Radiological Weapons I:  Uranium Stolen in Tajikistan

Authorities have arrested four men in Tajikistan for possession of two kilograms of stolen uranium, BBC News reported yesterday (see GSN, Feb. 22).

The men were arrested in the northern city of Chkalovsk, said a spokesman for the Tajik security ministry.  The four men did not say how they obtained the uranium or what they planned to do with it.  Laboratory tests, however, determined it came from the Vostokkredmet metal plant in Taboshar, near Chkalovsk (BBC News, March 26).

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Radiological Weapons II:  Hunt Begins for Missing Strontium-90

Western nations are planning to conduct a search within Georgia to find two missing containers of strontium-90, which could be used by terrorists to construct a “dirty bomb,” the London Guardian reported today (see GSN, March 18).

Western nuclear safety experts scheduled to meet in Paris in two weeks are expected to agree to conduct air, road and foot searches in Georgia to find two missing strontium containers, which came from Soviet-era nuclear batteries.  It is the first time a national search for missing nuclear materials has been organized, according to the Guardian.

In December, three lumberjacks working in northern Georgia discovered another two nuclear batteries with their lead casings removed.  The men carried the batteries away and later suffered severe burns and radiation sickness.

The strontium in those containers had a radioactivity of 40,000 curies, so strong workers recovering the two found batteries had to wear protective clothing and could only work on the radioactive metal from a distance of two meters away and for 40 seconds at a time.

“Sept. 11 has made everyone think differently about this,” said Melissa Fleming, a spokeswoman for the International Atomic Energy Agency.  “There is more than an assumption that there are two more (abandoned nuclear devices) left in Georgia.”

The radioactivity of the missing strontium, combined with the unstable political situation in Georgia, increases the risk that terrorists could obtain the material for use as a weapon, according to experts.

“In Georgia you have a weak state and Muslim extremists,” said a senior European official in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi.  “If you put the strontium together with classical explosives, you could make a town highly radioactive.”

The strontium in the missing containers, however, would be encased in heavy ceramic, which would make it difficult to disperse, Fleming said.

There is a “potential for a dirty bomb if it is shrouded in conventional explosives and then set off,” Fleming said.  “But the strontium would need to be naked — someone would need to handle it and shroud it.  The person (making the bomb) would need to be prepared to die” (Ian Traynor, London Guardian, March 27).

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Radiological Weapons:  Canada May Use Radiation Detectors at Ports

Canada is “seriously investigating” a proposal to give lapel-pin radiation detectors to customs agents to increase their ability to detect terrorists smuggling radioactive materials over the U.S.-Canada border, Revenue Minister Elinor Caplan said yesterday (see GSN, March 18).

The small devices beep to indicate the presence of radioactive material and so might help agents find nuclear bombs or radioactive weapons. 

The devices would be part of a five-year program to increase detection devices and scanners at Canadian points of entry.  Canadian officials are also expected this week to announce an order for 10 sophisticated X-ray machines to examine containers crossing the border.

Meanwhile, U.S. and Canadian customs inspectors yesterday began assignments on each other’s territory in an effort to improve security and information exchange (see GSN, Jan. 18).  Canadian customs agents went to ports in Seattle and Newark, New Jersey, and U.S. officers began working in Canada in Halifax, Montreal and Vancouver (Campbell Clark, Globe and Mail, March 26).

U.S. inspectors will have the authority to check ship manifests at the Canadian ports and ask Canadian officials there to check any suspicious goods.  Canadian officials at U.S. ports will have the same authority.

“It’s just a more efficient, smarter way of managing the border,” said Roy Jamieson of the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency in Halifax.  “They’ll be exchanging information back and forth about goods that are coming into our respective countries.”

“We get access to their databases, they get access to ours,” Caplan said yesterday.  “It’s a reciprocal and shared program to increase security as well as see that goods move more smoothly across our border.”

The program is not completely new.  Canada and the United States have had an agreement for years that allowed U.S. inspectors at the Newark port to ask their counterparts to examine certain items.  The difference is that the agents will now actually be stationed on each other’s territory (Canadian Press/Saskatoon Star Phoenix, March 26).

The customs agents exchange program should last “as long as there’s a continuing threat from terrorism, and that looks like for the foreseeable future,” U.S. Customs Commissioner Robert Bonner said yesterday.

Bonner added that it may be the program should be expanded to other countries that trade with each other (Jeff Hutcheson, CTV Television, March 25).

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Nuclear Waste:  Abraham Defends Repository at Yucca Mountain Site

It would be better to store nuclear waste at an underground repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada than to allow it to remain at several aboveground temporary storage sites throughout the country, said U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham in an opinion piece in today’s Washington Post (see GSN, March 21).

Scientists have conducted extensive studies to ensure that Yucca Mountain is a safe and suitable place for a waste repository, Abraham said.  The research, which has lasted 24 years at a cost of $4 billion, has involved mapping the mountain’s geologic structure and collecting more than 18,000 rock and water samples plus 75,000 feet of core samples.

Based on the research, scientists have concluded that Yucca Mountain would be a safe location for the waste repository, Abraham said, adding that the repository would be able to meet U.S. Environmental Protection Agency standards for 10,000 years.

“Here’s what this means,” Abraham said.  “Someone living 11 miles away from the site 10,000 years from now would be less exposed to radiation than he would be on a normal plane flight from Las Vegas to New York.”

Experts have based the decision that Yucca Mountain is safe on several worst-case scenarios, including earthquakes, the possibility of volcanic activity and the effects of water corrosion on the casks that would store the nuclear waste, Abraham said (see GSN, March 13).

“We even analyzed what would happen during the next ice age when Nevada’s climate changed and rainfall increased dramatically,” he said.  “Yucca Mountain would still meet EPA standards.”

The Yucca Mountain project is important to both national and homeland security, Abraham said.  Spent nuclear fuel taken from nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and submarines must be disposed of for those ships to function, he said, adding that a nuclear waste repository would also help U.S.-Russian nonproliferation efforts.  More than 161 million people live near temporary spent-fuel storage sites.

“We believe that today these sites are safe, but prudence demands we consolidate this waste from widely dispersed aboveground sites into a deep underground location that can be better protected,” he said.

Abraham said that lacking scientific evidence, critics of Yucca Mountain have resorted to scare tactics to raise opposition to the plan, such as the fear of a transportation accident or terrorist attack on spent-fuel shipments (see GSN, March 14).  The United States has transported nuclear waste for more than 30 years with no harmful accidents or releases of radiation, he said.

“So far as terrorists are concerned, why wouldn’t they first attack stationary, aboveground facilities that lie in known locations near heavily populated cities, rather than wait 10 years until the material is being moved — in secret — in secure containers surrounded by heavily armed guards?” Abraham asked (Spencer Abraham, Washington Post, March 26).

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