Orange County NC Website
Browse       Search
ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS <br />A Resolution <br />In Opposition to the Progress Energy Plan and Permit Application <br />to S Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Opposition to any <br />Application for a Certificate of Convenience and Necessity to the <br />NC Utilities Commission for the Expansion the Shearon Harris <br />Nuclear Power Plant by the Construction of One or More Additional <br />Nuclear Reactors and Associated Storage Pools for Spent Fuel <br />Rods <br />WHEREAS, the Orange County Board of Commissioners has a long and well- <br />established practice of opposing activities that could prove harmful to the public <br />health, safety and welfare, particularly in regard to feasible threats to that health, <br />safety and welfare; and <br />WHEREAS, the Orange County Board of Commissioners has a long and well- <br />established record of concern as security and safety issues at the Shearon Harris <br />nuclear power plant and the potential magnitude and catastrophic consequences of <br />a nuclear power plant fire leading to an airborne release of nuclear waste materials; <br />and <br />WHEREAS, the Orange County Board of Commissioners, through the work of Dr. <br />Gordon Thompson and Diane Curran, Esq., has established to the satisfaction of the <br />scientific community the potential for spontaneous combustion of spent nuclear fuel <br />rods during low water conditions in the spent fuel rod storage pools; and <br />WHEREAS, the Shearon Harris nuclear power plant already has. the largest quantity <br />of pool stored spent nuclear fuel rods in the United States; and <br />WHEREAS, the expansion of the pool storage of fuel rods at Shearon Harris nuclear <br />power plant would be vastly increased by the addition of one or two new reactors <br />and associated fuel rod storage pools at the facility would only exacerbate the <br />consequences of a fuel rod fire; and <br />WHEREAS, the vastly increased quantity of pool stored spent fuel rods at Shearon <br />Harris nuclear power plant and the relative ease of bringing about conditions that <br />would lead to fuel rod combustion and associated catastrophic atmospheric release <br />of highly dangerous nuclear material will serve to enhance the attraction of this <br />facility for terrorist attack; and <br />