On the front lines in the battle with NRC

The Asbury Park Press editorial board met Monday with some of the key players in the fight to block a 20-year license renewal for the Oyster Creek nuclear plant in Lacey. Much of the discussion focused on concerns they had about corrosion of the drywell - the liner that surrounds the reactor vessel to reduce the likelihood of radiation entering the atmosphere in the event of an accident. It was truly frightening stuff. They said their concerns are shared by some of the technical staff at the NRC, but they aren't sure whether that will translate into the agency requiring a testing program sufficient to determine whether safety is being compromised.

Richard Webster, a Rutgers Environmental Law Clinic attorney who has been handling the legal work for the coalition of plant opponents, described the experience of dealing with the NRC's tangle of rules - rules that constantly change to ensure the outcome desired by the nuclear industry - as "Kafka meets Joseph Heller." Webster, industry watchdog Paul Gunter and the local activists deserve an enormous amount of credit for gamely taking on the NRC bureaucracy.