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RE: Indian Point story
Interesting that twice he says "residents," when what he really means is the
more affluent people in the county who are far removed from the immediate
vicinity.
Jack Earley
Radiological Engineer
-----Original Message-----
From: RaddGuyy [mailto:raddguyy@hotmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, April 04, 2002 8:56 AM
To: radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu
Subject: Indian Point story
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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