Date: Tue, 08 May 2001 19:32:42 -0400
From: bobhunt@erols.com
Subject: [lpaz-repost] US Capitol building violates federal standards for radiation at a nuclear dump
To: Individual-Sovereignty@egroups.com, sierratimes@egroups.com, Countdown2NWO@listbot.com, lpaz-repost@yahoogroups.com, MDLP-NEWS@onelist.com, TnLP@egroups.com, amulkern@Radix.Net ("Alexandra H. Mulkern"), american_Liberty@egroups.com
I have known for years that there are traces of Uranium in all granite rock.
One interesting addition to this story is:
During "Three Mile Island" Senator Gary Hart from Colorado rushed to
Pennsylvania to get in front of TV cameras. In front of those cameras with
Three Mile Island in the background, he said if family lived in that state
he would not allow them to remain even one night exposed to that radiation.
Only point of hypocrisy is that since his family lived in Colorado, his
family was exposed to higher levels of radiation every day of the year.
Colorado has the highest level of background radiation of any state due to
traces of natural Uranium that is everywhere in the state. The background
level of radiation everywhere in Colorado is higher than the amount of
radiation leaked by Three Mile Island.
bob hunt
On Tue, 08 May 2001 03:38:06 -0400, "Alexandra H. Mulkern"
<amulkern@Radix.Net> wrote:
The Washington Times
May 8, 2001
Nuclear power, Capitol radiation
Steven Milloy
Vice President Dick Cheney just announced nuclear power should be part
of our national energy strategy. But a little-noticed 11th-hour
regulatory action by the Clinton administration may block the way.
To the rescue is Rhode Island founder Roger Williams or, at least, a
statue of him in the U.S. Capitol Building. Williams, you see, spews
far more radiation than the Environmental Protection Agency deems safe,
and that raises some perplexing questions.
One controversy over nuclear power is what to do with the radioactive
waste or "spent fuel" generated by nuke plants. A typical plant
produces about 20 metric tons of spent fuel annually. Spent fuel
produced over the last 40 years would, if stacked end to end, cover an
area the size of a football field to a depth of about 5 yards.
Spent fuel is being temporarily stored on site in steel-lined, concrete
pools. But plants are running out of pool space. By the end of 2006,
about 60 plants will have no more pool space.
Alternative on-site "dry" storage is possible, but is expensive and
politically unpopular. So permanent disposal is sought.
Congress passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act in 1982 directing the
Energy Department to find and build a disposal site for the spent fuel.
The law requires customers of nuclear-generated electricity to pay for
the storage facility. So far, ratepayers have contributed about $15
billion to the Nuclear Waste Fund.
The DOE selected Yucca Mountain, a site in the Nevada desert 100 miles
from Las Vegas. The plan is to build a storage location about 800 feet
underground to be ready by
2010.
Though the DOE is tasked with building the spent fuel storage fcility,
the EPA is responsible for setting the environmental safety standards
the facility must comply with.
Therein lies the rub. Some are using the EPA-issued standards as a way
to achieve their special interests.
Anti-nuclear activists have long seen obstruction of efforts to dispose
of spent fuel as a way to stop nuclear power. The activists hope that
with nowhere to store spent fuel, nuke plants will be forced to shut
down.
The Nevada congressional delegation, led by Democrat Sen. Harry Reid,
doesnt want its state stigmatized as a nuclear waste dump.
Toward this end, the activists and politicians have hijacked the EPAs
standard-setting process for Yucca Mountain. In August 1999, the EPA
proposed to set unduly stringent standards for radiation exposures to
the public from Yucca Mountain. Adding insult to injury, the DOE must
ensure compliance with these standards for 10,000 years, according to
the EPA proposal.
The standards are so stringent that in the best case, they will only add
greatly to the cost of Yucca Mountain without enhancing safety. In the
worst case, they will disqualify Yucca Mountain as disposal site thereby
wasting 14 years and $6 billion of the DOEs efforts, not to mention
casting a pall over the future of nuclear power.
On Jan. 19, 2001, Clinton EPA Administrator Carol Browner moved to
finalize the Yucca Mountain standards by submitting the regulations for
White House sign-off.
Sensing the absurdity of the EPA standards, Dr. Michael Gough and I
commissioned radiation experts to measure radiation levels in the U.S.
Capitol Building and compare them with the proposed Yucca Mountain
standards. The Capitol contains a great deal of granite and marble
building materials that naturally emit the same type of radiation as
spent fuel.
Our experts measured radiation dose rates at the Roger Williams statue,
located between the Rotunda and Senate Chamber, to be up to 65 times
greater than what the EPA plans to allow at Yucca Mountain.
For added perspective, the measured radiation dose rate is up to 550
percent higher than the dose rate received at the fence line of a nuke
plant and about 13,000 times higher than the average annual radiation
dose from worldwide nuclear energy production.
Though our measurements were undertaken solely to illustrate the
silliness of the EPAs plans for Yucca Mountain, a worried constituent
contacted a member of Congress about our report. The member requested
the Architect of the Capitol to investigate.
In an escalation of comedic proportion, the Architect of the Capitol
called in the U.S. Public Health Service. The PHS ended the alarm by
reporting radiation levels in the Capitol were not dangerous which
brings us back to Yucca Mountain.
If radiation dose rates up to 65 times higher than those planned for
Yucca Mountain arent dangerous to Capitol Building employees and
visitors, what is the point of even more stringent standards for Yucca
Mountain?
Many erroneously think the 1979 Three Mile Island incident doomed
nuclear power in the U.S. Not so.
A new Associated Press poll reports that 50 percent of Americans support
nuclear power, and 56 percent of the supporters said they wouldnt mind
a nuclear plant within 10 miles of their own home.
Though support for nuclear power is rising, our national energy strategy
will be need to address the real threat to nuclear power anti-nuclear
activists and politicians who have commandeered the Yucca Mountain
standard-setting process.
Steven Milloy is an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute and publisher
of www.JunkScience.com.
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