http://voiceofoc.org/oc_coast/article_0d87a1f0-88c7-11e1-9b63-001a4bcf887a.html
This article describes the ongoing safety concerns and complaints that have been plaguing the San Onofre nuclear power plant in California. This power plant has faced the highest number of substantiated safety allegations for the last three years and continues to face a high amount this year. The plant is currently shut down due to the failure of an important safety component that resulted in a minor radiation leak. While the plant has seen improvements in safety, it still received 6 times the national average safety allegations last year, down from 15 times the national average the year before. These numbers suggest a serious lack of regard for safety at the plant regardless of the lip service that the energy company running the plant pays to plant safety.
This plant can be seen as a particularly important environmental justice issue in California because a very large number of people, more than 7 million, live within 50 miles of the power plant and could be put at risk by a serious radiation leak. This presumably extends across class and race lines to endanger many different segments of the population. If this large population could be involved in the issue and be informed of the extreme amount of safety problems at the plant, they could prove to be a powerful force for enacting more strict oversight of nuclear power plants, both at this location and across the state and country. A significant design change such as the one cited by the article as the cause for the radiation leak should not have been implemented without careful testing and third-party oversight. Therefore, there seems to be a significant gap in the state of nuclear power plant oversight right now and the best thing to come of this plant's problems would be serious policy work at the state or federal level to address the possibility of future oversights of this sort.
This story is concerning for a lot of reasons. It doesn’t seem right that any plant—especially one as potentially dangerous as a nuclear power plant—should be allowed to continue operating despite hundreds of safety complaints. From the tone of the article, it seemed as though regulating groups either didn’t have the power or inclination to shut down the facility. While federal regulators condoned the working environment and lack of attention to safety concerns, it didn’t seem like any actual threats were made; there were no lasting or motivating repercussions.
ReplyDeleteThis reminds me of the meat industry, as described in Food Inc. Both the San Onofre nuclear power plant workers and workers in the meat industry were often frightened to report the plant for health and safety violations. In both cases the workers feared retaliation. The meat industry was also backed by a powerful lobbying group, and had many allies in policy making positions. I wonder if the nuclear power industry has undue political power that is decreasing the repercussions of their violations as well. How can the public hold industry responsible for their actions if they can buy their way out of regulations or alter the rules to make them more accommodating?