A beryllium-testing program being carried out by Oak Ridge Associated at Department of Energy (DOE) sites nationwide has now found thirty-five cases of chronic beryllium disease and fifty-four cases of beryllium sensitivity, a precursor to the disease, among workers at Oak Ridge's Y-12 nuclear weapons plant. About 2500 workers at Y-12 have now undergone screening. None of the 2ll current workers at the shut-down K-25 enrichment plant who have been tested have beryllium disease or sensitivity. Retired K-25 workers are not being tested. (Frank Munger, Scripps Howard News Service)

Oak Ridge officials have affirmed that DOE is planning to shut down its Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Incinerator in 2003. A DOE Inspector General's report issued last September recommended shutting down the facility in June, because it is costly and underfed; but alternatives expected to become available in the private sector have not materialized. DOE is in the process of renewing permits with the state of Tennessee and the EPA. They expired in 1997, but were automatically extended after DOE filed for renewals. Bechtel Jacobs has been managing the incinerator, but in December it awarded a subcontract to IT Corp. of Pennsylvania to operate it for three years starting in January. DOE plans to burn approximately 1.7 million tons of liquid and solid waste this year. The incinerator is permitted for 9.2 million tons a year. (G. Alan Sieve, The Oak Ridger, 05/19/00; Weapons Complex Monitor, 05/15/00)

Rep. Thomas Billey (R, VA) chairman of the House Commerce Committee, charged May 22 that British Nuclear Fuels Limited (BNFL) is seeking $210 million from DOE for additional costs in carrying out its $238 million "fixed-price" contract to clean up the K-25 enrichment plant. BNFL spokesperson, David Campbell, said that BNFL is asking for less than $210 million but gave few details. He did confirm that BNFL is seeking $30 to $40 million in costs caused by the scrap metal recycling moratorium. Sources told The Energy Daily that provisions in BNFL's contract may allow the company to seek compensation if the volume of actual waste exceeds DOE's pre-contract estimate. (George Lobsenz, The Energy Daily, 05/23/00)

The American Environmental Health Studies Project, Inc. has released a report by Cliff Honicker charging that DOE created a health study of the effects of nickel on workers, with a predetermined conclusion. Nickel Powder/Nuclear Weapons, The Untold Story builds a documented case that DOE skewed the study in order to forestall NIOSH's imposing a new standard for allowable exposure to nickel that would have forced K-25 at Oak Ridge and the nickel provider INCO in Canada to retool at a cost of millions of dollars. The ostensible aim was to protect the nation's ability to enrich uranium. The design of enrichment-plant converters is still classified but apparently each converter at K-25 was filled with porous tubes made from pressed nickel powder. As a result K-25 processed each month up to a million pounds of new nickel powder and radioactive nickel scrap, Honnicker says. The DOE study was conducted at K-25 but through its effect on the allowable exposure limit has had an impact on workers in other enrichment plants and other nickel processing plants. (The paper is posted at http://che-or.8m.com/Nickel03-28-00.htm)

The Knoxville News-Sentinel published an editorial May 29, "It's time for justice: The US Government needs to take responsibility for Oak Ridge illnesses." The editorial states that the legislation before Congress to compensate sick workers is not enough. "The government must contract with a major medical facility" to identify people other than workers who have been harmed and, once these people have been identified, "should provide for their health care for the rest of their lives." The burden of proof should be "more the government's problem than that of the sick people." Relatives of those who have died because of exposure should receive lump-sum payments. (See DOE below on compensation legislation)

GAO Report. The US General Accounting Office (GAO) released a report May 2 on DOE's cleanup program at the Paducah plant. According to the report, DOE's plan to clean up the plant by 2010 at a cost of $1.3 billion is unrealistic. Four challenges stand in the way: uncertainties about the extent and nature of the contamination, assumptions that the federal government will allocate $124 million a year to the work, technological uncertainties, and the need to obtain agreements with EPA and state regulators. Moreover, DOE's plans do not cover all the work that needs to be done. "Billions of dollars and many years will be needed" to address areas that are not in the cleanup plan-large amounts of waste and scrap, unused structures, depleted uranium hexafluoride, and the buildings still in use to enrich uranium.. The additional materials and structures are under the Office of Nuclear Energy rather than the Office of Environmental Management, which is conducting the cleanup. GAO recommends that responsibility for materials storage areas and unused structures be transferred to the Office of Environmental Management and that, in any case, this Office "reexamine the sitewide contamination risks and cleanup priorities, costs, and schedules." (Nuclear Waste Cleanup: DOE's Paducah Plan Faces Uncertainties and Excludes Costly Cleanup Activities, GAO/RCED-00-96, April 2000)

DOE Material Storage Areas (DMSAs). Almost one million cubic feet of waste and scrap that are not included in DOE's cleanup plan are located in 148 DOE material storage areas (DMSA). The wastes include low-level radioactive waste, asbestos, and PCBs. The DMSAs were created in 1996 when DOE accepted responsibility for much material stored in areas leased by USEC, the GAO report says. DOE has indicated that 73 of the DMSAs may contain materials that could cause a criticality. DOE has a verbal agreement with USEC to review the ten areas with the greatest criticality risk (See May UEN, under Paducah) and is apparently working on three other particularly hazardous areas.

The DMSAs pose a problem from the point of view of regulations as well as safety. Storing uncharacterized hazardous waste and storing hazardous waste improperly violate laws and could bring on penalties and fines, DOE site manager Don Seaborg has publicly recognized. DOE officials have begun discussions with the EPA and the Commonwealth of Kentucky on the DMSAs. According to a DOE statement, "DOE has proposed that an enforceable agreement be negotiated with EPA and Kentucky to establish a mutually acceptable schedule for [storage area] characterization and management efforts." (Joe Walker, Paducah Sun, 05/18 and 23/00; Weapons Complex Monitor 05/29/00)

A DOE employee has found sections of seventeen nuclear bomb casings in a contaminated, unclassified scrap yard. The casings, which were empty and are not classified, belonged to B-53 bombs manufactured between 1962 and 1965. They are further evidence that the plant recycled and disposed of components of phased-out weapons. John Driskill, president of United Plant Guard Workers of America Local 111 says that it illustrates the fact that DOE doesn't know what is at the plant. DOE spokesperson Walter Perry, on the other hand, says that the discovery shows that DOE's ongoing investigation into "weapons-program work for others" at the site "is working." (Joe Walker, The Paducah Sun, 05/05?/00)

John Driskill asked the Justice Department to seek an injunction in federal court to prevent USEC from eliminating four security guard positions at the Paducah plant. He charges that a classified plant security plan prepared for USEC and DOE by Lockheed Martin in 1993 is fraudulent. This document, which describes security threats at the plant, is "the foundation" of plant security, Driskill wrote in a letter that he faxed to Bill Campbell, head of the Justice Department's investigation at the plant. Positions in security should not be eliminated before the security of the plant has been independently assessed, Driskill says. (Joe Walker, The Paducah Sun, 05/ll/00)

The Paducah Site Annual Environmental Report for 1998 was released in May. (The 1997 report was released in 1999.) The report was prepared for DOE by its contractor Bechtel Jacobs and describes the state of the environment and cleanup programs. It does not cover USEC's operations. The reported results of monitoring are uneven, although DOE says that the report as a whole shows a decrease in contamination. Thus, for instance, in Big Bayou Creek uranium was found to be four times as high in 1998 as in 1994; in Little Bayou Creek uranium was five times as high in 1994 as in 1998. The whistleblower lawsuit against plant operators Lockheed Martin and Martin Marietta charges that past annual reports have misrepresented the level of contamination on and around the site. (James Malone, The Courier-Journal, 05/05/00; the report can be obtained from the Environmental Information Center in Kevil, KY [270-462-2550])

At the Paducah plant 148 workers applied for the voluntary severance package before the deadline of May 24 for volunteering. John Driskill of the guards union had written to USEC requesting a thirty-day extension of the deadline to allow time for union lawyers to look into the question of cutting security guards, but USEC spokesperson, Georgann Lookofsky, said that there were no plans to extend the deadline. See DOE below on compensation packages. (Associated Press, 05/25/00)

The Senate Labor Committee's Subcommittee on Employment, Safety, and Training held a hearing May 15 in Columbus, Ohio. Senator Mike DeWine (Rep, OH) called the hearing to provide information to support legislation in the US Congress to compensate nuclear weapons workers. Witnesses included people with ties to several Ohio plants: Brush Wellman, a private company that provides DOE with beryllium, and DOE's Mound, Fernald, and Portsmouth facilities. The BWC reported that it allowed 82% of claims from Ohio nuclear sites, but admitted that this figure accounts for only 256 claims. Many workers have not applied, because they think that they will be refused. Vina Colley, formerly an electrician at DOE's Portsmouth plant, testified that her health and exposure records were falsified, and that she was repeatedly sent to doctors whom the BWC knew would deny her claims. David Michaels of DOE admitted that problems with BWC were exacerbated by DOE's "not encouraging its contractors to support the claims of workers." (Brian J. Overman, Portsmouth Daily Times, 05/16/00; Bob Dreitzler, Columbus Dispatch, 05/16/00)

May 25 DOE released the report on its five-month investigation of past and current practices impacting the environment and health and safety at and around the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant. Investigators found that current operations in DOE-controlled areas of the plant do not pose an immediate risk to workers or the public; but they identified "specific weaknesses" that need to be addressed. In response, DOE and its contractor Bechtel Jacobs have already implemented various interim actions. These include conducting additional environmental sampling for transuranic and other radiological contaminants, continuing quality reviews of work control processes, and finding out whether the underground wall on the south side of the plant actually prevents the migration offsite of groundwater pollution.

The review of past operations showed that workers were exposed to fluoride, beryllium, asbestos, and PCBs, as well as to various radionuclides. Areas with the potential for exposures included the process buildings, a fuel manufacturing plant, an oxide conversion plant, decontamination, cleaning and uranium recovery facilities and incinerators. The most hazardous area was the oxide conversion plant, which operated from 1957 to 1978. (The report is available at http://www.tis.eh.doe.gov/oversight/reviews/portsmouth/ )

DOE will hold a public meeting June 8 in Piketon to answer questions about the investigation.

Legislation. In May the Energy Employees Compensation Act (S. 2519) written by Senator George Voinovich (Rep, Ohio) and the almost identical Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Act (HR 4398) by Ted Strickland (Dem, Ohio) were introduced in Congress. The bills build on the Clinton administration proposal in April but go much farther in helping workers.

They would increase the offer of a lump sum payment from $100,000 to $200,000, would offer medical coverage in addition to the lump sum payment, and would include workers in the nuclear weapons complex whose job-related illnesses were caused by substances other than beryllium and radionuclides. Furthermore, the bill would cover workers at more than 26 sites and would establish in the Department of Labor an Office of Work and Compensation Program to oversee the benefits. A DOE spokesperson has said that DOE supports the new legislation. (Weapons Complex Monitor, 05/15/00)

Rep. Ed Whitfield (R, KY) succeeded in attaching to the defense authorization bill for FY 2001 a nonbinding resolution that calls for a compensation program for nuclear weapons workers to be set up this year. The bill with the attached amendment was approved by the House May 18. However, it is not clear when legislation actually providing compensation will be voted on. Four committees currently have jurisdiction, Judiciary, Ways and Means, Banking, and Transportation over the compensation bill. The committees have expressed reservations about compensation, because a potential for abuse of compensation measures exists and because no hearings have as yet been held. (Laura Beth Chandler, Oak Ridger, 05/23/00)

Compensation Office. DOE has opened an office to help nuclear weapons complex workers file state worker compensation claims for job-related illnesses. At present DOE only has enough funding for a staff of three, according to DOE's David Michaels. Congression would have to provide more funding before it could work on a large scale. (Katherine Rizzo, Associated Press, 05/01/00)

ANA Letter. In a letter of May 8 to Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA) commended the Department of Energy for recognizing that workers in DOE plants have been harmed by exposure to toxic chemicals and radioactivity but asked that DOE also acknowledge responsibility to people living near the plants who have been made ill by releases from them. Specifically the organization asked that any legislation aimed at compensating workers include:

-- biennial health monitoring for people who have lived within five miles of a DOE nuclear weapons facility for two years and for people who have lived for one year in areas of high fallout from tests at the Nevada Test Site;

--provision of understandable information about the possible effects of exposure;

--training for health care providers to enable them to take care of residents suffering from exposure;

--a computerized archive of data on exposed worker and offsite populations.

Senator Mitch McConnell (R, KY) succeeded in having $16 million attached to the Senate Agriculture Appropriations Bill to accelerate cleanup at the Paducah and Portsmouth plants ($8 million per plant) and $10 million attached to the Senate Military Construction Appropriations Bill for expanded health testing of current and former DOE workers. The $26 million had been requested by the Department of Energy as supplemental appropriations for work at the enrichment plants. As of the end of May, the Senate had passed neither appropriations bill. (Joe Walker, Paducah Sun, 05/10/00)

USEC has decreased the number of positions that it must cut during the year 2000 at the Paducah and Portsmouth plants from the 850 that it announced in February to 625 (275 at Paducah; 350 at Portsmouth) because of attrition and increased work for the plants. All 625 departing workers will receive a benefit package including training assistance, relocation and outplacement assistance, and full payment of the company's share of health insurance premiums for one year, half payment for a second year. Workers who volunteer to leave can receive either their earned severance benefits or a lump sum payment--$12,500 to workers who began their employment after mid-1993; $17,500 to workers who began before mid-1993. USEC will contribute $2,500 to the lump sum payments; the balance of the lump sum payments plus the contributions to health insurance will come from DOE. The offer is less generous than that available for volunteers in 1999 and has been criticized by union officials and workers. (DOE Office of Nuclear Science and Technology press release, 05/04/00; James Malone, The Courier Journal, 05/05/00)

A particular bone of contention is the lack of an early retirement option. Senior workers would like to be able to retire early, fully vested in USEC_s pension fund. USEC says that its pension fund could not absorb the cost of early retirements; DOE claims that it could. (Jonathan Riskind, Columbus Dispatch, 05/05/00; Bill Bartleman, Paducah Sun, 05/09/00)

Control over contractors. Energy Secretary Richardson said May 18 that DOE will demand that future contracts for the operation of weapons plants give the agency the right to control managers_ bonuses and to fire top managers. Furthermore, decisions on goals for contractors and on whether they are met will not be left up to senior civil servants but reviewed directly by the energy secretary. (Matthew L. Wald, New York Times, 05/19/00)

Whistleblowers. May 23 the House Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, held a hearing on the topic "Whistleblowers at Department of Energy Facilities: Is There Zero Tolerance for Contractor Retaliation?" A former pipefitter at Hanford and a former nuclear engineer at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, testified about the problems they experienced because of charges they made against DOE. Subcommittee Chairman Richard M. Burr (Rep. NC) and others accused DOE of using taxpayer money to help contractors fight whistleblowers_ claims. The department has an announced rule of "zero tolerance" for contractor reprisals against whistleblowers but has not produced a final rule stating when it will refuse to reimburse contractors for legal expenses that the contractors incur in defending themselves against the claims of whistleblowers. DOE routinely reimburses contractors for legal expenses, Mary Anne Sullivan, DOE general counsel said. DOE is trying to find a middle ground between protecting workers who have been wronged and helping contractors to defend themselves against false claims. (Matthew L. Wald, New York Times, 05/24/00)

May 3 the NRC met with USEC managers to resolve seven apparent nuclear safety violations, four at Paducah and three at Portsmouth. All are instances of Usec making changes at the plants obtaining NRC approval. The changes are in procedure or process, such as changing from half a second to two seconds the time between detection of a criticality and the sounding of an alarm. The apparent violations could result in fines (Joe Walker, The Paducah Sun, 5/4?/00)

The NRC held public meetings, May 30 in Paducah and May 31 in Piketon, to discuss plans to monitor the uranium enrichment plants more closely to make sure that scheduled layoffs do not compromise plant safety.. The agency will look particularly carefully at operations, maintenance, and the amount of time overworked, NRC Branch Chief Pat Hiland, told the Paducah meeting. Reductions in work staff 1998, 1999, and 2000 will mean a 25% cut over three years. (NRC press release, 05/23/00; Joe Walker, Paducah Sun 05/31/00)

Richard Miller, policy analyst for the atomic workers_ union PACE, anticipates that USEC will make a "contingent decision" on closing a plant at its next board meeting. Elizabeth Stuckle, spokesperson for USEC, said that plant closure will be among the cost-cutting measures discussed at the meeting. The Paducah Sun expects the next meeting to be in June. (Joe Walker, Paducah Sun, 05/06/00)

Officials of USEC and of PACE Local 5-689 presented improvements in the labor-management relationship at the Portsmouth plant during the Tenth National Labor-Management Conference in Chicago in late April. The evidence of improved relations includes, the speakers said, renewal of the current labor contract at the end of 1999 for an additional four years; reduction in the grievance backlog and the number of new grievances filed; improved regulatory performance; a decrease of 90% in human performance errors; and an increase in the plant's production efficiency to the highest level ever. (USEC Press Release, 05/25/00)

USEC is reducing its electricity load this summer to reduce production costs. Under terms of an agreement not yet approved by regulators, the Ohio Valley Electric Corporation (OVEC) will pay USEC $44 million for releasing the electricity, which will be used by the customers of the utilities that sponsor OVEC (USEC press release, 05/30/00)

Tenex has suspended shipments of low-enriched uranium to USEC, because of a suit that the Swiss company Noga has filed against Tenex in US courts (see May newsletter). USEC has thus far this year received only two shipments of uranium from Russia, less than 20% of the 30 tons of low-enriched uranium (down-blended from high-enriched uranium) that USEC has ordered. (Uranium Institute News Briefing, 05/17-23/00)

To improve its overall financial position, USEC is trying to negotiate with Russia a lower price, starting in 2002, for the blended-down, low-enriched uranium that it must buy under the terms of the Russian HEU Agreement. USEC pays Russia about $88 per SWU for this material under a fixed contract, although the spot price is $80 per SWU. Tenex, which acts for the Russian Federation_s Ministry of Atomic Energy, has offered to sell the blended-down uranium to USEC at a lower price if USEC will buy in addition uranium that has never been in the form of HEU. The Russians could lose up to $100 million in lower prices, but Tenex would be able to have the money for the sales of the commercial uranium instead of losing it to the Russian general treasury. Supporters of the gaseous diffusion plants and other elements of the US uranium industry are fear that the importation of Russian enriched uranium would harm the US industry. (Nancy Dunne, Financial Times, 05/26/00)

Imports of Russian uranium are limited by the Russian Suspension Agreement and the matching sales amendment to this agreement. Therefore, the Department of Commerce would be involved in any such arrangement. Earlier this year the Department of Commerce considered revising the matching sales amendment to allow 2.5 pounds of Russian uranium to be matched with 1 pound of US-origin uranium, rather than as is the case at present 1 pound of Russian uranium with 1 pound of US uranium. Vigorous protests from the Canadian uranium industry led to the revisions being shelved. (Michael Knapik, Nuclear Fuel, 04/03/00).

USEC, British Nuclear Fuels Limited (BNFL), and the French fuel cycle company Cogéma are all interested in obtaining shares in Urenco. Currently BNFL owns 33% of Urenco, the Dutch government 33%, and German utilities 33%. BNFL made an informal offer for the Dutch and German shares in 1999, but Cogéma topped the offer. In May it was reported that BNFL has been looking for ways of increasing its bid, including becoming a partner with USEC. BNFL refused to comment on the report. May 24 Cogéma's president Anne Lauvergeon told reporters that Cogéma would still like to buy "all or part of the 66 percent up for sale but we don't wish to be a majority stakeholder in Urenco." Urenco holds a growing share of the world's uranium enrichment market, with more than12% of deliveries of SWU (Separative Work Units) in 1999. (Reuters press release on Yahoo, 05/24/00; Uranium Institute News Briefing, 05/17-23/00)

USEC has been investigating a variety of possibilities for obtaining centrifuge capacity, including buying centrifuges from Russia or Urenco or building a plant in the United States in partnership with Urenco. William Timbers has met with the German and Dutch owners of Urenco to discuss direct purchase of shares. (see May newsletter)

May 26 Australia signed a bilateral Agreement for Cooperation with the United States in regard to Silex technology. The agreement will trigger USEC's payment of the second half of the first milestone payment (US$2.5 million) June 23. (AAP Information Services, 05/26/00; Silex press release)

Argentina_s nuclear engineering commission (CNEA) is looking for partners with which to build a gaseous diffusion plant of advanced design. The new technology, called Sigma (Gaseous Isotope Separation by Advanced Methods) has several advantages over the technology in current commercial plants, Argentinian researchers claim. The technology is "proliferation resistant." A plant could be constructed by modules. Capital costs, operating costs, and electricity consumption are relatively low-a plant producing 2-3 million SWU is expected to have a production cost of at most $50 a SWU. The CNEA has constructed a pilot plant at its Pilcaniyeu Technological Installation. Argentina is interested in helping to build a plant in Argentina or elsewhere. (Ann MacLachlan, NuclearFuel, 4/17/00)

The Columbus Dispatch on May 15 published "Time bombs? Depleted-uranium arms may keep on killing." It noted that depleted uranium "is plentiful-more than 700,000 tons of the stuff sits in barrels in Piketon, Ohio, and Paducah, Ky.-and it's cheap." "But the price tag may end up being very high." The United States should do all it can to find answers to questions about the health effect of depleted uranium, and meanwhile "it should stop dropping depleted-uranium bombs, in training and in battle, until it has those answers."

X. SCRAP METAL