Fwd: ANS replies -- US orders news blackout over crippled Nebraska Nuclear Plant: report

Readers:  I got a couple of replies on this one that I thought you should see.  Here's the first one:

What do you think of this? It starts getting a little questionable half way through also referring to the Obama regime, but interesting if it's true.    --M

And here's the second one:

This sounds like bullshit to me.  It might be true, but we have only the word of the Russians, who are notoriously lax about safety regulations.  And all the nonsense in the middle about the "war" on the coal industry makes me doubt anything this writer says.  And a 35% increase in infant mortality?  What?   --J

Here's a third one: 

There is a very reputable (moderately liberal side) news magazine in the U. S. named "The Nation".  But I trust you didn't confuse this story with that source.  This "The Nation" is a Pakistani newspaper and I wouldn't necessarily trust what they say without a lot of further checking.

The only area of the Western U. S. that could conceivably have a quake/tsunami like Japan's (given current knowledge) is off the coast of Washington State, where there is a subduction zone offshore.  The Missouri River valley--e.g. Omaha area-- does not have a history of earthquakes--the Central Mississippi area has the New Madrid (mad' rid) fault, which is an uprising Magma "pimple" in the center of the North American Continental Plate. (Some shaking might get to Omaha--I can't remember).  Google that for when it has shaken and may again.  (If I were building something in St. Louis, I would design for it going within the life of the building).

Googling the name of this plant might be interesting--I am eager to see any nuclear plant have any kind of difficulty that is not a total disaster and enhances distrust of the technology!!!

PRC

And a fourth: 

here's the NYT article for today

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/21/us/21flood.html 

--PRC

and a fifth: 

I'm definitely against nuclear power Kim, but this article from the Nation doesn't jibe with other stories I've seen and heard. With all this coverage I don't see how they justify the claim of a news blackout. Maybe a Russian official did say that, but this is from today's front page in the Omaha World Herald...

http://www.omaha.com/article/20110621/NEWS01/706209922/0#cooper-was-near-flood-shutdown

Cooper was near flood shutdown

By Kevin Cole

World-Herald staff writer

Operators of the Cooper Nuclear Station near Brownville said they are optimistic that floodwaters will not force the plant to shut down â€" at least in the next few days.

The southeast Nebraska nuclear station came within about 18 inches of shutting down early Monday, when the Missouri River level at the plant rose to 43.8 feet.

The Missouri River must reach 45.5 feet (902 feet above sea level) before officials will shut down the plant, which sits at 903 feet.

The plant is operated by the Nebraska Public Power District. NPPD spokesman Mark Becker said the river dropped to 43.1 feet by mid-day Monday and was expected to continue to ebb.

Becker said a problem with the National Weather Service gauge at Brownville led some to conclude that the plant was within 3 inches of a forced shut down.

“We're operating at full capacity,” Becker said. “What we're seeing is the river leveling itself off, but we continue to watch and add protection around the plant.”

The Columbus-based utility sent a “Notification of Unusual Event” to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission when the river reached 42.5 feet about 4 a.m. Sunday. The declaration is the least serious of four emergency notifications established by the NRC.

Becker said workers have been preparing the station for flood conditions by filling sandbags, constructing barricades, stocking materials and supplies, and reinforcing the access road plant staff use to get to the station.

More that 5,000 tons of sand was brought in for constructing barricades, such as Hesco barriers, around the station's switchyard of transformers and other electrical equipment.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said the river at Brownville had surged about 2 feet from Saturday morning to Sunday due to a combination of factors, including heavy rain over a Missouri River tributary, the Nishnabotna River in southwest Iowa.

It was the second time that a Nebraska nuclear power plant has posted a notice of an unusual event with the NRC due to flooding in the past two weeks.

The Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant, operated by the Omaha Public Power District, posted such a notification on June 6. The Fort Calhoun nuclear plant, 20 miles north of Omaha, has been shut down since April for refueling. It has not been restarted because of the flooding.

The river has risen at least 1.5 feet higher than Fort Calhoun's 1,004-foot elevation above sea level. The plant can handle water up to 1,014 feet, according to OPPD.

In northern Missouri on Sunday, water was flowing over two levees choking off two more routes for people attempting to cross the Missouri River.

The surging water closed U.S. Highways 159 and 136 in western Missouri, which means drivers could no longer cross bridges at Brownville and Rulo, Neb. A spokeswoman for the Nebraska Department of Transportation said Sunday that the bridges are expected to be closed for the foreseeable future.

A third crossing, at Nebraska City, was closed when Iowa officials closed Highway 2 from the river to Interstate 29 due to rising water. All Missouri River bridges between Plattsmouth, Neb., and St. Joseph, Mo., are now closed.

At Omaha on Monday, city officials said the Nebraska National Guard has a Black Hawk helicopter is staged at Eppley Airfield if needed for flood emergencies. The helicopter can deploy sandbags weighing 1,500 pounds each in the event of a levee breach, officials said.

Sunday evening, officials at Lake Waconda near Plattsmouth advised all remaining residents to evacuate because of the appearance of several “sand boils” near the levee there. Sand boils occur when water under pressure wells up through a bed of sand and can contribute to levee failure.

Lisa Hathaway at the Lake Waconda caretaker's officer said engineers from the Corps of Engineers were en route to the levee Monday to try to determine its condition. Hathaway estimated that only a half dozen of the 200 lake residents were still there when the evacuation was advised.

In Missouri, authorities said water ­ some from recent rain ­â€" began pouring over levees Saturday night and Sunday morning in Holt and Atchison counties, flooding farmland and numerous homes and cabins.

A hole in the side of a Holt County levee continued to grow Sunday, deluging the state park and recreational area of Big Lake, a community of fewer than 200 people located 78 miles north of Kansas City and just across the river from Rulo.

Holt County Commissioner Mark Sitherwood said U.S. 159 was closed south of Big Lake because water was pouring over the road, and most of the west side of the community was flooded.

“It's going through in one place that we know of and overtopped in numerous places, and there is seepage everywhere,” Sitherwood said.

World-Herald staff writer Rick Ruggles and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

Contact the writer: 402-444-1272, kevin.cole@owh.com

I apologize, I didn't read it carefully enough, I was hasty.  I hope this clears it up.  I'm really impressed with you readers who don't take things on face value and reply about them.
Thanks for correcting me.
--Kim

 a news blackout.  What will they think of next?  This is crazy. 
Are we going to have a disaster like Japan?  Let's hope there's no earthquake/tsunami before they get this cleared up....
Find it here:  http://nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/International/18-Jun-2011/US-orders-news-blackout-over-crippled-Nebraska-Nuclear-Plant-report    
--Kim

US orders news blackout over crippled Nebraska Nuclear Plant: report

Submitted 2 days 18 hrs ago

 

A shocking report prepared by Russia's Federal Atomic Energy Agency (FAAE) on information provided to them by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) states that the Obama regime has ordered a "total and complete" news blackout relating to any information regarding the near catastrophic meltdown of the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant located in Nebraska.
According to this report, the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Plant suffered a "catastrophic loss of cooling" to one of its idle spent fuel rod pools on 7 June after this plant was deluged with water caused by the historic flooding of the Missouri River which resulted in a fire causing the Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) to issue a "no-fly ban" over the area.
Located about 20 minutes outside downtown Omaha, the largest city in Nebraska, the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Plant is owned by Omaha Public Power District (OPPD) who on their website denies their plant is at a "Level 4" emergency by stating: "This terminology is not accurate, and is not how emergencies at nuclear power plants are classified."
Russian atomic scientists in this FAAE report, however, say that this OPPD statement is an "outright falsehood" as all nuclear plants in the world operate under the guidelines of the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES) which clearly states the "events" occurring at the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant do, indeed, put it in the "Level 4" emergency category of an "accident with local consequences" thus making this one of the worst nuclear accidents in US history.
Though this report confirms independent readings in the United States of "negligible release of nuclear gasses" related to this accident it warns that by the Obama regimes censoring of this event for "political purposes" it risks a "serious blowback" from the American public should they gain knowledge of this being hidden from them.
Interesting to note about this event was the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Chief, Gregory B. Jaczko, blasting the Obama regime just days before the near meltdown of the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant by declaring that "the policy of not enforcing most fire code violations at dozens of nuclear plants is "unacceptable" and has tied the hands of NRC inspectors."
This report further notes that the "cover-up" of this nuclear disaster by President Obama is being based on his "fantasy" of creating so-called green jobs which he (strangely) includes nuclear power into as his efforts to bankrupt the US coal industry proceed at a record breaking pace.
Unknown to the American people about Obama's "war" on the US coal industry is it's estimated to cost them over a 60% increase in their electricity bills by 2014 and cause over 250,000 jobs to be lost in an already beleaguered economy.
More ominous for those American people whose lives depend on the coal industry that is being deliberately destroyed is the Obama regime's massive "security exercise" currently ongoing in the major coal mining States of Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia, and as we can read about, in part, as reported by InfoWars.Com:
"If you're still living under the delusion that the TSA is just restricted to airports then think again. A joint VIPR "security exercise" involving military personnel has Transportation Security Administration workers covering 5,000 miles and three states, illustrating once again how the TSA is turning into a literal occupying army for domestic repression in America.
The TSA, in alliance with a whole host of federal, state, local agencies as well as military personnel, is currently conducting a massive "security exercise" throughout Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia.
"The participating teams are composed of a variety of TSA assets including federal air marshals, canine teams, inspectors and bomb appraisal officers. They will be joined by state and local law enforcement officials to supplement existing resources, provide detection and response capabilities. The exercise will utilize multiple airborne assets, including Blackhawk helicopters and fixed wing aircraft as well as waterborne and surface teams," reports the Marietta Times.
Although the exercise is couched in serious rhetoric about preparedness, it relates to "no specific threat" and the details are nebulous to say the least and seems to revolve around little else than testing out high-tech surveillance equipment and reminding Americans who their bosses are."
Obama's fears of the American people turning against nuclear power, should its true dangers be known, appear to be valid as both Germany and Italy (whose people, unlike the Americans, have been told the truth) have turned against it after the disaster in Japan and vowed to close all of their atomic plants.
Perhaps even more sadly for the American people is this report stating that the Obama regime is "walking in lockstep" with Japan in their attempts to keep the truth of nuclear accidents from their citizens; which in the case of the Japanese can only be labeled as horrific as new evidence points to them knowing within hours of the Great Tsunami that their atomic reactors had melted down, but have only today ordered an evacuation of pregnant women from what are called "radiation hotspots."
With a country that some scientists are now warning may soon become uninhabitable due to radiation damage, and with reports of mutant rabbits and radioactive whales now being reported, one wonders if in knowing the truth the American people would really want to follow Japan's "example" instead of those people in Germany and Italy?
But, with an already documented 35% increase in the infant mortality rate for American mothers living in the western coastal regions of the US caused by radiation blowing onto them from Japan being ignored by these people there doesn't seem to be much hope for them. (The EU Times)