Hanford Thyroid Risk Study Released

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

Index:



Hanford Thyroid Risk Study Released

Coleman Urges Wellstone to Give Nuclear Waste Permanent Home

Nuclear Waste Shipping Poses Problem

Japan's nuclear fuel shipment timed to World Cup: Greenpeace

IAEA warns against "regionalising" nuclear safety

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



Hanford Thyroid Risk Study Released



RICHLAND, Wash. (AP) - People exposed decades ago to radioactive 

iodine releases from the Hanford nuclear reservation seem no more 

likely to suffer from thyroid diseases than people elsewhere, 

according to a federal study released Friday.

 

The 13-year study looked at 3,440 people born in seven eastern 

Washington counties downwind of Hanford who were young children 

during the releases of iodine-131. Nineteen had thyroid cancer, 

consistent with the rates of the disease elsewhere in the United 

States.

 

``We did not find an increased risk of thyroid disease in study 

participants,'' said epidemiologist Paul Garbe, the Centers for 

Disease Control and Prevention's scientific adviser for the study. 

``If there is an increased risk, it is probably too small to 

detect.''

 

The CDC and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle 

conducted the study, which was ordered by Congress in 1988. Two years 

earlier, the Department of Energy made public a number of secret 

documents showing large amounts of radioactive iodine had been 

released into the atmosphere from Hanford.

 

Thyroid diseases, including cancerous tumors, were of particular 

concern because iodine concentrates in the gland at the base of the 

neck.

 

About 100 people showed up to hear a presentation on the report, 

including some plaintiffs, called ``downwinders,'' in a lawsuit over 

health effects of radioactive releases from the site.

 

``I have no trust in the CDC and I have no trust in the Fred Hutch 

group,'' said Trisha Pritikin, 51, who now lives in Berkeley, Calif.

 

She has thyroid disease as did her mother, and her father died of 

thyroid cancer, she said.

 

Between 1944 and 1957, iodine-131 was carried by the wind to 

surrounding areas and deposited on vegetation eaten by milk cows and 

goats. Drinking contaminated milk was the source of exposure for most 

people. Eating contaminated fruits and vegetables and breathing 

contaminated air were also sources of exposure.

 

Among the study's findings was that people with higher doses of 

radiation had about the same amount of thyroid disease as people with 

lower doses.

 

Garbe said the study does not prove radiation releases from Hanford 

had no effect on health, nor could the study determine the cause of a 

particular individual's disease.

 

A draft version of the report, released in 1999, drew some criticism 

from the National Academy of Sciences, which said it overstated its 

findings. Afterward, a number of calculations were changed, but the 

findings remain essentially unchanged, Garbe said.

 

``When you cut to the chase - the downwinders have no case. Period,'' 

said Gerry Woodcock, a member of the American Nuclear Society and a 

28-year employee at Hanford. ``The scientific community is obviously 

united in the finding of no causation.''

 

Hanford was created during World War II as part of the Manhattan 

Project to build the atomic bomb. It made plutonium for four decades, 

generating the nation's biggest volume of radioactive waste. Its 

primary mission now is cleaning up that waste.

 

On the Net:

 

CDC's National Center for Environmental Health: 

http://www.cdc.gov/nceh/radiation

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



Coleman Urges Wellstone to Give Nuclear Waste Permanent Home

 

RED WING, Minn., June 25 /PRNewswire/ -- Norm Coleman today stood up 

for Minnesota public safety, Minnesota jobs, and Minnesota 

electricity consumers and called on Senator Paul Wellstone to do the 

same.

 

"Senator Wellstone should vote to move nuclear waste out of Minnesota 

by supporting the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Repository legislation when 

it comes to the floor of the Senate this summer," said Coleman.  

"There is simply no good reason to keep nuclear waste in our 

backyard.  The federal government should make good on its promise to 

take possession of spent nuclear fuel."

 

The federal government has thoroughly studied the issue for 20 years 

at a cost of more than $7 billion.  Minnesota ratepayers alone have 

contributed $419 million.  The results are conclusive: moving nuclear 

waste out of local power plants like Prairie Island to a national 

repository in Yucca Mountain is the safest, most economically sound 

solution.

 

Should the Senate fail to approve transfers of spent nuclear fuel 

from Prairie Island to Yucca Mountain, Xcel Energy's Prairie Island 

plant faces a dilemma: either close its doors in 2007 or create more 

temporary nuclear waste facilities.

 

"Does Senator Wellstone want to play musical chairs across the state 

with nuclear waste, or ship it to a permanent home more than 1800 

miles away?" asked Coleman.

 

In a statement Tuesday morning, Minnesota Public Safety Commissioner 

Charlie Waver agreed with Coleman that moving nuclear waste to Yucca 

Mountain was a safe solution.

 

"Historically, hazardous material, including radioactive waste, has 

been transported on Minnesota road and rail for years without 

incident.  Safety concerns about the transportation of radioactive 

waste should not be an obstacle in the Yucca Mountain debate," Weaver 

said.

 

LeRoy Koppendrayer, a commissioner at the Minnesota Public Utilities 

Commission, joined Coleman in endorsing Yucca Mountain at a news 

conference in Saint Paul this morning.  Koppendrayer said moving 

nuclear waste is safe and a sensible policy.

 

"Since 1953, there have been more than 900 rail shipments of spent 

nuclear fuel in the United States without any environmental 

consequence whatsoever. It is far riskier to store waste at 131 

temporary sites in 39 states than to designate one secure permanent 

facility at Yucca Mountain, Nevada," Koppendrayer said.

 

The survival of the Plant in its current capacity is a major 

component to all the businesses up and down the river.

 

"Every step toward not approving removal of nuclear waste from the 

Prairie Island plant is a step toward reduced economic activity for 

Red Wing and the surrounding communities," said Rob Magnuson, owner 

of the Red Wing County Market, a Red Wing grocery store.  "We handle 

retail and commercial trade with the employees of the plant and with 

Xcel as a business customer.  It just makes more sense to have a 

permanent home for nuclear waste instead of shipping it to several 

temporary sites."

 

A vote against the Yucca Mountain repository is against health, 

safety, and jobs.  A vote against the Yucca Mountain repository is a 

vote for storing nuclear waste along the Mississippi River, 

potentially closing the Prairie Island plant, eliminating Minnesota 

jobs and against affordable, safe nuclear power.

 

"This isn't about politics," said Coleman.  "It's about what's best 

for our public safety and our state.  There should be only one 

address for nuclear waste and that's Yucca Mountain, Nevada, not 

Minnesota."

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



Nuclear Waste Shipping Poses Problem



WASHINGTON (AP) - Every year the Navy and a few utilities ship about 

60 loads of highly radioactive used reactor fuel from submarines and 

atomic power plants over short distances, usually by rail, without 

public notice or protest.

 

The national numbers will soar as shipments start moving by rail or 

truck through all but a handful of states if a nuclear waste dump is 

put 90 miles from Las Vegas, as President Bush hopes to do.

 

The Senate plans to decide soon whether to remove the last political 

hurdle to burying the waste in Nevada's Yucca Mountain, and opponents 

are using the transportation issue in an uphill effort to sway 

lawmakers to vote against the project.

 

The government has spent $7 billion over two decades studying Yucca 

Mountain as the preferred site for the proposed dump, but it has 

devoted only $200 million to figuring out how to get the wastes 

there.

 

``They're trying to downplay transportation because they know once 

the American people realize their homes lie on these transportation 

routes they'll be outraged,'' said Kevin Kamps, an anti-nuclear 

activist.

 

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham has asserted repeatedly that the 

wastes - mostly used reactor fuel - can be shipped safely to Nevada. 

Once there, he has argued, the material will be more secure than at 

dozens of reactor sites in 31 states where it is being stored now.

 

The Energy Department, however, is at least a year away from 

providing any detailed plan on how waste shipments will get to 

Nevada, or how cities and towns along the route might be affected.

 

Also undecided are whether the shipments would be mainly by rail or 

by truck and the design of shipping containers. Railroads have 

suggested that if they are to be the primary carrier, special trains 

should be devoted to the shipments. The government hasn't made a 

decision on that either.

 

The leading Senate opponent of the project, Democratic Whip Harry 

Reid of Nevada, says the Bush administration ``has refused to focus'' 

on the danger posed by hundreds or thousands of waste shipments, most 

of them from the eastern third of the nation.

 

A preliminary Energy Department estimate predicts 10,600 shipments to 

Yucca Mountain over 24 years - beginning in 2010 when the facility 

would open - if most of the waste was moved by train.

 

If trucks are the primary transport, there would be more than 53,000 

shipments. On any given day, several dozen trucks would be on a 

highway somewhere in the country. In all, the waste site would hold 

77,000 tons with 3,000 tons going there each year on average.

 

Abraham recently told senators that as few as 175 shipments a year 

are likely. But that assumes virtually all-long distance shipments 

going by dedicated trains, each carrying two to four railcars full of 

waste and no other cargo.

 

Bob Halstead, a transportation consultant hired by Nevada, calls such 

a scenario unrealistic, saying it would require building a 100-mile 

rail line to Yucca Mountain as well as other rail lines from barge or 

truck connections to at least two dozen reactor sites in the East. 

Shipping costs also would soar, he maintains.

 

Energy Department officials concede that transporting the wastes has 

not been a priority.

 

``We are ramping up very quickly on the transportation program,'' 

Margaret Chu, head of the DOE office that oversees the Yucca project, 

recently told a panel of scientists. Added Energy Undersecretary 

Robert Card: ``We feel quite confident that we can arrive at a 

successful transportation plan.''

 

Department officials and the nuclear industry argue it's only logical 

that a detailed transportation plan await a decision on the site 

itself. Others contend the public and lawmakers ought to know details 

of where wastes will travel and how the shipments will be protected 

before they agree to the Nevada dump.

 

``They're trying to slip this through before (the transportation 

questions) are focused on by the American people,'' says Jim Hall, 

former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board and now a 

consultant for the state of Nevada.

 

If the Senate affirms overriding Nevada's objections and letting the 

administration proceed with the project, ``the momentum of the 

decision will sweep everything else aside,'' Hall said.

 

Supporters of the Nevada project say critics are ignoring the 

protection afforded such shipments and the fact that wastes have been 

shipped for years without a release of radiation.

 

``It all boils down to the waste canisters,'' says Scott Peters, a 

spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's trade 

group. The cylinders - with 15-inch thick triple-layer walls of steel 

and lead - are designed to withstand severe accidents. Tests have 

shown them to stand up to impacts equal to a 120-mph collision, 

puncture tests and exposure to a 1,475 degree Fahrenheit fire.

 

Still, the September terrorist attacks brought a new dimension to the 

issue and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is re-examining 

the vulnerability of waste shipments to potential terrorist attacks.

 

Tests by the government's Sandia National Laboratory have concluded 

that waste containers could be penetrated by a missile or 

other high energy weapon. Nevada officials say the radiation released 

from such an attack would produce cancers in 48 people at 

some point in their lives and billions of dollars in economic and 

cleanup costs.

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



Japan's nuclear fuel shipment timed to World Cup: Greenpeace



TOKYO, June 25 (Kyodo) - By: Takuya Karube The international 

environmental group Greenpeace suggested Tuesday it is not a 

coincidence that a load of plutonium-uranium mixed oxide (MOX) fuel 

is about to be shipped from Japan to Britain at the same time 

as public and media attention is focused almost exclusively on the 

World Cup soccer finals being co-hosted by Japan and South 

Korea.

 

''I don't think it's an accident that this is happening at this 

particular moment,'' said Shaun Burnie, a Japan specialist at 

Greenpeace 

International Nuclear Campaigns.

 

''Industry in Japan want to get rid of this as soon as possible but I 

think more importantly they don't want much attention focused on 

the shipment,'' Burnie told the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan 

in Tokyo.

 

Burnie said the move was not for security reasons but rather aimed at 

paving the way for the resumption of Japan's stalled so-called 

''pluthermal'' -- plutonium thermal -- energy project.

 

The project, in which MOX fuel is used in light-water reactors, is 

the core of Japan's nuclear fuel recycling programs.

 

The Japanese government aims to have the pluthermal project launched 

at 16-18 reactors by 2010, but plans have so far been foiled 

by opposition from local residents in areas where the reactors are 

located.

 

The controversial loading of the MOX fuel began at a Japanese port on 

Friday. The fuel was stored at Kansai Electric Power Co.'s 

nuclear plant in Takahama, Fukui Prefecture on the Sea of Japan 

coast.

 

The fuel is being returned to Britain under a July 2000 agreement 

between the Japanese and British governments stipulating British 

Nuclear Fuels PLC (BNFL) would ship the fuel back at its own expense 

after it was learned the company falsified manufacturing data 

for MOX fuel shipped to Kansai Electric in 1999.

 

The revelation and ensuing scandal led Japan to indefinitely postpone 

its plans to introduce MOX fuel and greatly increased public 

opposition to the pluthermal plan.

 

''The Japanese stockpile of weapons-usable plutonium is to exceed 110 

tons by the year 2020,'' said group members, adding the 

amount will accumulate even if the country resolves the problems 

plaguing its stalled MOX fuel program.

 

The group also claims the shipment of plutonium poses not only an 

environmental hazard to Japan and the countries along the route 

of the transport but could also fuel plutonium proliferation in the 

Asia-Pacific region.

 

With regard to recent remarks by Japanese lawmakers hinting Japan 

might reconsider its nonnuclear stance, Burnie said, ''(People 

in the international community) have the increasing sense that Japan 

is moving towards nuclear weapons not just capability but 

actual deployment.''

 

He called on Japan to capitalize on its nonnuclear stance to lead 

international efforts to immobilize existing stocks of plutonium and 

declare it nuclear waste.

 

Greepeace said it expects two ships will be used to transport the MOX 

fuel stored at the plant to BNFL, and that the vessels could 

depart as early as the beginning of July. It will be the first sea 

transport of plutonium since Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

 

Energy-starved Japan relies on nuclear power for about a third of its 

electricity demand.

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



IAEA warns against "regionalising" nuclear safety



HELSINKI, June 25 (Reuters) - The head of the International Atomic 

Energy Agency (IAEA) said on Tuesday that the European 

Commission should steer clear of devising its own standards for 

nuclear safety, a global rather than a regional concern.

 

This past spring, the European Union's top energy official said she 

would propose Europe-wide safety standards for nuclear plants, 

though up until now energy policy has remained in the hands of the EU 

member states.

 

IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said that the European 

Commission lacked the expertise needed to develop nuclear 

safety standards and that it would make no sense for Brussels to 

duplicate the efforts of the Vienna-based IAEA.

 

"Regionalising safety standards is not the solution because...having 

one region with safety standards higher than others does not 

provide the global confidence that we require," ElBaradei told a news 

conference in the Finnish capital.

 

"As the proverbial saying goes, an accident anywhere is an accident 

everywhere, so you are not really protecting yourself in Europe 

by having the best safety system if safety outside of Europe is not 

as its best," he said.

 

ElBaradei said that instead the IAEA advocates a global and uniform 

safety regime that would ensure that countries have adequate 

resources to meet standards.

 

He said the 1986 Chernobyl accident showed it is impossible for 

nations to isolate themselves behind a wall of high safety standards, 

and should work to improve global safety norms.

 

The EU has pressured candidate countries to shut Soviet-designed 

atomic plants or bring safety up to Western norms as a condition for 

entry into the 15-member bloc.



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

Sandy Perle

Director, Technical

ICN Worldwide Dosimetry Service

ICN Plaza, 3300 Hyland Avenue

Costa Mesa, CA 92626



Tel:(714) 545-0100 / (800) 548-5100  Extension 2306

Fax:(714) 668-3149



E-Mail: sandyfl@earthlink.net

E-Mail: sperle@icnpharm.com



Personal Website: http://sandy-travels.com

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



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