Plymouth nuclear plant officials look at safety measures

PLYMOUTH, Mass. -- The disaster in Japan is raising safety concerns at home. Officials at the nuclear plant in Plymouth and other emergency responders are now taking a closer look at their own safety measures.

A nuclear crisis is playing out in Japan, and feeding fears close to home, especially for people living in Plymouth near the Pilgrim Nuclear Station.

“That’s what everybody says: “We don’t have anything to worry about.” And they had some guy on there like, ‘We have this. We have this fail-safe.’ And I was like, ‘They had fail-safe in Japan too.’ Who ever thought we would have an 8.9 earthquake?” said Shawn Walton, who lived near the plant.

The two plants are similar in design, but officials with Entergy, who owns the plant, say there is one big difference.

“The big difference between here and Japan is not so much in the mechanical area or the design area, but it’s in the geology,” said Dave Tarantino, Pilgrim Nuclear Station.

Plymouth isn’t on a fault line and tsunamis aren’t a concern. Still, the plant is built to withstand a 6.0 earthquake and a total power blackout.

“We actually have huge rooms full of storage batteries that power those plants. So without any AC at all we can still provide power,” said Tarantino.

“Hopefully the rest of the world, and including Plymouth, we can learn from it if there’s something to pick up, something we’ve missed, hopefully we’ll be able to get it and correct it before we have a problem like that,” said Chief Ed Bradley of the Plymouth Fire Department.

Plymouth’s fire chief wants people to know how close they live to the plant and what their evacuation plan is. He also encourages people to have potassium iodide on hand, which are pills that can help prevent radiation poisoning during a meltdown. It is a message that is echoed by the lieutenant governor.

“What I think this reinforces is that everyone’s got to be prepared and always thinking about different scenarios,” said Lt. Governor Tim Murray.

The potassium iodide pills are available free through the town.

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