Compensation Begins for Nuke Workers

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

Index:



Compensation Begins for Nuke Workers

Germany Plans for Nuclear Phase-Out

Firm Lobbied for Nuclear Industry

Forest fire threatens Russian nuclear sites

NRC to step up inspections at Mo. Callaway nuke

UK's BNFL says study backs MOX nuclear plant

France says nuclear shipments from Germany safe

3 municipalities eager to host int'l experimental reactor

Congo Nurses an Old Nuclear Reactor

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



Compensation Begins for Nuke Workers



WASHINGTON (AP) - Martha Alls thought she'd never see the day when 

the government would pay for what it did to her father - a former 

worker at the uranium enrichment plant in Paducah, Ky. 



But Alls' mother, Clara Harding, will receive a check for $150,000 - 

possibly as early as Tuesday - as part of a federal entitlement plan 

aimed at compensating sick nuclear weapons workers or their 

survivors. 



The Labor Department is running the new program, which officially 

begins Tuesday. Labor Secretary Elaine Chao calls it ``an absolute 

priority.'' 



But the government hasn't always had that attitude. 



Before he died of cancer in 1980, Harding's bones were found to 

contain up to 34,000 times the expected concentration of uranium. Yet 

while he lived, Harding was denied compensation because official 

records showed he was only exposed to small levels of radiation. 



The Energy Department has identified 317 sites that employed more 

than 650,000 people nationwide for nuclear weapons-related work 

during the Cold War. The agency initially thought 3,000 to 4,000 

might receive compensation, but the accuracy of that estimate is 

unclear, in part because of poor record keeping. 



The Congressional Budget Office estimates the program will cost 

roughly $2 billion over a decade. 



Harding was among those who pressed the Energy Department to 

acknowledge workers were getting sick from bomb-making components, 

and his widow and daughter took up the fight after he died. 



The government fought back, fearing that improving conditions at 

plants would be too costly and could derail the nation's nuclear 

program. 



``It had gone on so many years,'' said Alls. ``It was like the 

government just would never admit it.'' 



The government finally did concede two years ago that many workers 

who built America's nuclear weapons likely became ill because of on-

the-job exposure. Congress approved the compensation program last 

year. 



``It's a monumental program that I consider my greatest legacy at 

DOE,'' said former Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, who lobbied hard 

for the program in the Clinton administration. 



The law provides medical care and $150,000 to sick workers exposed to 

radiation, which can cause cancer, and silica or beryllium, which can 

cause lung diseases. 



For certain workers at sites that kept poor records, the government 

will presume particular cancers linked to radiation were work-

related. Included are workers exposed at the uranium enrichment 

plants in Piketon, Ohio; Paducah, Ky.; and Oak Ridge, Tenn.; and 

workers exposed to radiation during tests on Alaska's Amchitka 

Island. 



For sick workers elsewhere, the Department of Health and Human 

Services is creating guidelines to determine who is eligible for 

compensation based on estimated levels of radiation exposure. 



Spouses and children who were dependents at the time of a workers' 

death are eligible for payments, but children who were not dependents 

will not be eligible. 



Richard Miller, who followed the legislation for the Paper, Allied-

Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers International Union, says 

advocates are lobbying to change that so older children could receive 

compensation too. 



Miller says getting money for workers sickened by the numerous toxic 

chemicals used in the plants will be more difficult. 



Advocates had hoped the legislation would include those workers, but 

opponents blocked that. Instead, the law says the Energy Department 

must help them navigate their claims through state worker 

compensation systems. 



Miller is skeptical, noting the burden of proof tends to be higher 

under state systems. The Bush administration has not yet named anyone 

to head the Energy Department office responsible for helping workers 

suffering from chemical exposure. 



``Obviously it's not all that we would like, but it's a whole lot 

better than a lot of people thought would happen,'' said Sen. Fred 

Thompson, R-Tenn. 



Clara Harding is grateful for the program, but she says the victory 

is bittersweet. She has spent the past 20 years without her husband, 

and she had to sell her home and baby-sit to pay the bills. 



The money will help, she says, but it's more important that the 

nation is finally acknowledging what Joe Harding said all those 

years. 



``It wasn't hogwash,'' she said, her voice shaking. ``It was truth.''



On the Net: 



Labor Department Office of Workers' Compensation Programs: 

http://www.dol.gov/dol/esa/public/owcp-org.htm 



Energy Department Office of Worker Advocacy: 

http://www.tis.eh.doe.gov/advocacy/ 

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



Germany Plans for Nuclear Phase-Out



BERLIN (AP) - Germany's phase-out of nuclear power will begin in 

2003, when the first of 19 plants to be closed under an accord 

between the government and utilities will go off-line, a state 

official said Friday. 



The E.ON utility has filed a plan to close down the Stade plant west 

of Hamburg - Germany's oldest - in the second half of 2003, then 

dismantle it over 10 to 12 years, Lower Saxony state Environment 

Minister Wolfgang Juettner said. 



The move follows an agreement by Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and top 

power company executives last month to gradually shut down Germany's 

nuclear plants, a cause championed by the center-left government 

since it came to power in 1998. 



The deal sets a standard life span of 32 years for existing plants, 

which means Germany's newest nuclear plant would shut down in 2021. 



Stade, in operation since 1972, will close about a year earlier than 

foreseen under the agreement, Juettner said. 



Some 100,000 tons of steel and concrete and up to 3,000 tons of 

slightly radioactive material will have to be dismantled, he said. 

The highly radioactive spent fuel rods will be sent to France for 

reprocessing. 



Nuclear plants provide almost a third of Germany's electricity. The 

government says the phased shutdown will allow time to build up other 

sources, including renewable energy. 



Schroeder took office promising to negotiate an end to nuclear power, 

a goal championed by the environmentalist Greens party, his junior 

coalition partner. However, many anti-nuclear activists would like to 

see a quicker shutdown.

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



Firm Lobbied for Nuclear Industry



LAS VEGAS (AP) - The law firm counseling the Energy Department on how 

to open a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain was also taking money 

from the nuclear power industry to assure the site was approved. 



Critics say the revelation casts doubt on the quality of legal and 

technical work that cost the government $4.5 billion, The New York 

Times reported Saturday. 



``You could make a case that every piece of data since 1992 is 

tainted,'' said Robert R. Loux, head of the Nevada Nuclear Projects 

Office, a state agency created to oppose the repository 90 miles 

northwest of Las Vegas. 



The law firm, Winston and Strawn, was paid by the Energy Department 

and one of its contractors while simultaneously lobbying Congress on 

behalf of the nuclear power industry. 



``Of course it's a conflict. What would happen if, when I was 

practicing law, somebody came to me and had a problem and I took 

money from them, and somebody else gave me money to sue them?'' said 

Nevada Sen. Harry Reid, a Democrat. 



Winston and Strawn lawyers did not return the newspaper's calls for 

comment. An Energy Department spokeswoman said there was no conflict 

of interest. 



``We found them eminently qualified,'' Jill Schroeder said. 



Schroeder said the lawyers helped the department decide if Yucca 

Mountain could be licensed to handle high level nuclear waste. A 

decision on whether to open the site is to be made by the end of the 

year and a recommendation will be forwarded to the president. 



In 1992, Winston and Strawn was hired as a subcontractor to the TRW 

Corporation, then the Energy Department's main contractor for 

examining the site. The firm's advised TRW on preparing an 

application for a license, which the department was supposed to 

submit to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. 



In 1999, the department hired the firm to review the application 

before submitting it. A protest was filed by a competing law firm, 

LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene and MacRae, which complained that the 

government was paying Winston and Strawn to review its own work. That 

case is pending in federal court. 



The nuclear power industry is eager to find a permanent disposal 

site. Under a 1982 law, the department was supposed to begin 

accepting waste from the utilities in 1998. Yucca was selected as the 

lead candidate by Congress in 1987. 



Winston and Strawn filed a disclosure form with Congress saying it 

stopped lobbying on July 11. The disclosure forms for previous years 

list several bills on which it lobbied. The bills would have required 

the department to accept waste for temporary storage in anticipation 

of opening the site. In later years, the firm listed the subject of 

its lobbying as ``nuclear issues.'' 

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



Forest fire threatens Russian nuclear sites

  

MOSCOW, July 28 (Reuters) - A raging forest fire on Saturday 

threatened a radioactive waste storage facility and forced the 

temporary shutdown of a nuclear reactor in southern Russia, local 

officials said. 



Fire experts said the blaze began dangerously close to a storage site 

for radioactive material in the southern Voronezh region, and quickly 

took hold in the tinder-box conditions caused by a current heatwave. 



Scores of firefighters battled for several hours to extinguish the 

blaze, which engulfed some 23 hectares (57 acres), as it closed in on 

the Novovoronezhskaya power plant. 



"There was no threat to the nuclear power plant, but there was a 

threat to the storage facility of radioactive waste which is located 

nearby," fire chief Vladimir Lozovsky told NTV television. 



Nuclear officials said the thick smoke and rise in temperature caused 

by the forest fire had set off the power plant's safety system. 

Reactor number five was shut down as a precaution. 



Vladimir Rozin, the plant's deputy chief engineer, said that there 

had been no increase in radioactivity during the incident. The 

reactor later resumed power production but at reduced levels, state-

run ORT television quoted officials as saying. 



Fire chiefs said the fire was probably started by careless 

picnickers. 

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



NRC to step up inspections at Mo. Callaway nuke

  

SAN FRANCISCO, July 27 (Reuters) - The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 

Commission  (NRC) said Friday it would step up its inspections of the 

1,125-megawatt Callaway nuclear power plant in Missouri following 

problems with a key pump that potentially compromised the plant's 

safety. 



In February, an "essential service" water pump at AmerenUE's Callaway 

plant was inoperable while the plant was at full power, the NRC said 

in a statement. 



The problem -- caused when a length of hose fell into the pump, 

restricting the water flow through it -- took five days to discover, 

violating NRC safety requirements. 



Essential service water pumps send cooling water to numerous plant 

safety systems. The inoperable pump therefore could have affected the 

availability of key safety components in the event of a plant 

emergency, the NRC said. 



The NRC determined that the situation at the plant in Fulton, Mo., 

had a low to moderate safety significance and the event was therefore 

assigned a "white" finding. 



The safety significance of each NRC inspection finding is 

characterized by a color -- green, white, yellow, or red. A green 

finding receives normal NRC oversight, while white, yellow, or red 

assessments result in increasing NRC involvement, including 

additional inspections. 



Last summer, the NRC identified three "white" findings concerning 

Callaway's occupational radiation protection program. This resulted 

in a degradation of one of seven cornerstones of safety under the 

NRC's inspection program and, as a result, increased NRC inspection. 



The most recent "white" finding, while not related to the 

occupational radiation protection program, occurred within a year of 

the previous findings. "As a result, the NRC will again increase 

inspection at Callaway," the statement said. 



"It's kind of like having points on their driver's license," said NRC 

spokesman Breck Henderson. 

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



UK's BNFL says study backs MOX nuclear plant



LONDON, July 27 (Reuters) - State-owned British Nuclear Fuels on 

Friday said an independent study backed the economic case for its 

controversial nuclear mixed oxide plant at Sellafield, northwest 

England. 



But environmental groups opposing the project said the assessment, 

commissioned by the government, confirmed the plant would lose 

hundreds of million of pounds. 



The study, by consultants Arther D Little (ADL), said the Sellafield 

mixed oxide plant (SMP), which has lain idle since its completion in 

1997 awaiting approval to start up, would deliver net financial 

benefits of 216 million pounds. 



ADL said the cost of not bringing the plant into operation could run 

into hundreds of million of pounds, largely due to potential loss of 

future contracts for THORP, BNFL's nuclear reprocessing plant at 

Sellafield. 



The SMP is designed to use the plutonium extracted by THORP to make 

MOX fuel, a combination of plutonium and uranium oxides. 



"This clear, independent evidence supports what we have been saying 

for some time, that SMP has a strong economic justification..." said 

BNFL in a statement. 



Environmental group Friends of the Earth (FOW) said the study showed 

SMP would lose around 260 million pounds after taking into account 

the 460-million pound cost of building the plant. 



"Today's report confirms the plutonium plant will lose hundreds of 

millions of pounds," said FOW campaigner Mark Johnston in a 

statement. 



"We consider it would be unlawful for the government to give the 

plant the go-ahead and it was a scandal it was ever built in the 

first place," he said. 



ADL's evaluation of net benefits from SMP did not include 

construction costs and the government said on Friday it had not yet 

decided whether or not to include the costs in its final assessment 

of SMP's viability. 



FOW in May took the government to court arguing it was acting 

unlawfully in not allowing the plant's construction costs to be taken 

into account in economic assessments. 



The government invited comments on the ADL report by August 24. 

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



France says nuclear shipments from Germany safe

  

PARIS, July 27 (Reuters) - French state railways SNCF said on Friday 

that trains delivering nuclear waste from Germany were safe after a 

railway workers' union published a letter in which the French asked 

the shippers about security guarantees. 



An SNCF spokesman, contacted after the Sud Rail union published the 

letter dated July 19, said the railway had been assured the 

controversial shipments were safe. 



Germany resumed shipping nuclear waste to France's La Hague 

reprocessing plant early this year after a two-year break sparked off 

by concerns about safety during the transport. 



The shipments, which are due to continue until 2005, regularly bring 

out anti-nuclear protesters along the tracks on either side of the 

French-German border. 



Declaring the shipments safe, the SNCF spokesman said the railway had 

been reassured of the precautions taken before the trains carrying 

the waste leave Germany. 



"France and Germany follow the same international norms," he said. 



In the letter released to the media on Friday by Sud Rail, which had 

obtained a copy of the correspondence, the SNCF asked the French 

shipper Transnucleaire to assure them that proper precautions were 

being taken in Germany. 



"Please provide a written response as soon as possible so we can 

respond to concerns raised by trade unions," said the letter, which 

SNCF did not contest. 



Until now, SNCF had always publicly stated safety measures for the 

shipments were sufficient. 



"This episode shows once again how much transparency is lacking in 

the traffic in nuclear material," Sud Rail said in a statement. 



The latest shipment, which was the third since the nuclear waste 

transport resumed, reached La Hague in northern France several hours 

late after several protests along its route slowed the train down. 

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



3 municipalities eager to host int'l experimental reactor



TOKYO, July 27 (Kyodo) - Three Japanese municipalities applied Friday 

to host an experimental nuclear fusion reactor being developed 

jointly by Japan, Europe and Russia, government officials said 

Friday. 



The Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry plans 

to decide by the end of August which of the three -- Tomakomai in 

Hokkaido, Rokkasho in Aomori Prefecture or Naka in Ibaraki Prefecture 

-- is best for an international thermonuclear experimental reactor 

(ITER). 



The Council for Science and Technology Policy, headed by Prime 

Minister Junichiro Koizumi, will decide whether the Japanese 

government will file the candidacy on behalf of the municipality 

selected. Intergovernmental talks on the location are expected to 

begin early October in Canada. 



Vice governors of the three prefectures filed their candidacies with 

the ministry as the ministry stopped taking applications Friday. 



The ITER is designed to use nuclear fusion to make electricity, in a 

way similar to how the sun creates its energy. 

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



Congo Nurses an Old Nuclear Reactor



KINSHASA, Congo (AP) - A hand-held Geiger counter tapped out a steady 

beat as Patrick Kanyinda - looking decidedly uneasy about having a 

visitor in his small, windowless workroom - stood at the edge of a 

circular pool and pointed into the water. 



Above him, fluorescent lights buzzed and flickered, casting a faded 

light onto moldy walls. Below, submerged in the brackish water, 

beneath a padlocked metal grate and splotches of floating scum, about 

two dozen metal rods were lined up in neat rows. 



``It's safe,'' insisted Kanyinda, chief technician in this all-but-

forgotten facility on the fringes of the University of Kinshasa. 



The water, he explains, cools the rods; heavy locks keep burglars at 

bay; armed guards keep watch outside, just in case. 



He paused, then added: ``But I wouldn't suggest staying here long.'' 



Few would disagree. 



The rods, about 2 feet long and triangular, hold one of the most 

dangerous substances on the planet: uranium. 



In a crumbling concrete building on the edge of one of the world's 

most dysfunctional cities, in a program that traces its roots to a 

Belgian priest and America's Cold War ``Atoms for Peace'' program, a 

few Congolese scientists nurse along Africa's oldest nuclear reactor. 





In Congo - a nation savaged by decades of inept, deeply corrupt rule, 

poverty and a long stream of wars - the reactor is a point of pride, 

proof that, for all its problems, this Central African nation can 

also harness the atom. 



But elsewhere, the reactor is a concern. The reasons are evident. 



The reactor sits on an erosion-prone hill, the electricity gives out 

regularly and the decades-old control panel looks as if it was stolen 

from the set of a 1950s Buck Rogers movie. Gardens are sprouting out 

back, right next to a garbage pit. 



The front entrance is marked only by a poster taped to the door 

advising: ``How to Recognize and Quickly Treat Accidental Radioactive 

Burns.'' 



And all this is in Kinshasa, a city famed for its sprawling slums, 

car-swallowing potholes and paucity of regular services, from fire 

departments to telephone wiring. The past decade has seen the city 

engulfed twice by military pillaging. 



The facility's budget is confidential, but cannot be very large. The 

Congolese government is broke and ensnared, yet again, in war. 



The reactor is small, capable of producing less than 1 percent of the 

energy of a nuclear power plant, and the uranium is not believed to 

be sufficiently refined for weapons manufacturing. But an accident 

could spray radioactivity across a good part of the university, or 

poison the water supply for much of the city. 



The International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. organization that 

monitors nuclear facilities, won't discuss specifics, but makes clear 

the Kinshasa facility is in trouble. 



``It's in poor condition because of the economic conditions down 

there,'' said David Kyd, spokesman for the Vienna, Austria-based 

agency. ``It's not a high priority,'' for the Congolese government. 



American officials have repeatedly tried to get the fuel, both used 

and unused, shipped to the United States for storage. 



The scientists who run it, though, have no intention of stopping 

their work. They insist they are doing important peaceful research: 

creating nuclear isotopes and looking at atomic uses tied to 

agriculture and mining. 



``This isn't just prestige,'' grumbled Felix Malu wa Kalenga, who has 

headed the facility for decades. ``It's real work.'' 



But he and his staff seem to view that work with a surreal 

combination of hyperbole and despair. 



At one moment Malu celebrates Congo - incorrectly - as ``the very 

first to have a nuclear reactor,'' then switches to a grim lecture on 

the state of the facility's finances. 



``Our means are very precarious,'' he said. ``We don't have the means 

- zero!'' 



But later he concludes: ``We'll continue, despite the problems.'' 



The program took root in the late 1950s when Congo was a Belgian 

colony. Monsignor Luc Gillon, a Belgian priest and nuclear physicist 

based in Congo, devoted much of his energy to bringing a reactor 

here, according to Malu, his protege. 



He succeeded just before Congo's 1960 independence. TRIGA-Mark I was 

built in 1959, but is now used to store the spent fuel. TRIGA-Mark II 

has been operational, on and off, since 1972. 



While stories differ on the facility's history, both the reactors and 

the fuel apparently came from the United States, compliments of 

President Eisenhower's ``Atoms for Peace'' plan. That program traded 

U.S. help for peaceful atomic research for agreements not to develop 

nuclear weapons. 



Although Congo's soil holds enormous uranium reserves, the country 

turned to the United States for the fuel in refined form. 



These days, though, America wants the uranium back, and U.S. 

Department of Energy officials have been negotiating with the 

Congolese government for permission to remove the nuclear fuel. 



The Congolese, though, have little interest in turning it over. 



Fortunat Lumu, a nuclear chemist, hints that America might get back 

some of the fuel as long as it buys Congo another reactor. 



If not, Lumu said there's enough fuel for another 10 to 15 years of 

Congolese atom-splitting. 



``They can't take it,'' he said. ``It would be a loss for the country 

... This program is known all over the world.'' 



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

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://www.geocities.com/scperle

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



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