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Re: From NCI- News Hours Transcript 11/2/01; Focus- Nuclear Safeguards



Is anyone else getting carpal tunnel syndrome from typing delete every time I see

Norm's name on a post?

with regards to spent fuel pools being damaged... ".. in terms of damage to the

public, it would be the equivalent of a ten kiloton bomb going off, atomic bomb."









Norman Cohen wrote:



> FYI

> Norm

>

> > The NewsHour with November 2, 2001, Friday Transcript

> >

> >      FOCUS - NUCLEAR SAFEGUARDS

> >

> >      JIM LEHRER: Now, more on the safety of the nation's nuclear

> > facilities. Betty Ann Bowser has been looking into that.

> >

> >      BETTY ANN BOWSER: Just one hour after the terrorists struck on

> > September 11, the federal agency responsible for safety at nuclear

> > power plants puts its emergency operations center on its highest state

> > of alert. Since then,  emergency crews, seen here in a drill, have been

> > working 24 hours a day, and are in constant

> > touch with the FBI and the military. The Nuclear Regulatory

> > Commission, or NRC, also put the nation's 103 nuclear reactors on their

> > highest state of alert.

> >

> >      RAY GOLDEN, San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant: We have

> > essentially locked down the facility. The gates are manned with armed

> > security officers. The only people getting in and out are employees with

> > positive photo identification.

> >

> >      BETTY ANN BOWSER: Now, the Coast Guard is patrolling waters

> > around nuclear power plants. The National Guard is on duty in at least

> > eight states. State police are also pitching in. And earlier this week, 126

> > general aviation airports close to nuclear power plants were effectively

> > shut down when the FAA ordered small aircraft not to fly near or

> > over nuclear power plants. But even with all this heightened

> > security, long-time critics of the NRC are concerned. Congressman Ed

> > Markey thinks a terrorist   attack on a nuclear power plant has been a

> > very real possibility for more than ten years.

> >

> >      REP. ED MARKEY, (D) Massachusetts: If the terrorists were

> > successful in hijacking another plane, then flying one into a nuclear

> > power plant would be a relatively easy task for them to achieve.

> > Depending upon which direction the wind was blowing, everyone

> > that was in the path of the radioactive plume would be exposed to a

> > danger that could run anywhere from death to serious long-term illness

> > for every single individual.

> >

> >      BETTY ANN BOWSER: Markey says it would be even more

> > devastating than the world's worst nuclear energy accident in 1986 at

> > Chernobyl. 15 years later, hundreds of miles of land around what was

> > once the nuclear power plant in the former Soviet Union are still

> > uninhabitable. Markey wants the NRC to make the owners of the nuclear

> > plants that supply 20% of the nation's electricity to completely revamp

> > security procedures and hire more guards. NRC Chairman Dr. Richard

> > Meserve says the agency has done everything reasonable it can to

> > protect American nuclear plants. But he's not sure that any of them

> > could withstand a September 11 type of attack involving a big airplane

> > with a full load of fuel.

> >      RICHARD MESERVE, Chairman, Nuclear Regulatory Commission:

> > This was a wake-up call, September 11, for all of us about the kind of

> > world we live in and the threats that exist.

> >      But let me say I think the real crucial question is, if they were =

> > able to do it, what would the consequences be? That is something that

> > has not been evaluated previously. It is an evaluation that we are

> > undertaking. I can say that nuclear power plants are built with very

> > heavy and robust structures. They have thick walls of reinforced

> > concrete. They have redundant safety equipment. So I think that,

> > although we have not done the evaluations, there are features of nuclear

> > power plants that are very favorable in terms of their capacity to be able

> > to respond to such an event without

> > there being undue public hazard.

> >

> >      BETTY ANN BOWSER: Is it not correct, sir, that the NRC has said

> > since September 11 that our plants were not designed to withstand the

> > impact of an attack like that?

> >

> >      RICHARD MESERVE: That's correct.

> >

> >      BETTY ANN BOWSER: And you stand by that statement?

> >

> >      RICHARD MESERVE: Of course, of course. They were not... They

> > were not designed. This was viewed as a very improbable event to

> > occur, and so it wasn't one of the design criteria. In that, of course,

> > we're similar to most other infrastructure in the United States: The white

> > House, the Pentagon, the capitol, chemical plants,

> > refineries also were not designed to withstand an aircraft attack of the

> > type that we saw on September 11.

> >

> >      BETTY ANN BOWSER: But Ralph Beedle, senior vice President of

> > the nuclear industry's trade association, does think the plants could

> > survive a terrorist attack from the sky.

> >

> >      RALP BEEDLE, Nuclear Energy Institute: The public can be pretty =

> > confident that these plants are designed to contain the radioactive

> > material. I am confident that containment would withstand the crash of a

> > large commercial aircraft and protect the core to the point that you

> > would not have a radioactive release.

> >

> >      BETTY ANN BOWSER: But it's not just the nuclear reactor that

> > might be compromised in the event of a terrorist attack. Another major

> > area of concern: These pools containing used-up fuel rods. Once the

> > rods are no longer able to generate electricity, they remain

> > radioactive for 10,000 years. So at all of the nuclear power plants,

> > they have been stored in pools of water that keep them from heating up

> > and spreading radiation contamination. David Lochbaum is a nuclear

> > engineer with the union of concerned scientists, a watchdog agency.

> >

> >      DAVID LOCHBAUM: If you were able to drain the water out of the

> > pool that Houses the reactor fuel, the fuel would overheat and either

> > melt down or catch on fire, releasing its radioactivity to the atmosphere

> > and the winds would carry it to whoever is downwind.

> >

> >      BETTY ANN BOWSER: And the rods are also stored at 13 power

> > plants that have been decommissioned or closed down, where critics

> > say security by the NRC is lax.

> >

> >      DAVID LOCHBAUM: I think the biggest vulnerability still is not the

> > operating plants but the plants that have been permanently shut down.

> > At the plants that have been permanently shut down, security is

> > basically been turned down to bare bones minimum. If a terrorist

> > were to get access to this material and cause it to be dispersed into

> > the atmosphere with an explosive of some sort, the government had

> > studies done last year that shows it would be the... in terms of damage

> > to the public, it would be the equivalent of a ten kiloton bomb going off,

> > atomic bomb.

> >

> >      BETTY ANN BOWSER: Chairman Meserve says security at the

> > nation's decommissioned plants has been increased dramatically.

> >

> >      RICHARD MESERVE, Chairman, Nuclear Regulatory Commission:

> > We certainly do worry about spent fuel pools, just as we worry about

> > reactors and other kinds of facilities. And the concern you have for a

> > spent fuel pool is if somehow all of that water were to disappear, and

> > then the fuel could heat up and then you might have an event that you'd

> > certainly be worried about. But they then present a rather difficult

> > target for an airplane, that you'd have to imagine that somehow the

> > airplane is going to come into a... Collide into a pool in a fashion that

> > can rupture the wall of four or five feet of reinforced concrete-- a

> > difficult

> > attack.

> >

> >      BETTY ANN BOWSER: What can you tell us about increased

> > security at those facilities?

> >

> >      RICHARD MESERVE: Well, for understandable reasons, I can't go

> > into the details, but there are enhanced guard capabilities and controls

> > on vehicles and things of that nature.

> >

> >      BETTY ANN BOWSER: But equally disturbing, say NRC critics, is

> > the industry's record with force-on-force drills. Those are the NRC's

> > unannounced simulated terrorist attacks like this one recorded at a

> > nuclear power plant a few years ago. Again,

> > Congressman Ed Markey:

> >

> >      REP. ED MARKEY: Over 40% of all the tests, which the Nuclear =

> > Regulatory Commission applies to the nuclear industry are flunked by

> > the nuclear industry in terms of security against terrorist attack. The

> > American people want... should want, and I think do want, the tests to

> > be toughened, for the standards to be increased so that

> > there's a reduction in the likelihood that any terrorist attack, much less

> > 40% of them, could be successful.

> >

> >      RICHARD MESERVE, Chairman, Nuclear Regulatory Commission:

> > Where we found problems we required... Immediately required that

> > corrections be in place. I mean, I take some satisfaction from the fact

> > that we found failures. We were giving hard tests and we were hard

> > graders and we were requiring corrections. We were doing this

> > before September 11. I think everyone in government is now recognizing

> > that terrorists may have greater capabilities than we had expected

> > before September 11, and we'll have to reexamine this issue, and the

> > Commission is certainly going to do that.

> >      BETTY ANN BOWSER: The NRC is doing a multimillion-dollar study

> > of the impact of an airplane attack, and they are revising something

> > called the design basis threat, which specifies what kind of a terrorist

> > attack every nuclear plant operator is required to defend itself against.

> > Meanwhile, Congressman Markey today asked the administration to

> > put the National Guard on duty at all active and decommissioned  plants

> > and arm the with antiaircraft weapons.

> >

> > Tom Clements

> > Nuclear Control Institute

> > 1000 Connecticut Ave., NW  Suite 410

> > Washington, DC  20036

> >

> > tel. 1-202-822-8444

> > fax  1-202-452-0892

> > clements@nci.org

> > http://www.nci.org

>

> --

> Coalition for Peace and Justice and the UNPLUG Salem Campaign; 321 Barr Ave.,

> Linwood, NJ 08221; 609-601-8537 or 609-601-8583 (8583: fax, answer machine);

> ncohen12@home.com  UNPLUG SALEM WEBSITE:  http://www.unplugsalem.org/

> COALITION FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE WEBSITE:

> http:/www.coalitionforpeaceandjustice.org   The Coalition for Peace and Justice

> is a chapter of Peace Action.

> "First they ignore you; Then they laugh at you; Then they fight you; Then you

> win. (Gandhi) "Why walk when you can fly?"  (Mary Chapin Carpenter)

>

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