nuclear plants - you had better read this

[donsu]

http://www.oriononline.org/pages/om/04-2om/Burwell.html

I'VE LOST COUNT of the times I've driven lush, rolling Iowa hills to go to see how the local nuclear power plant responds to terrorist threats or Homeland Security's latest "orange alert." The front entrance has been altered since my first investigation. Now, instead of two lanes of vehicles passing easily through open gates, portable concrete medians channel traffic into a single lane. At a small wooden building in front of the open gates, a middle-aged man checks the identification of plant workers. I wonder if he ever notices me, slowly turning the car around and circling the plant on a county road edged in cornfields. I turn onto gravel, wind past small acreages of retired farmers in their new houses. I turn again, onto a lonely service road. Over and over since September 2001, I've been astonished to find this back entrance to the Duane Arnold Energy Center unguarded. The chain link gates blocking the road are usually padlocked. But all they do is span the road; on either side there's nothing but a farmer's barbed-wire fence.

Today though, construction crews are reworking the road's surface and the gates stand wide open. I drive my rusting Taurus onto the property, twist among the working vehicles, pull over, park, and watch the men work. I stay there for an hour, and no one approaches and asks, "What're you doing sitting alone in that car within firing distance of a nuclear reactor?"


Like most Americans, I hadn't thought much about Chernobyl since the spring of 1986. Slowly the name "Chernobyl" became just another echo of the horrible nuclear events in recent memory, an anniversary sound bite, the subject of an occasional documentary.

-snip-
(author visited Chernobyl in 2000)

Some radionuclides find their way from soil to plant to herbivore and carnivore. They accumulate in particular organs. Thousands of Belarusan autopsies already show that cesium settles in heart and optical muscles, speeding their degeneration. Strontium-90 likes teeth and snuggles into bone marrow, irradiating the stem cells responsible for our blood and immune systems.

-snip-

I want to make sure I've understood him. "People in Minsk make furniture out of radioactive trees and then sell it to unsuspecting buyers?"


"Da," he says quietly.

-snip-

More miles of undulating prairie, and then swamps with trees burned from the top down. "The Swedes said 3,000 curies here," Mikhail explains. "It is not safe for more than five minutes." We're 150 miles from Chernobyl. I don't want to know 3,000 curies of what; I want him to keep driving.

-snip-

On a sidewalk in Cherikov, I watch a crying woman plead with Svetlana Vladimirovna, the director of the local kindergarten. The woman wants the nonexistent orphanage opened -- now! Fourteen parentless children have been waiting for months. She's just discovered five more, siblings, the oldest age twelve, in a barn on the edge of town, feeding themselves on stolen eggs and radioactive apples. "Their parents?" I ask.


Lovely Svetlana looks at me sadly. "Dead," she says, "dying."

-snip-

"Depends upon what you mean by 'it,'" he said. "It wouldn't be exactly like Chernobyl. But if you mean, would a disaster at an American plant something like the explosion at Chernobyl contaminate as much land, contaminate it with the same kinds of radioactivity -- yeah, it could happen here."


"Let's say," I postulated, "that I disconnect the moderating rods from the source of electricity and blow up the back-up generators?"


He looked at me for a quiet moment. "Yeah," he said, "you could make it happen here."
-snip-
-------------------------------


homeland security = dragons and gargoyls

[seventhson]

1. If you want TRUTH read radiation.org

It is here killing you and me. Daily.

[Superfly]

2. So that's why our life spans

are 70 years plus....because radiation is killing us daily. Without radiation, the average life span would be well into the 100's, right?

[seventhson]

3. yup

but most of the deaths are in utero or the first year

[MrBenchley]

4. Tom Ridge has done nothing to shore up security

at either nuclear or chemical plants....

Worse, yet, thanks to the idiotic Yucca Mountian scheme, trucks and trains loaded with nuclear waste are about to go traveling through America, often through or near residential neighborhoods, with no security checks for the carriers.

[slackmaster]

5. Nice to see someone attacking a Clinton administration plan

http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/pm/pdf/pprev3hist.pdf

[Wickerman]

6. Clinton or Bush

or Reagan or Bush I. The need for this legislation goes back decades and the fault for nothing being accomplished up to now lies with Reagan and Daddy Bush. None of this, of course answers the question of why we continued to produce nuke by-product for decades without having a satisfactory method of disposal.

[MrBenchley]

7. In fact

when these plants were proposed and built in the 1970s, those who raised questions about the waste were told "something will be found". Now here it is years later, and what has been found is to let those who profited in the short term off the hook, and to stick the taxpayer with the cost and liability for the next 400,000 years....

[MrBenchley]

8. By the way Clinton vetoed the Yucca Mountain scheme

on 4/25/00 as he should have...

[slackmaster]

9. Bullshit! All he did was postpone the decision.

Bill Clinton didn't do jack shit to kill the project. He ducked responsibility for making the decision to proceed with live implementation. He probably COULD have killed it, but he didn't.

http://www.lvrj.com/cgi-bin/printable.cgi?/lvrj_home/2000/Apr-26-Wed-2000/news/13454642.html

[Name removed]

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[Wickerman]

10. Help me understand what you are trying to say here

besides rage at Clinton. He vetoed the bill, hence the headline of the article you posted - Clinton vetoes Yucca bill

"He vetoed the bill in a brief ceremony in the Oval Office early in the evening with Sens. Richard Bryan and Harry Reid, and Rep. Shelley Berkley, all D-Nev. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson also attended the ceremony, which was closed to reporters.
"I am returning herewith without my approval S1287, the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2000," Clinton said at the outset of a two-page veto message issued after the ceremony. "

-sp-

"Unfortunately, the bill passed by Congress will do nothing to advance the scientific program at Yucca Mountain or promote confidence in the decision of whether or not to recommend the site for a repository," he said.

-sp-

"He does not oppose a repository at Yucca Mountain but says he wants to make sure a decision to store waste there is based on sound science. Nevada leaders believe that when all is said and done, studies will show the site is not safe for nuclear waste storage. "

-sp-

Nevada Democrats structured the day to score political points on nuclear waste, blaming Republicans for pushing the legislation through Congress and praising Clinton as the state's savior.

[slackmaster]

11. I agree with Clinton's decision to veto that particular bill

The science wasn't mature. But he did not put in place a realistic plan to make it either happen or not happen. That's my problem with Clinton administration policy - It was neither fish nor fowl.

My disagreement here is with a post structured to give the impression that Bill Clinton killed the entire project, which he plainly did not.

[alwynsw]

15. NV lawmakers loved the disposal site at Beatty

I've arranged for hundreds of loads to go there.

[Township75]

13. The answer is...

that the decision to put nuclear energy practice was in the 1950's. Everyone new the waste was bad, but the decision was made to go ahead at the time because it was during the Cold war, and with only 2 super powers we wanted (and they did too) to look like the technology superstar.

At the time, to master the atom was to master a new and powerful science, thus boosting your countries technology prestige.

[Name removed]

12. Deleted message

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[alwynsw]

14. Let's try this again.

Worse, yet, thanks to the idiotic Yucca Mountian scheme, trucks and trains loaded with nuclear waste are about to go traveling through America, often through or near residential neighborhoods, with no security checks for the carriers. Is an incorrect statement.

Nuc waste haulers undergo some of the most rigorous background security checks in the country because their specialty takes them to nuclear power plants, manufacturers that use low level rad components in their products - such as smoke alarms, enrichment facillities, and military installations as well as Superfund/NRC sites such as St. Charles, MO and Fernald, OH.

All are trained in safe handling and containment in the event of a spill caused by traffic accidents, faulty containers, or overzealous DOT types who just HAVE to check the load VERY closely - being all the while oblivious to the rad hazard warning placards and labels.

Most of the drivers are also trained to FBI standards in the defensive use of handguns and/or LE style shotguns. They are given special clearance bby both the FBI and DOD that supercedes state laws and also permits them to carry the weapons in their trucks on military installations.

The routes are chosen by the NRC and state agencies to avoid as much of the civilian population as possible. If a driver ignores the routes, he's liable to get both Federal and state felony charges filed against him. Most nuc haulers are teams of two drivers. This means that one driver is awake and in control of the vehicle at all times. It is also a felony for either a single driver or both drivers on a team to "sleep under the load."

These loads have strict guidelines on where they may park, fuel, or stop for ICC mandated rest periods. If you find one in an Interstate Highway System rest area for any reason, the driver(s) is/are subject to felony arrest.

How do I know this? Before I started my own business (non-hazmat related) I spent most of my adult life in hazmat transportation, storage, and disposal - from entry level to national management level in several companies that do this sort of work. During that time, I was "Train the Trainer" certified to teach the above mentioned safety courses and legal requirements for all involved in the handlling of such materials.

[Name removed]

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[Name removed]

17. Deleted message

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[MrBenchley]

18. Like I said

it's wonderful to see what right wing crap the RKBA crowd will stick up for.

Now if you want to pretend his fantasy is real, feel free. But it's only fantasy...and not terrribly convincing fantasy at that.

Here's the Georgia state legislature considering real standards.

http://www.americancityandcounty.com/ar/government_hazardous_waste_legislators

And as for the civility of discourse, who was that trying to disrupt the "guns in the news" thread just a few minutes ago?

[Superfly]

19. Where? If you think that was disruption, hit the alert button.

It was an attempt to interject levity.

The past 2 1/2 weeks were very, very nice down here.

[MrBenchley]

20. If you think that was levity

think again.

[alwynsw]

27. Fantasy?

Try again. OR better yet, let's you and me trot right on over to any of a number of facilities - both civilian and DOD - that I've worked with training the folks.

[Name removed]

21. Deleted message

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[MrBenchley]

22. Gee, it's the Justice and Public Safety folder

not the "I've got a gun fetish so let's spread right wing propaganda" folder...

And it's very telling to see the RKBA crowd sticking up for the "freedom" to poison people with nuclear waste.

[MrSandman]

23. If there is evidence of that ...

Start a thread to discuss it. I've got to go.

[MrBenchley]

24. There's evidence of that right here

and somebody started a thread to discuss it...

[MrSandman]

25. Definite evidence of an RKBA conspiracy:

"Let's say," I postulated, "that I disconnect the moderating rods from the source of electricity and blow up the back-up generators?"


It is so sad to see that any discussion must be about the RKBA. Then, I guess, it is a freedom vs. authoritarian thing at its heart.

[NorthernSpy]

26. crime and negligence involving nuclear materials

Have a look at this partial list of lost and stolen radiation sources in the US:

http://www.tmia.com/lost.html


Or how about this cheery little item:

The Union of Concerned Scientists knows of more than 120 acts of sabotage at US nuclear plants. Most of these acts were perpetrated by disgruntled workers at every level of employment including control room operators and security guards. Employees have cut electrical cables, dumped chemicals into fuel pools and water systems, set fires, drilled holes in equipment, smashed security cameras, sabotaged diesel generators and committed numerous other offenses. The NRC has a "two-man" rule which is supposed to prevent sabotage by permitting entrance into vital areas only if accompanied by a co-worker. But, not all of the plants follow these rules to the letter. ( http://www.tmia.com/sabter.html )



Sure -- people who handle nuclear materials have rules to follow. Give them a few hours to dig up the long-forgotten employee safety manual, and they might even be able to tell you what those rules are.

:eyes:




On a related and disturbing note, I can think of two recent mass murders in New England that were committed by people who had received security clearance to work at nuke plants: Carl Drega in New Hampshire, and Michael McDermott in Massachusetts.


Mary