Re: Article: Split on Nuclear Plants: Weak Spot or Fortress?

["Todd Brautigam" <brautt@myapc.com>]

I believe the fault lies in the fact that people do not know about things nuclear. For whatever reason, even intelligent people capable of understanding the science behind a nuclear power plant have an aversion to learning about it and being educated in the realities of the nuclear fuel. Of course, there are those that have political and/or financial agendas behind their thinking, but that probably accounts for only a minuscule percentage of the population. As professionals in the field of radiation protection, that is something we have always had to deal with... and it's a tough nut to crack. This aversion is rooted in our culture... back to the days before the Manhattan Project... even as far back as the turn of the 20th century. As some examples, listen to some of the old-time radio shows... especially science fiction like "X Minus One", or leaf through old comic books. These things are what laid the foundation for this aversion to things nuclear.



As always, just my opinion.





>>> "Jacobus, John (NIH/OD/ORS)" <jacobusj@ors.od.nih.gov> 10/24/02 12:19PM >>>

It is difficult for me to find where the fault lies in this issue.  The

media for hyping the issue? The reactor owners for not being more open about

reactor design and accident response? The NRC for not taking a more forceful

in reassuring the public?  No wonder the public is confused and lacks trust

in what is said.



I would not blame the ICRP, NCRP, etc., but I am sure someone will.



-- John 



John Jacobus, MS

Certified Health Physicist 

3050 Traymore Lane

Bowie, MD  20715-2024



E-mail:  jenday1@email.msn.com (H)      

-------------------



Split on Nuclear Plants: Weak Spot or Fortress?



October 24, 2002

By MATTHEW L. WALD 



WASHINGTON, Oct. 23 - In the what's-next guessing game that

began after the terrorist attacks last year, a divide has

opened up among experts assessing the risk to the public

from attacks on nuclear power plants. 



Many current and former government officials say the

reactors are in Al Qaeda's cross hairs, but inside the

industry, many executives counter that what drives the

issue is politics and unreasoning fear. 



Current and former high-ranking officials at Andrews Air

Force Base in Maryland for a recent exercise on how to cope

with terrorism illustrated this divide. Over two days, they

simulated a meeting of the National Security Council and

were fed hypothetical situations in which intelligence,

vague and conflicting at first but becoming more specific

as the hours went by, indicated an attack somewhere in the

eastern United States. 



They were also given an assessment that said that the

targets vulnerable to the widest range of threats were not

nuclear reactors, but places where chemicals were

manufactured or stored. 



Almost immediately, the role-players shifted the discussion

to how to protect the reactors. 



"The players defaulted in that direction," said Dave

McIntyre, the deputy director of the Anser Institute for

Homeland Security, a nonprofit group that sponsored the

exercise with the Center for Strategic and International

Studies. 



Mr. McIntyre said he thought the concern with reactors was

an unnecessary detour, because their security had been

improved far more than security for other potential

targets. But the group did not see it that way. 



Reporters who were allowed to sit in on the exercise had to

agree not to quote the participants, to allow them, the

sponsors said, "to be as open and candid as possible" in

the drill. 



The group included former Senator Sam Nunn, playing the

president; James M. Loy, the head of the Transportation

Security Administration, playing the role of secretary of

homeland security; Charles Curtis, a former under secretary

of energy, playing energy secretary; George Terwilliger,

former acting attorney general, as attorney general; R.

James Woolsey, the former C.I.A. director, as national

security adviser; Wesley Clark, the former supreme allied

commander in Europe, as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of

Staff. 



Other participants played the jobs they used to have: James

S. Gilmore III, former governor of Virginia; Shirley

Jackson, former chairwoman of the Nuclear Regulatory

Commission; James Lee Witt, former head of the Federal

Emergency Management Agency, and Dee Dee Myers, a former

White House spokeswoman. 



They explored creating a 50-mile zone around each nuclear

plant where all flights would be banned, or bringing in

antiaircraft batteries. 



On the other side, some people outside the simulation who

are actually in charge of security at nuclear plants say

they do not believe that they are threatened by terrorism,

and are unenthusiastic about security improvements. 



Mark P. Findlay, the director of security at the Nuclear

Management Company, which operates six Midwestern reactors,

said in a telephone interview that there had been no

credible threats against nuclear plants, and that he would

prefer not to hire more guards now, for fear of having to

lay them off later. 



"How do I deal with staffing levels when I have a

government that's based on politics and not events and

credible threats?" Mr. Findlay said. 



The airlines might once have said the same, and there have

been attacks on nuclear plants abroad. 



Mr. Findlay is not alone. Last month, 19 current and former

executives in the nuclear power plant field published a

paper in Science magazine that asserted that a reactor

could easily withstand a crash of the kind that destroyed

the World Trade Center, a position disputed by others,

including some on whose work the authors relied. The

Science article argued that talk of vulnerability was

simply wild-eyed conjecture by people who never liked

nuclear power anyway. 



That category includes at least some local government

officials who are now uneasy about the reactors in their

midst. In the neighborhood of the Indian Point reactors, 40

miles north of midtown Manhattan, local governments have

passed resolutions against them. In Westchester County,

where the two plants are, the County Board of Legislators

voted on Sept. 9 to close them eventually. 



If the plants are so safe, why are so many people worried

about them? 



"The news media has made the nuclear industry the poster

child for the post-Sept. 11 world," said Steve Kerekes, a

spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's

trade association. "People who have been inundated for a

year now gravitate toward that topic." 



"Some media grad student ought to do a study of air time

and column inches dedicated to the subject," Mr. Kerekes

said. 



Peter Stockton, a nuclear security expert who is a former

special assistant to the secretary of energy, drew a

different conclusion. Mr. Stockton, who now works on

civilian power plant security questions with the Project on

Government Oversight, a nonprofit group here, said the

power plant managers were in denial as the managers of

nuclear weapons plants were when he was at the Energy

Department. 



"They say, `We've been at this for 50 years and we've never

been attacked yet,' " he said. "They believe a credible

threat is that a terrorist group has targeted that one

plant, and they're coming." 



Paul M. Blanch, an engineer who found safety problems a

decade ago at the nuclear utility where he worked, and whom

the Nuclear Regulatory Commission later said was mistreated

by his employer as a result, said the denial was "par for

the course for the nuclear industry." 



"The industry has been defensive about every threat,

whether it's security or accident," Mr. Blanch said. 



"If something happens, like happened with airlines, maybe

they wouldn't be so defensive," he said, "but it hasn't

happened yet. "



http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/24/politics/24NUKE.html?ex=1036473428&ei=1&en 

=d3b6584220d6763f



Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company

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