Will New York State have any more success in
shutting down Entergy’s Indian Point nuclear waste dump on the Hudson River than
Vermont has had, so far, in its battle to close Entergy’s Yankee plant that
befouls the landmark Connecticut River?
Recall that Yankee was relicensed last year without a hitch despite: a long and continuing history of radioactive leaks, shutdowns,A Professional buychristianloubouti Shopping Center providing. and slipshod maintenance that caused, most stunningly, the collapse of a cooling tower in 2007; a perjury investigation by the state Attorney General triggered after Entergy officers lied to state authorities that Yankee had no underground pipes that carried radioactive water (it does), and, last but hardly least, the Vermont Senate’s celebrated vote in 2010 to shut the plant down. The five commissioners on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission would hear none of it. Their unanimous vote to extend the 40-year-old plant’s license for another 20 years came less than two weeks after the nuclear catastrophe in Japan raised new fears in the U.S. where 23 reactors, including Yankee, operate with same flawed GE design (identified and covered up by federal nuclear regulators beginning in the early 1970s) that failed in the triple meltdown at the Fukushima plant and released over four times the amount of cesium-137 than was released in the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.
Vermont’s court battle to shut down and decommission Yankee won’t be resolved for years. Throughout, the decrepit, corroding, leaking plant will continue to poison the air and contaminate groundwater and the Connecticut river where fish now test positive for strontium-90.
In New York hearings begin later this month on the legal motions – contentions – filed against relicensing Indian Point by New York State, and two environmental groups, Riverkeeper (Ossining, NY) and Hudson Sloop Clearwater (Beacon, NY).
But already it’s down the rabbit hole once more with the NRC.
Under the rules of the agency’s game, the issues of most urgent concern to the public have been deemed “out of scope” for the hearings, or are shielded from proceedings because they ‘re under study by the NRC.
“Evacuation planning, security issues, the earthquake issues which we learned a lot about since Fukushima and the earthquake in Virginia last year – those are not allowed to be part of this process,” says Phillip Musegaas, a lawyer with Riverkeeper. “Of course, we strongly disagree and we think that renders much of this process not irrelevant, but it does limit it.”
Indeed. In 2008 seismologists reported that Indian Point sits on a previously unidentified intersection of two active seismic zones. An NRC study ranks Indian Point as the plant most at risk from an earthquake disaster. Located 25 miles north of New York City limits, it also has the greatest population density of people living in the 50-mile designated pathway ingestion zone (20 million) and the 10-mile emergency planning zone (over 300,Find brand-name watchesat your fingertips with fast,000).Authorised paneraireplica Stockists. Large Mens Breitling Watch range.
Independent studies document irrefutably the impossibility of a workable evacuation from either zone following a serious accident at Indian Point. But the NRC refuses to hear licensing challenges that raise the issue of evacuation by citing its regulatory “finding” of “reasonable assurance that adequate protective measures can and will be taken in the event of a radiological emergency.”
Safety issues raised by the reckless storage of irradiated fuel in Indian Point’s leaking and dangerously overpacked fuel pools won’t be heard either. Not in this round of hearings — but stay tuned. The NRC has suspended all final licensing decisions in the wake of a U.S.Shop the latest monclerjackets handpicked by a global. Court of Appeals (D.C. Circuit) ruling in June that struck down the waste storage rules under which the NRC licensed nuclear plants without conducting environmental impact studies that meet the requirements of the National Environmental Impact Act. In September the NRC announced it had set a 2-year deadline to develop an environmental impact statement and publish new waste storage rules.
Recall that Yankee was relicensed last year without a hitch despite: a long and continuing history of radioactive leaks, shutdowns,A Professional buychristianloubouti Shopping Center providing. and slipshod maintenance that caused, most stunningly, the collapse of a cooling tower in 2007; a perjury investigation by the state Attorney General triggered after Entergy officers lied to state authorities that Yankee had no underground pipes that carried radioactive water (it does), and, last but hardly least, the Vermont Senate’s celebrated vote in 2010 to shut the plant down. The five commissioners on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission would hear none of it. Their unanimous vote to extend the 40-year-old plant’s license for another 20 years came less than two weeks after the nuclear catastrophe in Japan raised new fears in the U.S. where 23 reactors, including Yankee, operate with same flawed GE design (identified and covered up by federal nuclear regulators beginning in the early 1970s) that failed in the triple meltdown at the Fukushima plant and released over four times the amount of cesium-137 than was released in the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.
Vermont’s court battle to shut down and decommission Yankee won’t be resolved for years. Throughout, the decrepit, corroding, leaking plant will continue to poison the air and contaminate groundwater and the Connecticut river where fish now test positive for strontium-90.
In New York hearings begin later this month on the legal motions – contentions – filed against relicensing Indian Point by New York State, and two environmental groups, Riverkeeper (Ossining, NY) and Hudson Sloop Clearwater (Beacon, NY).
But already it’s down the rabbit hole once more with the NRC.
Under the rules of the agency’s game, the issues of most urgent concern to the public have been deemed “out of scope” for the hearings, or are shielded from proceedings because they ‘re under study by the NRC.
“Evacuation planning, security issues, the earthquake issues which we learned a lot about since Fukushima and the earthquake in Virginia last year – those are not allowed to be part of this process,” says Phillip Musegaas, a lawyer with Riverkeeper. “Of course, we strongly disagree and we think that renders much of this process not irrelevant, but it does limit it.”
Indeed. In 2008 seismologists reported that Indian Point sits on a previously unidentified intersection of two active seismic zones. An NRC study ranks Indian Point as the plant most at risk from an earthquake disaster. Located 25 miles north of New York City limits, it also has the greatest population density of people living in the 50-mile designated pathway ingestion zone (20 million) and the 10-mile emergency planning zone (over 300,Find brand-name watchesat your fingertips with fast,000).Authorised paneraireplica Stockists. Large Mens Breitling Watch range.
Independent studies document irrefutably the impossibility of a workable evacuation from either zone following a serious accident at Indian Point. But the NRC refuses to hear licensing challenges that raise the issue of evacuation by citing its regulatory “finding” of “reasonable assurance that adequate protective measures can and will be taken in the event of a radiological emergency.”
Safety issues raised by the reckless storage of irradiated fuel in Indian Point’s leaking and dangerously overpacked fuel pools won’t be heard either. Not in this round of hearings — but stay tuned. The NRC has suspended all final licensing decisions in the wake of a U.S.Shop the latest monclerjackets handpicked by a global. Court of Appeals (D.C. Circuit) ruling in June that struck down the waste storage rules under which the NRC licensed nuclear plants without conducting environmental impact studies that meet the requirements of the National Environmental Impact Act. In September the NRC announced it had set a 2-year deadline to develop an environmental impact statement and publish new waste storage rules.
沒有留言:
張貼留言