Note and request for comments: The account above has been the fruit of endless hours of work, rereading, note taking and recollection by the two principals, former Presidents and still Trustees, Sylvia Field and Diana Sidebotham. Their dedication and commitment has served this organization well for many years. The typist and copy editor, Jim Perkins, is responsible for the errors. Please send notices of errors of fact, glaring omissions, and basic typos to his attention promptly at Rt 1 Box 423, Wayne ME 04284 or call at (207) 685-9604. A final draft will be completed and printed in quantity for distribution to contributors in this, our twenty-fifth year. A Brief History Twenty-five years with the New England Coalition on Nuclear Pollution Compiled by Sylvia and Diana Sidebotham Page 2 of 12 1971: The New England Coalition on Nuclear Pollution was founded in February by citizens and scientists in southern Vermont and western Massachusetts as a public education organization, and was incorporated in April. The founder’s goals’ were to inform themselves and the public about all aspects of the U.S. civilian nuclear power program, to ask all relevant questions about design, construction, operation, public health and safety, and environmental effects before the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant (VY) received a license. Few answers were received and NECNP intervened in the operating license proceeding to oppose the issuance of the license. Larry Bogart, veteran nuclear opponent, had made his fiftieth trip to Vermont and Massachusetts the weekend before. NECNP retained the Washington, DC, law firm of Berlin, Roisman and Kessler, and petitioned the Atomic Energy Commission for intervenor status. (Hearings continued intermittently for five years, including appeals.) Safety issues raised included: integrity of the Mark 1 containment (torus); fire hazard to safety systems; possibilities of faulty fuel; poor quality control and quality assurance, inoperable valves, larger than expected gamma radiation emanations to nearby buildings (including an elementary school)), emergency planning, and hydrogen explosion in containment, making “inerting” desirable. An environmental issue, the effect of heated water on organisms in the river, resulted in a license restriction to closed cycle operation for Vermont Yankee for five years. The long term storage of radioactive waste was excluded from the licensing as “irrelevant” (see court suit later). Few satisfactory answers were received in regard to public health and safety, engineering safety, and environmental effects. Many safety issues were denied by the AEC and VY at hearings have come home to roost at nuclear plants around the world. The Coalition was supported from the beginning by a Board of Science Advisors from the area colleges and universities. Public education activities by trustees, science advisors, and members gained momentum. By July, 4,000 signatures opposing VY had been gathered; public hearings by an Atomic Safety and Licensing Board began; and NECNP was launched, for a few years, we thought. 1972: Evidentiary hearings reconvened in March. Despite evidence of faulty fuel and other safety issues outstanding, the Licensing Board (ASLB) agreed to authorize a 1% license to VY for testing. The AEC allowed VY to load fuel. The April newsletter reported that the AEC’S C.L. Comar had acknowledged, in the “Understanding the Atom” series, the assumption that any dose of radiation, no matter how small, produces some somatic and genetic effect, although possibly minor and delayed for generations. This contradicted directly the AEC and industry positions that a “small amount” of radiation (up to 500 millirems) is harmless. In September, VY was granted license to operate, despite their failure to demonstrate an emergency power need in New England. In October, the Coalition supported, through a limited appearance, the position of the Seacoast Anti-Pollution League in opposition to the Seabrook nuclear power plants, in a proceeding before the New Hampshire Bulk Power Site Evaluation Board. In November, VY was found to have faulty fuel and higher than expected radioactive emissions as it began to operate. The press was advised first by NECNP, not by VY. Licensing hearings on environmental effects continue while VY operates. NECNP’s intervention in the VY operating license proceeding was studied as one of three cases in a National Science foundation grant study: Citizen Groups and the Nuclear Power Controversy: Uses of Scientific and Technological Information, by Steven Ebbin and Raphael Kasper (MIT Press, out of print). Valuable information, insights, and recommendations were included. 1973: The intervention continues. VY experiences continuing difficulties in operation frequent shutdowns. Attorney Roisman gets AEC to agree to put all future correspondence between AEC and VY in the Brattleboro Library Public Documents Room. On February 27, the AEC issues a full power license to VY to operate until 2007; NECNP and the Natural Resource Defense Council appeal to the AEC Appeal Board. The AEC ignored the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). In August, after a long consultation among trustees and science advisors, the Coalition issues a statement calling for a moratorium on new nuclear plant construction and operation, gradual phasing out of existing plants, and a vigorous national commitment to development and deployment of more benign solar alternatives and conservation. In the fall, NECNP is commended by Vermont’s Attorney General Cheney for its role in convincing the AEC appeal Board that safety standards for fuel densification are not being met. Ten Boiling Water Reactors (BWR) across the country are dated. NECNP joined the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) in a joint petition to the AEC for the emergency shutdown of VY and Pilgrim because of damage to fuel channels. NECNP Science Advisor Allan Hoffman’s monitoring near VY showed higher than usual radiation levels on the thermoluminescent dosimeters (TLD’s) directly under the stack and on the Hinsdale, NH, bluffs. In September, NECNP became a full intervenor in the construction permit proceeding of the AEC to oppose the proposed Seabrook nuclear power plants, and to assist local New Hampshire groups. Expert testimony presented in the direct case, would focus on financial qualifications of the Applicant, earthquake criteria for the design of the plants, energy conservation and solar applications as alternatives to Seabrook, need for power, and health and safety of residents on the Seacoast. (The case was to last for 18 years.) NECNP began its concern for reactors proposed for Montague, Massachusetts, near Amherst, and ultimately became an intervenor to oppose the Montague nuclear project of Northeast Utilities. 1974: In January VY shutdown because of safety problems for the seventeenth time since the beginning of operation one year earlier. NECNP joined NRDC in a suit in the DC Circuit Court of Appeals regarding disposal of radioactive waste. The Coalition filed two petitions with SAPL requesting the AEC to dismiss Public Service Company of New Hampshire’s construction application for Seabrook. Rejected. Several Coalition Trustees attend Ralph Nader’s Critical Mass antinuclear conference in Washington DC. 750 people came from thirty five states and three foreign countries. Governor Francis Sergeant of Massachusetts spoke at NECNP’s fourth annual meeting saying, “That we have come this far is, in part, due to…..citizens like you who would not blindly accept the one-sided truths of nuclear power proponents.” Science Advisor Dr. Larry Gay publishes The Complete Book of Heating with Wood. The NECNP begins to sell its “Split Wood, Not Atoms” bumper stickers. Attorney Anthony Roisman requested intervenor funding from AEC- one of many requests denied. Dr. David Rittenhouse Inglis, NECNP founding Science Adviser, receives the American Physical Society’s first annual Leo Szilard Award for Physics in the Public Interest. VY went back into operation with new core load fuel. 1975: Three General Electric engineers resigned in protest to tell the public of their concerns about nuclear power plants. NECNP hosted a widely attended press conference for Dale Bridenbaugh, Richard Hubbard, and Gregory Minor, at the request of UCS. The Vermont State Legislature approved a bill to grant the state the power to approve or disapprove construction of any new nuclear plant within its borders, the first such law in the country. NECNP asked three experts to prepare testimony for the Seabrook hearings: Dr. Michael Chinnery (geologist-MIT Lincoln Labs); Dr. Mihailo Trifunac (geologist- Cal Tech); and David Smith (EPA health physicist). Earlier Professor James Nelson, an economist at Amherst College, had agreed to address PSNH’s lack of financial qualifications to build and operate Seabrook. Several NECNP trustees and science advisors participated in New England regional hearings on nuclear power, held in Boston and chaired by Morris Udall. Page 4 of 12 Evidentiary hearings were in full swing before an ASLB of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). Intervenors included, in addition to NECNP and SAPL, the states of New Hampshire and Massachusetts, the NH Audubon Society, the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire’s Forests, and the last, but far from least, Elizabeth Weinhold (Earthquake Dolly) a self-taught and highly effective concerned citizen. Expert witnesses on energy alternatives to Seabrook included New York city Architect Carl Stein; Dr. Gordan Macdonald of