The twin Nuclear Reactors owned by Entergy, and known as Indian Point, from this citizen's perspective, are not safe. Furthermore, they can be easily attacked if terrorists were to do their proper homework...both Entergy and the NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) do their best to hide this very real fact from the AT TISK STAKEHOLDERS that live in the community known as the "Ten Mile Circle of Death". They have done this by effectively removing the DBT (Design Basis Threat) from public review and comment, have hidden its contents from those who should have a right to know...those of us at most risk. That said, if you know where to look within the public domain that is the Internet, you can find some very disturbing facts about said DBT, and realize that Entergy cannot, or will not provide adequate security at their nuclear facility...if you live by a nuclear power plant, you can change the name of the reactor and it's owner, and this article is pertinent to your community as well.
First, lets look at some security flaws...
1. LA street gangs can easily get their hands on a 50 Caliber High Powered rifle, and do...you can find numerous press accounts of such weapons being seized...yet, after a CLOSED DOOR meeting with the commission, and against NRC staff recommendations, this weapon was taken off the list of items that reactor security staff is expected to defend against. The stated reason for the removal of this weapon from the list...Terrorists would not have easy access to such a weapon, let alone the munitions needed.
Lets do a Paul Harvey here...the guard towers, and control room of nuclear reactors have bullet resistant glass, not BULLET PROOF GLASS. A terrorist or malcontent bent on wreaking havoc could (from up too three miles away with the right munitions) take out a guard tower or station with single shot. If a malcontent, said weapon would allow a person to blow the windows right out of a control room, thus gaining access to the heart and soul of the reactor. Some cost estimates put replacement of bullet resistant glass at $10 million dollars per reactor site...so, we have been put at FAR GREATER RISK as a community because Entergy wants to save money, increase it's bottom line profits at our peril as a community.
2. A terrorist favorite vehicle of choice when making a car bomb has been a 28' Ryder rental truck. The NRC staff originally recommended to the commission that Nuclear Reactors be hardened to thwart such an attack...problem was, a truck filled with explosives of this size could do irreparable harm to the nuclear reactor if it succeeded in getting physically on the plant site, and close to the reactor.
The NEI (lobbying arm of the nuclear industry) and the president's of many of the companies owning nuclear reactors wanted the size of that vehicle changed...changed to one small enough that even if successfully detonated, it would not do irreparable harm to the reactor core...the solution? The DBT now has the explosive laden vehicle scenario a SUV (think Pathfinder) type vehicle filled with explosives.
Their reasoning in justifying this DRASTIC CHANGE is nothing short of laughable...they have reasoned, that any larger vehicle (such as a 28 foot Ryder Box Truck) would be spotted and stopped by local police departments before it ever reached the destination of Indian Point.
Now I personally have brought these issues to the attention of the NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission), even asked these questions AT A PUBLIC FORUM ON THE RECORD, and have constantly been told they would get back to me with answers...SURPRISE SURPRISE, no answers, and they DO NOT WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT. What they have wanted to know, is where I get my information...CAN WE SAY GOOGLE?
So now, lets just assume here, that there has been some catastrophic event at Indian Point, either a significant accident (most likely) or a terrorist attack that has radiological contaminants spewing into our environment, some four hours into the incident, realizing they could not cover it up, sirens activated....
Here is where it gets INTERESTING...even though a Nuclear Reactor facility cannot be licensed without a WORKABLE APPROVED BY FEMA Evacuation Plan, the NRC at public meetings has finally admitted that in the case of a SIGNIFICANT NUCLEAR INCIDENT, the evacuation plan for Indian Point WILL NOT WORK. They instead in the past two years have started trying to reshape PUBLIC EXPECTATIONS with a major propaganda campaign aimed at selling us on the theory of SHELTERING IN PLACE...which has some serious flaws, a plan that will expose us to 60 percent of the contaminants released, even if we are (sic) safely sheltered in our basements in a well built home, and follow ALL THE RULES.
In a previous article in this blog, we have recommended families to NOT SHELTER IN PLACE should there be a real emergency at Indian Point. We are now speculating, that your time to make your escape, the time you have to move your family to a safe place may be far shorter than we had imagined.
What if Homeland Security, Fema, and even the nuclear industry have decided to use barb wire fencing (that can be quickly rolled off a truck and erected, and PORTABLE GUARD TOWERS to (in effect) trap us in a radioactively contaminated CONCENTRATION CAMP? Couple this with an NRC issued Exclusion Zone order to LOCK OUT THE PRESS, and we are trapped in a death camp of Entergy's making.
We are the STAKEHOLDERS AT RISK, the citizens who live within the "Ten Mile Circle of Death" around Indian Point. We should have the right to A) see the DBT for Indian Point, and B) hold public hearings on the adequacy of it. The same can be said regarding the evacuation plan...if the NRC has waived the requirement that their licensees no longer have to evacuate citizens in harms way, have made a decision to force us to SHELTER IN PLACE, then it is time to order their licensees to provide every homeowner with a fully functioning and fully equipped FALL OUT SHELTER. We are calling on Congresswoman Nan Hayworth to demand answers to the important questions in this article, we are calling on her to hold PUBLIC Informational Meetings, and PUBLIC HEARINGS on these issues so that stakeholder communities know the REAL RISKS to both our health and our liberties in the case of a significant nuclear incident at a nuclear reactor site.
As an aside....if Congresswoman Nan Hayworth is prepared to support NEW NUCLEAR, and the HALF A TRILLION DOLLARS IN FUNDING THEY WANT, then she needs to educate herself, instead of spouting out the talking points handed to her by NEI and the industry. I would suggest she start with GNEP (Global Nuclear Energy Program) that would defacto make America the dump place for almost the entire world's spent nuclear waste streams...she could start this research at one point....the fact that the new AP1000 reactors that would pave the way to her supposed New Nuclear Era will not even be able to burn the fuel produced under the GNEP program...she can then look at the half trillion dollar gamble that is GNEP, and realize they have not even TESTED IT, but inside want to go right to building an untested, unproved reprocessing plant. She then can look at the fact that what the industry really wants in GNEP, is to reclassify the waste streams currently being (ILLEGALLY) stored at reactor sites into Potential Future Use Resources so that they can sit where they are for perpetuity.
First, lets look at some security flaws...
1. LA street gangs can easily get their hands on a 50 Caliber High Powered rifle, and do...you can find numerous press accounts of such weapons being seized...yet, after a CLOSED DOOR meeting with the commission, and against NRC staff recommendations, this weapon was taken off the list of items that reactor security staff is expected to defend against. The stated reason for the removal of this weapon from the list...Terrorists would not have easy access to such a weapon, let alone the munitions needed.
Lets do a Paul Harvey here...the guard towers, and control room of nuclear reactors have bullet resistant glass, not BULLET PROOF GLASS. A terrorist or malcontent bent on wreaking havoc could (from up too three miles away with the right munitions) take out a guard tower or station with single shot. If a malcontent, said weapon would allow a person to blow the windows right out of a control room, thus gaining access to the heart and soul of the reactor. Some cost estimates put replacement of bullet resistant glass at $10 million dollars per reactor site...so, we have been put at FAR GREATER RISK as a community because Entergy wants to save money, increase it's bottom line profits at our peril as a community.
2. A terrorist favorite vehicle of choice when making a car bomb has been a 28' Ryder rental truck. The NRC staff originally recommended to the commission that Nuclear Reactors be hardened to thwart such an attack...problem was, a truck filled with explosives of this size could do irreparable harm to the nuclear reactor if it succeeded in getting physically on the plant site, and close to the reactor.
The NEI (lobbying arm of the nuclear industry) and the president's of many of the companies owning nuclear reactors wanted the size of that vehicle changed...changed to one small enough that even if successfully detonated, it would not do irreparable harm to the reactor core...the solution? The DBT now has the explosive laden vehicle scenario a SUV (think Pathfinder) type vehicle filled with explosives.
Their reasoning in justifying this DRASTIC CHANGE is nothing short of laughable...they have reasoned, that any larger vehicle (such as a 28 foot Ryder Box Truck) would be spotted and stopped by local police departments before it ever reached the destination of Indian Point.
Now I personally have brought these issues to the attention of the NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission), even asked these questions AT A PUBLIC FORUM ON THE RECORD, and have constantly been told they would get back to me with answers...SURPRISE SURPRISE, no answers, and they DO NOT WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT. What they have wanted to know, is where I get my information...CAN WE SAY GOOGLE?
So now, lets just assume here, that there has been some catastrophic event at Indian Point, either a significant accident (most likely) or a terrorist attack that has radiological contaminants spewing into our environment, some four hours into the incident, realizing they could not cover it up, sirens activated....
Here is where it gets INTERESTING...even though a Nuclear Reactor facility cannot be licensed without a WORKABLE APPROVED BY FEMA Evacuation Plan, the NRC at public meetings has finally admitted that in the case of a SIGNIFICANT NUCLEAR INCIDENT, the evacuation plan for Indian Point WILL NOT WORK. They instead in the past two years have started trying to reshape PUBLIC EXPECTATIONS with a major propaganda campaign aimed at selling us on the theory of SHELTERING IN PLACE...which has some serious flaws, a plan that will expose us to 60 percent of the contaminants released, even if we are (sic) safely sheltered in our basements in a well built home, and follow ALL THE RULES.
In a previous article in this blog, we have recommended families to NOT SHELTER IN PLACE should there be a real emergency at Indian Point. We are now speculating, that your time to make your escape, the time you have to move your family to a safe place may be far shorter than we had imagined.
What if Homeland Security, Fema, and even the nuclear industry have decided to use barb wire fencing (that can be quickly rolled off a truck and erected, and PORTABLE GUARD TOWERS to (in effect) trap us in a radioactively contaminated CONCENTRATION CAMP? Couple this with an NRC issued Exclusion Zone order to LOCK OUT THE PRESS, and we are trapped in a death camp of Entergy's making.
We are the STAKEHOLDERS AT RISK, the citizens who live within the "Ten Mile Circle of Death" around Indian Point. We should have the right to A) see the DBT for Indian Point, and B) hold public hearings on the adequacy of it. The same can be said regarding the evacuation plan...if the NRC has waived the requirement that their licensees no longer have to evacuate citizens in harms way, have made a decision to force us to SHELTER IN PLACE, then it is time to order their licensees to provide every homeowner with a fully functioning and fully equipped FALL OUT SHELTER. We are calling on Congresswoman Nan Hayworth to demand answers to the important questions in this article, we are calling on her to hold PUBLIC Informational Meetings, and PUBLIC HEARINGS on these issues so that stakeholder communities know the REAL RISKS to both our health and our liberties in the case of a significant nuclear incident at a nuclear reactor site.
As an aside....if Congresswoman Nan Hayworth is prepared to support NEW NUCLEAR, and the HALF A TRILLION DOLLARS IN FUNDING THEY WANT, then she needs to educate herself, instead of spouting out the talking points handed to her by NEI and the industry. I would suggest she start with GNEP (Global Nuclear Energy Program) that would defacto make America the dump place for almost the entire world's spent nuclear waste streams...she could start this research at one point....the fact that the new AP1000 reactors that would pave the way to her supposed New Nuclear Era will not even be able to burn the fuel produced under the GNEP program...she can then look at the half trillion dollar gamble that is GNEP, and realize they have not even TESTED IT, but inside want to go right to building an untested, unproved reprocessing plant. She then can look at the fact that what the industry really wants in GNEP, is to reclassify the waste streams currently being (ILLEGALLY) stored at reactor sites into Potential Future Use Resources so that they can sit where they are for perpetuity.
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We on this blog do not like Politicians...we like Republicans even less. Nan Hayworth was elected to send a message to Washington, not because she was a better choice...this blog is laying the ground work to defeat her in 2012.