Connecticut distributes Potassium Iodide to neighbors of Millstone nuclear plant

Residents within 10 miles at risk but Charlestown is 20 miles away

By Will Collette

The Connecticut Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection is offering residents who live or work within the 10-mile emergency planning zone around the Millstone nuclear power plant free Potassium iodide pills.

If Millstone’s notoriously hinky reactor cooling system should fail in a way that can’t be fixed before a major “event” released radiation into the air, taking potassium iodide, also known as KI, can help prevent absorption of radiation by your thyroid gland.

This could prevent one of the many kinds of cancers and other serious maladies caused by high exposure to radiation.

As I’ve reported, Millstone frequently has to shut down due to malfunctioning equipment in their cooling system which is supposed to keep the reactors from melting down and exploding. 

Another way things could go sideways at Millstone is a fire in their piles of high-level radioactive waste, mostly used up fuel rods. They are authorized to store up to 3.6 million pounds of the stuff that will stay deadly for millenia.

Charlestown is not in the 10-mile zone. We are 20 miles away almost directly downwind. If you want potassium iodide, you’ll have to get it yourself. I did. I live exactly 24 miles from Millstone.

CLICK HERE to read the state’s public information on Millstone and emergency preparedness measures the state is taking. Click here to read a fact sheet on potassium iodide.

The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission which is supposed to make sure Millstone is safe – and does so by handing out notices of violation that sting Dominion Energy (Millstone’s Virginia-based parent) about as much as a parking ticket. 

In a nutshell, their advice to local residents in the event of a major accident is to sit down, put your head between your knees and kiss your ass goodbye.

Major “events” at nuclear power plants don’t happen very often, but when they do, they cause spectacular damage.

The Fukushima nuclear disaster that took place five years ago as a result of a large earthquake and tsunami in Japan is a prime example. A new report now reveals how bad the threat was to Tokyo and surrounding population centers.

Fifty plant  and emergency workers sacrificed themselves in order to contain the disaster but the margin for total disaster was, according to former Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan “paper thin.”

The New York metro region got a little scared in December when the Indian Point had an emergency shut-down. That followed on the heels of a fire in one of the plant’s transformers that resulted in thousands of gallons of oil being spilled into the Hudson River.

After the fire, NY Governor Andrew Cuomo commented that "it's obviously not good."

The operator of Indian Point, energy giant Entergy, just released a report on the cause of December’s emergency reactor shut-down, blaming a “bird streamer.”

I’m not making this up.

According to the Entergy report "long streams of excrement from large birds that are often expelled as a bird takes off from a perch".

Apparently this bird poop tripped a safety breaker and took the reactor off line for three days.

Another poop-related “I’m not making this up” disaster took place at the federal experimental nuclear waste facility in New Mexico. Called WIPP, the site is the government’s attempt to try to figure out safe, permanent ways to dispose of high-level waste, such as encapsulating it in canisters.

One state-of-the-art approach was to mix in some organic kitty litter into the hot waste being stored in drums. However, the kitty litter reacted with waste, corroded the containers and started a fire that exposed workers to radiation.

Finally, in just about every single nuclear “event,” whether it’s Millstone or Chernobyl, Three Mile Island or Fukashima, public officials consistently down-played, if not outright lied about, the extent of the problem and the dangers to public health.

Somewhat understandably, they are concerned about panic. In the meantime, we are left to ponder the consequences of the choices we allowed to be made on our behalf for ways to generate the electricity that powers our lifestyle.