Life in a Reactor's Shadow

BUCHANAN, N.Y., All roads in this tiny village in Westchester County lead to one place, the Indian Point nuclear power plant. Just 1 1/2 square miles in area and with a population of around 2,000, Buchanan has in its backyard one of the most controversial of the 104 nuclear power plants in the United States. As Yucca Mountain continues to be studied as national repository for nuclear waste, residents here and in other New York suburbs debate the safety of the plant itself and shipping its waste across the country.

After decades of living next to one of the oldest operating reactors in the country, Buchanan's residents dismiss claims that it's a potential disaster area.

But the specter of American Airlines Flight 11 soaring over Indian Point en route to its deadly destiny at the World Trade Center-and the subsequent discovery of American nuclear plant blueprints in al- Qaida hideouts in Afghanistan-has led to calls from some Westchester County residents to shut the plant down.

Around 20 million people live within 50 miles of Indian Point, making the area the most densely populated region surrounding a nuclear plant in the United States. Opponents of the plant, many of whom would like to see it shut down and its radioactive waste buried at the proposed Yucca Mountain site in Nevada, site studies that estimate that a radioactive plume resulting from an attack would kill up to 300,000 people in Westchester County.

In Westchester County residents want Indian Point's 30-plus years of nuclear waste removed from their midst. (continued)