Plymouth residents have been listening hard for news from Japanbecause of the friendships many have made with people living in oneof Japan's devastated coastal communities - and also because thenuclear reactors under siege on that disaster-racked coast are thesame type as those in the 40-year-old plant in their own community.
"I know so many families," said Margie Burgess, who has traveledto Plymouth's sister city, Shichigahama, eight times through theSister City program she helped to organize and promote. "It's verypainful."
Connected by multiple exchange visits for more than 20 yearswith Plymouth, Shichigahama is located on Japan's northern shorenear the epicenter of the March 11 earthquake and was inundated bythe resulting tsunami. A town of 20,000 people, it is, likePlymouth, a coastal community with a strong tourism industry.
When they realized how close news reports placed the earthquaketo Shichigahama and how devastating the resulting wall of water wasto low-lying coastal towns, residents here were worried they hadlost their Sister City friends.
"It's so heart-wrenching," said Karen Buechs, who met adelegation from Shichigahama and felt a "natural, genuine"connection with the visitors, she said.
At last count, Burgess said, 350 students and adults have participated in the exchange program. "The main thing is to knoweach other and understand each other personally. And it works."
Burgess said she has stayed with Japanese families who did notspeak English without an interpreter, communicating with signs andgestures, watching a grandmother model her kimono for her and seeingdemonstrations by traditional dancers. On her first visit, she wasplaced with three different families. "I'm richer for it," shesaid.
"We had this connection," said first-term Selectman MathewMuratore, who traveled to Shichigahama last fall to take part in a20th-anniversary celebration of the friendship pact. "Once we knewwhere it hit, we knew they were in pretty tough shape. When you feelhelpless, you want to do something."
The hotel where he stayed on his visit was underwater after thetsunami. When the water drained off, it became a refuge for hundredsof refugees from the water's destruction.
Thank goodness for the Internet, said Plymouth residents seekingnews of their friends. A Facebook group page (Updates on Plymouth'sSister City Shichigahama) made it easy to share news of contactswith Shichigahama friends and relieve worries.
"I have stayed in touch with my host family for seven years,"said Ronnie Lazarus, who chaperoned Plymouth students on a visitthere. Worried about the disaster, she was happy to hear from a hostfamily member who managed to reach her by phone.
Although loss of life was less severe than feared, Shichigahamaresidents have lost homes and businesses, seen much of their towndestroyed, and are still living without power and other services.
To deal with the helplessness and provide some concreteassistance, Plymouth last week announced a campaign to raise$500,000 to aid rebuilding efforts in Shichigahama. As of lastweekend, the drive had raised $25,000 and was to have held atelethon Tuesday on local cable TV. Donations will continue to beaccepted through the www.pactv.org website.
Beyond its Sister City bond, Plymouth is connected to the naturaldisaster in Japan by its own close-to-home worries about nuclearpower. The tsunami's assault on the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear powercomplex has reawakened debate among residents over the presence ofthe Pilgrim nuclear power plant on their own coast.
"I think they know now that Pilgrim is the same kind of reactoras in Fukushima," said Jeff Berger, chairman of the town's NuclearMatters Committee. Berger also pointed to a widely circulated newsreport ranking Pilgrim as having the second-highest risk of coredamage from an earthquake among American plants. "That's unnerved alot of people."
But Berger, who said that report may overstate the earthquakerisk, has a more basic concern about the town's ability to deal witha nuclear accident. "The land is not flat, the winds are notconsistent," and Pilgrim has no accurate model of how radiationwould spread, he said. As a result, emergency officials have noreliable idea of where a radiation plume is going, Berger said.
"People are talking about it quite a bit," agreed Lazarus."People in The Pinehills [housing development] are saying, `Mychildren don't want me to live here.' " For herself, however,Lazarus said the Japanese disaster has not caused her to worry moreabout Pilgrim's safety.
Pointing to a readers' poll in a local newspaper in whichrespondents voted against extending Pilgrim's license, veteran TownMeeting member Bill Abbott said the problems in Japan may have animpact here. Pilgrim's owner, Entergy, applied for renewal morethan five years ago, but a licensing panel has been reviewingissues about the plant's age and possible safety risks ever since.Turning down that renewal may represent "low-hanging fruit" if theNuclear Regulatory Commission chooses to demonstrate concern overAmerica's aging reactors in light of events in Japan, Abbott said.
Long a vocal critic of the design of the Pilgrim plant - thesame design as that of the Fukushima plants - Wedge Bramhall saidthe dramatic breakdowns in the Japanese plant have caused "a lot ofpeople all of a sudden to say, `You were right.' " He said theUnited States should follow Germany's lead and shut down all itsGeneral Electric Mark I reactors for a year "to look at it, thinkabout it, and re-evaluate it."
Linda Benezra said her worries center on the safety of the spentfuel rods stored on the site. In Japan, workers have been strugglingto pour cold water on the used fuel rods to prevent seriousradioactive releases, after the plants' cooling system was knockedout by the tsunami. "The incident in Japan highlights those concernsfor all of us," Benezra said.
Concern over the potential vulnerability of the spent fuel storedinside Pilgrim and the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant prompted stateAttorney General Martha Coakley earlier this week to urge the NRCto reconsider its regulations for storing used nuclear fuel.
In a prepared statement Sunday, Coakley said the state had urgedthe NRC to require the study of "alternative storage at theseplants," such as storing waste in dry casks outside of the plant, asa relicensing requirement, but has been turned down. In light of theevents in Japan, the NRC should reevaluate the risks of storing usedfuel in water, she said.
Some Plymouth residents, however, say their faith in Pilgrim'ssafety has not weakened.
"I live right here in Manomet near the nuclear power plant,"Buechs said. "I am not shaken by it. I have great confidence in how[Pilgrim's workers] would go about to avert a disaster. We can learnfrom what happened in Japan."
NRC chairman Gregory Jaczko also said last week that his agencywill look at what lessons can be learned from the crisis in Japan.Jaczko defended the NRC's safety studies and said its analysis of USplants following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks made USplants safer.
Plymouth residents have a lot at stake in how the NRC responds,Abbott said.
"If there's any silver lining, it gives us a chance to see whatrisk we are under."
Robert Knox can be reached at rc.knox2@gmail.com.
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