Dec 12 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Danielle Zielinski Daily Press, Newport News, Va.

At 11:10 a.m. today, 68 sirens in Williamsburg, Newport News, Surry, James City County, York County and Isle of Wight will blare a steady three-minute tone.

For many people within the 10-mile radius of the Surry Power Station, the sound will be nothing more than a minor inconvenience. Others might tune in to their local radio or television station for emergency information -- in this case, for reassurance that it's only a test.

In the 35 years since the nuclear power plant was built on the south bank of the James River, the sirens have become just another part of life in the region. The quarterly exercise -- and an annual calendar sent out a few weeks ago -- are the few reminders of the potential dangers that come with nuclear energy, but residents aren't unaware.

"The reality is that if there is any major accident, there is nothing we can do about it, really," said Judy Zwelling, a Williamsburg resident. "This entire community would be destroyed if there was a nuclear accident. You just can't live your life thinking that way if you're living here."

In the 1980s and early 1990s, Zwelling was an active member of Williamsburg-based Citizen Action for a Safe Environment (CASE), a group that opposed the Surry plant and wanted to see it shut down.

Now that Dominion Virginia Power is applying to build a new nuclear reactor near its existing North Anna Power Station in Louisa County, familiar concerns about nuclear power are resurfacing, along with changing attitudes about its role as an energy source.

The safety of nuclear plants was a hotly debated issue in the 1980s following the Three Mile Island disaster in Pennsylvania in 1979 and the Chernobyl meltdown in Ukraine in 1986. Here in Hampton Roads, the Surry plant also faced problems. In 1986, four workers died when steam pipes burst at the plant, which also has been fined hundreds of thousands of dollars by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for safety violations.

Interest in and concerns about Surry rose again shortly after the 2001 terrorist attacks, when the local health department began distributing potassium iodide pills to safeguard against thyroid cancer in the event of a radiological release from the plant.

That program is still in existence -- the health department keeps a stockpile of pills for everyone within a 10-mile radius in case of an emergency -- but hasn't attracted widespread interest since it was first announced.

"This has not been in the front of most people's minds," said Kevin Pearce, an emergency planner with the Peninsula Health District.

Similarly, public hearings held after the annual emergency drills go unattended, said Virginia Department of Emergency Management spokesman Bob Spieldenner.

Rick Zuercher, a spokesman for Dominion, said nuclear plants' "stellar safety record" over the past few decades has eased consumers' fears. Today, he said, many people don't even remember Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, and the use of radioactive material in other fields such as medicine is commonplace.

Surry resident Bob Addison, who lived in the community even before the plant was built, said its main effect has been a bigger tax base for the county. Although he's never worked at the power station, he said he's confident in its security measures and doesn't worry about a radiological release or explosion.

"It's just part of industry," he said.

Several environmentalists, including Greenpeace founder Patrick Moore, have come out publicly in favor of nuclear power as an alternative to fossil fuels and a way to reduce greenhouse emissions. Zuercher said that a new 1,520 megawatt reactor, if built, would produce enough energy to power about 375,000 homes. Producing that power with nuclear instead of fossil fuels would avoid the emission of 7.4 million tons of greenhouse gases per year, the equivalent of taking 1.5 million cars off the road, he said.

"The world is beginning to see the need for reliable, safe sources of energy that have a clean footprint," Zuercher said. "It's just really interesting how the attitude about nuclear has changed."

An August 2007 study commissioned by the Nuclear Energy Institute, a pro-nuclear policy organization, found that 82 percent of Americans living within 10 miles of a nuclear plant favor nuclear energy, and 71 percent are willing to see a new reactor built near them.

However, there already have been early challenges to Dominion's proposed North Anna reactor, even though its NRC application likely will not be completed until 2010.

People's Alliance for Clean Energy, an environmental group out of Charlottesville, is opposing the new nuclear unit, saying that the existing reactors have ecologically compromised Lake Anna in violation of the Clean Water Act. Other conservation groups in the state also oppose the expansion of nuclear facilities.

"Nuclear may not have the carbon emissions that a coal-powered plant has, but I think it's disingenuous to call nuclear 'green' power," said Michael Town, director of Virginia chapter of the Sierra Club.

Town said that nuclear energy is extremely expensive, and the mining and enrichment of uranium is powered by fossil fuels.

Charlotte Davis, a sophomore at the College of William and Mary and a member of the Student Environmental Action Coalition, said nuclear energy is not a sustainable solution because of the nuclear waste created by the process.

Davis, Town and other Virginia environmentalists suggest that pursuing energy efficiency measures and investing in alternative sources such as wind and solar power would reduce the need for more nuclear reactors in the state.

Zuercher said Dominion also supports water, wind, solar and renewable energy, but that nuclear has to be there to provide a "baseload" of power. The Surry and North Anna plants produce 34 percent of the electricity that customers in Virginia use, he said.

For now, Surry is here to stay, after the NRC extended its operating license until 2032 four years ago. That means that, like it or not, residents will be hearing the sirens for at least another 25 years.

Jackie Deyarmon, who moved to Surry eight years ago, said she's concerned about terrorism and gets nervous when her kids visit the plant on school field trips. Is enough being done to keep locals safe?

"I hope so," she said. "When it comes to the power plant, I have to trust God for protection."