Poem

Being different together

you call me tree and I call you human I like that you are di erent from me we have names for each other and yet we hardly know each other

I like that you are di erent from me

we need one another and yet we let each other down I like that you are di erent from me I want to be there for you and yet we move apart I like that you are di erent from me who are we without each other?

a woman and a tree? or maybe nothing? in any case not you and me.

— Linda Peyton

(and the San Andreas earthquake fault) in Marin County. PGE’s misguided and ill-informed belief that Bodega Head was an ideal place for a nuclear power plant soon became strongly opposed by a coalition of local ranchers and dairymen, seismologists, college professors and students, conservationists and others of all political backgrounds.

In face of all this organized opposition, seismic evidence and unproved and untested engineering designs for reactor containment in the event of a quake, the Atomic Energy Commission reported in October of 1964 that Bodega Head was not a “suitable” location for this proposed nuclear power plant. PG&E then withdrew its application.

But while all this was happening, apparently our remote and oh-so-willing-tohost-it Humboldt County was “suitable” and PG&E’s Unit 3 nuclear power plant was being built and commissioned in 1963.

Defi nitely a lesson to remember: We should always know the backstory and science behind any e ort to build or move an industry or technology and its likely environmental risks to Humboldt County before agreeing to permit it to do so. Mark Larson, Arcata

Editor:

Ms. Savage’s article Dancing on the Grave... of the Humboldt nuke plant was very good, but some comments.

There was no “cooling tower” at the Humboldt Bay Nuclear Power Plant. They had a tall chimney similar to what you see on conventional fossil fuel power plants intended to vent the reactor room. Most nuke plants have enclosed containment systems to prevent the release of radioactivity from the reactor building, but the Humboldt nuke plant released its contaminants into the atmosphere high above the plant site, relying on atmospheric dilution. Those releases did occur, but not diluting enough to avoid blanketing the areas east of the plant, including South Bay Elementary School.

As for the missing fuel segments, seemingly exhaustive physical — and record — searching did not turn them up in the spent fuel pool or anywhere else. The most likely scenario is that they were shipped to a reprocessing facility along with other fuel rods back in the day before adequate records were kept about such things.

As stated, the plant’s nuke waste will remain toxic for hundreds of thousands of years. But sitting around for 45 years (since it last was irradiated in the reactor) has signifi cantly reduced its temperature and radioactivity. The most dangerous radioactive isotopes decay relatively quickly, leaving behind longer-lived elements with greater stability and fewer health-threatening gamma rays.

Human-caused climate change is raising sea levels and creating more powerful storms, and that is the biggest concern at the facility. The nuke waste will likely never leave the Eureka area, so it is up to PG&E to do whatever necessary to make sure the site is protected from predicted higher wave action. That means hardening the Buhne Point hillside to a greater degree than it is now. There is rip-rap protecting the base of the hill, but geologists and engineers need to get together to design a system that will protect the hillside from erosion for hundreds of years to come. Let’s get started on this process now.

Michael Welch, McKinleyville

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