a tale of resistance to the Seabrook Station Nuclear Power Plant, and the role of the nuclear industry today

About 150 anxious demonstrators occupied a marsh island in Seabrook on the morning of April 30, 1977. They waited for the tide to go down so they could trudge through the surrounding marsh and reach the construction site of what is now the Seabrook Station Nuclear Power Plant, where they would join about 2,000 other anti-nuclear activists. Other contingents of protesters had arrived from all directions, descending on the site by foot from the south and west and by boat from the east.

Among those stationed on the island was Kristie Conrad, who now lives in Hampton within two miles of the plant. Conrad was 23 at the time, a recent graduate of the University of New Hampshire, and she had never before taken part in a large-scale demonstration. Armed with a smattering of provisions, a predilection for the underdog and a strong moral sense of right and wrong, Conrad would end up spending nearly two weeks jailed in a National Guard armory in Manchester.

She was not alone. Police arrested more than 1,400 people during the 1977 demonstration, which took place 30 years ago this week. More than half of those arrested refused to post the $1,500 bail, instead remaining in one of the state’s armories for 13 days. Conrad said morale in the Manchester armory remained high throughout the ordeal. Prisoners played music, held meetings and educated one another about the perceived dangers of nuclear proliferation.

“I’ve been to places that were much more comfortable than that, but it showed the level of commitment people had, that we were serious about what we were doing and we saw real harm in that nuclear plant being constructed there,” Conrad said in a recent interview. “I think many of us actually, as time went on, realized how committed we were to it. I think it was part of a self-actualization that went on.”

Located on a salt marsh at the mouth of the Hampton River, the Seabrook Station Nuclear Power Plant has now been operating for about 17 years. The station has received high marks from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and none of the disastrous scenarios envisioned by anti-nuclear activists have been realized. But questions still surround the nuclear industry, and many opponents remain active in their resistance.

The massive 1977 protest was the culmination of a fast-rising tide of public concern. Conrad became involved after she attended a conference sponsored by the Granite State Alliance about Public Service of New Hampshire’s proposal to build a massive nuclear station on a 900-acre parcel of land in Seabrook. Among the speakers at that conference was Guy Chichester, who at the time was serving as president of the Seacoast Anti-Pollution League (SAPL). Alarmed by what she heard, Conrad began participating in informational pickets in Manchester outside banks that were financing the project. Public concern about the plant quickly swelled, with opponents vocalizing perceived threats to the environment and public safety.

“We decided through a number of people’s actions to create the Clamshell Alliance and call for nonviolent civil disobedience at Seabrook,” Conrad said.

In summer 1976, Chichester and others formed the Clamshell Alliance, named in honor of clam diggers “who for three thousand years clammed there and cared for the place,” a draft of the group’s founding statement reads. Initially consisting of approximately 25 members, the group formed to halt construction of the Seabrook plant through nonviolent action, public demonstration, prayer, fasting and dialogue.

“My personal belief was that you could never stop the nuclear builders unless you had a great mass movement of some kind,” Chichester said in a recent interview. “It had to be a general uprising of people from their own understanding of what it would mean if it were built where they live. That’s the approach that I took to nuclear power.”

The Clamshell Alliance executed its first occupation of the Seabrook site on Aug. 1, 1976. Of the approximately 600 demonstrators who attended the event, only 18 were arrested, including Conrad and her future husband, Renny Cushing.

“We were charged with criminal trespass and resisting arrest because we didn’t cooperate with the police as far as walking off the site. They had to drag us off, which was a part of our nonviolence training,” Conrad said. “In the long run, all of those charges were dropped because they clogged the courts.”

Cushing was one of 180 protesters arrested during a separate occupation three weeks later. The first two demonstrations helped garner public attention to the issue, paving the way for the immense 1977 protest. Clamshell members hyped up the demonstration primarily through word of mouth, speaking to church groups, unions and college students. Their efforts resulted in a protest that drew more than 2,000 people and made national headlines.

Conrad shared her story with The Wire as she sipped tea in Breaking New Grounds in Portsmouth on a recent afternoon. She recalled how she waited out the tides on the morning of April 30, 1977. It was a warm and sunny day, and she and her fellow demonstrators were prepared to spend at least three days on the construction site. When low tide arrived, the group of some 150 protesters stationed on the island made their way toward the site, using lengths of wood to traverse deep channels in the marsh. Most of the other protesters were already on the site when they finally arrived.

“We were the last group to get onto the site at that point in time, so what we saw was just a sea of people with banners and flags and cheering. It was a very nice welcome onto that site,” Conrad said.

After occupying the site, demonstrators formed “affinity groups” to provide clusters of support and bring structure to the scene. Groups pitched tents in a dusty parking lot and dug latrines nearby. Meanwhile, Chichester communicated with protesters from the Clamshell headquarters at a farm in Hampton Falls. They remained overnight, but police began making arrests early on the afternoon of May 1.

“Some people actually would stand up and walk with the police officers. Other people were dragged over to buses and then got on the buses themselves. I was carried,” Conrad said.

The arrestees were arraigned in Portsmouth before buses hauled them off to various armories across the state. Some people posted bail after a single night and returned to their families and jobs. But hundreds of others stayed, sleeping on cots for just shy of two weeks and costing the state $50,000 a day. With the prolonged incarceration draining state resources, Gov. Meldrim Thomson ultimately ordered everyone released on personal recognizance bail. The state eventually dropped all charges as more and more arrestees appealed their district court convictions.

“It was part of our strategy,” Conrad explained. “We wanted to have a jury of our peers to make the argument that we were taking these actions based on personal conviction and belief that the harm that could be caused by a nuclear plant was (more) than the harm that we were doing by entering onto private property and being arrested.”

Talk of a nuclear facility in Seabrook began in the late 1960s, but a vast spectrum of permitting issues and other obstacles prevented construction from starting until 1976. Initially, two units were planned at the site, but long delays and astronomical costs cut the project’s size in half.

Seabrook Station did not begin operating at full power until 1990. PSNH initially shared ownership with nine other utility companies, but FPL Energy, of Florida, purchased close to 90 percent of the shares in 2002. FPL’s share is capable of generating 1,076 megawatts of electricity daily, enough to power 900,000 homes.

Perhaps more than ever before, supporters of nuclear power can boast a compelling list of benefits. Unlike oil, coal and natural gas—the nation’s three top sources of electricity—nuclear power is not carbon based and therefore does not emit greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. With concern over global warming spreading across the nation, nuclear proponents herald this benefit above all others.

“Nuclear power plants are the only non-emitting major source of electricity we have in this country,” said Alan Griffith, spokesperson for Seabrook Station. “Nuclear is the safest, cleanest source of electricity that we have in this country.”

According to Griffith, the environmental concerns that fueled the anti-nuclear movement and led to the creation of the Clamshell Alliance were completely unfounded in Seabrook. Far from damaging wildlife in the area, the station transformed a former landfill into a thriving ecosystem that includes coyotes, fisher cats, deer, marine life and numerous shore birds, Griffith said.

The station’s Science and Nature Center welcomes 5,000 to 7,000 visitors each year, most of them students. The site also includes a walking trail to the marsh. “Environmental stewardship is part of our strategic business plan,” Griffith said.

Chichester and Conrad remain skeptical of the environmental boons of nuclear energy. While nuclear power does not directly emit carbon into the atmosphere, the uranium mining necessary for energy production is harmful to the environment and construction of new plants requires huge amounts of fossil fuels, they say.

In addition, Conrad noted, proponents of nuclear power still have not determined what to do with spent fuel rods once they are removed from the reactor core. Spent fuel, which can remain radioactive for millions of years, is currently stored either in large pools or in dry cask storage units, but a permanent repository for the waste has not been determined. A proposal to build an underground storage facility on federal land at Yucca Mountain in Nevada has stirred up controversy, with most Nevadans opposed to the repository because of environmental and health concerns.

Steve Shaffer, one of two resident inspectors from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission stationed in Seabrook, said the plant is in the process of adding dry cask canisters for additional storage. Spent fuel must remain in a pool for at least two years before it can be transferred to a dry cask, but the oldest fuel in Seabrook has sat in pools for close to 15 years. Moving some of the rods into dry cask modules will free up more space in the pools, Shaffer said.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission conducted 5,568 hours of inspection and assessment related activities at Seabrook Station in 2006. The NRC uses a color-coded scale to assess the gravity of any finding. Each finding is marked green, white, yellow or red, with green indicating the lowest level of concern and red indicating the highest. Inspections at Seabrook in 2006 resulted in 10 findings at the green level, signifying issues of “very low safety significance.” Nationally, there were a total of 676 green inspection findings at the nation’s 103 nuclear plants, equating to an average of less than seven findings per plant.

The most serious problem to arise in Seabrook last year occurred in August, when both of the station’s emergency diesel generators, which provide backup power to the plant, became inoperable because of voltage regulator problems. The incident prompted a white performance indicator, signifying a problem with low to moderate safety significance. The NRC conducted a special inspection of the generators and plans a supplemental inspection in May to ensure the issue has been thoroughly addressed. Station representatives say the problem with the generators has been fixed. 

Overall, the NRC gave Seabrook Station and FPL high marks for public safety, although certain areas need improvement. NRC members presented their findings during a public meeting at the Galley Hatch Conference Center in Hampton on March 29. “FPL operated Seabrook Station in a manner that preserved public health and safety,” an annual assessment summary from the NRC reads.

Shaffer said the NRC’s intensive monitoring of the plant is more than sufficient to ensure that any problem is promptly addressed. Policies have been adjusted to make sure accidents like the partial core meltdown that occurred at Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station in Pennsylvania in 1979 are not repeated. Shaffer noted that the 1986 explosion at Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the Ukraine could never happen in the United States because Chernobyl had a non-approvable design by U.S. standards.

“I live in Hampton, I live just upwind of the plant, so obviously I think it’s safe,” Shaffer said.

The NRC fined Seabrook Station $65,000 last year because of an inspection finding from 2005. A security fence failed an NRC inspection in May 2005, but Griffith insists all previous problems have been fixed. He said he was not permitted to discuss specifics of why the NRC fined the plant or if the penalty was related to the security fence, but he stressed that the public was never placed in danger. “All nuclear plants have extremely comprehensive security systems made up of multiple ways to protect health and safety,” Griffith said.

But Chichester pointed to what he views as a glaring connection between the industries of nuclear energy and bomb making. “The connection of nuclear power plants to the bomb making business of nuclear weaponry has always been apparent for anybody who studies it,” he said.

The anti-nukers also pointed to the enormous cost of building nuclear power plants. The nation could cure all its energy woes by investing that money in renewable energy sources such as wind and solar, Chichester said.

Griffith noted that FPL has invested in alternative energy sources and is in fact the single largest owner of wind farms in the nation. Wind, solar and nuclear energy help reduce reliance on foreign oil, which makes the country safer, he added.

According to Griffith, Seabrook Station has long been considered one of the top performing nuclear power plants in the country, and the plant strives to make continual improvements. “Our biggest challenge here as a team is to battle complacency,” Griffith said. “This commitment to continuous improvement is very real.”

Wearing an almost 30-year-old “no nukes” pin on his jacket, Chichester joined Conrad at Breaking New Grounds to reminisce about the Clamshell legacy. They are both now members of “To the Village Square,” a group dedicated to documenting the history of the Clamshell Alliance with books, photos, videos and a Web site.

“TVS is really focusing on trying to record the history of the Clamshell Alliance,” Conrad said. “We’re trying to gather as many of those stories as possible and to use multiple media to do that.”

To Conrad and Chichester, the Clamshell Alliance and similar groups upheld the crucial American tradition of civil disobedience, which dates back to the Boston Tea Party and the American Revolution. Chichester said Clamshell members modeled their nonviolent tactics after the words of activists like Martin Luther King Jr. and Howard Zinn. The fact that a small grassroots organization like the Clamshells could orchestrate a demonstration as large as the 1977 protest reflects the power ordinary citizens are capable of exerting when they flex their collective muscles.

TVS also strives to bring attention to the ongoing nuclear debate and prevent future plants from being erected. With energy demands growing all the time, and threats to global climate and national security dominating political discussions, many politicians and citizens have become more receptive to nuclear power.

These factors have helped lead to what Griffith referred to as a “nuclear resurgence,” with somewhere between 15 and 30 new plants being brainstormed by utility companies across the nation. Although construction began more than 30 years ago, Seabrook Station is one of the youngest plants in operation. The incredibly rigorous licensing process has largely prevented other plants from springing up. Utility companies interested in building a plant must first locate a site that meets safety criteria and includes an emergency evacuation plan. They then must apply for a combined construction and operating license —a process that often takes years.  

But Griffith believes the technology will soon become more prevalent across the nation. The United States is lagging behind many European countries in nuclear power, and it should account for a much higher percentage of electricity generation here, he said.

Griffith believes time has shown the Clamshell’s decades-old gripes to be groundless.

“A lot of what was talked about was just myth, it was hysteria,” Griffith said. “People now, after all these years, have gotten to see that the nuclear industry is extremely safe. In fact, it’s one of, if not the safest industry in the country by OSHA standards and other kinds of industrial standards.”

Opponents believe the nuclear industry has grossly exaggerated the public’s increasing acceptance of nuclear power. Although plans for new plants abound, Chichester believes resistance will be strong when specific sites are proposed.

“The industry calls it a resurgence, but it really is about the fourth or fifth second coming of nuclear power, and the first four collapsed because there were no takers,” Chichester said. “It’s gonna be hard for them to get any takers on this.”

To the Village Square took its name from an Albert Einstein quote: “To the village square we must carry the facts of atomic energy. From there must come America’s voice.” As the debate continues, nuclear proponents like Griffith stress the seemingly vast advantages of nuclear power, while opponents like Chichester point to lingering question marks that surround the technology. Other Clamshell stories can be viewed on the TVS Web site at www.clamshell-tvs.org.