Offered without comment
January 2nd, 2009 From
>X-Sender: tcrobi@pophost.fw.hac.com
>Date: Fri, 24 Oct 1997 14:24:27 -0500
>To: mahan@microwrks.com
>From: Tom Robison
>Subject: Offered without comment
>Precendence: bulk
>Sender: mahan-owner@microworks.net
>Reply-To: mahan@microworks.net
>
>The following is quoted verbatim from the December 1997 _Naval_History_
>Magazine:
>=====
>
>WAKE ISLAND TO BECOME WASTE DUMP?
>by Commander David Gaddis, USNR
>
>Is Wake Island, site of one of the greatest battles in the history of the
>U.S. Marine Corps, destined to become a storage place for spent nuclear
>fuel and nuclear fissile material?
>
>Plans are underway by three companies — International Fuel Containers,
>U.S. Fuel & Security (USF&S), and Nuclear Disarmament Services — to use
>the lagoon at Wake Island for indefinite storage of thousands of 120-ton
>steel drums full of nuclear material from around the world (though
>primarily from the United States and Russia). Retired U.S. Navy Admiral
>Daniel J. Murphy has been selected as chairman and chief executive officer
>of the three companies, and retired U.S. Marine Corps General P.X. Kelly
>also is a board member. Russian Minister of Atomic Energy Dr. Viktor
>Michailov reportedly agreed to a “joint venture partnership” in 1996 for a
>large part of the former Soviet Union’s nuclear waste to go to Wake.
>
>At an introductory meeting on 26 July 1996, Admiral Murphy, other company
>officials, and two U.S. State Department officials were in attendance.
>USF&S laid out a plan to form a “Wake Island Defenders Memorial Fund” to
>take legal custody of Wake atoll from the Air Force as a C-3 charity; the
>fund, in turn, would lease the lagoon to the company for use as a nuclear
>waste storage facility, in perpetuity. Compensated board members would
>manage the enterprise and form a trust fund for U.S. veterans. In addition
>to General Kelly and Admiral Murphy, the board would include Alex Copson,
>founder of the venture.
>
>Based on the island’s capacity to hold at least 40,000 ten-ton containers
>in the lagoon, USF&S secretery Andrew Antippas estimated the venture could
>provide $4-billion over 40 years to the proposed veterans’ trust fund.
>Revenues from the above contributions would be used to augment federal
>veteran benefits, according to Antippas, and the board would “decide these
>priorities and tasks” for distribution of the funds to veterans.
>
>The nuclear waste would be shipped to Wake by 20 ships built for the
>purpose by Trinity Marine in Gulfport, Mississippi. These ships — moving
>material to Wake from around the world — would allow the three companies
>to tap into the estimated $120-billion spent-fuel business worldwide.
>According to one estimate, $9-billion in start-up costs and yearly
>operating costs of $1-billion could make the company worth as much as
>$11-billion once the plan is authorized by law.
>
>Will this plan — to start a colossal joint venture that would ship
>hundreds of tons of nuclear waste to the Wake Island lagoon — be executed?
>If so, it could make a strange bedfellow to preservation of the islands,
>which the group claims to support. Apparently there is great pressure from
>Russia to get the legislation passed by Congress in 1997, because other
>agreements have been made to dispose of the waste, one of which may involve
>Iran.
>
>=====
>End of quoted article.
>
>
>Tom Robison, tcrobi@most.fw.hac.com
>Airborne Communications Systems
>Hughes Defense Communications,
>1010 Production Rd.
>Fort Wayne, IN 46808
>
>Any opinions expressed herein are mine alone, and do not reflect
>the views or opinions of Hughes Defense Communications, Hughes
>Aircraft Corp., Hughes Electronics Corp., General Motors Corp.,
>Raytheon Corp., my wife, or God.