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Nuclear Waste Could Be Moved Across Bay (South Florida)



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Nuclear Waste Could Be Moved Across Bay

Framatome ANP Awarded Project at Palo Verde Station

Wen Ho Lee Still Hasn't Found Job

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



Nuclear Waste Could Be Moved Across Bay



Miami Aug 7 (WPLG TV) Channel 10 News has learned that tons of 

radioactive nuclear waste could be sailing across one of South 

Florida's greatest natural resources. 



Turkey Point Nuclear Power Plant has been accumulating waste for some 

time now. Government officials say that they want to move the waste 

by barge to a nuclear facility in Nevada. 



Moving the waste would mean a trip across Biscayne National Park, a 

one-of-a-kind underwater wildlife sanctuary. Environmentalists say 

that they fear a nuclear accident, or even worse, that an act of 

terrorism could destroy the park's beauty. 



John Coequyt of the Environmental Working Group said, "We know for 

sure if a Stinger missile, for example is shot at them, it's likely 

to go through it, although we are not entirely sure how that will be 

with the final cask." 



The final decision on how the spent fuel will be moved is still a 

ways off. But the first shipments to Yucca Mountain are expected to 

begin in five years. 

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



Framatome ANP Awarded Project at Palo Verde Station



LYNCHBURG, Va., Aug. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- Framatome ANP Inc. has been 

awarded a contract by the owners of Palo Verde Nuclear Generating 

Station to chemically clean the station's Unit 1 and Unit 3 steam 

generators. Preparatory work is underway for the Unit 1 cleaning 

process, which will be performed in September. Site set-up for the 

spring 2003 cleaning project will begin in November 2002.



Framatome ANP will utilize its High Temperature Chemical Cleaning 

(HTCC) process for both units, a process not previously performed by 

any other nuclear power service provider. As the reactors are shut 

down, plant heat will be utilized to heat the solvents as high as 290 

degrees Fahrenheit to conduct the cleaning process.  According to 

Framatome ANP engineers, the HTCC process, while not new, has become 

more attractive to nuclear plant operators because of the critical 

need to minimize outage times.



"The higher temperature allows for quicker setup and potentially 

considerably less critical path time.  We utilized this procedure on 

two units in 1995 and it was very successful," said Dr. John F. 

Remark, Framatome ANP manager of chemical application engineering and 

task leader for the Palo Verde project.  "Our HTCC team will be the 

first team in and the cleaning of the steam generators will be the 

first major task accomplished during the outage." Dr. Remark said he 

anticipates the HTCC team will remove approximately 3,700 pounds of 

deposits from each of the generators.



More than 25 truckloads of equipment are being sent to the Palo Verde 

site during July and August, and much of that equipment is being 

assembled on-site prior to the outage.  Dr. Remark said more than 60 

Framatome ANP engineers and scientists are involved in the project, 

performing on site work, coordinating efforts and conducting backup 

support at Framatome ANP Inc.'s headquarters in Lynchburg, VA.



Palo Verde has three identical nuclear units that generated a 

combined 28.8 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity in 2001, more 

than any other power producer in the United States.



Palo Verde is jointly owned by the Arizona Public Service Company 

(APS), as well as Salt River Project, Southern California Edison Co., 

El Paso Electric, Public Service Co. of New Mexico, Southern 

California Public Power Authority and the Los Angeles Department of 

Power & Water.



APS, which operates Palo Verde on behalf of the station's six other 

owners, is Arizona's largest and longest-serving electric utility and 

serves more than 857,000 customers.  APS is headquartered in Phoenix 

and is the largest subsidiary of Pinnacle West Capital Corporation 

(NYSE:PNW).

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



Wen Ho Lee Still Hasn't Found Job



LOS ALAMOS, N.M. Aug 9 (AP) - Former government researcher Wen Ho Lee 

says he hasn't found a job since he was fired and prosecuted for 

making copies of sensitive nuclear weapons data.



``I have tried to get a job in both the university and industry 

setting, but so far I have not been able to locate a job,'' Lee said 

in an interview in the July issue of the American Physical Society 

News.



``I am currently doing my own research on semiconductor design. I 

hope that someday I can make a contribution to the electronics 

industry.''



Lee, responding to written questions submitted by the online 

publication through an intermediary, said foreign-born scientists 

face 

difficulties getting jobs requiring security clearance.



``I feel that racial profiling may be a very complicated and long-

standing problem,'' he said. ``It will take a long time even to make 

tiny 

progress.''



The Lee investigation caused nearly two years of controversy over the 

alleged loss of nuclear secrets to China and lax security at the 

Energy Department's nuclear weapons laboratories.



Lee, who has been a U.S. citizen since 1974 and spent 20 years doing 

top-secret work at Los Alamos National Laboratory, was 

held in solitary confinement for nine months, though never charged 

with spying. He pleaded guilty in September 2000 to a single 

count of downloading sensitive data to unsecured computer tape and 

was sentenced to time served.



Lee has said he made tape copies of codes to protect his access to 

his work after a computer malfunction destroyed or damaged 

several files.



``I used the best technique that I knew to protect my files,'' Lee 

told the science publication. He said the worst punishment he had 

ever heard of for such violations was barring an employee from work 

requiring a security clearance.



Lee has an unlisted number and could not be reached for further 

comment. Phyllis Hedges, a Los Alamos attorney and Lee family friend, 

said Friday that he still has had no luck in finding a job in the 

weeks since he made his comments to the publication.



On the Net:



Lee interview: http://www.aps.org/apsnews/0702/070204.html

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

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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