Land Values Alabama For 1991

AP IMPACT: Tritium leaks found at many nuke sites

BRACEVILLE, Ill. — Radioactive tritium has leaked from three-quarters of U.S. commercial nuclear power sites, often into groundwater from corroded, buried piping, an Associated Press investigation shows.

The number and severity of the leaks has been escalating, even as federal regulators extend the licenses of more and more reactors across the nation.

Tritium, which is a radioactive form of hydrogen, has leaked from at least 48 of 65 sites, according to U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission records reviewed as part of the AP's yearlong examination of safety issues at aging nuclear power plants. Leaks from at least 37 of those facilities contained concentrations exceeding the federal drinking water standard — sometimes at hundreds of times the limit.

While most leaks have been found within plant boundaries, some have migrated offsite. But none is known to have reached public water supplies.

At three sites — two in Illinois and one in Minnesota — leaks have contaminated drinking wells of nearby homes, the records show, but not at levels violating the drinking water standard. At a fourth site, in New Jersey, tritium has leaked into an aquifer and a discharge canal feeding picturesque Barnegat Bay off the Atlantic Ocean.

In response to the AP's investigation, two congressman — Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts and Peter Welsh of Vermont, both Democrats — on Tuesday released a study by independent federal analysts who had identified problems with the regulation of underground piping.

The report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office noted that while the industry has a voluntary initiative to monitor leaks into underground water sources, the NRC hasn't evaluated how promptly that system detects such leaks. "Absent such an assessment, we continue to believe that NRC has no assurance that the Groundwater Protection Initiative will lead to prompt detection of underground piping system leaks as nuclear power plants age," the report's authors concluded.

Previously, the AP reported that regulators and industry have weakened safety standards for decades to keep the nation's commercial nuclear reactors operating within the rules. While NRC officials and plant operators argue that safety margins can be eased without peril, critics say these accommodations are inching the reactors closer to an accident.

Any exposure to radioactivity, no matter how slight, boosts cancer risk, according to the National Academy of Sciences. Federal regulators set a limit for how much tritium is allowed in drinking water. So far, federal and industry officials say, the tritium leaks pose no health threat.

Can Someone Tell Me What It'S Like To Live In Alabama? - German ...

I was in Montgomery in 1991. The people were nice, housing was a little high, the land full of trees and rolling hills. The weather is going to be more humid the closer to the gulf you live. The troubling thing that I saw was that the whole time I was there I only saw one black person. It is still very much segregated. The whites never go to a public swimming pool; only private pools. I never saw a black person in a mall, store or 7-11.

EIS cumulative

State tax review

Reports of cases argued and determined in the Supreme Court of Alabama

Government reports announcements

The encyclopedic digest of Alabama reports, being a complete encyclopedia and digest of all the Alabama case law up to and including volume 175, Alabama reports, volume 6, Alabama appellate court reports, and volume 62, Southern reporter