Baltic states agree to share radiation data

["Sandy Perle" <sandyfl@EARTHLINK.NET>]

Note: I will be in Cleveland, HPS meeting, June 8 - 14, back in 

Calif. June 15 and in Miami, June 16 - 24. If you're at HPS, stop by 

and say hello



Index:



Baltic states agree to share radiation data

Bones of Australian babies used in nuclear tests

Nevada Nuclear Sites Faces Limits

N.H. seeks sales agent for nuclear plant stake

Russia Nuclear Waste Bill Advances

EPA sets nuclear waste standards Industry

======================================



Baltic states agree to share radiation data

  

HAMBURG, Germany (Reuters) - Ten Baltic countries agreed Thursday to 

share information on radiation, but Russia deferred adding its 

signature to the deal. 



The agreement will allow participating countries, including Germany, 

Sweden, Denmark and Poland, instant Internet access to up-to-date 

radiation exposure data. For example, Sweden will share its data from 

37 radiation measuring stations. 



Russia, whose nuclear power stations and nuclear weapons are a safety 

concern to other states in the Baltic Sea region, has traditionally 

shown caution in sharing details about its nuclear program. 



Moscow is expected to sign the deal at a later date after winning 

approval from the lower house of parliament, officials said. "There 

is no political reason, it's purely a technical delay," a Russian 

foreign ministry spokesman said. 



Foreign ministers from the 10 countries signed the radiation 

agreement at a Baltic region conference in the German port city of 

Hamburg. 

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



Bones of Australian babies used in nuclear tests



SYDNEY, June 7 (Reuters) - Cremated bones of Australian babies were 

shipped to the United States and Britain from the 1950s to the 1970s 

without parental consent to test for radioactive fall-out from 

nuclear tests. 



An Australian scientific document reveals bones from dead babies a 

few weeks old, as well as children five to 19 years old and adults up 

to 39 years were cremated and sent overseas without permission for 

testing for radioactive Strontium 90. 



"There were certainly measurements that showed that Strontium 90 from 

atmospheric nuclear tests had gotten into the bones of people in 

Australia," John Loy, head of the Australian Radiation Protection and 

Nuclear Safety Agency, said on Thursday. 



The agency released the scientific documents revealing the testing by 

its predecessor agency after British media reported that bodies of 

stillborn children from Australia, Britain, Canada and Hong Kong were 

used in U.S. nuclear experiments. 



British newspapers said the bodies of stillborn babies and infants 

were taken from hospitals for use in U.S. Department of Energy tests 

to monitor levels of Strontium 90. 



This was the second report of humans being used in nuclear tests to 

emerge in Australia in the past month. 



Australia last month raised allegations its troops were used as human 

guinea pigs during British atom bomb tests in the 1950s to test 

protective clothing in low-radiation nuclear tests at Maralinga in 

the South Australian outback. 



Loy said there was no evidence that stillborn babies were sent from 

Australia, but the cremated ashes of babies were sent to the United 

States and Britain without parental consent. 



BRITISH AGENCY 



"Bones samples from babies were included in those studies," Loy said.



"It is clear that the samples weren't gathered as we would want them 

to these days... If we were doing such a thing these days, you would 

want people to give their consent." 



The scientific document said: "Specimens of bone tissue of all ages 

up to 40 years are provided by pathologists in Perth, Adelaide, 

Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane... Two sets of representative samples 

for Strontium 90 analysis are prepared from all specimens collected 

during each six-month period. 



"From these data, radiation doses to skeletal tissue may be estimated 

and hence assessments made of likely affects on the population," it 

said. 



The document said these particular bone samples were tested by 

Britain's atomic energy agency in 1969. 



Loy said bones were collected and cremated in a Melbourne laboratory 

and then sent to the United States and Britain. 



"There had been an enormous numbers of atmospheric nuclear tests 

taking place in the late fifties and sixties and this was spreading 

radioactive contamination throughout the world," he said. 



"The question was how much was affecting Australian people." 



Loy said that while the tests revealed Strontium 90 in the bones of 

Australians, it was not at a dangerous level. The tests probably 

played a role in decisions to end atmospheric nuclear tests, he 

added. 



Loy said the bone testing was not secret, but was on the public 

record in scientific and government documents. Australia also carried 

out its own bone testing in later years, he said. 



Australia launched an investigation on Tuesday into the reports that 

stillborn babies were sent to the United States for nuclear energy 

experiments. The Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety 

Agency said it would hand over documents to the government for 

investigation. 

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



Nevada Nuclear Sites Faces Limits



WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration agreed to tougher health 

protection requirements for a proposed nuclear waste site in Nevada, 

ignoring pleas from the nuclear industry and Republican allies in 

Congress. 



The requirements announced by the Environmental Protection Agency on 

Wednesday would limit radiation exposure from the Yucca Mountain site 

to no more than 15 millirems a year for people 11 miles away, 

including no more than 4 millirems from groundwater. 



A millirem is a measurement of the biological effects of radiation on 

human tissue. According to the EPA, the standard would mean a person 

living 11 miles from the waste site would absorb every year a little 

less radiation than a person would get from two roundtrip 

transcontinental airline flights. 



By comparison, background radiation exposes people to about 360 

millirems of radiation annually. Three chest X-rays expose a person 

to about 18 millirem, the agency said. 



The Nuclear Energy Institute responded with separate lawsuits in two 

federal courts challenging the EPA standard. The industry had sought 

less stringent standards, arguing that recommendations from the 

Nuclear Regulatory Commission of a 25 millirems overall limit and no 

groundwater standards would provide safety to people living near the 

site. 



Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, who has favored the NRC proposal, 

said the EPA standards were ``tough and challenging'' and that ``we 

believe we can meet the requirements.'' 



The government's health standards for the Nevada site have been 

considered crucial in determining whether the federal underground 

storage facility at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, 

can be built. 



The scientific review of the site has not been completed. Abraham is 

expected to make a recommendation to President Bush this year with a 

final decision by the president likely in early 2002. The plan is to 

keep 70,000 tons of used reactor fuel now at commercial power plants 

in canisters 600 feet below the surface. 



Nevada officials say the federal government has failed to prove that 

the waste, which will stay highly radioactive for tens of thousands 

of years, would not contaminate an aquifer running through the area 

and surrounding countryside. The state also has protested 

transportation plans for thousands of shipments of waste, including 

some traveling near Las Vegas. 



The EPA standard is designed to limit public exposure to any 

contamination over the next 10,000 years. 



``Under these standards, future generations will be securely 

protected,'' Christie Whitman, the EPA administrator, said in a 

statement. She said the limits were designed ``to ensure that people 

living near this potential repository will be protected now and for 

future generation.'' 



The nuclear industry moved quickly to challenge the standard, suing 

in U.S. District Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District 

of Columbia Circuit. 



``The nuclear industry is extremely disappointed,'' said Marvin 

Fertel, director of business operation at the NEI, the industry trade 

group. He said the added groundwater exposure limits ``will cost 

taxpayers and electricity consumers billions of additional dollars to 

license and build the repository without making the facility any 

safer.'' 



Some environmentalists and nuclear watchdog groups said the standards 

were inadequate. 



``The EPA has created an exclusion zone to safe drinking water,'' 

said Arjun Makhijani, a nuclear physicist involved in the anti-

nuclear movement. Makhijani said that people live within several 

miles of the site, but the groundwater tests will be taken 11 miles 

away. 



Also, he and other critics said, the standard would apply for 10,000 

years, while the maximum radiation exposure from decaying isotopes is 

projected to be many years beyond that. 



In a related development, a National Academy of Sciences report 

Wednesday said deep geological disposal ``remains the only long-term 

solution'' for dealing with nuclear waste despite the difficulty in 

winning public support for a repository. 



The report said wastes can be kept above ground safely, but that the 

major uncertainty would be ``in the confidence that future societies 

will continue to monitor and maintain such facilities'' for tens of 

thousands of years. 



On the Net: 



Energy Department's Yucca Mountain project: http://www.ymp.gov/ 



National Academy of Sciences: http://www.nas.edu/ 

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



N.H. seeks sales agent for nuclear plant stake

  

NEW YORK, June 6 (Reuters) - The New Hampshire Public Utilities 

Commission (NHPUC) said Wednesday it was seeking a manager to 

administer the sale of North Atlantic Energy Corp.'s 36 percent 

interest in the 1,162-megawatt (MW) Seabrook nuclear generating 

station. 



North Atlantic Energy is a subsidiary of diversified energy giant 

Northeast Utilities <NU.N> of Hartford, Conn. 



Potential managers must submit proposals by July 9, NHPUC said in a 

request for proposals to prospective bidders. 



Over the past year, Navigant Consulting Inc. <NCI.N> of Chicago 

managed the sale of the Nine Mile Point nuclear station in New York, 

Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co. <MWD.N> of New York managed the sale 

of the Indian Point 2 nuclear unit in New York, while J.P. Morgan 

Chase & Co Inc. <JPM.N> of New York managed the sale of Millstone in 

Connecticut and is now managing the sale of the Vermont Yankee 

nuclear unit in Vermont. 



The NHPUC said it will hold a bidders conference on June 18 in 

Concord, N.H. 



Possible bidders who have purchased nuclear units over the past few 

years include: Dominion Resources Inc <D.N>, Entergy Corp <ETR.N>, 

Exelon Corp <EXC.N> and British Energy Plc <BGY.L> joint venture 

AmerGen Energy Co, and Constellation Energy <CEG.N>. 



North Atlantic is currently the operator of the Seabrook plant. 



The owners include NSTAR's <NST.N> Canal Electric Co. (4 percent), 

Northeast Utilities' Connecticut Light & Power (4) and North Atlantic 

Energy (36), BayCorp Holdings Ltd.'s <MWH.A> Great Bay Power (12), 

Massachusetts Municipal Wholesale Electric (12), National Grid Plc's 

<NGG.L> Montaup Electric (3) and New England Power (10), United 

Illuminating Co. <UIL.N> (18), and others. 



Under New Hampshire law it is the duty of the NHPUC to administer the 

sale of North Atlantic's share in Seabrook, the NHPUC said. 



The commission also said efforts are underway to coordinate one 

common sale of all the ownership interests in the plant. 

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



Russia Nuclear Waste Bill Advances

  

MOSCOW (AP) - In a landmark vote that critics say will turn Russia 

into the planet's nuclear dump, Russian lawmakers defied broad public 

opposition and on Wednesday passed a law allowing nuclear waste to be 

imported and stored indefinitely. 



Proponents say the measure will create jobs and bring in billions of 

dollars to needy government coffers. They vow to use some of the 

riches to clean up radioactive swathes of the world's largest country 

that have been scarred by decades of Soviet nuclear development. 



Opponents question whether the money will be really used as promised, 

and whether Russia is equipped to safely handle the expected 

quantities of spent foreign nuclear fuel. 



Russia's safety record is spotty at its underfunded nuclear power 

plants and nuclear weapons facilities. Corruption among officials is 

rife. And some prominent scientists say the cost of building or 

upgrading waste reprocessing facilities would outstrip potential 

profits. 



``Our citizens are against turning Russia into an outhouse,'' Sergei 

Mitrokhin of the liberal Yabloko faction said during Wednesday's 

debate in the lower house of parliament, or State Duma. 



Nonetheless, the 450-member house approved the three-bill package 

after a 20-minute debate on votes of 266-117, 243-125, and 250-125. 

For passage, 226 votes were needed on each bill. 



The measure must pass the upper house, the Federation Council, and be 

signed by President Vladimir Putin in order to become law. 



Federation Council speaker Yegor Stroyev said the bill would likely 

pass the upper house, but only after some ``corrections,'' ITAR-Tass 

reported. ``First, it is necessary to create guarantees that this 

decision will not cause any trouble for future generations,'' he 

said, without elaborating. 



Putin did not comment publicly on the bill Wednesday, but its 

relatively smooth passage in the Duma suggested it had backing from 

the Kremlin. 



While opinion polls show most Russians oppose the idea, there is 

little sign that the issue will prompt mass public protest in a 

country where most people are more worried about pocketbooks than 

ecological woes. 



The Atomic Energy Ministry claims it could earn up to $20 billion by 

importing 22,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel over 10 years. 



``I am voting for this bill because I don't want places in my country 

remaining dead zones, contaminated by radiation,'' said Deputy Yegor 

Ligachev, a Communist and a former member of the Soviet Union's 

ruling Politburo. 



Even if there is money to spare for the cleanup, the task is 

overwhelming. 



Russian towns, rivers and permafrost were exposed to radioactive 

pollution during the secretive development of the Soviet nuclear 

industry, and environmentalists say they remain dangerously polluted.



Dmitry Ayatskov, a Federation Council member and governor of the 

Nizhny Novgorod region, home of a huge nuclear research center, said 

he would oppose the bill. ``We have our own waste to deal with. I 

have firsthand knowledge of nuclear safety problems,'' he said. 



The environmental group Greenpeace, which has campaigned intensively 

against the bill, urged President Bush to veto shipments of spent 

nuclear fuel to Russia. 



The group said 92.5 percent of the radioactive waste produced by 

Russia's potential client nations is under U.S. control. The United 

States has built reactors for and exported fuel to countries around 

the world under deals requiring U.S. approval for any transfer of 

spent nuclear fuel. 



``U.S. permission for the export of spent nuclear fuel to Russia 

would be a clear contradiction of the most fundamental U.S. nuclear 

non-proliferation policy,'' Greenpeace nuclear campaigner Tobias 

Muenchmeyer said. 



Without U.S. approval, Muenchmeyer said, potential waste exporters 

would be China, Eastern Europe and former Soviet states that have 

Soviet-built nuclear plants. But Russia already accepts spent fuel 

rods from Ukraine, Bulgaria, Slovakia and Hungary under Soviet-era 

contracts, and they pay far less than Western nations could. 



Norway has expressed concern that the waste could be transported by 

ship near its Arctic coast. Norwegian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman 

Gry Haaheim said Wednesday that Norway plans to work actively to get 

other countries not to send waste. 

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



EPA sets nuclear waste standards

Industry: Groundwater limits lack sound scientific basis

WASHINGTON (CBS.MW) - The Environmental Protection Agency said 

Wednesday it would require a proposed Nevada nuclear waste site to 

comply with strict groundwater standards.

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said the government believes it can 

meet the standards, but the rule was promptly attacked by the nuclear 

industry, which contends that the new rules could jack up costs and 

pose a major hurdle to final approval of a permanent waste repository 

at the Yucca Mountain site.

The EPA standards would limit radiation exposure from groundwater 

near the site to 4 millirems a year. Radiation from all sources - 

air, soil and groundwater -- would be limited to 15 millirems.

"Under these standards future generations will be securely protected. 

Our standards require that a person living in the vicinity of Yucca 

Mountain and drinking untreated water at the site 10,000 years from 

now will have less radiation exposure than we get today in about two 

round-trip flights from New York to Los Angeles," EPA Administrator 

Christie Whitman said.

The rules are largely in line with an earlier EPA proposal drawn up 

during the Clinton Administration.

The Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry trade group, promptly filed 

challenges to the rule in federal court in Washington, D.C., and the 

U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

"The groundwater provision lacks a sound scientific basis. Its 

application to Yucca Mountain will cost taxpayers and electricity 

consumers billions of additional dollars to license and build the 

repository without making the facility any safer," said Marvin 

Fertel, NEI vice president for business operations, in a statement.

A millirem is a unit of measurement used to gauge the amount of 

radiation absorbed by human tissue. Most individuals are exposed to 

around 360 millirems of background radiation a year.

Yucca Mountain, a former nuclear weapons testing site located 90 

miles northwest of Las Vegas, is the only proposed permanent storage 

site for the 70,000 tons of used reactor fuel now held at commercial 

power plants.

Nuclear plants account for around a fifth of all U.S. electricity 

production. The Bush administration has called on Congress and 

agencies to take steps to enhance the role of nuclear energy as part 

of its long-term energy plan.

The Energy Department must make recommendation to President Bush 

after scientists complete an assessment of the site's viability. A 

recommendation isn't expected until late this year or early 2002.

The site has faced tough resistance from environmental groups, Nevada 

lawmakers and local business interests, including the Las Vegas 

Chamber of Commerce.



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

Sandy Perle					Tel:(714) 545-0100 / (800) 548-5100   				    	

Director, Technical				Extension 2306 				     	

ICN Worldwide Dosimetry Service		Fax:(714) 668-3149 	                   		    

ICN Pharmaceuticals, Inc.			E-Mail: sandyfl@earthlink.net 				                           

ICN Plaza, 3300 Hyland Avenue  		E-Mail: sperle@icnpharm.com          	          

Costa Mesa, CA 92626                    



Personal Website: http://sandyfl.nukeworker.net

ICN Worldwide Dosimetry Website: http://www.dosimetry.com



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