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NYTimes Article: Rising Anxiety over Indian Point NPP
I thought some on this list would find this of interest. I venture to say
this is not really a news article.
-- John
John Jacobus, MS
Certified Health Physicist
3050 Traymore Lane
Bowie, MD 20715-2024
E-mail: jenday1@email.msn.com (H)
\----------------------------------------------------------/
Rising Anxiety
April 4, 2002
By BOB HERBERT
The nuclear reactor known as Indian Point 2 sits beside the
Hudson River about 30 miles north of New York City. It has
the worst safety rating of all 103 nuclear reactors in the
United States. And of all the U.S. reactors, it's located
in the most densely populated region.
That is not a good combination of circumstances.
Concern
over the plant's continuing safety problems has heightened
since Sept. 11. Increasing numbers of residents and elected
officials are coming to the conclusion that the possibility
of a terrorist attack or a catastrophic accident at Indian
Point is a risk that is not worth taking. They believe it
is time for the Indian Point complex with its two reactors
- Indian Point 2 and the less troublesome Indian Point 3 -
to close.
In February 2000 an accident at Indian Point 2 resulted in
the discharge of 20,000 gallons of radioactive water.
Officials said the radiation released was not a threat to
public health, but the reactor was closed for nearly a
year. Last December, four of seven control room crews
failed to pass their annual qualification exams. That same
month the reactor shut down automatically after an
electrical connection to the plant's turbine switched off
unexpectedly. Leaks, malfunctions, human errors - it's
always something at Indian Point.
Casualties from a worst-case scenario at the complex would
dwarf those of the attack on the World Trade Center. A 1982
study commissioned by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission found that a meltdown at Indian Point 2 could
cause 46,000 fatalities and 141,000 injuries in the short
term. The potential casualties from a meltdown at Indian
Point 3 were even worse. Long-term, the deaths from cancer
resulting from an Indian Point catastrophe would likely be
horrendous.
The casualty estimates are conservative. The population in
the region is greater now, and evacuation plans are
pathetically inadequate.
I called the Nuclear Regulatory Commission this week to ask
about the safety ratings at Indian Point 2. A spokeswoman,
Diane Screnci, said the commission did not rank plants. But
it does conduct inspections and issue findings that are
graded using the colors green, white, yellow and red. Green
is the safest category and red the least safe.
Indian Point 2 is "currently the only plant with a red
finding," Ms. Screnci said. She characterized the red
finding as highly significant and said Indian Point 2
continued to receive "increased N.R.C. attention."
A serious accident or even a terrorist attack is no
guarantee that the worst will happen. But we all learned as
the World Trade Center vanished on Sept. 11 that the worst
can happen.
The vulnerability of nuclear power plants is made
frighteningly clear when we consider that American Airlines
Flight 11, as it flew south from Boston toward Lower
Manhattan on Sept. 11, passed almost directly over the
Indian Point complex. Then consider that President Bush
reported in his State of the Union Message that Americans
in Afghanistan had found diagrams of U.S. nuclear power
plants, and that the nation's 103 nuclear reactors were
never designed to withstand the impact of a commercial
airliner.
Everyone within at least a 50-mile radius would be in
danger if something terrible happened at Indian Point. That
50-mile radius contains more than 7 percent of the entire
population of the United States - 20 million people. It
includes all of New York City; the suburban New York
counties of Westchester, Orange, Rockland and Putnam;
Bergen County in New Jersey; and most of Fairfield County
in Connecticut. There is no other nuclear plant in the
country with anything close to Indian Point's potential for
disaster.
Its chronic safety issues made Indian Point problematic
before Sept. 11. Accidents happen. But since the attack on
the World Trade Center, and with the awful proliferation of
suicide bombers in the Middle East, the unthinkable is no
longer unthinkable. Residents in the vast potential danger
zone surrounding Indian Point have little trouble imagining
an airliner diving toward the complex, or terrorists on the
ground attempting to sabotage it.
Anxiety is very high, and opposition to the plant by
residents and elected officials is intensifying. It may not
be long before a consensus is reached that Indian Point is
a problem the region can do without.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/04/opinion/04HERB.html?ex=1018933122&ei=1&en=
60aa733383e7bb6e
Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company
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