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03/30/02 ****     RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL)       **** VOL 10.81
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                         NUCLEAR POLICY
 
1 Construction of 8 Japan Nuclear Power Reactors Delayed 
2 Megawati: N Korea Open to New Talks
3 UK: Political war over push to build more reactors in Scotland
4 US: Environmentalists, consumer advocates critical of Senate on 
5 US: Editorial: Why the secrecy on energy?
6 China: Meeting highlights nuclear power
7 N. Korea Reactor Project on Course 
8 US: More Review on Nukes, Please 
9 US: Details of energy firms' clout could hurt Bush 
10 US: Environmental problems in Alaska deeply troubling to native 
11 US: Fighting for America's Energy Independence (1)     
12 The China Syndrome (1)     
 
                         NUCLEAR REACTORS
 
13 US: Federal officials, Voinovich expected to praise Perry for 
14 Fukui power plant holds nuclear disaster drill 
15 US: New Rules Aim to Beef Up Nuclear Security          
16 US: SPOOKED NEIGHBORS SUE TO PUT MISSILES AT INDIAN POINT
17 US: Meeting to focus on nuclear problems (Davis-Besse)
18 Bulgaria: Decommissioning of nuclear plant to cost 450m euros 
 
                          NUCLEAR SAFETY
 
19 Nuclear experts dismiss US fears of plutonium misuse 
20 Afganistan: Atomic Experts Examine Kabul Cobalt
21 UK nuke watchdog weighs implications of US find
22 Britain Backs Depleted-Uranium Study Effort 
23 Nigeria denies selling uranium to Israel
 
                         NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
 
24 US: YMP a hot topic for Rep. Gibbons(R)
25 UK: Hewson's star-studded anti-Sellafield ad scrapped 
26 US: Nevada AG files motion on Yucca water
27 US: Nevada nuclear dump foes welcome TV episode about waste mishap
28 US: Nuclear waste may ship through valley 
29 US: No health threat found in radioactive area  (US Corp Of Eng)
30 US: Safety of shipping nuclear waste debated
31 US: Nevada nuclear dump foes welcome TV episode about waste mishap
32 UK: Ali's anti-Sellafield TV ads hit by legal crux 
33 US: Nevada AG files motion on Yucca water
34 US: Denial of water permits sought by DOE for Yucca Mountain questio
35 US: Few step up with money to fight dump
36 US: Yucca: Herrera asks NRC to plan LV meeting
37 US: Bill to fund atomic waste dump study 
38 US: 'West Wing' episode could help in fight against dump
39 US: Political notebook: Yucca fight gets help in prime time
40 US: Nevadans hope to spread anti-Yucca message nationwide
41 US: Safety of Shipping Nuclear Waste Questioned 
 
                         NUCLEAR WEAPONS
 
42 Bush sticks by 'axis of evil' 
43 US: Activists stage annual rally at Nevada Test Site
44 US: Review: Paranoia Strikes Deep
45 US: Group holds annual Good Friday test site protest
46 Of nukes, maneuvers and stubborn perceptions
47 US: Dangerous Turn In Nuclear Policy 
48 Saudi Puts Faith in Iraqi Pledge 
49 Endangering US Security     
 
                        US DEPT. OF ENERGY
 
50 DOE computer systems' security lax 
51 Good Friday rally for peace draws 270 to nuclear lab 
52 Lab physicist wins Fulbright scholarship 
53 (Bush's New Plan for) Cleaning up on Hanford
54 Web site covers IAAP cleanup 
 
 
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                         FULL NEWS STORIES
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 1 Construction of 8 Japan Nuclear Power Reactors Delayed 


Jiji Press English News Service ( March 29, 2002 ) 


Tokyo, March 29 (Jiji Press)--Japan will delay by one year the 
construction of eight out of 19 planned nuclear power reactors, 
the Natural Resources and Energy Agency said Friday. 

      Those subject to the delay include No. 7 and No. 8 reactors 
at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power 
plant, and a reactor at Electric Power Development Co.'s plant in 
Oma, Aomori Prefecture. 

      Japan needs to build 10 to 13 new reactors to achieve its 
goal of increasing nuclear power generation by 30 pct by fiscal 
2010 from fiscal 2000 as part of its efforts to reduce greenhouse 
gas emissions.[2]
      



(C) 2002 Jiji Press English News Service. via ProQuest 
Information 
*****************************************************************
 2 Megawati: NKorea Open to New Talks
 
Las Vegas SUN
 
March 29, 2002 

SEOUL, South Korea- North Korean leader Kim Jong Il responded 
"affirmatively" to a South Korean offer to reopen talks with the 
United States, Indonesia's president said Saturday after a 
diplomatic trip. 

Megawati Sukarnoputri flew to Seoul after an official three-day 
visit to North Korea, during which she held talks with its 
reclusive leader and carried a message from South Korea. 

"I delivered a message from (South Korean) President Kim 
Dae-jung, to which (North Korean) leader Kim Jong Il responded 
affirmatively," Megawati Sukarnoputri said at a joint news 
conference with the South Korean president. 

The Indonesian president did not disclose details of her 
discussion with Kim Jong Il, but South Korean officials said the 
message she delivered to him included an appeal for Pyongyang to 
revive stalled dialogue with Washington. 

It was the first sign that North Korea might be open to a Bush 
administration offer to restart talks on a range of issues, 
including its missile stockpile and other weapons of mass 
destruction. Ties between all three nations suffered after 
President Bush said North Korea was part of "an axis of evil." 

North Korea has already agreed to reopen a stalled dialogue with 
Seoul by accepting a special South Korean envoy next week. The 
envoy's mission is to revive stalled reconciliation talks aimed 
at eventually reuniting the divided Korean peninsula. 

Inter-Korean exchanges, which flourished after the two Korean 
leaders met in Pyongyang in 2000, are currently frozen amid 
tension between the United States and North Korea. 

Shortly after taking office, President Bush expressed skepticism 
about the North Korean leader. Relations worsened after Bush 
labeled North Korea part of "an axis of evil" along with Iran and 
Iraq, accusing all three nations of trying to develop weapons of 
mass destruction. 

During a visit to South Korea in February, Bush said his view of 
North Korea had not changed. He offered, however, to start talks 
with the North despite U.S. concerns over Pyongyang's alleged 
attempts to build nuclear weapons after promising in 1994 to stop 
the arms program. North Korea rejected that offer. South Korea is 
a key U.S. ally. About 37,000 U.S. troops are stationed in South 
Korea, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War. The Korean border is 
the world's most heavily armed, with nearly 2 million troops 
deployed on both sides. 

Megawati and the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, are childhood 
acquaintances. They first met in 1965 in Indonesia at the 10th 
anniversary of a summit of the Nonaligned Movement of third world 
countries. They were accompanying their fathers at the summit. 

Kim Jong Il took power after his father Kim Il Sung, who ruled 
North Korea for nearly half a century, died in 1994. 

Friendly relations between Indonesia and North Korea ended in 
1966 when Indonesia's second president, Suharto, ousted 
Megawati's father, Sukarno. Suharto outlawed communism and banned 
Indonesians from visiting communist countries. 

Sukarno visited North Korea in 1964. 

All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
 3 UK: Political war over push to build more reactors in Scotland

TONY Blair has been forced to step in over a humiliating row 
about who has the final say in the decision to build nuclear 
power stations in Scotland.

 The prime minister has personally written to Alex Salmond, SNP 
leader in Westminster, to clarify that the decision rests with 
Holyrood.

 "Scottish ministers, answerable to the Scottish Parliament, have 
the final say over approving or rejecting nuclear power stations 
in Scotland," he wrote.

 It follows an embarrassing clash of opinions on the matter 
between Brian Wilson, energy minister, and George Foulkes, 
Scotland Office minister.

 Mr Wilson had already claimed the position was "unambiguous".

 "All of the relevant powers are devolved to Holyrood," he said.

 But Mr Foulkes argued that planning powers to secure energy 
supplies were reserved at Westminster.

 Confusion arose because planning consent is devolved to the 
Scottish Parliament. However, legislation on energy matters comes 
under the 1989 Electricity Act, which is ultimately reserved to 
Westminster.

 A Downing Street spokesman confirmed that although Scottish 
ministers are responsible for taking decisions within the 
confines of the act, they had no power to change the legislation.

 In the event of a clash between the two parliaments the UK 
government could claw back the devolved powers without primary 
legislation.

 Mr Foulkes said last night: "There is absolutely no problem 
here."

 A jubilant Mr Salmond said: "This is a solid result for the SNP 
amid the confusion spread by government ministers - particularly 
in the Scotland Office."

 -March 29th
 
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 4 Environmentalists, consumer advocates critical of Senate on 
energy bill
 
   KRT Wire | 03/29/2002 | 

   [http://www.tallahassee.com]     [Tallahassee Photos]   

 By FRANK DAVIES
 Knight Ridder Newspapers
 
WASHINGTON - A coalition of environmental and consumer groups is 
criticizing Florida's two senators, Bob Graham and Bill Nelson, 
and many of their colleagues, for a series of votes this month on 
a far-reaching Senate energy bill.
 
The groups analyzed five votes during the March debate on the 
bill, and said Graham and Nelson, both Democrats, voted the wrong 
way on three of them: extending liability protection for nuclear 
plants, defeating a bid to require utilities to use more 
renewable fuels, and exempting certain types of gas drilling from 
clean-water regulations.
 
"They were on the wrong side of the tracks on those issues," said 
Daphne Sorenson, a field organizer for the Florida Public 
Interest Research Group. "These votes amounted to corporate 
welfare."
 
The state PIRG said the two senators earned a "D" grade for the 
March votes. Sorenson said that was "a surprise," given that her 
group has "worked well" with Graham and Nelson to block offshore 
oil drilling and on Everglades issues.
 
The U.S. PIRG, along with the Sierra Club, Defenders of the 
Wildlife and the Natural Resources Defense Council, also praised 
the two senators for two votes: backing the unsuccessful effort 
to increase vehicles' fuel efficiency standards and keeping 
minimum renewable-energy standards in the bill.
 
Graham and Nelson defended their voting record, noting that the 
complex bill is a work in progress with many more votes to come. 
Both senators oppose drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife 
Refuge, an issue due to come up when Congress returns April 9.
 
A spokeswoman for Graham also said the environmental groups chose 
to highlight five votes out of dozens cast on the energy bill.
 
"This is like tasting just the appetizers and then reviewing the 
entire restaurant," said Jill Greenberg.
 
Nelson's office released a statement that the scorecard 
"mischaracterizes" his record. Last year Nelson earned an 88 
percent score on environmental votes and Graham 75 percent by the 
League of Conservation Voters.
 
According to their staffs, Graham and Nelson opposed Sen. James 
Jeffords' amendment to require electric utilities to produce 20 
percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2020 as an 
unrealistic goal. But they backed a 10-percent requirement that 
withstood several votes.
 
The groups criticized a majority of senators.
 
"In vote after vote, the Senate bill has been plundered by the 
auto, oil and nuclear industry," said Anna Aurilio, legislative 
director of U.S. PIRG.
 
Environmental groups also criticized a Graham amendment, which 
may come up next month, that would allow sold waste incineration 
to be defined as a renewable energy source.
 
The liability protection for the nuclear industry in the event of 
a reactor accident extends a law that has widespread support in 
Congress, but is opposed by some environmentalists who say it's a 
"subsidy" for the industry.
 
"It's an overall bad idea, and gives the nuclear industry an 
advantage that other industries do not have," said Liz Hitchcock, 
communications director of U.S. PIRG.
   
*****************************************************************
 5 Editorial: Why the secrecy on energy?
 
Las Vegas SUN
 
March 29, 2002 
 
Go back 10 years, go back 20 years, go back 30 years. Now, try to 
find any debate, vote, or correspondence on the federal level 
having to do with energy that is not heavily weighted toward 
fossil fuels and the nuclear industry. The search will be 
fruitless. The federal government pays lip service to notions of 
conservation and alternative energy sources while the big 
industries, with their big money, get all the access. Ensuing 
legislation -- such as the Clean Air Act -- can sometimes be 
nettlesome, but overall for the past decades oil and nuclear 
power have driven federal policies on energy.

 A history of questionable policies can be more easily accepted 
if today's leaders are learning from the past and adjusting 
current policy. Unfortunately that's not happening under the 
Bush-Cheney administration. Same old, same old is the expression 
springing to mind. Documents relating to Vice President Dick 
Cheney's energy task force, which met secretly last year, were 
released last week, and all 11,000 pages showed an unchanged 
devotion to the views of oil and nuclear industry 
representatives. The documents included policy statements 
submitted by environmental groups such as the Wilderness Society, 
but none of their representatives had a chance to meet face to 
face with the likes of Cheney or Energy Secretary Spencer 
Abraham. Such access was reserved for representatives of the 
American Coal Co., the Independent Petroleum Association of 
America, the Nucle ar Energy Institute, and other power and oil 
and gas companies.

 The documents, by the way, were not released willingly. Cheney 
has been using his considerable power to fight public disclosures 
about his energy task force. The papers, many looking like 
letters home from World War II with huge parts of them blacked 
out by censors, were released only after lawsuits filed by two 
environmental groups. Another 15,000 pages were withheld 
completely. Why the secrecy? Can it be that the 
Bush-Cheney-Abraham energy policy owes more to the industry than 
the citizens?
 
All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
 6 Meeting highlights nuclear power

  China Daily   
    
 (FU JING)
03/28/2002

 HANOI: Asian countries meeting here for an atomic energy 
workshop said they strongly support developing nuclear energy to 
tackle increasingly serious energy problems. 

They said they will only use energy for peaceful purposes, in 
health care, agriculture, industry and environmental protection. 

Ten Asian countries, including China, Viet Nam, Indonesia and 
Cambodia, attended the workshop jointly organized by the 
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Viet Nam Atomic 
Energy Commission. 

Viet Nam has worked significantly on nuclear energy development 
and will begin generating nuclear power in 2017, at a capacity of 
between 1,200 and 4,000 megawatts depending on their economic 
growth, the country's Minister of Science, Technology and 
Environment Chu Tuan Nha said yesterday. 

Nha said Prime Minister Phan Van Khai last May authorized work on 
a pre-feasibility study to build a nuclear power station in Viet 
Nam. The study should be completed next year, when it will go 
before the National Assembly for approval. 

But Nha also said nuclear energy is still not the global choice 
for sustainable energy development yet. 

Indonesian authorities told China Daily that their country has 
already planed to construct a nuclear power plant. 

"We already have the plan but I'm not informed with time 
arrangement," said Bakri Arbie, a senior official with the 
country's National Nuclear Energy Agency. 

IAEA said the workshop brings together Asia's scientists and 
administrators to discuss and share information such as their 
experiences with nuclear safety, management of materials and 
radioactive waste, and issues regarding the proliferation of 
nuclear weapons. The workshop, with the theme of nuclear energy 
and sustainable development started on Tuesday and is scheduled 
to end today. 

The IAEA said it will provide any assistance to its member 
countries, especially developing countries with sound economic 
development. 

"Many nuclear techniques are relatively cheap, simple to handle 
and offer excellent and often unique benefits in areas such as 
pest control, water resources management, human health, and 
environmental protection," said Victor M. Mourogov, deputy 
director-general of IAEA's Department of Nuclear Energy at the 
workshop's keynote speech on Tuesday. 

Statistics from the IAEA show that the attractiveness of nuclear 
energy varies among countries. There are 442 operating nuclear 
power plants in the world, but 85 per cent of them are in 
industrialized countries. 

China has made firm commitments to the peaceful use of nuclear 
power, and will develop the energy in accordance with economic 
and social progress in the next few years, said an unnamed 
official with the State Development Planning Commission. 

Qinshan Nuclear Power Station in East China's Zhejiang Province 
and Daya Bay Nuclear Power Station in South China's Guangdong 
Province began operation in 1993 and 1994 respectively. Four 
other nuclear power stations are under construction in the 
coastal areas. 

  copyright 2002 by chinadaily.com.cn. all rights reserved.   
*****************************************************************
 7 N. Korea Reactor Project on Course 

(washingtonpost.com)
 
Tensions With U.S. Fail to Derail Accord 

By Doug Struck
 Washington Post Foreign Service
 Saturday, March 30, 2002; Page A08 

SEOUL -- Though harsh rhetoric continues to fly back and forth 
between Washington and Pyongyang, an international consortium 
that includes the United States will apparently continue 
construction of twin nuclear power reactors in North Korea, 
according to the chairman of the group doing the work.
 
"Nobody wants to be the first one to run away" from the 1994 
Framework Agreement, "and have the blame at their doorstep," said 
Chang Sun-Sun, South Korea's ambassador to the project. He was 
referring to the accord under which the United States, along with 
South Korea and Japan, agreed to construct the safer, light-water 
reactors in exchange for North Korea ending its nuclear program. 
To abandon the agreement, he said, "would have enormous impact on 
the overall peace and security on the Korean Peninsula."
 
Both sides recently have issued warnings about the accord. 
President Bush this month refused to certify North Korea's 
compliance with the pact, reflecting the administration's 
dissatisfaction with it. North Korea, in turn, has threatened to 
abandon the agreement and resume work on older Soviet-built 
nuclear plants from which it could extract bomb-grade material.
 
Chang, who also serves as chairman of the project's executive 
board, called the warnings nothing more than "rhetoric." But he 
and other analysts predicted that North Korea will not 
immediately agree with inspections being demanded by the United 
States -- and called for under the agreement -- which could 
reveal whether North Korea has made enough plutonium for a 
nuclear bomb.
 
First, he said, North Korea wants the consortium to finish more 
of the construction work on the reactors, for which only the 
foundations are dug. "They want to see some progress for 
themselves," he said. "When the concrete pours in August, I think 
it might have some impact on their way of thinking."
 
Relations between Washington and Pyongyang, the North Korean 
capital, have suffered during the Bush administration, which 
suspended talks with the Stalinist government, labeled it part of 
an "axis of evil" and listed it as a potential U.S. nuclear 
target. Bush administration officials have never embraced the 
Framework Agreement, which was negotiated by the Clinton 
administration.
 
On March 19, Bush declined to certify to Congress that North 
Korea was upholding the agreement, although the administration 
offered no evidence it had been violated.
 
Pyongyang, in turn, said "nuclear lunatics have taken office in 
the White House," and threatened to end its observance of the 
pact. Reflecting its desperate shortage of electricity, North 
Korea caused consternation in Washington by inviting Russia in to 
build a nuclear power plant, a move Moscow said it was 
"considering."
 
The bitter language between the countries is expected to preclude 
a resumption of talks. Analysts expressed concern it might have 
more serious consequences if North Korea resumes producing 
plutonium, or resumes the missile tests it pledged to suspend 
until next year as a gesture to the United States.
 
"Washington is playing a dangerous game," Robert M. Hathaway, 
director of the Asia Program at the Woodrow Wilson International 
Center, wrote in the daily Korea Times newspaper. "It will give 
new ammunition to the hard-liners in Pyongyang. It might lead 
North Korea to do something truly dangerous."
 
The twin light-water reactors were supposed to be built by next 
year by the Korean Peninsula Economic Development Organization, a 
consortium of the United States, Japan and South Korea. Each side 
has blamed the other for delays in the project, caused by 
difficult negotiations with North Korea, labor problems, 
opposition from Congress and lapses in funding. Excavation for 
the foundation of the plant is just being completed, and the 
pouring of the concrete is supposed to begin in August.
 
A key requirement of the deal is North Korean acceptance of an 
inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. 
body that monitors nuclear development, to determine if nuclear 
fuel was diverted from a North Korean power plant to use in 
building weapons. The CIA has said North Korea may have diverted 
enough plutonium to make one or two nuclear bombs.
 
The United States and the IAEA want the inspections to begin now, 
and Bush has cited North Korea's refusal as part of his 
justification for his hard-line stance.
 
But North Korea suspects that Washington wants the IAEA 
inspections to start now to find a reason to stop work on the 
reactors project, according to Paik Haksoon, a North Korea expert 
at the Sejong Institute in Seoul.
 
"North Korea feels it has been deceived by the United States and 
cannot trust Bush," he said. "They are keeping their nuclear card 
until the United States has reached the point of no return" in 
constructing the light-water reactors, he said.
 
Chang, the South Korean official, agreed: "They want to see some 
progress for themselves," he said. "When the concrete pours in 
August, I think it might have some impact on their way of 
thinking."
 
The 1994 agreement requires the IAEA inspection to be completed 
before "key components" of the reactor are delivered, tentatively 
scheduled to occur in 2005. U.S. and IAEA officials have 
estimated the inspection could take three or four years and argue 
that inspectors should begin work now.
 
But North Korean officials have balked, complaining of 
Washington's desire for "early" verification. In addition, the 
construction timetable for the reactors has repeatedly slipped; 
some officials involved in the project have said it may not be 
finished until 2010. Chang said project officials no longer 
publicly predict a completion date.
 
� 2002 The Washington Post Company
*****************************************************************
 8 More Review on Nukes, Please 

(washingtonpost.com)
 
Saturday, March 30, 2002; Page A16 

Walter Pincus's March 23 news story, "U.S. Nuclear Arms Stance 
Modified by Policy Study," left the impression that the 
preemptive nuclear strikes contemplated by the Nuclear Posture 
Review would be "against hostile countries that threaten to use 
weapons of mass destruction." 

Mr. Pincus did not mention that the review also envisions 
launching such first strikes "in the event of surprising military 
developments" or "against targets able to withstand non-nuclear 
attack." 

Frankly, the standard seems to be something like "nuclear weapons 
can be used whenever we think we would need them to win." And not 
only in cases where American interests are directly at stake -- 
the review plans for the possibility of a nuclear attack against 
China in the event of a "military confrontation over the status 
of Taiwan."
 
Do Americans really want to restart the arms race by developing a 
more "flexible" arsenal of nuclear weapons and looking for more 
occasions on which to use them? I don't think so, but nobody 
seems to be asking us. Has Congress abdicated its role in shaping 
nuclear weapons policy? It ordered this review and should respond 
to it. 

Decisions this momentous must not be made without democratic 
deliberation and oversight.
 
SUE HEMBERGER 

Washington
 
� 2002 The Washington Post Company
*****************************************************************
 9 Details of energy firms' clout could hurt Bush 

Many proposals adopted verbatim 

Marc Sandalow, Washington Bureau Chief [msandalow@sfchronicle.com]          
Thursday, March 28, 2002 
  
Washington -- Environmentalists believe they have been handed a 
potent political weapon this week in the 6-foot-high stack of 
documents detailing the development of President Bush's energy 
plan. 

Beyond the unappetizing, behind-the-scenes look at the White 
House sausage- making operation, the 19,000 pages reveal dozens 
of contacts between energy industry representatives and executive 
branch policy makers. 

While lobbyists' fingerprints can be found on every piece of 
significant federal policy, critics say the bald attempt by 
energy companies to influence the administration's plan -- and 
the exposure given to their apparent success - - will have a 
chilling effect on Bush's ability to actually carry out 
industry's wishes. 

"It becomes harder (for Bush) to defend some of the policies in 
his energy plan," said Greg Wetstone, program director at the 
Natural Resources Defense Council. The White House "has to be 
very careful how they proceed here." 

To many, the discovery that big donors and industry officials had 
a big say in the development of the energy policy packs about as 
much journalistic punch as "dog bites man." 

E-mails written by energy lobbyists that turn up nearly verbatim 
in Bush's plan, frequent meetings between Energy Secretary 
Spencer Abraham and industry officials and a revolving door 
between government and business, merely confirm the most cynical 
assumptions about how Washington normally works. 

Yet as the White House and its defenders dismiss the front-page 
headlines as much ado about nothing, opponents say certain 
documents will make it politically complicated, if not 
impossible, for the administration to proceed on matters such as 
drilling for oil in the Alaska wilderness and weakening the Clean 
Air Act. 

The president's energy plan, which passed the House last summer, 
is languishing in the Democratic-controlled Senate. But opponents 
worry that Bush will find a way to use his wartime popularity to 
sell key provisions, including oil drilling in Alaska, the 
construction of thousands of electricity plants and large 
subsidies for coal and nuclear power producers. 

"It's in our national security interests that we do so," Bush 
said yesterday at a fund-raiser in South Carolina. 

The Energy Department documents were made public late Monday, 
along with thousands of others related to Vice President Dick 
Cheney's energy task force, to comply with a court order under 
the Freedom of Information Act. 

The papers, many of which have been blanked out or heavily 
edited, provide no evidence of criminal wrongdoing. But they show 
that administration officials met with scores of representatives 
from the energy industry and virtually no environmentalists. 

"What's the news?" said Senate minority Leader Trent Lott. "The 
Energy Department talked to people who can produce more energy. . 
. . Focusing the task force's attention where they could gather 
the most expertise seems to have made for an efficient operation 
which produced a comprehensive and balanced plan." 

Environmentalists believe the release of the Energy Department 
documents along with the high-profile implosion of Enron -- and 
the likelihood that more documents be released in the coming 
months -- will help them keep Bush on the defensive. 

"I had already painted the picture, but now I can fill in the 
blanks," said California Sen. Barbara Boxer, who has often 
portrayed the Bush administration as insensitive to California's 
energy woes and unresponsive to the state's cry for help. 

Ensuring that the story stays in the news, the NRDC -- one of 
several organizations that sued to gain the Energy Department 
documents -- went back to court yesterday demanding that details 
omitted from thousands of the documents be turned over. 

"The documents show unprecedented details that big energy 
companies all but held the pencil" as the administration wrote 
its energy policy, said NRDC President John Adams. 

The environmental group produced several examples, including a 
memo written by the American Petroleum Institute proposing 
language for an executive order governing energy regulations. An 
almost identical order was issued in conjunction with the release 
of the president's energy plan. 

They also highlighted a memo from Southern Co., a large energy 
company, calling for a review of federal action against companies 
that perform major renovations and do not upgrade their 
facilities to comply with the Clean Air Act. At the time, 
Southern was in the middle of a dispute with federal officials 
over its compliance. 

Bush's plan, to the shock of environmentalists, called for a 
review of such "enforcement actions." Though a subsequent 
examination has found that such actions are proper, the entire 
policy is now being reviewed by the administration. 

Before the documents were released, environmentalists feared Bush 
would act to weaken this aspect of the Clean Air Act. 

Now, Adams said, "there are a lot of people watching. And now we 
can show them the documents." 

E-mail Marc Sandalow at msandalow@sfchronicle.com 
[msandalow@sfchronicle.com] .
    
�2002 San Francisco Chronicle � Page A - 3 
*****************************************************************
 10 Environmental problems in Alaska deeply troubling to native 
people 

Bozeman Daily Chronicle
  
03/30/02

 By GAIL SCHONTZLER Chronicle Staff Writer 

Americans think of Alaska as a pristine wilderness, but its 
environment is plagued by nasty pollution, global warming and 
other threats that are deeply troubling to native people who live 
off the land. Patricia Cochran, an Inupiaq Eskimo and executive 
director of the Alaska Native Science Commission, explained the 
threats Thursday night at Montana State University. 

Her talk, attended by about 50 people, was part of the four-day 
Montana Native American Issues Conference, "Protecting Mother 
Earth." 

"The Arctic is in a precarious situation," Cochran said. 

Temperatures have risen about 4 degrees in a decade, she said. 
Ice cellars used for centuries are beginning to melt. Eskimo 
hunters have to paddle 40 miles off shore, instead of two miles, 
to find whales. 

Native people are upset by signs that moose, game mammals and 
fish are getting sick. Cancer rates appear to be rising among 
native people, who stand at the top of the food chain. 

Eskimos also worry about pollution from hundreds of U.S. military 
sites where abandoned fuel storage tanks, mustard gas and DDT 
have not been cleaned up. They worry about Soviet-era nuclear 
submarines dumped in the oceans, about arsenic and mercury from 
old gold mines and the lingering effects of the Exxon Valdez oil 
spill, the world's largest. 

"The weather has gotten warmer. The taste of the plants has 
changed. The fur is coming off the seals like they're molting, 
but it is not molting time. We're wondering if Chernobyl is 
responsible," one Eskimo man, who lives on an island three miles 
from Russia, told researchers. 

In the past, such native comments were dismissed by scientists as 
merely "anecdotal," Cochran said. 

Now, under a unique program supported by the National Science 
Foundation and funded by federal grants, scientists are working 
with native communities and taking Eskimo people's knowledge and 
observations seriously. 

In the past, university researchers would come in, get what they 
needed to write their dissertations or journal articles and get 
out, she said. Now they are starting to work in partnership on 
issues that can benefit, rather than exploit, traditional 
communities. 

Eskimos cannot understand catch-and-release sport fishermen, who 
rip up the mouths of fish and throw them back, Cochran said. This 
shows disrespect, and elders say that's why many fish are not 
coming back. 

They rely on the land, not just for food and medicinal plants, 
but for their own spirituality and perpetuation of their culture, 
Cochran said. "The elders are concerned that our lands be left 
behind in decent condition ... to the seventh generation." 

Henrietta Mann, a Southern Cheyenne who holds MSU's endowed chair 
in Native American studies, said American Indians in the lower 48 
states are also distressed about what human beings are doing to 
Mother Earth. 

Gail Schontzler is at gails@gomontana.com. 
  
*****************************************************************
 11 Fighting for America's Energy Independence (1)     
       

FEATURE STORY | April 15, 2002 
by Matt Bivens  

Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat, took to the Senate floor 
on February 27 with an impassioned plea for a small federal 
subsidy that has fueled an explosion of activity in the 
wind-power industry. "Congress is messing around back and forth, 
stuttering, and not getting it done," Dorgan complained. 

The so-called wind production tax credit (PTC) Dorgan was 
championing is tiny as subsidies go--over a decade it has cost 
roughly $55 million--and remarkably effective. Wind is the 
fastest-growing energy industry in the world, and last year was 
the US wind-power industry's best ever, with power capacity 
equivalent to that of roughly six coal-fired power plants coming 
online--minus coal's pollution. "The exciting thing is, 
[wind-power growth] is happening all over the country--it's not 
just California," says Christine Real de Azua, a spokeswoman for 
the American Wind Energy Association. 

Nevertheless, the wind PTC struggled to get a proper hearing. 
Finally, on March 8, Congress approved a meager two-year 
extension, which wind's supporters had tacked onto the 
unemployment insurance bill. That's a short time frame for 
investors to do much planning, though, so Dorgan and others 
continue to push for at least a five-year extension. 

Judged just on its merits, this would probably pass with 
bipartisan support. But Congress is tentatively committed to 
gargantuan new subsidies to coal, oil, gas and nuclear power--the 
only disagreement so far is exactly how obscenely enormous they 
will be. So the five-year wind PTC will be held hostage, to 
provide green window dressing for less admirable legislation. The 
Republican energy plan, touted in the President's State of the 
Union address, would dole out $35.6 billion over ten years--or 
about $125 per American--to the oil, gas, coal and nuclear 
industries. The Democratic Senate energy bill is larded with 
almost as many tax-funded mega-giveaways to polluters. By 
contrast, the wind PTC has, to date, cost every American about 19 
cents. 

The good news is that wind power and other renewables don't have 
to depend on federal leadership. An energy revolution of wind, 
solar and clean-burning hydrogen fuels is fast 
approaching--thanks to engineers and entrepreneurs, farsighted 
state governments and business realities: Renewables have been 
steadily dropping in price. They are winning victories in the 
marketplace even while swimming against the federal riptide of 
subsidies to Big Oil and King Coal. 

'Greenery, Market Forces, Innovation' 

America is the Persian Gulf of wind. The Energy Department 
estimates that wind in the Dakotas alone could meet two-thirds of 
America's electricity needs; Texas could meet the last one-third. 
But there are good winds across America--in a ranking of the top 
states for wind, California, the wind-power poster-child, comes 
in at a lowly seventeenth. Solar power is equally bountiful: The 
Union of Concerned Scientists says 100 square miles in Nevada 
could produce enough solar electricity to power the nation. 
Worldwide, solar--like wind--is experiencing growth rates 
reminiscent of the computer industry. Germany has harnessed a 
world-leading 6,000 megawatts of wind power--roughly equal to 
twenty coal-fired power plants--and has decided to phase out 
nuclear power entirely by 2025. Japan and Germany are putting 
photovoltaic solar panels on thousands of roofs, while Spain and 
the Philippines last year agreed to bring solar electricity to 
400,000 rural Filipinos. A similar program has been under way in 
South Africa since 1999, with Nelson Mandela's vocal support. And 
Ireland just announced what will be the world's largest offshore 
wind park. Eddie O'Connor, managing director of Ireland's utility 
Eirtricity, says offshore wind could provide two-thirds of 
Europe's electricity by 2020. "The resource is there, the 
technology is proven, the costs continue to drop--all that is 
needed is the political will to see it happen," O'Connor says. 


Most important, wind and solar power can now be efficiently 
stored by using them to create hydrogen, a fuel that generates 
only drinkable water as waste. Electricity generated from wind or 
sunlight can be used to zap water--"electrolyze" it--to harvest 
the H from H2O. That hydrogen can then be used in fuel cells to 
produce heat and electricity or to power automobiles. Lester 
Brown of the Earth Policy Institute envisions wind farms 
producing electricity by day and hydrogen for cars by night. 
"None of this is as pie-in-the-sky as it sounds," reported 
Fortune magazine in November 2001. "Potent commercial forces are 
bringing the hydrogen economy along faster than anyone thought 
possible only a few years ago." 

Britain has already announced that every tenth car sold there by 
decade's end must be powered by hydrogen or some other 
zero-emissions fuel. Hydrogen fuel-cell systems can be found 
across New York City--from the Cond� Nast building to sewage 
treatment plants to a Central Park police station--and across 
America--from a post office in Alaska to the space shuttle. 
Automobile and oil companies have set up well-funded 
hydrogen-fuels divisions, and major car companies are racing to 
bring a hydrogen car to market. Toyota intends to start selling 
one in January of next year. "Greenery, market forces and 
innovation are reshaping our industry and propelling us 
inexorably toward hydrogen energy," a Texaco executive told 
Congress last year. The executive director of advanced technology 
vehicles at General Motors agreed, telling a petrochemicals 
conference, "Our long-term vision is of a hydrogen economy." No 
less a person than Henry Ford's great-grandson, Ford Motor 
chairman William Ford, says hydrogen will put an end to "the 
100-year reign of the internal-combustion engine." 

� 2002 The Nation Company, L.P. Permissions | Letters to the 
Editor 
*****************************************************************
 12 The China Syndrome (1)     
       
book REVIEW | April 15, 2002 

The China Syndrome
by Dusanka Miscevic & Peter Kwong 

Like it or not, America has been able to achieve and maintain its 
supremacy as a global power because of its capacity to absorb the 
best from the rest of the world. This dependency on foreign 
imports is especially clear in the realm of science and 
technology. Roughly one-third of US Nobel laureates were born 
outside the United States and became naturalized citizens. The 
father of the American nuclear program was a foreigner. But most 
foreign-born scientists toil away unrecognized in our nation's 
research labs, universities and private firms, forming the 
backbone of American high technology. In computer software 
development, now widely considered the most important area of 
American advantage, foreign nationals are commonly recognized as 
being among the best programmers. Almost a third of all 
scientists and engineers in Silicon Valley are of Chinese or 
Indian decent. 

America cannot afford to lose the loyalty of these high-tech 
coolies it has come to depend on, yet that's exactly where it 
seems to be heading with recent cases of immigrant-bashing and 
racial and ethnic profiling by opportunistic politicians seeking 
short-term political gains. In the aftermath of the September 11 
terrorist attacks, the animosity aimed at the enemies of the 
United States has also been extended to immigrants and American 
citizens who originally came from the same part of the world. 

Hundreds of Arab-Americans and Asians from the Indian 
subcontinent have been detained as suspects, without charges 
filed against them, under "special administrative measures" in 
the name of national security. The majority of Americans, the 
interpreters of polls tell us, approve. It was in the name of the 
same national security that a Chinese-American physicist, Wen Ho 
Lee, was accused some three years earlier of stealing the "crown 
jewels" of the US nuclear program and giving them to mainland 
China; similarly enacted special measures threw him in chains and 
into solitary confinement, although the government had no 
evidence against him. 

His public lynching, which was caused by and fed into America's 
national angst concerning enemy number one of that 
time--China--is the subject of the two books under review. As a 
perfect example of a national security investigation botched by 
racial and ethnic profiling, which led to a shameful failure of 
all the institutions involved, it could not have been exposed at 
a better time. 

China emerged as America's prime antagonist after the end of the 
cold war. During the cold war, it was always easy to tell who was 
America's enemy and who was a friend. Then, with the 
normalization of Chinese-US diplomatic relations in the late 
1970s, those lines began to blur. For a time at least, the 
People's Republic of China (PRC) was no longer a foe. Individuals 
and institutions from all walks of life were happily embracing 
the idea of scientific and cultural exchange, and even nuclear 
scientists went back and forth. It was understood that the common 
enemy was the USSR. 

This cozy relationship ended with the fall of the Soviet Union, 
when US policy-makers, without clearly defined targets, began to 
show signs of what Henry Kissinger calls "nostalgia for 
confrontation" and cast about for a manichean opponent. With its 
rapidly expanding economy in the 1990s, which brought it into 
some conflict with American interests in Asia, China became the 
most logical choice. 

The targeting of Chinese-Americans and the questioning of their 
loyalties did not begin in earnest until after the 1996 general 
election, when Republicans accused members of the 
Chinese-American community of passing campaign donations from 
government officials of the PRC to Bill Clinton's re-election 
campaign. It was said to be a clandestine plan by China to 
influence US policy; the charge was not substantiated, but 
Asian-American contributors to the Democratic Party were 
investigated by the FBI for possible involvement in traitorous 
activities, and suspicions of disloyalty among Chinese-Americans 
lingered. 

The investigation of Wen Ho Lee, who was then a research 
scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboratories in New Mexico, 
started soon after the campaign scandal. It was initiated by an 
intelligence report that in 1992 China had tested a bomb very 
much like the Los Alamos-designed W-88, considered one of the 
smallest and most highly optimized nuclear weapons in the world. 
Carried on Trident II submarine-launched missiles, the W-88 can 
hit multiple targets with great accuracy. When a Chinese defector 
to Taiwan brought documents with diagrams and text descriptions 
of a long list of US strategic weapons, including the W-88, US 
counterintelligence circles cried espionage and began an 
investigation. 

� 2002 The Nation Company, L.P. Permissions | Letters to the 
Editor 

*****************************************************************
 13 Federal officials, Voinovich expected to praise Perry for 
performance, safety

The News-Herald  

Dino DiSanto Staff WriterMarch 30, 2002

In a change over the last 30 days, a FirstEnergy Corp. owned and 
operated nuclear power plant is going to be receiving some good 
news.

The Perry Nuclear Power Plant in North Perry Village will be 
visited next week by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and 
U.S. Sen. George V. Voinovich. 

Both are expected to give Akron-based FirstEnergy accolades for 
its performance/safety and its new security measures.

On Monday, Voinovich, Ohio's junior Republican senator, will 
visit the plant to review security.

Following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, all 103 nuclear 
reactors in the United States were put on heightened security 
alert and asked to implement additional security measures.

On Feb. 26, those temporary measures, along with other security 
measures, became permanent. Nuclear reactors were then given 20 
days to come in full compliance.

Voinovich is going to visit the plant to check on the new 
security measures, which include:

n Increased patrols

n Increased security forces and capabilities

n Additional security posts

n Additional physical barriers, and vehicle checks at greater 
stand-off distances

n Enhanced coordination with law enforcement and military 
authorities

n More restrictive site access controls for all personnel

The other visit will to the plant will be from the federal agency 
that oversees nuclear power plants.

The NRC will meet Wednesday with plant officials to review the 
plant's performance from April through December of 2001.

Jan Strasma, spokesman for the NRC Region III office in Lisle, 
Ill., near Chicago, said there were no violations of NRC rules at 
the plant.

The plant - which began operations in 1988 and produces 1,320 
megawatts of power an hour - met all performance indicators. That 
means the NRC will require no additional oversight.

All this is occurring as Ohio's only other nuclear reactor, also 
owned by Akron-based FirstEnergy, is under intense scrutiny.

The 25-year-old Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station in Port Clinton 
was shut down after it was discovered that acid in cooling water 
had eaten a hole nearly all the way through the 6-inch-thick lid 
of the reactor.

The corrosion left only a stainless-steel liner less than a 
half-inch thick to hold in cooling water under more than 2,200 
pounds of pressure per square inch.

The stainless steel was bent by the pressure and would have 
broken if corrosion had continued, according to the NRC.

FirstEnergy hopes to patch the hole, an irregular opening of 
about 4 inches by 5 inches. But the NRC is skeptical about 
whether this is possible. 

No one in this country has replaced a reactor vessel head, 
although several plants have ordered parts to do so.

FirstEnergy ordered a new head just before the extent of the 
problem became obvious. A company spokesman said the company 
hoped to install it in the spring of 2004.

That date reflects how the industry, with no new reactor orders 
in decades in this country, has limited production capacity for 
such parts. 

The NRC, which has warned plants for years to watch for any 
corrosion, has ordered all 68 other plants of similar design - 
pressurized-water reactors - to check their lids. 

Residents of Northeast Ohio don't have to worry because Perry 
isn't a pressurized-water reactor. 

�The News-Herald 2002 
*****************************************************************
 14 Fukui power plant holds nuclear disaster drill 

Japan Today Japan News - 

Saturday, March 30, 2002 at 16:00 JST

MIHAMA 

A Kansai Electric Power Co nuclear power plant in the town of 
Mihama, Fukui Prefecture, on the Sea of Japan coast held a 
nuclear disaster drill Saturday, according to plant and local 
officials.

The drill took place at the Mihama nuclear power plant on the 
assumption that a major radiation leak similar in scale to the 
1979 Three Mile Island accident had occurred, the officials said. 
About 2,000 residents, government workers and officials from 
state-related entities including the Cabinet Office as well as 
neighboring local governments took part, they said. 




(Kyodo News)
*****************************************************************
 15 New Rules Aim to Beef Up Nuclear Security          

FOXNews.com
 
March 30, 2002
 			 				 				By Carl Cameron
WASHINGTON � An investigation into security at the Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission's national headquarters has determined that 
as many as "100 foreign nationals are working at the facility, 
and up to 35 may be visa violators or illegal aliens." 

		 	 	 	 		 			 				 				 				 				
According to sources close to the review, investigators have 
discovered that one Chinese national was "writing sensitive 
computer code on NRC computers" even though his visa was in 
violation. Furthermore, sources said he had never had a 
background check.
 			 				
Though NRC headquarters, located in suburban Maryland outside 
Washington, D.C., is now off limits to the Chinese national, 
sources said he continues to work for the agency from his nearby 
home.
 			 				
[FNC] FNC NRC and DEA are worried about who's using their 
computers   

Similar situations and concerns at the Justice Department 
prompted a sweeping new policy announcement recently entitled 
"Non-U.S. Citizens Prohibited From Department of Justice 
Information Technology Systems." 
			 				
A copy obtained by Fox News says that without scrutiny and 
clearance, foreign nationals "shall not be authorized to access 
or assist in the development, operation, management, or 
maintenance of department information technology systems."
 			 				
The Pentagon is creating a similar policy, expected to be issued 
within 60 days, and following the Defense Department inspector 
general's recent conclusion that when sensitive military 
information is compromised, 87 percent of the suspects are 
employees, consultants or subcontractors. 
			 				
With the new policies in effect, the Drug Enforcement 
Administration, which falls within the Department of Justice's 
purview, is experiencing a wrinkle in the new security blanket. 
Foreign nationals are hired all the time to translate wiretapped 
calls between international smugglers. The translations often are 
done at military installations at home and abroad and sensitive 
government computers are used to dictate the messages. 
			 				
The Immigration and Naturalization Service is supposed to assist 
with checking the backgrounds and monitoring these individuals 
but insiders say more often then not procedures and rules are 
just ignored.
 			 				
Last week, INS Commissioner James Ziglar issued a new policy of 
zero tolerance for any deviation from established immigration 
policies and procedures after it was discovered that an INS 
inspector violated some of the agency's rules when he approved 
shore leave for four Pakistanis who then never returned to their 
ship in Norfolk, Va., and have been missing ever since.
 			 				
Ziglar's zero tolerance policy drew immediate fire from critics 
who said it would tie law enforcement's hands and make their jobs 
tougher since so many INS rules are contradictory or create 
unnecessary bureaucracy.
 			 				
To cut some of that bureaucracy, the commissioner has revised his 
zero tolerance plan to say INS agents should use their common 
sense and discretion when deciding if the rules should be 
applied.
 			 				
After May 1, INS border patrol agents nationwide will also be 
relieved from requirements that they answer to the East, West and 
Southern regional offices, sources said. Instead, border patrol 
will be put directly under the authority of headquarters in 
Washington. Other INS law enforcement officers will still have to 
go through their various field and regional offices.
 			 				
Critics say INS should cut all the red tape, and put all of law 
enforcement under headquarters' command, not just border patrol 
but so far that is not in the works.
 			 	 	   
Fox News Network, LLC 2002. All rights reserved. 		
*****************************************************************
 16 SPOOKED NEIGHBORS SUE TO PUT MISSILES AT INDIAN POINT

NYPOST.COM Regional News: 

By DEVLIN BARRETT
 
March 30, 2002                                           --                              

Two Westchester residents filed a bizarre lawsuit yesterday 
asking a judge to order surface-to-air missile launchers placed 
around the Indian Point nuclear power plant to protect it from 
possible terror attacks. 

Lisa Sarrio and Luis Lozano want Manhattan federal Judge Lawrence 
McKenna to force the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to impose 
strict new security measures around the plant. 

Since the Sept. 11 terror attacks, many Westchester residents 
have voiced fears that a similar kamikaze-plane attack could 
unleash a nuclear disaster in the metro area. 

The suit says that a "surface-to-air [SAM] missile retaliatory 
response . . . would effectively obliterate the threat." 

The NRC has failed its obligation to protect Indian Point, so a 
judge must now intervene and order stricter measures, the suit 
argues. The plaintiffs suggest a possible doomsday scenario if 
the judge rejects their request. 

After an attack, "vast tracts of New York state, including New 
York City, will likely be rendered virtually permanently 
uninhabitable," they argue. 

The possible nuclear meltdown would cause "political, economic 
and social crises and chaos of such magnitude as to threaten the 
very existence of this nation and leave its very survival in 
doubt," the papers say. 

The NRC could not be reached for comment. 

Home [http://www.nypost.com]                      
*****************************************************************
 17 Meeting to focus on nuclear problems (Davis-Besse)

Beacon Journal | 03/29/2002 | 

 Regulatory commission to talk next week about Davis-Besse damage

 By Jim Mackinnon

 Beacon Journal business writer
 
One week from today, inspectors from the Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission will talk publicly about the damage they found at 
FirstEnergy's Davis-Besse nuclear power plant -- damage that's 
had the nuclear power industry and others holding their 
collective breath.
 
That meeting, at Oak Harbor High School, is set for 9 a.m.
 
It will be followed at 1 p.m. by another public meeting in the 
same location in which the NRC will report that through Dec. 31, 
``Davis-Besse operated in a manner that preserved public health 
and safety and fully met all cornerstone objectives.''
 
Two meetings, two different viewpoints, same federal agency.
 
``Obviously, this (1 p.m. meeting) was overtaken by events,'' NRC 
spokesman Jan Strasma said. ``The news of the day will be in the 
morning meeting.''
 
But the NRC requires that the afternoon meeting, an 
``end-of-cycle assessment'' in their vernacular, be held. The 
assessment -- a look at how Davis-Besse performed-- covers just 
from April 1, 2001, to Dec. 31, 2001. In a letter dated March 4 
to FirstEnergy -- just a week before acid-caused damage was 
revealed in a critical safety component -- the NRC said based on 
its early assessment it planned to conduct just ``baseline 
inspections'' with no additional oversight at Davis-Besse through 
March 31, 2003.
 
The subsequently revealed damage will keep the nuclear plant shut 
down at least through the end of June, and perhaps much longer.
 
In the morning meeting, the NRC ``Augmented Inspection Team'' 
will give its own preliminary findings on what caused boric acid 
to eat two cavities into the reactor vessel head, a critical 
safety device that covers the radioactive fuel core.
 
The NRC team won't have a final written report on its findings 
for another three to four weeks, Strasma said.
 
The five-person inspection team won't work today but will be back 
in Oak Harbor, about 25 miles east of Toledo, on Wednesday or 
Thursday, Strasma said.
 
A team of FirstEnergy scientists and investigators earlier this 
week released a preliminary report that showed boric acid, which 
is part of the reactor coolant, may have started damaging the 
reactor head vessel years ago.
 
The Akron utility has said repairing the damage could cost 
between $5 million and $10 million, plus an additional $10 
million to $15 million a month in extra energy costs for each 
month the reactor is down. The NRC must approve any repairs and 
could force FirstEnergy to instead replace the 150-ton safety 
device, which could keep the plant closed for two more years.
 
Davis-Besse was shut down on Feb. 16 for refueling and a safety 
inspection. That inspection found cracks in five of 69 nozzles on 
top of the reactor vessel head. Cracks in two of the damaged 
nozzles apparently allowed boric acid to leak out onto the carbon 
steel vessel head and create two cavities. One of those cavities 
ate all the way through the carbon steel, only to stop when it 
ran into a thin stainless steel lining inside the reactor vessel 
head.
 
No radiation was released into the environment, and officials say 
that if the acid had breached the reactor vessel head, safety 
systems would have shut down the reactor immediately.
 
The NRC subsequently ordered the 68 other similar nuclear power 
plants in the country to ensure that they don't have the same 
kind of damage.
 
Oak Harbor High School is at 11661 West State Route 163 in Oak 
Harbor.
 
Jim Mackinnon can be reached at 330-996-3544 or 
jmackinnon@thebeaconjournal.com [jmackinnon@thebeaconjournal.com]   

*****************************************************************
 18 Bulgaria: Decommissioning of nuclear plant to cost 450m euros 

BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Mar 29, 2002

Sofia, 28 March: The decommissioning of Units 1 and 2 of the 
Kozloduy nuclear power plant will cost an estimated 900m leva 
(approximately 450m euros), Energy and Energy Resources Minister 
Milko Kovachev told journalists [on] Thursday [28 March].

Two costing projects are under way now, one run by the European 
Union and the other by the International Atomic Energy Agency, 
Kovachev said. Their results will be ready in May, he added. As 
he put it, the reactors can be physically shut down immediately, 
but the decommissioning process takes between 35 and 40 years 
according to the option adopted by Bulgaria.

Kovachev said that the energy development strategy was presented 
at a cabinet meeting on Thursday. "I hope that the Council of 
Ministers will consider it on 11 April," he added.

The European Commission has already committed 100m euros to the 
Kozloduy International Decommissioning Support Fund (KIDSF) and, 
together with the money provided by five or six donor countries, 
the fund holds 115m euros, the energy minister said. The 
Framework Agreement between Bulgaria and the European Bank for 
Reconstruction and Development on the operation of the KIDSF does 
not modify the conditions set by the 38th National Assembly, he 
said.

"The ratified agreement is crucial for the development of 
Bulgaria's power industry and for continued successful 
negotiations with the European partner," said Vesselin Bliznakov, 
deputy floor leader of the Simeon II National Movement (SND) and 
chairman of the National Assembly Committee on Energy and Energy 
Resources. In his opinion, the ratification allows Bulgaria to 
continue the negotiations on the future of Units 3 and 4, which 
must be completed before the end of the year. "We do not give up 
the modernization and development of nuclear power in this 
country," Bliznakov emphasized.

According to Daniel Vulchev, MP of the SND, who chairs the 
parliamentary European Integration Committee, the ratified 
Framework Agreement is financial and does not have a direct 
bearing on the way Bulgaria will be developing its nuclear power 
industry. "The Framework Agreement does not set any time limits 
and dates other than those agreed in the 1999 memorandum," he 
noted.

According to Asen Agov, MP of the Union of Democratic Forces, the 
ratification of the agreement builds a form of confidence that 
will make it possible to extend the life of these reactors while 
operating them safely...

Source: BTA web site, Sofia, in English 28 Mar 02 /BBC 
Monitoring/ � BBC.
*****************************************************************
 19 Nuclear experts dismiss US fears of plutonium misuse 

The Times of India; Mar 30, 2002

MUMBAI: Chairperson of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) Anil 
Kakodkar has said that India's nuclear programme has been 
indigenously developed with all controls and safeguards in place.

He was responding to the U.S. energy department's recent report, 
which stated that Washington had given two to three kilograms of 
plutonium to 33 countries, including India, until the 1970s under 
a government programme to promote peaceful uses of nuclear 
energy.

Among the countries which had received sealed plutonium capsules 
were Brazil, Israel, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia, Greece, 
Columbia, Thailand, Turkey, Venezuela and Vietnam.

Speaking to TNN here on Friday, Mr Kakodkar said: ``The quantity 
of plutonium the report talks about has to be verified. All the 
same it appears to be an insignificant amount to be of any 
concern.'' 

''Yes, I do remember that the U.S. did give us a small quantity 
of plutonium,'' said former AEC chairperson Raja Ramanna. He felt 
that the amount was of little consequence and would not cause a 
hazard.

Asked why the U.S. was suddenly raking up the issue and wanted to 
reclaim the nuclear material, he said, ``I think it is a 
mischievous move.'' The Indo-American nuclear agreement would 
have to be examined to see if the U.S. could reclaim the 
material, he said.

Secretary of the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) K.S. 
Parthasarathy said that plutonium of a few grams is usually used 
in experiments and poses no radiation hazard. ``All these sources 
have been accounted for and the inventory is maintained by the 
owners of the material, like the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre,'' 
he said.

He said India had a range of radiograph equipment containing 
radioactive sources to carry out non-destructive testing, 
specially of steel. ``Compared to plutonium, these radiographic 
sources can give rise to many hazards if the equipment is not 
handled properly,'' he said. Mr Parthasarathy said that India had 
developed the skill and know-how at all levels to handle such 
dangerous sources without risk.

Other officials in the department of atomic energy recalled that 
between 1953 and 1954, Indo-U.S. talks on the international 
control of atomic energy and disarmament intensified. On December 
8, 1953, President Eisenhower delivered his famous `atoms for 
peace' speech at the UN General Assembly where he mooted the idea 
of forming an atomic energy agency. According to him, this agency 
would act as a bank to receive fissionable materials taken from 
American and Soviet weapon stockpiles and manage the allocation 
of nuclear material to power-needy countries.

The sources said President Eisenhower's proposal was not fully 
supported in India because it was seen as a ploy to ``to nip 
nascent nuclear aspirants in the bud''.

Another former AEC chief, P.K. Iyengar, dismissed suggestions by 
the U.S. energy department that the small amount of plutonium 
supplied by it could result in a radiation hazard. He believes 
that the department could be targeting some of the smaller 
nations which had received the sealed plutonium capsules and 
possibly used them for ``various other purposes''.

All Material Subject to Copyright
*****************************************************************
 20 Atomic Experts Examine Kabul Cobalt
 
Las Vegas SUN
 
March 29, 2002 

KABUL, Afghanistan- Atomic experts came to Afghanistan this week 
after radioactive cobalt-60 was found in the abandoned wing of a 
hospital - a discovery that raised fears other dangerous 
materials might lie forgotten in the country's rubble. 

Though radioactive materials can be used to make "dirty bombs," 
there was no evidence the cobalt-60 was intended for anything but 
medical treatment or that it had been tampered with by al-Qaida 
or the Taliban, said Capt. James Cameron, head of the 
peacekeepers' nuclear, biological and chemical monitoring group. 

The team, acting on information from Afghan authorities, 
discovered the cobalt-60 at the hospital in the western part of 
Kabul, Cameron said. It was housed in a machine for treating 
cancer and was located in an abandoned wing of a hospital - 
surrounded by 10-foot-thick, lead-lined walls. 

The doors of the room were open, and the machine where the 
cobalt-60 was stored had been pried open. Cameron said the 
tampering had probably been done a decade ago during factional 
fighting that destroyed large parts of the hospital. 
International peacekeepers closed up the machine and sealed the 
room. 

Finds of such dangerous materials are cause for concern, experts 
said. 

"These sources are very worrying, and particularly in 
Afghanistan," said Tom Clements, executive director of the 
Nuclear Control Institute in Washington. U.S. officials have 
sounded the alarm about the threat posed by so-called dirty bombs 
since Sept. 11, and regulatory authorities have called for 
greater monitoring of radioactive materials that could be used to 
make them. 

The devices use explosives to scatter radioactive material. They 
are not nuclear bombs, but could contaminate populated areas and 
cause disease and panic, experts say. 

Investigators believe the medical equipment was brought to 
Afghanistan by the Soviets in 1978. The material inside measured 
a still-potent radiation reading of more than 300 curies last 
week, Cameron said. 

A three-member team from the Vienna-based International Atomic 
Energy Agency arrived on Monday to investigate after the 
peacekeepers determined they couldn't handle such the radioactive 
materials on their own. 

The agency team also toured an out-of-use physics laboratory at 
Kabul University that contained several radioactive isotopes that 
could be dangerous in the wrong hands, Cameron said. 

The energy agency team determined that no hazardous radiation had 
contaminated the laboratory or the hospital, but nevertheless 
recommended both be secured, a U.N. official said, speaking on 
condition of anonymity. 

On Monday, crews were to begin transporting the materials from 
the physics lab to the hospital wing so they could be safely 
stored in the lead-lined room, Cameron said. 

The materials eventually will have to be removed to ensure they 
don't leak or fall into the wrong hands, but it will be a 
multimillion-dollar operation that will require international 
assistance, Cameron said. 

He said his team will have to investigate other possible 
radioactive sources at textile and food factories where the 
Soviets may have installed radiation equipment. 

Cameron credited Afghans with having kept the cobalt-60 source 
quiet during the years when al-Qaida had much influence in the 
country's government. "They as much as anyone realized the 
potential of the wrong people getting ahold of this," he said. 

All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
 21 UK nuke watchdog weighs implications of US find

UK: March 28, 2002

LONDON - Britain's nuclear watchdog said yesterday it was 
examining whether unexpected corrosion at a reactor in the United 
States had any safety implications for a simliarly-designed 
nuclear power station in Suffolk, eastern England. 

"We are aware of the incident at Davis-Besse (the U.S. plant) and 
we have obtained technical information from the U.S," a spokesman 
for the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII) told Reuters. 
"We are pursuing the implications for the Sizewell B plant with 
operator British Energy ."

U.S. regulators have ordered 69 nuclear plants with the same 
pressurised water reactor (PWR) design as Davis-Besse to submit 
safety information after unexpected corrosion was found last 
month inside the chamber of the reactor in Ohio.

In total the U.S. operates 103 nuclear plants generating about 20 
percent of the country's electricity.

British Energy said recent checks of Sizewell B, Britain's only 
PWR plant, had shown no signs of the type of corrosion found at 
Davis-Besse.

"Sizewell B was inspected in September 2000 and it was entirely 
fault-free. It will be inspected in May this year," a spokesman 
said.

"The type of problem at Davis-Besse is exactly the sort of thing 
that is inspected as a matter of routine," he said.

Completed in the mid-1990s Sizewell B is Britain's newest nuclear 
power station.

British Energy said although Sizewell B is a PWR there are 
several design differences with the much older U.S. plant.

The U.S.' Nuclear Regulator Commission said it did not believe 
the corrosion problems at Davis-Besse constituted a radiation 
leak, but that they could reduce its margin of safety. 

REUTERS NEWS SERVICE 
*****************************************************************
 22 Britain Backs Depleted-Uranium Study Effort 

Military: Aviation Week's AviationNow.com
 
By AviationNow.com Staff 

28-Mar-2002 2:51 PM U.S. EST 

Britain's Defense Ministry is backing a broad research program to 
examine possible risks to soldiers from depleted-uranium 
anti-tank rounds in the wake of findings by the U.K.'s science 
academy that a handful of soldiers could suffer kidney problems 
from DU exposure. 

Though most soldiers' exposure will be too minor to cause 
heavy-metal poisoning, "the kidneys of a few soldiers may be 
damaged if they inhale large quantities of DU after their vehicle 
is struck by a penetrator or while working for long periods in 
contaminated vehicles," the U.K. Royal Society concluded earlier 
this month in a report on risks from DU munitions. 

The report also warns that soil near the DU rounds' impact sites 
could be contaminated "and could be harmful if swallowed by 
children, for example," the group says. "Although only a small 
number of civilians will be at risk, heavily contaminated soil 
should be removed if battlefields are re-populated." 

The Defense Ministry didn't say whether it would actually sponsor 
or support further research, but within days of the Royal 
Society's report the government said it considered a program of 
peer-reviewed independent research to be "desirable." 

Such a study should "help set the risks to our own forces from 
not using depleted-uranium munitions against certain difficult 
targets, such as modern armor, in the context of any possible 
health hazards its deployment might pose," the Defense Ministry 
said in a formal statement reacting to the Royal Society's 
report. 

It's clear that DU munitions won't go away, the government said, 
given continual advances in armor and the likelihood that at 
least some battlefield allies will be using DU shells as well. 

"Therefore, although the MOD believes DU munitions to pose an 
actual health risk under only the most extreme of conditions, 
further research can only be to the good," the government said. 

Worries about DU exposure came to a head in late 2000 in European 
nations, particularly in Italy, after allied veterans from 
military action in the Balkans started complaining of higher 
cancer rates. Similar concerns cropped up after the Gulf War 
littered the Iraqi desert with depleted-uranium shells. 

The material used in the munitions has only been minimally 
studied and medical researchers still haven't settled on how much 
residue -- dust swallowed or inhaled when the round hits its 
target -- can be harmful. But it's plausible that long-term 
radiation exposure could lead to cancers, and heavy-metal 
poisoning can damage kidneys. 

Even so, most experts think it's unlikely that cancers turning up 
in some Balkan veterans can be linked to the tank-busting 
munitions because the illnesses are showing up too quickly. And 
if the kidneys were going to fail, researchers say, they would 
have failed much earlier. 

In May 2001, a NATO working group said that so far it found that 
Balkan veterans didn't get sick or die at rates higher than those 
expected for non-deployed forces and general civilian 
populations. 


[http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/] NATO Depleted Uranium Data<br>
                   
[http://www.nato.int/du/home.htm] Links To U.S. Depleted Uranium
Studies<br>

[http://www.nato.int/usa/uranium.html] 
*****************************************************************
 23 Nigeria denies selling uranium to Israel

GN Online: 

Dubai:Saturday, March 30, 2002   

Abu Dhabi |By A Staff Reporter | 30-03-2002 

Aichatou Mindaoudor, Nigerian minister of foreign affairs, has 
denied any cooperation between Nigeria and Israel on the sale of 
uranium.

Nigeria is the third largest uranium producing country in Africa 
but it respects and implements commitments not to sell dangerous 
material to other states for negative use, Mindaoudor reiterated.

However, the low price of uranium had, in fact, an adverse affect 
on the Nigerian economy. Mindaoudor pointed out that other 
natural resources in Nigeria are iron and phosphate which, 
however, are not priority items in the world economy.

At a press conference at the Zayed Centre for Coordination and 
Follow-Up on a recent visit to the UAE, Mindaoudor expressed full 
support for the Palestinian struggle to establish their 
independent state and flayed Yasser Arafat's home arrest.

Reviewing the Nigerian-Arab relations in different fields, the 
Nigerian minister went on to laud the supportive resolution 
adopted by the OIC (Organisation of Islamic Conference) regarding 
the exploitation of resources in Nigeria.

Describing the Nigerian-UAE relations as distinct and friendly, 
the minister also spoke of how these relations were based on 
understanding and frankness.

The relations between the two countries date back to 1980 when 
the UAE first constructed an electric project in Nigeria.

The minister's visit is aimed at further boosting and promoting 
relations and friendship between the UAE and Nigeria.

Praising the will of the UAE officials in strengthening these 
relations, the minister also praised the prominent role of the 
UAE in supporting and encouraging investments in Nigeria. He 
hoped to multiply the UAE's investments in Nigeria.

The minister also explained that Nigeria has no boundary disputes 
with its neighbours. He noted that there is a misunderstanding 
with Benin.

He said that they will resort to the International Court of 
Justice to settle the dispute.    
 
Publishing LLC
*****************************************************************
 24 YMP a hot topic for Rep. Gibbons(R)

Pahrump Valley Times  

By DOUG McMURDO, News ReporterMarch 29, 2002

Congressman says transporting the waste a key issue

The Yucca Mountain Project and the very real possibility Nye 
County will be the permanent home to 77,000 metric tons of 
high-level radioactive waste was a hot topic Saturday morning 
when Congressman Jim Gibbons (R-Nev.) met with Pahrump residents 
at the community center.

One man told Gibbons Nye County would require hundreds of 
millions of dollars to prepare and train for the potential 
shipments. Gibbons responded by saying transportation was one 
issue the Department of Energy has failed at. The DOE has studied 
Yucca Mountain, located 20 miles east of Beatty, as the site to 
store nuclear waste.

Gibbons posits the DOE will face "tremendous costs" associated 
with transportation. The 77,000 metric tons of waste translates 
into 96,0000 shipments through 41 states. Gibbons said the DOE 
has stated there have been three test shipments with no 
accidents, but indicated such a boast was meaningless. 
"Everything worked at the World Trade Center until 9/11," he 
said, adding statistics show a train derails on average every 24 
hours.

Other communities around the nation are also objecting to Yucca 
Mountain transportation plans. An official from the community of 
White Plains, N.Y., has expressed outrage of DOE plans to ship 
waste through the city, and others who are just now learning what 
routes are being considered have voiced objections.

Other concerns raised by residents focused on local healthcare 
for veterans in general, and Veterans Affairs Dr. Frank Toppo, 
who operates the Pahrump VA clinic.

While many local veterans pleaded with Gibbons to "get Toppo some 
help," one man claimed the doctor should be in Leavenworth 
Federal Penitentiary for refusing to treat him. Gibbons 
acknowledged there is a "real problem" with healthcare.

Sharon Cole's complaint was with Social Security. The Pahrump 
woman said she has waged a five-year battle with the government. 
She didn't offer specifics, but told Gibbons she had just 
received a letter from the agency stating it had lost her 
paperwork.

Limited space at veterans' cemeteries in southern Nevada was 
another issue for local veterans. Art Jones said the cemeteries 
in Pahrump and Boulder City are filling to capacity. Roughly 
1,300 veterans die each month in southern Nevada.

Vince Bogdan accused Gibbons of "socialistic" voting in Congress, 
specifically as it relates to last year's approval of the $359 
million consolidated appropriations bill. Gibbons said that if 
the bill didn't pass then government would come to a standstill. 

�Pahrump Valley Times 2002 
*****************************************************************
 25 UK: Hewson's star-studded anti-Sellafield ad scrapped 

online.ie : News

The Irish Examiner 30 Mar 2002 

By Mark Sage

A �200,000 adverstising campaign to shut down Sellafield, 
organised by Bono's wife Ali Hewson, has been scrapped because it 
breaches laws on political advertising. More than 1.3m protest 
postcards addressed to British Prime Minister Tony Blair will be 
delivered to households around Britain this weekend. People are 
being asked to send the pre-paid postcards to No 10 Downing 
Street as part of a campaign by Ms Hewson to shut the Cumbrian 
plant.

In the coming weeks the cards will be sent across the Irish Sea 
from those fearing pollution, terrorist attacks or accidents at 
the plant.

But a proposed 32-second TV ad with stars including Ronan Keating 
and Samantha Mumba and radio commercials had to be pulled as they 
breached political advertising laws.

The Corrs had also booked time to record adverts calling on 
people to send the postcards.

Hewson and her team discovered the commercials would have 
breached the Radio and Television Act 1988, which bans the 
broadcast of advertisements directed towards a political end.

"It's a terrible shame we're stuck with this Act," said Ms 
Hewson. "We had the Corrs, Westlife and Samantha Mumba, all of 
them reminding people to send their postcards to Tony Blair. Now 
we can't even do that." However, Hewson promised the 
postcardcampaign would go ahead and British-based Irish 
celebrities, including Bob Geldof, would get involved once the 
cards arrived in England.

Another 2.7m cards will be on sale across Ireland and everyone 
will be urged to send one calling for the plant's closure.

The cards come already addressed to Mr Blair, Prince Charles and 
Norman Askew, the head of British Nuclear Fuels Ltd (BNFL), which 
runs Sellafield.

All cards posted will be delivered on April 26 - the anniversary 
of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

"I have always felt strongly opposed to Sellafield. It is 60 
miles away from the Irish coast," said Ms Hewson. "It is pumping 
two million gallons of radioactive liquid waste into the Irish 
sea every day, making the Irish Sea the most radioactive sea in 
the world.

"Now, we can actually send the weight of everybody's concerns 
right through the front door of 10 Downing Street and on to Tony 
Blair's desk.

"I think people in Ireland are more aware of what could happen if 
there was an accident than people in England," she said of the 
campaign which has the backing of Taoiseach Bertie Ahern.

The postcards will show an eye and carry the message: "Tony, look 
me in the eye and tell me I am safe".

*****************************************************************
 26 Nevada AG files motion on Yucca water
 
Las Vegas SUN
 
March 29, 2002 
 
CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) - Nevada's attorney general moved Friday 
on two fronts to stop the U.S. Department of Energy from using 
water at Yucca Mountain for a proposed nuclear waste dump. 

The office filed a motion in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas to 
toss out an amended complaint by the Energy Department to extend 
its temporary water permit, which expires next month. 

Senior Deputy Attorney General Marta Adams said her office also 
is seeking to jump-start a related case in state court in Nye 
County. 

The Energy Department sued in federal court in Las Vegas after 
the state water engineer denied the agency permanent water rights 
to serve the dump. U.S. District Judge Roger Hunt ruled in favor 
of the state. But the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals sent 
the case back to Hunt to determine whether federal law pre-empts 
state statutes. 

After the case was remanded to Hunt, the DOE amended its suit and 
included its challenge to state Engineer Hugh Ricci's decision 
against extending the temporary water permit past next month. 

Adams said the state wants to strike the amended complaint and 
deal only with permanent water rights in the case before Hunt. 

After denial of the permanent water rights, the DOE, in addition 
to the federal suit, challenged the state engineer's ruling in 
the state district court in Nye County. 

Adams said that suit has been dormant, but the state filed a 
motion Friday to set a briefing schedule. She said Nevada law 
requires a party aggrieved by a water rights decision to appeal 
in a state court and "we're trying to get back in the state 
venue." 

State officials feel they have a better chance of winning in the 
local district courts than through the federal system. 

The DOE has asked Hunt to stop the state from "unlawfully 
interfering with DOE's performance of its statutory obligations 
under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act and other federal laws." The 
government wants to pump 430 acre-feet of water a year from the 
Fortymile Canyon-Jackass Flat Groundwater Basin in Nye County. 

An acre-foot is enough water to supply a family of four for a 
year. 

All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
 27 Nevada nuclear dump foes welcome TV episode about waste mishap

 Las Vegas SUN: 

Las Vegas SUN
 
March 29, 2002 
 
LAS VEGAS (AP) - A prime-time television portrayal of a nuclear 
waste truck crash could raise awareness of the risks of 
transporting radioactive waste to Nevada, opponents of the Yucca 
Mountain repository say. 

The next episode of NBC's drama, "The West Wing," is scheduled 
Wednesday to depict the White House dealing with the wreck a 
truck carrying uranium fuel rods in a tunnel in Idaho. 

Nevada leaders call transporting radioactive waste the Achilles 
heel of the federal government's plan to entomb the nation's 
spent nuclear fuel at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las 
Vegas. 

"This could be very helpful," said Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev. "It's 
becoming increasingly obvious this is not just a Nevada issue, 
it's a national issue. It's getting into the popular culture." 

About 10 million households watched the topical drama last week, 
according to Nielsen Media Research. 

Officials said the upcoming episode does not directly refer to 
the Yucca Mountain project, which President Bush approved in 
February and Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn is poised to veto, sending 
the matter to Congress. 

The show will be watched by pro-Yucca Mountain forces. 

"If comes out with something totally misleading, we probably 
would have something to say," Mitch Singer, spokesman for the 
Nuclear Energy Institute, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. The 
Washington-based institute is a leading nuclear industry lobbying 
group. 

"It's a safe bet that with Martin Sheen as president, it's not 
going to come out singing the praises of the nuclear industry," 
Singer added. 

Sheen has been active in protests on issues such as nuclear 
disarmament and homelessness, and has been cited on several 
occasions. He has participated in protests at the gates of the 
Nevada Test Site. 

Deborah Thomas, a "West Wing" publicist, said she could not 
determine what influence Sheen might have had on the episode. 

Christopher Klose, a Washington political consultant whose firm 
produces television and radio ads, told the Review-Journal that 
viewers realize the show is entertainment. But he said it could 
add to a general concern about nuclear waste. 

"It's not quite on the par of Homer Simpson working at a nuclear 
power plant," said Klose, whose clients include Rep. Shelley 
Berkley, D-Nev. 

"But it's somewhere between that and being treated like a 
statement of fact," he said. "It's got to get you thinking 
whether something can happen if this is rolling through your 
town." 

Nevada is preparing to air advertisements in other parts of the 
country highlighting its contention that truck and rail shipments 
of nuclear waste across 43 states to Yucca Mountain would be too 
dangerous. 

Guinn has said he will use his veto by April 16, which would send 
the issue to Congress where a simple majority in the House and 
the Senate would override the veto. 

Information from: Las Vegas Review-Journal 

All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
 28 Nuclear waste may ship through valley 

thedesertsun.com | 

If Congress OKs Nevada dump, loads could travel I-10 or by rail 

By Doug Abrahms and Faith Bremner
 Desert Sun Washington Bureau and Gannett News Service 
March 30, 2002 

WASHINGTON -- If the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump opens in 
Nevada in 2010 as planned, more than 300 trainloads or 2,000 
trucks carrying radioactive shipments will travel through the 
Coachella Valley area over the next 38 years.
 
Congress is expected to vote in the coming months on whether to 
make Yucca Mountain -- which lies about 100 miles northwest of 
Las Vegas -- the nation�s dump for nuclear waste for U.S. power 
plants and government facilities. 

If approved by Congress and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 
about 77,000 tons of nuclear waste could be shipped across 
country by either rail or truck over the next 50 years. 

More than 2,000 truckloads of highly radioactive waste from 
Arizona�s Palo Verde nuclear plant would travel on Interstate 10 
through the Coachella Valley on its way to Yucca Mountain, under 
the Energy Department�s proposal. 

Another option is shipping about 300 trainloads of radioactive 
material on the tracks that run through the valley. 

But trainloads of radioactive waste could be of great concern to 
valley residents because of several train derailments in the 
recent past.
 
Forty-four of 122 freight cars derailed July 24, 1999, near 
Thousand Palms. Four passenger cars and five express boxcars on 
an Amtrak train derailed Oct. 22, 1999, near Cathedral City. 
Thirty-seven of 64 cargo cars derailed Jan. 4, 2001, along I-10 
near Indio.
 
Official waste site: President Bush officially chose Yucca 
Mountain as the nation�s nuclear waste dump Feb. 15. Nevada�s 
governor is expected to veto that decision in April. Congress 
then would vote on the issue in late spring. 

Environmentalists and Nevada officials are the biggest opponents 
of Yucca Mountain right now, and Nevada�s lawmakers are lobbying 
fellow members of Congress to oppose the site. 

"Transportation is one of the bigger issues we�re hitting," said 
Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev. 

But consolidating spent nuclear fuel in one location and burying 
it 1,000 feet underground is a better way to store it than 
leaving it at more than 100 sites across the nation, said Mitch 
Singer, spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, a lobbying 
group representing commercial nuclear power plants. This makes 
even more sense in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, he said. 

Environmental concern: Environmental groups oppose the waste 
shipments not out of safety concerns, but because their ultimate 
goal is to shut down nuclear power plants, which produce 20 
percent of the country�s electricity, Singer said. 

"There are groups that will try to rile up people and scare them 
unnecessarily," he said. 

But Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., said in January that she 
opposed Yucca Mountain because of the transportation issues and 
concerns that radioactive material will leak into the groundwater 
over time. 

"I have yet to be convinced that this project can be implemented 
without posing a health and safety threat to Californians," she 
said. 

Doug Abrahms is the Washington, D.C., correspondent for The 
Desert Sun. He can be reached at (703) 276-5819. 

*****************************************************************
 29 No health threat found in radioactive area  (US Corp Of Eng)

Buffalo News - 

TOWN OF TONAWANDA
   		
The Town of Tonawanda landfill and mud flats area off the 
Youngmann Expressway, which has been confirmed as radioactively 
contaminated, does not pose a public health threat as it is now 
being used, according to preliminary findings by the U.S. Army 
Corps of Engineers. 

The corps recently made the determination after examining soil 
and ground water samples it collected last summer from the area 
as well as looking at land use and a risk assessment based on 
potential human exposure to the contamination. "The end result is 
that we can confidently say to the community this site is safe 
for its current uses," said Diane Kozlowski, project manager for 
the corps. 

The corps, meanwhile, is awaiting a detailed report and results 
from tests on the nearly 500 soil samples it took in 200 areas of 
the property from July to September. That information, expected 
to be available in April or May, will be followed by a public 
information session, officials said. 

According to the corps, the health assessment accounts for 
"recreational user scenarios" such as walking and bicycling. 

"Even though the site is located on a sanitary landfill and 
private property owned by the Town of Tonawanda, we have seen 
evidence of dirt bikes and people walking dogs, so we know the 
community is using the site. And the preliminary results confirm 
the site falls within acceptable U.S. Environmental Protection 
Agency guidelines for this use," Kozlowski said. 

Corps officials said the site contains "naturally occurring 
uranium" as well as thorium and radium. 

The health risks associated with the contamination are deemed to 
be within acceptable federal limits, however, because of the type 
of activities being conducted on the land. 

Since the land is not used for residential purposes and those who 
do choose to use it recreationally are subjected to only "very 
limited exposure," the current use of the land is "permissible 
under current federal guidelines," said Karen Keil, risk assessor 
for the corps' Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program. 

The corps, meanwhile, is continuing to investigate the site as a 
"vicinity property of the Linde Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial 
Action Program." A "vicinity property" apparently has not been 
used for any activity involving radioactive elements, but such 
material might have been moved there from the primary site, Linde 
Air Products, where materials were processed during World War II 
for the Manhattan Project. 

James Karsten, Buffalo District program manager for the Formerly 
Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program, said the corps still was 
trying to determine whether the materials come from Linde. 

"There are no records that show material coming from there, and 
the material itself does not seem to have a high correlation to 
the other material (from the Linde property). We're trying to 
figure that out," Karsten said. 

Once the "investigation stage" is completed, the corps will 
examine various alternatives for the site, including any need for 
a complete cleanup, he said. 

e-mail: tpignataro@buffnews.com [tpignataro@buffnews.com] 

Copyright � 1999 - 2002 The Buffalo NewsTM 
*****************************************************************
 30 Safety of shipping nuclear waste debated
 
March 30, 2002   

 Nev. officials cite catastrophic accidents
 
[online@rgj.com]   

RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL

WASHINGTON � The Energy Department estimates the worst accident 
in transporting nuclear waste across the country would result in 
five deaths from radiation leaks. 

Officials in Nevada, where the waste would come to a proposed 
national nuclear waste dump, say the agency is low-balling the 
number and not taking into account real-world rail and truck 
wrecks.

Over the past 30 years, more than a dozen U.S. rail and traffic 
wrecks were so severe they could have breached the container 
casks designed for spent fuel from nuclear power plants, Nevada 
officials say. They include:

o A train derailment that ignited propane tankers in Weyauwega, 
Wis., in March 1996.

o The freeway collapse over the San Francisco Bay during an 
earthquake in October 1989.

o A train derailment and explosion of 18 boxcars carrying 
military explosives in Roseville, Calif., in April 1973.

o A train fire last July in a tunnel in downtown Baltimore that 
burned for four days.

These are all accidents Nevada has called to the attention of the 
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which is studying whether they 
could have breached a nuclear cask.

�The fact that it has a low statistical probability of occurrence 
doesn�t mean it won�t happen tomorrow,� said Nevada�s 
transportation consultant Robert Halstead.

Nevada lawmakers are using the safety issue to try to persuade 
Congress in the coming months to vote against the Bush 
administration�s plan to make Yucca Mountain the nation�s nuclear 
waste dump. 

The Energy Department is proposing moving 77,000 tons of spent 
nuclear fuel now stored at power plants across the country to 
Yucca Mountain by truck or rail over the next 50 years.

If Congress and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission agree, starting 
as early as 2010, truck or rail shipments of nuclear waste would 
pass almost daily through cities including Nashville, Tenn.; Des 
Moines and St. Louis on their way to Yucca Mountain, 100 miles 
northwest of Las Vegas.

Scientists and politicians have been debating for more than 15 
years the dangers of moving and storing nuclear waste at one site 
compared with leaving it where it is. Even now that the Bush 
administration has made its choice, the question of just how 
likely a serious transportation accident involving radioactive 
waste would be remains in the realm of theory.

The Department of Energy projects 10 accidents if the nation�s 
nuclear waste is moved to Yucca Mountain by train and 66 if it�s 
moved by truck over the span of 24 years, according to its Yucca 
Mountain environmental impact study.

Nevada officials have different estimates: 131 accidents if the 
nuclear waste is moved by truck and 400 if by rail.

The maximum reasonably foreseeable accident � Energy Department 
lingo for worst-case scenario � would result in five cancer 
deaths caused by radioactive materials that leak out. The 
agency�s cost estimate for a worst-case accident ranges from 
$300,000 all the way to $10 billion depending on location, 
weather conditions and other variables.

Chances of a more dire accident are less than 1 in 10 million, 
said Pam Adams, a consultant to the Energy Department on 
transporting nuclear waste.

�It�s so remote that it�s not reasonable to imagine,� she said.

Nevada�s transportation consultant does imagine it.

�All of us, on both sides of the issue, say that in 99 percent of 
the accidents we don�t have to worry about radioactive materials 
escaping from the cask,� Halstead said. �We�re arguing about that 
1 percent.�

Experts agree that nearly all truck accidents or train 
derailments would not release radiation from casks with shells of 
steel and lead at least five inches thick. Even if a cask 
ruptured, the nuclear material inside is embedded in clay-like 
material that would have to be melted by a fire before releasing 
radiation.

When the Department of Energy did a major shipment of radioactive 
material � 26 rail shipments from Three Mile Island in 
Pennsylvania to an Idaho storage area between 1986 and 1990 � 
there were no accidents, but two scares. A train hit a car on 
railroad tracks, but no radiation was released. And a boxcar 
labeled flammable was hooked up to nuclear-waste train, although 
it later turned out the car carried no combustible material.

Last year, two events increased fears about transporting nuclear 
waste: the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the Baltimore rail 
accident.

Experts continue to argue whether the four-day Baltimore train 
fire would have released radiation into the immediate area if the 
train had been carrying nuclear waste.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in a preliminary report 
that a nuclear cask wouldn�t have ruptured. Nevada officials say 
a cask�s seals could have leaked and released cesium, which would 
have caused dozens of latent cancer deaths and cost more than $10 
billion to clean up, he said.

The DOE said the worst-case scenario for a sabotage event would 
be 48 cancer deaths from leaked radiation. But the agency is 
reviewing its protections for shipping the nuclear waste as a 
result of Sept. 11, according to its Yucca Mountain report.

Both incidents should force the Bush administration to take a new 
look at the Yucca Mountain plan, said Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev.

�A bigger issue now is terrorism,� he said. �To me, now you have 
to restudy everything. What other scenarios haven�t we thought 
about?�
 		   		   				
� Copyright Reno Gazette-Journal, a  [http://www.gannett.com] 
Newspaper. Use
*****************************************************************
 31 Nevada nuclear dump foes welcome TV episode about waste mishap
 
  March 30, 2002   
    
   [online@rgj.com]   

ASSOCIATED PRESS
	
LAS VEGAS � A prime-time television portrayal of a nuclear waste 
truck crash could raise awareness of the risks of transporting 
radioactive waste to Nevada, opponents of the Yucca Mountain 
repository say.

The next episode of NBC�s drama, �The West Wing,� is scheduled 
Wednesday to depict the White House dealing with the wreck a 
truck carrying uranium fuel rods in a tunnel in Idaho.

Nevada leaders call transporting radioactive waste the Achilles 
heel of the federal government�s plan to entomb the nation�s 
spent nuclear fuel at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las 
Vegas.

�This could be very helpful,� said Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev. �It�s 
becoming increasingly obvious this is not just a Nevada issue, 
it�s a national issue. It�s getting into the popular culture.�

About 10 million households watched the topical drama last week, 
according to Nielsen Media Research.

Officials said the upcoming episode does not directly refer to 
the Yucca Mountain project, which President Bush approved in 
February and Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn is poised to veto, sending 
the matter to Congress.

The show will be watched by pro-Yucca Mountain forces.

�If it comes out with something totally misleading, we probably 
would have something to say,� Mitch Singer, spokesman for the 
Nuclear Energy Institute, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. The 
Washington-based institute is a leading nuclear industry lobbying 
group.

�It�s a safe bet that with Martin Sheen as president, it�s not 
going to come out singing the praises of the nuclear industry,� 
Singer added.

Sheen has been active in protests on issues such as nuclear 
disarmament and homelessness, and has been cited on several 
occasions. He has participated in protests at the gates of the 
Nevada Test Site.

Deborah Thomas, a �West Wing� publicist, said she could not 
determine what influence Sheen might have had on the episode.

Christopher Klose, a Washington political consultant whose firm 
produces television and radio ads, told the Review-Journal that 
viewers realize the show is entertainment. But he said it could 
add to a general concern about nuclear waste.

�It�s not quite on the par of Homer Simpson working at a nuclear 
power plant,� said Klose, whose clients include Rep. Shelley 
Berkley, D-Nev.

�But it�s somewhere between that and being treated like a 
statement of fact,� he said. �It�s got to get you thinking 
whether something can happen if this is rolling through your 
town.�

Nevada is preparing to air advertisements in other parts of the 
country highlighting its contention that truck and rail shipments 
of nuclear waste across 43 states to Yucca Mountain would be too 
dangerous.

Guinn has said he will use his veto by April 16, which would send 
the issue to Congress where a simple majority in the House and 
the Senate would override the veto.
 		   		   				
� Copyright Reno Gazette-Journal, a Gannett 
*****************************************************************
 32 UK: Ali's anti-Sellafield TV ads hit by legal crux 

Irish Newspapers - 

Ali Hewson: 'Sellafield a bomb on our doorstep' 

THE Stop Sellafield campaign fronted by Ali Hewson suffered a 
major blow yesterday when it was forced to scrap a series of 
major adverts promoting the cause. 

The proposed 32-second TV advert and a series of radio adverts - 
voiced by celebrities such as Ronan Keating and Samantha Mumba - 
have been dropped because of rules on political advertising.

A major TV advert was planned and studio time had been booked for 
radio ads featuring stars like The Corrs. However, Ali and the 
team behind the new Stop Sellafield campaigns discovered that the 
adverts would not have been carried on TV and radio stations 
because they would have been in breach of Section 10 of the Radio 
and Television Act 1988. The Act prohibits the broadcast of any 
advertisement directed towards any political end or which has any 
relation to an industrial dispute. 

The proposed commercials were to be part of a huge campaign by 
Stop Sellafield groups which this weekend will see 1.3 million 
postcards delivered to every household in Ireland. It is hoped 
that the Irish public will sign the pre-paid postcards and then 
blitz British PM Tony Blair and Prince Charles with the Stop 
Sellafield cause.

A disappointed Ali Hewson said: "It's a terrible shame we're 
stuck with this Act. We had the most amazing idea for a TV ad, a 
Euro200,000 budget and one of the best advertising directors in 
Ireland. 

"We had The Corrs, Westlife and Samantha Mumba, all of them 
reminding people to send their Stop Sellafield postcards to Tony 
Blair. Now we can't even do that," said Ali yesterday. This week 
when Ali Hewson and her team realised that their ads would be 
banned from Irish TV and radio, they even considered promoting 
their cause in Irish cinemas where advertising is regulated by a 
different set of rules. 

However, as the Stop Sellafield print would have taken two weeks 
to get on to Irish screens, this avenue was abandoned too.

While no broadcaster would go on the record discussing the ban, 
one source said: "My sympathies are with the Stop Sellafield 
campaign. I'd love to help, but we just can't take political 
advertisements, of any kind.

"If we gave time to the Stop Sellafield Campaign, we have to give 
equal time to the people from British Nuclear Fuels."

The original idea for the postcard campaign came from loss 
adjustor Michael Carroll, who then approached anti-nuclear 
campaigner Ali Hewson. Ali, who has four children with husband 
Bono of U2, became aware of the dangers of the Sellafield nuclear 
power plant after she worked with victims of the 1986 Chernobyl 
Nuclear disaster in the neighbouring former Soviet State of 
Belarus.

"I got involved with the Stop Sellafield Campaign because of my 
kids. I have two girls of 12 and 10. I started to get concerned 
about how safe it was to have them on the beach; how safe it was 
for them to swim in the sea. "Do you know that Sellafield pumps 
two million gallons of radioactive waste into the Irish Sea every 
day? 

"After Sept 11, what everybody now knows is that whether through 
terrorist attack or accident, Sellafield is a potential bomb 
sitting on our doorstep." 

Ken Sweeney

� Copyright Unison
*****************************************************************
 33 Nevada AG files motion on Yucca water
 
  March 30, 2002   
    
   [online@rgj.com]   

ASSOCIATED PRESS
	
CARSON CITY, Nev. � Nevada�s attorney general moved Friday on two 
fronts to stop the U.S. Department of Energy from using water at 
Yucca Mountain for a proposed nuclear waste dump.

The office filed a motion in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas to 
toss out an amended complaint by the Energy Department to extend 
its temporary water permit, which expires next month.

Senior Deputy Attorney General Marta Adams said her office also 
is seeking to jump-start a related case in state court in Nye 
County.

The Energy Department sued in federal court in Las Vegas after 
the state water engineer denied the agency permanent water rights 
to serve the dump.

U.S. District Judge Roger Hunt ruled in favor of the state. But 
the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals sent the case back to 
Hunt to determine whether federal law pre-empts state statutes.

After the case was remanded to Hunt, the DOE amended its suit and 
included its challenge to state Engineer Hugh Ricci�s decision 
against extending the temporary water permit past next month.

Adams said the state wants to strike the amended complaint and 
deal only with permanent water rights in the case before Hunt.

After denial of the permanent water rights, the DOE, in addition 
to the federal suit, challenged the state engineer�s ruling in 
the state district court in Nye County.

Adams said that suit has been dormant, but the state filed a 
motion Friday to set a briefing schedule. She said Nevada law 
requires a party aggrieved by a water rights decision to appeal 
in a state court and �we�re trying to get back in the state 
venue.�

State officials feel they have a better chance of winning in the 
local district courts than through the federal system.

The DOE has asked Hunt to stop the state from �unlawfully 
interfering with DOE�s performance of its statutory obligations 
under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act and other federal laws.� The 
government wants to pump 430 acre-feet of water a year from the 
Fortymile Canyon-Jackass Flat Groundwater Basin in Nye County.

An acre-foot is enough water to supply a family of four for a 
year.
 		   		   				
� Copyright Reno Gazette-Journal, a Gannett 
*****************************************************************
 34 Denial of water permits sought by DOE for Yucca Mountain questioned 

Saturday, March 30, 2002
 Copyright � Las Vegas Review-Journal 
Attorneys answer allegations
 
By KEITH ROGERS 
REVIEW-JOURNAL 

Following a judge's order, Nevada attorneys on Friday answered 
allegations made by federal lawyers that the state engineer 
wrongly denied permits sought by the Department of Energy two 
years ago to permanently withdraw water for a nuclear waste 
repository at Yucca Mountain. 

In papers filed with the U.S. District Court in Las Vegas, Senior 
Deputy Attorney General Marta Adams argued that former State 
Engineer Michael Turnipseed used proper authority to deny the 
DOE's applications. 

And, in a separate issue, she said the recent denial of the 
Energy Department's request to extend temporary use of the water 
after April 9 was not linked to the issue of permanent water 
rights that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco had 
assigned to the district court. 

"The question before this court, narrowly presented by a virtue 
of a remand order from the United States Court of Appeals" is 
whether federal nuclear waste law preempts the state's denial for 
permanent use of water to build and operate the planned Yucca 
Mountain repository, Adams wrote in a motion filed with U.S. 
District Court Judge Roger Hunt. 

On March 1, Hunt had given the state until Friday to answer 
Justice Department allegations about Turnipseed's denial of 
applications by the Department of Energy to permanently withdraw 
140 million gallons per year from five wells in Nye County. 
Turnipseed denied the permits two years ago because, he said, it 
was not in the state's best interest to use the water for 
operating a repository where highly radioactive waste would be 
handled. 

In the meantime, the Justice Department amended its complaint to 
include objections to State Engineer Hugh Ricci's decision on 
Feb. 7 to halt temporary withdrawal of water for the Yucca 
Mountain Project after April 9 because the Energy Department no 
longer needed the water to study the mountain. At the time, Ricci 
said the Energy Department's study of the mountain ended Jan. 10 
when Secretary Abraham notified Gov. Kenny Guinn that he would 
recommend the site to President Bush. 

In her answer, Adams denied allegations that Turnipseed's actions 
regarding the permanent water issue were inappropriate. 

Then in a motion accompanying her answer, Adams said Ricci's 
decision not to extend temporary use of the water after April 9 
is "unrelated to the ruling under consideration by this court." 

During a hearing on March 1, Justice Department trial attorney 
Stephen Bartell urged Hunt to act quickly on the permanent 
permits issue. Bartell also tried to draw a connection with the 
temporary use issue, saying the ongoing activities at Yucca 
Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, put the federal 
government "in a position where it is in dire need of water in 
the next four or five weeks." In anticipation that temporary 
withdrawal of water for the project would not be extended beyond 
April 9, the Energy Department in February constructed and filled 
a 1-million-gallon tank about 20 miles from the mountain. -->
 
Copyright � Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002
*****************************************************************
 35 Few step up with money to fight dump

Saturday, March 30, 2002
 Copyright � Las Vegas Review-Journal 
 
Governor, lawmakers consider using emergency, tobacco settlement funds 
By ED VOGEL 
REVIEW-JOURNAL CAPITAL BUREAU 

CARSON CITY -- With dwindling prospects for a special legislative 
session and no new financial pledges from the private sector, 
Gov. Kenny Guinn and lawmakers are weighing the use of emergency 
funds and tobacco settlement money to bolster their fight against 
the Yucca Mountain Project. 

Wednesday in Las Vegas, Guinn and U.S. Sens. Harry Reid and John 
Ensign made a pitch for financial contributions to the state's 
campaign against a planned nuclear waste repository. They want to 
raise $10 million for a national television ad campaign that will 
urge members of Congress to reject the dump. 

But Guinn said Friday he has received few calls from businesses 
and individuals willing to donate money. 

"We haven't been receiving calls from people, although we were 
all over the news," Guinn said. "Nobody has called saying we will 
give you a million or $100,000." 

Although he has not ruled out calling a special legislative 
session on Yucca Mountain, Guinn said he and Assembly Speaker 
Richard Perkins, D-Henderson, are looking elsewhere for public 
money. 

"There just isn't $10 million the state has now. ... I will say 
that right now," said Guinn, who recently warned state agencies 
to prepare for budgetary belt-tightening. 

He said they are eyeing $8.8 million available to the 
Legislature's Interim Finance Committee for emergencies. 

Perkins said the emergency fund is the best source of money to 
fight Yucca Mountain. The Interim Finance Committee meets April 
10. If the state uses that money, Perkins said, a special 
legislative session would not be needed. 

"Government isn't in the business of making a profit," the 
speaker said. "There is no reason to save this money when we have 
a crisis like Yucca Mountain." 

Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, citing a projected 
state budget shortfall of $100 million, opposes allocating any 
additional state money toward a drive to stop the repository. 

"When I hear (U.S. Senate Majority Leader Tom) Daschle saying he 
can't stop it, it makes me wonder how useful it is to put any 
money up," Raggio said. 

Raggio said he would be very concerned about draining money from 
the Interim Finance Committee's emergency fund, which is intended 
for disasters such as forest fires and floods. It represents all 
the funding available to the committee for such purposes through 
June 2003. 

"He doesn't like anything," Perkins said about Raggio. "We are 
the ones down here who will have to deal with it (Yucca 
Mountain)." 

Perkins said a lot of money remains in the contingency fund at 
the end of each two-year budget period. He believes the committee 
could appropriate all or most of the money to a Yucca Mountain 
campaign and still have funds for other problems. 

Guinn also is investigating whether some of the $48 million a 
year the state receives from its settlement with the tobacco 
industry could be diverted to the campaign. 

Most of the tobacco settlement money is allocated for the 
governor's Millennium Scholarship program, a prescription drug 
program and nursing home care for senior citizens. A legislative 
committee reviews other requests and allocates remaining funds. 

"If someone can tell me if spending any amount would stop (the 
repository), then I would say OK," Raggio said. "But I am not 
getting that sense." 

President Bush has recommended that 77,000 tons of the nation's 
high-level nuclear waste be entombed at Yucca Mountain, 100 miles 
northwest of Las Vegas. Guinn has vowed to veto Bush's 
recommendation, and he has until April 16 to do so. Once Guinn 
submits his veto, Congress has 90 legislative days to override 
the action. A simple majority vote of the House and the Senate 
would approve the Yucca Mountain Project and begin the process of 
constructing and licensing the repository. 

Nevada officials hope a multimillion-dollar national ad campaign 
emphasizing the risks of transporting nuclear waste along the 
country's highways and railways might stop a congressional 
override. 

Millions also would be spent on lobbyists and attorney fees to 
fight in court. About $1.7 million remains from past 
appropriations to fight the dump. 

Even if the state can't raise additional money for an ad campaign 
against Yucca Mountain, Guinn said the state's best chance of 
turning back nuclear waste shipments will come in court. 

Guinn said the $2.5 million allocated for Yucca Mountain legal 
expenses will not be diverted to other purposes. 

The Legislature last year appropriated $4 million for an 
anti-Yucca campaign, including money for legal expenses. At the 
time, Guinn hoped to raise $4 million to $6 million more in 
private donations. 

So far, donations have totaled about $2 million, including $1 
million from Clark County. Clark County Commission Chairman Dario 
Herrera, a Democratic congressional candidate, will propose next 
week that county taxpayers contribute an additional $3 million to 
the cause. 

While disappointed by the lack of donations, Guinn said few 
companies are able to donate to the campaign because of the 
post-Sept. 11 downturn in business. "They have to decide between 
giving us money or putting people back to work," he said. 

Bob Loux, administrator of the state's Agency for Nuclear 
Projects, noted a few private donations, topped by $300,000 from 
the Nevada Resort Association, $50,000 from Station Casinos and 
$50,000 from the Molasky family. 

"No one else in the private sector has done anything," he said. 
"It is a tough sell."
 
Copyright � Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002
*****************************************************************
 36 Yucca: Herrera asks NRC to plan LV meeting
   
Saturday, March 30, 2002
 Copyright � Las Vegas Review-Journal 

STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU 

WASHINGTON -- The chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission 
was urged on Friday to add Clark County to a roster of public 
meetings planned for next month to discuss licensing of a Yucca 
Mountain nuclear waste repository. 

The request was made by County Commission Chairman Dario Herrera, 
who also is running for the U.S. House. 

On Wednesday, the NRC announced public meetings on April 8 in 
Beatty, April 9 in Tonopah and April 10 in Ely to discuss the 
agency's upcoming role in evaluating a license application for a 
repository at the mountain site 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. 

An agency spokeswoman said at the time that Las Vegas meetings 
would be conducted, but none are scheduled at present. Agency 
officials could not be reached Friday night. 

Herrera said in his letter he was "disturbed to hear that Clark 
County would be left out of these public forums," and asked NRC 
Chairman Richard Meserve "to immediately schedule a series of 
meetings" in the next two months in Las Vegas.
 
Copyright � Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002
*****************************************************************
 37 Bill to fund atomic waste dump study 

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - 

Ground water fears may bring cleanup 

Saturday, March 30, 2002
By Don Hopey, Post-Gazette Staff Writer 

A controversial nuclear waste dump in Armstrong County is a step 
closer to cleanup because it poses a threat to the area's ground 
water and because it has earned the attention of U.S. Rep. John 
Murtha.

 Even though a recent Army Corps of Engineers assessment of the 
40-acre Parks Township Shallow Landfill found "no substantial 
radiological exposure threat to human health" and concluded no 
site cleanup was necessary, a bill submitted by Murtha, 
D-Johnstown, mandates that the corps develop a cleanup plan.

 The corps review of the legal disposal site, 32 miles northeast 
of Pittsburgh along the Kiskiminetas River, does say mine 
subsidence could cause the radioactive waste to enter ground 
water and "present an imminent and substantial danger to human 
health and the environment."

 "Because of the possibility of mine subsidence there's been a 
lot of public concern that what's in the landfill will get into 
the ground water," said Brad Clemenson, a Murtha spokesman.

 "The corps assessment has determined that the waste could move 
into the water if subsidence occurs and become an urgent 
situation, so we're moving ahead."

 Murtha's legislation appropriates $1 million to study the 
radioactive waste and determine how to accomplish the cleanup, 
which could be done by 2004.

 Clemenson said the actual cleanup could cost as much as the $65 
million it took to clean up a nuclear fuel production plant in 
nearby Apollo.

 The disposal was done according to U.S. Atomic Energy Commission 
regulations by the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Co. -- NUMEC 
-- which began making nuclear fuel at its Apollo manufacturing 
facility in 1957. The plant processed up to 450 metric tons of 
uranium a year.

 The Atlantic Richfield Co. bought NUMEC in 1967, and in 1971 
sold the site to Babcock &Wilcox, which changed its name to BWX 
Technologies. BWXT is the current license holder.

 Patricia Ameno, an Apollo native who founded Citizens Action for 
a Safe Environment 13 years ago to fight for cleanup of the 
landfill and other nuclear sites in the Kiski Valley, said she's 
happy the project is finally moving ahead but cautious about its 
chances for success.

 "What's happened here is an outrage," said Ameno. "I believe 
we're sitting on a ticking time bomb that could be set off by 
subsidence or a mine fire. If that happens you're looking at an 
environmental disaster that could affect a 25-square-mile area."

 The estimated 23,500 cubic yards of wastes contaminated with 
uranium and thorium consist of slag, sludges and spent solvents, 
equipment, scrap and trash from the Apollo nuclear fuel 
fabrication facility. The waste was dumped from 1961 to 1970.

 Thorium and uranium, ranging from depleted to highly enriched 
material, is buried in 10 trenches on 1.5 acres of the 40-acre 
site. Americium and plutonium also have been detected in soil 
samples.

 The state Department of Environmental Protection has detected 
trichloroethylene, or TCE, an industrial solvent used at the 
Babcock &Wilcox plant, in the Kiskiminetas River, but so far has 
not found any radioactivity in water coming from the landfill.

 The DEP says the chemical contamination is diluted enough that 
it does not endanger five public drinking water intakes on the 
Allegheny River, downriver from where the Kiskiminetas joins the 
Allegheny at Freeport.

 "Subsidence is always a concern and adds another aspect to what 
we have to do at the site," said Patrick Shuster, a DEP 
spokesman. "If subsidence causes the radioactive material to fall 
into the ground water, we'd have a real mess on our hands."
 
Copyright �1997-2002 PG Publishing Co., Inc. All Rights Reserved.       
*****************************************************************
 38 'West Wing' episode could help in fight against dump
 
Las Vegas SUN
 
March 29, 2002 
 
By Benjamin Grove 
<grove@lasvegassun.com [grove@lasvegassun.com] >
 LAS VEGAS SUN
 
A popular television drama may be Nevada's best chance of 
publicizing the real-world dangers of shipping nuclear waste and 
building support against the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear 
waste dump, Nevada officials said.

 In next week's "The West Wing" episode, scheduled to air at 9 
p.m. Wednesday on NBC, the White House faces a "radioactive 
crisis" after a big rig carrying uranium fuel rods crashes in 
Idaho posing a potential "environmental -- or terrorist -- 
crisis," according to the show's published description.

 The timing of the episode is "manna from heaven," said Nathan 
Naylor, spokesman for Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev.

 "Anything that raises the issue of transportation of radioactive 
material helps us," Naylor said.

 Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said the episode would be helpful in 
raising awareness about the waste shipping issue.

 "This is very favorable because it shows that this is not just a 
Nevada issue and that it has become a national issue," said 
Ensign, who added that he is a "big fan" of the show despite its 
left-leaning president.

 Nevada officials are waging an effort to publicize the risks of 
shipping nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of 
Las Vegas. As Congress is preparing to take up the matter this 
year, Nevada officials feel the key issue against Yucca Mountain 
is the transportation of nuclear waste.

 If the public turns against Yucca Mountain, Nevada officials 
believe they can muster support in the U.S. Senate to kill the 
matter.

 Noting that a recent poll showed 53 percent of Americans didn't 
know enough about the nuclear waste repository to form an opinion 
-- and the Americans who have an opinion are split, Nevada 
officials believe the TV show may be a chance to build opposition 
to Yucca Mountain.

 It's unclear if the popular drama that draws on current events 
for plot lines sways its audience of 17.7 million people a week 
on the issues, but Gov. Kenny Guinn said the state's Yucca 
Mountain public relations firm, Brown and Partners, is mulling 
whether to spend $300,000 to $400,000 on a newspaper ad campaign 
calling attention to the show.

 "It could run in select newspapers in big cities telling people 
to watch 'The West Wing' to help understand the potential hazards 
of transporting nuclear waste," Guinn said.

 Reid and Ensign have urged Guinn to call a special session of 
the Legislature to approve about $10 million, mostly for targeted 
television commercials in key cities along proposed waste 
transportation routes. A majority of lawmakers are reluctant to 
approve more money, but Guinn is trying to determine if the state 
could shake money loose from the strained state budget.

 Meanwhile the "West Wing" episode amounts to free publicity, 
Nevada sources said.

 But it's not clear how much influence a television show, even a 
topical one that tackles current issues, has on the public at 
large, critics say. While television or movies may influence fads 
and trends, they rarely sway audiences on political issues, said 
Mark Winokur, a University of Colorado, Boulder, professor who 
specializes in media and popular culture.

 "The West Wing" episode may stir emotions for people who know 
they live along likely waste transportation routes, but probably 
will have "very little effect" nationwide, Winokur said.

 "The question of nuclear waste and what to do with it is such a 
complex question that it is not the kind of question that appeals 
to the American public to react to or to do something about," 
Winokur said.

 Nevada officials in recent weeks have suggested a Yucca Mountain 
story line to "West Wing" consultants.

 Sources said Yucca Mountain is not mentioned in the hour-long 
show, but that tension surrounding the nuclear waste accident 
would illustrate the risks of waste shipping.

 NBC spokeswoman Deborah Thomas would not elaborate on the waste 
transportation story line, nor did Maria Stasi, publicist for 
Warner Brothers, which produces the show.

 "West Wing" executive producer Aaron Sorkin was unavailable, his 
agent said.

 The exposure that the show, the seventh-most popular on TV, 
brings could spark national interest in the issue of hauling 
highly radioactive nuclear waste, said Ed Rothschild, partner in 
Podesta-Mattoon, the lobbying firm hired by Nevada officials to 
drum up opposition to the Yucca project in Congress.

 "Polling data we have seen shows that a lot of Americans don't 
know what is going on," Rothschild said. "We need to get peoples' 
attention and the way to get people's attention is through the 
media."

 Rothschild said his firm had not contacted the "West Wing" to 
suggest the story line.

 "West Wing" consultant and former President Clinton press 
secretary Dee Dee Myers talked several times with Michael 
O'Donovan, spokesman for Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., as part of 
Myers' research about nuclear waste issues, O'Donovan said. 
O'Donovan pitched Yucca Mountain story ideas, he said. "West 
Wing" writers may have been in contact with other Nevada 
officials, sources said.

 Nevada officials have long battled nuclear industry officials on 
the question of waste shipping safety. Industry officials stress 
that shipments of high-level radioactive waste have long been 
made safely.

 Officials with the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's top 
lobby group, will monitor the show, but NEI has not decided 
whether to respond to the show in some way, such as with an 
advertisement, spokesman Mitch Singer said.

 "There is a big difference between Hollywood and reality," 
Singer said. "People as they watch can't draw the conclusion that 
this is how transportation of spent fuel would be."

 A spokesman for the Department of Energy, which manages the 
Yucca project, was skeptical that a television show could have 
any influence on the fate of the project.

 "Based on a West Wing episode, I don't see the Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission shutting down and 200 scientists at Yucca 
Mountain shutting their doors and saying, 'Oh my God, we've got 
to go home.' "

 Sun reporter Erin Neff contributed to this story.
 
All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
 39 Political notebook: Yucca fight gets help in prime time
 
Las Vegas SUN
 
March 29, 2002 
 
By Erin Neff <erin@lasvegassun.com [erin@lasvegassun.com] >

 Nevada can be thankful it's NBC and not CBS calling attention to 
the dangers of transporting nuclear waste.

 After all, "Survivor-Yucca Mountain" does roll off the tongue a 
little easier than "Survivor-Marquesas."

 NBC's "The West Wing," which reaches 17.7 million viewers, is 
touted as a leading "realistic" drama. So next Wednesday's 
episode could resonate on Capitol Hill, and to a much wider 
audience than any proposed television ad campaign by the state to 
warn of transportation dangers.

 The episode features the president's staff dealing with the 
crash of a big rig carrying uranium fuel rods.

 Sounds as though the producers are channeling U.S. Rep. Shelley 
Berkley, D-Nev.

 Sure, it's only one of the show's two main plots, and it will be 
intertwined with worries about online tax filing, presidential 
proclamations honoring a retiring teacher and a legislative fight 
over Internet access for the poor. Oh, and there's also that 
other big plot involving jettisoning the vice president from the 
ticket.

 But the Emmy award-winning hourlong drama reaches an average of 
17.7 million viewers and consistently draws a 6.4 rating among 
the top advertising demographic -- 18- to 49-year-olds.

 What's more, Martin Sheen, Rob Lowe &Co. consistently help the 
show win its time slot. It ranks seventh for total viewers for 
the season. It is also the No. 3 drama in all of television.

 It's nice the topic isn't featured on some of the shows that 
draw more viewers, as Nevada certainly has no "Friends" in the 
Energy Department, and really, Nobody Loves Spencer.

 Democrats hopeful

 Democrats looked so happy Wednesday that some observers were 
waiting for state party chairman Terry Care to jump into the 
reflecting pool at the George Federal Building as if he'd just 
won the Nabisco Championship on the LPGA Tour.

 Not only did the setting serve as the launching pad for Las 
Vegas attorney John Hunt's bid for attorney general, but it also 
brought dozens of donkeys out of hiding to clap for the first 
announced Democratic candidate for one of the six constitutional 
offices.

 And it also got the "juices flowing" for the world's happiest 
mayor.

 Oscar Goodman eyed the gushing crowd and said the support for 
Hunt gave him "a warm feeling" in his belly.

 At 10:30 a.m. it probably wasn't the Beefeater warming him up. 
But hanging out with Sen. Harry Reid and former Rebel coach Jerry 
Tarkanian did give Goodman visions of the governor's mansion.

 Then again, he said, "I love being the mayor."

 Great Debate

 Newsflash!

 Not only will there be a Jon Porter sighting next week, the man 
running for Congress will actually discuss his campaign platform 
in a mini-debate with his opponent.

 Porter, the Republican state senator, and Dario Herrera, the 
Democratic chairman of the Clark County Commission, will square 
off in the Associated General Contractors' "Great Debate" on 
Tuesday.

 Each candidate for Nevada's 3rd Congressional District will be 
asked to speak about the so-called death tax, highway funding, 
health care costs, soaring insurance rates and Yucca Mountain.

 The debate will take place as part of a luncheon during AGC's 
member expo at the MGM Grand Conference Center. Tickets are $38 
for non-members and $25 for AGC members. Call 796-9986 for 
information.

 Cegavske endorsed

 Although she got into the race after the county GOP endorsement 
process, Assemblywoman Barbara Cegavske has picked up an even 
more important endorsement in her race for state Senate District 
8.

 The Nevada Republican Senate Caucus has unanimously endorsed 
Cegavske for the seat being vacated by Sen. Mark James, R-Las 
Vegas. The caucus blessing carries with it an open line to Senate 
Majority Leader Bill Raggio's fund-raising prowess.

 Cegavske will face attorney Tom Christensen in the GOP primary.

 For the record
 
+ The Clark County Democratic Party invites all registered 
Democrats to attend the 2002 county convention April 13 at the 
Riviera hotel. Registered Democrats wishing to attend must call 
party headquarters so staff can verify their registration. Call 
735-1600 for information.
 
+ GOP Congressional candidate Lynette Boggs McDonald will speak 
at the Nevada Republican Men's Club general meeting April 1 at 
11:30 a.m. at Ellis Island casino, 4178 Koval Lane. A $12 buffet 
lunch is offered. Call 321-2424 for information. 

All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
 40 Nevadans hope to spread anti-Yucca message nationwide

 Photos: Richard White waits to drive a train | The south portal 
entrance to Yucca Mountain 

Las Vegas SUN
 
March 29, 2002 
 
By Erin Neff 
<erin@lasvegassun.com [erin@lasvegassun.com] >

 Nevada's fight against the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste 
dump is playing out in a chain of official processes -- Gov. 
Kenny Guinn's expected veto, a congressional vote to overturn the 
veto, and the courts in which the state is suing the government 
over the issue.

 But Yucca opponents believe their best best is in the court of 
public opinion, with a proposed $10 million television campaign 
highlighting the dangers of transporting nuclear waste.

 Public sentiment is the grass fire of the Yucca Mountain battle. 
Right now the opposition is mostly limited to Nevada, but elected 
officials are fanning the flames in hopes of spreading the 
message far enough to reach those who have the next crack at the 
state's fate -- the U.S. Senate.

 Nevada officials believe they have a chance to block the dump by 
convincing enough senators to vote against it. To do that, Nevada 
leaders are asking for a $10 million public relations campaign 
that would target key states through which nuclear waste would be 
transported on the way to Yucca Mountain. The campaign would 
include television commercials and grass-roots efforts to try to 
stir opposition and put pressure on the state's politicians.

 The campaign is already under way with Nevada officials using 
polls, the national news media and even the popular television 
drama "The West Wing" to make Yucca Mountain a household name 
from the heartland to the heart of the nation's government.

 Last week two polls took center stage, with one suggesting it is 
possible to reach out from Nevada with a message that will 
resonate and another saying Nevadans support spending money for 
such a campaign.

 A nationwide survey of 1,000 adults, conducted by Ipsos Public 
Affairs, found Americans evenly split over the proposed nuclear 
waste repository 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

 "As people become more informed on the issue we will find polls 
reflecting greater opposition," said Clark County Commissioner 
Myrna Williams, a staunch dump opponent.

 The Ipsos poll bears that out well. Initially, 53 percent of 
respondents said they did not know enough about Yucca Mountain to 
give an opinion. But after hearing three statements in favor of 
the project and three against, the public was split with 47 
percent in favor and 47 percent against.

 A Las Vegas Sun poll commissioned last week found support within 
Nevada to go after the fence sitters. The poll, conducted by 
UNLV, found 68 percent of Clark County residents support a 
special session of the Legislature to appropriate $10 million to 
the dump fight.

 Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins, D-Henderson, said he knows a 
targeted public relations campaign can work because letters he 
has written to Speakers of the House in other states have raised 
concerns.

 "Some of them just weren't aware," Perkins said. "When you give 
them a little bit of information they begin to understand how 
dangerous it will be to transport waste through their states."

 Clark County Commission Chairman Dario Herrera said he found 
similar response when touting Nevada's dump opposition to the 
National Association of Counties.

 "Just talking to people outside Nevada helps spread the 
message," he said.

 Guinn is using the Fourth Estate the same way and said he has 
gotten tremendous response from appearances on the McNeil-Lehrer 
Newshour and C-SPAN.

 "Everything we're looking for now is publicity," Guinn said. 
"Not with the Las Vegas Sun, not with the Review-Journal, but 
with the rest of the nation.

 "Every time we get on a national television program it helps," 
Guinn said.

 On Saturday Nevada's message was in The New York Times. On 
Wednesday it will subtlely reach 17.7 million viewers of The West 
Wing when one of the drama's story plots involves the crash of a 
truck transporting spent uranium fuel rods.

 The transportation issue is slowly coming into focus nationwide 
as newspapers from Los Angeles to northern Indiana report on how 
waste would trek past seacoasts on barges and through bedroom 
communities on railcars.

 The Ipsos poll found that 61 percent of Americans surveyed 
objected to transporting waste through their backyards.

 Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman said each Nevadan has a 
responsibility to phone friends and relatives around the country 
with the same message.

 "They're talking about 96,000 shipments of waste," he said. 
"Just think about 96,000 anything. You don't need a bin Laden -- 
all it takes is one accident."

 U.S. Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and John Ensign, R-Nev., think 
the message can trickle up from concerned citizens to Congress.

 "We feel that with the right effort, we can prevail," Reid said.

 That effort could begin as early as this week in select 
newspapers nationwide where readers might see an ad telling them 
to watch The West Wing on Wednesday to see how dangerous it can 
be to transport waste.

 But ultimately it will be television ads in targeted states that 
Reid and Ensign hope can cause a big enough groundswell to be 
felt in Washington.

 "When Sen. Reid and I have been going to the senators, most of 
them haven't given it much thought," Ensign said. "But when we 
keep talking about it they see the bigger picture."

 If their constituents are seeing that same picture, Reid said, 
it could make it easier for some to vote with Nevada.

 In addition to the planned television campaign, Nevada hopes to 
spread the word in a daylong House Transportation Committee 
hearing scheduled for May 9.

 "I think it will help us pick up votes," said state Sen. Jon 
Porter, who will be one of several Nevada officials testifying at 
that hearing. "If we can pick up one more vote in the Senate it 
will help."

 Guinn is expected to veto President Bush's recommendation that 
Yucca Mountain store the nation's nuclear waste sometime within 
the next two weeks. After his veto, Congress will have 90 days to 
either override him or sustain the veto.

 Nevada's best chance to block the dump is by getting 51 votes in 
the Senate to sustain Guinn's veto.

 "We want to do everything we can to get the message out," Guinn 
said.

 One of the ways Guinn thinks he can do that is with the veto. 
Whether hand-delivered in Washington or highlighted here in 
Nevada, Guinn said he hopes to gain national media attention with 
his objection.

 "It's the first time in history a governor can veto the 
president," Guinn said. "We think that's newsworthy, and we think 
it will draw attention to the fight." 

All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
 41 Safety of Shipping Nuclear Waste Questioned 

     The Salt Lake Tribune -- 

    Saturday, March 30, 2002   

BY DOUG ABRAHMS
 GANNETT NEWS SERVICE 

    WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department estimates the worst 
accident in transporting nuclear waste across the country would 
be five deaths from radiation leaks. Officials in Nevada, where 
the waste would come to a proposed national nuclear waste dump, 
say the agency is low-balling the number and not taking into 
account real-world rail and truck wrecks. 

    Over the past 30 years, more than a dozen U.S. rail and 
highway wrecks were so severe they could have breached the 
container casks designed for spent fuel from nuclear power 
plants, Nevada officials say. They include: 

    * A train derailment that ignited propane tankers in 
Weyauwega, Wis., in March 1996. 

    * The freeway collapse over the San Francisco Bay during an 
earthquake in October 1989. 

    * A train derailment and explosion of 18 boxcars carrying 
military explosives in Roseville, Calif., in April 1973. 

    * A train fire last July in a tunnel in downtown Baltimore 
that burned for four days. 

    These are all accidents Nevada has called to the attention of 
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which is studying whether they 
could have breached a nuclear cask. 

    "The fact that it has a low statistical probability of 
occurrence doesn't mean it won't happen tomorrow," said Nevada's 
transportation consultant Robert Halstead. 

    Nevada lawmakers are using the safety issue to try to 
persuade Congress in the coming months to vote against the Bush 
administration's plan to make Yucca Mountain the nation's nuclear 
waste dump. The Energy Department is proposing moving 77,000 tons 
of spent nuclear fuel now stored at power plants across the 
country to Yucca Mountain by truck or rail over the next 50 
years. 

    If Congress and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission agree, 
starting as early as 2010, truck or rail shipments of nuclear 
waste would pass almost daily through cities like Nashville, 
Tenn.; Des Moines, Iowa; and St. Louis on their way to Yucca 
Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. 

    Scientists and politicians have been debating for more than 
15 years the dangers of moving and storing nuclear waste at one 
site compared with leaving it where it is. Even now that the Bush 
administration has made its choice, the question of just how 
likely a serious transportation accident involving radioactive 
waste would be remains in the realm of theory. 

    The Department of Energy projects 10 accidents if the 
nation's nuclear waste is moved to Yucca Mountain by train and 66 
if it's moved by truck over the span of 24 years, according to 
its Yucca Mountain environmental impact study. 

    Nevada officials have different estimates: 131 accidents if 
the nuclear waste is moved by truck and 400 if by rail. 

    The maximum reasonably foreseeable accident -- Energy 
Department lingo for worst-case scenario -- would result in five 
cancer deaths caused by radioactive materials that leak out. The 
agency's cost estimate for a worst-case accident ranges from 
$300,000 all the way to $10 billion depending on location, 
weather conditions and other variables. 

    Chances of a more dire accident are less than 1 in 10 
million, said Pam Adams, a consultant to the Energy Department on 
transporting nuclear waste. 

    "All of us, on both sides of the issue, say that in 99 
percent of the accidents we don't have to worry about radioactive 
materials escaping from the cask," Halstead said. "We're arguing 
about that 1 percent." 

    Experts agree that nearly all truck accidents or train 
derailments would not release radiation from casks with shells of 
steel and lead at least five inches thick. When the Department of 
Energy did 26 shipments of radioactive material from Three Mile 
Island to Idaho, there were no accidents, but two scares. A train 
hit a car on railroad tracks, but no radiation was released. And 
a boxcar labeled flammable was hooked up to nuclear-waste train, 
although it later turned out the car carried no combustible 
material. 

    Last year, two events increased fears about transporting 
nuclear waste: the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the Baltimore 
rail accident. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in a 
preliminary report that a nuclear cask wouldn't have ruptured in 
the rail accident. Nevada officials say a cask's seals could have 
leaked and released cesium, which would have caused dozens of 
latent cancer deaths and cost more than $10 billion to clean up, 
he said. 

    The DOE said the worst-case scenario for a sabotage event 
would be 48 cancer deaths from leaked radiation. But the agency 
is reviewing its protections for shipping the nuclear waste as a 
result of Sept. 11, according to its Yucca Mountain report. 
   
  � Copyright 2002, The Salt Lake Tribune
*****************************************************************
 42 Bush sticks by 'axis of evil' 

Sunday Times: 

[ 30mar02 ]
 
DALLAS -- President George W. Bush yesterday said he had a 
message for critics unhappy he branded North Korea, Iran and Iraq 
an axis of evil that may face the United States' wrath.

"I meant it," he said. 

"For the good of our children and our grandchildren, we must deny 
the world's most dangerous leaders from having and harbouring the 
world's most dangerous weapons." 

In a series of fundraising stops since leaving Washington 
yesterday, Mr Bush has on four occasions defended the expression, 
which drew an international outcry and sparked worries that he 
could order unilateral military action. "We will be deliberate. 
We'll be thoughtful. We will consult with our friends and 
allies," he told a crowd at a political fundraiser in Dallas, 
Texas. 

"But when I said axis of evil, I meant it." 

What he meant, according to White House aides, was that current 
policy towards all three regimes takes insufficient notice of the 
possibility that they could acquire nuclear, chemical or 
biological weapons and then hook up with terrorists like those 
who carried out the September 11 attacks. 

Global concern over the remarks has focused on Iraq, amid 
widespread speculation that the regime in Baghdad could be the 
next target of the US-led "war on terrorism" once the campaign in 
Afghanistan is complete. 

Mr Bush first used the expression, which admirers have likened to 
former president Ronald Reagan's 1982 designation of the Soviet 
Union as the "evil empire", in his January 29 State of the Union 
speech to Congress. 

He repeated it on February 4 at Eglin air force base in Florida, 
and two days later at a fundraiser in New York, when he said: "I 
talked about an axis of evil because I firmly believe nations 
need to be put on notice that this nation will not allow our 
citizens to become threatened." 

With the expression drawing fire overseas, Mr Bush omitted it 
from remarks during his February trip to Japan, South Korea and 
China -- though he did remark that he thought the regime in 
Pyonyang was "evil". 

The United States is profoundly sceptical of an agreement between 
Kuwait and Iraq in which former occupier Iraq pledges to respect 
Kuwait's independence and sovereignty, US state department 
spokesman Richard Boucher said. 

The agreement, which formed part of the final resolutions adopted 
at the close of the Arab summit in Beirut yesterday, said Iraq's 
respect for Kuwait's sovereignty would prevent a recurrence of 
the invasion that sparked the 1991 Gulf War. 

"If true, that would be good," said Mr Boucher. "But Iraq has 
never shown real intent to respect Kuwaiti sovereignty." 

On the contrary, Mr Boucher continued, Baghdad had a deplorable 
record of flouting its international obligations and UN security 
resolutions. Kuwait is 100 per cent satisfied with the agreement, 
Foreign Minister Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah said in Kuwait 
City. 

Sheikh Sabah even hinted Kuwait no longer demanded an apology 
from Iraq for invading the emirate in 1990. Under the 
declaration, Iraq was also urged to "co-operate in order to find 
a prompt and final solution to the issue of the Kuwaiti prisoners 
and missing persons". AFP

� Sunday Times   
*****************************************************************
 43 Activists stage annual rally at Nevada Test Site
 
Las Vegas SUN
 
March 29, 2002 
 
MERCURY, Nev. (AP) - Thirty-one peace activists were cited for 
trespassing as they staged their annual Good Friday rally at the 
Nevada Test Site. 

Forty-nine protesters from the Nevada Desert Experience gathered 
near the test site's entrance Friday for their 21st annual rally. 
The group said it was protesting any future resumption of nuclear 
testing and the proposed nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain. 

Energy Department spokesman Darwin Morgan said the protesters 
were cited and released by Nye County authorities. 

Full scale U.S. nuclear weapons tests were conducted at the test 
site from 1951 to 1992. 



All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
 44 Review: Paranoia Strikes Deep

Calendar Live - 

 
Paranoia Strikes Deep

 A CONVENIENT SPY
 Wen Ho Lee and the Politics of Espionage
 By Dan Stober and Ian Hoffman
 Simon &Schuster: 384 pp., $26

 MY COUNTRY VERSUS ME

 The First-Hand Account by the Los Alamos Scientist Who Was 
Falsely Accused of Being a Spy
 By Wen Ho Lee with Helen Zia
 Hyperion: 332 pp., $23.95

Illustration by Douglas Andelin / For The Times
   
The alarm spread fast three years ago: China had made ominous 
breakthroughs in its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile 
programs and the strategic balance in Asiaand perhaps 
globallywas shifting. Espionage and treason were suspected, and 
there appeared to be serious reasons to believe that Beijing had 
stolen key secrets from Washington's nuclear arsenal and was in a 
position to threaten the United States and its Asian allies. 
Suddenly the 50-year love-fear relationship between the United 
States and the People's Republic of China had taken a turn for 
the worse.

With the 2000 presidential campaign shaping up, the political 
frenzy grew, and the FBI, searching for a leak, came to focus on 
a 59-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen, who had come from Taiwan 
as a student in 1964 and was working as a nuclear weapons 
scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. 
Suspected of spying for China, for giving to Beijing the United 
States' most closely held nuclear secrets, its so-called crown 
jewels, Wen Ho Lee was charged with 59 counts of violating the 
Atomic Energy Act and the Federal Espionage Act, 39 of the counts 
punishable by life imprisonment.

A congressional investigation had already concluded that "without 
the nuclear secrets stolen from the United States, it would have 
been virtually impossible for [China] to fabricate and test 
successfully small nuclear warheads...." Lee was suspected of 
giving China the technology to miniaturize the warheads.

The government's case against Lee ultimately collapsed as his 
legal team, granted top secret security clearances and tutored by 
Lee in the physics of nuclear weapons, picked apart the charges 
to the point where, in a plea bargain, all but one were dismissed 
and Lee pleaded guilty to downloading classified information and 
to copying that information on to a computer tape.

The prosecution, orchestrated by the FBI and the Department of 
Justice in the name of national security, was one of the most 
shameful since the McCarthy era. Beginning with no more than a 
surmisethat China might have developed an advanced nuclear 
warhead similar to those deployed on the missiles on Trident 
submarinesthe investigation was founded on the rawest of racial 
profiling and pursued with bungling and incompetence. It moved 
forward in an atmosphere of race-baiting Sinophobia abetted by 
numerous politicians, Democrats and Republicans alike, and by key 
elements of the news media, which rather than challenging the 
charges, added to the atmosphere, forgetting that in such times 
its role is not only to look after national security but also to 
defend civil liberties. As a result, China was portrayed as the 
new post-Cold War rival of the United States, and Lee was 
compared repeatedly to Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, who were 
executed in 1953 after being convicted of nuclear espionage on 
behalf of the Soviet Union.

In the end, however, the prosecution's failed charges against Lee 
brought an extraordinary and profound apology from U.S. District 
Judge James A. Parker. "The top decision makers in the executive 
branch, especially the Department of Justice and the Department 
of Energy and locally ... have caused embarrassment by the way 
this case began and was handled," Parker declared from the bench, 
as he freed Lee after 278 days in harsh pre-trial detention. 
"They did not embarrass me alone. They have embarrassed our 
entire nation and each of us who is a citizen of it.... I 
sincerely apologize to you, Dr. Lee, for the unfair manner in 
which you were held in custody by the executive branch."

In an excellent piece of forensic journalism, "A Convenient Spy," 
reporters Dan Stober of the San Jose Mercury News and Ian Hoffman 
of the Albuquerque Journal deconstruct the many bad decisions in 
Lee's case, following each blunder to the top of the FBI, the 
Justice Department and the Clinton White House. The prime mover 
in the case was Notra Trulock, the chief of intelligence and 
counterintelligence for the Department of Energy's nuclear 
laboratories and factories, but there were dozens of officials 
who failed to question his flawed logic or challenge his racism. 
Fearing that they, too, might be blamed for the loss of U.S. 
strategic superiority, these officials moved the case forward.

"The Wen Ho Lee affair was an ugly chapter in U.S. history," 
Stober and Hoffman conclude. "It was a time when democratic 
ideals were forgotten in the name of national security, when 
ideology and ambition overpowered objectivity, and when partisan 
warfare trumped statesmanship."

Senior scientists, veterans of the nuclear weapons program, came 
forward during the prosecution to debunk the government's working 
premisethat China must have been helped by agents within the 
U.S. programand disputed whether the material that Lee was 
suspected of providing would have even helped Beijing's nuclear 
weapons program. And as Stober and Hoffman point out, the United 
States had gathered far more intelligence on China's development 
of nuclear weapons than Beijing had obtained in the United 
States.

But Lee, as a Chinese American scientist, was virtually 
pre-ordained for prosecution, according to Stober and Hoffman's 
analysis. Investigators were looking for someone of Chinese 
ancestry with access to U.S. nuclear secrets and only for such a 
person. That Lee was politically na�, sloppy in observing 
security protocols, alarmingly forgetful and at times deceitful 
added greatly to his vulnerability.

With the help of journalist Helen Zia, Lee gets his right of 
reply in "My Country Versus Me." He explains that he had made 
copies of the computerized codes used to model nuclear 
explosions, and thus to test atomic weapons, because computer 
crashes at Los Alamos had cost him a lot of hard work, destroying 
years' worth of code writing. He says that he had kept all the 
copied material secure, much of which was not even classified, 
until the investigation was well underway. Panic set in and, 
fearing discovery, he deleted the files from an unsecure computer 
he had used and threw away the magnetic tapes onto which he had 
copied them.

"It was simply inconceivable to me that any rational person who 
had the facts could think that I was a spy," Lee writes. "As a 
scientist, I thought of facts as indisputable. I clung to the 
simple belief that the facts would prove the truth and that in 
America a person is innocent until proven guilty."

In their exhaustive examination of the case, however, Stober and 
Hoffman do not entirely exonerate Lee, and they do raise serious 
doubts about his behavior. Copying the computer codes was "an 
egregious security offense," they write. "Lee broke the 
fundamental trust that underlies the weapons world and, in the 
end, his betrayal of that trustwitting or notseriously eroded 
America's confidence in the weapons labs and the ability of his 
colleagues to protect secrets."

Certainly, Lee's actions could arouse suspicion and, as he 
acknowledges, deserved official reprimand, but they cannot 
justify the espionage charges against him nor his pre-trial 
incarceration in solitary confinement. Some politicians and 
commentators have argued that despite the dismissal of all but 
one charge, Lee's own behavior and his "enigmatic character" were 
responsible for his fate, but in this they are blaming the victim 
for the injustice he suffered.

From the outset, the Lee case was far from simple, and even with 
the information available for the first time in these two books, 
there remain many difficult issues, unresolved questions and new 
concerns. It is clear, however, that the government's prosecution 
of Lee severely undercut U.S. security interests. The 
investigation by the congressional committee led by Rep. 
Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach) into unauthorized transfers of 
highly sensitive technology to China was so caught up in 
Washington's anti-China hysteria and was so influenced by Trulock 
that its conclusions cannot be trusted. Whether there was ever a 
leak of nuclear weapons secrets appears very uncertain, at least 
from what we can gather from the public record. What is the real 
state of China's nuclear weapons program? We may not know for 
quite a while.

Is China the United States' principal global rival, as Cox and 
others asserted? Since Sept. 11, the Bush administration has 
focused on international terrorism as the gravest threat to the 
United States, and China so far has supported the U.S. effort 
against it. What will Washington's relationship be with Beijing 
going forward? The strong anti-China sentiments, so evident in 
the Lee case, undermined what had been a key strategic 
partnership for the United States since the Nixon administration.

What is worse is that Asian Americans were again suspected of 
having divided loyalties. They were portrayed by some in the 
country's political establishment as well as the intelligence 
community as almost an enemy column within, and gifted young 
Asian American scientists had serious reasons not to work in 
national laboratories, such as Los Alamos, or in the country's 
defense industries.

The news media fanned this Sinophobia. Fed by Trulock and other 
federal officials motivated by self-interest, New York Times 
investigative reporters Jeff Gerth and James Risen raised the 
alarm about the supposed theft of the country's "crown jewels" 
and compared the case to that of the Rosenbergs. Knowledgeable 
specialists in the paper's own newsroom, however, should have 
quickly exposed the many holes in the case, and its editors 
should have questioned the bias of the sources. In fact, six 
months later, William Broad, a Times' science writer with much 
experience reporting on nuclear armaments, interviewed physicists 
and weapons specialists at Los Alamos for another major piece and 
concluded that there was strong disagreement about how much help 
China had received, or needed, to advance its nuclear arsenal. 
However, the Times' two reexaminations of the case were, in the 
view of Stober and Hoffman, largely self-exculpatory, trying not 
to admit any failure on the paper's part while setting the record 
straight.

But The New York Times' first story, the 3,800-word account by 
Gerth and Risen of the investigation at Los Alamos, set other 
news organizations in pursuit of the agents that China allegedly 
had within the U.S. weapons establishment. As editor of the Los 
Angeles Times through most of this period, I pressed our 
reporters to catch up with The New York Times, but they came back 
highly skeptical of the Cox report and of the case against Lee. 
Columnist Robert Scheer, based on his own reporting, argued on 
this newspaper's Commentary page that Lee was a victim of racism 
and the case against him was fatally flawed.

Investigative reporting is an important defense of American 
democracy, but in the case of Wen Ho Lee, it contributed to the 
fear-mongering political atmosphere in Washington and nearly 
subverted justice. First Amendment rights imply the obligations 
to be factual and accurate, truthful and fair and, in my view, 
compassionate as well. As a profession, we failed this test in 
the Lee case and consequently diminished the credibility of 
investigative journalism.

All this leaves unresolved how the United States can best protect 
not only the secrets of its nuclear arsenal, but other technology 
with weapons potential, such as ballistic missiles, 
reconnaissance satellites or biological and chemical agents. A 
botched case like Lee's could deter counterintelligence officers 
from pursuit of real leaks. So bungled was the Lee investigation, 
as Stober and Hoffman show, that one wonders how the FBI manages 
to catch real traitors. And it prompts concern that even now we 
may be repeating the errors of the Wen Ho Lee case as we search 
for terrorists within the Arab American community.

 * * * Michael Parks is the director of the School of Journalism 
at USC's Annenberg School for Communication. He was the editor of 
The Times from 1997 to 2000 and a Pulitzer Prize-winning foreign 
corespondent for the paper, covering China, Russia, South Africa 
and the Middle East. * * * From 'My Country Versus Me'

'My ordeal is a wound that will be hard to heal. I'm not sure how 
to recover from it. At my age, I don't want to spend energy 
feeling hate or bitterness. It will be hard for me to trust 
people again the way I used to accept people's friendliness and 
kindness at face value. At the same time, so many Asian, white, 
black, Hispanic, and Native American people were willing to help 
me. I wish I could thank every person individually. I also know 
that if I had been accused of such a thing in China or Russia, I 
would probably be dead. I would have been shot if this happened 
in Taiwan under the Kuomintang. The fact that I could be released 
after being so wrongly accused is evidence of the good in 
America. I can still say that I am truly glad that I am an 
American ....

The main reason for us to stay here is the warmth of our 
neighbors, our friends, and the real community we are part of. 
Sylvia [my wife] has her places to shop, to hike, to do yoga. I 
have my work, my garden, my secret fishing holes where I can 
catch a 27-inch trout, where I can find some peace of mind in the 
natural beauty that surrounds us. These are the important things 
that make a place a home.

This is my home, this is my place in America. This is why America 
is, after all, my country.' 

	 		 	

Copyright 2002 Los Angeles Times   

*****************************************************************
 45 Group holds annual Good Friday test site protest

Members of the Nevada Desert Experience dance to a drum beat 
during a march to the Nevada Test Site on Friday. Photo by Amy 
Beth Bennett.

Saturday, March 30, 2002
 Copyright � Las Vegas Review-Journal 

By KEITH ROGERS 
REVIEW-JOURNAL 

Carrying out a tradition that began 20 years ago, the faith-based 
Nevada Desert Experience staged its annual Good Friday protest at 
the Nevada Test Site, where 31 people were issued citations for 
trespassing. 

A National Nuclear Security Administration spokesman said they 
were among 40 demonstrators who had gathered about noon near the 
Mercury entrance to the test site, 65 miles northwest of Las 
Vegas, to participate in a nonviolent protest against the 
nation's continued stake in nuclear weapons research. 

The spokesman, Kevin Rohrer, said the 31 were cited and released 
by Nye County sheriff's deputies. 

"We expect an additional protest on Sunday," Rohrer said. 

Organizers of the so-called Lenten Desert Experience said many of 
the protesters had walked to the test site from the 
administration's North Las Vegas facility. The trek began on Palm 
Sunday, March 24. 

The "peace walk" and protest were billed as an event "to 
commemorate 20 years of faithful witness by the Nevada Desert 
Experience against nuclear weapons testing; to continue the 
struggle to thwart the modern works of war," according to group's 
Web site. 

Full-scale nuclear weapons testing was put on hold in 1992 by 
President George Bush, and the moratorium was extended 
indefinitely by President Clinton. 

After 1992, anti-nuclear demonstrators continued to gather at 
what formerly was a cattle guard near the test site's Mercury 
entrance to protest the nation's stockpile stewardship program. 

The effort by scientists at national laboratories in California 
and New Mexico to ensure the safety and reliability of U.S. 
nuclear weapons relies on supercomputers at the labs and small, 
subcritical nuclear experiments at the test site that stop short 
of erupting into self-sustaining nuclear chain reactions.
 
Copyright � Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002
*****************************************************************
 46  Of nukes, maneuvers and stubborn perceptions

CDI Russia Weekly #199 - Russia, United States Nuclear Targeting 
                                        
#8
 The Russia Journal
 March 22-28, 2002
 By GORDON M. HAHN
 
(Dr. Gordon M. Hahn is The Russia Journal�s political analyst and 
a visiting research fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford 
University.)
 
With the next Russian-American summit two months away, the West 
has still failed to squarely face the fundamental and by now 
decade-old questions undermining its relationship with Russia. 
Which side has greater capabilities, the West or Russia? If the 
tables were turned, how would U.S. decision-makers, as "rational 
actors," respond to the overwhelming countervailing capabilities 
Russia "perceives" and encounters from the West?
 
The news that the United States has included Russia on a list of 
countries to be targeted by American nuclear weapons � along with 
China, North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Syria and Libya � has sent shock 
waves through political elites here and across the Big Pond. On 
the one hand, this "news" is not surprising; on another, it is 
shocking, raising serious doubts about the ability of Western 
bureaucracies to overcome old habits.
 
It has been known for a long time that Russia was not 
"de-targeted" by the United States after the Cold War. That 
Russia has preserved such status might be regarded an achievement 
of sorts: It has retained one trait that marked its superpower 
greatness. The cycle in which the United States annually 
rediscovers that the Cold War is over and promises to develop a 
"new relationship" with Russia is more striking.
 
This is news because it spectacularly debunks a fashionable 
argument made by U.S. officials and analysts. Russia should not 
be so disturbed by America�s nuclear arsenal, the argument goes, 
because the United States is not unsettled by British or French 
nuclear warheads and vice versa. Friends do not begrudge friends� 
"defense capabilities." Unfortunately, this formula leaves out 
the most important variables: U.S. weapons are not zeroed in on 
London or Paris, nor are British and French nuclear projectiles 
aimed at Washington.
 
To understand Russian reaction to the West�s military posture, we 
should consider a concise statement made by George Shultz, who 
served as secretary of state during Ronald Reagan�s presidency. 
In regards to the fundamental principle that should inform 
national security decision-making, he noted that states design 
policy not on the basis of the intentions of other states, but on 
the basis of their capabilities. Repeat this to yourself, several 
times if need be, and then take a gander at the world through the 
security calculus of the Kremlin or, say, from Arbatskaya 
Ploshchad, where Russia�s General Staff divines defense policy.
 
U.S. nuclear weapons target some 2,000 sites in Russia. Others 
are the targets of British and French nuclear arms. American 
troops are now being stationed across the C.I.S. � as of now 
"only" in four states: Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and 
Uzbekistan. NATO member Turkey is ethnically close to Azerbaijan, 
and some leaders in Baku have called for a NATO presence in their 
country.
 
A high-ranking delegation of U.S. officers recently visited 
Armenia to discuss stepping up military cooperation. The 
U.S.-Georgian operation in the Pankisi Gorge will target only 
Taliban and al-Qaida forces, giving Chechen terrorists a pass. 
Later this year, the three former Soviet Baltic republics, along 
with as many as four other countries near Russia�s western 
borders, will join NATO, already the most powerful military 
machine in history.
 
All of this heightens the effect of another recent event. Last 
week, NATO conducted military maneuvers near Russia�s borders. 
Besides NATO members, the exercise, "Strong Resolve 2002," 
involved Estonia, Lithuania, Finland, Sweden, Austria, Bulgaria, 
Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. The scenario 
envisioned an enemy attack on NATO from the north and a 
simultaneous invasion of a Central European NATO member state. 
Unless Latvia � the only northern state besides Russia not 
included in the exercise � is regarded as a potential enemy of 
the very alliance it is about to join and, unless Belarus is 
considered a potential invader, the only possible enemy in this 
scenario is Russia.
 
This is reminiscent of another NATO celebration held two years 
ago, which involved supporting Ukraine�s state integrity against 
an uprising by a national minority supported by a foreign 
compatriot state. Unless a Crimean Tatar state that I do not know 
about has materialized, the only possible enemy in that scenario 
also was our "partner" Russia.
 
In short, it does not take much, if any, paranoia for a Russian, 
not to mention a Russian general, to feel threatened by the 
United States and NATO.
 
Capabilities are always malignant. If Russian generals subscribe 
to the Shultz Principle, they are simply duty-bound to muster all 
resources to counter the hard facts of the potential Western 
threat. A general�s charge is not to protect an economic 
transition or the consolidation of democracy. He can rationally 
conclude that any capability is a potential threat, regardless of 
its improbability.
 
Moreover, perceptions are stubborn things, especially when they 
have a history behind them. They can persist long after the 
reality they once reflected has changed. In the case of the end 
of the Cold War, the persistence of old perceptions has been 
evident on both sides. The policy of mutual threat reduction that 
used to define Soviet-American relations has not eliminated 
"mutual threat perception."
 
Given the preponderance of Western power, Russian "perceptions" 
are a rational reaction to Western capabilities, prolonging the 
inertia of the Cold War legacy and traditional "zapadnophobia." 
Western and American perceptions reflect mostly the memory of 
Soviet capabilities on top of ancient European Russophobia.
 
Irrational misperceptions should be more easily shed by the Cold 
War�s victors than by its vanquished. The historical lessons of 
Weimar, Versailles and the Marshall Plan counsel magnanimity in 
victorious hegemony and efforts to assuage the suspicions of 
beleaguered former foes.
 
CENTER FOR DEFENSE INFORMATION 1779 Massachusetts Ave, NW, 
Washington, DC 20036-2109 Ph: (202) 332-0600 � Fax: (202) 
462-4559 

*****************************************************************
 47 Dangerous Turn In Nuclear Policy 

The Ledger: Letters to the Editor
 
[http://www.theledger.com/] Lakeland, Florida
   
Saturday, March 30, 2002
 
In the history of human civilization, only one nation has 
employed nuclear weapons to destroy the will and capability of 
another nation to wage war. The world has lived under the nuclear 
threat since America dropped two bombs on Japan to conclude World 
War II in 1945. And it has been the miracle of the nuclear age 
that, in the decades since, no other nation -- or any terrorist 
group -- has employed the terrible weapon of nuclear fire to 
destroy its enemies. 

Partially, that's because for most of that half century, the 
United States and the old Soviet Union -- the two nuclear giants 
-- had determined that the only sane policy in regard to the use 
of nuclear weapons was that of "mutual assured destruction." Each 
power knew that once one side launched a nuclear strike, the 
other side would retaliate in kind -- a consequence much too 
terrible to imagine, let alone act upon. 

The Soviet Union is gone. The end of the Cold War witnessed a 
scaling back of nuclear tensions. And America remains the world's 
pre-eminent nuclear power. But, now, officials of the only nation 
to have used nuclear weapons in anger are thinking the 
unthinkable: the use of nuclear bombs, not strictly as a 
deterrent, but as simply another option in the Pentagon's 
already-impressive arsenal of tactical weaponry. 

Earlier this month, President Bush said "all options are on the 
table," including nuclear weapons, as America confronts threats 
from hostile nations such as Iraq. More significantly, a Pentagon 
policy paper is proposing that smaller tactical nuclear weapons 
could be useful in striking difficult targets, such as 
underground bunkers. Essentially, the Pentagon wants the option 
of using both "nonnuclear systems and nuclear weapons," to give 
the military "greater flexibility in the design and conduct of 
military campaigns to defeat opponents decisively." 

So much for mutual assured destruction. Now, nuclear arms are 
viewed simply as a means of getting more bang for the Pentagon's 
buck. 

While tactical nukes may indeed be more effective than 
conventional weapons in burying the Taliban inside their 
Afghanistan caves, the concept that nuclear weapons ought to be 
just another option of warfare is chilling. It would end more 
than half a century of the deeply ingrained doctrine of nuclear 
deterrence. It would, essentially, invite political and military 
leaders the world over to "think the unthinkable." 

"Throughout the nuclear age, the fundamental goal has been to 
prevent the use of nuclear weapons," Ivo Daalder, foreign policy 
specialist at the Brookings Institution, told The New York Times. 
"Now the policy has been turned upside down. It is to keep 
nuclear weapons as a tool of war fighting rather than a tool of 
deterrence. If military planners are now to consider the nuclear 
option any time they confront a surprising military development, 
the distinction between nuclear and nonnuclear weapons fades 
away." 

The Bush administration's so-called "Nuclear Posture Review" is a 
dangerous new strategy, and one that will certainly encourage 
other nations to also begin to view nuclear arms as just another 
tactical weapon. 

"We would have violated a taboo we've had in place since 
Nagasaki," said Dr. Frank von Hipple, a physicist at Princeton, 
and former advisor to the Clinton administration, to The Times. 
"With our enormous conventional superiority, that would be the

 ultimate in stupidity and self destructiveness. By using nuclear 
weapons we would make it permissible for others to use them 
against us." America has a special obligation to humanity do 
everything in its power to keep the nuclear genie sealed up 
tightly in its bottle. Our obligation to civilization must 
override our temptation to view the genie as simply a more 
effective bunker-buster.

  � 2002 The LedgerQuestions? Problems? Suggestions?  
[online@theledger.com] 
*****************************************************************
 48 Saudi Puts Faith in Iraqi Pledge 

(washingtonpost.com)
 
Crown Prince Says He Trusts Vow to Respect Kuwait's Borders 

By Howard Schneider
 Washington Post Foreign Service
 Saturday, March 30, 2002; Page A12 

BEIRUT, March 29 -- Crown Prince Abdullah, the de facto ruler of 
Saudi Arabia, said today that despite U.S. skepticism he expects 
that Iraq will honor its promises to respect Kuwait's sovereignty 
and never again invade the tiny Persian Gulf emirate.
 
"This is a very positive achievement," Abdullah said in an 
interview after a two-day Arab League summit here during which he 
exchanged kisses on the cheek with the chief Iraqi delegate, 
Izzat Ibrahim. "It is incumbent on the Arabs to agree to move 
closer together rather than move farther apart."
 
The Saudi effort to help usher President Saddam Hussein's 
government back into the comity of Arab nations complicates the 
Bush administration's campaign to enlist support for its 
determination to do something -- perhaps including military 
action -- about Hussein. Although the Bush administration has 
focused on Hussein's unwillingness to allow U.N. weapons 
inspectors into Iraq -- and not on the status of Kuwait -- it 
would need cooperation from Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries 
for any strike on Hussein's government.
 
Vice President Cheney earlier this month visited Saudi Arabia and 
10 other Middle Eastern countries seeking in part to explain the 
U.S. view on Iraq and solicit Arab support. Instead, he was met 
in capital after capital with public expressions of doubt from 
high-level officials about the wisdom of any military campaign to 
unseat Hussein.
 
Abdullah's statements today seemed designed to make the doubts 
even clearer and more pointed.
 
After recording Iraq's pledge to respect Kuwait, the Arab League 
unanimously opposed any U.S. attack and said that it would regard 
an assault on any Arab nation as a threat to each country's 
national security. "They refuse, totally, any attack against 
Iraq," said Amr Moussa, secretary general of the Arab League.
 
The promise from Iraq marked the first time since the Persian 
Gulf War in 1991 that Hussein's government has acknowledged the 
independence of Kuwait, whose land and oil riches Baghdad has 
long complained were carved from Iraq by Western powers.
 
Although Hussein was not at the meeting here, Ibrahim, a powerful 
vice chairman of Iraq's ruling Revolutionary Command Council, 
told Arab leaders that Iraq "wants the security of all the Arab 
countries, including Kuwait."
 
"We affirm a commitment to respect the sovereignty of Kuwait, its 
independence, and stability and the security of its land within 
its own borders," he added.
 
Ibrahim's delegation also pledged to cooperate with Kuwait in 
determining the fate of Kuwaitis missing since the Iraqi invasion 
of Kuwait in August 1990 and the six-month occupation that 
followed.
 
The statements earned Ibrahim a behind-the-scenes handshake form 
Kuwaiti officials, the public embrace from Abdullah and the 
possibility of resuming formal diplomatic relations with both 
countries. Arab leaders have sought similar promises from Iraq in 
the past, only to earn angry denunciations that they were puppets 
of the United States and Israel.
 
Abdullah said today that he accepted the Iraqi promise on face 
value, as he would accept a promise from anyone else.
 
At the same time, the leaders encouraged Iraq to continue 
discussions with the United Nations about the return of weapons 
inspectors. Iraq agreed to accept inspectors as part of the 
cease-fire agreement that ended the war. But they have not been 
allowed in the country for three years, and the Bush 
administration has charged that Hussein is trying again to 
develop chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.
 
Against that background, U.S. officials cautioned against reading 
too much into the agreement in Beirut.
 
"We can make far too much of a handshake," a State Department 
spokesman said. "Anyone who trusts Saddam Hussein takes a big 
chance." On the other hand, he added, "If it were true there was 
a real Iraqi agreement, we welcome that. But given their record 
of flouting international obligations, we are quite doubtful."
 
Abdullah said that he and Ibrahim, during a private meeting, did 
not discuss the "substance" of a possible return of the 
inspectors. An initial meeting in March between U.N. Secretary 
General Kofi Annan and an Iraqi delegation headed by Foreign 
Minister Naji Sabri has helped raise hopes, however. A follow-up 
meeting is scheduled for mid-April.
 
Coupled with the approval of an Arab peace proposal to Israel, 
the fence-mending among Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Iraq was further 
evidence of efforts by Arab leaders to become more active in 
trying to solve the region's problems in the wake of the Sept. 11 
attacks in New York and Washington.
 
President Bush has dubbed Iraq, under Hussein, part of a global 
"axis of evil" and has sought his removal from office. Military 
action has been mentioned as a possible part of that effort. But 
Arab leaders have cautioned that they want the United States 
first to pay attention to the struggle between Israel and the 
Palestinians. In addition, they have expressed worry about the 
repercussions of toppling the Iraqi leader without a clear 
substitute.
 
In part, Moussa and other leaders said, the declaration opposing 
an attack on Iraq was meant to signal that leaders in the region 
regard the possibility of an assault as more of a threat than 
Hussein's rule. U.S. officials might be wary of Iraq, Arab 
officials at the summit said, but Washington should note that 
Baghdad on the same day recognized both Kuwait and Israel, a sign 
that the mood in the Arab world has shifted since Sept. 11.
 
"This spirit will allow us to move on," Moussa said. "It will 
allow us to do a lot if calm prevails."
 
The summit declaration in some ways was the fruit of a recent 
diplomatic campaign mounted by Hussein's government among the 
Arab states to shore up support in the face of the repeated U.S. 
threats against his rule.
 
Sabri, the Iraqi foreign minister, singled out Qatar and Oman, 
two Persian Gulf states where U.S. military units are stationed, 
for playing "a basic role in bringing viewpoints together" 
between Iraq and Kuwait. Ibrahim said his country's gesture "was 
not adopted out of fear of the United States" but out of 
goodwill.
 
Iraqi officials have repeatedly predicted a U.S. attack is on the 
horizon -- and Washington's declarations have done nothing to 
dissuade them. Gen. Tommy R. Franks, commander of the U.S. 
Central Command, disclosed today that Pentagon officials are 
looking at putting additional U.S. troops into Kuwait.
 
More than 3,000 airmen are in Kuwait associated with Operation 
Southern Watch, the patrols that fly over the southern part of 
Iraq. 

In addition, Franks told reporters at the Pentagon that a 
"brigade-minus," two battalions of U.S. soldiers, had been sent 
to Kuwait "two or three months ago . . . as a hedge against 
miscalculation."
 
"At some point we may make that a full brigade," he said. "I'm 
not sure." The purpose of the deployments, he added, is to 
provide "a great training opportunity for our ground forces to be 
able to cooperate and train with forces in the region."
 
Staff writer Walter Pincus in Washington contributed to this 
report. 

� 2002 The Washington Post Company
*****************************************************************
 49 Endangering US Security     
       
COMMENT | April 15, 2002 

by Katrina vanden Heuvel & Stephen F. Cohen 

Barely six months after Russian President Vladimir Putin became 
the Bush Administration's most valuable ally in the war against 
terrorism in Afghanistan, the promise of a historic US-Russian 
partnership is being squandered. Indeed, this second chance to 
establish a truly cooperative relationship with post-Communist 
Russia--after the lost opportunity of the 1990s--is being gravely 
endangered by Bush's own policies. 
 
During the weeks after September 11, Russia's contribution to the 
US counterterror operation in Afghanistan exceeded that of all of 
America's NATO allies together. Not only did Moscow provide 
essential intelligence information, it allowed the Pentagon to 
use its airspace and crucial Soviet-built airfields in Central 
Asia. It also stepped up its military assistance to the Afghan 
Northern Alliance, which Russia had supported long before 
September 11 and which did most of the ground fighting until 
recently. Even Russia's pro-Western lobbies are now asking, "What 
did we get in return?" Or as a leading member of the Parliament 
defense committee told us, "After September 11, we thought we 
were strategic partners, but America is an unreliable partner who 
completely disregards the interests of Russia." 

Indeed, the arrival of the two of us in Moscow in March coincided 
with the Los Angeles Times revelations about the Pentagon's new 
nuclear doctrines, which continue to include Russia as a possible 
target of a US attack. It was the lead story for days in Russia's 
media, and most of the headlines and commentary were angrily 
anti-American. Komsomolskaya Pravda, Moscow's largest-circulation 
newspaper, featured a half-page illustration of a muscular Bush 
as Rambo, cradling a machine gun and flanked by his 
warriors--Rumsfeld (in a metal-studded headband, brandishing a 
bloody sword), Cheney, Powell and Rice. Protests against US 
policy and Bush himself reached such levels that the US 
ambassador called in Russian journalists to chastise them for 
being anti-American. 

His lecture did nothing to squelch anti-US sentiments, which had 
diminished after September 11 but are now growing rapidly. 
Symptomatic was the view, widely expressed in media commentary 
and public opinion polls, that a US-led plot had deprived Russian 
athletes of gold medals at the Salt Lake City Olympics. Scarcely 
less resented was Bush's decision to impose tariffs on Russian 
steel, which increased belief in American hypocrisy about the 
virtue of "free markets." 

More serious, however, is the opinion spreading across Moscow's 
political spectrum that the Bush Administration's war on 
terrorism now has less to do with helping Russia--or any other 
country--fight Islamic extremism on its borders than with 
establishing military outposts of a new (or expanded) American 
empire ("a New Rome," as a leading politician's aide remarked to 
us) with control over the region's enormous oil and gas reserves 
as its primary goal. Even Russians who consider themselves 
pro-American are understandably finding it increasingly difficult 
to counter this charge. 

After all, viewed from Moscow, since September 11 the Bush 
Administration seems to be systematically imposing what Russia 
has always feared--a hostile military encirclement. This is not 
merely the product of anti-US conspiratorial theories. In fact it 
is likely that by 2003, there will be a US or NATO military 
presence in at least eight or nine of the fifteen former Soviet 
republics--four or all five of the Central Asian "stans," Georgia 
and the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. 

Not surprisingly, President Putin, Bush's alleged "partner," is 
coming under increasing high-level attack in Moscow as a result 
of White House policies. Putin's policies have unleashed angry 
charges that he is "losing" Central Asia and the Caucasus while 
succumbing to US imperialism. 

Of special importance, and virtually without precedent in Soviet 
or Russian history, has been a series of published "open letters" 
signed by retired generals, including one of former President 
Yeltsin's defense ministers, accusing Putin of "selling out" the 
country and "betraying" the nation's security and other vital 
interests. 

The Kremlin is, of course, trying to defend what Putin's 
supporters call his "strategic choice" of an alliance between 
Russia and the United States and to discount the Bush 
Administration's recent steps. But a fateful struggle over that 
choice--and perhaps Putin's leadership itself--is clearly under 
way in Russia's political class. A pro-Western newspaper headline 
responded to the Pentagon's new strategic doctrines: America 
Prepares Friendly Nuclear Strike for Russia. Even given Putin's 
personal popularity with the Russian people and his backing by 
the Western-oriented energy oligarchs, it seems unlikely that he 
can go along with this fictitious "partnership" much longer. 

If nothing else, the new US strategic thinking, including its 
enhanced status for tactical nuclear weapons, strengthens 
elements in the Russian military that have lobbied since the 
1990s for giving "surgical" battlefield nukes a larger role in 
the Kremlin's own doctrine. As a leading Russian military 
specialist argues, the new US doctrine gives the Russian military 
additional arguments for new testing and deployment. "If the 
United States resumes real nuclear tests to make the new 
weapons," he wrote in early March, "Russia will soon follow." 
Indeed, in late March the head of the Parliament defense 
committee called on Putin to upgrade Russia's nuclear weapons 
capability in response to the US missile defense program. 

All this suggests that the scheduled May summit between Bush and 
Putin, in Russia, may turn out to be little more than a show 
designed to promote the two leaders' political fortunes, but that 
does nothing to achieve today's most urgent security need--sharp 
reductions in both sides' nuclear arsenals. ("Storing" instead of 
destroying warheads, as Washington insists on doing, for 
instance, would not actually reduce those weapons or Moscow's 
growing sense of military insecurity.) 

None of this is in America's true national interest. The 
post-cold war nuclear world, as this magazine has long pointed 
out, is more dangerous than was the cold war itself. The primary 
reason, September 11 notwithstanding, remains the instability of 
Russia's post-Soviet nuclear infrastructures. CIA director George 
Tenet has emphasized, for example, the imminent danger that 
Russia's nuclear devices, materials and knowledge might become 
the primary source of proliferation. 

The Bush Administration's policy of treating Russia not as a real 
partner, with its own legitimate national interests, but merely 
as a part-time helper when it suits US purposes as well as a 
potential nuclear target only increases these dangers. In this 
fundamental sense, the United States today has an Administration 
whose Russia policies are endangering America's national 
security. 

� 2002 The Nation Company, L.P. Permissions | Letters to the 
Editor 
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 50 DOE computer systems' security lax 

Tri-Valley Herald
 	 	 	 
 Saturday, March 30, 2002 - 3:41:33 AM MST 

Report outlines increased risk of 'malicious damage' 

By Glenn Roberts Jr.

STAFF WRITER            
 	 
Saturday, March 30, 2002 - -->Energy Department officials have 
been slow to safeguard important computer systems, which 
increased the risk of "malicious damage" to the systems, 
department investigators conclude in a report released this 
month. 

"Attacks and resulting damage to the country's critical cyber 
interests have increased dramatically in recent years," according 
to the report by the department Office of Inspector General, an 
independent investigations unit. 

But the department has "not devoted sufficient priority or 
resources to identifying and developing protective measures for 
cyber-related assets," the report also states, despite earlier 
requests by the Inspector General staff to speed up 
cyber-security efforts. 

Department officials said in response that development of a 
department-specific protection plan for vital computer systems 
should not precede a national protection plan that is under 
development and is expected to be released in September. 

In November, the Office of Inspector General released a report 
stating that the department's computer-security program "did not 
adequately protect data and information systems" and cited 
problems with the reporting of computer incidents and with 
contingency planning. 

A department Computer Incident Advisory Capability at Livermore 
Lab reported 3,080 computer security incidents throughout the 
department's sites in the 1999 budget year, including 130 
successful intrusions into computer systems and 46 department 
sites reporting at least one incident. 

And by the 2001 budget year, the number of scans and probes on 
department computers had escalated by a factor of 10. 

The latest Inspector General report noted that department 
managers deferred action on responding to most of the office's 
earlier recommendations, pending "completion of a national-level 
protection plan by the Office of Homeland Security." 

But this delay may be excessive, the report cautions. "At a 
minimum, the department should assign specific responsibilities, 
with established milestones, for implementing our 
recommendations." 

Inspector General investigators have urged department officials 
to develop and implement protection efforts for "critical" 
computer systems, and to revise annual performance plans to 
include "specific, quantifiable" protection goals for critical 
systems at various programs and sites. 

Investigators also asked the department to find money to pay for 
these computer-security initiatives. 

Joseph S. Mahaley, director for the Energy Department Office of 
Security, stated in a response to the report that some actions 
are being taken to improve computer security. 

Mahaley stated that department officials are participating 

in efforts to develop a national protection plan for critical 
systems, and the national plan is due out by Sept. 1. 

He also stated that department officials believe that a 
department-specific protection plan "would be counterproductive" 
because of this effort to develop a national plan. 

The U.S. Homeland Security Policy Coordinating Committee on 
Domestic Protection is leading the effort to develop the plan.
 
�1999-2001 by MediaNews Group, Inc. and ANG Newspapers
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 51 Good Friday rally for peace draws 270 to nuclear lab 

Tri-Valley Herald
 	 	 	 
Saturday, March 30, 2002 - 3:42:12 AM MST 

By FROM STAFF REPORTS           
 	 
Saturday, March 30, 2002 - -->LIVERMORE -- An estimated 270 
people participated in an annual Good Friday peace rally at 
Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, and 66 offered themselves for 
arrest as they stepped onto lab grounds. 

The event, sponsored by the Ecumenical Peace Institute in 
Berkeley, the Livermore Conversion Project, Nevada Desert 
Experience and Franciscan Justice, Peace and Integrity of 
Creation Office, featured song, scripture, silence and speeches 
on the effects of nuclear weapons. 

Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment, a 
Livermore nuclear watchdog group, was among the co-sponsors for 
the event. 

Laura Magnani of the American Friends Service Committee presented 
"Nuclear Weapons, Prisons and the Death Penalty," Andy Lictherman 
of Western States Legal Foundation presented "Nuclear Weapons and 
Global Military Dominance" and Wilson Riles Jr. presented 
"Nuclear Weapons and the Local Impact." 

Also, Carmen Hartono of the Women's International Peace 
Imperative presented "Nuclear Weapons and International Impacts," 
and Whitney Bauman of the Theological Roundtable on Ecological 
Ethics and Spirituality presented "Nuclear Weapons and the 
Earth." 

Carla DeSola, a liturgical dancer, led a dance performance during 
the rally, which began at 6:45 a.m. 

David Schwoegler, a Livermore Lab spokesman, said the law 
enforcement response effort to the peace rally cost about 
$25,000, not including costs incurred by other law enforcement 
agencies, which will later be reimbursed. 

Livermore Lab is one of three U.S. nuclear labs.
 
�1999-2001 by MediaNews Group, Inc. and ANG Newspapers
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 52 Lab physicist wins Fulbright scholarship 

Tri-Valley Herald
 	 	 	 
 Saturday, March 30, 2002 - 3:42:17 AM MST 

By FROM STAFF REPORTS           
 	 
        Saturday, March 30, 2002 - -->A Lawrence Livermore 
Laboratory physicist has received a Fulbright Scholar award to 
study earth sciences at Cambridge University in England. 

Charles Carrigan, 52, an expert in the underground flow of 
fluids, leads the lab's Subsurface Flow and Transport Group. The 
group's studies focus on hazardous and nuclear waste disposal 
issues, and groundwater contamination at Energy Department sites. 

Carrigan said he chose to study at Cambridge because the 
institution is a leader in geophysics. 

"I stand to benefit significantly by interacting with them and 
also hope to establish a long-term technical relationship that is 
beneficial to both the lab and Cambridge," he said. 

Carrigan, a Tracy resident, will leave for England in July. 

The Fulbright Scholar program was established by Congress in 1946 
to foster cooperation between experts in the United States and 
other nations. 

An estimated 4,500 grants are awarded each year under the 
program, to U.S. citizens and nationals of other countries. The 
grants are primarily for educational activities, such as 
university lecturing, research, graduate study and teaching.
 
�1999-2001 by MediaNews Group, Inc. and ANG Newspapers
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 53 (Bush's New Plan for) Cleaning up on Hanford

The Seattle Times: 

seattletimes.com 
Editorials &Opinion 

Saturday, March 30, 2002, 12:00 a.m. Pacific 

By Mark Bloome 

What the Bush administration is proposing � to put grout (a fancy 
name for a soft form of cement) in 75 percent of the leaking 
high-level waste tanks at Hanford � is pure humbug. It is akin to 
putting a Band-Aid on a cancer lesion and hoping it will go away. 

Scientists have already studied grout as a solution to Hanford's 
waste; their conclusion is that grout does not work. The studies 
have shown it is unstable, cracks, and breaks down under the heat 
and caustic effects of high-level radiation, which is exactly the 
environment of the tanks. There are no scientific or engineering 
studies that support grout. Nay, the studies show the opposite. 

What then is driving the proposed solution? Why are our 
politicians leaping onto the bandwagon? The surprising answer is 
money and the politicians' re-election! Here is how it works: 
What the Bush administration has done, in a brilliant political 
move, is to first severely cut funding toward Hanford cleanup; 
second, to create a great slush fund, and those states that 
reduce their standards for cleanup will get more up-front money 
from the slush fund. 

Thus the announcement that the state will get more money for 
Hanford cleanup should more accurately read that our politicians, 
in order to sustain their political power, are agreeing to 
severely cut back Hanford cleanup standards so they get 
re-elected. The state gets more money up front for a few years, 
but in the long-term far less money; and in the long-term, the 
politicians sacrifice our future to a radioactive Northwest with 
its attendant increase in cancers and birth defects for our 
children and grandchildren. 

It does not take a dummy (or does it!) to understand that a 
75-percent reduction of the cleanup of the super-radioactive, 
high-level-cancer-causing waste can be done quicker and cheaper. 

The recent announcement that we will receive more money and 
Hanford will be cleaned up faster is pure unadulterated humbug. 
Mark Bloome keeps an eye on things from Seattle. 

Copyright � 2002 The Seattle Times Company
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 54 Web site covers IAAP cleanup 

The Hawk Eye Newspaper
 	
Saturday, March 30, 2002 

By Dennis J. Carroll 
The Hawk Eye 

Residents interested in the cleanup efforts at the Iowa Army 
Ammunition Plant now can go to an Internet Web site put together 
by the plant's Restoration Advisory Board. 

The site � www.nwo.usace. army.mil/iaaprab � was developed with 
the help of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and offers pictures 
and written information about the status of the various cleanup 
projects at the plant. 

The site also lists major accomplishments in the cleanup efforts 
and provides contact and background information concerning the 
members of the RAB. "It's another tool to let people know what's 
going on," said Des Moines County Conservation Director and RAB 
co�chairman Jeff Bergman. 

The site also contains the RAB's mission statement and policy 
goals, details of the restoration programs, minutes and agendas 
of RAB meetings and a discussion of the role of regulators in the 
cleanup. 

IAAP is in the middle of a $100 million Superfund cleanup 
overseen by the Environmental Protections Agency. 

Production of conventional and nuclear weapons over nearly 60 
years had left many parts of the plant with contaminated soil and 
water. The Corps of Engineers is leading the cleanup. 

The Web site also allows viewers to contact the plant with 
concerns about the environmental damage and cleanup.   
  
The Hawk Eye 800 S. Main St., Burlington Iowa 52601 319-754-8461 
Front Desk � 319-754-6824 FAX � 1-800-397-1708 Toll Free 
    
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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: 
<http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml> 
    
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