Business Education Guide

Oyster Creek Nuclear Plant: Stop The Cancer Epidemic
by Edith Gbur and Grace Costanzo

Ocean County has a cancer epidemic. One in four people is a victim of some form of cancer, especially children, i.e., brain tumors, leukemia, breast cancer, prostate cancer. Cancer is so widespread that people take these diseases for granted. Jersey Shore Nuclear Watch (JSNW) has done extensive research on this issue and has worked with the Radiation and Public Health Project (RPHP) that has tested about 500 baby teeth in Ocean County. Strontium-90, which only comes from nuclear plant emissions, has been found on these baby teeth, through laboratory studies .

During the 1960s, over 85,000 teeth were collected nationally. As a result of this effort, atmospheric testing of nuclear bombs was stopped. At the time, President John Kennedy said that if one child can be saved, it was well worth the ban on the testing.

Joseph Mangano, Executive Director of RPHP, did epidemiological research on seven nuclear plants that were de-commissioned. JSNW bill-boarded his findings stating that, “CHILDREN’S CANCER GOES DOWN WHEN NUCLEAR PLANTS SHUT DOWN!”

JSNW members, Edith Gbur and Grace Costanzo attended the Annual RPHP meeting held on April 17, 2007. Mr. Mangano described RPHP programs during the past and upcoming year. The group is placing heavy emphasis on educating New Jersey citizens about the public health risks of keeping Oyster Creek Nuclear Power Plant in operation. Some expert advisors to the campaign include: Rosalie Bertell PhD, founder of the International Institute of Concern for Public Health, Samuel Epstein MD, professor emeritus of public health, Univ. of Illinois-Chicago, Sam Galewsky PhD, associate professor of biology, Millikin (IL) University, Donald Louria MD, professor of preventive medicine, New Jersey Medical School and Janette Sherman MD, professor of medicine, Western Michigan University.

At the meeting, Mangano asserted that research documented by RPHP shows the Oyster Creek Nuclear Power Plant has emitted more airborne radioactivity than any U.S. reactor. It also has elevated levels of radioactivity in the local air, water and soil in addition to high and rising levels of Strontium-90 in baby teeth of Ocean County children.

Researcher, Joeph Mangano, has also documented high cancer rates in the area. Ocean County has the highest cancer incidence rate of any county in New Jersey. RPHP asserts that, while more research needs to be performed, the evidence is quite troubling and any continued operation of Oyster Creek would put more local residents at risk for cancer and other diseases. The lethal nature of low-level radiation is no "mistaken impression." The scale of potential damage was foreseen by Rachel Carson, Linus Pauling, and Andrei Sakharov, and was later supported by warnings from John Gofman, Arthur Tamplin, Alice Stewart, Thomas Mancuso, Karl Morgan, Carl Johnson and Ernest Sternglass.

RPHP has assembled a coalition of New Jersey citizen groups to participate in the program. Along with Jersey Shore Nuclear Watch, the Ocean County League of Women Voters, UNPLUG Salem, Grandmothers/ Mothers and More for Environmental Safety, and New Jersey PIRG will be working together on the project. The Rutgers Environmental Law Center has agreed to be an adviser.

Actor Alec Baldwin also made a presentation to the group attending the meeting, endorsing the New Jersey project. He encouraged the group to “get radical” with their efforts to empower the public and shape public policy. On June 12, a news conference was held in Trenton to launch the campaign.

The nuclear power industry is exploiting the problem of global warming in order to push for more nuclear plants as a clean, safe energy alternative to fossil fuels. Nuclear power is neither clean nor safe.

The owners of Oyster Creek dismiss solar and wind power as impractical to meet mass energy needs of the population. They are banking on the public’s ignorance of the health risks from nuclear plant emissions. The gasses pouring out of Oyster Creek’s stacks are colorless and odorless. If they were colored red, there would be an outcry from residents living near the plant.

Oyster Creek Nuclear Power Plant MUST BE SHUT DOWN NOW!

The contention challenging the relicensing of Oyster Creek Nuclear Power Plant for 20 years, filed by six citizen's organizations, Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS), Jersey Shore Nuclear Watch (JSNW), (GRAMMS), NJ Environmental Federation, New Jersey Sierra Club and the NJ Public Interest Research Group, has become a landmark case, winning the right to a technical hearing.

The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (ASLB) stated that “At this juncture and on this record, we are unable to conclude as a matter of law that AmerGen’s UT (sound wave measurement) monitoring plan is sufficient to ensure adequate safety margins during the period of extended operation.” The Board rejected AmerGen’s request for a summary judgment to close out a legal public hearing.

Accordingly, the three administrative judges concluded that the citizens’ groups represented by Rutgers Environmental Law Clinic and their expert witness, Dr. Rudolf Hausler of Corro Consultants, have identified a number of serious disputes, including the reactor’s remaining safety margins against corrosion that has significantly thinned the reactor containment to a point where the heavy radiation protection component might buckle sometime over the twenty-year extension period. Other concerns focus on the potential for corrosion under the epoxy coating due to defects and deterioration of the coating and future corrosion rate of the component which is all important to safety.

According to the federal order, the decision “signals the existence of a genuine factual issue whose resolution should be based on a hearing.” The hearing is currently scheduled to take place in the immediate vicinity of the 38-year old Oyster Creek nuclear power station beginning on September 24, 2007.
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RE: Nuclear Spent Fuel Storage

On April 30th New Jersey Attorney General Stuart Rabner announced that the state filed a petition with the federal Third Circuit Court of Appeals challenging the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s belief that it is not required to consider the impact of a terrorist attack as part of its relicensing review of the Oyster Creek plant.
New Jersey's contention is an analysis of the potential impact of a terrorist strike at the plant should be required. The NRC maintains that New Jersey has raised purely "speculative" and "theoretical" concerns. Rabner said the state intends to underscore inconsistencies between NRC rhetoric and its actual oversight of nuclear power plants.

Rabner said, "On the one hand, the NRC has imposed extensive security requirements on nuclear power plants since 9/11 to guard against attacks. On the other hand, it continues to insist that, from a legal perspective, the likelihood of such an attack is merely theoretical, and not worthy of analysis as part of the relicensing process."

In a California case the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, decided last year in favor of an advocacy group's lawsuit against the NRC. In that case, San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace argued that an analysis of the potential impact of a terrorist attack should be required as part of the licensing review for a proposed independent fuel storage installation at the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant run by Pacific Gas & Electric Company in San Luis Obispo.

The Ninth Circuit decided in favor of Mothers for Peace and found that the NRC erred in determining that the National Environmental Policy Act does not require NRC to consider the potential impact of terrorist attacks.
The plants owner, Pacific Gas & Electric petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case, but the Court refused, so the NRC will be required to analyze the potential devastation of a terorist attack.
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Nuclear Spent Fuel Storage

There are many reasons why the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station should not be relicensed. However, at this time, I want to focus on the nuclear spent fuel storage; namely, the dry casks sitting 400 feet from Route 9. (We all know what a parking lot that is.)

As you know, when spent fuel is removed from the reactor core it’s a million times more radioactive than when it was put into the reactor . The dry casks at Oyster Creek presently hold tons of this deadly high-level radioactive waste.

There is no place on Earth where one can confidently predict that radioactive waste could remain safely isolated from the environment for hundreds of thousands or millions of years. The hazard of irradiated fuel will continue for millions of years.
Not only is the fuel pool vulnerable to an attack by terrorists but so are the dry casks. The NRC “contends that the possibility of a terrorist attack on a nuclear facility is so remote and speculative that the potential consequences of such an attack need not be considered at all.” I beg to differ!

ALL of our nuclear plants, especially Oyster Creek, are vulnerable to air strikes, truck bombs, boat bombs, and well-equipped and well-armed terrorists. Haven’t we learned anything from history? The first time the Trade Center was bombed was a warning. Who could imagine there would be a second time, with thousands dying at the hands of madmen.

Every year more and more of this deadly radioactive spent fuel keeps piling up and none of our nuclear “experts” know how to dispose of it safely. Oyster Creek will need more and more dry casks to store the spent fuel and will have a cemetery of deadly coffins (dry casks) along Route 9.
Transporting it offsite would be another deadly hazard. The risks are too high.

If the unthinkable should happen such as a terrorist attack or a catastrophe, there could be hundreds of thousands of casualties and over $80 billion in property damage. Compare this to the $12 million tax break Lacey citizens get each year (and will continue to get even if the plant is closed). Is it worth the risk?

What a horrible legacy we leave for our children, grand children and generations to come. We need to convert nuclear plants to clean, safe renewable energy such as wind, solar, hydroelectric, natural gas and other non-deadly sources of energy. Imagine $80 billion being used for these renewable energies. What a clean environment we’d have.

IT’S TIME FOR A CHANGE AND LET’S BEGIN TODAY BY CLOSING THE OYSTER CREEK NUCLEAR GENERATING STATION NOW!
Grace Costanzo
Statement given to the The Nuclear Regulatory Commission Hearing: May 31, 2007 Toms River, NJ

For more information go to
www.jerseyshorenuclearwatch.org

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