Indian Point story

["RaddGuyy" <raddguyy@HOTMAIL.COM>]

April 4, 2002

Rising Anxiety

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.

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