Nuclear plants occupy an unusual spot in the towns where they operate: integral but so much in the background that they may seem almost invisible. But when they close, it can be like the earth shifting underfoot.
Lohud.com, the Gannett newspaper that covers the Lower Hudson Valley in New York,
took a look around at the experience of towns where reactors have closed, because the Indian Point reactors in Buchanan are scheduled to be shut down under an agreement with Gov. Mario Cuomo.
From sea to shining sea, it was dismal. It wasn’t just the plant employees who were hurt. The losses of hundreds of jobs, tens of millions of dollars in payrolls and millions in property taxes depressed whole towns and surrounding areas. For example:
Vernon, Vermont, home to Vermont Yankee for more than 40 years, had to cut its municipal budget in half. The town closed its police department and let the county take over; the youth sports teams lost their volunteer coaches, and Vernon Elementary School lost th…
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Secondly, I do not believe geneticists would support Dr. Caldicott's claim that a change in the DNA sequence of a single cell could cause a mutation resulting in an adverse change to a species (implied if not stated by the letter writer). Living things are constantly evolving, bad mutations are killed off by an organism's immune system. Organisms that suffer really bad mutations usually die before reproducing. One cell does not cause a species to mutate, a change is needed in a population to effect a change to a species. Or at least that was what I learned in History 101 at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. If there are geneticists out there that can enlighten us as to the latest thinking on this issue I'd really appreciate it.
1. One cell can't cause a mutation. Every cell has its own copy of DNA, and mutations occur on a genetic, not anatomical, level.
2. The likelihood of one cancerous cell becoming a tumor in its lifespan--measured in weeks--is practically zero, if not zero. There needs to be a relatively large number of cells affected. One particle or ray hitting one cell is not going to cause cancer or mutations.
3. The number of types of mutations that radiation could cause is incredibly large. The likelihood of an irrelevant mutation--left-handedness or hair color, for example--is much greater than an adverse effect.
4. We get a lot more radiation from nature than from nuclear power plants, so if these things aren't happening in nature they won't happen with nuclear power plants. People have significant amounts of C-14 in their bodies and these types of things don't happen.
5. Radiation has absolutely no effect--cancers, mutations, green vomit, etc.--until around 10,000 millirem.