Contact
Courtney Hanson, Georgia WAND
308.631.8543 (cell), 404.524.5999
courntey@wand.org

Leslie Anderson Maloy
(703) 276-3256
landerson@hastingsgroup.com

We Told You So:   Major Cost Overruns Latest Sign of Vogtle Woes, Including Construction Errors and Raft of Amendments to Federal License

WASHINGTON, D.C. – May 11, 2012 – Even though the Vogtle reactor project got its federal license just three months ago, the controversial nuclear reactors are already in trouble.  The latest problem: A cost overrun of nearly $1 billion in 2011 dollars, according to groups, including Georgia Women's Action for New Directions,  that warned in February that the Vogtle expansion effort is a boondoggle that could hurt ratepayers and (depending on the status of a pending Solyndra-style federal loan guarantee) U.S. taxpayers.

Southern Co. publicly acknowledged its share of the cost overrun in a filing this week with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) at

http://investor.southerncompany.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=92122-12-76&CIK=092122.

The new admission about problems at Vogtle follow recent reports about grading issues under the reactor's foundation, improperly installed rebar that has slowed the project, and dozens of amendments requested to the federal license for the two new Vogtle reactors.

"Southern Company's missteps in early construction and gross financial negligence on the backs of ratepayers shows they can't be trusted with Georgians' safety or money," Courtney Hanson, Georgia WAND Public Outreach Director said.

Given all of the partners involved in Vogtle project, the cost overrun would break down as follows:  Georgia Power ($400 million); Oglethorpe ($263 million); MEAG Power ($199 million); and the City of Dalton ($14 million).   The $875 million in 2008 dollars would be worth $913 million in 2011 dollars.

Southern Co.’s SEC filing warns that more cost overruns could be in the works.    In its SEC filing, Southern Co. notes on page 139:  "Additional claims by the Consortium and [Georgia Power] (on behalf of the owners) are expected to arise throughout the construction of Vogtle 3 and 4."  However, no details are provided on how far losses could mount over and above the current nearly $1 billion cost overrun total.

"Southern Co. needs to come clean about the Vogtle construction partnership that ratepayers have been forced to accept, and stop painting a rosy picture of what is clearly a mess." Bobbie Paul, Georgia WAND Executive Director said. " If Southern is the good community partner it claims to be then the company should end this high-risk energy venture now and return the millions in up front fees the company has been extracting from ratepayers since January of 2011."

On February 15, 2012, nine groups -- Friends of the Earth, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League, Center for a Sustainable Coast, Citizens Allied for Safe Energy, Georgia Women’s Action for New Directions, NC WARN, Nuclear Information and Resource Service, and Nuclear Watch South  -- held a news conference to warn that Southern Company is deliberately keeping ratepayers and U.S. taxpayers in the dark by covering up the details of 12 sizeable construction “change order” requests that are expected to add major delays and cost overruns to the controversial reactor project. See http://www.cleanenergy.org/index.php?/Press-Update.html?form_id=8&item_id=278.

Mindy Goldstein, director, Turner Environmental Law Clinic, said:  "In an appeal filed with the DC Circuit Court of Appeals earlier this year, nine environmental groups asked the court to require the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to consider the true cost of constructing and operating Plant Vogtle Units 3 and 4.  In its environmental impact statement, the Commission previously concluded that the new nuclear reactors were more cost effective than certain energy alternatives.  In light of the design changes that will very likely be required to incorporate lessons learned from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, this conclusion must be revisited.  And now, knowing that the project is already suffering from a $900 million cost overrun, an accurate assessment of the costs is even more important."

Dr. Arjun Makhijani, president, Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, said:  “Southern Company rushed into this project, as evidenced by the many requests for modifications of the license and early technical difficulties and problems including failure of ‘some details’ of early construction to conform to the Design Control Document, according to Georgia Power’s filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.  Indeed, a part of the cost increase of $900 million appears to be attributable to overcoming delays and rushing the project again despite construction non-compliance.  The cost increase should not be a surprise; rather it is déjà vu all over again.  Rushing nuclear power reactors is not prudent and stockholders and/or the vendors, not ratepayers, should bear the burden of such costs.  It would be much better if construction were suspended until all design issues were resolved.”

The groups will continue to press their case today by filing a brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

For Immediate Release
Monday, April 16, 2012

Atlanta  –  The Nuclear Regulatory Commission today unanimously affirmed a memorandum and order denying a stay motion to halt construction at the troubled Plant Vogtle project near Augusta, Georgia. Representatives of nine groups, including Atlanta based Georgia Women's Action for New Directions,  opposed to the NRC's decision in February to approve the licensing of Southern Company’s two new Vogtle reactors and will comment today about this morning's NRC decision to deny the stay.

The groups now plan to file a motion in federal court to stay construction.  That court proceeding would unfold against a backdrop of more than 30-plus license changes that Southern Company has said are needed and that the nine groups believe may result in possible delays and cost overruns.

The groups will hold a phone-based news conference at 1:30 p.m. EDT Monday following a planned 9 a.m. NRC public hearing.

News event speakers will be:
Diane Curran, Harmon, Curran, Spielberg & Eisenberg, L.L.P., attorney for organizations;
Dr. Arjun Makhijani, president, Institute for Energy and Environmental Research;
Sara Barczak, High Risk Energy Choices director, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy; and
Rev. Charles Utley, Environmental Justice coordinator, Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League.

TO PARTICIPATE:  You can participate in a related live, phone-based news conference (with full, two-way Q&A) at 1:30 p.m. EDT on April 16, 2012 by dialing 1 (800) 860-2442. Ask for the “NRC/Vogtle reactor challenge” news event.

CAN’T PARTICIPATE?:  A streaming audio replay of a related news event will be available on the Web at http://www.cleanenergy.org as of 5 p.m. EDT on April 16, 2012.

 MEDIA CONTACTS:   Leslie Anderson Maloy, (703) 276-3256 or landerson@hastingsgroup.com and Courtney Hanson (404) 524-5999 or courtney@wand.org

BACKGROUND

The nine groups are the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League, Center for a Sustainable Coast, Citizens Allied for Safe Energy, Friends of the Earth, Georgia Women’s Action for New Directions, North Carolina Waste Awareness and Reduction Network, Nuclear Information and Resource Service, Nuclear Watch South, and the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy.

The groups maintain that NRC is violating federal law by issuing the Vogtle license without fully considering important public safety and environmental implications of the catastrophic Fukushima accident in Japan. They have asked federal judges to order the NRC to prepare a new environmental impact statement (EIS) for the proposed Vogtle reactors that would detail how cooling systems for the proposed reactors and spent fuel storage pools would meet new regulatory requirements in light of the Fukushima accident to protect the site, and thus the surrounding communities, against earthquakes, flooding and prolonged loss of electric power to the site. Post-Fukushima safety requirements may also lead to a change in the economics of the project compared to alternatives.

In February, the groups asked the NRC to delay construction of the new Vogtle reactors until the court decided their case. If the NRC refuses their request on Monday, they will bring it to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. They contend that construction should not be allowed until the NRC decides whether the proposed new reactors should be re-designed to provide for more rigorous protection against earthquakes and extended power outages. To build reactors that might need to be significantly modified later and extensively backfitted in light of new post-Fukushima regulatory requirements risks wasting ratepayer dollars, causing unnecessary pollution, and even possible abandonment of the project.

NRC License for new Vogtle reactors will be opposed in Federal Court, suspension of construction at Georgia Site to be sought

9 Groups contend that the NRC is failing to consider Fukushima lessons before issuing a final license to construct and operate two new nuclear reactors

 In the wake of the  Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC)  4-1 vote today to  issue the final license for two new reactors at the site of the currently operating Vogtle nuclear power plant in Georgia, nine national, state and regional groups will ask the NRC to delay its decision until the groups can file a challenge in federal court.

In the major legal challenge that will be filed within a matter of days, the organizations will maintain that the NRC is violating federal law by issuing the license without considering the important lessons of the catastrophic Fukushima accident in Japan regarding ways the Vogtle operation should be modified to protect public safety and the environment.

The one dissenting voice from the NRC came from Chairman Gregory Jaczko, who said "I cannot support these licenses as if Fukushima never happened."

Georgia WAND applauds Chairman Jaczko's courage to put public safety first.  He showed true leadership in the face of the industry's blatant disregard for anything getting in the way of their profit-driven priorities.

“The nuclear industry has shown a total disregard for the general public, and especially those who live in the shadow of Plant Vogtle. Bobbie Paul, Georgia WAND executive director said. "To move forward this project without evaluating lessons learned is unconscionable. Those who refuse to learn from history are destined to repeat it.”

The groups will ask federal judges to order the NRC to prepare a new environmental impact statement (EIS) for the proposed Vogtle reactors that explains how cooling systems for the reactors and spent fuel storage pools will be upgraded to protect against earthquakes, flooding and prolonged loss of electric power to the site.

According to the groups, the EIS should also detail how emergency equipment and plans for the nuclear plant will be revised to account for accidents affecting multiple reactors on the Vogtle site, as happened at Fukushima.

Residents living near Plant Vogtle, hope the EIS will provide answers they've been asking for since the dawn of this project.

“The concerns of my people have been ignored,” Annie Laura Stephens, a resident of Shell Bluff, just a few miles from Plant Voglte, said. “The only person left listening to us is Jesus.”

As part of the action, the organizations will also challenge the validity of the Westinghouse-Toshiba AP1000 design, on which the new Vogtle reactors are based.

The organizations are preparing to file their lawsuit next week in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.  Meanwhile, they will ask the NRC on Thursday (February 9, 2012) to give the nine organizations time to review the licensing decision.  After such review, the groups will submit a formal motion to the NRC, asking the commissioners to suspend construction activities at Vogtle while the U.S. Court of Appeals is reviewing the license.

The nine organizations taking the legal action are:  Friends of the Earth, the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League, Center for a Sustainable Coast, Citizens Allied for Safe Energy, Georgia Women’s Action for New Directions, North Carolina Waste Awareness and Reduction Network, Nuclear Information and Resource Service and Nuclear Watch South.

Although Southern Co. has already commenced construction activities at the Vogtle site, the license would allow Southern to complete construction of the containment, reactor cooling systems, spent fuel storage pools, and other major reactor components.

The organizations charge that these major structures could change substantially if they are redesigned to take the lessons of the Fukushima accident into account, and therefore continued construction of the new Vogtle reactors could be wasting money and resources.  And if the license is disapproved in the lawsuit or Fukushima-related retrofits make the project too expensive to finish, utility ratepayers in Georgia are likely to be stuck with the expense of a large and useless concrete mausoleum, similar to many other abandoned reactor projects across the U.S.

Separately, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy has sued the Department of Energy for failing to disclose key information about the terms of DOE’s $8.3 billion loan guarantee for the new Vogtle reactors, especially the risk posed to U.S. taxpayers should the estimated $14 billion project default.

The organizations remain very concerned that utility customers and taxpayers have been forced to put more “skin in the game” than Southern Co. and its utility partners and shareholders.  With prices of natural gas very low, even the CEO of Exelon has said publicly that he wouldn’t build a nuclear plant today.  For more details, see http://www.cleanenergy.org/index.php?/Press-Update.html?form_id=8&item_id=267.

###

For Immediate Release
Wednesday, February 1, 2012

ContactCourtney Hanson
courtney@wand.org
404.524.5999

Department of Energy refuses to restore environmental monitoring to Georgia communities near nuclear site

ATLANTA-The Department of Energy (DOE) announced Tuesday that it does not plan to restore environmental monitoring to Georgia communities surrounding the Savannah River Site (SRS), a US nuclear weapons complex notorious for its Cold War legacy radioactive waste.

This monitoring, which was cut in Georgia 2003, tests drinking water, rain, crops, fish, air and more near SRS in order to protect residents in poor and rural areas, including Georgia’s Burke and Screven Counties, where many people rely on water from private wells, home-grown crops and fish from the Savannah River.

“The DOE’s obstruction to environmental monitoring in Georgia is a gross example of environmental injustice,” Bobbie Paul, Georgia WAND Executive Director said. “Radiation does not acknowledge state boundaries. The people living downwind and downstream of SRS deserve to know what’s in the water, air and food that they consume.”

In 2010, then DOE Assistant Secretary, Dr. Ines Triay pledged that monitoring would be restored to Georgia with a 5-year contract independent of any restrictions from SRS.   In February 2011, SRS and DOE reached a deal with the Georgia Environmental Protection Division for $700,000 annually with the agreement that the check would be delivered to Georgia within 30 days. The money was never sent and in July 2011, DOE reported they would only fund $300,000 annually, less than half of what the program received annually when the its funding was cut in 2003. Now, the offer is off the table.

The DOE, which still funds $1.5 million annually for monitoring in South Carolina, said funding it in Georgia would be redundant, and that the money is not available. But Georgia citizens living near SRS are concerned about their safety.

“I’ve lost sisters, brothers, cousins and friends to cancer. Every family I know has lost somebody,” Annie Laura Stephens, president of the Burke County National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, who grew up and lives near SRS, said. “We’ve tried to have meetings to find out what’s going on in our area, we’re still in the dark. It seems that nobody is listening but Jesus.”

The most recent Georgia monitoring data (from 2002) released in 2004 by the Georgia Environmental Protection Division shows elevated levels of radioactive tritium in Georgia communities surrounding SRS. The report showed dangerously high levels in river water, drinking water, fish and leafy vegetation.

Known by local residents as ‘the bomb plant’, SRS is currently tasked with waste management, waste clean-up after reprocessing, plutonium disposition, and tritium production for nuclear weapons. It is a national superfund site, and has a legacy of contamination spanning back to the Cold War, which is why environmental monitoring was originally implemented there.

###

Press Releases

10/21/11 SRS radioactive emissions found higher than first reported

10/13/11 Blue Ribbon Commission to meet in Atlanta, hear from local groups on nuclear waste

10/6/11 All day Peace in the Park to mark decade at war with Afghanistan

10/4/11 Georgia WAND exposes lack of environmental monitoring; presses Dept. of Energy for accountability

9/22/11 Dr. Helen Caldicott, world renowned nuclear expert, to make appearances in Atlanta

8/22/11 Press Conference to mark 9 years of Stand for Peace

8/11/11 Georgia WAND Continues Legal Challenge of Plant Vogtle Expansion

8/6/11 Media Advisory - Visions and Voices of Peace Hiroshima Remembrance Event

7/29/11 Georgia WAND to hold press conference, distribute press packets regarding nuclear power in Georgia at Public Service Commission meeting

7/5/11 Georgia Women's Action for New Directions to hold press conference at Public Service Commission meeting, discuss proposed Georgia Power risk sharing mechanism

6/2/11 Nuclear power before and after Fukushima- An Evening with Stephanie Cooke

5/26/11 Hundreds of mothers, doctors, concerned Atlanta residents to demand protection from toxic mercury at EPA hearing today

5/10/11 Georgia Redistricting Alliance announces redistricing community event in Athens

4/15/11 Georgia WAND Seeks NRC Suspension of Reactor Licensing at Plant Vogtle, Urging Serious Review of Fukushima Implications

4/14/11 Georgia WAND to join largest grassroots training in history, advocate clean energy policy in the U.S.

4/13/2011 Georgia WAND Presents Mother's Day for Peace 2011 featuring Winona LaDuke

4/8/11 Georgia WAND members talk to decision makers in DC about Southeast Nuclear Issues, assured environmental monitoring in GA a Department of Energy priority

4/1/11 Georgia WAND heads to Washington DC for Nuclear Reality Check calling out U.S. Dept. of Energy projects that put environment, non-proliferation and tax-dollars at risk

3/18/11 Georgia WAND to host Russian Chernobyl scientists to address Japanese nuclear disaster, how it relates to new nuclear reactors proposed in Georgia

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

If the United States doesn't reconsider opening Yucca Mountain, then another national repository to store nuclear waste should be built, an executive with Southern Nuclear said Tuesday.

"We believe that the technical knowledge developed for Yucca Mountain should be preserved," said Paula Marino, vice president of engineering for Southern Nuclear. "Southern supports research design and development to improve on existing designs."

Southern Nuclear, a sister company to Georgia Power, is waiting for federal regulators to issue a key permit to start heavy construction on two nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle, near Augusta. Just as the utility is months away from likely building the first newly permitted nuclear reactors in three decades, a special federal government task force met in Atlanta Tuesday to discuss options for storing nuclear waste.

The Obama administration canceled plans to build a permanent underground nuclear storage facility at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. The Department of Energy formed the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future to find alternative storage options. The commission is recommending, among other things, creating new sites to store nuclear waste and creating an additional agency to oversee that. Money to pay for the sites would come from a taxpayer-supported Nuclear Waste Fund.

Marino said if a new organization was created to handle nuclear waste, it should be depoliticized so that money intended to help pay for nuclear waste storage doesn't get caught up in changing political winds.

Other utilities, including SCANA in South Carolina, are lining up behind Southern Nuclear to build or expand their nuclear plants, bringing the issue of what to do with waste to the forefront. While expensive to build, utilities are turning to nuclear as a way to provide electricity that is less polluting than coal and less dependent on foreign oil.

Southern operates six reactors: two at Vogtle, two at Plant Hatch and two at Plant Farley, in Alabama. The spent

Bobbie Paul addressing the Blue Ribbon Commission

fuel rods are stored in pools of water at Vogtle. At Hatch and Farley, they are kept in dry-cask facilities, a Southern Nuclear spokeswoman said.

The Vogtle project's opponents include the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy and the anti-nuclear group, Georgia WAND. Bobbie Paul, the group's executive director, urged the commission not to create any interim storage facilities or allow waste to be transported anywhere.

"That's an invitation to the nuclear industry to think about nuclear reprocessing," she said.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Thursday, October 6, 2011

http://www.ajc.com/news/occupy-atlanta-joins-friday-1195934.html?cxtype=rss_news

The Occupy Wall Street phenomenon, a movement that has spread from Lower Manhattan to at least 21 cities around the U.S., reaches Atlanta on Friday night during a loosely organized meeting at Woodruff Park downtown.

Calling itself Occupy Atlanta, the local organization will hold an assembly at the park, though an organizer says not to expect bullhorns or chanted slogans. The meeting, said Tim Franzen, is intended to seek a consensus among local members about future plans for social action.

Members of the local group are piggybacking their get-together onto another protest at the park planned by the Georgia Peace and Justice Coalition to mark the 10th anniversary of the war in Afghanistan.

That all-day "Peace Camp" will begin at 8 a.m. Friday morning and will include speakers, workshops and musical performances. A collection of anti-war and faith-based organizations will be represented, including the American Friends Service Committee, the Presbyterian Peacemaking Partnership, the Georgia chapter of Women's Action for New Directions and Iraq Veterans Against the War, according to coordinator Kevin Moran.

Franzen said the Occupy Atlanta representatives plan to hold their assembly at the end of the day, as the planned events are winding down. But while Occupy Atlanta and the Georgia Peace and Justice Coalition share goals, the two groups apparently haven't shared their planning calendars. "These are not coordinated events," said Moran. "They are not hooked up with us."

The peace coalition's goal is to draw attention to the economic costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, said Moran. Occupy Atlanta has broader concerns, said Franzen, including opposition to education budget cuts, support of universal health care and outrage over the execution of Troy Davis. "This movement is about reclaiming America from the corporations that have control of the government," said Franzen.

Moran and Franzen expect "hundreds" of people at the events.

 By Walter C. Jones
Morris News Service
October 4, 2011

http://chronicle.augusta.com/news/government/2011-10-04/protest-demands-ga-monitor-savannah-river-site-environment

 ATLANTA — A group of anti-nuclear activists held a rally on the Capitol steps Tuesday to call for the U.S. Department of Energy to resume funding Georgia’s monitoring of air and water quality for dangerous emissions from Savannah River Site.

The group, Women’s Action for New Directions, said the funding was needed as an early warning against accidental releases of nuclear hazards that could contaminate the air, crops, wildlife and private wells and raise the risk of cancer in people living in Richmond, Burke, Screven, Effingham and Chatham counties.

Dr. Helen Caldicott, a pediatrician who co-founded the group and Physicians for Social Responsibility, contended federal officials feared an objective environmental assessment because it would show that the residents of those counties would have to be relocated.

“I think one of the reasons they don’t want to test is because it’s obvious that area is highly polluted with radioactive materials,” she said, adding that SRS should be shut down completely.

For 10 years, the Department of Energy provided money for the Georgia Environmental Protection Division to monitor wells, air samples, wildlife and crops in those counties.

In 2003, the policy changed, and the funding stopped the next year.

The state continues to use its own money to monitor areas around commercial reactors, which includes Plant Vogtle near Waynesboro.

“We’ve not seen anything unusual,” said Jim Hardeman, the manager of EPD’s environmental radiation program.

DOE still funds $1.5 million for monitoring by South Carolina annually.

Savannah River Site

The South Carolina Depart­ment of Health and Environmental Control collects samples of air, soil, sediment, vegetation, fish, water, milk and game animals to determine the amount of radionuclides and chemicals present.

 

 

 

Sarita Chourey, of Morris News Service in Columbia, contributed to this article.

October 2011
By John Raymond

http://www.zcommunications.org/contents/181277/print

Undeterred by the nuclear power industry’s latest radiological catastrophe in Japan, the Obama administration is moving to put the stamp of approval on a far-reaching nuclear expansion project that has raised charges of environmental injustice from regional watchdog groups who have been fighting the project for over six years.

 Once deemed the “poster child” of a U.S. nuclear revival by the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), the Washington-based propaganda wing of the nuclear establishment, the project would put two more nuclear reactors on a site in Burke County, Georgia in a black farming community where cancer mortality and infant mortality rates increased sharply after two existing reactors on the site went online in the late 1980s.

 The project—put forward by the Southern Company, a U.S. utility headquartered in Atlanta for its Plant Vogtle nuclear station—is the furthest along the track for approval of 14 reactors proposed for 7 sites (2 per site) throughout the southeast. All projects are based on a new reactor model known as the AP1000 sold by Westinghouse-Toshiba. The AP1000 is on the fast track for final certification, but remains the target of challenges over safety design flaws identified by nuclear engineers in and outside of the industry. Despite the unresolved issues, the NRC is expected to certify the reactor before the end of the year, allowing construction to begin.

 The increase in cancer and mortality data is shown in a report commissioned by the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League (BREDL) based in Glendale Spring, North Carolina and a lead member in the regional coalition opposing the Plant Vogtle expansion. 

 The  Report 

The report, “Health Risks of Adding New Reactors to the Alvin Vogtle Nuclear Plant,” showed changes in health status before and after the startup of the two reactors. It was based on data for annual deaths between 1979-2003 maintained by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and found: “The cancer death rate for children and adolescents in the 11 counties closest to Vogtle rose 58.5 percent, compared to a 14.1 percent decline nationally. The death rate in Burke County rose sharply for all cancers, especially for blacks and for children and young/ middle age adults, while U.S. rates declined. In the late 1980s, Burke County cancer mortality rates were below the U.S., but became considerably higher.”

In studies of radiation health risk, “childhood cancer is perhaps the most-studied disease, due to the increased risk from radiation exposures to the fetus, infant, and child,” the report stated. The report included data on environmental contamination based on annual reports submitted by the utility to the NRC. Data on selected water samples and sediment showed that, “From 1987-1990 (as Vogtle began operating) to 1991-2003 (during full operation), average radioactivity levels in drinking water, river water, and sediment downriver or at the Vogtle plant rose:

• Beta in Raw Drinking Water + 37.1 percent  
• Beta in Finished Drinking Water + 17.8 percent,
  Beryllium-7 in Sediment + 39.5 percent 
• Cesium-137 in Sediment + 37.4 percent 
• Tritium in River Water + 44.6 percent

“The report found that increases in average levels of radioactivity in the local soil, sediment, and water are roughly equivalent to the increase in cancer deaths in Burke County,” Mangano said in a recent interview.... This should be a big red flag for the continued operations of Vogtle 1 and 2, and for the potential startup of Vogtle 3 and 4.”

Mangnao noted that the report “underlines not just the increases in local contamination and cancer rates but also represents a lack of public accountability by the public utilities and government regulators to the public. What’s in this report should be presented by the government and the utilities to the public on an ongoing basis.”

A news feature aired on CNN last year (“Town fights new nuclear plants,” 4/16/10) cited Mangano’s report in a story about the plight of residents in Shell Bluff who have asked for—but failed to get—environmental testing done to determine the cause of their high cancer rates. The story noted that a radiological monitoring program under Georgia’s Environmental Protection Division and funded by the U.S. Department of Energy was terminated in 2004.

Until DOE cut the funds, Georgia’s EPD published reports on testing results on water, fish, and other samples near state facilities that emitted ionizing radiation, comparing the data to background levels. Test results for Vogtle from 1995 to 2002 showed that it was the source of 2 to 50 times the elevation of radionuclides contaminating sediment, river water, fish, and drinking water.

“The funding for the program was cut off around the same time we heard about the so-called nuclear renaissance and we smelled a rat,” said Bobbie Paul, executive director of Georgia WAND (Women’s Action for New Directions), which works on health and social justice issues. “We believed Southern Company didn’t want any kind of sampling or testing that would disturb this major financial investment that was going to double the size of Vogtle.”

The CNN story said that DOE had been contacted and stated in response that funding would be restored, but to date that has not happened. “We look at Vogtle first through the lens of the environmental justice issue,” said Paul. “The people who live in Shell Bluff are predominately African American, they’re poor people who farm the land. They have very few services and they live directly downwind and downstream from both Plant Vogtle and the Savannah River Site, the old bomb plant. And they have cancers—pancreatic, stomach, liver, brain, colon cancers.”
 

Stockpiling

The Savannah River Site (SRS), which produced plutonium and tritium and other weapons materials from five nuclear reactors, is now the site of the DOE’s tritium extraction operation producing tritium for the U.S. nuclear stockpile. An estimated 37,000,000 gallons of high-level liquid radioactive waste from weapons production are stored on the site in 49 underground tanks (many leaking, and eight or more near or below the water table, according to a 2010 GAO report). “Tritium levels have been read on the site at over 220,000 picocuries per liter when the accepted level is 20,000, and we’re trying to get it reduced to four or five hundred as a public health goal,” Paul said.

“What I see happening in Burke County is another injustice heaped upon a community which has already had major injustices heaped upon it in the past,” said BREDL’s science director, Lou Zeller. BREDL submitted a further report citing radiological pollution from Plant Vogtle to the NRC last year and charged the agency had failed to consider “the full impact” of two additional nuclear plants on the site. They “would double the danger of radiation exposure, double the risk of nuclear accidents, and double the impact on future generations.”

The report, based on utility data, said that the existing reactors discharge 10,000 gallons of liquid waste per minute into the Savannah River. “This includes over 1,400 curies/year of nuclear fission products and tritium and two new proposed reactors would increase this radioactive pollution by an additional 2,020 curies per year.”

The report further noted that local residents depend on the Savannah River for fish for food. Testing has shown that river fish are contaminated with cesium-137. Tests in the vicinity of the Vogtle plant have routinely found cesium-137 in the edible parts of fish. Exposure to cesium-137 is linked to increased risk of cancer. “Radioactive cesium-137 is of particular concern because levels actually increase when fish is cooked,” the report said. One study found that cesium levels increase by 32 percent when fish are fried with breading and by 62 percent when fried without breading.

Zeller said the addition of two more reactors at Plant Vogtle would “double the danger of radiation exposure, double the risk of nuclear accidents, and double the impact on future generations.... The NRC seems to be immune to arguments about environmental justice. We’ve raised arguments on issues of environmental justice going back to 2006 and they were never even considered by the NRC. They were dismissed out of hand.”

In early August, 25 environmental groups across the country filed separate legal challenges with the NRC over pending actions involving 19 reactor facilities including Plant Vogtle. The motions were filed following the NRC’s recent report containing recommended actions based on “lessons learned” from the Fukushima disaster.

 The report calls for regulatory changes in reactor licensing. In their challenges, the groups stated that under federal laws, “the NRC may not issue or renew a single reactor license until it has either strengthened regulations to protect the public from severe accident risks or until it has made a careful and detailed study of the environmental implications of not doing so, the groups said in a statement.”

John Raymond is a freelance writer based in New York City.

For Immediate Release
Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Contact:
Courtney Hanson
(404) 524-5999
courtney@wand.org

Who: Georgia WAND welcomes Dr. Helen Caldicott,  an Australian native, pediatrician, physician, leading anti-nuclear activist, Nobel Peace Prize winner and renowned author, speaker, radio host and founder of Women’s Action for Nuclear Disarmament (WAND).

When: Monday, October 3 through Wednesday, October 5 What:  Dr. Caldicott will headline two public events. Press are invited to both events, with personal interviews granted on a  rolling basis. Phone interviews available immediately. In-person interviews available Monday, October 3 – Wednesday, October 5. Contact Courtney Hanson, 404.524.5999, 308.631.8543 ir courtney@wand.org for more information.

“An Aroused Woman is Unstoppable”
Monday, October 3, 6:30 reception, 7:15 program
7 Stages, 1105 Euclid Avenue Northeast

Dr. Caldicott will address issues like women, war, and the future of nuclear in a post-Fukushima world, at the educational and theatrical event, which kicks off a week’s worth of programs marking the tenth anniversary of the Afghanistan war. 7 Stages directors Del Hamilton and Faye Allen will also resurrect their stand-out comedy routine on the pitfalls of putting on a protective hazmat suit. Presented by Georgia WAND and 7 Stages

“Lunch and Learn”
Tuesday, October 4, 12:15 pm
Rollins School of Public Health
1518 Clifton Road, Atlanta, GA 30322

Dr. Helen Caldicott, will lead a discussion with her peers in the medical profession on the health effects of radiation. She will address issues such as the links between radiation and cancer and illnesses in areas surrounding nuclear reactors, like those in Shell Bluff, Georgia, near nuclear Plant Vogtle.  A portion of her talk will also address the fallout after Fukushima and what the radioactive releases in Japan have meant for the health of its residents, especially women and children.

Why:  The nuclear regulatory commission is currently hearing testimony that will decide whether two new reactors at Georgia’s nuclear Plant Vogtle will be constructed next to the plant’s current two reactors. Meanwhile, the world continues to watch the fallout in Japan as evacuations continue, parents begin testing radiation levels of the environment and food for fear of their childrens’ safety, and countries such as Germany take heed of this disaster as a warning and vow to back out of nuclear power all together. Dr. Caldicott’s medical expertise on the effects of radiation and other nuclear contaminants such as tritium on health, and her  lifelong dedication to nuclear disarmament make her a leading voice on nuclear issues and, importantly, how we go forward.