uranium
Spent Nuclear Fuel Pool LeakedBy GARY LIBOW
Courant Staff Writer
November 3 2005
HADDAM -- Radioactive water from the decommissioned Connecticut Yankee nuclear plant's spent fuel pool once leaked into the surrounding soil, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission reported Wednesday.
The contamination appears to have remained on-site, and public health and safety is not endangered, both the NRC and Connecticut Yankee stress.
Workers decommissioning the plant Monday discovered hairline cracks in the 6-foot thick concrete walls containing the spent fuel pool, NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said.
But those cracks may not have been the reason for the contamination. Instead, it appears an unknown quantity of contaminated water seeped through seams in the concrete into a small area of soil, according to Connecticut Yankee officials.
"[Contamination] is confined to a very small area on-site," Connecticut Yankee spokeswoman Kelley Smith said. "We are still investigating."
The spent fuel pool housed the nuclear plant's highly radioactive uranium pellets for decades. The rods and radioactive metals have been removed from the pool, but the water remains.
The Haddam Neck plant, which permanently shut down in 1996, produced 110 billion kilowatt hours of electricity over 28 years.
In reporting the discovery to the NRC, Connecticut Yankee stated that while the quantity of water leaked is unknown, a review of historic data indicates the it was "on the order of a few gallons per day."
Connecticut Yankee informed the NRC the leakage was discovered when workers removed soil east of the spent fuel building.
Based on readings from monitoring wells, there was no travel of tainted water beyond the plant's property line, the company told the federal agency. Connecticut Yankee also notified the state Department of Environmental Protection there appeared to be no contamination beyond the company's property line.
The NRC's Sheehan said evidence of the leakage consisted of the hairline cracks and the accumulation of a white powder around the cracks.
Sheehan said the spent fuel pool contains a stainless steel liner with a leak-detection system, and Connecticut Yankee has stated that the system has detected no significant leaks during the plant's operation or since.
Smith said the company, in the midst of decommissioning, does not think the hairline cracks traverse through the thick concrete walls.
"It does not appear that any water seeped through the hairline cracks. It may possibly have seeped through the concrete construction seams," Smith said.
"[Contamination] is confined to a very small area on-site," Smith said, noting it may be impossible to determine when the leak occurred.
Connecticut Yankee's investigation, to date, includes excavation of a 10- by 30-foot area as part of its investigation.
Smith states that cesium, a by-product of nuclear plant operation, has been found underground in a 4- by 4-foot area of soil east of the spent fuel pool building. That localized contamination has been remediated, she said.
First Selectman Tony Bondi said neither Connecticut Yankee nor the NRC had informed him of the discovery.
"My God, it really surprises me something this egregious can happen," Bondi said. "We need to determine the extent of the leakage and the consequences of it."
Local resident Sal Mangiagli, an anti-nuclear activist, also wants assurances Connecticut Yankee will test extensively to determine the scope of contamination.
"It's really disheartening to think they had a leaking spent fuel pool," said Mangiagli, a member of Citizens Awareness Network.
"A couple of gallons, if it was really radioactive, is a lot. And if it was going on day after day, it's disturbing," he said.
Copyright 2005, Hartford Courant
DEP Switching To ‘Clean Energy'
State agency signs up to receive electricity from renewable resources
By JUDY BENSON
Health/Science/Environment Reporter
Published in The Day on 11/3/2005
Starting today, turning on the lights at Department of Environmental Protection offices around the state will be the agency's way of making a statement.
“The DEP has made the clean energy choice, and that, I think, makes us the first state agency to do so,” said Commissioner Gina McCarthy during a news conference Wednesday. “I hope other agencies will take the hint and follow our lead.”
McCarthy announced that the DEP has signed up to receive all its electrical power from so-called “clean” renewable sources — those that don't burn fossil fuels that contribute to climate change, air pollution and the country's dependence on foreign energy supplies. “Clean” energy is derived from sources such as wind turbines, hydroelectric generators, solar panels, fuel cells and methane captured from landfills.
“The DEP is all about protecting the environment and protecting human health,” McCarthy said. “This reflects the agency's core values and reflects our mission and our individual values.”
The DEP's action has been a choice available to residents, institutions and businesses since April, when the two power distribution companies that serve the state, Northeast Utilities and United Illuminating, began offering Connecticut customers the option of receiving their power from alternative sources. Both companies transmit power generated through the New England Energy Grid, which is supplied by a variety of sources including two that produce “clean” energy, Sterling Planet of Norcross, Ga., and Community Energy of New York City.
Community Energy derives the power it sends to the New England grid from wind farms in Atlantic City, N.J., and in Pennsylvania. Sterling uses methane gas from landfills in Pennsylvania, Maryland and New Jersey to produce power, and also purchases power from a small hydroelectric plant on the Quinebaug River in Jewett City, said Robert Maddox, northeast regional manager for the company.
The Griswold plant, Summit Hydropower, produces enough power for about 2,800 households, said Duncan Broatch, company president. He purchased the plant in 1997 from Wyre Wynd, a wire manufacturer located next door that had used it to generate its own power.
“There are many advantages to using hydroelectric power,” Broatch said. “It reduces pollution, it stimulates the local economy, and it's much better to be spending our money locally than sending it to Saudi Arabia.”
Maddox said that as the demand for clean energy grows, companies like his and Community Energy will generate more power by re-activating dormant hydroelectric plants, adding more wind turbines and constructing other types of “clean” energy production equipment.
“As more people sign up, we'll bring more on line,” he said.
Thus far 5,500 Connecticut residents have signed up for the clean energy option, McCarthy noted, along with 16 municipalities and institutions such as Wesleyan University. Making that choice raises the electric bill for the average household by about $7 per month, according to Brian Keane, president of SmartPower, a Hartford-based nonprofit group promoting expansion of clean energy usage and markets. Oftentimes using energy more efficiently and eliminating waste can cancel out the increase, he added.
When an individual or agency such as the DEP signs up for the clean energy option, the New England grid purchases an equivalent amount of power from generators that use renewable sources.
“We consider this to be an investment in our future,” McCarthy said. “What are the costs of maintaining our dependence” on fossil fuels?
McCarthy said the DEP began its clean energy initiative by first increasing its energy efficiency. It currently uses about 7.6 million kilowatts of electricity yearly, at a cost of $1.2 million. The move to clean energy, she said, will add about $125,000 annually to that bill.
The agency worked closely with the Office of Policy and Management to make the switch at the least cost possible, said John Mengacci, undersecretary of OPM.
“This is the first of many steps OPM plans on taking” to help other agencies follow the DEP's example, Mengacci said.
McCarthy said that the DEP's decision will have a significant impact. It will reduce emissions of greenhouse gases by about 3,716 tons per year, or the equivalent of taking 730 cars off the road.
“We can make smart choices,” she said.
www.gocleanenergy.com
www.ctcleanenergy.com
www.SmartPower.org
www.sterlingplantet.com
www.newwindenergy.com
© The Day Publishing Co., 2005
We pause to mourn the passing of our friend and colleague, Dr. Jay M. Gould.
In the course of human history, societies are occasionally blessed with the appearance of noble truthtellers who risk personal disdain to cut through lies and deception of profiteers and government lackeys. In time, they are revered for their prescience.
Jay Gould was one of these.
For two decades, Dr. Gould exposed the legacy of lies of the nuclear and defense industries. He established through epidemiological research that low levels of radiation from nuclear reactors are far more dangerous than commonly believed and are quietly poisoning humanity.
In 1990, Dr. Gould published "Deadly Deceit: Low-Level Radiation, High-Level Cover-Up.” In it, he used government and nuclear industry records to argue that health officials had manipulated data to hide the fact that radiation from atom bomb tests and nuclear power plants kills. He also published “The Enemy Within “ and many scientific papers.
Dr. Gould exposed the high levels of radiological emissions from the Millstone Nuclear Power Station and evaluated official health records to conclude that Millstone is a silent killer. Speaking at the “Mothball Millstone” concert at the Garde Arts Center in 1998, Dr. Gould implored the community to close Millstone and end its legacy of death and disease.
Writing in The Nation in 1993, Dr. Gould was among the first to voice the conclusion, now widely accepted, that Soviet lies and deceptions, concocted to cover up the truth of the devastation wrought by the Chernobyl nuclear explosion in 1986, triggered massive public outrage that led to the sudden break-up of the Soviet Union. Tourist guides to the former Soviet republic of the Ukraine now record this cause-and-effect relation as undoubted fact.
Dr. Gould was vindicated this past June when the conservative National Academy of Sciences, in its BEIR VII Report, concluded that exposure to low levels of ionizing radiation was far more dangerous than the government had previously acknowledged. The effects are cumulative and far more severe for women and children.
From the beginning of the Atomic Age, Dr. Gould wrote, the makers of atomic weapons knew of the lethal effects on the immune system from ingesting manmade nuclear fission products. They knew The Bomb was a biological weapon. As an alternative to The Bomb, they considered dumping strontium-90 on populations because they knew the radioactive strontium would enter the food chain and ultimately be deposited in human bone and kill or harm its recipients in large numbers. Because strontium-90 mimics calcium, it is readily absorbed by the human body. It causes bone and lymph cancers and leukemia.
Today, Millstone routinely poisons us with radioactive strontium-90, which it releases into the air and water. Millstone’s radioactive strontium-90 is in the air you breathe and the milk and vegetables you eat. If your children play outside where Millstone fallout has deposited strontium-90, they are at risk.
In 1985, Dr. Gould founded the Radiation and Public Health Project. The organization is best known for its "Tooth Fairy Project," which measures levels of strontium-90 in baby teeth to determine relative levels in children living near nuclear power plants. Since 2001, the group has released findings showing a high correlation between levels of strontium-90 found in baby teeth of children living near nuclear reactors and cancer incidences.
Dr. Gould appealed to humanists to end all forms of nuclear emissions released into the environment.
Help us honor Dr. Gould and his legacy. If you are a parent of a child living near Millstone, PLEASE preserve your child’s baby teeth and send them to the Radiation and Public Health Project. Go to www.radiation.org for details.
10 Good Reasons to Close Millstone
1. We Don’t Need Millstone Megawatts
Go to the State of Connecticut Siting Council website, Read the numbers. Subtract Millstone megawatts. What’s left: excess electricity. Think: conservation, solar, wind, green, clean, renewable energy.
2. Millstone Kills
Millstone has made southeastern Connecticut the Cancer Capital of Connecticut. Women and children are most vulnerable.
3. Millstone Kills
Millstone kills its own workers who die from leukemia, lung cancer, brain cancer and other diseases directly traceable to their exposures to radiation.
4. Millstone Kills
Millstone routinely kills billions of marinelife through suction at the intakes.
5. Dominion Lies
Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, Inc. was set up as a paper company without assets to purchase Millstone from Northeast Utilities in 2001. Dominion promised to run Millstone safely. Dominion operates Millstone ruthlessly for profit, putting people last.
6. The NRC Lies
When Millstone Unit 3 tripped from 100 per cent power to zero power in less than a second on April 17, 2005 and spewed steam for 10 hours during a Class II emergency, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said the steam was clean. The NRC waited for a month to go by before they told the truth: the steam was very, very dirty. It contained “unusual” levels of tritium. Krypton and xenon, all of which are known carcinogens.
7. Connecticut Is Still Corrupticut
The Rowland legacy of corruption in public office rules. How else to explain why Millstone is allowed to operate under a Clean Water Act permit, issued by the state Department of Environmental Protection, when the permit expired in 1997. How else to explain why DEP “transferred” the expired permit from NU to Dominion in 2001. How else to explain why neither Governor Jodi Rell, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, the state legislature’s Public Health Committee, the state legislature’s Environmental Committee, State Senator Andrea Stillman who heads the Environmental Committee and sits on the Public Health Committee and lives in Millstone’s backyard, nor DEP Commissioner Gina McCarthy will take the time to meet Zachary Hartley and understand why he was born with life-threatening cancer. How else to explain why DEP has never opposed a license amendment proposed by Millstone to relax safety requirements and remove barriers designed to protect the public health and safety.
8. Let’s Close Millstone Before a Terrorist Beats Us to It.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has named Millstone as Connecticut’s #1 terrorist target. Millstone is vulnerable to terrorism at its intake structures, its offsite power supply and it cannot be protected from an airborne attack by evil people determined to destroy America. A successful terrorist event at Millstone would destroy America.
9. Millstone Is an Accident Waiting to Happen
A “tin whisker” one-third the thickness of a human hair caused an electric short on April 17, 2005 at Millstone Unit 3. The tin whisker tripped the plant, triggering a Class II (on a scale of 4) emergency. The NRC allowed Dominion to restart Unit 3 two weeks later even though it knew that Unit 3's circuitry had other tin whisker defects. The NRC’s justification? Dominion dedclined to expend the $$$ to replace the circuit boards.
10. Let’s Close Millstone For Zachary
Millstone is a criminal enterprise. It is a silent killer. Our government covers up the crimes.
SHUT IT DOWN!
Here in Connecticut we have a unique opportunity to save the Climate Stewardship Act, the most promising federal legislation to stop global warming. This bill by Senator Lieberman and Senator McCain would set firm national limits on the majority of global warming pollution sources.
Unfortunately, recent news reports indicate that Senator John McCain and Senator Lieberman are considering including support for huge federal subsidies to the nuclear industry to build a new generation of dangerous nuclear power plants. Nuclear power plants are prime terrorist targets that generate tons of deadly radioactive waste annually. The federal government should be pumping the money into safe, green, renewable energy sources, not new nukes.
Take Action, call Senator Lieberman's office TODAY:
Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman's support is crucial to keeping nuclear power out of the bill. Environmental groups across the nation are counting on us as this bill could be radically changed to support nuclear energy as soon as this week. We need you to call Senator Lieberman as soon as possible, before we lose our last chance to have a global warming bill without nuclear power.
See below for a sample phone message and for details.
Senator Lieberman's DC office: (202) 224-4041
The Climate Stewardship Act- the only real global warming legislation in Washington
Senator McCain and Senator Lieberman created the Climate Stewardship Act which would set a national limit on greenhouse gas pollution.
This is the only viable federal legislation to stop global warming, and has broad support from the environmental community.
In 2003 this bill surprised everyone when it got 43 votes in the Senate, putting it within reach of passage and Senator McCain has vowed to reintroduce the bill until it passes.
In a bombshell, this Sunday the New York Times reported that in an attempt to win over Senators with ties to the nuclear industry, Senator McCain is attempting to add explicit support for nuclear power to this bill.
The urgency:
As early as this Thursday - May 19 - the Climate Stewardship Act could be changed to support nuclear power and once it is changed it sets a very strong negative precedent that any national action on global warming will have to support nuclear power.
If Senator Lieberman's makes this concession he will be lose support from the environmental community as public health and environmental groups like the Connecticut Coalition Against Millstone will oppose any bill with subsidies for nuclear power plants. Global warming is bigger than all of us so we need to work together.
Take Action, call Senator Lieberman's office TODAY:
Please take a minute to call Senator Lieberman's DC office on Wednesday, 5/18 and leave a message that nuclear power is not acceptable to you and should not be part of any global warming initiative.
Senator Lieberman's DC office: (202) 224-4041
Here is a sample message:
Please give your name, your address and town and ask to leave a message for Senator Lieberman.
I am very concerned about the effects of global warming on Connecticut. I support strong action by Congress to reduce our greenhouse gas pollution. However, I do not want any support or subsidies for nuclear power and ask Senator Lieberman to keep it out of the Climate Stewardship Act. We should not trade one form of pollution for another, especially given the costs and dangers of nuclear energy.
** Please mention why you are personally concerned about global warming (rising sea levels, air pollution from fossil fuels, etc) and why you are concerned about nuclear power (risk of accident/terrorist attack, lack of a facility to dispose of radioactive waste, contamination of the Long Island Sound with radioactive and chemical waste discharges, health risks from routine releases of radiation, etc.) **MOTHER'S DAY PROCLAMATION
Julia Ward Howe
27 May 1819
Arise, then, women of this day!
Arise all women who have hearts, whether your baptism be that of water or of fears!
Say firmly: "We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies,
"Our husbands shall not come to us reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause.
"Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy, and patience.
"We women of one country will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."
From the bosom of the devasted earth a voice goes up with our own. It says, "Disarm, Disarm!"
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice! Blood does not wipe out dishonor nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as the means whereby the great human family can live in peace,
And each bearing after her own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar, but of God.
Subject:
Correspondence From Senator Lieberman
From:
correspondence-email@lieberman.senate.gov
Date:
Wed, 27 Apr 2005 09:36:28 -0400
To:
<nancyburtonesq@aol.com>April 27, 2005
Ms. Nancy Burton
147 Cross Highway
Redding Ridge, CT 06876
Dear Ms. Burton:
Thank you for contacting me regarding Ukraine President Victor
Yuschenko's request to fund a sarcophagus at the Chernobyl site. I
appreciate the time you took to share your thoughts on this important
issue, and I welcome the opportunity to respond.
As you may know, a massive concrete sarcophagus was constructed around
the damaged Number 4 Reactor. This structure encases the damaged nuclear
reactor and was designed to halt the release of further radiation into the
atmosphere. However, the sarcophagus is now cracking and leaking
radiation into the environment. By some estimates holes and fissures in
the structure cover 1,000 square meters. These cracks and holes are
exacerbated by the intense heat inside the reactor which is still over 200
degrees Celsius. According to the United Nation's appointed Steering
Committee, scientists agree that this sarcophagus will collapse.
An Act providing Emergency Supplemental Appropriations for Defense,
Global War on Terror, and Tsunami Relief (H.R. 1268), which recently
passed the Senate with amendments by unanimous support will now go to a
conference committee where members of the House of Representatives and
Senate will negotiate a final version of this bill. Contained within HR
1268 is a $5 million provision to initiate the Chernobyl Research and
Service Project to support the study of radiation effects during the
Chernobyl Shelter Implementation Plan within the Office of Environmental
Safety and Health.
My official Senate web site is designed to be an on-line office that
provides access to constituent services, Connecticut-specific information,
and an abundance of information about what I am working on in the Senate
on behalf of Connecticut and the nation. I am also pleased to let you
know that I have launched an email news update service through my web
site. You can sign up for that service by visiting
http://lieberman.senate.gov and clicking on the "Subscribe Email News
Updates" button at the bottom of the home page. I hope these are
informative and useful.
Thank you again for letting me know your views and concerns. Please
contact me if you have any additional questions or comments about our work
in Congress.
Sincerely,
JIL:rlb
Millstone Unit 3 Emergency – April 17, 2005
....The Millstone Unit 3 nuclear reactor declared a Class Two – on a scale of one to four – emergency and suffered an unplanned shutdown which released unusual levels of radiation into the air on Sunday, April 17.
....The emergency was declared at 8:42 A.M. when the plant went from 100 per cent power to zero power. During the incident, a steam generator safety relief valve lifted as intended but failed to close, causing unusual venting of steam – visible offsite - throughout the day.
....The reactor was declared stable at 7:03 P.M., when the alert was terminated. The reactor was being kept in “hot shutdown” and not producing electricity while the incident was being analyzed, according to the NRC.
....The New London Day newspaper reported that Waterford town officials and representatives from the plant said no radioactive material was released beyond the normal amounts associated with regular plant operations.
....However, The Day also reported that Dominion acknowledged that that “minor radioactive materials” were released from the site during the emergency “but do not pose a threat to the public or to plant workers.”
....A Dominion spokesman said the radiation released during the emergency shutdown was below federally approved standards and could not be detected at the site's boundary, according to The Day report.
....The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission did not deny an unusual release of radiation may have occurred.
....However, an NRC spokesman said that Millstone’s onsite station monitors failed to detect unusual radiation releases during the incident.
....It is not known to what extent unusual radiation releases occurred. Many types of radiation releases are not sampled and are not regulated. As recently as 1997, measurements for strontium-90 releases from the station stack were discontinued, according to Millstone filings with the NRC. The long-range radiation monitor at the station stack was found to be in a degraded condition during a 2004 NRC inspection, and thus it is not known whether long-range releases which may have occurred during the incident would have gone undetected, according to the Connecticut Coalition Against Millstone.
....Millstone Unit 2 has been shut down for a refueling outage since April 8, 2005.
Millstone Unit 3 produces 1,150 megawatts of electricity at full power; Unit 2 produces 870. Unit 1 was permanently shut down in 1996.
....Valve failures have long plagued the Millstone nuclear reactors. NRC inspections in 1004 – the most recent available reports - disclosed continuing valve malfunctions and degraded conditions involving valves at both Units 2 and 3.
April 14, 2005
Donald W. Downes
Chairman
Department of Public Utility Control
10 Franklin Square
New Britain CT 06051
Re: Millstone Nuclear Power Station
Application for Renewed Operating License
Dear Mr. Downes:
.....Your letter to Nils J. Diaz, Chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (“NRC”), has come to our attention. (The letter is not dated. However, a copy made available on the NRC website has hand-written notations as follows: “Letter postmarked 3/7/05” and “RDB received 3/28/05.”)
.....Your letter is seriously uninformed and does a disservice to the people of the State of Connecticut.
.....The letter states in part:
.....“The Department [of Public Utility Control][“DPUC”] believes that Dominion [Nuclear Connecticut, Inc.] is one of the best nuclear plant operators in the country and that it has demonstrated an excellent history of nuclear plant operation and safety.”
.....We herewith submit a compilation of “Degraded Conditions” which we have culled from inspection reports filed by NRC inspectors concerning performance of the Millstone Nuclear Power Station in 2004. The year 2004 was characterized by Dominion’s repeated violations of Technical Specifications – Millstone’s federal licensing requirements – and pervasive cost-costing which exposed the public to heightened risks, malfunctioning equipment and shortcomings on the part of operators such that NRC inspectors questioned their basic familiarity with nuclear reactor system functions. We trust that you will share our grave concern about Millstone’s degrading conditions when you become aware of the facts at issue.
.....We also submit for your information written comments the Coalition presented to the NRC on March 2, 2005 with regard to its draft Environmental Impact Statement on relicensing. That letter addresses extremely high levels of strontium-90 - a potent carcinogen which accumulates in human bones and interferes with biological immune systems - found in goat milk sampled in the years 2001-2003 five miles northeast of Millstone, according to Dominion’s filings with the NRC. The data strongly suggest that Millstone releases excessive levels of strontium-90 to the atmosphere, subjecting the surrounding community – including children who are most vulnerable - to health hazards.
.....We are not aware that the Connecticut Department of Public Utility has met in open session to address Dominion’s accomplishments as a nuclear plant operator nor to consider its “history of nuclear plant operation and safety.”
.....If we are mistaken, please advise when such session occurred and please provide a copy of the minutes of such session......
.....Regardless of whether such a session occurred, please provide all the data, correspondence and documents upon which the DPUC relied to reach the conclusions quoted above. This request is submitted pursuant to the provisions of the Connecticut Freedom of Information Act.
.....We also take issue with your statements regarding the report entitled “Connecticut Energy Plan Framework, 2005” (Independent System Operator-New England)(“ISO-NE”). That report identifies serious bulk power systems in southwestern Connecticut – an area not served by Millstone-generated electricity because of the nature of the present-day grid. To the extent that your letter suggests that Millstone-generated electricity is a source of energy for southwestern Connecticut, it is misleading.
.....We further take issue with your comments concerning the ISO-NE report statement that “New England could face a capacity shortage if there is high demand for electricity beginning in 2006 and continuing into the future.” (Emphasis added.)
.....What your letter to Mr. Diaz fails to note is that portion of the ISO-NE report which identifies Millstone as an existing resource of “major concern.”
.....Indeed the report states as follows:
.....One major concern of ISO New England is the continued viability of existing generating resources and the impact on system and local reliability if any of these resources were to become unavailable. Generating resources can suffer catastrophic failures that lead to prolonged outages or deactivation, or premature deactivation, as Connecticut experienced with certain of its nuclear units [Undoubtedly referring here to the premature shutdowns of Millstone Unit 1 and Connecticut Yankee in 1996 and the forced stationwide shutdown at Millstone from 1996-1998 because of pervasive licensing violations]. . . . Furthermore, existing resources can become less competitive over time as more efficient and more economic resources are added throughout New England leading to attrition of existing units.”
.....If anything, the ISO-NE report implicitly discourages future reliance on Millstone Units 2 and 3 as they age, remain subject to catastrophic failures, encounter age-related defects and become less competitive.
Moreover, we do not believe that the DPUC’s statutorily defined jurisdiction extends to areas outside Connecticut. Within Connecticut, there is presently excess electrical generating capacity which entirely negates the need for Millstone Unit 2’s 870 megawatts and, with modest gestures toward energy conservation, Unit 3’s 1150 megawatts as well. We refer you to the Connecticut Siting Council’s current forecasts of electrical generation.
.....Finally, your letter perpetuates a myth that greenhouse gas emissions from nuclear power plants are negligible. If this were truly the case, Dominion would not be zealously litigating against the Town of Waterford in pursuit of tax exemptions for employing controls of greenhouse gas emissions. You do not take into account the enormous amount of greenhouse gases released during the uranium fuel fabrication process and in numerous applications throughout the nuclear cycle, including projected transportation to deliver spent nuclear waste to distant repositories. The low-level ionizing radiation continuously emitted by Millstone to the air and water is an insidious carcinogen your letter overlooks.
.....Finally, as the National Academy of Science has recently reported, densely stored nuclear waste in spent fuel pools – of which there are three at Millstone – pose a realistic threat of terrorist attack. Elevated spent fuel pools – such as serves Millstone Unit 1 – were identified as being highly vulnerable to terrorist attack. Your letter makes no reference to Millstone’s appeal as a terrorist target, although it has been identified as one by the federal Department of Homeland security. We question how in good conscience you and the DPUC can support relicensing of Millstone Unit 2 – which, as you will recall, the DPUC declared no longer “used and useful” in 1998 because of its staggering array of licensing violations - through the year 2035 and Unit 3 through the year 2045.
.....We encourage you to reconsider your inaccurate comments and address corrections to Chairman Diaz without delay.
.....We encourage you to visit our website, HYPERLINK http://www.mothballmillstone.org www.mothballmillstone.org, to obtain further information about current operations at Millstone.
Sincerely, Nancy Burton
cc: Nils J. Diaz
Encl.
Please respond to:
Nancy Burton
147 Cross Highway
Redding Ridge CT 06876
Tel. 203-938-3952Note: The Downes letter is viewable at the NRC's Website, Adams Accession Number ML050900234.
Read CCAM's March 2, 2005 letter to the NRC about Millstone's unregulated emissions of strontium-90:
March 2, 2005
Chief
Rules and Directives Branch
Division of Administrative Services
Office of Administration
Mailstop T-6D59
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Washington DC 20555-0001
Re: Millstone Nuclear Power Station/Draft Environmental Impact Statement
Dear Sirs:
.....The Connecticut Coalition Against Millstone submits herewith preliminary comments concerning the draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) which the NRC staff has prepared in support of relicensing of Millstone nuclear reactors Units 2 and 3 to extend their terms to the years 2035 and 2045 respectively. .....These comments will be supplemented with a separate filing with attachments.
.....The Coalition strongly opposes Millstone relicensing.
.....The data available to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in its environmental review establishes a clear link between Millstone’s radiological and chemical discharges to the environment and major health effects in the surrounding community.
.....The data reviewed by the NRC is alarming.
The data strongly suggests – and indeed does so almost to a certainty – that Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, Inc. is operating and will continue to operate the Millstone Nuclear Power Station in violation of NRC regulations requiring limiting doses to the public of 15 millirems per year to any organ.
Put another way, the data strongly suggests that Dominion’s Millstone daily operations exceed the permissible dose of radiation to the public and will continue to do so during the proposed relicensing period.
.....Based on Dominion’s own reporting of radiation sampling in the environment, the Coalition believes the available data reviewed by the NRC for the years 2001, 2002 and 2003 prove that routine operations of Millstone are in violation of federal health standards and are illegal.
.....By its own admission, the NRC confined its review of Millstone radiological releases, for Environmental Impact Statement purposes, to the years 2001, 2002 and 2003. (“Radioactive Waste Management Systems and Effluent Control Systems 2.1.4,” DEIS at 2-9) (No explanation is provided in the DEIS as to why the years 1970-2000 and the year 2004 – with the most current data – were excluded from review.)
The Annual Radiological Environmental Operating Report submitted by Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, Inc. to the NRC for the year 2001 – one of the few reports the NRC specifically identified that it had reviewed in its EIS procedure - contains the following information:
.....On September 19, 2001, a concentration of strontium-90 of 55.5 picoCuries per liter (pCi/l) was measured in a sample of goat milk taken from a location 5.5 miles north-northeast of the Millstone Nuclear Power Station. The uncertainty factor reported was plus or minus 5.3 pCi/L.
.....A concentration of 55.5 picoCuries per liter is an “extremely large concentration, close to twice the highest concentration measured in Connecticut pooled milk at the height of nuclear weapons testing in 1963 of 23 pCi/L,” according to a report dated March 1, 2005 by Dr. Ernest J. Sternglass, Professor Emeritus of Radiological Physics at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and an acknowledged pioneer in the field of the effects of low-level ionizing radiation on living cells. The report appears annexed hereto as Exhibit A.
.....Moreover, according to Dr. Sternglass, since the measured value is ten times as large as the measurement uncertainty, “this is an extremely significant result, with an astronomically small chance that it is a statistical fluctuation.”
.....Put into perspective, an individual drinking two eight-ounce glasses of the strontium-90-contaminated goat milk on a daily basis would receive a maximum permissible dose of radiation – under NRC guidelines – within 30 days.
.....This assumes no other radiological contamination of the milk. However, strontium-90 never appears alone in the environment. When the radiological effects of identified concentrations of radionuclides also reported in the same goat milk sample - cesium-134, cesium-137, iodine-131, barium-140 and others – are considered, the effect is even more damaging and far less milk would need to be consumed over fewer days before the maximum permissible radiation doses established by federal law would be exceeded, according to Dr. Sternglass.
.....“The dose to bone or the bone marrow when other fission products are present is some 5 to 6 times greater than from strontium-90 alone, and the Dominion reports for goat milk show significant concentrations of other fission products, such as cesium-137, in significant concentrations,” Dr. Sternglass states in his report, Exhibit A.
.....“Using the NRC NUREG 1.109 dose factor of 0.0172 mrem/pCi/l [millirem] from Table A-5, a mere 2.4 pCi/l daily intake results in the maximum permissible dose to any organ of 15 mrem per year set by NRC guidelines, 23 times the amount measured in a single liter,” according to the Sternglass report.
.....Attached to Dr. Sternglass’ report are measurements, reported to the NRC by Dominion, of strontium-90 in goat milk sampled at locations within 5 miles of Millstone during the years 2001, 2002 and 2003.
The reported samples of measurements show concentrations of 13 to 14 pCi/l on other days during the three-year period. According to Dr. Sternglass, these are also significantly high readings since strontium-90, concentrating in milk due to atmospheric nuclear weapons testing which ended in 1980, has declined to less than 1 pCi/l in areas far removed from any nuclear reactors.
.....Since the samples are collected by Dominion only twice a month, it is unknown whether actual concentrations on other days exceeded the levels reported.
.....In 1997, Millstone’s previous owner, Northeast Utilities, persuaded the NRC to permit it to discontinue sampling for strontium-90 in its air filter monitoring program. As the 1997 Annual Radiological Environmental Operating report states:
.....Section 4.5 Air Particulate Strontium (Table 5)
.....Table 5 in past years was used to report the measurement of Sr-89 and Sr-90 in quarterly composited air particulate filters. These measurements are not required by the Radiological Effluent Monitoring Manual (REMM) and have been discontinued. Previous data has shown the lack of detectable station activity in this media. This fact, and the fact that milk samples are a much more sensitive indicator of fission product existence in the environment, prompted the decision for discontinuation. In the event of widespread plant related contamination or special events such as the Chernobyl incident, these measurements may be made.
.....Strontium-90 is among the most deadly byproducts of nuclear fission. Once ingested, its highly-energetic electrons damage and cause mutations in nearby cells. Exposure to low levels of strontium-90 and other bone-seeking radioactive chemicals routinely released by nuclear power plants does not merely increase the risk of bone cancer or leukemia, but it weakens the immune defenses provided by the white cells of the blood that originate in the bone marrow. See Declaration of Ernest J. Sternglass (August 8, 2004) submitted to the NRC in In the Matter of Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, Inc., Docket No. 50-336-LR, 50-423-LR, ASLBP No. 04-824-01-LR, annexed hereto as Exhibit B.
.....“As recently shown in the 2003 report by the European Committee on Radiation Risk, numerous epidemiological and laboratory studies have shown that the risk of cancer and other diseases produced by local internal doses to critical organs from fission products that are inhaled or ingested have been underestimated by extrapolation from high external doses by factors of hundreds to thousand of times,” according to the Sternglass report, Exhibit A.
.....“This explains why it now appears that releases from nuclear plants, often acting synergistically with other environmental pollutants, are a major neglected reason for the recent rise of illness and deaths both among newborns and the elderly observed in the U.S. in the last two decades, as also discussed in the ECRR report,” according to Dr. Sternglass. Id.
“For these reasons, it is my professional opinion that the Millstone Nuclear Plant should not be relicensed,” Dr. Sternglass stated. In his report, Exhibit A.
.....The Coalition has previously submitted, in these and the related Atomic Safety and Licensing Board proceedings, documentation from Joseph Mangano and Michael Steinberg which links the Millstone radiological effluent releases – including strontium-90 - to significant negative health consequences in the community. These documents are incorporated by reference herein.
CONNECTICUT COALITION AGAINST MILLSTONENancy Burton
Please address correspondence to:
Nancy Burton
147 Cross Highway
Redding Ridge CT 06876
Tel. 203-938-3952
Yushchenko – TAK!
....On April 26, 1986, Ukraine suffered the worst nuclear disaster in history when the Chernobyl Unit 4 reactor exploded, releasing radiation estimated to be 100 times greater than the radiation released by the Hiroshima bomb.
....The consequences were staggering. The accident killed 30 plant operators and first responders in its immediate aftermath. Ninety per cent of the 135,000 people permanently evacuated from a 20-mile zone surrounding Chernobyl have been diagnosed with illnesses related to high radiation exposures. Of the 600,000 people involved in the clean-up (“liquidators”), all are dead or considered ill, according to the Ukrainian Ministry of Health. It is estimated that 15 million people or more were victimized by Chernobyl, requiring health care costing $60 billion.
....In Ukraine alone, more than 2.32 million people, including 452,000 children, have been treated for radiation-linked illnesses, including thyroid and blood cancer and cancerous growths, according to
Ukrainian health officials. Hundreds of square miles of land have been permanently contaminated. Plutonium, cesium, strontium and other deadly materials drained into the Dnieper River system, a major source of drinking water. A deadly cloud of radiation blanketed the earth for 10 days.
....Authorities in the then-governing Soviet regime - who thought they could conceal the accident itself from the Ukrainian people and the world - covered up the reactor with a makeshift concrete sarcophagus to contain radiation dispersal.
....The temporary sarcophagus is now cracking and leaking, allowing radioactive particles to escape. Structural supports are vulnerable to collapse. It is feared that if the degraded conditions are not addressed soon, a second tragedy may occur on a large scale.
....During the corrupt Leonid Kuchma regime, the newly independent Ukraine ignored these problems. The people of Ukraine and the whole world were put at grave risk.
....On April 6, 2005, Viktor Yushchenko, Ukraine’s new President and hero of the Orange Revolution, addressed an historic joint session of the U.S. Congress.
....Among his nation’s most pressing needs, Yushchenko courageously told the Senators and Congressmen, is a new sarcophagus to enclose the ruins of Chernobyl Unit 4 – one of the most toxic sites on earth.
....A 1996 study put the cost of building a new sarcophagus at $1 to $1.5 billion.
....In November and December, Ukraine’s children of Chernobyl thronged to the streets of Kiev in the hundreds of thousands. They put their lives at risk in the Orange Revolution to forge a new nation, dedicated to the welfare of its people and purged of government corruption. Their sacrifice has inspired millions across the globe and has unsettled corrupt regimes everywhere.
....We honor Viktor Yushchenko and all the heroes and heroines of the Orange Revolution. We hail their courage and example.
....What more fitting gift can we as Americans bestow upon them on the upcoming 19th anniversary of Chernobyl on April 26 than to begin work without delay to construct a new sarcophagus at Chernobyl equal to the challenges posed.
....The truth is, we are all children of Chernobyl.
....Write, email and fax to your Senators and Congressmen to enact emergency legislation to protect the people of Ukraine and the world from a second Chernobyl tragedy.
U.S. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D)
448 Russell Senate Office Bldg.
Washington, D.C. 20510
PH: 202-224-2823
FX: 202-224-1683
E-mail via web site: http://dodd.senate.gov/webmail/
100 Great Meadow Road
Wethersfield, CT 06109
PH: 800-334-5341 (CT only)
PH: 860-258-6940U.S. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D)
706 Hart Senate Office Bldg.
Washington, D.C. 20510
PH: 202-224-4041
FX: 202-224-9750
EM: senator_lieberman@lieberman.senate.gov
One Constitution Plaza, 7th Floor
Hartford, CT 06103
PH: 800-225-5605
PH: 860-549-8463
U.S. Rep. Rob Simmons (R)
215 Cannon Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
PH: 202-225-2076
FX: 202-225-4977
E-mail via web site: http:www.house.gov/simmons/email.html
2 Courthouse Square
Norwich, CT 06360
PH: 860-886-0139
Millstone-2004:
Expose of Degrading Conditions
During the year 2004, Dominion routinely violated its licensing conditions at its Unit 2 and Unit 3 nuclear reactors, cut corners on safety, misled the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and exposed the State of Connecticut to a heightened risk of nuclear oblivion.
There is a rational response to this fiasco: MOTHBALL MILLSTONE NOW! Close the plant, move the deadly tons of intensely radioactive waste to safe onsite storage – in dispersed underground bunkers – and convert the site to wind, solar and wavepower generation of electricity.
Below we list many – by no means all – examples of serious errors and degrading conditions which occurred in 2004 and which your government at every level tolerated. Any one of these conditions, combined with others, could have contributed to a serious accident or worse. Your public officials compromised your safety and your future. Call them, email them, write to them. Wake them up! Contact numbers and email addresses appear at the bottom of this item.
Unit 2
Millstone Unit 2 is a 870-megawatt nuclear reactor which went online in 1975. It has one of the worst operational records in the entire U.S. nuclear industry. The NRC ordered it shut down for three years (1996-1999) because it was so unsafe. Connecticut’s Department of Public Utility Control declared it “no longer used and useful” in 1998. Unit 2 produces excess electricity which is not needed by Connecticut consumers. Yet, one of former Governor John G. Rowland’s dubious achievements before he pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges was to return Unit 2 to service and keep it operating.
These events occurred at Millstone Unit 2 in 2004:
A spent nuclear fuel rod broke at Unit 2 on August 5 while operators were inspecting fuel assembly failures. The lethal rod fragmented and it took a week for Dominion to recover all the pieces.
Unit 2’s reactor trip breaker failed to shut remotely. This is
alarming, given Unit 2’s unusual propensity to suffer
unexpected and dangerous spontaneous “trips” or shutdowns.
Unit 2 suffered four reactor “trips” during the inspection period due to equipment failures or personnel error.
Dominion allowed Millstone’s “high-range” radiation monitor – key to measuring radiation doses to the public – to become seriously degraded.
Atmospheric relief “housekeeping boots” ruptured with potential to interfere with operability of the enclosure building filtration system.
On April 14, workers discovered that a fuel assembly “had
moved several inches upon coming out of the core and would
not travel into the mast without causing an overload condition.”
Unit 2 used materials from an unqualified vendor.
A reactor trip breaker failed to shut.
The spent fuel pool ventilation system was allowed to become degraded.
Inspectors discovered a critical modification was made to the spent fuel pool water level indicator without documentation.
A loss of shutdown cooling occurred, resulting in an uncontrolled reactor coolant system temperature increase of 14 degrees Fahrenheit.
Dominion repeatedly violated Technical Specifications (its formal licensing conditions) throughout 2004. These “Tech Specs” are legal requirements the public has a right to expect will be carried out and enforced.
During two unplanned emergency shutdowns, safety valves failed to operate properly and Dominion failed to correct long-standing repetitive failures of these safety valves. The NRC called this failure “more than minor” because it undermined plant stability.
The emergency diesel generator was allowed to develop a “through-wall” leak.
Dominion failed to follow procedures to properly test pressurizer level control circuitry only when Unit 2 was in shutdown, resulting in the inadvertent startup of both standby charging pumps with one charging pump running. The NRC found “neither operators nor instrumentation and calibration personnel identified these procedure requirements prior to the conduct of testing.” As a result, both “redundant” safety systems were adversely affected, causing a significant pressure rise in the system which nearly exceeded the maximum pressure allowable on the relief valve system.
The emergency building filtration system was allowed to degrade.
Multiple bolt failure due to corrosion buildup disabled one of two primary circulating water pumps while Unit 2 was at full power on June 10.
On June 18, a reactor coolant pump system malfunction was brought about by the failure of a pressure transmitter.
Water was discovered in charging pump oil.
A procedure to test the main steam code safety valve was not independently reviewed by Dominion and supporting documentation was not available to NRC inspectors.
Degraded conditions were found in the Emergency Building filtration system.
A “C” service water pump failed a testing program.
A turbine trip hook malfunctioned.
A flood door separately emergency diesel generators was left open in violation of procedures.
Dominion violated its Technical Specifications when it failed to adequately implement post-maintenance testing of a critical pressurizer level instrument; a similar failure was a precursor to the failure to the charging system on March 7, 2003.
Inspectors discovered that modifications to Unit 2’s charging system were not supported by calculations or test data.
The post-incident recirculation fan timer failed.
Dominion’s failure to properly employ engineering controls led to two workers who handled contaminated air filters to suffer serious radiation exposures from “significant elevated airborne radioactivity concentrations” in the work area on September 29.
Combustion gas leaked into the emergency diesel generator water system.
Dominion failed to follow procedures for ventilation function in the switchgear room.
Unit 2 suffered “excessive leakage” in the radioactive cooling system because of a pump failure.
The Unit 2 intake structures suffered degrading conditions on November 5, potentially jeopardizing the critical reactor cooling system, due to high winds and high seas.
Operators did not recognize the significance of several steam
generator code “safeties” that had lifted subsequent to reactor
trips at Unit 2.
Operators and engineers at Unit 2 determined compensatory
cooling measures installed in a direct current switchgear room
at Unit 2 would ensure the availability of the switchgear, while
existing technical evaluations stated just the opposite.Unit 3
Millstone Unit 3 is a 1,150-megawatt nuclear reactor which went online in 1986. It, too, has one of the worst operational records in the entire U.S. nuclear industry. The NRC ordered it shut down for two years (1996-1998) and put it on its notorious “Watch List” because it was so unsafe.
These events occurred at Millstone Unit 3 in 2004:
During a draindown of the vital reactor coolant system at Unit 3, the worker assigned to monitoring the refuel pool level left his assignment before completion; the reactor coolant draindown continued in his absence for 1.5 hours. Operators were left to rely on the remote camera indication of the refuel pool level – and they read it incorrectly. The NRC correctly called this safety breach “more than minor” because it “affected the likelihood of causing a loss of reactor water inventory to the point that shutdown cooling could be lost.”
Millstone Unit 3 suffered repetitive failures of leakage tests for vital water systems. Over a span of eight years – including three years of Dominion operations – the same known failure mechanism resulted in a 50 per cent failure rate for critical check valves.
Dominion allowed Millstone’s “high-range” radiation monitor – key to measuring radiation doses to the public – to become seriously degraded.
On April 4, while Dominion was preparing to remove the reactor vessel head at Unit 3, an overhead crane malfunctioned, causing significant damage to a critical lifting rig and damaging personnel safety equipment.
On April 14, workers discovered that a fuel assembly “had moved several inches upon coming out of the core and would not travel into the mast without causing an overload condition.”
Dominion repeatedly violated Technical Specifications (its
formal licensing conditions) throughout 2004. These “Tech
Specs” are legal requirements the public has a right to expect
will be carried out and enforced.
An emergency diesel generator output breaker malfunctioned.
A valve failure led to a high steam flow transient which led to a secondary transient.
An error occurred in the steam generator flow, leading to alarm response procedures.
“Excessive” gas vented from the reactor heat removal system.
Leakage developed in a cooling water system relief valve.
An emergency diesel generator output breaker malfunctioned.
Serious discrepancies were noted in systems monitoring control rod positioning.
NRC inspectors discovered boric-acid buildup on the Unit 3 reactor vessel head worse than what was reported by Dominion.
Dominion violated the Technical Specifications by failing to properly vent the reactor coolant system and the residual heat removal system. The NRC said the violation was “more than minor” because it had potential to render vital charging pumps inoperable in an emergency.
Dominion violated its Technical Specifications when an electrical system failure required it to stop reactivity additions to the Unit 3 nuclear reactor; contrarily, operators increased reactivity and heat buildup. The NRC Dominion’s failure to cease the reactivity addition with a degraded electrical configuration was a “performance deficiency.”
Operators did not recognize that a failure of a vital inverter
made the electrical train inoperable.
Operators did not understand the potential significance of air
found in the discharge piping of the RHR (residual heat
removal) system at Unit 3 and their evaluation was not
technically supported.
Operators did not adequately consider the effects of small oil leaks on high head safety injection pumps at Unit 3.
The NRC, in a scathing inspection report, concluded that Dominion failed to address degraded conditions at Millstone in 2004.
The NRC inspectors “found a lack of rigor by Dominion related to both the understanding of the effects of degraded conditions and the technical bases used to evaluate degraded conditions . . . resulting in violations [of Millstone’s licensing requirements].”
The blistering NRC inspection reports demonstrate that Dominion is routinely operating Millstone in violation of its legal requirements and endangering the public on a daily basis.
Nevertheless, despite these findings, the NRC praised Dominion’s “good performance” during 2004 and said it warranted reduced NRC inspections in 2005 and 2006.
The NRC’s conduct is beyond disturbing. Consider this:
On December 31, 2004, the NRC completed a special inspection of Dominion’s fire protection system. The NRC inspectors randomly chose six areas to inspect at Unit 2. One was the turbine building. The NRC reported : “No findings of significance were identified.”
On January 14, 2005, just two weeks later, a fire broke out in the Unit 2 turbine building. That fire caused an unprecedented all-site evacuation by non-emergency personnel. That fire also disabled Millstone site security: as a result of the January 14 fire, Dominion lost control over its perimeter fence and lost its ability to exclude intruders and keep track of personnel movement within the nuclear plant. The fire – and the NRC inspectors’ failure to detect the fire hazard which led to the fire – exposed the people of Connecticut to the worst known security breach in the history of the state.
Dominion operated Millstone in the year 2004 as though no one was watching and no one cared.
Join the Nuclear Watch! Join the Connecticut Coalition Against Millstone. [click to info@mothballmillstone.org]
Make your government keep watch over Millstone!
Contact your public officials:
U.S. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D)
448 Russell Senate Office Bldg.
Washington, D.C. 20510
PH: 202-224-2823
FX: 202-224-1683
E-mail via web site: http://dodd.senate.gov/webmail/
100 Great Meadow Road
Wethersfield, CT 06109
PH: 800-334-5341 (CT only)
PH: 860-258-6940
U.S. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D)
706 Hart Senate Office Bldg.
Washington, D.C. 20510
PH: 202-224-4041
FX: 202-224-9750
EM: senator_lieberman@lieberman.senate.gov
One Constitution Plaza, 7th Floor
Hartford, CT 06103
PH: 800-225-5605
PH: 860-549-8463
U.S. Rep. Rob Simmons (R)
215 Cannon Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
PH: 202-225-2076
FX: 202-225-4977
E-mail via web site: http:www.house.gov/simmons/email.html
2 Courthouse Square
Norwich, CT 06360
PH: 860-886-0139
Gov. M. Jodi Rell Tel. 800-406-1527. HYPERLINK mailto:governor.rell@po.state.ct.us governor.rell@po.state.ct.us
Attorney General Richard S. Blumenthal Tel. 860-808-5318 attorney.general@po.state.ct.us
President Pro Tempore of the Senate:
Sen. Donald E. Williams, Jr., D-29, (Brooklyn, Canterbury, Killingly, Mansfield, Putnam, Scotland, Thompson and Windham), 800-842-1420, (e-mail Williams@senatedems.ct.gov) How to contact your State Senators:
Andrea Stillman (D)(Waterford, East Lyme, Montville, New London, Old Lyme, Old Saybrook, Salem), 800-842-1420, email Andrea.Stillman@po.state.ct.us
Catherine W. Cook, R-18, ( Griswold, Groton, North Stonington, Plainfield, Preston, Sterling, Stonington and Voluntonw ), 860 536-4418, e-mail Catherine.W.Cook@po.state.ct.us
Edith Prague, D-19, (Andover, Bozrah, Columbia, Franklin, Hebron, Lebanon, Ledyard, Lisbon, Montville, Norwich and Sprague ), 1-800-842-1420, e-mail Prague@senatedems.state.ct.us
Eileen M. Daily, D-33, (includes Colchester, Deep River, East Haddam, East Hampton, Essex, Haddam, Lyme and Old Saybrook), 1-800-842-1420, e-mail Daily@senatedems.state.ct.us
Anthony Guglielmo,, R-35, (includes Pomfret and Woodstock ), (860) 684-4878, e-mail Anthony.Guglielmo@po.state.ct.us
How to contact your State Representatives:
Michael Caron, R-44, (Killingly, Plainfield, Sterling) 1-800-842-1423, e-mail Michael.Caron@housegop.state.ct.us
Robert Congdon, R-42, (Ledyard, Montville, Preston) 860-240-8700, e-mail HYPERLINK mailto:Robert.Congdon@housegop.state.ct.us Robert.Congdon@housegop.state.ct.us
Marilyn Giuliano, R-23 (Old Lyme) 860-240-8700, e-mail Marilyn Giuliano@housegop.state.ct.us
Shawn Johnston D-51, (Killingly, Putnam, Thomason) 1-800-842-8267, e-mail Shawn.Johnston@po.state.ct.us
Jack Malone, D-47, (Canterbury, Norwich, Scotland, Sprague) 1-800-842-8267, e-amil Jack.Malone@po.state.ct.us
Steven Mikutel, D-45, (Griswold, Lisbon, Plainfield, Voluntown), 1-800-842-8267, e-mail Steve.Mikutel@po.state.ct.us
Ted Moukawsher, D-40, (Groton, New London), 1-800-842-8267, e-mail Edward.Moukawsher@po.state.ct.us
Melissa Olsen, D-46, (Norwich), 1-800-842-8267, e-mail Melissa.Olson@po.state.ct.us
Linda Orange, D-48, (Colchester, East Haddam) 1-800-842-8267, e-mail Linda.Orange@po.state.ct.us
Gary Orefice, D-37, (East Lyme, Salem) 1-800-842-8267, e-mail Gary.Orefice@po.state.ct.us)
Walter Pawelkiewicz, D-49, (Windham, Willimantic) 1-800-842-8267m e-mail Walter.Pawelkiewicz@po.state.ct.us
Kevin Ryan, D-139, (Bozrah, Franklin, Lebanon, Montville), 1-800-842-8267, e-mail Kevin.Ryan@po.state.ct.us)Diana Urban, R-43, (North Stonington, Stonington) 1-800-842-1423, e-mail Diana.Urban@housegop.state.ct.us
Lenny Winkler, R-41, (Groton), 1-800-842-1423, e-mail Lenny.Winkler@housegop.state.ct.us
Boy's Cancer Blamed On Millstone
Mom's Exposure To Chemicals Alleged
By THOMAS D. WILLIAMS
Courant Staff Writer
March 11 2005
NIANTIC -- Seven-year-old Zachery M. Hartley has a rare, disfiguring cancer of the jaw. His parents and an internationally known physician blame the Millstone nuclear power plant.
Dr. Helen Caldicott, a co-founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility, said Thursday that it is likely the rare disorder afflicted Zachery because his mother swam in the ocean near the nuclear plant during her pregnancy.
At a bayside press conference, Caldicott said Tonia Hartley came in contact with radiological compounds discharged from the plant into Niantic bay.
Michael and Tonia Hartley and a state anti-nuclear group are demanding that Millstone be shut down and that swimming in the bay be prohibited.
Although Millstone was closed at the time in 1997 when Tonia Hartley went swimming, Caldicott said, the plant was "washing out with volatiles [chemicals] and that had a synergistic effect" making the water emissions extremely hazardous. She said anyone swimming in the bay then could have been exposed to the chemicals by swallowing or breathing them, absorbing them through the skin or eating contaminated fish from the bay.
But, Peter Hyde, spokesman for Dominion Nuclear Connecticut Inc., the plant's operator, said: "We've looked at this and we empathize a great deal with this boy and his family. But we don't agree that there is any evidence that Millstone caused this boy's cancer. We live here. We swim in this water. We would never do anything consciously to cause harm to our families or neighbors."
Hyde said Caldicott did not say she could definitively link the cancer to the plant's emissions.
Invited to the press conference by the Connecticut Coalition Against Millstone, Caldicott said 17 to 19 similar occurrences of rare cancers have been reported among people living in the vicinity of Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, N.Y.
Brookhaven, begun in 1947 as a nuclear-science research center, conducts research in the physical, biomedical, and environmental sciences, as well as in energy technologies and national security for the U.S. Department of Energy.The Hartleys did not fully link Tonia Hartley's swimming to her son's cancer until January while viewing a public television broadcast of the coalition opposing Millstone's pending re-licensing application, said Nancy Burton, a coalition leader.
Tonia Hartley, who swam regularly for seven months while she was pregnant, was in Boston Thursday readying for Zachery's next major operation, but sent a tape recording of her comments to the conference.
"Connecticut is not looking out for its children," she said. "There were no signs posted on the beach by the state, the town or the federal government that swimming in the water could be hazardous to my unborn child.
"I'm sharing our story as a mother looking out for the community so the community can make an educated decision knowing the price we paid for being unaware. This has been a nightmare for my family for seven years and it is continuing to be a nightmare for the rest of Zachery's life," she said.
As his son stood by, Michael Hartley said he and his wife decided to go public because "no one in town has said anything about this, and if they know they are not talking. I want the public to vote on it," he said.
An advocate of citizen action to remedy the nuclear and environmental crises, Caldicott, 66, has spent the past 35 years on an international campaign to educate the public about the medical hazards of the nuclear industry.
Copyright 2005, Hartford Courant
Group Says Boy's Cancer Was Caused By Millstone Emissions
Judy Benson, The Day
03/11/2005
Coalition Urging EL To Close Town Beaches
East Lyme — An organization seeking the shutdown of the Millstone Nuclear Power Station is urging closure of town-owned beaches on Niantic Bay and is linking a 7-year-old boy's rare facial tumor to radiation and carcinogenic chemical emissions from the plant, located about 1.5 miles across the bay in Waterford.
The boy's mother, Tanya Hartley, is a former East Lyme resident and swam regularly at the town's Hole-in-the-Wall beach during her pregnancy, according to her husband, Michael, who took part in a news conference called by the Connecticut Coalition Against Millstone on Thursday. The family currently lives in Canterbury. The news conference was held in the lobby of the Morton House apartment building on Main Street, across the street from the bay.
First Selectman Wayne Fraser said he had no response to the group's request and that he had not previously been informed about the boy's tumor, which required extensive surgery to remove it. Michael Hartley said part of the tumor was cancerous and part was benign, and that his son will undergo facial reconstruction surgery this summer in Boston.
Fraser said he would seriously consider any health concerns raised by the state Department of Public Health or other officials, but none have been raised in conjunction with Millstone. The town has no plans to close its beaches or post safety warnings, as the coalition requested in a March 9 letter.
“We react to proper methods and officials,” he said. “East Lyme strongly supports a safe Millstone for families and a safe working environment for employees.”
The news conference included remarks by Dr. Helen Caldicott, a pediatrician, author and nuclear disarmament activist who is also against nuclear power and the health risks she believes it carries for those who live near plants. Caldicott came at the invitation of Nancy Burton of Redding Ridge, coalition leader.
Caldicott said that from her review of the boy's medical records, she believes there is a strong possibility his tumor was caused by his mother's exposure to the plant emissions in the air and water. The plant releases chemicals that are “very carcinogenic,” she said.
“I wouldn't want to live here,” she said. “These plants must be shut down for the health of the people in this area.”
Peter Hyde, spokesman for Millstone, said the plant is closely monitored by the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission and is within acceptable limits for radiation and other emissions.
“We empathize with the mother and her child, but to make the leap between Millstone operations and this poor child's illness is not supportable,” he said.
The NRC has not been contacted with safety concerns about Millstone related to the boy's illness, according to NRC Spokesman Neil Sheehan. Members of the public can petition the NRC about safety issues, he said, but that has not been done in this case.
Concerns about cancer rates around the plant were raised during recent public hearings about plant re-licensing, he said, and results of several studies were reviewed as part of that process, he said. The NRC concluded there is no evidence linking cancer rates to the plant.
“It's certainly difficult to make some cause-and-effect relationship between swimming and cancer,” Sheehan said.
News from Ed Markey
United States Congress Massachusetts Seventh District
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Tara McGuinness
March 8, 2005 Michal Freedhoff
(202) 225-2836
DID MILLSTONE NUKE TURN DOWN FREE SECURITY HELP?
Markey probes allegation that free nuclear reactor security device was refused
Washington, DC: Representative Edward J. Markey (D-MA), a senior Member of the Homeland Security Committee and the House Energy and Commerce Committee, the panel which oversees the regulation of nuclear reactors, today released a letter sent to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) regarding an allegation received by his office that Dominion Nuclear Connecticut Inc., the licensee of the Millstone nuclear power plant, refused the NRC's offer to install a free device that would greatly enhance security at the facility because it didn't want to assume the maintenance costs.
"I am deeply concerned that this information, if true, reflects a lack of commitment for the security of the power plant on the part of the licensee and a disregard for the health and safety of the nearby communities," said Rep. Markey.
Many nuclear power plants which employ a "once-through" cooling system, including Millstone, Pilgrim and Seabrook, pump in millions of gallons of water per day through water intake structures located on nearby bodies of water. In the case of the Millstone plant, these structures are located on Niantic Bay, an estuary of the Long Island Sound. The water is constantly circulated through complex systems to cool the reactor and maintain the temperature where spent fuel is stored in pools, among other functions.
If an interruption in the flow of water from the intake structures occurs, there would be a serious threat to the safe operation of the facility, and a catastrophic meltdown could ensue. Al Qaeda has long considered U.S. nuclear facilities to be attractive terrorist targets, and a waterborne attack is one method terrorists could use. There is currently no obstacle in place at the Millstone facility water intake structures to impede an attack by, for example, suicidal terrorists who drive a motorboat laden with explosives into the intake structures at the facility.
Rep. Markey's office was informed that in 2004, the Commission offered to install a device - at no cost - at the Millstone water intake structures to serve the purpose of impeding and thwarting such a postulated waterborne attack. However, Rep. Markey's office was also informed that the licensee rejected the offer because it did not wish to assume costs to maintain the device.
Rep. Markey's letter requested information regarding:
* Whether the information received regarding the Millstone facility is accurate.
* Whether the Commission has made similar offers to install free security equipment at other similar reactors such as Pilgrim and Seabrook, and if so what the outcome was.
* Whether the Commission has made offers to install other types of security equipment at any other reactors, and if so, what the outcome was.
For a copy of the letter released today, please go to http://www.house.gov/markey/Coalition Disputes NRC Report
Says Millstone Data Show Illegal Operations
By THOMAS D. WILLIAMS
Courant Staff Writer
March 4 2005
A state coalition of environmental groups told the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission that past data released by the Millstone Nuclear Power Complex shows that it emits "highly significant concentrations" of radioactive, cancer-causing particles in the New London area.
Those findings, issued by the Connecticut Coalition Against Millstone on Wednesday, the final deadline to oppose the Waterford plant's request for a 20-year license renewal, are contrary to an NRC report on the plant.
"Based on [Millstone's] reporting of radiation sampling in the environment, the coalition believes the available data reviewed by the NRC for the years 2001, 2002 and 2003 prove that routine operations of Millstone are in violation of federal health standards and are illegal," said Nancy Burton, a leader of the coalition. The group was organized in 1999 to challenge Millstone's application to the NRC to double its spent fuel storage capacity.
Last year Millstone, about 21⁄2 miles from New London, produced 48 percent of Connecticut's electricity, said Peter Hyde, spokesman for Dominion Nuclear Connecticut Inc., the plant's operator.
In December, the NRC reported, in a preliminary draft environmental impact statement, that Millstone does not pose significant emission hazards to the air, water or soil.
"Environmental impacts are not detectable or are so minor that they will neither destabilize nor noticeably alter any important attribute of the [surrounding environment]," the NRC report said.
The coalition disputed those findings in response to the NRC's request for public comments on the December draft report. The coalition enlisted Ernest J. Sternglass, a retired professor of radiological physics at the University of Pittsburgh Medical School, to analyze Millstone's data.
Sternglass said a goat milk sample obtained by Millstone officials in September 2001, taken 51/2 miles north of Millstone on the outskirts of Waterford, revealed an "extremely large concentration" of strontium-90, a cancer-causing radioactive isotope.
That concentration is "close to twice the highest measured in Connecticut milk ... at the height of nuclear weapons testing in 1963," Sternglass said. Hazardous levels of strontium-90 decline over time, he said.
Millstone's operators test goat's or cow's milk within a certain radius of the plant once or twice a month. Milk is tested because it has high calcium content, and strontium-90 is drawn to calcium in the bones of humans and animals.
Exposure to low levels of strontium-90 and other bone-seeking radioactive chemicals routinely released by nuclear power plants increases the risk of bone cancer or leukemia, Sternglass said. It also weakens the immune defenses provided by white blood cells that originate in bone marrow, Sternglass said. But strontium-90, he said, is only one of several dangerous cancer-causing hazards flowing into water, air and soil from nuclear power plant emissions. He said data from 2002 and 2003 indicated unacceptable levels of other radioactive emissions in those years.
Because the strontium-90 level was so high in the goat's milk tested in 2001, Sternglass said, "there is an astronomically small chance that it is a statistical fluctuation [or error]." That measurement excludes the possibility it was due to past nuclear bomb testing because it was so much higher than the readings from nuclear weapons testing in the state in the 1950s and '60s, Sternglass said.
Hyde disagreed. Annual monitoring of Millstone's stack emissions and the soil and the water next to the plant show strontium-90 levels had declined for years before the September 2001 reading, and for years after it, he said.
Sternglass said his review of the data confirms abnormally high readings of radioactive hazards.
The NRC is expected to issue the final environmental impact statement at the end of July.
Copyright 2005, Hartford Courant
NRC: Covering Up the Crimes?
Chuck Douton used to work in the site maintenance department at Millstone.
They never told him it would cost him his life.
Chuck’s job took him to hot and dirty areas of the plant. Chuck was diagnosed with a brain tumor growing out of his brain stem in 1986. At about the same time, two co-workers in site maintenance were diagnosed with brain cancer. The three workers were dismissed from their jobs.
Northeast Utilities told the three workers if they signed a form pledging not to sue NU for their injuries they could leave with double severance pay. They signed but their lawyer said the agreement wasn’t worth the paper it was written on.
Chuck is very lonesome these days. His two co-workers have
died of their brain cancers. Chuck is just waiting to die because his doctors have told him his brain tumor is inoperable.
Chuck used to live a full and active life. But now because of his illness most of his pleasures are gone. Even Chuck’s dog, Casey, a black Labrador retriever, is gone. Chuck and Casey used to romp on the beach where the tides and currents wash radioactive waste and toxic chemicals ashore from Millstone’s discharge point across Niantic Bay. In 1996, Casey was diagnosed with osteosarcoma of the cervical vertebrae – cancer of the spine. The veterinarians who treated him at a teaching hospital said they had never seen such a condition in a dog of Casey’s young age – 1 1⁄2 years.
On August 9, 2004 and again on January 11, 2005, the Connecticut Coalition Against Millstone reported Chuck’s brain tumor and the brain cancers of his co-workers to the NRC.
Yet, when we asked the NRC on January 24, 2005 to provide its records of the Millstone site maintenance workers who were diagnosed with brain cancer and dismissed in 1994, this is what the NRC’s Richard L. Emch told us on February 23, 2005:
We have no such documents.
Did the NRC destroy the documents to cover up the crimes?
If the NRC admitted it knew about these brain cancers, it would have to deny Millstone’s application for a 20-year license extension.
Because when it licensed Millstone Unit 3 to begin operations in 1986, the NRC said only 11 nuclear workers out of every 1,000,000 would die of cancer. To the NRC, 11 worker deaths was an acceptable number. Chuck and his co-workers tipped the scales.
When it licensed Millstone to operate, the NRC licensed a killing machine.
Question: If you are a government regulator and you license a machine that you know will kill those who work on the machine without telling them, are you complicit in their deaths?
MILLSTONE IS EVEN MORE UNSAFE THAN EVER!
NEW LONDON DAY: TELL THE TRUTH FOR A CHANGE!The New London Day, the newspaper that reaches all of southeastern Connecticut, ran an editorial on February titled: “A Safer Millstone.” (The editorial appears below.)
With this editorial, we nominate The Day for a new award in the annals of journalism: First in the “Fiction” Category.
On a daily basis, the Day does a disservice to its community. It perpetuates a myth that the obsolete, dirty and unsafe Millstone Nuclear Power Station is good for southeastern Connecticut. More and more, it simply regurgitates the lies of the greedy nuclear industry and conceals the truth.
Its February 18 editorial is a perfect example.
The Day wants you to believe that moving highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel from an unsafe, overloaded pool at Millstone Unit 2 to an unprotected, untested onsite above ground concrete pad onsite - so that the 30-year-old Unit 2 nuclear reactor, long crippled with mechanical flaws and operational malfeasance, can keep operating - will enhance safety for southeastern Connecticut.
The Day is trying to sell you the Brooklyn Bridge. Don’t buy it.
Here’s what you need to know to inform yourself about the health and safety of your family and your community: You will be even more unsafe if Dominion is permitted to make this move for the following reasons:
Dominion is creating a brand new additional unprotected terrorist target – a weapon of mass destruction awaiting activation – which cannot withstand a terrorist attack.
Dominion is creating a permanent high-level nuclear waste dump expressly prohibited by Town of Waterford Zoning Regulations.
Dominion is creating an entirely new source of continuous radiation to the environment even if the nuclear storage dump works as planned.
Dominion is operating recklessly under very unsafe conditions by over-packing its spent fuel pools with high-level nuclear waste containing billions of curies of radiation which, if unleashed, would dwarf the catastrophic effects of Chernobyl.
The above-ground nuclear dump will only add to the problem by permitting Unit 2 to continue creating more high-level nuclear waste to add to the onsite nuke dump, making Millstone an even more attractive bullseye target for airborne and landborne terrorists.
The administrative processes which led to approval of this nuclear dump by the Connecticut Siting Council were corrupted by the participation of Philip Ashton – who did not disclose to the public at the hearing that he had worked as a vice president at Northeast Utilities and had a pro-Millstone bias – and Edward Wilds, Connecticut DEP Director of Radiation – who did not disclose to the public at the hearing that he took a junket as Dominion’s guest to tour out-of-state nuclear facilities and that he had a conflict of interest as well as a pro-Millstone bias.
The political processes which led to approvals of this dump were corrupted by Dominion’s payoffs (bribes?) to public and private entities at the municipal, state and federal levels.
There is one way to achieve “A Safer Millstone” and one way only: SHUT IT DOWN. The sooner the better for all of us.
Here’s The Day’s February 18, 2005 editorial.
Tell The Day what you think about it! Send a Letter to the Editor: editor@theday.com or call and ask for The Editor himself! Tel. 860-442-2200. Tell the New England Press Association what you think about The Day’s coverage of Millstone. Send an email to Brenda Reed, Executive Director of the New England Press Association, b.reed@nepa.org
A Safer Millstone
Published on 2/18/2005/The Day
Dominion Inc., owner and operator of the Millstone Nuclear Power Station, revealed recently a few of the steps it has taken to enhance security at the plant. The site now has three new guard towers, more security guards conducting more patrols, mechanical barriers in the power station's access road, and the company has upgraded its radio system to one more powerful.
But one of the most important steps the company has taken is one which, years ago, under a previous owner, Millstone was reluctant to begin: seek permission for and install a system in which spent nuclear fuel can be taken out of the plant and stored on site.
In many ways, Dominion had no choice but to gain permission to move the fuel. It's running out of room in the deep cooling pools where nuclear rods are now stored after they are removed from the nuclear core during routine refueling. The increasingly crowded pools are a reminder of the broken promises of the federal government. The government encouraged companies to build nuclear plants, solemnly promising to take responsibility for the storage of high-level radioactive waste. Forty years later, we're all still waiting for that to happen.
The pools were never meant to store waste for decades at a time. When the Millstone units were built, nobody ever imagined that the fuel would still be sitting in the pools years later. The pools are, perhaps, the most vulnerable areas of any nuclear plant, with no concrete-reinforced containment to protect them. One bad accident, one calculated terrorist attack that drained the water would expose the area to high levels of radiation.
Groups that oppose nuclear power fought the plant when it decided to seek permits to store the fuel outside the pools of water in which it now resides. Those who fought the company said that they didn't want to see the site become a nuclear dump. Yet, because of the incredible irresponsibility of the federal government, in effect the spent fuel pools have become nuclear waste dumps.
The company is right on this one. It's good to store as much of the fuel outside the pools as necessary, both to make more room in the pools and because it makes the area safer. The fuel is put in tons-heavy, reinforced concrete-and-steel bunkers of sorts, about the size of garages. It's expensive, which is one reason why for years Northeast Utilities, the previous owner of Millstone, refused to do it. But now the Connecticut Siting Council has granted the plant permission, and the company has prepared a two-acre site for the project. Storage may begin as soon as this month.
Proper nuclear fuel storage in dry casks isn't as dramatic or visible as watchtowers and patrolling guards. But it makes the plant less vulnerable and southeastern Connecticut safer nonetheless.
DOMINION SET TO MOVE MILLSTONE DEADLY NUKE WASTE IN VIOLATION OF FEDERAL SAFETY REQUIREMENTS; COALITION CALLS FOR HALT FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE February 17, 2005
The exemption
was sought because the nuclear facility was unable to meet safety requirements
established under federal law, according to documents released by the
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Coalition reported.
The federal requirements, appearing as 10 CFR 50.68(b)(1), provide as
following:
“Plant procedures shall prohibit the handling and storage at any
one time of more fuel assemblies than have been determined to be safely
subcritical under the most adverse moderation conditions feasible by unborated
water.”
On November 5, 2004, Dominion applied to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
for an exemption from the requirement.
The exemption was issued on February 15, 2005 by Victor Nerses, a senior
project manager with oversight over Millstone Unit 2.
Dominion obtained NRC approval to transfer spent nuclear fuel from the
storage pool at Unit 2 to an above-ground onsite facility. The approval
authorizes bundles of spent nuclear fuel rods to be placed inside metal
canisters and then be loaded into concrete canisters for transfer to the
above-ground concrete pad.
Dominion also obtained approval from the Connecticut Siting Council to
construct the dry storage facility. However, the Coalition appealed the
approval to the Connecticut Superior Court. The appeal is pending.
The Coalition filed a motion to stay the transfer and a hearing was held
before Judge George Levine in December. No decision has been issued on
the motion for stay and a further hearing has been scheduled on the motion
for stay on February 28 in the Superior Court in New Britain.
In a letter dated February 15, 2005 addressed to David A. Christian, Dominion’s
chief nuclear officer based in Glen Allen, Virginia, the NRC concluded:
“The licensee [Dominion] is unable to satisfy the above requirement
[10 CFR 50.68(b)(1)].”
The CFR requirement involves the use of boron to control criticality in
spent fuel pools.
In the event a proper level of boron is not maintained, the highly radioactive
spent nuclear fuel stored in the Unit 2 pool could go “critical”
– that is, undergo a spontaneous nuclear chain reaction which could
lead to catastrophic consequences, according to the Coalition.
When Dominion applied to the Connecticut Siting Council for approval of
the dry storage facility, it did not inform the Siting Council that its
plans did not meet federal requirements, nor that it would seek a waiver
of federal safety requirements, according to the Coalition.
The Coalition has called upon Gina McCarthy, newly installed Commissioner
of the Department of Environmental Protection, to take immediate action
in the matter.
On February 7, the Coalition requested McCarthy to vacate the designation
of the DEP’s Radiation Bureau head, Edward Wilds, as the Commissioner’s
representative on the Siting Council which considered the Dominion application.
Former DEP Commissioner Arthur J. Rocque, Jr. had designated Wilds to
be his representative on the Siting Council to review the application,
stating in an October 21, 2003 letter that Wilds had had no prior involvement
in the matter.
However, the Coalition discovered that Wilds had taken a trip on September
20, 2002 at Dominion expense to tour a nuclear storage facility in Pennsylvania
while the Dominion application was in its formative stages. Wilds withheld
that information from the public during the Siting Council proceedings,
even though the Coalition asked the Siting Council panel to reveal conflicts
of interest among its members.
Because of the undisclosed conflict, the Coalition said Wilds should have
his appointment to the Siting Council panel revoked “nunc pro tunc,”
that is, to strike his participation from the proceeding from its onset.
Wilds cast a critical vote which awarded approval of the application on
the terms Dominion requested, according to the Coalition.
If his appointment is revoked, the Siting