ML12264A115

Limited Appearance Statement of Kathleen Sullivan Opposing Indian Point, Units 2 and 3 License Renewal Application

ML12264A115
Person / Time
Site:	Indian Point
Issue date:	09/14/2012
From:	Sullivan K Hibakusha Stories
To:	NRC/SECY/RAS
SECY RAS
References
50-247-LR, 50-286-LR, ASLBP 07-858-03-LR-BD01, RAS E-1248
Download: ML12264A115 (2)

Text

2,'tcket, Hearing From: Kathleen Sullivan [edna@bestweb.net]

Sent: Friday, September 14, 2012 1:56 PM To: NRCREP Resource

Subject:

Response from "Comment on NRC Documents" Below is the result of your feedback form. It was submitted by Kathleen Sullivan (edna(@bestweb.net) on Friday, September 14, 2012 at 13:56:20 DocumentTitle: Generic Environmental Impact Statement for License Renewal of Nuclear Plants: Supplement 38 Regarding Indian Point Nuclear Generating Unit Nos. 2 and 3 Draft Report for Comment NUREG-1437, Supplement 38, Volume 4, Draft Report Comments: Dr. Kathleen Sullivan 270 21st Street Brooklyn, New York 11215 14 September 2012 RE: Generic Environmental Impact Statement for License Renewal of Nuclear Plants:

Supplement 38 Regarding Indian Point Nuclear Generating Unit Nos. 2 and 3 Draft Report for Comment NUREG-1437, Supplement 38, Volume 4, Draft Report

Dear Nuclear Regulatory Commissioners:

I am sitting in my apartment in Brooklyn, New York, 25 miles as the crow flies from the reactors at Indian Point. I am looking at a photograph by Yuriy Kossin. He worked as a cybernetic scientist, at a once little-known nuclear power complex in the Ukraine called Chernobyl.

Twenty-six years have passed since the radioactive fires started a life-long cloud of radioactive fallout, to descend on planet earth, and to be re-suspended by wind and rain for the generations to come. Cesium, strontium, plutonium. The area surrounding Chernobyl has been deemed uninhabitable. For Kossin "this zone in its meaning is surrealistic because the real event and subjects [of the event] are standing in an unreal connection to one another."

His photograph, 'The Fisher', reveals this dialectic.

The fisher is wearing a facemask to prevent breathing in alpha-emitting radiation.

In the zones, this mask would look very familiar. However, he is also fishing. When Kossin was taking his photograph, a man walked by and asked the fisher what he would do with his catch. The fisher said that he would feed it to his family. The passerby was surprised, and while both men knew that the fish would be radioactive, there seems to be an unwillingness to accept the comprehensive changes to life that the Chernobyl disaster has brought.

The fisher has changed his life by becoming accustomed to wearing a mask in certain regions.

Yet, he cannot come to terms with no longer being able to fish.

Writing about.Kossin's photograph Aexander Malyi notes that "the fisher wears a mask, but he will eat the fish. The hunter hunts, the mushroom collectors gather, the lovers pick flowers for each other from the dead city. For [the people in the zone] the natural-ness of life is more important than reason".

01

Fastoforward to March 11th 2011. A devastating earthquake and tsunami violently took the lives of over 20,000 people inthe Tohoku Region of Northeast Japan. The nuclear reactor complex at Fukushima was irreparably compromised and three explosions occurred, sending radioactive debris into the air and into the Pacific Ocean. The precarious nature of the on-going radiological disaster has left in access of 1,200 irradiated fuel assemblies, exposed to the open air. If another earthquake should disturb that fuel pool, the resulting radioactive contamination could affect the whole of the Northern Hemisphere.

Chernobyl has been all but forgotten and people still suffer daily. Fukushima is being paraded as a cold shut-down while the time bomb in the fuel pool at Unit #4 ticks away.

Meanwhile children in the zone around Fukushima are already exhibiting thyroid abnormalities, and strontium levels exceeding 100 times background have been found in playgrounds in the Tokyo metropolitan area. Fish caught off the coast of San Diego carry radioactive footprints that lead to Fukushima; so too, milk in Vermont.

Sitting in the relative safety of my apartment in Brooklyn, looking at the photograph of the masked fisher, I am thinking of why I want the NRC to shut down Indian Point.

There are too many reasons for one letter.

When you think about the relicensing of the reactors at Indian Point, please consider these stories and recognize in them the countless people in the Ukraine and in Japan who will continue to suffer. For them these stories have a beginning, but they will never have an end. These people will be forever changed by what happened to them. As an evacuee from Fukushima, Ms. Takako Shishido, recently asked me:

"What would you do if this happened to you?"

Yours sincerely, Dr. Kathleen Sullivan Program Director, Hibakusha Stories organization: Hibakusha Stories addressl: 270 21st Street address2:

city: Brooklyn state: NY zip: 11215 country: US phone: 646-573-2573 DOCKETED

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U SNRC September 14, 2012 (1:56 p.m.)

OFFICE OF SECRETARY RULEMAKINGS AND 2 ADJUDICATIONS STAFF