FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 30, 2006

CONTACT
Kevin Kamps, NIRS 301-270-6477 14

"Although the radiation doses at Big Rock have been declared below 'permissible' levels by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), we know that no dose of radiation can be said to be 'safe.' Serious questions remain as to the residual radioactive contamination of the site, and the thoroughness of the environmental assessment.

Company and NRC documents admit the presence of radioactive poisons still present in Big Rock's soil and groundwater. These include Plutonium-239, with a hazardous persistence of 240,000 years. A microscopic speck of Plutonium-239, inhaled into the human lung, could initiate cancer. Cesium-137 and Strontium-90, with 300 year hazardous lives, also contaminate Big Rock. They lodge in human muscle and bone, respectively, doing damage there. Tritium has a 120 year hazard, and contaminates all three groundwater layers below Big Rock.

Consumers Energy and NRC reports reveal a four decade 'Radiological Event History' that documents 63 radioactive spills, leaks, and overflows, as well as sloppy handling of radioactive materials at the Big Rock site. A single incident in 1984 released 20,000 gallons of radioactive water into the soil and aquifers. Consumers Energy received permission from the NRC for 'on-site disposal' of that spill, leaving the contaminants in the ground water to flow out into Lake Michigan. NRC documents reveal that up until the year 2000, the groundwater was in violation of the Safe Drinking Water Act. Tritium — radioactive hydrogen — is likely still flowing into Lake Michigan and contaminating Big Rock's aquifers.

Consumers Energy has treated the Big Rock site as a radioactive septic field, and Lake Michigan as an atomic industrial sewer, and NRC has let them get away with it. That's why we call Big Rock the 'Plutonium State Park.'

The tiny reactor at Big Rock compiled one of the dirtiest radiation release records in the entire country. That radioactivity contaminated the soil, groundwater, and Lake Michigan, leaving a public health hazard for generations to come.

The U.S. Department of Energy has stated in recent months that the proposed national dumpsite for high-level radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain, Nevada cannot open until 2017 at the very earliest. Transporting the eight silos of waste from Big Rock to Nevada could take additional years after that.

The high-level radioactive wastes at Big Rock are not going anywhere anytime soon. In the meantime, they will remain a radioactive bull's eye on the shoreline of Lake Michigan, vulnerable to terrorist attack or accident.

Each container of high-level radioactive waste at Big Rock contains the long-lasting radiation equivalent of 240 Hiroshima bombs, according to Dr. Marvin Resnikoff of Radioactive Waste Management Associates in New York City.

Anti-tank missiles, shaped charges, and high explosives could break open the containers, causing a catastrophic radiation release. A 1998 test at the U.S. Army's Aberdeen Proving Ground showed that with two TOW anti-tank missiles, a nuclear waste cask's concrete radiation shielding could be obliterated, and its inner steel container breached. Combined with an incendiary device, the resulting fire and smoke would carry deadly radioactivity downwind.

Big Rock sits on the shore of the drinking water supply for millions. A large-scale radiation release, whether due to accident or attack, into Lake Michigan would be an unprecedented disaster.

Groups opposing the state acquisition of the Big Rock property include:

Victor McManemy, Director, Citizens for Alternatives to Chemical Contamination, Lake Keith Gunter, Citizens Resistance at Fermi Two, Livonia Michael Keegan, Coalition for a Nuclear-Free Great Lakes, Monroe Don't Waste Michigan, (Alice Hirt, Holland chapter; Kathryn Barnes, Sherwood chapter) Mike Garfield, Director, Ecology Center, Ann Arbor Mike Shriberg, Ph.D., Director, Environment Michigan, Ann Arbor David Howell, Chairman, Friends of the Detroit River, Melvindale John Jackson, Great Lakes United, Buffalo, NY Chuck Jordan, Co-chair Van Buren County Greens, Vice-chair Green Party of Michigan, Bangor Rob Cedar, Director, HEAT - Hamtramck Environmental Action Team, Hamtramck, MI Joan McCoy, Home for Peace and Justice, Saginaw, MI Bill Freese, Director, Huron Environmental Activists League (HEAL), Alpena Sarah Nash, The IHM Justice, Peace and Sustainability Office, Monroe Wendy Wagoner, Board Member, Les Cheneaux Watershed Council, Cedarville, MI Terry Miller, Chairman, Lone Tree Council, Bay City Betsy Winkelman, Chair, Michigan Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life, Bloomfield Hugh McDiarmid, Jr., Communications Director, Michigan Environmental Council, Lansing Vicki Levengood, Michigan Representative, National Environmental Trust, East Lansing Kevin Kamps, Nuclear Waste Specialist, Nuclear Information and Resource Service, Washington, D.C. David Pettit, Public Interest Associate, Public Interest Research Group in Michigan, Ann Arbor Kathy and Gary Henry, Tittabawassee River Watch Monica Evans, Chair, Traverse Group of the Sierra Club Sarah Westerman, Wayne State University College Democrats, Sterling Heights

Please see the NIRS website for a backgrounder on Big Rock, the full group statement in opposition to "Plutonium State Park," and the press release from the Nov. 30, 2006 press conference.

< Return to Press Release Index