RE: “Clearing up the VY euphemisms” [Letters, Aug. 1]:
Good questions are raised.
It's called an “Emergency Planning Zone” because that's what it is. In the event of an accident and release, not everyone would have to evacuate. The wind doesn't blow in all directions at once, so only those likely to be affected would need to seek shelter in place or leave.
The emergency plan includes: recognizing and declaring an emergency with its potential; notifying local, state, and national authorities so they can put their plans into action with trained people stationed; forecasting the weather; and positioning the “cloud chasers” who would follow a release so that actual data is available.
In Japan, the government ordered an evacuation on the first day of the Fukushima accident. There was no release until the second or third day. Several hundred people died due to the evacuation itself.
Older persons and the sick and infirm died due to being moved. The dose date from the World Health Organization shows that they should have stayed where they were, and they would have gotten a dose equal to a CT scan.
Dilution is nature's answer to pollution!
RE: “VY employees allow water to drain from spent fuel pool” [Aug. 1]:
The spent fuel pool was designed to prevent accidental draining to an unsafe level, where the radiation dose from the fuel, still below plenty of water, would increase to an unacceptable amount.
There is no drain from the bottom of the pool, or any low level. Any pipe that could break and siphon water out does not go that deeply into the pool.
This possibility of accidental draining was thought of during the plant's design, and the design was made so that it could not happen.