Mexico nuclear plant said to lack disaster plan
http://www.enn.com/news/wire-stories/2000/10/10032000/reu_nuke_32138.asp
October 3, 2000

A confidential report by engineers at Mexico's only nuclear power plant shows that the site would be unable to cope with a nuclear emergency, the environmental group Greenpeace said Monday. Greenpeace Mexico Director Alejandro Calvillo presented the report to journalists as part of organization's attempt to have the Laguna Verde plant in Veracruz state shut down.

"Planning for emergencies is less than acceptable," safety engineers at Laguna Verde said in the study conducted in July.

Greenpeace has been demanding since June that the plant be shut down, saying it is poised for a nuclear disaster whose magnitude would rival Ukraine's Chernobyl and which could reach the southern shores of the United States within hours.

"The information we are presenting here is enough to shut down the nuclear site because it is not complying with a condition for operation," Calvillo said in a statement.

The July report, authored by the group of Laguna Verde engineers who monitor safety at the plant, showed that 83 of 102 security pitfalls on the site that were identified in 1997 had yet to be addressed, including the lack of a plan in case of emergency.

In particular, Calvillo said, Laguna Verde engineers would be unable to monitor levels of radioactivity in the case of a disaster.

The Mexican government maintains that Laguna Verde would pass a safety test.

The Laguna Verde power plant, some 175 miles east of Mexico City, began operations in 1989 and generated 3.67 percent of Mexico's electric power in the third quarter of 1999, the latest period for which data are available.

Mexico said in August it would hire an independent auditor to review the safety of the nuclear facility and that it was deciding between two European companies to do the job.