WISE - NIRS Nuclear Monitor 615

What happened 25 years ago? We go back to news from our 1979 WISE Bulletin, comparing anti-nuclear news then and now.

Then
In issue 6 of WISE Bulletin we reported on a demonstration against the U.S. Indian Point reactors: "An estimated 4,000 demonstrators marched on Indian Point nuclear power plant. Some protestors, wearing blue armbands, used rugs and a rope ladder to climb over the barbed wire of the front gates. Others tunneled under the gates. Supporters padlocked themselves to the gates and others distributed candles and the names of Hiroshima atomic bomb victims. 102 persons were arrested". (WISE Bulletin 6, October 1979)

Now
The Indian Point plant has two operating reactors, plus a third which was closed in 1974. Just 40 miles (60 kilometers) from the center of New York City, it has been the source of concern to those aware of the consequences of a possible accident. There are around 21 million people living within a 50-miles radius of Indian Point on the Hudson River. (WISE/NIRS Nuclear Monitor 565, 22 March 2002)

Noting the absurdity of Indian Point's vicinity to a major metropolitan area, Robert Ryan of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, stated back in 1979: "I think it is insane to have a three-unit reactor on the Hudson River in Westchester County, 40 miles from Time Square, 20 miles from the Bronx… It's a nightmare from the point of view of emergency preparedness." (WISE/NIRS Nuclear Monitor 592, 12 September 2003)

A 1982 study carried out by Sandia Labs for the NRC, estimated that a meltdown at the Indian Point 2 reactor would cause "46,000 Peak Early Fatalities, 141,000 Peak Early Injuries, [and] 13,000 Peak Deaths from cancer." But these are conservative estimates since population has increased since within the 17.5-mile radius peak fatality zone and the 50-mile radius peak injury zone. According to the study, property damage from a reactor meltdown would be estimated conservatively between US$500.5 and US$573.5 billion. (WISE/NIRS Nuclear Monitor 565, 22 March 2002)

A 1997 Brookhaven National Lab Report, also prepared for the NRC, claims that a disaster involving a spent fuel pool fire could cause up to 143,000 cancer deaths, as much as US$566 billion in economic damages, and could make an area up to 2,790 square miles around the plant uninhabitable. (WISE/NIRS Nuclear Monitor 592, 12 September 2003)

After the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, fears about Indian Point increased. For that reason a broad coalition of nearly 40 environmental and civic groups and elected officials petitioned the NRC to suspend the operating licenses of both reactor units 2 and 3. (WISE/NIRS Nuclear Monitor 565, 22 March 2002)

In 2003, the NGO Riverkeeper started an advertising campaign equating the Indian Point reactors with "weapons of mass destruction", which they would be if damaged or destroyed in a terrorist attack. (WISE/NIRS Nuclear Monitor 592, 12 September 2003)

A new report, called Chernobyl on the Hudson, commissioned by Riverkeeper, concludes that an attack on one of the Indian Point nuclear reactors could cause thousands of early deaths, as many as hundreds of thousands of cancer deaths, and a trillion dollars or more in property damage. (See elsewhere in this issue)

WISE-Amsterdam/NIRS

ISSN: 1570-4629

Reproduction of this material is encouraged. Please give credit when reprinting.

Editorial team: Tinu Otoki (WISE Amsterdam), Michael Mariotte (NIRS). With contributions from Citizens' Nuclear Information Center, Za Matku Zem (For Mother Earth) and WISE Japan.

The next issue (616) will be mailed out October 1, 2004.

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