The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has ruled that graduate assistants at private universities have the same right to form unions and negotiate working conditions as other employees. Ruling in the case of New York University and the United Automobile, Aerospace & Agricultural Implement Workers of America International Union, NLRB maintained that most of the university's graduate students are statutory employees under the National Labor Relations Act. The decision, which affirms a ruling from NLRB's regional director, states that, because the graduate assistants perform services under the control of the employer and are compensated for that work, they are employees and not just students. The decision, interestingly, does not include graduate assistants in the biology and physics departments; they were ruled to not be employees. NYU officials are very disappointed in the decision, saying it shows a serious lack of understanding of graduate education. The university can appeal the decision to the courts but has not decided on whether to take that course.

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At a meeting on Nov. 1 and 2, EPA's Science Advisory Board approved the agency's revised dioxin health risk assessment, requesting only minor changes to clarify certain points. Among the assessment's conclusions, the board agreed that 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) is a known human carcinogen and that complex mixtures of dioxin-like compounds (collectively called dioxins), such as coplanar polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and polychlorinated and polybrominated dibenzodioxins, are likely human carcinogens. The board also agreed that TCDD and related compounds pose a maximum cancer risk of about 1 in 1,000 for the most sensitive and most highly exposed members of the population and that cancers can be caused by exposures only 10 to 100 times greater than average body burdens. This cancer risk estimate is higher than that in EPA's 1994 draft dioxin reassessment. Another major uncontested point in the assessment is that prenatal and postnatal exposures to dioxins may have impacts on children's thyroid function and immune systems. EPA will publish the final dioxin reassessment document in two to three months, and shortly after that it will issue a draft dioxin risk management strategy. The dioxin reassessment can be found at http://www.epa.gov/ncea/dioxin.htm .

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In a 23-page report, the House Commerce Committee charges that the Department of Energy Office of Science & Technology has squandered hundreds of millions of dollars developing cleanup technologies that have not been successfully used by DOE at its contaminated sites. The report, "Incinerating Cash," expands upon criticisms that committee members have made during hearings over the past few years and lays out charges that DOE has struggled to address during the technology office's 10-year history. It is available at http://www.house.gov/commerce .

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Estimates of radioactive environmental contamination from nuclear weapons production grew with the release of separate studies of Russian and U.S. weapons production programs. A recent examination of the closed Seversk weapons complex in Siberia found extremely high levels of strontium-90 and phosphorus-32 in aquatic plants near the facility, according to a study by a scientific team supported by Russian and U.S. nongovernment organizations. Since the 1950s, five reactors have operated at the site to produce plutonium; only two run today and generate electricity. The study found strontium-90 levels thousands of times above U.S. drinking water standards, says the Government Accountability Project, one of the U.S. sponsors. A second study, this one by the Department of Energy, reexamined previous data and found radioactivity of transuranic wastes buried at five DOE sites to be 10 times higher than previous estimates. The waste is buried in shallow dumpsites and is considered to be small and irretrievable. Consequently, DOE has focused most resources on programs to address retrievable radioactive wastes. DOE had thought radioactivity of irretrievable wastes to be only 3% that of retrievable waste, but the study found it to be 30%. The Institute for Energy & Environmental Research, a nonprofit research organization that pressed DOE to conduct the re-review, urges DOE to reshape its cleanup priorities to reflect the new data. The reports are available at http://www.whistleblower.org and http://www.ieer.org .

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For years, industrial chemicals have been released into the Great Lakes, in some areas at concentrations exceeding legal levels because the chemicals are diluted in surrounding waters. These areas are known as mixing zones. EPA earlier this month announced a ban on discharging into mixing zones several toxic chemicals that bioaccumulate in fish and wildlife. These substances include mercury, dioxins, polychlorinated biphenyls, and certain pesticides. EPA says about 300 of the 600 major facilities that discharge water into the Great Lakes now release bioaccumulative chemicals into mixing zones. Existing Great Lakes mixing zones for these substances will be phased out over a 10-year period. Mixing zones for new facilities discharging these substances are prohibited immediately. EPA will allow limited exceptions to the ban for facilities that prove they have reduced discharges of toxic bioaccumulative chemicals as much as possible. The agency says it plans to regulate mixing zones in other U.S. waters as well.

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 The Patent & Trademark Office has expanded its Internet database to include every U.S. patent ever issued dating back to 1790. This will be a total of more than 6.5 million patents. The website is http://uspto.gov/patft .

 The Energy Department has established a National Bioenergy Center to oversee a $4.3 million grant program for development of biomass fuels to replace and enhance gasoline or to be used for chemical feedstocks. The center will be located at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo.

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