Safety vs. whistling past the graveyard

By Jesse J. DeConto

PORTSMOUTH - State emergency officials plan to treat a disaster at the Seabrook Station nuclear power plant just as they would other disasters such as floods, hurricanes or earthquakes.

"Even though many, many disasters may differ, most responses are exactly the same," New Hampshire Office of Emergency Management spokesman Greg Champlin told about 50 Seacoast residents gathered at the South Church Tuesday night.

"Hazmat is basically hazmat," said Champlin, referring to hazardous materials, which public safety personnel are sometimes called upon to contain. "We take all hazards very, very seriously."

Champlin was part of a five-person panel participating at a community forum titled "Living with Our Nuclear Neighbor at Seabrook in the Age of Terrorism." Another panelist, attorney Bob Backus, a member of the group that was sponsoring the event, the Seacoast Anti-Pollution League, or SAPL, challenged Champlin’s placid optimism about the state’s ability to respond to nuclear trauma at Seabrook, whether accidental or terror-induced.

"I think we have to be worried," Backus said. "An emergency at Seabrook would be qualitatively different than any emergency we’ve seen before.

"We’ll be dealing with a very unique hazard," he said. "It’ll be firing bullets that really can’t miss if we’re in the way."

Those "bullets" include radioactive iodine, an element that, once inside the human body, seeks out the thyroid and often causes deadly cancer.

Brooks Dupree, a panelist from the state Office of Radiological Health, explained that potassium iodide, or KI, when taken in pill form can flood the thyroid with nonradioactive iodine in order to repel the bad stuff.

"KI is very selective in what it protects against," Dupree said. "You’re not reducing your risk to zero."

Dupree said other forms of radiation, besides that carried by the iodine, can still harm humans, so taking a KI pill before or shortly after exposure, while helpful, is no substitute for evacuating from within the "peak injury radius," which one panelist estimated at 65 miles from Seabrook Station.

"Evacuation is one of the more important tools that we have," said Champlin. "You wouldn’t be moving as far inland with a hurricane as you would if something were to happen at the nuclear plant."

"For Seabrook, the fatal radius is 20 miles," said Mary Lampert, nuclear program director for Massachusetts Citizens for Safe Energy. "The peak injury radius is 65 miles."

Seventeen communities lie within 10 miles of Seabrook Station, in what the state deems the "emergency planning zone," or EPZ. The state has set aside three reception centers where families can reconnect with each other if children have been evacuated from school by bus or if they’ve been separated for some other reason.

"This is all about saving lives," said state Fire Marshal Don Bliss, who directs the N.H. Office of Emergency Management. "We need to protect ourselves from all the risks that are out there."

The state’s evacuation plan instructs Portsmouth residents to travel north on the Spaulding Turnpike to Rochester Middle School, about 35 miles from Seabrook. Citizens living in Brentwood, East Kingston, Exeter, Kensington, Kingston, Newfields, Newton, Seabrook, Stratham and South Hampton would evacuate westward on Route 101 to Manchester’s Memorial High School, approximately 50 miles west of Seabrook. The reception center for Greenland, Hampton, Hampton Falls, New Castle, North Hampton and Rye is Dover Middle School, which lies about 25 miles from Seabrook.

For this and other reasons, SAPL members believe the state’s nuclear emergency response plan is inadequate, and they’re pressuring state officials to update the plan for the first time since 1990.

"Since then, the Seacoast population has doubled and the number of cars on the road has increased tremendously," said SAPL field director Jennifer Hicks.

Backus said evacuating every vehicle from Hampton Beach to outside the 10-mile radius during the summer would take about six hours, and the mushroom cloud from a nuclear meltdown would reach the edge of the 10-mile radius of the EPZ within 90 minutes.

"The 10-mile zone is a totally arbitrary construct," said the Manchester attorney.

Within that EPZ, however, the state is making available a 24-hour dose of KI pills to every resident. More information on the KI pills is available by calling 271-4588 or (800) 697-7919. Computer users can also apply for the pills online, at www.dhhs.state.nh.us, but the application requires Adobe Acrobat software. Paper applications are available at the Portsmouth city clerk’s office, the Portsmouth branch of the state Department of Health and Human Services on Maplewood Avenue, and at other town offices throughout the EPZ.

"The more prepared citizens are, the less straining it is on all your emergency officials," said Champlin.

Hicks suggested that even though DHHS has promised a single pill for each member of a household, families should request more than that.

"You need more than one if you’re going to do this right, so just double the number of people in your house," she said. "If you can’t get out within 24 hours, then you’re stuck."

Lampert, of Massachusetts Citizens for Safe Energy, said that in her hometown of Duxbury, Mass., KI pills are stockpiled in the schools. She suggested that New Hampshire towns should do the same and that residents should keep KI pills in vehicle glove compartments as well as at home. Fourteen KI pills can be purchased for $10 over the Internet, she said.

"If you have potassium iodide in your medicine cabinet, it’s not going to do your child any good (at school)," Lampert said. "This is so simple. It’s a no brainer."