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06/30/02 ****     RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL)       **** VOL 10.166
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                         NUCLEAR POLICY
 
1 US: Nuclear Stockpiling
2 Russia to get aid for nuclear safety 
 
                         NUCLEAR REACTORS
 
3 US: Prospects for a new type of nuclear reactor look mixed*
 
                          NUCLEAR SAFETY
 
4 US: NRC pill policy leaves many at risk, critics allege
5 Terror fear over lost nuclear parts
6 US: A nuclear pill with limited range
7 N-plant safety
8 US: Policy goes too far to combat terrorism
9 Plutonium a 'material of concern' 
 
                         NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
 
10 Nuclear stores 'on verge of exploding'
11 US: Quake proved we and nuclear wastes live in unstable world	 		 		
12 US: Few in rural Nevada oppose Yucca nuclear dump site
13 US: MOX and other projects discussed for the Savannah River Site
14 US: *'The Daily Show' segment 'reports' on YMP from AV*
15 US: *Buqo: Water will have to be imported to meet PV demand*
16 US: Nuclear industry wants public to pay storage costs
17 US: *Debunking YMP 'facts'*
18 US: Later weekend hours for TRAX?
19 Nuclear Dump Disrupts a Peaceful Taiwan Island
20 Britain's nuclear danger
21 Nuclear stores 'on verge of exploding'
22 Watchdogs reveal Britain's leaking nuclear waste stores 
23 US: Groups release routes for nuclear waste
24 US: Choir members only ones listening to anti-Yucca Mountain song 
25 US: YUCCA MOUNTAIN BATTLE: GOP pushes Daschle for Senate vote
26 US: Ex-EPA official said Yucca probe led to clash
 
                         NUCLEAR WEAPONS
 
27 US: 'Racing for the Bomb': Managing the Manhattan Project
28 Koizumi lackluster at summit 
29 US: Indian Nuclear ICBM Threaten America
30 US: South Asia Nuclear Show Down - An American View
31 US war against the Ummah
32 Fact Sheet: G-8 Summit -- Preventing the Proliferation of Weapons of
33 Koizumi lackluster at summit
34 Japan to sweeten Russia arms disposal
35 Hiroshima-type weapon seen as easy to construct 
 
                        US DEPT. OF ENERGY
 
36 Blue Planet: The devil and Rocky Flats
 
                          OTHER NUCLEAR
 
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                         FULL NEWS STORIES
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 1 Nuclear Stockpiling

The New York Times <http://www.nytimes.com/>

The New York Times Magazine

*June 30, 2002*  

*By LISA BELKIN*

I have the pills. At the moment, they are in my kitchen cabinet, 
where I keep the Tylenol and the Mylanta. I am thinking, though, 
of moving them to the locked drawer in my bedroom, or maybe even 
carrying them wherever I go. I will send a supply to camp with 
the boys, but I haven't yet brought myself to inform the camp 
nurse. I think that's because I tend to lower my voice when I 
talk about these pills, as if they were illegal, which they are 
not, or valuable, which they one day might be, or discomforting, 
which they definitely are.

They come in blister packs of 14, accompanied by directions that 
sound like something out of an overly wordy science-fiction film. 
''Thank you for your order of IOSAT brand of potassium iodide,'' 
the leaflet says, explaining that those in the know call it by 
its scientific shorthand, KI. It's the first F.D.A.-approved 
''radiation blocking agent'' being sold to the general public for 
protection in an emergency; it prevents the absorption of 
radioactive material that can cause cancer, particularly in 
children. ''Nuclear plants make tempting targets,'' it continues. 
''The destruction of one would spread radiation for hundreds of 
miles, threatening cancer to anyone without immediate access to 
KI. Millions of people would need it but would be unable to get 
it in time.''

Odds are I would be one of those millions. The Indian Point 
nuclear power plant, in Buchanan, N.Y., is about 20 miles from my 
house, and data from Chernobyl show that a radiation plume can 
cause thyroid cancer much farther downwind than that. Chernobyl 
also taught us that potassium iodide, taken just before or 
shortly after radiation exposure, can sharply decrease the odds 
of thyroid cancer. (It does nothing to prevent other risks of 
radiation, but I've chosen not to dwell on that.)

If I lived 10 miles closer to Indian Point the government would 
have given me my first pill free -- one ''starter'' dose per 
person, with instructions to swallow it when they give me the go, 
then get the hell out of town. Instead I paid $14 per person for 
a two-week supply, assuming I was also buying some emotional 
comfort.

I was wrong.

What I bought instead was a ticket to a surreal fun house, a 
cascade of unthinkable thoughts, each leading to another that is 
even more bizarre. Crossing the line between supposition and 
preparation means journeying through some mental portal into a 
place so absurd it would be funny, but for the fact that it's 
dead serious, and where everyone would be paranoid, except that 
the bad guys are really out there.

Take my call to the local pharmacy. When I asked if there was any 
potassium iodide in stock, the clerk put me on hold and then 
returned to say he could add me to the waiting list. ''Will you 
be needing them before Thursday?'' he asked. Umm. Good question. 
When will I be needing them? That depends, of course, on when 
terrorists choose to attack the local nuclear power plant, and 
they won't call ahead.

''How many packages will you need?'' he continued. How many 
indeed. One each for my two sons. Two more for my husband and 
myself. One for the baby sitter. Do I give one to the dog? Is it 
reaffirming or troubling that, with the specter of nuclear terror 
looming, I am worrying about Riley? What if there are house 
guests from out of town? What is the etiquette for a radioactive 
event? What if the children have friends over who can't get home 
because the roads are clogged with panicked hordes looking for 
pills of their own? I ordered seven packets -- one each for the 
four of us plus the baby sitter and two more for whoever else 
might need it.

Back when I was a child -- back when the Russians were expected 
to blow up my Long Island elementary school, back when we 
practiced standing in the halls with our fingers laced behind our 
necks -- I saw an episode of ''The Twilight Zone.'' If memory 
serves, it told the story of a family who had built a nuclear 
shelter in their yard and ran to it when word came that Russian 
bombs were falling. The neighbors pounded on the door, demanding 
safe shelter, but the family would not or could not let all of 
them in. Guns were drawn, shots were fired and then, as neighbors 
stood facing down neighbors, word came that it was a false alarm. 
They all crawled home, knowing what they were capable of.

I want to be able to look my neighbors in the eye. I can't 
control the doings of Al Qaeda, but I can influence the contents 
of local medicine cabinets. So I've taken to knocking on doors 
along my block, chatting up potassium iodide.

''If the world blows up and you don't have any pills, I would 
feel . . . conflicted,'' I confessed, with carefully wrought 
flippancy, to a friend.

She replied, ''If the world blows up, your pills will, too.'' But 
I'm fairly certain she has since bought a supply of her own.

/Lisa Belkin is a contributing writer for the magazine./

Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company
*****************************************************************
 2 Russia to get aid for nuclear safety 

Orange County Register - Top News
Thursday, July 4, 2002   

June 30, 2002

The United States and six other industrial powers agreed Thursday 
to spend $20 billion over the next 10 years to help Russia secure 
its huge stockpiles of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons 
in an effort to prevent dangerous materials from falling into the 
hands of terrorists. 

Safeguards lacking: More than 100 nations around the world may 
have inadequate programs to prevent or even detect the theft of 
radioactive materials a terrorist would need to build a "dirty 
bomb," a U.N. agency said Tuesday. 

Focus on scientists: The FBI confirmed Thursday that it is 
looking closely at 20 to 30 scientists in its investigation of 
last fall's deadly anthrax attacks, including a biodefense 
researcher who allowed agents to search his home and storage unit 
in a bid to clear his name.
 
Border shootout: Ten Pakistani soldiers and two al-Qaida fighters 
were killed Wednesday in a shootout in the remote tribal frontier 
bordering Afghanistan where the United States suspected al-Qaida 
forces were regrouping.
 
Combat patrols: The Pentagon declared Friday that combat air 
patrols over U.S. airspace will resume over the Fourth of July 
holiday. The Federal Aviation Administration will also ban 
flights in the vicinity of several major American monuments. 
				     

[http://www.ocregister.com] Copyright 2002 The Orange County 
Register
*****************************************************************
 3 Prospects for a new type of nuclear reactor look mixed*

* Nuclear power*

*Pebble dashed?*

Jun 27th 2002

From The Economist print edition

IT GENERATES radioactive waste that is hard to store or dispose 
of. It comes loaded with questions about its economics, at least 
when the accounts are done honestly. And it runs the risk of 
catastrophic accidents if it goes wrong. Yet nuclear power has 
one advantage that environmental activists ought not to ignore: 
it produces almost no carbon dioxide. By contrast, fossil fuels 
such as oil, gas and coal release vast quantities of this gas 
when burned. Since carbon dioxide is one of the greenhouse gases 
that most researchers believe to be causing global warming (it 
hangs around for decades in the atmosphere, trapping energy from 
sunlight and thus causing the atmosphere to heat up), some 
suitable spinning could promote nuclear power as having better 
green credentials than it has managed to acquire so far.

Such spinning would, however, be much easier if there were a 
reactor design that overcame the economic and safety problems of 
existing models. About half the world's 430 or so nuclear-power 
stations use pressurised-water reactors (PWRs). The advantage of 
these is that, with such a large installed base, people know how 
to build and run them.

The problems are, first, that the plants involved in the Three 
Mile Island accident in 1979 and the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 
were both PWRs, which makes people jittery about the design (none 
has been built in America since 1979); and, second, that they 
involve a huge capital investment. They are big beasts that take 
at least six years to construct, plus however long it takes to 
win planning consent. And when a new PWR eventually comes on 
line, it tends to swamp the electricity market by suddenly 
injecting a vast amount of power into the system. No wonder power 
companies prefer gas-fired plants, which are smaller and can be 
built from scratch in less than two years.

The nuclear industry is therefore considering a new generation of 
slim-line reactors that would be smaller, safer and cheaper to 
build. One of the most promising designs is the ?pebble-bed 
modular reactor? (PBMR) being developed by South Africa's 
state-owned energy utility, Eskom. This reactor would have a 
tenth of the power output of a PWR and could be built in two 
years. And because it is modular, generating companies could bolt 
on extra capacity as demand grew.

Eskom's interest stems from South Africa's heavy dependence on 
coal, which accounts for over 93% of its electricity. The country 
wants to diversify its energy supply and make the most of its 
substantial deposits of uranium. Two years ago, Eskom set up the 
PBMR programme as a joint venture with Exelon (an American energy 
giant) and British Nuclear Fuels (a company that produces fuel 
used in British and Japanese nuclear reactors). David Nicholls, 
the programme's chief executive, says he hopes to win South 
African government approval by the end of the year to build a 
test reactor at Koeberg, near Cape Town. He thinks a commercial 
reactor could be ready by 2007.


*Technological hurdles*

Pebble-bed reactors pose some challenging design problems. 
Conventional PWRs are powered by thousands of fuel rods made from 
?enriched? uranium, in which the proportion of light uranium 
atoms (which undergo fission, and thus provide the energy) has 
been artificially boosted. The energy produced when these atoms 
split is removed by water that circulates through the reactor 
core under high pressure. This water then passes through a heat 
exchanger, where it gives up its energy to steam at lower 
pressure. The steam, in turn, is used to drive a turbine that 
spins a generator to produce electricity.

Eskom's PBMR, by contrast, is fuelled by several hundred thousand 
tennis-ball-sized spheres, known as pebbles, each of which 
contains thousands of tiny ?kernels? the size of poppy seeds. 
Each kernel is a blob of uranium coated with high-density carbon. 
This coating is designed so that, even if all the reactor's 
coolant (helium gas, not water) leaked out, the uranium in the 
pebbles could not melt and release radiation into the 
environment. The reactor core also contains ?blank?, fuel-free 
graphite pebbles. Graphite acts as a neutron ?moderator?. Nuclear 
fission is caused by a neutron colliding with an atom of light 
uranium, a process that releases further neutrons, and thus 
allows further fission in a so-called chain reaction. The 
presence of the blanks lets the reactor's operators control the 
chain reaction by slowing these neutrons down.

One advantage of the PBMR is that it can be refuelled 
continuously. As the fuel burns, the pebbles gradually shuffle 
down the core, like bubble gums in a sweet dispenser. They drop 
out of the bottom of the core at a rate of about one a minute, 
and can then be reinserted at the top if they still contain 
useful fuel, or replaced if they do not. Eskom say the reactor 
could be kept running non-stop for six years in this way, unlike 
a PWR, which has to be shut down every so often for refuelling. 
Another advantage of the pebble-bed reactor is the helium 
coolant. Helium conducts heat well?making the reactor 
efficient?and, unlike water, is not corrosive. Also, it can be 
fed directly into a turbine, rather than having to pass its 
energy on via a heat exchanger.

For all these reasons, Mr Nicholls thinks the pebble-bed reactor 
could compete directly with gas turbines, which make up over 
two-thirds of all new power plants in the world. He believes that 
it should be possible to sell 10-20 pebble-bed reactors a year.


*Safety barriers*

Critics remain unconvinced by the technical and economic 
arguments for PBMRs, however. Nuclear reactors, they say, often 
look great on paper, but are then plagued by practical 
difficulties and prove impossible to build on time or to budget. 
Steve Thomas, of the University of Greenwich, in Britain, has 
studied the economics of the PBMR. He believes that Eskom's 
estimates of how much it would cost to build and run are 
hopelessly out of line with experience of nuclear technology in 
the rest of the world. According to Mr Thomas, the reactor could 
be a world-beater in terms of capital costs, operating 
performance and running costs, and yet still be more expensive 
than new gas-fired plants.

But the biggest criticism of the reactor is that it is not as 
safe as Eskom claims. Concerns centre on the possibility that the 
fuel-filled pebbles could leak, or that the graphite pebbles 
might catch fire. The reactor also lacks a back-up mechanism to 
stop it overheating and exploding should the helium coolant 
escape. If an escape happened, a plant's operators would just 
turn it off and let it cool down of its own accord. But that is 
unlikely to satisfy regulators.

There is also a worry that the PBMR is little more than a new 
twist on a failed design dating back to the 1960s. West Germany, 
for example, abandoned its pebble-bed research programme after 
problems with a demonstration reactor. During a routine run in 
1986 a few days after the Chernobyl fire, one of the pebbles 
became lodged in a pipe feeding the fuel to the reactor. Attempts 
to shift the stuck pebble damaged the reactor and caused a 
radiation leak. The project's reputation never recovered, and the 
reactor was shut in 1990.

Exelon is already getting cold feet. It originally hinted that it 
might build 40 reactors, but in April it suddenly pulled out of 
the PBMR programme. The withdrawal is a blow for Eskom, which had 
seen its American partner as a way of encouraging American 
regulators to license the reactor. George Bush wants to expand 
nuclear power, and has called for the construction of new nuclear 
plants in America, so the stakes are high. On top of that, no 
company in its right mind would want a reactor that has not 
received a stamp of approval from one of the world's leading 
nuclear countries.

Even so, the pebble-bed design is one of the most imaginative 
around. It would be a pity if it were not tried properly at least 
once?and a feather in the cap of South Africa if that country 
were the one to try it.

Copyright� The Economist Newspaper Limited 2002. All rights 
*****************************************************************
 4 NRC pill policy leaves many at risk, critics allege

[The Boston Globe Online] [Boston.com] 
 
By Fred Kaplan, Globe Staff, 6/30/2002

 [N] EW YORK - In the event that a nuclear power plant melts down 
or is blown up, many scientists say, the surest preventive 
against thyroid cancer would be for everyone within 100 miles to 
take potassium iodide pills for two weeks. 

Yet the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which has just begun to 
stockpile the pills, has bought only enough for a two-day supply 
- and only for residents within 10 miles of a power plant.
 
Some scientists say that if catastrophe strikes, the NRC's 
distribution policy would do little for the people in greatest 
need of protection.
 
Alan Morris and Bruce Rodin run Anbex Inc., the only company in 
the United States that makes the pill. It does so under the trade 
name IOSAT in a factory outside New York City that makes various 
drugs for several companies. (They decline to diclose the 
factory's location for fear that terrorists might target it.)
 
They recently received an order from the NRC for 9 million pills, 
but they have harsh criticism for their top customer.
 
''It's disgraceful, it's criminal,'' said Morris, 60, sitting in 
a Manhattan diner. ''The NRC gives you two days' worth of pills 
while you're supposed to evacuate. But I don't know how you 
evacuate Westchester County,''the densely populated New York 
suburb where the Indian Point nuclear plant is located. ''Where 
do they all go?'' he asked. 

Morris has a vested interest in this view - it would mean more 
business for his company - but there is evidence to support it.
 
After the Chernobyl meltdown in 1986, the Soviet government, 
which had its own potassium iodide stockpiles, handed out pills 
to nearly everyone within a 30-mile zone.
 
US government studies show that people inside the zone who took 
the pills suffered far fewer cases of thyroid cancer than people 
200 miles away who did not take the pills.
 
NRC spokeswoman Rosetta Virgilio defended the commission's 
10-mile zone. ''The Chernobyl plant did not have anything like 
the containment of American nuclear power plants,'' she said. 
''The containment is very hard to break through.''
 
Frank von Hippel, a physicist at Princeton University who first 
urged the NRC to stockpile potassium iodide in 1974, called the 
commission's policy ''opportunistic and perverse.''
 
''For the 10-mile zone to make any sense,'' he explained, ''you'd 
have to have a scenario where only one-tenth of 1 percent of the 
iodine gets out of the containment. Besides, within 10 miles, you 
can evacuate; it's further downwind that evacuation becomes 
impractical. And most of the thyroid cancer would be far beyond 
the 10-mile zone.''
 
Von Hippel emphasized that potassium iodide would be useless 
against a radiological ''dirty bomb'' or a nuclear weapon. But 
against a nuclear power disaster, he said, there are few better 
precautions.
 
In the fallout from a core meltdown, the thyroid would receive a 
dose of radioactive iodine 100 times higher than any radiation 
received by other body parts.
 
The thyroid craves iodine, but can become saturated. An early 
intake of nonradioactive iodine, such as potassium iodide, would 
saturate the thyroid. So, the radioactive iodine would not be 
absorbed by the thyroid.
 
In an indirect way, von Hippel inspired Morris to go into the 
potassium iodide business. In 1979, after the Three Mile Island 
accident, Morris was working in New York for Publisher's 
Clearinghouse. As a benefit, he received a lot of free magazine 
subscriptions. In an issue of Science, he read an article by von 
Hippel, who calculated that if the core had melted down, 450,000 
children could have contracted thyroid disease.
 
''I had a 2-year-old at the time,'' Morris recalled.
 
''My child was 1-year-old,'' added Rodin, now 57, a friend of 
Morris's who was working at a solar energy company.
 
They learned that one company was making potassium iodide, but 
only for nuclear industry workers. The Food and Drug 
Administration was calling for someone to make a more widely 
available product. Morris and Rodin applied. In 1980, they were 
approved and, 22 years later, remain the only ones in the field.
 
One reason for their monopoly status is that the market has been 
all but nonexistent.
 
A brief flurry of orders arrived shortly before Jan. 1, 2000, 
amid fears that Y2K would affect nuclear power plants.
 
Another spurt of orders were made in March 2000, from 
Massachusetts, when nuclear-safety activists persuaded the town 
of Duxbury to order one tablet for each of its 3,700 
schoolchildren and 20,220 for emergency shelters.
 
Morris has moved to Florida to run a paper company. Rodin lives 
in New Jersey and owns a lighting company. ''We never considered 
this a business that would put food on the table,'' Morris said 
of their drug enterprise.
 
Then came Sept. 11. 

The NRC suddenly ordered millions of tablets and has delivered 
many of them for free to 14 state governments, including 
Massachusetts, which, after long resistance, ordered 660,000 
pills - two for each resident within 10 miles of the nuclear 
plants in Plymouth, Seabrook, N.H., and Vernon, Vt.
 
Vermont ordered enough to supply those who live within 10 miles 
of the Vermont Yankee plant. New Hampshire ordered 350,000, 
enough to double-dose area schoolchildren. In Westchester County, 
schools and summer camps are passing out the pills. 

Tens of thousands of individuals have bought the pills from 
pharmacies, where they are increasingly on sale, at $10 for a 
package of 14, a two-week supply. (The NRC pays 18 cents per 
pill.)
 
Von Hippel, not just Morris and Rodin, contends that the NRC 
should buy more.
 
''The NRC seems to think that if you admit a situation might 
arise where you'd need a pill like this, public confidence in 
nuclear power would erode,'' von Hippel said.
 
Peter Crane, who was a lawyer in the NRC general counsel's office 
from 1975-99, agrees. Crane, who now lives in Seattle, recalled 
that in 1985 NRC staff analysts concluded that the pill was not 
cost-effective, given what they saw as a near-zero probability of 
a meltdown. The study was ordered after the Three Mile Island 
incident.
 
Nine months later, the Chernobyl disaster occurred. The NRC 
reaffirmed its conclusion. Crane filed a formal document, calling 
on the commissioners to change their position. After five years 
of study, they declined again, he said. 

In 1997 he proposed that the NRC merely ''consider'' endorsing 
the pills and, meanwhile, distribute them free to states that 
want them.
 
The NRC accepted this idea in January 2001.
 
When the jets smashed into the World Trade Center in September, 
the NRC had not yet put the policy into effect. Not until 
November did it start ordering and offering pills.
 
''It's very odd,'' Crane said. ''The most pronuclear country in 
the world is France. The French have the biggest and most 
effective potassium iodide program. They think that it's good PR, 
that it shows they care about the public.''
 
This story ran on page A20 of the Boston Globe on 6/30/2002.

 � Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company. 

� Copyright 2002 New York Times Company
*****************************************************************
 5 Terror fear over lost nuclear parts

Guardian Unlimited Observer | International

Terrorism crisis - Observer special

[http://www.observer.co.uk/waronterrorism] 		
 		
Nick Paton Walsh in Moscow
Sunday June 30, 2002

The Observer [http://www.observer.co.uk]  		
 		
Hundreds of deadly nuclear batteries are missing across the 
former Soviet Union and could be used to create a lethal 'dirty 
bomb'. 

The International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA) has learnt that 
the devices were originally installed in some of the most 
inhospitable parts of the Soviet Union as a cheap energy source, 
and used to power remote weather stations or beacons. 

The slim portable cylinders are, experts fear, an ideal component 
for a dirty bomb - radioactive metal blown up by a conventional 
explosion and used to contaminate large areas. 

After 11 September US officials have repeatedly warned of the 
massive civilian casualties that would result if such a device 
were detonated in a major city. The Russian government has been 
unable to supply the whereabouts of the batteries, or an 
inventory of how many were produced. Foresters who found two 
devices last December in north Georgia suffered severe burns 
after coming into contact with them. The IAEA later received 
intelligence of two more devices in the area and led a 
multinational mission to find them. 

Last week the G8 nations agreed to fund a clean-up programme in 
Russia costing a total of $20 billion over 10 years. Britain is 
committed to funding �70 million, the second largest contribution 
after the United States. 

Chilling details have been emerging in the past month of the 
sheer scale of Russia's dishevelled nuclear programme. 

In the Far Eastern region of Chukotka, investigators discovered 
that controls in over 85 generators placed along the coast by the 
Soviet Union had broken down. 

It is feared that a lack of wages and supervision has led workers 
to smuggle out nuclear material for sale on the black market. 

Last year saw a marked rise in smuggling of 'source materials' - 
radioactive metals suited to a dirty bomb. 

And trafficking in more refined materials has remained at an 
alarmingly high level.
 	
        More from The Observer Observer Worldview: international 
commentary Observer International news The Europe Pages 

Send us your views Email observer@guardianunlimited.co.uk 
[observer@guardianunlimited.co.uk] Send a letter to the paper at 
letters@observer.co.uk [letters@observer.co.uk] 

             Guardian Unlimited � Guardian Newspapers Limited 
*****************************************************************
 6 A nuclear pill with limited range

The Seattle Times: A nuclear pill with limited range
 
seattletimes.com 

Sunday, June 30, 2002, 12:00 a.m. Pacific 

By Lauran Neergaard 

The Associated Press 

WASHINGTON � It's a cheap tablet that does one thing: protect the 
thyroid gland from one type of radioactive fallout. But with 
concern over radiological terrorism growing, potassium iodide is 
hot � even though it's not a cure-all. One Internet site, 
NukePills.com, reported orders for 10,000 packs on one June day 
alone. 

People who live near nuclear reactors have been stocking up since 
Sept. 11, in case of an attack or accident. But don't assume you 
need the drug because of "dirty-bomb" scenarios now making 
headlines, experts caution. 

Potassium iodide would be helpful only if a dirty bomb used 
radioactive iodine instead of other radioactive substances, and 
then only for people close by. "You shouldn't go, 'Oh my God, I 
just heard there was a dirty bomb 20 miles away so I'm 
automatically going to take it,' " says radiation expert Jonathan 
Links of Johns Hopkins University, who is helping Baltimore 
officials prepare for the possibility of dirty bombs. 


 Nuclear Regulatory Commission: www.nrc.gov/ 
[http://www.nrc.gov/] Food and Drug Administration: www.fda.gov/ 
[http://www.fda.gov/] 
    

"Just because you're in the same town with a dirty bomb doesn't 
mean you take potassium iodide," agrees Dr. David Orloff of the 
Food and Drug Administration (FDA). "Wait till you hear 
instructions from public-health officials." 

Potassium iodide is the only medication for internal-radiation 
exposure. But it has just one use � to prevent thyroid cancer by 
shielding the thyroid from radioactive iodine. It blocks no other 
type of radiation and protects no other body part. 

Just as with any medication, overdoses of potassium iodide can be 
dangerous. Some people may experience allergic reactions, 
including nausea or rashes, from it. 

Sheltering and evacuation remain the cornerstones of protection. 

Still, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is offering states 
enough pills to treat every resident within 10 miles of a 
reactor, because radioactive iodine is likely to be released 
during a serious reactor accident or attack. 

Many people are buying their own, largely through Internet sites 
like NukePills.com that also point out reactor locations. 
FDA-approved potassium iodide is sold without a prescription, for 
about $1 a pill. A dose is one tablet a day for adults, smaller 
amounts for children. 

A traditional explosive releases small amounts of radioactive 
material. Experts say a dirty bomb would probably use a substance 
other than radioactive iodine. 

How would people know? 

In Baltimore, emergency officials who respond to explosions are 
being trained to operate credit-card-sized radiation detectors, 
Links said. Lab testing could provide answers in a few hours. 

Copyright � 2002 The Seattle Times Company
 
*****************************************************************
 7 N-plant safety

Guardian Unlimited Observer | Letters | N-plant safety
 	
Sunday June 30, 2002

The Observer [http://www.observer.co.uk]  		
 		
Dr Caroline Lucas's letter ('Unhealthy Plan', last week 
[http://observer.dev.gul3.gnl/letters/story/0,6903,742391,00.html] 
), about alleged plans to build a new atomic weapons factory at 
Aldermaston, was speculative and inaccurate. 

The work that is underway has nothing to do with developing a new 
generation of nuclear weapons. Instead, it involves replacing and 
getting rid of facilities that we no longer need, as part of a 
programme of work to ensure that the UK meets required safety and 
other standards. 

As for what Dr Lucas describes as 'an assault on local health and 
local democracy', I would point out that there is no evidence to 
support the implication that AWE is linked to any increased 
incidence of cancer in the area. All of our planning applications 
at AWE accord with Department of Environment guidelines and we 
follow, wherever possible without compromise to national 
security, a policy of openness and local consultation regarding 
AWE. The notion that there exists any degradation of democracy in 
this context is without foundation. 

Dr Lewis Moonie MP 

Under Secretary of State for Defence, London 

Guardian Unlimited � Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002
 
*****************************************************************
 8 Policy goes too far to combat terrorism

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: ajc.com: 
 
  OPINION     SUNDAY � June 30, 2002   
    
OUR OPINION: EDITORIAL: Policy goes too far to combat terrorism
 Staff

 Sunday, June 30, 2002
 
A changed world requires a changed way of thinking. 

President Bush, in a recent speech to graduating cadets at the 
U.S. Military Academy, outlined his emerging approach to an era 
when terrorists, not Communists, pose the greatest threat to U.S. 
security. 

"If we wait for threats to fully materialize we will have waited 
too long," the president noted. "The war on terror will not be 
won on the defensive. We must take the battle to the enemy, 
disrupt his plans and confront the worst threats before they 
emerge." 

Theoretically, that's a wise approach. If our intelligence 
services had better understood the danger posed by al-Qaida, a 
more powerful pre-emptive strike on its training facilities and 
organizational structure would clearly have been justified. And 
although it was condemned at the time by the U.N. Security 
Council, the Israeli attack on an Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981 
in hindsight succeeded in preventing Saddam Hussein from 
acquiring nuclear weapons. Today, if intelligence indicated that 
Hussein was again close to achieving that goal, pre-emptive 
action would be almost mandatory. 

Unfortunately, the new Bush policy is being formulated to justify 
an operation of a much different sort, a potential invasion of 
Iraq by the U.S. military to remove Hussein from power. The 
president is contemplating that move out of fear for what might 
otherwise happen. What if Hussein acquires weapons of mass 
destruction, and what if Hussein then delivers those weapons to 
terrorists? To date, however, there is no evidence that Hussein 
has conspired with or supported al-Qaida terror activity or has 
tried to arm terror groups with weapons of mass destruction. In 
the absence of such evidence, invading another country and 
inflicting thousands of deaths and large-scale destruction on the 
basis of a "double what-if" is beneath the dignity of the United 
States of America, and would have stark consequences worldwide. 

By that standard, Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor could be 
considered a justified pre-emptive strike, as might the invasion 
of Poland by Nazi Germany and the attack on U.S. troops by China 
in the Korean War. If that becomes our policy, other nations will 
rush to adopt it as well. 

Already, barely nine months after Sept. 11, Israel has cited our 
newly aggressive approach to terrorism to justify its actions 
against the Palestinians; India has used it to defend its stance 
toward Pakistan; and the Russians echo U.S. rhetoric in defending 
their response to the Chechnya rebellion. A world in which 
pre-emptive invasion is the norm would become much less stable 
and peaceful. 

There's another problem as well. While the president as 
commander-in-chief always has the right --- and even the 
responsibility --- to defend this country against imminent 
attack, pre-empting a mere potential attack with a large-scale 
operation such as an invasion of Iraq would, under the U.S. 
Constitution, require an act of Congress. 

The Founding Fathers explicitly gave that responsibility to 
Congress for a reason, to ensure that we do not become involved 
in a war without broad public support. The president's evolving 
approach --- expected to be more explicitly defined in August --- 
cannot give the executive branch the unilateral power to commit 
this nation to war. 

By using ajc.com you accept the terms of our Visitor Agreement. 
Please read it. Questions about your privacy? See our updated 
Privacy Statement. Interested in reprint permission? See our 
Permissions Policy. 

� 2002 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
*****************************************************************
 9 Plutonium a 'material of concern' 

-- The Washington Times
 
June 30, 2002

By By Charles J. Hanley
 THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
 
First of three parts 

TBILISI, Georgia � On a date unknown, via unknown hands, the 361 
black pellets were carried over a two-mile-high pass in the 
jagged skyline of the Caucasus, and down into the wide valleys of 
this former Soviet state.

The little delivery from Russia was then driven 170 miles 
cross-country to the Black Sea coast. There, in the smoky port of 
Batumi, one of four Georgian traffickers took personal charge of 
the contraband and traveled a final few miles over the border 
into Turkey.

The Georgians thought they had a buyer for the pellets � 3 pounds 
of enriched uranium. But somehow the deal fell through. When the 
front man returned, the four found another interested party 
waiting for them, the police.

"It's happening everywhere, but Georgia seems to have become a 
favorite route," said Valerian Khaburdzania, the state security 
minister who described last July's operation, when his 
investigators tailed the smugglers from the Caucasus Mountains 
and then arrested them.

"Georgia is close to where the material is" � Russia � "and close 
to the people who want to buy it, in Turkey, in Iran," he said.

Laboratory tests found that the haul by Mr. Khaburdzania's men 
was not sufficiently enriched � loaded with the fissionable 
uranium-235 isotope � to be ready-made for a nuclear bomb. But it 
could have been, as it was 15 months earlier when 2 pounds of 
highly enriched uranium was seized and another smuggling ring 
undone, also in Batumi.

It was bomb-usable in Paris, too, last July, when French police 
seized three men with a small amount of U-235 � apparently a 
"sample" � international nuclear authorities say.

And there may be bomb-grade material, either uranium or 
plutonium, passing even today through any one of countless 
airports, seaports or unfenced borders, on its way to clandestine 
weapon builders.

"That's the hell of all this," a U.S. anti-proliferation official 
said privately. What "material of concern," as he put it, has 
leaked or may leak from Russia or nuclear sites elsewhere?

"You don't know what you don't know."

In the lengthening shadows of September 11, a nightmare of 
doomsday weapons is taking hold in the world. America may have 
the most to fear. Federal prosecutors say Osama bin Laden's al 
Qaeda terror network has been trying since 1993 to obtain the 
makings of a nuclear weapon.

The fear reaches well beyond Washington, however � to the Middle 
East, for example, where many believe Iran and Iraq are in the 
market for bomb-usable material to counter Israel's nuclear force 
or U.S. pressure; or having fought one long war against each 
other to avoid falling behind; or to dominate the oil region.

The fear extends even to this small, poor ex-Soviet republic. 
Georgia's remote Pankisi Gorge harbors anti-Russian guerrillas 
from neighboring Chechnya who have been joined by dozens of Arab 
fighters, Mr. Khaburdzania said.

"Maybe they're connected with al Qaeda," the Georgian minister 
suggested. "Maybe they're interested in nuclear terrorism. This 
trafficking is a very dangerous situation."

Washington is reacting: accelerating its $1 billion-a-year effort 
to lock down "loose nukes" in the former Soviet Union; sending 
radiation detectors to crossing points on U.S. and distant 
borders. American "weaponeers" are tinkering with primitive bomb 
designs in the sanctums of national laboratories, to see how 
terrorists might make one.

In a world stocked with an estimated 30,000 nuclear bombs, a new 
arms race is unfolding � a race to keep the next weapon out of a 
cargo container, or interstate truck, or the hold of a suicide 
pilot's light plane bound for New York, Washington or some other 
unlucky city.

Stealing one would be the direct route to a terrorist bomb, but 
the warheads are rigidly guarded. The easiest route would be a 
"dirty bomb," a conventional, non-nuclear explosion that would 
spread radioactive cesium, for example, from medical radiotherapy 
equipment.

But the threat that haunts the sleep of strategic planners is the 
potential for a terrorist group to obtain enough fissionable 
material to fashion a crude bomb like the one America dropped on 
Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945 � a bomb that could kill tens of 
thousands and burn the heart of a city.

Can they build one? Official pronouncements and technical nuances 
cloud the answers.

Some specialists contend that the amounts the International 
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) regards as the minimum for making a 
bomb are several times too large � that in reality, and with the 
right design, as little as 2 pounds of plutonium and 7 pounds of 
uranium processed to over 90 percent U-235 might achieve a 
nuclear explosion.

Official U.S. and international agencies counter that such 
engineering would be beyond terrorists' capabilities. But no one 
puts too fine a point on this balance between technical abilities 
and "bomb amounts."

"I don't have any reason to believe there's any sophisticated 
nuclear capability in al Qaeda. But I don't want to find out," 
said Linton Brooks, deputy chief of the U.S. Energy Department's 
nuclear security operations.

The way not to find out is to keep "material of concern" out of 
unwanted hands.

The former Soviet Union alone possesses an estimated 1,350 metric 
tons of it � half in weapons, half removed from warheads and 
stored, or in use in such places as civilian research reactors.

Bits of that material have vanished since the collapse of the 
Soviet Union in 1991. The IAEA, which guards against nuclear 
material going astray, has recorded hundreds of trafficking cases 
out of Russia and elsewhere since the early 1990s, most involving 
waste or other radioactive material not useful for nuclear bombs. 
But a handful have involved bomb-usable material.

One of the most troubling cases played out in Prague, where Czech 
authorities, breaking up an international band of traffickers, 
seized 6 pounds of nearly pure U-235 in December 1994. The next 
year, ominously, the Czechs confiscated smaller samples 
apparently drawn from the same secret store of bomb uranium.

But it's the "dark" statistic � the undetected traffic � that 
worries investigators most. "It's hit or miss," said George A. 
Anzelon, the American who runs the IAEA trafficking database. 
"For every important seizure, it's not hard to imagine how it 
might have gone undetected."

It's also not hard to imagine it going undetected when no one's 
trying: Two of four U.S. radiation monitors donated to Georgia 
were simply turned off by customs officers after being installed 
at border crossings last year, American officials told AP, 
speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Washington is trying to lead a global effort to block nuclear 
terrorism, sponsoring a conference here in Tbilisi in March, for 
example, at which officials from former Soviet republics were 
instructed in how to intercept nuclear contraband. The IAEA's 
advocates, meanwhile, say it's time the U.N. watchdog agency's 
budget � long frozen because of Washington's anti-U.N. sentiment 
� be increased.

The IAEA, in the near term, is pushing to complete multilateral 
negotiations by year's end on a sweeping expansion of a treaty 
protecting nuclear materials. The treaty now sets security 
standards only for international transport, but would be 
broadened to cover the deadly commodities when they're in 
civilian use or storage anywhere.

In the longer term, nonproliferation advocates say, the world 
should adopt a treaty to cut off production of fissile material, 
the stuff of bombs.

In an interview at his headquarters in Vienna, Austria, Mohamed 
ElBaradei, the IAEA's director-general, said a second step after 
that would be "a gradual reduction of stockpiles, putting the 
excess irreversibly in the civilian sector under IAEA safeguard." 
He called this "a practical way to move toward nuclear 
disarmament."

But the first thing the nonproliferators want to cut off is the 
seepage from the former Soviet Union, the source in at least 13 
confirmed cases of trafficking in "material of concern" since 
1991.

�Tomorrow: Threat reduction

All site contents copyright � 2002 News World Communications, 
Inc.
*****************************************************************
 10 Nuclear stores 'on verge of exploding'
 
Date: Sun, 30 Jun 2002 18:30:59 -0500 (CDT)

 
http://www.observer.co.uk/politics/story/0,6903,746724,00.html

Nuclear stores 'on verge of exploding'

Mark Townsend

Sunday June 30, 2002

The Observer

Almost 90 per cent of Britain's hazardous nuclear waste stockpile is so
badly stored it could explode or leak with devastating results at any time.
An alarming government report into Britain's beleaguered nuclear industry -
obtained by The Observer - reveals that medium-level radioactive waste with
the equivalent mass to 725 double-decker buses is being stored in a
dangerous state.

The Radioactive Waste Management Advisory Committee found that 88 per cent
of Britain's intermediate-level nuclear waste had not been treated for safe
storage at up to 24 UK locations.

Experts last night warned the potentially volatile waste represented a toxic
time-bomb and warned of a 'disaster waiting to happen'.

A source at Nirex, the firm in charge of disposing of Britain's nuclear
waste, admitted the situation was 'outrageous'.

Peter Roche of Greenpeace said much of the material remained acutely
unstable until it was properly treated. Billions of pounds of taxpayers'
money will be required to tackle the growing mountain of unstable nuclear
waste.

The report, received by Environment Secretary Margaret Beckett and Defence
Secretary Geoff Hoon last week, reveals that volatile material can
spontaneously combust in air, explode on contact with water or leak in
liquid form can be found at nuclear sites across Britain.

It expressed concern that most of the UK's medium-level nuclear material was
kept in 'ageing' facilities.'The nuclear industry likes to give the
impression that all its waste is safely stored, but the truth of the matter
is these findings prove there are disasters waiting to happen at nuclear
sites across the country,' added Roche.

The findings increase fears that nuclear sites are tempting terrorist
targets .'A malicious attack, power failure or a building collapsing could
have awful consequences for society,' said Roche.

Michael Meacher, Environment Minister, denied the material was unsafe but
conceded there was a serious problem over waste storage.

'The nuclear industry has to face up to this. It has to be conditioned
before it is stored and there remains no satisfactory agreement on how this
should be done,' he said.

The medium-level nuclear waste stockpile is spread among the major nuclear
plants, including Sellafield in Cumbria, Dounreay in Caithness and Harwell
in Oxfordshire, as well as nuclear power stations and Royal Dockyards such
as Devonport in Plymouth and Rosyth, Fife.

During their 14-month investigation, officials from the advisory committee
found 65,208 of Britain's 74,100 cubic metres of medium-level nuclear waste
had yet to be treated to be stored safely.

A source at Nirex said: 'It's outrageous that most of Britain's nuclear
waste is still not properly conditioned and is lying in its raw state.'

Intermediate-level nuclear waste involves radioactive material taken from a
nuclear reactor and equipment from the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel.

Workers require protective shielding and suits when handling the waste which
is highly toxic to humans. The report also reveals frustration over British
Nuclear Fuels handling of the waste crisis.

It says the Government's Nuclear Installations Inspectorate has resorted to
using its legal powers to force BNFL 'to target areas on the Sellafield site
where waste management practice or progress has not been acceptable'.

Fred Barker, chairman of the working group that compiled the report, said:
'It's important to cast a spotlight on what needs to be done on the level of
untreated waste.'

An announcement on Thursday will confirm BNFL is to be broken up because it
cannot afford the clean-up costs of the nuclear waste stockpile. Estimates
place the clean-up bill at #1.8 billion a year for the next 20 years. The
announcement is also expected to unveil details about the setting up of a
new Liabilities Management Authority to take over the running of Sellafield,
Harwell and Dounreay in order to tackle the waste mountain.

Governments have postponed a decision on what to do with medium-level waste
that has accumulated since Britain began its nuclear programme in the early
1950s.

Tom Watson, Labour MP for West Bromwich East, said: 'We are now at a point
when tough decisions on safety have to be made. We can't afford to duck out
any longer.

'There has to be an independent body whose sole goal is the long-term
management of nuclear waste.'
*****************************************************************
 11 Quake proved we and nuclear wastes live in unstable world	 		 		

MyInKy: Letters To The Editors

 Send a Letter to the Editor of:
  The Gleaner [letters@thegleaner.com] 
 The Courier 
        & Press [letters@evansville.net] 

Sunday Soapbox: Quake proved we and nuclear wastes live in 
unstable world

June 30, 2002

 To the editor: 

On June 18, as I was reading about the Sunday Soapbox topic, "Are 
N-waste plans a danger?," the room around me began to move. The 
dishes in our cabinets were rattling. My son yelled, "It's an 
earthquake, Mom! Get under the table!" Later that afternoon, 
after we'd talked with the neighbors and my husband and daughter 
had each called home to assure me that they were all right and to 
tell their earthquake stories, I picked up the paper and 
continued to read the article. Are N-waste plans a danger? Of 
course, they are. 

I have never understood why we use nuclear power, when it is so 
volatile and produces wastes that are terribly toxic for 
thousands of years. Obviously, we do not live in a stable world. 
In just this past year, we have suffered examples of both 
man-made and natural catastrophes. What would happen if 
terrorists targeted a nuclear plant? What if an earthquake 
happened while nuclear waste was being transported? We cannot 
predict or control these or many other dangerous things that 
happen. And yet, some would try to tell us that using nuclear 
power and shipping and storing these terribly poisonous wastes 
are totally safe. 

We owe it to our children and generations to come to explore and 
use safer power sources, such as solar and wind. It makes me 
ashamed to think that we will leave a dangerous, poisoned world 
to our children. I know that we can do better. 

Jeanne M. McGinnis Evansville 

Just make sure we store only U.S. waste 

To the editors: 

I have always been in support of the Yucca Mountain project, even 
when my family and I lived in Nevada. I have always favored 
having one place in American for all nuclear waste, instead of 
having it strung out all over the country. Any thinking person 
should have the same opinion. We should make sure that all 
nuclear waste comes from only America and not turn it into an 
international business. 

In February, my family and I were in Las Vegas for the winter. We 
drove out to look at where the Yucca Mountain project was going 
on. Believe me, that is the best storage facility that could 
possibly be found in the United States. But, of course, we have 
the politicians who have to fight against that project. They have 
to make an impression, you know. 

It seems as though no one wants to deal with this problem, but we 
all have a responsibility to solve it. I believe the government 
is taking the right approach. Until some better way becomes 
available to haul this waste, we are just going to have to go 
along with the program that is set before us. I believe the 
government could ease the worrying public by giving 
demonstrations showing how travelworthy these casks are. I know I 
would feel better if I could inspect one of them. 

Don Jenkins Petersburg, Ind. 

N-power creating worldwide problem 

To the editor: 

A recent article in the Evansville Courier &Press noted the great 
risk of transporting nuclear waste across the country. Terrorists 
could attack a truck carrying nuclear waste and cause real havoc 
and endanger public health. We should also realize that the 
nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain in Nevada will be filled up 
in less than 30 years, according to the Department of Energy, 
requiring new places to store nuclear waste. Finally, we must 
understand that this problem is an international problem, and 
that a growing nuclear economy will inevitably result in the 
proliferation of nuclear weapons of mass destruction, such as the 
nuclear weapons in India and Pakistan. Russia is currently 
helping Iran to build nuclear reactors that could produce 
weapon-grade nuclear materials. Nuclear power is inherently 
unsafe, and a growing national and international nuclear economy 
will be extremely dangerous. 

Ken Holder Evansville 

Time hasn't reduced the chances for harm 

To the editor: 

According to news reports, people are concerned about the danger 
presented by the shipments of nuclear waste through the 
Evansville area. More than 20 years ago, a representative of the 
Church of the Brethren spoke to the Evansville Peace Fellowship 
group, stating that her mission through the Midwest was to warn 
people that a railroad car carrying nuclear waste would be 
traveling through the area. The group was told that, should there 
be an accident along the route, everything within a 10-mile 
radius would be destroyed. Is there less chance of harm today?
 
Lois Steel Evansville   

 [http://www.scripps.com] � 2001 The E.W. Scripps Co. Please read 
our Privacy Policy 
[http://www.myinky.com/ecp/home/article/0,1626,ECP_775_856297,00.html] 
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 12 Few in rural Nevada oppose Yucca nuclear dump site

 -- The Washington Times
 
June 30, 2002

By Steve Miller

 THE WASHINGTON TIMES
 
BEATTY, Nev. � It was one of the liveliest little drinking joints 
in this tiny hamlet until the gold miners left four years ago. 
Now the Beatty Club is hoping for revival in one of the country's 
most contentious energy conflicts: Yucca Mountain. 

"If they can get that project approved and going, things will 
turn around," said Alpheus C. Bruton II, proprietor of the Beatty 
Club in this town of 1,200. "I see very little opposition in 
these rural counties, but that's not where the votes are, so 
nobody asks us."

Inside, bartender Billy found irony in the fact that while 
elected leaders from Nevada on the national scene object with 
great fanfare to the use of Yucca Mountain � 13 miles outside of 
town, as the crow flies � as a storage site for nuclear waste, 
"nobody asks the business owners here how it would help out. This 
is our backyard, after all."

And across the street, under the town's lone stoplight, at the 
Exchange Club, Johnny Quick looks around the restaurant and 
ponders: "Where is everybody? We haven't had much business at all 
for some time, so I don't think Yucca Mountain could hurt us."

Even some of the town leaders are ready for the economic kick it 
would almost certainly give this ailing but beautiful desert town 
100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

The Nevada desert is a region that was weaned on nuclear testing 
in and around nearby Nellis Air Force Base, the until recently 
secretive Area 51 and the designated federal nuclear testing 
range. Some locals even recall when tourists used to gather at 
the top of the Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas to watch the nuclear 
testing detonations.

So it is no surprise when people here call the proposed 70,000 
tons of nuclear waste a prospective gold mine � which is what it 
could replace.

Beatty was gutted at the end of 1998, when the Barrick Bullfrog 
gold mine left town and took nearly 600 people � employees and 
family � with it.

"I think everybody here wants [the repository]," added Laurence 
Gray, who chairs the Beatty Town Advisory Board. "All most people 
hear is about how the state opposes this project, but it's in our 
own backyard, 13 miles away. And we have no problem with it.

"All that most people hear are the politicians."

Democratic Sen. Harry Reid, Republican Gov. Kenny Guinn and a 
coalition of environmental groups, as well as many other 
Democrats and Republicans, have condemned President Bush's 
approval of Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waste repository. They 
first attacked the site as unsafe; next, they moved on to saying 
railroad transport of the waste was dangerous.

Mr. Reid, the state's senior senator, cites fault lines and 
underground water pools as factors that make the site unsafe. He 
says the waste, already stored in 131 sites in 39 states around 
the country, should remain there.

The critics attribute the project's success so far to a lobbying 
push from the nuclear power industry, which has donated millions 
to federal office candidates in the last couple of years.

Several lawsuits to prevent the project from happening will 
likely postpone the proceedings even if it receives congressional 
approval, which is expected this month.

Mr. Reid has fought the project the hardest. His Web site praises 
his modest triumphs. A spokeswoman said Yucca Mountain would 
bring only a small number of jobs to the region, 200 at most.

"For 20 years, the Energy Department has been conducting studies 
out there, and has that helped their little communities?" Tessa 
Hafen said. "The senator is really concerned with keeping 
Nevadans safe."

Mr. Guinn leads a lawsuit against the Department of Energy, 
claiming it has failed to complete promised inspections of Yucca 
Mountain.

"We are demanding that the Department of Energy do its job," said 
Greg Bortolin, a spokesman for the governor. "I think that the 
overwhelming majority of people in our state is in favor of the 
action of the governor and congressional delegation. And I also 
know that the people in Nye County deserve to be heard and 
considered as well."

The fight against Yucca Mountain will go on, Mr. Bortolin 
promised.

Beatty and other towns in Nye County rely on the transient mining 
industry for a tax base. When those leave, these villages turn 
into ghost towns.

The town's hope is now with the much-maligned Yucca project, 
which locals say is inevitable.

"It could become Love Canal or a boom town, it's hard to say," 
Mr. Gray said.
   
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 13 MOX and other projects discussed for the Savannah River Site

Augusta Georgia: Metro:Details on SRS project outlined 06/30/02
 
063002 metro 12 @ugusta MOX and other projects discussed for the 
Savannah River Site have created questions for those outside of 
government and the scientific community. --> Details on SRS 
project outlined 

Web posted Sunday, June 30, 2002
 

From Staff 

MOX and other projects discussed for the Savannah River Site have 
created questions for those outside of government and the 
scientific community.

 Q: What are the arguments for the mixed-oxide fuel plant?

 A: Proponents say MOX will reduce the nuclear stockpile and 
provide a cheap, readily available source of power for nuclear 
reactors.

 When converted, they say, MOX fuel reduces the chance of 
weapons-grade plutonium falling into the wrong hands.

 Also, a MOX conversion facility could create an estimated 500 
jobs for the Aiken area.

 Q: What are the arguments against MOX?

 A: Critics say MOX does not have a lengthy track record of safe 
use in commercial reactors.

 They say any investment in MOX facilities would be expensive for 
the federal government. Over time, approximately $3.8 billion 
would be spent to get the SRS plant operational. The United 
States also is expected to contribute financially to Russia's MOX 
efforts because of the nation's struggling economy.

 Opponents add that increased transport of plutonium could 
increase the possibility of it getting into the hands of 
terrorists.

 Q: Hasn't Aiken also been mentioned as a possible site for a 
facility to build triggers for new nuclear weapons?

 A: Yes. The Department of Energy is looking for a site with 
experience handling nuclear materials and one that is located in 
a "remote" location. DOE has said Aiken meets those conditions.

 Q: Why build new triggers while disassembling other ones for 
fuel?

 A: Some of the triggers to be disassembled are decades old, and 
their design and reliability may not be consistent with modern 
weaponry. They have been classified by the government as surplus.

 Q: Isn't trigger assembly contrary to the effort to reduce 
nuclear stockpiles through MOX and in contrast to agreements with 
Russia?

 A: That depends on who is asked, but it definitely marks a 
change in policy from the Clinton administration to the Bush 
administration.

 President Clinton agreed to steps with the Russians in 1998 that 
would move MOX forward in both countries.

 The Bush administration still endorses MOX, but says the United 
States is the only nuclear power without the capacity to produce 
nuclear bomb trigger mechanisms, also called plutonium pits. It 
says having the pits ready ensures the future viability of 
nuclear weapons as a deterrent against a first strike by another 
country.

 There has been no pit production since 1989.

 Q: What is the time frame for building a new plutonium pit 
facility?

 A: An interim pit production site in Los Alamos is slated to 
have its first triggers complete in fiscal year 2003.

 The site selection process for a permanent site will begin in 
September, with plans for a new facility to be operational by 
2020.

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*****************************************************************
 14 *'The Daily Show' segment 'reports' on YMP from AV*

By HENRY BREAN, Managing Editor June 28, 2002

*Goedhart, Jackson, bar patrons featured in spot*

Amargosa Valley resident Doris Jackson has been interviewed by 
The New York Times and the Associated Press, and she has gone on 
television a number of times to speak out against the Yucca 
Mountain Project.

You'll be glad to know that none of those experiences were the 
least bit similar to her recent appearance on "The Daily Show 
with Jon Stewart."

For the uninitiated, "The Daily Show" is a news-program parody 
that airs nightly on Comedy Central. They covered the 
presidential election two years ago under the prophetic title 
"Indecision 2000." Their reports on the war in Afghanistan were 
called "Operation Enduring Coverage."

On Tuesday, "The Daily Show" took on Amargosa Valley and the 
proposed nuclear waste dump next door. In the story, 
reporter/comedian Matt Walsh interviews Jackson and hangs out 
with patrons at her Stateline Saloon. Walsh also talks about the 
repository with Ponderosa Dairy manager Ed Goedhart while a bull 
mounts a cow in the background.

"We didn't set that up," said Goedhart, also an outspoken critic 
of the repository. "I guess when they were watching the tape 
later, they must have noticed that and decided to use it."

"I knew it would be like that," Jackson said of the story. "I 
thought it was a hilarious piece. I didn't want them to make us 
look like trashy people, and I don't think they did. I was a 
little worried about that. We don't want to look like a bunch of 
desert rats. We want to look like we have life out here."

The report was filmed over three days about three weeks ago. 
Jackson said a four-person crew from "The Daily Show" interviewed 
people in her bar for about three hours. She said the crew was 
very open about what kind of piece it would be, and everyone who 
participated was made to sign a release.

"It was done with a little bit of apprehension, especially when 
they made me sign a disclaimer," said Goedhart, whose 15-minute, 
on-camera interview was distilled to just a few seconds in the 
final piece. "I thought, 'What am I getting myself into.' But I 
thought it was quite humorous."

For Stateline patron Tim Little, the piece provided him with the 
once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to say the f-word on national 
television, even if he did get bleeped. As part of the piece, 
Little was instructed to turn to Walsh and tell him to "shut the 
(expletive) up." Jackson said Little didn't think his line would 
make the final cut, but she knew it probably would.

She had never seen "The Daily Show" when she received a call from 
one of its producers about a month ago. She started watching it 
after that. Goedhart said he had seen the show a few times before 
and liked it.

On Tuesday night, about 10 people gathered at the Stateline 
Saloon to watch the story on Amargosa Valley. Near as Jackson 
could tell, it was a big hit.

"There was no money involved, but I don't care about that," she 
said. "My main objective is to let the country know that Yucca 
Mountain is in Amargosa Valley and that there are real people who 
live here."

Asked whether she felt "The Daily Show" made the people of 
Amargosa Valley look "real," Jackson laughed and said, "more or 
less."

This wasn't the first time Jackson has tried to use entertainment 
to express her opposition to the repository. During a Yucca 
Mountain public hearing earlier this year, she sang a song she 
wrote called "We Love Amargosa." During one of the bits in his 
story, Walsh tries to get Jackson to sing the song without all of 
the "negativity" toward Yucca Mountain.

/�Pahrump Valley Times 2002/

Copyright � 1995 - 2002 PowerOne Media, Inc. 
<http://www.poweronemedia.com> All Rights Reserved.
*****************************************************************
 15 *Buqo: Water will have to be imported to meet PV demand*

By DOUG McMURDO, News Reporter June 28, 2002

*06-28-02*

A report in Wednesday's edition of the Pahrump Valley Times might 
have painted a slightly rosier water picture for the valley than 
actually exists - but there's still no cause for alarm at this 
point in time insofar as quality and quantity issues are 
concerned, according to hydro-geologist Tom Buqo.

That could all change with time, however, especially if growth 
continues. Buqo stressed the water situation would not stop 
growth, the only remedy would be to find alternative sources. And 
he has some definite ideas on who should import the vital fluid 
to the area.

Buqo, a consultant with the Nye County Nuclear Waste Repository 
Project Office, is widely considered the preeminent expert when 
it comes to the region's groundwater supply. In an interview 
Tuesday afternoon, Buqo agreed, at least in principle that the 
water table is stabilizing in some areas on the fan east of 
Highway 160, but overall the water table throughout the valley 
floor has dropped - and has been dropping since the 1950s. Buqo's 
comments were not gathered in time to be incorporated into 
Wednesday's article.

The best information available suggests groundwater consumption 
has actually gone down in the valley because irrigation has 
diminished considerably since the Mountain Falls project began a 
few years ago.

Formerly farmland, which requires more water consumption than 
housing subdivisions - even those that are filled with residents 
- the development effectively put an end to wholesale irrigation.

That aside, Buqo said the only way water supply is going to meet 
future demand is if it is imported. And not just in southern 
Nevada, but throughout the entire Southwest quadrant of the 
United States, which has experienced unprecedented growth over 
the past three decades.

Buqo said the federal government should be made to pay for an 
imported water pipeline to the region, particularly if the Yucca 
Mountain Project moves forward. According to the consultant, 4.8 
billion acre-feet of water at the Nevada Test Site was 
contaminated "beyond remediation" by atomic tests - at a value of 
roughly $6 billion. "The United States must address the NTS 
(water contamination)," he said. "They have to provide 
replacement water because they can't clean it up."

In a Devil's Hole Workshop he presented in May, Buqo offered a 
wide-ranging perspective on the water resources for Nye County, 
from both quality and quantity standpoints. In his report, focus 
was put on future demand in Pahrump, unpredictable growth in 
Amargosa Valley, demand in other areas of the county, safe 
drinking water, federal policies, proposed water exportation, 
water resource speculation, and multi-county-state basins.

Buqo projects Pahrump will grow to 150,000 residents by 2050, 
with a current population of 32,000. He projects a demand of 
80,000-acre feet a year, which are 54,000 more acre-feet of water 
Pahrump receives in perennial yield from the Spring Mountains. 
One positive aspect is there is potentially millions of acre-feet 
of water stored under Pahrump.

Of more immediate concern is the protection of the valley's 
groundwater. Buqo said there is no "hard evidence" nitrates are a 
problem in Pahrump (the result of decades of farming). 
"Everything I've heard has been anecdotal," he said, but the 
proliferation of wells and septic tanks could impact the quality 
and quantity of groundwater.

The town is divided into roughly 60 one-square-mile sections, 
each encompassing 640 acres. In section 17, bordered by Linda and 
Leslie streets to the east and west and Basin Avenue and 
Charleston Park to the south and north, there are roughly 427 
wells and septic systems, more than any other section in town.

Thirty-three sections have over 100 septic systems and 11 
sections with 200 or more systems. There are 9,400 total wells in 
the valley, more than 8,800 of them are domestic. Buqo said there 
is potential for septic contamination in Pahrump based on the 
sheer volume. "We're going to have a real problem," he said.

For now, Pahrump is listed as a potential victim of nitrate 
contamination, but other areas of the county face ever more 
frightening risks. Arsenic, tritium and uranium contamination are 
three concerns in Amargosa Valley. Arsenic could pose a future 
problem in Beatty and Tonopah. The NTS poses obvious water 
problems. Buqo in his presentation said the groundwater at the 
NTS contains tritium, americium, plutonium strontium, uranium, 
and "their kids," neptunium and technetium.

The Pahrump Valley Basin is not in danger of being contaminated 
by test site water. "We're not on the same flow chart," Buqo 
said. The quality of water, however, diminishes as the table 
lowers, and some folks have already had to drill deeper.

There is evidence of fissuring in certain areas of the valley, a 
sign that the water table has dropped. Pahrump sits on a 
prehistoric lakebed, said Buqo, and the various soils are heavy 
in clay in most parts of the valley. The water flow from the 
Spring Mountains, he said, travels quickly through the limestone 
and gravel of the mountain until it hits what is essentially a 
clay dike running north and south along the fan. From there the 
water flow slows considerably on its way to the valley floor.

There has not been appreciable rainfall or snowfall since 1997, 
when an El Nino event sparked late summer rainstorms in the 
region; a fact Buqo did not seem overly concerned with.

On the good-news side, Buqo said the drop in irrigation with the 
advent of Mountain Falls has been significant. The consultant 
said close to 17,000 acre-feet was pumped in 1997 for irrigation. 
The figure dropped to 9,300 acre-feet in 2001. Since that time, 
Buqo said groundwater pumping in the valley has not exceeded the 
"safe" perennial yield estimate of 26,000 acre-feet.

While Buqo said southern Nevada "is always under drought 
conditions," he stressed the only way Pahrump - along with the 
rest of the Southwest - can sustain growth and meet groundwater 
supply and demand is to find alternative sources.

As far as Buqo is concerned, the burden of doing so in Nevada 
should fall directly on the shoulders of the federal government, 
and the 4.8 million acre-feet of radioactive water it created at 
the test site.

/�Pahrump Valley Times 2002/

Copyright � 1995 - 2002 PowerOne Media, Inc. 
<http://www.poweronemedia.com> All Rights Reserved.
*****************************************************************
 16 Nuclear industry wants public to pay storage costs

Sunday Soapbox: Nuclear industry wants public to pay storage costs

By CHRIS WILLIAMS Special to the Courier &Press

June 30, 2002

 The Evansville Courier &Press on June 12 published an article 
concerning the transportation of high-level nuclear waste from 
operating nuclear power plants to Yucca Mountain, Nev. The 
Citizens Action Coalition believes the Yucca Mountain proposal 
represents an unwarranted risk to communities and taxpayers for 
the following reasons: 

"There is ample basis for confidence that spent (nuclear) fuel 
can be stored safely and without significant environmental impact 
at these (nuclear) reactors for at least 100 years." This 
statement was not made by an environmental group or independent 
analysts of some kind. It was published in the Federal Register 
in 1990 by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission regarding the 
storage of high-level nuclear wastes. 

In essence, the NRC certified to Congress that high-level nuclear 
waste did not have to be transported anywhere for some time. What 
the commission meant was that the wastes could be kept for the 
foreseeable future at nuclear power plants in dry-cask storage 
with an added twist. Since 9/11, proponents of onsite storage 
have urged that such storage be fortified. They have named the 
approach HOSS (hardened onsite storage). 

The statement made by the commission in 1990 is of particular 
importance with respect to the proposal to ship 77,000 tons of 
high-level nuclear waste from the country's 103 operating nuclear 
power plants and 28 other sites to Yucca Mountain. The proposal 
has sparked a raging debate in the U.S. Senate and House. Against 
the wishes of the citizens of Nevada and countless others who 
live between the power plants and Yucca Mountain, including many 
Indiana residents, the House recently approved Yucca Mountain for 
storage of the wastes. The U.S. Senate will vote soon. 

The question is, why ship the waste at all, given the 
commission's assurances about keeping the waste where it is? It's 
certainly cheaper than transporting it to Yucca Mountain. It's 
certainly safer than transporting more than 50,000 shipments over 
30 years to Nevada. 

Proponents of the proposal argue that keeping all of the 
high-level nuclear waste in one place is safer than storing it at 
many sites. However, even the proponents know differently. Energy 
Secretary Spencer Abraham has admitted that wastes will continue 
to be stored and generated at power plants. 

Proponents also argue that it is in the national interest to move 
the wastes to be stored at Yucca Mountain. That argument leaves 
much to be desired. Even discounting the fact that federal 
officials admit there will be accidents (only the severity of the 
accidents is in question), ordering the transportation of 77,000 
tons of high-level nuclear waste is akin to putting thousands of 
terrorist targets on the roads and rails. 

Moreover, knowing that 50 million Americans live within one-half 
mile of the proposed routes seems little to do with the public or 
national interest. Indeed, it seems as if the nuclear industry is 
attempting to unload a significant financial burden onto the 
public - the cost of its wastes. 

A number of analysts believe that high-level nuclear waste is the 
Achilles' heel of the nuclear power industry. Dealing with the 
wastes will continue indefinitely. Irradiated nuclear fuel rods 
remain toxic for at least 250,000 years. The U.S. Environmental 
Protection Agency rejected a recommendation by the National 
Academy of Sciences to consider a 1 million year time horizon 
when assessing geologic storage for these highly toxic materials, 
preferring 10,000 years instead. 

The other issue, of course, is who pays. The nuclear power 
industry does not want to pay the majority of the costs. It wants 
taxpayers to pay the bulk of transportation and storage costs. 
The government initially estimated that preparing Yucca Mountain 
and transporting the wastes would cost about $24 billion. 
Congress established a one-tenth-of-a-cent-per-kilowatt-hour fee 
on nuclear power to cover the costs. This proved woefully 
inadequate. The actual costs will be closer to $60 billion. And 
there you have it. The nuclear power industry does not want the 
fee to be increased. It wants the taxpayers to pay the 
difference. And the quicker Yucca Mountain is approved, the more 
likely taxpayers will be stuck with yet another nuclear 
boondoggle. Moreover, a precedent would be set for enormous 
taxpayer subsidies for high-level nuclear waste, thus allowing 
the nuclear power industry to produce more without worrying about 
the cost. 

There are many reasons to oppose the Yucca Mountain project, most 
of which require no debate. Federal authorities admit that there 
will be accidents, that Yucca Mountain will not contain the 
wastes over time and that there will be more than one storage 
site. But the biggest reason is that it can be stored where it is 
now for an extended period of time. It would give us time to 
assess the best possible solution, which is truly in the public 
and national interest. 


  Write us Letters to the editor are welcomed. Please keep them 
brief. Letters will be edited and may be condensed. Letters must 
be signed and names will be printed. Please include a phone 
number so that authenticity of the letter can be verified. Send 
them to: Letters Evansville Courier & Press P.O. Box 268 
Evansville, Ind. 47702, or by fax, (812) 422-8196 Letters may be 
submitted by e-mail to: viewpoint@evansville.net 
 
*****************************************************************
 17 *Debunking YMP 'facts'*

By: June 28, 2002

*06-28-02*

I feel a need to respond to Mr. Plemon's letter (PVT June 5) but 
so much is so wrong I don't know where to start. He is apparently 
concerned about the storage of spent nuclear fuel at Yucca 
Mountain and states: "Electrolysis is an infinitive problem with 
any metal". Other than that electrolysis requires a fluid and 
electrical current, both of which will be lacking in the storage 
area; and "infinitive" means forever, I have no idea what he 
said.

He further states, "If a cask were to start leaking, if would 
promote a chain reaction that could not be controlled..." As a 
supposed nuclear fuel handler he should be well aware of the 
physics, precision and exact configuration that is required of 
nuclear fuel to sustain a nuclear chain reaction. Simply 
"leaking" a fuel rod from a cask will no more start a chain 
reaction than waving a piece of wood in the air would start a 
fire.

"Radiation would go airborne." How the radioactive contamination 
would escape the sealed tunnels and reach the open air is a 
mystery to me.

"Sicknesses never imagined would start and many pregnancies would 
end up as unwanted freaks". Mr. Plemon has been watching too many 
1950s monster movies. The "sicknesses" would mostly be various 
forms of cancer, not pleasant but nothing new. I haven't the 
faintest idea what he means by "unwanted freaks", if he's 
thinking three-eyed fish or a fifty foot tall woman, it just 
isn't going to happen. If he means an apparently normal looking 
child that develops childhood leukemia or some other genetic 
disorder, yes, that could happen as it has around Chernobyl. By 
the way, Chernobyl was the complete meltdown of a gigantic 
nuclear core and the release of almost its entire gaseous 
inventory and a great deal of contamination, not the "leaking" of 
a fuel rod out of a storage cask.

"The only way to contain radiation is submersion in water". 
WRONG. The cheapest and most efficient way to contain neutron 
emitting radioactive material (spent fuel rods), from a utility's 
point of view, is submersion in water. After the rod has cooled 
and neutron emission has dropped then concrete and lead are 
sufficient to control the radiation. Mr. Plemon seems to think 
that Yucca Mountain should be flooded to control radioactive 
releases and yet even those opposed to Yucca Mountain don't want 
to see any water there. Water would accelerate the degradation of 
the storage casks. And somehow he thinks metal hasn't been around 
for 10,000 years when in all actuality metal was being formed 
with the first super nova explosions 15 billion years ago.

Recycling spent fuel. This can be and has been done, to a certain 
extent; but, recycling produces enriched Uranium and Plutonium, 
both are great for nuclear bombs and something the government 
doesn't want to see a lot of out there for terrorists or rouge 
nations to steal (or buy) and start making their own bombs to 
shoot at us. Imagine even a "baby" five kiloton bomb on each of 
the planes that hit the WTC; New York would be unlivable now.

In essence, the government owns all the spent nuclear material. 
The utilities are just holding it until the government can take 
it off their hands. If the utilities owned and controlled the 
nuclear waste, there would be no Yucca Mountain, how could a mere 
utility force the federal government or the government and people 
of Nevada to accept their nuclear waste? Don't blame the 
utilities for wanting the feds to uphold their end of the 
agreement.

The rest of his letter is mostly opinion and not many confused 
facts, but I would like to paraphrase one more line of his. "Man 
may not be around that long (10,000 years) with this kind of 
planning". One of the design principles for Yucca Mountain that I 
haven't seen discussed much is, "Modern man may not be around for 
10,000 years".

One concern during the early years of nuclear power was that no 
one could predict what would happen over the hazardous lifetime 
of spent nuclear fuel, 10,000 years for the purposes of Yucca 
Mountain. Western Civilization could fall and what is now America 
could become a place of wandering, subsistence tribes; not 
knowing their past and only concerned about tomorrow. Imagine 
stumbling across tunnels and vaults containing spent nuclear fuel 
in the more fertile parts of this country and having no knowledge 
of what was causing their deaths nor having any way of warning 
others who may stumble across this "treasure" of metal and warmth 
with no fire. Recall the Georgian hunters and the used Russian 
batteries in the news a few months ago.

How to avoid this potential catastrophe in the distant future? 
One way was to put it all in one spot. Eventually that spot would 
develop it's own reputation (curse) and people would learn to 
avoid it. Another way is to make that spot inhospitable. Cover 
the area with something harmful but not deadly, I recall a 
drawing of giant shards of glass, or put that spot where people 
wouldn't normally go, like the middle of the desert. Another way 
is to guard that spot. Develop a symbol or symbols that would 
last thousands of years and still mean danger to man. Perhaps 
create a religion whose function is to ward humans away. Whatever 
method used to protect future civilizations, you couldn't do 
these things with scattered site burials.

Finally I'd like to state that having been a radiation technician 
for 22 years, naturally I find dealing with radioactive material 
far more innocuous then the routine hazards we face each day: 
dust in the air, perchlorate and arsenic in the water, guns in 
the hands of our youth, drunks behind the wheel and on and on.

I'm sorry this letter to the editor has turned into an essay and 
hope to keep it shorter in the future.

Oscar R. Fick Jr.

/�Pahrump Valley Times 2002/

Copyright � 1995 - 2002 PowerOne Media, Inc. 
<http://www.poweronemedia.com> All Rights Reserved.
*****************************************************************
 18 Later weekend hours for TRAX?

deseretnews.com
Utah news <http://deseretnews.com/dn/cit>
Sunday, June 30, 2002

E-mail story </dn/email/form/1,1455,405014973,00.html>

*By Diane Urbani <http://deseretnews.com/dn/staff/card/1,1228,618,00.html>*
Deseret News staff writer

      Salt Lake Mayor Rocky Anderson acknowledges that his 
beloved TRAX system erects an obstacle to downtown night life. 
But that barrier could soon be lifted, Anderson said Saturday.

      At his monthly "Saturday morning with the mayor" forum, 
Anderson took a question from a University of Utah student who 
asked why TRAX stops running every night at 11 p.m. That seems to 
contradict the mayor's efforts to animate Main Street.

      "I agree. You can't tell people to come downtown and enjoy 
the night life when you've got to be home by 11," Anderson said. 
"Unfortunately it's a UTA decision."

      The Utah Transit Authority halts light-rail service well 
before midnight because it shares its tracks with nighttime 
freight trains, Anderson adviser D.J. Baxter put in. "To get the 
north-south line running, UTA had to agree with the freight lines 
that all passenger trains have to be off the tracks by midnight," 
he said. But "it turns out that contract doesn't apply on 
weekends," Baxter recently learned. The freight companies run 
their trains along shared tracks Sunday through Thursday nights 
only.

      "The biggest obstacle is convincing UTA that there really 
is a demand" for later TRAX service on Friday and Saturday 
nights, Baxter said. "Send letters to UTA. That's the kind of 
public support we need." The mayor's staff is also collecting 
data from the Downtown Alliance on how many Main Street area 
workers would ride TRAX home on weekends.

      Anderson spent much of Saturday morning's Oasis Cafe 
discussion railing against a plan to ship nuclear waste through 
Salt Lake City, en route to Yucca Mountain, Nev. "A lot of people 
think if we have storage at Yucca Mountain, we won't have 
temporary storage at Skull Valley. I think that is an absolute 
mistake," he said, since 131 waste-producing sites around the 
country will need more and more storage dumps in coming years.

      But Nicole Hunt, a Salt Lake native who now lives in 
Denver, asked the mayor to focus on a more immediate issue: 
"There's not really an area for young, single people to just go 
and hang out," Hunt said. Downtown is "very family-oriented," she 
added, and there's no "scene" around the U., except maybe The Pie 
pizza parlor.

      Anderson agreed. "There's no more (night life) now than 
when I graduated from the U. in 1973," he said. Then he listed 
Main Street's potential attractions: a couple of cafes planning 
to open in recently vacated storefronts; two restaurants, the 
Globe and Third & Main, that stay open late; the new Salt Lake 
Community College campus and a "major record store" that is 
eyeing downtown Salt Lake City.

      Nicole's mother, who happens to be Community and Economic 
Development Director Margaret Hunt, added that the city is trying 
to lure developers downtown and to the west side, to build or 
rebuild affordable housing. If more U. students and professionals 
live around downtown, they will be able to take TRAX back and 
forth, Margaret Hunt said. And if UTA can be persuaded to run 
late-night light rail, University-area residents will have a 
chance to enliven downtown on weekends.

/E-mail: durbani@desnews.com <mailto:durbani@desnews.com>

� 2002 Deseret News Publishing Company
*****************************************************************
 19 Nuclear Dump Disrupts a Peaceful Taiwan Island

The New York Times <http://www.nytimes.com/> 
The New York Times International  

*June 30, 2002*  

*By KEITH BRADSHER*

LAN YU, Taiwan, June 27 - Steep volcanic slopes carpeted with 
tropical vegetation vault out of crystalline waters and 
magnificent coral reefs here, while a peaceful tribe of 
aborigines, largely insulated from the outside world until the 
early 1970's, tries to cling to ancient ways.

This island seems like a tropical paradise except for one 
problem: it is also home to one of the world's most troubled 
nuclear waste dumps. Up to 20,000 barrels of radioactive debris 
need to be fixed because chemical reactions inside are cracking 
the concrete with which the waste was mixed, the site's director 
says. The barrels are in seaside concrete trenches on the most 
windswept tip of this typhoon- and earthquake-prone island, at 
the base of a 1,500-foot-high bluff prone to rockslides.


After President Chen Shui-bian recently said that Taiwan's 
government would be unable to keep a promise made 12 years ago to 
remove the dump by the end of this year, most of the island's 
3,000 people, who belong to the Tao tribe, descended from 
Polynesian explorers, marched to the site. Some overran the dump 
and occupied it overnight.

Local leaders threaten that unless action is taken soon, they may 
resort to more drastic action.

"We will burn or dig out the waste and throw it into the ocean,'' 
said the Rev. Syamen Nga Rai, general secretary of the 25-member 
tribal committee that is negotiating with the government. "It 
will be in the whole world, because the ocean moves."

Chen Chien-nien, the government's minister for indigenous 
peoples, who make up 1.7 percent of Taiwan's population, said the 
Tao were right to be upset. "If the residents were Chinese or 
Taiwanese in the beginning, they probably would not have built 
the dump there," he said.

But Mr. Chen, an aborigine himself from the Puyuma tribe who is 
not related to the president, said the Tao should trust President 
Chen's recent promises to find a new home for the dump. "The Tao 
thought that once you say that, you have to do it immediately," 
he said. "Even if you want to work on it, removing the dump site 
takes six or seven years."

Taipei has set up two task forces in the last month, one to step 
up the search for a new home for the waste and the other to draft 
an economic development plan for Lan Yu, one of the poorest 
places in Taiwan.

The government's favorite choice, burying the waste under the 
seabed next to Wu Chiu Islet in the Taiwan Strait, still requires 
environmental studies. The plan is also likely to face objections 
from China, since the islet is just 16 miles from its coast.

The dump here has only a 10-person technical staff, none of them 
aborigines, and a dozen local security guards and janitors. There 
is a six-foot-high stone wall around the dump.

Wu Ruey-yau, the planning director at the government's Atomic 
Energy Council, said it would be difficult for anyone to break in 
and remove any radioactive waste. Each panel of the trenches' 
lids weighs 12 tons, and the only cranes on the island are at the 
site.

Under Japanese colonial rule through the end of World War II, 
this island was closed to outsiders and treated as a "living 
laboratory" for Japanese anthropologists to observe the Tao 
people. Tribal members wore loincloths made from the fiber of 
trees and led an unusually peaceful life in which land was 
communally held, warfare and weaponry were unknown and all 
decisions were made by panels of village elders. Flying fish were 
venerated as gifts of food from the spiritual world.

After World War II and the Chinese civil war, the island became a 
military outpost for Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists, who had fled 
the mainland after their defeat by the Communists. Presbyterian 
missionaries visited and converted much of the population.

Taipei opened the island to visitors in 1969 and, in the name of 
progress, bulldozed most of the traditional, stone-walled homes 
over the objections of residents. The government built them 
three-story, concrete-block apartment buildings and banned the 
use of the Tao language.

Most of the Tao have lived in the apartments ever since, although 
some older residents still live in surviving stone-walled 
dwellings, fish from handmade canoes and wear loincloths. Their 
language is no longer banned, but nearly all school instruction 
is in Chinese.

Oil price shocks in the 1970's prompted the government to build 
three nuclear power plants on the main island of Taiwan.

Mr. Wu, of the Atomic Energy Council, said Lan Yu residents were 
not told that the construction project at the southeastern tip of 
their island, where two powerful sea currents meet and create the 
island's richest fishing ground, was actually a nuclear waste 
dump.

Construction of the dump was finished in 1982. Workers at nuclear 
reactors on the main island of Taiwan began mixing radioactive 
waste with concrete, sealing it in 55-gallon steel drums and 
shipping it here for storage in the 23 reinforced-concrete 
trenches. But until 1993, the drums were made of inexpensive 
steel that was not treated to prevent corrosion, and many of 
these barrels are now rusting, Mr. Wu said.

Incomplete records were kept of what was in the early drums. Only 
low-level waste is supposed to be inside, but it is not clear 
what kind. Workers will begin removing drums from the trenches 
later this year and drill holes in them in an effort to determine 
the contents.

Low-quality cement was mixed with the radioactive waste in many 
of the early barrels, and is now expanding and cracking the steel 
barrels, said Paul T.H. Huang, the director of the site. As a 
result, the government is preparing to grind up to a fifth of the 
98,000 barrels here and remix them with fresh cement.

Up to 10,000 or so barrels have good cement but the barrels are 
corroded, Mr. Huang said. The government plans to pack these 
barrels in larger containers and pour fresh cement around them. 
As many as 30,000 drums need repainting to protect them from 
corrosion, while the remaining drums, nearly 40,000, are fine, 
Mr. Huang said.

All this work is scheduled to begin here as soon as next year and 
must be finished before the waste can be moved to another storage 
facility.

Michael Lin, the nuclear waste director at Taiwan Power, the 
state-owned electric utility that has operated the site since 
1990, said no radiation had leaked from the site. One of the 
semiunderground trenches developed a crack a decade ago, allowing 
water to seep in, but the crack was soon fixed, he said.

Residents here are distrustful, saying there has been a spate of 
cancer cases lately and some fish have been deformed or have 
washed up dead on the beach. ``There's no way we can prove a 
link, but we are scared,'' said Syanan Gu Malin, a housewife with 
two young girls.

Facing thousands of miles of open ocean, Lan Yu is battered 
several times a year by some of the most powerful storms on 
earth. A typhoon in 1984 had gusts of up to 201 miles an hour, 
according to data from a somewhat sheltered weather station in 
the middle of the island.

The typhoons also dump up to a foot of rain a day, sending 
torrents down the bluff toward the site. The government has tried 
to divert the rain away from the dump with a 25-foot-wide 
drainage ditch, but this is filling with silt.

Three months before construction began here in 1978, the island 
was hit by an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.8. Boulders 
tumbled down the bluff onto the site. Several dozen protective 
concrete pillars now stand at the base of the bluff to stop 
falling rocks.

Until 1996, water contaminated by radioactive waste was distilled 
to remove as much of the contamination as possible and then 
dumped into the ocean in front of the site. Now the water is also 
stored.

Large trawlers from the main island of Taiwan have recently swept 
the sea here practically clean of fish, forcing the aborigines to 
look hard for food. At low tide on a recent afternoon, several 
aboriginal women walked across the jagged volcanic rocks below 
the nuclear waste dump's sea wall, occasionally stopping and 
using long metal spikes to pry crabs from their holes. "I've been 
catching crabs here since I was a kid," said one of the women, 
who said she was in her early 50's. "Before there were plenty of 
crabs and fish; now there are not so many."

Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company

Keith Bradsher/The New York Times Aborigine women like this one 
hunt for crabs at low tide below the sea wall of a Taiwanese 
nuclear waste dump.


The New York Times Most residents of Lan Yu are opposed to the 
nuclear waste dump.


Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company
*****************************************************************
 20 Britain's nuclear danger

Guardian Unlimited Observer 

The Observer 	         	 

Britain has no idea of how to deal with dangerous nuclear waste, 
yet keeps producing more of it says a leading Greenpeace 
activist, explaining why today's Observer revelations matter             
 		
                                Pete Roche Sunday June 30, 2002            
 		

We already know that British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) has almost 1600 
cubic metres of extremely dangerous liquid high level waste, 
which has to be constantly cooled, stored in tanks at its 
Sellafield site in Cumbria. An accident or malicious act which 
caused just 50% of the radioactivity to escape would be 
equivalent to 44 Chernobyls. We also know that Sellafield has a 
stockpile of around 70 tonnes of weapons-useable plutonium, and 
that this could increase to 150 tonnes over the next decade or 
so. The House of Lords Science and Technology Committee has 
called for the bulk of this to be declared a waste, making a 
mockery of BNFL's main business which is to separate plutonium 
from spent nuclear waste fuel.

Mark Townsend's story now focuses on the problems associated with 
Intermediate-Level Waste (ILW), which, although it doesn't 
generate its own heat like high-level waste, is still extremely 
dangerous, and requires very careful stewardship. The current 
nuclear programme will generate some 215,000 cubic metres of this 
category of waste, 74,000 cubic metres of which are already 
stored at sites around the UK - more than half at Sellafield. 
Surprisingly 5,000 cubic metres are located in Oxfordshire at 
Harwell, 2,000 cubic metres at Aldermaston, and the rest spread 
around the nuclear station sites and Royal Dockyards.

What is particularly worrying about the Observer revelations is 
that 88% of the ILW is not stored in, what is called a 'safe, 
passive Form'. In other words it is in a dangerous condition. The 
Government's Radioactive Waste Management Advisory Committee, in 
a classic understatement, call this 'unsatisfactory'. This is a 
committee made up of pro and anti-nuclear voices that has 
published its findings in a consensus report. So for 
'unsatisfactory' read 'outrageous'. 

Some 28,000 cubic metres of the waste not stored safely is 
described by the nuclear industry's waste management agency, 
Nirex, as 'challenging'. These are wastes which are difficult to 
'immobilise', in other words may easily leak out of their 
packaging; wastes which could spontaneously combust in contact 
with normal air; wastes which are far too heterogeneous or mixed 
to be safely packaged in their current form.

The Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII), the Government's 
nuclear regulator, reported in 1997 that these wastes may be 
poorly 'characterised' - in other words we don't really know 
what's there; they are 'potentially mobile' so may leak out into 
the groundwater or wider environment, and they are in a 
physically and chemically degraded condition, in '40-50 year old 
facilities that fall below current standards and are subject to 
further deterioration'. In other words, unknown waste, which 
could easily leak, stored in buildings which are falling down.

Since then the NII has become increasingly concerned at the lack 
of progress in addressing the problem, and on several occasions 
recently it has had to resort to using its legal powers to 
persuade BNFL "to target areas on the Sellafield site where waste 
management practice or progress has not been acceptable".

One of the biggest problems seems to be British Nuclear Fuels' 
reluctance to spend money 'characterising' the waste it has built 
up over the past five decades. We have got to know the chemical 
and physical properties of the waste and the radiation content 
before we can decide how best to package and store the waste as 
safely as possible. The company recently spent �400 million 
building a plant known as 'Drypac' on the Sellafield site. But 
the plant has still not been commissioned. According to the 
company 'Drypac is taking a breather'. BNFL is having to 
re-examine the way it deals with its ILW before it can open the 
plant. A source close to the industry told me that, BNFL was 
basically hoping to package its ILW on the cheap, without 
characterizing the waste first. Now it has wasted �400 million on 
a new plant, it has realized that the cheap option won't work.

With an announcement about the setting up of a new Liabilities 
Management Authority which will take over the running of 
Sellafield, Harwell and Dounreay, expected on Thursday (4th 
July), we can only hope that the issue of putting our nuclear 
wastes into a form that allows it to be stored as safely as 
possible, will be a top priority, and that there are no disasters 
in the meantime. But one thing is certain, we cannot let this 
industry build, yet more nuclear power stations adding to 
Britain's growing mountain of dangerous waste which we have no 
idea what to do with.

Peter Roche is a anti-nuclear campaigner with Greenpeace UK. You 
can write to him via info@uk.greenpeace.org 
[info@uk.greenpeace.org] .

Send us your views

Write a letter to The Observer at letters@observer.co.uk 
[letters@observer.co.uk] . (Please make 'Letter to the editor' 
the subject line of your email), or email Observer site editor 
Sunder Katwala at observer@guardianunlimited.co.uk 
[observer@guardianunlimited.co.uk] with comments on articles or 
ideas for future pieces. 

About Observer Comment Extra

The Observer website carries additional online commentary 
[http://www.observer.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,707753,00.html] 
each week, offering additional coverage of the major issues and 
pieces responding to recent Observer articles. The online pieces 
are also trailed each week in the print pages of the newspaper.
 	
        Nuclear safety fears 30.06.2002: Nuclear waste poses 
disaster threat 30.06.2002: Pete Roche: Britain's nuclear danger 
Advisory committee report (external link) 
[http://www.defra.gov.uk/rwmac/reports/interwaste/index.htm] 
16.06.2002: Secret plan for N-bomb factory

Send us your views Write a letter to The Observer at 
letters@observer.co.uk [letters@observer.co.uk] 28.04.2002: 
Comment Extra: How to offer a piece

Special reports Special report: Britain's nuclear industry 
Special report: Green politics 

More from The Observer 05.05.2002: New deal on nuclear power 
21.04.2002: Stars go postal to defuse nuclear threat 21.04.2002: 
Interview: Ali Hewson on anti-Sellafield campaign

External links Advisory committee report (RWMAC) 
[http://www.defra.gov.uk/rwmac/reports/interwaste/index.htm] 
NIREX [http://www.nirex.co.uk/] BNFL [http://www.bnfl.com] 
Greenpeace UK [http://www.greenpeace.org.uk] Stop THORP Alliance: 
news [http://www.stad.ie/news.html] 

More green issues 28.04.2002: Charles Secrett: Labour's green 
scorecard 23.06.2002: Ian Willmore: Trade justice needs more than 
words 19.05.2002: Ian Willmore: Why the earth summit matters

             Guardian Unlimited � Guardian Newspapers Limited 
*****************************************************************
 21 Nuclear stores 'on verge of exploding'

Guardian Unlimited Observer | Politics | Nuclear stores 'on verge of exploding'

Mark Townsend

Sunday June 30, 2002

The Observer [http://www.observer.co.uk]  		
 		
Almost 90 per cent of Britain's hazardous nuclear waste stockpile 
is so badly stored it could explode or leak with devastating 
results at any time. An alarming government report into Britain's 
beleaguered nuclear industry - obtained by The Observer - reveals 
that medium-level radioactive waste with the equivalent mass to 
725 double-decker buses is being stored in a dangerous state. 

The Radioactive Waste Management Advisory Committee found that 88 
per cent of Britain's intermediate-level nuclear waste had not 
been treated for safe storage at up to 24 UK locations. 

Experts last night warned the potentially volatile waste 
represented a toxic time-bomb and warned of a 'disaster waiting 
to happen'. 

A source at Nirex, the firm in charge of disposing of Britain's 
nuclear waste, admitted the situation was 'outrageous'. 

Peter Roche of Greenpeace said much of the material remained 
acutely unstable until it was properly treated. Billions of 
pounds of taxpayers' money will be required to tackle the growing 
mountain of unstable nuclear waste. 

The report, received by Environment Secretary Margaret Beckett 
and Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon last week, reveals that volatile 
material can spontaneously combust in air, explode on contact 
with water or leak in liquid form can be found at nuclear sites 
across Britain. 

It expressed concern that most of the UK's medium-level nuclear 
material was kept in 'ageing' facilities.'The nuclear industry 
likes to give the impression that all its waste is safely stored, 
but the truth of the matter is these findings prove there are 
disasters waiting to happen at nuclear sites across the country,' 
added Roche. 

The findings increase fears that nuclear sites are tempting 
terrorist targets .'A malicious attack, power failure or a 
building collapsing could have awful consequences for society,' 
said Roche. 

Michael Meacher, Environment Minister, denied the material was 
unsafe but conceded there was a serious problem over waste 
storage. 

'The nuclear industry has to face up to this. It has to be 
conditioned before it is stored and there remains no satisfactory 
agreement on how this should be done,' he said. 

The medium-level nuclear waste stockpile is spread among the 
major nuclear plants, including Sellafield in Cumbria, Dounreay 
in Caithness and Harwell in Oxfordshire, as well as nuclear power 
stations and Royal Dockyards such as Devonport in Plymouth and 
Rosyth, Fife. 

During their 14-month investigation, officials from the advisory 
committee found 65,208 of Britain's 74,100 cubic metres of 
medium-level nuclear waste had yet to be treated to be stored 
safely. 

A source at Nirex said: 'It's outrageous that most of Britain's 
nuclear waste is still not properly conditioned and is lying in 
its raw state.' 

Intermediate-level nuclear waste involves radioactive material 
taken from a nuclear reactor and equipment from the reprocessing 
of spent nuclear fuel. Workers require protective shielding and 
suits when handling the waste which is highly toxic to humans. 
The report also reveals frustration over British Nuclear Fuels 
handling of the waste crisis. 

It says the Government's Nuclear Installations Inspectorate has 
resorted to using its legal powers to force BNFL 'to target areas 
on the Sellafield site where waste management practice or 
progress has not been acceptable'. 

Fred Barker, chairman of the working group that compiled the 
report, said: 'It's important to cast a spotlight on what needs 
to be done on the level of untreated waste.' 

An announcement on Thursday will confirm BNFL is to be broken up 
because it cannot afford the clean-up costs of the nuclear waste 
stockpile. Estimates place the clean-up bill at �1.8 billion a 
year for the next 20 years. The announcement is also expected to 
unveil details about the setting up of a new Liabilities 
Management Authority to take over the running of Sellafield, 
Harwell and Dounreay in order to tackle the waste mountain. 

Governments have postponed a decision on what to do with 
medium-level waste that has accumulated since Britain began its 
nuclear programme in the early 1950s. 

Tom Watson, Labour MP for West Bromwich East, said: 'We are now 
at a point when tough decisions on safety have to be made. We 
can't afford to duck out any longer. 

'There has to be an independent body whose sole goal is the 
long-term management of nuclear waste.' 
	
 	
   Nuclear safety fears  

30.06.2002: Nuclear waste poses disaster threat 30.06.2002: Pete 
Roche: Britain's nuclear danger Advisory committee report 
(external link) 
[http://www.defra.gov.uk/rwmac/reports/interwaste/index.htm] 
16.06.2002: Secret plan for N-bomb factory

             Guardian Unlimited � Guardian Newspapers Limited 
*****************************************************************
 22 Watchdogs reveal Britain's leaking nuclear waste stores 

Sunday Herald

 By Rob Edwards [rob.edwards@sundayherald.com] Environment Editor 
 
 Huge amounts of highly dangerous radioactive waste are stored in 
leaky, crumbling facilities at half a dozen nuclear sites in the 
UK, according to a damning critique by government advisors. But 
the government has no policy for dealing with the crisis.

A new report by two high-powered official committees lambasts the 
government and the nuclear industry for failing to keep more than 
65,000 cubic metres of radioactive waste safe. Most of it is at 
the Sellafield nuclear complex in Cumbria, although there are 
large stockpiles at Dounreay in Caithness and at the nuclear 
stations at Hunterston in Ayrshire and Chapelcross in Dumfries 
and Galloway.

Some waste stores have already begun to leak radioactivity into 
the environment. Others contain especially hazardous materials 
which could ignite on contact with air, spontaneously heat up or 
even explode. They are 'disasters waiting to happen', say 
environmentalists.

The report comes from the government's two main advisory 
committees on the nuclear industry: the Radioactive Waste 
Management Advisory Committee and the Nuclear Safety Advisory 
Committee. For the last two years, 10 experts from both 
committees have been investigating the arrangements for looking 
after Britain's medium-level radioactive waste.

In the measured language characteristic of official advisers, 
they have concluded that it is 'unsatisfactory' that only 12% of 
the 74,100 cubic metres of accumulated waste has been properly 
packaged. Much of the rest 'may be poorly characterised, 
physically and chemically degraded and held in old facilities 
subject to deterioration'.

'We are concerned that national policy regarding the 
conditioning, packaging and storage of intermediate level waste 
is effectively being set by default -- and in a potentially 
fragmented fashion -- by the waste producers, the regulators and 
Nirex (the waste company).'

The advisers are most worried about the 28,000 cubic metres of 
waste branded as 'challenging'. These include the sodium, 
potassium, plutonium and uranium thrown down a deep shaft at 
Dounreay, which exploded in 1977 and may be to blame for the 
potentially lethal particles that have leaked into the sea and on 
to nearby beaches.

Waste graphite from the core of one of Britain's first nuclear 
reactors, at Sellafield -- which provided plutonium for bombs -- 
is proving particularly tricky to deal with. It contains trapped 
energy which could cause it to burst into flames. 

There are drums, tanks and other stores containing undisclosed 
material where it will be impossible to immobilise the wastes and 
where there are 'inherent hazards'. One old fuel storage building 
at Sellafield, known by the workforce as 'dirty thirty', is 
constantly leaking radioactivity into the environment. 'A wide 
range of hazardous waste streams remains untreated in ageing 
facilities at a number of nuclear sites,' said Fred Barker, the 
nuclear consultant who chaired the expert group set up by the two 
advisory committees. 'Although site managers have been making 
plans for dealing with this waste, a huge amount remains to be 
done.

'The government needs to provide a clear policy framework for 
decision-making on how to move forward. Our new report provides 
advice to ministers on the policy issues that need prompt 
attention. These include how to meet short-term safety needs 
while keeping open long-term management options.' 

The original plan for medium-level radioactive waste was to dump 
it in a deep hole in the ground. But this was abandoned after the 
government rejected plans for an underground repository at 
Longlands Farm near Sellafield in 1997 -- with no clear 
alternative in sight.

Although ministers have launched a big consultation exercise on 
the long-term options for disposing of waste, the advisory 
committees concluded that there was a 'policy deficit' on how it 
should be looked after in the mean time. Dounreay pointed out 
that its facilities were regulated and monitored, and that a new 
�250 million plant was being planned to treat waste over the next 
15 to 20 years.

Environmentalists, however, took a different view. 'The nuclear 
industry likes to give the impression that all its waste is 
safely stored, but the truth of the matter is that there are 
disasters waiting to happen at nuclear sites across the country. 
This industry cannot be allowed to start producing yet more waste 
in new nuclear stations,' said Pete Roche from Greenpeace.

There is growing evidence that the government in Westminster is 
in fact planning to push forward with a programme of new nuclear 
power stations despite the conclusion of a Cabinet review in 
February that this should only be a last-ditch option. The 
Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) is known to be lobbying 
hard for up to 10 new stations to replace those that are shut 
down. This week the ruling bodies in Westminster and Edinburgh 
are planning to announce a new UK-wide strategy to cut discharges 
of radioactive waste into the sea. This follows mounting pressure 
from other European countries following an international 
agreement to cut such pollution to 'close to zero' by 2020.

But the Sunday Herald has learned that the DTI and the 
state-owned company British Nuclear Fuels Ltd (BNFL) are both 
fighting fierce rearguard actions to keep the discharges high. 
They are worried that cutting them as much as the department of 
the environment has suggested would make it impossible to build 
new stations.

BNFL argued: 'If the current draft regulatory guidelines which 
give primacy to the progressive reduction in radioactive 
discharges are pursued, this would make any proposal for new or 
replacement nuclear-generating capacity in the UK unsustainable.'

This infuriates Roche. 'BNFL and their friends at the DTI have 
been fighting to keep radioactive discharges high since the 
[pollution] agreement was signed in 1998. Their aim is to keep 
the pointless activities at Sellafield running and to remove 
another hurdle to building new nuclear power stations,' he said. 
The government is also due this week to announce its plans for a 
new public-sector Liabilities Management Agency which will assume 
responsi bility for cleaning up the massive �40 billion mess 
created by the development of nuclear power. The intention is 
that the agency will take over Sellafield, currently run by BNFL, 
as well as Dounreay, run by the UK Atomic Energy Authority.

One aim is to make BNFL's remaining fuel and power business more 
amenable to eventual privatisation. At the same time as the new 
agency is outlined, the company will publish its annual report 
and accounts that will confirm that as long as it retains its 
historic liabilities it is technically bankrupt.       
    
 �2002 smg sunday newspapers ltd. no.176088. all rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 23 Groups release routes for nuclear waste

 www.uspirg.org [http://www.uspirg.org] 

Wednesday, June 26, 2002

 Copyright � Las Vegas Review-Journal 

Report details rail, roads to Yucca Mountain 
By KEITH ROGERS REVIEW-JOURNAL 

In hopes of bolstering out-of-state opposition to the Yucca 
Mountain nuclear waste project, a Nevada environmental group and 
several national affiliates released a report Tuesday that shows 
where trucks and trains hauling spent reactor fuel will pass 
through neighborhoods across the country. 

The 63-page "Radioactive Roads and Rails" report by the national 
watchdog organization, U.S. Public Interest Research Group, found 
that transporting 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste to 
Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, "poses serious 
risks to the health and safety of a large cross-section of 
Americans, as well as to the environment." 

Members of the statewide environmental group, Citizen Alert, 
along with representatives from local chapters of U.S. PIRG, the 
National Environmental Trust, the Sierra Club, and Public Citizen 
released the report at a vacant lot across from the Clark County 
Government Center, not far from where freight trucks whisked 
toward the Spaghetti Bowl and rail lines pass along the downtown 
area. 

"We have to capitalize on our unique facet of Nevada," said Dan 
Geary, the National Environmental Trust's Nevada spokesman. "Our 
friends and families are out there. It's so important to reach to 
the people where we come from," he said, referring to Nevadans' 
roots in other states. 

Citizen Alert Executive Director Peggy Maze Johnson claimed the 
Department of Energy hasn't done its homework in assessing 
potential impacts from tens of thousands of nuclear waste 
shipments across America's highways, waterways and railroad 
tracks. 

She said the prospect for an endless schedule of nuclear waste 
shipments looms if the Senate overrides Gov. Kenny Guinn's veto 
of the Yucca Mountain Project in the next few weeks. 

"Where's it going to be after Yucca Mountain?" she asked. "This 
is insanity. We have to stop creating nuclear waste until we can 
figure out what to do with that nuclear waste." 

Energy Department officials had no immediate comment on the 
report. 

The report, referencing Energy Department documents, says that 
waste shipments will be so frequent that many metropolitan areas 
will see potentially lethal radioactive cargo from commercial 
power plants moving daily through their communities. 

DOE officials project that during a 24-year shipping campaign, 
which is carried out through about 2035 according to the current 
schedule, about 16.4 million people would live within one-half 
mile of railroad routes, if rail is the most used transportation 
method. 

If shipments occur mostly by truck, some 10.4 million people 
would live within one-half mile of those routes, according to 
DOE's estimate.
 

 Copyright � Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002

 Stephens Media Group
*****************************************************************
 24 Choir members only ones listening to anti-Yucca Mountain song 

  [Las Vegas Review-Journal] 
     
Wednesday, June 26, 2002
 Copyright � Las Vegas Review-Journal 
COLUMN: John L. Smith
 
Of all the stories and statistics sung at Tuesday morning's Yucca 
Mountain chorus sponsored by the U.S. PIRG Education Fund, a few 
figures went unstated. 

The news conference, held in a vacant field across from the Clark 
County Government Center with the snarling Interstate 15 and 
Spaghetti Bowl interchange in the distant background, was 
attended by a total of six professional activists, four 
reporters, two TV news cameramen, and one candidate. 

Why, that's more choir than crowd. 

It's hard to blame the media for not responding like Engine Co. 
51 at the sound of yet another Yucca Mountain alarm going off. 
Over the years, the proposed high-level nuclear waste repository 
has generated a yucky mountain of negative reports, and local 
reporters have managed to slog through each one of them. 

Blame it on the rush-hour traffic, which provided a dramatic 
reminder of the potential for disaster if trucks loaded with 
radioactive waste crash on our highways. Blame it on an apathetic 
public. But don't fault the activists from U.S. Public Interest 
Research Groups, Citizen Alert, Public Citizen, the Sierra Club, 
the National Environmental Trust, and Progressive Leadership 
Alliance of Nevada. That's the U.S. PIRG, C.A., P.C., S.C., 
N.E.T., and P.L.A.N. for short. 

The activists appeared well-informed, well-meaning, and even 
well-groomed. They had to be just to keep all those associations 
straight. 

The gathering was called to announce the findings of U.S. PIRG's 
latest Yucca-bashing report, "Radioactive Roads and Rails: 
Hauling Nuclear Waste Through Our Neighborhoods," a 63-page stone 
gamely thrown at the castle of the Department of Energy and 
nuclear power industry. 

It turns out it's deadly dangerous to transport nuclear waste 
from 131 sites across the country through 44 states within 
one-half mile of 50 million American homes. In case you forgot, 
Yucca Mountain is "a volcano on an aquifer in an earthquake zone" 
and in U.S. PIRG's opinion is unsafe for Sunday picnics, much 
less for storing 77,000 tons of nuclear waste. 

If those facts and figures sound familiar, it's because they are. 
Which, I suspect, is the problem. They have the troubling 
statistics and alarming charts, graphs, and even the interactive 
Web site. 

What they don't have is a loud enough voice on the national 
stage. 

They're like the three tenors with Vegas Throat. 

The lack of attendance at the U.S. PIRG news conference shouldn't 
be taken as a sign that even Southern Nevada's news outlets have 
grown numb to the endless calls of foul over Yucca Mountain. Fact 
is, most eyes are focused on whether U.S. Sen. Harry Reid can 
pull off a miracle next month to defeat the expected Senate 
override of Gov. Kenny Guinn's veto of the president's Yucca site 
recommendation. 

Too few are listening, but there is some good news. 

Light bulbs clicked on recently in two corners of the national 
media. The Denver Post and USA Today have published editorial 
analyses that raise troubling issues about the potential 
transportation of nuclear waste across the United States to 
Nevada. The USA Today analysis noted the obvious, but until 
recently often overlooked, fact that even if Yucca's gates are 
thrown wide open, storage of nuclear waste will remain a major 
problem at power plants from Florida to Washington and Maine to 
California. 

When accidents occur, an inevitability the DOE admits, there can 
be no claim of ignorance on the part of the government or its 
friends in the nuclear power industry. Of course, winning the 
history lesson provides little solace to those who lose their 
lives and property values. 

Unfortunately, Yucca remains a national story that too often 
plays only to local audiences. 

Is it too late in the game for coast-to-coast enlightenment? 

Probably. 

And that raises a couple questions: 

Why get such a late start nationally? 

Why so few corporate dollars to fight the dump? 

Not even the well-versed activists had convincing answers. But 
they did sing a familiar song. It's a golden oldie in Nevada, 
where the choir long ago converted. 

The trouble remains teaching America's masses the lyrics. 

John L. Smith's column appears Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and 
Sunday. E-mail him at Smith@reviewjournal.com or call 383-0295.
 
*****************************************************************
 25 YUCCA MOUNTAIN BATTLE: GOP pushes Daschle for Senate vote

  [Las Vegas Review-Journal] 
    
Wednesday, June 26, 2002
 Copyright � Las Vegas Review-Journal 
 
Showdown over nuclear waste dump expected soon 
By STEVE TETREAULT 
STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU 

WASHINGTON -- Republican senators increased pressure Tuesday on 
Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D. to schedule votes on 
the Yucca Mountain Project. 

Daschle once again refused to do so, setting the stage for a 
Senate battle, most likely in two weeks, over the proposed Nevada 
nuclear waste repository. 

Senators skirmished during a 15-minute debate. It was the first 
time that Republican leaders openly and formally asked that a 
resolution approving the Yucca Mountain site be debated by a 
certain date. 

Minority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., asked that Daschle or energy 
committee chairman Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., call up the Yucca 
Mountain resolution by July 9, after the Senate returns from a 
weeklong Fourth of July recess. 

Daschle objected, shelving Lott's request for now. 

"I'm very personally opposed to the Yucca Mountain legislation," 
Daschle said. He said he'd rather senators take up a 
terrorism-related supplemental spending bill when they return 
from their break. 

Sens Harry Reid, D-Nev., and John Ensign, R-Nev., were at their 
desks nearby while Lott and Daschle sparred. Ensign stood 
attentively at his desk, while Reid sat at his, contemplatively 
rubbing his forehead and resting his chin on clasped hands. 

Previously, Republicans had sent Democrats at least two 
behind-the-scenes draft requests asking that Daschle set a 
schedule on Yucca Mountain. Both were informally rejected or 
ignored. 

Pro-Yucca Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, said Republicans stepped up 
their public call for Daschle to take action to get it on record 
that the majority leader is refusing to move ahead on the matter. 

The expected next move will be for a Yucca Mountain supporter to 
formally make a motion to start debate if Daschle won't do so 
himself. Reid and Ensign have said they will raise an objection 
to that, which will force an important test vote on the 
legislation. 

Though that motion could come at any time, pro-Yucca senators 
have indicated they plan to wait until after the Senate finishes 
a major defense bill it has been working on this week. 

That defense bill is expected to be done by Thursday, which may 
not leave enough time this week to engage in a full Yucca 
discussion, they say. 

During Tuesday's debate, Lott said the Senate must act soon on 
the repository. A 90 legislative day deadline will expire late in 
July. Depending on when the Senate recesses for the Fourth of 
July holiday and when it formally reconvenes, the deadline could 
be any day from July 25 to July 27, officials said. 

If the Senate does not act by the deadline, the Yucca Mountain 
program would be killed. 

"Certainly we'll get it done by the expiration date," Lott said. 
"By going to this issue the first week we're back (from Fourth of 
July), everybody will know when to expect it to come up." 

Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, said the Senate has an obligation 
to complete work on the repository legislation, drawing a 
rejoinder from Ensign. 

"There's never an obligation to do the wrong thing," Ensign said. 
"This procedure on Yucca Mountain would be the wrong thing."
 
This story is located at: 
http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2002/Jun-26-Wed-2002/news/19055204.html
*****************************************************************
 26 Ex-EPA official said Yucca probe led to clash

[Las Vegas Review-Journal] 
   
Wednesday, June 26, 2002
 Copyright � Las Vegas Review-Journal 
Yucca investigator felt pressure
 
By STEVE TETREAULT STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU 

WASHINGTON -- A former Environmental Protection Agency 
investigator said Tuesday he was pressured to stop when he began 
looking into EPA involvement in the Yucca Mountain Project a year 
ago. 

Robert J. Martin said he clashed with an administrator over 
whether he had authority to look into the nuclear waste program, 
and EPA regional officials resisted requests for documents about 
hazardous materials at the Yucca site and the Nevada Test Site. 

Martin said he was "pressured to not look at Yucca. This I found 
disconcerting." 

An EPA spokesman did not respond to a call requesting comment on 
Martin's charge, which he made following a Senate Environment and 
Public Works Committee hearing on the agency's efforts to 
reorganize his former job. 

Martin was EPA ombudsman for almost 10 years until resigning 
April 22 after EPA administrator Christine Todd Whitman assigned 
him to the Office of Inspector General. 

As an independent ombudsman, Martin most often responded to 
requests by members of Congress and citizens involved in disputes 
with the EPA over cleanup of Superfund hazardous waste sites. 

The ombudsman did not have authority to make binding decisions 
after convening hearings and launching investigations into 
complaints. But Martin noted the EPA accepted his recommendations 
more often than not. 

Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said it was clear to him that "Mr. 
Martin was ousted because the bureaucracy of the EPA did not like 
what he was doing and it was retribution." 

On Yucca Mountain, Martin began a preliminary inquiry last June 
after he was asked by Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., to look into 
how the EPA had decided to set radiation protection standards for 
the proposed repository 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. 

Martin traveled to Las Vegas and met with state and local 
officials and environmental groups questioning whether the EPA's 
standards would provide sufficient protection for the environment 
and people living near the nuclear waste burial site. 

Martin said he differed with EPA assistant administrator Michael 
Shapiro over his jurisdiction to look into Yucca Mountain. 
Shapiro could not be reached Tuesday. 

Shapiro produced an EPA general counsel's opinion that backed a 
view that the agency's radiation standards "do not appear to be 
within the scope of the ombudsman's position description." 

Martin said he received subsequent calls from other agency 
officials asking whether he had gotten the document and whether 
he was going to drop the inquiry. 

Martin said he concluded in September that he didn't need to 
intervene because lawsuits challenging the EPA's radiation 
standards were filed by environmental groups, the state of Nevada 
and the nuclear power industry. 

  
This story is located at: 
http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2002/Jun-26-Wed-2002/news/19057064.html
*****************************************************************
 27 'Racing for the Bomb': Managing the Manhattan Project

The New York Times <http://www.nytimes.com/> The New York Times Books
</pages/books/index.html> *June 30, 2002*  

'Racing for the Bomb': Managing the Manhattan Project

*By DANIEL J. KEVLES*

In October 1942, Leslie R. Groves, the chief of the wartime 
effort to build an atomic bomb, met in Chicago with several 
project scientists, including the mercurial Leo Szilard. Groves 
felt it important to impress on them that he and other military 
officers had studied a great deal, enough to earn two Ph.D.'s, 
and were just as smart as the scientists. After Groves left the 
room, Szilard exploded: ''You see what I told you? How can you 
work with people like that?''

Manhattan Project scientists tended to consider Groves a 
type-case military authoritarian, prone to bluff and bluster. 
Their impression, Robert S. Norris notes, shaped many early 
histories, grossly underrating his role. But the Manhattan 
Project, he writes, was ''a gigantic industrial and engineering 
construction effort . . . rapidly accomplished, using unorthodox 
means, and dealing in uncertain technologies. . . . Without 
Groves's organizational and managerial skills, and construction 
know-how, the project would have taken longer to accomplish, or 
perhaps even failed.''

The scale was indeed gargantuan. To obtain enough fissionable 
uranium and plutonium, Groves arranged for the construction and 
operation by industrial contractors of huge facilities on the 
Columbia River, at Hanford, Wash., and in the region of Oak 
Ridge, Tenn. He was responsible for the laboratories that 
analyzed the fissionable fuels and designed the bombs. He reached 
into foreign nations to gain control of the world's uranium 
supply and to gather intelligence. He established an Air Force 
unit to deliver the bombs (it included 46 B-29's) and readied it 
for attack. One of his aides said after the war, ''General Groves 
planned the project, ran his own construction, his own science, 
his own Army, his own State Department and his own Treasury 
Department.''

In ''Now It Can Be Told'' (1962), Groves told his own, guarded 
story of the Manhattan Project. With ''Racing for the Bomb,'' 
Norris, a nuclear analyst for the Natural Resources Defense 
Council, provides a full biography, completing a study begun by 
Stanley Goldberg, a historian who died midway through working on 
it. The book is a readable and eye-opening account of Groves's 
life and work. Establishing Groves in his Army context, it 
reveals the personality and preparation that enabled him to 
succeed in his wartime task and the means he used to accomplish 
it, demonstrates his centrality in the Manhattan Project and 
spotlights his influence on the use of the bomb.

Groves was the son of an Army chaplain and the husband of an Army 
daughter. His upbringing gave him a Calvinist-flavored sense of 
self-discipline and obligation to excel. He graduated fourth in 
his West Point class and opted for the Engineer Corps, an elite 
cadre within the Army. By the 1930's he was recognized as a 
comer, having compiled outstanding fitness reports, including an 
enthusiastic assessment in 1939: ''Takes a definite stand, 
determined, holds to his convictions, sure of himself. . . . 
Original independent thinker, produces practical ideas, active 
imagination.''

When the United States began to mobilize after World War II broke 
out, Groves was appointed deputy to the head of the construction 
division in the Quartermaster Corps, overseeing billions of 
dollars' worth of construction projects, including munitions 
factories, camps and the Pentagon. In July 1942 he was spending 
$720 million a month. But his fellow engineers, like the 
scientists later, found him arrogant, brusque and tactless, and 
resented his promotions over officers with greater seniority. The 
Army found an out for Groves by putting him in charge of the 
project to build an atomic bomb. His quid pro quo for taking the 
job was elevation to brigadier general.

Norris points out that the mobilization work had provided Groves 
with valuable training. It familiarized him with the major 
contractors to which he would turn for the Manhattan Project. He 
learned how to obtain substitutes for scarce materials and use 
less of those available. Faced in early 1942 with the task of 
rapidly manufacturing a powerful chemical explosive, Groves 
resorted to designing, building and operating plants virtually at 
the same time. His exercise of high-handedness armed him for the 
battles over priority in materials, speedy design of the bomb and 
production of its fuels.

Groves worked effectively with the scientific leadership of the 
Manhattan Project, including the physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, 
whom he cleared -- and whom, he said later, he never regretted 
clearing -- as essential despite his associations with 
Communists. Groves held most of the other scientists in low 
regard, finding them unaccustomed to moving ahead with ''courage 
and rapidity.'' He was also impatient with their resentment of 
the centralized control, tight security and, especially, 
compartmentalization (the closing off of parts of the project 
from one another) that he imposed. Norris finds major policy 
consequences in Groves's management. Though he somewhat 
overstates them, Groves did devise security practices and 
procedures, including so-called ''black budgets,'' kept from 
Congress and intelligence operations, that helped shape the cold 
war national security state. And ''Groves played a central role 
in shaping the decisions to use the bomb'' by setting in motion 
machinery for its delivery on Japan that acquired a juggernaut's 
momentum, difficult to reverse.

Groves emerged from the war a hero, but his reputation and 
influence rapidly declined. During the battle over postwar 
control of atomic energy, scientists and journalists hauled him 
over the coals for his power-hungry and autocratic ways, making 
him symbolic of the reasons for not ceding control of nuclear 
affairs to the military. In a meeting early in 1948, Dwight 
Eisenhower, then the outgoing chief of staff, dressed Groves down 
for not having paid his time in rank, and saying of his 
performance the previous year that he had been rude, arrogant, 
insensitive and cruelly ruthless in pursuit of his goals. Three 
days later, Groves, 51, announced his retirement.

Groves went to work for Remington Rand, the punch-card tabulator 
and up-and-coming computer concern, and settled in Darien, Conn. 
He died in 1970 and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery. He 
left a trove of private papers, which Norris has deftly exploited 
in addition to office logs and Army records and numerous 
interviews that he and Goldberg conducted. The result is an 
authoritative biography that is important for its illuminating 
account of both the man and his crucial role in the race for the 
bomb.

/Daniel J. Kevles, a historian at Yale University, is a co-author 
of ''Inventing America,'' a history of the United States./

Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company

* RACING FOR THE BOMB General Leslie R. Groves, the Manhattan 
Project's Indispensable Man.* By Robert S. Norris. Illustrated. 
722 pp. South Royalton, Vt.: Steerforth Press. $40. 

Recent Articles

First Chapter: 'Racing for the Bomb' 
</2002/06/30/books/chapters/0630-1st-norris.html> (June 30, 2002)

Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company
*****************************************************************
 28 Koizumi lackluster at summit 

Daily Yomiuri On-Line

Gaku Shibata and Takamitsu Saito Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writers 

What made the latest Group of Eight major nations summit meeting 
held in Kananaskis, Canada, different from previous summits is 
that it focused on the candid exchange of opinions among the G-8 
leaders rather than simply endorsing documents drafted by 
bureaucrats. 

However, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi had no chance to assert 
his leadership among heads of state well accustomed to 
international diplomacy. A new ingredient to the 
talks--discussion of aid to African countries--showed up Japan's 
lack of presence on the issue. 

Koizumi's underwhelming performance was a turnaround from last 
July's summit meeting in Genoa, Italy, in which he made his 
dashing diplomatic debut as a "reformer of Japan." 

Also of concern was the lack of any mention of North Korea in a 
summary of the two-day summit by its chairman, Canadian Prime 
Minister Jean Chretien. 

Before the summit, Tokyo was eager to put North Korean issues on 
the table because of a recent increase in the number of North 
Koreans seeking asylum and Japanese efforts to salvage a 
suspected North Korean spy ship that sank in the East China Sea. 
"The prime minister must definitely speak up about North Korean 
issues at the summit," a senior Foreign Ministry official said 
before the summit. 

Koizumi did indeed raise the topic, during the talks on regional 
issues Wednesday night. He pointed out that Tokyo suspects 
Japanese citizens have been abducted by North Korean agents, and 
sought cooperation from the other G-8 nations to help bring North 
Korea to the negotiation table for dialogues with the 
international community. 

However, apart from Koizumi, no other leader touched on the 
issue. 

They seemed more concerned with the outlook for the Japanese 
economy and whether Japan would increase its assistance for 
African development and the disposal of nuclear materials in 
Russia. 

During economic talks Wednesday afternoon, Chretien asked Koizumi 
to speak first, as Japan's economy was a vital topic of 
discussion. 

"The Japanese economy has bottomed out. There can be no growth 
without reforms. Though my approval rating has lowered, I will 
maintain my reform efforts," Koizumi said, reiterating a pledge 
he has made many times before, including at the Diet. 

However, he failed to mention specific economic steps that would 
be taken, such as a second antideflation package and other 
policies that were compiled for presentation at the summit. 

For a brief and potentially embarrassing moment, there was little 
response, until U.S. President George W. Bush started tapping the 
table, prompting other world leaders into applause. 

"It was a show of encouragement because we have no option but to 
support Koizumi," a senior U.S. government official said. 

The summit saw the Middle East crisis emerge as a key issue. It 
is a topic that is integrally tied to the United States, and this 
ultimately worked against Koizumi. 

European leaders were critical of Bush's call for Palestinian 
leader Yasser Arafat to step down before a Palestinian state 
could be set up. 

The discord robbed Koizumi of a chance to discuss Japan's active 
involvement in Middle East issues--something the Foreign Ministry 
had been eager for him to do. 

At a news conference after the summit talks concluded, Koizumi 
said, "We'd like to continue to contribute (to the international 
community) in a manner suitable to Japan as a member of the G-8." 

However, there are fears Japan will lose its presence in the G-8 
unless it acts soon to rebuild its economy--the source of much of 
its international influence--and carries out strategic diplomacy.   

Copyright 2002 The Yomiuri Shimbun
*****************************************************************
 29 Indian Nuclear ICBM Threaten America

PNS Bazar
PNS Bazar


(c) Copyright & Legal Info 
<http://paknews.com/mainlinks/legal.php>

      Why is India building Intercontinental Nuclear Ballistic 
Missiles (ICBMs)? Is India going to attack America and Europe one 
day with its long-range Nuclear Weapons?

/Information Times / / Updated on 2002-06-28 10:50:35/
 
*India Building ICBMs to Deter the West *

"Another [Indian] commentator, well-known defense analyst Brahma 
Chellaney, reiterated his call recently for India to develop 
Intercontinental (Range) Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) capable of 
deterring the United States and the West in future crisis 
scenarios. Echoing commentator Mattoo's analysis, Chellaney notes 
in an article titled "Value of Power" in the 19 May 1999 edition 
of The Hindustan Times (Internet version) that "nuclear 
deterrence still relies on destroying enemy cities."

"Chellaney cites U.S. and NATO activities in Kosovo/Serbia as a 
possible model for a future threat to India, a topic he has 
previously addressed (see India and Pakistan Resume Flight 
Tests). "But can nuclear India prevent a Yugoslavia from 
happening to it?," he asks. His response: "No, unless India 
builds intercontinental ballistic missiles."

Says Chellany: "Immunity from high-tech [Western] aggression can 
only come if a country has the capability to hit the homeland of 
the attacking force.?if India, a weaker willed nation than many, 
is to gain true strategic autonomy, free itself from external 
pressure and be a global player, it will have to develop ICBMs, 
the symbols of power and punishment."

*India's ICBMs Can Destroy American and European Cities*

India's Surya (Sun). "While the status of the Surya ICBM program 
is unclear, there are many reports that indicate that the 
development of this system is underway, with development probably 
being initiated in 1994. According to one Indian source, the 
Surya could be ready to begin flight testing as early as 1997. At 
this point, there are still several conflicting reports regarding 
the Surya's configuration. The most plausible report claims that 
the Surya will probably be based on the components of the polar 
space launch vehicle (PSLV). As for its armament, the Surya's 
warhead is likely to be composed of essentially the same 
technology as that used in the maneuvering warhead of the Agni. 
In short, the only thing that seems to be agreed upon is that the 
Surya will be composed of components perfected for the Agni IRBM 
and for India's space-launch vehicles and that it will have a 
range between 8,000 and 12,000 kms.

"As discussed earlier, a significant number of Indian strategists 
believe that India needs a deterrent capability against the 
United States. If the Surya achieves a range of 12,000 kms, India 
would have the capability of positioning the missile at New Delhi 
and striking U.S. targets that lie on, and north of, a range-arc 
running from about Raleigh, North Carolina to Omaha, Nebraska to 
Eugene, Oregon. (See Figure 4-5). India's geography would also 
allow it to launch the missile 500-600 kms north of New Delhi and 
push the U.S. range-arc that much further towards the south or 
allow it to compensate somewhat for a system that may not be able 
to achieve a 12,000 km range.

"If the Surya should prove to have a range of 12,000 kms, its 
unveiling will pose problems for India since initially the United 
States can be expected to react harshly to its existence. 
Therefore, a pacing item for India's unveiling of the Surya 
likely hinges on the status of India's nuclear warhead 
development and the perfection of the Agni missile system. Once 
it has confidence in its thermonuclear warhead and the Agni's 
re-entry vehicle, the Surya could be unveiled and tested quickly 
if Indian policymakers judge that it is needed and are prepared 
to accept the international heat for such a development. At that 
point, India would not require very many years before it could 
field a small ICBM force. Obviously, the development of the Surya 
is tied to the Agni. As long as the United States can keep Agni's 
test program in a state of suspension, the development of the 
Surya will also be slowed.

"India, a land rife with serious internal problems, appears 
capable of surprising the world by emerging as nuclear capable 
nation with ICBMs in the 2000-2010 time frame (depending on how 
much time the program is delayed due to U.S. diplomatic pressure 
and MTCR impediments). Even if the indigenous development effort 
is slowed, India has the technological capability of emerging as 
a nuclear armed power with ICBMs in a window of about 5 to 8 
years from the time it makes a decision to do so. In addition, as 
discussed in Chapter 2, there seems to be some possibility that 
India might in the future be able to obtain the mobile Topol M 
ICBMs (SS-X-27s) from Russian sources.

"Although it is not believed that India intends to use missile 
capabilities actually to strike the United States, it may be 
tempted to wave it as a deterrent gesture in cases where it feels 
the United States is interfering with its vital national 
interests. At the same time, India is a poor country that needs 
economic ties with the United States. Consequently, India would 
have to feel hard pressed before it engaged in direct 
confrontational actions. Of perhaps greater concern is the fact 
that India needs cash, but its options for exporting defense 
goods to help offset its security costs are limited.

"Missiles, software, nuclear technology, and related products are 
among the most salable defense items that India will soon 
produce. Although India is not likely to act in a totally 
irresponsible manner in transferring these technologies, it is 
conceivable that its definition of acceptable transfers may well 
differ from that held by the United States. As a complicating 
factor, corruption in India is a significant problem, which 
raises the possibility that some of this sensitive technology 
could be transferred to other parties outside of official 
channels. Consequently, India could well become a contributing 
source to the spread of proliferation-related technologies. While 
the case should not be overstated, there is some risk that the 
Indo-American friction that may result from this situation could 
sour relations and push India into aligning its foreign policy 
with other states that are actively seeking to frustrate U.S. 
interests in Asia."--(www.FAS.org).

*RELATED LINKS*

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<http://www.antiwar.com/justin/j060302.html>

Indian-Hindu Terrorists Attack American Journalist 
<http://www.antiwar.com/justin/j061902.html>

[Courtesy The Information Times, Washington DC. 
www.informationtimes.com <http://www.informationtimes.com>]

*Post your Comments * 
</talk.php?id=1&date1=2002-06-28&news2=articles1> *       *

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 30 South Asia Nuclear Show Down - An American View

PNS Bazar

(c) Copyright & Legal Info <http://paknews.com/mainlinks/legal.php>

/Geoffery Cook /
/ Updated on 2002-06-19 19:07:18/

*The ultimate nightmare of nuclear proliferation is here: Two 
regional powers, India and Pakistan, both possessing nuclear 
weapons, are rattling their sabers over Kashmir, the disputed 
region abutting the northern boundaries of both countries. *

Although India claims to be democratic, and Pakistan is currently 
a military dictatorship moving toward democracy, Washington 
should not underrate Pakistan's leadership in the Islamic World 
and South Asia. Pakistan was one of our strongest allies during 
the Cold War. More recently, we could not have conducted the 
current campaign across its eastern border in our "War Against 
Terrorism" without President Pervez Musharraf's courageous 
commitment to our cause. Recent suicide bombings in Pakistan, 
unusual before Musharraf threw support to American anti-terrorist 
efforts, attest to the danger that his commitment entails. If we 
abandon Pakistan in this period of distress, we shall never be 
trusted again in the moderate Islamic world.

The current crisis between India and Pakistan can be traced to 
three historical decisions of the Indian Government. Fifty years 
ago the Indians were requested to hold a plebiscite under a 
United Nations resolution to determine the wishes of the 
Kashmiris. It has never been carried out.

After the Third Indo-Pakistani War Indian Prime Minister Indira 
Gandhi and Pakistan's Zulfikar Bhutto signed the Simla Agreement 
in 1972. That agreement stated that all outstanding bilateral 
disputes would be settled without third-party mediation. This 
treaty has proved to be unworkable. India still persists in 
rejecting outside mediation, although it has accepted limited 
American shuttle diplomacy.

Of paramount importance is the nuclear dimension. The Indians 
thrust the development of nuclear weapons upon the Pakistanis 
when in 1974 Prime Minister Indira Gandhi permitted her nuclear 
"establishment" to set off a low-level nuclear device for 
"peaceful purposes". Pakistan was forced to respond out of fear. 
Zulfikar Bhutto's Government, feeling insecure, began negotiating 
with the Chinese for appropriate technology.

During most of the 1990s, after the defeat of the Soviet Union in 
Afghanistan, and the subsequent American departure from South 
Asia, it was no secret that it would take either regional power 
only a few weeks to nuclearize. Both responsibly held back on 
developing their potential weapons.

Then in 1998 the Bharatiya Janata Party was able to pull together 
a government in India. As soon as it was technically possible the 
new government tested several bombs in India's western Thar 
Desert to solidify a politically shaky right-wing coalition. 
Pakistan, under severe financial constraints, was disinclined at 
first to follow, but domestic pressure proved irresistible.

The present emergency can be traced back to 1989 when a 
spontaneous rebellion broke out in the Indian-administered area 
of Kashmir, where 90 percent of the population is Islamic. Since 
then India's attempt to hold on to its territory has been brutal. 
Amnesty International and other human rights groups have 
documented the excesses.

Admittedly, the Pakistanis have helped the Kashmiris, though they 
did not create the struggle to aggrandize themselves. The 
insurrection began as an indigenous effort to achieve 
self-determination, and the Pakistan government has stated that 
it would respect the independence of Kashmir.

As the rest of the world expresses its fear of a nuclear war, 
Prime Minister Vajpayee of India has shown signs of becoming more 
flexible. President Musharraf has publicly committed himself to 
direct talks with his counterpart without preconditions. 
Mediators are desperately required, and happily they are already 
in place. The Chinese and Russians talked separately to the two 
South Asian nuclear neighbors at the recent Almaty Conference on 
Asian Security.

The United States must not abandon its traditional ally, 
Pakistan. It should also exploit its expanding economic clout 
with the India to encourage negotiations. All is in place. The 
time to act is now. The alternative is unimaginable!

[The author, Geoffrey Cook, is an independent historian 
affiliated with the Independent Scholars of South Asia and a 
frequenty contributor to Pakistan News Service.]

*Post your Comments * 
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Pakistan ready for de-nuclearisation of South Asia: Musharraf 
<top.php?id=1&date1=2002-01-24> # India continues nuclear weapons 
development programme: CIA Report <top.php?id=1&date1=2002-01-09> 
*****************************************************************
 31 US war against the Ummah

 �The Frontier Publications (Pvt)

  Ather Naveed  
   Updated on 6/30/2002 4:00:29 PM  

US aid to Israel � around $5 billion a year � exceeds its aid to 
the entire continent of Africa. 

Israel is the only country in the Middle East with nuclear 
weapons, about which not a word is said in the US and the West. 

Besides, it has not yet signed the NPT. 

Israel has also consistently barred international inspection of 
its nuclear sites and facilities. 

This is duality on the issue of weapons of mass destruction. 

While Iraq has been under crippling economic sanctions for 
allegedly possessing weapons of mass destruction, Israel is not 
even condemned. 

Israel also continues to be in occupation of the territories of 
two sovereign states: Lebanon and Syria. 

Israel is in defiance of as many as 69 standing Security Council 
resolutions. Moreover, Israeli occupation of the West Bank and 
Gaza strip is also in flagrant violation of Security Council 
resolutions 242 and 338. 

This selective application of SC resolutions reveals the double 
standards of the US who is punishing the innocent people of Iraq 
and Afghanistan. 

The US�s unqualified support to Israel even during its current 
genocide of Palestinians is absolutely untenable; it is 
heart-rending that Israel is killing unarmed Palestinians with 
US-made tanks and F-16 aircraft. 

It is appalling that US President George Bush pinned all the 
blame for the violence on Yasser Arafat when a small boat, 
allegedly carrying a handful of weapons to Palestine, was 
intercepted by Israeli gunships in the Red Sea. It means that 
America has given permission to Israel to kill innocent 
Palestinians and get away with it. 

The US vetoes every resolution of the SC that seeks to criticise 
Israel on account of terrorism. 

It is pathetic that the US refused to condemn the Israeli 
incursion into President Yasser Arafat�s headquarters in Ramallah 
on March 28. 

Secretary of State Colin Powell merely said he hoped Israel would 
carefully consider the consequences of its actions. 

On the contrary, US Ambassador to United Nations, James 
Cunningham, pinned the blame for the escalating crisis on 
Palestinian suicide bombers (read freedom fighters). 

The most reprehensible aspect of US foreign policy vis-�-vis the 
Muslim world is the recent Pentagon draft report, called the 
�Nuclear Posture Review�. Delivered to Congress on January 8, and 
leaked to The Los Angeles Times on March 9 and then a day later 
to The New York Times, the � Nuclear Posture Review� envisages a 
contingency plan to use nuclear weapons against seven countries, 
including such Muslim countries as Iraq, Iran, Syria and Libya. 

But for the Muslims nothing could be more provocative and 
shocking than the idea, now being spread in certain US circles, 
that even Makkah can be nuked. In a discussion on March 7 on its 
website, editors of the far-right National Review magazine have 
suggested that in the event of a nuclear or radiation device 
being used in a terrorist attack on the United States, an 
appropriate response could be to attack selected Arab capitals 
with atomic bombs. 

It should be an eye-opener for the Muslim world and the Arab 
world in particular that the magazine�s editor Rich Lowry and his 
colleagues have the closest political and personal ties with the 
Republican Party, the Bush administration and the Pentagon brass. 

One of the magazine�s contributing editors, Ann Coulter, had 
recently declared herself in favour of a new version of the 
mediaeval Crusades: In response to Arab �terrorism� (freedom 
movements), she wrote in the National Review online: �We should 
invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to 
Christianity.� According to The New York Times, the secret 
Pentagon report, outlining the contours of American nuclear 
policy, calls for developing new nuclear weapons that would be 
used against Iraq, Iran, Syria and Libya. 

Had any Muslim country been seen planning to develop a new 
nuclear weapon and contemplating pre-emptive strikes against any 
Christian country or an important ally of the US, Washington 
would have declared that Muslim state a �dangerous rogue state�. 

In a nutshell, the Ummah is under great threat from the US�s new 
world order. This threat to the Ummah is further exacerbated by 
the fact that there exists no political and economic integration 
in the Muslim world. 

Muslim countries from Morocco to Indonesia are in a state of 
disarray, which makes them vulnerable to the belligerent policies 
of the most dangerous rogue state, the US, and its allies. 

Muslim countries have the required resources, but they are 
economically backward and politically disintegrated. 

If the Ummah wants to get rid of America�s wrath in the 
post-September 11 scenario and also to get out of the economic 
logjam and live with honour in the world, it will have to 
establish an Islamic economic community on the pattern of the 
European Union. 

The OIC can play a pivotal role in the political and economic 
integration of the Muslim world. 

The immediate things that the Ummah may do are first to boycott 
the US and its allies, eject them from the Gulf, CARs and 
Afghanistan, and impose an oil embargo on them. 

The Ummah should revitalise the OIC as a political-cum-economic 
forum and integrate the entire Muslim world into a single bloc. 

�Concluded ------------------------------------------ Views 
Expressed and published here are not a property of The 
FrontierPost; however FP reserves the right to edit any comments.
               
                      � Copyright 2001 The Frontier Post 
PakCyber.Com Disclaimer--> 

        Address:
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        univeristy town
        Peshawar. 
Pakistan.
        P.O.Box.1161.
        Phone: +92-91-845157
        Fax : +92-91-845162 
  
US war against the Ummah � II
*****************************************************************
 32 Fact Sheet: G-8 Summit -- Preventing the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass
                                  Destruction
June 2002 

[G8 Summit in Kananaskis, Canada] 

For Immediate Release

 Office of the Press Secretary

 June 27, 2002 

"We will work closely with our coalition to deny terrorists and 
their state sponsors the materials, technology, and expertise to 
make and deliver weapons of mass destruction." 

President George W. Bush January 29, 2002 

Presidential Action 

+ The President and other G-8 Leaders agreed today to a new 
Global Partnership to stop the spread of weapons of mass 
destruction and related materials and technology. The United 
States has been a driving force behind this initiative. 

+ The G-8 committed to raise up to $20 billion over 10 years for 
this initiative. The United States intends to provide half that 
total. 

+ The G-8 also announced a set of key nonproliferation 
principles. The Partnership turns those principles into concrete 
action. 

G-8 Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and 
Materials of Mass Destruction: President Bush and his G-8 
colleagues agreed today to launch a major new effort to prevent 
the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction to terrorists or 
those who support them. Under the ?G-8 Global Partnership Against 
the Spread of Weapons and Material of Mass Destruction,? the 
United States, the G-7 and the European Commission have agreed to 
raise up to $20 billion for projects pertaining to disarmament, 
nonproliferation, counterterrorism and nuclear safety, over the 
next ten years. The United States intends to provide half of the 
total funding. 

The focus of the Global Partnership will initially be on projects 
in Russia. The initiative will also be open to other states, 
including other former Soviet states. G-8 members have agreed on 
basic guidelines for implementing the initiative. The G-8 will 
establish a senior-level mechanism to coordinate Partnership 
activities, including monitoring progress and considering project 
priorities and opportunities. 

The Global Partnership will initiate new bilateral and 
multilateral projects, and enhance existing ones. Donor 
governments may choose a range of financing options, including 
exchanges of a portion of Russia's Soviet-era debt for 
Partnership projects. Only funds disbursed after today's 
announcement will be included in the Partnership. The G-8 has 
invited others to join in this endeavor. 

G-8 Nonproliferation Principles: The President and his G-8 
colleagues also today adopted a set of Principles to prevent 
terrorists or those who harbor them from acquiring or developing 
nuclear, chemical, radiological and biological weapons, missiles, 
and related materials, equipment and technology. The G-8 Leaders 
call on all states to commit to these Principles. 

U.S. Nonproliferation Assistance: The G-8 Global Partnership 
builds on, and expands, a decade of cooperation between the 
United States and former Soviet states to reduce and prevent the 
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, starting with the 
Cooperative Threat Reduction (Nunn-Lugar) program in FY1992. From 
FY1992 to FY2002, the United States allocated approximately $7 
billion for this purpose. In the President's FY2003 budget 
request, he has proposed about $1 billion in nonproliferation 
and, threat reduction assistance to former Soviet states ? the 
highest single-year request ever made for these projects. 

Key ongoing U.S. nonproliferation and threat reduction projects 
in Russia and other former Soviet states, including Ukraine, 
Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, will be enhanced under the Global 
Partnership. These include: 

+ Reducing strategic missiles, bombers, silos and submarines;
 
+ Ending weapons-grade plutonium production;
 
+ Reducing excess weapons-grade plutonium;
 
+ Upgrading storage and transport security for nuclear warheads;
 
+ Upgrading storage security for fissile material;
 
+ Reducing nuclear weapons infrastructure;
 
+ Destroying chemical weapons;
 
+ Eliminating chemical weapons production capability;
 
+ Securing biological pathogens;
 
+ Providing peaceful employment for former weapons scientists;
 
+ Enhancing export controls and border security;
 
+ Improving safety of civil nuclear reactors. ###
*****************************************************************
 33 Koizumi lackluster at summit

Daily Yomiuri On-Line
 
Gaku Shibata and Takamitsu Saito Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writers 
What made the latest Group of Eight major nations summit meeting 
held in Kananaskis, Canada, different from previous summits is 
that it focused on the candid exchange of opinions among the G-8 
leaders rather than simply endorsing documents drafted by 
bureaucrats. 

However, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi had no chance to assert 
his leadership among heads of state well accustomed to 
international diplomacy. A new ingredient to the 
talks--discussion of aid to African countries--showed up Japan's 
lack of presence on the issue. 

Koizumi's underwhelming performance was a turnaround from last 
July's summit meeting in Genoa, Italy, in which he made his 
dashing diplomatic debut as a "reformer of Japan." 

Also of concern was the lack of any mention of North Korea in a 
summary of the two-day summit by its chairman, Canadian Prime 
Minister Jean Chretien. 

Before the summit, Tokyo was eager to put North Korean issues on 
the table because of a recent increase in the number of North 
Koreans seeking asylum and Japanese efforts to salvage a 
suspected North Korean spy ship that sank in the East China Sea. 
"The prime minister must definitely speak up about North Korean 
issues at the summit," a senior Foreign Ministry official said 
before the summit. 

Koizumi did indeed raise the topic, during the talks on regional 
issues Wednesday night. He pointed out that Tokyo suspects 
Japanese citizens have been abducted by North Korean agents, and 
sought cooperation from the other G-8 nations to help bring North 
Korea to the negotiation table for dialogues with the 
international community. 

However, apart from Koizumi, no other leader touched on the 
issue. They seemed more concerned with the outlook for the 
Japanese economy and whether Japan would increase its assistance 
for African development and the disposal of nuclear materials in 
Russia. 

During economic talks Wednesday afternoon, Chretien asked Koizumi 
to speak first, as Japan's economy was a vital topic of 
discussion. 

"The Japanese economy has bottomed out. There can be no growth 
without reforms. Though my approval rating has lowered, I will 
maintain my reform efforts," Koizumi said, reiterating a pledge 
he has made many times before, including at the Diet. 

However, he failed to mention specific economic steps that would 
be taken, such as a second antideflation package and other 
policies that were compiled for presentation at the summit. 

For a brief and potentially embarrassing moment, there was little 
response, until U.S. President George W. Bush started tapping the 
table, prompting other world leaders into applause. 

"It was a show of encouragement because we have no option but to 
support Koizumi," a senior U.S. government official said. 

The summit saw the Middle East crisis emerge as a key issue. It 
is a topic that is integrally tied to the United States, and this 
ultimately worked against Koizumi. 

European leaders were critical of Bush's call for Palestinian 
leader Yasser Arafat to step down before a Palestinian state 
could be set up. 

The discord robbed Koizumi of a chance to discuss Japan's active 
involvement in Middle East issues--something the Foreign Ministry 
had been eager for him to do. 

At a news conference after the summit talks concluded, Koizumi 
said, "We'd like to continue to contribute (to the international 
community) in a manner suitable to Japan as a member of the G-8." 

However, there are fears Japan will lose its presence in the G-8 
unless it acts soon to rebuild its economy--the source of much of 
its international influence--and carries out strategic diplomacy.   
 

Copyright 2002 The Yomiuri Shimbun 
*****************************************************************
 34 Japan to sweeten Russia arms disposal
   
  Asahi Shimbun     www.asahi.com
   
CALGARY, Canada-

After considerable arm-twisting by the United States, Japan 
joined its G-8 partners Thursday in agreeing to give Russia up to 
$20 billion (2.4 trillion yen) over the next decade to help 
dismantle its weapons of mass destruction-a key part of global 
efforts to deny terrorists access to nuclear arms.
 
The United States, which pushed the proposal, has pledged to 
provide up to $1 billion annually, according to an accord among 
the G-8 leaders at the summit in Kananaskis, Alberta.
 
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi committed Japan to providing 
$200 million to help dismantle the Russian nuclear arsenal. But 
the decision came only after heavy lobbying by the United States, 
sources said.
 
Similar funds could go to Ukraine and other former Soviet 
republics to curb nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass 
destruction.
 
The money for Russia will help pay for disposal of about 40,000 
tons of chemical weapons, to dismantle nuclear warheads and scrap 
retired nuclear submarines, and to process the surplus plutonium 
that would be retrieved from the dismantling.
 
Japanese government officials have long insisted that no more 
money should go for dismantling Russia's nuclear arsenal until 
Russia has established an effective system.
 
One condition Koizumi imposed on Japan's contributions to the 
fund was the resolution of problems associated with other 
assistance programs for Russia. Since disclosure earlier this 
year of questionable assistance programs to the disputed Northern 
Territories, public opinion in Japan has become more negative 
about such aid.
 
Japan faced the dilemma of how to remove those misgivings while 
going along with the United States' drive for closer ties with 
Russia.
 
Against that backdrop, many Japanese government officials 
wondered why U.S. President George W. Bush's administration was 
so eager to give Russia $20 billion over the next decade.
 
One Japanese government official said there was no solid 
reasoning behind the total amount proposed or the specifications 
for how the money would be spent.
 
Tokyo initially hoped to limit its participation in the U.S.-led 
drive by referring to the establishment of a nuclear weapon 
disposal cooperation committee between Japan and Russia to which 
Japan has already pledged $130 million. That money has not yet 
been released, however, because Russia has refused to allow 
Japanese officials to enter Russian military facilities and 
because of poor coordination between the military and the 
ministry of nuclear energy.
 
The United States had pressed Japan to pledge more. But Foreign 
Ministry officials initially balked, given the present 
circumstances in Russia that make it difficult to gain support 
within the Diet and central government ministries for additional 
budget expenditures.
 
Sources in the Foreign Ministry said Japan eventually agreed to 
the additional money under strong pressure from the Prime 
Minister's Office, which based its decision on the need to ensure 
a successful summit and to support Koizumi's emphasis on a strong 
relationship with the United States.
 
A senior Foreign Ministry official noted that Japan's pledge of 
$200 million to help scrap Russia's nuclear arsenal could be 
withdrawn, depending upon the situation in Russia.(IHT/Asahi: 
June 29,2002)
 
(06/29)
   
  [Copyright Asahi Shimbun. All rights reserved. No reproduction 
*****************************************************************
 35 Hiroshima-type weapon seen as easy to construct 

-- The Washington Times
 
June 30, 2002

By Charles J. Hanley
 ASSOCIATED PRESS
 
When Norwegian physicist Morten Bremer Maerli published an essay 
two years ago concluding that terrorists could do the "trivial" 
job of building a nuclear bomb, he suddenly saw his footnotes 
disappearing. 

In place of references to technical sources, editors of the 
U.S.-based journal Nonproliferation Review repeatedly substituted 
a note saying citations were being removed to keep "unwanted 
actors" from gaining information.

Such is the nervousness over the growing universe of information, 
on the Internet and elsewhere, about making ultimate weapons.

Experts have long said sufficient information is publicly 
available for a dedicated team to build a crude nuclear weapon of 
the "gun" type like the one that the United States dropped on 
Hiroshima, Japan, on Aug. 6, 1945, killing about 75,000 people.

In that bomb, two loads of highly enriched uranium-235, totaling 
about 92 pounds, were slammed together by an explosive charge, 
forming a "critical mass," a self-sustaining fission reaction and 
a nuclear explosion.

In his essay, Mr. Maerli cited early U.S. weapon scientist Luis 
W. Alvarez's statement that "even a high school kid," if he had 
enough enriched uranium, could achieve a high-yield explosion 
simply by dropping one half onto another.

Mr. Alvarez didn't say, however, how much is "enough."

The complex relationship between the amount of bomb material and 
sophistication of bomb design is what makes it difficult to fix 
minimums for fashioning a nuclear weapon. Other variables are 
involved, too, especially the level of fissionable U-235 isotope 
within the uranium. Although a weapon can be made with far less 
plutonium, that material is more dangerous to handle and more 
difficult to engineer.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has its own standard: 55 
pounds of highly enriched uranium is considered "significant," 
that is, sufficient for a bomb.

That standard has the practical effect of exempting smaller 
amounts from the most stringent IAEA safeguards in the civilian 
nuclear sector. Some specialists say much smaller amounts should 
be strictly safeguarded, but that would require a vote of member 
states to change the benchmark. These specialists say a bomb 
could be built with as little as 18 pounds, or even 7 pounds of 
highly enriched uranium, depending on the sophistication of the 
design.

At a Washington hearing in March, senators were told that U.S. 
national laboratories, whose technology can produce weapons using 
minuscule amounts of bomb material, had gone back to review 
primitive methods, to see what terrorists might do.

Their findings, like Mr. Maerli's footnotes, will not be made 
public.

       All site contents copyright � 2002 News World 
Communications, Inc.
*****************************************************************
 36 Blue Planet: The devil and Rocky Flats

United Press International <index.cfm>

By Dan Whipple

UPI Environment News

From the Science & Technology Desk <deskview.cfm?DeskCode=science>

Published 6/28/2002 12:59 PM

The building interiors at the gently named Rocky Flats 
Environmental Technology Site, outside Golden, Colo., have the 
faded-tech atmosphere of a 1950s science fiction movie.

The long rows of "glove boxes" are shielded in heavy Plexiglas, 
dulled with age. During the Cold War, workers in yellow hazard 
suits and wizard's head coverings shoved their hands into the 
heavily insulated gloves to manipulate plutonium as it was 
delivered to them on a conveyor.

The plutonium was being molded into triggers for nuclear weapons 
-- "buttons" in Rocky Flats parlance -- two kilograms of fission 
power that ignited thermonuclear weapons, an atom bomb to 
detonate a nuclear bomb.

Rocky Flats was an essential link in America's Cold War 
preparedness. When construction began in 1951 on a high, windy, 
sagebrush-covered plateau between Golden and Boulder, in the 
shadow of the craggy Rocky Mountains, it was fairly isolated and 
deeply secret. Now it is no longer either. The 2.5 million people 
of the Denver metropolitan area have pressed against it on all 
sides.

Len Ackland wrote the book on Rocky Flats. A journalism professor 
at the University of Colorado-Boulder, and former editor of the 
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Ackland dissected the plant in 
his 1999 book, "Making a Real Killing." He told United Press 
International that the ineptitude at Rocky Flats is only a 
reflection of the nation's nuclear program. "We've made a pact 
with the devil," he said. "In order to get energy and build 
weapons of mass destruction over a period of decades, there was 
real short-term thinking going on without thinking about the back 
side -- which was the waste."

Throughout its long history as a bomb factory, Rocky Flats was 
one of the most ineptly managed hazardous facilities this side of 
the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Building 771, dismantled a 
couple of years ago, was so thoroughly contaminated with 
radioactive material that it was considered the most dangerous 
building in America.

On Wednesday, Sept. 11, 1957, a fire swept through the glove 
boxes of building 771. Plutonium dust was tossed into the 
atmosphere around Denver when exhaust fans failed to shut down 
properly in the emergency. On Mothers' Day in 1969, plutonium 
flecks in rags on the floor of a glove box spontaneously ignited 
in Building 776-777. The fire was fought with water, a risky 
business with plutonium. When water and plutonium mix, there is a 
risk that the element can "go critical," causing a radioactive -- 
but non-nuclear -- explosion that could destroy the building and 
contaminate the entire Denver metro area with radiation. 
Fortunately, this disaster was averted -- barely.

Then, in 1989, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency obtained 
a search warrant for the plant and the FBI raided it, shutting it 
down. This closure was expected to be temporary, but the changing 
world political climate meant less demand for Rocky Flats' 
services. It was closed permanently.

One of its legacies is a lot of radioactive waste. There once 
were more than 14 tons of plutonium waste, some of it left lying 
outside in leaky 55-gallon drums. About six tons remain, mostly 
in powder form, weapons-grade plutonium oxide. That is enough for 
about 2,700 nuclear weapons, if you are keeping score at home.

In order to meet its 2006 closure deadline for Rocky Flats, the 
Department of Energy wants to ship this plutonium to its Savannah 
River Plant in South Carolina. There, South Carolina Gov. Jim 
Hodges, a Democrat, has famously promised to lie down in front of 
the trucks to stop the waste from entering his state.

It is hard to grasp the character of plutonium, its essential 
plutonium-ness. Plutonium is capricious, fickle, a kitten in one 
incarnation, a tiger in another. In critical mass, and under 
proper pressures, it is a nuclear bomb. Left lying around in 
certain configurations, it can "go critical," venting enough 
radiation to kill everything within a hundred yards of it.

A hunk of plutonium below critical mass, at room temperature, is 
relatively inert. It will just sit there and rust. But plutonium 
chips of 50 grams or less can ignite on their own. They burn like 
charcoal briquettes. These fires create plutonium dioxide, which 
can be inhaled easily. Plutonium stays in the lungs for a long 
time, causing lung cancer, then migrating to other parts of the 
body. On the other hand, you can eat plutonium with little 
negative effect, since it cannot be absorbed by the digestive 
tract. This is not a recommended disposal option, however.

There really is no recommended disposal option.

Hodges is, understandably, demanding assurances that Rocky Flats 
waste will not simply be dumped forever on South Carolina. But 
because of decisions made by the Bush administration, there are 
no other options. "Originally," Ackland said, "there were 
supposed to be two ways to handle the weapons-grade plutonium. 
One was to glassify it, vitrify it into blocks. The other was to 
create mixed oxide fuel rods. A year ago, the Bush administration 
put both of those projects on hold. Then right after the energy 
bill became public, that's when it became okay to make fuel rods 
for power plants."

Steven Dolley, research director at the Nuclear Control 
Institute, said, "We think that was a stupid decision." 
Glassification had run into some technical problems, but rather 
than work through them, the administration canceled the program. 
There is little demand for the fuel that will be produced, Dolley 
said, in part because it is more expensive than power plant fuel 
from uranium.

Department of Energy officials at Rocky Flats referred all 
questions to department headquarters. Several phone calls there 
were not returned.

The shipments themselves present numerous hazards. "Plutonium 
oxide creates a high risk to the public," Ackland said. "If it 
were to be dispersed in the plutonium oxide form, which is like 
dust, that's what would be inhaled by the public and could cause 
serious health consequences."

So, he added, "if you have a truck that is loaded with canisters 
that does come under attack, and the canisters ... are supposed 
to be very tight and strong, but if they were breached, then you 
would have a release. If this release took place around a major 
metropolitan area, then you could have a really serious 
accident."

Meanwhile, the Department of Energy refuses to even inform state 
patrols about the shipment schedules. "Is that smart?" Ackland 
asked. "I'm not convinced that this is the best way to go about 
it."

Given the history of Rocky Flats management, and the political 
necessity of removing this material from the midst of Denver's 
heavily populated metro area, leaving it in place is not an 
option, either.

"DOE officials always hasten to add that building 371" -- the 
current storage site -- "is the strongest building in Colorado. 
But they wouldn't answer what happens if a fully loaded, fully 
fueled 747 crashes into it," Ackland said.
 
*Copyright � 2002 United Press International. All rights 
    
*****************************************************************

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> 
    
*****************************************************************