OPINION: Nuke industry’s PR machine confounds state legislators (WI)

[jpak]

http://www.superiortelegram.com/articles/index.cfm?id=24622§ion=Opinion&freebie_check&CFID=79772218&CFTOKEN=28733812&jsessionid=8830f3b0965c42358055

You had to be there. The scene was a State Capitol meeting room Dec. 18, and a public hearing of the Assembly’s Energy and Utilities Committee, chaired by Phil Montgomery, R-Green Bay. Under consideration was Assembly Bill 346, which would repeal limits on new reactor construction in Wisconsin. Pro-nuclear lobbyists and legislators were full of it, and the disinformation was thick and smarmy.

Did you know that the Three Mile Island reactor disaster was a “success of containment” (according to Rep. James Soletsky, D-Green Bay). In fact, more than 10 million curies of radioactive nobel gases, including 15-to-24 curies of radioactive iodine-131 and 43,000 curies of krypton-85 were vented from the “containment” building. Indeed, as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission noted, several “deliberate but uncontrolled releases” were made to vent radioactive gases. Official airborne release estimates are just guesses, because there weren’t enough outside radiation monitors, half weren’t working and a large number of them went off-scale.

In addition, approximately 400,000 gallons of radioactive cooling water that had leaked from the reactor were secretly dumped into the Susquehanna River, a source of drinking water for nearby communities. Later, about 2.3 million gallons of radioactively contaminated cooling water were allowed to be “evaporated” into the atmosphere. That’s containment.

Another laugh line came from Assembly Speaker Mike Huebsch, R-West Salem, who said, “In 40 years of transports, the Navy has never had an accident with its high-level waste shipments.” For photographic proof to the contrary, take a look at the latest Nukewatch Quarterly and see one of the military’s M-140 casks on its side after derailing in New York State, Sept. 22, 2005. The speaker can’t be blamed for denying this crash: the photo wasn’t published in the U.S. until now — only in the London Independent.

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