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More than 60 sirens surround North Anna Power Station, but residents say they aren't loud enough to be heard inside homes.
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Herman Henriksen and his neighbors in northeast Louisa County are concerned that the emergency sirens around North Anna Power Station are not loud enough to alert residents if the nuclear plant has a problem. One siren, at left, is just over a mile from Henriksen's home in Tall Pines subdivision. |
By RUSTY DENNEN
At approximately 11:10 this morning, the emergency warning sirens surrounding North Anna Power Station will sound for three minutes.
Four times a year, the 67 sirens scattered throughout a 10-mile radius of the Louisa County nuclear power plant are tested in case of the unthinkable--a serious accident or release of radioactivity.
Many people living in the emergency zone will definitely hear the sirens. But others, such as Linda Salisbury and some of her neighbors, are worried they may not if there's a real emergency.
Salisbury and her husband moved to Tall Pines subdivision in Louisa in June 2004. She was not home during the first few tests.
But during the June 2005 test, she sat on her front porch, about a mile from the plant.
"I could only barely hear the sirens outside, and not at all inside, where we would be much of the time," she said in a recent interview. She asked around, finding that most of her neighbors also could not hear them.
Salisbury contacted Dominion Virginia Power and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and was surprised to learn that the sirens are designed to be heard within about a mile of each horn, but not inside dwellings. Sirens are located in portions of Caroline, Hanover, Louisa and Spotsylvania counties.
"If the sirens are not designed to be heard inside a house, how are we supposed to know" if there's a problem, she said. The plant's emergency notification system, which is approved by the NRC and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, dictates that in areas more than a mile from any siren, local sheriff's deputies would be dispatched to warn them, using their cruisers' loudspeakers.
"How realistic is that?" Salisbury said. "They've all been nice, and we've gotten answers. On paper, it looks good, but it doesn't sound very practical."
She added, "We're not anti-nuclear. We knew the power plant was here. It's not an issue of us moving in and saying, 'Don't do this.'"
Salisbury said she was troubled to learn that there are gaps in siren coverage within the 10-mile zone because there are many new residents and the Lake Anna area is quickly developing. The popular lake was created in 1972 to cool reactors. Units 1 and 2 went online in 1978 and 1980.
Richard Zuercher, spokesman for Dominion's nuclear operations in Richmond, concedes there is not full siren coverage in the 10-mile zone, but that the company has been working on that. Most of the sirens were installed during the 1980s when the area was much more rural. He said they were not designed to be heard indoors.
"If a decision is made to sound the sirens, the concept is that the [public] is covered one way or another," he said. Either way, people are instructed to tune to local radio or TV station for more information.
The test signal is one, three-minute blast. An actual emergency would be signaled by four separate, three-minute tones, each separated by one-minute intervals. The total time for an emergency sounding would be 15 minutes.
"All I can tell you is that we have an approved emergency plan that takes all this into consideration," Zuercher said. "We demonstrate our abilities to respond in an emergency in graded exercises every other year." The next such exercise is scheduled for Dec. 5.
He added that in addition to the quarterly tests, "we do tests every month" at the plant "to make sure [siren] connections are working and whether the circuits fully function."
Zuercher said there have been a couple instances in which people have called to say they didn't hear the sirens.
Chuck Emeigh, one of Salisbury's neighbors, built a house in 1993 and moved there full time in June.
"We did hear the last test" in June, he said, after not hearing any of them prior to that. "I'm not sure whether they did something different."
Another neighbor, Herman Henriksen offered to have a siren placed on a lot where he is building a house.
He's lived in Tall Pines, behind the plant, for about two years. "We heard the siren once last summer, with all the windows and doors open." Part of the problem is that there are no sirens in the subdivision.
He suggested more sirens are needed because weather and trees can affect how far away they can be heard.
"Maybe they should put them on taller poles," said the retired utility worker. Prior to moving to Virginia, he lived near a nuclear power plant in Limerick, Pa.
"You could hear those [sirens] from every place," he said.
"Something should be done and there has been talk about the possibility of locating a siren in Tall Pines," he said.
Salisbury last summer contacted the Lake Anna Civic Association about her concerns, and the association in turn contacted Dominion, according to Bill Hayden, the president.
George O'Connell, who works at the plant, responded that the company had been looking for a siren location on Deerfield Road in Tall Pines, but that residents had not responded to letters.
Salisbury filed a formal "allegation" notice with NRC about the sirens and was told that FEMA was responsible for the plant's emergency plan, which includes the siren system.
She never heard back from FEMA, which has had its hands full with Hurricane Katrina recovery.
Salisbury said last week that her concerns were renewed after reading about a proposal for installing terrorism warning sirens in Northern Virginia. She grew up in New York during the Cold War era and remembers hearing loud air-raid sirens when they were tested.
Two Dominion plant representatives did meet her and several other neighbors at Tall Pines last fall, and one contacted her last week after inquiries by The Free Lance-Star.
Marc LaFountain, spokesman for the Virginia Department of Emergency Management, which assists in the siren tests, said the backup notification system was put in place because there are spots the sirens can't be heard.
"The important thing to keep in mind, is that, with the sirens, we'd be sending out emergency alerts on TV and radio," he said.
"We're aware of dead zones and that's why we have the route plan."
There have been a few problems with the sirens.
Several years ago, a false alarm unnerved people living near the plant when they sounded by accident. In March 2005, the power station briefly lost the ability to activate emergency sirens. That was quickly corrected.
On a few occasions, weather and power losses knocked some of them out. Zuercher said the sirens are being upgraded to operate with a backup power source.
To reach RUSTY DENNEN:
Email: rdennen@freelancestar.com
