Galatis on the cover of TIME on March 4, 1996.This stark warning came from George Galatis to TIME Magazine in March, 1996. In an article entitled "NUCLEAR WARRIORS" by Eric Pooley, the cautionary tale of whisteblowers George Galatis and George Betancourt was recounted. Galatis, backed by Betancourt, suffered several years of harrassment and intimidation from nuclear utility NU (Northeast Utilities), as he struggled to force regulatory compliance at Millstone Unit 1 in Connecticut. For two decades, NU had routinely flouted U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) safety regulations regarding thermal heat loads in high-level radioactive waste storage pools. Not only were full cores of exceedingly hot irradiated nuclear fuel rods routinely offloaded into storage pools -- an action that's supposed to only be taken in emergency situations -- but plant workers actually raced the offloading, in clear violation of NRC safety rules. Such "hot rod races" actually caused a worker's rubber booties to melt, as he was ordered to quickly unbolt the just-operating reactor lid to allow for irradiated nuclear fuel unloading. Such flippant disregard for the risks at the "ass end of the nuclear fuel cycle" risked high-level radioactive waste storage pool boiling -- or even sudden drain down. Either way, irradiated nuclear fuel could catch fire, with catastrophic radioactivity releases outside containment, and nightmarish consequences downwind. The Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear catastrophe has shown that such risks are not abstract, hypothetical, or theoretical -- but all too real. Despite all this, NRC was entirely complicit with NU's disregard for high-level radioactive waste storage pool safety. Despite supposed reforms in the aftermath of Galatis's revelations, NRC still allows high-level radioactive waste storage pools to be packed to the gills, without emergency back up power supplies, nor even water level or temperature gauges. As Galatis warned TIME in 1996, "...a serious accident is not just likely but inevitable."
Commenting on the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear catastrophe, including large-scale releases of hazardous radioactivity from burning high-level radioactive waste storage pools, Galatis said to Intel Hub on April 11, 2011:
“Since the start of the Japanese nuclear crisis, I have been very concerned about its consequences to the Japanese people, to the general public, and about the lack of attention to what I perceive as being the real issue...The real issue is that of nuclear safety. Right now the true risk to public health and safety associated with the generation of nuclear power is intentionally kept from the public. Because of misplaced trust, these enormous risks are in effect being enforced on the public without their knowledge or consent. People need to know about and agree to accept the real risks involved so that when a scenario like Fukushima—or worse—arises here, there is already a degree of acceptance. Without this formal public acceptance, nuclear power will never be cost effective nor will it survive.”
Galatis calls high-level radioactive waste storage pools in the U.S. "potential timebombs," with risks greater than Chernobyl.
Despite Galatis's courageous whistleblowing nearly 20 years ago (he effectively sacrificed his career and livelihood, and was run out of the nuclear power industry, with no protection from NRC), NRC has allowed nuclear utilities to continue adding 20 to 30 tons of additional high-level radioactive waste to their storage pools each year. By 2015, almost every pool in the U.S. will be overfilled to the maximum extent possible. Utilities keep them full, rather than transferring the high-level radioactive wastes to safer (although still not safe) dry cask storage. Why? To save money in the near term -- in order to defer the relatively minor costs of installing dry cask storage.
Most ironically, Millstone Unit 1 -- despite having been permamently shut down, in large part thanks to Galatis's self-sacrificing whistleblowing -- retains a packed-to-the-gills high-level radioactive waste storage pools, despite having an identical design -- the General Electric Mark 1 Boiling Water Reactor -- as the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant's Units 1 to 4. Beyond Nuclear, supported by a growing number of grassroots groups who live in the shadows of 24 U.S. Mark 1s, has fired an emergency enforcement petition off to NRC demanding back up power on the pools, and immediate suspension of operating licenses until the lessons of Fukushima can be learned, and applied in the U.S.