***************************************************************** 11/15/01 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 9.270 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER CONTENTS 1 Support Bill Proposed To Stockpile KI Within 200 Miles Of Indian Point & All NPPs In USA 2 Maine Yankee to be blast site 3 NRC Commissioner to Visit St. Lucie Nuclear Plant on November 16 4 National Guard pulled from power plants 5 Schumer: Secure nuclear reactors 6 Press Release Region II - 2001 - 46 - 7 Yankee security debated 8 Security is being tightened at Monroe facilities. 9 10 New Nuclear Reactors Planned 10 Watchdog eyes ways to safeguard reactors from terrorist attacks 11 NRC Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste To Meet November 27 - 29 12 Conama places restrictions on proposal to complete Angra III 13 Japan to help Russia with waste disposal 14 Environmentalists lose nuclear plant court challenge 15 Environmentalists lose anti-Sellafield legal challenge 16 Heavy escort for nuclear waste 17 Castor Transport Reaches Gorleben Nuclear Storage 18 Additional protection measures instituted at Romanian nuclear 19 Schumer seeks threat assessment at W. Valley, state's other 20 Nuclear Waste Reaches German Dump 21 Nuclear Plant A Step Closer 22 Energy Alliance Launches Yucca Mountain Initiative 23 Wolf Creek practices evacuation 24 N-Waste Disposal Plan Wins Support 25 UK: BE pushes for taxpayers to cover n-waste 26 Green groups lose Sellafield challenge 27 NRC Submits Comments to Doe on Yucca Mountain Information 28 Bill orders terror plan for Yucca 29 Guinn critical of new Yucca project guidelines 30 New standards to be set for N-plant piping systems 31 USEC Reports on Megatons to Megawatts Program at Senate Hearing; 32 Wolf Creek drill assumes graver overtones following terror attacks 33 Governor, AG challenge nuclear dump siting guidelines 34 WPPSS gets wind of a new power source 35 Rural radiation exposure feared 36 Yucca guideline unveiled 37 DOE's Yucca probe points to firm's bias 38 Barriers protect nuclear station on Lake Wylie 39 IAEA Daily Press Review Date 2001-11-15 Number 219 40 AU: Governor might send weapons to protect nuclear power plants 41 National Guard pulled from power plants 42 Irish bid for Sellafield injunction 43 30-Day Comment Period on Yucca Mountain Project added 44 Nuclear Plant Plans to Add Gas Power 45 Heavy escort for nuclear waste 46 Congressman Wants Anti-Radiation Drug Near Nukes 47 Canada's reactors will soon get tough NUCLEAR WEAPONS CONTENTS 1 Nuclear warhead reduction could leave plutonium at risk 2 Bin Laden's nuclear secrets found 3 India: New adviser confirms moratorium on nuclear tests, 4 NUKE PROTEST REV FINED 5 Russia wants specific treaty on N weapons 6 Putin's weapons pledge enrages generals at home 7 Belarus welcomes Russian-US nuclear arms reduction agreement 8 Oak Ridge guards told they have final offer on labor pact 9 High-Tech Talk About Nuclear Weapons 10 House Panel OKs $20B for Anti-Terror 11 Experts Warn Terrorist Use of Nuclear Material is Likely 12 Hanford project a runner-up in international contest 13 Baltimore Prepares Fallout Shelter 14 Lab Found in Old al-Qaida Compound 15 Hanford group completes bankruptcy reorganization 16 Bechtel taxes could pay for services 17 Russia wants specific treaty on N weapons 18 Russia's inner chaos a threat to the West -- 19 U.S.-Russia N-cut vow laudable 20 Russia is a source of the world terrorism 21 Cheney: U.S. Fears Massive Attack 22 In Bremerton, not everything is shipshape 23 NTS training proposal to be discussed 24 In Congress, Pork Stays on Menu 25 Opinion: Nuclear Research is Beneficial and Necessary 26 Diplomatic Fault Lines Shift With Terror War 27 De-alerting Russian and US nuclear weapons - briefing book 28 China welcomes Russia and U-S commitment on nuclear weapons 29 -DOE seeks progress on contractor's safety 30 NUKE PROTEST REV FINED 31 Dampen nuclear dangers in India and Pakistan 32 Secretary Abraham, Homeland Security Director Ridge View 33 New Nuclear Age **************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 Support Bill Proposed To Stockpile KI Within 200 Miles Of Indian Point & All NPPs In USA Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2001 02:11:01 -0500 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal MOTHERSALERT HOME PAGE: http://www.mothersalert.org & http://www.mothersalert.org/moreinfo.html You can reach your Representative through the Congressional Switchboard at: 202-224-3121. YES To Storing KI[Potassium Iodide] for blocking uptake of radioactive iodine to thyroid. http://news.excite.com/news/r/011114/18/attack-nuc lear-drugs US rep. wants anti-radiation drug near nuke plants Updated: Wed, Nov 14 6:13 PM EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. lawmaker Wednesday proposed a bill that would stockpile anti-radiation medicine near American nuclear power plants in case attackers released dangerous radioactive material into the air. Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Edward Markey, a longtime critic of the nuclear industry, wants the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to have ready supplies of potassium iodide within 200 miles of each of the country's 103 operating nuclear power plants. The drug has been shown to protect the body's thyroid gland from diseases caused by radiation exposure, Markey said. It must be taken several hours after exposure to be effective. "Potassium iodide is to radiation exposure what Cipro is to anthrax," he said in a statement. The bill would also require the government commission to stock potassium iodide at individual homes and public facilities within 50 miles of a plant. In the wake of the deadly Sept. 11 aerial attacks on Washington and New York, Markey has urged lawmakers to pass measures to step up security at nuclear plants, which he views as vulnerable to attack. "In this new era of terrorism, in which the threat of an intentional release of radioactivity can no longer be ignored, we should waste no more time," Markey said. Government and private industry officials say all commercial nuclear plants have been on high alert since the September attacks and have adopted stricter security measures. Email this story | Printer-friendly version ***************************************************************** 2 Maine Yankee to be blast site Thursday, November 15, 2001 By DENNIS HOEY, Blethen Maine Newspapers WISCASSET — Around noon this Saturday, a boom significantly louder than a clap of thunder will reverberate throughout the midcoast region. The noise will come from the site of the Maine Yankee nuclear power plant in Wiscasset, where workers from Controlled Demolition Inc. of Maryland will implode the plant's former turbine hall superstructure. Plant officials say the sound will be loud enough to be heard 10 miles away in homes in Bath and Damariscotta. The demolition project is just another step in Maine Yankee's effort to decommission the power plant by 2005. Maine Yankee stopped generating electricity in 1997. Eventually, all of the buildings on the site will be removed. The company hopes that someday the site can be redeveloped for commercial uses. Maine Yankee is also responsible for storing spent nuclear fuel assemblies in a facility on the property until the federal government can remove those assemblies to a permanent storage site. Eric T. Howes, Maine Yankee spokesman, said the company decided to implode the southern side of the turbine hall building because it will be safer for construction workers than having to manually demolish a building so tall and expansive. The turbine hall structure weighs 850 tons, is 120 feet high, and is 45,000 square feet. It stands about 200 feet from a building that houses the pool where 1,432 spent fuel assemblies are cooled. The turbine hall, built in 1969, housed the steam turbines that generated electricity. Howes, officials from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the state, and even nuclear activists agree that the risk to the public of detonating 100 pounds of explosives so close to radioactive materials is minimal. "We've carefully reviewed their plans and believe Maine Yankee has taken the appropriate precautions. The demolition will be done in a controlled manner that ensures the public is in no danger, but we have to warn people that there will be a very loud boom," said Randolph Ragland, a health physicist with the NRC, who also serves as Maine Yankee's site inspector. To further ensure the public's safety, access to the nuclear power plant will be restricted Saturday to only those individuals wearing security badges. The explosives that will be used to implode the building will be under armed guard and armed guards will be positioned on roads leading to the Sheepscot River site. In addition, a 600-foot security zone around the blast site will be enforced, meaning that boat traffic on the river will be prohibited. In September, Controlled Demolition Inc. used 1,800 pounds of explosives in a series of blast to demolish the 40-foot high concrete pedestal that supported the turbine hall building. That effort went so well that regulators said they are not worried about Saturday's event causing vibrations that might rupture nuclear fuel rods or break windows in nearby homes. Controlled Demolition Inc. has more than 50 years experience in blasting large structures. It has undertaken several building demolition projects at nuclear power plants throughout the United States and at Department of Energy facilities. Example include the Vepco nuclear power plant in Virginia, the Turkey Point power plant in Florida and the Savannah River site in South Carolina. Despite the company's track record, Maine Yankee officials have taken steps to assure the public that the blast will be safe. Letters notified Wiscasset-area residents of Saturday's demolition. And tonight, Maine Yankee officials plan to present more details about the demolition at a public meeting hosted by members of the Community Advisory Panel on Decommissioning. That meeting will start at 6 p.m. in the Chewonki Environmental Center. In addition, the company encourages the public to call 882-4545 for updates on the blasting schedule. Paula Craighead, the state's Nuclear Safety Advisor, is satisfied that Maine Yankee has done everything it can to get the word out. She is also satisfied that the demolition can be done safely. "After Sept. 11, peoples' nerves were pretty shattered," Craighead said. "We'd like to keep the startle factor down." Even Ray Shadis, spokesman for the nuclear watchdog group Friends of the Coast, says the public should not be alarmed. "It's a relatively simple matter if you know what you're doing," Shadis said. "It looks to us as if they've set everything up in a safe fashion. It's not an issue for us." Terry Peacock, manager of site restoration for Maine Yankee, is in charge of overseeing Saturday's demolition project. Peacock said workers from Controlled Demolition will place 40 shape charges in the steel super structure. The charges will force the building to collapse in on itself. They'll use no more than 100 pounds of explosives. He said the explosives will cut through steel girders like a knife, creating tremendous pressure — 2 million pounds per square inch. At the spent fuel pool about 200 feet away, the spent fuel rods are stored in a pool of water 40 feet below the surface. The pool walls are six feet thick and are designed to withstand an earthquake. Copyright © Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc. ***************************************************************** 3 NRC Commissioner to Visit St. Lucie Nuclear Plant on November 16 Press Release Region II - 2001 - 45 - UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, REGION II 61 Forsyth Street SW, Atlanta, GA 30303 Web Site: http://www.nrc.gov No. II-01-045 November 14, 2001 CONTACT: Ken Clark (404)562-4416/e-mail: kmc2@nrc.gov [kmc2@nrc.gov] Roger D. Hannah (404)562-4417/e-mail: rdh1@nrc.gov [rdh1@nrc.gov] U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commissioner Dr. Nils J. Diaz will visit Florida Power & Light Company's St. Lucie nuclear power plant on Friday, November 16, to tour the facility and discuss its operation with company officials. Commissioner Diaz will be available to meet with interested news media representatives at 2:00 p.m. in the auditorium of the plant visitor and training center, located adjacent to the plant. Commissioner Diaz was first sworn in as a commissioner of the NRC on August 23, 1996 for a five-year term and nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate on October 4 of this year for a second five-year term. Before joining the NRC, Dr. Diaz was a professor of nuclear engineering at the University of Florida and director of the Innovative Nuclear Space Power and Propulsion Institute, a national consortium of universities and industry, which he founded, He also was president of Florida Nuclear Associates, Inc., a high technology research and consulting firm. Dr. Diaz received a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Villanova, in Cuba, and both Master of Science and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Florida in nuclear sciences. ***************************************************************** 4 National Guard pulled from power plants PalmBeachPost.com November 15 By Susan Salisbury, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer Round-the-clock National Guard troops have been pulled from duty at Florida Power & Light's St. Lucie and Turkey Point nuclear power plants. Al Dennis, spokesman for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement in Tallahassee, said Wednesday the guard was released from the plants sometime after 6 p.m. Tuesday and would no longer be stationed at the plants. "Based on a mutual agreement by the state, federal and local law enforcement and FPL, the St. Lucie and Turkey Point power plants are resuming normal heightened security levels," Dennis said. Six-man National Guard teams, rotating in groups of three, have been guarding the plants since Gov. Jeb Bush ordered them there Oct. 31 at the request of FPL's parent company, FPL Group. Dennis said local, state and federal officials feel the plants are secure. "The plants were reassessed. The agreement to return to normal heightened security is based on a thorough security assessment and an intelligence analysis. They're going back to what they had. You still have a state and local presence there," Dennis said. "There's no intelligence to indicate the St. Lucie plant is the subject of any threats." Liz Hirst, spokeswoman for the governor's office said, "It was supposed to be a temporary status." All of FPL's 13 power plants in the state that house more than 30 power units along with its offices, including its Juno Beach headquarters, have been under heightened security since the day after the Sept. 11 terror attacks. The St. Lucie plant and the Turkey Point Nuclear Power Plant in Miami-Dade County each employ 600 to 800 people. susan_salisbury@pbpost.com Copyright © 2001, The Palm Beach Post. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 5 Schumer: Secure nuclear reactors JIM KINNEY, The SaratogianNovember 15, 2001 WASHINGTON, D.C. -- U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer wants to temporarily re-impose no-fly zones around the state's nuclear facilities, but still find a way to keep Saratoga County Airport open. ''Perhaps each plane that is flying out could get clearance first. Then it could fly off out of the area,'' Schumer said Wednesday morning in a conference call with newspaper reporters. ''To just shut airports down causes such hardship. A lot of people have money invested.'' On Wednesday Schumer asked Tom Ridge, director of the Office of Homeland Security, and Richard Meserve, Nuclear Regulatory Commission chairman, to review all security plans and procedures at every atomic facility in the state. ''What we have been doing up until now has been ad hoc and temporary,'' Schumer said. While the state has six commercial power reactors, Schumer said he fears too little attention has been paid to other atomic facilities. He included two Navy reactors at the Kenneth A. Kesselring Site in West Milton and reactors at Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory in Niskayuna. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy has a research reactor. ''We simply cannot do enough to safeguard these areas of exposure,'' Schumer said. Saratoga County Airport on Geyser Road is within 10 nautical miles of the West Milton site. A no-fly order closed the airport to some flights for five days earlier this month. ''It's hard for us to figure how much business we lost,'' said Tom Miller, manager of Richmor Aviation at the site. ''We moved all our flight-training out when we found out it was going to close. Schumer also said he wants the federal government to brief local officials concerning security at nuclear facilities. He wants updated evacuation plans in place in case of a terrorist attack. Milton Supervisor Wilbur Trieble said he's been in contact with officials at West Milton since Sept. 11. He said he agrees with Schumer that emergency plans concerning the site -- and the county in general -- need to be revised. ''Terrorism was not a consideration when we put those plans together,'' Trieble said. ''We are living in a different era. ©The Saratogian 2001 ***************************************************************** 6 Press Release Region II - 2001 - 46 - NRC Commissioner to Speak on Nuclear Security At University of Florida on November 17 UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, REGION II 61 Forsyth Street SW, Atlanta, GA 30303 Web Site: http://www.nrc.gov No. II-01-046 November 15, 2001 CONTACT: Ken Clark (404)562-4416/e-mail: kmc2@nrc.gov [kmc2@nrc.gov] Roger D. Hannah (404)562-4417/e-mail: rdh1@nrc.gov [rdh1@nrc.gov] U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commissioner Dr. Nils J. Diaz will speak about security at the country's nuclear power plants at the University of Florida in Gainesville on Saturday, November 17. The event is scheduled for Room 361 at the J. W. Reitz Union on the campus at 9:00 a.m. Commissioner Diaz was invited to speak by Florida State Representative Jerry Paul (R-Port Charlotte). Commissioner Diaz was first sworn in as a commissioner of the NRC on August 23, 1996 for a five-year term and nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate on October 4 of this year for a second five-year term. Before joining the NRC, Dr. Diaz was a professor of nuclear engineering at the University of Florida and director of the Innovative Nuclear Space Power and Propulsion Institute, a national consortium of universities and industry, which he founded, He also was president of Florida Nuclear Associates, Inc., a high technology research and consulting firm. Dr. Diaz received a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Villanova, in Cuba, and both Master of Science and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Florida in nuclear sciences. ***************************************************************** 7 Yankee security debated Times Record News 11/15/2001 Bob_Kalish@TimesRecord.Com Depending on who was talking Tuesday, Maine Yankee security is fine or a disaster waiting to happen. For example, Maj.Gen. Joseph Tinkham, the adjutant general of the Maine National Guard and commissioner of the state Department of Defense, Veterans and Emergency Management, said he is confident that "every conceivable threat by land or sea" has been covered by Maine Yankee's security plan. But a panel of three experts organized by the anti-nuclear group Friends of the Coast said the closed nuclear power plant in Wiscasset remains a dangerous place. One of the experts, Paul Blanch, a nuclear engineer consulting with several nuclear power plants, talked about the "true risk of long-term storage of nuclear fuel." The debate over safety at Maine Yankee is taking place as the plant is undergoing decommissioning and as Maine Yankee is preparing to move its spent nuclear fuel rods into concrete casks on the Maine Yankee grounds. Tinkham testified before a state advisory commission on radioactive waste and decommissioning in Augusta Tuesday. After four meetings with federal officials and Maine Yankee representatives, during which he received classified information, Tinkham said he and Gov. Angus King were assured that every security precaution has been taken by Maine Yankee. "Maine Yankee security is a tough nut to crack," Tinkham told the panel, whose chairwoman is Sen. Sharon Treat, D-Gardiner. Tinkham's testimony was part of an afternoon hearing attended by officials from the state, Maine Yankee and the public. Tinkham told the panel that he and King were convinced that the National Guard isn't needed at the Maine Yankee site. They reached that conclusion after the Nuclear Regulatory Commission gave them a briefing that included classified information about the plant's security operation. "Because of the security, I can't tell you details," Tinkham said. "Our only encouragement to Maine Yankee was that they make their security efforts more public. And that they have, so the security buildup is now more public." On orders of the commission, which regulates nuclear power plants, the Maine Yankee site has undergone beefed-up security measures since the Sept. 11 attacks. Paula Craighead, the state's nuclear safety adviser, gave the panel an overview of the state's role in the decommissioning. She said the problem of the spent fuel storage "is a political one." "There are places where high-level spent fuel is stored," she said. "There is spent fuel being moved right now; it is being sent over roads all the time. The problem is a political one." Craighead said the King administration "has never accepted the dry-cask storage as acceptable for Wiscasset." The spent fuel rods currently are kept in a pool of water. They are scheduled to be transferred to dry casks early next year, according to the decommissioning schedule. Sixty-four concrete and lead cylindrical casks will be stored behind an 18-foot high earthen berm on the Maine Yankee site. Construction of the Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation, as it is called, has taken two years. "We would like legislation to convince the (U.S.) Department of Energy to help Maine Yankee move the fuel off-site," Craighead told the panel. Tinkham concurred, saying that although the governor and he believe all "reasonable security measures have been taken at Maine Yankee based on the fuel being underwater, the governor is not satisfied going to dry storage is right." Maine Yankee spokesman Eric Howes said later that the security issue at present relates to the spent fuel pool. "We'll have further discussion on the dry storage when the time is appropriate," Howes said. Treat said she had two questions about whether spent fuel should be stored underwater or in dry casks: "Which poses the greater threat, and which target would have the more severe consequences in case of attack?" Craighead responded that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is undergoing a full review of the issue. Treat asked why other states with nuclear power plants have called in the National Guard, including Connecticut Yankee, which also is being decommissioned. "It's not a cookie-cutter remedy," Craighead responded. "Each site is treated individually. Massachusetts, Maine and Connecticut have enhanced their security differently. In Massachusetts, the National Guard was called in because of distance of the plant from law enforcement; in Connecticut, they hadn't taken earlier steps at enhancing their security." Tinkham agreed, stating that the seven states in which the National Guard were called all had different reasons for doing so. "We have looked at security at Maine Yankee," Tinkham said. "And we do not need to do anything more to enhance it. We are confident that if we need to, we could put soldiers there quickly should the occasion arise." But only hours after the hearing, about 70 people showed up at Wiscasset Middle School to hear a panel of three experts dispute such conclusions. Sponsored by Friends of the Coast Opposing Nuclear Pollution, the forum included Dave Lochbaum, a nuclear safety engineer with the Union of Concerned Scientists; Paul Blanch, a nuclear engineer who is a consultant with several nuclear power plants; and Gordon Thompson, a nuclear physicist with the Institute for Security and Resource Studies in Cambridge, Mass. Their consensus was that the spent fuel kept at Maine Yankee was not and could not be secure. Lochbaum, who also testified at the Augusta hearing, said the public would be well-served if the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, or NRC, would perform a "force on force" test, which it routinely would do with operating nuclear plants. The "force on force" test is a mock "attack" on a facility by a small armed force to test the security in that facility. "Never to my knowledge has the NRC done a 'force on force' test with the spent fuel pool as its target," Lochbaum said. The agency generally performs the test with operating plants in which the target is the nuclear reactor. "If the NRC would come to Maine Yankee and perform the test, evaluate the results and determine if Maine Yankee security is adequate, that would satisfy the public," he said. Blanch said that some actions taken by the U.S. government were "useless." "The no-fly zone is not a deterrent," he said. "And the National Guard provides a little bit of a perception of more security, but that's about all." Blanch said the U.S. government must tell the public the "true risk of long term storage of nuclear fuel." He said the public has lost faith in the NRC and the nuclear licensees. "I think one central agency like the Homeland Security," Blanch said, "could honestly assess the risk and come up with a single plan for protection." Thompson told the audience in Wiscasset that spent fuel posed a definite risk of fire regardless of its age. "If the water in the pool runs dry, the heat from the fuel, even if it is five years old, would be hot enough to cause a fire that would vaporize the fuel pellets and cause radiation damage across a large area," he said. Thompson called for "more protection" of the spent fuel. Friends of the Coast has begun a petition drive calling for King to send National Guard troops to Maine Yankee. ***************************************************************** 8 Security is being tightened at Monroe facilities. Monroe Evening News 15 November, 2001 City plans security revamp By SCOTT NEINAS There will be more locked doors, more key pads and more security checks throughout the county, as leaders discussed ongoing security upgrades at Monroe City Hall Tuesday. Police, fire, hospital, utility, school and other government officials met with Monroe Mayor C.D. (Al) Cappuccilli as the city revealed a detailed plan of its changes to protect against terrorism. Each entity gave updates on its latest efforts of balancing vigilance and heightened awareness with common sense. Don Link, who heads the city's engineering department, said state police were overwhelmed with samples of suspicious white powder that have turned up across the state. The agency has received more than 7,000 complaints, he said. "It all runs through one person at one lab and not every sample can be tested," he said. "The key is to not downplay the situation but don't overplay it either." The city has installed tighter controls at city hall and at the city's water and wastewater treatment plant. Visitors to city hall soon will be limited to using either the elevator or one of the building's three stairwells to get to the top two floors. Employees with access cards will be able to use the other stairwells. The city already has spent $21,000 for new security measures, City Manager Robert Hamilton said. Security for the water plant alone is expected to cost $30,000. Total costs for the city's security plan weren't available Tuesday. Douglas Gipson, a Detroit Edison Co. vice president representing the Fermi 2 nuclear power plant in Frenchtown Township, said that in addition to the power plant closing down for 31 days, all air traffic in an 11-mile radius and water traffic in a one-mile radius has been halted. The Coast Guard has had to use helicopter squads to ward off walleye fishermen near the plant. Also, he said, all of the company's employees have undergone background checks. For contractors or other workers who haven't been checked out, "someone is with them constantly," he said. "In effect, no one is there without background checks." Lt. Arden Bow, commander of the Monroe post of the state police, said cars that stop on the side of road in "sensitive areas" are contacted by troopers as soon as they're discovered. Also, he said, motor carrier division officers have instructions to randomly pull over trucks hauling hazardous materials for safety checks. Local police chiefs said part of their job, in addition to investigating real threats, is to reassure citizens who may run across situations unnerving to them. "There was a resident who had received a letter postmarked from New Jersey and thought it might be dangerous. Obviously, there was nothing wrong with the letter, but they still needed someone to talk to," he said. At Mercy Memorial Hospital, doctors are reviewing treatments for anthrax, smallpox and other diseases to prepare for possible outbreaks. Dr. Vincent Rimanelli, a physician at Mercy Memorial, said smallpox is more dangerous than anthrax because it can be transferred just by being in the same room with someone. Anthrax isn't a communicable disease. "In medical school, professors would devote about five minutes to diseases like smallpox, because you just don't see it anymore," he said. "We're not familiar with it. We never thought we'd see it in our lifetime." Here are some of the security measures that City of Monroe facilities are taking to ward off terrorists strikes. Wastewater treatment plant Toxic materials are locked at all times and physically checked every hour, 24 hours a day. The plant no longer accepts recyclables. New signs are posted, informing visitors that the facility is closed to the public. All visitors must have appointments, check in at the office and get a pass. Driver's license numbers are then recorded and they must sign in. Visitors are accompanied at all times by wastewater employees. All gates are locked at all times, except for the main gate, which is locked after 4:30 p.m. The main fence was repaired where there were holes in the fence fabric. A secondary fence was installed around the toxic chemicals building. All locks at the chemical building were changed and the building is locked at all times. A motion detector alarm has been installed in the chemical room that initiates an alarm at the main control panel of the facility and an extremely loud audible alarm at the chemical building. The staff is keeping a log of all septic haulers. They are required to submit their driver's license to be copied and then sign in each time they make a delivery. Water department The west reservoir access hatch, which is outside of the plant, perimeter has been secured. The front door to plant offices and the meter shop are locked at all times. The alarm system was checked and repaired. Checks of validity of chemical deliveries were increased. All loads and drivers are verified from their sources prior to being allowed on site. Chemicals then are tested. Additional lights have been installed. All mail is opened utilizing gloves. Suspicious mail is not opened. A package of other security measures, which include more fences, a card entry system and additional lighting along E. Front St., has been prepared. Police department Two officers were assigned additional responsibilities as members of the sheriff's Special Response Team. All officers have received and continue to receive terrorism orientation. Five officers attended training on dealing with terrorism. Increased police checks at water, wastewater and other facilities. Regular briefings with FBI, state police and other police department information. Letters were hand delivered to neighbors in the vicinity of the Detroit Edison substation and water plant asking for neighbors to call 911 if they see anything suspicious. Fire department Response protocols for dealing with potential terrorism incidents were developed. Training to deal with anthrax and other biological agents has been continued. ©Monroe Evening News 2001 ***************************************************************** 9 10 New Nuclear Reactors Planned Thursday, Nov. 15, 2001. Page 4 Reuters The Nuclear Power Ministry plans to boost Russia's nuclear power output with the construction of 10 new reactors over the next decade, a ministry official told the State Duma on Wednesday. "Russia is making a structural shift toward nuclear power," First Deputy Minister Lev Ryabev said. Building nuclear reactors made sense economically and environmentally, he added. Nuclear plants do not produce carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas targeted by environmental campaigners, but opponents point to the risk of explosions like that at Chernobyl in 1986. Nuclear energy will make up 37 percent of Russia's total energy output by 2020, he said, rising from current levels of between 15 percent and 20 percent. He told deputies electricity output at nuclear installations would grow by 5 percent a year, twice the growth rate of thermoelectric and hydropower plants. Ryabev added Russia would also help build six reactors outside its borders in Iran, India and China. Russia currently has 10 nuclear plants and 30 functioning reactors. [http://www.moscowtimes.ru ***************************************************************** 10 Watchdog eyes ways to safeguard reactors from terrorist attacks November 15, 2001BackThe Halifax Herald Limited By Dennis Bueckert / The Canadian Press WAR ON TERROR Ottawa - The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission is studying how to "harden" nuclear reactors against possible attack by a hijacked commercial aircraft. The new efforts go beyond measures already introduced such as on-site armed guards at nuclear stations, barriers to prevent crash attacks by surface vehicles and visitor screening. An internal report says the commission is reviewing the capability of Canada's 22 nuclear power plants to withstand an air attack of the kind carried out Sept. 11. "This robustness study will include the impact of a modern large commercial aircraft fully loaded with fuel, and the resulting fire, as well as other threats," says the report. Commission spokesman Jim Leveque said "hardening" the reactors could mean literally reinforcing concrete walls around key areas, but it could also refer to changes in procedures. Given the variation in design at nuclear stations, measures will be tailored for each site, he said. The commission is also reviewing the risks of theft or sabotage at uranium mines and mills and research reactors, and at 4,000 facilities that use radioactive materials in medical or industrial applications. Leveque said the commission still has not reached a decision on the feasibility of imposing no-fly zones over nuclear reactors, but discussions are progressing. No-fly zones would involve the placement of surface-to-air missiles around reactors, he said. The drive for improved security will continue regardless of what happens in the military campaign against Osama bin Laden, who has claimed responsibility for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, he added. He said the effort to upgrade security began before those attacks and would continue even if bin Laden changed his religion. The International Atomic Energy Agency recently warned that terrorist attacks on nuclear reactors are 10 times more likely in the wake of the attacks. The agency also said radioactive materials commonly used in medicine and industry could be combined with conventional explosives to make a "dirty" bomb. Canada's nuclear power stations are located at Gentilly, Que., Point Lepreau, N.B., and three Ontario sites - Bruce, Pickering and Darlington. There are seven research reactors across the country, a handful of nuclear processing facilities, two accelerators, and several mines and mills, mainly in northern Saskatchewan. ***************************************************************** 11 NRC Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste To Meet November 27 - 29 in Rockville, Maryland Press Release - 2001 - 128 - U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 20555-001 E-mail: opa@nrc.gov [opa@nrc.gov] Web Site: http://www.nrc.gov No. 01-128 November 14, 2001 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste (ACNW) has scheduled a meeting on November 27-29 in Rockville, Maryland, to discuss, among other issues, performance confirmation plans for the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, and nuclear research needed for future regulatory decisions. The meeting, which is open to the public, will be held in Room T-2B3 of the agency's Two White Flint North building, at 11545 Rockville Pike. It will begin at 8:30 a.m. each day. A complete agenda is attached. For additional information or schedule changes, contact Howard Larson at 301-415-6805. ***************************************************************** 12 Conama places restrictions on proposal to complete Angra III nuclear power station (Conama faz restrices a proposta de conclusao da usina nuclear Angra III) O Globo - Brazil; Nov 15, 2001 The Brazilian environmental council (Conama) yesterday approved a motion restricting the government's proposal to complete work on the Angra III nuclear power station. According to Conama, the government can only resume talks regarding the construction of Angra III after it has sorted out the serious operational problems of the Angra I and Angra II power stations. Conama also believes that it essential that Angra III's technical, economical and environmental viability studies are completed before the conclusion of the power station is discussed again. Conama's motion will be endorsed by environment minister, Jose Sarney Filho, at a meeting of the Brazilian energy policy council next week. The motion considers all of the criticisms of professor Luiz Pinguello Rosa, one of Brazil's leading nuclear energy specialists, who said that Angra I and II have serious problems. According to the professor, Angra I has technical problems and its steam generator is seriously corroded. He has also said that the plans to evacuate areas surrounding the plants in the event of an emergency would fail. The Brazilian government has already spent $700m on Angra III and would have to spend another $1.3bn in order to complete the power station. Abstracted from O Globo World Reporter All Material Subject to ***************************************************************** 13 Japan to help Russia with waste disposal Japan Today Japan News - News - Thursday, November 15, 2001 at 09:30 JST TOKYO Japan will formally present a plant for disposal of radioactive waste to Russia at a ceremony later this month on the outskirts of Vladivostok, a Japanese Foreign Ministry official said Wednesday. The ceremony will take place Nov 22 in Bolshoy Kamen, where the facility to process liquid radioactive waste from dismantled nuclear-powered submarines from the Russian Navy's Pacific fleet is located, the official said. (Kyodo New ***************************************************************** 14 Environmentalists lose nuclear plant court challenge Ananova - Environmental groups have vowed to carry on their legal battle over the Government's approval of a nuclear reprocessing plant. Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace have lost a High Court bid to challenge the Government's decision. The groups are seeking to block the opening of the mixed plutonium and uranium oxide plant at Sellafield in Cumbria. Mr Justice Collins, sitting in London, ruled the Government had made no error of law in granting approval. The judge granted Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace permission to appeal - a provisional date for the appeal has been set for November 27. Friends of the Earth executive director Charles Secrett said in a statement after the ruling: "Today's judgment allows the Government to ignore plant construction costs when deciding whether a nuclear project is justified. In this land of fantasy economics the Government can fiddle the figures until it gets the results it wants." Stephen Tindale, executive director of Greenpeace UK, said: "While today's decision is disappointing, our fight to stop the MOX plant from opening is not over." The plant "poses a substantial risk as a terrorist target and producer of bomb-making equipment" and faced three more legal challenges. BNFL, which runs the Sellafield plant, welcomed the judge's decision that the MOX operation is both lawful and justified. The company said in a statement: "This is good news for the plant, the workforce and the local community. Our customers have been very patient and we now want to get on with the job of manufacturing MOX fuel for them." Story filed: 12:01 Thursday 15th November 2001 Copyright © 2001 Ananova Ltd ***************************************************************** 15 Environmentalists lose anti-Sellafield legal challenge World / International News 11:01 Thursday November 15th 2001 Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace have lost their legal challenge to the British Government’s controversial decision to allow a mixed oxide (MOX) fuel plant to operate at Sellafield. The two groups had attempted to block the operation of the new plant on the grounds that the British Government had not followed its own guidelines when allowing the operation to go ahead. Under law, a plant that can damage the environment and human health can only be opened if the benefits to the British economy are proven. Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace had argued that British Nuclear Fuels never provided this proof before the British Government allowed them to open the MOX plant. However, the presiding judge ruled that the British Government made “no error in law” in granting approval. This ruling has been criticised by the Green Party in Ireland, which insisted that the fight to have Sellafield shut down will continue. UNISON ***************************************************************** 16 Heavy escort for nuclear waste The Star Online > News > World Thursday, November 15, 2001 GORLEBEN (Germany): Six containers of nuclear waste finally reached a storage site in northern Germany yesterday after three days of protests and one of the largest peacetime security operations the country has seen. A force of 15,000 German police sealed off roads in the early hours yesterday, removing the last few hundred demonstrators from sit-down protests along the planned route. Police said they had detained around 300 people. A medical tent dealt with 93 injuries, from baton bruises to dog bites. By first light on a misty morning, the containers had sneaked out of Dannenberg. The shipment moved at a snail’s pace along the 20km road to the storage site at Gorleben, the final stop of a 1,500km trip back from a reprocessing plant in north-western France. The containers had arrived in Dannenberg by rail late on Tuesday under heavy police escort. Protesters, held back 500m from the track, blew whistles. — Reuters © 1995-2001 Star Publications (Malaysia) Bhd (Co No 10894-D) ***************************************************************** 17 Castor Transport Reaches Gorleben Nuclear Storage F.A.Z. - English Version F.A.Z. TREBEL. Six Castor containers of nuclear waste reached a controversial storage facility at Gorleben in Lower Saxony at about 7 a.m. on Wednesday, following numerous delays due to technical problems and antinuclear protests. The transport carrying 80 tons of waste was the fifth such shipment in Germany, and has been accompanied by a massive police presence since leaving a reprocessing center in La Hague, France on Sunday. German police detained 780 people during the protests and formally arrested another 45, officials said. Eighteen police officers had minor injuries. Protesters said they had suffered "numerous injuries," but gave no totals. Germany sends the waste to France and Britain for reprocessing, but has been slow to take back the resulting waste for storage because of decades of political wrangling over where to put it and concern about the safety of shipping it halfway across Europe.Nov. 14, 2001 © Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 2000 All rights ***************************************************************** 18 Additional protection measures instituted at Romanian nuclear plant BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Nov 14, 2001 Text of report in English by independent Romanian news agency Mediafax Bucharest, 14 November: Romanian authorities took supplementary protection measures at Cernavoda nuclear plant after re-evaluating the confidential plan for the institution security due to the terrorist events in the United States of America, on Wednesday [14 November] stated in a press conference Lucian Biro, chairman of the National Commission for Nuclear Activity Control (CNCAN). "Every country holding nuclear units has a secret protection plan, changing periodically depending on the events, " explained Biro. The chairman of CNCAN said that at CNE Cernavoda the supplementary protection measures referred to the restriction of the access to nuclear installations and a better monitoring of the area. Lucian Biro, who participated in the meeting of USA commission for regulation in nuclear domain taking place in Washington and Chicago, said that the specialists in this sector expressed their concern regarding the fact that the nuclear plants were not projected to offer resistance to the impact produced due to the crash of heavy aeroplanes. "The plants offer resistance to the impact with small airships - MiG - or pieces from heavy airships, " said Biro. He added that specialists only presented the problem, without establishing measures for the future. Source: Mediafax news agency, Bucharest, in English 1758 gmt 14 Nov 01 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter All Material ***************************************************************** 19 Schumer seeks threat assessment at W. Valley, state's other N-sites Buffalo News - News Washington Bureau Chief 11/15/2001 WASHINGTON - Sen. Charles E. Schumer has asked Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to assess the threat from terrorists to the West Valley Demonstration Project and to nuclear reactors and power plants in New York State. In letters to Ridge and the NRC, the New York Democrat said that improving homeland defenses "means leaving no stone unturned and taking steps to shore up every possible vulnerability." "We simply cannot do enough to safeguard these pockets of exposure," Schumer said. Schumer asked Ridge to reinstate a no-fly zone over those facilities until counterterrorism measures are in place. Schumer urged the government to consider deploying military personnel and equipment to those sites. At West Valley, 600,000 gallons of high-level nuclear residues have been converted into stable glass logs. They are stored at the facility 30 miles south of Buffalo off Route 219. In addition, there are 125 spent nuclear fuel rods stored in casks on railroad flatcars. From time to time, the rods are guarded by a Cattaraugus County Sheriff's Department patrol car. Schumer said it is up to Ridge and the NRC to determine how those materials would be made vulnerable to terrorist intrusions. Meanwhile, President Bush signed an appropriations bill that cuts funding for West Valley from the $107 million it received for operations last year to $90 million in the current year. The bill provides that if the Department of Energy and the State Energy Resource and Development Authority do not agree by Oct. 1 on who will pay to maintain the project site in perpetuity, Congress will cut funding for the project to mothball levels. Rep. Amo Houghton, R-Corning, estimated that it would cost the government about $40 million a year to maintain the facility in mothballs. e-mail: dturner@buffnews.com Copyright © 1999 - 2001 The Buffalo NewsTM ***************************************************************** 20 Nuclear Waste Reaches German Dump Las Vegas SUN November 14, 2001 GORLEBEN, Germany- A shipment of more than 80 tons of nuclear waste arrived at a dump in the north German countryside Wednesday, despite efforts by militant anti-nuclear protesters to block its path. Six trucks, each carrying a container of waste dispatched Sunday evening from a French reprocessing plant, swung into the Gorleben storage site at about 7 a.m. in a convoy guarded by dozens of police vehicles. About 20 people jeered and whistled from behind barricades near the dump, the final gesture from demonstrators who defied some 15,000 police to stage protests along the shipment's 870 mile route. Germany sends its nuclear waste to France and Britain for reprocessing, but has been slow to take it back for storage because of decades of political wrangling over where to put it and the safety of shipping it halfway across Europe. Wednesday's delivery was only the fifth so far to Gorleben, where the special containers are placed in a hangar-like building above a disused salt mine that residents fear will become a permanent storage site. Opponents say neither the containers nor the old mine are safe - especially in the light of the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States. Shipments already were halted for four years in 1997 because of radioactive leaks on the containers. "Gorleben is no safer than any other nuclear installation in Germany from a targeted attack," said Boris Jarosch, a 25-year-old student from Berlin, after watching the convoy sweep through the gates. Germany's well-organized anti-nuclear movement blamed the war in Afghanistan for their inability to muster the thousands of activists who protested the last shipment in March, but police had warned that a hard core were more determined than ever to cause disruption. Riot police cleared more protesters overnight from along the final 12 miles of road from the town of Dannenberg, where a crane lifted the containers from rail wagons onto the waiting trucks. On Tuesday, police had removed activists who had chained themselves to the tracks and dangled from the trees overhanging the rails. Security forces used batons, dogs and horses to try to keep the demonstrators at bay. "There were no notable incidents on the final stretch," said police spokesman Thomas Kuhn. "It all went as we had planned." The German government this year signed an agreement with power companies to shut down all the country's nuclear plants within about 20 years. But campaigners say the shipments - which are to end by 2005 - are too much of a risk and hope the huge cost of policing the shipments will force a quicker phaseout. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 21 Nuclear Plant A Step Closer Headline news from Sky News - Witness the event A controversial nuclear reprocessing plant looks increasingly likely to open for business at Sellafield after environmental campaigners lost their court action to stop it. Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace are trying to prevent the opening of a new mixed plutonium and uranium oxide (Mox) plant, but judges at the High Court threw out their request. However, the legal wrangling is not over. The two groups have been given permission to appeal. "Madness" Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace believe the Sellafield scheme is "nuclear madness" and could lead to pollution, become a target for terrorists or theft of nuclear materials and does not have enough customers, such as the Japanese, to make it viable. Friends of the Earth, said: "Today's judgment allows the Government to ignore plant construction costs when deciding whether a nuclear project is justified. In this land of fantasy economics the Government can fiddle the figures until it gets the results it wants." But lawyers for the Governent said the potential benefits of the Sellafield plant were "likely to run into hundreds of millions of pounds" "Lawful" British Nuclear Fuels which runs the Sellafield plant, has welcomed the judge's decision that the Mox operation was both lawful and justified. A statement said: "This is good news for the plant, the workforce and the local community. Our customers have been very patient and we now want to get on with the job of manufacturing Mox fuel for them." ***************************************************************** 22 Energy Alliance Launches Yucca Mountain Initiative U.S. Newswire 15 Nov 12:03 Chamber of Commerce To: National Desk, Environment Reporter Contact: Linda Rozett or David Felipe, both of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 202-463-5682; e-mail: press@uschamber.com WASHINGTON, Nov. 15 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The Alliance for Energy and Economic Growth today announced a new bipartisan initiative to encourage a timely, favorable decision by the Bush Administration with regard to the pending Yucca Mountain site recommendation decision for the establishment of a federal repository for used nuclear fuel and defense waste materials. The initiative, to be led by former New Hampshire Governor and White House Chief of Staff John Sununu and former Congresswoman and Vice Presidential Nominee Geraldine Ferraro, was announced at a press conference at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce this morning. "Nuclear energy provides electricity to one of every five homes and businesses in the United States and is clearly a key element of any U.S. energy strategy," said Alliance Spokesman and Chamber Executive Vice-President Bruce Josten. "The Alliance supports a positive determination by the Bush Administration as to the suitability of Yucca Mountain and strongly encourages the Energy Secretary and the President to move forward expeditiously." The Chamber has led the fight for a national energy plan and co-chairs the Alliance for Energy and Economic Growth -- a broad-based coalition of more than 1200 small and large businesses, labor unions, and energy suppliers urging Congress to pass a comprehensive energy plan. To learn more about the Alliance for Energy & Economic Growth: www.yourenergyfuture.com [http://www.yourenergyfuture.com] To view written statements from today's press conference, please visit: www.uschamber.com/_Political+Advocacy/Energy+Alliance/News/default.htm [http://www.uschamber.com/_Political+Advocacy/Energy+Alliance/News/default.htm] Copyright 2001, U.S. Newswire ***************************************************************** 23 Wolf Creek practices evacuation Wichita Eagle | Thursday, November 15, 2001 By John Milburn Associated Press TOPEKA -- State, county and federal officials were put through the paces Wednesday in a drill to test readiness in the event of an accident at the Wolf Creek nuclear power plant. More than 400 people were involved in the drill, either bunkered in the basement of the Kansas National Guard Armory or in and around the plant in Coffey County. The two-day drill -- required since the Three Mile Island, Pa., accident in 1979 -- concludes today under the supervision of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Wolf Creek spokeswoman Susan Maycock said the drill scenario was created by a team at the nuclear plant. The plant holds one-day drills every two years and two-day drills every six. "We practice for the drill all the time," Maycock said, adding that key personnel were paged and alerted to report to designated sites for the drill. Nuclear plants nationwide have been on heightened alert since Sept. 11. County officials have closed access to Coffey County State Lake to recreation until further notice. Security during the drill was evident in Topeka. The National Guard is operating at "Force Condition Charlie" with access to the grounds restricted to authorized personnel. Reporters monitoring the drill were escorted by military police and their vehicles were searched. In Coffey County, plant and emergency officials practiced the quick evacuation of residents within 10 miles and monitored the simulated fallout of radiation as far as 50 miles away. Today, officials will drill on how to respond to the effects of radiation on livestock, humans and the environment. Anne Allen, state training officer for the Kansas Division of Emergency Management, said no changes were made in the drill to simulate a terrorist attack. "This is part of the process that we have done for a number of years," she said. Allen said the population at risk to radiation during the drill would depend on the parameters of the exercise and weather conditions, such as wind speed and direction. The drills come at a time when nuclear plants are generating anxiety along with power. Wolf Creek is about 60 miles south of Topeka. Armed National Guard troops are part of the plant's increased security detail. Critics of the nuclear industry contend that the plants make a tempting target for a terrorist attack that the nation is ill prepared to prevent. ***************************************************************** 24 N-Waste Disposal Plan Wins Support The Salt Lake Tribune -- Thursday, November 15, 2001 BY JUDY FAHYS An Ogden company is confident it can save roughly $500,000 a year if it can be relased from a regional waste disposal pact so it can send its radioactive waste to a cheaper in-state facility. Members of the Agriculture, Natural Resources and Environment Interim Committee said the move had "no down side" and voted unanimously to sign a letter of support for the Westinghouse Electric Co. zirconium processing plant. For the lawmakers, the advantages of the proposal were more tax revenue, all Utah radiaoctive waste generators would save money, and more business would go to Envirocare of Utah's Clive landfill, about 80 miles west of Salt Lake City. But, environmentalists said, if the Utah companies succeed, the state is setting itself up as the final disposal place for still more radioactive waste. Envirocare already receives 97 percent of the nation's low-level waste, noted Jason Groenewold, director of Families Against Incinerator Risk. "Basically, we are opening our doors to everything," he said, after the committee voted without taking comments from the audience. The debate surrounds a 21-year-old national policy on low-level nuclear waste that never really worked out the way Congress intended. Originally envisioned as a way to make sure no one state became the dumping ground for radioactive waste, the 1980 law allowed states to form "compacts" for disposal. Two states -- Washington and South Carolina -- established facilities for commercial radioactive waste, which is strictly controlled by the federal government. Then in the mid-1980s Envirocare received approval for a radioactive waste landfill on private land in Utah -- the first and still the only facility of its kind in the United States. To get that permission, Utah and Envirocare had to agree that none of the waste going to Clive could come from Utah. The Northwest Interstate Compact on Low-Level Radioactive Waste Management granted the exemption under pressure from former Utah Radiation Control Director Larry Anderson and Envirocare Owner Khosrow Semnani, who were later charged with, then cleared of an extortion-bribery scheme involving the company's Utah facility. Over time, the original Envirocare exemption has created some strange situations. One is that Utah companies have not been able to enjoy the dramatically lower prices Envirocare charges its customers. Kent Bradford, who spoke Wednesday on behalf of Western Zirconium, told lawmakers his company would cut its $1 million in annual disposal costs in half if Envirocare rather than the Washington state facility took its eight to 10 truckloads of low-level radioactive waste. "It [the regional pact] has the potential to make our business not viable," said Bradford, who also is a member of the state Radiation Control Board. "We are very anxious to reduce our costs." Decisions on Western Zirconium's request are not expected until February. About 15 radioactive-waste generators -- including hospitals, research labs and businesses -- send waste to the Hanford, Wash., site under the Northwest Compact. © Copyright 2001, The Salt Lake Tribune All material found on ***************************************************************** 25 UK: BE pushes for taxpayers to cover n-waste BRITISH Energy was yesterday accused of trying to offload its burden of nuclear waste costs on to taxpayers when it urged the government to stop the reprocessing of spent fuel at Sellafield. The company produces 22% of the UK's electricity from its six power stations in England and at Hunterston and Torness in Scotland, but it has just declared a £17m loss over the last six months. It is locked into a historic reprocessing contract with BNFL - inherited from pre-privatisation days - at Sellafield which costs it £300m a year and which it wants ended. It also wants the government to fund a common solution for waste management - one body to handle and store spent fuel and waste from all the nuclear generators across the UK. Richard Dixon, head of research for Friends of the Earth Scotland, said: "We see this call as the first real breaking of ranks in a nuclear industry which has always had a strong and unified voice. It comes at the wrong time for an industry trying to secure a new generation of nuclear power stations from the energy review." Shaun Burnie, Greenpeace International's research director for nuclear campaigns, said: "Whatever happens, the waste should not be stuck underground. That is not a solution. "We agree with them that reprocessing should stop - we have been waiting for years for the reality of reprocessing to strike home. But the UK taxpayer should not be fleeced again by this industry. "Any costs for solutions should be borne by BE and BNFL. There are no good guys in this equation but there is a very good chance that BE will get what they want from this government." BE has told the government's current energy review that nuclear electricity generation has a key future and present role in fighting global warming. The company is also known to aspire to a programme of 10 new nuclear power stations at a cost of £10bn - if it can persuade an energy review committee now facing the new, post-September 11 realities of international terrorism as well as concerted lobbies for gas and renewable technologies. A BE insider said yesterday that its view on reprocessing was "a wake-up call to an industry which must start looking to the future rather than being stuck in the past". British Energy says in its submission on waste policy that radioactive wastes can be surface stored in passively safe facilities for many decades, allowing policy to proceed at a pace which commands public support. It considers that the principles of sustainability and intergenerational equity would be best met by disposal in a deep geological repository - the hole in the ground solution which has been rejected by communities around the UK. Arguing that the potential energy value of uranium and plutonium should not be foreclosed by calling them waste, the company says that since there is no technical requirement for reprocessing and since storage would be much cheaper, "there is no logic in adding to existing stocks and there should be a moratorium on the reprocessing of AGR (advanced gas reactor) fuel". BNFL issued a terse "no comment" yesterday, but a British Energy spokesman said: "We simply do not believe in reprocessing because of its huge costs and we want to renegotiate this contract. We are paying six times as much to deal with our spent fuel as American generators do at a time when electricity costs have fallen markedly. "BNFL could still manage waste and spent fuel but not by reprocessing which was considered the best way forward decades ago when it was thought uranium would become scarce and expensive. In fact the opposite is the case." Meanwhile, it emerged yesterday that the review of the UK's energy needs, to be published later this month by the government's performance and innovation unit, is likely to establish more ambitious targets for the use of renewable energy than has previously existed in the UK. As part of its obligation to combat global warming, the government's present aim is to create a £1bn market for renewable energy by 2010. The final energy review will recommend far more ambitious targets post-2010. -Nov 15th ***************************************************************** 26 Green groups lose Sellafield challenge BBC News | ENGLAND | 15 November, 2001, 12:04 The Mox fuel plant at Sellafield was built in 1996 Environmental groups have lost a High Court challenge against the opening of the Mox reprocessing plant at Sellafield. Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace had argued that ministers had acted illegally in approving the new mixed plutonium and uranium oxide (Mox) plant at the Cumbria site in north-west England. But Mr Justice Collins, sitting in London, ruled on Thursday that the government had made "no error of law" in granting approval. The two environmental groups are planning an appeal against the decision. They argued the new plant - which has been mothballed since it was built in 1996 - could not only lead to pollution, but may also become a terrorist target. Friends of the Earth executive director Charles Secrett said in a statement: "Despite this bitter blow the campaign against Mox continues. We owe it to ourselves and future generations to do what we can to stop this nuclear madness from proceeding." 'Not financially viable' During the two-day hearing the groups' lawyers said there was "insufficient evidence" the plant would attract enough international customers to help make it financially viable. They said the government had taken a "distorted" view when it decided in October that allowing the introduction of Mox was "economically justified" under European Union law. Under an EU directive, governments are required to ensure the economic, social and other benefits of new processes which create exposure to ionising radiation outweigh any detriment to health before they give the go-ahead. Lord Lester QC, for the campaigners, told the hearing the government had ignored the £470m construction costs for the Sellafield plant when assessing its economic viability. Sellafield has been the target of protesters If all relevant costs were taken into account the scheme would show an overall financial loss, he said. Philip Sales, for the government, disagreed and argued that the exclusion of the £470m "sunk costs" was a "perfectly rational" decision. Potential benefits of the Sellafield plant for BNFL's businesses were "likely to run into hundreds of millions of pounds", but had also been left out of the balancing exercise, he said. Agreeing with Mr Sales, Mr Justice Collins ruled that the justification for Mox "was established". Stephen Tindale, executive director of Greenpeace UK, said the plant "poses a substantial risk as a terrorist target and producer of bomb-making equipment" and faced more legal challenges. He said: "Tony Blair was right when he highlighted the threats from international terrorism and nuclear proliferation in his speech to the Labour Party conference. "It is time his actions matched his words and his government stopped allowing activities that will arm the terrorists of tomorrow." Jobs boost BNFL, which runs the Sellafield plant, welcomed the judge's ruling that the Mox operation was both lawful and justified. "This is good news for the plant, the workforce and the local community," the company said in a statement. BNFL said the decision would lead to the creation of about 400 jobs and should secure hundreds of others. Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace were ordered to pay the government's case costs. A provisional date for the appeal has been set for 27 November. ***************************************************************** 27 NRC Submits Comments to Doe on Yucca Mountain Information Press Release - 2001 - 129 - U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 20555-001 E-mail: [opa@nrc.gov] Web Site: http://www.nrc.gov No. 01-129 November 14, 2001 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has indicated, in preliminary comments to the Department of Energy, that it believes sufficient information will be available concerning a potential high-level radioactive waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, that development of an acceptable license application is achievable. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 requires that, when DOE makes a recommendation to the President on the suitability of the Yucca Mountain site for high-level waste disposal, it must include the preliminary comments of the NRC "concerning the extent to which the [DOE's] at-depth site characterization analysis and the waste form proposal for such site seem to be sufficient for inclusion in any application to be submitted by the Secretary for licensing of such site as a repository." DOE has not recommended the Yucca Mountain site for a repository and has not submitted an application to the NRC for a license. "At-depth site characterization analysis" includes the investigation of underground features (such as the porosity of rock formations) and events and processes that occur below the ground surface (such as earthquakes, volcanoes and water flow). The "waste form proposal" includes information concerning spent fuel that was used in a reactor, the cladding that is around the fuel, the package in which the waste is placed, and other engineered barriers. Also considered are DOE-owned high-level radioactive waste and its packaging. The NRC's preliminary comments on the sufficiency of the information DOE has obtained to date, or has agreed to obtain prior to submitting a license application reflect many years of pre-licensing activities with DOE and various stakeholders, including, the State of Nevada, Indian Tribes, affected units of local government, representatives of the nuclear industry and interested members of the public. Although the NRC believes that DOE has obtained, or will obtain, information that should be sufficient, the NRC is not drawing any conclusions concerning the actual site suitability, but will carefully review any licensing decision on the basis of all the information available at that time. ***************************************************************** 28 Bill orders terror plan for Yucca [Las Vegas Review-Journal] Thursday, November 15, 2001 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal By STEVE TETREAULT DONREY WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- A bill introduced in the U.S. House on Wednesday directs Office of Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge to develop a terrorism protection plan for Yucca Mountain and for nuclear waste shipments to the proposed repository site. Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., sponsored the legislation, which she had announced in early October. The bill requires Ridge to solicit federal, state and local agencies to identify the potential for terrorist attacks on a spent fuel repository if it were to be built at Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. It further directs the Federal Emergency Management Agency to develop response and evacuation plans if terrorists attack waste shipments along transportation routes from nuclear power plants. Berkley said her aim was to place obstacles in the way of Yucca Mountain development by demonstrating the lengths the government would have to go and the costs it would incur to ensure security. "The (Bush administration) and the Energy Department have not demonstrated to me in any way they can protect the transportation routes or Yucca Mountain," Berkley said. "We know there are targets of terrorist attack and I don't want to add another one 90 miles out of Las Vegas." The bill contains no deadline for studies to be finished. "The longer it takes the better," Berkley said. A White House spokesman referred queries on the bill to the Energy Department, where Yucca Mountain managers had no immediate comment. Earlier this week, acting nuclear waste program director Lake Barrett expressed confidence a repository can be made safe from attack. Berkley conceded the legislation might not become law by the time Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham is expected to make a decision this winter on Yucca Mountain's suitability as a repository, although it could affect licensing that will be considered in the coming years by the Nuclear Regulatory Committee. The Energy Department projects a repository could be opened by 2010. Berkley has begun seeking support from other Democrats, and she said she may try to attach the legislation to a Homeland Security bill being developed by a party task force. This story is located at: http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2001/Nov-15-Thu-2001/news/17454790.html [http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2001/Nov-15-Thu-2001/news/17454790.html] ***************************************************************** 29 Guinn critical of new Yucca project guidelines [Las Vegas Review-Journal] Thursday, November 15, 2001 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal REVIEW-JOURNAL Gov. Kenny Guinn criticized guidelines released Wednesday for the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, saying the federal government is "changing the rules to fit the site." "The department's response is the issuance of new regulations in an attempt to ensure the site would pass," Guinn said in a statement. "Changing the rules to fit the site has been the hallmark of this entire program." He said the guidelines, which Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham will use with other documents to determine if the site is suitable for entombing 77,000 tons of radioactive waste, are illegal because they don't comply with the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. He accused the Energy Department of failing to answer requests from Nevada to compare the site, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, with siting regulations that have been on the books since 1984. Those guidelines rely heavily on the mountain's geological characteristics to determine if the site could safely contain the waste for 10,000 years. But the final Energy Department guidelines allow for "engineered barriers," vsuch as metal canisters to hold the waste and titanium shields to deflect corrosive water, to augment the mountain's natural containment features. Abraham on Wednesday announced the department would conduct a supplemental, 30-day comment period through Dec. 14 to field comments on the guidelines and other aspects of the Yucca Mountain Project. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Wednesday issued its final licensing guidelines for the repository and a so-called "sufficiency letter," an indication the NRC believes sufficient information exists to begin a licensing review if the Energy Department submits a license application to build the repository. This story is located at: http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2001/Nov-15-Thu-2001/news/17455596.html [http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2001/Nov-15-Thu-2001/news/17455596.html] ***************************************************************** 30 New standards to be set for N-plant piping systems Daily Yomiuri On-Line Yomiuri Shimbun The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers on Wednesday began compiling new standards for piping systems within nuclear power plants, following the discovery Friday of a leak of radioactive water at Hamaoka Nuclear Power Plant's No. 1 reactor in Hamaokacho, Shizuoka Prefecture. The draft standards will be compiled by the end of the fiscal year, after which piping in plants nationwide will be reviewed. When a problem occurs in a nuclear plant's piping structure, a minute crack generally occurs, creating a small leak referred to as a "leakage before a burst." It is important to detect leaks as early as possible to prevent more serious problems. However, under current standards, pipes that may burst without warning may be used. Researchers asked the society to reexamine the standards to ensure that only pipes that give advance indication of bursting may be used. Under the new standards, the latest fracture mechanics technologies will be used to design piping systems that do not burst without warning. A researcher of the society said the new standards would reduce damage to a minimum. Nuclear power experts from power companies and national institutions will help compile the guidelines. Copyright 2001 The Yomiuri Shimbun ***************************************************************** 31 USEC Reports on Megatons to Megawatts Program at Senate Hearing; -Nuclear Proliferation Concerns Highlight Hearing-; -Megatons to Megawatts Program Eliminates 5,481 Warheads- BW2793 NOV 14,2001 14:39 PACIFIC 17:39 EASTERN BETHESDA, Md.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 14, 2001--In a statement submitted today at a Senate subcommittee hearing on the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, USEC Inc. (NYSE:USU) cited the progress of the national security initiative, Megatons to Megawatts. The program converts Russian nuclear warhead material into fuel for electric power plants. The joint U.S.-Russian program has been responsible for the conversion of 137 metric tons of Russian highly enriched uranium into fuel, used primarily in U.S. nuclear power plants. The fuel is purchased by USEC, the U.S. government's executive agent implementing the agreement, and sold to electric utility customers. To date, this conversion of nuclear weapons material has eliminated the equivalent of 5,481 nuclear warheads. The program is funded entirely by USEC purchases. No taxpayer dollars are required. "Given recent events and possible future threats to our national security, it is likely that an increased urgency and emphasis will be placed on nuclear weapons material management and protection," said USEC's statement to the Senate Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on International Security, Proliferation and Federal Services. "In that context, effective and timely implementation of the Megatons to Megawatts program becomes even more important." The program is currently under review by the Bush administration. In a recent White House release, the program and other Russian nuclear threat reduction initiatives were cited as "principal elements" of the U.S. nuclear non-proliferation campaign. These programs become even more critical now, with the United States and Russia agreeing to reduce their nuclear arsenals by more than two-thirds. That will require the safe storage and disposal of an unprecedented quantity of nuclear materials. "Concern is growing about the risks of proliferation of nuclear weapons and the threat of weapons of mass destruction," USEC's statement said. "The Megatons to Megawatts program is one successful effort to minimize those risks. USEC is committed to the continued success of this program." USEC is currently in consultation with the administration on plans to negotiate new arrangements with Russia for 2002 through completion of the program in 2013. For the complete statement, visit USEC's website, www.usec.com [http://www.usec.com] , click News Room, then Recent News. To obtain a printed copy, call USEC Corporate Communications, (301) 564-3391. USEC Inc., a global energy company, is the world's leading supplier of enriched uranium fuel for commercial nuclear power plants. ***************************************************************** 32 Wolf Creek drill assumes graver overtones following terror attacks By JOHN A. DVORAK - The Kansas City Star Date: 11/14/01 22:15 TOPEKA -- The unfolding disaster at the Wolf Creek nuclear plant on Wednesday was only a simulation, but to about 400 people in Topeka and around the plant near Burlington, Kan., it was serious business. First came word of a general emergency, meaning that things were going haywire and that the well-being of eastern Kansas was at risk. By 1:35 p.m., handwritten notes on the wall of the state emergency operations center in Topeka announced that the condition of the only nuclear power plant in Kansas was "degrading." That meant big trouble. How big won't be determined until after the two-day drill concludes today. The federal government requires states with nuclear plants to conduct these emergency exercises occasionally; the last in Kansas was two years ago. Typically, such drills don't attract public attention. But the one Wednesday -- although scheduled long ago -- assumed graver overtones because it came against a backdrop of terrorist attacks and fears about nuclear safety. "It's easier to see, after September 11, the importance of what we do," said Joy Moser, spokesman for the Kansas Division of Emergency Management. Workers at the Kansas plant spend endless hours preparing for emergencies and drills, said Susan Maycock, a spokeswoman for Wolf Creek. "We practice constantly," she said. When the exercise was last held two years ago, she said, the results were acceptable. The drills this week, she said, involve a simulated set of facts that participants didn't learn about until Wednesday. The participants were to react as if an actual crisis were unfolding. State officials declined to discuss the mock disaster in detail. It was understood to involve a critical malfunction of the nuclear reactor, with a release of radiation requiring an evacuation of residents. During the drill, employees were responsible for trying to manage the incident at the plant. Coffey County emergency workers in nearby Burlington dealt with questions such as traffic control. In Topeka, in the windowless emergency operations center in the State Defense Building, several miles south of the Capitol, an array of state officials sat at desks and received information by telephone. It was their job to assess damage from escaped radiation and help decide what areas of eastern Kansas to evacuate. A television set was turned to the Weather Channel. Maps of Kansas hung on the walls. Some officials answered calls from "concerned citizens" seeking information or asking about rumors. In a building next door, other officials operated facilities for the media in an effort to disseminate accurate information about the disaster. Anne Allen, state training officer for the Division of Emergency Management, said Wednesday that it was too early to evaluate how the drill went. Federal officials will evaluate the results, and plants face disciplinary measures if serious problems turn up. While Allen declined to discuss what "damage" occurred, she did hint that the Kansas City area would be spared. "As of today," she said, "it looks like the folks in Johnson County are going to be OK." To reach John A. Dvorak, Kansas reporter, call (816) 234-7743 or send e-mail to jdvorak@kctar.com. All content © 2001 The Kansas City Star ***************************************************************** 33 Governor, AG challenge nuclear dump siting guidelines Nevada Appeal November 15, 2001 Geoff Dornan, Appeal Capitol Bureau Both Gov. Kenny Guinn and Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa promised Wednesday to challenge the Yucca Mountain siting guidelines. Whether or not Yucca Mountain is suitable as a site for the high level nuclear waste dump will be decided using those guidelines. "The state of Nevada has repeatedly advised the Department of Energy that these regulations are not in compliance with the requirements of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act and, as a result, are illegal," Guinn said. He said DOE has repeatedly refused to compare Yucca Mountain to the siting guidelines on the books since 1984 because they would have disqualified the site north of Las Vegas from further consideration as a dump. "The department's response is the issuance of new regulations in an attempt to ensure that the site would pass," Guinn said. He said he wants the state's legal team to review and challenge the new guidelines. Del Papa said her office would file a formal challenge with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. She said the legal reasons for the challenge are being developed now. But Del Papa said the siting guidelines are "inconsistent with the requirements contained in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act." The state has hired the Washington, D.C., law firm of Egan & Associates to help Nevada in its battle with the Department of Energy over the Yucca Mountain dump plan. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham is expected within weeks to make a recommendation to President Bush whether or not to go ahead with the project. Yucca Mountain, at the western edge of the Nevada Test Site outside Las Vegas, has been under study for 14 years and is the only site being studied for a possible repository. Plans would have the Energy Department, beginning in 2010, entomb 77,000 tons of radioactive waste in mined tunnels 1,000 feet below the surface. Waste is currently stored in casks at 103 commercial nuclear reactors and various military and industrial sites around the country. Copyright Nevada Appeal. Materials contained within this ***************************************************************** 34 WPPSS gets wind of a new power source Thursday, November 15, 2001 By DENNIS WALTERS BLOOMBERG NEWS KENNEWICK -- A Washington power agency that once tried to build five nuclear power plants and wound up creating the largest default in the history of municipal bonds, is selling debt again -- this time to harness wind to produce energy. Energy Northwest, known as the Washington Public Power Supply System when it defaulted on $2.25 billion in bonds back in 1983, plans to close today on a $70 million tax-exempt loan to build 37 wind turbines near here. The issuer's past "didn't seem to get in the way of the credit here," said Winston Peterson, a managing director at Prager, McCarthy &Sealy, the underwriter of the bonds. Energy Northwest had to pay investors 5.95 percent, a percentage point more than top-rated debt, in another sign investors have regained at least some appetite for high-yield municipals, a market that evaporated about a year ago when a couple of Heartland Advisors funds that specialized in such debt collapsed. Investors will receive 5.95 percent to lend money to Energy Northwest for 23 years, a taxable equivalent yield of almost 9.9 percent for an investor in the top federal tax bracket. WPPSS had to pay almost 15 percent when it borrowed money in 1982. The Energy Northwest bonds were rated "BBB1" from Moody's Investors Service and "BBB+" from Fitch Inc., because several public utility districts that participate as members in Energy Northwest agreed to buy the power under take-or-pay contracts. Those agreements require them to pay a minimum amount to cover the bonds even if the wind farm generates less-than-expected electricity. Those contracts, under Washington law, can't take effect until the project is up and running, meaning investors take on the construction risk if the wind turbines don't meet a completion deadline of June 30, 2003. Given the speculative nature of the project, the yield of the Energy Northwest bonds was "good for the issuer, not as attractive" for investors, said Clark Stamper, who manages $565 million of munis at Stamper Capital &Investments in Santa Cruz, Calif. Yet, bondholders "make good money if it works out. It was a tough decision not to buy it." The state law that forbids power purchasers from taking on construction risk is a result of the WPPSS debacle. After the energy crisis of the 1970s, the supply system embarked upon a plan to build five nuclear power plants with the promised support of local utilities. Cost overruns, soaring interest rates and power projections that didn't pan out forced the system to halt construction on four of the five plants. Three of the plants, including one that was completed and is operating today, made good on bond payments because of backing by the Bonneville Power Administration, a federal agency that markets wholesale energy in the Pacific Northwest. Two plants, units 4 and 5, didn't have that backing and, when the Washington Supreme Court struck down participants' agreements providing security for the bonds, they defaulted. Investors' 1983 loss of $2.25 billion remains the biggest municipal bond failure in U.S. history. To lessen concern about the risks if wind turbine construction isn't completed, a policy from insurer Lloyd's of London can be called on to help pay off the bonds in an extraordinary redemption if the project is delayed or not built. The sale was restricted to $100,000 denominations to ensure that it was sold to institutional investors, such as mutual funds, that could assess the risks. About 15 investors bought the bonds. "The economics of the current wind project are sound," Moody's said, and it expects to raise the rating to "A3" once the project comes online. An energy crisis earlier this year -- driven by a supply shortage in California, rising natural gas prices, and a drought in the Pacific Northwest that cut hydroelectric generation -- helped renew interest in alternative-energy sources such as wind and solar power. [Seattle Post-Intelligencer] 101 Elliott Ave. W. Seattle, WA 98119 (206) 448-8000 ***************************************************************** 35 Rural radiation exposure feared Las Vegas SUN Today: November 15, 2001 at 10:15:36 PST Rural radiation exposure feared By Mary Manning LAS VEGAS SUN Debate A panel of experts will debate the proposed high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in a two-part program scheduled to air on KLVX-TV Channel 10. "Battle Born, Nuclear Torn" is scheduled to pit political and scientific views on the nuclear waste repository at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday and again at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 23. Both segments of the program will be rebroadcast at 7 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 24. Rural residents could be exposed to "very large" amounts of radiation from trucks of nuclear waste being shipped to a Yucca Mountain repository, even if no accident ever occurs, a consultant to Nevada said. Scientists for the state Agency for Nuclear Projects have come up with preliminary estimates of 30 to 200 millirems of exposure per year, transportation consultant Robert Halstead told a forum at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas Wednesday. They assumed three shipments of nuclear waste a day for 30 years, he said. That exposure would be in addition to about 300 millirems a year the average American receives from all natural radiation sources, such as the sun and Earth's rocks. A chest X-ray is 5 to 10 millirems of radiation. The state Agency for Nuclear Projects is preparing a report on routine radiation exposures to people living close to possible rural routes in Nye, Esmeralda and White Pine counties. It is scheduled to be released next month, before Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham makes a decision on proposing the mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, as the nation's repository. The DOE has studied radiation releases from severe railroad or trucking accidents, but the state's study is the first to analyze routine exposure from a closed container. State scientists used information contained in the DOE's studies to come up with its preliminary estimates. The range of doses reflects different types of waste inside each container. The state's study breaks new ground, because it analyzes radiation exposure from nuclear shipments without any accidents, Halstead said Wednesday night during the forum sponsored by the state, UNLV's Political Science Department and UNLV's Continuing Education Division. No one from the DOE participated in the two-hour public discussion. Energy Department officials attended the forum, but left before it ended. A DOE spokesman confirmed this morning that the state was using DOE numbers, and said that if state calculations were correct, routes would be adjusted to avoid passing close to rural residents. Some rural residents live as close as 25 feet to possible shipping routes in the rural Nevada counties, the state's Halstead said. Actual shipping routes have not yet been proposed. The state has also asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the agency that must issue the DOE a permit to build a repository, to review its transportation regulations for thwarting sabotage. Long before terrorists attacked the United States on Sept. 11, the state had asked the NRC to update its rules for protecting nuclear waste shipments, Halstead said. Since Nevada asked the NRC for the update in June 1999, there has been no response. However, after the terrorist attack, NRC Chairman Richard Meserve ordered the staff to review all of the commission's regulations. For example, under the current rules, the NRC does not require armed guards for high-level nuclear waste shipments in rural areas, Halstead said. Nor has the NRC updated 30-year-old studies on full-sized transportation containers tested by dropping them 30 feet, nuclear physicist and state consultant Marvin Resnikoff said. After the July 18 Baltimore tunnel train crash and fire, Resnikoff took data from firefighter records of the accident and did a computer simulation of how a single nuclear waste container would have fared in the flames. Nuclear shipping containers are designed to withstand a fire burning at 1,475 degrees Fahrenheit, he said. The Baltimore tunnel fire, which burned for four days, reached an estimated 1,650 degrees Fahrenheit, according to firefighters. Spent fuel rods in a nuclear waste container at that temperature would burst within 24 hours, he said. The bottom line is that a fire such as the Baltimore tunnel inferno would contaminate up to 40 miles downwind and cost almost $14 billion to clean up, Resnikoff said. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 36 Yucca guideline unveiled Las Vegas SUN Today: November 15, 2001 at 10:40:49 PST NRC has doubts about plan to bury nuke waste here By Mary Manning and Benjamin Grove Department of Energy officials on Wednesday unveiled what they think are the essential criteria for licensing a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain -- an important milestone in the 14-year-old plan to bury the nation's high-level nuclear waste in the Nevada desert. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which would be responsible for licensing the world's first high-level nuclear waste repository, promptly stressed that it still has many concerns about the site. The NRC is "not drawing any conclusions concerning the actual site suitability," commission officials said in a prepared statement. The DOE published its report in the Federal Register, saying a repository at the Yucca Mountain site, based on 15 years' worth of scientific studies, is capable of containing radiation from 77,000 tons of nuclear waste for 10,000 years. The Federal Register is the official legal repository for agency regulations, rules, notices and presidential documents. Nevada officials said they are reviewing the DOE's 40 pages of guidelines. They object to numerous provisions that suggest the site is a safe waste site. Nevada officials, including Gov. Kenny Guinn and Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa, said the state may sue the government to stop the project based on the DOE document. State officials have opposed the repository project since it was listed as one of nine possible sites for waste burial in 1982. Congress in 1987 designated Yucca as the best site, and scientists have been analyzing it ever since. The criteria have addressed: how fast ground water travels through Yucca Mountain; earthquake potential because the mountain is in a seismically active area; and the possible failure of containers filled with nuclear waste that would release radiation before the 10,000-year legal timeline for a repository. Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., said the DOE report does not contain key studies, including an assessment of terrorism threats and the transportation risks of shipping nuclear waste cross-country to Nevada. "The report is flawed, just as all the other reports have been flawed," Gibbons said. Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., agreed. "We have said all along that the DOE had its mind made up about Yucca 10 years ago," Ensign said. "They have always said, 'Here is the safest site. Now let's go out and try to prove it.' " Although the DOE has had established safety criteria for a repository since 1984, Guinn said the department has refused to adequately compare them with Yucca Mountain, because the site would have been disqualified. "The department's response is the issuance of new regulations in an attempt to ensure that the site would pass," Guinn said. "Changing the rules to fit the site has been the hallmark of this entire program." Del Papa said her office will soon file a formal challenge to the DOE's guidelines. The legal action would be filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. within weeks. While the DOE has now published its safety criteria for the waste site, the DOE has not published its final results of scientific studies on the mountain 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. But at a meeting in Washington this week, DOE Yucca chief Lake Barrett said the DOE has gathered enough scientific evidence to begin briefing Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham. "Everybody at this point is anxious for a decision to be made one way or the other," Barrett said. "We're not learning as much per dollar per day as we did in the past." Abraham has said he plans to issue a decision on Yucca Mountain at the end of this year or early next year to President Bush. Then, if Bush and Congress approve Yucca Mountain, and the plan withstands opposition by the state of Nevada, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission must review and approve it before any waste is shipped to Nevada on trucks and trains. NRC Chairman Richard Meserve issued a 25-page report to the DOE on Wednesday that outlined 47 areas of concern about Yucca. The concerns ranged from ongoing research on how fast water flows through the mountain to what could happen if a volcano erupts through the buried waste containers. The DOE has promised to deliver more information to the NRC before asking the commission for a license by 2003 to build Yucca Mountain. Meserve's report also contains a critical area of concern, one that has been watched by the NRC throughout the DOE's studies of Yucca Mountain: "Among the areas warranting management's attention is improving the safety conscious work environment in the Yucca Mountain Project." The National Academy of Sciences and Engineering, an organization of independent scientists, issued a statement Wednesday that said it has "not taken a position on whether the Yucca Mountain site should be recommended for a mined geological repository." The academy has concluded that geologic disposal is scientifically and technically sound, a Sept. 21 letter to the DOE said. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 37 DOE's Yucca probe points to firm's bias Las Vegas SUN Today: November 15, 2001 at 11:03:26 PST Reid may request congressional inquiry By Benjamin Grove and Mary Manning WASHINGTON -- The Department of Energy's law firm on the Yucca Mountain project may have had a serious, undisclosed conflict of interest with the nuclear industry, the DOE's internal investigator today revealed. The DOE must "promptly evaluate" whether the DOE's law firm, Chicago-based Winston &Strawn, acted illegally or unethically, DOE Inspector General Gregory Friedman said in a report. Sens. John Ensign, R-Nev., and Harry Reid, D-Nev., said they want more than that. Reid, the No. 2 Senate Democrat, said he likely will request a congressional inquiry, including hearings. He said the law firm should refund the money DOE has paid it for legal services -- about $1.8 million from when the contract began in 1999 through May 2001. Reid and Ensign said the NRC also should investigate the firm. Conflict-of-interest allegations first surfaced in July after the Sun uncovered that Winston &Strawn also had been a registered lobbyist for the Nuclear Energy Institute, actively lobbying in favor of Yucca Mountain. In Washington this morning, Ensign told reporters that the Sun "brought this story to our attention back in July." Ensign and Reid today said the DOE's Inspector General's report was a bombshell and a huge breakthrough for anti-Yucca Nevada officials who have long battled the federal plan to bury high-level nuclear waste in Nevada. Reid said, "I think that the best thing that this firm should do, could do, is find a good lawyer. They are in a big, big pile of trouble." The ultimate effect of the findings of Friedman's three-month probe are not yet clear, nor is the future of the firm's work on the Yucca project. But the findings could slow the whole Yucca Mountain project, the senators said. Internal documents from Winston &Strawn prove the firm knew it had a potential conflict of interest on its hands while it was working on Yucca legal documents for the Department of Energy -- and also lobbying on behalf of the pro-Yucca nuclear industry for the NEI. When the firm applied in 1999 to the DOE for the $16.5 million Yucca Mountain contract, it did not disclose its ties to the nuclear lobby, the 26-page report said. Friedman's investigation found that 14 lawyers who worked on the Yucca project legal work had also worked on behalf of NEI. "Winston &Strawn acknowledged to the Department and the Office of Inspector General that no firewalls were used on the Yucca legal contract or on any matters concerning the Nuclear Energy Institute," the report said. Reid said, "(The firm) was being paid large sums of money by both sides and laughing all the way to the bank." Friedman's report said Winston &Strawn asserted there was no conflict of interest and that its work on the Yucca project had not been compromised. Friedman's report said DOE officials had "reached no conclusions" about whether there had been an "actual or potential" conflict. But DOE officials also said that if Winston &Strawn had been forthcoming in 1999 about ties to NEI, the DOE could have disqualified the firm. Reid and Ensign said Friedman's findings prove their long-standing arguments that the whole Yucca Mountain project has been biased since its inception in 1987. The senators were careful to point out, however, that the fault here lies not with DOE but with Winston &Strawn for not disclosing ties to the nuclear industry. Reid and Ensign said the Nuclear Regulatory Commission should investigate the findings as it considers whether to license Yucca Mountain in the coming years. Calls to Winston &Strawn were not returned this morning. The firm has declined interviews numerous times since July. Friedman briefed Reid and Ensign in Reid's office Wednesday night. The senators promptly scheduled interviews today via satellite with Nevada television news stations to blast Winston &Strawn. The two senators then quickly took to the Senate floor to trumpet news of the report -- especially to their Senate colleagues who support the Yucca Mountain plan. "The Department of Energy hired a biased, unethical law firm," Reid said. "Law firms have built-in mechanisms to prevent conflicts of interest." But those firewalls "burned down," Reid said. "This law firm, in my opinion, is burning to the ground." Ensign said the firm's behavior was "so outrageous it's hard to even conceive." "When you have a conflict of interest, the whole process needs to stop and we need to have a complete investigation," Ensign said. Yucca Mountain is the proposed site of the world's first high-level nuclear waste site. DOE scientists have managed program studies that began in 1983 at the site 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. DOE Secretary Spencer Abraham is preparing to make a final recommendation on the site. Nevada officials don't want to play host for 10,000 years to 77,000 tons of nuclear waste, and challenge the DOE at every turn. The DOE has forged ahead partly because the DOE by law was supposed to haul waste away from the nation's 103 nuclear power plants to a national repository by 1998. The nuclear industry has lobbied heavily in favor of the Yucca plan, led by the Nuclear Energy Institute. NEI officials declined comment today, but officials previously have said the firm did little lobbying for them. In 1999, the DOE hired Winston &Strawn to review a license the DOE must submit to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to bury waste at Yucca. Friedman's report also said: * An internal Winston &Strawn memo dated June 17, 1999, said the firm had taken steps to avoid "any hint of a conflict," even though the firm admits it was a registered lobbyist for NEI. * Winston &Strawn disclosed to DOE its relationship with NEI for the first time in July 2001 when it severed its ties with NEI -- two years after the DOE hired the firm. * Winston &Strawn may have had another conflict -- the firm also represented NAC International, a nuclear waste cask company that stands to gain from the Yucca project. DOE asked Winston &Strawn to sever that contract, which the firm did. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 38 Barriers protect nuclear station on Lake Wylie [charlotte.com] Published Wednesday, November 14, 2001 Guarding against terrorism Barriers protect nuclear station on Lake Wylie Cove blocked to boaters as part of new security for Catawba plant By JENNIFER TALHELM LAKE WYLIE -- In response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Duke Power has cordoned off a section of Lake Wylie near the Catawba nuclear power plant's intake pumps. A 5-foot-high steel barrier with red flashing lights now stretches 170 feet across a Lake Wylie cove, preventing boats from approaching the plant, Duke spokesman Tom Shiel said. The barrier has pylons driven into the lakebed, and the two center pieces can be unlocked to allow boat traffic through if necessary. Since Sept. 11, U.S. nuclear facilities have been on heightened alert for fear terrorists will try to cause a nuclear disaster. At Catawba, Duke beefed up its private security forces by adding sheriff's deputies and, for a while, agents from the S.C. Law Enforcement Division. For several days around Halloween, small private planes were banned from flying near the plant. Duke applied for permission from the state and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in late October to erect the barrier on Lake Wylie near the Old Concord Shores neighborhood. It was finished last week. Duke is not fencing off the lake near the discharge pipes, off Big Allison Creek. Spokeswoman Rose Cummings said officials were less concerned about that side. Cummings said Duke was more worried about the intake side for fear someone would try to damage the plant by jamming up the pipes. "There's already some other deterrents to humans," she said. "This was just another layer of security to protect it from anything that might get into the structure." The entire plant is protected by fences, a microwave sensor, surveillance cameras and security guards as well as S.C. Department of Natural Resources officers, who patrol from the water, Cummings said. In addition, sheriff's deputies were assigned to help patrol the perimeter after Sept. 11. But Department of Natural Resources officers are not permanently stationed outside the plant to protect if from approach by water. Department spokesman Mike Willis said four full-time officers are assigned to York County. While ensuring boating and water safety is a major part of their job, officers also enforce hunting laws and other natural resources regulations. Willis said officers patrol the plant on a rotating schedule. Since Sept. 11, the department has increased patrols of all the state's hydroelectric plants, dams and larger bridges. Jennifer Talhelm: (803) 327-8507; jtalhelm@charlotteobserver.com [jtalhelm@charlotteobserver.com] ***************************************************************** 39 IAEA Daily Press Review Date 2001-11-15 Number 219 1. Non-proliferation Various articles on Russian/US talks: Senior American officials do not expect a breakthrough on NMD at this week's summit. Media Resources: (BBC; FT; IHT - 14/11,15/11) Russian Federation; United States of America 2. Terrorism Documents with detailed designs for missiles, bombs and nuclear weapons said to be found in Kabul safe houses used by Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaida network. Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission studies how to "harden" nuclear reactors against possible attack by a hijacked commercial aircraft. Russian expert in nuclear forces says 180 terrorist groups have interest in nuclear weapons. Media Resources: (G; R - 14/11) Afghanistan; Canada; Pakistan; Russian Federation 3. Nuclear power Russia to commission ten nuclear power reactors over the next ten years. Swiss Association for Atomic Energy conference concludes that nuclear in Switzerland is ready to compete with other energy sources in an open, deregulated electricity market. Phasing-out of France's 58 power reactors by 2020 would cost the French government between 240- and 510-billion francs. Technicians begin installation of reactor containment for the No. 1 nuclear island of the Tianwan NPP. UK environmentalists to hear outcome of their High Court challenge to try and block the opening of a new reprocessing plant at Sellafield. European Commission officially tells Lithuania that a definite closure of Ignalina-2 should take place by 2009. US President signs key US nuclear budget proposals into law. Russian N-plants plan production increase for 2002. Ukraine and Latvia agree on information exchange. Media Resources: (BBC; FT; NUC; NW; R - 15/11) European Commission; France; Latvia; Lithuania; Russian Federation; Switzerland; Taiwan, China; Ukraine; United Kingdom; United States of America 4. Nuclear safety Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers begins compiling new standards for piping systems within NPPs, following Friday's discovery of a leak of radioactive water at Hamaoka NPP's No. 1 reactor. Romanian authorities take supplementary protection measures at Cernavoda NPP after re-evaluation of a confidential plan for the institution's security. Media Resources: (FT - 14/11) Japan; Romania 5. Radiation, health US lawmaker proposes bill which would stockpile anti-radiation medicine near US NPPs in case attackers released dangerous radioactive material into the air. Sources of ionizing radiation discovered in a Chechnyan village on the grounds of a cement factory. Media Resources: (R - 14/11) Russian Federation; United States of America 6. Radwaste, fuel British Energy calls for an immediate moratorium on the reprocessing of spent fuel at Sellafield because of cost. Rural residents in southwestern Belarus protest against burial of radioactive soil to be moved from two former uranium handling facilities. Russia sets itself modest target for reprocessing of nuclear fuel imports. Russian officials say they will go ahead with plans to rebuild an existing spent fuel storage facility at the Mayak reprocessing complex in the Urals with US financing. Framatome lands contract to supply fuel to six NPPs in Sweden operated by Vattenfall. Media Resources: (FT; NW; R - 15/11) Belarus; France; Russian Federation; Sweden; United Kingdom; United States of America; WORLDWIDE 7. R European Parliament gives backing to four-year nuclear research and training programme in Europe, along with renewed support for ongoing studies into thermonuclear fusion. Media Resources: (BBC; NUC - 14/11) EUROPE; Japan ***************************************************************** 40 AU: Governor might send weapons to protect nuclear power plants Hodges considers missiles [http://www.thestate.com] The Associated Press Gov. Jim Hodges is considering sending heat-seeking missiles to the state's nuclear power plants to protect them against potential terrorist attacks. The missiles, operated by Anderson-based National Guard troops, also could be sent to the Savannah River Site and the low-level nuclear waste landfill near Barnwell. The governors of 13 states have ordered National Guard troops to protect nuclear plant sites, but none has stationed missiles there. Last month, surface-to-air missiles were installed near plants in France. Officials from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission say an aerial attack on nuclear facilities is unlikely, but the facilities could be vulnerable in such an event. Hodges stationed State Law Enforcement Division agents at the various sites two weeks ago. And air space over the nation's nuclear sites was restricted by the Federal Aviation Administration on Oct. 30. Most plants are protected by fences, microwave sensors, surveillance cameras and security guards. The state Natural Resources Department, which is responsible for the state's inland waters, has increased patrols of the state's hydroelectric plants, dams and larger bridges. In addition to its four nuclear power plants -- in York, Oconee, Fairfield and Darlington counties -- South Carolina is home to the Savannah River Site in Aiken County, which stores much of the nation's nuclear weapons waste. The nearby Chem-Nuclear facility, in Barnwell, is a low-level nuclear waste landfill. The Catawba Nuclear Station, a power plant near Lake Wylie, meanwhile has put up a steel barrier across a cove to protect the plant's intake pumps from potential terrorist attacks. The 5-foot-high barrier has red flashing lights and stretches more than 50 yards across the cove, preventing boats from getting close to the plant and jamming up the pipes, Duke Power spokesman Tom Shiel said. Pylons were driven into the bottom of the lake and two center pieces can be unlocked to allow boat traffic through. The barrier was finished last week. © Copyright 2001 The State-Record Company ***************************************************************** 41 National Guard pulled from power plants PalmBeachPost.com By Susan Salisbury, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer Thursday, November 15, 2001 Round-the-clock National Guard troops have been pulled from duty at Florida Power &Light's St. Lucie and Turkey Point nuclear power plants. Al Dennis, spokesman for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement in Tallahassee, said Wednesday the guard was released from the plants sometime after 6 p.m. Tuesday and would no longer be stationed at the plants. "Based on a mutual agreement by the state, federal and local law enforcement and FPL, the St. Lucie and Turkey Point power plants are resuming normal heightened security levels," Dennis said. Six-man National Guard teams, rotating in groups of three, have been guarding the plants since Gov. Jeb Bush ordered them there Oct. 31 at the request of FPL's parent company, FPL Group. Dennis said local, state and federal officials feel the plants are secure. "The plants were reassessed. The agreement to return to normal heightened security is based on a thorough security assessment and an intelligence analysis. They're going back to what they had. You still have a state and local presence there," Dennis said. "There's no intelligence to indicate the St. Lucie plant is the subject of any threats." Liz Hirst, spokeswoman for the governor's office said, "It was supposed to be a temporary status." All of FPL's 13 power plants in the state that house more than 30 power units along with its offices, including its Juno Beach headquarters, have been under heightened security since the day after the Sept. 11 terror attacks. The St. Lucie plant and the Turkey Point Nuclear Power Plant in Miami-Dade County each employ 600 to 800 people. susan_salisbury@pbpost.com Thursday, November 15 Copyright © 2001, The Palm Beach Post. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 42 Irish bid for Sellafield injunction The Irish World - News By Donal Mooney Hearings are expected to begin within days at the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in Hamburg on an application by the Irish government to stop the operation of the controversial new MOX (mixed oxide) nuclear plant at Sellafield in Cumbria. Ireland had given the British government until Friday of last week to reverse its recent decision to give the go-ahead for the plant’s operation. The British government, however, rejected the Irish case. Dublin is claiming that Britain is violating the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of The Sea. Its application for an injunction also extends to a ban on the movement of radioactive material associated with the operation of the MOX plant, which is scheduled to begin operation on 20 December. The 21 judges at the Hamburg tribunal can make an order to stop the plant beginning operations, pending the outcome of an arbitration procedure. Such an order would be legally binding upon the British government. Sources in Dublin insist that the Irish government is determined to prevent the plant from becoming operational, especially in view of the current international climate. Since the 11 September terrorist attacks in America, there has been growing alarm about Sellafield’s vulnerability and the vulnerability of shipments of nuclear material to and from the plant. Those concerns were given credence last month by an article in New Scientist magazine, which suggested that a terrorist attack on Sellafield could result in a disaster even worse than Chernobyl in 1986. There have been allegations for years that radioactive discharges from the existing nuclear reprocessing plant at Sellafield have had a detrimental effect on the health of people on Ireland’s eastern seaboard, particularly in Co Louth. Incidents of cancer have been most frequently cited, although several reports have concluded that there is no proven link with Sellafield. The concerns of the Irish government have latterly extended to Northern Ireland. South Down MP Eddie McGrady called for the closure of all Sellafield operations when he spoke at the SDLP conference in Newcastle last weekend. Concerns about Sellafield’s vulnerability to terrorist attack have been dismissed by British Nuclear Fuels Ltd (BNFL), which controls operations there, as “scaremongering at its worst”. Irish concerns about Sellafield refuse to go away, however. The Irish government has been infuriated by the decision by the British Environment Secretary, Margaret Beckett, to give the go-ahead for the MOX plant, which represents a significant extension of current activity on the site. It has vowed to fight the decision on several fronts, indicating that it will take its case to the European Court if necessary and may also involve the United Nations. The MOX plant was completed in 1996 but has since been mothballed amid British fears about its safety. There have also been serious question marks too over its economic viability, with claims that it can never recover the cost of building it in the first place. Last week, the High Court in London was told that overturning the British government’s decision to give the plant the go-ahead would put BNFL at “a very serious commercial disadvantage”. Counsel for BNFL argued that an EU directive on safety did not compel the British government to “ignore economic rationality” in seeking to justify operating the plant. He was speaking at a judicial review initiated by Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace on the British government’s decision to give its permission for the operation. The result of that review is expected by the end of this week but could be delayed by some days. ***************************************************************** 43 30-Day Comment Period on Yucca Mountain Project added Energy Secretary Orders Supplemental DOE NEWS U.S. Department of Energy Office of Public Affairs Washington, DC NEWS MEDIA CONTACTS: Joe Davis, 202/586-4940 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Wednesday, November 14, 2001 Energy Secretary Orders Supplemental 30-Day Comment Period on Yucca Mountain Project Two Key Milestones Reached in Yucca Mountain Site Suitability Characterization Process Washington - U.S. Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham today ordered the Department of Energy to conduct a supplemental 30-day comment period to provide Nevada's citizens additional opportunities to comment on the Yucca Mountain Project. The 30-day comment period opened on Wednesday, November 14,2001 and will Close on December 14, 2001. "As I made clear at the Department's hearings in September this year and as I have told Nevada officials, I am committed to providing Nevada's citizens additional public involvement opportunities to comment on the Yucca Mountain Project. This 30-day comment period keeps that commitment to the citizens of Nevada," Abraham said. In addition, the Department announced today that two key milestones were reached in the site characterization process: the release of the Yucca Mountain Site Suitability Guidelines and sufficiency comments released by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The purpose of the comment period is to provide citizens an opportunity to comment on issues that could not have been raised prior to the close of the previous comment period on October 19. Since October 19, various government agencies have released documents relevant to the Yucca site characterization process, including, + The Department of Energy's Final Site Suitability Guidelines + The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Final Yucca Mountain Repository Licensing Guidelines + The Nuclear Regulatory Commission "Sufficiency Letter." The Yucca Mountain Site Suitability Guidelines (10 CFR 963) provide the criteria that will guide the Department in determining the suitability of the Yucca mountain site for further development as a potential geological repository and reflect 20 years of scientific work at the Yucca Mountain Project. The guidelines are consistent with recently finalized, site-specific regulations from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on the safe disposal of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste. The NRC is the federal regulatory body that must approve the construction and operation of a repository at Yucca Mountain. The "Sufficiency Letter" indicates that NRC believes sufficient information will exist to begin a potential licensing review should DOE submit a license application, based upon an analysis of the Department's existing site characterization activities and the completion of an agreed-upon course of additional work to be done to develop the license application. ***************************************************************** 44 Nuclear Plant Plans to Add Gas Power November 15, 2001 By DAVID W. CHEN Arguing that gas and nuclear power can co-exist peacefully, Entergy Corporation, the owner of the Indian Point nuclear power plants, has announced its intention to build eight gas-fired power plants at the nuclear site in Westchester County. The eight plants would produce electricity only during the summer and other peak periods to complement the two nuclear generators already at the site in Buchanan, 35 miles north of New York City. The $250 million project would probably be completed in the spring of 2004, said Jim Steets, an Entergy spokesman. But the prospect of housing sizable gas and nuclear facilities less than a quarter-mile apart is already worrying some elected officials, environmental groups and local residents. And the proposal offers a vivid reminder of how so many critical and interlocking issues revolve around energy and environment in New York's northern suburbs. Indian Point's reactors are in the most densely populated area around any nuclear plant in the country. Some officials and environmental groups are concerned that the rare combination of combustible gas and radioactive waste could create a major safety risk in the event of an accident. According to Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the only other plant that has ever accommodated gas and nuclear power simultaneously is Oyster Creek, in rural Lacey Township, in southern New Jersey. The plans for the gas plants, while not unexpected, also come at an awkward time for Indian Point. Some local officials have called for the temporary closing of the plants, fearful that they could become terrorist targets. Last week, the Westchester County Legislature ordered a feasibility study on converting the nuclear operation to gas. And last night, some legislators began to circulate petitions demanding that the gas plants be blocked unless Indian Point abandons or converts its nuclear operations. But the nuclear-to-gas conversion is fraught with complications, too. Indian Point would require a bigger supply of gas than is now possible through an existing pipeline running through the site. And that supply, presumably, would have to come from another source: in all likelihood, the highly controversial Millennium Pipeline, a proposed 422-mile high-pressure natural gas line from Lake Erie to Mount Vernon. "What we do not want to end up with is natural gas-fired plants, plus nuclear plants, plus a gas pipeline," said Dani Glaser of Croton-on-Hudson, a member of a civic group called Not Under My Backyard. "And that, right now, is entirely possible. And we'll fight that with everything." Entergy has not filed a formal application for the gas plants with the New York State Public Service Commission, Mr. Steets said. Instead, what it did on Tuesday was announce its intention to file, setting off the start of the public hearing process. A formal filing is expected by May. Entergy wants to build eight 45- megawatt gas plants to provide a total of 360 megawatts whenever its two nuclear generators, which produce 1,000 megawatts each, are pushed to capacity. The gas plants would be housed in a single structure on a site, now a gravel parking lot, about 1,500 feet from the generators, and at a higher elevation. "What's important is making sure that we have enough energy to power up the energy needs for now and the future," said Representative Sue W. Kelly, a Republican who represents the Buchanan area. She called the gas-fired plant a promising idea that needed to be studied thoroughly. Fred Zalcman, executive director of the Pace Law School Energy Project, which studies energy issues, said that the fears of a possible gas explosion at Indian Point could be dealt with during the required feasibility study, and should not be a cause for alarm. "In general," he said, echoing Ms. Kelly, "I think it's prudent to start looking at alternatives in Indian Point." Since the advent of electricity deregulation, Entergy, which is based in Jackson, Miss., has focused much of its efforts on acquiring nuclear power plants in the northeastern United States, including Indian Point 3 in March 2000 and the troubled Indian Point 2 reactor in September. But because of the prospect of surging energy demand in New York City and its suburbs, Entergy first floated the idea of building gas plants at Indian Point this spring. "It's important for people to understand that safety is our primary consideration before we would go forward with this," Mr. Steets said. Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company | Privacy ***************************************************************** 45 Heavy escort for nuclear waste [http://thestar.com.my/] Thursday, November 15, 2001 [http://www.kolejunistate.edu.my] GORLEBEN (Germany): Six containers of nuclear waste finally reached a storage site in northern Germany yesterday after three days of protests and one of the largest peacetime security operations the country has seen. A force of 15,000 German police sealed off roads in the early hours yesterday, removing the last few hundred demonstrators from sit-down protests along the planned route. Police said they had detained around 300 people. A medical tent dealt with 93 injuries, from baton bruises to dog bites. By first light on a misty morning, the containers had sneaked out of Dannenberg. The shipment moved at a snail’s pace along the 20km road to the storage site at Gorleben, the final stop of a 1,500km trip back from a reprocessing plant in north-western France. The containers had arrived in Dannenberg by rail late on Tuesday under heavy police escort. Protesters, held back 500m from the track, blew whistles. — Reuters © 1995-2001 Star Publications (Malaysia) Bhd (Co No 10894-D) ***************************************************************** 46 Congressman Wants Anti-Radiation Drug Near Nukes Thursday November 15 10:45 AM ET WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A US lawmaker on Wednesday proposed a bill that would stockpile anti-radiation medicine near American nuclear power plants in case attackers released dangerous radioactive material into the air. Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Edward Markey, a longtime critic of the nuclear industry, wants the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to have ready supplies of potassium iodide within 200 miles of each of the country's 103 operating nuclear power plants. The drug has been shown to protect the body's thyroid gland from diseases caused by radiation exposure, Markey said. It must be taken within several hours after exposure to be effective. ``Potassium iodide is to radiation exposure what Cipro is to anthrax,'' he said in a statement. The bill would also require the government commission to stock potassium iodide at individual homes and public facilities within 50 miles of a plant. In the wake of the deadly Sept. 11 aerial attacks on Washington and New York, Markey has urged lawmakers to pass measures to step up security at nuclear plants, which he views as vulnerable to attack. ``In this new era of terrorism, in which the threat of an intentional release of radioactivity can no longer be ignored, we should waste no more time,'' Markey said. Government and private industry officials say all commercial nuclear plants have been on high alert since the September attacks and have adopted stricter security measures. Copyright © 2001 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 47 Canada's reactors will soon get tough Thursday, November 15, 2001 By CP OTTAWA -- The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission is studying how to "harden" nuclear reactors against possible attack by hijacked commercial aircraft. The new efforts go beyond measures already introduced such as on-site armed guards, barriers to prevent crash attacks by surface vehicles and visitor screening. An internal report says the commission is reviewing the capability of Canada's nuclear power plants to withstand an air attack of the kind carried out Sept. Commission spokesman Jim Leveque said "hardening" the reactors could mean literally reinforcing concrete walls around key areas, but it could also refer to changes in procedures. He said the commission still has not reached a decision on the feasibility of imposing no-fly zones over nuclear reactors. [http://www.canoe.ca/copyright.html] © 2001, Canoe Limited ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 Nuclear warhead reduction could leave plutonium at risk New Scientist The World's No.1 Science & Technology News Service 10:44 15 November 01 Rob Edwards The US and Russia may have promised to take 9000 nuclear warheads out of service but they have no idea of how to dispose of the plutonium they contain, experts say. Programmes for locking the plutonium into radioactive waste or burning it in nuclear reactors are being abandoned by the Bush administration because of their high cost. The default option, storage, could leave the plutonium more vulnerable to being stolen and made into bombs by terrorists. This is particularly worrying given recent revelations of Osama Bin Laden's keen interest in nuclear weapons. And on 1 November, the International Atomic Energy Agency gave a stark warning about the increased risks of nuclear terrorism. On Tuesday, President George Bush said he would cut the number of US nuclear weapons "operationally deployed" from about 7000 to between 1700 and 2200 over the next 10 years. In response, Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested that he would reduce the number of his country's nuclear warheads from 6000 to around 2000, but gave no timescale. However Matthew Bunn, a nuclear policy advisor to the Clinton administration, says: "The two presidents sit at a summit getting rid of thousands of nuclear weapons when they have no idea what to do with the plutonium if the weapons are dismantled." Security problem Storing the warheads creates a particular security problem in Russia where weapons compounds have twice been reconnoitred by terrorists in the last year, according to the general in charge of them, Igor Valynkin. "The key role of nuclear weapons now is not as a deterrent but as a target for theft," argues Bunn, who is at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the University of Harvard. If the warheads are dismantled, the problem is then what to do with their nuclear explosives: plutonium and highly enriched uranium. Former President Bill Clinton agreed an $8 billion programme with Russia for disposing of 68 tonnes of plutonium from both countries. Mix up But this is now under review by the Bush administration. One option -immobilising the plutonium by solidifying it into blocks of glass with radioactive waste - has already been abandoned. The other option - mixing it with uranium and burning it as MOX fuel in reactors - has been rejected by Bush's National Security Council as too expensive. William Walker, a nuclear specialist at St Andrews University in Scotland, suspects that the main option will be to store the weapons or the plutonium. But whatever happens, he points out, plutonium only changes its form. "You never really get rid of it." Disposing of the highly enriched uranium presents a different problem. An existing programme to blend 500 tonnes from Russia with low enriched uranium to make fuel for commercial reactors in the US and Europe has been so successful that it is creating a world glut of nuclear fuel. 10:44 15 November 01 Correspondence about this story should be directed to latestnews@newscientist.com. ***************************************************************** 2 Bin Laden's nuclear secrets found The Times THURSDAY NOVEMBER 15 2001 FROM ANTHONY LOYD IN KABUL + Times reporter finds blueprint for 'Nagasaki bomb' + Singed files left by fleeing terrorists OSAMA BIN LADEN’S al-Qaeda network held detailed plans for nuclear devices and other terrorist bombs in one of its Kabul headquarters. The Times discovered the partly burnt documents in a hastily abandoned safe house in the Karta Parwan quarter of the city. Written in Arabic, German, Urdu and English, the notes give detailed designs for missiles, bombs and nuclear weapons. There are descriptions of how the detonation of TNT compresses plutonium into a critical mass, sparking a chain reaction, and ultimately a thermonuclear reaction. Both President Bush and British ministers are convinced that bin Laden has access to nuclear material and Mr Bush said earlier this month that al-Qaeda was “seeking chemical, biological and nuclear weapons”. The discovery of the detailed bomb-making instructions, along with studies into chemical and nuclear devices, confirms the West’s worst fears and raises the spectre of plans for an attack that would far exceed the September 11 atrocities in scale and gravity. Nuclear experts say the design suggests that bin Laden may be working on a fission device, similar to Fat Man, the bomb dropped on Nagasaki. However, they emphasised that it was extremely difficult to build a viable warhead. While the terrorists may not yet have the capability to build such weapons, their hopes of doing so are clear. One set of notes, written on headed notepaper from the Hotel Grand in Peshawar and dated April 26, 1998, says: “Naturally the explosive liquid has a very high mechanical energy which is translated into destructive force. But it can be tamed, controlled and can be used as a useful propulsive fuel if certain methods are applied to it. A supersonic moving missile has a shock wave. That shock wave can be used to contain an external combustion behind the missile . . .” The document was one of many found in two of four al-Qaeda houses which had been used by Arabs and Pakistanis and even reportedly by bin Laden himself. The houses — two in the Karta Parwan district and the others further to the east — were abandoned on Monday as Taleban units and their allies fled the city. Attempts had been made to burn the evidence, but many documents still remained. They included studies into the development of a kinetic energy supergun capable of firing chemical or nuclear warheads, external propulsion missiles, preliminary research on the creation of a thermonuclear device, as well as a multitude of instructions for making smaller bombs. There were also studies into Western special forces’ hostage rescue techniques, phone numbers for industrial chemical and synthetic producers, flight manuals, aerodynamic research, and advanced physics and chemistry manuals. The houses were identified by local people. Looters had concentrated on more appetising objects, ignoring foreign language documents that were of no use to them. Bin Laden sees it as his “religious duty” to obtain a nuclear bomb. In an interview with a Pakistani journalist last week, he threatened: “If America used chemical or nuclear weapons against us then we may retort with chemical and nuclear weapons as deterrent.” Intelligence agencies already have indirect evidence from defectors, middlemen and scientists of bin Laden’s obsession with obtaining or producing a nuclear device. Al-Qaeda agents are known to have spent more than £1 million trying to obtain enough fissile material to make a “dirty bomb” that, if detonated with TNT in a populous area, could kill thousands and contaminate it for decades. Intelligence sources told The Times last month that bin Laden and al-Qaeda had acquired nuclear materials illegally from Pakistan. And at least ten Pakistani nuclear scientists have been contacted by agents for the Taleban and al-Qaeda in the past two years, according to reports. Fears that bin Laden has components for a nuclear weapon is believed to lie behind the warnings from President Bush and Tony Blair that he would commit worse atrocities than the suicide assaults in America if he could.The Prime Minister’s spokesman said: “Bin Laden would have killed 600,000 people on September 11 if he could have done. This underlines again why he has to be stopped. ” Copyright 2001 Times Newspapers Ltd. This service is provided on Times ***************************************************************** 3 India: New adviser confirms moratorium on nuclear tests, "credible deterrent" BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Nov 15, 2001 Text of report by Indian news agency PTI New Delhi, 15 November: New Principal Scientific Adviser R. Chidambaram Thursday [ 15 November] ruled out any review of India's moratorium on nuclear weapons testing, asserting that New Delhi now has a "minimum credible nuclear deterrent" in place. Declaring that the country's nuclear weapons programme had a "mature and strong foundation", Chidambaram, who took over his new assignment Thursday, succeeding A.P.J. Abdul Kalaam, said since the Pokhran tests India had made "good enough progress" in the development of nuclear weapons, their command and control as well as having a well-defined missile development programme. Ruling out any review of the moratorium on nuclear testing in the face of US not signing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and growing Sino-Pak clandestine nuclear nexus, he said New Delhi's policy was very clear on the issue with Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee having declared moratorium on further tests. Asserting that the Pokhran nuclear tests were "eminently successful", Chidambaram said nuclear scientists who had conducted extensive studies on seismic data collected from the test site, had confirmed that the yields were what the country had been looking for. Chidambaram, who would concurrently be chairman of the Scientific Advisory Committee to the federal cabinet, said the post-Pokhran US sanctions on non-transfer of dual-use technology, which were still in force, had hardly any effect on the country's nuclear weapons programme, adding "our self-reliance is very high"... Source: PTI news agency, New Delhi, in English 1500 gmt 15 Nov 01 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter All Material Subject to ***************************************************************** 4 NUKE PROTEST REV FINED Daily Record © 2001 Trinity Mirror Digital Media Scotland Limited or its A MINISTER arrested during a protest at the Faslane nuclear base said yesterday he had been celebrating Holy Communion. Rev Norman Shanks, 59, denied causing a breach of the peace at the Clyde base in February, saying he had only been "involved in three acts of worship". But he was found guilty and fined pounds 175. After the hearing at Helensburgh District Court, Mr Shanks, a Church of Scotland minister and leader of the Iona Community, said he may appeal. He added: "This protest was conducted peacefully throughout." ***************************************************************** 5 Russia wants specific treaty on N weapons The Frontier Post From Peshawar Pakistan Updated on 11/15/2001 11:31:09 AM Putin announces 'radical' missile cutsMOSCOW (APP): Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a "radical" cut in Russia's long-range nuclear arsenal to about one-third its present size, in remarks broadcast on Moscow television from Washington early Wednesday. "The current qualitative level does not correspond either to the present-day international situation, or the nature of the new threats," Putin said in remarks from Russia's embassy in Washington broadcast on NTV television.' "I do not doubt that we shall find understanding in the US on this issue," said Putin in response to US President George W. Bush's announcement that he would cut the US long-range missile to the range of 1,700-2,200 over the next 10 years. "And that is why we are proposing a radical program of further cuts in the strategic offensive weapons — at least three times, down to the minimal level necessary for maintaining a strategic balance in the world," Putin said. Russia currently has more than 6,000 intercontinental ballistic missiles, and Putin's announcement suggests that Moscow plans to match Bush's offer, bringing its long-range missiles arsenal down in size to around 2,000. Putin, however, gave no time frame for the Russian cut. Meanwhile in Washington Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Igor Ivanov said Russia is satisfied with the US decision to substantially cut its nuclear arsenal, but it wants a specific treaty on the issue. "We have always said it was necessary to give a juridical base" to any such decision, Ivanov told Russian reporters here late Tuesday, during a three-day visit to the United States by Russian President Vladimir Putin. "It's not about confidence, but (a treaty) sets the groundwork to go further," Ivanov said, following a reception at the Russian Embassy in Washington. After meetings with his Russian counterpart, US President George W. Bush announced Tuesday that the United States would cut its nuclear arsenal by two thirds to between 1,700-2,200 intercontinental warheads over the next decade. Bush said the unilateral decision does not require a treaty.The two leaders have so far failed to bridge their rift on the US plan to develop a missile defense system. Bush said that the United States and Russia were transforming their relationship "from one of hostility and suspicion to one based on cooperation and trust. "If one of the parties does not want (to sign an accord) he can't be forced to do so, but when we talk about new relationships, there is no contradiction in setting the framework," Ivanov noted in response to Bush's comments. Putin has long sought reductions in both nations nuclear arsenals to about 1,500 warheads.The United States has around 7,000 warheads to Russia's 6,000.The two countries are committed to reducing their nuclear arsenals under the START II strategic disarmament accord, signed in 1997. Washington must reduce its arsenal by 3,500 warheads, against 3,000 for Moscow between now and December 31, 2007, under the accord. © Copyright 2001 The Frontier Post ***************************************************************** 6 Putin's weapons pledge enrages generals at home Irish Newspapers - PRESIDENT Vladimir Putin used a speech in Texas yesterday to defend his decision to pursue a "radical programme of further reductions" in Russia's nuclear weaponry, as Moscow's generals condemned the move as a capitulation to America. "The Cold War must stop," said Mr Putin in Houston. "The question is whether Russia and the United States need each other. Today, we actually came to the awareness what it means to be together." In a message at least partly aimed at his own military hardliners, the Russian president urged both countries to "sense the pulse of history". The Russian leader has offered unprecedented help for the US campaign in Afghanistan in a series of startling moves which have transformed the two countries' relationship into the warmest seen since the Second World War. The Houston speech came a few hours after an address in the Russian Embassy in Washington in which Mr Putin said he would respond in kind to President Bush's announcement that America's nuclear arsenal would be reduced by about two-thirds over the next decade. Mr Bush said the number of US warheads would be cut from more than 7,000 to between 1,700 and 2,200. Mr Putin had proposed levels as low as 1,500. The Russian military was furious after Mr Putin said: "We are going to follow the path of developing co-operation with (Nato) on the basis of equality; we are ready - and I would like to stress this - to go as far as Nato members are ready to go". (Daily Telegraph, London) Toby Harnden in Crawford and Ben Aris in Moscow © Copyright Unison ***************************************************************** 7 Belarus welcomes Russian-US nuclear arms reduction agreement BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Nov 15, 2001 Text of report in English by Russian news agency ITAR-TASS Minsk, 15 November: Head of the Belarusian Foreign Ministry press department Pavel Latushka said the Russian-US agreements on the reduction of nuclear arsenals and the fight against terrorism would facilitate the strengthening of Belarus' security. Speaking at a press briefing on Thursday [15 November], the ministry spokesman said that "Belarus pursues the policy towards supporting initiatives on the reduction of nuclear weapons and considers itself as an inalienable element of the international community in the fight against international terrorism". At the same time, Latushka said that "a military component of the fight against terrorism should be supplemented by active political, diplomatic and economic efforts". The spokesman also added that Belarus sticks to the position on which the United Nations should play a central role in the fighting against international terrorism. Source: ITAR-TASS news agency, Moscow, in English 1355 gmt 15 Nov 01 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter ***************************************************************** 8 Oak Ridge guards told they have final offer on labor pact By Frank Munger, News-Sentinel senior writer OAK RIDGE - The Oak Ridge guards' union says it has authority to call a strike at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant later this month if the management team doesn't return to the bargaining table. The government's security contractor says it has already made a "best-and-final'' offer, which the Y12 guards rejected, and that contingency plans are in place to protect the nuclear facilities if a strike occurs Nov. 29. Y-12 makes parts for every nuclear weapon in the U.S. ar- senal, and the Oak Ridge plant is the national repository for bombgrade uranium. Both sides said Wednesday they want to avert a strike if at all possible, although the route to resolution is not yet clear. "We have no desire whatsoever to go out, but on the other hand we don't feel like we should be taken advantage of,'' said Mike Rimmer, local president of the International Guards Union of America. Rimmer said many guards were particularly upset by what they viewed as a reduction of short-term disability benefits. Wackenhut Services Inc., the Department of Energy's security contractor in Oak Ridge, made a final contract offer to the union last week, and the guards voted on that offer on Monday. Two guard units - at Y-12 and the Federal Office Building - rejected the contract offer, while another unit at Oak Ridge National Laboratory approved the proposal. In an unusual situation, the union leadership signed the new contract Wednesday for the ORNL unit, and that will go into effect for about 30 guards at the lab. Meanwhile, about 300 guards at Y-12 and the Federal Office Building are still without a contract and reportedly have given strike authority to the union's leadership. The current contract expires Nov. 29. Rimmer said he sent a registered letter to Wackenhut asking for additional negotiations but had not received a response. Lynn Calvert, the senior vice president and general manager of Wackenhut's Oak Ridge operations, said the company negotiated in good faith and enhanced an already good package. Wackenhut said the offer included an 11.3 percent pay increase over three years. Calvert said as far as he's concerned the contract negotiations are over, although he said he hopes some misunderstandings will be corrected and that the guards will vote again on the contract offer. He said he believes there was some confusion among guards as to the company's actual proposal. "We think we made these folks a really good offer,'' he said. The union president said guards are concerned about the timing of a possible strike and recognize it would not be a popular decision, but he said the guards also have to think about their families and their livelihood. "Going into the negotiations, it was a concern that we would try to take advantage of this (heightened-security) situation,'' Rimmer said. "But we finished our proposal the first part of August, and we did not change our proposal from that point on.'' Calvert said a work-stoppage would not be good, particularly at this time, but he said plans are in place should guards go out on strike at Y-12 and the Federal Office Building. He declined to be specific about how the guards would be replaced. "You can be assured that the Department of Energy is not going to allow these facilities to go unprotected,'' he said. The last guards strike in Oak Ridge took place in 1983, but two weeks into that strike the international leadership of the union ordered the guards back to work against their will, citing national-security concerns at Y-12. Frank Munger can be reached at 865-482-9213 or twig1@knoxnews.infi.net. Copyright 2001 The Knoxville News-Sentinel Co. ***************************************************************** 9 High-Tech Talk About Nuclear Weapons Las Vegas SUN November 14, 2001 WASHINGTON- For decades, America's nuclear arsenal and the threat of retaliation has been regarded as the nation's best defense against attacks on its cities and population. But this doctrine of deterrence didn't prevent terrorists from turning passenger planes into deadly missiles in attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon that killed thousands of people. Nor would the national anti-missile shield being sought by President Bush have stopped those Sept. 11 attacks. Against the background of low-tech terrorist attacks, Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed the scariest weapons known to mankind - nuclear bombs atop long-range ballistic missiles - and possible high-tech defenses against them and ways to stop their proliferation. With the world's attention riveted to the terror attacks, and conventional warfare in Afghanistan, the Bush-Putin talks, which began on Tuesday in Washington and continued Wednesday on Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, seemed somehow out of sync. But arms control experts said the talks were crucial. Just because the worst terror attacks on U.S. soil came in low-tech packages and not aboard missiles, or in suitcase bombs, does not rule out an effort by terrorists or hostile nations to mount a nuclear attack in the future, U.S. officials caution. "Our highest priority is to keep terrorists from acquiring weapons of mass destruction," Bush said on Tuesday at a joint news conference with Putin at the White House. Earlier, Bush and Putin agreed to link missile-defense talks to cuts in nuclear arsenals. On Tuesday, Bush pledged to reduce the United States' long-range nuclear arsenal to between 1,700 and 2,200 warheads, from roughly 7,000 now. Putin, who has earlier proposed cuts to as low as 1,500 warheads, said he would match the offer. Russia has about 6,000 long-range warheads. But unlike Bush, who said earlier that he did not favor formal treaties, Putin said he preferred relying on them to codify weapons reductions. "They haven't figured out the other side of the coin, which is missile defense," said Tom Collina, of the Union of Concerned Scientists, a public policy group which opposes creating a national missile defense system. "The Russians are still worried about U.S. deployment of a missile defense system." A related issue, Collina said, "is what's going to happen to those warheads in Russia when they're taken off the missiles? Just having these things in storage is not helpful, and may be less than helpful. " In Crawford, Bush and Putin intended to hash out their differences on U.S. plans for a national missile defense and the future of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, which prohibits such defenses. "I'm convinced the treaty is outdated," Bush said Tuesday. "We need to move beyond it." Bush would like to proceed with construction next spring at Fort Greely, Alaska, of five silos for interceptor missiles and a command and control testing center - and to set aside the ABM treaty. But Putin contends the treaty is a cornerstone for maintaining stability, a position he said "remains unchanged." Still, Putin also signaled flexibility, saying he and Bush would "continue dialogue and consultations." U.S. officials believe that Putin might agree to allow testing to proceed, including construction of the Alaska site, but would oppose any move toward actual deployment. Even if they can reach an agreement, money and scientific shortcomings threaten to keep the missile-defense program stalled for years. The technology - often likened to hitting bullets with other bullets - is not proven. And Congress, trying to balance multibillion-dollar demands for the war on terrorism with shrinking resources, is showing reluctance to shelling out what analysts say could amount to $60 billion over the next 15 years. Last week, a House Appropriations subcommittee recommended canceling an expensive infrared satellite radar system that the Pentagon considers an integral missile-defense component. The Pentagon has had mixed results so far on interceptor tests over the Pacific, with two failures and two successes since 1999. A fifth test that had been scheduled for October was postponed because of mechanical problems. The administration does not have a timetable for deployment. Even top proponents agree deploying an effective system remains years away, perhaps 2007 at the earliest. EDITOR'S NOTE - Tom Raum has covered national and international affairs for The Associated Press since 1973. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 10 House Panel OKs $20B for Anti-Terror Las Vegas SUN November 14, 2001 WASHINGTON (AP) - The House Appropriations Committee voted Wednesday to largely follow President Bush's plan for spending $20 billion for anti-terrorism efforts, and prepared for efforts by New Yorkers and Democrats to defy the White House and add billions more. Democrats on the panel planned to try tacking $7.1 billion extra onto the bill to counter bioterrorism, the spread of weapons of mass destruction and other domestic security programs, plus $6.5 billion to bolster intelligence and defense spending. And New York lawmakers from both parties were seeking a scaled-back $9.7 billion more, mostly to help lower Manhattan recover from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. By voice vote, the panel approved $20 billion to strengthen the military, hire border patrol agents, improve the FBI's computers, help workers displaced by the attacks, and take other steps. It differed little from Bush's proposal for the money. "These funds are badly needed, so we need to move this bill quickly," said House Appropriations Committee Chairman Bill Young, R-Fla. But battles over amendments promised to make the committee's meeting a long one. Bush has promised to veto any spending that goes beyond the $20 billion, saying such increases should wait until next year. Republicans offered differing predictions about whether they would defeat the Democratic proposal to boost spending by $7.1 billion. Included were increases over Bush's plans of $800 million for state and local hospitals and health care agencies, $1 billion to protect domestic nuclear weapons and Russia's nuclear material and $876 million to secure federal facilities. After 11th-hour White House meetings with Vice President Dick Cheney, New York lawmakers - led by Republican Rep. James Walsh and Democratic Rep. Nita Lowey - said they would pursue their amendment anyway. New Yorkers say Bush promised them $20 billion, but has so far proposed providing only $10 billion. "My view is the law was explicit, half the money for New York," Walsh said in an interview after his meeting with Cheney. "We definitely need more money." Walsh, who declined to predict an outcome, said he thinks the White House believes it has the votes to defeat him in committee on Wednesday. Administration officials and House GOP leaders have been lobbying other GOP panel members to oppose Walsh. Under the amendments, even if the money for New York, domestic security and defense were to be enacted, Bush would have to spend it only if he wanted to. Across the Capitol, the Senate began debating a Democratic-written economic stimulus package that included a pared-down $15 billion for domestic security programs written by the Appropriations Committee chairman, Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va. The measure seemed likely to be defeated by day's end as Republicans threw procedural hurdles in front of it, forcing Democrats to produce 60 votes to prevail. The venue for the House fight was a $318 billion defense spending bill the committee was considering. Bush controls half the $40 billion in anti-terrorism money that Congress approved three days after the Sept. 11 attacks. Details of the remaining $20 billion must be approved by Congress, and Wednesday's vote by the Appropriations Committee formally added it to the defense bill. It largely resembled Bush's request, dividing the $20 billion roughly into thirds for defense, domestic security and relief for New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania, where thousands died in the attacks. The New Yorkers want an additional $9.7 billion - mostly for their state, but also available for Virginia, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, where many victims of the World Trade Center destruction lived. Walsh was hoping that would help him win broad enough support to prevail. On the Net: Senators: http://www.senate.gov/senators/index.cfm [http://www.senate.gov/senators/index.cfm] Representatives: http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW.html [http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW.html] All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 11 Experts Warn Terrorist Use of Nuclear Material is Likely U.S. Newswire 14 Nov 13:38 U.S., Russian Governments Act Fast To: National Desk Contact: Bob Schaeffer, 941-395-6773 or Lynn Martin, 617-868-5050, x209, both for Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) WASHINGTON, Nov. 14 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Mounting evidence of a global network of sophisticated terrorists combined with potential black markets in plutonium, highly enriched uranium, and radioactive wastes boosts the likelihood of nuclear terrorism, according to International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW). Speaking at a National Press Club news briefing, leaders of IPPNW and its U.S. affiliate Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR), along with other experts, described four types of terrorist threats: crude nuclear weapons; radiological dispersion weapons; weapons bought or stolen from a nuclear state; and attacks on nuclear power plants or weapons production facilities. An IPPNW book, "Crude Nuclear Weapons: Proliferation and the Terrorist Threat," circulated at the briefing, concludes that a determined terrorist group could fabricate a simple nuclear device with 28 pounds of highly enriched uranium or as little as 18 pounds of plutonium. The breakup of the former Soviet Union and the proliferation of nuclear technology have made these materials more accessible, removing one of the greatest obstacles to terrorists. Using the methodology contained in the study, IPPNW Co-President Mary-Wynne Ashford, M.D., said, "If terrorists had attacked New York City with a Hiroshima-sized crude nuclear weapon, between 60,000 and 300,000 people would have been killed, depending on the location of the explosion and time of day. Other effects would be devastating: panic would ensue; evacuations would be necessary; and ambulance, hospital and other medical services would be overwhelmed by the numbers of people with burns, injuries, and shock." From a technical perspective, a radiological dispersion weapon would be the simplest nuclear device for terrorists to make and use. Such a weapon could spread plutonium or other radioactive materials over cities without a nuclear explosion. Bruce Blair, Ph.D., president of the Center for Defense Information (CDI), estimated that a casket-sized radiation dispersal weapon loaded with spent fuel from a nuclear power plant and detonated in New York City would cause 2,000 immediate deaths and injure thousands more. U.S. medical facilities are ill equipped to manage a large number of radiation-related casualties. A new PSR report, "Projected U.S. Casualties and Destruction of U.S. Medical Services from Attacks by Russian Nuclear Forces," released at the briefing, demonstrates that there is no effective medical response to nuclear war. The report describes the medical impact of a nuclear confrontation between the U.S. and Russia at current force levels and if Russian strategic warheads are cut to around 500. Warhead retargetting by Russia to avoid proposed U.S. missile defenses could lead to far higher casualties. Ira Helfand, M.D., of PSR explained, "This important medical study shows that no preparations could help the U.S. survive a nuclear attack, by accident or design. Presidents Bush and Putin need to go much further to make us safe from this ultimate catastrophe." The physicians' groups believe that the Bush Administration has a responsibility to fully fund programs that can reduce and eliminate the threat posed by tons of inadequately safeguarded highly enriched uranium and plutonium that could be fashioned into instruments of nuclear terrorism. Robert K. Musil, Ph.D., chief executive officer of PSR, said, "The threat of nuclear terrorism and nuclear proliferation hangs over us all. We must invest far more in containing nuclear materials safely and in preventing the spread of these dreadful weapons. Disarmament is the only cure for this final epidemic." Jonathan Schell, author of "The Fate of the Earth and the just-published book The Unfinished 20th Century," called on the United States to lead the international community in renouncing the use and threat of use of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. He urged the nuclear weapons states to begin negotiations on a treaty that will ban nuclear weapons. "Unless we abolish nuclear weapons, the threat of nuclear annihilation will always loom over us," Schell concluded. All the speakers urged the Bush-Putin summit to address the overwhelming threat of nuclear weapons use, the strategic dangers of deploying a national missile defense (NMD), and the need for strict measures to reduce the risk of terrorist use of nuclear materials. "If our cities are to survive the 21st century, governments throughout the world must unite in an urgent global campaign to establish the tightest possible international control over all weapons-usable fissile materials," said Dr. Ashford. "Unless radical steps are taken immediately, it will not be a question of whether terrorists can acquire or build a nuclear device, but when." IPPNW, which was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1985, is a global federation of medical organizations in more than 60 countries dedicated to research, education and advocacy relevant to the prevention of nuclear war. PSR is the U.S. affiliate of the federation. Inquiries about PSR's study should be directed to Tarek Rizk at 202-667-4260, ext. 215 or Sharon Pickett at 301-365-9307. Copyright 2001, U.S. Newswire ***************************************************************** 12 Hanford project a runner-up in international contest This story was published Wed, Nov 14, 2001 By the Herald staff A Hanford project was one of two runners-up for the Project Management Institute's International Project of the Year award for 2001. CH2M Hill Hanford Group's successful effort to neutralize a thickening, rising crust of radioactive wastes in central Hanford's Tank SY-101 and then removing the wastes was one of the three finalists in the competition. Construction of an aluminum smelter project in Mozambique won first place. Past winners included the 2000 removal of Oregon's Trojan reactor vessel, which ended up stored at central Hanford, and the 1998 Mars Pathfinder project. Copyright 2001 Tri-City Herald. All ***************************************************************** 13 Baltimore Prepares Fallout Shelter Las Vegas SUN Today: November 15, 2001 at 2:50:23 PST BALTIMORE- A poster on the wall of the underground bunker reads: "Are you ready for the next disaster? Civil Defense for you, your family and America." What's old is becoming new again as Baltimore rapidly modernizes a relic of the Cold War days - a fallout shelter 5 miles north of downtown that will serve as the city government's emergency operations center. Other cities are doing the same in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks and the threat of bioterrorism. "During a potential attack, we need a center of command with redundant modes of communication and a secure flow of information," Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley said. "The bunker is a perfect fit." The fallout shelters, built under federal guidance during the Cold War, became the responsibility of state and local officials when the Federal Emergency Management Agency was formed in 1979 with an eye toward natural disasters. A FEMA spokesman said the agency does not know how many cities are converting old fallout shelters, but many may be reviewing their plans after considering New York's experience. Its emergency control center, located on 23rd floor of 7 World Trade Center, was destroyed on Sept. 11. "There are a bunch of bunkers that are just there, many of which can be resurrected," said Milton Copulos, president of the National Defense Council Foundation, an Alexandria, Va.-based think tank. "I know an awful lot of (cities) are looking at what they have in place and looking at what the next level of preparedness needs to be." Several cities and states already have subterranean centers. Los Angeles' Emergency Operations Center is located four floors underground. New York's State Emergency Management Office operates from a bunker below state police headquarters in Albany. If there were a disaster in Iowa, state agencies would operate out of the STARC (State Area Command) Armory at Camp Dodge in Johnston, an underground bunker with a high-tech communications system and reinforced concrete walls a foot thick. Massachusetts is giving consideration to modernizing its Emergency Operations Center in Framingham, an underground bunker commissioned by President Kennedy. Renovating the nuclear-bomb-proof shelter will cost Baltimore about $400,000, part of $17.6 million in security enhancements ordered since Sept. 11 that are stretching out an already strained city budget. The underground bunker, located beneath a fire station, was first built in 1952 as a Civil Defense Control Center. The 22-inch thick concrete walls were intended to withstand the blast from a nuclear explosion. With food reserves and an air recirculating system, those inside could survive for two weeks. William C. Codd II, a former city emergency management director, said the only time he recalls the center being used was during the 1968 riots that followed the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Fourteen new fiber optic telephone lines and three computers have since been added. Antennas were erected on the roof so that pagers and cell phones will work underground. There's now room for about 50 people in the shelter - with 18 able to sit at small cubicles facing each other in the main room, which is equipped with city maps stretching from the floor to the ceiling. The nonperishable food stash has to be restocked and there's no room for those inside to sleep, save a few old canvas cots, said Richard McKoy, the city's Director of Emergency Management. "They'd have to find a spot where they can," Codd said. "But it's a lot better being in here than being out there." On the Net: Federal Emergency Management Agency: http://www.fema.gov/ [http://www.fema.gov/] National Defense Council Foundation: http://www.ndcf.org/ [http://www.ndcf.org/] All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 14 Lab Found in Old al-Qaida Compound Las Vegas SUN Today: November 15, 2001 at 7:00:28 PST KABUL, Afghanistan- An abandoned compound in the heart of Kabul used by Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network appears to have been a makeshift laboratory, complete with foul-smelling liquids in dirty brown jars and scattered papers covered in chemical formulas. The materials found at the compound - deserted in haste as the Taliban fled the Afghan capital - suggest al-Qaida may have been trying to develop chemical arms and other unconventional weapons. Also found at the abandoned compound: a booklet offering advice on how to survive a nuclear explosion. The United States has said that bin Laden's network was attempting to develop nuclear and chemical weapons, and the two-story house in the Karte Parwan district pointed to a keen interest in such weapons. Room after room were filled with papers, formulas and maps, some partially burned, some with handwritten Arabic notations. There was a yellowed page from an old issue of Plane and Pilot magazine - a story entitled, "A Flight to Remember." The Times of London newspaper reported Thursday that designs for nuclear weapons and missiles were among the debris left behind in the house - but it was unclear whether the documents the newspaper said it found consisted only of knowledge already in the public domain. "There are descriptions of how the detonation of TNT compresses plutonium into a critical mass, sparking a chain reaction, and ultimately a thermonuclear reaction," The Times reported. Written in Arabic, German, Urdu and English, the notes give "designs for missiles, bombs and nuclear weapons," it said. Last weekend, a Pakistani newspaper quoted bin Laden as claiming that his organization had nuclear and chemical weapons. However, U.S. officials have said that they had no information to suggest he has been successful in his attempt to acquire such weaponry. The Kabul compound appeared to have taken a direct hit from what northern alliance soldiers said was a U.S. rocket. An alliance soldier in camouflage dress, Mohammed Nisar, walked through the rooms in three houses, pointing out pieces of paper with formulas, handwritten diagrams, pictures of rockets and other weaponry. In the basement of one house was what looked to be a laboratory. In another house, where the al-Qaida men resided, according to Nisar, four different types of land mines were found. Northern alliance troops had emptied two old railway cars parked in the yard that its soldiers said had been packed with arms and ammunition. "Look, you can see the land mines," Nisar said, moving to pick one up. "It's safe now, we have disarmed it." At the rear of the main house, one room contained mountains of papers, some from training manuals showing diagrams of different weapons. One book in English was about how to use a recoilless rifle. In another room the floor was littered with small anti-personnel mines. Deep beneath the house were what seemed to be bunkers, with a roof of fresh cement. In one bunker were parts of weapons, with the barrels of anti-aircraft weapons propped up in one corner. In the yard and in the rooms more paper and diagrams - some in Arabic, some in Persian, some in Urdu - and maps with large circles to mark locations. Computer manuals were among the books. Earlier this year, The Associated Press acquired an 11-volume Encyclopedia of Holy War, written in Arabic and dedicated to bin Laden and the Taliban. At another al-Qaida compound, this one on the eastern edge of the city in the hills that surround Kabul's ancient Darulaman Palace, there was a sprawling training ground for al-Qaida recruits. The training camp was located on a large base where Scud missile had been based when the former Soviet Union occupied Afghanistan between 1979 and 1989. The compound stretched over 1.2 miles. It took in several hilltop positions. "We found lots of books and papers and newspapers," said Haji Abdullah, a northern alliance commander at the base. "We threw most of them out." Some of the material that one young alliance soldier, Jan Aga, retrieved from the rubble included a laminated certificate that identified the holder as a "military training instructor." The northern alliance, which now controls the abandoned base, had one Pakistani in their custody, Naimad Ullah. Just 17, Ullah could only speak Urdu. He looked terrified. "I am afraid to say anything, they will take my head off," he said in Urdu. The northern alliance soldiers said they had kept him safe for three days and had captured him on the front lines north of Kabul. Ullah said he was a student at a madrassa, or religious school, in Pakistan and had come to fight with the Taliban during his school holidays. His captors promised to keep him safe. In their haste to flee the area, one Pakistani, Mohammed Khaliq left behind an unmailed letter home to his brother in Peshawar, Pakistan. In a letter written Oct. 28, 12 days into air campaign, Khaliq said: "Don't worry about me. Pray for me five times a day. Our enemy is not strong, we will win. If we die here there is no greater reward." All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 15 Hanford group completes bankruptcy reorganization This story was published Thu, Nov 15, 2001 By John Stang Herald staff writer Washington Group International -- a major player in Hanford's waste glassification project and the Umatilla Chemical Depot -- has nearly completed its bankruptcy reorganization. Boise-based Washington Group expects a federal judge to approve the reorganization plan soon in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Reno, Nev., where it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last May. That filing and the pending approval of its reorganization are not expected to affect the firm's work on efforts to build a complex to convert Hanford's radioactive tank wastes into glass, said Bill Poulson, the Bechtel team's operations manager and the project's highest-ranking official from Washington Group. His company is the permanent primary subcontractor in Bechtel National's glassification team. Washington Group's role in the project is to provide technical expertise from its glassification plants at Savannah River, S.C., and West Valley, N.Y. Washington Group bought those projects in 1999 from Westinghouse Electric Co. Right now Washington Group employs about 220 people on Bechtel's glassification team of about 1,500 workers and also is in charge of building and operating an incinerator to destroy 7.4 million pounds of deadly nerve and mustard gas agents at the Army's chemical depot, a project that employs about 500. The company inherited the Umatilla project when it bought Raytheon Engineers & Constructors for $53 million from Raytheon Co. in July 2000. Washington Group has blamed that purchase for its financial woes. Last March Washington Group filed a suit in U.S. District Court in Idaho, claiming Raytheon hid $450 million in liabilities on the projects it sold. Raytheon has denied those allegations and filed counterlitigation in the bankruptcy court. Meanwhile, Washington Group encountered major cash flow problems and defaulted on some projects. As part of the Chapter 11 reorganization, Washington Group and Raytheon dropped all their litigation. The reorganization has many of Washington Group's creditors trading their claims in for equity in the corporation. The company's secured lenders will receive 80 percent of the primary equity in the revamped corporation plus $20 million in cash, Washington Group said. The company's unsecured creditors will receive 20 percent of the primary equity and some other benefits. "We will have a strong balance sheet, a net worth of approximately $500 million, and no debt except for draws under the working capital facility," Washington Group President Stephen Hanks said in a press release. Copyright 2001 Tri-City Herald. ***************************************************************** 16 Bechtel taxes could pay for services This story was published Thu, Nov 15, 2001 By John Stang Herald staff writer Future Bechtel tax money being rerouted to Benton County could pay for some of the extra school and government services needed because of Hanford's growing tank waste glassification project. Earlier this week it was announced a new state tax law will result in about $8 million in Bechtel National's taxes being shifted to Benton County. But it's not clear how much money will go to which government or school service and when. On Aug. 1 a new state law went into effect that says a business can petition Washington's Department of Revenue for permission to pay "use" taxes instead of sales taxes -- if the company spends at least $10 million a year on items subject to taxes. Under a use tax, the company buying taxable items pays taxes to the county where the items will be used rather than the counties where the items are purchased. Bechtel National is the first -- and so far only -- company in Washington to get permission to reroute its taxes this way. The company is in charge of designing, building and testing Hanford's top-priority $4 billion tank waste glassification complex through 2011. Bechtel expects to buy about $1 billion in taxable items for the project. That means about $7 million in sales taxes collected in the Mid-Columbia plus a predicted $8 million covered by the use tax. In all, about $15 million is expected to go to local government and school coffers. Most of that money is expected to materialize in the next three to four years, the period of the project's heaviest construction, said Ron Naventi, head of Bechtel's glassification team. That also will be the period when the glassification project's work force will zoom from about 1,500 people to 4,000. Those workers are expected to translate to about 7,000 new Mid-Columbia residents. And local governments and schools expect those new residents to require more classrooms, additional police and firefighters and other services. A ballpark estimate is that the local governments and three school districts will need $20 million to cope with these extra demands, said John Darrington, Richland's city manager. He's also a representative of the Hanford Communities, a coalition of local governments cooperating on Hanford issues. But it's difficult to figure out how much of the predicted $15 million in taxes will actually be applied to that speculated need of $20 million, Darrington said. Because Hanford is in Benton County, that county will likely collect the use taxes and receive a good portion of the sales taxes. The county would then distribute the money to the appropriate cities, counties and school districts. Copyright 2001 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This ***************************************************************** 17 Russia wants specific treaty on N weapons The Frontier Post From Peshawar Pakistan Updated on 11/15/2001 11:31:09 AM Putin announces 'radical' missile cutsMOSCOW (APP): Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a "radical" cut in Russia's long-range nuclear arsenal to about one-third its present size, in remarks broadcast on Moscow television from Washington early Wednesday. "The current qualitative level does not correspond either to the present-day international situation, or the nature of the new threats," Putin said in remarks from Russia's embassy in Washington broadcast on NTV television.' "I do not doubt that we shall find understanding in the US on this issue," said Putin in response to US President George W. Bush's announcement that he would cut the US long-range missile to the range of 1,700-2,200 over the next 10 years. "And that is why we are proposing a radical program of further cuts in the strategic offensive weapons — at least three times, down to the minimal level necessary for maintaining a strategic balance in the world," Putin said. Russia currently has more than 6,000 intercontinental ballistic missiles, and Putin's announcement suggests that Moscow plans to match Bush's offer, bringing its long-range missiles arsenal down in size to around 2,000. Putin, however, gave no time frame for the Russian cut. Meanwhile in Washington Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Igor Ivanov said Russia is satisfied with the US decision to substantially cut its nuclear arsenal, but it wants a specific treaty on the issue. "We have always said it was necessary to give a juridical base" to any such decision, Ivanov told Russian reporters here late Tuesday, during a three-day visit to the United States by Russian President Vladimir Putin. "It's not about confidence, but (a treaty) sets the groundwork to go further," Ivanov said, following a reception at the Russian Embassy in Washington. After meetings with his Russian counterpart, US President George W. Bush announced Tuesday that the United States would cut its nuclear arsenal by two thirds to between 1,700-2,200 intercontinental warheads over the next decade. Bush said the unilateral decision does not require a treaty.The two leaders have so far failed to bridge their rift on the US plan to develop a missile defense system. Bush said that the United States and Russia were transforming their relationship "from one of hostility and suspicion to one based on cooperation and trust. "If one of the parties does not want (to sign an accord) he can't be forced to do so, but when we talk about new relationships, there is no contradiction in setting the framework," Ivanov noted in response to Bush's comments. Putin has long sought reductions in both nations nuclear arsenals to about 1,500 warheads.The United States has around 7,000 warheads to Russia's 6,000.The two countries are committed to reducing their nuclear arsenals under the START II strategic disarmament accord, signed in 1997. Washington must reduce its arsenal by 3,500 warheads, against 3,000 for Moscow between now and December 31, 2007, under the accord. © Copyright 2001 The Frontier Post ***************************************************************** 18 Russia's inner chaos a threat to the West -- The Washington Times November 15, 2001 David Satter As President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin work out the framework of a new U.S.-Russian relationship, it is important to bear in mind that the U.S. needs not only cooperation in foreign policy from Russia but also measures to stem the inner lawlessness that has left entire sections of the country under the control of organized crime. Russia today presents a serious danger to the U.S. because it has huge stores of poorly guarded weapons of mass destruction and powerful criminal syndicates prepared to sell anything to anyone, for a price. The danger that Russian criminals may sell weapons of mass destruction to terrorists for use against the United States is the reason why some of the enthusiasm for Mr. Putin's turn to the West is misplaced. Russia's willingness to accept a U.S. military presence in Central Asia is very important but unless Russia also cracks down on its rampant lawlessness, it could join NATO and — by remaining a base area for Islamic terrorism — still represent a threat to the West. Russia has enough plutonium and uranium to make 33,000 nuclear weapons. These materials are stored at 50 scientific centers guarded by soldiers who, in the past, have gone months without being paid. It also has vast quantities of nuclear waste that can be used to make crude bombs capable of contaminating large areas. It has the world's largest inventory of chemical weapons — 40,000 tons — and a wide variety of biological weapons, including drug-resistant anthrax, smallpox and plague. At the same time, Russia's organized crime groups have a history of cooperation with terrorist organizations. Russian and Chechen criminal organizations cooperated in the transport and marketing of heroin from Afghanistan and, according to the Russian newspaper Izvestiya, after the Taliban came to power Osama bin Laden used these criminal organizations to launder money for the Taliban, receiving from $133 million to $1 billion a year. In the sarin nerve gas attack by the Japanese doomsday sect Aum Shinri Kyo on the Tokyo subway in 1993, the only case where terrorists have ever used nerve gas successfully, the production design for the manufacture of sarin was given to the sect by Oleg Lobov, Russia's former first deputy prime minister, for $100,000, according to testimony by cult members at the trial of the group's leaders in Tokyo. There are some reports that Mr. Lobov, a close associate of former Russian President Boris Yeltsin, was given $100 million for his many services to Aum Shinri Kyo. The Japanese "businessmen" were allowed to train on Russian military bases and attended lectures at the Institute of Thermodynamics of the Academy of Sciences in Moscow where they studied the circulation of gases. In recent weeks, it has been reported that bin Laden has bought several suitcase nuclear bombs from Russia which have not been used only because they are protected by Soviet codes that require a signal from Moscow before the bomb can be detonated. Izvestiya has reported that bin Laden has already spent considerable sums on the recruitment of Russian scientists and former KGB agents capable of helping him with the breaking of these codes. The Russian authorities deny the existence of suitcase nuclear bombs, but organized crime has been involved in nuclear smuggling from Russia since 1992. Recently, smugglers were arrested in Turkey after trying to sell 41/2 kilograms of unprocessed uranium and 6 grams of plutonium. Russian gangsters have sold combat helicopters to Colombian drug dealers and have attempted to sell not only surface-to-air missiles and a Tango-class submarine. Under these circumstances, it is just as important for the Russian government to crack down on organized crime as it is for the Muslim world and the West to eliminate any network capable of facilitating terror. In the case of Russia, this would be relatively easy. The activities of Russia's criminal syndicates have been exhaustively documented not only by the organs of law enforcement but also by the security services of their commercial competitors. For years, under Mr. Yeltsin, a massive crackdown on Russian organized crime awaited only a signal from the political authorities. Unfortunately, that signal never came. Under Mr. Putin, the indifference to the role of organized crime continues. In 1997, then FBI Director Louis J. Freeh, in testimony before the House International Relations Committee, said U.S. law enforcement agencies took very seriously the possibility nuclear weapons could fall into the hands of Russian criminal gangs and that Russian organized crime, by fostering instability in a nuclear power, constituted a direct threat to the national security interests of the United States. Now, with the entire world under direct threat from Islamic extremists, the United States needs to ask our new ally, Vladimir Putin, to begin to eradicate this danger even at the expense of the system of robber capitalism that has grown up in Russia during the last decade. David Satter is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and a visiting scholar at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). His new book on Russia after the fall of communism is upcoming from the Yale University Press. All site contents copyright © 2001 News World Communications, Inc. ***************************************************************** 19 U.S.-Russia N-cut vow laudable Daily Yomiuri On-Line [EDITORIAL] Yomiuri Shimbun In a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin Tuesday, U.S. President George W. Bush announced his country would slash the number of strategic nuclear warheads it possesses to between 1,700 and 2,200. The United States currently has about 7,000 long-range nuclear warheads, so Bush's curtailment plan--to be carried out unilaterally without negotiations--would slash about 70 percent of his country's nuclear arsenal. In a speech he made at the Russian Embassy later in the day, Putin expressed his intention to proceed with a reduction of a similar scale, saying that Moscow was ready to reduce its approximately 6,000 nuclear warheads to one-third that amount or less. The joint statement issued after the summit meeting also confirmed the two nuclear superpowers' intention to slash their strategic nuclear weapons stockpiles. We view these developments as highly significant because they give a new boost to efforts to reduce nuclear arms, which are the most visible legacy of the Cold War period. === Strapped Russia mooted cuts first Because it lacks the funds and infrastructure to safely maintain and control the nuclear arms in its possession, Moscow had suggested to Washington that Russia and the United States reduce their nuclear arms stockpiles to 1,500 or less, while calling for the launch of a third round of Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START 3). Bush rejected the idea of holding protracted arms-reduction talks. Determined to depart from the START negotiations of the Cold War period, Bush advocated a policy under which the United States would promote a reduction of nuclear arms on its own initiative. Behind this policy shift was the U.S. president's belief that it is possible to achieve the goal of ensuring safety and deterrence with a greatly reduced nuclear arsenal. The new formula aimed at promoting cuts in nuclear weapons without concluding a treaty should be welcomed because it would break the stalemate seen in U.S.-Russia strategic arms reduction talks during the past 10 years. Russia still insists that an agreement on verification of each other's reduction efforts is necessary. Nevertheless, Moscow should start working toward delivering on its commitment to realize nuclear arms cuts. If the United States and Russia are to achieve their reduction targets, the number of nuclear warheads possessed by the two countries would drop to the level of the 1960s, marking a major step forward toward nuclear disarmament. Missile shield is spanner in works Bush and Putin also discussed the contentious missile defense shield plan espoused by the United States. Washington insists that its missile defense plan is aimed at countering nuclear threats from what it terms "rogue states" and calls for the abolition or revision of the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty, which it says is a stumbling block to the building of a missile shield. Concerned that the U.S. missile defense plan would threaten the deterrent function of his country's nuclear arsenal, Putin stressed that Moscow's stance that the ABM treaty should be maintained remains unchanged. The gulf in the two sides' difference of views could not be narrowed, but Bush postponed the U.S. announcement of its withdrawal from the treaty. Washington and Moscow will continue to work toward building a new strategic framework. We hope that the cooperative relationship between the two countries, which has deepened in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the United States, will help smooth future bilateral security consultations. (From Nov. 15 Yomiuri Shimbun) Copyright 2001 The Yomiuri Shimbun ***************************************************************** 20 Russia is a source of the world terrorism Pravda.RU British Telegraph newspaper Nov, 13 2001 This is what the Western media are trying to convince the public of. PRAVDA.Ru has already reported about the scandalous article from the British Telegraph newspaper. This publication cited the words from the well-known Russia scientist and head of the scientific Vektor virology center, academician Lev Sandakhchiyev; the translation of his words were a bit “messy.” As a result, the scientist’s points of view turned into scary confessions: Russian low-paid virology scientists could sell virus cultures to terrorists. The Washington Post frightened their readers with a scary tale devoted to this subject. The newspaper “cited” the words of one of the supervisors of the Russian Nuclear Supervisory Board, Yury Volodin, who allegedly said that the nuclear arsenals in Russia were constantly subjected to terrorists’ attacks. Volodin said that there was at least one serious attempt to steal “nuclear materials” from Russian depositories within the last two years. The report saying the Russian nuclear arsenal was subjected to serious danger appeared at the conference of the International agency for the nuclear power in Vienna. The conference discussed the possibilities of acts of terrorism with respect to nuclear power plants and other similar objects of a high level of danger. Yury Volodin caught the Western experts by surprise when he told them things that had never been said before “about an incident that took place at one of the Russian nuclear objects during the last two years that could lead to serious consequences” – the newspaper wrote. Volodin did not say anything about that incident and what actually happened there. When today’s issue of the newspaper came out, Yury Volodin made his own comment on the published material. He claimed, he never made any such remarks. Volodin added that he made a report about the incident when a cargo of fuel arrived at one of the Russian nuclear objects and the amount of that fuel did not comply with the data mentioned in the documents. “There was a certain discrepancy,” – Volodin said. There was an investigation carried out after that. Of course, if there is a certain discrepancy, then there are questions coming regarding the the reason. One of the versions is surely a possible theft. However, as it was said by the chairman of the administration of the State Nuclear Supervisory board, the problem was a technical mistake in the documents. Volodin also stated that the incident happened with cargo that was carried over to a civil nuclear installation. Answering the question of whether the content of the cargo could be used in the military purposes, Volodin said that “there is such a notion of the material's direct usage,” and it "did not go about such materials in that case.” Thus, there is the translation issue. The Russian language is a very difficult one, that’s true. It is very difficult to clear up what Russian scientists actually say at international conferences. Therefore, the report about smallpox says that the terrorists already have the cultures of this virus and that they are about to use them. This information was immediately rejected by the Russian sanitary and epidemic supervisory board. The report about the discrepancy in the amount of the fuel for the nuclear power plants was the grounds for the material about the theft of the Russian nuclear arsenal. It is so difficult to understand the point of the Russian scientists that large parts of their reports are crossed out, changed, or even written for them. It is hard to understand what this is all for. Are they all tired of frightening the readers with Saddam Hussein or Bin Laden? Maybe the average Joe is no longer afraid of them anymore now. This seems the best thing to do – to publish a scary story in an American newspaper about a Russian biologist selling dangerous viruses to terrorists. Reuters : Russia Boosts Steps to Thwart Nuclear Terrorism Times of India : India, Russia agree on fighting terrorism BBC : Anthrax hits US consulate in Russia Read the original in Russian: [http://pravda.ru/main/2001/11/13/33754.html] Pravda.RU:World ***************************************************************** 21 Cheney: U.S. Fears Massive Attack NewsMax.com Wires Thursday, Nov. 15, 2001 WASHINGTON – Vice President Dick Cheney said Wednesday evening that he and President Bush are kept apart because the United States fears a decapitation attack by terrorists armed with weapons of mass destruction. "You've got people able to organize a conspiracy, able to come into the country and perhaps smuggle weapons of mass destruction in with them and threaten, in effect, not just one individual, but threaten the government and conceivably be able to try to decapitate the federal government," Cheney told CBS' "Sixty Minutes II." The comments mark the growing concern in the Bush administration over the possible use by terrorists of either radiological bombs or small, portable nuclear weapons, several administration officials told United Press International. Bin Laden's Nuclear Plans In Afghanistan, a reporter for a British newspaper found what the Times called al-Qaeda plans for an atomic bomb similar to the ones the United States dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki more than 56 years ago. The reporter discovered partially burned documents in a house in Kabul that residents said had been an al-Qaeda safe house. The plans – written in Urdu, Arabic, English and German – give detailed instructions on how to use TNT to force together enough uranium to create critical mass and an explosion, the Times reported. Experts said the technical expertise and precision necessary to produce an atomic bomb most likely is beyond the terrorists hiding in a war-torn country. Western experts and intelligence officials have said Osama bin Laden has been seeking nuclear material to make explosives for at least the last five years. U.S. groups created to respond to nuclear threats such as the Department of Energy's Nuclear Emergency Search Team (NEST) and the Pentagon's Joint Tactical Operations Team are "in stand-by mode, on major alert," according to one administration source. A former senior U.S. intelligence official added: "The level of concern here is very high." Last week, bin Laden told a Pakistani journalist that he had chemical and nuclear weapons. While many U.S. experts scoffed at the claim, even the possibility of it being true has proved profoundly unsettling to Washington's major policy makers, according to several sources. "It's hard to say for certain that bin Laden has no nuclear devices when we do know he has had multiple sources over many years for acquiring them," said Peter Probst, a terrorism analyst formerly with the Pentagon's Office of Special Operations Low-Intensity Conflict. But Larry Johnson, a former deputy director in the State Department's Office of Counter-terrorism and a onetime CIA employee, cautioned, "Americans are needlessly scaring themselves" about the possibility of a nuclear terrorist attack. "There is a ratcheting up of concern being pushed by certain individuals" in the Bush White House, he said. While most administration officials said they believe that bin Laden has not been able to acquire a finished nuclear weapon, they also said they did not rule it out. Nor did they rule out the possibility that bin Laden had been able to acquire enriched uranium and hired rogue Russian weapon designers to fashion it into a "workable fission device," in the words of one U.S. intelligence expert. But there is even greater concern about a radiological bomb – a conventional explosive device containing radioactive material – which could contaminate a city center and make it uninhabitable for dozens of years, as well as potentially killing thousands of people. A former senior CIA official said, "Detonating a conventional bomb that would strew radioactive waste around would make a terrible mess in downtown Washington, even if no one were killed." Soviet Legacy According to U.S. intelligence officials, administration concern is increasingly centering on the nuclear arsenal and weapons facilities of the former Soviet Union, which many experts believe were and still are inadequately protected, making it possible for rogue nations or terrorists using criminal organizations, such as the Chechen mafia, to steal nuclear weapons-grade materials, hire corrupt Russian nuclear technicians, or even buy finished Russian fission weapons. According to published reports, the countries of the former Soviet Union have 123 sites that house more than 1.100 metric tons of weapons-grade, highly enriched uranium and 160 metric tons of plutonium. Four kilograms are all that are needed to build a nuclear device, analysts said. Jim Ford, a former Department of Energy intelligence official who dealt with nuclear smuggling, said that in 1994, there were deep concerns about security at Russian nuclear facilities: "There were a number of incidents where Russian technicians or bureaucrats smuggled out materials and sold them in places like Munich or Prague." He added, "The big, big fear is that nuclear weapons have been sold." Stefan Leader, president of Eagle Research Group, Inc., and a terrorism specialist for a government agency, said that theft and trade of Russian nuclear materials "is an old story, but very worrying because security was so poor in many places and the Russians were in desperate straits." DOD's Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, known as the Nunn-Lugar program, has spent $4 billion to render harmless 5,708 nuclear warheads, destroy 483 surface-to-air missiles, and turn to junk other Russian weapons systems. Nunn-Lugar and other programs run by the energy and defense departments aim at reducing the threat from former Soviet installations. Advocates of these programs – such as Rose Gottemoeller, who served as assistant secretary of Energy for non-proliferation and national security during the Clinton administration – admit that since December 1991, when the Soviet Union dissolved into 14 independent states, with thousands of nuclear weapons, there has been no comprehensive and reliable inventory made of such weapons. Gottemoeller also concedes that improved security had been installed at only 55% of former Soviet Union nuclear sites. Peter Probst and several U.S. intelligence officials voiced the fear that bin Laden has used contacts in the Russian mafia or the Chechen mafia to broker a deal that brought him a Russian nuclear weapon. U.S. intelligence officials said only that they were aware of reports of efforts by bin Laden to acquire such weapons. An expert in nuclear smuggling and a government consultant to DOE on the subject, Rensselaer Lee, discounted the widespread belief that most vendors on the black market are selling junk or have been stopped by sting operations: "I think behind the visible market of nuclear smugglers, you have a shadow market that's well-organized and involves nation-states." Probst and Lee believe that bin Laden has approached Iran or Iraq and attempted to purchase weapons-grade materials from them. "In terms of a nuclear buyer, we live in a post-proliferation environment," Lee said. "The proliferation of these nuclear weapons is a reality. Trying to stop fissile experts from Russia from selling their knowledge or materials is like trying to stop cocaine coming in from Colombia. We catch only about 25% of Colombia's product." The real question is "what are we going to do for damage control?" he said. Copyright 2001 by United Press International. ***************************************************************** 22 In Bremerton, not everything is shipshape Thursday, November 15, 2001 By GORDY HOLT SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER BREMERTON -- Original art hangs at almost every table on freshly scrubbed and painted walls, belying the appearance of the scruffy building's exterior. But Smiley's Subs has a target on its back. Jim Thompson, 34, works at Smiley's Subs, a deli next to the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton. The Navy may take the land the deli sits on. Paul Kitagaki Jr. / Seattle Post-Intelligencer Click for larger photo The Navy wants to widen the security perimeter at its Puget Sound Naval Shipyard here, and to do so would chew up still another piece of this downtown, a neighborhood that has long been hurting. "My initial thought was, I'd better be compensated somehow if this goes through," said Ray Clarke as he carried in supplies from his car. Clarke is the Smiley in Smiley's Subs. He's been here 10 years. "And, boy, have I seen this neighborhood change," he said. If the Navy goes ahead with its plans -- and there's no guarantee that it will -- the buildings in Smiley's strip would fall like dominos, beginning at the north end with the old F.W. Woolworth building, now an antique mall called Old Wooly's. A parking lot that used to be a set of buildings before they burned down is next, then a couple of other structures that contain a guitar shop and a nightclub. The street is anchored on its southwest corner by a building that once contained a McDonald's. An outline of the Golden Arches, sketched in hardened glue, is visible on an outside wall near the front door where Brian Jackson was tending a backyard barbecue. He was heating the grill to cook hot dogs and hamburgers for the shipyard lunch bunch. "Do something for you?" Jackson asked. He had not heard of the Navy's plan, but little is known, and the Navy is saying less. Shipyard spokeswoman Mary Anne Mascianica stopped short of calling the news premature. But, she said, the need for increased security arose following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. She would not say whether extended buffer areas were being considered elsewhere along the yard's perimeter. "We're evaluating our security, which includes the potential acquisition of property," she said. "But that's as far down the process as we are." The narrow two-block stretch that includes Smiley's reaches from First Street to Burwell Street along Pacific Avenue. The strip is one block west of the Bremerton Ferry Terminal, where a tourist's first glimpse of Bremerton is the shipyard's industrial profile. The yard is a refitting, modernization and ship repair facility founded by the Navy in 1891. It sprawls along Sinclair Inlet for nearly 700 acres in a complex split almost evenly between dry land and sea bottom. Included among its six dry docks is the West Coast's largest, which can lift an aircraft carrier. As a government facility, the shipyard pays no property tax. And as a military outfit, it is subject to the ups and downs of military budgets. But it has given Bremerton its reason for being -- despite its liabilities. Nuclear fuel is rumored to be in some of the vessels that hove to regularly at the Sinclair Inlet docks. But the truth of such matters is largely classified. Despite the old war adage that loose lips sink ships, however, this is a Navy town, and what goes around, sometimes gets told around. As Clarke was expressing his fear of losing his shop, for example, a warship was sliding quietly away from town and into Rich Passage. The vessel was said to be bound for the munitions depot at Indian Island near Port Townsend, and eventually for the Middle East. The knowledge of the shipyard's special mission and it specialty security arrangements give some the jitters. [Security Zone] The Navy may use this part of Pacific Avenue in Bremerton as a security zone. Paul Kitagaki Jr. / Seattle Post-Intelligencer Click for larger photo "I think increased security here, especially right here, would be a good idea," said a city parking checker who was out of his rig marking tires near the proposed new buffer. Although he would not identify himself, he said he was a retired shipyard worker with nearly 40 years' experience who knows what's inside the fence. "Stuff that could be sabotaged easily is not that far away from this side," he said, "so a buffer would be good." Among those with the jitters was Lou Ann Quast, the manager of Old Wooly's. She and her family bought the antique mall business about two years ago, and they've struggled to keep their 50 dealers happy. "Would this be good for the city? My answer is no," Quast said. "We're the largest business downtown with 10,000 square feet. How could anyone think of destroying something like this?" Quast said news that the Navy was even thinking of expanding its border already has caused three of her dealers to look for other quarters. "This (news) has made people scared," she said. "Coupled with everything else that's happened this year, it's no fun. "People aren't buying right now. They come in, but they don't buy. They just wander around." Old Wooly's was created in a building that had sat empty for a while. The old five-and-dime, a downtown fixture since before World War II, fell victim to the retail vacuum created 15 years ago when JC Penney moved to the Kitsap Mall in unincorporated Silverdale. One after another, downtown doors closed, and few have reopened. The two-story Penney building, a faceless monument to artless architecture in a town of rich brick façades, stands smack in the middle, still dark as city leaders debate its fate. The downtown district's malaise has long scarred Bremerton's psyche as well as its politics. It became an issue this year, too, in the campaign for mayor between native son Louis Mentor and Bellevue transplant Cary Bozeman. Bozeman, the winner in this month's general election, promised to meet with the shipyard's civilian chief, Steve Anderson. "I think a lot depends on the quality of the buffer they want, whether there's a greenbelt or not," Bozeman said. "We should be part of any process." P-I reporter Gordy Holt can be reached at 206-448-8156 or gordyholt@seattlepi.com [Seattle Post-Intelligencer] 101 Elliott Ave. W. Seattle, WA 98119 (206) 448-8000 Send comments to [newmedia@seattle-pi.com] ©1999-2001 Seattle Post-Intelligencer Terms of Service/Privacy Policy ***************************************************************** 23 NTS training proposal to be discussed Las Vegas SUN Today: November 15, 2001 at 10:15:36 PST WASHINGTON -- Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., planned to meet with Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham today to discuss a proposal to turn the nuclear bomb-scarred Nevada Test Site into a national counter-terrorism training academy. Abraham has shown growing interest in the proposal, Reid's aides said. Nevada lawmakers touted the plan before the Sept. 11 attacks. But the attacks put the proposal in a new light for federal officials looking for creative ways to battle terrorism, the lawmakers have said. Nevada lawmakers say the former Cold War testing ground for atomic bombs is a perfect site for modern-day anti-terrorism training programs, ranging from special operation forces training to bioterrorism simulations for emergency workers. Some of the site's usable underground tunnels would offer unique training conditions, Nevada lawmakers say. The Test Site in recent years has been home to "weapons of mass destruction" training courses held several times a year for local, state and federal law enforcement officers and emergency response teams. Congress this year expanded the training, allocating $10 million. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 24 In Congress, Pork Stays on Menu (washingtonpost.com) Pet Projects Sometimes at Odds With New Spending Demands By John Lancaster and Dan Morgan Washington Post Staff Writers Thursday, November 15, 2001; Page A01 Last month, lawmakers rejected a proposal to add $131 million to a program that helps Russia keep track of its nuclear stockpile. It's not that they didn't like the idea: After Sept. 11, almost everyone in Congress agrees on the need to do more to stop terrorists from acquiring nuclear bombs. But House and Senate negotiators meeting to decide the final shape of a $24.6 billion spending bill covering the nation's nuclear and water programs could not find room for the increase. They had other priorities, including: • A museum at the Atomic Testing History Institute in Las Vegas ($1 million). • Aquatic-weed removal in the Lavaca and Navidad rivers in Texas ($300,000). • A study of erosion on Waikiki Beach in Hawaii ($350,000). Targeting funds for specific projects at the request of individual lawmakers is a time-honored ritual on Capitol Hill, and this year is no exception. But as Congress completes work on 13 annual spending bills, its business-as-usual approach to managing the federal budget is colliding with the new demands of fighting terrorism. The soaring costs of responding to the attacks -- Congress has already approved $40 billion for the purpose -- have done little so far to curb congressional appetites for courthouses, highways, dams, parks and other purely parochial items. According to congressional aides, the number of such "earmarks" in this year's crop of spending bills is likely to approach or even exceed last year's record number, which was estimated by the White House budget office at 6,400 (a threefold increase from 1995). Many of the earmarks, as in previous years, reflect political clout more than national need. Money is flowing disproportionately to the districts of appropriations committee members and congressional leaders -- including self-described fiscal conservatives such as Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott, who secured millions for projects in his home state of Mississippi. "These legislative hijinks are bad enough in peacetime," Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) told the Senate last week, after noting acidly that on Sept. 13, while the Pentagon and the World Trade Center "still smoldered," the Senate approved $2 million for the Oregon Groundfish Outreach Program. "America is at war. . . . Congress should grow up and stop treating the domestic budget as a political Toys R Us." There is no shortage of examples: $510,000 for a chapel at Kaneohe Bay Marine Corps Base in Hawaii; $100,000 to study the feasibility of converting a building in Martinsburg, W.Va., to a museum for Army artifacts; $70,000 to refurbish a bird observatory in Montgomery County, Pa.; $500,000 for the Montana Sheep Institute. "Pork thrives in good times and bad times," said Allen Schick, a congressional expert at the the Brookings Institution. He added, "The problem is not the individual project, but the cumulative effect. . . . When you add up the total, it just blows your mind." Earmarks do not automatically swell the federal budget, because in some cases they merely direct government agencies to spend money for specific purposes within the limits of available funds. But many of this year's items were added on top of President Bush's budget request, sometimes in House-Senate conferences where they received little scrutiny. Successive administrations have insisted that such choices are better left to federal agencies, complaining that earmarks create upward pressure on the budget by crowding out more important needs. Members of the appropriations committees -- who note that the Constitution grants Congress authority over spending -- say they can judge local needs better than federal bureaucrats because they have their ears to the ground back home. Several congressional aides defended this year's earmarks, observing that spending legislation was largely drafted -- and in some cases voted on by one or both chambers -- before Sept. 11. They also noted that, whatever the particulars of individual bills, spending is on track to stay within the overall budget ceiling of $686 billion negotiated by the Bush administration and congressional leaders last month. There is little question, however, that the fat surplus projections of recent years, now fading into memory, have eased pressure on Congress to show restraint. White House budget director Mitchell E. Daniels Jr. has all but abandoned the quest he launched earlier this year to contain the practice of earmarking. "To be honest, the appropriators weren't that receptive," an administration official said. Despite broad bipartisan agreement on the need to spend more to fight terrorism -- lawmakers have tried without success to persuade the White House to lift the $40 billion ceiling on emergency spending related to the Sept. 11 attacks -- they have been reluctant to do so at the expense of pet projects back home. During a House-Senate conference on the energy and water bill Oct. 26, for example, Rep. Chet Edwards (D-Tex.) offered an amendment that would have added $131 million to an Energy Department program to help Russia safeguard its nuclear materials. He was responding, in part, to a January warning by a department task force -- chaired by former Senate Republican leader Howard H. Baker Jr. (Tenn.) and former White House counsel Lloyd Cutler -- that lax nuclear security in Russia was "the most urgent unmet national security threat to the United States today." But conferees rejected Edwards's proposal to shift the money from a program to refurbish nuclear warheads in the U.S. arsenal. Nor did they consider taking funds from hundreds of local water projects or other earmarks, such as the atomic history museum. "That's a very fair question to ask," Edwards said when queried about why he did not suggest the option. Edwards said that while he would have been open to an across-the-board cut in water projects to fund the nonproliferation program, "it is politically very difficult" to eliminate individual earmarks -- some of which, he acknowledged, he sought on behalf of his own constituents. The $1 million earmark to pay for exhibits at the Atomic Testing History Institute was added by Sen. Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), the assistant majority leader, who chairs the energy and water panel of the Appropriations Committee. Reid's hand is evident throughout the final bill, which adds 50 Nevada-specific items worth $146 million to Bush's original budget request. According to a spokesman, Reid strongly supports the Energy Department's nonproliferation efforts but objects to shifting funds for the purpose "at the eleventh hour." The spokesman, Nathan Naylor, said it was not surprising that a bill to fund nuclear programs would steer a lot of money to Nevada, given the state's central role in nuclear testing. Naylor said the atomic history museum would "chronicle the historic sacrifice that Nevada has made for the country during the Cold War," when some of its residents were poisoned by radiation from above-ground tests in the 1950s. "This is part of our history, and if this is what it costs to protect that legacy, so be it," he said. Reid is hardly alone in using his leadership post to channel federal resources to the folks back home. Lott, for example, has joined the Bush administration in opposing additional spending for homeland defense, the military and New York City in a pending supplemental appropriations bill. "He's concerned about spending just spiraling completely out of control," Lott told reporters last week. "And I share that concern." But even as Lott was making that comment, the Senate was giving final approval to a spending bill that included $10 million for the Stennis Space Center in Bay St. Louis, Miss.; $50,000 for a street extension that will "link cultural and entertainment districts" in Jackson, Miss.; $500,000 for Lott's alma mater, the University of Mississippi; and more than $1 million for water systems in Jackson and Picayune, Miss. In a similar vein, Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.) used his power as chairman of the Appropriations defense subcommittee to steer a $10 million grant to the city of San Bernardino, in his district, to clean up the underground water supply., The bill would direct the Army to clean up radioactive waste at a site in the district of Rep. John P. Murtha (Pa.), the ranking Democrat on the panel. Senate appropriators, meanwhile, used the $10.5 billion military construction bill, signed by the president on Nov. 5, to speed up stalled environmental projects in their states and districts. For example, the report attached to the enacted bill gives the Pentagon 90 days to submit a master plan for "environmental remediation" of Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in San Francisco, home town of the chairman of the military construction panel in the Senate, Dianne Feinstein (D). According to a Senate study, the nine states that will receive the most earmarked military construction money are represented by senior members of the defense or military construction panels, or the two armed services committees. To pay for earmarked projects while staying within a $10.5 billion ceiling established by the appropriations committees, House and Senate conferees adopted a 1.127 percent across-the-board cut in regular military construction accounts. 2001 The Washington Post Company ***************************************************************** 25 Opinion: Nuclear Research is Beneficial and Necessary The Daily Californian - Thursday, November 15, 2001 In response to the recent ASUC bill criticizing the University of California's role in managing national laboratories, it is worth mentioning that the National Ignition Facility (NIF) under construction at Livermore is also designed to develop nuclear fusion, a clean and virtually inexhaustible source of energy. Secondly, we cannot realistically expect nuclear weapons to disappear in the foreseeable future as some nation or group, "rogue" or otherwise, may build nuclear arms and threaten to use them. To manage these potential and current threats, Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) has been effective in preventing a nuclear exchange and encouraging dialogue. No National Missile Defense system is necessary and may destabilize the current balance of power. However, MAD hinges on our ability to ASSURE the reliability and (ironically) safety of our current stockpile. This can be accomplished by two primary means: full-scale nuclear weapons tests (either above/below ground or in the South Pacific), or through science-based stockpile stewardship programs at facilities like the NIF. The latter option is preferable, ultimately allowing us to evaluate the status of our stockpile and make informed decisions on arms reduction while avoiding weapons tests. One of the major reasons why the U.S. Senate did not ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty was that they felt that we could not ensure the reliability and effectiveness of our weapons in the absence of testing. Therefore, science-based stockpile stewardship is preferred. While we are in full support of the movement to abolish nuclear weapons, we do not support the efforts to end the University of California's management of these national laboratories. If not U.C. management, then who? Perhaps a national security agency or the military? A corporation? In any case, transparency at these labs will likely decrease in addition to reducing the pool of scientific talent and we will all be worse off. Lance Kim and Shane Guess President and Secretary, American Nuclear Society E-mail: dailycal@dailycal.org ***************************************************************** 26 Diplomatic Fault Lines Shift With Terror War Thursday November 15 10:11 AM EST By DOYLE McMANUS A decade ago, Russia's nuclear missiles were a mortal threat to the United States and Afghanistan was a backward country that Americans could safely ignore. Now, Afghanistan is the focus of U.S. foreign policy and Russia is an increasingly close ally whose nuclear arsenal is shrinking. That seemingly abrupt change was dramatized Wednesday when President Bush welcomed Russian President Vladimir V. Putin to his Texas ranch after talks on joint action against terrorism as well as nuclear arms control. To some, the week's tumultuous events are evidence that the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon changed "everything"--at least, everything in U.S. foreign policy. "Since the end of the Cold War, we've been looking for a central organizing principle for our national security policy," said Terry L. Deibel, a professor at the National War College. "The war on terrorism isn't another Cold War, . . . but as a central organizing threat, it's pretty close." But in other ways, Deibel and other scholars argue, the striking images of the past week are not just products of Sept. 11. They also reflect long-term trends that have been gathering strength for years. Copyright © 2001 Yahoo! Inc. ***************************************************************** 27 De-alerting Russian and US nuclear weapons - briefing book (English language) A path to reducing nuclear dangers Institute of International Economy and Foreign Relations Russian Academy of Sciences (IMEMO RAS) Authors: A.G. Arbatov, V.S. Belous, A.A. Pikaev, V.G. Baranovsky Moscow, 2001 High Degree Of Alert Of Nuclear Arms And Accident As A Factor In The Emergence Of A War "We must beware, lest the Stone Age return upon the gleaming wings of science." --Winston Churchill The danger which stems from maintaining excessive nuclear arsenals and from the potential of their use, has forced the U.S.S.R. and the US.A. to embark on negotiations and to enter into agreements on the reduction of nuclear forces. The recycling of missiles and equipment under INF Treaty has been completed; START I is nearing fulfillment. START II has been signed, but has not yet come into force. Numerous statements have been made at the highest level concerning the desire to achieve deep cuts in the strategic nuclear forces of the two countries. However, neither the end of the Cold War nor the obvious progress in the area of nuclear arms limitation and verification and the repeated statements by the leaders of the two countries that Russia and the United States are no longer strategic adversaries, have made any qualitative changes in their military and political relations. According to experts, as of today, Russia and the United States each possess approximately 6,000 strategic weapons. In this, a significant portion of the nuclear warheads is continuously maintained on high alert. This means that Russian or U.S. IBMs can be launched in just minutes upon the receipt of the launch command, and the SLBMs deployed on the patrolling strategic submarines can be launched in 15 minutes. The total number of warheads maintained on high alert by both the Russian and the U.S. side equals 3,500-4,000. It seems that the launch-on-warning concept, which presupposes continuous combat readiness of the most vulnerable systems, such as silo-launched ICBMs, coupled with a flawed early warning system (EWS), increases the probability of an accidental nuclear war. The most apparent way to prevent the consequences of a mistake or incorrect interpretation of EWS data is to de-alert the strategic nuclear forces and to extend the decision-making time vis-a-vis a nuclear attack. The decision to de-alert would also promote progress on the way toward SNF reductions, while preserving the deterrence potential. If nuclear forces of both sides are maintained at lower levels of combat readiness, there is no need to have large quantities of warheads and delivery vehicles, which are maintained out of the fear that a large portion of the arsenal could be destroyed in a preventive surprise strike by the adversary. "Accidental Nuclear War" As A New Historic Phenomenon Mutual mistrust and suspicions between the U.S.S.R. and the United States, evolving for decades following the end of World War II, gradually led to the development of long-range, high-charge, high-precision nuclear weapons systems with a high degree of combat readiness. It is particularly characteristic of the ground-launched and sea-launched nuclear missile arsenals of the two countries which are maintained on high alert, ready to be launched upon the receipt of a corresponding command. The missiles in silos have the highest degree of alert, about one minute, while missiles on submarines can be launched within 15 minutes, and the combat-ready bombers can take off within 5 minutes. In Russia, in peacetime conditions, heavy bombers are not maintained on alert. They fly in accordance with combat training plans, without nuclear missiles on board. Simulations of a nuclear attack have shown that the political leadership of the country, in order to prevent the loss of their own offensive arms, will be forced to make the decision to deliver a retaliatory strike within an extremely short period of time (3-4 minutes). The capability of delivering a sudden massive strike on the SNF of the adversary and thus leave it defenseless, has forced the U.S.S.R. and the U.S.A. to turn to the launch-on-warning concept (in which a retaliatory strike is directed at the adversary prior to its nuclear warheads hitting their targets). The high degree of combat readiness, coupled with the launch-on-warning concept, the few minutes allotted for decision-making, and the enormous destructive power of nuclear weapons, has brought to life a brand new phenomenon called "accidental nuclear war." The realistic nature of this virtual threat is manifested, for instance, in the fact that the combined charge of warheads carried by a single U.S. MX missile or by a single Russian SS-18 missile approximates the overall charge of all the munitions detonated during the entire duration of World War II. That said, we should mention that MX and SS-18 missiles constitute only a portion of nuclear armaments of the United States and Russia which are maintained in a constant alert configuration. An accidental launch of an intercontinental missile, from land or from sea, or a detonation of a nuclear warhead on the territory of another country, capable of destroying an entire city in a blink of an eye, can, just like the infamous 1914 Saraevo shot, put the mechanism of World War III in motion in a matter of seconds. The utmost sophistication of modern weaponry and the continuous effort to increase the degree of its combat readiness objectively promote a higher risk of its accidental self-activation. The highest danger lies in the launch of all weapons which are maintained on alert, in an exchange of massive nuclear strikes. The placement of electronic locks on nuclear weapons, which require a special coded signal to be keyed in, in order to activate the weapons for combat employment, and the creation of various safety systems with multiple redundancies meant to prevent accidental self-activation of weapons, have significantly improved the operational safety of nuclear weapons while also decreasing the probability of their inadvertent or unauthorized combat employment. However, all these measures cannot fully guarantee the prevention of "non-standard" situations involving nuclear weapons which can potentially lead to severe consequences. This conclusion is particularly topical for Russia and the United States as owners of immense nuclear arsenals, and also for "young" nuclear nations, which currently do not have a more or less established nuclear safety system. It is customary to believe that only the United States and Russia maintain their nuclear forces in a state of constant alert. However, this does not mean that other nuclear nations, as they upgrade their forces, will not follow the example set by Russia and the U.S.A. To prevent that from happening, Russia and the United States should de-alert their respective nuclear armaments. As we know, the strategic nuclear forces of Russia and the United States possess all the three forms of combat capabilities: preventive (first) strike; launch-on-warning; and retaliatory strike capabilities. Deep ideological and political contradictions which developed between the two countries during the years of the Cold War gave rise to mistrust and suspicions which run just as deep and which have repeatedly brought about crisis situations. In the Cold War environment, both nations considered the launch-on-warning to be the primary form of combat, which determined the necessity to keep the forces on hair-trigger alert, ready to be employed literally in tens of seconds. Launch-on-warning, although significantly less topical now (compared to the Cold War period), continues to be the foundation of the nuclear policy of both Russia and the United States. Attachment to launch-on-warning plays a more important role for Russia, whose primary strategic nuclear potential is concentrated on ground-launched missiles kept in silos. It is a known fact that given the modern-day precision and power characteristics of the U.S. strategic offensive arms, silo launchers can be destroyed by just one guided missile with a high degree of probability. If the United States abandoned the task of maintaining their SNF at high alert thus ceasing to pose a potential threat from the point of view of delivering a disabling strike, the launch-on-warning concept would become less important for Russia. In order to assure a high degree of survivability, mobile missile systems must be in continuous random motion within the positioning area. However, in reality, they are kept most of the time in stationary shelters, thus increasing the probability of being hit in a surprise attack. At the same time, there can be no doubt that in the post-Cold War environment, both sides must take practical steps towards abandoning the launch-on-warning posture in favor of a purely retaliatory stance. This presupposes the extension of time required to prepare the missiles for launch, so that a nuclear war could not be started due to human or computer error. The high alert status of nuclear weapons increases the risk of an accidental nuclear war for a number of reasons, which can be grouped as follows: + data processing and combat command and control systems errors; + technical faults and failures of combat systems; + inadequate evaluation of the evolving situation by the top political and military command and erroneous decision-making; and + erroneous or unauthorized actions as well as mental breakdowns of the attending military personnel in charge of the nuclear weapons. Effect of Errors In The Data Processing And Combat Command And Control Systems On The Probability Of An Accidental Nuclear Conflict As historical experience demonstrates, the highest potential danger of an accidental nuclear conflict lies in the reconnaissance data gathering systems, command and control systems and early warning systems (EWS). Let us look at the problem based on EWS operation example. As we all know, the early warning systems of both Russia and the United States are based on complex radio-technical and infrared equipment systems, both ground-based and space-based, are highly automated and saturated with fast-acting computers. This is precisely the system which outputs the initial signal which serves as the basis for making the launch-on-warning decision. The non-absolute reliability of the early warning systems could lead to a nuclear conflict despite the will of the top political command of the nation, due to the fact that erroneous information and the high degree of combat readiness of nuclear weapons could be at the core of the decision-making process. History knows many incidents of early warning systems giving false alarms of an incoming nuclear missile attack by the adversary. Here are just a few examples. In 1961, U.S. early-warning radar registered a sudden emergence of a multitude of unknown objects flying at a great speed towards the United States. After this data has been processed in the system, the Strategic Air Command (SAC) immediately put its forces on combat alert. Everything was ready for a strike, and only some time later it was discovered that all the panic had been caused by the flying fragments of the detonated tank of the U.S. Transit satellite. In June of 1980, the warning system located at the SAC command post near Omaha, Nebraska, gave a signal of an incoming submarine-launched ballistic missile attack. All the B-52 bomber crews on duty received the command to take their places and turn on the engines. The airborne command post was readied for takeoff as well. Only three minutes later did it become clear that it was a false alarm, and an all-clear signal sounded. Subsequent investigation of the incident revealed that the false alarm had been caused by the malfunctioning of a 50-cent computer microchip of the early warning system. A steel spill at a metallurgical plant, when observed from space, can be mistaken for a missile launch. According to experts, during the 1980's, false initial signals were registered 6 times daily on average by the early warning systems. Similar incidents occurred in the operation of the Soviet (Russian) EWS as well. In January of 1982, Soviet radar covering the southward direction registered an incoming ballistic missile. In response to this signal, the command post was put on heightened combat alert. Only several minutes later did it become clear that the cause for the alarm had been the test launch by Israel of the Jericho-2 missile, which had a flight range of 1,450 km and therefore did not pose any threat to the U.S.S.R. In June of 1985, the radar covering eastward direction registered a ballistic missile flying within the surveillance area. The signal was so strong that the target was immediately followed. Further analysis of the moving target at the command post revealed that the signal had been generated by a satellite possessing high reflectivity to solar light. Following the breakup of the Soviet Union, the Russian early warning system was put to a hard test. Out of the nine EWS radars, only three remained within Russia, while the rest of the radars ended up on the territory of other Commonwealth countries: two in Ukraine, and one each in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Belorussia and Latvia. At the urge of the Latvian government, the radar located on its territory was dismantled, thus baring the north-western direction of potential missile attack. According to the agreement with the countries of the Commonwealth, the remaining radars stay in operation for the common good of all involved. The north-western direction will be covered by the radar which is now being built near Baranovichi, Belorussia. The issue of the status of the Gabalinsk radar in Azerbaijan, the crew of which has to operate under complex conditions, remains unsettled. In addition to the above, Ukraine and Azerbaijan are part of GUUAM, whose members often diverge from Russia in their opinion on security issues. Therefore, one cannot rule out the impossibility of Russia's using radars located in Ukraine and Azerbaijan. We should acknowledge that the operational reliability of a branched-out early warning system is inferior to that of the single early missile warning system of the former U.S.S.R. An indirect proof can be found in the incident involving an accidental destruction of the Russian passenger airliner with an S-200 antiaircraft missile fired during a drill in October of 2001 by the Ukrainian Air Defense Forces. This demonstrated the deterioration and lack of reliability of a number of EWS-related components of the Ukrainian armed forces. The situation is further aggravated by the fact that the Russian EWS space complex has been seriously weakened in the recent years due to economic hardships suffered by the nation, and is currently operating in its abbreviated configuration. All of the above lowers the degree of assuredness of the failure-free operation of the Russian EWS, thus dictating the necessity to abandon the concept of launching nuclear missiles "on warning." Widely publicized has been the incident involving the launch of the U.S. Black Brant-12 research rocket from Andoya Island Rocket Range in Norway in January of 1995. Prominent U.S. experts believe that the information on preparations for the launch, which had been provided to the relevant Russian officials in a timely fashion, did not reach the corresponding services. As a consequence, the signal picked up on radar screens was interpreted as an incoming missile attack originating from a U.S. submarine. The information on a potential missile attack in progress was relayed up the chain of command. As a result, as Western analysts and mass media maintain, the "nuclear suitcase" was activated for the first time. Only several minutes before the retaliatory strike decision was supposed to be made did the Russian military command come to the conclusion that the missile did not constitute a threat. We should also keep in mind that EWS is influenced by the so-called Type I and Type II errors, which are interconnected through probabilistic relations. Type I error is a missed event, in our case, a missile launch by an adversary, while Type II error is a false alarm. The value of the "activation threshold" of the EWS system's sensors determines the probability of the former or the latter errors. Thus, a high sensitivity threshold of sensors will provide for a high degree of protection against false alarms, but at the same time will harbor the danger of the early warning system not reacting at some point to a real launch of adversary's missiles. On the other hand, lowering the sensitivity threshold, which could be typical of a crisis environment, will increase the probability of the system generating a false alarm. Naturally, in the latter case, the level of nervousness and suspicion between opposing nations will sharply increase, the strategic stability will decrease, and the risk of an accidental nuclear war will grow. Such instability causes a situation in which, as Professor Paul Braken correctly stated, "no one wants war, but everyone would prefer to attack first in order not to be the second." Should something go wrong, a war, having crossed the "nuclear threshold," would develop in accordance with its own intrinsic laws marked by ultimate irrationality and high speed of escalation. In peacetime free from the burden of an escalating military confrontation, primary danger arises out of false alarms. This is precisely the conclusion which can be drawn from many failures and false alarms in the early missile warning systems. The development of the military command system software is especially difficult, particularly from the point of view of the corresponding degree of reliability. The abundance and complexity of functional relations, the multitude and unpredictability of potential combat situations, as well as active counteraction on the part of the adversary highly complicate the structure and the volume of software programs. As the world experience demonstrates, even the most qualified of programmers are not fully warranted against bad mistakes. According to Holstead's theory, for large software programs the number of errors grows in proportion to their length logarithm (i.e. the number of lines of the programming code), thus making the idea of developing an error-free complex combat system command and control software program quite dubious. What all of the above means is that relying on such computerized systems can lead to tragic consequences due to their intrinsic lack of reliability. To prove the above statement, a single example would suffice. During the conflict between Great Britain and Argentina over Falkland Islands (Islas Malvin), one of the best ships of the British fleet went down, the Sheffield destroyer, equipped with a state-of-the-art computerized air defense system. The investigation into the reasons of its demise revealed that during the development of the software program for the control of the ship's air defense system, the British programmers overlooked the recent addition to the Argentinian fleet of the French Exocet anti-ship missile. This particular missile is included in the arsenal of the NATO countries, and as such was registered as a "friendly type" missile in the air defense system control software of the British destroyer. As a result of this error, when the missile approached the ship, the devices for radio countering and destruction of airborne targets were not activated. The missile went through the air defense zone with no obstruction and with a direct hit sent the destroyer to the bottom of the ocean. Over the decades of the Cold War, the military command of Russia had developed a strictly centralized (even more so than its U.S. counterpart, as some of the U.S. military experts admit) nuclear forces command and control system, with multiple redundancies. The high degree of reliability of this system has never been doubted. However, in recent years, the situation has become somewhat more complex in this area. First and foremost this has to do with the reduced amount of financing available for maintaining the technical reliability of the data gathering and surveillance systems and combat command and control systems - a development which gives experts grounds for serious concern. Former Minister of Defense of Russia Igor Rodionov admitted to that effect by saying, "if lack of financial resources persists,... Russia could soon approach a threshold beyond which missiles and nuclear systems become unmanageable." This state of affairs is a cause of great concern for the new Russian leadership. In particular, this was reflected in the program for the construction and development of the Russian Federation Armed Forces up to the year 2005, which, among other things, is focused on the task of maintaining and improving combat command, control and communications system. Extending launch preparation time appears to be the best solution to the problem of potential errors or false interpretation of EWS data. Technical Faults And Failures Of Weapon Systems There are many widely known instances of technical failures in the weapon systems and a large number of accidents involving nuclear weapons carriers: ships, planes and rockets, which have not resulted in a nuclear catastrophe yet by sheer luck. Below are a few examples in support of the above statement. The demise of USS Thresher which went down in 1963, burying the entire crew and the weapons, marked the beginning of the nuclear weapons carriers' accidents at sea. That incident was followed by a number of nuclear submarine accidents at sea. In 1968, a Soviet K-129 submarine carrying nuclear weapons on board went down in the Pacific Ocean. In 1980, a fire broke out on the Soviet Echo submarine. In June of 1983, as a result of a technical failure, USS Charlie carrying a nuclear load sank. In March of 1984, Soviet Victor submarine was severely damaged following a collision with Kitty Hawk aircraft carrier and had to be towed to base. In October of 1986, a Soviet Yankee-1 submarine caught on fire and went down, together with the 16 strategic missiles on board. In April of 1989, Soviet submarine Komsomoletz sank in the Norwegian Sea as a result of fire that broke out on board. It carried nuclear-tipped torpedoes and cruise missiles. In June of 1989, there was an accident involving the primary power-supply unit of another submarine, also armed, among other things, with nuclear-tipped torpedoes and cruise missiles. The accident was successfully neutralized and the submarine was towed to Severomorsk. The most recent accident in this line was the sinking of the Kursk nuclear submarine which met its end in the Barents Sea as a result of the explosion of a weapon that it carried on board. It is hard to imagine what could have happened had the submarine carried cruise missiles or nuclear-tipped torpedoes, as had been the case with this kind of submarines prior to 1991. This incident makes us truly appreciate the far-sighted steps taken in the fall of 1991 by Presidents George Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev toward removing tactical nuclear weapons from surface vessels and submarines. We know of a number of serious incidents involving missiles. For instance, in August of 1966, a liquid-fuel engine Titan-2 ICBM carrying a megaton-class warhead exploded in silo in the United States. The accident which occurred in September of 1980 at the airbase in Little Rock, Arkansas, took the lives of almost 50 military men, when the same missile exploded in its silo. The wave of the explosion threw the megaton-charge warhead out of the silo. In June of 1987, at the Wallop's Island testing ground, Virginia, a lightning bolt caused the solid-fuel engines of the Orion missile and two smaller missiles to activate and self-launch. Incidents involving aircraft carriers of nuclear weapons are also part of the history (release of nuclear weapons, which fell together with the wrecked U.S. plane in the area of Palomares, Spain; crashing of a bomber carrying nuclear bombs near the coast of Greenland). Widely publicized was the explosion in October of 1960 of one of the new Soviet missiles during its preparation for a test launch at the Baikonur testing ground. This accident took the lives of the Commander-in-Chief of the Soviet Strategic Rocket Forces, Artillery Head Marshall Mitrophan Nedelin and about one hundred combat crew men. In July of 1983, another missile carrier was the subject of a massive explosion at the same testing ground. Russia knows many cases of explosions of warheads in storage within its borders. Luckily, no nuclear warheads were kept at the same storage facilities. One should admit with regret that in recent years, the problem of technical reliability of the strategic weapons systems included in the combat inventory has become worse. This has to do with the fact that a significant number of these systems have exhausted the warranty service life established by the designers and are subject to replacement with the new designs. However, due to lack of resources required for these purposes, the decision was made to carry service life extension work meant to keep several types of weapons in the combat inventory. Commander-in-Chief of the Strategic Rocket Forces General Vladimir Yakovlev admitted in 1998 that already at that time 62% of missile systems and 71% of command and control systems in the arsenal of the forces were beyond their warranty life spans. In order to extend the service life of missiles by one-and-a-half times, a complex of activities is carried out jointly with the industry, such as individual diagnostics of each missile, replacement of individuals units and assemblies, some further system improvements. The situation with submarine missile carriers is not much better. Their established warranty service life of 25 years can be ensured only if they undergo average maintenance every 7-8 years. However, the state lacks the necessary resources to support these technical requirements, which causes an early retirement of submarines from combat inventory. At the same time, the problem of extending the service life of ballistic missiles carried on board of the submarines remains just as acute as in the case of the strategic rocket forces. Despite the assurances of certain high-ranking military men concerning the high technical reliability of the strategic offensive arms systems, there is no doubt that the attempt to extend their warranty service life is a forced measure, taken out of necessity which a priori implies certain negative aspects. It is not a coincidence that U.S. Secretary of Defense Bill Perry while evaluating the potential threat of the Russian nuclear weapons, including the danger stemming from its lowered technical reliability, asserted that the best way to assure the safety of the United States is to help destroy the nuclear weapons of the former adversary. The Role Of The Human Factor In Causing A War The role of the human factor is very prominent in the fate of nuclear weapons. The accumulation of tremendous arsenals of nuclear weapons and the saturation of virtually all types of military forces with nuclear weapons has lead to the daily involvement of tens of thousands of military men in the servicing, transportation and safeguarding of nuclear weapons. In the mid-1980's, more than 150,000 people had access to handling nuclear weapons in the United States army, air force and navy. The picture was more or less the same at the time in the U.S.S.R. military. Even though in Russia that number has significantly shrunk, it still involves tens of thousands of people with access to nuclear weapons throughout their life cycle. Despite the fairly strict selection and heightened psychological and physiological control, some of these men can suffer a nervous breakdown as a result of significant mental stress, with most severe consequences. The U.S. newspapers carried a story based on a real-life case involving an air force sergeant who, suffering from a mental breakdown, "made a lame attempt to take his own life" by shooting from a pistol at a nuclear warhead. It is not coincidental that the concern on the part of the United States with regard to Russian nuclear safety lead to the passing of the Nunn-Lugar Act, which calls for assistance to Russia in its efforts to eliminate weapons of mass destruction and to strengthen its nuclear safety. An example of this assistance is the supply of containers and special railcar equipment for the transportation of nuclear warheads, of protective covers, as well as several "lie detectors" and equipment sets used to determine which individuals are mentally unstable, as well as those prone to alcohol and drug abuse. According to some experts, it is precisely the human factor that constitutes the weakest link in the nuclear safety assurance system. This problem is of particular urgency in Russia, where the deteriorating social and economic situation has significantly complicated the conditions of the military personnel. About 12,000 officers in the strategic rocket forces are on combat duty in underground command posts and on mobile missile systems, in the higher command and control centers. Several hundred Navy men serve their country in the ocean depths without coming to the surface for 2-3 months. At the same time, the low wages of officers, lower-rank officers in particular, do not provide their families with the needed living standards, while poor housing conditions complicate the every-day life of officers. Currently, tens of thousands of officers do not have their own apartments. In these conditions, many young officers leave the army ranks soon after graduating from the military academies, while others look for ways to earn extra money on the side. Social and economic troubles in the country have worsened the attitude toward military service in general, weakened the discipline among rank-and-file military men, and lowered confidence in the precision of the performance of their direct duties, including the requirements to ensure nuclear safety and to prevent unauthorized actions. However, in the Russian Armed Forces only officers and non-commissioned officers have direct access to nuclear weapons in their line of duty, the majority of whom, due to the peculiarities of the Russian mindset, still approach the task of carrying out their military duties quite responsibly. Instances of violations and crimes committed by regular service soldiers and sergeants, which end up widely publicized, testify to the need to improve the system of selection for special forces service and to maintain constant control over their moral and psychological condition. A case in point, for instance, we can cite the fact that in 1998 alone a number of serious incidents took place at nuclear facilities: one of the soldiers shot the guards at Mayak radio chemical plant; a sailor committed suicide on Vepr nuclear submarine (Northern fleet), having locked himself in the torpedo section; three soldiers captured hostages at Novaya Zemlya nuclear testing ground. The described incidents are testimony to the fact that the human factor problem is one of the primary issues as far as preventing nuclear weapons accidents is concerned. However, there can hardly be any doubt that this problem can be fully eliminated only in the conditions of an economic revival of Russia and a significant improvement of the social and economic conditions of the nation's population. Only a simultaneous solution of international military and political and domestic social and economic problems will make it possible for us to count on reducing the risk of an accidental nuclear war to the minimal level. Due to the exacerbation of the international terrorism problem, the socio-psychological factor is gaining importance. First of all, this has to do with the risk of terrorists gaining access to nuclear facilities granted by mentally unstable or financially needy personnel. Even though such fears have not been justified so far, in light of the evolving situation, one should treat them with particular seriousness. Inadequate, Erroneous Decision-Making By The Top Political Leaders Experts in the area of complex systems notice a deep correlation between the probability of occurrence of erroneous or unauthorized actions involving nuclear weapons and the level of global stability and degree of military confrontation. During the periods of heightened military tensions between nuclear nations, the probability of an accidental nuclear war can increase due to inadequate evaluation of the situation and of the intentions of the potential adversary under stress, lowered sensitivity threshold of EWS sensors, mental stress of command and control post operators. The desire to unveil the plans of the opponent is influenced by so many fortuitous factors, stereotypes of times past, and the peculiar conformism of collective mentality that it is quite risky to talk about the adequacy of decision-making in such a situation. As is rightfully mentioned by many researchers, in the final analysis, nuclear safety depends on people entrusted to make military decisions. In this, individuals often behave differently as part of working groups rather than acting on their own. This is particularly true of stressful situations, when they cease individual thinking in favor of the opinion of the leader or of a simple majority. The stressful environment which emerges when a missile launch signal (potentially false) is received is further aggravated by the very short missile flight time during which a decision must be made, as well as by the high degree of combat readiness of the national nuclear forces. Decisions made at the top political level are of particular significance. The complexity and an extremely high level of responsibility for making a decision which could separate peace from war, creates an environment of acute stress for the leaders of nuclear nations. Approximate calculations and simulations of combat situations demonstrate that if a signal of an incoming nuclear strike by an adversary is received, the top political leadership of the defending country will have no more than 3-4 minutes to evaluate the situation and make the launch-on-warning decision. In conditions like this the probability of making erroneous decisions inadequate for the situation at hand dramatically increases. The experience of the top political leaders of the United States and the U.S.S.R. attest to that. Former National Security Advisor to the President of the United States Brent Scowcroft gave a fairly picturesque description of the behavior of U.S. presidents during study sessions and discussions concerning nuclear forces management. "My experience shows that after the first couple of days, they are absolutely horrified when all of a sudden they realize that they are in charge of all this and they are the only ones who must make the decisions." The reaction of the former U.S.S.R. President Mikhail Gorbachev in a similar situation is just as emblematic. In an interview with a U.S. correspondent Jonathan Shell he reminisced, "When I was being taught how to use the "nuclear button" or the "black case," the following situation was described to me: I could be notified of an attack from one direction, and while I am thinking of what to do next, the same minute another message comes in concerning a nuclear attack from another direction. And these are the conditions in which I have to make the decision." In an environment characterized by the emergence of new nuclear nations and proliferation throughout the world of delivery means of long-range weapons of mass destruction, the uncertainties faced by the top military and political leadership of the United States and Russia become even more pronounced. Thus, a deliberate or accidental launch of an Indian, Pakistani or Israeli missile heading toward Russia can be interpreted as a launch of an American SLBM initiating in the Indian Ocean or the Mediterranean, while the flight trajectory of Chinese missiles heading toward targets located in North America partially crosses the Russian territory, which during a certain time creates uncertainty as to their real target. Summarizing the review of the primary causes which promote an accidental nuclear catastrophe, one should point out that at the basis of them all is the high alert status of the strategic offensive arms. It is about time we understood - and turned that understanding into a practical plane - that given the new geo-strategic environment, it is hardly possible to assure a high level of strategic stability without radical nuclear weapons reductions and without de-alerting those which are retained in active inventory. Weapons Reductions As The Main Direction Toward Increased Nuclear Safety We believe that at the present time and in the observable future, practical steps on the road to nuclear arms reduction will have the most influence on increasing safety and on preventing inadvertent or unauthorized missile launches. The understanding of the reality of a nuclear war threat despite the will of the political leadership of the U.S.S.R. and the U.S.A. had lead to the start of negotiations as early as in the second half of 1960's concerning the limitation of the nuclear arms race and reduction of nuclear arsenals. The signing of the Interim Agreement On The Limitation Of Strategic Offensive Arms (SALT I) in 1972 served as the first step in that direction. In 1979, the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT II) was signed, but was never put into effect. The signing and implementation of the U.S.-Soviet Treaty On The Elimination Of Intermediate-Range And Shorter-Range Missiles (INF) played an important role in terms of strengthening the strategic stability and averting an accidental conflict. In July of 1991, START I Treaty was signed in Moscow, providing, for the first time in history, for deep cuts in the strategic nuclear forces: from the level of 10,500 to the level of 6,000 warheads on strategic carriers, not to exceed 4,900 on ICBM and SLBM, with the overall number of carriers not to exceed 1,600. Everyone had big hopes for START II in that regard, which was signed in January of 1993, providing for a reduction in the number of warheads on carriers to the levels of no more than 3,000 - 3,500, with under 1,750 of the warheads on missiles carried by submarines, and for the elimination of the destabilizing MIRVed ICBMs, the main component of the preventive and launch-on-warning strikes. The U.S. Senate ratified the Treaty in 1996; Russia ratified START II as part of the New York package in 2000. The legal conflict which emerged as a result has not been resolved yet. The United States does not plan on ratifying the 1997 New York agreements, and START II cannot come into force without this ratification. Also unclear is further fate of the bilateral Russian-American dialog on strategic nuclear forces reduction. Implementing the proposal put forth by President Vladimir Putin concerning further reductions in strategic offensive arms down to the levels of 1,500 warheads would promote an even greater strategic stability and a significant decrease of the threat of emergence of any "non-standard" situations. However, a reduction by itself, without any additional agreed-upon measures to strengthen the strategic stability, will not necessarily result in a lower nuclear threat level. De-Alerting Nuclear Weapons When considering the problem of averting an accidental nuclear conflict, one should admit that the risk of the emergence of such a conflict can be totally eliminated only if there is a total ban on nuclear weapons combined with the destruction of their entire stockpiles under strict international monitoring. However, in the nearest future, mankind will not be able to fully shed the nuclear threat potential once and for all. This means that the world community must assure the highest possible degree of safety of nuclear weapons. One of the main directions on this path consists of de-alerting both strategic and tactical nuclear weapons. Although Russia (U.S.S.R.) and the United States have been discussing this issue at various levels for almost thirty years now, we have to admit that in the area of strategic nuclear forces de-alerting, only the very first steps have been made so far. The initiative taken by President George Bush in September of 1991 served as a very positive example of implementing the thesis on the need to de-alert strategic offensive arms. He ordered to fully de-alert several dozen heavy bombers which prior to that step had been on hair-trigger alert for decades, ready for takeoff within several minutes in response to an early warning system signal. At the same time, he ordered to de-alert 450 Minuteman-2 strategic missiles and Poseidon SLBMs on 10 submarine missile carriers. However, most impressive was his commitment concerning deep cuts, up to the complete elimination of individual types, in the arsenal of the most prevalent of nuclear weapons: tactical. He announced the plans of the United States to move to its territory all the artillery shells and tactical warheads so that they could be destroyed, and to remove all tactical nuclear weapons from surface ships, multipurpose submarines as well as ground-based naval aviation, while maintaining an effective air-based nuclear potential in Europe (500 air bombs with a total charge of 96 Mt). As a response to the Bush initiative, President Mikhail Gorbachev ordered to de-alert over 150 ICBMs in silos and 6 missile carrying submarines, to lower the alert levels of heavy bombers, and to maintain rail-based combat-ready missile systems in a stationary configuration in places of their permanent deployment. He also undertook reciprocal steps aimed at the reduction, partial elimination and radical de-alerting of tactical nuclear weapons by virtually "mirroring" the initiative of George Bush. Later on, Russian President Boris Yeltsin confirmed these plans and filled them with specific content in the Statement On The Russian Policy Concerning Arms Limitation And Reduction. Soon afterward the schedule of partial and complete elimination of various types of tactical nuclear weapons was announced, which provided for their dismantling by the year 2000, inclusive. Virtually all potential threats point to a particular need to de-alert nuclear weapons, especially from the viewpoint of preventing an accidental nuclear war. The potential range of practical steps aimed at nuclear de-alerting is quite broad and varied and includes measures ranging from mutual de-targeting of strategic offensive arms all the way up to the removal of nuclear warheads from all delivery vehicles. The main purpose of de-alerting is to eliminate the threat of an accidental nuclear conflict by allowing the top leadership of nuclear nations sufficient time to perform a comprehensive evaluation of the situation at hand and therefore to make adequate decisions. The solutions of the organizational and technical nature aimed at de-alerting differ from each other by the three main parameters, namely: + the time it takes to re-alert; + the possibility of mutual verification; and + the cost of de-alerting and re-alerting. The agreement between Russia and the United States on mutual de-targeting signed in 1994 served as the first step toward de-alerting. Later on similar agreements were signed between Russia and other nuclear states. However, one should admit that this step was more political than military in its significance, since on the one hand, it is not verifiable, and on the other hand, only 1-2 minutes are required to re-target the missiles. At the same time we should keep in mind that alert levels are quite sensitive to the changes in the foreign political situation, crises in particular. Despite the lessons of the Cuban missile crisis, such examples happened on later dates as well. When in 1968 Soviet troops marched into Czechoslovakia, the leaders in Moscow, fearful of potential actions on the part of NATO and the United States, ordered to put the strategic rocket forces on heightened alert. During the Arab-Israeli 1973 armed conflict, similar actions aimed at increasing the alert levels of nuclear forces were taken by the United States. Later we found out that during this event combat crew commanders had retrieved the envelopes containing launch keys and presidential codes - an act which in an of itself increased the probability of an unauthorized or accidental missile launch. Both the tactical aspect and sequence of actions aimed at de-alerting strategic arms should be carefully thought through. This means that in the beginning it makes sense to use simpler de-alerting procedures which would provide for non-burdening levels of the main parameters: a relatively short re-alerting time (should it become necessary to re-alert); possibility of verification; and acceptable financial costs. As the transparency and mutual trust increase, deeper levels of de-alerting could gradually be achieved. It would be expedient to start the movement in this direction with de-alerting the most dangerous, from the point of view of accidental or unauthorized actions, ground-based missiles which are maintained daily on the highest, hair-trigger alert in their complete configuration. In the beginning, the degree of their combat readiness could be lowered through the removal from missiles of individual assemblies and units, such as on-board power supply, shroud, silo cover blocking system, etc. Then, later on, we could switch to deeper de-alerting measures, all the way to the removal of warheads from the missiles and their storage in specialized off-site facilities, away from launch pads. In order to verify the technical status of a missile in silo it is necessary to replace its nuclear warhead with an electronic simulator - an action which by itself would require significant financial resources. In this, one has to remember that the removal of warheads form delivery vehicles followed by their safe storage is possible only in the conditions of deep strategic arms cuts. As Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Defense Committee Alexei Arbatov rightly points out, "if an attempt is made to implement the de-alerting concept by way of warhead removal prior to eliminating the tremendous arsenals of nuclear weapons, the issues related to the safety of their storage, transportation and recycling could become insurmountable." This confirms yet another time the need to achieve far-going reductions in nuclear arsenals which, by decreasing the direct threat of a nuclear conflict, open up the road toward the implementation of a cardinal solution of the strategic offensive arms de-alerting problem. De-alerting ballistic missiles carried by submarines (SLBMs) could prove to be a more difficult task. In addition to high financial costs, such an operation would raise doubts as to the preservation of this component within the nuclear triad. Cruiser patrol with missiles but without warheads mounted on the missiles makes no sense whatsoever. The same submarines, while in base, lose their main combat function, that of survivability, and become quite an attractive target, not only for nuclear weapons, but for conventional weapons as well. The process of restoring combat readiness of SLBMs would take a significantly long time, measured in weeks. Therefore the issue of de-alerting SLBMs seems to be the most complex out of all the strategic offensive armaments. Most likely, the initial steps will involve a partial removal of warheads from SLBMs and the search for and coordination of a number of organizational and technical measures which would assure a sufficient time margin necessary for the crew to launch a missile in response to the launch command. De-alerting heavy bombers equipped with nuclear weapons would have relatively little influence on decreasing the threat of accidental or unauthorized actions potentially resulting in a nuclear catastrophe, the reason lying, first and foremost, in their lower combat readiness compared to missiles, and also in their flight time preceding the launch of cruise missiles from their board, which is quite long. During that time, a command can be given to cancel the order to engage in combat and to return the heavy bomber to its base. At the same time, it is quite difficult to verify the alert status of heavy bombers. For instance, they can be loaded with tactical nuclear munitions which are not subject to the prohibitions under the strategic arms limitation treaties and they can be stored at the same airfields. The role and significance of the air component of the nuclear triad may grow substantially if nuclear weapons are removed from all strategic arms. In that case, the time required to re-alert heavy bombers will be the shortest out of all the strategic offensive arms. In a situation like that, the role and significance of heavy bombers in terms of delivering a massive first strike on the opponent could dramatically increase, particularly for the side which possesses a superiority in the air component of the triad. De-alerting strategic offensive arms in effect means their transfer to the so-called "return potential", or reversibility category, which, as evidenced by the course of discussions of this issue within the START II framework, is a particularly sensitive issue for Russia. The situation is further aggravated by the fact that the existing asymmetry of the composition and structure of the strategic nuclear forces of both sides dictates the need to search for reasonable compromise on issues concerning de-alerting the various components of the nuclear triad. A number of esteemed U.S. experts (B. Blair, G. Favison, F. von Hippel) believe that it is expedient for the United States to be the first to de-alert its missiles, thus giving a signal to Russia to follow suit. They propose to take off alert first-strike weapons, such as 50 Peacekeeper missiles, carrying 500 high-precision high-charge warheads and 400 similar Trident-2 W-88 SLBMs warheads. As a second step along this road, they recommend that all ground-launched missiles (500 Minuteman-3 missiles) be deactivated in a similar fashion, the number of deployed missile-carrying submarines be cut by half and the number of warheads on each SLBM be reduced from 8 to 4. At the same time, they consider it necessary to provide for a change in missile launch preparation operations so that the crew of the submarine would need at least 24 hours to accomplish that task. They count on Russia to respond to the U.S. initiative by taking similar steps, just as it happened with the statements by the leaders of the two nations in September-October of 1991. The authors of these proposals believe that the indicated measures, if undertaken by both sides, will significantly lower the threat of an accidental nuclear conflict. At the same time, the remaining combat-ready retaliatory means which possess a high degree of survivability (i.e. being able to survive a first nuclear strike by the opponent) will ensure the strategic stability at the level of minimum nuclear deterrence required to disrupt the attack of any potential aggressor. If both sides undertake the indicated steps, their capabilities of delivering the first strike will significantly decrease while the launch-on-warning probability will be materially limited. At the same time, the political leadership of Russia and the United States can decide to maintain a certain portion of their strategic forces on full alert temporarily, until the other nuclear nations follow suit. The final goal should be de-alerting all ground-launched and sea-launched missiles which are maintained on constant alert, under mutual verification arrangements which have been provided for by arms limitation agreements already in place and by those which may be concluded in the future. The main goal of the verification should be the assuredness that no nuclear state is taking clandestine steps to increase the alert levels of its strategic forces. The risk of an erroneous evaluation of the situation brought about by an accidental missile launch can be lowered through the use of a direct line of communications between Moscow and Washington, introduced in 1963 under the influence of the Cuban missile crisis. In 1971, U.S.S.R. and USA signed an Agreement On Measures To Reduce The Nuclear War Threat. The agreement delineated the actions of each side in the event of an inadvertent missile launch. It contains the requirements to the actions by the side who is the owner of the launched missile regarding its neutralization and destruction before it causes any kind of damage. Shortly after that Deputy Minister Victor Karpov made a statement that in the Soviet Union, all ICBMs had been equipped with self-destruct devices allowing to destroy the missile after it had been launched from the ground in respond to the command. The present situation is more favorable now than before in terms of taking practical steps toward de-alerting the strategic offensive forces. At the U.S.-Russian presidential summits, first in Ljubljana and then in Genoa, the problems of strategic stability were discussed in a new format which provides for the consideration of both offensive and defensive components of stability in one package (START/ABM). It is hardly possible to consider the status and the potential of strengthening strategic stability without giving due account to the influence exerted on it by the high alert status of strategic offensive arms and by the de-alerting measures. There is no doubt that Russia and the United States, as two nuclear superpowers, must take the initiative and make the first steps toward real de-alerting. Only then will it become possible to cause other nuclear nations to undertake the commitment not to maintain or put their nuclear forces on high alert. The issue of de-alerting strategic offensive armaments must soon be looked at in the practical realm, pursuant to earlier agreements. During the summit in Helsinki in March of 1997, the presidents of Russia and the United States agreed "to de-activate, by December 31, 2003, all strategic carriers of nuclear weapons subject to elimination under START II, by way of detaching their nuclear warheads and by taking other mutually agreed-upon steps." Despite the fact that this agreement is not legally binding until START II Treaty actually comes into effect, decisions like this give us hope that Russia and the United States are determined to gradually de-alert their respective strategic offensive arms thus strengthening the strategic stability and helping prevent an accidental nuclear conflict. In the solution of this problem the leadership of the two countries will undoubtedly lean on the world community for support. Nuclear Weapons and NATO Expansion Russia meets NATO expansion with concern and lack of understanding. Certain Russian politicians and parliamentarians perceive of NATO policy as openly hostile toward Russia, and accuse the United States and NATO of breaking their gentleman agreements of the late 1980-s, when the Soviet Union withdrew its troops from Eastern Europe and the Warsaw Treaty Organization was disbanded, while the U.S.S.R. obtained assurances of "non-proliferation" of the NATO military structure to the East. At the diplomacy level, Moscow has repeatedly stated that acceptance of new members into the NATO alliance only creates new watersheds in Europe and does not promote security, stability or trust either at the continent or in the world. Russia's attitude is particularly negative in what concerns the prospects of accepting former republics of the Soviet Union into the Alliance. The spring of 1999 witnessed NATO expansion by way of inclusion in the alliance of the "first wave" countries, such as Poland, Hungary and Czec Republic, which presented the greatest military and strategic interest in terms of war plans with anti-Russia orientation. As a result, the operational range of the alliance increased by 650-700 km. NATO gained access to approximately 290 airfields, most of which could become bases for combat aviation; up to 500 deployed military warehouses; a branched-out network of motor roads and railroads providing for a fast relocation and deployment of troops. Combat aviation gained the capability to hit targets located in the European part of Russia, up to the Grozny-Sratov-Kotlas-Arkhangelsk line. NATO expansion against the backdrop of the implementation of the Conventional Arms Limitations Treaty in Europe resulted in approximately a 3:1 force correlation between NATO and Russia. Many an expert in Russia believes that in such an environment Russia is forced to accentuate its nuclear capabilities. Experts also note the lowering of the nuclear use threshold, which is reflected in the military doctrine of Russia. It is quite indicative that Russia held in April of 1999 a meeting of the Russian Federation Security Council chaired by the President of Russia which considered the issues of the nuclear weapons complex. Among issues that were discussed at the meeting significant attention was paid to the concept of development and combat utilization of tactical nuclear weapons as an effective means of equalizing the capabilities of both sides and of assuring the national security of Russia. Even though 2000-01 witnessed a significant improvement in the relations between Russia and the West, NATO included, it remains unclear to what degree the latter is ready in reality to take into account the security interests of the Russian Federation. Obviously, the continuation of the Western policy of the 1990's, which was interpreted in Moscow as that of ignoring Russia's interests, cannot lead to greater confidence building and, therefore, will negatively affect the entire spectrum of the military and political relations, including the control over the strategic nuclear forces and the prospects of their de-alerting. Influence Of Missile Defenses Deployment On The Alert Levels Of Strategic Offensive Arms As we all know, strategic offensive and defensive arms are closely connected and form a single system of strategic armaments. It is not coincidental that SALT I Treaty and ABM Treaty were signed on one and the same day, May 26, 1972. Russia believes that the ABM Treaty has served as the "cornerstone of strategic stability" for thirty years, promoting the cessation of the arms race and the strengthening of strategic stability. Its military and strategic meaning boils down to the fact that in absence of an area missile defense system, an aggressor nation becomes vulnerable to a retaliatory strike, even a weak one, by the country which had become the victim of attack. This means the realization of the fact that there will be no winners in a nuclear war: "whoever shoots first will inevitably die second." This is precisely the concept on which mutual nuclear deterrence is based, which lies at the heart of strategic stability. The United States explains its intention to deploy national missile defense system by the existence of a missile attack threat emanating from certain countries, as well as the potential of an inadvertent or unauthorized launch. As of late, there has been talk in the United States concerning the development of a so-called "limited" National ABM (NABM) system, which, as the U.S. Administration maintains, should pose no threat to Russia. However, even a limited NABM system will include the following three key components: + reconnaissance and data gathering system; + combat command, control and communications system; and + interception capabilities. Since the talk is about the development of a system to protect against limited strikes across the entire U.S. territory, the first two components must cover all 50 states. The only component to be limited is the number of means of interception, which can be increased manifold within a short period of time. In practice this means that under the screen of a so-called "limited" ABM system the U.S. will be developing the BASIS for a large-scale ABM system to cover its entire territory, which is prohibited by Article 1 of the ABM Treaty. Therefore there are grounds to believe, which Russia does, that the future ABM system will in effect have an anti-Russian and anti-Chinese foundation. The ABM problem should be reflected in the consultations which have commenced between Russian and American experts and political leaders on the search for a compromise in the discussion of strategic stability issues in connection with START/ABM as a single system. According to Alexei Arbatov, "if Washington agrees to sign a new START treaty acceptable to Moscow, a number of amendments can be made to the ABM Treaty, which would allow to engage in more diverse testing of anti-missile systems and components. The issue of their deployment could be the topic of special future negotiations, depending on the evaluation of threats and technology development." If the decision to deploy national missile defense system is made by the United States, Russia could take reciprocal measures. In the opinion of military experts, these measures will most likely be asymmetrical in nature and will follow three main directions: + improvement of national strategic offensive forces aimed at increasing their ability to beat the prospective ABM system; + search for new methods of combat employment of strategic offensive arms; and + preparation to engage in active combat against the most vulnerable components of the ABM system, for the purposes of its neutralization. Evidently, preparations for countering an ABM system will include, among a whole line of specific measures, the activities aimed at maintaining Russian strategic offensive arms on constant alert, since in this case Russia will be forced to an even greater degree of dependence on the launch-on-warning strike. These forced measures will in no way promote higher nuclear security and elimination of the potential threat of an accidental nuclear conflict. Summary Conclusions and Recommendations 1. The process of globalization taking over the world, which is gaining more and more momentum in such spheres as the economy, information technologies, high-tech, etc., is extending to the sphere of military security as well. This legitimately results in a higher degree of dependence of the state of national security of each individual country on the level of strategic stability in the world. As President Vladimir Putin pointed out, there is no country that can build a safe world for its own sake, let alone to the detriment of others. 2. What's needed is a constructive dialog in search of mutually acceptable solutions. Russia and the United States must, first of all, achieve results during the consultations on the strategic stability issues within the START/ABM framework, keeping in mind the need to prevent a new round of the arms race and to reduce the accumulated arsenals to the level of reasonable necessity. While holding the negotiations in the START/ABM format, it is necessary to agree on the main military and doctrinal points, ensuring, among other things, the abandonment of the nuclear launch-on-warning posture as one of the main threats of unleashing an accidental nuclear conflict. 3. Only if we abandon the concept of maintaining our nuclear forces on constant alert do we have a real chance of reducing the probability of an accidental nuclear war. De-alerting measures could be discussed and adopted in parallel to the START/ABM and strategic arms limitations consultations. Unilateral, step-by-step measures are also possible, followed by discussion and augmented by confidence-building measures. At the same time, we should keep in mind that in the reality of huge existing arsenals, de-alerting, if performed by way of removing warheads from delivery vehicles, can become quite a complex task due to financial and technical considerations related to storage, transportation and recycling of removed warheads. 4. Steps to de-alert Russian and U.S. SNF could give a new impetus to the Russian-American dialog concerning the new format of strategic relations between the two countries. In particular, Russia could consider the possibility of de-alerting ahead of time a portion of ICBMs which were slated for destruction under START II Treaty, even if this document never becomes effective. The United States, in its turn, could reduce the number of its SSBNs maintained on constant combat patrol. The parties could also consider the possibility of de-alerting their respective SLBMs deployed on submarines kept in base. If the political relations improve, Russia and the United States could take farther-reaching measures, making other nuclear nations join them in these endeavors. 5. One should keep in mind that the alert level of strategic nuclear forces and the resulting probability of an accidental nuclear conflict are in direct dependence on the state of relations between the nuclear powers. This means that by taking unfriendly steps toward Russia, such as eastward expansion of NATO and unilateral withdrawal from the ABM Treaty on the part of the United States, will stand in the way of de-alerting the strategic and tactical nuclear arms. 6. In the conditions of the current complex and dynamic international situation, a significant role in the search for ways of preventing armed conflicts is played by non-governmental and public organizations, the activities of which are free from any commitments and allow to conduct broad research and to search for non-trivial ways of maintaining strategic stability. It is possible to begin discussions at the expert level on the probable ways to de-alert strategic nuclear forces and to institute mutual verification arrangements over the implementation of the existing commitments of Russia and the United States in what concerns efforts to de-alert tactical nuclear weapons. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bibliography 1. Arbatov, A. Security: Russian Choice. M., 1999, p. 525. 2. Belous, V. U.S. ABM System: Dreams vs. Reality. M., 2000, p. 300. 3 The New York Times, 1980, Sept. 22. 4. Belous, V. The Prevention of the Nuclear Threat - a Main Global Problem. Edited by Carin Wedar. Towards a Nuclear-Weapon-Free World. Stockholm, 1993. 5. Belous, V. Counteracting Accidental Nuclear War. Edited by H. Wiberg. Inadvertent Nuclear War. Pergamon Press, 1993 6. Arbatov, A. et al. START II vs. Russia's National Security. ., 1993, pp. 9-12. 7. AR Statement, 1987, June 12. 8. Podvig, P. et al. Russia's Strategic Nuclear Arms. ., 1998, p. 478. 9. Belous, V. The Role Of Accident In The Emergence Of A War. SSHA: Economika, Politika, Ideologia. 1990, N 7. pp. 38-46. 10. Gromyko, A., Hellman, M. et al. Breakthrough: Development Of A New Mentality. ., 1988, pp. 60, 72. 11. R. Macnamara. Through Trial And Error To Catastrophe. Translation from the English. ., Nauka, 1988, p. 150. 12. Lin, G. Development Of Software For The ABM System. V Mire Nauki, 1986, No. 2, p. 8, 9. 13. Zarubezhnoye Voyennoye Obozreniye, 1985, No. 9, p.17,18. 14. B. Blair, G. Favison, F. von Hippel. De-Alerting Nuclear Weapons. Yadernoye Rasprostraneniye, 1998, February. 15. Baichurin, R. Interview with Colonel General Igor Sergeev. Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 1994, December 15. 16 Arbatov, A. Once Again On The ABM. Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 2001, July 4. 17. Belous, V. Premature Initiatives. Nezavisimoye Voyennoye Obozreniye,1997, No. 35. 18. Marukha, V. 23 Minute Till The End Of the World, Or Did The World Stand On The Brink Of War on January 25, 1995? Yadernaya Bezopasnost., 1997, August. 19. Moiseev, N. "Gay" System And The Forbidden Line. Mir Nauki, 1985, No. 1, pp. 2, 3. 20. B. Blair, G. Kendall. Accidental Nuclear War. Mir Nauki, 1991, No. 2, p.14-18. 21. Dolinin, A. Now The Missiles Are Not Targeted At Each Other. Krasnaya Zvezda, 1994, January 20. 22. Belous, V. When "Strategist" Are Left Out Of The Game. Yadernaya Bezopasnost, 1998, June/July. 23. Belous, V. Russia's System Of Nuclear Safety. Yadernoye Rasprostraneniye, 1999, Issue 31-32. 24. Belous, V. How Safe Is The "Safety Guarantee"? Yadernaya Bezopasnost, 1998, April/May. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This report has been prepared by the Non-Proliferation and Arms Reduction Sector of the Political and Military Forecasting Center (PMFC) of the Institute of International Economy and Foreign Relations (IMEMO) of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Project Leader: A.A. Pikaev. Authors: A.G. Arbatov, V.S. Belous, A.A. Pikaev, V.G. Baranovsky. ABOUT THE AUTHORS: Alexei Georgievich ARBATOV, Ph.D., Head of RAS IMEMO PMFC, State Duma Deputy, Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Defense Committee Vladimir Semyonovich BELOUS, Ph.D., Leading Research Associate of the Institute of International Economy and Foreign Relations (IMEMO) of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Professor of the Military Sciences Academy, Major General (Ret.). Alexander Alexeevich PIKAEV - Candidate of Political Sciences, Head of the RAS IMEMO PMFC Non-Proliferation and Arms Reduction Center, Assistant State Duma Deputy Vladimir Georgievich BARANOVSKY - Ph.D., Deputy Director, RAS IMEMO Research & Project Management Team: G.K. Lednev, T.U. Farnasova, V.I. Matveeva, Zh.V. Shatilova Institute for Energy and Environmental Research [http://www.ieer.org/index.html] Comments to Global Outreach Coordinator: michele@ieer.org [michele@ieer.org] Takoma Park, Maryland, USA November 2001 ***************************************************************** 28 China welcomes Russia and U-S commitment on nuclear weapons China has welcomed an announcement by Russia and the United States to reduce their nuclear weapons. Beijing says commitments by Moscow and Washington to make deep cuts in their nuclear arsenals should be "verifiable and legally binding" US President, George W. Bush, announced at a joint press conference with visiting Russian President, Vladimir Putin that he would cut the US nuclear arsenal by two-thirds to between 1,700-2,200 weapons within the next decade. Later, in remarks broadcast on Moscow television from Washington, Mr Putin announced a "radical" cut in Russia's long-range nuclear arsenal to about a third of its present size. 15/11/01 22:30:27 | ABC Radio Australia News Policy [http://www.abc.net.au/privacy.htm] ***************************************************************** 29 -DOE seeks progress on contractor's safety Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 12:23 p.m. on Thursday, November 15, 2001 by Paul Parson Oak Ridger staff The Department of Energy has revoked validation of a key safety process implemented by Bechtel Jacobs Co., but the decision isn't expected to impact the work the company is doing in Oak Ridge. Bechtel Jacobs is in charge of nuclear cleanup activities at facilities under the jurisdiction of DOE's Oak Ridge Operations office, including the Oak Ridge K-25 site. The process under scrutiny is known as the Integrated Safety Management System. Rod Nelson, assistant manager for DOE's Oak Ridge Environmental Management program, briefly addressed DOE's decision during the Oak Ridge Site-Specific Advisory Board meeting Wednesday night at the Garden Plaza Hotel. He says it stems from a letter the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board sent last month to Robert Gordon Card, undersecretary of Energy, Science and Environment. The board pointed out that several Integrated Safety Management System-related deficiencies have yet to be remedied despite the fact that DOE pointed them out to Bechtel Jacobs Co. over a year ago. The system is a process that incorporates safety into management and work practices at all levels, addressing all types of work and all types of hazards, to ensure safety for the workers, the public and the environment. "DOE felt that maybe there had not been enough progress," Nelson said. Dennis Hill, a spokesman for Bechtel Jacobs, said this morning that the company will have to go through the process of being validated, adding that DOE's decision should not affect its work in Oak Ridge. "Neither DOE nor the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board have indicated that they think there are any imminent hazards to workers, the public, or the environment associated with our work performance," Hill said. "We all recognize that Integrated Safety Management System implementation is never finished," he said. "It is a framework for continuous improvement as we strive to attain our goal of zero accidents. We believe that Bechtel Jacobs and our subcontractors have made great strides in implementing the Integrated Safety Management System." Hill did say that there are some areas where Bechtel Jacobs needs to make improvements. "We already have initiated several self-assessments of our authorization basis program, and we will be utilizing the services of several outside independent experts to review our efforts and provide advice," Hill said. "These efforts are in preparation for a DOE Headquarters assessment of our facility authorization basis and hazard classifications, which has yet to be scheduled." He also pointed out that Bechtel Jacobs and its subcontractor teams have celebrated some recent significant safety achievements. "The National Safety Council, in an independent survey report, cited Integrated Safety Management System implementation as a strong characteristic of our safety culture," Hill said. "Our recordable injury/illness rate continues to be lower than the DOE average." DOE's decision concerning Bechtel Jacobs is just one of several issues that have recently arisen concerning safety issues at the local federal facilities. Jessie Roberson, assistant secretary for DOE headquarters' Environmental Management Program, recently revoked the Oak Ridge Operations office's authority to approve safety plans and, last week, DOE halted cleanup activities involving uranium at K-25 because of deficiencies in several key safety documents. DOE is reportedly working on remedying its safety issues. The Oak Ridger requested an update on these efforts Tuesday, but as of this morning, the federal agency has yet to provide that information. On the brighter side, a 12-person team representing DOE headquarters determined this week that BWXT Y-12 has successfully implemented its Integrated Safety Management System at the Y-12 National Security Complex. The team noted that it had found significant improvements in the Y-12 safety system after spending a week and a half looking at a broad range of management activities and work practices including fire protection, chemical safety, project management, environmental management and hazard identification. In June, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board had urged DOE to make safety improvements at Y-12. The independent federal agency indicated inadequate attention had been paid to the storage of hazardous materials, maintenance needs and fire prevention. All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 30 NUKE PROTEST REV FINED Daily Record © 2001 Trinity Mirror Digital Media Scotland Limited or its licensors. A MINISTER arrested during a protest at the Faslane nuclear base said yesterday he had been celebrating Holy Communion. Rev Norman Shanks, 59, denied causing a breach of the peace at the Clyde base in February, saying he had only been "involved in three acts of worship". But he was found guilty and fined pounds 175. After the hearing at Helensburgh District Court, Mr Shanks, a Church of Scotland minister and leader of the Iona Community, said he may appeal. He added: "This protest was conducted peacefully throughout." ***************************************************************** 31 Dampen nuclear dangers in India and Pakistan | csmonitor.com from the November 15, 2001 edition By Rose Gottemoeller and Thomas Graham Jr. WASHINGTON - On Sept. 11, terrorism revealed itself as a central enemy of world civilization, capable of using mass destruction to gain its ends. Thus, an important part of the global antiterrorism effort must be to keep nuclear weapons and nuclear explosive material out of the hands of terrorist organizations, rogue states, and violent subnational groups. As bad as the anthrax scares have been, there is no Cipro for nuclear weapons. The world's principal defense against nuclear terrorism is a strong Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) regime. The treaty entered into force in 1970, and for nearly 30 years, no new nuclear weapon state (beyond the original five, the United States, United Kingdom, France, China, and Russia) was declared. Virtually all of the world's states, now 182, have joined as nonnuclear weapon states. However, the cause of nuclear nonproliferation was dealt a grave blow in 1998, when India and Pakistan - treaty holdouts long considered to be so-called "threshold" nuclear states - conducted a series of nuclear-weapon tests and declared themselves nuclear-weapon states. Since then, tension on the subcontinent has only grown. These two nuclear states pose twin risks: First, there could be a war on the subcontinent involving nuclear weapons, killing millions. And second, in a domino effect, nuclear weapons could proliferate around the world, rendering it impossible to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists. Does anyone doubt that if the Taliban got hold of several nuclear weapons, they and their associates in the Al Qaeda network would use them against large cities? The recent assertion by Osama bin Laden that he has nuclear weapons is probably not true, but this is a longer-term threat that we must not ignore. No one was more dismayed by the irresponsible acts of India and Pakistan in conducting nuclear weapon tests in 1998 than we were. Nor was anyone more supportive of the countermeasures taken by the NPT community. However, the world community can't go on like this. The situation has simply become too dangerous. Since the war on terrorism began in earnest Oct. 7, pressure has been building on Pakistan, creating a risk of destabilization accompanied by the threat that Taliban sympathizers might try to steal Pakistani nuclear weapons or materials. Equally threatening is the possibility that the crisis could spiral into a nuclear conflict between India and Pakistan over Kashmir. The announcement that the Pakistani nuclear arsenal was dispatched to more secure, secret locations is reassuring, but only a temporary solution. Some way must be found to associate India and Pakistan with the NPT regime. Since as a practical matter neither of these states is prepared, under the current circumstances, to eliminate its nuclear weapons program, NPT membership as nonnuclear-weapons states is not possible. Nor can they be NPT nuclear weapons states, as this would require the treaty to be amended, which would risk further unraveling of the regime. Another alternative would be to establish some kind of associate membership with the NPT regime by means of a freestanding separate agreement or protocol. Such a separate protocol could permit India and Pakistan to retain their programs, but inhibit further development. The protocol could also contain provisions controlling nuclear exports and prohibiting testing, as well as other provisions either in the NPT or associated with it. As a result of these commitments, India and Pakistan would have a settlement of the nuclear issue with the world community and an acknowledgment of their status through association with the NPT regime. To symbolize this, the protocol could be signed by India and Pakistan as well as the NPT Depository States (the United States, the United Kingdom, and Russia, which, since the 1960s, have been considered the general managers of the NPT regime). But for this to be practical, the five nuclear-weapon states would have to strengthen the NPT regime. Measures would include significant reductions in nuclear stockpiles and strengthening existing test moratoriums pending the entry into force of the Comprehensive Test Ban. Weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East would also have to be addressed. This is only a concept. It would not be an ideal solution, and would be difficult to achieve. Nevertheless, given today's high level of risk, which could become worse, we recommend that the United States, working with its treaty partners, consider this option in the interests of world security. • Rose Gottemoeller is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Ambassador Thomas Graham Jr. is president of the Lawyers Alliance for World Security. Copyright © 2001 The Christian Science Monitor. All rights ***************************************************************** 32 Secretary Abraham, Homeland Security Director Ridge View Counter-Terrorism Technologies to Protect America energy.gov - Headquarters' Press Release RELEASE DATE: November 15, 2001 [Print Friendly Version] WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham today hosted Director of the White House Office of Homeland Security Tom Ridge on a tour of some of the counter-terrorism technologies developed at the Department of Energy laboratories. Over two dozen technologies from around the country were on display. "Department of Energy laboratories are making real contributions to the homeland defense of our country," Secretary Abraham said. "Our world class scientific and engineering facilities and creative researchers have helped make our nation more secure for over 50 years. These same resources have been trained on the threats posed by terrorism for some time and because of this foresight, technologies such as these are in deployment today." Examples of the technologies displayed included: a holographic imaging system for airport screening; handheld chemical/biological warfare agent detectors; anthrax decontamination foam; an early warning system to detect and identify chemical and biological aerosols released in public spaces; and a national infrastructure simulation and analysis capability to provide authorities guidance on the potential impact of terrorist-related disasters. See attached for more details. Department of Energy laboratories displaying technologies were: Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Ill.; Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, N.Y.; Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, Idaho Falls, Idaho; Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, Calif.; Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, Calif; Los Alamo National Laboratory, Los Alamos, N.M.; Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tenn.; Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, Wash.; and Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, N.M. The Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration funds counterterrorism work as part of its national security mission. Some of the technologies were developed for use in fields such as environmental cleanup and can be adapted to counterterrorism applications. Other federal agencies also fund the department's laboratories for counterterrorism research and development. NNSA Terrorism Technologies Laboratory Counter-Terrorism Exhibits Media Contact: Jill Schroeder, 202/586-4940 Corry Schiermeyer, 202/586-5806 Release No. R-01-196 ***************************************************************** 33 New Nuclear Age ctnow.com: BUSINESS After A Long Moratorium, More Generators Are On Drawing Boards November 15, 2001 By AL LARA, Courant Staff Writer Nearly 23 years after the Three Mile Island disaster halted nuclear power expansion in the United States, three companies may be poised to build new reactors. Sometime early next year, Dominion Resources - owner of the Millstone Power Station in Waterford - and two other companies are expected to begin the permit process to build a new generation of reactors at existing nuclear plants. None are anticipated in Connecticut, and it would be years before a new reactor would be built. Dominion - which owns the Millstone Power Station in Waterford - says it wants to build new reactors at one of its two Virginia plants. New Orleans-based Entergy Corp., one of several companies bidding to buy the Seabrook Nuclear Power Station in New Hampshire, said it is studying possible new reactor sites at seven of its plants. Chicago-based Exelon Corp. - owner of 17 nuclear plants, but none in New England - has said it will announce plans for a new reactor early next year, but has not said where. The proposed plants are the result of a year of planning and decades of refinement in plant operation, and are prompted by designs for cheaper, simpler, and quicker-to-build reactors, said Ron Simard, chairman of the Nuclear Energy Institute trade group's task force for new plants. "A year ago, everything just crystallized, and the industry said it ought to be doing something to get these plants to market," Simard said. Simard said the three companies' plans are at different stages of development. Formal applications may not be made to federal regulators until later in 2002, and Dominion officials say their application may not be made until early 2003. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's so-called early-siting process would take a year, and construction of most plants would take three years. With another year to test new designs, no reactor would be on line generating power before 2007. Existing nuclear plants are preferred sites because they already have transmission lines in place, and they require less regulatory review. The last nuclear reactor was ordered in this country in 1978. After the March 1979 partial meltdown of a reactor core at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, new plant orders stopped, and 35 power plants under construction were canceled. Despite the moratorium on new plants, new efficiencies and reliability in some existing plants have led to 20-year extensions of their operating licenses, making nuclear power more cost-effective and profitable for their operators. In 2000, a task force of nine nuclear power plant owners began meeting just as an energy crisis in California, high energy prices nationwide and a supportive new administration in the White House seemed to signal a thaw for nuclear power. Last spring, some analysts believed that the industry was only weeks away from a new reactor application. Since then, stable energy supplies, lower fuel prices and security concerns after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks diminished the urgency for new reactors. But those factors have not canceled the industry's plans. "Really, nothing's changed," Simard said. "All the reasons for starting this are still valid. The industry is looking years down the road. They know energy prices are volatile. But they also know demand for electricity will remain high." Dominion, Exelon and Entergy have been participating in the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's "early siting program," under which plant developers that get regulatory approval for a new reactor can "bank" the site for as long as 20 years without committing to its construction. That allows companies to build reactors when they are more economically feasible. Eugene S. Grecheck, a former vice president at Millstone and now Dominion's senior vice president of nuclear support services, said the company is studying new reactors at its North Anna and Surry power plants in Virginia. Both facilities have two operating reactors, with room for two more. At North Anna, where construction began on a third and fourth reactor, but was canceled, a concrete slab remains for the company to pick up where it left off. Millstone, with two operating reactors and a third shut down, was actually designed for as many as six reactors. "But there are no plans to build there," Grecheck said. Grecheck said the company will decide whether to go ahead with a new reactor in Virginia after the study is finished in mid-December. But a formal application is not likely before 2003, he said. Entergy owns the Pilgrim power plant in Plymouth, Mass. It recently completed its purchase of the Indian Point nuclear power station in Buchanan, N.Y., near the Connecticut border, and it recently agreed to purchase the Vermont Yankee power plant. Entergy spokesman Carl Crawford said the Vermont plant is not among the seven facilities being studied for a new reactor. Entergy officials have said they would consider building a second reactor at the Seabrook power plant in New Hampshire if the company acquires it at a coming auction. Entergy President Don Hintz said his company wants to build one or two new reactors in the next three to five years. But he and other industry leaders say that timeline can be made shorter with financial incentives from the government in the form of tax breaks or other money to reduce the cost of new construction. Similar inducements are expected to be added to pending legislation. Exelon spokeswoman Mary Ann Carley confirmed that the company anticipated starting the permitting process for a nuclear reactor next year, but she said no sites had been selected. The problem of mounting nuclear waste remains unresolved, although industry officials disagree about how much of an obstacle it is to new plant construction. In August, a government study approved the use of Yucca Mountain, Nevada, as a permanent underground repository for high-level radioactive waste that is currently stockpiled, mostly at nuclear plants. The repository still requires the approval of the president and licensing by federal regulators, and would open no sooner than 2010. ctnow.com is Copyright © 2001 by The Hartford Courant ***************************************************************** 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: *****************************************************************