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abolition-usa-digest     Sunday, February 7 1999     Volume 01 : Number 072




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

Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 13:32:56 -0500 (EST)
From: Tina Bell <[e-mail]>
Subject: (abolition-usa) WILPF (NY Metro) looking at hiring a Coordinator as Tina Bell is returning to Australia.

The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (NY Metro branch)
is looking at hiring a new Coordinator. If interested please call Anne
Florant [phone].

I  am returning to Australia as I have had my long term working
visa rejected I want to be closer to my family. I will still be connected
to WILPF and other activist groups, so our paths may cross in the future.
Thank you for all your amazing work and good luck for the future.

Best wishes,

Tina.


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 To unsubscribe to abolition-usa, send an email to "[e-mail]"
 with "unsubscribe abolition-usa" in the body of the message.
 For information on digests or retrieving files and old messages send
 "help" to the same address.  Do not use quotes in your message.

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

Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 01:27:36 -0800
From: "David Crockett Williams" <[e-mail]>
Subject: (abolition-usa) Y2K and Nuclear Weapons

Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 14:48:15 -0800
>From: Mark Sommer <[e-mail]
>Subject: Y2K and Nuclear Weapons
>
>A Letter from Michael Kraig, Scoville Fellow, BASIC
>
>I am heading a project on Y2K and nuclear weapons arsenals at the British
>American Security Information Council (BASIC) in Washington, DC, and
London,
>United  Kingdom.  We just released a first report on the nature of the
>"Millennium Bug," or "Y2K Problem," as it relates to the Department of
>Defense and nuclear operations.  The report summarizes the generic computer
>problem, the state of existing DoD Y2K remediation programs (including
their
>many  management deficiencies and failures), and possible Y2K
>vulnerabilities for nuclear weapons and associated nuclear operations,
>including especially Command, Control, Communications, and Intelligence
>(C3I) systems (i.e., warning satellites, radar arrays, data storage and
>correlation centers, communications nodes, and so on).   It also outlines
>some general policy alternatives in the conclusion, such as the reduction
of
>our alert rates from "launch on warning" to a lower state of readiness
(also
>known as the "de-alerting" of nuclear forces).  The entire text (including
>endnotes) can be found on BASIC's web page,  www.basicint.org.
>
>I have sent the report to the key staffers of all house members and
senators
>with nuclear warhead storage or deployment in their own backyard, as well
as
>majority and minority staffers on the Armed Services Committee in the
>Senate.  Reports have also gone to some key committee staffers (for
>instance, one person on Stephen Horn's Y2K subcommittee in the House, which
>has given "D" grades to the DoD on their Y2K repair progress), and all
>members of the Senate's Special Committee on the Year 2000 Problem. To
>support these mailings, we have had several meetings with the offices of
>Senators Jeff Bingaman, Robert Kerrey, John Kerry, Daniel Patrick Moynihan,
>Pete Dominici, Tom Harkin, Joseph Lieberman, and Christopher Dodd.  Our
hope
>is that senators such as Bob Kerry of Nebraska and Tom Daschle of SD -both
>of whom are recommending "de-alerting" of the arsenals and unilateral
>cutbacks-  will add Y2K to their agenda, or possibly use it to gain
leverage
>with US Strategic Command (STRATCOM) in Omaha, Nebraska.  In the past
>several years, both STRATCOM and civilian nuclear planners in the Office of
>Secretary of Defense have scuttled any attempts to consider de-alerting
options.
>
>Helen Caldicott, currently head of the STAR Foundation (Standing for Truth
>about Radiation) and former head and founder of the Physicians for Social
>Responsibility, is putting together a symposium jointly with BASIC and the
>Nuclear Information Resource Service (NIRS) in March with Bruce Blair, Ted

>Taylor, myself, and multiple experts on the domestic, or energy, side of
>nuclear power.  Our policy goal is twofold: to get Congress to 1) charge
the
>DoD Inspector General to do a series of highly specific reports on
>individual "high risk" nuclear systems, including nuclear C3I, and 2) to
>move ahead on de-alerting (or at the very least, consider it as a realistic
>policy option).
>
>The General Accounting Office (GAO) has done, and is doing, reports on DoD
>procedures, test data, contingency planning, and so on for its remediation
>program, but no one at  the GAO is  preparing narrowly focused reports on
>critical nuclear systems. In other words, the activity at this point is at
>least one step removed from the actual sources of potential trouble.
>
>If you are interested in this program or have your own suggestions for
>action, please contact me at [phone] or [e-mail]. John
>Pike of the Federation of American Scientists has suggested, for instance,
>that CPSR get 40 to 50 top computer scientists to write a letter to
congress
>containing clearly defined goals and policy alternatives, including the
>tasking of Inspector General reports as well as more technical advice from
>the field.
>
>As a last note, I should say that BASIC is pretty much alone on this issue.
>Most expert analysts currently have other well funded programs, and thus,
>other responsibilities for the foreseeable future. Other than appearing in
>the joint STAR-BASIC-NIRS symposium in March, or keeping an updated web
>page, no one seems to be devoting time or resources to the topic.  I have
>been looking for ways to split the research pie, as I cannot possibly cover
>all facets of DoD-STRATCOM nuclear operations.  If you know of someone who
>could help on nuclear weapons, either in terms of original research or as a
>source of technical information for nuclear C3I and/or launch platform
>support systems, I would be very grateful.
>
>Sincerely,
>Michael R. Kraig [e-mail]
>Scoville Fellow [phone]
>BASIC
>1900 L St. NW, Suite 401
>Washington, DC  20036



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 with "unsubscribe abolition-usa" in the body of the message.
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------------------------------

Date: Sat, 06 Feb 1999 15:18:16 -0500
From: Peace though Reason <[e-mail]>
Subject: (abolition-usa) NucNews (US) 2/6/99 -

- --=====================_5625445==_.ALT
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"


1. WIPP License Defended; EPA Asserts Safety in Face of Lawsuit
http://www.abqjournal.com/news/1news02-03.htm

2. Don't eat the tumbleweeds
http://www.spokane.net/news-story-body.asp?Date=020599&ID=s526309&cat=

3. Critics say NRC buckles to pressure
A reversed ruling is but one incident cited as proof.
http://www.phillynews.com/inquirer/99/Jan/31/national/NRC31.htm

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

1. WIPP License Defended; EPA Asserts Safety in Face of Lawsuit

http://www.abqjournal.com/news/1news02-03.htm

By Mike Taugher, February 3, 1999, Albuquerque Journal

 A proposed nuclear waste dump in southern New Mexico is about 10 times safer
than regulations require it to be, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
said in court papers filed this week

Responding to a lawsuit filed by the New Mexico Attorney General's Office and
environmental groups, the EPA defended the license it issued in May to the
Waste Isolation Pilot Plant

The attorney general and environmental groups have charged that the license for
what would be the world's first engineered underground nuclear waste dump is
defective and should be withdrawn

The lawsuit is one of two ongoing legal proceedings in which the Attorney
General's Office and environmental groups are trying to prevent WIPP from
opening

Radioactive trash from the nation's nuclear weapons complex would be buried
nearly 1/2-mile underground in ancient salt beds at WIPP, 26 miles east of
Carlsbad. Construction was completed on the $2 billion project 10 years ago,
but legal challenges and regulatory requirements have prevented it from opening

In the first lawsuit, the attorney general and the environmental groups are
seeking to prevent the U.S. Department of Energy, which owns WIPP, from
shipping drums of nuclear waste from Los Alamos National Laboratory before
state regulators issue a permit for non-nuclear hazardous waste

On Monday, U.S. District Judge John Garrett Penn received final written
arguments. Both sides expect him to schedule a hearing in the coming weeks or
months

The second lawsuit, which challenges the EPA license, is being handled by the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. The same court in 1997
rejected a lawsuit by the same parties when they challenged the EPA's licensing
process at an earlier stage. A hearing is scheduled in that case May 6

The arguments being made now against the EPA license are intricate

Still, one WIPP critic expressed confidence.     "They clearly know they're in
trouble on a couple of issues, I think," said Don Hancock of the Southwest
Research and Information Center

For example, Hancock said the EPA was wrong to certify WIPP independently from
the laboratories that want to ship their waste to WIPP. In other words, WIPP's
critics argue the EPA should have issued one license for the entire program
instead of one license for WIPP, followed by separate certifications for
batches of waste destined for WIPP

And WIPP's critics argued that the EPA should have forced the Energy Department
to use more than one "engineered barrier." Plans at WIPP now call for just one
engineered barrier -- sacks of magnesium oxide, intended to moderate leakage,
that will surround drums of waste

The EPA defended both decisions in its court filings.

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

2. Don't eat the tumbleweeds

http://www.spokane.net/news-story-body.asp?Date=020599&ID=s526309&cat=

Associated Press - February 5, 1999

RICHLAND _ All that wind this week has stirred up some toxic tumbleweeds on the
Hanford nuclear reservation.

Hanford workers are being warned not to touch tumbleweeds rolling through the
200 East area because several have been found to be contaminated and to have
rolled outside ``radiological control boundaries.''

Not that the tumbleweeds pose much danger. No one has been contaminated,
officials said.

``A person would have to ingest several contaminated tumbleweeds to be subject
to harm,'' lead contractor Fluor Daniel Hanford, Inc., said in a news release
Thursday.

The company said it will collect contaminated tumbleweeds and properly dispose
of them.

Hanford used to make plutonium for nuclear weapons and now contains the
nation's largest collection of nuclear waste.

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

3. Critics say NRC buckles to pressure
A reversed ruling is but one incident cited as proof.

http://www.phillynews.com/inquirer/99/Jan/31/national/NRC31.htm

By Rich Heidorn Jr., PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

In December 1997, a Nuclear Regulatory Commission panel voted to issue
sanctions against the operator of a notorious Connecticut nuclear plant for
targeting whistle-blowers for layoffs.

Last June, without explanation, the same panel reversed its position. Northeast
Utilities, operator of the Millstone nuclear plant in Waterford, Conn., would
not be punished at all.

"We could uncover no decent explanation for why this happened," said assistant
Inspector General George Mulley, whose office issued a report this month on the
incident. "Everybody forgot everything. Nobody could recall any other
conversations [ between the two votes ] . There were no meeting notes, no
nothing."

The Millstone reversal is one of several recent developments that have led
critics to charge that the NRC is buckling to political pressure from the
nuclear industry and its supporters in Congress.

The NRC renewed its vow to protect whistle-blowers after it was embarrassed by
a 1996 Time magazine cover story that reported on the agency's failure to
police Millstone.

NRC later acknowledged that agency officials had allowed Northeast Utilities
for years to ignore safety rules and to harass workers who raised concerns
about the practices.

The disclosures prompted the most sweeping changes in NRC policies since the
1979 accident at Three Mile Island.

The NRC ordered all three Millstone units shut down and fined Northeast
Utilities $2.1 million, the largest such penalty ever. The NRC also ordered the
nation's other 100-plus plants to engage in costly safety reviews.

Now, however, some say the agency has been cowed into allowing a premature
restart of Millstone. Unit III returned to service in July, and Unit II is
expected to be at full power by spring.

Some industry watchdogs say the agency has been on the defensive since the
industry defeated President Clinton's nomination of former NRC counsel Daniel
Berkovitz to the commission in 1996. Then last year, Senate Appropriations
Chairman Pete Domenici (R., Ariz.) proposed eliminating 500 of the NRC's 1,400
inspectors.

The Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's trade group, also has called for
cutting the NRC workforce. It says the industry is getting safer, noting that
the incidence of "operational events" that could have led to severe accidents
was lower in 1997 than in any year since 1970.

David Lochbaum of the Union of Concerned Scientists said Domenici's cuts would
result in "drive by" regulation at a time when rapidly aging plants and
economic pressures from electric deregulation necessitate increased vigilance.

The NRC -- whose inspection hours per plant decreased by 20 percent between
1990 and 1997 -- ended up with a 3.8 percent cut from its 1999 budget request.

Lochbaum says safety can coexist with cost-consciousness. Virginia Electric &
Power Co.'s two nuclear plants, he points out, have the industry's lowest costs
as well as its top safety ratings.

Watchdogs say the public cannot count on the industry to police itself.

"As the electric utility deregulates, safety margins may be compromised when
licensees cut costs to stay competitive," the General Accounting Office warned
Congress in July. Preparing for competition in Connecticut is what led
Millstone's managers to cut spending on maintenance, the GAO noted.

Lochbaum and former PP&L engineer Donald Ranft say such corner-cutting will
continue unless the NRC does more to protect plant workers who express
concerns.

In November, the Union of Concerned Scientists asked the NRC for an independent
review of Pacific Gas & Electric Co.'s treatment of whistle-blowers at its
Diablo Canyon nuclear plant.

The request was prompted when PG&E ordered Neil Aiken, a senior reactor
operator with 20 years' experience, to undergo a psychiatric exam after he
raised safety questions at a stockholders' meeting. Aiken was removed from his
duties when doctors retained by PG&E diagnosed him as mentally ill.

PG&E, which settled a separate complaint brought by another whistle-blower last
year, denied that Aiken was punished for going public with his concerns. The
company said NRC regulations required it to remove Aiken based on the
diagnoses. "Mr. Aiken was free to get his own medical opinion. He did not,"
PG&E spokesman Jeff Lewis said.

Aiken's coworkers have rallied to his defense; more than 40 signed a letter to
the NRC attesting to his fitness, according to Lochbaum.

For nuclear workers who blow the whistle, life is never the same. George
Galatis, the Millstone engineer whom Time magazine put on its cover, left the
industry for the ministry, convinced that little has changed at the plant or
the NRC.

Ranft, who was fired by PP&L after raising safety concerns at the Susquehanna
nuclear plant, said he has been blackballed not just by PP&L but by the
industry.

Unable to find work for 11 months, Ranft recently started a sales job at half
his previous pay. His ex-wife is taking him to court because his child support
dropped. The legal bills from his case against PP&L already top $50,000, with
no end in sight. He was hospitalized in December for heart irregularities, and
frequently feels dizzy and lightheaded from the stress.

"I've been in the industry for 25 years, and I never realized how much the deck
is stacked by the NRC in favor of the utilities," Ranft said. "Assuming for the
moment I'm wrong, there's got to be someone out there who's raising a
legitimate issue. How do they survive? How do they do it? You've got to be a
real masochist."
_____________________________________________________________

       * NucNews - to subscribe: [e-mail] - http://prop1.org *
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NucNews Archive: HTTP://WWW.ONELIST.COM/arcindex.cgi?listname=NucNews
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_____________________________________________________________
- --=====================_5625445==_.ALT
Content-Type: text/html; charset="us-ascii"

<html><div>1. WIPP License Defended; EPA Asserts Safety in Face of
Lawsuit</div>
<div><a href="http://www.abqjournal.com/news/1news02-03.htm" EUDORA=AUTOURL>http://www.abqjournal.com/news/1news02-03.htm</a></div>
<br>
<div>2. Don't eat the tumbleweeds</div>
<div><a href="http://www.spokane.net/news-story-body.asp?Date=020599&ID=s526309&cat=" EUDORA=AUTOURL>http://www.spokane.net/news-story-body.asp?Date=020599&ID=s526309&cat=</a></div>
<br>
<div>3. Critics say NRC buckles to pressure </div>
<div>A reversed ruling is but one incident cited as proof. </div>
<div><a href="http://www.phillynews.com/inquirer/99/Jan/31/national/NRC31.htm" EUDORA=AUTOURL>http://www.phillynews.com/inquirer/99/Jan/31/national/NRC31.htm</a></div>
<br>
<div>----------------------------------------</div>
<br>
<div>1. WIPP License Defended; EPA Asserts Safety in Face of
Lawsuit</div>
<br>
<div><a href="http://www.abqjournal.com/news/1news02-03.htm" EUDORA=AUTOURL>http://www.abqjournal.com/news/1news02-03.htm</a></div>
<br>
<div>By Mike Taugher, February 3, 1999, Albuquerque Journal</div>
<br>
<div> A proposed nuclear waste dump in southern New Mexico is about
10 times safer than regulations require it to be, the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency said in court papers filed this week</div>
<br>
<div>Responding to a lawsuit filed by the New Mexico Attorney General's
Office and environmental groups, the EPA defended the license it issued
in May to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant</div>
<br>
<div>The attorney general and environmental groups have charged that the
license for what would be the world's first engineered underground
nuclear waste dump is defective and should be withdrawn</div>
<br>
<div>The lawsuit is one of two ongoing legal proceedings in which the
Attorney General's Office and environmental groups are trying to prevent
WIPP from opening</div>
<br>
<div>Radioactive trash from the nation's nuclear weapons complex would be
buried nearly 1/2-mile underground in ancient salt beds at WIPP, 26 miles
east of Carlsbad. Construction was completed on the $2 billion project 10
years ago, but legal challenges and regulatory requirements have
prevented it from opening</div>
<br>
<div>In the first lawsuit, the attorney general and the environmental
groups are seeking to prevent the U.S. Department of Energy, which owns
WIPP, from shipping drums of nuclear waste from Los Alamos National
Laboratory before state regulators issue a permit for non-nuclear
hazardous waste</div>
<br>
<div>On Monday, U.S. District Judge John Garrett Penn received final
written arguments. Both sides expect him to schedule a hearing in the
coming weeks or months</div>
<br>
<div>The second lawsuit, which challenges the EPA license, is being
handled by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. The
same court in 1997 rejected a lawsuit by the same parties when they
challenged the EPA's licensing process at an earlier stage. A hearing is
scheduled in that case May 6</div>
<br>
<div>The arguments being made now against the EPA license are
intricate</div>
<br>
<div>Still, one WIPP critic expressed confidence.
"They clearly know they're in trouble on a couple of issues, I
think," said Don Hancock of the Southwest Research and Information
Center</div>
<br>
<div>For example, Hancock said the EPA was wrong to certify WIPP
independently from the laboratories that want to ship their waste to
WIPP. In other words, WIPP's critics argue the EPA should have issued one
license for the entire program instead of one license for WIPP, followed
by separate certifications for batches of waste destined for WIPP</div>
<br>
<div>And WIPP's critics argued that the EPA should have forced the Energy
Department to use more than one "engineered barrier." Plans at
WIPP now call for just one engineered barrier -- sacks of magnesium
oxide, intended to moderate leakage, that will surround drums of
waste</div>
<br>
<div>The EPA defended both decisions in its court filings. </div>
<br>
<div>--------------------------------------</div>
<br>
<div>2. Don't eat the tumbleweeds</div>
<br>
<div><a href="http://www.spokane.net/news-story-body.asp?Date=020599&ID=s526309&cat=" EUDORA=AUTOURL>http://www.spokane.net/news-story-body.asp?Date=020599&ID=s526309&cat=</a></div>
<br>
<div>Associated Press - February 5, 1999</div>
<br>
<div>RICHLAND _ All that wind this week has stirred up some toxic
tumbleweeds on the Hanford nuclear reservation.</div>
<br>
<div>Hanford workers are being warned not to touch tumbleweeds rolling
through the 200 East area because several have been found to be
contaminated and to have rolled outside ``radiological control
boundaries.''</div>
<br>
<div>Not that the tumbleweeds pose much danger. No one has been
contaminated, officials said.</div>
<br>
<div>``A person would have to ingest several contaminated tumbleweeds to
be subject to harm,'' lead contractor Fluor Daniel Hanford, Inc., said in
a news release Thursday.</div>
<br>
<div>The company said it will collect contaminated tumbleweeds and
properly dispose of them.</div>
<br>
<div>Hanford used to make plutonium for nuclear weapons and now contains
the nation's largest collection of nuclear waste. </div>
<br>
<div>------------------------------</div>
<br>
<div>3. Critics say NRC buckles to pressure </div>
<div>A reversed ruling is but one incident cited as proof. </div>
<br>
<div><a href="http://www.phillynews.com/inquirer/99/Jan/31/national/NRC31.htm" EUDORA=AUTOURL>http://www.phillynews.com/inquirer/99/Jan/31/national/NRC31.htm</a></div>
<br>
<div>By Rich Heidorn Jr., PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER STAFF WRITER</div>
<br>
<div>In December 1997, a Nuclear Regulatory Commission panel voted to
issue sanctions against the operator of a notorious Connecticut nuclear
plant for targeting whistle-blowers for layoffs.</div>
<br>
<div>Last June, without explanation, the same panel reversed its
position. Northeast Utilities, operator of the Millstone nuclear plant in
Waterford, Conn., would not be punished at all.</div>
<br>
<div>"We could uncover no decent explanation for why this
happened," said assistant Inspector General George Mulley, whose
office issued a report this month on the incident. "Everybody forgot
everything. Nobody could recall any other conversations [ between the two
votes ] . There were no meeting notes, no nothing."</div>
<br>
<div>The Millstone reversal is one of several recent developments that
have led critics to charge that the NRC is buckling to political pressure
from the nuclear industry and its supporters in Congress.</div>
<br>
<div>The NRC renewed its vow to protect whistle-blowers after it was
embarrassed by a 1996 Time magazine cover story that reported on the
agency's failure to police Millstone.</div>
<br>
<div>NRC later acknowledged that agency officials had allowed Northeast
Utilities for years to ignore safety rules and to harass workers who
raised concerns about the practices.</div>
<br>
<div>The disclosures prompted the most sweeping changes in NRC policies
since the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island. </div>
<br>
<div>The NRC ordered all three Millstone units shut down and fined
Northeast Utilities $2.1 million, the largest such penalty ever. The NRC
also ordered the nation's other 100-plus plants to engage in costly
safety reviews.</div>
<br>
<div>Now, however, some say the agency has been cowed into allowing a
premature restart of Millstone. Unit III returned to service in July, and
Unit II is expected to be at full power by spring. </div>
<br>
<div>Some industry watchdogs say the agency has been on the defensive
since the industry defeated President Clinton's nomination of former NRC
counsel Daniel Berkovitz to the commission in 1996. Then last year,
Senate Appropriations Chairman Pete Domenici (R., Ariz.) proposed
eliminating 500 of the NRC's 1,400 inspectors.</div>
<br>
<div>The Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's trade group, also has
called for cutting the NRC workforce. It says the industry is getting
safer, noting that the incidence of "operational events" that
could have led to severe accidents was lower in 1997 than in any year
since 1970.</div>
<br>
<div>David Lochbaum of the Union of Concerned Scientists said Domenici's
cuts would result in "drive by" regulation at a time when
rapidly aging plants and economic pressures from electric deregulation
necessitate increased vigilance.</div>
<br>
<div>The NRC -- whose inspection hours per plant decreased by 20 percent
between 1990 and 1997 -- ended up with a 3.8 percent cut from its 1999
budget request.</div>
<br>
<div>Lochbaum says safety can coexist with cost-consciousness. Virginia
Electric & Power Co.'s two nuclear plants, he points out, have the
industry's lowest costs as well as its top safety ratings.</div>
<br>
<div>Watchdogs say the public cannot count on the industry to police
itself.</div>
<br>
<div>"As the electric utility deregulates, safety margins may be
compromised when licensees cut costs to stay competitive," the
General Accounting Office warned Congress in July. Preparing for
competition in Connecticut is what led Millstone's managers to cut
spending on maintenance, the GAO noted.</div>
<br>
<div>Lochbaum and former PP&L engineer Donald Ranft say such
corner-cutting will continue unless the NRC does more to protect plant
workers who express concerns.</div>
<br>
<div>In November, the Union of Concerned Scientists asked the NRC for an
independent review of Pacific Gas & Electric Co.'s treatment of
whistle-blowers at its Diablo Canyon nuclear plant.</div>
<br>
<div>The request was prompted when PG&E ordered Neil Aiken, a senior
reactor operator with 20 years' experience, to undergo a psychiatric exam
after he raised safety questions at a stockholders' meeting. Aiken was
removed from his duties when doctors retained by PG&E diagnosed him
as mentally ill.</div>
<br>
<div>PG&E, which settled a separate complaint brought by another
whistle-blower last year, denied that Aiken was punished for going public
with his concerns. The company said NRC regulations required it to remove
Aiken based on the diagnoses. "Mr. Aiken was free to get his own
medical opinion. He did not," PG&E spokesman Jeff Lewis
said.</div>
<br>
<div>Aiken's coworkers have rallied to his defense; more than 40 signed a
letter to the NRC attesting to his fitness, according to
Lochbaum.</div>
<br>
<div>For nuclear workers who blow the whistle, life is never the same.
George Galatis, the Millstone engineer whom Time magazine put on its
cover, left the industry for the ministry, convinced that little has
changed at the plant or the NRC.</div>
<br>
<div>Ranft, who was fired by PP&L after raising safety concerns at
the Susquehanna nuclear plant, said he has been blackballed not just by
PP&L but by the industry.</div>
<br>
<div>Unable to find work for 11 months, Ranft recently started a sales
job at half his previous pay. His ex-wife is taking him to court because
his child support dropped. The legal bills from his case against PP&L
already top $50,000, with no end in sight. He was hospitalized in
December for heart irregularities, and frequently feels dizzy and
lightheaded from the stress.</div>
<br>
"I've been in the industry for 25 years, and I never realized how
much the deck is stacked by the NRC in favor of the utilities,"
Ranft said. "Assuming for the moment I'm wrong, there's got to be
someone out there who's raising a legitimate issue. How do they survive?
How do they do it? You've got to be a real masochist."
<br>

_____________________________________________________________<br>
<br>
       * NucNews - to subscribe:
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Date: Sun, 07 Feb 1999 06:35:28 -0500
From: Peace though Reason <[e-mail]>
Subject: (abolition-usa) NucNews (US) 2/7/99 - MX Missiles Budgeted; Nuclear Plant Fire Ohio

- --=====================_60953090==_.ALT
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"


1. Funding Sought as Deactivation of Some U.S. Missiles Is Delayed (MX)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-02/07/030l-020799-idx.html

2. Nuclear panel: Safety devices slowed plant fire
Because of the severe damage, officials have not determined how the fire
started.
http://www.dispatch.com/pan/news/nrcnws.html

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

1. Funding Sought as Deactivation of Some U.S. Missiles Is Delayed

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-02/07/030l-020799-idx.html

By Walter Pincus Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, February 7, 1999; Page A28

The Clinton administration has added $50 million to the fiscal 2000 Pentagon
budget to keep in operation for at least another year 50 MX intercontinental
ballistic missiles that were scheduled to be deactivated had Russia ratified
the START II arms control treaty, according to administration sources.

The decision to keep the 10-warhead missiles in operation was made in part to
maintain the U.S. nuclear warhead count as the administration moves to
decommission the four oldest Trident strategic ballistic missile submarines
starting in 2002. That will leave in service 14 of the giant nuclear
submarines, each of which carries 24 ICBMs with five or more warheads.

The Trident decommissioning, which was originally timed to coincide with
expected Moscow ratification this year of START II, had been in some doubt
because of a congressional prohibition against reductions of the U.S. nuclear
arsenal until the Russian parliament took positive action on the 1993 treaty.

A major reason for taking the Tridents out of service is the cost of keeping
them going. Defense Secretary William S. Cohen told Congress last week that it
would cost "some 5 or 6 billion dollars" to refuel the nuclear reactors of the
four older Tridents as well as modify them to carry newer Trident II missiles.

In his testimony, Cohen said that despite the Trident reductions, the
administration was going to "continue to insist that Russia ratify START II. I
think if we have a ratification process which we abide by and they don't, then
that undercuts the validity of having a process to begin with. So I think it's
important that the Duma ratifies START II so that we can move on to START III."

Although the Russian parliament has refused to ratify START II, which would
force the United States to make deep reductions, Moscow has been unable to
afford to keep its strategic nuclear bombers, submarines and land-based ICBMs
at START I levels.

At the Helsinki summit in March 1997, President Clinton and Russian President
Boris Yeltsin agreed that once START II was ratified the two sides would
immediately begin to deactivate the U.S. 10-warhead MX and Russia's 10-warhead
SS-18.

In a related matter, national security adviser Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger told
Congress Thursday that he would recommend the president veto
Republican-sponsored legislation that would mandate deploying a national system
to shoot down enemy missiles based solely on a determination that the system
was "technically possible."

Berger said that although the administration had decided to set aside $10.5
billion to deploy a limited missile defense system, the planned June 2000
decision to go ahead would be based on several factors, of which technological
feasibility would be only one.

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

2. Nuclear panel: Safety devices slowed plant fire
Because of the severe damage, officials have not determined how the fire
started.

http://www.dispatch.com/pan/news/nrcnws.html

By Bob Dreitzler Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch Staff Reporter, February 6, 1999

PIKETON, Ohio -- A fire at a uranium fuel processing plant was "about as bad as
it could be for that type of situation,'' a federal Nuclear Regulatory
Commission official said yesterday.

The fire began shortly after 6 a.m. on Dec. 9 in a large building at the
Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, where uranium is enriched for use as fuel
for nuclear reactors.

For nearly two hours, the fire melted and burned metal piping in uranium
processing equipment and buckled metal girders in an area about 100 feet by 30
feet.

The blaze "could not have been any more serious,'' said James Caldwell, a
deputy regional administrator for the NRC, but safety features incorporated
when the plant was designed nearly a half-century ago helped firefighters
contain the blaze.

The building is constructed of cells equipped with sprinklers and separated by
secure walls, which kept the fire from spreading.

Two firefighters suffered minor injuries when they slipped in some of the 3,000
gallons of lubricating and hydraulic oil that was released during the blaze.

The oil also caught fire and some leaked from the cell where the blaze
originated into adjacent areas, but was quickly contained.

Some uranium hexafluoride was released inside the building, but none escaped
outside, officials said. No one was exposed to radiation or chemical
contamination, they said.

Because of the severe damage, officials have not determined how the fire
started. But they know it was fueled by a reaction between molten aluminum and
the gaseous uranium hexafluoride that is used in the enrichment process.

The fire was like a continuously burning torch, said Patrick Hiland, chief of
the NRC's fuel facilities branch. "It was a tremendously hot fire.''

Caldwell and Hiland are part of an NRC inspection team formed to investigate
the fire.

The team included specialists from the agency's headquarters and regional
office personnel.

The team met yesterday with plant officials to review their findings.

About 100 people attended the presentation at Ohio State University's Piketon
Research and Extension Center, which is adjacent to the enrichment plant
complex.

The federal team found that the emergency response to the fire was adequate but
identified problems in areas of planning, training and operations.

Among the findings, they said, was inadequate emergency breathing equipment in
the area where the fire occurred, which resulted in two workers suffering smoke
inhalation.

Firefighters tried to supplement fogging equipment with foam spray but their
foaming equipment would not work.

And notices that should have gone out immediately to state and local agencies
and the NRC were delayed.

The NRC's written report detailing all its findings will be issued in about a
week.

Corrective actions already were being taken on some items before the NRC
investigators discovered them, federal officials said.

They concluded that such a fire could occur again, but that if it did the
consequences would be within regulatory limits.

Another phase of the investigation beginning in March will determine whether
any fines or penalties should be assessed against Lockheed Martin Utility
Services, the company that operates the plant for the United States Enrichment
Corp. under a contract that is being phased out.

Morris Brown, plant general manager, told the NRC team that he found its report
to be comprehensive and accurate.

"We appreciate that you noted the positive aspects as well as where we need to
improve,'' he said.

He said no discipline or reprimands were issued as a result of the fire.

"But there were some expectations issued,'' he said. "We are handling it as a
lesson learned.''



_____________________________________________________________

       * NucNews - to subscribe: [e-mail] - http://prop1.org *
                         Say "Please Subscribe NucNews"
NucNews Archive: HTTP://WWW.ONELIST.COM/arcindex.cgi?listname=NucNews
           since January 13, 1999; for earlier editions - write [e-mail]
                          ---------------------------------------

   NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is
  distributed without profit or payment, to those who have expressed a prior
       interest in receiving this information, for non-profit research and
             educational purposes only. For more information go to:
                <http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml>
_____________________________________________________________
- --=====================_60953090==_.ALT
Content-Type: text/html; charset="us-ascii"

<html><div>1. Funding Sought as Deactivation of Some U.S. Missiles Is
Delayed (MX)</div>
<div><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-02/07/030l-020799-idx.html" EUDORA=AUTOURL>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-02/07/030l-020799-idx.html</a></div>
<br>
<div>2. Nuclear panel: Safety devices slowed plant fire </div>
<div>Because of the severe damage, officials have not determined how the
fire started. </div>
<div><a href="http://www.dispatch.com/pan/news/nrcnws.html" EUDORA=AUTOURL>http://www.dispatch.com/pan/news/nrcnws.html</a></div>
<br>
<div>----------------------------------------</div>
<br>
<div>1. Funding Sought as Deactivation of Some U.S. Missiles Is
Delayed</div>
<br>
<div><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-02/07/030l-020799-idx.html" EUDORA=AUTOURL>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-02/07/030l-020799-idx.html</a></div>
<br>
<div>By Walter Pincus Washington Post Staff Writer </div>
<div>Sunday, February 7, 1999; Page A28 </div>
<br>
<div>The Clinton administration has added $50 million to the fiscal 2000
Pentagon budget to keep in operation for at least another year 50 MX
intercontinental ballistic missiles that were scheduled to be deactivated
had Russia ratified the START II arms control treaty, according to
administration sources.</div>
<br>
<div>The decision to keep the 10-warhead missiles in operation was made
in part to maintain the U.S. nuclear warhead count as the administration
moves to decommission the four oldest Trident strategic ballistic missile
submarines starting in 2002. That will leave in service 14 of the giant
nuclear submarines, each of which carries 24 ICBMs with five or more
warheads.</div>
<br>
<div>The Trident decommissioning, which was originally timed to coincide
with expected Moscow ratification this year of START II, had been in some
doubt because of a congressional prohibition against reductions of the
U.S. nuclear arsenal until the Russian parliament took positive action on
the 1993 treaty.</div>
<br>
<div>A major reason for taking the Tridents out of service is the cost of
keeping them going. Defense Secretary William S. Cohen told Congress last
week that it would cost "some 5 or 6 billion dollars" to refuel
the nuclear reactors of the four older Tridents as well as modify them to
carry newer Trident II missiles.</div>
<br>
<div>In his testimony, Cohen said that despite the Trident reductions,
the administration was going to "continue to insist that Russia
ratify START II. I think if we have a ratification process which we abide
by and they don't, then that undercuts the validity of having a process
to begin with. So I think it's important that the Duma ratifies START II
so that we can move on to START III."</div>
<br>
<div>Although the Russian parliament has refused to ratify START II,
which would force the United States to make deep reductions, Moscow has
been unable to afford to keep its strategic nuclear bombers, submarines
and land-based ICBMs at START I levels.</div>
<br>
<div>At the Helsinki summit in March 1997, President Clinton and Russian
President Boris Yeltsin agreed that once START II was ratified the two
sides would immediately begin to deactivate the U.S. 10-warhead MX and
Russia's 10-warhead SS-18. </div>
<br>
<div>In a related matter, national security adviser Samuel R.
"Sandy" Berger told Congress Thursday that he would recommend
the president veto Republican-sponsored legislation that would mandate
deploying a national system to shoot down enemy missiles based solely on
a determination that the system was "technically
possible."</div>
<br>
<div>Berger said that although the administration had decided to set
aside $10.5 billion to deploy a limited missile defense system, the
planned June 2000 decision to go ahead would be based on several factors,
of which technological feasibility would be only one. </div>
<br>
<div>---------------------------------------</div>
<br>
<div>2. Nuclear panel: Safety devices slowed plant fire </div>
<div>Because of the severe damage, officials have not determined how the
fire started. </div>
<br>
<div><a href="http://www.dispatch.com/pan/news/nrcnws.html" EUDORA=AUTOURL>http://www.dispatch.com/pan/news/nrcnws.html</a></div>
<br>
<div>By Bob Dreitzler Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch Staff Reporter, February
6, 1999</div>
<br>
<div>PIKETON, Ohio -- A fire at a uranium fuel processing plant was
"about as bad as it could be for that type of situation,'' a federal
Nuclear Regulatory Commission official said yesterday.</div>
<br>
<div>The fire began shortly after 6 a.m. on Dec. 9 in a large building at
the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, where uranium is enriched for use
as fuel for nuclear reactors.</div>
<br>
<div>For nearly two hours, the fire melted and burned metal piping in
uranium processing equipment and buckled metal girders in an area about
100 feet by 30 feet.</div>
<br>
<div>The blaze "could not have been any more serious,'' said James
Caldwell, a deputy regional administrator for the NRC, but safety
features incorporated when the plant was designed nearly a half-century
ago helped firefighters contain the blaze.</div>
<br>
<div>The building is constructed of cells equipped with sprinklers and
separated by secure walls, which kept the fire from spreading.</div>
<br>
<div>Two firefighters suffered minor injuries when they slipped in some
of the 3,000 gallons of lubricating and hydraulic oil that was released
during the blaze.</div>
<br>
<div>The oil also caught fire and some leaked from the cell where the
blaze originated into adjacent areas, but was quickly contained.</div>
<br>
<div>Some uranium hexafluoride was released inside the building, but none
escaped outside, officials said. No one was exposed to radiation or
chemical contamination, they said.</div>
<br>
<div>Because of the severe damage, officials have not determined how the
fire started. But they know it was fueled by a reaction between molten
aluminum and the gaseous uranium hexafluoride that is used in the
enrichment process.</div>
<br>
<div>The fire was like a continuously burning torch, said Patrick Hiland,
chief of the NRC's fuel facilities branch. "It was a tremendously
hot fire.''</div>
<br>
<div>Caldwell and Hiland are part of an NRC inspection team formed to
investigate the fire.</div>
<br>
<div>The team included specialists from the agency's headquarters and
regional office personnel.</div>
<br>
<div>The team met yesterday with plant officials to review their
findings. </div>
<br>
<div>About 100 people attended the presentation at Ohio State
University's Piketon Research and Extension Center, which is adjacent to
the enrichment plant complex.</div>
<br>
<div>The federal team found that the emergency response to the fire was
adequate but identified problems in areas of planning, training and
operations.</div>
<br>
<div>Among the findings, they said, was inadequate emergency breathing
equipment in the area where the fire occurred, which resulted in two
workers suffering smoke inhalation.</div>
<br>
<div>Firefighters tried to supplement fogging equipment with foam spray
but their foaming equipment would not work.</div>
<br>
<div>And notices that should have gone out immediately to state and local
agencies and the NRC were delayed.</div>
<br>
<div>The NRC's written report detailing all its findings will be issued
in about a week.</div>
<br>
<div>Corrective actions already were being taken on some items before the
NRC investigators discovered them, federal officials said.</div>
<br>
<div>They concluded that such a fire could occur again, but that if it
did the consequences would be within regulatory limits.</div>
<br>
<div>Another phase of the investigation beginning in March will determine
whether any fines or penalties should be assessed against Lockheed Martin
Utility Services, the company that operates the plant for the United
States Enrichment Corp. under a contract that is being phased
out.</div>
<br>
<div>Morris Brown, plant general manager, told the NRC team that he found
its report to be comprehensive and accurate.</div>
<br>
<div>"We appreciate that you noted the positive aspects as well as
where we need to improve,'' he said.</div>
<br>
<div>He said no discipline or reprimands were issued as a result of the
fire.</div>
<br>
<div>"But there were some expectations issued,'' he said. "We
are handling it as a lesson learned.''</div>
<br>
<br>
<br>

_____________________________________________________________<br>
<br>
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<dl>
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<dd>  distributed without profit or payment, to those who have
expressed a prior
<dd>       interest in receiving this
information, for non-profit research and
<dd>
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<dd>
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