Navy Y2K Report Predicts 'Likely' Utility Outages in Several Cities

By Ted Bridis Associated Press Friday, August 20, 1999; Page A15
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-08/20/074l-082099-idx.html
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/w/AP-Y2K-Failures.html

A Navy report predicts "probable" or "likely" failures in electrical and water systems for many cities because of the year 2000 technology problem--an assessment more dire than any other made by the government.

President Clinton's top Y2K adviser, John Koskinen, called the Navy's conclusions overly cautious, saying they assumed that major utilities would fail unless proved otherwise.

The most recent version of the study, updated less than two weeks ago, predicted "probable" or "likely" partial failures in electric utilities that serve nearly 60 of roughly 400 Navy and Marine Corps facilities.

The study predicted "likely" partial electrical failures, for example, at facilities in Orlando; Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; Gulfport, Miss.; and nine other small- to mid-size cities.

It also predicted "probable" partial water system failures in Dallas; Houston; Nashville; Tulsa; Baton Rouge, La.; Montgomery, Ala.; and 59 other cities.

The study forecast likely partial midwinter natural gas failures in Fort Worth; Nashville; Albany, N.Y.; Pensacola, Fla.; Charleston, S.C.; and Columbus, Ohio.

The military report contrasts sharply with predictions from the White House, which weeks ago said in a report that national electrical failures are "highly unlikely." The White House report also said disruptions in water service from the date rollover are "increasingly unlikely."

Koskinen said the Navy report's worst-case predictions for failures were marked as "interim" or "partial" assessments.

"It's not nearly as interesting as the world coming to an end," said Koskinen. "The way they worked was, until you have information for contingency planning purposes, you ought to assume there was a problem."

The year 2000 problem occurs because some computer programs, especially older ones, might fail when the date changes to 2000. Because the programs were written to recognize only the last two digits of a year, such programs could read the digits "00" as 1900 instead of 2000, potentially causing problems with financial transactions, airline schedules and electrical grids, among other things.

The Navy report was first summarized on an Internet site run by Jim Lord, a Y2K author, who said he obtained it "from a confidential source of the highest reliability and integrity."

"The military has to work from the worst case, but so do we," Lord said. "It's reprehensible for them to know this and keep it from us."

Koskinen said the Navy was not withholding information from anyone, noting that the continually updated report was available until recently on a Web site maintained by the Defense Department.

"The last people in the world the department is going to keep information from is their own people," Koskinen said. The report has been removed from the Web site, but neither Koskinen nor Defense Department officials could say why.

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Pentagon Gives THAAD a Boost
$15.4 Billion Weapon to Forgo More Prototype Testing

By Bradley Graham Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, August 20, 1999; Page A02
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-08/20/112l-082099-idx.html

After two successful tests of an Army weapon designed to blast enemy missiles out of the sky, the Pentagon announced yesterday that it will skip further prototype testing and move quickly toward final development of the $15.4 billion project.

The acceleration of the Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) program reversed a Defense Department decision only last year to require three intercepts before moving ahead. The stiffer requirement had been imposed after THAAD failed its first intercept attempts, raising questions about the weapon's design and about Lockheed Martin Corp.'s management of the project.

Defense officials said the two recent successes--in June and earlier this month--reinforced confidence in Lockheed and the program. But making the prototypes work, they added, had diverted too much attention from the ultimate goal of designing a production model.

"Rather than spending months and millions of dollars on another THAAD prototype launch only to prove a point, we have decided to get on with the business of engineering development of the real thing," Jacques Gansler, the Pentagon's chief of acquisition, said in a letter to Congress. "This will also accelerate the ultimate fielding of THAAD."

Still, critics of the project, which is several billion dollars over initial projections and years behind schedule, have cautioned that two intercepts under tightly controlled conditions and after six failures in four years is hardly proof that all hurdles have been overcome. They have urged testing THAAD against more challenging targets, under more variable conditions.

In fact, the next phase will involve as many as 40 more flight tests, according to Army Maj. Gen. Peter Franklin, deputy director of the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization.

Current plans call for fielding THAAD in 2007, although defense officials are looking at the possibility of deploying some interceptors earlier.

Just how soon THAAD can be put into the hands of U.S. troops to protect them from missile attack depends, in part, on whether the Army or Navy--which also is developing a high-altitude, antimissile interceptor--is chosen by top Defense Department officials to take the lead.

Worried about the cost of funding both efforts, Defense Secretary William S. Cohen put the Army and Navy on notice in January that one of them might have to take a back seat.

THAAD relies on a powerful new tracking radar, land-based launchers and missiles equipped with special sensors to home in on enemy warheads. Its purpose is to guard U.S. and allied troops from medium-range ballistic missiles such as those being developed by North Korea, Iran and Iraq.

But THAAD's development also has implications beyond battlefield defense. The operational concept on which it based--hitting a speeding missile with another speeding missile--is the same "hit-to-kill" concept that is at the core of an even more ambitious system under development to protect the entire United States, a successor to the Reagan-era Strategic Defense Initiative, also known as "Star Wars."

While the timing and cost of deploying a national system remain a source of tension between the Clinton administration and Republican lawmakers, there is strong consensus on the need to equip troops as soon as possible with antimissile defenses more effective than the Patriot system used against Iraqi Scud missiles during the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

Even one leading skeptic of America's ability ever to produce a fail-safe missile defense system offered little more than a shrug at the news that THAAD is skipping ahead.

"The tests done so far haven't said much about how the system would perform in combat, so doing one more wouldn't have made much difference," said John Pike, a defense analyst with the Federation of American Scientists. "I may be prepared to cut the Pentagon more slack on this one because I have such low expectations about what they'll be able to eventually deliver."

Skipping a Stage

The Pentagon gave a tentative go-ahead for the Theater High Altitude Area Defense system to enter final development phase. Here is how THAAD is designed to work.

1. THAAD radar detects incoming missile, transmits target position and trajectory to tactical operations.

2. Tactical operations relays signals to remote launchers.

3. Mobile launchers can launch a dormant missile within seconds of command.

4. Radar communicates target and interceptor positions. Missile adjusts in flight using own sensors, zeroing in on target. Radar determines if kill is made.

SOURCE: U.S. Army

---

Army To Skip Final Missile Test

By The Associated Press, August 20, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/w/AP-Missile-Defense.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Pentagon is preparing to move to the next phase of development of its experimental anti-missile missile, even though the weapon has succeeded in only two of eight flight tests.

The Pentagon announced Thursday that it has dropped its self-imposed requirement that the Theater High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, system score three successful intercepts in flight. Instead of conducting another test of the prototype missile later this year, the Army's contractor, Lockheed Martin Corp., will begin engineering a more advanced version to be fielded by the Army in 2007.

Just last year, when the THAAD program was reeling from six straight test failures, the Pentagon said it would not give the go-ahead for Lockheed to move into the next phase of development until the prototype scored three successful intercepts of mock warheads. It recorded its first success in June, followed by another Aug. 2.

THAAD is the centerpiece of the Defense Department's effort to provide missile protection abroad for U.S. and allied troops and their staging areas.

In a related development, the Army called off a flight test of its Patriot 3 missile interceptor after the missile that was supposed to launch as the Patriot's target over White Sands Missile Range, N.M., shut itself down just 30 seconds before launch. The Army said it didn't know what went wrong.

The Patriot 3 is a new version of the missile interceptor used in the 1991 Persian Gulf War; it is intended as a complement to the THAAD missile defense system but does not have as great range as THAAD.

Army Maj. Gen. Peter Franklin, deputy director of the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, said the main reason for moving ahead with THAAD after two successes instead of three is to force Lockheed to focus on the missile interceptor that will actually be fielded, rather than the prototype used thus far.

He said the two successful tests this summer have ``proven'' that the missile works. Critics, however, said after the second successful test in August that the THAAD system should be tested against faster, more capable missiles than the Hera rockets used in testing at White Sands Missile Range.

``Rather than spending months and millions of dollars on another THAAD prototype launch only to prove a point, we have decided to get on with the business of engineering development of the real thing,'' Jacques Gansler, the Pentagon's top acquisition official, wrote in a letter Wednesday to Rep. Floyd Spence, R-S.C., the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and a supporter of THAAD.

Franklin said a final decision will be made next year on beginning the next phase of the project, in which Lockheed Martin will translate the design work done thus far into a missile that will enter initial low-rate production. The Pentagon is scheduled to begin fielding the THAAD system in 2007; Franklin would not say whether skipping the final flight test will enable it to be fielded earlier than that.

The Pentagon has spent about $4 billion on THAAD so far.

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[The police state encroacheth....?]

Justice Dept. Pushes For Power to Unlock PC Security Systems
Covert Acts Could Target Homes, Offices

By Robert O'Harrow Jr. Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, August 20, 1999; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-08/20/144l-082099-idx.html
http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/990820/06/news-technology-covert
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/w/AP-Computer-Privacy.html

The Justice Department wants to make it easier for law enforcement authorities to obtain search warrants to secretly enter suspects' homes or offices and disable security on personal computers as a prelude to a wiretap or further search, according to documents and interviews with Clinton administration officials.

In a request set to go to Capitol Hill, Justice officials will ask lawmakers to authorize covert action in response to the growing use of software programs that encrypt, or scramble, computer files, making them inaccessible to anyone who does not have a special code or "key," according to an Aug. 4 memo by the department that describes the plan.

Justice officials worry that such software "is increasingly used as a means to facilitate criminal activity, such as drug trafficking, terrorism, white-collar crime, and the distribution of child pornography," according to the memo, which has been reviewed by the Office of Management and Budget and other agencies.

Legislation drafted by the department, called the Cyberspace Electronic Security Act, would enable investigators to get a sealed warrant signed by a judge permitting them to enter private property, search through computers for passwords and install devices that override encryption programs, the Justice memo shows.

The law would expand existing search warrant powers to allow agents to penetrate personal computers for the purpose of disabling encryption. To extract information from the computer, agents would still be required to get additional authorization from a court.

The proposal is the latest twist in an intense, years-long debate between the government and computer users who want to protect their privacy by encrypting documents.

Although Justice officials say their proposal is "consistent with constitutional principles," the idea has alarmed civil libertarians and members of Congress.

"They have taken the cyberspace issue and are using it as justification for invading the home," said James Dempsey, senior staff counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology, an advocacy group in the District that tracks privacy issues.

Police rarely use covert entry to pave the way for electronic surveillance. For example, federal law enforcement agencies obtained court approval just 34 times last year under eavesdropping statutes to install microphones, according to the 1998 wiretap report issued by the Administrative Office of the Unites States Courts.

David L. Sobel, general counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, predicted the number of secret break-ins by police would soar if the proposal is adopted because personal computers offer such a tantalizing source of evidence for investigators -- including memos, diaries, e-mail, bank records and a wealth of other data.

"Traditionally, the concept of 'black bag' jobs, or surreptitious entries, have been reserved for foreign intelligence," Sobel said. "Do we really want to alter the standard for physical entry?"

The proposal follows unsuccessful efforts by FBI Director Louis J. Freeh and other Justice officials to secure laws requiring computers or software to include "back doors" that would enable investigators to sidestep encryption.

Those proposals, most notably one called Clipper Chip, have been criticized by civil libertarians and have received little support in Congress.

In a snub of the administration, more than 250 members of Congress have co-sponsored legislation that would prohibit the government from mandating "back doors" into computer systems.

"We want to help law enforcement deal with the new technologies. But we want to do it in ways that protect the privacy rights of law-abiding citizens," said Rep. Robert W. Goodlatte (R-Va.), who originally sponsored the legislation, known as the Security and Freedom Through Encryption Act. Goodlatte said the Justice Department's proposal might upset the "very finely tuned balance" between law enforcement power and civil liberties.

But Justice Department officials say there is an increasingly urgent need for FBI agents and other federal investigators to get around encryption and other security programs.

"We've already begun to encounter [encryption's] harmful effects," said Justice spokeswoman Gretchen Michael. "What we've seen to date is just the tip of the iceberg."

The proposed law also would clarify how state and federal authorities can seek court orders to obtain software encryption "keys" that suspects might give to others for safekeeping. Although few people share such keys now, officials anticipate that they will do so more often in the future.

Administration officials played down the potential impact on civil liberties. In interviews, two officials said the law would actually bolster privacy protections by spelling out the requirements for court oversight of cyber-surveillance and the limits on how information obtained in a search could be used.

"The administration is supportive of encryption. Encryption is a way to provide privacy, but it has to be implemented in a way that's consistent with other values, such as law enforcement," said Peter P. Swire, the chief White House counselor for privacy. "In this whole debate, we have to strike the right balance."

Computer specialists predict that people under investigation will take countermeasures.

"It's 'Spy vs. Spy,' " said Lance Hoffman, director of the Cyberspace Policy Institute at George Washington University, who praised the administration for raising the issue but expressed skepticism about the proposal as it was described to him.

"I'd be leery if I were the government. . . . They have to be real careful," he said.

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[Feedback: letters@desnews.com; Forum rules: Keep your letter short. Include your full name, address and phone number.]

Readers' Forum: Radioactive harm debatable

Thursday, August 19, 1999 (Utah) Deseret News Opinion
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/1,1249,115004167,00.html?

Is radioactive contamination hazardous? There are many independent scientific studies that have found that exposure to low level radiation is harmless, possibly even beneficial to health.

There's a paper on the Internet, "Low Level Radiation Health Effects" by the Worchester Polytechnic Institute, which tells of evidence of that from studies in the following fields: (1) The Japanese atom bomb survivors; (2) Nuclear reactor facility exposed populations; Medically exposed populations; Radium burden population; (5) Nuclear weapons and facilities releases; (6) Natural background radioactivity; and (7) Animal and plant biology.

The gist of the studies is that the hazard of low-level radioactivity is suppositional and contrary to actual fact. The government-sponsored studies on lung cancer in the 1950s began as a study of uranium miners and mill workers. The study of the mill workers was dropped immediately when it was found that they had a normal incidence of lung cancer.

Since dissolving uranium ore creates a massive release of radon and the workers also worked with the mill tailings, I concluded that it was radioactive mine dust that was causing the high incidence of lung cancer in uranium miners. I discounted the University of Utah demonstration that radon caused lung cancer in Dalmatian dogs on this basis.

Radon is obtained by passing air over radium. In theory, just one particle of that dust was enough to cause lung cancer. When I presented this at a hearing on the removal of some uranium mill tailings in Salt Lake City, the TV cameramen covering the meeting pointed their cameras at the ceiling and gabbed with each other while I gave my presentation.

Bureaucrats, lawyers and health scare professionals have similarly turned up their nose at evidence that radon is not harmful.

Ignorance is expensive; the cost of this particular ignorance has been estimated to exceed $2 trillion.

The idea that low-level radiation is harmful is based on the theory that you get the same cancer-producing effect from a given dose of radiation if it is spread out over time as you do when it is given all at once. The theory says that damage done by a single quantum of radiation can be enough to overcome the body's healing and anti-cancer processes, enough to irretrievably cause cancer. By analogy, this says that if you walked down a flight of stairs it would injure you just as much as it would if you jumped directly from the top to the bottom. The state has cause to fear radioactive contamination but apparently not valid cause.

Volney Wallace Murray

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Man Allegedly Used Radiation as Weapon Against Co-Worker

Associated Press Friday, August 20, 1999; Page A26
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-08/20/146l-082099-idx.html
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/a/AP-Radioactive-Revenge.html

SANTA ANA, Calif., Aug. 19A former university lab technician who authorities said sought revenge on a co-worker by smearing her chair with radioactive material was arrested today on a charge of assault with a deadly weapon.

Andrew Andris Blakis, 32, told police he thought the co-worker had tried to poison him first, authorities said. His lips had begun to tingle, and tests found a release of P32 isotope, a colorless radioactive chemical used in DNA testing.

"This was a revenge kind of thing, but no evidence exists that she tried to harm him," said Tori Richards, a spokeswoman for the district attorney's office.

In retaliation, Blakis smeared the compound on the chair of postdoctoral researcher Jingtong Zuo, Richards said.

Zuo sat on the chair for about six hours before she discovered the contamination during a routine Geiger counter sweep, police said.

Investigators estimate Zuo was exposed to an average yearlong dose of radiation. Although she is not experiencing any symptoms of radiation poisoning, the long-term effects are unclear.

The July 1 incident took place at the University of California at Irvine. Blakis resigned from his job.

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Los Alamos: Not Exactly Ordinary

By H. Josef Hebert Associated Press Writer Thursday, August 19, 1999; 3:20 p.m. EDT
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WAPO/19990819/V000836-081999-idx.html

LOS ALAMOS, N.M. (AP) -- It's Friday night and there's music blaring from the downtown parking lot.

People have come with their children and their dogs, folding chairs and pickup trucks to enjoy the weekly summer concert and to dance on the asphalt pavement.

Nearby a firecracker goes off and a dozen kids scatter in excitement. It's ordinary fun on a hot summer night.

But this is no ordinary town.

``The conversations can get pretty strange,'' says Russ Gordon, 51, the pony-tailed owner of Gordon's Music Store, who's organized the summer concerts for years.

In the folding chairs, or leaning against a car fender, you're as likely to meet a nuclear physicist or experts on condensed matter or computerized fluid dynamics, as you are a waitress or a local cowpoke.

This is Los Alamos, a product of the nuclear age. A few blocks from Gordon's shop the municipal building rests on a site where 54 years ago physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer and other scientists made the world's first atomic bomb.

A town of 18,000 people, perched nearly a mile and a half above sea level on a mesa known as the Pajarito (Little Bird) Plateau, the town was until 1957 closed to outsiders.

The Los Alamos National Laboratory, which encompasses some 43 square miles, is across a canyon bridge from downtown. But community and lab could not be more intertwined.

About 12,400 people work at the lab and at its associated contracting companies, including more than 4,600 with advanced degrees -- a third of them Ph.Ds. High lab salaries make Los Alamos among the wealthiest communities in the country with an average household income of more than $64,000 a year, triple the statewide average.

Local historian Marjorie Bell Chambers remembers that security here once was so tight that when a baby was born at Los Alamos, the certificate listed the place of birth simply, P.O. Box 1663.

The paranoia about secrecy is long passed. But people here, almost all of them with some connection to the nuclear weapons lab, still cherish their privacy.

The recent dustup over Taiwan-born Wen Ho Lee and allegations of Chinese spying at the lab, still makes for weekend coffee shop conversation.

``The people that know him don't think he's a spy. He's a guy that slipped with the rules at the wrong time,'' says David Gurd, a physicist who works on a linear accelerator project at the lab.

Almost everyone here has some connection with the lab. They either work there, retired from there, have relatives working there, or work for companies dependent on the lab.

``It's been a one-employer town and that's been a problem,'' says Mildred Hoak, who should know. She and her husband were forced to take early retirement when more than 900 lab employes were phased out in the early '90s.

Still, she says, it's ``a wonderful town to raise a family.''

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Beryllium Advocate Dies at 58

Thursday, August 19, 1999; 8:17 p.m. EDT
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WAPO/19990819/V000120-081999-idx.html

TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) -- Galen Lemke, a former weapons plant worker who became a leading advocate for victims of beryllium disease, died Wednesday after a long battle with the illness. He was 58.

Lemke spent nine years making weapons parts, and a year later was diagnosed with the lung illness. He spent the past 15 years on an oxygen tank.

The often fatal disease, which can be treated but has no cure, results from exposure to dust from the metal beryllium. The metal is a hard, yet lightweight substance used to make nuclear weapons, electronics, auto parts and golf clubs.

An estimated 1,200 workers have contracted the disease since the 1940s, including 53 current and former Brush Wellman Inc. workers at the company's Elmore plant just outside Toledo, where Lemke worked. It is the nation's largest beryllium plant.

Lemke struggled for years to raise awareness about the disease, and his letter campaign led to an investigation by The Blade, which in March published a series of stories that said government and industry officials knew for years about the dangers of beryllium but allowed workers to be exposed to it.

In July, the federal government for the first time acknowledged that workers were made sick from beryllium while making nuclear weapons and announced a plan to compensate many of them for medical care and lost wages.

Lemke is survived by his wife, Betty; a daughter and a son.

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Recycling plans in danger

Web posted Aug. 19 at 09:02 PM, By Brandon Haddock Staff Writer Augusta (GA) Chronicle
http://augustachronicle.com/stories/082099/tec_124-5469.shtml

The lack of a shipping container for plutonium endangers a proposed Savannah River Site plant that would recycle the radioactive metal, a federal board has ruled.

Plans for a mixed-oxide, or MOX, fuel plant are ``in peril,'' the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board wrote last week.

The problem is the lack of a container to ship plutonium ``pits'' from Pantex Plant near Amarillo, Texas to SRS, the board wrote.

In its first recommendation this year, the board implored the U.S. Department of Energy to step up work at Pantex to package pits in safer containers. Energy Department officials have 30 days to respond.

Many of the pits -- the radioactive cores of nuclear weapons -- are scheduled to come to SRS, where the MOX plant would turn their plutonium into fuel for civilian nuclear reactors.

The plant would cost about $560 million and create 350 jobs at the federal nuclear-weapons site, which lost thousands to post-Cold War layoffs in recent years. The plant would be a cornerstone of a $1.4 billion plutonium-processing complex at SRS.

Most of the pits now are stored at Pantex, in containers that might not be suitable for long-term storage and are uncertified for shipping, the safety board noted. Efforts to develop a new container have been unsuccessful, board members said.

Although shipping concerns are not yet under the safety board's jurisdiction, they were worthy of mention, its chairman said Tuesday.

``That's not a safety problem from our point of view,'' John T. Conway said during a telephone interview. ``We were just commenting on it. Basically, this report is to get them to sit down and do some long-range planning and not just let things drift.''

The Energy Department does have some older containers certified to ship pits, but not enough for the SRS haul, said Matthew Donoghue, an Energy Department spokesman in Washington, D.C.

New containers will be needed to ship the plutonium from Pantex to SRS, Mr. Donoghue confirmed.

The board's report brings new attention to problems that should have been solved long ago, some nuclear activists said.

``It just shows that they aren't making the progress that they are supposed to,'' said Don Moniak of Serious Texans Against Nuclear Dumping. ``Our perception is that pit storage is in the same state it was 10 years ago.

``This functions to keep the pits here, which is not what it's supposed to do.''

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Nuclear foes to protest at Cook

By MATTHEW S. GALBRAITH South Bend Tribune -- August 19, 1999
http://www.sbtinfo.com/081999/local_ar/216349.htm
Photo: http://www.sbtinfo.com/081999/photos/0819mch1.jpg

THREE OAKS -- After a signal is given later today, several people will step over a guardrail and onto a private road outside the D.C. Cook Nuclear Plant in Bridgman.

That step -- a personal statement for which they trained about six hours this week -- will wed them to other activists who sought social change through civil disobedience.

Police officers will arrest the protesters on misdemeanor charges of criminal trespass, handcuff them, load them into vehicles and take them to the Berrien County jail.

There, "support persons" chosen by those arrested will post bail money in the amount of $100 unless any defendants decide to stay put until their initial court appearances.

The charge carries a $50 fine and up to 30 days in jail.

If all goes as Bonnie Urfer plans, the act of civil disobedience will be silent, nonviolent and a powerful statement against the dangers of unbridled nuclear power.

"It is the refusal of the people to be governed by injustice," said Urfer, a veteran of the antinuclear movement from Luck, Wis., who has been arrested at protests more than 70 times.

"It makes the power structure impotent. If the people don't obey, the government doesn't have the ability to rule," she explained.

In preparation for today's rally, Urfer spent the week teaching the guidelines, history and philosophy of non violent resistance at the Nuclear-Free Great Lakes Action Camp.

The camp drew about 50 people to Camp Soni Springs, a Girl Scout camp four miles south of Three Oaks. However, not all planned to cross the police tape and face arrest.

Under an arrangement between camp organizers, Berrien County police and Cook officials, the protesters will park across Red Arrow Highway from the plant entrance.

Police officers will escort them across the highway to a designated gathering place near the entrance. The property is owned by American Electric Power Co., Cook's owner.

William Schalk, spokesman for the Cook plant, said the company agreed to allow protesters onto plant property for safety purposes.

"We didn't want them walking along the side of the highway. That's not safe. And the law enforcement didn't want that," he said.

Doug Tiefenbach, chief deputy of the Berrien County Sheriff's Department, said a tape line will restrict protesters from the road leading into the plant. The road will be closed for the day, and plant traffic will be rerouted.

Protesters who cross the line and refuse police orders to vacate the premises will be charged with criminal trespass, he explained.

"Depending on what they do, there are other charges that could apply," said Tiefenbach.

He added there will be enough officers on hand to "handle the situation," but declined to say how many were assigned.

In her training sessions, Urfer strongly encouraged those who had signed up to "cross the line" to say nothing and initiate no physical contact with police during their arrests.

"No amount of belligerence or anger on your part will help the situation," she told the group.

To the support individuals who take bail money to the jail, she advised them to remember such necessities as car keys and cash and to remain at the jail for as long as it takes.

Plans for a nuclear-free Great Lakes campaign took shape last year after a similar action camp in the northeastern United States.

Several regional groups involved in environmental, alternate energy and consumer issues turned their focus on Cook, which has been shut down nearly two years so that safety concerns could be addressed.

David Lochbaum, a nuclear safety engineer with the Union of Concerned Scientists, claimed Cook was ripe for disaster when its reactors were shut down in September 1997.

An insufficient amount of cooling water would have been available in the event of a massive heat buildup due to blocked passages and faulty equipment, according to Lochbaum.

"Either one of (the systems) raised doubts about the plant's ability to handle an accident," he said. "In combination, it's a certainty the plant wouldn't have that ability."

Schalk, the Cook spokesman, said extensive plant analyses showed the coolant systems were "sufficient to mitigate an accident and protect the health and safety of the public" at the time of the shutdown.

A recently completed review of all plant systems has identified other safety issues and they are scheduled for repair, he added.

Company officials hope to restart Unit 2 by next March.

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Yearlong review ordered for fate of fast flux reactor

Linda Ashton - Associated Press; Spokane (WA) Net August 19, 1999
http://www.spokane.net/news-story-body.asp?Date=081999&ID=s623856&cat=

RICHLAND _ Energy Secretary Bill Richardson on Wednesday ordered a public, yearlong review of the practicality of restarting a surplus experimental reactor now on standby at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation.

The environmental impact statement on the Fast Flux Test Facility is to be completed by next fall, with a decision on a restart or shutdown expected by December 2000.

The review will evaluate the possibility of using the reactor for medical isotope production, making plutonium-238 for space batteries and a number of research and development activities.

"The department has no preferred alternative at this time," Keith Klein, DOE Hanford manager, said at a news conference.

"Clearly, this has been and continues to be a controversial issue. I know the secretary did not take this step lightly.

"I know there are those in the local community who are elated today. I also know there are others in the region who are disappointed.

"I would say this to both groups: The EIS does not mean the restart is a done deal -- far from it. The EIS will be thorough and objective."

The decision to proceed with the review drew an immediate response from Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., a critic of restarting the reactor.

"Today the Department of Energy has moved one step closer to declaring nuclear war against the citizens of the Pacific Northwest," Wyden said.

"I can think of few more hostile acts than for the federal government to dump more dangerous nuclear waste into our back yard before they've made any real progress in cleaning up the current nuclear mess at Hanford.

"The Department of Energy needs to quit hiding behind nuclear medicine when its sole interest is in creating plutonium and nuclear weapons materials. It's absolutely shameless. If this were really about nuclear medicine, the region's universities would be the first place they would look to fill the need, not the last."

Heart of America Northwest, a Hanford watchdog group, said a coalition would go to court to try to prevent any restart of FFTF and also begin a statewide ballot initiative against it.

The 400-megawatt, sodium-cooled reactor was built in the 1970s and operated for 10 years as a test site for advanced nuclear fuels and components. But since 1992, it has been without a mission.

It takes 260 people and roughly $40 million a year to keep FFTF in a restartable state. There is no fuel in the reactor core, but the liquid sodium cooling system continues to circulate.

Restarting the reactor would cost about $230 million over six years, while shutting it down permanently would cost about $200 million.

The FFTF review will include public hearings in Washington, Oregon and Washington, D.C. Dates have not yet been set.

The research reactor has been the subject of a number of studies over the years, but so far DOE has been unable to justify the cost of restarting the reactor for a new mission.

Bill Magwood, director of the department's Office of Nuclear Energy, Science and Technology in Washington, D.C., said things have changed while the reactor has been on standby.

There is growing interest in using medical isotopes for diagnosing and treating a number of diseases, including cancer, and also in testing advanced nuclear technology. Countries such as France, Japan and Korea have expressed an interest in access to FFTF.

"While the need's been increasing, the available facilities have been disappearing," including an experimental reactor in Idaho, Magwood said.

A detailed cost analysis of restarting and operating FFTF for any mission also will be part of the review process.

Both Klein and Magwood said any restart of FFTF would not interfere or take money away from with cleanup work at Hanford, the nation's most polluted nuclear site after 40 years of making plutonium for the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

Additionally, Magwood said there were no defense or weapons plans for FFTF.

"The FFTF has unique capabilities. It is a one-of-a-kind research reactor that again is capable of doing things that no other reactors are capable of doing by way of irradiation services and nuclear science," Klein said.

If the reactor were restarted, it could probably be up and running by sometime in 2004.

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Reactor Buried at Hanford

By The Associated Press August 20, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/a/AP-Reactor-Disposal.html

RICHLAND, Wash. (AP) -- With a brief ceremony, authorities began burying a 1,000-ton reactor taken from the largest nuclear power plant ever shut down in this country.

It will take several months to cover the empty, radioactive reactor with desert soil and river rock in a trench 850 feet long, 150 feet wide and 45 feet deep. The process began Thursday at US Ecology's 100-acre disposal site on the Hanford nuclear reservation.

``This whole thing went off without a hitch,'' said Joe Nagel, president and chief operating officer for Boise, Idaho-based American Ecology, US Ecology's parent.

The reactor, wrapped up in bright blue, attracted national attention two weeks ago as it chugged 270 miles up the Columbia River aboard a barge. It came from the Trojan Nuclear Power Plant, which for 16 years produced enough electricity to power Portland, Ore.

Portland General Electric chose to decommission the plant in 1993, two decades earlier than planned, after a series of problems, including a faulty safety system that drew federal fines, the accidental release of radioactive gases and cracked steam tubes.

The burial of the hulking, cylindrical reactor is permanent.

The reactor vessel is encased in carbon steel, 5 inches to 10 inches thick, and the reactor itself is stainless steel and filled with cement, all of which should keep it from leaching anything into the ground.