Word: planted
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Friday all of the sanguine assurances were blown away by additional releases of radioactivity into the skies above the plant. According to NRC spokesmen, early morning workers had been trying to remove some radioactive water from the pump building. As the water flowed into a storage tank, the temperature and pressure rose. A valve automatically opened, letting some of the gas escape. The building's ventilation system sucked up the gas and blew it out a stack. At that moment, a state and federal monitoring crew flying over the stack recorded an alarming increase in radiation...
Soon there were reports of "uncontrolled new radiation" from the plant. Screamed a headline in the New York Post: NUKE LEAK GOES OUT OF CONTROL. Company officials insisted again that an emergency back-up system had worked as planned and nothing was out of control. Once more there was confusion as spokesmen for the various parties involved in coping with the crisis argued about whether or not the release had been unexpected or intentional...
...core's fuel rods, which are filled with fissionable uranium, showed spots as high as 600°. When reporters pressed for more information, Vice President Herbein turned hostile. Said he: "I don't know why we need to tell you each and every thing we do. People around the plant have to recognize that we have to get on with...
...Saturday, the engineers began preparing yet another approach to getting rid of the bubble. They continued to vent some of the gas from the containment building in controlled steps. This meant that low-level radiation was still being released from the plant. But it also caused the bubble to shrink slightly. When it became small enough, the engineers hoped that it could be siphoned into a tank in the pump building. Since the gas in the bubble was highly radioactive, a wall of lead bricks had to be built around the tank...
Because preparations would take several days, the engineers said they would not make an attempt to remove the bubble until this week. When they do, said NRC Chairman Joseph M. Hendrie, all people within ten or 20 miles downwind of the plant may be evacuated "if we determine that the process of getting rid of the gas bubble has unsafe elements...