* CANADA: PLUTONIUM PROTESTS
* NORTH KOREA, U.S.: BERLIN TALKS
* Human Error Cited in Japan Accident
* Japan's rocket hopes explode
* IAEA Reports on Japan's Nuclear Accident
* Japan Destroys Rocket in Midair as It Lifted $95 Million Satellite
* Co. Seeks Govt. Help To Buy Uranium
* US Vows To Ship Plutonium to Canada
* EPA Changes Colorado Waste Site Ruling
* GOP senators press Clinton to tie arms pact to Chechnya
* Reverse Rider
* Nuclear Agency Maintains All Plants Y2K Clear
* Physicist and Rebel Is Bruised, Not Beaten
* U.S. to Permanently Close Nuclear Reactor at Brookhaven
----------- canada
CANADA: PLUTONIUM PROTESTS
New York Times, November 16, 1999 World Briefings
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/world/world-briefing.html
After protests from Mohawk Indians and some Canadian mayors, the United States Department of Energy has decided not to ship to Canada as much as 33 tons of plutonium from old nuclear weapons for use in commercial reactors to produce electricity. The project had been seen as a contribution to disarmament by Prime Minister Jean Chrétien. After opposition grew, American officials decided to destroy the plutonium. James Brooke (NYT)
----------- korea
NORTH KOREA, U.S.: BERLIN TALKS
New York Times, November 16, 1999 World Briefings
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/world/world-briefing.html
North Korean and American officials met in Berlin to resume a new round of talks on relations. The talks follow an announcement by Washington that it was easing longstanding economic sanctions in exchange for North Korea's pledge to freeze long-range missile tests. Victor Homola (NYT)
----------- japan
Human Error Cited in Japan Accident
By The Associated Press November 16, 1999 Filed at 9:20 a.m. EST
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Japan-Nuclear-Accident.html
VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- Japan's worst nuclear accident was caused by human error and safety breaches but did not result in major radioactive contamination, the International Atomic Energy Agency says.
The agency's conclusions were contained in a preliminary report issued Monday on the Sept. 30 accident at Tokaimura that severely injured three nuclear plant workers and exposed at least 66 other people to significant radiation. Thousands of people were forced indoors or evacuated.
The uncontrolled nuclear reaction was not brought under control for 17 hours, but radiation levels away from the plant building remained extremely low, the report said.
Lothar Wedekind, a spokesman at the Vienna-based agency, said human error and ``serious breaches of safety principles'' led to the accident.
He said the report describes the event as an ``irradiation accident'' and not a ``contamination accident,'' because there was no significant release of radioactive material.
Safety features and procedures at the reactor and emergency responses should be evaluated, he said, adding that the IAEA would be willing to participate if requested by Japan.
---
Japan's rocket hopes explode
By BBC News Online Science Editor Dr David Whitehouse Monday, November 15, 1999 BBC Sci/Tech
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_521000/521382.stm
Japanese space officials deliberately exploded a 24 billion yen ($229 m) rocket on and its cargo after it veered off course on Monday, just moments after lift-off.
"We exploded the rocket because it swayed off orbit," said an official at the National Space Development Agency's Tenegashima Space Centre in southern Japan. "We are investigating the cause."
The H-2 rocket carries the hopes of Japan's fledgling space Industry. It cost 14 bn yen and the satellite, built for weather observation and air traffic control duties, cost another 10 bn yen.
The latest flight of the H-2 rocket had been repeatedly delayed by problems with fuel sensors and other difficulties.
It is another devastating blow to Japan's space effort and the H-2 rocket program that had been trying to recover its shattered reputation.
The last H-2 launch in February 1998 also ended in failure when a $36 million satellite was lost despite successfully separating from the rocket. It ended up in the wrong orbit.
The latest launch was the seventh launch since 1994. H-2 was supposed to be a fully Japanese built rival to the successful European Ariane-4.
NASDA is now developing the H2-A rocket, a high-performance but cheaper version of the H-2, for an expected launch in 2000. However experts have warned the date could be delayed.
---
IAEA Reports on Japan's Nuclear Accident
Washington Post, November 16, 1999; Page A28 ASIA
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-11/16/137l-111699-idx.html
VIENNA--Human error and poor design at a fuel processing plant were to blame for Japan's worst nuclear accident, which occurred in September and caused no significant contamination, international experts said.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said in a preliminary report that the accident on Sept. 30 at JCO Co.'s uranium processing plant 90 miles north of Tokyo in Tokaimura should have no lasting effect on the environment or public health.
"The accident was essentially an irradiation accident; it was not a contamination accident as it did not result in a radiologically significant release of radioactive materials," the IAEA said in a report published on its Web site.
---
Japan Destroys Rocket in Midair as It Lifted $95 Million Satellite
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, New York Times, November 16, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/world/japan-satelite.html
TOKYO -- Japan's ambitions to become a world leader in aerospace technology were dealt a major setback Monday when engine trouble forced officials to blow up a rocket carrying a $95 million satellite minutes after it was launched.
It was the second time this year that problems with the H-2 rocket, the key to Japan's satellite program, failed to put the Mtsat satellite into orbit. Another H-2 rocket failed to get its payload into orbit last February, although there had been five successful launchings before that.
"The fact that the accident occurred despite all the toil is extremely regrettable, and we expect a thorough investigation," said the director of the Science and Technology Agency, Hirofumi Nakasone.
The rocket's main engine developed problems four minutes after taking off from Tanegashima Space Center, 620 miles southwest of Tokyo. Officials ordered it destroyed eight minutes after takeoff because they feared that it might go out of control. It was the first time the National Space Development Agency of Japan had destroyed a rocket in flight.
The rocket was at an altitude of 28 miles when it was blown up, and debris fell into the Pacific Ocean, the agency said in a statement.
The satellite was to have been used to observe weather patterns and monitor aircraft, replacing the Himawari 5 satellite, which officials say would only operate until March.
The launching, initially set for Aug. 5, was beset with problems from the start. It was postponed three times after various troubles were detected.
Although the accident rattled government officials, it will not slow Japan's $2.4 billion space program, among the world's most ambitious.
"Mtsat is essential for assuring flight safety and for weather observation," Transport Minister Toshihiro Nikai said in a statement. "We expect to come up with a replacement quickly, and launch it once again as soon as possible."
Japan has successfully put a satellite in orbit around the moon and was the first to dock two satellites in space by remote control. Concerned by the development of long-range missiles by North Korea, Japan has also vowed to launch the its first spy satellites in 2003.
Still, Japan's space program has been plagued by bureaucratic wrangling, cost overruns and technical difficulties.
"We need to restore the confidence in Japan's space development, and there is a need to review the program," said Nakasone, the science agency head.
----------- us
Co. Seeks Govt. Help To Buy Uranium
By Katherine Rizzo Associated Press Writer, Washington Post, Nov. 16, 1999
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/19991116/aponline191427_000.htm
WASHINGTON -- The company that buys up uranium from Russian warheads to keep it off the world market is seeking a subsidy from the U.S. government to make up for its estimated $200 million in losses, threatening to quit the work if the money doesn't come through.
"We're very encouraged" that a deal can be reached through negotiations with Congress and the Clinton administration, spokesman Charles Yulish of the U.S. Enrichment Corp. said Tuesday, declining to give details.
The company must decide by Dec. 1 whether to continue the "swords to plowshares" effort it began under a 1993 contract with the U.S. government. If it opts out, USEC would stop the work at the end of next year.
USEC - created initially to run the nation's uranium enrichment plants - was established with public funds, but it uses its own money, and that of its investors, to buy the uranium from Russia that it then sells to nuclear power plants.
But it is locked into a contract that requires it to pay Russia more for the uranium than it can get from electricity plants seeking nuclear fuel. That will leave the USEC with what it estimates to be a shortfall of $200 million by the time its contract expires at the end of 2001. The Russians have agreed to discuss a price change, but not until 2001.
So the company is negotiating for a subsidy from the U.S. government.
"USEC is fully engaged with the administration and with congressional representatives to explore and develop solutions to the problem," Yulish said. He would not confirm any details of the company's negotiations, saying, "It's very fluid right now."
However, a memo from the company's lobbyist, Tommy Boggs, circulating on Capitol Hill suggested that $65 million that otherwise would go to Russia could instead be steered to USEC to make up for the above-market prices it is paying for its uranium. The memo also suggested that Congress let the company move about $70 million worth of uranium tails, or depleted uranium, into the government's inventory.
Energy Secretary Bill Richardson's chief of staff, Gary Falle, also declined to comment on details of the negotiations but said the administration was determined that the end result include a promise to keep workers on the job at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Ohio and Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Kentucky.
"If there is any kind of actual help with regard to any kind of relief, there has to be a worker component to the package," he said.
The administration has discussed with at least two companies the possibility of replacing USEC should it decide to get out of the Russian recycling arrangement.
---
US Vows To Ship Plutonium to Canada
By MATT KELLEY, Associated Press Writer 06:21 PM ET 11/15/99
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/19991115/aponline182154_000.htm
WASHINGTON (AP) _ The United States still plans to ship a small amount of plutonium to a Canadian reactor, despite claims by an environmentalist group that the plan is dead, an Energy Department official said Monday.
The shipment of about 120 grams, or 4.25 ounces, of plutonium is part of a test to determine whether commercial nuclear reactors in Canada can use material from decommissioned Russian nuclear weapons as fuel.
The U.S. Energy Department plans to go ahead with the shipment from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico ``as soon as possible,'' said Laura Holgate, who heads the department's efforts to dispose of nuclear ammunition.
The Department announced earlier this year plans to burn about 36 tons of plutonium from its weapons program in U.S. reactors. Outside the small test shipment, the agency has no plans to send plutonium to Canadian reactors, Holgate said.
In a news release Monday, the environmentalist group Greenpeace said the decision to burn the plutoinum ``effectively kills the program'' to test it in Canadian reactors.
``Shipping 125 grams of plutonium, is that a program? We don't think so,'' said Peter Tabuns, executive director of Greenpeace Canada. ``This project is falling apart.''
Holgate disagreed.
``This is all in the spirit of our nonproliferation mission here to help Russia dispose of their plutonium as rapidly as possible,'' she said in a conference call with reporters. ``The shipment from Los Alamos remains part of how we get that done.''
Tabuns said he believed the shipment was dangerous and that taking Russian nuclear material for fuel would add to Canada's nuclear waste stocks. But Holgate made assurances the shipment would be ``one of the safest and most secure.''
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EPA Changes Colorado Waste Site Ruling
By STEVEN K. PAULSON Associated Press Writer 10:47 PM ET 11/15/99
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/19991116/aponline092047_000.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/w/AP-Superfund-Dispute.html
DENVER (AP) _ The Environmental Protection Agency reversed itself Monday and recommended that radioactive waste be removed from a contaminated former chemical plant after years of complaints from neighbors and environmentalists.
While the critics of the Shattuck Chemical Superfund Site welcomed the decision, it still must be determined where the low-level waste would be moved, and how the estimated $25 million cost would be shared.
Mayor Wellington Webb said the decision meant ``a day for celebration in Denver.''
From the early 1920s to 1984, the Shattuck Chemical Co. processed uranium, radium, molybdenum and rhenium for such things as X-ray equipment and glow-in-the-dark clocks and gauges.
Soil and groundwater at the site, about four miles south of downtown Denver, became contaminated.
In 1992, after federal and state approval, the more than 50,000 cubic yards of radioactive dirt was mixed with concrete and fly ash and buried under rock and clay, creating a tomb designed to last hundreds of years.
But neighbors, environmentalists and politicians complained that the waste was sinking and could contaminate water supplies.
Assistant EPA Administrator Timothy Fields Jr. said the agency changed its decision on Shattuck after the National Ombudsman and other experts concluded that leaving the low-level wastes in place would not be safe.
Despite the recommendation, Fields said the EPA will go through its normal procedure, holding public hearings and reconsidering all the options: keeping the waste in place, bolstering the mound now covering the waste or moving the contaminated soil to a licensed storage site.
-----------
GOP senators press Clinton to tie arms pact to Chechnya
By Bill Gertz THE WASHINGTON TIMES November 16, 1999
http://www.washtimes.com/investiga/investiga1.html
A group of 12 Republican senators is calling on President Clinton to refuse to sign an amended arms-control treaty with Russia this week unless Moscow halts "indiscriminate" military attacks in Chechnya.
"Russia's conduct in Chechnya constitutes a brutal assault on the core values of the [Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe]," the senators wrote in a Nov. 10 letter to Mr. Clinton.
"The indiscriminate attacks of Russian military forces against the Chechen people are akin to atrocities committed by Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic in Kosovo."
The letter was signed by Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin G. Hatch, and nine other Republicans.
It stated that when Mr. Clinton travels to Istanbul tomorrow for a meeting of the OSCE, he should demand that Russia immediately cease attacks on Chechnya and withdraw forces from the region, and "refuse to sign the Adapted CFE Treaty."
"Certainly the Senate will be reluctant to endorse any agreement concluded under these circumstances," the senators stated.
The Adapted Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty is being prepared for signing by Mr. Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin at the Istanbul meeting. It modifies the 1990 agreement that limits deployments of tanks, artillery and armored vehicles in Europe.
The senators said that "in so blatantly violating the CFE Treaty, these military operations weaken each day the credibility and reliability of arms-control treaties that are the cornerstone to international peace and stability."
In September, Russian military forces began large-scale operations in the Caucusus region against Muslim rebels seeking independence in Chechnya.
The attacks have included more than 60 Scud and SS-21 Scarab ballistic missile strikes on the Chechen capital of Grozny, causing large-scale civilian casualties, according to Pentagon officials. The Russians also are using artillery and artillery rockets against Chechnya.
The administration's reaction to the Russian military attacks has been muted, in contrast to its reaction to Serbian attacks on ethnic Kosovar Albanians that led to NATO offensive military operations.
When it began the attacks, Russia announced to the United States and other nations that it will violate the CFE treaty by sending troops and armed forces to Chechnya operations outside of treaty-permitted limits.
The CFE was signed by the Soviet Union and amended once already to permit Russia to keep more troops outside of treaty limits. The second amendment to be signed in Istanbul would permit Russia to station even more troops outside treaty provisions at the same time Moscow is violating the accord.
In their letter, the senators said the attacks have caused "literally hundreds of thousands of refugees and countless deaths of innocent civilians."
"These Russian military operations constitute a major violation of the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty," they wrote. "The United States must not turn a blind eye to the fact that this combination of human suffering, massive refugee flows and the build-up of Russian forces is having a profoundly destabilizing effect in the Caucusus."
Other Republicans who signed the letter include Sens. James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma, Jon Kyl of Arizona, Robert C. Smith of New Hampshire, Tim Hutchinson of Arkansas, William V. Roth Jr. of Delaware, Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, Sam Brownback of Kansas, and Mike DeWine of Ohio.
Mr. Helms, North Carolina Republican, stated in a separate letter to Mr. Clinton sent Nov. 4 that the administration's failure to consult with the Senate on the amended CFE agreement has caused a "serious difficulty for the executive branch in obtaining Senate [approval] of the proposed measure."
The senator warned the president against rushing to conclude the CFE agreement in time for the Istanbul summit.
He said it is more important to get "the right agreement" than a bad agreement.
"Indeed, if the executive branch endorses a proposition which cannot be supported by the Senate, the credibility of the United States will be harmed," Mr. Helms stated.
Mr. Helms addressed the differences on arms control and the test-ban treaty vote in his letter to Mr. Clinton. "In light of recent events, surely it is now demonstrable what a difference it would make if the Senate and the executive branch could work closely to resolve differences on treaties before their text is finalized," he said.
Mr. Helms stated that the Constitution gives the Senate the right to approve or reject treaties as well to advise in their negotiation. "Unfortunately, with the [CFE] adaptation talks at diplomatic end game, it appears that much of the Senate's counsel was ignored or rejected," he said.
A Senate aide was more blunt. He said if Mr. Clinton signs the amended CFE treaty while Russia is violating it and killing Chechen civilians, it will be "impossible" to ratify the changes in the Senate.
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Reverse Rider
Washington Post, November 16, 1999; Page A30
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-11/16/001l-111699-idx.html
STILL ANOTHER rider that would vitiate environmental law has become an issue as this hapless Congress struggles to complete its year's work and go home. This one was added to the defense appropriations bill, which Congress cleared and the president signed last month.
It would exempt defense agencies from payment of fines or penalties for any "environmental violation" by any military installation or facility unless the payment was "specifically authorized" by Congress. It is said to have been inserted by Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens in response to an effort to enforce the Clean Air Act against a military installation in Alaska.
The rider is terrible policy. The national association of state attorneys general, who play a leading role in enforcing many federal environmental laws, reminded the congressional leadership in a letter a few weeks ago that "The federal government is, and has long been, the nation's largest polluter." Military installations are a major contributor. They ought not be exempt; nor should the legislative branch seek to make itself the arbiter of a system of selective law enforcement.
The president said in signing the appropriations bill that he was ordering defense officials to seek prompt authorization from Congress to pay fines they incurred. That's not good enough. Efforts are underway in both houses, the Senate particularly, to add what would amount to a reverse rider to the omni-appropriations bill with which the session will conclude, rescinding the Stevens language. Some members seek a compromise in which it would be rescinded only in part. That's not good enough either. In other contexts, this Congress prides itself on being tough with regard to law enforcement. Why only some laws, and not these? They can fix this if they will -- and they should.
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Nuclear Agency Maintains All Plants Y2K Clear
Filed at 7:01 p.m. EDT November 16, 1999 By Reuters
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/technology/tech-yk-utilities.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) reassured concerned lawmakers on Tuesday that the nation's 103 nuclear power plants will see no disruptions as a result of the millennium rollover.
NRC stressed in a letter to Utah Republican Sen. Robert Bennett, chairman of a Senate Y2K select panel, that since Nov. 4, all commercial reactor sites have been completely prepared for the potential Year 2000 computer bug known as Y2K.
``The commission is confident...that the potential for Y2K-related disruptions have been addressed by NRC licensees,'' the NRC said in the letter.
On Nov. 1, Bennett's Senate Special Committee on the Year 2000 Technology Problem, wrote to NRC Chairman Greta Joy Dicus, asking nuclear regulators to provide better information on reactor safety and contingency plans before the new year.
Computer systems which read only the last two digits of a year may experience faults on Jan. 1, 2000, reading the new year as 1900 instead of 2000. Experts fear massive problems when the new year begins if systems are not fixed.
Bennett, in a statement, said he was pleased with the agency's response to the committee's questions.
``The NRC has responded to our concerns in a detailed and candid fashion, and I am increasingly confident that plants will be safe,'' Bennett said.
``Voluntary measures by the industry, such as increased emergency fuel supply and additional staffing, will provide an additional level of assurance.''
NRC was asked to inform the committee on the process it took to independently validate plant Y2K readiness, the availability of emergency fuel supplies, plant shut-down criteria and minimum safety standards.
NRC said there are no requirements that plants have a 30-45 day supply of emergency diesel generator fuel, nor do they believe additional supplies are necessary.
The agency based its assumptions on the reliability of the power grid and past successes at sustaining safety systems during events such as hurricanes, that typically demand a six to seven day supply of diesel fuel.
Some plants are undertaking voluntary efforts to ``top off'' supplies, increase staffing and conduct additional monitoring and inspection.
Under the existing regulatory framework, the NRC will not shut down any plants unless specific criteria are met, which may include situations in which ``systems or components are inoperable due to a Y2K deficiency.''
NRC also said it plans no suspension of technical regulations during the millennium rollover, the panel said.
``The nuclear power industry, like many others well-prepared for Y2K, is a closely regulated and highly monitored industry that is intimately familiar with the danger of failure and the safety risks involved,'' said Bennett.
NRC went to great lengths to demonstrate each reactor's Y2K compliance was reviewed by an independent industry source.
``Industry audits included 56 audits by utility quality assurance departments, 36 cross-utility audits and 46 third-party industry audits,'' NRC told the Senate panel.
``In short, all reactor sites have received at least one independent industry audit of their Y2K program.''
Anti-nuclear groups have said repeatedly that industry preparedness was tainted by the lack of outside reviews.
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Physicist and Rebel Is Bruised, Not Beaten
By WILLIAM J. BROAD, November 16, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/science/111699sci-garwin-testban.html
Raw optimism is a trait not usually associated with longtime makers of atom bombs, advisers of presidents and heralds of doom.
But something like that emanated recently from Dr. Richard L. Garwin, one of the federal government's most widely respected science advisers.
In his office at the Council on Foreign Relations in Manhattan, his shirt pocket bulging with pens and papers, Garwin gave no hint that he had just suffered one of the worst defeats of his career and was deep into mounting a counterattack.
Instead, sipping coffee at a table strewn with papers and file folders, often smiling and seemingly relaxed, he radiated a kind of easy confidence.
"You do these things," he said with a shrug. "And if you keep at it for a long time, sometimes you win."
Garwin, 71, has been at such things for a long time indeed, nearly a half century. The onetime boy wonder and now celebrated physicist has acquired an astonishing number of victories, awards, patents, discoveries, plaudits and honorary degrees, not to mention a few painful bruises.
His current battle centers on the nuclear test ban treaty, which President Clinton signed three years ago and the Senate rejected last month.
Garwin, a test ban advocate, takes it personally.
"It's terrible," he said of the rebuff.
He rued what he considered a lost opportunity to bind other states into forgoing nuclear blasts, as Washington is doing unilaterally.
"Anything we can get in restraining other people is gravy," he said.
Backers see the ban blocking new nuclear states and arms races. Critics see it as a dangerous mirage, undermining the reliability of old arsenals.
Garwin, chairman of the State Department's advisory board on arms control for more than six years, has worked quietly but hard on the treaty's behalf.
"We have no need for new types of nuclear weapons," Garwin said. "So to keep every other country and its brother from having nuclear weapons is a good deal for us."
Garwin's detractors, while praising his scientific skills as exceptional, say he can be narrow and bullheaded.
"He's not a very flexible thinker," said Dr. John M. Deutch, a test-ban opponent and former director of central intelligence, now at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "He arrives at his judgment and sticks to it."
Still, Deutch added, Garwin is an exemplar of what a public-spirited scientist should be. "He's informed and presents his views forcefully. We need more people like Dick Garwin, not fewer."
Garwin's famously sharp tongue is often bemoaned by the assailed, and in the case of the test ban's defeat he is quick to lay much blame on the White House.
"The administration has a lot of people who are not very knowledgeable about such things," said the adviser to six presidents, including Clinton. "Administrations have increasingly focused on politics and public relations rather than on reality, and that's true whether it's national security or anything else."
Galvanized by the Senate's action, Garwin is taking on the treaty's most vociferous public foes one by one, writing letters, challenging their claims, suggesting that they debate him publicly and generally trying to undo what he regards as the distortion of the factual record. His dream is that the treaty will emerge again in the Senate, and this time get a fair hearing.
"Even if there's a relatively small chance of success," Garwin said. "I don't have anything more important to do."
The holder of 43 patents and a rebel physicist long proclaimed a genius, Garwin is doing everything he can to promote the end of nuclear bomb innovation, hoping to lower the odds of fiery destruction. It is a calculus he has pursued all his adult life.
Richard Lawrence Garwin was born in Cleveland on April 19, 1928. His father was a high school teacher during the day and a projectionist in a movie theater at night. The boy, a tinkerer, helped his dad repair projectors and build audio amplifiers for the movies, newly with sound. In college, he worked nights as a projectionist himself.
By 1949, Garwin had acquired a PhD in physics from the University of Chicago, a mecca for such pursuits. He was 21. His mentor was the great physicist Enrico Fermi, who had fled from Italy after wining the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1938 and had then worked in New Mexico, helping to build the world's first atom bomb.
"Fermi said Garwin was the only true genius he had ever met," recalled Dr. Marvin L. Goldberger, one of Fermi's students, who went on to head the California Institute of Technology and, in Princeton, the Institute for Advanced Study.
For the summer of 1950, Garwin was invited by Fermi to Los Alamos in New Mexico to ponder nuclear arms design. Garwin, a faculty member at Chicago, quickly proved himself. In 1951 and 1952, he helped give birth to the world's first hydrogen bomb, a weapon roughly a thousand times more powerful than its atomic predecessors.
"The shot was fired almost precisely according to Garwin's design," Dr. Edward Teller, a widely acknowledged hydrogen bomb pioneer, later said.
Garwin was hooked on the atom. The bond was loose, however, as befitted his increasingly nomadic style. To some extent, he gave up a promising career at the frontiers of physics for wider pursuits.
In 1952, he joined the research side of the International Business Machines Corp. but made a deal by which he could also consult for Los Alamos and Washington and hold a physics appointment at Columbia University. The IBM arrangement lasted for four decades.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower, waging a tense arms race with the Soviet Union, in 1958 proposed a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty as a way to tame the world's nuclear fires. Just as new jets cannot be made without test flights, new kinds of nuclear arms usually must be detonated repeatedly in fiery blasts to spot flaws and ensure potency.
Garwin was in Geneva for the government in 1958 as experts debated the ban's merits. Ever a number cruncher, he made detailed calculations of how well sensors in deep rocks might detect faint rumbles from distant nuclear blasts hidden beneath the earth.
"They weren't able to obtain it," Garwin said of the treaty, adding that the big hurdles turned out to be more political than technical. Critics had fanned apprehensions by saying the ban threatened to favor the Soviets if they cheated and pulled ahead surreptitiously.
A partial ban in 1963 did limit blasts, ending those in space, the seas and the atmosphere, and restricting the rest to areas beneath the earth's surface. In the Nevada desert, the ground shook repeatedly and the United States soon amassed 32,000 weapons in dozens of varieties.
By 1978, Garwin, largely unknown to the public, his advisory work usually cloaked in military secrecy, began to lobby for a complete ban. That August, he wrote to President Jimmy Carter to address a new fear: that a ban would hurt arsenal reliability, saying careful inspections and repairs would "provide continuing assurance for as long as may be desired."
The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 ended all treaty talk in the Carter administration, and the test ban issue lay dormant until after the Cold War. In 1993, Clinton resurrected the treaty.
Garwin was appointed to top panels. And as a longtime federal adviser, he helped critique a $4 billion-a-year plan in which computer simulations and other advanced methods were to ensure the potency of nuclear arms in lieu of explosive blasts.
Pragmatic to a fault, Garwin praised the big programs but said the government also needed to focus on simple things like being able to easily remanufacture bombs.
Last month, as Senate Republicans prepared to reject the treaty, having balked at holding hearings for more than two years, they called in Garwin to testify. He was one of the only scientific backers of the ban in a sea of hostile witnesses.
Testifying late in the day on Oct. 7, after many senators had left the Foreign Relations Committee hearing, Garwin called for a "balanced assessment" and zeroed in on one point. No cheater, he said, could ever get away with secretly testing a hydrogen bomb, and he stressed that such explosions were the main things that counted in war.
A successful ban, he said, "limits greatly the destructive power that can be wielded by newly nuclear states."
And that, Garwin added pointedly, "would make a big difference in the threat that could face the United States or our allies, even if nations overtly or clandestinely pursue nuclear weaponry."
The Senate rejected the treaty on Oct. 13, and almost immediately Garwin begin to mobilize.
Early this month, his desk at the Council on Foreign Relations was littered with papers from the Senate battle. Garwin, a senior fellow at the council, often seemed perplexed as he discussed treaty opponents, shaking his head like a teacher not quiet sure what to do with backward students.
"These people are politically against the treaty," he said, and are eager to build up American arms and strength by detonating nuclear blasts. He added that the opponents, by accident or design, tended to be highly selective in their facts.
He especially faulted the testimony of Dr. James R. Schlesinger, a former secretary of defense and energy and director of central intelligence, whose views against the treaty were given great weight.
Schlesinger told the Senate that in the absence of testing, "confidence in the reliability of the stockpile will inevitably, ineluctably, decline" and "is declining today."
Nonsense, Garwin said, visibly upset. Weapons are being inspected more frequently, and longevity estimates are actually rising.
"If you talk to the nuclear weapons people at the laboratories, they have as much confidence in the stockpile as they ever did," he snapped, "and probably more."
In a nod to comity, he agreed with Schlesinger on a need for plants to rebuild old bombs. Such plants, Garwin said, had been neglected in the rush to develop flashy gadgetry and fast computers.
In an interview, Schlesinger called Garwin "a good fellow and a useful citizen, even though I don't always agree with him."
He continued, "Much of what he's said over the years is interesting, some is persuasive, and some is overly enthusiastic."
Despite the Senate defeat, Garwin says he remains hopeful for the test ban. He pointed to a number of military, technical and political long shots he had helped turn into successes over the decades.
"Astoundingly influential" is how Lew Allen Jr., a former National Security Agency director, characterized him in 1996 when Garwin received a top Central Intelligence Agency award for helping pioneer the nation's fleet of spy satellites.
His goal now, Garwin said, if not to alter the political views of treaty opponents, is at least to get them to stick to the facts.
"Anyhow," he said, smiling again, "I'll change how they testify."
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U.S. to Permanently Close Nuclear Reactor at Brookhaven
By MICHAEL COOPER, November 16, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/99/11/16/news/national/regional/ny-brookhaven-plant.html
GARDEN CITY, N.Y. -- The federal government is planning to permanently close an aging nuclear reactor at the Brookhaven National Laboratory that has been shut since 1996 when the authorities discovered it had been leaking radioactive water into the ground, federal officials said Monday.
Energy Secretary Bill Richardson is expected to announce the closing of the reactor, known as the High Flux Beam Reactor, on Tuesday, an Energy Department official said. The rest of the laboratory, which is owned by the department, is to remain open for scientific research.
The nuclear reactor was used for more than three decades for groundbreaking research in physics, medicine and biology. But it has drawn stiff opposition from its neighbors in Suffolk County, along with environmentalists and politicians, since officials learned that tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen, had been leaking from the tiled tank beneath the reactor that held spent fuel. The discovery of the leak, and of official inaction that kept it from being detected earlier, played a major role in the government's decision in 1997 to dismiss the organization that had managed the lab for 50 years.
But the Energy Department official stressed that the reactor was not considered unsafe, and said that the decision to close it was based largely on economic issues. The department, which has been prohibited by Congress from restarting the reactor for the last three years, has had to spend $23 million a year just to keep the reactor on "standby status," the official said. And a departmental analysis determined that reopening the reactor would be even more costly and take several years, the official added.
"The decision was not made with any sense that the reactor was a threat to the public or the environment," the official said.
The High Flux Beam Reactor at Brookhaven was much smaller than nuclear reactors built to create power, but it operated on the same principle. Atoms of uranium-235, a natural but unstable element, were used at the reactor to throw off subatomic particles called neutrons that hit other atoms and split them, releasing still more neutrons and sustaining a chain reaction.
But if the means of the two types of nuclear plants were similar, their ends were completely different. Power plants use nuclear reactions to create heat that can be converted into electricity; they produce neutrons only to sustain the chain reaction. At Brookhaven, heat was considered a waste product, and the whole purpose of the reactor was to make a stream of neutrons. Those neutrons were then directed against solid objects in a series of experiments to learn about the internal structures of the objects.
Experiments that were conducted with the reactor helped create a number of drugs used to treat bone cancer and other ailments; others helped scientists learn about the structure of solid materials.
The trouble began in December of 1996, when officials learned about the leaking tritium. The 5,300-acre Brookhaven National Laboratory, in Upton, N.Y., had already been identified as an environmental problem and declared a federal Superfund cleanup site. It had been dealing with pesticide contamination of the ground water to its southeast and chemical-solvent contamination to its southwest.
In 1997, the Energy Department released a report that found Brookhaven National Laboratory had sometimes sacrificed safety in the name of science. The report cited the laboratory for failing to respond to the discovery of high tritium levels as far back as 1986. Furthermore, it said that the lab delayed on promises to install monitoring wells that could have detected the problem much earlier than 1996.
Associated Universities, the nonprofit group that had administered the lab since it opened, was replaced by Brookhaven Science Associates, led by the State University of New York at Stony Brook.
All along, however, the Energy Department has maintained that the tritium leak would pose no serious health risk to neighbors of the lab. The pool that was leaking was emptied, and the tritium that remains in the ground will become less radioactive over time, officials said.
The Energy Department official said that the department expected Brookhaven to remain "vibrant" even without the use of the High Flux Beam Reactor. Last month, the laboratory opened the world's biggest particle accelerator, the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, which sends beams of gold ions, at nearly the speed of light, on a collision course through a 2.4-mile-long tunnel. When the ions collide, scientists hope they will be able to observe conditions similar to those that existed at the birth of the universe.