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Nuclear Power Plant Safety Needs to Be Addressed
By Keith Johnson
A massive wildfire recently forced the evacuation of 1,200 New Mexican residents as it swept through the Santa Fe National Forest and closed in on the Los Alamos Nuclear Weapons Laboratory, where nearly 20,000 barrels of discarded plutonium are stored in the open air. The story received scant news coverage.
Likewise, just as the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant in Omaha, Neb. became immersed in rising floodwaters, there was a news blackout despite the contamination risks posed by 20 years’ worth of nuclear waste
and spent fuel rods being housed inside that facility.
There was also hardly a mention of the ongoing crisis at the Cooper Nuclear Station near neighboring Brownsville, Neb., which has also been under constant threat of flooding after two tornados ripped through that area last June.
In all three cases, official government mouthpieces stepped forward to assure the public that there was no need to be alarmed.
Following a scathing report by Russia’s Federal Atomic Energy Agency—which admonished the Obama administration for minimizing the catastrophic implications of the Fort Calhoun crisis—the Omaha Public Power District denied that its plant faced any serious threats. The Russians fired back saying the catastrophic loss of cooling reported by the plant qualified the event as a “level 4” emergency, thus rendering the Fort Calhoun incident as one of the worst nuclear accidents in U.S. history.
Why would the current administration go so far to cover up this disaster? Ever since the Fukushima nuclear crisis in Japan, Barack Obama has struggled to get congressional funding for the construction of a whole new generation of nuclear power plants. This is all part of his clean energy initiative—a $54 billion cash cow that will be levied upon the already broken backs of American taxpayers.
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The last thing Obama needs now is negative publicity that exposes the nuclear power industry’s dirty underbelly. These recent setbacks have only emboldened the nuclear lobby to intensify its efforts to secure Washington, D.C. support.
According to the Associated Press, “The main trade group for the nuclear power industry spent $545,000 in the first quarter lobbying financial support for new reactors and safety regulations.” The article went on to report, “The Nuclear Energy Institute spent 26 percent more than the $405,000 it spent in fourth quarter of last year, and 21 percent more than the $430,000 it spent in the first quarter of 2010.”
Keith Johnson is an independent journalist and the editor of “Revolt of the Plebs,” an alternative news website that can be found at RevoltofthePlebs.com.
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(Issue # 29 & 30, July 18 & 25, 2011)
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