“Bomb Trains” Should NOT Travel 1/8 Mile From Limerick’s Reactors And Fuel Pools
BE AWARE! 100-car crude-oil “bomb trains” regularly travel just 1/8 of a mile from Limerick Nuclear Plant’s reactors and fuel pools.
Frequent railroad transport of millions of gallons of explosive, flammable, hazardous crude-oil, only 1/8 of a mile from Limerick’s reactors and fuel pools, must be stopped immediately. A “bomb train” derailment, explosion, and enormous fireball could burn for days in an unstoppable fire with days of thick black smoke which could trigger catastrophic multiple meltdowns.
Limerick, already a ticking time bomb + a bomb train derailment = catastrophic disaster!!!
Millions of victims in the Greater Philadelphia Region would face unprecedented catastrophic consequences to our life, property, and the environment. We could lose everything – homes, businesses, jobs, and health. Drinking water for almost two million people (Pottstown to Philadelphia) would become too radioactive/toxic for safe use. Long-term ecological damage would leave ghost towns that can’t be cleaned up safely. Our entire region could become a toxic wasteland for generations.
Victims would not be compensated adequately for losses, if at all. Who would pay to deal with irreversible devastation from crude oil explosions/fire plus massive radioactive contamination from Limerick meltdowns? Bottom line: no one!
- NOT insurance companies that refuse to cover radiological accidents
- NOT Exelon, with its government guaranteed limited liability protection
- NOT the railroad industry, already fighting for exemption from strict liability for derailment damages
- NOT Pennsylvania, already burdened with an enormous deficit
- NOT the federal government, already trillions of dollars in debt and totally dysfunctional
Train derailment disasters should be anticipated. Occurring with more frequency, incidents occurred in over 250 municipalities – ProPublica data 2011-2014. The worst caused widespread evacuation, death, destruction of buildings, and loss of electric and drinking water. A 2015 accident in West Virginia proved safer trains and slower speeds aren’t the answer.
No matter what claims the oil, rail, or nuclear industries make, there is no emergency plan that could effectively deal with a disaster of this magnitude within 1/8 of a mile of Limerick’s reactors and fuel pools. Fire fighters and emergency responders shouldn’t be expected to be on the front lines of such dangerous uncontrollable disasters.
Safe evacuation is an absurd illusion! Limerick Nuclear Plant’s emergency and evacuation plans are fatally flawed and unworkable. To understand why – review the 8-part ACE video-blog series on Emergency and Evacuation Plans for Limerick’s radioactive plume at www.acereport.org. This should be a wake-up call, especially for all responsible for emergency and evacuation planning.
“Bomb trains” regularly traveling through the Limerick site dramatically increase Limerick’s already unacceptable risk for meltdowns from Limerick’s dangerously lax fire safety requirements, reactor shutdown problems, deteriorating aging equipment and systems, cyber attacks, and earthquake faults directly under reactors and fuel pools with increasing risk of earthquakes from fracking. A crude oil disaster on the Limerick site could be caused by terrorism. Even the attempted emergency response would increase opportunities for terrorism.
Crude oil bomb trains should not travel within 1/8 of a mile from limerick nuclear reactors and fuel pools, or anywhere on the site. It’s far too risky!
Hoping it doesn’t happen is not the answer. Denial allows extraordinary risks to continue and increase.
Officials have expressed concern but there has been no meaningful action to avoid such devastation. We should not face such risk or put our fire fighters and first responders in such dangerous circumstances.
Catastrophic disasters from crude oil explosions and fires near Limerick Nuclear Plant can and must be prevented with foresight and political will to face and eliminate this unnecessary risk. Willful blindness jeopardizes our future.
SPEAK UP NOW! Demand that community leaders and elected officials get the crude oil “bomb train” route moved now, no closer than several miles outside the nuclear plant border.
For detailed information compiled by the Alliance For A Clean Environment (ACE) see www.acereport.org.
Dr. Lewis Cuthbert
ACE President