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Panel Studies Effects of Nuclear Tests
Index:
Panel Studies Effects of Nuclear Tests
US NRC Aims To Measure Nuclear Cos' Commitment To Safety
Minister orders Kansai Electric to shut down nuclear reactor
EU in push for support on nuclear fusion reactor
Compensation suit over JCO nuclear accident rejected
EPA Seeking New Yucca Radiation Standard
============================
Panel Studies Effects of Nuclear Tests
IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (Sept. 26) - Idaho residents who believe Cold War
nuclear testing harmed their health will testify before a National
Academy of Sciences panel to say they should be included in a federal
compensation program.
About 150 Idaho residents have written to the board to argue that
radioactive fallout from atmospheric testing in Nevada in the 1950s
and 1960s also affected Idaho.
The academy's Board on Radiation Effects Research scheduled the
hearing for Nov. 6. It already has held meetings in Utah and Arizona.
The board will release a report in March that will recommend whether
the government should expand the compensation program. Currently,
residents with certain kinds of cancers who lived in any of 21
counties in southern Utah, Nevada and Arizona during testing qualify
for a $50,000 payment under the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act.
"I'm very pleased that they've decided to hold a hearing in Idaho,"
said Preston Truman, a cancer survivor who has been fighting for more
than 30 years to get compensation for residents exposed to radiation
from the bomb tests.
Four Idaho counties - Blaine, Gem, Custer and Lemhi - received some
of the highest levels of iodine-131, one of the radioactive elements
released by the tests, according to a 1997 National Cancer Institute
study.
High levels of iodine-131 typically cause cancer by falling on grass,
which is eaten by cows and goats, which then produce radioactive
milk.
Residents in Gem County have begun sending a form letter to
officials, demanding compensation as part of a campaign being led by
Tona Henderson, a bakery owner whose extended family has had about 32
cases of cancer.
---------------------
US NRC Aims To Measure Nuclear Cos' Commitment To Safety
NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--Under pressure to improve its oversight
capabilities, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is developing
tools to help it measure whether reactor operators make safety their
top priority.
The commission also plans to provide more guidance to nuclear
companies on creating an environment in which employees feel free to
raise concerns about safety.
These moves come amid criticism that the NRC missed warning signs at
FirstEnergy Corp. (NYSE:FE)'s (FE) Davis-Besse nuclear reactor and
allowed corrosion to grow unchecked at the Ohio plant for years.
Plant operators discovered severe corrosion on the heavy reactor lid
in early 2002, triggering a lengthy and expensive outage and a
renewed focus on so-called safety culture.
The NRC's more proactive approach should help it detect problems
before they compromise plant safety, said David Lochbaum, a nuclear
safety engineer at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a Washington,
D.C.-based watchdog.
"The most encouraging thing to me was the commission recognizing the
status quo wasn't working well and needs to be fixed," he said. "It's
the right response."
In late August, the commission directed its staff to begin looking
specifically at companies' commitment to safety during regular
reviews of plant conditions and performance.
Plant inspectors, who will need additional training in this area,
should also examine the safety culture of plants that received poor
marks in more than one category of the agency's inspection scorecard,
the commission said.
The directives came three months after the General Accounting Office,
the investigative arm of Congress, issued a harsh report saying the
NRC miscalculated the risk of letting Davis-Besse continue to run
despite signs of a leak. The agency's oversight didn't generate
accurate information on plant conditions, the investigators said.
A few days later, Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, threatened to pass
legislation allowing plant inspectors to measure whether workers and
managers put safety first, if the NRC didn't develop its own
procedures.
Best Practices
The NRC doesn't have regulations related specifically to safety
culture, or the importance a company places on safety. The agency
issued a vague policy statement in 1989 that defined safety culture,
in part, as "the necessary full attention to safety matters."
The agency has a more defined policy on safety conscious work
environment, which refers to an environment in which employees feel
free to raise safety concerns without fear of retaliation. This falls
under the broader umbrella of safety culture.
The NRC, with input from the companies it regulates, has identified
"best practices" for encouraging a safety-focused work environment.
It's now aiming to develop specific recommendations for putting those
practices into effect.
For example, the NRC has said companies should train plant managers
on maintaining a workplace open to employees' concerns. The agency
should now fill in the details on exactly what to teach and how
often, said Lisamarie Jarriel, a senior adviser to the commission on
policy matters related to allegations and safety issues.
There's no deadline for making all this happen but staff is keen to
get started, she said.
In the meantime, the agency has taken some steps to emphasize the
importance of a strong safety culture.
It allowed Davis-Besse to restart in March on the condition that
FirstEnergy demonstrate its commitment to safety. It also required
the utility to hire outside specialists to review the plant's safety
plan annually for a number of years.
And in late August, the agency took the unusual step of boosting its
oversight at Public Service Enterprise Group Inc. (NYSE:PEG)'s (PEG)
Salem and Hope Creek reactors because it said the company emphasized
production over safety.
-------------------
Minister orders Kansai Electric to shut down nuclear reactor
FUKUI, Japan, Sept. 27 (Kyodo) - Economy, Trade and Industry Minister
Shoichi Nakagawa on Monday ordered Kansai Electric Power Co. to
suspend operation of the No. 3 reactor at its Mihama Nuclear Power
Plant in Fukui Prefecture until the reactor is confirmed to meet
government standards, following Japan's most deadly nuclear power
plant accident in August.
The move came after a ministry panel probing the accident released
its interim report Monday that blamed the Aug. 9 accident that killed
five workers and injured seven others at the Mihama plant on safety
control failures by Kansai Electric and others regarding a coolant
water pipe at the reactor.
The workers had been undertaking preparatory work for regular checks
of the reactor.
The minister also reprimanded Kansai Electric President Yosaku Fuji
for a series of indiscretions and requested that he take every
possible measure to prevent a similar incident.
Nakagawa harshly criticized the utility and indicated more penalties
to come.
"Kansai Electric's responsibility is grave," he told a news
conference. "I don't think the case will be closed with a reprimand
and a suspension order. This is simply an interim report, not a final
decision."
As nearly two months have passed since the accident, the concerned
authorities have finished part of their probe into the cause of the
incident, but the police are continuing a thorough investigation into
the errors that led up to the accident.
In the interim report, the panel said failure to check into corrosion
of pipes had triggered the accident, naming Kansai Electric, Nihon
Arm Co., Kansai Electric's affiliate overseeing maintenance of the
utility's power plants, and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd., which
manufactured the reactor, for blame.
The report urged the three to set up an integrated system to control
the pipes and to share information on safety controls with each other
as prevention measures.
The ministry also canceled its quality guarantee assessment for three
reactors. The three, all in Fukui, are the Mihama No. 1 reactor, the
No. 3 reactor at the Takahama Nuclear Power Plant and the No.2
reactor at the Oi Nuclear Power Plant.
"We take (the reprimand) seriously and will make every effort to
prevent a recurrence and restore credibility," Fuji told reporters
but denied that he was going to resign to take responsibility.
Meanwhile, investigative sources said Monday that police will raid a
Kansai Electric branch office in Fukui prefecture on Tuesday as part
of their investigation into the accident in August.
The raid, which is to look for evidence to back up the company's
alleged professional negligence resulting in death, is expected to
take two days, the sources said.
The Fukui prefectural police plan to examine documents to determine
company officials' responsibility for failing to check a coolant
water pipe at the Mihama Nuclear Power Plant for nearly 28 years
until it corroded and ruptured Aug. 9, blowing out superheated steam.
Kansai Electric is suspected of failing to conduct checks even after
Nihon Arm warned it last November that the pipe in question had been
overlooked during annual inspections.
In order to specify the exact date of when Nihon Arm had notified the
utility about the danger, the police will search Kansai Electric's
Wakasa branch office in Mihama, which oversees operations at the
company's 11 nuclear reactors in Fukui Prefecture.
The planned raid will follow one conducted earlier this month when
the police sent about 150 officers to search both companies' offices
inside the plant.
Kansai Electric earlier said it is ready to fully cooperate with the
investigation.
Investigations conducted after the accident have shown that coolant
water had corroded the ruptured pipe to a thickness of only 0.6
millimeter, compared with its original thickness of 10 mm.
The 826-megawatt, pressurized-water reactor is the newest of the
three reactors at the Mihama plant.
-----------------
EU in push for support on nuclear fusion reactor
BRUSSELS, Sept 25 (Reuters) - EU ministers have agreed to try to win
broad international support for a plan to build a futuristic nuclear
reactor in France, even though several EU countries appeared ready to
do it without the United States.
The European Union and five other partners want to build the first
International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor to obtain power
through nuclear fusion, a clean energy source.
But views are split on where the ITER reactor, estimated to cost
around $10 billion over 30 years, should be based.
While the EU, backed by China and Russia, wants ITER to be built in
the French city of Cadarache, the United States along with South
Korea have said they prefer Rokkasho, in Japan.
"The decision is to launch a major diplomatic effort to have all the
six countries join the project," a spokesman for the Dutch presidency
of the EU told Reuters on Friday.
Diplomats said the U.S. resistance seemed to be political rather than
based on scientific grounds, and that the upcoming U.S. presidential
elections complicated the discussion.
Meanwhile non-EU countries such as Brazil and Switzerland have
expressed interest in joining the project on the EU side.
EU ministers attending talks in Brussels asked the European
Commission to assess the financial implications of all possible
scenarios for ITER, including one without the United States.
The ministers are expected to take a decision on November 25 on which
path to take on ITER.
EU WANTS REACTOR AT HOME
What was clear, diplomats said, is that the EU will fight for the
reactor to be built in its own territory.
"All member states are in agreement on this subject," French research
minister Francois d'Aubert told reporters. He added that he expected
EU ministers to give the green light to the project at the end of
November, with or without Washington.
In a bid to end the current stalemate, France proposed doubling its
contribution for the 4.77 billion euros needed to build the reactor
in Cadarache. Paris is ready to pay 914 million euros or 20 percent
of the costs.
The EU will pay 40 percent of the costs, while China and Russia will
give a 10 percent contribution. The remaining 20 percent will come
from other participating parties.
EU diplomats said countries such as Italy and Spain were inclined to
support the French position. But Germany and the Netherlands, the
current EU president, were against.
-------------------
Compensation suit over JCO nuclear accident rejected
TOKYO, Sept. 27 (Kyodo) - The Tokyo District Court on Monday rejected
a claim by Ibaraki Kotsu Co. for 1.87 billion yen in compensation
from JCO Co. for the fall in the price of residential land developed
in Tokaimura, Ibaraki Prefecture, by the transport and real estate
company due to a fatal accident at JCO's nuclear fuel processing
plant five years ago.
"The JCO accident reconfirmed that it is dangerous to live side by
side with nuclear facilities, but a causal connection between the
accident and the fall in the land prices cannot be shown," Presiding
Judge Takahisa Fukuda said.
Ibaraki Kotsu started developing the 289,000 square meters of land
about 3 kilometers away from JCO, a subsidiary of Sumitomo Metal
Mining Co., in February 1998, according to the ruling.
"The land prices temporarily fell following the JCO accident, but the
accident's negative impact on the prices had almost vanished by the
time the land started to be sold," the judge said.
The accident occurred on Sept. 30, 1999, when two employees poured
too much uranium into a processing tank -- bypassing several required
steps -- and caused a nuclear fission chain reaction.
The two workers were exposed to massive doses of radiation and
subsequently died from multiple organ failure. More than 660 others
were exposed to weaker doses of radiation.
-----------------
EPA Seeking New Yucca Radiation Standard
WASHINGTON (AP) - Trying to overcome a possibly crippling court
decision, the Environmental Protection Agency hopes to have a
proposal by early next year on new radiation exposure limits at a
proposed nuclear waste site in Nevada.
Jeffrey Holmstead, chief of EPA's air and radiation programs, told a
panel of scientists Monday that a wide range of options is being
considered that would not require Congress to intervene in the
politically charged issue.
The future of the waste project at Yucca Mountain in the Nevada
desert was put into jeopardy when a federal appeals court rejected an
EPA radiation exposure standard in July that was tied to 10,000 years
into the future, even though some of the waste will be at its most
dangerous thousands of years later.
The court said EPA failed to take into account a 1995 National
Academy of Sciences recommendation that the standard be set at
periods of peak-radiation, although Congress required that the
recommendations be followed. Opponents of the project have argued
that the design of the waste site as it is now contemplated cannot
meet a standard set that far into the future.
Members of the Board of Radioactive Waste Management, a part of the
National Academy of Sciences, examined at a meeting Monday the
implications of the court case and possible options for future
action. The board frequently offers a forum to examine waste
management issues.
Robert Fri, chairman of the National Academy panel that wrote the
1995 report cited by the court, suggested the EPA satisfy the court's
objections only by significantly altering its standard more in line
with what his group had recommended.
That would involve going well beyond 10,000 years, but not
necessarily so far into the future that risk modeling, or even the
proposed Yucca design, might be useless, Fri suggested.
EPA would have to adopt a less conservative approach to determining
public risks from exposure, said Fri, a scholar at the environmental
think tank Resources for the Future.
Holmstead said the EPA is "at the beginning of the process of
determining what options might be" available but would not discuss
specific proposals. Going beyond 10,000 years for a radiation
standard "is a real challenge," he conceded.
A panel member, Norine Noonan, dean of the School of Science and
Mathematics at the College of Charleston in South Carolina, asked
whether EPA might assume a standard based on risk that was envisioned
in the 1995 National Academy study. Holmstead said it was an option
on the table with others.
After the session, Holmstead told reporters that the agency is
working as quickly as it can to develop a standard to meet the
court's misgivings, and it would be possible to have a standard ready
by early next year.
Congress also could intervene by passing legislation to free the EPA
from having to take into consideration the 1995 National Academy
recommendations.
Sam Fowler, the senior Democratic staff member on the Senate Energy
and Natural Resources Committee, told the scientists such a move
could appear to the public as Congress "trying to dumb down the
standard" for political reasons. Strong opposition to the Yucca
project by Nevada's senators, a Democrat and a Republican, also would
make it difficult to pass such legislation.
Whether the impasse over an acceptable radiation standard eventually
could scuttle the Yucca Mountain project remains to be seen.
Nevertheless, supporters acknowledge it casts serious doubt on the
Energy Department's plan to open the waste site by 2010.
Trying to establish public risks tens of thousands of years into the
future is a staggering undertaking, scientists acknowledged at
Monday's meeting.
More than 45,000 tons of used reactor fuel already are in temporary
storage at commercial power plants and defense facilities in 34
states awaiting shipment to a central repository.
"What do you do if the very best solution you can think of doesn't
meet the (radiation) standard?" environmental scholar Fri asked. "The
stuff is not going to go away."
-------------------------------------
Sandy Perle
Senior Vice President, Technical Operations
Global Dosimetry Solutions, Inc.
2652 McGaw Avenue
Irvine, CA 92614
Tel: (949) 296-2306 / (888) 437-1714 Extension 2306
Fax:(949) 296-1902
E-Mail: sperle@dosimetry.com
E-Mail: sandyfl@earthlink.net
Global Dosimetry Website: http://www.dosimetry.com/
Personal Website: http://sandy-travels.com/
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