Madeline Felkins ROCKETDYNE HOTSHEETS Santa Susana Field Laboratory CONTAMINATION NEWS: Potassium Iodide
Antidote Pills Will Go to Reactors' Neighbors
Safety: Terror risk at San Onofre, Diablo Canyon calls for potassium
iodide.
By JEAN O. PASCO and CHRISTINE HANLEY
TIMES
STAFF WRITERS
June 18 2002
The state plans to distribute
potassium iodide tablets to nearly half a million people living within 10
miles of nuclear generating stations in San Onofre and Diablo Canyon,
saying the pills could help protect the public in the event of radiation
exposure.
The decision comes six months after the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission offered the pills to the 34 states with nuclear
power reactors. Officials said the idea was developed over several years
but took on urgency after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, which
highlighted the vulnerability of the nation's 103 nuclear power
stations.
Pills will be given to 421,000 residents in the portions
of San Diego and Orange counties that surround San Onofre and 22,000
residents in San Luis Obispo County, where Diablo Canyon is. Millions who
live near nuclear reactors in Connecticut, New Jersey, New York and eight
other states received the pills this year, and officials in Ohio and
Pennsylvania have requested them.
Though potassium iodide doesn't
shield against all types of radiation poisoning, it can protect the
thyroid from absorbing radioactive iodine if taken in the first four hours
of exposure. Thyroid cancer can result from radiation
exposure.
Nuclear plants are considered possible terrorist targets
because radioactive contamination could spread over wide areas. Federal
officials said Monday that they know of no specific threats against any
nuclear plants, which have been ordered to complete security upgrades by
the end of August.
Officials at Southern California Edison, which
owns San Onofre's two working 1,120-megawatt reactors, insist that the
plant is adequately protected.
The latest study to examine what
might happen if a major radiation leak occurred was completed in 1982 and
painted a grim picture.
If the dome on one of the two working
reactors were breached, the study said, it could result in 27,000 deaths
within a year of the accident, 18,000 additional long-term deaths from
cancer and $186 billion in property damage. The study didn't specifically
theorize a terrorist attack.
Not So Simple
Government
officials warned that distribution of potassium iodide tablets on such a
large scale and involving such a sensitive public health issue can be
fraught with confusion.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman
Breck Henderson said some residents might erroneously believe that taking
the pills would protect against all types of radiation when they protect
the thyroid against only one type of radioactive isotope.
"The best
protection is evacuation or [finding] shelter," he said.
Other
questions: How often to distribute the pills--they have a shelf life of
only a few years--and how to deal with people moving from the area and
taking the pills with them, leaving new occupants without? Nuclear plants
such as San Onofre also have periodic drills using their emergency sirens,
so residents would have to better warned so they don't take the pills
unnecessarily, Henderson said.
"This is one of those things where
the devil is in the details," added Dr. Mark Horton, Orange County's
health officer. "It isn't so much that it's not a good idea. It is a good
idea, but how do you get them to the right people? How do you do it in an
efficient, cost-effective way? I'm sure we'll come up with a reasonable
plan."
In San Clemente, the city closest to San Onofre, a group
called the Coalition for Responsible Ethical and Environmental Decisions
has been crusading for the storage of potassium iodide pills as part of a
broader platform for increased security since Sept. 11. But in Dana Point,
there has been little clamor for the tablets, and officials there question
whether the state's plans make sense.
Sheryl Lindsey, Dana Point's
interim administrative services director, said the pills might be better
administered by physicians because they are prescription-strength and
could pose health risks to some users. (The NRC said a small percentage of
people are allergic to the pills.)
"When you're talking about
administering prescription medication to a populace at large, I think
that's a more complex discussion than just 'Let's hand it out to
everybody,' " Lindsey said. "It needs to be handled carefully, and we only
hope the state will do that."
Boundary Disputed
In San Luis
Obispo, many residents say it's unfair to only offer pills to those living
in a 10-mile radius of the Diablo Canyon plant. The boundaries include all
18,000 residents Los Osos but leaves out the 10,000 residents of Morro
Bay.
"You can't draw a line and say people on one side of the
street get it and people on the other side of the street do not," said
Shirley Bianchi, the county supervisor who represents the communities
north of the plant.
San Luis Obispo County proposes that the pills
be given to 143,000 permanent residents, as well as 85,000 coastal
visitors on peak summer weekends.
Under the state's plan, people
living outside the 10-mile radius could order tablets at pharmacies or
through the Internet. Each pill would cost $1 to $2.
Prodding the
state into distributing the pills became a recent crusade for Orange
County talk-show host Dana Roth of KPLS-AM (830). Three weeks ago, Roth
began calling state officials on the air and asking why the pills hadn't
been given out.
"It took them seven months," Roth said Monday.
"That's typical political bunk. California should be a leader; we
shouldn't be playing catch-up."
The state's plan took several
months to complete because officials had hoped to first create a
consistent policy with local officials on how and when to distribute the
pills and where they would be stored, said Eric Lamoureux, spokesman for
the state Office of Emergency Services.
"We weren't able to do
that," he said, "so we thought it was prudent to make the request anyway.
We didn't want to miss the opportunity."
Lyn Harris, a San Clemente
resident who has been pushing for the tablet distribution, said the
state's plan doesn't go far enough.
She said more pills will be
needed for the surfers and campers who regularly flock to a state park
that stretches right in front of the plant.
*
Times
correspondent Sally Ann Connell contributed to this report.