AMERICA'S TERRORIST NUCLEAR THREAT TO ITSELF

By Harvey Wasserman

No sane nation hands to a wartime enemy atomic weapons set to go off within its own homeland, and then lights the fuse.

Yet as the bombs and missiles drop on Afghanistan, the certainty of terror retaliation inside America has turned our 103 nuclear power plants into weapons of apocalyptic destruction, just waiting to be used against us.

One or both planes that crashed into the World Trade Center on September 11, could have easily obliterated the two atomic reactors now operating at Indian Point, about 40 miles up the Hudson.

The catastrophic devastation would have been unfathomable. But those and a

hundred other American reactors are still running. Security has been

heightened. But all are vulnerable to another sophisticated terror attack

aimed at perpetrating the unthinkable.

Indian Point Unit One was shut long ago by public outcry. But Units 2 & 3

have operated since the 1970s. Back then there was talk of requiring reactor

containment domes to be strong enough to withstand a jetliner crash. But the

biggest jets were far smaller than the ones that fly today. Nor did those

early calculations account for the jet fuel whose hellish fire melted the

critical steel supports that ultimately brought down the Trade Center.

Had one or both those jets hit one or both the operating reactors at Indian

Point, the ensuing cloud of radiation would have dwarfed the ones at

Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Three Mile Island and Chernobyl.

The intense radioactive heat within today's operating reactors is the hottest

anywhere on the planet. So are the hellish levels of radioactivity.

Because Indian Point has operated so long, its accumulated radioactive burden

far exceeds that of Chernobyl, which ran only four years before it exploded.

Some believe the WTC jets could have collapsed or breached either of the

Indian Point containment domes. But at very least the massive impact and

intense jet fuel fire would destroy the human ability to control the plants'

functions. Vital cooling systems, backup power generators and communications

networks would crumble.

Indeed, Indian Point Unit One was shut because activists warned that its lack

of an emergency core cooling system made it an unacceptable risk. The

government ultimately agreed.

But today terrorist attacks could destroy those same critical cooling and

control systems that are vital to not only the Unit Two and Three reactor

cores, but to the spent fuel pools that sit on site.

The assault would not require a large jet. The safety systems are extremely

complex and virtually indefensible. One or more could be wiped out with a

wide range of easily deployed small aircraft, ground-based weapons, truck

bombs or even chemical/biological assaults aimed at the operating work force.

Dozens of US reactors have repeatedly failed even modest security tests over

the years. Even heightened wartime standards cannot guarantee protection of

the vast, supremely sensitive controls required for reactor safety.

Without continous monitoring and guaranteed water flow, the thousands of tons

of radioactive rods in the cores and the thousands more stored in those

fragile pools would rapidly melt into super-hot radioactive balls of lava

that would burn into the ground and the water table and, ultimately, the

Hudson.

Indeed, a jetcrash like the one on 9/11 or other forms of terrorist assault

at Indian Point could yield three infernal fireballs of molten radioactive

lava burning through the earth and into the aquifer and the river. Striking

water they would blast gigantic billows of horribly radioactive steam into

the atmosphere. Prevailing winds from the north and west might initially

drive these clouds of mass death downriver into New York City and east into

Westchester and Long Island.

But at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, winds ultimately shifted around the

compass to irradiate all surrounding areas with the devastating poisons

released by the on-going fiery torrent. At Indian Point, thousands of square

miles would have been saturated with the most lethal clouds ever created or

imagined, depositing relentless genetic poisons that would kill forever.

In nearby communities like Buchanan, Nyack, Monsey and scores more, infants

and small children would quickly die en masse. Virtually all pregnant women

would spontaneously abort, or ultimately give birth to horribly deformed

offspring. Ghastly sores, rashes, ulcerations and burns would afflict the

skin of millions. Emphysema, heart attacks, stroke, multiple organ failure,

hair loss, nausea, inability to eat or drink or swallow, diarrhea and

incontinance, sterility and impotence, asthma, blindness, and more would

kill thousands on the spot, and doom hundreds of thousands if not millions.

A terrible metallic taste would afflict virtually everyone downwind in New

York, New Jersey and New England, a ghoulish curse similar to that endured by

the fliers who dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagaskai, by those

living downwind from nuclear bomb tests in the south seas and Nevada, and by

victims caught in the downdrafts from Three Mile Island and Chernobyl.

Then comes the abominable wave of cancers, leukemias, lymphomas, tumors and

hellish diseases for which new names will have to be invented, and new

dimensions of agony will beg description.

Indeed, those who survived the initial wave of radiation would envy those who

did not.

Evacuation would be impossible, but thousands would die trying. Bridges and

highways would become killing fields for those attempting to escape to

destinations that would soon enough become equally deadly as the winds

shifted.

Attempts to quench the fires would be futile. At Chernobyl, pilots flying

helicopters that dropped boron on the fiery core died in droves. At Indian

Point, such missions would be a sure ticket to death. Their utility would be

doubtful as the molten cores rage uncontrolled for days, weeks and years,

spewing ever more devastation into the eco-sphere. More than 800,000 Soviet

draftees were forced through Chernobyl's seething remains in a futile attempt

to clean it up. They are dying in droves. Who would now volunteer for such

an American task force?

The radioactive cloud from Chernobyl blanketed the vast Ukraine and Belarus

landscape, then carried over Europe and into the jetstream, surging through

the west coast of the United States within ten days, carrying across our

northern tier, circling the globe, then coming back again.

The radioactive clouds from Indian Point would enshroud New York, New Jersey,

New England, and carry deep into the Atlantic and up into Canada and across

to Europe and around the globe again and again.

The immediate damage would render thousands of the world's most populous and

expensive square miles permanently uninhabitable. All five boroughs of New

York City would be an apocalyptic wasteland. The World Trade Center would be

rendered as unusable and even more lethal by a jet crash at Indian Point than

it was by the direct hits of 9/11. All real estate and economic value would

be poisonously radioactive throughout the entire region. Irreplaceable

trillions in human capital would be forever lost.

As at Three Mile Island, where thousands of farm and wild animals died in

heaps, and as at Chernobyl, where soil, water and plant life have been

hopelessly irradiated, natural eco-systems on which human and all other life

depends would be permanently and irrevocably destroyed,

Spiritually, psychologically, financially, ecologically, our nation would

never recover.

This is what we missed by a mere forty miles near New York City on September

11. Now that we are at war, this is what could be happening as you read

this.

There are 103 of these potential Bombs of the Apocalypse now operating in the

United States. They generate just 18% of America's electricity, just 8% of

our total energy. As with reactors elsewhere, the two at Indian Point have

both been off-line for long periods of time with no appreciable impact on

life in New York. Already an extremely expensive source of electricity, the

cost of attempting to defend these reactors will put nuclear energy even

further off the competitive scale.

Since its deregulation crisis, California---already the nation's second-most

efficient state---cut further into its electric consumption by some 15%.

Within a year the US could cheaply replace virtually with increased

efficiency all the reactors now so much more expensive to operate and

protect.

Yet, as the bombs fall and the terror escalates, Congress is fast-tracking a

form of legal immunity to protect the operators of reactors like Indian Point

from liability in case of a meltdown or terrorist attack.

Why is our nation handing its proclaimed enemies the weapons of our own mass

destruction, and then shielding from liability the companies that insist on

continuing to operate them?

Do we take this war seriously? Are we committed to the survival of our

nation?

If so, the ticking reactor bombs that could obliterate the very core of our

life and of all future generations must be shut down.

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Harvey Wasserman is author of THE LAST ENERGY WAR and co-author of KILLING

OUR OWN: THE DISASTER OF AMERICA'S EXPERIENCE WITH ATOMIC RADIATION. He is a senior advisor to NIRS.

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