Remember those nuclear bomb drills from the ’50s and ’60s where kids were instructed to hide under their desks to be protected from nuclear blast fallout? Absurd, right? Fast forward to 2022 and, faced with evidence that Holtec’s contract workers were exposed to inhaled radioactivity, Holtec’s response is to tell workers to face away from the radioactive airflow. That response was so absurd that even the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the enabler of the nuclear industrial complex, told them they had to do more.
What is this all about? News reports over the weekend revealed that the NRC inspection of Holtec decommissioning process cited equipment problems and human exposure to radiation. Incredibly, the NRC deemed these incidents as “non-cited violations,” which I guess means that we know you did this wrong, but we are giving you not just a mulligan, but it won’t even be on your record. I am not going to get into what is wrong with NRC oversight in general but raise this today because of what it tells us about what the protections we can, or really can’t, expect from the NRC and Holtec when it comes to the release of radioactivity into Cape Cod Bay.
The answer? Expect something fallaciously reassuring that falls somewhere between “hide under your desk” and “turn your back to the wind,” all with as little concern for our collective personal and economic well-being as was expressed for the contaminated workers. In other words, expect the worst because Holtec has been told that exposing human beings to radiation isn’t even worth an on-the-record citation. What possible deterrent is there in their minds when it comes to releasing radioactivity into Cape Cod Bay? Probably not much.
To make matters worse, perhaps, is the news that Holtec plans to release radioactive water into the Hudson this spring without the support of state environmental officials. Change the plant name and the receiving water and there is almost no difference between what we face and what is planned for New York. It is simply more insight into Holtec’s corporate M.O.
