Fall Healing Global Wounds Gathering October 8-11, Nevada Nuclear Test Site gates....

http://www.shundahai.org/HGW -- Workshops on Yucca Mt Waste Repository DEIS and sane alternatives. Celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day with Ceremony on traditional Western Shoshone lands (NTS).

--

Tentative Yucca Mountain Draft Environmental Impact Statement Hearing schedule.

Citizen Alert is working with the state of Nevada and other organizations to do community trainings prior to these meetings. contact them at the cc address above. Thank you.

DATE CITY FACILITY

Monday Sept 27, 99 Amargosa Valley, NV Amargosa Valley Community Center
Thursday Sept 30, 99 Pahrump, NV Bob Ruud Community Center
Tuesday Oct 5, 99 Goldfield, NV Goldfield Community Center
Thursday Oct 14, 99 Boise, ID Boise Centre on the Grove
Tuesday Oct 19, 99 Ely, NV Bristlecone Convention Center
Thursday Oct 21,99 Atlanta, GA Georgia International Convention Center
Tuesday Oct 26, 99 Washington, D.C. Hall of the States
Thursday Nov 4, 99 Lone Pine, CA Statham Hall
Tuesday Nov 9, 99 Caliente, NV Caliente Youth Center
Tuesday Nov 16, 99 Denver, CO Denver Convention Complex
Wednesday Dec 1, 99 Reno, NV Lawlor Events Center
Tuesday Dec 7, 99 Austin, NV Austin Town Hall
Thursday Dec 9, 99 Cresent Valley, NV Cresent Valley Town Hall
Tuesday Jan 11, 00 Las Vegas, NV Grant Sawyer State Building
Thursday Jan 13, 00 Salt Lake City, UT Salt Lake City Hilton
Wednesday Jan 19, 00 St. Louis, MO TBA

Healing Global Wounds, PO Box 420, Tecopa CA 92389 USA (760) 852-4175 Fax (760)852-4151 heal@kay-net.com http://www.shundahai.org/HGW

---

[I think I missed this one last year.]

A shrinking plan for nuke waste

By Mary Manning <manning@lasvegassun.com> LAS VEGAS SUN, December 07, 1998
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/sun/1998/dec/07/508108924.html

The idea of shrinking 70,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste down to a couple hundred pounds sounds too good to be true.

For a handful of physicists at UNLV, however, reducing thousands of tons of radioactive materials to 230 pounds makes sense. It would put an end to the federal government's need for a nuclear repository at Yucca Mountain or anywhere else.

Most Nevadans oppose becoming the nation's nuclear garbage can, but there is no alternative under consideration.

"There is no voodoo technology here," nuclear physicist Anthony Hechanova said.

A Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate, Hechanova works at the Harry Reid Center for Environmental Studies and is proposing to use university expertise to develop a contingency plan if Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, fails to meet scientific tests that would qualify it as the nation's repository for high-level nuclear waste.

The physicists are proposing a way to transform the irradiated commercial nuclear reactor fuel, which have very long radioactive lives -- some in the millions of years -- into harmless elements. The process is known as transmutation.

When transmutation occurs, one element changes into another.

Unlike the dream of alchemists of old who tried to turn lead into gold, physicists know nuclear transmutation works.

The Department of Energy's national laboratory in Los Alamos, N.M., has been working on transforming matter for years, Hechanova said.

The process is called accelerator-driven transmutation technology. It can reduce the waste at the reactor sites and also can produce enough heat to generate steam to turn a turbine and produce electricity.

After the Cold War ended, Los Alamos physicists discovered a process under study by Russian scientists that uses liquid lead bismuth to provide the trigger to transform matter in the form of neutrons. The neutrons bombard the radioactive materials and change them into harmless elements.

There are advantages to using lead bismuth. It does not react violently with air and water, and it cools the hot elements and shields the environment from radiation, Hechanova said. It is much safer than other transmutation processes.

The trouble with this solution is U.S. policy for managing nuclear waste.

Currently, the Department of Energy plans to place the entire suite of radioactive elements inside Yucca Mountain. "They plan to bury everything under the sun there," Hechanova said. By 2015, Yucca Mountain would be full and the government would have to expand it or build a second repository.

The government is working from a plan that is outdated and outmoded, he said.

"First of all, let's stop calling it nuclear waste," said Larry Chase, a retired scientist from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the agency that will have to license a repository eventually.

"We're really talking about spent nuclear fuel," Hechanova said. Radioactive elements produced in the transformation could be used in medicine or in research, he said. And transmutation can be done at reactor sites.

The transmutation process could destroy the bad actors of the mix, such as plutonium, neptunium and technetium, he said. Those elements have radioactive lives in the millions of years.

Another problem with transmutation is the lack of a working machine. Congress cut a $15 million request for further research to $4 million in the 1999 budget. Hechanova said that the research and development might cost about $150 million, a far cry from the $3 billion already spent on Yucca Mountain.

With a change in policy, Hechanova said, a working model could be ready in five to 10 years. That's sooner than Yucca Mountain would be ready, if the site is ever proved scientifically safe.

-----------

Bribe Allegations Made In Goshute Suit

Friday, August 27, 1999 BY BRENT ISRAELSEN THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE
http://www.sltrib.com/08271999/nation_w/18682.htm

Leon Bear, chairman of the Skull Valley Band of Goshutes, allegedly used money he got from out-of-state utilities to try to bribe fellow tribal members to support a controversial nuclear-waste storage proposal.

On several occasions during the past few years, Bear offered tribal members "thousands of dollars" if they would sign documents in support of the proposal, according to a sworn statement signed by Sammy Blackbear.

The statement was filed this month in U.S. District Court as part of an ongoing lawsuit brought against the federal government by a Goshute opposition group led by Blackbear.

Danny Quintana, attorney for Bear and the tribe, called Blackbear's allegations "ridiculous."

"I honest to god couldn't make sense of what [Blackbear] is saying," Quintana said. "I don't think he has the slightest clue as to what's going on."

Blackbear and the opposition group are attempting to obtain a copy of an agreement Bear helped negotiate with Private Fuel Storage (PFS), a consortium of eight electric utilities that proposes to store thousands of tons of highly radioactive waste on the Goshute reservation.

In addition to attempted bribery, Bear also threatened to withhold the annual tribal dividend payments to some members unless they voted to retain him as tribal chairman, according to Blackbear.

"Leon Bear displayed the checks for such payments in front of the Tribal General Council and said in essence, `Vote for me or you don't get this money,' " Blackbear stated.

Blackbear is one of more than a dozen Goshutes who oppose the waste-storage plan. They are being assisted in their legal fight with a $50,000 grant from Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt's administration, which is actively opposed to the proposal.

Electric utilities and the federal government have been trying for decades to find a permanent, centralized resting place for highly radioactive waste generated by the nation's commercial nuclear-power plants. The waste, which is spent nuclear-fuel rods, can remain dangerous for up to 10,000 years.

A Decade to Wait: The U.S. Department of Energy is building a waste repository at Yucca Mountain in southern Nevada, but it is not scheduled to be ready until 2010.

PFS says its utilities cannot wait that long. In 1997, PFS signed a lease agreement with the Goshute tribe leadership, headed by Bear, to store the waste temporarily on the Skull Valley reservation, about 50 miles west of Salt Lake City. The Goshute leaders tout the venture as a safe way to bring economic opportunities to the largely impoverished 130-member tribe.

When Leavitt's office asked for a copy of the lease from the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), numerous portions were blacked out. The state says it wants a copy of the entire lease to see whether there are adequate safety and cleanup provisions.

But the BIA said the redacted portions, which include the amount of money PFS will pay the Goshutes, contain proprietary information that is exempt from release under the federal Freedom of Information Act.

The state then sued the BIA in federal court to gain a full copy of the lease agreement.

A short time later, Blackbear's opposition group filed a similar lawsuit that also sought an order to declare the lease null and void.

Blackbear and his co-plaintiffs call into question the authority of Bear and others on the three-person tribal executive committee that signed the lease agreement with PFS.

The Tribal General Council, composed of the approximately 70 adult members of the tribe, has never approved the lease agreement and never authorized Bear or anyone else to do so, according to Blackbear.

Ripoff Accusation: Duncan Steadman, an attorney for Blackbear and the opposition group, told U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball this week that his clients suspect the tribe was "ripped off" in the lease agreement and that the BIA did not do its job to protect the tribe.

Steven Roth, attorney for the BIA, said the public's interest to see the entire lease agreement is outweighed by the BIA's responsibility to prevent release of sensitive information that could compromise the tribe's ability to do business.

Val Antczak, attorney for PFS, which has intervened in the case, said the court has no jurisdiction over questions of the validity of the lease or the tribal's governing body.

In a motion filed to keep Bear from being subpoenaed, Quintana invokes the tribe's sovereign-nation status and says the proper forum for tribal members' grievances is before the tribe's general council, not the federal court.

Kimball has taken the issues under advisement, ordering additional briefings from attorneys on the questions of whether the lease is valid.

-----------

A Top Official Unconvinced By Missile Test Successes

Los Angeles Times Tuesday, August 24, 1999
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1999/08/24/MN79551.DTL

A top Pentagon official is casting doubt on the progress of the government's leading missile-defense technology, saying two recent test-flight successes haven't established how well the controversial system could handle an actual attack.

The test flights, carried out after six consecutive failures, have been hailed by advocates as evidence that the Army's $15.4 billion Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system will be able to protect troops on the battlefield from missile attacks.

But Philip E. Coyle III, director of operational testing and evaluation for the Pentagon, said the tests were ``highly scripted,'' and not as challenging as the conditions that THAAD would need to handle to actually knock an incoming missile out of the sky. He said more realistic tests should be conducted before the project moves from the prototype-development stage to engineering of the final system.

Coyle serves as a sort of quality control official for the Pentagon. Although his assessment is not likely by itself to derail the program, it provides new ammunition to others who have raised similar concerns.

The test flights, which took place in June and earlier this month, led Pentagon officials to accelerate the schedule of the program, an offshoot of the controversial ``Star Wars'' initiative.

The THAAD system consists of high-powered sophisticated radar for tracking incoming missiles, and land-based mobile launchers equipped with interceptor missiles outfitted with the latest generation of sensors. These missiles must, in effect, ``hit a bullet with a bullet'' by successfully striking an incoming missile in flight, while both travel at speeds of hundreds of miles an hour.

Coyle said the two flight tests, carried out at the Army's White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, differed from the conditions of a real attack in key respects.

Because of the relatively small size of the White Sands test area, the Army was required to use a target missile that flew a shorter path, and was thus easier for the missile defense system to locate.

In addition, the flight test was ``shaped and scripted'' so the collision would occur in a relatively small area of sky, so that debris would not fall in areas where it might do damage, he said. And he pointed out the THAAD missile was a prototype that would not ultimately be used in the system.

He said the system's performance could be examined in a more realistic setting if the next test were moved to the far larger Kwajalein Missile Range in the Marshall Islands. Such tests should be made before the Pentagon awards the contract for the final phase to Lockheed Martin Corp., Coyle urged.

-----------

Study: '57 Flats fire posed greatest risk

By Mark Eddy Denver Post Environment Writer, August 27, 1999
http://www.denverpost.com/news/news0827.htm

Aug. 27 - Of all plutonium releases from Rocky Flats, a devastating fire the night of Sept. 11, 1957, produced the greatest health risk for people living and working near the nuclear weapons plant, according to a groundbreaking study released Thursday by the state health department.

Despite the fire and other releases from the plant, the overall risk to the public turned out to be low, said James LaVelle, a toxicologist and a member of the Health Advisory Panel that oversaw the study.

"The risks of developing cancer from Rocky Flats were small when compared to average cancer risks,'' he said.

Overall, the just-completed, nineyear study found that the primary method of contact with plutonium would have been inhalation of particles and that the increased risk of cancer was greatest for someone who worked outside and lived south of Leyden, which is near the intersection of Indiana Street and West 64th Avenue.

Cancer risk in that area increased by between one in 10,000 and four in 100 million; the range in those estimates is because of gaps in study data. By comparison, the overall risk of dying from cancer in Colorado is one in five, and the risk of dying from fallout that is present everywhere because of nuclear weapons testing is 0.5 in 1 million.

But the study also points out that the 1957 fire and another in 1969 could have been much more catastrophic. The fact that the 1957 fire occurred at night, when most people were indoors, probably kept exposure to plutonium low. And if not for heroic efforts by firefighters, the 1969 fire would have burned through the roof and the entire metro area would have been contaminated with plutonium.

"The bottom line is risks at Rocky Flats were low and the public is lucky that was the case,'' LaVelle said.

With that history in mind, the public needs to monitor cleanup of the plant, and the U.S. Department of Energy and its contractors must ensure no more releases occur, said Ellen Mangione, chairwoman of the Health Advisory Panel.

"Past problems make it imperative that dismantling and cleanup activities at Rocky Flats be planned with care to prevent similar events in the future,'' she said.

Plutonium released from the 1957 fire and carried by the wind was the primary cause of health risks, according to the study, which examined operations at the nuclear weapons plant from 1952 through 1989.

The study, which looked at offsite health risks as opposed to those associated with working at Rocky Flats, also found:

People who lived near Rocky Flats between 1952 and 1970 were exposed to higher concentrations of plutonium than those who moved to the area later.

During the fire Sept. 11-12, 1957, an estimated 40 to 500 grams of plutonium drifted with the wind. The fire started when plutonium spontaneously ignited inside glove boxes in the main processing center.

People who were not in the path of the 1957 plume were exposed to other plutonium releases from the plant, including windblown contaminated soil from a storage area, routine releases and the fire in 1969.

Other than those individuals who were exposed the night of the 1957 fire, the highest exposure and resulting cancer risks were to people east and southeast of the plant.

Large amounts of carbon tetrachloride were released from the plant, possibly resulting in cancer risks comparable to those from plutonium releases.

The carbon tetrachloride releases were the most significant chemical emissions from the plant.

Dispersal of the plutonium was so great that soil samples taken during the study showed levels no higher than background radiation left by nuclear testing.

The study did not attempt to locate people who lived in the area during the plant's operation.

Scientists instead pored over documents, some of which had to be declassified, and weather records to create models of possible health effects.

Rocky Flats and operations there were cloaked in secrecy, and no one, including state health officials, was told at the time of the 1957 fire that plutonium had been released. In fact, the government wouldn't even admit at the time that the plant was processing plutonium.

The results of the study provide some measure of relief, said Bini Abbott, a panel member who for 38 years has lived a mile southeast of the plant.

"I was more alarmed when I went into this study,'' she said. "I'm glad the amounts that got out were as low as they were, but it in no way absolves the Department of Energy or the contractors of the terrible mistakes they made and covered up from the public.''

The Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center, which monitors Rocky Flats, cautioned against putting too much stock in the study. "This study should not be presented or interpreted as a definitive statement on risk from past operations at Rocky Flats. Due to secrecy and poor record-keeping, there are many data gaps that forced researchers to rely on assumptions, best guesses and modeling,'' said the center's Tom Marshall.

Secrecy at Rocky Flats exacerbated the health and safety risks to the public, according to a paper released Thursday by the Institute for Science and International Security, an independent research organization in Washington.

"Secrecy worsened many plant safety and health problems and greatly reduced both the plant's accountability and the public's trust,'' according to David Albright, president of the institute and a member of the Health Advisory Panel that oversaw the Rocky Flats study.

"Active public oversight of DOE and DOE contractors remains key to minimizing health and safety risks posed by efforts, now underway, to clean up the Rocky Flats site and other DOE sites,'' the institute's paper said.

-----------

Study: Risk Low From Colo. Plant

By Judith Kohler Associated Press Writer Friday, August 27, 1999; 4:30 a.m. EDT
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WAPO/19990827/V000799-082799-idx.html
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/a/AP-Rocky-Flats-Cancer.html

DENVER (AP) -- An exhaustive study on cancer risks from secret radioactive and chemical releases at the former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant found no great danger to the public.

``The bottom line is the risks at Rocky Flats were low and the public was lucky that this was the case,'' said James LaVelle, a consulting toxicologist on the study. ``Many of the releases and risks could have been much worse.''

However, there were information gaps in the nine-year study -- the result of the defense industry's secrecy and lack of government oversight, particularly in the early years of the Cold War, researchers said.

``We don't even know where all the stuff is. We don't have a record of where they buried some of the barrels,'' said Niels Schonbeck, a panel member and biochemistry professor at Metropolitan State College in Denver.

The study released Thursday is the most largest yet of public risks from releases at Rocky Flats in the 1950s and '60s.

Researchers said people with the highest risk of developing cancer were working outside the plant when smoke spread plutonium during a 1957 fire. The risk was estimated from as high as one case in 10,000 to one in 25 million.

The plant, 15 miles northwest of downtown Denver, began producing plutonium bombs and bomb parts in 1952. State officials in the 1980s raised concerns about potential health hazards, and the plant was closed after the FBI raided it in 1989 to investigate allegations of environmental crimes.

Details about the releases remain unknown because of poor oversight by federal regulators and the defense industry's secrecy, investigators said.

The 1957 fire was kept secret until 1969, the same year another fire released plutonium into the environment. Also, between 1,000 and 5,000 tons of a chemical solvent leaked through air vents and waste barrels during the 1960s, the study found.

Members of the state advisory panel that oversaw the study cautioned there are still potential risks because of the $7 billion state and federal cleanup, estimated to take 12 years.

``The citizens around the site are not out of the woods with regard to Rocky Flats,'' said John Till, president of Radiological Assessments Corp., which helped conduct the study. ``Something still could happen. The public needs to be aware of that.''

After the FBI raid, a federal grand jury in 1992 returned indictments against key officials for plant manager Rockwell Corp. and the Energy Department. Then-U.S. Attorney Mike Norton refused to sign the indictments.

Some grand jurors denounced the government's failure to issue indictments, putting out a scathing report on its investigation. But the report was sealed. An edited version later became public.

The case ended with a controversial plea bargain that led Rockwell to pay $18.5 million in federal fines, but no individuals were charged.

---

Cancer risk low near Flats
Exposure to plutonium particles adds risk of about 1 in 1 million

By Katy Human, Boulder News, August 27, 1999
http://www.bouldernews.com/news/local/27aflat.html

Bini Abbott has lived on the western shore of Standley Lake since 1960. Her Arvada ranch is two miles downwind from Rocky Flats, where Energy Department workers built nuclear weapons for 37 years.

Abbott, 67, spends a lot of time outdoors. Because of her active lifestyle and location, she has a greater risk than most area residents of developing cancer from chemicals released from Rocky Flats, according to a new study released Thursday.

But even Abbott's cancer risk is probably low, researchers said. The radioactive plutonium particles sent into the air during fires and other accidents at Rocky Flats give her an additional risk of about 1 in 1 million of developing cancer.

For most people living downwind from Rocky Flats in the 1950s and 1960s, the site created an additional cancer risk between 1 in 10,000 and 1 in 10 billion.

"The bottom line is that the risks to the offsite community were low," said Hank Stovall, Broomfield city councilman and a member of the advisory panel to the state health department on the Rocky Flats study.

The Colorado Department of Public Health and the Environment spent nine years and nearly $15 million to study whether historic accidents at Rocky Flats may have made its neighbors sick.

Members of the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center said the study was useful, but because of gaps in the data available, it should not be taken as the final word about the health risks to people who lived near Rocky Flats.

Still, the study results should be somewhat reassuring to people who lived near Rocky Flats in the 1950s and 1960s. During those decades, fires sent plumes of radioactive smoke into the air and winds swirled contaminated soils beyond Rocky Flats boundaries, Stovall said.

He and others said the results should serve as a lesson.

"Look. It was a close call," said David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, D.C., and a member of the health advisory panel.

"The 1969 fire came really close to breaching the roof and releasing massive amounts of plutonium into the Denver area," Albright said. "The things I saw in the research were pretty frightening. There was so much secrecy and the secrecy bred lack of accountability and cover-up."

John Till, president of the Radiological Assessments Corp., the company hired to do the research for the state health department, agreed.

"The Department of Energy and the residents living around the facility were really quite fortunate that more serious accidents did not occur," Till said.

The state health department hired Till's company to plow through Rocky Flats documents and reconstruct accidents that might have exposed the public to hazardous chemicals. The company's team dug through weather records to calculate wind direction and speed, and they pored through thousands of pages of data about soil contamination off site. A panel of health experts and citizens oversaw the company's work.

Fires and winds sent plutonium-contaminated smoke and soils off site, and the industrial solvent carbon tetrachloride, a likely carcinogen, leaked out of buildings and containers into the air, according to the new study.

Releases of those two chemicals, calculated to be those most dangerous to the public, caused an additional cancer risk of between 1 in 10,000 and 1 in 100 billion.

That's about the same risk as the radioactive fallout from nuclear testing in the 1950s, Till said.

The new study suggested that risks were on the higher end of that range for people who lived in the area during the 1950s and 1960s. That's because plutonium emits a form of radioactivity that can't penetrate the skin. The best way to get a dose of radioactivity from the metal is to breathe it in or ingest it easiest to do when it's in tiny airborne particles such as smoke and dust.

Though the accidents did leave behind plutonium in soils outside of Rocky Flats, public health department researchers said it would be difficult for a person to get a significant dose of radioactivity from that contamination today.

Niels Schonbeck, a biochemistry professor at Metropolitan State University in Denver and a member of the advisory council, cautioned the public to interpret the new study results carefully.

"This is reassuring about the past, yes, but not about the future. The risk for the future could be as great or greater," he said.

Workers stopped building nuclear weapons at Rocky Flats in 1989. Cleanup began in the early 1990s, but several tons of plutonium still remain on site, either locked up in vaults or as contamination in building ducts, pipes, floors and walls. Schonbeck said he worries that the contractor hired to cleanup Rocky Flats, Kaiser-Hill, may be more focused on budgets and schedules than public safety.

He said he also worries that the recent suspicions of Chinese espionage at an Energy Department facility is fostering a movement to once again increased security and secrecy in that department.

Activist Tom Marshall with the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center also takes the study results with a grain of salt.

"Looking at what happened at Rocky Flats is worth the money. But we have to be careful about viewing these findings as significant," Marshall said.

He said many of Radiological Assessments Corp.'s results are based on computer models and best guesses about how much plutonium was where and when. The defense industry's secrecy and lack of government oversight, particularly in the early years of the Cold War, left gaps in researchers' understanding of hazards.

"We may never find out what happened because of poor record keeping," Marshall said. "If risks are relatively low, that's good news. I'm not so sure we really know that they are."

Schonbeck said: "We don't even know where all the stuff is. We don't have a record of where they buried some of the barrels."

Marshall said he also worries about health problems other than cancer. There is some evidence that very low doses of radiation can cause health-damaging chromosomal abnormalities, for example.

But Bini Abbott, who served as a citizen member of the oversight panel, said she feels a little more assured after the health study.

"I came into this study much more fearful than I am today," she said.

---

Cancer study shows low risk in Flats area
Residents have higher risk of lightning death than from accidents at former weapons plant

By Berny Morson Denver Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer, August 27, 1999 Insde Denver
http://insidedenver.com/news/0827flat1.shtml

JEFFERSON COUNTY -- People who live near Rocky Flats are at little risk of getting cancer from radioactive leaks, a nine-year study shows.

Even people who have lived near the former nuclear weapons plant since it opened in 1953 and were downwind of a massive 1957 plutonium fire are at lower risk for cancer than of being killed by lightning, the state study found.

But some questions remain because records and other data used in the study were incomplete.

A panel that released the study Thursday blamed the defense industry's secrecy and lack of regulation during the Cold War for the omissions.

But Niels Schonbeck, a panel member and biochemistry professor at Metropolitan State College in Denver, said scientists are 90 percent certain the the risk of cancer is low.

A study released last year by the health department showed no higher incidence of cancer in neighborhoods near Rocky Flats than in the rest of the Denver area.

The new study did not track cancer cases. Instead researchers relied on computer modeling to predict cancer rates.

Since 21 percent of all Colorado deaths are from cancer, researchers cannot say for sure that a particular case of the disease was caused by living near Rocky Flats, said health department epidemiologist Ellen Mangione.

"I think we in the local community lucked out," said Broomfield City Councilman Hank Stovell, a retired engineer who was part of the committee that directed the study.

"The impact could have been a lot worse."

The Rocky Flats plant 14 miles northwest of Denver was the site of numerous accidents during nearly 40 years of producing the nation's atomic weapons.

The $15 million Historical Public Exposure Studies, begun in 1990, was prompted by persistent public fears that the plant was polluting the surrounding area.

Eugenia "Bini" Abbott, who has lived on a ranch east of Rocky Flats since 1960, said she's reassured by the report.

"I love where I live," said Abbott, the citizen representative on the study group.

The study was conducted through the state Health Department but funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, which oversees Rocky Flats.

The worst accident at the Flats occurred in 1957, when a fire broke out in Building 71 and plutonium particles were released through a smokestack. The smoke spread south and east along the South Platte River Valley.

The fire was kept secret until 1969.

In a 1969 incident, barrels being stored outdoors deteriorated and leaked radioactive liquid into the soil. Some of the soil was carried away by the wind.

The study's computer models calculated who would have been affected by those and other releases.

A person doing heavy labor near Indiana Street and 64th Avenue while the 1957 fire was raging would have been at the greatest risk, the study found. That's a tiny group of people -- the area was sparsely populated in 1957 and the fire broke out in the middle of the night.

The chance of developing cancer under those circumstances was at least one in 10,000 -- slightly less than the risk of being killed by lightning. The risk could have been as little as 1 in 100 million -- researchers can't be sure because the data are imprecise.

With more data, researchers could have pinpointed the risk more precisely, Schonbeck said.

People who moved into the area later or live farther away from the plant have less chance of developing cancer -- as little as one chance in 100 billion for people in downtown Denver or Boulder.

John Till of Risk Assessment Corp., which carried out part of the study, warned that the risk is not over. Plutonium still can be released as the contaminated Rocky Flats buildings are torn down.

"You are not out of the woods," Till said.

-----------

SRS plan for project supported
Despite some criticism, scientists say method of disposal is a viable option for nuclear waste facility

Web posted Aug. 26 at 11:24 PM, By Brandon Haddock Staff Writer
http://augustachronicle.com/stories/082799/tec_066-6400.000.shtml

NORTH AUGUSTA -- Savannah River Site scientists said Thursday that they remain committed to a proposed $1.9 billion ``melt-and-dilute'' plant, despite recent setbacks to the program.

``We believe we should proceed cautiously and prudently, but at the same time, we think it is very realistic to make this successful,'' said Natraj Iyer, manager of spent-fuel technology at the federal nuclear weapons site's Savannah River Technology Center.

``The path we are on, we are not taking anything for granted,'' Dr. Iyer told members of the SRS Citizens Advisory Board during a meeting in North Augusta.

The melt-and-dilute plant would dispose of some spent nuclear reactor fuel by melting the aluminum rods, which also contain weapons-grade uranium.

The molten metal would be mixed with weaker uranium, then molded into metal disks suitable for longterm burial.

Many nuclear activists laud the plan, saying it reduces the world's nuclear danger by making the uranium unusable in atomic weapons. But the project suffered a setback in June, when it briefly shut down after money ran out.

The project has drawn criticism from the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. The federal review board stated that the project was risky, and that existing SRS plants could do the job.

On Thursday, Dr. Iyer said SRS scientists are developing solutions to the technical questions outlined by the safety board.

Design of the plant won't begin until the melt-and-dilute process has been demonstrated successfully, said David Huizenga, an acting deputy assistant secretary for the U.S. Department of Energy, which owns SRS.

``We certainly have the defense board asking some tough technical questions that we have to respond to,'' Mr. Huizenga said.

``I expect them to be able to answer those questions,'' he continued, gesturing toward Dr. Iyer. ``It would surprise me if the people in this community and on this board, who have lived and worked together with us for years, would think that we would design a half-baked facility that was going to fail and endanger everybody.''

Despite the assurances, some members of the citizens board raised questions about the melt-and-dilute plan.

Robert Overman said he believed SRS officials rubber-stamped the project, without questioning its viability.

-----------

Cost decided Shattuck waste fate
EPA cited 12 reasons for keeping radioactive materials at site, but money was bottom line

By Deborah Frazier Denver Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer, August 9, 1999
http://insidedenver.com/news/0809shat1.shtml

An attorney for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency made this argument against moving radioactive waste from the defunct Shattuck Chemical Co.: "If we let one small community push us around, others will try to do the same."

The statement, written by EPA attorney Wendy Silver in a 1993 document, was among 12 reasons Silver listed for not moving Shattuck's radioactive waste from the 1805 S. Bannock St. site to one of several privately owned disposal areas in remote areas of the West.

The memo, stamped "Attorney-Client Communications," was part of an analysis of changing the 1992 state EPA decision to mix the 50,000 cubic yards of low-level uranium waste with concrete and bury it under a clay cap at the plant site.

At the time, the analysis was prompted by strong public opposition to burying the material locally, the on-site remedy, and by a drop in the cost of moving the material elsewhere, the off-site remedy. Work at Shattuck had stopped, pending a possible change in the remedy.

Silver's list, one of thousands of classified papers released last week by the EPA, was part of the deliberations. Other points included the following:

"Changing the remedy sets a bad precedent with respect to the NIMBY syndrome and trying to sell the idea that cleaned-up Superfund sites are safe."

NIMBY is an acronym for Not In My Back Yard.

In the late 1980s, Congress told the EPA to cut costs by disposing of hazardous wastes at the site instead of moving the material to a remote area.

"We have left a large volume of untreated materials in place at other OUs (operating units in Denver) -- the city has not been worried about the presence of these materials."

None of the nine factors in the state EPA decision to bury the waste has changed. "Therefore, changing the remedy would likely be found arbitrary and capricious" by the public, the courts and reviewing officials, Silver wrote.

"The vocal members of the Overland Neighbors Association do not live close to the site. Those most affected by the site have not complained."

"Saying only that '(moving the waste) is the right thing to do' will not be sufficient in court."

"Any money lost in changing the remedy is a waste of taxpayer dollars."

Silver wasn't available for comment Friday.

As it turned out, Silver's list wasn't a key factor in the decision to leave the waste in place. And, in fact, Silver's memo was the only document that belittled community opposition.

What tipped the scales was the estimated $4 million to $11 million extra that removing the material would have cost and Shattuck's statements it would file suit if the waste was moved, officials said.

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment and the city of Denver were approached by Max Dodson, assistant EPA regional administrator, and E. Donald Elliott, EPA general counsel, about sharing the extra costs. Both declined.

"We were trying to figure out if others could contribute money to get it off-site, but they (city and state) said it wasn't their problem and they didn't want to pay," said Barry Levene, the EPA's Superfund chief in Colorado.

Howard Roitman, chief of the Health Department's hazardous waste division, said he doesn't remember it that way. He said the state was willing to pay about $1 million and would have talked to the legislature about providing more money.

"We wanted a resolution, but I don't know that there was ever a proposal on the table that asked us to pay more," he said.

The other significant obstacle was Shattuck's opposition to taking the material to Envirocare Inc. in Utah because of health and safety violations there. And Shattuck had said it would sue to recover the money already spent -- about $2 million in engineering, excavation and other preparations for burial.

Shattuck remains adamant about not moving the waste and filing suit if the material is moved.

"Everyone is nervous about sending their waste there, but there is no other place," said Levene, referring to Envirocare's monopoly on low-level radioactive waste disposal.

In 1993, during the review, there were several other possible locations for low-level radioactive waste disposal. But one of the sites was never licensed, another ran out of room and a third was limited to other types of nuclear material.

After Colorado and the EPA decided to entomb the waste in Denver, Envirocare dropped the price. The price dropped further when officials reviewed other facilities for disposal.

Attached to a July 9, 1993, memo evaluating the options, Silver wrote EPA project engineer Rebecca Thomas that Silver had been considering how to justify a change in the remedy if the difference in cost was not more than $5 million.

"Our rationale will have to be that state acceptance has switched from on-site to off-site and that community acceptance of the on-site remedy is even more negative than we had previously believed," Silver wrote.

"Also, is there (is) any way we can say that the treatability studies have shown the on-site remedy will be less effective than we anticipated. ... OK, it's a stretch, but if we're pinned to the wall, it's the best that we have."

In an Aug. 2, 1993, memorandum to Robert Duprey, director of the EPA's hazardous waste management division, Silver said Shattuck would sue if the remedy was changed.

"The office of regional counsel believes that Shattuck would have a very good chance of winning," she said. "... (it) could result in EPA being required to use (Super)Fund money to reimburse Shattuck for its on-site remedy costs or, even worse, the entire cleanup."

But last week, Hugh Kaufman, an EPA investigator named to review the decision and the process, said he didn't buy the lawsuit argument.

"The EPA had the money to pay for the off-site disposal and sue the responsible parties to retrieve all the costs," Kaufman said. "I don't believe Shattuck would prevail in court."

But in 1993, the internal EPA debate continued. In a handwritten note on an October memo to Diana Shannon, chief of the Superfund Remedial Branch, about changing the decision, EPA Colorado Chief Marc Alston wrote:

"I feel that sufficient flexibility exists to amend the proposed plan to take the material off-site, and I feel that is the right thing to do," Alston stated.

But by Jan. 24, 1994, the EPA had resumed defending the on-site remedy.

And in 1996, when the EPA and the state reviewed the remedy again, Michael Risner, director of the EPA's legal enforcement program, said in a previously classified document that the reconsideration was a waste of resources.

"The EPA has spent much time and effort litigating so that the remedy can proceed," Risner wrote in a May 21, 1996, letter to assistant EPA regional administrator Dodson.

"It's time to stop second-guessing and proceed with implementation."

-----------

Bechtel's new laboratory director looking for a 'sustainable' future

By Jennifer Langston, 8/01/99 - Idaho Post Register

http://www.idahonews.com/080199/NATION_/43543.htm

The Department of Energy has given incoming contractor Bechtel B & W Idaho a mandate: within five years the INEEL should emerge as a "true national lab."

Unlike directives to suck radioactive sludge out of tanks or ship waste out of state, figuring out just what that means is a murkier enterprise.

The real trick is making Idaho a sustainable lab, one that will be invaluable to the department in the next century, said Billy Shipp, Bechtel's new laboratory director, who comes from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Washington State.

Bechtel has some ideas on how to reach that endpoint: reorganizing the laboratory, bolstering basic science, defining long range problems and building facilities that will distinguish it from other research centers in the country.

Bechtel, which takes over as contractor on Oct. 1, plans to restructure the lab around the Department of Energy's four focus areas: science, environmental quality, energy and national security.

Current contractor Lockheed Martin was asked five years ago to emphasize launching new technologies from the lab into the commercial marketplace. So managers organized departments, in part, around different product lines like mining technologies, fossil fuel products, pollution prevention techniques.

Bechtel's approach is more closely aligned with the site's long-range plan, which was written over the past several years to define new missions in the department's four key areas.

"This should be a multipurpose national lab, and to do that you've got to make substantial contributions in each," Shipp said.

The immediate goal is to attract research money and develop technologies that will help solve problems at the site, at other DOE facilities and in the private sector.

There's also an implied mandate to increase Idaho's visibility, make it a world-recognized center of research and do work that no other place is as well-equipped to perform.

To do that, the company plans to strengthen the lab's basic science capabilities through partnerships with universities and new staff, although Shipp said he didn't yet know how many people might need to be hired to do that.

The Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory will always be a place that specializes in applied engineering and technologies that have practical uses, Shipp said.

Having a better understanding of basic science helps engineers come up with more efficient technologies. If you're developing a new process to turn waste into glass, the more you understand about the chemistry and physics, the more effective that process becomes.

"If you know precisely where you're going, you invest in technology. If you don't ... you're going to invest in science," he said. "Work tends to follow capability in the scientific areas."

Managers also need to figure out where the INEEL can help in solving long-term, intractable problems that are going to be with the Department of Energy for decades to come, Shipp said.

One of those is underground contamination. The problems are endless both inside and outside the agency - from radioactive plumes in soils to mining waste to nutrients seeping off farms.

Scientists still don't fully understand how contaminants move through soils and groundwater, Shipp said.

"It's difficult to make a decision when you can't predict and don't understand the contaminants you're dealing with," he said. "Investment in that could have tremendous benefits."

Bechtel has pitched building a "signature facility" at the INEEL, one that would define its strengths, bring new work and differentiate the lab from other DOE sites.

It's just an idea at this point, but Bechtel thinks a series of laboratories where researchers could study underground contaminants is a good candidate.

That might be a place with large tanks of soils that mimic layers of earth, where scientists could test predictive models about how pollution moves.

"We need another laboratory that can do that basic chemistry and physics kind of work ... and handle large volumes of radioactive soils," he said. "That doesn't exist anywhere in the country."

The Department of Energy would have to agree with that conclusion, and find the money to build the laboratories. Shipp said the company has just begun discussions with the agency.

"They have indicated they would be interested in listening," he said.

Another problem that isn't going away anytime soon is global warming. That's the context in which nuclear power, which doesn't emit greenhouse gases, could gain favor again.

The INEEL was just named lead laboratory for the department's nuclear energy office, and the site is still the best place to work on new reactor designs, more efficient fuels and safety tests, he said.

"We will work very hard to ensure that the nation has the full range of options to make decisions on its energy future," Shipp said.

INEEL and environment reporter Jennifer Langston can be reached at 542-6746, or via e-mail at jlangston@idahonews.com.

---

Grout may be answer for INEEL - Officials hope it will help close chapter on radioactive waste storage tanks

By Kim Prendergast, Idaho Post Register, 6/25/99
http://www.idahonews.com/062599/A_SECTIO/41144.htm

Ten cement trucks filed into an Idaho Falls parking lot Thursday as INEEL officials hoped they were watching the answer to their high-level waste woes.

The trucks dumped greenish-brown grout into the bottom of a structure at the Science Applications International Corporation Star Center. For purposes of the experiment, it represented the bottom of an underground tank like those at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory.

The grout was designed to suck liquid from the bottom of the tank, a method that could be used to close the 300,000-gallon liquid radioactive waste storage tanks at the site.

According to the Idaho Settlement Agreement, the INEEL has until December 2000 to submit a plan to close at least one of its 11 below-grade liquid radioactive waste storage tanks. The plan must also include methods for stabilizing any tank residue so that it won't leak into the environment.

"It's a radioactive material and has hazardous gases and chemicals, said John Walsh, public affairs for Lockheed Martin Idaho. "It's nasty stuff, so we need to get it out of there."

If the grout method doesn't work, Keith Quigley, project manager for Tank Farm Closure, said Lockheed Martin does have contingency plans to rid the tanks of radioactive fluid.

"If it's in a liquid form, it can travel down to the aquifer in the river bottom below the site," he said.

If the tests prove successful, Walsh said, INEEL officials could turn the liquid in the grout into a solid through an evaporation process called calcining, in which solids adhere to a sandlike material.

"This process is to get as much residue out of the tanks as possible to protect the environment," Walsh said. "Calcining is still harmful, but the substance is in a solid form so it's easier to control."

Calcining was invented at the site in 1963, and much of the spent fuel and high-level waste has been sitting in the bottom of the tanks for 40 years.

The waste tanks are empty except for residue on the sides and bottom, Walsh said.

He added that the inside of the tanks were in good shape and showed on signs of leaking.

Thursday's demonstration was just the beginning of the grout test. Officials said it will take about two weeks before the results will be known, although they said, "So far, so good."

Reporter Kim Prendergast can be reached at 542-6754, or via e-mail at kprendergast@idahonews.com.