EEE会議（Oyster Creek原発：地域との共生）...............................................................................031026


米国最古の原子力発電所であるニュージャージー州のオイスター・クリーク(Oyster
Creek)原発は1979年、ＴＭＩ原発事故の僅か５週間後に、圧力容器内の水位が３．５
メートル下がりあわや大事故という危険に遭遇したが緊急炉心冷却装置が作動して
危機を免れました。その後同原子炉の経営者が１億ドルかけて大幅な補修・改造した
結果今日まで大きな事故もなく安全に運転を続けており、地元住民も、同原発がある
お陰で公共施設は完備し、不動産税も僅か、就職先も確保されていることで、大半
は満足している由。このように地域振興策がうまく行っているOyster Creek原発は、
地元との共生の成功例となっているようです。その点、同じ大都市近傍の原発でも、
地元の反対が絶えない、隣のニューヨーク州のIndian Point原発（当ＥＥＥ会議で何
度
もご紹介済み）とは好対照です。

ところが現在、Oyster Creek炉の４０年の寿命をさらに延長する許可申請をするか
どうかーーもし延長しなければ2009年に閉鎖しなければならないーーを巡って再び
脚光を浴び始めている模様です。　許可申請を原子力規制委員会（NRC)に提出する
かどうかは、2004年１２月 31日までに決定する必要があり、目下推進派と反対派で
議論が対立していますが、一般市民は現状に満足している人が多く（それだけ地元
が経済的に潤っているから）、反対派も以前のような勢いがなくなっているようで
す。
好調を伝えられる米国の原子力状況の一端が窺われるような気がします。 詳細は
次のNew York Times記事でどうぞ。
--KK

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Nuclear Plant's Courtship of Its Neighbors Pays Off

By DAVID KOCIENIEWSKI  (Published: October 25, 2003)

FORKED RIVER, N.J. - Given the eventful history of the Oyster Creek Nuclear
Generating Station, people who live near the plant might be excused for the
occasional case of the jitters.

While Oyster Creek has amassed an improving safety record during the past
decade, it did have its own brush with disaster in 1979, just five weeks
after the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in Pennsylvania. An error by
engineers allowed the water level in Oyster Creek's reactor to drop 10 feet,
leaving the radioactive core alarmingly close to being exposed. Only an
emergency shutdown of the plant averted the release of dangerous levels of
radiation.

Yet today, while other plants, most notably the Indian Point nuclear plant
in Westchester County in New York, have generated widespread concern and
opposition, New Jersey residents near this plant in Ocean County seem at
peace with the fact that they live near the nation's oldest nuclear power
plant.

That relationship will be tested in the coming months, because the plant's
owners must decide by Dec. 31, 2004, whether to apply for renewal of the
reactor's 40-year license or shut down by 2009. But Oyster Creek is a
reminder that for many nuclear plants - perhaps most of them - economic and
political issues can be potent forces for marshaling support.

Ernest J. Harkness, a manager at the plant, said Oyster Creek has earned
that good will because it has made contributions to schools, charities and
community groups and has a better than average safety record.

Opponents of nuclear power contend that other factors have induced nearby
residents to minimize the possible dangers of the 650-megawatt reactor:
Oyster Creek's influence with political leaders has allowed it to quell
protests, and its out-of-the-way location has permitted the plant to operate
without intense or sustained attention from the news media. Residents on the
Jersey Shore, meanwhile, have had to contend with an assortment of
environmental problems, like a cancer cluster in Toms River, which have
diverted public attention.

But both opponents and supporters of the plant agree that Oyster Creek has
won much of its grudging acceptance from the community because it provides
hundreds of solid, high-paying jobs in an area with few other major
employers.

John C. Parker, the deputy mayor of Lacey Township, which includes Forked
River, lobbied to bring the plant to town 40 years ago and remains one of
its most fervent supporters. "People don't want to say anything bad about
the plant because they're worried that the people they're talking to may
work there," he said. "It would be like you're trying to take food off of
their table."

Oyster Creek has not always coexisted quite as peacefully with communities
along the Jersey Shore. After Jersey Central Power and Light announced its
intention to build a nuclear plant in Ocean County in the early 1960's,
federal officials suggested that the location was ideal because its sparse
population would limit the potential human toll of any nuclear accident.
Some of the county's 50,000 residents took offense.

"It was like we were expendable," said Leonard T. Connors Jr., a state
senator who was then an Ocean County freeholder.

The most intense protests came after the near-accident in 1979, when many
nuclear power opponents warned that the plant had come close to a meltdown.
But local officials rallied behind the plant owners to ease the fears of the
community. Oyster Creek soon underwent a $100 million overhaul to address
concerns raised by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Lacey Township
residents were reminded, again and again, that the millions of dollars the
plant paid each year in taxes helped give their community a quality of life
that was the envy of many other shore communities - a low crime rate, low
property taxes and excellent municipal services.

Oyster Creek continued to suffer the kind of periodic malfunctions that
might incite a more excitable community: cracks in containment walls, leaks
of iodine gas. But by 1992, when the owners announced plans to build an
above-ground storage facility for nuclear waste, there was virtually no
organized opposition and a sense that it was futile to fight the plant, said
William DeCamp, an advocate who unsuccessfully opposed its construction.

Owners of the plant say that Ocean County residents do not need to battle,
because Oyster Creek poses little threat. AmerGen Energy, which bought the
plant two years ago, is quick to point out that Oyster Creek has improved
its safety performance during the past two decades. David Lochbaum of the
Union of Concerned Scientists, a watchdog group that has been critical of
many nuclear plants, agrees that Oyster Creek's safety record in recent
years compares favorably to many younger reactors.

But there are also signs that business and community leaders are careful not
to stoke any uneasiness about the plant's potential dangers. An emergency
preparedness leaflet distributed by the Ocean County sheriff lists 12
possible reasons for an evacuation. Nuclear accident is ninth - after
blizzard, flood and fire.

That low-key approach is just fine with Lacey Township residents like Glenda
Knobe. "The people in the plant and the government have done their job so
far," she said, scooping ice cream at a shop two miles south of the
generating station. "So it's better to just not think about it."

In the months since the Sept. 11 hijackers flew their commandeered jetliners
perilously close to Indian Point, Westchester County and Ocean County have
been a study in contrasts.

In the Westchester town of Buchanan, where Indian Point is, officials have
made the same economic arguments heard in Lacey Township. But residents of
surrounding towns and villages in Westchester - and a celebrity-funded group
led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. - have complained that the Indian Point
evacuation plan is unworkable and have made the slogan "Close Indian Point"
a familiar sight.

In New Jersey, the State Police anticipate that it would take 9 hours 28
minutes to evacuate the 244,000 people who live within 10 miles of Oyster
Creek during the summer - nearly the same evacuation time as Indian Point.
But even supporters of Oyster Creek concede that it could take far longer,
especially if the problems occurred on a weekend when the Jersey Shore is
jammed.

Since 9/11, the turnout at meetings about Ocean County's evacuation plan
have been relatively sparse, and last year, when federal officials offered
potassium iodide pills to people in 18 towns near the plant, only 4,000 of
the 100,000 doses were claimed by residents.

A succession of security lapses at Oyster Creek this year has also done
little to rouse public concern. Gov. James E. McGreevey's aides - most
notably Gerald Nicholls, a nuclear expert in the state's Department of
Environmental Protection - have argued that the evacuation plan is sound and
that the state does not need to hire an outside consulting firm to evaluate
it, like Gov. George E. Pataki did in New York.

As the deadline nears for Oyster Creek to apply to renew its license, Edith
Gbur, director of Jersey Shore Nuclear Watch, said she sees an opportunity
to engage and mobilize the public. But with little money and no celebrities
involved - Bruce Springsteen, who starred in the "No Nukes" concerts in the
late 1970's, lives 30 miles from the plant but has remained silent on the
issue - nuclear opponents are focusing on rallying locally elected
officials. So far, eight communities have passed resolutions asking that the
plant be shut down when the license expires, and the county freeholders are
considering a similar move.

Emily Rusch, the energy advocate for New Jersey Public Interest Research
Group, said the organization plans to begin a community outreach program to
warn residents about both the aging reactor and the radioactive waste it
produces.

Mr. Parker, Lacey Township's deputy mayor, predicts that they will have a
hard task ahead of them. "These protesters are always from outside," he
said. "We've seen them come and we've seen them go. But the public is pretty
smart when it comes to their pocketbooks. So I think the plant is going to
be around."