Connecticut Yankee -Reply

[CLAUDE A. FLORY <FLORYCA@GWSMTP.NU.COM>]

The contamination is all on-site.  A nuclear power plant is an industrial site.
 In contrast to other industrial sites, including fossil fuel plants, nuclear
plant sites are relatively clean.  Spills, leaks, and deposited emissions do
occur; and will be cleaned up.  Our group performs the radiological
environmental monitoring for Connecticut Yankee.  The only non-natural
radioactivity we have seen is from earlier atmospheric testing, more recent
Chinese testing, and from Chernoybl.  On yes, there was a shellfish sample
taken three miles upstream from the plant with I-131.  It was just downstream
of two large hospitals in the same town where a rag with I-131 was found in
public trash just months before.  If anyone is interested I can give numbers on
soil sample results taken on and around the site recently.

Coincidently, the governor is up for re-election next year.  It's tough being a
Connecticut Yankee in King Rowland's court. :-)

>>> <Rrk099@aol.com> 09/18/97 09:34am >>>
FYI, this was in today's NYTimes.

Charges of Nuclear Cover-Up Alarm Plant's Neighbors

By JONATHAN RABINOVITZ

    Tuesday, state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal charged that Northeast
Utilities, the plant's owner, had covered up evidence of widespread
contamination, quoting an expert who described it as "an unanalyzed,
undocumented nuclear waste dump site." 

   State officials say the 30-year-old plant, which was closed last year, does
not appear to pose any immediate health or safety threat. But they add that
further tests are needed, and they refuse to draw any conclusions about past
exposure to contamination. 

  The doubts that have been raised about the plant, Connecticut Yankee, are
new to this town of 7,200, where many could see the plant's dome out their
windows and some would picnic and hike on its manicured grounds. 

   While standing by his earlier comments, Rowland [Governor of Connecticut]
tried to play down the
risk, saying he wished he could live in this "beautiful, beautiful
community." The issue was "more financial than anything else," he explained,
as the charges arise in a dispute between the state and the utility over how
much state ratepayers should be charged for decommissioning the plant. 

  More than $200 million has already been collected in a trust fund for the
task, but the utility has said it will need double that amount. The state
disagrees. 

  Rowland added that in the last three weeks the state had conducted nine
soil-sample tests on and off the site and found only minimal radiation, at
one spot on the site. 

  Yet the consultant's conclusions suggested that contamination was
widespread. 

  "Radioactive contamination has spread throughout the plant and outdoors to
the soil and asphalt," said James K. Joosten, a nuclear energy expert, who
used company and federal records to complete his analysis.