[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Beta 3 Saved!



I'm very pleased that DOE has reversed its decision to permanently

disable the Beta 3 caultron racetrack.  Many thanks to Rep. Zach Wamp

(R-TN) for his intervention in this unwise decision.  Thanks also to

Cathey Daniels, DOE-beat reporter for the Oak Ridger, who has reported

on the issue a number of times, illustrating the importance that the Oak

Ridge community places on preserving this facility.  Her work certainly

reflects a balanced and professional approach towards nuclear issues.



As noted below in the body of the article, I will attend next week's ANS

meeting in Washington, DC.  Who am I likely to run into out there?  I'm

hoping to put some faces with the message-senders on RadSafe.



--Susan Gawarecki



Beta 3 off the chopping block 

R. Cathey Daniels, Oak Ridger staff 

November 13, 2002



A decision has been reversed that would have disabled one of only two

facilities in the world capable of providing approximately 110 stable

isotopes that can't be produced by any other enrichment technique.



The Beta 3 calutrons, located at the Y-12 National Security Complex and

operated by Oak Ridge National Laboratory, had been scheduled for

drainage earlier this fall.



That action would have permanently disabled the facility. A local

lobbying campaign evidently was successful in halting the procedure.



Susan Gawarecki, executive director of the Oak Ridge Reservation Local

Oversight Committee, fired off a June 27 letter to U.S. Sen. Bill Frist,

R-Tenn., calling the facility important to national security needs.



"This facility is not very costly to maintain and operate, compared to

the cost of restoring its function," wrote Gawarecki. "A reasonable

solution to this problem would be to allow the National Nuclear Security

Administration to take over ownership of the building and facility and

continue to allow ORNL to operate it. This would preserve the technical

capabilities of the process without damaging the facility's historical

integrity."



Local workers at Y-12 and ORNL, as well as the Friends of the ORNL

organization, put pressure on the office of U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, R-3rd

District, according to chief of staff Helen Hardin, who toured the

facility earlier this fall.



"Afterward we asked DOE to stop any efforts to disable the calutrons,"

said Hardin this morning in a phone interview from Washington.



"It's such a historic facility, and just having it on standby will keep

the Russians from having this monopoly of the production of these

important isotopes," said Hardin.



The only other facility with such capabilities is in Sverdlovsk, Russia.



Wamp wrote in an Oct. 31 e-mail to a constituent:



"After learning of the Department of Energy's (DOE) plans to drain the

oil from the calutrons and decommission this important and historic

facility, I asked my staff to contact DOE and intervene in this unwise

decision.



"DOE has reversed its stance and now has dropped plans to drain the

calutrons. The facility will remain in cold standby in case it is

needed."



In the midst of the lobbying, Gawarecki nominated the facility for the

American Nuclear Society's 2002 Nuclear Historic Landmark Award.



That designation was approved, and a ceremony will be held later this

year at the facility. Gawarecki is attending an award ceremony next week

in Washington, D.C.



The award designates sites where "outstanding physical accomplishments

took place which were instrumental in the advancement and implementation

of nuclear technology and the peaceful uses of nuclear energy,"

according to a press release from the American Nuclear Society.



The activity must have successfully provided an "essential contribution"

to subsequent peaceful application of nuclear technology or energy and

been "a first of a kind, or provided a significant new departure,"

according to the release.



The facility produces isotopes used in many cancer and medical studies,

including prostate, bone and soft-tumor cancers as well as cardiac

imaging, coronary restenosis and Hodgkin's disease. Other stable

isotopes produced include those used for electronics and explosive

detection and atomic clocks for geo-positioning and cellular phone

systems.



R. Cathey Daniels can be contacted at (865) 220-5515 or

danielsrcd@oakridger.com.

-- 

.....................................................

Susan L. Gawarecki, Ph.D., Executive Director

Oak Ridge Reservation Local Oversight Committee

102 Robertsville Road, Suite B, Oak Ridge, TN 37830

Toll free 888-770-3073 ~ www.local-oversight.org

.....................................................

************************************************************************

You are currently subscribed to the Radsafe mailing list. To unsubscribe,

send an e-mail to Majordomo@list.vanderbilt.edu  Put the text "unsubscribe

radsafe" (no quote marks) in the body of the e-mail, with no subject line.

You can view the Radsafe archives at http://www.vanderbilt.edu/radsafe/