I. OAK RIDGE

Disposal costs

The staff of the US Environmental Protection Agency has noted discrepancies in the figures for disposal costs in decision documents for the Oak Ridge Reservation. Apparently two figures are used for disposal at the Environmental Management Waste Management Facility: $227/yd3 and $165/yd3. Also, US Department of Energy appears to be using what EPA regards as an inflated figure for off-site disposal: $1800/yd3. EPA believes that DOE/Tennessee Department of Environmental Conservation and EPA need to agree on figures for on-site and off-site disposal and that these figures need to be incorporated into the relevant documents. (Memo from John Blevins circulated to the Paducah Site Specific Advisory Board)

Fire at K-25

About 6:30 am July 25 a small fire broke out in the K-25 building where three workers were cutting up a container shell with a torch. The fire was extinguished shortly before 8 am, and nobody was injured. (J. J. Stambaugh, Knoxville News-Sentinel, 7/25/01)

(See also US Department of Energy below)

II. PADUCAH

Recycling

California-based ToxCo is interested in recycling fluorine at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant. However, the facilities reuse committee of the Paducah Area Community Reuse Organization (PACRO) is insisting that the company create local jobs. If ToxCo does not agree to process the fluorine in Paducah rather than to take it elsewhere for processing, PACRO may begin negotiations with another group of firms. In regard to recycling contaminated scrap metal, PACRO anticipates a proposal from Chemical Vapor Deposition Manufacturing, a Canadian firm, with which it has been negotiating. Actual recycling of the metal cannot occur unless DOE lifts its moratorium on release of volumetrically contaminated metals. (Joe Walker, Paducah Sun, 7/19/01)

Workers’ contracts

A five-year contract between USEC and the Paducah plant’s hourly workers (except the guards) represented by the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers Union (PACE) Local 5-550 expired July 31. USEC wants the right to terminate the proposed five-year contract after its first year unless USEC remains the sole executive agent for the US-Russian High-Enriched Uranium Agreement and unless USEC receives a market-based price in a new contract with Russia. Workers find this limitation unreasonable. Other issues at dispute are overtime pay and medical benefits. The informal circulation of a leaked list of FY 2001 bonuses for USEC managers has not sweetened the negotiations. Some thirty-three officials will reportedly collect a total of some $2.6 million. The union will voted August 2. Workers "overwhelmingly" rejected the contract but chose to continue to negotiate rather than to go on strike immediately. (Associated Press, 8/1/01 and 8/2/01)

Earlier in July PACE secured what it regarded as favorable contracts for more than a hundred environmental workers at the Paducah plant from cleanup contractors Bechtel Jacobs, Swift and Staley, and Weskem. (www.platts.com , 7/27/01)

(See US Department of Energy and Fuel Chain below)

IV. US DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY (DOE)

Double billing

The US Court of Federal Claims ruled June 29 that DOE billed utilities twice for the future decontamination and decommissioning (D&D) of its enrichment plants, between September 1992 and June 1993, when enrichment services were being transferred from DOE to the then-government-owned US Enrichment Corporation. DOE included a charge for D&D in the price of its Separative Work Units (SWU) and also charged utilities using its service a separate fee for D&D. The case was brought by nine utilities, about 10% of those using DOE’s enrichment service; but will apply to the remaining 90%, an industry source said. The source estimated the overcharge at roughly $20 per SWU. (www.platts.com , 29/6/01).

Energy and Water Legislation

President Bush has signed a 2001 Supplemental Appropriations Act, which provides an additional $18 million for cleanup at the Paducah plant and an additional $10 million for cleanup at K-25 in Oak Ridge; adds kidney cancer to the list of cancers for which workers at the enrichment plants and at an Alaska site are automatically covered under the Energy Employees Occupational Injury Compensation Program Act; and sets up direct planning and communications on financial matters between the Paducah plant and DOE’s assistant secretary of environmental management in Washington, DC. The latter provision saves Paducah staff from having to go through DOE’s operations office in Tennessee. Senator Mitch McConnell (R-Ky) spearheaded the measure on kidney cancer and Senator Jim Bunning (R-Ky), Kentucky that on communications. (Padcah Sun, 20/7/01; Associated Press, 7/19/01)

The US Senate and House have each passed an Energy and Water Development Appropriations Bill for FY 2002. The Senate version, S. 1171, allocates $20.06 billion to the DOE, $7.2 billion of which is earmarked for the Environmental Management program. The House version HR. 2311, provides $24.2 billion to DOE, $6.63 billion of which goes to Environmental Management. A conference committee will meet to iron out the differences after Congress returns from its August recess (Weapons Complex Monitor, 7/23/01)

Compensation for workers

July 2 Labor Secretary Elaine Chao opened a DOE resource center at Paducah, Kentucky, to help workers file compensation claims under the Energy Employees Occupational Injury Compensation Program Act (EEOICPA). The center is the first of ten US Department of Energy (DOE) centers to be opened for this purpose. Processing of applications for compensation began July 31. Chao told reporters at Paducah that she hopes that the first checks will be mailed by the end of the summer. However, it is possible that the widow of Joe Harding, a Paducah worker who tried for years to get the government to admit that his severe illnesses were work related, may be given her check earlier in order to publicize the program. (Bill Bartleman, Paducah Sun, 7/03/01; Nancy Zuckerbrod, Associated Press, 7/26/01)

The program covers qualified DOE employees, uranium miners, and employees of DOE contractors that were beryllium vendors or that processed or produced radioactive material for atomic weapons. To be considered for compensation an employee must have radiation-induced cancer, chronic silicosis, or an illness stemming from beryllium. The bill does not provide benefits for workers who are ill because of other types of work-related illness, such as problems caused by toxic chemicals. Also it does not cover people who lived near the plants but did not work at them, even if they have an illness likely caused by releases from the facilities.

People who worked for at least a year at the Oak Ridge, Paducah, or Portsmouth enrichment plants or who worked at Amchitka Island, Alaska, before 1974, belong to a "Special Exposure Cohort," who, if they have certain specific types of cancer, will not need to prove that their cancers were caused by their work. For other workers the burden of proof is on the worker. The Department of Health and Human Services is creating guidelines that will be used to determine the likelihood that a cancer is work related and to estimate radiation doses in the absence of records.

Each eligible worker, with the exception of uranium miners, will receive a lump sum payment of $150,000 plus future medical expenses (past medical expenses will not be covered). Survivors of deceased employees will generally receive a percentage of the $150,000 lump sum. The percentages for a given worker’s survivors add up to less than $150,000. Children who were not dependents at the time of the worker’s death will not be compensated. Uranium miners are already eligible for $100,000 in compensation under the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act. They can apply for an additional $50,000 under the new legislation.

PACE has pointed out that the draft interim Labor Department regulations give a Final Adjudication Branch of the Office of Workers Compensation Programs (OWCP) the authority to hear workers whose claims have been denied. The Director of this OWCP oversees the appeals reviewer and also the claims reviewer. Claimants should instead be allowed an independent appeal before an Administrative Law Judge, the union states.

The DOE has established a Worker Advocacy Program to assist workers who do not qualify for compensation from the federal government or who want to obtain reimbursement for past medical expenses, to file for compensation from state workers’ compensation programs. To obtain benefits from state programs, workers will have to prove the cause of their medical problems, not easy to do since record keeping was often inadequate and since existing records may be secret. Furthermore, USEC, which is self insured and provides the money that its workers receive as a result of state compensation claims, will not certify occupational disease claims without medical examinations and, in the case of Ohio, an Ohio Industrial Commission hearing. (Jonathan Riskin and Jeff Adkins, Columbus Dispatch, 22/7/01)

DOE and DOL both have Web sites on worker compensation:

tis.eh.doe.gov/advocacy/index.html and www.dol.gov/dol/esa/public/regs/compliance/owcp/eeoicp/main.htm respectively. They include access to the regulations; lists of covered facilities, and illnesses; and claim forms. The Web site tis.eh.doe.gov/advocacy/faclist/findfacility.cfm links to a variety of information about DOE’s Office of Worker Advocacy.

Review of Environmental Management Program

As part of the administration’s "top to bottom" review of DOE’s Environmental Management Program, the Energy Facility Contractors Group (EFCOG) has submitted more than thirty recommendations to the department. The Weapons Complex Monitor obtained a copy of a presentation that EFCOG made to DOE at a meeting in late May, and the chairman of EFCOG has told the Monitor that the final recommendations are essentially those described in the presentation. Recommendations in the presentation included establishing multiyear budgets for cleanup projects, streamlining National Environmental Policy Act reviews, ending the moratorium on the release of scrap metal from DOE sites, basing programs to clean up groundwater on "realistic end requirements," and optimizing the use of commercial procurement practices.

According to the Web site of EFCOG, DOE pays for the group’s infrastructure. (Weapons Complex Monitor, 7/9/01; www.efcog.org)

V. US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION (NRC)

Impact of nuclear industry consolidation

The NRC has released for comment a "Preliminary Impact Assessment of Nuclear Industry Consolidation on NRC Oversight." The assessment includes a brief overview of consolidation in the fuel chain, including mention of the fact that after USEC stock ownership restrictions expire in July 2001, the company may be a target for acquisition. The agency wants to determine whether changes in the industry necessitate changes in NRC "regulations, policies, processes, guidance, or organizational structure." The comment period on the document ends August 27. A public workshop will be held around October-November 2001. The report can be downloaded at www.nrc.gov/NRC/REACTOR/CONSOLIMPACT/index.html. The Web site includes an online comment form.

PACE appeal

PACE Local 5-689 has filed an appeal of the NRC Director’s Decision in regard to its request pertaining to the NRC’s March 19 determination to grant to USEC a Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant Certificate Amendment. The amendment allowed Paducah to enrich uranium to 5.5% and therefore made it possible for USEC to shut its Portsmouth plant. PACE requested a review of the NRC staff’s decision to grant the amendment on the grounds that the amendment undermined USEC’s ability to ensure a "reliable and economic" domestic supply of enriched uranium. June 14 the NRC decided not to comply with the request, on the basis that this issue should be addressed by Congress and other executive branch agencies rather than by the NRC.

VI. UNITED STATES ENRICHMENT CORPORATION (USEC)

USEC’s case against Eurodif and Urenco

The US Department of Commerce (DOC) issued a preliminary ruling July 5 that European uranium enrichers are guilty of dumping. DOE estimated the resulting import duties—for Eurodif, 17.52 percent of the value of imported low-enriched uranium from France; for Urenco, 3.35 percent for imports from the United Kingdom, but no duty for imports from Germany and the Netherlands. In May DOC had made a preliminary ruling on a separate issue, countervailing duty, and had found that Urenco and Eurodif have been unfairly subsidized by their respective governments. DOC will require that importers from France and the United Kingdom either post a bond or pay cash deposits to cover the preliminary antidumping rates plus the preliminary countervailing duty rates which are 13.4 percent for Eurodif and 2.72 percent for Urenco.

DOC is expected to make final determinations in both the antidumping and countervailing duty investigations in late 2001. If DOC finds that duties are warranted, the International Trade Commission will determine if injury occurred and, if so, DOC will determine the final duty. Eurodif and Urenco, supported by the European Commission, maintain that they compete fairly and that, since enrichment is a service, international trade laws do not apply to it. (USEC Press Release, 7/6/01; www.platts.com, 7/12/01; Urenco press release, 7/6/01; Cogema Inc. press release, 7/6/01)

The chairman of the World Trade Organization’s General Council says that many members of the organization support putting negotiations of antidumping rules on the agenda of a new trade round. Negotiations would likely focus on clarifying existing rules rather than on reopening the accord. (report from Geneva, forwarded by Stan Planton)

Pensions

Retirees who worked for the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant complain that they and Portsmouth retirees have not received an increase in benefits since 1992, although on July 1, Oak Ridge retirees received increases of 4%-23%. Behind the discrepancy is the fact that, in 1992, when the then-government-owned USEC became operator of the plants, Oak Ridge workers remained under the original retirement plan, now managed by Oak Ridge operator BWXTY-12; but, by privatization legislation, workers from the other two plants were placed under a new pension plan managed by USEC. A committee of retired Paducah workers appointed to lobby for higher benefits has asked USEC several times for an increase, Art Edwards committee chairman says. Elizabeth Stuckle, a USEC spokesperson, says that USEC is looking into the request. (Bill Bartleman, Paducah Sun, 7/29/01)

Stock ownership

Restrictions on ownership of USEC stock expired July 28, three years after the government-owned USEC became the privately-owned USEC. Individuals and other investors can now own more than 10% of the stock, but the expiration did not precipitate an immediate rush to purchase. (www.platts.com, 7/31/01)

VII. FUEL CHAIN

Need for a domestic enrichment industry?

The Under Secretary of Energy, Robert G. Card, has sent a letter to the House Energy and Commerce Committee in which he states that DOE has begun a review to "determine whether a domestic uranium enrichment industry is economically feasible or necessary." The review, Card said, "has grown to involve several Cabinet-level agencies." It was prompted by an amendment by Rep. Ted Strickland (D-Ohio) to the Energy Advancement and Conservation Act, which was accepted by the House Energy and Commerce Committee but which Card indicated that the administration opposes. The amendment would have provided $169 million to keep the Portsmouth plant in cold standby through FY 2005; developed a plan to restart the Portsmouth plant if fuel supplies are disrupted or likely to be disrupted; directed DOE to move forward with a plan to deploy advanced enrichment technology ($254 million), and supported cleanup and other activities at the Paducah plant ($169 million). At the urging of the Bush administration, the House leadership removed the amendment from the energy act before the House voted on the act August 1. (www.platts.com , 17/7/01; Matthew L. Wald, New York Times, 7/24/01; Weapons Complex Monitor, 7/23/01; undated release from office of Rep. Ted Strickland)

Domestic uranium production

DOE’s Energy Information Administration’s Uranium Industry Annual 2000 shows that uranium production in the United States declined to 4.0 million pounds U308 during 2000. This figure represents less than ten percent of the uranium loaded into US reactors in a year. Domestic uranium production is expected to fall to less than 3.0 million pounds in 2001.

Train accident

The train that derailed and caught fire in a tunnel in Baltimore July 18 carried hydrochloric acid, tripropylene, and hydrofluoric acid. (John Biemer, Detroit News, 7/28/01) Hydrofluoric acid is a staple of the nuclear industry, where it is involved in various processes that convert one material to another. In the production of uranium hexafluoride, the material that is enriched at the gaseous diffusion plants, uranium oxide reacts with hydrofluoric acid.

VIII. RUSSIA

View of House Appropriations Committee on Russian HEU

A House Appropriations Committee report that accompanied DOE’s fiscal year 2002 appropriations bill included a recommendation that the Bush administration increase purchases of Russian high-enriched uranium (HEU). The administration should consider designating a second executive agent; leaving downblended uranium in Russia until it can be sold without adverse effects on the uranium market; and working with the international community to increase purchases of downblended HEU. (George Lobsenz, Energy Daily, 7/11/01)

Administration review of nonproliferation programs

The Bush administration has "completed or substantially completed" its review of the US program to assist Russia to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction and the material and know-how to make such weapons. The administration concluded that "it is in the US national interest" to continue the program, but will not make decisions about specific projects until Congress has been consulted, officials say. (Agence France Presse, 7/17/01)

Chinese gaseous diffusion plant

Russian and Chinese members of a subcommission of an intergovernment commission on trade, economic, scientific and technical cooperation will meet to discuss progress in Russia’s construction of a nuclear reactor and an enrichment plant in China. (Tass, 7/01)

IX. IRAN

Imports for uranium enrichment facility

According to Nuclear Fuel, US authorities suspect that a Russian broker recently obtained centrifuge-grade aluminum for Iran, but they have no proof that this occurred. At the request of the United States, the Russian government had the ship thought to be carrying the material searched. The searchers reported that they found only inferior-grade aluminum. Brokers have in the past sold to Iran inferior-grade aluminum that they claimed was centrifuge grade. Since 1993 members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group have been trying to prevent Iran from obtaining three materials that could be used for centrifuge rotors: maraging steel, high-strength aluminum, and carbon fiber composite winding material. Intelligence reports indicate that Iran may have obtained some technical information on the fabrication of centrifuge components. (Nuclear Fuel, 6/25/01)

X. SCRAP METAL

Preliminary Environmental Impact Statement on disposition

July 12, DOE announced in the Federal Register its intent to prepare a Preliminary Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) to evaluate "the policy alternatives for the disposition of DOE scrap metals that may have residual surface radioactivity." DOE planned to hold scoping meetings at six locations between July 31 and August 16.

At the time, DOE had a contract with San Diego-based Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) for evaluation of the impact of releasing and recycling radioactive materials. July 25 DOE announced that it had canceled the contract with SAIC. July 23, representatives of several public interest groups had met with DOE officials to raise questions about the SAIC contract.

Before DOE halted the recycling of contaminated scrap metal, SAIC had been the "regulatory compliance" partner with British Nuclear Fuels Limited (BNFL), which had a contract allowing it to recycle contaminated nickel from the K-25 plant at Oak Ridge. NRC subsequently employed SAIC to provide independent expertise as part of the agency’s effort to establish standards for recyling, but NRC terminated the contract with the company when it learned that SAIC had a conflict of interest. Public interest organizations have now asked for "full disclosure of the facts surrounding [DOE’s] contract award to SAIC to work on the EIS."

DOE is going ahead with its scoping meetings. Apart from the question of the SAIC contract, public interest organizations have criticized DOE’s plans for the PEIS on the grounds that the subject to be covered (surface contamination only) is too narrow and that meetings are taking place during a vacation period and at only a few locations, generally near DOE sites, although recycling of radioactive materials would put all Americans at risk. (Federal Register, Vol. 66, no. 134, p. 36563, 7/12/01; Nancy Zuckerbrod, Associated Press, 7/25/01; Public Citizen, Press release, 7/30/01; Open letter to David Huizenga from Public Citizen and others, 7/27/01)

Comments may be submitted in writing through September 10 to Mr. Kenneth G. Picha, Jr., Office of Technical Program Integration, EM-22, ATTN: Metals Disposition PEIS, Office of Environmental Management, US Department of Energy, 10000 Independence Ave., SW, Washington, DC 20585-0113; e-mail: Metals.Disposition.PEIS@em.doe.gov