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Digest 42, originally sent Sat Mar 6 02:32:43 1999 :
There are 2 messages in this issue.
Topics in today's digest:
1. NucNews-2- 3/5/99 - Hanford Cleanup; Colorado Water; PA Y2K; Pentagon Hackers
2. NucNews-1- 3/5/99 - Missile Defense Costs; NKorea Missiles; Russia Subs; Ukraine Y2K
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Message: 1 Date: Fri, 05 Mar 1999 16:52:32 -0500
Subject: NucNews-2- 3/5/99 - Hanford Cleanup; Colorado Water; PA Y2K; Pentagon Hackers
5. New deadlines set for Hanford cleanup http://www.oregonlive.com/news/99/03/st030418.html
6. Some Turkey Creek wells at risk http://www.denverpost.com/news/news0304o.htm
7. Computers grind to halt in Y2K bug test http://www.abc.net.au/news/newslink/weekly/newsnat-3mar1999-55.htm
8. Computer Hackers Are Stopped; Pentagon Networks Were Victim http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/03/biztech/articles/05pentagon-hacker .html
----------------------- ALSO:
"Clinton said today's service members are putting `America's military might to work in building a new world,' ..." (in interview with Defense Secretary Cohen's wife for Armed Services news, New York Times, March 5, 1999).
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/w/AP-Clinton-Mrs-Cohen.html
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5. New deadlines set for Hanford cleanup
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/99/03/st030418.html
The waste tanks that pose the biggest threat to the Columbia River must be pumped out first, according to a consent decree
Thursday March 4, 1999
From The Associated Press
RICHLAND, Wash. -- Nine months after Gov. Gary Locke called leaky radioactive waste tanks at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation an "underground Chernobyl waiting to happen," Washington state and the federal government have set new deadlines for pumping them out.
The court-enforceable timetable requires the U.S. Department of Energy to first pump out the tanks that pose the biggest threat to the nearby Columbia River.
"We have a new stabilization schedule, prioritized based on the greatest risk," state Attorney General Christine Gregoire said, announcing the consent decree Wednesday at a news conference in Richland.
"For the first time, Energy will be cleaning up the worst first."
The new pumping schedule calls for 98 percent of the 6 million gallons of liquid waste left in 29 single-shell tanks to be pumped out by Sept. 30, 2003. The rest must be pumped out by Sept. 30, 2004.
The process is "like drawing water out of a sponge," and the last liquid to be removed takes the longest to pump out, said Lloyd Piper, the DOE's deputy Hanford manager.
The department also will increase funding for tank stabilization from not quite $10 million now to $35 million for fiscal year 2000.
The 560-square-mile Hanford Nuclear Reservation contains the nation's largest stockpile of radioactive waste from the production of plutonium for nuclear weapons. The contents of many of the tanks, which date to World War II, are not fully known.
Sixty-seven of Hanford's 149 single-shell tanks are believed to have leaked more than 1 million gallons of radioactive waste into the soil and ground water.
So far, the liquid in 119 of those single-shell tanks has been pumped out and put in newer, double-shell underground tanks for interim storage.
The consent decree has a cleanup plan for 29 of the remaining 30 single-shell tanks. The other tank, C-106, is being handled under a different program.
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6. Some Turkey Creek wells at risk
http://www.denverpost.com/news/news0304o.htm
By Kieran Nicholson, Denver Post - March 4, 1999
March 4 - JEFFERSON COUNTY - Preliminary results from an extensive groundwater survey in the Turkey Creek basin show unacceptable levels of nitrates and uranium in some parts of the fast-growing area.
Some water wells in the Indian Hills area in the north part of Turkey Creek have nitrate levels above the maximum contamination level set by the Environmental Protection Agency. And, the study shows, some wells in the Shadow Mountain area in south Turkey Creek exceed the standard for acceptable levels of uranium, said Sally Cuffin, an environmental engineer with the U.S. Geologic Survey and project chief of the water study.
Officials aren't overly concerned about the findings and no action is planned by the EPA. However, Cuffin said, residents in the basin should be aware that more people and more houses could cause the nitrate presence to spread.
"This is what could potentially happen throughout the rest of the basin,'' Cuffin said. "This is the type of thing that would need to be addressed as far as growth'' issues are concerned.
The EPA can shut down municipal or multi-user water systems for exceeding its standards, but private wells are not regulated. "The private wells are pretty much exempt,'' said Ken Starr, director of environmental compliance with the county. "Through this process, we are trying to educate private well owners.''
The Mountain Groundwater Resources Study, prompted in part by failing wells in the basin, is an on-going look at water quantity and quality. Rapid growth in the area, which has increased demands on the fragile water supply, heightened public concern and demand for the study. In September, samples were taken from about 100 wells and 22 surface water sites. There are about 5,000 wells within the study area boundaries. The study group will take an additional round of samples starting Monday. Previous water studies in the 1970s and 1980s showed similar results, Cuffin said.
"It's not a big surprise,'' Cuffin said. "Some people will find out and do something about it and others don't want to know.''
Residents can help limit contaminants through increased inspections and maintenance of septic systems, officials said.
Nitrates are introduced to the water table by human and animal waste. In part, the Indian Hills area has a higher level because septic tanks there are older and more likely to leak than septic tanks in newer subdivisions. Also, wells on properties that are home to large numbers of animals and wildlife can be prone to nitrate deposits. The maximum EPA allowance for nitrates in drinking water is 10.2 milligrams per liter and the average amount in drinking water throughout the country is 1.3 milligrams per liter. Some wells in the study showed 14 milligrams per liter.
The average daily intake of nitrate per person in the United States, including all sources, is about 75 milligrams and experts peg a dangerous daily level at 160.
Children are most at risk when exposed. Too much nitrate "alters the blood's ability to carry oxygen,'' said Dr. Mike Wilson, chief of environmental toxicology with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. "It's primarily an issue for infants,'' Wilson said. "Effects can range from discoloration to the most severe which can be death.''
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7. Computers grind to halt in Y2K bug test
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newslink/weekly/newsnat-3mar1999-55.htm
Wednesday 3 March, 1999 Australian Broadcasting Corp.
A US Senator has revealed computer systems ground to a halt at a Pennsylvania nuclear power plant during a test simulating the start of the year 2000.
Senator Robert Bennett says the incident occurred early last month, when staff at the Peach Bottom power plant rolled the clocks ahead on control room panels to simulate the next New Year's Eve.
Senator Bennett says that when midnight struck, the plant's main monitoring system froze for seven hours.
He says the test failure was not life or safety threatening but it did demonstrate vulnerabilities in electric power systems.
However, nuclear officials in Ukraine say Soviet-era equipment in nuclear power plants there is so obsolete, that the millennium bug will not pose a problem for their electricity grid.
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8. Computer Hackers Are Stopped; Pentagon Networks Were Victim
http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/03/biztech/articles/05pentagon-hacker .html
By ELIZABETH BECKER, New York Times, March 5, 1999
WASHINGTON -- Military security analysts uncovered and stopped computer hackers who had discovered a new way to attack open Pentagon networks on the Internet, Pentagon officials said Thursday.
In testimony before Congress last week, John J. Hamre, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, said in a closed-door hearing that this new method had been uncovered by analysts at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Dahlgren, Va., Defense Department officials said.
The specialists at Dahlgren found a method to thwart those low-level probes that differ from the more frequent brutal assaults on security systems and alerted all the military services to the new problem and a remedy for it.
"There are literally hundreds of attempts weekly to break into the computers," a Pentagon spokesman said. "It's constant because there's a certain cachet to getting into the Pentagon system."
The Pentagon has estimated that 99.95 percent of computer hackers fail to penetrate beyond the open networks, which contain unclassified material, and so pose no national security concern.
The most notable example of hackers using this new method occurred in January when a military computer server near San Antonio was probed for two days from foreign Web sites. These probes reached only the open military networks connected to the Internet and it was unclear whether the probes originated overseas or were merely routed through those sites.
"These hackers try to cover their tracks by initiating the intrusions through an overseas site that has nothing to do with where the hackers actually are," the Pentagon spokesman said.
In the last year, each armed service has installed new programs to detect hackers and to protect sensitive material. As the number of surveillance programs have increased, so has the number of detections.
These new military computer security officials have said they are fighting a "cyberwar."
"To them it's a war, but it's like the war on crime or the war on drugs -- it's the information security guys' war," said William Arkin, author of "The U.S. Military On Line." "But it's not a real war."
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Message: 2 Date: Fri, 05 Mar 1999 16:50:50 -0500
Subject: NucNews-1- 3/5/99 - Missile Defense Costs; NKorea Missiles; Russia Subs; Ukraine Y2K
1. Estimate Skyrockets for Expanding Navy's Ship-Based Missile Defense System for 50 States Could Cost $19 Billion, Pentagon Study Says http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-03/05/023l-030599-idx.html
2. Report: N. Korea Deploys Missiles http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-NKorea-Missiles.html ALSO: N. Korean Missiles Deployed, Newspaper Says http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-03/05/129l-030599-idx.html
3. Russia Can't Afford Sub Maintenance http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Russia-Submarines.html ALSO: Russians Concede Threat From Retired Subs http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-03/05/129l-030599-idx.html ALSO: BBC World: Russian nuclear worries http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_290000/290495.stm
4. Millenium bug may stop Ukraine nuke plants, says expert http://cnn.com/WORLD/europe/9903/04/BC-MILLENNIUM-UKRAINE.reut/index.html
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1. Estimate Skyrockets for Expanding Navy's Ship-Based Missile Defense System for 50 States Could Cost $19 Billion, Pentagon Study Says
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-03/05/023l-030599-idx.html
By Walter Pincus Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, March 5, 1999; Page A04
A soon-to-be-released Pentagon study says expanding the Navy's Aegis ship-based missile defense system to protect all 50 states would cost $16 billion to $19 billion, much more than the figure put forward by advocates of the idea.
Although some early supporters of the Navy system said it could be fielded for as little as $2 billion to $4 billion by expanding the existing Aegis infrastructure, a study by the Pentagon's Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO) shows "it will not be the quick, cheap or easy solution that some outside advocates may have advertised," the BMDO director, Air Force Lt. Gen. Lester L. Lyles, told Congress this week.
The Clinton administration recently decided to push ahead with a limited national missile defense system, promising a presidential decision on deployment next year and adding $6.6 billion in future funding to next year's budget. Although the administration is focused on a ground-based system, some members of Congress and outside groups have pressed instead for expansion of the Aegis system as a quicker, cheaper approach.
But the BMDO study points out that the Aegis system has a severe limitation beside cost. Because its radars to detect missile launches are aboard Navy cruisers and destroyers, the system must be provided "sufficient warning of the impending attack to deploy within a few hundred kilometers of the threat launch location or the specific area to be defended," according to Lyles.
A major part of the high cost of a nationwide sea-based system arises from the need to build three new Aegis-type vessels so there can be ship rotation. But the high cost also comes from the price of the newest planned sea-based Standard missile interceptors that would be carried on each ship. Without these upgrades, the Aegis system "would have no useful capability against intercontinental ballistic missiles or submarine-launched ballistic missiles," the report concludes.
The BMDO study was conducted "without consideration of, and without prejudice to, the terms and requirements of the ABM Treaty," Lyles said. The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty specifically bars sea-based systems and the Clinton administration is seeking to develop and test a land-based system that will comply with the treaty, although deployment might require treaty modifications.
A Heritage Foundation missile defense study team in 1996 recommended modifying the Aegis to intercept incoming intercontinental ballistic missiles. A 1997 update of that notion was picked up by several members of Congress. Heritage President Edwin J. Feulner Jr. said last year that "by the year 2003, the United States could mount an effective, mobile missile defense that would protect all 50 states as well as American troops abroad and the territory of America's allies, all for an estimated $1.5 billion to $2 billion per year over five years."
The BMDO report does say that the unmodified Aegis system could meet another potential third-country threat to the United States -- that of cruise missiles from ships or submarines near the coast. Even without upgrades, the Aegis system "could have a capability against shorter-range threats attacking U.S. coastal targets," according to the report.
Lyles said the study concludes that "the most practical and effective role" for a sea-based Aegis system "would be to supplement" a land-based ballistic missile defense system. He added that such an approach is not yet contemplated and would require additional funding.
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2. Report: N. Korea Deploys Missiles
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-NKorea-Missiles.html
ALSO: N. Korean Missiles Deployed, Newspaper Says http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-03/05/129l-030599-idx.html
By The Associated Press, March 5, 1999
TOKYO (AP) -- North Korea has deployed medium-range missiles at a launch site near its border with China, a newspaper said today, quoting U.S. and Japenese military sources.
The report -- which Japanese officials refused to confirm or deny to The Associated Press -- came about seven months after North Korea fired a missile over Japan that landed in the Pacific Ocean.
That was believed to be a Taepodong missile capable of striking any part of the Japanese archipelago. Its firing prompted the United States, Japan and South Korea to review their defense systems amid deep concerns over the North's missile program.
Japan's Sankei newspaper quoted unidentified U.S. and Japanese sources saying North Korea has deployed Rodong missiles, with a range of up to 620 miles, near the border with China.
The paper said a major North Korean missile factory is located near the Rodong missile site in Yongodong, an area north of Pyongyang near the Chinese border. A total of about 30 Rodong missiles have been deployed in several unidentified sites in North Korea, the report said.
Japan's Self-Defense Agency refused to comment on the report.
In January, Japanese media reported that North Korea was building at least five underground launch sites for long-range Taepodong missiles near its borders with China and South Korea.
North Korea has said the rocket it fired in August launched a satellite, but Japan has dismissed that claim. Recently, Pyongyang said that it is preparing to launch another satellite.
The Rodong was last test-launched in 1993. The single-stage, liquid-fuel missile can carry a 450-pound warhead. North Korea also is reportedly developing an upgraded Rodong with a range of up to 940 miles.
Currently, American and North Korean officials are meeting in New York to discuss U.S. concerns about an underground construction site in North Korea that the Clinton administration believes may involve nuclear weapons development.
William Perry, the U.S. government policy coordinator on North Korea, arrived in Beijing today at the start of an Asian visit that will allow him to discuss the reclusive Communist country with Chinese, South Korean and Japanese officials.
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3. Russia Can't Afford Sub Maintenance
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Russia-Submarines.html
ALSO: Russians Concede Threat From Retired Subs http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-03/05/129l-030599-idx.html ALSO: BBC World: Russian nuclear worries http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_290000/290495.stm
March 4, 1999, Associated Press
MOSCOW (AP) -- Over 100 mothballed nuclear submarines rusting in Russia's Arctic ports threaten to leak radioactive waste because officials can't afford to unload their spent nuclear fuel quickly enough, officials acknowledged Thursday.
It was one of the clearest warnings of the danger to be issued by the Russian government. Previous warnings have come mostly from scientists and environmentalists. A retired Navy captain was jailed for espionage after raising alarms about the problem in 1994.
Some of the submarines with Russia's Northern Fleet were decommissioned 25 years ago, and have languished dockside far longer than safety permits, said Valery Martynov, an official with the State Nuclear Oversight Committee in charge of nuclear safety in Russia's north.
But the government isn't properly equipped to remove the waste quickly enough, Martynov said, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency. Continuing at the current rate, officials will need at least 12 years to unload all waste from the nuclear submarines, Martynov said.
To speed up the process, officials have turned to foreign governments for assistance.
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4. Millenium bug may stop Ukraine nuke plants, says expert
http://cnn.com/WORLD/europe/9903/04/BC-MILLENNIUM-UKRAINE.reut/index.html
March 4, 1999 CNN
KIEV, Ukraine (Reuters) -- An independent Ukrainian nuclear power expert defied official complacency Thursday, saying computers hit by the millennium bug might paralyze the ex-Soviet state's five nuclear power plants next year.
"We have to prepare for the worst in our nuclear energy sector, and this 'worst' might mean that all stations could stop simultaneously," Serhiy Parashin, head of the Energy and Information research center, told a news conference.
"We have not yet received all information from our nuclear stations ... but, unfortunately, have to say that Ukrainian energy authorities do not fully understand the problem," Parashin said.
The bug stems from the once-common practice of using only two digits for the year in computer program dates, like 99 for 1999. That shortcut has the potential, when dates change in 2000, to confuse computers and microchips embedded in machines, causing them to reject data or not work at all.
Academician Olexander Parkhomenko, who is also a director of the state nuclear power agency Energoatom, told Reuters this week the bug would not affect Ukrainian nuclear plants because of their unsophisticated computer equipment.
"Fortunately, our nuclear energy sector is not fully computerized, and problems existing in the West are not relevant for us," Parkhomenko said.
But analysts argue that the country's electricity supply and generating systems would all collapse if three or more of Ukraine's five nuclear stations stopped.
Analysts say Ukraine operates more than 20,000 computerized information systems, and most of them have not been adapted to beat the Y2K bug.
Parashin, who is a former director of the troubled Chernobyl nuclear power plant, said the consequences of the bug problem could be "most unexpected," but did not elaborate.
Ukraine's Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded in April 1986, spewing a cloud of poisonous radioactive dust over Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and parts of Western Europe in the world's worst civil nuclear disaster.
The memory of that catastrophe has bred fresh concerns about how immune the former Soviet republic's five aging nuclear power stations will prove to the Y2K problem.