Monday, April 30, 2007

Sheltering In Place-NRC Verse State Department Views


The basic concept of our United States democracy is justice and fairness for all. We have this sense if you will of societal equity. What does this have to do with the NRC, evacuations and/or readiness plans, and nuclear reactors...perhaps everything.

For reasons of convenience (for their licensees), the NRC would have us believe that sheltering in place is A) highly unlikely, and B)if necessary would only be for a few hours, a couple of days at most. If you research the United States Department of State web page regarding issues of radioactive terrorism, or a nuclear incident at a reactor site, they have a far different opinion, CLEARLY the possibility of citizens being sheltered in place not for days, but weeks.

Reactor host community evacuation plans have not prepared any of us for a weeks long period of in home sheltering, none of us are truly prepared for such a reality. Further, many people simply do not have the financial ability to properly prepare and stock a sheltering area in their home for such a significantly long period of time.

With Entergy having just filed their application for license renewal of the Indian Point reactors, thinking we need to get this sheltering discrepancy resolved. With this in mind, was thinking it might be good for a few thousand of us to give Condi Rice and her staff a phone call to verify the information on the Department of States web site. To help us in that goal, I've taken the liberty of having the phone numbers readily available for your dialing pleasure.


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