Nuclear plant to downsize

Friday, 14 September 2007

Page 2 of 2 Martin noted that Barnwell County has recently experienced some good fortune with LK Cabinet Division’s announcement to locate in the county, creating about 300 jobs initially. In addition, Martin said more development projects are currently in the works for the county, with announcements coming soon. “Barnwell County is doing very well. This isn’t a situation where we’re throwing our hands up and saying, ‘What do we do now?’ But at the same time, what’s going on at Chem-Nuclear has no bearing on our active recruiting of other industry to this area. We will continue to support Chem-Nuclear,” Martin said. “With the political climate we find ourselves in today, we understand that now is not the right time to continue this fight, but if Energy Solutions should decide to raise the issue again at a later date, this community will be there to support that effort in large numbers.” Energy solution’s decision not to push for legislation came on the same day that the Department of Health and Environmental Control held a conference to defend itself against an article published in The State newspaper last August. The State published the site’s tritium plume, a document that shows the underground flow of tritium--a radioactive isotope of hydrogen that emits low energy radiation and has been linked to cancer in cases where it has been ingested or inhaled. According to data published by The State, about a third of the 98 wells contained tritium levels above Environmental Protection Agency safety standards. DHEC clarified this information stating that, “First, there is absolutely no requirement that the state of South Carolina use the EPA standard rather than the NRC’s standard and secondly, no one is drinking water from any of the monitoring wells where the elevated tritium levels have been long documented.” The NRC is the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which in its most recent review of the site completed in July gave the site the “highest rating for all performance indicators,” according to a statement released by DHEC. Dangerfield said the information reported by The State did not influence the company’s decision to drop its efforts at passing a bill. “The tritium plume didn’t have anything to do with this,” Dangerfield said. “We made the decision before that stuff came out.” << Start < Prev 1 2 Next > End >>