nuclear power plant meltdown cities skyline

Its 1,500-member workforce on Artificial Island nearly doubles during each one- to two-month reactor refueling cycle, which take place every 18 months for each of the site's three reactors. PSEG's operations have been a sustaining force for the region, especially economically challenged South Jersey communities along the Delaware River. Agency officials added sessions in Middletown after prodding by Delaware's congressional delegation. The emerging concerns added to the annoyance of some Delaware residents who questioned the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's initial decision to schedule public comment sessions on the new reactor site only in New Jersey. Radiation levels sufficient to justify sheltering in homes reached 50 miles, to Morgantown, Pa., northwest of Coatesville. In 2012, the Natural Resources Defense Council released a nationwide computer modeling of potential plumes under weather conditions matching those seen at Fukushima.Īt Salem/Hope Creek, the modeling showed a narrow radiation plume, intense enough to warrant evacuation, spreading some 30 miles northwest of the plant – far outside the official 10-mile circle, taking in all of Wilmington, Greenville and Hockessin and passing beyond Kennett Square, Pa. Residents there encountered dangerous radiation levels far from the earthquake and tsunami waves that damaged reactors, areas that had long been presumed safe. While Delaware's residents dominate the population inside 10-mile radius evacuation planning zone centered on Salem/Hope Creek, Delaware has yet to adopt the kind of public briefing and comment sessions on evacuation plans convened by New Jersey each year for Garden State communities near reactors.ĭecisions about evacuation or sheltering-in-place are in flux in light of findings from Japan's Fukushima reactor trauma in early 2011. There are other signs that regulators, plant operators and public safety officials are still catching up to Delaware's exposure and risk – despite growing warnings about the need for public information and stark questions about the adequacy of the nuclear industry's and PSEG's performance. 'Will the roads handle it?'Īrea residents are generally confused and uninformed, he said, 'because of a complete failure to do an effective outreach program with these communities, to let them know what's going on.' Do we have other routes to get out? Carter asked. By 2025, Delaware's population inside the evacuation area is expected to exceed 68,000, meaning the two-state total will be nearly double the estimate in the 2010 report. The estimate was based on a combined 45,000 resident population for Delaware and New Jersey in year 2010 that already has been exceeded in Delaware alone, according to a News Journal review of state forecasts.

But up to six hours would be required to move out the rest of those inside the zone, including special needs residents and school children. Uncounted populations evacuating from border areas around the 10-mile radius could quickly overwhelm and clog highways, slowing escape, the Government Accountability Office and others have warned.Ī study commissioned by PSEG and released in 2012 estimated up to half the population of the 10-mile radius evacuation zone could flee the area in 50 to 90 minutes, even during snow on a mid-week day. And it would make northern Delaware part of the nuclear center of a Mid-Atlantic region that already has more people living inside more overlapping, 50-mile emergency planning zones than anywhere in the nation.ĭave Carter, conservation chair for Delaware Audubon, said during a public comment session on PSEG's environmental permit earlier this month that the NRC needs to closely examine population estimates and evacuation plans. 'It overlooks the consequences of aggregating as many as five reactors in one location.'Īpproval and eventual construction could make Artificial Island, so named because it was created by dredge sludge pulled out of the Delaware River, the nation's largest nuclear complex. Magyar, who recently moved to the partially finished Silver Maple Farm development north of Odessa, less than six miles as the wind blows from PSEG's plants. 'The report blatantly overlooks the potential impact to a region that is critical to the security and well being of the country,' said David M. Some Delawareans who live in the 10-mile circle say that's wrong. Nuclear Regulator Commission staffers have recommended approval of the environmental assessment, describing impacts as 'small to moderate.'

A public comment period on a draft environmental impact study for the facility's 20-year permit ended earlier this month, with a final decision expected next year on both environmental and safety assessments.

Nuclear power plant meltdown cities skyline