***************************************************************** 07/28/02 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 10.191 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POLICY 1 UK: Tax boost for nuclear power 2 US: Chemical, Nuclear Security Bills Pass Committee 3 Russia to expand nuclear aid to Iran -- 4 US: Raitt donating concert seats to was... 5 Russia Plans 5 More Nuclear Plants in Iran 6 Russia to aid Iran nuclear program that worries US 7 *Plans For Nuclear Plant, Possibly In Nearby Erwin, Getting National 8 Russia to Go on Building Nuclear Reactors in Iran NUCLEAR REACTORS 9 US: Vermont Yankee Cleared for Sale NUCLEAR SAFETY 10 N.K. officials to return home after nuclear safety training 11 US: U.S. Ports Alerted to Missing Iridium 12 Depleted uranium held responsible for Down's syndrome in Iraq: study 13 Beryllium screening slated NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 14 US: Air Force can't explain possible toxic barrel 15 US: Nevada-funded poll in June found support for Yucca Mountain figh 16 US: Radioactive roadtrip 17 Failed BNFL sale cost DTI £18.6m 18 US: Barrel that may contain uranium found at Air Force dump 19 US: Designing a "keep out" sign for a long-lasting radioactive waste 20 US: OP: What A Waste 21 US: Sniffin questions Bebout's nuclear waste record 22 US: Nevada-funded poll in June found support for Yucca Mountain figh 23 AU: Govt will bury nuclear waste at Woomera: ACF 24 US: Plutonium shipments could head overseas 25 AU: Govt 'sat on' nuclear study until media distracted: ACF. 26 US: Idaho: DOE state legal battle over N-wastes NUCLEAR WEAPONS 27 US: Washington's nuclear bunker busters 28 Better Ties Seen as Key To Nuclear Inspections US DEPT. OF ENERGY 29 Vilsack 'confident' of IAAPflyover 30 Patton to discuss new DOE plant 31 DOE Claimants Urged to Sign Waviers 32 IA - Vilsack pushes Army to do flyover of plant OTHER NUCLEAR 33 Letter: Studies disprove warnings regarding high radon levels - 34 *Fusion is clean* ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 UK: Tax boost for nuclear power Guardian Unlimited Observer | Business | [UP] Oliver Morgan, industrial editor Sunday July 28, 2002 The Observer [http://www.observer.co.uk] The prospect of a carbon tax on 'dirty' forms of power generation is growing as Ministers identify the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions as the key goal in their forthcoming energy White Paper. A charge on generators, primarily those burning coal, levied through the electricity trading system, will recognise the environmental cost of carbon emissions and help to guarantee the future of nuclear power and renewable sources of energy. Recent reports suggested such a measure would not be accepted by the Government, but officials indicate that it is very much under consideration and has been endorsed as 'workable' by industry regulator Ofgem. Energy Minister Brian Wilson told The Observer: 'The White Paper will be a unique opportunity for us to make absolutely clear the priority we give to a low-carbon energy mix in response to our climate change obligations. There is no point in paying lip service to a policy unless that is reflected in what is happening in the real world.' Wilson is not convinced that renewable energy can fill the gap left by the retirement of ageing reactors. He favours new nuclear stations. Last week saw the first anniversary of New Electricity Trading Arrangements (NETA), which replaced the electricity pool as the way of selling wholesale power. Ofgem hailed the first year as a success, pointing to a 40 per cent reduction in wholesale prices. But the Government is concerned that this cut has not been passed on to consumers and that NETA has discriminated against non-carbon generation, particularly nuclear and renewables. The news will delight nuclear generator British Energy, which has lobbied hard for measures to recognise its non-production of greenhouse gases and has been hit hard by the fall in wholesale electricity prices. Useful links British Nuclear Fuels Ltd [http://www.bnfl.co.uk/website.nsf/default.htm] Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament [http://www.cnduk.org/] HSE nuclear glossary [http://www.hse.gov.uk/nsd/ilrwglos.htm] UK atomic energy authority [http://www.ukaea.org.uk/] National Radiological Protection Board [http://www.nrpb.org.uk/] World Nuclear Association [http://www.uilondon.org/] Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002 ***************************************************************** 2 Chemical, Nuclear Security Bills Pass Committee AmeriScan: July 26, 2002 WASHINGTON, DC, July 26, 2002 (ENS) - A Senate committee has approved legislation to strengthen security at chemical and nuclear plants. "These bills address the concerns that all of us have shared since the tragic events of September 11th," said Senator Jim Jeffords, the Vermont Independent who chairs the Environment and Public Works Committee. "We must do everything in our power to make sure that terrorists are not able to turn our own resources against us." The Nuclear Security Act of 2002 (S 1746) would require a comprehensive review of security at all nuclear power plants, including an evaluation of hiring and training standards, facility security plans, and emergency response plans. The bill would appoint a task force headed by the commissioner of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and including federal experts on security, intelligence and radiological response, to review security at U.S. nuclear power plants. Under the bill, the White House would establish a federal team aimed at ensuring coordinated protection of air, water and ground access to nuclear power plants, along with a new office of Nuclear Security and Incident Response within the NRC to coordinate and consolidate security functions of the agency. The Chemical Security Act of 2002 (S 1602) would require chemical plants with a certain capacity to assess their security vulnerabilities and draft plans to respond to any vulnerabilities, including the addition of safer technologies. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Office of Homeland Security would determine which facilities would need to undergo these assessments, and would guide the preparation of assessments and response plans. Chemical plants would submit their assessments and response plans to the EPA and the Office of Homeland Security for review and certification. Some information about these plants would be kept off limits to the public, at the discretion of the EPA. EPA records show that a terrorist attacks on any of at least 123 chemical facilities could threaten a million or more nearby residents. The U.S. Army's surgeon general estimates that 2.4 million people could be killed or injured in a terrorist attack at one U.S. toxic chemical plant. The chemical bill has won the support of a variety of environmental groups. "The Chemical Security Act of 2002 is an important first step towards making our hometowns safe from terrorist attacks on chemical facilities," said Alys Campaigne, legislative director at the Natural Resources Defense Council. "Once enacted, the legislation will require high priority chemical plants to assess their vulnerabilities and to craft plans to 'eliminate or significantly reduce' the threats." * Spiked Plutonium Mimics Aging Weapons LOS ALAMOS, New Mexico, July 26, 2002 (ENS) - Researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory are "spiking" plutonium with different isotopes to learn more about how the element may age inside the nation's stockpile of nuclear weapons. Plutonium is the main ingredient of weapons in the U.S. nuclear stockpile. The nation stopped making new weapons in 1989 and stopped underground nuclear testing in 1992. The results of the study will affect whether the U.S. begins manufacturing additional plutonium pits, which form the core of modern nuclear weapons. Los Alamos researchers are trying to hurry along the plutonium aging process to learn how long the metal will last and how that might affect the stockpile. Researchers at Los Alamos, which designed five of the seven weapon systems in the U.S. stockpile, play a major role in certifying each year that those weapons are safe, secure and reliable. Certification depends on understanding how the plutonium cores of the weapons, known as pits, will change with age. "We have to learn how to predict the properties of plutonium as it ages in the weapons, and to do that we need plutonium that's been around as long as plutonium has been on the planet," said Joe Martz, manager of Los Alamos' enhanced surveillance program. The experiment involves "spiking" samples of nuclear weapons plutonium, the isotope known as Pu-239, with 7.5 percent of the plutonium-238 isotope, which decays about 300 times faster. Plutonium-238, because of its high decay rate, is used to provide electrical power for deep space probes such as the Galileo mission to Jupiter and the Cassini mission to Saturn. The hamburger sized spiked samples, cast at Los Alamos on May 13, 2002, should age about 16 times faster than the plutonium-239 in U.S. nuclear weapons. "Every day that passes, the spiked plutonium will be aging more than two weeks, compared to normal weapons plutonium," said Dave Olivas, the metallurgical engineer who is running the experiment with physicist Franz Freibert. Both work in Los Alamos' Nuclear Materials Science Group. "When the samples have aged for the equivalent of 60 years, we'll measure all their properties," Olivas explained. The researchers will not know the results of their efforts for four years, although they plan periodic checks to compare the spiked plutonium to metal inside stockpile weapons. The impacts of age on stockpile weapons have been subtle so far, and may not help scientists predict longer term effects. Plutonium is the most unpredictable of all the metallic elements, and some aging effects may suddenly appear after years of stable behavior. The team expects to see some changes in the density of the spiked plutonium and in the growth of helium within its molecular structure, similar to aging effects they have observed in stockpile plutonium. "Most things age from the outside in, but plutonium is much more unique because it also ages from the inside out," said former Los Alamos director Sig Hecker, a plutonium metallurgist and technical adviser to the experiment. Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2002. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 3 Russia to expand nuclear aid to Iran -- The Washington Times July 27, 2002 By David R. Sands THE WASHINGTON TIMES Russia yesterday announced a dramatic expansion of its cooperation with Iran on building nuclear power plants, ignoring Bush administration concerns that the program could help Iran build a nuclear bomb. The 10-year proposal for cooperation on nuclear power and oil exploration appears to have caught the U.S. government off guard. President Bush had appealed personally to Russian President Vladimir Putin about the Iranian program in May, and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell told a Senate hearing just two weeks ago that Washington and Moscow had "made progress" in recent months in dealing with the issue. Russia's $800 million contract to build a nuclear reactor just outside the southern Iranian port of Bushehr has been a prime irritant in rapidly improving U.S.-Russian relations. Iran is part of President Bush's "axis of evil" and U.S. Ambassador to Russia Alexander Vershbow earlier this week issued another pointed warning to the Kremlin about its ties to regimes hostile to the United States. "Russia has to avoid letting its desire for commercial gain end up hastening the day that [Iran, Iraq and North Korea] can pose a threat that could not only destabilize their own region but undermine the security of the entire world," Mr. Vershbow said. Yesterday's 12-page draft proposal, approved Wednesday night by Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, calls for Moscow to build as many as six nuclear reactors in Iran at Bushehr and at a second site in the city of Akhvaz. In addition, Russian and Iranian energy firms would team up to expand oil drilling and exploration in the Caspian Sea region, improve transportation links, jointly produce a new passenger aircraft and cooperate on the launch of an Iranian communications satellite. A State Department spokesman yesterday had no immediate comment on the Russian announcement but said he expected the topic to surface during yesterday's private talks of a top-level U.S.-Russian anti-terrorism panel that met in Annapolis. Jon Wolfsthal, a top nonproliferation official in the Energy Department in the Clinton administration and now an analyst with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, called the Russian announcement "very worrisome and very surprising." "It's definitely the opposite of what a lot of people were saying, that the Russians were ready to pull out of Bushehr altogether because of U.S. pressure," he said. Mr. Powell, testifying July 9 before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told lawmakers, "We think we are on the right path to making sure that the Russians don't continue to engage in this kind of activity." Three days later, Russian Atomic Energy Minister Alexander Rumyantsev told reporters in Moscow that he did not see any future nuclear cooperation with Tehran after the current Bushehr reactor comes fully on line, which is expected in two years. "We see no other future work with Iran besides [Bushehr]," Mr. Rumyantsev said. But both Russia and Iran have repeatedly dismissed fears by the United States and Israel that the power plant at Bushehr could aid Iran's quest to obtain weapons-grade plutonium for military use. The Bush administration also worries that the Bushehr project could provide a conduit for Russian nuclear specialists to be recruited into Iran's nuclear military effort. Hassan Rowhani, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said Sunday that the Bushehr plant was being built to meet civilian needs and that the work was strictly monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency. But in a sign of the strategic value Iran places on the Bushehr complex, The Washington Times in May reported that several batteries of U.S.-made Hawk surface-to-air missiles had been placed around the site. Mr. Wolfsthal said the Bushehr project has provided huge revenues to the cash-strapped Russian nuclear-power ministry and that neither the Clinton administration nor the Bush administration has been able to persuade the Russians to drop the project. "Russia has a lot of real incentives to cooperate with Iran, financially, politically, geopolitically," he said. "So far, all they've had from the United States are promises." Question marks remain over the extent of the new Russia-Iran cooperation, despite yesterday's announcement in Moscow. The program approved by Mr. Kasyanov is only a draft proposal and still must be formally signed by top Russian and Iranian officials. The Russian news agency Interfax, citing diplomatic sources in Moscow, said yesterday the draft document could be approved by the two countries before or at a meeting of a joint economic cooperation commission set for Tehran in September. ***************************************************************** 4 Raitt donating concert seats to was... heraldsun.com: By GEOFFREY M. GRAYBEAL : The Herald-Sun ggraybeal@heraldsun.com [ggraybeal@heraldsun.com] Jul 26, 2002 : 10:23 pm ET RALEIGH -- Bonnie Raitt has something to talk about. The Grammy award-winning singer/songwriter, best known for hits such as "I Can’t Make You Love Me" and "Something to Talk About," has spent almost three decades making music and promoting causes. Raitt was a founding member of MUSE (Musicians United for Save Energy), which produced the concerts, album and movie "NO NUKES" in 1979, in opposition to nuclear bombs and power plants. On Sunday, she is donating 75 gold-circle seats to her 7 p.m. concert with Lyle Lovett at Alltel Pavilion to the N.C. Waste Awareness &Reduction Network. Afterward, she’ll host a reception for those who buy the tickets, with all proceeds benefiting N.C. WARN’s efforts to reduce the risks associated with the transportation and storage of nuclear waste at Shearon Harris and other nuclear power facilities. "Bonnie Raitt, particularly, understands the issues," said Jim Warren of N.C. WARN. "She is very savvy about these nuclear waste pools and the dangers of nuclear waste storage." Raitt began aiding N.C. WARN in 1995 when it was fighting an effort to build a seven-state "low level" nuclear waste facility. "She helped us then and has done a lot of those type of things for us since then," Warren said. In 1995, Raitt donated 64 gold circle seats to her Walnut Creek concert to a group called Love Your Mother. In 1999, she joined Jackson Browne, Bruce Hornsby and Shawn Colvin in a concert at Walnut Creek that raised money for N.C. WARN. Crosby, Stills and Nash donated tickets to N.C. WARN during their last stint in Raleigh, Warren said. Raitt is as known for her social activism as she is for her music. She has long been involved with the environmental movement, doing benefits for forest, oil, mining and water protection since the mid-’70s. As one of the founding members of the Rhythm and Blues Foundation, she continues to work for increased recognition, health benefits and royalty reform for pioneer R artists. In 1995, she helped establish the Bonnie Raitt Guitar Program, which now provides free guitar lessons to kids in more than 180 Boys and Girls Clubs around the world. Raitt is helping out seven other grassroots groups on her tour this summer and has links to 11 other "important nonprofit groups" on her Web site. "Her name carries a lot of weight," Warren said, adding that the donated tickets will raise several thousand dollars and bring added awareness to N.C. WARN. Tickets for the gold-circle seats and after concert reception can be purchased through N.C. WARN by phone at 490-0747 or e-mail at ncwarn@ncwarn.org ***************************************************************** 5 Russia Plans 5 More Nuclear Plants in Iran (washingtonpost.com) U.S. Has Sought an End To Current Construction By Peter Baker Washington Post Foreign Service Saturday, July 27, 2002; Page A15 MOSCOW, July 26 -- Russia outlined plans today to build five more nuclear power reactors in Iran over the next decade, a sharp expansion of cooperation with Tehran in defiance of U.S. pressure to abandon support for Iran's nuclear program. The plan for additional civilian reactors could severely strain the closer ties between Moscow and Washington forged in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon. While the two countries lately have smoothed over most of their other disputes, today's announcement made clear that Russia has drawn the line at Iran. Russia has been constructing a 1,000-megawatt, light-water reactor for Iran at Bushehr for years and consistently refused to drop the $800 million project, insisting it would serve only civilian purposes. U.S. officials, however, fear that Russian assistance could make it easier for Iran to develop nuclear weapons, and have lobbied in vain to stop the venture. Russia's plan for five additional reactors was included in a broad 10-year blueprint for how to enhance economic, political and scientific ties with Iran, a document approved by Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov on Wednesday and released today. Iranian and Russian officials have talked about building more reactors since 1996, but now the Russians have moved the idea closer to reality by enshrining the goal on paper, to be presented to Tehran in September. No contracts have been signed, and given Russia's fitful construction record at Bushehr, no new reactors are likely in the near term. The document suggested that three additional reactors could be built alongside the original at Bushehr, which is slated to be operational by late 2003 or early 2004. The document also confirmed a proposal for a second plant at Ahvaz, where two reactors could be built. All told, it would mean billions of dollars for Russia's nuclear power industry. "To a large extent, this is about money," said Dmitri Trenin, an analyst at the Moscow Center of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a research organization. "No one here wants to establish Iran as a nuclear power, but there are many people here who believe Iran is likely to become one with Russia's help or without. It's useful to have a finger in the pie." President Bush has said Iran is part of an "axis of evil." But Russia views Iran as "a good citizen of the region, or not much worse than the others," Trenin said. Iran, he noted, has not tried to expand its influence to the north or play a disruptive role in Chechnya, where Islamic separatists have fought two wars against Russian troops. Russian officials have said their work with Iran has violated no international rules. "I don't think we're doing anything illegitimate," said Sergei Rogov, director of the Institute for USA and Canada Studies in Moscow. "Whether it is politically correct is another question." Despite the provocative nature of today's announcement in Moscow, the Kremlin appeared to be trying not to exacerbate the conflict with the United States. Russian officials withheld news of the document's signing for two days and issued it on a Friday evening after much of Moscow had left for country dachas for the weekend. No Kremlin official appeared on television to talk about the issue. The development came just a day after President Vladimir Putin hailed the new era of friendship with the West. "Russia has completely left the confrontational period in international relations, and the countries of the world can view Russia as not only a partner but also as an ally in resolving key problems of the present era," he said Thursday at a ceremony accepting credentials of new ambassadors. But Putin has been more steely when pushed on Iran. At his summit with Bush in Moscow in May, Putin embarrassed the American president when the topic came up at a news conference. Bush confidently told a questioner that Putin would give public assurances "that I think will be very comforting for you to listen to," only to have Putin adamantly defend the Bushehr project and point the finger back at the West for helping Iran's missile program. "The vested interests on Iran in Russia are very powerful," Trenin said. "Even if Putin wanted to, he might not have the capacity to stop them." © 2002 The Washington Post Company ***************************************************************** 6 Russia to aid Iran nuclear program that worries US By Los Angeles Times, 7/27/2002 MOSCOW - Despite opposition from the United States, Russia is seeking to increase cooperation with Iran, releasing plans yesterday to build a new nuclear power plant in the western part of that country. A draft of a 10-year program of cooperation with Iran, which was approved by the Russian government, spelled out Russia's determination to build a plant at Ahvaz, in addition to completing a station under construction at Bushehr, which is strongly opposed by the United States. The Russians also intend to build a second nuclear plant at Bushehr. The draft, published yesterday by the government information department, calls for the Russians to supply six nuclear reactors, four at Bushehr and two at Ahvaz. The United States is against all Russian nuclear sales to Iran, a nation President Bush has termed part of an ''axis of evil,'' fearing this could help Iran develop nuclear weapons. A White House spokesman, Sean McCormack, declined comment yesterday. The United States and Russia have had intense discussions for years on the Bushehr reactor. In congressional testimony this month, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said that the issue of nuclear aid to Iran would be at the top of his agenda when he and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld meet with their Russian counterparts in September. This story ran on page A12 of the Boston Globe on 7/27/2002. © Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company. ***************************************************************** 7 *Plans For Nuclear Plant, Possibly In Nearby Erwin, Getting National Attention * By: /By BILL JONES/Staff Writer / Source:/ The Greeneville Sun / 07-25-2002 Plans by a European-led consortium to build a $1.1 billion uranium enrichment plant somewhere in the U.S. ? possibly in nearby Unicoi County ? have drawn the attention of The New York Times. An article that appeared in the Monday editions of the Times reported that the consortium of European and United States nuclear companies, which is called Louisiana Energy Services, expects to choose a plant site soon. The consortium said it would pick a site soon and would choose an area ?already licensed for nuclear uses,? according to the Times article. ?Industry experts say the group is looking at sites in Lynchburg, Va.; Wilmington, N.C.; and Erwin, Tenn,? the Times reported. ?All have been used for uranium enrichment. Environmental advocates in Erwin have already organized to oppose that choice.? A group calling itself ?Citizens for the Preservation of the Valley Beautiful? has held a series of recent ?informational? meetings in Unicoi and coordinated a July 15 protest outside the Unicoi Town Hall after the July meeting of the Board of Mayor and Aldermen was canceled. Johnny Lynch, a Unicoi alderman and opposition leader, said the citizens group had hoped to use the Unicoi board meeting as a forum for discussion of the situation. However, Virginia Johnson, Unicoi?s recorder, said on July 15 that town officials had been advised not to hold public meetings concerning the proposed plant until after the LES consortium announces its site choice. The site under consideration in Unicoi County covers about 100 acres inside the Town of Unicoi. An unrelated company, Nuclear Fuel Services Inc., already operates a plant, in nearby Erwin, that makes fuel for the U.S. Navy?s nuclear-powered submarines and surface ships. Nuclear Fuel Services also is expected to begin, in coming years, ?down-blending? highly enriched uranium to make fuel for the Tennessee Valley Authority?s Browns Ferry nuclear power plant. The consortium, according to the New York Times, includes Urenco, a British-Dutch-German company that uses a technology called gas centrifuge to enrich uranium; the Cameco Corporation of Canada, the world's largest uranium supplier; the Westinghouse Electric Company, and Fluor Daniel, which are active in many areas of the nuclear industry; and affiliates of three companies that operate power-generating nuclear reactors in the United States: Exelon, Entergy and Duke Energy. Monday?s Times article quoted a spokesman for the LES consortium as saying the group would apply soon for a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build a $1.1 billion plant for processing reactor fuel, the first in this country in half a century and one of the largest private nuclear projects in the U.S. since the 1980s. The same group, but with a different United States utility partner, tried several years ago to build a plant in Louisiana, but it gave up after nine years because of opposition at the site. The proposed new plant would enrich uranium for use in power plants, using a technology that consumes about 5 percent as much electricity as the one now used in the United States, the Times reported. ?It would break a domestic monopoly held by USEC Inc., formerly the United States Enrichment Corporation, which runs an Atomic Energy Commission plant in Paducah, Ky., that was privatized in July 1998,? according to the New York Times article. USEC announced a month ago, the Times said, that it also would seek to build a plant but that it would first have to modernize a prototype plant tested in the 1980s. The consortium's proposal poses a serious threat to USEC, some experts told the Times. "As a business, they are dead," said Thomas L. Neff, a scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, of USEC. In the 1990s, Dr. Neff came up with the idea of buying weapons-grade uranium from Russia and diluting it for use in United States reactors, a job once done by the Energy Department and now done by USEC. If USEC does not build an enrichment plant, he said, it will become merely a broker of the Russian uranium. Patrick C. Upson, the chairman of the LES consortium, said, "We have a significant head-start on the technical side." But USEC executives said their technology would be even better. "USEC remains the leading supplier of enriched uranium fuel in the United States market, and we're on track to be enriching uranium using new advanced gas centrifuges by the end of the decade," a spokesman for the company, Charles Yulish, was quoted as saying by the Times. "We expect our technology to be proven the most efficient in the world." Enrichment means raising the proportion of uranium-235, the kind that is easy to split in reactors, according to the Times article. Natural uranium is about 0.7 percent uranium-235. The problem is that the dominant type of uranium, uranium-238, is chemically identical. The only difference is in the weight. USEC's plant, built in the 1950s, uses a method called gaseous diffusion, in which uranium, converted to gaseous form, is forced through a barrier, with one type slightly more likely to pass through than the other. The European technology uses a centrifuge. Enrichment is measured by "separative work units," or S.W.U.s, and the United States market is about 11 million units a year. USEC meets more than half of the nited States demand by blending down Russian bomb uranium. USEC also enriches uranium at the plant in Paducah, Ky. It shut down a plant in Portsmouth, Ohio, with a capacity of 10.5 million units. The consortium plans to build a plant that would begin operation in 2007 or 2008 and reach a capacity of 3 million units a year in 2012. 2002 Greene County Fair © 2002 East Tennessee Network - R.A.I.D. (Regionalized Access ***************************************************************** 8 Russia to Go on Building Nuclear Reactors in Iran The New York Times < *July 27, 2002* *By STEVEN LEE MYERS* MOSCOW, July 26 ? The Russian government, brushing aside the Bush administration's concerns, indicated today that it planned to continue building new nuclear reactors in Iran like one that American officials have repeatedly warned could be used to develop nuclear weapons. Russia's assistance in building a nuclear plant in the Iranian city of Bushehr, near the Persian Gulf, has been a nagging irritant in relations with the United States for years. It produced the sourest note in otherwise friendly meetings between President Bush and President Vladimir V. Putin here in May. While administration officials have pressed Russia to break its contract to complete a 1,000-megawatt reactor at Bushehr, a document approved this week by Prime Minister Mikhail M. Kasyanov and announced today outlined plans to build three more reactors at the site. The document also indicated that Russia would offer to build two more reactors at a new nuclear power station at Ahwaz, a city about 60 miles from Iran's border with Iraq. That appeared to contradict remarks earlier this month by Russia's atomic energy minister, Aleksandr Y. Rumyantsev, who said the cooperation with Iran in developing its nuclear-power industry would end with the project at Bushehr. Russia, like Iran, has repeatedly dismissed the American concerns about the project, insisting that it was a purely civilian effort to develop new energy sources. But the Bush administration, which has labeled Iran part of an "axis of evil" along with Iraq and North Korea, fears that the Iranians will use Russian equipment and expertise to pursue a secret program to produce nuclear weapons that could threaten Europe and the United States. Russia's plans were released on the government's official Web site today, without public comment, as part of a draft outlining potential areas of economic, industrial and scientific cooperation with Iran over the next 10 years. The prospect of more Russian assistance is certain to provoke new warnings from the United States and may undercut the close relationship that has developed between Mr. Putin and Mr. Bush, especially since the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States. In recent months Russian officials have sought to defuse the Bush administration's complaints, saying Russia would insist that Iran return the plutonium produced as a byproduct of nuclear power generation to prevent it from being used in weapons. After their meetings in May, Mr. Bush said Mr. Putin had assured him that Russia would press Iran to allow extensive international inspections of the plant. Iran has signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and has previously said it will cooperate fully with the International Atomic Energy Agency, which oversees the world's civilian nuclear power programs. In Washington, administration officials said Russian cooperation with Iran's nuclear energy program would be on the agenda next week when Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham leads an American delegation to Russia to discuss energy and nuclear proliferation issues. "Our concerns with regards to Russian cooperation with Iran on the issue of Bushehr are well known," said Sean McCormack, a spokesman for the National Security Council. "We have expressed them in public as well as in private directly to Russian President Putin. And we will continue to work with Russia on proliferation issues of concern." After today's announcement, the chairman of Parliament's foreign affairs committee, Dmitri O. Rogozin, said Russia's plans should not hurt relations with the United States since Moscow shared Washington's worries. "Neither Russia nor the United States is interested in other countries' use of peaceful nuclear technologies for military purposes," he told the Interfax news agency. Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company ***************************************************************** 9 Vermont Yankee Cleared for Sale Las Vegas SUN July 26, 2002 MONTPELIER, Vt.- The state Public Service Board cleared the way Friday for the sale of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant, rejecting opponents' arguments that negotiated side deals were enough to scuttle it. Entergy Nuclear of Jackson, Miss., "can and should operate the plant as well as or better than the present owners and, under most reasonably foreseeable scenarios, the transactions will produce an economic benefit for Vermont ratepayers," the board said. The current owners of the plant said the board's ruling cleared any remaining obstacles to completing the $180 million sale by Wednesday's deadline. "We're on schedule to close by that deadline, the 31st," said Yankee spokesman Brian Cosgrove. Opponents of the sale said they were hopeful that utility regulators in other states might step in and block the transaction. And they also said they'd appeal the board's various orders to the Vermont Supreme Court. "We will definitely seek appellate review," said James Dumont, a Middlebury lawyer representing the New England Coalition on Nuclear Pollution. Another opponent, though, said he saw little likelihood of preventing Entergy from taking over the 510-megawatt power plant in Vernon. "Frankly, I think this sale now is likely to occur and that is too bad for Vermonters and for our energy future here in the state," said Mark Sinclair, a lawyer with the Conservation Law Foundation. Friday's ruling turned down appeals by the coalition and Citizens Awareness Network that were supported by the Conservation Law Foundation. They sought to block the sale, arguing that a side agreement required further study by the board. That agreement dealt with whether Entergy should be allowed to keep any money left over in a decommissioning fund after Yankee closes. The current owners of Vermont Yankee have deposited money into the fund to pay for dismantling the plant when it eventually closes. Entergy wanted to keep any money that's left over. The Public Service Board ruled that if there's any surplus after the closure, the money had to be returned to Vermont ratepayers. That threatened to kill the deal until Entergy and the current owners negotiated a side deal calling for Entergy to keep the 45 percent of the fund paid by out-of-state ratepayers whose utilities are minority owners of the plant. The sale opponents said that deal with the out-of-state utilities undermined the rationale behind the board's refusal to let Entergy keep any excess decommissioning funds paid by Vermont ratepayers. The rationale, they said, was to make sure Entergy didn't cut any corners in decomissioning the nuclear plant, whose license expires in 2012. But the board said the deal had satisfied its primary concern that Vermont ratepayers get back any money that's left over. Utilities that operate in other states will have to answer to their own regulators, the Vermont board said. The board said that out-of-state utilities also were being protected against potentially getting short-changed. That's because the current Vermont owners of the plant have agreed to pay their out-of-state counterparts $1.5 million to cover the amount they had put aside for decomissioning. That money was coming from what otherwise would go to the shareholders of Central Vermont Public Service Corp. and Green Mountain Power Corp., not ratepayers. "These (out-of-state) companies thus receive compensation now in place of what they might - or might not - receive at some unpredictably distant future time," the board said. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 10 N.K. officials to return home after nuclear safety training welcome to Korea Herald!!_National http://www.koreaherald.com A group of visiting North Korean officials returns home today, ending 26 days of safety training for nuclear power plants currently under construction in the North. The delegation of 25 North Korean government officials completed classes at the Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety (KINS), near Daejeon, yesterday, said officials at the Korean Peninsular Energy Development Organization (KEDO). The U.S.-led KEDO is building two 1,000-megawatt light-water reactors in the energy-starved country under a 1994 agreement between Pyongyang and Washington that required the North to freeze its nuclear programs. During its stay in the South, the delegation inspected nuclear facilities in Uljin, North Gyeongsang Province. The group, led by Kim Yong-il, director of the North's State Nuclear Safety Regulatory Commission, will fly to Pyongyang via Beijing, officials said. (jihoho@koreaherald.co.kr 2002.07.27 (C) Copyright 2000 Digital Korea Herald. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 11 U.S. Ports Alerted to Missing Iridium Friday, 26-Jul-2002 9:40PM Story from AP / SETH HETTENA, Associated Press Writer Copyright 2002 by The Associated Press (via ClariNet) SAN DIEGO (AP) -- A small pellet of radioactive material disappeared just south of California's border with Mexico, prompting the U.S. Customs Service to put its inspectors on alert. Mexican authorities confirmed Friday that an inch-long capsule of iridium-192 disappeared from a truck in Mexico earlier this week. It was unclear whether the equipment was stolen or fell off the truck. As a precaution, the Customs Service notified agents at five border crossings in California, spokesman Vince Bond said. He said radiation detectors at ports of entry had not reported any large radiation readings. "There's no indication that there's any reason for concern whatsoever," said San Diego police spokesman David Cohen. Although not harmful if used properly, there has been concern that iridium and other commonplace radioactive materials could be used to create a radiological "dirty bomb." Mexico's state civil protection director, Gabriel Gomez Ruiz, said that the capsule should not pose any danger to the public. The material is enclosed in a secure fireproof container designed to withstand heavy blows, he said. "This container is very difficult to open because of the security measures that have been taken with it," he said. Officials from the Mexican state of Baja California launched an effort to recover the 8-inch by 6-inch cylinder containing the capsule of iridium-192, which was used by Pemex, Mexico's state-owned oil company, to X-ray its pipelines. Iridium-192 emits potentially hazardous gamma rays commonly used to check welded joints in structures such as oil pipelines. The capsule was lost from a truck between the Mexican border cities of Tijuana and Tecate, about 70 miles east of San Diego, Ruiz said. "We have no indication that this is headed for the border to be smuggled across," said Lauren Mack, a spokesman for the Immigration and Naturalization Service. ***************************************************************** 12 Depleted uranium held responsible for Down's syndrome in Iraq: study Xinhuanet 2002-07-28 19:09:33 BAGHDAD, July 28 (Xinhuanet) -- The depleted uranium left behind by Western allies forces, not the advanced maternal age, should be considered as the main cause of increasing cases of Down's syndrome in Iraq, said a research report published Sunday in the official Iraq Daily. In the report titled "Depleted uranium and Down's syndrome in offspring of mothers younger than 35-year old," Iraqi doctor Tariq Al-Hilli said that among the 30 sampled patients with Down's syndrome, 17 of them, or 56.6 percent, were infants of mothers under the age of 35. The result indicated there was no significant statistical association between advanced maternal age and birth of babies with the congenital disorder. It has been found that there is an increasing incidence of congenital malformations among those children who live in areas exposed to environmental contamination by radioactive materials like depleted uranium, the study said. Iraq has repeatedly condemned the United States and its Western allies for dropping hundreds of tons of depleted uranium bombs in Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War, triggered by Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, and leading to an environmental disaster as a result. Dr Al-Hilli said the sample was randomly selected from those patients who went to the Saddam Central Teaching Hospital during January 1 to July 31, 2000. The study also included another 40 age-and-sex-matched children who had no Down's syndrome as control cases, he said. Down's syndrome, also called trisomy 21, is caused by the presence of an extra 21st chromosome, and the affected person has mild to moderate mental retardation, short stature, and a flattenedfacial profile. The disorder, formerly known as mongolism, was first described by John L.H. Down, a British physician about 130 years ago and considered as the first syndrome known to have a chromosomal cause. Enditem Copyright © 2000 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 13 Beryllium screening slated Worcester Telegram & Gazette - South Saturday, July 27, 2002 By Kevin Keenan Telegram & Gazette Staff Beginning this fall, workers of area companies who handled beryllium products during the Cold War will benefit from a free screening program for health problems associated with the metal. U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy [http://www.senate.gov/~kennedy/] , D-Mass., and U.S. Rep. James P. McGovern [http://www.house.gov/mcgovern/] , D-Worcester, announced this week that the Senate Appropriations Committee approved a spending package that includes $250,000 for a new beryllium-screening program in Worcester. Beryllium is a strong, lightweight metal with a high melting point. It has been used in components of nuclear reactors and weapons, aircraft and spacecraft. Beryllium compounds are used in ceramics for electronics, in dental bridges and in some sports equipment. Exposure to beryllium in the workplace may cause diseases, including chronic beryllium disease, which causes scarring of the lung tissue. Paul J. Soucy, president of the United Steelworkers of America 2285, said he lobbied for the program after the federal government announced the radioactive materials compensation program, because many local retirees have never been tested. Beginning Wednesday, the federal government will pay eligible workers who became ill working with radioactive materials a lump sum of $150,000 and future medical costs associated with the disease. Mr. Soucy said local workers who test positive under the new screening program may become eligible for the compensation program. Mr. Soucy and Michael Spahn, a spokesman for Mr. Kennedy, both said the funding for the screening program is expected to be approved in early September and become available Oct. 1. The screening will mostly help former employees of Wyman-Gordon Co., which does not have a beryllium-screening program, Mr. Soucy said. The company produced beryllium for the federal government from 1959 to 1965, and more than 500 of its employees worked with the material. Mr. Soucy, an inspector at Wyman-Gordon, said many company retirees, including his father, Gerald Soucy, forged the material. Without a free screening program, the retirees are not able to find out whether they suffer from chronic beryllium disease, Mr. Soucy said. The test costs $500 and is not usually covered by private insurance and is not covered by Medicare, he said. “One thing we don't do well in this country is take care of our senior citizens,” Mr. Soucy said. “Beryllium is like a lot of things that we used to work with years ago: It's something a lot of people didn't know a lot about.” The U.S. Department of Labor will initiate the program in Worcester, once the money is in place, Mr. Soucy said. The screening will help determine a person's exposure and adequate treatment, according to a press release issued by Mr. Kennedy. [http://www.telegram.com/tools/telegram/copyright.html] Worcester Telegram & Gazette Corp. ***************************************************************** 14 Air Force can't explain possible toxic barrel Caller.com: National/world News KRIS-TV: Channel By SAM STANTON July 25, 2002 They've found garbage, candy wrappers, newsletters and even plutonium in the two years officials have been digging at a once-secret dump site on the grounds of McClellan Air Force Base. But this week workers uncovered a 55-gallon drum that may contain one of the most disturbing finds yet: a material that may be uranium, the radioactive element used in atomic weapons. Air Force and Sacramento County officials say there is no confirmation yet that the material is uranium and insisted that it poses no danger to the public or the ongoing conversion of the base to civilian use. The radioactive reading from the barrel registered at 0.15 millirem, officials said, adding that a typical chest X-ray measures 10 millirem. Despite that, workers at the 1.25-acre dump site have secured the barrel and its contents inside a five-story high tentlike structure that covers the site. "It's looking like it is uranium, but we have to do further, more in-depth testing to be sure," said Dawn Young, spokeswoman for the Air Force Conversion Agency, which is cleaning up the site. The barrel was discovered as part of the ongoing excavation of an area known as Confirmed Site 10, a once-secret dumping area where the Air Force disposed of hundreds of barrels of trash and radioactive material. The site was located as officials began working to prepare the base for civilian business use and former base workers came forward and recalled watching the burial of the barrels. Excavation of the site began two years ago as workers uncovered 110 barrels in three weeks. The process was halted, however, when officials discovered some barrels containing plutonium, which is used in nuclear weapons and reactors. The radioactive reading does not necessarily mean the material is uranium, Young added, and no one is certain why such a material would have been in use at the base. Officials had a similar problem two years ago when the plutonium was discovered, with the Air Force saying it was surprised by the find and could not explain it. (Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.shns.com.) Caller.com ***************************************************************** 15 Nevada-funded poll in June found support for Yucca Mountain fight July 28, 2002 Associated Press [online@rgj.com] A state-funded poll showed that Nevadans are intent on fighting the Yucca Mountain Project instead of making a deal for benefits, officials said. The $8,000 poll, presented to the Nuclear Projects Commission on Thursday, was conducted nearly a month before the U.S. Senate approved the nuclear waste project. President Bush signed the measure on Tuesday. Commission Chairman Brian McKay said he was encouraged by Nevada's legal strategy for defeating the Yucca Mountain Project by challenging the agencies charged with designing and regulating the repository. The poll, conducted by Northwest Survey Services of Eugene, Ore., found 65 percent of 404 respondents wanted the state to continue to fight the repository in the courts. Thirty-one percent said they wanted the state to give up its opposition to the nuclear waste repository, in exchange for benefits. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points. A competing pollster said the state's poll lacked credibility because it was conducted before the Senate voted 60-39 to approve the repository on July 9. Brad Coker, managing director of Mason-Dixon PollingResearch Inc. based in Washington, D.C., said a more recent poll his firm conducted in mid-July for the Las Vegas Review-Journal and reviewjournal.com better reflected public opinion. Mason-Dixon also conducted a poll on the issue in February. The Review-Journal poll of 625 registered Nevada voters, conducted several days after the Senate vote, found 43 percent of respondents favored making a deal for benefits from the federal government while 49 percent said they want to continue to fight the decision in court. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points. © Copyright Reno Gazette-Journal, a Gannett ***************************************************************** 16 Radioactive roadtrip semissourian.com: Article Sunday, July 28, 2002 With Nevada's Yucca Mountain named the official repository for nuclear waste, transportation safety becomes a hot issue. By Scott Moyers and Tammy Raddle ~ Southeast Missourian Yucca Mountain is a long way from Southeast Missouri, but a government plan to send high-level nuclear waste there using America's roadways and railways would make Missouri a crossroads for thousands of shipments of the highly radioactive material It may come within 35 miles of Cape Girardeau. Interstate 70 would be a route to get the material across Missouri and to the mountain, but I-55 and the local railway aren't on the proposed routes. The closest route for transport near Cape Girardeau is along I-57 and I-24 in southern Illinois. That has some area residents anxious. "I am concerned," said Marie James of Cape Girardeau. "But I really don't know what can be done about it. This is such a widespread problem. It's not just Cape Girardeau that will be affected by this, but really most of the country." Main repository Last week, after two decades of study and ardent protests from Nevada, President George W. Bush signed a bill making Yucca Mountain the central U.S. repository for nuclear waste. The House and Senate voted earlier this year to entomb thousands of tons of radioactive waste inside Yucca Mountain in the desert some 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Currently, the material is stored on site at nuclear plants like the one in Fulton, Mo. While the government insists it's safe, opponents -- including Sen. Jean Carnahan and a handful of environmental groups -- said that shipping 77,000 tons of waste by highway and rail through 44 states would create a target for terrorists and put lives at risk if accidents happen. "Our biggest concern is for Nevada," said Peggy Maze Johnson, executive director of Las Vegas-based Citizen Alert. "But we recognize this nuclear waste isn't going to just magically appear in Nevada. It's going to come from somewhere and has to be transported. We know people probably don't want it transported through their neighborhoods as much as we don't want it stored here." Johnson and others stress that highway and railway accidents occur every day. She questions adding transported nuclear waste to the mix of cars, trucks and trains. "It doesn't even really make sense," Johnson said. "This is nuclear waste. Why start shipping it on highways full of people?" Safe transport But Walt Lilly, a biology professor and the radiation safety officer for Southeast Missouri State University, said such slogans suggesting the project could lead to a "mobile Chernobyl" are ridiculous. "It's ludicrous," he said. "It would take targeting a nuclear weapon at that material to spread it like it did at Chernobyl. I think people are tremendously overconcerned about that." Lilly, who has received training regarding transporting radioactive material, said he doesn't have any concerns about the project. "The containers that the material would be shipped in are designed to withstand a wreck," Lilly said. "I'd be a lot more concerned about gas tankers than a shipment of radioactive material. You have to be careful, obviously, but that's why there's so many regulations in the use and transport of this material. People are alarmed way out of line in terms of the actual risk." Lilly said having all the waste at one site would make it easier to maintain inventory and control the environment surrounding the waste. Currently there are 131 locations where nuclear waste is stored. "I would not be worried at all," he said. "My guess is with the current terrorist threat, the shipments will be so well protected, the safest place you could be is riding in the boxcar with it," he said. Emergency management director for Cape Girardeau County Dave Hitt agreed. "I'm not worried about it," he said. "I've seen some of the precautions that they take, and I feel Cape Girardeau would not be affected by it. We're not talking about nuclear bombs. We're talking about waste that needs to be disposed of." Close to home Some residents said they're worried the waste will be shipped close to their homes, schools and businesses. George Galeener lives in the Metropolis, Ill., area, only one mile from I-24. He said he is concerned about the movement of nuclear waste so close to his home, but he doubts that anything can be done about it. "When you're dealing with the federal government, there is not a lot you can do," he said. "They are going to do what they are going to do. Nevada doesn't want the nuclear waste, but it looks like it's going there, anyway," Galeener said. He said, since I-24 is one of the few interstate routes coming from the south, shipping routes choices are limited. Jerry Siemers, a Cape Girardeau dairy farmer, believes people do not realize how much hazardous waste is already shipped on the nation's highways. He does not see the shipment of nuclear waste as a different issue. "I don't worry about this too much, because there is already so much toxic waste being shipped," Siemers said. He noted, as a volunteer fireman, he's received training on how to handle accidents involving hazardous chemicals. So far, he's never had to use that training. "It's really easy for people to come up with doomsday scenarios, but the truth is that all of us are more likely to be killed driving to work tomorrow than we are to be injured or killed in an accident involving nuclear waste," Siemers said. "I won't lose any sleep over this." Gayle Fisher, a public affairs officer with the Department of Energy's Yucca Mountain project, said that the president's decision allows them to get started on licensing the $58 billion project, a process expected to take about three years to complete. Shipments aren't expected to start until 2010. Fisher reiterated that the project is safe: "Our general response is: If we didn't believe we could do it safely, we wouldn't be doing it." smoyers@semissourian.com 335-6611, extension 137 traddle@semissourian.com 335-6611, extension 160 © 2002, Southeast Missourian. This story was posted on the site Sunday, July 28, 2002. ***************************************************************** 17 Failed BNFL sale cost DTI £18.6m Independent.co.uk © 2002 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd By Jason Nissé 28 July 2002 The Department of Trade and Industry paid £18.6m to City advisers who worked on the failed plan to privatise British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL), The Independent on Sunday has learned. Nearly half of that bonanza ? some £8.76m ? went to the disgraced accounting firm Andersen, which has all but closed its doors after the Enron scandal. However, Andersen, which in the UK has been taken over by Deloitte & Touche, is still working with the DTI on a fresh restructuring plan for BNFL, launched earlier this month. Figures released by energy minister Brian Wilson detail the massive amounts spent between July 1999, when the plan was announced, and last December, when the DTI gave up on the part-privatisation. City bankers CSFB received £6.22m in fees while another merchant bank, HSBC, was paid £802,000. Law firm Slaughter & May was paid £879,000, while £8.76m went to Andersen and £1.63m was received by Deloitte & Touche, which has now merged with Andersen. Some £363,000 was shared between two pensions consultants ? Lane Clark & Peacock and Mercer. The grand total of £18.6m is not the limit of the amount spent on the failed plan. BNFL also received advice from a number of City firms including merchant banker NM Rothschild and accountancy firm Ernst & Young. BNFL refused to say how much it paid for their advice, claiming commercial confidentiality. However, last week The Independent on Sunday revealed that Ernst & Young, BNFL's auditor, had received £13m in fees over the past three years, most of which was for consultancy work. Further investigations have revealed that the total amount received by Ernst & Young since it became BNFL's auditor in 1988 now totals £32.1m, of which £6.96m was for auditing and £25.1m for consultancy. The plan to part-privatise BNFL was scuppered because of the massive liabilities incurred by the group due to the costs of cleaning up the nuclear sites it owns and operates. Earlier this month it revealed a £2.09bn loss for the year to 31 March 2002, caused by a £2.38m extra provision for cleaning up the sites. Mr Wilson is now proposing to create a Liabilities Management Agency (LMA) that would take on the costs of cleaning up the fallout from BNFL, the UK Atomic Energy Authority and the Ministry of Defence's nuclear weapons programme. The House of Commons Trade and Industry Committee raised serious questions about setting up the LMA in a report published last week. It was concerned about what proportion of the £12bn of current nuclear liabilities would be transferred from BNFL to the LMA and questioned whether any of BNFL's commercial contracts or £1.8bn cash pile would also pass to the LMA. It is understood that talks are continuing that are likely to lead to BNFL giving up a share of its financial resources and commercial income. The MPs also criticised Norman Askew, BNFL's chief executive, for failing to deliver a full set of the group's accounts. They said he promised the accounts would be published by 16 July but they will not be available until August. A BNFL spokesman said this was a misunderstanding between the MPs and Mr Askew. www.desertspace.org [http://www.desertspace.org] ) of potential Yucca warning concepts–some sarcastic, some whimsical, such as seeding the mountain with genetically modified, blue-colored yucca shrubs or transforming it into a simulated volcano. But more likely, says DOE spokesman Joe Davis, "We'll take a look at what they're doing at WIPP." That would be the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., which since 1999 has been storing waste from nuclear weapons production in an old salt mine. WIPP consulted panels of academics–including archaeologists, astrobiologists, and materials experts–about the warning-marker conundrum. Scare tactics. They noted that although it might seem sensible to fashion markers from a durable material like titanium, ancient Egypt teaches a different lesson. The fine limestone that originally cloaked the Great Pyramid of Cheops, for instance, was pried off and reused. And scare tactics like the curses on Egyptian tombs can backfire. "Nothing that says, 'Touch this rock and die,' " says archaeologist Maureen Kaplan of environmental consultants ERG. Inevitably, someone would touch a rock and survive, undermining the warning. Of course, writing may not get the message across in the distant future. So the teams also considered ways to embed a warning in the marker structure itself. One proposal: "menacing earthworks" resembling the jagged lightning-bolt insignia of Hitler's SS. "That one would scare the bejesus out of you," says Roger Nelson, WIPP's chief technology officer. But costly, elaborate structures can draw the wrong kind of attention. "The more grandiose you make it, the more likely people will wonder what you're hiding," says Jon Lomberg, artist for the PBS series Cosmos. WIPP eventually chose a plan to surround the site with a plain, 33-foot-high, 100-foot-wide berm of rock, soil, and salt. Inside the berm, to be built sometime after the site closes in 2035, will be 16 granite monuments (shades of Stonehenge) and many buried markers. Some will carry warnings in the six official languages of the United Nations, as well as Navajo; others will feature Edvard Munch-esque distorted faces to represent horror, and changing star positions to illustrate when the waste was buried. At Yucca, where the buried radioactivity will be fiercer, project managers are leaning toward edgier concepts, according to those familiar with their thinking. Two favorites are the menacing earthworks and a field of giant concrete thorns bursting from the ground near the mountain. But University of California-Irvine physicist and sci-fi author Gregory Benford favors the opposite extreme: doing nothing. Well, almost nothing. "Build some kind of monument out of government concrete which will be gone in two centuries and forgotten," he says. He notes that the only major unlooted Egyptian tomb was King Tut's, which was unmarked. Copyright © 2002 U.S. News & World Report, L.P. All rights ***************************************************************** 20 OP: What A Waste (washingtonpost.com) Saturday, July 27, 2002; Page A19 The July 18 KidsPost story "Where Should We Put Nuclear Waste?" gave kids some big-time misinformation. Please tell Fern Shen that used fuel from nuclear reactors is nowhere near as dangerous as she says. The used fuel would be somewhat radioactive after 10,000 years, to be sure, but so feeble that it would pose no danger at all. Shen could have told the kids that, for example, after only about 1,000 years the waste's radioactivity would be less than the amount of natural radioactivity already in the land near the repository. "It can eat through flesh and cause cancer and birth defects," she says. Scary. But we safely handle larger quantities of other hazardous materials (such as household lye, arsenic and mercury) that can eat through flesh and cause cancer and birth defects. "About 3,000 people live and farm in the area, some as close as 12 miles away [from the repository]," she says. Twelve miles is a long way. Realistically those people are not in danger. "The government has spent about $8 billion so far studying the site," she says. Misleading. That's not taxpayer money. It has been collected by the utilities from electricity consumers to pay for waste management. Shen says that an accident on the way to Yucca Mountain "would be serious." Nonsense (although many people believe it). She should have pointed out that accidents involving a gasoline tanker can be far worse than what could happen with the incredibly sturdy fuel casks. She refers to "last summer's big fire in a Baltimore train tunnel, where the containers would have melted, spilling their dangerous cargo." But it will be strict policy, we hear, as well as common sense that no flammable cargo will be near enough to a fuel cask to trap it in such a fire. Finally, she writes, "Yucca Mountain would be full by 2034." That's true, under current plans. But with good preparations, advanced reactors will be making electricity before then by consuming the plutonium and most of the other long-lived components of the used fuel. Then there will be lots of room down there to store the real waste: the fission products, which will be harmless within 500 years. -- George S. Stanford -- Gerald E. Marsh The writers are retired reactor physicists with the Argonne National Laboratory. • Your paper has now authoritatively reported that nuclear waste can "eat through flesh." Normally such claims are found in the racks next to supermarket checkout stands. The safe transportation and disposal of spent nuclear fuel deserves more accurate reporting. Opponents to nuclear energy have been promoting fear of a terrorist attack during spent fuel transportation as a strategy to defeat the proposed repository at Yucca Mountain. But spent nuclear fuel is an inert, ceramic solid that is extremely hard to mobilize, even if a shipping container could be breached. Unlike with chemical and biological agents, prolonged exposure would be required to create any noticeable health effects, and first responders can readily determine where the materials are by using simple instruments. Spent fuel transport need not and should not be the focus of our limited anti-terrorism resources in a world where more than 70,000 hazardous chemical tankers traverse U.S. roadways every day. When one sees the assertion that spent fuel is "among the deadliest substances known to man," one rarely finds any accurate description of how spent fuel might actually hurt people. More importantly, one never finds any comparison of the worst we can possibly envision for spent nuclear fuel to the known effects that equivalent quantities of fossil fuel have on people, the environment and global climate. At its minimum possible capacity, the Yucca repository displaces the consequences of burning more than 4 billion tons of coal. The benefits of not using that coal should have been the major topic of your article. -- Per Peterson © 2002 The Washington Post Company ***************************************************************** 21 Sniffin questions Bebout's nuclear waste record billingsgazette.com - version 5.0 July 27, 2002 Last modified July 27, 2002 - 12:48 am Associated Press CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) - Bill Sniffin kicked up the Republican gubernatorial race a notch Friday by questioning Eli Bebout's involvement in a proposed nuclear waste storage site. On the front of an eight-page advertising insert in the Casper Star-Tribune and Wyoming Tribune-Eagle, Sniffin said Bebout has not admitted that he was on the board of directors of a company that sought to build a temporary storage facility for spent nuclear fuel rods. Sniffin also said Bebout backed legislation that would have made it easier to "to make Wyoming the country's nuclear waste dump," and that Bebout was - but has not admitted to being - an active promoter of such a site. The advertisement went on to say that Bebout, as an investor in NEW Corp., stood to profit had the company succeeded in getting a nuclear waste storage site built in Fremont County. "Right now he says he's against it, and I'll grant him that," Sniffin said in an interview. "But for four long years he was working as hard as he could, and that's a long time to be working for something that was a terrible idea from day one." Asked to respond, Bebout denied all the allegations. He said it is no secret that he was a member of the NEW Corp. board of directors. He sat on the board, he said, only to educate himself about the issue and stepped down in 1994 because Wyoming residents did not support having a nuclear waste storage site in the state. While other members of his family invested in NEW Corp., he said he did not personally invest in the company and does not know of any shares that he held. Bebout did not know how much his relatives invested in NEW Corp. and said that, upon his resignation from the board, he told the company to donate any shares he might have received to Central Wyoming College and Fremont County schools. "This is really dirty campaigning," Bebout said of Sniffin. "Wyoming people don't want it. I'm doing it the Wyoming way: I'm running a campaign my mother would be proud of." He said he was not a supporter of having a nuclear waste site in Wyoming even before he resigned from the NEW Corp. board. "I was in favor of becoming more educated and more knowledgeable," he said. "I was looking at the job (creation) aspect and wanted people to become more educated." He said the process of educating himself about nuclear waste storage involved touring waste storage facilities. As for educating the public, he said NEW Corp. helped bring knowledgeable people such as the mayor of Carlsbad, N.M., to Wyoming to give presentations on nuclear waste storage. Carlsbad is near the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant storage site. "I was a proponent of becoming educated and looking at the possibility. If the people of Wyoming had wanted it, that would have been another matter," he said. As for legislation he has supported, Bebout said he backed a successful bill in 1995 that in fact made it more difficult for a nuclear waste storage site to be built in Wyoming. The core of Sniffin's complaint is how Gov. Mike Sullivan halted a Fremont County study of the Monitored Retrievable Storage facility in 1992 after receiving a large number of letters opposing the project. Sniffin said Bebout should not have supported the facility in the first place, but even then it took him another two years to divorce himself from the issue. "Thank God we had a governor like Mike Sullivan who killed it," Sniffin said. "Had we had a governor like Eli Bebout, according to their projections, we would already have had had 3,000 metric tons of nuclear waste stored in Wyoming right now. "So to me, this is a huge issue. One of the things that I'm trying to do for the voters is to demonstrate that, you know, a governor has to make a lot of important decisions. The decision that Eli made was a really bad decision as to how it affected the people of Wyoming." Bebout said he did not see the letters Sullivan received and based his decision to resign from the board on a 1994 survey that said 80 percent of those polled opposed building a nuclear waste facility in Wyoming. "A, I was not a promoter," he said. "B, I was not in it from day one. And C, am I in it today? Was I in it last year? I have not been in it since 1995." Copyright 2002 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Copyright © The Billings Gazette, a division of Lee Enterprises [http://www.leeenterprises.com] . ***************************************************************** 22 Nevada-funded poll in June found support for Yucca Mountain fight Las Vegas SUN July 26, 2002 LAS VEGAS (AP) - A state-funded poll showed that Nevadans are intent on fighting the Yucca Mountain Project instead of making a deal for benefits, officials said. The $8,000 poll, presented to the Nuclear Projects Commission on Thursday, was conducted nearly a month before the U.S. Senate approved the nuclear waste project. President Bush signed the measure on Tuesday. Commission Chairman Brian McKay said he was encouraged by Nevada's legal strategy for defeating the Yucca Mountain Project by challenging the agencies charged with designing and regulating the repository. The poll, conducted by Northwest Survey &Data Services of Eugene, Ore., found 65 percent of 404 respondents wanted the state to continue to fight the repository in the courts. Thirty-one percent said they wanted the state to give up its opposition to the nuclear waste repository, in exchange for benefits. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points. A competing pollster said the state's poll lacked credibility because it was conducted before the Senate voted 60-39 to approve the repository on July 9. Brad Coker, managing director of Mason-Dixon Polling &Research Inc. based in Washington, D.C., said a more recent poll his firm conducted in mid-July for the Las Vegas Review-Journal and reviewjournal.com better reflected public opinion. Mason-Dixon also conducted a poll on the issue in February. The Review-Journal poll of 625 registered Nevada voters, conducted several days after the Senate vote, found 43 percent of respondents favored making a deal for benefits from the federal government while 49 percent said they want to continue to fight the decision in court. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 23 AU: Govt will bury nuclear waste at Woomera: ACF ABC Australia News - 28/07/02 : [Australian Broadcasting Corporation Online] The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) claims the Federal Government plans to bury low-level radioactive waste in unlined trenches near Woomera. The claim comes as the Federal Government releases its environmental impact statement into three possible nuclear waste deposit sites in the area. South Australian Environment Minister John Hill says he is concerned about the foundation's claims. He says he hopes the Federal Government is not trying to cut costs. "The only known way of properly disposing this waste is to have a deep geological burial and that is not being suggested for this dump in South Australia," Mr Hill said. "What is being proposed in the EIS as I understand it is different to what was being suggest when the original proposition was put forward." The ACF claims the Federal Government deliberately released the environmental impact statement on proposed nuclear waste sites at Woomera yesterday to minimise media coverage. The ACF's nuclear campaigner, Dave Sweeney, says the Government had been sitting on the report for months waiting for an opportune time to release it. He says the study was deliberately released yesterday afternoon while the spotlight was on the Australian Democrats' turmoil. "We believe that the Government have been waiting for at time when the eyes of South Australia and of the South Australian media would be off this issue," he said. "Instead of being front page of the Advertiser we have the news of Meg Lees and the very significant developments and political implications of the tensions in the Australian Democrats." © 2002 Australian Broadcasting Corporation This service may include material from Agence France-Presse (AFP), AAP(International), APTN, Reuters, CNN and the BBC World ***************************************************************** 24 Plutonium shipments could head overseas Augusta Georgia: Metro: Web posted Saturday, July 27, 2002 By Eric Williamson [eric.williamson@augustachronicle.com] South Carolina Bureau AIKEN - Anti-nuclear activists with Greenpeace International said Fridaythat the Department of Energy intends to send 330 pounds of weapons-grade plutonium by ship to Europe. They say the destination likely will be Belgium, where the plutonium would be converted into mixed-oxide, or MOX, fuel for testing in U.S. nuclear reactors. The tests are necessary before four reactors in the Carolinas, which are being converted to accept the fuel, can be licensed. "We haven't made any decisions on that," DOE spokesman Joe Davis said about the plutonium transport. But, he confirmed, "We have been discussing the issue with (the Belgian government)." Greenpeace spokesman Tom Clements said he believes the shipments could happen as early as 2003, after a notice of intent and supplemental environmental impact statement are filed. "The risky and controversial proposal to ship weapons plutonium on the high seas should be abandoned for safety and security reasons," Mr. Clements said. He said the dangerous material could be seized during a long sea voyage, although he acknowledged the plutonium would be heavily guarded. Mr. Davis said spent nuclear fuel has been sent safely overseas for years as part of the Foreign Research Reactor Spent Nuclear Fuel Program. "It's nothing new," he said. The DOE won't be able to make MOX fuel until its first fabrication plant, slated for Savannah River Site, gets final design approval and is constructed. Duke COGEMA Stone &Webster, the group designing the plant, expects the facility to be operational by 2008. That's a year after a U.S.-Russia agreement hoped to begin disposing of surplus plutonium as part of post-Cold War nonproliferation efforts. The two countries plan to convert at least 2 tons of weapon-grade plutonium a year through MOX programs until each has rid itself of 34 tons, in accordance with the 2000 agreement. Reach Eric Williamson at (803) 279-6895 or eric.williamson@augustachronicle.com [eric.williamson@augustachronicle.com] . [http://augusta.com] . ***************************************************************** 25 AU: Govt 'sat on' nuclear study until media distracted: ACF. 27/7/2002. ABC News Online [Australian Broadcasting Corporation Online] There are claims the Federal Government deliberately released the environmental impact statement on proposed nuclear waste sites at Woomera yesterday to minimise media coverage. The Australian Conservation Foundation's (ACF) nuclear campaigner, Dave Sweeney, says the Government had been sitting on the report for months waiting for an opportune time to release it. He says the study was deliberately released yesterday afternoon while the spotlight was on the Democrats' turmoil. "We believe that the Government have been waiting for at time when the eyes of South Australia and of the South Australian media would be off this issue," he said. "Instead of being front page of the Advertiser we have the news of Meg Lees and the very significant developments and political implications of the tensions in the Australian Democrats." © 2002 Australian Broadcasting Corporation This service may include material from Agence France-Presse (AFP), AAP(International), APTN, Reuters, CNN and the BBC World ***************************************************************** 26 Idaho: DOE state legal battle over N-wastes *Sunday, July 28, 2002* *Twin Falls, Idaho* For the record Here are some excerpts from court records that crystallize Idaho's disagreement with the U.S. Department of Energy over waste buried at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory: # State's evidence * Official communications An excerpt from a January letter Gov. Dirk Kempthorne wrote to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham. The letter was submitted with the state's argument: "It has been over 30 years since your predecessor agency, the Atomic Energy Commission, promised that transuranic waste buried at INEEL would be removed 'within the decade.' It has been nearly 10 years since the Department of Energy committed to the Pit 9 project and nearly five years since the agreement to restructure the project when DOE failed to perform. Over two years ago, Secretary Richardson vowed to me his 'unwavering commitment to the expeditious remediation of Pit 9.' ...So you can well imagine why Idaho has little confidence in DOE's determination to perform on its obligations." * "All" means "all" Idaho's agreement with the Energy Department says: "DOE shall ship all transuranic waste now located at INEEL, currently estimated at 65,000 cubic meters in volume, to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (in New Mexico) or other such facility designated by DOE, by a target date of December 31, 2015, and in no event later than December 31, 2018." "Recently," the state argues, "the Department of Energy expressed its disagreement over this term, indicating that 'all' does not in fact mean 'all.'" # Energy Department's case * 'All' doesn't cover all "Idaho's simplistic 'all means all' interpretation," the Energy Department says, ignores a portion of the 1995 agreement that says it would not alter or affect a previous agreement that addressed buried waste. * Official statements In a speech to Idaho legislators, former Idaho Deputy Attorney General Kathleen Trever, who worked on the state's negotiating team, explained the terms of the 1995 deal. "Critics of the agreement have complained that this agreement doesn't require the cleanup of one teaspoon full of contaminated soil at the INEL. What the critics don't mention is that cleanup of contaminated soil, as well as cleanup of other historic activities, is covered by a 1991 agreement between Idaho, DOE and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency." The statement is used by the Energy Department to buoy its argument that the state has changed its story in claiming that the agreement does in fact cover buried waste. *Local News* *Little words, nuclear issues ... Disagreement over INEEL deal centers on definitions of 'all' and 'located'* TWIN FALLS -- Legal arguments between Idaho and the U.S. Department of Energy over whether radioactive waste buried in eastern Idaho legally must be removed from the state boil down to a few simple words. In legal hair-splitting reminiscent of Bill Clinton's infamous deposition in the Monica Lewinsky case when he asked for the definition of "is," Idaho offers Webster's definitions for the words "all" and "located." That's as in all plutonium-contaminated waste located at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory. The Energy Department claims the state's argument is simplistic and a new interpretation of the 1995 "get the waste out" agreement brokered by former Gov. Phil Batt. The issue is an important one for Idaho. Buried plutonium-contaminated waste at INEEL is sitting in rusting barrels and broken boxes in unlined pits and trenches above the Snake River Plain aquifer, which supplies drinking water to much of southern Idaho. Officials say contamination at this point hasn't migrated beyond INEEL boundaries. While the buried waste was the subject of an earlier agreement with the federal government, the Energy Department has been caught by Idaho many times with documents that discuss leaving the waste in the ground. At one time or another Batt and former Deputy Attorney General Kathleen Trever, who helped negotiate the 1995 agreement, both have said publicly that the buried waste is covered by a previous agreement made when Cecil Andrus was governor. The statements are key to the Energy Department's argument asserting that the buried waste is not covered by Batt's deal. Now in charge of the state program monitoring cleanup activities at INEEL, Trever said this week the state's rebuttal will be filed with the court in about a month. Batt's deal was heralded as unprecedented and criticized as weak. Former U.S. Rep. Richard Stallings, a Democrat who worked as the federal government's nuclear waste negotiator in the 1990s, said he thinks the state believes it has been taken. "I felt the agreement was full of loopholes so that the DOE could pull these shenanigans. Now the state is paying the price," he said. Freshly elected Gov. Batt entered office in 1995 on the heels of Andrus's fight with the U.S. Navy over shipping spent nuclear fuel to Idaho for storage. Andrus better positioned Idaho in its dealings with the Energy Department, the state said, because without access to INEEL the Navy had no place to store its spent nuclear fuel other than in naval shipyards. Now the state and Energy Department are back in federal court, because Batt's agreement doesn't specifically mention the word "buried," as in buried waste. The Energy Department differentiates between "buried" and "stored" waste and uses a statement made by Batt during his 1996 State of the State address to assert that buried waste isn't covered in the deal. "For the first time in the history of Idaho, we have a federal court order that calls for removal of nearly all nuclear waste from the state of Idaho -- all the high-level and stored transuranic waste accumulated under my predecessors," Batt said. Stored waste, the Energy Department says, refers to plutonium-contaminated waste in accessible storage containers. Buried waste, the agency says, means plutonium-contaminated waste that had been disposed of in the ground before 1970. A fact sheet distributed by Batt's office explained that there were 65,000 cubic meters of stored waste and another 62,000 cubic meters of buried waste at INEEL. The fact sheet later said that under the terms of the agreement, the Energy Department would remove all of the stored waste. The agreement itself doesn't differentiate between stored or buried waste. It says only that "all transuranic (plutonium-contaminated) waste, now estimated at 65,000 cubic meters," will be shipped out of Idaho. Trever says the total volume of actual transuranic waste at INEEL really is 65,000 cubic meters both below and above ground. The other waste mixed in with it is classified as "low-level" waste. A 1995 report by the Energy Department estimated that the actual amount of transuranic waste stored at INEEL was less than half of the 65,000 cubic meters. Later in 2000, the Energy Department issued a report that estimated about 36,800 cubic meters of the buried waste was transuranic waste. But INEEL says it manages all of the waste, whether "low-level" or transuranic, as transuranic waste and that the agreement only referred to the combined 65,000 cubic meters stored, not buried. Idaho is pressing the issue in court. "Idaho's position is firm," Gov. Dirk Kempthorne said in a January letter to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham. "The 1995 court settlement requires DOE to remove transuranic waste located at INEEL, buried or otherwise. I will vigorously oppose any DOE shipments of spent fuel into Idaho until the federal government recognizes this obligation and provides Idaho with solid assurances it will perform under the 1995 court settlement." Times-News writer Jennifer Sandmann can be reached at 733-0931, Ext. 237, or jsandmann@magicvalley.com. Copyright © 2002, Magic Valley Newspapers ***************************************************************** 27 Washington's nuclear bunker busters Guardian Unlimited Observer | International | [UP] Washington's nuclear bunker busters The Observer today reports the US administration's plans to test a new generation of nuclear weapons. This is the Executive Summary of the new BASIC report which offers a critical examination of Washington's new thinking on nuclear strategy Observer Worldview [http://www.observer.co.uk/worldview] Mark Bromley, David Grahame and Christine Kucia Sunday July 28, 2002 Washington's interest in developing new nuclear weapons has gathered pace since the arrival of President George W. Bush's administration in January 2001. This pursuit in turn forms part of a wider reorientation of US nuclear policy that seeks to increase the relevance of nuclear weapons in US military planning and boost the credibility behind the threat of their use. The NPR Sets the Scene The release of the US Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) in January 2002 capped a year of discussion and debate within the Bush administration about the required size and role of the US nuclear arsenal. The NPR calls for a "New Triad", comprised of nuclear and non-nuclear offensive strike systems, active and passive defences, and a revitalised defence infrastructure. It also recommends reducing the operationally-deployed nuclear force to 1,700-2,200 warheads by 2012, but retains a "responsive nuclear force" as part of the active stockpile to be uploaded within days, weeks or months as a guard against "potential contingencies." Finally, the NPR recommends that the United States develop weapons to destroy hardened and deeply-buried targets (HDBTs), considered a key unmet capability in US defence. Defeating HDBTs has stirred up great debate in Washington and beyond because the Pentagon is interested in developing not only improved conventional capabilities, but also new or modified nuclear weapons to fulfil the mission. Since current US conventional weapons may not be able to achieve the complete destruction of HDBTs, the NPR supports the further development of US nuclear capabilities. To carry out this mission, the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has established advanced concept teams at the US nuclear weapons laboratories to proceed with research into improved earth penetrating weapons. In addition, the NPR also calls for a feasibility study to be performed on modifying an existing nuclear warhead. While public discussion of nuclear weapons in the Bush administration has remained confined to development of earth penetrating weapons, Washington has not left behind the "mini-nuke" in its plans for the future. A mini-nuke, with a yield of five kilotons or less, probably would require a completely new warhead design. A More Aggressive Policy The Pentagon's interest in new nuclear capabilities raises additional concerns about a possible US return to nuclear testing. While the Bush administration may stand by the current moratorium on nuclear testing, deploying a new nuclear weapon design with a low yield would require testing to ensure the integrity of the new warhead. Efforts have already been made in Congress to secure funding to reduce the time needed for test site readiness, but those attempts have been stymied thus far. The proposals included in the NPR reflect the Pentagon's effort to enhance the credibility of the threat to use its nuclear weapons. Previously, Washington pursued a policy of deliberate ambiguity over the question of whether it is prepared to counter a chemical or biological weapons attack with nuclear weapons. Hawkish policy officials believe that the United States should now adopt a more explicit stance in this regard and thereby raise the profile of its nuclear arsenal in its military planning. The Bush administration already has started down this road by announcing that a pre-emptive strike policy would be incorporated into the National Security Strategy in autumn 2002. US congressional oversight of funding will play a large role in the development of these initiatives. During the current session of Congress, achieving consensus between both the House and the Senate will be a greater challenge for the President than in previous years. The volatile issue of creating new nuclear weapons probably will spur great debate as the two chambers jointly consider fiscal bills in the autumn. Congressional elections in November 2002 may also sharply affect the progress of the Bush administration's implementation of the NPR's recommendations. With narrow margins between Republicans and Democrats in both chambers, no roadmap for future funding of these initiatives will be known until after the elections. However, the anticipated narrow majorities in both legislative bodies promises to keep these issues in contentious debate over the coming years. Past as Prologue A brief look at US nuclear policy during the 1990s shows that the development of new nuclear weapons is not a new concept. Military planners have sought new missions for nuclear weapons in the post-Cold War world, while growing concerns about the spread of underground bunkers has provided the weapons laboratories with sufficient reasons to develop new weapons. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the new rapprochement between East and West, many policy analysts in the early 1990s looked forward to an era in which nuclear weapons would play an ever-diminishing role in US military policy. In the background, however, pro-nuclear lobbyists were promoting new tasks for existing nuclear forces, arguing that they should play a key role in countering "regional threats" and endorsing the development of new non-strategic nuclear weapons. These arguments were bolstered by the perception of the growing risk from WMD armed "rogue states". By 1996, it was clear that these arguments had been fed into policy when William Perry, US defence secretary, confirmed that nuclear weapons could be used in response to a chemical weapons attack. In 1997, a leaked, classified presidential document showed that the scope of nuclear targeting had been widened to include "rogue states" as well as China. These efforts were instrumental during the 1990s as the United States became increasingly concerned with the development of underground bunkers by potential adversaries. The US government's perception of the threat posed by these facilities has been spurred by the activities of a number of countries it views as hostile, including Iraq, Libya, North Korea, and Afghanistan. Defeat of HDBTs rapidly emerged as the mission most likely to justify the development and deployment of new nuclear weapons in the post-Cold War environment. In 1997, US nuclear weapons laboratories succeeded in obtaining funds for the development of the B61-11, a modified nuclear weapon for use against HDBTs and the first new nuclear capability added to the US arsenal since 1989. However, subsequent tests showed that the B61-11 could only penetrate about 6.1 metres (20 feet) into dry earth when dropped from 12192 metres (40,000 feet), making it ineffective against deeply buried bunkers. Through a variety of study groups and projects, the question of new nuclear weapons for targeting HDBTs remained on the agenda throughout the 1990s. Despite the debut of the B61-11 and a prohibition on low-yield nuclear weapon development, the defeat of HDBTs continued to provide the most likely justification for new nuclear weapons. The NPR realised many of these long-held nuclear aspirations. Increasing Transatlantic Tension The NPR's recommendations will affect more than just US planning. Allies and adversaries alike have reacted to the new US nuclear posture with trepidation, wariness, and even anger. Many countries took issue with the new "hit list" of possible US nuclear force targets that included states without nuclear weapons. Countries targeted by the new policy also voiced their disagreement, and may even choose to respond to the policy shift with their own strategy or deployment changes. NATO allies will be especially affected by the change in US policy. NATO nuclear policy must at all times be in broad agreement with US nuclear policy to avoid any internal contradiction. The United States therefore holds an effective veto over the development of NATO nuclear policy. Washington may seek to include similar language in future alliance policy documents to extend the range of missions for its nuclear arsenal, despite concern expressed by NATO allies. Already strained by questions over its role in a post-September 11 world, NATO will have difficulty withstanding fresh splits over this issue. The shift in US policy also raises a number of questions for the UK government, whose nuclear doctrine is closely aligned with that of the United States through NATO. Britain may be forced to modify its doctrine in order to give political cover to Washington, and the government has already hinted at such a shift. From its remarks, the UK government seems broadly in agreement with US policy. However, while London may feel safe in matching Washington on questions of first-use and targeting non-nuclear states in response to a CBW attack, it has long sought to distance itself from the idea of using low-yield warheads to target HDBTs. Additionally, the UK government would be placed in an awkward position should Washington withdraw its signature from the CTBT. Any movement away from the current US testing moratorium would present difficulties for Prime Minister Tony Blair in an area where the UK government is still prepared to argue against Washington's policies. Arms Control Under Threat The Bush administration's nuclear policy proposals also have implications for the interlocking matrix of global arms control agreements, showing that Washington's plans will have a far-reaching impact. US policy planners hope to deal with the deterrence needs of the modern world by improving flexibility in its offensive and defensive capabilities. These developments pose grave threats to the global arms control architecture that has taken years to put in place. Of all the international regimes to be affected by the NPR, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) may suffer the greatest blow. While the Bush administration professes to uphold the broad structure of the NPT, its plans contradict some of the 13 steps to advance the treaty agreed by all states parties in May 2000. Ongoing attempts to develop new, more usable nuclear weapons, and a refusal to rule out their use against non-nuclear states, raises serious doubts about Washington's commitment to ensure "a diminishing role for nuclear weapons in security policies". The threat to use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state runs contrary to the "negative security assurances" issued by the nuclear powers in the context of the NPT regime. Plans for new missile systems, submarines, and bombers demonstrate the Bush administration's ambition to continue, and possibly increase, the reliance on nuclear weapons in US military planning well into the 21st century. Another treaty regime that is placed in greater jeopardy by the creation of new nuclear weapons is the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). Development of new warheads could necessitate renewed testing, with the administration claiming that the safety and reliability of the new designs cannot be derived from the results of previous testing. Upholding the test-ban moratorium while refusing to pursue ratification of the CTBT has been the Bush administration's long-standing position. However, the NPR asserts that maintaining the test-ban moratorium "may not be possible for the indefinite future". By refusing to send a representative to attend a CTBT entry-into-force meeting, and threatening to withhold contributions to the CTBT secretariat, Washington seems willing to undermine the treaty. Increasing Regional Tensions As well as weakening global regimes, the Bush administration's nuclear proposals will have considerable bilateral and regional consequences. In Russia, a move to develop new nuclear weapons would undoubtedly be portrayed as a failure for Putin's pro-Western policy and confirmation that the United States, while talking friendship, is working against Russian interests. Any development of new nuclear weapons by the United States could increase the Russian military's interest in maintaining and developing its own nuclear arsenal, despite Putin's efforts in recent years to steer the Russian military away from such a path of nuclear reliance. With renewed emphasis on nuclear arsenals and technologies in both Russia and the United States, the possibility of meaningful reductions in tactical nuclear weapons will disappear rapidly. The development of low yield nuclear weapons would appear to Chinese analysts and policymakers as further proof of US hostility. The NPR highlights "a military confrontation over the status of Taiwan" as a clear example of a potential nuclear flashpoint with China. At the same time, the NPR's New Triad seems ideally designed to nullify Beijing's nuclear deterrent and could allow the United States to call China's bluff in a future confrontation over Taiwan. Consequently, China would be able to justify expanding its nuclear arsenal without eliciting strong international reaction. This stance may have serious impact on stability in South Asia as India and Pakistan seek to maintain the regional military balance. Washington's plans also have "rogue states" very much in mind, which risks destroying the diplomatic progress that has been made with many of these countries. The NPR's plans seriously threaten areas of progress that have been strongly supported by European allies. Dialogue has all but disappeared, and the incentives for "rogue states" to remain engaged with the international community seem to be rapidly shrinking. For example, the policies of the United States towards Iran contrast strongly with the "constructive engagement" pursued by the EU and Britain, which have re-established diplomatic relations with Iran and encouraged democratisation. Conclusions and Recommendations Pressure in several key areas is necessary in order to move Washington policymaking away from an aggressive, unilateralist posture and to sustain existing non-proliferation and disarmament efforts. Immediate steps to prevent the development and testing of new weapons include the following : · Congress must withhold funding for research and development. · European parliamentarians should be in contact with counterparts in the US Congress. · European governments should reaffirm their opposition to nuclear testing. · Britain must take the lead on restraining US plans. To strengthen existing arms control mechanisms: · US Congress must direct more funds toward constructive engagement initiatives with the international community. · European governments must strive to implement the May 2000 NPT Plan of Action. · Nuclear weapon states must reiterate and uphold negative security assurances. · As a close ally to the United States, the UK government should restate its own negative security assurances in the strongest language possible. · Washington and Moscow should agree on a treaty to reduce their stockpiles of tactical nuclear weapons. · European leaders should support continued US-Russian dialogues on nuclear reductions. · European governments must step up Co-operative Threat Reduction support for Russia. To address challenges from "states of concern": · Countries should enhance international efforts to identify and inspect underground facilities. · The United States and its European allies must reach out to bring isolated states into arms control regimes and ensure their compliance. · The UK government should renew its commitment to pursue a legally binding treaty on negative security assurances. · This is the Executive Summary of Bunker Busters: Washington's Drive for New Nuclear Weapons , by Mark Bromley, David Grahame and Christine Kucia (British American Security Information Council). The full report, published today, can be read on the BASIC website at www.basicint.org [http://www.basicint.org] . [UP] Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002 ***************************************************************** 28 Better Ties Seen as Key To Nuclear Inspections (washingtonpost.com) N. Korea Still Balks As Plant Proceeds By Doug Struck Washington Post Foreign Service Saturday, July 27, 2002; Page A14 NEW YORK, July 26 -- North Korea is unlikely to allow inspections to assess its nuclear weapons potential until relations with the United States improve, said the head of a U.S.-led project overseeing construction of a nuclear power plant in North Korea. The Bush administration has demanded North Korea agree to the inspections now, suggesting it is violating a 1994 pact that calls for construction of the power plant in return for the inspections. But the agreement also calls for measures to improve ties between the two countries, and relations have become worse in the past two years, said Charles Kartman, executive director of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO), a consortium of the United States, Japan and South Korea, which is overseeing the power plant's construction. North Korea "is not going to give up its hypothetical nuclear capability unless it gets something of equal value to them, and what they agreed to was improved relations with the United States," Kartman said in an interview in New York. Meanwhile, KEDO is prepared to pour concrete for a pair of nuclear reactors being developed in return for North Korea's promise to halt its nuclear program. A ceremony is planned for Aug. 7. Kartman said he expected Assistant Secretary of State James A. Kelly to lead a U.S. delegation to Pyongyang, but he predicted North Korea would want a higher level of political dialogue with Washington to allay its suspicions that the United States seeks to destroy its government. For its part, the administration said it is prepared to engage at a higher level if the preliminaries go well. Kartman's comments are at some odds with the administration, which has held out North Korea's failure to agree to a schedule of inspections as one reason President Bush branded the government part of an "axis of evil" along with Iran and Iraq. Washington has insisted the inspections must go forward promptly, and critics in the administration have suggested that North Korea's failure to comply is reason to scrap the whole power plant project. Many Bush administration officials have never liked the 1994 "framework" deal, made during the Clinton administration, and have sought a way out of it. The agreement "has not won over a lot of converts" in the Bush administration or Congress, Kartman acknowledged. But Kartman, a former U.S. diplomat who dealt with Pyongyang in the Clinton years, said that "the consequences of abandoning it would be to revert to the conditions of 1994 -- unstable and dangerous." The inspections are to be carried out by the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has estimated they will take about three years. © 2002 The Washington Post Company ***************************************************************** 29 Vilsack 'confident' of IAAPflyover The Hawk Eye Newspaper [http://www.thehawkeye.com] Saturday, July 27, 2002 Governor comes out of high–powered meeting with optimism. By Dennis J. Carroll The Hawk Eye Gov. Tom Vilsack, after meeting with Pentagon officials Friday, expressed confidence that the Army, despite its persistent reluctance, will conduct a flyover of the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant in a hunt for radioactive contamination. Vilsack said that during the meeting Raymond Fatz, deputy assistant secretary of the Army for health matters, "determined that what we were requesting was a reasonable request." "So as a result of having the meeting," Vilsack said, "I am confident that at the end of the day we are going to have a flyover." The unprecedented meeting in Vilsack's statehouse office in Des Moines also involved other Army legal, health and civil works officials, as well as representatives from the Iowa Department of Public Health, and the Army Corps of Engineers. Fatz was en route to Washington and could not be reached for comment late Friday. Vilsack said that before the meeting he felt state officials had been getting the runaround in trying to get information from the Army and to persuade federal officials to conduct the flyover. "It took us forever to get this meeting set up," Vilsack said in an interview with The Hawk Eye. He said the Army also agreed to establish better lines of communication between the state and the Defense Department and help the University of Iowa health researchers obtain worker records. For the past two and half years, a team of researchers and health experts at the College of Public Health has been surveying the health of the plant's former nuclear weapons workers. State officials, including Vilsack, Iowa Sens. Tom Harkin and Charles Grassley and regulators at the Health Department's Radiological Bureau, have been persistent in urging the Army to conduct the flyover with highly sensitive radiation–detection equipment to look for possible contamination from 25 years of nuclear weapons production at the Middletown plant. The Army and corps have insisted that such a flyover of the plant's entire 19,000 acres was unwarranted and would not be able to spot some forms of radioactive contamination even if it existed. The corps has used historical documents and interviews with former workers to determine areas that might by contaminated by radioactive materials. It had been thought that the AEC cleaned up its operations, but recent discoveries of depleted uranium, radiation–contaminated soil and large waste deposits of the heavy metal barium left state officials wondering what other AEC–related contamination maybe lurking on the plant's sprawling 19,000 acres. "I pointed out to them that there were 80 boxes of materials that were reviewed ... we've never seen all 80 boxes or what that information contains," Vilsack said. The governor was referring to information collected over the past couple of years, much of it classified, from various Department of Energy sites around the country that related to AEC operations at the plant. Vilsack last year called on the secretary of the Army to authorize the flyover, citing declassified documents that refer to "plutonium," "ground zero" and "an incident that may have led to contamination" in the early 1970s. The DOE began hunting for information about the IAAP after Harkin charged that the plant's history had fallen through bureaucratic cracks over the decades. Vilsack also noted that the Senate Appropriations Committee adopted a Harkin measure to provide $500,000 for the flyover. If that falls through, Vilsack said, the Army assured him it would find the funds elsewhere. 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 ***************************************************************** 30 Patton to discuss new DOE plant The Paducah Sun Paducah, Kentucky Saturday, July 27, 2002 The governor will brief Paducah leaders on the state's efforts to attract the $1 billion plant on Friday. By Bill Bartleman bbartleman@paducahsun.com--270.575.8650 Gov. Paul Patton will meet with Paducah community leaders Friday to discuss issues related to the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant. One major topic will be state efforts to attract a $1 billion enrichment plant to replace the Paducah plant, which has been operating for 50 years. Paducah and Portsmouth, Ohio, are competing for the new plant, which will use the more economical gas centrifuge technology. Patton also will offer a briefing on negotiations among the state, the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to accelerate cleanup of contamination at the plant and surrounding DOE property. The meeting will be at 10:30 a.m. at the Julian Carroll Convention Center. Gene Strong, secretary of the state Economic Development Cabinet, and James Bickford, secretary of the Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Cabinet, will accompany Patton The state is preparing an incentive package that will be given to USEC Inc. in an effort to attract the plant. The package will be submitted later this year, after which USEC is expected to pick a site and begin planning and designing the new plant. The new plant would be in operation by either 2010 or 2011, after which the existing plant would be closed. Critt Luallen, secretary of the governor's cabinet, said DOE, EPA and state officials met again Thursday to seek an agreement on DOE's plan to speed cleanup so that it is completed faster and more cheaply than the current schedule, which calls for work to be done in about 20 years. State officials are reviewing revised plans to make sure environmental safety isn't compromised. Thursday's meeting in Frankfort was the first to include top-level officials involved in the cleanup. Attending were Jessie Roberson, DOE assistant secretary for environmental management, and James Palmer, EPA director of Region 4. "We made significant progress on some issues," said Mark York, spokesman for the state Natural Resources Cabinet. "We still have some matters to iron out, but everyone involved made a commitment to continue meeting and getting the issues resolved." At stake is $134 million for cleanup for fiscal year 2003, which begins Oct. 1. The Aug. 1 deadline for reaching an agreement has been moved back because of a U.S. Senate committee's action to earmark extra cleanup funds for specific sites rather than allowing DOE to decide how the money is used. York said Roberson also said she plans to visit Paducah soon, but no date was given. DOE officials in Oak Ridge, Tenn., and Washington would not discuss the visit, except to say that it will not be a public event. ***************************************************************** 31 DOE Claimants Urged to Sign Waviers News Watchman Sunday, July 28 News Watchman Piketon, Ohio "Historically, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) denied atomic weapons' plant workers were sickened by the nuclear production process. In 2002, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) is still denying sick and dying nuclear worker's meritorious illness claims." These lines are the first in a Wednesday press release from the National Nuclear Workers for Justice (NNWJ) on "The Rise and Collapse of the Deficient 'Energy Employees' Occupational Illness and Compensation Program Act (EEOICPA) of 2000.'" NNWJ strongly comes against the EEOICPA - a program awarding $150,000 in compensation to sick nuclear workers and their family members - stating that when it was first created in 2000, the government was to take the blame for nationwide illness, but the DOL now "forces claimants, who are threatened with denial of their claims for perceived non-compliance, to assume all 'burden of proof' responsibility." Vina Colley, a former electrician at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, in Piketon, contributed to the release, which gives the two-year history of the compensation program and lists many problems existing between administrator DOL and energy workers fighting for remuneration. "We would like to have the opportunity to broaden the qualifying sections of the EEOICPA to help the 'veterans' who the President declared were 'courageous' American heroes," said Colley, who claims to suffer from a destroyed immune system and other respiratory problems due to radiation and chemical exposure at the plant. These illnesses are not currently covered under the program. She has filed her share of claims through the EEOICPA, which covers only work-related cancers. Consequently, she has been denied twice. The former Portsmouth worker was recently urged by DOL to sign a form waiving all rights to compensation, but refused to do so. Colley and others are warning current and former workers not to sign the waiver. "I am aware that some claimants have signed the DOL 'gag order' waiver without being represented by counsel," she explained. "The claimants still do not understand why they were told they must sign this waiver to be able to proceed to another level of escalation." As a result of her refusal, the dismissal of Colley's claims was reversed, and a deposition has been scheduled for July 31 in Portsmouth at the DOE/DOL Resource Center. In order to testify, by law, she must have legal counsel. Since Colley has no attorney at this time, she is making no plans to attend. Unqualified adjudicators assigned by DOL have taken the role of "judge, jury and executioner" as to what claims will be accepted, according to Gai Oglesbee, an advocate for about 150 sick workers and a former employee of the Hanford nuclear site, in Washington state. "These novice caseworkers don't even know where Hanford is," she said. "They don't even have any credentials." Thousands of Hanford workers are sick, but only one has been awarded compensation. Coverage of a greater spectrum of illnesses besides just cancer from beryllium disease, radiation or chronic silicosis is needed, many are saying. Oglesbee claims there is somewhat of an urgency by DOL adjudicators to handle claims by July 31, and that has caused some questions to be raised. "We don't know what it is," said Oglesbee of the supposed deadline. "We think something is coming down on July 31." "Overall, I would say that on the DOL federal claims side, they're doing a a fairly good job," said Sam Ray, a former Portsmouth plant worker and representative of the Workers' Health Protection Program, which operates out of the PACE Local 5-689 Union Hall and assists workers in claim processing. But the Labor Department is far from perfect, explained Ray. "They do have a few people that are making medical interpretations and deletions they're not qualified to make. They need to probably tighten up a bit. I think there is room for improvement." ***************************************************************** 32 IA - Vilsack pushes Army to do flyover of plant IOWA CITY, Iowa Copyright 2002 The Associated Pr - Gov. Vilsack is confident the U.S. Army has changed its mind and will do a flyover of the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant in southeast Iowa to map radiological contamination, aides said Friday. Vilsack met with officials from the Army, Army Corps of Engineers and state public health department to press for a low-altitude inspection of the 19,000-acre weapons factory in Middletown. "There was no handshake or signing of any papers, but the governor doesn't get optimistic unless there is reason to be. And he is very optimistic about this," said Ron Parker, Vilsack spokesman. Army and other officials did not immediately return to their offices after the meeting that ended late Friday in Des Moines. Contamination and the health of former workers has been a sticking point for Vilsack and other Iowa politicians for years. Some areas of the plant were used to store, assemble and test nuclear weapons components for the Atomic Energy Commission from the 1940s to the 1970s. Evidence of radioactive releases have been found in several locations, some of which have been designated as potential clean up sites by the corps. Vilsack, along with Sens. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa and Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, have urged the Army to fly a plane equipped with sensitive radiation detecting equipment to get a better picture of the property's radiological hot spots. The Army rejected the idea in a report issued last month, saying a flyover would not give a detailed assessment of the problem and would not likely detect every contaminated pocket. The corps said it does supports a strategy to carefully document past activities involving the use of radioactive material, including interviewing former workers and collecting historical documents. Harkin announced this week that a Senate appropriations committee had approved spending $500,000 on a flyover and $1 million to continue a study of former workers at the plant who are now struggling with health problems. The bill awaits approval in full Senate and the House. "The health study and the flyover will help us to far more effectively assess the personal and environmental dangers that sill lurk at IAAP," Harkin said. Parker said Vilsack also pressed the Army to release health records of the plant's former workers so that researchers can more accurately determine health risks and exposure to contaminants. Copyright © 2002, Lincoln Journal Star. All rights reserved. This content may not be archived or used for commercial purposes without written permission from the Lincoln Journal Star. 926 P Street Lincoln NE 68508 402 475-4200 ? feedback@journalstar.com ***************************************************************** 33 Letter: Studies disprove warnings regarding high radon levels - James Bob Gresham The Paducah Sun Paducah, Kentucky Sunday, July 28, 2002 EDITOR: We are being subjected to an EPA "campaign of fear" via radio and TV ads claiming that radon is the second highest cause of lung cancer, next to smoking. A TV ad shows a boy in his bedroom with his dog, wearing a gas mask. The ad said, "Radon is a silent killer," and "it is like exposing your family to hundreds of chest X-rays per year." But new studies show no direct relationship between radon and lung cancer, and that people living in houses with higher levels have the lowest lung cancer rate. Dr. Bernard Cohen, a nuclear scientist at the University of Pittsburgh, reported to a November 1996 meeting of the American Nuclear Society that up to a certain limit, radon exposure helps to reduce the risk of cancer by the activation of cell repair mechanism. This is similar to getting a small amount of a deadly disease in a vaccine. His work indicated that those living in states with the highest natural radon levels, Colorado, North Dakota and Iowa, have much lower cancer rates than those in (states) with the lowest levels, California, Delaware and Louisiana. He reported that radon and similar low-level radiation may in fact be beneficial to your health. A study of several hundred women in China concluded that those in high-level radon homes had a 30 percent lower lung cancer risk than those in low-level radon homes. A study in Japan showed a 37 percent lower rate and similar reports came from Canada, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Great Britain. This was written in 1997. Now in 2002 a large British study included about 2,200 children with cancer and 3,500 without and found that those who lived in the higher radon level areas had almost 50 percent fewer cancers. Will EPA listen? Please don't panic when you hear these oft-repeated warnings because the science is beginning to catch up with the panic. As radio comedian Earl Pitts signs off, "Wake up, America.” JAMES BOB GRESHAM Paducah ***************************************************************** 34 *Fusion is clean* NewScientist.com *Your news item* about the leaked British government policy review of fusion energy quotes an assertion by the Department of Trade and Industry that: "Fusion reactors will still produce large quantities of radioactive waste" (6 July, p 14). This is ideal grist for scaremongering, but it does not stand up to a review of basic fusion principles. The intended fuels are deuterium gas (which is non-radioactive) and tritium (a light, moderately radioactive isotope of hydrogen with a half-life of about 12 years). Tritium will be produced by the irradiation of a surrounding lithium blanket using neutrons from the actual reaction. Only a few grams of tritium will exist at any given time, none of which will escape under normal conditions. The reaction "waste" is helium gas (non-radioactive). This compares with the many hundreds of grams of intensely radioactive, environmentally persistent waste isotopes produced by a conventional fission reactor each year, with half-lives ranging up to centuries. The flux of neutrons inside the fusion reactor will of course irradiate the vessel structure, partly changing the steel alloy components to radioactive metallic isotopes of various sorts, with half-lives ranging from a few hours to 5 years. After 50 years or so, this material will be recycled and reused. Such irradiation also occurs with a conventional fission reactor, of course. *Simon Dalley* Didcot, Oxfordshire ***************************************************************** 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: *****************************************************************