Diablo Is Done

In my opinion Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant is an unacceptable risk particularly to the people of California and, as Fukushima has proven, to the entire planet. It is imperative that the California Legislature hold public hearings on health impacts of the Diablo Canyon on residents of San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties.

World Business Academy’s “Diablo Canyon Radiation Health Report,” released March 3, 2014, found increased cancer rates and declining health trends, including rising infant mortality and low birth weights, in our area.

• Since the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant opened in the mid-1980s, San Luis Obispo changed from a relatively low-cancer county to a high-cancer one.

• Infant cancers, deaths, and low birth-weights rose significantly in S.L.O. and Santa Barbara Counties after the reactors began operating.

• In the decades after the Rancho Seco nuclear plant (near Sacramento) closed in 1989, cancer rates declined and other health trends improved dramatically there.

In the 30 years that Diablo Canyon has been operating, no governmental agency has ever investigated its impacts on the health of people living near the reactors — not the S.L.O. Health Department, not the State Department of Health, not PG&E, and not the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

PG&E and the nuclear industry have tried to dismiss this report by the childish approach of name calling (i.e., “junk science,” “fear mongering”), showing a blatant disregard for the health of their neighbors, customers, and employees.

The reason PG&E resorts to the 5th-grade tactics of name calling is that 1) it has done zero health studies of its own; 2) has no research that shows that Diablo Canyon is not harmful to people living nearby; and, therefore, 3) prefers to “shoot the messenger,” rather than seriously discuss this issue.