PBS NOW to spotlight SLO: Security at Nation’s Nuclear Power Plants

On January 14, the PBS program NOW will examine the nationwide struggle to increase security at nuclear facilities post-9/11, including the efforts of the citizens of the small county of San Luis Obispo, which has taken the lead in that struggle via several important legal proceedings.

Show producer and host David Brancaccio recently spent a day interviewing Rochelle Becker, former Project Manager for nuclear safety and security issues for the San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace, regarding the group’s actions to force the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to address security issues before expanding a high-level radioactive waste dump at the Diablo Canyon Nuclear power plant. The Mothers for Peace and co-intervenors Peg Pinard and the Sierra Club gained the support of the attorneys general of California, Washington, Massachusetts and Utah in this legal action.

“Those who live in the emergency evacuation zones of nuclear power plants, along with local and state representatives, are not asking to read the security plans at nuclear facilities,” said Becker. “However, what is absolutely necessary is that public concerns, including input from the first responders and state agencies tasked with protecting the public, be addressed before the NRC creates new security policy. It is not the NRC whose life and livelihood are at stake in the event of an attack at a nuclear plant, it is the public living within the area of possible radioactive fallout. It is therefore incumbent upon the public to demand their concerns be addressed before nuclear waste dumps are expanded on our coast.”

Becker is now spearheading a newly formed statewide organization, the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility www.a4nr.org. The Alliance will focus on seeking support for legislation that would prohibit relicensing of California nuclear plants. “It is vital that Californians realize that there are two high-level radioactive waste dumps in our vulnerable earthquake-active coastal zone,” Becker said. “To continue to produce plutonium, uranium, strontium 90, Cesium 137 and other radioactive elements when there is no safe place to store this lethal material would be irresponsible and could have devastating consequences for our state. Even if the nation’s only proposed nuclear waste facility, Yucca Mountain, should be proven safe and open there isn’t space for radioactive waste produced during a relicensing period.”

NOW with David Brancaccio, replacing retiring host Bill Moyers, will air locally at 8 p.m. on January 14, 2005, on KCET.