US$147 billion for cleanup of N-weapons sites.
(April 3, 1998) A new US Department of Energy report, "Accelerating cleanup: paths to closure", which details project-by-project costs, estimates the cost of cleaning up and closing down former nuclear weapons sites to be US$147 billion between now and 2070. Forty three sites are scheduled for closure by 2006, including Fernald in 2005 and Rocky Flats in 2006. After 2006, 10 sites would remain to be cleaned up and of these the big three--Hanford, Savannah River and Idaho National Engineering Laboratory (INEL)--would require half of the required funds. SpentFuel, 9 March, cited in Uranium Institute News Briefings, 4-10 March 1998
Flask fail safety tests. A flask used to transport highly-radioactive spent fuel has dramatically failed safety tests and resulted in the suspension of some nuclear transports. The NTL11 flask which can take three tonnes of spent fuel has been used for 130 transports between Sellafield and nuclear power plants in Switzerland and Germany. Sellafield operators BNFL has now suspended all transports involving this type of flask. The flasks were last tested 20 years ago when new tests were ordered early this year by French licensing authorities. When the flask was dropped from 9 metres onto a hard surface eight bolts which secured the lid were sheared. The tests were repeated at Winfrith in March with the same results. N-Base Briefing 123, 29 March 1998
EBRD-board proceeds with K2/R4!! Although not officialy announced yet it seems that the EBRD in their closed Board workshop (March 25) decided to proceed with financing the K2/R4 reactors in the Ukraine. Based on the findings of Stone and Webster (not published yet) the Bank decided to go on with the next step; the so-called Public Participation Process (PPP). One can assume that the Board is confident that it will fund the project.
The final official decision to proceed will be taken at the EBRD Annual Meeting, mid-May in Kiew, Ukraine. After that the PPP starts, wich will take at least a few months. The outcome of the process is expected somewhere in September. By than there will most probably be a new EBRD-President in place. So there are still opportunities to put pressure on the Board-Members. Either directly or via your national Government.
Please keep sending in letters of protest (see last NC #488)
More background WISE NC 483/484.4800 (December 19, 1997), and the excellent webpage www.ecn.cz/k2r4
US: Citizen's Inspection Team looking for DU weapons arrested. Members of a United States Citizen's Inspection Team (CIT) were arrested March 1 at the main gate of an Air Force Base in Tucson as they attempted to inspect the base for suspected weapons of mass or indiscriminate destruction. Base officials acknowledged that the depleted uranium (DU) weapons in question were present at the base.
Claiming the authority of international law and moral responsibility, the Citizen's Inspection Team refused a Tucson city police order to leave and were arrested for trespass but released shortly afterwards.
A UN commission has determined that because the chemical and radioactive toxicity of depleted uranium weapons continues to kill non-combatants long after the battle has ended, DU ranks among the "weapons of mass or indiscriminate destruction" incompatible with international humanitarian or human rights law. An international campaign by United Nations non-governmental organizations is underway to ban depleted uranium weapons, just as land mines, chemical, and biological weapons have been banned. Shundahai E-News #2, March 1998
South Korea: Demonstration protesting new long-term storage sites for Yongkwang reactors.On February 2, some 800 villagers of Yongkwang held a demonstration protesting the government's decision to allow new long-term storage sites for Yongkwang nuclear reactors. Members of the Yongkwang Fishermen's Association and Concerned Citizens Against Yongkwang nuclear power plants joined the demonstration. The president of Yongkwang Fishermen's Association angrily criticized the government authorities, saying "it defies logic to approve yet another long-term storage site when no progress has been made in addressing the problem of effluence released from Yongkwang Reactor III and IV". Effluents released from the reactors has increased the ocean temperature, devastating fisheries. Green Energy News (South Korea), March 1998
US: Beatty contamination worse than wasthought. A new study of tritium contamination surrounding the defunct "low-level" nuclear waste site in Beatty Nevada, US, raises serious questions about the proposed Ward Valley site planned for southern California. The new U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) study released March 4, not only confirms earlier surveys indicating that the Beatty site, closed in 1992, is the source of increasing and significant offsite contaminations, but shows that contamination is much more widespread than previously thought. Beatty is important as a comparison site to Ward Valley due to their similar geology.
Earlier, USGS studies found contamination in a limited area near the dump. Studies leading to the current report found offsite contamination at every grid point surveyed while confirming that contamination is approaching the water table at deeper levels than previously measured. In addition, tritium vapors were detected in the air above a creosote bush, presumably released from vegetation absorbing the contaminants from the soil. Press Release from Congressman George Miller (USA), 9 March 1998
Pu cardiac pacemaker incinerated. On March 19, the Grandview Hospital in Dayton, USA, announced that a cordis cardia pacemaker device had probably been incidentally sent with other biohazardous waste to a facility for incineration. None of the facility's low- level survey meters signalled alarmed when the material entered the site.
The 20-year-old device which contained some three curies of plutonium-238 sealed inside two stainless steel and titanium capsules, was removed from a deceased patient in January. The pacemaker is designed to withstand the temperatures occurring during cremation procedures without a breach of the doubly-encapsulated source. The fact that the radiation monitors at the facility did not go off does not mean much unless the monitors are designed to detect alpha particles which is not necessarily an easy task. U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Event Reports, Event Number 33922; 19/20 March 1998
Waste pigeons. Levels of radioactive contamination in pigeons living around the Sellafield site are so high the birds have had to be classified as nuclear waste, Greenpeace says.
The British Ministery of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food warned that "any pigeons found within a 10-mile radius of Sellafield should not be handled, slaughtered or consumed", and that "provisional results of analyses by BNFL indicates that consumption of the breast of about six birds would give a radiation dose of 1mSievert". One mSv is the dose limit for the public for a whole year.
Following the discovery of radioactive pigeons, the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate regulatory authority has ordered the operators to test rabbits and other wildlife.
Not slow on the uptake is one wag who has come up with a new set of definitions for the classification of nuclear waste as follows:
High Level Waste: Pigeon in flight
Intermediate Level Waste: Pigeon on roof
Low Level Waste: Pigeon on ground
Below Regulatory Concern: Buried Pigeon
Radioactive Decay: Rotting Pigeon
CORE`s The Waste Paper, Winter/Spring 1998 and N-base 122, 22 March 1998
Israel: Vanunu no longer in total isolation. After 12 years during which he was held in total isolation, imprisoned and locked inside a special and heavily guarded wing in Ashkelon prison, Mordechai Vanunu was out of isolation for the first time on March 13 in the afternoon--and was allowed for the first time to leave the "Tiger Fortress" in which he has been held, to the main yard of the prison--where for the first time he met his neighbors.
While his client is excited about the first days of a bit of freedom and less isolation, Adv. Feldman, Vanunu's lawyer, is preparing for the next battle. On April 24, Vanunu will have completed 12 years of imprisonment. In fact, on that day he would have completed two-thirds of his sentence, 18 years. According to the regulations, the Prison Service parole board would discuss shortening his sentence and reducing it by one-third (for good behavior) at Vanunu's request. But security sources estimated that the chances of the parole board reducing his sentence are very slim.
Vanunu was seduced and kidnapped by the Mossad in 1986 after he revealed detailed information on Israel`s nuclear weapons program. Yediot Ahronot (Israel), March 15 1998