CT Yankee’s Bottom Line vs. Children

CT Yankee’s Bottom Line vs. Children

By Rosemary Bassilakis and Deb Katz

On January 11, 2001 Citizens Awareness Network (CAN) petitioned the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for a hearing on the License Termination Plan (LTP) for the Connecticut Yankee (CY) nuclear power plant in Haddam, CT. This plan describes how the company intends to clean up the contamination at the site of the closed plant, and how much contamination the NRC will permit Connecticut Yankee to leave behind. This is determined by assumptions CY makes concerning the people who will inhabit the site long into the future and how the remaining radiation will affect them.

On March 12 CAN submitted its contentions, siting numerous License Termination Plan inadequacies. On July 9, after a two-day pre-hearing, the NRC's adjudicatory branch, the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (ASLB), ruled and admitted, in part, five of CAN's seven contentions.

One of CAN's contentions focuses on the omission of children from Connecticut Yankee's dose calculations. Although CY postulates a family farm scenario in which farmers live and work on the site, tilling the soil, growing their own vegetables and drinking water from an on-site well, CY limits its calculations to an adult 150 lb. male. Doses to the farm family would be caused by the radioactive contamination that will remain on the land and in the aquifer long after decommissioning of the reactor site is completed. CAN contends that the company must include children when determining doses to "average" people, since children are members of the group that will inhabit the land and are not only more vulnerable to the harms resulting from exposure to radiation, but present the potential for unanalyzed exposure pathways. The ASLB's admission of this contention acknowledges the importance of this issue.

Two weeks after the ASLB's ruling, Connecticut Yankee filed an appeal motion requesting that the judges overturn their decision and reject CAN's contention. CAN responded to CY's appeal by citing NRC, EPA, National Academy of Science, and International Counsel on Radiation Protection documents, which provide clear evidence that the NRC supports the inclusion of children in determining the potential hazards related to living on a contaminated site. On September 17, in a 27-page Order, the ASLB rejected CY's appeal and upheld their previous decision to admit CAN's contention on children. Their decision painstakingly reviewed the available rules and regulations concerning the definition of an "average" member of the critical group.

Connecticut Yankee then submitted a second motion to the NRC to reject the ASLB's ruling and throw out CAN's contention. In response, CAN argued that the Commission should reject CY's motion, since it didn't meet the legal requirements to petition the NRC to act. NRC staff attorneys, in their response, rejected CY's appeal and agreed with CAN.

It is CAN's position that Connecticut Yankee's real objection to the Licensing Board's decision is that it didn't rule in the company's favor. What we are arguing over is which regulations will best protect the health and safety of our children.

Connecticut Yankee is fighting like hell to avoid protecting children. Tragically, the company's bottom line is more important to them than our children's health and safety. Shame on them. CY's unrelenting efforts to have this contention rejected validates how essential it is for ordinary citizens to participate in the site cleanup of nuclear reactors.

Until now, the nuclear industry has used adult males as the critical population to determine doses and thus determine cleanup standards. Children, being more vulnerable to radiation exposure than adults, have been excluded and unprotected by both the nuclear corporations and the NRC. This is unconscionable and unacceptable; any protection standard related to cleanup must include the terrible consequences of radiation on children.

Rosemary Bassilakis and Deb Katz are members of the Citizens Awareness Network; for more info call 860-345-2157.