HANFORD WATCH NEWSLETTER
March 13, 1999
DUKE CONFIDENT OF K BASINS CONTRACT RENEWAL
Tri-City Herald – Feb. 28, 1999
Talks have started on renewing DE&S Hanford's contract amid optimism
that significant improvements were made at the troubled K Basins project
in the past few months. But even with the recent progress, problems
at the K Basins are far from resolved.
The plan is to move 2,300 tons of spent nuclear fuel from two aging
indoor pools full of radioactive water near the Columbia River to a
new underground vault miles from the river by 2003. The current timetable
calls for starting to move fuel in late 2000, finishing the move by
December 2003, and removing all the radioactive sludge in the pools
by July 2005. Revisions in the long-range budget supposedly provide
enough money to complete the work and handle any surprises. But the
project can't afford any additional delays and still meet its deadlines.
"It's still very tight. It's a challenge. It's not a cakewalk to heaven,"
said Beth Sellers, the Department of Energy official in charge of the
project.
http://www.tri-cityherald.com/news/1999/0228.html#anchor596744
DE-ALERT NUCLEAR WEAPONS IN 1999? HERE'S HOW YOU CAN HELP
Tri-Valley CAREs – March, 1999
Tri-Valley CAREs and the nationwide Alliance for Nuclear Accountability
have designated this month as Back from the Brink: Nuclear Weapons De-Alerting
Action Month. We ask you to join us in efforts to educate ourselves
and the public about the urgent need to de-alert the nuclear arsenal.
It's 1999, and still the U.S. and Russia remain ready to launch more
than 5,000 nuclear warheads on less than half-an-hour's notice. This
hair-trigger alert policy leaves the world at grave risk from nuclear
war by accident or miscalculation.
Nuclear war is less than fifteen minutes away. Far-fetched? In 1995
we came within four minutes. When Russian radar picked up a U.S. science
rocket launched from Norway, the "black suitcase" that Boris Yeltsin
would use to launch an attack was activated for the first time in history.
It took Russian decision-makers eight minutes, operating in high emergency
mode, to realize the launch was not part of a surprise strike by the
U.S. -- less than four minutes before their "launch-on-warning" deadline
for ordering a nuclear response.
http://www.igc.org/tvc/cwmar99.htm
RICHARDSON'S FFTF RULING SET FOR APRIL 1
Tri-City Herald -- March 6, 1999
Energy Secretary Bill Richardson says he will make a decision on the
future of the Fast Flux Test Facility at Hanford by April 1. Late last
year, Richardson ruled out using FFTF to produce tritium, a radioactive
gas used to boost the power of nuclear weapons. But he said the department
would explore using the reactor for such things as producing plutonium
238, which can be used to power spacecraft, and medical isotopes, which
can be used to diagnose and treat some diseases, including cancer.
http://www.tri-cityherald.com/news/1999/0306.html#anchor596187
TANK WASTE AGREEMENT: GOOD DEMONSTRATION
Tri-City Herald editorial – March 8, 1999
Washington state officials demonstrated they can hold the Department
of Energy to its commitments to clean up Hanford in the just-announced
proposed consent decree laying out a new cleanup schedule for the site's
radioactive waste tanks. The key benefit is that, once the decree is
filed in U.S. District Court, the court will have the teeth to enforce
it.
In the agreement between the state, the Energy Department and the U.S.
Justice Department, the focus first will be on cleaning up Hanford's
most troublesome tanks -- the ones that pose the greatest threat to
health and safety. Although the agreement pushes the deadline for pumping
liquid wastes from all of Hanford's single-shell tanks back by four
years to 2004, the court oversight is a huge benefit.
http://www.tri-cityherald.com/OPINION/0308.html#anchor596187
GEPHARDT SAYS HE'LL VOTE AGAINST NUKE SHIPMENT BILL
Las Vegas Sun – March 9, 1999
Rep. Richard Gephardt, D-Mo., intends to vote against a House bill that
would authorize the shipment of 77,000 tons of high level nuclear waste
through 43 states to the Nevada Test Site. The bill, H.R. 45, would
allow for interim storage at the test site until Yucca Mountain, 100
miles northwest of Las Vegas, is approved. Yucca Mountain is the only
site being studied as a permanent repository for 77,000 tons of radioactive
waste now collecting at nuclear power plants across the country. Gephardt
said a recent administration proposal to improve existing temporary
storage facilities for high level nuclear waste should be thoroughly
reviewed by Congress.
Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., who chairs the Senate Energy and Water
Appropriations Subcommittee, has indicated he would like to see funding
of research on technology that could reduce the lifespan of radioactive
waste, now some 10,000 years. The so-called transmutation could cut
the time the waste needs to be stored to 300 years.
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/text/1999/mar/09/508514666.html
NUCLEAR POWER CAN'T COMPETE, STUDY FINDS
CNN – March 9, 1999
Nuclear power generation has reached its peak and will begin a sustained
decline in the year 2002 to its eventual demise, according to a study
conducted by the Worldwatch Institute. The energy source simply cannot
compete in an open and deregulated energy market primarily controlled
by new, low-cost, gas-fired power plants. In the United States, each
kilowatt of nuclear power costs $3,000 to $4,000 to produce. Whereas
new gas-fired combined cycle plants using the latest jet engine technology
cost $400 to $600 per kilowatt and wind turbines are being installed
at less than $1,000 per kilowatt. As many as one-third of U.S. and Canadian
reactors are vulnerable to shut down in the next five years due to their
inability to compete in competitive power markets. Renewable energy
sources, such as wind power, are expanding rapidly.
http://cnn.com/NATURE/9903/09/nuclear.enn/
LAWMAKERS, SCIENTISTS SEEK NUCLEAR STAND-DOWN
The Detroit News – March 9, 1999
The Year 2000 computer crisis gives the United States and other nuclear
powers a rare chance to get together and take their nuclear weapons
off alert, a lawmaker said Monday. A nuclear stand-down is the only
sure way to avoid a mishap on Jan. 1, 2000, when computers not upgraded
to read the new millennium date could malfunction, Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass.,
said at a Capitol Hill symposium on nuclear aspects of the so-called
Y2K problem.
http://detnews.com/1999/technology/9903/09/03090128.htm
DECISION ON FFTF RESTART EXPECTED NEXT MONTH
The Oregonian (AP) – March 10, 1999
A Hanford watchdog group contends it would be against the law for the
U.S. secretary of energy to decide anytime soon to restart a test reactor
at Hanford nuclear reservation. Secretary Bill Richardson said last
week he expects to decide in April whether there should be a new mission
for Hanford's Fast Flux Test Facility. "It would be illegal and flat
out immoral to add more waste from an FFTF reactor restart to Hanford's
overburdened nuclear wastes," Gerald Pollet, director of Heart of America
Northwest, said Tuesday.
Richardson is awaiting a report due March 31 from the Nuclear Energy
Research Advisory Committee (NERAC) on the potential science and technology
uses of FFTF and other Energy Department facilities. NERAC has ignored
the Federal Advisory Committee Act requirements for open meetings and
public comment, Pollet contends. He and Tom Carpenter, director of the
Government Accountability Project, were kicked off a NERAC subcommittee.
http://flash.oregonlive.com/cgi-bin/or_nview.pl?/home1/wire/AP/Stream-Parsed/OREGON_NEWS/o1272_PM_WA--Hanford-FFTF