A sleepy New Jersey town has come onto people’s radar screens because it has the oldest running nuclear power plant in the United States – and some say the most dangerous.
Named for a Revolutionary War general, Lacey, New Jersey is the kind of American town that few from outside the seaside settlement knew much about before the earthquake and tsunami in Japan triggered a nuclear crisis.
Down the road from the 1950s-style diner and across from the bridge that locals use as a fishing pier stands the Oyster Creek nuclear plant. It uses a GE Mark I Boiling Water reactor identical to those at Japan’s Fukushima plant that lost power in the March 11 earthquake and then had their backup generators knocked out by the tsunami, causing cooling functions to fail.
US anti-nuclear activists and many residents of Lacey and the surrounding Jersey shore townships are concerned that a similar nuclear disaster could happen at Oyster Creek, and it wouldn’t need an earthquake or tsunami to trigger it.
Oyster Creek has been dogged by problems including a corroding liner in the carbon steel containment unit that is supposed to, as its name indicates, contain a nuclear accident; leaks that are allowing radioactive tritium to seep into drinking water; and huge volumes of spent fuel rods stocked on site.
“We have 40 years of radiation on site – two-and-a-half to three times more than in Japan,” anti-nuclear activist Jeff Brown said.
“You also have that tremendously stupid design to start with where the spent fuel rods are sitting on top of the reactor,” he said, raising yet another fear among New Jersey residents that the reactor could be an easy target for a terrorist attack.
“At the very least, we need a no-fly zone over Oyster Creek. We have a no-fly zone over Disney World but not here,” said Peggi Sturmfels, a programme organiser at the New Jersey Environmental Federation.
Oyster Creek is owned and operated by Exelon Corporation, which employs 700 people at the plant. Exelon said it is the largest owner-operator of nuclear plants in the United States.
Half a million people live within what would be the evacuation zone if Oyster Creek were ever to have a nuclear accident or be attacked, and in the summer, the population swells with beach-goers heading to the Jersey shore.
The town is located 137 kilometres south of New York and 88 kilometres east of Philadelphia.
New Jersey is not in a seismically active zone but meteorologists say the state on the US Atlantic coast is long overdue for a Category Five hurricane, like the one that struck New Orleans in 2005.
“One good storm surge, and Oyster Creek’s backup generators are swamped. It’s Japan all over again,” Mr Sturmfels said.
And yet, despite all the problems, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) extended Oyster Creek’s license for another 20 years in 2009.
The NRC not only gives out nuclear licences but is the industry safety watchdog, as well. Critics say that’s a conflict of interest and liken the situation to the state of play in the oil industry prior to last year’s deadly and environmentally devastating BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Under pressure from state officials, Oyster Creek’s licence was rolled back to 10 years, and the plant is due to close for good in 2019.
But for many residents of Lacey and the other seaside towns near the reactor, even 2019 is too late.
“I don’t like it. They should close it sooner,” retiree Barbara Murrofsky said as she shopped at the local hardware superstore.
“What’s happening in Japan has made us more aware of the problems we have in our own backyard. The plant is leaking tritium into the aquifers that provide our drinking water and there are so many people who live near here, that an accident would be a major disaster. They should shut it down now.”
But another local, Rick Gifford, looked philosophically at Oyster Creek.
“It’s been running for 40 years with no problem, there’s no reason it should start having problems now,” he said.