Opinions On Startup Are Mixed
by Karl Grossman,
January 22, 2026
The East Hampton Star
The comments at last night's hearing on Brookhaven National Lab's high-flux beam reactor were mixed, with strong support for and against restarting the nuclear facility.
Lab scientists argued for the reactor's value to science and the economists and an equal number of environmentalists, health advocates, and just average citizens, including speakers from the East End, criticized lab operations and urged a permanent shutdown.
The hearing was on the scope of the Department of Energy's environmental impact statement on the reactor, which will play a key role in the decision whether to restart or shut it down for good. It is the largest of two reactors, and was down all last year after a leak of radioactive tritium was discovered in its spent fuel pool.
Scrutiny Promised
The hearing at the North Shoreham Public Library in Shoreham began with Michael Holland of the U.S. Energy Department, which owns the lab, saying the study would be in "the most detailed form" of any environmental evaluation the government performs.
Mr. Holland was operations engineer at the Long Island Lighting Company's Shoreham nuclear power plant before going to work for the Energy Department.
Energy Secretary Federico Pena will pick one of five options at the end of the year. The main options are resuming operation at 30 megawatts, the level at which it operated since the Chernobyl meltdown in the late 1980s, or at its full capacity of 60 megawatts. Mr. Pena could also decide on decontamination and decommissioning.
Shutdown Urged
The "nonpreferred," meaning least likely, options are to maintain it in its current, defueled state and to "resume operations and enhance the facility." The "no action" alternative is legally required to be included in the study. The department does not have the money to "enhance" the reactor, added Mr. Holland.
U.S. Representative Michael P. Forbes and U.S. Senator Alfonse D'Amato have echoed citizens' demands for a permanent shutdown and have backed legislation to block it from reopening. Mr. Holland alluded to them when he said "public input and Congressional legislation convinced" the department to start the environmental study.
The draft is expected this summer, followed by a 45-day period for public comment, then the final version.
Say It's Safe
The first speaker was Dr. Minna Barrett of the Long Island Breast Cancer Coalition, which, she said, "opposes the reopening," as "economics, science, and public health don't add up to opening it."
But lab employees argued it could be operated safely, and that false claims of environmental contamination could decrease property values. Curtailing lab operations would put people out of work, they said.
Stephen Musolino, a physicist, said he was "appalled" at the stories of pollution emanating from the lab and took it to heart because "safety is my job."
And John Shanklin, head of a group of employees and retirees called Friends of Brookhaven National Laboratory, said he brings his wife and children there, has no "health concerns" about operations.
"Intense Reprisals"
However, Cliff Honicker of the American Environmental Health Studies Project, based in Knoxville, Tenn., spoke of "intense and brutal whistleblower reprisals" by the Energy Department against Joseph Carson, a department inspector who investigated a fire at the lab, found it caused a dispersal of radiation, and cited the lab for safety violations.
"When you guys do that," Mr. Honiker said of the reprisals, it "takes away credibility in the facilities you manage."
The study will play a key role in the decision whether to restart or shut the lab down for good.
Arland (Red) Carston, a lab scientist, declared there was no "defect" in the reactor and that it "did not and does not pose a health threat." He said the leak in the spent fuel pool was the result of building it "to the standards of the time." The lab was "never a weapons laboratory" and has been "a leader in atoms for peace," he claimed.
However, Eugene McSherry of Wading River said he worked for many years in the nuclear industry - including at Shoreham - and found it "incomprehensible" the tritium leak was not detected for years. "It is almost mind-boggling," he said.
Kathleen MacDonald of Shirley said the lab acted "in total disregard of the public" and accused it of causing a disproportionately high number of children in Suffolk to develop the rare cancer rhabdomyosarcoma. "Our children," she said, are like "the canaries of old."
Randy Snell of Manorville, a banker whose daughter has rhabdomyosarcoma, said, "Science does not come first. The health and welfare of the community comes first." He too blamed the lab for his daughter's illness.
Evacuation Plan
Also among the objectors were Ronald Stanchfield of East Hampton, vice chairman of the Suffolk County Environmental Task Force on the lab.
He urged the reactor not be restarted but, if it is, called for requiring an emergency evacuation plan for the East End in case of a catastrophic accident.
Adrian Drake of Group for the South Fork also demanded an evacuation plan. She and Scott Cullen, executive director of the East Hampton-based Standing for Truth About Radioactivity, insisted on a detailed examination of the reactor's impacts on the groundwater supply and the Peconic Bay estuary.
Article reprinted from the STAR Foundation website: www.noradiation.org
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