Infatti non hanno l' Emergency Core Cooling Systems [ECCS], i sistemi di soppressione della temperatura
e della pressione, sistemi di contenimento e stanze di controllo remote per gli operatori, tutte condizioni
richieste per legge (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) per operare qualsiasi impianto nucleare civile.

Vedi anche:
Nucleare: risposte a domande frequenti - da PeaceLink
Incidente segreto nel 1986, Trizio dai sommergibili (9 ottobre)

From: John Shannon
To: Distribution

PLEASE SIGN-ON TO THIS LETTER BY SENDING YOUR NAME OR THE NAME OF YOUR GROUP
TO: JackSha1@aol.com
Please Sign-On even if you are not based in the USA or Canada.
Also, Please distribute as widely as possible. Thank you.

Subject: Naval Reactors Land Based Nuclear Power Plants

The Naval Reactors Program has been operating land based Nuclear Power plants at a facility known as the Kesselring Site Operations [KSO], a satellite facility of the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory [KAPL] for approximately fifty years. During the entire period of operation of these power plants none of the high power naval nuclear power plants has had either emergency core cooling systems [ECCS], pressure and temperature suppression systems, containment system or remote operator control rooms all of which are required, by law, to be present on all commercial nuclear power plants.

The NRC mandated requirements for these systems are as follows:

 [A] NRC Criterion 35 -- Emergency Core Cooling System. A system to provide abundant emergency core cooling shall be provided. The system safety function shall be to transfer heat from the reactor core following any loss of reactor coolant at a rate such that (1) fuel and clad damage that could interfere with continued effective core cooling is prevented and (2) clad metal-water reaction is limited to negligible amounts. NRC emergency core cooling requirements are met on commercial plants by highly sophisticated, reliable, and redundant equipment. Naval prototypes lack this system in its entirety. Neither fire hoses located 20 miles distant [one proposal found by accident by the author of this letter], jury-rigged piping, nor rugged design are equivalent. And, there is zero possibility that, by chance, any other form of equivalency inadvertently crept into the design.

 [B] NRC Criterion 16 -- Containment design.  Reactor containment and associated systems shall be provided to establish an essentially leak-tight barrier against the uncontrolled release of radioactivity to the environment and to assure that the containment design conditions important to safety are not exceeded for as long as postulated accident conditions require.The NRC containment requirements address a containment system, not a simple containment structure. To assure that containment design pressure and temperature is not exceeded, the containment structure must include a substantial internal heat removal system to suppress temperature and pressure and a hydrogen control system to preclude the potential explosion of "hydrogen generated from a 100% fuel clad metal-water reaction." Naval prototypes lack this system in its entirety.

Attempts have been made to show that one of the KSO Nuclear Plants had a containment vessel. One report states, in part, that " . .one prototype at Knolls' Kesselring site has a massive sphere around it to contain radioactive material if an accident occurs." At other times the Naval Reactors program has argued that a Submarine or Surface ship hull provides the equivalent of a containment vessel.

A 125-ft diameter steel sphere housed the first prototype at KSO. This sphere is identified in a report as a containment vessel, i.e., a sphere to contain radioactive material in the event of an accident. Thus, the first submarine hull was not considered to be containment. Otherwise, there would have been no need for a massive sphere. The three follow submarine prototypes at KSO had no such sphere. This statement, in and of itself, substantiates the fact that Naval Reactors is well aware of what containment involves and is fully aware that submarine and ship hulls do not meet NRC basic safety criteria for containment. The sphere in question was not intended to contain a nuclear accident, but to contain a sodium water interaction. The first reactor at KSO was a sodium-cooled prototype.

 [B] REMOTE CONTROL ROOMS NRC Criterion 19 -- Remote Control room.  A control room shall be provided from which actions can be taken to operate the nuclear power unit safely under normal conditions and to maintain it in a safe condition under accident conditions, including loss-of-coolant accidents. Adequate radiation protection shall be provided to permit access and occupancy of the control room under accident conditions. The NRC requires reactor control rooms be remote from containment so that habitability is assured throughout any accident. Commercial control rooms are located external to, and distanced from, the containment structure. Control rooms for Naval prototypes are located inside the ship's hull, the purported containment. In the event of a worst case nuclear accident, the operators will not survive and control of the reactor will be lost during the evolving accident.

The Naval Reactors Program has been operating land based Nuclear Power plants at a facility known as the Kesselring Site Operations [KSO], a satellite facility of the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory [KAPL] for approximately fifty years. The KSO facility is located ten miles west of the tourist and horse racing city of Saratoga Springs, New York, and twenty-five miles north of Albany, NY, the Capital of New York State. The entire populations of the area, in excess of one million people, have never been informed of the unsafe and unsatisfactory manner of operation of these nuclear power plants. The population has, furthermore, never been informed of the many serious accidents that have occurred at the various nuclear plants over the years of illegal operation

The present number of Nuclear Power Plants is at two, down from a maximum of  four, and the remaining two are in violation of federal and state laws regarding the operation of nuclear power plants.

The Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program is under the direction of the Department of Energy [DOE] and both KAPL and KSO were operated by the General Electric Company, as the prime contractor, from 1947 - 1993. During 1993 the prime contract was transferred to the Lockheed Martin Corporation.

The prime contractor is, however, of little importance in the Naval Reactors Program, and all other DOE programs, the government "oversight management team" determines what will and will not be done at any given site, therefore the government is culpable and responsible for all activities on any site. The culpability of the contractors comes about by carrying out government orders that are known to be illegal.

Admiral Rickover decided, early in the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program [NNPP] that the Navy training sites would mock up, as nearly as possible, operations and conditions aboard ship. Since it is not possible aboard a ship or submarine to have ECCS's, Containment Vessels, Pressure Suppression, Temperature Reduction systems and Separate Operating Rooms for the reactor operators, it was decided to disregard the safety of the public and delete these systems from all NNPP land based prototypes.

As the population and associated housing expanded up to the very boundaries of the reactor site it was decided to lie to the public and to public officials concerning the dangers associated with operating nuclear power plants without the minimum required protections.

Based on the information presented I am requesting that the Nuclear Power Plants operating at the KSO be shutdown until such time as the required safety systems shall be installed. The public, within a twenty-five-mile radius, must also be informed of the reason and need for the shutdowns. The population living within this radius must also be informed of the CRAC-2 web sites and statistics [see http://www.geocities.com/mothersalert/crac.html], which discuss government sponsored studies of the dangers associated with nuclear power plants. The public, furthermore, must be informed of the dangers associated with the operations of these particular reactors [i.e. no ECCS's or Containment vessels] and provided with Potassium  Iodide [KI] capsules, to help ward off the effects of certain fission product  poisons.

State and Federal officials, including Governor Pataki, Senator Schumer, Senator Moynihan, and various members of the House of Representatives from New York State, should also be involved in the call for the immediate shutdown and investigation of these, the most dangerous nuclear power plants in the United States.

I am also calling on all members of the New York State Senate and Assembly to become involved in this call for the immediate shutdown and investigation if these Nuclear Power Plants. It is also important for Senators and Members of the House from other States, particularly those with borders adjacent to New York State, to become involved in the call for a shutdown and investigation of these Nuclear Power Plants.

Because of the proximity of these nuclear power plants to the Canadian border I believe it is also necessary for the Canadian Prime Minister, all Canadian Parliamentarians, and all other politicians, who are morally and legally mandated to protect their constituent's health and well being, that might be  adversely affected by the continuing release of  "low level" radiation into the environment and the possibility of a nuclear accident at either or both of these reactors to become involved in a call for the shutdown of these nuclear power plants.

I would also like to invite Civic minded non public officials, such as the Reverend Jesse Jackson, Ralph Nader, Nuclear Information Resource Service, the Union of Concerned Scientists, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, Public Citizen's Critical Mass, etc., to ask for a public debate and public speaking engagements on this outrageous matter, which has been allowed to endanger the citizens within, at least, a twenty-five-mile radius of these nuclear power plants.

The FBI and Justice Department have been provided with all of the information concerning the incredible dangers associated with the continued operations of these nuclear plants, to date the response from the Justice Department and the FBI has been:

"United States Attorneys are vested with broad discretionary authority in determining whether alleged violations of federal law should be pursued. In the absence of specific information showing that authority has been corruptly, or otherwise inappropriately, exercised, this office will not review decisions made pursuant to that authority."

In other words if it's an agency sponsored by the federal government we are not going to investigate criminal activity.

This failure to investigate could easily be construed as an attempt by the FBI to aid and abet in a cover-up by the General Electric Company, Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory, The United States Navy, the DOE, as well as other Federal and New York State Agencies.

John P. Shannon

Nuclear Physicist/Nuclear Engineer.