Article of Possible Interest

["Erik F. Shores" <eshores@lanl.gov>]

Radsafers,

The following article, from North Carolina's "The Daily Tar Heel" and 
relating to the Shearon Harris plant, makes several interesting comments.

Regards,
Erik

Shearon Harris Stink Might Be Unwarranted

By Erin Mendell

Published Friday, December 1, 2000 8:55 AM EST

For some reason, protest news always makes me think of pie. I hope someone 
throws one at the protest against Carolina Power & Light Co. on Sunday at 
the company's Shearon Harris Nuclear Power Plant, if only to give me a 
column idea for next week.
The Raging Grannies, N.C. Waste Awareness and Reduction Network, members of 
UNC's Students for Environmental Action Coalition and residents are 
planning to protest CP&L's plan to store more waste at its Wake County site.
The company uses only two of its four storage buildings and would like to 
use them all. Officials with the company say they've had to increase power 
output because the Triangle is such a fast-growing area. More power means 
more waste. And more waste means the company needs more space to put it all.
Opponents, which for legal purposes include Orange County, Chapel Hill and 
Carrboro, say increasing the waste storage capacity at Shearon Harris would 
be unsafe. CP&L uses the nuclear power plant to store the waste from all 
its nuclear plants (excluding ones it will acquire from a merger with a 
Florida company), and opponents of that say it would be safer to store the 
waste in small amounts at several different sites.
While no one wants a nuclear accident, a small nuclear accident is better 
than a big nuclear accident.
I'm all for civil disobedience and public protests, and I don't 
particularly like the idea of a bigger, badder Shearon Harris less than 50 
miles away. But the protesters are saying CP&L officials have never 
publicly addressed safety concerns about increasing the waste storage 
space. And that's simply not true.
Do I personally think a huge nuclear plant is safe? No. But it's not as 
though CP&L is trying to nuke the state of North Carolina off the planet.
The company held a forum in Raleigh in September. Officials explained what 
they wanted to do in terms of waste storage expansion and why they thought 
they needed to do it. They also answered questions.
Obviously, when a company answers questions about its safety practices, the 
information is biased in the company's favor, but company officials don't 
lie outright, especially when they're under as much government scrutiny as 
nuclear power providers are. Besides, CP&L's top officials live in this 
area. They back up their word on safety with their lives and their 
families' lives.
A nuclear storage facility, in the most basic terms, is layers and layers 
of steel and concrete. It's not just a big plastic trash can.
(Of course, in the event of a major accident, layers of steel and concrete 
might be about as effective as a plastic trash can.)
The people who deal with safety at Shearon Harris also are highly trained 
people (as nuclear physicists tend to be). Plus, as company officials 
explained at September's forum, they are constantly getting their training 
updated.
Shearon Harris employees didn't stop by McDonalds for a job application first.
Most of the information I have about the safety at Shearon Harris I got 
from the forum CP&L had. There's no denying company officials were willing 
to publicly address safety concerns.
Whether I or other people think it would be safe enough is, of course, 
another story.
There didn't seem to be many protesters at the forum. If there were a lot, 
then they weren't vocal, because only two asked questions of company 
officials.
That would have been the perfect place for protesters to voice their concerns.
I'll give my endorsement for Sunday's protest, but I'd also like to see 
more community activists asking questions at public forums like the one in 
September.
And banana cream obviously works best.
________________________________________
Erik F. Shores
Los Alamos National Laboratory
ESH-12, Radiological Engineering Team
Mailto:eshores@lanl.gov
505.665.7643 (phone)
505.667.9726 (facsimile) 
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