Oconee Report (1)
Winter 2001/2

Janet and Glenn Schlafer and Joanne Steele attended the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC’s) meeting with Oconee nuclear power plant officials Monday, March 25, 2002 for the annual performance assessment. The NRC has three on-site inspectors who check on safety.

The stated NRC performance goals are:
1. to maintain safety and protect the environment
2. to enhance public confidence
3. to improve effectiveness, efficiency, and realism of processes and decision making
4. to reduce unnecessary regulatory burden.

Charts and diagrams explained processes for addressing concerns. The Oconee plant had deficiencies in the mitigating systems for Unit 1:
- A performance deficiency associated with reduced capability to provide coolant using the spent fuel pool as a suction source for a high pressure injection pump following tornadoes;
- An inadequate procedure which increased the likelihood that auxiliary service water flow to the generators could not be established within 40 minutes following tornadoes.

Note: Without cooling water, the reactors could overheat and the core could melt down. The first deficiency was also reported in the previous assessment. Currently the Unit 1 reactor is off line for refueling.

What wasn’t mentioned in all the fancy charts and lists was the issue of reactor vessel head degradation. The reason given for not mentioning it in the annual report was that it is not part of the quarterly inspection process, but a separate issue. (So much for enhancing public confidence!)

There was some guarded reference to “letters of communication” and concerns for the timeliness of addressing said concerns. Only when Mary Olson of the Nuclear Information Resource Service asked point blank about the through-wall leaks discovered on control rod drive mechanisms (CRDM) nozzles of Oconee’s Unit 3 was the concern even acknowledged. Duke Power plans to replace the three reactor vessel heads at Oconee.

Mary mentioned the discovery at the Davis-Besse pressurized water reactor in Ohio, where acid in cooling water had eaten a hole nearly all the way through the six inch lid of the reactor vessel, leaving only 3/8 inch of stain- less steel under more than 2,200 pounds of pressure per square inch.

The Oconee plant has the same make and model of reactor vessels. It’s not clear if the Oconee reactors have cavities like Davis-Besse. Duke says they will install new lids in 2003 and 2004, making them the first to be replaced. It’s not clear what Duke will do in the interim if destructive corrosion is found.

Being the first to replace such a huge component, what’s involved? Are they doing the replacements under a maintenance order, or will there be special regulations? Will they have to cut a hole in the containment domes to bring the lid in? Where will the old lids be sent as radioactive waste? How will they get them there? What other plants have these problems? There are 68 other plants with similar designs.

A New York Times article by Matthew Wald on March 26 explains the concerns about the leaks and corrosion dangers. “The Nuclear Regulatory Commission was surprised by the discovery of the corrosion, and said the stainless steel that had bent under pressure would have broken if the corrosion had continued.”

The NRC ordered all 69 pressurized-water reactors to check their lids. They were particularly worried about the dozen oldest plants (Oconee being one) and ordered them to report by April if they were safe enough to keep in service. Technicians at the plants should notice such corrosions in their normal inspections.

If the liner had given way in the Ohio reactor, experts say, there would have been an immediate release of thousands of gallons of slightly radioactive and extremely hot water inside the reactor’s containment building.

The plants have pipe systems that are meant to pump water back into a leaking vessel, but some experts fear that if rushing steam and water had damaged thermal insulation on top of the vessel, the pipes would clog. In that event, the reactor might have lost cooling water and suffered core damage — possibly a meltdown — and a larger release of radiation, at least inside the building.

Such extensive corrosion “was never considered a credible type of concern,” said Brian Sheron, associate director for project licensing and technology assessment at NRC. Small leaks are common, he said, but engineers always thought that if cooling water leaked from the piping above the vessel and accumulated on the vessel lid, the water would boil away in the heat of over 500 degrees, leaving the boric acid it contains in harmless boron powder form. At Davis-Besse, however, it appears the water was held close to the metal vessel lid, or head, perhaps by insulation on top of the vessel.

Boric acid is used in cooling water to absorb surplus neutrons, the subatomic particles that are released when an atom is split and go on to split other atoms, sustaining the chain reaction. Engineers are not yet certain why the corrosion occurred. A nuclear engineer at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit watchdog group that is often critical of the NRC, said the discovery was troubling. “This is really something that shouldn’t have happened,” said engineer David Lochbaum. “You shouldn’t get such a huge hole in a pressure-retaining vessel.”

No one in this country has ever replaced a reactor vessel head. Duke Power plans to replace all three at Oconee for about $20 million.

Because of the discovery at Davis-Besse, the regulatory commission ordered a dozen other plants to report back in two weeks and prove that previous inspections would have found any corrosion. The inspection cannot be done while the plant is running, and if the utilities cannot convince the commission, they presumably face shutdowns of perhaps several weeks just for the checks.

Clean energy alternatives, and energy conservation, are the only safe response to the dangerous nuclear power plants that provide 20 to 30 percent of the electricity in South Carolina and Georgia. It’s time to shut the Oconee reactors down and decommission them. They aren’t worth the high risks they pose to us and future generations. The Oconee plant has produced more electricity than any other nuclear station in the United States, according to the plant’s own PR brochure. It’s old. Even the NRC says a nuclear reactor is designed to last 30 years. Well, Oconee’s first reactor came on line in 1973, you do the math.

Power Crisis
Fall 2001

The September 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington sent shock waves throughout the entire nation, and we extend our deepest sympathies to those who lost family members and friends. Now we have all become more focused on safety and security issues.

In our area we worry about the threat of attacks on nuclear power plants, even though National Guard troops have been deployed to guard them, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been directed to review security procedures.

Ten days after the attacks, the NRC announced that regulators “did not specifically contemplate attacks by aircraft such as Boeing 757s or 767s, and nuclear plants were not designed to withstand such crashes.” What would it take to remedy that situation?

The NRC encourages self-policing by plant owners. Unfortunately, in tests during the 1990s, mock adversaries were able to defeat plant security personnel, even when the mock attacks were announced ahead of time, and “significant core damage” could have occurred at nearly half the plants tested. What was NRC’s response? Stopping the tests.

This should be a good time to reconsider the use of nuclear power and plan instead to promote safe, clean energy sources such as solar, wind and fuel cells. But the industry’s political friends want to continue to subsidize nuclear power plants through reauthorizing the Price-Anderson Act that would encourage building many more nuclear plants all over the country. The Act has passed the House and is now in the Senate.

Also destructive is the move to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, despite evidence of only a six to nine month oil supply, the long time (ten years) it would take to get to the oil, and the destruction of one of our last pristine wilderness areas.

Instead, several energy experts say conservation will save as much oil as the ANWR holds, do it faster, cleaner and safer. Raising fuel standards for cars and light trucks to 40 miles per gallon would save 51 billion barrels of oil over 50 years, 15 times more than ANWR is likely to yield.

Replacement tires waste gas because their “rolling resistance” is 20% worse than the original tires. Maintaining tire pressure would save more oil than ANWR is likely to produce.

Tax incentives to encourage buying mid-size hybrid electric cars that get over 60 mpg would pave the way toward a 55 mpg goal by 2020. Such an incentive already is in use in Maryland where buyers of high-performance hybrid cars receive a $1,500 rebate. Car owners not only save money on gasoline, they breathe cleaner air.

Hydrogen used in fuel cells would be the ultimate “green” energy source, with only water as a byproduct. If Congress would fund research and development, 100 million vehicles could be mass produced by 2010, cleaning our air and reducing our dependence on foreign oil.

Beginning commuter bus service between Atlanta and Macon is a good start to save gas and oil and reduce air pollution and accidents.

Getting back to security, think what a tempting target the Alaska oil pipeline is already. One man with a rifle temporarily stopped the oil flow just a few weeks ago. A bigger attack would have had disastrous consequences. No one wants to think about the results of an attack on a nuclear power plant, which would dwarf the Chernobyl explosion.

Any time there are centralized sources of power, they are vulnerable to attack and destruction. The power lines from an electric utility cost more than the generators and cause almost all power failures. Onsite and neighborhood micro-power is cheaper, eliminates grid losses and glitches, harnesses waste heat, and is very attractive to smart investors.

A 1982 Pentagon study, “Brittle Power: Energy Strategy for National Security,” by the Rocky Mountain Institute, showed how a handful of people could shut down three quarters of the oil and gas supplies to the Eastern states, cut the power to any major city, or kill millions by crashing an airplane into a nuclear power plant. That study is almost twenty years old but still current.

— www.NRDC.org, Naturesvoice@nrdc.org, www.gristmagazine.com/grist/imho/lovins11200/asp?service=daily, Public Citizen Nov/Dec. 2001, www.citizen.org

Nuclear Neighbor
Summer 2001

When you finally realize that you are in the danger zone of an operating nuclear plant, with all those memories of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, you wonder why you hadn’t known it was there. After all, it’s been operating since 1973 and just got relicensed for another twenty years. (The danger zone is defined as 50 air miles, the area where the heaviest nuclear fallout from an accident would impact. For Georgia, that zone around the Oconee plant in South Carolina includes all of Rabun, Habersham, Banks, Stephens, Franklin and Hart, and parts of White, Jackson, Elbert, Towns and Madison counties.)

Two members of the ACE board and the head of Georgians Against Nuclear Energy decided to check it out. It wasn’t easy to find. It’s not on the highway map, but we headed for Seneca and started asking questions. It took three different people to get us there, finally, on SC Hwy 183 east of Walhalla, following small brown signs saying, “World of Energy.”

The nuclear station is right on Lake Keowee-Toxaway, sort of the way the Three Mile Island plant sat on a sandbar in the middle of its river. No cooling towers at this one, however, since the three reactors are cooled by the cold water of the lake passing over pressurized steam pipes.

There has been only one known “incident,” when about ten years ago a leak in the radioactive system contaminated the clean water loop. That water was kept in the containment building, and then, not knowing what else to do with it, released right into the lake. Now Duke Power personnel deny that there was any such event. And there seems to be no radioactivity in the lake, in the air, or in the beautiful gardens that surround the World of Energy building. We couldn’t get close to the containment buildings.

The steam generator inside one containment building is scheduled to be replaced in a year or two, through a removable “porthole” in the wall of the building. Then the wall would be rebuilt as strong as ever, says a representative of the World of Energy. However, long exposure to the corrosive atmosphere inside the generator leads to metal embrittlement, as has been found at other plants.

If there should ever be an explosion in the plant, the resulting contamination would dwarf what happened at Chernobyl. The stored nuclear waste at Oconee has been piling up since 1973, 28 years worth, while Chernobyl had been operating for only two years, and it was the waste spewing out that the wind carried to a number of countries.

Fifteen years after the Chernobyl explosion, neighboring Belarus measures a radioactivity level 100 times stronger than that released from the Hiroshima bomb. Children have diseases such as thyroid cancer and leukemia. The water is too contaminated to swim or fish. Ed and Claudia Lacy, who hosted one of the Belarus children, Sasha, said he delighted in being able to swim and to have fresh fruit to eat. ACE was pleased to sponsor their program on Aug. 17 at the Clarkesville library.

Duke Power does acknowledge the danger of living close to the plant. Their free calendar has warnings on every page: listen for emergency sirens, turn on local radio and TV after the sirens go off, keep doors and windows closed and stay inside, don’t evacuate until told, phone numbers to call for transportation, where the nearest shelters are, what to do with your animals, where the pickup points are for your school children.

If you’d like to arrange a tour of the Oconee plant, call the World of Energy at 1-800-777-1004.

South Carolina has one thing we don’t have — a governor willing to block plutonium shipments from entering his state. He may have felt frustrated when the US Administration canceled funding for a crucial plutonium clean-up technology, immobilization in glass, leaving his state with no plan for safely storing the plutonium coming its way. The Department of Energy called it cost reduction, but they still want to fund the messy reprocessing of plutonium into commercial reactor fuel called MOX. Gov. Hodges says he will not allow the plutonium to stay in South Carolina permanently and has asked his Highway Patrol for plans to block the shipments. Gov. Hodges is joined by Rep. John Spratt and other elected officials.

For Georgia, that means plutonium shipments crossing our state, more plutonium processing on our border, when our groundwater is already contaminated from fifty years of nuclear weapons work at the Savannah River nuclear site. If you want to ask Gov. Barnes to stand with Gov. Hodges, his address is 203 State Capitol, Atlanta 30334, or e-mail Roy@gov.state.ga.us, fax 404-657-7332.

You could also ask Sen. Cleland to ensure full funding of immobilization and to cancel MOX when the issue comes up before the Senate Armed Services Committee in early September. His address is 461 Dirksen Office Building, Washington DC 20510, fax 202-224-0072, switchboard phone 202-224-3121.

— NY Times 8.11.01,The State (SC) 8/10/01, Gainesville Times 6/11/07, Women’s Action for New Directions, membership@wand.org.

Georgia Nukes
Spring 2001

Our own Southern Company, which owns nuclear power plants in Georgia and Alabama, is one of five utilities that have announced intentions to build new nuclear power plants.

According to a March 19 Dow Jones article, some or all of the utilities were to file by the end of April 2001 with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to seek site location approval, with the majority to be built at existing nuclear plant sites.

Plant Vogtle, in Burke County along the Savannah River, has space to add two new reactors to its two existing nuclear reactors.

The Southern Company is not pursuing safe alternatives that would benefit the state’s economic and environmental health. Governor Barnes and other elected officials need to know that there is opposition to this pursuit of new nuclear power plants.

In our area we are already faced with radioactive waste from the Savannah River Plant being transported along I-20. The governor’s address is Hon. Roy Barnes, State Capitol, Atlanta 30334, or roy@gov.state.ga.us.

Travelling Nukes
Winter 2000/1

Radioactive waste is coming sooner than we expected. The Savannah River Site near Augusta plans to ship its first load of plutonium waste to a New Mexico repository some time this month, with eight to twelve shipments by next January.

More than 55,000 barrels of the stuff will be sent to the WIPP site in new Mexico and buried in a mine 2,100 feet below the desert. Supposedly it won’t threaten the public there, although the site is in a seismic area with rivers below the surface.

Critics say the plutonium transfer is risky and useless, needlessly endangering thousands of people who live along I-20 in Georgia and points west. “The wastes that are being sent to WIPP are relatively safely stored where they are,” said Arjun Makhijani, president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research in Maryland and a long-time critic of the shipments.

To prepare for the shipments, Westinghouse Waste Isolation Division, which runs WIPP, has been training workers along the route since 1961. If you want to ask questions of your Congressperson concerning the safety of such shipments, call 202-224-3121.

Nukes on the Road
Fall 2000

After 50 years producing the world’s most destructive weapon, the hydrogen bomb, the Savannah River Site (SRS) is still in business, still an environmental disaster. It is also on the National Register of Historical Places ‹ perhaps to protect it from investigation into worker exposure.

Its new assignment is to reprocess plutonium, a man-made toxin, into commercial nuclear fuel, called MOX for Mixed Oxide Fuel. Supposedly, this will divert weapons grade plutonium into a “useful” product. The Russian part of the program alone is estimated to cost $1.7 billion.

Compared to the uranium fuel used in US nuclear power plants, MOX will accelerate the aging of the plant through embrittlement, reduce the margin of error for safe operation, and result in more cancer deaths from accidents. Worst of all, MOX does not get rid of plutonium. Burning nuclear fuel in a reactor produces more plutonium - a vicious circle.

Both Duke Power and the Southern Company are interested in using MOX fuel, and Plant Vogtle, across the river from SRS near Augusta, could participate.

With Atlanta a major cross roads when nuclear waste shipments begin, and with the Oconee nuclear plant just across the South Carolina line from Toccoa, high level waste could be traveling Georgia highways and rail lines.

The nuclear industry is desperate for relief from the waste piling up, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) wants to help industry along by easing, not tightening, regulations at the expense of our health and environment.

Thankfully, the Yucca Mountain depository is not yet approved. It is in a seismic zone with many small earthquakes recorded all over that part of Nevada. Senator Frank Murkowski (R-Alaska), chair of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, is pushing to open the repository. “If we don’t solve the problem of our spent fuel soon, the American taxpayer will bear the costs of the financial liability,” he lamented. The Dept. of Energy (DOE) collects fees from nuclear utilities to fund construction of the repository, and recently a utility in Pennsylvania reached a settlement to reduce the fees they pay DOE by some $80 million over ten years. Could that be a trend that will stop construction of the depository?

With reprocessing at SRS a real possibility, NRC held a public meeting in Atlanta on Sept. 20, one of only three across the nation. The NRC website was too complicated to maneuver, the printed matter was highly technical, but the discussion was clear, if discouraging. Transporting nuclear waste to the SRS was definitely in the plan.

NRC and DOT (US Dept. of Transportation) claim it is necessary to “harmonize” US regulations with international standards set by IAEA (International Atomic Energy Commission). What they don’t say is that NRC helped to develop the IAEA standards which are less restrictive than US standards.

The proposed changes mostly relax what protection the public has now. The role of IAEA is both to promote nuclear technology and to provide security for “the peaceful atom” so public protection is not stressed. Furthermore, IAEA revisions are not open to public knowledge, comment, or participation until they are already in force. Even to get a copy of the regulations is expensive and takes time.

Some key issues now on a fast track for approval include increasing the regulated release of radioactivity in transit, lowering requirements for nuclear container testing, lowering the assessed impact of radiation on the body, and dropping the double wall requirement for pluton- ium containers.

All of these impact the health and safety of people and the environment, and should have thorough evaluation, not the fast track process under way.

The final shock was hearing that when reactors need fresh fuel quickly it is shipped in by plane. Now we have to worry about trucks, trains and planes.

MOX has received little attention in Congress, despite the fact that Congress is supposed to provide oversight of MOX funding. You could tell your representatives to stop making plutonium bomb fuel or shipping the unsafe radioactive material. Call them at home during the recess, or in Congress at 202-224-3121.

South Georgia has its own nuclear problems with the Southern Company. The spent fuel pool at Plant Hatch in Baxley is nearly full, so the company removed some of the highly radioactive rods and put them in a giant cask on a cement pad outside. This cask, the HI-STAR 100, had never been tested or used before. In fact, the state of Utah urged that it not be approved for safety reasons.

NRC documents confirm that the plant has had repeated worker radiation exposures and serious accidents -- 1,200 in 1997.

Though the company claims it intends to store only its own waste outside, it takes only a license amendment to accept waste from other facilities. So nuclear waste dumping could happen at Baxley. Obviously the industry has too few checks and balances and is free to make its own rules -- or mistakes.

To halt a radioactive dump now, before cask expansion takes hold, contact Governor Roy Barnes, 203 State Capitol Building, Atlanta 30334, phone 404-656-1776, fax 404-657-7332, and Chairman Meserve, NRC 016C1, Washington DC 20535, phone 301-415-1750, fax 301-415-1672.

Europe too has nuclear problems. Germany is to permit international shipments of spent nuclear fuel for the first time in more than two years. Environmental groups immediately promised massive protests, and 2,000 demonstrators quickly gathered near the “temporary” nuclear waste storage facility of Gorleben. The group included members of nature protection federations and doctors from International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War.

All rail movements of spent fuel were banned in Germany in 1998 after discovery of widespread surface contamination.

France and Switzerland initially acted similarly but both have since allowed transports to start again. The French company, Cogema, which is to help manage reprocessing at SRS, was responsible for contaminating a wide swath of the French coast with nuclear waste near its reprocessing plant, according to Greenpeace.

Thousands of Austrian environmental activists blocked border crossings between their country and the Czech republic to protest a new Czech nuclear power plant just 40 miles from the border that is scheduled to start up soon. Austria decided to be nuke-free in 1978.

Controversy is brewing in Taiwan as newly elected President Chen Shui-bian decides whether to call for a halt to construction of the country’s fourth nuclear power plant. Many Taiwanese object, noting that the country doesn’t know what to do with the nuclear waste it already has.

They aren’t the only ones.

-- nirsnet@nirs.org, www.nirs.org, phone 202-324-0002; Georgians for Clean Energy, phone 404-659-5675, fax 770-234-3909, georgia@cleanenergy.ws; http://ens-news.com/ens/sep2000/2000L-09-27-01.html; Ladka Bauerova, New York Times, 9/24/00.

Nuke News
Spring 2000

The fate of the Oconee nuclear plant’s relicensing is closely tied to the Calvert Cliffs application. In mid-April a federal appeals court panel ruled that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission acted properly in rejecting a bid for closer review of safety issues surrounding the renewal for the Calvert Cliffs operating license.

The NRC voted to extend the life of Calvert Cliffs for another 20 years, the first such license extension in the nation. Opponents, including the National Whistleblower Center, argued that the NRC had rushed its decision without addressing certain safety questions or allowing adequate time for public input. The group plans to appeal.

Six more of the nation’s 103 operating nuclear reactors have filed for license renewals, and 21 more plan to file by 2003.

— Washington Post, Todd Shields, 4/12/00. http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/maindish/hamilton040600.stm.

Nuclear Electricity
Fall 1999

The U.S. is undergoing a massive shift to deregulation of our electric utility companies, including the 104 nuclear reactors that they own.

Should we not expect the same kinds of financial pressures on the operation of those reactors here as Japan experienced? Indeed, the financial pressures on regulated utilities are already very troubling.

Think back to 1979 and the near catastrophic accident at Three Mile Island when a pressure relief valve stuck open and was incorrectly recorded in the instrumentation. That fluke sequence was not unpredictable. In fact it had happened three times previously in other reactors, which fortunately happened to be at partial power at the time, preventing a meltdown from occurring.

And that sequence was not unnoticed by the engineers at GE which built that model reactor. And those line engineers duly reported to management the possibility of a catastrophe if the sequence recurred in a plant at full power.

Why didn't management react by sending alerts to all the other utilities with GE reactors of that design? Because, they replied to the Blue Ribbon investigation, the reports were erroneously submitted on yellow instead of the proper pink paper for emergency situations.

Do you believe that? Not very likely. The probable real story: there were so many of these reports that if they were to react to every one of them, the capacity factor of the units would plummet and sales would suffer. Consequently, the policy had been, apparently, to punt and hope and pray nothing bad happens.

Well it did at TMI and it will again. And deregulation is all but certain to insure that it does sometime, somewhere.

Admiral Rickover, the "father" of the nuclear navy, once intoned that he supported nuclear power for the navy because they would spend whatever it takes to make it safe, but he opposed it for private industry because of the continuing pressure to cut costs.

Nuclear Shipments
Fall 1999

MOX is moving around the world. This radioactive mixture of plutonium and uranium left France and has arrived in Japan for use as fuel in reactors.

British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) has admitted to falsifying quality control records on MOX fuel pellet fabrication at the Sellafield plant in England. To save time, data sheets from previously inspected MOX fuel batches were used, and at least ten batches went uninspected.

Pellets that are too large can expand and damage fuel cladding. Those that are too small can vibrate in the fuel rod and possibly rupture. BNFL claims that the MOX fuel rods now in Japan were not affected by the lapse. Nevertheless, MITI, the Japanese government body responsible, has ordered that the fuel be inspected before it can be loaded into reactors.

-- Nix MOX Bulletin Board, Sept. 14, 1999, port@bigsky.net

Nuclear Food
Fall 1999

Consumers are overwhelmingly opposed to eating irradiated food, but the issue has moved on to whether such food should be labeled. A Food and Drug Administration (FDA) plan to stop labeling irradiated foods is under attack by a wide array of consumer groups. In July the FDA received over 20,000 postcards, letters and formal comments, demanding that the labeling law should be kept as is.

Food irradiation raises concerns that include long-term health impacts, nuclear accidents, and worker safety. Some experts do not agree that the technology kills food-borne pathogens as proponents claim.

The root causes of food-borne illness are filthy conditions at factory farms and industrial slaughterhouses, as in the 1997 E.coli contami- nated beef incident at Hudson Foods in Nebraska.

No studies have been done to show that a long-term diet of irradiated foods is safe. Irradiation creates new chemicals in food including known carcinogens like benzene and formaldehyde, and free radicals.

The three congressmen who led in passing the FDA Modernization Act in 1997, which weakened labeling requirements, were amply rewarded by the industry. Contributions from 1993 to 1998 included $380,258 to Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky), $84,050 to Sen. James Jeffords (R-Vt), and $153,218 to Rep. Greg. Ganske (R-Iowa).

-- Wenonah Hauter, "Consumers Tell FDA to Label Irradiated Food," Public Citizen News, Sept/Oct. 1999.

Nuclear Kitchens
Fall 1999

A federal judge said she could not order the Dept. of Energy (DOE) to stop the practice by which nuclear materials are recycled and used in everyday consumer products. The lawsuit concerned a contract awarded in 1997 to British Nuclear Fuels to “recycle” radioactive metals from uranium enrichment plants in Tennessee.

In a June 29 decision, U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler used strong language about the danger this recycling poses to the public, but said she could not order the DOE to write an Environmental Impact Statement, thanks to a Superfund loophole.

The result: 100,000 tons of radioactive metals to be sold as scrap for use in items ranging from frying pans to baby carriages.

— Wenonah Hauter, “Ruling Allows Radioactive Metal in Household Products,” Public Citizen News, Sept/Oct. 1999.

Nuclear Power is Back
Winter 2004/05

Decades after being written off as a costly failure, the nuclear power industry is reviving with plans for new reactors. It was almost a given that nuclear plants were too expensive to build, too difficult to operate, and their radioactive waste too hot to handle.  

But operators are now considering a new generation of cheap, efficient reactors, mainly in the Southeast, that they say would not generate the greenhouse gases of fossil fuel plants... “The nuclear industry is asking for huge subsidies, corporate welfare, for unproven technology,” said Howard Learner of the Environmental Law and Policy Center. Other critics say the money could be better spent developing renewable energy sources such as wind power and clean coal technology...

“One of the sites we are looking at is the Savannah River [nuclear] site in South Carolina,” said Dan Keuter of Entergy Corp. of New Orleans...

— Robert Manor, “After 30 years in exile, Nuclear Power is Back”, Chicago Tribune, 20 Jan 2005

Oconee Problems
Fall 2003

David Lochbaum, a nuclear safety engineer with the Union of Concerned Scientists, is losing confidence in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s ability to do its job properly. Following are excerpts from a draft of his report which will be sent to the Chairman and Commissioners of the NRC.

Some of the reasons for our lack of confidence are that the Commission has held more closed meetings per the Sunshine Act regulation in the past two years than in the prior 15 years combined. Further, the safety culture within the NRC is deplorable, as evidenced by recent surveys reporting half the work force being reluctant to raise safety concerns and a third of those who do voice those concerns feeling they have been retaliated against for doing so.

For most US nuclear power plants, the NRC makes but one appearance each year to meet with the public. The agenda is determined by the NRC and the plant owner. Members of the public cannot suggest items for the agenda and the NRC staff often refuses to discuss issues raised by the public that are not on that agenda.

[The Davis-Besse plant in Ohio is made by the same manufacturer as the Oconee plant in South Carolina. It created quite a stir when a hole was found in the cover of the reactor vessel, the hole being within 3/16 inch of eating all the way through.] The NRC prepared an order to shut down the Davis-Besse plant for safety inspection, and then shelved it. Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act clearly indicate that the NRC knew at the time that it was violating four of the five criteria it had established for such safety decisions.

Since June 1998 when the US Senate threatened to slash the agency’s budget, the NRC put its primary focus on the business objectives of the nuclear industry instead of on public health and safety. The Davis-Besse debacle can be traced to this lost focus, given that the agency failed to ensure that resident inspector staffing at Davis-Besse conformed to even its lowered policy levels. The improper focus also delayed resolution of long-standing safety issues including steam generator tube integrity, fire protection, and pressure containment sump reliability.

Very shortly after 9/11 a NRC senior manager recommended that the Commission relax its security measures — even as the nation’s commercial air fleet was grounded — because they were costing nuclear plant owners too much money. This same manager was responsible for the flawed decision regarding Davis-Besse.

[Oconee has been relicensed by the NRC for 20 more years of operations.] The license renewal rule depends on a determination that the applicant has monitored the condition of its important equipment [and whatever needs replacement or repair is fixed] before it fails. Indian Point’s broken steam generator tube (2000), Summer’s leaking hot leg pipe (2000), Oconee’s broken control rod drive mechanism nozzles (2001), Quad Cities’ broken jet pump (2002), and Davis-Besse’s broken reactor vessel head are but a sampling of growing evidence that aging management programs aren’t working.

The NRC’s response to allegations we have submitted, whether based on our own concerns or based on concerns brought to us by plant workers, have gotten worse over the past two years, declining to the point where many of us believe the NRC’s allegation process is not viable.

— dlochbaum@ucsusa

Regulators Contaminate Recycling
Winter 2002/03

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) seems determined to force radiation exposures upon the public. The NRC published in the Federal Register a request for comments on “controlling the disposition of solid materials.” These materials are nuclear wastes to be “released,” allowing them to go into unlicensed landfills, incinerators and even consumer products. More than 100 organizations in the US and internationally have stated their opposition and have signed on to a “State- ment Opposing Radioactive ŒRecycling’ and Deregulation of Nuclear Wastes.”

Nuclear wastes are already being released, without any restrictions, on a “case-by-case” basis. A National Academies report stated that “The amount of these materials is not known because there is no requirement to document the materials released.”

The NRC is accommodating the nuclear industry, which would like to make the release of nuclear trash easier, cheaper and more clearly legal than it is now, says Wenonah Hauter, director of Public Citizen’s Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program. The materials could end up in bicycles, toys, cookware or bedsprings.

A previous method, by which certain wastes were designated as “below regulatory concern,” was barred by Congress in 1972 in response to pressure from state and local governments and citizen, consumer, and industry groups.

The NRC seems to be ignoring recommendations from this report, which stated that a “legacy of distrust” had developed between the NRC and the public.

Today’s announcement includes no schedule for any public hearings, except one two-day workshop (May 21 and 22), scheduled for daytime during the work week in the Washington, DC area.

“The NRC is back again trying to legalize putting nuclear power and weapons waste into our belt buckles, baby toys and frying pans. The public response is still “NO! We won’t take it” and NRC knows it, so they are avoiding public hearings so the public won’t find out,” said Diane D’Arrigo, radioactive waste project director of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS).

To read the complete group statement, please go to www.citizen.org/cmep/energy_enviro_nuclear/nuclear_waste/low-level/recycling/articles.cfm? ID=8417. Public comments will be accepted until June 30, 2003. Public Citizen plans to submit comments soon.

— www.citizen.org

Victory for Now
Winter 2002/03

Victory — even a temporary one — over the NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) is so rare it needs to be savored.

Months ago ACE signed on to an appeal by Public Citizen not to allow aboveground storage for radioactive spent fuel rods on the reservation of the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians near Salt Lake City.

The trial lasted nine weeks, ending in mid-2002. Private Fuel Storage (PFS), a consortium of electric utility companies, was opposed by the State of Utah and the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) — and the good guys won. The Atomic Safety Licensing Board of NRC said such storage was not safe due to possible accidents from F-16 flyovers. The risk from intentional air attacks will be considered across the entire regulatory landscape at some future time.

Unfortunately, the NRC has the power to overturn the licensing board decision. You can read the 222-page decision at www.citizen.org/documents/nrcpfsdecision.pdf.

— jmalherek@citizen.org

NRC Error
Winter 2002/03

Pressurized Water Reactors like the Oconee Nuclear Power Station just outside Seneca, SC, recently gave inspectors, and us, cause for alarm. Circumferential cracking of control drive mechanisms has been occurring faster than anticipated.

The danger is great enough that ACE recommends that Oconee shut down its three reactors until replacement of all vessel heads is complete. Dr, Ed Lyman of the Nuclear Control Institute calculated that within 30 days of shutdown, the risk from a breach of a reactor, by accident or terror attack, would be reduced to 50% less fatal cancers and 80% less acute fatalities from immediate exposure to radiation, as compared to a reactor that is on line. From a health and safety standpoint, that is a calculation worth serious consideration.

Circumferential cracks in the tubes holding the control rods that raise and lower into the reactor vessels to control the fission process have been occurring at alarming rates. When there are cracks, there are leaks of coolant from inside the vessel, like a pressure canner with a faulty seal, but here that means radioactive steam with boron and other elements can escape. The 600 F degree steam is under 2200 pounds per square inch of pressure.

Circumferential cracking and corrosion of the vessel head pose a safety concern because it could lead to nozzle ejection and loss-of-coolant accident — the kind of accident that would let the heat inside the vessel rise until it blew its top.

If that should happen, thousands of people would be endangered. The Oconee plant is some 20 miles from Toccoa, GA. All of Rabun, Stephens, Hart and Franklin, and most of Habersham and portions of Banks, White, Madison and Elbert counties are within the 50 mile “ingestion pathway” of the three reactors.

No nuclear plant has made it past 30 years of operation, but Oconee may now continue operation 20 years past its original 40-year operating time, until 2033.

The danger of a control rod ejection has prompted the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to require several increased inspections. Each time, more cracks are discovered happening at faster rates than expected, and still the NRC and the nuclear industry are willing to bet that the metal will hold until new reactor heads are brought in as replacements, with a different alloy to reduce stress cracks.

Oconee Unit 3 was the first reactor in the US to report the circumferential nozzle cracking back in April 2001. In May 2002 Oconee reported the most cracked nozzles and repairs. Inspectors have gone from random inspections of some nozzles to ordering 100% visual inspections of every nozzle of every vessel head of every pressurized water reactor (PWR) in the country during refueling, effective immediately.

The problem with this order is it requires inspection during refueling. Every reactor at Oconee has old heads to be replaced during their next refueling cycle. Unit 3 will be in April, Unit 1 in October, and Unit 2 in April of 2004. They will not have 100% inspections until then, and are going on calculations of expected deterioration of the metals of the vessel heads, not confirmed conditions of all nozzles and parts of their old and partially repaired heads.

The NRC order states, “The discovery of leaks and nozzle cracking at Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station and other PWR plants has made clear the need for more effective inspections of Reactor Pressure Vessel heads and associated penetration nozzles. The current inspection requirements require visual examination of the insulated surface or surrounding area for signs of leakage. Such inspections are not sufficient to reliably detect cracking and corrosion.”

The NRC had wrongly assumed that the Unit 3 vessel head had already been replaced, in their report and orders that were sent out February 11, 2003. The report stated that Unit 3 had a LOW rating as a result of vessel head replacement. Unit 3 was the first reactor to report problems two years ago, and should have a HIGH rating for susceptibility like Units 1 and 2. The regulatory agency once again fell short of accurate record keeping.

Three NRC inspectors are on site full time at Oconee, and such an error in documentation should not have occurred. It makes one wonder how well reports are read, and who is in charge of the rating system.

Monthly operation reports are sent to NRC by licensees that list plans for refueling.

The vessel head replacement plans for Oconee have been published in several reports to NRC. A refueling outage is scheduled for April for Unit 3, and vessel head replacement will occur at the same time. Upon questioning the public relations officer at Oconee, we were told that NRC had been notified of the error.

I was shocked when an NRC regulator informed me that they had just “jumped the gun” on this rating since vessel heads were soon to be replaced. They also reported North Anna and Davis-Besse as having LOW susceptibility to degradation because their vessel heads are being replaced. The difference is those reactors are not currently running. Since no inspections are required before replacements, were we to imagine Oconee 3 safe now because it will be within a few months?

Risks of continued operation are real. If a nozzle ejects, it shoots out with 2200 pounds per square inch force, and shreds the insulation, which contains metal that acts as shrapnel, chipping and damaging whatever it hits. Debris could clog the grates in the sump below the reactor vessel. As steam escapes, the water loses pressure and starts boiling, hastening loss of coolant. More auxiliary water is pumped into the vessel, escapes, falls down in the sump, which should drain and recirculate but can’t because of clogging. The reactor core would be in danger of partial or total meltdown.

No one knows the strength and integrity of the bottom of these aging reactor vessels, and how much core heat it would take to breech the vessel. The Oconee reactors have produced more electricity than any other nuclear power plant in the country. Getting a few more months out of the reactors before repairs isn’t worth it. It’s time to shut them down before the risk of a serious accident threatens the health and welfare of workers, neighbors, the public and surrounding land and water.

— Joanne Steele, Director, Oconee Nuclear Project, ace123@alltel.net

Oconee Report (3)
Fall 2002

ACE’s Oconee Nuclear Project now has a PowerPoint presentation available for showing to local school and civic groups.

Twenty folks attended the first presentation at the Clarkesville Library Sept. 26. Students from Habersham Central H.S. raised some wonderful questions that will be incorporated into this evolving presentation.

The biggest concerns were about safely storing and eventually transporting the highly radioactive spent fuel. Currently, 30 modules of steel reinforced concrete dry casks hold spent fuel rods, and the site is licensed to store 88 modules. Forty-four have been installed. More spent fuel rod assemblies are stored in the cooling pools, where they remain for five years before they cool down enough to be placed in the dry casks. If anything causes the pools to lose water, a radioactive fire could lead to a meltdown. So far that has not happened.

The Dept. of Energy (DOE) is responsible for removing the spent fuel from the Oconee Nuclear Station and storing it after the plant shuts down. This will involve transferring the assemblies, another dangerous process in itself, into transport casks that are not as thick and reinforced as the on-site storage casks. To date, no fuel assemblies have ever been removed from storage casks into transport casks. Radioactive containment during such a process will be a major concern, as well as steam flashes and fire. Even if there were a successful process for repackaging the fuel assemblies, the safety of transport casks is still another concern. Armor-piercing weapons could rip a hole in the transport casks, and release radioactivity into the environment.

Hardened on-site storage (HOSS) of nuclear waste is the safest alternative during these times of terrorist threat. Bunkers of earth and steel-reinforced concrete should protect the spent fuel canisters, says the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, which recommends this design. This kind of storage would be safe from direct attack and radioactive release. HOSS is good for 50 years, long enough to research better options than current plans to truck the stuff across country to Yucca Mountain.

Oconee is refueling Unit 2 in October. The vessel head replacement for Unit 3 is scheduled for spring of 2003 and Unit 1 in the fall 2003. Unit 2 vessel head replacement is scheduled for spring of 2004. The steam generator is also scheduled for replacement. We’ll keep you posted.

Nukes at SRS
Fall 2000

On Oct. 29 the US Dept. of Energy (DOE) held a public hearing to allow comments on their proposed upgrading of nuclear weapons. Upgrading means making new plutonium pits, which are the triggers that generate the fission energy.

Officially, the DOE is looking at five possible sites for the new Modern Pit Facility (MPF) but the Savannah River Site (SRS) is high on the list. Every politician in the Augusta area turned out to praise the DOE’s operation of the site. It just happens that the number of jobs there is declining, and several officials pleaded for the new plant so that jobs could be created.

Those who oppose nuclear weapons, over forty of us from several southeastern states, were ready to testify that new plutonium pits were not necessary and would only add to the contamination already at the site. Although we arrived early enough to get to testify among the first, that honor was reserved for elected officials. So for over an hour we listened to the praise of SRS from local mayors, national representatives, and state representatives from Georgia and South Carolina.

When they were done, the network cameras also left, and then our groups began testifying. We learned that SRS is the most radioactive site in the world, and that the area has the highest infant mortality rate in the country. We learned that the proposed first-strike weapons would be a violation of the Non Proliferation Treaty which our country signed, not to mention busting the national budget.

Three of our ACE group left around 11 pm, after Joanne Steele sang the emotional song by Bob Dylan, Masters of War (adapted for nukes). We can only hope the DOE officials were really paying attention. Joan King responded to what had been said, and Adele’s testimony is below. Bev Baker was the last to testify, at 1 am.

There is still time to submit your comments, as the deadline is Nov. 21. Mail address: Mr. Jay Rose, US Dept. of Energy, 1000 Independence Ave. SW, NA-53, Washington DC 20585. Email: James.Rose@nnsa.doe.gov. Fax: 202-586-5324. Subject: Modern Pit Facility, Environmental Impact Statement, US DOE, National Nuclear Security Administration.

SRS Testimony
Fall 2002

Environmental clean-up is desperately needed at SRS, as it is at every facility that ever handled nuclear materials.

Rocky Flats, for example, was supposed to become a wildlife sanctuary once the plutonium stores were moved out to SRS. Unfortunately, the residual radioactivity lingers on. Hanford’s liquid waste is a mess that will take decades, and billions of our dollars, to clean up, and the list goes on.

Clean-up is a process that takes decades but it would provide national security as well as economic security. The last thing we should do is add more to the mess that already exists and that gives us no security of any kind.

SRS is the prime example of mess. Nearly half of our plutonium inventory was manufactured here, generating 35 million gallons of hazardous solvents contaminated with gamma-emitting cesium and strontium. This huge waste inventory is beginning to leak into the environment from 50-year-old tanks. Fortunately, there is a technology that can help, that is, solidifying it into massive glass logs, radioactive enough to make handling it dangerous, but solid enough to keep it from being used again as weapons.

Unfortunately, that could cancel the deal we made with the Russians back in 2000, and the Russians would be left with their own bloated nuclear industrial complex run by Minatom, Russia’s Ministry of Atomic Energy. Their plan to manufacture MOX reactor fuel from plutonium is hugely unprofitable. Not only is MOX far more expensive than common uranium to use as nuclear fuel, the Russians need $1 billion they don’t have just to build a MOX fuel fabrication plant.

Who has the money? We do, the taxpayers and the G-8 nations our President depends on. Our administration needs to secure Vladimir Putin’s help on missile defenses, the war on terrorism, and the fight against Iraq. Our Dept. of Energy also favors MOX, even if it would be as vulnerable to nuclear theft and terrorism as plutonium.

After 9/11, keeping plutonium out of the hands of the world’s Saddams and bin Ladens should be our number one task. But the federal bureaucrats in charge of so-called plutonium disposal have a plan that would increase the risk. They would ship it from facility to facility, cleaning it, refabricating it into pits, or nuclear triggers, thus making it vulnerable, rather than securing it into an unusable form. The new pits are supposed to replace aging ones in today’s nuclear arsenal. But we already have close to 15,000 plutonium pits at the Pantex plant.

Is this really what we need? We have enough nuclear arms to discourage any would-be attacker many times over.

The administration has not even specified the need for the stockpile. It has not said how many weapons will be dismantled ‹ and therefore how many pits will be required ‹ upon implementation of the Moscow Treaty, signed earlier this year by President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to Jim Bridgman of the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability. Are we ready to spend up to $8 billion to build the Modern Pit Facility, a facility whose use we should question?

As the lead editorial in the Wall Street Journal noted early in October, moving ahead with the MOX disposal effort or helping others work on breeder reactors is a “gift to the world’s terrorists.” What we need is to secure surplus plutonium in as few spots as possible and eventually dispose of it as nuclear waste, says Henry Sokolski of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center.

The final problem is getting a proper Environmental Impact Study, since DOE and DOD tend to utilize about a dozen large firms that are quite experienced in giving these agencies what they want. These firms usually subcontract with specialists that they often work with.

Does anyone here think it possible to involve a diverse set of stakeholders in the whole decision-making process, with full reporting along the way? We can dream.

Finally, we should all remember what we learned in kindergarten: When we make a mess, we should clean it up.

— Adele Kushner, Executive Director, Action for a Clean Environment

Lost Fuel Rods
Fall 2002

The former operator of Millstone Station in Waterford, Conn., informed the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in November 2000 that two fuel rods were unaccounted for. A subsequent investigation by the operator, NNECO, concluded that the rods had been cut into segments and sent to a low level radioactive waste facility along with other hardware some time between March 1985 and December 1992. Low level?

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, after investigating last fall, found no evidence to support the possibility that the rods were stolen. The very high radiation level of the material would have made theft difficult and dangerous, the agency said.

“Notwithstanding the fact that there was no realistic threat, past or present, to the public health and safety, the loss of highly radioactive fuel rods is unprecedented and is a very significant violation,” wrote NRC Region Administrator in a letter to the new operator, Dominion.

The NRC decided to triple the base penalty of $96,000 for the penalties because of the “unprecedented nature of the loss of highly radioactive material and to further emphasize the importance of adequate accounting of irradiated fuel at nuclear power reactors,” regional NRC administrator Hubert Miller said.

— Environmental News Service 6/28/02; NRC 6/25/02 Notice of Violation and Proposed Imposition of Civil Penalty

European Renewables
Fall 2002

Swedish Prime Minister Goeran Persson plans to close the Barsebak 2 nuclear reactor by 2003. The system’s electric power will be offset by renewable energy projects and conservation measures. In Belgium, the government plans to start phasing out the country’s seven nuclear reactors as early as this December.

— Earth Island Journal, Summer 2002.

Waste Moves
Fall 2002

Dangerous radioactive waste is already crossing North Georgia. Shipments of contaminated powdered plutonium are at this moment moving from Rocky Flats, Colorado, to the Savannah River Site near Augusta.

Governor Hodges of SC managed to delay the shipments for over a month, and the Court of Appeals in Richmond could still overturn the ruling that allowed the shipments. That hearing is scheduled for July 10.

No one knows the route or the schedule, because of tight security, but past shipments have traveled on I-20 or I-26 or both. This time the unmarked 18-wheelers will be escorted by SUVs with dark tinted windows and armed guards.

The plutonium is supposed to be reprocessed into MOX fuel for commercial reactors, eventually. No facility is ready to start that process and the only temporary storage place is the old, cracked K building. Eventually, the Dept. of Energy is to build a multi-billion dollar plant on site. This plan backs up Gov. Hodges’ fear that the plutonium could be left in permanent storage in his state.

Whether the contaminated plutonium can be cleaned up and reprocessed at all is still a question. Originally half of it was to be encased in ceramic and glass to be stored safely at the Savannah River Site, but that was cut out of the federal budget.

By the time you read this the Senate vote on whether to accept the Yucca Mountain repository for nuclear waste is probably over. Both our senators were made aware that shipping waste in Nevada will not end the production of more nuclear waste at reactors, and there will be almost as much waste left after the first 38 years and thousands of shipments to require another repository, and no end to the nuclear cycle.

ACE members have told them they object to having radioactive waste traveling through their towns and back yards. The severe derailment accident on June 1 in Gainesville, caused by one drunk driver in a pickup truck, is still fresh in our minds, and a warning. Spent fuel is high level waste, radioactive for thousands of years. One accident along the way could be devastating, despite all precautions.

Nuclear waste will be a ticking time bomb for 250,000 years no matter where it is placed. A study in 2000 by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission showed that the risk of a spent fuel fire exists for years after a reactor stops operating. The meltdown risk ends within three to five years for spent fuel, but the fire risk remains for many decades.

The only reactors that get rid of their waste completely, says the Dept. of Energy (DOE) are those that are closed today.

With all this going on, the DOE proposes to spend $17 million to create more radioactive waste. Secretary Spencer Abraham wants to build three new nuclear power plants in Virginia, Illinois and Mississippi. The nuclear industry doesn’t want to spend its own money and is lobbying the DOE and Congress for taxpayers’ money.

Of all our energy sources, nuclear power is the most heavily subsidized since 1948, yet produces only 20% of the nation’s capacity. The industry continues to receive limited liability coverage under the federal Price-Anderson Act, as no commercial insurer will take on the catastrophic accident risk, plus the added risk of a terrorist attack. You can give the senators your opinion at 202-224-3121 or through the web at www.senate.gov.

— nirsnet@nirs.org, www.ewg.org, www.psr.org, dlochbaum@ucsusa.org, Charles Seabrook, “Plutonium trucks rolling?” Atlanta Journal-Constitution 6/23/02.

Test the Casks
Fall 2002

Full scale testing of the casks that are to carry the nuclear waste must come before any vote on a nuclear repository, said Jim Hall, former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), in testimony given before the US Senate on May 22, 2002.

Stating that as NTSB chairman he was all too familiar with the human and economic toll caused by air, rail, truck and marine accidents, Hall urged caution. “DOE seems not to have understood the consequences of Sept. 11. ... In view of the fact that these shipments would pose extraordinary risks with potentially catastrophic human and economic consequences, I am astounded that DOE’s transportation proposal contains no serious risk assessment or analysis of human factors. ... Unbelievably, no government agency, not the DOE, the Dept. of Transportation or the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has subjected truck or train casks to full-scale tests. This is of particular concern since new cask designs that will carry four times more waste than those currently in use could be used,” said Hall.

He continued, “Before putting the stamp of approval on DOE’s nuclear waste repository and allowing the shipment of even one metric ton of deadly spent nuclear fuel across the country, the Senate should require DOE to come up with a transportation plan, especially in view of the $68 billion that utility ratepayers are spending for the nuclear waste program. Moreover, spending $40 to $60 million on a comprehensive full-scale testing program, to test new truck and rail casks, seems a very small price to pay for our peace of mind,” Hall concluded.

— Ed Rothschild, 202-879-9317

Oconee Report (2)
Fall 2002

It’s been a busy time since Earth Day, April 20, when ACE’s exhibit at the Sautee Nacoochee Community Center included a life-size mock nuclear waste travel cask. This 20-foot long trailer attracted lots of attention, along with the written information on the huge subsidies the nuclear industry receives. The Price-Anderson Act provides the industry with unique insurance coverage given to no other industry in the US. We were pleased to be set next to the Volunteer Fire Department so that first responders along the route could get information they will need if there is an accident.

We also had comparisons of the dangers presented by using nuclear power, versus clean power sources such as solar, wind and geothermal, which unfortunately do not get the same subsidies. An estimated 250 folks attended the event throughout the course of the day.

On April 26 we decorated a caravan of cars with signs, “Stop Mobile Chernobyl” and information on the NIRS website. The caravan toured through Toccoa as we followed the rail line, one of the possible routes for casks from Oconee to Yucca Mountain. We got good coverage on radio and newspaper. The next day we continued our caravan through Mt. Airy, Cornelia, Baldwin and Alto. Mt. Airy was holding a community celebration at the post office, so we were able to hand out post cards to be sent to officials, and information welcomed by first responders.

On May 4 our exhibit was on display at the Chattooga Conservancy first annual Conservation Fair. The Conservancy was the only petitioner against relicensing of Oconee in 1998, and they were pleased to see us continue to monitor Oconee, as the entire Chattooga River watershed is within Oconee’s 50-mile ingestion pathway zone in case of accidents or meltdown.

On May 5 we hosted guest speaker Mary Olson of the Nuclear Information Resource Service (NIRS), along with the Environmental Concerns Committee of the Sautee Nacoochee Center. We showed the Prairie Island video of their nuclear plant, which is the same model as Oconee. Incidentally, that video is available to be shown to any interested local group.

Southern hospitality may have gone too far. The Southeast is known as the Nuclear Heartland because of the concentration of nuclear facilities — a distinction we could probably live without.

On May 26 we hospitably welcomed Senator Zell Miller to the Gainesville Civic Center, with a colorful banner reading, “Senator Miller, please vote NO on Yucca Mountain! Keep dirty nuclear bombs off roads and rails!” The Senator graciously accepted one of our brochures and promised to read it. Unfortunately, it has probably not made him change his opinion. Although the police made us move across the street, hundreds of people saw our banner and signs, and many smiled and offered support.

The railroad accident in Oakwood on June 1 was a real wake-up call. No dangerous chemicals were spilled, although they could have been. What if this wreck, caused by one drunk driver in a pickup truck, had involved a train carrying nuclear waste? The inconvenience of blocked traffic would not compare to the contamination and devastation a nuclear accident could cause.

Workers at nuclear plants are often exposed to radiation, and their monitoring is not as careful as it should be. Activists from regional groups other than ACE are also interested in this subject, and there is much to learn. Monitoring agencies report to the CDC, but the public needs to find this information. We hope to bring speakers to our region who have expertise in this field.

We have been doing our best to communicate with our senators, and spent some time in Senator Cleland’s Atlanta office with members of his staff, along with representatives of WAND, Georgia PIRG, Physicians for Social Responsibility, STAND and WiLL. It has been educational for all of us.

Chernobyl Legacy
Fall 2002

On the 16th anniversary of the April 26 Chernobyl nuclear reactor catastrophe, a Ukrainian scientist monitoring the site warned that levels of radiation around the wrecked reactor are rising. The concrete sarcophagus — placed over the reactor’s remains to contain radiation — is failing. The head of Ukraine’s Commission on Radiation Security reported that 24% of babies now born near Chernobyl have birth defects, and thyroid cancer in local children is now 1,000 times more likely than before the disaster.

One year ago, Israeli and Ukrainian researchers reported that DNA mutations in children, born to victims of Chernobyl subjected to high levels of radiation, were 600% higher than offspring whose parents were not exposed to radiation.

— Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, May 6, 2002 and May 14, 2001.