Cold War Survivors's topics - tribe.net

Dead?

2009-11-27T00:50:43Z

It would apear that this tribe has died......ah well.

posted in Cold War Survivors - 2 replies

The Downwinders: Gloria's story

2008-07-23T14:02:32Z

http://www.thespectrum.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080721/DVTONLINE01/80721011/1053/DVTONLINE

Many of you knew her or know of her. Many of you are related to her, went to school with her, laughed and cried with her.

Gloria Leavitt Gregerson was born in Bunkerville in 1941. In 1983, her body lay in a chapel in Bunkerville after a five-year battle with acute myelogenous leukemia. That was the last of many battles with disease she waged.

Gloria was a downwinder. She eventually became internationally known for her story of "Downwind Agony" and her speech before three-quarters of a million people in New York’s Central Park to protest nuclear testing. She appeared in documentaries in the United States, England and Japan and became a spokesperson for more than a thousand plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the federal government.

The thread that runs through Gloria’s story is one of persistence, kindness, courage and pain. And she would need all her courage to the weather the storm brought on by that bright mushroom cloud that "became a backdrop to her life."

In one interview she told a news reporter, "It was brighter than noon-day sun, breathtakingly beautiful. They would let us out of class to watch the cloud come up behind the hills across the river from our school."

This is what I hear over and over again as I question oldtimers about the fallout: "They let us out to watch the blast."

Pain was part of Gloria’s life from the time she was a young girl. At one point she remembered that she must have been in the doctor’s outer room at least six times. This time would be different.

Pain had been her constant companion for weeks. Her lower abdomen had felt like a "tongue of living fire." This time Dr. Conrad told her parents that he suspected she had uterine cancer.

"He must be talking about someone else," Gloria thought. "I can’t have cancer. I’m too young. Only old people have cancer."

Her mother tucked her in that night as if she were a young child instead of a 16-year old in the bloom of her youth. This would be the beginning of a 20-year battle with cancer — one she would eventually lose.

Her medical history reads like a "broken record."

Cancer surgery 1960-1975

1960 major surgery, cancer of female organs

1962 major surgery for cancer

1963 major surgery for cancer

1963 hysterectomy

1965 major surgery for cancer

1967 surgery for cancer

1969, 1970, 1973, 1975 cancer

"This was in addition to the nausea and headaches that plagued her throughout high school."

Through it all Gloria did her best to live a "normal" life. She attended high school, dated, fell in love, and wished for children of her own. But the children were never to be. The damaging effects of radiation cost her that before it took her life.

Gloria’s cousin Tom’s memories of her are that she loved everybody and she loved Bunkerville. And then she loved Jack. They were married after a tumultuous relationship which should have alerted Gloria to what lay ahead. But she adored him.

Following their marriage, Jack joined the Navy and moved to California. Gloria returned to work in Las Vegas.

At one point they began adoption proceedings of a young son. But in the end, Jack divorced her and she not only lost him, she lost her son, David, as well.

What soothed her bitter disappointment and her pain was her music. Born with a talent, she sang and played piano by ear. If she heard it, she could sing it.

Gloria and Larry met in the summer of 1967. Their courtship lasted only about six months. "Larry said he was attracted to Gloria because she was so alive, so beautiful and so concerned about everyone around her."

"‘We had a great courtship, the best kind,’ he said. ‘I courted her and she courted me.’"

They were married January 12, 1968, in Boulder City. Larry went to school and Gloria worked. Larry graduated from optometry school and the Gregersons moved back to Boulder City.

Gloria’s fondest wish was to have a family and have a family she would. Together they went against counsel and adopted four children at once, two girls and two boys who had been abused by their parents and finally put into Child Haven.

It proved to be a challenge that even Larry and Gloria found often overwhelming, but they never gave up on the children. And when they did adopt them, they didn’t have any idea how short Gloria’s stay with them would be.

The Kennedy hearings of 1978 and 1979, at which Gloria testified were related to compensation. In 1980 the government began Congressional hearing on compensation legislation. Field hearings were scheduled in Salt Lake City in April 1981.

This is her testimony:

My name is Gloria Leavitt Gregerson. I was born in Las Vegas, Nevada and was living downwind in Bunkerville, Nevada during all the years of atomic testing.

The first blast came without warning. No one was informed it was going to happen. The flash was so bright it awakened us out of a sound sleep. We lived in an old two-story home, and when the blast hit, it not only broke out several windows, but also made two large cracks full length of the house.

After the first blast, my parents would load all of us still in our pajamas, in the car and drive to the top of a nearby hill. From there we saw the bright flash and then a little later, the mushroom cloud. If my memory serves me correctly, it would take three to four minutes for the sound to reach us. It would follow the river and bounce back and forth between mountain ranges. It felt and sounded like an earthquake.

The radioactive cloud, as it came over, was very distinct. It always had a pinkish-orange tint to it. The cloud reached our valley between 9:00 and 10:00 a.m. It would almost always drift over our school yard.

Government officials came to our school to talk in an assembly on several occasions. This was only after several shots had been fired. They always preceded their comments with, "There’s nothing to be alarmed about, nothing to worry about, but…

Their cautions were:

1. Wash your car every day.

2. Wash your clothes at least twice before you wear them.

3. Spray water on trees, lawns, plants and vegetation before touching or walking on them.

4. Don’t drink the local milk. (We had access to no other kind at the time.)

5. Don’t worry about anything; there’s nothing to harm you.

The latter caution they kept emphasizing, but why take the trouble to come all that way and take time to hold an assembly just to tell us there was nothing to worry about?

We were given badges to wear and were monitored numerous times. We were never told the results of those readings, though.

I remember as a young girl playing under the trees shaking the white powdered dust all over me. I thought it was fun. I also remember writing my name in the dust all over cars on numerous occasions.

When I was 16 years old, it was discovered that I had cancer in my female organs. After numerous operations to remove the cancer, I finally had to have a hysterectomy two years after I graduated from high school. I have been unable to have children of my own. In my late 20s and early 30s, I had numerous operations for another type of cancer, squamous cell carcinoma.

I have adopted five children. In October 1978, I received a one-month-old baby boy. Three months later I was unable to care for my family and was hospitalized in January only to find that my blood was so low the doctor said I probably wouldn’t have survived the day without the transfusions they gave me. In February 1979, my doctor referred me to a hematologist and I was diagnosed as having acute myclomonocytic leukemia. My life expectancy was three weeks.

It is horrifying to suddenly have all your hair gone one day and your face nothing but big blistering sores. My skin would tear if I moved quickly or made an awkward move. My temperatures would keep going to highly dangerous levels, and as a result I got frostbite from the ice blankets they used to reduce my fever. My children and my family could hardly recognize me as a result of the many months of chemotherapy. I am in precarious remission now, but don’t know when I’ll have a relapse.

In my opinion, the government’s attitude on the subject of fallout victims and atomic testing is shameful. The pain, horror and suffering brought upon innocent victims and our families are monstrous and yet we are looked upon by some as illiterate, fortune hunters because we have file suit asking for justified compensation for medical bills and termination of atomic testing.

Perhaps you can understand our fear and outrage when we discover that their underground tests are venting and are still spreading radioactive fallout into the atmosphere. It is interesting, too, that they still wait for the wind to blow in our direction before permitting a test.

I have a few questions, I hope you will ponder:

1. What gives the government the right to experiment with my health and the health of my children’s children?

2. Who in the government is responsible for continued testing? What type of cold-blooded men can be in charge of deliberately perpetrating the radioactive atrocity that is still taking place upon American citizens?

3. If the government has spent $175 million studying Nagasaki and Hiroshima, why are they so reluctant to study the fallout victims in our own nation?

I have always thought people who ranted against government bureaucrats were a little crazy and radical and now I find myself asking the same questions they ask. I am not a so-called "bleeding heart liberal." I am and always have been very conservative. I don’t intend to spend what little time I have left in a vindictive "Ban the Bomb" exercise, but I can’t say the same for my children and my husband.

Government officials and scientists in the 1950s were quick and sure to point out that no harm would come from the testing. We know different now, so why is the testing still going on? To what purpose? What more could they possibly learn? If they haven’t learned all they need to know, let them get their answers in some other way tan by endangering the lives of all of us.

Gloria made other appearance and spoke up about nuclear testing because she felt it was her duty to her fellow man.

On March 26, 1983 she succumbed to the effects of that very testing. She died of leukemia — a direct result of the nuclear fallout she played in as a child.

Her legacy to us is to never forget. When our government starts talking about resuming testing again, we must speak out against it. No testing is safe. Underground testing vents and releases into the atmosphere through faults in the earth’s surface.

Surely, we, too, must ask, "How much more do we need to know?" We already know from the two bombs dropped on Japan how devastating nuclear weaponry is. We know what radiation poisoning does.

Gloria’s story is just one of many that we will tell. She was one among many whose lives were poisoned by nuclear testing, whose children, grandchildren and great grandchildren will be touched in ways they may never understand.

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

Atomic City Underground

2008-07-23T13:40:10Z

http://blogs.knoxnews.com/knx/munger/2008/07/jimmy_perritt_and_his_family.html#more

Jimmy Perritt and his family

Vickie Burke's father -- Jimmy W. Perritt, a former barrier operator at K-25 and painter at K-25 and Y-12 -- died of cancer in late February, but she and her sisters are not going to stop fighting for compensation until they get what they believe is due from the government.

"It's the principle. We promised my father before he died that they would pay everything owed to him," Burke said.

Their story is similar to many who've experienced frustration and anger in dealing with the federal program set up to compensate sick nuclear workers. Some of the issues are detailed in "Deadly Denial," the current series by Laura Frank and staff at the Rocky Mountain News. I'll try to share other stories here, as told by those involved.

In January, about a month before her father died, Burke (who lives in South Florida) wrote a lengthy letter to Congressmen Wamp and Duncan, Sen. Alexander, Gov. Bredesen and others, talking about the problems Jimmy Perritt and his family had faced.

Here's an excerpt:

During the 1950s time period there were no exposure/contamination control measures used to protect our father. There was no anti-contamination clothing, nor fume hoods, gloves, shielding, respirators, radiation badges, biological radiation monitoring programs, showers or other protective devices and /or procedures provided. Our Dad went to work in his own clothes, carrying a lunch box and came home in the same clothes day after day. Some of these measures were finally put into place in the 1970s.

Our father has terminal metastasis malignant melanoma directly attributable to the radiation exposure he received working for the U.S. Government at Oak Ridge. He is dying because he took a job doing important work for the defense of his country at a place that the government told him was safe.

Burke said her family, in some ways, was lucky. She and her sisters were educated, with backgrounds in insurance industry and the government operations at Oak Ridge, and persistent. They were able to share the burden of health care and deal with the "roadblocks" and the massive paperwork required to track and follow-up on the claims for compensation. Ultimately, her father and his family were able to collect hundreds of thousands of dollars, but Burke said her father's life was worth much more, and she's still outraged that some of the costs -- including the expenses for his funeral -- still haven't been covered.

In her multi-page letter, she detailed many of the problems encountered with the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program, the Dept. of Labor and ACS, the vendor health care. Like many other claimants, she complained of lost letters, arguments about details of health care items that seemed to be obvious, and debates over his medical needs, the extent of home care, and, ultimately, hospice care.

She wrote:

My father has fallen six times since Christmas day. The Christmas fall necessitated a call to 911 and transporting him to the hospital. with serious physical injuries.Three of the other falls have caused significant injuries. Each fall has caused further deterioration in my father's health.

More recently, months after her father's death, Burke wrote another letter to the claims adjuster with the Dept. of Labor, outlining the chronology of problems and seeking action on compensation claims that had been denied.

She wrote, in part:

We recently received your check for some of the expenses our Dad incurred before his death. However we strongly disagree with your decision to not pay for the additional charges my father incurred in an attempt to provide safety, comfort, self-respect, dignity and to comply with your many different adjusters' requests. It is unacceptable to us that you refuse to pay the mailing and certified letter expenses, lawn care and funeral expenses. It is particularly insidious that you would deny the cost of having our letters certified when your representatives continually lost them and tried to claim that they never received them. Your people forced us into having the letters certified and then refuse to pay for it? Where is the rationale in that?

On behalf of my father's estate, we would like a Formal Recommended Decision issued in this case.

The people examiningn our father's claim have been dealing with this situation as if he were someone on an HMO health plan looking for care he did not need. They do not seem committed to the spirit of the settlement and instead seem committed to finding ways not to provide the care he was entitled to, even after his death.

I will attempt one more time to explain why my father's estate is entitled to reimbursement for mailing cost, certified letter cost, lawn services and funeral expenses. After this attempt, if you continue your failure to fulfill the terms of the settlement, we will take this matter to another legal arena.

You denied the cost of mailing and certified expenses. Let me again remind you why we had to incur these expenses. Due to the outrageous conduct of the EEOICP and ACS my Father waited until three days before he died on Feb 26, 2008 to be reimbursed $2,500 in expenses for an October 2007 trip to M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston TX. The receipts had been mailed three times. The last two times they were sent Certified Mail and we have the return signed receipts. My sister was told on January 23, 2008, by the examiner for the Department of Labor that they still have not been able to locate the receipts! How can this be? When documents have been faxed and mailed to them and confirmation received on our end, they claim they never received them. This caused us to have to send all communications by Certified Mail at the request of previous adjusters at EEOICP and ACS.

How could you possibly think that our Dad was capable of mowing and landscaping his yard that is over one acre? Our Dad was a very proud and conscientious person in many ways. He took pride in his home and yard. He did not want to burden his family or neighbors with taking care of his lawn. (Nor was he obligated to do so.) However he had too much self-respect and pride to just let it go, as many people would have done. For over a year after he began chemo treatments, he continued to mow and landscape his yard until he could no longer walk. We pleaded with him to hire someone over six months before he did and now you are denying the cost of lawn service to a man's estate who was incapable of walking, in extreme pain and dying. The cost of this service was only $500 for June to October 2007. It is not the sum of the money that infuriates us but the principle of the matter that you owe reasonable expenses and deny this charge.

In each of her letters, Burke said she wanted to make clear that her father -- despite the many problems encountered with the compensation program -- did not regret his work days in Oak Ridge.

. . . Even as my Dad lay dying he was not angry with the government. He was proud of the work he helped support at Oak Ridge and his contribution to the nation's security. He continued to honor his security clearance commitment to the government, even though they have not honored their commitments to him. A few days before he died I once again asked him to tell me the details of his work. He continued to say, "I can't tell you." He went to his death with the dirty secrets that went on at Oak Ridge that has and is continuing to kill so many nuclear workers.

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

Deadly denial: Navajo miners stand ground in a different kind of Cold War

2008-07-23T13:31:21Z

War
By Laura Frank, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/jul/23/deadly-denial-navajo-miners-stand-ground-different/

Wednesday, July 23, 2008
George Blue Horse, a medicine man, performs a ceremony to improve relations between the Navajo people and the U.S. Department of Labor, at the Tuba City, Ariz., branch of the Office of Navajo Uranium Workers.

Javier Manzano © The Rocky

George Blue Horse, a medicine man, performs a ceremony to improve relations between the Navajo people and the U.S. Department of Labor, at the Tuba City, Ariz., branch of the Office of Navajo Uranium Workers.

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Deadly Denial: 3-day special report
U.S. Department of Labor has failed to help compensate assist former nuclear workers with health safety issues problems ailments graphic chart document video testimony
Visit the special report index of our Deadly Denial investigative series about the failure of the U.S. Department of Labor to adequately compensate former nuclear weapons workers suffering from illnesses. Read more stories, watch videos, download documents and weigh in on the discussion.
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* GRAPHIC: Claims compensation by state
* GRAPHIC: Cancer and compensation

Related Stories

* As workers await relief, program doles out big bonuses to its own
* Condemnation from lawmakers
* Ross Williams is too weak for the tests he needs to receive compensation
* Levi Samora got a stack of rejection letters — one on the day he received aid

TUBA CITY, Ariz. — This spring, officials from the U.S. Department of Labor sat around a small fire, touching sweet corn pollen to their tongues and inhaling spicy cedar smoke in a traditional Navajo ceremony.

Larry Martinez, who manages the Office of Navajo Uranium Workers, had organized the ceremony hoping to improve a working relationship that he described as "difficult and getting worse" between the Navajo and the labor department, which manages a federal program to compensate sick nuclear weapons workers.

Ten thousand Navajo men mined uranium for America's atomic bombs. The U.S. government knew early on that uranium could cause lung damage. But instead of warning the Navajo miners, the government decided to study what happened to them.

Now those who survived — and the families of those who didn't — are having trouble proving that they qualify for compensation.

"I'd like to have you understand this ceremony is going to create this coordination," Martinez said in English during the mostly Navajo-language ceremony. "We're all in this together, to make sure the Cold War patriot, the person who sacrificed his health to protect his country, is taken care of. When you leave here, you'll be part of what happened here."

But less than two hours after the ceremony, the spirit of cooperation appeared to have worn off.

At a public meeting to explain the benefits of the compensation program to sick Navajo uranium workers, the lead DOL official ejected some of the people he had just participated with in the cooperation ceremony.

Booted out were representatives of an in-home health care company from Denver authorized to provide care for gravely sick uranium workers.

Martinez was seething.

"Did that ceremony mean nothing to them?" the usually calm Martinez said.

Wall of opposition

Most of the uranium workers whom Martinez helps are by law supposed to be compensated automatically through a program created eight years ago. It compensates workers who sacrificed their health, and sometimes their lives, as they labored amid highly toxic and top-secret materials used to build nuclear weapons.

Many of the Navajo were compensated $100,000 by a previous program created in 1990 and were to be automatically eligible for the new one, so their total benefits would rise to the current standards.

Instead, the Navajos have joined other former nuclear workers in fighting a different cold war, this time against their own government.

A Rocky Mountain News investigation found that the compensation program has become so complex and adversarial that even claims that by law were to be automatically approved — the Navajo being a striking example — are being stonewalled.

Only one in four sick workers or their survivors has been compensated, while millions of tax dollars have been spent redoing faulty work, including repeatedly rewriting technical reports, re-examining old exposure records that workers say are wrong and reopening denied claims only to deny them again.

Meanwhile, top officials running the compensation program have collected tens of thousands of dollars each in bonuses. In all, program officials have been given more then $3.2 million in bonuses since the program began. That includes $116,000 in bonuses for Shelby Hallmark, the program's top official.

Sick workers believe that their government is intentionally thwarting them. They are not alone.

"It's an ideological issue," said Bill Richardson, the former energy secretary who persuaded the Clinton administration to enact the compensation program. "When the Bush administration came in, they saw this as an entitlement program they didn't believe in. They had to comply with it, but they did so by putting up barriers so it wouldn't work properly."

A White House spokesman declined to comment, saying that the labor department would speak for the administration.

While DOL didn't respond to the Rocky's inquiries, it sent a statement responding to Richardson: "The Department of Labor has paid out nearly $4 billion dollars to energy worker claimants, well in excess of estimates provided by then-Secretary Richardson's Department of Energy, which led to the official Congressional Budget Office report. In just eight years, DOL has already issued payments to almost three times as many workers and their families (6,500 vs 15,000) as the CBO estimated would be paid in ten years. We remain committed to making sure that energy workers receive the compensation to which they are entitled."

The DOL's Web site says that more that 42,000 claims have been paid. The department did not respond to questions about the discrepancy between 15,000 paid versus 42,000.

Counting the cost

The controversial method of determining which workers deserve compensation has been fraught with problems, but program officials have clung to the process. Government scientists at the National Institute for Occupation Safety and Health continually change the way they estimate how much radiation workers absorbed.

More than two thirds of these estimates — involving more than 12,000 sick Cold War veterans — have had to be reviewed or completely reworked because of changes in the methods scientists say will give the best estimates. And because the scientific understanding of how toxic substances cause disease continues to evolve, virtually no case can ever be closed for good.

Larry Elliott, who directs dose reconstruction at NIOSH, declined to say how much each of nearly 18,000 dose reconstructions cost taxpayers. But since the program began, his office has spent more than $280 million in administrative costs.

Too much of that has been wasted, said U.S. Rep. Tom Udall, D-N.M., cousin to Colorado Congressman Mark Udall.

"Nothing could be more irresponsible than to spend taxpayer dollars fighting claimants rather than compensating them," Tom Udall said. "When claimants are forced to submit to unnecessary tests — or when NIOSH spends time and resources hunting for records that simply don't exist — taxpayer money is wasted and sick workers are forced to bear additional suffering."

One key government contractor was paid for completion of essential reports, and got paid more when those reports proved faulty and had to be fixed.

One of the key documents used in the dose reconstruction is called a site profile. This report attempts to list the kinds of toxic exposures workers in different jobs at different sites might have encountered. But not one of the site profiles for any of the major weapons sites was correct the first time, the Rocky found in reviewing various versions of the reports.

A big part of NIOSH's administrative expense went to Oak Ridge Associated Universities, the Tennessee-based consortium that won the original $70 million contract to do the profiles and estimate worker radiation doses. As of last year, the contract, still going after nine extensions that include new dose reconstruction work, had nearly tripled to $200 million.

As one result, the administrative costs for the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program are 15 times higher than similar programs.

While the government declined to detail its spending in response to the Rocky's questions, labor department officials acknowledged earlier this year that administrative costs for the program reach about 33 percent of its payments to claimants.

That is a stunning figure for administrative costs when compared with the 2 percent for a sister program that compensates uranium miners and people exposed to atomic bomb testing. Administrative costs for Social Security Disability Insurance are about 2.5 percent of payments.

Officials say part of the reason is that the nuclear workers program is much more complex than the other compensation programs. But that, says Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo., whose district includes the former Rocky Flats weapons site near Denver, is exactly the problem.

"It's putting the onus and the burden on the people who are already carrying significant burdens," Udall said. "I think it's an outrage."

Double dose of rejection

DOL has had to reopen thousands of cases it had already denied, citing changes in the scientific methods it uses to determine who receives compensation.

Government scientists discovered, for example, that Rocky Flats contained a previously unknown kind of plutonium — "Super-S" — that had not been monitored or studied. They spent two years working on a scientific method to estimate the radiation wallop that the Super-S might have given Flats workers. Some were notified by letter that their denials were being overturned and their cases reconsidered.

But many former workers found their new dose estimates lower than before.

Shelby Hallmark, the labor department executive who oversees the program, predicted workers' dismay with these so-called reworks earlier this year.

"More people are going to go back through reworks and get a second denial," he said. "It's not going to be pleasant for these folks."

Hallmark knew even then that the reworks were unlikely to result in more workers being compensated. That is because the original method used more claimant-friendly assumptions in estimating radiation doses. But the newer methods are more exact, Hallmark said.

The original estimates were "claimant-favorable ... overestimates," said Larry Elliott, who oversees the work at NIOSH.

But the original estimates apparently weren't favorable to all claimants. Elliott acknowledged some reworks came back higher than the original "overestimates."

The constantly changing methods have not benefited most workers, Mark Udall said, but the changes have benefited the contractors.

"It keeps those folks employed," Udall said.

Questions pile up

Among all of the complicated claims of illness related to half a century of nuclear weapons production, two kinds were supposed to be slam-dunks. If you were a uranium worker compensated in an earlier program, or a beryllium worker or uranium worker with lung damage, your claim was supposed to slide right through the system.

But that isn't happening because laws and rules are not being followed.

A 90-year-old Navajo woman who lost her uranium miner husband is still waiting for federal compensation from the new program, even though the law says that compensation should be automatic.

A 48-year-old beryllium worker tried for five years to get compensation that was supposed to be automatic, given his diagnosed lung disease.

An 86-year-old uranium miner is too sick to complete the breathing test required to prove that he qualifies for compensation.

But some workers never even make it into the system to be considered. DOL calls these "non-covered" applications because they failed to prove the employee worked at one of the more than 300 covered sites or had one of some two-dozen covered illnesses.

But the Rocky found evidence that the failure to prove information was sometimes the labor department's fault. For example, a uranium miner in New Mexico was rejected because DOL said he didn't submit medical records to prove his illness. But Jarvina Lee, a caseworker at the Navajo office of uranium miners in Shiprock, N.M., said she personally had sent 1,600 pages of medical records to DOL's Denver office on behalf of the worker.

DOL eventually found the box of records six months later at its Seattle office, after the worker had died.

"I don't know how someone could lose 1,600 pages of medical records," Lee said. "But we have had lots of horror stories like that."

The federal compensation program is so difficult to navigate for sick workers or their survivors that both the Navajo Nation and the state of New Mexico have established offices to help claimants file for their benefits.

"It's a sham," Richardson, the former Energy Secretary who is now governor of New Mexico, said of the program. "It's an insult to our workers, and it's wrong."

Vera Begay lives in a home on the Navajo reservation in eastern Arizona that was made from smooth, square stones her husband brought home from the uranium mines. The mines were so close by that blasted rock sometimes rained down on the three-room house, which even now is slightly radioactive.

Begay's husband died of lung cancer 24 years ago. She was given a "compassionate payment" for his lost life years ago, through the earlier program specifically for miners. That should have made her automatically eligible for additional compensation.

But the 90-year-old Begay — whose grandson is Martinez, the man who oversees the Navajo Uranium Workers office — has been waiting three years.

"I don't know why," Begay said in English, though she speaks mostly in Navajo.

Even Martinez is not sure why his grandmother has not received the compensation.

"She should already have been paid," he said.

Talk of reform so far just talk

Congress has the authority to change the compensation program, but so far, its efforts to do so haven't had much impact. A series of hearings in 2006 and 2007 resulted in little change. At least a dozen bills are pending that would improve the compensation program, but none has gone anywhere. There is talk of holding more hearings and submitting more bills to reform the law.

"The bottom line is we want to protect and help the most needy and most deserving folks," said U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo. "I think we have to continue to push on this."

U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., said he is working on new legislation to relieve the workers' plight.

"More and more evidence is surfacing that former workers have had their claims lost or ignored, that claims examiners were encouraged to deny claims, and that bureaucratic red tape is tying the program in knots," Salazar said.

"This is an absolutely unacceptable way to treat those who have sacrificed for our country."

Dr. Laurence Fuortes is a physician and University of Iowa professor who studies occupational illness. He has helped some sick workers with lung disease try to get compensation.

When he began to suspect that workers were being wrongly rejected, he filed a Freedom of Information Act request to see more examples of lung disease claims that had been denied. Of the first 19 cases he reviewed, he found five of them contained medical evidence that they should have been approved instead.

Fuortes said he told program director Peter Turcic that the cases suggested a larger problem that needed further review.

"He seemed to agree," Fuortes said, adding that it was not clear what DOL might do about it.

"This system has been designed with maximum complexity," Fuortes said. "To me, it's setting things up for disaster."

That is exactly what's happened, said former DOL claims examiner Anne Block.

Block, a Seattle attorney who said she was fired from her job because she too helpful to claimants, said that mistakes are rampant in the system.

When a case goes through the years-long dose reconstruction process, DOL sends it to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health for an estimate of how much radiation the worker absorbed.

"I would send half the claims back to NIOSH because there would be something wrong with them," Block said.

Other times, claims examiners would be given "pre-screened" files marked as "accept" or "deny."

"I'd say 90 percent of the time, they were wrong," Block said.

She described cases that should have been approved automatically but were instead sent to NIOSH for the dose reconstruction process, cases sent off for review when a final decision already had been issued, and meetings where senior managers encouraged claims examiners to deny claims to close out cases more quickly.

"It's a complete mess," she said of the program. "And a complete waste of taxpayers' money."

DOL officials declined earlier this year to address Block's allegations.

Standing their ground

Mike Chance oversees DOL's resource centers, 11 offices across the country that are designed to help sick nuclear weapons workers file claims for compensation and medical coverage. Chance was the lead DOL official at the Navajo cooperation ceremony.

After the ceremony, Chance was about to start a "town hall" meeting at the Navajo chapter house in Tuba City, Ariz., to describe benefits available to sick workers and their families.

One of those benefits is home health care, if a doctor orders it for a gravely ill worker. Although Chance did not mention this benefit during the meeting, the labor department has approved Denver-based home health care company Professional Case Management as one provider. The company had been invited by the Navajo Nation to participate. But when employees of the company tried to set up a table to display their services, Chance ousted them from the public meeting.

Chance said he was not allowed to comment to the media, but he was overheard saying that he ousted Professional Case Management because DOL did not want to appear to endorse the company, which is suing DOL for failure to pay covered medical expenses of some of its clients.

Chance held a second town hall meeting on the Navajo reservation the next day in Kayenta, Ariz., near the Four Corners area. Again, he ejected the Professional Case Management employees. Martinez, who was setting up an information table with staff from his Office of Navajo Uranium Workers, confronted him.

Martinez told Chance that he and his entire staff also would leave if the home health care display was not allowed. Chance let them put the display in the hallway of the Kayenta Recreation Center, outside the auditorium where the meeting was being held.

The memories of the cooperation ceremony fiasco were still burning in Martinez's mind as he stood outside the century-old, eight-sided mud and log Hogan where his grandmother grew up, amid the red sands of eastern Arizona, just over the border from Colorado.

Years of frustration fueled the fire inside him.

"Time doesn't mean anything to the Department of Labor," he said. "They're not thinking about the individuals out there who are suffering. Congress is the only one that can do anything about this. And if we keep pushing them, maybe they will."

frankl@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5091

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

Ben Ortiz was warned that steps to help his case will backfire

2008-07-21T08:04:01Z

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/jul/20/ben-ortiz-was-warned-steps-help-his-case-will-back/

NAMBE, N.M. — There is a saying in Spanish: En boca cerrada, no entran moscas.

Ben Ortiz had not heard it in ages when a government doctor asked him if he knew what it meant. Ortiz, who was seeing the doctor at the top secret Los Alamos nuclear weapons lab because he believed that toxic exposures there had made him sick, knew exactly what it meant:

"It means keep your mouth shut," Ortiz said.

But Ortiz has not.

For 20 years, he has spoken out about sickness that he and fellow Los Alamos workers suffer. Sitting in the home he built at the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, he looks out across the valley toward the mesa top where the giant lab still operates.

Ortiz was one of the first workers to speak publicly about the ill workers' plight, testifying to Congress about the need for a compensation program because he thought it was the right thing to do. And he was one of the first to file for compensation after the program was created in 2000.

But Ortiz still has not been fully compensated, even though the federal government has acknowledged that some of his many health problems are work-related.

Ortiz said he believes that speaking out and getting his elected representatives involved has cost him. He said an official at the federal resource center set up to help workers with their claims told him that every time his senator or congressman inquires on his behalf about the delay, it only delays his case further.

Officials at the Denver office of the U.S. Department of Labor, which runs the compensation program, told him that the massive three-ring binder of evidence he had compiled with help from the office of his congressman, Tom Udall, had been lost.

Ortiz, 70, is one of several leading advocates for the ill workers nationwide who have experienced unexplained delays and unexplained mistakes in their compensation claims.

"I don't think it's a coincidence," he said.

Not that Ortiz expected the road to be easy. He had long tried to sound the alarm that toxic exposures at the weapons lab in New Mexico had ruined his health and that of others.

Ortiz had endured humiliation when the Los Alamos doctor and two others blamed his debilitating health problems on age (he was 50 at the time) or his imagination. One even questioned if Ortiz was making himself sick by practicing witchcraft.

"I wasn't going to let those people tell me I was imagining this," he said.

Turns out he wasn't.

Three experts on the health effects of chemical exposure have said that Ortiz's work at the atomic bomb laboratory caused his health problems, which include liver damage, brain damage and blackouts.

Ortiz is losing control of his right hand. His speech and his senses of smell and taste are damaged. He cannot identify the smell of coffee or tell the difference between salt and sugar. Inhaling any chemicals — even auto exhaust — sends him into migraine-like headaches.

Neurotoxicologist Raymond Singer, who has consulted with the Justice Department and FBI, wrote in a report 15 years ago that "Mr. Ortiz was poisoned by solvents and related substances at Los Alamos National Laboratories, causing enduring neurotoxicity and neuropsychological deficits."

Even that was not enough to qualify him for full compensation.

"I was a good employee," Ortiz said of his work as a mechanical technician. He soldered silver and cadmium and worked bare-handed, nearly elbow deep, in vats of chemical solvents. "They shouldn't do this to employees."
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posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

With a 25-pound liver

2008-07-21T07:57:24Z

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/jul/20/25-pound-liver-janine-anderson-was-told-she-isnt-t/

With a 25-pound liver, Janine Anderson was told she isn't too sick

MARYVILLE, Tenn. — Janine Anderson spent seven years as a secretary at the Oak Ridge nuclear reservation, one of the nation's premier nuclear weapons development and production complexes.

But that safe-sounding office position didn't protect her from the toxic exposure that has ravaged her body. Her lungs are scarred with deadly beryllium, a key ingredient in atomic bombs. Her immune system is attacking her body, which harbors an array of heavy metals in toxic quantities. Her liver is so enlarged that it is threatening to burst through her abdominal wall.

She states matter-of-factly that her prognosis is grim.

"Eventually my liver will crowd out my heart, my lungs, everything," she said. "I don't know how much longer I have." She is finding it harder to eat and to breathe.

Anderson helped found the Alliance of Nuclear Workers Advocacy Groups. So far, she has personally helped fellow workers receive more than $2.5 million in compensation from a federal program to aid sick weapons workers.

Many are former co-workers from her administration building. Anderson lists them by disease: brain tumor, leukemia, asbestosis, breast cancer and lung cancer.

"Every single person I worked with except my boss got sick," she said.

But for seven years, the government repeatedly denied most of Anderson's own claim, citing her advocacy work on behalf of others as evidence that she must not be too sick.

Anderson is among several advocates interviewed by the Rocky Mountain News whose claims for compensation have been derailed by the government. The advocates believe that their problems are related to their criticism of the troubled program.

Anderson wonders how and why the program case managers sought out information about her advocacy work, while they failed for so long to take note of the evidence that eventually proved her claim.

In the last few months, the U.S. Labor Department suddenly began approving parts of her claim — a total of 32 medical conditions that they say she suffers because of her job at the bomb factory. They have not explained why those same conditions had been repeatedly rejected for compensation in previous years.

But program officials may have waited too late for Anderson. Her physicians have told her that her liver now weighs more than 25 pounds — a healthy human liver weighs about three pounds.

A series of experts have told her that this condition is inoperable.

Anderson's finances are in a shambles. She and her husband, Richard, have refinanced their home three times in an attempt to meet staggering medical bills.

She worries about how the end will come and what will happen to her husband.

"I'm just trying to get realistic, so it's not such a shock when they tell me they can't do anything," she said. "I want to know if I only have six months or a year to live."

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

Deadly denial

2008-07-21T07:53:01Z

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/jul/20/deadly-denial/

The Americans who built the nation's nuclear weapons are still fighting a cold war.

Tens of thousands of sick nuclear arms workers — or their survivors — from every state in the nation have applied for compensation that Congress established for them in 2000. But most have never seen a dime.

Congress promised these Cold War patriots an efficient, compassionate path to atonement. But a Rocky Mountain News investigation found that the government has derailed aid to workers by keeping reports secret from them, constantly changing rules and delaying cases until sick workers died.

Many ill workers have become mired in a process so adversarial that top program officials at one point considered putting some of them under government surveillance — spying on them.

"These are heroes from the Cold War who risked their lives to build nuclear weapons," said Bill Richardson, the governor of New Mexico who oversaw the nation's weapons complex as U.S. energy secretary and helped create the compensation program. "The bureaucracy has placed so many barriers, it's almost criminal that workers and their families are not being compensated."

Thousands of nuclear arms workers became sick or died building atomic weapons to defend America. They did top-secret work that exposed them to radiation, chemicals, heavy metals and other poisons. For half a century, the federal government's official policy was to fight any workers who claimed job-related illness, often spending tens of millions in tax dollars annually to do so. The government at times absolutely denied that the workers faced undue danger. It was a flat-out lie.

All of that was supposed to have changed at the start of this decade, when the Clinton administration reversed the government's stonewalling and a Republican Congress decided to pay sick workers' medical bills and offer them $150,000 in compensation.

Congress passed the landmark Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act in 2000, saying that the nuclear weapons workers had been on the front lines of the Cold War and deserved compensation for the illness and death their jobs caused.

The workers were to be compensated if evidence linked their radiation or chemical exposures to their illnesses. Congress realized that the secrecy surrounding their jobs could make finding proof particularly difficult, and instructed government agencies to help the workers through the process.

The compensation program got off to a wasteful start when the Department of Energy ran up a $90 million administrative bill in four years but compensated only 32 people.

Congress thought it had fixed the program when it fired the energy department from the job in 2004 and transferred the entire responsibility to the U.S. Department of Labor, which had explicit instructions to make the compensation "timely, uniform and adequate."

Since then, sick nuclear workers have protested bitterly about the program's failure to meet their needs. In 2006, congressional hearings uncovered White House attempts to cut costs by denying compensation to more workers.

Congress was reassured when labor department officials repeatedly testified that the cost reduction plans had been jettisoned, and that they were compensating many more people than officials originally thought would even apply.

But the Rocky's investigation found that the labor department has delayed the cases of sick nuclear weapons workers or their survivors across the nation by giving misleading information, withholding records essential to their cases, failing to inform them of alternative paths to aid, repeatedly claiming to have lost evidence sent by ill workers and making requirements for compensation impossibly high.

"It's denial by design," said Janine Anderson, a sick worker who has spent seven years fighting for compensation while the government alternated between losing her file and denying her case. "I'll go to my deathbed believing this was set up to deny claims."

Thwarting the will of Congress

Only one in four sick workers or their survivors has been compensated, according to the labor department's own statistics. Some 165,000 claims have been filed, but fewer than 43,000 have been paid — and even then, it has taken an average three years to qualify.

While the law says that the government is supposed to help sick workers with their claims, the people running the compensation program instead have at times ignored the law and thwarted the will of Congress.

"There is no question that when it comes to this program, this administration has been more than willing to ignore the law when it disagrees with Congress' intent," said Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, who repeatedly has tried to intervene on behalf of sick workers in his home state of Illinois. "It must be remembered that these laws were passed by a Republican majority in Congress.

"While many workers or their families have been compensated, there is no doubt that what Congress intended when it created this program simply has not materialized and as a result, many deserving workers have been left out by the current legislation."

A spokesman for U.S. Sen. John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, said, "The intent of the legislation should be fulfilled — these workers should be adequately compensated and treated for their injuries and illnesses. The health problems of these individuals are tragic and this program should administer benefits and compensation in an effective and timely manner."

The Rocky first requested an interview for this series with the labor department's Shelby Hallmark, director of compensation programs, on May 13. After receiving no response to repeated requests, the newspaper sent Hallmark a 3-page letter on June 10 outlining the findings of its investigation. Hallmark sent an e-mail saying the department would respond.

But it has not.

On July 7, the Rocky sent its findings to the White House. A spokesman there said DOL would speak for the administration. Since then, a DOL spokesman has promised on three separate occasions to deliver a written response. That didn't happen by deadline for this report.

However, labor department officials previously have said that the compensation program is a success.

More than 42,000 sick workers or their survivors have been paid $3.95 billion, an average of about $94,000 each. In a news release issued last month, on the day that ill workers were picketing DOL's district offices across the country, officials said that compensation for this year alone is expected to reach $1 billion.

For perspective, that is less than the $1.4 billion that the federal government pays each year to maintain the stockpile of weapons that the sick workers built.

In reviewing hundreds of documents, analyzing compensation program data and statistics, and interviewing more than 100 sick workers and their survivors across the United States, the Rocky found:

The labor department delayed awards to some claimants until they died. One in 17 sick workers or survivors with valid claims — more than 1,200 people nationwide — died before they received their benefits. Even some of the claims that by law should be compensated automatically are being inexplicably delayed or denied.

Millions of dollars have been spent redoing technical work that was faulty, while top labor department officials directing the program have collected tens of thousands of dollars each in bonus money. Officials refused to explain why the bonuses have been paid. Meanwhile, two out of every three claims sent for scientific analysis — at the National Institute for Occupation Safety and Health — have had to be re-examined or redone.

Program officials ignored the law and their own rules. They changed rules midstream so claimants who had been told they would receive compensation were instead denied.

For example, some claimants from the former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons complex northwest of Denver were formally notified last November that they would be compensated. Then DOL changed the way it calculated eligibility for those claimants and rescinded the approval. In another example, DOL issued instructions undermining claims for some illnesses despite known links to workplace exposures — including prostate cancer, the cancer for which workers have filed claims most frequently.

Claimants who publicly criticized the program experienced perplexing delays, with evidence suggesting that their activism was held against them.

Claims were manipulated and claims examiners were encouraged to deny claims.

Attorney Anne Block, a former claims examiner in the compensation program's Seattle office, said that the program's problems stem from an anti-claimant attitude that trickles down from the highest levels.

Block said she was wrongly fired for being too helpful to claimants and is filing a lawsuit. She told of managers purposely delaying claims, notes attached to sick workers' files labeling them "known troublemaker" and pressure from above to deny claims.

Block said that in September 2007, assistant district director Tracy Johnson called a meeting of claims examiners to push them to make decisions on claims that had been languishing for more than 300 days at the Seattle office, which has the lowest rate of claim approval among the four district offices.

"She said, 'I know 99.9 percent of these are denials. I want five or six recommended decisions to deny out the door for each of you,'" Block said. "How could you accept a claim when you'd just been told by the boss you were supposed to deny them?"

Labor department spokesman Loren Smith said earlier this year that officials would not respond to Block's allegations.

'It all started falling apart'

Block said she believes that the anti-claimant attitude comes from top labor department officials Hallmark, director of the Office of Worker Compensation Programs, Peter Turcic, program director, and deputy director Roberta Mosier.

An internal e-mail from Mosier to other program officials, including Turcic, obtained by the Rocky shows that she considered in 2006 asking the labor department's inspector general to put a sick claimant under surveillance to see if the claimant was as ill as his doctor said.

Mosier was responding to a report called in to one of DOL's district offices by another claimant who accused the man of going fishing when he was supposedly sick enough to require home health care.

While thousands of claims languish for years, the alleged fisherman quickly rose to the attention of the program's top administrators. The home health agency involved said recently that DOL is still paying for his care.

In another e-mail, Mosier discusses whether the department's inspector general could send someone "undercover" to a meeting between claimants and the health care provider.

That move was part of an ongoing attempt to decertify a Denver home health care company that was holding public meetings across the country to let claimants know they are eligible for home health care if their doctors order it.

In seven years, the labor department has never announced a verified case of fraud in the program.

"It is deeply troubling that this administration would assume that these workers are lying about their work conditions and their illnesses," Obama said. "The great irony of the situation is that this program was created because the government misled these workers for so many years."

David Harris, a former claims examiner in the Denver DOL office, said he was never pressured to deny cases, but he and other examiners faced "killer" pressure to move claims through the office quickly. And he agreed with Block about who was driving that pressure.

"It comes from up above," said Harris, who left the office two years ago for a job in another federal agency. "You can get quality or you can get quantity, but you can't get both. But (claims examiners) can't score highly (on job evaluations) if they're not doing the quantity of work."

Harris said the intense deadlines started after Congress gave DOL responsibility for the entire program in 2004. Until then, half of it had been administered by the energy department. Officials were under pressure to quickly move thousands of complex cases that had stalled.

"That's when it all started falling apart," he said.

But increases in both claims and complexity cannot explain all of the problems that the program faces, said some of its most vocal critics.

Former Rocky Flats worker George Barrie, whose wife, Terrie, is a leading advocate for ill workers nationwide, has fought seven years to prove he qualifies.

Just before his case was denied, he requested a copy of the entire case file. In it were letters from his wife's organization, completely unrelated to his case. [See Barrie, page 10]

Former Los Alamos worker Ben Ortiz was one of the first workers to call for a compensation program and one of the first to file for it after it was created. Despite showing links between his job and his brain damage, he is still waiting for full compensation seven years after first applying. He said a government official told him every time his senator or congressman inquires on his behalf about the delay, it only delays his case further. [See Ortiz, page 8]

Janine Anderson, the former worker at the Oak Ridge nuclear weapons complex in Tennessee, helped found the Alliance of Nuclear Workers Advocacy Groups. So far, she has helped fellow workers receive $2.5 million in compensation. But the government denied most of her claim for seven years, citing her advocacy work as evidence that she must not be too sick.

DOL recently reversed its stance toward Anderson and approved more than 30 of her ailments that it previously had denied were work-related, but it might be too late. Anderson has been told that her severe liver condition is inoperable. [See Anderson, page 8]

Vina Colley, of Portsmouth, Ohio, helped found National Nuclear Workers for Justice, and was active in calling for help for ill workers since before the compensation program was formed. She has letters from multiple doctors stating that they believe her ailments are linked to toxic exposures. But officials shelved her claim for years, for reasons she still hasn't figured out. Despite the fact that Ohio workers' compensation officials agreed that she has work-related illnesses, the federal government denied parts of her claim multiple times and has yet to fully compensate her.

Advocates are not the only ones whose cases have been derailed or delayed. Many other claimants have been stalled by a bewildering array of obstacles.

Douglas DelForge died in February at age 46 after battling brain tumors for 15 years. His claim had been approved, but DOL officials acknowledged that they had delayed his payment for lost wages. His parents are still waiting for the labor department to explain why. If an explanation comes, it likely will be all they get from DOL. The law prevents parents from being compensated for a child's death.

Sue Yourishin and her brother, Steve Bock, lost their mother to lung, brain and bone cancer after she worked 20 years at Rocky Flats. They received a letter from DOL last November saying that they would be compensated. Three months later, they received another letter saying they wouldn't be, because DOL had changed its own rules for deciding who receives compensation.

A "claimant friendly" estimation of their mother's radiation dose had included exposure to neutron radiation, a particularly dangerous form. But when it became clear that exposure to neutron radiation would garner automatic compensation because it had gone unmonitored for years, program officials withdrew that assumption for their mother's case and others.

University of Iowa researcher Marek Mikulski studies sick workers. He has tried to help some get compensation. If they qualify for the first part of the program that covers cancer and lung disease, they are supposed to be covered automatically under the second part, which offers lost wages and impairment payments for any health problems related to any toxic exposure.

But Mikulski said that some workers he helped never were told about the second part of the program despite being approved for the first.

Kay Barker, whose late husband worked at Rocky Flats, and Sherrie Neff, who worked at a uranium plant in Fernald, Ohio, both tried to obtain information that the government had concerning workplace exposures at the sites. Although the law requires the government to help claimants, Barker was told that her request would cost more than $1,500 and Neff was told that hers would be $35,000.

All of these hurdles may save the government money, said U.S. Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo., whose district includes the former Rocky Flats site.

"That's legitimate in some cases," Udall said. "But not in this, when it come down to people's lives — people who really worked on behalf of all of us."

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

The Farallon Islands Nuclear Waste Dump

2008-07-13T08:25:56Z

http://www.energy-net.org/blog/?p=506#comment-2

The Farallon Islands Nuclear Waste Dump

November 14, 2007 at 8:12 pm · Filed under California, Nuclear Waste

http://socket.kongshem.com/2007/10/farallon-islands-nuclear-waste-dump.html#links
The Farallon Islands Nuclear Waste Dump

If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area, you may be surprised to learn that “more than 47,800 drums and other containers of low-level radioactive waste were dumped onto the ocean floor west of San Francisco between 1946 and 1970.” (Source: The U.S. Geological Survey, a bureau of the Department of the Interior.)

Permalink
1 Comment »

1.
admin said,

November 14, 2007 @ 8:21 pm

As usual, most of the history around the Farallons nuclear dump has been lost and found several times over, as if this were some kind of lost pirates treasure.

Sadly, there have quite a few media moments around the issue, with the last one being in the early 1990’s when a satellite mapping project uncovered the sunken aircraft carrier.

Probably the largest blast occurred when the a diving team uncovered the barrels of waste in the late 70’s. Hearings were held but the whole public outcry was quickly shutdown by calling for further investigations. As part of the whole bay area antinuclear movement one east bay group organized a giant Sponge group that could be counted on to show up with interesting costumes reminding us of the mutant sponges that the Tektite II divers found.

Barbara Boxer, who was a representative at the time helped kill one of the controversies, pushing the issue into “investigation Hell”.

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant Suit Legal Fees top $9 Million

2008-07-13T08:19:58Z

http://www.wpsdtv.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=a099df3c-d9ba-45d4-a380-787ab4760297

Property owners near the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion plant claim four law firms have been paid $9.4 million to defend the plant's former owners
By Griff Potter

The attorney for 80 property owners near the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion plant claims four law firms have been paid $9.4 million to defend the plant's former owners in a suit filed by the property owners over ten years ago.

James Owens, attorney for the property owners said, "The amount of money the Federal Government is paying to stall claims of these Property Owners is unconscionable".

HISTORY
Last November, the Kentucky Supreme Court reinstated the suit, which had been dismissed by a Paducah Federal Court judge in January 2004.

The lawsuit alleged that water leaks from the uranium enrichment plant devalued property values.

The homeowners sued in 1997, claiming that about 10 billion gallons of polluted groundwater had damaged 82 pieces of property. They also claimed they lost use of their property and suffered loss to plants, crops, livestock and wildlife.

The KY Supreme Court reversed a decision by U.S. District Judge Joseph McKinley, who dismissed the 10-year-old suit saying there wasn't enough proof enough contamination existed to pose a health hazard.

The court ruled: "Property owners are not required to prove contamination that is an actual.. health risk, nor are they required to wait until government action is taken. An intrusion which is an unreasonable interference with a property owners use of his property is sufficient evidence of an actual injury.. to award actual damages."

Now, James Owens claims those attorneys collecting large legal fees from the government are refusing to negotiate a settlement in the case.

"The defendants in the case have a contract with the Department of Energy (DOE) in which the United States government pays all expenses involved in the operation of the Plant, including litigation expenses, said Owens.

One of the property owners, Ruby English of West Paducah, filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Request to learn how much the government was spending to fight the property owners.

Law Firm Costs
Vorys, Sater, Seymour & Pease $9,064,844.75
Columbus, OH

Kramer, Rayson, Leake, Rodgers & Morgan $333,026.44
Knoxville, Tn

Joseph DiStefano $39,504.90
Tracy's Landing, MD

Whitlow, Roberts, Houston & Straub $32,105.35

(Mark C. Whitlow) Paducah
TOTAL $9,469,431.44

Copyright 2008 WPSD-TV, LLC. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcasted, rewritten, or redistributed.
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posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

Hanford vit plant gets emission stack (w/ video)

2008-07-13T08:13:44Z

http://www.tri-cityherald.com/901/story/237599.html

It's made of steel, weighs about 140,000 pounds and it took four months to assemble.

And Friday the 68-foot-tall emission stack was set atop the Analytical Laboratory building at Hanford's vitrification plant by 32 workers and engineers in an hourlong operation. The stack will help block the release of contaminants from the lab into the environment.

"It's a significant milestone, a good symbol of our progress for the community to see," said David Leeth, plant construction manager.

The $12.2 billion Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant Project, of which the lab is a key component, will help take care of the 53 million gallons of radioactive and chemical waste stored in underground tanks at Hanford.

The lab will analyze radioactive waste samples before they're treated to identify the best recipe to convert the waste into molten glass, and will ensure quality control in the treatment process.

The plant, which is being constructed by Bechtel National, is expected to become operational in 2019.

"Every installation we make brings us closer to operations and supports our efforts to clean up the Hanford site," said Delmar Noyes, deputy manager of the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant Project for the U.S. Department of Energy.

The plant will be the world's largest vitrification facility and will be a model for the nuclear industry to follow, he said. It's designed to last 40 years, he added.

The plant spread over 65 acres will include a pretreatment facility and separate facilities for treating low-activity waste and high-level waste. Low-activity waste will be processed faster than the high-level waste and be stored at Hanford, while high-level waste eventually will be shipped to an underground repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

For the Tri-Cities, construction of the plant is an engine of community growth. It brings federal money to the area and provides thousands of high-paying jobs, said Deanna Smith, spokeswoman for the Tri-City Development Council.

It's nice to see work at the plant is progressing well, Smith said.

About 800 to 1,000 professionals including chemical and radiological technicians and health physics specialists will be needed to run the plant when it's operating.

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

River use banned after French uranium leak

2008-07-11T08:50:28Z

This is from the French AFP

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jul/10/nuclearpower.pollution/print

" The 75 kilogrammes of untreated uranium amounts to 6.26 cubic metres
of liquid containing 12 grammes of uranium per litre, according to Socatri."

Socatri is one of the responsible parties for the leak, so it can be
reasonably assumed they would not exaggerate the data. By any measure,
especially by US water standards 12 grams per Liter is a very high
concentration. No wonder they shut down rivers, lakes and groundwater
downstream. A fairly black eye for the so called superior French nuke
power system.

Richard

Residents in the Vaucluse, a popular southern French tourist destination, were banned yesterday from drinking well-water or swimming or fishing in two rivers after a uranium leak from one of France's nuclear power plants.

Nuclear officials yesterday revised down the amount of untreated liquid uranium that spilled from the Tricastin nuclear power centre in Bollene, saying it was limited to 75kg and ranked grade one on the one-to-seven scale of nuclear accidents. But the spillage of waste material containing uranium in the picturesque area of Provence, 30 miles from Avignon, which is currently hosting an arts festival, embarrassed the government.

Nicolas Sarkozy has prioritised exporting nuclear expertise worldwide, including to Britain. Nuclear power comprises 87% of France's electricity production, but yesterday anti-nuclear groups renewed their criticisms of the nuclear power policy.

The leak occurred when a tank was being cleaned between Monday night and Tuesday morning but was not detected until yesterday. Around 30 cubic metres of liquid containing uranium, which was not enriched, leaked out of a tank. Of this, 18 cubic metres poured on to the ground and into the nearby Gaffiere and Lauzon rivers, which flow into the Rhone. The plant has been operational since 1975.

Vaucluse authorities banned drinking well-water, fishing and eating fish from the rivers as well as swimming and water sports and irrigating crops with potentially contaminated water. One swimmer among 100 bathers asked to immediately vacate a local lake said it was as if there had been sharks in it.

Officials from the Socatri safety agency, a subsidiary of nuclear giant Areva, said groundwater, wells and rivers had shown no effects yesterday. The nuclear safety authority said radioactive levels detected in rivers and lakes in the region were decreasing.

The prefecture of Vaucluse said the leaked uranium should only be found in very small quantities and the risk was low but the ban on drinking, fishing and swimming would continue.

Germany's Social Democrat environment minister, Michael Müller, whose party is opposed to nuclear energy, said yesterday that the incident should not be taken lightly. "It's no trifle when active uranium penetrates the soil," he told Agence France Presse.

The French environmental group, the Committee for Independent Research and Information on Radioactivity, said that the radioactivity released into the environment was at least 100 times higher than the fixed limit for that site for the entire year.

Greenpeace International nuclear campaigner, Aslihan Tumer, said: "Given the restrictions on the consumption and use of water in the area, it is clear that the leak poses a risk to the local population and to the environment."
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This article appeared in the Guardian on Thursday July 10 2008 on p21 of the International section. It was last updated at 10:10 on July 10 2008.

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US removes uranium from Iraq

2008-07-11T08:12:33Z

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1107ap_iraq_yellowcake_mission.html

This is the article that broke the story about 550 tonnes ofuranium brought from Iraq to the Port of Montreal in a secretU.S. military operation. The uranium was long ago obtainedfrom a mine near the town of Ukashat about 420 km. west ofBaghdad, and was stored at the Tuwaitha nuclear complex(23,000 acres in size) 15 km southeast of Baghdad. After the(first) Gulf War, in 1991, the IAEA identified and secured the yellowcake, which has been under IAEA safeguards ever since. - G. Edwards
AP Exclusive:
US removes uranium from Iraq
By BRIAN MURPHY
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

In a Monday June 9, 2003 file photo, UN inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) work at the nuclear facility in Tuwaitha, Iraq, 50 kms east of Baghdad. The last major remnant of Saddam Hussein's nuclear program - a huge stockpile of concentrated natural uranium - reached a Canadian port Saturday, July 5, 2008, to complete a secret U.S. operation that included a two-week airlift from Baghdad and a ship voyage crossing two oceans. (AP Photo/Saurabh Das, file)
The last major remnant of Saddam Hussein's nuclear program - a huge stockpile of concentrated natural uranium - reached a Canadian port Saturday to complete a secret U.S. operation that included a two-week airlift from Baghdad and a ship voyage crossing two oceans.
The removal of 550 metric tons of "yellowcake" - the seed material for higher-grade nuclear enrichment - was a significant step toward closing the books on Saddam's nuclear legacy. It also brought relief to U.S. and Iraqi authorities who had worried the cache would reach insurgents or smugglers crossing to Iran to aid its nuclear ambitions.
What's now left is the final and complicated push to clean up the remaining radioactive debris at the former Tuwaitha nuclear complex about 12 miles south of Baghdad - using teams that include Iraqi experts recently trained in the Chernobyl fallout zone in Ukraine.
"Everyone is very happy to have this safely out of Iraq," said a senior U.S. official who outlined the nearly three-month operation to The Associated Press. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.
While yellowcake alone is not considered potent enough for a so-called "dirty bomb" - a conventional explosive that disperses radioactive material - it could stir widespread panic if incorporated in a blast. Yellowcake also can be enriched for use in reactors and, at higher levels, nuclear weapons using sophisticated equipment.
The Iraqi government sold the yellowcake to a Canadian uranium producer, Cameco Corp., in a transaction the official described as worth "tens of millions of dollars." A Cameco spokesman, Lyle Krahn, declined to discuss the price, but said the yellowcake will be processed at facilities in Ontario for use in energy-producing reactors.
"We are pleased ... that we have taken (the yellowcake) from a volatile region into a stable area to produce clean electricity, " he said.
The deal culminated more than a year of intense diplomatic and military initiatives - kept hushed in fear of ambushes or attacks once the convoys were under way: first carrying 3,500 barrels by road to Baghdad, then on 37 military flights to the Indian Ocean atoll of Diego Garcia and finally aboard a U.S.-flagged ship for a 8,500-mile trip to Montreal.
And, in a symbolic way, the mission linked the current attempts to stabilize Iraq with some of the high-profile claims about Saddam's weapons capabilities in the buildup to the 2003 invasion.
Accusations that Saddam had tried to purchase more yellowcake from the African nation of Niger - and an article by a former U.S. ambassador refuting the claims - led to a wide-ranging probe into Washington leaks that reached high into the Bush administration.
Tuwaitha and an adjacent research facility were well known for decades as the centerpiece of Saddam's nuclear efforts.
Israeli warplanes bombed a reactor project at the site in 1981. Later, U.N. inspectors documented and safeguarded the yellowcake, which had been stored in aging drums and containers since before the 1991 Gulf War. There was no evidence of any yellowcake dating from after 1991, the official said.
U.S. and Iraqi forces have guarded the 23,000-acre site - surrounded by huge sand berms - following a wave of looting after Saddam's fall that included villagers toting away yellowcake storage barrels for use as drinking water cisterns.
Yellowcake is obtained by using various solutions to leach out uranium from raw ore and can have a corn meal-like color and consistency. It poses no severe risk if stored and sealed properly. But exposure carries well-documented health concerns associated with heavy metals such as damage to internal organs, experts say.
"The big problem comes with any inhalation of any of the yellowcake dust," said Doug Brugge, a professor of public health issues at the Tufts University School of Medicine.
Moving the yellowcake faced numerous hurdles.
Diplomats and military leaders first weighed the idea of shipping the yellowcake overland to Kuwait's port on the Persian Gulf. Such a route, however, would pass through Iraq's Shiite heartland and within easy range of extremist factions, including some that Washington claims are aided by Iran. The ship also would need to clear the narrow Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Gulf, where U.S. and Iranian ships often come in close contact.
Kuwaiti authorities, too, were reluctant to open their borders to the shipment despite top-level lobbying from Washington.
An alternative plan took shape: shipping out the yellowcake on cargo planes.
But the yellowcake still needed a final destination. Iraqi government officials sought buyers on the commercial market, where uranium prices spiked at about $120 per pound last year. It's currently selling for about half that. The Cameco deal was reached earlier this year, the official said.
At that point, U.S.-led crews began removing the yellowcake from the Saddam-era containers - some leaking or weakened by corrosion - and reloading the material into about 3,500 secure barrels.
In April, truck convoys started moving the yellowcake from Tuwaitha to Baghdad's international airport, the official said. Then, for two weeks in May, it was ferried in 37 flights to Diego Garcia, a speck of British territory in the Indian Ocean where the U.S. military maintains a base.
On June 3, an American ship left the island for Montreal, said the official, who declined to give further details about the operation.
The yellowcake wasn't the only dangerous item removed from Tuwaitha.
Earlier this year, the military withdrew four devices for controlled radiation exposure from the former nuclear complex. The lead-enclosed irradiation units, used to decontaminate food and other items, contain elements of high radioactivity that could potentially be used in a weapon, according to the official. Their Ottawa-based manufacturer, MDS Nordion, took them back for free, the official said.
The yellowcake was the last major stockpile from Saddam's nuclear efforts, but years of final cleanup is ahead for Tuwaitha and other smaller sites.
The U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency plans to offer technical expertise.
Last month, a team of Iraqi nuclear experts completed training in the Ukrainian ghost town of Pripyat, which once housed the Chernobyl workers before the deadly meltdown in 1986, said an IAEA official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the decontamination plan has not yet been publicly announced.
But the job ahead is enormous, complicated by digging out radioactive "hot zones" entombed in concrete during Saddam's rule, said the IAEA official. Last year, an IAEA safety expert, Dennis Reisenweaver, predicted the cleanup could take "many years."
The yellowcake issue also is one of the many troubling footnotes of the war for Washington.
A CIA officer, Valerie Plame, claimed her identity was leaked to journalists to retaliate against her husband, former Ambassador Joe Wilson, who wrote that he had found no evidence to support assertions that Iraq tried to buy additional yellowcake from Niger.
A federal investigation led to the conviction of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice.

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Where Nukes Go To Die

2008-07-11T07:55:06Z

http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htsub/articles/20080709.aspx

Where Nukes Go To Die

The U.S. has decommissioned over a hundred nuclear subs. These "nukes" are eventually dismantled at the Puget Sound Naval Base in Bremerton, Washington. The nuclear fuel is removed. The radioactive portions of the reactor compartment are shipped, by barge, some 500 kilometers down the coast, and moved inland 40 kilometers by truck to storage trenches in the Hanford nuclear storage facility. Hanford is in a desert area, and it will take about 600 years for the buried metal components to completely degrade.

The non-radioactive portions of the sub (over 95 percent of the metal) is sold for scrap. Even with that, it costs the U.S. Navy about $30 million to dismantle each nuclear sub.

The U.S., and other industrialized nations, have paid for a similar program to deal with over a hundred Soviet era Russian nuclear subs. Before this program was created, in the 1990s, the Russians were simply sinking their old nuclear boats off their northern coast, hoping no one would notice. But Scandinavian nations, that fish these waters, did note an increase in underwater radioactivity, and inquiries were made.

The first nuclear powered carrier to be dismantled will cost much more (over $500 million), because of more reactors, and more noxious (but non-nuclear) materials. More recent nuclear ships are being built for less expensive dismantling and disposal. This subject was brought up half a century ago, when the first nuclear ships were built. But much less was known about the subject, so the disposal angle got little attention.

Comment from Richard I have a very good friend this was his job i will be contacting him to explain you will be in shock,

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Contaminated US site faces 'catastrophic' nuclear leak

2008-07-11T07:36:44Z

New Scientist
July 9, 2008

http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/energy-fuels/mg19926642.900-contaminated-us-site-faces-catastrophic-nuclear-leak.html
Contaminated US site faces 'catastrophic' nuclear leak
ONE of "the most contaminated places on Earth" will only get dirtier if the US government doesn't get its act together - clean-up plans are already 19 years behind schedule and not due for completion until 2050.

More than 210 million litres of radioactive and chemical waste are stored in 177 underground tanks at Hanford in Washington State. Most are over 50 years old. Already 67 of the tanks have failed, leaking almost 4 million litres of waste into the ground.

There are now "serious questions about the tanks' long-term viability," says a Government Accountability Office report, which strongly criticises the US Department of Energy for delaying an $8 billion programme to empty the tanks and treat the waste. The DoE says the clean-up is "technically challenging" and argues that it is making progress in such a way as to protect human health and the environment.

The DoE's plan, however, is "faith-based" , says Robert Alvarez, an authority on Hanford at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington DC. "The risk of catastrophic tank failure will sharply increase as each year goes by," he says, "and one of the nation's largest rivers, the Columbia, will be in jeopardy."

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4 Real-Life WALL*E Robots Cleaning Up After Nuke Waste

2008-07-08T10:58:05Z

This article includes photos of the robots used inside of Hanford's waste tanks

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/robotics/4271364.html

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Nuclear Agency Weighs Attack Threat at Plants

2008-07-08T10:54:14Z

By MATTHEW L. WALD
Published: July 2, 2008
ROCKVILLE, Md. - Dragged by a federal appeals court into a rare public
discussion of the risks that terrorists could attack a nuclear plant, the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission heard arguments on Tuesday from a California
group that the commission's staff had overlooked one category of potentially
serious attacks.

The commission, determined to dispose of the issue promptly, heard the
arguments directly instead of delegating them to administrative law judges,
the first time since 1989 that the sitting commissioners have heard such
oral arguments.

But the three-hour session was not a revealing one, largely because the
lawyer for the commission staff said there were major issues that could not
be described in open session without compromising national security.

The commission's ruling could be important because the spent fuel storage
system proposed for the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, near Avila Beach,
Calif., is being adopted at scores of other reactor sites around the country
because of the Energy Department's failure to establish a national burial
site for used fuel. At issue was whether storage casks that the Pacific Gas
and Electric Company wants to build at the Diablo Canyon plant could be hit
with incendiary missiles, piercing the steel and concrete shell and lighting
the metal cladding of the fuel. If that happened, plant opponents contend,
the fire could turn radioactive cesium into a gas, which would float widely
with the wind and then resolidify.

"I cannot discuss anything that concerns what scenarios the staff considers
credible," said Lisa B. Clark, the lawyer for the commission staff.

Ms. Clark added that the staff was aware of the mode of attack raised by the
California group, San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace. "It does not alter the
staff's conclusion that there would not be any significant environmental
consequences of a terrorist attack," she said.

But the lawyer for the mothers' group, Diane Curran, said that the
commission staff had provided a list of the background documents it relied
on, and that these did not cover the threat described by her group's
technical consultants.

"The most obvious thing wasn't even on the table, not even remotely," Ms.
Curran said.

In calculating the threat of accident, the commission takes into account the
probability of the event, and its consequences, but the commission has long
argued that it is impossible to calculate the probability of a terrorist
attack and thus it does not need to take that threat into account when
approving installations like the cask storage.

But the mothers' group sued and demanded an analysis of that risk, and in
June 2006 won a favorable ruling from the United States Court of Appeals for
the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco. The commission staff then performed an
environmental assessment, which is an abbreviated version of an
environmental impact statement, and concluded that there would be no
significant impact from the threat of terrorism against the casks.

The details of how the staff reached that conclusion were evidently murky
even to one of the four commissioners who heard the case on Tuesday. The
commissioner, Gregory B. Jaczko, asked how the staff could assume that the
risk was low if it could not assign a numerical value to the likelihood of
an attack.

"Well, you have to use your judgment," Ms. Clark said.

For accidents, she said, "we're very comfortable, and we understand how to
deal with probability, how to evaluate it in quantitative terms." But the
threat of terrorism "is going to take us outside of that familiar space,"
she continued.

Still, she asserted, "the staff's judgment, based on their experience,"
indicated that this was not a threat to the environment. The casks, she
said, were "robust."

Mr. Jaczko responded, "So we're down to the staff's belief that this
probably isn't going to happen?"

The chairman of the commission, Dale E. Klein, tried through questions to
make the case that even if an attack were successful, people would be
exposed to doses of radiation that were quite small.

The mothers' group was advised by Gordon D. Thompson, a physicist, who said
that the chimneylike design of the casks, intended to keep the fuel from
overheating, could help fan a fire. Ms. Clark argued that Mr. Thompson had
not seen the intelligence reports on the capabilities of terrorists, but Ms.
Curran said equipment to do the job was available to "subnational groups."

"It is clear that weapons are available that can penetrate a cask and start
a fire," Ms. Curran said. "U.S. Army-shaped charges are more than capable of
penetrating concrete and armor plating."

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A tour of Hanford reveals the dangers of the birthplace of the bomb

2008-07-08T10:40:20Z

The Oregonian
June 28, 2008
http://www.oregonli ve.com/travel/ index.ssf/ 2008/06/a_ tour_of_the_ hanford_reveals. html

A tour of Hanford reveals the dangers of the birthplace of the bomb

by James Long

Fed up with Fiji?

Bummed out by the Bahamas?

Plumb tuckered out with Paris and those five-star maxi-meals at Maxim's?

Then get on the tour bus and roll with us through the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. If, that is, you were lucky enough to win a "lottery seat" from the U.S. Department of Energy. (OK, I cheated. I used my press card. Sue me.)

For the next six hours, we'll ride through a desert that has enough radioactive waste underneath to float a tanker. We'll see dozens of decrepit buildings, many of them too dangerous to enter.

We'll be on and off the bus a half-dozen times for an opportunity to race one another to a Porta Potti or swig from water bottles provided by our host. We'll be briefed on spiders, snakes and possible electrocution hazards, and we'll be advised to stay this side of any purple-and-yellow tape marking a radiation zone.

We'll hike into the frigid bowels of an ancient nuclear reactor and freeze our buns on folding chairs as someone explains how neutron-transfer converts uranium-238 into plutonium-239 for atomic bombs.

As for the cuisine, no sweat: There isn't any.

Tickets are free. But good luck getting one.

Hard to believe as it may be, these tours are wildly popular. People from all over the world competed for the 2,000 available seats this year, snapping them up almost as soon as the online application process opened in March.

On our lucky day, the bus begins rolling north on Hanford Route 4. Guards have looked us over. Dogs have sniffed our carry-ons. We're clutching our free water bottles. Michelle Gerber, a slender lady with a nice smile and a Ph.D. in Hanford history, stands up and adjusts her mike. "Congratulations, everyone," she says. "You're lottery winners."

I follow her gaze out the window.

The first time I saw Hanford in the 1990s, what surprised me was how beautiful it was. I had just been assigned to cover it as a reporter for The Oregonian.

It still looks more like a national park than a nuclear wasteland. There's the occasional ugly building, of course. But no bubbling pools of waste. Nothing that glows.

The damage isn't easy to see.

Hanford is mostly a big desert plateau, half the size of Rhode Island, straddling the Columbia River where it bends into an upside-down "U" north of Richland, Wash. The area's remoteness was one reason the Army chose it for the Manhattan Project, the super-secret U.S. effort to build an atomic bomb during World War II.

"Most of the site was just buffer," Gerber says.

Of Hanford's original 670 square miles, less than 5 percent went for bomb work. The rest remains much as it has been since the last ice age. Golden eagles, desert elk, prehistoric lichens and rare butterflies share a landscape that includes debris mounds left by icebergs during the Missoula Floods 12,000 years ago.

Roving patrols with machine guns and bazookas kept out intruders, as well as most of the 20th century.

Ecosystem a rarity

After plutonium production ceased two decades ago, the government set aside a 120-square-mile area along Hanford's western boundary as a nature reserve. It was, biologists said, the largest shrub-steppe ecosystem -- a landscape now rarer than old-growth forest -- left in the United States.

Of course there were drawbacks. Do you want to hear about the radioactive wasp nests? Or tumbleweeds that had to be chased down as nuclear waste after someone discovered they were carrying strontium-90, among other things. Then there were the escaped alligators.

I am not making this up.

We'll get back to it. But first, our bus is approaching a bunch of low, abandoned factory buildings. Tractors and loaders sit in rubbly patches of demolition.

"The first building we pass," Gerber says, "is the fuel fabrication plant."

News photographers -- the only people on the bus allowed to have cameras -- squeeze off a few shots.

"This plant," she continues, "made 22 million pieces of uranium fuel," the first step on the path to an atomic bomb.

Gerber's mentioning the fuel made me think of Ralph Wahlen, a Hanford old-timer who was 77 and retired in Aloha when I talked to him in the 1990s. Wahlen had gotten a job in the fabrication plant when he was in his 20s, running a lathe to shape pieces of heavy silvery metal into cylinders.

"They didn't tell us it was uranium," Wahlen said. "They didn't tell us anything."

The metal was called "tube alloy," and it was strange stuff. Fine particles would catch fire spontaneously. Every scrap had to be saved. The lathe men turned out thousands of "slugs" like long, smooth rolls of silver dollars.

The B Reactor

In the fall of 1944, Wahlen and several co-workers helped move the slugs they'd made to a building miles away. They helped feed them into row upon row of horizontal holes in a thing called B Reactor, a term they'd never heard.

An elevatorlike catwalk hoisted them up the face where the holes were. Wahlen couldn't begin to fathom what was being created or what might be destroyed.

Our bus veers right, toward the river on Route 2.

On our right, an abandoned school comes up. The old Hanford town site. About 300 people lived here until the winter of 1943, when the Army gave them 30 days to move.

Hanford became a vast construction camp with as many as 51,000 workers.

"Do we have anybody who worked here?" Gerber says, scanning the passengers.

"I did." A tiny lady with short gray hair raises her hand. We dutifully applaud. Betty Breitenfeldt is 85 now. She tells me she was teaching in a one-room school in Iowa when she and a girlfriend heard about Hanford and drove out together. "I wanted to work in a laboratory but the only thing they offered me was waitress."

Hanford secrecy was so tight that all sorts of rumors sprang up: The government was building a poison-gas factory. It was building a concentration camp. It was building a germ-warfare laboratory to experiment on humans.

The real story was hardly less bizarre.

Unknowns plentiful

Hanford was the brainchild of a scientist who was legally a citizen of Italy, then allied with Germany in war against the United States. Construction started on Hanford's most complicated facility, the world's first full-scale nuclear reactor, before blueprints were finished -- and while designers argued over crucial details. They were unsure of practically everything: whether the reactor would work, how to detonate a plutonium bomb, and whether such a bomb might explode a little too well and ignite the Earth 's atmosphere, burning the planet to a cinder.

Elvin Barton, an FBI agent assigned to Hanford security, told me years later that he'd sat in on a meeting at which the Armageddon scenario was discussed.

"They decided it wouldn't happen, but here are all these big scientists talking about it and I'm just this little FBI agent sitting in the corner ... and I can't say a word because everything's a secret."

The first reactor we drive past is 100-F. Not the oldest, just the first on our route. There are nine in all. All closed.

The three original Manhattan Project reactors -- B, D and F -- were supplemented with five more -- H, DR, C, KW and KE -- between 1949 and 1955. A ninth reactor, N Reactor, went online in 1963. Over time, the nine made an estimated 64 metric tons of plutonium, enough for tens of thousands of warheads.

When the Manhattan Project started, the Army already knew how to make a nuclear bomb with natural uranium-235. But uranium was saddled with a big downside. Uranium-235 made up less than 1 percent of natural uranium and couldn't be chemically separated from the common form, uranium-238, because they were chemically identical. They had to be physically separated. That was tough, requiring thousands of filters.

Why it was built

Collecting 50 or 60 pounds that way was absurd, which is mainly why Hanford was built. It was all about plutonium. Plutonium is similar to U-235 but chemically different, allowing it to be separated fairly easily. And plutonium packed more nuclear energy. A piece the size of a cue ball and weighing maybe 10 pounds could level a fair-sized city.

Our bus turns through a gate in a chainlink fence.

In front of us is B Reactor. It was not only the first reactor ever built, but the first reactor to be called a reactor. "Reactor" was a code name, like "tube alloy." It was used instead of the name that its inventors gave it, which was "atomic pile." The cover name stuck, and now the world has reactors instead of piles.

B Reactor has not grown handsomer with age. Its boxy concrete shapes are weatherstained, giving way here and there to cinderblock. Rusty pipes duck in and out.

We get a snakes-and-bats briefing before they let us inside.

The foyer could be that of any small factory: buffed-concrete floors, white-over-green walls, a pegboard with a sign-in sheet, a water cooler, a building floor plan with instructions on what to do if an alarm goes off.

A long corridor leads to a cavernous room, four stories tall inside and dimly lit. The reactor face -- a big, black waffle iron -- takes up nearly one whole wall.

The slug-loading ports -- 2,004 altogether -- protrude in our direction like stubby fireplugs. They ascend row after row, each with a stubby "pigtail" or hose for the pressurized coolant water. The water's rush was the only noise the reactor made.

History's first bomb

The plutonium for history's first atomic bomb came from here, the one that turned night into day in the New Mexican desert near Alamogordo on July 16, 1945, and for the "Fat Man" bomb that obliterated Nagasaki, Japan, on Aug. 9, helping bring World War II to an abrupt end.

Burt Pierard motions us to sit.

He's a friendly guy with a gray beard, tattoos, an earring and a ponytail held neatly by four leather wraps. He's a tour guide for the Hanford Reactor Museum Association, which is among the groups that want B Reactor preserved as a national historic site.

This relic, he tells us, wasn't made to do what civilian power reactors do, which is heat water into steam to make electricity. B Reactor was in the alchemy business, the old human dream of turning one element into another. Except B Reactor didn't turn iron into gold; it turned uranium into plutonium.

B Reactor was conceived by a "Mr. Farmer," as he was known at Hanford. His real name, Enrico Fermi, would have given away the ballgame.

Fermi had defected to the United States during a 1938 trip to Stockholm to pick up a Nobel Prize in physics. His wife, Laura, was Jewish, and they feared her arrest if they returned to Italy, an ally of Nazi Germany.

In 1942, Fermi and his colleagues built the first small reactor in a vacant squash court at the University of Chicago. It ran for only a few minutes but proved that a chain reaction was possible.

B Reactor was a scaled-up Chicago pile. Both used a stack of graphite blocks with holes drilled through them to hold pieces of radioactive uranium. Graphite, Pierard reminds us, was key.

Slowing neutrons

Whenever a uranium atom naturally disintegrated, one of the particles it ejected was a neutron. If the neutron traveled at its normal high speed and hit another uranium atom, it tended to just bounce off. But if it traveled more slowly, the other atom had a chance to catch it. That's what the graphite was for -- to slow down the neutrons as they passed through it from one hole to another.

A uranium atom that captured a neutron would either split and send out neutrons of its own to strike other atoms -- a "chain reaction" -- or it would absorb the neutron and change into a new element. This is how B Reactor made plutonium in Wahlen's slugs.

Atoms of natural uranium-238 that absorbed an extra neutron became uranium-239, which morphed quickly into plutonium-239. Bomb stuff. About one-twentieth of 1 percent of the uranium-238 became bomb-usable plutonium.

"Any questions," Burt asks. "No?"

He grins.

B Reactor was as conceptually simple as the digestive system of a goat. You pushed a new uranium slug in the front and an old one dropped out the back, containing plutonium. The 64,000 slugs that underwent alchemy at any one time were inched along over a 100-day period until they were excreted into a deep pool of water, sizzling hot and glowing an eerie blue from their now-intense radioactivity.

The chimney we saw as we arrived was for a ventilation system that swept air out of the building, including stray fission products such as iodine-131, which drifted silently to nearby farms. There, cows ate tainted grass and passed along the radioactivity, in their milk, to people.

Separation plants

But B Reactor's emissions were nothing compared with the brownish clouds that poured out of the separation plants. To extract plutonium, the slugs were dissolved in hot nitric acid, creating a waste stream thousands of times more voluminous than the product. Almost everything except the tiny bit of plutonium and the recoverable uranium was a screaming-hot radioactive stew that was routed mostly to the underground tanks.

That was just the beginning.

Our bus turns south to the place the slugs were processed, the so-called 200 Areas on the central plateau.

Some 53 million gallons of radiochemical waste are still stored here in 177 giant underground tanks. At least 67 have leaked, and one known as C-106 boiled until fairly recently from its own radioactivity.

The only clues to the tanks' presence are chainlink fences surrounding graveled areas with pipes and access panels. No plants are allowed to grow, lest their roots bring something dangerous to the surface.

"Half the radioactivity at Hanford is in the tanks," Gerber says.

A lot is still on the loose.

The U.S. Department of Energy estimated in the 1990s that about 450 billion gallons of liquid had been released into the ground with radioactive contaminants including iodine-129, strontium-90, technetium-99, tritium and uranium, along with such hazardous chemicals as carbon tetrachloride and chromium. About 80 square miles of aquifers are contaminated, and the Energy Department acknowledges that some has trickled into the Columbia River.

Expanding expertise

Over the years, the great variety of environmental problems at Hanford has forced authorities to expand their expertise from the nuclear sciences to such things as trapping gophers and rounding up fruit flies. Burrowing animals insist on bringing radioactive dirt to the surface, while fruit flies have proved to be fond of special paint used to immobilize radioactive contaminants in walls.

Not long ago, workers demolishing auxiliary buildings at H Reactor discovered that mud dauber wasps had been using radioactive mud to build nests. Similar incidents have resulted in radioactive birds and ants. On several occasions, Hanford officials have had to chase alligators that escaped a pen near a reactor where they were being kept for radiation-exposure studies.

The bus drops us off at an enormous hole in the ground. Thirty-five football fields would fit inside it. Yellow tractors crawl like fleas as they distribute burial containers holding some of the 8 million tons of contaminated trash collected, so far, from cleanup areas along the Columbia.

But some things are too dicey even to put in this pit.

The U.S. Department of Energy is still gingerly demolishing buildings at the Plutonium Finishing Plant, a 15-acre complex that originally had 63 structures containing about 20 tons of plutonium or plutonium-contamina ted trash. The department acknowledged in the 1990s that enough plutonium was lost or strayed just in ductwork -- an estimated 1.5 tons -- to give some country a significant nuclear arsenal.

43 buildings to go

All salvageable plutonium, officials say, has since been retrieved and placed under high security, while the waste -- contaminated rags, tools, floor tiles and so on -- has been packaged for shipment someday to a facility in New Mexico. Forty-three of the buildings have yet to be demolished.

A guide leads us away from the disposal pit to acquaint us with another of Hanford's ticklish problems: old barrels. Some have been known to build up pressure from the chemical or radioactive trash they hold and send lids flying with a bang. Hanford is on a crusade to vent, repackage and bury the 37,000 barrels it knows about, and about half have been processed so far. Engineers show us a remote-control barrel-venter they use before taking off a lid to verify the contents, in hopes of avoiding a nasty surprise.

Back on the bus, we make a hasty swing around the last attraction on the tour, the $12.2 billion waste-treatment construction project. Its completion date remains a mystery: Once set for 2011, it is now being projected for 2017 or beyond.

The centerpiece, if it ever gets finished, will be a plant for turning high-level tank waste into glass for storage someday in a permanent site such as Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

Our bus angles back toward Richland. We've had five hours of atomic fun.

As I find my car and drive back into Richland, I remember the city's unique way of obtaining 10 percent of its drinking water from the same Hanford aquifer that contains, upstream, radioactive tritium, good for making hydrogen bombs. It's a long story, but the city knows how to manage this. It tests the water all the time. But if I'm traveling with anybody new, I always tell them about it just to freak them out.

My favorite Mexican restaurant, 3 Margaritas, is on Jadwin Avenue. The waiter puts down a bowl of salsa and chips.

"Corona?"

"Si, senor."

The waiter nods and comes back with the frosty beer and a glass of water. I look at the water. I drink the beer.

Booking a tour

. Hanford tours are free and can be booked on the Web at www5.hanford. gov/publictours but they fill up almost immediately.

. The rest of 2008 is booked solid, and the U.S. Department of Energy won't start taking requests for 2009 until about Feb. 1, said Rich Buel, a department spokesman at Hanford. Officials are considering whether to increase the number of tours again after doubling them from 24 to 48 for 2008.

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

some recent news about the cold war

2008-07-08T10:38:17Z

Las Vegas Cold War-era mystique rekindled
http://www.twincities.com/travel/ci_9765577?source=rss

U.S.planned to use nerve gas on Oz soldiers during cold was
http://www.newkerala.com/one.php?action=fullnews&id=81765

Remembering Brainwashing
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/06/weekinreview/06weiner.html

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

Im Back Thanks To All Members

2008-07-08T09:22:21Z

First of all I sincerely thank all members for hanging on it makes me very happy!!!

After taking a few years away form the computer for needed rest, and peace of mind, I'm back. I have much to report on as well as comments, as I have been involved with 3 dose reconstructions during this time frame. The us gov. at the beginning of the energy employees occupation illness compensation program (EEOICP) when passed by law back in 2000 said we can never fully compensate these individuals for the loses of their loved ones and sacrifices they have made but will try to do all we can for them in a timely manor. (BS) Well it has been almost 8 yrs. now and for me as well as many others no resolution yet.( the most ludicrous roller coaster ride I have ever been on in my life). I finally understand that they are just waiting for us all to die so as to speak sweep us under the rug once and for all. My reply is i will not let this happen quietly!!! I have but one goal in my life and this is acknowledgment for the sacrifices to this country that my family has made by being recognized by this program period. I will be making many commits as well as suggestion and posts from other victims on a routine bases from here on out health permitting. This is a very open minded site so I hope to here from the ones that agree as well as the ones that do not. I ask only one favor please that all be respectful to both sides of opinions. After all this is still America and this is how we learn. And again thank you to all for remaining members to this tribe.

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

The Return of the Doomsday Machine?

2007-09-06T09:06:14Z

This should remind everyone that the Cold War might have "ended" but never bothered to really demobilize...

The Return of the Doomsday Machine?
Please don't count on me to save the world again.
By Ron Rosenbaum
Posted Friday, Aug. 31, 2007, at 3:52 PM ET

"The nuclear doomsday machine." It's a Cold War term that has long seemed obsolete.

And even back then, the "doomsday machine" was regarded as a scary conjectural fiction. Not impossible to create—the physics and mechanics of it were first spelled out by U.S. nuclear scientist Leo Szilard—but never actually created, having a real existence only in such apocalyptic nightmares as Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove.

In Strangelove, the doomsday machine was a Soviet system that automatically detonated some 50 cobalt-jacketed hydrogen bombs pre-positioned around the planet if the doomsday system's sensors detected a nuclear attack on Russian soil. Thus, even an accidental or (as in Strangelove) an unauthorized U.S. nuclear bomb could set off the doomsday machine bombs, releasing enough deadly cobalt fallout to make the Earth uninhabitable for the human species for 93 years. No human hand could stop the fully automated apocalypse.

An extreme fantasy, yes. But according to a new book called Doomsday Men and several papers on the subject by U.S. analysts, it may not have been merely a fantasy. According to these accounts, the Soviets built and activated a variation of a doomsday machine in the mid-'80s. And there is no evidence Putin's Russia has deactivated the system.

Read it at Slate.com
Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2173108/

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

short film: APT + Kontrabrand - The Litany

2007-06-22T21:18:33Z

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBsep4Xosk8

this is a short film i made in san francisco with spoken word/performance artist Chris Sia and Eugene Steele. It started out with Chris reading a list of all of these wartorn places in his van at Burning Man last year, and then he asked me to help him make a video, so we dug out a ton of samples and went to town.

our crew is A.P.T. (armageddon prevention team) and Kontrabrand is top secret, but suffice to say, you'll hear about it in the near future if you follow what i do at all.

enjoy!

dylan

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

Salazar blocks nominee until Flats workers get aid

2007-05-13T02:20:59Z

http://www.denverpost.com/headlines/ci_4828626

Salazar blocks nominee until Flats workers get aid
12/12/2006

U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar is blocking the confirmation of a Labor
Department
nominee because of what he called the administration's "foot dragging"
on helping
ill Rocky Flats workers.

Salazar said he wants to see action by the Bush administration before
he will
allow confirmation of Leon Sequeira for Department of Labor assistant
secretary for policy. Under Senate rules, one senator can block action
on a
confirmation.

"I harbor no ill will toward Mr. Sequeira," Salazar said Tuesday. "But
I am
furious with the foot dragging, the obstruction, and the neglect that
have
characterized the administration's approach toward American citizens
who took real
risks for our country during the Cold War, who are suffering now, and
who
need and deserve help."

Many who worked at the former nuclear-weapons facility near Golden were
exposed to radiation and other hazards and now have cancer and other
serious
illnesses, said Salazar spokesman Drew Nannis. Those workers and their
survivors
filed a petition 17 months ago asking for financial compensation.

posted in Cold War Survivors - 1 reply

JOIN THIS TRIBE!

2007-02-11T03:09:30Z

http://tribes.tribe.net/politicsreligionothers

Just want a beyond heated intelligent political and otherwise debate.

this tribe is not for the meek.
So if you know you are not going to be able to handle it, DONT JOIN!

Ok folks, thanks and let the games begin.

posted in Cold War Survivors - 2 replies

Fallout link to thyroid cancer gets boost

2006-12-17T19:20:33Z

http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,650215537,00.html

Fallout link to thyroid cancer gets boost

If cancer victim lived in '50s, Nevada tests could be to blame

By Joe Bauman
Deseret Morning News
Almost anyone diagnosed with thyroid cancer who was a child in
the
United States during open-air nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site,
and drank
fresh milk from stores or farms, could make a case that development of
the
disease likely was influenced by radioactive fallout.
That's the belief of F. Owen Hoffman, one of the authors of a new
report summarizing impacts of fallout on thyroid cancer. The report is
"Thyroid
Doses and Risk of Thyroid Cancer from Exposure to I-131 from the Nevada
Test
Site," prepared by SENES Oak Ridge Inc., consultants based in Oak Ridge, Tenn.
It calculates risks, breaking out several areas throughout the
country
and analyzing the danger of thyroid cancer to people born in certain
years.
Federal fallout compensation is available only to people who
lived in
selected counties. But as documented years ago, fallout from open-air
nuclear
blasts at the test site fell throughout the country.
The National Institutes of Health has set up a fallout risk
calculator
on the Internet, which is useful for figuring exposure and risk. The
program
asks those using it for facts such as age, gender and residency.
SENES' study makes some of the same calculations for several
groups of
citizens, with birth year, gender and location playing important roles.
It
calculates risks based on these factors and shows estimates about
exposure.
The new report's risk calculator is updated in a way that is
similar to
an improvement the NIH plans for its online site, according to the
study.
"Virtually all 160 million Americans who lived in the continental
U.S.
during the nuclear testing period were exposed to I-131," the report
says.
Radioactive Iodine 131 would churn into the air with a blast's
fireball. It would travel in clouds and drop as fallout. Cattle eating
contaminated
grass would pass along I-131 in their milk, and the material tended to
accumulate in thyroid glands of people who drank milk.
The federal government has laws governing compensation to atomic
workers who were exposed to radiation and developed cancer.
For compensation, there must be at least a 1 percent chance that
the
baseline risk of thyroid cancer has doubled for the atomic worker,
Hoffman,
president and director of SENES, said when contacted by the Deseret
Morning News.
The baseline represents the risk to unexposed people of the same age,
gender
and other attributes.
Almost anyone in the United States who was "unfortunate enough to
have
been diagnosed with thyroid cancer, a fairly rare disease, would
qualify (for
compensation) regardless of location of residence throughout the 3,090
counties of the USA," Hoffman said in an e-mail response.
That is, they would qualify only if:
â€¢ The laws for exposed workers were to apply to members of the
public
exposed off-site, which they don't.
â€¢ Fallout exposures mostly occurred when the person was a
child.
â€¢ And "during the time of atmospheric weapons testing, the
individual
consumed fresh sources of store-bought or farm-produced milk."
"The look-up tables (in the report) contain estimates of doses
and
risks for eight representative birth cohorts and 67 locations in eight
regions
around the continental United States," the new publication says.
The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act of 1990 (amended in 2002)
does
not cover many millions of Americans exposed to fallout during the
period of
open-air nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site. It provides money for
some
specialized workers such as uranium mine ore haulers, plus affected
civilians
who lived in 10 counties of southern and other parts of Nevada and
Arizona.
But the report makes clear that the radioactive Iodine 131 from
atomic
tests was carried in fallout that hit throughout the country, making
its way
into milk sold commercially. Usually fallout happened during rainfall,
but
sometimes it hit without precipitation.
Some of the hardest-hit areas were both southern and northern
Utah, and
parts of Montana, Kansas, Colorado, Vermont, South Dakota, Idaho, Iowa
and
other areas.
For a woman born in Salt Lake City in 1952 who has lived in the
area to
the present, who has consumed retail commercial milk and who has never
had
thyroid cancer, the chance of coming down with that disease is about
6.6 out of
1,000. (That is a mean, with the lowest figure 1.2 and the highest 28.)
If she had lived in an area that was not peppered by fallout, her
chance of coming down with thyroid cancer would be 1.8 per 1,000.
Fallout in Salt Lake City increased the risk of thyroid cancer
for a
woman born that year by 3.7 times, compared with the risk from natural
sources.
Men's chances of exposure were lower because male babies are not as
susceptible to ill effects of the radioactive iodine that worked its
way into milk
during the era of open-air testing.
Of groups whose risks were calculated, the highest mean estimate
was
for women born in Gunnison, Colo., in 1952. Risk of such a woman
developing
thyroid cancer was calculated at a mean of 18 out of 1,000, or 10 times
as likely
to develop the rare disease as someone not exposed who was born that
year.
However, it would be hard to find an American born during the
period of
open-air testing at the National Test Site â€” early 1951 through the
middle of
1962 â€” who wasn't exposed as a baby.
Radiation doses to the thyroid gland and the risk of developing
thyroid
cancer depended on age at the time of each nuclear test, location and
type
and amount of milk consumed. Milk from goats posed a greater danger,
which could
have implications for Navajos who drank goat's milk.
Breast milk was safer than cow's milk available commercially, the
report adds.
Support for the SENES project came in the form of a grant from
the
Citizens' Monitoring and Technical Assessment Fund, according to the
report's
cover. Its authors are Ann G. Moore, A. Iulian Apostoaei, Brian A.
Thomas and
Hoffman.

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

Mobile phones: Not so useful

2006-12-11T19:56:26Z

Amrita Chaudhry

http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=131564
Mobile phones: Not so useful

Ludhiana, May 29: Memory loss, Parkinson’s disease, impaired immunity, renal retardation and congenital defects are just some ill-effects caused by use of, now indispensable gizmo - mobile phone.

A study conducted by the Consumer Association of Penang (CAP), Malaysia, in association with the World Health Organisation (WHO) has found that mobile phones emit microwave radiations which can actually fry the brain. Children who are taking to mobile phones like fish to water are at a greater risk for, radiations from mobile phones penetrate skull and brain far deeper in children than adults, the study points out.

Advertisement
Citibank
This document, published by CAP, is based on studies carried in various counteries like Britain, Sweden, Russia, the USA, Australia, Austria et al. The major findings of the study include that people using mobile phones are two-and-a-half times more prone to brain tumour, digital phone users have been known to develop non-Hodgkin’s disease in the lymph glands in neck, damage immune system and the DNA system of the body, raise blood pressures, cause Alzhmeimer, multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease, decrease sex drive, headaches, diziness and concentration lapses are some of the other diseases to which mobile phone users, even with mediocre usage, are prone to.

The study says that mobile phones emit a low-level microwave radiation. More startling is the fact that even if one is within 200 metre of a mobile phone tower, it can be associated with an increased risk of a range of cancers and miscarriage, and also a higher risk of sleep disturbances and chronic fatigue which may lead to difficulties in learning.

Children are especially more vulnerable because of their developing nervous system.

The study suggests that it is the duty of the government to regulate the ill-effects caused by the increasing use of mobile phones. It also suggests formation of a task force to monitor the situation. It should be the responsibility of the government to see that children are not allowed to use mobile phones and that cell sites should be thoroughly checked while the towers are being erected, the report states. The report has a made a strong recommedation that cell sites should not be erected in residnetial areas or anywhere close to schools.

The report states that there would be 1.6 billion mobile phone users worldwide by 2005. Keeping in mind the ill-effects of the use of mobile phones, the WHO has initiated studies in 10 nations.

posted in Cold War Survivors - 1 reply

Alpha particles have devastating effect on human tissue

2006-12-02T21:32:36Z

http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,,1962345,00.html

Ian Sample, science correspondent
December 2, 2006
The Guardian

Experts said last night it was very unlikely that Mario Scaramella was
contaminated with polonium-210 through social contact with the former
Russian spy
Alexander Litvinenko.

Investigators cannot rule out the possibility that he was poisoned
sometime
after Mr Litvinenko. But they believe the most likely scenario is that
Mr
Scaramella was poisoned at the same time as Mr Litvinenko when they met
in a sushi
bar on November 1.

Although Mr Litvinenko is known to have received an enormous dose of
polonium, Mr Scaramella is believed to have ingested a lower dose.

This suggests that he may have eaten or drunk something contaminated
with the
poison. He could not have picked it up from shaking Mr Litvenenko's
hand, or
from conversation across the table.

Tests conducted on all staff at the restaurant have found no traces of
polonium-210.

If he was poisoned on November 1 - the day he met Mr Litvinenko - the
polonium-210 would still be in his system. Due to its radioactivity
polonium-210
emits alpha particles when it decays and it has a relatively short
half-life of
138 days.

Experts said last night the substance has different effects on
different
people, and it is possible that Mr Scaramella is more resistant to the
poison than
his friend. Sources close to the investigation confirmed the amount of
polonium-210 in Mr Scaramella's body was substantial, and it had been
detected in
his urine.

Hospital tests will check his white blood cell count for signs of
radiation
sickness. Polonium poisoning would initially affect bone marrow,
killing off
white blood cells. Mr Scaramella may not have felt ill as a result,
although he
may have felt slightly fatigued.

Officials expect Mr Scaramella's bone marrow to recover from the dose,
but
while it is impaired, he will be susceptible to infections and he is
expected to
be moved from the hospital as soon as he is cleared to avoid picking up
an
infection.

Dr Mark Little, an expert in epidemiology and public health at Imperial
College, said: "It is possible it could have been a separate incident
and have
nothing to do with Mr Litvinenko but the fact that he was at a
restaurant on
November 1 when Mr Litvinenko was possibly poisoned, it just seems to
me that it
possibly happened then.

"If you are sitting opposite someone and this is being sprayed on their
food,
it is likely you are going to get some. Some people would die from this
but
it would take you a much longer time - possibly three months."

This is what happened to survivors of the 1945 atomic bomb on
Hiroshima. At
first they appeared fine but "within two months their bone marrow
collapsed and
they died from infections and other things", said Dr Little.

Mr Scaramella is the first person to test positive since Mr
Litvinenko's
death sparked a radiation alert.

Experts from the Health Protection Agency have been advising University
College Hospital, where Mr Scaramella was admitted last night, on the
dose that the
Italian received.

Although relatively unusual, polonium occurs naturally and is present
in the
environment at very low levels.

It has many isotopes, all of which are radioactive, but polonium-210 is
the
most widely available.

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

Polonium is costly, undetectable, trillion times more toxic than cyanide

2006-12-02T21:31:18Z

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20061202.SPYSIDE02/TPStory/

ESTANISLAO OZIEWICZ

The bizarre assassination of spy-turned-whistleblower Alexander
Litvinenko
has drawn attention to a mysterious radioactive element, polonium.

Ingested or inhaled, it is extraordinarily lethal, even in microscopic
doses.
It's no new-age ingredient --polonium was discovered in 1898 by Marie
and
Pierre Curie, who named it after their Polish homeland. What's new is
that Mr.
Litvinenko appears to be the first person who has ever been
deliberately
poisoned with the it.

Writing in The Wall Street Journal, Peter Zimmerman, a physicist at
King's
College London, described the choice of polonium-210, the isotope that
killed
Mr. Litvinenko, as the result of "perverse genius."

That's because polonium is 5,000 times as radioactive per gram as
radium and,
according to one science writer, a trillion times more toxic than
cyanide.
Prof. Zimmerman says Mr. Litvinenko must have suffered horribly because
"it was
as if his internal organs received a severe sunburn and peeled."

Print Edition - Section Front
Enlarge Image

The Health Physics Society says that three millicuries of polonium is
enough
to kill. (A millicurie is the amount of radiation given off by
one-thousandth
of a gram of radium).

"Because polonium's radioactivity is so high," says Prof. Zimmerman,
"one
millicurie of polonium would weigh only 0.2 millionths of a gram."

United Nuclear Scientific Supplies distributes radio-isotopes over the
Internet, including polonium-210. But in a recent statement posted on
its website,
United Nuclear said the only isotopes it sells are an "exempt quantity"
amount,
meaning the quantities are so small (and they are electroplated on the
inside
eye of a needle) that they are not considered hazardous by the U.S.
Nuclear
Regulatory Commission.

United Nuclear does not carry any stock, and any orders it receives are
sent
to the NRC-licensed reactor in Oak Ridge, Tenn.

It says that one would need about 15,000 of its polonium-210 needles,
at a
cost of about $1-million U.S., to have a toxic amount.

"If you really wanted to poison someone, you would of course have to
come up
with a way to remove the invisible amount of material from the exempt
sources,
which is about physically impossible, and combine them together."

Perhaps that is one reason why news reports speculate that British
investigators are looking to nuclear facilities in Russia as the source
of the polonium
that killed Mr. Litvinenko.

Sergei Kiriyneko, head of Russia's state atomic energy agency Rosatom,
told
the government daily Rossiiskaya Gazeta yesterday that Russia produces
about
eight grams of polonium a month but that it is strictly controlled.

Polonium-210 does not stick around for very long. It has a half-life of
138
days, which means its radioactivity will be reduced by 50 per cent in
that
time. According to one environmental radiochemist, that suggests the
dose that
killed Mr. Litvinenko was produced recently.

One advantage of polonium to assassins is that, properly stored in a
vial, it
is undetectable.

"You could carry it around in a box, and no one would know you had any
by the
radiation," Yale University geophysics professor Karl Turekian told The
National Interest online.

"It would get warm if you had a lot of it, but no one could detect it
if you
had a vial surrounded by sawdust."

However, once it is released, as in Mr. Litvinenko's body, its captured
properties can give clues to investigators about where it was
manufactured.

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

Ex-Flats workers with cancer hit brick wall in seeking aid

2006-11-25T19:19:14Z

Subject: Ex-Flats workers with cancer hit brick wall in seeking aid.
RE: The "defendant caretkakers" redundant and defiant, abusive,
discriminatory, and illegal acts

================

Hi!

FYI -- Again, more findings of fact have emerged that provides evidence
that the EEOICP process is failed and is discriminatory, and abusive.
The attached media report discloses more of the same defiant and
abusive "defendant caretakers" harm done. See Item 1 of 2. The US Congress'
department delegates refuse to adhere to strict compliance with the
Rule of Law. The delegates violate their own "interim regulations."
These conflicting marauders are not qualified adjudicators. They are
assigned government personnel who have been oriented to believe they are
authorized practicioners. Actually, the department personnel are not
licensed and/or qualified to practice law or medical evaluations that
involves diagnosis or prognosis. The 109th USHouse Judiciary subcommittee is
investigating and holding EEOICPA hearings since about February 2006.
The sworn witness testimony that were aired during the November 15,
2006, hearing (Part IV) does offer much incite regarding why/how the
scandalous EEOICP affair evolved for the past six years and actually for
decades. Observation and tracking of the agents' performance affirms their
abuse of discretion acts, poor judgement, poor reasoning, poor
principles and poor practices.

For comparison value, I offer a very brief overview of the status of my
EEOICP claims that I have once again discovered. Apparently, the
"defendant caretakers" have not saw fit to have any contact with me for
several years. Suddenly the USDOL Ombudsperson's representatives, a
Seattle District Office representative, and the newly assigned case examiner,
Tom Melancon, contacted me Thursday and Friday. Hummm! It seems that
the well-documented fraud activity continues to adversely affect the
active status of my Subtitle B claim. Of course, I am challenged to
clarify this mess. I am instructed by the unaware USDOL representatives to
contact newly identified case examiner Melancon at my expense and
effort for the purpose of "explaining and proving" whatever the agents claim
to expect. I have not received any valid documentation that dismisses
my Subtitle B or E claims. There have been formal threats issued by
the "defendant caretakers." The claimants establish that WE are weary of
stressful routines imposed by the "defendant caretakers." I was made
aware that my records have been "locked up" in the agents' "dead file"
since 2003 (witnessed and documented). A USDOL Seattle District Office
supervisor, Christi Long, chose to document her fraud regarding the
status of "my RECA" claim--yes, I said "RECA" claim. My claims have been
filed since the first week of August 2001. Long distributed two
official letters to my Congressional representatives that reflects her
official signature. The representatives were conducting an investigation of
my case. When I confronted Long during a 2005 hearing held in
Richland, her excuse was that her clerk had written the letters. Long admitted
she errored when she "blind-signed" the letters. Long said, "That you
are clearly an EEOICP claimant and not a RECA claimant, and I will take
care of it." Long definitely seemed to believe she had exhonerated
herself from any responsibility and assumed she was forgiven. More time
elapsed; and I was not informed of any corrective action. So, I
confronted Long again during another EEOICP status hearing held in Pasco, WA.
Long had not notified the Congressional representatives of her abuse of
discretion behavior. Senator Cantwell's, Senator Murray's, and House
Represenative Hasting's aides attended the hearing and were informed of
the problem. Christi Long's letters state that I was not eligible to
receive compensation because I did not qualify as a "RECA claimant."
Consequently, it appears that for many years the USDOL employees thought
my Subtitle B claim had been "administratively dismissed." Case
examiner Melancon left a message on my answering machine that indicates "that
you believe you claim was closed inappropriately." Wrong! Christi
Long inappropriately dismissed what she thought was a RECA claim. I was
instructed to return Melancon's call. On many occasions, I have
notified the respondents of my declared pro se status. In accordance with the
expected protocol, complainant and respondent should communicate in a
more formal manner and in writing. Observance of my due process rights
and the Rule of Law by the "defendant caretakers" is mandated. Long
distance verbal communication is simply not acceptable at this point in
time. You would think that by now a USDOL and USHHS solicitor would have
oriented the agency employees regarding the legal definition of
"default," "fraud," and the many other legal definitions that
apply--especially since the members of Congress have formally and officially oriented
the US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales regarding their legal
interpretations and ramifications.

In 2002 and 2003, USHHS-OCAS director Larry Elliott, censored my
"Special Exposure Cohort" petition that I structured and distributed to the
appropriate agents in good faith. The petitions respresent about 7,600
petitioners. Elliot's conflicts of interests was one of the topics for
discussion by the witnesses during the USHouse Judiciary subcommittee
hearing November 15, 2006. Elliott's conflicts of interest was the
reason why he was removed from his executive secretary position on the
current US President's Advisory Board on Radiation and Workers Health. I
must assume that the "SEC" petition is hidden away in Elliott's "dead"
and/or "secret" files. Did Elliott destroy the petition? I plan to
reintroduce the petition. Many are aware that the President's Advisory
Board members agree to destroy public record accountability which the
agents' documented and then attempted to censor. But, I haven't quite
decided what I will do about this current boondogal that has come to my
attention. By Friday, the USDOL employees were trying to provoke me into
"explaining" my claim issues over the telephone. The agents definitely
affirmed that they are wholly unaware. So, back to the old
documentation routines that are necessary during any legal process. Records,
records, records and more records compile. I am very interested in filing
a litigation claim, soon. But, I will likely remain in the EEOICP
process for awhile longer. I have also attached the communication that was
sent to me by an acting Ombudsperson Eileen McCarthy. See Item 2 of 2.
McCarthy's and a clerk's novice ideals are expected and routine by now.

The claimants should consider writing to your members of Congress for
the purpose of witnessing and objecting to the "defendant caretakers"
routines that have trended to cause the denial of tens of thousands of
meritorious claims/cases. The claimants don't have to be invited to the
elected Officials' investigative hearings to be able to testify. The
elected Officials work for their constituents which was clearly
re-inforced after the November 7, 2006, election outcome. As WE all know, the
EEOICP process was originally intended to assist the sick nuclear
workers and their families. It is alarming when the Officials still believe
the USHHS-NIOSH and cohorts are capable of reconstructing dose. This
claim is ludicrous. The outspoken USHHS health physicists seem to
believe they are brilliant and expert. When in fact, they document
incredible errors. Consequently, tens of thousands of meritorious claims/cases
are denied. During the past 21 years, I have never observed any health
physicists that were subpoenaed to appear as an "expert witness" during
any legitimate court hearing.

The government Officials are aware of the fact that atomic weapons'
plant workers range in age is about 75 to 95. The Officials are aware that
since 1986, the sick and dying second and third generation of "nuclear
waste cleanup workers" range in age is about 18 to 75. And, what about
the effects of the migrating toxic exposures to our families which is
disclosed and affirmed by the USHHS-CDC-NIOSH.

Gai Oglesbee, Independent National Advocate
EEOICP Claimant | Downwinder
National Nuclear Victims for Justice
http://www.nnvj-goglesbee-eeoicp-abuse.com

------------

ITEM 1 OF 2:

Rocky Mountain News: Ex-Flats workers with cancer hit brick wall in
seeking aid

By Ann Imse, Rocky Mountain News

November 16, 2006

Former Rocky Flats workers with cancer are being stymied in their
attempt to win compensation because a federal official is
blocking an inquiry into whether their radiation records are
missing or falsified, Congress was told Wednesday.

Contract auditor SC&A said it could not finish its work because
the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health is
limiting its access to workers' claims.

A NIOSH official responded that he restricted the auditor's
access to enforce the Privacy Act.

But a watchdog group says it's an attempt to limit compensation
to the sick workers for budget reasons.

Since 2000, officials have rejected 70 percent of the claims for
aid filed by tens of thousands of sick nuclear weapons workers,
said Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas. Workers must prove their
cancer and other illnesses were caused by radiation and toxic
chemical exposure on the job to collect $150,000 in compensation
plus medical care.

Former workers at the Rocky Flats atom bomb plant outside Denver
say they can't prove their cases because radiation records are
missing or wrong. On these grounds, they've petitioned for all
former Rocky Flats workers with cancer to be grandfathered into
the aid program.

Their petition has been in front of a federal advisory board all
year, while more workers die without help.

The board, which is to rule on the petition, asked its
contractor, SC&A, to figure out if the workers are correct about
the missing and incorrect records.

SC&A pulled about a dozen random workers' claim records for
Rocky Flats, and "they found enormous gaps in data," some years
long, said Richard Miller of the Government Accountability
Project in an interview.

Miller said NIOSH, which is doing radiation dose calculations
for the workers' claims, then yanked SC&A's access to the
records.

In testimony before the House Subcommittee on Immigration,
Border Security and Claims on Wednesday, SC&A's John Mauro said
he could no longer do his job investigating the Rocky Flats
claims of "significant gaps, falsifications and deliberate
destruction of records" if he didn't have access to the records.

Larry Elliott, head of that section of NIOSH, said in an
interview that he is merely following the Privacy Act, ensuring
that SC&A sees only specified claims.

"They can't just look at any claim they want while they are
there," he said.

Elliott denied allegations made in the hearing that his
department is setting up the Rocky Flats petition for denial as
a cost-saving measure.

Jackson Lee called the Rocky Flats allegation "one of the
harshest" she heard in a variety of complaints about the aid
program Wednesday. "A fact-finder can't be a fact-finder without
access to documents," she said.

The Privacy Act specifically allows for government contractors
like SC&A to be treated as government employees with authority
to review private records as part of their work.

Miller said SC&A staff members have signed Privacy Act
agreements not to reveal patient-specific information to the
public.

Miller suggested to the committee that Congress order full
access to the records.

He said this could be done in a rider to an appropriations bill
before January.

| | 2006 ? The E.W. Scripps Co.

==================

ITEM 2 OF 2:

From "McCarthy, Eileen - SOL" <Mccarthy.Eileen@dol.gov>
Date 2006/11/17 Fri PM 04:33:56 CST
To goglesbee@verizon.net
Subject RE: DaytonDaily News Media coverage re. EEOICP sick worker
issues

Dear Ms. Oglesbee,

Thank you for contacting the Office of the Ombudsman for Part E of the
Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Act (EEOICPA). As
you may know, the Ombudsman's role is to provide information to
claimants, potential claimants, and other interested parties about EEOICPA Part
E benefits and how to obtain those benefits; in addition, the Ombudsman
issues a report to Congress concerning complaints, grievances and
requests for assistance received during the year. Our most recent report is
on our website, at

http://www.dol.gov/eeombd/2005annualreport/index.htm, and our next
report will be filed in February 2007 (covering calendar year 2006).

As you may have heard from other claimants, Don Shalhoub has resigned
as Ombudsman to become a Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Occupational
Safety and Health Administration. This is a great loss to us, but
obviously a great gain for OSHA. We are expecting the appointment of a new
Ombudsman very soon.

In the meantime, I and the other staff of the Ombudsman's office are
available to assist you and other claimants with your claims. As I
indicated initially, the Office of the Ombudsman is assigned certain
responsibilities under Part E of EEOICPA. Do you have a claim pending
with DOL? If you could give me a little more background about your
case, that would be helpful.

Eileen McCarthy
Office of the Ombudsman for Part E of EEOICPA

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

Energy Department fines Hanford contractor $82,500

2006-11-25T19:16:28Z

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
November 17, 2006
http://seattlepi. nwsource. com/local/ 6420AP_WST_ Hanford_Fine. html

By SHANNON DININNY
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

YAKIMA, Wash. -- CH2M Hill Hanford Group, a contractor hired to help
clean up the highly contaminated Hanford nuclear reservation, will be
fined $82,500 for violating nuclear safety requirements, the
Department of Energy announced Friday.

CH2M Hill is the primary contractor responsible for retrieving
hazardous and radioactive waste from 177 underground tanks at the
site. The toxic stew was left from decades of plutonium production
for the nation's nuclear weapons arsenal.

The preliminary notice of violation issued Friday cited a series of
violations associated with two separate events, during which
employees were contaminated with radioactivity.

On Sept. 21, 2005, when workers were removing equipment used to
retrieve waste from one of the tanks, they were contaminated with
highly radioactive waste while disconnecting a pressurized hose that
was contaminated inside. Workers again were contaminated on March 6,
while removing a camera from a radioactively contaminated catch tank.

None of the contaminated employees exceeded regulatory exposure
limits, the Energy Department said in a statement.

"The proposed civil penalty of $82,500 is based on the overall
significance of the violations and reflects mitigation granted by the
department for prompt, corrective actions taken by (CH2M Hill) to
prevent recurrence," the statement said.

The company must respond to the notice within 30 days.

CH2M Hill voluntarily reported the events and took corrective action,
leading the Energy Department to reduce the proposed penalty by 50
percent, said Mark Spears, company president and chief executive
officer.

Among the corrective actions: CH2M Hill improved work processes,
added new training for managers and support personnel and improved
emergency response planning.

"Our goal is to maintain the highest standards of safety performance.
The events cited in the enforcement action clearly fell below the
mark," Spears said. "We partnered with our work force to improve our
processes and the dramatic improvement in our safety and compliance
performance over the past year is testament to the effectiveness of
these actions and the quality of our workers."

The federal government created Hanford in the 1940s as part of the
top-secret Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb. The site
produced the plutonium for the Fat Man bomb that was dropped on
Nagasaki, Japan, effectively ending World War II, and continued to
produce plutonium for the nation's nuclear weapons arsenal through
the Cold War.

Today, it is the nation's most contaminated nuclear site. Focus has
shifted to cleanup, which is expected to top $50 billion and continue
through 2035.

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

UK Admits Israel Has Nuclear Weapons

2006-11-25T19:12:54Z

http://www.alalam.ir/English/en-newspage.asp?newsid=029030120061120184059"
target=_blank
>http://www.alalam.ir/English/en-newspage.asp?newsid=029030120061120184059

UK Admits Israel Has Nuclear Weapons

LONDON, Nov. 20--Former British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has become
the
first member of the British cabinet to go on public record and formally
admit
that the Zionist regime has an arsenal of nuclear weapons.

"I don't think it is a secret. I have never pretended that they haven't
got
nuclear weapons, certainly they have got a nuclear arsenal and it is a
working
assumption," said Straw.

The House of Commons leader made the admission after he was challenged
about
the government's failure to acknowledge let alone deal with Tel Aviv's
nuclear
weapons in an interview with the Muslim News, to be published Friday.

When he was foreign secretary, Straw insisted that he had talked about
Israel's illegal capability, which Britain helped to create nearly 50
years ago, in
the same breath as India and Pakistan.

"If you want a nuclear free Middle East, which I do, you don't get
proliferation, you stop proliferation, and then you ultimately deal
with the fact that
Israel has nuclear weapons, and I'm on record about that a lot," he
said.

In his interview, the House of Commons leader also said that he
accepted that
there was a continuing blaring injustice over Israel's 50-year
occupation of
Palestine.

"I have always thought, the glaring injustice of the Middle East crisis
--
Israel and Palestine -- has caused a great anger among Muslims," he
said.

"Resolving the Israel-Palestine situation is one of the most urgent
priorities of all," Straw said, but like Prime Minister Tony Blair, he
denied that
Britain's foreign policy had increased the threat of terrorism in the
UK.

He admitted that the situation in Iraq following the joint US-UK
invasion was
dire, but insisted that it cannot be the motivation for Bin Ladin and
his
group because they were going before that.

The former foreign secretary, who was replaced in May, also
acknowledged that
with the benefit of hindsight there are plenty of things one could have
done
better in Iraq.

"The preparations for the post war situation in Iraq were not nearly as
good
as they should have been," he said adding that there was time lost in
the very
crucial three months between the fall of Saddam.

"It was partly lost because in the United States a decision was made
that the
lead over reconstruction of the country should be given to the
Department of
Defense rather than to the State Department, and that was a great
error,"
Straw said.

This, he suggested, was one of the things which the British government
would
have done differently in Iraq, but said that the UK had only limited
influence
over that rather than a huge influence.

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

Valves installed backwards on two Naval Reactor Power Plants

2006-11-25T19:11:56Z

[ This is the kind of nonsense that goes on when an organization has no oversight by either the DOE or the NRC. First they perform an incredibly stupid act, and than they lie about it to the public, and no one in the Government gives a damn.]
John Shannon Nuclear Engineer/Nuclear Physicist [Retired]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Daily Gazette November 16, 2006
Opinion Dept
2345 Maxon Road Extension
Schenectady, N.Y. 12301-1090

Your November 7 article, Valve problems shut down reactors, reported that both reactors at the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory Kesselring Site have been shut down for an extended period of time after the discovery that some valves were installed incorrectly. This admission is accompanied with the usual boilerplate disclaimer of any risk to the workers at the site or to the general public.

To characterize the latest problem in plain English, the valves were installed backwards. At the very least, this shocking error can cause a significant reduction in flow and cooling to vital plant components. At worst, certain valve types when installed backwards will completely block normal flow. Such incompetence at any commercial nuclear reactor in the U.S. would lead to an immediate shutdown order by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that would not be lifted until all plant procedures and personnel were thoroughly purged.

Not so with Naval Reactors, a self-regulating organization that provides their own oversight, a ploy that for more than 50 years has allowed them to expound false propaganda about their unprecedented excellence. A most disturbing aspect of this situation is that this is not the first time the Kesselring Site has installed valves backwards. It has happened before. Clearly, the real risk arises because of human error by personnel entrusted with safe operation of this nuclear facility.

Robert G. Stater (Nuclear Engineer)
105 Pashley Road
Scotia, NY, 12302
(518) 399-1072

The Writer is a retired KAPL Nuclear Engineer

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

Workers contend contractors defrauded government in cleanup

2006-11-25T19:09:05Z

http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/news/state/16054285.htm"
target=_blank
>http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/news/state/16054285.htm

Nov. 19, 2006
Workers contend contractors defrauded government in cleanup
Associated Press

COLUMBUS, Ohio - A four-year-old lawsuit unsealed last month contends
contractors cleaning up a Cold War uranium-enrichment plant in southern
Ohio were
paid millions of dollars for shoddy work or work that was not done.

The lawsuit, filed by four workers, accuses Bechtel-Jacobs Co. and
Safety and
Ecology Corp. of falsifying work records, taking shortcuts and failing
to
protect the health of workers and neighbors of the Portsmouth Gaseous
Diffusion
Plant. The facility, near Piketon, about 60 miles south of Columbus,
produced
enriched uranium for 50 years and closed in 2001.

The workers - Philip Borris, Michael Eversole, Rodney Gossett and
Thomas
McDermott - filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court using a Civil
War-era law
designed to nab suppliers cheating the government. The case was kept
secret while
the Department of Justice investigated. It recently decided not to join
in.

"The Department of Justice lawyers have made it clear to us they have
found
plenty wrong, but they are having a hard time getting the support of
the
Department of Energy to make their case," said Charles Fitzpatrick, an
attorney for
the workers.

The U.S. attorney's office found no criminal intent to deceive the
government, said spokesman Fred Alverson in Columbus. "That doesn't
mean one way or
another that contractual obligations were kept or not kept, whether
overpayments
were made or not made."

Borris, a radiation-control worker, said the four sued on behalf of the
government because the Energy Department would not listen to their
complaints.

An Energy Department spokeswoman disagreed. "We take every employee
complaint
seriously," said Megan Barnett, a spokeswoman in Washington.

The contractors have not been served with the lawsuit and would not
comment,
their spokesmen said. The companies are no longer at the plant.

The workers estimate overpayments total tens of millions of dollars.

The four say contractors labeled large amounts of non-radioactive
fencing
shipped offsite as scrap metal contaminated with radiation to collect a
performance payment, charged for unnecessary work or work not
performed, billed the
government for nongovernment work and ignored health and safety
regulations.

Based on the False Claims Act, the lawsuit asks for three times the
amount of
actual loss to the government. If the workers win, they would receive
25
percent to 30 percent of the award. The suit also seeks a civil penalty
of $5,000
to $10,000 per violation plus damages and attorney fees.

Gossett, a health and safety worker, and others in the business say
problems
slip because the Energy Department has fewer people monitoring
contractors
than before.

Fitzpatrick said for the Energy Department to recoup money, the agency
would
have to admit that it failed to watch the companies.

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

Video available on U.S. House Judiciary subcommittee EEOICP 11-15-06 hearing

2006-11-25T19:08:02Z

Hi!

First of all, the members of Congress must "get-over" this 22 cancer
"SEC" qualification that was their intent. None have successfully
explained why this dictate was approved. The controversy continues;
but at
one point in time "All CANCERS WERE QUALIFIED!" The question is who
gets to or has dictated which cancers|relevant disease are work
related
or which cancers|relavent disease are caused by environmental
pollution?
So far, the "defendant caretakers" have been allowed to make that
determination based on their guesstimate IREP theories.

The U.S. House Judiciary subcommittee hearing on the EEOICPA is now
available for review. Chair Hostettler indicates the "promise made to
the
COLD WAR veterans. . ." is broken. Chair Hostettler will not be
returning in January when the 110th Congress takes over which is
controlled
by the democrats.

Since so many violations of the Rule of Law and citizen's due process
rights are vacated by the libelous "defendant caretakers" for this
EEOICP purpose, it appears the 110th Congress will have no choice but
to
seek possible remedies. How would it be possible to reform the
EEOICPA?
The listing of the many abuse of discretion acts is very long by now.
For instance, will the 109th Congress recognize that discrimination is
rampant.

You will note during your review of the video that much discussion
takes place regarding significant amounts of taxpayer funding that has
been
squandered on administrative costs and on the the government
oppressors' ways and means to reduce and/or "save" the funding that was
appropriated to compensate the sick and dying workers or their spouse
survivors.
Also, the presence of the current U.S. Advisory Board on Radiation and
Workers Health is attacked by the witnesses. Certain "defendant
caretakers" are identified as well as their abusive behavior during the
hearing. Once again the suppressed claimants have a window of
opportunity
to identify many more government employee offenders. Simply offer
written testimony regarding the horrors you have suffered and
distribute to
your Congressional representatives. For instance, you can help by
identify and affirming that USHHS-NIOSH director of OCAS Larry Elliott
has
been an abusive and controlling dictator regarding his and his
supervisors' reasons for seeing to it that tens of thousands of
meritorious
claimants are denied their entitlements according to the EEOICPA
provisions. Elliott is my perception of a well-paid oppressor.
Elliott was
removed from the current U.S. President's Advisory Board on Radiation
and
Workers Health and Safety because of his proven conflicts of interest.
Current President George W. Bush reinstated Wanda Munn who was removed
from the Advisory Board because she had no administrative value or any
particular expertise having to do with with the mission of the Advisory
Board. Munn is also a member of the Hanford Advisory Board. She
protested her removal from the ABoRWH and was reassigned by order of
President Bush. What does that finally tell us about Munn's mission.
Since
she began to make her appearance on these boards, she has always been a
very controversial figure. Munn always seems to manage to promulgate
and/or promote the wrong message. She is a retired Hanford engineer.

Gai Oglesbee, Independent National Advocate
EEOICP Claimant | Downwinder
National Nuclear Victims for Justice
http://www.nnvj-goglesbee-eeoicp-abuse.com" target=_blank
>http://www.nnvj-goglesbee-eeoicp-abuse.com

--------------

URL internet loaction:
http://www.house.judiciary.gov" target=_blank
>http://www.house.judiciary.gov

Click on legislative. . .
then. . .

Click on Energy Employees hearing

then. . .
Select the "video" telecast indicator and wait for it to boot up. The
video is over an hour long.

The November 16, 2006, hearing was postponed until further notice. It
was announced that there is substantial interest by key members of
Congress.

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

International Traffic: US to export 15Kg of highly enriched uranium..

2006-11-15T20:26:42Z

http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2006/10/fr102706.html

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

Inspection of a nuc site re. four high power nuc plants by Jack Shannon

2006-11-15T20:23:20Z

http://www.mindspring.com/~kapl/jpsasbestos01.html

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

Radioactive iodine linked to thyroid disease

2006-11-15T20:19:40Z

Mon Nov 13, 2006 9:45 PM GMT

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The long-term risk of developing a tumor in the thyroid gland or autoimmune thyroiditis, a progressive inflammatory disease of the thyroid, is increased after exposure to radioactive iodine in childhood, according to a re-analysis of data from children exposed to radiation from a nuclear test site in Nevada.

Since 1965, researchers have been studying children exposed to radioactive iodine from nuclear weapons testing at the Nevada Test Site from 1951 through 1962.

In 1993, Dr. Joseph L. Lyon, of the University of Utah School of Medicine, Salt Lake City, and colleagues, reported that among the 2,497 subjects examined, there was an association between radiation exposure from the Nevada Test Site and thyroid tumors.

The researchers have now used newly corrected dose estimates and disease outcomes to reassess the association. The new results are published in the current issue of the journal Epidemiology.

In children who received the highest radiation dose, the risk of thyroid tumors rose from 3.4-fold in the earlier evaluation to 7.5-fold. For thyroiditis, the risk increased from 1.1- to 2.7-fold, with a 4.9-fold excess risk for exposure to each Gy unit (gray = absorbed dose of radiation). The risk could not be estimated for malignant thyroid tumors.

"This is the first report of such a relationship in a U.S. population; hence, we believe that this (study group) represents a unique opportunity to provide further assessment of a range of exposures and disease end points among U.S. citizens," Dr. Lyon's team writes. "Further follow-up of this (study group may increase our understanding of the long-term health consequences of exposure to radioactive iodine regardless of its origin in reactors, accidents, or nuclear detonations."

SOURCE: Epidemiology, November 2006.

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

Cleanup Of Piketon Uranium Plant May Top $4.5 Billion

2006-11-15T20:17:36Z

http://wcpo.com/news/2006/local/11/12/uranium.html

PIKETON, Ohio (AP) -- The cost of cleaning up radioactive and hazardous
waste
at a former uranium-processing plant in southern Ohio could top $4.5
billion.

There's also evidence that contamination has migrated off the site.

That's according to the Dayton Daily News.

The newspaper says the government has spent one billion dollars on
clean-up
so far.

Officials with the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency say the Piketon
plant's environmental record has improved.

But in recent years the US Energy Department has found small amounts of
radioactive contamination outside the plant.

The department told the newspaper that none of the amounts are large
enough
to pose a health threat.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--

Expanded A.P. Story, Updated: 11/12/2006 5:51:53 PM

PIKETON, Ohio (AP) -- Cleaning up radioactive and hazardous waste at a
former
uranium-processing plant may top $4.5 billion, and there is evidence
that
contamination has migrated off the 3,714-acre site, the Dayton Daily
News
reported Sunday.

The Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, which once enriched uranium for
weapons and nuclear fuel, closed in 2001.

The newspaper said the government has spent $1 billion so far digging
up
soil, emptying ponds, capping unlined toxic landfills, treating
groundwater and
hauling contaminants away -- more than 43,000 containers of hazardous,
radioactive and other waste and 8,400 tons of radioactive scrap metal.

Officials with the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency say the worst
of the
plant's contamination is confined to the federal land, in part because
thick
bedrock slows the spread of groundwater.

They also say the plant's environmental record improved in recent years
as
plant operators adopted modern waste-handling practices and began
following
rules governing discharges to air and waterways.

Still, there is evidence of offsite contamination. According to its
most
recent environmental reports, the U.S. Energy Department in 2003 and
2004 found
small amounts of radioactive contamination outside the southern Ohio
plant.

Tests on two area deer killed by cars showed traces of uranium isotopes
in
the livers of both and in the muscle of one.

Traces of uranium were also found in milk and egg samples from area
farms,
and in three vegetables taken from the gardens of plant neighbors.

Air, water and sediment tests also revealed small amounts of
radioactive
uranium, plutonium or technetium, and three fish from area waterways
had traces of
uranium or plutonium.

The U.S. Department of Energy told the newspaper that none of the
amounts are
large enough to pose a health threat.

Messages seeking comment were left for the Energy Department by The
Associated Press.

The cleanup hasn't ended disputes between the Energy Department and the
Ohio
EPA.

Most recently, the Energy Department pushed for a reduced groundwater
cleanup
standard, arguing that the lesser standard is appropriate because no
one
drinks the water underneath the plant site, according to memos obtained
by the
Daily News.

"We represent the taxpayers. Our goal here is to make sure we are doing
cost-effective, smart cleanup," William Murphie, manager of the Energy
Department
office overseeing cleanup, told the newspaper.

Some of the most dangerous cleanup work is being done inside three
massive
enrichment buildings, where workers are removing uranium deposits that
cling to
surfaces inside equipment and 600 miles of piping.

They must use extreme care because mishandling the radioactive deposits
could
cause a small nuclear reaction a "criticality" that could kill workers
and
spread radiation through the area.

Murphie said nothing like that has happened.

"We've never had a criticality event, and I have no reason to believe
that we
ever will have a criticality event," he said.

In 2000, the Energy Department launched an investigation that
identified
hundreds of accidental releases of uranium gas or toxic fluorine at the
plant
since the 1950s and concluded there was a failure to properly monitor
emissions or
workers' exposure to radiation.

"We take a lot of lumps for the past processes and, face it, mistakes
that
were made," Murphie said. "We've learned from the past. We're all
smarter than
we were in the past."

Murphie said the department remains committed to the cleanup and trying
new
solutions if those now in place don't work.

"DOE is very proud of the cleanup program here," he said. "We believe
we have
accomplished a lot."

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

Radioactive Long Island

2006-11-15T20:16:44Z

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/12/opinion/nyregionopinions/12LI-

By KELLY MCMASTERS
> Published: November 12, 2006
> AT the geographic center of Long Island, just
> before the fish tail splits, three plumes of
> radioactive tritium snake through the earth. These
> plumes extend from soil beneath Brookhaven
> National Laboratory, where they originated during
> experiments involving one of the lab's nuclear
> reactors in the late 1990s, and travel by
> groundwater east and south.
>
> The United States Department of Energy, which owns
> the Brookhaven lab, recently posted a legal notice
> in local newspapers requesting public comment on
> some options for cleanup. The department offered
> five plans for the public to consider, from simply
> monitoring the plumes to digging up the
> contaminated soil and shipping it to an
> undisclosed location. The department recommends
> monitoring to be sure the plumes shrink over the
> next decade as predicted. And if they don't?
> "Additional actions will be evaluated."
>
> The department's notice directed readers to a Web
> site. Two maps there are particularly educational.
> The first is called Operable Units and Areas of
> Concern. It highlights 30 sites on the lab's
> campus, including Graphite Research Reactor spill
> sites, a Building 830 pipe leak and a Particle
> Beam Dump. There is also the 123-acre stand of
> pines and oaks known as the Gamma Forest, which
> was irradiated with cesium-137 between 1961 and
> 1979 in order to research the effects of radiation
> on plants.
>
> In other words, the map charts decades of
> accidental leaks and spills and intentional
> releases of radiation, most of which issued from
> the site's two decommissioned reactors. (Two other
> reactors remain operational.)
>
> The second map outlines groundwater flow from the
> lab; two bright blue arrows point east toward the
> Hamptons, and six point south directly at Shirley,
> a mostly blue-collar community to the south that
> shares the Hamptons' beautiful coastline but none
> of their social cachet.
>
> I grew up in Shirley. As a child there in the
> 1980s, I was fascinated by the lab, partly because
> the neighborhood fathers who worked there - most
> of them in support and service positions - traded
> jokes about glowing in the dark. Today, the jokes
> have turned sour.
>
> A class action lawsuit has been filed against the
> Brookhaven lab, and most of the plaintiffs are
> from the Shirley area. The complaints range from
> depressed real estate values as a result of living
> in a contaminated area to the claim that cancers
> and other illnesses have resulted from the
> laboratory's pollution. A children's cancer
> cluster - by 2000 there were 19 children in the
> area afflicted by a rare soft-tissue cancer -
> rings the lab like a necklace.
>
> The plaintiffs' lawyer is Richard J. Lippes, who
> fought and won the Love Canal case near Buffalo in
> the 1970s. The Shirley case has been going on for
> more than a decade already. During that time, the
> lab has managed to clean up almost all of the
> nuclear and chemical pollution flowing east toward
> the Hamptons while largely ignoring Shirley.
>
> When Brookhaven was constructed in 1947, Shirley
> didn't exist; most of the East End of Long Island
> was covered in potato farms and brush. It was this
> isolation - the thick cover of pines and distance
> from large populations - that made the site
> attractive to scientists engaged in such
> inherently dangerous research.
>
> Sixty years later, the laboratory is still hidden
> away in the middle of the Pine Barrens, but
> beneath it lies an aquifer that is one of the
> nation's largest single sources of drinking water,
> serving nearly three million people.
>
> I understand that the lab is worthy of
> celebration - six Nobel Prizes have been won by
> scientists associated with Brookhaven. I also unde
> rstand that much of the work the lab conducts,
> including medical research into addiction and
> cancer, is vitally important. But over the six
> decades the lab has been on Long Island, a dense
> population has crowded around it.
>
> Meanwhile, the lab released radioactive tritium,
> cesium, europium, radium, strontium, plutonium and
> several known carcinogens into the environment.
> Cancer rates on Long Island have soared without
> explanation. For many of these cancers, including
> breast cancer, the only proven cause, aside from
> genetic predisposition, is exposure to radiation.
>
> With all that in mind, I would like to suggest my
> own plan for Brookhaven's cleanup. Let's call it
> Option 6: Close the remaining two nuclear reactors
> on the Brookhaven National Laboratory property. It
> is time.
>
> Nuclear reactors made sense in the 1940s when most
> of Long Island was brush and pines. But it makes
> no sense to house them in a dense residential area
> where so many lives are at risk and mistakes -
> radioactive, potentially cancer-causing mistakes -
> continue to be made. Shut them down.
>
> Kelly McMasters, who teaches creative writing at
> Columbia, is writing a book about the hamlet of
> Shirley.
>

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

Another Downwinders Life Shattered (MINE)

2006-11-06T12:56:58Z

My father worked at Hanford from 1951 to 1973, sixteen years in
Reactor Operations.Job titles as follows. (Radiation Monitoring,
Supervisor, Radiation Monitoring, Supervisor, Supplemental Crews,
Reactor Specialist, and Supervisor 105-109, 100N Area.)

After which he worked as Office Equipment Manager, and Manager of
Printing and Duplicating.

He was in charge of classified files for the Atomic Energy Commission.

My father had a Q clearance, that's the highest.

My father also worked for Bendix and U.N.C. Geotech in Grand Junction, Colorado.

With almost thirty years of employment for the Department of Energy he
died in 1988 at age 62, of Multiple Myeloma a rare type of cancer
having Statistically Significants linking it to Nuclear workers.

Brief history of my father: From March,1944 to Nov.1946 Military
Service, Held rank of Sargent in Army Air Force as Remote Control
Gunner. His position was Ball and Turret gunner B-17 Bomber Combat
Crew. My father spent time in France,Austria,and Germany.

Education: Mesa Jr. College from Dec.1946 to June,1949 after which he
attended the University of Pittsburgh,Pennsylvania.My father took
courses in Pre-Dental,including chemistry,bacteriology,
physics,zoology,anatomy,and mathematics. Company sponsored courses in
the field of employee and union relations.

Summary of qualification: Held administrative position for nine years,
for Bendix, and Geotech U.N.C.,(DOE) as Supervisor of Printing
Department.

Held administrative positions for 19 of 23 years employed at the
Hanford Project. Responsibilities included directing the activities of
union, non-union and supervisory employees.

Appraisals by management asserted his performance was proficient and
emphasized his ability to handle personnel relations effectively,as
well as getting the job done.

Responsibilities in Arrow Lite and Paint and Arrow Trophies, Inc.,
included outside selling.

While he was manager of Arrow Trophies,Inc., he traveled western
Colorado selling trophies,awards,and component parts wholesale and
retail.

The gross sales tripled in the three years he managed the corporation.

He was Branch Manager and only sales person while employed by Rocky
Mountain Hose Co.

Hired on with General Electric 4-18-51 to March 1955 as H.I.Inspector
B, later job title changed to Radiation Monitor.

Duties: Responsible for radiation protection and contamination control
in a single reactor building under the supervision of a radiation
monitoring supervisor Duties included routine and
non-routine,radiation surveys,air sampling and accurate record
keeping.

March 1955 to October 1959 Supervisor,Radiation Monitoring Reactor
Operations.Duties: Supervised a crew of 8 to 16 radiation
monitors,providing monitoring service for 4 to 8 production reactors
during one 8-hour shift. Maintain a sustained radiation protection
training program for all reactor personnel on the shift;i.e.,
radiation monitors, reactor operators and maintenance craftsman.
Assume responsibility for all radiation problems and incidents with in
the assigned reactors on the shift.

Oct. 1959 to June 1961 Supervisor, Radiation Monitoring Reactor
Operations.Duties: Same as June 1964 to June 1967. June 1961 to April
1963- Reactor Specialist- Reactor Operations.Duties: In training for
first 18 months. As Reactor Specialist, responsible for the efficient
and safe operation of nuclear production reactor during 8-hour shift.
Provide functional guidance to reactor operating crew.

April 1963 to June 1964- Supervisor, 100-N Reactor Operation.Duties:
Supervise a shift crew of 10 to 12 reactor operators and 2 radiation
monitors in work not directly affecting the process control for a dual
purpose reactor during the initial operating period following
construction. Much of the work involved high temperature - high
pressure water, and steam. Work included non-irradiated and irradiated
solid, gas, and liquid materials arrangement, handling, storage and
shipping; decontamination activities and radiation protection clothing
control.

June 1964 to June 1967- Supervisor, Supplemental Crews- Reactor
Operations.Duties: Supervise a crew of 6 to 8 reactor operators and 2
to 4 radiation monitors during one eight- hour shift. This crew is
concerned primarily with supplying supplemental manpower during
shutdown periods of the eight Hanford plutonium production reactors.

From April 1951 to 1967- General Electric Company, Richland, Washington.

June 1967 to June 1969- Specialist - Office Equipment
Management.Duties: Coordinated procedures and controls to insure
availability, suitability, maximum utilization, and economical
retirement of all office machines, furniture, and other related items
of controlled equipment utilized at the October Project by the Atomic
Energy Commission and it's cost-type contractors. Conducted tests and
made studies off all types of office equipment such as typewriters,
electronic calculators, and economical and dependable equipment to be
purchased as replacement and additions to stock.

June 1969 to Oct. 1973- Manager of Printing and Duplicating.Duties:
Responsible for management of printing plant, duplicating service,
from design service, engineering reproduction service and classified
files for the Atomic Energy Commission and it's cost-type contractors
at the Hanford Project. Held accountable for planning, organizing and
directing activities of 40 employees.

From June 1967 to Oct. 1973- ITT Federal Support Services, Inc., and
Atlantic Richfield Hanford Co., Richland, Washington.

Dec. 1973 to Jan. 1977- Arrow Trophies, Inc., Grand Junction,
Colorado.Duties: Manager and part owner of retail outlet supplying
trophies and awards.

Jan. 1977 to Sept. 1978- Arrow Lite and Paint, Grand Junction,
Colorado.Duties: Manager and part owner of retail and wholesale store.
Products included paints, wall-coverings, framed mirrors, medicine
chest, fireplace doors and related items.

Sept. 1978 to Sept. 1979- Rocky Mountain Hose Co., Grand Junction, Co.
Duties: Branch Manager and outside sales.

Oct.1979 to March 1988- (DOE)- Geotech U.N.C., and Bendix Field
Engineering Corporation, Printing Manager

Accomplishments: Authored several systems acceptance test procedures
and detailed operating procedures for startup of the new reactor.

Promoted from Radiation Monitor to Radiation Monitoring Supervisor
with less time as a monitor that anyone promoted before him.

Also was youngest Monitoring Supervisor.

Established highest charging rate for a 12 month period, while a
Supplemental Crews Supervisor.

Personnel working for him never suffered a major injury.

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory,(PNNL) operated by Battelle for
the U.S. Department of Energy in charge of radiological exposure
records claims he received 22.008 rems of whole body effective dose
equivalent, and 27.010 rems skin dose equivalent, and 27.730 rems
extremity dose extremity dose equivalent, and no eye dose equivalent.

PNNL claims he received no internal dose.

My father told his doctors shortly before he died that he had received
45 rems of whole body effective dose equivalent.

I have documentation from the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Arizona
stating that he had received 45 rems while employed at Hanford, and
also documentation from a his doctor at Saint Marys Hospital in Grand
Junction, Colorado stating diagnosis of multiple myeloma is
potentially pertinent in that he has a history of irradiation exposure
in his prior occupation associated with accelerators and reactors.

Battells explanation for the discrepancy in dose was possibly my
father was calculating his penetrating exposure with his skin exposure
which is not a meaningful number.

If that was the case it would have added up to be forty nine.

I contend that taking into consideration with respect to my fathers
education, monitoring experience, and record keeping skills that this
is a false conclusion.

Whether it is 22rems or 45 rems most of the scientific community
believes that any number over 20 can cause, and or increase your risk
associated with cancer.

Recently my only living first degree relative my brother, was told by
a supervisor at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and
Health.(NIOSH) In charge of dose reconstruction that it does not look
like my fathers cancer was 50 percent as likely as not caused from his
employment for the Department of Energy. With all due respect,I must
disagree.

Evidence:

1.My father had a Q clearance.

2.My father spent most of his time in the 100 area, but also spent
time in the 200 and 300 areas.

3.Department of Energy, General Electric worker records from 1951 to
1955 are not documented on job locations, to fully understand what
types of exposures may have occurred between those years.

4.My father started working in 1951 his work involved exposure to
neutrons and it was not until the late 1950's that the neutrons were
properly monitored.

5.My father worked in Reactor Operations, Production,and Manufacturing.
Manufacturing Process, Reactor Operations main radiation hazards were
from inhalation of fission products, activation products, external
whole body ionizing radiation.

6.Production workers were exposed to natural uranium through about
1958. Reactor workers,they do not know how they were monitored for
activation products until 1960 except air sampling.

7.My father was involved in at least three laps of radiation control
incidents,and one skin contamination incident.

8.One of the incidents personnel who may have received uncontrolled
exposures are not known for certain.

9.Incidents were classified as severity 11 and severity 16.

10.At Hanford, urine samples were used as one way to monitor radiation exposure.
But for decades those tests showed only the activity level in the
urine, not whether radiation was from isotopes being quickly excreted
or insoluble.

11.My father was monitored by biological radiation monitoring programs
urine, and
in-vivo/whole body count for Plutonium, and Fission Products,also for Isotopes.

12.Samples for bioassay were also picked up from my fathers door step.

13.For years my father traveled to where ever he was needed all around
the Hanford Reservation when working as day relief radiation monitor,
and as supplemental crews.

14.In the early 1950's Hanford had a severe problem with hot particles
from the stacks and he was exposed to radioactive dust,and fall-out.

15.My father reported to the Hanford doctor for particles in his eyes,
and also for some deep cuts and continued to work in radiation zones.

16.Which means he most likely received internal radiation exposure
from these circumstances through inhalation and absorption that were
never calculated.

17.For sixteen years my father was exposed to radiation, chemicals,
and heavy metals.

18.On some of the earlier dosimetry records on the bottom of the
dosimetry card it states that you must not exceed 50 mrems daily
without special permission.

19.He reached 50 mrems at least 50 times, and over 50 mrems a least 30 times.

20.My Father was withdrawn, restricted from certain Job sites because
of over-exposure at least 10 times.

21.Dosimetry records that I received from Battelle (DOE) were poor
quality, and around one fourth were illegible, so the number of
radiation limits and with drawn from job sites are most likely much
higher.

22.My father told his doctors from the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale
shortly before he died that he had received 45 rems of whole body
effective dose equivalent, and one of his doctors in Grand Junction,
Colorado states that the multiple myeloma is potentially pertinent in
that he has a history of irradiation exposure in his prior occupation
(meaning Hanford) with accelerators and reactors.

23.I have documentation from the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Arizona,
stating exposed to 45 rems while employed at Hanford, and Saint Marys
Hospital in Grand Junction, Colorado stating diagnosis of Multiple
Myeloma is pertinent do to his previous work with radiation and
accelerators.

24.My father had supervisor evaluations states that strengths were in
Radiation Monitoring and was qualified in all aspects, as well as
being quite qualified in Reactor Operations.

25.Meaning that he was an expert in Radiation Monitoring, and
calculating Dosimetry,and record keeping, and was very knowable in
Reactor Operations.

26.My fathers job required that he have X-rays almost on a yearly
bases, he had at least fourteen chest X-rays while at Hanford.

27.My father was exposed to radiation while working with accelerators.

28.The IREP computer program designed to calculate probability of
causation, which is so instrumental to the out come of the program
does not take into account for accelerator produced particles which
under estimates his exposure.

29.With all the factors involved with my father's work the synergistic
effect is incomprehensible.

30.Radiation is known to effect the immune system adding to the
possibility of contracting cancer.

31.There are a number of accredited studies around fifty with
statistically significant findings linking radiation workers to
multiple myeloma.

32.Most of these case studies were exposed to far less radiation
exposure than my father was.

33."Statistical significance" is the likelihood that the results found
could not have occurred by chance alone. The association of disease
risk with radiation exposure in a study is said to be statistically
significant if the association is so strong that it is unlikely to
have occurred simply by chance.Statistically significant means that
chance is operating less than 5 percent of the time.

34.My father had no history of any kind of cancer in his family.

35.Multiple Myeloma is a rare type of cancer.

36.Blacks are twice as likely to contract and die from multiple
myeloma as whites.

37.The Department of Energy has known from as early as 1977 that
Nuclear workers at Hanford were dyeing from Multiple Myeloma.

38.The Program Director Mr. Peter M. Turcic made the statement
quote.(This is a claimant friendly process workers don't have to prove
any exposure at all in dose reconstructions,only that they are ill and
worked in the area where there was a 99 percent confidence level that
they were exposed.)

Conclusion:

My Father while employed as Printing and duplicating supervisor at the
Hanford Project was in charge of classified files for the Atomic
Energy Commission.
The responsibility involved with this job means he was thought as a
very respected, competent, and trustworthy employee and knew exactly
what he was doing.

I believe Congress enacted the (EEOICP) for families like mine who
have suffered from the loss of a loved one.

With all do respect, I believe that the over abundance of evidence of
my fathers claim shows that an approval is in order.

I am still awaiting a decision. I have been waiting for over four years.
I truly believe that the biggest
problem with the porgram is that the IREP computer program is flawed.

A good question would be to ask DOL how many claims for Luekemia,
Thyroid Cancer, and Multiple Myeloma have been approved?

I have asked but they claim that they do not know.

The money is not the most importance
factor it would not begin to pay for lost wages, medical and burial expences.

I get a little paranoid at what our
government is capable of doing.
In a society as open as are's is, the
only way that they can admister
certain policies is to lie, deni or
be secretive,which are all the same to me.
I only wish that DOL,DOE,HHS,NIOSH,OCAS,ORAU,
would follow the path that congress intend
for the Energy Employees Occupational Compensation Program.
It was not designed for NIOSH to make up the
rules as they see fit. Yes, my family has
suffered the consequences of Hanford, and the cold war.
My father dieing in my arms at age 62 of Multiple Myeloma, my mother as healthy
as a horse one day, and dead the next of Acute Myeloid Leukimia and my
brother wasting away in front of my face with Colon Cancer and dieing at age 42.
All the while ripping a piece of my heart out
with each of their death's. I am so scorn that
life will never be the same.Nor will I.

Richard

posted in Cold War Survivors - 3 replies

History of French Nuclear Tests in the Pacific

2006-11-01T20:44:30Z

http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?no=325785&rel_no=1

Part I ] 1966-1974: Atmospheric tests

For the first time in almost half a century, French scientists are confronting their government with solid scientific evidence showing that the nuclear tests conducted in the Moruroa and Fangataufa atolls have caused an increase in thyroid cancers among the populations inhabiting the neighboring islands.

This four-part story retraces the history of the French nuclear testing program in the Pacific and summarizes the conclusions of several surveys regarding the radiological situation of these atolls as well as the potential health consequences on the local populations.
PART I 1966-1974. THE ATMOSPHERIC TESTS

PART II 1974-1992. THE UNDERGROUND TESTS

PART III 1995-1996. CHIRAC RESUMES FRENCH NUCLEAR TESTS

PART IV THE AFTERMATH: THE RADIOLOGICAL SITUATION
<Editor's Note>

PART I 1966-1974. THE ATMOSPHERIC TESTS

French scientists have played a major role in the early development of nuclear physics. Becquerel discovered the natural radioactivity of uranium salts in 1886. Two years later, Marie and Pierre Curie isolated a new element, the radium, and investigated its properties. The three French scientists shared the 1903 Noble Prize for Physics.

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In 1934, Irene and Frederic Joliot-Curie, the daughter and son-in-law of Pierre and Marie Curie, produced the first artificial radioactive element. For this discovery, they won the 1935 Noble Prize of Chemistry.

In 1938, Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann discovered the process by which a neutron splits a heavy nucleus in two lighter ones. In January 1939, Lise Meitner explained this reaction and called it nuclear fission. In the spring of the same year, F. Joliot and his collaborators -- Lew Kowarski, Hans Halban and Francis Perrin -- demonstrated the possibility of a chain reaction.

From then on, nuclear reactions could be used to produce energy or to make powerful weapons. On May 1939, Joliot deposited three patents: the first two concerned the production of energy while the third one dealt with the military applications.

During the occupation of France by the Germans which began in June 1940, research in nuclear science no longer progressed. However in the U.S., American and British nuclear scientists were advancing rapidly with the Manhattan project.

As French nuclear scientists were well aware of the potential military application of nuclear energy, General de Gaulle had been well informed of the progress made in the U.S. toward the fabrication of the first nuclear weapons. On Oct. 18, 1945, de Gaulle created the Atomic Energy Commissariat (AEC). The Atomic Energy Authority is the first such Agency ever established worldwide. On the same day, he appointed Joliot as the High Commissioner and Dautry as the General Administrator.

In the years following the end of WWII, France was plagued by a weak political power and tremendous economical difficulties. As a result, French nuclear research made little progress and fell well behind that of the new superpowers. Reliance on U.S. economical help, through the Marshall plan, may equally have prevented France to consider the nuclear military option, as the U.S. government was eager to keep its nuclear monopole.

France merely attempted to keep alive a small-scale research program. On Dec. 15, 1948, France started its first nuclear reactor: ZOE. The following year, a plutonium research facility was set up at Le Bouchet by the AEC.

Another factor that held back the development of a French nuclear weapon was the strong influence of the French Communist Party. On March 19, 1950, F. Joliot, himself a communist, signed the "Stockholm Appeal." The Declaration called for an absolute ban on nuclear weapons. As the Government of Georges Bidault could not longer tolerate his opinions, Joliot was dismissed and replaced by F. Perrin in April 1950.

In 1952, Felix Gaillard, the Secretary of State for Atomic Energy in the Pinay Government (March 1952 to January 1953), drafted a modest five-year plan for the development of atomic energy. His plan concentrated on civilian applications of nuclear energy as a remedy for the country limited resource of fossil energy. In July 1952, the Communist Party drafted a project of law banning all research activities related to military applications of nuclear energy. The Bill was overwhelmingly defeated by the National Assembly (518 to 100).

While the vote merely left the door opened to the development of nuclear weapons, the re-armament of Germany convinced the French Military Authorities that France needed these weapons. And thus, on Dec. 26, 1954, Prime Minister Pierre Mendes gave the authorization for a nuclear weapon program. The Bureau of General Studies was immediately created to manage this program.

Meanwhile, the Fourth Republic was facing major troubles with its colonies. In 1954, Algerian nationalists began a war for independence. The next year, France had to abandon Indochina after a decade of fighting.

Yet, it is probably the 1956 Suez operation that best revealed to the French and British the new status of the world. Moscow threatened to launch missiles on London and Paris in response to their intervention while Washington showed no solidarity for their cause. The incident showed that a common vision of defense did not imply automatically a convergence of interests on matters of foreign policy.

In France, the feeling of dependence on Americans was no longer bearable. To put an end to this situation, the French Parliament affirmed the need to possess the nuclear bomb. Slowly, and with much hesitation, the French Nuclear Doctrine was taking shape.

On Oct. 5, 1956, a program concerning vehicles of delivery of nuclear weapons was established. On Nov. 30 the AEC and the Defense Minister signed a memorandum concerning the testing of nuclear weapons.

On Dec. 5 a Committee for the Military Applications of Atomic Energy was created. This committee provided for a secret co-operation between the Atomic Energy Commissariat and senior military officials. On Dec. 19 a strategic nuclear bomb program was outlined.

In May 1958, rebel army officers seized control of Algiers. In Paris, a coup seemed imminent. A weak and inexperienced government had lost control over all matters. In this critical situation, General de Gaulle made his come back on the political scene.

On May 31, 1958, de Gaulle became President of the Council of Ministers. In June, the National Assembly voted him full powers for a period of six months. Moreover, he was asked to draft the constitution of the Fifth Republic which he submitted in September to a popular referendum. The new Constitution was approved by a wide margin.

On Dec. 21, de Gaulle became President of France. In the autumn of 1958, Algeria was General de Gaulle's most urging problem. He quickly dismissed a military solution, foreseeing that the independence was unavoidable.

The return of General de Gaulle also marked the end of French hesitations concerning nuclear matters. De Gaulle intended to distance himself from Washington in order to raise France's international prestige and to restore its independence in Foreign Affairs. But in order to reduce the French dependence on the American nuclear umbrella, he felt the urgent need to develop a nuclear force. His view was widely shared by top French military officials.

"Western defense centered around the nuclear weapon is becoming wholly dependent on American wishes... The only possible correction is the formation by the European nations of a nuclear arsenal to allow them to intervene in the new warfare with their own means; it would give them the possibility of resuming a leading role in directing the coalition," wrote General Valluy, the French representative in the NATO Standing Group.

As "French defense must be French," the General created the "Strike Force", a nuclear force independent of NATO. He soon afterwards decided on the date of the first test which he would announce on June 17, 1958, during a meeting with his Defense Council.

In 1959 he ordered the closing of all U.S. Air Force bases in France. A point of no return had been reached. France would become a nuclear power. There is some irony in the undisputable fact that the French took their decision not so much out of fear of their enemies but because of a lack of confidence in their allies.

Becoming a nuclear power meant, among other things, that France needed a test site. On June 17, 1958, de Gaulle chose the Sahara for this purpose.

Despite the fact that the British, Soviet, and American had previously agreed -- in 1963 -- to ban testing in the atmosphere, under water, and in space, the French government decided to carry out atmospheric testing. This would eventually lead the Soviet Union to withdraw from the moratorium.

Seventeen tests were performed: four in the atmosphere (from Feb. 13, 1960, to April 25, 1961) and 13 underground from November 1961 to February 1966.

In 1960, de Gaulle opened peace negotiations with the Algerian rebels. These negotiations lead to an agreement granting independence to Algeria. As a result, the Sahara test sites -- Reganne and In Ecker -- had to be abandoned and new locations had to be found. And by then, the French Empire had dwindled to a few islands.

French Polynesia, a territory roughly the size of Europe, is made up of about hundred islands. These Islands, most of which are coral atolls, belong to five different groups: Marquises Islands, Austral Islands, Iles Gambier, Society Islands and Tuamotu Archipelago.

The Moruroa and Fangataufa atolls, located in the southeast corner of the Tuamotu Archipelago are located 20,000 km away from the metropolis. Nevertheless, they are part of France. These atolls were chosen for their "ideal location." They were uninhabited, easily accessible, and located far away from populated islands.

The closest inhabited atoll is Tureia (140 persons) at a distance of 120 km to the north. Only 5,000 persons lived within 1,000 km of the test site. A larger population (184,000 persons in 1974) is located 1,200 km to the northwest, at Tahiti.

Moreover, French technicians deemed the meteorological conditions perfectly suited to atmospheric nuclear tests. They also concluded that the basaltic nature of the underground was particularly well suited for underground testing.

The fringes of the atolls are at most a few hundred meters wide and enclose a lagoon. They rise just a few meters above sea level. Moruroa covers an area of 155 km square while Fangataufa, located 40 km south, covers an area of 45 km square.

On March 29, 1963, the legislation establishing the two atolls as test sites was signed. A few weeks later, French Troops and civilian workers arrived at once.

Immediately, the local parliament, known as the Territorial Assembly, objected the tests for environmental and radiological concerns. The French governor -- the so called high Commissioner -- simply reminded them of their colonial status. As such, all questions relating to defense matters were outside their competence.

French officials brushed aside all concerns about nuclear fallout by stating that the nukes would be exploded only when the wind was blowing in the south direction, where no other islands are located.

On July 2, 1966, the French tried out their new atomic test site at the Moruroa atoll. The first bomb, a plutonium fission device named Aldebaran, was placed on a barge floating over the lagoon and was detonated, at 5:34 local time.

Following the blast, unpredicted winds spread the radioactive fallout over the Gambiers Islands. As the radioactivity levels raised to 0.6 millisievert (The International System of Units for radiation dose and effective dose equivalent -- 1 millisievert = 100 millirem) per hour, no one notified the local populations. Levels of radioactivity in drinking water were 50 times above normal.

On July 19, 1966, the French dropped the next bomb from an airplane flying 15,000 meters above the empty ocean, 40 km south of the atoll.

After these two tests, radiation at five times the permitted annual dose was measured at the Gambier Islands. In Apia, Western Samoa, the concentration of fission products in rain water was 135,000 pico-curies per liter. For comparison, the maximum allowed amount of radioactivity contained in products imported in the European Union is about 10 times smaller than this value.

Part 2 of this series will be published later this week.

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

Mystery of Israel's secret uranium bomb

2006-10-30T17:57:39Z

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article1935945.ece

Alarm over radioactive legacy left by attack on Lebanon
Published: 28 October 2006
Did Israel use a secret new uranium-based weapon in southern Lebanon this summer in the 34-day assault that cost more than 1,300 Lebanese lives, most of them civilians?

We know that the Israelis used American "bunker-buster" bombs on Hizbollah's Beirut headquarters. We know that they drenched southern Lebanon with cluster bombs in the last 72 hours of the war, leaving tens of thousands of bomblets which are still killing Lebanese civilians every week. And we now know - after it first categorically denied using such munitions - that the Israeli army also used phosphorous bombs, weapons which are supposed to be restricted under the third protocol of the Geneva Conventions, which neither Israel nor the United States have signed.

But scientific evidence gathered from at least two bomb craters in Khiam and At-Tiri, the scene of fierce fighting between Hizbollah guerrillas and Israeli troops last July and August, suggests that uranium-based munitions may now also be included in Israel's weapons inventory - and were used against targets in Lebanon. According to Dr Chris Busby, the British Scientific Secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk, two soil samples thrown up by Israeli heavy or guided bombs showed "elevated radiation signatures". Both have been forwarded for further examination to the Harwell laboratory in Oxfordshire for mass spectrometry - used by the Ministry of Defence - which has confirmed the concentration of uranium isotopes in the samples.

Dr Busby's initial report states that there are two possible reasons for the contamination. "The first is that the weapon was some novel small experimental nuclear fission device or other experimental weapon (eg, a thermobaric weapon) based on the high temperature of a uranium oxidation flash ... The second is that the weapon was a bunker-busting conventional uranium penetrator weapon employing enriched uranium rather than depleted uranium." A photograph of the explosion of the first bomb shows large clouds of black smoke that might result from burning uranium.

Enriched uranium is produced from natural uranium ore and is used as fuel for nuclear reactors. A waste productof the enrichment process is depleted uranium, it is an extremely hard metal used in anti-tank missiles for penetrating armour. Depleted uranium is less radioactive than natural uranium, which is less radioactive than enriched uranium.

Israel has a poor reputation for telling the truth about its use of weapons in Lebanon. In 1982, it denied using phosphorous munitions on civilian areas - until journalists discovered dying and dead civilians whose wounds caught fire when exposed to air.

I saw two dead babies who, when taken from a mortuary drawer in West Beirut during the Israeli siege of the city, suddenly burst back into flames. Israel officially denied using phosphorous again in Lebanon during the summer - except for "marking" targets - even after civilians were photographed in Lebanese hospitals with burn wounds consistent with phosphorous munitions.

Then on Sunday, Israel suddenly admitted that it had not been telling the truth. Jacob Edery, the Israeli minister in charge of government-parliament relations, confirmed that phosphorous shells were used in direct attacks against Hizbollah, adding that "according to international law, the use of phosphorous munitions is authorised and the (Israeli) army keeps to the rules of international norms".

Asked by The Independent if the Israeli army had been using uranium-based munitions in Lebanon this summer, Mark Regev, the Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, said: "Israel does not use any weaponry which is not authorised by international law or international conventions." This, however, begs more questions than it answers. Much international law does not cover modern uranium weapons because they were not invented when humanitarian rules such as the Geneva Conventions were drawn up and because Western governments still refuse to believe that their use can cause long-term damage to the health of thousands of civilians living in the area of the explosions.

American and British forces used hundreds of tons of depleted uranium (DU) shells in Iraq in 1991 - their hardened penetrator warheads manufactured from the waste products of the nuclear industry - and five years later, a plague of cancers emerged across the south of Iraq.

Initial US military assessments warned of grave consequences for public health if such weapons were used against armoured vehicles. But the US administration and the British government later went out of their way to belittle these claims. Yet the cancers continued to spread amid reports that civilians in Bosnia - where DU was also used by Nato aircraft - were suffering new forms of cancer. DU shells were again used in the 2003 Anglo-American invasion of Iraq but it is too early to register any health effects.

"When a uranium penetrator hits a hard target, the particles of the explosion are very long-lived in the environment," Dr Busby said yesterday. "They spread over long distances. They can be inhaled into the lungs. The military really seem to believe that this stuff is not as dangerous as it is." Yet why would Israel use such a weapon when its targets - in the case of Khiam, for example - were only two miles from the Israeli border? The dust ignited by DU munitions can be blown across international borders, just as the chlorine gas used in attacks by both sides in the First World War often blew back on its perpetrators.

Chris Bellamy, the professor of military science and doctrine at Cranfield University, who has reviewed the Busby report, said: "At worst it's some sort of experimental weapon with an enriched uranium component the purpose of which we don't yet know. At best - if you can say that - it shows a remarkably cavalier attitude to the use of nuclear waste products."

The soil sample from Khiam - site of a notorious torture prison when Israel occupied southern Lebanon between 1978 and 2000, and a frontline Hizbollah stronghold in the summer war - was a piece of impacted red earth from an explosion; the isotope ratio was 108, indicative of the presence of enriched uranium. "The health effects on local civilian populations following the use of large uranium penetrators and the large amounts of respirable uranium oxide particles in the atmosphere," the Busby report says, "are likely to be significant ... we recommend that the area is examined for further traces of these weapons with a view to clean up."

This summer's Lebanon war began after Hizbollah guerrillas crossed the Lebanese frontier into Israel, captured two Israeli soldiers and killed three others, prompting Israel to unleash a massive bombardment of Lebanon's villages, cities, bridges and civilian infrastructure. Human rights groups have said that Israel committed war crimes when it attacked civilians, but that Hizbollah was also guilty of such crimes because it fired missiles into Israel which were also filled with ball-bearings, turning their rockets into primitive one-time-only cluster bombs.

Many Lebanese, however, long ago concluded that the latest Lebanon war was a weapons testing ground for the Americans and Iranians, who respectively supply Israel and Hizbollah with munitions. Just as Israel used hitherto-unproven US missiles in its attacks, so the Iranians were able to test-fire a rocket which hit an Israeli corvette off the Lebanese coast, killing four Israeli sailors and almost sinking the vessel after it suffered a 15-hour on-board fire.

What the weapons manufacturers make of the latest scientific findings of potential uranium weapons use in southern Lebanon is not yet known. Nor is their effect on civilians.

Did Israel use a secret new uranium-based weapon in southern Lebanon this summer in the 34-day assault that cost more than 1,300 Lebanese lives, most of them civilians?

We know that the Israelis used American "bunker-buster" bombs on Hizbollah's Beirut headquarters. We know that they drenched southern Lebanon with cluster bombs in the last 72 hours of the war, leaving tens of thousands of bomblets which are still killing Lebanese civilians every week. And we now know - after it first categorically denied using such munitions - that the Israeli army also used phosphorous bombs, weapons which are supposed to be restricted under the third protocol of the Geneva Conventions, which neither Israel nor the United States have signed.

But scientific evidence gathered from at least two bomb craters in Khiam and At-Tiri, the scene of fierce fighting between Hizbollah guerrillas and Israeli troops last July and August, suggests that uranium-based munitions may now also be included in Israel's weapons inventory - and were used against targets in Lebanon. According to Dr Chris Busby, the British Scientific Secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk, two soil samples thrown up by Israeli heavy or guided bombs showed "elevated radiation signatures". Both have been forwarded for further examination to the Harwell laboratory in Oxfordshire for mass spectrometry - used by the Ministry of Defence - which has confirmed the concentration of uranium isotopes in the samples.

Dr Busby's initial report states that there are two possible reasons for the contamination. "The first is that the weapon was some novel small experimental nuclear fission device or other experimental weapon (eg, a thermobaric weapon) based on the high temperature of a uranium oxidation flash ... The second is that the weapon was a bunker-busting conventional uranium penetrator weapon employing enriched uranium rather than depleted uranium." A photograph of the explosion of the first bomb shows large clouds of black smoke that might result from burning uranium.

Enriched uranium is produced from natural uranium ore and is used as fuel for nuclear reactors. A waste productof the enrichment process is depleted uranium, it is an extremely hard metal used in anti-tank missiles for penetrating armour. Depleted uranium is less radioactive than natural uranium, which is less radioactive than enriched uranium.

Israel has a poor reputation for telling the truth about its use of weapons in Lebanon. In 1982, it denied using phosphorous munitions on civilian areas - until journalists discovered dying and dead civilians whose wounds caught fire when exposed to air.

I saw two dead babies who, when taken from a mortuary drawer in West Beirut during the Israeli siege of the city, suddenly burst back into flames. Israel officially denied using phosphorous again in Lebanon during the summer - except for "marking" targets - even after civilians were photographed in Lebanese hospitals with burn wounds consistent with phosphorous munitions.

Then on Sunday, Israel suddenly admitted that it had not been telling the truth. Jacob Edery, the Israeli minister in charge of government-parliament relations, confirmed that phosphorous shells were used in direct attacks against Hizbollah, adding that "according to international law, the use of phosphorous munitions is authorised and the (Israeli) army keeps to the rules of international norms".

Asked by The Independent if the Israeli army had been using uranium-based munitions in Lebanon this summer, Mark Regev, the Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, said: "Israel does not use any weaponry which is not authorised by international law or international conventions." This, however, begs more questions than it answers. Much international law does not cover modern uranium weapons because they were not invented when humanitarian rules such as the Geneva Conventions were drawn up and because Western governments still refuse to believe that their use can cause long-term damage to the health of thousands of civilians living in the area of the explosions.

American and British forces used hundreds of tons of depleted uranium (DU) shells in Iraq in 1991 - their hardened penetrator warheads manufactured from the waste products of the nuclear industry - and five years later, a plague of cancers emerged across the south of Iraq.

Initial US military assessments warned of grave consequences for public health if such weapons were used against armoured vehicles. But the US administration and the British government later went out of their way to belittle these claims. Yet the cancers continued to spread amid reports that civilians in Bosnia - where DU was also used by Nato aircraft - were suffering new forms of cancer. DU shells were again used in the 2003 Anglo-American invasion of Iraq but it is too early to register any health effects.

"When a uranium penetrator hits a hard target, the particles of the explosion are very long-lived in the environment," Dr Busby said yesterday. "They spread over long distances. They can be inhaled into the lungs. The military really seem to believe that this stuff is not as dangerous as it is." Yet why would Israel use such a weapon when its targets - in the case of Khiam, for example - were only two miles from the Israeli border? The dust ignited by DU munitions can be blown across international borders, just as the chlorine gas used in attacks by both sides in the First World War often blew back on its perpetrators.

Chris Bellamy, the professor of military science and doctrine at Cranfield University, who has reviewed the Busby report, said: "At worst it's some sort of experimental weapon with an enriched uranium component the purpose of which we don't yet know. At best - if you can say that - it shows a remarkably cavalier attitude to the use of nuclear waste products."

The soil sample from Khiam - site of a notorious torture prison when Israel occupied southern Lebanon between 1978 and 2000, and a frontline Hizbollah stronghold in the summer war - was a piece of impacted red earth from an explosion; the isotope ratio was 108, indicative of the presence of enriched uranium. "The health effects on local civilian populations following the use of large uranium penetrators and the large amounts of respirable uranium oxide particles in the atmosphere," the Busby report says, "are likely to be significant ... we recommend that the area is examined for further traces of these weapons with a view to clean up."

This summer's Lebanon war began after Hizbollah guerrillas crossed the Lebanese frontier into Israel, captured two Israeli soldiers and killed three others, prompting Israel to unleash a massive bombardment of Lebanon's villages, cities, bridges and civilian infrastructure. Human rights groups have said that Israel committed war crimes when it attacked civilians, but that Hizbollah was also guilty of such crimes because it fired missiles into Israel which were also filled with ball-bearings, turning their rockets into primitive one-time-only cluster bombs.

Many Lebanese, however, long ago concluded that the latest Lebanon war was a weapons testing ground for the Americans and Iranians, who respectively supply Israel and Hizbollah with munitions. Just as Israel used hitherto-unproven US missiles in its attacks, so the Iranians were able to test-fire a rocket which hit an Israeli corvette off the Lebanese coast, killing four Israeli sailors and almost sinking the vessel after it suffered a 15-hour on-board fire.

What the weapons manufacturers make of the latest scientific findings of potential uranium weapons use in southern Lebanon is not yet known. Nor is their effect on civilians.

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

Former clerk says Nevada Test Site documents were buried

2006-10-21T16:14:34Z

LAS VEGAS A former clerk at the Nevada Test Site says she thinks the government literally buried records that would help workers get compensation for work-related illnesses.

An official with the Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration says documents that were destroyed didn't contain information about health, safety or exposure to radiation.

He says industrial hygiene records would have been warehoused for archiving.

Sandie Medina is now a union project manager for the Southern Nevada Building and Construction Trade Council's test site medical surveillance project.

She says records were removed from test site storage in late 1997 or early 1998 and buried in a landfill.

She says she thinks the documents could help workers prove compensation claims under the Labor Department's Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program.

Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

Too many waiting too long

2006-10-21T16:11:08Z

http://www.theleafchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061019/OPINION01/610190302
Too many waiting too long
Former Clarksville Base employees need compensation.

Bobby Murphy is one of 442 people who have submitted claims with the government regarding illnesses linked to working at the Clarksville Base at Fort Campbell a half-century ago. He filed on behalf of his father in 2001 and has been turned down four times despite extensive documentation.

Murphy told The Leaf-Chronicle that many of the people his father worked with are already dead. "It seems they're just waiting for everyone to die."

ADVERTISEMENT

Officials with the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program say that claims approved for workers at the Clarksville Base amount to a total of close to $1.2 million. They preach patience. They say that nationwide, 133,000 claims have been filed.

But that provides little comfort to those who worked at the Clarksville Base — one of 13 nuclear facilities in the United States during the Cold War — got sick years later and want the EEOICP to recognize their claims now.

Others apparently think it would be a losing cause and haven't bothered to ever file.

Debbie Bratton, a researcher on the Clarksville Base, says that people should not give up. They would not have gotten even this far, if not for persistence.

We agree with Bratton. It's a battle worth fighting.

But the fact remains that the government shouldn't have made it this difficult for people who worked on behalf of their country to get the compensation that they deserved for ending up with compromised health.

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

Will Nuclear Power Destroy The World? The Obscene Destructiveness Of

2006-10-21T16:07:18Z

Fr those that think nuclear power is the solution
to global warming see NIRS work at:
http://www.nirs.org/climate/climate.htm
http://www.nirs.org

>The spread of nuclear technology is expected to
accelerate as nations redouble their reliance on
atomic >power. That will give more countries the
ability to make reactor fuel, or, with the same
equipment and a >little more effort, bomb fuel -
the hardest part of the arms equation.

http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file=/articles/2006/10/15/news/arms.php

A 'race' to head off nuclear disaster
By William J. Broad and David E. Sanger

The New York Times TUESDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2006
The declaration by North Korea that it has
conducted a successful atomic test brought to nine
the number of nations believed to have nuclear
arms. But atomic officials estimate that as many
as 40 more countries have the technical skill, and
in some cases the required material, to build a
bomb.

That ability, coupled with new nuclear threats in
Asia and the Middle East, risks a second nuclear
age, officials and arms control specialists say,
in which nations are more likely to abandon the
old restraints against atomic weapons.

The spread of nuclear technology is expected to
accelerate as nations redouble their reliance on
atomic power. That will give more countries the
ability to make reactor fuel, or, with the same
equipment and a little more effort, bomb fuel -
the hardest part of the arms equation.

Signs of activity abound. Hundreds of companies
are prospecting for uranium where dozens did a few
years ago. Argentina, Australia and South Africa
are drawing up plans to begin enriching uranium,
and other countries are considering doing the
same. Egypt is reviving its program to develop
nuclear power.

Concern led the International Atomic Energy Agency
to summon government officials and experts from
around the world to Vienna in September to discuss
tightening curbs on who can produce nuclear fuel.
"These dangers are urgent," Sam Nunn, a U.S.
expert on the politics of nuclear proliferation,
told the group. "We are in a race between
cooperation and catastrophe and, at this moment,
the outcome is unclear."

The International Atomic Energy Agency itself
exemplifies some of the underlying tensions
inherent in the development of nuclear energy. It
is the primary United Nations agency charged with
detecting proliferation, but it has another
mandate as well: to promote safe nuclear power.

For decades, it has done so by running technical
aid programs with roughly a hundred states. Some
of that knowledge could be useful in a weapons
program, though the aid is meant exclusively for
civilian use.

Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the
agency, has estimated that as many as 49 nations
now know how to make nuclear arms, and he has
warned that global tensions could push some over
the line. "We are relying," he said, "primarily on
the continued good intentions of these countries -
intentions which are in turn based on their sense
of security or insecurity, and could therefore be
subject to rapid change."

In the United States, Democrats and Republicans
spent the past week arguing over who lost control
of North Korea: Bill Clinton or George W. Bush.
But seeds of the problem were planted by President
Dwight Eisenhower, just months after the armistice
ended the fighting on the Korean Peninsula in
1953.

His program was called Atoms for Peace, and it
soon involved dozens of nations, all seeking to
unlock the magic of nuclear power.

Almost from the start, evidence accumulated that
countries were using civil alliances and reactor
technologies to make bombs. By 1960, France had
joined the United States, Britain and the Soviet
Union as a nuclear weapons state. China held its
first test in 1964. Israel had the bomb by 1967
(though it still does not admit to it), India by
1974, South Africa by 1982 (it has since given up
its weapons) and Pakistan by 1998.

Six of those countries built their weapons by
exploiting at least some technologies that were
ostensibly civilian, nuclear analysts say. They
enriched uranium beyond the low level needed for
power reactors. Or they mined the spent fuel of
civil reactors for plutonium - the path that North
Korea started taking in the late 1980s or early
1990s, according to U.S. intelligence officials.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has worked
hard to fight this kind of cheating while also
helping with the basic technology. In the 1980s,
it aided Iran's hunt for uranium. Even now,
Iranian technicians fly to Vienna and agency
experts go to Iran to lend a hand.

The hardest part, experts agree, is not acquiring
the weapons blueprints but obtaining the fuel.

Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's
nuclear arms program, who went on to establish the
world's largest atomic black market, sold the
secrets of how to make centrifuges for enriching
uranium to Libya, Iran and North Korea.

Investigators are still trying to learn where else
Khan may have planted his nuclear seeds. They
discovered outposts of his network in Dubai,
Malaysia and South Africa and found that before
his fall in 2004 he had visited at least 18
countries, including Egypt, Niger, Nigeria, Sudan,
Syria and Saudi Arabia.

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

'Birdcage' cases slow for some

2006-10-21T15:58:44Z

http://www.theleafchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061016/NEWS01/610
160312

'Birdcage' cases slow for some
By CHANTAL ESCOTO
The Leaf-Chronicle

Sam Samsil thinks his father's radiation death â€” which was caused by
working
at the Clarksville Base nearly 50 years ago â€” did not go completely
in vain.

His mother filed a claim with the Energy Employees Occupational Illness
Compensation Program (EEOICP) about five years ago, and it was finally
approved
recently. Samsil â€” a Birmingham, Ala., attorney who grew up in
Clarksville â€”
said he never gave up on the claim for his mother's sake because it was
the right
thing to do.

"It's been a long road for my mother," Samsil said. The maximum amount
awarded for each case is a $150,000 lump sum payment. His father, D.M.
Samsil, died
in 1996 with unexplained skin cancer.

Some people are still waiting and hoping their claims will be approved
â€”
about 440 workers of the Clarksville Base nuclear storage facility and
their
families are waiting for government compensation.

"We had to appeal several times, but it would seem that we have been
successful, and the dosage report was positive in my father's case,"
Samsil said.

D.M. Samsil's case was determined through a long and complicated
process
called "dose reconstruction," the dosage report his son is referring
to. The
scientific calculation is conducted through the National Institute for
Occupational
Safety and Health (NIOSH).

The dose reconstruction determines the amount of radiation a worker
could
have been exposed to depending on where he worked and for how long. If
a worker's
dose reconstruction is rated at 50 percent or above, then the claim
usually
is awarded.

The Clarksville Base at Fort Campbell was one of 13 nuclear facilities
set up
around the United States during the Cold War. The Birdcage was
constructed in
1948 by the Atomic Energy Commission, and its operations were highly
secretive. Even to this day workers at the Clarksville Facility are
reluctant to talk
about what went on at the nuclear weapons storage because of such
intense
security.

But for many employees who kept quiet for so long, their secrets died
with
them. To make matters more complicated, many of the files and employee
records
at the nuclear storage facility were lost or "disappeared."

Compensation slow
The EEOICP has paid out more than $500 million in cash and benefits
since
2001 to Department of Energy Atomic weapons site workers or their
families in
Tennessee. Those sites include Oak Ridge, Clarksville Base at Fort
Campbell,
Chattanooga and Erwin. A total of $2 billion has been paid nationwide.
Workers at
the Clarksville Base whose claims have been approved received nearly
$1.2
million.

But that doesn't mean a whole lot to Bobby Murphy and 441 other people
who
have filed for the lump sum. Murphy submitted his claim on behalf of
his father
in 2001. It's been denied four times even though he has affidavits and
records
proving his father worked at the Clarksville Facility as an
electrician.

"Most everybody my father worked with are deceased. It seems they're
just
waiting for everyone to die," he said. Murphy's problem with the
compensation
process is that officials say his father wasn't exposed to enough
radiation to
get the compensation. But at the same time the EEOICP will not accept
proof
Murphy has that shows his father worked extensively in the "hot" areas.

"It doesn't make a lick of sense," he said. "I never thought in my
lifetime
that I'd be arguing with the Department of Energy about where my father
worked."

Persistence is key
Peter Turcic, director of the EEOICP, said he feels for the families,
but the
dose reconstruction is still pending in many of these cases. He advises
workers and families to be patient and to continue appealing,
especially if new
information becomes available such as a changed medical condition or
death.

Turcic said the majority of the claims were denied for illnesses not
covered
under Part B of the program, which includes radiation cancers and lung
diseases such as silicosis and beryllium.

"NIOSH has their processes and procedures," Turcic said, citing 133,000
claims filed nationwide. The EEOICP is still actively seeking people to
file if
they think their sickness or that of a relative was caused by working
at an
atomic weapons site.

"We encourage people to file if they worked at (Clarksville Facility)
and had
an illness. If they fill out Part E (of the claim application) that
includes
all illnesses. If they fill that out we make a determination if they
are
entitled to benefits."

Debbie Bratton has done extensive research on the Birdcage and said she
has
gone before the appeals board on behalf of some families seeking
compensation.

She said tenacity is the answer.

"I believe there are many people who have not filed because they either
feel
they don't have a chance or they are intimidated by the paperwork
requirements," Bratton said in an e-mail.

"I cannot over emphasize the need for persistence. The very legislation
would
not exist without the persistence of many former workers of nuclear
facilities, particularly those in Oak Ridge, who invested years to get
the federal
government to adopt legislation."

Chantal Escoto covers military affairs and can be reached by telephone
at
245-0216 or by e-mail at chantalescoto@theleafchronicle.com.

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

GAO Calls Radiation Monitors Unreliable

2006-10-21T15:51:09Z

http://www.mindspring.com/~kapl/index.html

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

The Sunflower news letter

2006-10-14T18:42:30Z

http://www.wagingpeace.org/menu/resources/sunflower/2006/09_sunflower-mail.htm

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

Cost of Hanford Cleanup Project Rises Again

2006-10-14T18:40:22Z

Cost of Hanford Cleanup Project Rises Again
On 7 September 2006, the estimated cost for cleaning up the Hanford nuclear reservation rose to $12.2 billion.

Originally slated to cost $4.3 billion and to be completed in 1999, the clean up project's completion date has been pushed back to November 2019. The bulk of the clean up money is going towards a plant that will convert millions of gallons of waste into glasslike logs to be permanently disposed of in a waste depository. Currently, there are 43 million gallons of waste and 177 underground tanks. This clean up effort is a race against time. It needs to be cleaned up before the waste reaches and contaminates the nearby Columbia River.

Considerable technical difficulties have prevented this from being achieved. "We have had some world-class technical issues," acknowledged John Eschenberg, the federal manager for construction. "I have made mistakes. Bechtel has made mistakes. If I could relive the last three years, there are things I would do differently." Currently, not a single gallon of waste has been reprocessed.

Source: Vartabedian, Ralph, "Errors, Costs Stall Nuclear Waste Project," Los Angeles Times, 4 September 2006.

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

Small fire confirmed at uranium warehouse

2006-10-14T18:39:03Z

Why is Y-12 being allowed to lie about uranium chip fires. Isn't that
dishonest?

This is another one of those news pieces that contains a big lie. The
fire
originated from the pyrophloric tendencies of uranium chips to ignite
due to
friction, then get red hot, and set other things on fire. Uranium
fires are
difficult to put out.

The Bill Wilburn statement that the uranium did not catch fire is
untruthful,
as the only way this fire started was for the uranium chip to catch on
fire
and oxidize. They put out uranium fires with powdered graphite to
block the
oxygen, as that is one of the few methods that can put out a uranium
fire.

It appears the days of Y-12 telling lies and the news helping tell
those lies
has not gotten any better. When uranium chips catch fire they release
fine
uranium oxide particles that suspend in air and become a health hazard.
It
appears they want to hide this problem, as the workers likely didn't
wear
respirators. And the only way to get graphite dust on the uranium
chip fire is to
rip open the bag and dump in some graphite dust to put out the fire.

In the 50s and 60s at Y-12, uranium chip fires were very common and the
production area workers would scuff their feet on the floors and watch
sparkler
effects come from under their yellow shoe scuffs. And they inhaled
the small
uranium particles very often in uranium part production areas, and
filled the
drains and creek with uranium dusts.

========

http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/local_news/article/0,1406,KNS_347_5057453,00.html

Small fire confirmed at uranium warehouse
Official says Sept. 22 incident at Y-12 over in a 'matter of minutes'

By FRANK MUNGER, munger@knews.com
October 11, 2006

OAK RIDGE - A small fire occurred Sept. 22 in a warehouse where highly
enriched uranium and other materials are stored at the Y-12 nuclear
weapons plant, a
spokesman confirmed Tuesday.

But the uranium itself did not catch on fire, and the entire incident
was
over in a "matter of minutes," said Bill Wilburn of BWXT, the company
that
manages Y-12 for the federal government.

The Project On Government Oversight, a Washington-based watchdog group,
was
the first to report on the incident. Peter Stockton, an investigator
with POGO,
said the group has long been concerned about the Y-12 warehouse,
Building
9720-5, because it is constructed of wood and is considered vulnerable
to fire.

The incident occurred while workers were using a protective "glove bag"
to
examine a package of highly enriched uranium that was wrapped in
plastic and
masking tape, Wilburn said. A glove bag allows workers to examine
uranium without
the possible release of contaminants or direct exposure to the
radioactive
material, he said.

During the procedure, a small piece of the uranium apparently oxidized
upon
exposure to air and caused some combustion of the plastic packaging and
masking
tape, he said.

Neither the uranium nor the glove bag caught fire, Wilburn said.
Workers
immediately put out the fire using powdered graphite, known as coke, he
said.

"There were no injuries and no release of contamination," the Y-12
spokesman
said. "They responded quickly, and the other folks evacuated the
building. The
whole incident only lasted a matter of minutes."

Wilburn said an investigation of the incident was being conducted, but
he
said he did not know the status of it. He said he could not comment on
POGO's
remarks about the building being constructed of wood.

"I can't discuss the building or what it's made out of," he said.

Steven Wyatt, a federal spokesman with the National Nuclear Security
Administration, said Y-12 workers reacted properly to an unexpected
event.

"It's certainly something you don't want to happen, but their response
was
very swift," Wyatt said.

The workers were handling a "legacy" material that has been in storage
at the
Oak Ridge nuclear facility since the 1970s, Wilburn said.

Y-12 employees are "de-inventorying" Building 9720-5, as part of the
preparations for moving into a new storage facility for highly enriched
uranium. The
new $500 million storage center is under construction and about 35
percent
completed.

Oak Ridge officials typically do not discuss their storage facilities
in
depth for safety and security reasons.

According to a study guide for workers published in 1997, Building
9720-5 is
used for storage and shipping of safeguarded nuclear materials.

"The materials handled in the warehouse include uranium, lithium,
beryllium,
and thorium and come in the form of canned subassemblies, fuel
assemblies,
oxides, metals and alloys," the document states.

Senior writer Frank Munger may be reached at 865-342-6329

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

Oppenheimer's flaws fascinate author

2006-10-14T18:36:47Z

http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061013/FEATURES06/
610130301

October 13, 2006

Oppenheimer's flaws fascinate author

By Chris Poynter
cpoynter@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal

J. Robert Oppenheimer was at his office at the Los Alamos National
Laboratory
when the news broke over the loudspeaker in 1945: Hiroshima had been
bombed.

The laboratory -- where the atomic bomb had been secretly created under
Oppenheimer's leadership -- erupted into cheers.

Oppenheimer, however, soon realized the horror of the weapon he had
created
-- and "the father of the atomic bomb," as he became known, spent the
rest of
his life trying to contain nuclear weapons.

"American Prometheus" -- a book that profiles Oppenheimer's triumphant
but
tragic life -- won the Pulitzer Prize in Biography this year, and one
of its
authors, Martin J. Sherwin, will speak in Louisville next week, brought
to town
by the Filson Historical Society.

Sherwin, a history and English professor at Tufts University, co-wrote
"American Prometheus" with Kai Bird, an author and contributing editor
to The Nation
magazine.

Sherwin began researching the book about 1979, but it took him 25 years
to
complete because of teaching commitments and other interests.

He pored over Oppenheimer's personal papers, searched through his
Federal
Bureau of Investigation files and interviewed family, friends and
people who
worked with him at Los Alamos and elsewhere.

Oppenheimer was a genius, Sherwin said, though at one point, after
graduating
from college, he contemplated suicide.

"He felt he was totally useless and should end it all because he
couldn't
stand the embarrassment of failure," Sherwin said. "But â€¦ he
discovered a way not
to be a failure. He discovered quantum physics, and he was a genius at
it."

Though Oppenheimer was director of Los Alamos in New Mexico and was a
celebrated hero after World War II, he had a terrible personal life. He
was an absent
father, Sherwin said, rarely spending time with his children because
work and
research took precedence. (Oppenheimer died in 1967. His daughter
committed
suicide in the 1970s; his son is still living.)

Sherwin said he admired Oppenheimer for realizing the danger of nuclear
weapons and working to control them.

He spoke out against nuclear proliferation, "but doing that in the
context of
American politics and the emerging Cold War was very difficult,"
Sherwin
said.

Sherwin said he did not admire Oppenheimer for falling for McCarthyism
in the
1950s and turning against some of his former students who were
leftists.

Oppenheimer "was kind of like iron. Once it starts cracking, it falls
apart,
as opposed to steel, which has the ability to twist and turn," Sherwin
said.

Oppenheimer was accused at a government hearing of being a national
security
risk and was stripped of his federal security clearance.

Mark Wetherington, executive director of the Filson Historical Society,
said
Sherwin's appearance is part of the Gertrude Polk Brown lecture series.
The
series has brought numerous authors to town, including many Pulitzer
Prize
winners.

Sherwin said he believes the world is worse because of nuclear weapons,
but,
he said, Oppenheimer's work and life are relevant today.

"The country and leadership of the country have learned very little,"
Sherwin
said. "We still think having nuclear weapons helps our security. I
don't
think they help our security at all."

Reporter Chris Poynter can be reached at (502) 582-4475.

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

Underground blasts were also culprits

2006-10-14T18:35:32Z

http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,650198069,00.html

October 12, 2006

Underground blasts were also culprits

'96 report says that radiation detected off Nevada Test Site

By Joe Bauman
Deseret Morning News

Fallout researchers have focused their attention on above-ground
nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site from the 1950s through the
early '60s.
However, a 1996 report says hundreds of underground tests also spewed
radiation.
Besides the danger to workers at the NTS, more than 50 of the
tests
released enough radioactive material that some made its way off the
sprawling
test site.
The report is "Radiological Effluents Released From U.S.
Continental
Tests 1961 through 1992," produced by the U.S. Department of Energy in
August
1996 and available at a DOE Web site, www.nv.doe.gov.
U.S. above-ground testing ended in 1962. However, since 1961,
radioactive material escaped from 433 tests, "some of which have
simultaneous
detonations" where several explosions would go off at once, the report
says.
"However, only 52 of these are designated as having offsite
releases,"
according to the report.
The "Palanquin" test of April 14, 1965, blew radiation out of a
crater,
and 23,000 picocuries of gross beta activity per cubic meter of air was
detected offsite at the populated community of Clark Station, Nev., the
report
says. At Highway 6, an uninhabited location offsite, eight miles east
of the
Tonapah Test Range Road, the reading was 87,000 picocuries per cubit
meter of air.
Stone Cabin Ranch, Nev., also off the Nevada Test Site, had the
greatest gamma radiation exposure, at 3 milliroentgens per hour. The
report adds that
the highest radioactive iodine concentration in milk was "11,000
picocuries
per liter at Martin Ranch near Eureka, Nev.; no children present."
Fallout at 0.03 milliroentgens per hour was detected as far as
Council,
Idaho, about 500 miles away.
In the Baneberry test of Dec. 18, 1970, "gross fission products"
blew
out of the underground test and were detected off the Nevada Test Site.
Part of the fallout cloud drifted over Nevada, Utah and Wyoming,
while
"another fraction (of the cloud) moved toward California."
Maximum radioactivity detected offsite was 3,400 picocuries of
Iodine-133 per cubic meter of air at Stone Cabin Ranch, Nev. Maximum
iodine level
detected offsite was 810 picocuries of radioactive I-131 per liter of
milk at the
McCurdy Ranch near Beatty, Nev., it says.
"Venting occurred from a fissure near surface ground zero" 3 1/2
minutes after the blast, says the report. "The effluent venting rate
steadily
decreased with time, but visible vapor continued to emanate from the
fissure for 24
hours after the detonation."

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

Study of contamination at rocket lab site reveals evidence of cancer

2006-10-14T18:34:19Z

http://www.simivalleyacorn.com/news/2006/1013/Front_Page/003.html

Study of contamination at rocket lab site reveals evidence of cancer
link
By Avi Rutschman avi@theacorn.com

The Santa Susana Field Laboratory Panel, an independent team of
researchers
and health experts, released a report last week concluding that toxins
and
radiation released from the Rocketdyne research facility near Simi
Valley could be
responsible for hundreds of cancers in the surrounding areas.

The Santa Susana Field Laboratory was built in 1948 by North American
Aviation and consists of 2,850 acres in eastern Ventura County. Over
the years, it
has been used as a test site for experiments involving nuclear
reactors,
high-powered lasers and rockets.

The report was completed by experts in the fields of reactor accident
analysis, atmospheric transport of contaminants, hydrology and geology.
The study
took five years to complete and was funded by the California
Environmental
Protection Agency.

"We want to thank the many legislatures that have attended meetings,
provided
funds and pressured public agencies into action," said Marie Mason, a
community activist and longtime resident of the Santa Susana Knolls
area in Simi
Valley, who helped to form the advisory panel.

The panel originally formed 15 years ago after a 1959 nuclear meltdown
that
occurred at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory was made public.
Concerned about
the possibility of facing adverse health affects due to the meltdown,
area
residents pressured legislators into funding a panel to study the
impact of the
incident.

"We were fearful of what our families and communities may have been
exposed
to," said Holly Huff, another community member who pushed for the
formation of
the panel.

The first study conducted by the panel was performed by UCLA
researchers and
focused on the adverse health effects the meltdown had on Rocketdyne
employees. Completed in 1997, that report indicated workers did indeed
suffer a higher
rate of lymph system and lung cancers.

Boeing, the current owner of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory, has
challenged the validity of the studies, calling into question the
scientific methods
used by researchers.

"We received a summary of the report Thursday, and we were not given an
advance copy to look through and prepare with," said Blythe Jameson, a
Boeing
spokesperson.

"Based on our preliminary assessment," Jameson said, "we found that the
report has significant flaws and that the claims are baseless without
scientific
merit and a grave disservice to our employees and the community."

After the UCLA study concluding that laboratory workers had faced
adverse
health effects because of the meltdown, the panel was given federal and
state
funds to conduct another study of potential impacts on neighboring
communities
and their residents.

According to the panel, Boeing was unwilling to disclose a large amount
of
data concerning the accident and certain operations. This forced the
researchers
to base some of their studies on models of similar accidents.

"One simply does not know with confidence what accidents and releases
have
not been disclosed, nor what information about the ones we do know of
also has
not been revealed," the panel stated in its report.

After five years of research, the panel concluded that between 260 and
1,800
cancer cases were caused by the field laboratory's contamination of
surrounding communitiesThe incident released levels of cesium-137 and
iodine-131, radio

nucleotides that act as carcinogensthat surpass the amount of
contaminants
released during the Three Mile Island incident. The report also stated
that
othecontaminants have escaped, and still could, from the Boeing-owned
laboratory
through groundwateand surface runoff.

Jameson said other scientific studies have contradicted those findings.

"There have been several reports done by federal and state agencies,
most
notably a preliminary site evaluation from Agency for Toxic Substance
and Disease
Registry in 1999, in which they did not identify a public health hazard
to
surrounding communities," Jameson said.

David Lochbaum, a nuclear safety engineer for the Union of Concerned
Scientists, estimated in the field laboratory panel's report that as
much as 13,000
curies of iodine131 and 2,600 curies of cesium-137 escaped from the
reactor
during the 1959 meltdown. In comparison, only 17 curies of iodine131
and none of
cesium137 escaped during the Three Mile Island incident.

The test reactor was contained in a partial pool of liquid sodium and
buffered from the surrounding environment by a layer of helium.

The reactor did not have a concrete containment shield, which would
explain
the high levels of radioactive material that were able to escape during
the
meltdown, according to Lochbaum.

Dr. Jan Bayea, a physicist who specializes in modeling the movement of
radiation through the air, came to the conclusion that between zero and
1,800
cancers, but most likely 260 cancers, were caused by the release of
radioactive
materials.

"We faced three major difficulties in this study because it was a
complex
site, not much information was released and we couldn't obtain any
meteorological
data from Boeing," Bayea said.

According to the panel, Boeing wouldn't release meteorological data
from the
time period of the 1959 incident, claiming that information is a trade
secret.

Jameson insists that Boeing has not tried to hide anything.

"We've shared the meteorological data with the Agency for Toxic
Substance and
Disease Registry, that was then, in turn, turned over to various
groups,"
Jameson said. "It's been shared with various other agencies, most
recently at a
Department of Energy meeting in May of 2005 where it was shared with
the
public."

Dr. William Bianchi, a soil physicist, discovered that Boeing's
decision to
not use a synthetic cap on the burn pit areas has led to additional
contamination of groundwater at the site, according to the panel's
report.

Boeing attempted to stop the recharge of groundwater with clay soil and
with
native vegetation, but neither method proved to make the area around
the burn
pits impermeable.

"The supposed impermeable clay material is not impermeable at all," the
report states.

Dr. Ali Tabidian, chair of the Department of Geological Sciences at Cal
State
Northridge, discovered that perchlorate, a toxic substance found in
rocket
fuel, did end up in groundwater wells in Simi Valley as a result of
surface
water runoff.

According to the report, Tabidian said that perchlorate migrated off
the
laboratory site through surface water runoff, traveled into the Arroyo
Simi, then
entered the groundwater and wells near the Arroyo.

The study says perchlorate has been discovered in a number of wells
surrounding the area.

Boeing has challenged this claim, stating that the perchlorate could
have
come from Chilean fertilizer, fireworks or road flares.

According to the report, Tabidian feels these are unjustifiable claims
because if they were true, perchlorate would be detectable in wells
throughout Simi
Valley rather than only in the areas surrounding the Arroyo.

"Perchlorate is very soluble and travels almost as fast as water. It's
a
warning, the leading edge of contaminate plume," said Dan Hirsch,
co-chair of the
panel and a lecturer on nuclear policy at UC Santa Cruz.

Despite their findings, the panel did not recommend an epidemiological
study
of surrounding communities because of a lack of data provided by Boeing
and
the high migration of residents in the area throughout the years.

"Doing a health study at this point would be a big gamble; it would be
wiser
to search for a fingerprint of the contamination release," Bayea said.

"This has been 17 years of unwanted frustration, and in those years our
innocence has been lost," Mason said.

The report commissioned by the Santa Susana Field Laboratory Panel can
be
read online at www.ssflpanel.org.

"There is no evidence of contamination as a result of our current or
past
operations that has adversely impacted the surrounding communities. We
will
continue to move forward with the cleanup of the site in a safe and
effective
manner," Jameson said.

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

Matheson acts on fallout study

2006-10-14T18:32:53Z

http://deseretnews.com/dn/view2/1,4382,650198389,00.html?textfield=nuclear

Matheson acts on fallout study

Lawmaker calls for 'roadblocks in way of any new testing'

By Joe Bauman
Deseret Morning News
The more scientists look into the effects of fallout from nuclear
weapons tests, the more damage they discover, says Rep. Jim Matheson.
The Utah Democrat was responding to a study by the University of
Utah
researcher Dr. Joseph Lyon and colleagues, which was reported in
Wednesday's
edition of the Deseret Morning News. A re-evaluation study by 15
experts headed
by Lyon, to be published in the journal Epidemiology on Nov. 1, shows
that
more than twice as many downwind residents as originally believed
suffered damage
to the thyroid gland from fallout.
"Dr. Joseph Lyon and his associates have spent 40 years
researching
danger to those who were 'downwind' of nuclear testing in Nevada,"
Matheson said
in a press release. "The more we look, the more damage we uncover from
this
era, even as the federal government was telling us it was safe."
Lyon's early studies helped convince Matheson's late father, the
former
Utah Gov. Scott M. Matheson, that he should demand the release of
classified
data about the nuclear tests, says the release. "Gov. Matheson died
from a
radiation exposure-related illness at age 61," it adds.
The congressman is quoted as saying the data prove that even
underground nuclear tests are unsafe.
"I have long opposed any effort to resume nuclear weapons testing
in
Nevada," he added. "My legislation â€” Safety for Americans from
nuclear Weapons
Testing â€” establishes significant roadblocks in the way of any new
testing."
The legislation requires Congress to authorize any nuclear
weapons test
and establishes the National Center for the Study of Radiation and
Human
Health, he said.
The center is a consortium of universities that will study health
effects of radiation exposure and illnesses that are linked to
radiation.
Lyon's study is called "Thyroid Disease Associated With Exposure
to the
Nevada nuclear Weapons Test Site Radiation: A Re-evaluation Based on
Corrected Dosimetry and Examination Data."
The journal "Epidemiology" placed an abstract online. To read it,
go to
the scientific journal's main Web site,
www.epidem.com/pt/re/epidemiology/paptoc.htm and then click on the box
labeled "Epi Fast-Track."

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

The government agents' conflicts of interest. .The EEOICP scandal that involves tens of thousands of oppressed EEOICP victims

2006-10-14T18:30:32Z

Hi!

For your information, review another media disclosure that I posted
below my commentary.

For decades the government contractors "independent status" claim is,
of course ludicrous. The Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU) is
the $200 million dollar plus USDOE contractor who was hired by USHHS,
CDC-NIOSH to reconstruct the dose of EEOICP claimants. The Officials
pretend that no EEOICP claimant has or ever will notice that the ORAU's and
cohorts are USDOE contractors with conflicts of interest. The ORAU
agents continue to consult with the current U.S. President's Advisory
Board on Radiation and Workers Health. And, the bogus dose reconstructions
and site profiles are used to deny tens of thousands of mertorius
EEOICP claims.

ORAU admitted conflicts of interest relevant to my claim. But, "the
NIOSH took back the claim," said the ORAU executive who notified me.
And, the NIOSH agents recommended denial of my EEOICP claim because I
refused to sign their "waiver" that states that I agree with their bogus
dose reconstruction assessment.

I note that the manipulative and abusive NIOSH OCAS director Larry
Elliott censored my SEC petition that represents over 7,600 claimants.
Many petitioners have died in the interim.

When I finally decide it is time to file a lawsuit, it is a given that
the USDOL and USHHS employees will continue to claim independent
status, deny conflicts of interest, and deny any wrongdoing. However, at
some point in time legal precedent shall be established during a proper
adjudication process. At this point in time the "defendant caretakers"
don't recognize a claimants pro se status which is, of course, a mandate
that is recognized by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure according to
the Constitution.

And, participating "SEC" petitioners are instructed that they are not
to notice that preferred government IT market consultant-contractor
Sanford, Cohen & Associates (SC&A) are hired to consult with the current
President George Bush's Advisory Board on Radiation and Workers Health.
The wars between the consultants and the Advisory Board members and
their consensus agreements causes the "redaction" of incriminating
evidence and the destruction of public records. The Advisory Board members
claim their "business sensitive" contributions are "privacy act
protected." The Advisory Board members continue to claim their participation on
the board has nothing, whatsoever, to do with the acknowledgement of or
the signing of the conflicts of interest waiver. All remaining
participants declare they have no conflicts of interest. Just recently, two
members were ejected from the Advisory Board because the evidence
affirmed their conflicts of interest so saith the rest of the board me!
mbers.

WE don't have a choice when WE vote in November and thereafter. WE are
simply expected to ignore the findings of fact -- that the candidates
and our elected Congressional representatives shall continue to ignore
the EEOICP scandal.

The EEOICP saga continues as WE prepare to vote for the candidates in
just 26 more days who WE know are aware of the details regarding this
scandal, too.

Gai Oglesbee, Independent National Advocate
EEOICP Claimant | Downwinder
National Nuclear Victims for Justice
http://www.nnvj-goglesbee-eeoicp-abuse.com

--------------

Knox News: ORNL shares $5M in grants

By News Sentinel staff

October 11, 2006

OAK RIDGE - Oak Ridge National Laboratory was among the
institutions sharing $5 million in nanotechnology research grants
for solid-state lighting.

Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman announced the grants last week
during a trip to the Department of Energy's facilities in New
Mexico.

ORNL will receive $600,000 to conduct a project to improve the
efficiency of organic light-emitting diodes, DOE said in a press
statement.

The federal agency said there is the potential to double the
efficiency of general lighting systems, which would reduce the
energy consumption and save consumers money.

border=0> ? 2006 - Knoxville News Sentinel

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

Missilethreat.com

2006-10-08T02:18:12Z

http://www.missilethreat.com/

posted in Cold War Survivors - 1 reply

"Government has failed to take away their used reactor fuel rods. . .Court awards $143M to reactor companies

2006-10-07T21:45:49Z

Hemscott: Court awards $143M to reactor companies

WASHINGTON (AFX) - The owners of three closed nuclear power
plants have been awarded $143 million because the government has
failed to take away their used reactor fuel rods.

The award by the U.S. Federal Court of Claims settles a
long-standing legal fight waged by operators of the three
reactors in Maine, Connecticut and Massachusetts.

It also could foreshadow a series of additional financial awards
to operators of reactors nationwide who have argued the federal
government broke contractual agreements that promised the waste
would be taken by 1998.

The award, granted by Court of Claims Judge James Merow on
Saturday, was unsealed Wednesday.

It gives $32.9 million in damages to Yankee Atomic Electric Co.,
operator of the Yankee Rowe reactor in Massachusetts; $34.1
million to Connecticut Yankee Atomic Power Co., operator of
Connecticut Yankee reactor; and $75.8 million to Maine Yankee
Atomic Power Co.; operator of the Maine Yankee reactor.

The companies had asked for $177 million.

Michael Thomas, vice president and chief financial officer of
the three Yankee companies, said that while the monetary award
is 'very positive ... (it) does not solve the problem of used
nuclear fuel remaining at the plant sites.''We hope this ruling
will spur the U.S. Department of Energy to begin fulfilling its
obligation,' said Thomas.

Federal courts previously have ruled that the Energy Department
was contractually obligated to begin taking used reactor fuel
from commercial power plants by 1998. But the ruling was the
first finding of a significant financial settlement.

The government missed the 1998 deadline because it doesn't have
any place to put the spent fuel. A proposed central repository
at Yucca Mountain in Nevada is way behind schedule in being
completed.

Once expected to open in 2010, the Yucca waste site has yet to
received a federal license and is not likely to be completed --
if licensed -- by 2018 at the earliest.

Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This

Copyright 2006 Hemscott Group Limited.
Hemscott is the UK registered trademark of Hemscott Group
Limited.

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

Veterans exposed to atomic radiation lose court ruling

2006-09-09T18:39:07Z

WASHINGTON - Radiation exposure took Alice Broudy's husband a generation ago.

This week, a court ruling sliced away at her bid for redress.

In a quiet ruling that nonetheless resonates nationwide, a federal appellate court rejected efforts by Broudy and others seeking claims on behalf of "atomic veterans." The same court simultaneously rejected bids by other veterans exposed to biological and chemical agents.

Taken together, the dual rulings by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals will likely impede many veterans hoping for compensation. At the very least, it will complicate future claims.

"It's a significant ruling," Washington-based attorney David Cynamon, who represented veterans in both cases, said Friday. "Unfortunately, it's a significantly bad ruling."

A Department of Veterans Affairs spokesman couldn't be reached to comment.

Broudy, a resident of California's Orange County, has long been seeking full compensation for the death of her husband, a Marine major who was repeatedly exposed to radiation. She has company.

George Woodward, who lives north of Wichita, Kan., in the town of Miltonvale, was exposed to radiation during a 1955 test blast. Kathy Jacobovitch, a resident of Vashon Island, Wash., lost her father through exposure to contaminated ships in Puget Sound. Ernest Kirchmann, a 62-year-old Navy veteran who lives south of Minneapolis in tiny West Concord, who's filed a separate lawsuit, was exposed during a 1964 nuclear submarine accident.

"It isn't just my personal case," Broudy said Friday. "It's the entire veterans community. It makes me so angry."

Broudy married her husband, Charles, in 1948. Three years earlier, he'd walked the war-poisoned streets of Nagasaki. Within a decade, he was facing radiation in the Nevada desert. He died of lymphatic cancer in 1977. Though she has since received partial compensation, Broudy has been confronting the federal government for more. She has now lost three separate lawsuits.

"This closes the door," Cynamon said of the latest appellate court ruling, which was issued Wednesday. "It will make it very difficult, if not impossible, for individuals who are victimized by government cover-ups."

All told, an estimated 220,000 U.S. soldiers were allegedly exposed to radiation in the 1940s and 1950s. Some, such as William Yurdyga of Sacramento, Calif., claimed in an earlier lawsuit that they were exposed following the Hiroshima or Nagasaki atomic blast. Others claimed exposure during Cold War testing.

The three-member appellate panel wasn't ruling on whether the atomic veterans deserve compensation. A 1988 law provides that. To succeed, though, veterans must prove they were present at a radioactive site and that they contracted a radiation-related illness or were exposed to a cancer-causing radiation level.

Required military test records can be elusive. A 1973 fire destroyed many veterans' records, and veterans consider alternative "dose reconstruction" estimates inaccurate.

"You send a Freedom of Information Act request," Broudy said, "and you wait and you wait and you wait, and then maybe you get a piece of it, or you get nothing at all because they say it's classified."

The latest lawsuit sought to force Pentagon officials to release all relevant records. In the opinion written by Appellate Judge Thomas Griffith, appointed by President Bush last year, the court panel agreed unanimously that atomic veterans couldn't compel a massive release of all the Pentagon's relevant documents.

Instead, individual veterans must file individual claims.

If the Pentagon is "covering up records of medical tests that describe the amount of radiation to which these veterans were exposed, FOIA (the Freedom of Information Act) provides a potential remedy," Griffith wrote.

A new study by Melinda Podgor for the Elder Law Journal found that 18,275 atomic veterans had filed for compensation as of October 2004. Only 1,875 claims were granted.

On a separate but related legal track, veterans such as Columbia, S.C., resident John Goricki and Homestead, Fla., resident Richard B. Holmes were pursuing claims following exposure during the Shipboard Hazard and Defense project of the 1950s and 1960s.

Project SHAD allegedly exposed up to 10,000 soldiers and sailors to biological and chemical agents. Like the atomic veterans, SHAD survivors claim that the Pentagon clings to secret information. Like the atomic veterans, they couldn't persuade the appellate court to order the release of all relevant documents.

The veterans "can still seek, through FOIA, the documents they believe they need to pursue their benefits claims," the appellate panel ruled.

--

Posted for educational and research purposes only,
~ in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 ~

NucNews Links and Expanded Archives - http://nucnews. net

Looking for solutions? http://prop1. org/prop1/
~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

Atomospheric test victims-- findings of fact records..1945 to 1995

2006-09-09T16:47:06Z

http://www.project-112shad-fdn.com/content10.htm

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

Piketon, Ohio dump site for spent nuclear fuel

2006-08-26T17:42:12Z

Dayton Daily News; Date: Aug 24, 2006; Section:
News; Page: 1

Spent nuclear fuel could end up in south Ohio

Proposal to reprocess radioactive fuel near Piketon already drawing
criticism.

By Lynn Hulsey Staff Writer

DAYTON — Highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel from across the country,
and
possibly the world, could come to southern Ohio under a plan being
pushed
by a public-private development partnership.

In a proposal already drawing criticism from environmentalists, the
Southern Ohio Nuclear Integration Cooperative, or SONIC, envisions
building
a spent fuel storage and reprocessing plant and an advanced,
plutonium-fueled nuclear reactor on federal land near Piketon, 100
miles
southeast of Dayton. The idea is part of a federal plan to recycle
nuclear
fuel and reduce waste.

“This is extremely important. It is important for America,” said Dan T.
Moore, SONIC’s Cleveland-based chief executive.

SONIC is applying for a $5 million grant from the U.S. Department of
Energy to study putting the operation at the department’s Portsmouth
Gaseous Diffusion Plant, which enriched uranium for nearly 50 years
before
closing in 2001, said Gregory Simonton, executive director of the
Southern
Ohio Diversification Initiative, a SONIC partner in Piketon.

SONIC is one of 41 entities to have given the government a formal
“expression of interest” in the plant.

Simonton said the area desperately needs the jobs the development would
bring, but added that seeking the study grant doesn’t mean officials
have
decided to definitely pursue the operation.

“Quite frankly, given the history of our site it makes sense to look at
any opportunity,” he said. “But just because we do the evaluation
doesn’t
mean it fits community values.”

» Site would be part of larger

U.S. initiative Article on A8

Publication: Dayton Daily News; Date: Aug 24, 2006; Section:
Local; Page: 8

Nuclear facilities could be part of U.S. initiative

Some residents oppose partnership seeking grant to have federal land
near
Piketon.

By Lynn Hulsey Staff Writer

The high-technology nuclear facilities being considered for federal
land near Piketon would be part of a larger U.S. government initiative
to
increase the use of nuclear power, reduce nuclear waste and contain the
global proliferation of dangerous technology.

But some local activists want nothing to do with it. They say the U.S.
Department of Energy has already polluted the proposed site — the
now-closed Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant — and the community has
borne
its full share of the country’s nuclear legacy.

They oppose the idea of building a storage and reprocessing plant for
highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel rods — a process that would allow
the
rods to be reused — and an advanced burner-reactor that would produce
electricity by burning plutonium, a nuclear waste that would be
extracted
from the rods.

“I think it’s terrifying. To think that people in our community are so
desperate for jobs that they would take plutonium, the fuel rods, any
type
of waste,” said Vina Colley, president of Portsmouth/Piketon Residents
for
Environmental Safety and Security. “They’re sacrificing this
community.”

Pat Marida, central Ohio chair of the Sierra Club, said the facility
would make Ohio the “dump site of the nation.”

There is also the possibility of spent fuel rods coming from other
countries. Part of President Bush’s Global Nuclear Energy Partnership
plan
is to offer other countries nuclear fuel and recycling services if they
agree to not pursue those technologies themselves.

Department of Energy spokesman Craig Stevens said the origin of the
spent fuel is not yet decided.

Sara Perkins, spokeswoman for a U.S. Rep. David Hobson, R-Springfield,
said, “It is our understanding that the U.S. is not going to take
foreign
fuel before taking care of the fuel we have here at home.”

It may be a good idea for the United States to handle spent nuclear
fuel from countries where it is not well-safeguarded, said U.S. Rep.
Jean
Schmidt, R-Loveland, whose district includes Piketon.

But she said she’ll support the proposed facility for Piketon only if
the community wants it.

The plan is very preliminary. The Department of Energy has $20 million
to offer in grants for communities to study possible sites for the
facility. Grants will be awarded this fall, with studies to be
completed
early next year.

A partnership is seeking a study grant for Piketon.

Pike County’s top development official is a bit leery of the project,
although in a region of high unemployment, she said the community needs
the
jobs.

“Storage of spent nuclear fuel is probably not one of the best things
that we could’ve thought of,” said Jennifer Chandler, county community
and
economic development director.

But considering how limited the development options are at the old
uranium enrichment plant, the latest proposal might be a good fit if
the
community supports it, she said.

Blaine Beekman, executive director of the Pike County Chamber of
Commerce, said he has been assured by supporters that spent fuel rods
would
only be stored temporarily while they await reprocessing.

If the idea wins community and government approval, there would have to
be rules in place so shipments of the rods would be limited to an
amount
that could be handled in a reasonable time, said Gregory Simonton of
the
Southern Ohio Diversification Initiative.

His public- and privately funded development group formed a company
with a Cleveland firm to bring the new facilities to the site of the
old
Piketon plant.

For nearly five decades the government-owned plant enriched uranium,
first for weapons and then for nuclear reactors. It closed in 2001 and
the
DOE is in the midst of a major cleanup of radioactive contaminants and
hazardous chemicals.

The site is home to two new nuclear missions. USEC Inc. is building a
pilot uranium enrichment centrifuge facility while awaiting federal
approval for a commercial enrichment plant. The DOE is building a plant
to
recycle some 20,000 cylinders of uranium enrichment waste that
accumulated
over the years.

--
Lynn Hulsey
Reporter
Dayton Daily News
(937) 225-7455

Vina Colley

Vina Colley

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

NATURAL CELLULAR DEFENSE [ZEOLITE]

2006-08-26T17:39:34Z

NATURAL CELLULAR DEFENSE [ZEOLITE]
PART 1 of 2

By Dr. James Howenstine, MD.
August 24, 2006
NewsWithViews.com

The pharmaceutical industry earns one trillion dollars each year from
the
sale of chemotherapy drugs. If anyone thinks that this industry will
soon be
bringing forth a new therapy that will cure cancer they may wish to
revaluate this
thinking. These people are brilliant at controlling the media and
encouraging
the public that â€œthe cure is just around the corner.â€ If they were
to cure
cancer it would be the biggest mistake they have ever made and they are
not
accustomed to making mistakes.

One of the key factors in successful therapy of cancer is removal of
toxic
metals (mercury, arsenic, lead, cadmium, aluminum, iron, uranium etc.)
from the
body.

Dr. Josef Issel of Germany had great success treating cancer with
fever,
organic raw food, enzymes and immune stimulating methods. In his office
a biologic
dentist removed metal amalgams (mercury) and mercury dental deposits
from
these patients. His methods were so successful he earned a three year
stay in a
German prison in the site reserved for convicted murderers.

In Dr. Thomas Rauâ€™s Paracelsus Clinic in Switzerland most patients
seen are
terminally ill from malignancies that have failed chemotherapy and
radiation.
Fifty percent of patients with stage 4 (advanced) cancer recover. Their
therapeutic program consists of:

Opening up missing tooth sites to remove hidden mercury deposits

Removal of all root canal teeth

Careful removal of all mercury fillings

Detoxify the patient from mercury and other harmful substances
Obviously toxic metals play a major role in causing cancer and their
removal
can greatly assist recovery. The substance zeolite (Natural Cellular
Defense)
acts primarily by removing toxic metals from the body.

Zeolites are minerals formed when molten lava contacts water from lakes
or
ocean. A specific member of the zeolite family of minerals called
â€œclinoptiloliteâ€ has a unique honeycomb like structure which has
the ability to trap and
bind toxins, heavy metals, viral particles, and other impurities so
these
substances can be removed from the body. The clinoptilolite type of
zeolite can be
activated by a process which removes naturally occurring toxins. The
end product
results in a 100 % natural completely non-toxic liquid that is safe for
human
consumption (FDA rating G.R.A.S. Generally Recognized As Safe). In a
liquid
form carried by the blood stream zeolites are believed to pass to all
parts of
the body.

The clinoptilolite form of zeolite has been used for more than 800
years in
traditional medicine to improve general health in India, China, Russia
and
nearly every part of Asia. In the United States this has been used in
water
filtration, air purification, animal feed and fertilizers to keep crops
healthy.

Zeolites are negatively charged which is not common among minerals.
This
negative charge facilitates the migration of positively charged toxic
minerals
into the zeolite cages and onto the surfaces of zeolite where these
substances
can be transported for elimination in stools and urine. There is a
preferential
order of zeolite attraction to minerals .of heavier weight before
proceeding
to lighter minerals. This is manifested by trapping of mercury,
uranium,
arsenic, and cadmium before lighter minerals are captured (magnesium,
calcium,
lead). Zeolites can be considered molecular sieves and filtering agents
who are
able to trap positively charged atoms, ions, and compounds for removal
from the
body.

What Can Zeolite (Natural Cellular Defense) Accomplish?

Remove Toxic Heavy Metals (uranium, aluminum, lead, mercury, arsenic,
cadmium
etc). This improves enzyme function.

Trap and remove viral particles from the body

Improve immune function so colds and influenza are less likely to occur

Improve pH levels so infectious organisms have a less favorable site to
survive

Trap protons in the digestive tract making acid reflux less troublesome

Improve nutrient absorption

Removal of toxins and chemicals improves immune function

Trapping allergens in blood and digestive tract decreases symptoms from
inhaled and swallowed antigens

Absorptive action in the intestines may stop diarrhea

Can be of great value in life threatening and chronic disease states.
Is Zeolite A Chelating Substance?

Zeolite has a great affinity for heavier metals such as mercury,
uranium,
arsenic, cadmium, aluminum and a lesser affinity for metals of lower
weight
(lead, calcium, magnesium). In two published studies involving goats,
sheep, and
cows half the animals received zeolite along with food and vitamins and
the
others received the same therapy but no zeolite. The animals receiving
the zeolite
had better nutritional status and better mineral content in their
bodies than
the animals not taking zeolite. The zeolite animals lost toxic metals
and had
better levels of calcium and magnesium than the animals not taking
zeolite.
Zeolite is an important chelating agent which appears to bind more
metals than
standard EDTA used in chelation.

What Can NCD Do In Allergic Diseases (Migraine Headaches, Asthma)?

Patients with migraine headaches frequently are aware that certain
foods will
trigger headache attacks (red wine, preserved meats treated with
nitrites and
nitrates such as sausages, hot dogs, salami, caffeine, chocolate, some
dairy
products{aromatic cheeses} etc.). NCD can remove some of these triggers
for
migraine attacks by physically absorbing the offending substances in
the
intestines.

Asthmatic patients are exposed to pollen, dust, molds, and air polluted
by
chemicals and smog all of which may initiate bronchospasm (wheezing).
Often the
offending substances are heavily charged making them susceptible to
removal by
NCD before they cause asthma attacks. Many persons with allergic
disorders
have noticed a decrease in symptoms after starting NCD therapy.

Use Of NCD In Hyperacidity And Acid Reflux States

The ability of zeolite to bind gastric acid can be dramatically
effective in
some individuals suffering from painful reflux of gastric acid onto the
esophagus . Other persons with indigestion related to gastric acid may
also obtain
relief.

Possible Benefits From NCD In Arteriosclerosis

There are several important concepts regarding the initiation of
arteriosclerosis. One of these is that arteriosclerosis results from
the infiltration of
the endothelial lining of the arteries with toxic heavy metals. The
inner
lining of the artery is the site where the important vasodilator
substance nitric
acid is created. The endothelium also produces prostacyclin which
decreases
clotting of blood and causes dilating of arteries. A third important
endothelial
substance is heparin, a potent substance that prevents clots from
forming.
Excessive deposition of heavy metals in the endothelium diminishes the
endotheliumâ€™s ability to produce valuable nitric oxide, prostacyclin
and heparin.
Removal of these toxic metals restores the endotheliumâ€™s ability to
produce these
vital substances which stops and may even reverse arteriosclerosis.

Inflammatory reactions in the body (often related to infections such as
gingivitis, pneumonia, viral infections etc.) can be a stimulus for
arteriosclerotic plaques to suddenly develop. Bacteria and viruses have
been transported from
these inflammatory sites to the endothelial lining of arteries.
.Careful
studies of persons suffering strokes and heart attacks has revealed
that up to 25
or 30 % of these persons have a history of an infectious disease in the
several days preceding the vascular event. Experts in the field of gum
disease have
warned that there is mountain of evidence that there is an unusually
high rate
of gingivitis in persons developing heart attacks and strokes. Therapy
that
heals gingivitis (Oral Guard) could protect many patients from having
heart
attacks and strokes.

Signs of inflammation such as elevated levels of CRP and sedimentation
rates
are a valuable clue that artery narrowing and related vascular
occlusion is a
strong possibility. The body reacts to infectious processes by walling
off the
area of infection. The blood in these sites becomes sludgy with poor
blood
flow. Plaque formation becomes accelerated in these sites of impaired
oxygen
delivery. Resolving these abnormal indicators of infection with agents
like
cucurmin is helping many patients escape vascular accidents.

Dr. Linus Pauley pointed out that Vitamin C and lysine could correct
the
collagen deficiency seen in arteriosclerosis with healing of narrowed
arteries.
This information was nearly completely ignored by conventional
medicine.
Coronary by-pass surgery, and the placing of stents and angioplastic
opening of
narrowed arteries are big business for the medical community. The fact
that
surgical procedures are being performed for what is a degenerative
inflammatory
disorder of arteries has not slowed the wave of surgery. Curative
therapy for
arteriosclerosis needs to reverse the abnormal events in the lining of
the arteries
and eliminate the infections that initiate vascular occlusions.

Homocysteine elevation, increased clotting factors (fibrinogen,
platelets,
lipoprotein (a) excess) and meals prepared with synthetic transfats all
contribute to arteriosclerosis as does cholesterol elevation in a minor
way.

Heavy metals inhibit both enzyme function and protein performance. Zinc
finger proteins[1] are stabilized by the presence of a zinc atom in the
middle of
the protein. When this zinc atom is missing the protein will not work.
These
zinc finger proteins are necessary for cellular division. This is
especially
important for the immune system which requires extra cells when faced
with a
viral or bacterial infection. Supplemental zinc during infections
normally helps
the body create more immune cells. The zinc may also be displaced by
heavy
metals such as mercury and arsenic. Again the protein fails to function
because of
displaced zinc. Removing heavy metals from the body permits correct
placement
of zinc to occur with improved immune function and restored enzyme
function
resulting.

Adenosine triphosphate ATP is the prime energy source for the body. ATP
needs
a magnesium ion to be stabilized. Active ATP is called Magnesium ATP.
Persons
with mercury poisoning have the magnesium displaced by the excessive
mercury
levels. In this state of absent magnesium the body has less energy
production
and fatigue and weakness are common symptoms. When the mercury is
removed
energy output returns to normal. Many persons taking NCD have noticed
that they
have more energy within a few weeks of starting this therapy.

Because the affinity of zeolite for removal of heavy metals like
arsenic,
cadmium, mercury and uranium is greater than for lighter metals like
calcium it
tends to only remove calcium when there are no or few heavier metals to
absorb
to. This results in slow removal of the calcium found in
arteriosclerotic
plaques. The vitamin K2 would probably be more rapid in removing
calcium from
plaques and heel spurs than zeolite.

NCD helps the body improve artery function by eliminating toxic metals
from
the body, improving immune system function, improving pH levels,
increasing
oxygen levels in tissues and by improving enzyme function.

What Is Happening When Toxic Metals Leave The Body?

When zeolite from NCD captures toxic metals the zeolite combined with
metals
is excreted in urine and also becomes part of fecal waste.
Approximately 60 %
of zeolite leaves the body in urine and 40 % in fecal waste. One
hundred
percent[2] of zeolite is eliminated from the body within a 4 to 7 hour
time frame.
Because of this rapid elimination taking very large doses of NCD
accomplishes
nothing not achieved with conventional dosage.

When meat is cooked, particularly if burned, nitrosamines form. The
nitrosamines have been implicated in causing colon cancer. An important
action of
zeolite is to trap and remove dangerous nitrosamines from the
intestines.

As the mercury, lead, cadmium, arsenic, uranium etc. leave the body the
blood
levels of these substances decline. When this occurs there is now more
mercury, cadmium, lead etc in the bones and other tissues than in the
blood. This
produces an osmotic effect which leads to slow steady migration of
metals out of
bones and tissues into the blood and then out of the body.

Lead has very important health ramifications. There is no amount of
lead that
is safe for the human body. Elevations of lead levels in humans are
strongly
correlated with the development of hypertension. When the lead is
removed from
the body the blood pressure returns to normal. Lead excess is also an
important cause for cataract formation. Children with elevated levels
of lead have a
high incidence of poor academic performance, increased use of drugs and
more
anti-social behavior.

Lead is stored in bones. Modern man has 1000 times more lead in his
bones
than men living 400 years ago. Effective oral chelation therapy removes
lead but
may take 10 to 15 years to complete itâ€™s removal from bone. An oral
chelating
therapy such as Essential Daily Defense removes lead by virtue of the
presence
of garlic powder.

An interesting and perhaps significant observation seen in persons
taking
zeolite is that some persons lose weight.[3] One theory proposed to
explain this
is that these toxic metals are so dangerous to the body they get
surrounded by
fat tissue to decrease their toxic effects. When NCD has led to loss of
toxic
metals the fat tissue may be metabolized away as these stored metals
also get
eliminated from the body.

How Does NCD Affect pH Values In The Body?

Normal body pH is slightly alkaline at 7.4. When the body pH falls to
consistently low values 5 chronic degenerative diseases such as cancer,
serious
infections and arteriosclerosis may appear. Oxygen levels correlate
with pH levels
so acidic pH levels are associated with low oxygen levels in tissues.
Hydrogen
ions are small so they do not get trapped in zeolite. However, their
acidic
effect is balanced by the presence of alkaline zeolite leading to a
neutral
more healthy pH where disease has a harder time flourishing. Positively
charged
protons in the vicinity of zeolite become attracted into the cage and
their
disappearance raises local pH values to a safer level. When a cage with
protons
is transported to an area where there are few protons (not acidic).the
protons
will migrate back out of the cage. Thus the pH effects are localized[4]
not
systemic. For part two click below.

Click here for part -----> 2

Footnotes:

1, Deitsch, Rik Interview with Rik Deitsch Chairman of Waiora's Science
Advisory Board December 2005 pg 5
2, ibid
3, ibid
4, ibid

Â© 2006 Dr. James Howenstine - All Rights Reserved

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Dr. James A. Howenstine is a board certified specialist in internal
medicine
who spent 34 years caring for office and hospital patients. After 4
years of
personal study he became convinced that natural products are safer,
more
effective, and less expensive than pharmaceutical drugs.

This research led to the publication of his book A Physicians Guide To
Natural Health Products That Work. Information about these products and
his book can
be obtained from amazon.com and at www.naturalhealthteam.com and phone
1-800-416-2806 U.S. Dr. Howenstine can be reached by mail at Dr. James
Howenstine,
C/O Remarsa USA SB 37, P.O. Box 25292, Miami, Fl. 33102-5292.

E-Mail: dr.jimhow@gmail.com

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Con't from part 1:

What Effect Does Zeolite Have On Autoimmune Diseases?

Auto-immune illnesses can be associated with an underactive immune
system or
an overactive immune system. Examples of an underactive immune function
would
include cancer and HIV disease. In both these conditions the
underactive
immune system fails to detect and kill cancer cells or fight off
infections as
would normally occur. One of the conditions with an overactive immune
system would
be rheumatoid arthritis In this disease the immune system attacks the
membranes in the joints in an uncontrolled manner .resulting in
progressive
destruction of joints. NCD has a modulating effect on immune diseases
which stimulates
the immune system to perform more effectively in an underactive
disorder and
slows down the activity of the immune system in diseases where the
immune
system is operating excessively.

Are There Any Dangers In Using NCD along With Another Detoxifying
Substance?

The use of NCD with other detoxifying substances, supplements and
minerals is
actually desirable.[1] Anything that improves the immune defense system
such
as selenium, Burbur, N-Acetyl Cysteine etc. appears to complement the
effects
of NCD.

What Health Problems Are Not Benefited By NCD?

Xenoestrogens from exposure to pesticides, herbicides, plastics and
petrochemicals are too large or fail to exhibit a chemical charge
making them fail to
be attracted by zeolite. This results in no excretion upon exposure to
NCD.
However, there may be indirect benefits from use of NCD in persons
exposed to
xenoestrogens because NCD does have beneficial effects on
glucuronidation which
is an important liver detoxification pathway. This could improve liver
performance in these patients.

Are There Effects On Aflatoxins?

Some fungi in foods like nuts and beans produce dangerous toxins called
aflatoxins. There has also been a dramatic increase in aflatoxins found
in foods
entering the United States from foreign countries. These entering foods
are
routinely given massive doses of radiation without any subsequent
labeling of the
foods certifying radiation. This radiation kills the beneficial
bacteria that
normally prevent aflatoxins from becoming predominant. Chronic exposure
to
aflatoxins can lead to liver damage and hepatoma (liver cancer).
Zeolites have
been able to reduce aflatoxin infection in farm animals and would
probably
benefit humans in the same way.

What Does Zeolite Do To Prosthetic Structures Like Heart Valves, Breast
Implants, Dental Amalgams, Hip Joint Replacement Parts And Vascular
Stents?

It is important to realize that the effects of zeolite are passive.
There is
no active erosion of amalgams, hip replacements, breast implants or any
other
structures placed in the body. by health care practitioners.

Can Side Effects Be Seen During Zeolite Therapy?

Some persons report feeling sicker with increased pain during the early
stages of zeolite therapy. When the body is mobilizing large amounts of
toxic
metals the excretion of the particles carries increased amounts of
water out of the
body along with the metal (osmotic effect). This fluid loss can be
prevented
by increasing the quantity of water ingested particularly in the early
stages
of therapy. Another reaction that occurs in about one percent of
persons is a
detoxification reaction (Herxheimer Reaction). These patients may
develop
muscle aching, headache, skin rash and malaise. This reaction is caused
by
liberation of toxic substances making it possible for them to react
with body tissues
causing a transient painful inflammatory response. For example, zeolite
has
greater attraction to cadmium than to lead so placing zeolite in the
body might
permit lead to become freed from a sequestered site when cadmium
migrates to
zeolite. This formerly sequestered lead is now capable of causing an
inflammatory reaction. Herxheimer reactions can easily by terminated by
decreasing the
dosage or temporarily stopping NCD.

Zeoliteâ€™s Use In Malignancies

Zeolite has had 30 years of research performed by Dr. Harvey Kaufman.
This
culminated in a patent for the product. The Waiora company is funding
ongoing
research to learn more about the effects of NCD in humans and animals.

Because cancer is known to develop after exposure to toxic materials or
procedures (asbestosis, radiation, mercury, fluoride, transfats,
uranium, chlorine,
viruses etc.) use of a therapy (zeolite) that steadily removes toxic
metals,
impurities, viral particles and toxins from the body is indicated in
patients
with malignancies.

Many parts of the world including the United States have seen rising
numbers
of patients with cancer. Uranium contamination has been found in 42
states
where depleted uranium bombs and shells have been manufactured, stored
or tested.
The fastest growing leukemia cluster in the U.S. is found adjacent to
the
Fallon, Nevada. bombing and gunnery ranges. There is strong evidence
that persons
living within 20 or 30 miles of nuclear reactors have an increased
level of
malignancies. To make matters even worse the United States has sold
depleted
uranium bombs and shells to at least 29 nations around the world.

In the first 2 months of 2006 there were 172,000 cases of lung
cancer[2] in
the U.S. The whole year of 2005 only saw 175,000 cases of lung cancer.
How can
this be explained? This does not fit with inhalation of second hand
smoke or
cigarette smoking. High levels of uranium were found in the air at the
Aldermaston research Center in northern England ten days after the
second war in Iraq
began with heavy bombing and shelling in Iraq. This suggests that all
of
Europe was contaminated with radiation at the onset of Gulf War II.
There have now
been 4 nuclear wars since World War II (Iraq twice, Afghanistan,
Bosnia). The
amount of radiation released since 1991 is greater than the equivalent
radiation of 82,000 Nagasaki type nuclear devices. No news media in
Europe or the
U.S. discusses this as this is one of many forbidden topics.

My guess is significant amounts of uranium are being detected in U.S.
air but
this information is being concealed from the American public.

DU shells and bombs vaporize into particles 1/10 micron in size. These
particles contain uranium which can penetrate all clothing and all
known gas masks.
Uranium particles trash the DNA of cells leading to mutations and
malignancies
between 3 and 5 years after initial exposure to uranium. These minute
particles can be transported on prevailing winds around the world. The
rapidly rising
rate of U.S. lung cancers could be due to depleted uranium fallout in
the
United States.

Are There Any Therapies For Uranium Induced Malignancies That May Have
Merit?

In Bosnia physicians have reported seeing patients with up to three
simultaneous malignancies. This has never been previously reported in
medicine. There
is an epidemic of cancer in children in Iraq. Significant quantities of
uranium
have been found in persons living in Bahrain, India, Afghanistan and
Iraq.
The Aldermaston research facility reported levels of uranium sufficient
to
trigger immediate environmental agency notification 10 days after the
start of Gulf
War II. This means that all Europe was certainly contaminated with
airborne
uranium at that time. There is good reason to believe that eastern
Europe was
probably heavily contaminated during the warfare in Yugoslavia. As
these
nuclear wars expand more persons are steadily being exposed to deadly
uranium in
air. U.S. soldiers returning from Iraq in the second Gulf War have been
found to
be heavily contaminated with uranium even when not in combat roles.
Currently
persons living in northern Israel and all of Lebanon are probably being
exposed to significant doses of uranium.

For the unfortunate victims of DU weapons, who have cancer, there are
several
therapies that may have merit. The homeopathic preparation uranium
nitricum
might be helpful. Fresh vegetable greens help detoxify the body from
radiation
injury. Chlorophyll and increased hydration is also helpful. Possibly
some or
most inhaled uranium particles become trapped in mucous covering the
alveolar
cells in the lung. Mucolyxir and N-acetyl cysteine, by liquefying
secretions,
may facilitate removal of uranium deposits from the lung mucous.

NCD by virtue of itâ€™s affinity for heavy metals should be a good
therapy to
steadily remove uranium particles from the body. This removal of
uranium could
assist recovery from uranium induced cancers. Also patients taking NCD
on a
regular basis may be decreasing their chances of developing uranium
induced lung
and other malignancies by steadily eliminating uranium from the body so
their
body uranium levels remain low. Wherever uranium containing bombs and
shells
are manufactured, tested or stored there are persons being exposed to
uranium.
Because of the total control the New World order has over the media
U.S.
citizens are not going to be warned about toxic levels of uranium in
the air and
accidental contamination problems with uranium may never get reported.
This is
all part of the massive Satanic program to lower world population.

Sunburn is a mild form of radiation burn. This can be rapidly healed by
a
nano-particle sized (.25 nm to 6 nm particle size) formulation of
colloidal
silver. This same formulation of colloidal silver can dissolve skin
cancers[3] in 3
days. Mr. Scott Clayton is personally aware of 3 patients with lung
cancer
who recovered when treated with the same preparation of colloidal
silver taken
by mouth.

A group of 30 Central American women with 3 different histological
types of
breast cancer were all treated with a single intravenous infusion of
nano-sized
hydrosol silver (Argentyn 23). Repeat biopsies of all 30 women at 19
days
following the infusion disclosed no evidence of breast cancer[4] in any
of the
biopsies. Four of the women experienced Herxheimer reactions with fever
and
transient liver enlargement. Previous study at the University of
Wisconsin had
suggested that proper dosage of this nano-sized silver preparation has
the
ability to saturate all tumor cell atoms with silver particles which
blocks the
glucose consumption tumor cells[5] need to stay alive.

What Doses Of NCD Should Be Used?

Persons who have serious health problems such as malignancies, advanced
arteriosclerosis, neurologic diseases (Multiple Sclerosis, Amyotrophic
Lateral
Sclerosis, Parkinsonâ€™s Disease, Alzheimerâ€™s Disease), severe reflux
esophagitis
etc. should start with 12 drops of NCD in water four times daily. This
high
dosage should be continued until improvement is noticed at which time
the dosage
can be decreased. Persons taking NCD for preventative reasons to
improve their
general health should start on 9 drops three times daily for the first
month.
This should remove a significant amount of their toxic burden. The dose
can
then be reduced to the maintenance level of three drops three times
daily.

Testimonials From Zeolite Users

Case 1. A male with a mesothelioma (pleural lining lung malignancy),
often
related to asbestosis exposure and smoking, had a large tumor mass
protruding
through the posterior chest wall and another in the upper abdomen the
size of a
marble when he started to take NCD. After a month of therapy both
masses were
gone. He remains well.

Case 2. A male with severe itching from non-healing skin lesions on the
legs
of many years duration started NCD therapy. Within a week he notice
nearly
complete healing of the skin lesions and disappearance of metal allergy
when
wearing watches.

Case 3. A veteran who had 30 years of mental cloudiness since exposure
to
Agent Orange in Viet Nam began zeolite. The next morning he experienced
mental
clarity for the first time in 30 years. Four days later he became aware
of a
horrible taste in his mouth. This was associated with disappearance of
a mouth
tumor of 4 years duration. 37 years earlier he had a brown recluse
spider bite
between his toes. Subsequent to the spider bite a non-healing ulcer
could be
seen at the site of the spider bite. After four days of zeolite the
foot started
to itch and the ulcer was gone.

Case 4. A male with a painful goose egg sized buttock mass was
scheduled for
surgery. In one week of zeolite therapy the mass became so small he
cancelled
the surgery.

Case 5. A female with a painful right fibrocystic breast mass started
taking
zeolite. Three weeks later she was aware of decreased beast pain. Her
physician was unable to identify the previously biopsied right breast
mass.

Case 6. A 23 year old female with chronic genital warts had failed to
benefit
from burning and topical therapy. The genital warts disappeared in 7
days
when zeolite was started.

Case 7. A male had severe heartburn which frequently awakened him from
sleep.
He had used Tums daily for 27 years. After starting zeolite therapy he
realized he had taken no Tums for a week as his symptoms were gone.

Case 8. A female had many years of severe heartburn. She often
experienced
heartburn which would awaken her from sleep. There was associated with
marked
shortness of breath and regurgitation of ingested food. She was using 4
to 6
antacid tablets hourly. When she started NCD she began to have much
less
symptoms. Stopping therapy for a week led to a relapse so she is still
taking 19 drops
of NCD three times daily.

Case 9. This 33 year old female had joint pains, fatigue, exhaustion
and
depression diagnosed as fibromyalgia. Massage, acupuncture, herbs,
acupressure and
glucosamine had failed to help. Zeolite therapy led to complete
resolution of
her symptoms.

Waiora is a multi-level marketing company which I joined so my patients
could
have access to this fine product. Natural Cellular Defense can be
obtained by
phoning 1-800-416-2806. For part one click below.

Click here for part -----> 1

Footnotes:

1, Deutsch, Rik personal communication.
2, CNN American Morning Program March 8, 2006 Miles and Soledad O'Brien
3, Clayton, Scott personal communication
4, Apsley, John et al Nanotechnology's Latest Oncolytic Agent: Silver,
Cancer, &Infection Interactions Townsend Letter May 2006 pg 96
5, Oliver DO et al Biocidal effects of silver: Contract NAS 9-9300
Final
Techanical Report, University of Wisconsin, Accession No. N71-24436 ,
NASA
CR-1149, Code G3, Category 04, 1971 Feb;5-2

Â© 2006 Dr. James Howenstine - All Rights Reserved

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

What Iraq War Can Buy Domestically For US Populace

2006-08-26T17:36:04Z

http://nationalpriorities.org/index.php?optionfiltered=com_wrapper&Itemid=182

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

U.S. nuclear threats; Games get serious

2006-08-26T17:35:06Z

U.S. nuclear threats; Games get serious
The BulletinWire is sent out once a month by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Each edition of the Wire alerts readers to our latest online content. Plus, the Bulletin editors select the best online articles and resources on the most urgent issues of the day.

If you no longer wish to receive the BulletinWire, click here to unsubscribe.

Now available online:
U.S. Nuclear Threats: Then and Now
By Robert S. Norris and Hans M. Kristensen
During an impromptu April 18 press conference, President George W. Bush refused to rule out the possibility of a nuclear strike against Iran, declaring that "all options are on the table." In doing so, Bush joined a long list of U.S. officials--including Harry S. Truman, Richard Nixon, and George H. W. Bush--who have drawn the nuclear sword in an effort to influence international relations.

Games Get Serious
By Josh Schollmeyer
To many, video and computer games represent an adolescent diversion. But a growing community of scientists, policy makers, and game developers beg to differ. Together, they've created a nascent movement that delves into such hefty issues as preventing genocide, promoting democracy, and training first responders.

Garbage In, Garbage Out
By Josh Schollmeyer
Everyday, Canadian garbage trucks brimming with refuse cross the U.S. border unencumbered on their way to Michigan landfills, posing a national security hazard, according to a recent Senate report. But, in this Bulletin Threat Assessment, Stephen Flynn, a border security expert and author of America the Vulnerable, argues that the trash "threat" is mostly garbage.

Deputy Director
Center for Science, Technology and Security Policy
AAAS seeks to hire a Deputy Director for its Center for Science, Technology and Security Policy (CSTSP). The Center serves as the Washington hub for the MacArthur Foundation.¿½s Science, Technology and Security initiative. CSTSP role is to bring the results of scientific work and analyses on security issues to the Washington policy community. The Deputy will be involved in programs, policies, management, budgeting and staffing. A full description is available at CSTSP.

Coming soon in the September/October issue of the Bulletin:
Special Report: Nuclear 9/11?
When the Twin Towers fell on September 11, 2001, so too did America.¿½s confidence that it was secure from calamitous acts of terrorism. Since then, the United States has undertaken concerted efforts to secure loose nukes and bombmaking materials. But, five years later, are we any safer?

The Ongoing Failure of Imagination By Graham Allison
The Continuing Misuses of Fear By William M. Arkin

A Brave New World in the Life Sciences
By Eileen R. Choffnes, Stanley M. Lemon, and David A. Relman
The biosciences are converging with innovative technologies at breakneck speed, yielding new discoveries that have the potential to cure--or kill.

Spinning the War in Afghanistan
By Sarah Chayes
The media portrayed the capture of Kandahar by Afghan resistance fighters as a major victory in the 2001 war to topple the Taliban. In truth, the U.S. military did most of the fighting. But that didn.¿½t stop one of Afghanistan.¿½s most infamous warlords from reaping the spoils.

New subscribers save 50% off the standard price!
Get six issues for only $18!
SUBSCRIBE | NEWSSTAND LOCATOR | TABLE OF CONTENTS

Announcement:
Stephen Hawking joins board at Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
The Board of Directors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announced at its June 2006 meeting Stephen Hawking's election to its Board of Sponsors. The advisory group was founded by Albert Einstein and first led by J. Robert Oppenheimer. It is now headed by Leon Lederman, the 1988 Nobel Laureate in physics and former director of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.

The Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University, Hawking is a prolific and widely honored writer and speaker and author of the worldwide bestseller A Brief History of Time, originally published in 1988 and updated and reissued in 1998. More recently, he published The Universe in a Nutshell in 2001.

In-depth on Terrorism:
Connecting the Dots
By Scott Atran and Marc Sageman July/August 2006
How do terrorists become radicalized? Who among them is most liable to defect? We don't have the answers to these vital questions because of the lack of reliable data.

Mother. Daughter. Sister. Bomber.
By Mia Bloom November/December 2005
Women are increasingly taking a leading role in conflicts by becoming terrorists--specifically, by becoming suicide bombers.

The Bioterrorist Cookbook
By Malcolm Dando November/December 2005
The chances of a massive bioterrorism attack remain low. It's the small-scale attacks that warrant real concern.

Homegrown Terror
By Michael Reynolds November/December 2004
A bomb is a bomb. A chemical weapon is a chemical weapon. It won't matter to the victims whether their attacker's name is Ahmed or Bill.

More on Terrorism:
In Focus: British Terror Plot
Brookings Institution

Was it al-Qaeda?
Council on Foreign Relations

Preventing Toxic Terrorism
By Paul Orum, Center for American Progress
Introduction
Past Issues
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Copyright 2006 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

Argentina to Expand Nuclear Program

2006-08-26T17:32:26Z

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Argentina-Nuclear-Energy.html

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: August 23, 2006
Filed at 10:41 p.m. ET

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) -- Argentina
announced an ambitious plan Wednesday to expand
its nuclear program to meet rising energy demands,
including extending the life of existing plants
and possibly resuming uranium mining.

At a Government House news conference, Planning
Minister Julio de Vido said the plan calls for
increasing the life span of the aging Atucha I and
Embalse nuclear power plants and completing
construction by 2010 on the long-stalled Atucha II
plant.

Two decades of delays have hampered completion of
the Atucha II project, located some 75 miles
northwest of the capital of Buenos Aires.

The nearby Atucha I facility has been operating
since the mid-1970s, in conjunction with the
Embalse plant in central Argentina.

The planning minister was flanked by President
Nestor Kirchner, who did not comment on the plan
nor on a report by the leading newspaper Clarin
saying the nuclear program could cost the
government $3.5 billion over eight years.

''When this government took office in 2003, the
nuclear energy sector was reactivating,'' De Vido
said. ''Today we come to establish a strategic
plan for the Argentine nuclear energy sector for
the coming years.''

The program calls for large-scale power generation
to meet fast-growing energy demands, amid careful
regulation by national authorities. Among other
steps, De Vido announced plans for ''concrete
steps'' toward resumption of uranium mining.

De Vido did not comment on a Clarin report that
Argentina might revive a uranium enrichment
program shut down in 1983 due to budget
constraints. Enrichment provides the fuel needed
to operate such nuclear plants, but can also be a
central to building nuclear weapons.

Argentina, one of the leading Latin American
nations in nuclear power generation, has had to
stave off potential energy shortfalls in recent
years.

The move comes as Argentina and Brazil are seeking
new energy sources to counter crude oil prices
that have passed $70 a barrel, along with soaring
prices in natural gas and other fuels.

Last May, Brazil inaugurated a uranium enrichment
center capable of producing nuclear fuel. The
center is expected to save South America's largest
economy millions of dollars that the country now
spends to enrich fuel at Urenco, the European
enrichment consortium.

Both nations have stressed the strictly peaceful
nature of their nuclear programs, given a backdrop
of international pressure against Iran to halt
expansion of its nuclear program. Washington has
cautioned Iran that it will seek sanctions in the
U.N. Security Council if Tehran does not step
enriching uranium.

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

CA oopsie! - San Onofre - Radioactive Leak Reaches Nuclear Plant's Groundwater

2006-08-20T05:34:19Z

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-radioactive18aug18,0,3580491.story?coll=la-home-local

Radioactive Leak Reaches Nuclear Plant's Groundwater
At San Onofre, the cancer-causing tritium isn't known to infect drinking water, but experts are checking.
By Seema Mehta and Dave McKibben
Times Staff Writer

August 18, 2006

Radioactive, cancer-causing tritium has leaked into the groundwater beneath the San Onofre nuclear power plant, prompting the closure of one drinking-water well in southern Orange County, authorities said.

Officials have not found evidence that the leak from the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, California's largest, has contaminated the drinking water supply.

As a precaution, San Clemente officials shut down and are testing a city well near the contaminated area.

"We owe it to our residents and business folks to properly test the water," said Dave Lund, San Clemente's public works director.

In recent years, tritium leaks have been found at more than a dozen nuclear plants across the nation, prompting the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to form a task force this year to study the cause of the contamination. The findings are scheduled to be released this month.

Sandwiched between Camp Pendleton and the Pacific Ocean in northwestern San Diego County, the San Onofre power plant has had a controversial presence on the coast since its construction in the 1960s.

In the years since, sea lions and endangered sea turtles have been killed when caught in the plant's seawater intake pipes for its cooling system. Since Sept. 11, 2001, nearby residents also have grown wary of the plant as a potential terrorist target that stores highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel.

One of two nuclear power plants in California, San Onofre provides 2,150 megawatts of power, enough for 2.2 million homes throughout Southern California.

The plant is operated by Southern California Edison and houses two working reactors. A third, 450-megawatt reactor was shut down in 1992 and is being dismantled.

While workers were taking apart the containment dome that housed the inactive reactor, they discovered that groundwater beneath the reactor complex was tainted with tritium, said Ray Golden, spokesman for the power plant. The source of the leak has not been determined, he said.

Tritium occurs naturally in the environment but is also a byproduct of nuclear fission, said Victor Bricks, spokesman for the NRC's regional office in Arlington, Texas. It has a half-life of 12 years, meaning its radioactivity is reduced by half every 12 years.

Tritium, an isotope of hydrogen that can cause not only cancer but also miscarriages and birth defects, is increasingly stoking fears in communities near nuclear plants across the country.

A tritium leak that contaminated millions of gallons of groundwater near the Braidwood Nuclear Generating Station in northeast Illinois led that state to sue the owner of the plant in March.

"So far, the spills … haven't resulted in people off-site being exposed to excessive amounts of radiation," said David Lochbaum, director of the nuclear safety project for the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington, D.C., a nonprofit advocacy group that focuses on environmental problems. "But the law is supposed to be that nothing radioactive leaves the site, either in water or in air, unless it's monitored or controlled. They have had a series of failures."

Samples of the groundwater beneath San Onofre's decommissioned unit contained 50,000 to 330,000 picocuries per liter, Bricks said.

In drinking water, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's safety limit for tritium is 20,000 picocuries per liter, a measurement of radioactivity based on one-trillionth of a unit. The state of California has recommended a "public health goal" of no more than 400 picocuries per liter, a level the agency determined could still cause one cancer case per million people exposed.

San Onofre has extracted more than 10,000 gallons of the contaminated groundwater and piped it into the Pacific about 8,600 feet offshore, where it is instantly diluted in seawater, Golden said.

Since groundwater will continue to seep into the contaminated area, plant officials will continue removing contaminated water and discharging it into the ocean until they can remove all traces of the contamination.

It's unknown how much tritium has seeped into the ground, where it came from, or when the leak occurred, Golden said. It's likely that it leaked from the reactor, the spent-fuel pool, various water storage tanks or pipes. The leak probably occurred sometime between 1968 and 2004, Golden said.

Edison officials have tested nearby soil, water and sand all around the plant over nearly four decades and have never seen unusual radiation levels, so there is nothing to indicate that the contaminated groundwater has left the site, he added.

John Robertus, executive officer of the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board, which governs the area, also said that because of the area's hydrology, it's unlikely that local groundwater sources were contaminated. Groundwater is likely to migrate toward the ocean and away from drinking water wells, he said.

There are two drinking water wells about two miles from the site, one on Camp Pendleton and one in San Clemente.

A Camp Pendleton spokeswoman said the base draws its water from 20 on-base wells regularly checked for pollutants, including radioactive ones.

In San Clemente, Lund said, the city gets 3% of its drinking water from the well two miles north of the plant. Much of that is used to irrigate San Clemente's city golf course, but some serves homes in the southernmost part of town, he said.

The city gets the rest of its water supply from the Colorado River and Northern California.

"There's concern, but I don't think it should be heightened concern," said Mayor Wayne Eggleston. "We just have to wait for the results."

Some residents and visitors were worried Thursday evening.

"I have a lot of concerns. It's radioactive, isn't it?" Craig Ervin, a San Clemente resident playing golf at the municipal course. "I don't know why they put that plant next to a city."

Lucio Tiberio, a San Diego resident who had just finished surfing at nearby Trestles, was more concerned about the tritium's effect on the ocean.

"There's pollution everywhere, but this is scary because there's no way you can see it," he said.

The regional water board regulates all discharges from the plant but has no jurisdiction over nuclear waste, which is handled by the federal government.

Robertus, the board's chief, said he was unhappy to learn of San Onofre's disposal methods for the contaminated water.

"My hands are tied; we don't regulate radioactive waste," he said. "I'm not particularly pleased with hearing … that they're dumping nuclear radioactive waste" into the ocean.

NRC spokesman Bricks said the ocean dumping meets his agency's standards.

But Daniel Hirsch, director of the nuclear watchdog group Committee to Bridge the Gap in Los Angeles and former director of the Adlai Stevenson program on nuclear policy at UC Santa Cruz, said it was foolhardy to make the ocean the dumping ground.

"It's extremely hard to clean up water that's contaminated with tritium," he said. "There's this incredible illusion that you can dump radioactive waste in the ocean and it won't come back to you in the fish you eat. That's troubling. Dilution is irrelevant."

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

Item 1: Deadly nuke rods piling up in California; Item 2:Yucca official urges speedy passage of Senate energy bill; Item 3: ORNL specialists help move Poland uranium to Russia

2006-08-19T19:09:56Z

Item 3. . .Comment, disclosure, and reminder of the link to EEOICP
conflicts of interest. . .

ORAU, ORNL, and ORISE are USDOE contractors. There is no change in the
venue. I note that Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU) is the
preferred government's $200 million dollar USHHS-NIOSH "Energy Employees
Occupational Illness Program" dose reconstruction | site profile IT
market consultant. The ORAU entity | other government contractors are
allowed to proceed as though they have no conflicts of interest,
whatsoever. The Officials have always used the ploy that their contractors are
independent. The majority of the EXECUTIVE BRANCH Officials have wholly
sanctioned the USDOL, USHHS, and USDOE contractor's EEOICP involvement
since October 30, 2000. I note that Sanford and Cohen Associates are,
also, government preferred IT market consultants. Especially note Item
3 discloses the fact that the USDOE -ORNL contractor is working with
Russia for profit and gains to move their nuclear waste to a more stable
site. The point is "governments" of the world don't have a ways and
means to effectively control or store the mountains of nuclear waste.
America's Yucca Mountain and other predicted storage sites have
definitely met with resistence and failed. Now, what do WE do with the deadly
"stuff" for zion years to come? It is obvious by now that to date, the
U.S. government scientists have failed to come up with any doable
eliminator. Whenever Hanford's vitrification plant is operational,
vitrification will only take care of about 10 percent of the waste. But, our
Officials adamantly insist that their government scientists are the
only reliable source of science application. The EEOICP link -- the
Officials insist that the USHHS - CDC/NIOSH health physicists are experts
which WE know is nonsense. The Officials' health physicist "caretakes"
are allowed to claim that they have developed miraculous and superior
science knowlege since mid-April 2000. This idealogy has caused the
Officials' "caretakers" to develop what they believe is a superior science
methodolgy and application that is used to deny tens of thousands of
sick nuclear workers EEOICP claims.

Who among us will have the "right stuff" to intervene? WE the people
do have the right to use our vote to oust any Official who doesn't
support the will of the people or the Constitution. Which Officials
support the unique nuclear workforce who are hired to do a job. Which
Officials support the second and third generation of "nuclear waste cleanup
workers" who are still classified as unprotected guinea pigs and/or
"pigs who move through the python" -- the USDOL and USHHS-CDC/NIOSH
predators. See EXHIBIT 26 and 33 my WEB site.

Gai Oglesbee, Independent National Advocate
EEOICP Claimant | Downwinder
National Nuclear Victims for Justice
http:/www.nnvj-goglesbee-eeoicp-abuse.com

----------------------
ITEM 1 OF 3:

Scripps News: Deadly nuke rods piling up in California |

By KEAY DAVIDSON

Thousands of tons of deadly radioactive rods of spent nuclear
fuel and waste have accumulated at three California nuclear
power plants because the federal government has failed to open a
permanent nuclear burial site in Nevada that was supposed to be
ready eight years ago.

And the delay is only getting worse: The Department of Energy
says the nuclear dump site won't open until 2017 _ almost two
decades past the original 1998 inauguration target and five
years beyond the most recent scheduled opening date.

The latest delay climaxes a yearlong debacle at the Yucca
Mountain Project in Nevada _ a debacle during which staff
scientists were suspected of fraud, federal investigators
blasted the project's management, and project officials
announced plans to revamp the operation and redesign the burial
site. On July 14, according to news reports, officials said
they'd lay off up to 500 employees as part of the planned
reorganization.

The Energy Department estimated in 2001 that the facility would
cost $60 billion. But in February, Energy Secretary Samuel
Bodman admitted at a conference of nuclear power industrialists
that there's no trustworthy cost estimate.

Energy Department officials say the facility will offer a
permanent solution to the nation's deadliest waste, protecting
the environment from the radiation of spent nuclear fuel for
10,000 years or longer. Critics say the computer models the
Energy Department used to make such predictions are unreliable.

To its harshest critics, the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste
repository looks dead in the water.

"The Yucca Mountain nuke dump has been riddled with scientific,
health and safety problems from the beginning," said Sen. Harry
Reid, D-Nev., in a statement. "I don't believe the dump will
ever open."

But project defenders are confident they'll get their act
together and overcome long-standing technical objections to the
site _ especially fears that the super-hot nuclear fuel and
wastes could leak into groundwater and spread for miles far
faster than anyone dreamed when the project was proposed in the
1970s.

Someday "Yucca Mountain will open," Paul Golan, deputy director
of the Energy Department's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste
Management, told The Chronicle. "We're going to demonstrate that
we have good science, good process, good engineering. We have
good quality standards in place. This (repository) is certainly
a challenge that this country can solve _ and can solve
credibly."

Utility officials in California and across the nation are not
pleased to be stuck with growing mountains of spent fuel and
waste that the Energy Department had promised to take off their
hands long ago. Nationwide, more than 50,000 tons of poisonous,
super-hot rods of spent nuclear fuel are sitting in cooling
ponds and dry casks at atomic power plants awaiting the day when
they will be shipped to Yucca Mountain.

Several utilities have sued the department to recover costs of
on-site storage and won; more suits are planned.

PG&E officials, who run the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant and the
now-defunct Humboldt Bay reactor, are among the litigants. They
have demanded $100 million in damages and say they expect a
court decision in September. So far, the Diablo Canyon plant has
accumulated more than 1,000 tons of spent fuel and waste; the
much smaller Humboldt Bay plant, which closed in the 1970s, has
almost 30 tons.

Southern California Edison spokesman Ray Golden told The
Chronicle that the utility is reviving legal action against the
Energy Department, which had been temporarily delayed, for its
failure to take spent fuel and waste now accumulating at the San
Onofre Nuclear Generating Station near San Diego. A pool at that
plant stores 3,000 tons of spent fuel; an additional 300 tons is
stored in dry casks.

Utility officials insist that it's safe to store the fuel and
nuclear waste on site. But anti-nuclear activists fear the spent
fuel and waste storage facilities could become juicy targets for
terrorists _ say, a pilot flying a plane filled with explosives.

On June 2, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco,
responding to a lawsuit by the anti-nuclear activist group San
Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace, ordered the U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission to study the possibility of a terrorist
attack at Diablo Canyon.

Nearly a half-century has passed since the National Academy of
Sciences recommended burying spent fuel from nuclear power
plants at an underground site, and it's been two decades since
Congress designated Yucca Mountain as that site.

Nothing else like the proposed Yucca Mountain repository, which
would be operated by the Energy Department, has been built. The
facility some 70 miles northwest of Las Vegas would consist of a
series of tunnels 1,000 feet underground, where spent fuel rods
from the nation's nuclear plants would be permanently buried.

Published: Sunday, 13 August 2006

Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service ? full article| email

-----------------------------
ITEM 2 OF 3:

Deseret news: Nuclear-waste decisions put on hold

[deseretnews.com]

Friday, August 4, 2006

Yucca official urges speedy passage of Senate energy bill

By Suzanne Struglinski Deseret Morning News

WASHINGTON ? Congress and the Energy Department are still not
quite sure how to deal with the temporary storage of nuclear
waste, and details may be pushed off until after the August
recess and possibly after the November mid-term election.

Any decision on interim storage could affect Private Fuel
Storage's plan to store nuclear power plant waste on Goshute
Indian land in Tooele County, and long-term plans to store waste
at Nevada's Yucca Mountain could potentially bring hundreds of
shipments of nuclear waste through Utah.

At a Senate Energy and Natural Resources hearing
Thursday, the Energy Department's top Yucca Mountain project
official, Edward Sproat, told members that without passage of a
pending bill that makes several changes to nuclear-waste policy,
there is no way the department can achieve its new goal of
opening Yucca by 2017.

"The probability of making that schedule without this
legislation is zero, that's how important it is," said Sproat,
who has held his position a little more than a month.

But committee Chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M., said the
longer it takes Yucca to open, the longer the nuclear waste will
stay onsite at commercial reactors all over the country because
the department can ship only so much waste to Nevada at a time.

"May I repeat, for those who don't think we need to
address temporary storage: If everything goes perfectly, it will
take over 30 years, longer than I have been in the Senate, to
eliminate the existing backlog of spent fuel," Domenici said.
"In light of that, it only makes sense to look for additional
ways for the government to meet its obligations."

The Senate has yet to act on the pending energy and water
spending bill that contains $10 million to start a federal
temporary storage program until Yucca opens. The Senate bill
specifically disqualifies Utah from getting a federal site
because Private Fuel Storage already has a license to store
waste in Skull Valley. But the bill does not prohibit companies
from using PFS instead of a government waste facility.

Utah and its congressional delegation have been fighting
the PFS plan for years.

The House passed its version of the energy and water
spending bill, which contained $30 million for the temporary
storage of nuclear waste, saying the government could consider
private sites as well as federal facilities to store it.

Once the Senate passes its bill, certain House members
and senators will work together to iron out differences between
the two.

Congress is about to go on its August recess, leaving
legislative work behind for a month to head back to home
districts to meet with constituents ? or most likely to work on
campaigns.

This leaves the spending bills and other nuclear-waste
legislation in limbo until the lawmakers come back to allow them
to advance. Any bill left at the end of this session would need
to be resubmitted at the beginning of the new Congress that
starts in January.

Domenici told reporters after the hearing that he may
introduce another, simpler Yucca bill he would hope to get
through Congress while tackling the temporary storage issue in
the spending bill only.

Sproat said temporary storage is something that needs to
be discussed because "there is not one solution here that fits
all."

"There is no one answer," Sproat said, adding that there
are legal, political and financial matters affecting any
decision to open or locate a temporary nuclear-waste storage
site.

He is not quite convinced that the country needs interim
storage but said the department would follow what Congress says.

Sproat also told the panel that working on temporary
storage sites, if the responsibility fell to his office, could
take management responsibility and time away from working on
Yucca.

At this time, the Energy Department itself is not asking
for temporary storage policy or anything to be built but Yucca
Mountain.

PFS has told the Energy Department it is open to the idea
of working with the government by using federal money to ship
and store nuclear waste in Utah, but the department has yet to
respond to the request. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman has
consistently said that PFS is not part of the department's
waste-manage- ment plan.

? 2006 Deseret News Publishing Company

-------------------------
ITEM 3 OF 3:

KnoxNews: ORNL specialists help move Poland uranium to Russia

By FRANK MUNGER, munger@knews.com

August 12, 2006

OAK RIDGE - Nuclear specialists from Oak Ridge National
Laboratory participated in a project that removed about 90 pounds
of weapons-usable uranium from Poland to a safe location in
Russia, a lab official said Friday.

"ORNL personnel were involved both in the initial assessment
which took place over six months ago and in the removal, which
occurred earlier this week," Larry Satkowiak, the laboratory's
director of nuclear nonproliferation programs, said in an e-mail
response to questions.

The Oak Ridge experts were part of a team put together by the
National Nuclear Security Administration's Office of Global
Threat Reduction.

The U.S. government is actively working with other countries to
secure nuclear materials that are in vulnerable locations.

In a statement released to the news media this week in
Washington, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman lauded the work in
Poland.

"This is another example of the international community working
collectively to reduce the threat of terrorism," Bodman said.

The uranium removed from Poland was the highest amount secured
under the program launched two years ago.

Satkowiak said the highly enriched uranium fuel was a particular
concern because the material's form would be "highly desirable
for weapons use in an improvised nuclear device."

Analysts say that nuclear terrorists, if they gained access to
fissile material such as highly enriched uranium, could quickly
assemble a crude weapon and detonate it on the spot - with
potentially catastrophic results.

The uranium fuel was relocated from Poland to Dimitrovgrad,
Russia, "for temporary safe storage," Satkowiak said. ORNL
personnel earlier were involved in a project that upgraded the
safeguards and security at the storage facility at Dimtrovgrad,
he said.

The nuclear material was returned to Russia because that's where
it originated, officials said.

The uranium fuel will be blended down with other stocks to
reduce its enrichment - the percentage of U-235 - and eliminate
the material's weapons capability, Satkowiak said.

"ORNL also provides many of the monitors (who) oversee the
blend-down of this type of material at Dimitrovgrad," he said.

The Oak Ridge laboratory is playing an "extended role" in a
number of projects that support the federal Office of Defense
Nuclear Nonproliferation, Satkowiak said. In recent months, ORNL
workers have assisted the relocation of uranium from vulnerable
sites in Libya and Uzbekistan to Russia.

In another project earlier this year, uranium experts from the
Y-12 National Security Complex worked with counterparts in
Argentina to relocate uranium fuel from a reactor in Buenos
Aires to a storage facility in Oak Ridge.

Senior writer Frank Munger may be reached at 865-342-6329.

2006 - Knoxville News Sentinel

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

anti nuke paper

2006-08-12T17:32:44Z

http://www.ratical.org/radiation/CNR/PP/chp1.html

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

2 Items of Interest

2006-08-12T17:25:19Z

The two items posted below presents a good definition of why wars and
weapons capable of mass destruction evolve. The point is that the
United States is no longer the only nation who claims control over nuclear
capability and weaponry. A second and third generation of sick workers
exist. Especially present day U.S. Officials insist on retaining their
old values and/or "primitive political attitudes." The author of the
"The Great Equalizer" seems to have a good grasp on the evolution
process from past to present day.

60 minutes airs the Iran leader's interview this week. Comments by the
media have already been advertised, today.

Government Accountability Project (GAP) just released their report on
the status of the Hanford state workers' compensation issues that would
deny thousands of sick worker claims. The USDOE lauds the recent State
regulators' findings that "whitewashes" the reason for the
investigation. It appears that the State regulators intent is to continue to obey
the Feds. The USDOL, the USDOE, and the US Secretary of Defense
control the outcome since 1951 when the government agents took control over
the industrial insurance coverage for Hanford workers â€” Special
agreements â€” under the guise of national security interests. See
old-archaic RCW 51-04-130.

For your information >> As of today, when an interested reviewer
indicates nnvj-goglesbee-eeoicp-abuse.com at the Altavista, MSN-Charter,
Yahoo search engines, many pages of my WEB site are posted. I don't use
Google. I am trying to keep up with as many current events as possible.
Information regarding the EEOICP issues is sparse. Click on the
indicator, "More pages from nnvj-goglesbee-eeoicp-abuse.com" to access many
pages. Yahoo has the nnvj site listed as Homepage with the URL title
nnvj-goglesbee-eeoicp-abuse.com following. The indicator - goglesbee -
will display certain relevant URLs. But, - oglesbee - is also the name
of many other users including my own family. The indicator - nnvj -
simply brings up pages of URLs that are full of gobbelygook which is a
common ploy used by the government "spys" in their attempt to confuse
and/or censor advocate sites such as this.

Gai Oglesbee, Independent National Advocate
EEOICP Claimant | Downwinder
National Nuclear Victims for Justice
http://www.nnvj-goglesbee-eeoicp-abuse.com

--------------------------------
Item 1 of 2:

[NYTr] The Great Equalizer: Kolko on Hiroshim/Nagasaki

Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2006 21:51:34 -0400 (EDT)

Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit

CounterPunch - Aug 10, 2006
http://www.counterpunch.org/kolko08102006.html

The Great Equalizer

Reflections on Hiroshima and Nagasaki

By GABRIEL KOLKO

The United States had a monopoly of nuclear weaponry for only a few
years before other nations challenged it, but from 1949 until
roughly the 1990s deterrence theory worked--nations knew that if
they used the awesome bomb they were likely to be devastated in the
riposte. Nuclear war was not worth its risks. Today, by contrast,
weapons of mass destruction or precision and power are within the
capacity of dozens of nations either to produce or purchase. Every
kind of weapon is now available; deterrence theory is less and less
relevant, and the equations of military power relevant to the period
after World War Two no longer hold. This process began in Korea
after 1950 and the Americans discovered that great space combined
with guerrilla warfare was more than a match for them in Vietnam.
But there has now been a qualitative leap in technology that makes
inherited conventional wisdom utterly obsolete.

Technology is now moving far faster than the diplomatic and
political resources or will to control its inevitable
consequences--not to mention traditional strategic theories.
Hizbollah has far better and more lethal rockets than it had a few
years ago, and the U. S. Army has just released a report that light
water reactors--which 25 nations, from Armenia to Slovenia as well
as Spain, already have and are not covered at all by existing arms
control treaties--can be used to obtain weapons-grade plutonium
easily and cheaply.

Within a few years, many more countries than the present ten or so
will have nuclear bombs and far more destructive and accurate
rockets and missiles, not to mention the means to deliver them
accurately. Weapons-poor fighters will have far more sophisticated
tactics as well as far more lethal equipment, which makes the
heavily equipped and armed nations lose the advantages (as in
Vietnam and Iraq) of their overwhelming firepower. The battle
between a few thousand Hizbullah fighters and a massive,
ultra-modern Israeli army proves this. Among many things, the war
in Lebanon is a window of the future, and either the Israelis cease
their policy of bluster and intimidation, and finally accept the
political prerequisites of peace with the Arab world, or they too
will eventually be wrecked by cheaper nuclear weapons.

We live with 21st century technology and also with primitive
political attitudes, nationalisms of assorted sorts, cults of
heroism and irrationality, and the world will destroy itself unless
it realistically confronts the new technological equations. Israel
must now confront this reality, and if it does not develop the
political skills--and serious compromises--this new equation
warrants then it will be destroyed even as it devastates its
enemies.

This is the message of the conflicts in Gaza, the West Bank, and
Lebanon--to use only the examples in today's papers. Walls are no
longer protection for the Israelis--one shoots over them. Their
much-vaunted tanks have proven highly vulnerable to new weapons, and
these will become more and more common. The U. S. war in Iraq is a
military disaster against the guerrillas--a half trillion dollars
spent there and in Afghanistan have left America on the verge of
defeats in both places, its "shock and awe" strategy has utterly
failed save to produce contracts for weapons makers and de facto
economic bankruptcy.

Adroitly, the Bush Administration has managed to deeply alienate
more of America's nominal allies than any government in modern
times. Its sublime confidence and reliance on the power of its
awesome weaponry is a crucial cause of its failure, although we
cannot minimize its preemptory hubris and extreme nationalist
myopia.

But if the challenges of producing a realistic concept of the world
that confronts the mounting dangers and limits of military
technology seriously are not resolved soon there is nothing more
than wars to look forward to.

[Gabriel Kolko is the leading historian of modern warfare. He is the
author of the classic Century of War: Politics, Conflicts and
Society Since 1914 and Another Century of War?. He has also written
the best history of the Vietnam War, Anatomy of a War: Vietnam, the
US and the Modern Historical Experience. His latest book, The Age of
War, was published in March 2006. He can be reached at:
kolko @counterpunch.org. ]
=================================================
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. Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us .
.339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org
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Archives: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/
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Item 2 of 2:

A Contrasting Item. . .

Knox News: Peace Alliance tries to get message to Bechtel

By News Sentinel staff

August 10, 2006

OAK RIDGE - As part of a series of protests this week, members of
the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance gathered Wednesday
morning at Bechtel's Oak Ridge office facility and tried to
deliver a letter asking the corporation to "refrain from further
business in weaponry, war preparations and profiteering from the
sufferings of the poor."

Ralph Hutchison, a coordinator of the peace alliance, said all
doors were locked, and workers inside refused to open them.

"Bechtel went into a self-imposed siege mode," Hutchison said.
The peace group ultimately read the letter out loud and then
left a copy at the front door, he said.

Bechtel National is a partner in the management of the Y-12
National Security Complex, which historically has manufactured
parts for every nuclear weapon in the U.S. arsenal.

Wednesday was the 61st anniversary of the atomic bomb being
dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, near the conclusion of World War II.

2006 - Knoxville News Sentinel

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

ExxonMobil Gets Religion on Warming -- $2.3 Million Worth Signers of Environmental Statement Funded by ExxonMobil

2006-08-12T17:21:33Z

ExxonMobil Gets Religion on Warming -- $2.3 Million Worth
Signers of Environmental Statement Funded by ExxonMobil

Brian Kaylor, Ethicsdaily.com, Aug. 10, 2006

A recent statement by evangelical Christians downplaying the potential problems of global climate change includes eight signers whose six organizations have received a total of $2.32 million in donations from ExxonMobil over the last three years.

Released by the Interfaith Stewardship Alliance (ISA) on July 25, the statement was signed by 113 evangelicals and 19 non-evangelicals in response to a February statement released by the Evangelical Climate Initiative (ECI).

The ECI statement, signed by 86 evangelical Christian leaders, argues that humans are responsible for much of climate change and that actions should be taken to prevent it. The ISA statement, on the other hand, argues that humans have little impact, that climate change is unlikely to occur and if it does will not be all harmful, and that prevention now will be more costly than adaptation later.

The ISA statement claims that scientific research is not conclusive on the issue as the ECI document stated, and that much research suggests climate change will be minor or nonexistent. However, many of the signers of the document lead or work for organizations that have received donations from ExxonMobil, the world's largest publicly-traded oil and gas company.

In all, ExxonMobil's gave $715,000 in 2005 to organizations with singers of the ISA document. Following is a list of organizations, the amount of funding they received from ExxonMobil in 2005, and the individuals from the organizations that signed the ISA statement.

--The Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty; $50,000; Research Fellow Jay W. Richard.

--American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research; $240,000; Visiting Fellow Kenneth Green and Weyerhauser Fellow Steven F. Hayward.

--Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change; $25,000; President Sherwood B. Idso and Chairman Craig D. Idso.

--Competitive Enterprise Institute; $270,000; President Fred L. Smith, Jr.

--Congress of Racial Equality; $75,000; Senior Policy Advisor (energy and environment) Paul K. Driessen. (Drissen was one of the four authors of the ISA statement.)

--The National Center for Public Policy Research; $55,000; Vice-President David Ridenour.

These six organizations have received funding from ExxonMobil in previous years as well. In 2004, they received a combined $740,000 (the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Changes did not receive any that year). In 2003, they received $865,000. For the three year period of 2003-2005, these six organizations received a total of $2.32 million from ExxonMobil.

Another signer of the ISA statement is Donald Paul Hodel, former U. S. Secretary of Energy and U. S. Secretary of the Interior for President Ronald Reagan, and former president of the Christian Coalition and Focus on the Family. Hodel also co-wrote Crisis in the Oil Patch: How America's Energy Industry is Being Destroyed and What Must Be Done to Save It, which argues for less regulation of the oil and gas industry.

Two other signers of the ISA statement have been connected to the Jack Abramoff scandal: Louis P. Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition and Rabbi Daniel Lapin of Toward Tradition. Critics of the ECI statement previously argued that the organization should not be trusted because it accepted donations from the Hewlett Foundation, which has also contributed to Planned Parenthood.

Southern Baptist signers of the ISA statement included: Gregg Allison of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, James Borland of Liberty University, Kent Chambers of Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, Reginald Ecarma of North Greenville University, Gary Gray of Southwest Baptist University, Michael Salazar of Union University, Gregory Thornbury of Union University, and David Whitlock of Southwest Baptist University.

Southern Baptist signers of the ECI statement included: David Clark of Palm Beach Atlantic University, David Dockery of Union University, Douglas Hodo of Houston Baptist University, Timothy George of Beeson Divinity School, David Gushee of Union University, Lee Royce of Mississippi College, and Pat Taylor of Southwest Baptist University.

Brian Kaylor is communications specialist with the Baptist General Convention of Missouri.

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

Did Building 1916 T-1 make workers sick?

2006-08-12T17:19:02Z

http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/opinion_columnists/article/0,1406,KNS_364_4902639,
00.html

Munger: Did Building 1916 T-1 make workers sick?
By FRANK MUNGER, munger@knews.com
August 9, 2006

For a place that's been studied as much as Oak Ridge, there are still
plenty
of mysteries.

Jo Nell Barton of Lenoir City thinks one of those mysteries may have
caused
her and many others to get sick.

"Basically, all we have is hearsay," she freely admits. "We have no
proof
whatsoever."

Barton formerly worked for the Atomic Energy Commission (a predecessor
of the
U.S. Department of Energy) at the Technical Information Center (a
predecessor
of the Office of Scientific and Technical Information) in Building 1916
T-1
in the warehouse district on Oak Ridge's east end.

She worked there from January 1957 to July 1959.

"In September 1960 at the age of 22, I was diagnosed with thyroid
cancer and
had a total thyroidectomy. My son was 9 months old at the time of my
surgery,
and I was never able to conceive again," she said in recounting her
experience
there.

She went back to work at the Technical Information Center from February
1963
to December 1965. Twenty years later, she was diagnosed with breast
cancer and
had a total mastectomy.

The federal facility where she worked was used for document production
and
storage. It contained a printing plant, photo lab and various rooms and
vaults,
including those used for the safekeeping of classified papers related
to early
nuclear programs.

What wasn't clear to Barton and Doris Henline, another Lenoir City
woman who
worked there and later developed cancer, was what may have taken place
in the
warehouse before 1916 T-1 became home to the government's document
operation.

In a presentation early this year to an advisory board on the
government's
compensation program for sick nuclear workers, Barton and Henline said
they had
investigated illnesses of past and present workers at Building 1916
T-1.

"We have identified 75 out of approximately 150 federal workers who
have had
catastrophic illnesses," they said in a prepared statement. "Fifty-six
have
had cancer, and 14 have had neurological illnesses (8 of whom worked in
the same
area of the building). Thirty of these 75 workers are now deceased. We
know
there are (a) number of other sick workers who have not been
identified."

There was speculation that the warehouse may have been used as an early
staging ground for radioactive materials in Oak Ridge or that documents
brought to
the site from nuclear facilities around the country could have been
contaminated.

"Those secret documents came in from all those test sites," Barton
said. "Who
knows what we were exposed to from those documents?"

The women sought the help of U.S. Rep. John J. Duncan Jr., R-Tenn., in
getting Building 1916 T-1 added to the list of facilities eligible for
workers
seeking help under the Energy Employee Occupational Illness
Compensation Program.
The facility did not qualify under an initial review, apparently
because there
was no evidence it ever housed nuclear materials or did work on nuclear
weapons.

Brian Hitson, associate director of DOE's Office of Scientific and
Technical
Information, found some early architectural drawings that indicate the
building's construction was completed in January 1948 and that it was
used as a
warehouse for the school system until the transition to a document
operation around
1956-57.

As for concerns about documents being tainted with radioactive
materials,
Hitson said that issue was investigated in the 1990s. OSTI, with help
from
radiation specialists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, set up a survey
program to
look for problems, he said.

"We did quite a bit of spot-checking, and nothing was ever found on any
of
the documents," Hitson said.

At Duncan's request, the U.S. Department of Labor is reviewing the case
and
will determine whether Building 1916 T-1 should be included in the
compensation
program.

"A decision on this issue will be forthcoming shortly after thorough
research
of the available information related to this building," Dolline
Hatchett, a
Labor spokeswoman, said by e-mail on July 28.

At this time, it doesn't appear likely that Building 1916 T-1 will
qualify.

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

Spent nuclear fuel "recipe for disaster"

2006-08-12T17:08:27Z

http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/state/article/0,1406,KNS_348_4891184,00.html

Spent nuclear fuel "recipe for disaster"
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
August 3, 2006

CHATTANOOGA â€” Environmentalists are worried about increased spent
nuclear
fuel stored at Tennessee Valley Authority power plants, calling the
waste "a
recipe for disaster."
TVA officials, however, say the storage method is safe.

Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant in Athens, Ala., with more than 1,400 metric
tons
of high-level radioactive waste stored in an elevated pool inside the
plant,
is among the nation's leaders in onsite spent nuclear fuel.

"This waste is being piled up on the river banks, and the river is the
drinking water source for thousands of people," said Stephen Smith,
director of the
Southern Alliance for Clean Energy. "Couple that with the known
terrorists'
threats, and it's very discomforting."

The material is placed in an elevated pool until it cools enough for
the
government to transport it to a permanent disposal facility, but it's
unclear when
that will happen. The new storage site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada was
delayed again last week until at least 2017.

Another 37 metric tons of waste are being stored outside the plant
along the
Tennessee River.

TVA officials are not pleased with the delay at Yucca Mountain, but
they say
the stored waste is not a public threat.

"The storage in dry casks is a proven, safe technology," TVA spokesman
John
Moulton said. "(The Nuclear Regulatory Commission) has licensed the
storage
facilities, so there are regulatory checks there."

Waste also is being stored at other plants. Sequoyah Nuclear Plant in
Soddy-Daisy has a full storage pool and outisde storage. Watts Bar
Nuclear Plant in
Spring City will need dry-cask storage in about 12 years.

The three plants combined store more than 2,500 metric tons of waste
and
radioactive fuel assemblies because there is nowhere else to keep it.

"We sued (the U.S. Department of Energy), as did many other utilities,
because they didn't start picking up the spent fuel," Moulton said.

TVA's lawsuit was filed in 2001, and a federal court awarded TVA $34.9
million to help pay for onsite storage through 2005. TVA has paid about
$758 million
into the Nuclear Waste Fund for the building of a permanent storage
site.

Nationwide, there is about 55,000 metric tons of nuclear waste being
stored,
and it increases by about 2,000 metric tons a year, Nuclear Regulatory
Agency
officials said.

___

Information from: Chattanooga Times Free Press,
http://www.timesfreepress.com

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

Nuclear Mishap: A Close Call with Catastrophe in Sweden?

2006-08-12T17:07:01Z

August 4, 2006

An observer has called last week's mishap in Sweden the worst
incident to befall a nuclear power plant since the accident at
Chernobyl. Nobody was injured, but for 22 minutes, workers had no
idea what was happening in the reactor's core. Swedish officials
have taken half the country's nuclear power plants offline until
it can ensure their safe operation.

Sweden's nuclear power station in Forsmark: the worst nuclear
incident since Chernobyl and Harrisburg?

DPASweden's nuclear power station in Forsmark: the worst nuclear
incident since Chernobyl and Harrisburg?

Sweden's nuclear energy authority, SKI, has largely completed
its reconstruction of events in an accident last week that led
to the closure of a nuclear power plant in the city of Forsmark
and, ultimately, the shutdown of half the country's nuclear
plants as a precautionary measure. In the incident, two of the
plant's four backup generators malfunctioned when the plant
experienced a major power outage on July 25. According to
officials, who described the event as "serious," a short-circuit
triggered the accident, which caused a cut in power to the
nuclear facility. Plant workers told Swedish media that it came
close to a meltdown.

In fact, the only thing that appears to have stopped a
catastrophe is the fact that two diesel backup generators kicked
in, enabling the Forsmark facility to operate at least part of
its emergency cooling system. Still, for 20 minutes, workers
were unable to obtain information about the condition of the
reactor and they were only able to respond after 21 minutes and
41 seconds, according to a report in Germany's Hamburger
Abendblatt newspaper.

Swedish media are reporting that a previously unknown technical
problem emerged during the emergency that could also be present
in all other Swedish nuclear reactors.

3 Posts,<br />Latest Post: 07/04<br />By

In its first report, nuclear authority SKI claimed that operators
of the nuclear plant had reacted correctly during the emergency.
"In my opinion, the media is exaggerating the issue," said Jan
Blomstrang, a member of SKI's committee for reactor security. The
two generators that were still operating, he said, could have
provided sufficient energy for the reactors if it had been
necessary. The agency is expected to release a comprehensive
report in the coming days.

On Thursday, Swedish officials shut down two further nuclear
power plants as a safety precaution. Plant operators said the
move was necessary because they could not guarantee the security
of nuclear facilities in the city of Oskarshamm. A spokesman for
the company that operates the Oskarshamm plant said he could not
rule out the possibility of an incident happening like that at
Forsmark.

After an emergency meeting of SKI officials, spokesman Anders
Bredfall said that both nuclear power plants in Oskarshamm would
be taken offline until investigators were able to deteremine
whether the backup generators at that plant could fail in the
same way as those in Forsmark.

Official: Worst incident since Chernobyl

Swedish nuclear energy expert Lars-Olov H?nd, head of the
construction department at Swedish utility company Vattenfall --
and onetime boss at the Forsmark reactor -- has described last
week's problems as the "worst incident since Chernobyl and
Harrisburg," a reference to the 1979 meltdown at Three-Mile
Island in Pennsylvania. He accused the plant's operators of
trying to play down the seriousness of the event. For their part,
officials at Swedish nuclear authority SKI have rejected
H?nd's assessment, describing it as "exaggerated."

Following the latest shutdowns, only five of Sweden's 10 nuclear
power plants are still operating. Nuclear power accounts for
close to half of the electricity produced in Sweden and the
shutdowns triggered record price increases. But the Swedish
government's energy agency said the nation's electricity supply
was not currently at great risk because it can rely more on
hydropower during the summer months.

Sweden is in the process of abandoning nuclear energy -- a
policy that has led to the shut down of two of the country's
total of 12 plants since 1999. However, against a backdrop of
concerns about climate change and energy dependency, recent
public opinion polls indicate that an increasing number of
Swedes would like to go on using nuclear power.

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

Moderator

2006-08-12T16:56:29Z

Dear Tribe,
As you may already have figured out I've been gone for a while, well i'm still on vacation but I will start to post again. Thank you for hanging in there!

Best Wishes,
Richard

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

I-297 Sponsors Expect Federal Appeals Court

2006-06-20T21:55:30Z

Will Uphold Initiative
Requiring Hanford Cleanup and Halt to Dumping Toxic/Radioactive Waste

Initiative Already Accomplished Sponsors' First Goal for Initiative 297 to End Dumping in Unlined Trenches,

which USDOE Was Planning to Use as National Waste Dump

Sponsors call on Governor and Legislature to protect what court called Washington's "legitimate concerns"

Sponsors of the most-popular Initiative in state history expect it will be upheld on appeal, following today's ruling in U.S. District Court that it is unconstitutional. Initiative 297 was passed by a record 1.8 million Washington voters in November 2004, but has not been implemented because of the court challenge.

The Sponsors of the Initiative, which requires cleanup of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation before more waste can be dumped alongside the Columbia River, say they are confident that all of the initiative will be upheld as constitutional by the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. In responding to today's lower court decision, Initiative Chief Sponsor Gerald Pollet said "we knew from the start that the initial ruling would not be the last word - this was going to be appealed no matter which side prevailed in the lower court."

The federal court appears to invite more litigation to ensure Hanford gets cleaned up. The judge asked "why there has not been an effort to enforce" the numerous violations that Sponsors said encouraged the initiative, rather than having to repeatedly sue.

Judge Alan McDonald's decision makes it clear that the state has authority to regulate the toxic waste at Hanford, but he said I-297 also regulates the radioactive component of the "mixed waste" in violation of the Atomic Energy Act. The "mixed waste" is a toxic, radioactive brew of solvents, chemicals and other hazardous waste mixed inseparable from the radioactive materials that is mixed with.

"The State has authority to stop the federal government from abandoning the high-level nuclear and chemical waste soup in leaking tanks, and to require cleanup before more waste gets dumped," said State Senator Adam Kline (D-37, Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee). "We expect the Legislature and Governor to be able to use that authority to follow the will of the voters to protect our State's waters, the Columbia River and the health of future generations." Kline said that the Legislature would consider the lower court opinion in considering proposals to amend the law to carry out the mandate of the voters to ensure that contamination will be cleaned up, not made worse by having more waste dumped or abandoned to spread to the Columbia River.

"The State of Washington has already shown that the Cleanup Priority Act will only apply to radioactive hazardous wastes and contamination, and not to materials used by businesses, as the USDOE and Hanford contractors have claimed in their attempt to have the entire initiative ruled unconstitutional. The Legislature can clarify that the law does not apply to anything but hazardous wastes, in keeping with the intent of the voters," said Senator Kline. The opinion of the District Court relied heavily on finding that the initiative included non-wastes and that the voters intended to regulate nuclear safety. However, the court recognized that state authority to require Hanford cleanup existed.

"The voters adoption of Initiative 297 already prompted tremendous changes to protect the Columbia River and the health of future generations," said State Representative Toby Nixon (R-45), who was one of the Sponsors named as co-defendants of the initiative. "Being on the ballot forced the federal Energy Department to stop dumping waste in unlined soil ditches, which the federal government had planned to do on a massive scale by using those ditches as a national radioactive waste dump."

"Eastern Washington's health and economic well-being depend on our State's ability to require cleanup of contamination spreading into the Columbia River and to stop USDOE from dumping more waste and abandoning the waste that's there without cleaning up," said Spokane City Council Member Bob Apple, who is also a co-defendant Sponsor of I-297. "The federal judge said that the people of Washington have no reason to be confident that the Energy Department will clean up the place without the exercise of state authority. The mandate of the voters needs to be implemented by the Legislature and Governor."

"The Court said that the State has authority to regulate mixed hazardous and radioactive waste, but the Court found that the Initiative went too far. We respectfully disagree, and will continue to carefully analyze the decision, but we do not expect this will be the end of the matter," said Professor Michael Robinson-Dorn at the University of Washington Berman Environmental Law Clinic. The Clinic represents the Sponsors in defending Initiative 297 in the case.

Initiative 297, the Cleanup Priority Act, requires:

· An end to dumping waste in unlined trenches and cleanup of the trenches (these massive unlined, leaking ditches were being used in 2004 and the USDOE planned to use them as a national radioactive waste dump.)

· Cleanup of Hanford's contamination and compliance with hazardous waste standards before more mixed radioactive and hazardous chemical waste can be added to Hanford's problems.

· Emptying of the leaking High-Level Nuclear Mixed Waste tanks and cleanup of the contamination more than one million gallons of waste which has already leaked from them and is now spreading towards the Columbia River. (USDOE is proposing to abandon over 5 million gallons of waste in the tanks and has no plan to cleanup the contaminated soil and groundwater.)

§ The Initiative used the same cleanup standard for tanks as in existing hazardous waste standards, which the Energy Department and Bush Administration had demanded that Washington State agree to weaken or face cleanup budget cuts.

§ Cleanup to meet the State's existing standards to protect the public from cancer-causing contamination in groundwater or in soil at hazardous waste dumps.

· Public involvement in cleanup decisions at all mixed radioactive and toxic waste sites.

###

For Information:

· Gerald Pollet, JD; Executive Director HoANW; & Chair, Yes on I-297 (206)382-1014 / cell: (206)819-9015

· Bob Cooper, Press Secretary (206) 568-0471

· Professor Michael Robinson-Dorn, Berman Environmental Law Clinic, UW Law School (206) 616-7729

Sponsors/Co-Defendants of Initiative 297:

· Senator Adam Kline: (206) 625-0800

· Representative Toby Nixon: (206)-790-6377

· Spokane City Council Member Bob Apple: (509)487-4107

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

'Downwinders' deserve their due

2006-06-20T21:53:08Z

http://www.mtexpress.com/index2.php?issue_date=06-16-2006&ID=2005110691

'Downwinders' deserve their due

Commentary by Pat Murphy

----------------------------------------------------------

The news out of Washington is a baffling set of contradictions.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency freely and hurriedly ladled out $1.4 billion in aid to hundreds of ineligible Katrina hurricane claimants-call it fraud-and just as quickly peeled off $60,000 in compensation to families of 24 Iraqis shot and killed in Haditha by U.S. Marines who're being investigated for murder.

But several hundred Idahoans have been denied compensation from the same government for illnesses they and experts contend were the result of radioactive fallout from Nevada nuclear tests in the 1950s and 1960s.

Mind you, the government doesn't reject claims of all "downwinder" families living where radioactive fallout rained down. Washington has paid claims to families in Utah, Nevada and Arizona-a handsome total of $440 million, in fact.

But nothing for Idahoans.

That despite data showing that four Idaho counties-Blaine, Custer, Gem and Lemhi-ranked among the nation's top five in per capita thyroid dosage of radiation.

Idahoans claiming illnesses from nuclear dust were just as unwitting and unknowing victims of secret nuclear tests that showered them as were residents in the other states, and surely deserve better of their government than cold indifference.

If the U.S. Treasury can shell out $1.4 billion to pay fraudulent Katrina claims, it certainly can find just and relatively modest compensation for ill survivors of nuclear tests about which they were not warned and therefore could not escape.

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

Russia's 'Floating Chernobyls' to Go Ahead Despite Green Fears

2006-06-20T21:50:45Z

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0616-04.htm

Published on Friday, June 16, 2006 by the Independent / UK
Russia's 'Floating Chernobyls' to Go Ahead Despite Green Fears
by Andrew Osborn

Russia is to press ahead with the world's first floating nuclear power station despite environmental concerns. The first "floating Chernobyl" could be ready in four years.

Rendition of a proposed floating nuclear power plant. (Photo/Baltiysky Zavod)

The Kremlin has approved the project and a shipyard in the far north of Russia, used to build nuclear submarines, will begin work next year. Rosenergoatom, the country's nuclear power agency, says it intends to build up to six mobile power stations, costing £182m each, the first scheduled for use in 2010.

Sergey Kiriyenko, the head of Rosenergoatom, said: "There will be no floating Chernobyl," referring to the 1986 nuclear disaster. Sergey Obozov, a senior official at the agency, said they would be "reliable as a Kalashnikov assault rifle, which are a benchmark of safety."

But environmentalists warned that the power stations could sink in stormy weather, and could become a target for terrorists. A report from Bellona Foundation, an independent Norwegian research group, claims the floating power stations are "a threat to the Arctic, the world's oceans, and the whole concept of non-proliferation."

The structures will supply heat and electricity to far-flung corners of Russia's far east and far north where it is difficult and expensive to ship coal and oil. Russia also wants to sell the structures to other countries, including China and India.

The structures will have a service life of 40 years, require a crew of 69 people, and could power a medium-sized town. The first power station will be moored in the White Sea off the town of Severodvinsk in Russia's northern Archangel region.

© 2006 Independent News and Media Limited

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Heroes Of The Cold War Out In The Cold Many Workers Who Dealt With Uranium Are Being Denied Compensation

2006-06-20T21:48:54Z

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/06/19/eveningnews/main1730542.shtml

Heroes Of The Cold War Out In The Cold
Many Workers Who Dealt With Uranium Are Being Denied Compensation

LACKAWANNA, N.Y., June 19, 2006
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Former Bethlehem Steel worker Ed Walker is among those who unknowingly worked with uranium during the Cold War but has been denied compensation by the government. (CBS)

Quote

"It's not surprising that more people were said 'no' to than 'yes.' People not exposed to radiation develop these cancers as well."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dr. Lewis Wade

(CBS) At age 72, Ed Walker, like most men of his generation, has never been afraid of hard work. In the 1950s, he and the men of Bethlehem Steel, in Lackawanna, N.Y., just outside Buffalo, worked hard.

"Restaurants were all loaded," he tells CBS News national correspondent Bryon Pitts. "Weekends after payday, you couldn't get a seat in any place. It was just a booming town."

But Bethlehem Steel went belly-up — and soon, old-timers like Walker would discover a secret: Co-workers were dying from cancer.

From 1949 to 1952, Bethlehem Steel had a contract with the federal government to roll uranium rods for nuclear reactors. It was the peak of the Cold War. The nation was nervous, and the military was building an arsenal of atomic bombs.

The men who worked at the Bethlehem plant in Lackawanna never knew they were dealing with uranium, Walker says. "They never had a clue — not for 50 years."

Uranium is radioactive material, but Walker says the people at the plant wore neither radiation detectors nor protective suits. When asked what was protecting them from the radioactivity, he replies, "Nothing. Nothing at all."

In 2000, Congress passed legislation allowing workers who developed cancer from exposure to radioactive material at Bethlehem Steel and 323 other plants around the country to receive up to $150,000 in compensation — if they qualified. But Walker and others have learned just how big that if could be: Walker was diagnosed with bladder cancer six years ago; he's been denied three times.

"Ludicrous. Ludicrous," Walker says of the denials.

The qualification process is complicated, to say the least. The Labor Department uses a computer model that determines a worker's radiation exposure 50 years ago. If there's more than a 50 percent chance that a worker's cancer was caused by their exposure, he's compensated. If it's less than 50 percent: nothing.

"They took everything; cleaned me right out — took (my) appendix, gall bladder, hung the bag on me. And yet they say I am only 10 percent. Come on," says Russell Earley, who worked at Bethlehem Steel for 43 years and has been rejected three times.

So far, the Labor Department has received 21,000 claims and paid out nearly half a billion dollars to workers and their families. But 72% of the applications have been denied.

"I can appreciate that angst," says Dr. Lewis Wade, one of the government's leading scientists. "But again, it's not surprising that more people were said 'no' to than 'yes.' People not exposed to radiation develop these cancers as well."

That's no consolation to Walker. Though he agrees that Bethlehem Steel was good to Lackawanna for a very long time, he notes that "you can't tell that to a widow who lost her husband."

Called "Heroes of the Cold War," these Americans just feel left out in the cold.

©MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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BACK TO THE BUNKER--->June 19 COG exercise---recall TRI-POD

2006-06-05T17:13:39Z

BACK TO THE BUNKER--->June 19 COG exercise---recall TRI-POD
Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2006 07:17:24 EDT

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/02/AR200606020141
0.html

BACK TO THE BUNKER

By William M. Arkin
June 4, 2006

On Monday, June 19, about 4,000 government workers representing more
than 50
federal agencies from the State Department to the Commodity Futures
Trading
Commission will say goodbye to their families and set off for dozens of
classified emergency facilities stretching from the Maryland and
Virginia suburbs to
the foothills of the Alleghenies. They will take to the bunkers in an
"evacuation" that my sources describe as the largest "continuity of
government"
exercise ever conducted, a drill intended to prepare the U.S.
government for an event
even more catastrophic than the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The exercise is the latest manifestation of an obsession with
government
survival that has been a hallmark of the Bush administration since
9/11, a focus
of enormous and often absurd time, money and effort that has come to
echo the
worst follies of the Cold War. The vast secret operation has updated
the
duck-and-cover scenarios of the 1950s with state-of-the-art technology
-- alerts and
updates delivered by pager and PDA, wireless priority service, video
teleconferencing, remote backups -- to ensure that "essential"
government functions
continue undisrupted should a terrorist's nuclear bomb go off in
downtown
Washington.

But for all the BlackBerry culture, the outcome is still old-fashioned
black
and white: We've spent hundreds of millions of dollars on alternate
facilities, data warehouses and communications, yet no one can really
foretell what
would happen to the leadership and functioning of the federal
government in a
catastrophe.

After 9/11, The Washington Post reported that President Bush had set up
a
shadow government of about 100 senior civilian managers to live and
work outside
Washington on a rotating basis to ensure the continuity of national
security.
Since then, a program once focused on presidential succession and
civilian
control of U.S. nuclear weapons has been expanded to encompass the
entire
government. From the Department of Education to the Small Business
Administration to
the National Archives, every department and agency is now required to
plan for
continuity outside Washington.

Yet according to scores of documents I've obtained and interviews with
half a
dozen sources, there's no greater confidence today that essential
services
would be maintained in a disaster. And no one really knows how an
evacuation
would even be physically possible.

Moreover, since 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, the definition of what
constitutes an "essential" government function has been expanded so
ridiculously beyond
core national security functions -- do we really need patent and
trademark
processing in the middle of a nuclear holocaust? -- that the term has
become
meaningless. The intent of the government effort may be laudable, even
necessary,
but a hyper-centralized approach based on the Cold War model of
evacuations
and bunkering makes it practically worthless.

That the continuity program is so poorly conceived, and poorly run,
should
come as no surprise. That's because the same Federal Emergency
Management Agency
that failed New Orleans after Katrina, an agency that a Senate
investigating
committee has pronounced "in shambles and beyond repair," is in charge
of this
enormous effort to plan for the U.S. government's survival.

Continuity programs began in the early 1950s, when the threat of
nuclear war
moved the administration of President Harry S. Truman to begin planning
for
emergency government functions and civil defense. Evacuation bunkers
were built,
and an incredibly complex and secretive shadow government program was
created.

At its height, the grand era of continuity boasted the fully
operational
Mount Weather, a civilian bunker built along the crest of Virginia's
Blue Ridge,
to which most agency heads would evacuate; the Greenbrier hotel complex
and
bunker in West Virginia, where Congress would shelter; and Raven Rock,
or Site R,
a national security bunker bored into granite along the
Pennsylvania-Maryland
border near Camp David, where the Joint Chiefs of Staff would command a
protracted nuclear war. Special communications networks were built, and
evacuation
and succession procedures were practiced continually.

When the Soviet Union crumbled, the program became a Cold War
curiosity:
Then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney ordered Raven Rock into caretaker
status in
1991. The Greenbrier bunker was shuttered and a 30-year-old special
access
program was declassified three years later.

Then came the terrorist attacks of the mid-1990s and the looming Y2K
rollover, and suddenly continuity wasn't only for nuclear war anymore.
On Oct. 21,
1998, President Bill Clinton signed Presidential Decision Directive 67,
"Enduring
Constitutional Government and Continuity of Government Operations." No
longer
would only the very few elite leaders responsible for national security
be
covered. Instead, every single government department and agency was
directed to
see to it that they could resume critical functions within 12 hours of
a
warning, and keep their operations running at emergency facilities for
up to 30
days. FEMA was put in charge of this broad new program.

On 9/11, the program was put to the test -- and failed. Not on the
national
security side: Vice President Cheney and others in the national
security
leadership were smoothly whisked away from the capital following
procedures overseen
by the Pentagon and the White House Military Office. But like the mass
of
Washingtonians, officials from other agencies found themselves
virtually on their
own, unsure of where to go or what to do, or whom to contact for the
answers.

In the aftermath, the federal government was told to reinvigorate its
continuity efforts. Bush approved lines of succession for civil
agencies. Cabinet
departments and agencies were assigned specific emergency
responsibilities. FEMA
issued new preparedness guidelines and oversaw training. A National
Capital
Region continuity working group established in 1999, comprising six
White House
groups, 15 departments and 61 agencies, met to coordinate.

But all the frenetic activity did not produce a government prepared for
the
worst. A year after 9/11, and almost three years after the deadline set
in
Clinton's 1998 directive, the Government Accounting Office evaluated 38
agencies
and found that not one had addressed all the issues it had been ordered
to. A
2004 GAO audit of 34 government continuity-of-operations plans found
total
confusion on the question of essential functions. One unnamed
organization listed
399 such functions. A department included providing "speeches and
articles for
the Secretary and Deputy Secretary" among its essential duties, while
neglecting many of its central programs.

The confusion and absurdity have continued, according to documents I've
collected over the past few years. In June 2004, FEMA told federal
agencies that
essential services in a catastrophe would include not only such obvious
ones as
electric power generation and disaster relief but also patent and
trademark
processing, student aid and passport processing. A month earlier, FEMA
had told
states and local communities that library services should be counted as
essential along with fire protection and law enforcement.

None of this can be heartening to Americans who want to believe that in
a
crisis, their government can distinguish between what is truly
essential and what
isn't -- and provide it.

Just two years ago, an exercise called Forward Challenge '04 pointed up
the
danger of making everyone and everything essential: Barely an hour
after
agencies were due to arrive at their relocation sites, the Office of
Management and
Budget asked the reconstituted government to identify emergency funding
requirements.

As one after-action report for the exercise later put it in a classic
case of
understatement: "It was not clear . . . whether this would be a
realistic
request at that stage of an emergency."

This year's exercise, Forward Challenge '06, will be the third major
interagency continuity exercise since 9/11. Larger than Forward
Challenge '04 and the
Pinnacle exercise held last year, it requires 31 departments and
agencies
(including FEMA) to relocate. Fifty to 60 are expected to take part.

According to government sources, the exercise will test the newly
created
continuity of government alert conditions -- called COGCONs -- that
emulate the
DEFCONs of the national security community. Forward Challenge will
begin with a
series of alerts via BlackBerry and pager to key officials. It will
test
COGCON 1, the highest level of preparedness, in which each department
and agency
is required to have at least one person in its chain of command and
sufficient
staffing at alternate operating facilities to perform essential
functions.

Though key White House officials and military leadership would be
relocated
via the Pentagon's Joint Emergency Evacuation Program (JEEP), the
civilians are
on their own to make it to their designated evacuation points.

But fear not: Each organization's COOP, or continuity of operations
plan,
details the best routes to the emergency locations. The plans even
spell out what
evacuees should take with them (recommended items: a combination lock,
a
flashlight, two towels and a small box of washing powder).

Can such an exercise, announced well in advance, hope to re-create any
of the
tensions and fears of a real crisis? How do you simulate the experience
of
driving through blazing, radiated, panic-stricken streets to emergency
bunker
sites miles away?

As the Energy Department stated in its review of Forward Challenge '04,
"a
method needs to be devised to realistically test the ability of . . .
federal
offices to relocate to their COOP sites using a scenario that simulates
. . .
the monumental challenges that would be involved in evacuating the
city."

With its new plans and procedures, Washington may think it has thought
of
everything to save itself. Forward Challenge will no doubt be deemed a
success,
and officials will pronounce the continuity-of-government project
sound. There
will be lessons to be learned that will justify more millions of
dollars and
more work in the infinite effort to guarantee order out of chaos.

But the main defect -- a bunker mentality that considers too many
people and
too many jobs "essential" -- will remain unchallenged.

warkin@igc.org

William M. Arkin writes the Early Warning blog for washingtonpost.com
and is
the author of "Code Names: Deciphering U.S. Military Plans, Programs
and
Operations in the 9/11 World" (Steerforth Press).

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

The shadow lingers

2006-06-04T21:40:37Z

http://www.ydr.com/newsfull/ci_3898177
The York Daily Record - The shadow lingers
The shadow lingers
Ten years after lawsuit dismissed, debate continues on partial meltdown's health effects
By JENNIFER NEJMAN
Daily Record/Sunday News

Lester Haring, 62, holds his granddaughter Lindsey Keiser, 5, at his Christmas tree farm along River Drive in Cly. Behind him is the Susquehanna River and the cooling towers for the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant. Lester Haring, who worked at the plant for several years, said he has no qualms about living nearby.
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At bottom: · The health effect studies · Scientists test teeth for TMI's effects
Jun 4, 2006 — Ten years ago a judge ruled there was insufficient evidence to link radiation from the Three Mile Island accident to health problems in test cases of about 2,000 plaintiffs.

Yet some people who co-exist with the operating nuclear plant continue to question whether the partial meltdown on March 28, 1979, released radiation into the environment that has affected their health.

They live in the historical shadow of a plant that suffered a partial meltdown, the worst nuclear accident in United States history.

Today is the 10-year anniversary of U.S. District Judge Sylvia H. Rambo's ruling. The rest of the plaintiffs lost on appeal in 2002.

Nearly everything about the accident seems to be up for dispute, depending on who you ask, from how much radiation left the plant, to where it traveled, to what groups of people might have been affected, to what, if any, health effects have occurred or might occur in the future.

Even scientific studies seem to conflict. Some find links to health problems. Others do not. A new analysis notes more-than-expected cases of thyroid cancer in York and Lancaster counties over a period of years and pro- poses - but doesn't conclude - that it could be because of exposure to radiation from the accident.

For some, questions linger

Within a year of the accident, a German shepherd developed cataracts and a cat gave birth to a litter of deformed kittens, Debbie Baker said. The pets belonged to her mother, who lived about five miles from the plant.

In 1980, Baker gave birth to Bradley. As a 23-year-old Fairview Township mother with a son who had Down syndrome, Baker's thoughts turned to radiation exposure.

Before they evacuated, Baker had been taking her daughter to a babysitter in Goldsboro - not knowing she was pregnant with her second child.

Baker joined a class action lawsuit and wanted a day in court, but eventually accepted a monetary settlement. That settlement was accepted before the about 2,000 other plaintiffs brought suit, she said.

Today, at 49, in her Camp Hill home, Baker has a radiation monitor. It's never reached a level that would convince her to evacuate. She said she doesn't live in fear, but remains concerned about whether what happened that day affected her unborn child.

"It's always - like a wonder - you can't ever prove it," Baker said.

James E. Thomas, now 76, was one of the about 2,000 plaintiffs. Janet and James Thomas left their Foustown home the weekend of the accident to travel to the Appalachian Mountains for a square-dancing festival. With other dancers, they joked about glowing in the dark.

Then, James Thomas, who loved to be outside gardening, developed skin cancer.

When the lawsuit ended, the Thomases gave up.

"We just figured it was a lost cause and let it drop," Janet Thomas said.

Today, the couple lives in the same house.

For some, no worries

On a recent May day, the Susquehanna River sparkled blue. On Cly Road in Newberry Township sits a quaint house with a small sign advertising "FRESH BROWN EGGS."

Margaret Sipe, 55, and her husband have lived in the house with a view of the cooling towers for about two decades. She believes people have blown the accident out of proportion.

"I like it out here," Sipe said. "Not a lot of traffic, everyone gets along."

The area has filled in with more residential housing - about eight years ago, those places behind her house were cornfields, Sipe said.

The family has a friend who works at the nuclear power plant. There are no problems, don't worry, he has told them.

"It doesn't even cross our mind," Sipe said.

Up River Drive, the street rises with a steep hill. The tree farm lot provides a view of white puffs billowing out of the cooling towers.

Lester and Sue Haring own Haring Tree Farms.

The same year as the accident, but after it occurred, they started their Christmas tree farm on River Drive in Cly. They live nearby.

"The condition of the land is fine," Sue Haring said.

Lester Haring, 62, grows corn, tomatoes, onions, potatoes and other vegetables with his grandchildren. They sell some. His granddaughter,

Dr. Roger Levin, a head and neck surgeon in the Harrisburg area, in the examining room of his Palmyra office May 25 with a model head and neck and a model thyroid. Levin recently completed a professional paper and found higher-than-expected cases in York and Lancaster counties.
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Lindsey Keiser, 5, is in charge of pumpkins - she's low to the ground, that's good for planting, he tells her.

Haring was not working at Three Mile Island the day of the accident, but he worked there for nine years building scaffolding inside the plant.

Builders were the first ones to enter areas where updates or repairs were needed because they created the structures electricians and others needed to stand on, he said.

Lester Haring said he believes nuclear plants are safe.

His wife, Sue, 61, has breast cancer. She's taken radiation and chemotherapy. She said she believes she inherited her disease; both her grandmother and two aunts had breast cancer.

"People have cancer all over the United States," Sue Haring said. "It's really hard to say did (the accident) do it."

Researchers debate: No link

Scientific studies on the Three Mile Island accident have different conclusions. Some people even interpret them differently.

By the time Columbia University investigators published their findings in 1990 that they saw no link between radiation and cancer cases, the lawsuit of about 2,000 plaintiffs was under way.

The state Department of Health also performed studies. None showed an increased risk of cancer related to the Three Mile Island accident, said Richard McGarvey, health department spokesman.

One health study showed a higher risk of low-birth weight babies in women who lived within a 10-mile-radius, but that was determined to be associated with a higher use of sedatives that appeared to be associated with the stress pregnant women were feeling, McGarvey said.

Until the mid-1980s, the state health department updated a registry of 35,000 people who lived within a 10-mile-radius of Three Mile Island, McGarvey said.

Another registry of women pregnant at the time of the accident and the children they bore was updated through the state fiscal year of 1994-95, he said. Nothing unusual was showing up in the database, so the registry was cut out of the budget, McGarvey said.

Detailed studies of radiological consequences of the Three Mile Island accident were done by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Environmental Protection Agency, what is now the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the U.S. Department of Energy and Pennsylvania, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The average radiation dose to people living within 10 miles of the plant was 8 millirem, and any single person would have received less than 100 millirem, according to the American Nuclear Society.

Most people receive about 5 millirem per week from the environment. A chest X-ray exposes a person to about 6 millirem, according to the society.

Studies have shown that radiation's immediate effects are not observed until 35,000 millirem, said Brian Grimes, who retired from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 1996 and is a spokesman for the nuclear society.

At 15,000 millirem, temporary sterility in humans is clinically testable, Grimes said.

Studies from Three Mile Island did not find any statistically significant increases in cancer cases, he said.

Attorney Alfred Wilcox of Pepper Hamilton LLP in Philadelphia represented the three power companies and their parent company, GPU, that the about 2,000 plaintiffs sued. Rambo's decision should give comfort to anyone concerned that the radiation adversely affected their health, Wilcox said.

The plaintiffs' case fell apart with their complicated theory that a blowout of radiation from the reactor avoided all of the detection monitors and huge doses hit pine and spruce trees and people, Wilcox said.

"We showed the judge, actually, those trees were affected by a tree fungus and parasite," he said.

He said there are more important subjects to spend research money on than whether the Three Mile Island accident had any health effects.

"The idea that somebody would do a better job of looking at that today is kind of silly," he said.

Others say the accident presents a unique opportunity for continued study.

Evelyn Talbott, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh, said that, even though exposures during the accident were low, the population should continue to be followed. That might be possible using the state health department's cancer registry, she said.

In one of her studies, a 20-year follow-up of mortality, published in 2003, Talbott used information from the

Sue Haring, 61, has breast cancer. She lived near the plant in 1979 when the accident occurred. She remembered evacuating, but later returned. She doesn't believe her cancer was caused by the accident. Cancer runs in her family, she said. Her husband, Lester, stands in the background.
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state's registry for residents who lived within a five-mile radius of Three Mile Island, combined with the state's mortality data. The study found radioactivity released during the nuclear accident did not appear to have caused more cancer deaths in residents between 1979 and 1998, Talbott said.

It did find a hint of higher breast cancer rates, likely caused by gamma exposure in the days after the accident, but that trend appeared to weaken between the 1992 and 1998 study updates, she said.

Researchers debate: Possible link

Other researchers have found what they say are links between radiation released and cancer.

Steve Wing, who conducted a study on behalf of the about 2,000 plaintiffs, said his research improved upon the Columbia study, but produced different results.

Wing, associate professor in the epidemiology department at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, found as the estimated radiation dose increased, the cancer incidence increased after the accident, based on where plumes from the accident traveled.

His researchers looked at the difference between the pre-accident period, 1976 to 1979, compared to two sets of years post-accident, 1984 to 1985 and 1981 to 1985.

They found positive relationships between accident dose estimates and cancer rates for leukemia, lung cancer and all cancers combined.

"The criticisms were mainly that we weren't supposed to find that," he said.

Study data was available to nuclear industry scientists, and researchers had the opportunity to point out mistakes, but none did, he said.

When Rambo decided 10 years ago not to include some of the study data and then the plaintiffs' appeal lost, Wing said he was disappointed.

"I feel it was a disservice to the general public," he said. "It's a disservice to the history of this accident. ... Our interpretation of the results is that the doses were larger than what had been assumed."

In reviewing state Department of Health data, a Harrisburg-area doctor found more thyroid cancer cases than expected in York County for every year except one between 1990 and 2002.

Dr. Roger Levin, a head and neck surgeon who has experience treating thyroid cancer, said one reason for the higher incidence of thyroid cancer could be that people were exposed to radiation during the TMI accident.

The thyroid - a gland in the neck - controls the body's overall metabolism. It manages weight, pulse rate and body temperature.

Because the thyroid needs iodine to make its hormone, it's possible the gland could have taken in more radioactive iodine during the accident, Levin said. The gland cannot distinguish between radioactive iodine and the type found in table salt, which is why the state passes out non-radioactive iodine pills. In theory, people could take the pills during a nuclear accident to fill up the gland to protect it.

Addressing the increased cases in York and Lancaster counties, Levin said, radioactive material could have traveled to those counties by water, since it seems the wind was not blowing in that direction during the accident and days after.

When Levin started his research, he expected to see no difference in the number of thyroid cancer cases expected and the number reported in area counties.

Counties farther away than York and Lancaster from the accident showed no increasing trend.

"I sort of don't know what to do with the data except throw it out there and let (people) smarter than me debate it," Levin said.

Continuing to wonder

Donna James, 46, of West York said she believes the Three Mile Island accident caused her thyroid cancer. At the time, she was a student at Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania.

In January 2004, after three years of feeling tired and achy, James had a nodule removed from her neck. Her mother has thyroid problems, but not cancer, James said.

James said her cancer could have a connection to breathing the air after the accident or from the effects the radiation had on the environment.

"Especially because I used to eat a lot of organic foods," James said.

Her concerns and wonders have become part of the shadow Three Mile Island has left on the region.

Rep. Bruce Smith, R-Dillsburg, said people still talk to him about the accident. They tell him they believe there are higher cancer rates in the area because of it, he said.

"There is no doubt in my mind the (health department's) studies were flawed," Smith said.

At the time of the accident, Smith was chairman of the board in Newberry Township, the largest municipality on the West Shore within a 5-mile radius of the plant.

His children stood outside at the bus stop that morning. After the accident, his wife, Patricia Smith, became active in the fight to make sure the plant was safe. When one unit re-opened in 1985, the Smiths moved to Dillsburg.

They placed 22 miles between their home and the reactors. No longer could they see the cooling towers from their home.

"(The tower) was too much of a reminder of the accident and mental turmoil and frustration my wife went through at the time of the accident," Smith said.

When asked to comment about the 25th anniversary in 2004, a FirstEnergy spokesman said that, since the 1979 partial meltdown, the Unit 2 reactor has been in a state of long-term monitored storage.

GPU workers removed 300,000 pounds of core material from TMI Unit 2 before the project was completed in December 1993.

A FirstEnergy spokesman said last week the company could not comment on possible health effects because it did not own TMI Unit 2 at the time of the accident.

For some, the plant is part of the scenery. For others, it's a symbol of hidden effects of a past event and clues to why certain people got sick.

Eric Epstein of Three Mile Island Alert Inc., an activist group formed before the 1979 accident, said he believes people affected by the radiation will get a day in court, even if it's decades from now. Epstein is convinced that the accident has led to adverse health effects in the area, but he still lives there.

It's a great place to live, he said. "There is nowhere you can go where there is not an environmental threat," Epstein said.

They monitor the radiation and watch.

"People will question the health effects of TMI for at least a generation," he said.

Reach Jennifer Nejman at 771-2026 or jnejman@ydr.com.

The health effect studies

The following studies deal with Three Mile Island:

· Steve Wing, associate professor, epidemiology department, UNC, Chapel Hill

The study was conducted on behalf of the about 2,000 plaintiffs who claimed emissions of radioactive gases during the Three Mile Island accident were much larger than the industry and government stated and that intense plumes had exposed small areas to high radiation doses, resulting in adverse health effects, including cancer.

Findings: Wing's research found positive relationships between accident dose estimates and cancer rates for leukemia, lung cancer and all cancers combined. The study looked at the difference between the pre-accident period, 1976 to 1979, compared with two sets of years post-accident, 1984 to 1985, and 1981 to 1985.

Estimates for radiation effects were larger for cancers that occurred in 1984 to 1985 than for cancers that occurred in 1981 to 1985, an observation consistent with there being more time for cancers to develop after exposure. Those estimates were larger when statistical adjustments were made for differences in socioeconomic status between areas of low and high dose.

· Evelyn Talbott, professor of epidemiology, University of Pittsburgh, Graduate School of Public Health

Talbott's 2003 study was a 20-year follow-up of mortality data on residents who lived within a 5-mile radius of Three Mile Island. She used data collected by the state Department of Health in interviews conducted with 32,135 residents within two months of the accident. The exposure data was combined with mortality data from the state.

Finding:The study found overall cancer deaths in the local population were similar to cancer death rates statewide. Radioactivity released during the nuclear accident does not appear to have caused more cancer deaths in residents between 1979 and 1998, she said.

However, with regard to specific cancer sites, the risk of cancers of the hematopoietic blood system, such as leukemias and lymphomas, were greater for naturally occurring radiation, called background radiation, that comes from the earth's crust.

There is an area around Three Mile Island that has this higher background radiation and should be considered for further study, Talbott said. The area is known as the Reading Prong and it occurs in southeastern Pennsylvania in the southern parts of Lebanon, Berks, Lehigh and Northampton counties. Talbott cautioned that more work should be done before conclusions can be made about this area.

Talbott's study found a hint of higher breast cancer rates, likely caused by gamma exposure the days after the accident, but this trend appeared to weaken between the 1992 and 1998 study updates.

· Dr. Roger Levin,chief division of otolaryngology/head and neck surgery, PinnacleHealth System in Harrisburg, and clinical associate professor of surgery, Penn State College of Medicine

Levin did his research so he could join The Triological Society, a society for ear, nose and throat specialists and head and neck surgeons. His paper is scheduled to be published in the society's peer-reviewed journal, The Laryngoscope, in an upcoming month.

Findings: In reviewing state health data, Levin found more thyroid cancer cases than expected in York County for every year except one between 1995 and 2002.

One plausible reason could be people were exposed to radiation during the 1979 Three Mile Island accident, he said.

During the accident, the thyroid gland could have taken in radioactive iodine or people could have brought increased levels into their systems through food grown in the area or other environmental factors, he said.

Levin said two factors that could have made a link to the Three Mile Island accident more convincing did not occur: the winds were blowing northwest, not toward York County, and there was no increase in thyroid cancer in populations younger than 20 years old.

However, he said he found in his readings that a small amount of radiation was vented into the Susquehanna River in the form of wastewater from parts of the plant that were not part of the cooling systems, such as toilets, showers and laundry facilities.

And children and expectant mothers were evacuated in the days following the accident, Levin said.

Thyroid cancer is increasing in the United States. Some say it's due to better diagnosis; others attribute exposure to radiation, Levin said.

top
Scientists test teeth for TMI's effects
Pa. group looks for radioactive chemicals from nuclear sites

Joseph Mangano wants your baby teeth.

Not for the same sentimental reasons parents safeguard their children's teeth as childhood keepsakes, but rather to try to prove what he believes are the dangers of living close to a nuclear reactor.

Since 1998, the Radiation and Public Health Project in Norristown has collected more than 5,000 teeth from people who live close to one of the eight U.S. nuclear sites, and from people who don't live near the sites, Mangano said.

In November, the Radiation and Public Health Project added Three Mile Island in Dauphin County to its list of nuclear sites and started to collect teeth from nearby residents, he said.

Mangano is the national coordinator for the Radiation and Public Health Project.

Through the project, several dozen teeth have been collected from people who live near TMI. The teeth will be tested for levels of Strontium-90, a radioactive chemical found in the waste of nuclear reactors that has been linked to bone cancer, cancer of the soft tissue near the bone and leukemia.

Strontium-90 may also contaminate reactor parts and fluids, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

A decade has passed since U.S. Middle District Chief Judge Sylvia Rambo dismissed 2,100 cases filed by people who claimed their health problems could be traced back to the partial meltdown of TMI Unit 2 on March 28, 1979.

"To me," Mangano said, "the health effects (related to the partial meltdown) are almost as big as the story of the accident itself."

On that day, mechanical failure and human oversight led to what is considered the worst commercial nuclear accident in American history.

As a result of the partial meltdown, people who lived near the plant at the time of the accident were exposed to a small amount of radioactive material.

The goal of Mangano's group is to collect baby teeth from before and after the TMI Unit 2 accident to test for the Strontium-90 levels.

Launched in 1985 by founders Jay Gould and Ernest Sternglass, the project's goals, according to Mangano, are:

· To account for any health risks posed by nuclear reactors.

· To point out any resistance by government officials to fully disclose the health effects of nuclear power.

Mangano, 50, has a master's degree in public health, with a focus on disease prevention, from the University of North Carolina.

He joined the Radiation and Public Health Project in 1989.

"I had a desire to contribute to preventive health," he said. "Especially since our health system is so strongly focused on disease diagnosis and treatment, and not on prevention."

Mangano regularly attends public hearings concerning nuclear power plants, including Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station, to raise public awareness about the health effects of nuclear reactors.

The collection of teeth by the project is one way to alert the public to any health risks posed by nuclear sites, Mangano said.

Aside from the area around TMI, the project has collected teeth from Indian Point in New York, Oyster Creek in New Jersey, Limerick in Pennsylvania, Saint Lucie in Florida, Turkey Point in Florida, Diablo Canyon in California and Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York.

Roughly 80 percent of the teeth collected came from people who live close to one of those sites.

By testing baby teeth, researchers with the project have found that people who live close to nuclear sites have ingested high amounts of Strontium-90.

Children who live in counties closest to nuclear reactors have an average level of Strontium-90 in their teeth that is 30 to 50 percent higher than children tested in more distant counties.

While some people may inhale trace amounts of Strontium-90 as dust, the most common pathway would be for residents to swallow the chemical via food and water.

Strontium-90 is a byproduct found in the fission of uranium. During the 1950s and 1960s, large amounts of Strontium-90 were produced during atmospheric nuclear weapons tests and dispersed worldwide, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Between 1998 and 2003, the Radiation and Public Health Project received 106 baby teeth from children with cancer. The group tested the teeth for Strontium-90.

Since some of those teeth were very small or decayed, leaving little intact enamel for testing, accurate test results were available for little more than half of the samples.

Test results showed that the 54 teeth had an average Strontium-90 concentration about 60 percent higher than teeth from children without cancer.

By the end of the year, Mangano's group plans to announce its test results regarding baby teeth taken from residents who live close to TMI.

"We will take any baby teeth from anybody, but most of the teeth we are collecting come from now," he said. "We would like to get more teeth from people who were born before the accident so we can compare."

Reach Sean Adkins at 771-2047 or sadkins@ydr.com.

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Greenpeace Says Champagne Is Threatened By Radioactivity

2006-06-03T16:38:57Z

http://www.playfuls.com/news_001129_Greenpeace_Says_Champagne_Is_Threatened_By_Radioactivity_.html
Greenpeace Says Champagne Is Threatened By Radioactivity - Science News - Playfuls.com - Science & Technology

The environmental group Greenpeace said Tuesday that France's beloved Champagne was threatened by radioactivity from a nuclear waste dump site.

In a press statement, Greenpeace said that radioactive contamination leaking from the site had been found in underground water less than 10 kilometres from the vineyards of the Champagne region that gives the world-famous sparkling wine its name.

The waste dump, which is located in the eastern French town of Soulaine, "contains foreign nuclear waste disposed of illegally under French law," Greenpeace charged.

Nuclear waste continues to be dumped at the site, Greenpeace said, claiming that once it is full it "will be one of the world's largest with over 1 million cubic metres of waste, including plutonium and other radionuclides."

Several problems at the dump site, including water migration leading to fissures in the storage cells, have been reported to the French nuclear safety agency in recent weeks, the group said.

Greenpeace said it had written to the Champagne Producers Committee to warn them that their production risked contamination from the site.

© 2006 DPA

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9TH CIRCUIT COURT RULES IN FAVOR OF MOTHERS FOR PEACE AND SIERRA CLUB

2006-06-03T16:33:58Z

----------------

NEWS RELEASE

For Immediate Release

Contact: Jane Swanson, spokesperson - San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace

(805) 595-2605 cell (805) 440-1359

Diane Curran, attorney 202/328-3500 (office)

9TH CIRCUIT COURT RULES IN FAVOR OF MOTHERS FOR PEACE AND SIERRA CLUB

Today the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Nuclear
Regulatory
Commission was irrational to categorically refuse to consider the
possibility of a terrorist attack in preparing the Environmental Impart
Statement for the dry cask storage project that PG&E is planning on
installing at the Diablo Canyon Nuclear power plant. This ruling is a
total victory for the San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace, who challenged
the NRC's 2003 decision refusing to hold a hearing on the question of
whether a terrorist attack on the new facility is "reasonably
foreseeable"
and therefore requires preparation of an Environmental Impact Statement
(EIS). As Curran told the Court in Oct 17, 2005 oral arguments, "the
terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, have removed any shred of
credibility from the NRC's stance that terrorist attacks on nuclear
facilities are 'speculative' events that cannot be predicted."

The San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace, a local group that has actively
opposed the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant since 1973, is extremely
pleased
that logic prevailed in this important court ruling, which sends the
NRC
back to the drawing board to complete the Environmental Impact
Statement.
The group hopes that effective mitigations will be put in place to
provide
defenses against possible air attack.

"The court ruled in favor of the safety of the people of California's
central coast, rather than corporate convenience. This ruling is a
vindication of the perseverance of our all-volunteer citizen group and
our
one wonderful attorney, " according to spokesperson Jane Swanson

MFP attorney Diane Curran pointed out in arguments before the court
that
140 spent fuel storage casks are to be located on an exposed hillside
overlooking the Pacific Ocean where they are vulnerable to airborne
attack. "The effects of a terrorist attack on the steel casks could be
devastating," she warned. "Our expert study found that if only two
casks
were breached, an area more than half the size of the State of
Connecticut
could be rendered uninhabitable."

Among the measures MFP has asked the NRC to consider are fortifying the
casks, or putting them in bunkers, or scattering the cask storage pads
over the site so that they would not present one big target. "These
are
all feasible alternatives for minimizing the impacts of a terrorist
attack
on the Diablo Canyon facility. The NRC had no lawful basis to ignore
them," according to Attorney Curran.

The Court ruling can be found at

http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/ca9/newopinions.nsf/opinions+by+date

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Ensure bomb delay sticks

2006-06-03T16:24:39Z

Ensure bomb delay sticks

When trust has been broken, restoring it can be an astronomical feat as Southern Utah residents and the federal Defense Threat Reduction Agency have jointly discovered.

Anti-nuclear activists, Downwinders, the Winnemucca Indian Colony and Utah and Nevada congressional lawmakers diligently pressed the government to address health and safety concerns surrounding the detonation of the non-nuclear, 700-ton ammonium nitrate and fuel oil bomb called Divine Strake.

ADVERTISEMENT

The urgency for convincing, no-risk information is based on fear of the past repeating itself. Consider governmental assurance that nuclear tests in the 50s and 60s posed no harm to Western States - when the truth was that the government had full knowledge from scientific evidence that it would.
Divine Strake was originally intended to be set off today. The large-yield explosive is comprised of the same material as the bomb that destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995, but 280 times larger.

Because studies are lacking with respect to the open-air blast's impact on the environment from potential radioactive fallout left over from nuclear weapons tests conducted at the Nevada Test Site from 1947 to 1992, lawsuits were filed that pushed the test date to June 23.

After U.S. District Court Judge Lloyd George in Las Vegas recognized that more time was needed to determine the bomb's overall effects, he ruled against the explosion. The DRTA maintains that its sole purpose is to collect information about penetrating underground bunkers and is not intended as a precursor to resume nuclear testing.

Now the blast has been indefinitely postponed, leaving citizens to "wait and see" what happens next. But we believe playing the waiting game will only facilitate the government's pursuit of digging a big hole somewhere in the nearly 1,400 square miles of the test site, packing it with the 1.4 million pounds of fuel oil and fertilizer and setting it off to find out if it would perforate an 1,110-foot tunnel located directly under the massive hole.

The fact that the bomb's detonation has been suspended means there is some level of safety still in question. We need to unfalteringly hold the government accountable to answering such a question in order to regain the trust once given freely without reservation. While we must exercise patience, it doesn't mean we abandon involvement in the process.

Sen. Orrin Hatch and Rep. Jim Matheson did their part, and as their constituents, we must keep them armed with our vigilant participation, lest risk being victimized again. Rebuilding trust takes grueling, intensive work, not just on the government's end but on our end as well. Let's make sure as Southern Utahns that we do our part and keep our eyes and ears open and alert to the issue.

Originally published June 2, 2006

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AUDIO - TOTN Sci-Fri 06/02/2006: Some Environmentalists Warming Up to Nuclear Power

2006-06-03T08:20:57Z

Some Environmentalists Warming Up to Nuclear Power

Listen to this story => http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5447578

Talk of the Nation, June 2, 2006 · Are new technologies such as the pebble-bed reactor able to make nuclear power cleaner and safer than in the past? And how best should policy makers weigh the pluses and minuses of nuclear power, offsetting reduced greenhouse gas emissions with the long-term safety and storage problems posed by nuclear wastes?

Guests:
Andrew Kadak, reactor physicist; professor, nuclear engineering; Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Thomas Cochran, nuclear physicist; director, nuclear program; Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)
Kevin Crowley, director, Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board; National Academies of Science

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Cambridge Health Alliance Occupational Health Helps Boston University Researchers Screen Workers Exposed to Beryllium

2006-06-02T18:51:54Z

Cambridge Health Alliance Occupational Health Helps Boston University Researchers Screen Workers Exposed to Beryllium

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., May 30 (AScribe Newswire) -- Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) has a grant to offer free and confidential testing to workers previously exposed to the element beryllium. Beryllium is a lightweight, non-radioactive durable metal that was ground, machined, sanded or drilled for use in the nuclear weapons industry. Not everyone who is exposed to beryllium gets sick, but inhaling the dust can lead to beryllium sensitivity, an allergic reaction to the metal that may lead to a serious respiratory illness known as chronic beryllium disease, a progressive, potentially fatal lung disease. These effects can occur years after exposure.

BUSPH is collaborating with CHA's Occupational Health Program to screen exposed workers at the Assembly Square Occupational Health Clinical site at 5 Middlesex Avenue in Somerville, MA. Workers will get a chest X-ray, breathing test, and blood test looking for increased sensitivity to beryllium. Results of the screening are confidential and are sent directly to the patients being tested. Those who are found to have chronic beryllium disease are eligible for compensation from the U.S. Department of Energy.

Workers were possibly exposed to beryllium at both the MIT Metallurgical Project, located in the former Hood Building in Cambridge, beginning in 1943, and at Nuclear Metals located in Concord, MA, from 1958 to 1986. Approximately 100 workers at MIT were involved with beryllium as part of the atomic bomb-building Manhattan Project, from 1943 to 1958. Later, beryllium work was taken over by Nuclear Metals in Concord, where many more former employees may have also been exposed to the element.

BUSPH has tested over 400 employees at other Massachusetts companies in Worcester County, and found that about five percent demonstrated beryllium sensitivity.

There is no cost for any of the testing, which is funded by the Department of Energy. Workers who have been diagnosed with chronic beryllium disease, or their survivors, are eligible to receive $150,000 as a lump-sum payment, in addition to medical treatment as part of the U.S. Department of Labor-administered Energy Employees' Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act.

The screening process takes about 2 hours to complete. The start date is May 24, 2006, and there will be additional screening dates offered over the subsequent months. For more information or to participate in the screening, please call toll free 877-466-3089.

CAMBRIDGE HEALTH ALLIANCE

Cambridge Health Alliance is a regional healthcare system with three hospitals and more than twenty primary care practices in Cambridge, Somerville, and Boston's metro-North communities. As a teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School, Cambridge Health Alliance offers medical residency/training programs and undergraduate learning experiences in hospital and community settings. Cambridge Health Alliance also includes the Cambridge Public Health Department, CHA Physician's Organization (CHAPO), and Network Health, a managed Medicaid plan.

- - - -

MEDIA CONTACT: Alison Harris, 617-499-8323, aharris@cha.harvard.edu

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U.S. House passes Hanford budget

2006-06-02T18:22:59Z

U.S. House passes Hanford budget

Tri-City Herald
May 25, 2006
http://www.tri-cityherald.com/tch/local/story/7763399p-7675798c.html

By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer

The U.S. House passed a Hanford budget for fiscal year 2007 of about
$1.8 billion Wednesday night as part of the energy and water
spending bill.

The Senate has not scheduled action on its Fiscal Year 2007 Energy
and Water Appropriations bill, which then will be reconciled with
the House bill to set the final budget.

"While a final budget won't be written for several months, I'm
encouraged by increases in many areas including ground water
cleanup, alternate tank waste treatment testing and PNNL," (Pacific
Northwest National Laboratory), said Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., in
a statement.

However, money for Hanford's vitrification plant was reduced from
the Bush administration's request of $690 million to $600 million.

The amount was a compromise after the Government Accountability
Office estimated that the plant's costs in 2007 would be $510
million, given management and technical issues that need to be
resolved. The GAO has recommended a continued halt to some work at
the plant after the estimated cost increased from $5.8 billion to a
preliminary estimate of $11.3 billion in the last 18 months.

The plant, which will turn millions of gallons of radioactive waste
into a stable glass form, is critical to Hanford cleanup, Hastings
said on the floor of the House.

Since problems on the project were revealed, it has undergone
extensive reviews by DOE, the GAO, the Army Corps of Engineers and
independent experts, he said.

DOE should provide a detailed plan for the vitrification plant
before Congress finishes the final Hanford budget for 2007, he said.

"A final path forward from DOE is critical for making decisions on
this project for next year and for the future," he said.

"I cannot stress enough the importance of Congress getting this
information from DOE in a timely manner," he added.

Bechtel National is expected to have a detailed, updated cost
estimate on building the Waste Treatment Plant by the end of the
month, which the Army Corps could finish validating by the end of
July.

Last year, Congress agreed to a budget of $526 million for the
plant, after withholding money to spend on Gulf hurricane relief.
Work which already had slowed on key parts of the plant halted at
the first of the year.

Hastings had more success in other areas of the 2007 Hanford budget
that was passed by the House.

He increased money for building replacement labs at Pacific
Northwest National Laboratory from about $8 million to almost $25
million.

"The funds are needed to transition the lab personnel into new lab
buildings," Hastings said. "Some lab buildings dating back to the
mid-1940s are slated for demolition and cleanup due to radioactive
contamination of the structures, soil and ground water."

The bill matches the administration's request for Hanford in most
areas. However, it increases money to develop technology for
cleaning up contaminated ground water by $20 million.

It also restores $20 million for the bulk vitrification
demonstration project. Bulk vitrification is being considered to
supplement the Waste Treatment Plant's glassification of low-
activity radioactive waste, but first a pilot plant must be built to
test the technology.

The budget also includes $7.5 million for the Volpentest HAMMER
training center and $500,000 for preservation of Hanford's historic
B Reactor.

In one increase above spending in the current year at Hanford, the
budget for cleanup along the Columbia River would be boosted $44
million to $221 million, as requested by the administration.

Buildings are being torn down, reactor cores sealed up and waste
burial grounds and contaminated soil dug up.

Hastings showed "leadership and dogged determination to follow
through on very complicated issues relative to Hanford," said Rep.
Peter Visclosky, the ranking Democrat on the House Energy and Water
appropriations subcommittee, as the spending bill was introduced.

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Strategic Security Project Blog

2006-06-02T18:19:23Z

Strategic Security Project Blog

http://www.fas.org/blog/ssp/2006/05/nnsa_walking_a_fine_line_on_di_1.php

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Justice wants Hanford initiative tossed

2006-06-01T17:53:58Z

Justice wants Hanford initiative tossed

Tri-City Herald
May 24, 2006
http://www.tri-cityherald.com/tch/local/story/7762190p-7674498c.html

By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer

YAKIMA -- The U.S. Department of Justice asked Tuesday that the
Hanford waste initiative passed by voters be declared
unconstitutional and overturned.

U.S. District Judge Alan McDonald listened to arguments based on
written briefs filed over the last seven months, then said he would
rule on the motion for summary judgment in two to three weeks.

In 2004, voters in every county of the state but Benton and Franklin
approved the initiative intended to stop the Department of Energy
from bringing more waste to the Hanford nuclear reservation until
waste already there is cleaned up.

But before it could become law as the Cleanup Priority Act, the
Department of Justice filed suit.

"The CPA is an unprecedented intrusion into federal matters and thus
should be set aside," argued Kenneth Amaditz for the Department of
Justice.

Congress has given the federal government the authority to manage
nuclear materials because they are critical to national defense and
security. But the state has been given authority by Congress to
manage certain hazardous chemical waste.

The initiative targets only waste with a radioactive component,
which violates the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, the
federal government argued. The clause prohibits states from
regulating federal activities unless Congress has given its clear
consent.

The initiative also discriminates against the federal government by
singling out Hanford from other hazardous waste sites in the state,
Amaditz said.

Hanford is essential to federal plans to dispose of low-level
radioactive waste from across the country, said David Kaplan,
attorney for the Department of Justice. The Nevada Test Site is the
only other place designated for the disposal of mixed radioactive
and hazardous waste from across the nation, he said. But it has
limited space and will close in five years.

By barring waste from being sent to Hanford, the state is isolating
itself from federal problems in violation of the Commerce Clause of
the Constitution, said Colin Deihl, arguing for Fluor Hanford.

Washington is not barring waste from being imported to the state,
only to Hanford as long as the nuclear reservation is not complying
with state and federal environmental laws, said Laura Watson,
arguing for the state. DOE could build a compliant facility in
Washington if it chose, she said.

Hanford has not been singled out because it is a federal facility,
but because it's the only place in the state with such massive
contamination, said Andy Fitz, arguing for the state.

DOE and Hanford are registered in the Environmental Protection
Agency's database as a "significant noncomplier," a designation
reserved for "exceptionally poor performance and/or recalcitrant or
repeat violators," the state said in court documents.

Nearly all waste at Hanford, which produced plutonium for the
nation's nuclear weapons program, is a mixture of radioactive and
hazardous chemical waste, Fitz said. Congress clearly has intended
for states to regulate that mixed waste, he said.

"Simply having radionuclides in the mix doesn't give the federal
government a get-out-of-jail-free card," he said.

The initiative does not expand the state's authority over Hanford
waste, but requires it to regulate the waste to the fullest extent
of its authority, the state argued.

"The voters clearly said they were tired of having exceptions carved
out of generally applicable standards," said Gerald Pollet, arguing
in support of the initiative for Heart of America Northwest.

If the initiative is found to overstep the state's authority, then
it's just a short step further to question the state's present
authority to regulate Hanford waste, Fitz said.

The question is whether the state or federal government gets to make
decisions, the judge said.

There has been poor performance at the site, he said.

"But you have to admit (the federal government) has spent a gold
mine of money the state did not have to spend and in many cases made
real progress," he said.

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Chernobyl Sarcophagus Cracking

2006-05-31T16:17:39Z

Chernobyl Sarcophagus Cracking

The sarcophagus over reactor No. 4 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine is cracking. Birds and rainwater have penetrated the shelter, which consists of 700,000 tons of steal and 400,000 tons of concrete, hastily built over the reactor following the 1986 accident. The sarcophagus sealed in an estimated 200-ton mix of radioactive fuel and materials, like concrete and sand, which fused when the explosion spiked temperatures to 980 degrees Celsius inside. Meanwhile, a multinational $1.1 billion US project to build a new giant steel arch designed to last 100 years is still on the drawing board. Yulia Marusych, a spokeswoman for the power station, stated, "Twenty years have already passed since the accident, but the risks and the hazards posed by the reactor are still there.”

No one knows exactly how much radioactive fuel remains since only 25 per cent of the reactor is accessible. Some estimate it all was discharged during the 10 days when the reactor spewed out its insides. Others counter that as much as 90 per cent is still there. Sensors constantly check for signs of new reactions taking place.

Some accuse the Ukrainian government of playing up the dangers to get more international aid for the new shelter. Yuriy Andreyev, head of the Chernobyl Union, an advocacy group, accused the government of not doing enough. He said water accumulating under the reactor is highly irradiated and could leak into the region's groundwater.

Authorities said the priority now is stabilizing the sarcophagus. The roof is not sealed properly. The water inside is weakening the concrete and metal. The shelter's original west wall is leaning precariously. While a collapse would be unlikely to spark another explosion, it could release a huge burst of poisonous radioactive dust.

While talks continue on who will build the new shelter, construction crews are working to shore up the aging sarcophagus. They have to work in 20-minute shifts to minimize exposure to radiation.

Source: “Shelter over Ukraine's Chornobyl crumbling, radiation leaking,” The Canadian Press, 23 April 2006.

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Russia to Develop New Nuclear Weapons

2006-05-31T16:12:58Z

Russia to Develop New Nuclear Weapons

On 10 May 2006, Russian President Vladimir Putin said during his annual address to the Russian parliament that the country would develop new nuclear weapons and high-precision weapons in order to preserve a strategic balance with the United States.

Apparently addressing the US-led invasion on Iraq and recent comments by Vice President Dick Cheney that Russia “unfairly and improperly restricted the rights of her people” and used oil and gas reserves as “tools of intimidation of blackmail,” President Putin likened the United States to a wolf. President Putin stated, “As they say, ‘Comrade Wolf knows whom to swallow. He swallows without listening to anyone. Nor does he intend to listen to anyone by all appearances.”

According to President Putin, Russia plans to “substantially increase the provision of strategic nuclear forces with long-range planes, submarines and launchers” in the next five years. President Putin said, “Along with the means of overcoming the systems of antimissile defense, which we already have, new types of weapons enable us to preserve what is undoubtedly one of the most important guarantees of lasting peace — namely, the strategic balance of forces.” Russia is also preparing “unique high-precision weapons” and missiles “whose trajectory is unpredictable for the potential enemy.”

The United States quickly responded to the speech. A statement issued by the White House said, “We are disappointed that it did not address the concerns that many people have raised about Russia’s commitment to democracy and its use of economic pressure against its neighbors. The US continues to work together with Russia on a number of important security and economic issues, even as we raise these concerns.”

Source: “Russia to Develop New Nuclear Weapons, Putin Says,” Global Security Newswire, 11 May 2006.

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Congress balks at Pentagon 'war on terror' missile

2006-05-31T16:08:27Z

http://www.mg.co.za/articlepage.aspx?area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__international_news/&articleid=273104
Congress balks at Pentagon 'war on terror' missile : Mail & Guardian Online

Congress balks at Pentagon 'war on terror' missile

30 May 2006 07:29
Congress has stalled Pentagon plans to put conventional warheads on inter-continental missiles for use in Washington's "war on terror", out of concern that they could trigger a nuclear war.

The defence department is seeking $127-million for the conversion of submarine-based missiles as part of its Global Strike project, aimed at giving Washington the option of acting fast, pre-emptively and from great distances against targets that might threaten the US.

The goal would be to destroy a fleeting target, such as a weapon being assembled or a meeting of terrorist leaders, anywhere in the world within an hour of intelligence reaching the US of their location.

But Congress has held back $32-million of the funds until the Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, and the Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, present a plan to eliminate the risk that other countries mistake the launch of the Trident D-5 missile for a nuclear attack and respond.

"There is great concern this could be destabilising in terms of deterrence and nuclear policy," Jack Reed, a Democrat on the senate armed services committee, told the New York Times. "It would be hard to determine if a missile coming out of a Trident submarine is conventional or nuclear."

"It's a valid concern -- you never want someone to think you're launching a nuke when you're not," Colonel Richard Patenaude, a deterrence and air strike strategist told Inside the Air Force, a defence newsletter. "But I think it's a manageable problem, and a lot of others do too."

Pentagon planners are confident a system can be worked out with other nuclear powers to reassure them that a Trident launch is conventional and not aimed at them. In 2000 the US and Russia agreed to establish a joint data exchange centre to share information about ballistic missile launches.

The head of the US Strategic Command, General James Cartwright, who has oversight over the nuclear and non-nuclear elements of Global Strike, said the US informed China of any test launches.

"We don't have a treaty, but we tell them so that they know," Cartwright recently told Japanese journalists. He said he hoped China and other nations would join the US-Russian data exchange centre.

The Global Strike programme was part of the US Nuclear Posture Review, submitted by the Pentagon at the end of 2001, which recommended the restructuring of US strategic defences away from its cold war arsenal towards smaller weapons, nuclear and non-nuclear, which could be used against terrorists or rogue states believed to be planning an attack using weapons of mass destruction.

The review has been criticised for blurring the line between nuclear and conventional weapons, and Congress has blocked Pentagon plans to build a new generation of nuclear bunker-busters and "mini-nukes". Critics also question whether a US president could be so sure of intelligence to order the launch of a long-range ballistic missile. - Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

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Physicists Persevere In Quest For Inexhaustible Energy Source

2006-05-31T16:00:26Z

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/05/060530174750.htm
ScienceDaily: Physicists Persevere In Quest For Inexhaustible Energy Source
Source: University of Wisconsin-Madison

Posted: May 30, 2006

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Physicists Persevere In Quest For Inexhaustible Energy Source

As gas prices soar and greenhouse gases continue to blanket the atmosphere, the need for a clean, safe and cheap source of energy has never seemed more pressing.

The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor. (Image courtesy of ITER)

Scientists have long worked to meet that need, exploring alternative energy technologies such as wind and solar power. But, after decades of quiet progress, the spotlight is now on another potentially inexhaustible energy source.

Seven countries signed an agreement in Brussels last week (May 24) to launch construction of the multibillion dollar International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) in southern France. The largest fusion-energy experiment ever conducted, ITER is the culmination of years of research by scores of scientists, and is poised to answer long-standing questions about the real-world viability of fusion energy. The United States, China, the European Union, India, Japan, the Republic of Korea and the Russian Federation are joint sponsors of the project, which will experimentally generate up to 500 million watts of energy.

An international collective of physicists and engineers is working to both complement and lend expertise directly to the ITER initiative - and researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are firmly placed among them.

"[ITER] is a major threshold that we've been waiting to get to for 20 years," says Raymond Fonck, a UW-Madison professor of engineering physics and the chief scientist of ITER's U.S. project office. "The project is the No. 1 priority in fusion research in the country and the world, and essentially takes us to a regime we've never been to before."

Fusion energy describes the energy that is released when atomic particles "fuse" together to form heavier particles. The process is fundamental to our universe, fueling both the sun and the stars. Here on Earth, physicists have tried to harness the energy potential of nuclear fusion by working with plasma, essentially a collection of particles, such as hydrogen nuclei, that carry electric charge. Because hydrogen can be easily extracted from seawater - a cheap and abundant resource - scientists have been tantalized by the prospect of plasma one day serving as an inexhaustible fuel.

But plasma has to be very, very hot - on the order of millions of degrees - for its gas particles to efficiently collide and release energy. "Basically, we're trying to make a sun here on Earth," says Stewart Prager, a UW-Madison physics professor, who also advises the U.S. government on national fusion-energy research. "But it turns out to be one of the most difficult scientific problems in the world."

One of the biggest hurdles, of course, is finding a container that can hold searing hot plasma without burning down itself. Scientists have been working around the problem by using invisible magnetic fields to hold the plasma in place, but they are still searching for the most efficient and optimal ways to do it. UW-Madison scientists are delving into pure physics and engineering research questions surrounding the issue. Their work both complements ITER's goals and, in a sense, looks one step beyond it.

Prager and his team, for instance, run the Madison Symmetric Torus (MST) - the largest fusion-energy experiment on campus. Shaped like a donut, the MST holds plasma heated to 10 million degrees. But instead of using a strong magnetic field to hold the plasma, Prager is exploring whether weaker - and therefore more economical - magnetic fields could accomplish the same task. The work has led to new insights about properties of plasma, and, in turn, has given rise to unique partnerships with astrophysicists, who are using the MST to explore basic questions about the plasma around black holes, galactic discs and other mysterious happenings of the solar system.

"We are now starting to appreciate and explore links between plasmas in the lab and plasmas in the universe, which is really interesting," Prager says.

Working with a device known as Pegasus, Fonck and his group are also exploring weaker magnetic fields, but are approaching the issue in a different way. Unlike the donut shape of the MST, the plasma within Pegasus looks more like a ball with a small hole in it, which influences how the plasma behaves. Fonck's work relies on the same fundamental physics that is at the heart of ITER's design, and could one day lead to new methods for testing large-scale components in future fusion reactors.

David Anderson, a professor of electrical and computer engineering and another plasma researcher at UW-Madison, recently made waves when he designed a new device that holds plasma within a magnetic field, without an electric current in the plasma to power the field.

"The current is running in external wires and not in the plasma itself, and that represents a tremendous engineering advantage," says Anderson, who works with a plasma instrument known as the Helically Symmetric eXperiment, the only machine of its kind in the world. Plasma can become unstable in the presence of a current, so Anderson is exploring ways to trick the plasma into staying in place by twisting the surrounding magnetic field into a special - and highly complicated - shape.

"It's very exciting to work on something that's totally new and offers potential advantages to the field," says Anderson. "A lot of what we're all doing here in Wisconsin is looking for what the next research steps will be beyond ITER. In that way, we really do have a unique place in the world's fusion-energy research program."

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Nuclear Regulatory Commission Public Meeting on New Reactor Issues

2006-05-31T15:53:46Z

Nuclear Regulatory Commission Public Meeting on New Reactor
Issues

Dennis Spurgeon, Asst. Sec. for Nuclear Energy, April 27, 2006
Program Goal: Pave the way for industry decisions to build new advanced
light water reactor nuclear plants in the United States that will begin
operation early in the next decade.
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-
collections/commission/slides/2006/20060427/20060427.pdf

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Notes from the Underground

2006-05-30T00:36:43Z

http://artvoice.com/issues/v5n21/notes_from_the_underground
Notes from the Underground

Notes from the Underground

by Geoff Kelly & Louis Ricciuti

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation report that an industrial site at 47th Street and Royal Avenue has contaminated the Falls Street Tunnel with hazardous chemical wastes. The tunnel runs all the way across the city and into the Niagara Gorge. The source of the contamination, according to NYSDEC, is Frontier Chemical—just across the street from the former Electromet, which processed uranium metal for the Manhattan Project.

In 1944, in a memo to Captain Emery L. Van Horn of the US Army Corps of Engineers, the superintendent of the Linde Ceramics plant in Tonawanda described the different courses he might take to dispose of caustic liquid wastes contaminated by radiation. The first option, wrote A. R. Holmes, was to discharge the effluent into a storm sewer that empties into Two Mile Creek, which runs past a public park and into the Niagara River. Alternately, Holmes said, the effluent could be pumped into wells on Linde’s property, from which it would presumably disappear into the water table.

“Plan 1 is objectionable,” Holmes wrote, “because of probably future complications in the event of claims of contamination against us. Plan 2 is favored because our law department advises that it is considered impossible to determine the course of subterranean streams and, therefore, the responsibility for contamination could not be fixed.”

The Corps of Engineers agreed, apparently, and over the next two years Linde pumped nearly 50 million gallons of radioactive effluent into shallow wells on its property. Presumably it seeped into the aquifer, made its way to Two Mile Creek and the Niagara River and flowed over the Falls—unaccountable and and unaccounted for, carried by unseen waters.

It’s a story that illustrates the callous and cavalier disposal of toxic waste that continues to poison the region, and especially Niagara County. Here’s another, which begins several miles to the northeast in the City of Niagara Falls, and whose narrative also unfolds along underground waterways:

At the same time that Linde’s A. R. Holmes was fretting over future liability for radioactive contamination of the region’s water, Union Carbide’s Electro Metallurgical Company was the free world’s largest producer of uranium metal, used for the Manhattan Engineering District’s atomic bomb project and in atomic reactors. The plant, usually referred to as Electromet, was located at the corner of 47th Street and Royal Avenue, across the street from Harshaw Chemical, another Manhattan Project contractor. In all Union Carbide’s production and research facility occupied nearly 300 acres. Even today, aerial photography describes the site as a sprawling, rust-brown blight on the lanscape, fringed with green vegetation that has reasserted itself now that so many neighboring plants have shut down.

Running underneath Royal Avenue, between Harshaw and Electromet, is another invisible waterway: the Falls Street Tunnel, a municipal sewer that travels west all the way to the Niagara Gorge, intersecting numerous other tunnels along the way, including intake conduits for the New York State Power Authority that travel due north, passing adjacent to the Electromet site and underneath Hyde Park on their way to the New York State Power Authority reservoir in Lewiston.

It’s difficult to determine exactly how much toxic radioactive and chemical waste was generated at places like Harshaw and Electromet during the days of the Manhattan Project and the early days of the Atomic Energy Commission; it’s only good luck that turns up an incriminating letter such as the one from A. R. Holmes. Tens of thousands of tons of radioactive waste were dumped on the Lake Ontario Ordinance Works in Lewiston, according to documents that do exist, and much of that was certainly generated at sites like Electromet, Harshaw and neighboring facilities. Just in the seven years between 1965 and 1972, according to the Department of Energy, Union Carbide companies at the Royal Avenue and 47th Street sites generated 505 tons of radioactive waste, carrying 9,212 pounds of uranium oxide and 1,293 pounds of thorium oxide. All of that waste was buried—on site, nearby the Falls Street Tunnel and the intersecting NYSPA water intakes—in 55-gallon drums, piled in a ditch 20 feet deep and covered with four to five feet of soil.

There is no acknowledgment of that waste ever having been recovered; the drums in which it was buried certainly have outlived their usefulness. It’s easy to imagine—and, lacking evidence to the contrary, prudent to assume—that the contamination therein has found its way into the underground waterways and been carried afield.

There exists evidence, in fact, to suggest that this is the case. On February 7, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation held a public hearing at the Earl Brydges Memorial Library in Niagara Falls to discuss a proposed cleanup plan for the Frontier Chemical Royal Avenue Site. Frontier Chemical, the NYSDEC explained, operated a waste treatment, storage and disposal facility at 47th Street and Royal Avenue between 1974 and 1992, during which period several major spills of hazardous substance were documented.

Although more than 4,000 barrels of hazardous waste were removed from the site in 1993 and 1994, and the chemicals were drained from 45 storage tanks in 1994 and 1995, a subsequent NYSDEC study found that “significant groundwater contamination is migrating off-site into the Falls Street Tunnel, which is an unlined bedrock sewer tunnel located below Royal Avenue.”

The site history that NYSDEC presented in February begins with Frontier Chemical in 1974 and talks about hazardous chemical wastes. But of course there is more to the story; the industrial history of Niagara Falls does not begin in 1974. State officials at the meeting expressed surprise when they were told that Frontier Chemical sat where Harshaw Chemical, which handled radioactive materials, used to be. They seemed equally surprised to learn that Frontier sat across the street from the long-defunct Electromet, the government’s premier source for uranium metal in the early days of the atomic age.

If, as NYSDEC reports, Frontier’s chemical wastes contaminated the Falls Street Tunnel—and, perhaps, subsequently the NYSPA’s water intakes, the reservoir, the pumping station on the Niagara Gorge, the city’s wastewater treatment plant and everywhere else the water carried it—it seems reasonable, or at least prudent, to assume that the unaccounted for radioactive waste from Electromet found the same channels.

One last story, and for this one we travel north along the NYSPA’s intake conduits, toward the reservoir and another invisible waterway, Bloody Run Creek. Until 1992, Bloody Run was an open waterway, used as a sewer by adjacent industries, including Hooker Chemical and Titanium Alloys Manufacturing-National Lead of Ohio. It ran adjacent to the Hyde Park Landfill, made infamous by Hooker, which, over three decades, buried more dioxin-laden chemicals in the landfill than were sprayed in Southeast Asia during all of the Vietnam war.

Dioxin is what led to the burial of Bloody Run Creek. Dioxin, which entered the national vocabulary during the Love Canal crisis in the late 1970s, was the rationale for a remediation of Bloody Run performed in 1992.

Compounds from the landfill and the creek were detected approximately 1,600 feet away in contaminated groundwater seeping from the Niagara River gorge face. The remediation decreased, but did not eliminate, that seepage. And it buried the creek. Now Bloody Run surfaces only once, before disappearing into a culvert that runs beneath Niagara University.

Both the landfill and the creek were surely candidates for cleanups based on their contamination by dioxin and other potent toxic chemicals. But Titanium Alloys Manufacturing-National Lead of Ohio was an atomic contractor, too, just like Electromet, handling and disposing of radioactive materials. It currently operates as Ferro Electronic Materials, directly up gradient from Niagara University.

Between 1978 and 1979, the US Department of Energy commissioned EG&G Energy Measurements Group to conduct an aerial survey to document radiological contamination levels throughout Niagara County. (EG&G is a subsidiary of URS, the engineering firm that is acting as consultant to the NYSPA in its relicensing bid.) The resulting survey maps show a hotspot whose epicenter encompasses Bloody Run Creek. On the survey map, concentric contour lines represent elevated radiation exposure rates. In other words, Bloody Run is home to more than just dioxin.

The EG&G survey disappeared from the US Army Corps of Engineers headquarters website, where it had been hosted, just a couple months ago. It surely was available in 1992, during the cleanup of Bloody Run. That was characterized as a chemical cleanup; as in the case of the proposed Frontier Chemical remediation, perhaps radioactive waste ought to have been considered as well.

Ignoring such a significant and long-lasting part of the region’s atomic industrial history is fraught with consequences, not only for developers, current residents and future generations, but also for students at Niagara University, for example, and for those who continue to work on sites with a history of handling these exotic, hazardous materials. The 2000 Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act was intended to provide medical assistance and financial compensation to the workers and families of workers who became ill as a result of working in places like Electromet and TAM. But that act accomplishes nothing if the history of a site is not fully acknowledged.

This month two workers at Ferro died of cancers that most medical doctors relate directly to exposure to ionizing radiation. Both had been working at the company for more than 30 years and both died before they’d reached 55 years old. That doesn’t mean radiation caused their cancers, but it could have. Their families currently can’t appeal to the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program for this compensation because the program has not determined dose levels that previous workers at TAM-Ferro absorbed. Nor, therefore, can a dose be determined for current workers.

And how can it be, when the history of those sites is shunted underground?

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New Data For West Re Chernobyl & It's Worst Effects Are Still To Come

2006-05-29T20:30:35Z

New Data For West Re Chernobyl & It's Worst Effects Are Still To Come
Date: Mon, 29 May 2006 13:29:13 -0400

> The following report, in its concentrated
form, presents to the English
>speaking reader material that was previously
difficult to access (published
>in Belarus, Russian and Ukrainian literature).
There are many scientific
>studies on the consequences of the Chernobyl
catastrophe on health,
>published in these three countries but to date,
little of this information
>has been available via Western journals.

The Chernobyl Catastrophe Consequencies for
Human Health. ISBN 5-94442-013-8
Â© Copyright: Greenpeace, Amsterdam, the
Netherlands
APRIL 2006 GENERAL EDITORSHIP: A. YABLOKOV, I.
LABUNSKA, I. BLOKOV

THE DIFFICULT TRUTH ABOUT THE CHERNOBYL
CATASTROPHE: THE WORST EFFECTS ARE
STILL TO COME

For millions of inhabitants of the planet the
explosion of the fourth block
of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant on the 26th
of April 1986 divided their
life into two parts: pre and post Chernobyl. All
mixed into the word
â€œChernobylâ€ are technocratic adventurism and the
heroism of liquidators,
human solidarity and the cowardice of leaders
(frightened to warn their
citizens about the terrible outcomes and, by that,
strongly increasing the
number of innocent victims), the sufferings of
many and the self-interest of
others. Chernobyl brought into our lives new
terminology, such as
â€œliquidatorsâ€, the â€œchildren of Chernobylâ€ and
â€œChernobyl AIDSâ€.

In the past twenty years it has become clear, that
nuclear energy conceals
dangers, in some aspects, even greater than atomic
weapons: the ejecta from
this one reactor exceeded the radioactive
contamination caused by the
nuclear weapons used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki by
one hundred times. It has
become clear that one nuclear reactor can
contaminate half of the Earth and
that no longer, not in one single country, could
citizens be assured that
the state will have the forethought and wisdom to
protect them from nuclear
misfortunes. The fate of thousands of
soldier-liquidators was sealed by the
phrase in one of the documents of the former USSR
Ministry of Defence dated
9th July 1987. â€œ... the fact of the proximity of
work performed on the core
[on liquidation] should not be reflected, nor the
total radiation dose, if
they [liquidators] did not reach the degree of
radiation sicknessâ€¦â€.

The "Chernobyl' Forum" - a group of specialists,
including the
representatives of the IAEA, the UN Scientific
committee on the influence of
atomic radiation, the WHO, other UN programs, as
well as the World Bank and
the staff of some of the state organizations of
Belarus, Russia and Ukraine
presented a report, "Health Effects of the
Chernobyl Accident and Special
Health Care Programsâ€ on the threshold of the
Chernobyl anniversary, in
September 2005. The basic conclusions of the
medical portion of the report
of the "Chernobyl Forum" are that 4,000â€“9,000
people died, or will die, from
radiogenic cancer (which against the background of
spontaneous cancers "will
be difficult to identify"). That report indicates
that 4,000 cases of
childhood radiogenic cancers of the thyroid gland
were resolved via medical
operations. That report acknowledges that certain
increases in the cataracts
of liquidators and children from the contaminated
regions have been
discovered. The report concludes, generally, that
the consequences of the
catastrophe "for the peopleâ€™s health proved to be
not so significant, as
they were first considered to be".

A more objective point of view was well-expressed
by the UN General
Secretary, Kofi Annan: "â€¦the exact number of
victims may never be known, but
3 million children require treatment andâ€¦many will
die prematurelyâ€¦Not until
2016, at the earliest, will be known the full
number of those likely to
develop serious medical conditionsâ€¦because of
delayed reactions to radiation
exposureâ€¦many will die prematurely... ".

Radioactive fall-outs from Chernobyl clouds
touched many territories, where
more than three billion people live. More than 50%
of these territories
across 13 European countries were dangerously
contaminated by radionuclides
from Chernobyl (and in 8 further countries - more
than 30 % of their
territories). It will be the fate of many future
generations to suffer the
echoes of Chernobyl in these countries according
to inexorable statistical
and biological laws.

In reality, the number of childhood thyroid
cancers caused by Chernobyl in
Belarus, Ukraine and Russia is much greater than
is indicated by the IAEA
and/or the WHO. It is also impossible to consider
those having undergone
medical operations as having been "cured" - for in
reality they will have
had their health compromised by disruptions of
their hormonal and immune
systems and by living on medication. Thyroid
cancer is only one of many
pathologic changes in this organ under the effect
of the radiation. For each
case of cancer there are many tens of cases of
other diseases of this
important endocrine gland. Disturbances of health,
connected with radiogenic
changes in the thyroid gland, already touched not
several, but many tens of
thousands of individuals. In the following 30-50
years they will touch many
thousands more.

The worsening of health related to radiation
exposure from the Chernobyl
accident (especially â€“ in childrenâ€™s health), in
the â€œChernobylâ€ territories
of Belarus, Ukraine and Russia is without
scientific doubt. Dozens of
diseases are explicable neither by the effect of
the screening
methodologies, nor by social and economic factors.

I will not repeat here the content of the
following report, but I will
highlight some of the reasons for such serious
differences in the estimation
of the consequences of the Chernobyl catastrophe
between the side of the
atomic energy industry and from the side of many
independent experts. Some
former Soviet officials have not only forbidden
doctors to connect current
diseases with the Chernobyl irradiation, but have
also classified some
Chernobyl-related materials, making these
materials difficult, and at times
impossible, to obtain. In order to overcome these
political manipulations, a
rigorous scientific approach has been applied in
the assessment and
selection of material provided in this report.
Statistically significant
variances of the health of the population in the
affected territories, with
identical ethnic, psychological, geographical,
social and economic
characteristics (which are differentiated only by
the exposure to the
Chernobyl irradiation) are explained via the
consequences of the Chernobyl
catastrophe.

The following report, in its concentrated form,
presents to the English
speaking reader material that was previously
difficult to access (published
in Belarus, Russian and Ukrainian literature).
There are many scientific
studies on the consequences of the Chernobyl
catastrophe on health,
published in these three countries but to date,
little of this information
has been available via Western journals. It should
be noted that since 1959
there has been an understanding between the IAEA
and the WHO, that the WHO
will â€œcoordinate" its position with the IAEA on
atomic-related health
issues. With the valuable assistance of many
independent specialists from
Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and many other countries,
I hope that this report
will be among many further objective examinations
of the true scale of the
Chernobyl catastrophe to be published in the near
future.

Member of the European Committee on Radiation
Risk,
Former Councillors For Ecology And Public Health
To The President Of The
Russian Federation Councillors for Russian Academy
of Science,
Prof., Dr. biol. Alexey Yablokov

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Fear Of Accidental Nuclear War From Pentagon's Nonnuclear Tip For Sub Missiles

2006-05-29T20:25:15Z

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/29/washington/29strike.html

By MICHAEL R. GORDON
Published: May 29, 2006
WASHINGTON, May 28 - The Pentagon is pressing
Congress to approve the development of a new
weapon that would enable the United States to
carry out nonnuclear missile strikes against
distant targets within an hour.

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The proposal has set off a complex debate about
whether this program for strengthening the
military's conventional capacity could increase
the risks of accidental nuclear confrontation.

The Pentagon plan calls for deploying a new
nonnuclear warhead atop the submarine-launched
Trident II missile that could be used to attack
terrorist camps, enemy missile sites, suspected
caches of biological, chemical or nuclear weapons
and other potentially urgent threats, military
officials say.

If fielded, it would be the only nonnuclear weapon
designed for rapid strikes against targets
thousands of miles away and would add to the
United States' options when considering a
pre-emptive attack.

Gen. James E. Cartwright, the chief of the United
States Strategic Command, said the system would
enhance the Pentagon's ability to "pre-empt
conventionally" and precisely while limiting the
"collateral damage." The program would cost an
estimated half a billion dollars over five years,
and the Pentagon is seeking $127 million in its
current spending request to Congress to begin
work.

But the plan has run into resistance from
lawmakers who are concerned that it may increase
the risk of an accidental nuclear confrontation.
The Trident II missile that would be used for the
attacks is a system that has long been equipped
with a nuclear payload. Indeed, both nonnuclear
and nuclear-tipped variants of the Trident II
missile would be loaded on the same submarines
under the Pentagon plan.

"There is great concern this could be
destabilizing in terms of deterrence and nuclear
policy," said Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode
Island, who serves on the Senate Armed Services
Committee. "It would be hard to determine if a
missile coming out a Trident submarine is
conventional or nuclear."

Reflecting the worry that Russia and other nations
might misinterpret the launch of a nonnuclear
Trident as the opening salvo in a nuclear barrage,
lawmakers have insisted that the Bush
administration present a plan to minimize that
risk before the new weapon is manufactured and
deployed.

The program to develop a conventional version of
the Trident II missile was foreshadowed in the
Nuclear Posture Review, a classified study the
Pentagon carried out in 2001. The study urged that
nonnuclear systems be added to the existing triad
of long-range nuclear air, land and sea forces - a
concept that the military nicknamed "Global
Strike."

The Strategic Command, which oversees the
long-range nuclear weapons in the United States
arsenal, was given the responsibility to figure
out a way to develop such a capability. In 2004,
General Cartwright, a Marine officer, was
appointed to head the command.

In looking for a new weapon, General Cartwright
said, his goal was a nonnuclear system that could
respond to a threat in no more than an hour,
including the time that would be needed to secure
the president's authorization to attack.

"We have laid out in the construct the idea of an
hour," General Cartwright said in an interview.

Neither bombers nor cruise missiles met General
Cartwright's requirement because he reasoned that
the threat might emerge in a region where the
United States lacked bases or had few or no
forces. It can take days for the United States to
move aircraft and ships into a crisis zone and
position them to strike. Bombers can attack remote
targets from the United States or bases abroad,
but it takes many hours to conduct such a mission.

So the Strategic Command developed a plan to fit
conventional warheads on existing Trident II
ballistic missiles. Defense Secretary Donald H.
Rumsfeld has wholeheartedly supported the idea,
and the Pentagon wants to field the system in two
years.

In justifying the program to lawmakers, General
Cartwright outlined a number of potential
situations. "The argument for doing it is that
there are instances, fairly rare, when time is so
critical that if you can't strike in an hour or so
you are going to miss that opportunity," said
Representative Roscoe G. Bartlett, the Maryland
Republican who is chairman of the House Armed
Services Subcommittee on Projection Forces and who
is still weighing whether to support the plan.

One possible situation, Mr. Bartlett said, would
be "people putting together some terrorist weapon,
and while they are putting it together we can take
it out, and if we miss that opportunity it may
show up on the streets of New York City or
Washington, D.C."

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Still another might involve the need to destroy an
enemy missile equipped with a chemical, biological
or nuclear warhead before an adversary can launch
it at the United States or its allies. Another
would be fresh intelligence about a meeting of
terrorists.

Given the considerable American military presence
in Iraq, Afghanistan and South Korea, some critics
say the circumstances in which a target may be
beyond the reach of American warplanes or armed
Predator drones are few indeed. Acquiring the sort
of precise intelligence that would give the
president enough confidence to order the launch of
a ballistic missile within an hour might also be a
daunting proposition.

General Cartwright said that the weapon would give
the president an option to respond quickly to the
sort of immediate dangers that are most likely to
become more common in the 21st century without
taking the drastic step of resorting to a
nuclear-armed ballistic missile.

A major issue, however, is whether the Pentagon
will prepare for new threats at the risk of
aggravating old nuclear risks. Under the Pentagon
plan, each Trident submarine would carry two of
the nonnuclear Trident II missiles along with 22
nuclear-armed Trident missiles. Each of the
nonnuclear missiles would carry four nonexplosive
warheads. Two types of warheads would be
developed. One type would be a metal slug that
would land with such tremendous force it could
smash a building. The other type of warhead would
be a flechette bomb, which would disperse tungsten
rods to destroy vehicles and less well-protected
targets over a broader area.

As currently configured, the weapon would not have
the capability to destroy facilities that are
buried deeply underground. The system would use
satellite tracking to improve its accuracy.
General Cartwright asserted that a test
demonstrated that a nonnuclear version of the
missile could fly thousands of miles and deliver
its payload just five yards away from its target.

Two former defense secretaries, James R.
Schlesinger and Howard Brown, weighed in with an
op-ed article last week in The Washington Post,
urging the Congress to support the system.

The worry about Russia centers on whether that
country could distinguish the launch of a Trident
II from a nuclear strike, especially since its
early warning network has deteriorated since the
collapse of the Soviet Union. There is also some
concern about China, which has a meager capability
to detect incoming ballistic missiles.

"For nations like China that have a developing
capability and are not totally blind but can see
just a little, what would you see?" Mr. Bartlett
asked. "We need to be cognizant of the potential
for people to misunderstand what they would see."

The Senate Armed Services Committee has insisted
that the administration report on how it would
mitigate such risks before money can be spent to
manufacture or deploy the missiles.

In a parallel move, the House Armed Services
Committee has asked Mr. Rumsfeld to report on
discussions that have been held with other nations
on this issue and to provide a detailed
explanation of how the weapons would be used. The
House committee also sought to slow the program by
cutting most of the funds sought for the research
and development of the new warhead.

General Cartwright said a number of measures could
be taken to reduce the risk of miscalculation. One
step would be to notify Russia and other nations
when the United States launched a conventional
Trident II missile. Another, he said, would be
allowing foreign nations to monitor tests of the
system.

"We are going to put a target area in the ocean so
people can actually see what it looks like when it
hits the earth and don't confuse this with a
mushroom cloud," he said.

General Cartwright said the United States was
examining whether the missile could be launched
from parts of the ocean that would not put the
missile on a trajectory toward Russian territory.
The United States has also pushed for an
American-Russian center where early warning data
could be shared. But the talks over that proposal
are bogged down.

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Arms control experts are divided over the wisdom
of the plan. Steve Andreasen, a former defense
specialist for the National Security Council, said
the program would undermine American security by
eliminating the taboo about the use of long-range
missiles and diverting funds from other pressing
defense needs.

"Long-range ballistic missiles have never been
used in combat in 50 years," Mr. Andreasen said.
"Once the U.S. starts signaling that it views
these missiles as no different than any other
weapon, other nations will adopt the same logic."

Bruce Blair, the president of the World Security
Institute and a former Minuteman missile launch
control officer, said the weapon would continue a
welcome trend toward substituting conventional
weapons for nuclear systems, assuming that
adequate safeguards can be worked out to avoid the
risk of inadvertent nuclear confrontation.

"They make a lot more sense than 14 subs loaded to
the gills with nuclear-armed Trident missiles in
this day and age," Mr. Blair said.

The Russians, for their part, seem to have little
interest in facilitating Congressional approval of
a new American weapons system. During his recent
trip to Russia, General Cartwright sought to
explain the rationale for program to Gen. Yuri
Baluyevski, the chief of the Russian General
Staff.

"The things that I tried to talk to him about were
the common issues that we face - the fact that
terrorists and organizations are getting
capabilities that are significant and are likely
to stay on a trend that could be associated with
weapons of mass destruction," General Cartwright
said.

After that discussion, General Baluyevski
continued to stir up opposition to the plan. "As
our American colleagues often tell us, these
missiles could be used to kill bin Laden," he told
reporters earlier this month. "This could be a
costly move which not only won't guarantee his
destruction but could provoke an irreversible
response from a nuclear-armed state which can't
determine what warhead is fitted on the missile."

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/washington/politics-arms-usa-weapon.html

Pentagon Pressing for New Rapid - Strike Weapon:
Report

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By REUTERS
Published: May 28, 2006
Filed at 7:44 p.m. ET

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon is seeking
congressional approval for development of a new
weapon able to strike distant targets an hour
after they are detected, a newspaper reported on
Monday.

The International Herald Tribune said the weapon
would be a non-nuclear version of the
submarine-launched Trident-2 missile and be part
of a president's arsenal when considering a
pre-emptive attack.

The report quoted military officials as saying it
could be used to hit terrorist camps, enemy
missile sites, suspected caches of weapons of mass
destruction and other urgent threats.

General James Cartwright, head of the U.S.
Strategic Command, said the system would allow
U.S. forces to attack targets conventionally and
precisely and ``limit the collateral damage.''

The Pentagon would like the system available in
two years, the report said.

But the program has run into resistance from
lawmakers concerned it could increase the risk of
an accidental nuclear war. Under the Pentagon
plan, both non-nuclear and nuclear-tipped variants
of the Trident-2 missile would be loaded on the
same submarines.

``There is great concern this could be
destabilizing in terms of deterrence and nuclear
policy,'' the newspaper quoted Senate Armed
Services Committee member Jack Reed as saying.

``It would be hard to determine if a missile
coming out a Trident submarine is conventional or
nuclear,'' the Rhode Island Democrat said.

The House Armed Services Committees have asked the
Bush administration to develop a plan to minimize
the risk.

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

Russian Bombers Flew Undetected Across Arctic

2006-05-29T05:35:49Z

http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Russian_Bombers_Flew_Undetected_Across_Arctic.html
Russian Bombers Flew Undetected Across Arctic

A Russian Tu-160 Blackjack bomber flies undetected.
by Staff Writers
Moscow, Russia (RIA) Apr 24, 2006
Russian military planes flew undetected through the U.S. zone of the Arctic Ocean to Canada during recent military exercises, a senior Air Force commander said Saturday. The commander of the country's long-range strategic bombers, Lieutenant General Igor Khvorov, said the U.S. Air Force is now investigating why its military was unable to detect the Russian bombers.

"They were unable to detect the planes either with radars or visually," he said.

Khorov said that during the military exercises in April, Tu-160 Blackjack bombers and Tu-95 Bears had successfully carried out four missile launches. Bombing exercises were held using Tu-22 Blinders.

By the end of the year, two more Tu-160s will be commissioned for the long-range strategic bomber fleet, Khorov said.

Both new planes will incorporate numerous upgrades from the initial Soviet models, the commander said. The bombers will be able to launch both cruise missiles and aviation bombs, and communicate via satellite.

Source: RIA Novosti

posted in Cold War Survivors - 2 replies

Hanford cleanup needs stable funding, better management

2006-05-28T00:34:11Z

Hanford cleanup needs stable funding, better management

Paige Knight
President of Hanford Watch
May 26, 2006

The cleanup of the 580 square miles of Hanford Nuclear Reservation
concerns everyone in the Pacific Northwest. We would like Congress
to support stable funding for all Hanford cleanup activities. We
cannot achieve success without stability.

The greatest environmental threat facing the nation, 54 million
gallons of high-level toxic waste sitting adjacent to the Columbia
River in Hanford's tanks, pose a greater risk to the public and to
the environment as each year passes. Sixty-seven tanks out of the
177 buried tanks have been known to leak in the past, threatening
the Columbia River again (which was the most irradiated river in the
Western Hemisphere in the 1980s). Eventually all tanks will leak.

Due to the Department of Energy's poor management of Hanford for
many years, and due to Bechtel's underestimation of the cost of the
Waste Treatment Plant (WTP) and its fast track build/design approach
which compromises safety, the project is 11 years behind schedule
and the cost has nearly doubled from $4.3 billion to over $11
billion. If the Waste Treatment Plant is not built in a timely
fashion the Columbia River, the life-blood of the Northwest, will
eventually become poisoned. The Government Accounting Office (GAO)
has recommended that Bechtel slow down its design/build fast
tracking of the project and that DOE change its management approach.
The GAO has made this last recommendation many times in the past to
no avail.

Other serious problems exist. Currently, the completion of the work
at the Plutonium Finishing Plant (PFP), an old plutonium processing
plant and the K Basins (two very toxic buildings housing spent
nuclear fuel rods from the 9 Hanford reactors) has been set back
because of reduced funding. We are very concerned that curtailing
funding will compromise the clean up of the K Basins and the PFP,
two of the three biggest threats to public and environmental safety.
Limiting funding now will result in much higher costs in the future.

The Department of Energy's continued mismanagement can no longer be
tolerated. The DOE must change and be held more tightly accountable.
This should be a top priority for Congress. We need more effective
oversight of nuclear waste clean up; the House Appropriation
subcommittee's recently passed requirement of safety oversight of
the WTP by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is a step in the right
direction. We need real visionary management at the DOE.

We request the following from the Congress:

• Reinstate full funding for the Plutonium Finishing Plant and
the K Basins to complete their cleanup and to meet legal milestones
in the Tri Party Agreement.

• Provide stabilized and sufficient annual funding for the
Waste Treatment Project.

• Insure that the Department of Energy and Bechtel keep the
design of the plant at least 12 months ahead of its construction and
that the DOE and Bechtel create and integrate baselines for the
Waste Tank Project and removal of tank wastes in the aging leaking
tanks.

• Request that DOE get an independent validation of the design
and cost estimates for the Waste Tank Project.

• Insure strong oversight of the DOE in making the changes
that the Government Accountability Office recommends regarding
management strategies and practices.

The Vitrification Plant at Hanford is the largest construction
project in the United States. The goal is to "make safe" the massive
amount of nuclear waste there. The DOE not only lacks an overarching
sustainable vision, but also has too many conflicting missions.
Allocating billions of dollars to cleaning up toxic waste while at
the same time providing billions of dollars to researching the
new, "safe" nuclear power plants of the future, is a conflicting
mission as well as a muddled and visionless policy decision.

Congress and the Administration must heed the future consequences of
the energy choices they are currently planning. New nuclear power
plants and the reprocessing of waste will continue to create tons of
irradiated nuclear fuel that has nowhere to go. We must all, with
leadership from Congress, acknowledge and face the consequences of
diverting our land and dollar resources to dangerous and highly
toxic choices. Major rivers such as the Savannah and the Columbia
are dying. Our people are dying of cancers from irradiated dust
blowing in the Western wind, and toxic waste is being trucked down
our highways to storage facilities. For the United States, the real
nuclear threat is from within.

As an overarching policy, we urge stable and continued funding for
Hanford and all nuclear waste sites in the country and a common
sense and visionary leadership at the DOE. Our future energy crunch
must include restoring our environment as well as creating real
sustainable options.

We count on the Congress and the Senate to insure the safety and
health of our region.

Hanford Watch
4549 NE 39th
Portland, Oregon 97211

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

Di9vine Strake delayed indefinitely

2006-05-27T17:38:32Z

From the Office of Utah Congressman Jim Matheson
MATHESON NEWS

2nd DISTRICT

For Further Information

Alyson Heyrend: (801) 455-5593

www.house.gov/matheson

May 26, 2006

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Matheson: Decision to Delay Bomb Test Is Right Move

More Health Data Needed

Salt Lake City, UT-Congressman Jim Matheson said today's decision by
the Nevada Test Site Office to delay its planned 700-ton conventional
explosion-named "Divine Strake"-is in keeping with his request to
federal officials for more research into potential environmental hazards that
may pose a risk to Utahns.

The National Nuclear Security Administration announced today it is
withdrawing its Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) related to the
environmental assessment for the non-nuclear, open air test. The
Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) had set the test of June 2nd, but then
postponed it for three weeks following questions from Matheson and
other Members of Congress about the purpose and possible health risks.

"After reading comments about 'mushroom clouds' and 'low yield
nuclear weapons', I was greatly concerned, and expressed as much to the
director of DTRA," said Matheson. "I advised him to put all the health and
safety data out on the table so that people's fears about being once
again exposed to radioactive contamination could be addressed. I am very
pleased to see that these agencies have acted on my advice."

The news release issued by the Nevada Site Office says it will use
the delay to "clarify and provide further information regarding
background levels of radiation from global fallout in the vicinity of the Divine
Strake experiment."

Both open air and underground nuclear tests were carried out in areas
surrounding the location selected for the upcoming blast. Nevada
environmental officials have refused to issue air quality permits required
before its detonation, saying it has not finished analyzing the
information provided by DTRA.

###

Alyson Heyrend
Communications Director
240 E. Morris Ave., #235
Salt Lake City UT 84115
(801) 486-1236 fax (801) 486-1417
(801) 455-5593 cell

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

Why Iran is so dangerous

2006-05-26T18:13:18Z

http://washingtontimes.com/commentary/20060427-090828-2459r.htm
Why Iran is so dangerous - Commentary - The Washington Times, America's Newspaper

By James Hackett
April 28, 2006

Some observers ask, why not just let Iran go nuclear? The answer is that nuclear weapons in the hands of the mullahs would be the most dangerous combination since the dawn of the nuclear age -- a nuclear-armed state with ballistic missiles led by religious zealots. It would be a serious threat to world peace and to the very survival of the 6 million people, Jews and Arabs alike, who live in Israel.
At a recent conference in support of the Palestinian government led by Hamas, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Israel "is heading toward annihilation." Coupling this talk with his announcement Iran had successfully enriched uranium, Mr. Ahmadinejad made clear the intent of the Iranian leadership to destroy Israel.
It is not an idle threat. Iran is not a minor sheikdom. With more than 66 million people and an area larger than California, Texas, New York, Michigan and Ohio combined, it is a major country with a long history. Just as Cyrus the Great created the Persian Empire there 2,500 years ago, the ayatollahs now seek to create a Shi'ite empire that will dominate the Middle East. Tehran already is using its vast oil wealth to support the terrorist organization Hezbollah in Lebanon and promises support for Hamas in Palestine. But to dominate its Arab neighbors, Iran must demonstrate its power by destroying their mutual enemy, Israel.
Iran has been developing ballistic missiles since its war with Iraq in the mid-1980s, first purchasing Russian Scuds and then producing its own model, called Shahab-1, and then extending its range as Shahab-2. The current version, Shahab-3, is based on the North Korean Nodong. With a range of 800 miles, it can reach all of Israel.
Iran is believed to have between 50 and 100 operational Shahab-3s and produces one a month, with production reportedly being increased. Modifications can extend its range to 1,000 miles, and by stacking on top a Shahab-2, a range of more than 2,000 miles could be achieved, which would reach Berlin. Tehran also may be buying North Korea's longer-range Taepodong-2. With a second stage on top, that missile could reach the U.S. East Coast.
It was this relationship President Bush referred to four years ago when he declared Iraq, Iran and North Korea an Axis of Evil. He was widely criticized for using undiplomatic language, but he was right. The world's evil regimes were trading weapons of mass destruction. And that was before the extent of the nuclear weapons bazaar run by Pakistani scientist A.Q. Kahn was known.
Tehran recently claimed missile advances that probably are no more than propaganda. But Iran is known to be working on solid-fuel rocket engines for a "space launch vehicle," which really would be a long-range missile, and a nose cone that can carry a nuclear weapon. The London Daily Telegraph has cited intelligence sources that claim Russian and Chinese engineers helped Iran produce a new conical warhead for the Shahab-3 that can carry a spherical nuclear device similar to the Hiroshima bomb.
Whether or not that is true, Iran is buying and producing both ballistic and cruise missiles, with help from North Korea, China and Russia, and processing uranium. This adds up to nuclear weapons and missiles that can deliver them to increasing distances. Whether this capability is achieved in a few years or longer is subject to debate. But there is little confidence in last year's intelligence estimate that it will take a decade.
The danger is too great not to continue every effort to prevent Iran from completing its development of nuclear weapons. If the U.N. can't act because of Russian and Chinese opposition, NATO or a new alliance of the willing must take the lead and apply meaningful sanctions. Germany's new chancellor, Angela Merkel, has said a nuclear-armed Iran is unacceptable. But while diplomacy is at work, it is necessary to improve defenses.
Helping Israel upgrade its Arrow interceptors is most important since Israel is the prime target. It also is urgent to get sea-based missile defenses on ships in the Persian Gulf, to build the planned missile defense site in Europe, and to speed development of boost-phase defenses that can stop missiles of any range or capability.

James Hackett is a contributing writer to The Washington Times and is based in Carlsbad, Calif.

posted in Cold War Survivors - 0 replies

Iran’s missile capability grows An interview with Uzi Rubin

2006-05-26T18:10:11Z

http://www.iranwatch.org/ourpubs/roundtables/interview-uzirubin-042806.htm
Iran Watch: Interview with Uzi Rubin on Iran's misiles - 4-28-06

Iran’s missile capability grows
An interview with Uzi Rubin

On March 14, 2006, the Wisconsin Project’s IranWatch.org web site spoke with Mr. Uzi Rubin, former head of Israel’s “Arrow” missile defense program. Mr. Rubin, who is an aerospace engineer and missile expert, described Iran’s latest effort to field a fleet of nuclear capable ballistic missiles. He also evaluated the threat that Iran’s missiles present to Israel and to U.S. forces, and the ability of missile defenses to block an Iranian attack.

The following is an edited transcript of our conversation.

Iran Watch: Iran’s “Shahab-3” missile has been cited as a threat to Israel. What do you estimate to be its range and accuracy?

Uzi Rubin: The Shahab-3 is really the North Korean Nodong missile, which Iran imported. Its range is thought to be 1,300 km. This range makes a lot of sense for Iran, because if you look at the minimum distance from Iran to Israel, and you look at where you can base a missile system in Iranian territory not too close to the border, you need about 1,300 km. So it makes sense.

However, about two years ago the Iranians revealed a new variation of the Shahab-3 missile, which looks slightly longer. It has a different front end, a “baby bottle” shape. For this version of the missile, the Iranians quoted a range of 2,000 km. How they achieved it—what precisely gave the missile that extra range—is hard to say, but there is no reason to doubt the statement. So, I’d say that Iran may well have a Shahab-3 with a range of 2,000 km.

Such a missile is guided only through the boost phase, which puts limitations on its accuracy. Generally speaking, there is an upper limit on the accuracy of this kind of missile. If you want to improve on that limit you need to guide the missile through the rest of the flight, through the mid-coast phase and the reentry phase. With these kinds of missiles, the best thing you can do in terms of accuracy is perhaps one tenth of one percent of the range. Let’s say the Shahab-3 flies 2,000 kilometers, then the circular error probable (CEP) is about two kilometers. Not more than two kilometers and not less than one kilometer.

IW: How do you think they achieved that? With bigger fuel tanks?

UR: Yes. The Iranians moved the instruments section in order to free more volume for fuel. The missile is also constructed differently, in order to make room for more fuel and oxidizer. Iran may also have decreased the size of the payload. All this could provide a 700 km increase, to about 2,000 km. It is feasible.

IW: Would you say that this is the maximum range Iran can achieve with this missile?

UR: I think so. If Iran wants to extend the range, it would need a different propulsion system.

On that point, there are reports that Iran bought a new missile recently from North Korea. The German magazine Bild published an article in January saying that Iran bought 18 missiles, known as the BM-25, from North Korea. The missile in question would be better than the Shahab-3. It is a replication or variation of the old Soviet SS-N-6, a submarine launched ballistic missile.

This missile has storable liquid fuel, which provides better performance. The Soviets claimed it had a range of 2,500 km, with one variation having a range of 3,000 km. So according to the report the Iranians could have in their hands now a 3,000 km range missile.

IW: How credible do you consider this report?

UR: It’s plausible. The report quotes intelligence officials and it quotes the exact number of missile systems that were bought. The Prime Minister of South Korea had also claimed that North Korea has missiles with a range of at least 3,000 km.

IW: Is the BM-25 a staged missile?

UR: No. It looks very much like the U.S. Polaris. It dates from the 1960s but it was in service until the 1990s. The missiles were onboard Soviet Yankee class submarines. The range started at 2,500 km and went up to 3,000 km. It eventually had multiple warheads. In Russia, it was called the R 27. It was the first strategic ballistic missile on a Russian boomer.

IW: This is a single-stage, liquid-fuel submarine-launched missile. Is it going to be more accurate than the Shahab?

UR: Not necessarily. Again, I would say that there is a limitation to this kind of technology, in that it doesn’t correct trajectory after the boost phase. There is great difficulty in making the precision better than one tenth of one percent of the range. It’s an imprecise weapon that can hit only very big targets or can cause damage to a smaller target only with a very big warhead.

IW: Would it be difficult to get a chemical warhead to work on a missile like this?

UR: Yes, it would be quite tricky. Iran could mimic the Iraqis and put a unitary chemical warhead on its missile. It would hit the ground and splash and very little of it would vaporize. The effect would be deadly but would be very limited in area. What you want to do is have it disperse when it is still in the air, but that is very tricky with a missile flying this fast. A 2,000 km range missile flies about 4 km per second. So reentry is quite fast.

IW: What do you think is the diameter of the Shahab-3?

UR: Probably somewhere between 1.2 and 1.4 meters.

IW: Would this be large enough for a nuclear warhead?

UR: Well, a nuclear warhead would be on the front end of the missile. The old model of the Shahab-3 is shaped like a cone. The new model of the Shahab-3 has a tri-cone design, the “baby bottle” design. On this newer one, the diameter is smaller. But I am not an expert on nuclear warheads, so I really don’t know if the Iranians will have trouble putting a nuclear warhead on this missile. I assume that if you are looking at the older type of Shahab with the single cone, the diameter would vary up to 1.2 to 1.4 meters at the base. One could possibly fit a nuclear weapon there.

But remember the BM-25. This is a nuclear missile. It was designed as a nuclear missile and there is no other warhead for this than a nuclear warhead. So, if the reports are true, Iran has its hands on at least two nuclear capable missiles with sufficient diameters for the type of nuclear weapons that the Soviets had in the 1960s. The diameter of the BM-25, I think, is 1.5 meters.

IW: Is the Shahab-3 widely deployed? Who controls it?

UR: It is controlled by a combination of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and the Iranian Air Force. There was a big induction ceremony in July 2003 for the missile and during that ceremony you saw officials in Revolutionary Guard and Air Force uniforms participating. If the Revolutionary Guards are involved that means it’s a political weapon controlled by the supreme authority.

IW: How would you estimate the inventory?

UR: The Iranians say they are manufacturing the missile and that they are accelerating production from two per month to ten or twelve per month. I doubt that it could be dozens per month. But even a few per month still gives you many per year. In their military parades, they never display more than six missiles at the same time. In September 2003 they displayed six Shahab-3 missiles in the annual Martyr’s Week parade. In 2004 they displayed only two Shahab-3 missiles. And in September 2005 they again displayed six Shahab-3 missiles. If the Iranians have a lot of missiles, why don’t they parade more of them? Why does the number paraded remain so low? Nevertheless, I think it would be prudent to assume that they have at least several dozen in the arsenal now.

Of course, there is also the question why Iran would need so many missiles, because the limiting factor is the launchers, not the missiles. Missiles are like ammunition, launchers are like guns. So you need to increase the number of guns, not only the amount of ammunition.

IW: Does Iran still need outside help to produce the Shahab-3 missile?

UR: Iran seems to have mastered the production of the Shahab and its liquid fuel technology. Iran is now moving to solid fuel technology. In the last few months, there have been reports about Iranian buyers being caught trying to smuggle production equipment to Iran from Europe. There was one case in Germany and another in Russia. When you look at what was being smuggled, it suggests that they’re looking for equipment to make solid propellant rockets. For instance, they’re looking for high-power x-ray machines, which are needed for non-destructive testing of solid rocket motors, not liquid rocket motors. This is equipment that Iran would want to buy because it’s very difficult to develop on your own.

This coincides with a statement by then-Iranian Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani, about a year ago, that Iran is moving into solid fuel propelled rockets. And this would mean a new missile because you cannot just put a solid fuel motor on the Shahab, you have to redesign the whole missile. Iran will eventually be able to make Shahab-like missiles using solid fuel technology. To summarize, I think they are able to produce the Shahab independently now, but they are not yet independent in the production of solid propellant missiles.

IW: Do you know of a solid propellant rocket that Iran has fielded?

UR: Iran deploys small, unguided rockets, but not larger ones. Not, for instance, missiles with a one meter diameter or bigger. This is a completely different technology and for that Iran needs special equipment to make the casings, to inspect the motors, and for other things. I have no doubt that the Iranians are moving in this direction, because they are emulating Pakistan’s missile development. If you look at the Pakistani missile program, you see two parallel programs: the Ghouri and the Shaheen. There are two different missile-making organizations. One makes strategic liquid propellant rockets and one makes strategic solid propellant rockets. I think the Iranians are looking to Pakistan and trying to do the same thing. In Pakistan, the solid fuel technology comes from China and the liquid fuel technology from North Korea. It may be the same in Iran.

IW: The Shahab-3 is a mobile missile; how vulnerable is it?

UR: I don’t think it is particularly vulnerable. The lesson from Iraq in 1991 is that it’s very easy to hide mobile launchers. They’re not much bigger than trucks. They can hide anywhere.

IW: In effect, you’re saying that if these missiles are armed with nuclear warheads, it would be very hard to destroy them in an air strike.

UR: Yes. It would be prudent to assume that as with Iraq in 1991, it would be very hard to destroy the Shahab with an air strike. The launchers are slightly less mobile than Iraqi Scud launchers, because they are not on self-propelled launchers. Instead, they are attached to commercial Mercedes tow trucks to which the launcher is hitched. But it’s still quite mobile.

IW: Where is Iran getting the mobile launchers?

UR: The trucks are regular commercial Mercedes tow trucks. The Iranians are building the semi-trailers themselves. They are also building their own launchers, including the hydraulics, and all the control systems. If you look at the pictures, the control cabin looks like it’s modeled on Russian control cabins.

IW: Who is vulnerable to Iranian missile strikes?

UR: A 2,000 km range covers the entire Middle East. It includes Israel, Egypt, part of North Africa, all of Saudi Arabia, some of Eastern Europe, and part of Russia. I think even Greece and the Balkans are covered with a 2,000 km range missile. But remember, if they have a 3,500 km missile then most of Europe is covered.

IW: How effective do you think U.S. and Israel missile defenses are against this threat?

UR: They are quite effective. The U.S. is now starting to deploy national missile defense, but this system is not designed against the Shahab. It’s designed against much larger missiles, intercontinental range missiles. The U.S. is starting to deploy a naval system using the Aegis missile defense system, called the Standard Missile 3 (SM3). This system has been extensively tested and it has been effective. Of course, Israel has the Arrow. Those two systems, the Aegis and the Arrow, can interoperate. The U.S. and Israel have been working together on this—on the ability to engage the same target together.

IW: Can the Arrow stop the Shahab-3?

UR: Yes, of course. The Arrow was designed against the Shahab-3. That was my first point of reference when we started the Arrow program in the early 1990s. I was authorized to speak on the record in 1993 and to say that Iran’s 1,300 km missile—we did not know the name at that time—was one of our reference threats in developing the Arrow system.

IW: Have there been successful tests of the Arrow that support the claim that the Arrow can stop the Shahab-3?

UR: Yes. In the latest test of the Arrow on December 2, 2005, the Arrow targeted a missile simulating a separated Shahab-3 warhead and blasted it out of the sky. And two years ago we had two tests in California. The first test was against a real Scud missile, and we had no problem shooting it down. While this was not a Shahab, it gave us a lot of confidence in the Arrow.

And the missile defense version of the U.S. Navy Aegis system is being deployed. I think the U.S. has ten ships scheduled to be equipped with new model SPY radar. The SM3’s are rolling off the assembly line right now and are being fitted to ships. And of course the United States has the PAC3, which is completely operational and which proved its capability during the Iraq war in 2003. It hit every single target that it engaged. The success was not hailed because of the success of the rest of the war, but this time Patriot proved itself.

IW: Are there a sufficient number of Arrows to counter the inventory of Shahab-3s that Iran might have?

UR: As the former head of the program, I would say that we never have enough Arrows. We have a reasonable number of them. Technically, we can hit the Shahab-3 and block an attack. Whether we can block an entire attack would depend on the size of the attack. If Iran fired thousands of missiles we couldn’t, obviously, but I don’t expect Iran to fire thousands of missiles.

IW: Iran has never hidden the fact that it has an active ballistic missile program. How would you assess the quality of intelligence on this program?

UR: This is like asking: when did you stop beating your wife. Any answer is revealing. Any answer I give would be classified. But let me say this: Unlike the Iraqis, the Iranians are showing off a lot of stuff. Until recently, the policy was transparency: they talk a lot, they publish a lot and they parade a lot. And you can learn a lot from that. They’ve grown cautious in the last year or so. But until recently, you could get a very good idea of what they were doing just from media and other open sources.

IW: There used to be reports about Iran’s work on the Shahab-4. What is the status of that missile?

UR: There are questions about the Shahab-4. A few years ago, Iran issued a statement that the Shahab-3 would be the last Shahab version and that Iran wouldn’t make any follow-on version with a longer range. Obviously this was a statement to placate the Europeans. Iran didn’t want the Europeans to worry because any follow-on Shahab would have covered Europe. Recently, I saw an Iranian statement saying the Shahab-4 exists but that it is a satellite launcher and not a ballistic missile. This coincides with other statements by Iran that it is building a satellite launcher to launch its own satellites. This is something I’ve been predicting for a long time. Once you have a big ballistic missile, with some modification, you can make a satellite launcher from it. Satellite launching is a great boost to national pride and national capability. And a satellite launcher is basically a covert intercontinental missile.

IW: Is the Shahab-4 just a bigger single-stage rocket? Or do you think Iran is going towards staging?

UR: No doubt about it, Iran is going towards staging. There is no easy way to launch satellites with one stage. And Iran has a very close relationship to North Korea. Remember what was called (incorrectly) the Taepodong, but what the North Koreans called the Paektusan. This was the name of the satellite launcher North Korea tested in 1998. The first stage was like a Nodong and the second stage was like a Scud, and it probably had a small, Chinese-made, solid propellant rocket as the third stage. If North Korea did it in 1998, I don’t see why the Iranians cannot do it next year. In fact, I wonder why they haven’t done it already. Iran is buying missiles from North Korea and there are North Korean technicians in Iran. The first stage of Iran’s satellite launcher would obviously be based on the Nodong and the second stage based on the Shahab-1, which has a smaller 80 cm diameter, or on a lengthened Scud. For the third stage, Iran could buy a little motor from somewhere. This is the most reasonable and the quickest thing to do if Iran wants to put its flag in space.

IW: So you think that the Shahab-3 will probably be the last single stage missile and that the next missile up the line in Iran will be a staged missile?

UR: I’m not saying that. I’m saying that an Iranian satellite launcher would be multi-stage. Whether Iran will exploit that capability to make a multi-stage ballistic missile, I don’t know. I would be very careful about saying that because it’s a political issue. A multi-stage missile would project power over Europe. If Iran wants to continue engaging Europe then I don’t think it makes sense to threaten Europe. I would say that Iran’s satellite launcher will be multi-stage and once it has that, Iran won’t have to make an ICBM. If the Iranians are smart, they’ll do it by implication. All they have to do is orbit satellites and make threats against America once in awhile. That will be enough to tell the United States that it could be hit by an Iranian ICBM.

IW: So you think that politically it makes more sense for Iran to do a space launcher and let people draw their own conclusions.

UR: Yes, this seems like the rational way of doing things. But let me qualify my answer. The election of Ahmadinejad may have changed things. Since his election there has been a shift in Iranian rhetoric. It has become more belligerent and more confrontational than ever before. Ahmadinejad may not be interested in engaging Europe. A guy who denies the Holocaust and is facing a lot of criticism from Europe because of such statements may be giving up the path of engagement.

IW: A concern raised about Iran’s space program is that it facilitates Iranian imports. Do you think it will be easier for Iran to import equipment and material useful in missiles under the guise of its space program?

UR: Well, Iran declared its space program in 1998. It didn’t attract a lot of attention at the time, but Iran is on record on this issue since 1998. And because of this program, Iran claims the right to import technologies that would allow it to go into space. However, from the perspective of the international community, the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), which has about 40 member states, controls the sale of missile-related technologies. Under the MTCR, space launchers are considered missiles. So Iran shouldn’t get anything that can help it make space launchers. Even so, Iran is getting by without legally obtained technical assistance.

IW: Can you give us more details about what you think the North Koreans, the Chinese and the Russians are supplying to Iran now?

UR: You have to look very carefully at the statements the Chinese make about controlling missile technology. China says it will abide by the ban on selling complete missile systems. It issued a regulation in 2001 or 2002 that looked very much like the MTCR, but that lacked a clause on the presumption to deny the export of category I items. My feeling is that the Chinese permit themselves to export a lot of materials and technologies that the MTCR forbids.
For what the North Koreans have supplied, you need only look at the Shahab-3. That is a North Korean missile, from the tip to the bottom. The Russians have supplied Iran with rocket motor technology.

IW: What kind of rocket motor technology have the Russians supplied? Can you be more specific?

UR: I would say older technology: room temperature liquid propellant, SS-N-4 technology. Iran has not gotten new technology, like storable liquid fuel propellant, which is a more energetic kind of fuel, with a different oxidizer. Russia is supplying older, Scud-age technology.

IW: Do you think that Russia provided Iran with SS-N-4 technology?

UR: There was a lot of undisclosed transfer of technology and know-how from Russia to Iran in the 1990s. The type of technology was not disclosed, but it was more than just motors.

IW: Do you think this activity is still going on between Iran and Russia?

UR: I assume that some of it may still go on. Open sources suggest that some experts went from Russia to Iran in order to make money. Some of these experts may still be in Iran, may even be Iranian citizens by now. Whether you call this Russian support or not, I don’t know. But there could be expatriate Russians in Iran right now helping them along. But I don’t think there is any official Russian government assistance to Iran. Even in the 1990s, it may not have been official Russian government assistance. Russia in the early 1990s was not a very organized state. There were lots of illegal activities inside Russia and a lot of illegal exports from Russia. And not only Russia. Remember Ukraine. There was recently the report about the KH-55 cruise missiles that went to Iran from Ukraine.

IW: Would you say that North Korea is Iran’s main missile supplier?

UR: Yes. But remember the story about the BM-25. This is a very complicated missile. It’s not that easy to replicate. You can’t copy it just by buying an old missile and taking it apart. You need hands-on experience in order to copy it. And if you want to extend the range, you need a lot of expertise that is not attainable just from looking at the missile. If North Korea built such a missile, there had to be some technology exchange with Russia. My feeling is that there is deep Russian involvement—not with Iran, but with North Korea. North Koreans have good grounding in missiles, and their experts probably all went to Russian universities. But the North Koreans still have a limited capability.

IW: What is the status of Iran’s space program? Is this the thing to watch in the future?

UR: Yes. As I said, the Iranians do not hide their space program. They are working on various satellites. The first is the Zoreh, a communications satellite, which was made by and will be launched by Russia. It is Iranian in name alone. A second satellite, the Sina-1, was made in Russia and launched in Russia in October 2005 by a Kosmos 3 rocket. Again, it’s Iranian by ownership and not by make. But it’s there, it belongs to Iran and Iran apparently built a ground station to control it. There are two other satellites, one of which is called Mesbah and is made by an Italian company. Iran claims that this is a joint venture and that it is also contributing. Finally, there is a small 20 kg satellite that Iran says will be orbited at an undisclosed date by an Iranian launcher.

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Russia tests missile, official says U.S. missile-defense plans a threat

2006-05-26T17:57:22Z

http://english.pravda.ru/news/russia/23-04-2006/79453-missile-0
Russia tests missile, official says U.S. missile-defense plans a threat - Pravda.Ru

Russia test-launched a missile on Saturday and a military commander said U.S. missile-defense plans could threaten the strategic balance between the former Cold War foes, Russian news agencies reported.

Russia's Strategic Rocket Forces, which are responsible for the country's ballistic missiles, successfully launched the K65M-R missile from a testing ground at Kapustin Yar in the southern Astrakhan region, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.

The commander of the forces, Col.-Gen. Nikolai Solovtsov, said the main purpose of the launch was to test "a uniform warhead for land- and sea-based ballistic missiles" and newly developed elements of a system designed to penetrate missile defenses, Interfax reported.

Solovtsov said that plans for a U.S. missile-defense system "could upset strategic stability," the agency reported, suggesting that the test was part of an effort to ensure that Russian missiles are capable of foiling any U.S. shield. He said the test involved optic and radar measurement systems that reproduce similar U.S. systems, according to Interfax.

"The planned scale of the United States' deployment of a ... missile defense system is so considerable that the fear that it could have a negative effect on the parameters of Russia's nuclear deterrence potential is quite justified," Interfax quoted him as saying.

President Vladimir Putin has boasted that Russia has missiles capable of penetrating any missile defense system, specifying that they can change their flight path on approach to a target. Solovtsov said the system being tested Saturday would make missiles more difficult to spot and their trajectories more difficult to predict.

Russia opposed Washington's withdrawal in 2002 from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in order to deploy a national missile defense, saying the U.S.-Soviet pact was a key element of international security. Putin called the decision a mistake that would hurt global security but not threaten Russia.

The treaty banned missile defense systems on the assumption that the fear of retaliation would prevent either nation from launching a first strike, reports AP.

O.Ch.

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