EMBARRASSING YOURSELF FOR PRESS TIME

The Independent Safety Assessment Entourage

In 1996, a marginally acceptable nuclear plant- the Maine Yankee plant-was a hotbed of unfinished work orders, unfollowed procedures, shoddy work practices, dozens of "workarounds" where some jury-rigged gilhooley wangdoodle of a home made temporary solution was left in place on a semi-permanent basis... extension cords ran through the control room powering items that had been designed to have their own power supply-but didn't. This plant requested a power uprate from NRC, and received it, even though a calculation proving its ability to withstand a small loss of coolant accident, had been kluged by simply referring to another calc, the case of a large coolant break, and the slipshod workaround of simply saying "Oh, if it withstands the large coolant break, it oughtta withstand the small break, right?"

Amazingly, this slipshod evasion of a true calculation was allowed to stand as "engineering judgement" by NRC, even though the plant's Final Safety Analysis Report-its FSAR-(part of its license) had promised to calculate the loss of coolant break in all sizes, from smallest to largest, in ten percent increments. A whistle blower went public with the evaded calculation, and two organizations were in deep, deep trouble.

Maine Yankee was in trouble because, short of staff, and money-starved, it had trained itself to skate on the edge of failure, and talk its way past the resident NRC inspectors.

NRC was in trouble, because it had failed to enforce a written committment for Maine Yankee to do ten calculations, and had accepted a single "one size fits all" safety calc in its place. Internally, NRC groused about just how bad, bad was, and just how good a plant needed to be, to be acceptable. It knew someone had messed up.


In a desperate bid to salvage its credibility, NRC devised a special emergency administrative tactic, a one time only self-reinvestigation, by way of bringing in 25 new inspectors to do a "vertical slice" inspection at Maine Yankee. At the end of the exercise, in November 1996, the 25 new inspectors had developed a laundry list of bad conditions found in a 3 month period,the worst being a safety injection pump that would not have functioned when needed, because its starting wire was not connected, and a set of several hundred meaningless valve tests , done religiously by the plant's test group, but so ineptly designed, that the tests as performed did not really test for anything, thus calling in to question the ability of almost every valve in the plant to perform its function when called upon, and a control room air conditioning system, which was allowed to ice up and fail repeatedly for years, without ever being permanently fixed.

The Maine Yankee Atomic Power Company was not a real corporation with a credo, or a corporate identity, it was a consortium of ten local power companies kicking in 10% each, to start a nuclear plant, and who then simply milked the plant from day one, doing everything the most evasive way possible to save cash, never hiring enough staff to do upkeep work, and simply riding the nuclear tiger for profit, almost like a band of strict Maine preachers of old , buying a ten percent interest in a brothel somewhere, forced to never own up to any responsibilities, because it was, well, a damned nuclear brothel, right?

NRC had been flim flammed by the preachers, and had bigtime egg on its face. Good will, or trust, had not been enough, and NRC needed more penetrating inspection methods, and a rating system, able to tell shoddy from bad, and unacceptable from acceptable. Out of the experience, NRC crafted its Reactor Oversight Process-- a system of constant inspections, with ratings given to each category in each plant. The one-time Independent Safety Assessment was made an every-week occurrence, and forms the backbone of NRC's working method today-- (Incidentally, the period when the ROP has been enforced is also the period when nuclear plants went from 30% efficiency to 99% efficiency).

So--- was the Maine Yankee Independent Safety Assessment successful? Yes, in that it upped the standards for every plant, and formed the kernel of a new ongoing set of high inspection standards, universally enforced.

Should it be done once more, in 2007?

The Maine Yankee situation was unique. Indian Point, and its corporate mentor Entergy bear no resemblance to Maine Yankee whatsoever, and ten years of NRC test results are in the public domain to prove it. That is ten years of tests identical to Maine Yankee's ISA, done on a constant rotating basis (aside from the resident inspectors at the plant permanently), and therefore a call for a new ISA, shows either an absolute ignorance of the nuclear industry, the ROP, and the rigid recurrent ISA's always going on at Indian Point, or else is simply a cynical stunt, done for political purposes. If NRC even were to comply, and hold a new "ISA", it would be forced to interrupt its own series of ongoing ISA's at the plant to do so.

So, was Hillary Clinton's staff misled by some antinuke activist, a Ray Shadis maybe, someone who had heard about Maine Yankee, but who suppressed the facts of the new constant ISA regime brought in afterwards? I suspect this is exactly what happened.

Is there a debt to pay, in using sliphsod "activist movement" reporting tactics, as a basis for making real world governmental policy? Bigtime. It puts egg on John Hall's face, Hillary's face, and incidentally on the faces of Westchester's 17 county legislators, although their faces have very little room for more egg, being sloppily smeared with a veritable Western Omelette of shame for their sycophantic obeisance to personalities like user Mike "The Kapo" Kaplowitz, who trots them around at will, kind of like Britney Spears' entourage.

And that's why an Independent Safety Assessment at Indian Point is not needed. Indian Point is already doing it.


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CAN WE TRUST AN ANTI-NUKE INSPECTOR?

Shady Croupiers

A concerted effort is underway, by the public relations arm of all the local Democrats, to make the notion of an Independent Safety Assessment seem inocuous, and helpful in the matter of the Democrats' obsession with Indian Point. This is just a step or two less malicious than a campaign of outright lies. It is, in fact, a seemingly earnest, but manipulative misuse of an established body of existing PR lies, now referred to as "public concern".

The Democratic officials have not concocted new lies about Indian Point, but they never critically investigated exaggerations served up to them by their staff, and paid fear-creators in the big-charity foundation-funded "movement". The paid PR perpetrators acted at one remove, calling themselves "watchdogs", but in reality sowing mistrust, smearing people of good will, misleading thousands with junkscience misinterpretations, and the staff people of all major Democratic figures worked closely with them, to pull in whatever votes could be gleaned from their impressive set of mailing lists.

The collective set of lies is now misnomered as "public concern". It is not public, and it is not concern. It is the private skewing of facts by professional PR people planted in the green movement by big oil foundations, specifically targeting all things nuclear. I have made an effort to identify and name the main operatives, and they number no more than 50-75 people nationwide. This is the single source of 99% of so-called "public concern". In point of fact the public is apathetic or uncommitted to these mock-issues, as a quick glance at local chatrooms will show. The public cares about taxes, illegal immigration, bad roads, schools, and half a dozen other topics, with Indian Point seldom mentioned.

But..... it is a way for unconnected Democratic rivals to connect with each other, garner bootstrapping momentum against Nancy Pelosi and others within the Democratic ranks, and to begin the 2008 campaign on an aggressive PR note.

Now let me explain what is so ludicrous about an Independent Safety Assessment. It is a duplication of ongoing inspections already underway at Indian Point. In a series of 100 inspections, specifically demanding inspection number 101 simply shows that the requestors are obviously not reading the results of all the other inspections. A further inspection on top of the last 100 inspections can not turn up anything, good or bad, that the other inspections have not looked at. So no new data will come from a special new inspection.

Then why not do it as a reassurance to the public? To that I say: Why not compile and broadcast the results of the existing 100 inspections to reassure the public? To that Democrats will say "But the public does not care about or trust the other 100 inspections".... To which I reply "It was you, who acted as if mistrust was warranted, and who so browbeat the issue that the public ceased to care.... so it might as well be you, the perpetrators, who remedy that".

And..... once the logical fallacy of ignoring 100 inspections, and all their confirmed data, and rolling the public's dice on a single inspection, (with doubtful data) is clearly pointed out...... there still remains the distinct possibility of hidden malice, and hidden malicious agendas, buried within the seemingly inocuous call for one more inspection.

What do I mean?

It just may be, that someone on the staff of the hand picked new inspection team will have been delegated as "Hit Person"..... assigned the task of skewing results, creating a bogus problem so as to close Indian Point, and thus deprive 20 million people of a rightful service on the whim of 4 congresspeople, a dozen staff members, and a single malicious antinuke mole, outside any public deliberative process.

We have learned how Jamie Garelik was planted on the 9-11 commission staff to quash Clinton mistakes along with national archives vandal Sandy Berger , and therefore we know that the capability of hatching a malicious plot to sabotage a public investigation is well within the capabilities of the Democratic party.

Should we risk regional viablility and affordability, along with future prosperity and security on a dice-roll?
A dice roll by croupiers already implicated in past skulduggery?

MUDWRESTLING FOR AMERICA....

A revealing statement was made the other day, by Westchester County exec Andrew Spano, waiting in the icy cold of the Annsville Creek kayak club, for John Hall's press conference. The outdoor location is a popular one for such events about Indian Point, because its domes are beautifully visible from the spot, and can form a backdrop for whatever pol is adding his particular genius to the mix that day. Commenting on the uncomfortable temperature, Andy quipped that they should have held it indoors "and used a picture" instead.

Last week, a local blog claimed that a Papier Mache' Indian Point was obscuring the real Indian Point in the press. linkAndy Spano says they should "Use a picture instead". Was Andy finally on to something?

After years of malicious exaggeration for effect, and microscopic overconcern about ephemeral minutiae at the stalwart old plant, those in opposition to its existence have painted themselves into a corner. Having created a fictional Indian Point to swear at, and toss pebbles at like hajj pilgrims in Mecca, they were finally coming to grips with the fact that as much as they despised the false Indian Point, their constituents needed the real Indian Point, and needed it desperately. As the icy 17 degree winds whipped in off the Hudson like a blast of reality, Spano was chilled into the realization that he'd rather be indoors, where Indian Point could keep him warm, shaking his fist at a picture, than experiencing reality. Quite an admission, Mr. County Executive! Perhaps your singlemost instant of pure insight!

Executives and Congresspeople, along with Senators, and even Presidents, are often lied to. Seeking causes to champion, they stand there stymied in their white knight outfits, clueless, until a staffer (or Jack Abramoff) hands them a briefing paper, containing news of whatever "evil" they are to vanquish today. If the briefing paper contains nonsense, the county, the congressional district, or the entire country can be led down the shining path to destruction, and I think we are all very familiar with THAT. I've not decided just yet, that our senatorial/congressional system is broken beyond repair, but hearing of Nancy Pelosi's new 757 commuting jet, and John Hall's rehash of a rejected Maurice Hinchey bill proposing we officially return to an obsolete, long superseded, archaic and unrevealing "Independent Safety Assessment" to tell us whether the fictional Indian Point is as bad as they themselves have been saying, I am being edged closer and closer to a final decision that unrealistic camera-seeking faux leadership is leaving us all in the lurch, screwing the common man royally, for the sake of pictures and celebrity pride.

Because their own staff cherry picked lurid untruths about Indian Point, to provide them a fictional electoral theme, now they band together proposing a fictional solution to their self-induced fictional problems, an ISA. Don't they understand that the only time an ISA was ever held, in 1996, the NRC leveraged the concept into an entire new way of doing business, one that NRC now follows daily, the ROP- or Reactor Oversight Process. The ISA itself was hurriedly and somewhat badly done, serving as a kind of sketch pad for NRC to write a new policy on. After 1996, they amplified those notes, wrote that new policy, and have perfected it daily ever since. Asking NRC to return to the sketch pad now, is like asking the NASA moonshot engineers to return to some scribbled hand calcs on a tablecloth, and ignore the carefully programmed computer guidance system that eventually was crafted from those scribbles.

But Hall, Spano, Hinchey, Lowey et al have a paper problem to fix, and a paper solution to do it with! So we get press releases, meetings on the frozen shore, planted articles about "momentum", and absolutely no buy-in by the public. What gives? It seems John Q realizes our power brokers are having a private little tempest in an exclusive Democratic teapot, and that it won't raise the temperature above 17 degrees, or intercept the wind that Andy so despised. The one thing it might do, if we insist on humoring these camera hounds, is take away the power the region requires, so that Andy can go indoors, and warm his hands up, and shake his fist at that picture, for all to see on channel 12!

The oh-so-bracing paper momentum that Greg Clary wrote about 5 days ago is spent now, lasting only about as long as paper momentum ever does, as we all sit indoors, grateful for our heat, our lighting, our news , entertainment and our realworld work, all brought to us courtesy of the real Indian Point, as Andy 'n' Hall mudwrestle with that slippery faux Indian Point all over again, knowing that another election is coming soon, to your area...

GOOD OLD FASHIONED WITCH BURNING REJECTED...

Interested readers can link to: THE NRC REJECTION STATEMENT


To see why there is no "momentum" for a so-called "Independent Safety Assessment" at Indian Point power plant. The very idea of an ISA is obsolete, having been replaced in 1997 with NRC's much improved ROP-(reactor oversight process.) Do the authors of this request realize that their anti-nuclear biased staff has handed them a major embarrassment in having them ask for a decades-outdated event to re-happen in 2007? Probably not. Their "advocacy" is mainly fly-by-wire, mediated by staff, and handed up to the unconcerned elected officials as their latest sop to a rapidly aging, (and dwindling) "movement."

White Nuclear Snowflake has been trying to alert the poor duped congresspeople, but I bet their staff doesn't hand them the latest WNS post every day, do they?

Asking for an ISA in 2007 is like asking for an exorcism, a land grant from the King of Spain, an application of leeches for gout, or a cranial trepanning for a headache. Very, very out of date. Humiliating that they would even mention it.
Read WNS back posts, should you want to learn more.

In my opinion, commissioner Klein was very courteous in not highlighting their mistake.
He's a more kindly type than I am, I guess.

"HALL GATE" SCANDAL BEGINS

John Hall disgraces his new office

The so-called "return of ethics" principle, upon which the new Democratic majority was elected, will be seriously challenged by the attempt of long-time antinuclear celebrity turned congress member John Hall to launch a private legislative vendetta, calling for an obviously unneeded independent safety assessment of Indian Point power plant, to satisfy the wishes of old adherents.

Modeling itself on the only other such inspection ever held, one at Maine Yankee in 1996, this bill would propose a pointless search for some unknown and unspecified "wrong" ---which is at root, an undoable task. (Maine Yankee's inspection grew from a specific whistle blower complaint in a declining and below average plant.)

Hall's bill would target no specific wrongdoing (no whistleblower has complained), in a vastly improved, previously inspected smoothly functioning above average plant, run by a corporation that offers to manage poorly run plants for other utilities, and bring them up to par.

Hall must know this, and so the motive for this inspection cannot be valid, as was the reason for Maine Yankee's inspection. The motive must be sought in Hall's antinuclear past, and antinuclear following, and washes out as pure legislative harrassment of a well run, and widely accepted business, simply because it is "nuclear".

A Bisconti research poll recently showed that 80% of people living within ten miles of nuclear plants favored the plants, and Hall has access to this poll. So that pushes the status of his antinuclear harrassment bill down another notch, to that of a vanity bill, one concocted with no hope of success, to make him look good to old supporters.

And this is supposedly "a new ethics"?
This might more accurately be termed a corrupt misuse of a newly won office, to punish an old enemy, via legislative harrassment, against the will of the people, to gain press notice.

We might even term it "Hallgate".