Threat Assessment:  Nuclear Plants Are at Risk, Expert Says

The Nuclear Control Institute Friday criticized a recent article by a panel of nuclear experts who said there is little chance terrorists could do enough damage to a nuclear power plant or spent fuel shipment to pose a public health threat (see GSN, Sept. 20).

The authors of the article, published in Science magazine, relied on “misquotations, unsupported assertions, misinterpretations of data and unpublished references that have not been peer-reviewed,” NCI President Edwin Lyman said in a press statement.

There are credible methods by which terrorists could cause large-scale radiation releases through attacks on nuclear power plants or spent fuel shipments, Lyman said.  He cited the results of mock terrorist attacks on U.S. plants in which terrorists caused enough damage to lead to a meltdown in half of the exercises.

Lyman criticized the article for playing down the amount of damage that could be caused by a hijacked airliner crashing into a nuclear plant.  Citing as evidence a study conducted by the Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, the authors wrote that an air attack on a nuclear power plant would do little to breach reactor containment facilities.

“In fact, straightforward engineering calculations, utilizing empirically derived formulas, demonstrate that such penetration is plausible,” Lyman said.

The Sandia study, which used an F-4 fighter jet with lighter engines than a commercial airliner, was designed to measure the impact force of such a crash, and not the maximum penetration, Lyman said.  There are also other sections of a nuclear power plant, such as the control room and spent fuel pool, that are more vulnerable to an air attack and could also lead to a severe radiological release if damaged, he said.

Lyman also challenged the authors’ claims that terrorists could do little damage to shipments of spent nuclear fuel.  If terrorists were able to implant a heat source into a spent-fuel transportation cask that had been breached, a self-sustaining fire might occur, resulting in a large release of radioactive cesium, he said.  More than 10,000 cancer deaths could result, Lyman said.

“The authors of the Science article, many of whom bear responsibility for contributing to the creation of a widely distributed nuclear power infrastructure in this country that is vulnerable to terrorist attack, should take a realistic approach to these risks and help to mitigate the threat to the public posed by the situation that they have created, rather than continuing to deny its potential for grave harm,” Lyman said (Nuclear Control Institute release, Sept. 20).

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U.S. Response:  Singapore Formalizes U.S. Seaport Agreement

Singapore has decided to join the U.S. Container Security Initiative, which calls for the stationing of U.S. Customs Service inspectors at non-U.S. seaports, Customs Commissioner Robert Bonner announced Friday (see GSN, Aug. 5).  Last year, 330,000 cargo containers entered the United States from Singapore, according to a Customs press release (see GSN, June 5).

“I congratulate the government of Singapore for becoming the first Asian port to join the U.S. Customs Container Security,” Bonner said in a press release.  “Today’s signing marks an important first for the global supply chain of trade, from Asia to the United States.  Now our implementation work begins.  Together, we can ensure that trade is facilitated while our mutual security in enhanced.”

The United States is working to enact similar agreements with several other countries, Customs said (see GSN, Aug. 1).  U.S. officials have already made arrangements to station inspectors at ports in France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Canada (see GSN, June 28; U.S. Customs Service release, Sept. 20).

For further information, see:

Fact sheet on U.S. Container Security Initiative

U.S. Customs Container Security Initiative Information

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U.S. Response:  Pre-Emption Enters U.S. Counterproliferation Strategy

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — Pre-emptive military action has jumped to the forefront of the Bush administration’s strategy for preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, according to a new U.S. strategy document.

“We must be prepared to stop rogue states and their terrorist clients before they are able to threaten or use weapons of mass destruction against the United States and our allies and friends,” according to The National Security Strategy of the United States, sent to Congress Friday.

“As a matter of common sense and self-defense, America will act against such emerging threats before they are fully formed,” the document says.

It was sent from the White House to Capitol Hill along with a proposed resolution to grant the president the authority to act against Iraq using “all means” (see GSN, Sept. 20).

The strategy document specifies three U.S. approaches to battling the spread of WMD technologies, including:

*         “proactive counterproliferation efforts,” such as “detection, active and passive defenses, and counterforce capabilities”;

*         “strengthened nonproliferation efforts,” involving diplomacy, arms control, multilateral export controls, threat reduction assistance, and technology interdiction; and

*         “effective consequence management” to respond to WMD attacks.

Both counterproliferation and nonproliferation have been elements of U.S. national security strategy for decades.  The term nonproliferation generally refers to approaches such as arms control, export restrictions on dual-use technology and diplomatic efforts to discourage proliferation.

Counterproliferation has been traditionally understood as Defense Department activities to combat proliferation through diplomacy, arms control, export controls, a strong deterrent as well as the preparation of intelligence for possible U.S. strikes.  It has also included capabilities for interdicting weapons of mass destruction during an attack and dealing with the consequences of an attack.

The Clinton administration’s approach has been characterized as “passive,” focusing strongly on traditional arms control and the promotion of international law and norms.  That administration pursued such measures as the indefinite extension of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, pursuit of an inspections protocol to the Biological Weapons Convention, U.S. ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and expansion of the Missile Control Technology Regime.

Jack Mendelsohn, a former State Department arms control official, said the Bush administration’s very public consideration of attacking Iraq signals a renewed emphasis on the use of force for counterproliferation.

“People are fairly confused about why we’re going after Iraq — it’s not terrorism, its counterproliferation,” he said.

In additional to citing proliferation to terrorists as a concern, the White House document cited the possibility of Iraq using its weapons of mass destruction as a form of deterrence or blackmail as a reason for action against Baghdad.

“For rogue states these weapons are tools of intimidation and military aggression against their neighbors.  These weapons may also allow these states to attempt to blackmail the United States and our allies to prevent us from deterring or repelling the aggressive behavior of rogue states,” the U.S. strategy document said.

“Such states also see these weapons as their best means of overcoming the conventional superiority of the United States,” it said.

Mendelsohn said the emphasis on pre-emption as a means of counterproliferation has corresponded with a de-emphasis by the administration on some traditional arms control and nonproliferation approaches that, while constraining potential enemy capabilities, might also constrain U.S. capabilities and action.

He cited the administration’s opposition to international negotiations on an inspection mechanism to enforce the Biological Weapons Convention (see GSN, Sept. 6) and its rejection of a nuclear arms control treaty with Russia to eliminate, rather than download, nuclear warheads (see GSN, Aug. 5).

“Their counterproliferation policy as far as I can tell looks like ‘bomb Iraq and we’re not sure what to do about North Korea,’” said Mendelsohn.

He acknowledged though, the administration has continued nonproliferation efforts in the former Soviet Union, to secure and eliminate WMD stockpiles, and has helped secure an international commitment to provide $20 billion for such programs, a point also noted in the White House document (see GSN, June 28).

Military action as tool for combating proliferation is not new.  Former President George H.W. Bush cited Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programs as a major reason for making war on Iraq in 1991.

The United States attacked suspected Scud sites and the Iraq was deterred from using its weapons of mass destruction by U.S. threats of possible nuclear retaliation, but counterproliferation was not the principal U.S. aim for conducting the war, said John Kohout, vice president and senior analyst at the National Institute for Public Policy.

“We were looking more at Kuwait than we were looking at WMD at that point,” he said.

In December 1993, then-Defense Secretary Les Aspin announced a new defense counterproliferation initiative making pre-emption a prominent Clinton administration counterproliferation goal.

The United States has not seriously pursued pre-emption, however, until the current administration following the Sept. 11 attacks, said Kohout.

“Pre-emption is a larger factor now, because we’ve never been so close to having weapons of mass destruction in the hands of an adversary where they could use them,” he said.

“All of a sudden you haven’t got the maneuvering room to sit back and think, ‘well, maybe it’s not so bad, maybe we can take another year to deal with it,’” he said.

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Iraq I:  U.S. Diplomats Craft U.N. Resolution

U.S. officials worked over the weekend to complete a U.N. resolution on Iraq that was promised for today (see GSN, Sept 20).  Officials said more discussions were needed with the United Kingdom before a resolution is completed, the Wall Street Journal reported today (Cloud/Rogers, Wall Street Journal, Sept. 23).

Iraq said Saturday, however, that it is bound only to existing U.N. resolutions and will not comply with weapons inspections if the Security Council passes a new resolution authorizing the use of force.

The United States is trying “to issue new, bad resolutions from the Security Council,” according to a statement on state-run radio in Baghdad.  “Iraq declares that it will not cooperate with any new resolution” (Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Washington Post, Sept. 22).

U.S. Warns Weapons Operators

Meanwhile, administration officials have acknowledged for the first time that U.S. President George W. Bush is also reviewing how specific scenarios for attacking Iraq might unfold, the New York Times reported Saturday.  The Defense Department has prepared scenarios for the president that include such details as the numbers of troops needed and the sequence of military actions (Schmitt/Sanger, New York Times, Sept. 21).

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has warned low-level Iraqi field commanders against following orders to fire weapons of mass destruction, the Associated Press reported.  Rumsfeld publicized the warning on at least three recent occasions.

“Clearly, people who would use those weapons are not going to have a happy future if, in fact, they do use them,” Rumsfeld said on the NewsHour With Jim Lehrer television program.

The United States must make clear that there will be no retribution after a regime change if it wants weapons of mass destruction operators to hold their fire, according to Thomas Grant, a research fellow at England’s Oxford University.

“In Iraq, the case for an amnesty pledge, communicated loud and clear, is infinitely stronger than anywhere else in the past,” Grant wrote in a Washington Post opinion piece (Robert Burns, Associated Press, Sept. 23).

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Iraq II:  U.S. Congress Works to Authorize Force

U.S. legislators are close to completing a resolution to authorize military action in Iraq, Associated Press reported today (see GSN, Sept. 20).  To satisfy Democrats’ concerns, Congress will probably limit the language in the resolution to apply only to Iraq, according to AP.

The White House’s draft resolution would authorize the president “to use all means that he determines to be appropriate, including force, in order to ... defend the national security interests of the United States against the threat posed by Iraq, and restore international peace and security in the region” (see GSN, Sept. 20).  Keeping the word “region” in the language of the resolution, however, would establish too broad a precedent, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph Biden (D-Del.) said.  The White House seems open to changes and “I predict that won’t be the language,” he said.

Some Republicans in Congress have also appeared to be open to changes, according to AP.

“These are very, very important definitions, because it will guide the president and this nation probably into war,” Senator Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) said.

Lawmakers who are content with the language in the draft resolution said they would agree to changes to speed its approval (see GSN, Sept. 19). 

“We can correct that.  I don’t think that’s fatal to the heart of the resolution,” House International Relations Committee Chairman Henry Hyde (R-Ill.) said.

Hyde and Senator Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) said they believe Congress will easily approve the resolution before November’s elections.  Biden said the Bush administration still has much to do, however, to explain its plans for Iraq.

“The American people are grown up,” he said.  “You tell them what we need to do, tell them the threat, and they will back the president.  But we haven’t told them all of the story yet” (Ron Kampeas, Associated Press/Los Angeles Times, Sept. 23).

For further information, see:

UNMOVIC

U.N. Resolution 687 (Sanctions Regime)

U.N. Resolution 1409 (“Smart Sanctions”)

U.S. State Department Fact Sheet on Iraqi Sanctions Revisions

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United States:  Energy Prepares to Move Weapon-Grade Materials

By David McGlinchey
Global Security Newswire

The U.S. Energy Department recently released an environmental impact statement for a proposed move of nuclear weapon materials and equipment from Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico to the Nevada Test Site (see GSN, Aug. 13).

A former Energy official criticized the length of time it has taken to reach this stage, however, saying the process should have been completed in early 2001.

Completing the impact statement clears the way for two metric tons of weapon-grade materials and components to be relocated from the Los Alamos site known as Technical Area 18, National Nuclear Security Administration spokesman Bryan Wilkes said.  Most of the scientists involved with TA-18 will not move to Nevada but will travel there periodically to work at the site, he said.

Cost and security considerations prompted the move, Wilkes said (see GSN, Aug. 12).  Nearby Nellis Air Force Base allows military aircraft to patrol the area, Wilkes said, and officials plan to house the relocated material in the Test Site’s 1990s-built Device Assembly Facility — which is new compared to the 1940s-era facilities at Los Alamos.

“The Nevada Test Site is one of the most secure, if not the most secure place in the country,” Wilkes said.  “It was built with security in mind.”

Move Overdue

The recently completed impact statement was originally due in December 2000, said Pete Stockton, former special assistant to Clinton administration Energy Secretary Bill Richardson.  Stockton now works for the Project on Government Oversight, a private government watchdog group.

A plan had been put in place by April 2000 to make the move within nine months, he said.

“We absolutely have to be out of there as soon as possible,” he said.

Mock attacks on the facility have made its vulnerability apparent for years, Stockton said.  In 1997, U.S. Army Special Forces made their way into the facility with a garden cart purchased from Home Depot “and left with enough nuclear material to make an atom bomb,” according to project documents (see GSN, Oct. 5, 2001).

Another test of the facilities defenses in October 2000 showed similar weaknesses, Stockton said.  For example, the Los Alamos facility was built at the bottom of a canyon so the canyon walls would absorb radiation produced at the facility.  This location — surrounded by uncontrolled higher ground — has made upgrading security extremely difficult, according to Stockton.

Stockton said he is now concerned that deputy NNSA administrator Everet Beckner will not have full support for the move within the security administration, slowing the process.

“We felt it couldn’t be defended,” Stockton said of Los Alamos.  This security lapse is confusing, he said, considering the worldwide rush to secure nuclear stockpiles.  “It is interesting how critical we are of the Russians.”

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U.S.-Russia:  Cold War Rivals Cooperate on Space Launcher

The U.S. Atlas 5 space launch vehicle, which lofted its first satellite last month, is a unusual demonstration of cooperation between former Cold War rivals.  The basic rocket design evolved from a former U.S. ICBM and it is powered by Russian-designed engines.

To make the Atlas 5, a U.S. Air Force project to design dependable, inexpensive launch vehicles — the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle program — allowed U.S. defense contractor Lockheed Martin to pursue Russian technology available after the end of the Cold War.

“The Russians were able to develop systems and metals and capabilities that allowed them to fire engines at higher pressures, temperatures and efficiencies,” Lockheed Martin spokeswoman Joan Underwood said.

Subcontractor Pratt & Whitney joined with Russian company NPO Energomash to build the RD-180 engine, which has at least 10 percent better performance than its Western rivals, according to the Times (William Broad, New York Times, Sept. 22).

For further information, see:

Atlas ICBM Historical Society

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Smallpox:  U.S. Releases Vaccination Plan

U.S. health officials issued guidelines to states today on conducting a mass smallpox vaccination campaign within five days of an outbreak (see GSN, Sept. 19).

The guidelines, which officials have distributed to public health officials in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, provide information on how to operate mass vaccination clinics, according to the Washington Post (see GSN, Sept. 4).  The guidelines offer suggestions on using the National Guard, building data systems and dealing with extreme weather conditions.

Currently, the Bush administration has no plans to conduct a mass vaccination campaign prior to any signs of an outbreak, the Post reported.  The vaccination guidelines would only be used if a smallpox outbreak were detected.

“This is a very detailed, thoughtful recipe for response” to a terrorist attack involving biological weapons, said Michael Osterholm, a public health expert at the University of Minnesota who is advising the Bush administration.  Using the guidelines, states and cities should be able to create plans “for vaccinating the largest amount of people in the shortest time possible,” he said.

Under the guidelines, at the first signs of a smallpox outbreak, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would send emergency teams to the site to confirm the outbreak and begin vaccination, according to the Post.

The threat that terrorists could release the virus in several locations “would require us to be in many, many places simultaneously,” a U.S. planner said.  “That would completely deplete our assets.”

Instead of sending its staff throughout the country, the CDC plans to send vaccine supplies to the states and let them conduct vaccinations, Osterholm said.  The National Pharmaceutical Stockpile “can be at any hamlet in this country in 12 hours,” he said.  Each state would have to decide where to set up vaccination clinics, who would run them, how to inform people about the risks of the vaccine and how to conduct large numbers of vaccinations quickly, the Post reported.

States must develop plans to conduct vaccinations within five days of an outbreak because it is believed that immunity can be provided within that time even after exposure to the disease, said Jerome Hauer, acting assistant secretary for the Health and Human Services Department’s Public Health Emergency Preparedness.

According to Health and Human Services, even if air traffic were stopped as it was after the Sept. 11 attacks, air shipments of vaccine would be allowed to continue, the Post reported.

Previously, the CDC recommended that a smallpox outbreak be contained through a ring vaccination strategy — inoculating those people who have come into immediate contact with those infected (see GSN, July 29).

Experts have begun to believe, however, that while the ring vaccination plan would work to contain a naturally occurring outbreak, it would not be effective against one caused intentionally by terrorists who have the ability to unleash the disease at several locations at once, Hauer said.

“You begin with ring vaccination, but in a big outbreak obviously mass vaccination would be part of the plan,” he said (Ceci Connolly, Washington Post, Sept. 23).

Israel Continues Vaccinations

Meanwhile, Magen David Adom, Israel’s emergency response service, is expected to begin vaccinating its medical personnel against smallpox today (see GSN, Aug. 15).  About 2,500 Israeli health care workers have been vaccinated so far, according to Yehuda Danon, head of the Immunology Institute at Schneider Children’s Hospital (see GSN, Aug. 21).

Israel’s emergency response personnel vaccination campaign is expected to be completed by October, according to Ha’aretz (see GSN, Sept. 18).  If vaccinations continue at the current rate, the program should be completed on schedule, Danon said (Haim Shadmi, Ha’aretz, Sept. 22).

For further information, see:

CDC Smallpox Information

Journal of the American Medical Association Background on Smallpox

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CWC:  Pfirter Seeks to Reinforce OPCW’s Credibility

By Scott Hartmann
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The new leader of the international organization overseeing the Chemical Weapons Convention said Friday that he seeks to restore the credibility of the organization, balance its budget and move the scope of its activities beyond disarmament.

Speaking to the public here on the first visit by a head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to the United States, Director General Rogelio Pfirter steered clear of such controversial topics as Iraq at a seminar hosted by the International Institute for Strategic Studies and the Chemical and Biological Arms Control Institute, focusing instead on his campaign to end the OPCW’s “crisis” and instill a “cultural change” at the organization.

“The OPCW has recently endured a taste of fire,” he said, referring to tensions earlier this year that led to the U.S.-led ouster of then-OPCW head Jose Mauricio Bustani (see GSN, April 23).  “It is now ready to face ahead and deal with the challenges of the future, including a fivefold increase in the verification of the destruction of chemical weapons.”

“Indeed, we need a cultural change,” he said.  “That change requires ... a spirit of unity and solidarity and a sense of mission inside the secretariat itself,” he added.  Pfirter said that from the moment he took office he sought to “re-establish a simple budget-funded structure” and emphasized the need for transparency, by opening the doors and the books of the organization to “reassure” member states.  His visits to key member states, starting with the United States — responsible for over 22 percent of the OPCW’s budget — are also part of his strategy of increasing dialogue with the organization’s members and “setting the organization on a new footing.” 

Pfirter also addressed the OPCW’s financial situation, which he said was “very serious” due to a “lack of trust” and questions over the justification for some expenditures.  According to the veteran Argentine diplomat, the OPCW’s budget has been frozen for two years and now needs a 10 percent increase to put the organization’s finances back in order.  By increasing its 2003 budget to $68 million from a current level of $61 million, and by reforming certain accounting practices, the OPCW would be able to balance its budget, Pfirter said.

Pfirter said the budget issue was particularly important because the number of operating chemical weapons destruction facilities is expected to double between 2003 and 2005, from six to 12.  “This will impose an enormous new workload on the organization,” he said.  Verification costs are rising, Pfirter added, which will require “innovative” solutions to maintain cost-effectiveness.  To deal with that problem, Pfirter said the organization is seeking to move toward more “technologically-based” and cost-effective inspections.

Pfirter said he hoped the organization can begin moving to monitoring the more than 4,000 facilities producing discrete organic chemicals, which are legal but potentially dangerous chemicals.  That effort would help “expand the geographical coverage of the chemical weapons nonproliferation regime” but could also “present new and unexpected challenges as we move into member states so far less frequently or never inspected.”  Pfirter said he will make every effort to explain this policy clearly to treaty parties to address the doubts and misperceptions they may have, especially developing countries. 

As the OPCW’s activities increase, and the organization’s mission moves from “disarmament to nonproliferation,” the “issue of universality merits special attention,” Pfirter said.

“Universal adherence is critical to ensure that legal ... issues ... in the convention are enforceable globally,” he said.  ”At present 20 states have not taken any action on the convention.  A further 29 countries have signed, but not ratified the convention.”

The number of countries adhering to the treaty is not yet “sufficient,” he said, noting that one of his goals is to get more African countries, which make up one-third of the nations that have not yet joined the treaty, to join the convention and create an Africa-wide chemical weapon-free zone.  Another Pfirter priority is to promote a Caribbean chemical weapon-free zone. 

Expanding OPCW’s Role

Pfirter also spoke of the OPCW’s increasing interest in offering protection and responding to chemical attacks, especially in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States and the potential threat of terrorist attacks using chemical weapons. 

“Few countries have any national capability to protect themselves from attacks with chemical weapons,” he said.  “And the threat of their use is still a real and present danger.”

Pfirter said a recent exercise in Croatia served to identify weaknesses in the organization’s and member states’ response capabilities (see GSN Sept. 10).  The OPCW conducted ASSISTEX 1, an exercise to test the OPCW’s response to a simulated terrorist chemical weapon attack, earlier this month in Zadar, Croatia.  It was the first ever “live” large-scale event organized by the OPCW and involved nearly 1,000 people from 12 countries, including Iran, as well as observers from 20 other states and OPCW officials.

Pfirter insisted, however, that the OPCW is not a “counterterrorism agency,” but said the organization can make practical contributions to be made within the limits of the organization’s mandate. 

For Pfirter, further implementation of the convention is a key concern.  It is also key that treaty parties do not get bogged down in any discussion on the philosophy behind the convention at next year’s review conference, which he said could open the “Pandora’s box.” 

Of the 20 countries that have not signed the treaty, the most notable include Angola, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Syria and North Korea. 

According to an OPCW official, several countries are in the process of moving to ratify the convention. In the case of Angola and Andorra, the only nonsignatory country in Europe, the hold up mainly relates to some translation problems.

During his visit to the United States, Pfirter met with members of the U.S. Congress, Justice, Commerce and State Department officials, including Undersecretary for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton.

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United States:  Army Delays Disposal at Anniston Depot

The U.S. Army has decided to delay disposing of chemical weapons stored at the Anniston Army Depot in Alabama, the Associated Press reported Saturday (see GSN, Aug. 15).

The Army had planned to begin incinerating the 2,254 tons of agents stored at the depot next month.  The Alabama Environmental Management Department requested a delay, however, saying that Army laboratory burn tests were not conducted according to approved procedures (see GSN, June 6).  The disposal project will now probably begin after Jan. 1, said Mike Abrams, the Army’s spokesman for the project (Associated Press/Los Angeles Times, Sept. 21).

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Radiological Weapons:  NEST Responds to Radiological Scare

By David McGlinchey
Global Security Newswire

The U.S. Energy Department dispatched a Nuclear Emergency Support Team —a rarely reported event — to investigate a container ship off the coast of New York last week, an official told Global Security Newswire (see GSN, Sept. 13).

Although radiation detected on the German-owned Palermo Senator near New York proved to be benign, it triggered a well-coordinated interagency response, indicating that inspectors implemented heightened security measures successfully, according to officials and documents.

Coast Guard officials detected low-level radiation on the ship during an early morning inspection Sept. 10 as the vessel was approaching New York harbor.  According to federally mandated procedure for investigating illegal domestic matters involving nuclear material, the FBI became the lead federal agency in an on-board search.

Nuclear Emergency Support Teams — which were established in 1974 to provide technical assistance to the FBI for searches, diagnostics and “render safe” procedures in nuclear or radiological incidents — include “engineers, scientists and other technical specialists,” and can vary in size from five to several dozen experts, according to fact sheets from the National Nuclear Security Administration.  It was not disclosed how many were involved in last week’s deployment.

The detection occurred as a result of the heightened national security stance, an FBI spokeswoman said.  Officials were carrying handheld radiation detectors while they searched the ship.  FBI agents stationed at the port alerted the regional office to the situation, and the bureau called together resources required from agencies and departments under the “Unified Command,” which includes the Energy Department, FBI, Customs Service, the Coast Guard and the New York/New Jersey Port Authority.

The search came in the wake of new requirements for commercial vessels to submit lists of their crew, recent ports of call and cargo manifests at least 96 hours before arriving at a U.S. port.  With this information the Coast Guard can identify, board and inspect “high-interest vessels.”

Officials declined to disclose what qualifies a vessel as high-interest, citing security concerns.  The Palermo Senator began its journey July 29 in Pusan, South Korea and stopped Aug. 22 at El Suweis in Egypt.  In the course of its usual 91-day circuit the ship makes calls at Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and Khorfakkan, the United Arab Emirates, among other ports.  Earlier this year, some U.S. officials expressed concern about security and inspections at non-U.S. ports (see GSN, Feb. 27).

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Nuclear Waste:  Yucca Mountain Repository Might Be Too Small

New U.S. Energy Department estimates indicate that the storage capacity of a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada — which probably will not begin construction for at least another five years — will probably fall short of what is needed, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported yesterday (see GSN, July 23).

The estimates indicate that the repository, which has been designed to hold 77,000 tons of waste as mandated by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, would not be able to hold all of the liquid waste from former nuclear weapons plants, department spokesman Joe Davis said, describing the new estimates as preliminary “working numbers.”

All of the liquid waste from weapons programs is expected to be made into more than 23,000 glass logs by 2035, but fewer than 8,300 of those would fit in the Yucca Mountain repository once waste from civilian power plants is also stored there, the Review-Journal reported.  The United States would have to build a second repository or expand the one planned at Yucca Mountain (see GSN, May 17).

“The deal on the second repository is you can’t conduct siting activities until Congress appropriates funds for it.  You have to wait for Congress to make a move on it,” Davis said.

Alternatively, Congress could increase the capacity of the Yucca Mountain repository, he said, adding that the site is physically capable of containing all of the nuclear waste that could be created in the in the United States, including defense waste.

Meanwhile, the new Energy estimates could help support Nevada’s claims that the Yucca Mountain repository, as described in the final environmental impact statement on the project, would be too small to hold all of the liquid nuclear waste kept at four U.S. Energy Department sites, according to the Review-Journal.

“I’m just floored by the costs that have been revealed and the numbers of the volumes that don’t appear to correspond with the numbers in the environmental impact statement,” said Nevada Nuclear Projects Agency chief Bob Loux.

Energy has agreed with local officials to remove the waste by 2035, when the Yucca Mountain repository is expected to be full, Loux said.

“It begs the question that DOE is going to have to violate the agreement they have with other states, or violate the commitment to vitrify these materials before they come to Yucca Mountain,” he said, referring to the process for turning liquid waste into glass as described in current Energy documents.

“They’ve got a dilemma,” Loux said.  “It doesn’t appear they can do both” (Keith Rogers, Las Vegas Review-Journal, Sept. 22).

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