(November 8, 1991) Over the next 25 years, more than half the nuclear power plants in the US will become 40 years old.
(361.3572) WISE Amsterdam - When they do, their operating licenses will expire. The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission's new chairperson, Ivan Selin, has listed establishing a procedure for extending the licenses of those plants as one of his priorities. The details are now being debated in the NRC.
With no reactors on order and only two under construction, the US nuclear industry could well depend on continued operation of existing plants for its survival. It should also be noted that if the extensions are not approved, the utilities will have to develop decommissioning plans. Thus, extending the operating licenses has another important aspect: allowing utilities to postpone the costly business of disposing of retired reactor's radioactive parts.
The 110 nuclear power reactors now in operation generate about 20% of US electricity. Between the years 2000 to 2016, the licenses of 66 of these reactors will expire. Anti-nuclear activists say this is the time to phase out plants that do not measure up to safety regulations made after they were built.
According to Matthew Wald, writing in The New York Times, the original idea of a 40-year license apparently had little to do with technical issues. The industry claims that in the early years of nuclear power, the Atomic Energy Commission (NRC's pre-decessor) decided on 40 years because that was the time span commonly used by utilities for depreciating plants for accounting purposes. But critics say that once utilities knew they had a 40-year license, many of the plants were designed to last that long.
Because older plants were not expected to operate for a long time, they did not have to be modernized to meet the same standards as new ones do today. Robert Pollard, a safety engineer with the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), points out that if the owners of Yankee Rowe were to build a duplicate of their plant next door to the original, it would not be allowed to open. If the design does not meet current standards, he asks, why should it be allowed to operate for another 20 years. Critics also question whether some of the older plants even meet the safety requirements they were supposed to meet when they were built.
Temperatures are a factor in the debate. The UCS says that safety equipment installed in Unit 1 at Nine Mile Point in New York, was designed to withstand a normal operating temperature of 150 degrees. The actual normal operating temperature has been 20 to 30 degrees higher. UCS also says the NRC has acknowl-edged that it has had difficulty determining which regulations apply to which plants, and which plants fail to comply. Also relevant to the issue is how long some parts will survive. Cables deteriorate with age but are nevertheless generally not inspected closely. Pipes erode and are not found in inspections. (For instance, in 1986 at Unit 2 of the Surry plant in Virginia, a large pipe ruptured, killing four workers, after years of erosion had gone unnoticed.)
And at other aging plants, years of neutron bombardment has increased the brittleness of their reactor vessels.
Of the 126 US reactors put into commercial operation thus far, 16 have been abandoned far short of their 40th birthdays. Indian Point-1 in New York, for example, was closed down in 1974, after only 12 years of operation, because federal regulators added a new requirement for an emergency cooling system. The utility decided it was impractical to add one. Dresden-1 in Illinois closed in 1978, after 19 years, because it was so highly contaminated with radioactivity. The 13-year-old Seco plant in California was closed in 1979, after the municipal utility district that owned it was forced to call for a referendum. The district's residents said they didn't want it.
The Yankee reactor in Massachusetts, though, was seen by the industry as a reactor that has operated "reliably", which was why it was chosen to apply first for a license extension. With the Yankee reactor shut down, the industry's next candidate is likely to be the Monticello reactor, a 564 MW boiling water reactor in Minnesota.
Sources: The New York Times (US), 24 June and 23 July 1991 (via GreenNet).
(November 8, 1991) In WISE News Communique 359.3551 we wrote about a contract that was signed between Romania's new electrical utility, Regia Autonoma Natinal de Electricite (RENEL) and AAC, a consortium of Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd (AECL) and Ansaldo of Italy, to finish the construction of Cernavoda Unit-1.
(361.3570) WISE Amsterdam - At the time, however, financing for the project was unsure as it had still to be approved by the Canadian government. Ac-cording to Atom, the journal of the UK Atomic Energy Authority, Canada has since authorized the necessary financing (Cnd$250 million).
Cernavoda-1, now almost 50% com-plete, is the first of five planned CANDU reactors. It will have a capacity of 700 MW and is expected to go critical in October 1994. The four other units are at various stages of completion.
The agreement between RENEL and AECL contains provisions for speeding up the pace of improvement in living and working conditions at the site. These will include a school, a hospital, 800 new apartments, a food market and a cinema. We will be seeing more of this kind of contract in the future, making it more difficult for countries facing economic and social crises to resist nuclear energy even though, for the most part, these promised improved living conditions are only temporary.
Source: Atom (UK), Oct. 1991, p.3.
Contacts: Ion Zamfir, MER, Str. Siderurgistilor, bloc SD/4 ap.12, Galati-6200, Romania. Nuclear Awareness Project, 730 Bathurst St., Toronto, Ontario M5S 2R4, Canada. Energy Probe, 225 Brunswick Ave., Toronto, Ontario M5G 1L5, Canada; tel: +1-416-978-7014.
(November 8, 1991) According to leaked documents, Canada's Atomic Energy Control Board (AECB) tried three years ago to persuade the Canadian government's External Affairs branch to stop questioning US officials about radiation leaks from nuclear weapons plants in Ohio and Washington, two border states.
(361.3573) WISE Amsterdam - The facilities had routinely released large quantities of radioactive substances and there were fears that the discharges might have posed dangers to Ontario and British Columbia residents. The AECB, however, was more fearful that questions about the US facilities might lead to questions about discharges from its own facilities.
"The AECB has made some attempt without success to advise External Affairs to put these matters into perspective," John Beare, who was director of AECB's research and radiation protection branch at the time, wrote in a confidential memo to R.M. Duncan, then manager of the board's occupational radiation protection section. A copy of the memo, along with a confidential cable dated 8 Nov. 1988 between the AECB's Ottawa headquarters and the External Affairs staff in Washington, DC were leaked to Energy Probe, a Toronto-based environmental group.
AECB critics say the action is a serious breach of the agency's watchdog role. (The AECB is supposed to be Canada's chief nuclear 'watchdog' and is assigned to protect the public from nuclear hazards...) "It's clear to me that they're speaking as part of the nuclear industry and not part of the forces trying to protect the environment and public health," said Norman Rubin, Energy Probe's director of nuclear research.
In the memo, Beare expressed his fear that questions by External Affairs might cause US officials to complain about discharges from nuclear power plants and uranium refineries in Canada. These discharges, he wrote, "are as large or larger than releases from USA facilities and also closer to the border." If the two countries began to squabble over nuclear discharges "this could provoke a fight which both sides would lose if it became public." In a recent interview in The Globe and Mail newspaper, Duncan said that the AECB worried that External Affairs might be embarrassed if it raised the question of radiation releases only to find that Canada was a worse offender. In fact, a subsequent study by the AECB into fallout from nuclear facilities found that Canada did indeed have the largest cross-border polluter: the Cameco uranium refinery in Port Hope, on Lake Ontario.
The main worry at External Affairs, according to the cable, concerned discharges from the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Richland, Washington, 275 km from the Canadian border. The facility's soil and groundwater are contaminated by plutonium, toxic chemicals, heavy metals, and leaking radioactive-waste storage tanks, and there is seepage into the Columbia River. External Affairs told US officials that Canadian monitoring equipment hadn't revealed that emissions from Hanford "have had any environmental effect on Canada." However, the department wanted more information on the discharges and further assurances that Canadians were not being harmed.
In the report of AECB's own investigation of Canadian and US nuclear facilities near the border, researchers noted that "in the past, the operators of US nuclear weapons facilities allowed fairly large radioactive releases to the environment," sometimes 100 times higher than present levels. This report was also obtained by Energy Probe through a request under Canada's Access to Information Act. It examined releases from 10 US border facilities and three in Canada: the the Cameco refinery in Port Hope, the Pickering nuclear generating station in Pickering, Ontario, and the Gentilly nuclear generating station near Trois-Rivières, Quebec.
Source:The Globe and Mail (Canada), 24 Oct. 1991.
Contact: Energy Probe, 255 Brunswick Ave., Toronto, Ont. M5S 2M6, Canada.
(November 8, 1991) The following, by John Royds, is reprinted from Earthwatch magazine.
(361.3569) WISE Amsterdam - When Apple introduced their revolutionary concept in computing, including the 'user friendly' mouse, competitors fell over themselves with laughter. The rest, as the saying goes, is history. Apple are in the news again but this time there is no derision from the computer industry. The July (1990) edition of MacWorld, an Apple users magazine, ran an in depth report entitled "Could your computer be killing you?"
The question of whether the complex electromagnetic fields emitted by computer visual display units (VDUs) pose a health hazard has been a contentious one for many years. Until now, the industry has usually quoted bodies such as the International Radiation Protection Association, who state that "there are no health hazards associated with radiation or fields from VDUs."
Like all electrical devices, VDUs give off high electromagnetic fields but these are very localized. Obviously VDU operators are in this category, as are users of all-night electric blankets....Exposure can be reduced for VDU operators by keeping at least an arm's length with fingers extended from the screen and at least 4 feet away from the sides and backs of other VDUs. Low frequency magnetic fields are very penetrating so walls provide no shielding -- remember this when measuring out your VDU-free zone.
The VDU cathode ray assembly and the fly-back transformer are responsible for the complex mixture of non-ionizing fields emitted. The high frequencies are easy to eliminate and companies offer screens of shields which can do this. But the extremely low frequency magnetic fields from the vertical deflection coil are very difficult to remove. It is these fields which have been linked to promoting cancer, causing foetal abnormalities and affecting the central nervous system.
The introduction of shielded liquid crystal displays (SLCDs) may be the only way to totally eliminate these very low and extremely low frequency magnetic fields. At the moment, a US company 'Safe Computing' offers SLCDs for about US$800. No doubt the recent EC directive on VDUs, which states that radiation "shall be reduced to negligible levels from the point of view of the protection of workers' safety and health", will increase the demand for SLCDs which would bring the price down.
Source: Earthwatch (Ireland), Winter 1990, p.6.
(November 8, 1991) After running our account of the blockade of the convoy carrying spent fuel rods from Brunswick, Germany to the Dounreay reprocessing facility in Scotland (WISE News Communique 360.3557), we received a letter from Lindsay Stevenson of Scotland Against Nuclear Dumping (SAND).
(361.3574) WISE Amsterdam - As the person who organized and coordinated the actual tracking operation between the time the waste left Dover and arrived at Winfrith, she thought we might like a fuller version. We are publishing a summary of that letter because we thought our readers might also be interested, especially as it gives a good example of excellent organizing.
On 25 September, Pete Roche from Greenpeace in London contacted Stevenson to tell her the waste was moving. As soon as they had spoken, she contacted the Scottish and English Nuclear Free Zone (NFZ) Authorities, a number of key Scottish Local Authorities and individuals and groups they had previously contacted regarding the possibility of tracking the waste and taking action against. A quantity of leaflets SAND had printed back in February, when they first thought the waste was coming, were also immediately distributed to groups in key areas. Stevenson also contacted a number of people South of the Scottish Border, and with their help, by the next afternoon there was a skeleton tracking phone tree firmly in position throughout England.
Word came early Friday morning (27 Sept.) that the waste had come in at Dover. Groups in the Dover area (KARE and FoE) -- who had, said Stevenson, done "sterling work" in tracing it across the Channel -- kept watch on the waste at Dover docks, photographed it, alerted the media and kept Stevenson constantly informed of what was happening. The folks at Greenpeace London also kept information flowing and supplied the folks from NENIG, who just happened to be nearby at a seminar when the whole thing started, with a mobile phone which further aided information flow. Greenpeace's Damon Moglin also ensured that people were fully briefed on all aspects of transport and safety.
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DOUNREAY SIGNS NEW CONTRACT WITH FRG |
On Sunday, local people at Winfrith kept watch, but the waste convoy -- consisting of a low-loader truck and one unmarked car carrying two armed UK Atomic Energy Authority police as escort -- was able to slip out unseen early the following morning. By this time, Stevenson was working closely with the Faslane Peace Camp and experienced Nuke Watch and Cruise Watch people throughout Britain were involved, so they were fairly confident that they would be able to locate the convoy. What they had not counted on, though, was the speed at which it was travelling. (It was later estimated to have been averaging at least 50 miles per hour and took few, or no, rest stops.) By the time the convoy crossed the Border on Tuesday, it was travelling "like a bat out of hell", to quote the man they had watching there.
"From then on," said Stevenson, "it was (fairly!) easy. A few phone calls ensured that there were people out tracking the progress of the lorry right up the length of Scotland..." Many of them were awaiting the convoy's arrival with actions prepared. When folks from Peace House, Dunblane picked up the convoy near Stirling, they drove a car covered in placards in front of the truck with their headlights full on, drawing the attention of other drivers to the load and trying to slow it down. Ellen Moxley of Peace House said it was absolutely terrifying. The truck drove right up behind them, refused to slow down and tried to bully them out of the way. Finally, on a stretch of dual roadway, they were forced to one side by the car carrying the UKAEA police. After that, they followed the convoy as far as Perth where it was picked up by more protestors. Two of these protestors, also in vehicles, did manage to force the truck to slow down to a reasonable speed, but within a few miles they were picked up the local police and charged with "obstructing the passage of a lorry" and dangerous driving.
After that, the convoy drove under constant observation. Before it reached Kessock bridge outside Inverness in Northeast Scotland (site of the 1 October blockade we wrote last issue), it stopped on the moors for a couple of hours. During that time, the accompanying UKAEA police were in constant radio contact with UKAEA police and plainclothes intel-ligence men on the bridge. At one point there were more than 30 protestors on the bridge, but as the afternoon wore on, many of them, mothers with children to collect from school in particular, had to leave. When the numbers were down to about 20, the truck began to move. By then, the protestors on the bridge included a number of local Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament activists, Scottish National Party (SNP) ac-tivists, local anti-nuclear activists, Green Party members, Councillor Winter, and a number of local people who had no connection with any organization but had simply heard that the waste was coming and wanted to show their opposition.
Meanwhile, the media in Scotland had become interested in the activity on Friday, when Faslane Peace Camp told a journalist on the Sunday Mail about the waste and referred him to Stevenson. Various councillors whom Faslane and Stevenson had contacted with information put out press statements which received coverage in the national press on Friday and Saturday. But it was the Sunday coverage which caught public attention and focused national television and radio interest. "We had certainly not anticipated anything like the interest or the coverage which the issue received -- having had long experience with media apathy on nuclear matters," said Stevenson. "I spent the week sleeping on the settee beside the telephone and being woken at five in the morning by BBC Scotland TV for an update was a new experience!"
Local groups contacted their own local media, but even small local papers were phoning Stevenson and Faslane asking for information. "Even working together, Faslane and myself, on the Monday and Tuesday with three lines between us, and with SCRAM [Scottish Campaign to Resist the Atomic Menace, in Edinburgh] also taking calls, there was no way we could cope with the volume of demand for information. In addition to the media calls we were contacted by people who wanted to go out and protest and wanted to know when, where and how. We passed them on to local coordinators. In the midst of this bedlam we were also keeping the tracking organization going! It was absolutely amazing...no one in the movement here has ever seen anything like it. It was a completely spontaneous expression of total outrage by the people of Scotland."
On Tuesday, the local radio station at Inverness broadcast the story of the events building up at the Kessock Bridge and asked everyone who passed the protestors and supported them to hoot their horns. "From then on there was a constant barrage of horns -- not too encouraging for the UKAEA watchers in their cars." When the waste arrived, the radio broadcast the protest live. The road was blocked in both directions for over a mile.
Since then, protests have been sent to the German government by various local Councils and also by Canon Kenyon Wright of the Campaign for a Scottish Assembly, in the name of the people of Scotland. The matter was raised in the European Parliament by Mrs. Winnie Ewing (though, sadly, several Scottish Labour MEP's voted against here motion, presumably because she is SNP).
NFZ Local Authorities of Scotland are preparing for the next time, and there can be no doubt about the continuing level of opposition within Scotland to Dounreay's commercial reprocessing plans. "For ourselves," says Stevenson, "following this experience we have tightened up the tracking network and streamlined our organization so that hopefully next time we can improve our performance."
Source: Letter from Lindsay Stevenson (SAND), 29 October 1991.
Contacts: SAND, 9, Main Road, Castlehead, Paisley, PA2 6AH, Scotland.
NENIG, Bain's Beach, Commercial Street, Lerwick, Shetland, UK; tel: (0595) 4099; fax: (0595) 4082; e-mail - Comet: Rose Young, Greenet: nenig.
SCRAM, 11 Forth St., Edinburgh EHA 3LE, Scotland; tel: 031-557 4283; fax: 031-557 4284.
Waste transports/US.
(November 8, 1991) A survey released 17 September by "Overdrive Magazine" ranked New Mexico's highways tenth worst in the US. Ironically, the survey's release coincided with an exercise staged by the New Mexico Department of Public Safety to test state and federal procedures for emergency response to a WIPP-related transpor-tati-on acci-dent. WIPP (Waste Isolation Pilot Plant) is the high-level radioac-tive waste storage site being built near Carlsbad, New Mexico. The full--scale mock disas-ter staged at 5 am on 14 September re-vealed pro-blems with communica-tion and personnel readi-ness. Critics called the exercise "unrealistic" because it did not even include a scenario invol-ving a radioactive release. Local Police Chief John Denko defended this by saying that personnel needed to practice operati-ons without complica-ting them with radioactivity... CCNS RadioActive Hotline (a service of Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety in Santa Fe, New Mexico, US, via GreenNet, nuc.facili-ties, gn topic 115, 22 Sept. 1991)
US Navy fined. The US Navy has violated hazardous waste laws by improperly storing and labelling toxic and radioactive waste at the North Island Naval Air Station, according to a complaint issued by the California Environmental Protection Agency. The Navy has been fined US$204,800 for 21 violations of the state hazardous waste laws and ordered to get rid of approximately 3,500 drums of toxic waste. An EPA statement said that the fine was intended to show that the Navy cannot expect special treatment when it violates environmental regulations. A spokes-person admitted, however, that the Navy has never paid a fine to the agency as the Navy claims sovereign immunity and that it should therefore be exempt from state fines. Information Update (Pacific Campaign to Disarm the Seas)
Chernobyl contamination found off Spanish coast. Spanish physicist Rafael Pons conducted a survey of the waters around the Baleares Islands (off Spain's western coast), in which he measured for cesium-137 at a depth of 10 cm. What he found were Ce-137 levels of 10 becquerels -- 10 times higher than the levels found before the 1976 Chernobyl accident. Ce-137 has a half-life of 30 years. The Ukranian reactor where the accident occurred is 2,500 km from Baleares Islands. Energia 2,000 (Spain), 24 Oct. 1991
Soviet physicists to Middle East? Several countries in the Middle East are trying lure nuclear physicists from the Soviet Union to their countries, according to a highly placed ex-official of the Soviet intelligence agency KGB. In an interview with the Arab paper Al-Hayat, the ex-KGB official claims Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Israel are all making use of the poor living situa-tions and the decreasing controls in the USSR due to the partial dissolu-tion of the KGB in order to encourage the scientists to leave. The ex-official also said the US had told the Soviet Union that allowing nuclear physicists to leave for Middle Eastern countries was inadmissible. Trouw (NL), 26 Oct. 1991
Renewables move ahead in US despite Bush energy strategy. US Windpower and the Iowa-Illinois Gas & Electric Co. have signed an agreement to build at least 250 MW of wind power in the mid-west, in the largest such contract outside California. The venture calls for the investment of about US$200 million -- a bargain for that amount of capacity -- and adds the possibility of adding another 250 MW if successful. According to the Wall Street Journal, the new generation of wind turbines "could do for wind energy what Henry Ford did for the car -- it puts wind on a par with coal power, the cheapest traditional alternative." The Journal added that when one takes "hidden" environmental factors into account, wind may be the cheapest energy of all. In another part of the US, the first radio station to operate solely on solar-elec-tric energy, KTAO-FM in Taos, New Mexico, will turn on its 50,000-watt transmitter in October. The cost for running utility power lines to the transmission site, 10,000 feet above sea level, would have been US$300,000, but the solar-powered installation will cost only $60,000. The Nuclear Monitor (US), 23 Sept. 1991, p.7; Atoms & Waste (US), 6 Sept. 1991, p.8
Energia 2,000, a publication in Spanish from WISE-Tarragona. This bi-weekly bulletin contains information over energy, with a special focus on Spain as well as relevant international news. An important contribution to the Spanish anti-nuclear movement for the promotion of renewable energies through the diffusion of information, promoting direct contacts and the exchange of information between organizations. A year's subscription (24 issues) costs 5000 pesetas. Contact: WISE-Tarragona, Apartado de Correos 741, 43080 Tarragona, Spain.
Following are two new books published by Intermediate Technology Publications, 103/105 Southampton Row, London WC1B 4HH, England; tel: +44-71-436-9761; fax: +44-71- 436-92013. Their 66-page mail order catalogue has five pages on renewable energy publications, and many other books are on related topics.
"Solar Photovoltaic Products: A Guide For Development Workers", by A.Derrick, C.Francis and V. Bokalders, 1991, 127 pp. ISBN: 1-85339-091-7. Price: £12.50. This newly revised book is a buyers guide to systems for water-pumping and treatment, lighting, refrigeration, communications, and various other applications. It contains updated information on prices an suppliers' addresses, as well as technical developments.
"Renewable Energy Technologies: Their Applications In Developing Countries", by L.A.Kristoferson and V.Bokalders, 1991, 336 pp. ISBN: 1-85339-088-7. Price: £25. The book addres-ses the advantages and disadvantages of renewable energy technologies, and their socio-economic and environmental implications. It is divided into four sections: bioenergy, biomass engines and biomass engine fuels, solar energy, and hydro, wind and water power.
(November 8, 1991) In April 1990 Dr. Surendra Gadekar and some of his colleagues were invited to visit 10 villages surrounding the Rawatbhata nuclear power plant in the state of Rajasthan by the village Sarpanches (heads of the locally elected village councils).
(361.3567) WISE Amsterdam - Rawatbhata is the site of two existing reactors (both 220 MW CANDUs) and is where the Indian government proposes to build another eight reactors. Work has already begun on units 3 and 4. While visiting Tamlao (the village nearest the plant site), Dr. Gadekar was shocked at what he saw. "I studied medicine in Calcutta," he said at the time. "But even there I had never seen so many patients with tumors in a single day. On talking to these people in Tamlao I found that almost all the symptoms had appeared after five or more years of the reactor's commissioning." Later, at the other villages, he was to see even more disturbing health problems, especially among the children.
The Sarpanches had asked for the visit after great deliberation and, says Dr. Gadekar, almost in desperation since their demands, such as access to medical facilities, better roads and telephone facilities, jobs for local youth in the nuclear power plant, had not even received a hearing from the Indian Department of Atomic Energy (DAE). "Most of the people who had invited us were then and to some extent even now, not anti-nuclear," he wrote later, "they just wanted to get the much promised fruits of develop-ment after waiting patiently and passively for seventeen years."
After Dr. Gadekar's report about the visit (see WISE News Communique 338.3375) was published and received national and, to a small extent, some international media attention, there was a great deal of hectic activity from both the DAE as well as the Rajasthan state government. For example, just since May 1990:
All of the above, says Dr. Gadekar, except for the jobs in the plant given to local youths, has been a good de-velopment and has made some of the villagers realize the power of organized mass protest. However, he goes on to say, there have been other developments too.
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Due to a lack of resources, the Gadekar survey was only able to cover five of the villages closest to the Rawatbhata station. However, there have been reports of genetic abnormalities from other villages as well. In April, Britain's Channel 4 Television showed a film which claimed the number of defective births in villages around the plant has doubled in the last few years. The film was shot (secretly) in the village of Badodia, further out from those included in the survey (2-3 km from Jharjhani). In September, Eyewitness, an Indian TV program, repeated the British film's charges. The program linked the evidence to the periodic leakage of radioactive heavy water and non-radioactive light water used for cooling the reactor. In an interview, Dr. Parthasarathy (secretary of the Indian Atomic Energy Regulatory Board), admitted that the plant has suffered a series of problems and was shut down 250 times in its first 10 years of operation. Among its other problems, one of the units was shut down for three years because of a hairline leak on the reactor's end shield. The Eyewitness program included an interview from the British film with nuclear analyst Walter Patterson. Said Patterson, "The major emission from a CANDU reactor [Rawatbhata is based on Canadian design] is the radioactive hydrogen called tritium. It is very difficult to contain as hydrogen diffuses through almost everything...If you have any leakage associated with a reactor of this kind, you will almost certainly have a tritium background. It also, of course, gets into body tissues very quickly..." |
The state government has sent two teams of doctors of its own to the area. The first team was made up of doctors from the medical college at Jaipur (the state capital) and made only a brief and superficial visit. After spending about an hour in Jharjhani, the team submitted a report that claimed there were no unusual health effects at all and that whatever was there was result of malnutrition, poverty, ignorance and superstition with nothing to do with radiation. As the report was clearly a work of carelessness, Dr. Gadekar and his team began their own survey. This survey was not undertaken lightly.
Since their initial visit, Dr. Gadekar and his group had been trying to persuade various independent organ-izations with expertise in the matter to conduct a door-to-door survey of the area to determine the true state of affairs. They were hesitant about making the survey themselves since they had practically no resources with which to conduct it. Unfortunately, no organization came forward to do the work. But, as there was a strong local demand for it and other anti-nuclear groups felt that the results of a survey could prove to be of importance in the continuing struggle against the nuclear establishment in India, Gadekar's team decided to go ahead.
The villages selected for the survey -- Tamlao, Deeppura, Malpura, Bakshpura and Jharjhani -- were chosen because they all lie within 5 to 10 km of the plant in an east-north east direction. During the monsoons the winds are from the plant towards these villages. For control, the same survey was also conducted in four other villages near the town of Rampura (Mandsaur district of Madhya Pradesh). The Gadekar survey intends to compare disease patterns, infant mortality, birth defects, sterility and abortions, inoculation data and other health indicators in both areas and, wherever possible, with available national and state statistics. Researchers have also obtained extensive data on land and animal holdings, cattle mortality, employment and wages and other economic indicators which they intend to compare as well.
Normally, said Dr. Gadekar, it would have taken a lot of money and organizational resources to have done the survey. However, out of necessity, the team decided to do it on a purely voluntary basis. Response to requests for support were beyond their expec-tations: professional people who had long experience with conducting and evaluating surveys helped with the preparation and two volunteers came in to train other investigators in carrying out the survey. Local villagers, in addition to being very cooperative about participating in the survey, also provided hospitality and took care of most of the local expenses of the volunteers. The volunteers paid their own trans-portation fares and Gadekar's team took care of medicines, instruments, and publishing of questionnaires, etc. In that way, no one group had too large a burden to bear.
Most of the volunteers were young college students from Delhi. They all worked, said Dr. Gadekar, "with unbounded vigor and enthusiasm", though life during the twenty days of the survey was fairly tough, especially as the city-bred volunteers had very little previous experience with poverty and the lack of sanitation found in the villages. With the exception of Dr. Gadekar's group, none of the volun-teers had any previous strongly held anti-nuclear convictions. By the time the survey was finished, however, they had all become, in Dr. Gadekar's words, "ardent anti-nukes". The days spent on the survey counting diseases and seeing the poverty surrounding the plant were the best possible education on the "benefits" of nuclear energy, he said.
According to Dr. Gadekar, "There was no direct effort from the state authorities at stopping the survey. Nobody from the police directly came and approached us. However, there was a lot of pressure upon our local hosts. We heard rumors to the effect that the nuclear power plant author-ities had complained to the state government that we were carrying powerful cameras and taking photographs of the plant site. The fact that the plant is invisible from all the villages that we visited was probably a strong point in our favor. However, our hosts were at times troubled and did feel threatened." Despite provocations, though, the villagers always remained supportive of the survey and those carrying it out.
Since provocation didn't work, the state government apparently decided to try something else and sent out its second team of doctors while the survey was still going on. This second team was made up of doctors from Udaipur Medical College. Along with the Chief Medical and Health Officer of Chittorgarh district (of which Rawatbhata is a part) they spent two days in Jharjhani village. There, sampling was done for two to three hours each morning and evening in a prominant place where passersby were asked to fill in forms similar to those used in the Gadekar survey. Hardly to be compared with a door-to-door survey. Their results are to be submitted to the government, but is not to be published.
Meanwhile, the information gathered by Dr. Gadekar's investigators is being analyzed. As soon as the results are published (which will hopefully be within a month or two), we will pass them on.
Source and contact: Dr. Surendra Gadekar, c/o Anumukti, Sampooma Kranti Vidyalaya, Vedchhi Via Valod, District: Surat 394 641, INDIA.
(November 8, 1991) PreussenElektra, one of Germany's biggest electricity companies, has plans to store nuclear waste at the Greifswald site in what was formerly the GDR.
(361.3575) WISE Amsterdam - Greifswald was once meant to be a huge nuclear reactor park, but after reunification the existing reactors were shut down and the construction of others was stopped. Now, unemployment -- one of the greatest problems in the former GDR -- is forcing the plant's ex-workers (from the 4,000 in total, at least 1,700 have so far been fired) to look for alternative employment. (This is one of the reasons radioactive waste from the closed reactor at Mülheim-Kärlich is being conditioned at Greifswald.)
PreussenElektra is capitalizing on this fear of unemployment with its plans to build two concrete storage facilities: one for low- and medium-level waste and one for spent fuel rods. Although resistance to the plans are strong in that area, the company claims there is a lot of support for the idea.
Recently, documents relating to the proposal to turn Greifswald into a nuclear dump were sent anonymously to Greenpeace. The plans in these documents go far beyond what PreussenElektra had proposed. They show that the waste facility -- an interim storage facility which is expected to go into operation in 1995 -- is supposed to accommodate 10,000 tonnes of spent fuel elements and 200,000 cubic meters of low- and medium-level radioactive wastes. This is more than the existing and planned interim storage capacities in the "old" FRG altogether. At present, 20 reactors are operating in the FRG. The time-table for the completion of permanent waste storage facilities at Gorleben and Schacht Konrad (which have been subject to delays by strong resistance) could be extended through this plan.
A spokesperson at the German Ministry of Environment said that there were at present no proposals by the industry for a centralized storage facility. The Minister himself has always said that the only nuclear waste that would be stored at the Greifswald site would be the waste produced at Greifswald. But according to Greenpeace the plans are supported not only by the nuclear industry and the Christian Democratic Party (CDU), but also by the Social Democrats (SPD). So far, says Heinz Laing of Greenpeace, only the SPD-government of the Lower Saxony State is opposed to the plans. Meanwhile, though almost all other government authorities are denying that there are such plans, regional communities and trade unions are already opposing them.
Sources:
Contact: Greenpeace Germany, Vorsetzen 53, D-2000 Hamburg 11, FRG; tel: +49(40)31186-0; fax: (40)31186-141; telex: 2164831 GP D. BI Umweltschutz Lüchow-Dannenberg, Drawehner Strasse 3, 3130 Lüchow, FRG.
(November 8, 1991) A report on an independent study released in July has found evidence that Ontario Hydro's Pickering nuclear power station in Canada has caused significant increases in five types of birth defects.
(361.3568) WISE Amsterdam - The defects are typical of the known effects of radiation exposure. "About 33% of Pickering birth defects may be due to the nuclear plant," says the report's author, David McArthur, a former Canadian Nuclear Association re-searcher. McArthur is also the author of an earlier report, "Fatal birth defects, newborn infant fatalities and tritium emissions in the Town of Pickering, Ontario: A preliminary examination", released in December 1988 by Durham Nuclear Awareness.
His new report ("Possible Repro-ductive Effects of Radioactive Emissions from the Pickering Nuclear Power Station: Statistically Significant Birth Defects in Pickering, Ontario from July 1985 to December 1986") analyzes data from the birth defect registry of the Ontario Ministry of Health. Based on an 18-month period (the only data released for inde-pendent analysis), the report finds the birth defects listed in the accompanying chart (see table) as statistically significant.
The report links the first five of these birth defects to known effects of radiation exposure in either of two time periods: 1) exposure during embryonic development, which is known to cause cleft palate and lip, spinal and sex abnormalities; or 2) damage to egg or sperm chromosomes before or about the conception period, when Patau's syndrome is caused.
| Medical Name of Birth Defect | Cases Observed in Pickering | Cases Expected (@ Ont. rate) | Statistical Significance (Poisson test) |
| (1) Patau's syndrome | 2 | 0.30 | 95% |
| (2) Indeterminate sex and pseudohermaphroditism | 2 | 0.25 | 95% |
| (3) Cleft palate | 4 | 1.13 | 95% |
| (4) Cleft palate with cleft lip | 4 | 1.08 | 95% |
| (5) Anomolies of the spine | 3 | 0.42 | 99% |
| (6) Hyperchylomicronemia | 1 | 1.01 | 99% |
| (7) Other hyperlipidaemia | 1 | 0.02 | 95% |
| Total | 17 | 3.21 | |
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(1) to (5) are linked to radiation exposure; (1) is a chromosomal abnor-mality similar to Down's syndrome; (2) is abnormal gender develop-ment; (6) and (7) are diseases of tat metabolism. |
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The 17 statistically significant birth defects occurred in 12 children -- 19% of the 65 children with birth defects recorded in the period covered and 0.8% of the 1,513 births in Pickering. Yet, says McArthur, the 12 children had 29 other birth defects as well, making a total of 46. He estimates that if this same increase occurred from 1973 to 1990, some 57 birth defects in 93 Pickering children may be due to CANDU radiation.
The report argues that the radioactive isotopes tritium and carbon-14 are the most likely cause of the seven types of defects. CANDU reactors routinely release large amounts of both isotopes -- more than other reactor types -- and the Pickering station has exceeded its short-term radiation release guidelines. Both isotopes accumulate in locally-grown food, which is a major pathway to reproductive damage. It accumulates in chromosomes, increasing damage to genetic material during atomic decay and, says McArthur, inevitably causes genetic damage in Pickering. "This in itself adequately explains the seven types of defects."
Source and Contact: Both McArthur's current report and the 1988 study are available from Conception Research, Postal Station "B" Box One, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5T 2T2; tel: +1-416-598-0146; fax: 416-928-0243.
(November 8, 1991) Faced with a recommendation from the staff of Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) that the Yankee nuclear reactor in Rowe, Massachusetts be shut down, the Yankee Atomic Electric Co. (YAEC) "voluntarily" closed the plant on 1 October. "As you can imagine, Yankee disagrees with the NRC staff's conclusion recommending a shut-down," a YAEC spokesperson said. "However, being a responsible operator, we have voluntarily initiated an orderly shutdown." Nevertheless, this "responsible operator" immediately began an appeal process in an attempt to restart their trouble-plagued plant. On 11 October that appeal was denied by the NRC.
(361.3571) WISE Amsterdam - The decision is somewhat unusual for the NRC. The commission has so far shown itself to be more concerned with boosting nuclear power than with regulating it. That the decision comes now, at a time when the nuclear power industry is attempting to renew licenses for its aging first-generation plants, is especially important. The 31- year-old Yankee Rowe was widely considered to be a test case for this as its owner had planned to apply for a 20-year renewal in the near future. (See also following article.)
The NRC decision is a part of a long battle over the Yankee Rowe unit (a 180 MW PWR). Six months before, in a joint petition, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) and the New England Coalition on Nuclear Pollution (NECNP) had asked the NRC for an immediate shutdown of the plant. They charged that 30 years of neutron bombardment had made the vessel too brittle to withstand a pressurized thermal shock (PTS) accident. According to a UCS fact sheet, if the reactor lost coolant in an accident and its emergency core cooling system injected substantially cooler water into the vessel, "the combination of rapid cooling and pressurization can lead to cracking or rupture of the pressure vessel, in much the same way a glass dish hot from the oven would crack if doused in cold water."
Even though the NRC essentially admitted that the plant did not meet its own rules, it denied the petition. Instead, it said it would allow the plant to run until its refuelling date, then scheduled for 15 April 1992. Operation after that date was to be permitted only after uncertainties over the condition of the plant's reactor pressure vessel were resolved. Later, in a report that was to be released on 2 Oct., NRC staff reversed this decision, citing "reduced confidence" that the reactor's pressure vessel had "adequate margins against failure". Between that date and the original July decision, the US Congress' House Interior Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment had held hearings on the plant. UCS attorney Diane Curran, in her testimony before the subcommittee on 1 August, had attacked the Commission's reasoning and noted that the probability of an accident which would trigger a PTS accident is "the same level of risk" that caused the NRC to draw up regu-lations covering PTS accidents in the first place.
When and if the plant ever reopens is not clear. For sure, it will remain shut unless the company can supply con-vincing evidence that the unit's pressure vessel is less brittle than the NRC assumes. But so far, the NRC remains unconvinced by the various claims YAEC is making. The company has stated in the past that it might install a new vessel. This, though, is unlikely due to the tremendous expense.
The shutdown of Yankee Rowe has made anti-nuclear activists in the US quite hopeful in their struggle to shut down the plants and move the US toward conservation and safe alternative energy technology. After all, this was the plant that US President Bush only last year described as "the model for the future of nuclear power."
Sources:
Contacts: UCS, 26 Church Street, Cambridge MA 02238, US; tel: +1-617-547-5552.
NECNP, PO Box 545, Brattleboro VT 05301, US.