Lies, Omissions And Deception At Damaged Paducah Nuke Plant: Pictures Of Damage To Plant's Cooling Tower

by Monica Davis

More questions are cropping up about the tornado damaged nuclear enrichment plant in Paducah, Kentucky. Officials released a statement saying the plant was damaged by Sunday’s tornado, but they have been stingy with information as to exactly what was damaged.

A government spokesman claims he released a bunch of information on Twitter. Now, in this day and age, not everyone reads Twitter. Why was the information released on “social media” instead of through normal channels such as a press release or press conference?

People are both fearful, and suspicious: fearful of what exactly happened and suspicious that the government and contractot are not being entirely truthful.

On the one hand, we have two versions of what happened, then some contradictory information from an industry magazine:

1. Plant officials indicated a tornado may have touched down within the plant perimeter causing damage to some of the plant’s facilities. The plant’s Incident Commander requested activation of the EOC to assist in the response to issues that have occurred when the tornado struck. No injuries were reported at the plant, and there has been no off-site impact from damage that occurred at the plant. Operations are remaining stable.  MOREHERE

2. The Paducah Sun’s version of the facility press release says:

Most of the damage was confined to the exteriors of plant structures. No production systems were affected and all critical safety systems continued to function as intended.  

3. Nearly all news outlets covering the Paducah tornado claim the plant stopped enriching uranium earlier this year. However, according to this report, (Emphasis Added) “On 14 November 2013 Russia has shipped the last batch of low-enriched uranium [...] The cargo will be delivered to Baltimore and then to USEC’s Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Kentucky, where the uranium will be used to manufacture fuel for U.S. nuclear power plants.” READ MORE

Now, read really carefully here: 

On 14 November 2013 Russia has shipped the last batch of low-enriched uranium under the U.S.-Russian HEU-LEU program (also known as “Megatons to Megawatts”). An official ceremony took place in St. Petersburg, where the containers were loaded on a transport ship. The cargo will be delivered to Baltimore and then to USEC’s Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Kentucky, where the uranium will be used to manufacture fuel for U.S. nuclear power plants.

The HEU-LEU deal, formally known as the Agreement between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the Russian Federation Concerning the Disposition of Highly Enriched Uranium Extracted from Nuclear Weapons, was signed in 1993. Under the agreement, first suggested in 1991 by Thomas Neff, Russia has blended down 500 tonnes of HEU from its weapons – an equivalent of about 20,000 weapons. The agreement included a series of transparency measures that allowed the United States and Russia to monitor implementation of the agreement. The first shipment of LEU took place in 1995 (seethe detailed timeline of the program at USEC site). MOREHERE

And now, just to put the icing on this maggoty cake: a picture from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission detaling tornado damage to the plant’s cooling tower.

 Damaged outbuilding r (SOURCE: USEC)

Don’t worry, be happy. Move along, folks–nothing to see here.

So, what do we have? Lies aboiut when the facility stopped accepting uranium for enrichment. Ommissions about what was damaged. And manipulation of the news cycle by using Twitter instead of traditional press releases.

Move along folks. There is nothing to see here.