Annapolis,
MD— A coalition of citizens and
public interest groups voiced their concerns and criticisms to federal
emergency planners in Prince Fredrick, today. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) held a public meeting to
evaluate a December 7th radiological response medical drill
conducted at the Calvert Cliffs nuclear power station in Lusby, MD. The
meeting was in follow-up to a previous exercise where the agencies failed to
notify the public and media of the emergency exercise evaluation meeting.
At the same time, the Chesapeake Safe Energy Coalition publicly
released a letter from several prominent Congressmen expressing dismay over NRC
and FEMA’s failure to implement protective provisions in the Public Health
Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness Act. The federal law, passed in 2002,
required the agencies to implement and distribute thyroid radiation protection
pills for all men, women and children out to 20 miles from all nuclear power
plants. The November 2007 letter was
signed by Congressmen John Dingell (D-MI), Edward Markey (D-MA), Bart Stupak
(D-MI) and Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ).
“These agencies are breaking the law while patting
themselves on the back for a supposed job well done,” said Paul Gunter,
Director of the Reactor Oversight Project for the Takoma Park, MD-based Beyond
Nuclear. “In reality, they are endangering the public and especially children
by refusing to stockpile and distribute potassium iodide as required by the 2002
law,” Gunter said.
Public concern continues to focus on the inadequacy of emergency
preparedness around the Lusby, MD nuclear power station where UniStar Nuclear
Energy (France’s EDF and Constellation Energy) is preparing an application to
construct an additional nuclear reactor.
“These emergency drills unrealistically leave out key
factors like how many first responders are going to think first about their
families,” said Allison Fisher of the Washington DC-based Public Citizen Energy
Program. “The response to a meltdown
will be more like what happened at Three Mile Island
where many of the emergency room doctors and nurses spontaneously evacuated
with their families,” said Fisher.
“If it happens, everybody is going to try to get out at the
same time and that spells chaos,” said Frank Fox, a Mechanicsville, MD
resident. “The plan relies on the cooperation of whole communities without recognition
of what real human behavior is likely to be,” said Fox.
“There are a lot of geographic bottlenecks that will naturally
complicate and slow even the most orderly of evacuations,” said Robert Boxwell,
a Lusby, MD resident with the Sierra Club. “It just doesn’t make sense that NRC
and FEMA would deny us the protection of our thyroids from radiation while we
are stuck in traffic jams,” said Boxwell.
