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We also heard about $5 million possible income to the county. That does not mention that some
of these other places are stuck with clean-up bills in excess of $100 million. The clean-up funds
are bankrupt and the stuff still leaks, is totally out of control, and nobody is doing anything to
stop it. It's in court, and some places like Sheffield, It, where there is a $99 million suit
pending against the Ecology System, Inc., if they got the money today, it probably would not be
sufficient to clean it up. We don't want to see something like that in NC.
We are talking about 32 million cubic feet. That's just the waste alone, not counting the
containers. It's a trench 20' wide, 50' deep, and over six miles long. I don't think that's a
small amount of waste. We are also talking about something that will take North Carolina over 300
years to produce on her own. I think it's really unfair. We are probably one of the only two
states that are going to get all these tremendous wastes from the other eight states, since in all
probability, and Dr. Mac Cormac does agree with me, that 40 to 50 years from now we are probably
going to have fusion power, if we have any time of nuclear power at all. Fusion power does not
generate the kind of ------ This means that by that time nobody else will be having to store the
waste and they will get off scot free where we will have taken all theirs. So anyway I just don't
think that $5 million is enough to pay for our health and our future safety, not to mention that of
our children. I would like to see this kept on-site where it is generated, and make the people
there more responsible. If they can see --------and they are aware all the time of the amount of
waste that is going in that thing, they're going to do their best to try to limit their production
of nuclear waste.
HEDRICK: This proposed ordinance that we are considering deals very differently with some of
the things that have been given by Dr. Mac Cormac to the extent of the amounts of charges and the
type of storage, etc. Keep to the purpose of our meeting, which is to have public input on the
ordinance that we are considering and not use it to express your feelings, because your feelings are
not new and not different than our feelings with regard to improperly stored or improperly monitored
radioactive materials. We are making a good faith effort in trying to come up with something that
all of us can live with.
I am going to preface my remarks to the remaining speakers with (1) have you read the proposed
ordinance, and (2) to which particular sections are you speaking to so we will be able to follow it
with you.
DR. PAM SHOLAR: Has read the ordinance. I want to say publicly that I commend you for
considering this ordinance. The comments that I would make would be medical because that's my area
of expertise. I'm an Onocologist, a cancer doctor in town. And if you do not want me to make those
statements, I just want to publicly say yes I agree with the ordinance. I do have some unusual
information about some of the radioactivity and cancer that may be beneficial to you.
I would like to say that in my work the causes of cancer are not all known at this time. We
have a problem identifying the causes because of the 20 to 30 year lag time at the time they are
exposed and the time that these malagnancies develop. We have a transit population and it's very
difficult to pin it down. I would say two things, one about the radio isotopes being picked up on a
Geiger counter. That are a number of radio isotopes that are not picked up on a Geiger counter. A
jug of ------could sit in a room all day long and not hurt you, but if you get it in the ground
water and drinking water, the experience at Oak Ridge showed that -------gets in the DNA, gets out
of DNA. I don't believe there have been experiences done showing what happened when you are quanti-
tively exposed to -------in the ground water.
I would also like to say that radiation that we thought was safe at the time it was given, this
goes back 20 to 30 years at the time people were being treated for acne with radiation and treatment
of the sinus glands with radiation, these people now have an increase incidence of thyroid cancer.
As far as the radioactivity in the tobacco and cigarettes, this is felt to be due to the radioactive
------, which is in American tobacco because of high phosphate fertilizers used to grow it.
That concludes what I want to say. I appreciate your considering the ordinance so that the
people of Iredell County can take care of themselves.
ELLEN O'BRIEN: I want to commend you and hope that you vote on the ordinance and accept. I
would like for us to go one step further in putting forth the resolution that I proposed, I gave
examples of it that Alexander and Wilkes had, urging that you put forth a resolution before the
General Assembly to (1) withdraw from the Compact; (2) require that the large generators of this
waste be made pay for it; (3) to store it on their own property and to provide storage for the small
generators (medical).
Discussed decommissioning nuclear powers plants in the future.
MAC CORMAC: We computed the same thing. We were concerned about that. The site opens in 1992
and closes in 2012?
O'BRIEN: The point is we are talking averages of the life of a nuclear reactor. A lot of them
don't make it 30 years.
MAC CORMAC: The expected life; they will last longer.
O'BRIEN: That's why I am urging you to withdraw from the compact. If they are decommissioned,
then we are going to get them.
HEDRICK: Back to the point of our being here. These fears and hopes of all of us need to be
directed toward the Legislature, which will be the body that will be charged with the decision to '
either stay in or get out of the compact. I don't see that as a decision that the County can make.