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Recent
Stories
June
2, 2003
Arundhati
Roy
Day of the Jackals
Norman
Madarasz
Behind the Neo-Con Curtain: Plato,
Leo Strauss and Allan Bloom
Alain
Frachon and Daniel Vernet
The Strategist and the Philosopher: Strauss and Wohlstetter
Anthony
Gancarski
Anti-Imperialism, Then & Now
Standard
Schaefer
Wasted at the Pentagon
Jason
Leopold
Rocky's Advice to the Dems
Guthrie
& Albert
HUAC 58 Years Letter
Steve
Perry
The Politics of Terror Alerts
May
31, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
A Whiner Called Horowitz
Gary Leupp
The Frauds of War
Dave
Lindorff
Clinton, Bush, Lies and Impeachment
Tom Stephens
Does It Matter that the Bush Administration Lied?
Sasan
Fayazmanesh
Who Is Next?
Joanne
Mariner
Trivializing Terrorism
Wayne
Madsen
Ayatollah Rumseld's Busy Week
Larry Magnuson
Is a Television a Radio or a Billboard?
Elaine
Cassel
Wake Up, America!
Gila Svirsky
Waiting for the Lament to End
Susan
Davis
Kitchen Dreams
Chris Clarke
Barbra Streisand: Environmental Hypocrite
Chris
Floyd
Bush Locates Source of World Evil: God
Adam Engel
Gravity's End Zone
Poets'
Basement
Reiss, Guthrie, Orloski, Albert
May
30, 2003
Ben
Tripp
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Agenda
Neve
Gordon
The Bad Fence
Todd
Steiner
Endangered Ocean
Robert
Freeman
Bush's Tax Cuts: a Form of National Insanity
Sean
Carter
Utah Gets Fired Up for Executions
Daniel
Bacher
How Bush's War Violated International Laws
Tariq
Ali
Re-Colonizing Iraq
Steve
Perry
Bush Wars
Web Log
May
29, 2003
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Jason
Leopold
Despite Thin Intelligence Reports,
US Plans Overthrow of Iran Regime
Ron
Jacobs
Popular Uprising, Inc.
Michelle
Ciaccorra
Bush's Nuclear Policy: Do As I Say, Not As I Do
Yves Engler
The Economics of Health Care in
America: Pay More to Die Sooner
Kimberly
Blaker
Vouchers for Jesus
Harry
Browne
Stakeknife: Britain's Army Spy at
the Top of the IRA
Stew
Albert
Cops of the World
Steve Perry
Greens 04: In or Out?
May
28, 2003
David
Vest
DubyaCo.: It's Not So Funny Any More
Dave
Lindorff
My Grandfather's Medal
John
Stanton
America's Dying: Arts and Philosophy Hold the Key
Bernard
Weiner
A PNAC Primer
Robert
Jensen
Texas Dems Set a Standard for the Rest of the Party
Ahmad Faruqui
The Oil Business of Regime Change:
the CIA and Iran
Hammond
Guthrie
Disarming Conundrums
Steve Perry
What If There's No Such Thing as Al-Qaeda?
May
27, 2003
Kurt
Nimmo
Condoleezza Rice: Huckstress for Israeli
Myths
Anthony
Gancarski
Hillary: a Dem the NeoCons Could Love?
Patrick
Cockburn
Terror, Bush and Joseph Conrad
John Chuckman
an Interpretation of Bush's Character
Kathleen
Christison
What Sharon Wants, Sharon Gets
Jeffrey
Blankfort
AIPAC Hijacks the Roadmap
Steve
Perry
Trouble in the Hinterlands
May
26, 2003
Franklin
C. Spinney
Test Anxiety: Star Wars, Punctuated
Epistimology and the Triumph of Medievalism
Elaine
Cassel
Supreme Sacrifice
Sam
Hamod
When Trained Killers Return Home
Stew Albert
The Final Conflict
May
24 / 25, 2003
Gary
Leupp
The Philosopher Kings: Leo Strauss
and the Neo-Cons
Uri Avnery
The Hannibal Procedure
Diane
Christian
Who's the Real Enemy?
"Just Cause" or "Kill the Bastards"
Alexander
Cockburn
Derrida's Double Life
William
S. Lind
Is Saddam Really Out of the Game?
William
Cook
Road to Nowhere
David Krieger
Bush's War on the Poor: Economic Justice
Ilan
Pappe
Academic Freedom Under Assault in Israel
Wayne Madsen
American Idle
Noah
Leavitt
Slowing Sowing Justice in the Killing Fields
Walt Brasch
Americans are Liars
Lenni
Brenner
John Brown and Dutch Bill
Mickey
Z.
Hope, Crosby & Al Qaeda
Michael
Ortiz Hill
Grievous Harm Here and Abroad
Adam Engel
Towers of Babel
Poets'
Basement
Albert, Guthrie, Alam, Orloski
May
23, 2003
Standard
Schaefer
Lifting the Sanctions: Who Benefits?
Ron
Jacobs
Long Live People's Park!
Michael
Greger, MD
Return of Mad Cow: US Beef Supply
at Risk
Elaine
Cassel
Tigar to Ashcroft: "Secrecy is the Enemy of Democratic Govt."
Sam
Hamod
The Shi'a of Iraq
Christopher
Greeder
After the Layoffs (poem)
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Weblog 5/23
Hot Stories
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Elaine
Cassel
Civil Liberties
Watch
Michel
Guerrin
Embedded Photographer Says: "I
Saw Marines Kill Civilians"
Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
Propaganda
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
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June
5, 2003
Pools of Fire
The Looming
Nuclear Nightmare in the Woods of North Carolina
By JEFFREY ST. CLAIR
Looking for weapons of mass destruction? Try the
backwoods of North Carolina. The site is easy to find. You don't
need infrared telemetry, informants or a global positioning satellite.
Just follow the railroad tracks deep into the heart of the triangle
area to the gleaming cooling tower of the Shearon Harris nuclear
plant, which rises like a concrete beacon out of the forest.
It may not look like much, a run-of-the-mill
nuke, but inside the confines of the steel fence that rings the
plant resides one of the most lethal patches of ground in North
America. Shearon Harris is not just a nuclear power generating
station, but a repository for highly radioactive spent fuel rods
from two other nuclear plants owned by Progress Energy.
Those railroad tracks? They're for hauling
nuclear waste. The spent fuel rods are carted by rail from the
Brunswick and Robinson nuclear reactors to Shearon Harris, where
they are stored in four densely packed pools, filled with circulating
cold water to keep the waste from heating up. The pools are interconnected
and enclosed within one building. That building is attached to
the reactor itself. Together, they form the largest radioactive
waste storage pools in the country.
All this makes Shearon Harris a very
inviting target for would-be terrorists. In fact, the Department
of Homeland Security has fingered Shearon Harris as one of the
most vulnerable terrorist targets in the nation. Thanks for letting
us (and them, whoever they are) know, Mr. Ridge.
Potential atomic terrorists don't have
to steal plutonium, take a crash course in physics or concoct
a bomb to manufacture a radiological nightmare scenario in the
heart of the Carolinas. All they have to do is penetrate the
security fence of a lightly guarded commercial reactor and find
a way to ignite the pools of high-level radioactive waste. The
easiest method is to disrupt the circulation of the water system
that keeps the pools cool.
The resulting fire would be virtually
unquenchable. Moreover, because the water system that feeds the
waste pools is also connected to the Shearon Harris reactor,
a pool fire could also trigger a nuclear meltdown. And so it
goes. (For a detailed investigation into the terrorist threat
to Shearon Harris read Stan Goff's sobering analysis for
North Carolina WARN. Goff is a former US Army Special Forces
soldier turned anti-nuke organizer.)
An uncontrolled pool fire and meltdown
at Shearon Harris would put more than two million residents of
this rapidly growing section of North Carolina in extreme peril.
A recent study by the Brookhaven Labs, not known to overstate
nuclear risks, estimates that a pool fire could cause 140,000
cancers, contaminate thousands of square miles of land and cause
over $500 billion in off-site property damage.
An October 2000 report from the Sandia
Labs in Albuquerque painted a grim picture of the consequences
from a pool fire. The report, which was kept under wraps for
two years by the NRC, found that a waste pool fire could spread
radioactive debris over a 500-mile radius, including Cesium-137,
a known carcinogen that is also linked to birth defects and genetic
damage.
When news of this unsettling report leaked
out to the press, Mike Easley, the governor of North Carolina,
responded by ordering that iodine pills be distributed to neighbors
of the plant. It was a touching gesture. But iodine is no defense
against the ravages of Cesium-137.
Despite vows of beefed up security by
the nuclear industry, it's not that difficult to break into most
commercial nuclear plants and security at Shearon Harris is notoriously
lax. In 1999, NRC records show that two Progress energy employees
gained access to the reactor and the waste pools without security
clearance. Plus, the energy has hired numerous employees with
questionable security backgrounds, including three guards who
failed psychological exams and one with a criminal record.
Of course, the whole plant could go up
without the intervention of terrorists. Basic mismanagement and
design flaws in the plant could well do the trick. In fact, the
NRC has estimated that there's a 1-100 chance of a pool fire
happening under the rosiest scenario. And the dossier on the
Shearon Harris plant is far from rosy.
The Harris reactor has a troubling history.
In 1999, the nuclear plant experienced four emergency shutdowns,
or SCRAMS. The problems led plant managers to tell the Charlotte
News and Observer that they were "very disappointed,"
engaged in "soul searching" and unsure whether the
string of malfunctions were "coincidental or a sign of deeper
problems."
A few months later, in April 2000, the
plant's safety monitoring system, designed to provide early warning
of a serious emergency, failed. It wasn't the first time. Indeed,
the emergency warning system at Shearon Harris has failed fifteen
times since the plant opened in 1987.
Between January and July of 2002, Harris
plant managers were forced to manually shut down the reactors
four times. Then in August of that year, the plant automatically
shut itself down when the outside power grid weakened.
Documents uncovered from the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission reveal other disturbing problems at Shearon
Harris. For example, inspectors have found "rubber and other
foreign material" clogging the cooling lines in the plant's
heat removal system. There are also internal memos from the plant
reporting that many of its evacuation sires within the 10-mile
emergency zone surrounding the plant are inoperable during severe
weather.
In 2002 the NRC put the plant on notice
about nine unresolved safety issues detected during a fire prevention
inspection by NRC investigators. The plant was hit with a "Security
Level III Notice of Violation." When the NRC returned to
the plant a few months later for a reinspection, it determined
that the corrective actions were "not acceptable."
"Progress Energy is far above the
industry average in three important areas: emergency reactor
shutdowns, required inspections and the fact that it has interconnected
Harris reactor's cooling system to four high-level waste pools:
the largest in the nation," says Jim Warren, executive director
of North Carolina WARN.
And the problems continue with a chilling
regularity. This spring there have been four emergency shut downs
of the plant, including three SCRAMs over a four-day period in
the middle of May. One of the incidents occurred when reactor
core failed to cool down during a refueling operation while the
reactor dome was off of the plant-a potentially catastrophic
series of events.
So over the past four years there have
been 12 major problems requiring the shutdown of the plant. According
to the NRC, the national average for commercial reactors is one
shutdown per 18 months.
The situation at Shearon Harris is made
more dire by virtue of the fact that the reactor is directly
tied into the cooling system for the spent fuel pools. A breakdown
(or sabotage) in either system could lead to serious consequences
in the other.
Congressman David Price, the North Carolina
Democrat, sent the Nuclear Regulatory Commission a study of the
situation by scientists at MIT and Princeton. The report pinpointed
the waste pools as the biggest risk at the plant. "Spent
fuel recently discharged from a reactor could heat up relatively
rapidly could catch fire," says Bob Alvarez, a former advisor
to the Department of Energy and co-author of the report. "The
fire could well spread to older fuel. The long-term land contamination
consequences of such an event could be significantly worse than
Chernobyl."
The study recommended that the spent
fuel pools be replaced with low-density, open frame racks and
that the older waste assemblages be placed in hardened, above-ground
storage units. The change could be done relatively cheaply, costing
the energy giant about $5 million a year--less than the $6.6
million annual bonus for Progress CEO Warren Cavanaugh.
But Progress has scoffed at the idea
and recruited the help NRC Commissioner Edward McGaffian to smear
the MIT/Princeton repot. In an internal memo, McGaffian instructed
NRC staffers to produce "a hard-hitting critique that sort
of undermines the study deeply."
McGaffan is a veteran cold-warrior and
a nuclear zealot, who has worked for both Democrats and Republicans.
A veteran of the National Security Council in the Reagan administration,
MacGaffian took a special interest in promoting nuclear plants
to US client states. He left the White House to serve as the
chief policy aide on energy and defense issues for Senator Jeff
Bingaman, the Democrat from New Mexico. In 1996, President Clinton
appointed him to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, where he
has been a tireless proponent of nuclear power on the ludicrous
grounds that it will slow the onslaught of global warming. McGaffan
has also consistently dismissed the risks associated with the
transport and storage of nuclear waste. Just prior to leaving
office, Clinton reappointed him to another full term in 2000.
McGaffan's meddling has outraged many
anti-nuke activists. "There's a huge credibility in the
federal regulatory agencies," says Lewis Pitts, an environmental
attorney in North Carolina. "After 9/11, the nuclear industry
faked a report to convince the public that an airplane hitting
a nuke plant is nothing to worry about and now the NRC has directed
the production of a bogus study to deny decades of science on
the perils of pool fires."
The Bush administration fabricated evidence
of Iraq's nuclear program as a justification for war. Now the
federal government is seeking to cover-up evidence of a much
more serious and deteriorating nuclear problem in one of the
most populated areas on the eastern seaboard. If the worst happens,
the blame will reside in Washington, which has permitted the
Shearon Harris facility to become a nuclear time bomb. The atomic
clock is ticking.
Today's
Features
Arundhati
Roy
Day of the Jackals
Norman
Madarasz
Behind the Neo-Con Curtain: Plato,
Leo Strauss and Allan Bloom
Alain
Frachon and Daniel Vernet
The Strategist and the Philosopher: Strauss and Wohlstetter
Anthony
Gancarski
Anti-Imperialism, Then & Now
Standard
Schaefer
Wasted at the Pentagon
Jason
Leopold
Rocky's Advice to the Dems
Guthrie
& Albert
HUAC 58 Years Letter
Steve
Perry
The Politics of Terror Alerts
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