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To Joe Pouchard, News Service Branch DATE:
Division of Public Information, HQ FRoM :
R. L. Southwick, Assistant. to the Manager for Public Information, SAN p[
SUBJECT:
SAINT-AHAND REPORT 0 EARTHQUAKE POTENTIAL' M/r nelosed is a copy of the full Saint-Amand report on potential earthquakes at Bodega Head.
In my memorandum of September. 5,1963, I noted we would send you full copies as soon as they be'came available.
Enclosure Press' Release & Saint-Amand Rpt (1 set)
< 0.,H.4 Pvfra, n<reere. ea p e ninrinn. Er w/ enc 1.
Robert lowenstein, Dir., Licensing & Regulation, HQ w/ enc 1.
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NORTHERN CALIFORNA ASSOCATION-
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'TO PRESERVE BODEGA HEAD' AND HARBOR.
TE:- TH 1-6399 2714 Durant Avenue j
Berkeley 4, Calif.
PRESS RELEASE FOR 'IMMEDRTE RELEASE.
(Thursdayr August 29, 1963)
. A-PIANT EARTHQUAKE -
q HA2ARDS REPORTED l
I A new report on earthquake hazards'at. Bodega Head was released today by.a delet, ate to the meeting of the International Union of Geodesy and Geo-
. physics.
Dr. Pierre Saint-Amand, who'will share ~ the leadership of the-IUGG tour of the San Andreas Fault with Dr. Don Tocher; is the author of the report.
He released it ' personally at a press conference in Berkeley this morning.
The report shows that the distance from the reactor site to the' edge of the San Andreas Fault zone is about 750 feet. (AEC regulations require at -
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l 1 east 1/4 mile separation.) At such close proximity a phenomenon known as.
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" fling," a whip-like action, occurs during major earthquakes.
The reactor, therefore, could conceivably be heaved 20 feet northward-i in a few seconds during a temblor equivalent to the 1906 San Francisco earth-quake.
The report also shows illustrations of a potentially active fault through the exposed reactor excavation--in addition to several active faults crossing 3
the reactor's cooling-water discharge pipes.
l The 25-page illustrated study makes no bones that the site chosen by l
PG&E for a 325 megawatt nuclear reactor is exceedingly hazardous.
It notes,
-s for example, that "a worse foundation would be difficult to envision."
"It is surprising, " Dt. St'.-Amand repcrts, "in view of the expert advice-J given by Tocher and Qualde, and by Housner (PG&E Consul'ta' ts) that another '
n site was not chosen and that construction has gone ahead...The location on Bodega Head is hazardous frora a geological and seismic point of view."
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- David Pesonen,' spokesman for the' Northern California Association to 9
y Preserve Bodega Head and Harbor, said at the press conference that the group had intended to submit Dr. St.-Amand's testimony in open public hearings be-i fore the California Public Utilities Commission.
A He added, however, that since the PUC turned down the Association's j
1 recent petition for re-hearing, they felt that the IUGG conference was an ap-propriate -time to release the. report publicly.
(William Bennett, President of j
the PUC, disagreed with his colleagues and recommended that hearings be E
f, re-opened.)
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Dr. St.-Amand was appointed by the United States Ambassador to Chile' and the Chilean Government :to investigate the cause and extent of. the disastrous Chilean earthquakes of May 1960.
He had been on loan since 1958 to the l
University of Chile in Santiago under the auspices of the U.S. State Department and the International Cooperation Administration.
His report on the Chilean catastrophe has been published by the Naval Ordnance Test Station at China Iake, California, where he is head. of the Astronautical Sciences Division, engaged in research on high atmosphere physics, optics, radio properties, seismology, tectonics, and structural geology.
l Dr. St.-Amand has been a Fulbright research scholar.
He received his
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Masters degree!. in geophysics from the California Institute of Technologp in l
4 1951 and his PhD in geophysics and geology from the same institution in 1953.
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