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February 15, 2012
NEWS FROM NIRS

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Michael Mariotte or Dominique French
301-270-6477

Thirty-seven clean energy groups today submitted a formal petition for rulemaking to the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission seeking adoption of new regulations to expand emergency evacuation zones and improve emergency response planning around U.S. nuclear reactors.

Calling on the NRC to incorporate the real-world lessons of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, the proposed rules would expand existing emergency evacuation zones from 10 to 25 miles around nuclear reactors and establish a new zone from 25-50 miles around reactors for which utilities would have to identify and publicize potential evacuation routes. Another improvement would require utilities and state and local governments to practice emergency drills that includes a natural disaster that either initiates or occurs concurrently to a nuclear meltdown. Currently, utilities do not have to show the capability to conduct an evacuation during a natural disaster-even though, as seen at Fukushima, natural disasters can cause nuclear meltdowns. The petition would also expand the "ingestion pathway zone," which monitors food, milk and water, from 50 miles to 100 miles around reactors.

"80% of the airborne radiation released from Fukushima went directly over the Pacific Ocean," explained Michael Mariotte, executive director of Nuclear Information and Resource Service, which initiated the petition. "Even so, the Fukushima evacuation zone extended more than 25 miles to the northwest of the site, and the NRC and U.S. State Department both recommended that U.S. citizens within 50 miles of Fukushima evacuate. Such evacuations could not be effectively conducted in the U.S. under current emergency planning regulations. We need to be better prepared and we can’t rely on favorable wind patterns to protect the American people."

Dominique French, who is leading NIRS’ campaign to improve emergency response planning, added, "The NRC has relied primarily on the 1979 Three Mile Island accident and subsequent computerized accident simulations to support its emergency planning rules. But first at Chernobyl in 1986, and now at Fukushima, the real world has trumped any possible simulation. The fact is that far too many Americans live near nuclear reactors, but outside existing emergency planning zones. Based on real-life experience, these people need better protection."

"There is no invisible lead curtain surrounding nuclear power plants. We need to incorporate lessons learned from previous nuclear disasters. At the very least, we should stop pretending that emergency evacuation zones of 10 miles are adequate, and expand planning to include residents living within 50 miles of a nuclear power plant," said Eric Epstein of Three Mile Island Alert in Pennsylvania. "On Friday, March 30, 1979–while school was in session–Governor Thornburgh recommended a ‘precautionary evacuation’ for preschool children and pregnant women living within five miles of Three Mile Island. The targeted population was estimated at 5,000, but more than 144,000 central Pennsylvanians from 50 miles away fled the area–further proof that a radiological disaster is not a controlled field trip."

"Indian Point, 24 miles from New York City, sits at the epicenter of the most demographically dense area of any nuclear reactor in the nation. Even under normal conditions, traffic is congested and regional infrastructure is highly stressed. During the severe snow, rain and wind storms of the past few years, large swaths of the region have been brought to a near standstill. And yet the NRC ignores all these realities, preferring to play with its computer models. This is a dangerous game," said Michel Lee, Steering Committee, Indian Point Safe Energy Coalition.

"In lieu of the recent activities around nuclear plants both in the United States and in Japan it had become obvious that a new Emergency Planning Zones be implemented. The Shell Bluff Community is asking that the NRC establish new guidelines that would expand the radius to protect the citizens that are in arms ways of these facilities. After all Japan is still experiencing unfolding occurrences that are taking place outside of their projected protected zone. The United States must move to protect her citizens who are in these dangerous pathways," said Charles N. Utley, community organizer for the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League.

"Pacific Gas and Electric Company’s Diablo Canyon nuclear plant is seen as a poster child by the nuclear industry: it is in a "low population zone", and not visible from any roads. However, families and businesses downwind from the nuclear plant and waste storage site do not consider themselves expendable, nor does invisibility negate the threat from two reactors and the radioactive wastes accumulated since 1984 that are stored on a site surrounded by 13 earthquake faults," said Jane Swanson of California’s Mothers for Peace.

"Emergency plans of local and state government advise residents that in the event of a radiological release from Diablo Canyon nuclear plant there are two choices, depending on which way the winds blow: get in our cars in an attempt to evacuate, or "shelter in place". The former leads to congested traffic on the one freeway serving the central coast of California (Highway 101) as well-founded worries of families overload the freeway and bring it to a halt. Sheltering means using masking tape around doors and windows and turning off all air intakes into our homes for an unspecified time, in the hope that the emergency lasts only a few days rather than the many months as at Fukushima. Emergency plans need to be made effective. If this is not possible, then nuclear plants need to be shut down. Human lives cannot be traded for kilowatt hours," added Swanson.

A third of the population in the U.S., or roughly 120 million people, lives within a 50 mile radius of a nuclear reactor. Current emergency planning rules require utilities to develop and exercise emergency evacuation plans within a 10 mile radius around reactors. The "ingestion pathway" currently consists of an area about 50 miles in radius and focuses on actions appropriate to protect the food ingestion pathway.

At Fukushima, and earlier at Chernobyl, interdiction of contaminated food and liquids has occurred further than 100 miles from the accident sites.

Japan is already acting to improve its emergency response capability, in the event nuclear reactors ever are allowed to operate there again. Prior to the disaster at Fukushima, the emergency planning zones for nuclear emergencies in Japan was between 8-10 kilometers (5-6 miles). The zone is now being expanded to 30 kilometers (18 miles). The actual Fukushima evacuation zone was a 20 kilometer (12 mile) radius around the site, although areas to the northwest, where the heaviest radiation on land was measured, were evacuated more than 25 miles away.

The initial co-petitioners are: Nuclear Information and Resource Service (national and lead author), Bellefonte Efficiency and Sustainability Team (TN), Beyond Nuclear (national), Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League (Southeast), Citizens Action Coalition (IN), Citizen Power (PA), Citizens Awareness Network (Northeast), Citizens Within a 10-Mile Radius (MA), Citizens Environmental Coalition (NY), Coalition for a Nuclear Free Great Lakes (Great Lakes), Concerned Citizens of Shell Bluff (GA), Connecticut Coalition Against Millstone, Council on Intelligent Energy and Conservation Policy (NY), Don’t Waste Arizona, Don’t Waste Michigan, The Ecology Party of Florida, Empire State Consumer Project Inc. (NY), Grandmothers, Mothers, and More for Energy Safety (GRAMMES) (NJ), Greenpeace (national), Indian Point Safe Energy Coalition (NY), Jersey Shore Nuclear Watch (NJ), Missourians for Safe Energy, New England Coalition, Nuclear Energy Information Service (IL), NC WARN, (NC), Northwest Environmental Advocates (OR), Not On Our Fault Line (VA), People’s Alliance for Clean Energy (VA), Promoting Health and Sustainable Energy (PHASE) (NY), Public Citizen Energy Program (national), San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace (CA), SEED Coalition (TX), Sierra Club of South Carolina, Three Mile Island Alert (PA), Tri-Valley CARE (CA), Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah (HEAL Utah), Vermont Public Interest Research Group, We The People Inc. (TN).

The full text of the petition is available here: http://www.nirs.org/reactorwatch/emergency/petitionforrulemaking22012.pdf

–30–

February 12,2012
The Mainichi Daily News

(Mainichi Japan)

Restaurant operator Hiromi Sato, third from left, speaks to the camera during filming for a new documentary. She says she was unable to leave an area in Fukushima close to the crippled nuclear plant because she kept two dogs there.

Director Hidetaka Inazuka, known for his documentary on the late double atomic bomb survivor Tsutomu Yamaguchi, has turned his attention toward Fukushima Prefecture, covering the prefecture in a new film on people exposed to radiation from the crippled Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant.

The 61-year-old filmmaker’s new work is titled "Fukushima 2011: Hibaku ni Sarasareta Hitobito no Kiroku" (Fukushima 2011: Records of people exposed to radiation). It follows survivors of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki who are now living in Fukushima, as well as the people facing radioactive contamination of their hometowns. The film is due to be screened across Japan from mid-March. It will also be shown at the Los Angeles Japanese Film Festival in April.

One subject of the new documentary is a man in his 80s who survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima at an army barracks in the city.

"Even when there were explosions at the nuclear power plant I didn’t feel scared. I’ve been hit by a bombing before, and it’s 30 kilometers (from my place to the nuclear plant)," he says.

After the war, the man took up dairy farming, but the nuclear disaster triggered by the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami forced him to abandon his business.

"I had 46 cows, but I sold them off for 800,000 yen. I can get by for a year or two, but there’s no telling what’s in store after that. I think about my children and grandchildren every day," he tells the camera.

In April last year, Inazuka visited the United States for a screening of his documentary "Twice Bombed: A Legacy of Yamaguchi Tsutomu." The film traces Yamaguchi’s activities speaking about surviving the atomic bombings of both Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Yamaguchi died in 2010 at the age of 93. The documentary was well received in the United States, but after the outbreak of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, Japanese people in the U.S. complained that the effects of radiation were not being properly communicated in Japan.

Hearing such complaints, Inazuka recalled the words of Yamaguchi: "The world in which people live must be nuclear-free. We can’t prevent (nuclear) accidents with current technology. If we don’t become nuclear-free, the downfall of mankind will draw closer."

In May last year, Inazuka visited Fukushima Prefecture, and he focused his camera on the people in the municipality of Iitate before the whole village was evacuated, as well as on people in the city of Soma and other areas where many were killed by the March 11, 2011 tsunami. The film covers people’s efforts to restore and revitalize their hometowns, where bonds between families and communities have been severed as a result of the disaster.

Included in the film is 69-year-old Hiromi Sato, a restaurant operator in the city of Minamisoma.

"My neighbors starting leaving, and everyone sent me emails saying ‘get out of there’ so I started to get scared," she says. "But I didn’t want to live in a shelter." She reopened her restaurant after the "Golden Week" string of public holidays in May 2011.

"There are various circumstances among the people who stay, those who leave, and those who return," Inazuka says. "I want to cover the people who are confronting the issues of life wholeheartedly."

Fort Worth Is the 10th Largest City in the Country with Water Supplies at Risk

News Release
For Immediate Release
Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Environment Texas

AUSTIN – The drinking water for 1.2 million people in Texas could be at risk of radioactive contamination from a leak or accident at a local nuclear power plant, says a new study released today by Environment Texas Research and Policy Center and the Texas Public Interest Research Group (TexPIRG). See map here, key below.

"The danger of nuclear power is too close to home. Here in Texas, the drinking water for 1.2 million people is too close to an active nuclear power plant," said Luke Metzger, Director of Environment Texas. "An accident like the one in Fukushima, Japan or a leak could spew cancer-causing radioactive waste into our drinking water."

The nuclear meltdown in Fukushima, Japan last year drew a spotlight on the many risks associated with nuclear power. After the disaster, airborne radiation left areas around the plant uninhabitable, and even contaminated drinking water sources near Tokyo, 130 miles from the plant.

According to the new report, Too Close to Home: Nuclear Power and the Threat to Drinking Water, the drinking water for 1.2 million people in Texas is within 50 miles of an active nuclear power plant – the distance the Nuclear Regulatory Commission uses to measure risk to food and water supplies. With an intake within 50 miles of the Comanche Peak nuclear plant, the city of Fort Worth ranked 10th in the nation for cities with water supplies at risk.

Radiation from a disaster like the one in Fukushima can contaminate drinking water and food supplies, as well as harm our health. But disaster or no disaster, a common leak at a nuclear power plant can also threaten the drinking water for millions of people. As our nuclear facilities get older, leaks are more common. In fact, 75 percent of U.S. nuclear plants have leaked tritium, a radioactive form of hydrogen that can cause cancer and genetic defects.

Local bodies of water also play a critical role in cooling nuclear reactors and are at risk of contamination. In the case of the Fukushima meltdown, large quantities of seawater were pumped into the plant to cool it, and contaminated seawater then leaked and was dumped back into the ocean, carrying radioactivity from the plant with it. The Colorado River provides cooling water for the South Texas Project in Texas and could be at risk.

"With nuclear power, there’s too much at risk and the dangers are too close to home. Texans shouldn’t have to worry about getting cancer from drinking a glass of water," said Melissa Cubria, Advocate for TexPIRG.

The report recommends that the United States moves to a future without nuclear power by retiring existing plants, abandoning plans for new plants, and expanding energy efficiency and the production clean, renewable energy such as wind and solar power.

In order to reduce the risks nuclear power poses to water supplies immediately, the report recommends completing a thorough safety review of U.S. nuclear power plants, requiring plant operators to implement recommended changes immediately and requiring nuclear plant operators to implement regular groundwater tests in order to catch tritium leaks, among other actions.

"Our drinking water is too important to risk radiation contamination," said Karen Hadden, Executive Director of the Sustainable Energy and Economic Development Coalition. "Texas should immediately abandon plans to expand the Comanche Peak and Glen Rose nuclear plants".

Luminant has proposed building two new reactors at the Comanche Peak plant in Glen, Rose, Texas and NRG Energy has proposed building two new reactors at the South Texas Project in Bay City, Texas.

"There are far cleaner, cheaper, and less-risky ways to get our energy," concluded state Representative Lon Burnam of Fort Worth. "Texas and the United States should move away from nuclear power immediately and invest in safer alternatives such as efficiency and wind and solar power."

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The Texas Public Interest Research Group Education Fund is a nonprofit, nonpartisan consumer advocacy group. Follow us online at www.texpirg.org/edfund

Environment Texas Research and Policy Center is a state-wide citizen-based environmental group working for clean air, clean water, and open spaces. www.environmenttexas.org

Contact:

Luke Metzger
512-479-0388

February 9, 2012

By MATTHEW L. WALD
New York Times

WASHINGTON — The Nuclear Regulatory Commission voted 4 to 1 on Thursday to grant a license to build and operate two reactors at a nuclear plant in Georgia, a crucial threshold for an industry that has not had a new start since 1978.

The $14 billion project, of which $4 billion was already spent on steps like digging a foundation and laying water pipes, will be closely watched by utilities around the country, many of which are leery of nuclear construction because of huge cost overruns in the last round of construction in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s.

At the same time, many are intent on seeking an alternative to natural gas, the fossil fuel now dominating construction plans.

The Southern Company is adding the two reactors to its Alvin W. Vogtle nuclear plant near Augusta, in tandem with several partners that serve municipal utilities or electric cooperatives.

"It is a landmark, landmark achievement," said Paul Bowers, president of Georgia Power, the Southern subsidiary that is building the plant. The company applied for the license four years ago under a new system meant to reduce the expense and uncertainty of construction. Still, only one other project, a twin-unit plant in South Carolina, seems likely to be built soon.

Read more at the New York Times website…

December 5, 2011

Helen Caldicott
New York Times OpEd

The nuclear power industry has been resurrected over the past decade by a lobbying campaign that has left many people believing it to be a clean, green, emission-free alternative to fossil fuels. These beliefs pose an extraordinary threat to global public health and encourage a major financial drain on national economies and taxpayers. The commitment to nuclear power as an environmentally safe energy source has also stifled the mass development of alternative technologies that are far cheaper, safer and almost emission free — the future for global energy.

When the Fukushima Daiichi reactors suffered meltdowns in March, literally in the backyard of an unsuspecting public, the stark reality that the risks of nuclear power far outweigh any benefits should have become clear to the world. As the old quip states, "Nuclear power is one hell of a way to boil water."

Instead, the nuclear industry has used the disaster to increase its already extensive lobbying efforts. A few nations vowed to phase out nuclear energy after the disaster. But many others have remained steadfast in their commitment. That has left millions of innocent people unaware that they — all of us — may face a medical catastrophe beyond all proportions in the wake of Fukushima and through the continued widespread use of nuclear energy.

The world was warned of the dangers of nuclear accidents 25 years ago, when Chernobyl exploded and lofted radioactive poisons into the atmosphere. Those poisons "rained out," creating hot spots over the Northern Hemisphere. Research by scientists in Eastern Europe, collected and published by the New York Academy of Sciences, estimates that 40 percent of the European land mass is now contaminated with cesium 137 and other radioactive poisons that will concentrate in food for hundreds to thousands of years. Wide areas of Asia — from Turkey to China — the United Arab Emirates, North Africa and North America are also contaminated. Nearly 200 million people remain exposed.

That research estimated that by now close to 1 million people have died of causes linked to the Chernobyl disaster. They perished from cancers, congenital deformities, immune deficiencies, infections, cardiovascular diseases, endocrine abnormalities and radiation-induced factors that increased infant mortality. Studies in Belarus found that in 2000, 14 years after the Chernobyl disaster, fewer than 20 percent of children were considered "practically healthy," compared to 90 percent before Chernobyl. Now, Fukushima has been called the second-worst nuclear disaster after Chernobyl. Much is still uncertain about the long-term consequences. Fukushima may well be on par with or even far exceed Chernobyl in terms of the effects on public health, as new information becomes available. The crisis is ongoing; the plant remains unstable and radiation emissions continue into the air and water.

Recent monitoring by citizens groups, international organizations and the U.S. government have found dangerous hot spots in Tokyo and other areas. The Japanese government, meanwhile, in late September lifted evacuation advisories for some areas near the damaged plant — even though high levels of radiation remained. The government estimated that it will spend at least $13 billion to clean up contamination.

Many thousands of people continue to inhabit areas that are highly contaminated, particularly northwest of Fukushima. Radioactive elements have been deposited throughout northern Japan, found in tap water in Tokyo and concentrated in tea, beef, rice and other food. In one of the few studies on human contamination in the months following the accident, over half of the more than 1,000 children whose thyroids were monitored in Fukushima City were found to be contaminated with iodine 131 — condemning many to thyroid cancer years from now.

Children are innately sensitive to the carcinogenic effects of radiation, fetuses even more so. Like Chernobyl, the accident at Fukushima is of global proportions. Unusual levels of radiation have been discovered in British Columbia, along the West Coast and East Coast of the United States and in Europe, and heavy contamination has been found in oceanic waters.

Fukushima is classified as a grade 7 accident on the International Atomic Energy Agency scale — denoting "widespread health and environmental effects." That is the same severity as Chernobyl, the only other grade 7 accident in history, but there is no higher number on the agency’s scale.

After the accident, lobbying groups touted improved safety at nuclear installations globally. In Japan, the Tokyo Electric Power Co. — which operates the Fukushima Daiichi reactors — and the government have sought to control the reporting of negative stories via telecom companies and Internet service providers.

In Britain, The Guardian reported that days after the tsunami, companies with interests in nuclear power — Areva, EDF Energy and Westinghouse — worked with the government to downplay the accident, fearing setbacks on plans for new nuclear power plants.

Nuclear power has always been the nefarious Trojan horse for the weapons industry, and effective publicity campaigns are a hallmark of both industries. The concept of nuclear electricity was conceived in the early 1950s as a way to make the public more comfortable with the U.S. development of nuclear weapons. "The atomic bomb will be accepted far more readily if at the same time atomic energy is being used for constructive ends," a consultant to the Defense Department Psychological Strategy Board, Stefan Possony, suggested. The phrase "Atoms for Peace" was popularized by President Dwight Eisenhower in the early 1950s.

Nuclear power and nuclear weapons are one and the same technology. A 1,000 megawatt nuclear reactor generates 600 pounds or so of plutonium per year: An atomic bomb requires a fraction of that amount for fuel, and plutonium remains radioactive for 250,000 years. Therefore every country with a nuclear power plant also has a bomb factory with unlimited potential.The nuclear power industry sets an unforgivable precedent by exporting nuclear technology — bomb factories — to dozens of non-nuclear nations.

Why is nuclear power still viable, after we’ve witnessed catastrophic accidents, enormous financial outlays, weapons proliferation and nuclear-waste induced epidemics of cancers and genetic disease for generations to come? Simply put, many government and other officials believe the nuclear industry mantra: safe, clean and green. And the public is not educated on the issue.

There are some signs of change. Germany will phase out nuclear power by 2022. Italy and Switzerland have decided against it, and anti-nuclear advocates in Japan have gained traction. China remains cautious on nuclear power. Yet the nuclear enthusiasm of the U.S., Britain, Russia and Canada continues unabated. The industry, meanwhile, has promoted new modular and "advanced" reactors as better alternatives to traditional reactors. They are, however, subject to the very same risks — accidents, terrorist attacks, human error — as the traditional reactors. Many also create fissile material for bombs as well as the legacy of radioactive waste.

True green, clean, nearly emission-free solutions exist for providing energy. They lie in a combination of conservation and renewable energy sources, mainly wind, solar and geothermal, hydropower plants, and biomass from algae. A smart-grid could integrate consuming and producing devices, allowing flexible operation of household appliances. The problem of intermittent power can be solved by storing energy using available technologies.

Millions of jobs can be created by replacing nuclear power with nationally integrated, renewable energy systems. In the U.S. alone, the project could be paid for by the $180 billion currently allocated for nuclear weapons programs over the next decade. There would be no need for new weapons if the Russian and U.S. nuclear arsenals — 95 percent of the estimated 20,500 nuclear weapons globally — were abolished.

Nuclear advocates often paint those who oppose them as Luddites who are afraid of, or don’t understand, technology, or as hysterics who exaggerate the dangers of nuclear power.

One might recall the sustained attack over many decades by the tobacco industry upon the medical profession, a profession that revealed the grave health dangers induced by smoking.

Smoking, broadly speaking, only kills the smoker. Nuclear power bequeaths morbidity and mortality — epidemics of disease — to all future generations.

The millions of lives lost to smoking in the era before the health risks of cigarettes were widely exposed will be minuscule compared to the medical catastrophe we face through the continued use of nuclear power.

Let’s use this extraordinary moment to convince governments and others to move toward a nuclear-free world. Let’s prove that informed democracies will behave in a responsible fashion.

Originally published in the New York Times, 2 Dec 2011

Helen Caldicott, a pediatrician, is founding president of Physicians for Social Responsibility. A native of Australia, she left her Harvard Medical School post in 1980 to work full-time on anti-nuclear education.