[Way to go, Frida!]

Ending Weapon Spread

September 4, 1999 New York Times Letters http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/letters/lberr.html

To the Editor:

The Democrats should be congratulated for their strong support of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (front page, Aug. 30). What Senator Jesse Helms and other Senate Republicans fail to realize is that the treaty is a far more reliable defense than any missile defense scheme yet to be tried.

While Mr. Helms is holding the treaty hostage until hearings are held on the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty, the United States is jeopardizing its ability to stop the development of nuclear weapons.

The most effective way to protect the United States and the world from the threat of nuclear weapons is to prevent countries from getting them in the first place.

By banning nuclear testing, the treaty would insure that nascent nuclear states like India, Pakistan and North Korea do not evolve into full-blown nuclear powers.

FRIDA BERRIGAN New York, Aug. 30, 1999

The writer is a research associate at the World Policy Institute.

Related Article:

Democrats Ready for Fight to Save Test Ban Treaty
Aug. 30, 1999, By ERIC SCHMITT, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/global/083099testban-politics.html

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Damaging Delay on a Test Ban

September 5, 1999 New York Times Editorial
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/editorial/05sun2.html

Negotiating the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1996 was a triumph for American diplomacy. Its provisions, which prohibit all atmospheric and underground nuclear tests, would lock in the United States' current technological lead, prevent China from testing advanced new weapons designs and block non-nuclear countries that have signed the treaty from conducting future nuclear tests. It would also put increased pressure on countries that have not yet signed, like India and Pakistan, to avoid further testing and to accept the treaty.

The 152 countries that have signed the treaty are all abiding by its terms. But the agreement becomes legally binding only when ratified by a list of 44 countries, including all current nuclear powers. Only 21 of these countries have ratified so far. Perversely, the United States, which has the most to gain from the treaty achieving legal force, is among the holdouts.

That is because Senate Republicans have held ratification hostage to their own competing agenda of missile defense. No defensive system yet exists that can reliably protect the United States against incoming missile attack. The Clinton Administration has agreed to spend $4 billion over the next six years on research and testing for a limited missile defense system and has set aside a further $6.6 billion for possible construction. It is also negotiating with Russia on changes in the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty to permit expanded missile defenses.

But that has not been enough for the Republicans, especially the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Jesse Helms. He wants his committee to delay taking up the test ban treaty until the Administration submits two other agreements that the Administration does not yet have the votes to pass -- an earlier set of amendments to the 1972 ABM treaty and the completely unrelated Kyoto treaty on global warming. That timetable would further needlessly delay the test ban treaty and could even risk unraveling it as other countries lose patience with the Senate's stalling.

The test ban treaty, endorsed by America's top military commander and the directors of the nation's nuclear weapons laboratories, should be ratified promptly on its own merits. The Republican leadership needs to show greater responsibility on this issue. Senator Trent Lott, the majority leader, should insist that Mr. Helms put ratification on the Foreign Relations Committee's calendar early this month.

That would give the full Senate a chance to act in time for the United States to take part in an important review conference scheduled for October. A successful conference would encourage India and Pakistan to join the treaty. Russia and China, the other nuclear powers that have not yet ratified, are more likely to do so once Washington does. Ratifying the test ban treaty would reduce nuclear dangers around the world. Senator Helms and his fellow Republicans should stop holding it up.

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Plutonium route goes through Michigan

Updated 9:45 AM ET September 3, 1999
http://news.excite.com/news/u/990903/09/us-mi-midwest-2nd-2

LANSING, Mich., Sept. 3 (UPI) Highly-radioactive plutonium will be shipped from Los Alamos, N.M., across the midwest and north through Michigan into Canada.

U.S. and Canadian officials Thursday announced the decision on a route, following years of debate.

The Department of Energy considered seven routes. The amount to be shipped is 120 grams, but plutonium is a highly toxic substance that can be deadly if even a tiny amount is absorbed through the skin.

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Nuclear cargo route shocks region
Municipality had no warning of federal plan to ship plutonium

Tim Naumetz The Ottawa Citizen
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/city/990903/2811526.html

Regional officials said they were shocked to learn yesterday the federal government was planning to ship weapons-grade plutonium from Russia to a Northern Ontario research lab via Nepean and Kanata.

An aide to Ottawa-Carleton Regional Chair Bob Chiarelli said the municipality knew nothing about the proposal until the news broke in the media.

City officials for Cornwall and Sault Ste. Marie -- also on the shipping route -- said they had not been informed by federal planners either. Canada has agreed to accept test samples of a mixture including the plutonium from dismantled nuclear weapons to see whether it can be developed by Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. for use in Candu nuclear reactors, the government said.

John Embury, press secretary to Natural Resources Minister Ralph Goodale, said the government could not inform the communities until after AECL had presented its proposal to the Transport Department yesterday.

The shipment of mixed oxide fuel from Russia will contain about 120 grams of weapons-grade plutonium. It will arrive by ship at Cornwall, then be trucked on major highways through the cities of Nepean and Kanata to AECL's Chalk River research laboratories in Northern Ontario. Another shipment, with the same amount of plutonium, will be trucked from New Mexico, via Sault Ste. Marie. Members of the public and the cities involved in the proposal have only 28 days to respond while the plan is under review for final approval by the federal Transport Department. The government expects the first shipments to arrive later this year.

Sault Ste. Marie Mayor Steve Butland said he insisted the government send officials to the city to inform citizens after he learned about the plan through the media.

"As a mayor of a community, I have to say, 'Why us? ... Is it because our population density is not that great?' "

"Obviously there is cause for alarm because basically right now all we've got is this press release," said Cornwall Councillor Claude Poirier, who added the port has no emergency response facilities. "There hasn't been a community consultation done at all. We'll be obviously contacting our local member of Parliament (Liberal Bob Kilger)."

AECL documents suggest the routes were chosen over several alternatives because of their generally lower population density.

But AECL spokesman Larry Shewchuk said the plutonium will pose no risk. The radioactivity levels of the plutonium are so low "you could hold it in your hands," he said.

The plutonium containers are designed to withstand fires, collisions and explosions, he added.

Both the U.S. and Canadian governments are proposing detailed responses to a potential emergency, including satellite tracking of the plutonium-loaded trucks as they pass through the U.S.

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Government testing truck/rail shipment of radioactive waste

Ohio Beacon Journal, September 3, 1999
http://www.ohio.com/bj/news/ohio/docs/032099.htm

CINCINNATI (AP) -- Federal officials are testing rail-and-truck shipment of radioactive waste from a former uranium plant that they say could be safer and cheaper than transfer by highways.

The use of railroads and highways to move waste from the Fernald site to landfills in the west could save as much as 25 percent of the multimillion-dollar shipping expenses for up to eight years, the government believes.

Next week, 10 trash bin-sized containers filled with contaminated soil will be loaded onto trucks at Fernald, near Cincinnati, driven to a transfer station near Pittsburgh, then moved to flatbed rail cars. The containers will go by rail to Salt Lake City, where they will be moved onto trucks and carried 80 miles to Envirocare, a commercial disposal site in Clive, Utah.

A citizens' advisory board for the U.S. Energy Department's Fernald operation urged the test, which will cost about $40,000. Cost, safety and schedule data from the test will be evaluated this winter, officials of the operation said.

If the Energy Department ultimately approves the shipment method, the truck-and-rail transports could replace the current truck-only shipments of radioactive waste from Fernald to the department's Nevada Test Site disposal area north of Las Vegas.

``This (test run) is a very important thing for us, because this is one of the recommendations that we have been proposing and kind of pushing DOE to do something about,'' said Jim Bierer, a co-chairman of the Fernald citizens advisory board.

In 1997, a metal container full of low-level radioactive waste and carried by truck leaked water near Kingman, Ariz. The program was shut down, investigated and fixed before it was restarted in June. People living in Nevada complained about shipments running through downtown Las Vegas and over the Hoover Dam, so the trucks were rerouted.

``It's about half the cost of using a truck (alone) and it's about seven times safer than putting it on the road,'' said Ward Best, an Energy Department spokesman.

Best said the Energy Department's cleanup operation at a plant in Ashtabula in northeast Ohio reduced its costs of shipping radioactive wastes to the Envirocare site by using rail cars and trucks.

The costs were cut from a projected $256 million to about $190 million over a 10-year cleanup, Best said Friday. The plant once pressed uranium metal into rods for nuclear weapons.

``Handling waste takes about 40 percent of your budget, generally,'' said Best, who managed the shipment project in Ashtabula. ``So if you can improve the handling of wastes, it saves you big money.''

The Fernald plant processed uranium metal for the government's production elsewhere of nuclear weapons for almost 40 years. Cleanup is expected to be completed in 2006.

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Warning lights

Henry Bortman, New Scientist, 4 September 1999
http://www.newscientist.com/ns/19990904/newsstory5.html

WOULD-BE PLUTONIUM SMUGGLERS could find life tougher thanks to a radiation detector based on optical fibres. The glass fibres emit light when bombarded with the neutrons that plutonium emits. The detector, which was developed at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington, may also enable doctors to monitor the precise dose of radiation they are giving to patients.

"Knowing that neutrons are around is a big deal if you're looking for plutonium," says Mary Bliss, principal investigator on the project. "Other than a few applications in geology, there's no reason why someone would walk through an airport with a neutron source." However, traditional detectors--which consist of a metal tube filled with pressurised gas--are bulky, cannot safely be shipped by air, and can be damaged by vibrations.

The new fibre-optic detector is light and flexible. It is made from layers of plastic sandwiched between layers of the special fibres, which are impregnated with cerium (III) ions and the isotope lithium-6. When a neutron hits the sandwich, the plastic slows it down. It then collides with a lithium-6 atom, smashing it apart and releasing a shower of electrons.

The electrons excite nearby cerium(III) ions, which emit photons of visible light that travel to the ends of the fibres, where they can be detected. If four or more photons are detected within 200 nanoseconds, a neutron is almost certainly responsible.

"People have been trying since the early 1960s to use this stuff as radiation detectors," says Bliss. But making the necessary glass has proved to be the stumbling block.

The trouble is that cerium(III) is easily oxidised to cerium(IV). And if the fibres contain any cerium(IV) the detector won't work, because cerium(IV) will absorb any photons that are produced. To avoid contamination, the fibre must be made in a low-oxygen atmosphere, which requires precise control of the manufacturing process.

The laboratory has licensed the technology to Canberra Industries of Meriden, Connecticut. The company has produced a prototype plutonium detector, and the International Atomic Energy Agency has installed a unit at the border between Austria and Hungary.

So far, it has not uncovered any plutonium. It was, however, triggered by a woman on a bus who had recently received radiation therapy and was emitting gamma rays, to which the detector is also sensitive.

Glenn Knoll, a nuclear engineer at the University of Michigan is impressed by Bliss's technical accomplishment, but is less convinced of the practical value of the detector. "Although I can certainly recognise the novelty of what has been done," says Knoll, "I cannot, in all honesty, point to an important application where I think it has made a big difference."

But plutonium detection is not the only use for these fibres. They are also being tested at the University of Washington's Nuclear Radiation Center in Pullman as a way of monitoring the dose delivered to a brain tumour during radiation therapy. Bundles of the fibre are taped to the patient's skull and placed in the mouth and sinuses, allowing medical staff to deliver a precise dose of radiation.

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Investigators Hot on Trail of Radioactive Gold
Groups worry tainted metals reaching public

Joby Warrick, Washington Post; Thursday, September 2, 1999 San Francisco Chronicle
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1999/09/02/MN9786.DTL

It was one of the most secretive missions at a factory that was all about secrecy: Nuclear warheads, retired from service and destined for the junkyard, were trucked at night to the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant to be dismantled, hacked into unrecognizable pieces and buried.

Workers used hammers and acetylene torches to strip away bits of gold and other metals from the warheads' corrosion-proof plating and circuitry. Useless parts were dumped into trenches. But the gold -- some of it still radioactive -- was tossed into a smelter and molded into shiny ingots.

Exactly what happened next is one of the most intriguing questions to arise from a workers' lawsuit against the former operators of the U.S.-owned uranium plant in western Kentucky. Three employees contend that the plant failed for years to properly screen gold and other metals for radioactivity. Some metals, they say, may have been highly radioactive when they left Paducah, bound perhaps for private markets.

The claim -- based partly on circumstantial evidence -- is now being investigated by Department of Energy officials who are also probing the workers' accounts of plutonium contamination and alleged illegal dumping of radioactive waste at the uranium plant.

``It is my belief that these recycled metals were injected into commerce in a contaminated form,'' Ronald Fowler, a radiation safety technician at the plant, states in court documents that were unsealed last month by the Justice Department.

The investigation comes amid heightened scrutiny of government efforts to recycle valuable metals piling up at more than 16 factories that are part of the U.S. nuclear weapons complex. Congressional leaders, industry officials and scores of environmental groups have called on the Clinton administration to halt a controversial Department of Energy program that would recycle scrap metal from Paducah and other facilities into products that could end up in household goods or even children's braces.

Opponents' concerns soared with revelations, first reported in the Washington Post last month, that plutonium and other highly radioactive metals slipped into the Paducah plant over a 23-year period in shipments of contaminated uranium. The plutonium accumulated over decades in nickel-plated pipes where uranium was processed into fuel for bombs, government documents show. Smaller amounts of tainted uranium went to sister plants at Oak Ridge, Tenn., and Portsmouth, Ohio, the records show.

Scrap nickel from those plants is now the primary target of the Energy Department's metal recycling program, launched jointly last year by the federal government, the state of Tennessee and a private contractor, British Nuclear Fuels Ltd. (BNFL).

``If DOE denied or didn't know plutonium was present at Paducah, why should we trust them to release waste from identical production plants into products ranging from intrauterine devices to hip replacements?'' asked Wenonah Hauter of the watchdog group Public Citizen, one of 185 organizations to sign a letter to Vice President Al Gore demanding a halt to the program.

Recovering gold and other valuable metals from retired nuclear weapons had been a little-known mission of the government's uranium enrichment plants over the past five decades. At Paducah, the process began in the 1950s and was conducted under extraordinary security, with heavily armed guards escorting warheads into the plant under cover of darkness.

Garland Jenkins, one of three Paducah workers involved in the lawsuit filed under seal in June, says he worked for several years in Paducah's metals program recovering gold, lead, aluminum and nickel from nuclear weapons and production equipment.

``We melted the gold flakes in a furnace to create gold bars,'' Jenkins said in court documents. ``The gold was never surveyed radiologically prior to its release, to my knowledge.''

Jenkins also says he never saw tests performed on nickel and aluminum ingots that were hauled out of the plant in trucks. In later years, when plant managers did begin screening the metals, many were found to be contaminated, he said. Hundreds of nickel ingots are still stored at the plant, too tainted to go anywhere, he said.

A plant report included in the lawsuit filings may shed light on the degree of contamination in the gold. In a radiological survey of the plant last year, technicians discovered gold flakes inside an old ingot mold used for gold recovery. The fish scale-sized flakes were tested and found to emit radiation at a rate of 500 millirems an hour, the report said. By comparison, the average person receives between 200 and 300 millirems each year from all sources, including X-rays, radon gas and cosmic radiation from space.

``If you had a wedding ring made out of those flakes you'd be getting twice as much radiation in an hour as most people get in a year,'' said Joseph R. Egan, a lawyer representing the employees.

Fowler, the radiation safety technician, said he filed a report on the discovery of the radioactive gold in December but received no response from the plant's management. Nothing further was done to investigate ``the possibility that (the plant) may have contaminated the nation's gold supply'' at Fort Knox, he said.

Plant officials shed little light on the process. U.S. Enrichment Corp., the plant's current operator, says gold recovery at Paducah was the responsibility of the Energy Department.

Department officials, in a response to written questions from the Post, acknowledged that gold was recovered from nuclear weapons at Paducah. But, ``since these actions occurred many years ago, information regarding their past dispositions is not readily available,'' the statement said.

In a letter to Rep. John D. Dingell, D-Mich., department officials strongly defended their efforts to salvage nickel and other valuable metals that have been piling up at nuclear complex sites for years.

``Let me assure you that the safety of the public and workers and compliance with state and federal regulations are of paramount importance,'' said Undersecretary of Energy T.J. Glauthier. Glauthier said BNFL's license requires that ``any metals released for unrestricted use will not pose a risk to human health or the environment.''

The recycling program, announced in 1996 by Gore as part of his ``reinventing government'' initiative, was touted at the time as a ``win-win'' deal for the environment, industry and taxpayers. BNFL, which was awarded the recycling contract in a noncompetitive bid, has already begun recycling some of the 100,000 tons of radioactively contaminated metal that were once part of the defunct K-25 complex at Oak Ridge, the world's first full-scale uranium enrichment plant. Eventually the program expanded to Paducah and other facilities.

Purifying nickel is technically difficult because the radioactive contamination extends below the surface of the metal. According to department officials, BNFL was awarded the contract because it has developed a unique technology that can safely remove nearly all of the contaminants.

But opponents say the technology has never been proven on such a large scale. Moreover, they note, there are no federal standards for releasing contaminated metal into the marketplace. Previous attempts to set such standards in the early 1990s were abandoned because of public opposition.

And, opponents add, the lack of restrictions on the recycled metal leaves the public in the dark about which products may have come from contaminated scrap. Even if radioactivity levels are low, consumers are entitled to an informed choice when buying materials that might be used by children, activists said.

``The DOE has admitted they can't protect the safety of their workers and misled them,'' said Robert Wages, executive vice president of the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical & Energy Workers International Union. ``Now DOE wants to dump radioactive metals into everything from baby rattles to zippers . . . and tell us not to worry.''

Because there are no federal standards, the Energy Department's recycling program relies on the state of Tennessee to set guidelines and regulate the process. In June, a federal judge sharply criticized the arrangement, saying the DOE had effectively thwarted public debate of an issue in which ``the potential for environmental harm is great.''

But U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler rejected an attempt by labor and environmental groups to halt the recycling program, citing a law that prohibits courts from delaying federal cleanup of contaminated sites.

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[Headlines vary, stories variations on the same AP theme.]

Md. Couple Arrested on Marijuana Charges Teenage Daughter Tips Off Police

By Fern Shen Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, September 4, 1999; Page B01
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-09/04/082l-090499-idx.html
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/w/AP-Busted.html
http://www.spokane.net/news-story-body.asp?Date=090499&ID=s631403&cat=
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/1,1249,115007204,00.html?

A senior Energy Department official and his wife, one of the lead attorneys involved in the Karen Silkwood case, were arrested this week on charges of growing and possessing marijuana after their 16-year-old daughter, armed with photographs of the plants, went to police.

Robert Jason Alvarez, 54, and Kathleen Marie "Kitty" Tucker, 55, of the 600 block of Kennebec Avenue in Takoma Park, were arrested Monday and each charged with the manufacture and distribution of marijuana, possession of marijuana and conspiracy to manufacture and possess marijuana.

The couple's attorney said yesterday that the daughter, Kerry Tucker, was staying with family friends by order of a Montgomery County District Court judge. The attorney, Steven Kupferberg, would not comment further about her or discuss her reasons for contacting police.

Energy Department officials said that after his arrest, Alvarez, a political appointee, was fired from his job as a senior policy adviser in charge of environmental safety and health. Officials "lost trust and confidence in his ability to perform his duties," according to Brooke Anderson, a department spokeswoman.

Tucker was one of the anti-nuclear activists who brought national attention to the 1974 fatal car accident of Karen Silkwood, a lab analyst at the Kerr-McGee Cimarron Plutonium Plant in Oklahoma. At the time of the accident, Silkwood was on her way to meet a reporter to discuss alleged safety problems at the plant.

Kupferberg said the charges against them "will eventually be lowered to simple possession." Police documents indicating that 69 marijuana plants were found in the couple's basement "are incorrect," he said.

"The number is closer to maybe 16 plants, small amounts," Kupferberg said, adding that Tucker uses the marijuana to treat migraines and fibromyalgia, a chronic muscle pain disorder. "She is totally disabled by these problems. She has Social Security disability for them."

According to police documents, Kerry Tucker told Takoma Park police on Aug. 19 that "a large amount of drugs" was in the basement of her home.

When the police went to the home that day, Kathleen Tucker opened the door, and police noted "the odor" of marijuana around her, the documents said.

They returned with a warrant and found 69 marijuana plants in the basement, along with lights and tools for growing the plants, and seeds and stems, according to police. In the bedroom, according to the documents, they found marijuana in canisters, pipes, rolling papers and books on growing marijuana. The police left without arresting the couple.

Tucker and Alvarez turned themselves in at the Takoma Park police station Monday. They were released on their own recognizance, according to Carol Bannerman, a police spokeswoman.

Both Alvarez and Tucker were widely known figures among anti-nuclear activists in the 1970s and 1980s.

Alvarez worked for public interest groups, focusing on the health effects of radiation and pushing for cleanup of nuclear waste contamination at government facilities. He went on to work for Sen. John Glenn (D-Ohio) at the Senate Government Affairs Committee and joined the Energy Department in 1988.

In the Silkwood case, after a 10-year legal battle over nuclear contamination that helped fuel widespread criticism of the nuclear power industry, Kerr-McGee agreed to pay Silkwood's estate $1.38 million. Subsequently, Tucker directed the Health and Energy Institute, a Washington public interest group focusing on radiation health issues.

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U.S. To Tighten Nuclear Testing Program

September 4 2:56 AM ET
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/19990904/pl/science_nuclear_2.html

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Faced with projected cost overruns and possible delays with the National Ignition Facility (NIF), Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said Friday he ordered tighter management of the $1.2 billion nuclear weapons testing project.

Richardson's six-point plan to speed completion of the project includes contracting assembly and integration activities to experienced private sector companies, boosting oversight of NIF management by top Energy Department officials and withholding ``at least $2 million'' in fees from the University of California, which manages the project through a contract with the department.

``The problems with NIF are not technological -- the underlying science of the NIF remains sound. These are project management issues, and we will get ahead of these problems and turn them around with aggressive and tighter management action from this department,'' Richardson said in a statement.

The NIF is a project that will use 192 lasers to simulate the heat generated by thermonuclear weapons without detonating any devices.

The project, still scheduled for completion in 2003, will enable the United States to maintain the safety and reliability of the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile while observing international treaties against testing.

Richardson said he was ``deeply disturbed to learn of projected cost overruns and scheduling delays'' related to the completion of the NIF. He did not provide details of the extra costs or possible delays.

He also said he was ``gravely disappointed'' with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the University of California for not informing the department of possible delays and cost overruns in the NIF project. The Livermore laboratory is managed for the Energy Department by the University of California.

In response, Lawrence Livermore National Lab Director Bruce Tarter said in a statement that he and his staff had already begun to address Richardson's concerns.

``We share Secretary Richardson's concerns related to the National Ignition Facility and we will work closely with the Department of Energy to implement his directives,'' he said.

A week ago, the former director of the program, Michael Campbell, resigned after it was discovered he did not have a Ph.D., said Susan Houghton, a Livermore spokeswoman.

She said Campbell remained a Livermore employee on leave and that his resignation from his former post had nothing to do with the laser programs he supervised.

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Richardson Orders Actions to Get NIF Back on Track

Updated 7:10 PM ET September 3, 1999
http://news.excite.com/news/pr/990903/ca-us-doe-fixes-nif

WASHINGTON D.C., Sept. 3 /PRNewswire/ -- Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson today ordered a series of actions to address the schedule and cost problems with the construction of the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). The following is the text of Richardson's statement:

"I am deeply disturbed to learn of projected cost overruns and scheduling delays associated with the Department's National Ignition Facility Project. I also am gravely disappointed with the University of California and the Department of Energy's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory for its 'late reporting' to the Energy Department of these significant problems. Today, I have directed a six-step approach to respond immediately and forcefully to these concerns and get the project back on track at the least cost and schedule impact.

"First, I am making a major change in how Livermore executes its responsibility for the NIF project. Major assembly and integration no longer be done in-house, but will be contracted out to the best in industry with a proven record of constructing similarly complex facilities.

"Second, I am appointing an independent expert panel to do an in-depth analysis of options and to recommend the best technical course of action. Proper, credible stewardship to maintain the safety, security and reliability of our Nation's nuclear deterrent must remain central to our solution.

"Third, I expect all cost issues to be handled within our DOE defense programs and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) budget funding lines. We will reprioritize our national security program to reallocate dollars, people, and other resources so the U.S. taxpayer does not foot additional bills because of these problems.

"Fourth, our contractors will be held accountable. I consider the funding issues with the NIF project a significant disruption; therefore, in accordance with Our contract with UC,. we will withhold at least $2M of the $5.6 million of the 'at risk' program performance fee. Based upon the final results of the independent review committee, we may withhold a greater amount of the fee. The University of California must assume a stronger role in the oversight of research and development projects at the laboratories they manage for us, such as NIF.

"Fifth, DOE management oversight will be strengthened. I directed the Deputy Secretary to include this project on the Department's 'Project Management Watch List' forcing very stringent monthly DOE HQ review and compliance to other strict reporting structures. On June 25th, we announced an initiative to strengthen and improve the Department's project management. NIF is now center stage in that oversight program.

"Sixth, the laboratory official responsible for NIF has already resigned due to non-related personal issues, but I expect LLNL to initiate a management review to take action against any personnel who kept these issues from the Department as late as early June when I was informed that NIF was 'on cost and oil schedule.' I have directed the Department to conduct a complete and thorough review of this very serious issue. Denial of these kinds of problems is unacceptable. I want to be assured that when we learned about the problems the appropriate federal and contractor oversight roles were performed properly and in a timely manner. I expect to hear very soon from LLNL on what further management actions they intend to take to insure the problems with NIF get resolved.

"NIF is a leading edge science program that is very important to our national security mission and has great potential for scientific discovery. Clearly, we have had a major project Management surprise in our quest for a quantum leap program for laser physics. The NIF Project has undergone seven scientific and four management reviews, including a Congressionally-mandated review completed this spring. None of the reviews identified our current problems. The reviews confirmed the scientific basis and technical approach for the NIF project. We are looking into why the current issues were not clearly brought out for our immediate resolution before we got to this point.

"The Problems with NIF are not technological -- the underlying science of the NIF remains sound. These are project management issues, and we will get ahead of these problems and turn them around with aggressive and tighter management action front this department."

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Paducah Workers Sue Firms

Class Action Cites Radiation Exposure, Seeks $10 Billion
By Joby Warrick Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, September 4, 1999; Page A01

http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-09/04/075l-090499-idx.html http://www.cleveland.com/news/pdnews/metro/w04plut.ssf http://www7.mercurycenter.com/premium/nation/docs/suit04.htm http://www.kentuckyconnect.com/heraldleader/news/090499/statedocs/04uraniumsuitwp.htm

Workers at the Department of Energy's Paducah, Ky., uranium plant filed a $10 billion lawsuit against three government contractors yesterday, accusing them of deliberately exposing thousands of employees to hidden radioactive and toxic hazards over nearly half a century.

The lawsuit represents the first outcry by current and former plant employees, who lined up outside a Paducah law office this week to take part in the court action. It seeks one of the largest damage awards ever claimed in a workers' class action and accuses former managers of misleading workers about the presence of plutonium and other radioactive material in the plant. The contaminants allegedly followed workers to their homes and posed a threat to family members.

Targeted in the suit are Lockheed Martin Corp. and Union Carbide Corp., two private contractors that operated the plant under the Department of Energy's supervision. It also names General Electric Co., producer of recycled uranium that was shipped to the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant in the 1950s and 1960s.

The recycled uranium contained small amounts of plutonium and other highly radioactive metals that the plant was not equipped to handle. Eventually, the materials spread through factory buildings and into the environment, including public lands near the site.

"After 47 years, the time has come for accountability, compensation and punishment," said William F. McMurry, one of two Kentucky lawyers who filed the suit in U.S. District Court in Paducah.

"When all is said and done, this case will reveal the egregious violations of laws designed to protect workers, and, sadly, it will reveal the deliberate intention to injure thousands of atomic workers," McMurry said.

An unrelated legal claim three months ago helped focus national attention on problems at the Paducah plant, which was built in 1952 to manufacture enriched uranium for nuclear weapons, Navy submarines and nuclear power plants. The earlier suit by three workers and an environmental group was filed under the federal False Claims Act, which is intended to expose fraud against the government.

The corporations named as defendants in the new worker lawsuit had not received copies of the complaint and declined to comment.

The $10 billion in compensation sought includes $5 billion in punitive damages. The sum is based on a class of at least 10,000 former and current workers and their family members.

"People are scared and rightfully so," said McMurry, a Louisville trial lawyer. "These people are desperate for answers and nobody is giving them answers."

The suit alleges that the corporations reaped unjust profits by failing to properly monitor and protect workers from radioactive and chemical hazards in the workplace. It also accuses the companies of committing battery by exposing workers to "extremely and illegally high doses of radiation, including plutonium."

Besides posing risks in the workplace, the contaminants attached to workers' skin and clothing and resulted in "increased risk of contracting radiation-related diseases to the spouses and members of the employees' households," the complaint states.

The past conduct of Paducah contractors is also the focus of a full-scale probe launched last month by Energy Secretary Bill Richardson following an investigation by The Washington Post into conditions at the plant.

"I will hold all contractors, past and present, responsible for their actions," Richardson said in announcing the probe Aug. 8.

Yesterday, Energy Department investigators returned to Washington from the plant after completing the first phase of a fact-finding mission. Senior manager David Stadler said the 14 members of the team had collected soil and water samples along with a "tremendous amount" of data in their effort to determine whether current plant conditions pose hazards to workers and neighbors.

"This information will help us determine what actually occurred and what must be done to protect workers, the public and the environment," Stadler said in a statement as the team prepared to leave Paducah. "We will continue to do whatever is necessary to resolve the public and workers' concerns."

The investigation's second phase will focus on conditions at the plant prior to 1990, when the worst problems are said to have occurred. That effort is expected to last several months.

The increased scrutiny has brought a steady stream of problems to light. Earlier this week, a plant contractor briefly suspended a construction project after the Energy Department team found that workers were not being properly trained or monitored for radiation exposure. The 25 employees had been working at the plant since May, constructing a storage lot for 10-ton casks of depleted uranium, a source of gamma radiation. Until Tuesday, workers had not worn radiation detection badges or taken radiation classes.

Energy Department contractor Bechtel Jacobs Co. attributed the lapse to a faulty calculation, which caused officials to underestimate likely worker radiation doses. The company said the problems have been corrected.

Also Tuesday, plant technicians reported the discovery of radioactive contamination on a surplus computer that was marked for release to local schools or other nonprofit groups. Radiation readings were three times higher than the plant's "action" level, the limit which requires immediate steps to protect workers. "The radiation protection system worked exactly as it was supposed to," and no contaminated equipment was released to the public, said Elizabeth Stuckle, spokesman for U.S. Enrichment Corp.

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Ky. Uranium Plant Operators Sued

Filed at 10:01 p.m. EDT September 3, 1999 By The Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/a/AP-Uranium-Suit.html

PADUCAH, Ky. (AP) -- Workers who say they were exposed to radiation at a uranium enrichment plant filed suit Friday, seeking $10 billion in damages.

The 14 workers sued the former private corporate operators of the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant, which refines uranium for use in nuclear reactors.

The lawsuit seeks to represent all current and former workers and their families, which could mean 10,000 plaintiffs or more, lawyer Mark Bryant said.

There is no evidence that any worker was made sick by the exposure, according to lawyer William McMurry. However, radiation levels at the plant exceeded federal standards and were severe enough to cause fear and concern among workers.

Among the former operators of the plant are Union Carbide Corp. and the Lockheed Martin Corp., which took over after a merger with Martin Marietta Corp. The suit also alleges General Electric Corp. is responsible for damages because it improperly shipped contaminated products to the plant.

Lockheed Martin declined comment.

The Department of Energy, which is investigating reports that workers were unwittingly exposed to radiation and toxins, says traces of plutonium entered the Paducah plant as a contaminant in nuclear fuel rods from the early 1950s to the mid-1970s.

Related Information From Hoover's Inc.

General Electric Co
http://www.nytimes.com/partners/quote/hoovers.cgi?ticker=GE

Union Carbide
http://www.nytimes.com/partners/quote/hoovers.cgi?ticker=UK

Lockheed Martin Corp
http://www.nytimes.com/partners/quote/hoovers.cgi?ticker=LMT

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Workers Monitor Radiation Levels

Updated 5:45 AM ET September 2, 1999
http://news.excite.com/news/r/990902/05/il-state-news-3

(PADUCAH) -- "The Paducah Sun" reports that employees working for a private contractor at the uranium-enrichment plant in Paducah are wearing devices to monitor radiation levels. The newspaper says tests are showing higher levels of radiation exposure than officials expected. But a spokesman for Bechtel-Jacobs says the higher levels of exposure do NOT pose a risk to employees.

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Energy Dept. Admits Laser Flaws

By H. Josef Hebert Associated Press Writer Friday, September 3, 1999; 6:01 p.m. EDT
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WAPO/19990903/V000830-090399-idx.html http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/w/AP-Laser-Mismanagement.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Energy Department admitted to serious problems Friday in a program to build the world's largest laser, including mismanagement that will add hundreds of millions of dollars to its original $1.2 billion price tag.

Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, who said he was assured the project was on target as recently as June, ordered an overhaul of the program at the Lawrence Livermore weapons laboratory and an investigation into why the cost overruns were not revealed earlier.

The massive laser, which was supposed to have been completed by 2003, is being built at the California research lab in a project to monitor and maintain America's nuclear warheads without testing nuclear bombs.

Energy Department officials said mismanagement may cause the project's cost to soar as much as $350 million above the originally projected $1.2 billion and delay completion by as much as two years.

Richardson's announcement came a week after an embarrassing disclosure about the former project director's academic credentials. Edward Campbell resigned after it became known that he had for years implied he held a doctorate in electrical engineering when he never in fact completed his Ph.D. dissertation at Princeton University.

Campbell remains an employee at Livermore. Department officials said his resignation was not related directly to the cost overruns.

Officials at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, run by the University of California, did not immediately return telephone calls.

Sharply critical of the university's handling of the laser construction, Richardson said he has ordered withheld $2 million of the university's $5.6 million good-performance fee because of the laser project problems. Additional money may be held back after a more thorough investigation, he said.

The university ``must assume a stronger role in oversight of research and development projects'' such as the laser, said Richardson.

He was particularly miffed about long delays in notifying him about management and cost problems surrounding the project, formally called the National Ignition Facility.

``As late as early June, ... I was informed that NIF was on cost and on schedule,'' Richardson said, adding that he has directed an independent panel of experts to investigate what happened and recommend how to get the project back on course.

Most cost overruns stem from underestimation of difficulties and complexities involved in assembling high-precision optical components of the 192-beam laser system, said a senior department official, who spoke on condition of not being identified further.

Richardson directed that the lab no longer take responsibility for final assembly and integration of the facility, which when completed will cover an area the size of a football field.

He said the department will contract those responsibilities to an outside company ``with a proven record of constructing similarly complex facilities,'' he said.

[Later edition adds} The weapons lab retains overall responsibility for the finished product.

In testimony before Congress last March, Bruce Tarter, director of the Livermore lab, assured lawmakers that the project was progressing without problems and said half the 192 beams would be available by 2002. The project would be completed in 2003, he said.

``I am pleased to report that NIF construction is on budget and on schedule,'' Tarter told a congressional budget hearing. He asked for $248.1 million in construction funds for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1. He said 87 percent of the $1.2 billion total cost would be committed by the end of 2000.

Since its inception in 1997, the program has been the object of seven scientific and four management reviews, the latest last spring. ``Clearly we have had a major project management surprise,'' said Richardson.