Is the Limerick Nuclear Power Plant Damaging More than Just Our Eardrums?

By Gianna Paone

Imagine that you’re back in the first week or two of your first year at Ursinus’ campus. Around 2:00 P.M. on that September’s first Monday, you were perhaps in a dorm, in class, at work, at practice, or someplace else. Why would you remember such a specific moment?

Each year, Ursinus freshmen are introduced to a blaring sound that disturbs napping hours, forces a momentary pause in teachers’ lectures, or sends some who’d never heard it before into panicked confusion over the noise: the Limerick Nuclear Power Plant’s Emergency Alert System. Although disruptive, the monthly 2:00 P.M. sounding tests the alarm that would be set off if an evacuation became necessary for residents within the plant’s 10-mile radius. Situated 21 miles northwest of central Philadelphia, it houses 2 of the 13 nuclear reactors within 90 miles of the city, equating Philly with northern Illinois as an area with the largest concentration of reactors in the nation, according to the Web site of Exelon Nuclear, who owns the facility. Whether the statistic fascinates or bores you is irrelevant; the more critical detail is the emissions that the reactors produce and their potential effects on our health, given the plant’s close proximity to our campus.

Limerick’s power generating station houses two General Electric Boiling Water Reactors (BWRs)--one that has operated since 1986 and one since 1990--according to the Energy Information Administration. Exelon's Web site also reveals that the reactors can produce enough power to provide electricity to over two million average American homes. The company also indicates that the facility exemplifies both technologic and economic advancement, costing less to operate than other forms of electrical plants and contributing sizably to Montgomery county through taxes, wages, and sponsorship toward community events. In fact, they presented a $150,000 check—the first portion of a $500,000 donation—to Limerick Township in February to benefit its parks and recreation department, police department, and fire companies, according to What's the 422? writer David Powell.

Such advantages, however, may come at another cost to area residents. An arguably environmentally-efficient energy source, nuclear power prevents 700 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions—equivalent to exhaust from about 100 million cars—per year, a comparison raised by Dr. Magdi Raghed in Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering. At a visit to the plant in 2006, former U.S. President George W. Bush highlighted Dr. Raghed’s point and added, “…nuclear power is safe…” and encouraged increased construction of nuclear plants. A study published in 2003 in The Science of the Total Environment, however, challenges Bush’s optimism, revealing in-body radioactivity levels in area residents that correlate with nuclear radiation exposure.

The study measured levels of strontium-90 (Sr-90), one of the radioisotopes of nuclear fission, in teeth donated by residents of states near nuclear reactors and by a small number from some with no reactors. The researchers, belonging to the Radiation and Public Health Project (RPHP), focused on residents born after 1979, allowing them to rule out effects of former atomic bomb testing. Their findings showed repeated patterns of—GET THIS—consistently higher Sr-90 levels for those closest to our neighbor, the Limerick plant, than elsewhere. Of the 5 states—plus one smaller group representing other states—from which residents donated teeth, Pennsylvania took the lead in Sr-90 concentrations. Even closer to home, each state and/ or group of states showed that counties within 40 miles of a nuclear reactor had noticeably higher Sr-90 levels than the rest of their state.

A corporation in Stowe, PA, called The Alliance for a Clean Environment (ACE), characterizes the plant as part of a “Toxic Triangle,” or trio of toxin- or pollutant-producing sources impacting the Greater Pottstown Area, the other two components being Pottstown Landfill and Occidental Chemical. The group has compiled statistics that reveal higher leukemia and lung, cervical, and childhood cancer rates in the Greater Pottstown Area than in Pennsylvania overall. While the numbers are somewhat dated, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) provides information on Sr-90 that correlates with some of ACE’s claims. For example, they explain that the chemical tends to deposit in bone and bone marrow and is linked to leukemia, bone cancer, and cancer of soft tissue near bones, and they state, “Risk of cancer increases with increased exposure to Sr-90.”

The EPA reveals that both municipal landfills and nuclear reactors make Sr-90 impossible to avoid in at least minimal amounts. When Kaitlin Andersen, a Kutztown University senior, admitted, “Those things were one of the main reasons I didn’t consider going to Ursinus. They seriously scare me,” she was referring to their intimidating size and monstrous clouds, while their toxic emissions—evidently—were the true place for concern.

A Sept. 1 notice offered area residents free potassium iodide pills to take in case of a nuclear accident (and yes, according to our Environmental Health and Safety Coordinator, Carol McMillan, Ursinus does have a supply!), and NBC Philadelphia titled the article “Get Your Worst-Case Scenario Pills." The worst case scenario, however, may be a never-found solution to the potentially carcinogenic strontium exposure.

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