45. What’s Happening at Plant Vogtle?

Charles Utley is Associate Director of BREDL. The Alvin W. Vogtle Electric Generating Plant, also known as Plant Vogtle is a two-unit nuclear power plant located in Burke County, near Waynesboro, Georgia.

Southern Nuclear Company of Georgia, who owns Plant Vogtle wants to build additional nuclear power plants near Waynesboro, GA. This would increase the negative health impacts on nearby residents and increase the cost of electric power.

In Burke County, Georgia, environmental samples contained tritium, cesium-137, strontium-90, plutonium, iodine 129, cobalt-60, according to a recent report by Georgia WAND on “Community Impacts at the Crossroads of Nuclear and Climate Injustices in the U.S. South.”

Of each of these radioactive isotopes, tritium is the element contributing the highest levels of contamination, showing up in air, rain, groundwater, river water, drinking water, fish, milk, crops, leafy vegetation, and deer.

All nuclear power plants routinely release doses of tritium, which can cause birth defects and cancer. Cancer rates rose sharply for all cancers in Burke County while U.S. rates have declined.

CNN television news also aired a report from Shell Bluff in Burke County, discussing how cancer rates in that area are 51 percent higher than the national average.

With Charles we discuss the work he’s done surrounding Plant Vogtle, what’s happening now with the plant and in the future, how they pay for and fund the plant, and what they’re future plans are.

Contact and connect with Charles: bredlutley@gmail.com

More on Plant Vogtle: http://www.bredl.org/nuclear/Vogtle.htm

Health Impacts of living near a nuclear site: https://gawand.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/GA-WAND_Climate_Nuclear_Report_Dec_2017.pdf

https://georgiawatch.org/health-environmental-harms-ignored-at-plant-vogtle-vcm-18-hearings/