“Sold!”
Nukespeak for “Massive Losses”
by Michael J. Daley

For the past three years, our opponents have tried to convince the public and the legislature that Vermont Yankee was a valuable asset. Well, on October 15, we learned that the jewel in the utilities’ crown has proven to be costume jewelry. Yesterday, nuclear power was safe, reliable, and economic. Today, it is a heavy liability that the owners of Vermont Yankee are glad to be rid of.

On October 15, the owners of Vermont Yankee announced that they had accepted a purchase offer from Amergen, a partnership between PECO and British Energy. The “sale” is not final, but pending. This is a very important thing to remember. The announcement only marks the beginning of a regulatory review process that the utilities hope to conclude by July 2000. It also marks the end of a desperate search by the owners for a “solution” to their problem of owning this high cost, aging reactor. They have steadfastly refused to choose the option that NECNP has been recommending for the past three years — that is, closure. Hopefully, the “sale” brings with it a new opportunity for NECNP and others in the anti-nuclear community to further our arguments that closing the reactor is the only sensible option.

A look at the “sale” terms will demonstrate why there is room for optimism:

When you take the calculator to these figures, it becomes clear that the owners are not selling Vermont Yankee at all. They are paying $106 million dollars to get Amergen to take it off their hands. Additionally, they are paying an above market cost for power, which will go into Amergen coffers to pay off its “purchase price”. The “sale” represents another way to provide massive ratepayer subsidies in an attempt to rescue this failed nuclear technology from economic realities. This subsidy will come on top of the $78 million in excess electricity charges that have been paid to Vermont Yankee in the last three years.

The “sale” figures demonstrate that the New England Coalition was correct when we argued that Vermont Yankee — like all nuclear power plants — is worthless in today’s electricity market. The liabilities and risk of nuclear power plants are so large that prospective buyers will only make offers at an enormous discount off the actual investment made in the plants. We warned the Vermont legislature to be prepared for a “sale” on terms very much like they’ve turned out. We were correctly predicting the outcome when both Vermont Yankee and the utilities were actively stonewalling on the details in an attempt to hoodwink the legislators into believing they had a valuable asset up for bid. It shows that the January 1999 Department of Public Service’s Economic Viability study — which claimed Vermont Yankee could earn $150 million in net benefits over its remaining life — was bogus. Now that the market has spoken with real bucks, we see that the Department got it wrong by nearly a quarter BILLION dollars!

If the “sale” is approved, it will be a lucky day for the owners. They will shed an enormous liability. But what will the citizens of Vermont, others living near the plant, and ratepayers get? More of the same. There will still be an old, dangerous nuclear plant in Vernon. There will still be 27 years worth of nuclear waste sitting on the riverbank, with more to come! And since Vermont utilities are retaining a power contract, ratepayers will still be paying for this uneconomic source of power — either directly, or through the stranded cost recovery schemes that are in place. What a great deal, huh?

If the owners of Vermont Yankee really were good corporate citizens, they would have closed Vermont Yankee three years ago and permitted us all to enjoy the benefits of moving on to better options in the new utility future. Instead, they’ve escaped and left us holding the atomic bag. Instead, they are pretending that they’ve accomplished something for us!

They claim they will save us $28 million in costs that would be paid to Vermont Yankee if they kept running it. Big deal. That’s about a 2% savings. Of course, what they don’t tell you is that the savings could be far higher if they didn’t keep a power contract with Vermont Yankee. It’s a lot better for Amergen this way, though. Amergen won’t have to go out in the market (competition, what’s that?) and find some new sucker who will buy expensive nuclear power — our utilities, acting in our best interests as always, have delivered the same old suckers to them!

They claim they’ve done us a favor by escaping the heavy risks associated with decommissioning costs. But the idea that Amergen is assuming some of the decommissioning risk is rather lame. The Department’s report showed that only a small additional sum of real money needs to be paid into the fund; thereafter, investment growth alone (on the $313 million principle) would allow the fund to reach the $800 million decommissioning price tag in 2012. [What is that small additional sum? Surprise, just about $54 million!!] So unless this estimate is far wrong, Amergen has assumed no risk at all. And even if they have, it isn’t Amergen that will pay. Since Vermonters will be paying rates to Amergen through the retained power contract, should the estimate seem to be wrong, Amergen will just add it to the bill. Ratepayers will still be paying. Of course, CVPS shareholders won’t.

This is not a “sale” by any conventional means, but a transfer of an uneconomic and aged nuclear plant from one set of owners to another. It is only made possible on these terms because the owners know they can reach back into the ratepayers’ pockets to cover the millions of dollars in losses. The New England Coalition continues to believe that ratepayers and citizens would benefit most from the closure of the plant. This “sale” merely represents another way to create a massive subsidy to rescue this uneconomic and dangerous technology from the oblivion the free market would dictate. We shall be entering whatever forums become available during the sale approval process to press for closure over all other options.

You can help by using this information to write letters to the editor. Also, your donations to this effort will be welcome.

Amergen partner slammed in safety report

In a safety report released in August by the British Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII) said that Amergen partner British Energy, Plc, had cut so many staff jobs at its power stations that there were not enough people to run the plants safely. The report said that job cutbacks meant that British Energy had nobody qualified to deal with any severe accident at its pressurized water reactor at Sizewell in eastern England. NII warned that British Energy could lose its license unless it acted to prevent further staff losses.

The report warned that in many other areas such as criticality — the condition that could lead to a meltdown — the staffing is at or below the minimum level required to operate safely, with just one staff member who has the relevant experience.

The NII report said that there was a widespread attitude at working level that issues which could endanger output were top priority, while it was acceptable to delay less immediate safety-related work.

British Energy had a 56% rise in pre-tax profit for the year ending in March, 1999.

Gofman on Radiation Exposure

May 11, 1999 LETTER OF CONCERN

To Whom It May Concern,

During 1942, I led “The Plutonium Group” at the University of California, Berkeley, which managed to isolate the first milligram of plutonium from irradiated uranium. [Plutonium-239 had previously been discovered by Glenn Seaborg and Edwin McMillan]. During subsequent decades, I have studied the biological effects of ionizing radiation — including the alpha particles emitted by the decay of plutonium.

By any reasonable standard of biomedical proof, there is no safe dose, which means that just one decaying radioactive atom can produce permanent mutation in a cell’s genetic molecules [Gofman 1990: “Radiation Induced Cancer from Low-Dose Exposure” ]. For alpha particles, the logic of no safe dose was confirmed experimentally in 1997 by Tom K. Hei and co-workers at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York [Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences [USA] Vol. 94, pp. 3765-3770, April 1997, “Mutagenic Effects of A Single and an Exact Number of Alpha Particles in Mammilian Cells.” ]

It follows from such evidence that citizens worldwide have a strong biological basis for opposing activities which produce an appreciable risk of exposing humans and others to plutonium and other radioactive pollution at any level. The fact that humans cannot escape exposure to ionizing radiation from various natural sources — which may well account for a large share of humanity’s inherited afflictions— is no reason to let human activities INCREASE exposure to ionizing radiation. The fact that ionizing radiation is a mutagen was first demonstrated in 1927 by Herman Joseph Muller, and subsequent evidence has shown it to be a mutagen of unique potency. Mutation is the basis not only for inherited afflictions, but also for cancer.

Very truly yours,

[signed] John W. Gofman, M.D., Ph D
Professor Emeritus of Molecular and Cell Biology

Tokai:
An Accident That Did Not Have to Happen

At 10:35AM Japanese time on September 30, 1999, a major criticality accident (an uncontrolled sustained nuclear reaction) occurred in a nuclear fuel processing plant in the Tokai Village (Tokaimura), Imbaraki Prefecture, Japan, about 200km (about 125 miles) from Tokyo. The accident took place in a nuclear fuel processing plant owned by JCO, Inc., a subsidiary of Sumitomo Metallic Mining Co. The accident happened when workers transferred approximately 16kg (35.2 lbs.) of highly enriched uranium into a vessel that should only have received 2.4kg (5.3lbs.). The operation that was being carried out was part of the process to make mixed oxide (MOX) fuel for the experimental JOYO mark II fast breeder reactor.

It was initially reported that radiation levels in the area around the JCO facility rose to 0.7 millisievert/hour (mSv/hr) (70 millirem/hour (mrem/hr.)), about 3600 times the normal background radiation for the area. Reports of the radiation levels inside the plant ranged from 10,000 to 15,000 times normal background. This is somewhat higher than the ground zero radiation levels at either Hiroshima or Nagasaki. For comparison, the allowable occupational exposure limit in the US is 5 rem (5000 mrem) per year for radiation workers.

Some five hours into the accident an evacuation was called for everyone within a 350 meter (about a quarter mile) radius of the plant. Outside the radius, village residents were asked to stay inside with the windows closed. School children were ordered not to go home, but to remain indoors at each school.

The three workers who were near the vessel where the criticality occurred were rushed to the hospital with very high radiation exposures. Although the workers were not wearing their radiation monitoring badges when the accident occurred (this in itself is a very serious violation of safety regulations) it was determined that they received 17 Sv (1700 rem), 10 Sv (1000 rem) and 3 SV (300 rem) respectively. These are indeed lethal doses of radiation. It was reported on October 6, that two if the three hospitalized workers had no lymphocytes in their bloodstreams. In other words, the radiation had killed their blood forming cells.

The Ibaraki Prefecture issued an official warning that everyone within a 10km (6.2 miles) stay indoors, affecting 310,000 people in this highly populated area. In addition, all of the fresh produce in the city markets was impounded, farmers in the region were told to suspend their harvests until the safety of the land had been confirmed. The rice harvest was almost completed and the sweet potato harvest was in full swing. 135 schools were closed. Roads within 1 km of the plant were closed to all but emergency traffic. The bus, train and courier companies suspended all operations in the 10km area, 50 post offices were closed. Fearing contamination, Tokai suspended taking drinking water from the near-by Kuji River.

Meanwhile, back at the plant, workers were attempting to stop the criticality by draining the water from the cooling jacket on the affected vessel. They believed that the water in the jacket was reflecting enough stray neutrons back into the vessel sustaining the nuclear reaction. Because of the high radiation, workers approached the vessel in 3 minute shifts, attempting to open the valve that would drain the cooling water. The valve would not open, so workers had to go into a crawl space under the vessel and destroy the piping to drain the water. At 6:00 am on October 1, it was announced that the vessel had been drained. An hour later, some twenty hours after it had begun, it was announced that the criticality no longer continued. By the time it was over 55 people had been treated for exposure to excessive amounts of radiation. It is certain that many more will be exposed during the clean-up of the mess left behind.

How Could This Accident Happen
The news media initially reported that the cause of this accident was simply a case of human error, but, as it turns out, it was more than that. First of all, there are two ways to ensure that a criticality reaction won’t occur. The first is to control the amount of fissionable material that is allowed to come together in one place. The second is to control the shape of the mass to ensure that there is enough surface area to let the excess neutrons from the spontaneous splitting of atoms to escape.

When a uranium atom splits it produces two large segments, called fission products plus, on average, two and one half neutrons [see drawing]. It is these excess neutrons hitting other uranium atoms that cause the reaction to speed up. Controlling the shape of the mass so that there is always enough surface area to allow most of the excess neutrons to escape is a standard practice in the nuclear industry. The vessel used here was not a critically safe vessel.

It has been reported that a likely reason that the JCO workers mistook the amount of uranium, causing the unreversable criticality, was that they might have been given an improper check sheet, one for a pressurized water reactor (PWR) or a boiling water reactor (BWR) when they were actually handling fast breeder reactor (FBR) fuel material. The uranium pins for the FBR JOYO fuel assemblies has 19% of fissile U-235 (with the criticality control mass of 2.4kg) whereas the light water reactors (either BWR or PWR) utilize low-enriched uranium, I. E. 3 to 5% of fissile U-235 (with a criticality control mass of around 16kg). The latter amount seems to have been poured into the tank.

On October 1, JCO officials admitted that, in using buckets instead of the mechanical system (a pump) which would have controlled the concentration of U-235, the workers had handled the uranium nitrate solution “in a manner that was incompatible with safety regulations.” It was later revealed (Oct. 3) that the operation manual of the uranium process in question had been altered, telling workers to handle the uranium nitrate solution manually in stainless steel buckets, which they did, causing the criticality to occur.

The incredible “bucket operation” had been started on September 10 according to a JCO engineer speaking at an October 3 news conference. By October 6 Koyodo news agency quoted sources as saying that the power authorities had confirmed during their investigations that JCO had changed the government-approved procedure manual and used the illegal one as “standard procedure.” On that same day the Japanese government revoked the business license of JCO, Inc., due to, they said, “the seriousness of the accident.”

Is it Over?
The accident at Tokai is far from over. Eleven days after the accident it was announced that the ventilation system in the plant was on, and had been on all through accident, assisting in the escape to the atmosphere of all of the volatile fission products of the accident, the most notable of which is Iodine-131 which concentrates in the thyroid. Concentrations of I-131 escaping through the exhaust system averaged twice the allowable limit during this time.

On October 11, it was reported by Mainichi Daily News, a Japanese newspaper, that members of the union of employees at the Japan Atomic Research Institute had measured radiation levels at 13 sites ranging up to 540 meters from the plant. They discovered high levels of radiation 400 meters from the plant, some 50 meters beyond the limit of the evacuation zone. The union employees conducted the measurements for eighteen of the twenty hours that the criticality continued. The union estimates that the evacuation zone should have been extended to include an area 600 meters from the plant.

It was also revealed that the Japanese Government’s emergency response unit (headed by Prime Minister Obuchi) was about to issue an order for a 500 meter zone, but it was not issued because it was after midnight and it was raining, so a panic could have easily been caused. As a result, the population in the 350 meter to 600 meter zone was left in the neutron bombard.

According to NHK (Japan’s national radio/tv network) the Science and Technology Agency (STA) (Japan’s equivalent of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission) planned to extract the solution of uranyl nitrate left in the tank after the accident. However, the radiation fields are still unacceptably high. Anyone who approaches the tank will receive high radiation exposures. The operation had not been carried out as of this writing and there were no reports as to how it might be accomplished.

How many people will need to be exposed to high levels of radiation during the clean up to this mess, or other messes that are bound to come about as a result of our dependence on nuclear energy? The official number of over exposed individuals in the Japanese accident stands at 69. This does NOT include those who were not evacuated from the area when they should have been.

The accident continues...
[Note: You can get much more information on this accident by following the links posted on the NECNP World Wide Web site at http://www.necnp.org/japanaccident.htm. We continue to post new information.]


Cancer-Causing Radioactive Material
Found In Children’s Teeth

The cancer-causing radioisotope Strontium-90 (Sr-90) has been found in the teeth of children born in the 1980s at levels equal to those of the middle 1950s when the U.S. and the former Soviet Union were conducting routine aboveground bomb tests.

Directors of the Radiation and Public Health Project (RPHP), who on October 21 released an initial report from an ongoing study of baby teeth, said their findings indicate that Americans continued to absorb radiation for years after all atmospheric nuclear testing ended in 1980. One scientific paper based on the RPHP results has been accepted for publication in the International Journal of Health Services, and a second has been accepted for presentation later this month at an international meeting of scientists in Italy.
“The early results are quite alarming,” said Dr. Ernest Sternglass, Professor Emeritus of Radiological Physics at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and co-director of the study who played a key role in the scientific debate that led to the original banning of bomb tests. “The levels of Strontium-90 should have dropped down to near zero once humankind stopped exploding nuclear weapons in the atmosphere. Instead the levels stayed essentially the same as during the bomb-test years, or in some areas they even increased.”

The RPHP researchers correlated one increase in Strontium-90 during the 1980s in Suffolk County, New York, to a corresponding rise in childhood leukemia and cancer (which also have been on the rise nationally since the early 1980’s). Studies linking Strontium-90 to childhood cancer caused widespread health concerns during the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations, resulting finally in the historic Nuclear Test Ban Treaty between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. in 1963.

The new higher-than-expected levels of radiation were found in 515 teeth measured thus far, most of them for children born in the states of New York, New Jersey and Florida. Many of the areas where teeth were collected are near nuclear power plants with a history of unusually large radiation releases. Strontium-90, a man-made element that was first introduced into nature as a byproduct of atomic bomb tests, is also produced by fission in nuclear reactors. It enters the body through drinking water and food, concentrating in bones and teeth.

The largest majority of teeth analyzed by the RPHP researchers were from the 1979-92 period and contained Strontium-90 in the range of 1.1-2.0 picocuries per gram of calcium. A few of the teeth were found to have reached levels as high as 16 or 17 picocuries per gram calcium. Baby teeth from the middle 1950s that were tested in a St. Louis-based teeth study contained approximately similar average concentrations.

After reaching a peak in 1963, Strontium-90 levels in the U.S. declined steadily but did not disappear entirely due to ongoing French and Chinese aboveground testing as well as releases from U.S. and U.S.S.R. underground testing and from a growing number of civilian reactors. With the end of French and Chinese tests in 1980, the projected rate of decline should have dropped Strontium-90 levels to about 0.1 picocuries/gram by 1990, according to Dr. Jay Gould, an RPHP co-director and statistician who previously served on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Science Advisory Board. Instead the levels were still as high as 1.99 picocuries/gram in 1988 and had dropped only to 1.15 picocuries/gram in 1992.

“The fact that we’re finding numbers at much higher levels that we expected indicates that the dangers from radiation in our diet were not eliminated with the cessation of atmospheric bomb testing,” Dr. Gould said. “Strontium-90 is still persisting in the human environment.”

The RPHP researchers attributed some of the new radioactive fallout to the accidents at the Three Mile Island reactor in Pennsylvania in 1979 and at the Chernobyl reactor in Russia in 1986. In addition, they noted that state and federal records show a large amount of officially reported airborne emissions during the early 1980s from four nuclear reactors located in the vicinity of Suffolk County, the area from which the majority of the RPHP teeth were collected.

“Regardless of the precise source of the radiation, it is clear that more investigation is urgently needed,” Dr. Sternglass said. “It is especially urgent given that Strontium-90 is a known carcinogen and a marker for other shorter-lived fission products and simply should not be present at all in our children’s teeth.” The private foundations supporting the RPHP study have agreed to assist in financing the collection and analysis of 5000 baby teeth over the next two years. At the same time the RPHP directors called for the U.S. government to conduct a national-scale study of Strontium-90 in the environment. The US Department of Energy ended a program in 1982 that previously measured the intake of Strontium-90 in all adult diets, and the EPA stopped monthly reports of fission products in milk in 1990.

[Note: Find out more about the “Tooth Fairy Project” and how you can submit your children’s baby teeth here.

Alaska Gets World’s Largest Fuel Cell System

The world’s largest commercial fuel cell system will be installed by Chugach Electric Association, Inc., at the Anchorage Mail Processing and Distribution Facility in Alaska. The $4 million project will produce one million kilowatt hours, enough to power 750 homes. “Postal Service facilities are becoming increasingly sensitive to power quality and reliability and to the needs of the environment,” said Dianne Horbochuk, the U.S. Postal Service’s senior plant manager in Anchorage. “Facilities such as this one in Anchorage operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Power outages cause an interruption in the automatic mail processing for both incoming and outgoing mail, adding cost to our service. The fuel cell system offers an environmentally clean, proven solution for onsite generation to meet our growing power needs.” The fuel cells will provide backup power for the plant, eliminating the need for conventional standby generators. Excess power from the fuel cells will be fed into the Chugach electric grid. Heat from the fuel cells will provide energy for space heating in the plant. “This project in Alaska is another example of how our fuel cells are providing reliable, clean electricity to the commercial power market,” said Robert Suttmiller, president of Connecticut based ONSI Corporation. ONSI, a world leader in commercial fuel cell production, supplied the fuel cells for the project.

Solar System Starts Generating Atop the Pentagon

An enormous installation of photovoltaic (PV) solar cells has started generating electricity on the roof of the Pentagon, the Department of Defense’s five-sided headquarters in Washington, DC. The Pentagon is the largest office building in the world. The new PV system has a generating capacity of 30 kilowatts, making it one of the largest solar installations on the east coast of the U.S. “Widespread application of these technologies by the federal government will save taxpayers’ money and help speed the development of these clean energy sources,” said Energy Secretary Bill Richardson at the official dedication Monday. “The Departments of Energy (DOE) and Defense are leading the charge to implement the President’s recent Executive Order to utilize renewable energies at federal facilities.” DOE funded $150,000 of the project cost and will direct its ongoing development. The Pentagon installation uses micro-inverters to transform solar rays directly into alternating current or AC electricity, unlike most PV units that generate direct current or DC battery power. Developed by Ascension Technology of Washington, the SunSine® 300 modules are the first AC solar modules to obtain certification from Underwriters Laboratories. PV systems have no emissions of greenhouse gas. The DOE coordinates President Bill Clinton’s Million Solar Roofs Initiative which is designed to increase the installation of solar systems over the next decade. On June 3, Clinton ordered increased use of renewable energies in 500,000 federal buildings. Washington will install 2,000 solar systems at federal facilities by 2000, and 20,000 systems by 2010. Clinton wants to triple non-hydro renewable capacity in the U.S. by 2010.

“Limerick Worthless” says PECO

The September 29th edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper reports that Peco, half owner of Amergen, the company that has agreed to “purchase” Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station, appealed a ruling by the local county that it should pay taxes on the $912 million assessed value of the Limerick nuclear power plant. According to the newspaper, “Peco contends that its power station is worthless, according to court documents, on the grounds that decommissioning the plant someday — including removing all fuel and decontaminating the grounds — would cost more than what the county says the property is worth.”

A Pennsylvania state law enacted in May says that as long as an assessment of utility property is under appeal, the utility can decide how much its property is worth — in this case, zero.

One might expect that a similar tax battle will take place at Vermont Yankee if Amergen (Peco) is allowed to buy it. After all they are only “paying” $23 million for it, while its assessed value is around $130 million.

NATO obstructs UN inquiry into depleted uranium
By Robert Fisk
16 October 1999

AFTER INSISTING that no scientific study had ever proved depleted uranium (DU) shells could cause cancer in Iraq or Kosovo, Nato has refused to co-operate with a United Nations team investigating the use of the munitions in the former Yugoslavia.

Pekka Haavisto, chairman of the UN’s Balkan environment task force, says Nato refused to co-operate with his team and that “immediate action is necessary to obtain information from Nato confirming if, how and where, DU was used during the conflict.”

There is, of course, no “if” about it. Nato admitted in answer to a question from The Independent in May that US A-10 aircraft had used DU shells ? designed to penetrate thick armour ? against Serb targets, a statement the US Department of Defense later repeated. A Nato spokesman claimed ? inaccurately ? that a Rand Corporation study had proved DU munitions caused no harm.

Hundreds of tons of DU were used in the 1991 Gulf War. In the years that followed, there was an epidemic of cancers among Iraqis living near the battlefields ? many of whom showed symptoms identical or similar to thousands of Allied veterans now suffering from Gulf War syndrome. Scientists fear similar contamination has taken place in ex-Yugoslavia. Yet when last month Nato was asked for the locations in Kosovo where DU was used, a spokesman said the information was “not releasable”.

The UN, it now turns out, got the same runaround. “Nato always replied to our letters,” an official in Mr Haavisto’s office told me yesterday. “But they never gave the answers we were expecting. They were never able to release the information. They said it was ‘security’.” Inquiries by The Independent have established that Nato knows perfectly well, from munitions and pilots’ reports, target areas against which DU weapons were used. They include districts close to Djakovica, Mitrovica, Pristina, Urahovac and in Serbia proper.

In private, Nato officers have been telling humanitarian officials in Kosovo to stay away from any area where DU was used ? while still refusing to state where they are. Mr Haavisto’s report recommends “a thorough review of the effects on health of medium and long-term exposure to DU” by the World Health Organization. Yet two years ago the Iraqis asked the WHO for just such a report. It was never produced. Now the UN says ? in its DU report ? that “during and immediately after any attack where depleted uranium was used, some people in the immediate vicinity may have been heavily exposed to depleted uranium by inhalation”. Special health examinations are necessary, the UN says, adding that the possible contamination of land need not prevent refugees from returning to their villages. But “hot-spot” target areas must be identified as soon as possible and arrangements made “for the secure storage of any contaminated material”.

This, of course, cannot be done because Nato is keeping the information secret.

Court Overrules Rambo:
TMI Cases reopened

In a 203 page ruling the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on November 2, 1999, that that a lower court judge erred three years ago when she threw out the cases stemming from the meltdown at the ill-fated Three Mile Island Unit 2 nuclear plant in March of 1979. This decision opens the way for most of the over 2000 plaintiffs to continue to press for damages for their illnesses, which they believe to be caused by radiation exposures from the emissions at the plant during the accident.

The appeals stem from a 1996 ruling by U.S. District Chief Judge Sylvia Rambo that, based on testimony in a “mini-trial” of cases brought by ten “typical” plaintiffs, there was insufficient evidence to link the various claims of cancer and birth defects of the larger group to the accident.

In the November 2 ruling, Circuit Court Judge Theodore McKee said the remaining plaintiffs should have been given a chance to object to Rambo’s decision. The ruling allowed all but the 10 plaintiffs involved in the test hearing to revive their cases.

President Carter, Admiral Rickover in TMI cover-up?

[Note: We received the following by email from Bill Smirnow via the NukeNet list server. I thought that it might be appropriate to include it with the TMI story. DNP]

Jane Rickover, daughter-in-law of Admiral Hyman Rickover, “father” of the nuclear navy, signed the following statement. It was notarized by William Lamson July 18, 1986. I (Bill Smirnow) have spoken with Jane Rickover a number of times. She has verified the authenticity of the document and the events described in it.

“In May, 1983, my father-in-law, Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, told me that at the time of the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor accident, a full report was commissioned by President Jimmy Carter. He [my father-in-law] said that the report, if published in its entirety, would have destroyed the civilian nuclear power industry because the accident at Three Mile Island was infinitely more dangerous than was ever made public. He told me that he had used his enormous personal influence with President Carter to persuade him to publish the report only in a highly “diluted” form. The President himself had originally wished the full report to be made public.

“In November, 1985, my father-in-law told me that he had come to deeply regret his action in persuading President Carter to suppress the most alarming aspects of that report.”

[Signed] Jane Rickover