ML20077C369
| ML20077C369 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Neely Research Reactor |
| Issue date: | 11/12/1994 |
| From: | Blockeyobrien AFFILIATION NOT ASSIGNED |
| To: | NRC OFFICE OF THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR FOR OPERATIONS (EDO) |
| References | |
| 2.206, NUDOCS 9412010266 | |
| Download: ML20077C369 (3) | |
Text
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Exocutivo Director for
[0
- Op3 rations, U.S. Luclear he6ulatory Commissica, Washington, D.C. 20555 PAMELA BLOCKEY-O'BRIEN D23 Colden Valley, Doeginville, GA TIM USA Nov. 12th,1994 RE: Shutdown of Georgia Tech's nuclear Research Reactor and my letter to you containin6.my requests under Section 2.206 of Oct. 23rd, 1994 (with copy of my letter to Mr. Boles of the atlanta Olympic Committee attached, dated /sent Sept.12th '94)
Dear Director,
I would like to add the following information to my above referenced lettors where the Heely Nuclear Recearch Reactor on the Georgia Tech campus la concern 6c. riease Consider tnic information as part of the 2.206 request.
Before I detail my information, I would like to apologise for the print etc. on my typewriter, it is very old, and, unlike say G'orEia Tech, I do not have hundreds of millions of dollars to get fancy equipment.
- 1) after the catastrophic terrorist attack at the Munich olympic Games, the prestigous German newcmas zine, " Der Spiegel" did an in-depth article exposing that police pay chologists had warned the 3cruan government of the potential for attacks similar to what did happen, plus given othcr "what if..."
scenarios. The German govern-ment, wishing to establish a peaceful happy imaEe, basically had these contingency plans scrapped and wouldn't listen.
I am ver;'
concerned, as are others, that that sort of attitude will prevail here with tha Olympics comin6+
- 2) Accordin6 to the documents the Tech Reactor staff have put in for their reliscence application, the reactor must be a) on top of old fill matcrial, itself on top of old drainage systems -
b) cement was poured into the bottom of the containement building,it
"_. provid e s ballast against the buoyant force of aroundwater, and it supports the remainder of the interior building structure, in-cludin6 the reactor."
c) the groundwater measurements they did before putting the darn thing
. where it is,showed it was hit at 11 feet.
d) the famous sont.:.inment building is a " cylindrical steel tank with a diameter of 82 feet", the" dome rising to approximately 50 feet above ground level". They only_ added one measly foot of concgete in-side this steel shell. and this foot of concrete only " extends to approximately 34 feet above the outside ground level.". On their drawin6 the cement narrows to only 4 inches near the. top of the 34 feet, after that
- ? REST 0*- NO CEMEUT! The steel plate top center is only 5/8ths of an inch thick.
So basically it appears as if the only thin 6 separating the people of Atlante from catastrophs if the reactor blew up and spewed its fission producta skyward is a bit of metal about as thick as the roof of your average do8 house. It's not clear who designed this " marvel of modern technology" but you never inow, maybe they ran out of money while building it, whatever the reason for this pathetic j ob, it certainly staggere tbo imagina-
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' tion Even worse is that NRC/AEC passed this to ba6 n with, and.than 1
let it go to 5 Mw.
I mean, I know all these documents are tedious and often* boring to go through, but human lives are at stake here. Doesn' t t
i anyone read these documents ? How many more like it are out there?
- 3) there are extensive past problems documented in the prer,s, with staff leaving over safety issues.
- 4) If the whole building /rcactor were destabilized _ (e.6. earthquake, flooding, terrorists blastin6 a missile through the roof ) and debris squished all the spent fuel rods in there together,you'd have fuel melting from the runaway chain reaction.
Need I say more....
- 5) In an-emergency after 30 minutes, they have to rely on the city water supply, this requires going throuEh a few contortions to get things hooked up in another area, it might be impossible. If that fails they 11 use irradiated water thats on site.
- 6) The Emergency command center will be in the machine shop, which is on the ground floor by the look or it, but the basement is at the same elevation as the ground floor of part of the building. If the area is flooding, or Eoing down a sinkhole, that's the end of the emergeLay command center. Beeldes, whoever heard of putting an emer-gency center inside the reactor ou11 ding, that's ridiculous. It woula ir you cvAu y our children to gather in the hall if the house was oe as on fire. Speaking og "gskhautag$...in an emergency, personnel are to gather in the parking lot - not.much good if it's underwater or down a sin 2 hole or n 3xt to an explodinn react or.
7l "'he e urgency plan stints, period.
Che emesency alsnnins cone 10 only 100 y ards. The whole campus, the young adults in the fraternity houses next to tha reactor (but perhaps outside the loo yds) Atlanta itself can fand for theaselves more or less.
A general emergency is not addressed past the site boundary because "Do crediblc accidents c.t tribu t ublu to the h cd ce w its operations.w. p.Lulated uicu n
can cause emer6ency canditions beyond the sitw boundary." THE SITE eCUIMHY IS DE/ILD 4 TU DARK GH IELIIT EECE 60UED THZ FIACTOR.
The assecament actione for Operational events are pathetic - they'll paseas fires and explosionc by observing fire alarms and visual ob-servations... good luck on that one. The entire procedure in event of ecciderte anf releases is ghastly, d) They have tried to make it look as if the araa population has gone down the way its presenteo, out oy d ay its full of commutjers etc.
t eathe r datn r"5 s ology is inadequate.
- 9) 2ven worse is the health / exposure data. References given date to the early 1950's. It is all absolutely appalling. One Reference is thc "retional Bureau of Standards Ehndbook"for March of 1953. May I remind the PRC, that between ' 54 and '69 alone radiation ste.ndards came down 180 times in terms of what people thought was alr1Eht. apart from unu iaev cu c mule. vion u un m o so any level.
l Au) They didn' t varn students whatt there. They did not explain what -
c;ral( in t. : n
> th-tlan -
'im Chief and w 't A nim w_
oniWf nedical Doctor who would be area 11vuun. ru y olan' c ceAA una in cnar e of reciavine pati nts what was thero wither. I checked all this. au th= doctor said, nu'd probably have to evacuate the hospita, e
l (they want to tame the irradiatud puLients) tuo, considering whats at tue reactor he'a r16nt.
- 11) Tuerec c lot porc Lnan uvun this, includino tne fact that they arc nuppily v utin6 radioactive unk cally throu h a eystem hoahs.rk e
c would have been proud of, and tne " d ouble s ptat" in their documents would make Geor64 Orwell proud. To. add insult to injury, if they have so snut it down anu clean it up. they in6=nd to 6et a law passed throug) the State L*61slature to elva tnea 10 million dollars to do it with.
The taxpay-ru cf the state of Georgia are not that stupid. I explained n
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in my firs t lette.pha cochld pay for that.
.ccordin6 to published reports, The Director of the Reactor and reely Research Center got all safety concerns put under his discretion and radiation cafety officcra are prevented frca torainatin6 projccts con-l sidered unsafe. This led to the casignation or u world renowned scientict from his post ats hair of the nadiation Protection Committce in protwst.
In the documents supporting their request for liscense extension, thcy can't evsn 6at the half-life of Iodine 131 right, and in their awful section on what would hgpen *ollowing "cora burnout" schehow thsy forget to mantion thin 6s like plutoniua and cesium 137 and Strontium 90.
Youn6 people, such as students, pregnant women, infants and the dev-eloping foetus as well as old people are particularily vulnerable to radiation. The reproductive organs in particular.
This dump of a reactor has been spewin6 radioactivity to air, vegetation, soil and waterfor lon6 enou6h amongst a population of young people in the prime of their early aire.
How such ca_-6. has b..n doneI3to',tneir Benetit makeup ? How many birth defacta will occar in their orrsprin6 */ HOW many leukemias, lymphecas, caneera of e vwry typw nau it already caused, or will show up lov=r un r now mucn tnyrcio awa s? It encule o
never ncve oewn put there to begin witn.
Inut this situation has gone on as lon6 as it has is a dis 6 race.
Ilow that I nav uruusnL lo vo y our au uwnu4uu, you must shut it down at once. Don't wait. If thers 10 an accident,unlike af ter the awful Civil War, Atlanta will not be able to rise like a phoenix from the ashes, that doesn't happen with a nuclear accident.Evarything is dead forever.
+
In closing, among the many more extramely disturbing things about the Geor61a Tsch reactor aituation, one really stends out on pages loo -101 of their (supposedly) " Revised and Updated Safety -nalysis deport" submitted as part of all the rest of the stuff to get their liscense ext 6nded another 20 years.
They speak of the Radiological Health Section of the Georgia Dept. of Public Health and the State Radiolo6 cal Health S.ction and now they've been doing environmental 1
monitoring since initial reactor start up - giving the impression the State Dept. of Public Health is somehow involved in protecting the public health from radiation and that there are a bunch of medical people involvad.....well now.... once upon a time in fairyland they had something like that by all accounts, then while a nuclear engineer and former T.ch graduate called Jimmy Carter was Governor, a bill got passed by the State of Georgia that took a lot of health situations out of tne hands of local health officials and split up lots of sections, a vaut amount of things were put under the Dept. of Natural Resouroos EPD, not long after that EPD was inviting everyone and their brother to Geofd a as they had one step permj tting that was i
in industry to come rarely challenged. Alon6 with the chemical industry came a spawn $n6 Of nuclear power plants. And Buess what ? THERE IS NO RADIOLOGICAL HEAI2H SECTION OF THE GEORGI 4 DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC HEALTH. Public Health has a section that checks out X-ray equipment, and the above named EPD has a radiation eurveillanca unit that is maant to issue reports and measure j
emissions etc (the conflict cr intsrcat Lentioned in prior lattars) und that's it.
No doctora, nothing. lio cna is ainding thu storo cnd i
o put'i 51bN k by k k.
SAIfshk$$f70u should shut thaa down.
%t,htng D M _ WOLA., g e aa0 n e