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Nuke
Nation: Putting Profits
Before
Safety
(Baltimore
Chronicle - March 11, 2004)
President Bush has
always been a good friend to the nuclear industry, but his recent
overtures should sound alarm bells.
The White
House has begun pushing to replace governmental safety standards at
federal nuclear facilities with requirements penned by
contractors. As one US lawmaker quipped, "It's like the fox
guarding the hen house."
What prompted the
Bush administration's move? Simple: Congress insisted the government
start fining contractors for violations.
The proposed
weakening of safety standards would affect over 100,000 nuclear plant
workers and represents an especially lousy time to lower their morale.
A
strike by 276 operations and maintenance workers was narrowly averted
this January at the Indian Point 3 plant, located 35 miles north of
midtown Manhattan. When the plant's owner proposed substituting
managers for striking workers, union spokesperson Steve Mangione
observed, "Anyone would want the people who work there every day
- not managers who take a crash course - to be the ones running the plant."
Worker error is a
key factor in nuclear plant problems. The Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC) reported 728 worker-caused mishaps during a recent
two-year period, an average of over three mistakes per year at each plant.
Even worse,
government security contractors have apparently been lax in
monitoring worker effectiveness. The Y-12 nuclear weapons plant in
Tennessee, for example, made headlines last month when it reported
missing 200 keys to protected areas. Then news surfaced that security
personnel guarding the nation's nuclear stockpiles, including tons of
enriched uranium at Y-12, had been cheating on their antiterrorism drills.
An Energy
Department investigation discovered that contract
security guards at the Y-12 plant had been given access to computer
models of antiterrorism drill strikes in advance,
rendering the tests useless. A representative from the longtime
government contractor charged with securing the facility, Wackenhut,
claimed security at Y-12 was "better than it's ever been"
but few are convinced. A January 2002 study found only 19% of
Wackenhut guards at NY's Indian Point facility reported feeling able
to "adequately defend the plant."
Almost twenty-five
years ago, the reactor core meltdown at Three Mile Island struck fear
into the nation, but consequences could have been much worse. A 1982
study by the Sandia National Laboratory predicted
an accident at the Limerick nuclear plant outside of Philadelphia
could result in 74,000 people killed within the first year and a
further 610,000 afflicted with radiation-related illnesses. Add to
that $200 billion in relocation and clean-up costs.
By all
appearances, however, stateside nuclear facilities are functioning
well. Pennsylvania's Susquehanna nuclear plant just announced an
electricity-generation record for 2003, which it attributes to
"maintaining the highest safety and reliability standards,"
and Maryland's Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant (CCNPP) is hard at
work assuring the public it's a friendly neighbor; the CCNPP web site
includes references to its "forest management and wildlife protection."
But the CCNPP
site also lists protective measures to be taken in case of an accident,
such as "put uncovered food into the refrigerator" and
"washing yourself and your clothes removes radioactive material
you may have picked up."
How effective
these steps would be in a meltdown is debatable - perhaps similar to
clasping seatbelts tight when an airplane is nosediving. One factor
is clear: CCNPP's location (just 60 miles from Baltimore and 50 miles
from DC) might make it an interesting target for terror. Other
reactors across the country could be similarly at risk.
If terrorists were
to attack a nuclear plant via an air strike, truck bomb or even
worse, grenade or nuclear device thrown into a Spent Fuel Pool,
Armageddon could become reality for the neighboring communities.
Regardless, the
Bush administration has been pumping money into the nuclear industry,
including a fresh $35 million infusion last year to build 50
new US reactors by 2020. Since each reactor costs over
$1.5 billion to produce, and the public assumes liability in case of
an accident or attack, the US taxpayer should be forewarned.
The White House is
also leaning on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to weaken
regulations regarding nuclear waste transport and storage.
How ironic that
alternative energy sources receive relatively little in government
subsidies, especially in light of new satellite mapping techniques
showing that the Great
Plains region could generate three times as much energy in wind-power
as the US consumes.
What then explains
our government's obsession with nuclear power? Follow
the money. Nuclear plant PACs invested hundreds of
thousands of dollars in the Bush/Cheney presidential campaign, and
almost half a million dollars in the 23 members of the Senate Energy
and Natural Resources Committee in 2002 alone.
That's no excuse
for poor energy policy. The risks of nuclear plants must be
considered before dumping any more money into this losing game. And
as long as the nation's 100+ nuclear plants continue to operate, the
toughest of safety standards must be enforced.
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