Reactor threats.Kudos to Anne-Marie Cusac for her timely and chilling piece on the new nuclear hazard Nuclear, biological, and chemical (NBC) hazards are becoming a growing concern. Dirty bombs One possible terrorist scenario involves a "dirty bomb" in which a terrorist uses nuclear materials together with a conventional explosive to disperse the nuclear hazard. ("Fire Hazard," August issue). One threat she doesn't mention is that all U.S. reactors regularly emit radiation into our drinking water drinking water supply of water available to animals for drinking supplied via nipples, in troughs, dams, ponds and larger natural water sources; an insufficient supply leads to dehydration; it can be the source of infection, e.g. leptospirosis, salmonellosis, or of poisoning, e.g. and soil on a relentless and legally protected basis. (For more information, go to www.nirs.org and www.citizenalert.org.) The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's inexplicable decision to relax rather than strengthen the reactor fire safety standard (especially in the face of potential terrorist attacks and an increasingly decrepit de·crep·it adj. Weakened, worn out, impaired, or broken down by old age, illness, or hard use. See Synonyms at weak. [Middle English, from Old French, from Latin d collection of reactors) makes sense when we keep in mind that the corporations work for profit, not safety. Safety costs money; reassuring words are cheap. Nuclear nonproliferation non·pro·lif·er·a·tion adj. Of, relating to, or calling for an end to the acquisition of nuclear weapons by additional nations: a nonproliferation treaty. , including the decommissioning Decommissioning is a general term for a formal process to remove something from operational status. Some specific instances include:
Bravo to Cusac for keeping the nuclear nightmare in plain sight--where it belongs. Patricia Raynor Burke, Virginia |
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