Opinion: California's San Onofre nuclear plant is a Chernobyl waiting to happen (via latimesopinion)
of the dangers before such disasters occurred in 1986 in Chernobyl, Ukraine, and 25 years later in Fukushima, Japan. As one of the world’s wealthiest and most technologically advanced nations, the U.S. may be no better prepared.
Local activists cheered after the troubled San Onofre plant was permanently shut down in 2013 after a 75-gallon-a-daywas discovered in a new steam generator. Closing it didn’t stop the threat. Now activists must wait until the plant’s nuclear waste is removed to a yet-to-be-built national nuclear waste repository or until the waste decays in several thousand years, whichever comes first.
The effect of the Chernobyl disaster on the region’s population is staggering. Radioactive contaminants migrated toward population centers in dust, water, airways and food. Thyroid disease, autoimmune disorders, anemia, and diseases of the circulation system, digestive tract and lungs increased year by year. Leukemia, pediatric thyroid cancer, and cancers of the mouth, throat and stomach followed.
Southern California Edison shuttered the San Onofre plant, but the danger lives on. The nuclear waste storage facility sits on an erosion-prone bluff 2 feet above the mean high tide. Seismic activity often occurs, and four tsunamis hit the region between 1812 and 1930. Geologists say the potential for another tsunami is elevated in the area, which has 8.4 million people living within a 50-mile radius.
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