Antinuclear

Growing concern over safety of nuclear reactors

Nuclear “SpinCo”, t r u t h o u t , 18 March 2010 by: World Business Academy, Rinaldo Brutoco  and Madeleine Austin “…..About a quarter of all US nuclear power plants are leaking radioactive tritium, but the pro-industry Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) refuses to require Entergy and other nuclear plant owners to monitor their groundwater.
………Exelon announced a tritium leak at its Oyster Creek plant in New Jersey a few days after it won a 20-year extension of the plant’s 40-year license. Tritium is also leaking from the Barnwell County nuclear waste dump in South Carolina, where tritium levels in the groundwater under the landfill are more than 1,000 times the safe level for drinking water.

…… Indian Point’s neighbors fear the new company will not be able to clean up 1.63 million cubic feet of radioactive soil at the site when the plant is shut down.

……. New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is litigating whether the NRC has done enough to protect nuclear plants from aerial terrorist attacks. The 9/11 Commission reported that the lead pilot in the World Trade Center attacks had scoped out the plant as an alternative target. Indian Point’s neighbors will hardly be reassured by this week’s news that an al-Qaeda suspect from New Jersey, who was recently captured in Yemen, had worked for several years in five Northeast US nuclear power plants…..

Finally, there is some action at the federal level to look at the problems with aging nuclear plants. Earlier this month, Congressman Ed Markey (D-Massachusetts ), chair of the House Energy and Environment Subcommittee, asked the Government Accountability Office (GAO) for a thorough report about the adequacy of nuclear reactor safety and oversight and the NRC’s licensing process for new and existing nuclear power plants. That report will take time. Citizens around the country must continue to ask themselves: “If private investors won’t buy into the nuclear spin, why should we?”

March 19, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 1 | antinuclear, nuclear wastes, radioactive