is a very good source of essential nutrients. Irradiation would make beans less of a problem." Copyright © 2002 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or Copyright © 2002 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 79 WNA NEWS BRIEFING 02.13 | 20 - 26 March 2002 A weekly summary of international news relevant to the nuclear energy industry. [NB02.13-1] US: Louisiana Energy Services (LES) has held the first of what is expected to be a series of pre-application meetings with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) concerning the construction of a new uranium enrichment facility in the US. The current LES members are Urenco, Fluor Daniel, and US utilities Duke Energy, Entergy and Exelon. During the meeting, LES indicated its intention to start SWU production by the end of 2006. The current planned capacity of a new LES plant is 3 million SWU. The plant would be modelled on Urenco's SP5 plant in Almelo and would be sited at a facility already licensed to handle UF6. (Ux Weekly, 25 March, p2; see also News Briefing 01.50-1) [NB02.13-2] US: Operators of pressurised water reactors (PWRs) have been ordered by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to submit information within 15 days on the structural integrity of their reactors. The move follows the discovery of two cavities in the reactor pressure vessel head at the Davis-Besse nuclear power plant. The corrosion damage is believed to have been caused by leaking boric acid. (Nucleonics Week, 21 March, p1; Ux Weekly, 25 March, p2; NucNet News, 119/02, 26 March) [NB02.13-3] A plan designed to upgrade international protection 'against acts of terrorism involving nuclear and other radioactive materials' has been approved in principle by the board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). 'New activities are designed to supplement and reinforce national efforts', IAEA head Mohammed ElBaradei said. The IAEA says that some US$12 million is required for annual programme funding, plus an additional US$20 million each year 'to respond to urgent situations that require immediate security upgrades'. (NucNet News, 113/02, 20 March; see also News Briefing 01.49-2) [NB02.13-4] US: 60% of Americans believe nuclear power plants are safe, according to a recent public opinion poll commissioned by the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI). Between 62% and 75% of the 1000 people questioned felt reassured when told of various security measures in place at reactor sites. 56% of those polled also supported the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC's) view that the country's nuclear security forces should not be federalised, while 37% thought they should. The public continues to support the use of nuclear energy, with 66% saying it should be one method to provide electricity and 75% in favour of nuclear power playing an important role in meeting future electricity needs. (Nuclear Energy Overview, 25 March, p6; see also News Briefing 01.42-1) [NB02.13-5] US: Exelon plans to announce its site selection for an early site permit (ESP) application by 30 June, the company has told the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The ESP application would be submitted by June 2003. (Nucleonics Week, 21 March, p3; see also News Briefing 02.11-3) [NB02.13-6] US: The Nebraska Public Power District (NPPD) will continue operating its Cooper nuclear power plant until at least September 2004, the company announced. The NPPD has yet to decide whether it will apply for an operating licence extension for the 780 MWe BWR. (Nuclear Market Review, 22 March, p2; FreshFUEL, 25 March, p5; Nucleonics Week, 21 March, p1; see also News Briefing 01.33-14) [NB02.13-7] Brazil: The Angra nuclear power plant contributed a record 4.1% of electricity to total domestic output in 2001, up from 1.45% in 2000. Eletronuclear, the plant's operator, said the two-unit plant 'greatly helped Brazil to endure last year's energy shortage crisis'. Angra-2 entered commercial operation in February 2001. (NucNet News, 111/02, 20 March; see also News Briefing 02.07-14) [NB02.13-8] Ukraine: Energoatom will sign a loan agreement with the Russian government in July to help finance completion of the Khmelnitski-2 and Rovno-4 (K2/R4) nuclear power reactors, according to the state secretary of the Ukrainian fuel and energy ministry, Viktor Lushkin. Russia is currently proposing to supply Ukraine with US$150 million worth of equipment. (NucNet News, 116/02, 22 March; see also News Briefing 02.09-3) [NB02.13-9] Armenia: The Metsamor nuclear power plant will operate until 2008, the country's Deputy Energy Minister Areg Galstyan announced. The European Union (EU) has called for the plant to shut down in 2004, but Galstyan said the plant must operate until 2008 given the amount of investment in the plant and expected growth in domestic energy consumption. Metsamor-2 currently accounts for 40% of Armenia's domestic power production. (Nuclear Market Review, 22 March, p2; Ux Weekly, 25 March, p4; see also News Briefing 02.12-12) [NB02.13-10] Iran: The timetable for anticipated commercial operation of the Bushehr-1 nuclear power reactor is 'about four months behind schedule' due to ongoing adjustments in detailed design engineering, according to designated plant director Majid Teymouri. The reactor is now expected to start operations around March or April 2004, instead of the originally planned late 2003. Meanwhile, construction of Bushehr-2 has been postponed until unit 1 is completed and successfully operating. (Nucleonics Week, 21 March, p8; see also News Briefing 01.41-7) [NB02.13-11] Russia will 'seriously consider' the possibility of building a nuclear power plant in North Korea if a formal request is made, according to Li'ya Klebanov, Russia's minister for industry, science and technology. The issue had been raised by the chairman of North Korea's supreme people's assembly (parliament) at a recent meeting in Moscow. In order to avoid possible international concerns about non-proliferation issues and operational safety, a nuclear power plant could be built in Russia, close to the border with North Korea. (NucNet News, 118/02, 26 March; see also News Briefings 00.33-17 and 01.24-12) [NB02.13-12] China should further increase its installed nuclear generating capacity by 10 000 MWe by 2010 and 100 000 MWe by 2050, a subcommittee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) has recommended. The human resources and environment sub-committee of the CPPCC national committee made the recommendation during the annual session of the conference. The sub-committee called for new nuclear projects to be included in the forthcoming tenth five-year plan. (FreshFUEL, 25 March, p6; NucNet News, 103/02, 14 March; see also News Briefing 01.13-11) [NB02.13-13] Japan: The cost of decommissioning the Monju fast breeder reactor (FBR) and the Fugen advanced thermal reactor (ATR) has been estimated by the Japan Nuclear Cycle Development Institute (JNC). The cost of dismantling the Monju reactor is put at some Y174 billion (US$1.3 billion), including the disposal of nuclear waste. The decommissioning of the Fugen unit will cost about Y84 billion (US$632 million) and will take 30 years to complete. Fugen's waste will be taken to the Tokai reprocessing plant, probably in 2010. (Nuclear Market Review, 22 March, p3; see also News Briefings 01.24-13 and 97.49-7) [NB02.13-14] UK environment minister Michael Meacher signed an international declaration pledging to evaluate options for spent nuclear fuel management after current reprocessing contracts expire. The declaration, which is not legally binding, was signed at the conclusion of the 5th international conference on the protection of the North Sea, held in Bergen, Norway. Mr Meacher also agreed to 'address concerns' about technetium discharges from BNFL's plant at Sellafield. BNFL stressed that the declaration would not threaten its current contracts or prevent it gaining future reprocessing contracts. The Declaration also highlighted the adoption of the OSPAR Strategy, which 'provides for progressive and substantial reductions of discharges' from nuclear installations - a commitment that the industry is fully committed to achieving. (NucNet News, 117/02, 26 March; see also News Briefing 00.27-1) [NB02.13-15] France: Areva has been ordered to shut its Cadarache mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel plant by late 2002 or early 2003. The French nuclear safety agency ordered the closure because the plant has insufficient seismic protection to withstand an earthquake. Areva has agreed to close the plant, providing it is permitted to move its operation to another location. (Ux Weekly, 25 March, p4; see also News Briefing 01.17-16) [NB02.13-16] US: Duke, Cogema, Stone and Webster (DCS) - acting as lead contractor supporting the Department of Energy's (DOE's) plutonium disposition programme - will be able to begin construction of a mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel fabrication plant in October 2003 under a new schedule issued by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). However, the NRC has told DCS that it must submit a supplemental Environmental Report reflecting policy changes in the US disposition programme by 15 July, not 31 October, as the contractor had proposed. (SpentFUEL, 25 March, p1; see also News Briefing 01.10-3) [NB02.13-17] The US Department of Energy (DOE) has filed a petition in US District Court in Las Vegas to prevent the state of Nevada from cutting off water supplies to the proposed Yucca Mountain repository site. The DOE claims that the state engineer's decision not to extend temporary water permits beyond 9 April 'unlawfully interferes' with the department's performance of its statutory obligations under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. The Nevada engineer, Hugh Ricci, refused to extend the temporary permits in February, following President Bush's recommendation of the Yucca Mountain site to Congress. He said that, as the site characterisation process was complete, the temporary water permits were no longer necessary. Without sufficient water, the DOE will be unable to gather enough data on the Yucca Mountain site for use in a licence application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). (SpentFUEL, 25 March, p1; see also News Briefing 00.06-15) [NB02.13-18] Netherlands: The European Commission's Petten research reactor was granted permission to restart by the Dutch safety authority, following an evaluation by Serco Assurance of 'the weld anomalies and lifetime assessment of the reactor vessel'. The reactor was ordered to temporarily close after a hairline crack was discovered. (NucNet News, 115/02, 22 March; see also News Briefing 02.07-20) [NB02.13-19] Japan: The government will present a new bill to parliament to tackle global warming and serve as a 'core programme' to achieve Japan's emissions reduction targets under the Kyoto Protocol. The new programme includes an 'outlook' for reduction amounts, a schedule for implementing measures to reduce emissions, and reiterates the need to 'construct new nuclear power plants to increase generated electricity by about 30% by fiscal year 2010'. (NucNet News, 112/02, 20 March; Nuclear Market Review, 22 March, p3; see also News Briefing 01.40-9) Notice: Next week's News Briefing (NB02.14) will be written and distributed on Wednesday 3 April. Previous News Briefing NB02.12 ***************************************************************** 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: *****************************************************************