***************************************************************** 04/29/02 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 10.109 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POLICY 1 5,000 march against Finnish nuclear power plan 2 Bulgaria: Nuclear committee chief views old reactors possible 3 Bulgaria Considers Nuclear Plant 4 Korean exchange prompts talk of progress 5 US: Sale of Seabrook may trim energy bills NUCLEAR REACTORS 6 US: Indian Point Isn't Worth the Risk 7 Thousands Remember Chernobyl 8 US: NRC Amends Rule on Debt Collection Procedures 9 US: NRC Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards to Meet May 2 - 4 i 10 New hitch for Czech nuclear plant 11 Czech nuclear plant in new emergency power-down 12 The dust of Chernobyl has not settled yet 13 Installation of condenser begins at Bulgarian nuclear plant 14 Ukrainian nuclear expert warns of further Chernobyl horrors NUCLEAR SAFETY 15 Theft of radioactive substances rife in Tajikistan - paper 16 US: Notebook: Biological attack could kill a million NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 17 Irish Sellafield protesters in postal blitz on UK 18 'Shut Sellafield campaign is election issue' 19 North Korean radio denounces Japan's transportation of nuclear 20 Irish take nuclear protest to British PM's doorstep 21 US: Survey shows Yucca Mountain has big support 22 Cloud of concern over contaminated soil 23 Kinnock bars former EC official from joining BNFL 24 US: Park money may be diverted to Yucca fund 25 US: A Thousand-Year Plan for Nuclear Waste 26 US: Joint Hearing on Transportation of Spent Rods to the Proposed 27 US: Gibbons Statement on Energy and Commerce Committee Vote on Yucca 28 US: Transport of nuclear waste awaits approval NUCLEAR WEAPONS 29 U.S. official admits past secret nuclear pact with Japan 30 US presses Russia on nuclear treaty 31 U.S., Russia Say Made Progress on Nuclear Arms Cuts 32 US: Opinions:Bombs away again? 33 U.S., Russia Say Made Progress on Nuclear Arms Cuts US DEPT. OF ENERGY 34 Temporary manager in Oak Ridge enjoys favored status OTHER NUCLEAR 35 Lobbyist Barbour wrote to Cheney before policy shift 36 Friends of the Earth Statement on Senate Energy Bill ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 5,000 march against Finnish nuclear power plan FINLAND: April 29, 2002 HELSINKI - Five thousand people marched through Helsinki last week to mark the anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster and protest against plans to build a new nuclear power plant in Finland. Protestors waving anti-nuclear banners and chanting "nuclear energy, no thanks" marched to parliament to urge politicians to vote against a government proposal which would make Finland the only country in Western Europe building a new nuclear plant. "We are here to protest because of the danger that Finland will build more nuclear power," said Sirpa Paakkonen. "It is dangerous, shortsighted and completely unnecessary." The peaceful demonstration, which police said was significantly larger than the 3,000 people initially expected, was believed to the country's largest since the early 1990s when Finns protested against unemployment and EU membership. "Everyone has been nice and calm and the great weather has increased attendance," said senior police officer Pekka Hook. It was on April 26, 1986 that a reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear complex in Ukraine exploded and caught fire, spreading a radioactive cloud across Europe in the world's worst nuclear disaster. The protestors said they hoped the demonstration would help convince members of parliament to vote in late May against the government proposal to construct a fifth reactor. According to a poll conducted earlier this month 94 MPs of the 200-member house support the plan while 88 are against and the rest undecided. The five-party coalition government, which includes the Green party, says the best way to satisfy increasing energy demand while ensuring Finland meets its greenhouse gas emissions obligations under the Kyoto protocol is to build the country's first new nuclear reactor for more than two decades. Opponents say the health and environmental risks are too great, and other energy sources should be favoured. In 1993 a similar proposal was rejected in parliament. The European Union's Environment Commissioner Margot Wallstrom said recently that Finland could meet the emission targets without building more nuclear power by relying more on natural gas and renewable energy. Finland has four nuclear reactors at two installations, supplying about 30 percent of total electricity needs. (Additional reporting by Laura Vinha and Nina Garlo). Story by Paul de Bendern REUTERS NEWS SERVICE ***************************************************************** 2 Bulgaria: Nuclear committee chief views old reactors possible modernization BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Apr 29, 2002 Sofia, 29 April: President Georgi Purvanov's idea to decommission Units 1 and 2 of the Kozloduy Nuclear Power Plant, modernize them and recommission them is technically feasible, Committee on the Use of Atomic Energy for Peaceful Purposes (CUAEPP) Chairman Emil Vapirev told a news conference Monday [29 April]. The first two generating units of the N-plant have now been shut down for refuelling and routine maintenance. Urgent safety and decommissioning measures continue to be carried out on the two reactors. Units 1 and 2 are to be licensed shortly for one fuel year. This period will not have run out when they are decommissioned at the end of 2002, and one option to store the fuel is in ponds on the Kozloduy N-Plant site, said CUAEPP Deputy Chairman Borislav Stanimirov. Unit 1 has already been pressurized and is to be restarted in a couple of days. Unit 2 will be restarted at the end of May, Vapirev said. He stressed that when they are switched off at the end of 2002, the two reactors will be either mothballed or modernized. According to the CUAEPP chairman, at the presentation of Bulgaria's Second Annual Report on the implementation of the Convention on Nuclear Safety before [as received] the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, France suggested that the dates for closure of the small reactors be fixed in the report. Bulgarian Energy and Energy Resources Minister Milko Kovachev rejected the proposal. At the presentation of the national reports in Vienna, Russia declared that it will not set a deadline for ending the operation of its nuclear reactors. Vapirev sees this as the right approach because the length of operation of the generating units should depend on their modernization. Source: BTA web site, Sofia, in English 29 Apr 02 /¸ BBC Monitoring ***************************************************************** 3 Bulgaria Considers Nuclear Plant Las Vegas SUN April 28, 2002 SOFIA, Bulgaria- Two Canadian companies have expressed interest in building a second nuclear plant in Bulgaria, the country's foreign minister said Sunday. Solomon Pasi identified the firms as Canada's state nuclear energy company, Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., and SNC-Lavalin Inc., an engineering and construction company. Bulgaria and Canada soon will start negotiations on an agreement dealing with nuclear energy cooperation, Pasi said in remarks to reporters after returning from a visit to Canada. But Bulgaria hasn't decided yet whether it will choose the Canadian companies to build the plant, Pasi said. The government recently announced it would resume the construction of a second nuclear power plant near the Danube port of Belene, 155 miles northeast of Sofia. Bulgaria has already invested $1.2 billion in the project. Bulgaria must close two of six units at its only nuclear plant in Kozlodui, 125 miles north of Sofia, by the end of this year under an agreement with the European Union. The EU considers the Soviet-designed reactors unsafe. Under the same agreement, Bulgaria has to negotiate a deadline by the end of 2004 for closing two more Kozlodui units. The four units to be closed are 440-megawatt pressurized water reactors. Two newer 1,000-megawatt units aren't affected by the agreement. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 4 Korean exchange prompts talk of progress BBC News | ASIA-PACIFIC | After months of impasse, there are signs of movement By Caroline Gluck BBC Seoul correspondent Officials at South Korea's Unification Ministry were visibly relieved by the apparent progress in dialogue. The key to the impasse came on Thursday night, when South Korea's presidential envoy, Lim Dong-won, finally met North Korea's reclusive leader, Kim Jong-il. "We're very happy that North Korea is resuming dialogue", said South Korean Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Jung-ro. North Korea does want dialogue... But it's difficult to expect any major breakthroughs at this time Moon Chung-in Professor of political science "Maintaining dialogue is important for peace." Much was resting on Mr Lim's visit, because there had been no public contact between the two sides since last November. South Korean newspapers had suggested this could be a make-or-break visit. President Kim Dae-jung has less than a year left in office, and his successor may not be so active in pushing for exchanges with the North. Also, South Korean preoccupations will soon switch to the World Cup football finals, which it is co-hosting with Japan. 'Axis of evil' The meeting took place with North Korean relations with the United States at a low ebb. Pyongyang has accused Washington of adopting a hostile policy. It was infuriated when President George W Bush labelled the regime part of an "axis of evil", blaming the US for raising tensions on the Korean peninsula. [North Korean children against backdrop of the late-president, Kim Il-sung] North Korea wants people to visit for its Arirang festival There are also fresh concerns of a potential nuclear crisis. Next year marks the end of North Korea's self-imposed missile test moratorium period. It is also the target date for the completion of two light water reactors due to be built by a US-led international consortium, in return for North Korea freezing its nuclear programme. But the reactors are not likely to be completed until 2005 at the earliest, leading to fears North Korea may not stick to the agreement. "North Korea does want dialogue and there's still life in the 'sunshine policy' of engagement", says Moon Chung-in, professor of political science, who accompanied the South Korean president on his ground-breaking trip to Pyongyang for summit talks in June 2000. "But it's difficult to expect any major breakthroughs at this time. "What is important is to have incremental agreements, to have confidence-building measures in various areas, so that eventually you can move on to military confidence building measures." Two-way visits There is speculation that the two sides may agree to allow reciprocal visits to World Cup matches in the South. South Koreans may also be able to attend a mass gymnastic and artistic display, Arirang, which begins in the north at the end of April. "North Korea is eager to have many South Koreans visit for its festival", says Professor Suh Dong-man, an expert on North Korea. "It wants as many tourists as possible so it can earn some money. " But he also believes that the visit has helped iron out differences on a range of issues. "I think North Korea is very serious now in its attitude to the talks. Kim Jong-il is determined to weaken the effect of President Bush's "axis of evil" comments. "But to show the image of peace, North Korea has to have dialogue with the South in order to open relations with the North. South Korea is taking the role of mediator." ***************************************************************** 5 Sale of Seabrook may trim energy bills By Clare Kittredge, Globe Correspondent, 4/28/2002 HAMPTON BEACH, N.H. - With seven coolers, freezers, an ice machine and a walk-in beer cooler chugging non-stop, the convenience store known as Charlie's at the Beach runs up a substantial electric bill. That's why co-owner Charles Goodwin Jr. is happy that electric rates might come down. ''It would definitely be a good thing,'' said Goodwin, running the cash register amid an array of beach paraphernalia from chips to suntan lotion. ''Anything that'll save us money will be appreciated.'' Goodwin was reacting to word that the sale of Seabrook Station to a Florida utility could mean lower electric bills for New Hampshire customers, who have had to foot some of the steepest electric bills in the country. The Public Utilities Commission recently announced a sales agreement with FPL Group of Juno Beach, Fla., to buy a controlling 88.2 percent interest in the Seabrook plant for $836.6 million. Massachusetts Municipal Wholesale Electric Company, Taunton Municipal Lighting Plant, and Hudson Light &Power Department retained their interests in Seabrook. The consortium of power companies that now owns the Seabrook plant also includes North Atlantic Energy Corp., a subsidiary of Northeast Utilities, the majority owner; United Illuminating Company, Baycorp Holdings, National Grid Group PLC, NSTAR, and the New Hampshire Electric Cooperative. The sale, which is to be completed by year's end, still needs the approval of local, state, and federal regulatory agencies. Under the deal, the buyer, FPL Group, will take over Seabrook's decommissioning fund, the money set aside to mothball the plant when its life is over. But because the plant is selling for more than expected, so-called ''stranded costs'' - the unrecoverable Seabrook costs consumers are paying for - should end sooner than planned, officials said. Gov. Jeanne Shaheen said it was ''just fantastic news for families and businesses across New Hampshire that the actual sales price for the plant will be $836 million - the highest sale price for any nuclear power plant in history.'' And if the deal lowers his electric bills, it's okay by Peter Aikens, too. The owner of Petey's Summertime Seafood &Bar, Petey's Red Roof Market and 11 seaside rental cottages in Rye, Aikens says his electric bills are just ''awful.'' The bill for the restaurant alone comes to $1,500 each month. Public Service of New Hampshire buys power from Seabrook and other sources and distributes it to 70 percent of homes and businesses, or more than 430,000 customers homes and businesses all over the state. PSNH spokesman Martin Murray explained that the stranded cost recovery charge now listed on PSNH electric bills is ''31/2 cents per kilowatt hour out of a total close to 11 cents per kilowatt hour. What the sale of Seabrook will do is lower that rate in 2004 instead of 2007.'' ''We're looking at an impact of about $200 million that will benefit the customers of PSNH,'' said Murray. This means electric rates could drop ''as much as 7 or 8 percent. On a $100 bill, it would mean $7 or $8 less.'' Gary Epler, general counsel to the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission, cautioned that ''the sale was just announced,'' adding that the PUC must still investigate. ''You're not going to know the actual numbers for a little while,'' said Epler. ''There will be a benefit to the state, but we don't know what it is yet.'' But for consumers, Epler confirmed that ''the stranded cost charges will end earlier than expected. We're talking about possibly an 8 percent decrease, which is a fairly significant decrease.'' ''Three to four years ago, PSNH rates were the highest in the country and New Hampshire [overall electric] rates may also have been the highest in the country,'' said New Hampshire PUC Consumer Advocate Michael Holmes. Although these rates are in ''flux'' due to deregulation, Holmes said New Hampshire rates are now in line with other New England states. But state and regional rates are still above the national average. In 2001, the average utility revenue per kilowatt-hour for residential users was 12.1 cents in New Hampshire, slightly above the New England average of 12 cents and well above the national average of 8.82 cents, according to the Energy Information Administration. By comparison, the rate per kilowatt-hour was 11.1 cents in Connecticut, 12.4 cents in Massachusetts, 12.7 cents in Vermont, and 12.1 cents in Maine. Commercial rates are slightly lower per kilowatt-hour in New Hampshire and the rest of New England. Seabrook spokesman Alan Griffith also said the deal will bring in about $13 million in real estate transfer tax revenue to the state. ''The original estimates for that transfer tax were $8 to 10 million,'' he said. Still, some critics say consumers should never have had to pay stranded costs in the first place. Among them is Roy Morrison, a PSNH customer in Warner, a longtime antinuclear critic, and director of cooperative development for the New Hampshire Consumers Utility Cooperative. ''The governor made a bad deal. To settle the question of stranded costs, she embraced the notion that ratepayers should pick up the tab for the bad investment of a bankrupt company. In this case, they got more than expected, so they made the bad deal less bad,'' said Morrison, whose latest book, ''Ecological Investigations,'' is published by Glad Day Books. ''So this is a good thing unless the fine print fleeces us again,'' he added. ''But it's the attractive fruit of a poison tree. We'll still be paying .... among the highest rates in the country.'' Shaheen spokeswoman Pamela Walsh pointed out that ''the settlement agreement with PSNH lowered electric rates by 16 percent, and they wrote off hundreds of millions in stranded costs. If we hadn't reached that settlement agreement, we'd still be paying those costs, and we wouldn't have seen the rate reduction.'' The plant is being sold as part of court-ordered deregulation in New Hampshire. The legislature passed a law several years ago to break up the utility industry, forcing utilities to decide whether to be in wires and transmission or power generation. PSNH, a subsidiary of Northeast Utilities, is getting out of the power generation business. Morrison also worried there may be conflicts between security concerns and the economics of running the Seabrook plant. ''My biggest concern is safety,'' he said, calling nuclear plants ''a beacon for terrorist attack.'' ''Right now, we have absolute imperative need for security - who's going to pay that?'' John Giarrusso, communications and community relations manager for Seabrook Station, said three top FPL Group executives recently announced publicly that safety is a top priority for Seabrook and that good security was a key factor in their bidding on the plant. To former convenience store owner Hank Cavaretta of Rye, the news of a possible break on electric costs comes too late. In August, 2000, Cavaretta closed Foye's Corner Market, due in part to crushing electric bills. ''My bills in that store were $2,700 a month. That's one reason I had to give up the business. It put our overhead up so high it wiped us out. ''So I'm happy for New Hampshire businessmen,'' he said, ''but I wish they could have done it a few years ago.'' This story ran on page W1 of the Boston Globe on 4/28/2002. © Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company. ***************************************************************** 6 Indian Point Isn't Worth the Risk April 29, 2002 Post-9/11, Opposition to Indian Point Plant Grows o the Editor: "Post-9/11, Opposition to Indian Point Plant Grows" (news article, April 24) highlights the need for the governor and the New York State Legislature to consider exercising the state's power of eminent domain at Indian Point — condemning the plant and closing down the facility. Unless the state takes over the property, the decision as to whether the plant will remain open will rest with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, an appointed board that is not accountable to the public. In the past six months, 33 municipal elected boards have approved resolutions calling for an Indian Point shutdown. These resolutions get headlines but have no legal value. Those of us who are concerned about the potential threat from Indian Point want action, not rhetoric, from state officials. PAUL FEINER Greenburgh, N.Y., April 24, 2002 The writer is the Greenburgh town supervisor. • To the Editor: Re "Post-9/11, Opposition to Indian Point Plant Grows" (news article, April 24): The concerns about Indian Point nuclear plant are usually referred to as "fears." As in any difficult business decision, concerned parties assess the upside potential or benefits compared with the downside potential or worst-case risks. When one looks at this equation regarding Indian Point, the risks are simply too great to be acceptable. In a worst-case scenario that cannot be ruled out after Sept. 11, the damage would be irreparable. A large portion of the New York City and Westchester water supplies are within close proximity to Indian Point. Radioactive contamination could last for decades. The calls for closing the reactors are judgments made after risk assessments, not just knee-jerk fears. GARY SHAW Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y., April 24, 2002 To the Editor: Re "Post-9/11, Opposition to Indian Point Plant Grows" (news article, April 24): The opponents of the Indian Point nuclear power plant say they want a shutdown of the facility for the sake of safety. In fact, forcing its closing would create more danger for America than currently exists. What the protesters fail to recognize is that to replace the lost generating capacity, America would be required to purchase additional oil from Middle Eastern countries — money that, as was learned from Sept. 11 and a number of terrorist attacks on American institutions before it, in part directly finances the activities of Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. By further lining the terrorists' pockets — not to mention backing down in the face of terrorist threats — the protesters would be playing into Al Qaeda's hands. KURT NIELSEN Closter, N.J., April 24, 2002 • To the Editor: Defending the Indian Point nuclear power plant reactor by asserting that it is a reliable source of cheap electricity is like arguing that a little plutonium dust sprinkled around the kitchen is an effective form of pest control ("Post-9/11, Opposition to Indian Point Plant Grows," news article, April 24). A Chernobyl-scale disaster — highly unlikely but nonetheless possible — would require the immediate evacuation of millions of people along roadways that can be impassable at rush hour. It would also lead to a huge swath of land adjacent to Manhattan becoming uninhabitable and probably to a dramatic increase in childhood cancers in surrounding communities. It is high time this reactor be shut down. DAVID HAYDEN Wilton, Conn., April 25, 2002 Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company | Privacy Information ***************************************************************** 7 Thousands Remember Chernobyl www.moscowtimes.ru Monday, Apr. 29, 2002. Page 4 By Tim Vickery The Associated Press Maxim Marmur / AP A young relative of firefighter Leonid Toptunov laying flowers at Mitino on Friday. SLAVUTYCH, Ukraine -- Clutching flickering candles and bunches of spring flowers, survivors of the world's worst nuclear disaster held a solemn memorial meeting in the wee hours Friday in the town that thousands of Chernobyl workers still call home. Hundreds of residents of Slavutych joined similar crowds at churches, cemeteries and squares across the former Soviet Union in remembrance of the suffering when the No. 4 reactor at Chernobyl exploded at 1:23 a.m. on April 26, 1986, spewing radiation across Europe. People in Ukraine, Russia and Belarus were the most immediately affected. While remorse for the past was foremost in people's minds Friday, many Ukrainians who live in the radiation-contaminated areas around the now-shuttered Chernobyl plant are focusing more on their poverty than on their fragile health. "People talk about Chernobyl less and less every year. Economic problems are much more pressing," said Igor Pashinsky, chief psychologist at the Center for Social and Psychological Rehabilitation in Korosten, some 100 kilometers west of Chernobyl, where all 65,000 residents are Chernobyl victims. Officials acknowledge that survival often takes priority over health concerns for the estimated 3.3 million Ukrainians, including 1.5 million children, affected by the accident. "Parents try however they can to make money to survive," said Valery Bekh, head sociologist at the Korosten center. "Often kids with two parents live like orphans because their parents are gone all the time." Birth rates in Ukraine have dropped by 50 percent since 1986, while almost twice as many people are dying. "It's very hard to say how many cases are directly related to Chernobyl because inadequate nutrition weakens the immune system," said Alexander Tiplitsky, chief doctor at the Norodychi hospital in a mandatory resettlement zone, 60 kilometers west of Chernobyl. "I might see a sick child and say, 'It's radiation,' but then I go to his house and see it's starvation." However, doctors and public health officials are unequivocal in linking the sharp rise in thyroid cancer -- especially among children -- to Chernobyl. More than 2,100 people who were under 18 at the time of the accident have undergone thyroid treatment since 1986 and doctors say the number could spike to 10,000 cases in the next two years. Tens of thousands of people disabled by Chernobyl-related illnesses suffer from inadequate health care and 25,000 evacuated families still await housing, according to Emergency Situations Minister Vasyl Durdynets. Of the 160,000 Chernobyl victims who did get resettled, many have returned to evacuated lands because economic conditions were as bad or worse in their new homes. Hana Yavchenko, 67, was evacuated from Parishchiv, a village just a stone's throw from Chernobyl, but returned after local officials promised compensation. She and her husband grow their own vegetables and fruits, because semiweekly government deliveries of radiation-free food are not enough. "Is the food clean? Who knows?" she said dejectedly. "What else do we have?" According to United Nations officials, 450 to 600 people live in the exclusion zone and as many as 200,000 people live in "severely contaminated areas." Officials at the Chernobyl plant said last week that the cracks and gaps in the concrete-and-steel shell that covers the damaged reactor total more than 1,000 square meters. High radiation levels after the accident meant that the shelter had to be built at a separate location and fitted over the reactor. "That's why the job could not be perfect," said Alexander Usayev of the Emergency Situations Ministry. Western nations helped pay for work in the late 1990s to shore up the shaky structure, and Usayev said state-of-the-art systems continually monitor reactor activity and automatically suppress potential accidents. However, he did not rule out the possibility that because nuclear fuel remains in the reactor, rain entering through the cracks could trigger a reaction. Elsewhere in the former Soviet Union, hundreds of officials and victims' relatives gathered at Moscow's Mitino cemetery to honor Chernobyl firefighters who died of radiation-related diseases. Five thousand opposition demonstrators marched through the Belarussian capital, Minsk, for a candlelight commemoration of the 16th anniversary of the disaster. [http://www.moscowtimes.ru ***************************************************************** 8 NRC Amends Rule on Debt Collection Procedures NRC: Press Release - 2002 - 52 - U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 20555-001 E-mail: [opa@nrc.gov] www.nrc.gov No. 02-052 April 25, 2002 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is revising its regulations concerning procedures used to collect outstanding debts. The revisions will make it easier for the NRC to collect outstanding debts, including the referral of any eligible debt over 180 days delinquent to the Department of the Treasury for collection. The final rule amends Part 15 of the Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations to ensure conformity with the Debt Collection Improvement Act of 1996 and the amended procedures of the Federal Claims Collection Standards issued by the Department of the Treasury and the Department of Justice. Under current practices, NRC sends three progressively stronger demands for payment to a delinquent debtor at 30-day intervals. Under the final rule, NRC will make two written demands and a telephone call to the debtor before pursuing administrative remedies, which can include revocation of the license for which fees are owed. A proposed rule on this subject was published in the Federal Register on October 5. No comments were received. The final rule becomes effective 30 days after the date of publication in the Federal Register, which is expected shortly. ***************************************************************** 9 NRC Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards to Meet May 2 - 4 in Rockville, Maryland U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 20555-001 E-mail: opa@nrc.gov [opa@nrc.gov] No. 02-053 April 26, 2002 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS) has scheduled a meeting May 2 - 4 in Rockville, Maryland, to discuss, among other items, expert panel recommendations on high burn-up and mixed-oxide (MOX) nuclear fuel, as well as power uprates for Units 1 and 2 of the Brunswick nuclear power plant. The meeting, most of which is open to the public, will be held in Room T-2B3 of the agency's Two White Flint North building, at 11545 Rockville Pike. It will begin at 8:30 a.m. each day. A complete agenda is attached. For additional information on the meeting or schedule changes, please contact Dr. Sher Bahadur at 301-415-0138. ACRS Meeting Agenda THURSDAY, MAY 2, 2002, CONFERENCE ROOM 2B3, TWO WHITE FLINT NORTH 8:30 - 8:35 A.M. Opening Remarks by the ACRS Chairman (Open) Opening statement Items of current interest 8:35 - 10:30 A.M. Brunswick Steam Electric Plant, Units 1 &2 Core Power Uprate(Open/Closed) Remarks by the Subcommittee Chairman Briefing by and discussions with representatives of the NRC staff and the Carolina Power and Light Company regarding the license amendment to increase core power level by approximately 15% for the Brunswick Steam Electric Plant, Units 1 &2, pursuant to the General Electric Nuclear Energy Extended Power Uprate Program. NOTE: A portion of this session may be closed to discuss General Electric proprietary information. 10:30 - 10:45 A.M. ***BREAK** 10:45 - 11:45 A.M. Expert Panel Recommendations on Source Term for High Burnup and Mixed Oxide (MOX) Fuel Remarks by the ACRS Subcommittee Chairman Briefing by and discussions with representatives of the NRC staff regarding an Expert Panel's recommendations on source term for high burnup and MOX fuel and on revising NUREG-1465, "Accident Source Terms for Light Water Nuclear Power Plants." Representatives of the nuclear industry may provide their views, as appropriate. 11:45 - 12:45 P.M. ***LUNCH** 12:45 - 1:45 P.M. Confirmatory Research Program on High Burnup Fuel (Open) Remarks by the Subcommittee Chairman Briefing by and discussions with representatives of the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation and the Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research regarding their views on the need for the confirmatory research program on high burnup fuel. 1:45 - 2:45 P.M. Subcommittee Report (Open) Report by the Chairman of the ACRS Subcommittee on Reactor Fuels regarding the staff's draft Safety Evaluation Report on the Duke Cogema Stone &Webster application for a construction authorization for a proposed MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility that was discussed during the April 10, 2002 Subcommittee meeting, and other related matters. 2:45 - 3:00 P.M. ***BREAK** 3:00 - 6:15 P.M. Safeguards and Security Activities (Closed) (4:30 - 4:45 P.M. BREAK) Remarks by the Subcommittee Chairman Briefing by and discussions with representatives of the NRC staff regarding ongoing and planned NRC activities in the safeguards and security areas. NOTE: The entire session will be closed to protect national security information and safeguards information. 6:15 - 6:30 P.M. ***BREAK*** 6:30 - 7:15 P.M. Proposed ACRS Reports (Open) Discussion of proposed ACRS reports on: Brunswick Steam Electric Plant, Units 1 &2 Core Power Uprate Expert Panel Recommendations on Source Term for High Burnup Fuel (tentative) Confirmatory Research Program on High Burnup Fuel (tentative) FRIDAY 8:30 - 8:35 A.M. Opening Remarks by the ACRS Chairman (Open) 8:35 - 11:30 A.M. PHEBUS-FP, PHEBUS-2K and PHEBUS-LOCA International (10:00-10:15 A.M. BREAK) Projects(Open) Remarks by the Subcommittee Chairman Briefing by and discussions with representatives of the French PHEBUS-FP Project regarding the recent results of the PHEBUS-FP Project and plans for the PHEBUS-2K and PHEBUS-LOCA Projects. 11:30 - 11:45 P.M. ***BREAK*** 11:45 -12:30 P.M. Future ACRS Activities/Report of the Planning and Procedures Subcommittee (Open) Discussion of the responses from the NRC Executive Director for Operations to comments and recommendations included in recent ACRS reports and letters. Discussion of the recommendations of the Planning and Procedures Subcommittee regarding items proposed for consideration by the full Committee during future ACRS meetings. Report of the Planning and Procedures Subcommittee on matters related to the conduct of ACRS business, and organizational and personnel matters relating to the ACRS. 12:30 - 1:30 P.M. ***LUNCH** 1:30 - 1:45 P.M. Reconciliation of ACRS Comments and Recommendations(Open) Discussion of the responses from the NRC Executive Director for Operations to comments and recommendations included in recent ACRS reports and letters. 1:45 - 7:00 P.M. Proposed ACRS Reports (Open) Discussion of proposed ACRS Reports on: Brunswick Steam Electric Plant, Units 1 &2 Core Power Uprate Expert Panel Recommendation on Source Term for High Burnup Fuel (tentative) Confirmatory Research Program on High Burnup Fuel (tentative) PHEBUS-FP, PHEBUS-2K and PHEBUS-LOCA Projects SATURDAY 8:30 - 12:30 P.M. Proposed ACRS Reports (Open) Continue discussion of proposed ACRS reports listed under Item 12. 12:30 - 1:00 P.M. Miscellaneous (Open) Discussion of matters related to the conduct of Committee activities and matters and specific issues that were not completed during previous meetings, as time and availability of information permit. NOTE: Presentation time should not exceed 50 percent of the total time allocated for a specific item. The remaining 50 percent of the time is reserved for discussion. Thirty-Five (35) copies of the presentation materials should be provided to the ACRS. ***************************************************************** 10 New hitch for Czech nuclear plant BBC News | EUROPE | Monday, 29 April, 2002, A technical fault has forced the controversial Temelin nuclear power station in the Czech Republic to reduce energy output to a minimum, only days after it was restarted following two months of repairs. This latest hitch means the plant has managed to supply energy to the national grid for a only a few hours since restarting last week. Officials say they expect to reconnect it to the grid later today. The power station is still in a test period, and not due to be running normally until next year. The Temelin plant, close to the Czech border with Austria, has been a source of friction between the two countries for the past two years. The Czech government insists the plant is safe, but Austrian politicians and environmental activists have demanded its closure. ***************************************************************** 11 Czech nuclear plant in new emergency power-down [http://www.theage.com.au] PRAGUE, April 29 AFP|Published: Monday April 29, 8:21 PM A disputed and glitch-plagued Czech nuclear plant was urgently powered down after its latest technical problem, a spokesman said today. Less than a week after being restarted following a two-month shutdown for repairs, the Temelin plant was disconnected from the national grid last night after a new "small problem of watertightness." The reactor's output was reduced to 2.5 per cent of its capacity after the problem was detected in a secondary circuit, not directly linked to the reactor's core, said spokesman Milan Nebesar. The Soviet-built plant, which has triggered fierce protests, notably in neighbouring Austria, since it first fuelled up in October 2000, was restarted last Wednesday after being shutdown in February. Temelin is barely 60km from the border with Austria, which voted against nuclear power in a 1978 referendum. The latest problem came only 12 hours after the plant, which had built up to 100 per cent of its 1,000 Megawatt capacity during the day Sunday, had been reconnected to the national grid. The plant spokesman said repairs on the new problem should only take a few hours. Despite being upgraded with security systems by US giant Westinghouse, the Temelin plant's entry into commercial operation has been delayed by repeated technical and political problems. Austria has demanded extra security and environmental guarantees before the plant comes fully on stream and Berlin has also attacked the plant. Copyright © 2002 John Fairfax Holdings Ltd. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 12 The dust of Chernobyl has not settled yet Thestar.com/ Apr. 28, 2002. 01:00 AM Illnesses continue and some fear the worst is yet to come Paul Webster special to the star KLYNTSY, Russia YURI MAXIMENKO was born only three days after a gigantic explosion made Chernobyl the world's worst environmental catastrophe. By the time Maximenko took his first breath, radioactive rain was falling in his birthplace, Klyntsy, a town of 80,000 in southwestern Russia and 150 kilometres from the Ukrainian nuclear plant. "It was a bad time and place to be born, for sure," he says, shrugging his broad shoulders and grimacing. Tens of thousands of children like Maximenko grew up in the severely contaminated zone. And rather than lessening in the 16 years after the April 26, 1986, disaster, the fear of premature cancer and death is deepening among the 200,000 people directly affected. An epidemic of thyroid cancer is sweeping through the towns and villages of this region of gentle forested hills, fertile farmland and once-prosperous factories. So far, 2,000 children have been diagnosed with the cancer, caused by absorption of radioactive iodine in thyroid glands in their throats. Although the cancer cases are being successfully treated, the victims must take drugs every day for the rest of their lives. Another 8,000 cases are expected in coming years. Maximenko has been fighting thyroid cancer for four years, but he says he still feels fine, plays sports and hopes to join the Russian army if he can stay healthy. "I know a lot of other kids who have this illness. If I join the army, it'll get me out of the radiation zone." After the disaster, Soviet officials planned to evacuate the people living in highly radioactive areas. Residents were promised compensation payments and new homes in safe towns. But just as the massive resettlement program began, the Soviet Union disintegrated. Three impoverished new countries, Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, inherited responsibility for the program, which soon choked on chaos and underfunding. Many residents were reluctant to leave. But even those who desperately wanted to escape had trouble. On the days following the disaster, Tatiana Krivenos and her five children watched the radiation clouds passing over their home in Novozybkov, a pretty provincial town of 55,000 even closer to Chernobyl. After the disaster, Krivenos was offered an apartment in Novgorod, a northern Russian city. She abandoned everything and left with the children. But she found only bitter disappointment. "We were put in temporary housing," she says. "The winters were terribly cold and we didn't have enough heat. But worst of all, people there thought we were radioactive. They wouldn't let their children play with mine." The family moved on, settling in two other cities before abandoning their exodus and returning home. Now, her children have grown up and started families of their own in the area. "It is true there are a lot of very sick children here," Krivenos says. "But my grandchildren are fine. So we don't worry about the radioactivity." Life for the people in the radiation zone has become strangely routine. The mayor of Novozybkov, Ivan Nestorov, says it's time to face the future. "What we need now is assistance in finding ways to live here safely," he says. "Because there's nowhere else for us to go." Nestorov wants uncontaminated food so people can stop growing vegetables in radioactive soil. And he wants help for regional economic development programs to make the area self-sufficient; because the real bill from Chernobyl has yet to be delivered. "We're facing a new wave of illnesses far more complicated than the first wave of thyroid cancer," he warns. "My biggest worry is for the children of parents who have been exposed to radiation here for 16 years. It's terrifying what could happen here." According to Nestorov, communities across the radiation zone report an upswing in birth defects and reproductive disorders. Local and regional health officials confirm this. Anatoly Prochine, head of the Chernobyl Diagnostic Centre in the region's capital, Bryansk, says the thyroid cancer epidemic is a warning of more serious cancers to come, especially leukemia. The United Nations recently called for a new strategy based not on moving families out of the radiation zone, but on making living conditions safer in it. Officials say the effort will require new international aid to the afflicted countries, since most programs for Chernobyl victims ended years ago. The U.N. says new health problems may be far more expensive to treat than the thyroid cancer epidemic. To help the region prepare, it has proposed a 10-year self-sufficiency strategy built on industrial development, enhanced heath care and the provision of safe food in the radiation zone. Russian ecologists have warned that resettlement remains the only responsible strategy to avoid a major health tragedy. In Novozybkov, however, Nestorov says the U.N. recommendations are sound and resettlement impossible. "It's true the health problems will get worse. But we've faced this almost alone here for a decade now....We have to be helped now to look after ourselves." Paul Webster is a freelance writer based in Moscow. TheStar.com ***************************************************************** 13 Installation of condenser begins at Bulgarian nuclear plant reactor BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Apr 28, 2002 Sofia, 28 April: Enemona AD started the installation of a jet vortex condenser (JVC) at Unit 3 of the Kozloduy N-plant, the company said. The information was confirmed by the N-plant The facility is unique and is an innovation in preventing accidents in N-plants with WWER 440 MW and W-230 type reactors. Enemona installed the first JVC in Bulgaria in Unit 4 at the end of 2001, the press release says. Preparations for the installation of a JVC in Unit 3 started at the beginning of February 2002. The building of the pool in which the JVC will be installed was completed on Sunday [28 April]. The installation of the JVC itself will start after a 24-hour trial. The JVC is the main part of the PRG'97 Comprehensive Programme for Upgrading Units 1-4. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), it provides the best technological means to upgrade the operational safety of nuclear power plants of an older Russian design. The main purpose of upgrading the localizing safety system by installing JVC in Units 3 and 4 of the Kozloduy N-plant is to ensure the confinement's structural integrity in case of large break LOCA accident. The installation of the first JVC in Bulgaria in 2001 is the second installation of a JVC at an operating N-plant in the world. In 2001 a JVC was installed in Unit 3 of the Novovoronezh N-plant in Russia. The installation lengthened the Unit's design life by five years, the press release says. Source: BTA web site, Sofia, in English 28 Apr 02 /¸ BBC Monitoring ***************************************************************** 14 Ukrainian nuclear expert warns of further Chernobyl horrors BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Apr 28, 2002 Sixteen years after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, evidence continues to mount of genetic malformation as a result of radiation, Dmytro Hrodzynskyy, head of the Ukrainian government's National Commission for Radiation Security, has told the Russian newspaper Izvestiya. He also confirmed that materials being exported from the area contain dangerous levels of radioactive elements. Even more worrying, though, are the signs that chemical changes within the dormant reactor could presage some fresh disaster, and that radioactive material is leaking into rivers. The following is the text of the report by Izvestiya on 24 April. Subheadings have been inserted editorially: On 26 April the world will once again remember Chernobyl. On this day in 1986, an explosion at a local nuclear plant strewed radioactive dust over almost half of Europe - from Ukraine to Scandinavia. The Chernobyl nuclear power station, which was shut down on demand from the West but not definitively closed, is now preparing new surprises. Nuclear fuel left over in the station's wrecked power-generating unit is beginning to produce uncontrollable chain reactions. The fuel is giving off americium, which is hundreds of times more dangerous than strontium. Scientists believe that the Dnieper is turning into one of Chernobyl's burial grounds. Mutations continue to occur among both humans and animals. Dmytro Hrodzynskyy, a member of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, who has been studying Chernobyl for 16 years and heads the Ukrainian government's National Commission for Radiation Security, knows better than anyone else what we can expect from Chernobyl. He told Izvestiya's correspondent Yanina Sokolovskaya the truth about the notorious station. Museum of mutants [Correspondent] To this day, people continue to talk about how radiation from Chernobyl has caused mutations in both people and animals. Professor [Vyacheslav] Konovalov [noted geneticist] from Zhytomyr has even opened a museum of mutants. They say that his collection is growing. [Hrodzynskyy] Whereas deformities numbered in the hundredths of a per cent before, they're now up to 24 per cent. That's a huge figure. For a long time they didn't want to admit that mutations existed, but it's a fact. Animals were the first victims. After the accident, piglets started to appear in the village of Narodychi, near Chernobyl, that were blind or had eyes the size of watermelons. Local residents said that their chickens were hatching something monstrous instead of chicks. More and more children are born with Down's Syndrome. Among children, thyroid cancer has become 1,000 times more common than it was before the accident. Not only in Ukraine, but in Belarus as well. The irradiation is no longer great, but the genetic instability continues. This is particularly evident in plants: We transplanted them to clean zones, to uncontaminated soil, but they keep growing up as dwarfs or giants. With wheat, for example, the mutation rate has reached 60 per cent. [Correspondent] In spite of this, Ukraine has allocated 200,000 dollars to a so-called rehabilitation programme for the land of Chernobyl. In other words, farms in the alienated territory around the reactor are open and supplying produce to clean areas. Timber, they say, is going to Russia, while meat is being sent to Ukrainian cities. The organizers of this programme insist that their produce is safe. [Hrodzynskyy] Its safety is debatable. In Chernobyl's timber there are serious quantities of americium. Everything in the area is contaminated. In spite of this, they organize grand hunting parties in the zone. Then there are the poachers who have to work for their sustenance. Chernobyl's produce is being transported beyond its borders. New explosion threat [Correspondent] But people in Ukraine believed that shutting down the Chernobyl nuclear power station would solve the Chernobyl problems. [Hrodzynskyy] Closing the station means the start of other problems. Dismantling the plant and decontaminating its grounds will take 30-40 years. That's the best-case scenario. The Chernobyl sarcophagus that covered the wrecked unit is an unreliable and temporary structure. It contains 160-170 tonnes of nuclear fuel and more than a kilometre of holes and cracks. When they built the sarcophagus, they filled it with concrete without reinforcement. It is unreliable, considering the seismic danger of the Chernobyl zone. [Correspondent] The Ukrainian Ministry of Environment and Nuclear Safety announced the spontaneous start of a chain reaction within the sarcophagus, that is, the threat of a new explosion. [Hrodzynskyy] We have repeatedly registered an increase in neutron flows. In the wrecked reactor the fuel mass is warming up. Newly irradiated, it is now dispersing, and radioactive dust is flowing out of the sarcophagus. [Correspondent] Not only did Ukraine want to turn the plant into a clean glade, it wanted to give it to Gazprom for the construction of a steam and gas power station, that would produce energy and sell it to Europe and the East. [Hrodzynskyy] This plan is not yet being implemented. Kiev made an exceptionally brave decision when it rejected the station. Ukraine has not yet managed to build new nuclear units to replace the Chernobyl nuclear power station. They wanted to use Western money to build them at the Khmelnytskyy and Rivne nuclear power stations, but it turned out that it was not that simple. Now they are waiting for Russia to get involved. [Correspondent] The burial of waste from Chernobyl will also obviously become a Russian affair. They were planning to bury it in Krasnoyarsk Territory, weren't they? [Hrodzynskyy] There are more than 800 radiation depots in the Chernobyl area. That's hundreds of thousands of cubic metres of radioactive material. The depots were created immediately after the accident, on the fly, and they were good for five or six years. Now americium is flowing out of them. Americium is more dangerous than strontium, just as cannon balls are more frightening than small shot. The Pripyat river has turned into an uncontrolled radiation depot. It contains very dirty silt. The same is true of the Kiev Sea [reservoir]. Even the Dnieper has suffered: its water contains strontium and they use it to irrigate the fields. The Dnieper scatters radiation over a huge area. [Correspondent] There is a myth that radiation from Chernobyl makes you live longer. The peasant woman Mariya Shara lived to 124 in the alienated zone. [Hrodzynskyy] The elderly are lucky. Their bone marrow and nervous systems are not very susceptible to radiation. Chernobyl struck at children: 50 per cent of the children who lived in the zone after the accident developed psychological abnormalities. Chernobyl has created a society of doomed people. Source: Izvestiya, Moscow, in Russian 24 Apr 02 /¸ BBC Monitoring ***************************************************************** 15 Theft of radioactive substances rife in Tajikistan - paper BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Apr 28, 2002 Radioactive substances in Tajikistan are subject to theft because they are "just lying around", the Tajik newspaper Asia-Plus reported on 18 April. A Tajik scientist, A. Jurayev, told the paper that to date at least seven quite powerful radioisotope sources had been stolen from enterprises. People steal them out of their "old Soviet habit", but "terrorists" are the only customers for radioactive substances, Jurayev said. The following is an excerpt from the article, "Radiation in the centre of Dushanbe" by report by Olga Tutbalina: Tajikistan has no nuclear weapons and nuclear power stations. It would seem that the problem of the loss of radioactive materials and radiation sources is no urgent issue for our country at all. But specialists uphold the opposite view. [Scientist] A. Jurayev says that, since 1991, the control over the safety of radioisotope sources (RIS) has been lost in the country. Evidence of this is the loss of several caesium-137 RIS at the Yovon chemical plant [in southern Khatlon Region] and an incident with a fatal outcome at the Tajik Aluminium Plant. According to the scientist [Jurayev], to date at least seven quite powerful RIS lethal to human beings have been stolen from the country's enterprises. [Passage omitted: Jurayev says sometimes people try to sell special purpose devices and radioisotopes; someone managed to dismantle the protective capsule of three radioisotope thermo-electric generators, which were stored by the Tajik meteorological station in Dushanbe] There have been many cases of the theft and "acquisition" of radioactive substances throughout the country as a whole. I do not think it is worth recalling all of them. I will say only that officers of the law-enforcement agencies have in the past detained "pedlars" of uranium, plutonium, osmium and red mercury. Why do people steal radioactive substances? The answer is simple: they steal it out of the old Soviet habit, because these substances are "just lying around". Jurayev says this [stealing] is senseless, because there are no "consumers" of radioactive substances other than terrorists, nor can there be. This product cannot be used in any other way. It was revealed recently that the illegal circulation of RIS is not the only "radiation" problem for Tajikistan. According to the director of the Institute of Nuclear Physics of Uzbekistan's Academy of Sciences, B. Yuldoshev (he is currently the president of the Academy of Sciences), following the latest nuclear weapon test in Pakistan, the radiation background increased several times at the institute compound (Ulughbek district [on outskirts of Tashkent], Uzbekistan). Consequently, this background was even higher on the Tajik-Afghan and Tajik-Chinese border. If our population was irradiated at that time, one should expect an increase in the number of diseases related to the thyroid gland, lungs and stomach among Tajikistan's people. Source: Asia-Plus, Dushanbe, in Russian 18 Apr 02 /¸ BBC Monitoring ***************************************************************** 16 Notebook: Biological attack could kill a million The Seattle Times: Monday, April 29, 2002, 12:00 a.m. Pacific WASHINGTON — A million people could die if terrorists launch a biological attack that widely disperses smallpox, anthrax, ebola or other agents, according to an analysis of the damage that could be caused by weapons of mass destruction. Even though such a biological attack was deemed extremely unlikely, scholars from the Brookings Institution said the Bush administration should concentrate homeland-security efforts on similar doomsday terrorist scenarios that have the potential to cause the largest numbers of deaths and economic losses, and the greatest psychological damage. The study, scheduled for release tomorrow, estimated 100,000 people would die if a nuclear bomb hit a major U.S. city and that 10,000 would perish in a successful attack on a nuclear or toxic-chemical plant. If weapons of mass destruction were directed against the shipping industry, the report said, the economy could suffer up to $1 trillion in losses. U.S., British troops deployed along border, Afghans say GHULAM KHAN, Afghanistan-Pakistan Border — Helicopters swooping into the desolate mountains here have deposited hundreds of U.S. and British troops along the border in recent days as coalition forces target al-Qaida fugitives in Pakistan's unruly tribal areas, Afghan officials said. "Right now, we have completed 95 percent of places the Americans should go in Afghanistan, and now they're starting the second phase in Pakistan," said Mohammed Yaqoob, an Afghan commander at the Ghulam Khan border crossing high in the mountains east of Khost. "In the past, we were concentrating on (al-Qaida) people going out, but now we're concentrating very much on people coming in." The extent of the new deployment remained unclear. U.S. officials refuse to confirm any deployment, but an Afghan official working closely with the U.S. military said 1,200 U.S. and British soldiers were flown to the top of the dry, craggy Gergerai mountains along the border four nights ago. Two other Afghan commanders said in separate interviews that they saw smaller landings over the past week, which could be part of a larger movement. Senate leaders back ousting Saddam, but say it's too early WASHINGTON — Senate leaders said yesterday there is broad support for toppling Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein but that it is too early to take military action. A senior Bush administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said any attack on Iraq probably would wait until next year, but that President Bush has yet to sign off on the time, scope or manner of such a campaign. "We've got to win the war on terror, we've got to stabilize Afghanistan. We have to do all that we can to ensure that we succeed there before we take on another mission," Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle said. Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., said the United States needs to first bolster opposition to Saddam among Iraqis inside and outside that country. "There's a lot more we could be doing," he said. Copyright © 2002 The Seattle Times Company ***************************************************************** 17 Irish Sellafield protesters in postal blitz on UK Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2002 19:28:49 -0500 (CDT) Irish Sellafield protesters in postal blitz on UK Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit source - "Mark Graffis" Irish Sellafield protesters in postal blitz on UK by Alex Richardson DUBLIN, Apr 24 (Reuters)--A celebrity-backed Irish campaign against Britain's Sellafield nuclear plant culminates on Friday when thousands of protest postcards are due to be delivered to Prince Charles and Prime Minister Tony Blair. The campaign has been spearheaded by Ali Hewson, wife of U2 frontman Bono, supported by a string of well-known figures including pop group The Corrs, singers Ronan Keating and Samantha Mumba and Manchester United soccer captain Roy Keane. Norman Askew, chairman of Sellafield's owner British Nuclear Fuels, is also being targeted by the postcard campaign, which is backed by the Irish government. Sellafield, 110 miles (180 km) across the Irish Sea on England's northwest coast, has been a long-running source of friction between the two governments, and Irish fears have been heightened since the September 11 attacks on the United States. "If an accident happens at the plant, or if there is a terrorist attack, depending on which way the wind blows... vast parts of Ireland would be uninhabitable, for ever," said Hewson. Postcards have been delivered to homes throughout Ireland, urging people to sign and return them. The cards have also been on sale in shops and post offices. A spokesman for Ireland's postal service, An Post, said 700,000 cards had been received by Monday evening. An Post is collecting all the cards and will send them to Britain on Thursday for delivery Friday, the 16th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster. The postcard addressed to Blair shows a close up of a human eye, with the message: "Tony, look me in the eye and tell me I'm safe." Prince Charles, heir to the British throne and known for his interest in environmental issues, will receive a card depicting Ireland ravaged by nuclear fallout with the messages: "Greetings from Ireland" and "Charles - wish you were here?" The postcard addressed to Askew shows a pair of lips and the slogan: "Tell us the truth." Irish opponents of Sellafield say it pollutes the Irish Sea and presents a serious risk from accidents or terrorist attack. Last year Ireland unsuccessfully applied to the Hamburg based International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea for an injunction to block the start-up of a 472-million pound mixed oxide (MOX) fuel manufacturing plant at Sellafield. Britain first established nuclear facilities at Sellafield - formerly called Windscale - in the 1940s, and the world's first commercial nuclear power station opened there in 1956. ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytenv-04.25.02-19:07:55-17368 ***************************************************************** 18 'Shut Sellafield campaign is election issue' Irish Newspapers ALI: Delivers card to No 10 Ali Hewson challenges political parties and battles with UK energy minister THE Shut Sellafield group is now set to challenge political parties to make the issue a central part of their General Election agendas, it emerged last night. Buoyed by the success of the protest campaign which saw more than 1.5m postcards posted to 10, Downing Street, and also to Prince Charles the aim is now to keep the momentum going in Ireland in the run-up to voting day on May 17. Last night, Ali Hewson who hand-delivered her own postcard to Tony Blair's residence described the reaction to the campaign as "incredible". She told the Sunday Independent: "It goes to show how strongly Irish people feel about the issue and the dangers of Sellafield." The result has been particularly rewarding because the Broadcasting Act meant that the campaign could not be promoted on radio or TV. Ms Hewson said: "If more than 1.5 million people in Ireland have called on the British government to shut down Sellafield, it is a challenge to Irish political parties to make sure they make it an election issue." Ms Hewson also strongly dismissed a claim by British energy minister Brian Wilson that the campaigners were "emotive" about the issue. She said: "If he is saying we are emotional about about the health and safety of our children, then yes, we are guilty. Our feelings and worries are based on real concerns." Bono's wife also accused the British minister of being "pedantic" for saying she had admitted she realised Sellafield could not be closed down. She said: "We want the reprocessing activities stopped. We want them to stop bringing nuclear waste there from all over the world." In a statement, Mr Wilson declared: "The most irresponsible thing that anyone could do with Sellafield would be to shut it down." He added: "The shared interest of the British and Irish peoples is that Sellafield should be run to the highest standards of safety and regulation." The Shut Sellafield postcards delivered to 10 Downing Street bore an image of a human eye beside the words: "Tony, look me in the eye and tell me I'm safe." Ms Hewson said after delivering her card: "A report commissioned by the European Parliament has said Sellafield has the potential to be 80 times more hazardous than Chernobyl. We are taking all the risks and yet we do not have a say in this." Meanwhile, several hundred postcards with an image of a radioactive shamrock had arrived at St James's Palace, a spokeswoman confirmed. However, the palace said Prince Charles would not be commenting on the campaign as it was a political matter. FRANK KHAN © Copyright Unison ***************************************************************** 19 North Korean radio denounces Japan's transportation of nuclear materials BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Apr 29, 2002 According to a report, the Japanese reactionaries once again transported nuclear materials, thus, stirring up worldwide protest and denunciation. On 26 April, two transport ships carrying a large amount of reprocessed nuclear fuel departed from a port in the northwestern region of England towards Takahama in Fukui Prefecture, Japan. In this connection, Greenpeace, an international environment protection organization, condemned Japan's transport of nuclear weapons once again as an illegal act violating international agreements. It also expressed grave concern over the fact that transport of such nuclear materials may have a serious impact on the environment and the people's safety. Source: Central Broadcasting Station, Pyongyang, in Korean 2100 gmt 28 Apr 02 /¸ BBC Monitoring ***************************************************************** 20 Irish take nuclear protest to British PM's doorstep UK: April 29, 2002 LONDON - Irish protesters chose the 16th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster last week to bombard Prime Minister Tony Blair and Prince Charles with postcards demanding the closure of Britain's Sellafield plant. "Sellafield has the potential to be 80 times the size of the Chernobyl accident," leading protester Ali Hewson, wife of Irish rock star Bono, told reporters after personally handing in a postcard at Blair's Downing Street office in London. In the world's worst civil nuclear disaster, Chernobyl exploded on April 26, 1986, and its radioactive contamination was blamed for thousands of deaths in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, and for a huge increase in thyroid cancer. The Sellafield reprocessing plant, on England's northwest coast across the Irish Sea, has long caused friction between the two governments due to Irish fears of accidents or pollution. "Tony, Look me in the eye and tell me I'm safe," said Hewson's postcard to Blair under a picture of a staring green eye. It was one of more than 1.2 million such postcards sent by Irish households for delivery to Britain last week. Long a focus of protests for environmentalists in Britain and Ireland, the anti-Sellafield lobby say the issue has taken on new urgency since the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States. "That's the reason that people are re-thinking exactly the problems of Sellafield," said Hewson, whose husband Bono, of the U2 band, is a leading campaigner against Third World debt. "It has 75 tonnes of plutonium sitting on its site. It can't but be at the top of any terrorist's list," she added. Britain, which also faces pressure over Sellafield from other European nations, said it recognized the sincerity of Irish concerns but insisted the risks were minimal Energy Minister Brian Wilson issued a statement decrying the "emotive and misleading arguments" of anti-Sellafield campaigners and citing "facts and evidence produced from reputable scientific sources about the negligible impacts of activities at Sellafield." "The U.K. government would not pursue any course of action which is damaging either to our own people or to our neighbours in Ireland," he said. As well as Hewson, a string of other well-known figures including pop group The Corrs, singers Ronan Keating and Samantha Mumba and Manchester United soccer captain Roy Keane, have backed the Sellafield postcard protest. Like Blair, Prince Charles' office was also receiving last week sacks full of the mass-produced postcards, his showing a pink-tinged holocaust landscape with the words "Greetings from Ireland ... wish you were here?" Norman Askew, chairman of Sellafield's owner British Nuclear Fuels, is also being targeted by the campaign, which is backed by the Irish government. "Tell us the truth," the postcard aimed at him said over a pair of lips. "You know that radiation released into the atmosphere has no borders ... No country, no government and no company can afford this risk for profit." Story by Andrew Cawthorne REUTERS NEWS SERVICE ***************************************************************** 21 Survey shows Yucca Mountain has big support Las Vegas SUN April 28, 2002 LAS VEGAS (AP) - Those who want to store nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain hold a commanding lead in the U.S. Senate, a newspaper survey of senators shows. Both chambers of Congress soon will vote on whether to override Gov. Kenny Guinn's veto of President Bush's recommendation to bury the nation's nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Nevada officials acknowledge they will lose big in the House, and are focusing on trying to muster a majority in the Senate. But with the vote still about two months away, a survey of senators by the Las Vegas Review-Journal shows supporters of the Yucca Mountain Project are only a few votes shy of the 51 they need. A total of 89 senators responded to inquiries the Review-Journal made in recent weeks via phone, e-mail and in person. Of those, 44 senators said they will vote to store nuclear waste in Nevada. One of the senators who did not respond is Minority Leader Trent Lott, who has publicly stated his support for the proposal. That means 45 senators say they want a repository at Yucca Mountain. Just 20 of the senators who replied to the survey said they will vote to keep nuclear waste out of Nevada. Another 25 senators said they remain undecided. Lott, R-Miss., was among 11 senators who did not respond to the survey, which was conducted between April 8 and Thursday. Many of the senators interviewed said they already have been lobbied by Nevada Sens. John Ensign and Harry Reid. Stuart Rothenberg, a prominent Washington political analyst, said Nevada may be outgunned. "I can't imagine Reid and Ensign being able to succeed," he said. "The problem is, I don't see much sway they can have on other members of the Senate, who frankly are relieved that their states aren't going to get (nuclear waste)." Eric Herzik, a political science professor at the University of Nevada, Reno, said he does not think the state's voters expect Reid and Ensign to prevail. "I really don't think there is great pressure on them to win as long as voters believe they are making the good fight against long odds," Herzik said. Reid questioned the validity of the survey. He said through spokesman Nathan Naylor he already has commitments from 30 of his fellow Democrats. Ensign, who has been lobbying Republican colleagues in half-hour sit-down sessions, also disputed the results. "I think this is way off base because so many senators are still undecided," he said. In February, Bush recommended that 77,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel and other highly radioactive wastes be stored at Yucca Mountain. Guinn vetoed that decision in April. Majorities in the House and Senate must override the governor's veto for the Yucca site to become final and for the DOE to begin preparing a repository license application. The Senate is expected to vote between late June and late July. The House will vote in about two weeks. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 22 Cloud of concern over contaminated soil Monday, April 29, 2002 By TRACEY L. REGAN PLUMSTED - Driving home from his job in Toms River on June 7, 1960, Bart Amburgey was stopped by police at a street corner here and instructed to head straight to his house, shut his window shades and stay inside. A nuclear warhead at the nearby Air Force base had caught fire, leaking plutonium, police told Amburgey, and military and local emergency personnel were frantically trying to put out the flames. To this day, Amburgey said, he is unsure how the shades protected him, but he has spent the last 42 years living within five miles of the nuclear accident in relative serenity, secure that the 10 acres of concrete and asphalt poured over the site had trapped the 11 ounces of plutonium that escaped down a ditch and across County Highway 539. ``There have been times when the gate - the protection for the site - was ripped open,'' he said. ``And no one was that concerned.'' But knowledge of the entombed plutonium has not rested so easily with the U.S. Department of Defense during the past four decades. And sometime next month, officials at McGuire Air Force Base say, they will break open the cap and remove 12,000 cubic yards of contaminated soil for a more permanent burial at a waste site in Utah. The cleanup plan has been a decade in the making, following a 1991 environmental study that found 7 1/2 acres of contamination surrounding the site of the accident, the former BOMARC (Boeing Michigan Aeronautical Research Center) missile site. The work should be finished by September or October, said King Mak, an environmental engineer for the 305th Civil Engineering Squadron. Indeed, the plan to clean up the site has engendered more controversy than the site itself ever has. While many residents in this corner of the Pinelands said they were willing to live with the encased plutonium, they were not happy with the government's plans for digging it up and hauling it away. The original proposal, unveiled a couple of years ago, was to truck the waste along Route 539 and leave it at a rail depot in downtown Lakehurst, where Conrail would pick it up for shipment to Utah. ``They were going to drop off rubberized plastic bags along the tracks in downtown Lakehurst and wait for the Conrail schedule,'' said Lakehurst's Deputy Clerk, Bernadette Dugan. ``Two-layer plastic bags on a common walk-through for kids on their way to the high school,'' added Norbert MacLean, the borough's police chief, still incredulous. But the plan began to unravel last year after a local official stabbed a hole in one of the bags - purportedly bullet-proof - with a penknife. ``It was a poorly conceived plan,'' said MacLean. ``And when they came to us, they presented it as a done deal. It was the classic case of Big Government telling Small Government what to do. But it ended up with Small Government saying the plan was totally unacceptable.'' After some heated meetings with base officials, the military agreed to change direction. The dirt - about 800 truckloads worth - will be hauled entirely on government roads, from the Fort Dix accident site, which is leased from the Army by McGuire, to a rail line on the base of the Lakehurst Naval Air Engineering Station. Last week, the Air Force closed a section of Route 547 in Lakehurst to repair and extend an old, unused rail line onto the base so the trucks will stay off local roads. The excavators will contain dust by wetting the ground. ``Our feeling was, keep your poison somewhere else or leave it in the ground if it's not dangerous. Why move it?'' said Kathy Abrahamsen, manager of Colonial Bouquet, a florist shop on Union Avenue in Lakehurst that is within a stone's throw of the downtown rail depot. ``No one likes to be told, `This is the way you're going to do it.' No one wants to hear that,'' she added. ``I'm glad our local officials stuck to their guns.'' The waste is not considered particularly dangerous. Much of it, Mak said, needn't even be labeled as hazardous en route to Utah. In a couple of spots, radiation levels reach 100 picocuries per gram, compared with typical background levels of .004. The military's contractor, Duratek Inc., of Columbia, will reduce levels at the site to 8 picocuries per gram, said Diane Brown, a spokeswoman for the company. State environmental officials say that level of radiation would present a 1 in 10,000 risk of cancer for someone growing food on the land and drinking water from wells there for several decades. ``The property is not going to be sold for development,'' said Al Ivany, a spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Protection. While the plutonium did not present an immediate health risk - traces of it have not been found in groundwater, for example - ``there was the concern that there could be at some point,'' said Gwen Zervas, a DEP official, adding, ``For the Air Force, there was the longterm liability.'' After the Air Force decided in the early 1990s to clean it up, the project was delayed for several years because there were no commercial or public waste disposal sites willing to take it. The government will pay Envirocare of Utah Inc. about $1 million to dispose of the soil and another 400 cubic yards of construction debris. Compared to many nuclear waste sites, however, the BOMARC cleanup is relatively speedy. According to recent reports, the U.S. Department of Energy signed an agreement this year with officials in the state of Washington to clean up the Hanford Nuclear Reservation - the site of much of the country's plutonium production since World War II - by 2035, or possibly even 2025. The DOE had earlier put the date at 2070. Copyright 2002 The Times. Used with permission. © 2002 NJ.com. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 23 Kinnock bars former EC official from joining BNFL Independent News © 2002 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd By Michael Harrison, Business Editor 29 April 2002 A former senior official in the European Commission is to be barred from taking up a £20,000-a-year job as a non-executive director with the state-owned reprocessing company British Nuclear Fuels after allegations of sleaze. The appointment of Jim Currie, the EC's former director general for environment, nuclear safety and civil protection, to the board of BNFL caused a storm of protest when it was announced last month. Now Mr Currie, 60, is expected to be told by the Commission's vice-president Neil Kinnock that he should not take up the post immediately because of the conflict of interest with his previous job. However, as a compromise the Commission may allow Mr Currie to join BNFL after a suitable period of quarantine ­ perhaps 18 months ­ and then only on certain agreed terms. BNFL, the operator of the Sellafield nuclear waste recycling plant, announced Mr Currie's appointment on 4 March and indeed stated in its press release that he had joined the board on 1 March for a three-year term of office. But when the Commission then wrote to Mr Currie asking him to explain his actions, he replied that he had not yet accepted the post at BNFL. The Commission's staff regulations state that officials should refrain from accepting jobs with outside organisations if this could lead to a conflict of interest with their former post. Mr Kinnock said: "Such a conflict is generally considered to be evident if the new activity is related to a dossier for which the official was responsible." Mr Kinnock also said that where its rules had been flouted the Commission would, if necessary, "take measures to penalise such a violation". Commission sources said, however, that there was no question of Mr Currie being penalised financially. Chris Davies, the Liberal Democrat MP for the North-west and the party's environment spokesman in the European Parliament, has led the campaign against Mr Currie's appointment. He said such a move was bound to create the impression that "the financial lure of industry has too great an influence over EU officials". Mr Davies added: "How can environmentalists trust the impartiality of the Commission in determining environmental policy if they believe that top officials are lining themselves up for retirement jobs with the very companies they are supposed to police?" EC staff regulations state that former officials should seek permission to take on outside jobs for up to three years after they have left. Mr Currie, who left the Commission last year, did seek approval to become a non-executive director at Royal Bank of Scotland. However, he failed to do likewise for the BNFL job. "It must have been a blind spot, and now the poor guy is in a bit of a fix," one Brussels observer said. "It was a cock-up on his part more than anything." BNFL said: "It is matter for Jim whether he takes up the job but it would be a pity if he doesn't. The job of an independent non-executive director is to challenge the management rather than agree blindly with whatever it does. But clearly the appointment is not as straightforward as he or we thought." Mr Currie could not be reached for comment. ***************************************************************** 24 Park money may be diverted to Yucca fund Las Vegas SUN April 29, 2002 By Diana Sahagun What's more important -- funding a new park or putting more money toward the state's fight to keep high-level nuclear waste from coming to Nevada? It's a choice that the Las Vegas City Council is scheduled to make Wednesday, when it considers taking money from future parks and recreation centers and funneling it into the governor's fund to fight the proposed Yucca Mountain repository. While the council has not yet committed to a figure, several members said they have talked about contributing an extra $50,000 to $150,000. The contribution -- above the $100,000 the city has already committed -- would come from a discretionary fund used for parks, recreation and other one-time expenditures, City Manager Virginia Valentine said. That fund is already short millions, considering the council has requested $89 million for new projects. Only $24.4 million is available. Further complicating matters is that the city is also facing a $1 million deficit heading into the next fiscal year, which begins July 1. Any additional contribution would compete with proposed park projects scheduled for the next fiscal year, including the renovation of Circle Park, near Maryland Parkway and Charleston Boulevard, and reconstruction of the Mirabelli Community Center. Mayor Oscar Goodman said Thursday that a $50,000 additional contribution would be acceptable, but acknowledged that it would come from other projects. Unless the council decides to contribute additional funds from the current budget, which will be augmented on Wednesday, the monies will not be sent until after July 1. That may be too late, because a decision by Congress is expected by the end of July. Nevada has a $6 million fund to cover lobbying and legal expenses related to fighting the proposed dump, but state leaders say they need more money to fight the nuclear energy industry's powerful lobbying efforts. Gov. Kenny Guinn and Sens. Harry Reid and John Ensign have asked for public, private and government contributions to help the state's lobbying effort against the dump. A legislative committee agreed to give $3 million as long as governments matched the donation. Last week the Clark County Commission contributed an additional $1.5 million -- above its previous $1 million donation. The North Las Vegas City Council has agreed to contribute $10,000 to the fight. On Tuesday the Henderson City Council will consider increasing its contribution from $50,000 to $100,000. A number of Nevada towns and businesses have also given, including the tiny city of Wells, which offered $1,367. Mesquite, about 90 miles northeast of Las Vegas, gave $50,000. Councilman Gary Reese said he is willing to spend additional dollars, as long as it doesn't come from proposed parks and recreation projects. "I wouldn't scrap my ballfields," Reese said. "If we can (contribute) without robbing Peter to pay Paul, I would be in favor of that." Councilman Michael Mack said he'd agree with giving an additional $100,000. Some $300,000 is left over from projects that were not completed in his ward this year, Mack said, which he would be willing to put toward the Yucca Mountain fund. "We are not going to enjoy those parks and recreation centers if we have a (nuclear) catastrophe," Mack said. "It's important we join the fight." All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 25 A Thousand-Year Plan for Nuclear Waste BW Online | May 6, 2002 | SCIENCE &TECHNOLOGY Tiny companies may help the DOE solve the biggest problems The Hanford Nuclear Reservation is home to North America's worst witch's brew of hazardous waste. The 560-square-mile site in eastern Washington, which produced plutonium for nuclear warheads from 1943 to 1989, houses 53 million gallons of plutonium, uranium, iodine, mercury, and countless other contaminants known to cause cancer, thyroid disease, and other illnesses. One million gallons have already leaked into the soil and are oozing toward the Columbia River, threatening a million residents in the vicinity. When it comes to environmental disaster areas, "Three Mile Island doesn't even begin to compare," says Dirk A. Dunning, a nuclear specialist for Oregon's Office of Energy. Watched over by the U.S. Energy Dept., the custodian of America's weapons labs, Hanford has been the focus of countless remediation studies. This fall, the DOE will start constructing plants that will transform the worst of the radioactive waste into glass--a process called vitrification. For at least the next 1,000 years, that should prevent the most lethal elements from leaching into the environment. The plan is far from perfect. Hanford expects to produce about 500,000 tons of radioactive glass that would have to be buried on-site or shipped to other locations such as the proposed Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada. The cleanup could whack taxpayers with a bill exceeding $40 billion. And the job is so massive that the DOE's Office of River Protection, which is managing the effort, has already warned that it won't make its 2028 deadline unless it finds new technologies to improve the process. "We need to get smarter," says Harry Boston, who heads the office. A tiny group of scientists in San Diego, backed by some of the biggest guns on Wall Street, believe they have a cure for the Hanford headache. Archimedes Technology Group Inc. has invented a machine to filter out the most toxic radioactive elements--the ones that must be enveloped in glass. The least dangerous sludge that's left over might then be processed in a less costly manner. The contraption may thus shave years and billions of dollars off the current cleanup plan. Archimedes has raised $42 million in personal investments from the likes of George R. Roberts, partner in New York leveraged-buyout firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts &Co. Tully M. Friedman, CEO of Friedman Fleischer &Lowe and an investor in such companies as Levi Strauss &Co. is also on board. "If we could solve this problem, that would be a great legacy," says Friedman. Nuclear-waste remediation could be a great business, as well. Aside from the work at Hanford, major cleanup efforts are under way or planned at dozens of sites (table). Then there's the high-level waste from 103 nuclear-power plants in the U.S. that will someday have to be removed from the deep pools it's stored in and placed somewhere safe. Factor in radioactive sites in Europe, Asia, Australia, and the former Soviet Union, and you end up with a potential market in the hundreds of billions of dollars. The DOE and its national labs have been working for decades to develop better ways to deal with nuclear waste, but now more and more private companies are getting involved. The Department expects to award nearly $50 million in grants in 2003 to companies with new ideas for dealing with the materials. "We're looking for radical alternatives," says Gerald Boyd, assistant manager for environmental matters at the DOE's office in Oak Ridge, Tenn. Unlike most waste startups, Archimedes is using private funding. It's building a demonstration unit of its invention, called the Archimedes Plasma Mass Filter, in San Diego, and will begin testing it next year with nonradioactive chemicals that mimic the composition of Hanford's myriad oozes. If it works, they'll negotiate a Hanford contract with the DOE. Nobody disputes that the Plasma Mass Filter is novel. Until now, scientists have focused mostly on chemical separation--to no avail. "The people who brought us the bomb brought us a chemical knot we can't untie," says John Gilleland, Archimedes' CEO. The company's solution ties together different techniques used in plasma physics and nuclear fusion research. The filter, about the size of a large sport-utility vehicle, will use heat and electromagnetic fields to draw the most radioactive elements out of the waste and shoot them into glassmaking machines. Then the radioactive elements are mixed with molten glass and poured into stainless-steel containers. The glass solidifies, trapping the radioactivity in logs that can be buried or stored in vaults. By separating out the most egregious components, the Archimedes device might cut the amount of high-level waste that must be turned into glass by 75%. Outside the U.S., Russia might be a major customer. Its man-made Lake Karachai in Siberia served as a dump for Soviet weapons manufacturers and contains roughly as much radioactivity as was released at Chernobyl. That waste may be headed for the Arctic Ocean. "If it gets there, we'll have an international disaster," says Deborah Brosnan, president of Sustainable Ecosystems Institute in Portland, Ore. Before rescuing the world, Archimedes must prove its invention works. While each component of the filter has been tested elsewhere--the plasma technology is used to make computer chips, for example--the parts have never been tried together. "Given the risks," says investor Friedman, "we had to go in believing we could lose all our money." Lately, the DOE has been open to all suggestions. Earlier this year, at the Office of River Protection, Harry Boston met with Archimedes. The filter "is not ready for prime time, but we're still thinking about it," says Boston. He'd better be. In the past half-century, science has devised many methods to spew radioactive wastes, but precious few to effectively neutralize them. By Arlene Weintraub in San Diego, with Laura Cohn in Washington, D.C. Copyright 2002 , by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights ***************************************************************** 26 Joint Hearing on Transportation of Spent Rods to the Proposed Yucca Mountain Opening Statement of the Honorable Shelley Berkley Storage Facility Subcommittee on Highways and Transit Subcommittee on Railroads April 25, 2002 As the Representative from southern Nevada, I must express the outrage felt throughout Nevada about the Yucca Mountain project. Over 83 % of the people I represent vehemently oppose Yucca Mountain. Why are Nevadans so outraged? Because the state of Nevada produces not one kilowatt of energy through the use of nuclear power. And we create not one ounce of nuclear waste. Yet the federal government is asking the state of Nevada to store 77,000 tons of high level nuclear waste within an hour's drive of the homes of 1.4 million men, women, and children. We don't want the dump, and our country does not need this dump. Yucca mountain is not the solution to the problem of disposal of nuclear waste. There is a myth that the approval of Yucca Mountain as a high-level nuclear waste repository will solve the problem of on-site storage. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Department of Energy admits that as long as we produce nuclear energy, nuclear waste will always be stored on-site. When proponents of Yucca Mountain speak of consolidating the 131 storage site into one repository located at Yucca Mountain, it's a deception. We won't be eliminating storage sites, we will be adding another. The administration's energy plan calls for an escalating reliance on nuclear energy, which means the continued creation of nuclear waste. We will never solve the nation's nuclear waste problem as long as we are pushing an energy policy that continually produces more deadly waste, without offering any solutions. As long as we continue to rely on nuclear power, we will have on-site storage. Today there are 46,000 tons of nuclear waste stored on-site. If we continue to rely on nuclear power, we will create an additional 2,000 tons of waste a year. At that rate, in the year 2036 when Yucca Mountain is filled to capacity with 77,000 tons of nuclear waste, there will still be 44,000 tons of nuclear waste still stored at reactor sites. That means after 38 years of shipping high level waste through our cities and towns we will have reduced onsite storage of nuclear waste by a mere 4%. I would also emphasize that these figures pre-date proposals to increase nuclear power, so this is a conservative estimate of how much nuclear waste will be on site at mid-Century. Why would we want to ship nuclear waste across 45 states for 38 years if it makes no difference in the amount of waste stored on-site throughout the country? Why should we worry about transportation? Because more than 123 million people currently live in the 703 counties traversed by the DOE's proposed highway routes, and 106 million people live in counties along DOE's rail routes. DOE predicts that within the next 30 to 40 years between 10 and 16 million people will live within just one half mile of a transportation route. At the peak of the DOE's shipping schedule somewhere in our country a nuclear waste shipment will leave a reactor every four hours. Given the frequency of these shipments and the sheer volume of the nuclear waste, even routine radiation from the nuclear waste casks, given off while passing on the highway, or stuck at a red light, would be a health concern for people living and working in the vicinity of the transportation routes. And what if there is an accident? The DOE's own environmental impact statement documents that with 108,000 shipments we can expect between 50 and 300 accidents. In just the last two weeks we have unfortunately witnessed two separate devastating train accidents. On Tuesday, a commuter train in California ran head-on into a freight train. On April 18, an passenger train derailed in Florida. Last July, a train carrying hazardous materials derailed in a Baltimore tunnel, closing down the city. That tunnel is on a train route identified by the DOE as a potential route to move waste from the Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant. Can you imagine if this accident involved nuclear waste?.... The chaos the evacuation would cause? ... The potential number of casualties, the health risks? Can you imagine the cost of the cleanup? An even greater concern should be the threat of a terrorist attack. With over 108,000 shipments traveling across the country for 38 years, after 9/11 this is a real threat. With the DOE planning as many as 3,000 barge shipments, in major ports like Boston, New Haven, Newark, Jersey City, Baltimore, Norfolk, Miami, Milwaukee, Muskeegon and Omaha, how hard is it to imagine a nuclear U.S.S. Cole incident? We cannot be naive and think there aren't people out there who are willing to give up their lives to end ours. Two separate tests, one done at Sandia National Laboratory, and the other at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds demonstrates that a TOW missile can breach a nuclear waste canister, and release deadly radiation. This type of terrorist attack, essentially causing a 'dirty bomb' effect, would be disastrous to the environment and human health. You may think that we have tested these casks for exactly that type of scenario. But casks currently in use around the country are licensed through a combination of scale-model testing and computer simulations. Do we really think it is a good policy to ship 108,000 shipments in casks that have never been actually tested. The projected costs of the Yucca Mountain project already range from $56 billion to $309 billion. How do we plan to pay for this. The Nuclear Waste Trust Fund only has $11 billion. Where is the rest of the money going to come from? Are we going to raise taxes? Are we going to raid social security? Are we going to increase the surcharge to the nuclear power ratepayers? And what if that accident or terrorist attack happens? Who is going to pay the cleanup costs, the local governments? How can any of us say that we are fiscally responsible when we are preparing to hand a blank check to the DOE and use the local municipalities and the American taxpayer as the guarantor? The DOE does not like to talk about cost and transportation, because they know the more we know how much waste is going to be transported through our districts, the more likely we are to oppose this project. Make no mistake about it, this is our last chance to vote on the Yucca Mountain issue. If you are concerned with nuclear waste going through your districts, and you want to have your voices heard, if you want to protect your constituents, you had better speak now. Once you approve this project, you are approving 108,000 shipments of nuclear waste through your districts for 38 years. An honest evaluation of the Yucca Mountain Project demonstrates that the benefits simply don't match the risks. Yucca does nothing to alleviate on-site storage problems. It creates additional national security concerns with every truck, rail and barge shipment. This hearing is the last chance we have to question why we are putting our constituents at risk by transporting "mobile Chernobyl's" through their backyards. Transportation is the heart of the DOE's Yucca Mountain plan. If we can't move the waste safely, than we shouldn't move it at all. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has determined that nuclear waste can be safely stored where it is right now for at least 100 years. We have two choices. We can reject this proposal now, and safely secure the waste where it is currently located while our nation's best scientists find a workable long term solution; Or, we can deal with the problem later, when we are cleaning up a nuclear catastrophe and trying to explain to our constituents how we let this happen. ***************************************************************** 27 Gibbons Statement on Energy and Commerce Committee Vote on Yucca Mountain FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE April 25, 2002 Washington, D.C.— Upon learning that the House Energy and Commerce Committee passed the override resolution to recommend Yucca Mountain today, U.S. Congressman Jim Gibbons (R-Nev.) released the following statement: “Certainly, I am disappointed in this vote. Unfortunately, the decision to ship high level nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain has been, from the very beginning, based on politics and not on science. Today’s vote in the Energy and Commerce Committee is evidence of that disgraceful trend. “However, I am pleased that the elected officials of Nevada were able to discuss the real risks of transporting high-level nuclear waste before the House Transportation Committee today. As we continue to educate members of Congress and the American public about both the danger of transporting high-level nuclear waste and the fact that Yucca Mountain does not solve our nuclear waste problem, more and more people will join with Nevada in calling for an end to the Yucca Mountain project.” ***************************************************************** 28 Transport of nuclear waste awaits approval NorthJersey.com - North Jersey News Sunday, April 28, 2002 By BOB IVRY AND ALEX NUSSBAUM Staff Writers At the Indian Point nuclear plant, just north of New Jersey, hundreds of tons of highly radioactive waste are piling up in cooling pools never intended for long-term storage. The scene is repeated at 130 other nuclear sites nationwide. But amid post-Sept. 11 jitters, this pressing storage problem has been intensified by worries that the waste pools pose risks as potential targets for terrorists. The federal government's solution to the mounting pile of nuclear waste at Indian Point and elsewhere is to store it 1,000 feet under a desolate patch of Nevada desert, where it would remain radioactive for 10,000 years. To get to Yucca Mountain, however, tons of spent fuel rods would have to travel thousands of miles by truck, train, or boat. In New Jersey, that trip would bring waste from New York's Indian Point, Connecticut's mothballed Millstone plant, and the state's own four nuclear reactors rolling through some of the nation's most heavily populated areas. It would travel along Routes 287 and 80 through Bergen, Passaic, and Morris counties; in and out of Newark on roads and rail lines; or on barges past the Statue of Liberty and the New Jersey shore. The nuclear waste would be ferried through New Jersey for at least 38 years, beginning in 2010 - but only if Congress approves the Yucca Mountain plan by July 26. The plan is expected to breeze through the House of Representatives as soon as this week but faces a tougher challenge in the Senate. Even with these pivotal votes nearing, few North Jersey officials reached for comment knew about the proposed transportation routes. Some who did know believe nuclear industry and federal officials who say the waste will be moved in ultra-strong, well-guarded shipments that won't threaten the public. But others say they're worried, and they promise to fight. "Moving nuclear waste in the most heavily traveled parts of the metropolitan area is not a good idea," said Sen. Robert G. Torricelli, D-N.J. "The Department of Energy should go back to the drawing board." Multiple sites mean multiple targets Torricelli echoes a coalition of environmental groups and Nevada officials that has fought ferociously against Yucca Mountain since the Energy Department proposed the repository 20 years ago. But the proposal has support from the nuclear industry, which is running out of space for spent fuel. And since Sept. 11, local officials around the country have fretted that leaving depleted uranium at scores of reactor sites gives terrorists multiple targets. As for moving the waste, advocates say the fuel will be safely encased in massive steel-and-concrete casks. In tests, the casks have been rammed with trains traveling 80 mph, dropped onto hard surfaces from 30 feet, spiked on steel rods, submerged under water for eight hours, and baked at 1,500 degrees. "The hell's been knocked out of them," said Robert H. Jones, a nuclear industry consultant from California, "but no radiation has been released." Almost none, actually. The government did blow a 6-inch-wide hole in a cask with a TOW antitank missile, and a "small amount" of radiation leaked out as far as 33 feet, Jones said. Nonetheless, "it wasn't the mobile-Chernobyl, evacuate-Chicago scenario envisioned by the anti-nuclear folks," Jones said. Harrowing scenarios about terrorism But despite satellite tracking, armed guards, and other safety measures, anti-nuclear activists warn that the casks will not be invulnerable. A hijacked shipment, they say, could be useful to terrorists seeking radioactive material to make a "dirty bomb.'' Scientists hired by the state of Nevada rebut Jones' estimates and say an attack with a TOW missile would contaminate up to 5 square miles around the cask attack with deadly radiation. More likely than an anti-tank attack, according to one researcher, would be a hijacking, with terrorists detonating an explosive attached to the cask. Another scenario imagines a bomb planted in a gasoline truck that would pull alongside a truck hauling nuclear waste. "Something like that could be done on the Tappan Zee Bridge," said Bob Halstead, a transportation adviser for the state of Nevada. "It's harrowing." Even normal traffic and rail accidents are a worry, say critics. Just look, they say, at the Baltimore train accident last year, which set off a chemical-fueled fire that burned in an underground tunnel for six days. Or, closer to home, the truck collision that ignited an inferno in Denville and shut part of Interstate 80 for three months. Or the 1996 train derailment that spilled 92 tons of soil contaminated with radioactive thorium from a Wayne Superfund site onto Illinois farmland. As U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a Manhattan Democrat, testified Thursday at a House subcommittee hearing, accidents involving spent fuel might "occur very rarely but, when they occur, have a potential to be of incredibly catastrophic nature. We shouldn't be tempting them.'' The only long-term solution proposed The nation's reactors were never designed to store waste for long periods. But a federal program to recycle spent fuel was discontinued in the 1980s for security and economic reasons, leaving nuclear plants with swelling stores of radioactive waste. Undersea storage and rocketing the waste into space were considered, but now Yucca Mountain is the only long-term solution proposed. The waste consists of ceramic pellets containing uranium, the byproduct of reactors that make power and weapons or aid research. In reactors, the pellets are sealed into metal rods, 15 feet long and a half-inch thick, that are assembled into bundles to fuel the reactor. Nuclear plants retire the rods after two years, submerging them in water for five years of cooling. Most shipments that could come through New Jersey would originate at the state's four nuclear reactors - Hope Creek and Salem 1 and 2 in the southwestern corner of the state, and Oyster Creek, near Toms River. But 1,717 truckloads could cross North Jersey from New York's Indian Point and Connecticut's Millstone. The Energy Department says its routes, shown on the department's Web site, are merely proposals. It would prefer to ship by rail. A train can carry up to five casks of spent fuel weighing 100 tons each - 20 times as much as a truck, which can handle a single cask weighing 25 tons. But the agency has prepared multiple options. For Indian Point, a rail plan probably would bypass New Jersey altogether, sending the rods through Albany before heading west. Another proposal would have the waste barged 42 miles down the Hudson to a railhead in Jersey City, then west on Central Railroad of New Jersey tracks to Pennsylvania. Trucks, however, would rumble down Route 9 in Westchester County, cross the Tappan Zee Bridge, continue along the New York State Thruway, and then head south on Route 287 into Mahwah. They would roll through Bergen, Passaic, and Morris counties before negotiating the tricky interchange at Parsippany and heading west on Route 80. The interchange's tight, steeply banked ramps have always been difficult for tractor-trailers, says Earl Hofker, Parsippany's emergency management coordinator, and may require upgrades. "It's smart to be thinking about this now, even though it's going to be 10 years into the future,'' Hofker said. Passaic County Freeholder Lois Cuccinello, informed of the nuclear waste transit routes, said she will push the area's congressional representatives to oppose them. Other officials were less concerned - not thrilled to have the material rolling through town, but comfortable that people would be safe. "Our emergency management people have every confidence spent nuclear fuel would be adequately protected and properly safeguarded," said Thom Ammirato, a spokesman for Bergen County Executive William "Pat" Schuber. "There's always some worst-case scenario, but most of those belong to fiction novelists or TV writers." 220-foot trucks haul railway casks The Energy Department has assured states they will have a say about where the waste travels. Where Trenton stands is unclear. Governor McGreevey's office did not respond to repeated requests for an interview last week. From Oyster Creek, the agency proposes either barging waste up the coast to trains in Newark or trucking it up the Garden State Parkway or out Route 195, past Trenton. Waste from the Hope Creek and Salem County reactors would travel to a nearby rail line, cross the Delaware Bay by barge to Wilmington, Del., or go across the Delaware Memorial Bridge. To reach the railroads, the casks would be carried on huge, "heavy-haul" flatbeds stretching 220 feet - four times as long as a typical 53-foot tractor-trailer. The casks would emit a modest amount of radiation, acknowledges Jones, the industry consultant. The highest amount allowed by law is 10 millirems, about as much as a chest X-ray. To receive that dose, a person would have to stand 6 feet away for an hour. Lower-level radioactive waste is already a common cargo on the nation's highways - items such as medical equipment and discarded clothing from reactor workers - and some spent fuel rods have already been transported, mostly to plants trying to recycle them into new fuel, the Energy Department notes. About 3,000 fuel rod shipments have been completed without incident, the agency says. "There are 3 million radioactive shipments a year in this country," said Joseph Davis, a department spokesman. "We've never had an accident that resulted in the harmful release of radiation." Local emergency officials agree. They say they are far more worried about hazardous chemicals that crisscross North Jersey daily, with far fewer precautions than the fuel rods would receive. The irony is that even at mid-century, after 38 years of spent fuel transport, nuclear plants will still have to store some waste until it is cool enough to move. It's an issue that has brought environmentalists and industry boosters into the same boat, asking the same question: What's the best way to deal with radioactive waste? "The claims that Yucca Mountain reduces the threat of terrorism by eliminating waste at the 131 sites in favor of one site is a lie,'' U.S. Rep. Shelley Berkley, a Nevada Democrat, said at a hearing this month. "Yucca Mountain will not reduce the threat of terrorism at operating reactors. It adds one more site to protect.'' Staff Writer Bob Ivry's e-mail address is ivry@northjersey.com. Staff Writer Alex Nussbaum's e-mail address is nussbaum@northjersey.com. 3350637 Copyright © 2002 North Jersey Media Group Inc. ***************************************************************** 29 U.S. official admits past secret nuclear pact with Japan Japan Today Japan News - News - Monday, April 29, 2002 at 08:30 JST WASHINGTON — A former senior U.S. government official admitted during a recent interview that the United States made a secret deal with Japan when negotiating the reversion of Okinawa that gave the U.S. permission to bring nuclear weapons into Okinawa in case of an emergency. Morton Halperin, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense and a key player in the negotiations between the U.S. and Japan over the reversion of the Okinawa islands, said in the interview with Kyodo News that the secret pact was necessary to guarantee the security of U.S. forces. The agreement was struck with Tokyo "with the full support of (the) joint chiefs (of staff)," Halperin said, and was aimed at expediting the reversion of Okinawa to Japanese rule and the removal of nuclear weapons from the islands. Halperin said the possibility of an extraordinary crisis that required a U.S. nuclear response could not be ignored, and said the secret agreement was phrased in a manner that the Japanese government could accept and understand. Halperin also said he could have convinced the Joint Chiefs of Staff to allow Japan to reassume control of Okinawa even without the secret deal, but said, "It would have cast a shadow on the negotiations" over the reversion. "I thought it was a reasonable balance between domestic and political interests of Japan and domestic and political interests of the U.S.," said Halpernin, who now serves as a senior fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations. After serving as deputy assistant secretary of defense under President Lyndon Johnson, and as a member of the National Security Council under President Richard Nixon, Halpernin said he supported allowing Okinawa to revert back to Japan, and tried to win over U.S. forces reluctant to relinquish control in the region. Halperin also expressed concern over the alleged revelation of the secret deal by Kei Wakaizumi, a late Japanese secret envoy of Prime Minister Eisaku Sato, in 1994. "I regret it came out. I'm not sure why my friend Wakaizumi decided to release it," he said, adding he thought "the agreement would remain secret for a long time...enough to accomplish its purpose." The secret deal was allegedly struck between Tokyo and Washington in November 1969, and Wakaizumi is thought to have disclosed its existence in May 1994. Okinawa was put under U.S. rule after World War II, and did not revert back to Japanese control for nearly 27 years. The reversion was officially agreed to on May 15, 1972. While the Japanese government and the Foreign Ministry have consistently denied the existence of such a deal, there are people in the U.S. who have acknowledged the secret pact. (Kyodo News) ***************************************************************** 30 US presses Russia on nuclear treaty BBC News | EUROPE | 29 April, 2002, Progress on the nuclear weapons issue has been slow By Sarah Rainsford BBC correspondent in Moscow US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is due to arrive in Moscow for talks with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Ivanov. [rumsfeld] Donald Rumsfeld: Hoping to break deadlock The flying visit is the latest in a long line of trips to Moscow by senior US officials anxious to forge an agreement on arms cuts. With less than a month to go before President George W Bush meets Vladimir Putin in Russia, progress on the thorny issue has been slow. Both sides have agreed to cut their nuclear arsenals by one third, but there is objection in Russia to the American proposal to store, rather than destroy, its decommissioned warheads - leaving them available for use in the event of a threat from the so-called rogue states. The Russians say these "virtual cuts" are not good enough. They are calling for "real and verifiable" reductions - to be policed by arms inspectors. New relationship The bumpy negotiation process is hardly surprising. The proposed new treaty is being touted as the cornerstone of a new relationship of trust between the cold war enemies. For the moment though, they are locked in intensive dialogue. There is hope that Mr Rumsfeld's visit to Moscow can help move the discussion along, although the final chance to break the deadlock is likely to come next week, when Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov travels to Washington. ***************************************************************** 31 U.S., Russia Say Made Progress on Nuclear Arms Cuts Mon Apr 29,10:47 AM ET By Richard Balmforth MOSCOW (Reuters) - The United States and Russia announced progress Monday in negotiations toward an agreement on joint nuclear arms cuts, but gave no assurances an accord would be ready in time for a May summit in Russia. "I personally believe we have reached certain progress today," said Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, who held more than two hours of talks with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld focused on prospects for a new accord to slash stockpiles of nuclear warheads. A nuclear arms deal has been billed as a potential highlight of the summit between President Vladimir Putin and President Bush, which is planned to take place in Moscow and St. Petersburg starting on May 23. But the two sides disagree about the Pentagon's plans to store, rather than destroy, hundreds of the U.S. warheads when they are removed from missiles and bombs. Rumsfeld, standing with Ivanov at a joint news conference after talks at Moscow's Sheremetyevo-1 airport, said: "As he (Ivanov) indicated, we are making progress, and the meetings will continue later this week in Washington." Ivanov, in an opening statement, disclosed that Moscow had put forward "a set of new ideas" a few days ago which could form the basis of a future agreement. He gave no details of the new proposals which were discussed with Rumsfeld Monday, but said they would be taken up again when Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov met Secretary of State Colin Powell in Washington in the next few days. PROGRESS DIFFICULT TO JUDGE It was hard to judge what progress was made, as both defense chiefs refused to give details of their talks. Washington and Moscow have said they intend to cut their arsenals to between 1,700 and 2,200 warheads each over the next decade from a current level of more than 6,000 each. With an eye on the summit, both men were at pains to put a positive gloss on their meeting and neither would be drawn into voicing differences over Washington's plans to store warheads. "I would stop short of making comments in public on a situation which is very delicate now," Ivanov said in reply to a reporter's question. "It is up to the presidents to make the final decisions with respect to agreements like this.....What they decide is up to them," Rumsfeld said. Earlier, a senior U.S. defense official made clear that Washington intended to press ahead with its plans for warhead storage. "It's a fact of life...," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity on board Rumsfeld's plane as it flew into Moscow from a tour of Afghanistan and Central Asia. In reply to questions on Afghanistan and the U.S. military operations, supported by Moscow, to destroy al Qaeda networks there, Ivanov said the Russian and American positions were very close. "Slowly but surely the situation there (in Afghanistan) is stabilizing," he said. Rumsfeld said the United States had made good on its pledge to oust the Taliban and stop al Qaeda using Afghanistan as a base from which to launch terrorist attacks across the world. He said Afghanistan's interim government was taking steps to stabilize the country but it remained a dangerous place and the Taliban had put down roots in other places. "The task is far from over," he said. Copyright © 2002 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 32 Opinions:Bombs away again? Augusta Georgia: Augusta Chronicle Editorial Staff While the United States is looking for ways to rid itself of 40 years of nuclear arsenal buildup during the Cold War, a government report suggests putting the Savannah River Site back into the nuclear bomb-making business. Does the right hand know what the left hand is doing? A 1997 Department of Energy report stamped "not for public dissemination" says SRS would be part of a large-scale plutonium pit production system that would begin work by 2018. Plutonium pits are spherical, metallic objects needed for atomic weapons and would create up to 33,600 gallons of high-level nuclear waste annually. The report, obtained by The (Columbia) State, says SRS officials aggressively pursued the mission. That's no surprise. The site has the infrastructure, experience and expertise to do the job and seeking new missions or revving up old ones will be necessary to keep SRS open for something besides environmental cleanup operations. Without mentioning SRS specifically, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham told the House Armed Services Committee last month that the country needs a contingency plan for a modern plutonium pit production facility. Plans for the facility "will provide the nation with the means to respond to new, unexpected or emerging threats in a timely manner," he said. Clearly, as U.S. Rep. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., points out, the plutonium pit plans are only tentative and as the 2018 date suggests, there's no hurry. Also the production plant would be built only if there's a drastic change in the world situation necessitating large-scale manufacturing of nuclear weapons. Don't hold your breath. Government agencies are always considering options or contingencies, but that doesn't make them a reality. If the feds ever do want to move aggressively to create a new nuclear weapons network, it will have to first convince a wary public that making the weapons will be less of a risk to national security than not making them. The Augusta Chronicle. ***************************************************************** 33 U.S., Russia Say Made Progress on Nuclear Arms Cuts Mon Apr 29,10:47 AM ET By Richard Balmforth MOSCOW (Reuters) - The United States and Russia announced progress Monday in negotiations toward an agreement on joint nuclear arms cuts, but gave no assurances an accord would be ready in time for a May summit in Russia. "I personally believe we have reached certain progress today," said Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, who held more than two hours of talks with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld focused on prospects for a new accord to slash stockpiles of nuclear warheads. A nuclear arms deal has been billed as a potential highlight of the summit between President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites) and President Bush (news - web sites), which is planned to take place in Moscow and St. Petersburg starting on May 23. But the two sides disagree about the Pentagon (news - web sites)'s plans to store, rather than destroy, hundreds of the U.S. warheads when they are removed from missiles and bombs. Rumsfeld, standing with Ivanov at a joint news conference after talks at Moscow's Sheremetyevo-1 airport, said: "As he (Ivanov) indicated, we are making progress, and the meetings will continue later this week in Washington." Ivanov, in an opening statement, disclosed that Moscow had put forward "a set of new ideas" a few days ago which could form the basis of a future agreement. He gave no details of the new proposals which were discussed with Rumsfeld Monday, but said they would be taken up again when Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov met Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) in Washington in the next few days. PROGRESS DIFFICULT TO JUDGE It was hard to judge what progress was made, as both defense chiefs refused to give details of their talks. Washington and Moscow have said they intend to cut their arsenals to between 1,700 and 2,200 warheads each over the next decade from a current level of more than 6,000 each. With an eye on the summit, both men were at pains to put a positive gloss on their meeting and neither would be drawn into voicing differences over Washington's plans to store warheads. "I would stop short of making comments in public on a situation which is very delicate now," Ivanov said in reply to a reporter's question. "It is up to the presidents to make the final decisions with respect to agreements like this.....What they decide is up to them," Rumsfeld said. Earlier, a senior U.S. defense official made clear that Washington intended to press ahead with its plans for warhead storage. "It's a fact of life...," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity on board Rumsfeld's plane as it flew into Moscow from a tour of Afghanistan (news - web sites) and Central Asia. In reply to questions on Afghanistan and the U.S. military operations, supported by Moscow, to destroy al Qaeda networks there, Ivanov said the Russian and American positions were very close. "Slowly but surely the situation there (in Afghanistan) is stabilizing," he said. Rumsfeld said the United States had made good on its pledge to oust the Taliban and stop al Qaeda using Afghanistan as a base from which to launch terrorist attacks across the world. He said Afghanistan's interim government was taking steps to stabilize the country but it remained a dangerous place and the Taliban had put down roots in other places. "The task is far from over," he said. Copyright © 2002 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or ***************************************************************** 34 Temporary manager in Oak Ridge enjoys favored status KnoxNews: Sci/tech By Frank Munger News-Sentinel senior writer April 29, 2002 Most folks in the community seem to like Mike Holland, the Department of Energy's new Oak Ridge manager, and that's predictable because he's not going to stick around. Everybody likes a short-timer. Isn't that a management maxim? Maybe it's easier to like somebody who's here today, gone tomorrow. I remember in high school we kids always adored the substitute teachers who showed up when regular faculty members were out sick or otherwise indisposed. Of course, the subs usually did little more than baby-sit the class. They rarely piled on the homework, wouldn't dare inflict a pop quiz and probably didn't even own a wooden paddle (the behavior-modification tool of the time). Perhaps that's the case with Holland. Perhaps not. Holland is on loan from DOE's site office on Long Island, N.Y., where he oversees operations at Brookhaven National Laboratory. He is interim manager in Oak Ridge, replacing Leah Dever until a permanent manager in named for the operations office, and his assignment in East Tennessee is not expected to last more than six months. He is not a candidate for the Oak Ridge job and doesn't want to be. "I think it's a great staff, a great town. But I have some personal reasons why I really need to be back home. So I'm going to try to hold everybody to the six months," Holland said in an interview last week. The acting manager, however, is in Oak Ridge to do more than baby-sit the federal staff until a new boss arrives. He's actually on assignment to figure out how to restructure the management organization for the future, and his recommendations apparently will form the basis for action at DOE headquarters in Washington. He's reporting directly to Bob Card, the DOE undersecretary who gave him the Oak Ridge assignment. Holland acknowledged that's he not focused on day-to-day operations in Oak Ridge, delegating much of that responsibility to other managers except for certain cry-out situations. "What I've tried to do is limit my scope to things I think I can handle, at least in the short term," he said. Mostly, he's working to develop a series of "management models" for the Oak Ridge office, various ways to reorganize to deal with changes inside DOE and across government as a whole. Ultimately, he will recommend what he thinks is the best approach. Would Card think he's an idiot if he reported back to Washington and said everything in Oak Ridge was hunky-dory just as it is? "I think I'd have to justify any model that I go forward with and have strong reasons as to why I believe that's the case -- whether it's the status quo or something different," Holland said. Oak Ridge, like other DOE sites, has changed rather dramatically in the past few years. Some of the changes reflect the new reality of post-Cold War priorities, whereas others involve big projects to renovate facilities at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant. And, of course, construction of the $1.4 billion Spallation Neutron Source and related research facilities at ORNL is central to the future of the federal complex and the regional economy. The environmental cleanup program is in great flux, as the Bush administration tries to come up with ways to lower the enormous price tag and to get some cleanups done once and forever. Y-12, meanwhile, is no longer the responsibility of DOE's Oak Ridge field office. The warhead production plant now has its own federal oversight office under the flag of the National Nuclear Security Administration, a quasi-independent unit created within DOE to runs the nuclear weapons program. "Things change, and I think they're changing for the better," Holland said. "But we need to figure out how best to support those changes and move ahead." The DOE executive said he had appointed four teams in the Oak Ridge office to evaluate the existing structures and to come up with management possibilities for the future. Two of those teams have restrictions. One will study the management model used by the National Nuclear Security Administration and how it might fit into the DOE operations office in Oak Ridge. Another will look at the environmental management program as a separate entity and how it could be altered to meet needs. (One presumes that team will look at scenarios in which the cleanup folks in Oak Ridge report directly to Washington). The other two teams will have the freedom to explore any options they can dream up, according to Holland. He mentioned that freedom when I asked specifically about continuing rumors that the Oak Ridge Operations office might be folded into the Chicago Operations Office, reporting to the Windy City instead of Washington. Holland said that could be looked at by one of the teams with no pre-determined models, but he also noted: "I seriously doubt that is going to happen. I just can't see that. There are too many core functions that are run out of this office that would still be required to provide services." He also said he expects DOE's operation office will continue to provide support services to the NNSA at Y-12, even though the national security folks have started developing their own management capabilities in several areas. As for who will be the next manager in Oak Ridge, Holland distanced himself from that process and said he would play not part in the decision. He does, however, intend to help in the decision on the Oak Ridge environmental management contract currently held by Bechtel Jacobs Co. Bechtel Jacobs' contract is due to expire next year, and DOE's decision on whether to renew that contract or to seek outside bids is expected relatively soon -- perhaps sometime this summer. "We're gearing up to work on that," Holland said. When asked if there had been a recommendation as of yet, he replied, "Nothing formal." He added: "I think we're still at the stage where I'm learning, I'm looking at it. I don't want to pass judgment one way or the other. I wouldn't want to say pro or con until I have an opportunity to look at it and the opportunity, quite frankly, for Bechtel Jacobs or others to make informal proposals." Holland said he is working to ensure that Oak Ridge gets its "fair share" of DOE funding set aside for accelerated cleanup projects. The letter of intent spelling out the Oak Ridge plan is still in draft form and should be "moving very quickly here in the next few weeks," he said. Senior writer Frank Munger can be reached at 482-9213 or by e-mail at twig1@knoxnews.infi.net. This weekly column on science and technology also is available on our Web site at http://www.knoxnews.com/science/munger/. The Knoxville News-Sentinel Co. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 35 Lobbyist Barbour wrote to Cheney before policy shift USA: April 29, 2002 WASHINGTON - A former head of the Republican National Committee wrote to Vice President Dick Cheney last year urging a pro-energy industry shift on carbon dioxide emissions - just two weeks before the White House backed away from a global treaty to regulate them. The memo, written by former RNC head Haley Barbour, was among thousands of Bush administration documents released under federal court order this week to the conservative group Judicial Watch, which sued to get the papers of the energy policy task force led by Cheney. Barbour, a lobbyist whose clients include utility giant Southern Co ., told Cheney in the March 1, 2001 memo that people expected the Bush administration to carry out policies that would mean "more affordable energy". Barbour headed the RNC from 1993 to 1996. He noted that a decision was soon expected on whether to regulate carbon dioxide emissions. "A moment of truth is arriving in the form of a decision whether this administration's policy will be to regulate and/or tax CO2 as a pollutant," Barbour wrote. "The question is whether environmental policy still prevails over energy policy with Bush-Cheney, as it did with Clinton-Gore," Barbour continued. "Demurring on the issue of whether the CO2 idea is eco-extremism, we must ask, do environmental initiatives, which would greatly exacerbate the energy problems, trump good energy policy, which the country has lacked for eight years?" Two weeks later, Bush pulled the United States from the Kyoto Treaty, an international attempt to limit greenhouse gases. Bush said that the Kyoto treaty's proposed reduction in U.S. emissions by about 7 percent below 1990 levels during 2008-2012 would be too costly to the American economy. This was a change of stance from the Republican president's campaign pledge that carbon dioxide was a pollutant, and thus susceptible to emission controls. But the White House denied that Bush had been swayed by the Barbour memo. "The decisions that the president made related to his national energy plan were done so based on the merits and the benefits to the American people," said White House spokeswoman Anne Womack. The Commerce, Transportation, and Energy departments all released papers to Judicial Watch last week; the Barbour memo was among the Commerce documents. The Energy Department also released some papers to the environmental group, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). Both groups sued for the papers under the Freedom of Information Act, alleging environmentalists had been largely shut out of administration deliberations with representatives of industry - such as the failed Enron Corp . - that led to a pro-oil drilling, pro-nuclear policy last year. But both groups complained that 400 pages of the Energy Department releases were late, and said they would be returning to court to demand some papers that have not been released. The Energy Department produced a 532-page list with brief descriptions of 4,418 documents it does not intend to release. President Bush vowed earlier this year to keep details of his inter-agency task force secret, saying the administration had the right to private advice. The White House is not covered by the Freedom of Information Act, and none of its documents on the energy task force have been released. However two lawsuits are pending to try and force it to do so. One is by Judicial Watch; the other is by the The General Accounting Office, which is suing to get the papers as part of Congress' oversight of the executive branch. The House of Representatives last year approved an energy plan that reflected much of what Bush wanted, but the Senate passed a different version last week, and negotiators are expected to take months working out the differences. Story by Susan Cornwell REUTERS NEWS SERVICE ***************************************************************** 36 Friends of the Earth Statement on Senate Energy Bill U.S. Newswire 25 Apr 13:08 Statement By Friends Of The Earth President Brent Blackwelder On Senate Energy Bill To: National Desk Contact: Mark Helm of Friends Of The Earth, 202-783-7400 ext. 102 WASHINGTON, April 25 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The following was released today by Friends of the Earth: "The Senate Energy Bill would have been forward-thinking legislation when Grover Cleveland was President, " said Friends of the Earth President Brent Blackwelder. "America has the brainpower and know-how to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, but we lack the leadership to fight the wealthy corporate polluters that steer our nation's energy policy." Today, the Senate will miss an historic opportunity to fundamentally change our nation's energy needs. We applaud our Senate champions-Senators Daschle, Kerry and Lieberman-for protecting the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Unfortunately, omission of Arctic drilling fails to make this good legislation. While the bill once promised to help move our energy economy into the 21st Century, it now reaffirms our dependency on the dirty energy technologies of the past. The Senate will enter a conference committee with the House of Representatives hoping to improve the bill. While our hopes are high, we must face the facts: conferencing a bad Senate bill with a House bill that's even worse will produce an energy plan that is bad for the environment, taxpayers and consumers. Both House and Senate energy bills fail the American public by offering no vision or hope for a clean energy future. The House bill exacerbates the past century's pollution pattern of extreme preference for oil, coal, and nuclear energy. The bill provides nearly $40 billion in taxpayer handouts to polluters allows drilling in the Arctic and fails to improve our automobiles' fuel economy. The Senate bill once contained promising requirements for renewable energy and fuel economy. Senators eviscerated these provisions, at the same time adding dangerous new subsidies for the nuclear industry. The bill is now the lesser of two evils. Notwithstanding a few heroic voices in the House and Senate, clean energy does not stand a chance in this Congress. We are capable of running more and more of our economy with fuel cells, solar and wind power, and with energy-efficient buildings, motors, and appliances. America has the technology and knowledge to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, but institutionally, we lack the leadership to fight the multi-billion-dollar oil and auto companies that defend the status quo. http://www.usnewswire.com -0- /U.S. Newswire 202-347-2770/ 04/25 13:08 Copyright 2002, U.S. Newswire ***************************************************************** 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: *****************************************************************