October 19, 2005
Radioactivity found in Lake Erie tributary Contamination is linked to former NASA reactor
By Tom Henry, Toledo Blade

SANDUSKY - One of Lake Erie's smallest tributaries has been radioactive for at least 32 years. NASA officials revealed yesterday that a one-mile stretch of Plum Brook, between Pentolite Ditch and Bogart Road, has soil with isotopes of radioactive Cesium 137 that are barely above natural background levels. To a much lesser extent, there also are microscopic traces of radioactive Cobalt 60. They attributed the contamination to past activities at NASA's former Plum Brook nuclear test reactor, four miles south of Sandusky. It operated between 1961 and 1973.

Keith Peecook, a senior NASA engineer and acting project manager of the site's decommissioning effort, said there likely was a pinhole leak that was never detected. NASA stopped discharging waste into Pentolite Ditch once the reactor was shut down in 1973, he said.

The effect of the discovery was not immediately clear. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Ohio Department of Health both agreed with NASA that there does not appear to be an imminent public health threat. Neither was sure if a cleanup would be necessary until further testing is completed.

The state health department is not even sure if the contamination - which may not even have been caught without modern detection equipment - is significant enough for warning signs to be posted, Bret Atkins, an agency spokesman, said. NASA has agreed to split new samples it takes with the state health department. Both will run separate tests and compare results, Mr. Atkins said.

NASA will, if necessary, spend the money it takes to clean up the creek. It will release its plan for the added sampling in about three weeks, Mr. Peecook said. Results from preliminary tests were done at depths of up to 18 inches. NASA went outside its property after finding elevated
levels of those radioactive materials near its gate at Pentolite Ditch, which flows into Plum Brook, he said.

Plum Brook flows into Lake Erie's Sandusky Bay. None of the water has radioactive material beyond permitted levels, though that doesn't mean the material is never stirred up. "Obviously, there has been some movement over the years," Jan Strasma, an NRC spokesman, said.

U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D., Toledo) yesterday said she is trying to get NASA Administrator Michael Griffin and NRC Chairman Nils Diaz to visit the region because it is "no stranger to safety and environmental concerns over nuclear issues."

"The recent meltdown threat at the Davis-Besse nuclear reactor was ranked as one of the most serious nuclear threats in U.S. history. News of radioactive contamination spreading off-site will be troubling to many, and it is paramount that we keep the public educated throughout this process," she said.

At 60 megawatts, NASA's Plum Brook reactor was a fraction of today's utility-scale reactors that generate electricity, which often are 900 to 1,000 megawatts. Yet during its heyday, the Plum Brook test reactor was one of America's 10 largest for nuclear research. It focused on nuclear-powered rocket propulsion.

The reactor, built for $15 million in 1958, sat in a mothballed state for years. NASA got the NRC's authorization to start dismantling it in March, 2002.

The dismantling effort originally was to be completed in 2007 at a cost of $160 million. It will take until at least 2010 and now could potentially cost "tens of millions" more, Mr. Peecook said as he discussed the anticipated budget shortfall while leading reporters on a tour.

He said NASA remains committed to restoring the site to "greenfield" status - that is, restoring it so it is clean enough for farming or residential use.

Mr. Peecook said NASA has spent all but $20 million so far. It has excavated more than 10 million pounds of contaminated soil from its 6,000-acre site and eight million pounds of low-level radioactive waste.

The spent reactor fuel, the only high-level radioactive waste, was sent for reprocessing at the U.S. Department of Energy's Savannah River complex in South Carolina in 1973. Much of the other metal-based material went to that state's Barnwell dump, one of the nation's few licensed to accept low-level waste. Everything still on the site, including contaminated soil, can be sent to the Envirocare facility in Utah, Mr. Peecook said.

October 18, 2005
Plutonium Consolidation Not Welcome in Idaho
Environemntal News Service
BOISE, Idaho, - More than 30 regional and national public interest groups are calling on elected officials in Idaho and Wyoming to stop the consolidation of radioactive plutonium at the Idaho National Laboratory. In a letter addressed to the Idaho and Wyoming governors and Congressional members, the groups requested that officials urge the Department of Energy (DOE) to draft a new environmental impact statement (EIS), citing the DOE’s lack of legal obligation to respond to public comments beyond the draft.

The state of Idaho and public interest groups alike criticized the draft EIS released in July for its lack of substantive information on worker safety, environmental protection, project need, and waste production and disposal.

Last week, Wyoming Governor Dave Freudenthal, a Democrat, announced his opposition to plutonium consolidation at Idaho National Laboratory.

“The plutonium impact statement was completely inadequate, and if we proceed with what DOE is proposing, there will be accidents and there will be contamination,” said Jeremy Maxand, executive director of the Snake River Alliance.

“The DOE has no legal obligation to respond to public comments beyond the draft EIS, so if major problems still exist, and we anticipate they will, the public has no recourse beyond litigation.”

The groups are particularly concerned with the DOE’s plutonium management track record and the likelihood of workers being exposed to deadly isotopes. As recently as 2003, workers at Los Alamos were contaminated with Pu-238.

An investigative report by the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) concluded that one of the reasons for such accidents is that DOE places a higher value on plutonium than on workers. The DNFSB is an independent board chartered by Congress to oversee safety issues at DOE nuclear weapons sites.

“DOE’s projected probabilities of worker exposure in this EIS are ridiculously low, which the direct experience at Los Alamos utterly contradicts,” said Jay Coghlan, executive director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, a watchdog organization. The most recent Pu-238 operations and resulting accidents have taken place at the Los Alamos National Laboratory."

Coghlan said, “Idahoans should reject the DOE proposal because there is no clear need for it to begin with and DOE has no pathway certain for waste disposal. Haven’t Idahoans heard that before?”

Despite a project in Los Alamos to recover up to eight kilograms per year of existing Pu-238, more than the DOE says it needs, the agency still plans to consolidate new Pu-238 production activities at the Idaho National Laboratory.

These future operations will involve virgin production of Pu-238 in the 40 year old Advanced Test Reactor and construction of a $230 million facility to extract the plutonium through reprocessing, purify it, place the plutonium in specially-welded capsules, and install the capsules in space batteries.

Pu-238 is particularly dangerous to humans if inhaled, and the form the DOE plans to use is the most dangerous because of its small particle size, the opponents warn.

“Plutonium is a very dangerous and toxic material,” said Judith Murray, executive director of the Idaho Nurses Association. “The DOE has a pretty bad track record, so when a project like this comes knocking on your door, you better take notice and start asking questions.”

The Final EIS for plutonium consolidation is scheduled for release in the spring of 2006.

October 15, 2005
Benefits go bust for Flats workers About 70 lose with cleanup's early end
By Kevin Vaughan And Todd Hartman, Rocky Mountain News
Dozens of Rocky Flats workers who helped to clean up the nuclear weapons plant much sooner than originally anticipated now face an unintended consequence of their fast work: By finishing ahead of schedule, they missed out on pensions and lifetime medical benefits. About 70 former plant employees saw their hopes for retirement benefits vanish when Kaiser-Hill Co. completed the decadelong decontamination and demolition of Rocky Flats more than a year early.

That group, who were among the thousands of employees who made the transition from bomb builders to cleanup workers, would have been eligible for benefits if Kaiser-Hill had taken all the time the government gave it - until Dec. 15, 2006 - to complete the job.

At issue is what is known as the "rule of 70" - a calculation that takes into account a worker's age and years of employment at the nuclear weapons plant. If the two numbers add up to 70, then the worker is eligible for a pension and benefits, like medical insurance, for life.

Kaiser-Hill declared the job complete this week, 14 months before the deadline.

Company officials said only the federal government can extend benefits to workers just shy of satisfying the rule of 70. And company spokesman John Corsi said even if the work took another year or more, some Kaiser-Hill employees would have missed out anyway.

"Wherever we drew that line, there was going to be someone on the other side of it," Corsi said.

One of those on the other side is Doug Woodard, a 45-year-old who worked at Rocky Flats for more than 23 years before being laid off Sept. 29.

"My complaint is I put in a lot of time - I was there until the absolute end, two weeks shy of the end anyway, and for them to say, 'See you,' it's wrong," Woodard said.

He said he would have qualified for the benefits on Nov. 15.

"It's a wonderful thing that it's done," Woodard said, "but to just abandon their long-term employees . . . Had I been a little bit older or started a couple months earlier, I would have gotten my pension and my medical insurance."

Colo. Sens. Wayne Allard, a Republican, and Ken Salazar, a Democrat, have sponsored an amendment to the defense authorization bill that would set aside $15 million to provide retirement benefits for workers nearing the rule of 70 who fell short because the cleanup got done early.

"We're trying to do what we can to provide benefits for those workers," Allard said. "The real unsung heroes in this are the workers, who have done just a splendid job out there."

The legislation is stalled in the Senate.

Allard and Salazar are hopeful that the bill can be passed this year.

"The fact is these workers shouldn't be punished for saving money and getting the job done more quickly," said Cody Wertz, a spokesman for Salazar.

For Woodard, the medical benefits mean much more than a pension. Given the unknowns of working in a contaminated environment, Woodard fears a future without a lifetime of medical coverage.

"Everyone knows that we didn't just make luggage," Woodard said. "The medical is the most important part for every one of us."

Steven Weber, 47, worked at Rocky Flats for 21 years as an electrician and maintenance worker. He said he spent much of his time in the bowels of the facility, close to plutonium storage and production areas. That included Building 771, once called American's "most dangerous" building by the Department of Energy.

He needed to work until Nov. 5 to qualify for lifetime medical benefits and a pension, but was laid off in March, as the shutdown continued to run far ahead of the Dec. 15, 2006, deadline.

"I was in a lot of exposed situations where the job had to get done, but I was a team player," Weber said. "I figured they'd take care of people like myself."

Weber said he endured repeated indications he received doses of radioactive contamination while working at the plant, only to be told after further testing that he was safe - an ordeal that leaves him uneasy about his future health.

Despite some pressure from other workers to slow down his pace and decline overtime, Weber said he took pride in his work and wanted to do what was asked of him by cleanup supervisors.

"Pretty soon it was getting to the point where we were working ourselves out of a job," Weber said, "but I kept figuring they'd take care of people like us."

DeeAnna Sandoval went to work at Rocky Flats in 1980, when she was 18 years old.

After the plant was decommissioned, she was one of the thousands of workers who went from making nuclear weapons to working on the cleanup.

She was laid off in June, at age 43, with 25 years on the job. According to calculations provided to her, she would have qualified for a pension and medical benefits in mid-December.
In the early years of the cleanup, she didn't worry. It was initially estimated to be a 70-year job. Then the completion date was moved closer - first to 2010, then to 2007. In 2000, Kaiser-Hill signed a contract calling for the cleanup to be completed by Dec. 15, 2006.

Under that timetable, Sandoval would still qualify.

In the spring of 2004, as the cleanup moved ahead of schedule, she began to worry.

"This time last year I knew I wasn't going to make it," she said. "It was hard. You were just hoping that you were going to make it."

She didn't.

Sandoval said she's not bitter, and she has no regrets about her time at Rocky Flats - a job she said she loved.

"I enjoyed the people, had great bosses," she said. "I feel - me personally - I was pretty fortunate."

But she also doesn't know what the future holds for her health. She was one of 11 workers who was exposed to plutonium in 2000 in Building 771.

"Even though it was low-level, we're still at a young stage of learning about radiation," she said. "I'm not too sure what's going to happen down the road."

Kaiser-Hill spokesman Corsi said workers benefited from the rapid closure, as the company decided to share 20 percent of its fee with employees - and the fee would be larger the sooner the work was done.

"That was a big contributing factor to our success, was the incentive program," Corsi said.

At this point, it appears the amount of fee to be divvied up among workers - both salaried and union - is about $100 million. But Corsi couldn't explain Friday how it would be divided between top managers and rank-and-file union workers.

He said company officials who could explain the division of money couldn't be reached Friday afternoon.

He did suggest that higher-ranking company officials would share more of the wealth: "This isn't a socialistic payment system," he said.

October 15, 2005
First a clean-up, then a court case An unnecessary trial
Rocky Mountain News
Two Rocky Flats milestones in the same week: At the site of the former nuclear-weapons plant, contractors declared the clean-up over and done with, clearing the way for most of the site to become a wildlife refuge. In a federal courtroom, residents of the area east of the plant who believe their property values were reduced because of plutonium contamination finally began presenting their class-action suit to a jury. The suit, against Rocky Flats operators Rockwell International Corp. and its predecessor, Dow Chemical Co., was first filed in 1990.

The odd juxtaposition - both chains of events were set in motion by a 1989 FBI raid - highlights how unnecessary this case is. Little remains of the original complaints. Allegations about danger to human health, always overblown, have been ruled out. Studies by the state health department found no evidence of health effects in the area.

In clearing the case for trial, in 2003, Judge John Kane said the plaintiffs were entitled to trial only on the relatively narrow grounds of whether "actions at the facility result in a substantial and unreasonable interference with the use and enjoyment of neighboring properties." That their properties may have lost value is not, in and of itself, sufficient to prove that the plant was a nuisance, which is what they legally need to prove in order to recover damages.

Even though there's no evidence that plutonium - in the amounts present in the environment - presents any danger, plaintiff's attorney Merrill Davidoff keeps hammering away at it.

"The two contractors, Dow and Rockwell, have badly supervised and very badly contaminated the plant area, and after the plant area, the surrounding neighborhood area, with plutonium that's going to unfortunately endure in the environment for thousands of years," Davidoff said.

While it's true that plutonium has a very long half life, what difference does it make how long it's there if it causes no harm?

Davidoff also hints of conspiracies. "The Department of Energy has launched a propaganda campaign falsely claiming that the plant has been cleaned up," he said.

David Bernick, a lawyer for the defendants, doesn't put much stock in talk about propaganda and cover-ups. You wouldn't expect him to, of course, but he makes an intuitively convincing point.

"Rocky Flats has been in the public eye now for, jeez, I want to say 25 years, on exactly the same kinds of issues that we're talking about here," he said. "They've been gone over extensively by a wide variety of scientific and technical investigators, in investigations that have been transparent to the community at large," and the risks to health are inconsequential.

Davidoff says that some of his clients "have been haunted by concerns about Rocky Flats."

If they are haunted, we'd like to know just who has been telling them ghost stories?

October 16, 2005
Leak found in SRS storage tank
By Philip Lord, North Augusta Star
Engineers at the Savannah River Site have discovered a leak in one of the underground high-level waste storage tanks at the nuclear plant. The leak was identified in Tank 12, which was put into service in 1956, on Monday, said Westinghouse Savannah River Company spokesman Dean Campbell. Since Tank 12 is an older, single-lined tank, SRS placed a 5-foot containment annulus outside the tank years ago, Campbell said.

"There is no visible indication of continuing leakage and no liquid accumulation in the annulus containment pan," Campbell said. "Any leakage never traveled beyond a few inches from the leak site before it dried on the outside of the tank wall. This leak site is still dry."

Campbell said the leak found Monday joins three previously identified leak sites on the tank, which holds some 750,000 gallons.

Tank 12 recently had water added to it in preparation for transporting waste to the Defense Waste Processing Facility for vitrification.

Water is added to the tanks well in advance of this operation because radioactive sludge on the bottom of the tank is thick and the water needs time to sink in, Campbell said.

Site officials often compare the sludge material to peanut butter, because the two have similar consistencies.

Campbell said the waste tanks at the site are monitored on a regular basis to detect any such leaks.

The new leak in Tank 12 is located near the current waste level in the tank, Campbell said.

"There is no danger to workers, the public or the environment," Campbell said. "Since the tank is already scheduled for waste removal activities, those activities will continue. The waste in Tank 12 is scheduled to be removed next year."

Campbell said waste removal must be completed before Tank 12 is closed, which is not expected for several years.

SRS officials notified the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the SRS Citizens Advisory Board and elected officials about the leak.

A federal report issued last year showed 15 of the 51 waste tanks at SRS are cracked, rusty or have leaked.

October 14, 2005
ABC Says MIT s Nuclear Reactor Unsafe
By Beckett W. Sterner , The Tech
How vulnerable are nuclear research reactors to terrorist attacks? An ABC News investigative report that aired last night claimed that many university reactors, including MIT s, need to take stronger security measures to protect their uranium stocks. ABC s report, which wades into the highly technical and classified topic of nuclear reactor security, has encountered controversy over some of its claims. The report often elides important differences between the reactors that would influence the risk levels of certain attacks.

There are three major ways in which the uranium used by a reactor could play a role in a terrorist attack: theft for use
in a weapon, a bomb detonated outside the reactor, and a bomb exploded near the reactor core.

In ABC s investigation they were able to park a large truck about 30 feet from MIT s reactor. However, that distance is not significantly less than the distance to Albany Street, and is still larger than the reactor s security perimeter, said Nuclear Reactor Laboratory Director David E. Moncton PhD 75.

Considering the broader context of terrorist attacks, MIT s reactor poses relatively little threat, said Police Chief John DiFava.

For example, he said, there is a 800 900 foot long liquid natural gas tanker that docks in Boston Harbor regularly. I don t think anybody really knows what would happen if that hull would breach, he said, noting divergent studies that suggest the fuel may just burn or could result in a 3-mile radius explosion.

Regarding MIT s reactor, he said, is it a real risk is it a perception issue, or is it just people who are hostile to nuclear power?

The MIT reactor is used for medical and nuclear power research, said Vice President for Research Alice P. Gast. Nuclear power is likely to play an increasingly important role in America s energy supply as gas reserves decline and fuel prices rise, as stated by a report on nuclear power released by MIT in 2003.

Down and dirty with uranium

MIT s reactor runs on highly enriched uranium (HEU), a possible ingredient for nuclear weapons. The fuel can also be used in dirty bombs that disseminate vaporized harmful radioactive material over a large area.

Most research reactors have converted to low enriched uranium (LEU) in a slow process funded by the Department of Energy, and MIT will follow suit when the DOE provides funding, Gast said.

LEU fuel must undergo a complex reaction to be turned into weapons-grade material, but can still be used in dirty bombs.

Attacking a nuclear reactor is not as simple as blowing it up or walking in with guns blazing, however. MIT s reactor is shielded by many layers of metal and concrete, making it difficult for an external explosion to vaporize the radioactive material inside.

ABC s report raises questions over what security measures are needed to deter attacks and also over what scenarios pose a significant danger.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which oversees security requirements at research reactors, is examining evidence provided by ABC to see whether further action needs to be taken at any facility, said Elliot Brenner, director of the NRC Office of Public Affairs.

Nothing about the access or tour has been criticized by ABC, Moncton said, referring to the undercover tour taken by two ABCjournalist interns. MIT has more security measures in place than many reactors, and ABC found that MIT s reactor was one of only two with armed guards.

ABC Media Relations spokesperson Adam Pockriss did not respond to questions submitted on the story yesterday.

ABC reports weak security

After a four-month investigation during which journalism interns traveled to the 25 reactors on college campuses across the country, ABC reported finding unmanned guard booths, a guard who appeared to be asleep, unlocked building doors and, in a number of cases, guided tours that provided easy access to control rooms and reactor pools that hold radioactive fuel.

The story also highlighted the issue that many of the schools permit vehicles in close proximity to the reactor buildings without inspection for explosives.

Whether or not an external explosion could release radioactive material into the atmosphere depends on the design of the reactor.

A pretty big plane could fly into it and not damage it, Moncton said, referring to MIT s reactor core.

In the worst case scenario, that building is going to implode, not explode, DiFava said.

On the other hand, the televised investigation reported that the interns were able to walk up to another college s open water reactor with large tote bags that were not searched by staff.

The two major concerns raised by the investigation regarding MIT s reactor in particular did not involve direct access to the reactor, but rather access to online information and the ability to drive a truck to within 30 feet of the reactor building.

Given that the reactor is about 50 feet from Albany Street and about 300 from Massachusetts Avenue, regular traffic passes nearly as close as the ABC truck had reached. A large bomb would have to be closer to significantly damage the building, Moncton said.

He said a study on the effect of an explosion on the reactor was conducted by Lincoln Laboratory scientists with consultation of MIT faculty shortly after 9/11. The report showed that the reactor would not be significantly damaged by a large truck bomb at the distance of the security perimeter.

DiFava said that explosions from large bombs carry most of their force upwards, rather than outwards, lessening the impact on the reactor building.

There wouldn t be any dispersal of material, Moncton said, and that to be a dirty bomb, the explosion must vaporize the uranium instead of just blowing apart chunks of it.

Another problem ABC investigators reported was that they were able to find floor plans for the reactor using computers in Barker Library.

Moncton said that these plans are out of date and do not list the location of guards or security cameras.

Director of Reactor Operations John A. Bernard Jr. said that many nuclear engineering dissertations have the same diagrams as those available at Barker. The floor plans had been publicly available before Sept. 11, 2001, but were taken offline afterwards by MIT.

The final criticism leveled at MIT by ABC was that the schedule for the reactor was available online.

Moncton said that the availability of the schedule had been under discussion with the NRC for several months before ABC s investigation began. The schedule is used by off-campus researchers who use the reactor, he said.

Bernard said that about one month ago, after ABC s visit, MIT decided to stop publicly listing times when the reactor was inactive for fuel delivery, thus making it impossible to tell when fuel deliveries were being received based on the activity of the reactor.

Some confusion seemed to prevail on NRC s awareness of the schedule being online. That s something I d want us to pursue, and we will, said Roy Zimmerman, director of the Office of Nuclear Security and Incident Response for the NRC, after learning about the online schedule from ABC lead investigator Brian Ross.

Debate over fuel safety heats up

Perhaps the best recognized security threat posed by research reactors is the possibility that a terrorist could steal highly enriched uranium for use in a nuclear weapon.

Once HEU is placed in a reactor, however, it acquires a lethal level of radioactivity that would incapacitate a person in a few minutes. Accordingly, someone trying to steal active fuel would need extremely strong protective shielding.

Before being placed in the reactor, HEU is both safe enough to hold in your hands and immediately usable for a nuclear weapon.

MIT s reactor has at most two kilograms of fresh HEU on site at any time, Moncton said, a small fraction of what is needed for a bomb. He said the fuel is delivered on a just-in-time basis, so that the reactor does not need to stockpile fuel.

Transporting spent fuel is dependent on a political balancing act between the danger of storing fuel at the reactor and the danger of transporting it long-distance to another site.

Being able to ship is a complicated alignment of a number of stars, Moncton said. The MIT reactor has sometimes been unable to send away its fuel for multiple years at a time, he said, although the current amount being stored is at a historical low.

We could probably smooth out the bureaucratic process, Gast said. I think nationally we need to deal with spent fuel as a national priority.

The difficulty of a terrorist transporting spent fuel is under debate. Moncton said that spent fuel can still incapacitate someone trying to carry it without shielding.

The international definition for what level of radioactivity is incapacitating is too low for a suicidal terrorist, though, said Matthew G. Bunn G, a senior research associate at Harvard who studies nuclear non-proliferation measures. One person can pick it up and carry it away, Bunn said, referring to spent fuel from a reactor like MIT s. Bunn is also finishing his thesis in the Engineering Systems Division at MIT.

The effort needed to turn spent fuel into weapons material is not nearly as significant as that to produce enriched uranium from scratch, Bunn said.

The difficulty in shipping away spent fuel has been a problem for MIT in the past. Moncton said that reactor staff were unable to ship away fuel for long enough that last year they slightly exceeded the limit imposed by the NRC on how much total uranium could be stored on site, requiring MIT to notify the NRC of a regulations infraction.

One of the most significant security issues facing reactors, then, requires the coordination of state and federal regulators, as well as the vigilance of reactor staff.

October 14, 2005
'Radioactive Road Trip' draws fire
By David Bauder, Centre Daily Times
NEW YORK -- ABC News is taking heat for using college interns in an investigative report that alleges lax security at nuclear reactors on 25 U.S. college campuses, including Penn State. The "Primetime Live" report examines how close those interns were able to get to the reactors, theorizing the facilities could be vulnerable to terrorists who could set off bombs that release radiation into the atmosphere.
ABC said its interns found unlocked doors, saw unmanned security booths and, in some cases, were given guided tours that gave them access to control rooms and reactor pools.

Officials at Kansas State and Ohio State universities expressed anger about the report before its scheduled airing Thursday.

"We are concerned that interns, college students, were placed in a position where they were dishonest about their roles and intentions," Terry King, dean of Kansas State's engineering school, said in a letter.

ABC said its interns were instructed not to lie.

Two students each from Columbia, Northwestern, Harvard, Southern California and California-Berkeley universities were working at ABC News as part of an internship program financed by the Carnegie Corp. and the Knight Foundation. They were assigned to the project and supervised by reporter Brian Ross and his investigative team -- and were picked, in part, because they looked the part.

"The day has long since passed that I could pass as a college student," said Ross, 56.

They were told to go to the reactor facilities, say they were graduate students interested in nuclear power, and ask if they could look around. They carried regular cameras, not TV cameras, and did not say they were from ABC News. They weren't being untruthful, Ross said.

Ohio State and Kansas State officials say they give tours because, as educational facilities, it's their job to spread the word about how nuclear energy is being used.

Saying the interns were able to get close to the facility is "like coming to my driveway and saying, 'Guess what? I just got into McDonald's!'" said Earle Holland, Ohio State senior director for research communications.

At Ohio State, security procedures were correctly followed, and the interns had their bags searched and held during the tour. The tour was ended because one of the interns attempted to take a placard that listed security precautions in case of a bomb scare, he said.

At Kansas State, officials anticipated the visit; word had gotten around the small nuclear research community that reporters saying they were students had approached facilities. The students were given a tour anyway, even though this was later cited by ABC an example of a potential security risk.

The interns flirted with security officers to try to get in, said Ken Shultis, Kansas State's nuclear energy program director. The guards flirted back, since they were trying to get the interns to pose for a picture they wanted to provide to the FBI.

Both university officials said the interns should have identified themselves as being from ABC News.

"I think the ethics is somewhat questionable," Shultis said. "It's a fine point when they were trying to misdirect or mislead."

But ABC said it's likely they would have been treated differently as reporters. The point was to show how a terrorist could pose as a student and easily be a threat, Ross said.

"We were students," said Dana Hughes, a Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism student who worked on the project. "We were interested in the programs. We did not hide our cameras. We were hiding in plain sight. It wasn't as sneaky as they were making it out to be."

If all it took to get into facilities was talking like a student or flirting, "some people could find that a questionable line of defense," she said.

Alex Jones, director of the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard, which provided two of the interns, said he didn't want to prejudge ABC's report.

"I don't think there's anything wrong with finding out whether minimal security was being observed at nuclear facilities, providing you didn't misrepresent yourself," he said. "And from what I understand, none of these students did."

Ross said it wasn't a case of the interns being taught "gotcha" journalism instead of investigative journalism. The students did a great deal of research into the nuclear programs before going to the universities, he said.

The students didn't embark on the project with a specific result in mind. "A lot of them were hoping that they didn't find these stories," he said.

Two of the students have subsequently gotten jobs at ABC News and Ross said he hoped the network would hire more.
*

October 14, 2005
U. protests TV report on nuclear security
By Stephen Speckman Deseret Morning News
A national report this week by ABC TV that security was compromised at the University of Utah's research reactor is being called "appalling" and inaccurate by U. officials. The U. was part of a broader ABC report about reactors on college campuses across the country. Last June two female student interns with ABC were given a guided tour of the U.'s Merrill Engineering Building and the reactor, where about 1,000 people reportedly have visited this year. ABC apparently told a different story.

"They are telling people there was a gaping hole in our security, which there was not," said Melinda Krahenbuhl, director of the U. nuclear engineering program. "The security plan worked — they (the students) were escorted at all times."

Krahenbuhl said security checks were run on the two students and that they were asked to leave their backpacks outside the reactor and its control room.

ABC's coverage also reported the U. shut down its reactor for security reasons during the 2002 Winter Olympics here.

"The university was closed — there was nobody here," Krahenbuhl said.

A "shutdown" implies that the U. reactor was requested to be decommissioned, "and that's not true," she added. The U. was being "proactive," she said, by going into a "sub-critical configuration," which means the reactor cannot sustain power.
Krahenbuhl is also considered the reactor administrator by the nuclear Regulatory Commission, which oversees activity at the U.'s small reactor used for educational purposes only.

There are no nuclear power reactors in Utah, according to a Utah Department of Environmental Quality spokesman quoted in a March 2005 story in the Deseret Morning News. The U. reactor has been in operation since the early 1970s.

Only a small amount of waste is produced by the U. reactor, which is capable of generating enough power to run a small truck engine, according to Krahenbuhl. She said the U. uses a low-enriched uranium fuel that poses a "negligible" risk to students and staff. The waste is sent to a low-level radioactive waste disposal site near Hanford, Wash.

"We are engineered and designed to be safe," Krahenbuhl added.

She said the ABC interns did, in fact, walk unescorted into the U. engineering building at night, like many graduate students do, but that they did not get through four locked doors to access the reactor by themselves. Krahenbuhl said U. officials were aware the students, Traci Curry and Michelle Rabinowitz, were in the building.

But ABC, she said, has been getting its facts wrong, despite her attempts to set an ABC producer in New York straight during an August phone call. That producer, Maddie Sauer, was unavailable for comment.

"She didn't include any of the facts," Krahenbuhl said. "I think ABC's national news is being irresponsible."

She said it's appalling to teach students that it's OK to air "unethical" and inaccurate reporting for the sake of a "sensationalized" story.

Local TV and radio media picked up on the story Thursday and U. spokeswoman Coralie Alder was making sure reporters here had accurate information — namely that the ABC interns were escorted through the reactor facilities.

"We have tours all the time up there," Alder said. "They didn't get in and wander through the reactor."

October 10, 2005
UW dismisses ABC undercover report
Doug Erickson, Wisconsin State Journal
UW-Madison officials punched back at ABC News Thursday while seeking to assure the public that the school's nuclear reactor is impervious to terrorists. A report on ABC's "Primetime" Thursday night purported to find "gaping security holes" at many college research reactors, including the one operating at UW-Madison. Michael Corradini, UW-Madison's director of nuclear engineering and engineering physics, called the report "much ado about nothing." University Assistant Police Chief Dale Burke said the report needlessly frightened people.

University officials had been briefed ahead of time by ABC employees on the network's findings.

Corradini said two interns working for ABC News entered the Mechanical Engineering Building, 1513 University Ave., in June and knocked on the doors of the reactor until a student worker opened the door and talked to them. The women asked for an impromptu tour, which the student worker correctly said was not possible, Corradini said.

Corradini said the worker allowed the women to take photos from the door's threshold. While photos are allowed on scheduled public tours, the worker should not have let people who had not gone through a security clearance be in the door's threshold, Corradini said. The university is tightening its policy, he said.

Terry Devitt, a UW-Madison spokesman, said the university disagrees with the contention by ABC News that the interns had any meaningful access to the laboratory or that their presence constituted a security threat.

Corradini said that even if the women had been terrorists carrying bombs on their bodies, they could not have damaged the reactor. The reactor's radioactive core is near the bottom of a pool of water 40 feet deep, and the water is encased in high-density concrete 12 feet thick, he said.

A suicide bomber would be killed but the reactor would be unscathed, Corradini said. Furthermore, the campus research reactor is so small - 3,000 times smaller than a typical nuclear reactor used to generate power - that even blowing it up would cause little radioactive danger to the immediate vicinity, he said.

Although the highly enriched uranium used for fuel could be tempting to bomb-making terrorists, the radiation in the water surrounding the reactor's core makes it virtually inaccessible, Corradini said.

"You'd have to get it, and you'd die trying," he said.

The reactor has operated on campus for nearly 50 years and is essential for research and student training, Devitt said. "This is where nuclear engineers come from. They have to be trained in these kind of facilities."

ABC News said that in its investigation of 25 college nuclear reactors, it found unmanned guard booths, unlocked building doors and guided tours that provided easy access to control rooms and reactor pools that hold radioactive fuel. It said many of the schools permit vehicles in close proximity to the reactor buildings.

Corradini said the U.S. Corps of Engineers investigated the possible threat to the reactor from a vehicle bomb in 1970 following the bombing of Sterling Hall on campus. The agency concluded that a vehicle bomb couldn't permeate the reactor, he said.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission inspected the campus reactor in August and "indicated they were satisfied with our security plan," Devitt said, although no paperwork on the inspection has been received. He said he does not think the university is currently being reviewed by the commission for any security concerns.

Burke, the university assistant police chief, said if the reactor were unsafe, he would be one of the first to be concerned - his office is just a block away.

October 05, 2005
Legislature Opposes Nuclear Power Plant Re-Licensing
Rachel O’Brien, Suffolk Life
Last week the Suffolk County Legislature agreed on a sense resolution that opposes the re-licensing of nuclear power plants Indian Point 2 and Indian Point 3, located in Westchester County. Legislator Vivian Viloria-Fisher (D-Setauket) sponsored the resolution in opposition to the plants, saying that Indian Point 2 and Indian Point 3 are not up to current standards and regulations of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Both plants are aging and the equipment is not up-to-date, making for a possible problem. Also, the resolution stated that the power plants are sites that are constant targets of possible terrorist attacks.

The county Legislature is teaming up with municipalities throughout New York and New Jersey in their opposition to the re-licensing of the plants when their licenses expire in 2013 for Indian Point 2 and 2015 for Indian Point 3. The Legislature is calling on the NRC to dismiss future applications from power plants and not granting renewals of licenses, based on the detriment to public safety that the plants hold.

October 2, 2005
Plant concerns voiced at NRC meeting
By Van Rose, Pike County News Watchman
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission took the next step in the potential licensing of an American centrifuge plant in Piketon by hosting a public meeting Thursday evening. NRC officials held the forum at the Vern Riffe Career and Technology Center in Piketon to document comments and questions from community members concerning Bethesda, Md.-based USEC Inc.'s next-generation uranium enrichment facility to be built on the site of the shuttered Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant.

The commission, last month, released its draft environmental impact statement, predicting that construction and operation of the plant could have several small and moderate impacts on the community.

A final report will determine whether USEC receives a 30-year license to operate its centrifuge plant.

NRC meeting facilitator Chip Cameron made it clear that the draft document is not complete and that statements from concerned public members will be considered and some added to the report at a later date.

"I stress 'draft,'" he said. "It will not be finalized until we evaluate all the comments we hear tonight."

One local woman, like others at the meeting, used her comments to strongly discourage NRC from granting the USEC license.

"If you give this company a license to kill more people, I want to know who'll be liable," said Vina Colley, a long-time naysayer against continued plant operations, in a statement at the meeting.

A former electrician at Portsmouth and self-proclaimed whistleblower, Colley claims she was made sick by poor worker health and safety practices at the plant. Workers have died due to direct exposure to radiation and volatile chemicals, and residents near the plant are being poisoned by toxic discharges into local waterways, she says.

Colley currently heads up Piketon/Portsmouth Residents for Environmental Safety and Security, an environmental group looking out for the health of the community and National Nuclear Workers for Justice.

Scott Flanders, deputy director for the Division of Waste Management and Environmental Protection in the NRC's Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards, responded to Colley's statement.

He said if the NRC, during announced or surprise inspections of the Portsmouth plant, discovered that USEC had broken environmental or safety regulations after being granted a license, "an enforcement action would be taken, and the licensee would be held accountable."

USEC Inc. American Centrifuge Public Affairs Manager Angie Duduit doesn't believe NRC violations will be an issue of concern, given the company's prior performance.

"In November 2004, a license performance review was held, and NRC gave a two-year report of performance at the plant," Duduit said. "They said we were operating the plant safely, according to their regulations."

Local resident Geoffrey Sea spoke before an audience of community members, stressing the importance of minimizing impact to the Barnes home, a house he owns that was built in 1804 near the current plant site, as well as other historical buildings in the area.

He was also quick to point out that a well field that could supply water to the new centrifuge plant is located on property also containing Native American earthworks.

The NRC did not consider his input regarding the cultural impact of the centrifuge plant when drafting its EIS, he said, despite repeated requests on his part to be involved.

"You never consulted the people you asked to consult you," Sea told NRC officials.

A final statement by Sea dealt with USEC and its supposed inability to convert its own depleted uranium hexafluoride - a waste by-product of the enrichment - to a less hazardous form using a DOE facility being built at the Portsmouth site.

Depleted uranium from centrifuge operations might accumulate since the conversion facility can only be used for legacy waste produced by DOE before privatizing the Portsmouth plant in 1992, he said.

"It's not available to treat USEC's private waste," Sea said.

"It's not capable and not designed to treat USEC waste."

Sea's statement, however, was later discredited by Pete Miner, director of regulatory and quality assurance for USEC Inc., in an interview following the public meeting.

Miner said that, while the mechanism is not set up at this time, his company could acquire the authorization to convert its waste using Energy Department facilities.

"Statutes clearly specify that DOE would take our tails (waste), or anyone else's, contrary to what Mr. Sea said," he said.

David Manuta, Ph.D., a local chemist and former research staff member at the plant, praised the NRC for work performed on its draft EIS, pointing out only two errors in the document.

He also spoke directly to those opposing construction of the American centrifuge plant, encouraging them to provide more support for the effort since safety and health standards have improved considerably over the five decades the Portsmouth plant has been in operation.

"There should be fewer problems with centrifuge than with gaseous diffusion," Manuta said. "When the gaseous diffusion plant came about in the '50s, the NRC didn't exist.

"That era has come and gone, fortunately."

The NRC expects to have its EIS finalized with public comments by April 2006. USEC's commercial centrifuge license could then be granted by February 2007.

October 12, 2005
Flats jury told 'lies continue' Plaintiffs' lawyers: Operators routinely downplayed perils
By Karen Abbott, Rocky Mountain News
Operators of the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant lied to the public about dangers at the plant for decades and still haven't come clean, lawyers for thousands of plant neighbors told a federal jury Tuesday. "Half-truths, lies and distortions . . . continue up to and including the present," attorney Merrill Davidoff of Philadelphia said as the neighbors' $500 million class-action trial got under way 15 years after they filed their lawsuit.

The neighbors' lawyers opened their case before a courtroom full of plaintiffs and law students, who gathered to observe the trial, which is expected to last nearly to Christmas. Besides covering up accidents, mishandling toxic waste, leaks of radioactive and other toxic materials and other errors, Davidoff said former operators Dow Chemical Co. and Rockwell International, and the U.S. Department of Energy that employed them, still refuse to account publicly for 2,600 pounds of radioactive plutonium that went missing from Rocky Flats during the 37 years the plant made nuclear weapons.

Lawyers for Dow and Rockwell will present their opening statements to the jury today.

The neighbors, who owned property within 25 square miles east of Rocky Flats when the FBI raided the plant in June 1989, contend that releases of plutonium diminished the value of their properties.

The Rocky Flats plant, built 16 miles northwest of downtown Denver in the early 1950s, closed in 1989. The site is to become a wildlife refuge.

"These two companies polluted an entire neighborhood just northwest of Denver with plutonium and other dangerous substances," Davidoff said. "They lied about it, and they covered it up for 37 years."

Rockwell pleaded guilty in 1992 to 10 federal environmental crimes and paid an $18.5 million fine.

Davidoff told the jurors that the nuclear weapons factory originally was known as the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant. After the FBI raided it, it was renamed the Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site.

Still later, it became the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge, "where they're going to try to promote the myth that it's safe for animals and children to romp and play," Davidoff said.

The truth, he said, is that only the top six feet of soil at Rocky Flats must be cleansed of plutonium to meet safety standards. Below six feet - a depth he said the many prairie dogs at Rocky Flats may reach - any amount of plutonium is allowed.

Although most plutonium has been cleansed from the surface and upper soil levels at Rocky Flats, none has been removed from the neighborhood where the plaintiffs owned property, Davidoff said.

The seven named plaintiffs in the neighbors' class-action case include Richard and Sally Bartlett, who bought 10 acres of land near Stanley Lake in 1978. Their study of the land before buying it included discussing soil samples with an engineer.

Richard Bartlett is a former mayor of Arvada.

The Bartletts built a house on the property and two barns for their horse business. When they decided to sell in the late
1980s, they found no buyers. It took them 11 years to sell the property, Davidoff said.

Another married couple among the named plaintiffs, William and Delores Schierkolk, bought a house with a beautiful view on
three acres in the neighborhood. William Schierkolk worked for 27 years as a mechanic for International Harvester. After he was laid off, with their property heavily mortgaged, the Schierkolks could not afford to sell it.

"They still live there, but they have been haunted by concerns about Rocky Flats," Davidoff said.

October 12, 2005
ABQ company wins WIPP oversight contract
Lamonitor.com - The Online News Source for Los Alamos
CARLSBAD (AP) - An Albuquerque company, working with a Maryland research institute, has won a U.S. Department of Energy contract to independently review the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, the federal government's nuclear waste dump near Carlsbad. The one-year contract with Pecos Management Services Inc. went into effect Friday. It can be renewed each year for four additional years. The DOE said it is worth about $4.5 million over five years.

Pecos Management has teamed with the Institute for Regulatory Science of Columbia, Md., to form the Alliance for Research,
Evaluation, and Advancement of WIPP Environmental Science and Technology, or AREA WEST.

The team will provide independent reviews and evaluations of the design, construction and operations of WIPP as they relate to
protecting the public health, safety and the environment.

The group that played a key role for years in independently evaluating WIPP, the Environmental Evaluation Group, shut down more than a year ago after the DOE cut its funding. That independent watchdog had operated since 1978.

Funds for a new oversight contract were included in the 2005 federal budget. The state Environment Department announced last November that it was beefing up its oversight of the repository after drums of radioactive waste that violated a federal directive were shipped to WIPP. The state reopened an office that had been closed since 1996.

WIPP, which opened in March 1999 after 25 years of planning, buries plutonium-contaminated material from the nation's defense
work some 2,150 feet underground in vast, ancient salt beds.

October 12, 2005
Critics Dominate Final EPA Hearing
Guardian Unlimited

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Environmental Protection Agency's final hearing on its proposed rule governing how much radiation could be released from Yucca Mountain drew a series of critics, mostly environmentalists who said the standard was too weak to protect future generations.

Just two of 15 people who made public statements at the agency's headquarters on Tuesday expressed support of the EPA draft rule. One represented a group that wants nuclear waste moved away from the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, and the other was an official with the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, which supports swift completion of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump in Nevada.

The dump 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas is proposed to hold 77,000 tons of the nation's most radioactive waste.

Most speakers said the EPA's two-tiered rule - which proposes one standard for radiation releases from the dump for 10,000 years and a much weaker one after that - isn't protective enough.

``It is a double standard, it is extremely dangerous and it is immoral,'' said Lois Gibbs, executive director of the Center for Health, Environment and Justice, in comments echoed during the two-hour hearing by speakers from the Sierra Club, Physicians for Social Responsibility and other groups.

``EPA's proposed standards do not prevent serious harm, they cause serious harm,'' Gibbs said.

The EPA in August proposed limiting exposure near the planned dump to 15 millirems a year for 10,000 years, then increasing the allowable level to 350 millirems a year for up to 1 million years.

That higher level is more than three times what is allowed from nuclear facilities today by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. A standard chest X-ray is about 10 millirems.

The EPA issued the draft rule after a federal court said an earlier standard the agency proposed was inadequate because it didn't establish exposure limits beyond 10,000 years.

Tuesday's hearing was the final of five public hearings - and the only one outside of Nevada - on the draft rule before EPA closes its public comment period Nov. 21. A final rule will be issued some time after that.

Elizabeth Cotsworth, director of the EPA Office of Radiation and Indoor Air, defended the rule after listening to critics Tuesday.

``We believe the proposed standards are protective,'' she told reporters. ``We'll fully consider all of the comments, analyze them, before making the final decisions.''

Steven R. Kraft of the Nuclear Energy Institute, which promotes nuclear power and wants Yucca Mountain to go forward, said it wasn't a good idea to try to extend the radiation standard beyond 10,000 years.

``Implementation of the disposal program should not be delayed while scientists, engineers and regulators speculate about what might happen 1 million years from now,'' he said.

After repeated setbacks - including the court ruling against EPA's first radiation standard - the dump is now not expected to open before 2012.

October 12, 2005
E.P.A. Hears Public Testimony on New Radiation Allowances
By Mattew L. Wald, NY Times

WASHINGTON, Oct. 11 - The Environmental Protection Agency worked Tuesday to get the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository back on track, taking testimony from the public about its proposal to allow distant generations to be exposed to higher doses of radiation. At the same time, supporters and opponents of nuclear power continued maneuvering in an effort to delay the need for the repository, near Las Vegas, amid signs that a three-year-old consensus on what to do with the wastes might be fraying.

September 23, 2005

Sites Chosen for First U.S. Nuclear Plants in 30 Years

Environmental News Service

WASHINGTON, DC, (ENS) - The country’s largest consortium of nuclear power companies said Thursday it has selected two sites, in Alabama and in Mississippi, to build two nuclear reactors. If their applications for construction and operating licenses are approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, these will be the first new nuclear power plants built in the United States since the 1970s.

NuStart Energy Development LLC, a consortium of 11 companies that operate nuclear generating plants around the country, selected the two sites from a candidate list of six.

The Bellefonte facility is located about six miles east-northeast of Scottsboro, Alabama, on the west shore of the Guntersville Reservoir in Jackson County. (Photo courtesy TVA)

The other site is adjacent to Entergy Nuclear's Grand Gulf reactor at Port Gibson, Mississippi where the consortium wants to build a General Electric Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor.

Marilyn Kray told reporters at the National Press Club and by teleconference Thursday that all six of the candidate sites were found to be suitable for nuclear reactors.

Kray, president of NuStart and a vice president at Exelon Generation, a NuStart member company, said that on its exploratory meetings with the communities near Bellefonte and Grand Gulf, Nustart was welcomed and endorsed by governors, unions, and council groups.

Marilyn Kray is president of NuStart and a vice president at Exelon Generation. Here she addresses a 2003 conference of women in the nuclear industry. (Photo courtesy WIN)

"We're bullish on nuclear power," said Keiter, "we take a common sense approach to it. The world needs more energy, and environmental regulations are only going to get stricter especially with regard to greenhouse gases. America needs energy independence," he said.

Kray said the consortium is prepared to spend $100 million to complete the two construction and operating license applications, $50 million each.

The U.S. Department of Energy is funding half the cost of the license applications because it is interested in testing the new license applications process at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

In fact, the NuStart Energy consortium was formed to respond to a Department of Energy (DOE) issued solicitation to demonstrate the NRC’s COL process and complete the engineering for the two selected technologies.

It takes an estimated 33 months for a license to be approved, Kray said, then construction would take about 48 months. The consortium projects 2015 as the earliest possible date for the start of operations.

Entergy's Grand Gulf Nuclear Station is located at Port Gibson, Mississippi in Claiborne County. (Photo courtesy Public Citizen)

She said NuStart hopes that by doing this in parallel with the licensing process, by the time nuclear waste needs to be disposed, the stalled Yucca Mountain permanent geologic repository on the Nevada Nuclear Test Site north of Las Vegas will be operational.

Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman expressed the Bush administration's support for nuclear power, saying Thursday, “Today's announcement is a major step in the right direction. As America’s energy needs continue to grow with our economy, further building our nuclear infrastructure will ensure that we can generate large amounts of reliable, affordable, emissions-free power."

But the environmental community objects to plugging in nuclear power as a solution to climate change. Responding to an industry campaign in June promoting new nuclear reactors as a solution to global warming, some 300 international, national, regional and local environmental, consumer, and safe energy groups reiterated their concerns and rejected the argument that nuclear power can solve global warming.

"Throwing a few billion dollars of taxpayer money at the nuclear industry might make some utility executives happy, but would do virtually nothing to reduce carbon emissions," said Michael Mariotte, executive director of Nuclear Information and Resource Service. "In fact, by diverting limited resources that should be used for sustainable technologies, subsidizing nuclear power would be counterproductive."

"This would exacerbate all of the problems of the technology: more terrorist targets, more cost - potentially trillions of dollars - less safety, need for a new Yucca Mountain-sized waste site every four or five years, more proliferation of nuclear materials and technologies, dozens of new uranium enrichment plants, and even then, a severe shortage of uranium even within this century - while displacing the resources needed to ensure a real solution to the climate change issue," the groups said in a joint statement.

July 6, 2005
Downwinders Decry Senate's Choice to Revive Nuke Research
By Nicholas Colloas, BoiseWeekly
The U.S. Senate made a strong vote of support for revitalizing the military's nuclear arsenal last week, contradicting previous
action by the House of Representatives. By a vote of 53-43, senators defeated an amendment proposed by California Democrat Diane Feinstein that would have prohibited the use of government funds to study the feasibility of the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator, also known as the "bunker buster."

The failure of the measure means that beginning in October, nuclear research laboratories could receive up to $4 million for continued work on the bomb, which is designed to pierce and demolish underground enemy facilities. Both of Idaho's senators, Larry Craig and Mike Crapo, voted against Feinstein's amendment. Earlier this year, the House of Representatives voted to
eliminate nuclear research from a similar energy and water appropriations bill.

Following the vote, a group of nuclear fallout victims from Idaho, Utah and California responded by blasting the Senate, saying that the vote "tells us our suffering, our pain, the deaths prematurely from cancers and other illnesses caused by the fallout from nuclear testing have meant nothing, nor has the lesson that there is no such thing as a safe nuclear test been learned."

Senate Democrats had similar concerns, adding that the vote sent a conflicted to countries like Iran and North Korea, whom the U.S. has asked to abandon nuclear weapons programs.

In response, Republicans like Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner downplayed the gravity of the funding. "We're talking about a study," the Virginia senator told Reuters following the vote. "What's the harm in a study?"

On November 6, hundreds of spectators gathered in Taco Bell Arena to hear firsthand accounts of one of the darkest chapters of Idaho history. They heard how qualities that have defined our state since its inception-independence, self-sufficiency and an
affection for rural and small-town living-led the Atomic Energy Commission to infamously label the American Mountain West in the 1950s as a "low-use segment of the population." They heard grueling tales of how the U.S. government, in its quest to become a nuclear superpower, secretly treated its rural denizens like an expendable resource. And then they heard fears that it might happen all over again.

July 6, 2005
Risks of nuclear power not worth it
Regarding "Toxic or Magic? Nation needs a fresh look at nuclear power"
Arizona Republic Editorial, June 27):
The editorial concludes, "Putting aside the rhetoric, there is real promise in nuclear power for meeting our energy needs and reducing global warming." Few new nuclear plants have been built in the United States over the last quarter century, for good reasons. The health risks, security threat and environmental impact far outweigh any benefits of nuclear energy.

Contrary to what the editorial portrayed, the process of uranium enrichment for fuel releases huge quantities of carbon dioxide, including the gases released during decommissioning and the transport of nuclear waste. Additionally, the enrichment of uranium is responsible for more than 90 percent of the chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) 114 gas released into our air. CFCs are 10,000 to 20,000 times more potent as a global warmer than carbon dioxide.

This is not "virtually no emission of greenhouse gases," as the writers opined.

As far as storage of nuclear waste is concerned, leaks have been detected - affecting all living species - from algae to crustaceans, little fish, big fish and finally, humans. As Helen Caldicott, founder of the Nuclear Power Research Institute, said, "It takes a single mutation in a single gene in a single cell to kill you." -

June 22, 2005
Pike may be VX disposal route
By Robert Stern
The entire New Jersey Turnpike has been marked as a possible route in the U.S. Army's plan to reduce its stockpile of lethal VX nerve agent by neutralizing it in Indiana and transporting the chemical byproduct to the Garden State to be dumped in the Delaware River south of Philadelphia.

Since May, the Army has begun destroying 1,269 tons of VX nerve agent housed at its Newport Chemical Depot in western Indiana, where the chemical byproduct will be stored while the Army awaits regulatory approvals to dump it in the Delaware. A single pinpoint droplet of VX - a liquid with the consistency of mineral oil - can kill a healthy man quickly. Hydrolysate, the chemical byproduct resulting from the destruction of VX, isn't a lethal nerve agent but a corrosive wastewater substance similar to liquid drain cleaner.

The DuPont company and the Army have proposed a disposal plan in which a DuPont plant near the southern tip of the New Jersey Turnpike would handle final treatment of the hydrolysate before pumping it into the Delaware. The Army has estimated that destroying 1,269 tons of VX would produce 4 million gallons of hydrolysate that would be sent over 2 1/2 years to DuPont's Chambers Works plant in Pennsville, Salem County. Although the route the hydrolysate shipments would take from Indiana to New Jersey has yet to be decided, DuPont officials said yesterday that four possibilities are in play.

All four rely on trucking the VX byproduct on highways from Indiana to DuPont's Pennsville facility. The potential route that includes the New Jersey Turnpike first cuts across northern Pennsylvania and northern New Jersey on Interstate 80. It is the northernmost proposed route and the only one in which the VX byproduct might be hauled through Middlesex, Mercer and Burlington counties, according to DuPont.

Whatever route - or combination of routes - is used to ship the hydrolysate to New Jersey, it is likely two tanker trucks would make daily deliveries of the liquid to DuPont for about 2 1/2 years, said Todd Owens, a DuPont chemical engineer who has been involved in the transport planning. The three other routes skirt Pennsylvania's southern border and cross into New Jersey over the Delaware Memorial Bridge, close to the DuPont facility. "All (four routes) are equally safe and essentially the same in terms of risk," Owens said. "The transportation of this material is really very safe." A fifth transport alternative, which would rely on both rail and trucking to haul the hydrolysate to New Jersey, cuts easterly through Bucks County, Pa., to Morrisville before turning south to Pennsville, according to a 2004 DuPont report. "We didn't follow up with that one because the (four truck-only) routes were exceptionally safe," Owens said yesterday. "Bucks County, they really would not be involved with this at all." The truck-based potential transport plan has been reviewed and cleared by the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, he said. But the CDC still is reviewing the overall plan, over which, in an 86-page report issued in April, it raised concerns and questions about potential impacts on public health and the environment.

The CDC report was critical in several areas, including the possibility of traces of VX still being present in the byproduct at levels potentially harmful to fish but not humans. But at least from a transport and treatment standpoint, Owens said, the only hazard associated with the wastewater is its corrosiveness, which he said the company and its haulers are well equipped to handle safely. He said DuPont is confident there will be no traces of VX left in the byproduct once it leaves Indiana and that DuPont would not accept it otherwise. U.S. Sen. Jon Corzine yesterday turned the neutralized VX nerve agent into a campaign promise, saying he would never let the Army dump the byproduct into a river in or bordering New Jersey if he is elected governor.

The state Department of Environmental Protection said in May it would not issue a permit to allow DuPont to further treat the VX byproduct before it is dumped into the Delaware.

Corzine said that, if elected in November, he would order the agency to continue that policy. "If I happen to be the governor, it won't be permitted," Corzine said.

Rep. Robert Andrews, one of the Democratic congressmen interested in filling Corzine's Senate seat if he becomes governor, also vowed to bar the VX byproduct from the Delaware.

The Army's plan is unpopular with most officials in southern New Jersey, including the state's Republican congressmen who represent the area and GOP gubernatorial candidate Douglas Forrester. Delaware officials also are against the plan. Sherry Sylvester, Forrester's campaign spokeswoman, questioned why Corzine and Andrews hadn't yet been successful in getting the Army to find another solution.

"Doug will have more influence in Washington to get this done," Sylvester said, alluding to Forrester's friendship with President Bush. Forrester also raised more than $100,000 for Bush's re-election campaign. Separately, two Democratic assemblymen whose legislative district includes Burlington County - Jack Conners of Pennsauken and Herb Conaway of Burlington City - said yesterday they also would work to prevent the VX byproduct from being hauled through that county, even if the shipments are restricted to the Turnpike. Destroying the VX is mandated by the International Chemical Weapons Convention Treaty.

NOTE: The Associated Press contributed to this report.
NOTE: Contact Robert Stern at rstern@njtimes.com or (609) 989-5731.

June 17, 2005
If DEA plan is enacted, shipments may spike
By John F. Bonfatti, Buffalo News
Shipments of nuclear waste from the West Valley Demonstration Project would likely accelerate after the federal Department of Energy published its final plan for transporting waste generated in the cleanup."The decision was to continue doing what we're doing, and allow us to move forward more aggressively," said John Chamberlain, a spokesman for the project contractor, West Valley Nuclear Services Co.

But the record of decision released Thursday is cause for concern for a citizens' group monitoring the cleanup, and a national environmental group.

Seth Wochensky, spokesman for the Coalition on West Valley Nuclear Wastes, said the plan mentions the possibility of reclassifiying high-level waste as "waste indicidental to processing."

If that were the case, Wochensky said high-level waste, like the underground tanks that have now been drained of high-level liquid waste, could be allowed to remain on site.

"They would not remain high level waste, but reclassified as waste indicental to reprocessing and then be left in the ground and capped with concrete," he said.

Diane D'Arrigo with the Washington-based Nuclear Information and Resource Service said the announcement signals the DOE's intention to keep high-level radioactive waste buried on the site.

"This is completely unacceptable and it's time for Western New Yorkers to renew attenton on West Valley because it will take all of us to demand that the wastes that are left there be dug up," she said.

Asked by e-mail if the DOE planned to reclassify high-level waste at West Valley, a DOE spokeswoman did not give a clear answer.

"The Department's evaluation of alternatives to disposition of the tanks at West Valley is to be addressed in the West Valley decontamination and decommissioning environmental impact statement, which is currently in preparation," replied the DOE's Christina Kielich.

The DOE has been shipping the least dangerous low-level waste, Class A, from West Valley for several years. The plan announced Thursday will allow the government to ship the other two classifications, Classes B and C.

There are about 600,000 cubic feet of that kind of waste in storage at the site, according to Chamberlain, and a DOE press release announcing the plan said as much as 400,000 cubic feet of low level waste could be shipped this year.

In 2004, Chamberlain said the project generated about 22,000 cubic feet of low level waste. In the past several years, he said, the average has been between 10,000 and 20,000 cubic feet.

The plan envisions the DOE's continuing low-level waste shipments to a commercial disposal site in Utah, as well as DOE disposal sites in Mercury, Nev. and Hanford, Wash.

The highly radioactive liquid waste that was in the rotting underground tanks was pumped out and mixed with glass to form a more stable solid.

Canisters of that solid waste are being stored behind the concrete walled building that housed the original commercial fuel reprocessing center that operated at the site in the 1960s and 1970s.

The plan calls for that waste to remain where it is until it can be shipped to the nuclear waste repository the federal government wants to build under Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

June 6, 2005
Davis-Besse targets Utah as waste site
Utilities wait for NRC nod on disposal
By TOM HENRY,BLADE STAFF WRITER

A consortium of eight utilities that includes FirstEnergy Corp. believes it has cleared one of the biggest hurdles for storing spent reactor fuel from Davis-Besse and other nuclear plants on tribal land in Utah for up to 40 years. The issue centers around whether the public stands an unreasonable risk of being exposed to radiation if 40,000 metric tons of the spent fuel gets stored outside in bunkers on a reservation owned by the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians.

The reservation is 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City, but only 11 miles from one of the nation's largest military test and bombing ranges where pilots at Hill Air Force Base are trained to fly F-16 fighter jets.

Critics, including the state of Utah, claim the odds are too great of jets crashing into the concrete and steel bunkers. There would be up to 4,000 such vaults, each holding an individual canister of spent reactor fuel.

A Nuclear Regulatory Commission atomic safety and licensing board has upheld a Feb. 24 decision that favored utilities promoting the Utah land for a disposal site. That board agreed in February - after a 16-day hearing closed to the public because of security concerns - that the odds of a crash exceeded the NRC's one-in-a-million probability threshold.

But that board also concluded the chances of an impact direct and hard enough to break open a container were inconsequential.

The issue over potential F-16 crashes and all other remaining ones are now before the NRC's five commissioners, who have the final say over a nearly eight-year-old request for a license to build and operate the Utah site, according to Jay Silberg, the consortium's Washington-based attorney.

The consortium, called Private Fuel Storage LLC, represents FirstEnergy and seven other power companies: Entergy Corp., Xcel Energy, Southern Nuclear, Florida Power & Light, Southern California Edison, Dairyland Power Co., and Indiana Michigan Power Co.

With nothing else left on the NRC hearing board's docket, a decision on the project's fate could be made by agency commissioners within a few months. The consortium is seeking a 20-year license from the government and a 25-year lease from the Goshute tribe, both with options to renew.

Utilities are negotiating with the Goshutes for use of their domestic sovereign land, the second time in recent years that utilities have undertaken formal discussions with a tribe to send radioactive nuclear waste off to Native American soil.

In the 1990s, FirstEnergy was part of a different consortium that was unsuccessful in finalizing a deal with the Mescalero Apaches in New Mexico.

Spent reactor fuel is the only material in civilian hands classified as high-level radioactive waste.

The government for years has focused its efforts for a national dump on Nevada's Yucca Mountain - a dry and isolated mountain between Las Vegas and California's Death Valley that is under heavy military surveillance.

Under the Nuclear Energy Policy Act that Congress passed in 1982, the federal government was to start taking spent reactor fuel away from nuclear plants by Jan. 31, 1998. That didn't happen and there is no national dump site.

Consequently, many utilities have been forced to spend millions to create their own temporary storage. In the 1990s, Toledo Edison Co. - now a FirstEnergy Corp. subsidiary - spent more than $5 million to move some of Davis-Besse's spent reactor fuel into sealed outdoor storage casks. That was done to free up room inside the plant's high-security containment pool, where spent fuel goes to decay for years after being removed from the reactor.

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed the government had a contractual obligation to start taking spent reactor fuel from utilities in 1998 and has given utilities the right to pursue government compensation for their additional storage costs.

A deal with the Goshutes means that spent fuel could be on its way to Utah in two to four years, depending on how long it takes to obtain the license and get contractors lined up to do the work, Mr. Silberg said.

Most waste would come from older nuclear plants in the Northeast and would travel by truck or by rail through northwest Ohio in sealed containers, the federal Energy Department has said.

The Nuclear Energy Institute estimates that 78 of the nation's 103 nuclear plants could fill their spent fuel pools by the end of the decade, forcing them to either store waste outside or shut down. The industry group says the best solution is to have the government live up to its obligation for a national dump at Yucca Mountain or elsewhere.

Detroit Edison Co.'s Fermi II nuclear plant near Monroe, Mich., will likely join Davis-Besse in that group of 78 unless something happens to get the Yucca Mountain project moving faster.

Fermi II is 10 years younger than Davis-Besse and has just enough room in its spent fuel pool to keep storing waste indoors until 2010. But one of its top executives, Douglas Gipson, has warned there is the potential for moving waste outdoors for at least a few years.

Richard Wilkins, FirstEnergy spokesman, said his utility has been a part of industry groups negotiating with the Mescaleros and Goshutes "as a contigency in case it looks like Yucca Mountain's not going forward."

"Our first choice is to ship to Yucca Mountain," he said.

Uncertainty over nuclear waste disposal has been one of the industry's greatest impediments toward expansion for years.

President Bush, who has made nuclear power a cornerstone of his national energy proposals, wants government officials to resolve the uncertainty over Yucca Mountain to help stimulate construction of more nuclear plants. No new plants have been approved for construction since the late 1970s.

Utah's opposition stems largely from the belief that storage on the Goshute land would become more than a temporary solution. Opponents have included that state's former governor, Mike Leavitt, who serves as Mr. Bush's Department of Health and Human Services secretary and was previously U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrator.

Dianne Nielson, Utah Department of Environmental Quality executive director, told The Blade that officials in her state "think clearly there would be a release of radioactivity" if an F-16 ever crashed into a storage vault.

She also fears Utah storage would become permanent, based on Yucca Mountain's anticipated capacity and the projected volume of nuclear waste being generated.

"We realize there needs to be permanent solutions in managing spent fuel," Ms. Nielson said. "We just don't believe this is a wise decision."

May 26, 2005
Environmentalists oppose bill on West Valley cleanup
By Kathy Kellogg, Cattaraugus Correspondent

ASHFORD - A coalition of environmental groups vowed Wednesday to continue opposition to a draft bill recently offered to Rep. Randy Kuhl, R-Hammondsport. The legislation eliminates vagueness in the 1980 West Valley Demonstration Project Act passed by Congress, directing the Department of Energy's cleanup of the state-owned commercial nuclear fuels reprocessing center in the Cattaraugus County Town of Ashford.

As operations wind down at the site, a work force restructuring will be finalized within days to eliminate hundreds of workers.

DOE contractors have completed the solidification of high-level liquid radioactive waste and are moving on with packaging and shipping of a variety of waste for disposal elsewhere.

But disagreements have arisen between the DOE and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority over responsibilities for future oversight at the property and funding for disposal.

NYSERDA and its advisory panel, the West Valley Citizen Task Force, drafted new legislation to clarify these issues and provide $95 million in cleanup funds over the next 20 years.

NYSERDA officials told task force members and the environmentalists they are awaiting a response from Kuhl about the bill, which has no sponsor.

Members of the task force asked the environmental group leaders to help them press for the bill's passage.

But representatives of state, national and community environmental groups said they fear the bill will take powers away from New York State.

"The state as owner is in a better position to push for full cleanup," said Anne Rabe of the Center for Health, Environment and Justice, an environmental group based in Washington.

She and the other representatives pressed for a cost analysis of waste exhumation.

They also criticized reclassification of high-level waste to enable the removal, an option that the DOE's on-site director at West Valley, John Swailes, said is the only way waste can be removed.

The task force also agreed to consider changing its bylaws to add representatives from the environmental community.

March 30, 2005
Counties, Groups Oppose Relicensing Indian Point Reactors
Environmental News Service
GREENBURGH, New York, -On Tuesday night, Riverkeeper and the Indian Point Safe Energy Coalition launched their Fight IP's Relicensing Campaign at Greenburgh Town Hall as an extension of their long running campaign to shut down the nuclear power plant on the Hudson River.  Indian Point's 40 year licenses will expire in 2013 for Unit 2 and 2015 for Unit 3, but the owner-operator Entergy is expected to begin applying for 20 year license extensions as early as July 2005.

Riverkeeper's Chief Prosecuting Attorney, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., discussed the region's efforts to prevent what he calls "Entergy's irresponsible plan to continue Indian Point's operation for an additional 20 years."

"Indian Point is neither safe nor secure and remains vulnerable to a terrorist attack," the Riverkeeper believes. "As the facility continues to age, Indian Point will experience an increasing number of equipment failures. The consequences of a radioactive release from Indian Point ' whether triggered by a terrorist attack or accident - pose serious risks to the region's residents, environment and economy."

Indian Point is located 24 miles north of New York City in Westchester County. This county and three other nearby counties - Rockland, Ulster, and Hudson County, New Jersey - have passed resolutions opposing license renewal for the nuclear power plant.

In addition, 11 towns and villages in southeastern New York and New Jersey, including Greenburgh, have passed similar resolutions.

Those opposed to relicensing of the nuclear plant say it could turn into a "Chernobyl on the Hudson," which is the title of a report produced in September 2004 outlining the terrorist threat to Indian Point and the health and economic consequences of a large release of radiation.

For more information visit: http://riverkeeper.org/campaign.php/indian_point/you_can_do/875

March 30, 2005
Public Allowed to Hear Skull Valley Nuclear Waste Arguments
Environmental News Service
ROCKVILLE, Maryland, - The state of Utah has succeeded in persuading the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, an independent judicial arm of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, to hear oral arguments in public on the state's request to keep waste fuel from U.S. nuclear power plants out of Skull Valley, Utah.

With the approval and participation of the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians, Private Fuel Storage, a consortium of eight commercial nuclear utilities, is proposing to transport 44,000 tons of high-level radioactive waste to be stored in large cylindrical casks at interim storage facility on the Skull Valley Goshute Reservation.

The facility proposed by the Private Fuel Storage consortium would be located on the reservation, about 50 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. The state of Utah is the principal opponent of the plan. Governor John Huntsman, a Republican, made defeat of the Skull Valley storage facility a pillar of his campaign for the Governor's Mansion.

On February 24, by a 2-1 vote, the Board ruled in favor of Private Fuel Storage and rejected the state�s assertions that there is too high a probability that a radiation release could be caused by the accidental crash of one of the 7,000 flights made down Skull Valley every year by F-16 single-engine jets from Hill Air Force Base.

The evidence before the Board did not deal with deliberate crashes, because the Board has no jurisdiction over terrorism issues.

The Board majority concluded that the probability of a crash into a cask at a speed and angle sufficient to breach one of the internal stainless steel canisters holding spent nuclear fuel was less than one in a million per year.

Under the NRC�s standards, a facility like PFS does not have to be designed against such an unlikely accident.

That decision overturned the Licensing Board�s decision of two years ago, which had upheld the Utah�s argument that the probability of a crash onto the proposed site was too high, leaving it to PFS to attempt to show that such a crash would have no adverse radiological consequences.

The Board will hear arguments on the issue Wednesday, April 6, in Rockville. The session will be open to the public for observation, but participation will be limited to counsel for the state of Utah, PFS and the NRC staff.

All the earlier proceedings leading to the Board�s February 24 decision had been closed to the public because they involved facts and analyses concerning the impact of plane crashes on concrete and steel objects that the Board decided to withhold from the public.

The Board Tuesday directed all counsel to frame their oral arguments to avoid direct reference to the specific facts underlying the issues, so that the session could be an open one.

In the event that this information needs to be discussed explicitly, the Board decided it will hold the discussion at the end of the session after members of the public have been asked to leave the hearing room.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission did not say why the public was not permitted to hear the expert witnesses and documentary evidence presented during the formal 16-day evidentiary hearing that led to the Board�s decision, only that it "could not be disclosed."

The Board did prepare a publicly available version of its opinion that sets forth only a general summary of those aspects of its reasoning. A copy of that version is available on the NRC�s website at: http://www.nrc.gov/what-we-do/regulatory/adjudicatory/pfs-aircraft05.pdf .

The argument will take place in the Board's hearing room on the third floor of the Two White Flint North Building at NRC Headquarters, 11545 Rockville Pike, and will begin at 1 pm.

March 22, 2005
Rail giant challenges ban on hazardous materials
Ban on rail shipments near Capitol is crux of landmark ruling by city
By Mimi Hall, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON -- The nation's capital will fight the federal government and the freight-rail industry in court this week over whether the city can ban freight trains from carrying dangerous materials just four blocks from the U.S. Capitol.Mayors and local leaders nationwide are watching the case closely to see whether they can enact similar bans in their towns. Officials worry that rail cars loaded with chlorine or other potentially deadly substances offer tempting targets for terrorists.

In Las Vegas, local officials were alarmed to learn in January that a "credible terrorism threat" prompted the Federal Railroad Administration to send an inspector to Las Vegas on Dec. 31, 2003, to investigate potential threats to hazardous materials cars. Inspectors found no terrorism risk that night, but noted a lack of rail security precautions at a time when Las Vegas was on heightened alert.

And local officials are keeping an eye on the Washington case to monitor its possible implications for the radioactive waste that might one day be hauled through Clark County if Yucca Mountain is opened as the nation's nuclear waste repository. The Energy Department has identified a planned rural Nevada rail line as its preferred route, but Clark County officials still worry that the department eventually would also rely on truck routes through the county.

"The lesson we should all take away from 9/11 is that we need to reduce risks," said Kathy Patterson, a member of the Council of the District of Columbia, which passed the first-in-the-nation ban last month.

But rail giant CSX Transportation and the federal departments of Justice, Transportation and Homeland Security plan to ask a federal judge Wednesday to immediately throw out the ban.

They argue that the ban is an unconstitutional violation of the Constitution's Commerce Clause, which says that only Congress can regulate interstate commerce. Barring that, they plan to ask the judge to stop the law from taking effect on April 11 while the case goes to trial.

CSX moves 11,000 hazardous-material rail cars through Washington each year. The ban would require CSX to reroute fewer than 5 percent of them -- only the cars containing certain particularly dangerous chemicals and gases -- outside a 2.2-mile radius of the Capitol.

Implications for other railroads that ship hazardous material could be similar if other cities adopt bans. Officials for Union Pacific, which operates all rail lines in Nevada, including a line that runs parallel to and about a half-mile from the Strip, estimate that roughly 5 percent of the company's shipments involve hazardous materials. That includes routine chlorine shipments through Las Vegas.

But CSX spokesman Robert Sullivan says that rerouting 5 percent of shipments around Washington would amount to 2 million miles of additional travel a year for rail cars carrying hazardous materials. "At best, you're transferring the risk, and beyond that, we think you're actually increasing the risk," he says.

The CSX lawsuit also says the ban "invites other jurisdictions to enact copycat legislation which could, by crazy-quilt coverage, bring to a halt the interstate shipment of critically important materials throughout the United States."

Chuck Hughes, president of the Gary (Ind.) Common Council, says three dozen city officials discussed the issue at a recent National League of Cities meeting. All are "watching very closely to see what transpires," he says.

Hughes says he understands that hazardous materials "have to be transported somewhere somehow, but we still have to find a better way than right through the heart of our cities."

In his attempts to block proposed nuclear waste shipments, Mayor Oscar Goodman once advocated a Las Vegas ordinance that would ban nuclear waste from entering city limits. Such a measure was deemed unconstitutional. Goodman also has threatened to personally arrest the first truck drivers that hauled high-level waste into the city.

Goodman has lobbied U.S. mayors to oppose Yucca, arguing that nuclear waste could come through or near their cities. In 2002, about 200 mayors approved a resolution that asked Congress to ban high-level waste shipments unless funding, training and equipment were doled out to cities along the routes.

In Washington, hazardous materials shipments on rail lines through the city have been halted voluntarily during certain special events, including the president's annual State of the Union address, which takes place in the Capitol, and a 2003 National Football League festival on the National Mall that featured singer Britney Spears.

CSX also has voluntarily rerouted some cars onto tracks that still go through the city, but not right by the Capitol.

Patterson says she's glad the president and the pop star have been protected from the potential release of deadly chemicals. But she wants permanent protection for Washington's 560,000 residents.

Homeland Security Department officials say they are working with freight-rail companies behind the scenes to tighten security.

Mark Hatfield, spokesman for the department's Transportation Security Administration, says the agency has worked with freight-rail companies to add fences, cameras and other "perimeter surveillance" around tracks. It also has helped train employees, conductors and yard workers to guard against terrorist attacks.

"We work very, very closely with the federal government on the issue," CSX spokesman Robert Sullivan says. "We are constantly consulting and conferring."

But allowing rail cars carrying substances as dangerous as chlorine to rumble through heavily populated areas amounts to "gambling with people's lives," says Rick Hind of the environmental group Greenpeace. The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory has estimated that a major chlorine release could kill or injure thousands of people within 30 minutes.

Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., says rail companies should be required to reroute dangerous shipments whenever a safer route is available. "What we need is a national policy," he says.

The Washington ban was passed Feb. 1, weeks after a train carrying chlorine derailed in Graniteville, S.C. The accident released a green cloud of toxic gas that killed nine people, sent 500 to the hospital and forced the evacuation of 5,000.

After that accident, mayors of 51 cities -- including Las Vegas, Baltimore, Tallahassee, Providence and Chicago -- sent a letter to then-Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge asking for advance notice when shipments containing hazardous materials are going to be moved through their cities.

"More than 90,000 shipments of chlorine alone are transported across the country each year," the letter said. "Our citizens should have a reasonable expectation that hazardous materials are being shipped in the safest manner possible and that local first responders are aware of such shipments in advance."

The Homeland Security Department opposes such notification on the grounds that it would be impractical and could compromise security. Augusta, Ga., Mayor Bob Young says he doesn't buy that argument. "Cities handle sensitive information from the Department of Homeland Security every day without compromise," he says. "To me, that's simply not an issue.&quo