Getting to Know Vermont's Nuclear Neighbor

Author: Edit Honan

Since March 28, 1979, the day of the Three Mile Island (TMI) partial nuclear meltdown in Pennsylvania, no new nuclear power plants have been built in the United States. This speaks to an underlying fear that Americans share when it comes to nuclear power -- a fear that I encountered first hand a few years back, when I witnessed a routine test of evacuation sirens in the southeastern Connecticut town of Waterford, the location of the Millstone nuclear reactors. The siren blasted through the town, and for those 60 seconds each resident was made to consider the unthinkable: the consequences of a full-scale nuclear accident (this was pre-Sept. 11).
Despite of this fear -- and despite the deadly Chernobyl explosion seven years after TMI in the Ukraine -- the nuclear industry is very much alive in the United States. Nuclear fears did not lead to the phasing out of nuclear power plants, nor to the development of alternative sources of energy to meet the nation's insatiable thirst for energy. There are 103 nuclear power plants in operation in the United States, and the Bush Administration would like to see that number increase. In Vermont, the Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor, situated in the far southeastern part of the state in Vernon, generates 80 percent of the state's energy needs.
This series is designed to promote a dialogue on campus about nuclear energy, and especially our own nuclear neighbor, Vermont Yankee. And it seems that there is no better time to get started on this than now, with the 24-year anniversary of the TMI accident approaching.
This series is about the radiation emitted by nuclear power plants into the air, water and soil surrounding them. Nuclear power plants routinely release radiation while producing energy. According to the Washington,D.C-based Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS), additional radiation can leak out in "unplanned" releases, due to either mechanical or human error. The radioactive emissions may be divided into two categories: the permissible and the illegal/accidental. In the second category belong "undetected and unreported releases" which may never be verified. The NIRS also states that "accurate accounting of all radioactive wastes released into the air, water and soil from the entire reactor fuel production system is simply not available."
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission guidelines mandate that releases of radioactive material be kept "as low as reasonably achievable" and comply with guidelines for maximum dosage for the public. The NRC's Web site (www.nrc.gov), provides this explanation: "The permitted effluent releases result in very small doses to members of the public living around nuclear power plants." What the Web site fails to mention is that the very small doses are determined arbitrarily; no studies have established what a "safe" dose of radiation is, or if there is such a thing as a "safe" dose of radiation. An article in The New Scientist (Oct. 11, 1997) entitled "Radiation Russian Roulette" put it this way: "Expose yourself to even a low dose of radiation and it might or might not kill you some time in the future. This hit-and-miss effect on the body, along with the fact that it's invisible, is why most people have a profound mistrust of radiation."
Helen Caldicott, a Nobel Peace Prize nominated pediatrician, is among the most respected critics of nukes in the world. In "Medical Implications of Nuclear Power," Caldicott argues that dangerous releases of radiation occur even before energy production begins -- that is, with the harvesting of uranium. When mined, uranium gives off the radioactive gas radon, which can be inhaled by miners. Caldicott cites a study which found that 20 percent of uranium miners in the United States die of lung cancer over a 20- to 40 year period of mining. Further dangers emerge when unused scraps of uranium tailings are left in heaps on the ground. Radon gas is emitted from these piles.
Once a reactor is in operation, radiation is released into the environment. But there are few clear answers for those who live in the shadow of nuclear reactor. As Caldicott explains, "It may take five to 50 years before a cancer appears after the cell is exposed to radiation."
Communities that host nuclear power plants and radiation waste facilities are finding that they have become de facto nuclear dump sites where thousands of tons of spent nuclear fuel are accumulating while cancer clusters are appearing in their neighborhoods.

Edith Honan is a literary studies major from Redding Ridge, Conn.