The current debate about nuclear energy and cancer leaves a lot of open ground. Nuclear power is and always has been about deception and denial. Its main job is to make a profit as companies produce the most dangerous and expensive electricity that can be bought.
With regard to cancer here in Monroe, we must first consider a likely massive radioactive release event that has been covered up and ignored by almost everyone. I think it was an important factor in local health.
I am referring to the partial meltdown of the Fermi 1 nuclear reactor that began on October 5, 1966. This bizarre event showed how greedy people will sweep us all away. Like a twisted Stephen King novel, this woven reality scenario is too fantastic to be true. It’s hard to believe, but it’s history.
Some of you may remember when Vice President Hubert Humphrey came to Monroe to dedicate the Lillian Navarre Memorial Library on the corner of E. Second and Eastchester Streets.
You may remember that all schools released us children so we could go to the Vice President on October 6, 1966? I was there with about 5,000 other people standing in that October breeze. What few remember is that Detroit Edison lost control of the Fermi 1 nuclear reactor less than 24 hours earlier, resulting in a partial meltdown! The Vice President of America was allowed to arrive and give a dedication speech in the open air to a generation of Monroe’s youth!
The day after the Fermi 1 meltdown, only Sheriff Charles Harrington and the City and State Police knew about it. The Atomic Energy Commission was also informed. I can only wonder how many radioactive stains did a pair of lungs find to settle in that day? How many cancer cases have been generated and how many of them are no longer with us today?
Of course, none of us will ever know how much radiation was floating around in that amount. According to a utility spokesman, “the radioactivity was not dangerously high and decreased quickly due to its natural decay.”
This accident was just an early example of the persistent deception used today to perpetuate profits over people. Since Fermi 1 we have seen the disasters of Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukashima. It’s not if, but when will the next lie happen?
We were told from the beginning that nuclear energy is the peaceful atom. However, Fermi 1 was a breeder reactor designed to produce plutonium for the nuclear weapons program and fuel for a planned reactor fleet across the country.
We have been told that nuclear energy is too cheap to measure. The truth is that liars forced their faulty product on us because we were offered a choice between either side of the same coin. Just think of the Vogtle reactors 3 & 4 in Georgia, which are still under construction today. So far, $ 28 billion has been invested and no doubt more federal tax dollars will be needed to produce electricity.
If only a fraction of the hundreds of billions of dollars that went into supporting nuclear power had been used decades ago to research and develop alternative energies, the Persian Gulf War would not have happened and gas would not have been $ 3 a gallon today.
For $ 28 billion, millions of households could install solar panels that generate electricity. There would be no need to draw up an evacuation plan. As it says on the car stickers: “When the sun is flooded massively, it’s called a nice day.”
Some scientists argue that high burst radiation kills living cells and low exposure causes mutations. All nuclear power plants periodically release small amounts of radiation as a result of normal operation. We will never know how much radiation was released from Fermi 1 after October 1966. Nuclear power is a lie based on lies.
Mark Farris lives in Monroe. He can be reached at [email protected].
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