4. Nuclear Waste Pools in North Carolina

in Top 25 Censored Stories for 2010

 

Source:
CounterPunch, August 9, 2008
Title: “Pools of Fire”
Author: Jeffrey St. Clair

Student Researchers: Krisden Kidd and Karene Schelert
Faculty Evaluator: Heidi LaMoreaux, PhD
Sonoma State University

 

One of the most lethal patches of ground in North America is located in the backwoods of North Carolina, where Shearon Harris nuclear plant is housed and owned by Progress Energy. The plant contains the largest radioactive waste storage pools in the country. It is not just a nuclear-power-generating station, but also a repository for highly radioactive spent fuel rods from two other nuclear plants. The spent fuel rods are transported by rail and stored in four densely packed pools filled with circulating cold water to keep the waste from heating. The Department of Homeland Security has marked Shearon Harris as one of the most vulnerable terrorist targets in the nation.

 

The threat exists, however, without the speculation of terrorist attack. Should the cooling system malfunction, the resulting fire would be virtually unquenchable and could trigger a nuclear meltdown, putting more than two hundred million residents of this rapidly growing section of North Carolina in extreme peril. A recent study by Brookhaven Labs 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.

 

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has estimated that there is a 1:100 chance of pool fire happening under the best of scenarios. And the dossier on the Shearon Harris plant is far from the best.
In 1999 the plant experienced four emergency shutdowns. A few months later, in April 2000, the plant’s safety monitoring system, designed to provide early warning of a serious emergency, failed. And it wasn’t the first time. Indeed, the emergency warning system at Shearon Harris has failed fifteen times since the plant opened in 1987.

 

In 2002 the NRC put the plant on notice for nine unresolved safety issues detected during a fire prevention inspection by NRC investigators. When the NRC returned to the plant a few months later for reinspection, it determined that the corrective actions were “not acceptable.” Between January and July of 2002, Harris plant managers were forced to manually shut down the reactors four times.


The problems continue with chilling regularity. In the spring of 2003 there were four emergency shutdowns of the plant, including three over a four-day period. One of the incidents occurred when the reactor core failed to cool down during a refueling operation while the reactor dome was off of the plant—a potentially catastrophic series of circumstances.

 

Between 1999 and 2003, there were twelve major problems requiring the shutdown of the plant. According to the NRC, the national average for commercial reactors is one shutdown per eighteen months.


Congressman David Price of North Carolina sent the NRC a report by scientists at MIT and Princeton that pinpointed the waste pools as the biggest risk at the plant. “Spent fuel recently discharged from a reactor could heat up relatively rapidly and catch fire,” wrote 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 relatively inexpensive fixes, which would have cost Progress approximately $5 million a year—less than the $6.6 million annual bonus for Progress CEO Warren Cavanaugh.
Progress scoffed at the idea and recruited the help of NRC Commissioner Edward McGaffigan to smear the MIT/Princeton report. McGaffigan is a nuclear enthusiast who has worked for both Republicans and Democrats. A veteran of the National Security Council in the Reagan administration, McGaffigan took a special interest in promoting nuclear plants to US client states. He served two terms as NRC Commissioner under Clinton as a tireless proponent of nuclear plant construction and deregulation, and consistently dismissed the risks associated with the transport and storage of nuclear waste.


McGaffigan’s meddling has outraged many anti-nuclear activists. Lewis Pitts, an environmental attorney in North Carolina says, “The NRC has directed the production of a bogus study to deny decades of science on the perils of pool fires.”

 

Author Jeffrey St. Clair concludes, “If the worst happens, the blame will reside in Washington, which has permitted the Shearon Harris facility to become a nuclear time bomb.”

 

* * * * * * * * * * * *

The above news story was transcribed verbatim from:

http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/4-nuclear-waste-pools-in-north-carolina/ 

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  • The above news story was one of the 'TOP 25 CENSORED STORIES FOR 2010'. It's also worth reading the other 24 (censored) stories, which you may find equally shocking and disgusting. I posted the 25th news story, about the oil exploitation in Western Amazon, as a separate discussion.

    Please click on TOP 25 CENSORED STORIES FOR 2010 (in blue font below the title of this story). While you're on the www.projectcensored.org website, also please check out the 'TOP 25 CENSORED STORIES FOR 2009', 2008, 2007, 2006, etc.
    • Great Link thanks, will be reading all night for sure.
  • I agree...and All these are sad truths....but i will have to take a different point of view from "Little Feather",
    that, its not the Earth who will have the problem in the long run.
    Humans are so arrogant and stupid, that they think they are the center of the universe, and that the can do whatever the hell they want, without any consequences....
    Mother Nature is way too powerful for their imagination to comprehend...Just because they have some silly technology, they think that they are so Mighty....
    Mother Earth will survive no matter what....but i dont believe it will be the same for Humans, if they dont change direction...
    • I must say I agree with what you are saying, Vagelis. The point I was making, however, is that human beings are Spirit/Soul in a body, and are immortal. As far as being replaced, I feel it is far easier for a Spiritual entity to incarnate on this planet or another than it would be to replace an entire planet. And, when a planet is destroyed, it effects the whole surrounding galaxy.

      I agree with you about the "arrogance" of humans, and I feel, I Truly hope that there is more ignorance than stupidity. Ignorance can be "fixed". I don't know about stupidity.

      It has been a puzzle to me for many years how humans could be arrogant enuff to feel we are the "only" ones in existence in this HUGE Universe. And, considering the "mess" we've made on this planet, how could we think this is the best that Creator/Source could do? I mean, REALLLLY!!!

      The point I was efforting to make, Vagelis, was that this planet has been raped and pillaged enough!!! I, for one, would Love to see her relieved of her misery. I fully believe she is a Living, sentient Being, who has cried out to Creator for relief, and is the process of receiving it.
      She has certainly EARNED it.
      • Well said...agree... :)
  • And, you know, Ann, the mystery to me is why they think that disposing of nuclear NRG in whatever they think will hold it will not damage the Mother. Come on!!! Are we really expected to believe that ANYTHING can contain nuclear NRG without it leaking out??? Dear God, we think we humans have our trials and tribulations??? Mother Earth is the one which concerns me. She has certainly more than earned her ascension. Look at how she has fed and clothed her inhabitants all these millenia. YOU GO, GIRL!!!
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