DOE Sec. Richardson still undecided on FFTF reactor shutdown/restart.... Tri-City Herald says we're cold-hearted.... Terrorists could attack Rocky Flats, nuke-dust Denver, Midwest, East Coast.... Nuke waste shipping program is a "mess".... Nuclear industry gave members of Congress $15.5 million in 1997, 98....DOE missing 5,000 pounds of plutonium.... Pyro reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel studied.... Depleted uranium bullets leave dust radioactive for 4.5 billion years.

RICHARDSON STILL UNDECIDED ON FFTF AS DEADLINE LOOMS Tri-City Herald - April 30, 1999 With a self-imposed deadline looming, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson still was trying to decide Thursday the fate of the Fast Flux Test Facility at Hanford. Richardson had said earlier he would make a decision by today, but that could slip into next week as the secretary faces increasing questions about Chinese espionage activities at the nation's nuclear weapons labs.

Although most of Washington state's congressional delegation and Gov. Gary Locke have recommended Richardson authorize the environmental impact study, Washington Democratic Reps. Adam Smith and Brian Baird joined Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden calling for the permanent shutdown of the reactor. A month ago the department's Nuclear Energy Research Advisory Committee recommended to Richardson, on a sharply divided vote, that an environmental study be completed. [An EIS could take up to two years. It costs about $40 million a year to keep the reactor in hot standby.] http://www.tri-cityherald.com/news/1999/0430.html#anchor596559

RICHARDSON MAY LIKE PLAYING BALL THE VOLPENTEST WAY Tri-City Herald editorial - April 25, 1999 DOE Sec. Richardson offered a positive take on the split decision of the Nuclear Energy Research Advisory Committee's 11-8 decision on recommending an environmental impact statement on FFTF. Although many in the Tri-Cities were dismayed at the decision being that close, Richardson pointed out such a divergence of opinion was actually an excellent argument for conducting the EIS. He said it made it clear there is a need for a thorough, open investigation of all the factors involved in a restart, and an environmental impact statement would be the best way to resolve the matter.

In the Tri-Cities, there is a huge amount of support for the environmental impact statement. Most here believe the FFTF's excellent record, its value as a national resource and its potential to make medical isotopes to help in the fight against cancer make restart highly desirable. And many Tri-Citians see criticisms of FFTF by anti-nuclear and anti-Hanford activists as unfair, inaccurate and perhaps, a bit cold-hearted. They got that right. http://www.tri-cityherald.com/OPINION/0425.html#anchor596187

CDC TO DISCUSS THYROID STUDY The Spokesman-Review -- April 30, 1999 The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will be in Spokane next week to discuss the controversial results of its $18 million study of thyroid disease among Hanford downwinders. The draft report, released Jan. 28, found no link between the estimated thyroid dose from Hanford's Cold War emissions of radioactive Iodine-131 and the amount of thyroid disease among 3,441 people exposed as children to Hanford's releases.

The release of the nine-year study triggered a storm of criticism because it made sweeping conclusions about the health of Hanford downwinders before it was subjected to scientific peer review by the National Academy of Sciences. The CDC has modified its earlier assertions that the Hanford I-131 releases caused no harm to downwinders. "Although no link between estimated I-131 radiation dose and the amount of thyroid disease was identified within the study population, the study results do not prove that a link does not exist,'' the CDC said.

The agency is accepting written comments on the Hanford study until July 1. Comments should be sent to: CDC, Radiation Studies Branch (attn: HTDS), MS-F-35; 4770 Buford Highway, Atlanta, GA 30341. http://www.spokane.net/news-story.asp?date=043099&ID=s568569&cat=section.Spokane

HANFORD EFFORTS HELP CREATE DIVERSE ECONOMY, DOE SAYS Tri-City Herald -- April 24, 1999 Job increases can be linked to the growth of BNFL Inc. -- which is technically not part of DOE's Hanford budget and calculations because the federal government won't pay BNFL until its proposed waste glassification plants are operating in a few years. Also, there are new people at Hanford science facilities. Most of the predicted job increases - an estimated 1,250 - are linked to new Tri-City businesses and expansions, the report concluded.

The study also looked briefly at fiscal year 2000 and beyond. "The diversification of the local economy remains on track," it said, "but the challenges remain. As Hanford downsizing continues, the core Hanford budget is expected to continue to decline, slowly eliminating a major component of the ... area's economic base."

In 1997, Hanford directly or indirectly accounted for 36 percent of the area's jobs and 67 percent of the wages. That's 30,300 of 84,800 jobs, and $1.49 billion of $2.24 billion in wages. http://www.tri-cityherald.com/news/1999/0424.html#anchor596559

HANFORD WORKERS STUDIED FOR BERYLLIUM DISEASE CRESP's Worker Health and Safety Task Group has determined that workers at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation may be at risk from exposure to beryllium used to seal fuel rods for the reactors that produced plutonium. Although significant beryllium exposure was thought to have been eliminated by the 1950's through redesign of manufacturing processes, recent research suggests even extremely low doses from clean-up activities may pose risks at Hanford http://www.cresp.org/

NUCLEAR WASTE TO TRAVEL ACROSS STATE Yahoo News - April 27, 1999 After more than a decade of legal battles, nuclear waste is expected to cross Utah's border as early as today. It will be the first of many shipments to a nuclear storage site in New Mexico. [WIPP] The materials come from the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory. The materials will travel through Utah southward on Interstate-15 past Ogden before traveling through Weber Canyon into Evanston. Bill Sinclair, the Director of the State Division of Radiation Control, says Utah has trained nearly one-thousand people to handle any potential accident involving the trucks. http://dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/local/state/utah/story.html?s=v/rs/19990427/ut/index_1.html#1

NUCLEAR WASTE SHIPMENT WILL PASS THROUGH WYOMING Billings Gazette (AP) - April 27, 1999 In addition to the 8,918 shipments expected from Idaho, another 16,844 might eventually be headed through Wyoming from a site in Hanford, Wash. The New Mexico dump is expected to receive 37,723 radioactive shipments over the next 35 years. http://www.billingsgazette.com/wyoming/990427_wyo02.html

FERNALD WASTE FACING ROADBLOCKS -- NEVADA PROTESTS TRANSPORT The Cincinnati Enquirer - April 30, 1999 Fernald area residents don't want it. Officials in Clark County, Nev., don't even want it passing through. But roughly 3 million cubic feet of low-level radioactive waste must wind its way from the former uranium processing plant in Crosby Township to the Nevada Test Site dumping ground.

Fernald is on the leading edge of a nationwide effort to clean up defunct Cold War-era nuclear weapons production sites. Although it is the first site to do the greatest amount of cross-country shipping, others will follow over the next several years. Experts and officials nationwide are watching the current effort - and many are not pleased by what they see. "The entire program is a mess," said Arjun Makhijani, president of the Takoma Park, Md.-based Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, a national watchdog organization critical of nuclear proliferation. There are no standard rules for shipping radioactive waste across the United States, Mr. Makhijani noted. http://enquirer.com/editions/1999/04/30/loc_fernald_waste_facing.html

NRC DENIES NUKE TRANSPORT HEARING Las Vegas Review-Journal - April 27, 1999 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has denied a request by the state to hold a public hearing in Nevada on a document about trucking high-level radioactive waste through Las Vegas to the proposed Yucca Mountain repository. http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/1999/Apr-27-Tue-1999/news/11063342.html

NRC EXTENDS PUBLIC COMMENT PERIOD FOR REGULATIONS LICENSING PROPOSED RADIOACTIVE WASTE REPOSITORY IN NEVADA NRC - April 30, 1999 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is extending until June 30 the time available for the public to comment on a proposed rule regarding the proposed high-level radioactive waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. The comment period was to have ended on May 10. http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/news/nrc99-90.htm

HOUSE WRESTLING WITH SENDING NUCLEAR WASTE TO NEVADA Las Vegas Review-Journal -- April 30, 1999 The road to the House floor is getting longer for a bill to send nuclear waste to the Nevada Test Site by 2003. House Budget Committee chairman Rep. John Kasich, R-Ohio, has received permission from House Republican leaders to conduct hearings on the legislation. The bill , which passed the House Commerce Committee last week by a 40-6 vote, would send highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel to the test site for storage until a permanent repository is opened in 2010 at Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. [Serious environmental issues have been raised about Yucca Mountain, Nevada is strongly opposed to it, and it may never open.]

To help pay for interim and permanent storage in Nevada, the nuclear waste fund by customers of nuclear utilities would be taken off the federal budget. The fund's total is $8 billion. The off-budget provision would allow the Department of Energy to spend money from the fund without annual limits set by Congress.

Meanwhile, Public Citizen, a government watchdog group, reported Thursday the nuclear power industry gave members of Congress $15.5 million during 1997 and 1998. Members of the House Commerce Committee received $33,824 on average -- $16,096 more than other members of the House. http://www.lvrj.com/cgi-bin/printable.cgi?/lvrj_home/1999/Apr-30-Fri-1999/news/11088369.html

MUSHROOM CLOUD OVER DENVER? Government Accountability Project (Salon.com) -- April 12, 1999 "The workers at that plant [Rocky Flats], and the citizens of Colorado, are at extremely high risk" of a terrorist assault that could unleash "a little mushroom-shaped cloud" over Denver, McCallum confided in a phone call to a colleague that May. Such a blast would not only kill Denver's million-plus inhabitants, it would claim tens of millions of additional lives as its radioactive plume blew across the Midwest and on to the East Coast. [The plutonium at Rocky Flats could be blown up with conventional explosives, which would disperse it as dust.] http://www.whistleblower.org/www/mushroom.htm

NUCLEAR FACILITIES ADMIT PLUTONIUM MISSING Environment News Service (.AmeriScan) -- April 27, 1999 According to the Energy Department's own figures, the country's nuclear facilities have lost track of more than 5,000 pounds of plutonium. At the Rocky Flats weapons factory near Denver alone, officials told "Newsweek," some 2,400 pounds of plutonium is unaccounted for. Rocky Flats failed a sophisticated computer program designed to simulate terrorist attacks against each of the country's nuclear labs. [A nuclear bomb can be made with a softball-sized amount of plutonium.] http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/news/ens24.htm

A PLUTONIUM MYSTERY Newsweek -- May 3, 1999 [DOE chief security officer Edward] McCallum had turned in 1996 to a sophisticated computer-modeling program designed to simulate terrorist attacks against each of the country's nuclear labs. NEWSWEEK has learned that in every one of the scenarios that the computer devised, the hypothetical terrorists succeeded in penetrating security at the Rocky Flats weapons factory near Denver and blowing up some of the highly radioactive plutonium used to make bombs. In 80 percent of the simulations, the attackers were able to get through the razor wire and security checks and walk out with enough plutonium to build a nuclear bomb-or poison millions of people with the radioactive dust. http://www.newsweek.com/nw-srv/printed/us/so/so0118_1.htm

NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT AND ECONOMIC CONVERSION ACT Proposition One In June, 1998, the Brookings Institute published a book, "Atomic Audit," also known as the Nuclear Weapons Cost Project. According to the Washington Post, this book proves that the U.S. government has spent over 5.8 trillion dollars on nuclear weapons (alone). Why not amortize $5.8 trillion into the future, the first few years to be spent paying workers to retrain while arms manufacturers (of all varieties) retool their factories to MASS-PRODUCE clean energy systems such as solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, hydrogen, hydro, and other quite marvelous devices which have already been built and PROVEN? http://prop1.org/

CONVERTING YUCCA NOT A PRACTICAL IDEA Nevada Appeal -- April 27, 1999 A development of considerable importance in nuclear waste processing has been under study at Argonne National Laboratory. This is a pyro (fire or heat) reprocessing of spent fuel. This process eliminates the liquid waste remaining from the solvent extraction reprocessing technique, currently in use in Europe and the U.S., that forms the highly radioactive sludge stored in tanks at the DOE facilities at Hanford, Wash., and Savanna, Ga.

Pyro processing is a part of a fast reactor system that would reuse spent fuel to be stored at Yucca Mountain, as well as plutonium recovered from the weapons program. This system eliminates the long-lives elements, reduces waste lifetime from some 10,000 years to about 300 years, and greatly reduces the quantity of waste material by about two-thirds. http://www.tahoe.com/appeal/stories.4.27.99/opinion/ltrk27Apr3002.html

THE TRAIL OF A BULLET The Christian Science Monitor - April 29, 1999 This is the tale of a high-density bullet made of depleted uranium (DU), a low-level radioactive waste left over from the making of nuclear fuel and bombs. Because of its success, DU has already become a staple of the US military's arsenal. It has been sold by the US and Russia to other forces all over the world. Wherever it is fired, it leaves a radioactive trail. A Monitor investigation of the Persian Gulf war zone, where this bullet saw its first live action in 1991, found that it has left the desert sprinkled with radioactive and chemically toxic dust.

If there is a connection between human suffering and DU, then its use in the future will mean that lands of conflict will remain contaminated for the 4.5 billion years -- a figure comparable to the age of the solar system -- that DU remains radioactive. http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/1999/04/29/fp1s2-csm.shtml