WASHINGTON Reuter: USS. Nuclear Power Plants had nearly 3000 mishaps last year 23 per cent more than the previous year a private energy monitoring group said.
The Public Citizens Critical Mass Energy project said in a report that in the past two years there had been 18 nuclear accidents so serious that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) was required to report them to Congress.
There is every reason to believe that an accident as serious as Chernobyl can happen here project director Ken Bosson said.
He said the Soviet nuclear accident last April along with the US records of mishaps strongly argue for rapidly phasing out the U.S nuclear power program mishaps were defined as major and minor incidents reported to the NRC.
Bosson said information compiled from documents obtained through the freedom of information act and the NRC showed that in 1984 and 1985 U.S reactors came close to catastrophic accidents on several occasions
The report said a 1984 accident at the Sequoyah-I plant near Chattanooga Tennessee in 1984 caused 16000 gallons (60000 litters) of hot radioactive water to spill and nearly killed eight workers.
Article extracted from this publication >> September 5, 1986
