Fire And Flood Stoke Fears At U.S. Nuclear Facilities, But Officials Say Radioactive Materials Are Safe
June 27, 2011
With the specter of the devastating March 11 earthquake, tsunami and subsequent meltdown at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant still fresh in the public mind, a spreading wildfire and rising floodwaters near three U.S. nuclear facilities further heightened concerns on Monday -- though officials asserted that all three facilities remained essentially safe.
Two nuclear power plants on the swollen Missouri River -- the Fort Calhoun Station, 19 miles north of Omaha, Neb., and the Cooper Nuclear Station, located 85 miles downriver near Hamburg, Iowa -- were dealing with rising floodwaters.
Meanwhile, a wildland fire near the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico -- a massive research facility that is home to several metric tons of plutonium and numerous other hazardous and volatile materials -- had inched to within just over a mile of the southern edge of that facility's boundary.
Two nuclear power plants on the swollen Missouri River -- the Fort Calhoun Station, 19 miles north of Omaha, Neb., and the Cooper Nuclear Station, located 85 miles downriver near Hamburg, Iowa -- were dealing with rising floodwaters.
Meanwhile, a wildland fire near the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico -- a massive research facility that is home to several metric tons of plutonium and numerous other hazardous and volatile materials -- had inched to within just over a mile of the southern edge of that facility's boundary.
Get HuffPost Green On Twitter and Facebook !
Know something we don't? E-mail us at Huffpostgreen@huffingtonpost.com
If you believe this has been sent to you in error, please safely unsubscribe.
Comments