By Paul Waugh

Jan. 31-- Pollution from nuclear energy and weapons programs up to 1989 will account for 65 million deaths, according to a European scientific committee headed by an adviser to the British Government.

Research published yesterday by the European Committee of Radiation Risk (ECRR) claims that previous figures massively underestimate the nuclear industry’s impact on human life.

The ECRR is an international body of 30 independent scientists, led by Dr. Chris Busby, a member of the British government’s radiation risk committee and adviser to the Ministry of Defense on the use of depleted uranium.

The findings prompted immediate calls for the government to rethink its support for the nuclear industry or share responsibility for millions of deaths worldwide.

The report came as the European Commission yesterday published two new draft directives setting up the first EU-wide standards on nuclear power plant safety, decommissioning, and the management of radioactive waste.

The study by ECRR, which was formed in Brussels in 1998, is based on a risk assessment model developed over the last five years, and uses evidence from recent discoveries in radiation biology and from human epidemiology. It found that radioactive releases up to 1989 have caused, or will eventually cause, the death of 65 million people worldwide.

It concludes that the cancer epidemic is a result of pollution from nuclear energy and of exposure to global atmospheric weapons fallout, which peaked in the period 1959-63. The research cites evidence such as the levels of breast cancer among women who were adolescent between 1957 and 1963, when nuclear weapons testing was at its peak.

Dr. Lucas said: "The fact that existing analysis could not account for the abnormally high local levels of illnesses like childhood leukemia was more a reflection on the research methodology than the acclaimed safety of the nuclear project."

Caroline Lucas, Green representative for Southeast England, said the figures gave the nuclear debate a renewed urgency. "The government must call an immediate review of its support for the nuclear industry or bear moral, and potentially legal, responsibility for this tragic and avoidable loss of human life."

The ECRR findings challenge the conventional methods of calculating risk used by the International Commission on Radiological Protection, which has been criticized as being too close to the nuclear industry.

Scientists have fiercely debated claims that radiation causes cancer clusters near plants such as BNFL’s site at Sellafield. Ireland and Scandinavian countries have long complained about the risk.

In Brussels, the European Commission adopted two proposals for directives aimed at improving nuclear standards ahead of enlargement, when countries with ailing power plants, such as the Czech Republic, enter the European Union.

Britain has previously objected to the proposals and some Government officials are concerned that EU-wide powers may interfere with Britain’s nuclear industry.

One of the directives states that nuclear safety "cannot be guaranteed without making available adequate financial resources" and sets up rules on the management and use of decommissioning funds.

Source: Independent (UK)

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Appeals court upholds
mountaintop removal mining

By Cat Lazaroff

Richmond, Virginia, Feb. 3 (ENS)-- A federal appeals court has overturned a lower court ruling that would have barred most new permits for mountaintop mining in the Appalachian mountains. The decision was applauded by mining industry representatives, but environmental groups said the ruling could allow mining operations to continue dumping tons of waste into streams and valleys.

On Jan. 29, a three judge panel of the US 4th Circuit Court in Richmond overturned a lower court decision that had barred the US Army Corps of Engineers from issuing permits allowing coal companies to bury streams under mining wastes. These valley fills are most commonly used by mountaintop removal mining operations.

For the rest of this story, please see www.ens-news.com.

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Multinationals eye water
privatization in first world

By Marty Logan

Montreal, Canada, Feb. 4 (IPS)-- The handful of multinational companies that have fattened themselves on the privatization of public water systems in developing countries in the past dozen years are now eyeing nations like the United States, where they believe their profits will be safer, says a report released Monday.

The European firms now operate in 56 countries and two territories, up from a dozen in 1990, as they build revenues that have the potential to reach $3 trillion, says the study prepared by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) from the Washington-based Center for Public Integrity.

The companies -- France’s Suez, Vivendi Environnement and Saur; Thames Water, owned by Germany’s RWE AG; United Utilities of England, and the US firm Bechtel -- have been aided by the World Bank and other international financial institutions (IFIs) which have increasingly insisted that developing countries privatize utilities as a condition of receiving loans.

The process has left millions of the world’s poorest without clean water and facing severe health risks, including the worst-ever outbreak of cholera in South Africa, says the report, which will be released in full by Feb. 14.

"The investigation showed that while these companies claim to be ‘passionate, caring and reliable,’ as one company states, they can be ruthless players who constantly push for higher rate increases, frequently fail to meet their commitments and abandon a waterworks if they are not making enough money," adds the study, based on a year-long investigation in South Africa, Australia, Colombia, Asia, Europe, the United States and Canada.

Now, stung by huge losses in economically embattled countries like the Philippines and Argentina, the firms are putting their money into more stable environments, such as the United States, where the multinationals have recently purchased the three largest private-sector water utilities.

They are also lobbying Congress "to pass laws that would force cash-strapped municipal governments to consider privatization of their waterworks in exchange for federal grants and loans," notes the report.

"They have good guaranteed revenue streams here, which was the big problem in the developing countries -- there was a big requirement for infrastructure investment but they didn’t want to sink [the money] there," said Sara Grusky, policy analyst at Public Citizen’s "Water for All’"campaign. "We are poised to have a big battle to keep water in the public domain."

While the firms are already involved in the privatization of some cities’ water supplies, a subsidiary of Suez last month lost its contract with the city of Atlanta after the project failed to generate the profits the city had calculated it would use to finance its sewage system.

But it is in the developing world where the multinationals reaped huge rewards since 1990, documents the report. For instance, Vivendi’s parent company, Vivendi Universal, reported that its water-related revenue more than doubled from 1990 to 2002, from $5 billion to more than $12 billion.

During that same period, the World Bank loaned about $20 billion to water-supply projects, stipulating that privatization take place in about one-third of them, adds the study.

"While it is clear that considerable improvements have been brought to many waterworks as a result of privatization, in many cases the companies put in relatively little capital of their own, relying primarily on loans from the World Bank and related international financial institutions," it says.

The report describes how in South Africa the Bank worked with companies to convince municipal councils to privatize or "commercialize," an intermediate step in the process: "Urged by the World Bank to introduce a ‘credible threat of cutting service,’ the local councils began cutting off people who couldn’t pay."

"Since 1998, an estimated 10 million people have had their water cut off for various periods of time. The result has been cholera and other gastrointestinal outbreaks," it adds.

The report describes one such outbreak infected more than 250,000 people and killed nearly 300. "Making people pay the full cost of their water ‘was the direct cause of the cholera epidemic’," says the report, quoting David Hemson, a social scientist sent by the government to investigate the outbreak. "‘There is no doubt about that’."

In 2002, Suez wrote off 500 million dollars in losses at its ‘Aguas Argentinas’ project after the country’s economic collapse, costing the multinational more than eight percent of its international water business, according to another report prepared in January for Public Services International (PSI).

Suez’s Philippine subsidiary has abandoned a project in Manila after the 1990s Asian currency collapse ate into its profits, adds the report, which suggests that the company plans to divest one-third of its water business in developing countries.

"It creates a difficulty for the World Bank and other IFIs whose strategies for the water sector depend on enticing the multinationals to increase their investment and participation. Instead, they are now faced with a two-year period in which the leading company is abruptly reducing its investment," says the report, written by David Hall of PSI’s research unit at the University of Greenwich, England.

All the water firms are now demanding further guarantees before they will invest, writes Hall. "It is no longer ‘business as usual’ with the water multinationals," the report concludes. They "are now clearly prepared to abandon concession contracts which do not meet the new demand for security for their investments."

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BRIEFS

Bitterroot settlement undermined
One year after a highly publicized settlement was reached between conservation groups, the US Forest Service, and the timber industry, just three percent of the promised watershed restoration and 12 percent of the reforestation work in the Bitterroot National Forest has been completed.
Meanwhile, 70 percent of the logging permitted by the plan is already complete.
On Feb. 7, 2002, the "Burned Area Recovery Plan" settlement was signed by the Forest Service, timber industry representatives and conservation groups. At the time, the plan made headlines across the nation as a model of cooperative conservation -- but it is now touted as an example of underhanded dealing.
Much of the needed restoration work on the Bitterroot National Forest may never be completed, critics warn, because $25.5 million appropriated for restoration on the Bitterroot has been used to cover costs associated with the 2002 wildfires.
"Despite what the Bush administration says, the numbers speak for themselves," said Jennifer Ferenstein, Sierra Club president and participant in the Bitterroot negotiations. "We've learned that when the Bush administration says ‘restoration’ or ‘fire prevention,’ they really mean logging." (ENS)

EPA issues weak air rules for ocean vessels
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued final air emissions standards for large sea-going vessels on Jan. 31, but environmental groups say the new regulations will do almost nothing to clean the air.
Ocean vessels represent the fastest growing, least regulated sources of pollution in the United States. Each day in large ports such as Long Beach and Santa Barbara, California, ships generate as much pollution as one million cars. The world's biggest ships now account for 14 percent of total nitrogen oxides (NOx) and 16 percent of all sulfur oxide emissions from petroleum sources.
The agreement with engine manufacturers promotes, but does not require, new engines installed in US flagged vessels such as oil tankers, cruise ships, and cargo vessels to produce less pollution than older engine designs.
"The oil tanker owners lobbied the Bush administration to delay and weaken this regulation, and once again, fossil politics trumped the public interest. It's a disastrous defeat for the environment," said Russell Long, executive director of Bluewater Network. (ENS)

Top bottled water brands loaded with pesticides in India
For years, Indians and visitors to that country who fear water-borne pathogens have put their faith in bottled water. Now, a leading environmental group, the Center for Science and Environment (CSE), has publicized findings that show that even the best-known local brands available in the market have massive doses of deadly pesticides and other chemical contaminants.
After CSE publicized its findings and laid the blame on lax standards and their poor enforcement, the central government responded by ordering investigations into a $200 million industry in which international beverage giants Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Nestle have investments.
Using European Economic Commission standards for pesticides in packaged water, the CSE showed that on average, every sample of bottled water collected in the capital and in the western metropolis of Mumbai contained 36 times more pesticides than maximum permissible limits in Europe.
Coca Cola’s "Kinley" brand, Pepsi’s "Aqufina" and Nestle’s "Pure Life" also miserably failed the tests conducted at the CSE’s laboratories, and were found to contain a cocktail of such deadly pesticides as lindane, malathion, DDT and chloropyrifos. (IPS)

Warming oceans linked to four-year drought
Droughts that spread across the United States, southern Europe and southwest Asia over the past four years may have been linked by a common thread: ocean conditions created by a warming climate. A new study suggests that cold sea surface temperatures in the eastern tropical Pacific and warm sea surface temperatures in the western tropical Pacific and Indian Oceans worked together to cause widespread drying.
During 1998-2002, a prolonged period of below normal rain and snowfall, and above normal temperatures, caused the United States to experience drought in both the southwest and western states, and along the eastern seaboard. These droughts also extended across southern Europe and Southwest Asia.
Using climate simulations, researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Martin Hoerling and Arun Kumar assessed how the ocean conditions over the four-year period influenced climate. They found that tropical oceans had a substantial effect on the atmosphere.
The researchers say that the combination of the warm and cold oceans shifted the tropical rainfall patterns into the far west equatorial Pacific, leaving the mid-latitudes high and dry. They say that while the cold sea surface temperatures were unusual, they were not unprecedented, but that the warmth of the tropical Indian Ocean and the west Pacific Ocean was unsurpassed during the 20th century.
According to the report, "Climate attribution studies find that this warming (roughly one degree Celsius since 1950) is beyond that expected of natural variability and is partly due to the ocean's response to increased greenhouse gases." (ENS)

US seeks 54 exemptions on pesticide ban
The Bush administration is requesting exemptions for 54 companies and trade groups that want to continue using a pesticide scheduled to be phased out by 2005 under a treaty to protect the ozone layer, officials said on Feb. 6.
All but two applications have been approved in whole or in part by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The requests come from businesses like tomato and strawberry growers and operators of golf courses who say they need to use the chemical, methyl bromide, and have no alternative.
The exemption requests, to be submitted this week to the Ozone Secretariat at the United Nations, drew criticism from environmental groups, which said the environmental agency was undermining the Montreal Protocol of 1987.
The US requests would result in an increase in the use of methyl bromide, to 39 percent of the baseline set in 1991.
Methyl bromide is a toxic gas that sterilizes soil before planting and kills pests in stored food products. Scientists have identified it as a potent ozone destroyer and estimate that it accounts for 7 percent of the ozone erosion. (NY Times)

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