Court to Hear Nevada Nuclear Waste Case

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

Index:



Court to Hear Nevada Nuclear Waste Case

Yucca Mountain Workers Sought for Screening

Arrest Ties Pakistan to Nuke Black Market

IAEA Says Iraq Likely Source of Material

N. Korea nuclear reactor in operation, U.S. expert says

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



Court to Hear Nevada Nuclear Waste Case



WASHINGTON (Jan. 14)- Having lost the political fight, Nevada's 

lonely struggle against becoming the repository for thousands of tons 

of nuclear waste is moving to the federal courts.



Three hours of oral arguments were scheduled by an appeals court 

Wednesday over whether Congress and the Bush administration acted 

within the law when they decided the nation's nuclear waste will be 

buried beneath a ridge of volcanic rock in the Nevada desert.



The three-judge panel is expected to decide the matter as early as 

this summer. Even then, the decision likely will be appealed by the 

losing side.



Nevada's legal team is pinning its case on two central themes: That 

singling out the state violated its rights under the U.S. 

Constitution and that the Energy Department illegally abandoned a 

requirement that the site's geology must be shown to contain the 

waste for more than 10,000 years without relying on engineered 

barriers.



The court "is the state's best chance" to prevail, says Bob Loux, who 

heads Nevada's Yucca Mountain project office and has advised a 

succession of Nevada governors on the issue over the years.



The court has consolidated 13 separate lawsuits, including nine filed 

by the state or other Nevada jurisdictions. It also has scheduled 

arguments on issues from the adequacy of federal radiation standards 

to the constitutional issues surrounding the decision to push the 

waste site on a small, politically vulnerable state.



"This is the first time that any court in this country is really 

going to look at the fundamental legal merits of this project," said 

Joe Egan, the lead attorney for Nevada.



Energy Department spokesman Joe Davis said the legal fight will not 

interrupt the department's plans to continue developing a detailed 

application for construction and operating permits with the Nuclear 

Regulatory Commission.



The Yucca mountain facility is one day supposed to hold 77,000 tons 

of highly radioactive spent fuel now accumulating at commercial power 

plants across the country. It is expected to cost $58 billion, and - 

if the government prevails - it will be open for initial shipments in 

2010.



Located 90 miles northwest of Law Vegas on the edge of the federal 

nuclear bomb test site, it has been the focus of debate for years, 

ever since Congress in 1982 ordered a central repository for nuclear 

waste be built. The first test holes were dug at Yucca four years 

before that.



In 1987, with politicians nervous about the prospect of a nuclear 

waste site in their state, Congress declared Yucca Mountain would be 

the only site studied further.



Last year, President Bush declared that Yucca Mountain was a suitable 

site. An attempt by Nevada to short circuit the decision was turned 

back by Congress, which reaffirmed Bush's decision five months later.



It's been estimated that Nevada has spent more than $100 million 

fighting the project.



The state's lawyers plan to argue that under the Constitution, 49 

states can't "gang up" on a single state and impose such a 

potentially devastating environmental burden.



They also plan to argue that Congress required that a site could not 

be declared suitable unless its geology will assure the radioactivity 

will be contained. Instead, Nevada argues in court briefs, the Energy 

Department shifted gears and is now heavily relying on questionable 

engineered barriers.



The state and a lawyer for several environmental groups planned to 

challenge an EPA standard that establishes allowable radioactive 

releases from the future site.



While the nuclear industry strongly supports the government's case 

and agrees to the EPA radiation limits, it will argue that a separate 

EPA contamination standard for groundwater is overly restrictive.



On the Net:



Yucca Mountain project: http://www.ymp.gov



Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management: 

http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov



Nevada Office of Nuclear Projects: http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste



Nuclear Energy Institute: www.nei.org



Nuclear Regulatory Commission: www.nrc.gov

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



Yucca Mountain Workers Sought for Screening



LAS VEGAS (Jan. 16) - A lung disease screening program has begun for 

current and former workers who may have inhaled airborne silica at a 

federal nuclear waste depository in the Nevada desert.



Two hundred letters have been mailed, and more will be sent soon to 

an estimated 1,200 to 1,500 current and former Yucca Mountain site 

workers who are eligible to take part in the free silicosis screening 

program, said program manager Gene Runkle.



Two current workers are being treated for silicosis, Runkle said, 

although he said it was not clear if they contracted the disease 

working at Yucca Mountain.



Project managers did not know where most former workers were. Most 

were involved in tunneling and underground operations or in setting 

up exploratory experiments underground beginning in 1992.



Any worker who spends or spent 20 days a year working in the tunnels 

is eligible, Runkle said.



The Energy Department was providing names of former workers to the 

University of Cincinnati, which was handling silicosis screening and 

research. The university was also working with The Center to Protect 

Workers' Rights to contact trade unions and find former Yucca 

Mountain workers.



Most worked from 1992 to 1998, when tunnels were bored at the site, 

90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Workers were issued dust masks as 

protective equipment, but Runkle said that from 1992 to 1996 the 

masks were not used consistently.



Silica exists naturally in desert soils and in the rocks at Yucca 

Mountain. It can become airborne during tunneling, and inhaled silica 

can collect in the respiratory system. With long-term exposure, it 

can cause silicosis, a chronic and progressive lung disease with 

symptoms including coughing and shortness of breath, the Energy 

Department said.

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



Arrest Ties Pakistan to Nuke Black Market



WASHINGTON (AP) - This month's arrest of a South Africa-based 

businessman accused of smuggling nuclear bomb triggers to Pakistan 

offers a rare window into the worldwide black market for nuclear 

weapons parts.



Authorities accuse Asher Karni, 50, of being the middleman for a 

complex series of transactions involving dozens of the triggers. 

Agents arrested Karni Jan. 2 at Denver International Airport.



Court documents say Karni used a series of front companies and 

misleading shipping documents to buy the devices from a Massachusetts 

company, have them sent through New Jersey to South Africa, then on 

to the United Arab Emirates and eventually to Pakistan. What Karni 

didn't know, a federal officer said in an affadavit, was that 

authorities had intervened and had the manufacturer sabotage the 

devices so they couldn't be used.



The case is the latest indication that Pakistan - a key U.S. ally in 

the war on terrorism - is deeply involved in the nuclear weapons 

black market. The United States for years has restricted exports of 

sensitive goods to Pakistan because of its nuclear weapons program.



If the devices were indeed headed for Pakistan's nuclear program, the 

most likely explanation would be that Pakistan was planning to build 

more nuclear bombs. That could complicate Pakistan's relations with 

its neighbor and nuclear rival India.



Officials from the United States and other governments say Pakistan 

also was the likely source for some of the know-how and equipment for 

nuclear weapons programs in Libya, North Korea and Iran. Secretary of 

State Colin Powell said this month that American officials have 

presented evidence to Pakistan's leaders of Pakistani involvement in 

the spread of nuclear weapons technology.



Pakistani officials say the government is not involved in any black-

market nuclear deals. But Pakistan has questioned three top nuclear 

scientists recently based on information from the International 

Atomic Energy Agency.



"We have investigated. We haven't come across any evidence" of 

proliferation, Ashraf Qazi, Pakistan's ambassador to Washington, said 

Wednesday.



The possible spread of nuclear technology from Pakistan is a greater 

worry than any attempts by Pakistan to clandestinely supply its own 

nuclear program, said Robert Einhorn, a former State Department arms 

control official under President Clinton.



"If we can do it, we should stop both, but clearly Pakistan's export 

of nuclear materials and technology is a lot worse," said Einhorn, 

now with the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and International 

Studies in Washington.



Court documents say Karni went to great lengths to conceal what he 

was shipping and where it was going.



Karni heads Top-Cape Technology in Cape Town, South Africa, which 

trades in military and aviation electronic gear. Karni used an 

elaborate scheme to try to circumvent U.S. export restrictions to 

Pakistan and ship the triggered spark gaps, Commerce Department 

Special Agent James Brigham charged in a federal court affidavit.



The devices can be used for breaking up kidney stones or triggering 

nuclear detonations. Anyone exporting such triggers from the United 

States to Pakistan must have a license from the U.S. government.



Brigham wrote that an anonymous source in South Africa tipped off 

U.S. authorities and provided information, including shipping details 

to allow tracking of the devices, plus copies of correspondence to 

and from Karni.



Karni's contact in Pakistan asked Karni to try to buy 100 to 400 of 

the triggers, Brigham alleged in his affidavit. Karni sought the 

devices from an American manufacturer, PerkinElmer Optoelectronics of 

Salem, Mass.



A PerkinElmer representative in France wrote to Karni last summer 

that exporting spark gaps to Pakistan would require a U.S. license, 

Brigham wrote. Karni then contacted a company in New Jersey, which 

ordered 200 of the devices from PerkinElmer, the agent wrote.



At federal agents' request, PerkinElmer disabled the 66 spark gaps in 

an initial shipment to the New Jersey company, Giza Technologies Inc. 

of Secaucus.



Giza, which has not been charged in the case, shipped the devices to 

South Africa, listing them on shipping documents as electrical 

equipment for a hospital in Soweto. Karni repackaged the triggers and 

sent them to Pakistan via Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, Brigham 

alleged.



A U.S. official in Dubai asked to inspect the package while it was in 

a warehouse there, but United Arab Emirates officials refused, 

Brigham wrote.



Spark gaps can be used in machines called lithotripters to break up 

kidney stones, but even the largest hospital would need only a half-

dozen or so, experts say. Large orders raise red flags with nuclear 

experts. And exporting spark gaps to Pakistan without a license is 

illegal even if the devices are for health care.



A PerkinElmer brochure notes they are useful "for in-flight functions 

such as rocket motor ignition, warhead detonation and missile stage 

separation." PerkinElmer's corporate predecessor, EG&G, similarly 

disabled a shipment of 40 similar devices called krytrons in the 

1980s during a sting operation against Iraq's nuclear program.



Karni's case is not the first involving Pakistani attempts to buy 

potential nuclear triggers. Pakistani citizen Nazir Vaid was 

convicted in the United States in 1985 for trying to buy 50 krytrons.



South African police searched Top-Cape's offices last month, and 

Karni acknowledged he had shipped the spark gaps to Pakistan, Brigham 

alleged in the affidavit.



Under U.S. law, prosecutors would have to prove only that Karni 

exported the devices without a license. They would not have to prove 

that he knew they would be used in a weapons program.



Federal prosecutors are appealing a ruling by a Denver federal 

magistrate that would set Karni free on $75,000 bond raised by 

supporters. Prosecutors argue that Karni, an Israeli citizen, should 

be jailed because he could flee to South Africa or Israel and avoid 

extradition to the United States.



Karni's Denver lawyer, Harvey Steinberg, did not return telephone 

messages. Giza's president and chief executive officer, Zeki Bilmen, 

declined comment.

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



IAEA Says Iraq Likely Source of Material



AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) - The U.S. nuclear watchdog confirmed 

Friday that Iraq was the likely source of radioactive material known 

as yellowcake that was found in a shipment of scrap metal at 

Rotterdam harbor.



Yellowcake, or uranium oxide, could be used to build a nuclear 

weapon, although it would take tons of the substance refined with 

sophisticated technology to harvest enough uranium for a single bomb.



A spokeswoman for the International Atomic Energy Agency said the 

Rotterdam specimen was scarcely refined at all from natural uranium 

ore and may have come from a known mine in Iraq that was active 

before the 1991 Gulf War.



"I wouldn't hype it too much," said spokeswoman Melissa Fleming. "It 

was a small amount and it wasn't being peddled as a sample."



The yellowcake was uncovered Dec. 16 by Rotterdam-based scrap metal 

company Jewometaal, which had received it in a shipment of scrap 

metal from a dealer in Jordan.



Company spokesman Paul de Bruin said the Jordanian dealer didn't know 

that the scrap metal contained any radioactive material. He said the 

dealer was confident the yellowcake, which was contained in a small 

steel industrial container, came from Iraq.



Jewometaal detected the radioactive material during a routine scan 

and called in the Dutch government, which in turn asked the IAEA to 

examine it.



Fleming said the agency will compare the chemical composition of the 

sample to other samples of ore taken from Iraq's al-Qaim mine, which 

was bombed in 1991 and dismantled in 1996-97.



She estimated that the Rotterdam sample contained around 5 1/2 pounds 

of uranium oxide.



President Bush came under heavy criticism last year when he asserted 

in his State of the Union address that Iraq was shopping in Africa 

for uranium yellowcake - intelligence that turned out to be based on 

forged documents.

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



N. Korea nuclear reactor in operation, U.S. expert says



WASHINGTON, Jan. 15 (Kyodo) - A recent private delegation of U.S. 

experts to North Korea confirmed that an experimental 5-megawatt 

graphite-moderated nuclear reactor at the Yongbyon nuclear complex is 

in operation, a delegation member said Thursday.  



The storage facility at the complex for spent fuel nuclear rods was 

empty and North Korea told the delegation that spent fuel rods were 

removed from the site for reprocessing, said Jack Pritchard, former 

U.S. State Department special envoy on negotiations with North Korea.



North Korea said it began reprocessing 8,000 spent fuel rods stored 

at the Yongbyon complex in mid-January last year and completed the 

work in June, according to Pritchard.



North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan, meanwhile, told the 

unofficial U.S. mission that it has no program to enrich uranium for 

nuclear arms, Pritchard said in a speech at the Brookings 

Institution.



Pritchard, a visiting fellow at the Washington-based think tank, was 

a member of the five-member delegation which visited North Korea last 

week. The U.S. team visited the Yongbyon nuclear complex, which is 

believed to be the core of the North's nuclear arms program.



The current North Korean nuclear crisis erupted in October 2002 when 

the United States said North Korea had admitted to running a covert 

program to enrich uranium for use in nuclear weapons in violation of 

a 1994 U.S.-North Korean nuclear pact.



North Korea then claimed it had restarted operations of nuclear 

facilities at the Yongbyon complex that were shut under the pact, 

declared its withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and 

expelled International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors who had been 

monitoring the spent fuel rods stored at the complex.



The operation of the graphite-moderated nuclear reactor means North 

Korea can generate fresh fuel rods laced with plutonium.



The four other members of the U.S. delegation were John Lewis, a 

Stanford University professor emeritus who headed the group, Sig 

Hecker, former director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and 

two Senate foreign aides -- Keith Luse, an aide to Sen. Richard Lugar 

and Frank Jannuzi, an aide to Sen. John Biden.



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

Sandy Perle

Vice President, Technical Operations

Global Dosimetry Solutions, Inc.

3300 Hyland Avenue

Costa Mesa, CA 92626



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

Fax:(714) 668-3149



E-Mail: sperle@globaldosimetry.com

E-Mail: sandyfl@earthlink.net



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

Global Dosimetry Website: http://www.globaldosimetry.com/



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