Since the hunt began, 159 deer have been taken. The hunt was developed after area residents and Portsmouth employees complained about an increasing number of car-deer accidents. The hunt by a maximum of 100 hunters each Saturday, takes place on 2,500 acres of federal land owned by the Department of Energy. This land lies outside the 1,200-acre complex of buildings where uranium is enriched for use in nuclear fuel. No hunting is allowed inside this fenced-in, secure area. AP, 29 October 1999
Ukraine: strikes and human errors threaten nuclear industry. Data from the Ukrainian nuclear utility Energoatom show that during the first half of 1999 safety rule violations caused by human error have grown almost three-fold, compared to the same period in 1998--from 10 percent of all violations in the first six months of 1998 to 27.5 percent this year.
New strikes by the nuclear trade unions could worsen the safety problems. Nuclear trade unions held meetings at all the nuclear reactors on October 26, to protest the delay in paying their back wages. They want the debt to be paid at last by November 21. If not, they threaten to strike again. They struck earlier this year to protest non-payments of six months of salaries. An agreement was reached on a repayment schedule that all salaries were to be paid by October 25. The schedule wasn't met, but the total debt was halved, from US$26.4 million to about US$14 million on October 25.
Ukrainian nuclear reactors are owned US$532 million by their customers, but have no legal means of collecting the unpaid bills. This missing legal liability has led to Ukraine's non- payment crisis and the catastrophic financial situation of the (nuclear) power industry. The unions want lawmakers to impose legal responsibility on electricity consumers for their unpaid bills. The trade unions see the strikes as the last way to protect not only the workers' rights but also to fight against the bankruptcy of the whole nuclear sector. Nucleonics Week, 28 October 1999
Gene abnormalities found near Semipalatinsk. From 1949 to 1989 459 nuclear explosions were conducted by the former USSR at the Semipalatinsk nuclear testing site located in the northern part of Kazakhstan. Several hundred thousand people living in the eastern region of Kazakhstan were exposed to radioactive fallout. Since 1995, Kazakh and Japanese experts have been working around Semipalatinsk to screen for direct molecular evidence of the late effects of radiation exposure on thyroid carcinogenesis. They have developed a research project to evaluate such molecular analysis on thyroid cancer tissue samples. Sixteen out of 33 samples (from operations on patients at the Semipalatinsk regional hospitals from 1986 to 1996) showed excessive activity by a cancer-causing gene. BBC, 29 October / The Lancet, Vol. 354, 30 October 1999
Harrisburg: revive of health problem law-suits. A US federal appeals court has allowed nearly 2,000 people to revive lawsuits over health problems they blame on the March 1979 accident at the three-months old second unit of the Three Mile Island (Harrisburg) nuclear power plant. Between one third and one half of the reactor's uranium-filled core melted in the first hours of the accident. The ensuing cleanup took nearly 12 years and cost US$973 million.
In 1996 District Chief Judge Sylvia Rambo ruled that there was insufficient evidence to link the plaintiffs' various claims of cancer and birth defects to exposure to the radiation leak at the plant. She threw out the cases of 2,000 plaintiffs based on testimony during a "mini-trial" or a test hearing of a group of 10 "typical" plaintiffs.
In this ruling, Circuit Court Judge McKee said the remaining plaintiffs should have been given a chance to object to Rambo's decision. The ruling allowed all but the 10 plaintiffs involved in the test hearing to revive their cases. AP, 3 November 1999
Russia to dismantle 18 nuclear subs in 2000. According to Valery Lebedev, deputy minister of atomic energy, Russia will dismantle 18 nuclear submarines next year and is working on new technologies to speed up the process. Lebedev said the government had allotted $19.2 million in 1999 for decommissioning the submarines, but that his ministry had received only 80 percent of this sum.
Their safe dismantling has become a contentious issue as neighboring countries are offering aid money, but the Russian military is reluctant to provide foreigners access to their top-secret submarine bases in the Arctic. Welders usually cut the vessels into circular slices but leave the reactor core intact and still floating in the water, tied to a pier. AP, 9 November 1999
Stockholm court rejects Sydkraft's complaint. The court rejected the call of the Swedish utility Sydkraft to force the Swedish government to postpone a plan to close its two Barsebäck nuclear power units until a European Commission ruling on this issue. Sydkraft will appeal the decision to a higher court. Last year Sydkraft filed a complaint with the EU, asking it to examine a Swedish government plan to close its Barsebäck power plant.
The court's decision brings Swedish nuclear reactor shutdown plan one step closer to reality. This plan dates back to a 1980 referendum, which laid the groundwork for a nuclear power phaseout program to be completed by 2010. Now it is very likely that Barseb%auml;ck-1 actually would close on November 30. The second unit is planned to be shut down in 2001. Reuters, 5 November 1999
IAEA: Belarus needs more aid. The IAEA pledged to increase the assistance to Belarus to cope with the legacy of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Ukraine. And Ivan Kenik, chairman of a Belarussian committee dealing with the effects of the Chernobyl accident, asked for US$1 million. The IAEA oversees two major program in Belarus: the first involves reducing radiation in homes and property which has had little effect, the second growing rapeseed on affected land and producing safe cooking oil. Up to one quarter of Belarus remains affected by radiation. Belarus has limited access to Western credits because of accusations of Belarus' poor human rights record and President Lukashenko's reluctance to implement market reforms. An estimated 1.6 million people continue to live on contaminated land despite mass displacement campaigns Reuters, 31 October / AFP, 1 November 1999
U.S. Y2K: GAO disagrees with NRC. The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) says all 103 operating US nuclear power plants are now ready for the Year 2000 Bug (Y2K). But the General Accounting Office (the investigative arm of Congress) testified before Congress October 26 that the steps the nuclear industry has taken might not be enough to prevent problems at power plants.
In early 1999, some of the nation's 14 decommissioned nuclear power plants that store spent fuel onsite reported they were not yet Y2K-ready. The GAO observed that the NRC has not reviewed their status since. "Because of the risk posed by the spent fuel facilities at these sites, we believe that NRC should evaluate and report on the current Y2K status of these plants," it recommended. The GAO also questioned whether nuclear facilities are adequately prepared for potential power outages, supply shortages, and other external problems that could occur on or after January 1, 2000. "Probably the most serious external risks faced by a nuclear power plant are the potential instability of the electric power grid and the loss of offsite electric power. ... NRC studies show that a major contributor to reactor core damage is a station blackout event," the GAO said. ENS, 9 November 1999
Austria will block EU accession of Slovakia (or not?). Austria will not give its consent to the EU Helsinki summit in December approving the launch of accession talks with Slovakia unless Slovakia decides to close its two oldest nuclear plants sooner than in 2006-2008 as envisaged recently.
Barbara Prammer, minister for consumer protection in charge of coordination of anti-nuclear policy, said that if Slovakia did not close the two reactors in the Bohunice nuclear power plant, it would not be possible for Austria to give its consent to the launch of the accession talks. Prammer said "it will be impossible, and therefore it (Austria's blocking the talks) will definitely happen". BBC, 9 November 1999
Kenya: road radioactive. In Kenya material is used to build a road that is radioactive. Already eight years ago a study was released by geophysicist Jayanti Patel, about the dangerous levels of radioactivity at the Mrima Hill. Kenya's Radiation Protection Board is now reviewing Patel's findings, while radiation levels on some areas of the hill are more than 50 times higher than "what scientists consider safe" (according to a CNN report, without mentioning radiation levels). In the mountain thorium and uranium are found.
Despite that, Kenyan authorities dug building material from the hill to build a nearby road. It was a money-saving action. Some scientists say the Kenyan government knew the material was potentially harmful, but used it anyway.
Now authorities are setting up health monitoring systems for the rural community. On October 23, the Ministry of Health ordered a medical examination for 25,000 people feared to have been exposed to the radioactive material.
But in rural Kenya, updates medical facilities are rare. And the number of people exposed to radiation are not limited to those who traveled the road -- residents in the hillside villages have used sediment from the slopes to built their houses and grow their crops. Panafrican News Agency, 31 October / CNN, 4 November 1999
Chinese-Moroccan reactor postponed. Although there was not even a date set for completion, the construction of a 10-megawatt nuclear reactor in Morocco has already been postponed. A deal between China and Morocco was signed last December by Morocco's Prime Minister Abderahmane El Youssoufi in Beijing.
The 10-mw reactor is planned to be built near Tan-Tan on the Atlantic Coast, some 1,200 km south of Rabat, and is planned to be used to desalinate seawater. Morocco has a long history of unsucceeded nuclear plans, but so far only a 2-mw Triga-II research reactor (supplied by US company General Atomics) has been in operation since 1998. Reuters, 29 October 1999 / Nuclear Europe Worldscan, January/February 1999
Reprocessing contract ANSTO-Cogema. Australian reports claim that Cogema has signed a reprocessing contract with ANSTO (the Australian Nuclear Science Organization) for the fuel of the Lucas Heights research reactor in Sydney, Australia. But the French Greens, part of the government with Dominique Voynet as minister of environment, are furious and say signing of the contract is in clear violation with the 1997 accord with the Socialist Party. In the agreement it is said that the reprocessing plant at La Hague (which according to Reuters is situated in the Netherlands) would be reviewed and no new contracts signed.
Australian press reports quoted an official for Australia's resource minister as saying that the reprocessing waste would not be returned to Australia before 2015 "to give the government time to decide how it would be stored". Reuters, 18 November 1999