[ RadSafe ] CDC Halts Thyroid Study Funding

[Sandy Perle]

NOTE: There will be no news posting between April 4 - 24.

Index:

CDC Halts Thyroid Study Funding
Duke Says Its Nuclear Waste Stored Safely, Despite Report
Yucca Scientists Investigated Over E-Mails
FBI investigating suspect document falsification at Yucca Mountain
CMS Seeks 20-Yr Life Extension For Palisades Nuclear
India agrees to ratify IAEA pact on nuclear safety
Missing radioactive capsules cause Venezuela alert
Cuba treats more than 18,000 children of Chernobyl in last 15 years
Exxon Mobil to appeal contamination-suit damages
Japan Urged To Take Greater Role In Mihama Accident-Kyodo
Arak reactor ready by 2007, and capable of producing bombs
NRC OKs Savannah River Weapons Plutonium-To-Fuel Facility
Reactor at Czech nuclear power plant shut down
Decision on converting nuclear weapons material for TVA upheld
=============================

CDC Halts Thyroid Study Funding

SALT LAKE CITY (March 29) - The Centers for Disease Control and 
Prevention has halted funding for a study on the connection between 
radioactive fallout and thyroid disease among people living downwind 
of aboveground atomic bomb tests in Nevada during the 1950s and early 
1960s.

The study, which already had cost $8 million, has re-examined about 
1,300 former students who lived in southwestern Utah and eastern 
Nevada, plus a control group of Arizona residents for comparison.

"CDC does not have the financial resources available to continue the 
project," agency spokesman John Florence told the Deseret Morning 
News. "It's a funding issue."

The head of the study, Dr. Joseph L. Lyon, a University of Utah 
researcher who has been studying the fallout issue for decades, was 
told of the CDC decision in a March 21 letter from Michael A. 
McGeehin, director of the CDC Division of Environmental Hazards and 
Health Effects.

Previous studies have produced conflicting conclusions on how the 
more than 900 atomic weapons tests affected people living downwind in 
Nevada, Utah and Arizona.

In studies that began in the 1960s, federal researchers concluded 
that fallout had not increased disease, but Lyon's studies, beginning 
in 1977, concluded that fallout did cause increased incidence of 
cancer.

In 1993, a new study by Lyon and colleagues found that, among 
children exposed to the highest doses, radiation from the detonations 
increased the incidence of thyroid tumors more than three times.

The latest study was aimed at re-examining the residents for possible 
long-term effects.

Lyon said the study is incomplete and has not yet been analyzed, so 
he is hesitant to talk about results.

He said he feels the federal government does not want to know about 
health effects of fallout on American citizens. "That's the only 
interpretation I can place on it," he said.
----------------

Duke Says Its Nuclear Waste Stored Safely, Despite Report

GREENVILLE, S.C. (AP)--Duke Power (DUK) says nuclear waste at Oconee 
Nuclear Station and its other nuclear power plants is protected from 
attack, despite a national report that questions the safety of 
storing the spent fuel in pools of water, The Greenville News 
reported Wednesday.

The classified report by the National Academy of Sciences recommends 
speeding up the transfer of spent nuclear fuel assemblies from pool 
storage at facilities nationwide to dry storage because of the risks 
of terrorist attacks.

However, officials with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission have 
said the used radioactive fuel is "better protected than ever."

The two federal groups are engaging in what a report in the New York 
Times Wednesday called "a semisecret debate ... about the 
vulnerability of nuclear wastes to terrorist attack and about how 
secret the debate should be."

The report by the National Academy of Sciences, commissioned by 
Congress in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, 
recommends further studies by the government as well as faster 
transfer of spent fuel at some sites. The draft report was sent to 
the regulatory commission in November, 2004, but the two groups have 
not agreed on what information to release, according to the Times.

This month the academy forwarded part of its draft report to members 
of Congress; the commission sent a rebuttal to several lawmakers a 
few days later, according to the Times report.

Duke, like all commercial reactor operators, stores much of its used 
nuclear fuel in pools of water that are designed to remove heat from 
the decaying rods and provide some radiation protection. It also 
stores spent fuel in dry storage.

Duke spokesman Tim Pettit said the spent rods at Oconee and other 
Duke nuclear sites are safe.

"This fuel has been safely stored at these plants," he said. "It was 
safely stored prior to 9-11, and it has a higher margin of safety and 
security today than it did prior to 9-11."

Pettit said the utility follows industry practices in making its 
nuclear plant structures safe and secure. He said they are well 
protected because of the design of the pools, their fortified 
enclosures, plant security systems and the fact that they are totally 
or partially below ground level.

Pettit said even if the government accepted all of the report's 
findings, the pools still would be needed for some of the spent fuel 
because it must cool for three to five years before it can be moved 
into dry storage.

Storage of spent fuel from commercial nuclear plants has been an 
issue for years because of the lack of a permanent national 
repository. Although Yucca Mountain in Nevada has been designated to 
hold the waste, the project has been beset with problems and delays.

With no national waste site to send the used fuel, commercial 
operators have filled their pools and dry storage sites with tons of 
the radioactive assemblies. A Duke spokesman said last year that the 
Oconee plant had about 1, 900 such assemblies in dry storage.

Analysts say the storage issue is one of the concerns brought up in 
discussions of new nuclear power plants.

Duke Power announced last month that it is considering a new nuclear 
plant in South Carolina or North Carolina, ending a two-decade 
drought on new reactors that began after the Three Mile Island 
disaster.

Pettit said it was too soon to say whether the report by the National 
Academy of Sciences would impact any plans for a future plant.
--------------

Yucca Scientists Investigated Over E-Mails

WASHINGTON (April 2) - E-mails by several government scientists on 
the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump project suggest workers were 
planning to fabricate records and manipulate results to ensure 
outcomes that would help the project move forward.

"I don't have a clue when these programs were installed. So I've made 
up the dates and names,'' wrote a U.S. Geological Survey employee in 
one e-mail released Friday by a congressional committee investigating 
suspected document falsification on the project.

"This is as good as it's going to get. If they need more proof, I 
will be happy to make up more stuff.''

In another message the same employee wrote to a colleague: "In the 
end I keep track of 2 sets of files, the ones that will keep QA happy 

and the ones that were actually used.'' QA apparently refers to 
"quality assurance.''

The e-mails, written from 1998 to 2000, were in a batch of 
correspondence released in advance of next week's hearing by the 
House Government Reform Subcommittee on the Federal Work Force and 
Agency Organization, chaired by Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev.

The Energy and Interior departments revealed the existence of the e-
mails March 16, and inspectors general of both departments are 
investigating. The FBI also is conducting a probe, according to a 
subcommittee staffer.

Yucca Mountain, approved by Congress in 2002, is planned as the 
nation's underground repository for 77,000 tons of defense waste and 
used reactor fuel from commercial power plants. The material is 
supposed to be buried for at least 10,000 years beneath the Nevada 
desert, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Many Nevadans and some environmentalists say the waste can never be 
safely stored and the plan puts local residents at risk. There also 
are concerns among others outside the state that hauling the waste to 
Nevada puts at risk those along the routes.

But the Bush administration, the energy industry and others say a 
central storage site is needed, and would provide better security for 

tens of thousands of tons of commercial and defense waste now housed 
at sites in 39 states.

The e-mails, dating from the Clinton administration, were circulated 
among a team of USGS scientists studying how water moves through the 
planned dump site, a key issue in determining whether and how much 
radiation could escape.

Scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey validated Energy Department 
conclusions that water seepage was relatively slow, so radiation 
would be less likely to escape.

Many of the dozens of pages of e-mails released appear to involve not 
initial scientific experiments, but rather attempts to provide 
documentation of work done in the past. Several include admonitions 
from the writers to "delete this memo after you've read it'' or 
"please destroy this memo.''

The Energy Department is working to submit an application to the 
Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a license to run the dump, and must 
turn over extensive documentation.

The e-mails, most of them from geological survey field workers in Las 
Vegas, provide a window into the environment surrounding the project, 
first considered over 20 years ago. Names and some proper nouns were 
blacked out by congressional staffers before they were released.

"Science by peer pressure is dangerous but sometime (sic) it is 
necessary,'' says one message, by a second scientist at the 
geological survey.

The emergence of the e-mails was the latest setback for Yucca 
Mountain, which has also suffered money shortfalls and an appeals 
court decision last summer that is forcing a rewrite of radiation 
exposure limits for the site. The Energy Department recently 
abandoned a planned 2010 completion date, and department officials 
have not given a new date.

The department's concern about the e-mails is evident in a portion of 
an internal memo, apparently written around the time they were 
discovered, that was also released Friday: "These e-mails may create 
a substantial vulnerability for the program.''

An Energy Department spokeswoman declined comment on the memo or the 
contents of the e-mails because of the continuing investigations.
--------------------

FBI investigating suspect document falsification at Yucca Mountain 

WASHINGTON (AP) - The FBI is investigating possible document 
falsification by workers on the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump 
project in Nevada, a congressional staffer said.

Chad Bungard, deputy staff director and chief counsel at a House 
Government Reform subcommittee, said he learned of the inquiry from 
the inspector general's office at the Interior Department, which also 
is investigating.

"I think they're doing the right thing by pursuing the criminal 
matter in this case," he said Wednesday.

FBI spokesman Bryan Sierra declined to comment.

Bungard's subcommittee is holding a hearing on the possible document 
falsification next week and staffers are preparing to release e-mails 
from a U.S. Geological Survey hydrologist that suggest the 
falsification took place.

The e-mails were written from 1998 to 2000 and circulated among a 
team of scientists studying how water moves through the planned dump 
site, a key issue in determining whether radiation could escape, and 
how much.

Scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey validated Energy Department 
conclusions that water seepage was relatively slow, so radiation 
would be less likely to escape.

The Energy and Interior departments revealed the existence of the e-
mails March 16, and handed them over Tuesday to the House Government 
Reform subcommittee on the federal work force and agency 
organization.

The subcommittee, chaired by Rep. Jon Porter, a Nevada Republican, 
plans to make the e-mails public Friday with sensitive information 
blacked out.

"We don't want to compromise the criminal investigation," Bungard 
said, adding the agencies themselves were deciding what information 
to black out.

The Energy Department's inspector general is also investigating the 
suspected document falsification, and the department is conducting a 
scientific review as well.

The revelation about the potentially falsified documents was the 
latest setback to the planned dump 145 kilometers (90 miles) 
northwest of Las Vegas - and a victory for Nevada officials who are 
fighting the project.

Yucca Mountain, approved by Congress in 2002, is planned as the 
nation's only underground repository for 77,000 tons of defense waste 
and used reactor fuel from commercial power plants. The material is 
supposed to be buried for at least 10,000 years beneath the Nevada 
desert.

But the project has suffered serious problems, including funding 
shortfalls and an appeals court decision last summer that's forcing a 

rewrite of radiation exposure limits for the site. The Energy 
Department recently abandoned a planned 2010 completion date, and 
department officials have not given a new date.
------------------

CMS Seeks 20-Yr Life Extension For Palisades Nuclear

CHICAGO (Dow Jones)--CMS Energy Corp. (CMS) said Thursday that it has 
asked the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for approval to run its 
Palisades nuclear plant until 2031.

The 789-megawatt Michigan reactor's original 40-year operating 
license expires in 2011. CMS seeks to extend the plant's life with a 
20-year license renewal.

The NRC to date has approved license renewals for 30 of 103 operating 

U.S. reactors, and is reviewing applications for 19 others, CMS said.

CMS utility subsidiary Consumers Energy owns the single-unit 
Palisades plant, and Nuclear Management Co. runs the facility. The 
plant supplies 18% of Consumers Energy's power.
----------------

India agrees to ratify IAEA pact on nuclear safety

NEW DELHI (AP) - India said Thursday it would ratify a worldwide pact 
on maintaining international safety standards at nuclear power 
plants.

India's External Affairs Ministry said New Delhi will ratify the 
Convention on Nuclear Safety of the Vienna-based International Atomic 
Energy Agency, but a statement didn't say when.

A foreign ministry spokesman traveling with Prime Minister Manmohan 
Singh couldn't be reached for comment.

The IAEA convention legally binds signatories to maintain 
international benchmarks in the construction, operation and 
regulation of civilian nuclear power plants, and requires countries 
to submit regular reports on safety standards.

India has six nuclear power plants with seven more under 
construction, according to the Web site of the federal Nuclear Power 
Corporation of India.

It was unclear Thursday why India decided to ratify the convention 
now, after it came into effect in 1996.
-----------------

Missing radioactive capsules cause Venezuela alert

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuelan authorities have launched a 
nationwide hunt for two capsules of radioactive material that went 
missing this month and which could kill people exposed to them, 
officials said Thursday.

One of the two missing capsules of radioactive Iridium-192, which 
were being used in equipment to check oil industry pipes for faults, 
disappeared from a barge March 15 in Lake Maracaibo, Venezuela's 
western oil producing hub.

The other went missing after apparently falling off the back of a 
workers' truck March 21 in the eastern oil producing state of 
Monagas, Angel Diaz, Director of Nuclear Affairs at Venezuela's 
Energy Ministry, told Reuters.

"They were lost through negligence... We're in a state of emergency 
... we're looking for them," he added.

Venezuela's National Guard, Civil Defense Service and police were 
also involved in the hunt for the capsules, which were encased in 
protective containers of depleted uranium about the size of a 
lunchbox.

Authorities appealed to the public not to open the red and yellow 
containers, which carried radiation warning signs.

Diaz said if they were opened everyone within a range of at least 
five yards would be exposed to harmful radiation.

"The health and lives of people around would be at risk," he said. 
"Since they're quite heavy, people might think they have something 
valuable inside."

Iridium-192 emits powerful gamma radiation. It is often used in 
treating prostate cancer and in detecting faults in underground 
industrial pipes.

Authorities were concerned that some people might try to use the 
capsules to cause harm.

"They could be used in a malicious fashion. Someone might try to 
place these capsules near a person or a place where people were 
gathered, for terrorist purposes," Venezuela's Civil Defense chief 
Antonio Rivero said.

Rivero said authorities had no leads so far as to who might have the 
capsules.
------------------

Cuba treats more than 18,000 children of Chernobyl in last 15 years

HAVANA (AP) - More than 18,000 children with health problems believed 
linked to the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Ukraine have received 
treatment in Cuba over the last 15 years, officials said.

Hundreds of those children and their relatives gathered to mark the 
15th anniversary of the program, launched in 1991 after the Chernobyl 
nuclear plant exploded and caught fire in 1986.

The initial blast and fire caused 31 deaths, but the radiation plume 
that spread from the crippled power plant eventually killed and 
sickened many more.

"For many mothers, Cuba was the only hope," said Svetlana 
Saslavskaya, whose son showed officials and diplomats attending 
Tuesday's event how he could stand up from a wheelchair and move 
slowly after several operations for an unidentified illness.

The children receive treatment at a coastal sanatorium at Tarara, 
east of Havana. Cuba pays for all medical treatment, room and board. 
The average stay is 2 1/2 months.

About 250 children are at the sanatorium at any one time. They live 
in houses surrounding the medical facility, often with their parents.

When the program began, most of the young patients suffered from 
leukemia, other forms of cancer and cerebral palsy - health problems 
doctors believe are related to the radiation.

But any sick child from the affected region is eligible for the 
program, regardless of their affliction.
---------------

Exxon Mobil to appeal contamination-suit damages

NEW YORK, April 1 (Reuters) - Exxon Mobil Corp. on Friday said it 
would appeal to substantially reduced damages it was ordered to pay 
in a 1997 lawsuit over radioactive contamination of land in 
Louisiana.

A Louisiana court on Tuesday cut punitive damages on the suit from $1 
billion to $112 million and left compensatory damages of $56 million 
unchanged.

Exxon, however, says it acted responsibly in the matter and believes 
the compensatory and punitive awards are still "excessive and 
unjustified."

The damages stem from a lawsuit filed in 1997 by former Louisiana 
state District Judge Joseph Grefer and his family.

The Grefers leased 33 acres of land in Harvey, just south of New 
Orleans, for roughly three decades to now-defunct Intracoastal 
Tubular Services, which cleaned Exxon field pipes on the land. The 
pipes were contaminated with radioactive mud.

Exxon said the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality had 
determined that the naturally occurring material on the Grefer 
property was not at dangerous levels and represented no threat to 
human health or the environment.

It says less than one percent of the land contained material that was 
above regulatory limits.

Nevertheless, a New Orleans civil jury in 2001 ordered Exxon to pay 
$1.06 billion in clean-up, lost property, and punitive damages to the 
Grefer family.

It was the largest award ever in the United States to an individual 
for property damage.
-----------------

Japan Urged To Take Greater Role In Mihama Accident-Kyodo

TOKYO -(Dow Jones)- A government agency investigating last August's 
fatal steam leak accident at a nuclear reactor of Kansai Electric 
Power Co. urged the government to reflect on its responsibility for 
having left safety management of pipes in the hands of operators, 
Kyodo News reported, citing the agency's final report.  

The report by the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency will be 
submitted to an investigation committee of the Ministry of Economy, 
Trade and Industry on Wednesday and will become the official accident 
report if approved by the committee.

Local residents and authorities in Fukui Prefecture and the town of 
Mihama, where the nuclear plant is located, had criticized the 
report's earlier draft March 14 for failing to mention the 
government's responsibility over the Aug. 9 accident, which killed 
five workers and seriously injured six others.

The report positively evaluated a set of measures submitted by Kansai 

Electric on Friday to prevent recurrence, but it also says the agency 
will continue strict supervision over the utility company, Kyodo 
reported.

Since the inspection system was revised in October 2003, the 
government has left it to the power plant operators to be in charge 
of managing water pipes that do not contain radioactive coolant.

The report says that while the United States actively reformed its 
policies after a pipe leakage accident in a U.S. nuclear plant in 
1986, the Japanese government still has to reexamine many aspects of 
its measures.

The agency's draft report released March 14 blamed Kansai Electric 
for failing to check corrosion of the pipes. The company had not 
checked the coolant water pipe at the Mihama nuclear power plant for 
nearly 28 years before it corroded and ruptured Aug. 9, blowing out 
superheated steam.
Investigations conducted after the accident showed that coolant water 
had corroded the ruptured pipe to a thickness of only 0.6 millimeter, 
compared with its original thickness of 10 mm, Kyodo reported.

The nuclear safety agency falls under the industry ministry.
-------------------

Arak reactor ready by 2007, and capable of producing bombs, exiled 
group claims

PARIS (AP) - A heavy water reactor in central Iran should be able to 
produce up to 10 kilograms (22 pounds) of plutonium - enough for a 
nuclear bomb - by 2007, years before its official completion date, an 
exiled Iranian opposition group claimed Thursday.

The National Council of Resistance said one part of the reactor near 
Arak was already producing heavy water, and work on the reactor 
itself was "near an end."

The 40-megawatt heavy water nuclear reactor should be ready to go on 
line within one or two years, said Mohammed Mohaddessin, head of the 
group's foreign affairs committee.

"The Iranian regime is engaged in an all-out race against time" to 
finish the project, Mohaddessin told a news conference in Paris. The 
objective, he claimed, is "to obtain plutonium to build a nuclear 
bomb."

The existence of the reactor has been known for several years, and 
Europeans, who are in negotiations with Iran, had asked Tehran to 
stop construction and build a light water reactor instead. Iran 
refused.

Nuclear experts consider heavy water reactors a danger because they 
provide for a simpler way of producing bomb fuel.

Iran informed the International Atomic Energy Agency that the reactor 
near Arak would be finished in 2014, said Mohaddessin, citing 
information from the group's sources inside Iran.

In Vienna, IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky confirmed that Tehran had 
given 2014 as the completion date for the reactor and had told the 
agency that Arak's "heavy water production facility ... would be 
operational in 2004."

The Iranians "indicated the reactor would be for research and 
development and the production of radio isotopes" for medical 
research, he said.

IAEA officials in early March said Iran was continuing construction 
on the Arak reactor, despite calls for scrapping the facility. 
Separately, a diplomat told The Associated Press that work on the 
reactor had progressed to the point where crews "were pouring the 
foundations."

Experts estimate that the Arak reactor can yield enough plutonium 
from its spent fuel for one bomb a year. Additionally the nearly 40 
tons of uranium Iran partially processed as part of its now suspended 

enrichment program could yield up to five crude bombs.

The National Council of Resistance serves as the political arm for 
the Mujahedeen Khalq, deemed a terrorist organization by the United 
States and the European Union. Some of the group's past information 
about Iran's nuclear program have proved accurate. Mohaddessin said 
that sources inside the Arak facility were among those providing 
information.

The United States suspects Iran of using its once-covert nuclear 
program to produce weapons, which Tehran firmly denies. It claims the 
nuclear technology is for civilian purposes only, such as producing 
electricity.

France, Britain and Germany are holding talks with Tehran in a bid to 
guarantee that nuclear weapons cannot be produced by Iran.

Under an agreement reached last year, Iran suspended its uranium 
enrichment program during talks about European economic, political 
and technological aid.

Mohaddessin said the group's information confirms that the Iran issue 
should be put before the U.N. Security Council for possible 
sanctions, as Washington earlier threatened.

He cited a "confidential" parliamentary report dated February 2004 on 

Iran's nuclear activities, which he said he received earlier 
Thursday, as evidence that Iran has covert motives for its nuclear 
program.

The report, as cited by Mohaddessin, says the majlis, or parliament, 
was not informed about the construction of nuclear sites at Arak or 
at Natanz or about the projects' budgets.

"This report clearly reveals Tehran's real intentions for its nuclear 
program, so much so that parliament is not aware and it is outside 
the budget," he said.

Associated Press Writer George Jahn in Vienna contributed to this 
report.
-----------------

NRC OKs Savannah River Weapons Plutonium-To-Fuel Facility

CHICAGO (Dow Jones) -- The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said 
Wednesday that three companies, including Duke Energy Corp. (DUK), 
can build a facility in South Carolina to turn weapons-grade 
plutonium into fuel for nuclear power plants.

The facility is planned at the U.S. Department of Energy's Savannah 
River Site. Duke, Shaw Group (SGR) unit Stone & Webster, and Cogema, 
a unit of French nuclear-fuel specialist Areva SA, were awarded a 
$130 million contract in 1999 to design and seek a license for the 
site.

The facility's design will have "minimal environmental impacts and 
will protect the public health and safety," the NRC said in a 
release.

The agency issued construction authorization for the facility, but 
noted that there are still opportunities to submit late-filed 
challenges to the NRC staff's safety review.

The Savannah River facility will create so-called "mixed oxide" fuel, 
or a combination of plutonium from weapons and uranium. U.S. nuclear 
reactors are fueled by uranium, but they already use plutonium to a 
degree because some uranium converts to plutonium during the reaction 
process.

Building the Savannah River facility is part of a joint U.S.-Russian 
plan to turn 68 metric tons of weapons material into nuclear fuel.

The NRC decided in early March that Duke's Catawba 1 nuclear reactor 
in South Carolina could be the first U.S. plant to start using the 
mixed oxide fuel on a limited basis. Duke plans to start using four 
reactor fuel assemblies, out of 193 in total, with mixed oxide fuel 
starting this spring. The assemblies for Catawba have been 
constructed in France, where plutonium use in reactors is more 
common.

Eventually, pending further NRC approval, Duke plans to use greater 
amounts of the fuel at both Catawba reactors and its McGuire plant 
near Charlotte.

Use of mixed oxide fuel has garnered criticism from watchdog groups, 
which argue that U.S. reactors were designed for uranium, and that 
there are better ways to store and neutralize weapons-grade plutonium 
than running it through power plants.
-------------------

Reactor at Czech nuclear power plant shut down

PRAGUE, Czech Republic (AP) - A Czech nuclear reactor near the 
Austrian border was shutdown Wednesday after a malfunction was 
detected elsewhere in the plant, a spokesman said Wednesday.

Workers shut down the reactor at a nuclear power plant in Temelin 
after they detected the malfunction in the plant's non-nuclear part, 
spokesman Milan Nebesar said.

He said it would take about two weeks to fix the problem. The shut 
down affected only the plant's first unit and the second unit was 
working at full capacity, Nebesar said.

Construction of the plant's two 1,000-megawatt units, based on 
Russian designs, started in the 1980s. The plant later was upgraded 
with U.S. technology, but it has been dogged by frequent 
malfunctions.

The station, 60 kilometers (35 miles) north of the Austrian border, 
has been a source of friction between the two countries. 
Environmentalists in Austria demand it be closed, while Czech 
authorities insist it is safe.
------------------

Decision on converting nuclear weapons material for TVA upheld

ERWIN, Tenn. (AP) - Two administrative judges have upheld a Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission staff decision allowing Nuclear Fuel Services 
Inc. to convert surplus weapons-grade uranium into fuel for a 
Tennessee Valley Authority commercial reactor.

"There is simply no basis in the record at hand for a determination 
on our part that the staff's environmental review failed adequately 
to consider the possibility of the occurrence of an accident with 
serious environmental consequences," Judges Alan S. Rosenthal and 
Richard F. Cole concluded.

They dismissed a petition filed by the Sierra Club seeking a full 
environmental impact statement on the project. The Sierra Club was 
the only one of several groups that the judges determined had legal 
standing to challenge the NRC's action.

The Sierra Club has 15 days to decide if it will appeal to the NRC. 
Local chairwoman Linda Modica said it would "exhaust all 
administrative remedies" before heading to court.

The project to "downblend," or dilute, 39 metric tons of highly 
enriched uranium into low-enriched fuel for TVA, the nation's largest 
public utility, already is under way and the first shipment has been 
delivered to TVA's Browns Ferry nuclear station in Alabama

Most of the uranium comes from the Department of Energy's Savannah 
River Site in South Carolina and the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant in 
Oak Ridge.

NFS spokesman Tony Treadway hailed the judges' ruling as "really good 
news for Unicoi County, the region and the taxpayers," noting the 
project has created 100 jobs at NFS and will save the Department of 
Energy millions of dollars on storage costs and TVA on fuel 
purchases.

The Sierra Club, however, said NFS documents show the project "poses 
significant environmental hazards that must be studied carefully and 
reported to the public in an environmental impact statement." Hazards 
include chemical spills, radioactive gas releases, explosions and 
uncontrolled chain reactions that could hurt employees and nearby 
residents, the group said.

Treadway said the group "exaggerated their claims far beyond 
reality." After nine years of reviews by experts and various 
agencies, he said, "the truth still stands." The project will cause 
"no significant threat to the public and the environment," he said.

----------------------------------------------------------------
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) 296-1144

Global Dosimetry Website: http://www.dosimetry.com/ 
Personal Website: http://sandy-travels.com/