Kay Drey: How "Routine Emissions" from Nuclear Power Plants Slowly Poison Neighboring Communities

Kay Drey (photo by Jo Mannies, St. Louis Beacon)On May 25th, Dr. Helen Caldicott, Beyond Nuclear's Founding President, interviewed Kay Drey, a Beyond Nuclear board member, on her weekly radio program If You Love This Planet. Kay is also a board member of the Great Rivers Environmental Law Center. For nearly 40 years, Kay has researched the dangers of nuclear energy and nuclear waste, and advocated for the closure of nuclear plants and other uranium facilities. She was quite active in civil rights work before focusing on nuclear power. Kay and Dr. Caldicott discuss the widespread public health implications of so-called routine radioactive releases from nuclear power stations, in which many hazardous gases and fission byproducts are emitted during daily operations. Kay refers to a Beyond Nuclear pamphlet, Dirty, Dangerous, and Expensive: The Verdict Is In About Nuclear Power. Another Beyond Nuclear pamphlet, Routine Radioactive Releases from Nuclear Power Plants in the United States: What Are the Dangers?, provides more information on the main subject of Helen and Kay's conversation, as well as a listing of surface waters into which radioactively contaminated liquid wastes are being discharged. For more information, read Dr. Caldicott’s book Nuclear Power Is Not the Answer, which includes information from Kay’s studies.

As reactors age, unplanned, unmonitored, unpermitted leaks increase due to degradation of systems, structures, and components. Many of the 23 still-operating U.S. GE BWR Mark Is, identical in design to Fukushima Daiichi Units 1-4, are among the oldest reactors in the country. Thus, their leakage rates are also a concern, in addition to their ongoing, permitted, planned, monitored "routine" releases.