Civil Defense Volunteers of Utah was born in Sharon Packer's living room in Salt Lake City but rapidly outgrew the space. The group now meets in city government chambers.

Every month, a group of 30 to 50 interested citizens gathers from as far away as Idaho to learn about civil defense: weapons effects, national security, and protective measures. The meeting starts at 7:30 p.m. and ends when everyone's questions are answered, generally about midnight. Lectures include winter survival; EMP protection; the six ways to die (and how to thwart them); food storage; agricultural tools; building a device to detect a power drop (to give warning of impending attack); and the alpha, beta, gammas of radiation. Those who don't comprehend the half-life of strontium and the fact that it is a bone seeker can readily understand that after a war they can eat meat, but not soup made with bones.

The group doesn't just teach people about shelters; it helps them to build a steel shelter, complete with blast valves and blast doors designed and welded by Paul Seyfried, with consultation from the nation's foremost civil defense experts. A new shelter project is started about once a week. By using volunteer labor, a 200-psi steel shelter capable of saving 40 lives can be built for as little as $8000.

At the July meeting of DDP in Costa Mesa, Sharon Packer and Paul Seyfried showed the construction method, step by step.

The group has found the Utah mobile civil defense display to be its most valuable teaching tool. At the Utah State Fair this month, 2,000 people per day toured the shelter display, which was designed by Dr. Arthur Robinson of the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine.

Detailed manuals about shelter construction, complete with drawings, are now available. These can be ordered from DDP for $10. Slides are also available on request. Call DDP at 602-325-2680 or write 2509 N. Campbell #272, Tucson, AZ 85719.

Former DDP President Kenneth Lucas, MD, will be at the Nevada State Fair for ten days, beginning October 2, to display the Arizona mobile shelter. The Fair is held in Las Vegas. This is the shelter's second trip to Nevada.

If you would like to use the shelter display (and are not located too far from Phoenix), call DDP at 602-325-2680.

According to the arms pact awaiting Senate approval, the US and Russian nuclear arsenals are to be reduced to levels of the 1960s. By the year 2002, Russia is to have 3,000 warheads, and the US 3,500. But in asking how many nuclear weapons are enough, even the New York Times explains ``Why Zero Nukes Are Too Few'' (8/15/92).

Among the reasons, not mentioned by the Times editorial:

As many as 40 nuclear weapons are now believed to be missing from former Soviet storage sites (High Frontier Newswatch, Sept., 1992).

Syria has test launched two advanced SCUD missiles capable of hitting targets anywhere within Israel (NY Times 8/15/92). Israeli intelligence has reported considerable numbers of modified SCUD Cs arriving in Syria from North Korea. Syria has also tried to acquire SS-23 missile systems from Russia and short-range missiles from China (Intelligence Digest, special briefing paper #141, Nov. 1991, 17 Rodney Rd., Cheltenham, Glos GL50 1HX, UK).

The demise of the USSR has given rise to new dangers. According to the USSR's Academy of Sciences, there are almost 80 existing border disputes between the 15 republics. Also Islamic fundamentalism is on the rise among the 50 million inhabitants of the five Moslem republics. Last September, Moslem exiles met in Karachi to burn the Soviet flag in public and call for setting up an Islamic Republic in Uzbekistan (Ibid.)

An additional festering border dispute that could conceivably flare concerns the central Asian border of the CIS and China. In 1964, China laid claim to over 1,500,000 sq km of CIS territory (Intelligence Digest Supplement, Oct, 1991). The Russian defense ministry has invoked the principle of inviolability of postwar frontiers (Intelligence Digest 8/5-26/92).

In what is described as a ``creeping putsch,'' the balance of power within Russia may be shifting against the liberal reformers in favor of an alliance that includes the ``red barons,'' the vice-premiers representing the military-industrial establishment and traditional anti-Western and Russian nationalists (ibid.)

``Friends, environment is all,'' stated EPA Administrator William Reilly at the Republican National Convention. ``The President set high environmental goals....Now, after four years of hard work, I can report we have succeeded.''

Reilly said to look at the record: ``George Bush said that polluters would pay if they broke the law and during the past three years the Bush Administration has collected more penalties and sent more violators to jail for longer sentences than in the rest of the EPA's 18-year history.''

The record shows that three men have already served time in federal penitentiary for inadvertent ``criminal'' violations of wetlands regulations (Ocie Mills, Carrie Mills, and John Pozsgai). The ``pollutant'' involved was common dirt─the kind found on construction sites and in backyards everywhere.

A fourth man, Bill Ellen, may be in prison by now as a result of a kind of border dispute between an ``upland'' (a soil scientist's definition) and a ``wetland'' (a bureaucrat's definition). The dispute arose in the course of constructing a hunting and conservation preserve. While awaiting adjudication, Mr. Ellen allowed two truckloads of dirt to be dumped on the site before halting all work.

For this ``crime,'' Mr. Ellen will probably pay with six months of hard time, and possibly with bankruptcy (in which his wife and young children will share, if they are unable to maintain his business and pay the bills). The developer paid with $2 million, after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor.

The rest of America pays 2.1% of the GNP in complying with pollution-control regulations, according to the EPA's own estimates for 1990. Additionally, according to an EPA-funded study, the long-run distortions of savings and investment caused by federal clean air and water regulations probably depressed the GNP by at least 5.8% (Forbes, 7/6/92).

``The American people will be healthier and more productive for what we have done. We are proud of this record,'' stated Reilly.