------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
*Raytheon: Tentative Pact With Union
*Japan Remembers Nuclear Accident
*The Tangled Tale Of Wen Ho Lee
*No bottoms in nuke containers
*Look at Electoral Map
*Bush Opposing Nevada Nuclear Dump

MILITARY
*Iran and Iraq Make Progress Toward Settling Their Differences
*NORTHERN IRELAND: FUGITIVES CAN RETURN
*2 Koreas to Set Up Joint Economic Panel
*Missile Sale to Taiwan Has Unusual Clause
*UN observes minute of silence
*Rescue Efforts Continue to Find Missing U.S. Navy Fighter Jet Pilot
*State Dept. Unfreezes Hundreds of Promotions After Delay for Security Review

OTHER
*Gore Says Bush Plan Will Cause Lasting Damage to the Environment
*G.E. Switches Its Web Site About PCB's
*Compromise Reached on Conservation Bill
*Bush, in Energy Plan, Proposes New U.S. Drilling to Curb Prices
*A Texas-Size Whodunit On the Trail of Genetically Altered Corn Flour From Azteca
*European Company Will Buy Entire Crop of Corn in Recall
*Terror-bomb suspect meant no harm: Judge Ontario man's sentence suspended
*Lockerbie Case Judges, Who Are Also Jurors, to Rule on Admitting Crucial Diary

ACTIVISTS
*Milosevic Foes Stage Protests to Force Him to Concede



-------- NUCLEAR (by country)

-------- business

Raytheon: Tentative Pact With Union

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
September 30, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-Raytheon-Strike.html

LEXINGTON, Mass. (AP) -- A five-week strike of Raytheon Co. workers could come to an end Monday when union members vote on a new, four-year contract with the arms maker.

The contract was hammered out Friday evening in mediated negotiations between Raytheon and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

The nation's No. 3 aerospace and defense company announced the ``tentative agreement'' late Friday night, publicizing Monday's vote on its Web site. Company spokesman David Polk declined to discuss terms of the pact.

IBEW Local 1505 President Stanley Lichwala could not be reached for comment Sunday.

Workers remained on the picket line at the company's Andover, Mass., plant over the weekend. Strikers said they were hopeful that the strike was drawing to a close, but want to make sure they have ironclad guarantees of job security and benefits.

``People are anxious to get back to work, but on the other hand, we want to make sure we have the things we need to get back to work. We need a fair contract,'' said chief union steward Deb Sullivan.

U.S. Rep. Martin Meehan of the 5th Congressional District said he was pleased the two sides had met over the bargaining table.

``The sooner that the men and women of IBEW 1505 return to work, the better it is for the workers, their families and the company,'' Meehan said.

The workers have been on strike since the former contract expired on Aug. 27.

Local 1505 officials had planned a large rally this weekend to pressure Raytheon to return to the bargaining table, but it was called off after negotiations resumed Friday.

The recent session was the third time Raytheon negotiators have sat down with the workers, who represent 21 percent of the company's Massachusetts work force. At issue are job security and better health care and pension benefits.

Local 1505 represents about 2,700 workers at 10 Raytheon plants in Massachusetts. Most members are assemblers at the company's Andover plant, where most of the Patriot missile, Raytheon's best-known defense product, is manufactured. The Hawk defense systems are also made there.

Lexington-based Raytheon is the country's third-largest defense contractor, with 1999 revenues of $19.8 billion.

-------- japan

Japan Remembers Nuclear Accident

New York Times
September 30, 2000 Filed at 1:08 p.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Japan-Nuclear-Anniversary.html

TOKYO, Japan (AP) -- Anti-nuclear activists, some dressed in funeral black, called for an end to nuclear energy in a noisy demonstration Saturday, a year after Japan's worst nuclear accident killed two people and exposed hundreds to radiation.

More than 100 demonstrators shouted through bullhorns outside the Science and Technology Agency, demanding the government pull the plug on Japan's nuclear power industry.

Nuclear power generates about a third of electricity in this resource-poor country.

The protest commemorated the Sept. 30, 1999, accident at the JCO Co. fuel-reprocessing plant in Tokaimura, near Tokyo, in which two workers tried to save time by mixing excessive amounts of uranium in buckets instead of using special mechanized tanks.

The mix set off an uncontrolled nuclear reaction at the plant, exposing the two to fatal doses of radiation. A third worker was hospitalized in critical condition.

Authorities ordered 161 people evacuated from their homes, and another 310,000 were advised to stay indoors for 18 hours as a precaution. In all, 439 people were exposed to radiation.

The Tokaimura calamity confirmed the worst fears of the industry's many critics, uncovering systematic disregard for safety regulations and inadequate employee training.

``The government doesn't seem to have learned anything at all from the accident,'' said Shin Kobuchi, a 22-year-old university student. ``It has made no effort to listen to what the experts are saying about the dangers of nuclear energy.''

Tokaimura, a rural community 70 miles northeast of Tokyo, is home to a nuclear reactor and a dozen related facilities.

The town and plant operators commemorated the first anniversary of the accident with a morning of disaster-prevention drills.

This time it was make-believe.

Municipal officials rushed to a command post after receiving a report of a dangerous radiation leak. Sirens wailed. Buses shuttled evacuees to safe areas, where they were examined by medical personnel with Geiger counters.

Last year's tragedy continued to weigh heavily on a nation suspicious of nuclear energy and increasingly aware of its destructive potential.

Utilities are scaling down plans to build new plants.

The government is struggling to balance its long-term goal of expanding nuclear energy with calls for tightening safety measures.

In February, a state governor in western Japan forced a utility company to tear up blueprints for a nuclear facility, citing safety concerns raised by Tokaimura.

A leading Japanese newspaper on Saturday criticized the government's subsequent efforts to strengthen its supervision as halfhearted, asserting the industry still lacks a vigilant watchdog.

``Safety should not be left to chance,'' the daily Asahi wrote in an editorial.

JCO was stripped of its license to operate the processing plant in March, and the last of the remaining uranium was being removed from the facility this week.

The company also has agreed to pay out $117 million in compensation to settle 6,875 cases stemming from the accident.

-------- u.s. nuc facilities

-------- new mexico

The Tangled Tale Of Wen Ho Lee

New York Times
September 30, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/30/opinion/L30WEN.html

To the Editor:

Your Sept. 28 editorial about the Wen Ho Lee case has again fallen into the trap of making premature conclusions. You appear to accept the government view that there is a connection between recent Chinese gains in nuclear weapons technology and Dr. Lee's downloading of some nuclear secrets.

If Attorney General Janet Reno, Louis Freeh, the F.B.I. director, and Bill Richardson, the energy secretary, saw any connection between these downloaded "secrets" and the development of Chinese warheads, I expect that they would have publicized it long ago.

You express some dismay over the harsh detention of Dr. Lee. There could be more cruel interrogations of him in the future. Some see this as the government's way of breaking Dr. Lee so that he will tell the truth. I see it as the government's attempt to force Dr. Lee to admit things that he did not do. Such an outcome would satisfy the political needs of government officials and fit the generally accepted racial profiling and stereotyping of Asian-Americans in this country.

CHING C. WANG San Francisco, Sept. 28, 2000

The writer is a professor of chemistry at the University of California, San Francisco.

-------- washington

No bottoms in nuke containers
Hanford ground water badly tainted by waste

September 30, 2000
Linda Ashton - Associated Press
http://www.spokane.net/news-story-body.asp?Date=093000&ID=s859235&cat=

YAKIMA -- Radioactive tritium contamination in ground water at the Hanford nuclear reservation may be 400 times higher than the federal standard because high-level nuclear waste was buried in containers that had no bottoms, the U.S. Department of Energy said Friday.

Five bottomless caissons, or large corrugated metal pipes, and 50 bottomless drums are located in the 618-11 burial ground, 31/2 miles from the Columbia River in south-central Washington.

Wade Ballard, a DOE assistant manager for planning and integration, couldn't say why the federal agency used containers without bottoms. But he said he suspects it might have been to prevent water from accumulating in them and then leaching radioactive material into the ground.

"It was 40 years ago," he said during a teleconference from Richland. "Obviously, if we were designing it today, we would do it differently."

Low-level radioactive waste also was dumped into trenches for burial at the 8.6-acre site from 1962 to 1967.

Tritium is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen that poses a cancer risk when ingested. It was produced at Hanford for use in nuclear warheads to boost their explosive yield.

Last January, the high level of tritium was detected in a Hanford monitoring well, showing a concentration of more 8 million picocuries of radiation per one liter of water. The federal drinking water standard is less than 20,000 picocuries.

The well also is in the path of a huge tritium plume stretching from the 200 Area in the central part of the 560-square-mile reservation to the Columbia.

Tests in February within a 3-square-mile area around the well showed readings ranging from undetectable to 55,000 picocuries per liter, leading DOE to conclude the contamination was not widespread.

Since then, contractors have put 50 soil-gas probes 20 feet deep into the burial ground to try to determine the source of the tritium, its rate and its pattern of movement, Ballard said.

Elevated levels of the isotope helium-3, an indicator of tritium decay, pointed them to the northern side of the burial ground where the caissons and drums are underground.

"The source of the tritium could be coming from the tritium waste or it could be from the ground water," which is 60 feet below the surface, Ballard said.

The tritium will likely reach the Columbia River, said Mike Thompson, DOE's ground water manager.

"The issue is how much is there. At this point in time, we don't believe there's a very large tritium plume," he said.

The tritium doesn't seem to be moving beyond the burial site, he said.

The radioactivity of tritium decays by half every 12.3 years. It's a contaminant that moves with ground water.

But it's still too soon to say how concentrated it is and how fast it's moving, Ballard said. If additional tests show the tritium is moving fast enough to be a threat to the river, action will be taken to stop its progress, he said.

Drilling for additional test wells could begin next week.

-------- us nuc politics

Look at Electoral Map

Associated Press
September 30, 2000 Filed at 12:49 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/nyregion/AP-Political-Map-States.html

The 50 states, their electoral votes and analyses based on poll results and interviews with Democratic, Republican and independent observers.

ALABAMA (9) -- Solid Bush.

ALASKA (3) -- Solid Bush.

ARIZONA (8) -- Leans Bush, but not by much. Gore made big gains in September and may begin airing ads if post-debate polling looks good.

ARKANSAS (6) -- Tossup. President Clinton's home state is turning Republican.

CALIFORNIA (54) -- Leans Gore. It's put-up-or-shut-up time for Bush; if he doesn't increase his ad buy early this month, California goes Democrat. Some Republicans already think it's a lost cause.

COLORADO (8) -- Leans Bush. Public poll shows race tight, but Democrats plan to conduct their own surveys after Tuesday's debate before deciding whether to make a run.

CONNECTICUT (8) -- Solid Gore. Adding native son Joseph Lieberman to ticket gives Gore near-lock.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA (3) -- Solid Gore.

DELAWARE (3) -- Leans Gore. State has voted for winner in every presidential election since 1948, and has moved toward vice president since Labor Day.

FLORIDA (25) -- Tossup. Gore has kept it close while being badly outspent in this GOP-leaning state run by Bush's brother, a bad sign for the Texan. Bush needs to be spending his money elsewhere.

GEORGIA (13) -- Leans Bush. South tough for Gore.

HAWAII (4) -- Solid Gore.

IDAHO (4) -- Solid Bush.

ILLINOIS (22) -- Leans Gore. Both campaigns cut ads buys, but don't count Bush out yet.

INDIANA (12) -- Solid Bush.

IOWA (7) -- Leans Gore. Bush spending more in ads than Gore, but vice president still strong.

KANSAS (6) -- Solid Bush.

KENTUCKY (8) -- Leans Bush. Democrats would like to make late run, but coal and tobacco country rough on Gore.

LOUISIANA (9) -- Tossup. Democrats say race tied; Republicans say Bush is up. Both sides agree Gore lost ground by attacking oil industry.

MAINE (4) -- Leans Gore. Bush outspent Gore on TV as vice president moves this from tossup column.

MARYLAND (10) -- Solid Gore.

MASSACHUSETTS (12) -- Solid Gore in state hosting first debate.

MICHIGAN (18) -- Tossup. Polls show Bush has slipped in critical Midwest.

MINNESOTA (10) -- Leans Gore. ``Minnesota is returning to its traditional patterns,'' concedes Tom Horner, a GOP strategist in the state.

MISSISSIPPI (7) -- Solid Bush.

MISSOURI (11) -- Tossup. Bush slowed Gore's momentum in last two weeks.

MONTANA (3) -- Solid Bush. No talk of Gore making a play, despite close statewide races.

NEBRASKA (5) -- Solid Bush.

NEVADA (4) -- Tossup. Hurt by local issue, Bush finally vows veto of nuclear dump. Gore airs first ads, but buy is tiny as he tests waters.

NEW HAMPSHIRE (4) -- Tossup. Bush looking stronger in his best New England state.

NEW JERSEY (15) -- Leans Gore. Bush can't win without big investment and money getting tight. May be a casualty of Florida fiasco.

NEW MEXICO (5) -- Tossup. Hispanic vote split, a key.

NEW YORK (33) -- Solid Gore.

NORTH CAROLINA (14) -- Leans Bush. Gore has little presence in state; consultants in both parties wondering if he has written it off. Gore says no.

NORTH DAKOTA (3) -- Solid Bush.

OHIO (21) -- Tossup. Both campaigns claim they're ahead, but public polls show a tie. Bush needs the state to get to 270 electoral votes.

OKLAHOMA (8) -- Solid Bush.

OREGON (7) -- Tossup. Ralph Nader a threat to Gore.

PENNSYLVANIA (23) -- Leans Gore. Vice president gains ground since Labor Day, though Bush keeping within range. GOP leaders needs to ``get off their duffs,'' says political science professor Mike Young.

RHODE ISLAND (4) -- Solid Gore.

SOUTH CAROLINA (8) -- Solid Bush.

SOUTH DAKOTA (3) -- Solid Bush.

TENNESSEE (11) -- Leans Gore. State turning Republican, but it's still his home.

TEXAS (32) -- Solid Bush. Gore can't mess with Texas.

UTAH (5) -- Solid Bush.

VERMONT (3) -- Solid Gore.

VIRGINIA (13) -- Solid Bush.

WASHINGTON (11) -- Tossup. A Democratic state that Bush keeping close.

WEST VIRGINIA (5) -- Tossup. Gore may regret pulling ads out of the traditionally Democratic state; polls suggest he lost his lead since Labor Day.

WISCONSIN (11) -- Tossup. Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson a big help to Bush in state that traditionally backs Democratic presidential candidates.

WYOMING (3) -- Solid Bush.

-------- us nuc waste

Bush Opposing Nevada Nuclear Dump

Associated Press
September 30, 2000 Filed at 3:41 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/politics/AP-Bush-Nuke-Dump.html

LAS VEGAS (AP) -- Nevada Republicans, like their Democratic counterparts, wanted a written promise from their presidential candidate that he'd veto plans for temporary storage of high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain.

They got it Friday from George W. Bush, who saw his big lead in Nevada slip after Al Gore made a similar promise at the Democratic National Convention.

``I would veto legislation that would provide for the temporary storage of nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain,'' Bush wrote in a letter responding to a request from Republican Gov. Kenny Guinn.

Bush also repeated his earlier assertion that science should determine where a dump for the nation's high-level radioactive waste will be located.

During a visit to Las Vegas last week, Gore said he does not support interim nuclear waste storage in Nevada or anywhere else. Like Bush, the vice president said he would let science determine where a permanent dump for the nation's high-level radioactive waste will be located.

A new poll by the Las Vegas Review-Journal shows the presidential race is a statistical dead heat in Nevada. Until now, Bush had held a significant lead.

Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is the only site being studied by the federal government to entomb the nation's high-level radioactive waste -- 77,000 tons of mostly spent fuel pellets from commercial power reactors.

``I can think of no issue more important to the people of Nevada than nuclear waste storage at Yucca Mountain,'' Guinn said.

-------- MILITARY (by country)

Iran and Iraq Make Progress Toward Settling Their Differences

New York Times
September 30, 2000
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/30/world/30IRAN.html

CARACAS, Venezuela, Sept. 29 - After the end of an OPEC summit meeting here, Iran and Iraq held their highest-level talks in nine years today, and a senior Iranian official said they had made good progress in settling their differences.

"We discussed every bilateral affair," said Mohammad Ali Abtahi, chief of staff for President Mohammad Khatami, in a talk with reporters after the meeting with the Iraqi vice president, Taha Yassin Ramadan, who diplomats said requested the meeting.

Mr. Abtahi said that both countries had accepted the Algiers agreement, a comprehensive 1975 border and security pact that has been in abeyance since its abrogation by Iraq in 1980.

President Saddam Hussein tore up the agreement in 1980 shortly before invading Iran and sparking an eight- year war in which one million people are believed to have been killed. No formal peace treaty has yet been signed.

But Mr. Abtahi said Iran now considered the accord to be in force and added that it formed the basis of the discussions. "We made good progress today," he said. "I think that we have understood every ambiguous point, and we understood ambiguous points in the future, so that we have a good future for everybody."

The meeting was the most senior encounter between the two countries since Izzat Ibrahim, vice chairman of Iraq's Revolutionary Command Council, went to Tehran in 1991 and proposed reviving the pact, diplomats said.

At that time, Iran declined to take up the offer, made shortly before an American-led alliance ejected Iraqi occupation troops from Kuwait.

Under the pact signed by Mr. Hussein, then Iraq's vice president, and the shah of Iran at a previous meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries in Algiers in 1975, Iraq ceded sovereignty over part of the Shatt al-Arab waterway in exchange for an end to Iranian support for Kurdish rebellion.

The pact also provides for noninterference in each other's internal affairs, halts actions undermining each other's security and provides for political and cultural exchanges.

"We have no problem, the two sides, with the Algiers agreement," Mr. Abtahi said.

Asked if the accord was in force, Mr. Abtahi replied: "Yes, of course, and that was the basis of the discussion. Iran and Iraq have the longest border in the region. We can have good cooperation with each other."

Asked about the armed opposition groups that carry out border raids, and that each side accuses the other of harboring, Mr. Abtahi said Iran and Iraq should "have more control of the conflict in each country."

"That could be a good factor for cooperation in the future," he added.

Mr. Abtahi said the foreign ministers of both countries would meet in Baghdad to pursue the issues raised here today. In marking the 20th anniversary of the start of the Iran-Iraq war last week, President Khatami of Iran issued a call for peace.

"Iran calls for peace in the region, and in the whole world," he said. "Our policy is a policy of promoting global détente."

Iraq commemorated the anniversary on Sept. 4, the date on which it accuses Iran of initiating hostilities, and Iraq's official press has called for a new page to be turned in relations.

Iran blames the United States for encouraging Mr. Hussein to attack Iran less than two years after the Islamic revolution in February 1979 that deposed the American-backed shah.

-------- ireland

New York Times
September 30, 2000
World Briefing EUROPE

NORTHERN IRELAND: FUGITIVES CAN RETURN Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Mandelson said fugitives from British jails will be free to return to Ulster and remain out of jail under the early-release provisions of the Belfast peace pact. Some 430 paramilitary fighters have been freed since the 1998 accord. Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army, had been seeking the move, and some of those affected are I.R.A. members who have been fighting extradition from the United States. Warren Hoge (NYT)

-------- korea

2 Koreas to Set Up Joint Economic Panel

New York Times
September 30, 2000
By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/30/world/30KORE.html

SEOUL, South Korea, Saturday, Sept. 30 - North and South Korea agreed today to set up a joint committee to push forward economic cooperation and trade, a joint statement said.

The agreement was reached at the end of three days of talks between Unification Minister Park Jae Kyu of South Korea and his North Korean counterpart, Jon Kum Jin, on the southern island of Cheju.

The statement said the two nations planned major projects including the construction of a railway and an expressway across the heavily fortified border and joint anti-flood work on the Imjin River near the border.

The statement also said the two sides had agreed to work on procedures necessary for economic exchanges, including details for resolving commercial disputes.

The two nations will also resume soccer matches alternately in Seoul and Pyongyang beginning next year, and will start exchange programs for college professors, students, artists, musicians, dancers and other performers, the statement said.

The officials also shared the view that bolder steps were necessary to help as many separated families as possible reunite with their relatives.

The establishment of a permanent center to be used for family reunions and mail exchanges will be sought by the end of this year, South Korean officials said. Both countries have agreed to allow 200 more people from each side to reunite with their relatives this year, following the 200 who were granted permission to see their families in August.

The agreed number has fallen short of the South's expectations, given that tens of thousands of South Koreans have filed requests to find and see their relatives in the North.

Mr. Park and Mr. Jon also discussed a visit to Seoul by Kim Yong Nam, head of North Korea's Supreme People's Assembly. Mr. Kim is expected to visit in December before North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Il, comes to Seoul in March or April.

-------- taiwan

Missile Sale to Taiwan Has Unusual Clause

New York Times
September 30, 2000
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/30/world/30ARMS.html

WASHINGTON, Sept. 29 - A United States missile sale to Taiwan announced late this week includes a highly unusual condition: that the missiles will not be turned over to the island nation unless China introduces a similar weapons system, a senior American defense official said today.

The unusual arrangement was not mentioned when the Pentagon announced on Thursday that it planned to sell 200 Amraam missiles to Taiwan as part of a $1.3 billion arms package. The Pentagon said the sale would increase and improve Taiwan's air-defense capacity without upsetting regional military balance.

The arrangement is meant to meet an American arms export pledge not to introduce new offensive military capacities into Asia.

Taiwanese pilots will train with the missiles, designated the AIM- 120C Advanced Medium Range Air- to-Air Missile (or Amraam), at Air Force training ranges in the United States, the defense official said.

The official said this was "a way for them to train up and be ready should the threat occur," without provoking China into accelerating its pursuit of a similar capacity. China's air-to-air missiles are far less advanced.

-------- u.n.

UN observes minute of silence

Montreal Gazette
Saturday 30 September 2000
Southam News
http://www.montrealgazette.com/trudeau/000930/4607208.html

The United Nations Security Council observed a minute of silence yesterday in tribute to Pierre Trudeau.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan and former South African president Nelson Mandela were both present for the tribute.

Canadian ambassador Paul Heinbecker said Mandela sought him out after to express his condolences. "He asked me to pass on to the government and the people of Canada his deep sadness on hearing the news of Mr. Trudeau," Heinbecker said. "He came back to me after the session to repeat the message."

Moctar Ouane of Mali, chairman of the Security Council this month, praised Trudeau for his "deep dedication" to international peace.

"The firm support he gave the United Nations and its activities are appreciated by the entire international community," Ouane said as the 15 security-council ambassadors and their assistants stood at their desks.

Fred Eckhard, spokesman for Annan, said Trudeau made "a lasting mark" on the world.

"He was an effective champion for the causes about which he cared deeply, in particular world peace and nuclear disarmament. Canada continues this tradition as an active participant in the United Nations and in the cause of peace. The secretary-general joins Canada in mourning the loss."

-------- u.s.

Rescue Efforts Continue to Find Missing U.S. Navy Fighter Jet Pilot

New York Times
September 30, 2000
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/world/30R-PILO.html

MANAMA, Sept. 30 -- The U.S. Navy said on Saturday it was still searching for the pilot of one of its fighter planes which went missing on Friday and is presumed to have crashed in the Gulf.

``He (the pilot) has not been found yet, but the search is still going on,'' a spokesman for the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet, which is based in Bahrain, told Reuters.

He declined to name the pilot and said the Navy intended to notify his family before releasing his name.

The pilot of the F/A-18C Hornet left the Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier at around 9:30 a.m. local time (0630 GMT) on Friday and lost contact with the ship shortly afterwards.

Lt. Cmdr. Dawn Cutler, a Navy spokeswoman at the Pentagon, said the plane was taking part in a carrier-landing proficiency flight.

Iraq said its air defence forces shot down the plane.

The Lincoln arrived in the Gulf on September 24 in the regular rotation of a U.S. naval carrier force that Washington has maintained in the region near Iraq for more than a decade.

U.S. Navy aircraft and British warplanes routinely take part in patrolling a ``no-fly'' zone over southern Iraq imposed since the 1991 Gulf War to drive Iraqi troops out of Kuwait.

---

State Dept. Unfreezes Hundreds of Promotions After Delay for Security Review

New York Times
September 20, 2000
By JANE PERLEZ
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/30/world/30SECU.html

WASHINGTON, Sept. 29 - A continuing security crackdown at the State Department led to the freezing of promotions for more than 200 senior officials, pending a review of their security records, department officials said today.

The director general of the Foreign Service, Marc Grossman, said he was assessing the promotion files for security violations before sending the promotions to the White House, which then dispatches them to Congress for approval.

The release of the list was delayed after the suspension of the security clearance of one of the department's most senior officials, Martin S. Indyk, ambassador to Israel, and a sudden vigilance by Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, who is under pressure from Congress on security problems.

This evening, the department said that "under 10" officials had been barred from promotions after Mr. Grossman's review of 400 candidates. The nearly 400 people included 200 midlevel officials, whose promotions were released today after a weeklong delay.

As word of the latest action spread through the department, an assistant secretary of state complained at a senior staff meeting this week that management faced "rage" in the building and increasingly demoralized employees, according to several accounts of the session.

Others, as well as diplomats abroad, complained of a poisonous atmosphere in the department created, in part, by security officials who grilled junior Foreign Service officers about their superiors. One senior official said the obsession with security had created a "monster" out of the bureau of diplomatic security, which Congress generously finances to the detriment of other areas of the department.

Resentment was also expressed at Dr. Albright's desire to promote her senior security official, David G. Carpenter, to under secretary, a title never before conferred on a security worker at the department. That move would put Mr. Carpenter in an elite group of six top officials.

The decision on Sept. 22 to delay the announcements was the first time that the department has delayed promotions solely because of security concerns, a former director general of the Foreign Service, C. E. Quainton, said.

Dr. Albright recently agreed with a demand from Congress that security lapses, including actions like not locking an office safe properly, should be integral parts of individual personnel records.

In reviewing the transgressions of the officials, whose promotions had already been approved by a promotions board, Mr. Grossman has devised what he calls a Department of Motor Vehicles test. That means breaches will be assessed according to a point system that grades the seriousness of offenses and how long ago they were committed.

If employees have too many transgressions, they will be sent to the equivalent of "traffic school," security school, he said.

The approach, officials said today, has been met with cynicism in State Department corridors, where the secretary of state was said to be on a "security jihad."

Dr. Albright answered questions on security on Capitol Hill this week in what is generally expected to be one of her final appearances and where she gave a deferential curtsy to the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Jesse Helms, Republican of North Carolina.

"I am trying here to find a middle ground in terms of not having witch hunts or being lax," she said. "We cannot have a culture of laxity as far as security issues are concerned."

A day after that hearing, the secretary was peppered with questions by Representative Howard L. Berman, Democrat of California, at a hearing of the House International Relations Committee. Mr. Berman asked about the loss of Mr. Indyk to the Middle East peace talks, and Dr. Albright said she valued Mr. Indyk but had no second thoughts about suspending his security clearance a week ago.

With his second posting as ambassador to Israel, Mr. Indyk had one of the shining diplomatic careers in the Clinton administration, first as senior White House adviser on the Middle East in Mr. Clinton's first term and as envoy to Israel from 1995 to 1997. He then returned here as assistant secretary for Near East affairs, a post that includes defining policy on Iran and Iraq, Arab countries, North Africa and Israel.

At the request of Prime Minister Ehud Barak of Israel, who asked for an envoy whom he could personally trust and connect with, Mr. Indyk returned to Israel in December.

The State Department has said on several occasions since the suspension that Mr. Indyk's case did not involve espionage and that there was no evidence of classified information having been compromised.

Department officials said the investigation centered on the mishandling of classified material, including the writing of a classified memo on an unclassified laptop computer and the taking home of confidential documents and returning them to the office the next day.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is investigating Mr. Indyk for the period starting when he arrived at the embassy in Tel Aviv in December, said a person who has been briefed on the inquiry.

That person said that the F.B.I. had interviewed Mr. Indyk two times since the Camp David summit meeting in July and that the Diplomatic Security Bureau of the State Department interviewed him in June. At some point after June, the department referred the case to the F.B.I., apparently because of the climate in Washington created by the prosecution of Dr. Wen Ho Lee at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

In recounting aspects of Mr. Indyk's case, the person said Mr. Indyk did not attend the traditional two- week "ambassador's school" in 1995, when he was sent to Tel Aviv in a hurry. Thus, he did not receive a full security briefing.

Last November, Mr. Indyk was warned about his security practices in a generalized review of the Bureau of Near East Affairs, and he received a security briefing in December before returning to Tel Aviv, the individual said.

In the December briefing, Mr. Indyk was told for the first time to use a Tempest laptop, a secure computer shielded to prevent eavesdropping on the faint radio signals that all electronic devices emit. But such laptops needed a security officer to be with the ambassador when he wrote on it, and the Tel Aviv embassy did not have enough security personnel to spare, this person said.

On occasion, Mr. Indyk put notes from a diplomatic conversation on an insecure laptop and had the disk taken to the embassy, this person said. That was considered a breach of regulations, even though having the handwritten notes was not a breach.

The American setup in Israel is unusual, because the embassy is in Tel Aviv but much of the diplomatic work is in Jerusalem, an hour's car ride away. Traditionally, American ambassadors conduct considerable work in their car or making the rounds of the Israeli government in Jerusalem.

The suspension of Mr. Indyk's security clearance stripped him of his role in the Middle East peace talks as the administration and Mr. Barak search desperately to reach an accord. Mr. Indyk has been barred by security officials at the State Department from talking to his colleagues, including the Middle East peace coordinator, Dennis B. Ross.

Mr. Indyk's run-in with the security bureau was in part a product of the aggressive and full-time way he pursued his job, colleagues said. An Israeli author and a peace advocate, Amos Oz, described Mr. Indyk as "very unambassadorial," "a crusader for peace" and a man who talked "either books or Middle East peace."

As passions rose at the State Department over Mr. Indyk's case and over Congressional pressure that has resulted Dr. Albright's crackdown, some senior officials recalled the tenure of George P. Schultz as secretary of state, when he was seen as a strong defender of th department.

In 1986, when the Central Intelligence Agency wanted to introduce random polygraph tests for government employees who handled sensitive information, Mr. Schultz said he would resign rather than agree to tests at the department.

-------- OTHER

-------- environment

THE VICE PRESIDENT
Gore Says Bush Plan Will Cause Lasting Damage to the Environment

New York Times
September 30, 2000
By ALISON MITCHELL
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/30/politics/30GORE.html

CHEVY CHASE, Md., Sept. 29 - Vice President Al Gore today sharply criticized his opponent's proposal to open Alaska's protected wilderness to oil drilling, saying it would bring "decades of environmental damage to reap just a few months of increased oil supply."

Mr. Gore delivered his stinging critique from the wooded 40-acre grounds of the Audubon Naturalist Society, soon after Gov. George W. Bush unveiled a $7.1 billion energy plan in Michigan.

Eager for a face-off with the Republicans over oil and the environment, Mr. Gore and his running mate, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, changed their schedules today to react to Mr. Bush's plan. Mr. Lieberman even journeyed to Houston, to attack Mr. Bush's environmental record in his home state.

From a lectern set up in a glade on a glorious fall day, Mr. Gore called the 19-million-acre Arctic National Wildlife Refuge one of the nation's "greatest treasures" and said that allowing oil drilling on its coastal plain would be "bad environmental policy and bad energy policy."

"The other side now proposes to misuse high oil prices as an excuse to let oil companies invade precious natural treasures like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge," the vice president said. "If you entrust me with the presidency, I will not let that happen."

Mr. Gore called the preserve a "fragile" area and said, "It would take years and years of development, which would cause decades of environmental damage, to reap just a few months of increased oil supply. I oppose it."

He defended his call last week to use oil from government strategic reserves to try to stabilize oil prices. A day after Mr. Gore made his proposal, President Clinton ordered the release of 30 million barrels of oil, prompting charges from Mr. Bush that the nation's national security was being jeopardized for short-term political gain.

Mr. Gore, who had spoken out against tapping the oil reserve over the winter when oil prices were lower than they are now, defended his recommendation as an example of the kind of leadership needed to be steward of the strong economy.

"A spike in oil prices can have the potential to set off inflationary pressures, lead to slower growth and impose higher production costs on business," he said. "Strong economic leadership demands swift and decisive action to deal with emerging threats to our prosperity - even when that action is controversial."

He said President Clinton's decision to release the oil had already lowered oil prices about 20 percent, or $6 a barrel. But he also said the nation must cut its dependence on oil.

"We don't have to build our lives around a fuel source that is distant, uncertain and too easily manipulated," said Mr. Gore, who has long been interested in environmental issues. He called for investments in light rail and mass transit, in the development of cleaner cars and in new energy technologies.

"If we do things right," he said, "if we make responsible choices, if we invest in the job-creating, environment-protecting technology of the future, then we can have cleaner air, more reliable energy and a more prosperous economy all at the same time, with millions of good new jobs for Americans."

It was left to Mr. Lieberman to play the attack dog, in Houston's Hartman Park, a ball field in the shadow of the Valero company oil refinery where the air was thick with the smells of industry.

"To me the refinery behind us represents, unfortunately, what Governor Bush has done for the air and water in the state of Texas," the Connecticut senator said. "No child in America should be forced to play in a park like this with air that is hard to breathe."

He pointed to the past ties of Mr. Bush and his running mate, Dick Cheney, to the oil industry, as well as Mr. Cheney's recent attendance at an $8 million fund-raiser that drew oil company executives. And he pointed to Houston's standing as the nation's smog capital. The city had 38 days this year in which smog levels exceeded federal standards, and the Environmental Protection Agency is threatening sanctions.

Mr. Lieberman added, "I want to ask the American people to ask themselves, `Does Governor Bush now want to do for America's environment what he's done here in Texas?'"

---

G.E. Switches Its Web Site About PCB's

New York Times
September 30, 2000
By KIRK JOHNSON
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/30/technology/30HUDS.html

Three letters. On the surface, that's the only difference between Hudsonwatch.com and another Web site, Hudsonwatch.net, both devoted to the subject of the General Electric Company and the controversy over PCB pollution in the Hudson River.

But appearances are deceiving. The dot-com site, run by General Electric for the last several years, is stocked with scientific reports and glossy pictures that are part of the company's multimillion-dollar campaign to convince people that dredging the Hudson to remove PCB's is neither necessary nor wise.

The dot-net site, set up two weeks ago for about $24 by a disgruntled G.E. shareholder, is essentially an anticompany screed - stuffed with every reason why the company should be forced to dredge the Hudson at an estimated cost of $1 billion.

But this week, television viewers and newspaper readers in upstate New York were told that what had become a familiar Internet address in G.E.'s advertising had changed. On Thursday, Hudsonwatch.com became Hudsonvoice.com. Typing in Hudsonvoice.com will take a Web surfer to a site identical to the old Hudsonwatch.com.

A spokesman for G.E., Mark L. Behan, said the name change was strategic and had been planned for much longer than the two weeks of the competing dot-net site's existence. "It's a change in the emphasis of our advertising program," Mr. Behan said. "We hope that people will speak out about Hudson River issues, and we want to point out that now is the time to do it. That's the reason for the change in the name."

But the owner of Hudsonwatch.net, Glenn Heller, who trades stocks and fixes antique cars for a living, claimed victory. He said he had won out over a big-budget message. "G.E. blinked," he said.

PCB's, or polychlorinated biphenyls, were used for years in making electrical components. An estimated one million pounds of the chemical, which has been linked to cancer in humans and reproductive problems in wildlife, were discharged by G.E.'s factories into the Hudson for more than 30 years. The river bottom was designated a federal Superfund site in 1983.

G.E. has been spending at least $2 million a week on its antidredging campaign, said Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, a conservation group.

---

Compromise Reached on Conservation Bill

New York Times
September 30, 2000
By STEVEN A. HOLMES
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/30/politics/30SPEN.html

WASHINGTON, Sept. 29 - White House and Congressional negotiators agreed today on a plan to set aside $12 billion over six years for a sweeping federal land conservation effort.

White House officials and lawmakers who cobbled together the agreement after two years of debate said the money would be fenced off in a special conservation account, similar to the Highway Trust Fund, intended to assure a steady, if not completely guaranteed, flow of money for protecting sensitive lands.

The money would be used for activities like buying land for national parks and national monuments, grants to cities for parks and green space, buying and maintaining historic sites like Civil War battlefields, and establishing wildlife refuges.

Under the new program, federal spending on conservation would more than double in the next fiscal year, to $1.6 billion from the $742 million allocated in the past 12 months. The amount would grow to $2.4 billion by the 2006 fiscal year.

"This is, by far, the greatest increase in conservation spending in the history of the country," said Representative Norm Dicks, Democrat of Washington, who helped negotiate the agreement.

The compromise bill is a scaled- back version of a proposal pushed by President Clinton and by environmentalists that would have guaranteed $45 billion for conservation efforts over the next 15 years. That measure, the Conservation and Reinvestment Act, has been stalled in the Senate.

The legislation announced today would require that the money be used only for conservation. In the past, money allocated to programs like the Federal Land and Water Conservation Fund could, and frequently was, used for other purposes.

Congress would still have to act each year before the money would be spent on specific projects. But if Congress decided not to spend the amount annually placed in the fund, the money would remain in the account and could be allocated the next year. White House officials and some lawmakers said the popularity of conservation programs would all but guarantee that the money would be spent every year.

"I'm quite confident that this regime is one that will last for a long time," said George Frampton, chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality, a White House agency. "I think it's going to be very popular. I think it's going to work."

The program would be established under an $18.8 billion spending bill that finances the Department of the Interior, the Environmental Protection Agency and related agencies. The compromise worked out by Congressional and White House negotiators will be voted on by the House early next week and the Senate soon thereafter.

White House officials said they hoped the accord reached today would propel the effort to reach agreement on the remaining spending bills that must be enacted to keep the government functioning.

"In the broader sense, the way we engaged on the Interior bill reflects a different approach than we saw from Congress through most of the last month," Jack Lew, director of the Office of Management and Budget, said. "For most of last month we've been running from meeting to meeting without any sense that there was any direction. This Interior bill was the first time we saw a willingness to compromise."

Mr. Lew said there would probably be a meeting next week between White House officials and Congressional negotiators. The administration would like the discussions to center on the mammoth spending measure that finances government labor, health and education programs, traditionally one of the most contentious spending bills.

Reaction among environmental advocates to the deal on the Interior bill was mixed. Some groups supported the idea of the conservation fund, but said they could not endorse it without seeing the legislation's fine print.

"This is a big deal," said Anna Aurilio, legislative director for U.S. PIRG, the Washington lobbying office for state Public Interest Research Groups. "This is a very big deal, but the devil is in the details."

Many environmental groups had favored the proposed $45 billion conservation program, which sketched out how much money would be allocated to federal and state conservation programs over the next 15 years.

Some environmentalists felt that, in addition to its larger size, it was preferable because it guaranteed specific amounts for specific programs, rather than leaving it to Congress.

"The great challenge is to ensure that we have permanent funding," said Tom Cassidy, senior policy advisor at The Nature Conservancy, an environmental group. "From what I've seen thus far, it does not seem that we have that in the proposal that was reached today."

Several lawmakers had threatened to filibuster the bigger bill in the Senate. Among the reasons for their opposition is that the bill would take away the ability of Congress to channel money to specific projects. The compromise reached today would set up seven broad accounts in the conservation fund and allocate a specific sum that could be spent in each.

The compromise also left it up to the appropriations committees to determine how the money in each account would be spent.

---

THE TEXAS GOVERNOR
Bush, in Energy Plan, Proposes New U.S. Drilling to Curb Prices

New York Times
September 30, 2000
By FRANK BRUNI
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/30/politics/30BUSH.html

SAGINAW, Mich., Sept. 29 - Gov. George W. Bush outlined a wide- ranging energy plan today that called for more domestic fuel production, better relations with foreign oil suppliers and opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for drilling, all of which he framed as potential remedies for rising oil and gas prices.

Mr. Bush said the plan, which also included incentives for developing alternative energy sources and clean- burning fuels, reflected his determination to limit the country's vulnerability to the international oil market and to avert escalating prices and energy shortages.

But it also gave Mr. Bush, the Texas governor, an opportunity to attack Vice President Al Gore on the heels of Mr. Gore's call last week for the release of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Mr. Bush characterized this step, which President Clinton indeed took, as proof of how shortsighted the Clinton administration had been.

"They have had seven and a half years to develop a sound energy policy," Mr. Bush said. "They have had every chance to avoid the situation that confronts us today. And now they have nothing but excuses, bad ideas and - as the clock runs out - one last ploy."

In a sign of the issue's sudden potency, Mr. Gore and his running mate, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, rearranged their schedules so they could deliver their own remarks on energy and the environment. Both said Mr. Bush's plans for the Arctic refuge would cause irreversible environmental damage. [Page A13.]

The political cross-fire was intense. Mr. Bush, in a speech to workers at a plant here that produces machinery for car manufacturers, cast Mr. Gore as a liberal extremist - and a slightly loopy one at that. The terms he used were tailored to Michigan, a swing state economically dependent on the automobile industry.

"The administration seems never to have concerned itself with the domestic energy supply, except to tax, regulate and therefore diminish it," Mr. Bush said. "The vice president likes electric cars - he just doesn't like making electricity. In speeches, he calls autoworkers his friends. In his book, he declares the engines they make an enemy."

Although Mr. Bush had drawn the contours of his positions on energy issues before, he filled them in with new details today, and he put the price of his proposals at $7.1 billion over 10 years.

Of Mr. Bush's proposals, the most contentious is the opening of the Arctic refuge, about 19 million acres of wilderness in northeast Alaska that is home to caribou, bears, musk oxen and migratory birds.

Mr. Bush specified that he wanted to allow oil exploration in only 8 percent of this federally owned land and insisted it could be done in an environmentally sensitive manner.

Environmental watchdog organizations vigorously disagreed, and said the polluting effects of drilling would spread wide and far.

Adam Kalton, the Arctic campaign director of the Alaska Wilderness League, likened the opening of the refuge for oil drilling to "damming the Grand Canyon for hydroelectric power or capping Old Faithful in Yellowstone for geothermal power." And Mr. Kalton said it would not produce a significant amount of oil for American consumers for more than five years.

While portions of the wildlife preserve are spectacularly beautiful, the coastal plain - the 1.5 million- acre section along the Beaufort Sea where the drilling would take place - is flat, largely featureless and frozen much of the year. But to environmentalists, its unspoiled desolation, and its role in the complex ecosystem of the North Slope, argue for leaving it untouched.

Mr. Bush also said he would instruct the Department of Energy to identify other federal lands that could be opened to oil and natural gas exploration, which many environmentalists also oppose.

He did not call for more offshore oil drilling and had previously indicated his opposition to new leases for such drilling along the coasts of Florida and California, two states with many electoral votes and pockets of strong opposition against the practice.

Mr. Bush repeatedly alluded today to the administration's move to release 30 million barrels of oil from the strategic reserve, a resource usually seen as a fallback during times of war or major supply disruptions. Mr. Bush called the current release "a calculated political move" and noted its timing "just weeks before an election."

But his speech and plan were much broader than that accusation. They criticized what he said was an increasing dependence in this country on foreign oil, forecast rapidly rising demands for energy and delineated a variety of ways to meet those demands.

"This administration tries to take credit for our economy," Mr. Bush said. "But they seem too have forgotten what makes it run. Even today - in our new, high-tech economy - America runs on oil and gas and coal gained from the earth and water held behind our dams."

Continuing a weeklong effort to wrest the issue of prosperity from Mr. Gore, Mr. Bush warned that the absence of a comprehensive energy plan, which he said the Clinton administration had never developed, was an invitation to economic gloom.

"Our nation has had three recessions in the last generation," Mr. Bush said, "and each one was tied to an energy shock."

His plan also contained an array of other proposals intended to please a variety of constituencies. Mr. Bush called for an additional $1 billion over 10 years for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which helps low-income people with their heating and cooling costs. He also called for $1.4 billion over 10 years in additional federal financing for federal and state programs that encourage energy conservation.

Expressing a concern for clean air, Mr. Bush proposed an investment of $2 billion over 10 years for research into "clean coal" technologies; tax credits of $1.4 billion over 10 years for companies that produced electricity from renewable and alternative fuels, and legislation requiring electric utilities to reduce harmful emissions.

Mr. Bush said he would channel the billions of dollars the federal government would receive from the oil companies that went into the Arctic refuge toward land conservation efforts and research into alternative energy resources.

One advocacy group, Environmental Defense, even while voicing opposition to drilling in the Arctic refuge, praised Mr. Bush for suggesting steps to cut down on pollution.

Mr. Bush also sought to tailor his plans to the high-tech world. He said the equipment needed to power the Internet consumes 8 percent of all the electricity produced in the United States, and he pledged to promote the production of more electricity to meet that demand.

But he also promised to use diplomacy to persuade OPEC to pump more oil and to increase oil imports from other areas of the world. He also called for an annual meeting of the energy ministers of the leading industrialized nations to "encourage international energy cooperation."

Democrats have characterized both Mr. Bush, a former oilman in Texas, and his running mate, Dick Cheney, the former chief executive of the world's largest oil-fields services company, as pawns of the oil industry.

Kym Spell, a spokeswoman for the Gore campaign, charged today that portions of Mr. Bush's plan were "of big oil, by big oil and for big oil."

But in an interview today, Mr. Cheney said that his experience in the oil business convinced him that it was possible to explore for oil without harming the environment.

"For us to fall into the trap that either we develop energy resources or you have a clean environment - I think is a mistake," he said in an interview on Political Points, a Webcast produced by ABC News and The New York Times.

"One of the things I learned during my time in the private sector over the course of the last several years," Mr. Cheney said, "is that technologies have become very good at allowing us to develop resources that we couldn't have developed a few years ago, in ways that are environmentally safer than they were a few years ago."

And part of what Mr. Bush was trying to accomplish today was the portrayal of his and Mr. Cheney's professional backgrounds in a positive light.

When Mr. Bush's wife, Laura, introduced him to the crowd in Saginaw, she said that because he had grown up in Midland, Tex., and later worked in the oil business there, he had an especially keen understanding of the energy industry.

-------- genetics

A Texas-Size Whodunit On the Trail of Genetically Altered Corn Flour From Azteca

New York Times
September 30, 2000
By ANDREW POLLACK
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/30/business/30FOOD.html

PLAINVIEW, Tex., Sept. 29 - When trucks laden with corn roll up to the gate of the huge Azteca flour mill here at the base of the Texas Panhandle, they must stop at a little shack. A long thin probe is inserted into the truck and 10 to 15 pounds of corn is sucked through a tube into the shack, where the corn is tested for a fungal toxin, moisture, color, cracks and broken kernels.

But there is no test for the corn's variety and whether it has been genetically modified. "We don't see a feasible way to positively ID the genetic composition of every corn that comes into the plant," said Dan Lynn, the president of Azteca Milling.

Perhaps the mill wishes it had. Last week, Kraft Foods, a unit of Philip Morris, recalled millions of taco shells after its tests showed that some contained a type of genetically modified corn unapproved for human consumption because of concerns it might cause allergic reactions. And the flour in those taco shells was made at this big mill, the nation's largest production plant for the type of corn flour used in tortillas and tacos.

The incident has raised questions about the regulation of genetically engineered crops and has cast an uncomfortable spotlight on Azteca, which is controlled by Gruma S.A. of Mexico, the world's largest tortilla producer, but is partly owned by Archer Daniels Midland, the giant Illinois grain processor.

Azteca Milling, based in Irving, Tex., is now scrambling to confirm whether the unapproved corn, known as StarLink, is indeed in its flour and, if so, how it got there, while also trying to reassure customers.

The company says it buys corn only from farmers under contract, who grow only varieties on a list issued by the company. No genetically modified corn, let alone the unapproved variety, was on its list.

People who supply corn to Azteca agree that the company is strict in controlling the corn it uses. But with most corn looking alike and huge amounts of it moving around, accidental mix-ups or deliberate attempts to pass one variety as another cannot be totally avoided. Corn buyers rely to some extent on the honesty of farmers.

"We don't do a blood test on everybody who comes across the scales," said Chuck Dorrity, a farmer who sells corn to Azteca through a local grain elevator.

Still, conversations with farmers here indicate that Azteca might be somewhat exaggerating the extent of its controls. Some people say Azteca stopped accepting genetically modified crops this year but accepted some in 1999, the year in which the corn used in the suspect taco shells was grown.

"Everything I grew for them was Bt, but it was approved varieties," said Bill Hayes, a farmer near Plainview. Bt, or Bacillus thuringiensis, refers to genetically modified corn that produces a bacterial toxin that kills the corn borer.

Mike Harder, a manager of Southwestern Grain Inc., a grain elevator here, said the elevator sent Bt corn to the Plainview mill last year while sending nonmodified grain to another Azteca plant in South Texas to serve export markets.

Asked about these comments, Mr. Lynn and Sarah Wright, Azteca's spokeswoman, repeatedly and vigorously denied that any Bt corn was ever on Azteca's approved list, although they said some had been grown as a test.

In any case, Bt corns other than StarLink are approved for human consumption and permeate the nation's food supply. The big mystery is how the StarLink, approved for use as animal feed, got into the flour.

Some think it was just a mix-up. Others believe a farmer passed off cattle feed as human corn to get a higher price. Still others say StarLink corn might have cross-pollinated other corn in a nearby field. Or the mill could have made a spot purchase from a grain elevator to relieve a temporary shortage. It is also unknown whether the contamination was small, such as a single truckload, or more extensive.

So little StarLink is grown in this area that most farmers interviewed said they had never heard of it until it appeared in the news. The Garst Seed Company, the main distributor, estimates that there are only 300 acres of StarLink within 100 miles of the mill, less than the acreage of a single typical farm.

Garst would not release the names of the growers but said they were being contacted. So far, "we have no growers that have indicated in any way, shape or form that they sent any corn down the wrong channel," said W. David Witherspoon, the president of Garst.

So maybe the corn came from elsewhere. Azteca buys some corn from Kansas. Moreover, the Texas Panhandle imports corn by the train load from the Midwest to feed all its cattle. The question then would be how cattle feed that came by train would get to Azteca, which contracts directly with farmers for its corn.

It turns out that the mill does not always deal directly with farmers. It sometimes contracts with grain elevators, which in turn contract with farmers. These elevators also handle cattle feed, introducing the possibility for a mix-up.

Perhaps significantly, Azteca goes through elevators more for yellow corn than for white corn. StarLink is a yellow corn, and it was flour made from yellow corn that was used in the recalled taco shells. Most cattle feed is yellow corn, while white corn is grown almost exclusively for food.

Still, most of the yellow corn used by Azteca has a white cob, grain elevator operators said. StarLink has a red cob, so it is possible to tell the difference. But the Azteca mill does use some red cob corn, so a shipment of StarLink might not automatically have been suspect.

Farmers say that when they send grain to Azteca they are asked to state its variety on a form. Azteca officials say they often inspect fields before harvest and also look at the farmer's receipts for the purchase of seed.

But there are apparently some cases in which Azteca did not look at seed receipts, and it is now becoming more vigilant, people here say.

Gladwin Gillispie, a farmer in Dumas, north of Amarillo, said he and his sons were asked by Azteca about a week ago for their year-old seed purchase receipts. "They hadn't asked for the receipts before," he said. He said he was puzzled because he grows only white corn for Azteca, not the yellow corn involved in the incident.

The Plainview mill, with a capacity of 225,000 metric tons a year, opened in 1989. With 220 employees, it is one of the larger employers, though far from the largest, in this city of 22,000, which celebrates itself as the hometown of Jimmy Dean, the entertainer and sausage maker.

Azteca, saying its production method is proprietary, did not allow a reporter into the mill, showing only the corn inspection station outside.

Some farmers here worry that the taco shell incident will hurt Azteca's business. The mill is one of the biggest buyers of corn for food, which can fetch a price of as much as 70 cents a bushel more than corn for cattle feed.

"They are about the only one left that's buying food corn," said David Ford, a farmer in Dumas. Frito-Lay, which once bought corn in the Panhandle, moved to Nebraska, he said.

Many farmers here say that because of low corn prices and a declining water table, they are shifting from corn to cotton, which uses less water. The recent rise in energy prices, which will increase irrigation costs further, will accelerate the trend. "This will probably be the last year I grow corn," Mr. Hayes said.

Some farmers here grow Bt corn and say it saves them money needed to spray for the corn borer. Others do not use Bt corn because the seed is more expensive or because they still have to spray for other pests anyway. But all farmers interviewed said they supported biotechnology and said the biotechnology opponents, who first discovered the StarLink in the taco shells, were raising baseless fears.

"Ninety percent of the people in the world would love to have those taco shells," said Jerry Harder, president of the Southwestern Grain elevator. "Those environmentalists should have to go to Russia and stand in line for two hours for a loaf of bread."

Aventis, the European drug company that developed StarLink, suspended sales of the seeds this week. The Plainview mill has stopped making and selling yellow flour, which accounts for about 15 to 20 percent of its output. That production has been shifted to other Azteca mills, and Azteca has not lost any business, said Mr. Lynn, the president.

Mr. Lynn said the company's tests for StarLink, performed by outside laboratories, were inconclusive. Sometimes the corn tests negative and the flour tests positive. Sometimes multiple samples from the same lot of flour give different results.

The company is about to begin testing corn arriving at the mill for the presence of StarLink, using a new test introduced this week by Strategic Diagnostics. Shipments of yellow flour should resume soon. The whodunit, however, might remain unsolved.

"I'm not sure we'll ever know what happened," Mr. Lynn said, "if it happened."

---

European Company Will Buy Entire Crop of Corn in Recall

New York Times
September 39, 2000
By ANDREW POLLACK
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/30/business/30CORN.html

The company that makes the genetically modified corn linked to the recent recall of taco shells agreed with the government yesterday to buy back this year's entire crop to prevent the grain from getting into the food supply.

The Agriculture Department and the Environmental Protection Agency announced the deal in a joint statement after negotiating with Aventis CropScience, part of Aventis S.A., a big European drug company. The Agriculture Department estimated the entire crop would cost about $90 million to $100 million.

The Aventis corn, known as StarLink, is approved for use as animal feed but not for human consumption because questions about whether it could cause allergies cannot be definitively answered. Recently, biotechnology opponents reported discovering the StarLink corn in Taco Bell brand taco shells made by Kraft Foods, a subsidiary of Philip Morris. When Kraft confirmed the findings, it recalled millions of the shells, and the Taco Bell restaurant chain also began replacing its shells.

Susan McAvoy, a spokeswoman for the Agriculture Department, said buying an entire crop was rare but not unprecedented. A cranberry crop found to have illegal chemical residue was purchased in the 1950's to keep the berries out of circulation.

Aventis earlier this week said it would suspend sales of StarLink seeds, which means that StarLink will not be grown next year. Yesterday's action seeks to take care of the StarLink corn that is now growing and being harvested. StarLink is grown on about 315,000 acres, or less than 0.5 percent of the nation's corn acreage, making it one of the least popular of the nation's genetically engineered crops.

Under the plan, the Agriculture Department will actually buy the corn from farmers and then take direct control of the corn's storage and distribution. The corn will not be destroyed but will be sold under government supervision to animal feed lots or for industrial uses such as making ethanol, a gasoline additive.

Aventis CropScience will reimburse the Agriculture Department but will be able to keep the proceeds from the sale of the corn. So it is unclear what the financial impact will be on Aventis. A spokesman for Aventis CropScience declined to comment on the program's costs.

The E.P.A. and the Agriculture Department called the plan "a prudent and responsible step."

-------- terrorism

Terror-bomb suspect meant no harm: Judge Ontario man's sentence suspended

Montreal Gazette
Saturday 30 September 2000
MIKE KING The Gazette
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/pages/000930/4607501.html

A man suspected of being a terrorist bomber received a suspended sentence yesterday after a Quebec Court judge said he was convinced the defendant never intended to harm anyone.

Instead, Judge Claude Parent placed Aymon Bondok, 23, on probation for two years with strict conditions, including having to surrender his Canadian passport for that period. Bondok, of Nepean, Ont., pleaded guilty in August to possessing explosives.

Parent said evidence persuaded him that Bondok "acted in fear and not for financial reasons" when he built a bomb that was used in a failed plot against the Israeli consulate.

"What he delivered was not an explosive device," Parent said.

"The most important factor is that he called police. That showed he had no intention of hurting anyone."

Parent noted there was no evidence the accused had links with any terrorist group.

Bondok originally faced two other charges: extortion and possession of an explosive substance with intent to cause bodily harm.

He admitted to placing the homemade bomb in the apartment of co-accused Tarek Khafagy in February. Bondok also confessed to making an anonymous phone call that month to the Israeli consulate in Montreal, threatening to blow up the building unless Israel released Lebanese prisoners.

He then called the RCMP to give them Khafagy's name and address and told them they could find the bomb hidden in the bathroom ceiling.

Khafagy, 30, is to stand trial Oct. 23.

Similar charges against Kim Saint-Louis, Bondok's ex-girlfriend, were dropped. She is expected to testify for the prosecution against Khafagy. One of Bondok's probation conditions is that he have no contact with Khafagy or Saint-Louis during the next two years.

Since Bondok had been in custody since March, the judge considered that he had already served the equivalent of 13 months in prison.

---

Lockerbie Case Judges, Who Are Also Jurors, to Rule on Admitting Crucial Diary

New York Times
September 30, 2000
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/30/world/30LOCK.html

CAMP ZEIST, the Netherlands, Sept. 29 - Moving to a new phase of the Lockerbie trial, Scottish police officers described today how they had acquired the personal diary of one of the two Libyans accused of putting a bomb aboard Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988.

But their testimony had hardly begun when it created an unusual and intriguing legal tussle.

One entry in the diary, which was on or in Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah's desk at a Malta travel agency when the police obtained it in April 1991, is believed to be crucial to convicting him.

Prosecutors have not described it because the trial is taking place under Scottish law, and Scottish criminal courts do not allow opening statements. But it has been reported to say, "Pick up Air Malta luggage tags" or words to that effect, on a date shortly before Dec. 21, 1988.

On Dec. 21, prosecutors contend, an unaccompanied suitcase with a bomb inside was loaded onto Air Malta flight KM180 to Frankfurt, tagged to transfer to Pan Am 103 to London and New York. The plane exploded shortly after leaving London and crashed over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 259 people aboard and 11 on the ground.

Luggage tags are, obviously, not normally picked up before a passenger checks in for a flight, but Mr. Fhimah, as station manager for Libyan Arab Airlines in Malta, might have had access to them.

But the entry was never read out today because the defense objected that the diary had been illegally obtained from Mr. Fhimah's Maltese business partner and therefore could not be used as evidence.

To determine whether that is so, the court quickly shifted into a "trial within a trial," the equivalent of an evidence hearing in the United States, but unusual in that the three Lockerbie judges are also acting as the Lockerbie jury.

The three are essentially holding a hearing about the diary, as judges, to determine whether they, as the jury, will be allowed to hear about the diary. "We shall therefore move into a trial-within-a-trial mode," ruled the presiding judge, Ranald I. Sutherland. "We shall put ourselves out as far as a jury is concerned."

They may even hear testimony next week from Mr. Fhimah as to where the diary was or whether he gave his partner permission, after the fact, to turn it over.

Defendants often do not testify at their own trials because it opens them up to damning cross-examinations. But a defense lawyer, Richard Keen, argued that Mr. Fhimah's testimony can be "ring-fenced" to the trial-within-a-trial without opening him up to cross-examination on the main trial's issue - whether he conspired to blow up an airplane.

If Mr. Keen succeeds in getting the diary excluded, there is little other evidence connecting Mr. Fhimah to the plot. Only his co-accused, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, has been linked to buying bomb timers.

The two Scottish detectives, Henry Woods Bell and Peter Avent, testified that they, an F.B.I. agent and a Maltese police sergeant met with Mr. Fhimah's Maltese partner, Vincent Vassallo, on April 22, 1981, at the office of Medtours, which the prosecution calls a front company for Libyan intelligence.

After a five-hour interview, they both testified, Mr. Vassallo was collecting stationery samples to give them, when he looked in or on Mr. Fhimah's desk and found his 1988 diary. They paged through it, found it was in Arabic, and asked if they could keep it to have it translated.

"There was slight hesitation in the sense that it was Mr. Fhimah's diary," Detective Bell testified, "but as I suggested to him that as Mr. Fhimah wasn't available and he was in charge of the office and a shareholder, that he had the authority to give us the diary, and he agreed."

He said Mr. Vassallo later told him he had spoken to Mr. Fhimah in Libya, and Mr. Fhimah "had said there's no problem, to give them anything they wanted."

Mr. Keen pressed them hard, trying to show that they already considered Mr. Fhimah a suspect and so should have had a warrant.

They knew that someone at 3 St. John's Flats, Spring Street, in the Maltese town of Mosta, had received a phone call from Mr. Megrahi just before the bombing. They had already asked for the lease, and then Mr. Fhimah's police files, immigration records, work permit and utility bills. They had also, without a warrant but with the landlady's permission, searched the apartment, which by then had been vacated. They photographed it and took a briefcase and a stray lump of household putty for forensic analysis - a decision that gave Mr. Keen a chance to vent his talent for sarcasm.

"Why did you remove somebody else's putty from the flat, Mr. Bell?" he asked again and again, as Detective Bell waffled, trying to avoid saying that he had suspected that it might be a plastic explosive.

Mr. Keen also put it to them that the Maltese sergeant had said Detective Bell himself had searched Mr. Fhimah's desk during the Medtours visit and found the diary, which both police officers vigorously denied. He also suggested that they had simply told Mr. Vassallo they were taking it, which they also denied.

Mr. Keen did get Detective Bell to admit that he had not filled out a receipt label for the diary and given it to Mr. Vassallo until several days later, but had written Mr. Vassallo's statement as if he had received one.

That happened, the detective, said, because it was already late at night; he intended to make a label and give it to Mr. Vassallo in the next few days, he said.

-------- activists

Milosevic Foes Stage Protests to Force Him to Concede

New York Times
September 30, 2000
By STEVEN ERLANGER
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/30/world/30YUGO.html

BELGRADE, Serbia, Sept. 29 - Thousands of people across Serbia rallied today in protest against President Slobodan Milosevic as opposition leaders called on foreign governments, including Russia and Greece, to examine the disputed results of the presidential election last Sunday.

Vojislav Kostunica, the opposition candidate, says he won the election outright, with more than 50 percent of the vote, but Mr. Milosevic's Federal Election Commission says that Mr. Kostunica fell short and that a runoff vote is required on Oct. 8.

Mr. Kostunica has alleged widespread electoral fraud and vowed to boycott the runoff, and the opposition called a rolling series of rallies, demonstrations and strikes, beginning today, to try to force Mr. Milosevic to concede defeat. Opposition leaders say they hope to shut the country down by Monday.

But the street demonstrations got off to a slow start.

Here in the capital, an afternoon rally was poorly attended, with no more than 15,000 people, many of them high school students, gathered in the central Square of the Republic - too small a crowd, opposition leaders conceded, to start a fire, much less a rebellion.

So they suspended the rally until 8 p.m., but still the turnout was considered disappointing - perhaps 40,000 people on a chilly night, far fewer than the 200,000 or more who came out on Wednesday night to hail Mr. Kostunica's apparent victory.

Some who did show up today were puzzled by the postponement. Goran Ledjenovic, a high school student of 17 in a Jugoslavija T-shirt, said: "Well, we'll stay to protest, but I don't think he'll go that easily. We need total civil disobedience, not this kind of thing today, which is ridiculous. Everyone needs to come out on the street and block the system."

The signs were more troubling for Mr. Milosevic out in the provinces, where people tend to be poorer, angrier and less jaded and have much better access to independent news media.

Protesters in opposition strongholds like Cacak, Nis, Novi Sad, Kraljevo and Valjevo filled town squares and blocked major national roadways. State television and radio stations in Novi Sad and Kragujevac stopped regular programming to protest against state news, while some semiprivate stations allied with the government, like BK Television, have begun to give straight accounts of opposition news conferences and claims, as has the state- owned daily newspaper Politika.

The change is particularly noticeable on Studio B, the Belgrade station seized by the Serbian government from the opposition-run city hall in February.

Throughout Serbia, many theaters, companies and schools shut down, and public offices and enterprises in towns like Cacak also shut. Some 7,500 coal miners stopped work in Kolubara, 25 miles south of Belgrade.

More troubling to the government, officials said, were blocked roads and some attacks on regional administrative buildings and public service managers by angry opposition supporters.

Some senior officials of Mr. Milosevic's Socialist Party are said to believe that a resounding defeat in the runoff is the only way to persuade Mr. Milosevic to concede.

There is said to be significant confusion and unrest within the party, which Mr. Milosevic has controlled since 1987, with some senior officials looking beyond him and even urging him, one official said, to consider conceding defeat to Mr. Kostunica.

Divisions between the Socialist Party and the Yugoslav United Left party, a creation of Mr. Milosevic's wife, Mirjana Markovic, are said to be more severe. Socialists have resented the growing power of the United Left, which controls many businesses and ministries.

And United Left officials, including Mrs. Markovic, are reliably said to have urged a harder line on Mr. Milosevic, because they see their fate as tied up with his.

It is difficult to assess the breadth of the dissension, but one official described the atmosphere as "chaotic, nervous and spreading." The director of the Federal Statistical Bureau, Miroslav Zivkovic, told a former employee that he was concerned about electoral fraud and asked for protection.

The chairman of the Federal Election Commission, Borivoje Vukicevic, and three other permanent members told another official at a party at the Chinese Embassy on Thursday night that none of them had signed the final statement of the commission that showed Mr. Kostunica leading Mr. Milosevic by 10 percentage points, but less than one point below a majority.

Today the opposition lodged an official complaint with the election commission, providing its own tally showing that Mr. Kostunica beat Mr. Milosevic by 51.34 percent to 36.22 percent. Nebojsa Bakarec, an aide to Mr. Kostunica, said voting returns had been produced from more than 100 polling places in Kosovo that had never opened but that apparently produced 142,000 votes for Mr. Milosevic. Mr. Bakarec said the votes had inflated the turnout, artificially reducing Mr. Kostunica's percentage.

One Kosovo polling site - in Prizren, where very few Serbs now live - showed more than 4,000 votes for Mr. Milosevic. The polling station is now the local headquarters of the Kosovo Protection Corps, the reformed version of the Albanian secessionist Kosovo Liberation Army.

The chief United Nations administrator in Kosovo, Bernard Kouchner, said today that he agreed with the opposition charges, since no more than 45,000 people had voted in Kosovo.

In an effort to resolve the election dispute, Mr. Kostunica urged an independent recount of the ballots. He appealed especially to Greece, "the birthplace of democracy," which has close ties to Serbia.

Greek officials have said they would be willing to help, but there is no indication that Mr. Milosevic would sanction such outside involvement. The Greek, French and Russian governments are exploring how to help mediate the electoral dispute, diplomats said.

The opposition sent copies of its election results and materials to Moscow, hoping that the Russian government could influence Mr. Milosevic.

In another sign of sensitivity to reporting seen inside Serbia by owners of satellite dishes, the Yugoslav government demanded today that the resident correspondent of the British Broadcasting Corporation, Jacky Rowland, leave the country within two days. Officials told her that they were unhappy with the general tenor of the BBC's reporting.

-------


NucNews - Please circulate -- help educate! - http://prop1.org

1. Sommet de la Terre/ Earth Sommet
From: bernard blanc

2. Ill workers at n-plants unhappy with talk in Congress:
From: easlavin@aol.com

3. Spokane.net - No bottoms in nuke containers
From: Denise Nelson

4. ABC News - Japanese nuclear disaster remembered
From: Denise Nelson

5. Nader incinerates Gore in East Liverpool visit
From: Denise Nelson

6. Washington Post Editorial: Double Standard on Defense
From: easlavin@aol.com

7. Spokane.net - Groups question INEEL
From: Denise Nelson

8. Chernobyl, etc., from Thyroid Report, "Sticking Out Our Necks"
From: Steve Wagner

9. IEER: Nuclear Power, No Solution To Global Climate Change[Or Anything Else]
From: "Bill Smirnow"

10. Arthur J. Starling III's apology to Russell D. Hoffman
From: "Russell D. Hoffman"

----------

Message: 1
Date: Sat, 30 Sep 2000
From: bernard blanc

Sommet de la Terre/ Earth Sommet

Pour ceux qui veulent préparer le Earth Sommet de 2002, il y a moyen de souscrire à la liste indiquée ci-dessous. Attention, c'est en anglais. Amitiés à tous. Bernard Blanc.

For those who would like preparing the Earth Summit 2002, a e-group list is now available. Best regards from France. Bernard Blanc.

Subject: [alaskagreenparty] Network 2002

Dear Members,

I am writing from the United Nations Environment & Development Forum, to bring to your attention our new free monthly newsletter, Network 2002. This Multi-stakeholder publication is being produced in preparation for Earth Summit 2002 - the 10 year review of the First Summit in Rio in 1992.

The 2002 Summit will address and set the Sustainable Development agenda for the 21st Century, covering a wide range of Environment, Development and Economic issues. Network 2002 will monitor progress and engage all groups, processes and issues over the next 2 years in the run up to the Summit and beyond. Network 2002 is circulated free each month by email in Acrobat pdf format and text format.

To subscribe, simply email: network2002-subscribe@egroups.com Thank you for your kind attention.

----------

Message: 2
Date: Sat, 30 Sep 2000
From: easlavin@aol.com

Ill workers at n-plants unhappy with talk in Congress:
No compromise wanted in plan for compensation

September 30, 2000
By Frank Munger,
News-Sentinel Oak Ridge bureau

OAK RIDGE -- Oak Ridge activists are worried about "compromise" talks in Washington and say they won't support a watered-down compensation package for sick workers at Department of Energy nuclear sites. "We're drawing a line in the sand," Harry Williams, president of the Coalition for a Healthy Environment, said Friday.

The coalition represents a number of workers and area residents with illnesses blamed on toxic exposures at DOE's Oak Ridge facilities.

Williams said he and others have received unwelcome reports about negotiations taking place among U.S. House and Senate staff on a worker compensation program. Some of the reports indicated elected officials may be willing to reduce the size of the financial commitment and postpone some aid to workers in order to get a package passed this session.

The coalition earlier distributed a list of things expected in legislation to compensate people made ill by work at the government nuclear facilities.

Among the key items is long-term health care for sick workers, and Williams, a former employee at the K-25 Site in Oak Ridge, said he and other sick workers here won't support or accept anything that doesn't provide for health care.

Williams said Oak Ridge workers support the compensation program approved earlier in a Senate amendment attached to a military authorization bill. That package include $200,000 lump-sum payments for workers with illnesses, such as beryllium disease or radiation-induced cancer, linked to the workplace.

Janet Michel, another former K-25 worker, said the Senate version was "far from perfect" but was acceptable as a start toward compensating those affected by workplace exposures.

"We have finally decided that is our bottom line," she said. "We will not accept anything less."

Williams said the coalition does not want to see any more studies or "blue-ribbon panels" that postpone assistance to people who are sick or dying.

Many of those sick are heroes who worked hard to support the nuclear weapons program during the Cold War, often in hazardous environments without proper protection, he said.

"It seems to me that we run all around the globe talking about human rights violations, but there were some violations that took place in the greatest country on earth," Williams said.

"We're not going to give up on this issue until everybody who was made sick by these plants is treated appropriately -- whether that's this year or 10 years from now. We're going to stay after this."

Frank Munger may be reached at 865-482-9213 or twig1@knoxnews.infi.net.

----------

Message: 3
Date: Sat, 30 Sep 2000
From: Denise Nelson

Spokane.net - No bottoms in nuke containers
http://www.spokane.net:80/news-story-body.asp?Date=093000&ID=s859235&cat=

----------

Message: 4
Date: Sat, 30 Sep 2000
From: Denise Nelson

ABC News - Japanese nuclear disaster remembered
http://www.abc.net.au:80/news/newslink/weekly/newsnat-30sep2000-27.htm

----------

Message: 5
Date: Sat, 30 Sep 2000
From: Denise Nelson

Nader incinerates Gore in East Liverpool visit

http://www.post-gazette.com:80/headlines/20000928nader3.asp

----------

Message: 6
Date: Sat, 30 Sep 2000
From: easlavin@aol.com

Double Standard on Defense

Washington Post Editorial:
Friday, September 29, 2000

EARLER THIS week, House conferees succeeded at least temporarily in knocking out of the defense authorization bill a Senate proposal to compensate nuclear weapons plant workers poisoned years ago by exposure to radiation and other hazardous materials. A spokesperson for Speaker Dennis Hastert said their objection was to an "entitlement program" whose eventual cost could be "multiple billions."

Elsewhere in the same bill, however, is another entitlement program that would cost many more billions, to which they have not voiced a comparable objection. So far as is known, they've voiced none. It would greatly enrich existing health care benefits for military retirees. Their principles as to costly entitlements apparently extend only so far.

Depending on which of several plans is adopted, the additional benefits for retirees could end up adding as much as $5 billion a year to a defense budget that most policymakers, including most members of the conference committee, argue in other contexts is already overburdened. Retirees 65 and over, who now get Medicare, would in addition get the equivalent of free full Medigap insurance so that virtually all their health care expenses would remain covered without charge. The retirees are said to deserve that by virtue of their past service to the country.

One can seriously argue--we would--whether that is the best expenditure of incremental dollars in a defense budget that the uniformed service chiefs told Congress again this week is already too tight. But what one cannot do is argue that the nuclear weapons workers are somehow less deserving, no matter that in an election year they may be the weaker constituency. The government itself now acknowledges that these workers were sickened and killed by conditions at the plants. They were falsely told at the time by people who often knew better that the conditions were safe. They were put in harm's way for the country's sake no less than any man or woman in uniform, and then lied to about it. Their compensation would cost a fraction of the health care benefits the conferees appear prepared so readily to confer. If ever people were entitled, they are. The House conferees should abandon their objection.

----------

Message: 7
Date: Sat, 30 Sep 2000
From: Denise Nelson

Spokane.net - Groups question INEEL
http://www.spokane.net:80/news-story-body.asp?Date=092400&ID=s856523&cat=

----------

Message: 8
Date: Sat, 30 Sep 2000
From: Steve Wagner

Chernobyl, etc., from Thyroid Report, "Sticking Out Our Necks" / #43 -- 9/30/00
TODAY'S NEWBORNS AT RISK FROM 1986 CHERNOBYL BLAST

According to a Reuters report, newborns in Chernobyl now are at a risk of radiation-related health problems that is equal to those children who lived there when the blast occurred in 1986. Israel's Selikoff Center for Environmental Health and Human Development conducted research that found that the longer children stayed in the Chernobyl area, located in Ukraine, the more likely they were to become ill, and that children now face as much of a risk as children did at the time of the blast.

DID YOU LIVE AT CAMP LEJEUNE?

The US Department of Health and Human Services is conducting a survey related to women who were pregnant between 1968 and 1985 and lived in base housing aboard Camp Lejeune. The survey is an attempt to gather scientific evidence about the effects that certain volatile organic compounds VOCs have children that were in utero during this time. For more information, see the website: http://www.lejeune.usmc.mil/watersurvey.html

POISONED WORKERS AND POISONED PLACES

From USA Today... "In the 1940s and '50s, the U.S. government secretly hired scores of private companies to process huge volumes of nuclear weapons material. But the companies were not prepared for the hazards of handling nuclear material. Workers were not informed of the risks. Thousands were exposed to dangerous levels of radiation. Government reports were classified and buried. The result is a legacy of poisoned workers and communities that lingers to this day. The full story of the secret nuclear contracting has never been told, until now..." Read the entire series online, at http://www.usatoday.com/news/poison/cover.htm

And don't miss "How clean is clean enough," one of the articles in the series, which touches upon thyroid problems due to radiation exposure, at http://www.usatoday.com/news/poison/017.htm

"Sticking Out Our Necks" by Mary Shomon.
Web: http://www.thyroid-info.com
Email: mshomon@thyroid-info.com
Regular mail: Mary Shomon, P.O. Box 0385, Palm Harbor, FL 34682-0385

----------

Message: 9
Date: Sun, 1 Oct 2000
From: "Bill Smirnow"

IEER: Nuclear Power, No Solution To Global Climate Change[Or Anything Else]

Linked off of IEER's web site at: http://www.ieer.org

IEER
Volume 6 No. 3 March, 1998

SPECIAL COMBINED ISSUE of Science for Democratic Action and Energy & Security.


Articles:

a.. Nuclear Power: No Solution to Global Climate Change By: Arjun Makhijani

b.. The Energy-Security Link

c.. Global Warming and the Greenhouse Effect By: Kevin Gurney

d.. Reducing Greenhouse Gases and Creating a Sustainable Energy Supply By: Arjun Makhijani

Features:
a.. Science for the Critical Masses:
a.. The Kyoto Protocol
b.. Joint Implementation: No Panacea
c.. Major Greenhouse Gases Regulated Under the Kyoto Protocol

b.. "Dear Arjun" - "What is the second law of thermodynamics and why is it important?"

c.. It Pays to Increase Your Jargon Power: By Dr. Egghead

d.. Atomic Puzzler

e.. Selected IEER Publications

f.. About IEER

Institute for Energy and Environmental Research Comments to Outreach Coordinator: ieer@ieer.org Takoma Park, Maryland, USA

----------

Message: 10
Date: Sun, 01 Oct 2000
From: "Russell D. Hoffman"

Arthur J. Starling III's apology to Russell D. Hoffman

To: "Arthur J. Starling III"
From: Russell D. Hoffman
Re: Your apology

September 29th, 2000

Sir,

Thank you for your recent email (shown below). However, a "sincere apology" for being hot-headed is NOT a sincere apology of much -- hot-headedness is no big deal. Being WRONG is a BIG DEAL. Where is your apology for that?

Stop making us sick. Stop killing our brothers and sisters, our children, our families and our friends. Clean up the Thresher, the Scorpion, and the Sea Wolf. You apologize for what? For hot-headedness? Pshaw! Apologize for the deaths caused by the release into the environment of untold millions of Curies of radioactive waste of all varieties, at all stages of use! Apologize for attempting to destroy the will of a free American to speak out against that crime! Apologize for a possible hand in killing my own brother, Randall Melvin Hoffman, dead at age 39 from complications following Leukemia -- a disease caused mainly by man-made pollutants including most importantly, radioactive waste! Just another downwinder, I guess. Collateral damage.

Your professional honor IS at stake and you SHOULD defend it. I have accused the Nuclear Navy of MURDER and of destroying DEMOCRACY. You have aided and abetted in those crimes, both in your previous email to me, and in your failure to comprehend the destruction our NUCLEAR NAVY has been causing to this planet.

Instead you claim you were well trained. Brain-washed sounds more like it. Apologize for failing to grasp that YOU WERE BEING LIED TO. Apologize for misunderstanding the goal of the United States Navy. It's not simply to be the most powerful, or to rule the seas. They are those things and do those things in order to ensure the good health of United States Citizens with the least possible harm to themselves and to others. For what freedom is there if people cannot live a long and healthy life? In this task the nuclear navy has failed miserably. Navy pollution (and not just nuclear) is not under the jurisdiction of regular state or even national environmental laws. Navy pollution does not need to be reported the same way non-military polluters are required to report their activities. Navy pollution is not overseen by independent environmental observers. Navy pollution -- especially nuclear pollution -- is deniable under unreasonably broad and self-serving "national security" claims.

Where is your apology for any of this? If your Naval training is somehow responsible for your unfair insults, rude accusations, and libelous claims, then you should be able to tell me what exactly your training was in the following areas, because your behavior has been distinctly unsociable in discussing these issues, and I want to know why. What did you learn about:

1) Medical aspects of radiation poisoning, especially at extremely low levels (i.e., dispersed to the environment).

2) The Public's right to know -- what were you told we, the public, are allowed to know about nuclear problems? All of you always paint such rosy pictures -- pictures any careful observer knows are utterly inaccurate. Where do you get the training to do that?

3) The effects of nuclear weapons.

4) The politics of nuclear war.

5) Alternative sources of energy which are far, far cleaner than nuclear power will ever be.

and for a bonus discussion:

6) Comparisons of an investment in the next generation's education versus investment in unused and unusable nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons delivery systems.

You mentioned just two -- solar and hydroelectric -- and claimed they could not solve our energy needs, stating that nuclear can (it can't). In fact, solar alone COULD supply all our energy, and there are many resources available to replace coal, oil and nuclear; namely solar, hydro, wind, geothermal, biomass, wave, tide, Ocean Thermal Gradient, Space Based Solar, and others. (See www.geni.org for more information on alternative, clean energy solutions.)

You ask what people will do 1000 years from now when you say the oil will run out (I give it a lot less time than that). I say whatever people will be around your nuclear wasteland in years to come will curse us for our lack of foresight. They will curse us for squandering their coal and oil. And they are the ones who will suffer the consequences if we do not proceed, starting immediately, to clean up our messes, and shut down those processes by which we risk yet another spill, and another and another and another. You risked their future for what? To be able to threaten to kill hundreds of millions of people with the push of a button, a war which is still possible today or tomorrow, which sane people have tried their utmost to prevent for more than half a century now (succeeding, but how close have we come?)?

Each nuclear submarine carries enough weapons to kill hundreds of millions of people. There are dozens of nuclear subs -- 30 or 40, maybe more. Each can probably go at speeds of 70 miles per hour or more (a number I found in Critical Path, a book written by R. Buckminster Fuller, published in 1981. Some suggest higher or lower numbers. I won't ask you, I know what you'll say -- "it's classified". But I'm sure the Russians know what Bucky Fuller was saying in 1981.) Each sub can stay submerged for months at a time, so they can be anywhere in the oceans at any given time. So what? So American and Russian subs get in the last licks of a nuclear exchange, that's all.

Most civilians on the surface will have been long-dead, and the rest will be suffering an even worse fate -- this is a well-documented, inevitable conclusion of nuclear war. That's probably why we haven't used these awful weapons again since World War Two. Because the payback is virtually sure to be at least one nuke launched against us (and possibly a whole lot more) and NMD (National Missile Defense) won't be able to stop it. It can come in by car, boat, rocket -- even by suitcase. An high-altitude air burst would create an EMP (Electro-Magnetic Pulse) which would devastate this entire country for months or years -- send us back at least to the 1950's (no more email, but at least there would be Elvis). So what good are these subs? What role do they fulfill that a non-nuclear option could not fulfill just as well, or at least nearly as well, without the added risk of nuclear contamination? There is nothing.

What good is a nuclear aircraft carrier as compared to a non-nuclear one? Can you tell me? Sure, it accelerates a little faster, and its boilers come up to operate at "full steam" a bit faster. But it is far more expensive, it risks becoming a huge irradiated hulk in the middle of our own or some other harbor, it is an enormous target which must be defended against very sophisticated and fast-moving missiles, but no defense can be that perfect, and even if these ships live out their 25 year life until the mid-life fuel exchange, where do we store the irradiated fuel for eternity? Where will it be stored cheaply, safely, properly guarded, removable if necessary, recoverable, and utterly isolated from human life? And after 50 years, large portions of the nuclear aircraft carrier are also irradiated and must be isolated from human life for millions of years. Instead your Nuclear Navy has dumped your old reactors in the ocean to rust (Sea Wolf).

And let's not forget that nuclear aircraft carriers (CVNs) don't even fight the wars -- they just launch the planes that fight the wars, somewhere well over the horizon.

Our Constitution, in the very first paragraph, ordains us all -- and this goes way, way above any Naval service goals you might think you have -- to provide for "our posterity". I cannot understand how you can be willing to leave them nothing more than a nuclear wasteland, be it because enough of our ships have sunk, and enough nuclear waste has been created and released, that life can no longer function on the planet because it is too polluted, or because we started a nuclear exchange -- an Armageddon -- over some political squabble that most of us would rather not end life as we know it over (even though we might be quite willing to die, personally, for the cause, we should not be eager to, along with our own death, destroy the planet's environment for "our posterity").

I'm glad you worked hard when you were in the Nuclear Navy. But where is your hard work now, now that you are out of the Nuclear Navy and can see the whole truth? What have you learned about radiation's effects on a global environment with 6 billion souls on board "spaceship Earth"? Why can't you see the damage to the nation's citizens' right of free speech that accusations such as you've made about me do to free American citizens such as myself, when there are thousands like you who jump on every citizen who speaks out against the nuclear "demon hot atom" at every chance they get?

You would have to work at least twice as hard for at least twice as long if you wish to undo the damage your "service" to our country caused. But the nuclear navy's goals have been short-sighted. Furthermore, your apology to me should be thrown in the wastebasket. Write one AFTER you have read about the problems you have created. AFTER you have carefully considered the consequences of your inappropriate attacks on my personality when carried out to every citizen who tries to affect a change for the better in a supposedly free society, and AFTER you have considered the consequences of blaming your own personal transgressions on a blind faith in the United States Nuclear Navy, which is in need of far more than just a scrubbing and a new paint job.

I again assure you that America will some day have a completely non-nuclear United States Navy, and that all reasonable United States Citizens will long rue the days when we mistakenly followed the nuclear path towards Armageddon, Nuclear Winter, and towards a thousand new Superfund sites for this generation's citizens to add to the thousands that have resulted from past transgressions.

I thank all of you for your service -- you included. But it's time for a sea change, and it will happen whether it happens because millions of citizens like me are willing to fight the Nuclear Navy for all we are worth until we part this world, despite the inappropriate attacks on our moral character by people like you, or because too many accidents simply make our message plain to see to everyone, and corporate ownership and government infiltration and manipulation of the media cannot hide it from the voting public. (NBC and many other media outlets are owned by nuclear transnational corporations, and Al Gore and George Bush are both sons of strongly pro-nuclear statesmen whose traditions they will carry on if elected. And I think it could be called "common knowledge" that CNN is thoroughly infiltrated with CIA operatives.).

On the bottom of a shallow sea lies the Kursk, along with the Thresher, the Scorpion, the Sea Wolf reactor, and at least half a dozen other reactors, and many more nuclear blunders -- thousands large and small. At our throats you hold a nuclear Armageddon that is actually 100 times worse than what is commonly admitted -- studies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki consistently minimized the death rates and the deformity rates for infants after the blasts, yet, those same studies STILL guide our allowable dosage limits.

I don't know when you and others from the nuclear Navy (and other nuclear industries) will finally stop harassing your own citizens who speak out about these horrors -- it started long before you came along, long before even I came along (I was born in the mid-1950s).

Long before the Nuclear Navy, the United States Navy made another nearly disastrous decision -- they were dead-set against aircraft carriers at all, until Billy Mitchell blew up enough ships to prove the need for airplanes at sea! Now, the Navy is dead set against giving up their Nuclear Nightmare. They've been wrong before.

But the free-thinking public, who can see far more than your self-centered Nuclear Navy schools will ever teach -- those who have found the full truth amidst 1000 new lies each day, and 1000 little needles in our sides from people like you -- we are demanding an accounting, and a complete cessation of all nuclear operations by the military. I know your heart was in the right place. Of that I never had any doubt. But there has to be a reckoning some time. There has to be a stop. An about-face. A sea change. A correction.

No more Los Alamos or Oak Ridge nuclear research into bigger (or smaller) nuclear bombs. No more civilian plutonium RTG power sources in space as covers for similarly-equipped military satellites. No more using "Depleted" Uranium as weaponry or armament. No more threatening our neighbors with nuclear bombs! No more failure to make public the many Russian military and government nuclear mistakes, just to make sure our own public will be willing to ignore the real dangers, and thus letting the nuclear games continue. Those Russian subs that rust in Murmansk Harbor -- they are OUR nuclear navy's problem too!

Why? Well, because it's been tit-for-tat all along. They build, we build. We build, they build. You could have stopped it but you didn't.

These rusting nuclear hulks are the world's problem, too, because no harbor, no lake, no river or stream is isolated. No ocean is deep enough to hold all the nuclear waste we are dumping into the few small oceans we've got, the source of virtually all our food and water. Dilution and dispersal of nuclear waste into the environment is absolutely NO solution to the problem of what to do with the nuclear residue of a misbegotten industry. The biosphere is small and crowded with 6,000,000,000 people on it, a third of whom have NO electricity right now. 20 years ago a third had no electricity, but in the intervening years, the Nuclear Navy has wasted billions of dollars on weapons they've never used and never should use, and on ships they never should have built, building up a debt society will have to pay for many generations, while society -- not the nuclear navy -- takes care of the nuclear waste. There is not one solution which works, after 50 years of trying, but we have learned that the dangers from low level radiation are far worse than original estimates would have us believe.

No more failing to educate our children about ALL the nuclear dangers BEFORE they are offered a chance to join our Navy, so they understand why they will be instructed not to bomb our enemy's reactors no matter how necessary it might seem to their tactical situation.

No more reactors on board Navy ships. None! That's the dumbest place on the planet to put a reactor, and we're sick of the folks we need to be the smartest letting us down, and then hiding it as if nothing had happened. You've got us into this mess, and you should feel obliged even beyond your obligations to the Navy, by your obligations "to posterity", to help get us out.

Calling yourself "hot-headed" and walking away is a classic example of "one step forward, two steps back". You poison our land as well as the high seas, destroy our citizen's health, destroy democracy by attacking people like me, and then when asked to justify your actions and accusations, you apologize simply for calling me names? There's something missing. The white elephant known as Navy Reactor Program needs to be shut down, and your duty as a free citizen is to understand why what you did while in the nuclear navy was a mistake. I don't need your apology near so much as I need your assistance.

Sincerely
Russell D. Hoffman Concerned Citizen, Activist Carlsbad, California

P.S. I've taken the liberty (as is my right and, when someone calls me a liar or for matters of "national security" as in this case, I believe, my duty as a citizen) of "ccing" this email to about 100 newspapers, 100 elected officials, and about 200 friends and subscribers to my newsletters. Maybe together we CAN change the world. Citizens of all countries MUST demand that all warriors everywhere fight with non-nuclear weapons and never target nuclear power plants! (I have previously published lists of media and government who get these sorts of things; such information is available at my web site.)

Attachments (3):
1) Suggested links
2) Jack Shannon's most recent email to you.
3) List of contaminated sites in California
4) Your most recent email to me with your "apology", with comments by me. This also includes all our previous correspondence (including numerous links you should start to read -- you have a lot of catching up to do).

1) Suggested links:
These URLs are for issues of my Stop Cassini newsletter where the nuclear navy was discussed:

CVN-74 storms into San Diego Bay (STOP CASSINI #71, August 27th, 1998): http://www.animatedsoftware.com/cassini/nltrs/nltr0071.htm

GAO report comparing CVs to CVNs (STOP CASSINI #73, September 8th, 1998): http://www.animatedsoftware.com/cassini/nltrs/nltr0073.htm

We don't need no stinkin' nuclear aircraft carriers! (STOP CASSINI #124, May 10th, 1999): http://www.animatedsoftware.com/cassini/nltrs/nltr0124.htm

RESPONSE FROM U. S. NAVY TO RUSSELL D. HOFFMAN (one measly paragraph) (STOP CASSINI #151, July 12th, 1999): http://www.animatedsoftware.com/cassini/nltrs/nltr0151.htm

2) Jack Shannon's most recent email to you:
LETTER FROM JACK SHANNON TO ARTHUR J. STARLING III:

From: Jacksha1@aol.com
Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2000
Subject: Additional answers and related material
To: arthur_jay@yahoo.com, rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com

Mr. Starling please to not attempt to apologize to Mr. Hoffman by insulting me and or the USMC.

First of all I know more about Nuclear Reactors and Submarines than you and the entire Navy combined. I was the senior Engineer/Physicist assigned to design the D1G plant [which I did successfully], and also to certify it's application in the HSNAS at a different temperature. I have a B.S., M.S., in Nuclear Physics plus 16 more hours toward a Ph.D., which I would have by now if R. P. I. had not changed the rules for part time students. So don't give me your nonsense about hard work.

After boot camp at Parris Island I was an infantryman assigned as a BAR trainee [BAR is Browning Automatic Rifleman -- weighs about twenty pounds fully loaded]. The BAR was used in W.W.I, W.W.II, Korea, and early Vietnam. We worked 20 hours a day for weeks on end with virtually no sleep. We marched for so long we just went into trances. I get sick and tired of you Navy twits complaining about tough duty. The Nuclear Navy is not exactly the Navy Seals

You haven't seen tough duty until you have served in the infantry. Fortunately for me I had scored very high on the GCT test and was sent to Air Traffic Control school after my Infantry training. I was 19 years old landing airplanes in all kinds of God awful weather without all of the electronic gear today. We were not allowed to drink for twenty-four hours before duty, so I had little time for "bar hoping," as you say. Next I was sent to Ground Control Approach [GCA] School, and if you want a hair-raising job, try this day after day with hundreds of peoples lives in your hands.

At 20 I was in charge of all of the Air Traffic Controllers, and GCA personnel at Roosevelt Roads, PR. We didn't get any extra pay either. I received the pay of a Corporeal [about $100/month]. I won't even tell you what I had to go through to become a Marine Corps Infantry Officer.

Furthermore, the Nuclear Navy has never been tried in combat. You might want to look at the training of a Navy/Marine Pilot compared to a Nuke Officer if you want a comparison of difficulty of training and duty, and a combat record. If you would like a comparison of casualty rates this is what they were for W. W. II

1 USMC
2 Merchant Marine
3 Air Force Pilots and Crew
4 Army
5 Navy
6 Coast Guard

The only people who think the Nukes are terrific are the Nukes. Self adulation is no adulation.

I will put up my training against yours any day in the week. The only reason that NUKE training appears difficult is that it was set up by Rickover who didn't know a thing about training anyone. He couldn't distinguish training from punishment, how could he? He graduated from the Naval Academy in 1922. The present Nuke Officers still live in his nightmare mind, and they won't or can't change.

Please don't get too impressed by your knowledge, I taught in the Power School for a while and you guys don't know much. Don't forget that most of the Reactor Operators at Three Mile Islands were Navy trained. You know what the instructors think you must know to run a reactor, Einstein's you're not

So take your Nuclear Navy and shove it. Jack Shannon

3) List of contaminated sites in California:
FROM: PRC >>>>>
Subject: Calif. sites polluted because of nuclear weapons links..
September 23, 2000
FROM STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS (compiled by RADBULL)

WASHINGTON--The Energy Department posted a list on its Web site this week of more than 500 government and commercial sites across the country that may have been used to help build NUCLEAR weapons.

The department created the list in 1995, when the agency was trying to determine sites for an environmental cleanup program. The list, which includes 20 California sites, is identified by department officials as a working document subject to revision.

It is referred to as the FUSRAP list, which is an acronym that refers to sites reviewed for possible past involvement in NUCLEAR weapons- related activities.

Though that specific cleanup program has since been moved to the Army Corps of Engineers, the Energy Department is reviewing the list to see which sites need to be cleaned up.

The list documents weapons activity that took place as early as the 1940s, when the government was building the first atomic bomb. Some small, private businesses secretly participated in the effort known as the Manhattan Project.

File and field reviews of the sites on the list began in the early 1970s, when government officials realized the sites should be evaluated to determine the risks posed to workers and the environment.

The following is a list of California sites on the list and the agencies with jurisdiction at those sites:

Chemistry Building and Radiation Laboratory at UC Berkeley--Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).

Gilman Hall at University of California, Berkeley.
Mare Island Navy Yard, Defense Department (DOD).
Stauffer-Tenescal Co. in Richmond--NRC.
General Electric Co. in San Jose--NRC.
U.S. Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory in San Francisco--DOD.
Laboratory for Energy Related Health Reseaerch at University of California, Davis--Energy Department (DOE).
Northrup Aircraft Co. Inc. in Hawthorne--NRC.
Shannon Luminous Metals Co. in Hollywood--NRC.
California Institute of Technology in Pasadena--DOE.
Naval Ordnance Test Station at China Lake--DOD.
Santa Susana Field Laboratory in Canoga Park--DOE.
Hunter Douglas Aluminum Plant in Riverside--NRC.
Gulf General Atomic in San Diego--NRC.

The department still is trying to sort out which sites need to be cleaned up, according to Carolyn Huntoon, who oversees cleanup issues for the department.

"We are reconstructing the history of these former and present sites to see if questions remain about contamination," Huntoon said. " ... In the near future, we expect to have a more thorough and comprehensive list and a plan for addressing health and environmental concerns."

Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said earlier this month he wanted to publicize the list. Huntoon said the agency did not want to delay posting it any longer "in an effort to be candid with workers."

http://www2.em.doe.gov/sitelist.
END OF INCOMING EMAIL FROM PRC/SAN DIEGO

4) Your most recent email to me with your "apology", with comments by me. This also includes all our previous correspondence (including numerous links you should start to read -- you have a lot of catching up to do):

ARTHUR J. STARLING III'S LETTER TO RDH, WITH COMMENTARY BY RDH ADDED IN TRIPLE-BRACKETS [[[ Like this. -- rdh ]]]

At 10:33 PM 9/27/00 -0400, "Arthur J. Starling III" wrote:

All right, I'm not so full of foolish pride that I can't make a sincere apology for being hot-headed. But when I feel like someone has insulted my commitment and dedication to this service, as well as my integrity and the honorable conditions of that service, I must inform you that I take extreme offense. I do apologize if my mailing was a personal insult, I meant only to defend my professional honor, as well as that of the many people that I encountered as a Second Class Petty Officer in the Naval Nuclear Power Program. A commitment which took six of the best years of my life and nearly destroyed me, but made me stronger.

[[[ What was insulted was not commitment and dedication but blind faith and the Nuclear Navy's ridiculous claims of perfection. -- rdh ]]]

That is the answer to one of your questions. The answer to one of the implied questions by your colleague (Mr. Shannon) is as follows. The reason that sailors in the nuclear navy fear what their supervisors may do to them is readily justified by the intense effort we all put forth just to get to that ship and assigned to the Reactor or Engineering Department of a ship or a submarine. As men who have earned degrees, you understand what it means to put in long hours of classes and homework. But for the nuclear enlisted (or officer) it is even more intense. I routinely put in 18 hour days while completing Electronics Technician Nuclear Field A School and Naval Nuclear Power School, including regular weekend efforts. This was in addition to whatever whims our section advisors might have us doing, such as random uniform inspection and extended marching in the Orlando heat and humidity or spending our Sunday mornings cleaning the outsides of the barracks. I could go on. The work requires even more dedication when a student is transferred to one of the two prototype training units, where the work not only requires intensive classroom study and testing, but practical applications on an operational power plant under the close and scrutinous eye of a highly qualified team of senior operators.

Then the student is transferred to his first ship, where the pain begins anew. You see, graduating Prototype doesn't give a sailor a license to operate. He/she must first complete another strict set of qualifications after reporting aboard. The sailor will typically see lower-ranked shipmates, with cushy jobs and equivalent salaries who can leave the ship just as soon as the work is done. Most everyone leaves no later than 2:00 while the ship is in port, except for the wonderful hard-working and dedicated people in Reactor and Engineering, who must stay and study for their quals, or for the next continual training exam, because the training never ends.

And even though everyone is human, everyone is easily punishable for their mistakes. Often, sailors will lose their Nuclear Classifications in one swift blow, even for the first offense. And when you typically work 18-hour days and 20-hour days underway, it can become easy to make a mistake, or even fear that you might make one. I made a few. And I had the horrible fear that I was going to lose my job for it on more than one occasion. And then what? "Lose your nuclear classification and go topside to scrape paint with the boatswains" was the typical threat. Sometimes it even happened. Or perhaps you'll be stuck in the galley for the rest of your enlistment. Then there was the ever popular "other than honorable discharge." And if all else failed, the chain could simply give you work, work, and even more work until you just didn't have time to sleep, eat, or even shower. And make it last until they got tired.

[[[ The Nuclear Navy is NOT easily punished for their mistakes, let alone for their arrogance and abrogation of responsibilities to truth and to the health of United States citizens and others, and of the ecology of the planet. Uncloaking the awful truths hidden behind thin claims of "national security" has been nearly impossible. The Nuclear Navy has run roughshod over democracy and so far has done this utterly immune from punishment -- so immune that you think you can claim I am a liar and a fear-monger with impunity. I am a United States Citizen. You are so far out of line I don't know where to begin. Oh and by the way, the extremely long hours you say you were subjected to invariably lead to humans making stupid mistakes. Out in the real world this has been studied and proven time and again. Is that any way to run the most dangerous business on the planet? -- rdh ]]]

So maybe you can understand why sailors sometimes fear the chain of command. In the Nuclear Navy it works a little different. As well it should. You, better than anyone else must understand the necessity of doing it right the first time, every time when charged with operating and maintaining a nuclear reactor, for it is a powerful force indeed. And the protection of the environment and the population, as well as its own workforce, is of top priority to the navy.

[[[ Maybe environmental protection and protection of the population is, in theory, a priority. But in actuality that protection is utterly failing, as I have described in great detail, detail which, I might add, you have not responded to AT ALL. Instead you have merely waved your patriotic banner, clearly hoping your friends and shipmates will rally around it, merely because you are one of them. -- rdh ]]]

In regards to the home that Mr. Shannon sat in and listened to sailors "horror stories" in Saratoga Springs, I can make no comment. I can promise you that they were not shipmates, and that they never served with me. If he truly had tape recordings of instructors talking about students cheating on qualification exams, you can rest assured that this is an exceptionally rare and isolated even. The punishment for such actions is ,without variation, dismissal from the nuclear power program, and typically includes the immediate discharge of the offenders after some forfeiture of money and possible time in the brig.

[[[ To a nuclear navy seaman, as to a NASA scientist, every incident, every accident, every mistake, every leak, every lie, every missing report, every anything the least little bit ugly is an "exceptionally rare and isolated event". But to anyone who has watched what is really going on for any length of time, these "exceptionally rare and isolated events" are not so rare and isolated at all. Humans make mistakes and the nuclear navy promises -- and consistently fails to deliver -- perfection. -- rdh ]]]

And I promise you, based on first hand experience, that the reactor operator (that's what I was) training program includes an intensive class on reactor kinetics. And as is the case with all classes in the Naval Nuclear Power Program, omitting the class is not an option, nor is failure.

[[[ Reactor Kinetics are rather irrelevant to the debate, insofar as, naval reactors can be destroyed for many reasons besides just an incomplete understanding of reactor kinetics. Naval ships are in the wrong place, always at the wrong time. They are objects of attack by sophisticated weaponry (sometimes our own latest models, sold to the now-enemy by our own country, or by a once-friendly country, or they obtained it in some other way). Jet fuel, High-Explosive weaponry, being a target of sophisticated attack, and Nuclear Reactors -- even ones where the operators fully understand Reactor Kinetics and are well rested-up for their duties -- just don't mix in a sane society. The gains (over non-nuclear power supplies) are small and the potential for loss is enormous. The costs are prohibitive as well. -- rdh ]]]

The other comments Mr. Shannon made I cannot comment on, though most were quite vague. Except one. The officers. The nuclear officers that I served with were all among the finest men I have ever encountered, or had the privilege to work for. The most obvious explanation for why you never encountered them is similar to the one I already gave you. While you and your friends were bar-hopping and entertaining yourselves, the officers and enlisted of the nuclear navy were standing watch over their reactors, doing maintenance, catching up on some of the mountains of required paperwork, or otherwise doing their jobs, which take up much more time than anyone else's that I encountered in my six years of service. Of everyone on my ship, we always had the least free time by far.

[[[ (See Jack Shannon's own response, above.) -- rdh ]]]

Another question you posed asked had I visited the Thresher or the Scorpion lately. Let me be frank and say that just as important as the uranium down there are the bodies of many men who gave their life in service of this country and from now on I would hope that you can at least acknowledge both that fact and their service. If you had a detailed knowledge of what goes into making the reactor vessel and compartment of a US Navy Nuclear submarine (which I am bound by oath not to give) your fears would dissolve. I know that before those reactor vessels become breached by seawater we will have found a way to recover those downed ships and give the fuel and the sailors' remains a proper burial.

[[[ Your "bound by oath" excuse is worthless. We are a supposedly free society trying to establish issues of great national importance, and the minutia of detail you folks consider necessary to "classify" is absurd. I'm sure much if not most of this resistance to talk is simply covering up spills, instances of improper procedures being followed, leaks, near-catastrophes, near-misses, etc. etc. etc. Not to protect important national secrets but to cover up shoddy workmanship and the crime of committing an environmental holocaust.

The U.S. Navy does not have any magical stainless steel that does not ever rust. It does not have solutions to the problems of recovering the Thresher or the Scorpion or any of hundreds of other nuclear waste sites under the sea. You can't even figure out how to recover your mistakes, yet you claim secrecy abides that you not tell me how exactly it is that everything is alright. Everything is NOT alright and any oaths you took which you use to hide the facts you claim might resolve my fears are meaningless. We are a nation which is in dreaded fear of our own military's inability to admit to their own imperfections. Millions of us know what the dangers are and know the price is too high. There are other ways to protect our freedom -- even with force if necessary, but the threat of assault against the environment -- against all future generations -- has got to stop. I am well aware of what nuclear reactors and submarines are made of in the general sense -- pipes, pumps, valves and vessels. They use the heat of radioactive decay to boil water and spin turbines, generating electricity for lights and for spinning propellers to go places. What's so secret? Your assurances are hollow and don't ring true. I don't trust you and have no reason to, since you've accused me of high crimes with no basis for such accusations. No one should trust you, least of all when you lean on "national security" to cover your mistakes.

And while it might seem morally nice to recover the bodies (bones may be all that is there now) of the hundreds of men who went down with the submarines Scorpion and Thresher for more proper burial, there are thousands more bodies down there, men who went down with other military ships over the years --many in combat -- who won't ever be recovered. You're just trying to appeal to people's emotions by saying such things. No effort to recover all of those bodies will ever be made -- what makes those on the Scorpion and Thresher more important than those on some sunken landing craft off some beach in the Pacific?

Yet while you cry out about those sailor's bodies, you don't mention worrying about the vastly greater numbers of people who will be hurt by the same nuclear poison their subs contained, an evil nuclear waste which spreads throughout the environment for generations and generations -- you don't say a word about what will happen to "our posterity". You don't worry about them, only about the bodies of your Nuclear buddies. And how many years EXACTLY are you saying we have until the Thresher and the Scorpion's nuclear reactor cores rust away and release their poisons into the biosphere? Oh yeah, that's classified, right? There you go, hiding behind a cloak of secrecy just in order to hide shoddy workmanship and illegal activities! The truth is that there is NO time to waste at all! YOU certainly wouldn't know if we had a day or a decade or a century. No one knows. We don't even know why they are down there -- it could be due to a misunderstanding of reactor kinetics! -- rdh ]]]

As for the sailors aboard the sunken Soviet submarine Kursk, you're God Damned Right I supported them. Not because they were "A great and honorable foe" as you put it, but because they were human beings subjected to a horrible death of either suffocation or drowning doing the same thing I did, serving their country with faith and loyalty regardless of its shortcomings. They didn't fall in battle, with a chest wound, or with a gun in their hands. They died helpless at the bottom of a merciless ocean, while their countrymen drifted above them, helpless to do anything for them but make apologies to their families.

[[[ You scream out your support of the Russian sailors, misguided humans just like yourself. Every one of them was a volunteer who supposedly understood the risks. Yet where is your screaming out for the multitudes who will die around the world from the poisons Russian and American nuclear military policies have been putting out -- from Kursk's poisons? Hundreds, perhaps thousands or more will die for each one that died on board the sub. Scattered deaths around the world as the radioactive waste spreads throughout the biosphere. Where is your condemnation of the children's deaths from Russian's many nuclear catastrophes, including Chernobyl, and the Kursk and half a dozen other sunken subs? All you defend is your foe, but not your or your foe's many innocent victims scattered around the world -- neither you nor your nuclear navy ever mention them.

The world -- humanity -- is in a war of survival with people who are drunk with a nuclear madness, a desire to poison us all until each and every one of us dies an early death from cancer, leukemia or birth defects. When that happens, who will you defend yourself against, Arthur J. Starling III? -- rdh ]]]

I cannot comment on your claim that the Russians "are fools who don't know how to handle something that's more dangerous than they care to admit." My knowledge of the Russian Nuclear Navy is quite limited, as I did not serve in their navy. It is quite a task for a person to properly comment in an area where he/she has little or no first-hand knowledge. I can tell you that it takes and exceptionally gifted "fool" to harness the power of the atom.

[[[ You claim you will not comment on the Russian "fools", yet you defended them as exceptionally gifted! That is to say, you defend America's enemy (the Russians) and the enemy of the environment (the Russians), and of democracy and humanity (the Russians!!!)! ANY FOOL can see that the Russians are way out of line with their disrespect for the environment and especially, the hundreds of unused, unburied Russian nuclear reactors on Earth and in space! Do you even know about the one's in space? If not, here's a report you can read:

http://www.animatedsoftware.com/cassini/zips/rh9810fp.zip

-- rdh ]]]

I commented on the article regarding the US Navy because I have something you do not, a first-hand point of view. Believe me, Sir, if I had sincerely believed that our Navy was not working at the most reasonable efforts to minimize the environmental impacts of our operations, I would have blown the whistle myself long ago, oath or no oath. You do not have the benefit of spending six years in direct service and operation of this Nuclear Navy.

[[[ Well, you say you won't tell me what I need to know to feel safe because you are bound by oath, the same oath you claim you would blow the whistle on if you thought there was a problem.

In that case I again implore you to actually spend the time it takes to read the many charges I and others have made against the United States Government and your Nuclear Navy, and against NASA and other military and quasi-military departments of the US Government, because YOU OBVIOUSLY DO NOT HAVE THE BENEFIT OF THE KNOWLEDGE GAINED FROM DECADES OF BEING A FREE U.S. CITIZEN TRYING TO AFFECT ENVIRONMENT IMPROVEMENTS. Instead while you were in the Navy, and the rest of your life, you've let things go to (nuclear) waste. You, with your service past you now, can read about how the environmental movements themselves have been infiltrated time and again by agent-provocateurs, destroying our democratic right to organize properly. (A good book to read on the subject is called The War Against the Greens by David Helvarg.) You, with your service, could make a statement to your shipmates that they too should not be so rude and hot-headed as you were in your previous email, a problem I've run into time and again and for what? To defend a mistake. I've been called a lot of names for my stand, but only by biased people like you. That's one reason I recognize your efforts as being that of a NUCLEAR MAFIA. Your support for your Nuclear Navy is blind. How do you propose to defend against a nuclear attack on San Diego Bay? How do you propose to defend that harbor, with its dozens of nuclear reactors in it (all of them military) against even something like an asteroid from space? It's a valid, reasonable concern because your nuclear waste would destroy the environment for millennia if it got out. I don't mean some future protection scheme, but one that would work TODAY. How do you propose to make your industry truly safe -- the whole nuclear fuel cycle spreads waste into the environment. The answer is you can't. Spreading all the radioactive poisons from those 30 or 40 reactors in San Diego bay -- and countless nuclear warheads -- around Earth would be devastating. How do you propose to defend against even a lone terrorist with a suitcase-sized nuclear bomb (we've all heard such things exist) driven over the Coronado Bridge and set off amidst your precious nuclear carriers and subs in San Diego bay?

The answer is you have no defense. Your attitude, your ships, and your claims of invincibility are all indefensible.

You accuse me of not speaking the truth. But you have not proven your accusation, only apologized for "hot-headedness". Maybe they trained you well how to push the proper buttons and turn the proper valves to prevent most standard meltdown situations, but they must have completely forgot to go ever the most fundamental principal this nation was founded on: TRUTH. -- rdh ]]]

Since you feel compelled to forward my mail to various people, I will try to save you a little effort. It's the least I can do after sending you a hot-headed email.

Sincerely,

Arthur J. Starling III

[[[ No effort saved but your sarcastic tone is noted. Our correspondence will travel around the world and be posted at a number of web sites, because I feel compelled to defend my honor and the honor of all free American Citizens against your attacks. It is truly a shame that one of the United States Navy's #1 targets for the past 50 years has been the freedom of American citizens. -- rdh ]]]

From: Russell D. Hoffman To: Arthur J. Starling III cc: President Clinton, others Date: September 25th, 2000 Re: Our previous correspondence

Dear Mr. Starling,

The attached emails were received today in response to my distributing my email to you of yesterday, which followed your unsolicited (and insulting) comments to me (shown below).

We are ready to debate these issues openly, and welcome your best and most earnest efforts. But truly, these issues need not be debated any more. There is nothing to be said about nuclear power's failures which has not already been said. We are in a clean-up phase all around the world; nuclear power is not paying for that cleanup: The taxpayer, and the sick who suffer from the pollution, are paying for it. The Navy is not paying for it. Humanity is paying for it.

Sincerely,

Russell D. Hoffman U.S. Citizen Carlsbad, California rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com

Attachments (3):
(1) Email from Jack Shannon to Arthur Starling
(2) A recent article by Karl Grossman about nuclear subs
(3) Our previous correspondence to date, with contact information

(1) Email from Jack Shannon to Arthur Starling:
EMAIL FROM JACK SHANNON TO ARTHUR STARLING:

From: Jacksha1@aol.com Date: Mon, 25 Sep 2000 11:08:58 EDT Subject: KAPL To: arthur_jay@yahoo.com (Arthur J. Starling III), rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com

Mr. Starling:

Mr. Hoffman sent me your comments to him as well as his response to you.

He has given you several pages of my web site for you to review.

I have hundreds of more pages to add when I decide to upgrade my site again.

Just for the sake of discussion let me throw out a few more issues:

a) Misuse of the United States Security System
b) Violation of the privacy act
c) Violation of the civil rights act of 1964
d) burying thousands of drums of radioactive material/hazardous material in the unmarked KAPL landfill. I have the documents
e) Lying to federal investigators [violation of 10 USC 1001]
f) Lack of a bioassay program for all sailors and other trainees at KSO.
g) Lack of a bioassay program for all uranium workers at KAPL
h) Cover-up of the use of beryllium at KAPL [maybe KSO] and lying to the employees about such use [the damn stuff is still in the duct work]
i) Lying to the public at a Town Board meeting concerning a Water Brake explosion on the S8G plant at the KSO, which did in fact release radiation to the environment.
j) Sailors cheating on qualification exams [I have Instructors on tape -- with their knowledge -- concerning this issue]
k) Refusing to modify the reactor operator training program to include the correct use and understanding of reactor kinetics.

I could keep going on and on, but I think you get the picture.

You should understand that when Mr. [Hoffman] and I tell the truth about the Nuclear Navy we are not, in any way, undermining your dedication to serving your Country or your personal courage. We are merely exposing those things that the Navy has refused to do, and is required to do by virtue of an Officers oath, and what the Civilian members at NR have been covering up for fifty years or more.

I sat in a Sailors home in Saratoga Springs four years ago and heard horror stories from Enlisted Sailors, concerning the conduct of Senior Enlisted Members and Officers, that astounded even me.

I enlisted in the Marines during the Korean War and I was terrified of my Drill Instructors, but never an Officer.

All of us are intended to serve in the Military with honor and hopefully courage if and when the need arises. We should never be ashamed of or afraid of what a Senior enlisted member [E-8 and above] or Officer will do to us in the conduct of our duties. The Nuclear Navy seems to be an exception to this rule, I don't think it carry's over to the rest of the Navy. I served as a Naval Academy recruiter for many years and therefore have many friends who are high ranking Naval Officers and they all appear to be gentlemen. I don't remember meeting a Nuclear Navy Officer in all of the years I served in the recruiting capacity.

I decided to stay in the Reserves after getting my BS, on the Korean War GI bill, and was eventually commissioned. I retired as a Major.

I decided to stay in the reserves because I believed that I owed my Country more than I could ever pay back for giving me a successful life [both of my parents were dirt poor immigrants from Ireland] unheard of in any other Country. Such success, however does not give me license to throw away my honor. Something I refused to do at KAPL. As a result of holding onto my honor I gave up my career, and I would do it again.

Apparently many Naval Reactors Officers are more interested in becoming Captains and Admirals than they are in maintaining their honor. Honor stands above all else, especially for a professional military person. It has been my experience that bravery and honor usually supplement each other, but of the two honor is way ahead of bravery. One need only give up his/her life to be brave, honor requires one to stand up against all kinds of self centered individuals who have no honor --- a difficult task indeed.

John P. Shannon
Nuclear Physicist/Nuclear Engineer and former Manager at KAPL
END OF EMAIL FROM JACK SHANNON TO ARTHUR STARLING

(2) A recent article by Karl Grossman about nuclear subs:
ARTICLE BY KARL GROSSMAN:
By Karl Grossman

The tragedy involving the Russian nuclear-powered submarine Kursk, following other instances of nuclear-powered U.S. and Russian ships sinking, their leaking reactors now causing significant pollution, raises the question of whether nuclear power is right for ships.

The conventional wisdom since Admiral Hyman Rickover promoted a nuclear-powered U.S. navy in the early 1950s and other nations followed in kind has been that nuclear-powered ships make sense.

But is this long-held analysis correct? The General Accounting Office (GAO), an independent arm of the U.S. Congress, in 1998 did an exhaustive analysis of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers.

The conclusions were surprising. As to cost, the GAO found that nuclear-powered aircraft carriers were significantly more expensive to operate than conventional carriers. "Nuclear-powered carriers cost more than conventionally powered carriers to acquire, operate and support, and inactivate," noted the GAO. It estimated "that over a 50-year life, the costs of a nuclear-powered carrier is about $8.1 billion, or about 58 percent more than a conventionally powered carrier."

Still, if the additional money came with an advantage, that might balance the high cost out. But, as for "overseas presence" and "crisis response," the GAO noted that "conventionally powered carriers spend less time in extended maintenance, and as a result they can provide more forward presence coverage."

"Conventionally powered carriers can be available sooner for large scale crises because it is easier to accelerate or compress their maintenance," it found.

And, as for "war-fighting," the GAO determined: "there was little difference in the operational effectiveness of nuclear and conventional carriers in the Persian Gulf War."

There is another issue, however, with nuclear-powered submarines. Working on nuclear power means they have the freedom to not have to regularly come to the surface to obtain air for diesel engines a problem for conventional submarines. They can stay below the surface for extensive periods of time.

But here, the potential costs to public health and that of the natural environment -- caused by the loss of nuclear submarines should be factored in.

According to Greenpeace, 10 nuclear reactors from Russia and U.S. nuclear submarines now lie at the bottom of oceans. Some are in highly sensitive marine environments. The Kursk, for example, "is positioned," according to Thomas Nilsen, a researcher with the Bellona Foundation, a Norwegian-Russian watchdog agency, in "the most productive part" for fish of the Barents Sea.

If the two reactors aboard the Kursk end up left on the sea bottom like the other 10 nuclear power plants and eventually leaking, the radioactive material in them will end up in the oceanic food chain.

In the end, Admiral Rickover regretted what he wrought and the world emulated. In a farewell speech given before a Congressional committee when he retired from the Navy in 1982, Rickover said of nuclear power: "I'll be philosophical. Until about two billion years ago, it was impossible to have any life on earth; that is, there was so much radiation on earth you couldn't have any life, fish or anything. Gradually, about two billion years ago, the amount of radiation on this planet.reduced and made it possible for some form of life to begin."

"Now," he went on, "when we go back to using nuclear power, we are creating something which nature tried to destroy to make life possible.every time you produce radiation" a "horrible force" is unleashed "and I think there the human race is going to wreck itself." Rickover asked the congresspeople that "we first outlaw nuclear weapons to start with and then we outlaw nuclear reactors, too."

"You might ask me why do I have nuclear-powered ships?" he also said. They might be considered "a necessary evil" but "I would sink them all. I'm not proud of the part I've played," stated Admiral Rickover.

It is not too late to rectify an increasingly costly mistake.

Karl Grossman is professor of journalism at the State University of New York/College at Old Westbury. Books he has authored on nuclear technology include Cover Up: What You ARE NOT Supposed To Know About Nuclear Power.
END OF ARTICLE BY KARL GROSSMAN

I suppose Admiral Rickover didn't understand the dangers of simply sinking these nuclear monstrosities. For more information about the GAO report Grossman refers to, please see my own Stop Cassini newsletter #73, September 8th, 1998:

http://www.animatedsoftware.com/cassini/nltrs/nltr0073.htm
-- rdh

(3) Our previous correspondence to date, with contact information:
PRIOR OUTGOING EMAIL TO ARTHUR J. STARLING III (INCLUDES HIS ORIGINAL EMAIL)

To: Arthur J. Starling III From: Russell D. Hoffman cc: President Clinton, others re: Your email to me (shown below) regarding the US Nuclear Navy Date: September 24th, 2000

Sir,

Regarding your hot-headed and rude email (shown below), it sounds like you've read about one article of mine, and it's giving you fits to learn that the American public knows the truth about the mess the United States Nuclear Navy has gotten us into as a nation.

Well, the truth is that those of us who have studied the matter are pretty upset about what you've done. And the fact is, you (that is, the navy) have tried to hide the truth from the American public for decades. Now you accuse me of high crimes for exposing that truth! Shame on you!

You paint a mighty clean picture of a very dirty business. Next you'll be telling me you've cleaned Bikini, too, and Hanford as well, and Los Alamos and Oak Ridge, and not to mention KAPL.

You forgot to mention the Sea Wolf, dumped unceremoniously into the ocean by you -- our nuclear navy. And you've forgotten who you worked for -- and the ideals you worked for, too. Calling me "fear-mongering" -- ha! On what grounds? Alerting the public to the facts is not fear-mongering.

Have you visited the Scorpion or the Thresher lately? What's your definition of "no release" anyway? What about all those millions of gallons of waste you (the navy) let contractors haul out to sea and dump in thin steel 55-gallon barrels, or dumped yourselves, or that you sent to Beatty, Nevada or some other nuclear waste dump to wash your hands of the matter, where it is being slowly (or not so slowly, as the case may be) leaked, leached, and let into the environment a drip or a drop or a carcinogenic bucketful at a time?

If the Scorpion and the Thresher haven't yet leaked their primary coolant, when do you expect them to do so? When are you going to retrieve them in order to bury them properly (as if there's even a way to do that!)?

I am curious as to just which items of mine you claim to have read. Not many, I presume.

And are you one of those retired seamen who also support (to our inquiring newspapers, for instance, last month) the Russian Nuclear Navy, and their Kursk crewmen, saying they are a great and honorable foe, doing all the right things, or do you admit they are fools who don't know how to handle something that's more dangerous than they care to admit? The Thresher was the pride of our fleet when she went down, just like the Kursk was the pride of theirs. The Russians are human (it's been proven time and again).

You deny culpability for your actions, and claim you are spreading truth. In fact what you have spread is called nuclear waste, and it's as close to pure evil as anything humans have ever come up with.

I am a free American, and your harassment is uncalled for and unAmerican. I have a right to say what I want without witless automatons (such as you appear to be) accusing me of doing something as horrible as lying to the people -- unless you can back it up, which you can't do.

Some suggested items are linked to below where you can learn more if you want to come out and debate these issues like a citizen, arguing your case fairly, on the merits of the matter only, and not accusing others of lying or fear-mongering without having clear and obvious proof of your position, which you most certainly DO NOT HAVE.

I warn of clear and present dangers to the American way. I have not only a perfect right to do it, but indeed, I have a citizen's duty to do so, and in the loudest way possible.

You Sir, need to step aside, apologize, and come clean about what exactly you know, about what your rank was, your training, and what experience led you to make the accusations against a good and honest American citizen which you've made. And tell me also, just exactly where your "knowledge" about the available alternative energy sources really comes from -- it sounds like it came from a standard DoE brochure on the subject, or some other biased source.

I'm pretty tired of people like you, frankly. Are you one of those "hit and run" letter-writers, who can't follow up an initial broadside with carefully crafted rebuttal? We'll see. Surely you can lie without blinking. That's navy tradition. But you can't lie without people knowing it -- that's impossible if the truth is known -- and it is known. The dangers from your nuclear games is now quite well known, and people are sick of it. I'm sick of it. My family is sick of it. My friends are sick of it. The whole world is sick of it.

I am determined to save the United States Navy from itself, and to save us ("us" as in, U.S. and world citizens) from the Navy at the same time.

America will have a non-nuclear Navy again some day, and Americans will rue the time it took to achieve that goal.

Sincerely,

Russell D. Hoffman Concerned Citizen Carlsbad, California rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com

Attachments (5):
Note to "cc'd" readers
Letter from Arthur J. Starling III
Statement regarding Adm. Rickover
URL's from Jack Shannon's KAPL-related web site
Hoffman's contact info and additional links

Note to those being "cc'd" this email: Please send all comments to the President of the United States: president@whitehouse.gov . Please also send copies to the author of the above letter (Russell D. Hoffman): rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com . Thank you in advance.

ORIGINAL LETTER FROM ARTHUR J. STARLING III

At 05:20 PM 9/24/00 -0400, "Arthur J. Starling III" wrote:

You're nothing but a fear-monger and you need to get a grip on reality. I was in the nuclear navy. I am a proponent of nuclear power. I know that everything we do to generate electricity, with the exception of solar and hydro-electric (and even these, though to a much smaller extent), creates waste and pollution. You're comment about the navy and the assault of the San Diego bay obviously displays you're lack of unbiased research into the matter. To this day, the US navy has never caused a single uncontrolled release of fission products, and all disposal regulations are strictly adhered to. The designs are as close to flawless as is humanly possible. The operators are all top-notch and rigorously trained and tested and requalified on a continual basis.

And though I've not done thorough enough research to conclude that Admiral Rickover didn't say the things you say he did (which can never be proven due to absence of proof not being proof of absence), I have read enough about the man to infer that he would never say the navy had no use for nuclear power.

What are you going to do when the coal and other fossil fuel reserves start to dry up? Nuclear power is the cleanest, and least harmful to the environment, way of generating the lifeblood of our nation - electricity. And it is a virtually limitless supply, at least until a better alternative can be developed.

Take off the 1960's Anti-Nuke "blinders" and take a real close look. In all the decades of peaceful nuclear power applications, how many "accidents" (meaning meltdowns) have there been? The answer is two. Just two. And only one of those resulted in significant discharge of fission products to the population. In the fifty years of the nuclear navy's existence, the navy has lost control of only two of its nuclear reactors, namely the Scorpion and the Thresher, neither of which has resulted in the release of any contaminants. And the navy has never had any major incidents which even might have led to harmful release.

I don't know why you seem so hell bent on spreading fear. I think it is much more pleasant to spread the truth.

Arthur J. Starling III
END OF LETTER FROM ARTHUR J. STARLING III

STATEMENT ABOUT ADMIRAL RICKOVER BY JANE RICKOVER
Admiral Rickover's Statement

The following statement was signed by Jane Rickover, daughter-in-law of Admiral Hyman Rickover, "father" of the nuclear navy. It was notorized by William Lamson July 18, 1986. Jane Rickover has verified the authenticity of the document and the events described in it.

"In May, 1983, my father-in-law, Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, told me that at the time of the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor accident, a full report was commissioned by by President Jimmy Carter. He [my father-in-law] said that the report, if published in its entirety, would have destroyed the civilian nuclear power industry because the accident at Three Mile Island was infinitely more dangerous than was ever made public. he told me that he had used his enormous personal influence with President Carter to persuade him to publish the report only in a highly "diluted" form. The President himself had originally wished the full report to be made public. In November, 1985, my father-in-law told me that he had come to deeply regret his action in persuading President Carter to suppress the most alarming aspects of that report.

[Signed] Jane Rickover

Jane Rickover appeared before me and swore as to the truth of the above statement.

Dated at Toronto this 18th day of July A.D. 1986 [Signed] William F. Lamson William F. Lamson Q.C. Notary Public for the Province of Ontario
END OF STATEMENT BY JANE RICKOVER

URLs FOR JACK SHANNON'S WEB SITE:
The following statement describing Jack Shannon is from his web site:

"Nuclear Reactor Physicist responsible for the design of the D2G Nuclear Reactor. This Nuclear Reactor is the most widely used Nuclear Reactor in the Naval Fleet. It is used on all High Speed Nuclear Attack Submarines and on all Nuclear Cruisers... Shannon was fired after 30 years employment at KAPL for reporting deplorable and blatant safety problems at the Kesselring Site Operations, a subsidiary site of KAPL."

Unsafe reactors at Kesselring Site Operation (KSO), located about 5 miles from Ballston Spa, NY, and 8 miles from the resort area of Saratoga Springs, NY: http://www.mindspring.com/~kapl/reactors.html

The outrageous track record of the Navy Reactor Program: http://www.mindspring.com/~kapl/record.html

Presidential Executive Order #12344 gives exemption from oversight: http://www.mindspring.com/~kapl/pxo.html

KAPL Misuse of National Security: http://www.mindspring.com/~kapl/security.html

The above page links to an incredibly undemocratic "gag order": http://www.mindspring.com/~kapl/gag.html

Freedom of Information Act is NOT ENOUGH! (sample of deletions): http://www.mindspring.com/~kapl/hundred.html

Want to join the U. S. Navy? This will make you think twice: http://www.mindspring.com/~kapl/hillsweba.html

GE workers have been poisoned by radiation and asbestos at Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory (discussion of an award-winning documentary): http://www.mindspring.com/~kapl/deadlydeception.html

Jack Shannon's General Electric Exam: http://www.mindspring.com/~kapl/geexam1.html
END OF URLs FOR JACK SHANNON'S WEB SITE

Russell D. Hoffman, Carlsbad, California
Petition against nuclear energy, for sustainable energy: http://www.animatedsoftware.com/environm/petition/sustain.htm

Peace Activist, Environmentalist, High Tech Guru: http://www.animatedsoftware.com/whoisrdh.htm

Founder and Editor of the Stop Cassini newsletter: http://www.animatedsoftware.com/cassini/nltrs/index.htm

Learn the madness of NASA's ongoing nuclear policies! Visit the Stop Cassini web site: http://www.animatedsoftware.com/cassini/cassini.htm

Learn about The Effects of Nuclear War here: http://www.animatedsoftware.com/environm/no_nukes/tenw/nuke_war.htm

What is a half-life? (Compares Plutonium 238 to Plutonium 239) http://www.animatedsoftware.com/cassini/nltrs/nltr0146.htm

What is the Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP)? Is nuclear war winnable? http://www.animatedsoftware.com/cassini/nltrs/nltr0128.htm

Hug a tree! Read why it should matter to you what happens to the great Redwoods in California: http://www.animatedsoftware.com/misc/stories/redwoods/redwoods.htm

Why you need encryption: An interview with Phil Zimmerman: http://www.animatedsoftware.com/hightech/philspgp.htm (also available in Spanish)

THE ANIMATED SOFTWARE COMPANY Russell D. Hoffman, Owner and Chief Programmer P.O. Box 1936 Carlsbad CA 92018-1936 (800) 551-2726 (760) 720-7261 Fax: (760) 720-7394 Visit the world's most eclectic web site: http://www.animatedsoftware.com

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


DOEWatch List ----A Magnum-Opus Project
Subscribe online: http://www.onelist.com
DOEWatch page: http://members.aol.com/doewatch

1. Platts - Saturday, September 30, 2000
From: "Paul Maser"

2. Nuclear couriers cleared
From: magnu96196@aol.com

3. More than 100,000 buried Soviet-era bombs uncovered
From: "Paul Maser"

4. OR cleanup work will get $691 million
From: magnu96196@aol.com

5. Containers Seen Contamination Source
From: magnu96196@aol.com

6. Microwaves and radical generation --> similar to cell phone processes
From: magnu96196@aol.com

7. Compensation plan revived for helping sick nuclear workers
From: magnu96196@aol.com

8. Showdown Clinton favors increased spending ------>PGDP comments
From: magnu96196@aol.com

9. Ill workers at n-plants unhappy with talk in Congress
From: magnu96196@aol.com

10. Nuke workers compensation talks break down
From: magnu96196@aol.com

11. Columbia River: Nuclear waste went to faulty drums
From: ishgooda@voyager.net

12. NADER ON TV 4 TIMES THIS WEEK
From: "Bill Smirnow"

13. IEER: Nuclear Power, No Solution To Global Climate Change[Or Anything Else]
From: "Bill Smirnow"

---------

Message: 1
Date: Sat, 30 Sep 2000
From: "Paul Maser"

Platts
Saturday, September 30, 2000

Duke Energy may challenge DOE pay-out from Nuclear Waste Fund

Duke Energy is seriously considering legal action to block the DOE-PECO Energy spent fuel settlement agreement, NuclearFuel is reporting. Duke expects to decide within the next few weeks if it will do so, said Duke spokesman Tom Shiel. He confirmed yesterday that one option involves a joint filing by several utilities but declined to name the other companies. Duke "strongly believes it is inappropriate for DOE to use the Nuclear Waste Fund" to compensate utilities for the department's failure to begin disposing of spent fuel by the 1998 contract date, he said. Congress created the trust fund in 1982 to bankroll the DOE waste program, and Shiel said diverting money to compensate utilities, as is being done in the PECO settlement, could delay DOE's repository.

Paris (Nucleonics Week) 29Sep2000

Regulator threatens EdF's Dampierre with shutdown French regulatory agency DSIN has given Electricite de France six months to get the Dampierre plant in "order" or risk forced closure. DSIN Director Andre-Claude Lacoste said yesterday there's no immediate safety risk at the plant, but a string of operating incidents and a degraded human relations climate had led him to place Dampierre under "enhanced surveillance." An internal EdF safety audit finished last summer judged the plant's organization harshly, and EdF management has been working since July to correct the problems, which are at least partly connected with longstanding work patterns and a staff reorganization that wasn't successfully implemented. Lacoste told reporters in Orleans after a visit to the plant and discussions with management and staff that if the situation hasn't improved in six months and safety is at stake, "I will take the consequences, including closing the facilities."

---------

Message: 2
Date: Sat, 30 Sep 2000
From: magnu96196@aol.com

Nuclear couriers cleared
The Associated Press

Oak Ridge couriers suspended from their Department of Energy jobs transporting warhead parts and other nuclear material have been cleared of any wrongdoing and can go back to work.

More than two years after the 18 nuclear weapons couriers were suspended for suspicion of security breaches, DOE has admitted the workers did nothing wrong.

Madelyn Creedon, DOE's deputy administrator for defense programs, apologized to the couriers in a memo to be distributed to the entire nuclear transportation section.

"The DOE regrets that the February 1998 incident and its aftermath have caused personal hardships to the couriers," she wrote. "The DOE further regrets the difficulties experienced by all of the couriers working in the (Oak Ridge section) during this period and the disruption to the Transportation Safeguards Division."

The 18 couriers, who were suspended with pay, will split $609,000 for overtime lost during the time they were on administrative leave, and DOE will pay several hundred thousand dollars for their legal expenses.

About 70 couriers were suspended in early 1998 after an ABC-TV news crew reportedly surprised a nuclear convoy during a highway stop.

The travel plans are supposed to be secret and DOE asked the FBI to investigate whether the television crew might have had advance knowledge of the travel plans through security leaks.

For a while the entire Oak Ridge transportation unit was shut down, but in May 1998 the FBI cleared about 50 of the couriers to return to work, leaving about 20 under investigation.

Negotiations have continued since then, with 18 of the nuclear couriers remaining on administrative leave with pay. A couple took other jobs in the interim.

"The couriers are obviously quite pleased with this agreement," Jonathan Turley, law professor at George Washington University and chief counsel for the suspended couriers, said Thursday.

"This agreement not only restores the damages they have suffered during this period but restores their reputation, which was needlessly sullied by the investigation," Turley said.

Some of the truckers suggested the investigation was a way to intimidate them and keep them from talking to the news media about morale problems at the unit due to safety concerns and other issues.

Agency officials now admit reports of the news media being "pre-positioned" in advance of the encounter with the nuclear convoy were mistaken.

Turley said some of the suspended couriers are now eligible for retirement, but most of the 18 want to return to their jobs. DOE has promised to police any attempts of retaliation against the returning couriers.

---------

Message: 3
Date: Sat, 30 Sep 2000
From: "Paul Maser"

More than 100,000 buried Soviet-era bombs uncovered

KYIV, September 29 - Ukrainian mine-clearance experts have uncovered a huge arsenal containing more than 100,000 Soviet-made airforce munitions buried at a former air base, the Emergencies Ministry said on Friday. "Mine-clearance experts from the Defence and Emergencies Ministries have extracted 113,432 shells...and have already destroyed 15,180 of them," ministry spokeswoman Tatyana Pomazanova told Reuters.

A Defence ministry spokesman said the munitions were made in the Soviet Union in 1979-1980 and had been slated to be destroyed in Soviet times, but former commanders of the unit failed to carry out the order and buried the ammunition instead.

---------

Message: 4
Date: Sat, 30 Sep 2000
From: magnu96196@aol.com

OR cleanup work will get $691 million

September 29, 2000
by Paul Parson Oak Ridger staff
http://www.oakridger.com/

Environmental cleanup projects in Oak Ridge and other sites are on course to receive $691 million in funding.

The money, which is $49 million more than the current fiscal year funding, is included in the FY 2001 Energy and Water Appropriations bill.

U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, R-3rd District, said the approval of the cleanup funding shows that Congress supports efforts to repair environmental damage left over from the Cold War.

"It extremely encouraging to see this funding," Wamp said. He said Congress expects the money to be managed wisely.

In Oak Ridge, the Department of Energy has a wide variety of cleanup projects planned. Those include continued decommissioning and decontamination and removal and cleaning of equipment at the K-25 site, the cleanup of groundwater and excavation of contaminated soil at the Y-12 Plant and cleaning out radioactive underground storage tanks at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The $691 million appropriated for environmental management flows through DOE's Oak Ridge Operations office. Part of the money will be spent in Oak Ridge while other portions will go to DOE complexes in Portsmouth, Ohio, and Paducah, Ky., where substantial health and environmental problems left over from Cold War nuclear weapons work have received increased attention in the last year.

In the past couple of days, several other Oak Ridge DOE projects have received significant funding through the Energy and Water Appropriations bill including $627 million for modernization of the Y-12 Plant and $278.5 million for construction on the Spallation Neutron Source at ORNL.

The action by the conference committee means that DOE's Oak Ridge Operations could receive close to $2.3 billion for the 2001 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1.

With work completed on the conference committee's report, Wamp said the Energy and Water Appropriations bill should be headed to President Bill Clinton for his signature.

---------

Message: 5
Date: Sat, 30 Sep 2000
From: magnu96196@aol.com

Containers Seen Contamination Source

by LINDA ASHTON Associated Press Writer
http://www.newsday.com/ap/text/national/ap757.htm

YAKIMA, Wash. (AP) -- High-level nuclear waste at the Hanford nuclear reservation was buried decades ago in bottomless containers less than four miles from the Columbia River, the Energy Department said Friday. The agency said that may be why the level of radioactive tritium in area groundwater is 400 times higher than the federal safety standard.

Wade Ballard, assistant manager for planning and integration, couldn't say why the agency used the containers. He said it might have been to prevent water from accumulating in them and then leaching radioactive material into the ground.

''It was 40 years ago,'' he said. ''Obviously, if we were designing it today, we would do it differently.''

Five bottomless caissons, or large corrugated metal pipes, and 50 bottomless drums are buried 31/2 miles from the Columbia River in south-central Washington. It was unclear how much waste is stored there, but it includes 11 to 22 pounds of plutonium, which was manufactured at Hanford for nuclear weapons.

Low-level radioactive waste also was dumped into trenches for burial at the 8.6-acre site from 1962 to 1967. Hanford does not expect to begin cleaning up the site until at least 2010.

Tritium is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen that poses a cancer risk when ingested. It was produced at Hanford for use in nuclear warheads to boost their explosive yield.

Last January, the high level of tritium was detected in a Hanford monitoring well near the waste site. The well is also in the path of a huge tritium plume stretching from the central part of the 560-square-mile reservation to the river.

It is unclear whether the tritium levels in the area are from the waste site or groundwater 60 feet below the surface, Ballard said. But experts say the tritium will likely reach the river.

''The issue is how much is there,'' said Mike Thompson, the site's groundwater manager. ''At this point in time, we don't believe there's a very large tritium plume.''

If tests show the tritium is moving fast enough to be a threat to the river, action will be taken to stop its progress, Ballard said.

---------

Message: 6
Date: Sat, 30 Sep 2000
From: magnu96196@aol.com

Microwaves and radical generation------->similar to cell phone processes

MICROWAVE DANGER

Isn't it time to throw out the microwave? (somewhat technical article) Dr. Lita Lee of Hawaii reported in the December 9, 1989 Lancet: "Microwaving baby formulas converted certain trans-amino acids into their synthetic cis-isomers. Synthetic isomers, whether cis-amino acids or trans-fatty acids, are not biologically active. Further, one of the amino acids, L-proline, was converted to its d-isomer, which is known to be neurotoxic (poisonous to the nervous system) and nephrotoxic (poisonous to the kidneys). It's bad enough that many babies are not nursed, but now they are given fake milk (baby formula) made even more toxic via microwaving."

MICROWAVED BLOOD KILLS PATIENT

In 1991, there was a lawsuit in Oklahoma concerning the hospital use of a microwave oven to warm blood needed in a transfusion. The case involved a hip surgery patient, Norma Levitt, who died from a simple blood transfusion. It seems the nurse had warmed the blood in a microwave oven. This tragedy makes it very apparent that there's much more to "heating" with microwaves than we've been led to believe. Blood for transfusions is routinely warmed, but not in microwave ovens. In the case of Mrs. Levitt, the microwaving altered the blood and it killed her.

It's very obvious that this form of microwave radiation "heating" does something to the substances it heats. It's also becoming quite apparent that people who process food in a microwave oven are also ingesting these "unknowns".

Because the body is electrochemical in nature, any force that disrupts or changes human electrochemical events will affect the physiology of the body. This is further described in Robert O. Becker's book, The Body Electric, and in Ellen Sugarman's book, Warning, the Electricity Around You May Be Hazardous to Your Health.

SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE AND FACTS

In Comparative Study of Food Prepared Conventionally and in the Microwave Oven, published by Raum & Zelt in 1992, at 3(2): 43, it states : "A basic hypothesis of natural medicine states that the introduction into the human body of molecules and energies, to which it is not accustomed, is much more likely to cause harm than good. Microwaved food contains both molecules and energies not present in food cooked in the way humans have been cooking food since the discovery of fire. Microwave energy from the sun and other stars is direct current based. Artificially produced microwaves, including those in ovens, are produced from alternating current and force a billion or more polarity reversals per second in every food molecule they hit. Production of unnatural molecules is inevitable. Naturally occurring amino acids have been observed to undergo isomeric changes (changes in shape morphing) as well as transformation into toxic forms, under the impact of microwaves produced in ovens.

One short-term study found significant and disturbing changes in the blood of individuals consuming microwaved milk and vegetables. Eight volunteers ate various combinations of the same foods cooked different ways. All foods that were processed through the microwave ovens caused changes in the blood of the volunteers. Hemoglobin levels decreased and over all white cell levels and cholesterol levels increased. Lymphocytes decreased. Luminescent (light-emitting) bacteria were employed to detect energetic changes in the blood. Significant increases were found in the luminescence of these bacteria when exposed to blood serum obtained after the consumption of microwaved food."

THE SWISS CLINICAL STUDY

Dr. Hans Ulrich Hertel, who is now retired, worked as a food scientist for many years with one of the major Swiss food companies that do business on a global scale. A few years ago, he was fired from his job for questioning certain processing procedures that denatured the food.

In 1991, he and a Lausanne University professor published a research paper indicating that food cooked in microwave ovens could pose a greater risk to health than food cooked by conventional means. An article also appeared in issue 19 of the Journal Franz Weber in which it was stated that the consumption of food cooked in microwave ovens had cancerous effects on the blood. The research paper itself followed the article. On the cover of the magazine there was a picture of the Grim Reaper holding a microwave oven in one of his hands.

Dr. Hertel was the first scientist to conceive and carry out a quality clinical study on the effects microwaved nutrients have on the blood and physiology of the human body. His small but well controlled study showed the degenerative force produced in microwave ovens and the food processed in them. The scientific conclusion showed that microwave cooking changed the nutrients in the food; and, changes took place in the participants' blood that could cause deterioration in the human system. Hertel's scientific study was done along with Dr. Bernard H. Blanc of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and the University Institute for Biochemistry.

In intervals of two to five days, the volunteers in the study received one of the following food variants on an empty stomach: (1) raw milk; (2) the same milk conventionally cooked; (3) pasteurized milk; (4) the same raw milks cooked in a microwave oven; (5) raw vegetables from an organic farm; (6) the same vegetables cooked conventionally; (7) the same vegetables frozen and defrosted in a microwave oven; and (8) the same vegetables cooked in the microwave oven. Once the volunteers were isolated, blood samples were taken from every volunteer immediately before eating. Then, blood samples were taken at defined intervals after eating from the above milk or vegetable preparations.

Significant changes were discovered in the blood samples from the intervals following the foods cooked in the microwave oven. These changes included a decrease in all hemoglobin and cholesterol values, especially the ratio of HDL (good cholesterol) and LDL (bad cholesterol) values. Lymphocytes (white blood cells) showed a more distinct short-term decrease following the intake of microwaved food than after the intake of all the other variants. Each of these indicators pointed to degeneration. Additionally, there was a highly significant association between the amount of microwave energy in the test foods and the luminous power of luminescent bacteria exposed to serum from test persons who ate that food. This led Dr. Hertel to the conclusion that such technically derived energies may, indeed, be passed along to man inductively via eating microwaved food.

According to Dr. Hertel, "Leukocytosis, which cannot be accounted for by normal daily deviations, is taken very seriously by hemotologists. Leukocytes are often signs of pathogenic effects on the living system, such as poisoning and cell damage. The increase of leukocytes with the microwaved foods were more pronounced than with all the other variants. It appears that these marked increases were caused entirely by ingesting the microwaved substances.

This process is based on physical principles and has already been confirmed in the literature. The apparent additional energy exhibited by the luminescent bacteria was merely an extra confirmation. There is extensive scientific literature concerning the hazardous effects of direct microwave radiation on living systems. It is astonishing, therefore, to realize how little effort has been taken to replace this detrimental technique of microwaves with technology more in accordance with nature. Technically produced microwaves are based on the principle of alternating current.

Atoms, molecules, and cells hit by this hard electromagnetic radiation are forced to reverse polarity 1-100 billion times a second. There are no atoms, molecules or cells of any organic system able to withstand such a violent, destructive power for any extended period of time, not even in the low energy range of milliwatts.

Of all the natural substances -- which are polar -- the oxygen of water molecules reacts most sensitively. This is how microwave cooking heat is generated -- friction from this violence in water molecules. Structures of molecules are torn apart, molecules are forcefully deformed, called structural isomerism, and thus become impaired in quality. This is contrary to conventional heating of food where heat transfers convectionally from without to within. Cooking by microwaves begins within the cells and molecules where water is present and where the energy is transformed into frictional heat.

In addition to the violent frictional heat effects, called thermic effects, there are also athermic effects which have hardly ever been taken into account. These athermic effects are not presently measurable, but they can also deform the structures of molecules and have qualitative consequences. For example the weakening of cell membranes by microwaves is used in the field of gene altering technology. Because of the force involved, the cells are actually broken, thereby neutralizing the electrical potentials, the very life of the cells, between the outer and inner side of the cell membranes. Impaired cells become easy prey for viruses, fungi and other microorganisms. The natural repair mechanisms are suppressed and cells are forced to adapt to a state of energy emergency -- they switch from aerobic to anaerobic respiration. Instead of water and carbon dioxide, the cell poisons hydrogen peroxide and carbon monoxide are produced."

The same violent deformations that occur in our bodies, when we are directly exposed to radar or microwaves, also occur in the molecules of foods cooked in a microwave oven. This radiation results in the destruction and deformation of food molecules. Microwaving also creates new compounds, called radiolytic compounds, which are unknown fusions not found in nature. Radiolytic compounds are created by molecular decomposition -- decay -- as a direct result of radiation.

Microwave oven manufacturers insist that microwaved and irradiated foods do not have any significantly higher radiolytic compounds than do broiled, baked or other conventionally cooked foods. The scientific clinical evidence presented here has shown that this is simply a lie. In America, neither universities nor the federal government have conducted any tests concerning the effects on our bodies from eating microwaved foods. Isn't that a bit odd? They're more concerned with studies on what happens if the door on a microwave oven doesn't close properly. Once again, common sense tells us that their attention should be centered on what happens to food cooked inside a microwave oven. Since people ingest this altered food, shouldn't there be concern for how the same decayed molecules will affect our own human biological cell structure?

CARCINOGENS IN MICROWAVED FOOD

In Dr. Lita Lee's book, Health Effects of Microwave Radiation -- Microwave Ovens, and in the March and September 1991 issues of Earthletter, she stated that every microwave oven leaks electro-magnetic radiation, harms food, and converts substances cooked in it to dangerous organ-toxic and carcinogenic products. Further research summarized in this article reveal that microwave ovens are far more harmful than previously imagined.

The following is a summary of the Russian investigations published by the Atlantis Raising Educational Center in Portland, Oregon. Carcinogens were formed in virtually all foods tested. No test food was subjected to more microwaving than necessary to accomplish the purpose, i.e., cooking, thawing, or heating to insure sanitary ingestion. Here's a summary of some of the results:

+ Microwaving prepared meats sufficiently to insure sanitary ingestion caused formation of d-Nitrosodienthanolamines, a well-known carcinogen.

+ Microwaving milk and cereal grains converted some of their amino acids into carcinogens.

+ Thawing frozen fruits converted their glucoside and galactoside containing fractions into carcinogenic substances.

+ Extremely short exposure of raw, cooked or frozen vegetables converted their plant alkaloids into carcinogens.

+ Carcinogenic free radicals were formed in microwaved plants, especially root vegetables.

DECREASE IN NUTRITIONAL VALUE

Russian researchers also reported a marked acceleration of structural degradation leading to a decreased food value of 60 to 90% in all foods tested. Among the changes observed were:

+ Deceased bio-availability of vitamin B complex, vitamin C, vitamin E, essential minerals and lipotropics factors in all food tested.

+ Various kinds of damaged to many plant substances, such as alkaloids, glucosides, galactosides and nitrilosides.

+ The degradation of nucleo-proteins in meats.

MICROWAVE SICKNESS IS DISCOVERED

The Russians did research on thousands of workers who had been exposed to microwaves during the development of radar in the 1950's. Their research showed health problems so serious that the Russians set strict limits of 10 microwatts exposure for workers and one microwatt for civilians.

In Robert O. Becker's book, The Body Electric, he described Russian research on the health effects of microwave radiation, which they called "microwave sickness." On page 314, Becker states:

"It's [Microwave sickness] first signs are low blood pressure and slow pulse. The later and most common manifestations are chronic excitation of the sympathetic nervous system [stress syndrome] and high blood pressure. This phase also often includes headache, dizziness, eye pain, sleeplessness, irritability, anxiety, stomach pain, nervous tension, inability to concentrate, hair loss, plus an increased incidence of appendicitis, cataracts, reproductive problems, and cancer. The chronic symptoms are eventually succeeded by crisis of adrenal exhaustion and ischemic heart disease [the blockage of coronary arteries and heart attacks]." According to Dr. Lee, changes are observed in the blood chemistries and the rates of certain diseases among consumers of microwaved foods. The symptoms above can easily be caused by the observations shown below. The following is a sample of these changes:

+ Lymphatic disorders were observed, leading to decreased ability to prevent certain types of cancers.

+ An increased rate of cancer cell formation was observed in the blood.

+ Increased rates of stomach and intestinal cancers were observed.

+ Higher rates of digestive disorders and a gradual breakdown of the systems of elimination were observed.

CANCER-CAUSING EFFECTS

[The first two points of Category I are not readable from our report copy. The remainder of the report is intact.]

3. Creation of a "binding effect" to radioactivity in the atmosphere, thus causing a marked increase in the amount of alpha and beta particle saturation in foods;

4. Creation of cancer causing agents within protein hydrolysate compounds* in milk and cereal grains [*these are natural proteins that are split into unnatural fragments by the addition of water];

5. Alteration of elemental food-substances, causing disorders in the digestive system by unstable catabolism* of foods subjected to microwaves [* the metabolic breakdown process];

6. Due to chemical alterations within food substances, malfunctions were observed within the lymphatic systems [absorbent vessels], causing a degeneration of the immune potentials of the body to protect against certain forms of neoplastics [abnormal growths of tissue];

7. Ingestion of microwaved foods caused a higher percentage of cancerous cells within the blood serum [cytomas -- cell tumors such as sarcoma];

8. Microwave emissions caused alteration in the catabolic [metabolic breakdown] behavior of glucoside [hydrolyzed dextrose] and galactoside [oxidized alcohol] elements within frozen fruits when thawed in this manner;

9. Microwave emission caused alteration of the catabolic [metabolic breakdown] behavior of plant alkaloids [organic nitrogen based elements] when raw, cooked, or frozen vegetables were exposed for even extremely short durations;

10. Cancer causing free radicals [highly reactive incomplete molecules] were formed within certain trace mineral molecular formations in plant substances, and in particular, raw root-vegetables; and,

11. In a statistically high percentage of persons, microwaved foods caused stomach and intestinal cancerous growths, as well as a general degeneration of peripheral cellular tissues, with a gradual breakdown of the function of the digestive and excretive systems.

CATEGORY II DECREASE IN FOOD VALUE

Microwave exposure caused significant decreases in the nutritive value of all foods researched. The following are the most important findings:

1. A decrease in the bioavailability [capability of the body to utilize the nutriment] of B-complex vitamins, Vitamin C, Vitamin E, essential minerals and lipotropics in all foods;

2. A loss of 60-90% of the vital energy field content of all tested foods;

3. A reduction in the metabolic behavior and integration process capability of alkaloids [organic nitrogen based elements], glucosides and galactosides, and nitrilosides;

4. A destruction of the nutritive value of nucleoproteins in meats;

5. A marked acceleration of structural disintegration in all foods.

CATEGORY III BIOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF EXPOSURE

Exposure to microwave emissions also had an unpredictably negative effect upon the general biological welfare of humans. This was not discovered until the Russians experimented with highly sophisticated equipment and discovered that a human did not even need to ingest the material substance of the microwaved food substances: that even exposure to the energy-field itself was sufficient to cause such adverse side effects that the use of any such microwave apparatus was forbidden in 1976 by Soviet state law. The following are the enumerated effects:

1. A breakdown of the human "life-energy field" in those who were exposed to microwave ovens while in operation, with side-effects to the human energy field of increasingly longer duration;

2. A degeneration of the cellular voltage parallels during the process of using the apparatus, especially in the blood and lymphatic areas;

3. A degeneration and destabilization of the external energy activated potentials of food utilization within the processes of human metabolism;

4. A degeneration and destabilization of internal cellular membrane potentials while transferring catabolic [metabolic breakdown] processes into the blood serum from the digestive process;

5. Degeneration and circuit breakdowns of electrical nerve impulses within the junction potentials of the cerebrum [the front portion of the brain where thought and higher functions reside];

6. A degeneration and breakdown of nerve electrical circuits and loss of energy field symmetry in the neuroplexuses [nerve centers] both in the front and the rear of the central and autonomic nervous systems;

7. Loss of balance and circuiting of the bioelectric strengths within the ascending reticular activating system [the system which controls the function of consciousness];

8. A long term cumulative loss of vital energies within humans, animals and plants that were located within a 500-meter radius of the operational equipment;

9. Long lasting residual effects of magnetic "deposits" were located throughout the nervous system and lymphatic system;

10. A destabilization and interruption in the production of hormones and maintenance of hormonal balance in males and females;

11. Markedly higher levels of brainwave disturbance in the alpha, theta, and delta wave signal patterns of persons exposed to microwave emission fields, and;

12. Because of this brainwave disturbance, negative psychological effects were noted, including loss of memory, loss of ability to concentrate, suppressed emotional threshold, deceleration of intellective processes, and interruptive sleep episodes in a statistically higher percentage of individuals subjected to continual range emissive field effects of microwave apparatus, either in cooking apparatus or in transmission stations.

FORENSIC RESEARCH CONCLUSIONS

From the twenty-eight above enumerated indications, the use of microwave apparatus is definitely not advisable; and, with the decision of the Soviet government in 1976, present scientific opinion in many countries concerning the use of such apparatus is clearly in evidence.

Due to the problem of random magnetic residulation and binding within the biological systems of the body (Category III:9), which can ultimately effect the neurological systems, primarily the brain and neuroplexuses (nerve centers), long term depolarization of tissue neuroelectric circuits can result. Because these effects can cause virtually irreversible damage to the neuroelectrical integrity of the various components of the nervous system (I. R. Luria, Novosibirsk 1975a), ingestion of microwaved foods is clearly contraindicated in all respects.

Perhaps we would all do well to keep our focus on eating more raw foods as I have suggested to all of you who have had appointments with me... Peace and Health, Richard

Dr. Richard Austin, Ph.D. Natural Therapeutics & Holistic Healing Greensboro, North Carolina

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Message: 7
Date: Sat, 30 Sep 2000
From: magnu96196@aol.com

Compensation plan revived for helping sick nuclear workers

The Paducah Sun
September 30, 2000
Staff report
http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/news2000/nn10797.htm

Paducah, Kentucky U.S. Rep. Ed Whitfield, R-Hopkinsville, said there is a 90 percent chance Congress will approve a compensation program for sick workers at nuclear weapons plants, including the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant. Speaking at a news conference Friday at the plant, Whitfield said House and Senate negotiators are using the Senate version of the compensation plan to craft a compromise. He said it will define what illnesses qualify for benefits, and require either this administration or the next to define what benefits will be offered to current and former workers.

Different versions of bills have proposed from $100,000 to $200,000 cash payments, plus medical benefits. Whitfield said the program will cost about $1.7 billion before expiring in 10 years.

The compensation plan, thought to be dead earlier this week, has been revived because of political arm-twisting from Whitfield and lawmakers from other states that have weapons-related plants.

Whitfield said election-year politics also helped to revive the measure.

"The politics of not approving this is horrible .... when you walk away from the responsibility of taking care of people who contracted illnesses because of exposure to things that you knew were there but didn't tell them about," Whitfield said. "It also is the right thing to do."

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Message: 8
Date: Sat, 30 Sep 2000
From: magnu96196@aol.com

Showdown Clinton favors increased spending

The Paducah Sun
September 30, 2000
http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/news2000/nn10798.htm

Paducah, Kentucky President Clinton is threatening to veto several major spending bills and again blame Republicans leaders in Congress for "shutting down the government." This ploy worked very well in 1995, but to successfully repeat it the president will have to use all of his political skills, including his unmatched ability to obscure the real issues. The differences between the two sides are relatively small, but Clinton no doubt hopes to use them to boost the election prospects of Al Gore and Democrats running for Congress.

In 1995, when Congress was still wrestling with a massive federal budget deficit, Clinton was able to take a fairly minor disagreement over how much to reduce the growth of Medicare spending and depict it as a titanic clash over the future of the health care program for the elderly and the future of government in general.

The president emerged in news accounts as the compassionate defender of popular government services while the Republicans, led by the much-vilified Newt Gingrich, were assigned the role of heartless bean counters.

Clinton doesn't have Newt Gingrich to kick around anymore. And if he intends to use the budget to batter congressional leaders again this year, he will have to keep from the public the fact that he favors spending the budget surplus, not using it to pay down the national debt.

Clinton has invoked the need to reduce the national debt as a justification for vetoing Republican-backed bills that would eliminate the marriage tax penalty and the estate tax. But he's declining an opportunity to apply the real surplus - not 10-year projections - to debt reduction.

A report from the Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington D.C.-based think tank, notes that Congress is prepared to increase federal spending by $28 billion above the inflation rate.

Clinton doesn't think that's enough spending. He wants to add at least $25 billion to congressional spending bills, a move that would wipe out most of the $70 billion on-budget surplus.

Congress and the president have agreed to put surplus revenue generated by Social Security and Medicare off-limits. However, congressional leaders plan to devote most of the on-budget surplus to debt reduction.

The president will have a difficult time convincing people that it's better to funnel the surplus into increased funding for the Internal Revenue Service and the Legal Services Corporation than it is to use it to pay down the national debt. According to the Heritage Foundation, Clinton has threatened to veto two spending bills if Congress doesn't fork over more money for the IRS and the legal aid group.

Clinton scored political points in 1995 by claiming that elderly Medicare recipients would suffer from hard-hearted Republican policies. But it's unlikely that even a master communicator like the president could persuade taxpayers that the IRS deserves compassion.

It needs noting, too, that Clinton is threatening to veto a $23 billion energy and water projects bill that contains $100 million for environmental and worker health programs at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant.

The president is unhappy because the bill prohibits the administration from altering the controlled flow of the Missouri River to preserve wildlife habitat.

If Clinton puts wildlife protection along the Missouri River above health screening for workers at the gaseous diffusion plant, he certainly won't improve the election prospects of Democrats in western Kentucky.

Republicans understandably fear the prospect of another government shutdown. But they have reason to doubt that the president's famous spin machine is powerful enough to enable him to get away with shutting down the government over issues that have so little apparent political appeal.

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Message: 9
Date: Sat, 30 Sep 2000
From: magnu96196@aol.com

Ill workers at n-plants unhappy with talk in Congress
No compromise wanted in plan for compensation

September 30, 2000
By Frank Munger, News-Sentinel Oak Ridge bureau
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/politics/15808.shtml

OAK RIDGE -- Oak Ridge activists are worried about "compromise" talks in Washington and say they won't support a watered-down compensation package for sick workers at Department of Energy nuclear sites. "We're drawing a line in the sand," Harry Williams, president of the Coalition for a Healthy Environment, said Friday.

The coalition represents a number of workers and area residents with illnesses blamed on toxic exposures at DOE's Oak Ridge facilities.

Williams said he and others have received unwelcome reports about negotiations taking place among U.S. House and Senate staff on a worker compensation program. Some of the reports indicated elected officials may be willing to reduce the size of the financial commitment and postpone some aid to workers in order to get a package passed this session.

The coalition earlier distributed a list of things expected in legislation to compensate people made ill by work at the government nuclear facilities.

Among the key items is long-term health care for sick workers, and Williams, a former employee at the K-25 Site in Oak Ridge, said he and other sick workers here won't support or accept anything that doesn't provide for health care.

Williams said Oak Ridge workers support the compensation program approved earlier in a Senate amendment attached to a military authorization bill. That package include $200,000 lump-sum payments for workers with illnesses, such as beryllium disease or radiation-induced cancer, linked to the workplace.

Janet Michel, another former K-25 worker, said the Senate version was "far from perfect" but was acceptable as a start toward compensating those affected by workplace exposures.

"We have finally decided that is our bottom line," she said. "We will not accept anything less."

Williams said the coalition does not want to see any more studies or "blue-ribbon panels" that postpone assistance to people who are sick or dying.

Many of those sick are heroes who worked hard to support the nuclear weapons program during the Cold War, often in hazardous environments without proper protection, he said.

"It seems to me that we run all around the globe talking about human rights violations, but there were some violations that took place in the greatest country on earth," Williams said.

"We're not going to give up on this issue until everybody who was made sick by these plants is treated appropriately -- whether that's this year or 10 years from now. We're going to stay after this."

Frank Munger may be reached at 865-482-9213 or twig1@knoxnews.infi.net.

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Message: 10
Date: Sat, 30 Sep 2000
From: magnu96196@aol.com

Nuke workers compensation talks break down

September 29, 2000
By Mary Manning
LAS VEGAS SUN
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/text/2000/sep/29/510841437.html

Negotiations by a congressional panel broke down Thursday night, likely killing a plan to compensate nuclear weapons workers for their illnesses.

The stalemate means that workers from the Nevada Test Site and at other government and nongovernment locations across the nation are not likely to receive financial relief this year.

Republican House leaders on Tuesday revived hopes for a compensation package to pass this year after critics said GOP leaders were blocking the legislation that would have cost about $1.9 billion and covered roughly 4,000 workers who helped build the nuclear arsenal.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., said he was willing to make a deal on Tuesday if the compensation package delivered benefits to the workers and was fiscally responsible. Hastert aide John Feehery said more congressional hearings might be necessary.

The Nevada delegation has been pushing for a compensation package to be passed this year.

"I think this is all for show," Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said today. "I don't think that Congress is going to pass this bill this year."

Reid this morning urged Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., the ranking minority member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, to continue fighting for benefits covering workers exposed to beryllium, radiation and silica.

But Reid and Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., denounced the latest proposal, including a call for more studies of the nuclear workers.

No joint congressional talks on the defense authorization bill were scheduled for today or Monday. Congress is trying to adjourn for the year in a week or two.

The Department of Energy, after conducting hearings around the nation, admitted in April that some of the thousands of laborers who built and tested the nuclear weapons during the Cold War got sick because of their exposures to toxic and radioactive materials. DOE Secretary Bill Richardson urged Congress to compensate the workers.

At issue after the latest round of talks is the amount of money.

Workers would have received $200,000 under the original version of the plan. A second draft of the bill offered $100,000 per worker or family, Republican aides said.

The appropriations bill that emerged Thursday night enhanced medical benefits for military retirees by $39 billion, but left out nuclear workers. Those additional benefits could add as much as $5 billion a year to the defense budget by paying the equivalent of free full Medigap insurance to veterans who are receiving Medicare.

Former DOE workers such as Ray Slaughter made a last-minute plea to Congress recently. Slaughter hauled blasted rock out of tunnels carved under the Test Site after nuclear bombs exploded during experiments. He now has silicosis, which affects his lungs. He testified that he got the disease from breathing silica dust in the tunnels.

Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., refused to give up on the compensation, vowing to battle to the end of the session.

Nevada's lone Republican in Congress, Rep. Jim Gibbons, said he would continue pressuring the House leadership to compensate the nuclear workers.

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Message: 11
Date: Sat, 30 Sep 2000
From: ishgooda@voyager.net

Nuclear waste went to faulty drums
Bottomless containers could be source of contamination

ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.msnbc.com/news/470161.asp?0nm=-12O#BODY

The now idled nuclear reactor at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation sits on the bank of the Columbia River near Richland, Wash.

YAKIMA, Wash., Sept. 30 - High-level nuclear waste at the Hanford nuclear reservation was buried decades ago in bottomless containers less than four miles from the Columbia River, the Energy Department said Friday. The agency said that may be why the level of radioactive tritium in area groundwater is 400 times higher than the federal safety standard.

WADE BALLARD, assistant manager for planning and integration, couldn't say why the agency used the containers. He said it might have been to prevent water from accumulating in them and then leaching radioactive material into the ground. "It was 40 years ago," he said. "Obviously, if we were designing it today, we would do it differently."

Five bottomless caissons, or large corrugated metal pipes, and 50 bottomless drums are buried 31/2 miles from the Columbia River in south-central Washington. It was unclear how much waste is stored there, but it includes 11 to 22 pounds of plutonium, which was manufactured at Hanford for nuclear weapons. Low-level radioactive waste also was dumped into trenches for burial at the 8.6-acre site from 1962 to 1967. Hanford does not expect to begin cleaning up the site until at least 2010. Tritium is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen that poses a cancer risk when ingested. It was produced at Hanford for use in nuclear warheads to boost their explosive yield. Last January, the high level of tritium was detected in a Hanford monitoring well near the waste site. The well is also in the path of a huge tritium plume stretching from the central part of the 560-square-mile reservation to the river. It is unclear whether the tritium levels in the area are from the waste site or groundwater! 60 fe et below the surface, Ballard said. But experts say the tritium will likely reach the river.

"The issue is how much is there," said Mike Thompson, the site's groundwater manager. "At this point in time, we don't believe there's a very large tritium plume." If tests show the tritium is moving fast enough to be a threat to the river, action will be taken to stop its progress, Ballard said.

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Message: 12
Date: Sun, 1 Oct 2000
From: "Bill Smirnow"

NADER ON TV 4 TIMES THIS WEEK

If on any of the shows the opportunitty to call in exists, it's good to have a phony question/comment for the screener-something interesting but not objectionable to the corporate mentality. Then hit 'em with some good nuke, peace, enviro, economic stuff.

-Bill Smirnow

Upcoming Nader on TV - left times out as they vary by area - please check local listing.

Sunday morning Oct. 1: Meet the Press: Nader debates Buchanan

Monday day Oct. 2: The Queen Latifah Show (along with Donahue and Sarandon)

Monday night Oct. 2: Larry King Live: Nader debates Buchanan

Saturday night Oct. 7: Saturday Night Live.

Masada Disenhouse NYS Coordinator Nader 2000 NY 116 W Houston St. 3rd Floor New York, NY 10012 212-353-3111

Democracy First! Vote Nader 2000! - paid for by the Nader 2000 General Committee

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Message: 13
Date: Sun, 1 Oct 2000
From: "Bill Smirnow"

IEER: Nuclear Power, No Solution To Global Climate Change[Or Anything Else]

Linked off of IEER's web site at: http://www.ieer.org
Volume 6 No. 3 March, 1998

SPECIAL COMBINED ISSUE of Science for Democratic Action and Energy & Security.

Articles:

a.. Nuclear Power: No Solution to Global Climate Change By: Arjun Makhijani

b.. The Energy-Security Link

c.. Global Warming and the Greenhouse Effect By: Kevin Gurney

d.. Reducing Greenhouse Gases and Creating a Sustainable Energy Supply By: Arjun Makhijani

Features:
a.. Science for the Critical Masses:
a.. The Kyoto Protocol
b.. Joint Implementation: No Panacea
c.. Major Greenhouse Gases Regulated Under the Kyoto Protocol

b.. "Dear Arjun" - "What is the second law of thermodynamics and why is it important?"

c.. It Pays to Increase Your Jargon Power: By Dr. Egghead

d.. Atomic Puzzler

e.. Selected IEER Publications

f.. About IEER

Institute for Energy and Environmental Research Comments to Outreach Coordinator: ieer@ieer.org Takoma Park, Maryland, USA

March, 1998


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NUCLEAR POWER CONTENTS
1 BULGARIA'S NUCLEAR REGULATOR ALLEGES WORSENING SAFETY LEVELS
2 Bush weighs in on Nevada's nuclear dump controversy
3 Ad Blasts Spending On Nukes
4 NRC to Hold Public Workshop October 5 on Handling of
5 Japan Remembers Nuclear Accident
6 Fallout still burns, a year after N-disaster
7 Nation remains at risk to nuclear disaster
8 Japan urged to ditch atomic power
9 Teachers want a syllabus to reflect nuclear realities
10 Research shows nuclear fallout could kill millions
11 Econ Impact Of Taiwan Nuclear Plant Scrap Limited- Scholar
12 EDITORIAL COMMENT: NUCLEAR MUDDLE
13 Melton Valley Cleanup Plan Comes In At $165 Million
14 Radioactive waste coming to Utah from New Jersey
15 ROWLAND SEEKS FEDS' HELP ON NUCLEAR WASTE

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NUCLEAR POWER ARTICLES

1 BULGARIA'S NUCLEAR REGULATOR ALLEGES WORSENING SAFETY LEVELS
September 29 2000

Bulgaria's nuclear energy regulator is under pressure to resign after he claimed that safety levels at the Kozlodui power plant had fallen this year and told the press about an incident at the station, which had caused an increase in levels of background radiation. However, the government denied that radiation levels had ever increased above normal levels, and at a cabinet meeting earlier this month, the minister of the environment, Evdokia Maneva, asked for the resignation of Dr Georgi Kaschiev, chairman of the Committee for the Peaceful Use of Atomic Energy (CPUAE). "I raised the question that the chairman of CPUAE is responsible for broadcasting misinformation on the increase of radiation in the country," the minister told journalists after the meeting. "Falsehoods about one of the most sensitive subjects in the country should not be disseminated. We have the best measuring system in the Balkan peninsular. Information gathered by this system is sent to CPUAE and to the Civil Defence. Neither institution had reason to issue warnings," she added. Both Turkey and Romania had requested clarification of the situation after Kaschiev's announcement.

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2 Bush weighs in on Nevada's nuclear dump controversy
Reno Gazette-Journal
By Lisa Snedeker
Associated Press
September 30th, 2000

LAS VEGAS - Just like Nevada Democrats, Nevada Republicans wanted a written promise from their presidential candidate to veto plans for temporary storage of high-level nuclear waste in the state.

They got it Friday from George W. Bush, who saw his big lead in Nevada slip away after Al Gore made a similar promise at the Democratic National Convention.

"I would veto legislation that would provide for the temporary storage of nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain," Bush wrote in a letter responding to a request from Republican Gov. Kenny Guinn.

Bush's statement said if he were elected, he would not sign legislation sending nuclear waste to any site - permanent or temporary - unless it were scientifically safe. He also said the federal government must work with local and state governments on safety and transportation issues.

Guinn, flanked by GOP U.S. Senate candidate John Ensign and U.S. House candidate Jon Porter along with other state candidates and U.S. Rep. Jim Gibbons, read Bush's letter at the Nevada Republican Party headquarters in west Las Vegas.

"I can think of no issue more important to the people of Nevada than nuclear waste storage at Yucca Mountain," the governor said. "This is not a Republican or Democratic issue. This is an issue for all Nevadans."

During a visit to Las Vegas last week, Gore said he does not support interim nuclear waste storage in Nevada or anywhere else because of the dangers posed during transportation.

Both Bush and the vice president have said they would let science determine where a permanent dump for the nation's high-level radioactive waste will be located.

Arecent poll by the Las Vegas Review-Journal shows the presidential race is in a statistical dead heat for Nevada's four electoral votes. Previous polls for the newspaper had Bush leading Gore by 8 percentage points in March. The lead had increased to 12 points by June.

While Nevada Republicans hailed Bush's statement, Democrats remained dubious.

U.S. Sen. Harry Reid said the letter is a cynical attempt by Bush to stop his decline in the Nevada polls. He also accused the Texas governor of being misinformed.

"Every attempt to store high-level nuclear waste on an interim basis in Nevada has focused on the Nevada Test Site not Yucca Mountain, "Reid said. "This letter was either written in a utilities company boardroom or by someone who doesn't understand the subject."

And retiring U.S. Sen. Richard Bryan said Bush continues to be an "artful dodger" on nuclear waste.

Despite Bush's declaration in the letter, Bryan says Bush still hasn't said whether he would veto legislation "that would compromise the health and safety of hundreds of thousands of Nevadans." Some fear health and safety standards will be relaxed to allow the selection of Yucca Mountain.

Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is the only site being studied by the federal government to entomb the nation's high- level radioactive waste - 77,000 tons of mostly spent fuel pellets from commercial power reactors.

In a letter dated Sept. 18, Guinn had written Bush asking for a "written statement further clarifying your position on interim nuclear waste storage in Nevada."

The governor, who is chairman of the Bush campaign in Nevada, said a written statement "would be helpful to me in communicating your stance on this topic."

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3 Ad Blasts Spending On Nukes
Yahoo - ADVISORY/
FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 29, 3:53 PM EASTERN TIME
Press Release

Business Leaders Launch Campaign On Eve of Presidential Debate

WHAT: Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities - a national group advocating change in federal budget priorities - will air a new TV ad that attacks as overkill present levels of U.S. spending on nuclear weapons. Hill, Holliday, one of Boston's leading advertising firms, produced the 30-second spot pro-bono. The ad features retired Navy Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan and promotes the idea of reducing military spending in favor of education.

The Pentagon budget currently amounts to more than $300 billion and accounts for more than half the money annually allotted by Congress. The United States is the world's sole remaining superpower and is now spending about three times as much on Defense as Russia, China and the so-called rogue states that are projected as possible adversaries.

BLSP currently includes as members more than 650 Business Leaders who believe that moving money out of the Pentagon and into programs to improve education is THE critical issue of our time. WHO: Ben Cohen Co-Founder, Ben & Jerry's; President, BLSP

Mike Sheehan President/Chief Creative Officer, Hill, Holliday, Connors, Cosmopulos

Arnold Hiatt President and Founder, Stride Rite

Jack Shanahan Vice Admiral, US Navy (ret.)

WHERE: Massachusetts State House, Room 222
WHEN: Monday, October 2, 11:30 am Contact: Eric Fehrnstrom Hill, Holliday 617-585-3666 or David Crosson Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities 202-332-0600 X102

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4 NRC to Hold Public Workshop October 5 on Handling of Discrimination Complaints

UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, REGION III 801 WARRENVILLE ROAD, LISLE IL 60532
No. III-00-53 September 29, 2000

CONTACT: Jan Strasma (630)829-9663/e-mail: rjs2@nrc.gov Pam Alloway-Mueller (630)829-9662/e-mail: pla@nrc.gov

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission will hold a workshop October 5 in Lisle, Illinois, to review the agency's handling of complaints by nuclear industry workers who allege their employer discriminated against them after they raised safety concerns.

The Lisle workshop will begin at 7 p.m. in the NRC's Region III office's third floor conference room, 801 Warrenville Road. It will be the fourth in a series of public workshops NRC staff members are holding throughout the country to help evaluate agency policies and develop recommendations to enhance public protection.

The NRC has formed a Discrimination Task Group to review the way the agency handles discrimination complaints filed by nuclear industry workers and recommend possible changes to the agency's regulations, enforcement policy or other guidelines. The Task Group also will consider issues raised in a rulemaking petition filed by the Union of Concerned Scientists last October. The petition asks the Commission to require that nuclear plant operators provide training for their management on implementing employee protection regulations.

Draft recommendations from the Task Group will be published about the middle of next year for public comment.

The workshop will not be transcribed, but summaries will be available from the NRC Public Document Room at (202) 634-3273. The group's charter and other pertinent documents related to its activities will web site. Additional information about upcoming meetings can be obtained by calling Barry Westreich at (301) 415-3456 or via e-mail:

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5 Japan Remembers Nuclear Accident
LAS VEGAS SUN
September 30, 2000
ASSOCIATED PRESS

TOKYO, Japan (AP)--A year after Japan's worst nuclear accident killed two people and exposed hundreds to radiation in a small town near Tokyo, local authorities on Saturday warned residents to prepare for the worst.

But it was make-believe this time for Tokaimura, a rural community 70 miles northeast of Tokyo that is home to a nuclear reactor and a dozen related facilities.

The town and plant operators commemorated the first anniversary of the accident with a morning of disaster-prevention drills.

Municipal officials rushed to a command post after receiving a report of a dangerous radiation leak. Sirens wailed. Buses shuttled evacuees to safe areas, where they were examined by medical personnel with Geiger counters.

Some of the 800 participants smiled for television cameras as they played their roles. But last year's tragedy continued to weigh heavily on a nation suspicious of nuclear energy and increasingly aware of its destructive potential.

In Tokyo, more than 100 anti-nuclear activists, some dressed in funereal black, held a noisy demonstration outside the Science and Technology Agency.

Shouting through bullhorns, they demanded that the government pull the plug on Japan's nuclear power industry, which generates about a third of electricity in this resource-poor country.

"The government doesn't seem to have learned anything at all from the accident," said Shin Kobuchi, a 22-year-old university student. "It has made no effort to listen to what the experts are saying about the dangers of nuclear energy."

The Tokaimura calamity confirmed the worst fears of the industry's many critics, uncovering systematic disregard for safety regulations and inadequate employee training.

On the morning of Sept. 30, 1999, two workers at a JCO fuel reprocessing plant in Tokaimura mixed excessive amounts of uranium in buckets and beakers instead of special mechanized tanks in an effort to save time.

The mix set off an uncontrolled nuclear reaction, exposing the two to fatal doses of radiation. A third worker was hospitalized in critical condition.

Authorities ordered 161 people evacuated from their homes, and another 310,000 were advised to stay indoors for 18 hours as a precaution. In all, 439 people were exposed to radiation.

The aftershocks continue to be felt a year later.

Utilities are scaling down plans to build new plants. The government is struggling to balance its long-term goal of expanding nuclear energy with calls for tightening safety measures.

JCO was stripped of its license to operate the processing plant in March, and the last of the remaining uranium was being removed from the facility this week.

The company has also agreed to pay out $117.2 million in compensation to settle 6,875 cases stemming from the accident.

In another blow to the region's nuclear industry, Taiwan Economics Minister Lin Hsin-yi on Saturday proposed scrapping a partially completed nuclear power plant, saying the island is incapable of storing the waste. The Cabinet will make a final decision in about a month.

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6 Fallout still burns, a year after N-disaster
Date: 30/09/2000
MICHAEL MILLETT, HERALD CORRESPONDENT IN TOKYO

Shigeo Kuwabara's tiny restaurant, renowned for its serves of deep fried pork cutlet, is a good three kilometres from the infamous JCO uranium plant in Tokaimura.

But that distance has not saved Mr Kuwabara from being hit by the sustained fallout from Japan's worst nuclear disaster.

A year after the eerie blue explosion inside a uranium conversion facility at JCO signalled the ultimate scientific horror - an uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction - the restaurant owner is still struggling to cope with the damage.

"My sales are down to 10 per cent of what they were before the accident, " he says morosely. "Business in Tokaimura has collapsed."

Logic would suggest that Mr Kuwabara would be yearning for a return to the pre-accident days, when Tokaimura proudly proclaimed itself "nuclear town" on a big roadside sign, emphasising its dependence on the 14 nuclear facilities jammed within its precincts.

In fact, he takes the opposite stance. "We don't want the industry any more," he says. "Tokaimura is sick of being dependent on the nuclear industry. It is the reason why we took down the sign last year."

The disillusionment is understandable. Tokaimura's "reward" for playing landlord to Japan's aging nuclear research and production facilities was the September 30, 1999 accident, triggered by two JCO workers dumping an abnormal amount of uranium powder into a mixing tank.

The ensuing "criticality" catastrophe cost two workers their lives, left more than 400 exposed to abnormal levels of radiation and forced the evacuation of thousands of people living within a 10-kilometre radius of the plant.

JCO, owned by the giant Sumitomo Metals, was subsequently found to have used incredibly slapdash procedures, such as slopping nuclear material into metal buckets and failing to brief workers on the dangers of the products they were handling.

The Government's emergency procedures were shown to be completely inadequate - as were its provisions for safeguarding the industry.

Tokaimura's trauma did not end once the physical site was mopped up and JCO's gates closed.

Compensation has been paid to local businesses and residents for financial losses suffered in the immediate aftermath of the accident. Sumitomo has doled out 12.6 billion yen ($A215 million), with more likely through a string of pending court cases.

But the general gripe is that the compensation falls well short of what is required to repair Tokaimura financially, physically and mentally, after the events of September 30.

While the Government insists that rigorous health checks have been made and that the radiation cloud that seeped from the plant did not last long enough to cause major problems, locals still complain of various ailments such as migraines and rashes.

And business groups say the lump sums handed out by the company fall well short of covering their medium and longer-term losses.

"The compensation was clearly inadequate in my case," says Mr Kuwabara, who heads the local restaurant association. "We had almost no money left to run our shops."

Local farmers complain they are still unable to sell their produce under the Tokaimura name. The stigma attached to the area means wholesalers will not handle the goods and buyers will not purchase them.

Tokai's once-flourishing makers of natto, the pungent-smelling fermented soybean that is a national delicacy, are suing JCO, complaining the company will not acknowledge the damage caused by swirling rumours that their product is tainted.

Alarmed by its own failings and that of an industry it has promoted vigorously since the 1970s, the Government has taken remedial action. It has assumed total control for crisis management, offered protection for whistleblowers and instituted new safety checks.

Yet public confidence in the nuclear industry remains low. The antipathy has much to do with Japan's schizophrenic approach to the nuclear industry. The only country ever to be made the target of a nuclear weapon completely disavows its use in war. Yet it has 51 nuclear power plants, churning out more than a third of its electricity needs, and is contemplating the construction of new ones.

This material is subject to copyright and any unauthorised use, copying or mirroring is prohibited.

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7 Nation remains at risk to nuclear disaster
THE JAPAN TIMES
Saturday, September 30, 2000

Ayear after Japan's worst nuclear power disaster struck the village of Tokai, Ibaraki Prefecture, a nuclear safety critic said Friday that sufficient measures have yet to be taken to prevent a similar accident from occurring.

Today marks the first anniversary of the disaster, in which a nuclear chain reaction hit critical mass, releasing radiation 20,000 times higher than normal.

The reaction began at a processing facility--not a power plant -- when three workers sidestepped safety procedures and added an unusually large amount of a nitric acid solution to a uranium compound.

Michiaki Furukawa, a scientist with the Citizens' Nuclear Information Center, said revisions to laws that require more inspections of nuclear facilities don't go far enough because the government's Nuclear Safety Commission is short of qualified staff and because inspections are not rigorous enough.

Since the accident the NSC has increased the number of full-time staff from 23 to 51 and has added 41 part-time technical consultants.

"I appreciate they (NSC) are improving. But we need a large number of experienced people. The (current) number is not sufficient," Furukawa said at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan, in Tokyo.

A handout from the information center, a private organization, also criticizes the nature of the inspections.

"These inspections are, after all, a tour of the facilities by the operators," the handout says. "It is doubtful that these inspections will truly prevent future accidents."

He pointed out that the Tokai disaster happened seven years after the most recent inspection of the JCO Co. processing facility, where the chain reaction was triggered.

Furukawa also blamed the Science and Technology Agency for approving the site in the first place, as the conversion building is located less than 200 meters from a residential area.

"Throughout the history of the nuclear industry in the whole world, I don't know of a case where ordinary people are exposed to neutrons" with the exception of the Tokai disaster, Furukawa said.

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8 Japan urged to ditch atomic power
"Many residents of Tokaimura remain angry and afraid"
BBC News
The BBC's Charles Scanlon in Tokyo
Saturday, 30 September, 2000

Demonstrators called for an end to nuclear power Anti-nuclear activists have marked the first anniversary of the Tokaimura nuclear disaster in Japan with a demonstration in Tokyo calling on the Government to abandon atomic energy.

Two workers at the uranium processing plant in Tokaimura died as a result of the accident on 30 September 1999, the worst in the world since Chernobyl.

The workers were blamed for triggering the accident, which resulted in 400 residents of Tokaimura - 120 km from Tokyo - being contaminated.

The workers did not know the dangers of criticality and did not observe the rules

Japanese Nuclear Safety Commission

But the Japanese Government has been accused of failing to enforce adequate safety standards at this and other nuclear facilities.

About 100 people attended the protest in Tokyo outside the Science and Technology Agency - which oversees Japan's nuclear industry - carrying placards with slogans reading: "No more nuclear energy!" and "Seek the truth behind the accident!"

Demonstrators tried to deliver a protest letter to the agency, but the guard on duty refused to accept it.

CRITICAL REACTION

A student from Tokaimura was among the demonstrators.
Workers have been blamed for triggering the accident

He carried a clock stopped at 1035, the moment when three workers at the JCO uranium processing plant set off the reaction which led to the radiation leak.

They used steel buckets to pour 16kg of uranium into a tank, which then set off a critical reaction.

Two of the workers, Hisashi Ouchi and Masato Shinohara, later died in hospital.

Shojiro Matsuura, chairman of the government's Nuclear Safety Commission, said that "the workers did not know the dangers of criticality and did not observe the rules."

SCAPEGOATS

But anti-nuclear activists have said the workers have been used as scapegoats by the government, which says nuclear energy is essential to the country because of its lack of natural resources.

Japan has 51 nuclear reactors, which provide 30% of its electricity.

Newspapers have alleged that JCO had approved the highly dangerous steel bucket method in 1996, as a way of cutting costs.

In March, the Japanese authorities withdrew JCO's operating licence.

But residents of Tokaimura remain worried and many say they are suffering from various unexplained illnesses and skin conditions.
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9 Teachers want a syllabus to reflect nuclear realities
The Taipei Times Online: 2000-09-29
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 29TH, 2000
BY CHIU YU-TZU STAFF REPORTER

Teachers opposed to nuclear power yesterday urged the government to incorporate anti-nuclear viewpoints into existing teaching materials, saying students should be enabled to form "unbiased" views on nuclear issues through education.

At a press conference held by the Taiwan Environmental Protection Union at the Legislative Yuan yesterday to celebrate Teachers' Day, anti-nuclear teachers said that they hope to see a nuclear-free nation.

"It's an issue about values," said Li Ken-cheng (§õ(r)Ú¬F), director of an ecological education center set up by the Kaohsiung Teachers' Association (°ª¶¯¥"±Ð(r)v·|). "How can students get balanced information if all information pertaining to nuclear energy contained in teaching materials for elementary schools is from Taipower only?" Li asked.

Li said he regretted that many good teachers are forced to provide their students with misleading information.

University professors said that teachers should provide more updated information missing from today's teaching materials.

"When Taipower fails to inform the public of the relationship between radioactive material and genes, teachers have the responsibility to provide both students and the public with accurate information, " said Chou Chin-cheng ((c)P(r)Ê1/4á), an analyst at National Taiwan University.

University professors said that college science majors should learn about the limited application of innovative technology.

"College and graduate students who take nuclear-related courses know that so far no technology can deal with nuclear waste adequately, " said Tsay Ting-kuei (1/2²¤B¶Q), vice president of the Taiwan Association of University Professors (¥xÆW±Ð±Â¨ó·|) and a civil engineering professor at National Taiwan University.

"Take chemical engineering for example, a discipline which once stressed the benefits brought by technology," said Shih Shin-min (¬I"H¥Á), a chemical engineering professor at National Taiwan University. "Nowadays, pollution prevention has become one of most important parts of studying this course."

Shih said that scientists could not avoid facing the fact that technology has had a certain negative impact on the environment, and nuclear technology was the best example.

"People can benefit from technology. But it can cause disaster if we misuse it," Shih said. This story has been viewed 146 times.

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10 Research shows nuclear fallout could kill millions
The Taipei Times Online: 2000-09-29
BY CHIU YU-TZU STAFF REPORTER
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 29TH, 2000

NUCLEAR ENERGY: A computer simulation has shown that an accident at the proposed Fourth Nuclear Power Plant could leave over seven million people dead

Up to 30 percent of Taiwan's population would die immediately or eventually get cancer if the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant ((r)Ö¥|1/4t) were to melt down, anti-nuclear groups said yesterday.

Japanese physicists Hiroo Komura (¤p§ø¯E¤) of Shizuoka University and Hiroaki Koide (¤p¥X¸Î³¹) of Kyoto University used a computer simulation designed by Takeshi Seo (¬GÃu§À°·) of Kyoto University to arrive at the conclusion.

The researchers asked the computer to calculate the damage that would result from a meltdown caused by a coolant leakage from the 1,350 megawatt advanced boiling water reactor at the plant, construction of which has been suspended in northern Taiwan.

At a press conference held by the Taiwan Environmental Protection Union yesterday, the Japanese scientists said that immediate fatalities could total 8,767 people within a 50km radius if a meltdown occurred and subsequent steam pressure buildup caused an explosion

Komura wrote that if the release of radioactive contamination continued for three hours and a westerly wind blew at 7kph, "severe consequences for human health would result."

If evacuation of the residents was completed a week after the accident, about 3.35 million persons living on the west coast would eventually develop cancer as a result of radioactive contamination, Komura said.

If an evacuation is not carried out within a week of such an accident, 28,185--or about 0.1 percent of the total population of Taiwan -- would die immediately, Komura said. Around 7.17 million persons, or about 30 percent of the total population, would eventually develop cancer.

Taiwanese anti-nuclear activists said that both the government and the public should take the results of the exercise into account while awaiting a final decision on whether to halt the project.

"Politicians are using the fate of the nuclear plant as a bargaining chip for political ends. We are releasing this scientific report to remind officials of the possible consequences of a nuclear accident on a crowded, tiny island such as Taiwan," said Shih Shin-min (¬I"H¥Á), head of the Taiwan Environmental Protection Union and a chemical engineering professor at National Taiwan University.

Anti-nuclear activists from the union said at the press conference that the government should have provided the public with information about nuclear risks, especially when a "comprehensive evacuation plan" was unavailable in Taiwan. The Japanese scientists said that they would soon simulate disasters at other nuclear plants in Taiwan. This story has been viewed 255 times.

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11 Econ Impact Of Taiwan Nuclear Plant Scrap Limited- Scholar
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 29 7:11 PM SGT

TAIPEI (Dow Jones)--The impact on Taiwan's economy from scrapping a controversial nuclear power plant is limited, an economist said Friday.

If the nuclear plant project is canceled, and no alternative energy plan is undertaken, Taiwan's real gross domestic product growth would fall 0.4% in 2005 and decline another 0.7% in 2006 and 2007, according to a study by Li Ping-cheng, associate professor of industrial economics at Tamkang University.

In addition, from 2008 to 2020, GDP growth will be down between 0.8% to 1.8%, Li said.

"The findings of this research clearly indicate that the fourth nuclear power plant is not as necessary as (claimed) by Taipower," Li said, referring to state-run Taiwan Power Co., the builder of the power plant, which is one third completed.

Taipower officials have said cancellation of the power plant would create electricity shortages in northern Taiwan, where the capital city Taipei and the plant are located.

Northern Taiwan produces 25% of Taiwan's total power output but accounts for 45% of the island's total electricity consumption, according to Taipower officials.

The power plant has a total planned capacity of 2,700 megawatts, with the first reactor expected to come online by end-June 2005 and the second a year later, according to Taipower officials.

Taipower officials have also said Taiwan's reserve ratio - the difference between the installed electricity generating capacity and the peak load - will fall to unacceptable levels in the year 2007, if the power plant is scrapped.

Taiwan will have a reserve ratio of 12.5% in 2007 and 8.3% in 2008 without the power plant, said Huang Huei-yu, division head of Taipower's public affairs department.

Reasonable levels are between 15% to 20%, according to Huang.

The power plant has been in the spotlight since President Chen Shui- bian, a longtime opponent of the project, took power in May.

A decision on the plant is expected before the end of next month.

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12 EDITORIAL COMMENT: NUCLEAR MUDDLE
UK: Financial Times
September 28 2000

The folly of Sweden's commitment to shut down its nuclear power stations has been shown up by a much more enlightened policy of liberalising the electricity market. As elsewhere, the move towards free trade in power has helped to cut prices sharply. But cheaper electricity has tended to reduce incentives to conserve power or to generate it expensively from renewable sources such as wind and waves.

So after the premature closure of its Barseback 1 plant almost a year ago, Sweden faces a difficulty. If it were to continue with the early closure of the remaining 11 nuclear plants it would risk a shortage of power as well as higher bills. The government's decision to postpone the closure of Barseback 2 until at least 2003 is a recognition of this economic reality.

Indeed, this postponement exposes the foolishness of the original decision to phase out nuclear power - taken in a referendum in 1980, soon after the accident at Three Mile Island in the US. But in the two decades since then, nuclear power has proved to be extremely safe and reliable. With the exception of the Chernobyl disaster in the Ukraine in 1986, there have been no fatalities directly attributable to nuclear generation. And although important lessons were drawn from Chernobyl, none of them suggested that well run western plants were dangerous.

Indeed, industrial accidents associated with power from coal, gas and even from windmills are consistently higher than those in the nuclear industry.

Not only has nuclear power proved safe: existing stations are very cheap to run. Once the capital costs have been incurred, there are therefore huge economic advantages in keeping them going for their full lifespan, of perhaps 40 years. Premature closure is not only a waste of a capital resource. It requires a switch to alternative generation that may produce power at two to three times the cost, and is likely to have a worse safety record.

This is not to deny the need to develop alternative power sources. Nor is it to suggest that when adding to total generating capacity, a new nuclear station is likely to compete with cheaper and more flexible gas or coal powered plants - at present prices. But that is not the decision faced in Sweden, nor in Germany, where the government has agreed to close nuclear plants after a life of 32 years.

In both countries greater transparency and liberalised markets will probably shift opinion to the common-sense view: "If it ain't broke don't scrap it". Governments should anticipate that change and help to promote it.

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13 Melton Valley Cleanup Plan Comes In At $165 Million
September 29, 2000

OAK RIDGE, TN, - A 14-year plan to isolate and prevent future leaching of chemical and radioactive contaminants into groundwater and surface water in Melton Valley has been approved. The $165 million cleanup got the final nod of approval when officials with the US Department of Energy (DOE) and State and Federal environmental regulators signed the Record of Decision (ROD). Melton Valley is a 1,000-acre area located between Haw Ridge and Copper Ridge south of the main Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) complex. The site is contaminated with radioactive and chemical wastes resulting from over 50 years of production and research activities at ORNL.

"This decision represents a major step forward in cleanup of the Oak Ridge Reservation," said Rod Nelson, DOE Assistant Manager for Environmental Management who signed the ROD.

The specific remediation activities will focus mainly on isolating waste, with some waste removal called for.

"The selected alternative leaves most contaminants in place, but isolates these materials to minimize any additional leaching into groundwater, " said David Adler, DOE Oak Ridge Operations team leader for remediation of ORNL watersheds. "Once complete, the environmental cleanup actions will be evaluated to determine if any additional actions are needed."

Melton Valley encompasses two solid waste storage areas, which during the 1950s and 1960s, were used for disposal of radioactive wastes from more than 50 other facilities, including other national laboratories operated by the Atomic Energy Commission - a DOE predecessor agency. In addition to radioactive burial trenches, the area contains landfills, underground tanks, impoundments, liquid waste seepage pits and trenches, wells, pipelines and surface structures.

The primary radioactive contaminants in Melton Valley include strontium- 90, cesium-137, tritium, and transuranics. Wastes at some locations in this area are leaching into groundwater.

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14 Radioactive waste coming to Utah from New Jersey
The Daily Herald
09/29/2000

CANON CITY, Colo. (AP)--Radioactive material that could have gone from New Jersey to the Cotter Corp. uranium mill will instead be disposed of in Utah.

The Army Corps of Engineers decided to send 16,000 cubic yards of waste from the Maywood Superfund site in New Jersey to the Envirocare center in Clive, Utah, said George Hanley, public affairs director for the corps office in Kansas City, Mo.

Cotter Corp. still can bid to accept other rounds of waste being disposed of next year totaling 200,000 cubic yards, Hanley said.

The tailings, made up mostly of thorium and small amounts of radium and uranium, are 100 times less radioactive than the uranium the mill currently processes.

Corps officials told residents and city officials in August that the state health department indicated Cotter's license would allow disposal of the waste.

Rich Ziegler, Cotter's executive vice president, said Cotter would continue to pursue waste that it is permitted to accept.

"In fact, we are in the process of wrapping up a deal on a uranium- based material that we will process at the end of this year and into next year," Ziegler said.

He declined to identify the source of that material.

Cotter also was a potential bidder for radioactive waste from the Shattuck Superfund site in Denver. Canon City residents were opposed to it.

"There is a lot of concern over Canon City becoming a dumping ground for this waste that isn't wanted somewhere else. The perception is if they don't want it there, we don't see why Canon City would want it," Fremont County Commissioner Keith McNew told corps officials last month.

This Story appeared in The Daily Herald on Friday, September 29, 2000 12:00:00 AM and was printed on page A7 Last Updated Thursday, September 28, 2000 11:11:50 PM

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15 ROWLAND SEEKS FEDS' HELP ON NUCLEAR WASTE
New Haven Register
Associated Press September 30, 2000

HARTFORD - THREE NEW ENGLAND GOVERNORS, FACED WITH THE DECOMMISSIONING OF NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS, ARE ASKING CONGRESS TO FORCE THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TO TAKE THE SPENT FUEL FROM THOSE FACILITIES.

In a joint statement before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources in Washington Thursday, Govs. John Rowland of Connecticut, Argeo Paul Cellucci of Massachusetts and Angus S. King Jr. of Maine charged the federal government's failure to abide by an early- 1980s congressional mandate to remove the spent nuclear materials from shutdown plants stymies the potentially lucrative reuse of the sites.

The governors contended that the Department of Energy faces no technical or legal hurdles that would prevent it from immediately beginning to remove spent fuel from the decommissioned plants.

They want Congress to ensure that the DOE solely earmark Nuclear Waste Fund money for hastened removal offsite, rather than for building or maintaining onsite storage facilities.

"When decommissioning is complete (by no later than 2004 for these plants), the states and localities reasonably anticipated that the plants' nuclear licenses would be terminated and the sites would be available for other productive uses," the governors stated. "Because the States' citizens paid DOE for disposal of spent fuel (as part of their electric rates), the states had no reason to expect that these fully decommissioned plant sites would be involuntarily appropriated as long-term spent fuel storage sites."

In Connecticut, the state has been forced to consider a plan to put the waste, which remains dangerously radioactive for thousands of years, in storage casks at the site of the closed Connecticut Yankee plant. It is a discussion likely to be repeated as officials decide what to do with spent fuel at the closed Millstone 1 power plant in Waterford.

Maine Yankee and Yankee Rowe in Massachusetts are even further along in the decommissioning process.

It was lawsuits filed by the three "Yankee" plants, combined on appeal, which are once again generating interest in the debate. The companies that own the three plants contend that the DOE, having failed to fulfill a contractual agreement to start accepting the spent nuclear fuel by January 1998, is in breach of contract. The companies are seeking compensation for the cost of having to store the fuel in the meantime.

The appeals court ruled that the utilities do have the right to seek damages in court.

Unless there are further appeals, the issue will be referred back to a lower federal court to determine damages. DOE General Counsel Mary Ann Sullivan said a decision whether to appeal to the Supreme Court, or perhaps seek a settlement, will be determined in the next few weeks.

Russ Mellor, president and CEO of the Connecticut Yankee Atomic Power Co. and Yankee Atomic Electric Co. testified at Thursday's hearing that the lengthy litigation could be avoided if the federal government agreed to site and operate a central, temporary storage facility for the nation's used nuclear fuel until a permanent repository is ready to begin accepting waste.

Mellor lamented that after spending two decades and $6 billion, the DOE still has not determined the suitability of Yucca Mountain in Nevada for a permanent waste repository.

Calling the DOE seriously behind schedule, he said the agency has acknowledged that permanent disposal will not be available for a decade at the earliest.

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NUCLEAR WEAPONS CONTENTS

1 Bacteria turned into toxin eaters
2 Containers Seen Contamination Source
3 Bottomless containers could be source of tritium
4 Containers blamed for contamination
5 ENERGY DEPARTMENT AWARDS $24M FOR ENVIRONMENTAL CLEANUP RESEARCH
6 Compensation plan revived for helping sick nuclear workers
7 ENVIRONMENTAL DANGERS ARE QUITE POSSIBLE IF HARBOR IS DEEPENED

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NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARTICLES

1 Bacteria turned into toxin eaters
Evansville Courier & Press -
By SUSAN SKILES LUKE Associated Press writer

CARBONDALE, Ill.Researchers at Southern Illinois University say they've found a way to turn nearly 40 kinds of common bacteria into toxin eaters that would make hazardous waste sites self-cleaning.

The researchers say the natural bacteria can be nudged into turning a toxic chemical into harmless table salt. And the bacteria can do it all without the sun to give it energy.

"This is huge," said Laurie Achenbach, a molecular biologist at SIU. "Think of where most of the toxic waste is - in environments where there is no sunlight, like underground or underwater."

The bugs target a toxic chemical called perchlorate, a dry powder used in munitions manufacturing that has seeped into groundwater across the United States.

But what is perhaps most important, scientists say, is that these bugs do something that no other organism has been known to do. While transforming perchlorate to table salt, the bacteria suck out oxygen, generating that precious energy source without the help of sunlight.

Since the bacteria are found everywhere, they could be put to work at sites by simply stimulating them with the "food" they need, Achenbach said, including acetic acid - another word for vinegar.

Professor Brendlyn Faison of Hampton University in Virginia, a member of the American Society for Microbiology, says the practical implications are far-reaching.

"An oxygen source from a waste product in the absence of light suggests a closed system to produce oxygen for humans," Faison said. "Think of a mine or the space shuttle."

But Achenbach and partner John Coates are focused on the bacteria's potential uses in cleaning toxins.

The researchers now are trying to see if the bacteria can do a similar clean-up job on radioactive metals like uranium.

"We found that it acts like a sponge," said Coates, an environmental microbiologist.

The bacteria uses iron to transform hazardous solids that have dissolved in liquid - like uranium - and reverses the process, leaving a harmless solid in a puddle of clean water, Coates said.

Anna Palmisano, an Energy Department scientist charged with finding new ways to clean up hazardous waste, said she sees the bacteria as a "tool in our larger toolbox" to immobilize hazardous metals like uranium. But that's not all.

"It's very versatile," Palmisano said. "It's not only a new organism, but it also has a lot of interesting capabilities we can exploit for environmental applications."

The departments of Defense and Energy, which are funding the SIU project with more than $1 million, could not immediately estimate the extent of uranium or perchlorate contamination at waste sites in the United States. The Environmental Protection Agency does not track the contaminant, a spokeswoman said.

Dolline Hatchett, an Energy Department spokeswoman, said uranium contamination has been found at a majority of the department's 53 nuclear-weapons waste sites, which the department spent more than $52 billion last year on clean up.

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2 Containers Seen Contamination Source
LAS VEGAS SUN
September 29, 2000
ASSOCIATED PRESS

YAKIMA, Wash. (AP)--High-level nuclear waste at the Hanford nuclear reservation was buried decades ago in bottomless containers less than four miles from the Columbia River, the Energy Department said Friday.

The agency said that may be why the level of radioactive tritium in area groundwater is 400 times higher than the federal safety standard.

Wade Ballard, assistant manager for planning and integration, couldn't say why the agency used the containers. He said it might have been to prevent water from accumulating in them and then leaching radioactive material into the ground.

"It was 40 years ago," he said. "Obviously, if we were designing it today, we would do it differently."

Five bottomless caissons, or large corrugated metal pipes, and 50 bottomless drums are buried 3 1/2 miles from the Columbia River in south-central Washington. It was unclear how much waste is stored there, but it includes 11 to 22 pounds of plutonium, which was manufactured at Hanford for nuclear weapons.

Low-level radioactive waste also was dumped into trenches for burial at the 8.6-acre site from 1962 to 1967. Hanford does not expect to begin cleaning up the site until at least 2010.

Tritium is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen that poses a cancer risk when ingested. It was produced at Hanford for use in nuclear warheads to boost their explosive yield.

Last January, the high level of tritium was detected in a Hanford monitoring well near the waste site. The well is also in the path of a huge tritium plume stretching from the central part of the 560- square-mile reservation to the river.

It is unclear whether the tritium levels in the area are from the waste site or groundwater 60 feet below the surface, Ballard said. But experts say the tritium will likely reach the river.

"The issue is how much is there," said Mike Thompson, the site's groundwater manager. "At this point in time, we don't believe there's a very large tritium plume."

If tests show the tritium is moving fast enough to be a threat to the river, action will be taken to stop its progress, Ballard said.

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3 Bottomless containers could be source of tritium
This story was published 9/30/2000
By John Stang
Herald staff writer

A Hanford burial site that has leaked radioactive tritium near the Columbia River shore should be added to a proposal to accelerate cleanup, the Environmental Protection Agency says.

The highly contaminated Site 618-11, which is 31Ž2 miles from the river, appears to have extremely concentrated tritium oozing from its north side, recent analyses show.

It's unknown how much tritium is leaking, how fast will it reach the river and how radioactive will it be when it finally gets there. Tritium's radioactivity decays by half every 12.3 years.

The Department of Energy plans to get a better grasp on those questions this year, Hanford officials said Friday.

Mike Goldstein, the EPA's remedial project manager for Hanford's 300 Area, said his agency is concerned the burial site is leaking tritium in concentrations 400 times higher than federal drinking water standards--and it is not part of a DOE proposal to complete cleanup of most of the rivershore area by 2012.

"We can't keep studying the symptoms and not cure the problem," Goldstein said.

Hanford's current plans call for 618-11's cleanup effort to begin in 2010 and cost more than $300 million. A major problem is the wastes are so radioactive they must be handled by remoted-controlled equipment that has not been developed yet.

DOE Hanford Manager Keith Klein has proposed accelerating cleanup efforts along the river. To accomplish that by 2012, he hopes to begin rerouting money and finding new cash to start the effort in the fiscal 2002 cleanup budget. That budget request has to be ready by February.

In the 1960s, radioactive wastes from nuclear fuel tests and other 300 Area experiments--including cesium, strontium and 11 to 22 pounds of plutonium--were buried at the 8.6-acre Site 618-11 just northwest of Energy Northwest's complex.

The wastes were buried in "caissons," "vertical pipes" and 55-gallon barrels. A caisson is a small underground steel chamber connected to the surface by a crooked pipe to prevent radioactive dust from escaping when objects were dumped into it. The vertical pipes are five 55-gallon open-ended drums welded together to form a 15-foot- deep vertical tube.

The caissons and vertical pipes are open at the bottom.

Today's Hanford experts don't know why.

Wade Ballard, DOE assistant manager for planning and integration, speculated the bottomless containers could be a source for the tritium.

In 1999 and early 2000, a monitoring well just east of 618-11 showed previously undiscovered tritium concentrations of up to 8 million picocuries per liter.

The federal drinking water standard is 20,000 picocuries. Initially, Hanford experts checked 22 existing monitoring wells near 618-11, which showed the tritium has not spread far.

Then 50 "gas probe" holes were drilled 20 feet deep along 618-11's north and east sides to hunt for elevated levels of the radioactive isotope helium 3. Its presence indicates tritium-laced water is nearby.

Elevated helium concentrations found just north of 618-11 are 15 to 20 times greater than levels collected outside of 618-11's east fence, said Mike Thompson, DOE acting manager for ground water projects.

Since 618-11's north fence line is "uphill" of water flowing through the aquifer, that indicates the collected helium gases come from tritium that has not reached the aquifer, said Jan Borghese, CH2M Hill Hanford Group's ground water monitoring task leader.

So, Hanford experts believe the greatest concentration of leaking tritium has not seeped to the aquifer.

Hanford plans to drill two monitoring wells down to the aquifer soon and put in several more gas probe holes, Thompson said.

One well will be about 50 yards east of the well where the 8-million- picocurie reading appeared. The second will be where the highest helium gas reading occurred.

If monitoring shows the tritium is moving faster than expected, that will likely lead to faster remedial measures, Ballard said.

-- REPORTER JOHN STANG CAN BE REACHED AT 582-1517 OR VIA E-MAIL AT JSTANG@TRI-CITYHERALD.COM.

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4 Containers blamed for contamination
Tritium levels in ground water at Hanford are 400 times higher than the federal standard
Oregon Live
Saturday, September 30, 2000
By Linda Ashton of The Associated Press

YAKIMA--Radioactive tritium contamination in ground water may be 400 times higher than the federal standard at the Hanford nuclear reservation because high-level nuclear waste was buried in containers that had no bottoms, the U.S. Department of Energy said Friday.

Five bottomless caissons, or large corrugated metal pipes, and 50 bottomless drums are located in the 618-11 burial ground, 3" miles from the Columbia River in south-central Washington.

Wade Ballard, a Department of Energy assistant manager for planning and integration, couldn't say why the federal agency used containers without bottoms. But he said he suspects it might have been to prevent water from accumulating in them and then leaching radioactive material into the ground.

"It was 40 years ago," he said during a teleconference from Richland. "Obviously, if we were designing it today, we would do it differently."

Low-level radioactive waste also was dumped into trenches for burial at the 8.6-acre site from 1962 to 1967.

Tritium is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen that poses a cancer risk when ingested. It was produced at Hanford for use in nuclear warheads to boost their explosive yield.

Last January, the high level of tritium was detected in a Hanford monitoring well, showing a concentration of more than 8 million picocuries of radiation per one liter of water. The federal drinking water standard is less than 20,000 picocuries.

The well also is in the path of a huge tritium plume stretching from the 200 Area in the central part of the 560-square-mile reservation to the Columbia.

Tests in February within a 3-square-mile area around the well showed readings ranging from undetectable to 55,000 picocuries per liter, leading the department to conclude the contamination was not widespread.

Since then, contractors have put 50 soil-gas probes 20 feet deep into the burial ground to try to determine the source of the tritium and its rate and pattern of movement, Ballard said.

Elevated levels of the isotope helium-3, an indicator of tritium decay, pointed them to the northern side of the burial ground, where the caissons and drums are underground.

"The source of the tritium could be coming from the tritium waste or it could be from the ground water," which is 60 feet below the surface, Ballard said.

The tritium probably will reach the Columbia River, said Mike Thompson, the department's ground water manager.

"The issue is how much is there. At this point in time, we don't believe there's a very large tritium plume," he said.

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5 ENERGY DEPARTMENT AWARDS $24M FOR ENVIRONMENTAL CLEANUP RESEARCH
Virtual community for the government contracting industry
Govcon .com:

FROM ALLIED WASTE INDUSTRIES

The Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded $24 million to renew 31 research projects that may help solve the nation's most complex environmental cleanup challenges. These awards are a result of the first renewal competition conducted under the department's Environmental Science Program.

"The renewal of these research projects will provide critical knowledge to help us understand how to clean up sites in a safe and efficient manner," said Secretary Richardson.

Researchers at 12 universities, six DOE laboratories, and three additional research institutions, will use the funding to conduct scientific studies focusing on environmental problems across the DOE complex.

SUBSURFACE CONTAMINATION PROBLEMS RECEIVE ALMOST 50% OF MONIES Nearly half of the research will focus on solving subsurface contamination problems. For example, researchers from DOE's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, in collaboration with researchers at Stanford University, will seek a better understanding of mechanisms that allow metal-reducing bacteria to be effective in the bioremediation of toxic metals and radionuclides. If successful, this research will provide the fundamental understanding necessary to stop or slow the movements of contaminants through the vadose zone - the unsaturated zone of soil that lies beneath the land surface and extends to groundwater.

Eight of the renewed projects will advance the understanding and capability to address the high-level waste issues. The goal of one Pacific Northwest National Laboratory researcher, for example, is to provide DOE with materials that can improve upon existing technologies for strontium and actinide removal at the Savannah River Site. The materials could also be employed for strontium removal from acidic waste at Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory and to isolate contaminants in groundwater and soil.

Other projects address a variety of problems in deactivation and decommissioning, mixed waste, spent nuclear fuel, health, and ecology and risk.

FUNDING RECEIVED BY INSTITUTIONS ACROSS THE U.S. The following research institution are receiving funding under this program.

The California Department of Land, Air, and Water Resources is conducting research to better understand the processes that lead to metal ion stabilization in soils. The amount of award for this research is $450,000.

The University of California ­ Davis is conducting research to develop a real-time ultrasonic system to keep track of the flow rates in pipes used in the bioremediation process. The university is receiving an award of $330,000 for this research.

The University of California, Los Angeles is conducting research to refine cleanup procedures of a number of different radioactive materials. The university is receiving an award for $450,000 for this research.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory is conducting three research projects to: evaluate the effect of chemicals and hydrology on the transport and retention of radionuclides in subsurface materials ($720,000); better understand how to remove technetium found in tank farms at the Hanford and Savannah River sites ($600,000); and, develop a new electromagnetic measurement method for use in characterization, monitoring, and verification efforts at DOE sites ($870,000).

Researchers at the Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC, are developing a new detector that provides enhanced capabilities over existing systems and have direct applicability in the areas of Decontamination and Decommissioning (D&D), Nuclear Materials, Spent Nuclear Fuel (SNF) and Mixed Waste. They are receiving an award of $600,000 for this research.

In Georgia, the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences is conducting research to focus on mineral-water interactions as a model for the durability of waste-bearing glasses formed during waste vitrification. The award amount totals $500,000.

The University of Notre Dame is conducting research at Argonne National Laboratory to better understand the stability and mobility of isotopes expected at the proposed Yucca Mountain repository. The university received an award of $871,000 for this research.

The University of Kansas is conducting research to develop and demonstrate the use of a cost-effective automated method of conducting seismic surveys. This approach represents a significant departure from conventional seismic-survey field procedures. The university is receiving an award of $792,238 for this research.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology is conducting research to develop a chemical sensing technology capable of diagnosing the chemical compounds in hazardous gas, liquid, and semi-solid environments. The National Institute of Standards and Technology is receiving an award of $949,999.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is conducting research to investigate the use of new geophysical methods for developing and understanding the subsurface environment and delineating waste in the subsurface. They are receiving an award of $712,150 for this research.

The University of Michigan is conducting two research projects to: better understand the effect of the migration of dense organic compounds in the subsurface environment ($675,000); and, determine the long-term corrosion effects on spent nuclear fuel ($445,000).

The University of Missouri-Rolla is conducting research to investigate the use of an iron phosphate base for vitrifying wastes. The university is receiving an award of $520,000.

The Los Alamos National Laboratory is conducting research to gain a better understanding of the different forms of plutonium and how it is transported in the environment. The award for this research is $850,000.

Sandia National Laboratories is conducting research to better understand how contaminants migrate in aquifers. The award for this research is $900,000.

Lovelace Biomedical & Environmental Research Institute is conducting research that will investigate the use of health-effects data and characterization methods to develop an improved risk-assessment capability. Lovelace is receiving an award of $1,000,000 for this research.

Syracuse University is conducting research that will fabricate, commission and test an acoustic probe to accurately measure weight percent solids in slurries at low levels. The probe will be tested at the Oak Ridge National Laboratories. The university is receiving an award of $500,000 for this research.

Ohio State University is conducting research to develop a chemical process for destruction of dense organic compounds in the subsurface. The university is receiving an award of $400,000 for this research.

The Oak Ridge National Laboratory is conducting five research projects to: develop a new compound that will selectively extract cesium from waste tanks ($660,000); collect fundamental data on the effect of biological material on a variety of soluble subsurface contaminants ($840,000); better understand how metal-reducing bacteria can be more effectively used in the bioremediation of toxic metals and radionuclides ($1,050,000); gain a better understanding of the molecular-level mechanism of microsensors ($630,000); and , provide a better understanding of the relationship between exposure and health ($690,000).

Rice University is conducting research to complete development and testing of seismic methods for high resolution imaging of the subsurface environment. The award for this research is $216, 000.

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is conducting four research projects to: examine the chemical reactions that go on in high- level waste tanks and develop a model of these reactions ($990, 000); discover new compounds that can selectively bind to metals so that they can be separated or identified ($700,000); provide DOE with alternative materials that can exceed the performance of currently available methods for strontium and actinide removal or immobilization ($900,000); and develop data to help in predicting the future behavior and stability of high-level waste in the environment ($830,000).

The University of Washington is conducting two research projects to: improve the efficiency of removing chlorinated hydrocarbons from the waste stream ($700,000); and develop a radioactivity resistant bacterium that is capable of degrading the organic compounds in hazardous and radioactive components ($480,000). A complete list of the projects, including funding and research summaries, as well as other information about the Environmental Management Science Program are available at http://emsp.em.doe.gov/ or through DOE's Public Inquiries Office, Room 1E-206, Washington DC 20585, (202) 586-5575.

Edited by Bob Arguero, Managing Editor, GovCon -->

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6 Compensation plan revived for helping sick nuclear workers
The Paducah Sun
Saturday, September 30, 2000
Staff report

Paducah, Kentucky U.S. Rep. Ed Whitfield, R-Hopkinsville, said there is a 90 percent chance Congress will approve a compensation program for sick workers at nuclear weapons plants, including the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant.

Speaking at a news conference Friday at the plant, Whitfield said House and Senate negotiators are using the Senate version of the compensation plan to craft a compromise. He said it will define what illnesses qualify for benefits, and require either this administration or the next to define what benefits will be offered to current and former workers.

Different versions of bills have proposed from $100,000 to $200,000 cash payments, plus medical benefits. Whitfield said the program will cost about $1.7 billion before expiring in 10 years.

The compensation plan, thought to be dead earlier this week, has been revived because of political arm-twisting from Whitfield and lawmakers from other states that have weapons-related plants.

Whitfield said election-year politics also helped to revive the measure.

"The politics of not approving this is horrible .... when you walk away from the responsibility of taking care of people who contracted illnesses because of exposure to things that you knew were there but didn't tell them about," Whitfield said. "It also is the right thing to do."

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7 ENVIRONMENTAL DANGERS ARE QUITE POSSIBLE IF HARBOR IS DEEPENED
Opinion - Letters to the editor
Savannah NOW:

As a resident of Savannah since 1974 and a member of the Citizens for Clean Air and Water, I have seen several changes in the industrial landscape of the Savannah area, the most obviously welcome is the sharp reduction of the odorous sulfide compounds emitted from what is now the International Paper factory. We still have much that is in need of cleaning, though; namely the pollution still produced by the factories on the west side as well as the east side of Savannah.

In 1995, we had a big chemical explosion at what was then the Powell- Duffryn chemical storage tank facility, where S&T Services is now located. Many people were treated for illnesses and much of the Pine Gardens area of Savannah had to be evacuated. People are still being treated for chemical inhalation injuries resulting from this disaster.

Transported from the factories on the wheels of trucks, gypsum powder is still pouring throughout the east side of Savannah.

We now have the reuse of the Elba Island containers as repositories of liquid natural gas. This presents the danger of the release of this gas in large quantities throughout the Savannah area. A stray spark would cause it to become an airborne bonfire.

The east side also has underground dangers resulting from the production of natural gas from coals in the form of the water-born runoff of the cancer-causing residue. This hazard, which began in the early 19th century, still needs to be eliminated at it's source.

A principle location of this danger is our well-known Trustees Garden area. Furthermore, we still have the danger of the runoff into the Savannah River of nuclear fuels from the Savannah River Site near Augusta. Radioactive cesium was found in the Savannah River in the early 1990s, yet the reprocessing of nuclear warhead fuels continues.

And now, the abundant plutonium stored in the area is to become a principle source of newer MOX fuel to be manufactured at this site.

Additionally, what has been buried in the ground due to years of mismanagement is still finding it's way to the Savannah area through our river.

As we see, Savannah is becoming a principle toxic dump site for the waste of every industry along its river. In addition to what is coming down the river, if our river is deepened we now have the prospect of more saltwater intrusion entering the river from the ocean. This would supplement the salt water already in the ground water of our barrier islands such as Tybee, according to the Georgia Environmental Protection Division.

Our aquifer has thus been dangerously lowered already. We do not need more salt water further reducing the variety and abundance of animals already endangered in the area such as the striped bass and the short-nose sturgeon. The danger of greater flooding due to increased deepening of the harbor is also present.

Finally, the proposal to use the soil from the river bottom to supplement the beach sand on Tybee Island has not been comprehensively researched for possible contaminants in the soil to be relocated. Because of our inconclusive knowledge of the consequences and knowing the possible dangers of deepening the harbor, the project may indeed be a mixed blessing. We may attract more ships whose cargo would provide more jobs but we may only add to to the deficit of the quality of life along our coast.

FRED NADELMAN