[ RadSafe ] EPA to review Yucca input

[Sandy Perle]

Index:

EPA to review Yucca input
British government urged to take rapid decision on nuclear energy
Revealed: radiation risk from everyday goods
German protesters disrupt nuclear waste transfer 
House OKs nuclear wharf at Mayport
ACF warns Govt over nuclear waste dump
Dirty bomb tops threat list, need ‘suicide technicians’ to implement
Veteran recounts dumping of radioactive waste off U.S. shore
===================================

EPA to review Yucca input 

WASHINGTON -- By the end of today, the Environmental Protection 
Agency will add its last pages to the stack of public comments on the 
proposed radiation protection standards for the Yucca Mountain 
project.

Today marks the end of an almost four-month comment period on the 
standards, proposed in August. The agency has to create a new 
standard after a federal appeals court threw out the existing ones 
last year.

The EPA received at least 120 written comments, according to its Web 
site.

As expected, those who support and oppose the standard expressed 
their thoughts, although those against it have different stances on 
what is wrong with it.

The agency proposed a two-tiered standard. One tier maintains a 15-
millirem standard for up to 10,000 years and the second limits 
exposure to 350-millirem per year for 10,000 to 1 million years for 
those living in a certain area around Yucca Mountain, 90 miles 
northwest of Las Vegas.

Yucca critics, including state officials, strongly oppose the 
standard for a number of reasons. They claim the proposed rules do 
not satisfy what the court ordered last July, do not protect health 
and safety of future Nevadans and is written in a way to 
automatically let the mountain "pass."

But some opposed the standard because of the 1 million year time 
frame, saying it was ridiculous to try to regulate something that far 
into the future.

"I find the extension of the time frame for the Yucca Mountain rules 
to 1 million years to be absolutely preposterous," wrote Frank A. 
Albini, a retired research professor of mechanical engineering at 
Montana State University, Bozeman.

"The rules should apply no longer than the current life of the 
nation, about 200 years. By then, the people of the U.S., if such 
still exists, will probably not even be able to read, much less 
interpret, the rules. This is silliness in the extreme."

Others rejected the Yucca Mountain project outright, with some 
suggesting their own alternatives for storing nuclear waste, 
including creating "atomic batteries" that future generations could 
use to generate electricity or putting waste in steel containers 
wrapped in concrete with a sign in several languages saying to not go 
inside the mountain.

Some used the opportunity to urge the completion of the project and 
get waste there as fast as possible.

Other excerpts from comments submitted include:

* "Are you seriously insane!?" said someone identified only as 
Jeremiah. "Quit laughing. Look at the real data. Quit dismissing it. 
And do your damn jobs. Your current proposal is dangerous and 
ludicrous. That anyone could propose it with a straight face is 
hideous and offensive in the extreme."

* "10,000 years is a convenient threshold regardless of what the NAS 
(National Academy of Sciences) or Nevada has to say," wrote K. Halac.

"NAS and Nevada are entitled to an opinion. ... But rational 
decisions should be made by the EPA, even if they are not directly in 
line with the hypothetical arguments. Nevada is crying foul solely to 
stop construction of Yucca. Shall we allow one state out of fifty to 
drive public policy on this issue? While the wheels of motion are 
stopped by lawyers (making over $500 per hour each) to ponder time 
frames of 10,000 years-plus, the other 49 states in the union are 
concerned about the next 10 to 20 years of public health and safety."

In a second, separate comment, Halac added: "I personally would much 
rather have a very large radiological event in the Nevada location 
rather than a smaller radiological event at Indian Point in New 
York."

* "The EPA appears to be pandering to the needs of the Department of 
Energy (DOE) and nuclear industry by tailoring this proposed 
radiation exposure standard to fit the Yucca Mountain site so that it 
could be licensed," wrote R. Kaplan.

Comments submitted by Friday ranged from barely legible handwritten 
pages to quick e-mails to carefully-worded typed documents. A few 
contained profanity. And some included warnings on what would happen 
if Yucca opened, while others warned what would happen if it did not 
open.

It is not clear when the agency will finish reviewing the comments 
and issue its final rule.

The last time the agency proposed a radiation standard, it took two 
years to take public comment, respond and make the final standard 
public.
------------------

British government urged to take rapid decision on nuclear energy

LONDON (AFP) - Britain's bosses called on the government to take a 
rapid decision on the future of nuclear energy to face up to the 
country's energy needs in coming years. 

The call came as Prime Minister Tony Blair was reported to favour 
building new nuclear power stations, and after his chief scientific 
advisor urged the government to "give the green light" to a new 
generation of nuclear reactors.

Sir Digby Jones, director general of the Confederation of British 
Industry (CBI), said: "A decision on the future of nuclear power has 
been allowed to drift too long. Potential investors and the British 
public both deserve certainty."

He went on: "Nuclear's position as a reliable, low-carbon energy 
source is without doubt, but understandable concerns exist about 
costs and waste."

"The challenges the Government didn't tackle in its 2003 Energy White 
Paper have not gone away." Jones said. "The opportunity must now be 
seized. Government must grasp the nettle and make some tough 
decisions. It has to govern for the whole country in the long term, 
and not just for the ideology of any one vested interest."

The CBI chief added: "Without a coherent and integrated energy policy 
there is a risk that the billions of investment required will not 
come at the right time or at the most efficient cost."

With Britain's ageing plants set to be retired in the coming years, 
Blair's adviser David King told the BBC on Sunday: "We have to take 
decisions very quickly."

Nuclear power meets more than a fifth of Britain's energy needs but 
that will fall to just four percent by 2010 if some 20 reactors built 
in the 1960s and 1970s are not replaced soon.

Blair relaunched the nuclear debate in September by saying all 
options were being considered in a review of the government's energy 
policy, but he faces stiff opposition from green groups and some in 
his Labour Party to building new reactors.

Faced with the reality of global warming, King said "the equation is 
simple".

The declining share of energy produced from nuclear reactors -- a 
carbon dioxide-free source -- was contributing to the failure to meet 
the government's targets for reducing emissions by 2010.

"I think we need every tool in the bag to tackle this problem," King 
told the BBC.

The Times reported on Monday that Blair had been won over to the idea 
of new nuclear reactors, whose construction could begin within 10 
years, as the only way of guaranteeing sufficient power while keeping 
down greenhouse gases.

The prime minister would launch a study in two weeks, with results 
expected early next summer, The Times said.

"Critics will suspect that membership (of the team carrying out the 
study) will be chosen to ensure a different conclusion to the last 
energy white paper in 2003," the paper said.

Two years ago Blair had described the nuclear option, traditionally 
opposed by his Labour party, as "unattractive."

Environment Minister Margaret Beckett said Sunday it would be 
impossible to build nuclear reactors quickly enough to help Britain 
meet its targets under the Kyoto treaty, which requires nations to 
cut greenhouse gases.

There were concerns about the full cost of nuclear power and storage 
of waste, but climate change meant governments had to take another 
look at nuclear energy, she told the BBC. 

"I've always accepted we can't afford to close the door on nuclear," 
Beckett said.
----------------

Revealed: radiation risk from everyday goods
UK is failing to protect consumers, says watchdog

People may be exposed to unnecessary risks from radio activity in 
millions of household goods because the government has failed to 
implement basic safety laws, the Sunday Herald can reveal. 
Loopholes in UK law have been exploited by companies to sell 
thousands of “glow in the dark” key rings that have been banned in 
other countries. The key rings contain the radioactive gas, tritium. 

Radioactive materials are used in a wide range of consumer products, 
including smoke alarms, fluorescent lights, clocks and compasses. 
They can also be found in gemstones, antique glassware and ceramic 
tiles. 

But a new report by the UK’s official radiation watchdog discloses 
how poorly these products are controlled. The UK, it points out, is 
the only country in the EU that has not introduced the regulatory 
regime required by a 1996 basic safety standards directive. 

“Radiation doses from radioactive consumer products on sale in the UK 
are very low,” said Richard Paynter, the senior author of the report 
from the Radiation Protection Division of the government’s Health 
Protection Agency. 

“However, the absence of any specific legislation implementing the 
European requirement for the authorisation of such products is a 
weakness in the legislative framework of the UK.” 

The report, which was commissioned by the EU, highlights the example 
of “glowrings”, 50,000 of which are imported into the UK every year 
from a company in Switzerland. Made luminous by radioactive tritium, 
they are claimed to keep glowing for up to 10 years. 

In the US and other European countries, these rings have been 
prohibited as novelties carrying an unjustified risk. The European 
safety directive forbids the manufacture or import of “toys” and 
“personal ornaments” to which radio activity has been deliberately 
added. 

Paynter’s report also mentions a potential problem with gemstones 
that have been bombarded with radiation to enhance their colour. The 
radiation can make the gems highly radioactive for a short period, 
which is a risk if they are released on to the market straight away. 

The government’s failure to protect consumers came under fire from 
environmentalists yesterday. “Out of some 30 countries, the UK is the 
only one that has refused to fully implement sensible health-
protecting EU legislation,” said Duncan McLaren, the chief executive 
of Friends of the Earth Scotland. 

“It would appear that companies are exploiting the UK’s failure to 
toughen up regulation in this area, and as a result helping to 
undermine public safety.” 

The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) confirmed that the UK had 
not implemented the directive that requires authorisation of consumer 
goods containing radioactivity. “That does not mean that such 
products do not require justification and prior authorisation,” said 
a DTI spokesman. 

In one recent case, an application for an electric toaster that 
proposed to use radioactive americium to prevent toast from burning 
was given the go-ahead. It is also understood that the DTI decided to 
take no action to prevent the import or sale of glowrings. 

The DTI spokesman added: “We have recently gone through the process 
of considering product justification. The use of radioactive 
components in consumer products, for example smoke alarms, is not 
uncommon and not unsafe.” 
-------------------

German protesters disrupt nuclear waste transfer 

BERLIN (Reuters) - German anti-nuclear activists briefly held up a 
train carrying nuclear waste from a French reprocessing facility on 
its way to a storage depot in northern Germany on Sunday, police 
said. 
 
The train with 12 wagons of nuclear waste sealed in glass containers 
was delayed for 90 minutes near the southwestern town of Bietigheim-
Bissingen when around a dozen anti-nuclear protesters demonstrated on 
the tracks. Police detained them.

The train was heading for the northern Gorleben interim storage 
depot, where it is due to arrive on Monday. Thousands of activists 
are waiting near the depot to stage more protests to disrupt the 
transportation of the waste. The protests, which began on Friday, 
have been mostly peaceful.

Around 15,000 police are accompanying the nuclear waste transfer in 
Germany.

Activists protesting against such shipments have clashed with police 
in previous years. In 2002, protesters disrupted the passage of a 
train by burning tires on the tracks and by chaining themselves to 
the rails.

On Sunday in Gusborn near Gorleben, several hundred demonstrators 
joined 150 farmers in a blockade with their tractors on a street 
leading to the Gorleben depot, a temporary facility that protesters 
fear will become a permanent waste depot.

They also worry it will contaminate the local water supply.

Earlier, about 1,000 people took part in an anti-nuclear rally in 
Gusborn, including some on horses and bicycles.

The waste is originally produced in Germany but transported to La 
Hague in France for reprocessing. France insists the waste must 
return to the country of origin.

During a waste transfer last November an environmentalist was run 
over and killed when he chained himself to the railway tracks at 
Nancy, eastern France.
-------------------

House OKs nuclear wharf at Mayport

A Congressional conference committee report on the 2006 Military 
Quality of Life and Veterans Affairs Appropriations bill includes 
$500,000 to plan and design a nuclear aircraft carrier wharf at Naval 
Station Mayport. The funding is among $80 million earmarked for 
projects in Northeast Florida. 
 
The compromise bill, approved by the House Nov. 18, also includes 
$4.4 million for Mayport's Consolidated Maintenance Facility. U.S. 
Rep. Ander Crenshaw said the size of the facility, though not nuclear-
specific, is designed to accommodate maintenance on a variety of Navy 
ships, including nuclear carriers. 

"This affirms my position that the future of Mayport is a nuclear 
future," said Crenshaw, a Republican member of the House 
Appropriations Subcommittee responsible for writing the legislation. 
"There is still a lot of work to be done in terms of seeing Mayport 
become fully nuclear-capable. The first step has been cleared." 

Other projects funded include: 

• $45 million for helicopter hangar replacement at Naval Air Station 
Jacksonville. 

• $20 million for a regional training institute complex at Army 
National Guard-Camp Blanding. 

• $7.8 million for bachelor enlisted quarters at Mayport. 

• $2.9 million to expand the flight trainer at Mayport. 

• $41 million for land acquisition for six new national veterans 
cemeteries, including one in Jacksonville. 

The bill also includes more than $1.2 billion in emergency funding 
for veterans health care. The Department of Veterans Affairs in June 
announced a billion-dollar-plus shortfall in veterans healthcare due 
to a problem in the department's funding projection formula.
------------------

ACF warns Govt over nuclear waste dump

The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) says the Federal 
Government's plan to build a nuclear waste dump in the Northern 
Territory, in the face of community opposition, is heavy-handed and 
unwise.

The ACF is among a number of groups that will appear before a Senate 
inquiry today examining a bill designed to give the Commonwealth the 
power to override objections to the dump.

The group's nuclear campaigner Dave Sweeney says the Government has 
not made a compelling case for why its waste should be moved from 
Lucas Heights in Sydney.

"The international experience is very clear on this: that when there 
are attempts... and real and genuine attempts... at consultation and 
inclusion then you get good outcomes," he said.

"The international experience also says when you try and bulldoze, 
you get bad outcomes, bad environmental outcomes, bad social 
outcomes."

The Northern Territory's Chief Minister will also appear before the 
hearing into the bill that opens the way for the facility to be built 
in the Territory.

Clare Martin says the crux of her argument will be that the location 
for the dump should be chosen based on science not on politics.

"This is about science, I mean this is not about some facility that 
is storing old socks," she said.

Ms Martin says if the science shows a dump could be placed in the 
Territory, she would have to accept that decision.
------------------

DETECTION ERA 

‘Dirty bomb’ tops threat list, but may need ‘suicide technicians’ to 
implement

ROTTERDAM, The Netherlands — Truckloads of vegetables, dishware, even 
cranberry juice are setting off the radiation alarms at Europe’s 
biggest port, as thousands of shipping containers bound for America 
pass through Rotterdam’s new "dirty bomb" detectors.

"They talk about our ‘false’ or ‘innocent’ alarms," Dutch Customs’ 
Bert Wiersema said of his equipment, sensitive to even traces of 
radioactivity. "It doesn’t matter. We want to detect everything."

And so far, over 18 months, they’ve detected everything but bombs.

The Dutch are learning daily lessons in a 21st-century school of 
counterterrorism, pioneering use of technology Washington would like 
to see deployed at shipping hubs around the world, a forward defense 
against any terrorist bid to sneak a radiation dispersal device, or 
dirty bomb, into an American port.

Such hypothetical weapons, pairing ordinary explosives with 
radioactive material, are seen as the likeliest "weapon of mass 
destruction" terrorists might use. They topped the list in a U.S. 
Senate survey in June of 85 government officials and other U.S. and 
international experts. From Siberia to the U.S. heartland, teams are 
busy locking down potential sources of dirty-bomb material, such as 
disused radiation therapy equipment.

But how serious is the threat?

Only 40 percent in that survey thought such an attack likely in the 
next 10 years. Many experts note that, unlike a nuclear bomb, a 
radiological device wouldn’t cause tens of thousands of casualties or 
"mass destruction." Some complain the news media overplay the 
potential and underplay the difficulty of assembling such a weapon.

An example from Russia’s rebellious Chechnya illustrates that 
difficulty: In 1999, three looters tried to steal rods of highly 
radioactive cobalt-60 from an abandoned chemical factory. All three 
died of radiation exposure, one reportedly within 30 minutes.

"It’s not a trivial thing to do, build a dirty bomb. It’s not simply 
a matter of tying a rod of cesium to a couple of sticks of dynamite 
and running away," said physicist Benn Tannenbaum, who has studied 
the question for the American Association for the Advancement of 
Science.

The rods, powders and pellets of cesium-137, cobalt-60 and other 
radioactive isotopes are housed in tens of thousands of heavily 
shielded pieces of equipment worldwide — for cancer radiation 
therapy, in industrial gauges, in food irradiators, among other uses.

Old portable generators from Soviet days, powering Arctic beacons and 
other remote instruments, are among the most dangerous, each holding 
the equivalent of the strontium-90 radioactivity released by the 1986 
Chernobyl nuclear plant accident.

The Russians, with U.S. aid, have recovered 72 strontium generators 
and about 1,000 other disused or abandoned radioactive sources. In 
the United States itself, the Energy Department has recovered about 
11,000 of these "orphan" sources, under a program greatly accelerated 
since the Sept. 11 attacks. Thousands more remain out there 
worldwide, including hundreds more old generators.

In former Soviet republics, from Estonia to Tajikistan, the 
International Atomic Energy Agency has helped secure about 100 
sources. But IAEA program chief Vilmos Friedrich said those were "the 
highest priority only. The job is not complete by any means."

If a cache of iridium-192 or thulium-170 does fall into the wrong 
hands, U.S.-bound smugglers would have to evade almost 500 radiation 
monitors installed at U.S. land crossings, seaports and mail 
facilities in recent years.

Washington is working to extend that line of defense abroad, to 
container ports of origin. But thus far only Rotterdam and Piraeus, 
Greece, participate in the "Megaports" network. Others have been slow 
to accept the added expense and the risk of delaying cargo traffic.

Customs manager Wiersema says he’s heard few complaints from shippers 
about delays, and Dutch Customs has ordered 30 more monitors — at a 
total cost of at least $18 million — to add to the four on loan from 
the Americans.

At a container terminal at the heart of Rotterdam’s vast harbor, the 
routine looks smooth. Trucks hauling 40-foot seagoing containers 
toward their cargo ships first roll slowly between two 20-foot-high 
white pillars, housing detectors that profile any gamma or neutron 
radiation on computer screens in a nearby command post.

Manning those screens, Wiersema’s agents are now expert readers of 
the distinctive "signatures" of vegetables, ceramics and other items 
with slightly radioactive minerals. If anything’s suspicious, they 
order the container to an enclosure where powerful X-rays probe for 
material that is extremely dense, like radioisotopes.

None has turned up, and that’s fine, Wiersema said. "This isn’t 
cocaine or cigarettes," his agents’ usual smuggling haul. "There 
aren’t a million bombs. But it’s important for prevention. They know 
we’re here."

The greatest deterrent to would-be bombers remains the radiation 
itself. How would novices extract, handle, transport such material?

"Very quickly," Tannenbaum said dryly. "You’d wear lead underwear and 
a lead apron. You’d use tongs to keep yourself separated from it." 
Some experts even theorize, improbably, that relay teams of "suicide 
technicians" would be needed.

An official U.S. planning scenario envisions a worst case: a bomb 
laden with powerfully radioactive cesium chloride powder, whose blast 
kills relatively few people, but whose long-term contamination keeps 
many blocks of a city uninhabitable for years.

A dirty bomb, if not a mass killer, would be "an economic weapon and 
a fear weapon," said Carolyn MacKenzie, an IAEA radiation source 
specialist. "Spreading radioactive materials around can shut down an 
area for a very, very long time."

But is a highly lethal load of radioactivity necessary? Some suggest 
a dirty bomber could achieve his goal, terrorizing a population, with 
a small amount of low-level radioactivity, posing little threat — as 
long as Geiger counters go off in New York, Washington or whichever 
city.

The IAEA urges governments to plan carefully to keep the public well 
informed in such an emergency. Then, said MacKenzie, "it is up to the 
press not to inspire fear."
---------------

Veteran recounts dumping of radioactive waste off U.S. shore

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. - The Army might not know what kind of radioactive 
waste it dumped with chemical weapons off Virginia in 1960, but Ellis 
R. Cole is sure it wasn't harmless.

The Geiger counter readings were proof of that.

Cole said he helped winch hundreds of 55-gallon barrels labeled 
"radioactive" out of a ship and into the ocean.

He was, he said, aboard a small Fort Eustis, Va.-based ship sent that 
summer to pick up a load of radioactive waste from an Army chemical-
weapon development and test base in Maryland and dump it into the 
Atlantic Ocean.

"It was common knowledge on the ship that we were dealing with 
something that was very dangerous," said Cole, now 64 and living in 
Lakeport, Fla. "I've been uneasy about it for a number of years. No 
one seemed to care at the time, but I felt in my heart we did 
something absolutely wrong."

Army records show that a shipment of 317 tons of radioactive waste 
and 3 tons of Lewisite - a blister agent related to mustard gas - was 
dumped June 14 and 15, 1960, about 90 miles off the Virginia-Maryland 
line. Cole said it might have been dumped much closer to shore than 
Army records showed.

Cole came forward after reading a Daily Press investigation revealing 
that the Army secretly dumped at least 64 million pounds of chemical 
weapons and 500 tons of unidentified radioactive waste off 11 states 
from 1945 to 1970, when the practice was halted.

He provided a detailed, credible description of one of many Army 
dumping operations and offered the Daily Press access to his military 
record for verification. He also agreed to speak to Army chemical-
weapons experts.

Cole said two holds of the ship were filled with barrels of 
radioactive waste. He said the ends of the barrels were encased in 
concrete, which had gaps to hook chains connected to a winch that 
hoisted the barrels out of the hold and over the side.

He said he was 18 at the time and was chosen to be one of the men who 
went into the holds to hook the barrels onto the winch. The captain 
issued a "very unusual" order that prohibited anyone from being in 
the holds for more than two hours at a time, thus limiting radiation 
exposure, Cole said.

On leaving the holds, the workers were examined with a Geiger counter 
to determine the degree of radiation on them. "It would beep 
incessantly," Cole said.

He was then ordered to shower, a common practice for decades to 
reduce the effects of radiation exposure. The Geiger counter still 
went wild.

He took eight to 10 showers each time that he left the ship's holds 
before the Geiger counter didn't detect a dangerous level of 
radiation, he said. "The more showers I took, the less it beeped 
until it eventually stopped beeping," Cole said.

He said he didn't remember whether he was required to wear a 
protective suit when in the holds. And he wonders whether the colon 
cancer diagnosed last year was caused by radiation exposure decades 
ago.

Cole described a method of dumping not previously disclosed. Army 
records don't indicate that the ends of dumped barrels filled with 
chemical-warfare agents or radioactive waste were encased in 
concrete. But it's a plausible method to remove barrels from a ship's 
hold.

Army photographs from the 1940s to the 1960s show forklifts pushing 
the steel containers and chemical-filled ordnance over the sides of 
ships. In later years, the Army's preferred disposal method was to 
scuttle ships packed with chemical weapons.

Records also show that radioactive material in those years frequently 
was mixed with concrete before being dumped into the ocean.

Army dumping records don't reveal the origin of the radioactive waste 
jettisoned. But National Archives records show that large quantities 
of unidentified radioactive material were transported in the 1950s by 
the Army's chemical-weapons escort service from a nuclear lab at Oak 
Ridge, Tenn., to Army bases with chemical weapons slated for ocean 
disposal.

At the time, the thermonuclear, or hydrogen, bomb was being developed 
at that lab. Army transportation of potentially highly radioactive 
waste from the lab is known to have continued until 1960.

The Army wasn't the only entity to dump radioactive waste off the 
Virginia-Maryland line in 1960.

A 1961 report in the defunct Armed Forces Chemical Journal shows that 
private industry also dumped at least 8 tons of radioactive waste - 
some of it highly dangerous nuclear material - in the same location 
as the Army operation that Cole said he was on. The journal said what 
was then the Atomic Energy Commission approved the location. (The AEC 
was superseded in 1975 by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.)

Cole told the Daily Press that he was aboard a ship named the Pvt. 
Carl V. Sheridan, which he described as a 176-foot-long freighter. 
The Fort Eustis-based ship was ordered to the Army's Aberdeen Proving 
Ground in Maryland to pick up its load of radioactive material.

The name of the ship couldn't be verified. But an archivist at the 
Army Transportation Museum said ships of that description, designated 
freight supply vessels, were based at Eustis in the 1960s.

Cole said his ship headed into the Atlantic and north to the Virginia-
Maryland line. But the seas were too rough to set up the booms used 
to lift the heavy barrels from the ship's holds, so the vessel spent 
the night at Wilmington, Del.

The ship headed south the next day, found the seas still too choppy 
to dump its cargo, and tied up at a dock at Fort Monroe in Hampton, 
Va. The captain hung a placard - "radioactive" - on the side of the 
ship, which Cole said he understood to be standard operating 
procedure at the time.

The post commander apparently considered the ship too dangerous to 
have around and ordered it away from the dock.

"They threw us out of port," Cole said. "They made us go out into the 
(Chesapeake) bay for the night. It was too dangerous for the Army 
brass at Fort Monroe."

The next morning, the ship headed into the Atlantic and steamed north 
for what the crew estimated to be 60 to 70 miles before dumping its 
load, Cole said.

Army records show that the radioactive waste was dumped about 110 
miles north of the fort and 90 miles from shore. If so, either Cole's 
memory is inaccurate or the Army's records are mistaken and the 
dumping was much closer to shore than recorded.

One thing Cole is clear on: The material that his ship was carrying 
was dangerously radioactive.

"That's something that's bothered me for the last 45 years," he said. 
"They told me to do it, and I did it. I always felt we were doing 
something wrong."

-------------------------------------
Sandy Perle
Senior Vice President, Technical Operations
Global Dosimetry Solutions, Inc.
2652 McGaw Avenue
Irvine, CA 92614 

Tel: (949) 296-2306 / (888) 437-1714  Extension 2306
Fax:(949) 296-1144

E-Mail: sperle at dosimetry.com
E-Mail: sandyfl at earthlink.net 

Global Dosimetry Website: http://www.dosimetry.com/ 
Personal Website: http://sandy-travels.com/