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July
3, 2003
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July
4, 2003
Return to Marble Hill
Indiana's Rusting
Nuke
By JOHN BLAIR
It had been many years since I last visited the
Marble Hill nuclear plant site, maybe fifteen. It looked pretty
much as I expected it to, rusty and eerie, a looming tribute
to technological arrogance run amok.
Still standing tall, the "containment
buildings" contrast with the overgrown weeds and deteriorated
buildings that were still under construction when the plant was
ordered closed in 1984.
In 1973, when Marble Hill was first proposed,
Public Service Indiana (PSI, now Cinergy) said the construction
cost would be a whopping $700 million, the largest capital project
in Indiana history. When the public hearings on the project were
completed in September, 1977, estimated construction costs had
doubled to $1.4 billion.
At that time, there was concern on the
part of skeptics that the cost estimates by PSI were skewed to
the low side to keep burgeoning opponents from using economic
arguments against the plant.
Construction began in the late fall of
1977 and seemed to be going well. Lots of money was being spent
and most folks around Madison welcomed the new jobs and the economic
activity they brought. And though oppositon to the plant grew
steadily, PSI continued to suggest the plant would be ready to
generate electricity by 1982.
But then came the disaster at Three Mile
Island in late March, 1979. There, entire systems failed and
the super hot core of activated uranium in one of the reactors
melted causing pressure to build up inside the containment building.
A larger disaster was averted after a tense three day period
that had hydrogen building up inside the containment that if
released could spell death and future disease and economic destruction
for thousands of people who lived downwind or down stream.
Three Mile Island changed everything
nuclear. The fear caused by the near meltdown was widespread
and crossed all socio-economic boundaries. That fear permeated
all nuclear developments and Marble Hill was no exception.
Construction did proceed but at a somewhat
slower pace with more regulatory emphasis on safety issues. Then
a symbolic bombshell dropped on Marble Hill when on May 8, 1979,
Charles Cutshall, a former employee of Marble Hill's general
contractor, Gust K. Newburg filed an affidavit indicating that
he and other Newburg employees had been told to "cover up"
construction defects before inspectors could find them.
Specifically, the defects that Cutshall
revealed were in the concrete poured in the walls of the containment
buildings. Cutshall claimed that "honeycombs" were
in a number of areas of the vital containment structure that
would protect people from a breach of radioactive gas should
a situation like Three Mile Island happen at Marble Hill.
In what was to become a public relations
nightmare for PSI, construction on the plant was shut down on
three different occasions during the summer of 1979. PSI's chairman,
Hugh Barker, in an act of desperationin an employee magazine
titled Watts Cookin" claimed, "One is forced to ask
what's really behind the anti-nuclear movement? Who is fanning
the flames of fear and irrational emotion?"
Asking the question Barker then attempted
to answer his question. "Two British experts on Soviet propaganda
accuse the Soviet Union of funding and manipulating anti-nuclear
movements in the west...the radicals among the anti-nuclear forces,
by whatever name, clearly have as their goal, the transformation
of our democratic, free society."
But for Marble Hill and most nuclear
plants around the country, time was running out in the aftermath
of Three Mile Island. Construction costs exploded to the point
that companies could not hire enough people or throw enough money
at these flawed proposals to complete their construction.
A few nukes were completed but only after
years of construction and huge cost overruns. Marble Hill was
finally shut down in 1984 when it finally became apparent to
the government of Governor Robert Orr that completion of the
plant might end up causing bankruptcy for not only PSI but also
their customers who could ill afford the gigantic increases in
rates that Marble Hill would cause.
When it finally closed, more than $2.8
billion had been spent on construction and it was only 20% complete.
Finally, someone was listening to the economic arguments that
enviros had been making for seven years about the ridiculous
cost of the plant.
Now the plant has been stripped of its
main components, those being sold off at pennies on the dollar
at auctions in the late 80s. But on the outside, except for its
rustic look, the containment buildings, cooling towers and turbine
buildings still stand.
When I visited the plant last week on
my way to a hearing an another power plant in the region, I was
struck by the fact that nearly twenty years had gone by and now
the Bush Administration wanted to go down the nuclear path again.
I wondered what they had missed in the
great debate over nukes that made them think that nuclear power
would be accepted by the people again. Had twenty years been
long enough to vaporize the memories of those untold thousands
who had stood strongly against the building of nuclear fission
reactors.
I also tried to imagine the circumstances
that would change the capital market's feeling about nukes. So
many investors got stung by the lies and exaggerations of the
nuclear industry the first time around, how could they have any
credibility just a couple of decades later?
Would any sort of savvy investor think
it wise to invest upwards of $20 billion on a plant that would
generate the same amount of electricity that a natural gas plant
that cost less than a billion to build?
Then it occurred to me. Of course the
capital markets would not support such a scheme. But perhaps
the easy spending government of George W. Bush would be willing
to invest in such a facility if one of his friends and campaign
contributors could reap big profits from such a public investment
of capital.
Never mind that would have been labeled
as socialism a few years back and held in disdain by people who
considered themselves "conservative."
This neo-conservatism of our president
is anything but conservative. It is nothing more than the socialization
of risk and the privatization of profit, designed to enhance
the wealth and power of his corporate friends while making people
of lesser means pay not only to build the plants but also for
the energy they produce while assuring big profits for those
that were their "private" corporate sponsors.
It is not only nukes that could be built
under this scenario, it is also coal plants, that pollute the
air and injure our health. Calling it "Clean Coal"
plants may be built using very little private capital but all
the profits will go to the sponsoring corporations. Peabody Energy
comes immediately to mind for such a program.
Their desire to build three giant conventional
coal plants, one each in Kentucky, Illinois and New Mexico have
found nary a partner they need to fund the plants' cost of more
than $6 billion. The only partners they have found to construct
the plants are the regulators of the EPA and Interior Departments
who have been willing to look away from serious environmental
problems their 19th Century technology will bring.
Just because Peabody's employees were
gracious with their nearly $1 million investment in the Bush/Republican
campaign in 2000, could be enough reason for the Bush/Cheney
energy consortium to invest taxpayer money into their antiquated
plans.
But just as I was contemplating such
a scheme, two trucks pulled out from around the Marble Hill mausoleum.
The first thing that went through my mind was that Homeland Security
was even guarding ghost nukes and I was going to be told to leave
in the interest of national security.
And sure enough, one of the trucks approached
and slowed as it descending upon me and my camera. When the truck
stopped, the driver asked what I was doing and I told him I was
taking pictures and that it had been a long time since I had
visited Marble Hill.
He told me he owned the plant now and
I suggested that "must be interesting." He agreed and
said that I might know the people in the other truck, "they
used to work for Westinghouse (the designers of the plant)."
As he drove off, I pondered why former
Westinghouse employees would be lurking around Marble Hill.
As they passed me, they looked at me
curiously and proceeded down the road to another parked car.
I pulled up beside them, knowing something about them, I asked,
"You guys going to rebuild this plant?" They did not
answer but one of them came closer and asked about my interest.
I told him that I had not been to the
plant for more than fifteen years and just stopped by out of
curiosity. He told me that he and other of the men worked for
Marble Hill's "sister" plant. Knowing too much about
the facility, I blurted out, "Braidwood?"
"Yes, you know about Braidwood?
"It is now owned by Exelon, right?"
I asked.
"Yep, did you work here or something?"
he queried.
"Actually, I fought Marble Hill,"
I said.
"Well, you won," declared the
Exelon employee.
"Yes, we did!" I drove off
wondering just what they were doing there.
John Blair
runs Valley Watch, an environmental group in Evansville, Indiana
that battles against big coal and the nuclear industry. In 1979,
he won the Pulitzer Prize for news photography. He can be reached
at: ecoserve1@aol.com
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