nuclear-news

On health and safety grounds, Indian Point Nuclear Plant should be closed

First, to the cancer risk. Even the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission — an agency that services the industry it is supposed to regulate, if there ever was one — has bowed to growing evidence and backed away from its decades of insisting that nuclear power plants do not cause cancer. …

The Radiation and Public Health Project, a nonprofit anti-nuclear group, has found increasing levels of Strontium 90, a carcinogen that exists only as a byproduct of nuclear fission, in teeth from babies living close to nuclear plants, including Indian Point…the safety record, plus evidence that the facility already is slowly, steadily poisoning the region, makes clear that it’s time to close Indian Point.

It’s time to close Indian Point, ctpost.com, July 15, 2011 “……….But Hearst Newspapers‘ investigative reporter Bill Cummings in today’s paper presents a hard-to-dismiss examination of the plant closest to us.    More than 17 million people live within a 50-mile radius of New York’s Indian Point Energy Center in Buchanan, N.Y., just south of Peekskill.

And incidence of cancer near the center, including in Fairfield County, is higher than the national average, and grow higher still as you get closer.

Nuclear power, cleaner in terms of greenhouse gases than others, presents a threat that is catastrophic. Within that threat, Indian Point is a particular concern.

Located on the banks of the Hudson River about 40 miles north of Manhattan, it is the plant closest to the heart of the nation. It exists in one of the most densely populated areas in the country, and it has a terrible safety record.

And, by the way, it sits atop two fault lines.

First, to the cancer risk. Even the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission — an agency that services the industry it is supposed to regulate, if there ever was one — has bowed to growing evidence and backed away from its decades of insisting that nuclear power plants do not cause cancer. It has asked the National Academy of Sciences to conduct a new study.

But cancer statistics can be too easily countered. Hard evidence in this case also points to a problem.

The Radiation and Public Health Project, a nonprofit anti-nuclear group, has found increasing levels of Strontium 90, a carcinogen that exists only as a byproduct of nuclear fission, in teeth from babies living close to nuclear plants, including Indian Point. Teeth from Fairfield County babies had the highest levels of SR-90 in the New York metropolitan area, except for the New York counties closest to Indian Point itself.

The government and industry claimed the SR-90 was from decades-old weapons tests and Chernobyl. That is possible, since SR-90 has a half-life of 30 years. But weapons and the Russian meltdown can’t explain away the presence of a different strand of strontium — SR-89 — that’s been found in nursing mothers and animals near Indian Point…….

Among the long list of violations are a few that provide a tragically comic reminder of why the government and the plant itself can’t be trusted to protect us. Those are the ones for not properly minding the plant’s “emergency notification systems.”

Consider how jammed local roads in Fairfield and Westchester counties are on a typical Saturday. Imagine what they’d be like if everyone was told to get out at once. No one would be going anywhere.

That, plus the safety record, plus evidence that the facility already is slowly, steadily poisoning the region, makes clear that it’s time to close Indian Point.

http://www.ctpost.com/news/article/It-s-time-to-close-Indian-Point-1468154.php

July 16, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | health, USA