2004-10-16
LIFE IN THE NUCLEAR SHADOW
¶ 20:36
When living down river from a nuclear power plant, even one that been "decommissioned", a person can develop a curious disconnect about its even being there | Generally, something quite odd has to occur to shake me from that torpor | Last night was one such night | Mind you, it wasn't the most dramatic of circumstances, just that it was noticable | The lights over the plant, closed now for a couple of years, were illuminating the sky ~ quite brightly |
On camera, even playing with the exposure levels, nothing seems too terribly amiss | the red dot in the right of the lower picture only a channel marker bouy warning of the edge of shallow waters | But then, I don't have the most advanced equipment in the world | It was much brighter over the plant when actually standing there | So I took a chance and played around with Photoshop to come up with the black and white grainy image above | Using only minimal manipulation, I was able to bring up the outline of the hill that normally blocks the main buildings and the Dome | The Winter picture behind it shows the actual location of the old power plant, the dome hidden in that picture as well |
I don't ever expect to find out what strange maneuvers were taking place up there | Hell, even before 9-11, and before the Decommissioning us locals were never told anything of the comings and goings of the place | Now it's even more heavily guarded | Still has spent fuel rods, so I expect it ought to be well secured | But changes from the routine do give one pause |
By the way, the barge and crane in the middle of the river were here last winter, off-loading nuclear waste from the site | One day, inexplicably, it was gone | We were told it went to South Carolina for, um, long term storage |
I don't ever expect to find out what strange maneuvers were taking place up there | Hell, even before 9-11, and before the Decommissioning us locals were never told anything of the comings and goings of the place | Now it's even more heavily guarded | Still has spent fuel rods, so I expect it ought to be well secured | But changes from the routine do give one pause |
By the way, the barge and crane in the middle of the river were here last winter, off-loading nuclear waste from the site | One day, inexplicably, it was gone | We were told it went to South Carolina for, um, long term storage |
¶ 20:36
