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CounterPunch
October
23, 2002
A Foregone
Conclusion
Pataki, Witt and the Indian Point Nuke
by DANIEL WOLFF
By hiring James Lee Witt to conduct a "public,
independent review" of Indian Point's emergency evacuation
plan, Governor George Pataki has guaranteed the outcome: the
controversial nuclear plant will stay open.
On August 1, 2002, Governor Pataki announced he was commissioning
an independent review of the emergency preparedness plan for
the Indian Point nuclear plant in Westchester County. In the
midst of increasing political pressure to close the plant, the
Governor declared, "We rule out no option." He added
that he would defer his decision on Indian Point's safety until
after December, 2002, the date the independent review would be
delivered. This allows the Governor to campaign for re-election
without taking a position on an issue of extreme importance to
many New York State voters.
The credibility of Governor Pataki's
approach depends on the public's belief that the safety review
will be an "independent, balanced examination," unaffected
by politics. Thus, the Republican Governor authorized New York
State to pay $800,554 to a Democrat, James Lee Witt of James
Lee Witt Associates. Between 1993 and 2001, Mr. Witt served as
the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) under
President Bill Clinton, and his experience in emergency preparedness
goes back to the 1980's.
But a closer look at Witt's career reveals
that his expertise is in reviewing and approving emergency preparedness
plans. James Lee Witt has never recommended that a nuclear plant
be closed and has repeatedly okayed evacuation plans, including
Indian Point's. To put it another way, Governor Pataki's appointee
has never met a nuclear reactor that he didn't think could be
evacuated.
James Lee Witt grew up in Dardanelle,
Arkansas, a town of 3,500 that lies directly across the Arkansas
River from Units 1 and 2 of Arkansas Nuclear One. These nuclear
plants were built by Arkansas Power and Light Company and are
presently owned and operated by Entergy, the same utilities company
that owns and operates Indian Point.
After graduating from Dardanelle High
School, Witt founded Witt Construction, a commercial and residential
building company in 1968. That same year, a construction permit
was issued for Arkansas Unit 1, followed four years later by
Unit 2. Witt managed his construction company for twelve years,
during which time the reactors helped make utilities one of the
area's top three employers and a major contributor to the local
tax base. Arkansas Unit One went on line in 1974, Unit Two in
1980.
In 1979, Witt became County Judge of
Yell County, the area's chief elected official. He served six
terms in this position. In 1988, then-Governor Bill Clinton appointed
Witt director of the Arkansas State Office of Emergency Services.
(Clinton would later describe Witt as "a county judge in
a county where all the Clintons came from.") For five years,
Witt coordinated the preparedness, response and evacuation capabilities
for Entergy's reactors. Simultaneously, he was chairperson of
the Arkansas State Nuclear Advisory Board.
When President Clinton entered the White
House in 1993, he appointed Witt head of FEMA. Following the
Three Mile Island incident in 1979, FEMA had become the lead
federal agency in charge of nuclear power plants' off site emergency
response plans. According to the Memorandum of Understanding
between FEMA and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the
NRC uses FEMA's findings on emergency evacuation preparedness
and plans to make its decision not only about issuing licenses
but taking enforcement actions including "violations, civil
penalties, orders, or shutdown of operating reactors."
Federal law requires FEMA to test each
site's emergency preparedness plans every two years. During Witt's
leadership, FEMA tested and commented upon hundreds of exercises
nationwide without ever recommending that a nuclear plant be
closed. Indian Point, in particular, regularly received FEMA
approval for its Emergency Response Plan. For example in 1996,
with Witt as its director, FEMA's regional office signed off
on Indian Point's evacuation plan as "adequate to protect
the health and safety of the public living in the vicinity of
the plant." In June 1998, Indian Point conducted its tenth
emergency evacuation test, and FEMA approved its performance
-- as it had all previous tests.
At the recent (September 24, 2002) mock
drill at Indian Point, the Governor again remarked on Witt's
"outside, objective review." As a paid consultant,
James Lee Witt commented, "A realistic plan dealing with
the possibility of terrorism has to look at every possibility
from the shortest time frame to the longest."
What Mr. Witt and Governor Pataki apparently
refuse to consider is that there may be no realistic plan for
evacuating Indian Point. Under the guise of commissioning an
independent review that includes the option of closing Indian
Point, Governor Pataki has bought himself time. That is more
than the citizens of New York will be able to do should there
be an accident at Indian Point.
Daniel Wolff
is the author of The Memphis Blues Again
and You
Send Me: the Life and Times of Sam Cooke.
He can be reached at: ziwolff@optonline.net
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