Nuclear Notes

WIPPlash
US - When The Nuclear Reactor [107 Cienega St., Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501, (505) 986-1973] called the Department of Energy's (DOE) Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) information line in Carlsbad, New Mexico, Westinghouse spokesman Donovan Mager denied that shipping truckloads of nuclear wastes across the US to the WIPP repository would pose any public risk. Besides, Mager commented, "No one really knows" how much radiation exposure is dangerous.

"There will be fewer than ten shipments on St. Francis Drive." Mager stated. When The Reactor's reporter registered surprise, Mager recanted. "Well, ten to twenty." Mager subsequently called back to up the figure to "a total of 32."

Then The Reactor checked with New Mexico's Radioactive Waste Task Force, and learned that trucks loaded with WIPP waste were expected to average "one to two shipments per week" for the first two years. The government estimates that a traffic jam of WIPP-bound trucks on I-40 could expose nearby drivers to radiation levels equivalent to one chest x-ray every hour.

Tuning in for Fall-out
US - In 1997, Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety [107 Cienega St., Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501, (505) 986-1973] won its lawsuit against the DOE for the agency's radioactive violations of the Clean Air Act at the Los Alamos National Lab. As part of the settlement, the DOE is funding a Neighborhood Environmental Watch NETwork Program [NEWNET, www.jdola.lanl.gov/newnet.html] which, for the first time, requires the auditing of a nuclear weapons program's radioactive air emissions by a citizens' watchdog group.

Loose Lips Sink NIFS
US - The Department of Energy deliberately misled the public about the dangers of operating the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at the Lawrence Livermore National Lab near San Francisco. This according to government records released as part of a lawsuit by the Natural Resources Defense Council and 38 other organizations.

The DOE assured the public that it's experiments with "virtual" nuclear explosions would not involve any radioactive materials, but the declassified papers reveal plans to conduct 80 shots on capsules filled with uranium . Lab officials told the public the containers holding NIF's fusion capsules were to be made from gold but the declassified papers reveal plans to substitute containers made from uranium. The papers disclosed long- standing plans to use plutonium, uranium and highly reactive lithium hydride in NIF once it is completed in 2003.

MAD Man in the White House
US - Bill Clinton's return to the pre-emptive "first-use" nuclear policies of the Cold War have given even the US' friends the jitters. They will not be calmed by the British American Security Information Council's release of an internal Defense Department report. The confidential DoD document proposes that the US should maintain the threat of nuclear retaliation with an "irrational and vindictive streak" to intimidate other countries.

A Fraudulent Push for Nukes
JAPAN - The birthplace of Godzilla is still fighting a tooth-and-claw battle over nuclear power. The people don't want it but the government does. Just how badly Tokyo wants to keep on splitting atoms became apparent recently when ¥8 million ($60,000) worth of leaflets were handed out promoting nuclear power as a "solution" to greenhouse warming. The leaflets appeared to be official United Nations documents (the front page carried the logo of the UN's Kyoto climate change conference) but, as Safe Energy magazine pointed out, the leaflets were printed by the Japanese government, which identified itself "in small type at the bottom of the last page."

US Begins Rebuilding Nuclear Bombs
US - The Washington Post reported in May that the Department of Defense "has begun rebuilding some of the approximately 9,000 nuclear warheads that remain in America's arsenal." Under the DOE's $4.1 billion "stockpile stewardship" program, Mark 21 reentry vehicles containing W87 nuclear warheads on MX intercontinental missiles are being "refurbished to make them reliable beyond the year 2025." The pro-disarmament Los Alamos Study Group calls the program a "shocking" betrayal of the US pledge, as a signer of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, to end the nuclear arms race.

Schwarzenegger's Homeland is Nuke-Free
AUSTRIA - Last November, Austria became the first European country to become officially nuclear-free. Austria will no longer support nuclear power and will not permit the storage or transport of nuclear wastes within its borders. Austria has also committed to spending more money on renewable energy.