Posted on 02/18/2005 5:52:25 AM PST by Nick The Freeper
MINERAL--From Northern Virginia, Charlottesville, Richmond, even as far away as North Carolina they came, converging on Louisa County Middle School, bearing signs, speeches, buttons and pins.
And though their agendas and political views couldn't have been further apart, they agreed on one thing: a desire to weigh in on an issue of crucial importance--namely, whether Dominion should be allowed to build new nuclear reactors at its North Anna Power Station.
The occasion was the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's public hearing last night on a draft environmental impact statement. The session began at 7 p.m., but protesters and proponents started gathering an hour ahead of time to do a little politicking with local and NRC officials, and to rally the troops.
The sidewalk out front was one part lobbying those who walked by, and one part theater.
Jennifer Connor and Shelly Stern of Charlottesville, decked out in beauty-pageant sashes and regalia, rolled empty 55-gallon drums up the sidewalk to make a point. Connor, aka "Ms. Radioactivity," described herself and Stern as "beauty queens for nuclear waste," referring to highly radioactive spent fuel stored at North Anna.
Needless to say, they were opponents of the plan. "We didn't think that Louisa had enough waste, so we brought more," Connor said.
Lisa Shell, who lives in Henrico County, was among a number of supporters stationed out front. She was with the pro-nuclear group North American Young Generation in Nuclear.
"We're here because we don't think the media are telling the whole story" about nuclear power, said Shell, who works for Dominion. "We want to tell the success side of the story that it's an important part of the country's energy mix."
Louisa is ground zero in a battle to determine whether, and where, a new generation of nuclear reactors will be built in the United States.
Dominion, parent company of Dominion Virginia Power, and two other utilities--Exelon Generation Co. in Illinois and System Energy Resources Inc. in Mississippi--have filed applications for early site permits to resolve safety, environmental protection and energy-planning issues before making the decision to build. The permits would allow the utilities to "bank" a site for up to 20 years.
Dominion is slightly ahead of the others in the permit process.
"It is at the head of the pack," said NRC spokesman Scott Burnell, which is why its application is being watched so closely by the nuclear-energy industry, and by opponents, who have pulled out all the stops to challenge the application.
Some 300 people packed the meeting room, and it was clear from a show of hands that the majority of the crowd was critical of Dominion's plans.
Occasionally, as Dominion and NRC officials spoke, several attendees held up homemade "Lie Meters" that drew occasional snickers from one side, and glares from the other. More than 75 people signed up to speak, and each was allotted three minutes.
Environmental groups opposing Dominion's plans contend that the lake environment is at risk and that health and safety concerns have been dismissed.
The Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League is calling for a comprehensive health survey before the federal government issues an early site permit for new nuclear reactors at North Anna. It recommended death and disease studies for a nine-county area.
The group released a report in January showing significantly higher death rates in that nine-county area, which includes Charlottesville. It contends that death rates rose sharply soon after North Anna began operation in 1978 and that the effects continue.
That study has been dismissed as "junk science" by the nuclear industry, which says data have been manipulated and omitted to reach those conclusions, and that there's no correlation between those problems and the plant's operations.
Spotsylvania supervisors weighed in last week on Dominion's application, saying that more reactors could lower the lake's water level, affecting recreation and property use, and that the environmental analysis doesn't go far enough in looking at potential effects downstream. The board also was critical of the overall permit process.
Dominion has maintained that its plant is safe and that new reactors would not pose health risks to nearby residents or to the environment.
The company says it has no plans now to add reactors at North Anna, but wants to have that option. It does have some things in its favor: a president and political climate favoring expanding nuclear power generation--and financial incentives
The U.S. Department of Energy is picking up about half the $11 million cost of the early site permit application, and Dominion stands to get $366 million in DOE funds to develop and build any new reactors.
Dominion has said a new reactor at North Anna could cost about $1.4 billion and take four years to build.
Before that can happen, an early site permit would have to be approved, and then the company would have to apply for a combined construction and operating license.
Its draft environmental impact statement concludes that Dominion's early site permit should be approved, finding "There are no environmentally preferable or obviously superior sites and that any adverse environmental impacts from possible site preparation and preliminary construction activities at North Anna could be redressed."
The final environmental impact statement is due in August. NRC officials said last night that public comments would be considered in its conclusions. The NRC could vote on Dominion's application by June 2006.
North Anna sits on a 13,000-acre lake created in 1971 to cool its reactors. Over the years, the lake has become home to marinas, dozens of subdivisions, a state park and thousands of recreational users.
The draft report says that water quality and levels in Lake Anna could decline in times of drought and residents' quality of life could be affected by construction and increased traffic. Heat-sensitive striped bass could also suffer from higher water temperatures.
In addition, the report concluded that no additional transmission lines or rights of way would be required; some minor air-quality impacts would be expected during construction; and about 128 acres of the existing plant site would be disturbed.
There are currently two reactors in operation at North Anna, though the plant was originally designed for four. Units 3 and 4 were scrapped in the early 1980s.
The article mentions the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League. A Dominion employee completely debunked the numbers that they have come up with. What they did to manipulate the numbers was include accidental deaths, fire deaths, and others in the post North Anna numbers. However, in the pre North Anna numbers they did not include those deaths. The representative from the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League spoke after the Dominion employee and did not refute one thing that had been said.
If I were an anti-nuke I would have serious questions about my position today. One of the NA-YGN speakers was a Ph.D. (in nuclear engineering) and another had a master's degree from MIT (also in nuclear engineering). To be fair there was another Ph.D. (in nuclear engineering, I believe) who spoke out against nukes. However, he was either intentionally misleading or not smart enough to figure out the problem he cited in the report was not really a problem. It boiled down to well reasoned arguments versus "we're all going to die" type arguments.
That is a very compelling argument, since is is entirely TRUE. When are those dips gonna figure out that you either have greenhouse gases or nuclear power...ya gotta choose.
Could you fix the title please? "Argumentstype" shouldn't be there.
I did kind of chuckle when one of the ladies was making that argument. However, it isn't likely that I'll kick the bucket due to a nuclear power plant.
Don't know how you feel about nuclear power, but thought it was worth a ping.
I didn't know they built nuclear reactors anymore. This is great news, if they ever get past the irrational sector. Amusing how a lake built to cool 4 reactors is now wholly devoted to fishing and water skiing.
It is laughable that they're having palpitations over the lake environment. That lake wouldn't even be there if the power plants weren't there in the first place.
I don't have a problem, per se, with nuclear power. I have a problem with Dominion running them. Ever since Hurricane Isabel....
I live in Bumpass in Louisa County, not far from Lake Anna. I have no qualms whatsoever about the nukes. Just wish I could get some of that cheap electricity - I'm with the Rappahannock electric coop, not Dominion!
Nuclear Power ROCKS...I hope Lake Anna is given the go-ahead to proceed...MUD
The safety record for nuke power plants is pretty good. I have no problem with it, and I live within a few miles of one.
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